Blog.... with Gravy

So, the last few days have taught me some important lessons.

To stop some guys from driving home drunk, you need to take their keys away. Others, you just need to take their flip flops.

Some people just don't know when to quit. Irish poker is a crazy game.

I will always play Mommy when people get sick, after taking care of myself. Taking care of 8 guys was a new experience.

People will do some stupid things to themselves to attain certain goals.

Pasta bowls and cereal bowls are different???

The idea of eating many things with gravy is just disgusting. Milkshakes, with gravy, for instance. And then someone will order an omelet with gravy.

There were an amazing number of bands that produced solo artists that were more popular than the band.

Days that are supposed to be rainy days are some of the best to go to theme parks, especially if it doesn't actually rain.

Buildings that house nothing but servers and data can be fairly interesting, in the design of the building to cater to the equipment, and the gigantic generators.

Wooden roller coasters are my favorites, still. The Beast in King's Island rules all. I need to make it to Cedar point in the near future.

A lack of spontanaeity due to an abundance of planned activities will eventually drive me crazy.

Mace the raccoon

It's been a long time since I've been camping. And... oh, never, since I went with a big group of friends... be they new friends or old friends. This weekend was a weekend full of new friends. About 20 coops headed out to Devil's Lake, Wisconsin, about 2.5 hours from here. Friday night we got in fairly late and went to get some groceries, returning to the camp site and finding everyone fairly drunk. Raccoons attempted to run off with some of our hotdog buns while we were 2 feet away, flippy cup happened, and I got tackled into the lake and skinned my knee. Pete lost my cell phone, found it again in the morning, someone messed their head and their stomach up in the lake, and we were loud and obnoxious. I also spent an hour screaming at raccoons to get away, and fun times were had by all.

Saturday we woke up early and went hiking, on a quick and easy but beautiful hike. We went back to the campsite, and I slept for two hours while everyone else went on a longer hike around the lake. Following that, we went back to the lake and played in the water, which was rather enjoyable. The evening was spent avoidin the rain - we drove to the Wisconsin dells for dinner, realizing too late that we'd left Greg behind, so I drove back to get him, arriving back at the Dells for cold food. That night there was more rain, so we retired early with the intention of canoeing in the morning. Around 4 am there was a raccoon that slit a hole in our tent, which was crazy, and a start of a good story. Good memories all around for the weekend.

My roommate went camping, and I'm very proud of her. She'd never been camping before, and actually survived and enjoyed herself. I believe in the next two and a half weeks, I have maybe two or three nights where I don't have something planned. I'll go crazy, eventually, without the room for spontanaeity.

Pat Godwin is my hero.

Pat Godwin, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight 7 others and I visited Skyline comedy club, which was amazing, and before hand had some dinner in the brewery downstairs. It was pretty amazing. While I hate posting myspace links, this guy is HILARIOUS. ""Don't make me put my baby down!" So she put her baby down, and I did the only thing I could think of to do, and kicked the baby. " Oh, paying for gas in the ghetto...

I adore my boys here. They call to make sure I got home ok, which is much appreciated when you are the designated driver for the night.
Pete has some pictures posted here, including Andy firing up the grill and looking like a zombie. I must say, thats a cool camera effect. The guy on the right actually worked as a PCC. Crazy eh?

I don't think I've fully realized that I'm 21 yet. I guess I'm still better off than some of the interns, who have had minimum of 2 alcoholic beverages for 11 of the last 12 nights. That's commendable.... for still having any liver left. Sheesh.

I'm going camping this weekend, I'm rather excited. Which should be fun with two girls who have never been camping before... I think I'll sleep in a different tent, thought that queen size air mattress is tempting. I'm also going climbing again tomorrow, and will probably be in a good mood because of that.

Compliments of Phlp

Hilarity

I want to play in the fountain.

This morning was the weirdest morning I've had in a long time. I woke up 14 minutes late (and when you only give yourself 45 minutes to get dressed, makeuped, breakfast, pack lunch, etc, thats a very precious 14 minutes.) So I go to the bathroom, come out, and start debating whether I have time to iron my pants, at which point Kim tells me there are two guys sleeping on the couches in their boxers (one of which is French Canadian and has been there for a few days). The Canadian guy promptly starts talking in his sleep (in English) about getting with Miss Oklahoma, after watching Miss America yesterday. He wakes up, and proceeds to continue being vulgar, talking about choices between being gay with a big black man or having a ball of hair stuck in your throat. The other guy at least had enough courtesy to put his pants on, while our roommate slept in (they'd all been out drinking the night before).

From there, it was off to sexual harassment training for an hour. Nothing terribly eventful really happened after that.

Then off to a picnic in the park with music for lunch. Other than that today wasn't that eventful. Is it bad form to ask the CIO of the company if he thinks there are more people or chairs in the world?

That's like being the smartest kid with Down's Syndrome...

Waiting is an awesome movie, everyone should see it.
Half-random eh? Is it possible to be half-random? Doesn't the other half defy the random-ness?

I can't move after rock climbing today. Probably because I was at work for 8 hours before that, and then climbed for two hours and attempted to train four people how to belay. It's definitely passing out time. Everyone should drive up for summerfest. Crazy things will happen.

It amazes me how few people in the working world in the US actually enjoy their jobs. Something needs to be done about that. And its amazing to me how big of a grip Walmart has on the world - they say jump and so many manufacturing companies jump, because 90% of their sales go to Walmart, and then they end up making no money. And yet Walmart can't even give its employees proper benefits.

Possibilities for this summer: Climbing, rafting, paintballing, camping, fest-ing (there's one at least every weekend. Chicken Fest, I kid you not), concerting, dancing, frisbeeing, frisbee golfing, why does the word frisbee look so weird? Am I a moron? Its funnier how much happier I am when I don't have school weighing me down. I'm kind of crazy in general.

I guess that's how the future's done

I heard Mushaboom playing in a store at the mall. It kind of made my night. First full week of work starts tomorrow. Yikes.

I'm happiest, I think, when I'm hosting something with a ton of people. Yes, that sounds about right. At least 13 of the ITS interns came over tonight and grilled out and played football and started to watch Firefly, along with at least 7 other co ops and engineering interns. Turns out there are a TON of U of I people here - of the two I've met, one works in the computer labs and the other I had a class with two semesters ago. Small world, eh? This summer is going to be awesome - baseball game on Tuesday, hopefully more climbing on Wednesday which will probably involve me doing a quick belay certification and then attempting to teach others how to belay and buying a summer pass.

Now all we need to complete the coolness of the interns is to make matching tshirts that say "Team Minivan" and "I <3 my soccer mom".

Oh yes.

Henry the Hippo

I seriously go the bathroom just to use the Huggies handsoap.

Did you know that feminine pads were created when people were using the cotton substitute as fillers in their gas masks? The war ended and the company was left with so many leftover cotton thingys, but the nurses kept asking for them because they'd been using them during that time of the month. I had ALWAYS wondered who thought that up. Yeah incoherent posts.

A bit different than two weeks ago, eh?