Chez Toast or Toast Haus
I turned 36 yesterday. I'm not sure what to think about it. At this moment, I'm 14 years older than my girlfreind. Yeah... that seems like alot :)

I have a few more aches and pains than I used to. I notice that I don't recover as fast as I used to from random stuff. Mentally or spiritually, I don't really feel all that old. Maybe I feel a little more wise... Maybe that's just arrogance. Kind of hard to tell.

Little took me out to dinner with the Queen of England last night (long story). We had a nice time. She tracked down a plastic model of an M163 Vulcan, which is the weapon system I was trained on in the Army. I have not built a plastic model in years and I'm looking forward to it.

I didn't get a call from any family members yesterday. I didn't really think much of it until I got ready to go to bed last night. It's not uncommon for anybody in my family to forget a birthday of another one of us. I've missed birthdays before and I know my brother or sister has missed mine before. I think this was a first though that nobody called. I usually get a call from at least one of them. Birthdays are not huge end all be all festive events in my family, so it's not a HUGE deal and that's why I didn't expect it to bug me. But it does, which suprises me a bit.

Oh well, you can bet your butt that the guilt card will get played pretty hard when they do finally remember :) *snicker*

I helped Little bury her dog yesterday. I've only had two dogs in my life and I didn't have either one of them when they died. But in the last few years I've lost several "girlfriend's" dogs. Yesterday was not that bad though as I had not known Ceasar that well only having seen him a handful of times. It was pretty hard on Little though. I feel bad for her.

Maybe she'll get some good news today. Like a job offer near where I live :)

So we played hookie for the wedding and slept in instead. Much better than getting up, dressing up and driving an hour to an 11:30am wedding. At least in my opinion it is.

Inge is coming this week. Inge is a friend of mine from Germany who lived here in the area a few years ago (her and her ex-husband were here for a year). I got to know them really well and have been to Germany a few times to visit them. Now Inge is coming back through Atlanta for a few days with her new boyfriend. I'm looking forward to meeting him and seeing her again as well as introducing Inge to Little. Should be a good time. Don't know what we will do just yet, but I'll come up with something.

Chez Toast or Toast Haus

I'm going to a wedding this weekend. Then my gaming group is getting together, then I have Easter lunch at my mom's and then Easter dinner with Little's mom. Busy busy.

Chez Toast
I'm getting old. Last fall I messed up my right shoulder helping some friends move. I don't want to help friends move anymore. It's way easier to help them stay put. Just drive over to their house and make sure they don't start to load stuff into a truck!

Anyway, so that was in December and my right shoulder finally started to act normal about a month ago while we were in Germany.

But, while in Germany at Trent's house (a buddy of mine who still lives in Heidelberg - I used to live there btw), I slept funny on his guest bed and compressed a disc in my back that pinched a nerve in my left shoulder. You want to talk about pain? I couldn't get ANY relief - even percaset didn't do anything except make me loopy.

So about 2 weeks ago, almost 6 weeks after coming home, about the time when my pinched nerve shoulder thing is starting to get better, my jaw starts hurting. Yeah. Jaw. What the hell? It's the temporal mandibular joint - or TMJ that is the problem. I think I overextended it 2 weeks ago when I was numbed up for some dental work. I'm just now getting to where I can eat a hot dog. Pitiful.

Guess I don't heal as fast as I once did. How Little is going to manage as her much older boyfriend starts to fall apart on her, I really don't know.

I'm starting back to school this summer. I am going back to my alma mater - Clayton State University to get a B.A. in History. Going part time at night will get me done in about 5 years. Long time.

Why? I like history. I think I am sick enough of the computer industry to finally get out of it. And, I'd like to stay on the Teacher's Retirement Plan of Georgia (which I am currently vested in as I work for a school system). So, by the time I get done with school, I'll have about 17 years in the pension plan and only have 13 years left to go. So I figure I could maybe teach for those last 13 years and then call it quits at the age of 55. Then I'll retire and go fishing. But since I don't fish, I'll probably do something else.

I'm a little intimidated. My mind has not worked in an academic sense in quite a few years. There's lots of dust in there that needs to come out. These tired old brain cells ain't what they once were...

Hey look, I can post pictures! How cool am I?

This is Little (not her real name either) and I. We are standing at the top of the Zugspitze in Germany last month. We were at 10,000 ft and it was about 8 degrees below zero without the wind chill. In typical Toast fashion, I spit a loogie on the railing and it was frozen within a few seconds. Yep, it was cold.

So who is Little? Little is my girlfriend. She's cute, funny and loves college football. I know, I know, "Does she have a sister?" Yes, she does, but she's already taken. We met last fall and are mucho in love-o. She lives about an hour from me so we really only get to see eachother on weekends. She likes to travel and loved our trip to Germany/Austria. She's also a video gamer, reads fantasy, and even enjoys role-playing games. I couldn't be happier!

Chez Toast
Yeah, so it's been a while since I actually posted something. Guess I didn't have anything to say. Or maybe I was too busy running my yap to take the time to type. As many of you know, I run my yap MUCH faster than I type.

Anyway... looks like I need to play catch up.

Last September, Pookie (not her real name of course) and I broke up after about 4 and 1/2 years. It was pretty tough. Who am I kidding, it was REAL tough. We were so good together on SO many levels but we had some other problems. We've managed to maintain a friendship which I am very grateful for. She is one of the smartest people I've ever known and I am thankful to have known her. I feel like I am a better person having been with her. We both grew alot in those 4.5 years and both moved out and away from failed marriages. I think we both were the "right person for the job" to eachother. But anyway, I don't want to make this sound like an obituary or anything. We have both moved on and we are both happy and still friends.

Other things to come.

Chez Toast