Well kiddies, at long last I have returned to the land of Jeety’s Joint. Forgive me if I’m a bit rusty–it’s been a while. I imagine it won’t take long and I’ll be right back on the horse again. Like that time I stopped smokin’ the crack. Long story short, I lost my pipe. But the point is, when I got a new one, it was as if I had been strung out and hopped up all along. Now that’s a heartwarming story.

I’ll get to all the new stuff another time. What I plan to do here is catch you up on the intensely fast-paced summer I just experienced. For those of you who live in Beaver or have been there (which I would imagine is approximately 99% of you), you know what I mean. Beaver: the city that never sleeps. Enough of this “Someplace Special” and/or “Tree City, USA”… Beaver is simply too intense for phrases like that.

When I left you last, I was leaving Austin and heading home. Leaving 80ish degree weather and entering 50ish. Luckily, that was only for a week or so. By the end of May, we had one of our 90 degree days. On my flight home, I got a call from Nate Marion who told me of a job possibility at Stop ‘N Sock. (Grammatically, shouldn’t it be “Stop ‘N’ Sock”? I suppose that’s a bit confusing… Then sometimes the N is capitalized and sometimes it’s not. I don’t know about that.) So naturally, I took the job sight unseen, as no other establishment was willing to hire a crack-addicted, quasi-Texan. (When did I start this drug thing? I’m not sure. Maybe it will casually fade from the storyline. Like the character nobody knows how to kill off.)

My gorgeous view, everyday this summer.

From there, I spent a week at the end of June in Stone Harbor, New Jersey. It’s a lovely place, on the southern tip of the state, surrounded by a bay and the Atlantic Ocean. I recommend everyone visit, especially if you love bone chilling ocean temperatures, man-eating seagulls and ridiculously overpriced ice cream. Honestly, I really do like it there. It’s just easy to mock, since I’ve been there 19/20 years of my life. Kind of like how I know about that weird pale spot on Scott’s chest and Kevin’s bionic arm. (Which one? NOBODY KNOWS!) This was little Eli’s first trip to the beach and he enjoyed it muchly. Or so we think. I mean, honestly… if he didn’t like it, how would we know? He did give his dad the finger a couple of times, so maybe it’s not that vague after all?

I will own one of these one day. Scratch that… all of these.

After that, some stuff happened… there was the 4th of July. We went to see the fireworks in Pittsburgh. It was a humid day with no wind. Ergo: we saw the first 2-3 fireworks and then nothing but an enormous cloud of smoke. A little disappointing to say the least. After that, Scott’s wife Jackie was deployed to Kosovo. Currently she’s based out of Kentucky and Indiana and stuff until they do all their training junk. Then she heads off to Germany and finally Kosovo. We all miss her and wish her the best of luck!!

After that, some stuff happened… I don’t really know what. I did some things with my friends. They were fun. We went to the Goo Goo Dolls/Counting Crows concert. They were both pretty good. The Goo was excellent. The Crows were good… then awful… and then good again. That FREAK Adam Duritz tried preaching his venom for like honestly 10 minutes! Actually, to be fair, it wasn’t venom. It was something about volunteering. Which is fine and all, but like… come on buddy. We’re here to hear your music. And then after that, the next song, he decided it would be a good idea to SCREAM the words, rather than sing them. Good choice. No one was pleased. People were honeslty booing. FANS… booing. That takes a lot. But after that he calmed (read: came down/sobered up or whatever) and the rest of the concert was pleasant, if not good.

Then everyone left for school. That’s all I can think of. I’m sure I have some Stop ‘N Sock vignettes I could share… angry customers calling for me to be fired (okay, that one’s not so much a vignette as a factual statement… non-fiction style), tales of fellow employees and other ridiculous happenstances. In general, good times.

I’ll be updating soon with my return to Texas and the uh… interesting stories involved in that experience. So, thanks for reading and come back soon!