The Month of November

I'm a little behind on updating this thing. October ended with Kelcie and her friend, Julie coming to see me at The Beef. Actually, it was my last night working there. My dad found out that I wasn't really making that much at The Beef and talked to his boss. So, I've been working over at Akraturn for about a month and a week. I freakin' hate it, but the pay's even better than the last time that I worked there. When I worked there for the summer back in 2007, I was in the grinding department. I was great at it. Well, Akraturn moved to a different spot earlier, this year. Not all the departments have made the move, yet. The grinding department's one of them. I've been in the CNC Mills department for the most part. Once in a while, I'll have to go over to my dad's department if they have nothing for me. When the grindind department moves to where we are, I'm hoping that I'll be able to work over there. The rest of The Ultimate Fighter Season didn't really change much. Rashad and Quentin were in each other's faces all the time, Team Rashad kept on dominating, and Kimbo Slice never got a second chance. Only one of Quentin's fighters advanced in the competition. He made it to the semi-finals before one of Rashad's fighters knocked him out. It was an all-Team Rashad final and Roy Nelson won to become the Season 10 Ultimate Fighter. Now, Rashad and Quentin were supposed to fight, next Saturday. However, Quentin retired from the UFC, last week. After talking all of that trash and being a complete hypocrite, he's not even going to try ot back it up. That's extremely disappointing. Next Season, Chuck Lidell and Tito Ortiz will be the coaches. For Thanksgiving, I went to Florida with my mom and dad. I haven't been to Florida in four years. The weather was nice. I don't really like cold weather. It was nice to see my grandmother, my aunt, and my uncle. We didn't go to the beach or went swimming. We went to dinner a few times. Dad, my uncle, and I went to the dog track one night. That was fun. When we came back home, I wanted to hop a plane right back to Florida. That was pretty-much November. Kelcie's been hanging out with me again. Her and Julie usually come to hang out. A few weeks ago, they stayed the night at my place. I hung out with them on Friday. Kelcie and Julie will be on winter break soon, so I'm sure I'll be hanging out with them a lot, this month. Her, Julie, my friend Paco, and I went to The Beef for dinner this past Saturday. After that, we went to Wal-Mart just out of boredom. Paco was annoying Kelcie a little bit, so she asked if I'd like to look at clothes with her. I said sure. She vented a little bit about Paco being annoying and I just said he was acting a little weird. I usually don't hang out with Paco. After this past Saturday, I'm not sure if I really wanna hang out with him again. He's not a bad guy, but he's very opinionated. Anyways, Kelcie thanked me for taking them out to dinner. Then, she said that when she gets a job in the summer, she's taking ME out to dinner for a change. I normally wouldn't let any girl pay for me for anything, but I dunno... I think I just might let her. She gave me a huge hug after we were done hanging out and thanked me for everything. Christmas will be here in a few weeks. She's definitely one of the people that I plan on getting a gift for. Now that I have this job, I'm back to being who I used to be. I feel a lot better than I did over the summer. Dad and I actually have conversations that aren't about how I'm such a freakin' failure. We're back to being how we were before I screwed up at Cortland. The end of 2009's been better than the beginning of it. I have a good feeling about 2010. Even though, I'm doing alright at Akraturn and the pay's better than most of the jobs I've had, I'm looking for something else, so I can get out of there. I don't wanna be there forever and I'm worried that I'll end up like my dad. He ended up making a career out of that place and he hates it over there too. I need to start writing again too. I'm gonna try to keep up with this thing more often. I have several plans that I intend to put into motion in the next few weeks. Although my life's improved over the last few weeks, I still wanna improve it a little. There's still more I can do. Finally, there's a light at the other side of the tunnel. It was just a long-ass tunnel.

It's Like Season 7 All Over Again

So yeah...Rampage Jackson's a freakin' hypocrite. He complains that Rashad Evans is too cocky, but then he goes and runs his mouth to everybody. Just like Forrest, Rashad's embarrassing him by kicking his ass in the fights. One of Rashad's guys is a bit on the heavy side (hence the name "Heavyweights") and Rampage is always calling him, Titties and picking on him. Finally, the guy had enough and started to move aggressively towards Rampage. The rest of his team held him back. Rampage said that if he ever got in his face, there would be problems. Then, Rashad came to the rescue. Rashad knew that his guy wanted to get right in Rampage's personal space, but he knew that if that were to happen, he'd probably get in a fight with Rampage and kicked off the show. Rashad stood up for his guy. Just the way he handled it...I was very impressed. Rashad acted like a professional. Later in the show, one of the guys on Team Rampage had a Characture made of Team Rashad. It was titled "Team Cocky". I will give them points for creativity, but when you're 0-4, I don't think I'd be playing practical jokes. Rashad and the coaches saw it, laughed, and took it down. Rashad's reaction was, "that was funny, but you know what's funnier than that? Being 5-0." Again, I liked his attitude on it. Well, "Titties" was chosen to fight and he ROCKED his opponent. I think he was sending Rampage a message. He choked out his opponent before the first round was over. So, Rashad is now 5-0. His goal is to have a shut-out victory. It's never been done before, but I have a feeling that Rashad will beat the odds again.

Improving Situations

Working at The Beef isn't as easy as Danny made it look. Two times, one of the cooks had to help me out. Maybe I'm expecting too much of myself. I work this Friday and I'm gonna try to keep up with everything. As far as the UFC universe goes, Roy Nelson's a cocky little bastard. He was gloating after beating Kimbo Slice. I doubt that Nelson will go all the way. Team Rampage lost yet another fight. Quentin did something that I don't necessarily agree with. He and the rest of his team left his defeated fighter in the octagon alone. Rashad and his assistant coaches went over to the defeated fighter and offered words of encouragement. Whether your boys win or lose, you should always support them. I missed an episode, because I was helping someone for the remainder of the week. He paid me well. Still, I wish there was more that I could do to earn just a little bit more. Kelcie called me, last week. It actually caught me off guard. I really didn't expect to hear from her. She wanted to hang out again sometime. I'm thinking of giving her a call over the weekend to see what she has going on. This week hasn't really been that great. My grandmother had a spontaneous bleed on her leg and ended up going to General Hospital. She's fine now, but I'm so sick of hospitals. Then, tonight my mother was at Lourde's Hospital. She has a gallstone that needs to be removed. Although I know that it really wouldn't matter, I really wish my grandfather was around when we all need him. I still can't believe that it's already been a month already. Also, yesterday I swung by BCC. I ran into Mike Sisin and he informed me that I'm no longer a godfather, because his friend got an abortion. He wasn't given a say on the matter. I have mixed feelings on that one. Also, it was brought to my attention that "there was no war" over the summer. That's funny, because it sure as hell felt like one. Then again, the person who informed me, was neutral. It probably didn't feel like a war to them, but it sure as hell felt like a war to me. A war that we won. Cody showed his true colors and as a result, nobody really likes him. Kelcie's happy, I'm sort of happy (if my damn family members could stay the hell out of the hospital) so the good guys won. But "there was no war". It doesn't even matter anymore. When I talked to Kelcie on the phone, we both realized the summer was actually pretty fun. Sure there were losers that tried to ruin it for us, but we got rid of them and had a blast. I did the best I could to make Kelcie's summer a good one and I think I did a pretty good job. My goal is to just get through the rest of the year and hope that 2010 is a better one.

MMA's Biggest Disappointment.

To my (and every MMA fan out there) surprise, Kimbo Slice did NOT win his fight. Roy Nelson's ground game proved to be Kimbo's downfall. The fight was very disappointing. Not because Nelson won, but because of how poorly both fighters performed. Kimbo did have a few big hits, but Roy eventually took him down, pinned him, and just kept landing weak punches on top of Kimbo's head. Nelson pretty-much told his team that this was his strategy. It paid off and he advanced. I'm glad Rashad's 3-0, but the fight didn't live up to the hype. It also didn't help that Herb Dean was the ref for this fight. I know I keep saying it, but he's the worst ref in MMA history. If I were a ref, I wouldn't have ended the fight. I'd have stood them up and let them duke it out. Before the fight, the episode was entertaining. Quentin and Rashad talked more trash. This time, Quentin targeted one of Rashad's guys. The guy wasn't doing anything to provoke Rampage, but he felt the need to run his mouth to him. All the guy was doing was shaking his head at them. He probably thought the same thing that I did. "It's getting ridiculous to see these guys always talking trash all the time." Well, Quentin ran his mouth to Rashad's fighter and Rashad's fighter said a few choice words. Personally, I hope Rashad beats Quentin in December. Quentin's the one that's acting all arrogant and cocky. Also, one of Quentin's fighters complained that Quentin wouldn't let him fight after Kimbo's fight. The guy has breathing problems and his knee looked banged up. Quentin explained his reasons for holding out on him. From what I saw, this guy might end up going home due to medical reasons. On a final note, before his fight, Kimbo got plenty of camera time. I give Kimbo tons of credit, because he's very humble and eager to learn. He didn't piss and moan when he lost, he practices the same drills like the rest of the guys on his team, and he listens to his coaches. He doesn't act like he's better than anyone else, he doesn't act like a big shot, and he's not cocky, QUENTIN! Even if he doesn't get another opportunity to fight on the show, I still think Dana White will give him a contract.

30 Bad Days.

This month was probably the worst month, this year. It began with the passing of my grandfather. My grandfather always had a bad heart, but it was still a shock when he died on September 2nd. I wasn't feeling too good that week. He called me to see how I was feeling on the 2nd. He sounded alright. He had gotten out of the hospital a week before. Later that night, I was going to make myself something to eat when my dad said that we had to go to the hospital. He did 90 the entire way there. When we got there, a nurse informed us that my grandfather had died. He had a heart attack. The ambulance was delayed, because someone got in a motorcycle accident. Here's the interesting part. My ex-girlfriend's father hit a deer on his motorcycle and three ambulances rushed over to the scene. As a result, my grandfather's didn't arrive until 45 minutes after my grandmother called. I stayed with my grandmother for the entire week. That Saturday, I went to the Harpursville football game that my grandfather wanted to go to. Everybody at Harpursville loved my grandfather and he loved them all back. They had a moment of silence for him. At his calling hours, there was always a line. It didn't stop until the calling hours were over. At his funeral, the church was full. I held up alright until my grandfather's good friend, Glen Stevens hugged me while he was crying. I think he felt bad for me, but I felt bad for him. I think both of us knew that, but there wasn't anything we could do to get rid of the pain. After the funeral, I decided to talk to Denna and find out what was said. After a few tension filled moments, everything was fine. I hung out with her a few weeks ago. My birthday was coming up and I wanted to hang out with a select few people. We had a party at Danny's. Even though Kelcie had a boyfriend and a wedding to go to, she made it. I couldn't have been more glad. I thought that she'd ditch hanging out with me after she had a boyfriend. I forgot that she has more class than that. My old high school friend, Heather came as well. Her and I have been hanging out and talking a little bit more than we have, since meeting back up at the bar, last year. I visited BCC a few times. Robin's been having problems with this one asshole, so I showed up to see to it that he stopped. I hung out with Mike Sisin on one of those days. He pretty-much screwed things up with Kelcie. I don't think he realizes how stupid some of his decisions really are. Still, he's my boy and even though they're not talking, I'm friends with both of them. He called me, last week to let me know that he got a friend of his pregnant and he chose me to be the child's godfather. He's scared out of his mind, but he screwed up. Now, he needs to face the consequences. Danny got me a job where he works, but it's nothing to jump for joy about. I only work every other Friday and they're always busy on those days. I was overwhelmed on my first night. Lucky for me, the cooks are awesome. Smokey helped me get caught up. I owe him a beer even though he says I don't need to buy him anything. There is some good news to all this. The Ultimate Fighter is back. Quentin Jackson and Rashad Evans are the coaches. They've been talking trash to each other for the past two episodes. Quentin says that he doesn't like Rashad's cocky attitude, but on the show, it's always Quentin that's acting cocky. Rashad's fighters won the first two fights. They weren't anything spectacular. In fact, they were horrible. The fighters aren't that good, this season. However, tonight is when Internet sensations Kimbo Slice fights former IFL Fighter, Roy Nelson. It could honestly go either way. Kimbo's stand-up game is excellent, but he doesn't have much of a ground game. Roy's pretty well-rounded. It should be a good fight.

The War is Ending.

It's no secret that this year hasn't really been that great. It sure as hell hasn't been a year for romance. Two solid relationships crumbled earlier in the year. One of them, I saw it coming. As for the other one, no one saw it coming. I've been fighting a war for five months over one of them. Now, it looks like I won't have to fight anymore. The war could possibly be coming to an end. Last week, I called Seth, so I could put my plan together to come back to Candor one last time. He suspects nothing and I intend to keep it that way. Marcy contacted me, because she wanted me at Aaron's birthday party on the 21st. She was worried that Seth and I would brawl at the party. I never intended on kicking his ass. I just wanted to get my stuff and get out. That's what I'm gonna do after Aaron's party. Out of sight, out of mind. God bless Marcy, though. She still wants me to work things out with Seth. Um...hell no. Then, Cody called me on Friday. He acted like nothing has happened in the past five months. I finally brought it up. I told him that he did Kelcie wrong. I also let him know that I didn't approve of how he handled things. He tried to explain himself. I told him that he was putting me between a rock and a hard place. I explained that if I started hanging out with him again, Kelcie would feel betrayed and our friendship would suffer. I honestly didn't know what to do. Then, I talked to Kelcie yesterday. She said that Cody texted her. I told her about the conversation him and I had on Friday. She filled me in on what's been going on with him. Basically, he found out that him and Bridgette wouldn't be able to date because of Brad, so he stopped talking to her. Now, he's trying to contact all of his old friends again. Kelcie called this. Still, neither one of us know what to do about it. Do we sit down and discuss with Cody all the damage that he's done? Do we just continue to go about things as we have? Kelcie said that either way, I'd be able to be her friend and Cody's if I choose. We still don't know what his deal is, though. He could very well be trying to manipulate us like he's been known to do. So, it looks like the war will have closure and just like I predicted, we won. Sunday, I stopped by my cousin's house. I found out that they live not to far from Kelcie and Danny's mom. They're Italians, so the first words were asking if I was hungry. I did eat over there. I stayed a good two hours. It was nice. I plan on coming around there more often. Maybe I'll take Danny or Kelcie with me sometime. I like that side of the family and I don't really get to see them that much. I remember something my cousin, Charlie said at my Uncle Tony's funeral. "Weddings and funerals, that's the only time the family gets together," he said sadly. Saturday, Danny ordered UFC 101. The two promoted fights weren't bad. The Forrest Griffen/Anderson Silva fight was disappointing. Forrest got knocked out in the first round. Everybody that was watching complained that the fight was paid for. I doubt that was the case. Forrest definitely lost some respect points, because after he was knocked out, he got up and ran out of the Octagon. That's disrespectful to his opponent. As for the BJ Penn/ Kenny Florian fight, that wasn't disappointing at all. BJ submitted Kenny in the fourth round. Overall, the PPV was far better than UFC 100. Later, that night Cory texted me to let me know he has his 2CW money. I called him yesterday to remind him about meeting me. He said he'd call me later that day and informed me that him and Denna broke up. That's no surprise to me. She sleeps around a lot. She's disloyal, two-faced, double crossing, and a complete waste of time. If I knew then, what I know now, I'd have blown her off completely. Hell, I'd have gotten with Kelcie. I'm still kicking myself over that one. Oh well, her life sucks, right now. I'm not doing too bad for myself and I know Cory will be better off without her. She'll regret it, someday. She'll come crawling back to us and I'm just gonna laugh. She screwed up and she'll have to live with that. She ran out of chances. I'm moving on to bigger and better things.

Storybook Ending

Last week was pretty interesting. Monday, Mike Sisin called me up. He vented a little bit about Kelcie. His main problem is that he no longer wants to play around, so he's looking for someone that feels the same way. On top of that, he wants to get with Kelcie. The problem with that is for one thing, she's still not over that egotistical, manipulative, asshole, Cody. Another thing is that she's not ready to jump in a relationship with anyone. She's tried several times, but because she's not over Cody, they've all failed. Mike and Kelcie have done a few things together, but the problem is that to Kelcie, they meant nothing. To Mike, they meant something. He was irritated that she still won't date him due to the fact that they've hung out for the past two weeks along with everything they did. I'm gonna say this one last time. If anyone has a reason to bitch about not dating Kelcie, it's me. Again, here are the reasons why. I've taken her out to dinner twice, I took her to the movies once, I've had to listen to her talk about Cody 24/7, I've watched her cry about it several times, and when everyone else was against her, I stood by her whenever she needed me. However, I'm not bitching about it. What Mike needs to do, is just accept the fact that they're probably only going to be friends...like her and I are. We headed over there to find that Kelcie was stressed and upset. Kelcie also informed me that although Denna may act all nice when I'm around or talking to her online, she acts differently towards me behind closed doors. That pissed me off a great deal. Here's this girl that has played me, Cory, and that loser ex-husband of hers, and she has the nerve to say that I'm too clingy and annoying. It was her that came back and talked to me. I was perfectly fine not talking to her. What was all that about? Did she just do that to sooth her guilty conscience? Before, I actually did care about Denna and I'll even admit that I felt sorry for her. But, after hearing how freakin' two-faced she really is, that amount of pity is gone. Denna's an immature, stupid, little slut that doesn't know what she wants and is gonna piss off the wrong person someday. This stupid little slut complains about me when she cheated on her husband TWICE??? Hell, I'm ten times better than Denna will ever be. When I get married, I'm not gonna have to worry about my wife cheating on me and she won't have to worry about me either. There will be no divorce. That will be it for both of us. Because Kelcie was upset and I was pissed, Mike suggested hanging out for a bit. So, that's what we did. They ended up going to the cabin, but I stayed in Binghamton. I'm not going there unless it's just Mike and me or if there's another girl there for me to hang out with. Tuesday, Robin called me to ask if she could stay at my place for a night. She wasn't getting along with her mom or Johnny and she felt that she was gonna snap. I asked mom, she said it was fine. Then, I hung out with Kelcie for the rest of the day. We picked up Robin and headed back to my place. Dad came home drunk, talked to Robin a bit, then Robin was arguing with her brother about Johnny. Before I continue, I should mention that Robin works for the state as a notery. She can't say "no" to a job that they give her, because it's considered a felony. With that being said, she told her brother on the phone, "if I go to jail because of that son of a bitch, he's going with me." Dad heard her, took me aside, and got in my face about it. I told him to ignore it. She wasn't doing anything wrong, but he kept glaring at me. So, I glared at him back. It wasn't until Robin explained what she meant that he lightened up a bit. The rest of the night went smoothly. Wednesday and Thursday were nothing special. Friday, I got my haircut and some other things that I needed for the wedding on Saturday. Saturday, I found out that we were going to the actual wedding and then going to my dad's boss's pool party until the reception. The wedding wasn't too bad. The only things I'd have changed, would be the temperature inside the church and the person performing the ceremony. It was incredibly hot in the church and the priestess was boring. She had a solemn tone when she spoke as if she were preaching at a funeral. The pool party wasn't too bad. Dad got in all his cheap shots in on me while we were there, which was fine with me. Whenever we're at family gatherings or parties, he usually brings up all of my short-comings. I thought that he'd do the same at the wedding to which I planned on firing back despite the consequences that would follow. However, to my surprise, he didn't do anything like that. We got there a half hour early. I waited outside for Kelcie. She was a half hour late. Man, she looked incredible. I remember looking at the pictures from Denna's wedding. She looked ordinary. She didn't do anything to look above the norm. Then again, I think she knew deep down that this marriage was gonna fail. This wasn't even Kelcie's wedding, but she put in that extra effort and she looked gorgeous. The dinner was excellent. I took Kelcie around and introduced her to my family and friends. Dad liked her. That's real big, because dad doesn't like too many of my friends. In fact, I can count them on one hand. We danced about six times. She kept thanking me for inviting her. I'm glad she made it. At my cousin, Jamie's wedding, the band sucked, Robin was on my ass about her freakin' dogs, and I had no one to dance with. Basically, that wedding wasn't really that good. At Kacie's wedding, the band was better, no one was on my back, and I had someone to dance with. We had a great time. Being at home for long periods at a time, takes it's toll on me. I start feeling bitter and worthless. At Kacie's wedding, I felt like a million bucks. Both Kelcie and myself had a good time. Kelcie and I just went as friends and that's how it stayed. I don't think anything will change as far as that goes. There aren't too many people trying to get with her anymore. Seth's probably still trying to get with Mandy and Calvin has a girlfriend. I don't see us dating, although I don't think I'd mind it. Personally, I think I was the better choice out of all of them. I don't know what Mike's thoughts are on getting with her. Well, for whoever tries, I just have one thing to say. Beat that, boys. That wedding was out of a fantasy story and nobody's gonna be able to top that. Once again, the guy that has no job and no car has blown by everyone. Someday, someone's gonna be very lucky. Whoever it is, I just hope they deserve it.