It's late, and I apologize, but I wanted to wish everybody a happy holiday.

For those of you paying attention to me, you know I haven't really had much activity with posts such as stories and pictures. I just wanted to let everybody know I'm not gone. I'm actually working on another story, one that I may try to have published as a book. We'll see how I feel about it when it's done. Stay tuned for more.

Anybody who's been through Western PA this time of year, specifically Beaver County, knows about the Maple Syrup Festival. Each year volunteers and historians get together and take sap from the maple trees from the local park and make natural maple syrup, which they then sell. They also put on a big pancake and sausage breakfast using the syrup and have entertainment and reenactments of a time before electricity and modern day conventions, like stoves and such. It's a great time and anybody who passes through Beaver County this time next year should definitely stop and check it out. Anyway, got a couple of pictures with my mom while I was there. And now I want a pet alligator. :P She wants a snake. lol

http://imageshack.com/a/img34/1481/y0wf.jpg
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Yup. My birthday today. Turning 28 at 9:33 AM EST.

Just wanted to take a moment to wish everybody Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year. And to let everybody know, my one and only resolution so far is to write a "choose your own ending" story that I think my fans will love. Stay tuned and see you all next year.

So, in 45 minutes where I live, it will be December 21st. This time last year, everybody thought the world was going to end. So, I want to know how everybody's first year of the apocalypse went, and if anybody's had any major floating into space or zombie problems. :P

Returned to work today (from appendectomy), and having everybody say how happy they were to have me back, both customers and coworkers, really made me feel good. I been struggling with my role in life, and now that I know that I've touched so many lives that I was actually missed, it feels good to know it. Happy to be back.

So, in my last journal, I mentioned that my store sold a lot of Frosty coupon books. Well, I got the numbers from my one manager, and the Western PA area has sold 85285 books, which is 1878 more than last year. After crunching the numbers, that raised $68128 for the Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption. I'm just so happy that we raised so much money for kids in need.

Every year, Wendy's has coupon books for Jr. Frosties on sale for a $1. 80 cents of every dollar goes to the Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption while the other 20 go to the company that makes the books. It's a good deal, getting 10 Jr Frosties (which is 60 oz of frosties) for only $1. Anyway, this year, my location managed to sell 2454 of those books, and I myself sold 1234 of them, which means the store raised $1963.20, while my total raised was $987.20. No idea what the other stores managed to raise, but I'm happy with the effort by my location and very satisfied that we could raise so much for kids in adoption in need of it.

Ok. So, after my Swim Team Picture showed that Jerry is such a looker, I've decided I'm going to try and get a commissioned pin-up of him. I've not yet decided on a pose, whether it will just show off the main goods or be a teasing little bend, but I'll figure that out. Just want to say I never expected him to be so popular. It has given me a lot of thought about possible usage in future stories, since he hasn't been such a big character in my current and past works.

Secondly, speaking of writing works, I am in the process of making another short story. I'm not gonna leak any details, but I do want to have it up sometime around Halloween, give or take a few weeks. If I get it done early enough and I feel it's good enough, I may even post it sometime in September.

Anyway, that's all the news I have for now. Stay tuned.

So... I finally got the pictures from my time at Run For Your Lives. I believe they are against the FurAffinity AUP, so I have to put the link here in this journal. The woman with me in the picture is my mother.

So, I'm back and recovered from my time at Run For Your Lives, and I had a blast. I was a zombie along the course, and I managed to snag 13 flags. The make-up crew was amazing, and it was just a blast. The zombies I were with had a pretty good strategy going. Aside from a few cheaters, the runners were pretty good. The best thing about my shift was one of the runners bribed me with a beer to not take a flag. XD Had a great time. The only two things that kinda bugged me were the showers provided and the changing rooms. The shower was ice cold, and the changing room was just one open tent (blocked by walls) with no partitions, meaning no privacy. Honestly, between the two, I have to say seeing a room full of half and fully naked guys was a lot less irritating than ice cold showers. I gotta have warm water. XD I cannot wait for next year, when I plan to be a zombie AND run the course. I'll have pics soon.

As you may or may not know, there is an annual zombie 5K race called Run For Your Lives. In early August, the event will be in Pennsylvania. I will be attending as a zombie. I may even have pictures. If you're going to run in the PA race, I'll try nibbling on your brain. If you're joining as a fellow zombie, make sure you save some brains for me.

So, I went in to work today, and found out a couple of things that are just awesome.

The first tidbit I found out is in relation to pinups that Wendy's does every year around Father's Day to raise money for the Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption. For a $1 donation, we asked people to sign little pinups that looked like frosties to hang in the dinning room. Well, the store I work at in Beaver Falls wound up raising the most money out of every other store in our region, which includes much busier locations like Moon (which has two stores), Butler (which has two stores), Aliquippa (which is the main location), Monaca (which is next to a mall), Beaver and Chippewa (both which have shopping centers nearby). My store raised $250, but $225 was of my own doing. My coworkers weren't trying very hard. So I essentially raised more money by myself than any of the other stores in total. Makes me feel good that I could do so much good.

The second tidbit involves customer feedback. There are 700 stores in the sector that my store is in. I'm not sure if it's Tri-State (Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania) or just all of Pennsylvania, but my store was rated #1 in customer satisfaction and positive feedback out of all those stores.

It's moments like this that help boost my spirits, because I often wonder if my work goes unnoticed. I often feel like it does, but this here shows it does not, so it makes me feel good.

Have you heard about the kids who were suspended for playing like kids? If not, you can read it here.

Couple of things on this journal. First off, I discovered something quite interesting today. The FA Writers Directory. I saw a banner for it while I was checking a couple of my new submissions, and figured I'd check it out. It's pretty neat, as it has every writer on FA all listed, including myself. So if you like reading, make sure you swing by the directory and check out the list.

Secondly, I am in the works of another short story. Don't know how many of you are actually excited, or even care, about it, seeing as my last one didn't seem to get many readers or replies. Oh well, I'm gonna write it and upload it and if you don't like it, tough cookies. lol

That's all for now from this plat. Everybody have a good one.

So, for those interested in the second version of the commission I had done by Krezz, you'll have to go here to see it. It does not apply to FA due to the policies, but I do hope you'll check it out.

Well, the end of the Mayan calendar is here. Time to celebrate the end of the world. :P

Have a good one, and see y'all tomorrow.

So if what everybody fears is true and the Mayans are right (which I do not believe and there is plenty of evidence to disprove them), then I celebrated my last birthday ever yesterday.

As you may or may not know, Wendy's sells Frosty coupons and tags that raise money for charities. The coupons help the Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption with 90¢ of every dollar, and the tags help the Red Cross and Salvation Army with 80¢ of every dollar. This year I sold 955 books and 1200 tags, raising $1819.50 for charities. :D

Just wanted to wish everybody Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year.

Is it just me, or are people too uptight and overly offended now-a-days? A local city is in an uproar as a large group of atheists battle local churches to try and take down nativity scenes that have been put up. Plus today I have heard said atheist are battling to change Christmas trees to holiday trees. Also, I have heard people are boycotting Rudolph because it promotes bullying when it really doesn't. Whatever happened to people being happy at the holiday season?

Well, Trick Or Treat just ended in my neck of the woods with dissappointing results. Normally, I only get about 10 kids a year, so I never have my hopes set to high to giving out a lot of candy. This year set a record low for me that can only be tied, never broken. Zero kids showed up tonight. Zilch. Nada. Goose-egg. I got dressed up for nothing. Not that the kids would recognize my costume anyway. Nobody at the Halloween parties the local bars had Saturday recognized my costume either.

Well, I was Mr. Frosty at a Spirit Award ceremony for local high school Elwood City. It was a blast to be able to dress up as Wendy's famous desert treat, even if the costume did have some problems. Here is footage of the day.

http://www.wpxi.com/video/29272280/index.html

Well, I went to Waldameer Water/Amusement park Saturday, and I gotta say, I love that place! It was my first water park experience ever, and I couldn't have picked a better way for such an experience. Water slides are fucking amazing! My first one, I went down super fast and wound up bouncing up 3 feet in the air when I hit the water. The landing was a bit rough, but it was such an adrenaline filled fun time, I couldn't help but ignore it. I wish I lived closer to water parks now.

And Waldameer has a pretty good amusement park half too. The roller-coasters were incredible, especially the signature Ravine Flier 2. It gives you a breath-taking view of Lake Erie, but it also punishes you a little bit too. I got whipped around and wound up bruising my ribs off the side of the coaster car mid-ride. The other two things that kinda annoyed me about the amusement park part of Waldameer is that the park was open at noon, but none of the rides were open until 1 PM, and all the games required you to purchase a Waldameer Points Card before you could play. You couldn't just drop a couple of dollars down to play the game. And the cards only came in $10 and $25. Other than that, I loved it all.

It was so fun that I didn't wind up getting home until 1 AM the following morning. I just wish it was closer so I could go more often, but it's a two hour drive from where I live. Oh well, such is life. If you're reading this and you ever find yourself in the Erie area of Pennsylvania, I highly recommend going to Waldameer park for a day.