Oh Lord am I sleepy. Last night was excellent. I ended up going to Kevin's to jam some, and we had fun. I was in such a great mood after playing music for like 4 hours, then I flew over to Tom's to hang out and drink some. It was excellent. I ended up passing out on the floor there at like 3 AM and I woke up at like 9, so I dunno if I'm gonna be able to do anything tonight. We'll see. Maybe I'll just play some guitar and polish up these songs? I'll post again later.

I'm at work. It's almost 2 PM. The day has gone by surprisingly fast, which is excellent.

Kevin Hopkins called last night (more on this in a minute). It was kind of funny because I was at Tom's and I saw a missed call on my cellphone from "Chris". My first thought was "Chris got kicked out of the Navy already? But then I remembered that his brother Kevin was supposed to call me. So yeah, it was Kevin and he said that his parents will be out of town tonight so he wants to jam at his place. Excellent, excellent. So stupid me, I call Kevin's house a little while later and leave a message on his answering machine saying something like, "Kevin, it's Rick. I got your message about jamming tomorrow night. I'm there. I'll call you tomorrow." Of course I didn't stop and think that maybe HIS MOTHER would hear the message and then she wouldn't let us jam. That's exactly what happened, so I was going to jam today but I probably won't now. So sad.

Not much else is going on. I hung out with Mica on Wednesday. She was supposed to get her first tattoo that night, but I guess the tattoo guy's wife went into labor so he had to cancel. So sad. I think it'll be ok though. Last night was Smackdown, of course. It was an alright show, although I was busy talking during half of it. Wrestlemania is this Sunday, which is going to be crazy. Tom and I have an actual wrestling match (like folkstyle, not WWE style) that same night. We've wrestled twice before - the first time I pinned him in about 10 seconds, the second time I hurt him. Since it's so easy for me to kick his ass, we changed the rules a bit. I have to pin him in 5 seconds or he wins. Then I have to get an escape in 5 seconds or he wins. The escape will be easy, the pin might not be. Either way it'll be fun. I don't think much else is going on this weekend. I'll keep you posted.

Oh yeah, meeting with Jon tomorrow. Yay!

Time to go back to work. Have a nice Friday!

It is so cold in my basement. My doggy keeps me warm when I sleep though. I'm going to sleep right now.

Did I say Bill was officially off to boot camp? I lied. He called me today at work and apparently he had some lay-over time at O'Hare before he flew down to St. Louis, so Paul and I swung by for an hour to hang out with him one last time. Then he left, and now he's officially (really officially) off to boot camp. I'm so glad I got to see him though. What an asshole he is.

I guess I could talk about Zwan weekend, maybe?

First off, Marissa came on Thursday! I picked her up at O'Hare and we cruised our way back to my house. Then we went to Steve's and chilled there for a bit. It wasn't spectacular, but that's ok. Then we came back to my house and I messed around on guitar for a little while. I think she got sick of me just jumping from one song to another without singing or anything, but oh well. I'm weird like that.

Then Friday morning I dropped Marissa off at the train station on my way to work. I guess she mostly wandered around the city while I was at work, which is great. After work I rounded up the kids (Marissa, Tom and Kevin) and we left for Milwaukee! We stopped at Portillo's first, which is important. Then we went to Milwaukee. When we got there we were looking for parking. We pulled up to this one lot and it was going to cost 17 bucks. I said, "Holy shit" and we drove down the street to park for free. 17 dollars? That's ridiculous. We got into the venue (I'd seen LTJ there before with Paul and Rob) and waited around. I won't go into details, but the opening band was too quiet, and Zwan rocked the shit out of that place. There was a lot of echo, but it was alright. Then we drove back to Chicago, where Marissa's friend Margaret lives. We were invited in to hang out for a bit, which was excellent. I gotta say, Marissa's friends are so nice. The people I hang out with mostly seem to just hang out with me and/or the group because they have nothing better to do. Marissa's friends were all hugging and were so happy to see each other, it was great. Tom and I had to leave for St. Louis pretty early the next morning so unfortunately we had to get out of there. It would've been great to have some drinks and be able to chill with Marissa for a little while longer. She's too nice to me.

The next morning I rounded up the kids again (Tom, Steve and Sarah) and we left for St. Louis. What a crazy drive that was. We got there in about 5 hours (after stopping in Litchfield to let Sarah drop some poster off - don't ask). Neil and Sarah (and Jason later) were all excited to see us, and it was great to see them. So we were wandering around the house looking at pictures and drawings on the wall and talking and being idiots. Then I walked into the kitchen and BAM - an entire drumset, bass, guitar and amps. "Awww shit" is about what I said. I sat down at the drumset and just started messing around. Now I gotta say that I've only played a real actual drumset for maybe a total of 2 hours in a my life, but I'm always playing drums on my steering wheel when I'm driving. And when I play on my steering wheel? I go all out. I use my foot for the bass pedal and everything. So I guess I've kinda been practicing without knowing it. So I still suck, but I was keeping a beat alright and it sounded pretty damn good! A bunch of people were actually watching (with interest) while I played drums and Neil played guitar and screamed his ass off. The highlight had to be our rocking version of "Wooly Bully" or however the hell you spell it. I love music. All the while people continued smoking ridiculous amounts of drugs.

After a few hours of chilling, we (Steve, Sarah, Tom and I) found our way to the Zwan show. The venue was kind of weird and, although it sounded better than in Milwaukee, I couldn't see anything. Plus I was so tired from lack of sleep and too much driving that it was hard to really enjoy the whole experience. They still rocked their asses off, but Milwaukee wins over St. Louis. After the show we were outside waiting for Neil to pick us up and some drunk kid started puking all over the street next to this white blazer. His friend was there helping him at first, then all the sudden I hear him say, "Don't drive home man!" and he gets into a cab. This drunk kid was laying on the street puking all over himself and his friend left him! Ouch. Some random people kept trying to help him, but I think he just wanted to be left alone. He was still there when Neil showed up, and he may still be there. Who knows. Fun times though. When we got back to Neil's, I, like a pathetic idiot, fell asleep immediately. I was so tired though, so I didn't care.

Everyone woke up around 10 AM the next morning. I made myself some cinnamin Malt-O-Meal or something and ate it while everyone else smoked some more drugs! Then around noon we all headed to the park for some baseball. Good Lord, it was a nice day. It's amazing what driving south a few hours does to the weather. So we played some ball for a while. We actually got a full blown game going, but didn't get too far into it before the four of us had to head back to Chicago. There was some annoying traffic, but it was a smooth ride back for the most part.

I already told you about the evening with Mica, which was excellent. We played some pool and I kicked some serious ass.

Monday was pretty blah. Work sucked. I went to Paul's after to try and fix his computer, with no luck. Then he made some spaghetti which was fantastic. Then RAW was pretty decent. Today work sucked again, but I got to see Bill so it's ok.

Now that was probably the longest post ever. Sorry. I'm going to sleep now. Tomorrow Mica gets her first tattoo and she wants me to be there. Neat. Goodnight kids.

Ahh once again I'm too tired to tell you about Milwaukee and St. Louis and Zwan. Whatever, you'll live.

Bill and Chris are now officially off to boot camp. Everyone write them. I'll put the addresses on this website when I get them.

Time to go finish some songs. Meeting with Jon this week! Goodnight.

Back from St. Louis. Fun times, indeed. After we got home at about 7 PM I went immediately to Mica's for dinner (I forgot how good her mom's food is). Now it's almost 3 AM and I'm so exhausted from driving all weekend. I can't believe I have to work in like 5 hours. Christ on a cracker. I'll post more tomorrow about the trip and everything. Goodnight!