And so we start another week

Heh... first of all, someone brought this to my attention a few minutes ago: Princeton limits grade inflation. Sorry Thomas, only 35% of Princeton students can get A's now.

Now that I've made Thomas send his chair back through his wall, I can't remember what I was going to post about. If anyone has any more links for me, I'm going to update them again as soon as I get around to it.

Haha

Not too bad of a day for the first day back, just a bit full and long. Guess I have another day just like today on Thursday, but I get a bit of a break tomorrow besides a haircut and the E.C. movie night for Comp Gov.

Looks like we had good timing on the skiing: Mount Hood Meadows CLOSED. Apparently all the warm rain they've been getting up there has caused them to lose a few feet of snow, and when they only had 3-5 feet to begin with... yuck. I hope we have another late winter after we're done with these 65 degree days, otherwise that's it for the ski season.

The cold medication just hit me, so now its time for some sleep

Happy MLK Day

Happy MLK weekend... or Jefferson Davis weekend for all you down in Alabama. Yeah, apparently they celebrated Jefferson Davis Day this past Saturday... doesn't really seem to fit the whole 'racial acceptance with a side of socialism' advocated by the late Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (Wow, I bet he got tired of writing all that out!)

So as Xar has already mentioned in my tagboard, the snow did indeed suck. Actually, there were some good parts and bad parts about the ski trip today. First, despite being 31 degrees and icy in Troutdale on our drive up, it was 45 degrees and raining at the mountain. The nice warm breeze at the base turned into a cold foggy wind at the top of the higher lifts, so we stayed in the sheltered runs most of the time. I'd never been able to see the doors to the base lodge from the parking lot, there's usually more than two feet of snow plowed up in the middle. Most of the runs had trees, rocks, grass and mud in places, but despite all this we still had fun. Won't be going back until unless they get more snow, but it was fun. Went up with my family, along with Kara and Kelsey, saw a few other skyview people up there throughout the day.

So now its time for another week, at least this one is only four days long. Tuesday and Thursday I work at Jefferson and have basketball games with Jazz band, Wednesday I have that e.c. movie night with Powers, I want to see him go crazy when people start talking again. Speaking of which, remind me not to sit by Kevin/Adrian/Greg for that, I could probably use the extra points.

Icy suckage

Bah... this freezing rain stuff sucks. From now on, all percipitation at freezing should be snow, and anything above freezing should be rain, no more of this 'wintery mix' stuff. I'm now stuck at home because the truck and roads are encased in ice. Just hope it clears off enough and weather is good for skiing on Monday. Not too upset about winter being postponed, seems just like last year without the foot of snow, but just the feeling of getting tired of family (my brother) after being stuck with them (him) for a long time (a day). I felt like posting so you all know I'm still alive, but now I can't remember what I was going to say, so maybe I'll put something up later. Time for a movie or something of that sort... enjoy the ice.

Trojans kick ass

So USC is just killing OU (sorry Goose)... I'll have the score by the end of this post. Other than some great playing by USC and some rather poor playing by OU there was a rather terrible halftime show; it was so bad that I think I'll dedicate the rest of my post to ridiculing it.

Couldn't the NCAA Championships get a few better performers? Ashlee Simpson, some no-name country singer and Kelly Clarkston... yawn. This is football, people! Judging by the small chorus of 'BOO' from the crowd after the initial announcement, I'm not alone when I say that the selection of 'performers' was almost absolutely talentless.

I hope whoever was in charge of the audio has already been fired. After attempting to start with a dead mic (there's a reason for sound checks) a number of sound techs were seen running around the stage like little mice... a new mic was produced, apparently of inferior quality to my $12.99 Fred Meyer microphone I use for recording, because the sound quality was terrible. There was obviously no monitor available since the performers kept looking confused and tapping their earpieces.

At least they weren't lip syncing... oh wait... the audio still didn't match up with the video. Ouch. Ashlee Simpson's scratchy vocals on 'you make me wanna [puke]' were the perfect ending to the worst show in history. I don't think I can put it in more elegant words than Goose: For that brief moment, OU and USC fans set the night's rivalry aside and joined hand in agreeing that every performer on that stage just fuckin' sucked ass. No crowd has ever BOOed a halftime show with such conviction.

Well, it ended 55-19... looks like I'll be wearing some cardinal and gold tomorrow.

not such a monday

Well, for the first day back to school, today wasn't really as bad as I expected. This wonderfully cold weather isn't so wonderful at 6:15 when I get to scrape ice off the car and pry the doors open. Bah. Maybe I'll find some excuse to take my mom's car, since it's relatively warm in the garage. Watching the sun rise in first period was interesting, it's been a long time since I've been awake to see a sunrise, but this one would have been almost worth it had I not been stuck in the back of the Art History class (nothing against the class, but maybe not the best thing to have first period... so easy to just zone out with the big windows behind me and the frequent dark slide presentations.)

Did some cool lab in physics, english was its usual mix of random comments and GH humor. Lunch was fun, and the afternoon just kinda flew by with my typical study period in comp. gov... again, nothing against Powers, but I've come to rely on that class to get a lot of my other work done. For example, after fifth period I had no homework for tonight.

Its amazing how great just an hour of good hard exercise feels. I went on a long bike ride down to Frenchmans' Bar and back from my house, very nice now that they have the roads fixed up and the bike lanes mostly cleared of construction stuff and glass. Great views of the mountains, its always a nice time to think. Went out this evening to look at the stars, great views even if it is a bit cold out there. Wouldn't mind some snow, especially since I don't really have to make it up this year, but I'm not really expecting much of anything.

Well, thats all for now, I'm running low on post material I want to share at the moment. Oh, here's a music reccomendation: the new Green Day album, American Idiot. Especially Boulevard of Broken Dreams, theres some good writing on there, well worth actually paying for like I did.

Happy New Years!

Happy New Years everyone, welcome to 2005. I hope everyone had a safe and fun New Years celebration.

It's hard to think that Christmas break is almost over, it seems like it has been way too short this year. Oh well, at least I feel like I made the most of it, spending time with people I care about. I got to do a bit of everything: see old friends and spend some time with Kara, hang out with the guys and spend time with family. I'd like to say Happy Birthday to Goose (New Year's Eve) and anyone else who happens to have a birthday around here, congratulations: you're now one year closer to dying. Ok, so I stole that off a card Anna made for my last year, its not like any of your witty comments are completely original on your blogs either.

I put up a few new pictures in the Pictures link at the top of the page, and there's now a recording of our fall show online here. I had a few requests to pass that on to people, so consider it done. Also, if anyone would like to get Burke to give me a copy of those pictures he took during the long note, I'll put those up there too. If anyone has any other suggestions of things they'd like to see up there, let me know. I can put up pretty much anything, as long as it doesn't violate copyright. I may not care about the RIAA and downloading music, but I don't really want to get my dad kicked off his webserver.

Well, since it's the new year, I guess I should conform to tradition and make myself a few New Year's resolutions:

1. Graduate from High School and go on to College
   
2. Keep active and in shape, don't gain the 'freshman 15'
3. Maintain a good balance between social time and study time
4. Continue to be positive
5. Watch myself around alcohol, more of a problem when I start college
6. Enjoy 2005

That should be a good start, some of those will be easier than others. Graduation isn't something I'm worried about, and so far I haven't had a problem with any of the other elements of the resolutions.... but I have to look ahead a year and try to picture myself in college. Actually, as fun as High School has been, and parts of it do still continue to be fun and interesting, I know I'll be ready to move on when the time comes.

Well it's now 3 AM and I should start getting re-adjusted to a normal, non-nocturnal sleeping pattern before early morning jazz band Monday. Yuck. Anyone else want to just skip it for a week?

Once again, Happy New Years and welcome to 2005.