Charity, Friends and Drunk Texts

Today my bestie Chris was participating in a Minecraft charity event. It actually started on Friday was was going 24 hours and my buddy Chris was on almost all 24 hours with a few hours of sleep in between. Anyways they were doing these Minecraft Hunger Games and Chris was a tribute in one of  the games. Even with my crappy internet I watched the live feed off and on for about 12 hours. I did watch Chris' Hunger Game and even made a donation/sponsor and got Chris a diamond sword which he is contributing to his win. It was pretty epic watching him take out the last tribute and become the sole tribute left standing. They raised over $1300 for a children's charity. I think it was quite successful.

Later in the day my friend Jen came over. She is going to be an extra tomorrow for a shoot that is happening at my house so she decided to come early so we could visit. Jen is one of my best girlfriends and we always have a blast when we visit. She and I can have some very "interesting" conversations. :) Tonight was extra special because our friend, well one of my best buds Robert was home enjoying some wine and texting both of us.... well drunk texting us. He entertained us for a few hours. We kept handing each other our phone to see if we could decipher his texts... loads of fun. This is why I don't keep my phone on me when I drink, you always regret those texts the next morning. :)

It was a fun night, we had pizza and watched some TV and enjoyed each other's company.

A New Podcast

Crashed at Josh's place at 3am, we slept until around 8am and then kind of dozed and chatted until about 10:30am when I finally got up and made my way home. Got home around noon and watched a bit a TV.

There was one picture from our "Geek Mod" photo shoot that I just loved, I mean I loved them all but this was my favorite so yesterday I went to Walmart and had them blow it up to 16x20. Today when I got home I had it framed and hung it above my fireplace.. it looks AWESOME!!!

My buddy Chris was participating in a charity Minecraft Hunger Game event. I watched that for a bit but had to get ready for dinner with my friends Teal and Ali.

Teal has a new webseries coming out soon called 'My Gimpy Life', I saw the pilot a year or so ago and it's finally going into production. When I heard she was going into production I offered my services and of course since I'm a podcaster and Companioncasts were very popular with The Guild websereis I suggested that we do companioncasts for My Gimpy Life and she liked the idea. So today besides dinner we discussed plans for the podcast. We also recorded a promo and a pre-show podcast that talks about the series and creator Teal. It's something to post to get folks excited for the upcoming series. I'm not sure when it will be released.. probably a few weeks before the actual show is released.. so stay tuned for that. The podcast is called My Gimpy Life Podcast (I know very original :))

After hanging out with those guys I came home and jumped back online to watch Chris and the Minecraft charity event.

Visiting Friends & Family

Today I got to go visit my dad, brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece. It's been about three weeks since I saw them last and my brother just purchased a new house. So I picked up my Dad and we went over to the new place. It's still in escrow so it's not a done deal but it's looking good. The place is huge and had plenty of room for my brothers family. After checking out the house I took Dad out to lunch at my favorite Chinese place Hong Kong. Then we went back to my brothers and I got to spend some time playing with my nephew Kenobi. Molly, my niece is only 4 months.. I did hold her but that's the extent of my playing with her.

Said goodbye to those guys around 6ish and headed north to my hook up with one of my best buds Josh. He had just recently broken up with his girlfriend of 4 1/2 years so I wanted to spend some time with he and see how he was doing. We went out to dinner to Soup Plantation and yes I had a bit of salad (if you know me, you know I don't do veggies). After dinner we went back to his place and hung out in his bedroom just chatting the night away. Around 3am I asked if it was cool if I just crashed there and of course he said yes so we called it a night.

My Montana Trip (overview)

So I've been home a few days now and had time to reflect on my 16 day trip to Montana. Some have asked why I even took the trip to Montana in the first place. Well that's an easy answer, it was for my best bud Chris. Chris is in the Air Force and they relocated him from CA to MT. When it was official and he was leaving CA for at least 3 years I didn't hesitate and told him I would love to "road trip" up to Montana with him. I knew he was driving his uhaul up by himself and that it would take several days to get there. I didn't want him to do it alone and the fact that I was out of work and with no work on the horizon I figured it was a perfect time for me to join him.

Now I didn't know it would turn into 16 days, when I first suggested that I go up with him I figured it would be for a week. We planned to take four days to drive up and then a few days to find him an apartment. As it got closer to us leaving I found out that the military gives him ten days to settle in before he starts his new position. So now instead of staying for a week I figured I would stay until he started his new job and spend as much time as I could with him. Not only to help him get settled in, but because he's awesome and I won't be seeing him on a regular bases for 3 years.

I didn't really have any expectations for this trip. As I said previously I just wanted to spend as much time with Chris as possible. The actual road trip happened a bit faster then we initially planned. It was suppose to be a four day road trip but turned into a three day road trip, which meant we didn't stop alot for pictures (one of my favorite things to do on road trips). Chris drove the entire time, I think he was afraid of me driving the uhaul and trailer. We had some fun conversations and great singing sessions. The drives actually flew by and it felt like we were in Montana in no time.

He thought it would be hard finding a place that he'd like.. but in a matter of two days we had two places that were exactly what he was looking for. I think he choose the better of the two places and we moved everything in and still had nine days before he had to start work. We spent most of those nine days watching movies that I had never seen (I must have watched over 20 movies that Chris wanted me to see) He also introduced me to video games like Assassin Creeds, inFamous, Borderlands, Fables, Legend of Zelda and Mario Bros. I'm not a big gamer so this was alot of fun and very frustrating at times.

For being with someone for 24/7 16 days in a row we got along fantastic. Chris and I have a unique relationship. He's very laid back and I'm a bit high strung. We're both nice guys and both very stubborn. He likes to poke fun at me and at times I would poke back (not as much as he would have liked). There may have been a few times we got on each others nerves but it never lasted long. If Chris was a gay man he would be a perfect partner for me, or if we lived together he'd be a great roommate. I had a fantastic 16 days in Montana and like I have mentioned in previous blogs it was very difficult to leave.

It's true what they say. "Friends are those you want to do things with, Best Friends are those you want to do nothing with."  Chris and I did lots of nothing and it was AWESOME!!!

Getting Back to "Normal"

Woke up kind of late but I guess since I went to bed so late it all worked out. First thing I did was throw away all the "spoiled" food from my pantry/refrigerator. I went through my stack of mail and then jumped on my computer only to find out that my second monitor is not working. So now my computer has a virus that I can't get rid of that prevents me from opening anything google (blog, gmail) and now my monitor is out. Going to have to rebuild my computer and buy a second monitor asap. Luckily for me I have my older computer (that has issues as well) but it will work as a temp computer until I get everything back up and running.

Today was just about adjusting back to my "normal" life. Staying in Montana for a half a month really does a number on you. You get into a routine seeing the same person and doing the same thing day in and day out and loving it. Now that I'm back I have so much stuff to do. I took a 2 weeks vacation from my life but it's not time to get back to it.

The most important thing is to find a job. I've been out of work since Oct of 2011, so it's going on 8 months. That's the longest I've ever been out of work and my bank account is feeling it. Luckily for me I got a decent tax return (which is what I'm living on now) since my savings is all used up. I'm still collecting unemployment (ever little bit helps) but I only have money left for another month or so. So finding a job is my number one priority.

But in the mean time while I'm looking for work I need to work on my podcasts. I kind of lost my "fire" for podcasting the past few months. Not sure why.. lots going on, but I need to step it up and get back on track with this hobby that I love. I need to record some MASH and Alien Nation podcasts before the end of the month and edit my next Confessions of a Fanboy. I have my fifth podcast Epic Geek Out gearing up for it's premiere... which I hope will be in May. As for my Knights of the Guild, it's currently on hiatus but I can't keep it there forever. I need to really figure out what I want to do with this podcast going forward.

I have some yard and house work to do. Weeds are starting to take over my 2 1/2 acres. And then there is dating. It's going on a year and four months since Harry and I broke up and I really would like to find the love of my life and spend what time I have left here with them. I guess I need to be a bit more pro-active as he's not going to show up at my front door.

So as you can see lots going on in my life. It's time to get things back on track and moving forward.

Got some movie marathons planned, Disneyland trips and spending some quality time with my friends and family... life is pretty great.

Adventures in Montana - Day 16 (Final Day)

Today I got up for my final day here in Montana. Chris made some yummy omelets for our final breakfast. We started off the day with another movie that I had not seen... Taken. This is the Liam Neeson movie and I remember when it came out in theaters but I wasn't really interested in seeing it. Well I'm glad Chris put this on the list. It was a very entertaining and action packed movie... loads of fun. I really enjoyed it.

After that we watched my final movie in my (first time viewing movie marathon). He's Just Not That Into You. This has a slew of big named stars and it was a nice ending to my marathon. I love romantic comedies and what was even better is the main character (or seemed to be the main character) was Gennifer Goodwin who plays Snow White on my favorite TV show Once Upon A Time. So it was great to see her and she is so adorable. A very sweet movie.

After the movie Chris and I had a light lunch and then jumped on Minecraft. We played a few hours but for my final hour I just wanted to sit on the couch and hang with Chris, which is exactly what we did.

The time had finally come. My time here in Montana had come to an end. It was time to go home and get back to my life. I figured I'd be more emotional about leaving but I only teared up a bit on the drive to the airport but when we got to the airport and Chris got out of the car and came over to me and gave me one final hug I lost it and sobbed into his shoulder.

We said our final see you laters and I headed into the airport. This was Great Falls International Airport so I expected it to be fairly big but it wasn't. There were actually just six gates at this airport. I did the self check in but then had to wait in line for about 45 minutes until I could check in my bag. After that I went upstairs to the gate but security was closed so I waited another 30 minutes for security to open before getting to my gate. The wait time after security was less then five minutes. I got on the plane and was surprised on how small it was. It held about 50 people total. And for this flight from Great Falls to Salt Lake City Utah there were 11 of us on this plane.

The plane flight was uneventful, we landed in Salt Lake City an hour and 15 minutes later. I made my way to my connection flight which wasn't difficult at all. Delta had people all over the place directing folks to their connection flight. I made it to the gate and had a 45 minute layover.

Once again I was on the same small plane that held 50 but this time the plane was packed. This flight went from Salt Lake City Utah to Burbank California. Once again it was an uneventful flight. I watched some Star Trek TNG to occupy my time. This flight was a bit longer then the last, about an hour and 25 minutes.

I got to Burbank (first time flying into that airport, so much better then LAX). I waited about 15 minutes for my bad and then made my way outside to meet up with my buddy Will, who was kind enough to pick me up from the airport.

It was about 9:30pm so we went to a local Denny's to grab a late dinner before heading back to my place. It was good to be home.. the air in the house was a bit stale from being closed up for over two weeks. Will and I hung out and chatted for another few hours. He wound up staying the night and I think we went to bed somewhere close to 2am...

It was great because I needed a friend and couldn't ask for a better one. I was extremely sad about leaving Chris in Montana, not only because I won't see him on a regular bases but I know how unhappy he is living there now... it's hard for me to see my friends sad, but luckily it won't be forever.

Now it's time to get some sleep and get back up to speed on my life here in California.

I plan to blog about my over all experience in Montana in the next few days.. so stay tuned for that.

Adventures in Montana - Day 15

Got up early and started to play Minecraft before Chris even got up. I died several times, lost all my stuff and was completely lost for about an hour until Chris got up and said that I signed in on the wrong server and was playing in another world. But I finally got on the right server and continued to put a few more hours of work into my castle.

We then watched The Pursuit of Happyness. Again this is a movie that I heard a ton about and wanted to see but never did. I really enjoyed it. It wasn't as sad as I was expecting it to be. I mean I didn't cry until the end and that was more out of joy for all the good things that finally happen for this guy. It's a great uplifting story based on real life events and people.

Next Chris wanted to show me a bit of Star Wars The Old Republic. Now being a huge Star Wars fan I would be playing this game if I had better internet access. Chris showed me around the world with a few of his characters. We watched the cinematic trailers for the game. Those are like mini movies unto themselves and are AWESOME.

Around 3 we finally went outside and it had been snowing, I had no idea. We drove to Chilli's for lunch and then went to the one theater in this town to see Joss Whedon's Cabin in the Woods. I'm not a huge horror fan but it was Joss and love everything this man has ever done. So I had to see this and I'm glad I did.. I mean it had several OMG moments that made you jump out of your skin, but I found it to be more of a mystery. Trying to figure out what's really going on. I loved the overall story. It was great seeing some of the Whedonites (former cast members from Joss' shows). The SFX were really cool and of course the ending was great. Over all I'd say this movie is FUN and I'd give it a B+

After the movie we came home and played Minecraft the rest of the night before heading off to bed.

Today was my last full day here in Montana. Tomorrow I head home... sadness

MASH 4077 Podcast Episode 30

Download from itunes http://tinyurl.com/MASH4077itunes or Direct Download / listen http://bit.ly/eXCRxT

Show Notes

Kenny Mittleider from Knights of the Guild, Alien Nation: The Newcomers Podcast & Confessions of a Fanboy Podcast, Simon Meddings from Waffle On Podcast, & Al Kessel from Tales from the Mouse House, Fast Forward & Just Because Podcast discuss one of the most successful and longest running television series in history.. M*A*S*H

Today we cover Season 2, Episode #6 - Kim
30th Episode Overall

Directed by William Wiard
Written by Marc Mandel, Larry Gelbart, Laurence Marks
Production code K407

Original air date October 20, 1973

Set during the Korean War in the 1950’s

Plot Summary: Hawkeye operates on a 5-year old Korean boy, and Radar can't find his family. Henry plans to send him to the orphanage, and the camp enjoys his company while they can. Trapper decides to adopt him after consulting his wife, and has to rescue him after he wanders into the minefield. Kim's mother turns up at the orphanage looking for him.

Hope you enjoy it,
Kenny