Brief Update

Well, I know I haven't been on for quite a while (that's an understatement....), but I just thought that I'd catch you guys up on a couple of things. You all know that I'm insane. You've known this for many years now. The evidence has been recurring much more recently, though, with all the clubs, classes, double majoring and whatnot. As an added bonus, I got a job at the cafeteria on campus, Chartwells, as a dishwasher (not at Subway as some of you wanted to believe). I've been working there for about two months now and I've been doing quite well. To be honest I can't believe that my study habits are actually improving, but I suppose that's because I have to balance things more efficiently now. My midterms are going well. I've aced the Calculus and MATLAB (computer programming) midterms and I am doing admirably in the other classes as well. My grades, for those inquiring folk, are maintaining their nice A's and B's attitude (I have to whip them into shape every once in a while, but they're good most of the time). Now, as for ROTC, I'm not doing that anymore. There was some sort of technicality that prevents a civilian like me from doing PT with them now (or there was and they didn't know about it) and now they can't let me exercise with them. What a bummer. *Sigh* things are going great over here, so just drop me a line, or a package in the mail (I like mail; the people there hate me because I'm there too often...). See ya later!

Hiking!!

Man was it cloudy today! You could barely see them, floating off in the distance, the cruel glare of the sun beating down on your bare neck. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Today's Sunday (hopefully) and I went hiking with a couple buddies of mine down to the Dells; Dan (our RA, or Resident Advisor), Ben (my roommate), and Isaac (our dormmate). We'd planned on more people coming, but no one else was up to the trek, so we went as is. It was pretty cool too. For the most part of the trek it was all dirt road, at least the way up to the Dells. Once we passed a zoo (yes, a zoo) we finally started to meet the open rocks. Okay, kinda weird to say that, but it's true. Maybe I should say open road.... In any case we hiked up and down the Dells like little spider monkeys, taking breaks when needed. we actually covered quite some distance to tell you the truth, but about halfway through the sun was blazing down our backs, requiring that we seek some sort of cover. Cloud cover was approaching, and we were trying to get it to come to us, but we ended up going to it. When it finally reached us, or us it, we started hearing thunder off in the distance. It wouldn't have been too much of a problem, save that we were on top of rocks that get slick and difficult to climb on when they're wet. So we decided to turn back, but not after finding this awesome campfire site. Located on top of the Dells with a little pit carved out of the stone and tons of firewood, it was perfect. It wasn't until after we got back that Dan realized we could have started a fire there; he had a lighter on him (that punk...). But the hike was enjoyable and I am looking forward to my next little adventure!

Ping-Pong Frenzy

Today was the end of the school week, so the RAs of the dorms (Resident Advisors) decided to throw a huge ping pong tournament. This included up to a grand total of 15 people. Whoopee! Ben, Dan, Isaac, and myself decided to join in on this frenzy, hiking all the way down to the Student Union to bring on the pain. In all honesty, I'm not the greatest ping pong player (alliteration!), but I've been getting pretty good since I started a couple of weeks ago. When we get down there, all my skill went straight down the drain. Every guy there could put some sort of spin on the ball and one of them (Billy) was seriously like Forrest Gump; he was hitting the ball from twenty feet away in the corners, spinning it off of the table, and everything. Man it was crazy. There were a couple of people there that were total novices too, don't get me wrong. I wasn't one of them, but I got a pretty good match up. The guy I went up against wasn't terribly overpowering, so it was a good match. 18-21. Sadly, I was 18, but still, it was pretty enjoyable. The others didn't fair too well either except for Isaac, so, like total friends, we ditched him. Sorry.... He's probably still playing come to think of it....

PT: Trial Two

Okay, they don't totally hate me. Today it seems that they accepted me moreso than not due to the fact that I can hang with the best of them. And, for some reason or another, it seemed like there was really no challenge in the exercises. Yeah, sure, my arms and legs burned from some of the exercises, but nothing that really made me exhausted. We did this cool thing called the Indian Run where a group of people, or a flight for them, jogs in a straight line around the track at a good pace and then the last guy in the line sprints to the front. When he reaches the front, the next guy sprints to the front and so on and so forth. That's a really awesome way to train because you keep moving and have to not only perform quick bursts of speed, but also keep pace with the rest of your group. That's my favorite part of the exercises! Let's do that again!

Crazy, Crazy Bike Ride

I know I'm going back a couple of days, but bear with me. This is one to read.
Okay, so I wake up at around 12PM and, because I missed the showing of The Dark Knight on Friday, I decided to bike around to the theater about 8 miles away, uphill both ways, and, though not through the snow, through sheets of heat. It would have been fine, or at least I thought it would have been a little shorter, if one of my friends, Caitlin, decided to join me. Mistake number one: don't join an endurance bike ride if you haven't biked in forever. She wasn't doing too bad, but understand; I biked 6 miles to San Pedro and 6 miles back to Wilmington back home almost everyday during the summer vacation and have legs of steel (Huh!). So we ended up walking about the half the way up this GIGANTIC hill and then finally reached the top of it.
Unfortunately my bike decided to eat a nail on the way down to the theater, killing my back tire and momentum. Luckily the theater is next to Target, so I walked about another 30 minutes, making the journey about 3-4 hours now, and locked my bike up outside. I went in, bought two repair kits, and a flashlight for the ride home. I patched it up and tried pumping up the tire with my hand pump, only to find out that either a) I just sucked at pumping up tires or b) there was another hole in the tire. So, to solve this I went down to Home Depot, also nearby, and asked one of the guys to fill up the tire with a compressor. We found out there was another hole, which pissed me off to no end. I went back to Target, bought another tire tube as well as the Princess Bride, put it into my tire, went back to Home Depot and got the tire filled up, and was finally on my way to the theaters once more.
By this time it was about 7PM and by the time we got there and struggled with one of the crappy bike locks we missed the 6 o'clock showing, leaving us to get tickets for the final showing of the day, 9:10PM. The guy offered to let us into that showing, which we should have taken up, but we ended up going to a local buffet, The Golden Corral, and eating some dinner. After biking through hell and back, and then being dragged back down only to fight our way back up, we finally watched the Dark Knight (AWESOME!) and got out of the theaters at 12AM. We still had this insane bike ride in the dark, 8 miles of lonely riding.
When we started leaving the theater we were being hounded by a lonely car without it's headlights on. We gave them plenty of room to get by us and still they tried running us down. After getting really annoyed and confronting said car, we found out that the car was just a bunch of our buddies who had come to pick us up. Unfortunately they forgot about the bikes, so Caitlin switched places with Konrad, another of the guys up in the dorms, and the two guys biked home in about 40 minutes. The best part was going back down that insane hill. We didn't even have to pedal. The road was completely empty. We were just two roaming lights on the dark going about 40 mph downhill. That was awesome, just going without a care in the world (except for falling), the wind whipping everything around and everything surrounding us silent as a ghost.
For as long and dangerous as that was, that was the greatest part of my weekend, besides the sleeping. Continuity will begin again next time

PT: Civilian Style!

Ah the morning, when normal people are still in bed, dreaming about the days to come and the simple comforts of their everyday lives. As for myself and the ROTC crew, we get up at, oh we'll say 5:15AM, just for starters. PT, or Physical Training as they affectionately call it, begins at 6, leaving little time for tardiness. Today was the first time that I did PT with these fellows, seeing as it is only their second day as well, and I got the impression that no civilian had ever requested to exercise with them before. I mean, it's a pretty good indication that this is a first when people are running up and down the chain of command looking for some sort of procedure or precedent on this sort of thing. In the end, after several minutes of tailing people and running around like a chicken without a head, I finally got to start exercising with the main group, mid-way through, of course. The training wasn't that difficult really. It was just.... to early in the morning. I felt a little sluggish during the regular push-ups and sit-up oriented exercises, but during the running I was comfortable. Maybe it's because I did that portion second or maybe it's because I've been running 2 miles every other day and did a 16 mile bike ride on Saturday. Either way, I was passing everyone up except for a couple of people. Still need to get used to the program, but they appear to welcome me with open arms..... and a razor. Yikes! The offer to join the program was turned down (seeing as I really only like the exercise), but they were more than happy enough to permit me to stay and exercise with them in the mornings. Off to breakfast!