How bout them playoffs

Ahh those crazy Bengals. 10-3 after a narrow win over the Browns. But this win shows the caliber team we have. When we're not playin the best we can, we still win. But I'm sure everyone saw the game, and overanalysis of every game drives me crazy.
Saw The Chronicles of Narnia today with the family. Pretty amazing. It's been forever since I read the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When I read it I couldn't fully appreciate the faith of C.S. Lewis and its impact on his writing. There are so many parallels in the story when compared to the spiritual war going on around us. What an amazing writer. Seriously though, go see it. Other than the whole faith and theology aspect, its just a flat out enjoyable and well directed movie.
OCAS next quarter. Why the crap does anybody keep going to main campus UC? I met with my advisor on Friday. The guy was really nice and respectful. He asked my name and what I wanted to do with my new major. I immidiately got the feeling that I wasn't a number and a tuition check there. Everybody was rediculously friendly and helpful. Moral of that story: quit main campus and go to OCAS where it doesn't suck.

Don't you......forget about me

Bengals bye week eh. That kinda sucks. Now I have nothin to do but watch everybody else play. Then next week we have big Indy. It's gonna be crazy. The Colts have been looking really good every week. The only thing the Bengals really have goin for them here is that Indy has primarily a passing offense and that definetely plays right into the Bengal's strength on defense. However, if we force Indy to run more than they usually do, our run defense is definetely gonna have to step it up. But whatever, that's next week.
Apparently, I'm starting a new job monday at F.D. Lawrence. I'm gonna be workin in their warehouse stocking stuff and cleanin up. When am I gonna be able to co-op? I' m gettin pretty sick of workin like crazy and not gettin paid anything. I wanna not go to school, get paid a ton, and do nothing all day like everyone else. The good news is that I confirmed my acceptance to OCAS for winter quarter so hopefully I'll be able to co-op in the spring or summer if not both.
Small group is pretty sweet. I'm really startin to like leading. At first, I was just being drained by the experience. I'm at school from 8 in the morning till the end of group on thursday's so I was never really lookin forward to leading. Now I'm kinda gettin the feel of it and I'm learing how to make the studies effective and worthwhile. I'm sure I've still got plenty to learn in the leadership area but I think things are goin better.
What the crap...why does Indianapolis have three monday night games. Dude...give one of those to us. You suck Paul Tagliabue...I think thats how you spell Tagliabue.

Come you Masters of War

Dah...school sucks. I'm not thinkin that I should be spending so much money on something I can't stand anymore. I'm not studying what I want to be studying and UC's buerocracy and general indifference toward students is driving me insane. So I think I'm headin to OCAS next quarter. Apparently, they've added a major under chemical technology that's pretty much exactly what I originally wanted to do anyway. Plus, unlike main campus UC, OCAS will hook me up with a Co-op. The Biology program at UC doesn't really get the value of a co-op or doesn't care enough to work it into the curriculum. Instead, they pound pointless and rediculously demanding classes into you until you change your major to one of the engineering concentrations or business. There's absolutely no reason why a biology major should be taking College Physics lab but nevertheless that's what I do. In fact, I haven't even had time to take a Biology class yet. I have taken two forms of chemistry, friggin calculus, a slew of electives, and all the associated labs.
You know what's gonna be sweet? The fall conference. The ride up alone is worth the 75 bucks. Can't wait to take part in the covert activities on the first night. It's gonna be awesome. Plus, Evan is speakin instead of Crazy McInsane from Ashland University.

Culpepper....go die

Yeah...slow on the updating. School has officially started back up. My classes are gonna suck huge. Attendance is mandatory in all of them except organic chemistry but I'm gonna have to go to stay on top of it. I'm not thinkin that organic chemistry is one of those classes that you can just not go to and still pass. Never become a biology major.
Haha. So, in case you haven't heard yet, I got fired from my youth group position at Northern Hills United Methodist. Apparently, it doesn't matter how qualified you are to have a volunteer position in the Methodist Church. The only thing that really matters is where your membership lies. Since my "official" membership is with a Church of Christ I can't be trusted with high school kids. Even when I tried to explain that the Vineyard, where I've most recently been attending, doesn't have official membership, it didn't matter. In order to be allowed to lead the high school youth group I'm going to have to join the Methodist Church right now and then wait six months. I guess six months is the magical number of months that it takes for God to like you as a Methodist. So now I have to decide wether I should stick out the six months (kinda sounds like a prison sentence), screw it and leave, or fight the establishment (Sleep Now in the Fire plays in the background). Somethin really bothers me about goin in and "raisin hell" in a church that I just started going to but then again it bothers me even more that this church is crippled by its own pointless rules. I guess the only thing to do it pray about and see what God has in mind, maybe its somethin I haven't thought of yet.
yeah and daunte culpepper sucks.

Don't Stop Believin'

My mom went ahead and bought me the best of Journey for ten bucks. It's pretty sweet. Don't listen to Davie's ignorant rantings, Journey rocks.
So I got my aquarium runnin. It's sweet like Journey. It's a twenty gallon tank with 5 fish in it. I got some cheap starter fish to start things out. Aquariums are awesome because no matter you can always come home and stare at them for hours when ur pissed off or mass stressed out. Fish are peaceful...except when they're kicking the crap outta each other for food. I can't believe how much aquarium stuff costs. The friggin filter, which is a really good one, cost almost fourty bucks.
Football is almost here. Luckily, my job doesn't require any weekend work so I know what I'll be doin every Sunday. The Bengals are gonna own this season and by own I mean better than 8-8. I don't want to start talkin about playoffs because I hate how people are goin nuts over the Bengals chances in the playoffs before we've even seen them play a preseason game. There's been a lot of changes to the team and I think its impossible to say either way at this point. One thing's for sure, the we had a ton of stuff that had to be worked on in the off season so I think the real determining factor for this season is going to have very little to do with quality of the lineup but instead how much was actually accomplished in the offseason.

9 seconds! Cmon, I gotta be at work in 2 seconds.

Yep. Went to the BMV today. Always great. If you haven't heard Dane Cook's bit on the BMV you need to, its great. Yeah, I got my license renewed because it expired on my birthday. I love goin in there because you always have about 2 or 3 people that are redicul0usly pissed about something. I just checked out that link and the BMV bit isn't on there so you might have to go buy the DVD.
I saw War of the Worlds with a bunch of people the other night. It was pretty sweet. I pretty much got what I expected out of it. Tim Robbins was crazy. You never notice how huge that dude is until he's standing next to Tom Cruise. Tim Robbins could eat Tom Cruise if he wanted to.
Live 8 was rediculous. I've been watchin the concerts on AOL's page. My favorites so far are: The Who, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, and Velvet Revolver. I'm still laughin at Chris Cornell. If you haven't seen it yet. Go listen to "Like a Stone." It's the funniest thing ever....ever.
Why does car insurance cost so much? I'm paying more than 1,000 bucks a year to drive fine. What a scam. But what are you gonna do?

big 21

I turn the big 21 on Saturday. My abstinence from fermented beverages officially comes to an end on the 25th of June. No idea whats goin on yet. I wanna do some camping or somethin but I'm not too worried about it. Just as long as there's beer and no work.
Work is the bane of my existence. I hate jobs where they expect you to earn your pay. This is the age of overpaying people for little to no actual work. I go in everyday at 8 in the morning and work non stop until 4:30. Then I come home and pass out because I'm so exhausted. The other day I was hauling mulch up our hill in 5 gallon buckets so I decided to start counting how many gallons of mulch I was moving. The total count at the end of the day was 360 gallons. 360 gallons....and that was just one day. Rediculous.
...Alright so I just got off the phone with Jony and it looks like we're gonna camp saturday night out at Brookville or East Fork. So get there.

Met a man, locked away for things he hadn't done

Nine more days till Slave! It's gonna rock. Don't talk to Austin about it because he's "ignant". I can't wait to hear what Chris Cornell and Tom Morello have come up with in the past couple years. It's gonna be rediculous.
Me and Robby volunteered at Oak Hills Afterprom last night. It was pretty sweet. Nobody needed us for the first two hours so we wandered around and frequented the volunteer room for the free food and beverage. People kept mistaking us for students. This one dude on a power trip (giving out disposable cameras) chased us down when he saw that we didn't have security bracelets on. I guess he missed our nametags or failed to realized that the students weren't walking around with volunteer nametags on. So then when Rob and I finally go and do somethin, we can't give away the crappy provided prizes because they sucked. We did hand out a couple piles of cash to people though just to get rid of it. I think we mostly just found people we knew and loaded them down with stuff that nobody else wanted and would probably throw away anyway.
Athens this weekend. One last time, possibly. It's not that the drive gets easier. I just get better at zoning out for an hour or so. I usually snap back to life when I hit the cornfield. But it's all good because I do like to 4 wheel, not doin 70 though. I'm lookin forward to it. Always a good time hangin out Voellmecke's room/cell. Then there's the town of Athens with their huge Big Lots and 3 food establishments. I know why people drink like fish out there. Because there's nothin else to do.
Star Wars on Wednesday at midnight. Its gonna be awesome. My theory is that George Lucas can only screw this one up to a certain extent. He's got all the amazing technology goin for him and the storyline is almost written for him since there's a definite beginning and ending that have already been established. There's also certain things that everyone knows have to happen in this episode. So I'm thinking that this will probably put I and II to shame. Not that that's hard. I watched Episode I today. Dah. It's crazy how pissed off I get everytime Jar Jar says something. I can just see George Lucas sittin there like "you know what we need? A charater that has no meaning and will annoy the crap out of every Star Wars fan. I'm gonna go ahead and ruin the whole series with one character."

Even Flow, thoughts arrive like butterflies

How long till the new audioslave cd comes out? I can't wait cuz I know its gonna be rediculous. I wanna be Chris Cornell when I grow up. And yeah I realize that means that I've done enough heroin to support the Columbian government for like a year. How bout that Family Guy? Hilarious. The G.I. Joe thing was hilarious. The writers are geniuses. Those guys know and are capable of making fun of everything. American Dad....wow...absolutely terrible. It's hard to believe that they're made by the same people.
Voellmecke was here this weekend. I like how this is workin out so far. She's hear one week and then I drive out there the next. It would be better if she just came here every weekend but what are you gonna do? So we went and saw Kung Fu Hustle. We were the only ones in the theater. Don't know why because the movie was great. It was a good time.

Tell me who are you?

Trip number three to Athens, done and done. Can't say the drive is gettin any better, its still boring as crap. Oh well. OU was a good time as always. We watched pulp fiction and I drove Steph around Athens to get food and supplies for her roommates. I made Steph a blog while I was out there. I'm thinkin she's gonna post on that thing once every couple years. I almost fell asleep on the way home. I was fine until I got on Ronald Reagan. Then I started gettin really sleepy and I almost drilled an SUV in the lane next to me cuz I was dozing off. Apparantly, I need to get some more sleep before I try to drive home for 3 hours.
So...am I takin classes this summer or not. Haven't decided yet. I probably should, but I'm not a huge fan of giving UC money. Especially since they're gonna jack up tuition another six percent. Rediculous. I was tellin Robby the other day that we need to have a good student riot and go ahead and burn down some of those nice new buildings. Speakin of UC. Steph, go freakin apply! Thats all I got.

I dont know how many of you people believe in astrology

Dah. Just took my first calc test of the quarter. not good. I'm gonna have to figure out some way to pass this class. I don't wanna be takin calc II for the rest of my life, I'm already behind from swithchin my major every quarter. Maybe I'll just become a Young Life leader and stick around UC for another five years. I hear that works pretty well.
Yeah so if you haven't heard yet, me and Voellmecke went "official." So stop asking. I think I'm gonna head out there this weekend again. So if anybody feels like seein Athens, Ohio just let me know because makin that trek by myself makes me wanna jerk my truck into an orphanage bus.
I'm really startin to enjoy New Leader Training. I'm learin a ton and its really practical stuff. The memory verses are gonna own me next week. I wonder how they determine who they're gonna ask to lead a group. I'm not that worried about it. If they asked me to lead one I'd pr0bably do it but if not, thats cool too.
Who's up for seein Petty this summer? He's comin with the the Black Crowes. Which could be good or bad. But Tom will be a good show. Plus, you're almost guaranteed to inhale at least a bowl of second hand pot smoke.

Forward yesterday, makes me wanna stay.

Made the drive out to Athens on again on Saturday. Its a nice drive. Not too much traffic and you can do about 80 the whole way. Plus, I'm always up for not choking on Cincinnati air. Hangin with Steph was sweet. Always a good time. Then I had to fly back to Cincinnati for New Leader Training. That was kinda rediculous. Luckily, Steph bought me a pack of oreos which I demolished on the way home. Pfft...I saw the craziest thing on the way home. There was this Amish lookin guy doin somethin on the highway. No idea what. But he took off runnin before I actually got to him. He ran down into the ditch on the opposite side of the highway, so the only thing I could see was his straw hat bobbing up and down. The dude ran across four lanes of traffic. I wonder if that's like an Amish right of passage.

I'm pretty sure everyone's heard about Jon by now. What a great guy. It makes you feel lucky to be alive because we're not invincible. I'm glad I had the pleasure of knowin Jon for as long as I did. Haha. This one time we were workin stage crew for a musical at Oak Hills and we invented this game called "stair ball". The only objective was to try to make it up the steps in the light box without gettin drilled by the ball. Its stuff like that, that I remember about Jon. We're all gonna miss you chief.

It's Hard to Believe that Somebody Tricked You...

Strep throat is definetely not given enough credit for destructive power. I was thinkin that strep throat was just a really bad sore throat. nah. Your glands pretty much fill your entire throat and constantly drain mucus stuff. You can try to eat but there's really no room for food in your mouth because of inflamed stuff. Plus, if you do try to swallow something it feels like you're napalming the back of your throat. mmmm....napalm. If you like the not being able to eat there's also the constant fever and innability to sleep at night.
I dunno how the crap I got this. It might have been from work. Last Sunday my boss made me clean up his front yard in the rain. So that's a possibilty. I worked everyday of spring break up until Friday when I pretty much died. So I screwed work on Friday and went to the doctor. I should try to get some compensation from my boss since I got sick cleanin up his friggin front yard.
Navs is gonna be sweet this quarter. They have some sweet stuff planned. Plus, New Leader Training is awesome. I really like the book. The topics the guy (author) covers are great. Especially the stuff about being real with people. Nothin makes me more pissed off than seeing people hand out canned, textbook, sunday school, answers to people like it was candy. There's nothin real about that.

and now a thousand years...in between

The trip to OU was sweet. Even though its the longest drive ever. We hung out, watched some Anchorman, watched Brad get wasted off of 3 Smirnoffs. Did you know there's two versions of the Goonies? In the original version, there's an octopus in the cave with the pirate ship. It attacks them after they jump off the plank into the water. Some of the tv versions have it but the DVD's don't. Spence was sayin that they did that because the octopus woulda upped the rating or somethin for being too scary for little kids. I think I do remember seein the octopus version on tv once.
Dude, I need to register for classes. I have like two lined up for sure. I'm thinkin about not goin next quarter just because I don't want to mess with the hassle of registering for the friggin classes.
So I pulled a Harry Dunn at the gas station on the way home from OU. I decided to fill the tank so I let the pump go, assuming that it had a safety that would stop it from filling. Well apparently, the safety was broken or it didn't have one because it didn't stop. I was even watchin the meter. When it got up around 14.5 gallons I started askin myself "Isn't my tank only 15 gallons." I looked over just in time to see gas start pouring out of my tank. So I grabbed the nozzle real fast and turned it off. Luckily, not too much had poured out but my tank was definetely topped off.
We need to see how many people we can pack into Voellmecke's room without gettin kicked out next time.

It ain't me, It ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one

Key Laborers this weekend. Its gonna be rediculous. I've only heard good things about it. I was talkin to Dan at lunch yesterday about it and he said he wanted to get a football game goin saturday night. So we might have to commandeer the Vineyard's field. What are they gonna do? Kick us out?
I got calc and chem tests this week. So this week will decide whether this quarter was even worth registering for. I should be studyin right now. But instead I'm updatin my blog.
Running is goin well. I'm upping my mileage a little each week. Not enough to run a marathon but at least I'm being consistent. I'm gettin a good 20-25 miles each week. Gettin' back in shape is tough.
My new job in Clifton is pretty pointless. Right now I have a project goin to build a trap for drug dealers. There's a staircase comin up from over the rhine through the woods. The stairs were closed by the city but they're still usable. So drug dealers get into Clifton that way. So I'm in charge of taking some honeysuckle that we cut down and making a barricade so that the steps are no longer usable. It's gonna be funny when I go down there one day and there's gonna be a couple dealers tangled in the brances. Haha I'm like shelob. The pay is good though and its five minutes from school.

It's a Hard Rain is Gonna Fall

So Voellmecke and Rob were tellin me that they Lynyrd Skynyrd did Freebird last night at the Grammy's. At first I was sorry I missed it. The I heard that it was a duet with country singer, Gretchen Wilson. What is going on in this country? Why does every good thing have to be drug into popular functions, like the Grammy's, and flogged? You're right, I didn't see the actual performance and to tell you the truth I don't want to. I was considering looking at some of the video online but then I talked myself out of it. It would be too painful to watch. I don't have anything against Gretchen Wilson or any other country singer. However, when she goes out there and mocks the spirit of Freebird by performing a duet with Lynyrd Skynyrd, then I have a problem. Freebird was not written as a cute little song to be sung at events where they give bands like Green Day best album awards. I'll tell ya, I'm glad Ronnie's not alive today because I wouldn't have wanted him to see this and he woulda died anyway from seeing popular society rape his song publicly.
To the remaining members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, I'd say that I hope you're happy with what you've done just now. You used to be the symbol of the working class, the farmer, the rancher, the simple man, and the redneck. And now what are you? You're all sellouts.

Break on through to the other side

We played lazer tag for Robby's birthday the other night. It was pretty sweet. Except for the kid who knows where all the upgrades are and wall hacks everybody. Cici's pizza was good too and dirt cheap. Always keep in mind that barbeque is under no circumstances good on pizza.
I got a job finally. I'm gonna work at an apartment complex on Ohio. I know the guy who owns them and he offered me 10 bucks an hour to do ground maitenance. I can work pretty much whenever I want so I'm gonna take it.
Super Bowl's tonight. This game is gonna be terrible.

I Drive a Dodge Stratus

So it looks like we're gonna get a house in Clifton at the end of the summer. Which means I'm gonna need more money. Working full time at the park will give me plenty but I'll probably be safe and sell the truck. (sigh). I guess I'd rather move out then have cool wheels. I would try to have both but I don't a car payment hangin over me while I'm tryin to pay the rent. Living in Clifton would be sweet just for the lack of a commute. The gas money I'll save will probably pay for half the rent. Especially if I stick with drivin trucks.
UC still thinks I'm gonna pay their stupid late fee. I like how UC just makes up this outrageous fines to slap on people whenever they feel like it. If you ever wondered whether UC cares if you exist, try being a day late on your bill. Otherwise your just a number and a tuition check.
This is gonna be the most worthless super bowl ever. I hate the patriots and I'm not that big a' fan of the Eagles either. This game is just gonna be dumb. At least there's no shortage of parties. There's Navs and and Justin's so those'll be cool.
Davie, Lubbys, and I went to Lifespring on Sunday. It was decent. In some ways its better than the Vineyard because its so much smaller. I'm not a big fan of the thousands of people services that go on at the Vineyard. Plus if I can avoid the half hour drive to tri-county I'll take it. Lifespring seems like they have a good thing goin. They're a little more formal than the Vineyard with their membership and they take communion every week I guess. So I'm thinkin that they're a mixture of traditional and contemporary doctrines. Which is cool.

whiskey bottles, brand new cars, oak tree you're in my way

So it was almost unanimous. Looks like the facial hair is staying for awhile.
West side vineyard had their first meeting this week. I didnt go because I have small group on thursday nights but apparently it was a good turn out. This thing is gonna be huge.
I was playin some Halo 2 online last night and I noticed how much crap people talk in that game. It almost makes it not fun to play because no one will shut up and play. Seriously, they get into arguments with each other about who's the bigger newb or who sucks. And its not all twelve year olds doin the bitching. I just sit there and laugh at these people who obviously have nothin else goin on in life besides Halo 2.
School is eating my soul. Calculus is hopeless. I wish they would tell you ahead of time which major a class is geared towards. I'm in a calc class with all engineers and I'm a biology major so this class is owning me. I'm trying to line up a tutor so I can just get done with it with a passing grade. That way I can be done with math for the rest of my life.
I still need a job. I turned in a resume to the public library but they still havent called me. How many "resumes" could they possibly have for part time jobs payin 8 bucks an hour.

Judgement Day

So I'm wonderin if I should keep the ol facial hair. I figure its had a long enough trial period so I'm gonna put it to vote. So do it and leave a comment.

No, its a cardigan but thanks for asking.

So...it been awhile since I've updated the ol' blog. Thats probably because lately if I don't need to do it to survive, chances are I'm not gonna do it. Like homework. School is great this quarter. I have Chem. and all of its associated labs and recitations and Calc. I have more homework than I know how to blow off. I actually went in for help today. I sat down with the TA who looked like she knew how to speak English (no offense to foreigners but I gotta pass). She spoke English pretty well but she didn't know crap about calculus. So there u have it. You might be able to understand English speaking TA's, but they're dumber than rocks. So I went to chem lab knowing less than what I came in with.
Vollmecke and I were talkin' last night about takin a road trip out west. That would be rediculous. So I'm gonna try to recruit some people for that.
I really need a job. I've applied just about everywhere and no one has called me back. I'm gonna write a resume tonight and hand it into the library. I've heard that they pay pretty well and have flexible hours. I really wanna go back to the park. I stopped in there the other day to give my keys back. Both of my bosses were sittin there readin the newspaper. haha. What a great job. They said that I probably wont be able to come back till march when the weather gets warmer. So I gotta find somethin before then. I'll probably start sellin crack. Thats all I got.