This weekend was quite an experience. Friday began, after leaving work, of course, with mom and Alan taking me to a family group at the Texas House Recovery Center. The purpose of the family groups is for addicts to bring their families with them to a group where they can learn to share and better understand what's happening. I sat in the back with Alan and my mom, Alan was a student of the two people who taught the class, which is why we were sitting in. There were some songs sung that really touched me, I haven't been to anything similar since the Halloween NA meeting with Jackson back about three or maybe more years ago.

It's a really incredibly moving experience to be at something like that, there's a lot of palpable pain in the room, and also something else that seems very subtle even though it is posted as the overt message of the entire group. It's really hard to describe what a whole room full of hurt people healing just a little bit feels like, because nothing else quite comes close. During both experiences, NA with Jackson, and this, I let out a tear or two. I probably could have let out more. I don't know. After I got to mom's house, I went straight to my dad's to pick up the textbooks he got me for the second session of summer semester. It was really generous of him, and I really needed them, since the classes had already started. Then, straight home, where I slept. Babies don't sleep that good.

Woke up early the next day and went straight back to my mom's house, and then wen to the grocery store with Alan who taught me how to pick a good brisket, I got a 15lb one and some baked beans to go with it, then at 2 o'clock I treated my mom to Wedding crashers, after which we saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on the IMAX. It was beautiful, plus, I finally saw the trailer to the new Harry Potter movie, which was, to say the least, amazing. I am seeing it opening night. Wedding Crashers had a lot of funny scenes, and I enjoyed it much. Chocolate Factory was very good, except for Wonka himself. His voice was so high pitched, I found it distracting and annoying the majority of the time whe he delivered his lines. There were moments where he was just perfect, and others where, sigh. He had the potential to be the right man for the job, he did a lot of stuff perfect. He did much more of it annoyingly.

After I got home, I went to Jake's house for his birthday, and then after playing a ton of games over there, I came home and started cooking the brisket at 1 am. It cooked well into the afternoon when the rain started and I felt it wise to cover the smoker and move the brisket into the oven for finishing off. it ended up being delicous, the baked beans are equally excellent. Dad brought potato salad and took some food home to Mary Ellen who was unable to make it, as she was not feeling very well at all.

After dad left, we started playing F.E.A.R. multiplayer Beta. We had some issues when we first tried it. It was problematic trying to figure out how to aquire the guest cd keys that were rightfully mine for buying the pre-order. We finally got that sorted out, and by luck, Jackson, and George, who brought their computers, as well as Mike and I, who used both of mine, actually began playing so intensely, that we kept it up till about midnight. Each match in the game is 20 minutes long. Mike played through 9 games that were each, in turn, theoretically his last match. It was the first time since XCOM that events occured that were worthy of telling stories about afterward, and the first time since Day of Defeat that we played so intensely without break, ceasing only because two of our players had bedtimes, and we could find no replacements.

Whew... so that whole event went on, Justin and Cymeron visited, and enjoyed the food. To everyone who came, thank you very much, it was a lot of fun.

Incedentally, we still have one F.E.A.R. beta key left.