It's been downpouring on and off all evening......I was explaining to Mickey just now that this is the kind of rain that Robb was talking about joyously last week. After a weekend of hot humid miserable weather, it makes everything comfortable, and the sound is so restful in the evening. I also told Mickey that it's the kind of rain that makes you want to frolic naked in it.....

.....and if I was in the country I would have, but this is civilized territory, so I settled for almost as good. I just pulled on a pair of nylon shorts and my tennis shoes and went out for a run around the lake at the center of our apartment complex. I had to take my glasses off to see because the rain fogged them up. Luckily I'm not so blind without them that I'd run into trees or the like. I did have to dodge around the flock of nearly sleeping geese.....I'm sure they were less than pleased to be disturbed at 12:30 AM......oh well.

So, having been frivolous, I'm just sitting here letting the dampness from the cool rain keep me comfortable while I type my journal. My main goal of course is to tell the tale of my weekend with Allen.

Zup sighs contentedly

It was a good weekend.

I think that this weekend we started down the road of getting comfortable spending time with each other. I think I stopped worrying about whether I was doing things right and whatnot and just enjoyed the weekend for all it was worth. I think I still have some of my little issues, but I'm not obsessing over them because I'm concentrating on just enjoying things. I just want to enjoy our relationship for the now and worry about other stuff as it comes.

I left work early Friday and drove down to Columbus. I made good time so I got to scout around City Center Mall where I was supposed to meet Allen after he got off work. There really are a lot of gay men in Columbus.....I didn't think I had gaydar, but that city just makes it easy..... Maybe they all hang out at the mall tho... Then again it probs didn't hurt that this was Pride weekend down there, but it was the same way at the beginning of the month. I wandered the stores a bit.....picked up the new issue of "Gym" magazine (a new exercise mag) at the B. Dalton's bookstore there. Allen later made the comment that it is really just about soft porn.....which I guess is true most of the non-bodybuilding exercise mags seem to be geared to a gay crowd even tho they make the pretense of articles about pleasing women in bed and all that. Interestingly enough, the sales clerk was obviously gay.....one doesn't know that much about Gym magazine and other exercise magazines and not look very gym oriented unless one is reading them for enjoyment......evol grin.

I met Allen and his friend Jeremy at Games People Play a bit after 8:00 and we caught an entire pizza from Sbarro's for $5 since they were closing soon. Allen and I hopped in the car after that and headed north.

TO BE CONTINUED....

When last we tuned into The Zup Show, Zup was running frivolously through the rain after midnight and relating the beginning of his weekend with Allen. Since then, our protagonist has been slaving frantically at work to prepare for a customer visit on Thursday and Friday. It rained more (poured actually) but Zup did not run frivolously through it this time....such is life. We shall continue our story where we left off, with the car driving north on I-71 around 9:00 Friday night.

The drive back north from Columbus was fairly uneventful, as was Friday evening, at least as far as the general public is concerned. Allen and I just talked and listened to music and enjoyed being in each other's physical presence. We didn't want to get to sleep too late because we wanted to get out to the Great Lakes Medieval Faire on the early side Saturday.

We woke up and took our time getting up and showered Saturday morning. After grabbing something to eat, we headed out the door and towards the remote Trumbull Township, home of the Great Lakes Medieval Faire.

The Faire was lovely and Allen had a wonderful time from everything I could tell. I enjoyed myself immensely as well. We watched many performers, examined many crafts, costumes, and miscelleny, and bought some clothing, both medieval and non. I got a medieval type tunic and Allen got a shirt for his costume for the Ohio Renaissance Festival and a GLMF T-shirt with Robin Hood on it. Allen is all about Robin Hood, so much so that I think he might have been Robin Hood in a former life.... In the interest of time, I'll leave the faire at that, but suffice it to say that a good time was had by all!

After the Faire, I had plans to host a cookout with some friends. On the way home we stopped at Ferrante's Winery for a bottle of my favorite, Jester's Blush, which I am saving for a more winelike occasion. We also stopped into Giant Eagle to get burgers and dogs, and charcoal for the grill.

We cooked out with Karen, Chris, Kari, Ella, Allen and myself and my roommate John. The food was good.....people contributed good stuff. We went to East Coast Custard for dessert, and everyone had lovely dessert. After that, Allen, Kari, and I went out to Arabica Coffeehouse on Campus to see Shades of Gray perform. As always, they were excellent, and I am still wondering if maybe someday they will be a phenomenon outside Northeast Ohio, because they are good enough to do that.

On Sunday we headed back out towards the Case Western campus. I gave Allen a walking tour of the place and saw some new sights myself. One was that they tore down Pardee Hall in the past couple of weeks. It was a former residence hall that has housed various administrative departments most recently. It and a couple other buildings soon to come down are victims of green-space expansion. And honestly, I really think that once they get it all cleaned up it will be gorgeous. Losing that building added so much space to the quad it's unbelievable! We also got to see the current progress of the expansion and renovation of Severance Hall, the home of the Cleveland Orchestra. After seeing the steel understructure being built all year, it was wonderful to see about half of the stone face reattached to the outside. It is going to be truly gorgeous once it is finished.

From campus we headed up to Coventry to do some store browsing. Coventry is a groovy little shopping district in Cleveland Heights that has an eclectic mix of stores, restaurants, and other establishments. We cruised through many of the different stores there and ended by getting a cup of Tangerine Sorbet from Arabica Coffeehouse. The flavor was like those little orange "pushups" popsicles you may have eaten as a kid.....it was truly refreshing on such a hot and humid day.

After Coventry I took Allen to Burger King for a quick meal, and then down to the Greyhound station. I waited with him there until his bus started boarding and then headed for home.

So, as I've indicated, the rest of this week has pretty much been busy with work. Wednesday I was at work until 10:30 PM.....I got approved for overtime for this week tho, so it is all ok. The time will make up for the non-paid holiday that I am getting on Monday.

Of course this weekend will be as exciting as the others have been this summer. I'm heading down to Columbus to spend the weekend with Allen and his friends at the Origins gaming convention. I've gone to Origins for the past two years, ever since I was down there for my last Co-op, so I'm keeping up the tradition. I have no very specific goals there really....I'll shop around and buy stuff, browse things, play a couple of pick-up games of whatever, and some actual scheduled games too. I suppose I do want to purchase some Ruth Thompson art, as she is supposed to be there. I want to get something for myself and also I decided to probably get the cool set of two (wizard and sorceress) for my friend Jeff and his new wife Jamie as a combination additional wedding gift/ double birthday gift. I think Allen and I are also going to be sneaking out of the convention briefly for the "Red, White, and Boom" fireworks display....it is one of the best I have ever seen, and I've gone to see that for the past 3 years also. Sunday after the con is over I might try to catch a few sun rays, as it's supposed to get up to 97 degrees F this weekend.

Last night I talked to my friend Brigitte....she lives down in Dayton, and I think Allen and I might trek down there for the day on Monday so they can be introduced and we can pal around. I'm not sure of all that's up, but I suggested that we might go see the Southpark movie if there is nothing of greater significance happening. We shall see....

While on the phone with Brigitte I also hatched the beginnings of a plot for my big road trip vacation that I think I deserve next summer (2000) after graduation and before work starts for real. It is very much in the dream stages at this point, but it grew, or should I say exploded, into something almost scary. I'm probably being totally unrealistic, but it could become a "Circle-the-US" three week mega-bonanza.

The gist of the completely unrealistic plans would be to stay almost exclusively with people Brigitte and I know, thus eliminating hotel costs. I would somehow wind my way from Ohio to Idaho. That leg of the journey is fuzzy at this point. In Idaho, I would pick up Brigitte, whose family is moving there in the near future. We would travel through Washington, hopefully visiting Robb, Mickey, Arti, anyone else who would be willing to put us up for a night possibly. After spending a little relaxing time in Washington, we'd travel down the Pacific coast staying with various friends in California. Then we'd cut across the southwest on Route 66 through to Texas, stop off with people somewhere in those areas, maybe I could visit my friend Ryan in Texas. We'd head through New Orleans and Across to Florida, bunk down with people in Florida. Then we'd travel up the east coast staying with people we know in DC, Connecticut and New York, before finally cutting back across to Ohio, where Brigitte would probably visit people before flying back to Idaho.

Of course, all this sounds ludicrous, and probably is. There are various parts that could probably be cut out, and I have not gotten into depth on the travel times, the stopovers, and what sights we want to see along the way. It's also very possible that we can drag people along for parts of the trip if they have a way to get back home after their leg of the journey. It's very possible that we could have more people for larger parts of the trip, tho it makes staying with people less tenable, tho probably not too much. But anyways, I only thought this up tonight, so it's too early to even say if any of this could happen.....I'm hoping so tho.....hrm.....after looking at it all, I suspect it can't be done in less than 4 weeks if we want to enjoy ourselves.....hmm....time to rethink that concept.

Anyways, I need to be off to Columbus. Hopefully I'll have plenty of wondrous adventures to relate on Tuesday.

Okie....time to update the journal again. After finishing off last Friday's entry I flew out of work and onto the highway. Seeing as I left late, I actually managed to miss a lot of the traffic for Friday of the 4th of July weekend. I parked my car at the Chesnut Street Garage, which is my usual choice of parking spot in downtown Columbus, and made the trek to the Hyatt with some of my bags around 8:00 PM. In very timely fashion, Allen and his friend Alanna arrived there from work around 8:15 and we headed up to the hotel room. The group had two rooms for the weekend, so we stopped off on the 5th floor to say hellos before treking up to the 16th. Many people whom I'd already met last month were there, and a number of new persons as well. The 5th floor room was huge....like two rooms with the wall removed really, and it had a huge wooden table that was perfect for gaming and whatnot. Once we headed up to the room, I showered briefly to make myself human again after work and the long car ride.

The fireworks were Friday this year instead of Saturday, so after I registered for Saturday and Sunday of the Origins (gaming convention), we headed over to the top of a nearby parking garage with a good view. Evidently this was a good place to watch the foreworks, because there were many hundreds of people there. Happily, many people had radios so we could hear the soundtrack broadcast along with the fireworks. As always, the show was long and had no pauses in it, and true to form, they included some awesome cutting edge fireworks. This year's new additions were actual letters! They did short tributes to the Ohio State University sports teams and to the new NHL hockey team coming to Columbus, so they did fireworks that spelled out 'OSU' and 'NHL'. It was one of the most awesomely cool things I have ever seen.

All Saturday and most of Sunday were spent at Origins doing gaming things. I did so many different things that it's almost a blur. As with the last few years, the exhibitors' room was huge. There were so many different companies and people selling stuff.

Unfortunately, Steve Jackson was not there, as he was at Inconvention in Indianapolis for the weekend, but they were selling large amounts of SJG merchandise at the Atlas Games booth. Besides a new GURPS book, I got a card game called "Once Upon a Time" from Atlas. Basically, it is a storytelling game....there are different person, place, and thing cards (like king, witch, castle, forest, treasure, frog, etc) and story endings (like "and the lovers were married by the king" or "he kissed her and the enchantment was broken"). The goal is to tell a story, laying down your hand of cards as you go, and lead up to your ending when you run out of cards. Of course, if you use a word that someone else has a card for, they can steal your story and continue from that point. We played a few games, and it was a blast....this was definitely a high imagination game.

We played a few different games. One new game we tried was called "7th Sea". It's basically set in a place not unlike Europe during the rule of Elizabeth I in England. All the names are different, but the mood and general feel are the important part. The rules system was very simple, and the art in the books was exquisite.

I also played an RPG called Providence, whose characters are basically winged humanoids....it has a very neat detailed setting, though I'm not sure yet whether I understand the rules very well. Initially I wasn't sure if I was going to buy it, but they were selling the two basic rulebooks for 50% off, so I couldn't really pass that up. Anyways, the one guy they had working the booth was really cute....<evol grin>...it's ok, Allen agrees with me on that one, even tho he was all about the redhead in the kilt...<more evol grin>

Give yourselves a hand everyone! Thanks to you, my loyal fans, the hit count for my journal was up slightly last week after sliding massively the week before. Even more importantly, we set a new record for daily hitcounts yesterday and we are well underway to set a new weekly record as well.. This pleases me greatly.....

Well, Robb got around to updating his journal the other night....it was nice to read more from him again. It's odd, but I really go stir-crazy when there are no journal updates. As it stands some people are going on one week, two weeks, even three weeks without writing anything new. This drives me nuts.....perhaps it's just me, but I hope that people get a little insane when I don't update often. I'm really going to try hard to update more often, even though it will probably be the same volume, just broken into smaller chunks. I suppose everyone else's lack of updates might be my good fortune tho....

Speaking of journals and journalers, I got an e-mail from a guy named Rob who just looked at mine for the first time. Even though I should be calm and very matter-of-fact about it, I'm not because it's really exciting. I mean, every day I check to see who has stopped in and what my page stats are, and basically the same people visit on a regular basis, so I'm always waiting for someone new to write. Rob is the first new person to write me in months, so of course I'm going to be pretty elated.

I also heard back from Bryan, which was very cool....he still seems like a really nice guy to me. I suspect that me writing to Bryan and then getting a message from Rob within a day is one of those Karmic things. I think I like good Karma.

Hey, Hey, Hey! Yes, it is in fact true that it is party time in Zup's World. As I mentioned a week ago, tomorrow is my birthday (and all is not right. Take me to the mall. Go Santa! Go Jesus! Oh my God! They killed Kenny! No, not ham you fat fuck! What would Brian Boitano do? Now kids, you shouldn't think things like that....by-ee! Jesus, Santa is keeping the spirit of your birthday alive.....Santa, without Jesus this day wouldn't even exist! You're right kids, we're sorry. I'll buy you an orange smoothie. (This Southpark/Spirit of X-Mas highlight brought to you by ZupTD.)). Actually, all seems to be very right at the moment....then again, how could it not be right with some high quality drinking behind me. We had a happy hour today after work, so I put back a few beers early on.

A couple weeks ago, I tried Killian's Irish Red for the first time, and I've really fallen for the stuff. Unlike other types of alcohol, beer tends to leave a generally unpleasant aftertaste for me, and no matter what I do, I usually end up with a most gross dry and scratchy throat the next morning. I still drink beer despite this. Happily, I've found that Killian's doesn't give me aftertaste or the gross morning beer mouth. It's such a pleasant drinking experience.....joy! Eh, I can still talk about alcohol as if I just started drinking last month......go figure.

Tomorrow is Moving Day: Part I. We have a U-Haul and we're going to move all the big items to our new place near campus. So the futons and beds and other big furniture are going along with a few boxes of miscellaneous less used stuff. We're keeping mattresses so we can sleep semi-normally until we move in all the way next Saturday. This week Nardo (i.e. my roomie John) and I took care of all the phone calling about stopping the utilities here and starting them at the new place.I've got the only phone line currently, since I'm the only one who does much long distance. We're thinking about getting an ISDN line and networking all four computers to it through a hub. I'm not much of a networking wizard, but I know plenty of capable people who are, so it's all good. We mainly have to determine if the benefits outweigh the costs and limitations. Hopefully that'll be the case, and we'll just go with the ISDN and a single phone line.

So then, Saturday night is party night. Andrew from Model UN is going to be back in town possibly, so, whether or not he is here, I'll be meeting people at Jeneanne's house and doing fun stuff for my birthday. We may end up at Howl at the Moon for some crazy piano bar birthday joy. Debbie and Derek, two of the many THM/Alumni House extended family, are moving to St. Louis, so they are having a going away dinner. I'm not going to make the dinner, but they're planning to be at Howl afterwards, so that's another incentive to end up there. After that, I go home and pass out.....naturally.

Sunday, once I drag myself up, I'm heading home to do family birthday things. I'm hopefully going to have a chance to bring those prints over to Jeff and Jamie's place. I'm also going with my family to see "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the community theatre. And then I come back and pass out again. We start to see the pattern......heh.

There's not much to say about the week this week. Work alternated between boring and busy. I usually played around on the internet or passed out early after work. I did chat extensively with Bryan and Lee, both of whom I mentioned last time. They were just the most interesting conversations, which really rocked. I think they are both going on my "people who don't suck" list....heh....I don't really have such a list, but if I did they'd be on it.

I'm trying to work myself slowly back to being productive on Model UN tasks. The MUN financial situation is looking a lot less sure this year, so we need to sell our group and it's successes to people with money granting power. We also need to prep for new student recruiting and get back in gear on planning for the conference we host.

I did talk to my friend Ryan in Texas on Wednesday. It was his birthday and since we hadn't been in touch since Christmas, I figured it was as good a time as any. We talked about old times.....I'm promised to send him photocopies of my entire collection of drawings of comic book characters we created when we were in elementary school together. We also talked about road tripping. It seems he's planning to travel around the country next summer as well, but our trip won't likely coincide. He's geared to 5-6 weeks including much of the southeast and East Coast (plus more) in late summer, while I am aiming for probably 4 weeks of just the West in early summer. In any case, Ryan will pass through Ohio, so I'll get a chance to show him and any friends he brings around. It will have been 11 years since he moved down to Texas, and 7 since he last visited Ohio, so I'll get to escort them to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the first time, in addition to who knows what else.

Hmm....so much for a short journal entry......this is why I can never get one finished in one sitting.....I ramble. Oh, to end, Allen e-mailed today. We've both been slacking a bit in the communication department, but we've been busy I think. Allen sent me happy birthday wishes before he headed out to practice for the Renaissance Faire all weekend. I'm happy, plus I have an extra special birthday present coming to me next time we see each other, so I am told. I think Allen is trying to get me back for surprising him with the Ruth Thompson art at Origins.....hehe. <wink> Well, that's all for me.....have a good weekend because it's my birthday and that's what I want for my birthday; a world of blissful people.

Well, I get to apologize for taking this long to get another journal entry finished again. This week was rough in that department because I happened to be really busy (and really stressed out) at work and also really busy moving stuff to my new domicile during the rest of my time.

Here's some random helpful advice. Don't leave a package of Thin Mints Girl Scout Cookies in a hot car. They do, in fact, fuse together into a long tube of minty chocolateness that doesn't break apart except into crumbs. This is just what I've heard of course, myself not being silly enough to leave them in my black car all day in the summer sun.

My birthday weekend was good. On Saturday Nardo (aka, my roommate John) and I got a big-ass U-Haul truck and carted most all of our large furniture over to our new place. It was still very much under construction, as our landlord was working to clean up the kitchen and also replacing one of the walls in the living room that had some water damage (he had the roofing replaced last month to fix that problem too). We managed to store all our stuff around mostly in the bedrooms and the basement until things are done. We continued to move stufff throughout the week, and today we will be taking the last of our things over and vacating our old apartment. I guess Andrew will be moving in on Tuesday, which will only leave Dan, when he returns from New Mexico in a couple weeks.

Saturday night was party night for Zup. I met up with Jeneanne and Andrew, who did make it in from Chicago, and we went to the Winking Lizard for beer and snacks. That was fun, and we spent the time just talking and gossiping and the like. Then we went back to Jeneanne's and picked up Johan (he and I did a couple shots of tequila before we left) to go down to Howl at the Moon in the Flats. Howl was rocking as usual.....plenty of bachelorette parties and birthdays and other events were going on......we had to stand, but things were jumping in typical piano bar fashion, and the alcohol was flying down, so I didn't mind much. I didn't actually have that much to drink for the totality of the evening, the equivalent of about 8 drinks from start to finish, so I was feeling fine and didn't have any hangover issues at all. I did sleep over Jeneanne's tho, because I wasn't in any shape to be driving.

On Sunday, I went home in the afternoon to do family things. We had a cookout for lunch and ice cream cake afterwards. Got decent amounts of money from the relatives, which I think I'm going to use to buy some new clothes. I usually don't like to spend money for clothing because I feel like I'm wasting it almost. For the most part my mom covers me on cash for clothing anyway, but this won't last much longer I suspect, so I need to get used to spending for that now I suppose. Not sure what I need.....more Dockers would be nice, as would some decent polo shirts or golf shirts for casual yet nice occasions (or for work which is a casual yet nice occasion). After food was over I finally took the Ruth Thompson prints over to Jeff and Jamie. I think they liked them, so I'm happy. For the evening, I went with my parents to see Oscar Wylde's play The Importance of Being Earnest at the Rabbit Run Theatre, the only existing barn theatre in Ohio, and incidentally in my hometown. It was nice to see something that I had not seen yet.

This weekend, after I am finished moving, I'll be heading home. Some family friends have a big picnic every year, and it's today. The picnic is one of the highlights of the summer for me because there are a lot of people there who play folk music, Celtic stuff and Colonial era things mostly. They have a big tent set up where they just have a big jam session. Of course there is a lot of great food, and God willing, when I talk to people the topic of conversation will be school or work instead of marriage and the like. Most of these people aren't too fixated, so it should be good. So anyways, this afternoon should be nice and restful.

Tonight, my friend John will be driving in from Florida for a couple of weeks. Sunday is probably the only time I'll get to see him because he's going to spend the week with family, and next week will be out in Toledo with his girlfriend's family. I'm not quite sure what we have planned, but I'm sure we'll attempt to make the best of the time. Maybe he'll be able to stop out in the evening later this week to go out to dinner or the like.

On the topic of my pages themselves, everyone made me happy by not only setting two new daily hitcount records (16 then 17) but also a new weekly record of 69 (really!). This week We've already beaten last week, and hopefully we'll break the 75 hit barrier by the end of the day. Now, I know that I've said that I don't live for hitcounts, but it does make me feel good. There are different things that can cause higher hitcounts though. Either more people are visiting, or the same people are visiting more often, or some combination of the two. I'm really looking for a combination of the two, which seems to be what is happening. I'd like to think that my journal holds enough interest for people that it is part of their daily or weekly schedules to check for new updates.....of course I can encourage this by updating regularly as well, so people expect that there might be something new each time they check. As far as getting new visitors, that is just a gradual thing. My goal is to bring in people that are either interested in my thoughts and ideas, or who share things in common with myself....as far as the people who I've corresponded with go, this has been universally the case. Oh, btw, hello to the person who is visiting from a military domain! Your domain stands out amongst the miscellaneous IP addresses.

Hrm....Robb's previous journal entry demonstrates the problem with trying to catch up on journals at work. Just when you least expect it, a nearly naked man shows up in the middle of the browser, and you pray that no one is walking by at that moment. And of course, now I'm reading his latest journal entry and I'm so jealous. I keep asking myself "WHY IS THAT NOT ME?" (Heh.....just messin' with ya Robb...Plbbbbbt!) But seriously, here Robb is with his boyfriend and a parade of hot guys, and I still have to wait 2 more weeks (hopefully) before I can see my boyfriend. It's not fair, I suppose, but I'm sure I'll manage. Hmmm, I should finish up so I can get stuff packed into the vehicle and get moving. Hope you all have a great weekend, and I'll hopefully write more soon.

Last updated 31 July 1999.