Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in ks' Blurty:

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Saturday, September 3rd, 2005
7:01 pm	Katrina Even where I now live in Huntsville, AL -- over an 8 hour drive from New Orleans -- there are enough evacuees that the local Red Cross chapter has opened a shelter and a service center. I spent 6 hours today (and will spend 11+ hours tomorrow...) working at the service center where evacuees are given food, water, and money. I arrived at the 1st Baptist Church Life Center at noon to find over hundreds of people standing in a line outside. After a few false starts, I found myself "assigned" to the "Records and Reports" office. Originally I was just supposed to sign out a bunch of DOs (Disbursing Orders) and have my own table as a Family Services person, but I was pressed into service in the R&R office instead. I spent all afternoon sorting paperwork and doing accounting-type jobs. Much of my work involved tracing 901 (the standard case file folder) forms because the carbon paper "flimsy" attached to it smears too much. It seems unusual that ARC would use a form that essentially has to be filled out twice... We processed about 100 clients today, and I went over at least half of the forms. One "client" may be one person or a family of 6 -- there's one case file per family that shares the same (original) address. In reality we probably helped close to 250 people today. Almost everyone was from New Orleans itself, or nearby little towns which I remember from my summer internship with NASA in that area. Some of the simple, few word notes about the cases were just heartbreaking. Many families know that their homes are right now still underwater. At least one family wasn't even in New Orleans when the storm hit -- they were on vacation in California and haven't been able to return, so they don't even know the status of their house. One woman's trailer was washed away while she was still there -- she wasn't able to evacuate until a relative sent her gas money. One of the ones that touched me the most was a case without any 'adults' listed -- an 18 year old and 17 year old came in and listed themselves as children. Their mother is in the military and away from home. After 5 continuous hours of writing, my hand was cramping more than I think it ever has before. But there was no end of work to be done, and I'll be back at it again first thing tomorrow morning. I just wish there were more I could do. : ( Current Mood: restless (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 22nd, 2005
11:23 am	The Lost Sea The Lost Sea is a huge underground lake in Sweetwater, TN -- the world's second largest. This place is only a few miles from where we're staying at Hiwassee College while we work at Vonore Elementary with AmeriCorps. I'll calm down on the links now. Our tour was a 3 hour excursion into the depths of this enormous cave system. Throughout its history it's been a meeting place for Cherokee Indians to hold their councils and smoke their peyote, a hideout and saltpeter mine to make gunpowder for Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, and the "Cavern Tavern", a speakeasy where moonshine was distilled and drunk during Prohibition. We began by climbing up a hill (outside) and walking down 132 man-made stairs laid into rock. This was the natural entrance to the cave; in the 1970s a more convenient entrance was blasted into the cave because the stairs were a little much for some people. But not for us and our trusty guide Joe. : ) The stairs climb down almost 100 feet and curve around to fit the opening of the cave. At the bottom is a wide opening with a 60+ foot ceiling, and a room that continues in 2 directions roughly south and east. There are lots of lights and there are port-o-potties around, so it didn't feel real cave-y yet. But it would. We went south maybe 100 yards lateral, and probably 20 or 30 feet downhill. It was somewhat steep. Then we went steeper down to the east, where there was a nice fenced walkway built into the cave. Everything was lit and we could see interesting things like Civil War graffiti left by confederate soldiers, and some small green plants that were brought in accidentally on peoples' clothing. Not much lives in the cave naturally. We were led around several of these paths and shown different rock formations including anthodites, stalagmites and stalactites, and columns, where the stalagmites and stalactites have grown together. There were lots of really cool formations. Eventually we were led down to the lake, which is stocked with rainbow trout. We were excited at first that there were fish in it, thinking that they'd be some bizarre species of fish unique to this closed system, but they weren't. Nothing lived in the lake when it was discovered. The fish there now have to be fed by humans to survive, and they're very people-friendly. The guide said that people have caught them with their bare hands. Riding in the boat and watching how close they came to our hands in the water, it's totally believable. They used to have glass-bottom boats to ride on the lake, but now the boats have just one glass strip in the bottom. The lake is something like 800 feet long by 200 feet wide by 80 feet deep -- pretty big for a lake that's completely underground. There are lights along the wall under the water level, which make for nice glow. The fish look really cool illuminated from below. We rode all the way around the lake, just looking at the fish and the water and the cavern. In places the ceiling stretched 50 or more feet above us, in some places it was so close that people had to duck so as not to hit their heads. It was a nice relaxing little jaunt around the lake. Robo's crazy watch altimeter said that the lake was almost 200 feet below the level we entered the cave at, but a lot of that change was right at the beginning, when we walked down the stairs. After the lake we started walking back uphill toward the entrance. We stopped along the way for some serious cave crawling. The crawling here wasn't that bad. Nobody had any real trouble with it, though a few people on the team are claustrophobic. We crawled through 4 or 5 spaces and looked at some more formations and then came into a room they call the amphitheater. It's roughly round and one side of it slopes up at an angle conducive to sitting. This room and all the rooms after we began crawling weren't lit so we had to rely on our own lights. In the amphitheater we played a game called 'flashlight' where everyone surrenders their lights to the guide and he takes the biggest one and hides it in the dark somewhere in the room while we all make noise so we can't hear where he puts it. Then in total and complete darkness we crawl around looking for the light, and whoever finds it wins. It was pretty fun. According to Joe, after 2 weeks of total darkness a person would become totally blind. That wouldn't be as fun. We crawled out back to the main path after that. We returned to the junction at the bottom of the stairs and rested for a few minutes, and talked to some other people on their own tours in the cave. Most of them were spending the night there. Our group initially wanted to do that, but too many people (not including me) backed out, so we couldn't. But I guess that's pretty popular and lots of people do it. After our rest, we went crawling some more. By this time, we were all really dirty. The cave dirt and mud was all really heavy and sticky. And this second set of crawls we went on was in a wetter part of the cave where we all got absolutely filthy. At the end of this set we slid down a little embankment back into the big junction room near the entrance to the cave. After that we went into the hardest crawl yet.... parts of it are called 'The Meat Grinder' and 'Misery'. The crawls we had done before this could mostly be done on the knees or with just a little bit of on-the-stomach crawling. This last set was much more intense. For one part we had to crawl for almost 20 feet without so much as turning our heads while we pulled ourselves along on our stomachs with our hands. There wasn't even really enough room to move your legs to propel you forward. Right after that there was a smallish opening where you could almost stand up all the way, then you had to sorta sit/lean back against one rock face and bend your legs to fit under a low-hanging boulder and crawl like that another 15 feet or so. Right after that there was a tiny tight crawl even closer than the first one. It was exhilirating. I've never experienced claustrophobia, but this was the closest I've ever come. One girl on our team didn't go through, but everyone else did -- even Tricia who was absolutely terrified of the whole thing. She did amazing. At the end of those 3 intense crawls, we were able to stand up in a thin but tall rift in the rock. There's a gap or a channel that ranges from 6-7 to 20 or 30+ feet high, but never more than 3 or 4 feet wide over its 100+ foot length. It felt like it could have even been as long as a football field, but of course it's hard to tell when none of the 'normal' cues for judging depth or distance are there. And it's easy to exaggerate.... This channel went continually downhill, at varying slopes. I figure the bottom of it is maybe 10 feet or so lower than the top, maybe more. We had to crawl down it single file because it was so tight. But not very claustrophobic, because of the high ceiling. Even Tricia did fine with most of this. We started to get a tad nervous when everyone else got out of sight and sound ahead of us, though. I was helping Tricia in the back with Robin and we lost everyone else far ahead of us. We were separated from them for probably almost 5 minutes (an eternity alone in a cave, I assure you) before we could see any of their lights again. But we eventually caught up to them. The climb back up that rift was the highlight of the experience -- because we did it in total darkness. Everyone turned their flashlights off and we crawled and felt our way up it, holding onto each other and trying to describe everything to each other so we didn't run into walls or trip or anything. It was one of the coolest things I think I've ever done. It probably took 20 minutes or more for us to climb back up, and every step of the way required teamwork. It felt a lot like the trust walks I've done on SJC Camping Retreats, for those who know about that. It was a great sense of accomplishment when we crawled out of it back into another part of the room at the base of the stairs. What a rush!! Though I looked, I never did see either any Morlocks or Gollum. Maybe next time. : ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 14th, 2004
9:37 pm	Hello Out There Hello...? Hello...? Anyone out there? I guess it's been about forever since I've updated this... it feels like it, anyway. I'm not gonna try to catch up the last 2+ months in a few quick minutes, but I don't want you to give up hope. Still check back occasionally... you never know when I might randomly post something. Oh! Idea!! I'll post my mass email from last week that I wrote to try to catch everyone up on where I am and what I'm doing. Here goes: Hello from Jackson, MS! It's Kenny Shumard. Remember me? Sorry it's been so long since you've heard from me. I'm well into my AmeriCorps experience and among the things I've learned so far is that I actually can survive without being on the Internet constantly... or even weekly. I'm actually writing this email on my netless laptop and will hopefully get it to an Internet-capable computer tomorrow or the next day. I got to Charleston, SC almost 2 months ago, and I've been working full-time and beyond ever since. I'm on a team with 9 other people aged 18-24 and 1 older team leader, and we've been training, working, eating, drinking, sleeping, and almost every other -ing you can think of together ever since. We went through a month or so of training in Charleston which was somewhat tedious and boring, but it gave us ample opportunity to bond with each other and form as a team. It definitely had its ups and downs, including making new friends like Robin, Justin, and Karen, finding an establishment even cheaper than Core XI, and creating dozens of inside jokes (the ups). Among the downs were the 530 AM physical training sessions 3 times a week, the food (the galley makes Jana look like a gourmet chef), and waking up once to my roommate "getting to know" his new girlfriend. All in all it was a pretty lively 5 weeks. And now we're in Jackson on our first "spike". We got here a little over 2 weeks ago, and we'll be here until the end of November. All 11 of us are staying in one room that's probably about the size of Cup O' Joe in the childcare building of a local YMCA. Our jobs while here are to tutor students in the Jackson School District and to tutor/play with children in YMCA after-school programs. We're also doing various physical projects at the local Ys, including filling in an old pool so they can build a playground on it, building a wall to divide a big gym into 2 little gyms, and lots and lots of yardwork. So far it's been challenging but rewarding. The kids are great. We work at 4 different elementary schools with grades 3 to 5. I mostly tutor 5th graders at French and Lee Elementary Schools in math, but sometimes I work with reading or english stuff too. It's been really interesting to compare schools -- the students at French are pretty much constantly loud and unruly (though still endearing), while the students at Lee are much more disciplined and several months ahead in the curriculum. But they're in the same district and teaching the same things and both in "economically depressed" parts of Jackson. I think we were told that Mississippi is ranked dead last for quality of education in the US, which doesn't help. At the particular schools in which I'm working, some of the students have difficulty learning because they're literally always hungry or they're constantly changing schools (some students will change schools 4 or more times per year as their parents move to different parts of the city where they can find a place to live for a few months). It's a pretty bleak picture for some of these kids, but that makes it all the more exciting when I can see them learn how to reduce fractions or do long division. They're not hopeless, they just need help from people who care to have a better chance to make it through. So that's pretty much what AmeriCorps amounts to, as I understand it so far. We spend a month or two at each place we visit, helping as much as we can in that time before moving on and trying to serve another community's needs. It's definitely a unique way to live, but it's a challenge I've enjoyed immensely so far. That's about all I have to share right now... I could already write a book of my experiences and observations and feelings, but I'm kept busy enough doing my work that I just don't have the energy at the end of the day. So this is all you get right now, but with any luck I'll be able to share more soon. Until then, Peace and love. ~K Current Mood: content Current Music: Third Eye Blind -- Blinded (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 24th, 2004
11:45 pm	Fascinating reading Slashdot pointed me to New Scientist, and an interview from one of the few nuclear engineers who survived the Chernobyl explosion in 1986. It's pretty interesting reading, and AFAIK the first first-hand account of what happened there. Here's the link. Here's a highlight: "To get a clearer idea of what had happened we walked outside. What we saw was terrifying. Everything that could be destroyed had been. The entire water coolant system was gone. The right-hand side of the reactor hall had been completely destroyed, and on the left the pipes were just hanging. That was when I realised that Khodemchuk was definitely dead. The place where I was told he'd been standing was in ruins. The huge turbines were still standing, but everything around them was rubble. He must have been buried under that. From where I stood I could see a huge beam of projected light flooding up into infinity from the reactor. It was like a laser light, caused by the ionisation of the air. It was light-bluish, and it was very beautiful. I watched it for several seconds. If I'd stood there for just a few minutes I would probably have died on the spot because of gamma rays and neutrons and everything else that was spewing out. But Tregub yanked me around the corner to get me out the way. He was older and more experienced." Current Mood: adrift Current Music: Collective Soul -- When the Water Falls (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 15th, 2004
12:01 pm	Life goes on... Today is the day when I would move back to the dorms if I were still in school. I didn't really expect to be affected by it, but it's hitting me pretty hard today that my time there is done. I miss some people there more even than I thought I would, and I miss the way of life that I led there. It helps to know that letters, email, and cell phones will keep somewhat connected to the people there, but I still would rather be there than here. So it goes... Africa was absolutely amazing. I can't do it justice by summarizing it in a single short blog, so I won't try. But it was just incredible. I may put excerpts of the 120 page journal I wrote on here eventually, but that will wait. Current Mood: melancholy Current Music: Dodoma Girls -- There Is A Redeemer (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, July 26th, 2004
1:45 pm	So much to say ...and so little time. So here're the headlines, html-formatted for your viewing pleasure. New email address: First initial last name at gmail dot com. It'll be my new permanent one, z'near z'I c'n tell. SJC will forward for another couple weeks at least, maybe longer. It depends on Delauro's whims. Out of Indy: I'm officially moved out as of Saturday. Not as ordeal-y as most move-outs I've experienced in the last few years, but leaving Lisa was tough. We spent practically every day this summer together, so it's a big change to not have her around. I'm dealing, though. Africa! I'm leaving in 2 days! I can't wait! It'll be so exciting to see people and to do something new and different! : ) Where's Kenny? Here's the agenda for the next 6 weeks. I'll be in Africa until the 11th. Then I'm traveling to Boise by the 15th. I'll be there until AmeriCorps flies me to Charleston on September 7. My cell phone and email should both be fairly accessible after I return from Tanzania. K, that's all. I'm done. Current Mood: anxious Current Music: Jars of Clay -- Art in Me (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 24th, 2004
1:48 pm	Contact I just finished reading Carl Sagan's Contact, the book on which the film is based. I love the movie, but it is no comparison to the book. It's a much more detailed and elaborate story in the book (the Machine has 5 seats instead of 1, eg) and Sagan has a very enjoyable style. Plus there's lots more math and physics in it, which makes it all the more endearing. I recommend it to anyone with an analytical mind. Lisa and I went to the Monon Trail for the first time last night. She was on her bike and I was on my rollerblades. It wasn't much of a workout for her, but I definitely got a good workout -- we probably went almost 10 miles on it. I really enjoyed it. It reminds me a lot of the Greenbelt in Boise, but not quite as cool. It's for the most part by an old railroad instead of by a river. And it's not quite as wide and there are fewer trees and it just doesn't have that comfortable familiarity and memories the Greenbelt has for me. But it was still really cool and I want to spend a lot of time there now. I went to visit Abbey in Tell City Monday and Tuesday of this week. That was a really fun quick little trip. I like Tell City a lot... it seems like it just has a lot of character. And it's not ridiculously flat like the rest of Indiana. Most of the time I was there I was just hanging out with Abbey and her family, and that was absolutely fine with me. It was a very pleasant trip. The drive back was gorgeous, too -- there was a little bit of rain at the beginning (which was nice because it kept the sun off me) and then there was an absolutely phenomenal sunset. There was a double rainbow, too. I can't describe how awe-inspiring it was... but it was truly magnificent. I can't think of anything else to say so I'm just gonna post this and go home and eat something. Current Mood: fresh Current Music: Bowling for Soup -- 1985 (Comment on this)
Monday, June 14th, 2004
1:29 pm	I totally understand So my Sprint bill this month has an extra $30 charge on it for PCS Vision (Internet) usage. My (mis)understanding was that Vision was included in my plan because that's what the salesman told me 8 months ago. Long story short, I argued with Sprint people on the phone for an hour the other day, and they said there was no way they could reverse the charge, and that it wasn't important enough to them to keep me as a customer to act responsibly and honor the promise made by a representative of their company (who cannot be reached at the numbers he gave me in August, conveniently). So I found this from a recent edition of This Is True, a humorous News of the Weird-esque email list I've been on for years: DISCONNECTED: "I just lost it," said Jason Perala, 22, who said his cell phone didn't work well and service was intolerable. So he stopped in at a Verizon Wireless store at a mall in Fargo, N.D., planning to yell at the clerks. But Perala was wearing safety glasses when he arrived at the store and, he said later, "I just started grabbing computers and phones and throwing them. I just destroyed the place." Verizon said the store suffered $2,000 in damage. He trashed the store for about 10 minutes before police arrived and hauled him to jail, where he faces a charge of felony criminal mischief. "I just couldn't stop," he said later, "but I hope my message got across." (Fargo Forum) ...Which was: Can you hear me NOW? I totally understand, man. What national cell phone providers do anyone that reads this use? I'm shopping for a new one... (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 8th, 2004
1:23 pm	Plus also There's a picture on the front page of the Indy Star today of a priest consoling Mrs. Reagan. On the sash of his robe is a Kairos cross. I dug it. Live the Fourth!! : ) (Comment on this)
1:02 pm	Missin' SJC This entry is almost entirely an email to BT, that I realized as I was writing described more or less what I wanted to say here. So here goes. Hey BT... Just sayin' hi from Indianapolis. I'm somewhat settled here for the summer, biding my time until AmeriCorps starts in September. After staying with Lisa for a few weeks, I found my own little place close to hers, and I have a summer job. I got a great deal on the apartment ($299 a month for a 1 bedroom place, and they didn't charge me extra for the short-term lease), and I'm working at a Disney store in the Castleton Mall. I just started last week, but I already love it. It's work, but it's also pretty fun seeing little kids have the time of their lives with their favorite cartoon characters. It just feels wholesome in a way. There's a woman just starting at Disney with me who works her day job with the Catholic Church. When I told her I went to Saint Joe's, she said that a priest in her parish was an alum from a very long time ago. I think she said he was 80 something when he died, which was just recently. Father Shrader (unsure of the spelling) was his name -- do you know/know of him? I bet Fr Kostka or some of the older priests know who he is. I'm not sure if she said he was CPPS or not... I'll have to ask her. She said he had written several books, including one about how he ended up at SJC, and she's going to bring me a copy because her church has boxes and boxes of them they want to get rid of. I gave blood today, and both the interviewing nurse and the phlebotomist had ties to Saint Joe's, too. The nurse was a 74 year old woman who has family in Rensselaer and used to go there every year for a family reunion. The much younger phlebotomist said a friend of hers (whose name I forget) was a football coach there not too long ago. I don't think it was in my time, but still... It's fascinating to me how I'm already encountering so many people that have some sort of connection to SJC. I guess I thought it was more isolated and anonymous than it really is, because that's sort of how it felt as a student. It's a very pleasant surprise to realize that people know of and respect SJC. I recently read CS Lewis' Mere Christianity and loved it -- I wish I would have read it years ago, though perhaps God wanted me to wait until now to find it. It had a powerful effect on me -- it finally 'explained' Christianity in a way that I felt I could understand rationally (to the extent that's possible when dealing with nonrational -- though not irrational -- ideas). I found myself internalizing a lot of it, and I guess starting to come to grips with my own spirituality. If nothing else, it increased my understanding and appreciation of God, faith, and religion. Lisa has several other CS Lewis books I intend to read, eventually. For now I'm still letting Mere Christianity sink in. Plus I'm reading lots of other stuff for fun, including Carl Sagan's Contact (the book that inspired the 1997ish Jodie Foster movie) and the latest Stephen King book, which was just published today. : ) And now I'm off to do more of this reading -- my Boise friend Erin read the last Dark Tower book before me, so I'm determined to read this one before here. : ) Current Mood: optimistic Current Music: BUoS -- Walk Off the Buzz (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 3rd, 2004
4:23 pm	Address Here 'tis: Kenneth Shumard 3817 A Marietta Drive Indianapolis, IN 46235 Peace out. Current Mood: sunny (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, May 28th, 2004
2:36 pm	Indianapolis I'm at the Warren Township branch of the Indianapolis/Marion County Public Library. I'm not technically supposed to be online right now, because I'm impersonating Lisa. You have to put your library card number into the computer to logon, and I don't have a card because I don't have an address. Yet. I'm supposed to be finishing the paperwork and moving into my own place by Tuesday. It's a mile from Lisa's, at 38th and Mithoeffer. For those not from Indy but familiar with the area, it's near where I70 and I465 meet on the east side. It's a 1-bedroom place that I'm getting for 2 months, and they're not jacking up the prices because of the short term lease -- only $299 a month, which is a hell of a deal. I'm excited. They're remodeling it now, so I'll have new carpet and maybe appliances too. Sweet. I'm quasi-employed, more on that prolly another time, after I actually start working somewhere. I think I've been hired by 3 different places, but I won't start any of them for 6 or 7 more days. I miss the Internet. There was a znig-worthy techies thread that I mostly missed (though I started it, I think) because I wasn't online. I feel left out. : ( I talked to Marissa Klebs last night. She's in Indy for the summer, too. Lisa and I are supposed to hang out with her unless she goes home for the weekend. I'm excited. Caitlin is also in Indy, I got to hang out with her last weekend. It was very unexpected and surprising, in several ways.... ask me for the full story if you're curious. It's a good one. I'm really enjoying the city of Indianapolis. It has a "big but small" feeling that reminds me of Boise.... it's not so huge that it's intimidating or dangerous-feeling, like Chicago, but at the same time there is some culture and life and fun to be found (not like Rensselaer). I'm learning my way around the city, and what roads go where and stuff.... I could see myself staying here long-term. We'll see what happens after AmeriCorps, I guess. Sprint is dumb. My phone has been flaky for a month, and even my account is apparently screwed up. 2 days ago their website told me that I had used 506 anytime minutes, so I was over my quota of 500. Today it's telling me (in the same billing cycle) that I've used 389 minutes. Stupid Sprint. On the upside, though, I have AIM always logged in on my phone (Please! IM me!!), and I have my SJC email auto-forwarded to my phone, too. It's annoying to send messages, but I can receive them. S'all good. I guess that's all for now.... you get online time here in 1 hour blocks, and mine's almost up. I mostly just wanted to post something so people would know I'm not dead or anything. So... I'm not dead. Peace. Current Mood: summer-y Current Music: Toad the Wet Sprocket -- Good Intentions (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 12th, 2004
10:20 pm	Update Wow it's been awhile... This won't do the last month justice, but I don't think that's possible. I'm a college graduate now, and my entire life is changing in ways I'm struggling to accept and understand, though all told I'm very pleased with everything and generally very optimistic. I hate to do this, but I'm going to anyway -- here's the number for my ce||, so anyone on the web can call me. Actually, I'll do it this way. The last digits are 724 7801, and if you want to call me you can look up the area code for Idaho. Wow. Am I paranoid or what? I don't have an address yet, though I'm working on it. Right now I'm staying with Lisa Grilliot in Indy (well, *right* right now I'm at her family's house in Versailles, OH) until I find a job and a place of my own. The job hunt seems to be going well, but it's hard to really say until I get a job if that's true or not. I got a beautiful green (Lisa says teal) electric guitar and amp from my dad for graduation, and I've fallen in love with it. I still haven't really jammed on it with the amp, but I've enjoyed playing it un-amped -- it plays so differently than my (any) acoustic. I wrote the chord progression, strumming pattern, and even some picking for my first actual song yesterday, which was really exciting. It's heavily influenced by Blessid Union of Souls (Peace and Love) and Jars of Clay (Love Song for a Savior) (Lisa got me hooked on this song), though it's still my own work. I'm working on lyrics, but it's slow. Good stuff, though. Not much else to report, I guess... and I feel bad tying up the single phone line here. My school email is active until August, so feel free to keep emailing me there. Don't expect a speedy response though, until I find a consistent hookup to the 'net. Current Mood: optimistic Current Music: Blessid Union of Souls -- That's the Girl (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 16th, 2004
1:44 am	bruised my heart is bruised not broken by words unspoken no more tokens of your affection why this rejection? A new direction not forward but toward an end before a beginning who's winning? we both lost the game now it's back to the same old routine Current Mood: disappointed Current Music: Blink 182 -- Dammit (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 14th, 2004
1:22 pm	AmeriCorps Just a quick one, since it's the middle of the day and I don't have oodles of time to sacrifice to the gods of blog. I just got a letter from AmeriCorps accepting me as a part of the NCCC program for 2004. If I accept, I report to Charleston, SC on September 4th. Exciting!! I have to accept or decline by April 23rd, and unless Digium offers me a job by then, I'll accept the AmeriCorps offer. The last few days have been really shitty, it's nice to hear good news. : ) Current Mood: relieved Current Music: Smashing Pumpkins -- Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 11th, 2004
1:32 am	Savages Two posts in one week... now nobody should bitch at me for awhile. : ) I'm at school still. I'm almost the only one. The 4 day weekend is now half over and all the sports teams have left. At this point I think the RAs comprise about 90% of the people still on campus. I haven't been as productive as I would have liked to be, but I haven't been a total slacker, either. Yesterday I slept in and then went to the Core building to read Core. I read and napped on the couches most of the afternoon, it was very quiet and peaceful. I kinda think I wasn't supposed to be there, but nobody challenged me so it doesn't matter. Later I enjoyed the sun and warm by going rollerblading and reading outside by the fountain. Last night I went to visit Jen and watched the first half of Titanic with her and Nicole Fetla. Nicole's as much fun as I thought she was, I had a good time... even if it was Titanic. Actually, I didn't even watch it that much. I took a laptop and was browsing through asterisk source most of the time. Today I got up for breakfast and intended to stay up and work on stuff all day.... but I fell back asleep after breakfast and didn't wake up until lunch. After that I finished reading Savages and spent the rest of the afternoon researching more about it. I really got into the (true) story, about the Huaorani people in Ecuador who are being slowly killed by American oil companies. It was interesting to catch up where the book left off 8 years ago. Some of the characters are still alive and active today -- I even found the email address for Moi, one of the Huao leaders, which intrigued me. It's quite interesting to me that I have the ability to *email* a member of a culture that without American intervention would still be in the Stone Age. It's also really interesting to me what has been done to these people in the name of Christianity. Rachel Saint, a Christian missionary, went to live among the Huaorani ~50 years ago, and their way of life has been deteriorating since then. They've slowly been dying from our diseases, and they've been taught that their traditional way of life -- their language, hunting, culture -- is inferior to ours. And they've come to depend on things like machetes and clothing and internal combustion engines that they can only get from our world. Only a tiny fraction of them are actually Christian; it is inarguable that they have suffered more than they've gained since first laying eyes on cowodes, their word for foreigners which translates most closely to "cannibals". Defenders of our involvement in their culture say that they're better off now because they are less likely to kill each other (before our involvement, homicide accounted for perhaps 50% of their deaths), but if they die just as young and just as miserably because of our Christianity and our oil, it's hard to accept that as a net gain. I feel like I could go on for hours about them; I really am becoming passionate about their cause. I sent Peter and Capouch several links I'd found; perhaps I'll put some of them here later. I still haven't started my Core 10 paper. I guess I'll do it tomorrow. Eh. I'm really lonely right now... I feel really out of it since there's nobody around to interact with, kinda trapped in my own little world. I'll definitely be glad when everyone (a few people in particular) get back to school. I also realized the other day that I'm absolutely terrified by the future right now. In less than a month I'll be homeless and jobless, and I'm really not comfortable with that. I hope either AmeriCorps or Digium work out, and soon -- I would very much like to have a plan for the next several months of my life. Calvin called me at 10 til 10 tonight saying he was in the area and he wanted to stop by to see me. But I didn't get the message until midnight, since I was in the computer center. I'm realy disappointed I didn't get to see him or even talk to him. He wasn't around when I called. I went running today to take my mind off the things upsetting me (the future, being here alone, and our ethnocide of the Huaorani). It was an awesome run. I went up Drexel by Walmart and around the back of the quarry, to Kannal and back up to 231 and home. It's 3 and a half or 4 miles, and I did it in about 29 minutes. Definitely not fast, but it's the first substantial run I've been on in almost 4 months. I was pleased with it. And it gave me focus for a few hours so I got work done on a Core 8 paper. I've been sitting in the lounge of Seifert for a couple hours now flipping through channels. I guess I have a need to reconfirm to myself every once in a while that television really does suck. I'm convinced. I can't deny that there is something amusing about puppets representing STDs singing and dancing on the Chapelle show, but somehow it just doesn't seem like a good use of my time. Oh well. Now I'm going to bed so I can hopefully get up at a reasonable hour and write core papers all day. I'm in a bad mood. Current Mood: empty Current Music: Nine Days -- Weekend Excursion (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 7th, 2004
9:57 am	Stop shouting at me!! Several people have bitched requested that I update my blog, since it's been awhile and I'm way behind again. Here goes, though I only have an hour before class and I'm likely to get distracted anyway.... Hey look! Something shiny!! : ) I don't even remember the last time I put anything here... I'm trying to load the page to see what I said last time but blurty is being slow again. I really like this interface, I just wish they had better uptime/reliability. Wow. Has it really been 2 full weeks? Damn... I had my AmeriCorps phone interview Friday with a nice-sounding young woman named Amy. It felt like it got off to a slow start, but got much better as we got into it. The whole thing lasted just under an hour, and it felt like it really flowed well. It was almost conversational at points, and I have a good feeling about it. I'll hear within another 2 weeks or so if they want me or not. I may have an awesome job opportunity that would make me seriously reconsider joining AmeriCorps even if accepted. Digium, home of the computer god Mark Spencer, has an opening for a C programmer doing core development of asterisk, the Linux VOIP software. Capouch knows Mark now from conferences and stuff and has been telling him about me, and Spencer wants to see my resume. I put one together last week using a template of Phil's. Now I'm working on a 'Candidate's Statement'; when that's done Capouch or I will send the links to Mark and see what happens. This would be an incredible job -- Mark Spencer really is one of the geniuses of the trade, and it would be awesome to work with him. I think about it almost like medieval painters -- He's like the reknowned master, and I could work as his apprentice in his workshop. Shut up, I know it's silly. I don't care. Tony and I have been making significant progress in our asterisk hacking. We're still working on our voicemail overhaul to email-ize the voicemail storage and retrieval system. We're nowhere near done, but we're learning a lot about C and we get a little further every time we sit down together. It's awesome to code with someone else that is focused on the same thing, and to have someone to bounce ideas off of.... I've never 'team-coded' before and I love it. Even if it is Tony. : ) The Colloquium was last week and wasn't anything too exciting. Our presentation of the work we had done to date went alright, I guess. Not much to talk about there. We performed Anything Goes last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I think people were really impressed with it. It's hard for me to judge the quality of a production from backstage, but a lot of people seemed to genuinely love it. I'll take their word for it. I think John Rahe is an outstanding director, though I grant he's the only one I've ever really worked with. I had a hell of a lot of fun with this show, and met some great people I'm sure I wouldn't have otherwise. The performances were somewhat emotional, especially closing night, since for us seniors it was our last appearance on the SJC stage. I'm very pleased I went out on a limb three years ago and decided to take a chance being in a show. It's been fun. Calvin didn't come see the show because he hates me. That, or he was just drained from going to school 6 hours a day and work 8 hours a day all week, I can't figure out which. The least the fucker could have done though was not string me along.... he teased me all the way until Saturday afternoon, finally calling at like 3 to say he wouldn't be able to make it. Dick. Chicago must not love Kenny. : ) The cast party was something else. There was green puma punch that didn't taste really strong but apparently was. After an hour or two there I went to the bar with Phil and some other people (Becky? I don't know.... this is when the drunkenness started hitting me). We found a wiffle ball in the IM field and were whipping it at each other until I found a broken chair that for some reason I carried to Halleck. I left it in the front entryway and it's still there, tucked in the corner when you first go in the door. Random. The bar was a bit of a blur. Sandra was there, and Brandy, and some other people. Jen was bartending and wasn't very sober, so she was handing drinks out for free to almost everyone. Bartrom was being obnoxious in a cowboy hat, making loud "Boooo!!" noises. Next we went back to the cast party, where I pretty much succumbed to total inebriation. I had a few conversations with people I don't at all remember, and then as we were leaving to go to 207 I puked over a balcony. I'm sure that made me friends. Then I puked in the bushes behind the apartments. Then I puked at 207 for 15 or 20 minutes. Finally we went to Halas and Brandy put me to bed on their couch, where I was still puking. Sandra just laughed at me all night, because I was so drunk and sick. Thanks. : ) Peewee was down, that was fun. I drank with him Friday night and saw him Saturday though I was done drinking by the time I found him. I felt like I was dying when I woke up Sunday morning. Stupid time change. I tried to eat breakfast, and that really didn't work out at all.... I had three bites of eggs I could barely get down, and drank half a glass of OJ before I realized I had had a screwdriver at the bar the night before, and almost threw it up. It was interesting to talk to people that I had run into the night before, I heard stories about me which I don't remember at all. That hardly ever happens to me when drinking (like 3 or 4 times ever). At least I didn't make too much of an ass of myself. I think. (Not counting the yakking off a balcony). I sang in Ligda's Palm Sunday choir Sunday afternoon. A long shower and a couple ibuprofen really made me feel better, and I made it through all right. I actually had a really good time doing that -- I've recently realized that I love singing, and I'm not completely awful at it (prolly just mostly awful). And I was with Phil and Tony in the choir, they're both funny guys. While we were waiting for Ligda and Doc Egan to finish playing a long opening song, we were making jokes and making fun of people. My stomach hurt from laughing so hard. Some of the songs were really pretty. I had never heard any of them before. "In Remembrance" was my favorite, I want to get a recording of it so I can listen to it again. I still sing some of the songs in my room, how much of a nerd am I? : ) I thought Ligda did an awesome job conducting us. I don't know how hard it is or how much talent he has, but he definitely impressed me. It looked really difficult and he was just on top of everything. I have a lot of respect for him, and I sorta regret that we haven't always gotten along. I'm excited for Lent to be over so that he can drink again and we can take him out. : ) Core 6 class was pretty ridiculous today. We were supposed to pretend we were cave people making cave drawings. The point was that modern anthropology/archaelogy can't really determine with certainty the meaning of cave art, but we didn't need to play with markers for an hour to understand that. We were supposed to draw something that they might have actually drawn. I drew a dinosaur. : ) Phil and I threw darts Monday night. For the official dart league game, we did phenomenal. At one point, I hit 2 single bullseyes and then a double 16, which we needed. I think it was my best showing of darts ever. The rest of the night sucked for me dart-wise. Phil had emailed Brandy to encourage her and Sandra to come cheer us on and they got to the bar just a few minutes before we finished our game. But we all stayed for a long time anyway, throwing a few games and having a good time. At first. Some inappropriate comments were made and the mood turned sour for some of us (me included), but everything ended up alright later. I thought it was going to end a crappy night, but it got a lot better at the end, after I left the bar. I think I may have made some enemies in Peter's Core 8 class yesterday. We're reading the book Savages by Joe Kane, about the Huorani people in Ecuador who at the beginning of the book (I'm not done yet) are in danger of being destroyed by American oil companies. The question Peter posed to class was "Why should we care about these people who have contributed nothing to our way of life? What would you be willing to give up in order to preserve their lifestyle and culture?" My responses were I think typical of humanitarian (and even Christian?) sentiments -- "We have a responsibility as stewards of the earth to care for her peoples and resources, our position of power in the world doesn't give us the right to trample others, our way of life is no more valid than theirs, etc." I had the sense that a lot of people wanted to believe that but either just didn't, or maybe did a little bit but didn't live it. I don't mean to say that I do live that idea constantly, but I feel I make a genuine effort. When asked what I would give up, the first example that came to mind was SUVs (the Huorani, after all, are in danger in the book because of oil interests in "their" land). When there are automobiles that use less than 1/5 the gas, there is room for sacrifice to be made. This upset 2 or 3 tall kids in class (I don't know who they are) who drive Blazers, it seemed like they wouldn't let that point go and that they really were alright with a culture being destroyed because of their desires (I refuse to accept that they are 'needs' as some people maintained). I wasn't totally alone in class, but there were fewer people that agreed with me than I would have hoped for. One comment was made that "There are more of us than them, so we have the right to do with them what we want". That idea seemed to be generally accepted as mathematically sound, but I definitely didn't accept it. It was a good discussion, very informative and eye-opening. Anyway. I went running last night shortly after dusk, and the full moon was rising blood red in the direction I was running. It was an awesome sight. Plus it was a good run anyway. : ) And now it's time for lecture. Did I say everything I wanted to? Prolly not. : / At least it's something. Current Mood: energetic Current Music: Soul Asylum -- Misery (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 24th, 2004
4:09 am	+$0.12 Wawasee shared an anecdote with us in Fake Math today about a runin he had with the library. He has an overdue book, so he owes $0.25 on it. The library sent him a USPS notice of this overdue book, using a 37-cent stamp. The post office didn't mark the stamp (though they were supposed to), so he now is down a quarter for the late book, but he's up a 37-cent stamp. I told him he should see if the library takes stamps as currency -- he could net 12 cents on the deal. We all thought this was very amusing in class, and, obviously well beyond class. Today was Cortny's 21st birthday. After rehearsal a whole bunch of people -- at least 20 -- went to the Pub to celebrate. Thank you, $1 draft Miller Lite! You may not be good, but you're cheap! : ) It was a lot of fun, at least for me. There was drama (how could there not be given how many people were there and the characters of some of the people), but it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. We were at the pub for prolly 2 hours or so, then went to Benny's for another hour or two. I had no idea pitchers of Down On One Knee cost $12 -- ouch. But well worth it, nonetheless. Fun was had by all. After Benny's I ended up in Halas with Brandy and Sandra again, they sure are fun. I could get used to partying with them. : ) Classes blew today. Bob's class: stupid quiz, got out early. Peter's class: cancelled. Dave's class: stupid quiz, got out early. Fake Math: Typical day. I want to drop out of school. I called AmeriCorps today, since I received a letter from them yesterday. I'm now scheduled to conduct a phone interview next Friday. I find out within 3 weeks of that if I've been accepted or not, so the wait won't be as long as I thought. I have to get ahold of Jen and Schafer to ask them for advice about the interview. I talked to Calvin today, too. That was good -- I've been a bad friend, he's been trying to get ahold of me for 2 weeks. I finally called him though, and we talked for over half an hour. It was good to talk to him. I think he may come up for the show, which would be awesome. So many people would love it, me most of all. : ) And bed. Current Mood: drunk Current Music: Weezer -- In The Garage (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 20th, 2004
6:33 pm	Katie My closest friend from high school called me today. We've been playing phone tag for some time, which is typical of our relationship over the past few years. She randomly happened to catch me while I was in my room, which is pretty rare. She only had a few minutes to talk, but she wanted to tell me that this morning Robert Ormond proposed to her. My Katie's getting married! I'm absolutely thrilled for her. She's known Rob forever, and I really think he'll treat her right. He's a good guy, and I approve of him for her. Not that that probably matters to either of them, but it does my heart good to know that she's marrying someone I know and respect. I'm excited for her to start a new chapter of her life with someone she loves. I have a weird feeling though. Maybe I'm just stunned, because it caught me so off-guard. Maybe I'm afraid I won't mean as much to her anymore. Maybe I'm upset a little because this now makes me the only solo one in our trio. Probably it's some of all of these. And I know that these are silly, trite reasons, but that doesn't wholly invalidate them. Oh well.... I'll perhaps blog again after it sinks in more and I've had more time to marinate on it.... I've known for only 3 hours now. I truly am deliriously happy and excited for her, despite the other feelings I have I don't quite understand. Congratulations, Katie. I love you and always will! : ) Current Mood: unsettled Current Music: Jason Wade -- You Belong to Me (Comment on this)
2:14 pm	Holy update It's been wayyy too long since I've posted. Hopefully the fact that midterms and spring break were recent at least partially excuses that. The weekend before midterms began was crazy. I was all over the place.... started with Chris at Caleb's hitting Jager bombs, then went to 207 where I think we had creek water (this is almost a month ago now so I may have my parties confused). Then I was at the bar for a bit, and then ran into Dom and some friends of his near the apartments. Peewee and I hung out with them after that. Dom's friends were kinda cool. 2 freshman guys from Purdue, and 1 high school girl from Roncalli, where they're all from. One of the guys was really cool, one of them was really just an annoying punk. Peewee and I told him off eventually because he wouldn't shut up about how much better Purdue was in every little way than SJC. Finally we were like, "It's fine if you don't like it here or you think you have it better or whatever, but you're a guest in our home and you're being disrespectful and you're not going to be welcome here again unless you chill out." We weren't assholes about it, and it was actually kinda funny to everyone else but this kid, since he was called out so hard. I drank possibly more than I've ever drank in one night that night, and eventually ended up crashing in the lounge. One of the Purdue guys crashed on my (Egan's) loveseat, and the other crashed in Nick's bed in Dom's room. The girl passed out in the lounge so I decided to stay in there since a random high school girl lying around the lounge of a guy's dorm didn't seem like the best idea. All in all it was a fun night. Midterms were a blur. I don't think they were bad or hard, I just didn't care.... I would literally show up in class not knowing if I had a midterm to take or not. Whatever. I'm almost done. I wrote a long core paper for Watkins, we'll see how it turned out. Dean Keller did the most offensive, ridiculous thing I can imagine Thursday before Break started. He miscounted the number of new chairs and sofas in Halleck, thinking one was missing. So he authorized his staff to enter every single student room on campus, without warning or notice, to look for a couch that was supposedly missing. He later realized he had miscounted, and sent an email apology to everyone. His staff were rude and disrespectful to students while conducting their gestapo search, though... not to mention dishonest. They told some people they were looking for fire hazards, which was an all-out lie. They woke people up, walked in on people naked, and arbitrarily confiscated contraband. They took some peoples' booze and candles, but not others. Keller's email said nobody would get punished for anything that may have been found, but lots of personal property was still destroyed that can't be recovered. I've written a petition (with help) in protest of his behavior on the grounds that it violates our right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, and several students are working on organizing a walkout where we get as many students as possible to skip classes one day and email their professors to tell them they're making a statement in protest of Keller's administration. I feel like I'm the one to make the call on whether it happens or not, which is a really weighty decision. I don't know for sure what I'll do yet, but I have a good idea. Going with Habitat for Humanity to Austin, TX for Spring Break was far better than I expected it to be. I really wasn't excited about going at the outset since I felt I was going because I had to ($200 Habitat trip is cheaper than $300 plane tickets to Boise) and none of my closest friends were going. But it worked out really well. The van ride wasn't too bad, and my cell phone with Internet access was a lifesaver -- I still got IMs and email all week. We got to spend one afternoon "deconstructing" a house, salvaging what parts we could (cabinets, shutters, doors, appliances, etc) and destroying/removing what parts we couldn't. It's a trip to see an unfurnished but complete room turn into nothing more than studs and rafters in a few short hours. We took out walls, ceiling, carpet, pretty much everything. We gutted a lot of this house really quickly, and it was a hell of a lot of fun. The rest of the week our work was on building a house. Mostly I worked at siding the house, using cement fiber siding instead of the vinyl siding most H4H affiliates use. The stuff was kinda fragile and awkward, but we definitely got the hang of it by the end of the week. Sarah Bozenda, Shenley, Jim Gratner and I worked together the whole time, calling ourselves "Red Team Siding". There were more inside jokes on this trip I think than on all other Habitat trips I've been on combined. It was awesome. Even now after we've been back a week, I can run into any of them and say a word or make a face and we'll crack up laughing. Lotsa fun. The weather was gorgeous while we were there -- 75ish every day, and sunny all but one day. I got some sun, but not as much as I would have liked. S'all good. We went to San Antonio and the Alamo one day; I thought it was pretty anti-climactic. I drank way more on this Habitat trip than I expected. Shen and Jim ran interference for me to get a couple bottles of cheap wine the Sunday we got there, and one day when Fred and Sally went to the grocery store after work, Shen and I walked half a mile to a Chevron to get Boones Farm and beer. Thursday night we all went to UT to bowl with members of the UT Habitat chapter, and that was a lot of fun. We had started drinking discretely before we left, so Jim, Shen, Sarah and I were more than a little drunk when we got there. Drunken bowling is perhaps one of the most amusing pastimes created by man. The UT Habitat people were cool, though I didn't spend a whole lot of time with most of them. But two of them, Jennie and Jasmine, came out with us the next night on 6th Street to party. That was a blast -- there was live music everywhere, and cheap beer everywhere, and girls everywhere. It was like Bourbon Street, but mellow and not as gaudy. I really dug it. A buncha people went back in the van at midnight, but those of us more hardcore stayed out later dancing at a club called Exodus. I danced the whole time with Jennie and had a lot of fun. I got a goodnight kiss, which was cool. : ) AmeriCorps Kate who was also out partying with us drove us back at 230ish. It was raining kind of hard and we had to walk quite a ways to her truck, but we were still too drunk to really notice. Everyone from RTS was in the back of her truck (it had a cap), and Kraemer was in the front with Kate. We decided that a capella karaoke at the top of our lungs was in order, and had fun with that for wayyy too long - Kate didn't know how to get back to where we were staying so we were driving for abut 3 years. Poor Jim had to piss so badly I swear he was about to just hang it out the back and let loose. All in all the Austin nightlife was a good time though. The drive back to IN seemed much shorter than the drive down, which is normal. We drank in the hotel room to finish off our booze, and it was another random and unexpected night. Good stuff. The weather in Rensselaer has been depressing -- 35 to 40 degrees all week, and cloudy, while Austin is still 75 and sunny every day. I want to move there. I finished my application for AmeriCorps NCCC Sunday. Shen applied too, deciding at the last minute she might be interested. I'm glad. I won't hear anything for awhile, but I'm optimistic about my chances of being accepted. I've been talking to Jennie online almost every day. She's a lot of fun, and we have a lot in common as far as personal tastes, hobbies, and philosophies. Good stuff. I wish that we lived closer so that we could interact more in person, but I can't complain because even just talking on IM is very enjoyable for me. I'm trying to get into seriously running again. Yesterday was the 5th day in a row, 4 days of 3K with a day of about 6K in the middle. My pace is not anything like it was, but even in the few days I've been running again I'm noticing improvement. My lungs and calves are still in good shape from running last year, but my quads and hams definitely aren't. They'll get there. Peter's discussion class has been really interesting this week. We spent both classes just discussing the question "When should the US intervene economically, militarily, or otherwise, in the affairs of other nations?" It makes me really interested in political science and history, because it's such a simple-sounding question that has nothing remotely resembling a simple answer. I actually want to try to write an essay with that as the prompt, just for fun/education. I think it would help me figure out exactly how I feel about it, since I'm having a lot of difficulty putting a specific answer to it. Thanks, Peter. : ) Other than that, classes still suck. A particularly apt away message I had up this week says it as best I think I can: "Academic masturbation. Err, I mean class..." Last night was a really random night. I was in the computer center til 10ish doing asterisk stuff, then ran and showered. Tony and I were supposed to go to 207, but he ended up going to Noll instead. I went to 207 and Szynal and Jen were there, and Peaches and Betsy. I didn't feel like a total third wheel until Peaches and Betsy left. I took off shortly after that for the bar. I had been told lotsa people were there, and that wasn't really true. There were maybe 15 people there, so it wasn't totally dead, but it definitely wasn't a 'busy' Friday night. I talked to Sarah Wells for a while, and Money. Sandra Wood was there with her mom (who was a fucking riot all night long), and Brandy Herriott. Somehow someone (I think Money?) had the idea that we should play spin the bottle, so we did. It didn't get nearly as graphic as it could have, but it was still interesting. : ) I can honestly say I never thought I'd play spin the bottle in a bar. Whatever works. After the bar closed we went back to 207 to continue partying. Sandra's mom was so funny.... she was really drunk and said random, off-color things. She would kinda try to seem like a hardass, but she really was just fun, and out to have a good time. I really enjoyed hanging out with that group, I feel I've missed out by not doing so sooner. My face hurts from laughing so much. After 207 we went to Halas and stayed there for a really long time. It ended up being a really late night, but definitely a memorable and enjoyable one. I got a random email from high school friend Janey today. She sent me a compilation CD this week that has absolutely nothing I've ever heard of on it -- I love it. Back in the day she used to constantly be exposing me to new music. I miss that. Now I'm going to try to write all the papers I have left to do for the rest of the year... if I get motivated (yeah right) I could potentially finish them all this weekend. We'll see how that goes... Current Mood: drained Current Music: Bob Schneider -- Big Blue Sea (2 Comments |Comment on this)