Well, it’s official! I just completed my last day of work as an employee of the Florida Department of Corrections. It was a very emotional day and I can’t even express how much I’m going to miss my co-workers. These people have been my family for the past 3 years, and words can’t even convey how much of a great experience I’ve had working with them. I didn’t get to say goodbye to everybody the way I wanted to, but I left a note on my white board in my office that I hope most people will get to see.

I was really touched by how many people said they enjoyed me being there for the past few years. I know I talked to some people more than I talked to others, but everybody has had an affect on me. I’ll carry the skills I’ve learned in this job onto my others and I hope that I can always live up to the expectations they have of me. Everybody there believes that I’m doing the right thing and are behind me 100%. It really means a lot and I tried to make sure they knew that before I left.

As of right now, I’m unemployed and ready to roll to my new home in West Virginia. Most importantly, I finally am closing the distance gap between Steph and I. I’ve been writing about this for years, and I can’t believe it’s finally happenning. I’m getting all teary eyed just typing up this blog post. I’ve spent the last five years of my life missing her and wishing I could be with her. For it to finally happen just feels like a dream come true. My heart just swells up thinking about it.

This next chapter of my life is going to be very exciting, and I can’t wait to start it up. I am going to miss everyone here SO much though, and I really started to feel that today as I left work for the last time. Everyone in Tallahassee has had such a great impact on my life and the way I look at things. I’ve met some of the greatest people I’ve ever known and I pray that I don’t lose touch with them. In this age of the internet, there really isn’t much of an excuse for it!

On Friday, I will be making the epic journey north to where my future lies. That future is with Stephanie, the way it should be. I’ll let you know what happens!

Man, it has been way too long since I’ve written. I think I’m going to just go ahead and start every post like that. I might as well make it official since that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing ever time I’ve written for the past few months. It’s not that I don’t have the time to do it, it’s just that I really don’t know what to say. But I think I have a handful of things I can actually talk about this time around.

Here’s the BIG one: I’ve been heavily thinking about moving back to West Virginia. It’s not an easy decision to come to, especially since I don’t have a job up there yet, but it’s something that I think I have to do. Stephanie and I have lived apart from each other for 5 years now, and that’s just too long for somebody to have to do this. I want to be able to stop missing her all the time, and for us both to be able to share in the simple things that we’ve missed out on. I can’t even call her up and see if she wants to go grocery shopping with me. She’s 900 miles away!

This hasn’t been an easy decision to come to at all. I don’t want to leave all of my friends or my very stable job, but sometimes hard decisions have to be made. I’ve prayed and prayed and prayed about this, and I feel a peace about it. I couldn’t explain it to anybody, because what I want to do is completely illogical and any sane person wouldn’t do it. I’m leaving a very well paying job, the most awesome people I’ve ever met, and my parents, but I feel that this is what I need to do. Stephanie is all that is important in my life, and I don’t want to be away from her anymore. That’s understandable right?

I know I can get a job in Morgantown, but I can’t do that from here. So I will be moving up there and then seeking out a good IT job in hopes that I can support myself. And if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to support her too so we can finally get married. I’m honestly overwhelmed with happiness whenever I think about being close to her for more than a week. I’m pretty sure whenever this distance thing is finally over that I’ll just collapse into a heap of tears with her because we’ve gone through so much doing this. It’s going to take me weeks just to get used to it. I love her so much.

There is really so much I look forward to in moving up there. I can make Horseshoes & Hand Grenades a better show because me and Ash won’t have to use Skype anymore. The quality can improve, and we can start work on our book. It’s so hard to collaborate from so far away. I think this is going to turn both me and Stephanie’s worlds upside-down, but I think that’s what we need. We’re so used to not having to struggle for anything, but I think that going through this will make us better people and more prepared for the curveballs life can throw.

I don’t expect anybody who knows me to really feel what I do about this. It’s something that I can’t explain, and something that nobody who isn’t in the situation can ever feel. It’s just love. It’s an unexplainable thing that you can never understand until you actually have it yourself. Steph and I are a team, back to back against everything that comes at us. We look at the world with the idea that in the end, the only person we’ll have to lean on is each other. She’s all I’ll ever need to be happy, regardless of whatever situation we’re in.

Anyway, that’s just an update on what’s been going on in my mind lately. I’ve been doing most of my blogging on Twitter which is half the reason I haven’t posted many long things on this blog. Maybe I’ll get better at it. Once I get rolling on my moving plan I’ll post a little bit to let you guys know how it’s all going. Wish me luck!!

I have had probably the most uneventful Memorial Day weekend of my entire life, but at the same time a few really cool things did happen. Most of the weekend was super boring though and I really should have gone to WV to visit Stephanie. She was in Virginia on vacation for a couple days of it though, so it really just would have been a lot of driving and a little visit. It still would have been nice though, and I wouldn’t have spent my three day weekend moping around.

I did do a couple fun things however and those more than make up for the boring times. I got a killer deal on a brand new LG 42″ LCD HDTV. It’s incredible! I didn’t know what I was missing when it came to HD programming and all that jazz. The TV was $999 at Circuit City and the financing plan has no interest until 2011. I can pretty much take my time paying this thing off, though knowing me I’ll have it paid off in a few months just so I don’t have that hanging over my head. The TV does 1080p, which is awesome and Circuit City even gave me three free Blu-ray movies…the only bad part about that is that I don’t get to watch them because I don’t have a Blu-ray player! PS3 here I come….though I am very sad to say it. I was an HD-DVD fan all the way.

I also got to go see Indiana Jones IV for the second time this weekend and it was even better! I didn’t write an initial review of the movie which would have been slightly less exciting as my second review. I guess it just takes seeing it a couple of times to totally enjoy it. The thing that shocked me the most was the 1950’s era stuff. I liked it for the most part, I just wasn’t expecting the sci-fi spin on everything. Apparently George Lucas thought that this movie should feel like the sci-fi B movies of the 50’s. It did that, but it did it with a very Indiana Jones flair. I liked the movie the first time I saw it, but I LOVED it the second time around.

Well, I don’t have much else to say. I know that I need to start writing in this thing more, because I really do enjoy it. I guess it’s the motivation to write that gets me the most. Once I start writing I really enjoy it and find lots of things to say. But I’ll cut it off here and let you guys get back to your lives. Take it easy!

I am going to go into complete “Geek-Out” mode for this post and I apologize ahead of time for any kind of psycho rambling that i may go into. I’m giong to make this the most spoiler-free that I can, but be warned that I can wander into gray areas.

Iron Man is the best superhero ever made…period! I am willing to lay this statement down onto the interweb so you can hold me to it after Batman comes out. Okay, well I guess Iron Man is the best superhero movie up to this point. It had everything that I expected and so much more! It was accurate, the acting was superb, the action was perfect, the story held together, and…did I mention how accurate it was?? Thank God that Marvel is in control of their movies now, because this was better than I ever imagined.

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I find myself in a very inconvenient spot right now, and that is a spot without any internet whatsoever. I never really realize how much I lean on the internet until I don’t have it at all. To make matters worse, the TV is also not working at the moment. It is doing nothing to help me cope with the situation other than the peaceful fuzz that actually is can work pretty good as a sleep aid. At least for me, but I’m weird like that. Just in case you are wondering how on earth I am writing a blog post, the computer still works and I’m using it to document my internet-less moment.

It’s been down for a while now and I was sitting around trying to find something else to do but I just can’t seem to find anything. It’s not there aren’t things to do, I just don’t feel like doing any of the things that I could be doing. I really need to clean up my desk, or clean my bathroom, or clean … well, everything in general. I did manage to go get the mail and enjoy a few minutes of sunshine. Man, I just can’t get enough of that stuff.

The mailbox was especially kind today and greeted me with a few Netflix movies, one of them being Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds live! I’m actually watching it right now and it’s freakin’ awesome! The guy is a magician on the guitar. I wish I could learn to play as good as he can, but I just think some people are born with more talent than others. I really wish that I could sing…at all. It’s fun playing guitar, but some things just can’t be expressed with only musical notes. I feel like 10 people reading this just went, “Whoa! Yes they can!” Well, maybe your right, but you can’t really get specific without some good words to accentuate the feeling of your music.

Speaking of music, I started playing guitar since the internet went down and am really enjoying myself. I’ve been trying to master two songs right now and am getting somewhere. I’ve got them down on guitar but I’m entertaining myself by trying to sing them decently too so I can enjoy playing them when I’m alone. In case you are curious, the songs are “Walk Through Hell” by Say Anything, and “The Freshmen” by The Verve Pipe. I know that “The Freshmen” is an old song, but some songs are just classic and deserve to be learned. It’s got a really sweet little acoustic riff in it and I love it.

I guess I’ll let you guys go now and I’ll continue to enjoy my Dave Matthews DVD. Not that I was holding you here or anything, because I’m pretty sure I can’t do that. Unless, of course, I’ve captivated you so much with my brilliant words that you can’t seem to pull yourself away from the computer screen. In that case, I release you! Later!

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything of any kind in this blog and for that, I apologize. I’m starting to realize that I may not be that “all the time” writer that a lot of people can be. I really wish I could dedicate a lot of time to this little blog and make it the best blog it can be but I just can’t seem to make myself sit down and write in it very often. It’s not that I lack a lot of things to say, it’s just that I don’t know how to express them. The sad thing is that I sit down and start typing, and everything I ever could possibly want to say starts flowing onto the page. Maybe I need a schedule?

I’m the kind of person that can’t commit to anything unless I have it written down. I’m notorious for planning out stuff and then completely forgetting about it. I have done that multiple times in just the course of this week. I get calls from people, promise to call them back, and the completely forget about it until a totally inopportune moment, and then I can’t call. It’s ridiculous! To all those people who may be reading this and have fallen victim to my sad ability of calling people back, I apologize. I would say that I will try to do better, but I know good and well that I probably won’t. That sucks.

In other news, I just got done reading the shooting script of “Juno” and I think I may have to pick up more screenplays from my favorite movies. Once you read a movie, you realize how much work and effort went into bring the paper to life. I can’t imagine writing an entire movie and then seeing my characters brought to life by people I’ve always admired, or people who just genuinely do the character justice. I admire every single screenwriter out there for taking the time to dream up some of these works and then get them pushed through Hollywood’s gauntlet and into a theatre near us. I’ve written one movie before, and it was just a 15 minute horror film that was, in all reality, pathetic. I’m proud of it anyway though, because it is something that I took upon myself and actually finished.

Here’s to finishing things we start. Something I may someday be good at…or maybe not.

I’ve got the writing bug again, although I have to admit that it’s not exactly for this blog. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing in it. I just have a bug to write another screenplay. I blogged about writing a movie a long time ago and that didn’t turn out too bad at all. I know it wasn’t “incredible” but it was a scary movie that I made with my friends. I loved writing it, making it, and watching it. I really just wish I had a done a few things different, but for the most part, it was awesome!

Anyway, I’ve got this awesome screen writing software that makes me want to write something. I’ve got an idea for a 1940’s noir film, but I don’t know where to start it. I guess I really don’t have much a plot at all, but I do have some characters. My buddy Lando wrote a detective story a while back that was awesome and it had some really cool three dimensional characters in it. He has a real talent for making characters come to life and really become people you care about. He should write another cool story that I can adapt.

I thought I would just ramble for a minute because I haven’t written anything in a while. I’ll let you guys know if I actually write anything…though you know me pretty well by now and have discovered that I have a lot ideas but hardly ever act on them for very long. I need to get better at that. Later!

This week has been particularly devastating for geeks everywhere. Gary Gygax, creator of the tabletop role-playing adventure game Dungeons and Dragons, has died. I didn’t know much about the guy, other than he created Dungeons and Dragons, but a lot of people who have met him said that he was a really super cool guy. I imagine that he would have to be, seeing as he created one of the coolest games on the planet. Dungeons and Dragons has been entertaining kids and adults alike for years by forcing us into our imaginations where no other game could stand. It’s a game that has no set pattern, no board that forces you to only go one direction, and it has the craziest dice you’ve ever seen. It puts you face to face with terrible monsters, damsels in distress, and lets you step outside your dorky little shell and become a hero for at least a little bit…unless the DM decides to crush your hopes and dreams by dropping a Beholder on you at level 4, but that’s neither here nor there.

I urge all DnD fans who roll their dice on Saturday’s in the musty basement of their parents house to raise your goblets in tribute of the guy who gave you a reason to get together and drown yourself with Mountain Dew and contribute to the obesity epidemic by eating bagel bites and pizza rolls by the sackful. The very person who gave us all of this has passed from this world and onto the next. I really want to play some DND all the sudden

Now onto some TERRIBLE news, that I want to refuse to believe. Patrick Swayze has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I don’t even know how to take this kind of news. Pancreatic cancer, in most cases, is pretty much a death sentence for all who get it. I can only hope that the Swayz winds up having the Jobs-ian cancer that is curable and he goes on to do some awesome movies. I’ve liked this guy since watching Ghost years ago. That and “Tall Tale” which was a cool Disney movie about Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan, and John Henry. That was a really cool movie when I was little. Patrick Swayze is awesome and my thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family. We need a miracle for this one

Yesterday I finally finished going through all the home movies that I have, and I actually found a few things that I had forgotten that I recorded. Apparently I recorded all of the 2004 Jr/Sr and I forgot all about it! There was so much footage of my friends and how much fun we had that night. I hung out with my good buddy Ryan Belcher so much, and I had even bought him a shirt and wrote “I am a hot mama” on it because he was always saying that. I forgot how much fun we had that night and it was nice to see all of my friends on it and relive those moments for a bit.

I also found the movie that I was talking about making a few years back called “The Shed.” I found all the uncut footage as well as the near-complete version! I was so excited when I saw it, because I didn’t think that I had actually finished cutting it together. It’s missing some music and I really should have added some scenes that I didn’t put in the final cut, and I’ve actually thought about going back and fixing it. Most of the beginning is all done, but the ended looks like it was chopped together in a hurry. It was really an awesome movie and we had a good time making it. I should really go back and throw the whole thing together so everybody can have it. I wonder what music I would throw in….hmmmmm.

I also decided that I wanted to try using the Dvorak Keyboard Layout. It’s a really unusual layout but some people swear that you can type faster on it than you ever could using QWERTY keyboards. I’m kind of interested so I may very well train myself to use it and see if it actually makes a difference in my typing speed. I’m a super fast typist so I somehow don’t think I’ll see that much of a difference, but I’ll have to try it for a year or two before I decide. The hardest part is making yourself learn something new without switching back to the tride and true version of the keyboard that you’ve always used. I’m trying to make myself use it and in time I might actually get pretty fast at it. It’s going to take a long while though. I remember it took me forever just to start typing on a normal keyboard faster that 50 wpm.

The Dvorak keyboard layout was developed once computers came along because there really is no reason for QWERTY to still be the standard. The reason we have the QWERTY keyboard is because when typewriters were first developed, the layout of these keys were designed so that the hammers of the typewriter wouldn’t jam up all the time. The letters that are most often used together are spaced farther apart, therefore actually make the layout more inefficient. Dvorak tries to correct that by laying out the keys so that you can reach the most important keys without having to do much work. For example, the vowels can all be typed with one hand. Just take a look at the picture I’ve included with this post and you can see.

That’s another update to the wild and wonderful life of Stephen Adams. I hope you guys still enjoy this blog after so long, and once again I’ll just say that I’ll try to blog more. Thanks for still reading it!

I finally rode horses again the other day after years of not riding. I actually forgot how much fun it would be, and I thought that I should just go out there and do it. My dad has two great horses that he keeps in our pasture, and I thought it was really just silly of me to have them this close by and not go out and ride them every once in a while. I actually really enjoyed it and hope to do it again sometime soon. There’s just something about riding a horse that makes you feel good, and it had been so long since I’d done it that I’d forgotten that feeling.

We just rode to the end of the road my parents live on and back, but considering how sore one’s butt can get after a while, that distance was perfect for me. I rode Buttons, which is the brown and white one we have, and he was the smoothest riding horse I’ve been on. He would get to this point where I couldn’t even tell I was riding a horse! And we were going at a pretty good speed, or at least it felt like it. I had a good time and posted a couple of the pictures on my Flickr account along with a few from a month ago when me and Patrick were jamming.

Anyway, I just though I would share the joys of horse riding with you guys! Until next time!