I was spending a lot of time at another blog, but decided to close it down. If you’re a blogger, you’re probably aware of a company that has decided to make money off of people who quote parts of news articles. It would be too much of a hassle to make sure I stayed away from certain sites and to come up with my own blurbs instead of quoting part of articles, so I pulled the plug. It’s sad, too, because I really enjoyed that site. It was focused, unlike this one.

In other news, I did some heavy duty roller coastering this summer. I hit Worlds of Fun at various times (and will a few more times this year), Holiday World and Kings Island in June, Silverwood in July and Carowinds, Dollywood, Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Kings Dominion in August on the IntimidaTOUR trip with Theme Park Review.

So that’s the latest.

Fail.

So yes, I signed up on Facebook. Yay me. I’m cool now. No, I won’t friend you.

I decided on a couple rules. I won’t friend family members or coworkers. There may be the rare exception, but for the most part those rules are pretty solid. I know most people have family in their friend lists, but that’s just a wall I want to put up. As for coworkers, what the heck? I work with you! Quit stalking me!

So far I’ve found some buddies from the Marines and some people I knew in high school. I found one guy who left midway through junior year and I hadn’t talked to him since. It was good to find him and know he’s doing well.

I’m not going to post a whole lot of stuff there given I have several other haunts on Algore’s interwebz. I should probably link some of them from here, huh?

And, as it turns out, a lot of amusement parks are on Facebook as well. Naturally, I’ve friended them or become a fan of their pages.

Who will I find next?

First we have the people who, when entering their email into an online form, use my email address. This results in me getting emails about Redbox DVD rentals, quotes for home remodeling or online registrations for cell phone service. There’s the occassional odd website registration as well.

Next we have the people who send an email to me thinking I’m someone else. These are by far the most entertaining. I was invited to a bachelor party. I received song lyrics. I got some pr0n.

That’s right. A little bit earlier, I received an email with a video attached. It was from a stranger, though I think she’s emailed me before. The name of the video was fairly innocuous. It wasn’t something I would look at and go, oh, that’s pr0n.

I started watching it, then, uh, yeah, there were nekkid people.

I exchanged a couple emails with her and I think I made it clear that I wasn’t who she thought I was and she deleted my email address.

We shall see.

You’ll have to excuse me as I’m not the greatest story teller.

I don’t remember how old I was, it would have been in the 70s, though.

We camped at Branched Oak Lake, which is outside Lincoln, Nebraska, near a town called Malcolm. Incidentally, my dad was born and grew up on the land that is now under the lake. It was a village called Crounse. His dad farmed some land there. I sort of remember the site where we camped. If I went back out there I could probably find it. It was near the lake, but not a regular campsite.

My dad had an old green, canvas tent that we set up. It was an A-frame type tent, and there were three or four poles that you put together to support the front and back. The flaps were the kind you tie together with little canvas tabs that were sewn on.

We cooked pork steaks for dinner that night. I remember they tasted pretty darn good. We probably had potatoes with them, but I don’t remember.

The next morning we walked down to the lake. It was quite and the lake was calm. It probably looked like glass. It’s pretty cool to see a large body of water that is still. I remember times when I was in the Marines and at sea aboard the Peleliu that the Pacific Ocean was like that.

For breakfast that morning we cooked bacon and eggs. They tasted great. Some things just taste better when cooked in the great outdoors.

I wish I could remember more detail, but it’s mostly just feelings at this point. I don’t remember if we had a campfire or used a camp stove, or maybe both. I don’t know if we talked much. We probably did. I imagine I spent some time looking at the sky. Away from the city lights, the stars shine brighter, are more plentiful and you can catch glimpses of the streaks of stars that give the Milky Way its name.

I looked out the window and saw him and realized I hadn’t been feeding him. I felt horrible. It was like I’d forgotten I’d got a new dog.

I opened the door and he came in carrying his food bowl in his mouth.

I gave him some food, and that’s the end.

Weird.

Tomorrow is my birthday.

Unfortunately, I’m not down in Florida like I was last year.