Boats, Bikes, Books

LYFZ GR8

2008-07-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

so if you dont know it, the title of this blog is actually my dads license plate... yea not so cool but oh well thats his slogan for his life. even if he does have bad grammer. he puts it on his business cards too, the 8 and the Z and everything. but moving along. a lot has happened in the past two days. last night justin, mark and i decided to take a chance on a rumor that The Jimmy Buffett was going to be making a surprise appearance at the Randy Salerno Foundation event at lippold to raise money for kids trying to major in broadcast journalism. the only downside of the night was that the rumor was false and jimmy buffett actually did not make a surprise appearance but really that was the only bad part. we got to meet his right hand man Mac Macanally, shake his hand, say hello, talk a bit, and get a picture with him. im sure it will be my profile pic in the near future. it was $75 bucks to get a ticket into the event and because of that we decided to go all out. we took full advantage of the free drinks, appetizers, and dinner that they served. out of the drinks and food alone we banked at least $100, that didnt even include the most personal concert that we got from Mac and a t-shirt that the band before gave out to me, personally. RIP Randy.

so this is the first day of RAGBRAI (registers annual great bike ride across iowa) in which we dont ride today but we are setting everything up to get going for tomorrow. right now im at a friend of my dads house in omaha, nebraska and going to sleep in a king size bed after i finish this complimentary Bud Light that they gave to me. life is great. my dad, sister liz, and i woke up at 5 this morning. left at six. and drove all the way across iowa, picking up my aunt carol along the way. i never knew it was possible for one lady to fill up half of BUKLE UP 1 (our astro van that is carrying all our stuff) but she some how decided to go for the gold and do it. she even brought along freakin watermelons. watermelons. seriously? they are rolling around the car like bowling balls. im making it a goal of mine to not ride in a car this whole week. it will happen.

ill make sure to update hopefully everyday. also ill find out the website where we are uploading pictures. lifes great, through and through.

Hello Chicago

2008-07-12T18:34:00.000-07:00

so i visited chicago with my friend susan and saw this show called Cirque Shanghai at navy pier. it didnt start out very well with me being late to go pick her up. we missed the train in cary and then it was off to the races to barrington to hopefully beat the train. word of advice, trains go in a straight line and cars zig zag and all that shit. i did not make the train. so we waited for 45 min for the next one and parked my car in a permit only parking lot with the possibility of getting a citation. so with being late we missed abour 30 min of the hour and 30 min show. but it was still awesome. the Cirque Shanghai is just a bunch of oriental gymnasts doing very tricky tricks like fitting 30025 people on one bicycle or jumping and climbing poles like they are monkeys, except cooler. the hour of the show that we saw was awesome and then we headed over to the Grand Lux Cafe on michigan avenue. im tellin ya, chi-town food is expensive but damnit it its good and i definately recommend the "caramel crispy chicken" at that place. oh yea i also tried Newcastle Brown Ale for the first time and it was awesome. im thinking about picking up a 6 pack right now. being 21 owns.

We Tried Our Best

2008-07-08T23:58:00.001-07:00

so this weekend my life revolved around the gala. i was an intern there and that ment i had to be a bitch boy and do whatever the people running the gala needed me to do. i will be getting $500+ dollars for working it but the days were rediculously long and the nights were short because i had to wake up the next day. it sucked not being able to see some friends that were in town but i got to meet some awesome people that were also interns that i hope stay with me for a very long time. sometimes you dont get out of your circle of friends very much and its a fresh of breath air to do so even though you love your preexisting friends a lot. plus the 15 hour days did help with the bonding situation. ill probably do it again because of the money and people but ill make sure to get enough sleep when im not working.

i lost my keys to my apartment, bike lock, and my $10 frisbee. ive been praying to St. Anthony of lost and found a lot. i just wish i knew were everything important to me was.

i love when people say great quotes, this is a quote that i heard from my cousins friend; "What will you do with your one wild and precious life" by Mary Oliver. it makes you stop and see actually what you are doing. its crazy.

got a ton of Miller Lite signs from the beer garden at the gala, my apartment is going to be decked out and my room is going to be the "VIP LOUNGE."

i havent been on a date in a really long time. i feel in need of a change.

went on a bike ride today to Mchenry just because i need to get in the miles. it was only 31 miles but it was still a work out with some of the hills that i tried to obilterate but totally owned me. another thing i noticed while riding in Bull Valley (right next to mchenry) was that people give iowa and what not a bad rep because they dont know how to experience it. like biking past this;
some people thiink that this is boring, i find it peaceful

a lot of people complained about the gala. i shouldnt really care about it but im just letting everyone know that 66 nieghbors at the Lakefront signed a petition kicking the gala out in Feb leaving them to either not have the gala or find a dif place. and even though the parking was really bad, it cost to get in, blah blah blah i just want to let everyone know that we tried our best. as to getting it set up and trying to run things smoothly with what we were given we did out best. i wonder how many people could argue with that?

its good to be back in camp, to play vball, and to bike.

Still Summer

2008-06-29T22:23:00.000-07:00

so this weekend was pretty boss. it started off with making a trip down to the ilstu for adam and natalies birthday party. everything went smooth as butter and the best part was getting adam this gift.

its a bottle of vodka shaped into the form of a rifle. if you dont know, adam was big into drill team in high school so this was the perfect gift for him. the thing is that i dont know if he will ever drink it.... oh well.

that was the friday night and saturday morning. going against my original plans i decided to go with the willes, andy, jake, and kyle to lindseys house warming party in rockford. that too was pretty awesome. they have an actual house that comes out of a legit suburb so it was kinda odd bringing in good amounts of beer into her house while her old nieghbors were outside on their porches. classy. oh yea and wolfy brought Wa-shoo's which is basically bags but with washers. it was intense.

then today right when i get back from rockford burkle calls me up and asks if i want to hand out some flyers for the gala at the taste of chicago. im tired and sticky and definately not in the mood to go but hell. i do it anyways. ive never been to the Taste and i only have one beautiful and precious life so why not make it good. it was awesome. the gala graciously paid for the train ticket and a butt load of food to have at the taste and all i had to do was hand out flyers with burkle, aubert, and turk. it was a damn good day. but this week is going to suck. the gala is going to own my soul so im thinking i very well might just have to stay in this week and get some extra sleep.

this was definately the best weekend of the summer so far. hope all is well with everyone.

Perfect Summer Day

2008-06-23T17:42:00.001-07:00

so today was the first day back from vacation in wisconsin, which was also awesome. but today is turning out to be perfect. biked to work for the first time this year and just flew. work was awesome too and my group and i at the beach just went off; sand castles, digging holes in the sand and then making pools with them, canoeing... a lot, playing hide and seek at the play ground, then at the rotary building i organized a huuuge hike around VA which was pretty legit. went to the Devils Pit and hiked around for a good 6-7 miles. the greatest thing about the hike too was that it nearly took up the whole day. just walking around experiencing freakin nature, man, and then boom, its 3 o'clock and its nearly time to go. then i biked home and cruized at a steady pace all the way to crystal castle where i played 6v6 sand vball for around 3 hours. just awesome.

this is how summer should be.

bummer dude

2008-06-14T13:28:00.000-07:00

so the cubs are pretty much the best team in the mlb. i love it. in other news i fell off my bike a week ago while wearing sandals and scraped my left big toe. its hell. its summer and i cant go in water, sand, and i hobble around like a drunk gimp. actually i take that back. i did play vball 2 days ago but i wore a latex glove on my foot to keep out the dirt. it looked pretty risky.
-camp started last week and it has been awesome. been fishing, canoeing, all the good stuff. oh yea and we went to enchanted castle on thursday. i won a big squishy ball out of a claw machine. thug life.
-took a bike ride with kait around crystal lake yesterday. it was pretty sweet. i am still surprised at some of the houses that are in CL. some Hollywood movie set should come in and use some of these houses for a movie
-Wayne's world is hilarious
-showed a bunch of friends to the game Nurts. its been in the family for quite some time and now im happy that its been shared with some of my closest friends. its very competitive and makes you swear like a sailor
-next time your with someone and someone in a car either has an annoying muffler, a bass system as loud as hickeys, or screeches their tires by you just say "why do we need Menards? we have so many tools around here." its a good one.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1814685

24 hour run

2008-05-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

so it was bad but not as bad as i thought it was going to be. some of us had the good idea of actually sleeping in between runs at night and are not as sleep deprived as past 24 hour runs. i also found out that my Power Song is "Bombs Over Baghdad" by Outkast. That song is boss. But the run was fun, caught up with some friends that i havent seen in a while and met some new friends on the team. Everything went well other than the fact that i thought i was getting a heart attack on my last mile. well thats over with and now ill just be looking forward to RAGBRAI and Urban Assault Race. go summer 08

Song Suggestions

2008-05-20T23:53:00.000-07:00

so this summer seems to be pretty interesting so far. ill be doing a lot of races over the course of the summer; the 24 hour run, RAGBRAI, and the Urban Assault Race. out of those three i am the most scared about the 24 hour run. i just know that i can handle some biking events, but running....? we'll see.

in the mean time i am trying to put together some motivation songs for my running during the event tomorrow. here are some of my thoughts and some suggestions from friends so far.

"american boy" by Kanye West
"i gotta get through this" by i dont know who
some led zeppelin
"bombs over baghdad" by outkast
"rock n roll" by led zeppelin
"your hand in mine (w/strings)" by explosions in the sky
"cecilia" by simon and garfunkal
"ha ha" by mates of state
"paradise city" by guns n' roses
"nothing better" by the postal service

if anyone has suggestions for another song, just leave a comment

summer so far

2008-05-15T23:37:00.001-07:00

so summer has been awesome. other than not having money im doing just fine. i still need a job and it feels like money is blood for me (if i dont have it ill die!) but i get by with a little help. been biking and running a lot, doing the 24 hour run alumni team next thursday and im going to die. thats all there is to it, plain death. so ive been trying to get up early (sometimes it works) and do some runs. been pretty consistent with the biking though. took a Tour de Elgin solo today and wanted to go further but i had no idea where the trail went when there were detours in downtown elgin. also to note; elgin is a really nice place, bunch of benches by the river to sit down at and really nice scenery. the Tour was about 30 miles but i did fine other than the fact that my eyes started to hurt because of the wind and my gouch was torn apart from the rock solid seat. i need to name my bike. maybe itll be "KW" or something because i put that Key West sticker on it. we'll see if any name rises naturally.

went to the CL bars for the first time tonight. celebrated the going away of ashley powell to her new home in colorado. the friends are starting, and now that i think of it have never stopped, moving away. thats the way things are. you just got to find someone to stick on to. it was a good time in down town CL though. i was DD so i didnt really kick back as many as you might say miskell or even fogerty... hahaha. he was a mess. putting his feet on the table at georgios is just an example. oh well, he was a good topic of conversation.

im loving the show The Office more and more each day. watched a bunch of episodes at mals house and tried my best to hold back that bursting/humiliating laugh i have when i cant control it. then i watched the season finale tonight which, by the way, was an hour long (sweet) and felt like i was a character. thats how personal it was. oh lordy.

planning on heading to naperville with some bros saturday. its going to be a night of pure juicing at the summerfest that they are having. from my history with the fest (that being one year) it should be a great time. really looking forward to yelling out random obscenities at the fireworks again

new from the old

2008-05-09T23:48:00.000-07:00

so its 1:43 in the morning. its saturday. im still at the ilstu and not nearly finished packing my room. this dorm (watterson) is one of the biggest in the nation and its fucking empty... really. the only two people that i think are still in it are me and the kid across the hall in the single bedroom that ive had roughly 3 conversations with that didnt have more than 30 words in them. other than that i dont here a sound from any floor, dont see anyone anywhere, and it all feels like a ghost town. doesnt help either being in a room with half the amount of people its supposed to have be in it. oh well, ill make it through. this is going to be a long entry because i havent wrote in it since my birthday. my life had been pretty boring since then actually. it was mostly just class, homework, and repeat. but for my send off of the school year ill say some of my favorite moments of the year according to who did them.
sarah
-watching that horrible japanese movie with you
-dropping my shorts in the stairwell
-"smoke weeeed"
-latino studies and theatre in general
-"put your ..."
mark
-all of the drama
-the "emperor" drinking game ("kill kill kill kill, live live live live")
-being the beer pong tourney champion
-chillin on Dunn 4 and your face behind the door about abby
justin
-johnsons bar crawl
-the jimmy buffett band
-lighter for birthday candle
-courts bday
-winning 8 in a row at rickys
abby
-the photo shoot in your room
-you playing cupid
-your dress for barn dance
kyle
-most epic Hardcore game of halo
-your stupid but awesome beer pong finals win over eiler and i
natalie
-frisbee
-trip to purdue and miami ohio
-wearing my cub scout uniform for halloween
-our marriage talk
-you not showing up when you scedualed lunch
-latino studies moments
andy
-incorporating brian into the scene and the actions that came from that
-my BP partner for most of the year
-challenging my dance moves
vargas
-raging at the pub 2 bodyguards
-starting the revolution in alabama
-"ooooooooh gasmoooooooo"
-pink drank
-the bro walk
-fights with your roommates and anyone who wants to rumble with words
hickey
-always offering even though i will refuse every time
-the hickey shuffle
-arguments with vargas
-professing your friendship through horrible deeds.
-talking about gta
-your cars bass making me feel like an earthquake was coming
lindsey
-olive garden and sushi
-your best game of beer pong at hickeys
-dissing the girls business frat
annette
-"make me drink the salty waaater"
-organizing the "ruck fockford" party
-comparing me to your mother...
colleen
-always shrugging your shoulders and holding the double thumbsup with your smiles
-whatski isski youski sayingski?
-blacking out on multiple occasions
mike
-always sucking at video games
-trying to get into fights the most
-never failing to say "whats up fagnes"
-recognizing how bad brian fucked up
-not having any nice cloths for a good occasion
-feeling 10x cooler to the "hustlin" song
bini
-being the most photogenic friend i have
-talking about video games
-losing everything on centsports...
-sharing hilarious/stupid online videos
adam
-yeaaaaaaaaaaa
-ooooh what up hal!
-epic swedish fish toss
-pinning your finger in the door, bruising it, and never telling me until months later...
-sienfeld everyday and owning in sienfeld trivia
-tripping you when your drunk
-listening to stupid david play halo/listen to music/be dumb
-intervention

and thats all im going to do really. if anyone reads this and is sad that i didnt mention them. tough luck bro. its just a dumb blog

Surprise Me

2008-04-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

so last night was my birthday party. it was a good day in general. lets get the bad things out first though. the start was horrible, enough said. and i lost around $1.30 on centsports! oh lordy it was a horrible day of betting for me. i won a good 4 game parlay in for soccer and then lost nearly it all in basketball and baseball. i hate betting on baseball, its the hardest sport to bet on. thank goodness i dont do it with actual money. just centsport money. its fun.
but for the good part of my day.
went with adam to go pick up a helium tank and some packets of balloons. got a good idea that it would be fun to have a bunch of balloons floating around everywhere. i had a good time setting them up. even though justin has a new found distaste towards balloons. poor guy. then after that the bambini family came down for the spring football game and invited mark, justin, and i out to dinner at this really good mexican restaurant. the portions were huge and the prices were cheap. i know that stuff is going to wreck me in the future. oh yea, and "air africa" is a reallll button pusher, kinda like me. but i still would love to watch beanbo rock him one of these days. after that i got my first purchase of an alcoholic beverage. a keg of natty. it was pretty boss. and nick had a pretty hard time helping me up the stairs. those NCC kids are so strong... haha anyways. after some showering, watching sports, and pretty much broing out we decided to get a second k-e-g and i got some pink drank for nat-dog. a good amount of people showed up last night but it was a waste to move the shitty couch into marks room. im so sorry mark, even though it fits perfectly. i was really happy at the people that showed up. austin, corrine, and nick i knew were coming and i was really happy that they had a good time. i really think corrine bonded well with some friends of mine and shes a good dancer. but the real thing that surprised me was kait and danielle bursting through the door at around 10:30! i was sideswiped. kait had been lying all week that she couldn't make it because of a volleyball tourney she was going to and a team dinner afterwards. then danielle made the long trip from western and i was really happy she came also. i still cant believe that they came, utterly surprised. austin got me this collectible derrek lee bobble head that he got from a cubs game that he attended with corrine. it was awesome, apparently a lot of people at the game asked him if they could buy it off him and he just said "its for a good friend." ohhh shit. kait got me this card that she put together last minute but it was still something that i read at least 4 times over last night. she should really think about partnering up her Kaits Kards company with Danielles Designs. they would make a pretty good tag team duo. then some friends of mine that i havent really hung out with for a while came and the night dwindled down until everyone started to head home. it was just a really good night. thanks

Never Again

2008-04-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

so its my birthday. big 2-1. last night was pretty crazy. started kicking back a few around 7:30 and went over to justins at 8:00 to watch the sox game and get things started. as soon as i get there justin gives adam and i a shot of jager. that stuff is better than i thought. we got some coors. it was good. i was drinking. a lot. my sister came at around 10:30 and brought a cake. but she didnt have any candles. so justin got a scented candle. didnt work. so he just used the lighter. it was very easy to blow out. im stumbling. a good amount of people came for the small celebration. we finally go to the bars at midnight and im wearing that stupid tiarra that justin has. about 3 seconds of being in the bar justin gets me a landshark. i drank it way too fast. after that i remember four things; taking a sip from marks rum and coke, going to the bathroom, pointing to my tiarra and saying to some completely random guys "this isnt too gay is it?", and taking the four horseman. half way through the four i nearly upchucked and mark says that he cringed when he saw me do that. after that i blacked out. apparently i puked all over pub 2's parking lot and needed to be taken home by brittany and mark or justin, i have no idea. that night will never be recreated. im happy its over with. drink responsibly. carpe diem.

Bruised Thumb

2008-04-09T18:12:00.000-07:00

so i went to this dodgeball club on monday at the mccormick center. it was a good time. i was the silent new guy. might of had a better time if i didnt try to dodge from a ball coming at my right arm, swing it out of the way, jam my thumb into my thigh, and get a bruised thumb that looks like i have a black french tip manicure... never bruise your thumb. our speech and our thumbs are what makes us human. you wouldnt believe what you cant do with a bruised thumb. turning a key? brushing my teeth? playing halo? writing with a pen? nope, not going to happen. the only thing that is fun is showing people and looking at their reactions. but its not cool to pinch my thumb. you know who you are.

Sweet fones.

2008-04-07T17:31:00.000-07:00

so i went to the AGD formal dance this weekend. we got searched beforehand so that we didn't bring in alcohol. but they served alcohol at the facility. it was kind of weird. it was one of the few dances were i got so tired that i didnt want to dance anymore. i was exhausted. i think it was the screaming and jumping at the same time during "jump around." that song always gets me. care was a fun date. i ate the dinner that they served us in probably 8 minutes. i was so hungry. after that we (meg, care, kyle, and i ) went to miskells who was having people over. land mines is a bad bad game.

my dad, mom and sister alison came down yesturday for mass, lunch, and catching up on things. it was a good sunday afternoon. my family has a real problem talking about people that we see in church.
"what are those things in that girls hair" said alison
"um, paperclips?" said dad
it was refreshing to go to mass. then we went to medici's. which was good. walmart for some things. which was good. and then my dad and i tried to get this U-lock off my bike down here because i lost the keys to it. we had this huuuge bolt cutters and my dad sets the bar of the lock way back into the cutters, puts one handle on his thigh, and then pulled down as hard as he could on the other handle. it left a dent about the lenght of the bottom line of this "L". it was crazy. and then we used hack saws. two of them. both blunted before they even scratched the lock. lord have mercy. that hardened steal is awesome.... too awesome.

after our failure i got some bday presents. a $100 bill from my parents which is in my wallet right now. i feel like theives are looking at my wallet right now. risky? yes. i like to live on the edge. and then i got an awesome wireless headset for my phone. i can even recieve calls and talk to people on it.

technology owns.

Iowa City

2008-03-30T15:57:00.000-07:00

so ben johnson is 21. congradulations. apparently a good way to have a fun time for a birthday in iowa city is to have a bar crawl. so thats what we did. it was a last minute decision for me to go but im glad i jumped on into lucys honda civic for my first night in iowa city. ive heard it was a good time but i didnt know it was going to be somethiing like this. we were walking 96 deep. apparently jacqueline did a really good job in sorting that out and sold 96 of the planned 97. jhoff was all nostalgic ("hick.... lets do this right"), hick had some good quotes ("if i saw someone just jack agnes i would just go 'CLLLLL' and start throwing"), bini couldnt stop quoting the video i will post at the end ("NOW you fucked up"), nicole was just as bad as me in flippy cup, this kid named goose was an awesome BP partner, lugo had some good song selection skills, jano couldnt stop hustling to the song "everyday im hustlin", and this was all before the bar crawl!!

at the first bar andy and i tipped back a few and then went on the dance floor. all of the sudden some girl comes up to me and says "my friend wants to challenge you to a dance off." i could not put this down. im batting 1000 for dance offs. with my only win being tim joos on decade day, junior year, in the pit. well i start off with some crazy arm motions, do a little whirl wind action, just being an idiot. and then this very flamboyant guy starts going jui jitsu on my ass with some arm motions. spicing it up with some wierd moon walk thing. just working it. i cross my arms and take it. so i gotta do something big. i do the wierd arm motions and then i do a somersault and smack my head on the dance floor. i stop it there, im now batting 500.

the next bar was pretty cool, nothing really exciting happened there but it was kinda annoying to have all these waitresses that they had there walk around in packs interrupting your conversations.

the final bar that we went to was called The Union Bar. apparently it is the biggest bar out of all the Big Ten schools. i got lost in it. there are multiple floors and VIP rooms and what not. i was freaking out. how do 96 people go to a bar, wearing the same bar crawl shirts, and im not able to find A person. forgotten by me, we had actually rented out a VIP room and everyone else was there. it was a good time. i got to the point were i was just fine and were just having tipsy conversations with people everywhere.

we get back to johnsons apartment after union closed and was just having fun with a couple of people. at union lugo got some Patron with him and started acting pretty crazy. he poured 10 shots of vodka at 3 in the morning telling people to take them. then he went into johnsons room were lucy and justin were sleeping on the bed and vargas was sleeping on the ground. lugo then proceeded to break johnsons fan and start trying to kill vargas ("IM GOING TO TAKE YOUR LIFE!!") by pressing the grated fan against his face and trying to "hide" behind blankets draped infront of the window in use of blinds.

through and through it was a blast. 96 people didnt get into any fights, didnt have nearly any drama, and all had a good time.

america owns.

just some random thoughts

2008-03-23T00:27:00.000-07:00

i love seeing images like this that make you want to do something like that. i like to think that this wasnt staged.

i still think that winning the lottery is the most interesting conversation possible.

i want to do some small boat sailing.

whats something that you have lost and always wanted to find?

my bike is so pretty.

poetry is so confusing!!! i just get lost in all the words and meanings. tell me it straight.

you know a girls pretty when you notice something that looks good with her that is not noticable in anybody else.

honeycrisp apples own.

im in a band. im the lead guitarist. we are called The Elks.

i dont know if ill ever drop the habit of nail biting.

i want to go to Charlie Trotter's. it's a restaurant. it's in the book "1000 Places to See Before You Die." its supposed to be amazing. the grand tasting menu is $125. any takers? experience.

Heyyyy

2008-03-18T18:16:00.000-07:00

so back in action. school action that is. didn't go out for st. Patty's day on the count that i was reading and reading and reading, for a school book. not fun. oh well.

started working out again. 40 min on the bike is freakin working my ass. i just want to be riding outside. anybody got a metal saw? i need to cut my bike lock off. i lost the key.

Easter is a comin. going home for the weekend. seems like a long time that Ive actually spent all of a weekend at isu. the year has gone by so fast. its almost over again. Ive only got less than 6 weeks left. 6 weeks!!! then ill be taking summer classes. German here i come. wish me luck.

the new novel Heat is good. makes me want to become a chef. maybe thatll be a good thing to pick up for next year...

money sucks. i need it. but i dont want to make it. i spend it. but i feel like i should save it. one of the most fasinating conversations is what would you do if you won the lottery. i think i spent 3 hours on the car ride home from bama just fantasizing about it.

Week In Bama

2008-03-13T17:20:00.000-07:00

so our place in alabama is sick. its a 3 story house that holds 18. its someones actual house that is rented out by meyer realty. we havent been really trashing it because its really nice and has a lot of good beds, rooms, silverware, yadda yadda yadda. the only things that suck are a shitty frig, cold pool, and a poop pipe breaking out in the front yard. bummer. but really its been a fun spring break. the weather is going, sometimes its been a bit hard to handle but the past two days have been good.

i have to apologize to vargus for trying to tell him to get outside more often. its his prerogative if he does not want to.

the food has been pretty good. food from Flora Bama and Desoto has been really good. Lamperts was my favorite though. its a place were they have a custom of throwing their rolls at them. you hold up your hands and they throw them across the room. and then a nice lady covers them in apple butter. on the menu it said that the chicken salad was "Mrs. Agnes's best"... apparently my mom likes to go to Gulf Shores, AL. make an awesome chicken salad. and make it a regular on a big restaurant menu.... go mom.

been reading a lot lately. just cruised through the epilogue of War and Peace and finally finished it. yes you heard me. i finished the book War and Peace. it was good. but when it was talking about the War aspect of the book it felt like it was good through tough learning. like school. the Peace part was really good, a very interesting story. and it being so long it felt like actual people. like it would never end. but it did, 1444 pages into it. it was a lot of reading. now im going to start reading a book called Heat. it should be good.

ive been outside a lot also. been really getting tan. getting tan through burning. im warm right now. and everyone around me is cold that is not burnt. it feels good. i cant wait for summer. i just got news from jessica mino that i could work the july 4th weekend at the gala. yea it doesnt sound like fun but.... a 500 dollar paycheck for a weekend DOES sound fun.

i fell in love with a girl. she works at Flora Bama. i dont know her name. i didnt even talk to her. and i probably will never meet her again. and it makes you think about how many people walk through your life. you just gotta choose who to keep in your life.

sarah is good at making me feel like the flooded pipe in our front yard.

Maybe

2008-03-06T11:42:00.000-08:00

i want to donate a kidney.
i only need one.
maybe itll help save a life.

Upside Down Face

2008-03-04T13:32:00.000-08:00

went to a poetry reading last night for one of my classes. the guy reading was actually really funny. i also think that poetry sounds 153x better when the author reads it. it was a good experience

ok so here it goes. i started this blog to update on interesting things in my life and i dont really care if some people think halo is geeky or anything. if you want to judge, im an open book. but here it goes, something interesting, with halo.

team hardcore owns. well it owns when you have a team of friends and you know everyone because if you just go in solo you dont know the people and it just is weird. ive actually never played solo but i would think it would suck. i love team TMNT. kyle is Leonardo. dale is Michelangelo. luke is Raphael. and im Donatello. yea, i know i "do machines" as kyle likes to remind me everytime we play together. but Donatello owns. but anyways. we started playing hardcore last night and we are doing pretty good. everytime i play i feel like im going to have an anxiety attack because you have no radar so you dont know what the hell is going on and you need to really rely on communication from your teammates to know where everyone is. if you dont then your just going to be running around everywhere waiting for someone to come on to your screen and by then your done. but there is one game that stands out from the rest that we played last night. we love playing HC slayer on HC snowbound. we do pretty good at it. so we get set up with this one team and they have some pretty high ranking players. 2 brigadiers and 2 colonels. so we are going up against some heat. we are down the whole game. one of the guys was just plain rediculous. going around everywhere and just taking people out left and right. by the end of the game we are down 42-48 and luke says "damnit, we are going to lose" and we all agree with him. but no, here is our comeback story. three guys swarm down into the bunker on kyle and make it 42-49. kyle gets one of them and i then go in and take the other 2 out. 45-49. they swarm down into the bunker again with three guys, one of them has the overshield so anyone should be pretty confident on at least getting one kill to end it . its 45-49. dale sees that they are going down, hides in one of the bases, follows them, and assassinates the last guy in the pack. kyle takes some damage but throughs a sick grenade right when they go down. taking down their shields and then luke cleans up the last of them with a brute shot. 48-49. i while in the mean time go head to head with the best one of them all at the back entrance of the bunker and take a body-snip/punch combo right after he tries to get me with some headshots with the battle rifle. 49-49. we are freaking out. we need one more kill. they decide to group up one more time and swarm down the middle entrance of the bunker bunker. one of the teammates in the back of the pack throughs a grenade while the front one is going down. unintentionally completely weakening him. the first guy starts shooting needles. dale see's him come down and just goes for the punch. 50-49. we win. i think this experience has made dale believe in fate. it was awesome.

Life Is Just A Tire Swing

2008-03-02T12:58:00.000-08:00

so ive been stressed out. reading. tons of reading. reading for papers. papers that are due this week for midterm. hours on end. but i made my best effort to make up for it this weekend. here it goes.

wednesday it was abbys birthday. and like everyone else when they have a celebration in their name she wants a theme party. something for everyone to join in. with the collaberation spawning the seeds of friendship deeper in the hearts of the participants. or some shit like that. well everyone came out and joined in. madonna came out, so did eminem, t-pac from the dead, tom cruise, preggers jaimie lynn spears, micheal cura from juno, the "turtle" himself, k-fed, lil' wayne, post-rehab britney, and many more. i happened to be the paparazzi to it all and took 358 pictures. yes, 358. it was awesome. i was just as annoying as the regular paparazzi and totally documented the scene in 6 lucious photo albums on the book.

thursday nothing.

friday was OK.

SATURDAY was awesome. well not the whole thing. but parts. i had been reading for the past 5 hours before i went out so i didnt get into the scene at budget until around 8 when it usually is a lot earlier. the beer was green and there was nobody really around because a lot of people had either had enough of getting did by saturdays (see ya in 5 years PEACE!) or they just were bored and went home early. well we keep on drinking and bini is gone and justin comes home from something. then justin puts on buffett. bini grabs a the rock band guitar. starts "playing". and making wierd faces. really wierd. i fly across the room. grab the drum sticks like they are handle bars. and start making my best impression of Robert "Robot" Greenidge on the drums. justin grabs the mike and doesnt miss a word for the next 15 songs. we keep on playing. vargus and o make up some "pink dranks" which taste like kitty cocktails. marks comes throught the door from the AGD crush dance with abby and said that they got kicked out of the bar that they were at because some guy punched backwards a stall door in the boys bathroom. mark then picks up the other guitar and sings background vocals. it was awesome. good way to get excited for the tickets to come out, tomorrow! oh sick nasty! (trademark joe hoffman).

im doing urban assault with austin. hopefully some other friends sign up.

i need to get my team set up and ready for RAGBRAI.

ive been trucking through War and Peace up until i found out i had a million things to read for midterms. ive got about 140 pages to go.

i dropped spanish.

alabama in a week.

Good Quote

2008-02-27T17:59:00.000-08:00

And suddenly there rose before him, as vivid as though alive, the image of a long-forgotten, gentle old man who had given him geography lessons in Switzerland. 'Wait,' said the little old man, and he showed Pierre a globe. This globe was a living thing - a quivering ball of no fixed dimensions. Its whole surface consisted of drops closely squeezed together. And all these drops were shifting about, changing places, sometimes several coalescing into one, or one dividing into many. Each drop tried to expand and occupy as much space as possible, but others, striving to do the same, crushed it, sometimes absorbed it, at others melted into it.
'That is life,' said the old teacher.
'How simple and clear,' thought Pierre. 'How is it I never knew that before?'

-War and Peace, Book 4, Section 3, Part 15, pg 1261

thanks for the balls

2008-02-25T00:43:00.000-08:00

so i have been making a bad habit of staying up late. i used to do it last year and here i am again with it this year. oh well. sometimes i get hungry. hit up subway. thats one of the few things im going to miss when im in an apartment next year. being able to go down stairs and get food. tonight was another one of those subway run nights. just a six inch. nothing big. while i was getting it this girl that works there came from the back area and said "does anyone want any extra meatballs? we would just throw them out anyways." so i ablidge to and say thank you to the kind girl. it was really nice of her. she could have just thrown them out but she decided to ask some people. makes you want to do some good in the world.

i have to make a visit to the library tomorrow. aparently ive been renewing War and Peace so many times that i have to go in and make a claim that im nearly done with it and its a long book and im reading it for fun. right now im at pg 1135 of 1444 pages. so im almost done. shits going down in russia right now. people are dying. napoleon is thinking about peacing out of moscow even though he just took it over. pierre is trying to go Lee Harvey Oswald on napoleon. oh man!

RIP mug

2008-02-19T23:47:00.000-08:00

what is hell. im sitting at my desk. doing a paper. not touching anything on my shelf. TIIIIIIIMBEEEEER. my printer comes crashing down from the first shelf on to my computer and desk. smashing my mug in the process.

look at that thing. just LOOK AT IT! its beautiful. that thing on its handle is a whistle. that worked. that i was planning on using with justin or kyle or bini or hicky when i got my own place. nope. and you know what was even better, it said "US Drinkng Team World Champions" on the side. yes, even with that typo on the 'drinking.' just perfect. you know how i got that mug? from a freaking salvation army garage sale up in wisconsin for.... drum role.... A QUARTER. 25 cents. my lord. good golly miss molly. allehuja. GOOD NIGHT!

RIP mug
never forget

Beards, they grow on you.

2008-02-18T22:35:00.000-08:00

story time. in spanish today. we split up into 4 groups and played spanish jeopardy. kyle and i were on different teams so we, of course, make a huge specticle of "pew pews" and "ooooh get did!"'s. kyle has a kid thats really into spanish. he's kinda creepy. so they do pretty good and jump up to like 200 points at one point in time. my team wanted to go for big money (500) and got it wrong. "oooooh GET DID GREG. pew pew pewwwww!" comes the inevitable cheer from kyle. it comes around to kyles teams turn again and they get the answer right, again, which put them at 400 points. we dont go SO bold and shoot for a 300. double jeopardy!. i some how persuade the teacher to make the wagered amount be 900 so if we get it right then we would be tied for first. we get the question right! OOOOOH GET DID KYLE. i throw out some guns. pew pew pew. and start celebrating. "oh senior gregorio! ?un biblioteca?" says the teacher. apparently i had my book open but was not even looking at it!!! ohp, see ya later points. we shoot down to -1200. kyle couldnt stop laughing and i dont know how he didnt run out of ammunition for his guns. i think i have a vendetta with spanish.

TV Sitcom

2008-02-16T12:59:00.000-08:00

so i heard this story the other day and i had to write it down because its too good to be true. but it is. true. ANYWAYS, so my friend sarahs grandma has been spreading this rumor around that natalie did this story. and natalie had just got off the phone from her mother telling her that. i asked sarah what the story was and this is what she told me.

so natalie has an older brother that lives in chicago. the older brother has a friend, her name is natalie, that was dog sitting for this couple that went on vacation to a far off land for a week. everything is going fine for the first few days but then she goes into the house and finds the dog dead in the middle of the floor. this dog is a big dog. like 150 pounds big. so she calls up the couple and they dont answer so then she calls up animal control to see what to do with the dog. well she calls and they say that they can preserve the dog until the couple comes back and deals with the dead dog. but the thing is that they wont pick up the dog. natalie is kinda puzzled in how she is going to transport a 150 pound dog to animal control. so she puts the dog in a rolling suitcase and lugs it down the street. she gets to the animal control building but the office is on the 3rd floor. she starts treking up the stairs with a dead dog in a suitcase bouncing off of every step. well this one guy starts coming up the steps and sees that she is having a really hard time getting it up the steps. "wow that seems like its a pretty heavy suitcase, you need any help?" he says. "oh no, im fine thanks" natalie says, thinking that its already really wierd that she is carrying around a dead dog. she gets to the third floor and the guy behind her then asks what she has in the suitcase. well she cant say that she has a dead dog in there so she says that she has a ton of stereo equiptment. once the guy hears that he then proceeds to take the suitcase and run out the building never to be heard of again. dead dog and all.

when i heard that story i died laughing, it seems something right out of a TV show. definately worth an episode to circle around.

other than that i went home for the weekend and saw that my magazine subscription came in. mrs aubert was really nice on christmas and got the agnes kids all each a magazine subscription for a year to a magazine that interested each of us. mine was to Bicycle magazine and i started to read what was in it. i got to this one article called "Born to Ride" which talked about alternative urban biking races. it centered around the author talking about this Urban Assault Race (urbanassaultrace.com) that is a bike race to different checkpoints around the designated city where you have to complete a challenge to complete the checkpoint. some of last years challenges included adult Big Wheels, inflatable rafts, and bean bags. here is a video on it. request for team huge dicks to make an appearance?

I think its turning your life up side down face.

2008-02-14T11:28:00.000-08:00

so im feeling better today. its been a gradual progression towards feeling better. i still have a headache and sort of week but at least i dont feel absolutely miserable. hopefully i never forget that feeling, because that just sucked and itll make me think twice when drinking out of community cups in social games... of the weekend.
ill be heading home this weekend. i missed out on a bunch of homework this week and, with my awesome group of friends, i would not be able to get it down with all these birthdays and people coming down this weekend from CL. the saturday reputation that we have been putting up wont help. yes yes i know, im "pussing" out on mark and sheys birthday, jake and dale are coming down. but ive got a lot of things to read, speeches to write, chapters to evaluate. i really need to stay on top of it this semester too. so im doing it for the greater good.... plus i have a ton of laundry.

so in speech class today we started giving our first speech and this one guy started talking about same sex marriages. all of our topics had to be about the presidential campaign. then he says "im personally involved in this topic because i am a homosexual"... ballsy. im fine with his sexual orientation but it was just crazy for him to just come out and say it like that in front of the class. he was really nervous. i gave him some huge props.

happy valentines day.

Real Sick

2008-02-12T17:31:00.000-08:00

so ive been sick. it sucks. it started up sunday morning, you know, when you get that little itch in your throat. then you go to bed. wake up feeling aweful. then during the day you just feel like death. oh yea. last night i slept for about 15 hours after sarah and i tag teamed my spanish homework (neuve). ive been stocking up on orange juice. i took a webmd.com quiz seeing if you have either the cold or flu. well the questions were all "do you have a headache; yes or no" and it was so depressing. i said yes for everyone except if i had a fever because... i dont know if i have a fever. i might need natalie to take me to the doctor again. getting sick sucks. i would never recommend it.

its been a while since ive posted last. my apologies. this sickness is owning me. i rejected my lent devotion. the general response when people here that is. "your turning your back on the LOOOOOORD!". i think its hilarious.

from the webmd.com test

"Are you or your child exhausted or weak?
You answered: Yes
Slight fatigue can occur with a cold, but extreme exhaustion is a definite sign of the flu. Though the worst of any flu is usually over within three or four days, flu fatigue can linger for weeks. Lots of rest can help, whether it's a cold or the flu."
....fuck

Time Flies

2008-02-04T22:24:00.001-08:00

so whoa, where did the whole week go? its been a long time since i last updated. its been a good time at the ilstu. went to bradley for kaits birthday party which was fun. got beat in pong by a girl that was named katrina, i got rocked like new orleans. just horrible. lyndi ordered a whole boccis pizza that about 9 people coule not polish off. that thing is just huge. met some new friends of mine and talked about pilates, bmi levels in friends, singing "i wear my sunglasses at night" whenever a kid with ... sunglasses around, told a girl that she was "listerining that shit" (she took a shot and rinsed her mouth with it...), and generally had a good time. hopefully i make another visit soon.

and hopefully some fellow NCC brohans will visit down here sometime soon...

been chugging away at War and Peace but looked up what some of the characters looked like in the movie that came out in the 60s or something. i saw that one of the main characters was audrey hepburn and that was cool. but then i looked at some other ones and accidently read the main climax of the book. fuck. damnit wikipedia! now im just saying to myself "oh its wikipedia, it could be wrong..." and hopefully it is. it kinda bums you out. thats what i did with the Dune series. instead of reading them i just got the plot summary off wikipedia and read that. kinda ruined it for me. but hopefully the climax being given away will not damper my book.

there are so many books out there. i dont know how people get bored all the time. tv for the most part blows (except for a couple of shows and the discovery channel) and reading a book is an investment. your involved it feels like.

i miss my bike. i know its sitting nice and comfortable in my room (i dont trust the garage in the winter) but i want to be on it. now. i havent rode a lot because of the weather and i need to get on the bike at the gym some more but the class readings have been overbearing. that shouldnt be an excuse though.

happy the pats lost.

need to scedual a plasma appointment. maybe one day ill give a kidney away, you only need one, and some guts (metaphorically and literally.) i just have been thinking if someone matched up that needed one they would be forever grateful. like how much would that own if someone. out of the blue. just decided to donate his kidney and you were in need of one? a lot, thats how much.

andy and i have been rocking at rock band. but there is this one song that is a bitch. its called "green grass and high tides" and the guitar solo is crazy long and hard. i just need to step up my game. andy is a natural. justin needs to sing. and dale needs to play lead while i take my support position as bass. i respect his abilities.

how dumb are people that spend over 400 on any kind of fabric clothing... real dumb.

ok, this was cool of shaq. also i want to be in a vitamin water commercial. maybe dunking on shaq! or birdying 6 out of the last 7 holes to beat Tiger Woods.

Internet celebrity

2008-01-30T21:23:00.000-08:00

so today was calm. nothing really happened other than two things.
the first one.
so its andy, his roommate brian, and i sitting at watterson food court getting a bite to eat for dinner and all of the sudden these two girls come by. they ask us if they could ask us questions and video tape us for this one social network that has just started up. we say sure. they say if the video is good enough it could be on TV. we say cool. they start filming and asking us a question a piece. andys question was what his most embarressing moment was. he said it was when he pooped in a pool when he was 5. what a bamf. then she asks me the same question and then i respond with my first kiss. you can watch it now if you want.
http://ilstu.flix55.com/watch/UEUKAiXwL73
and if there are enough views i could be on television! so everyone watch it! tell your friends! actually, check that. you dont need to. but does this qualify me for internet celebrity status. hells yea. pew pew.
the second one.
andy, his roommate brian, and i played rock band after the fame inducing interview. we are going to be rock stars for sure. c'ya!

idk my bff rose

2008-01-27T16:50:00.000-08:00

so a week ago it was snowing and late at night and abby calls me up "hey, mark and i are walking in the snow, want to come?" i say why not and join. but we really only go back to abbys dorm so whatever. but we saw some people conjugated around a tree. i of course say hi but they dont respond. then we find out a few days later that they were apart of a new club at school. the graffiti knitters... so we got some chumps sitting at home, knitting, and then wrapping their creations around trees. now every tree is going to be "knitted" by sometime soon. and doing some research on these people, they like to call themselves "knittas". dear lord.

what has the world come to.

Poet and You Know It

2008-01-23T21:09:00.000-08:00

so a good amount of my classes are pushers. pushers in the sense that they want me to invest a lot of time in those classes outside of the class room. yes yes every class should try and be like that but these are putting it in action. pushing my theoretical thoughts in advance exposition, pushing my time management with at least 9 chapters every day for homework in American Lit, pushing my poetic involvement and experience in Poetry. so i decided to go and push a little bit more for Poetry. i made a poem. about my dorm room.

Dorm Room

The Bourbon Street of New Orleans
The Sloppy Joe of Hemingway
The elk of glass and wood combined
Right near the scarf of Amsterdam

The stick to rub the itch away
Hanged from the framed Cosmo Kramer
The Lotus latern shines so bright
With glow of that electric light

Seats guests upon lumpy futon
To watch shows like intervention
With corners full of dust rabbits
Clean sweeps are but four months away

The wings of Jordan spreading wide
Touch christmas lighted speckled sky
Boy through wall is bad at guitar
Gold fish died off before the snow

Robert Frost here I come.

Playing Some Baseball

2008-01-20T00:45:00.001-08:00

"Oh man its the bottom of the last inning. the "Glorious Elks" are down 1, with twooooo outs. Started down 3 at the start of the inning but have rallied back to make it a ballgame thanks to clutch hitting by Brian "The Duck" Eiler and Justin " Busten" Brown. Up comes Gregory Agnes batting 0 for a million on the day. Really struggling at the plate. Wel'p he swings like Fukudome aaaand... THERE IT GOES. He's going, he's going, he's going. Slides into third. Yeaaaaa. Now Justin Brown is up. Getting ready to add to his... wait... there goes. i cant. I CANT BELIEVE WHATS HAPPENING. Agnes is stealing home. Agnes is stealing home. The slowest man on the team is stealing home. Nick "The Flip" Bambini is catching! Theres no way.... Oh its close. Bini fumbles the ball. Agnes is ... SAFE. SAFE. SAFE. SAFE. SAFE. Elks win! Elks win! Elks Win!!!!!!!"

One hell of a game. I would have to say that this was number 9 on my Top Ten favorite moments.

i might be bipolar

2008-01-18T18:40:00.000-08:00

so yea, i have some good ups and downs. not extreme. but very noticable. a lot of things have been happening. so heres a rant.

Bad
every teacher thinking that my life is going to revolve around every class
watterson food court closing for the weekend
dumb girls
no money
no bike rides
spending $600 on books
the wind outside of watterson always blowing at you
teacher thinking that every required book in college being used
saying "pizza hut" when the teacher asks in spanish "what do you like to drink with your friends"
getting a spanish tutor
no job
dumb job fair
forgetting heavy things at home
only playing rap at parties
Good
water
War and Peace
reading
biking on new bike
finishing book
classes i actually like
working out
those wafer sticks with chocolate in them
funny harry potter lines, ex; "of course! phoenix tears have healing powers!" psh what a bull shit ending
hot showers

its been a long stressful week.

War and Peace

2008-01-14T22:25:00.000-08:00

"Nikolai's lungs seemed to breathe in not air but an elixir of eternal youth and joy."

-Book Two, Part 4: 1810-1811, Section 11

Back

2008-01-13T17:24:00.000-08:00

so i got back at the good ol' ilstu yesturday and its been nice. got a ride down with sarah and her dad talked the whole time. surprisingly the stories were awesome and there was never a dull moment on the two hour trip.

packing and unpacking sucked. i spent around 3 hours getting the room set up and what not. but the worst is paying for books. they are so expensive. i really think someone should do something about that. paying 50 bucks for a stupid clicker that gets updated every year is dumb also.

professional football has been fun to watch. mostly because the teams that i want to win have won. its good.

i brought enough books to school to be considered a "college dorm library".

Stuck in Dundee

2008-01-08T14:22:00.001-08:00

word of advice; if its 50 some degrees outside and its supposed to rain, dont try to see how far you can bike.

ive been pretty excited about these bike rides and the weather wasnt so bad the past two days. so i decided to do another one today. well i didnt check the weather and its supposed to rain a bunch of today and get colder. i bike all the way to dundee thinking that ill go to the dairy queen on the prairie trail and then turn around. welllll i got there. drenched. and then stop at this one place with a roof and some picnic tables to get some trail mix in me. lo and behold my knees start to tighten up and it gets a lot colder from standing around. i start to call people. blah blah
"im watching a movie" blah blah "im waiting to pick up my sister" blah blah "im working" BLAH. well i finally get a hold of justin and he agrees to pick me up. i go to this bakery to actually stay inside somewhere until justin arrives. i would have to say i think everyone that works at the "Piece-A-Cake" bakery in East Dundee is really nice. also i recommend the Snicker doodles and the Chocolate Chip Maroons. but once again, have proper attire when biking in the rain.

oh yea, just read an awesome part of War and Peace. book 2, part 2, chapter 12.

Props for Piece-A-Cake
(picture from their website)

58 feels hot

2008-01-07T21:37:00.001-08:00

went for the second bike ride of the year. i love this weather.

Bike Ride

2008-01-06T15:03:00.000-08:00

so i just got back from my first bike ride of the year with my new bike. it was really smooth. went on my normal bike route of going to downtown CL. it was really nice. thank God for this great weather that we are having. i believe its been high 50s all day. kinda crazy what 30-40 degrees can do. two days ago it was a winter wonder land and now i want to put shorts on.

CL has been a lot better than i actually thought it would be. there has been some events going on. but im looking forward to school again. kinda miss all me buds down there too. i think its kinda crazy that some people will switch schools for a gf/bf. but then again love has no bounds, right?

"War and Peace" and "Hate Mail from Cheerleaders" are both going pretty good. HMFC is easier to read because you can just read a story and they are 3 pages long. where war and peace is the definition of episodic.

i dont know if i mentioned this before but lucy had a party in lake forest. a super ____ theme in which you had to dress up as something super. i decided to be super fat. i think it worked.

New Years

2008-01-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

so i finally found a place to put that one sticker from key west. on my bike. it seems like that would be an obvious place but it took me a while to get to this conclusion. that baby is in my room right now. just got the odometer and lights on it that i recieved for christmas. the lights are pretty intense. like really intense. i have a white one in the front and a red one in the back. two settings; stobe and constant. so when i go biking in the dark ill put them on stobe, have a boom box, and have a techno party on the roads. legit.

new years was fun. all i really wanted was a good amount of people in the same place with some spirits. lets just say i dont know how i got my contacts out and in their case. also now that i think about it, spraying champagne in someones basement is kinda mean. oh well, it was new years.

ran into a mail box last night. was on my way to lifetime at around 5 and i go around the block to get to miller and all of the sudden i slide out. its been snowing constantly for about the past week and it started up all yesturday. so the roads were slippery but i should have been more careful. anyways. i slide out. boom. into the Scotts mailbox. thank goodness it wasnt another car or anything. and good thing that i knew the people. apparently this accident happens nearly every year, as the Scotts have said. that does make me feel better. but i did make it to lifetime afterwards.

i got my sister alison a book from urban outfitters for christmas. its called "Mortified" by Dave Nadelberg. its freakin hilarious. its a bunch of diaries and journals from kids when they were young. from obsessions of Duran Duran to letters to Mr. Belvedere (the butler on the 80's sitcom "Mr. Belvedere"). aside from the fact that they are hilarious, its pretty crazy what you can look back on and see things that seemed to be really important in your life and really... they were not.

My-Most-Random-Present of this christmas

yes, thats a duck carving kit

On The Road - Christmas Edition

2007-12-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

so ive been on the road a lot since the christmas trip to iowa started this winter break. since my dad decided to move away from relative infested iowa to take up a job in chicago we have been making up that seperation by going there on every major break. its been good.

we started off driving 10 and a half hours to Souix City. thats the longest it has ever taken us. usually its around 8 but one of our freakin car top carries decided to say "screw you, im going to mess things up" by popping open while we are going 80 and throwing around everything that was in it on to the highway. oh yea.

we turned around in those U-turn places for "authorized vehicles only" (yea i know, bad ass) and looked around at all this trash that was sometimes our possessions. turns out we saved a digital camera, so it was worth coming back. but the real dilemma was trying to find some bungie cords to hold the car top carrier down with. took us a few stops and we got the job done.
-side note- the gas station "QT" is the most legit gas station ive ever seen.

christmas was fun. we spent the 24th in souix city with my dads side and had some gift exchanges there. then we had the annual christmas party at my dads brothers wifes parents house talking to people i dont know that i will most definately not see until next year and will try to act like i know them next time the party comes around. but i did talk to a high school algebra teacher of 30 years who likes to read. told me to read "Moby Dick". he said he's started reading it about 10 times and has never finished it. ill probably never read it.

after that went to my aunts house (aunt kim) and unpacked there. its been getting pretty rediculous with this whole pack the car, unpack the car, use some stuff, pack the car, unpack the car, use some stuff thing. living out of a suitcase blows. but i digress.

went to my OTHER aunts house (aunt carol) on my moms side and had christmas with a bunch of relatives. owned in monopoly. ate the best food ever. ate some more food. got my gift stolen about 5 times in the grab bag. ended up with a duck carving kit, a brand of cognac hat, and a retro elk wall decoration for the white elephant. ate some more food. and accidently opened my gift to my godfather, thinking that my mom was giving me a gift. my mom never told me that it was his!
anyways
that was in Sibley, Iowa
and it was snowing the whole time. i couldnt stop complimenting on how sweet it was that it was snowing on christmas day. there are so many xmas's that i have had that there was absolutely no snow. this time, we were getting dumped on. i think it was 5 inches of snow through out the day. it never stopped the whole time i was in Sibley. there were your really small kind. your snowflakes the size of quarters kind. it was just a perk that i really liked, especially for today.

so we woke up late today at my aunt kims house. went to goodwill and aunt kim said that we had to spend 35 cents. it was tough because there wasnt a lot of good stuff even though i looked extensively in the sports jacket section. but i found a nice beerstein to use for next year. i think im going to have too many house cups. i need to whittle it down to one. but after that we headed out of aunt kims. said goodbye and everything. and then headed up here to minneapolis where my cousin lives. shes of an older generation and had kids which one is almost my age. tomorrow we will be snowboarding on this newly fallen, natural, not icey, snow. im excited.

oh yea and i got a new bike for christmas. im excited for it.

Freakin Balls

2007-12-19T18:06:00.000-08:00

so you know how people say that people are most afraid of is speaking in public, even more than fearing death. well my number one fear is confession in front of a priest. oh yea. its intimidating. and my mom just loves to go to it every christmas and easter. so my whole family is subjected to going to church. sitting in front of a priest. and spilling our guts out on every sin that we have done since our last confession. and you cant lie to a priest. even though i have. but more of just leaving sins out. but your there. he's not going to say anything. but still. i feel like ive got a new start. getting over an obstacle. do non-denominational do confession?

anyways.

been working out 5 days a week, and liking it. biking 35 min a day. seeing a bunch of friends at lifetime. playing some vball. working out. its good. hopefully i can make up for it at ilstu with not as great equipment.

im a ninja turtle in halo. Donatello, boy. turtles in a half shell.

its good to be home with some friends.

Item-Related-to-Mark-and-Justins-Present picture of the day is!

Indian Prarie hillllll

2007-12-16T00:37:00.000-08:00

so here's how my night went. I'm sick and tired of the whole;
"hey what are you doing"
"oh nothing, but if something comes up ill call you"
its boring, its dumb, its home. thats what happens a lot. well i couldn't take it, i wanted some kind of fun.

well i made my own. i got good ol' BUCKLE UP 1 (my families astro van) and picked up everyone. andy, willes, abby, mark, kyle, justin. we all pack in there. get some stuff to keep up warm. i didn't have any because i decided to take one for the team and be the DD. they pounded it. then we all went to indian prairie hill and caused a ruckus. oh and it was real great when mike and steve decide to spray the fire extingusher in the car... well... we start flying down the hill about 5 times and then we were so tired. especially the people that had a bit of natural anti-freeze in their blood. at one point in time bergan joined us in the fun. met andys lil bro kevin and some of his friends. at one point in time steve tackled me down the hill and then ev-er-y-one decided to join in and we liteally went down the hill in a ball of tackling and dog piling and i didnt know whos shoe was in my face or who was pound driving my head into the ground. my first guess would be mark. after that mike and andy decided to peace out with bergan and then on the way to his car justin sees one of my sleds that i brought being taken away by someone else. it was one of those old wooden sleds that you would see in like "A Christmas Story", its probably from the 1940s, you cant miss it. well the kids decided to call justin a puuuuuussy and he wanted to rumble but walked away. well then when we all decided to leave because mark gave abby a high ankle sprain or something while they were wrestling in the snow. nice job mark. we start to leave and then those kids (they were our age or older) decide to start talking smack-a-lack. justin comes back with a "DOUSH BAAAG" to one of the losers and walks back towards the car. well this girl comes up to the car, puts her had into the car and holds on to the hand loop right in the frame of the door so the sliding door doesnt shut. "um your an asshole and you need to apologize for the doushbag comment". wait wait wait.... justin? apologize? i dont think so. so mark does it for them. and we start shutting the door. "oh no you didnt!" says one of her crew. and they procede to start chucking snowballs at the car. "no one slams the door on my girls fingers!" um ok... well i just ask "can we leave" to them and they let go and then the girl starts kicking snow at the car while we are leaving. well. we get about 20 feet away and then steve goes "fuck this, im getting out" then justin and kyle procedes after that. mark tries to get them into the car. fails. and i pull away because of abbys ankle and i want to get her back to marks. so its steve, kyle, and justin. talking shit. to about 7 guys and a girl. real great. i drop off abby and mark and just decide to head home because then justin, steve and kyle get picked up by bergen. and from what i heard from justin after they got back was this via instant messanger;

greg: how big of a bitch was the girl in the yellow
greg: hahahaha
justin: when wille was yelling at them she walks up to me and says "u fuck with a stripper, you fuck with her bouncers"
justin: i just said "what?"
justin: she repeats
justin: i go "so wait..........your a stripper?"

so apparently we were fighting with a stripper and her bouncers. at indian prarie hill. sledding.
...
what a story

Back Home

2007-12-14T11:46:00.000-08:00

so its good to be back home really. i thought it was going to be boring but for the most part its been fun. got all packed up and got my dorm set up for winter break. which was a pain because it seemed 10x more cluttered just because a dumb pipe could break and destroy everything in the room. got a ride home with bini and caught up on some sports talk radio. went through morris on the way back.... i hate morris. caught up on some chit chat with my mom and dad and got more involved in the concept of getting a bike for christmas. very excited for that. hung out over at dales and then got some usual taco bell.... and i was the one that drove. and kyle and dale loved it because the last time i went drive through i swear i heard the taco bell worker say "is this for here or to go?" through the speark. in the drive through. and i responded with a "yes this is to-go.... what?". i dont think they will ever let me live that one down.

off to lifetime to catch up on some excersise. i just love sleeping in.

One-of-The-Top-20-People-Austin-Mark-and-Justin-Want-To-Meet
Bones

Finals Looming

2007-12-10T18:55:00.000-08:00

the weekend was a blur. i dont remember much about it other than just hanging out at different peoples apartments and houses, owning kids with vargus, rachels 21st, seeing The Golden Compass, and buying vanilla wafers. other than that nothing much happened. it was a fun way to end out the 2007 year at isu.

i dont have any money on my food plan anymore. actually. i do. about 2 dollars but then again two dollars will probably buy me a couple packets of peanut butter and a bagel. not cool.

been buckling down for finals now. making notecards is awesome for tests.

so for next year dale is going to try and get into cooking. he wants to try and make it a hobby which when you think of it is pretty legit. how many times have you wanted to cook something good and you didnt know how. i gave him a option for next year. i dont know how often... maybe 3-4x a month he could tell me what he wanted to make for dinner and i would go out and buy the stuff for him. but im not talking about oven bake pizza or anything. im talking about like steak, some good pasta, or even like burgers. something that i would be able to look forward to on whatever day we pick to have good dinners. hopefully itll be good.

Random-Thought of the day is
if i could be anywhere right now it would be boarding down a hill at Keystone, CO.

kid nation

2007-12-05T18:00:00.000-08:00

i love this show.
go jared.
and i havent lost it in a long time like i did when i saw this quote
misk21587: Jrbrown307 (7:55:33 PM): anjays a loser hahahahaha

Battle Royale!

2007-12-04T20:11:00.000-08:00

so sarah and i just watched a movie. it was Battle Royale. its a JAPANESE JAPANESE JAPANESE movie about 40 random kids picked from a lottary to be stuck on an island with an original weapon and fight to the death until there is one survivor. pretty intense but the emotions and pretty much everything else having to do with plot was "lost in translation". austin, im sorry. i didnt like the movie. but there were some pretty good last words. like a girls dying words were "you look so cool" to this guy that she really liked.

just found out that i have three finals on next thursday. how horrible would that be? thank the good Lord above that you can change your final scedual around if you have 3 on one day.

i just got news from my dad that i will be getting a bike from santa. now santa is really cool and lets me pick out the bike i want. so ill be on the lookout for a nice road bike. santa owns.

trying to start training for RAGBRAI right now. i hate biking on a machine indoors.

Best-Pic-of-My-Friend-Sarah-and-Kelsey of the day is!
(kelsey left, sarah right)

Roadtrip

2007-12-02T20:13:00.000-08:00

so i went for a roadtrip to miami-ohio and purdue this weekend. it was refreshing. kinda switching up things for my social setting was fun. hopefully ill be able to do that more in the future. there are a lot of friends out there i gotta visit.

i hate it when i find out that i am over my head in something. right now its homework. i should be working on two 5 page papers right now but im just putting some thoughts online. and listening to "best of simon and garfunkel", one of the best 13 dolla buys ive ever had. i want to get a blazer. i think im getting a bike for christmas, shhhhawiiiiing.

saw american gangster last night. that shit is iiiiintense. for a movie its not really that intense because blow a guys head off yadda yadda yadda sell some coke yadda yadda yadda. but i tried to put myself into that situation (since its a true story) and it blew my mind. its a really good movie and is bound to get some oscars.

ive been trucking on War And Peace. its getting more interesting every page.

Mark and Joes-Next-Possible-Catch pic of the day is!

Ahhh hell lets have two pics

Amazing pic of the day!

Story Time

2007-11-28T16:49:00.000-08:00

so once apon a time there was a few kids on a tour. what kind of tour you ask? a Tour de Elgin. my friend justin, brandon, bill, and i think ... joiner? went on a bike ride to Elgin. from crystal lake (also known as CL) its about 15 miles via bikeride. we all got our bikes and went on the Prarie Trail bike route. i was not a very smart lad and forgot to eat breakfast. so we pasted I-90, which is just around where we turn around, and took a break before heading back. i was feeling fine. up until brandon looked at his watch and said "oh shit, i gotta get back ive got a blahblahblah to go to soon". and starts picking up the pace. on that notion i decide to go with him because i had a little competitive side to me and i love going fast on bikes. well half way back it hit me. i was hungry. but i couldnt slow down! i had to keep up with brandon. and this is not just normal hunger. this is the kind of hunger that makes you feel like your stomach is a black hole or its eating away at itself. i was losing it. but keeping up with brandon. we get back to CL. we are swerving through the back streets getting towards justins house. we throw down our bikes in the back yard. justins little bro phil and his gf were in the pool. its hot. i walk up the pool latter. dont even say hello back to phil who is a friend also. tuck my head and do a lazy flip in the pool. i dont want to move. but then the black hole comes back. i slug out of the lukewarm water. climb down the stairs. procede to the kitchen. "you guys hungry?" says Mrs. Brown, one of the nicest ladies ever. im in a trance. i go for some bread. i see a full package of ham and procede to take nearly it all and make one sandwich. i devoir that thing like theres nothing more important in my life. and i think with my mindset there wasnt anything. but anyways, so the rest of the guys get back and we have a fiest. pasta, yogurt, sandwiches, juiceboxs. you name it! we had it. but during the process of gorging my face i was still in the worst of moods. just the little things set me off. for example; i love Mrs. Brown. she was serving pasta and then asks

"does anyone want any red sauce?"

"its marinara!"

or when she was kindly giving us pretzels...

"anyone want any pretzels?"

"THEIR GARDETTOS!"

it was not the best point of my life. i love Mrs. Brown but i was not in the greatest of moods. also i asked her to get me a capri sun from the basement. overall it was a good trip and i hope it turns into a tradition. even though i just about died the first time.

Birthday/Christmas/Gift-of-My-Life Idea

A Spoon Full of Cinnamon Will Not Make the Medicine Go Down

2007-11-25T16:48:00.000-08:00

so i like how people are saying turkey break instead of thanksgiving break because really i dont think we are thankful anymore for the same reasons we should have been thankful for in the first place. but damn that turkey is awesome hence the liking of turkey break. but yea my break was good and bad. it started off with an amazing bet that my cousin mollie actually took.

i bet her $50 to eat a tablespoon full of cinnamon. she apparently really needed some xmas gift money and i didnt know that so my bet was very persuasive. and yes, thats mostly me laughing in the background.

turkey break gets boring really fast because after the initial day of eating and what not all of the women go out for a long long shopping spree and im stuck at the cousins house trying to find something to do. last year my cousins and i that were back at the house started making puzzles. so i thought of extending that tradtition. mollie and i started off with a easy 100 piece one. but then i went to look for another one and boom there it was. a 1500 piece puzzle of a god damn castle in france with a lot of grass and a lot of blue sky. i thought i was up for the challenge. i had three days ahead of me. lets go.

nope. didnt happen. for 3 days i slaved over that puzzle until the wee hours of the night with a bunch of my cousins and relatives and by golly i didnt get it done. the sky (the skys of insanity) was just impossible and the grass underneath the castle was just a bit easier. for those two parts it would have been easier if we had done the puzzle flipped over. anyways.

saturday mi familia went to lunch with my moms sisters family. we also do this every year and its always nice to pick up on news from everyone. my cousin sam and i played about 10 games of darts and ive noticed that im not that bad with darts. maybe it could be a game that i could pick up. speaking of darts, if anyone likes betting, darts, and the irish mob then i could highly recommend Balling the Jack by Frank Baldwin. "it was the best book ive ever read" said by Tim Dolan, a well respected book reviewer for the Crystal Lake Cronical.

Best-Picture-Incorporating-A-Chair-And-Joiner of the day is!

I Dont Follow NCAAFB

2007-11-17T17:38:00.000-08:00

so my friends a long time ago asked me "whats your college football team" and i said i didnt know so i picked notre dame and michigan. "are you retarded!?! those are arch rivals! you cant like them both". so then i just declared that i dont really follow football. apparently to be a "true" fan according to some friends of mine you needed to have picked your favorite team coming out of the womb. i would rather read a book.

got back home yesturday and it was refreshing walking inside and smelling that unique smell of detergent/cooking/i-dont-know all mixed together that smells like the Agnes home. plus it was nice making myself enough food from the refrigerator to fill me up. mmmm turkey sandwich. nice to not wear flip flops in the shower. nice to sleep in a queen bed. and nice to drive a car. actually i take that one back. cars suck. they are just a piece of work.

so i was sitting around playing video games last night waiting for people to call me and then my friend mal IMs me saying " gregory! please come visit me with natalie!". in which my first response was hell no, your at Northpark and thats in Chicago and its 9:30 and natalie would have to pick me up, so thats 30 mins on top of that and ive done enough driving today and we cant sleep over because they are a christian college so they dont allow visitors to sleep over and ahhhhh shit im coming. this dumb adventurous side of me just says "s my d" to everything that gets in the way of a adventure. so my friend natalie and i went to see my friend mal at Northpark. it was awesome. we met her roommates and they were sweet. then mals roommate and her friend jason came with us to get some food by belmont st. (i think thats how you spell it). the food was good but i couldnt finish it all. and there were a lot of "original" people around. i didnt have a problem with any but im just a sheltered boy to that. growing up in the suburbs and then going to isu. nothing wrong with being original but it was a sight to see how other people live.

this is going to be a very interesting thanksgiving.

Merriam-Webster Word of the Day is!

ashram

1 : a secluded dwelling of a Hindu sage; also : the group of disciples instructed there
*2 : a religious retreat
Example Sentence:Susan took a semester off from school in order to practice meditation and yoga at an ashram.

New Scedual

2007-11-14T17:33:00.000-08:00

so i signed up for classes. i dont know how i feel about my scedual. im indifferent about it. i dont have a class before 10 but then again i have at least 2 classes everyday. ive been spoiled this semester with having no friday classes. if you can ever manage to do like wise i would highly recommend it.

started working out again. i miss the feeling of actually working out for a goal (example football or track) instead of just trying to keep in shape. i feel bad for people that havent been involved in sports. any sport that is. because then they most likely will not have the motivation to work out or get started in sports right now. being physically active helps out, not just physically, but sometimes emotionally as well.

been reading a lot. got two books on my plate right now. Life of Pie and War And Peace. have been putting War And Peace on the back burner for the moment because i need more time to read Life of Pie which is for a class. im happy that we are reading it because a long time ago my friend Amit recommended it to me and i never got around to it. it sucks though that class is on monday wednesday and the teacher always assigns 90 pages and its a bitch to read 90 pages in two days. but im still trudging along with WAP. its got some really unique parts that you dont see in most novels.

i miss the Kasstle. every year my moms side of the family. which includes my family, and all of my aunts families. go up to Cable, WI and stay at the Garmish Inn which has a cabin that looks like a castle. my moms maiden name is Kass so we just incorporated the two and thats how the name Kasstle came around. we've been going there for i think 17 years and i dont think we plan on stopping anytime soon. i dont know how many times i fell off tubing or how many big waves ive smacked into. i just learned how to soloum ski last year. heres a pic of the place.

my friends dale and dino were on jerry springer. the episode was on at two today. i was absent minded and was playing halo 3 and forgot about it. good thing that dale recorded it. apparently they gave a very good reaction when some black girl showed her fun bags. ha!

Hopefully-Someone-From-NCC-Knows-This-Girl pic of the day is!

Urban Dictionary

2007-11-11T21:39:00.000-08:00

ive been looking up a lot of things on urban dictionary lately. like for example the word "greg". apparently my name means a lot more than just "watchman on the hill". considering thats what gregory actually means. but anyways, ive been on a search for a certain word. and finding a word is very hard to do. ok. what is the term to describe the act when two people are walking towards each other (on a sidewalk, hallway, etc) and when they get close to each other they both try to get out of the way. they both veer the same way, then they veer the opposite way, and then it becomes awkward because they cant get out of each others way. there is a term for that action but i dont know what it is. there are a ton of gross terms to look up at urban dictionary. they come in handy in conversation.
i still want to do some glass blowing.
i wonder what it would be like to be stranded on an island. and how one person would change that if they were there.
i think the iPhone is cool.
if real russian names are like those in War and Peace. then russian names are way too long.

Chinese-Fortune of the day!

Find release from your cares, have a good time
Lucky # 46, 84, 6, 45, 22, 11
Learn Chinese: Bo- Cai, Spinach

Go Green, Go White!

2007-11-10T16:11:00.001-08:00

Today mark and i went to the Purdue vs. Michigan State game. he asked me yesturday if i wanted to go and i whole heartedly agreed. i love going on adventures to places ive never gone to see things ive never seen. hopefully thats something i become or am known for. we both woke up at freakin 7 in the morning. well mark woke up at 7 but then had a personal struggle with himself to get out of bed that he didnt win until 7:50 but he won that battle... against himself. and we got on the road at around 8:15.

i had mcdonalds breakfast. i hate mcdonalds breakfast. everything about mcdonalds disgusts me. people say its so good and of course its so good. becaus it was designed to be so good. but it always makes me feel like a bumass and i rarely have it. this time it was dont eat or have mcdonalds. the latter of the two won.

we got to west lafayette in a good amount of time. actually it was perfect time because when we got into the stadium it wasnt two minutes before the team headed on to the field. and it was nice actually caring for something. at isu i dont really care about the football team. probably the most sports i care about is my dodgeball team, how kait is doing, and my fantasy team with me buds. the purdue and michigan state fans really cared. this one guy in front of us was cussing out a bunch of teenagers. whoa. so i did my best to be as good of a michigan state fan as possible for the day. rattling my keys before kickoff. going a bit crazy for touchdowns. screaming out the "go white, go green" cheer. and it helped that michigan state won 48-31. but thats beside the point. it was fun changing things up for the weekend and putting a few memories in the head.

Coolest-Mascot pic of the day!

tourney

2007-11-09T18:16:00.000-08:00

so i like playing guitar hero. its fun. makes me want to actually play guitar. well kinda. but anyways. there was a tournament at my university. there was a couple of people there. like around 20 and i didnt start off so good. lost my first match but i lost it to the guy that came in 2nd place so i wasnt that bad. but then i battled my way through the losers bracket (double elimination) and ended up playing for 3rd place with this guy that was really good and then lost to him. so it was a good run and i got a sweet Mother Murphys shirt which is a store in downtown Normal that sells music and products for "tobacco use only". but its a sweet shirt. going to wear it out tonight and i also got a buy one get one free coupon for Noodles and Comp. so. if anyone... wants to go. get some noodles. i would be glad to take them. and now i have to head to a play shadowing assignment for my theatre class. so long. farewell. auf wierdersehen. goodbye.

what movie is this?

2007-11-08T11:17:00.000-08:00

so my friends make fun of me because i have more "favorite books" than "favorite movies" on my facebook. "fucking bookworm" says dale. well i just think that reading a book opens the mind more. makes you think. changes you a little no matter if you liked the book or not. with movies i think its just a lot easier to put special effects or have the typical storyline thats been done over and over. thats might thoughts on that.

dodgeball is tonight. im pumped.

ive always wanted to watch all the "americas funniest home videos" episodes and then take out the clips that are the most funny (funniest?) and then put them into an amazing All-Star episode. that would be crazy.

ive been swamped for the past week with studies. mounds of reading (120 pages for just one class), 2 big tests, and a five page paper. when it rains, it pours.

ive always wanted take a glass blowing class. or make it into a hobby, some of the things that people make are amazing.

Blown-Glass pic of the day

Thedra

2007-11-05T21:02:00.000-08:00

so my friend justin and me were looking up what deamon we were. and i have to warn you that this was really gay of us but we did. in the book The Golden Compass the people have souls that are on the outside of their bodies. their souls are shaped into animals that personify who the person is. so example if your really lazy you would have a deamon that would be a sloth.... mark.

you go on their website goldencompassmovie.com and then fill out a 20 question survey and then you see what deamon you have. so justin did his deamon and got a snow leopard. and if anyone knows me they know that i hate when justin wins or gets something cool. because he is a powerhouse. and then i did my deamon and got a whippet which is a type of dog. and they name them for you and mine was Thedra. at first i thought a whippet would be a pretty dumb deamon but then i found this picture and thought otherwise. THEDRAAAAAA!

Tell Me Something

2007-11-05T08:05:00.000-08:00

So yesturday i figured out my favorite movie quote.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LjAITRaItKQ

whats yours? i might post it.

Working the Double

2007-11-01T18:56:00.000-07:00

i know ive already posted today but i dont care. Dodgeball Update: we won. we lost the first game but then came back to win the next three. it was awesome. adam was faced up against this other guy at the end of the 3rd game and his arm was dead. he was dead tired. one on one. adam is throwing submarine because his arms so dead. and he gets him with the slider. it was awesome. i showed some moves with a sweet jump throw and got a girl out. ballin! and felt like a predator just walking around and dodging like neo in the matrix. natalie showed her stuff and whipped them balls with her sweet shirt. oh yeah, we got shirts too. mine glows in the dark. "DO WORK" on the front and then our nicknames and numbers on the back. kelsey was awesome in practice and didnt whine a bit when i nailed her in the ear. not. mike has the hardest throw on the team. andys awesome at dodging. kyles just tricky. todays game was 10x better than last weeks.

Across The Universe

2007-11-01T00:20:00.000-07:00

So i went to go see Across The Universe tonight. Apparently i need to be on acid to enjoy it more because some parts were very psychodelic. Across The Universe is a romance musical with all the songs coming from The Beatles. I like The Beatles but i dont like how at one point they could have made shit music and everyone would like it (my example being "i am the walrus").
So apparently this blog of mine is starting to spread throughout my friends. Here are some comments ive got about them that i remember.

"You have a blog, Greg? Its that the same as a diary?" - Sean Hicky

"What the hell were you talking about with that almond comment?" - Lindsey Warner

"Yea, whats up with those almonds?" - Annette Vacval

"You have inspired me to start up my blog again." -Nick Bambini
etc etc

Well basically i just want to keep my thoughts into one place. thats the purpose of this blog. maybe ill look back on it and laugh at how stupid i was or something. plus its nice to think that some friends of mine that i dont see much are informed of my well being and maybe just decide to check it because they are bored.

oh yea, and im taking the plunge. im reading War and Peace.

Quote of the day

Wouldn't you like to see a positive LSD story on the news? To hear what it's all about, perhaps? Wouldn't that be interesting? Just for once? "Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration … that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather."
-Bill Hicks

Guitarist Wanna-be

2007-10-28T21:52:00.000-07:00

so i got guitar hero 3 today. i not going to lie, i couldnt stop laughing when i actually got ahold of it. thats what ive been doing all day though. playing guitar hero. sarah and i started out a co-op campaign and dude, its so cool. and the tips of my fingers on my left hand hurt (so be grateful for this blog). and my right thumb is about to fall off. but im still trucking.

halloween was eventful. things to do. people to see. it was eventful for me but not enough to write about. just to say that i didnt get to bed until 4 last night. but it was fun. im happy for it to be over. sometimes you just want to go back to school. no worries about trying to go out.

i want to use this awesome sticker that i bought from Key West over spring break that is rectangular.... oh hell its just easier to describe with pictures.

well i want to use it. i bought two of them and put one on the bumper of my car. but i have no idea how to use the second one. i want to put it on something that ill have a long time. but there isnt really very much around. my nalgene has a plethora of stickers. but this one is better than the rest.

Best-Facebook-Profile-Pic-Of-Dales pic of the day is!

Family

2007-10-27T17:13:00.000-07:00

you dont really appreciate family or really anything until you dont have it. today i realized that but not in such a harse way. i still have my family but i havent seen them in a long time, and they came today. well not the WHOLE family but two out of my three sisters (alison and brittany) and my mother (claudia). they decided to come down, bring some winter gear for this upcoming weather, take a walk around the quad. get some necessities from walmart, and then hit up some adventurous sushi.

my mom doesnt really like sushi. but i persuaded her to give it another try. we got there and the first thing i notice on the menu is how many things i actually havent had. there was things on the menu that i couldnt pronounce and i loved it. my littliest sister alison and i were feeling bold and tried the Tako, which is sashimi with octapus. yes people, i ate octapus. sashimi is kinda like sushi but instead of being wrapped up in a roll it is literally a ball of rice with raw fish or whatever on top. well from my experiences thats what it is. and thats the great thing about foriegn foods. you dont know what the hell your getting really and well... you might like some of it. you can always go to your everyday place for some burgers or tacos but that isnt new or interesting. i like experiences.

Best-Beer-Related-Quote of the day is!

Knights of Cydonia

2007-10-26T17:41:00.000-07:00

so tonight is the first night (i think) to actually dress up for halloween. what am i for halloween you ask? well im being something that i thought i would never be again. an eagle scout. yep, there will be pictures. no worries. but there have been some requests from my pool of friends. and i caved like a gold mine in south africa. that was mean, i take it back. but anyways. i cant get that song "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse out of my head. "No ones gonna take me aliiiiiive" has been going through my head. and guess what.... right.... now.... im .... listening to it. via youtube. but anyways.

ive done nothing today.

i love to sleep in. ive been doing it a lot on my days off. but then again when i do that i dont do anything for the rest of the day. just been chillin out and laying in bed. i think the most productive thing ive done today is put on my uniform/costume.

lets type about something interesting.

ill tell you guys about a bike race im going to be in over the summer. its called RAGBRAI. look it up http://www.ragbrai.org/ . its a week long bike ride that covers on average 475...? miles or something. i dont actually remember that part. but i remember figuring out that the average milage a day was around 75 miles. intense? yea. but if your cruising on a bike at lets say an easy 13 mph speed, you would only be on your bike for a little over 5 and a half hours a day. oh thats easy. but im really looking forward to it. i love riding my bike. and last year in the spring i was taking a bike ride around random bloomington and then decided to stop and call my dad and say that i wanted to be in it with him. he had always said that he wanted to be in it and never got around to it. so i thought "hell, lets MAKE some time to do it." and gave him the call. so ill have to be taking some serious bike rides when it has shitty weather. because i dont prefer to bike inside.

i would sell my car for a really nice road bike.

today im not going to have a "pic of the day" but more of a picture of my friend who is having a birthday, happy birthday austin.

"Get some juice, brah"

Dodgeball

2007-10-25T18:32:00.001-07:00

so some friends and i are in a dodgeball league. not a good start to the season but there is always next time. ok.

but just watched The Office, which owns. the last one was awesome and i laughed a lot. Kid Nation is amazing and if you watch it then, Jared > anyone else on the show. Beauty and The Geek is awesome and the guy on there has some freaky eyes. Guitar Hero 3 comes out on sunday and i am so excited and cant get the song "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse. I want to live somewhere were i can ride my bike everyday of the year. i have this awesome mug that i bought at a garage sale that says "U.S. Drinkng Team - World Champions" on one side (that typo was legit, whoever made it spelled it "drinkng") and then on the other side it says "Whistle For Your Beer" on the other side and then by the handle it has an actual whistle. how legit of a house cup is that? well it would be awesome... if i have a house. your time will come Ultimate Housecup.... someday. anyways. im thinking about starting up a new book. i love reading. and im really considering reading "War and Peace". but dude, thats so intimidating. its like 1200 pages or something. thats an investment. i love my glasses that i got after my old ones broke and apparently a lot of people like them too. they are a bit sophisticated looking but oh well. its one small step into growing up in the personal fashion scene. my favorite smell is almonds. whats your?

Best-Suggestion-For-The-Image-Of-God pic of the day is!

Stories

2007-10-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

so i was just thinking about my friends the other day and then i thought "well heyyyyyy that would be a good blog post" so here it goes. some friends of mine followed by a unique story that we shared together.

mark- we almost slid into a cop car with his car when my friend kyle asked him to drive us to bradley and it was in the middle of an ice storm

justin- we drove to NIU and NCC in one weekend and invented a drink called "The Danger" which consisted of every kind of hard liquor put into one big shot, i had seconds.

kait- we experienced her roommate getting a legit strip tease by the next door neighbor. in which, yes, he did get buck naked and we bolted out the door.

bini- him, justin, mark, and i went to Key West for the spring break to hang out at his uncles house. which he was the golf pro at the local golf club. so you get the picture, he was pretty well off. and he had a boat. we went fishing. there was choppy water. he tried to "take" the waves and stand without support on the boat with justin. well he doesnt have the greatest balance. heres proof.

austin- he was in need of a "love seat" for his dorm room. i decided to help him out and experience the day in the life of "austin, the college years". we looked around to i believe 8 thrift stores. nothing even resembling a love seat. then at the last one of the day. goodwill. we find a perfect love seat. $25. he still has it to this day.

sarah s- i dropped my shorts infront of her in the stairwell the other day on purpose and she could stop laughing for 7 minutes.

adam- he threw a swedish fish across the room. at my mouth. last night. that was the size of my thumb. and i caught it, on the first try. the action should have been molded into a "cherished moment" doll.

and thats about it for the moment. i didnt say all of my friends but just a few because i have to study for a latino studies test. ahhh yi yiiiii!

Most-Popular-Picture-Of-Greg-throughout-His Friends pic of the day is!

Bling Bling Bling

2007-10-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

so i like to spend money. ive been called many times in my like a "impulse buyer". but then again it runs in the family. like the other day, my dad put $30 in my checking account and said to go take a girl on a date. yea... i spent it on a new video game today. its called "Beautiful Katamari". not the most manly of names but you push a f-ing ball around and try to pick up stuff. so simple but so deathly addicting. anyone want to play? i thought you would say yes. and this weekend im going to buy guitar hero 3. but that been a planned investment for awhile.

why are there so many divorces?

ive been thinking about that question a lot. i probably couldnt even think about all the reasons that people get divorces but im just saying, marriage is a bigger deal than people make it out to be. your married. i know i cant predict my future and what it holds but i just hope that i will be steadfast, through thick and thin, when i get married. because your freaking "two become one" stuff and all that jazz. i just think that i will never (hopefully) become divorced. but then again itll probably take a lot for me to become married also. raise your hand if anyone ever said "who is going to marry you?" to you? ---raised---

hahahah

"Guess-What-Im-Going-To-Be-For-Halloween-Picture of the day"

Horrible Time Management

2007-10-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

so dont you have it when someone asks if you hate a situation that they describe that can nearly only happen to them. example; dont you hate it when you cant remember you aunt lynns name and call her carol, over christmas, with pajamas on that have a neon skeleton print on them, when you were nine? yea i hate that too. happened to me all the time.

"i digress" is a new term for me. i believe it means that you get off topic. but the starting topic was dumb but ill just say it anyway for the fact that i want to have a better topic that was never here in the first place.

facebook is addicting.

if it was a drug i would be living on the streets by now. which brings me to the fact that i just want to share that i gave that and all personal use of the internet up for lent last year. yes, i did nearly go insane and yes, i will never do it again. but it was something that was hard. i like to test myself every year to see how far i can go. like for example, i gave up "creaming the mastadon"one year, biting my nails (horrible habit of mine) and i think one year i actually drank two nalgeen bottles a day. but that last one didnt last long. actually that might not even be true.

put this man as your background. itll make you smile.

"Greatest-Old-Man-Picture of the day"

I Had A Dream

2007-10-21T15:20:00.000-07:00

so i have dreams. like everyone else. but i remember a lot of them and they sometimes turn out really wierd. strange, i know. like for instance the one i had last night.

i was being asked in a coffee shop if i would work for this paper supply company (yes, just like Dunder Mifflin) instead of taking my old job as a camp counslor. the guy looked like a taller Steve Colbert but without glasses. he said he would start paying me $10 an hour. i responded with "your going to have to pay me more than that". in which he said "pick your price". so i went boom town and pulled out the big 20 clams an hour. in which he was hesitant but agreed. actually putting me into a bind of accepting, because i loved being a camp counslor. owning 4th graders in dodgeball was amazing.

and thinking of that random dream and reading the book Nickle and Dimed right now got me to thinking. what are we willing to do for a higher paying job? isnt that a big reason why most of us are going to college? would you rather be a camp counslor and do something fun or be working in a paper distributing company and make bank.

and for my random thing of the day...

Best-Idea-to-Write-Down-On-A-Name-Card of the day is!

Chicka Chicka Yeaaa

2007-10-21T00:52:00.000-07:00

so heres how this all started.

ever since my good friend austin made a blog (http://www.austinmorganisms.blogspot.com/ ... i believe) i have been always looking for him to update his. also he has (at the moment) a pretty sweet youtube video group going on (http://www.youtube.com/group/foreignobjects) about the challenges of asia and how his friends and him over come those challenges to find themselves and each other.

but enough of their advertising. i digress.

i had been checking up on those two things on a healthy basis. austin says that i should start one. stating that i have a unique view on life. plus he would like an update once in a while. and the unigue view did not get to me but the second statement actually got me to thinking. i dont update enough on my life and some people are bored out there and would like to know. then i thought "its nice to look back at memories and laugh at them". so. this is the start of those.

and also from looking at other blogs, there seems to be a need for a "blank of the day" thing. so for the "Quote-I-Will-Use-If-I-Become-A-English-Teacher of the day" is...

An English Prof. wrote the words;
"A women without her man is nothing"
on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.
All of the men in the class wrote;
"A women, without her man, is nothing."
All of the women in the class wrote;
"A women: without her, man is nothing."

Punctuation is powerful.