Whoo! What a weekend we had! Yes, I know this is delayed but with John here for the weekend we've been a little busy. OK, so we're sitting on our butts a lot watching movies or playing gamecube, but you get the idea.

We started off with a Vulkon weekend in Orlando. There were the usual band of suspects. Given my usual routine for these weekends has included consumption of copious amounts of alcohol, having my son there was an interesting addition.

Vulkon was it usual self. Brent Spiner was the main guest and although tempted, the only times I made it onto the main programming room was when I was looking for friends. I did my best to balance the time I had to spend with friend and on Fleet matters with the fact that most of a Vulkon bores my son into a coma. Or at least to retreating to the hotel room. It was when the drinking started things took on a different slant.

I had grown up in a house where there was drinking. In the corner on our dining room was a liquor cabinet. I have gone from living in a bottle when I first got to college to being dry for seven years to enjoying the hell out of drinking. I was anxious about having my son around. Actually, I was more nervous about hearing grief from the Ex over it. I did balance my drinking with spending time with him during the evenings festivities. At one point he became extremely bored by himself in the hotel room and came down to check out the dance. This was an educational experience to say the least.

For a change I was the more sober of the bunch and it was an education for myself as well. No one was way out of control or anything; simply all having a good time. I don't know enough about my ex's life and her friends, but I do know enough to say to my son, "I guess you could definitely say Dad's friends are lots different than your mother's." His eyes widened and he shook his head vigorously. He called the evening "interesting" when I asked him the next morning.

Since coming home we have been to the movies and rented a few video games. Nothing too strenuous or out of the ordinary for two lazy guys on vacation. Tomorrow, though, I do plan to hit a miniature golf place nearby he's had his eyes on for a while.

His older brother is in a pile of trouble. Jimmy visited with his brother last President's Day weekend. With him being 17 years old I thought nothing of him sitting up until 2 or 3 AM watching television. That was, until I got this month's satellite TV bill. He had racked up $50 worth of adult pay per view. I was livid. Luckily, DirecTV could see that I had never even used regular pay per view and that this was an unusual spike in its use. They wrote off the $50. I will not let him know that, of course, and make him pony up the money. I'll give it to his mother for something he needs but will put him through the torture of facing both me and his mother on this one.

The sound you are hearing is my parents laughing in vengeful retribution from the other side!