Saturday, December 31, 2005

a wedding for rachel

another friend married... tonight rachel and john tied the knot. it was a very pretty wedding with red and gold and snowflake luminarias everywhere, but i was stessed out the whole time because they told me at the last minute that they needed me to dj. normally, this would be just fine, but according to church rules they could only play squeaky-clean swing music. to me, it's really not a wedding unless you play "YMCA" and "Brick House." but i cooperated.

however, i learned that the dj cannot please everyone. while i was very distracted and putting together a playlist, Some Guy came up to me and tried to talk about music. i remember very little of this conversation, but adam was standing next to me and was not distracted, so he filled me in on the details later. Some Guy came up and asked me if i had any good music. apparently i fixed him with my death eye and asked him to elaborate on that. he said, "you know, good music." i asked him what he liked and that's all i remember.

he said country. the one genre i really don't like. i'm glad i missed that comment. then while mr Guy was looking over my shoulder he saw a johnny cash song and said, "oo, play that!" which i couldn't do, because i had some strict rules, and would have sucked anyway because i have exactly one johnny cash song on my computer, the one from the kill bill 2 soundtrack, and it's not a dancing song. then apparently he caught sight of judy garland, and started singing "somewhere over the rainbow". glad i missed that too. then i added a few swing-able beatles songs to my playlist and mr Guy made a disgusted face and left. i'm really glad i missed that, because i didn't have time to maim that Guy for disrespecting the beatles. what a loser.

andy swears he passed Some Guy during the dance, who loudly exclaimed to his friends, "this music sucks!" rachel's little brother daniel gave me a hard time too. he came up and said, "hey, so when are you going to play something good?" ouch.

i satisfied that costomer by playing "rockin robin", sung by a very young michael jackson. the dance floor was packed during that song. another reason for me to stand my ground that the king of pop was aptly-named. sure, he's a weirdo, but he's talented. i'm sure all those nice church ladies would have been shocked if they knew what they were dancing to, but since they didn't, they loved it. i rest my case.

i was sad that i didn't get to hang out during the reception. weddings are getting to be friend reunions for me, and i was bummed that i didn't have time to sit around and talk. i did have time to recap the score with vanessa... out of our five friends, she was supposed to be married first, then nicki, then rachel, then carmen, and then me, last. very last. so far it's been carmen, nicki, and rachel. vanessa says she'll end up last, but i'm not so sure. only time will tell.

i wouldn't mind being last. very last.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

my sister is silly

just for fun, here's what i left on my away message on the night of the 24th...

"not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse. which is funny, because my parents think we do have a mouse. we've had some mousetraps sitting on the counter for a while, but my sister won't let us kill the mouse until after christmas, so she can nestle all snug in her bed on christmas eve and think, "not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse." so yes, we're getting as much mileage out of this as we can.

merry christmas."

:) more updates on christmas later. it was a good one, though!

Saturday, December 24, 2005

christmas eve 2005

okay, now it's christmas. my grandparents are finally here, giving tracy college application advice, telling nick about home flu remedies, telling andy about the evils of video games, and looking up recipes for some kind of exotic breakfast food involving goat cheese and lettuce. so even though it's like 75 degrees outside and my brother can skateboard without a jacket (white christmas? dream on...), now it actually feels like christmas. i knew something was missing.

the pile of gifts under our christmas tree is amazing. is it always like that? if it weren't for the part of the tree that doesn't light up, it would look like a greeting card. hmm.... well, maybe between the faulty lights and my brothers' wrapping jobs if could be a norman rockwell painting, especially with our dog walking around looking all disgruntled that there are gifts covering his favorite chair. yup, definitely norman rockwell. of course, it helps that all our presents for my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousin are under there too.

meanwhile, my poor brother is sick as a dog and completely miserable. we're all trying to make him feel better, but he just doesn't want anything. the poor guy sits on the couch and stares at our mostly-lit christmas tree. he doesn't want to talk, he doesn't want to eat, he doesn't want to watch movies... he just wants to stare. actually, he said it might be easier to endure if he weren't the only one sick, but i'm not about to get the flu just to give him a comiserating buddy.

judging from his away messages, i think josh is really sick, too. but that's even worse, because he's in socorro all by himself. no family, no girlfriend, no friends.... no roommates, no teachers, no class... nothing. just him, sick, and the online courses he's trying to finish during the break. poor guy.

and now, even though i thought i was done, i need to go out and buy one more present. hopefully spiderman merchandising won't be too hard to find. merry christmas! :)

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

fourth day of christmas?

here's some things that have been rolling around inside my head.

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how the grinch turned green- sometime between the original book and the animated cartoon, the grinch became green. in the book, the only two colors were black and red (for stockings, santa hats, and poor little max the dog's nose). the grinch looks quite a bit more hairy than the whos, but not at all more green. i wonder who picked out his color? maybe they made him green to "christmas-ify" his whole image, since he was already wearing red and all.

holiday jingle continuity?- yesterday i watched three commercials in a row that all had "deck the halls" playing in the background. i wonder if someone has the job of trying to make their product's holiday commercials stand out from the rest. i wonder when holiday commercials are made. is it months in advance? i wonder if someone takes a poll about which songs are used the most often. i wonder if anyone even thinks about it.

what's free time?- i'm a week into the break, and i still haven't even picked up a book yet. i stay up late talking to my sister or helping my brother finish his math homework, and then i'm too tired to start anything. lame! i have a long list of books to read, including harry potter 5 & 6, the latest ender's game addition, the count of monte cristo, and the zombie survival guide, which was a gift from jon and josh (they are so cool!). on top of that, i actually thought i'd have time to work on my novel. ha!

feeling compulsive?- i used to be very thrifty. i have even been known to "sleep on" purchases before i bought things. but the other day when i was christmas shopping with my brother, i saw another beatles jacket! it's gray and it has the let it be album cover on the back. sweet! gray's not my best color and we were supposed to be shopping for other people, but i still had to have it. i told nick that he could buy it for me or that i would buy it myself, but that i wasn't leaving the store without it. he told me that i was a bad shopper and to get a grip. as i pulled it off the rack, i saw a black t-shirt with the rubber soul album in it. that's not only my favorite beatles album, but the best rock record every written, in my opinion. i had to have that one too.

tunes- at the moment i'm listening to the narnia soundtrack, which i borrowed from my brother. he's into dramatic soundtracks because he writes his own music, but i like this one a lot because there's three or four credit songs, including a pretty cool one by alanis morissette. the kid's got good taste in music.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

finals week, part two

i had my mechatronics final on wednesday and my controls final on thursday. both were pretty rough, but i thought i did well. miller told us how much each question was worth, so i added as i went, trying to get an early idea of what my grade would be.

on thursday, i took all three hours to finish my test. i was the only student in there for about ten or fifteen minutes. when i handed in my test, miller asked how i did. i told him i thought i got at least an eighty. i was stoked! he said, "well, let's see!" and flipped the test open and started grading it right in front of me.

and it went something like this: "wrong... wrong... that one's wrong... that one's wrong...."

i couldn't believe it! i just spent three hours pouring myself into that badly-written multiple-choice test and he graded it in about one minute. and i did not get an eighty. he said something like, "well i guess you and i aren't on the same wavelength. i think you're thinking too hard." right. i almost cried.

instead, i stared packing up the several textbooks and notebooks i brought to the test. what a waste. but before could leave, miller said, "oh, and here's your mechatronics test from yesterday." i got a D. it was the lowest grade in the class.

which is kinda funny, because jon got the highest grade and josh got exactly average, and we all studied together.

i checked my grades today and i got Bs in both classes in spite of the bombed finals. so my GPA will be okay... thank goodness. miller told us all semester that grades are superfluous and what really matters is how much you learn. that's true i suppose, except that most employers won't even consider you unless you have at least a 3.5!

thank GOD this semester is over.

Friday, December 16, 2005

i have the best friends in the whole wide world. i love them so much!

Saturday, December 10, 2005

i'm a consumer whore

adam and i have a tradition the weekend before finals, the christmas-shopping-spree-weekend-in-albuquerque tradition. pretty self explainitory. i usually get most of my christmas shopping done during this time, but i like to concentrate on my friends at school first, since i won't be seeing them again until january and it's my last chance.

this year the shopping spree didn't start out so great. it didn't help that we both had papers to finish and my computer's trippin', so i was stressed out before we even left. we went to the christian bookstore, target, and old navy, and i was just buying random stuff! i didn't even know who i was going to give these things too. i was very, very frustrated.

there's something you have to understand about me. to me, giving people presents is a very serious thing. if i don't put a lot of thought (and usually, a lot of money) into a present, i feel like a lousy friend or a deadbeat sister. i hate giving people lame generic presents. it makes me feel like such a loser. i think i get that from my dad... he goes crazy at christmas.

so there i was, with over a hundred dollars worth of crap, and i still hadn't purchased very many presents that i was truely happy with. this year my family is shopping for my cousins in kentucky, and i was having a lot of trouble finding something cool for them! i love carmelita so much, and i couldn't find something good enough for her! and scott? alicia? my grandfather?forget it.

i was about to have a nervous breakdown. no kidding, i was so stressed out. then adam suggested we go to the world market, where they have a lot of cool stuff. okay.

it turned out to save the day. i found so many things for my friends and my family, it was awesome. i got alicia a ten-pack of beers from around the world and "monty python's holy grail ale". she'll love it. i got scott gummy band-aids and fudge mix, because i'm part of the fictional "society to teach scott cason how to cook." perfect. i got rachel some sexy candles and cow soap for her bridal shower tomorrow. i got carmen a pretty expensive, beautiful yoga mat with an embrodiered bag. i think she'll really like it. she's into yoga. i even found things for my granddad, who is impossible to shop for.

i spent over $170 in that store, which was a little more than i'd spent in the other three stores combined. adam's a little broke right now, and i think he thought i was crazy to spend so much. but i was so relieved! i exclaimed happily to adam and the cashier that i was no longer a bad person because i had spent copious amounts of money on the people i love. on the way home, i couldn't stop telling adam how i felt so much better. i kept thinking happily about all the costly merchanidise in the trunk and never once doubted that i did the right thing.

why is that? i don't feel good about myself until i've bought everyone i know at least three presents or spent at least twenty dollars, usually both. it occurs to me that that's not normal. one thing i've learned in the last couple years is that not everyone buys presents for all the people they know. i've been surprized to find out that some of my friends only buy their siblings one gift. that's unheard of to me. today i bought my little brother three presents, and i'm still not done.

well, consumer america should be very happy with me, one of their own daughters, who does her duty by spending her hard-earned dollars on material goods. if someone's been brainwashing me, josie and the pussycats-style, to buy things for my friends and family, i swallowed that one hook, line, and sinker.

i'm not sorry. i love them.

Friday, December 09, 2005

finals week

senior design presentations were last night, and my team did great! travis kind of read the slides and leroy seemed nervous, but casey was awesome! i think he realized he stank it up last time and practiced hard. one of our classmates even commented during the question-and-answer portion that we'd come a very long way since our last presentation, and our professor told us we did great. woo!

the funny thing about the conference last night was that the entire building was freezing. where i was sitting seemed to be even colder than the rest of the room, so while i was waiting to present, i was actually thinking more about how it might be warm up on the stage than i was about what i was supposed to be talking about. unfortunately, the stage turned out to be only slightly warmer than where i was sitting. i was standing there trying to look professional, shivering. i wasn't nervous until it occured to me that i was shaking and probably looked terrified. great...

but we appearently did very well, so now if i can be hardcore and work on our paper all weekend, we should do fine in that class. hopefully...

so miller gave me an 89 on my controls test. that really bugs me. i should have gotten an A! sure, it was the third-highest grade in the class (behind casey, who somehow pulled a 99, and josh, who got a 90), and yeah, i beat jon (albeit by one point), but i really could have used an A and i really deserved an A. he took off lots of points for bogus stuff. i tried to talk to him about my test, and he didn't give me any points back. i'm mad. now, even though i have done well on both tests and have a nearly perfect homework grade, it's going to be really hard for me to pull an A in the class because of my crappy quiz grade. i'm horrible at quizzes.

machine design is going to be cake. if i don't get an A in this class, i will be seriously surprised. civil won't be quite as easy as machine design, but i think it'll be fine. claudia told me and josh that we're doing great in the class and have nothing to worry about. i already know i have As in both of my labs. yay!

the big mystery here is mechatronics. i got a D on the first test (which was above average), and miller said he curved that test. but when he displayed the class distribution the other day, it didn't look like he had. hmm.... i have As on everything else in that class, so i don't know.

one paper, a few meetings, and four finals from now, i will be done with the most difficult semester i've had so far. hopefully next semester the acedemics won't be so horrid.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

next semester

sometime my last post and class this morning, i realized how much this is going to suck.

so kc's going to live here with carmen and me until may, when she gets married. now, i've had a few friends get married, including a few roommates. when nicki got married, there was wedding and bridal paraphernalia everywhere. it's all she talked about for months, and she had an extremely short engagement. heck, carmen didn't even live with me when she got married and there were bridal magazines and half-finished lists on my bed, in my house, in my car...

i failed to realize that i'm going to be one of the first-hand witnesses, one of the people that sees all the planning stages. it's very likey that i'm going to know a lot more details about this wedding than i would like. hearing all about nicki's wedding for three months was pretty boring sometimes, but this is going to be torture.

i wonder if mike still wants the same things at his wedding that he talked about with me.

why is kc doing this to me? our rent isn't bad, but it's not cheap by socorro standards. she could find a pretty nice place for less and move out and save money, something that getting-married-people tend to want to do. everyone wins.

i don't want to get back at her. i just want her to leave me alone.

Monday, December 05, 2005

the plot thickens

so carmelita told me the happy news this morning. kc and mike are engaged.

i feel like i can talk about this on here because, to the best of my knowledge, no one at my school reads my blog or even knows where it is. not carmen, not adam, not josh, no one. in fact, the only people i know about that read this are a few family members (not including my parents), who for the most part don't know the people i'm talking about.

i'm less upset about this than you'd think. in fact, the day before i found out about their secret romance, i had a dream that they were engaged and asked me to come to their wedding and i told them no way. josh thinks that's cool. he thinks i'm psychic.

the circumstance of all this actually makes me feel a little better. these two have been dating a little under three months, and they are already planning to get married in may. you can't say that this lends them any credibility. in fact, it more or less proves that they aren't thinking things through and are doing whatever feels right. i mean, that's stupid. i kept my mouth (mostly) shut when jd got married after five months of knowing susan, but i could convince myself that once in a great while, those things could work out. now jd's best friend is following suit. that's a pretty big coincedence.

another thing i think about is, of course, the injustice of all this. while we were dating, i was was very aware of the time mike spent with kc, and very aware of that fact that she's taller and prettier and more sophisticated and mature than i am, but not once did i ask or gave him crap about it. nearly every time i hung out with adam, i got a fight and a guilt trip. and the whole time, it was really me who had something to worry about. now that's ironic. and then there's the whole insensitivity thing going on, like couldn't she move out before all this happened, or couldn't he even tell me the truth about any of this, or could they at least tell me anything? like i said, i found out from carmen, and it's been a few weeks already. they're jerks.

lastly, there's concern. not a whole lot, because the evil part of me hopes they make mistakes and learn a big ol' Harsh Lesson from this, but there is some. i mean, mike thought about it for over a year before he even asked me out. we went out for over a year and then broke up pretty much out of the blue. our pre-dating relationship is going to be longer than his and kc's dating relationship and engagement combined. mike is SO careful about the things he does, and he always considers everything over and over.... and over, until it's worn to death. this is beyond unusual for him.

add that to the fact that he let slip he was dating kc and let me find out from josh, he's been refusing to acknowledge my existance, he visited kc overnight at her house before they were going out, he lied to me about liking someone else... these are all things he told me with his own mouth that he would never ever do. these things are so out-of-character, they go against what i knew of him for almost three years. he's not acting like himself, and getting engaged while you're not acting like yourself is a bad, bad plan.

i still need to give mike a verbal butt-kicking for the way he's been treating me, and i need him to grow up and be a man and listen this time, instead of running away. but now, i don't know, should i throw in a little, "stop and think about what you're doing"? i don't know if it's my place. i mean, i know him really well, or at least i should. he told me that he wanted to be my friend and loved me like a sister. i don't buy that crap for a second, but what if i call him on his bluff and say, hey buddy, if you love me like a sister, you'd better listen up. you're acting weird. carmen told me a lot of other people at church are concerned, but i think i know mike much better than they do. should i say something?

and then there's kc. i think she's confused. i feel bad for her. yeah, she was mean and evil and cowardly, but i don't want her to suffer forever for it. most of the time i just wonder what the heck she's thinking. how can she go out with him when she knows how he treated me? that's beyond my comprehension. and now, how can she marry a guy when she knows he's acting weird? and honestly, a very big part of me thinks she still likes joel. heaven help her, you know, because he sucks on about the same level as mike, but my point is, she's confused. getting married when you're confused is not good either.

but i guess until i know what to do i'll be sitting here.

another season gone

the hockey scene this weekend was surprisingly boring, especially considering that all seven games were championships for the seven respective leagues. we've got the ten-year-olds, the twelve-year-olds, the fourteen-year-olds, the high schoolers, the old men, the old ladies, and finally, the adults. the only game that was close enough to be exciting was the under-ten game, which started twenty-five minutes late because of some mom trying to take team pictures. one thing you've got to understand about under-ten-year-olds is that hardly any of them can put on their gear. so before every game you hear an endless chorus of, "coach, can you tie this?" "mom, can you help me?" "coach, where's my other glove?"

so of course, once all the kids are finally dressed, camera mom lines them up and tells all twenty of them to take off their helmets so she can see their faces in the picture. "coach, can you help me?"

once the picture is snapped, all twenty helmets have to go back on. "coach, can you help me?"

the whole time i was sitting in the stat box pulling out my hair. the first game being late pushes back all the rest of the games for the entire day. freakin little kids.

anyway, my twelve-year-old buddy josh was playing goalie for the little kids, and sunshine, sparky and i made fun of him the whole time. the game ended in a 4-4 tie, meaning there was five minutes of sudden death. no one scored. then, as if the next game wasn't late enough, the refs declared a shoot-out, with josh playing goalie for both teams. josh was terrified and did really well, which is great for him but it meant the game never ended. about eighteen kids had already taken penalty shots and josh wasn't budging. i yelled at him to just let one in.

the first person to finally score on josh was none other than his angelic, blond-haired little sister, sarah. and she stuffed him. her very feminine "hooray!" after she scored probably only drove the insult home for josh, whose entire family was in the stands, mocking him. that was the highlight of the day for me, especially since it meant the first game was finally over.

like i said, the next five games weren't close enough to be exciting. saturday was the windiest day we've had all season, and to top it off the scoreboard was broken all day, meaning i was working with a stopwatch and a flip board. boring, boring, boring. no one even scored for me, even though sunshine ian got about ten goals. what a brat.

finally it was time for the adult game. my team consisted of myself, collin, clifton, rick, teague (thank GOD), and bean, our prodigal teammate. i was kinda bugged that he showed up after not playing all season.... but he's really good, so i didn't say anything. we played against my old friend kevin, peanut, leo, roger the tough guy, and javier was in net.

the game went well. they won, because they're a better team and i think they played harder. the score was 8-5, i think. it's true that teague let in a few sloppy goals, but i think the right team won.

more important than who won, at least to me, is that collin and i finally killed a penalty. all season long we have been the penalty-killing team, and every time we kill all but about ten seconds and then the other team scores. it's so depressing. but not this time! i think rick was the one who was called, and collin and i went out and told each other, "this is The One." collin worked so hard! he really is my hero. i feel like i finally proved i'm a worthy defenseman after that, especially since i played good defense in the rest of the game also. i stuffed peanut and roger a few times, and roger even congratulated me! funny.

after the puny awards ceremony, ray and the hugos and i went for soup, pizza, and beer at bountiful, where the three of them talked about ice hockey and tried to hook me up with the shady waiter. another season gone.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

can't touch this

miller assigned us a take-home controls test on tuesday that was due this morning. and you would be so proud of me, i started on it right away and worked hard. in fact, by the time i went to bed tuesday night, i had completed more than half of the problems and was feeling pretty good about myself.

unfortunately, i did the easy half of the test. or rather, since none of it was really easy, i left the impossible part for later. these were problems that miller had assigned homework on, but had not gone over in class. i haven't done that homework yet because i don't understand the procedure. so it makes a whole lot of sense that these things are on the test... riiiiight.

i worked on that test from about six until nine, when i had my leader's meeting, and then from ten until five-thirty a.m., no kidding. that's when josh and i finally gave up. i went home and got into bed, mostly because i was cold, and lay there thinking, "my test isn't done. my test isn't done. i could be working on my test right now. what if i don't wake up in time to finish?"

needless to say, i got zero sleep. i finally got up at 7:40 and worked on my test until class started at 9:30. that's a lot of hours for one test. i still wasn't happy with it when i turned it in. but guess what miller went over first thing in class? the material we needed to know before the test!

but more unusual than that? i think i actually did it right.

this immediately brought to mind visions of next tuesday, when miller will hand out the graded tests. "there was only one 'A'," he explains to the class, "a 98." of course the class begins to half-heartedly congratulate jon, as usual, until miller hands him his test... an 84! i, on the other hand, have a big red "98%, well done!" at the top of my fourteen-page baby.

so in my little day dream i stood up, turned to jon, threw my test down in front of him, and said, "u can't touch this!" and started doing the hammer shuffle across the room. at that point things in my head got a little silly, no doubt due to my sleepless night.

but let me tell you, i was doing a lot better than josh. that kid shuffled into class about five minutes before it was over, and man, did he look terrible! i guess he's not used to the all-nighter lifestyle since our materials lab ended. good times... :)

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Tuesday, November 29, 2005

it's freezing!

no, really!

i didn't get much into my weekend in cruces in my last post because, let's face it, that beast was long enough already. but the weather was beautiful, even more so than in phoenix. it was in the high 70s during the day. these gorgeous, no-jacket, bordering on wear-your-sunscreen days tragically ended on sunday, when we woke up to howling winds and went to sleep when it was about 25 degrees outside.

and socorro is freezing too! steve put weather stripping in all the doors and there are towels along the doorstops and windows. why does it have to be so cold?

two more weeks of school. i can't wait. the controlls homework tonight was gnarly, even jon didn't finish, although he's futher along than josh and myself. bloody homework! two more weeks seems like an eternity, especially with all the final projects and tests and presentations, not to mention the last-minute material that the teachers are trying to cram down our throats because they're freakin' out thinking we haven't learned enough. grrrrr.....

but it's okay, because sir paul blew me a kiss. :)

it feels weird not posting a picture for the first time in oh, three weeks, so i thought you might like to take a look at the sweet ride that adam and i were driving around in phoenix. we got some really dirty looks from other drivers, but we still had lots of fun. this is a sexy little car. it matches my hair.

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Sunday, November 27, 2005

THE PAUL SHOW

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thought i died, didn't you?

well, i'm still alive, probably due to the papaya pills i was popping all night. i love paul! but let me start from the beginning. i'll try to keep it short, but.... oh, come on. get real. by the way, the pictures are supplied by dex, my new camera, which was a present from adam and carmelita.

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adam and i got to the glendale arena at three o'clock (about five hours early) and found it pretty vacant. adam left to get coffee and i hung around making friends with all the security guards, trying to figure out if i could bring in my banners or if i had to sneak them in. i was wearing a shirt that said "it's my birthday" on the front and "i (heart) paul" on the back. most of the security guards looked at my banners a little skeptically, but the tour crew kept coming up to me and saying, "good job! paul loves those banners!"

the tour crew turned out to be a lot more friendly and talkative than the guards, so i chatted with them for a long time too. they were really nice to me, probably because of my t-shirt, and kept giving me "tips" on when paul was going to get there and where i should wait for him to get a snapshot. paul got to the arena at six. i was standing with a group of a dozen or so fans and watched him get out of his lexus. he was wearing a white suit. i was snapping pictures, but i didn't expect to actually get a picture of him. i was more hoping that he would see the flashes and look up and wave, but he was running late, so he went straight inside. i was so excited, i called my dad right away and said, "dad! i just saw sir paul!" here's a picture of the line of black lexuses outside the arena.

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by this time adam was back, and he waited in line with me. the people around me in line wished me happy birthday and admired my shirt and banners, and the lady behind me snapped the picture below. it turned out that the banners were allowed, but a guard told me to leave the wooden dowels that i used to support the sides in the car. i just couldn't do that. i tied them to the inside of my leg with the shoelaces that i was carrying in my pocket for that very reason. i felt really bad about tricking those nice security guards, but i did anyway. i got in just fine. adam told me he'd meet me by the lexus display after the show, and then he left and then i was inside, on my own, thinking "come on stomach! don't flip out!" and all my papaya was gone.

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i found my seat among several "happy birthday"s and a few high-fives. everyone loved my shirt. my seat was pretty awesome, but there really are no bad seats in the glendale arena. i had a lot of fun talking to the people sitting next to me. they were all really excited and friendly. the show started, and paul came out singing, "magical mystery tour". i went crazy! it was so much fun.

the problem was that the people around me weren't nearly as excited as i was, and i felt bad about standing up and cheering when they were sitting and trying to be mellow. so i scoped the place out. about fifteen rows ahead of me, right on the isle in row G, there was a group of women who were jamming out the entire time. they never sat down. so during "i will", i went and stood next to them in the isle, and they greeted me like a long lost sister. all the people around them wished me happy birthday and ignored the guard giving me the evil eye. standing with them was a lot more fun.

when they figured out i had banners, they were all over me to hold them up. when paul started playing "follow me" i grabbed my banner and held it in front of my chest in the isle, where i could be easily seen by the stage, and sang my heart out. after a minute or two, i realized i was up on the big wall, the "follow me follow me" very visible for everyone to see. yay! after that song, paul thanked the crowd for all the "follow me" signs, but i don't know if he saw mine or not.

from then on, between every song or whenever the lights came up, i would grab my other banner, the one that said, "it's my birthday! blow a kiss?" and hold it up in hopes that paul would see it. the people around me were wonderful, they were so patient with my huge banner and were so encouraging. every time another song started and i ran back to my spot, they would say, "keep trying!" a few of them even tried to help me out, yelling, "paul, look over here!" i kept trying and trying, but no good.

finally, after one song, i glanced at rusty (one of the guitar players) and found him looking right at me. when i looked up, he blew me a kiss! yay! i jumped up and down and waited for him to point my sign out to paul, but he didn't. so i kept trying.

as the show progressed my chances of getting my banner seen were getting slimmer. there was less time and less talking between songs, as the songs were getting more and more popular and dramatic. i still didn't want to hold it up during the songs because i didn't want to block out the show for anyone, and i knew i probably wasn't going to get seen with out the lights up. i started to loose heart.

then, during "hey jude", paul got up from the piano and started "directing" the audience through the na-na-nas. you know... first the guys sing it, then the girls, then the balcony, and so on. the lights came up on the audience and paul was looking around at everyone and i figured, screw it, and up went my exceptionally large banner. and PAUL SAW IT!

and he blew me a huge flamboyant kiss. i freaked out. all the ladies around me freaked out. all the people around the ladies called, "did you see that? he blew you a kiss!" we screamed, beatlemania-style. next thing i know, i was back on the big wall. this time i turned around so the back of my shirt was showing. i checked over my shoulder, and "i (heart) paul" was visible above the band. yay! yay! yay!

when "hey jude" was over, he looked right at me and blew ANOTHER KISS! same reaction. and then and the end of the set, before the first encore when the band was leaving the stage, paul looked at me again and blew ANOTHER KISS! i was going crazy. brian, his other guitar guy, saw him and blew me a kiss also. it was so much fun! all the ladies gave me hugs and tons of people around me were leaving their seats to congratulate me and wish me happy birthday. oh my gosh, it was so perfect.

after that, you know, i could die happy. i didn't need anything else. the two encores were awesome, with song like "get back", "let it be", "sgt. pepper" and "yesterday", but i already got what i wanted. at the very end, i watched people throw things up on the stage for paul to sign. i had my liner notes and a sharpie in my back packet, just in case, but i was just fine. paul blew me a kiss.

after the show when everyone was milling around, so many people came up to me to wish me happy birthday, and they said things like, "ooh! we saw you on the big wall!" or "great job!" or "we hoped that he would see you!" one guy even told me how he thought it was cool that i turned around to show the back of my shirt. sweet. seriously, paul mccartney has the best fans in the whole world. they were all SO nice. and i ran into most of the tour crew after the show, too, and they all said, "see? he blew you a kiss! we told you!" hooray!

and of course it was SO freakin SWEET to hear so many awesome beatles songs. "got to get you into my life" was so much fun, and i sang the entirety of "yesterday" with my arms around the ladies that adopted me into their seats. "till there was you" and "let me roll it" were my other favorites. it was so much fun.

when i got back to adam's uncle's house, i wrote scuba a message saying i was going to bake him a cake, every day, three times a day, for the rest of my life. i saw paul. and you know what? he saw me!!!!

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

one day! one day! one day!

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i got one day kids! i'm FREAKIN OUT!

so i thought an appropriate picture for the last day of my countday would be the picture i told you about... the one on the cover of the new cd that i bought. the opening line to one of the songs is "looking though the backyard of my life..." i wonder if there's a connection or not. hmm.

so my grandparents are going to be here any minute to take my car to las cruces. already today i packed both sets of bags, and finished my t-shirt, made the brownies for my hockey buddies, AND went to class (how goody-goody of me), and now i'm just kind of freaking out thinking about what i could have forgotten. oh, and i'm saying good-by to my computer. it's going to las cruces with the car, so don't expect a post for day zero. or day after...

i still have to run some errands and dye my hair. wow...

i'm going to see paul tomorrow! i'm so stoked! i'm really happy, this is so great. it's nice to tell people i'm doing great when they ask, and actually mean it, too. i haven't been sad about mike in like a whole week. that's huge. yay! scuba is the coolest person EVER. i think i'll bake him a cake.

so adam and i are leaving as soon as he's done with his senior design presentations, and then we're going to albuquerque to catch our flight, and then we're having a driver and a lincoln town car pick us up at the airport in phoenix. of course, we're staying at his uncle's house and we're going to drive around phoenix in the family beamer. sweet. and we're going to go see harry potter.

and then i'm going to see paul mccartney!!! hooray!!! yes, this is going to be awesome. i hope i don't die of excitement. but if i do, it will be okay. i will die a happy girl.

yeah, sorry i'm so all over the place right now, but as you can tell i've got several things running through my mind. forgive me please. i don't even know if any of this made sense at all. this is not the day for good writing. it's the day for good music.

i'm so happy.

2 days

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well, wimping out on the take-home mechatronics test to make t-shirts and banners this weekend turned out to be something of a mistake... but not a horrible one. i got home from josh's house a little while ago, where josh, adam, jake, jon and i did homework, worked on the test, watched movies, ate pizza, and drank beer. well, josh, adam and jake drank beer. jon opted not to and i tried some of what those boys called "awesome", and it tasted like insecticide to me. beer is gross.

i have SO much to do before my flight leaves tomorrow! heck, i have so much to do before i go to bed tonight! i have one homework assignment that isn't finished (thank GOD i know the grader and can turn it in late) and another that i haven't even started (that WILL be done by morning). and i still have to dye my hair and pack up my car and get ready for the flight and put the finishing touches on the shirt i messed up on and clean out my room... and talk to my boss and get my paycheck and fill out a time card... oh, and go to class. maybe.

i'm so excited! i thought i couldn't shut up about it before, but today i'd be halfway through saying something about the concert or the beatles or sir paul (or my AWESOME beatles jackets that i found at wal mart for $17 each) before i even realize what i'm doing! luckily jake adam and josh were a little too buzzed to be annoyed with me tonight, and jon... well, hopefully he'll still talk to me tomorrow.

yeah, i got a yellow yellow submarine jacket in las cruces and then a brown sargent pepper's jacket in socorro. they are SO COOL! they are my new favorite things. i love them.

and oh yeah, i got my birthday present from my grandmother today. it's the new paul mccartney cd... and i think i told her over the phone the other day that i already have it. whoops... but it was a perfect oresent other than that!

oh yeah, my birthday's coming up. funny how it's getting overshadowed by the awesomeness that is the day before my birthday.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

3 days

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paul's a cutie.

today i skipped church o stay home and paint more banners and tshirts. my dad cut up a dowel for me to slip inside the edges of the banners so i can hold them over my head by myself. the second banner says, "follow me" twice, once in black and once in red. in one of paul's new songs, one that he's playing at the concert, the line is, "you hold up a sign that reads 'follow me'". so that's where that came from. i'm SO EXCITED!

i'm driving back at six tomorrow morning, and i'll spend all afternoon working on the mechatronics take-home test. i hope i can finish it! with the concert so close, everything is back burner in my mind, but i could really use a good grade on this test. school will still be around after the concert.

that is if i don't die from excitement. i actually wrote a will today. josh gets my stereo as long as he had absolutely nothing to do with my death. and jon gets my car. and the list goes on, but i'm really, really tired. it's time for bed.

and when i wake up, the concert will only be two days away.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

4 days

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i will see paul in four days. today i watched the bonus dvd that came with my new cd and made one of my banners for the concert. it says, "it's my birthday! blow a kiss?" i made a t shirt too. i'm so excited. it's all i really think about. i'm happy. :)

the hockey game that i had today went nothing like i expected. first of all, pete was there. it's next week that he can't come. i guess i was confused on that fact. second, switzer wasn't there, along with most of his team. the poor guys had no subs. third, teague wasn't there, which meant we had no goalie.

which posed all kinds of problems.

basically it came down to me or collin playing goalie, and i was the "lucky" winner. so i found myself suiting up for the first time in four years. i was terrified. i told the guys how horrible i was. when i skated out to warm up, i let the ball roll right past me into the goal, and yelled, "see! that's not unusual!" i thought i was done for. right before the ref dropped the ball, i said to clifton, "well, even if i suck, i'm going to see paul mccartney in four days, so it'll be okay." he thought that was funny.

get this: we creamed 'em. i made eleven saves and only gave up one goal. before you're impressed by that, let me tell you that my team played awesome defense. they hardly let the other team shoot at all. i've never seen them play so well. their passing was amazing, their defense was nearly flawless, they were talking, their shots were accurate... collin in particular saved me several times, but pete and clifton did outstanding also. i may just play goalie all the time if they're going to protect me like that.

the other team however, didn't come together quite as well on defense, obviously had very few offensive chances, and wore themselves out because they had no subs. poor guys.... i've been there. our final score was somewhere between 15 and 17. incredible. so much for me calling the game. hugo's team lost to kevin's team (but not before hugo scored at beautiful goal for me), so we're playing kevin's team for the championship next week. we'll see how that goes.

at the end of my game, i was thinking, wow... i did well at goalie and i get to see paul mccartney.

life is so awesome sometimes.

Friday, November 18, 2005

5 days

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yesterday was yet another busy thursday, and i didn't get a chance to write anything about my six-day mark. i had class until after six, and then a design meeting, and then i went to scott's birthday barbeque, and then i went to josh's house to watch harry potter three.... ahem... i mean study for the civil test. excuse me. after "studying", josh, jon, scott and i laughed at adam for about forty minutes straight. that was great fun. i miss just hanging out with people.

but anyway, that brings us to day five. civil test and eclipse meeting under my belt, i am ready for the weekend. as we speak (or... you know what i mean), i am transfering the new mccartney cd and the live two-disk set from his last US tour onto my shuffle so i can listen to it all the way home. at least half of my playlist this week will be the beatles, paul, and george. i'm stoked.

tomorrow is the first weekend of the tournament. my team ended in last place (don't laugh! there are only four teams, it's not that bad) so we're going to have to play the first-seated team, ken switzer's team. switzer is the best player in the league. i've studied his playing style for years, and the only way to stop him is to take advantage of the fact that he's one of the smaller guys and knock him over. which isn't really classy. or allowed. so that's bad news. this team also has not one, but two of the best goalies in the league. and on top of that, pete, who is one of our best players, is not going to make to to the game. we're totally screwed. there's no way we're going to pull this off.

but it's okay, because i'm going to see paul mccartney in five days. last night, scuba said, "wow, you'll probably be happy for like a whole week after this concert."

and i said, "no scuba. i'll be happy forever."

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

7 days

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one week! one week! one week!

i'm a bad friend. today is scott's birthday. but much more importantly, today marks seven days until the moment when i get to see sir paul! yay! jake and i took scott out to dinner. that was nice... except i kept looking at my watch and saying, "oooh, in one week and five minutes, the concert is going to be starting!" or "know where i'll be next week? i'll be in the same room as paul mccartney!"

poor scott! how annoying of me. but i can't help it! i'm so excited! i really can't shut up about this. i keep thinking of all the things i need to do, like dye my hair purple again and make myself a t-shirt and a banner or two and print off the plane tickets and figure out what time he's getting to the arena so i can stand outside and yell "i love you paul!"

it does make me feel a little better when i realize that this concert is also more important to me than my own birthday. if you notice, i'm counting down to the show, not to my big # 22. who cares about birthdays? i've had lots of those. this will be a once-in-a-lifetimer. and i'm so very excited.

you can't tell, can you?

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

8 days

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it's freakin freezing mr. bigglesworth!

so my aunt keeps asking me what i want to eat on thanksgiving (which is my birthday). she feels sorry for me because i always get screwed on my birthday when it comes to food and turkey and relatives and stuff, and she knows i hate eating leftover thanksgiving food instead of pizza and cake, year after year.

our conversations have been funny lately, because she's really concerned about making everyone happy. "now, do you want to eat turkey with the rest of us? or i could make you something else? or you don't have to come at all! or we could have thanksgiving for lunch and then birthday for dinner! or whatever you want! what do you think?" very nice of her, but i don't want her to stress out. i finally just told her, barb, i'm going to see paul mccarney. i don't care what we eat! i'm going to be happy!

and it's true! honestly, if we have a thanksgiving meal of beenie weenies, i will still be one happy girl. i will eat whatever i am told to eat.

that is if i'm not still to excited to eat.

Monday, November 14, 2005

9 days

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sigh.....

okay, i have got to get this stomach thing under control before i go to phoenix. this is rediculous. i feel like i've been kicked really, really hard in the gut. it's very uncomfortable.

this weekend i bought the new paul mccartney cd so i could be up-to-date on his new songs, and tonight i listened to it with jon and josh over some controls homework. the album cover has the most adorable picture of a very young paul playing the guitar in what looks like someone's backyard. it's quite artistic. far from finishing our homework, we started talking about what i could do to get the picture signed and such... well, my nerves were shot before that. and now i'm paying for it. why can't i just relax?!?

in case you're wondering, the controls homework did not go well. we all gave up, even jon the invincible. in fact, three out of four of our questions are still unanswered, and one isn't really even started.

i can't sleep when my homework's not done. and heaven knows i can't sleep thinking about the you-know-what coming up in nine days. that means i'm going to try really hard to distract myself with my book of the moment, harry potter and the order of the phoenix. uh oh, phoenix! that's in arizona! i'm going there! in nine days! so is paul mccartney!

don't say concert!

i said concert.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

10 days

yeah, that's right. i skipped the eleven-day mark. but it's really hard for me to post on saturdays, seeing as i'm scorekeeping and statisticianing all day long. but i made up for it by telling everyone who would stop to listen, "know what i'm doing in eleven days?"

another loss for team canada. teague gave up a couple flukey goals early on that we couldn't seem to recover from, but i think we played pretty well. the other team (kevin's team) did well also, it was a fun game. i got a penalty for "tripping" peanut that was a little bogus... but whatever. collin continues to impress me with his work ethic, the kid was exhausted. and of course dinger played great. the weird thing is that rick is being super nice... to everyone. i don't understand it, but it's a welcome change.

and we have a new teammate! well, as "new" as a league veteran can be. clifton may actually have been playing longer than i have, and that's saying something. he left for the marines four years ago, and suddenly showed up last week, looking for a team. lucky me, we got him. i say "lucky" because he's really good, and because he's an old friend and i missed him! i'm glad he's back.

yesterday i got goals from lee, phil, eric, danny, and joe. the one from joe was cool, because he usually plays goalie, so he obviously doesn't doesn't score very often. i think he has four goals this season. and one of them is mine, hooray! hugo didn't score at all yesterday, but i don't feel sorry for him because he totally ditched me to go to starbucks.

and of course i took every opportunity to tell everyone at hockey yesterday and at church this morning what my thanksgiving plans include. i can't shut up about sir paul. yay, sir paul! today i went to the store and bought some blank t-shirts to write, "it's my birthday" on. i'm so excited!

and is this not the most adorable picture you've ever seen?

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Friday, November 11, 2005

12 days

so it's come to this.... i saw mike twice today, and both times he acknowledged the person i was walking with (josh and adam, respectively) but looked right through me. what a jerk. and i know for a fact that he hates when people do that. he thinks it's low. or he used to... i don't really know him anymore, i guess.

that's the bad news. the good news is that it's an absolutely gorgeous day, the town of socorro looks beautiful in it's various autumn colors, i'm driving home to las cruces as soon as i'm done typing this post, and i'm going to see paul mccartney in twelve days. let's examine these a little more closely, shall we?

1.) it's a gorgeous day.
who would have thought? it went from being boiling summer to freezing winter in one day (see previous posts) to being really nice outside. it's amazing! i love not needing a jacket! it makes me happy!

2.) beautiful autumn colors!
i've always liked the socorro autumn scene better than that in las cruces, because the leaves actually change color up here. in las cruces, it freezes once and all the leaves are gone in one day. here, the local inhabitants enjoy several weeks of lovely fall foilage (how'd you like that propaganda?). but seriously, i'm really enjoying it because last year we didn't have fall, we had a hailstorm in october that broke all the trees. consequently, there weren't any leaves to change. very sad. but there's this beautiful tree between the library and the mechanical building that i pass every morning on my way to school... it's awesome. i don't know what kind of tree it is, but it has just about every color. i made josh take a picture.

3.) las cruces!!!!
well, 'nuff said there. no school! no group priorities! no homework! no silent-treatment back-stabbing roommate! no cowardly ex-boyfriend!
and the pros: sister! brothers! cousin! aunt, uncle, parents, grandparents! doggie!!!!! hockey! church! friends! shopping! food! entertainment!
i think you get the idea.

4.) paul mccartney in twelve days
last night i told christian about the concert, and he started asking me all the detail questions, like he thought he was going to go. riiiiiiiight.... i told him there was still a ticket in the front row going for $11,000. i think he thought i was kidding. but i wasn't.
today i told rosemary, the meche secretary, that i was going to the concert that i talked about all summer. she said she couldn't believe it and started talking about the beegees.
my grandparents stopped in town today and we all excited for me, and they told me about all the doll shops in glenndale. that's when a trip becomes reality for me, when my grandparents tell me about the antique stores. that means i'm really going. i'm really going!

and here's a parting shot for your viewing pleasure.

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Thursday, November 10, 2005

13 days

thursdays suck in general, but this one was particularly gnarly. i walked to school at 9:15 and had class straight until 5:45. that's right. eight and a half hours of nothing but class. no lunch, no nap, no dinner...

oddly enough, i found myself smiling a lot today. it's no secret that this has been my hardest semester, so i'm not as smiley as i have been in the past. but today, i felt a little bit more like myself. let me explain.

if anyone wears her heart on her sleeve, it's me. there is no buffer between my emotions and my facial expressions. sometimes i can fake it, but only when i'm in the zone. this semester, the things on my mind have been hockey, school, and mike. hockey's good. school is pretty dismal. mike is heartbreaking and depressing and really makes me angry. unfortunately, i still think about him quite a bit. and it totally shows.

today, every thought of "sir paul" had me grinning like a dorky little kid. i'm really going to go! it's so exciting! i keep day dreaming about the many ways i could "happen" to end up backstange and stuff like that. every mention of thanksgiving set me off. that's a first! i usually hate thanksgiving. anyway, today my mind hit "sir paul" many more times than it hit "mike". i found myself smiling more often than i was frowning. it's a start.

yesterday, dr. marshal told us that lab was cancelled on the day before thanksgiving. my brain immediatly chattered, "the day before thanksgiving? where will i be the day before thanksgiving? i'll be at the show. yay, the show, the show! the paul show!" that did it. i had a huge smile on my face. he saw me and said, "oh, try not to look so happy! trust me, i'm happier than you are!"

yeah right. i'm the happiest. :)

so i'm happy to report that even though i spent most of yesterday blissfully picturing paul mccartney singing me happy birthday instead of studying, i think i did really well on my machine design test. actually, i think i kicked it in the junk. hurray!

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Wednesday, November 09, 2005

new outlook on thanksgiving

i feel like i'm neglecting you, little blog.

last night i bought my plane ticket.... i'm really going to see paul mccartney! after i bought it, it really started to hit me. and my stomach is already upset. i'm going to have to figure out how to beat this before i go to the concert... in two weeks!

adam and i are flying out of albuquerque on tuesday night, staying at his unlce's house until thursday morning, and then i'm flying to el paso and he's going back to albuquerque. this is turning out to be just perfect. i get to go to the concert, hang out with adam, AND go to the annual LCIHA thanksgiving pick-up hockey game. oh, AND my aunt and uncle are hosting thanksgiving this year, and i hear they're putting green chile in everything. i'm so excited.

here's what's on my mind:

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now let's see if i can study for my machine design test tomorrow. yeah right.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

can it be?

okay, quick update:
halloween rocked. it was lots of fun. again, for details, check out my uncle's website and click on the link for the mausoleum page. of course, we had the kids that were brats, but the majority of them had a blast.

and then on tuesday morning i came back to school... by tuesday afternoon i was ready to drop out. i hate school, i hate school, i hate school! it's amazing how just being in socorro makes me miserable, and how a huge weight is lifted from my shoulders when i get to las cruces.

but enough about that. here's the real reason i'm writing. let's see, how well do you know me? what do i want for my birthday? what do i want reallyreallyreally badly?

so scuba came over yesterday and handed me a ticket to the paul mccartney concert in phoenix on the day before my birthday. he bought a $700 seat for $200. and he gave it to me, saying he knew i was having a rough semester and he thought he'd give me a chance to go, seeing as i've been talking about it since, oh, april. i checked out the seat. it's not bad. not amazing, but not bad.

i was super freaked out. i hadn't slept at all the night before, thanks to good ol homework, so i wasn't really in any condition to express my thanks. add to that the immediate guard wall that went up and the voice in my head that yelled, "do NOT get excited. this can't be as good as you think." i didn't really know what to say, so i kind of babbled about stuff.

he left and i called adam. he freaked. i read all the reports on the shows so far in the tour. i found as many picture of the inside of glendale arena as i could, making sure that i'll be able to see sir paul. i got excited. i called my dad. carmen came home. she freaked. even after all that, i don't think it's really hit me yet... i'm going to see paul mccartney! can it be? am i going to wake up and find that this is a cruel dream?

it's been one day. josh says he's already sick of hearing me talk about this concert. he says he'd rather have massive amounts of homework to do that listen to me talk about paul mccartney for two weeks. two and a half, i remind him. that's another thing- how am i going to stand this for two and a half weeks? i have problems with anxiousness, i get really sick! how am i going to get anything done? i have three, maybe four tests between now and then. is this the end of my college carrer?

i don't care if it is. i'm going to the concert.

Monday, October 31, 2005

halloween, hooray!

yesterday i spent almost all day at my uncle's house working on stuff for halloween. i'm so excited! it's going to be so, so cool for all the little trick-or-treaters that come out. the yard will be transformed into a graveyard with silly tombstones and a creepy crypt with a flying ghost bobbing about inside. the drivway gets tacken over by the carnival games, which i think are a "rat toss" and something to do with getting a steel hoop over some bones.

this year they have the blacklight puppetshow, with it's huge, nearly life-size puppets and my sister as the live-action gypsy witch. that's going to be a huge hit, because it was good last year but this year will be even more fun. my brother is also going to trade off playing marius, the villian, and doing other, smaller special effects with byron.

this will take him away from the magic mirror, my uncle's brilliant trick-or-treat facade that features a computer moniter face, a kareoke machine, and a fog machine where the candy comes out. this will be the third year for the magic mirror, but it's cool enough that it's still not old news, even compared with the other awesome halloween additions.

and that leads us to the mausoleum, where brave trick-or-treaters will enter the spooky walk-in crypt, the inside filled with dim, flickering light (from one of those fake flame caldrons). the visitor will open up one of the nine tombs and see the gory corpses inside. if his heart does not fail him, he will then reach his hand past the scary remains to get the prize (most likely chocolate coins). then, when the visitor has his arm halfway inside the crypt, i, behind the scenes in the back of the mausoleum, will scare the crap out of him. bwah hah hah!!! yes, i've had my eye on that job for months. and tonight it will be mine, mine!

yes, i'm skipping my monday class and staying in las cruces for halloween. i don't care much about the class i'm skipping, but the homework session that josh and jon will have this afternoon would have helped me out a lot. i tried that homework last night, and i'm stuck. but i think that's an acceptable loss. my uncle's house is probably the best place in the whole state to be tonight, if you have the means, i highly suggest it.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

misery loves company?

tonight was "share your favorite verse night" at iv. at last week's leader's meeting, jesse instructed us to be ready to jump up in front if things slowed down to a lull. tonight was a good meeting, there was lots of participation.

i was a little late. when i walked in, i noticed a boy i know (a fellow iv leader, no less) sitting outside next to the doors by himself. i've never seen him look so sad. he and i have never been great friends or anything, but we say hello to each other, and he didn't look at me when i walked by, just as if he didn't want to be seen.

he came into the meeting a few minutes after i did, and sat by himself with such a look on his face... he looked crushed. he didn't get up and read his verse. in fact, he didn't look up the whole meeting, even when his girlfriend got up to share her verse. and she didn't look at him. it doesn't take a brainiac to draw the conclusion that i'm drawing. after the meeting ended, he left. against my better judgement i followed him outside. he knew i was behind him, but didn't turn around. i asked, "are you alright?" he didn't turn around or stop walking but he said he yes. so i left him alone.

i really hope he's okay. like i said, we've never been close, but it just kills me to see that look... i know that look. i know that feeling. i recognized it as soon as i saw him. what went on inside just backed up my initial gut reaction. i so badly wanted to run up to him and say, "i know, it sucks! i know! i don't know what to do either. but it'll be okay, i promise."

did it take someone who knows the feeling to see what how he was hurting? or am i just being the broken-hearted equivalent of paraniod here? maybe the poor kid was just sick or something. am i imagining emotional pain in the people around me because that's what i'm going through? do i think everyone is heartbroken just because i am?

whether i'm right about him or not, this is a weird experience for me. before all of this, even when one of my friends was sobbing in my lap about a boy that had dumped her or some such story, i could not relate. sure, i felt really bad and wanted to fix everything, but this is different. i don't know how to explain it.

Monday, October 24, 2005

this week in hockey news...

i finally got to play hockey again this weekend, after a very long two-week lull thanks to last week's thunderstorms. i missed it. a lot.

first, i took my little brother to his hockey practice on friday. when we got there, dr. dave, who is andy's coach and out for the season in a walking cast, told me to suit up and scrimmage with the boys. that was really fun, because i used to coach a lot of those little boys. the ones i didn't coach thought i would be a pushover, but were they ever wrong! ha! i got on a team with my old friend gordon and another kid, gabe, and we played against andy and lee and about three or four other kids. we totally dominated.

after the kid's practice, the adult league had a scheduled practice, but as usual, no one showed up. i had already worked up a sweat from the kid's practice, but i wasn't ready to go home yet, so i started skating laps and doing sprints and working on my weak slapshot. as i was skating, the sun set and the whole sky turned bright pink and orange and the mountains turned purple. the rink is in the middle of a really large sports complex that takes up several blocks, so there's flat softball fields or desert parking lot on every side. this makes for a very nice view of the sky.

so there i was, the nice, clean, smooth rink and the brand-new boards to myself, surrounded by a huge rose-colored sky, thinking, i could just stay here. i could just not ever go back to school. las cruces is my favorite.

next day i was back at nine for the little kid's games. lee scored to goals for me. phil, my little sparky, scored two goals for me. hugo scored two goals for me also, which was interesting, because he was playing against my team. i'm not sure my teammates saw the humor in that.

he went into that game pretty mad, because my team picked up kevin christeson, who really should not be allowed to play in the over-seventeen league, mostly because he's seventeen. i didn't want him to play, either. hugo put up a big fuss about it, but lost, so he and his team were mad. they picked up a couple of subs also, to make up for ray not being around, and they beat us by three or four points. collin did great, as ever, dinger was alright, i did alright, teague played awesome as goalie, and kevin was, eh... he was kevin. and that brings us to rick.

i told you from the beginning that i don't like rick. mostly this is because he's a playing time hog and a jerk. last season, when he was the new guy, when i didn't even know him, i stuck up for him when some people on his team were talking schmack. later he told me off for taking up his playing time. i got really mad, and a lot of people were mad for me, too. but since then we really haven't bumped heads. i just steer clear of him.

so at saturday's game, rick's being his usual self and not subbing out. that wasn't really a big deal. the big deal was, he was tired, he was playing tired, it was affecting his game, we had two guys on the bench, and he still wasn't subbing out. collin was all alone on defense, and i was rushing back to help, and rick was just standing around, taking a breather. i wasn't trying to be ugly, but i called to him, "rick, if you're tired, take a break."

he didn't say anything until the play stopped. then he blew up at me. just... yelling. "if i'm tired, it's because i'm playing your position!!!!" okay, first of all, he wasn't playing my position or his position, he was standing still watching the play. but i didn't get into that. the point was, he needed to sit, and he was tired. so i said, "well, then take a break! we have subs." and he yelled the same thing, about how he was tired because he was playing my position. and then he just started saying that i don't know how to position. so i thought, okay, enough of this.

i know how to position. i consider it to be the strongest part of my game. i'm not the best puck handler, i don't score a lot, and heaven knows my slapper sucks. but i've been a coach and a player and a statistician for a long, long time. i've been involved in this league longer than most of the board members. i watch almost every game. i have watched more three-on-three hockey than probably anyone in the league. so i said, "no rick, you position weird. you're playing like this is five-on-five, but it's not, this is three-on-three. that affects the positioning." and i was so right.

rick, still yelling, now got sarcastic on me, even though i was pretty calm and not yelling at all. he said, "oooooh, suuuuure, and how long have you been you been playing? half a year?!?" to which i replied, "no. eight." so rick said, "ooooooh, eight! woaaaaaaaaw...." like it was nothing. we ended it then, because collin and teague were just standing there all bewildered, as well as the ref, and rick had already made himself look like a jerk. surprisingly, i wasn't hardly mad at all. i was annoyed, and i don't like him, but i didn't get upset.

people came up to me for the rest of the day and told me in hushed, dramatic tones that i was right and rick was a loser. they thought it was funny that he said i'd only been playing half a year. he really proved that he doesn't know what's going on with that comment. rick played two more games after that, and his teams were all over him about subbing out on time. he got in another argument with chris about it. it's like i set the stage for other people to confront him. it's funny, that league reminds me of middle school sometimes.

i love it. i wouldn't miss it for the world.

halloween plans

hey, i know you may be sick of hearing this, but did i mention that las cruces rocks and socorro sucks? i did? hmm.

this weekend was our second-to-last chance to really get some work done on the mausoleum and get everything ready for the big day. friday was tech's "homecoming", which i guess is fun for the school athletes and the party animals, but i am neither, so i left town after my last class on thursday. on friday morning i went over to my uncle's house and helped him and byron paint halloween facades all day. we painted and talked about politics, painted and talked about movies, painted and talked about iv (surprize there), the list goes on and on. we finally packed up about four in the afternoon because my uncle had to go pick up alex and byron had a date night with his wife. i, however, drove my little brother to hockey practice.

yesterday andy, scott and i went back for the formal "work day". we drove around with my aunt distributing fliers for her good-will pumpkin carving contest, which she says will keep the neighbors from calling the police halloween night because of the crowds of people. and the crowds are going to be huge. then scott and i tested all the fog machines and timers and manual buttons to make sure that they suck up the fog juice properly and everything. fog smells really weird, we discovered, but the equipment mostly worked, much to the delight of alex, who screamed and pointed and ran around everytime the back porch filled with the weird-smelling clouds. he is the cutest kid ever. i love him.

then i helped byron put together the LEDs for the inside of the crypts. it was a lot of wire stripping and soldering and shrink tubing, but we finally established a system of sorts. we tested how two red ones and two yellow ones looked inside a crypt against one of my uncle's fake skulls. when we shut off the garage lights, everyone looked inside and saw the skull lit red from one side and yellow from the other, and it was very, very spooky. this is going to be SO much fun.

on friday i bought a mask from one of the halloween stores in town. it's purple and has feathers on it. i plan on dying my hair purple, which i think will look pretty cool, and just wearing dark clothes so i won't be able to be seen inside the mausoleum. i'm going to be a behind-the-scenes scarer. i'm so excited! hooray for halloween!

if you'd like to check out my uncle's blog, where he's posted several pictures and keeps better tabs on the progress than i do (and the final week should be an exciting one), he's nephilim dot blogspot dot com.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

weekend, uh huh

here i am, eleven hours until my first class, sitting on the couch in las cruces with my brothers and sister, watching dallas play vancouver. right now the stars are down by one with about five minutes left. hockey is back. i love mike modano. we've got the popcorn, the pretzels, the milk, and we're going to watch evita after the game.

there were no hockey games this weekend, because it was pouring saturday morning, so i hung out with andy and lee at the mall for about four hours. that was fun. then we went and helped paint sets at my unlce's house, then we went to see wallace and gromit (which rocked) and then alicia and i went dancing. today after church i bought myself some new clothes. my grandparents showed up at our house tonight and my sister and i sang them "feed the birds" from marry poppins, mariachi style. we are awesomly good at that. then my dad made us kung-pow chicken for dinner (d'angelo stayed) and then nick, tracy and i headed over to my uncle's house to help tear down the halloween stuff. and now here we are, watching the game.

i love being at home. sure, it means i have to wake up a little before six to get into town in time for my nine o'clock class, but i'm so glad i'm not in socorro. my family is so much fun.

so my sister and i are considering releasing a cd of mariachi-style cover songs. keep your eyes open.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

midsemester today

i hate school, i hate school, i hate school....

never, in all my time at tech, have i been this miserable. even at the very beggining, when i had no friends at all and couldn't do my chemistry homework and almost failed calc one, even then was not as bad as now. not by a long shot.

i have no confidence in the meche classes i'm taking this semester. if i don't have jon or adam looking over my shoulder, i'm sure i'm doing it wrong. i don't understand the material. it's not just that it's hard, most of the classes here are hard, but i don't understand it and i'm really not interested in it. conrols, mechatronics? i don't care. i just feel dumb all the time.

then there's the whole drama. i've had a chance to talk to both kc and mike. kc took it like a man. mike walked away. i'm so mad at both of them, and i'm so hurt. they say god told them to do it. what am i supposed to say to that? "well, god was wrong!" it sucks that i can't get away from this. i can't just have a big fight and be done with it. they are still dating each other at the end of the day. i don't want to come back to my own house. today josh and jon and i were studying in the ce lab, and kat called to tell josh that she and mike and shuter were coming. josh warned me, and i left because i didn't want to see mike. but after i left i didn't know what to do... i didn't want to go home either.

i want so badly just to drive home to las cruces and forget about tech. i could get a job (even if it's back at the nursery), and hang out with my family and the few friends i've kept in touch with and play hockey. my little cousin is so much better than school. my uncle's halloween plans are so much more interesting than controls. hockey is way better than iv. way better.

and now i have a senoir design meeting in five minutes. i don't want to see those boys.

Monday, October 10, 2005

about the game...

another loss for team canada, but this one we really should have won. first of all, it should have been a forfeit for the other team, since they only had one guy show up, and we had four. but they picked a guy up, and we picked a guy up, and they picked up the hugos (totally not fair). then about twenty minutes into the game, two more of their players showed up. we were leading alomost the whole game, but we ended up loosing by one. we would have lost by two, but collin gave me the sweetest pass in the last minute and i scored. yay! i gave it to ian, who was keeping score. hugo scored four goals. we really should have won. but it was fun.

there's a new guy on that team. his name is roger. new guys amuse me. they nearly always fall into one of three categories:
a.) the gentlemanly type, that go really easy on me and apologize for everything, like they hurt me or something. i take advantage of this. they catch on eventually.
b.) the very snobby type, that totally ignore me on the court because they think they are above playing with a girl. it's weird, because they play like i'm not even there. i take advantage of this also, and get lots of steals that way. this usually doesn't last long, less than a game in most cases.
c.) the macho type, who have something to prove, that play really hard against me. this i can't really use to my advantage, but i typically play pretty well against them because, well, i have something to prove, too.
young roger falls into that last category. he played rough the whole game, and it was frustrating for me because he's actually very good. somehow i ended up guarding him most of the time, and it was hard work! he had a lot of goals. he's fast.

on the other hand, he ended up guarding me a lot of the time, and i'm happy with how i played. i always got the long shot off before he charged me (and they were good shots!), my passing around him was good, and he was guarding me when i scored. ha! take that, mr. chip-on-my-shoulder.

hockey is so, soooo much better than school.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

hey, hey, rainy day

today i slept through my alarm and woke up eight minutes before class. i got dressed and ran out the door and realized on my way to class that winter had suddenly fallen overnight and i should have worn a sweatshirt. it was freezing. later that freezing turned into raining and freezing. it was really cold, but i still jumped in puddles on my way home for lunch, because i'm mad and i could.

kc has not so much as looked at me since this bomb got dropped. she's a coward. i saw mike driving his truck, and he just stared at me. he's a coward too. the more i think about it, the more i think mike told kat because he knew it would get back to me eventually and he didn't want to tell me himself. he is so careful with what he says, he thinks about everything that comes out of his mouth. that's one of the things i really liked about him. this was no accident. now both of them are james deaning it, playing it cool, like they think i'll get better or forget or something. riiiiiiiiight... what a lousy plan.

i'm feeling very confrontational about this. i know exactly what i want to say to both of them. in fact, i can't stop rehearsing it in my head. the problem is, both of them are avoiding me like pros. in all honesty i've only seen kc twice since tuesday afternoon, and both times were for about four seconds. i have things i need to say to her, that i need to say face to face. i have even more things i need to say to mike, face-to-face. i don't know how to go about this.

i don't want to be bitter. but right now it sure seems like boys are liars and girls are backstabbers and all people just suck in general. the worst of it is, i thought mike was the best boy in the world for about three years. i loved him so much. if i could fall for him, and he can do something like this.... boy, and i thought i had good taste. i know this is short-sighted, but right now it really feels like i won't ever trust someone like that again. feels like i don't want to.

i know, i know, i know. things will get better. i know they will. i know there are good people too, actually my friends are doing a great job of taking care of me. i know that things happen for a purpose and that i will learn things from this and that GOD has a plan. but right now i don't even want to think about the other fish in the proverbial sea.

fish lie. fish suck. i hate fish.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

very long angry post

we had a test in construction management today. i did alright, i probably should have studied more, but it will be okay. yesterday i studied with josh, and when we weren't getting anywhere, i gave him a ride home. on the way, he asked me, "so i heard mike is going out with that other girl now?" i knew who he meant.

so i heard this from josh, who heard from kat, who has several classes with mike, and since it was somewhat shady third-hand information, i didn't fully believe him right away. when i got home, i called carmen. she told me they've been dating for weeks now, and that kc made her promise not to tell me. she said that mike and kc went to the pastor of their church and talked it over with him, and they prayed about it and talked it over with joel (kc's ex-boyfriend) and talked about it to a whole group of people and everyone seemed okay with it. so it sounds like they handled everything right.

except me! you know, i don't swear, because it's not a habit that i want my eleven-year-old brother to pick up and i'm all about being a good role model. but it really seems appropriate in this situation. so if you'd like to mentally add four-letter-words where you feel the need, be my guest.

i feel totally betrayed by both of them. they've been dating for weeks and lying to me about it. i can't believe they would do this. i can't believe they would let me find out from josh! what was kc thinking? how was this going to be okay? what was pastor randall thinking? he knows me too! why did joel get to be part of this whole decision making process and i didn't? you know, even if they had been upfront about this it would have been terrible but this... unbelievable. redundant, i know, but that's all i can use to describe this.

a few weeks ago i had a Big Talk with mike, just to get some of my questions answered. he said he broke up with me because GOD doesn't want him to have a girlfriend right now. then he said that he still cares about me and hopes we can be friends. when i'm thinking about that now, i wonder if he was already dating kc at that point. the time frame seems about right... he must have at least been thinking about it. he doesn't care about me. if he did, he wouldn't have let this happen. and the whole girlfriend and religion thing... he's a liar. he's a liar.

so after i called carmen i was very upset. i got out of the house and started walking. i went all over town in a zig-zag, because i was avoiding places where i knew people. apparently i didn't do this very well, because i already ran into someone today who said i walked right by his house. he didn't say, "i saw you wandering around town crying like a little two-year-old", but i'm sure i've made a fool of myself. i ended up on the road to magdelena and i sat there for about three hours. i called my dad and cryed. i really wanted to break my phone, but i restrained myself. just when the sun was going down, nicki's mom was driving by and she saw me sitting there and pulled over. and wouldn't you know it, she already knew why i was upset, because i really was the last person to find out about this. anyway, she gave me a ride home.

if there were a list of slimey, horrible, low things you could do, breaking up with your girlfriend of thirteen months by giving her the GOD card and then dating her roommate has got to be like top five. secretly dating your roommate's ex-boyfriend behind her back is up there too. they are bad, bad people.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

first test of the semester

i took the hardest test i've ever taken on thursday. it was mechatronics, and it was supposed to be hard, but not that hard. it was impossible. jon, the smartest person in class, the smartest person i know, only finished half of it. so it's not that bad that i failed, because i guess everyone failed, but what gets me is that i spent several long hours studying, and i might as well have been reading harry potter for how much good it did me. i told travis that, and he said, "that's why i'm glad i didn't study. i wouldn't have studied any of that."

that test was from dr. miller. on tuesday, we have another miller test, this one in controls. i'm so discouraged by it, because even if i study my butt off it won't matter. maybe i will actually make a dent in harry potter and the order of the pheonix.

school sucks. i've never hated school as much as i do this semester. i was talking about this with josh, and he mentioned that if this had happened to us our first semester, we would have dropped out. the only thing that's keeping us going now is the fact that we're almost done. we've come so far that we can't give up now, and they know it, and they're taking advantage of that. dirty cowards.

in other news, my team lost again, so we're now 1-3. i didn't score yesterday, but my passing was on. bean didn't show up, and dr. dave isn't playing anymore, and there was no sign of gabe. but i got goals from phil (who's new nickname is sparky, and he's trying to call me spunky), lee (that's my boy. he's awesome), danny (he's the most fun), hugo (i was reffing that game) and finally, after weeks and weeks of asking, ray. woo hoo!

Sunday, September 25, 2005

sin and hockey

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i just saw sin city this weekend, and i thought it was great. i love movies that are so artistic, i felt like i was watching a comic book. that, combined with the last comment about how my blog needs more pictures, promted the nice black-and-white you see above.

we won our game yesterday! 6-5, tied nearly the whole game, but a win is a win. bean was there this week, and dr. dave wasn't around. i didn't score, but i had a few good screens, and an assist i think. i don't know, i felt like i did a lot better in the last game. we all did.

i'm totally impressed with collin and teague, though. they just moved up to the adult leage this season and they are still getting used to the different hustle and the longer haves. that extra ten minutes really makes a difference. but they're so cool! collin especially was working really hard in the last game.

i didn't go for soup this weekend because after my game i felt really sick. but i felt a little better because derrik, phil, danny and hugo jr. all scored goals for me. infact, hugo scored two. : )

Friday, September 23, 2005

naughty and nice

an interesting question was posed to me today... if you could have a piano fall on the person of your choice, who would it be? well, i'm not so sure i'd go as far as piano chucking, i'm not a homocidal person or anything, but i've definitely got some people i'm annoyed with right now. oddly enough, paired with every thorn in my side is a person that i could not do without. want the naughty and nice list?

1. first, there is the iv staff worker. we'll call him dar. i don't know why i'm bothering to conceal his name, because anyone who reads this who knows me will know exactly who i'm talking about, but here goes.

dar called a meeting wednesday night, right after my senoir design group meeting (more about that later). i was going on four hours of sleep and was barely coherent. i still had several hours of homework ahead of me before i could go to bed, and was looking forward to dressing up (which is not my jive) and handing out resumes the next morning at the career fair. i was expecting the meeting to be forty-five minutes or an hour, tops, and all business. first thing dar says is, "is it okay with everyone if we go for a few hours tonight?" i thought he was kidding. i laughed. he wasn't kidding.

so he hands out this fifteen-page guide about leadership for us to discuss. okay kids, let's turn to page one and take ten minutes or so to read through it and jot down your thoughts. alright dar, let me get this straight... i don't have time to sleep, and you're going to make me come to this meeting that's not even planning anything and sit around for hours talking about my feelings? if i'm not taking a test on this tomorrow, i'm not reading it. i was about ready to fake my own death to get out of there.

enter my knight in shining armor, jon. good ol' jon. he called my phone, and i excused myself. once in the hall, i told him i was in big trouble and he had to call me in twenty minutes and demand that i leave the meeting at once. and he did just that. twenty minutes later, he called and said, "i'm on my way over to your house, so you'd better be there." sorry, dar, i really have to go.... at that point, we were an hour into the meeting and were on page four. thank GOD for jon. if he ate sugar, i'd bake him a cake. then at my house, he walked josh and i through the controls homework for a few hours, even though he'd already finished it. he is the nicest person ever.

2. my team leader, leroy. yeah, i tried not to name names in my last post about him, but i'm pretty fed up. he's not doing his job. he almost missed our presentation because he was at the pub, drinking, and only made it because one of his drinking buddys said, "hey, don't you have class in five minutes?" he's late for meetings, does not communicate with us, and is not doing his weekly progess reports like he's supposed to.

which brings me to travis. thank GOD for travis also. i've already told you how he and i stayed up until three a.m. fixing leroy's mixtakes (and plagerism!), but i found out a few nights ago that he's been pulling up the slack on leroy's weekly reports also. he's the one who shows up on time when leroy is late and saves us from flunking. he and i were the ones who did the presentation on wednesday night before the iv meeting (see above), and both of us were sleep deprived and our brains were fried. i am so glad he's on my team. i need to call him and tell him i can help out more, since it's obvious our leader is a bum.

interesting point, casey and i were the first ones at the meeting on wednesday. i asked him if leroy had filled him in on the project at all, and he said yes. then he said, "seems like leroy does most of the work." i didn't want to bash the leader before casey's first meeting, so i just said, "oh really? huh."

3. other kc now, the one i live with. i don't know what the deal is. she's not talking to me. my study buddies (read josh) think she's mean. that wouldn't be so bad, but she's not doing her dishes either, it's been a whole week now, and when she leaves the shower it is gross. gross. but i guess what's really bugging me is that she hangs out with mike all the time and both of them ignore me when they're over here. mike used to be my boyfriend. he's totally over me, i'm not over him, not even close. i want to think that there's nothing going on between them, but... but... this so sucks.

on the other hand, carmelita is the best friend and roommate ever. i slept in this morning and she woke me up and made me breakfast and put chai in a little travel mug for me so i could take it to class. she's so awesome. and she can read my mind when it comes to the whole mikeandkc situation. she doesn't know what to do about it, but she takes care of me. i love her.

and now, thank heaven, it's the weekend. time for hockey and my family.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

hockey day!

i'm on a hockey team! i'm so excited! my teammates are peter dinger, dr. dave, collin, teague, bean (who wasn't there this week), gabe sanchez, and this guy named rick. i no likey rick, and i've been known to disagree with bean, but on the whole i really love my team and if i could have picked one to be on, it would be that one.

yesterday we played the team with ray, hugo, and hugo. they creamed us. i think they won by like eight. i don't know what was going on! dinger and teague had so many shots that were this close, but didn't go in. i'm not usually one to talk schmack about goalies, but gabe was not playing up to his usual skill. ryan, who was playing at the other end, had about seven posts in each half. if GOD was playing, he was definitely on ryan's team.

you gotta wonder about whoever put these teams together... there were three "ryan"s and two "hugo"s on the team we played. anyway, a different ryan, who was not playing goalie, who is dr. dave's son, didn't have such a great game, mostly because he was the only player on his who didn't score, and partly because i totally stomped him about three times.

when i took my first shift of the game, the face-off was low in our zone. i asked the other skater if he wanted to play defense, and he did, so i got ready to rush the point (who was ryan). they won the face-off, the puck went right to ryan, and i rushed him. i got possesion from him and just kept going, yay, breakaway holly! and i went and scored. i'd been on the court about fifteen seconds. and i was the cool kid. and that was just the first time i stomped him.

i got compliments for that "pretty" goal all day. i told hugo jr. that i'd scored it for him.

anyway, i'm sure you don't want to be bored by every detail of the game. i'll just say that it was a blast, i love my team, and i totally can't figure out why the score wasn't closer! i thought we were working really hard, i'm not saying we should have won, but, but... ray scored five goals! what the....

oh, and my little brother andy, his best friend lee, my little buddy ian ("sunshine"), hugo jr, and my friend danny all scored goals for me throughout the course of the day. yay! and hugo, hugo, ray and i went out for soup and beer again. that may turn into a new after-hockey tradition. i love hockey!

Thursday, September 15, 2005

the semester is here

well, it's baaaaaack!

good ol' schoolwork. too bad none of us missed it. i'll keep this short, and maybe explain myself later. my new group is interesting. we got a new guy, casey, which brings our total number to four. i haven't had a chance to even talk to him yet. our team leader is a slacker and i want to kick him in the balls. mr. other guy, however, stayed up until three a.m. with me last night trudging through mr. team leader's mistakes, so i'm very impressed with him and he's on my good side.

my job sucks. controlls sucks. machine design sucks. mechatronics is okay, but the lab sucks. senior design is a pain in my side.

right now i am loving construction management, though. yay for trivial math.

i need sleep like my brother needs a haircut.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

sweet soreness

is it weird that i like to be sore? i mean, i don't like it, it sucks to hurt when you move, but when my muscles are acheing i feel so athletic and it seems more like i accomplished something.

i played hockey for the first time in ages yesterday. and i am sore. : ) i'm not officially on a team yet, but we're working on it. i am officially the boss statistician again, so that's good. and i will get paid for it, also. i scored one yesterday, and it was lots of fun playing with the new boards.

after the games i went to my brother's restaurant with hugo, hugo, and ray. ray and hugo sr. were drinking beer and getting a little silly. well, hugo was getting a LOT silly actually. he was saying something about there were little people in his bottle and they were talking to him... and drowning... it was very funny. i've never hung out with hockey buddies outside hockey before, it was really fun!

ah, hockey season. i love it. i love it.