Well, I went to web design for the TA thingy that I’ve been offered. Apparently, Doc Morgan says that I can get GRAD CREDITS for the work there, either one or two. Good times! That means next summer I won’t have to take 2 grad classes, I can get away with 1! wheee!

Anyway. After that, I had a break where I ate lunch. Also during the break, Erin ran up and hugged me. It was odd. I’m usually never given hugs.

Then it was Milowski’s am lit class with grubbsy and a couple of other people I know. First day of class: we watched “An American Tale”. My God almighty. I am paying HOW MUCH for credits, and this is what we do on the first day? *sigh* It can only get better from here on out.

Played trivia tonight…I got third place, I was pretty happy with that score. donovan and mcmanus beat me, but ’s all right. And then I biked to work.

That’s where I am now, slaving away for my wages so I can continue living away from my parents house while attending two grad schools! Wheee!

Well. The first grad class was had tonight. It was Problems in Literary Criticism. It sounds like it will be decent enough, with lots of student presentations throughout. Therein lies what problem there might.

I know for certain that some of the people in the class cannot present. I’ve been in classes before where they’ve had to present, and I’m, frankly, a little worried. SUch is life though, I’ll get over it. After the class, Westrum and I headed over to the Union for a couple of porters. mmm…I love porters.

Now tomorrow I have American Lit 1 with milowski. Man alive, I hope that I’ve got someone else in that class that I know. Being the only one in there would be kind of tough. We’ll see.

sleepy time!

Ah, yes. The journey is come to a close….

Here are some #’s for you:
AAA Batteries gone through: 17
# of people got left by the bus: 3
# of times a bus broke down: 1
Lbs. gained during trip: 10
Price of Bus Pass: $480
Most visited station: Minneapolis, followed by Chicago
# of Books read: 15
# of Miles traveled by bus: 15,172
# of Miles Traveled by car: 1031
# of times the word ‘dude’ was heard on the first time I traveled all night on bus: 589
# of times I was irritated by other riders: infinity
# of Successful College Interviews: 1
# of pieces of furniture put together: 1
# of electric fences taken down: 1
# of times I did NOT forget the alamo: 341
# of times I am going to ride the bus from now on: ZERO

All in all, it was a good time. I had a blast. But I’ll never ride greyhound again, if I can help it.

All righty! Well, I am very jealous of Dave Corcoran for the 19 new chicks he gets to hang out with. All of them are extremely good looking.

Anyways, I’ve arrived back in Minneapolis with no troubles on the bus from Pittsburgh. Last night, Hanson had to go to a Vikings game so I hung out with Keegan and Kristen and helped them assemble a coat rack/boot holder. My God almighty…I don’t think I ever want to buy furniture that is not preassembled. That was a pain getting it together, I can’t imagine having to do that with only 2 people. Even with three it was pretty nuts. Regardless, we got it together and went for iced cream. I had raspberry chocolate chip, it was very tasty.

This morning we’re all planning on hitting the state fair. Taking a bus from Nicollet and 4th to the fairgrounds, it should be a blast. It isn’t raining out, and hopefully it won’t start. But it is overcast, which means there won’t be an overly large amount of sun today! Wheeee!

mmm…I can almost taste the cheesecurds!

Ok, so today, we headed out this morning and I got to see quite the tour of Pitt Campus. Dave has a pretty cool view, as shown here:

As we were walking aroud campus, we also saw the Heinz Memorial Chapel, and it was pretty cool. Here are a couple of pictures:

We went to this place called ‘Indian Garden’ for lunch, and it was my first taste of Indian food. It was pretty damned tasty. Afterwards, we headed back to Dave’s apartment and had fun checking email and a half hour nap. Then we went to a used book store where I picked up a couple of books, one on an overview of some of the world’s religions, and a book on the Tibetan way of life and death. Then we went to a used music/video games/movies store, and I picked up two quality n64 controllers, Quest 64, Shadowgate 64, and a AC adapter. Good times on the gaming front!!!

This evening there’s apparently a get together for the new students in Genetic Counseling, roughly 19 females getting together, and only me and dave corcoran here. The get together is on top of the building, and we MAY be allowed up there…it is up in the air right now.

Anyways, and since I didn’t have a good picture of Keegan’s wedding from a couple of weeks ago, here’s a bonus picture of David Hanson in a tux!

And on the morrow, I head back to the greatness of Minnesota. I will be in the cities at 9 AM on friday morning, there until sunday morning when I head back. Saturday we’re planning on heading to the State Fair de Minnesota for kicks and giggles. oh boy! I’m out.

all righty, so yesterday went exactly as planned as far as the bus thingy was concerned. I got on the bus and we zoomed to Pittsburgh. Once there, Dave picked me up about 2 minutes after I had arrived.

Then we headed to his apartment, which is really cool, and had some pizza for supper. Went and saw the Village last night, and I’ve got to say that I’m probably in the minority here when I say that I enjoyed it. There were a couple scenes that were sit up straight shocking, just with the music and such, but it wasn’t frightening. And I sorta liked the story…call me a romantic, but still.

After that, we headed down to an Irish Pub, and I had a Guinness….mmmm….guinness is good! Had a couple of other beers with a couple of Dave’s friends and then we headed next door for Primanti(sp?) sandwiches. Apparently it is a Pittsburgh specialty. They take two slabs of bread, put your meat on one, put french fries and cole slaw over that, and then put the second piece of bread on. Then they cut it in half and serve it to you. It was very odd.

and today, who knows what wacky adventures await?

I had a blast in Harrisburg, even though the bus didn’t get me there until 9. We swent to a pub entitled “mcgrath’s” and I had a guinness there. Afterwards we went to a pub called ‘Molly Branigans’, where I had a club sandwich and another guinness and a strongbow. mmmm…..it was most excellent after not having had anything to eat all day.

There are pictures of the gathering at the Molly pub here

If you’re wondering who the old guy is, that’s some janitor OR SOMETHING. We first saw him walk to a garbage can, lean down and pull out an exacto knife and a pizza box. Then we saw a miracle. There was pizza in the pizza box, but instead of eating it(as we assumed he would!) he dumped it in the trash! It was absolutely INSANE! Then he proceeded to cut the box up and put that back in the garbage as well, and prune a couple of the bushes around the pub. It was very…odd.
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Then, we headed back to Dave’s place, whom he rents from Mr. Epstein, who is running against the republican incumbent. Send some site traffic his way, if you could.

Anyways, now I sit in the bus station waiting to be picked up by the 12:45 bus to pittsburgh. Wheee!

Ok, so now it is 5:45PM local time, stuck a couple miles south of the Pennsylvania border. The bus has broken down.

Lovely! Of course, the bus was an hour late to start with because the driver had called in sick or somesuch, so that was great. Also, apparently there was a shooting at the bus station and a guard or cop, we don’t know which, was injured during it. It isn’t on any of the news sites yet, and as I do not have anything other than internet for news, I know no more.

We arrived at Downtown Baltimore, and it appeared that there were several buses that we could have easily transferred to. We knew that this one was having trouble because the service door on the side kept popping open when we were under way. Oh well, the maintenance guy at Baltimore said it was fine. So we were on our way again. We got this far when the stupid thing popped open again and would not close. Our driver called to baltimore to get a backup bus, but there were no drivers there.

So we had to call all the way down to washington D.C. to appropriate a driver, thank goodness that there was another one. Anyways, the deal is that about an hour ago, they said it’d be two hours. We’ll see if traffic allows that. I just really want some beer. And a shower. It’s going to be tough to decide which one that I really want more…

mmmm….beer….mmm….shower….

waaiiiit!!! I can have both at once! muwahahahaha! I’m brilliant!

Ok, so I was down in Florida with my brother, had a blast down there with him. We went to this science center and then the movie Without A Paddle. A decent enough film, I saw it as about the same lines of entertainment as dodgeball was, so go see it.

Went out and partied with his workmates, and they’re all a decent bunch of people. I had a blast.

My tailbone is hurting though. I’m writing this from washington D.C., and my ass hurts like hell. I am getting rather ill of the greyhound bus and would dearly love for the next 5 days to pass swiftly, because then at least I am back in Minnesota, with a chance of not riding the bus ever again…

but it’s been an adventure, even with the oldsters who sit in front WHO WILL NOT STOP JABBERING. Uff, that got irritating this morning.

or I am really lucky. I woke up yesterday at 5 AM to go to the bus station because Kelly had to work, and I had no way to transport myself to the station except for her. So I got there at 6:30 and checked my bag in. I then went to the gate areas.

I set my bag up against the wall in front of the gate I was to go out of at 12:30. There were no buses to arrive or go out from that gate until then. I sat and read a book while keeping one eye on my bag. This worked great until 11:30.

It was then that the bus arrived and everyone got off, it was also then that I decided to get out my computer and check the schedule. 25 seconds of not looking at the bag due to view being cut off by crowd, and split attention to the computer, and my suitcase was gone. All my clothes, all my school paperwork, my camera and a couple of books…gone. No more around.

I asked some guy who had been around there if he had seen it. He said he had seen it sitting there, but not who moved it. I said ’shit’. I was hoping some baggage handler had gotten it and just loaded it on the bus, and that was what I was praying for. There was no way that I could ask the driver if I could check under the bus to see if my bag was there until Ft. Lauderdale. So I bit my tongue and traveled.

I was worried, but not too much…the only thing non-replaceable in the suitcase was my film from the camera. I could get enough clothes to make it back to MN with no problems, and there was $250 worth of insurance on the bag. No big worries, but it was enough to think about on the 1 day and 5 hour bus trip.

I arrived at the location….and God be praised! My bag was sitting in the back of the bus. Even on all the stops before this they had never opened up the back containers, just the front two, and I couldn’t see it in there. My hopes were fulfilled.

Important lesson while traveling greyhound: never let the suitcase leave your hands until you hand it to a greyhound employee.

Yes, I’ve seen it and I saw it in Houston. And yes, it is really as bad as you could possibly imagine that such a movie could be.

Ridiculously bad. Regardless of that fact, I still enjoyed my time watching it.

it was free for me!

So I was in San Antonio. It was a pretty cool place.

The first evening I was there, we went down to the River walk. Funny thing about the riverwalk: it is actually a rebuilt drainage ditch. They’ve built up a lot of shops around it though, and it is really nice down there. While there, I stopped in at Dirty Nellie’s and had a guinness fresh from the tap. Mmmm….guinness.

The next day was a busy one. I remembered the Alamo! It is a pretty nifty place, and had quite a bit of history being shown. I enjoyed being there a lot. I got a crushed penny from it too. It was pretty bad ass. After the alamo(which I remembered!) we headed down to Austin. Apparently at the University of Texas there, they’ve got one of only five gutenberg bibles in the states. So we stopped by the Harry Ransom center(I think it was harry, maybe it wasn henry*shrug*) and we saw it. Two volumes, and it was pretty cool to see. I wish they would have let me page through it, but noooo….apparently they don’t trust humans to touch that. They wouldn’t take my word that I wasn’t human either. I think you people should write letters attesting my inhumanity. After that we checked out the Lyndon Baines Johnson library. Wow. I’ve got to say that I’m impressed by presidential libraries, even by this small one. 8 floors, 7 of which were exclusively for research papers from his reign. the rest was museum style layout it was pretty cool.

Then I got some texas culture and saw a cool band called ‘Two Tons of Steel’ at a town called Gruene(green). It has the oldenst dancehall in the states. It was fun.

This morning, we headed out to see the San Juan mission, a nifty old building. It was pretty cool. Then we went to the hard rock, and now I’m on the bus going to Houston to visit my friend Kelly from Eurospring. It should be blast. And that is all for now…see ya.

I’m in the phoenix bus depot right now, and it is pretty damned nice. Polished floors, clean counters, good working arcade machines, a tv with news on it for people to watch. Good times had by all. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the time spent at my little brothers, as it was very restful. Now it’s roughly two more weeks of crazy running around and I’ll be home for a time.

wheee.

Ok, according to wordcount.org

the word ‘armageddon’ is the 37467th most common word in the language. It is preceded by Augusto.

WHAT THE UNHOLY HELLS??? C’mon folks. Call to arms here. Use armageddon more. A lot more of the armageddon. This is our crusade. Armageddon Armageddon Armageddon. Use armageddon more, and life will be better. Anything to beat that other word.

Armageddon…a much better way to die than choking on a donut.

How really bad ass Jet Force Gemini on the N64 is. I’m playing that again, and it has edged out both 007 and Perfect Dark and a few gamecube games as the most fun single player game out here. Cappin’ alien bug asses is fun!

On a side note, my little bro and I went to Harald and Kumar go to White Castle. That movie was surprisingly enjoyable, by no means smart, but enjoyable.

Anyways.

Back to video games.