Fowrhth

In case you missed it, the United States of America became an even older biddy than she was previously. 233 years have made this country fat and ugly. On Saturday, we decided to shoot fireworks in an attempt to whip up the energy to motivate America to get up, get dressed, and go look for a job.

Anyway I'll stop with that now. I went to Duluth for Independence Day. My friend Emily was in town, so she and roomie Kat joined me and Tara for a day at my parent's house. My dad cooked a wonderful smoked pork roast. Unfortunately, due to my newly discovered gluten allergy,** I am unable to eat barbecue sauce. So, ma decided we needed to run to the COOP (or as she says, "KWAP") to find some gluten free sauce. Half an hour later, we walked out with Peanut Butter Panda Puffs, Smorables, Cherry Cream Blue Sky, Frozen Gluten Free Flax Bread, a Lemon Angel Pie (imagine a lemon meringue pie with a meringue crust)... and no barbecue sauce. We got back to the house and drew aquatic animals on the driveway. Emily later drew a dragon. It's kind of her thing.

Duluth has amazing fun things to do on the fourth, including "Fourth Fest." This year, complete with a crappy traveling carnival. We ventured downtown and purchased copious amounts of candy and fried deliciousness (which I could not eat) and cat rubber ducks. Upon returning home, Destiny and Joe had arrived and it was time for food. I lit a candle for the year anniversary of my grandfather's death while we sat outside and watched Destiny play in a sled full of sand ("It's like a mobile sandbox" my mom exclaimed. "It's like sand from my trunk put into a sled you stole from me the year after I bought it" I corrected her. "Oh, you didn't need it anyway.")

Instead of watching the fireworks at the 'rents place, Em, Kat, Tara, Alyssa and I joined Alyssa's friends on the beach of Wisconsin Point. This is the stinky brother of Minnesota Point, more commonly known as Park Point in Duluth. You drive past a landfill on the way to the beach. Nothing can be more pleasant than that. Complete with a fire and a keg, we watched Duluth's apparent "SECOND MOST EXPENSIVE IN THE COUNTRY***" fireworks display. It wasn't very thrilling. The mortars shot above our heads by the fellow beach patrons were more exciting and better to watch.

We headed back to Minneapolis the following morning. No stay in Duluth is too short.

(**not yet tested by a medical professional)
(***as stated by my father, not verified at this point)

Weekend Bluez

I had another amazingly busy weekend. After a wonderful late night on Thursday (complete with Star Wars role play, X-Men Origins: Wolverine showing, and White Castle) I got up early to work on a project on Friday. After my meeting, Moose and I decided to go adventuring. He needed a shelf for his (not) broken projector and a cable for his xbox. I needed an excuse to avoid my homework. We decided to also try dinner at a place where you eat with your hands!! We ended up going to radio shack, the fabric store, axman, goodwill, menards, and pizza luce (not the original intended place of eating). We purchased: candy, airsoft guns, amazing posters, fabric for curtains, a couch, a coffee table, a shelf, a fan, a level, pizza, salad, and a brownie sundae. So... I now have an airsoft gun, a couch and a coffee table in my room. Also, I have an awesome poster of a man singing or yelling or something in my dining room. Perhaps I'll post pictures later.

After late night movies, I headed home at about 4am. I found that Mat and Tara were still up and wanted to go to Al's Breakfast. 6am corned beef hash. 7am bed. Ouch.

Saturday turned out to be equally enjoyable. During the day, Tara painted me up like a whore. That night, we had some chill blacklight fun in the basement and watched Howl's Moving Castle. Oh yeah, and I shot Tara in the neck with the airsoft gun and had to buy pizza pizza....

Sunday was Flight of the Conchords. In their amazingly short concert, they managed to make the obnoxious girl behind me laugh like a hyena. Overall: Amazing.

Upon coming home from FOTC, I realized I had again squandered my entire weekend. Lack of sleep and lack of productivity threw me into a funk. One more week of classes... One week of finals.... Everything due and done the 14th and 15th.

If I'm lucky, I'll be able to get my stuff done in the next 10 days. Don't look for me online or in video games. Hopefully I also won't go out and buy couches and airsoft guns. Glad I got that out of my system.... I'd so go do it again.

Late-night Campus Walkin'

I walked through campus last night by myself at 1am. Generally, there are people out and about. On a Tuesday night at 1am during the second-to-last week before finals, it was deserted.

I walked in the glow of familiar lights, past buildings I have never explored completely, on sidewalks with cracks and bumps my soles know like friends... I've spent all of my time on this campus for five years. I came here a single, physically ill 18 year old. I'm still here as a single 23 year old with more aches and ailments to list, many of them seemingly in my mind.

The campus has changed significantly in five years. Most recently, a building disappeared! The jolly, cracked-paint, broken-windowed exterior of the science classroom building has been replaced by a large gaping hole. I'm not entirely sure what they're building.... The sidewalk that connected directly to the top story of that ancient temporary place of learning has been sawed off and a simple chain-link fence protects the passers by from the gaping hole of the construction site. I stood there last night for a good 15 minutes...Staring at the abyss where my favorite building once stood.

It wasn't a fancy building, but it had comfortable classrooms deep underground. They had ancient chemistry posters on the walls. The Science Classroom Building was built in 1940 and was never meant to be permanent... it made it all the way to 2009. The University is generally a temporary place for its residents. People spend 4, 5, sometimes 8 or 9 years here, but never much more. Teachers stay longer, but they too come and go. People pass through the halls of Walter and Coffman... they call this place home. They pay little attention to the place that grows and evolves around them. They walk through Northrop for what is possibly the first time since the first day of classes on the night they receive their diploma (holder). Then they leave. They rarely come back. 60,000 students here at the University, all destined to leave.

Colleges are like home towns. People have fond memories here... stories to tell, you name it. But if there aren't relatives or reunions pulling them back, there is no reason to let the idyllic vision in your head become tainted. Polish it. Make it sparkle.

I decided to stay here. Year 5 ticked off on the prison wall in my head. I love Minneapolis, and I love the university. Soon this place will no longer be my home. Will I leave and let my memories flourish? Will I stay and let things like the destruction of the Science Classroom Building taint the map in my mind?

I walked the rest of the way home. Alone... looking for the stars overhead. There weren't any.

Crazy Weekend / Introspection

I think I just had one of the most amazing weekends of my life.

Star Wars role play, a party in Glencoe, meeting my new neighbors, and of course Andrew Bird *swoons*. Jam-packed action, mostly involving my good friend Altaris. We stayed up until 3 or 4 in the morning every night and slept until 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Lazy AND jam-packed. Hard to beat.

Andrew Bird rocked my socks and my brain and my heart and pretty much melted all of my circuits for the two hours proceeding his concert. Not only were there calm melodies found on the CDs, but Andrew Bird and his now four-piece band (including himself) rocked out on several numbers. Many of his songs should only be listened to live. The sheer wall of sound produced by his band is amazing. Also, when the spinny speaker thingy (I may insert the name later if I can remember of it) is a great end to several songs. The sound is thrown out into the venue and you can feel its waves wash over you. *sigh*

Unfortunately, my schedule became skewed by all of the awesome. I couldn't fall asleep last night and I had to get up at 9:30 in order to get a good start on my day. Makes me think that I need to start going to bed early and getting into the lab early.

As much as I enjoy staying up late and talking to my friends, the fact of the matter is I get little work done. It was advantageous to me to stay up late when Tara and I were sharing an apartment, but now that I have my own room I have no reason to be up late. Granted, when I stayed up late with Tara and developed these bad habits of mine, I didn't have friends that were up until 4am and were willing to talk to me.

Look for me online less. Watch for me working more. Talk to me and hopefully find that I'll have a better outlook on my situation.

Gotta get this paper done by Thursday.

LAN PARTY WEEKEND

It is officially Spring Break. I have approximately 10 days without class. I am spending three of them at a LAN party and the rest of the time at my parents house, keeping a watchful eye on my father. It will be an interesting week.

First off, I am at a REAL LAN PARTY right now. I've been here since about 1pm and it is now 7:45 am the next morning... I haven't slept and I don't know if I will for a while. There are about 50 people here in a stinky smelly basement... huge CRT monitors on long tables facing blue-painted concrete walls. Almost everyone that is still up is playing World of Warcraft. So far, we have played WoW, Warcraft 3, and Left 4 Dead. It has been an interesting experience so far it has been pretty fun. I'm getting very tired. However, there are only so many stinky smelly couches in this stinky smelly basement. At this particular instant in time, all of the couches are taken by stinky smelly sleeping nerds. I'd sleep on the floor but it is dirty and stinky/smelly.

I'm thinking about replacing my CPU fan yet again. Earlier, whilst running WoW, my computer topped out at about 80 degrees celcius. This problem was fixed by removing my new power supply from the case and setting it on top of the computer. Right now, with no games running, I'm at 46 degrees celcius. *sigh* I think it's time to invest in a new case instead of worrying about it. When I spend time in Duluth with my father, I will put it in a new case. I believe that I also need to help my father install a video card.

I have a feeling this blog entry will become rather long and rambling... so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. Perhaps I'll write another post later today. But, yes, LAN parties are alright.

Late-night Minneapolis in February

Excuse the shaky image... my camera takes horrible night shots. The picture above is from the back door of my apartment. The new 35W bridge is in this picture. Instead of the normal royal blue, the bridge is a beautiful amethyst purple (Perhaps for the first day of February?). Behind that is the Minneapolis skyline. I spend time staring at this view almost every night.

Minneapolis is an interesting place. It has been my home for four years. Hopefully I will post some stories about Minneapolis later.