i was urged to update this thing. let's see, where should i begin?

- well, i think it bears mentioning that my beloved toolbox was stolen when someone maliciously broke the window on eric's car during thanksgiving break. i guess it's a good thing the car wasn't stolen...but WHY my tools?!? i loved my tools. if you're wondering why my toolbox was in there, it's because eric decided to install his new car stereo on his own, and it was taking longer than planned...so he left the toolbox in there for easy access. i guess now i have things i can ask for on my christmas list now. and it shoud be fun to go buy new tools, that's always fun.

- the other day i saw brian playing old super nintendo games on his computer. there's this thing called an emulator that lets you play nintendo games on your computer. FREAKIN' COOLEST THING EVER!!! so i've been playing legend of zelda a lot over the last few days, and having a blast. this could a serious setback in any sort of productivity i was hoping to have next semester. at least finals are over for now, so i can't be distracted from them anymore. this thing is SO cool. you can play mario kart, megaman, and all those other cool games i've missed from my childhood. ...ok, so maybe i'm a bit of a dork.

this christmas break is gonna be pretty damn cool i think. i'm going home on the 19th and will get a chance to spend some time with my mom. we always spend christmas eve w/ my mom's family at my aunt and uncle's house. i love going there every year. my extended family is so great. if i didn't get to see them all, it wouldn't feel like christmas.
for some reason, one of my favorite things is driving home afterwards. it's late and there's no cars on the road. my mom and my brother are usually asleep and i'm just driving along the highway listening to christmas music turned down real low.
after christmas i'm visiting my dad for a few days, followed by....NEW YEAR'S IN NEW ORLEANS!!! so we booked hotel reservations back before the BCS screwed us out of the sugar bowl and we couldn't get a refund. me and brian are driving out from LA. we're gonna pick up eric and his cousin in houston, and then keep on going to the big easy. it's will be the most kickass roadtrip ever. d-bo and elina are gonna fly out there, so it's just gonna be a huge party. oh man, i'm excited!


...ok, i've got more to write about, but i'm putting it off till tomorrow or the next day...as a reminder to myself, i still have things to say about finals (bad) and my roommates (good).

MONEY SUCKS!!!! why can't this education be free?

sorry that i haven't updated in oh...about 2 months. what can i say? i'm lazy. right now i shoulud be cramming for a midterm i have in about an hour. soooooo, i'll get back to this later.

so the draft happened tonight for one of my fantasy football leagues. it's by far the most excitement in this first week of classes for me. i have to make a disclaimer that this blog might become a cheap advertising site for the weekly results from the FFL. you've been warned. my team is AWESOME. i've got ricky wiliams and edgerrin james as my starting RBs. i've got kurt warner at QB...but mark my word, if he craps it up this year like he did last year, i'll bench him in a heartbeat for my backup who just happens to be drew bledsoe. what a killer backup. my receiving corps could use some reinforcing. i've got koren robinson, laverneus coles, and marty booker starting. the best party is jeremy shockey at TE though. he better have a kick ass season. anyways, enough about my team. i'm about 150 pgs behind in reading and there's only been 3 days of class....yikes.

stay tuned for my other FFL team. it should be drafter later this week.

today was the first day of class of my senior year of college. i don't know what to think about that. maybe i can extend my stay here by a semseter. that'd be awesome. i don't want to go out in the real world yet though, that much is for sure.

i have to take ITP 101 for an ROTC requirement. i went to class today and was waiting in the hallway for the professor (which happens to be a friend of mine who graduated a couple years ago) and these freshman girls were all talking about where they live. when they asked me where i lived, i just motioned towards vermont and said "a block or so that way." "parkside?" one of them said. i just chuckled. i bet you i'm the only senior in that entire class.

some friends and i are doing this fantasy football league this year. i'm really excited about this. i'm not quite sure why. however, i'm sure it will lead to plenty of trash talk and drunken arguments...maybe that's why. it's funny, there's one of every kind. the guy who worries way too much about who's gonna get drafted. one who picks solely players that he likes, regardless of their skill or lack thereof. there's another who is letting the computer pick the whole thing for him. i'm stoked. and hopefully, we'll have NFL sunday ticket by the start of the season to make it really interesting. we'll have two games going at the same time in different rooms. between that and the sunday afternoon bbqs, i won't be doing any homework on sundays. oh yeah, if you don't know about our sunday bbqs, now you do. we have em every sunday afternoon, so consider yourself invited.

should i read...LOL. puh-lease. not on the first day of class. time to go play madden.

ok, so i didn't update on tuesday like i said i would. but the kids never came by anyway according to brian. so it's not like you missed out on anything important. i wish they woulda.

went to palm springs for the weekend. sure had it's moments, good and bad...very, very bad. i can thank my friend the irish car bomb. all i can do is shudder. but if you're ever in that neck of the woods, check out a bar called "hair of the dog"...good, cheap drinks. and don't let any girls you go with talk you into stopping at the outlet malls between palms springs and LA. too bad i left my camera in my duffle bag the whole time, coulda had some good pics.

on another note, we have these neighbor kids, ranging in age from about 7-10 years old. they came over for the first time a couple weeks ago, and they've come over a few times since then. i don't have any idea why, they just come over and ask to play our video games. well, today one of them comes over, without knocking, and tells us his friends are planning on coming into our apt tomorrow and stealing our games and dvds. so i thanked him and sent him on his way. so i'm thinking we should leave the door unlocked tomorrow because brian will be home during the day. we'll set up a sting where they come into the apartment and then he can body slam them or something. maybe jump out of a closet and scare the living crap outta them. i dunno, but i think it's a good idea. and it'd teach em not to mess with us. we'll see. i'll update tomorrow to let anyone who actually reads this know what went down.

by the way, i'm back in LA. no more virginia for this fella. and all i have to say is good riddance.

so i haven't posted in a month. i guess i'd say my excuse is that i've been too busy having fun. well that was the case up until a couple weeks ago. i've been hanging out and partying with the roommates a lot this summer, which has been pretty fun. two weeks ago i came to hell... oops, i mean virginia. this place is horrible. first of all, for the second summer in a row, i am stuck on a ship that is not going anywhere. we sit next to the pier for the entire 3 1/2 weeks that i am here. on top of that it's hot and muggy here, the beaches are crowded, the waves are small, and apparently i've been spoiled by the good looking girls of the west coast. VA girls are none to hot if you ask me. worst of all, this is supposed to be an AVIATION cruise. there are no jet squadrons even assigned to this carrier because it hasn't even been commissioned yet. if you ever have the opportunity to go to norfolk, va turn it down. go to bakersfield, go to death valley, but don't go here.

on a more postive note, the guys in my stateroom are pretty cool, and one of them has a car. so we get out of here every chance we get. we've gone to this bar a couple times in the waterside of norfolk (whatever that means, it's a local term). on tuesdays they have $3 pitchers of beer and all the food items are 2 for 1. so that's a good, cheap time. that's one thing norfolk has on LA i guess. it's a lot cheaper to go out here. but when you're faced with the fact that there's little reason to go out because the girls are all either in the navy or just not on par with what i'm used to, you understand why everything comes so inexpensive.

next weekend the ship is getting commissioned. it's the uss ronald reagan, an aircraft carrier. i guess nancy will be coming out for the ceremony, but ronnie is just getting to old to leave the ranch nowadays. good ol' dick cheney will be here too. hope he doesn't have any heart attacks while he's here. although i hear he's getting pretty used to em, kinda like that bears fan that chris farley used to play on snl. i guess we all have to wear our summer white uniforms for the ceremony. that should be fun, polyester on a muggy 90 degree day. apparently there's going to be about 20,000 people here for it. crazy. we'll see if they task me with some menial duty that day. i swear i could take off and they'd never miss me. oh well, the bright side is that coming home is something to look forward to. i miss LA so much. i miss my apartment and my roommates and my friends, and even the crazy cat. i miss work too. i swear that place falls apart without me sometimes.

the best part of being here is meeting all these different characters on board. there's this chief warrant officer that talks about twice as loud as the normal human being, and he stands with his knees bent all weird and a crook in his back. i swear he's some sort of robo-human or something that is running low on bearing grease. then there's "dirty sanchez", (LT Suarez). he's the only guy who assigns us work to do (us being the midshipmen), but it's work that doesn't need to be done. the other day he says, "i'm gonna task you guys with some real leadership experience. do you know how to use a spellchecker?" i kid you not, he had us spellcheck his evals. leadership experience my butt. he also had us draw a map of the roads on base so that they'd know where to drive the bus to pick up the guests for the commissioning. last time i checked most naval bases already have their own maps of their own facilities, call me crazy. i guess he's trying to keep us busy, but c'mon. i'd rather peel potatoes. then there's the officer that is what i like to call a loud laugher. you'll be sitting there enjoying your dinner, well as much enjoyment as you can get out of a tuna melt, and all of a sudden this bellowing laugh comes roaring through the wardroom. first time i heard it i spilled my drink in my food. still scares the crap outta me everytime i hear it.

anyways, i guess we're gonna go play whiffle ball in the hanger bay on a few decks down. that should be fun. oh yeah, my leg's finally getting better. i've been playing raquetball this week. i'm not completely 100% mobile yet, but i'm good enough to beat the guys in my stateroom. that's all for now, i'll try to write more later, but i don't have much chance to cuz the navy doesn't give me internet access. i'm using an officer's access right now.

i need to keep up on this thing. i haven't hardly written anything since i moved to my new apartment. i guess i should start there. we're living in a 3 bedroom apartment on 36th place down the street from taco bell and togo's....definitely not the good neighborhood. i was walking down the street with eric the other day and commented on how the neighborhood wasn't as bad as it originally seemed to be...just then we passed by a yukon with the window busted out. gotta love irony. anyways, we've got a slightly insane cat named felipe, who loves my bed. and i think our apartment is becoming the party apartment. people just randomly show up now and it turns into a party. good times. the roommates are fun, the cat is crazy, and the apartment is big. one of the funny things is the contrast between the two bathrooms. one is done with pink tile and one is done with blue tile...so one is labled "ladies" room because it was only appropriate. also, i don't know how good of an idea it is to have hard wood floors in an apartment that is specifically for college students...call me crazy. (we're not supposed to have a cat though...or a 5th roommate. so don't tell the landlord.)

did you read about sammy sosa using a corked bat? read this. it's a bummer, sammy's been such a stand up guy in the corrupt world of baseball. between the greed, steriod use, and players who forget they are playing for the fans sammy has been one of the bright spots in baseball. and he's got that winning smile that makes it seem like he couldn't do anything wrong, then his whole reputation gets smeared by one broken bat. i really hope it was an honest mistake.

that's it for now. i'll try and write some more tomorrow. you know how busy a guy can get during the summer...ok, i have no excuses. i'll talk about the ducks game and the tv the size of a small house at the espn zone.

so much to cover...summer time, new apartment, kings elimination, sick cat, cheesecake brownies. and i'm really tired right now. so, maybe i'll write about it tomorrow when my eyes aren't so heavy.

in the meantime, listen to some john lee hooker...awesome blues.

i'm listening to snoop dogg and trying to feverishly relearn a semester of physics. at this point i might as well go to bed, considering i'm just blogging anyways. just wanted to talk about today's highlights real quick. i had a final at 8 o'clock in the AM for my geology class. i think the only feeling worse than not studying enough for a final is overstudying WAY too much. the stupid thing was 50 multiple choice questions that took all of 30 minutes to finish. is that why i lost all that sleep last night? gimme a break. but i guess it's not that big a deal...not like i'd have put those extra hours towards this stupid physics crap.

so i was standing around waiting for a friend today. i looked at my watch (cuz that's what i do when i'm bored) and then i put my hands in my pockets. i went to lean on this planter box thing that i assumed was much closer to me than it actually was. since it was so far away, i began to fall. and being that my hands were in my pockets, i continued to fall w/ my arms flapping around like chicken wings cuz i coudln't act fast enough to take my hands out of my pockets. i think only a few people saw me...(whew for saving my self image). yeah right.

i'm going to the ducks playoff game on wednesday. i'm getting so into this hockey stuff now. i was watching game 2 today w/ my headphones on cuz my roommate was sleeping. when neidermeier (or however you spell it) was breaking away for the second short-handed goal of the game i jumped up out of my chair ripping the headphones off my ears. at least i remembered to keep my cheers pretty subdued so i wouldn't wake the sleeping roommate. anyways, as if i didn't have enough distractions from the nba playoffs i have now found myself keeping a close eye on the race for the stanley cup. i'm also trying to read up on hockey stuff so i feel like i know a little bit more about the game when i go on wednesday.

PHYSICS SUCKS!!!!

so we had a reception to welcome the new people in the office and say goodbye to all the graduating seniors today. it was cool, but definitely a bit sad. i'm going to really miss those people next year. i mean, our new staff is cool...but i'm so close w/ some of the people graduating. i guess that's life. the best part of the whole thing was when shannon said that her favorite color was pink, and coincidentally so is brian's favorite band. i choked on one of those little cheese cubes it was so funny. brian bought pink's "mizunderstood" album last summer, and we haven't let him forget it. sadly, both brian and shannon won't be back next year. boo.

ok, so the mavs made me eat my words tonight. webber and jackson got hurt too. this sucks. it's probably all my fault for being so cocky. dangit!

i sure am not looking forward to the day when my metabolism catches up with my eating habits. right now i eat an average of 5 meals a day to keep my weight steady. by the way, it gets expensive to feed me. and i swear they put less pasta in the macaroni and cheese boxes nowadays. a box used to leave room for leftovers...now i eat the whole thing and it just primes my hunger. i had a whole package of hamburger helper for dinner. it pacified my hunger for about 3 hours, and then i was hungry again. guess i need to eat cheaper foods more often like rice and beans.

did anyone else catch the kings trouncing the mavericks last night?. i thought we were gonna make nellie cry big fat alligator tears. something tells me that team's gonna have some major changes in the offseason. they're just too soft, and you can't be a softie in the playoffs. it'd be like lizzie mcguire getting in a streetfight with tonya harding. let's see disney make a movie with her after she's been whomped on by trailer trash. that's the kind of pay-per-view i'd like to see. or carrot top and anyone with a gun. ok, i'm rambling...back to basketball. i really hope the lakers make it past the spurs so that the kings can get some sort of redemption for three years of playoff exits at the hands of the big aristotle and his little brother. at this rate though, with kobe taking as many shots as points scored, and shaq not getting enough ball time i doubt it's gonna happen. i cannot wait for phil jackson's zen response to questions in the offseason. SUCKIT lakers!

i'm also trying not to get too psyched about the giants and their current romping of the NL west cuz the season's still early and i don't wanna jinx them. so i'll just say they are kicking butt and leave it at that for now.

so i need to mention the helene's spring party i went to on friday. first of all i was wearing this barney rubble-esque getup made by my date, the them was "rumble in the jungle". i was a little wary at first cuz it looked like a dress. but everyone thought it was cool, so it worked. the only downside was the rain. after we got back it was POURING. i had no shirt. i had no jacket. i had no pants. i had the barney rubble dress-thing and that was it. it was SO cold. and my keys were in somebody else's apartment who wasn't back yet. so, needless to say i didn't stay in my own bed that night. overall it was fun though. i was dancing like a moron. you can see the pictures here. i really feel like it was a good excuse to get drunk and wear animal print clothing.

i saw an awesome movie tonight, city of god. it's pretty violent, but it's still a good flick. unless you speak portuguese though, be ready to read a lot of subtitles. plus, we snuck baja fresh into the theater...good movie and good food. there's this one character named benny...looks like a younger, druggy-er lenny kravitz.

does anyone else have as much trouble keeping track of their chap-stick as i do? i don't know if there's a little gremlin or something that comes and steals it. or does it really just evaporate into thin air? or, like jimmy buffet says, maybe it's my own damn fault.

brian is leaving our office to go off to the school of engineering. he's the guy i go to to talk about the simpsons and sports when the estrogen in our office overwhelms me. it's just one less guy in an office dominated by females. don't get me wrong, girls are great to work with. they keep the conversation going most of the time, they keep everything pretty clean, and...hey, they're girls. but every now and again i need some guy-talk to get me through the day. guess i'll just have to sports-talk somewhere else now.

man, i'm already dreading my schedule for next fall. i'm going to be more than busy. not only am i taking 19 or 20 units, but i've gotta consistently be on top of things at work now because the boss put me in charge and i've gotta get back into the rythm of having a billet for rotc after basically having a semester off because of my busted leg. guess that means i'll just have to have a LOT of fun during the summer...i will be 21 afterall very soon. i was hoping that my senior year would give me the opportunity to coast a little bit, but NOOOO. the navy and it's crazy requirements put the kaybash (sp) on that.


and for those of you who didn't hear about the admission counselors at work hooting and hollering over the weekend about my social life, let's just say that i will be doing everything in my power to limit their knowledge of that sort of stuff in the future. i mean, even the vice-provost of enrollment was dogging me about it. next thing you know, president sample's gonna be stopping by to give me a pat on the back. however, that WOULD be kinda cool.


and on a completely different note, i'm going to be wearing some variation of a snakeskin toga to the helene's spring party this friday. i'm not sure how i feel about that...after a little pre-party though, i'm sure i'll be a lot less concerned. and besides, at least i'm not a total nerd and wear it while i sit in my room by myself. (if you don't get it, it's cuz it was an inside joke)

ok...so instead of sleeping i'm eating crappy beef barley soup and making my first blog. i have NO idea where to start cuz i've got a million things to talk about and it's already 3 o'clock in the AM. i could start with my stupid gimpy leg, or my recent affinity for country music (gotta have something to do w/ being homesick), or my crazy (but lovable) mom, or recently revived social life. i think all that's gonna have to wait for a time when it's not closer to sunrise than sunset. so i think i'll just say that i'd be a WAY better student if sports didn't exist. it used to just be football, and then slowly basketball that kept me from my homework. now thanks to wes (baseball) and shannon (hockey) i get too caught up in all the major sports. there needs to be a major that focuses on random sports knowledge, cuz then i'd graduate with honors no problem. but alas, usc w/ it's "breadth with depth" concept doesn't think that's either broad or deep apparently. whatever stevie b.

by the way, the soup got better after a while.

i'm tha lonely donkey kong. who are you?