update

there, i did it. happy?

Off on the right foot (or the left...)

The year is off to a great start already! Spat camp was amazing, even though it was a lot more tiring than last year (8 marching rehearsals in a row... yuck), everyone seemed like they were about to die on friday morning. All the rookies are really cool and we went to see snakes on a plane with the trumpets.

On the floor (5th & 4th this year), most of the people are back from last year, we went to see snakes on a plane as a floor (my 3rd time, for those of you keeping score at home) on move-in day, and yesterday ate as a massive group at UDS (still crappy food), went on a late-night taco bell run, watched battle royale, and pranked the 7th floor. Ultimate game is soon to come. Its gonna be a sweet year.

Sam Jackson is Amazing

this made me really happy. I can't wait for August 18th.

Work is good. Most of the time, it's really boring and I get a lot of reading done. I read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time (sad, I know) in a week reading almost exclusively at work. Other times, its kind of (but not really) interesting, like when a guy got T-boned by a garbage truck down the street, or when the power went out and our scanners wouldn't work. But mostly, I have money again. sort of. I can't wait to get back to school.

w00t, Job!

My long hours of boredom are over! I got a job with Advance Private Investigators. No, I will not be a P.I. with crazy dames walking in to my office. Instead, I will be working luberyard security at Menards, operating a gate and making sure people don't steal wood. I will be splitting time between the Eden Prairie and Burnsville locations. 30-40 hours a week at $11.50/hr = lots of money and no more boredom! I will finally be able to drive to campus to do solar car without having to worry about whether I will have enough money to make it through the summer. Happy.

A Tale of Three Cities

I have a major problem with three cities right now: Bloomington, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. The problem is that I live in one (Bloomington), but need to regularly (but not regularly enough to justify a bus pass) get to one of the other two (Minneapolis and St. Paul). They are far enough apart that it takes a quarter tank of gas to get there and back home (as I found out today), but too close to justify staying overnight somewhere. I will be spending a good portion of my time in the next week there (at least 4 round-trips) for solar car, and with gas at $40 per tank, I do not have the money to travel that much (nor a job to bring me more money). Long story short: I (or rather my wallet) can't wait until I live on campus again.

In other news, the solar car is traveling to Taiwan in September for a rayce, thus all of my trips to Minneapolis and St. Paul for meetings and testing and the like. I will not be going on the trip myself (mostly because I can't stand the thought of missing band), but I do get to decide who goes... bwahahaha! The next 4 weeks should be interesting though, we have to get the car all ready to go and packed in a shipping crate, something that usually takes months to do.

Also, I still don't have a job. I desperately need one to keep me from sitting around the house all day if nothing else.

Less than 3 months until Spat Camp... yay!

Coming soon to a Campus near you!

Coming Fall 2009, across the street from Mariucci Arena: Bencriscutto-Luckhardt Marching Band Complex! (Officially named TCF Stadium, unfortunately)

That's right, the Minnesota legislature may be good for something after all...

All that remains is Gov. Pawlenty to sign it.

Newspaper

I found myself turning to the page in the newspaper that holds the crossword puzzle and expecting to find Network and Dr. Date this morning. I miss being at school more than I thought...

Almost done...

It's the middle of finals week, which means I'm almost done with school! I took my math final yesterday, I think I did pretty well on it, and it was the one that I was most worried about, so it's nice to be done. Also, I really didn't enjoy the class that much. A few minutes ago, I sent in the last paper for English, so I'm done with that. Also happy to be done with English, since it's one of the last classes I'll ever have to take on the subject (stupid GE requirements).

What remains: my Computer Science final tonight, which should be pretty easy. I'm not too worried because I've only lost 10 points in the class thus far. I'm supposed to be studying for it right now. Also, physics final on Thursday. I'm really not too worried about this one, because of how I did on last semester's. It should be not too bad.

My favorite part of finals week is how much time there is to hang out with people you're not going to see for a long time. I have spent the last 6 nights with the movienight group, we've been watching a lot of movies from our childhood lately (Aladdin, Bambi, Land Before Time, Lion King, etc.) including 7 movies in the last 4 days. Also: movienight-IT honors combined ultimate frisbee game and getting in to a puddle kicking fight last night were some good times. Still to come: Star Wars Marathon with the floor on thrusday night-friday morning: all 6 Star Wars movies in a row! It should be a good way to cap off the year.

BTY: I still have $40 in flexdine left, so I will be eating a lot of pizza in the next few days. If you want some, let me know.

You asked, we answered.

Anyone (or at least most people) who was around campus on Monday obviously saw all of the pink "walkout against student protests" posters plastered across every message board on both banks of campus. In addition to the event itself being ironic (and therefore funny) in nature, it was sponsered by "The Irony Foundation," and the posters themselves had a good bit of humor lampooning actual demonstrations on campus. There was even a website set up to promote the event which has some other ironic/funny things on it.

The reactions of people around campus were priceless. Most people laughed at it, many even took the posters off the boards to take with them. More recently, some people were getting pissed off at it and ripping the posters down (apparently one person ripped one off, crumpled it up, threw it on the ground, and stomped on it) because they were obviously aimed at the upcoming protest against anything and everything. There were even 2 letters in Network today about it, from people obviously irate because they can't take a joke.

Here's the best part about all this: I am one of the two masterminds of this entire postering and general ruckus. I spent the better part of early Monday morning with 5 freinds putting up over 1,600 posters around campus, covering every message board we could find. It made me so happy to see people looking and laughing at the posters. Who cares if it's a stupid idea? That was the point. People have come up to me not being able to talk because they were lauging so hard. Other people I've talked to are taking the whole thing way too seriously and getting mad at whoever did it, which makes me feel even better because the whole thing was directed at those sort of people. So, come to Coffman at noon Thursday and hang out with me for a little bit before I have to go to class, it'll be a good time.

Also made me happy on Monday: I got 100% on my Physics Test :D

Today made me really happy.

Band, Solar Car, Sun, High School Freinds, and Fun!

Week = So-so. Weekend = Awesome!

My excellent weekend began with a physics test. I'm pretty sure I got at least a 90, which I really needed since I have been getting 70s to 80s for the rest of the semester. In the afternoon, we had a VERY productive SVP design meeting, where we essentially laid out the entire design for next year's car (presumably titled Borealis IV). Unfortunately, I missed an ultimate frisbee game in order to attend. That night, we all dressed up and went as a floor to the IT ball. At first, it was pretty awkward (think: middle-school dance), but eventually the DJs started playing good music and everyone got out on the dance floor. It was a good time, I threw down a few dance moves (i.e. robot, funky chicken, shopping cart, and the worm. yes, I can do the worm.), which is pretty rare for me. Afterwards, we went to Big10 for food, still in our formal clothes. Good times all around.

Saturday was also a very good day. I woke up early to go to solar car, me the team at the Gopher lots by Mariucci. Since the car wasn't starting due to electrical issues, the Aero team (who had been sent to set up the course) decided to go to Chipotle for breakfast (this was at 11:30, so more like lunch) - continuing the fine Aero Team tradition of finding food when there is nothing else to do. Since the car wasn't going to run, we picked up the cones and took the connector back to St. Paul. Bty: riding the connector with traffic cones and burritos is very fun. Back at the shop, we did our first big-time layup on our new rear fairing mold and beautiful new kevlar-carbon fiber blend fabric.

After we were done in the shop, I headed back to the 'brook to get ready for drum major auditions. I didn't even get up to my room; people were leaving just as I walked in the front door. At DM auditions, I got to see lots of people that I hadn't seen in a while, and it felt good to be out on the field again. I didn't get leadership, but I wasn't really expecting to, so I was hardly disappointed at all. I mostly tried out to get a feel for the interview for next year. Congrats to all who did get on to leadership! During deliberations, I played in a game of ultimate with the trumpets. As usual, I could out-jump all of them :P. It was a pretty sweet game, since I could basically go all-out and not worry about my landing on the soft, forgiving turf of Bierman Athletic field. During this time, we also found our about the music we're playing next year: shows include Heroes (i.e. Bond, Indiana Jones and ROBIN HOOD PRINCE OF THIEVES), Earth Wind and Fire, Tower of Power, Latin (yay Malaguena), and video games (we better march Tetris Blocks down the field). Molly Watters got Drum Major, which makes her the first female DM in the 115-year history of the band. Congratulations to her! Afterwards, a whole bunch of 'Bones and 'Tones went to Chipotle (just like old times), bringing my daily Chipotle total to 2. We sat on the grass in front of MacNamera and joked around, it was great to just sit around and relax with a whole bunch of band-o's again.

After all the band stuff was over, my dad picked me up in front of Chipotle to go to Jefferson for the Connection Special (show choir, for those of you not in 'the know'): the show wasn't nearly as good as last year's, but still a lot of fun to watch. I got to see even more people I hadn't seen in a while and gave out plenty of hugs. Kari, the only graduating 'bone from JHS, is unfortunately going to Madison, but not marching in the band, so I forgave her (almost). Steve, one of my best H.S. freinds and another 'bone, is going to be DM for the other 'Pride of Minnesota' next year, the 2nd bone DM in 3 years (yeah, that's right, we're awesome), and also said U of M is currently his top college choice, which made me happy. We stood in the parking lot talking about band for quite some time.

After Connection Special, I came back to campus and watched 'The Matrix' and 'Equilibrium' in the TV lounge (I highly reccommend the latter to anyone who enjoys the former), then hung out until 5AM in Katie H's room, talking about god knows what with band people. Good times indeed.

Today, I once again woke up early-ish and went to Solar Car. We pulled the fairing off of the mold from yesterday, and it turned out BEAUTIFULLY. Once again, the car was broken, but it was fixed after about a half hour. I was once again appointed crew chief for the day, which basically means that I will be crew chief for at least Formula Sun this summer, and mabye for NASC next summer (for band people: this is essentially the equivalent of being Drum Major, but for solar car). HAPPY! It even makes up for not making band leadership, and I honestly don't know if I could handle both. We stood out in the Gopher lots running the car around the slalom course. There was a very scary moment when one of the drivers hit the curb and there was a sickening crunch, but only the fairing/wheel cover was damaged, and the incredibly awesome aero team did some quick fixes and we were back on the road in 5 minutes. Also, we got 2 pits that were 5.5 minutes long, our target was under 5 minutes. I stood out there for over 3 hours, watching the solar car while facing the sun; I'm told my face is a little pink (the first sunburn of the year, more to come, I'm sure).

Finally, we drove back to the shop and packed up the car, and went home. We stopped at Frontier to drop people off, and I saw a familiar-looking BMW 750iL sitting in the parking lot. It turned out that my HS freind that goes to school in California was visiting for the weekend, so I went down to river flats and threw the frisbee around for an hour (more time in the sun for me!), and just joked around a little. It was at this point that I realized I had not eaten anything and only had a sip of water since ingesting the aforementioned burrito. Dinner was good, even though it was UDS (the first UDS since friday dinner), and so concludes my awesome weekend. I am tired and sore, but very content with life at the moment.

4 months until spat camp! :D

Why do I always write so much? Mabye because I suck at telling stories in real life? Probably.

A final note: look around campus Monday morning. My fun weekend's not over yet!

The hits just keep on coming

At the end of last week, I was very happy that "hell week" was done with and I was looking forward to an easy week. How wrong I was. This week has so far left me both physically and emotionally battered. It started out fine, with 2 consecutive days of playing ultimate down on the river flats this weekend. Unfortunately, the physical way I play the awesome game of ultimate usually leaves me with at least a few sore joints, and 2 days in a row led to a twisted ankle, a few cuts and scrapes, and a busted nail (seriously, it hurt).

Enter Tuesday. I had a math test that I thought I was relativley prepared for. I get to the test, and see that I basically know how to do nothing that is on the test. I get complete solutions for 2 of the 5 problems, and one of the problems I didn't even start to solve. Today, I looked at the test again and realized that I completely misread one of the questions that I got a solution for. Long story short, I will be happy with anything above a 60. This will be by far the worst grade I have ever received on a math test.

The rest of Wednesday, I wasn't too happy because of my performance on the math test (the CSci one went ok though). I made it through the long day of lectures and labs, but on the way home from physics lab, what do I do? ROLL MY DAMN ANKLE. While walking. It's about 3 times it's normal size right now, I wouldn't be suprised if I sprained it. So much for playing ultimate for at least the next week. Hopefully it will get better by the time spring jam rolls around.

All this, coupled with some other questionable decisions and their results (such as screwing around instead of studying for my math test while doing my laundry - it seemed like a good idea at the time) have made this week almost as bad as the last. Oh yeah, I have 20 pages of reading to do for English and the final draft of that paper due on Friday. I can't wait for it to be over.

I just realized how much I complain about my life on this. I need more positive things to think about.

Register'd!!!

My classes next semester:
AEM 2011: Statics (3 cr)
Biol 1001: Evolution & Ecology (4 cr)
MatS 3011: Intro to Materials Science (3 cr)
Mus 3480: Marching Band (1 cr)
Phys 2403H: Honors Physics III (4 cr)

My Schedule for next semester:

MONDAY
09:05-09:55 - AEM 2011 Lecture
11:15-12:05 - Phys 2403H Lecture
13:30-15:20 - MatS 3011 Lecture
16:15-18:00 - Mus 3480 Rehearsal

TUESDAY
09:05-09:55 - MatS 3011 Discussion
11:15-12:05 - Phys 2403H Lecture
12:45-14:00 - Biol 1001 Lecture
14:30-15:20 - AEM 2011 Discussion
16:15-18:00 - Mus 3480 Rehearsal

WEDNESDAY
09:05-09:55 - AEM 2011 Lecture
11:15-12:05 - Phys 2403H Lecture
12:20-14:15 - Biol 1001 Lab
13:30-15:20 - MatS 3011 Lecture
16:15-18:00 - Mus 3480 Rehearsal

THURSDAY
09:05-09:55 - MatS 3011 Discussion
10:10-11:00 - Phys 2403 Discussion
12:45-14:00 - Biol 1001 Lecture
16:15-18:00 - Mus 3480 Rehearsal

FRIDAY
09:05-09:55 - AEM 2011 Lecture
11:15-12:05 - Phys 2403H Lecture
13:30-15:20 - MatS 3011 Lecture

Sweet, sweet relief

Hell week is finally over. Here's what happened:

- I managed to get sick on Monday. Not a good start.
- Homework was for the most part done the night before it was due. I completely blew off 2 sections of math, and my physics lab left something to be desired (2 pages was all I had).
- I did some research for the english paper earlier in the week, but basically saved the actual writing until the end of the week. I started writing at midnight on Wednesday night while doing laundry, and managed to write over 3 pages over the course of 90 minutes. The better part of Thursday was also spent writing, and the product was 9 pages of low quality paper. It was a draft, to say the least.
- As the week progressed, I got more sick, to the point where I almost lost my voice this weekend. I'm sure staying up until 4:00 AM two consecutive nights (not for homework, even) and having to get up the next morning didn't help.

Now, as I sit here typing, I am slowly getting better and looking forward to the rest of this week. Really the only major thing I have to worry about is my MB leadership audition on Thursday. I think I will be playing a lot of frisbee this week, if it doesnt rain of course.

I need to learn to be more concise.

So long, farewell...

Today was my last WAB game. Women's Hockey lost the national championship game to wisuckSIN. I was suprisingly not distraught about it. It was, however, the best WAB game of the year by far. I was unusually belligerent before and during the game (yelling "better dead than red" to a wisc. fan's face, and screaming "stop desecrating the [U.S.] Flag" to bucky were the two highlights). I pretty much became the yell-starter for WAB, which I never thought would happen, since I'm usually pretty quiet. We played awseomely, completely blew the badger band out of the water (no bones, but a cowbell player instead? what the heck is that?), including stealing "time warp" from them before they could play it (they did anyway). Frodo also dirty monkey'd bucky. It was amazing, I can't think of a better person/place/time to do it. Remeber, the real losers are those who have to go home tonight to Wisconsin.

All things considered (despite the loss), this was not a bad way to exit WAB. I will miss WAB, its trips, and all of it's wonderful people dearly. (don't worry, I'll come back to visit, I promise!)

Hell Week: I am confident that this coming week will be by far the worst of the semester. I have 2 papers, 2 homework assignments, and one midterm this week, most of which I have not started. One paper is a 10-page research paper on music downloading that I have yet to begin (due Friday), another is a 5-page lab report on building a metal detector that doesn't actually work (due Wednesday). Math homework is 4 sections, of which I have completed 1 (due Tuesday), and physics homework (due Thursday). The miterm is for Physics, which is never fun. I also need to do laundry at some point. I am so stressed out about how much I have to do, that I have resolved to not caring. which is bad.

Opposites

- Men's Hockey lost. They were supposed to win. Screw you, Holy Cross. (Where the hell is HC, anyway?)
- Women's Hockey upset UNH, as the #4 seed in the frozen four.
- Watching the badger pep band, and then watching the UNH Pep Band. Pretty much could not be more black and white. All anyone could hear of the bucky band was the damn drums, and of course they are nasty people as a band. UNH, on the other hand, was a pretty good band (despite having the exact same repritoire of a high school pep band, and playing "The Hey Song" TWICE every time they scored) and was very nice to us. They even came over and said hi, and we would have hung out with them if they weren't staying by the MOA.

Sunday will be my final performance as a registered member of WAB. I am officially annoucing that next year (if all goes as planned) I will be upgrading to a full-time membership in Hockey Band, instead of a perma-sub. Seeing how Sunday's game is a National Championship game against Wisconsin, I can't think of a better way to end it.

Next week will be hell week for me. I have:
1. 10-page research paper due Friday that I was supposed to start a month ago
2. Physics Quiz/Test on Friday
3. 4 sections of Math homework due Tuesday that I again haven't started
4. Physics Lab report due on Tuesday that I haven't started
5. Prepare for Marching Band leadership auditions
6. Figure out what classes I'm taking next year
Wish me luck.

In conclusion, I would like to ask everyone to do 2 things:
1. Vote Ryan Putolny for Hobey Baker at http://www.hobeybaker.com/, so this Men's season won't be completely for naught.
2. Come to the Women's Championship game on Sunday at 3:00 (Did I mention we're playing WISCONSIN?). Sure, there's no checking, but its really not bad Hockey. Mabye we can have a sea of maroon and gold-clad band members sorrounding the damn badger band, yelling various anti-badger state slogans right in their faces. That would be sweet.

Remeber: Screw Holy Cross (the hockey team, of course. what'd you think I meant?), and Jesus hates wisuckSIN.

Nashville - Episode III: Revenge of the NCAA Postseason

Last weekend, I went to Nashville. For the third time. In a year. Episode I was in High School with Show Choir (no, I didn't sing and dance. I was in the band, of course). Episode II was none other than the Bowl Trip. Which now brings us to Episode III. The Women's basketball team apparently did pretty well this year (I didn't really follow them), which earned them a #8 seed in the tournament. This meant that there was an 11:00AM game on Saturday. Because of the early game time, instead of leaving the day before the game, we left TWO days beforehand, leaving approximately 36 hours to do whatever the hell we wanted. Among the highlights:

• FLYING THERE. No 18-hour bus rides this time!
  
• Twiggy the rah-rah was on the trip
  
• Staying downtown instead of at Opryland. There's only so much you can do in a mall and a hotel before you get bored.
  
• Walking across the bridge (yes, the one the 'bama fan jumped off) to the Coliseum, and contemplating breaking in
  
• Prank calling several people in the wee hours of the morning. The two best were suicidal Kermit the Frog (courtesy of Link) and Mittens telling Barmore that his uniform wasn't turned in and he puked on it.
  
• Watching "Trick my Truck" on Country music Television. It's exactly like "Pimp my ride," except without the black people, and they do it to Semi-Trucks instead of normal cars.
  
• Walking 3 miles to the Parthenon, an exact replica of the one in Greece. Nashville has culture outside of Country music? Who knew? We found out that I am 1" shorter than the statue of Nike. She wins. Also cool: we managed to get the group rate despite not actually having an appointment
  
• A Ghost Tour of downtown: apparently there are a lot of spirits not at rest in the area. The guide looked like the guy that played Arthur in "The Hichhikers Guide to the Galaxy."
  
• St. Patrick's Day: JoeD and Gary went on an all-day bender. Buttons went out and came back really drunk and felt up Katie. The rest of us underage people watched The Boondock Saints. Cramming 20 people into a hotel room so that they can all see a laptop screen is not easy, let me tell you.
  
• The Vanderbilt basketball arena feels and more like a high school auditorium, despite Vanderbilt being a basketball school. Their "raised floor" was pretty lame, since there was only a drop off on the sides, and then only after about 20 feet of blank floor. Williams Arena is so much better.
  
• We threw down some pretty sweet songs before and during the game, I'm pretty sure I almost completely lost my ability to play at least once.
  
• The highlight of the game was when I yelled "Take her out to dinner first!" during a particularly silent moment in the game. I got the impeccable timing award of the day, and many people have told me this was the best moment on the trip. I may be inclined to agree.
  
• As we were leaving, Prof. Diem got hit in the head with a drum case. He went to the only hospital in Nashville that he had not been to yet and got 9 stitches.
  
• We lost the game. To a certian extent, this was a good thing, because there really isn't that much to do in downtown Nashville. I don't know what I would have done with myself for another day, had we won the game.

Overall, it was a pretty sweet trip. I might go so far as to venture that it was my favorite Nashville trip. Since now I have more or less done all there is to do, I hope that I am never forced to go back. However, in the back of my mind, I think that someone, somewhere, will find it halarious to send us back there again. I'm probably not done yet.

See? I've only been registered for an hour and I'm already addicted.

New Things

So I decided to give this blog thing a try. Partially because I have a lot on my mind, but mostly because I'm bored (read: don't want to do schoolwork) and need something new to distract me.

There are no guarantees that I will keep this up, either I will become completely addicted or just forget about it in a week.

Have fun reading my rants.