If you weren't aware, I've been working out lately after getting a wellness profile done via work and finding out I wasn't exactly in good health. Well, I had my second fitness profile today. The first one was on April 17th, so a little over 2 months.

Now, time for fun with numbers!
* My weight went from 199 to 191 - a drop of 8lbs.
* Lean Body Mass from 140.5 to 144.2. Lean body mass is how much your bones, muscles, organs weight.. so this means I gained 3.7lbs of muscle.
* My Fat Mass went from 58.5 to 46.8, a loss of 11.7lbs of fat.
* BMR from 2000 to 2042, a result of the muscle gain
* BMI decreased from 28.5 to 27.4
* VO2Max increased from 37.7 to 40.4, so I'm getting more athletic
* Biceps strength increase a lot - from 58lbs to 86lbs
* Sit and Reach from 7.2 to 13.1in
* 3 site skin fold body composition from 29.4 to 24.5. The individual measurements were my chest decreasing 28mm to 20mm, abdomen decreasin 47.5mm to 35mm, and my thigh stayed same at 32mm. The sum of skin folds is a decrease of 20.5mm, which is nice.
* The only number that went in the wrong way was my systolic blood pressure. My bp went from 131/90 to 136/80. At least my diastolic is back to a normal range. Now to get my systolic down.

Went on an amazing cruise, made a lot of new friends. Lots of stories, pictures, but I just can't find the time to put it into words.

Just got back from working Furry Connect North with the Dorsai. Finally met northing after all these years and had a good time talking with him and going to lunch with him.

Flew toracub in to visit/work FCN with me. That was good as always, but kinda too short.. although it helps that I saw him two weeks ago over Easter...

I'm tired and meh. Time to go soak in the jacuzzi tub and finish off that bottle of wine from the other night and relax.

I'm finishing off March in the (almost) best way possible. Mayercraft Carrier. I can't wait, I'm so excited! It's going to be even better than last year. A lot of the artists I'm very interested in seeing. It's a longer cruise. I'm with even more people I know. There's only one way it could be better.

April is right around the corner. I think I have every weekend planned out. Going back home for the 4th/5th. For Easter, I'm flying out to DC to spend time with toracub from the 10th to 13th. The next weekend I'm on call, which of course means a2andy is having a wine party. I'll have to get someone to cover for that night for me.

The weekend after that toracub is flying here and we'll be working security w/ the Dorsai at Furry Connect North.

I'll also finally get to meet northing after all these years!

The next month and one week will be good. I can tell.

Well, this has been an interesting month. I knew it was going to be insanely busy, but I didn't realize exactly how busy it'd wind up being.

Starting it off with evil_dwagon's funeral wasn't exactly in my plans, but then again someone passing away is never planned. The funeral was very well attended. Funerals are always very difficult for me, but a friend passing away unexpectedly was new for me. On the way back we stopped and bought a lot of cheese. We also made a fun detour since a friend of ours left her purse in our hotel room and decided that texting us saying not to stop at a porn store was a good idea.

Last weekend was the Dorsai Irregular's invite only convention Thing. This year was Racy Thing and was held in Indianapolis. toracub flew in the afternoon on Thursday Mar 5th. A large group of us went out to dinner at Mac's Acadian in Saline. It was Canada Week and I decided to splurge and get a fresh lobster. It was yummy but it was quite a bit of work! a2andy took pictures and you can check them out this link. There are some cute pictures in there.

We drove down to Indianapolis. It's like going back 50 years in time! It was entertaining when Tora and I were checking in. We had requested a king and had an interesting exchange at the front desk:

Lady: "So it's just you?"
Me: "No, it's me and him" *points at Tora*
Lady: "Oh, so you want two doubles?"
Me: "Nope, we want a King"
Lady: *pauses*
Lady 2 who is making the cards hand a card to the other Lady saying "here's one for two doubles"
Lady: "They want a King"
Lady 2: "Oh..."
Lady 2 programs a card for a king and hands it to the other lady
Me: "Can I get another key for Him?"
Lady: "Oh, sure.."

Of course giza and creatureshock were standing there for the exchange and later on Giza goes "I just wanted to yell at HOMOS!!! during that exchange"

I guess they're still not quite used to that whole idea down there!

Thing was fun. Lots of alcohol was consumed and I got to meet some people I had heard plenty about but never met. It was a fun time and nice and relaxing.

I had convinced Tora when booking his airline tickets to stay a couple of days longer so I could show him around Ann Arbor and also take him out to Gigi's with Andy and Chani. So, Monday night we ventured out to Gigi's and there was much debauchery. It was easily one of the most fun nights I've had at Gigi's. Of course Andy brought the camera and took photos. You can view all the photos here.

( Some Photos from Gigi's )

Unfortunately, I had to drop Tora off at the airport on Tuesday to fly back to DTW, which sucked majorly and made me sad. However, it was great to spend more time with him outside of working cons and helping him move. It's really no surprise to anyone that I like him a lot.. so saying goodbye and not knowing when I'll see him next always sucks.

Right now I'm down in Cincinnati, OH working security with the Dorsai at A&G. It's been rather mild so far, which is always good, but on the other hand it's been interesting. It's a 2nd year con and they are unorganized. I have a lot of homework due Monday but I really have 0 motivation for class right now and I don't find the class all that interesting which makes it even more difficult. *sigh*. I'm really quite burned out on school, but I need to finish.

After this, I have one week of being on call and then I go on the Mayercraft Carrier.. aka the John Mayer cruise which will be a great way to wrap up the month. After that, who knows what'll be going on..

(I posted this elsewhere, but I'm posting it in my LJ too.)

I can't even put into words the tremendous hole in my heart right now. I had only met him earlier last year, but in the time I spent talking to him while I was working security with the Dorsai at Anthrocon and FurFright along with talking to him online was always a lot of fun.

Here are two photos from FurFright 08:
http://www.alienz.net/gallery/v/FF08/DSCN0837.JPG.html
http://www.alienz.net/gallery/v/FF08/DSCN0915.JPG.html

Here's a photo from the Shore Party at Anthrocon 08. It's him making absinthe which I consumed a large amount of: http://alienz.net/temp/DSCN0509.JPG

Even though I was just getting to know him, Furp was an insanely nice and caring person. We chatted a bit off and on about relationships and life. I was looking forward to the DI Thing convention in a couple of weeks because I knew he was going to be there and we'd get time to chill and chat some more, outside of dealing with drunk people at conventions.

Speaking of drunk people, my favorite stories always revolved around what he would do to people who were being drunk and stupid. There were the stories of giving people two aspirins and telling them to 'chew on them' and other humors medical things.

And of course, Furp's badge ribbon from Anthrocon: http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenreaper/3230071501/

It's going to be quite hard for me now, knowing that I was just getting to know Furp and I won't have the opportunity now to become better friends. He was an amazing person, a great friend, a caring guy who was there when you needed something. He'll be missed by everyone and some things won't be the same without him.

I've always been a fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson.. but I'll admit I had never read anything by him. I've always seen clips and videos of him that impress me. For instance, talking about spaghettification with Ryan Watt or Slacker Astronomy's impromptu interview of him at AAS highlight his attitude, enthusiasm, and humor when it comes to Astronomy. I think that is one of the main reasons why I enjoy him - he's able to teach people about the Cosmos with humor and interest.

Anyways, the first book I've read in a while was his book - Death By Black Hole. It's actually a collection of essays he has written for Natural History. This kind of shows throughout various parts of the book because he talks about the same thing again or uses the same joke again. Since they are all essays, there isn't much flow to the book or a real central message. Regardless, the book was a great read. It's also scary that a lot of the things he talked about I already knew.. I guess it proves that I'm more of a geek than I realized.

Being that it's the International Year of Astronomy I plan on reading a couple of more books this year that relate to Astronomy this year. It's also looking to be a busy year for the Astronomy Club. I hope that stays true, as club membership has been dwindling the last year or so.

Oh, and speaking of videos, Daily Show 2007, Neil not leaving the Daily Show (a couple of days ago) until he solved the rubik's cube, and him talking about hate mail from 3rd graders about Pluto.

Timothy Ferris was the speaker for Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor Reads author presentation. If you don't know who he is, he's the author of numerous books, including "Seeing in the Dark: How Amateur Astronomers are Discovering the Wonders of the Universe" and numerous PBS series such as "Seeing In The Dark", "Life Beyond Earth", and "Creation of the Universe". I got to attend a special reception with a (quite small) group of people prior to him speaking, since we hosted a large group of public last week at the Astronomy Club @ EMU.

( picture )

It was very cool to meet him. He's a very nice guy and fun to chat with. It was interesting to hear him speak, as I realize he's quite a liberal person. He spoke about his new book coming out later this year, which is about politics and Liberalism (not in the sense that americans use it). At one point, he mentioned proposal 8 passing in California and how disgusted he was with that. He also mentioned he worked as a volunteer with the Obama campaign for a while now and was at the Inauguration.

He mentioned a joke about debating with a Jesuit recently and the Jesuit saying something about the church and science and him asking why it took a thousand years. I didn't quite catch the joke, but I wondered for a bit if brotherguy was who he debated with!

During the Q&A someone asked him about crowd wisdom and how that'll play out with climate change and he commented that it's interesting to him the public opinion regarding it. He said it was as if you had a pond of fish in which the fish started to die.. and on one end of a pond some guy was pouring black tar into the pond and when the tar was analyzed - sure enough it was killing the fish. However, all of a sudden a group of people with their own TV network appeared and said yes it killed them but lets continue to investigate all these other scenarios while doing nothing at all about the man pouring the tar in.

He truly is an amateur astronomer - he only took 1 astronomy class in college! Anyways, it was great to meet him and chat privately about our observatory at EMU and being an amateur astronomer myself.

BTW, If you own a blu-ray player, the blu-ray version of "Seeing in The Dark" should be coming out soon and will be stunning. I watched it on PBS in HD and that was amazing..

The All-Sky camera I talked about in this post is giving me some major trouble. It appears the stupid video processing box has locked up when attempting to do some tweaks to the capturing. That means I get to try to get someone to power cycle it up there or make a trip up to Lapeer, MI in the near future. The next group trip I won't be able to go to because it'll be when I'm on my cruise. Go figure. I really would like this thing to cooperate with me and quit being a PITA! Anyways, for those curious soles, here are the 3 best videos I have from 2008. ( Videos ) My dream would be to own one of the SBIG cameras.. but they run anywhere from $2k to $8k.. but They Are Amazing.

A year ago I worked MagFest 6. It was, well, quite insane. Not only was it my first convention, it was also my first time working security with the Dorsai Irregulars. As I said in my previous post, this is thanks to scs_11 who is a member, along with Rene Gobeyn. I work with scs_11 and Rene is the MACC Data Center Coordinator, so needless to say I see him quite often too. Both of them are members of the DI.

So, MagFest 6.. we had cops show up with shotguns, we had attendees having lampshade parties, phones being stolen, people getting alcohol poisoning... The report started off saying "Despite the presence of police with shotgun and full riot gear, Magfest was much smoother this year." so that should give you an idea of what the convention was like and how bad MagFest 5 was compared to 6. The best part for me was meeting a lot of new people who were working: Colin, giza, Gooch, Skippy (drzaaron), Deja and Steve, Max, tango, Creature, toracub, Chilly Mouse, Kasi, Da Bear..

Next I worked Technicon (Mar 28-30) in Blacksburg, VA with a subset of the crew above.. that's also the first time I met Crimson. And JJ/James I believe. Oh and Quazi. I spent a lot of time talking with toracub during Technicon which was fun.

After Technicon came the big one - Anthrocon (June 26-29th)! Anthrocon was loads of fun and a lot of work. This was my first-ever Furry convention and it was awesome. In addition to a lot of the crew above I met the Claytons, Dan and Kay Jarrell, Mark Osier, Ann and Bob Passovoy, Gary Bratzel, Grant Millard, Gerry Felipe, Sam Gobeyn, Marnie (gooch's wife), John and Joanne Hall, Russ Hershler, Tina, Alex, Heathyr Lamb, and probably others I'm forgetting. Anthrocon was a lot of fun and working with Sam to do elevator control was a blast. Oh, that's where I met evil_dwagon.

Next was FurFright (Oct 17-18). I met boomeroo (Xander) and mrianti there. Again, fun was had by me.

I just got back from working MagFest 7, which was - oddly - quiet this year. Even with a lot more people than last year, we had very few big incidents. The biggest one being some idiot who didnt get the hint that the hotel wasn't joking when they said if he showed up again he'd be arrested... (twice). toracub and I spent some time away from the convention.. once to go check on his parent's cats and then on Saturday to see his current place, future place, where he works, and his local area. We grabbed lunch at Five Guys which was quite tasty! I had a lot of fun at MagFest, even though I was pretty miserable for a lot of it. My sinuses did not adjust well to the really dry air and gave me nothing but problems.. I probably should have done more to properly treat it then, but I didn't have my normal drugs and didnt want to go out to get any. I'm paying for it now, however. Fever. Severe congestion. Cough.. yeah, it's a lot of fun. Regardless, I got to spend time with the people I basically only see when working conventions and it's always nice to spend time with them.

So what's in store this year for conventions I'll be working?
March 12-17: A&G in Cincinnati, OH
April 24-26: Furry Connection North in Novi, MI
July 2-5: Anthrocon in Pittsburgh, PA
FurFright in Oct- this depends on who else is working it

In addition, March 6-8 is the Dorsai Irregulars Thing which I'll be at (although that doesn't count as working). toracub is flying in early to drive down with me and flying out late to spend some time around A2. a2andy and I will be taking him to Gigi's Monday night I'm sure. I'm looking forward to Thing and getting to show Tora around my area :)

Well, well. 2008 was an interesting year for me. The first part of the year was definitely pretty shitty. After that, things started to get better.

In summary, I got two people out of my life that were causing a lot of emotional problems for me - Rob and Chris C. It's funny how shortly after all of that happened, I was coming to my shrink without really any big problems. Prior to that, it was always something about one of those two that was causing me a lot of issues. The biggest realization out of that was that Rob really just isn't a good person. Some people really don't deserve a second chance. Getting that out of my life was a big help to things.

What else occurred in 2008? Hmm, well I went to (and worked) my first convention ever - Magfest - which started my working with the Dorsai Irregulars to do security at conventions. Much thanks to scs_11 for causing me to have no vacation time left at work ;) But really, that's been a lot of fun. It's entertaining to tell people what I do on my vacations.. but I've met a lot of cool people doing it so far. More on Magfest and conventions later.

I also bought a house. That's coming along nicely, except for the fact that I still have a lot of crap to unpack. Clearly it's stuff I don't really need, but a lot of it is like stuffed animals and decorations and stuff. Hopefully I'll have a housewarming party in the future and things will be done by then. I've gotten almost all of the carpet in the house cleaned. Next year, there are some drywall pops I need to take care of and some rotten wood to be replaced outside. Aside from that, I need to caulk and seal the windows better.. they're an obvious source of cold air. The heating bill in this house is not fun, but, that's what I get for buying a big house..

I finally got my Sentinel All-Sky Camera installed and running in Lapeer, MI. I'm still tweaking it to this day.. that's the problem with only being up there a couple of times each year. It's recorded some nice Meteors so far (when its working properly). At some point I hope to have it automated more, because right now I have to VNC in and view the events.. a lot of false positives caused by clouds, insects, etc, and over a very slow cablemodem it's hard to process the events quickly.

I got into Geocaching which I enjoy quite a bit.. too bad it's so freakin cold out right now or I'd be doing it more.

I was asked to be (and honored to be, and was..) a groomsman in jk651's beautiful wedding.

I think those are the major things I can think of in 2008. I might be forgetting things, but, thats what sticks out in my head right now.

I've posted this on other social networks and I'm now posting it here, with the addition of the Keith Olbermann's video, which I think is pretty powerful

If there is one thing that drives me crazy, it's everyone out there who thinks that being gay is a "choice". As soon as I see someone say that, I know that I can't even reason with them because it is so ludicrous of an idea.

You seriously think that this is a CHOICE? Okay, that's fine, you have the right to your opinions and ideas. However, it's funny that the only people I ever see saying it's a choice are the ones who are anti-gay. It's only brought up as a choice when it's perceived as a bad thing. When did you choose to be straight? Heck, since it's a choice, then tomorrow you should be able to wake up and say "Today I'm going to be gay".

Sorry, doesn't work like that.

It's even more annoying to see articles in which someone says they have gay friends - yet they don't agree with the gay "choice". You really aren't a friend if that is true.

If there is one thing this election has made me realize is that I am still extremely frustrated and annoyed at the majority of the population (which happens to be very religious) that thinks it's a choice. Even regardless of if it's a choice or not, why does it matter? As I said before, the choice notion is only raised when one side believes it's a bad thing and the other side has obviously picked the bad one.

Living in a nation in which there is supposed to be separation of church and state, there is supposed to be equal rights for everyone, I am a second class citizen without equal rights thanks to the Church. I am a law abiding, tax paying citizen. I am a good friend. I am someone who respects everyone else, that is until they take away my rights or make it so I am a second class citizen - "God Bless America".

It's funny that the only time I update my livejournal tends to be when I'm on my way to or on my way back from working a conference with the Dorsai.

I'm currently on a plane on my way back to DTW.. it's god-awful early in the morning and I haven't slept yet. We left the hotel a little after 3AM to get to the Hartford/Bradley Int'l airport to catch our flight. I really don't think I've traveled this early before.. it's quite different.

I worked yet another con with the Dorsai - that makes the 4th con this year! It's scary I spend almost all of my vacation time to go work my ass off at a convention.. but hey, it really is fun. This year I attended my first con - and worked my first con, Magfest, in January. After that, I worked Technicon @ Virginia Tech, then Anthrocon in Pittsburgh and I'm on my way back from Fur Fright in Waterbury, CT.

I'll be honest, I really like working the Furry conventions. The Furries are some of the most fun, coolest, and entertaining people I've met! There were some cool costumes this time, but Herby the Bat was one of my favorites. I enjoyed the convention quite a bit, but Saturday night was somewhat crazy. I woke up early for my 1AM-7AM shift so that I could spend some time with toracub.. well yeah, shortly after that everyone around was dealing with one issue or another. Since I was a Sargent this time around, it made life more interesting. Considering the fact that the convention was described to me as a Relax-i-Con, Saturday night was anything but that.

I had a lot of fun Sunday evening drinking with people and hanging out with some of the Furs. I must say, you learn interesting things from people when they are intoxicated. ;)

Next year is looking to be a busy year for conventions. March will especially be busy with two conventions and the cruise I'm going on. I have to decide if I'll be working the Anime and Gaming festival in Cincinnati or not. If I do, that leaves only 1 free weekend in March.

Anyways, it was a nice convention and it was great to spend time with people when things weren't being hectic. I look forward to seeing you guys soon! Now that I'm at my house, aside from wanting to kill my house mate, I'm safe and sound... time for sleeeeep!

LJ Wishlist: a way to easily filter any fucking political post from my friends page. Seriously.

I know it's been ages since I've last actually updated my livejournal with anything worthwhile. I'm currently on the road writing this and we've got a couple of hours before we reach Pittsburgh, so I figure now is a good time to do an update. I'm working security with the Dorsai for Anthrocon this year. It should be rather interesting, given what scs_11 has told me about previous years. This will be the 3rd convention I've been to and also the 3rd convention I've worked security with the DI for this year. First one was Magfest, second one was Technicon, and now Anthrocon. It's actually quite fun, I enjoy it a lot.

To conclude the drama I last posted about concerning Chris C and Rob, well, he moved out with 0 days to spare on his 30 days notice. My ex (Chris V) lives with me now and that has been going rather well, surprisingly. Yes, he has his annoying habits, but don't we all. I think it helps that I don't really have anything to be pissed off and passive aggressive about, which only would bleed over into other things. This should come as no surprise, but Chris C and Rob are actually dating. Rob also apparently got fired from his job at TCF.

Back to the roommate thing. My lease is up in August and I'm currently looking to get a house in the Ann Arbor area. It's an ideal time to buy with the way the market is and it's actually at the point where it's starting to recover, so, now would be a good time. I'm hoping Chris C will live with me, we've talked about it and he seems keen to the idea but we need to actually sit down and discuss things with him at some point.

In other news, I was in Newark and New York a couple of weeks ago. I went to the OpenAFS & Kerberos Best Practices Workshop in Newark then decided to spend a couple of days in New York since I was in the area. I stayed at the Desmond Tutu Center which was amazing. It was a pretty sweet hotel, I really liked it. Here's a picture of it.

( Photos below )

Congrats Detroit! Bringing the cup back to Hockeytown!! I seriously enjoyed going to game #2 of the finals and game #1 of the conference finals!

Well, since Chris C wouldn't pick up the Notice to Quit I mailed out last week, I hand delivered him one today. Talk about awkward. It took me a good 45 minutes after that to stop shaking. I'm sure things are going to be tense for the next month, but, at least there's an end to all of this.

On Monday I was fitted with a NTI-TSS as a result of my nighttime grinding of my teeth. It's - um - taking some adjusting to get used to. I'm totally not adjusted yet. Apparently after grinding my teeth for so long my jaw is slightly confused as to why it won't work when I'm sleeping.. as a result, I wake up with my mouth hurting. Yeah, not much fun but the long term benefits is why I have it. So, halogencycle, you aren't the only one dealing with mouth-things! Although I think you've got it worse.

In December, we had our border collie, Sadie, put to sleep due to major hip/back problems as a result of old age. It's the dog I grew up with and I loved her to death, so that was pretty hard. I've always been around Border Collies and I love them. It's one of the big reasons why I want to get a house.. I'd really like to have a BC (or two).

My mom has been talking about getting a new BC from a rescue group sometime in the spring. Well, I was visiting GLBCR and saw this dog, Suzette, and fell in love with her. Showed her to my mom who also was like OMG.. and immediately filled out the adoption application. So, now we're waiting to hear back from GLBCR.

Suzette:

Words I will never trust from someone ever again:
"It's not like that. I'd never feel that way about him"

Yeah.. right. That's why you're basically living over here and you two are dating now.

Oh, and fuck valentines day. I really don't want to see hearts on your door and things about how much you love each other.

I can't wait to get you out of this apartment so I can regain my sanity.

The last week has been so draining on me. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. I'm really worn out. I don't know why, but it really seems like if its not one thing going wrong, it's another. My father has a pretty bad intestinal blockage. He gets these 2-3 times a year, so it's not abnormal, but it's still a hard thing for him to go through. When I left he was in a lot of pain.. if things aren't better tomorrow, he'll probably have to go into the hospital. Ugh.

Anyways, I really appreciate all the comments from people regarding my grandpa. I spent the last two nights at my Grandma's house to keep her company at night.

What follows is what I said at my Grandpa's funeral. I didn't know if I would make it through all of it, so I typed it out. That way, if I couldn't finish, the minister would be able to read the rest of it. However, I made it through all of it. I only started crying at the last sentence and as I walked over to give my grandma a hug and tell her I loved her.

The last couple of years have been especially hard, as I've lost a lot of my grandparents. However, I could not have asked for a better Grandpa. Grandpa was an amazing man, not just to me but to everyone. He was always a happy person, it was rare to see him without a smile on his face. He had a great sense of humor that everyone loved. I doubt there was a person in the world who disliked him. In a testament to his good will, our newest dog tends to dislike males. However, when we brought her over she took an instant liking to Grandpa. She'd stay on his lap and love the attention. It's proof that not even a dog would dislike him!
( continued )

This weekend was a particularly hard one for me. I came home because my Grandpa's health had finally deteriorated to the point where he was starting to not recognize people. I basically came home to say goodbye to my Grandpa and help my mom out as best I could. Even though I've already been through this when her mom and dad passed away, I'm really close to my dad's parents, so that made it a lot worse.

There was lots of family around, which helped my mom out a lot. It was still difficult. So difficult to see him there on the bed, not able to talk, barely able to recognize people. I was lucky enough that I'm pretty sure he knew who I was. I thanked him for being the best grandparent I could ask for, told him how much I loved him and that I knew he loved me, and that we'd take care of grandma and everything would be okay. I cried, a lot. It was very hard for me to say goodbye.. very hard for me to see him like that. The strong grandpa I always knew, who always had a story and a laugh, looked like a nazi concentration camp survivor laying on a bed. He looked nothing like he did a year ago.

I knew that he wasn't going to last much longer and I really hoped he would pass away soon. I hated to see him like that. I hoped he wasn't in pain. My mom called to tell me that they upped the morphine to every 2 hours and that the nurse decided to wait on putting in a urinary catheter and see how he was tonight. We kind of knew that wasn't a good sign. At 5:30pm my phone rang and it was my grandma's number. I didn't want to answer it, I knew what it meant. It was my dad, crying, to tell me that he had died. I guess he just had some shallow breathes and then stopped breathing. I hope it wasn't painful.

I love you Grandpa. I'll miss you a lot. I'll never forget everything you did for me. I'll always remember going to football games with you.. I'll remember going hunting and ice fishing with you.. I'll remember you coming to my school events.. how proud of me you were that I was playing the trumpet.. how proud you were that I was going to college and already had a good full time job... I'll always remember and love you.