Girl you can pick a field full of daisies......

.....but he's always gonna be my baby.


Ok, so the song is written by a girl, but I still like it. The song's called "He Loves U Not" by Dream. I picked the song because the dream I had last night was so strange, I felt compelled to write about it in my blog.

It starts with me Rachel and me having an argument, something that rarely happens in real life. We were arguing about what movie to see. I was adamant that I would not see any movie with the word "boys" or "girls" in the title. I was spouting off crappy movies such as "boys on the side," "for the boys," "boys don't cry," "girls don't cry, they get even," and so on. Nevermind that Bad Boys is one of my favorite movies. This was my logic. So she got mad, and went to see some movie with her Asian friend that she doesn't have. So I went to the mall. I have no clue why. While I'm at the mall, I run into my buddy Vince. We're talking, and I'm like "hey I'm going to meet Rachel, and she's with an Asian girl." Vince has always had a thing for Asians (he married one) so he's like "alright let's go!" So we go meet Rachel and her friend at the friend's house. She has a dog the size of Scooby Doo with a little pug dog's head. Anyways, we all pile into Rachel's car and drive to the Colorado Rockies game in Denver. And she's making U-Turns in the middle of Harrison Street and driving like a swarm of bees just flew in the window. Anyways, the trip to Denver only took about 6 minutes. Somehow, once we get to Coors Field, I'm all alone. I don't really seem to care though, probably because I'm at a major league baseball game. Well there's a bench clearing brawl that involves Preston Wilson slapping Jeromy Burnitz at second base. How two outfielders ended up at second base at the same time is beyond me. Anyways, the game is called due to the slapfest, and as I'm exiting the stadium, I run into these two girls. One of them is Heidi Peters, the other one I don't know. They're asking why the game was called off. I say "because they were afraid Burnitz was going to retaliate." This other girl goes "ohhhh, I thought it was because that girl over there is stuck in the salsa." I turn around, and there's a concession girl waist deep in a garbage can full of salsa. As I'm trying to figure this out, a guy that looks like Jonathan Silverman walks up and taps me on the hip and asks if he can get the time. I say "7:30, now give me back my wallet." The guy is already walking away at a fast rate. So I start chasing him through the concourse. He takes off, then stops and goes "alright you caught me, here's your wallet and keys." and throws them on the ground at my feet. I'm like "thanks man, I'm glad you saw the light." So I bend down to pick up my wallet and keys, and it's an empty wallet and someone else's keys! I look up again, and the guy is long gone. I got suckered by a pickpocket (who looks like Jonathan Silverman no less) in my own dream!

Who dreams of themselves getting scammed?

Bring on the rain..

Fall is officially here...it's rained pretty much constantly since Saturday. Not that I'm complaining....it's an excuse to wear sweatpants and sweatshirts and curl up on the couch and watch tv or play Xbox. Not that I really need an excuse to do any of those things, but it's easier to justify I guess.


I'd like to point out that before the Baseball season started, I picked who I thought would make the playoffs. I'd like to point out that I got three AL teams, and two NL. 63% ain't bad. I'm sticking with my Angels-Cardinals World Series. My ALCS is going to be Red Sox and Angels and my NLCS is Cards and Braves. So there ya go. And high five to Fox for scheduling the Angels game at 5 tomorrow night so I can watch it.

JR came down for the game this weekend. It was a lot of fun to hang out with him. Joel get's minus 100 points for calling in sick with a hangover and missing a great game - not to mention a rare chance for the three of us to all hang out at the same time. He can redeem himself by going to Seattle with us for the Husky game next month.

I'm still a little bitter about this whole car situation. I'm still driving Brown Sugar to work everyday, and I'm the only one making payments on the credit card for the Mustang. It doesn't so much bother me that I don't get to drive the Mustang, but it'd be nice if Grant and Dad would help me out a little bit. It's a little tough to pay for student loans, credit cards, rent, bills and a wedding. But hey, I guess i just gotta do what I gotta do.

Happy Birthday to Rachel's sister, Colleen. She's 22 today. And, she got an internship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Pretty cool.

My fantasy football team took a nosedive this weekend. After torching everyone for 71 points last week, my team has produced a meager 43 points yesterday, leaving me down 11. That means I pretty much need Brett Favre to throw 4 picks and the Carolina Defense to pitch a shutout tonight on MNF for me to win. The one catch is that the guy I'm up against has Stephen Davis on his team, so he needs to either get hurt, or fumble about 3 times. Yes, I'm a geek, I take it personally when my team loses. I'm not complaining, but if Cadillac Williams didn't have to shut it down with a sore hammy yesterday, and Terry Glenn had caught Bledsoe's throw for a TD on the last play of the game yesterday, I'm sitting pretty. But those are the breaks, and why we play the games.

The wedding locations are now set. July 7, 2006 at 6 pm at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Corvallis, with a reception to follow at the Corvallis Country Club. The guy at the country club told us that they had room for 250 people, which is more than enough, but when we got there, a sign on the wall said "Maximum capacity for this area 111 persons." We questioned him about it, and he said "oh that doesn't pertain to this WHOLE area, just a part of it." Whatever...it might be a little cozy, but we'll make it work. Might make it easier for the single people at our wedding to hook up. We'll see.

Saw the movie Robots the other day.....not the best movie I've ever seen, but it had some pretty funny parts. At the end of the movie when all the robots are doing (what else) "the robot" I just about lost it. Now that's comedy folks!

Props to ABC Family for showing "Flight of the Navigator" yesterday.....classic classic movie. Although I remembered Max as being hilarious when I was younger. Now his voice just annoys me. He was more enjoyable before he scanned Davey's brain and talked like the emotionless computer he was. And who knew that Sarah Jessica Parker was in that movie?

Ok I'm out...enjoy your Monday night. And if you get a chance, watch "How I met your Mother" on CBS. Pretty interesting show.

The Baltimore Bounce

Well, I'm back from the east coast, and had a great time....a quick recap:

Thursday we flew from Portland to Houston to Baltimore. Basically flew in a "U" shape. Took us all damn day to get there. We got to see "Kicking and Screaming" and "Monster in Law" on the flights, but I had a book and didn't feel like shelling out $5 to watch a movie I'd already seen and one I didn't really care to. Finished reading 1776 by the time we got to Baltimore. Good book, but tough to read unless you have no distractions. It's just so loaded with information, you have to pay full attention. I learned a lot about the Revolutionary War that I didn't previously know, and the whole book I was like "I know we win this war, but I'm not really sure how we did it." Of course, General George pulls us out in the end. That's why the guy's on the dollar bill.

Heidi picked us up at the airport, nearly t-boning a taxi as she pulled up to the curb. Talk about hilarity. Jerked wheels, scared faces, angry cabbies...laughing Andy and Rachel. After dinner at Bennigans, we headed to Heidi's home. When you think inner city.....that's where Heidi lives. She very possibly could be the only white person on the whole block. There were rats the size of my dad's girlfriend's dog roaming the streets at night, and police helicopters shining spotlights on the streets all night. I don't think we're in Corvallis anymore, Toto. Heidi sleeps with a hammer by her bed, and I can't say that I blame her. That being said, her place is actually pretty nice. Small, but nice. Good location too, like 15-20 minutes from literally everything in Baltimore.

Friday we got up early and took the train into DC. Rachel had never been there, so I was pushing hard to take her there. Plus, now that I'd read 1776, I was feeling all patriotic. I really wish public transportation was as good on the west coast as it is on the east coast. I know it'll never work as well because everything's so spread out here, but maybe someday. Anyways, after a 50 minute train ride, we were in the nation's capitol. This nice old man (who talked to me literally the entire trip about his failing eyesight and his friend that he met online and his wife in the retirement home and where he was when Kennedy got shot) told us that all the monuments were within walking distance of Union Station, so we just started walking. And we kept walking. It was humid as hell and about 90 degrees. Rachel blew out her flip-flop and as a result had blisters like you wouldn't believe on her feet. Poor kid. Thank goodness Heidi had the foresight to bring an extra pair of flips or we might've had a real situation on our hands. I was pretty sure the Capitol building didn't have flip flops in the gift shop. Our 5 and half hours in Washington were pretty action packed. Saw the Wright Flyer, the Hope Diamond, The constitution and declaration, dinosaur bones, most of the monuments, etc. A few quotes from other tourists:

Lady: I thought John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence. How come I don't see his signature?
Security Guard: Because this is the Constitution. The Declaration is over there.

Overheard in the dinosaur exhibit at the smithsonian as a lady stares at a brontosaurus bone....
"What the hell is this?" Obviously this lady is not a golfer. (That's a Big Lebowski reference for those of you who don't get it)

Guess they're right, there aren't any smart people in Washington.

I took a few pictures there, which I will post on my bebo site. I wanted to take a picture of the declaration, but I was afraid that I'd accidentally use the flash and forever be known as the guy who destroyed the most famous document in american history. I didn't really think moving to Canada was worth the gamble.

Then we hopped the train back to Baltimore in time to shower before the Orioles game. Camden Yards is pretty nice....I liked the layout of the stadium a lot. Sadly I didn't realize that it was "Dollar Dog Night" until after I'd payed $7.50 for the biggest cheesesteak I've ever seen. Oh well. Orioles got stomped by Tampa Bay 6-1. After four batters, the Orioles were already down 2-0 with runners at the corners. So guess when you take that into account, 6-1 isn't so bad.

Saturday we were planning on going to see the Baltimore Aquarium, which is amazing from what I hear, but we were so tired from Friday's events, that we decided to take it easy. Which was fine with me, I got to watch the Beaver game on ESPN. Sadly, we got stomped. Kind of saw that one coming, so I wasn't too disappointed. Then we headed to Diana's wedding.

Diana's wedding was really nice. Nice church, nice ceremony, nice everything. A friend of hers was the vocalist for the wedding, and she was amazing. Fantastic singer. Rachel and were debating getting her drunk and becoming friends with her so we could get her for our wedding. At the reception, the food was excellent and then the dance began. Rachel+alcohol+dancing=fun for all. She even made up a dance that was dubbed the Baltimore bounce. It's one of the strangest dances of all time, but extremely funny. By the end of the dance, I was sweating so much I had soaked through my shirt. I literally danced so much that the collar of my shirt gave me a rash on my neck.

Then Sunday came all to fast and it was time to head home. We flew from Baltimore to Newark where we got to the gate just in time to hear our flight was overbooked. Not having anything to do yesterday, we volunteered to take a later flight, in exchange for $300 vouchers towards a future flight and meal money for the day. Then we settled in for 8 hours in New Jersey. Watched a little football, read two Dan Brown books (the ones not titled The DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons) and walked all over the C terminal. The cool thing is that we had a view out the window of the New York City skyline the whole day. When our flight finally took off at 5pm, we flew right next to the Statue of Liberty, another national monument Rachel had never seen. All in all a fantastic trip....aside from the fact that they showed Kicking and Screaming on the flight home as well. I guess it could've been worse - Grant once saw Mr. Holland's Opus on four consecutive flights.

Daily musings

A few random things from today:


*I think there's too many reality shows when there's a reality show about finding someone to star in a reality show....that's just a bit overboard.

*If you wonder why people make low wages at fast food restaurants, consider the sign at Arby's in Corvallis right now that says "Your thinking 2 beef n' cheddar for $3."

*I just checked my bank account. Borders apparently only charged me $4.25 for seasons one and two of "The King of Queens." Retail price of $79.98. That's a savings of $75.73, or roughly 95% off. It's not in the "pending transactions" list either, so apparently that is what the price is going to stay at. SCORE!

*Diana has name cards at all the settings at her wedding reception. Only problem is that she didn't know Heidi's last name. So she decided to make one up. Heidi Jones is now Heidi Hill. A few things seem funny to me....number one, she could've called Rachel to find out Heidi's last name. I will give her a pass on this since she is getting married in less than a week. But how in the blue hell do you come up with Hill? There's like umpteen more common last names than Hill (Jones being one of them).

*I went to the fridge to get some milk today, only to find that we were out of milk. I thought to myself "how come everytime I want a glass of milk, we don't have any?" Then I realized that I almost always want a glass of milk, so the odds are good that I'm going to want a glass of milk everytime we're out. Solution? Buy more milk.

*I think that was a Lasselle thought.

*Scoop Jackson's column where he wrote a letter to Jeff Kent on how to deal with black athletes is one of the most absurd things I've ever read. I think my favorite part was where he said something along the lines of "I'm glad you were able to get past your spat with Barry Bonds, but then again he's not really one of us." Can you imagine if Woody Paige would've wrote a letter to Terrell Owens saying how great it is that he has Drew Rosenhaus as his agent, but then again, "he's not really white?"

I ain't as good as I once was....

So this weekend, the guys came down for the Boise St. football game. Well, most of the guys. Grant, Dave, Steve and Garth were here. We were missing JR and Joel. The plan is to get everyone together to go to Seattle for the Husky game in November. Hopefully we'll be able to put that together.


It really was one of the better weekends I've had lately. The game was amazing. I had a little bit of everything. Thunder and lightning, dime sized hail, torrential rains, some sunshine.....oh, and the Beavs won 30-27 on a field goal with one minute to go. Thankfully, our seats were undercover. I haven't yelled that much at a football game since probably the Fiesta Bowl in 2001. My throat still hurt today. Poor Garth was so overwhelmed by the yelling that he had tears in his eyes the whole second half and spent every free second with his head in his hands to ease his headache. I posted some pics of the game on my bebo website, which you can access by going to the "pictures for your viewing pleasure" link on the left.

After the game we grilled some steaks and headed out to the bars. It really was like being back in college, only I kept thinking "wow, are these people really old enough to drink?" and I was so wiped out Sunday I could barely move. We went to Shari's and I got a Barn Buster platter. I swear it was like I was 22 again....ah the memories. I know Rachel gets a little stressed out when there's a bunch of guys hanging around the apartment watching football and drinking all weekend (and I guess I can't blame her), but I appreciate the fact that she allows it to happen every once in a while.

Speaking of Rachel, the wedding plans are coming along slowly. We've nailed down a date...July 7, 2006. We decided to go with a Friday wedding to allow us to have our wedding in the evening. Plus, now our wedding will be on 7-7 which is significant because my birthday is August 8th (8-8) and Rachel's birthday is on September 9th (9-9). Kinda cool. We still haven't figured out a place for the reception. We're looking at a few places. Rachel's got an appointment to see Lewisberg Hall next week when we get back from Baltimore.

That's all I got for now.....Have a good week!

Priests and Panic Attacks

So we met with Father John last night...what a great guy.


He's like the most enthusiastic person ever. Everything has to be the best for him. He's all excited about the opportunity to marry us. I'll let him. It'll be a great ceremony.

He did give us the ol' speech on not living together and how the church frowns on it. He said that he just wanted to make sure that there was that specialness to our wedding that things would be different from that point on and that we wouldn't be returning to the "same ol' same ol'." I see his point, but I don't agree with it. There's no doubt in my mind that marrying Rachel will be the most important and exciting moment of my life. Although it was a bit disturbing when he said that we should live like "brother and sister" for the next year......

Scary thing of the day....hadn't heard from my friend Steve for about a week. Not normally a big deal, but when he just goes AWOL for a football game that I bought him a ticket to, you start to wonder. So I did what any friend would do when his buddy is not answering his cell phone......I googled him.

First thing that comes up "Stephen Cooney dies when he car slams into an embankment." No joke. I just about shit myself. Turns out that there's a surfer named Stephen Cooney in Hawaii. Feel bad for him, but very thankful that it wasn't "my" Steve.

My job is slowly sucking the life from me. It gets just a little more tedious every day. I'm almost positive that I'm going to have to go back to school here in the future...I can't work office jobs for the rest of my life....I'll end up with "office worker body." Think every secretary you've ever known. They always have more ass than seat cushion. No thanks. I'm close enough as it is.

OC Season 3 starts tomorrow.....who's with me?

Holy busy bee Batman!


I feel like I haven't sat down at the computer for a good ol type in months. Really I sit at a computer for at least 8 hours a day, but I don't type much. I use the ol' 10 number thingy over there on the right. A LOT. My new job pretty much blows. I'm the only male in Patient Financial Services......out of 140. Yup.......the male to female ration in my department is Andy:139. Ri-goddamn-diculous. And most of them are over the hill....and not just cresting the top if you know what I mean. The ones that are roughly my age are on their second marriages or supporting 3 kids or just plain crazy. My favorite are the late 20's/early 30's girls that have kids and are just a little too old to go clubbing but still think they can. Monday lunches are the best because they talk about dropping their kids off at their ex'es house before doing jell-o shots and dancing on the coffee tables. Yup, these are my co-workers.

Pretty much my job blows. But it's got full medical/vision/dental and pretty good time off packages. Plus they don't get pissed if I work a little overtime here and there. So I'll deal with it for now. Just mark my words that it's not permanent.

It's a good thing I'm marrying Rachel. I'm pretty sure that she'll have the entire wedding planned, booked, and ready to go by November. It's amazing. She's like a machine. I really don't have to do anything except find tuxes and make sure everyone shows up on time. That's a joke....I'm sure I'll help make invitations, or at least write the addresses on envelopes or something. It's really true that girls start planning this day on their sixth birthday.....she's already got a plan and all I have to do is help her implement it.

We meet with Father John from St. Mary's Catholic Church tomorrow to discuss the wedding. This should be interesting. I'm sure we're prime candidates for a Catholic marriage, what with me not being Catholic, us living together in sin and all that good stuff. Rachel really likes Father John though. He's a great speaker and very entertaining. Rumor has it he used to be a Broadway singer. Only thing that concerns me is that he's barely taller than Rachel. I'm going to be at an altar with 5'1 Rachel and 5'4 Father John? I'm going to look like Andre the Giant up there with those two. Thank goodness two of my groomsmen are going to be 6'5.

Football season is here now. I love football season. Every weekend is a holiday pretty much. Every gameday is an excuse to hang out with all your friends and bbq. If the game's on the road, find a big tv and get everyone together. It's like a bonding thing.

I never wrote an entry about Hurricane Katrina, though most nobody else did either. This has to be one of the most awful things that has ever happened in our country. I'm amazed that people are refusing to leave their homes though. I don't understand why you'd want to stay in a flooded house and just wait for people to come by every day and drop food at your front door. It's absolutely mind boggling.

I'm also a little irritated that everyone seems to think that this tragedy is being amplified by mismanagement. It's not like these people weren't told to evacuate. Granted some of them just didn't have the means to. But it's not like the gov't could've parked the buses by the superdome the day before the hurricane and had them ready to go as soon as the storm cleared. I've never tried, but I imagine trying to find enough food to feed 20,000 people, much less ship it and distribute it, takes a few days. Not to mention organizing manpower to get it into a city that's 80% underwater. And can you imagine what would've happened if they'd run down there with enough granola bars for 8,000 people? the 12,000 who didn't get anything would've gone absolutely crazy. There's no way to make a situation like this run smoothly. There's no way to minimize the damage. Nobody's intentionally neglecting people here. Nobody wants to be known as the guy who "let" 10,000 Americans die. Nobody's doing that. I fully believe that everyone is doing the best they can to deal with this. Well, everyone except the people roaming the streets of New Orleans looting and raping and shooting people. That's just sad......very sad.

Ok I'm done with that. I'm tired. Goodnight y'all. Have a good short week.