Long time no see. I’ve been sucking at this lately, haven’t I? I mean, damn, posts from April are still sitting up here on the front page. How’s that for frequency? I bet you thought I had retired. Nope. Sorry. I’m still here. I’ve prepaid for two more years of amishshah.com. Since I paid for it, I might as well use it. If only I’d apply that mindset to my gym membership.

Anyway, what’s going on with you? Whatcha been up to? How’s life? Still doing whatever it is that you do? Anyone still actually reading this?

Me? Oh, I’ve been up to all kinds of crazy things. Here’s a brief rundown…

Jesus Potter and the Even Newer Testament
So remember the whole dilemma I had with the book? (If you don’t, scroll down, its only one post away). I went to the wedding as planned, but was lucky enough to have a friend there that was serious about buying the book at midnight. So while I was on my way to the hotel from a late flight, he went to Barnes & Noble and picked me up a copy. I was able to get started on it during some downtime on Saturday (it was a Jewish wedding, so the important stuff was on Sunday). I didn’t get through much over the weekend (only 150 pages), but ended up taking the Monday off to finish the remaining 600 or so.

Man was it good. Seriously, does Harry Potter = Jesus? The book was phenomenal, but I got a little weary of the whole “He’s the Chosen One!” thing over and over again. All in all, I had a great time reading it - I didn’t plan on reading 600 pages in one day, but just couldn’t put it down. The whole fight scene at Hogwarts? Oh man, I was flipping out. I can’t WAIT to see the movie version of that. And then the part when he pseudo-dies? That was intense. About halfway through reading that chapter though, I thought “this seems a little familiar”. And then I realized what it was. BRUCE ALMIGHTY. “Am I dead?” “I dunno, are you.” “What’s going to happen to me? Why did this happen?” Blah blah blah. I kept waiting for a whole “Its gooood” - “Its gooood” exchange, but it never happened. Anyway, nice work JK.

Weddings, we’ve got weddings, we’ve got lots and lots of weddings. Weddiiiiings!
Hurray for you if you caught that modified reference. Anyway, not really “lots” of weddings, but definitely more than I would’ve hoped for at my age. I had back to back out of town weddings to attend, both involving a few days off from work, which partially explains my absence from here.

Wedding #1 was in Kansas City and was for one of my fraternity brothers, Scott. A whole bunch of us from the fraternity were there, and as most of us are still single, we were without dates. Thus the Brodeo (definition: intentional sausage-fest) was born. Naturally, we spent most of the weekend drinking. Including drinking all available alcohol provided in the hotel’s hospitality suite. Including getting the groom drunk the night before the wedding. Including replacing the alcohol in the hospitality suite but then - I kid you not - using it to play beer pong on the dining table of said hospitality suite. On a Sunday night. Great weekend.

Wedding #2 was in Orlando and was for one of my pseudo-cousins (we’re related through marriage, I don’t know what you call that). Also a good time… got to see a lot of extended family, play dress-up in my Indian garb, and have the question “so when are YOU getting married?” asked to me a few dozen times. (Money quote goes to my mom, however, who came to me with “I got 3 requests for your biodata already.” I wish I was making that up.) There was alcohol present, and some of my cousins took it upon themselves to drink as much of it themselves as possible, which made for some pretty funny scenes/disruptions, but this time I took the “moderation” route. Which was fun, because at the end of the night, I got to be the sober guy who drove the incapacitated cousin’s Porsche home! I’ll tell you what, regardless of how small it’ll make you think my doodaddy is, I’m getting me one of those as soon as I can.

Oh and the weddings were beautiful and I almost cried and blah blah blah.

Movin’ on up
I don’t normally talk about work here, but I will mention that I got promoted last week. Its kind of a big deal for me, since its the first real milestone of my professional career. But I gotta tell you, people keep asking me “does it feel different,” and I’ll be honest.. not really. All of my past milestones (starting and finishing high school, starting and finishing college, visiting Taco Bell three times in one day, etc) have been significantly life-altering, but this promotion doesn’t have that same feel. Its like, “Here’s a new title. Keep doing what you’re doing, but a little better.” Anyway, celebrating it was fun. From what I remember.

The Singing Bee
Have you guys seen this show? I’m unbelievable hooked. Its a contest to see who can remember song lyrics, with one person taking home money at the end. Its incredible - one of those game shows where you’re rooting for everyone and no one at the same time! You don’t care who wins, you just want to play along and see how well they do (and some of them do amazingly well). If I were on this show, I’d lose in a heartbeat, but man is it fun to watch.

IGTBAMW
Summer’s almost over, which means Fall is almost here, which means OMG ITS TIME FOR COLLEGE FOOTBALL!! Right now - this ‘lame duck’ period where everything in sports sucks and something better is just around the corner - is like the worst time ever. The feeling of anticipation, debating rankings, reading and rereading scouting reports, checking out conference recaps, and counting down the days till the first kickoff - the excitement is just building up more and more. God I love Michigan Football.

Naturally, I’ve already made started to make plans for my fall college trips. So far I’m going on an whitewater rafting RV trip with some buddies and spending an evening/night in Morgantown, WV (WVU), road-tripping out to Ann Arbor for the Michigan-Notre Dame game, and flying to Chicago for the Michigan-Northwestern game. And that’s only September.

(Props to anyone who can figure out what the heading of this section means.)

Anyway, that’s all I got for now. I’ll try to start posting a little more regularly, but we all know that might not happen. But I’ll try. I promise.