I went to Virginia Beach last week for Jeff and Jeni's wedding.  It was a good time for sure.  I'm not one who is big on weddings, or ceremonies in general for that matter, but it was a nice wedding (I believe I may have mentioned to Jeni something about it being beautiful...but let's pretend I didn't haha). What the wedding did do for me however, aside from being there for one of my best friends, was make me realize how much I miss it down there and how much I despise King George and Fredericksburg.  I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out why I get down so much, why it is so hard to focus at times, and I now realize it is because King George is a drain on the soul.  Fredericksburg is a little better, but not by much.  I often wonder why I don't get out of here, but then I remember stuff like that takes money.  Then I think that many people take leaps of faith and just go for it.  I'm a bit timid when it comes to things like that, but is it a good idea to put it off, and keep putting it off because I'm scared of change?

A large majority of my friends live in Virginia Beach and it really would be nice to have a solid foundation of friends to have around.  Right now, in my current situation, I have about three friends that I can hang out with, and one is moving tomorrow to Raleigh, North Carolina.  That leaves the flaky one and Mike, my former roomate from the great townhouse debacle of 2009/2010.  Mike is a good guy and always fun to hang out with, one thing that stands out to me is that he at least has reactions to the shows he is watching, which can't be said for a lot of people.  That said, it is difficult with schoolwork and work to try and make time to hang out with even the few friends I do have, which means I end up staying in my parents basement staring at my computer screen hoping to get some schoolwork done most of the time.

Basically I want to move back to Virginia Beach.  I just have a lot of issues with how to make it work.  But maybe thats it,  maybe if I just put my faith in the idea and go for it, it will work out.  Thats being overly optimistic I think, but one has to hope sometime.  One of the driving factors is that my friends actually want me to move down there, which there haven't been many times in my life when people actually wanted me to be around, or so it has always seemed to me.  Just thinking of moving to Virginia Beach has the feeling of 'rightness' about it, much akin to my previous thoughts on being a writer.  It's almost as if something is guiding me, perhaps it is god, perhaps it is some other entitiy that has other schemes, but I know our brains, our actions, our lives are driven by emotion, which turn into memories and this is where feeling comes in.  We 'feel' emotions and my emotions are telling me to get the hell out of northern Virginia and back to my roots in the place I grew up, the place I know and love well.

Well I think that says a lot about what's going on now.  Strong feelings clouding my thoughts, trying to get perspective.

Ah that's right, I was going to talk about Scotland and Ireland, which I wish now in hindsight, had documented while I was there.  Well there was a lot of drinking to be done, and lots of people to meet and a multitude of things to see.  How about a general overview before I sign off for now, a tease if you will.

After the situation with a still as yet unnamed girl(and yes, I'm sure I will get back around to going into more details about it, but not yet) I was in dire straights.  I couldn't sleep most nights, I tried and tried to find ways to think about something else.  I got my first tattoo during this time actually, a decision I will admit was strongly driven by anger towards the situation.  It was worth it.  Don't let me get sidetracked dammit.  Anyways, I had signed up for a class at UMW for the summer of 2008 called Historic Preservation in Scotland.  It was a three week course in which we were to travel around Scotland, seeing various preserved sites and other landmarks relating to historic preservation and Scotlands way of doing things.  There were about two weeks we spent in one town, called Cromarty, where we had a group project to complete(there were eight of us in all).  I get ahead of myself however.  Before the class was to start, I flew to Dublin where I stayed in Hostels and saw the sights by day and the pubs by night.  After being in Dublin for about four days, I caught a plane over to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. There I spent the night in a Hostel, getting way to drunk and eventually making out with a girl I met on a Pub Crawl.  Did I fail to mention we made out under the walls of Edinburgh Castle. Well we did and it was epic. The next morning, extremely hungover, I took a train to northern Scotland and a small city called Inverness.  The next three weeks we were all over Scotland seeing many different places, beautiful places, Cromarty being our base of operations for the two weeks we were there.  Finally after the class was over I stayed in Edinburgh for a few days until I flew back to Dublin where I stayed a night.  I then caught a train to Galway where I stayed for about three days, then making my way back to Dublin to catch my flight back home.  I was not ready to leave, but i was broke as a joke, and there wasn't much hope of getting more money to stay longer.  It was an amazing trip that deserves much explanation and thoughts being put into words, so to be continued as they say...

Hmmmm, well seeing as my prediction from a few years back has come to fruition and I have not added to this in over a year.  So much has happened it would almost seem ridiculous to write it all down.  I mean it is a years worth of stuff.  I'm pretty sure no one has read any of this in a long time anyway.  But that is ok.  I guess for starters, since most of this journal is about iraq, my friend Kuehl, who I have mentioned a few times was killed in Iraq back in May.  He was on his second tour.  I missed the funeral. 

I'm almost done with college.  Only 10 credits left for my associates, then it is off to University of Mary Washington.  I'm at Drill Sergeant school right now at Ft Jackson for the reserves.  I joined last May.  I went to Spain last July to run with the bulls with Jeff and Neil.  Neil and I have an apartment now in Fredericksburg.  And as predicted there is a lot of Battletech and gaming goin on.  I had a girlfriend for a while, but she broke up with me.  We are still friends, but it still hurt.  I have a new girlfriend now, and we've been goin out for about three weeks, so we will see how that will go.  Well I must go study now.  More updates later possibly.  A year is a big span to cover. 

Well, I can see that this thing is headed the route of all my past journals.  Start out all right, but then all of the sudden there are months between entries.  Oh well, I'm updating now aren't I.  Better late then never I suppose.  Where to start though.  Bloody hell, there's a lot that's been goin on in the past six months.  Damn its been a while hasn't it.  Well I'm out of the Army, of course.  August 6 was my official last day.  Been home since July though.  Started working at Burgess Hauling and Excavating about a week after I got back.  Got sick of that pretty quick.  I like the guys I worked with, but different factors led me to quit last week.  So now I'm unemployed and I need to find another job before I lose control of my bills.  But I am taking a break, which is nice.  Haven't really got to do that yet.  I started school as well, at Germanna Community College in Fredericksburg.  It's cool, I enjoy being back in school.  Though I am only taking three classes right now and they aren't all that hard.  That'll change at any rate.  Next sememster I'm taking 4 classes, not sure what yet, but I'm registering today, so we'll find out.  I actually had a girlfriend for about a month, but it didn't work out.  Kind of a mutual thing.  It's alright though, made me realize that there is hope out there, a small flickering ray of hope, but it's there.  But it too is beginning to fade once again to the blackness that is being single. 

Been hanging out a lot with the family, which is nice.  Though even that has been hard.  Everyone in my family goes there own way and does thier own thing, which means we only get to hang out every so often.  I try to play games with my bro, but between him goin to band practice and hangin with his friends and lacrosse, I hardly ever see the kid.  My sister is in India for a month.  My mom and I took her to the girls house she was going with on Saturday, and she called today, and she is there.  Hopefully the trip will be good for her, and eye opener.  Her unAmerican sentiment really gets to me and makes me mad.  Hopefully when she gets back she'll appreciate what she has more, we can only hope and pray.  My dad and mom both work, so they are usually home in the evenings, so I see them more often, but still with me goin to school two nights a weeks and running to Va Beach and Farmville every so often, and my dad hunting and my mom doin her thing, Its pretty sporadic.  Well I went on for a while with that huh. 

Have no friends here in King George, or Fredericksburg for that matter.  It's hard going back to a place where you have never been and trying to make friends.  I've never been good at making friends anyways, so that doesn't help.  The only time I can socialize is when I go to VA Beach or Farmville, which is where James Jordan and Jeni Kane are located.  Thats only every so often though, so I'm a bit of a loner.  Oh well, I suppose I'll make friends eventually.  Well other than that, nothing else has really been going on.  I miss the Army at times, though I still don't want to go back, I enjoy being a civilian again.  But anyways, I'll try to update more often, but I always say that, we'll see how it goes.

"So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause"                                                     

                                         -Padme Amidala, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith