So, here’s the story of what I’ve been going through with my truck.  I don’t consider this a closed issue until it’s back in my possession safe and sound.

Friday night my truck was making a weird whistling noise as I headed out to Philly to spend the weekend with Kallie and bring back her large items.  I had thought that I shouldn’t risk driving it with the noise, but plans were already set, so I went for it.  I get to the West Chester / Downington exit a little after midnight, and I had to stop because the noise had grown into the worst grumbling/grinding noise, and I knew something was about to break severely.  I called AAA, and they sent someone out named Josh.  The last time I got AAA the dude’s name was Josh.  within a few seconds of him hooking up the truck, it started to rain and Kallie showed up to pick me up.  So it all went pretty smoothly there, which kept me pretty calm.  Josh had asked me where I wanted it towed to, I had no clue, so he suggested a sunoco dealership down the road, so I said sure.  I had a little cringe at the idea of vulture like mechanics waiting at the Sunoco for they’re latest meal from the turnpike.

So I call the place first thing in the morning.  They don’t normally work Saturdays, contrary to what Josh had said.  They did have a guy in though, and he said he’d take it for a spin to see what was wrong with it.  He said he couldn’t find the keys though.  I told him they might be in the gas tank.  He said he’d check there and get back to me.  By noon I’m wondering if he found the keys or if he had been able to look at it, because I’d like to get it to somewhere else if they couldn’t.  I called them, he said he found the keys in the gas tank and they’d take it for a spin in a bit.  Around 2 they call me, tell me it’s the rear end/differential that needs replaced.  I asked for just a ball park on what he thought it would cost, and he said that he’d have to get back to me Monday because he’ll have someone look at it to see what the options with it were as far as getting a new one, rebuilding the current one, or what else he could find. 

Alright, so I told my boss Saturday I’d be out of the office Monday, but I’d keep him in the loop.  Monday morning comes around, Sunoco says that it’ll be $800 for the part and $400-$500 for the labor, and could take a couple days.  That was a blow.  I said go for it though.  I also called my mechanic back home and asked them what they thought, and they said $800 sounded reasonable.

Also Monday, Kallie’s car needed to get inspection and emission done.  So i took it to this guy down the street from her.  It wouldn’t pass because her left tailout is busted and the check engine light was on.  I authorized him to do a diagnoses on the engine, and he told me that if I drove over to Jersey, I could get a tail light for $60 instead of him having to get it from the dealer for $120.  The check engine light was on because the front catalytic converter is going bad, but he had some sort of tool he could run to find out just how bad it was.  I drove it over night and Tuesday he cleared me there as soon as I could get the tail light from New Jersey.  Wasn’t too much hassle, and I just worked from Kallie’s place.

Tuesday morning though, Sunoco called me to say they ordered the wrong part and the right part was going to be $1200.  I said no way, my mechanic says $800 is good.  He says he called all over the place and that’s all he could find.  I said I wanted to call around and see what I could find on my own.  He started trying to convince me just to go with the $1200.  Josh no likey.  I called Serah’s father in law who lives out there to see if he knew of a good mechanic.  He got me in touch with someone who did some research for me and said that $900-$1200 would be a range they could find a rear for my truck.  I found something online for $950 +$150 shipping.  Then I called Lacey’s back home to see if they could help me find a part and maybe i’ll get someone to drive it out to me.

  By this time, 10:00 am, I had to call off work to deal with this.  Lacey’s calls me back and actually found a place in North Philly that had what I need for $850.  Only snag is that it has to be a garage that buys it.  So i call the Sunoco and the guy is not happy with me, almost like he’s offended I’m telling him how to do his job.  He said I can go buy a part on my own and bring it in, but if it doesn’t work I would have to take it back and get the right part.  He was not willing to talk to the place to make sure it was the right part to avoid that situation.  It was basically $1200 or nothing in his mind.  I call AAA to see if i can get it towed somewhere else for free, and I can if I can produce 2 things:  1) proof that I don’t owe the mechanic money (I don’t think I do…) 2) They can’t fix my truck.  (Hmm….well, they can’t get the part they quoted me and they can’t get the $850 part I need).  So I call the Sunoco back around 4PM to see if they’d agree to helping me out there since this was getting so difficult, and the guy that I had been talking to all day leaves at 2pm.  I asked if there was someone else I could talk to and he said no, and basically hung up on me.  So much for trying to resolve this amicably.

So I go back to Chuck’s, where Kallie’s car was, to get her car squared away, and I ask him if he’d want to work on my truck since he’s basically awesome.  He said yep.  He gave me his buddy’s towing service number.  A quick call there and $110 later, bam, my truck is at Chuck’s place by nightfall.  I have no idea how that is legal, since I never provided proof of identity, pretty sure no one was at Sunoco to sign off, but whatever.  Now my truck is at Chuck’s so Kallie can walk to pick it up instead of having to find a friend to drive her to West Chester.

Talked to Chuck this morning, got him in touch with the place with the part, and I think he’s got it all under control.  I’ll check back in with him later today, but so far so good…Sunoco called…I kinda don’t want to return their call…thoughts?

you know, I should really make an effort to make personal updates what I have something to say instead of these dull posts that just fade into archives and the history of me never to be read again, as if they were a polaroid photo where everyone has red eye…

anyway.  Drove out to delaware this past saturday with mumsy to check out serah’s new house.  It’s actually pretty cute.  I like it.  small 1 floor house, but the basement is huge and unfinished, so they can easily double their living space and equity.  good stuff.  Kallie met us there then we headed down to DC together to hang out with friends.  Then up to Philly for some more friends and socializing.  basically the weekend was a lot of driving and a lot of people.

So…Kallie’s moving to pittsburgh…not entirely sure when, but it’s going to be great.  Gotta help her find a place, since we both think it’s probably not wise for her to move in.  Well…she needs to a find a job too…that would be helpful.  Thinks are in the works though.  Things go well on that front though.  I’m excited.

Training continues for the urbanathlon on sept 27th in new york.  I’m actually going to NY next week for work on the 9th, 10th, and 11th (great day to fly out of NY, right?)  and I plan to do a trail run of the course.  I’ll see if i can get into WTC 7, since it’s right across the office.  I hope they at least let me look at the stairwell to see what I’m up against.  crazy stuff.

Really, I have to give it up to my body for the past month or so.  It’s been through a lot, especially in the past week!  I have poison all over my legs, probably have some sort of sinus infection following a cold a week ago, and I’ve added a weight routine inbetween days of my ~4 mile runs.  It’s been in a constant state of healing for a while now, and it’s doing a great job.  Even been getting more sun than normal from soccer and the runs.  Good job, body, keep up the good work.  There’s still a rough road ahead of us to get where we need to be for the urbanathlon, or california beach appearance…but each day gets us a little closer.

As for the rest of me, doing pretty well.  I missed a week of work from the tooth surgery, then a short holiday week from the 4th of july, then another week off for staycation.  I was going to go to yankanuck with Deirdre, mom & chris, and even mike, serah, and Josie, but I decided to sit it out and save money for when i will really need it.  All i would do at yankanuck would be play music and read.  I got a lot done though, and things actually worked out very well for me by staying back.  More on that in the future.

Got a lot coming up too.  Josh Hall Project plays at the Cornerstone Kickoff on august 24th, and unlike instruments where you just have to learn the song and you’re good, vocals need to be in shape to sing.  So that needs to start NOW.  Need to take a trip up to see grandma.  I’ve also decided to sell all 4 of my lollapalooza tickets, with a minor loss, so that I can fly to California for that week.  Details to come, but I’m excited for what might be a new chapter…or even expansion pack, to my life.  I try to keep my head on my shoulders and heart in place for the time being, but I’m praying for open eyes to see what God wants to reveal to me.

Yay, I’m secure enough in my adulthood to tell this little gem.  Maybe a testament to my social awkwards, maybe a propellant of my social awkwardness…who’s to say, either way, what a childhood.  So I was in scouts as a kid, and really had a great time all along.  If I remember correctly, I skipped the smallest ranking of cub, but had 2 years of wolf, 2 years of bear, and I think there is a 3rd rank in there before webelo scout...had to google it, bobcat.  Webelo is where all the cool stuff happens, in my opinion, but as you can see, i was pretty well invested in the program with around 7 or 8 years involved.  Towards the end, I started getting less and less involved, perhaps a little disinterest on my part, perhaps some parental differences, perhaps going to a private school instead of the public school that all the other kids went to, but probably a mix of all of the above.  I think there was a time where I had missed like 3 months of activity and one day my dad just said, "You’re going." when I wanted out because I didn’t know anyone anymore.  Anyway, it was a night where there was some structured lecture thing going on, maybe about 50 kids in the room sitting in a grid of fold out wooden chairs.  I don’t remember how old I am, I think 5th grade, but certainly old enough to know when I need to go to the bathroom, and I did know I had to…just not sure of what protocol was necessary to go.  Welcome to my oppressed childhood.  The scout master is up there rambling on and on, and I’m stuck worried about getting in trouble for interrupting if I just got up and went to the bathroom without someone’s permission.  I tried my hardest to wait.  I knew it couldn’t be long until the end of the meeting.  I don’t know anyone here anymore.  I really don’t want to be here.  Then I just let it flow.

  I remember now that I was wearing brand new white sneakers too.  I just sat there waiting for the meeting to end…not that I new what to do once it ended…but yeah…I was deer in the headlights mentally.  Then the others caught on.  "Dude, you’re leaking" someone said.  I played confused and tried to blame it on a leak in the ceiling…haha, wow.  "I know, this crazy leak in the ceiling is falling right onto my crotch and I just don’t know what to do about it since I am chained to this chair and the chair is nailed to the floor" seemed like a good explanation at the time at least.  The scout master said the final words, something that would start everyone to get up and do some kind of pledging, and I bolted in the crowd of movement.  I ran outside, with no destination in mind, I was thinking about hiding in a bush until I saw my mom, but thank God she had already parked the van in the parking lot and was cleaning it out.  Mom to the rescue…again.  I remember balling my eyes out trying to explain what the crap I just did.  I can’t even imagine what was going through her head.  She helped me come up with a plan to sneak into the house so that Serah and J’aime wouldn’t see.  I think they did though.  That, or my mom told them later.  I know my dad told them later.

You’d think that’d be it though, right?  Nah, dad says I’m not allowed to quit.  Time to go to a weekend camping trip with the troop.  I was not friends with the kids before because I just didn’t know them, but now they’re not friends with me because I’m the kid who peed his pants.  They stuck me in a tent with one of the older kids, probably so I didn’t get beat up.  I don’t remember much of that weekend, really it seemed like it went pretty well in retrospect.  We camped at a small airport and I got to fly in a plane for the first time.  There was a helicopter there too, and I really liked helicopters.  The worst part about it though was spaghetti was on the menu for the whole weekend…and I didn’t eat spaghetti.  It was ham barbecue for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Since that weekend, I’ve never been able to eat a ham barbecue sandwich without emotionally cringing.  It has become the embodiment of one of the worst childhood experiences I can remember.

Through my childhood, throw my teenage years, through my adulthood, and hopefully continuing through my life, I’ve had the privilege of having some amazing women play a part in my life.  I won’t rank them, because they all are very important to me, each for their own reason.

• Mrs. Sofran – My kindergarten teacher.  She knew me so well and she was so kind.  I was so fond of her, and I still remember her unique nasal voice.
• Mrs. Sepesy – I don’t know her official title, but she was involved with the academic team and "that group" of kids in high school.  She’s probably the most insightful and wise person I’ve ever met.  Truth be told, I asked her if she married me but she said she would never remarry after her husband passed.  She lit up my life every day I got to talk to her with her personality, sarcasm, and sense of humor.  She really cared about us.
• Grandma Hall – I’ve told her before, I wish I have half of her strength and energy when I’m half her age.  She’s over 80, has had a heart attack and stroke, has had so much tragedy in her life, but she still lives alone and can take care of herself pretty well.  My Grandma is awesome.
• My mom – Of course.  How she raised so many kids is beyond me.  So much has gone on in her life, and she is so selfless.  That’s probably her best quality, besides being my mom.
• Harriet – My post office lady.  I miss her.  She retired last July.  Sometimes, I’d make an excuse just to go in and see her.  I’d send her my heart priority mail if she asked for it.  She was so genuine and sincere, and I felt connected over the 5 years or so of me going to see her.  When I went to Italy, I mailed her a post card from the Vatican.  When she retired, she gave me big envelopes to send books in because I’d always buy them from her.  She kept saying that it’d be so much cheaper just to buy a bunch at walmart and pack the books at home, but I always liked coming in with a book and she’d grab me an envelope without me having to ask.
• Cindy - My first psychiatrist/counselor.  I talked about her in a previous post, but she definitely played a part in my life and forming my mind to make decisions.
• All 4 of my sisters – J’aime, Serah, Keren, and Deirdre.  I try to play roles in their lives too, but I wonder if they know how big a part of my life they are.  They’re all so different, but we all are so close.  I recently heard that we’re an intimidating force when we’re together because we seek each other out and need to be together.  That’s all we’ve ever known and relied on in our lives.

on review of the list…3/10 were my teachers in one realm or another…you’d think I would have learned how to form a better sentence than the title of this post…

After my parents split, I got to have a day with my dad by myself.  Thursday nights.  I normally had a boy scout meeting then we’d go home and watch the simpsons.  Sometimes, we’d take a drive out past Malden crossroads and up a hill to the left past a church to a dead end road and watch route 43 being built.  We actually watched roads being built a lot together.  I remember taking Serah and Nathan to watch them build an on ramp from 43 to interstate 70.  I dunno if the smell of freshly poured concrete is my second favorite smell (behind the aroma of a tobacco pipe) because of the nostalgic quality or if it really is just something I like.  I always liked watching the bobcat dig out the basement of my dad’s house and the smell of the concrete mix the guys used to build the walls and floor.  But back to those Thursday nights…those were sacred.  I can’t think of any bad times on those nights.  I got to hang out with my dad and do something we both enjoyed.  He tried, I know he did.  Sometimes, we’d even go and play raquetball at the YMCA while serah and J’aime would run or play basketball.  I think that if our relationship would have kept going, we would have had some good father-son talks watching roads being built.  We never left that dead end road though.  How metaphoric…

As we reach the end of 2007, I’m going to cross that line into the cliche "here are the highlights of 2007 and here’s what I’d like to see in 2008" post.  Last year, I called it the year of "new things".  If I were to create a label for this year, I’d consider it a year of traveling.  I went to philly at least twice, crossed the atlantic for the first time to italy with my family and then to london for work, I went to vegas, I went to florida, took trips to cleveland to see rachel, took a trip or two to DC, stopped taking daily drives to work and started walking to work,  and i took a few other road trips as well.  I definitely enjoy traveling, and i definitely consider myself blessed to have the means, time, and friends that make it all possible.

So, I’m graduated with my bachelor degree in professional communicated and information systems from robert morris university…finally.  at least i finished before Keren.  Serah officially made me an uncle by giving birth on the 20th.  and I don’t really have too much to complain about at all.   But, I’ll share with you my new years resolutions and we’ll see how well I do with them.

• Call each sister at least once a month just to talk.
• put at least 100 CDs in the hands of strangers
• Pick up 1 new hobby. (haven’t decided yet…)
• READ ALL THE BOOKS I HAVE BUT HAVE NOT READ
• Compete in an urbanathon or some sort of race.

That’s all i got so far.  Should keep me busy.  I forget if the idea is to make goals specific so you know you reach them or not, or to keep them vague so that you don’t get frustrated and quit…oh well.  I’ll be off to DC this weekend to meet my niece, then back to ring in the new year.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Three years ago today, around 2pm, I watched the color from my dad’s face dissappear.  it was a Monday.  I held his left hand in my left hand.  I almost got sick at how he changed colors so fast and drastically.  J’aime, Serah, and Robbie were in the room too, but I’m not sure which ones were watching too.  A week before, almost to the hour, he found out he had a brain tumor.  He went into surgery that Friday, and never woke up afterward.

I’m going to recount the first night I went to see my dad, but only what I directly experience, and only what happened that night. 

.J’aime had called me from the hospital that Tuesday before and said that daddy wanted to talk to me.  I talked to him briefly and said that i’d come down to see him.  I didn’t right away.  It wasn’t until a day later when J’aime called me and said she needed me to come down right away that i actually went down.  I ran down to Mercy hospital since it was only a mile or so from my apartment.  Turns out, Robbie was trying to marry my dad, and that was a lot of emotion, at a very emotional time.

I got tried to get some alone time with my dad to talk about whether or not he wanted this.  The tumor had been causing him to forgot things and say things that didn’t make sense, and he just seemed out of it.  I said, "So, i hear something about you and robbie getting married, do you want that to happen?"  He immediately went from a dopey happy face to an embarrassed child’s face that knows he did something wrong.  He slumped down a little and looked away and said, "Oh.  I don’t know."  I only had a minute or so before some guy that knew daddy came in and sat down to interrupt us.  then Sarah Slavic came in too.  I didn’t get what time I wanted, but it was enough for me to know that it was out of the question to let talks of marriage continue.

Robbie had gathered all her relatives in the chapel downstairs.  They came with a ring and they were expecting a cermony.  I hadn’t talked to her family for quite a few years, but I always loved and missed them.  Robbie’s brother-in-law, Scott, was one of them that I felt I could really connect with because he just had a very easy going personality and was religious.  J’aime and I asked Scott if we could talk to him about what’s going to happen.  The 3 of us went into a room and talked very calmly about it.  J’aime and I said that there was no reason to rush this decision, they’ve had 7 years to get married and they never were able to comit to eachother then.  We said that he is not in any state of mind to make such a life changing decision, that not only affects him but everyone, ESPECIALLY if he died.  Scott said that we shouldn’t deny Robbie the chance to marry someone that she loved.  We failed to see eye to eye on the topic, which was shocking to J’aime and I because of how obvious the right choice seemed.

Robbie called for a Catholic priest she had been familiar with to marry them.  The priest wanted to meet with my dad before hand, as he always did, to make sure the two people want to unite.  As he did that, we called my dad’s best friend, Bruce, and let him know to come down.  I called my step-grand father, an attorney, and asked him what we’re allowed to do legally to stop this, or if we can’t what are we looking at in terms of the estate, life insurance, and anything else if my father dies and they are married.  It wasn’t pretty.  (but honestly, neither is what ended up happening anyway)

The priest came out and said that my father seemed very lucid but that my dad simply seemed like he didnt know if he wanted to marry Robbie, and on that ground, he wouldn’t marrry them.  Honestly, we all chuckled a bit at the relieve because the priest called my dad lucid.  As Robbie went to tell her family there would be no wedding, Serah and I went in with my dad.  This is where "Mr. Lucid" pointed to his IV and asked me if I knew what was in it.  I think i said something along the lines of, "the good stuff, I’m sure."  He said, and I’ll try to quote this as best as I can, "The mon valley express way.  they point it in there and it flows from here (points to bag) to here (points to forearm).  heh, i’m tearfully laughing here…wow dad, you really loved that express way.

A few minutes later, we were watching something on the TV and it hinted the mentioning of this dutch colony in the middle of the state somewhere.  For the life of me I can’t remember the name of it now.  But as he talked about it, I remembered going there as a kid in kindergarten.  I remember seeing their bread ovens.  I remember riding on the bus there.  I remember putting the wood bar that held pales of cow milk on either end on my shoulders.  A rush of these childhood memories came to me, that I don’t think i ever thought about until that moment.  It was quite overwhelming and refreshing, that these memories were coming to me, but not only that, but that my dad was reconnecting me to them.  how Ironic, the man that forced me to block out so much of my childhood was helping me remember some. 

When it came time to leave, everyone hugged daddy and told him that they loved him.  I wasn’t ready for that, because I expected him to come through that surgery fine, and I didn’t want him to think this was an open door to my life once he got better.  I waiting until last and just smiled at him and said, "hey, take care of yourself, I’ll see you this weekend when you get out." 

I updated the gallery software today, lots of cool new features to check out.  I also finally got around to uploading the pictures from italy and london and i also threw up the pictures from my recent jaunt to las vegas for my birthday.

2 more weeks of classes and I’m all gradiated!  gotta do some major work before that happens, but should be cool to finally be done with it.

I went up with jordan otto and tim mudrick to my uncle kenny’s studio and recorded come over and we’re going out with them playing bass and drums.  The tracks aren’t perfect, but there’s a heck of a lot of potential there.  I’m really excited about playing more with those guys.  They’re great people, friends, christians, minds, musicians, and company.  Can’t go wrong with that.  Hopefully we’ll play more together and play out.

one of deirdre’s cats got stuck in some western pennsylvanian hick’s trap and he lost his front left paw.  about $1000 to cut it off and save him, and deirdre was very willing to pay that to save his life.  the trade off now is that he’ll be moving in with me in the city.  I’m a little worried to have him living here in the city, because it’s a whole new world if he gets out on the streets.  But i guess he won’t be going far with 3 legs.  Really sad.  I’ll take pictures when he’s here.

not all that much else to report…serah’s about to burst out a pesce, rachel and i are at eachother’s ends in terms of our long distance relationship and that struggle, we got a nintendo wii, i have tons of beer left over from a party, work is slowly going along and no news of a permanent position, no news on j’aime’s kids, and that’s about it.  hmmm, wish there was something more insightful and deep to say, but i guess it’s just not there tonight…

wow.  I think i see a trend going on here.  i woke up at almost 4:15am from this dream.  I had gone to bed about 4 am last night and slept until 5:30, and went to bed around 1am.  I’ll have to start recording the times and such of these dreams.  I’m going to leave out a few details to keep the authenticity of the dream; ie there were a few people in the dream that shouldn’t have been, but they weren’t family and they were distracting from the plot.  for reference sake though, I punched andrew bonnell in the face for giving me his AOL screenname so that I could contact him when i woke up.  but wow, i just realized something…I’ll come back to this after i tell the dream…

So deirdre and I are driving around in a truck of sorts, and we drive by a store called SEKI and they only sell pepsi products.  not important at all, but I’m leaving it in there because it’s weird.  anyway, we were talking, she gets out, next thing i know is i’m in the estate driveway facing the road in a tractor pulling a cart, I loop to the right in the yard and come back around to drive behind the house and i look to the right where there is a lone pine tree and Dante is tied to it barking.  I park the tractor and run over to pet him and play around with him.  Someone else comes over, a young guy, I recognize him, but now that i woke up i can’t remember who he is.  But seeing him and dante confirmed to me that this was a dream, and I am visiting the dead.  I said, "so this is really afterlife i’m visiting, isn’t it?" and he just looked like he wasn’t allowed to confirm that to me.  Then I let Dante off the chain and walk inside the house with him up to the top left bedroom where there is a large bed in it’s normal spot and serah and J’aime are there.  This is where we’re talking with some guy and we get on the conversation of being able to talk to everyone there when I wake up.  He says that he has AOL IM and that if I sent him a message, he’d respond.  And so I’m l said, "well, i need to know your screenname"  and i was feeling stressed to get this information before I woke up.  And he said something like "oh well, you just message me and you’ll be good" and when he said that, I knew he was lying to me about having messenger at all.  this is where he is now andrew bonnell and i punch him in the face and yell at him for not being legit with me on an important topic and wasting my time.  j’aime and serah cool things down and we talk a little more about how this place is the afterlife.  We know that my dad is outside working on something.

Then I realize with nervous excitement, "Guys, this means that Barney (my grandfather) is probably out in the barn…do you want to go see him??"  J’aime seemed more excited than serah, but we decide we’ll go.  So we are walking downstairs talking about what he’ll be like and I start to get blurry vision, like i’m about to wake up, but i consciously force myself back to sleep.  When we turn the corner into the dining room, dante had followed us, and I note to serah how great it is to see dante.  I can actuall feel him.  I said how firm he feels and how short his hair is, just as I remember him.  I don’t know how to express how real this dream is besides that.  we are going to walk out the addition door, and when we get in the addition, it’s been worked on.  There’s a lot of work to be done, but all the walls are finished and there’s a stairway down to the basement.  I can see through it that there’s a light on downstairs, and I get the feeling that someone is down there…but I don’t find out…I fear that it was (grandmother’s mother? aunt? i forget), who hung herself in the basement.  Anyway, it’s obvious that my dad had been working on the place.  We go out on the deck and can see my dad over in the park working.  I ask Serah and J’aime if they want to spend anytime with him.  J’aime just looks at Serah as if it’s up to her and Serah says that she’d rather not.  So we walk down and I yell for my dad, thinking that he should introduce us, but Serah shows resistance, so I yell back nevermind.  It’s funny how common place it seems that we’re there.  Anyway, I step into the barn, and I am definitely a little scared as to what I’ll find, the lights are all on, the pocket door to the main area is shut and i loudly say, "Hello?"  Then I hear some feet on the gravel outside, and I turn and catch a glimpse of him before he turns quickly away out of shock and says, "Oh my goodness, Josh?!" as if he’s embarrassed.  He turns back around, big smile on his face, and kind of chuckles out of disbelief that we’re there.  He looks a lot like the pictures of him being old, grey hair and kinda fat.  He’s sweating and dirty like he’s been working, has a white baseball hat on that he takes off to meet us and he’s wearing some reddish over alls.  So we just start talking about how he looks alot like i thought he would, and how i always thought he looked so much different in pictures of him old vs him young.  My dad comes over as we talk by the stone wall infront of the barn.  Then, my dad’s friend Bruce shows up there too, and we’re talking as if he knows about visiting here all the time too.  Then i mention to Barney about how it seems that all hall men die around their 50s, and that uncle kenny and I were trying to remember how everyone had died.  He told me as far back as his grandfather that all died around then.  I don’t remember the reasons why.  I then asked him if there were any women, and he said there was one, and he goes to get like a genealogy book, but I never get to see it before I wake up.

So, the thing i just realized…I had just emailed serah today asking if she had any memories of caleb being normal, because I do not.  I wonder if i’m unable to dream about caleb being normal because I don’t have those visions in my head, so i replace him with other people that are around his age, like the guy outside with dante and andrew bonnell.  Then i remember from the movie "What dreams may come" that cuba gooding Jr was a doctor in robin william’s life, but he’s really his son.  And I’ll admit, that I have thought of andrew bonnell as a relationship i’d have with caleb.  Not that andrew and I even talk, but just that he’s around the same age and we get along pretty well.  With that, it’s an easier fit that Caleb is in these dreams too, and I did have the sense that he was always there, but as i reflect back, i can’t remember him being there.

I have such an urge to email serah and J’aime and see what they dreamed about last night, but I’m a little more rational than to think they had the same dream.  Wouldn’t that be messed up?