Jasper Jones

Halloween falls on a Friday night this year, so you know there are going to be a lot of parties that weekend. Well, we only have 2 weeks left to make party plans and to get the costumes ready.

Alex has plans with some of his geek buddies to go to a frat party. He wants to just go in a toga and it sounds like a lot of the guys want this to be a kind of an “Animal House” night: togas, beer, girls. Hopefully no cops.

I might stop by the frat house party for a bit and just mingle but I don’t want to be there late when the too many beers are starting to kick in.

Kelly is going to a party at a private home up in the hills. Sounds like a lot of jocks will be at that one. There’s another one I don’t want to be at late. Too much beer and jocks is not a good mix, either.

If I go to the party with Kelly I have to rethink my costume choice. In fact, we are trying to find a pair of Movie Costumes and go as a couple.

So I’m back on the internet looking for Halloween Costume Stores and looking at costume ideas.

I know we haven’t even gotten into Christmas yet but I’m already planning for our spring break. After all, this is the Big Daddy of Springs Breaks - our senior year, our last gathering of craziness and beer.

Around here, spring break means a trip to Florida and beaches, with lots of girls in bikinis. What part of Florida is up for discussion. The closest beaches are Panama City, Ft. Walton and Destin. Those are all on the Gulf of Mexico and we can be hot footing it across the hot white sand in a little over 5 hours drive from the dorm.

The next closest area with really nice beaches is the Clearwater/St. Petersburg/Sarasota area, also on the Gulf. Or you can drive over to the East Coast and hit Daytona for a good beach on the Atlantic Ocean.

So I’ve been doing a little checking into the whole Florida scene when it gets slow at work. I found a web site called VRBO.com - that means Vacation Rentals By Owner. My thought was that if we rented a private house or condo instead of staying in a hotel that we could have a totally different experience. Renting Florida vacation villas won’t cost as much as hotels and you have more privacy, especially in the ones with jaccuzzis and pools - you don’t have to share with 2,000 other hotel guests - it’s just you and the hotties that you invite over.

Halloween falls on a Friday night this year. That means there will be lots of serious partying going on! We are already texting back and forth about who is having parties and who is going to go to the different ones. I know of at least 6 kids in school who live off campus and have promised to throw big parties on Halloween. I have the night off from work, so this boy will be in costume and throwing back the brews, I guarantee.

There are some costume stores in town but I’ve already decided to order my costume from an online store Halloween Costume Store and have it delivered to my room. Alex and I were surfing for costumes yesterday and we both found what we want to get at the Halloween Adventure site. They have free shipping if we order it today or tomorrow. They have a good returns policy, too. So we have a higher confidence ordering from a place that will take it back if there’s a problem. We don’t expect a problem, mind you. But Alex is short and I’m very tall and we both know from years of experience that one size does not fit all. So if something we order doesn’t fit, we just want the chance to exchange for something else that does fit. No problem!

Would you drive over two hours to be at a concert by the Eagles? That’s what a bunch of kids fro school did last night. They all left out of here at 2:00 in the afternoon - late classes be damned! - and drove up to Nashville to see the concert.

It was evidently an awesome show, but I couldn’t go. For one, I had to work and I get my schedule 2 weeks in advance, so I can’t just take off from my shift on every whim. For another, I’m trying to make money and missing work doesn’t exactly help me reach that goal. Another big reason is that tickets for that show started at $110 for arena seats. Like nosebleed section, can’t see anything but the big screens on the stage for closeups and little specks on a big stage thousands of feet below you. That’s not getting my money’s worth out of tickets.

My idea of a great concert is getting as close to the stage as you can. No more than 10 rows back. MAYBE the balcony if it is the first 3 balcony rows. Other than than, I’d rather listen to the good music on my iPod and in the car.

Gave my dad a call last night just to check in and see what he and mom are doing. They are good and they want to come down here for a visit if I can work out my work schedule to have time with them and maybe go to dinner together for a few hours.

Dad has decided to add on a sun porch to the back of the house and make it into a “man room” so that he has someplace to put his stuff and maybe a game table. Maybe its his mid life crisis to want his own pool table and a poker table, but I guess that’s better than a Corvette like so many old guys buy in their last desperate attempt to feel young and sexy again. Besides, I’d like to shoot some pool with the old man anyway.

He’s going to buy this cool round table that has a top that flips over from a regular table to a poker table. I’ve seen those around and never thought my dad would be getting one. But he’s already found the one he wants on the internet and told me to go look at the web site called DiscountQualityFurniture.com and click on the brand name Powell to see what he’s going to get.

I had never heard of Powell Furniture but what do I know about nice furniture? That’s something my mom has always taken care of at our house and I will admit that she has great taste. She always likes the best quality of everything, even if it means waiting a little longer to afford getting the better brands. I’m surprised my dad is even getting involved in this, but it’s for his man room, so I guess that’s why he picked it out.

So I checked out the web site and I can see the cool table that my dad is talking about. I see this place has a lot of other brands, too, and I was surprised that even I recognize some of the brands, like American Drew and Coaster furniture. I must have picked that up from being around my mom.