Overheard:

"For halloween I am going to go as Steve Irwin, and my friend is going as a stingray."

Wow.

Over in Europe

I will be posting at this site while I am in Europe for the next 3 months. I have my reasons, and that's all you need to know.

What a Weekend

I must say I was surprised that I even went.

There was a group of about 25 students heading up to Sacramento/Tahoe for the holiday weekend, and I was invited to tag along. I was torn because I really wanted to go boarding. I hadn't been all season, and I wouldn't have a chance to go for the rest of the season, but I also needed to get set up for my trip, and move all my stuff into storage. Came down to the last minute, and I decided I needed to hit the snow. When in Rome, you know? We chose to rent a car and I had scheduled to pick it up at 5PM. I get there at 5:05, and I see a sign on the door that is one of those clock's that says "Will return at:". Now I was a bit thrown off becuase it said they would be back at 5:00. Ended up waiting in the rain/cold until 5:45. The lady takes me out to the car they have for me, and it is a midsize. I pre-ordered a full size. She tries to play it off like it is full size, but I ask her straight up, "Is this a full-size?" "Almost," she replies. "I need a full size, we are going to Sacramento!" I say to her. So she upgrades me to a new SUV. I guess my mom was right about the squeaky wheel getting the grease. I go back to my house, throw my stuff in, and head to TAC to pick up my passengers.

We leave TAC at 7:15PM. Me, Stephanie E, and Jeanne Joliat. The great part is that Laura DeFurious had to cancel at the last monent and she was the only other 21 year old. Looks like I am driving all the way up to Sac-Town. The drive was fine, except for the fact that everywhere we stopped for gas had $3 gas, and then we would go like 10 more miles and come across $2.40 gas after we had already filled up! Oh well. Rolled into the Gisla's house at 1:15AM. The girl's were up making sandwiches and I was way too high on coffee and Rockstar to even think about sleeping. Ended up staying up until 3AM waiting for another car to get in. Turns out they had missed the 5-99 split, and ended up going into SF. Heh.

Slept like crap, waking up literally at least every 1/2 hour with cold sweats. Wake up at 5:20AM to Laura Laubacher (AKA Boober) calling on the house phone. Pop up and make sure everyone else is up. Gotta get to the mountain before the lifts open. Pile myself, Ben Almeida, Danny Grimm, and Peter Chirdon into my SUV and take off. Of course, I am the only one that can drive, and I am going off of 2 hours of sleep. ROCKSTAR to the rescue! We hit Donner Summit, and are told we need to put chains on. Laura had given us chains out of her SUV so that we wouldn't need to buy ones for our rental (their car had snow tires and 4x4). Only problem is they aren't made for our size tire. Turns out they are one size too small, but there is no way we are paying $60 for chains. We are working on these things for about 1/2 an hour and we can't get them to fit by literally a 1/4 inch. "Let's say a Hail Mary," suggests one of my passengers. Good call. So there we are on the side of the road in the snow praying. What'dya know? Chains go right on after that with a little bit of effort and stretching of the steel. Then we realize that we have the chains upside-down. Gotta take em off and do em again. One more Hail Mary...

We hit the mountain before the lifts open, as we had hoped to. It's snowing out and the powder is great and fluffy. Dave G, Joe C, Laura, her brother Jonathan (lil' ripper), and I hit the mountain, trying to find the deepest powder possible. Found some about knee-deep, which was plenty deep for me. All told, just a great day of riding, and you really had to be there to know what I'm talking about. The weather went from snowing, to 2 hours of sunshine, back to snowing, to almost a white-out. Only thing that sucked a little was I had to play it safe because I didn't want to hurt myself right before my trip, so I stayed away from the park (for the most part). All in all there were 18 of us up there, and we had about every skill level of skier and snowboarder, from first-timers to very experienced.

(I am realizing now how long of a post this is going to be.)

That night we headed over to the Laubacher's house for a delicious dinner, where I talked to Mr. Laubacher about working in medicine (he and his wife are RN's, and he was a paramedic/fire-fighter before that), and about how he was in my uncle's class back in HS in Oxnard. After that it was back to the Gisla's for a game of Spoons with about 12 of us playing. Ended up boiling down to me vs. Monica Laubacher. I won't say who won, but I will say this: That girl cheated and she knows it. Okay, maybe she didn't, but that was the most ridiculous final hand of Spoons I have ever seen. It took us almost 5 minutes to end the hand.

Wake up the next morning and shower for Mass. I come out of my room and as I am putting on my shoes I see Mrs. Gisla talking to Bec and Monica M, and Bec looks over at me with her jaw on the floor. "What?" I ask. "The cars," she replies. "Ummmm, not ringing a bell," I say. Turns out the my car had been hit while it was parked early in the morning. The damage wasn't too bad to my car (just body stuff), but Ben Almeida's rental (also from Enterprise) was totalled. Turns out the driver was racing in the residential area, lost control, and went broad-side (driver's side too) into the back of Ben's car, knocking it about 30 feet up a driveway. The car then spun and clipped the rear of my car, which was parked about 40 feet in front of Ben's. The driver's car ended up on the opposite side of the road, so this guy was obviously flying. The ambulance came and took him to the hospital, and he was in bad shape. I'm not sure what happened to him. I have been trying to find some info in the sacramento news, but haven't been able to.

Sunday afternoon rolls around, and after a very intense game of Hershey's Miniature Chocolates Poker, we had a decision to make. Some of our group of 25 was heading to Santa Cruz to stay at one of their cabins their. Others wanted to stay in SAC. I was in the latter group. Of course it took well over an hour for people to decide if they were going or staying. Ended up being Robin, Laura L, Steph, Greg G, Maria P, JT, Joe S, Pat S, Patrick R (reminds me a bit of Hudson), Alexandra D, Tom O', Monica L, and Me staying behind.


I won't go in to details about the night but here are the highlights:
Chevy's,
Talking about women athletes losing their potential to become mothers,
Margaritas,
Apples to Apples,
Cape Cods,
Jumping into an unheated pool (only a few did this) -->
Screaming like girls at 11:30 (all who jumped in did this),
Dealing with the cops because of said screaming like girls,
Beer,
Twister,
Large Utensils,
Chilling by the fire.

This night was a blast, and I must admit that these freshmen definitely surprised me. They were very cool. I had thought that the quality of students was going downhill in these later classes, but now I think I may have been wrong. It was just that I had never really talked to any of them. One didn't even know I worked at the school and said she had never seen me before. We ended up crashing at about 2AM I think.

After that it was back to SP with Greg, Steph, and Laura. I drove the whole way, of course. Now I just have to deal with this car accident crap. C'est la vie.


4 days until departure!

I need one of these

This is the coolest car commercial I have ever seen, and it is from the 80's. Okay, so this is actaully a medley of car commercials, but they are all for the same company and are done in the same style.



6 days 'til departure.

Check the lens

Recently I was asked to take some pictures of the Guadalupe Chapel which will be part of the artwork in the redesigned TAC coffee shop. You can check them out on dirty's_lens.

I should have some other photos up soon too.

BTW, I love my Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D. It's one sweet camera.

One more month

It's crazy. I will be leaving the security and simplicity of my current job in one month to go travelling all over Europe. There is so much to do before then. I have to figure if I will move out, or pay rent for the 3 months I am gone ($1500). I am trying to get a job working at a posh Salmon Fishing Resort up in Northern British Columbia, so please say some prayers for me. After that, it looks like it will be onto pre-med studies in the fall.

I think I have to agree

make your own motivational posters HERE.