The Great Holiday Blizzard of 2006

Yesterday was quite an exciting end to the semester for me! At first I was pretty bummed out about having to get up at 6 for my 7:30 final but that ended up being the only reason I made it home yesterday! As I was getting ready I noticed it had started snowing outside, maybe an inch or so, with just more than what I would call flurries coming down. But just out of curiosity I checked the weather... At the time they were forecasting 12-16 inches for the Boulder area and we were under a Winter Storm Warning! Before I could leave for my exam they cancelled the Winter Storm Warning and issued a Blizzard Warning and a new estimate of 16-24 inches in its place!

I took my test as quickly as I could and managed to finish at about 9:15. By that time there was a good 3 or 4 inches on the ground and the storm was definitely intensifying! So I hurried back to our apartment to tell Erika we should scrap our idea of selling our books back and just pack up and leave as soon as possible.

We headed out on Highway 36 at about 10:15 under gusting winds with about 1/4 to 1/8 mile visiblity and managed to go about 25 or 30 miles an hour for the first leg of the journey. We passed several accidents mostly just people who had slid off the road in some way, but we did pass a few collisions as well. When we stopped for gas in Broomfield off of Wadsworth things began to get interesting! While 36 was managable the side roads were a nightmare. What was once a three lane road had been reduced to about a lane and a half of very slippery road with horrible visibility. I very nearly got stuck in the parking lot of the Shell station, but luckly my trusty 91 Honda was up to the challenge and we headed back to 36. Unfortunately a large red Chevrolet driven by one of those "I drive a truck and therefore I am a driving god amongst mere mortals and can drive through anything" types had managed to get himself stuck on the eastbound on-ramp for 36. After about 5 minutes he was able to rock himself out and Erika and I were able to follow and make our way back on the highway.

The journey home was the most stressful 3 1/2 hour 50 mile stretch of road I have ever driven. I was nearly rear ended several times, and became an expert in controlling fish tails by the time we were passing Denver on I-25. I have never been more frightened of semi trucks as I was when I wasn't entirely sure if I would be able to maintain my lane or that the trucks would maintain thiers. When passing through downtown, the visibility was so poor as to not be able to see Invesco Field from I-25, which lies a mere few hundred feet from the road!

Aparently we may have been some of the last people to successfully make it through Highway 36 as by early afternoon, hundreds of motorists were stranded and the Colorado National Guard was mobilized to rescue stranded motorists on the highway!

I finally made slid onto Mercury Drive and home at just past a quarter to 2 in the afternoon and settled in for the big one!


Our snow measuring system! 6 Cans by 8pm!


My car buried in the twilight


Our house with the mirror of my car just visible

Rocky maneuvering down the path to the hot tub


Our only good snow shovel moments before it broke under pressure of some guy leaning on it


I decided to guard my car in case someone decided to use the chaos of the storm to try to steal it


Our house viewed from the backyard


The deck


Success! We finally escaped!


The remnants of the Safeway parking lot


The vast selection of milk available at Safeway


The all mighty red hand warns people not to walk into the snow drift


These folks didn't quite make it to King Soopers


We decided we needed some reason to brave the roads go to King Soopers... We settled on $1.00 worth of Christmas Tree Icicles.

We wound up with 2 feet of snow in Denver and most of the greater metro area and 3 feet in Boulder and the front range!

People have begun digging out and they skies are finally clear! DIA should re open tomorrow at noon and they have finally lifed the state of emergency. Hopefully they'll be able to get all the stranded folks home soon! We are cozy in our house with a warm fire roaring and I'm preparing to head out to the hot tub! I'm just lucky I made it!

Happy First Day of Winter!

I Got in a Fight With a Toyota... And Won!

This tale is about the continuation of the epic struggle between cars and cyclists in Boulder, and how I made a bold daylight strike against a car!

Last Friday at about 11 in the morning I was on my way back from my morning set of classes for lunch. My apartment lies at the bottom of a steeply inclined road that would not look out of place in San Francisco. So naturally bikers riding down said hill usually coast with reckless abandon and soon begin passing cars that follow the speed limit of 30. Such was the case for me that Friday morning. The road that actually acesses my apartment, Taft Drive, has a sort of backwards S turn off of the steep road onto it. I made the first turn to the right just fine and went to make my immediate turn left. Unfortunately my kickstand decided that moment was an opportune time to deploy and as a result of a loose bolt the kickstand was down as I tried to lean to my left and then jammed into the street and flung me to my right... Into a Toyota.

-->[if gte vml 1]> -->[if !vml]--> -->[endif]-->
The car door made a rather accurate impression of my right shoulder
-->[if gte vml 1]> -->[if !vml]--> -->[endif]-->
The mirror that finally stopped me and actually the only damage I was aware of causing immediately after the accident. The note I left said "I nicked your mirror"

-->[if gte vml 1]> -->[if !vml]--> -->[endif]-->
Fortunately I only have a bruised every muscle in my shoulder and should be in the sling for only 2 weeks! Believe it or not my shoulder was the only thing of mine that was damaged, my bike looks the same as it did before and I didn't even actually land on the asphalt so I didn't even have any cuts other than a few from the mirror!

See what kind of hitting you could have had on your defence CU Hockey?

New Apartment! (Well Technically I've Lived Here 3 Weeks)

The new school year at Boulder has brought a new place to live for me! I'm currently living an apartment complex that is about a block and half from campus called University Village. I share with three roomates, but we each have a private room and bathroom! Here's a virtual tour!


The living room as seen after entering the door


The kitchen with tons of cabinent space, a dishwasher, full refrigerator, microwave, and four element oven!


The entertainment setup in the living room, which has since been moved to the right into the corner facing out. Note the white surround sound speakers provided by Grandpa Mitchell!


The view out the balcony looking into the North West


The view out the balcony to the South West


The view straight out the balcony. These tennis courts aren't ours but are reported to be lax on no student use enforcement during non-peak hours


The balcony with two provided plastic lawn chairs and a plastic table. Have since added a blue hanging wind spinny thingy.


My bathroom, there are three like this and one person has a full bathroom with a shower stall. Sink much less yellow than it appears! Toilet is also less blue... Person in the mirror is much more super hero like than would appear Everythings all weird in this picture...


My sleeping accomodations with four deep drawers for storage underneath. Added NASA approved foam pad for added comfort.


My computer setup, it has a hideaway keyboard drawer for extra desk space! Note red Xtreme gulp 52 oz mug used exclusively for water ;)


It requires only a small leap to get from homework to bed...

So far I've really been enjoying living here and if all goes well it'll be my home for the next 3 years!

What I Did for $3 and how Fear Got the Best of Me

A few weeks back I finally got together a camping trip to go up to the infamous Vail spot. I say infamous because it is the same campsite I attempted to lead 14 other people to at the start of the summer only to have the road closed... Whoops....

Anyway after a flurry of cancellations and people wondering how I could have enough free time to go camping in late July with school just on the horizon a hearty group of four made their way up to Piney River.

Since I was driving in my dad's borrowed Chevy Trailblazer, I didn't feel I could partake in the wild rally racing style of Connor and Nathan in Connor's car, so Andrew and I took our time, several times falling far enough behind that the other car had to wait for us to catch up. This did lead to one amusing moment where they were waiting for us to catch up to them at a one car wide bridge and chose to sit on the middle of the bridge and pretend to be gawking at the scenery. The amusing thing was that they missed the burly mountain man in his F-250 pick-up truck who was waiting to cross the bridge from the other direction. A murderous stare later we were across the bridge.

It wasn't long before we had the campsite established and took a hike down to Piney Lake. The lake sits about 2 or 3 miles from the campsite. However as I learned in this situation if ever you are in doubt of the distance you must cover on foot, always say that your destination lies about a mile away. That's far enough to let people know they have some ground to cover, but close enough to avoid crushing their will to continue on. Strangely enough no one seems to mind if you say "It's about a mile from here" every 5 minutes or so. We eventually made our way to the lake.

Piney lake is a picturesque secret lying behind the ridges of the North side of I-70 at Vail. A rocky tower of a mountain provides the backdrop to the lake itself which has a small ranch that provides canoe rentals, lodging, and food, at one end, and forest at all the others. We decided that we would come back the next day and rent a canoe.

That night I realized how college has turned me into quite a desperate man when it comes to ways to make a quick buck or two. You see the four of us were sitting around the campfire, eating marshmallows, with Connor and Nathan for some odd reason finding it amusing to bite small chunks of marshmallow off and spit them across the fire. As the fun dwindled down, I began to collect the small morsels of marshmallow on a stick preparing to throw them away so as not to attract fierce marshmallow eating creatures during the night. After I had gathered them all up, a challenge was issued. Connor offered me $1 to eat everything on the stick, including the bits of dirt and pine needles stuck to the marshmallows, and quickly Nathan and Andrew jumped in on the action. However I would be allowed to roast the concoction in the fire first. Now $3 may not sound like much, and I'll admit that it isn't, but that's a gallon of gas, a Dairy Queen Blizzard, or a half dozen Krispy Kreams! So of course, I proceeded to roast the collection of objects on my skewer and eat them to the cheers of my friends. Aside from a few crunchy things I assume were small rocks the marshmallows tasted just fine. However it was a few moments later that I realized that pine needles are not intended for any sort of consumption. They are extremely difficult to swallow and nearly impossible to bite into pieces. After struggling with them for a few minutes, I was allowed to spit the remnants out! I'm now $3 the richer and so far other than the odd growths in my mouth seem to be none the worse!

The next day we made our way back to Piney Lake to rent a canoe. The four of us fit in a canoe built for two, but expanded to four by adding little wooden folding chairs and set out across the lake. I am amazed we did not tip over, we came very close several times. We made our way to the other side of the lake before beaching ourselves and swimming in the water which must've been at least 38 or 39 degrees. We then proceeded to take the canoe to the other side of the lake before crossing the rock boundary of the lake and the river. Apparently you aren't supposed to take the canoe out of the lake, but we figured that if they didn't want their canoe taken down the river they should have put signs at the mouth. Unfortunately we only made it about 200 feet or so before we hit a beaver dam and decided that our hour long rental was probably up... But not before we made one last run across the lake and threw the seaweed like plants growing in the shallow areas of the lake at each other until we were coated...

It was that night that one of the most incredible creations of sport took place. Stumbling upon two large dead trees that had fallen across each other so that one provided a pivot point for the other to swing around like a see-saw, we created a charming game known as DEATH LOG! DEATH LOG is played by having one person shake the log around as other attempt to cross it all the while everyone chants DEATH LOG DEATH LOG DEATH LOG!!! I am sure we caused many people to pack up and leave the canyon that night...

On the way out on our last day, Connor took us to a spot in Eagle where you can jump off of a 15 foot cliff into the Colorado river. After we had all jumped off a few times, I went for what was to be my fourth jump. However the cliff we were jumping off of slopes down at an incline and is covered with small pebbles and very dry soil. I slid as I approached the edge and tried to stop! My feet actually slid off the edge and I wound up in a sitting position with the point of the cliff a few inches from an area I would prefer not to ever come into contact with rocks. It spooked me so badly that it took about 20 minutes for the others to convince me I wasn't going to die if I jumped off again...

Rafting the Arkansas

Last weekend marked perhaps the most adventurous of my summer thus far. My parents, a car load of four friends, and I made the trek up to Buena Vista, Colorado, home of the Arkansas Valley Adventures rafting company for an attempt at a full day of Class 3 rapids!

Since the trip happened kind of last minute, I was actually at Water World (Colorado's water amusement park) with the same group of friends I ended up rafting with when I heard about the trip! As such we didn't leave the city until about 8pm for a 2 1/2 hour long drive! Most of the last 45 miles or so of the journey felt as though I was driving on a long winding road in a sea of blackness through what we unanimously voted would be the creepiest pitch black road to break down on!

The AVA camp is located just outside Granite, Colorado, and has a set of 5 small authentic log cabins. I wish we had been able to get up there earlier because we didn't roll into camp until about 11:30 and everyone was exhausted from Water World and wanted to be fresh in the morning for the rafting! They had a huge firepit with all this pre-cut firewood, but we were only able to enjoy it for about an hour before we were all nodding off and went off to bed.

The next morning we were outfitted in our stylish yellow life vests and plastic helmets and loaded into a converted school bus to be driven to our drop in site. Once there, our guide Steve gave us a quick rundown of the rafting commands he would be using to help us navigate our way down the Arkansas! Basically our commands were:

Forward One - Everyone rows one stroke in the direction that would propel the raft forward

Back One - Everyone rows one stroke in the direction that would propel the raft backward

Left Forward Right Back - Everyone stalls in confusion while trying to quickly remember which side of the raft one is located on and then remember whether your side is supposed to be rowing forward or backwards in an attempt to reorient the facing of the raft

Left Back Right Forward - Same as above only flip flopped

Once we had established how we would be attempting to control the raft, our intrepid crew hopped aboard!

The first 4 or so miles of the river were very calm and quiet, giving us time to figure out the rowing, and get acquainted with Steve. As it turned out he was a 19 year old Dallas, Texas native who had never guided a raft with 8 passengers before. He informed us that the extra weight would equate to extra speed, but left it to us to ponder what that might mean for our chances of survival.

The first bits of white water we encountered were nothing spectacular to a seasoned rafter, but were great fun for our inexperienced crew! It wasn't long before we were happily whooping and shouting to the river about our awesomeness as we looked forward to whatever else the river could throw at us!

The main difference between Class 3 and Class 4 rapids is that the Class 3 rapids generally have calm pools and eddies in between each rapid and Class 4 does not. Since we were in the Class 3 variety this gave us plenty of opportunities to dive out of the raft into the 50 degree water to cool off!

After we had shown skill and promise navigating the first sets of rapids we had encountered, our guide suggested we step it up a bit for the next rapid. He queried whether we would like to go over the next rapids standing up, or floating in the water hanging onto the raft. Of course being invulnerable teenagers, we elected to hang from the side of the raft in the water over the next rapid, while my parents and the guide remained in the raft to guide it.

One thing I had forgotten about returned to my mind very quickly as we started going over the rapids while floating in the water... Rapids are caused by ROCKS!!!! Although we had been instructed to float with our feet ahead of us in case of falling overboard I was not expecting the pummeling that ensued as I crashed through the rapids. Luckily for me James and Dan were in front of me and provided a one or two second warning of impending collisions!

We made it through no worse for the weather save for a few bruises to the area where we would be having lunch. We enjoyed PB & J and some chicken Fajitas under the mid 80 degree beautiful Colorado sky before returning to our raft for the second half of our journey.

Emboldened by the first half, we took the second half very aggressively and had an awesome time! We did not loose a single member of our raft even after powering through the Seven Steps, and crashing over the Twin Falls! I'm definitely looking forward to tackling Class 4 or 5 in the near future!

However I did not escape completely unscathed. Unfortunately I had it coming... You see I've often bragged to my friends about the effectiveness of the natural sunscreen for my legs that I've been making over the last 19 years and so I have fallen out of the habit of applying sunscreen to my legs. However I did not account for the fact that my swim trunks would be riding up a bit most of the day from rowing, and as a result, I believe I can now use the top of my left leg as a traffic signal in a pinch! I nearly had to use crutches to walk for the first few days, and after turning purple for a couple days, it has finally begun to fade back to normal skin color! That is not a mistake I will make again!

This ride we ride...

Reader be forewarned, this blog is not the usual glorified 'What I did Today' type of blog. This is just raw thinking that I've been doing that I for some reason wanted to see put into words. In short I'm about to ramble and if you bore easily READ NO FURTHER just click on the incredibly entertaining link at the top of your screen.

Being at a point in my life where so much is changing and yet in the scheme of things is staying pretty much the same I've been contemplating the great mystery of life lately. In my mind I've managed to simplify the way life plays out into four acts.

Act I: Childhood (0-20 years old)
I'm aware that, if as your eyes grazed this title, you realized you ARE 0-20 you most likely reacted with a scoff and a glib remark about how you are not a kid anymore and what could you possibly have in common with a 5 year old and that I must be a complete moron for making the association. But I really do think this is an accurate description. For the majority of our first 20 years of life we spend our time absorbing as much information about the world as we can. From birth where we are simply making heads or tails of our senses and the existance of a world infinitely larger than we thought existed before birth, to learning to speak and move and laugh and play, to entering elementary school to learn basic academics, we spend a great majority of this time just figuring out what exactly the world is anyway. Think about how even with all of our differences that make us unique you can still see the core similarities of people of the same approximate age. This is what people call innocence in children. This process continues into high school, where we struggle to discover and make sense of the world of relationships, love, lust, heart break, sex, drugs, alcohol, deceit, trust, success, and failure. People of this age often refer to the events of this exploration as drama. For many people this time of exploration settles down somewhat for college as they realize they need to focus to make it to their dream job. However there are always the college party animals, thus the reason for extending this stage to 20, as some people need to further still explore how far they can take their bodies, find out what doing a keg stand feels like, or know whether a Chaser pill really works. Now granted some people take this into their twenties further, but in the majority of people the wildness factor begins to die down at this point.

Act II: Adulthood (20-40 years old)
At this point, focus begins to shift from just learning about life to actually going out and living it. It is a blend of the first and third acts where you find questions you haven't answered yet and find you still have enough curiosity to explore the answers. It is also generally in this stage where marriages and families are created. Nothing cries adult responsibility like a baby! It is somewhere in this stage where you will make the transition to adulthood and realize that it's probably no longer appropriate for you to have your buds over for a video game tournament, and that while yes it would be interesting to be worrying about who Christina is dating now, you have a rent payment due next week that means the difference between eviction and another month in your place. There is still substantial change going on in your life until you reach the next stage.

Act III: Middle-Aged (40-60)
By this phase of your life, things begin to slow down quite a bit. You've most likely settled into the career you will retire from and your day to day life will play out with the routine you've developed. While you may still have your curiosities at this point you've learned enough to whet your appetite. You become the teacher to those in the first stage, lending what knowledge and experience you can to satiate their curiosity. Your focus lands on your children if you have them and the number of new experiences you enjoy grows more limited.

Act IV: Seinor Aged (60-80)
In this act comes retirement, and eventually the end of the line. At this point, your curiosity may return, or it may not. You will have your lifetime of experiences and knowledge to either satisfy you or leave you wanting. Your time will either become your greatest friend or your worst enemy. By this time you will have a better idea (I hope) of what life is and whether you met your own standards. And then comes your finale, your dues ex machina, your closing scene...

Obviously, life cannot be cut so dryly into neat chunks and there are, as with all things, exceptions. But by my own definition, I am roughly 1/4 of the way through my life already and how fast that has gone is mind boggling.

The point here is this: Life IS short! While this may be the most brutally beaten of dead horses, it does take some thought to realize how short. So however you know me, whether you are my friend, my family, or someone whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting, what I ask of you is this: Bear no grudges, learn all that you can, squeeze out every drop and hold onto every inch of everyday as best you can!

Because life isn't cut and dried, and you can't know for certain when it

Under the Knife? No I Want to be Holding it!

Time of decision: 12:59

Well not really, but I need to start practicing up on the medical lingo. So after a more or less washout freshman year of college in the Aerospace Department of CU, I have decided that engineering is not for me...

Whether it's the pale skinned, balding professionals of the industry that look as though the last time they saw sunlight was when the camera on their satellite accidentally focused on the sun, or the fact that I find myself wondering how many of the guys working behind the scenes of NASAs latest and greatest projects have rings on their fingers, I want out!

Or it could be the calculus... I despise calculus with the same passion that I despise that it's when you're in a hurry and you've just waited through a red light that you find that you're the one last car that just doesn't have enough time to make it through the yellow, leaving you to wish you'd taken that alternate route you're always wondering about being faster while you wait for the light again. Basically I feel the same way about calculus. I'm always the one getting stuck for a second round at the stop lights, left to wonder if maybe there was a better way to have done it. I've been having this issue with math since high school, but I somehow thought college would be different.

It was when I noticed the type of people that were in my classes I realized it went beyond calculus, I just wasn't the Engineering type. I hate Sudokus and love Biology; blasphemy to any self respecting engineer! I've never enjoyed the "problem solving process" and I'm not all that creative... It was then I began to consider the switch to medicine!

For the last few months I've been thinking about this and the more I've thought about it the more it seems to make since. I've been working with and exposed to doctors fairly frequently since I was 8 years old. I don't dread being around white coats. I exited elementary school having endured more injections via syringe than the average person will experience in several lifetimes. I don't even look away when I'm having blood drawn. So why not medicine?

So I don't know whether the daily marathons of Grey's Anatomy are getting to my head or if it's the fact that there's something manly about being able to say I'm a General Thoracic Surgeon or that it seems cool to possess the ability to turn dull words like heartburn into impressive sounding phrases like gastroesophageal reflux disease, or that I would be able to go through those doors that say 'surgical staff only' without someone shouting to have me removed, but I've decided to set my aim on medical school, with ambitions to become a general surgeon!

I start classes for my new major emphasis, Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology in the fall, which I will use as a Pre-medicine degree to hopefully launch myself into med school in a few years!

With that I leave you this last thought to help you rest easy at night ;) yours truly may one day be the surgeon that operates on you! Now if the foot bone's connected to the leg bone....the heart bone is.......hmmm...........

Who Said Engineers Can't Have Fun?

Today was one of those gorgeous Colorado days where it seems for the day, the world has forgotten about clouds. The sun beamed down from over head on all the people below dressed so that today, CU might as well have been a tropical beach.

It was at approximately 2 in the afternoon that inspiration struck!

2 Fifteen Foot Long Tarps
10 Bottles of Watermelon Scented Shampoo (No Tears Formula)
One Garden Hose for liberal spraying of tarp
And 25-30 Swim Suit Wearing Engineers,

So came to be the creation of a college sized Slip 'N' Slide! After everyone had grown tired of simple diving across the tarps, of course the natural next step would to be to see if it was possible for one to stand on one's feet while sliding on shampoo across a tarp. Once this technique had been attempted and resulted in mastery for some, bruised tailbones for others, the activities progressed to human bowling. I wouldn't advise being a pin in human Slip 'N' Slide Bowling without investing in some sturdy shin guards as well as a cup unless you're feeling bold! Needless to say the Engineering students of CU Boulder will sleep well tonight!

MxPx, A Freaky Dude on Crack, and Hungry, Hungry, Hippos

Tonight myself and two of my dorm mates kicked off Spring Break a day early with a trip to the Gothic Theater for an MxPx concert! Unfortunately one of the warm up bands horrified me. As they were coming on the stage I found my eyes drawn to the shapely jeans of the blond bass player. To my horror as "she" turned around I found myself staring at the very male bass player for the band Transition. Thank you emo guys for yet another awkward moment!

Anyway during the warm up bands I couldn't help but notice a guy in an orange t-shirt and a neck tie who seemed to be prone to music induced seizures. I've seen people get into the music before but this guy was insane. We came to the conclusion that he was either on crack or in need of mental help. While he was standing next to me before MxPx came on stage he put on what I took for an imaginary or invisible watch and proceeded to shout to me "DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS!?!? IT'S TIME TO ROCK!!! He repeated this about four times before violently shaking his head around as he went to grab a water bottle, and then proceeded to gulp it down while giving a devil horns rock on salute with his other hand. I realized that I actually had something in common with the nose pierced, mo-hawk sporting, punk rocker next to me; we were both afraid of and for this orange t-shirt guy. Then suddenly just as he had appeared he sprinted off, and I didn't see him for the rest of the concert.

MxPx was awesome; they sounded great, and even played 5 songs by request from the audience! They are definitely one of the better live bands I've seen!

Upon returning to the dorm, we learned that our friend Ashlyn had been given a Hungry Hungry Hippos game for her birthday. I'm not sure if it was due to the fact that it was 1 in the morning, or that I've discovered I have a strange fetish for brightly colored, plastic, hippopotami but we were thoroughly entertained for at least a half an hour before we all remembered that there is indeed one more day of class before Spring Break!

Leave it to Your Friends...

To cheer you up! :) This weekend I got to spend a lot of time with my friends and my parents which did wonders to relax me! Friday night was fun because Dan and Nathan came up and hung out with us. I finally set the record straight with Erika playing hearts. The score of a game I actually started the beginning was Shane in first place with 13, Nathan in 2nd with 30, Dan in 3rd with 31, and Erika... with a grand total of 82! We didn't have time to finish the game because of drop in hockey but I proved my "natural talent" at cards, the highlight being when I shot the moon with everyone knowing I was planning to do so at the beginning of the round!

However my trash talking was met with practical jokes. While I was playing hockey, Erika and Cha Cha proceeded to orient everything in my room upside down, which took quite some time to correct :)

Then while I was taking a shower, Dan and Nathan thought it would be quite amusing to steal my clothes and put them out in the hallway of the dorm. Luckily I was able to take down a shower curtain since there were people in the hallway and go out and get my clothes. I was able to get them back in a small way by making them think that someone had taken my clothes out of the hallway and that I was pounding naked at my own door for a towel.

Needless to say it was a good weekend... ;)

It's Official! I'm on the Dean's List...

...for failing calculus. I got a letter today from the dean of CU basically telling me to get help or get out of calculus. So here goes...

At the Crossroads

For about the past two or three weeks I have discovered that I have come to a crossroads in my life. I am no longer entirely sure that becoming an Aerospace Engineer is what I would like to do with my life.

I had already been having this thought for about a week before I took my first Calculus exam. It kicked my ass, quite thoroughly, to the tune of a 36%. As I sat there taking that test and realized I had no idea what was going on for more than half of it and I thought, "What am I doing here? Why did I even want to be an Engineer in the first place?"

I'm surrounded everyday by people who seem to enjoy doing math. While I realize no one loves calculus, there are many people around me who would rather take complex integrals and invert trignometric functions than write an essay or learn history. I have decided that I do not fit with that group. Math has always been my sore spot all the way through highschool. I now feel I'm in the wrong field, where they are expecting my weakness to be my strength.

So I've reached one of those moments in life when you are faced with choices that seem overwhelming. Do I stick it out and try to be an Engineer? Even though only 2 of the 14 speakers from the industry that came to my Aerospace class had jobs I could see myself doing happily? Do I give up on Calculus and switch to something else? If so, do I go premed and start on the path to become a doctor, which was my original dream when I was younger? Do I jump off the deep end and go to film school since I love to make videos? Or for journalism because I love to write?

Unfortunately these are all questions which, coupled with the flu I've had for the past week have been costing me sleep at night and stress during the day.

Hopefully I will find the answers to these questions soon!

One of Those Days...

Today started out innocently enough, but as strange as it sounds, my day took a turn for the worse once classes ended.

It started with my attempt to play drop in ice hockey which starts at the same time my last class ends so in order to be there for about an hour I have to go straight to the rec center after class.

I was making great time until I realized I was missing something quite crucial to the whole ice hockey thing... Then it hit me: MY SKATES!!! I had left them in my dorm a few days before because I had taken them with me to re-lace them!

No problem I thought! I'll just sprint across campus, grab them, and still get in 45 minutes of skating! It was then I ran into my next road block. Groping for the keys to my room I realized they weren't in my pocket, and of course my roommate was skiing today! I made a frantic search of the locker room, my hockey bag, and retraced my steps around the rec center to no avail! Fortunately I found them on the floor under my desk in Duane G2B60, where my last class was held!

By this time it was late enough that I figured I would ditch hockey and take my car to get an emissions test since mine is due by the end of January (I know, I know, I'm a procrastinator). I printed out directions and headed out. Unfortunately unbeknown-est to me, the directions I had printed from the emissions website were on a page that was too wide to print properly and as a result I got directions that appeared to make sense but were missing something...

So when I read "Head east on Valmont and it becomes Airport Boulevard, stay on it till the road ends." The actual message was Head east on Valmont turn left on Airport Road and it becomes Airport Boulevard..." Unfortunately I had driven myself into rural farm country on a one lane road by the time I realized something was fishy about my directions. Luckily I was able to call a friend (Thanks Erika! :)) to fill in the missing pieces!

Fortunately, my car passed and I made it home only 90 minutes later than expected. I figured I'd skip the dining hall since my luck was out on me, and instead got a burger to go. Of course while I was eating it at the dorm I dropped it smearing meat juice on the unfortunate landing zone of my new white sneakers!

Oh well as said by Forty Foot Echo, tommorow's a brand new day!

Popping my Clubbing Cherry

Last night I found myself talked into taking a car load of 4 girls to Lower Downtown Denver, affectionately called Lo-Do. We wound up downtown near Coors Field in line for a nightclub called Bash.

Now you must understand, to say I'm bad at dancing is as much as an understatement as saying that the people who were at ground zero of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a bad day.

However I put on my nice silky button up shirt, gelled up my hair as suggested by the eHow.com website and we were off.

It took about a half an hour for me to begin to move even remotely musically but after a while I decided this was fun! I was the only white blond boy in the entire place but I didn't care! I had a blast and have now decided clubbing is fun! Although it did suck to have to pay $10 even though I had brought 4 girls. I thought about negotiating this point with the doorman, but he didn't look like he was much of a negotiator...

Anyway I'm now a fan of clubbing, though I still haven't gotten this whole "dancing" thing down yet...

An Avalanche Fan's Dream Come True

Today I had the opportunity to go to the Colorado Avalanche vs the Calgary Flames games thanks to my friend Michael!

After the drive from Boulder I was waiting to turn left from Auria into the parking complex that provides $10 Avs parking. Unfortunately it's one of those intersections where people waiting to turn left from the opposite obstruct your view of whether it's clear to turn. I waited until I thought I saw a gap I could squeeze through but unfortunately I was wrong and wound up having to stop as the light turned red.

It was then that I noticed that I was sitting in the middle of the crosswalk. As if on cue from a horror movie, I looked up to see a hoard of people beginning to cross the street and had the sickly realization that I was in the middle of their path.

As Michael covered his face in shame and I broke into fits of uncontrollable laughter the torrent of people broke around us. I got mostly smiles but everyone looked at me with a "Have a little trouble stopping did ya?" look. Very embarrassing!

Anyway onto the game! Our seats were incredible! I have only once sat closer to the glass than I was tonight when my Dad treated me to rink-side seats, but tonight was awesome as well! We were 8 rows behind David Aebischer for 2 periods just over his right shoulder. What a game it was!

This game had the most goals I've ever been present at an NHL game to witness! To make it even more spectacular 9 of the 11 goals scored were scored right in front of us! On top of that there was a fight, Joe Sakic passed Guy Lafleur on the all-time goals leader-board, and the coup de gras was a scrum that broke out in the end of the game that wound up with Phillipe Sauve coming across the rink to fight David Aebischer!

For those who don't remember/don't know, Phillipe Sauve served as David Aebischer's backup for two seasons before signing with Calgary! It was very reminiscent of the scene in Star Wars where Vader and Obi Wan face off and Vader informs Obi that he was but the learner but now is the master!

YEAH AVS!!!

Rain from the... moon!?

Yesterday it was cloudy on the side of Oahu where my grandparents live, called Kailua by those who name such things, so we decided to drive to the other side of the island to the world famous Waikiki beach.

Upon arriving there we went to a wonderful restaurant called Duke's on the beach where we had drinks and pou pous (pronounced poo poos), which for the non-Hawaiian speaker translates to snacks, not what you might be thinking.

Anyway while sitting there I noticed a few times I felt moisture raining down on my arms and face! It was one of those spectacular cloudless days where the entire sky was blue, but it most definitely began precipating a fine mist! Looking around for the source, I looked straight up and saw only one thing other than the deep blue of the sky... It was... THE MOON!!!!

Apparently I have discovered that the moon does in fact have water and that when directly overhead it may cause rain! Unfortunately this Lunar rain appears to have the same properties as Earth rain, because I do not seem to be imbued with super powers, or suddenly good looking, or any other of the sorts of things that may be caused from an enchanted rain.

Oh well I guess...

New Years Resolutions

Go to bed earlier

End my freshman year of college with a GPA above 3.25 (I would set that higher but I REALLY slacked off this semester)

Actually go to ALL my classes this semester

Ditch my computer more often

Start running again

Start working out again

Play hockey at least once a week

Stay in touch with old friends more often

Smile more often at complete strangers

Make at least one person laugh each day

Stop procrastinating

Become more motivated

Do at least two adventurous things (Skydiving, bungee jumping, white water rafting, etc...)

Learn to dance

Go clubbing at least once

Be less shy and go out more often

Plan more trips with friends (Camping, vacations, hikes, etc.)

Write at least two of my own songs to perform on my guitar

Get over being shy to sing around people with my guitar

Battlefield Hawaii

This New Years I had the great fortune of breaking my 17 consecutive years of New Years celebrations in Colorado with a celebration Hawaiian style! Nothing against my Colorado celebrations but this was unlike anything I've ever experienced.

I felt like I was in a World War II movie the majority of the night as people seemed to be ringing in every New Year around the world by setting off fireworks. It sounded remarkably like the shells and popping that comprise the background track of any Hollywood war movie. I remember being impressed by the fact that the fireworks at 10 pm HST were far superior to anything mustered by Coloradans on even the Fourth of July! I began to anticipate the chaos that must be coming for the actual New Year!

I was NOT disappointed. I was not aware that so many lipstick sized explosive devices had been invented! Every house along the street was doing their part to drive the evil spirits out of Hawaii. There were impressive aerials going off everywhere to a never ending clapping of firecrackers exploding everywhere. The people I rung in the New Year with had several massive boxes of thousands of firecrackers all strung together and capped by a small box of a few hundred firecrackers. When midnight arrived I felt like I was in a CNN video showing a bombardment of Iraq at night. Thick smoke filled the streets and things were exploding everywhere. Flashes in the smoke marked explosions in all directions as I felt the heat wave blast from the thousands of firecrackers exploding in my hosts' display. This went on until around 1:15 or so after the Samoan New Year and tapered off about 1:45.

Amazingly I escaped unscathed! Hau'ole Makahiki Hou!