Getting ready to roll….

Well, today I thought Lori and I would go shopping for some travel snacks and fun things to do while on the road. She is all in a flurry to see Jacks, I don’t even think she cares it’s her birthday weekend. That is ok too; if she has a good time then all is well. She was on the phone last night talking to her friends about her trip and then calling Jacks to make sure he was still coming.
I was worried about Jacks the other night, he was super depressed over a heated discussion he had with someone, and they did the one fateful thing of comparing him to our Pops. “It doesn’t matter Mark, it’s how they feel about me now”. When he told me what happened, my heart winced in pain for him. He's like me, he will act like it doesn't bother him but the hurt will linger on for a long time, running those bad/stupid thoughts in the back of his head over and over.
Anyone that truly knows my brother, he’s a very generous and sweet guy that can get flustered at times and if pushed and will naturally panic, as anyone would.
The person that accused him of being my Pops clearly doesn't know my Pops, I'm positive Jacks didn't hit or humiliate anyone to the point of breaking them down, that, is my Pops tactics of abuse. Jacks claimed he was tired of some head games being thrown his way and couldn’t take it anymore, (Here, I'm proud of him -- he usually shuts up and lets people run all over him.) along with to be made out the bad guy when all he was doing was trying to making a point. Something about “tag teamed pity stories” and it all eventually twisted on him as he expected it would be. I’m not sure the whole story about this, and probably will get an ear full when I do see him. All I know is that he assured me from now on he's washed his hands of that kind of event. "Let the cards fall where they may". What ever the circumstances, he was not very happy about the situation and I could hear it over the phone.
I couldn’t figure if it was stress of school, these strangers he was talking about, or the projects he’s partnering in may be getting him down and worried. He assured me the latter was coming together after some trial and errors, and the fact he works on those late at night when everything is quiet. School he says is a cake walk, which only leaves the strangers as an issue.
The trip will be sort of weather eventful, that we may run into some snow! I don’t think Lori has ever really seen snow, so she will have a cool birthday with a snowball fight to boot. I’m not going to tell her about it, in hopes of making it a surprise and the fact that the south isn’t that predictable on the snow forecasts. It would be my luck to tell her we might have some and then it never shows.
I have one of those cool GPS units that talks to you while you drive, I want to try that out as well, in hopes to use it this summer with my visit to see Jacks for our bike excursions.