Life and Times 2.0

Dying

2010-07-12T08:33:00.000-07:00

So the past few days I have spent sitting next to my cousin. He is/was one year older than I am now. Its let me think a lot about life and death, Noah has been dying of Ewing's Sarcoma for the past year of his life.

I never had a chance to say goodbye to my brother before he died, so I wasn't going to not have the opportunity to say goodbye. Over the past weeks he has gone from being scared and bitter about dying to the past few days at peace with the idea. Thats a lot for anyone to handle especially at his age. My fathers side of the family which I am no longer close to by any means has been around him off and on for the past weeks. Its sad how the only thing that brings that side of the family together is someone dying, and shortly afterwards we part our ways and wait for the next death.

Things that really pissed me off about the situation.

Noah is dying of what started off as lung cancer, eventually tumors started forming all over his body, including his brain and chest. Several "friends" and family members that have been around him the past weeks still smoke around him. His own mother was laying next to him in his death bed smoking a cigarette less than 4 inches away from his mouth. I can not fathom the lack of intelligence it takes to do that. Another one of his "friends" has been next to him off and on for the past several days chain smoking. Do people not understand that smoking is what started killing him to begin with?

We've been sitting around and waiting for him to take his final breath, its sad to say but we know his mind wants to let go and be out of his pain, but his body won't let go and his heart continues to beat. We all hope that his death will come sooner than later to ease the pain.

I guess we all have our ways of looking at things, especially death. I am a strong proponent of Euthanasia and wish only to end his suffering. Why isn't this an option? why does my cousin have to lay in bed wishing for a death to end his suffering and no one can help?

A few months of updates

2010-06-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

Location: Kansas City, Missouri

So, its been a few months once again.

What has the digger been up to?

Well, I made it back to Ireland and England and had a blast. Driving/riding passenger in a car in Ireland was a little more terrifying that I had hoped. Ryanair still manages to continue its love/hate relationship with me. This trip was different from any other I've been on, though I would do a few things differently if I had the chance to do it all again, less things for sure. I couch surfed for the first time which was Awesome, thanks Dylan and Maude.

I've been thinking a lot the past few weeks, and I feel I am in a rut. I'm content with my current job at the moment, though it doesn't really offer me what I aspired to do in my lifetime. I have applied for a few jobs internally but they never seem to amount to anything and I keep getting promised "you'll go far in the company" but in reality I haven't seen anything. So right now I find myself writing a CV for the first time in my life. Sure I've written plenty of Resumes, but instead of writing a CV I find myself updating my blog which has gone grossly unattended over the past couple of years.

So the Big challenge is, if I apply for some of the jobs that are now back up that were on hiatus for over a year, and I get an interview, and with luck get a job offer, what will I do? Kansas City has been great for me this past year. I've definitely changed my views towards the place I have grown up but I'm not sure this is the place for me anymore, I would like to move on. So I think its time for me to throw my hat into the ring, and start applying for jobs again. Maybe the feeling of this rut will pass, maybe it won't but it is always good to know what your options.

Who knows, maybe my next post could be from Edinburgh.

Where are we now?

2010-04-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

Location: U.S. Missouri, Kansas City

Topic: Freedom

So this may be a bit of a rant.

I've never felt so free as I have the past few months. I look around and see that so many of my friends have gotten married, and have families. I think to myself, I am soooo not ready for anything like that. I love that I can pick up and leave everything here and go off to a far away place without much repercussion... maybe a little ding in the bank, but it is freedom. I've talked to a few of my friends that have been married and have kids, seems like their big things are what they are going to do for the weekend in town... whereas I talk about what country I am going to go to next and what adventure I hope to find. I'm randomly going to Ireland and England in May with a girl that is as crazy as I am. This is the second trip I have planned from a bar, but the first one that has actually accumulated to actual tickets and plans!

Why would people give up freedom like that? Maybe its just me but I love living in an apartment with a door I can shut and leave for a week and not have to worry about what to do with the kids, or who is going to mow the grass while I am gone... I think I may take more trips like this because I guess I'm still searching for the ultimate adventure. Where am I going to go next?

I've been making a list:
Egypt
Greece
Peru
Alaska
Eastern Europe

and its going to keep getting longer and longer

Wow... Has it been over a year?

2010-04-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

So as the entry is titled, its been over a year since I have last posted something on blogger...

So what has happened this past year.

I was lined up to have the best job in the world for someone like me, but I lost it before I ever started? Hows that for luck... but this post isn't about pity or sympathy... because what I learned along the way has definitely brought me closer to something I have always wanted.

I spent most of last summer applying for jobs... it was quite boring, and i had a lot of self pity and all that for being another unemployed engineer, however I was getting close to giving up and going back to Iowa State for a masters just to buy me some time. I stumbled upon an opening in an industry I promised never to work for... those of you that know me, know I probably said I would never work for the railroad... but here I am 6 months after employment a pretty genuinely happy worker.

I read a book on basic electronics, and took a certification test to be a licensed certified electronics technician... that was the most boring 2 week read of my entire life...

I have been working as an E.T. for 6 months now, my job sounds like I repair electronics and all that... that's not really the case. I spend most of my workday waiting for a 15+ year old computer system that has been running 24/7-365 days a year to crash. It's my job to insure that when it does crash it comes back online as quickly and efficiently as possible, time is money. When things do fail I do tend to go out to the field, that being the train yard which the aging computer system runs. I work for the department known as "Signal" basically everywhere else on the railroad they control all the lights and help with the logistics of all the trains, but in the train yard they control most of the switches, and the classification of trains.

I'm probably rambling at this point but its hard to update the past year without writing a novel... maybe I will try to update more later for it.

So new things going on...
In a few days I will be registering to take a test at work, it will allow me to make a few more steps up the food chain in the railroad, and allow me to actually put my degree to use. There have been a few job openings recently in the engineering, that actually sound like I would be more adept for, so I will probably go to an office job with standard hours soon... Oh yeah I work 2-10 pm tuesday through saturdays... which has been nice so far... but It would be nice to have weekends with the rest of my friends.

I've become more spontaneous in my life over the past year, along with several changes here and there about myself, basically after my "plan" came crashing down it gave me a lot of time to reflect. So that's why in about 7 weeks from now I will be embarking on a trip 1/4 of the way around the world, with essentially a girl I just met. That may make me sound a bit crazy, but I think we all need to be a little crazy right?

Well, what else is there to say. I live in a 9th floor apartment with an amazing view of the city. I sometimes go on random adventures, with no particular destination in site... because the journey is what is starting to fascinate me more.

Oh, One of my best friends in the whole wide world got married last week! Yay RIVKA! I wish I could have been there though...

I feel like I should start writing more, I also think I'm going to transition this blog over to a travel blog... maybe a life and travel blog.... either way I think I am going to retitle this blog "Life and Travels 3.0"

What am I forgetting?

The more things change, the more they say the same.

2009-02-02T23:58:00.000-08:00

I was recently looking back on facebook all he people in high school I knew. I now realize that every time I go back to home, nothing has really changed. The majority of the people are still there doing the exact same thing they were doing in high school. I don't know if there is some cosmic time warp there, but it just seems to me nothing has really changed.

So I ask myself the question... what has set me apart from it all.

I guess I came up with a few answers, but I think the main one is.... the fear of failure.

I see it as a failure if I spend my life where I started, I don't know why... I just had to get out, and thats where I am today. I feel like I'm on the verge of mild success or ultimate failure. I hope something turns in my favor soon or I am going back to the vacuum of where it seems so many have been sucked backed to.

Half a year

2008-11-03T08:52:00.000-08:00

half a year has gone by since my last blog, I should go back and read what it was.

But my life as it appears to me know is very stressful. I have 5 projects that I am currently working on. This takes up almost all of my time, Plus I have been working a lot as well.

My five projects for this semester are as follows

designing a Low cost wind turbine, specifically designed for lower income countries
designing a alternative energy vehicle, its based upon hydraulic pressure and an internal combustion engine. Hopefully we will have some working components by the end of the semester
I am working on a team with Engineers Without Borders to develop a way to make homes in Mali more weather resistant. I have a few good leads on what we can accomplish, so I am hoping that will make it possible for me to travel there this summer to implement my ideas.
My Art Design and Engineering class is finally working on the project which I signed up for in the class, it is to design the interior of a passenger jet. With a lot of effort we should be able to have this designed by the end of this semester and built next semester.
Lastly, I am working on a paper on the Viability of Wind Energy in the United States.

This semester I have been struggling with a lot of things. I have never had this problem of not being able to focus on class work before. I mean there was the occasional spacing out in class, but I feel like lately I have been really detached from the world. I spend a lot of time with a few of my friends because I can't really take being alone all the time. I guess to catch you all up to speed, August 31st 2008 my half brother Jay took his life. For nearly a month I felt nothing I never was able to see his body, this has caused me to not really realize he is dead. I still imagine I will see him at Christmas when I return home. I went to a memorial service for him, and I spoke at it. My family was glad I was able to return home for it but still my grandmother has not said a word to me. I really hate that it took a death for my family to speak to each other but as the months have passed since then the relationship has broken down once again.

This summer Katie came to Iowa to live with me here. It was great having her here all the time but, it caused a lot of problems once she left. I have not seen her in 3 months, after spending 3 months with her then not being able to see her at all it really is a shock. I will be leaving in a couple weeks to go to see her in Cleveland for Thanksgiving. Though I think that only seeing her for a week won't be enough.

The big question I have right now is, where will I be next semester, or this summer, or next year. I have a lot of places I would like to be and what I would like to be doing, but I just am lost as to what is going to be next for me.

Nick

Sorry for the 1 month break

2008-04-26T07:27:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the month long hiatus of my blog, I have been really busy with this semester.

So lets see...
Three weeks ago I went to Trashionals in Chattanooga, TN. It was a ton of fun, and Chattanooga was a really nice place.

Two weeks ago was Veishea, which was interesting, since I lost my wallet on a Friday and had no money of my own for the rest of it.

Last weekend was the Iowa State High School Championship for quiz bowl which went a lot smoother then the previous tournament.

So other than weekend events. I have been aimlessly trying to finish my Term project for one of my classes with no real success, I had an inspirational in my sleep on Thursday night so I just need to implement it into my project, Hopefully that will make everything work!

In completely other news, I applied for a job at Mad Science of central Iowa, and was able to get the job. I am excited to get back into the "mad science" world of entertainment.

Katie's Spring break, my spring break, and my return

2008-03-26T13:49:00.001-07:00

So right now I am sitting in a GSB finance commitee meeting and the best thing to do is blog so here goes....

Well lets start off with 3 weeks ago. Katie had her spring break, and she stayed with me all week! it was pretty fun to have her here with me. Though the week was a bit stressful since it was around the time every prof wants to have exams :(... Lets see, I think on friday we lit fireworks on country roads and had a ton of thrill fun, or maybe it was saturday? The weekend is a little bit of a blur, I know there was Margaritas somewhere in there. Wednesday we went to an improv show that was so-so and thursday we went Campiniling! We ended up going home on friday, a day later then we had planned... friday, was definately an interesting experiance, under a bridge that is...

Saturday I returned to Holland, and that in itself was a pretty good break, though exhausting. I will give an overview of what I did.

Sunday, Arrived in Delft had lunch with Steve in Den Haag, and showed him to Delft that evening and dinner with Steve and Donald.

Monday, Trained to Paris, saw the Louvre, Eiffel tower, met some Aussie's, Kiwi's and Yanks at the Hostel I was staying at and went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I found it easier to order in Chinese then French well since, Chinese is a little bit stronger in my mind then French at the present. After getting back to my hostel i found that my roomies for the night were engaged in drinking games, mind you they were all at the time Asian. After I join in an Aussie girl joins in and we continue to drink the others under the table and aren't even phased by it.

Tuesday, I see the Arc d' Triumphe and a few other things I cant seem to remember right now... I returned to Delft and pretty much called it a night.

Wednesday, went to de ruif and hung out with the international students, guy commited suicide on the railroad tracks and caused the cancellation of all the trains to den haag from delft that night... but that is a completely different story...

Thursday, went to the market, Amsterdam, and a Karaoke bar that night... more to that story as well

Friday, Played poker with Moritz... lost badly... but had fun

Saturday, back in the US... but I volunteered my seat on my flight from Newark to Kansas City for a flight voucher of 500 dollars and a free trip to New York for the night and visited an old friend.

Sunday, finally got home and fixed two computers, hung out with rivka.

Monday, FINALLY drove back to school before class...

This is mostly a synapses of the past couple of weeks.

Whoa, I am super tired

Bummed

2008-03-02T20:50:00.000-08:00

As the title suggest I am kinda bummed out about today. I was really hyped about the SIE CAFE tonight, So I spent several hours last night and several more today prepping food for it. BUT as fate would have it the weather was really nice all day long until the evening and that created a situation where no one wanted to come since it was freezing raining... ugh... im ready for this winter to be over...

The only thing I am really looking forward to is being able to go back home this Friday to pick up katie :) I am ready for a reality break and this weekend hopefully will be that for me.
Thats it for now short and sweet, or I guess bitter.

its been wayyyy to long

2008-02-25T17:40:00.000-08:00

So once again i went through a dry spell of updating....sorry

So hmm what has happened lately...

A couple of weekends ago I flew to Cleveland for Katie's birthday, and I am pretty sure we both had an amazing time! My best story from the trip though was surprising her on her birthday with breakfast in bed... She had no idea that I snuck out and picked up some pastries and juice from a bakery and delivered them warm to her bed! On that friday night we ended up going to a club and having some fun especially the ride back on the metro bus system was quite funny... I think her roomies are a little strange when it came to the situations we were around at the club but oh well... I had tons of fun on the dance floor with katie... Once again we shared a bottle of wine at an italian resturant, and for once Katie claims she drank more then me but I will say I didnt like the wine as much as others... oh well... we went to olive garden on that saturday and also had a lot of fun... I decided we needed to go someplace that would embarass her... which worked out well plus we had some really good cake for the event.

It looks like a lot of my post are about dreams... So here this one goes on about dreams... lately my dreams have become more and more intense... I am not sure why but lets take for instance my dream I had saturday night. I dreamt about doing my homework assignment that was due today... the strange thing is I hadn't even started on the assignment... and in my dream i finished it and I remember all my calculations in my dreams... seriously these were numbers that I would only solve using my calculator... and the only error was calculating the reciprocal of 132... So i have no idea what is going on in my head...

I took the presidency of quiz bowl over a couple weeks ago, so I am finally at the head once again. I spent all of my saturday sitting in the sports [and leisure] club council, when I say all of my saturday I mean from 8 AM till 8 PM... it was one really really long day. I dont think I should go into the details of all the clubs and arguements about budgets but needless to say there was a lot of discussion that accomplished very little.

In a little under two weeks from today I will be heading down to kansas city to pick up katie, and then drive back up to ames, and then drive to minneapolis... thats a lot of driving for two days... but atleast i will have amazing company in the car.

It seems the days are getting short even though they are getting long... and even in the shortness of the days they seem to be more miserable then the last due to the extremely cold weather... there was a day last week that hit -20 F, and thats without windchill.... OMFG.... though today we had an interesting change of events... we had snow and rain at the same time! We definately have all the ice I think I can handle due to the constant melt and refreeze... whats up with that? anyways

I am Out

Dreamscape

2008-01-28T17:52:00.000-08:00

I had a very unsettling dream the other night... I am not sure whats been going on lately but I haven't been sleeping very great lately. I have been going to sleep around 1:30 and waking up around 3:30 or 4:00 am staying up for a while and then going to sleep. Its been pretty much every night, I don't whats up with it. I should probably get it checked out again though.

I wish I would stop dreaming at night.

Horrible blogger

2008-01-22T17:59:00.000-08:00

Alright for those of you that do read this probably agree that I have been a horrible blogger the past 20 or so days. Well alas I will finally update you!

I am back in Iowa and under about a foot of snow and under that snow is about 2 inches of ICE!!!

So over break my laptop battery decided to completely call it quits and shortly after I called in to receive a new battery since circuit city doesn't do shit anymore my power cord for it went out as well. So Nick was no longer a mobile Techie, but Nick did get a GPS unit for his car for Christmas. I didn't really want a GPS but it is a very nice gift. Then again I really never want anything for Christmas, the only real Christmas wish I ever had was for my house to be rebuilt back almost exactly where it was... looking back that probably wasn't the best idea. Then I wouldn't have lived in Independence, maybe I could have grown up in a more accepting place? Oh well...

So news in life. In a couple of weeks I will be heading to the airport to go to Cleveland, an event which I am very excited for! There were a few problems that occurred in my planning of this trip, first of which is my tuition needed to be paid, and well I didn't have all the assets in my family bank account so I used all my secret money to pay the tuition, which left me without some of the financial means to make some of the events possible, that is until reimbursements comes through.

I have a pretty full schedule this semester which means I couldn't take the Chinese language class I really wanted to take in order to get my minor but I audit the class 2 days a week so that helps a little bit.

I have been having huge issues sleeping the past week, I am not sure exactly why but it may have something to do with break, I had someone to share the bed with several of the nights :) and now I have to supplement that with a stuffed monkey in the bed and well, its just not the same :(. I miss you Katie <3.

Tomorrow is Wednesday that means full schedule from 9-12 and then 3-4 plus meetings, oh joy do I love meetings! I think its time for us to just do web conferences every time a committee wants to do anything. It would make scheduling so much easier, that way you can have a couple meetings simultaneously instead of wasting 1 hour to do nothing.

I am finding my most interesting class this year is once again not related to my major. Chinese culture is very fufilling most of the days we meet. I once again get a chance to mental spar a teacher and not feel bad. It reminds me of the times my high school history teacher would go on wars of words in the middle of class while all the minions around were staring with blank faces.

Oh well, I think I want to be topical, so next blog will be partially of my own life and the rest is a topic you pick.

Worried

2008-01-03T08:49:00.000-08:00

A couple things have been eating at my mind lately, I don't really want to post them but thats what my worries are.

I am about to go up to Iowa today to do the Caucasus but I am pretty sure I will not be staying the night. It really all depends on how long the process takes. I may be home around 11 or midnight if everything goes quickly.

New Years was kinda boring, though I definitely had conversations with people my parents age and my parents about things I really didn't want to know..

I think my Christmas present is awesome... Katie made me a Monkey! to replace Monkeymeat I thought it was really special. Though I am having a hard time coming up with a name for the new monkey. I was thinking of something kinda nerdy.

I should have taken a picture of one of the gifts I made Katie, I think i did a pretty good job on it...the third time around... maybe she will take a picture and I will add it into the post.

I haven't been sleeping much lately, and it hasn't really taken its toll on me yet... I guess I am so used to not getting much sleep during the semester it really hasn't affected me yet.

I guess its time to pack things up... aka, my laptop and myself... I guess I am traveling light :(

11 days since my last message

2007-12-25T09:33:00.000-08:00

So i am realizing more and more that I am a horrible blogger, and I never seem to get around to updating this thing but here goes.

Today is Christmas, so I did the whole Christmas thing, I think I am finding more and more I am not a huge fan of Christmas anymore... I mean it seems every year my family has issues around the holidays... this year my dad is being an ass, but whats new really?

A girl bumped into my car the other day, I feel quite strange about the entire incident because I really didn't feel stressed out about the entire ordeal, and it seemed to not interrupt my daily life at all. The total damage to my car was about 25 dollars, so I dunno. Maybe my life is alright enough where something small didn't really matter.

Anyways, I got a car GPS unit because my mom thinks I have been driving all over the country and need a little help I suppose? On the other hand I think it has an amazing number of features and bluetooth is nice.

Final Final

2007-12-14T06:59:00.000-08:00

In 45 Minutes I have my last final, Albeit I probably should have studied more for this final, I think I am going to be fine in the class. I did a huge extra credit project that really should make whatever I get on this final extra points.

I have turned over my room looking for an old programing exam though that I am trying to let the professor let me redo since i made a stupid error. But if I can't find it there goes 8 percent of my grade... gross.

Anyways, I have not been sleeping well lately, I wish I knew why... anyways 5 more days

waiting and coding

2007-12-12T23:09:00.000-08:00

So the past few days have been fairly uneventful except for a few tragedies

First off, its finals week and thats just shame...

Second off, as many of you may know I have a lot of issues sleeping and last night I accidentally destroyed 50 of my sleeping pills (which are a form of Valium)

I have been coding most of the day after my Chinese final today and 423 presentation.... wow that seems like it was a few days ago just goes to show you everything is starting to blur... after I go do my code tomorrow I have the rest of my day to study for another final on Friday and/or sleep.

So right now I am just counting down the days till next Wednesday when I can pick Katie up from the airport!!! I think this Christmas break is going to be fantastic... My year seems to be shaping up so I am doing pretty good.

Carbon Monoxide 3.0

2007-12-08T22:04:00.000-08:00

3rd times the charm i guess for carbon monoxide leaking into my house. The landlord replaced my furnace. Its nice to have a more efficient system in but it is a lot louder then the last one.

I have been spending a lot of time lately in the composites lab since its the end of the semester, it came down to crunch time last week when I had to do one of my presentations. I had several failures in the project though, first failure, i forgot the key rule that safety is a factor especially when your hands decide to become pinched between metals, second that foam will melt... I thought this would be fairly evident but sometimes you overlook things, 3rdly even fabric can kill. I have many splinters in my hands right now that I have slowly been digging out.

I was put up to a challenge last Tuesday, so far so good. It is a 2 week challenge that I am sure I can do even if it causes some tension.

Last night was my night to relax after the last week of class, I ended up probably doing some things in excess, but you live and learn. Its only the second time it has happened the first being in Germany, but such is life.

I cant wait till the 19th when Katie flies home, I know its only been since Thanksgiving, but I can't wait!

Ask a question

Carbon Monoxide

2007-11-26T09:31:00.000-08:00

So I am glad that when I was woken up at 7:30 this morning it was to the sound of Jasper pounding on my door. Apparently the Carbon Monoxide alarm was going off upstairs again and we are loving the deathly amounts of carbon monoxide, which might I add was 4 times as concentrated as last time... which means this time we should not have woken up... So I am not sure what to do about this and my landlord. Ironically we were given our renew slip today to decide if we want to stay in our location again... haha... I dunno...

So I feel kinda groggy right now, I dont think the gas helped at all...

My weakness, The Cold

2007-11-17T13:05:00.000-08:00

So today I did some work with Habitat for Humanity, the experience was quite wonderful in the sense that it brought me back to doing charity work for those less fortunate. The only downside was that it was quite cold when we first go to the site... but it warmed up a bit when I actually got gloves on. I spent most of my day up about 25-30 feet in the air doing some work on the underside of the overhangs of the roof. This was kinda freaky at first, I used to be up high in the air all the time but somewhere along the lines I must have developed some slight fear of heights but I got over it realitivily quickly...that is until it started to rain. Once the rain started mud began to build up on the steps of the ladder, then water started pouring into my eyes from the roof as I was trying to hammer... at this point I had to stop, since it was unsafe, but oh well...

I am sitting now waiting to take a shower and get some of this mud off of me and get a little warm, and hopefully have time for a nap!

My Deep Dark Secrets

2007-11-13T21:38:00.000-08:00

Alright, its going to be a list that probably gets edited from time to time so here it goes:

1. When I get nervous and start talking fast, I slip out an asian accent, and stop using all verb tenses. It really embarrasses me.

2. I don't think I am really allergic to Strawberries, though I am too afraid to test it out

3. I am not sure if I even want to be an engineer anymore, I want to design windmills and start my own company, but its just a lot of stress.

4. The most important things in my life seem to always be at a distance to me. The more I want them the further away they are. I guess I just have to chase them, but they are worth it. [ok that one isn't really a secret].

5. I want to go back in time about 6 or 7 years, and give myself a few bits of advice.

6. Am I sure I have made the right decisions? I ask that to myself all the time.

7. I think I lie way too often.

Spider Spider

2007-11-12T12:22:00.000-08:00

So, as usual when i sit in aerospace controls i tend to space off a lot. Today was different though, I ended up watching a spider on the chair in front of me weave part of its web... so it makes me think of the simpler things in life... out of aerospace, I still think I would make an awesome teacher... but the one thing that I really want to do in life doesn't involve being a teacher right now... I know what I want to do... but can I do it?

Anyways...

This weekend was TRASH regionals for quiz bowl... ours took place in Rolla, Missouri... wow I remember why I chose not to go there... but damn its so far away from anything... I spent over 14 hours in a car this weekend... and at the very least we took second place... which means we are going to TRASHionals, aka TRASH nationals... I have been trying to figure out where it will be held but there is no real way of knowing for sure, it could be held at Case which would be awesome... Since I would be able to see Katie more often... anyways... I have to get to class soon

2007-11-09T12:43:00.000-08:00

Well, here it goes again!

I am leaving in roughly 2 hours for another tournament in Rolla Missouri... Been a long time since I have been through that town, well I guess not. I was there a couple years ago right after I got my kayak to test it out on the waters of a river near Rolla. Many years ago I thought I might like to go to Rolla, only problem was its location, and well I decided against going to Rolla for several reasons, some of them may seem stupid now. As I think about it I may have come to Iowa State for the wrong reasons, BUT if I know then what I know now... I would probably make the same decision. I might have chosen a school a little further to the East, but Such is Life, No?

Less then 1 week from today I will be embarking on another adventure to Ohio, which i'm sure will be an amazing week.

Now to the down side of life....
this morning I was woken up at 5 AM my friends that live in the second level of my house... They rang my door bell for like a minute... needless to say I was pissed at first wondering what the hell was going on... but now that I think about it I was very sluggish to get out of bed, but it was 5 in the morning... Well turns out that our furnace was leaking ALOT of carbon monoxide... if they hadn't have woken me up because their alarm was going off, I may not be writing this post... weird, I am glad all the close calls with death are out of my system now, first the deer over the weekend and now the near CO poisoning, but strangely enough I am not fearful at all. I guess if you read my previous post, you may think i have gone crazy...but life gives you what you have, you can deal with it or not. So I am alive, and I am going to go with that.

For my next post topic, ask me a question... Any question.

2007-11-08T15:06:00.000-08:00

Alright Day 2 of actually updating...

I feel like a bad person sometimes, that I joke about death. The weird thing is it seems like its the only way I can coup with the idea of people dying. There have been several times that people close to me have died but, I am sure they would not like to be remembered by people feeling bad about them all the time, I say we honor them but remembering the better days, no? Am I so wrong about this idea? Either way I do have my conscience on me saying I should not joke about someone when they have died.

On to lighter subjects. Today was the continuation of the jeopardy tournament of champions, you would think these people would be the best of the best, but there was a lady that could not even make it to final jeopardy because she negged out. I wish I could have passed the jeopardy field exam, I think I may have rocked out that show.

I had a Chinese Quiz today, I think I actually did better then most of my previous quizzes. I wish I had a lighter load so I could actually try to take the class a lot more seriously, and give it the time it needs, but alas I have all my core classes to worry about all the time. It has driven me to a state of insomnia I guess. Stress is a funny thing...

I miss being able to travel around Europe on the weekends, and having a light class load. This weekend I will be going to Rolla, MO... A school that I promised myself to never go to once I realized a few things about it. But its only a Tournament, and a TRASH tourny as well so it should be some fun. I am not sure exactly who is going to the tourny, but it seems like we have a full crowd... eric, warren, logan, brandt, and I. 5 people in my car is going to be intense, but I have got to call dibbs on my front seat while driving since I have to work on a paper while driving and all...

Next weekend is Thanksgiving time, and that means after 15 hours on the road I will get to see Katie, which seems like forever since I was able to be with her. It would normally only take 11 or so hours to get to Cleveland but I am making a sidestop to get rid of Mitch in Cinnicinati. But I get to have an ENTIRE week with her! I am not going home for break, but oh well. If i did go home I would just have to put up with family as always, and since there is a lot of tension this year in the family no one is talking so its all good.

Anyways, I will probably update more tonight.

Long Time no see

2007-11-07T20:14:00.000-08:00

So wow, I decided tonight I needed to get back into the blog world... its been quite a while and I know you are all dying to know what has been going on in my life right??? or not... either way I need an outlet to vent once again, or at the very least talk about my days... So first Off I think I will update a little on my life lately, maybe go into more detail later as things progress but whatever...

Today... Lets see... I seem to be having trouble transitioning to the new time change, I am not sure if it was the staying up for 3 days or daylights savings time... but the past few days I have been tired sooo much...

Well onto life, I spent 6 month in Holland and it was absolutely amazing, I want to go back really bad, but you know how that can go. I traveled around for a month which now that I look back on it seems like a distant memory. I am going to try to go back for spring break this year, I have the miles, the euro, and the friends to crash with, but I could think of something better to do that week.... speaking of which, while I was in Europe I met a girl... which is to say, I did not meet her there persay, but more along the lines of I actually got to know her while I was gone... Its a weird thing the Internet has created, A seamless way of communication that knows no distance? weird no?

I have been super busy this semester at school, I decided since euroland killed my graduation by a year I should pick up a minor, so I went with Chinese... I feel like I am way too late to pick up a language, but I have to start somewhere. I have been staying up quite late lately, but thats probably due to the massive amounts of homework I have been having all semester, I try to stay ahead of the game, but you know its hard so often. Next semester is probably going to be pretty tough as well, I really slacked off on one of my projects, but the only upside is I have 2 years to work on it.

My laptop is a piece of crap, I really mean that it blows. Its been a problem ever since I have gotten it I am pretty sure I should have pulled a lemon Law book out at circuit city, but alas when I was having the largest problems I was in Europe and HP nor circuit city would cover it WTF.

Well, now for the news on the girl :p, as I mentioned before I met a girl while I was in Europe. Funny thing is she was never there! I guess I started talking to Katie shortly before I left, but I really was not interested in her. Another Funny sidenote, the first time I met Katie, I thought she was so annoying, BUT then again the circumstances were very different back then, wow back in 2003... that seems so long ago but I guess it's not. But anyways, we started talking a lot while I was gone, and for some reason I think we just connect perfectly with each other. I really wish she or I went to school closer, because the long distance kinda sucks... oh well such is life, there are sometimes sacrifices we have to make.

I have been feeling my call towards the PeaceCorp more and more as I get closer and closer to graduation, I have a fear that they may not accept me and I don't know what I would do with myself if I was not accepted... Katie is also interested in doing the PeaceCorp, which makes things that more amazing between us... There are programs for couples to do in the PeaceCorp, and I think it would be amazing if that were possible... we shall see though...

I guess I should try to update this all the time, but you never know... Maybe if people post questions to me I will have more motivation, but until next time!