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9/28/02 Been back on campus for a while

Wow, it's been more than a month since my last boring update. I'm just kidding, turkeys are exciting.

It's been good living in LaPlata hall. Adam's my roommate, Brandon and Jon are next door, Jess is down the hall, and Justin, J-Dawg as some call him, is in Ellicott hall. It's a whole lot of fun, but very difficult to get work done:)

A couple random thoughts first:

I rule at Unreal Tournament.

It's hard to face things naked.

I have a ton of Simpsons episodes.

Jon's day is one long nap.

CA's rule.

Safety.

In case you haven't heard, Justin and I pooled our money and bought a box of 200 cd's for $7.00. Yes that's right. The college radio station was sent cd's by tons of artists, and they were trying to get rid of them. Justin and I found a couple of diamonds in the rough, and we're very pleased, him with his jazz infused funk, and me with my rock music. A wicked sweet deal.

On the 17th, Jane, Lainey, a couple other people, and I went to see Ace Troubleshooter at the Ottobar in Baltimore. It was lots of fun, kind of a last minute decision to go. It seemed like no one could go, because it was on the night of an RUF meeting, and also because of homework. I'm glad some people are dedicated enough to go anyways, heh heh. Rock on, you know who you are. So anyways, Two Thiry-eight, Farewell Hope, MeWithoutYou, and of course, Ace Troubleshooter were there. There was one other band there too, I forget who they are. It was a sweet show in my opinion, not that I go to many shows. Coming back from the show was a very interesting ride. Don't worry, after getting lost on the one way streets and almost running through several stop lights, it was smooth sailing.

RUF is really starting to "blossom." A big handful of new people are going, the meetings have been well- organized, and Bible studies are starting up. Nice job you crazy, crazy leaders. Meeting new RUF people has been great. We've had one tailgate party at Steve's house before the FSU game and that was loads of fun. A bunch of us guys covered ourselves in body paint for the game. I was the 'S' in TERPS. I was skeptical at first, but once I started putting on the paint, I really got into it. Unfortunately it rained at the game, and the paint poured off of us in waterfalls of red. But it didn't matter, we were too stoked be cold. I have pink shoelaces now, you should check 'em out. Did we win the game? I'm not going to lie to you. See ya later!

8/22/02

We have wild turkeys living around our house for some reason. Chelmsford doesn't seem like wild turkey territory, does it? I took this picture from my room, about 20 feet away (now under misc. images). Is it Thanksgiving yet?

So what's new around here... only one more day of UPS, and that's tomorrow. If you ever get the chance to work at UPS, don't, unless you're desperate like me. Oh yeah, an interesting story of customer stupidity. I was working overtime last Friday repackaging damaged packages, which I had never done before. I came across this one package that was really wet for some reason, a package from New Mexico on its way to Maine. When I opened it up, I couldn't believe it. It was a regular cardboard box that someone had simply filled with loose peppers. Now, who on earth would think to ship peppers with no insulation, no padding, and no other form of protection, from one end of this country to the other, inside the 100 degree trucks of UPS? Did they honestly believe that they would be fine? Not one of those peppers wasn't rancid, or halfway liquified. Common sense would make the jobs of UPS employees much more bearable.

I just got Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring on DVD. It's my first DVD I've ever gotten. I'm not falling behind the times, am I? Video cassettes are still cool, right? Anyways, I remembered how much I loved that movie, and I can't wait to see the next one. It immerses me into a world of fantasy. Good stuff.

Can't wait to get back to school. Gonna have a good year at 4114 LaPlata hall.

7/31/02

It's been a while since I've updated the page, so I'll put up some useless information.

I ordered some new cd's in the mail, and they're great. I hadn't gotten any new cd's since Christmas, so I was due. Besides I have a job to pay for it. A lousy job, in my opinion, but I'm thankful that I've been provided one. So anyways, I now have two cd's by Ace Troubleshooter: The Madness of the Crowds, and a self-titled. I also have the newest Slick Shoes cd, which is self-titled.

I saw Ace Troubleshooter play with Five Iron Frenzy in fall, 2001 (What a great concert!). They put on a cool show, so I got their 2 albums which are real good. "Phoenix" is a really good song with meaningful lyrics.

Slick Shoes is great, so I expected their latest album to be awesome. It is, so check it out.

UPS makes me want to go back to school. But I am really glad to see friends and my family in Chelmsford. My sister just turned 14 on the 25th. She'll be in the high school this year. Wait, is she really that old already? I missed the family reunion on my mom's side of the fam, but next weekend in NY I'll see my dad's side at the first family reunion in years.

I think the chipmunk that was in my house is gone now. Seriously, it was seen running around the house for like a week. It ran across my chest while I was still in bed one morning.

I just got a new baseball glove for some reason, let's play catch!

7/8/02

Well, life has returned back to normal. With the church missions trip to Mississippi done, my dad, Kevin, and Michelle are back home safe and sound. I was glad to see them and hear the stories from the trip. It feels weird hearing everything secondhand; I'm so used to going myself. I've gone on the four previous trips, and this is the first one I haven't been on. However, I'm really happy for everyone that went this year, and I hope that they've grown in some way. Maybe next year...

The new computer is finished, and I'm very pleased with it. Check out the Misc. Images page. Much thanks to my pal Josh for the video card! It's a 1.5 ghz pentium 4, with 256 MB SDRAM, a geforce 2 mx video card, 20 GB 7200 rpm hard disk drive, and windows xp installed. It's got 2 USB ports hooked up in the front too. A part of me wants to keep it, but my family is due for a new computer. Besides, I didn't pay for it:)

I've decided that after several weeks at UPS that I hate the job. It's so hot and tiring, and frustrating. The only reason I'm doing it is for the money. Here is a list of the top complaints:

• Poor Packaging. Why doesn't anyone tape up their packages properly? It feels like every two seconds I have to put aside a torn open package, or pick up its contents off the floor.
• Hot, hot, hot! When the weather is hot outside, I can assure you, it's at least 10 degrees hotter in the trucks.
• The rollers. The rollers are so bad. It seems like they've never been lubricated, everything gets stuck in them because they're missing some rollers, and everything falls off!

The Perfect Storm is shaping up to be a very interesting read. Thanks Steve. I have to admit, it has some sweeeet action in it.

6/20/02 Down with the DC Talk, yo.

My friend bought me a Philmore shirt for my birthday in March, and I just got it now. The picture is to the left. I was quite excited, seriously. This band is so good, in case you've never heard of them. They are kind of a punk rock band from Oklahoma. By the way, just for fun, you should dig through any of your old cd's or tapes and listen to them. I've rediscovered the wonderful music of DC Talk, Free at Last, their album from 1992. You'll be surprised that you remember the lyrics to like every song from your old tapes/cd's.

I've been working at UPS unloading trucks for three weeks now. The pay is kind of bad at first, since you have to pay union dues. That's right, I'm joining the union, the brotherhood (at least for a while). Although the job is physical labor, it seems like everyone there smokes. Very interesting. Supposedly the trucks can be up to 130 degrees during the summer, but it hasn't been that hot yet. Many people have asked me whether I "get to" wear the brown uniform that UPS has. The sad truth is that those are for the delivery people, the people who drive trucks. Someday though, someday.

I'm working on a project this summer. I'm building a computer for my family, instead of them buying it from Dell or something. I've gotten a case, a fan, a floppy drive, a cd-rw drive, RAM, a sound card, and a power supply. The motherboard, processor, and hard drive are on the way. I'm quite excited. I'll have pictures soon, don't you worry.

About a Boy wasn't really a chick flick, I thought it was hilarious.

Send me an email before I send you one, because I'm seriously considering it.

5/28/02 Been back a while

Well, I've been done with school for more than a week now. It was great to see my family, eat some good food, and do stuff with friends. Everyone seems to be doing ok. I know now that it's going to start to get a little boring around here. My family is either working or in school, and I still have yet to find a job. The choices right now are UPS and Costco. Still haven't heard from UPS.

It sure was a relief to finish all my finals. Especially for a class like ENEE114, a programming class. Hawkins was an insane teacher, thank goodness the book was pretty good. Next semester there is going to be a new teacher to teach that class. I wonder if that teacher will be easier than mine. Sometimes it seems unfair what some people have to go through that others don't. I know that the difficulty level in some classes in college differ drastically depending on which teacher you have. Sometimes you luck out, and other times you get nailed.

I thought Star Wars, episode 2 was good. We're finally getting some history of what leads up to the other episodes.

5/19/02 Ready to go home

I added a new section called Misc. images. I'll probably be updating that page more frequently than others, and I'll let you know. I'll probably end up putting old pictures in there too.

Well, I just finished my second to last final today, which was in programming. You might say it's all downhill from here, nice and easy. I can't wait to go home, to see my all my high school friends and of course the youth group. I'm also going to miss all my friends at UMD, it'll be a long summer. I hope all you ladies keep in touch. Heh heh. Dill, it's time to find a job, before all the high schoolers gobble them up. Eh, they probably already have. As long as I'm not at Shop 'n Save again. I swear, no matter what, at the end of the day your hands smell like cold cuts and plastic bags.

5/13/02 Some thoughts on freshman year:

This year has been quite different from what I thought it would be. I thought it would be a huge change from High School, that the classes would be more formal, and that the people would be much more serious about schoolwork.

It turns out that college is a lot like high school. There are those people that spend every blessed moment of the day studying, and then there are still the people that don't care about their grades. The mix of students is very similar to high school in my opinion. As for the classes, most of them are also the same as in high school. It's true that in some classes all the professors do is lecture at you, but for most of them you can freely ask questions at any point, and you can also ask a lot of questions in the discussions of course.

College may be pretty difficult at times, but not impossible. Anyways, that's what I think, but maybe college is just what you expected. Oh well. I think I'm going to like it here.