Notify List Stuff: Remember, if you want an e-mail every time I update my journal, go here. Plus my notify list might get extra little tidbits from time to time. If you want to get an e-mail every time I upload something Real World related, go here. You can be on both mailing lists, one or the other, or neither. It's all up to you.
I wanted to announce that the winner of the Retsof contest is Jade of It's Only Life After All, and I guess her prize is this link since I don't really have anything else to give her! She correctly guessed that Retsof was so named because it's Foster (the guy who founded the town) spelled backwards. Honorary mention goes to Mary's brother Jim, but he kind of cheated because he went to college in Geneseo, which is about 5 minutes away from Retsof.
So, the cousins. Here's a really bad picture of us from last Christmas. I realize that you can't really tell what anyone looks like in this picture, but since I didn't get permission from any of them to do this, that's probably a good thing.
These are the cousins on my dad's side of the family. I labeled them for easy reference. There's one of us missing - Steve, the one who recently became a dad. He lives in Colorado now, so he doesn't get home as much as he used to. Nan, my grandmother had 4 kids and each of them had 2 kids, a boy and a girl. Thus, there's eight of us. We all went to the same high school. Here we are in chronological order:
Mike: My older brother by 3 years (which means he's going to be 30 in a week!). As the oldest, and first grandchild on that side of the family, Mike was always a little spoiled. But, on the flip side, he was always held responsible. As you can imagine, when we were younger and all got together, we would frequently get into trouble, and Mike was supposed to keep us in line. Now he gets to play Santa at Christmas. He was also the first one of us married, and is now building a house on what used to be the family farm. Childhood nicknames: MJ, Michael J, Mickel the Pickle, Michael Michael Bicycle
Steve: The one not in the picture - older brother of Shannon. He's a year behind Mike. When we were little, Steve was always the behind the scenes trouble maker. He was the kid who would teach you to say "shit" and then tell you to go tell your mom. Then, when your mom yelled at you, he would deny knowledge. He was (and is still) incredibly sentimental and sensitive. In high school, he sometimes got into trouble for partying, but his grades always stayed pretty high. And now he's a dad - the first of us to have a kid. Childhood nickname: Tee Tee.
Erin: Erin is the same grade as me, but she's nine months older. Due to our closeness in age, we were the best of friends when we were little. As we got older, we started to run with different crowds a little bit. I was a big nerd, and she was a lot cooler. But we always had the cousin thing to fall back on. I admire her courage - she's always willing to stand up for what she believes, even if it's not the popular or accepted view. Childhood nicknames: E, E-bo.
Me: Well, you know me. I'm kind of right in the middle. I guess I was always the smart one, probably also the goody goody. Childhood nicknames: Kimmy, Muffett (as in Little Miss).
Josh: Erin's younger brother. He's 3 years younger than me. As I mentioned in a past entry, he and I were really close in high school. After I went to college, he became really close with my brother, to the point where people think they are brothers. They've even started to look alike. Josh's claim to fame when we were younger is that he never ate. He was always so excited to play with his older cousins that he didn't want to eat dinner because it took away from play time. Also famous for eating a poinsettia at Christmas one year. Childhood nicknames: J, Joshbo, Bambi (he wanted to change his name to Bambi as a child).
Shannon: Steve's little sister, 4 years younger than me. Shannon was always the class cutup, cracking wise and getting into trouble. I remember one Christmas when she was probably 7 or 8 and she snuck like 10 cups of coffee. Can you imagine a 7 year old on that much coffee? Shannon was the youngest for about 6 years. We treated her like a mascot for a long time, I think. She's smart as a whip, and just got a new job as a broker's assistant. In high school, she had some questionable boyfriends, but her boyfriend now is great. Childhood nicknames: Sha, Buckwheat.
Celyn: By the time Celyn was born, the rest of us were pretty grown up. She just graduated from high school this year, so I would've been 9 when she was born. The rest of us are so close in age that we couldn't help but be close growing up. Celyn is the first person I really remember being born, and now she's graduating so it makes me feel old. She is a fantastic artist and singer, and she loves animals. I remember at Christmas this year, Josh and Shannon and I got talking about parties in high school, and Celyn was sitting there soaking it in. Suddenly I thought, "We shouldn't be saying this in front of her." Then I thought, "She's an adult. She's 18 years old. I'm sure she's seen and possibly done, worse." This also made me feel old.
Jonathan: Jonathan is Celyn's younger brother, and the youngest cousin. I think he's 2 years younger than her, which makes him 11 years younger than me. He was always the tagalong - wanting to play with the big boys, but always way too small. In the past 2 years, he has morphed into a skater boy, with bleached blond hair. When he was born, my dad thought he should be named Jasper Rasputin. Then we could call him Jas Ras. I think he lucked out with Jonathan.
So that's my family. As I said, we all live in the same town and we would have family get-togethers at least once a month. The cousins would all play whiffleball, hide and seek or kill the man. Usually the boys would go play football or something, and the girls would go make up a routine. I remember one Christmas where Erin, Shannon and I made up a Christmas Carol medley routine, complete with Shannon dressing up like Rudolph and getting on the top of a pyramid. Then we would force all of our parents to get together and watch. You have no idea how much I wish camcorders had been around back then - how funny would that be?
I guess the point of doing this entry is that the graduation party this weekend got me thinking about family, and how lucky I am to have a big, close family. Even if I wasn't the best of friends with my cousins in high school, I always knew they had my back if I needed them. And most of the really fun times of my childhood involve one or more of them. I think I take my family for granted a lot. So if any of you guys read this (I know a few of them are online), I love you guys and I can't wait until we all get together again.
Warning: clicking on these links will launch a new browser window.
Like Kymm, I accidentally bought a camera last night at an auction. Except mine is a webcam, not a digital camera, so it was probably a lot cheaper, unless she got a GREAT deal. So soon you can see more pictures of me and my cats - I can feel the increase to the notify list now!
I saw a story about Gentle Hints on the news the other day, but forgot about it until I saw it again in Sars' links page yesterday. What a great idea.
And if you don't feel like being quite so gentle, you can Send a Curse. (Thanks, Cam.)
They found a dead body in my hometown - if it turns out to be murder, it will be the first nonvehicular homicide in my county since 1995.
"Information markets" (where you pay $ for info) sound an awful lot like AskA Services (which are free). Jim works for an AskA service.
I'd kinda like to get paid for my content. Somehow I doubt that my content is really good enough to generate much money though.
Are promotions by internet companies getting out of control? It sounds like the consumer is the winner here.
This story has been around since 1995 - when does it get tired? And I take offense to the notion that no one who works for a chain bookstore could possibly love books or know anything about them. Besides, isn't it a bit hypocritcal for USA Today to write an anti-corporate story?
A sneak peek at next season for you Dawson's Creek fans.
I don't have a problem with school dress codes, but they are hard to enforce. I remember when my elementary school banned clogs for a similar reason.
I'm not sure what this guy's deal is, but I guess more power to him.
If you like to find mistakes in movies, this site is for you. I never see these the first time around, so I need sites like these to point them out.
Oh yeah, my episode summaries are #1 on The Real World Web poll. Thanks, guys!
I joined the Thirty Days journal site as well. I haven't put that link up on my site yet, though.