|
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Duquense Shooting
Yeh, it's been awhile, but I been aiight. I spent my last few weeks @ home chillin' and wil'n out with Joe. I drove myself to school, and have been doing my thing and handling my classes for the past 3 weeks.
Last night, we went to a Duquesne party. Their BSU had been doing a good deal of advertising for it, so we figured it would be aiight, and it was. It was the aftermath that I could have done without.
So the party's over, and everyone has pretty much left. We were headed back to the car, but had to wait for Derrick to pick up his gear from his dorm. He gets back, and we chill and joke around for awhile, me, Titus, Candice, Banji, D. Walker, Derrick, and his cousin Keith... We hear some peeps coming down the hill, but we don't really pay them any mind. We're in our own little world.
Fuck ya'll dumbass college niggaz! one guy yells back up the hill as he and his group walks by us. Some more words are exchanged, until two of the guys that passed us pull out guns. One puts his back, but the other cocks his and begins to fire into the crowd.
I was leaning on a post one minute, and a split second letter I was standing next to Banji over by the courts. I don't even remember running. I just did. I heard the first shot and I was gone.
Seven or Eight shots were fired in all. Everything happened real fast, and I was very shook. Some random white kid came around the corner and started yelling about how it was a firecracker, he must have been drunk out of his mind. I started looking for my peoples... Banji was next to me, and Titus, Keith, and the Derricks were behind a nearby wall. But where was Candice? I didn't see her. I asked. No one knew. I yelled. No one knew. Banji, thinking more rationally than the rest of us at that moment, told Tite to call her.
Turns out she was by the car. Whew. We're all OK. No one's hurt. But what about everyone else who was there? The shooter is gone..There's a guy who looks like he got shot in the shoulder and three people are one the ground. Cops are starting to arrive, and the sound of sirens begins to fill the air. Two of the guys on the ground seemed to be moving, but the other one did not.
Sam! Stay with me man! Please! a guy kneeling beside him was shouting. Wake up man!
We had our group assembled, and after we figured out what direction the car was in, we headed there. Candice was waiting against the wall in front of it. Everybody got in, and we spent the ride to Steak 'n Shake telling the story from our different perspectives, and on just how fucked up the situation was.
And thanking god that it was none of us caught a bullet.
I read the news report this morning. 5 people were shot in all, all Duquesne Basketball players. 3 were treated and released. The other two were in critical condition. Later today, one guys condition was improved from critcal to good, and he is expected to make a full recovery. Nothing has been said about the last guy. His family is flying from Toronto to be with him. I just hope everything turns out alright.
Posted at 11:18 pm by Draeygon
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Ran down to Charlotte for the tax free weekend. I made out pretty damn good. I went looking for a belt, a pair of grey tims, a few french cuffs, and maybe a polo or two. I wasn't able to find those tims but I got everything else I wanted, plus an item or two.
I had been to Charlotte once before this little excursion. That was for the NSBE Region II FRC in 2005. That didn't show me much, the part we stayed around was a ghostown. Needless to say, I was NOT impressed. Well, this time we stayed @ Joe's sister's crib. She stays not too far away from uptown, so that worked out. Me and Joe ran around there Friday night... I wish we hadn't. I was ready to go inside a few places, but I forgot my nigga ain't 21 yet xD.
Saturday we hit the Eastland and Southpark malls. Southpark = a bigger Southpoint, so from my perspective, it sucked. We were there for all of 20 minutes. Eastland was nice, It's just like Arundel Mills in Maryland. I ain't buy much there though. I did my shopping at this place called Seek. Urban store just like the ones in Pittsburgh's East Liberty, just run by Koreans. They had all kinds of shit. I cleaned up. Saw Ricky Bobby later on. Not something I would normally see in the theater, but it was hilarious.
In other news, the NSBE site is coming along nicely. Chaz helped me out with some things, and I'm doing everything in Flash now. It's gonna be pimp. I did a little 3D animation with and open source application called Blender. It's pretty diesed.
I've just got a week and 4 days left here @ IBM. I'm done on the 18th. I'm gonna chill out for that last week, and head back up to Pittsburgh on the 25th.... unless i get bored and leave early =D.
Posted at 08:55 am by Draeygon
Monday, July 24, 2006
I was in Orlando with the Fam from the 15th to the 22nd. My parents own a timeshare down there, and it's just something that we've been doing since I was like 6 (maybe younger... I don't remember). This year, my older cousin Daniel joined us...
Sunday I relaxed. I ain't do shit.
Monday we picked up Daniel from the train station. That night, Sean, Daniel and I went looking for a party in downtown Orlando. That was a waste of time and money. The first club we went into was empty. The second was packed... with dudes. It seemed that the majority of the girls that WERE there, came with their man. I got my dance on for a minute but that was it. Daniel just chilled at the bar, and Sean kept getting denied... Next summer we should go to Miami or even Daytona... Orlando is NOT where the party's at.
Tuesday was the the day we went to the park. I wasn't too interested in going to any of the parks this year... I've been to Disney and Universal so many damn times. Shit gets old. But since my cousin Daniel came down with us, my parents insisted that we all go together. So we went to Islands of Adventure. Me and Sean spent two days there last summer, and it was fun then... And it could've been fun again this year if it wasn't for the bad weather patterns that delayed the rides for a few hours...
Tuesday was also the day my mom pushed me over the edge... lol. She got cussed out. You're probably like, "Oh my goodness, you are such a terrible person!" To that I reply by saying that you do not know my mother. I love my mom, and I believe that I have the best damn mom in the world. But no one's perfect. Going off on me because of something that someone else did, yelling and cussing for no damn reason, bringing up old shit when it's buried and dead, and overreacting when the situation is perfectly under control are all things that she does constantly. I've always tried to be nice about it because she's... my mom. But a few years of holding that shit back wasn't good for anyone...
So I'm driving everyone back to the villa. I'm on the highway, and I'm in the process passing an 8-passenger van on my right. All of a sudden, he decides that he wants to come into my lane. I'm like right next to this fool, so I don't don't know how the fuck he didn't see us. Anyways, we're about to get ran into the wall, so I pull to the left a little bit and hit the breaks. So this is already a delicate situation, right? Put my mom in the passenger seat yelling, fussing, and cussing up a storm over my head. The van is on it's merry way, and we are back on the road. Now, I felt that I handled the situation as best I could. There was no collision, there was no swerving, and the vehicle was under control. So why is she still yelling? Calling me a fucking idiot and saying that I almost got everyone killed. I'm fed up. My dad is like, "Carolyn calm down, what are you talking about? That was the van's fault. Christopher did what he should have done." She's still going, and at this point, I've taken all that I can stand. I pull over, and we start arguing. I tell her to be quiet. She won't. I tell her to get in the back seat. She won't. I say, "Then shut the FUCK up!" No one says shit. I put the car in drive, and we go home.
We get there, and my dad holds me behind. I know that he's going to tell me that I should apologize. He says that he had no problem with me telling her to shut up, but that I should apologize for the disrespect. I laugh at that and think, Disrespect? Because in my mind, as far as respect goes, you reap what you sow. You can't expect to be respected if you don't give respect in the first place. Sure, you can get away with some stuff when you have kids, but I'm not a damn kid anymore, and I demand to be respected.
On Wednesday my brother and I got into it over some toast. Hahaha. It ended when he decided to throw a ceramic plate into a framed picture hanging on the wall across the room. This, of course, pissed my dad off, and Sean was promptly pushed over a chair. After a good laugh over it with my cousin, we went swimming. Later on, Daniel and I went shopping. I was looking for some new ATR's, but I found two pairs of Nike's instead.
Thursday I just chilled. I talked on the phone, got on the internet, played the box... Later on, moms cooked some food, and offered everyone some but me. I guess she was still pissed, haha. When everyone was done, we all went to Orlando's whack ass mall. It reminded me of SouthPoint. There's just nothing of interest there. Afterwards we went to Universal's movie theatre to see Littleman. That shit was hilarious. I suppose the movie put moms in a good mood. Apologies were exchanged.
Friday I played some ball with Sean and went swimming. Daniel stayed at the villa and packed; his train was leaving that day. I went back to the villa and rode with my parents to drop Daniel off. Then we ran around to some of the outlets. I hit the courts again around 6:30 that evening. They were not ready. D and Savage would have been proud, lol. I left there at like 11. I showered, packed, and hit the bed.
Saturday we drove home. The End.
I came into work today to find that someone had stolen my balun (Yep, IBM is Old-School retarded just like CMU). No balun = no internet. No internet = no email. No email = no way of knowing what I should be doing. So I stole a balun off a server, and sure enough, my mentor had a new task ready for me. But alas, the balun I stole belonged to an email server for someone in my department. So he needed that back. So now I can't do shit, because I need the net to work on my project as well. So, I typed this long ass entry in notepad! Yay!
Shit. My Zen's battery just died. Now what am I going to do?
Posted at 09:41 am by Draeygon
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Just need to make a new banner and it'll be set!
Posted at 03:39 pm by Draeygon
Monday, July 10, 2006
Well, I thought things would be popping off again today... But they are not. This would be the PERFECT time to revamp this thing, and turn in red/grey again... but I find myself lacking the proper tools... namely Photoshop. I will be putting that on this bad boy immediately.
Not much happened this weekend. I chilled @ home friday night. Saturday me and Joe drove all over NC looking for ANYTHING to get into. We failed... Sunday I wished Jess a happy 21st, chilled with Justin for a bit, and then just chilled at the house. I didn't make it to the movies. Laziness I suppose.
Posted at 11:28 am by Draeygon
Friday, July 07, 2006
...have been stressfull, fun, aggravating, and wonderful.
Grandma Nora!
My Jamaican Grandma has successfully moved into her new house here in North Carolina! This makes me very happy because my Grandma is the GREATEST! Her house is about 10 minutes away from ours.
My Stupid ass brother...
On Monday, June 26th at approximately 6:30pm I received a phone call from my brother. I was tired and irritable, but our conservation made me laugh...
"Yea?"
"Yo, can you come get me?" he asked in a rather desperate sounding voice.
"Nigga... Didn't you drive the Explorer to work today?"
"I'm in Jail man!"
I laughed. "You in jail? You're joking, right? What the hell did you do?" I was in disbelief.
"I messed up at work man."
"Fucking Idiot. How much is it? Shit, nevermind. I have NO money. How am I going to get you out?"
"Dineen has the money, it's $150. He should be calling you soon. Just hurry up. PLEASE!"
He hung up. I was still holding the phone in awe when Dineen called. That shit threw me for a trip, because I was having a hard time believing that my little brother was in Jail. Our parents were in Las Vegas until the next night. So they were not in town to hear the news. After we got him out, Sean called Mom, and as soon as he said "I messed up at work" I could hear her screaming through the phone. "ARE YOU IN JAIL!?"
Man, when they got home, they were Pissed. My dad doesn't cuss that often. Well, it was different that night. My mom snapped Sean's phone in half. And now he's like, grounded for life. Needless to say, he lost his Job at Belk's, but he was smart enough to stay on reserve at Johnny Carino's.... My poor, stupid ass little brother. Always said he'd learn the hard way. I wonder if that was real enough for him?
Sean was charged with theft, larceny and embezzlement. But since it was his first offense, it can be wiped clean from his permanent record. This, of course, requires a lawyer, and lawyers of course, cost a lot of money... So that 700 bucks my moms was holding for me from my tax return? Gone. I don't enjoy taking hits for the stupidity of others, but that's my fam, right?
Greensboro & Gretna
I did a bit of driving last saturday, and a bit more on the 4th. I was all in good fun though. Saturday I drove over to Greensboro to meet Tabren and Dawn. Fun people. We.. well, THEY did some shopping, and then we had dinner @ Darryl's and went bowling. Tabren and I had a great time cuttin' up and Dancing. You know I had to break out the Poppa. I almost went Geeto, but they weren't ready, they weren't ready. Dawn was all serious and focused on the game. Bah, I broke her down a few times though. Haha.
For the fourth, The Long's invited my fam over for a cookout. I like the Longs... but we had JUST gone over there for their daughter's graduation party. I wanted something else to do. Since the 3rd and 4th were paid holidays, I had planned to go see Tabren on the 3rd, but then she invited me to HER cookout. So I did that. It's like an hour and 45 minute drive, but after 2 Dru Hill CD's and a couple Usher songs I was there. So her cookout, was more like a family reunion, and I met like... Everyone. Mom, Cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, Siblings... Everyone. It was cool tho. But Gretna looks like something straight out of an old western. The only thing missing was the tumbleweed.
Work
Work has been great for the past couple weeks. But this one sucked. Thank god it was only 3 days. The two guys who are putting me onto these schematic projects decided to take the remainder of the week off for vacation, and just left me hanging. So... I have absolutley nothing to do. Monday, things will be good again.
This Weekend...
Trying to get Tabren down here, but that does not seem like it will happen. Other plans will have to be made. Longbranch? No. Hell No. Sorry Rob, but... No. Haven't seen Superman, and Pirates of the Caribean just came out, so that may happen.
Posted at 11:03 am by Draeygon
Monday, June 26, 2006
Finals came and went. Two went well, Two went bad. I packed up. I Got picked up, and drove 5 of the 8 hours of the trip home...
I started @ IBM again on the 22nd of May. I have been more than a little busy here now. since I have completed courses which are relevant to the projects here, there is a lot more work for me to do.
Ibm meesed up my payroll... I didn't get my first to paychecks until i was supposed to get my third... and my third came in with my fourth, so I think its on point now. However... this in conjunction with my inability to keep track of my check card purchases has caused me to overdraw my account... Yipee. so I'm out of 90 bucks now. I deposited the 3rd and 4th checks on Friday, BEFORE 4PM, so that i would have my money in the bank on Saturday @ Noon. 12pm on Saturday came, and my money did not. Sunday came, and my money did not. Today is here, and my money, still, is not. I am just beginning to become a little angry. And in an hour, twelve minutes, and 46 seconds, If my money is still not in my account, I'll have to pay them a visit. I have Zero dollars right now.
I saw Click this weekend, and I saw Over the Hedge a few weeks ago. Great, both of them. I went to LongBranch w/ Robbie on Saturday night... I was better than last weekend, but from my point of view, it was still pretty sad. I need to find somewhere else to go.
I've been hanging out a lot with Robbie, and with Joe. I don't see a lot of Justin, he's been working some pretty crazy hours.
I have started on the CMU NSBE page, it's nothing special... yet. So no one is allowed to see it until it is. =D
Oh yea, I figured out how to adjust opacity in Firefox... too bad it messes with my background.
Posted at 10:47 am by Draeygon
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
It has been quite some time...
...Since the last time I even LOOKED at this thing. The past two months have been nothing but stressful. Tests, programs, projects, presentations, meetings, homework... It hasn't been the best experience. I miss my friends. People who I used to spend entirely too much time around, I hardly see anymore.
This week is finals week, & I'll be home by Friday at the latest I believe. I'm ready, but I will miss everyone.
Posted at 04:03 am by Draeygon
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
So that light at the end of the tunnel? Very dim, very dim indeed. That party sucked. I had fun though. But I always make some fun for myself. I spent the rest of the weekend and Monday studying my ass off for the two tests I had yesterday.
The two tests went as expected. The first, the 211 test, was horrible, and the second, 340, was great! I'm not happy with that first test, but I'm satisfied that I did the best that I could have given the circumstances, and that's enough for me to be content and not stress about it.
After the tests, I went back to the room, made some food, watched kenshin and played around on the computer. When I went to sleep, I fully expected that after I woke up, I was going to spend the day programming. I checked my email this morning to receive news that we have been given an extension until after Spring Break! GREAT FUCKING NEWS! Now I am def. not stessed. I'm actually feeling pretty damn good about that.
Spring Break Begins for me on Friday, and I am going home.
I spose I'll try and get as much programming done as I can until I leave... xD
Posted at 08:08 pm by Draeygon
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Everything in my life has been bitter and bittersweet as of late. I've been keeping up with the material in my difficult classes pretty well, but I have fallen behind in Matrix Algebra... I got a B on that first test. Should have been an A.
IM basketball has been interesting. We got Kevin to play with us, but the brotha can never make any of our games. The refs seem to have something against us, but we do aiight. We may make the playoffs.
The Spirit formal was two weekends ago. I, and all of my peoples had a ball just actin' up and actin' that fool. Goodtimes. I should have been programming though. I paid for that.
Sleep just gets farther and farther away from me... and Titus, These verilog projects we have have been monsterous. I hate it.
My computer situation got handled. I have a brand new one now, and it is lovely.
I lost my phone last week tuesday. I feel so out of the loop not having it. my whole routine is dismembered. I didn't have time to locate it last week because of the projects, but I found it today in the cluster's lost and found... I guess that should have been the first place i looked, so much time is spent there nowadays.
if I ever find the time, I think I'm going to redo the blog again. This brown is gettin tired... I think i'll go back to red and gray. =D
This coming weekend there is a cozumel party. I am looking forward to it, but I just have to get over the two tests, two programs, presentation and homework assignments that are all either due or happening this week. I'll be focusing on that light at the end of the tunnel.
Posted at 02:47 am by Draeygon
|
|
>>JESS - I can only laugh and wonder xD.
