Technically two days left in this semester. Cut the ties from this place and I'm gone. The only bad part is the three days straight of work at Sheetz afterward, but they should go pretty quick. And hey, three eight-hour days can be rounded to about 240 bucks, right? Can't go wrong there.

I've had these chest pains off and on over the past week or so. I feel like they're going away but I really have no idea. They may have something to do with the sore throat that I've had for even longer. Today is the day to figure this out.

Excuse me for interrupting your midday kissing session.

Excuse me for interrupting your daily episode of Maury at 4PM Eastern time.

Excuse me for not realizing that you guys go to bed before midnight the majority of the time.

Excuse me, I would like to have my fucking guitar and strap back someday soon.

Excuse me for asking when the "fifth roommate" is actually going to start paying rent.

I would like to please have a parking spot to come home to every night.

Thanks.

433

In one room, a kid sits on his bed listening to Alkaline Trio and Lawrence Arms records, singing choruses and melodies about being drunk, death, and rotting corpses.

On the other side of the wall, a girl is spread out on her bed, talking on the phone and coping with the loss of her ex-boyfriend's mother, and her distant boyfriend who will be going to Iraq.

On the other side of her wall, a slightly overweight guy took some pills and medicine, and passed out extra early in hope to get over nausea, after a day of sitting around watching tv, eating unhealthy, and playing video games.

Under him, a guy and his girlfriend went to bed extra early, spending the night together, sleeping together and keeping each other cramped, too hot from each other's body heat, but in love, of course.

This is in or around midnight. The blunt and honest truth.

I'm back in Greensburg.

Teabags and Peas.

Swelling is kinda crappy, my cheeks feel tight. I don't look like a chipmunk though.

No pain, surprisingly. It's noon and I haven't taken vicodin in 6 hours. Just took 2 advils though.

Bleeding still. Just a little bit, nothing crazy.

Just been sleeping. Going back to sleep now. Icing my cheeks with peas. I was stuffing teabags wrapped in gauze in my cheeks but that just got annoying.

No crazy dreams, no crazy visions, nothing exciting.

I want out of the house.

My mouth needs to dumb itself down.

Wisdom teeth out on Monday.

Not stoked.

I wanna keep it documented as best as possible. Shit should get interesting afterwards.

I'll be at home, no school, no work til Friday, so nothing to do. Go internet, go video games.

Documentation? Please!

And the story goes like this.

Some things in this world you just can't grasp Strange shit happens out of no where that really makes you think. I can get all philosophical, or I can tell things the way that I saw them. I am sick of retelling this story, so I'll type it out

The key to painting a vivid picture is to accurately describe the setting.
It was Valentines Day night, February 14th, 2009. I was never a fan of Valentine's Day, but a series of events led to a hyped up Valentine's Day this year. Gabby, one of my roommates, told us that her boyfriend was coming up to visit from Texas. He isn't home much, he's in the army, and the last time he was up in Greensburg, Gabby had her friends over and they all played beer pong and made a get together out of it. We all like Matt here, so we figured it's time to get everyone together. So henceforth, the big Valentine's Day party.

It wasn't even supposed to be a party, just a get together with our friends.

So then we get to my side of the story. I love my friends, and I love the fact that I have only a handful up in Greensburg. This handful is fucking great. We are tight as shit, yo. So I figured if Gabby and company will be having fun, I'll have Marie, Nick, and Ashlan over. After all, we've been drinking here for the last 3 weekends, the last 6 weekend nights, etc. So let's keep the train rolling.
Anyways, Gabby's friends left around 1 am. Following this was the nightly acoustic guitar session in the living room between me and Nick. Gabby and Matt hung out with the four of us and Matt was all about it singing and playing a snare drum I brought downstairs. They disappeared off to bed a little while later. Of course, when you're drunk, time flies. Somehow, it got to around 3 am. Marie and I were talking about life and realized Nick and Ashlan were passed out. That happens a lot. They wake up pretty easy though.

We migrated upstairs to my bedroom, since my room is always warm. Nick and Ashlan always bring their sleeping bags, and they were in Ashlan's car. Nick decided to go down to the car and get the sleeping bags. Keep in mind, we were all still pretty drunk at this time.

Nick was walking to the car, which was parked down Ohara from our house, where we always park, when he heard a cop yelling a bunch of stuff towards him. "Get down! Get out of here! Get away!" All that kind of stuff. Nick didn't want to look suspicious so he just walked back up to the car. He came into the house and told us that there was a cop outside, so we moved to the room next to my bedroom. Perfect centered view of the street below, all the way down to 130.

Our house is on a hill overlooking Ohara Street, on the corner of Ohara and Harrson. If you drive up the hill on Ohara, you would hit our house if you do not drive around our house at the intersection. Therefore, our top floor windows overlooked the whole situation, which took place down towards the bottom of the hill near 130. The house was near the corner of Concord and Ohara, which was 1 street down from Harrison. We didn't see the house, but we saw the cop cars and the majority of the action.

At this point, cars started pouring off of 130 onto Ohara, and we knew something was up. Police lights and police everywhere. There was a police car parked halfway up the street with a couple of officers taking cover with guns over the side of the car the whole night. The whole time, we had our theories about what was going on, but come on, we had no idea.

I would say at this point it was going on 4:00 AM , we knew something was up, and it was still very dark out. We set up shop in the little room and started to listen in on the action. We opened the windows and screens and froze our asses off while Ashlan and Marie were passed out in my room. We heard slight chatter from the various cops and tried to listen in to the radio. We heard things about a 2nd floor.

At this point, like I said, I was out of it, so I remember details here and there. No specific order.

There were guys coming in and out with a pretty large amount of body armor on. There were shields and rifles.
Some of these guys ran from yard to yard, inching back towards the main house, and then making their way back to safety.
The silhouettes were creepy in the slight light that we could see.

At first, we would hear gunshots here and there, and we would hear breaking glass. Nick and I kept looking at each other. Were those really gun shots?

The police evacuated a house across the street from the ground zero house and had the family leave for the extent of the incident. What really amazed me is the cops ran up to the back porch, and unscrewed a flood light that was on to give themselves some added stealth. This seems like this was pretty much their base and cover.

Police vehicles would come and go, and more personnel would arrive. Pedestrians would drive by and be turned around. We remained unnoticed, perched up in my top floor.

At some point while it was still dark out, a police officer acquired a megaphone and this is when things really started to heat up.

A common phrase was, "Joe, come to the window."
"Joe, you gotta stop firing rounds and breaking windows if we are going to cooperate."
"Joe, you gotta speak up. Come to the window."

We could hear the officer loud and clear, but not Joe. Just the fact that he was yelling.

There was a period of time where they kept asking him for his cell phone number, and his dad's cell phone number. I guess his dad wasn't answering his cell phone, and they asked for the house phone number. I'm not really sure if they ever did get ahold of his dad, which is sad. The phone period went on for a while. They kept telling him to relax, and that they were going to get him a phone.

As it got lighter, more police officers were evident in different areas around the neighboring houses. The big bags that we saw some of the men carrying turned out to be dogs. There were more and more guys in armor, and more and more guys with large guns. Spots of darkness dissolved into three or four bodies at a time.

Also, as it got lighter, I decided to grab my camera and my zoom lens. I hung out of the window and tried to get as many photos as I could. I tried developing them tonight and a lot of the ones that did come out looked pretty dark, so we'll see how that goes. I think I ruined the roll of film.

Around this time, people started walking around, realizing something was going on. A man strolled by walking his dog, and he stopped to talk to the cop who was still in a car below our house.

"What's going on? Car wreck down there or something?"
The cop rolled down his window, "What?"
"Car wreck?"

Out of no where, there were 2 consecutive shots. The first almost sounded like a smaller gun, like the earlier shots, and the second shot that immediately followed had the distinct crack of a shotgun. The guy walking the dog took off running down Harrison. He stopped and came back towards the cop car. Yeah, car wreck, right. Nick and I had a feeling something went down at this point, and there was silence for a while.

"Joe, come to the window."
"Come to the window, Joe."

There was nothing. It got lighter, and an ambulance showed up in no hurry. We figured Joe killed himself, but apparently this late in the incident, he took his FIRST shot at a police officer. Another police officer fired in defense, and ended the conflict. It was obvious that this whole thing was going to end with a sad resolution.

Seton Hill went on lockdown and lots of phone calls were made. We weren't allowed to leave the house for a little while. Nick, Ashlan, and Marie eventually made their way back to Seton Hill and I went to bed. By now, it was going on 9:30 AM. I had to work at 2 PM. The action was over, but the whole incident won't be for a while. School will be awkward and I didn't even know the kid. Rest in peace.

Richard wants to be an astronaut

I grew up in, what I at least consider, the golden age of Nintendo. My cousin gave me his original Nintendo Entertainment System when I was three years old, and I remember the whole occasion vividly. My aunt brought it over to our house on some rainy night, along with a good few dozen of games. My dad couldn't even figure out how to connect it to the television the next day—I remember my uncle came over to help him and it was a big ordeal. Regardless, I spent an extreme amount of time in front of the TV playing that little gray box of a machine. To this day, it still functions, and I ocassionally play it on a day to day basis.
The point is, I was introduced to video games early on in life, and they played an integral role in my childhood. Growing up, I always said I wanted to make Nintendo games for a living. Obviously, this idea, vision, or goal, whatever it is, would evolve and change over time, especially after gaining more knowledge of how the real world works.
Somewhere along the line, I learned how to draw and took a liking to it. I think this combined with my video game obsession and started paving my future. I took art classes through elementary school and kept up with it until eighth grade. My art teacher at the time formed an art club, and long story short, ruined the experience for me entirely. I changed my mind.
One thing that is true is the fact that I have always been an indecisive person. Even when I go shopping, it takes me at least a solid minute to decide whether I want the $1.39 pasta or the $1.62 pasta. I'm also one of the thriftiest people I have ever met, but that is not the point. I gave art a second try towards the latter part of high school. I was going to college—I knew that for a fact. My parents drilled that into my head. But what for? I was good at art, why the hell not? Graphic Design was where it was at.
I had no idea Graphic Design did not exactly constitute character design and animation, which is what I ideally wanted to do. I ended up at Seton Hill because I wanted to stay somewhat local, and I think that was my first mistake. Seton Hill did not have what I wanted—I joined the Graphic Design program and slowly, over time, realized that magazine layouts aren't the same thing as three dimensional video game and movie characters. No big deal, I still slightly enjoyed what I was working on. Good financial aid trapped me into staying at this school.
Now during all of this, my love of music and playing music was growing immensely. I started playing guitar in ninth grade and kept at it ever since. I have been in and out of numerous bands, and now have a good grasp on five different instruments. This was all on my own, no pressure from any outside sources. Music has always been a fierce competitor with my schooling, and I do have my regrets in not going to school for some sort of music career. What this all comes down to is the obvious “what do I want to be in my future?” What do I want to be when I grow up?
What do I want to be when I grow up? What don't I want to be? I do not want to sit in some white collar office with over-cranked air conditioning for some company with no emotional or creative drive. I do not want to crunch numbers. I do not want to be a part of a business where their only need for you is to help spread the master plan of the whole scheme and make the higher-up executives their “hard-earned” dollars. What do I want to be when I grow up? I want to be an astronaut. I want to magically acquire the skills and physique to be able to be catapulted up into space, walk around on the moon, and make it back to this planet in one piece. I want to magically acquire the skills to throw together million-seller video games.
Unfortunately, though, this whole future thing really isn't too far away. It basically starts in about a year and a half. That is entirely too soon. Now is when I have to start thinking realistically. I have to be rational. Logic is key. I want to “be” me. When I graduate from this school, I do not want to jump headfirst into a career as I jumped headfirst into school and I regretted it. I want to take time and do what I enjoy doing. I want to play music. Sure, I want to try and find my way into a career, but I do not want to be tied down and restricted by a job that I will be working for the rest of my life.