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Merry Christmas!!!!

Welcome to the wonderful season of no sleep, lukewarm coffee, and finals. All of which leads to the glorious phenomenon known a Christmas. Study hard and Merry Christmas everyone!!

The last couple of days I have spend thinking, trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. Second guessing myself, the classes I am taking, and the career direction I am taking. I spent so long wrestling with this question trying to figure it out, which each day making it seem like a more impossible task. Today however I have hit a break through, it doesn’t matter. Whatever direction my education takes me, it will not make my life any more or less fulfilling. To me work will always simply be work, some can be fun, some won’t but none of that is what really makes me get out of bed in the morning. I look back on some of my favorite classes in high school. Most of them were not classes I was particularly that interested in. However there was one key object that made it all worth while, the other people that were taking the classes. I may not know a whole lot in this world but I do realize a few things that make me very blessed. I realize who I am as a person, and what I want to accomplish in life. Many people spend their entire lives wrestling with this concept, yet somehow at 18 I know the answer. For this I am blessed, and I thank god everyday for this. No matter where I go in life I will always be able to pursue my goals. My goals are simple love, and trying to make a positive contribution to the world in which we live. I have been blessed with wonderful friends, a loving family. All of these are the foundation on which I stand and will always be. It is on this foundation that I will try to sculpt my life, and sometimes I may try some things that don’t work or use a piece that doesn’t fit, but I will always have a foundation to come back to and try again. Maybe there isn’t such a thing as true love or the perfect piece for the puzzle that is my life. Maybe all of my hopes are based on lies, but at the moment I think I will believe the lie. I would rather die disappointed then spending my whole life knowing nothing awaits my future, it with this outlook that I can strive to climb the mountain tops before me and face life’s challenges. As far as my second goal goes, I will never be able to completely fulfill it. However I will make at least some impact in the world. It maybe small scale, but the difference is there none the less. I hope I will always be able to look on the world with love and compassion despite how dark it may seem. I am thankful for every breath that I have been blessed with on this earth. I have not always realized the power of this gift of life but now I think I realize it. I am thankful for all of the people that have been there for me in my time of need when the world turned its back and I saw no hope. I only wish that someday I too can be that hand to pick you up when you lose hope when you feel there is nothing out there for you. I have learned life is about the journey not the destination. So here I will go coasting along life’s highways and back roads, making every stop along the way.

Today marks the start of a dark war that shall control the Dorm room for many long nights to follow. So Chris and I, have been having trouble with a certain roommate of ours not to name any name *cough* sam *cough.* I have been trying to just keep calm and let the waves pass and get back to the smooth sail that we had all hoped for. However, with a violent display of rage offered by this “unidentified person,” I see no hope of ever reaching this smooth sailing equilibrium point.

Here are a few things that will set up the situation preceding the whole chain of events last night. 1) Chris and I for some reason ended up getting no sleep on Sunday night due the hot temperature of our room. So we were looking to go to bed at a decent hour, last night. 2) There had been numerous arguments in the past regarding a set of articles from the Onion, that “unidentified person” had wanted to post up. Eventually an agreement was reached where “unidentified person” was allowed to hang them up as long as they were in his area over his desk. “Unidentified person” deciding that this placement did not really fit his vision of what the dorm room should look like, placed them up over by our stuff. Later we approached “unidentified person” and asked him to please take the articles down or place them by his stuff. After a week of failing to apply to these terms Chris and I took them down, by a 2/3 majority decision. Well issues cooled down for a while until last night.

Last night started off as any other Monday night, the night started coming to a close and at about 11pm Chris and I decided to go to bed. (Both Chris, “unidentified person,” and I had 8 am class the next morning. So we were lying in bed trying to go to sleep, and “unidentified person” enters the room. He turns on a bunch of lights and begins checking e-mail, and other small things. We both figured hey he is just doing some last minute things and then heading off to bed. Well this continues for another half hour with the lights still on and “unidentified person” now starting to study. So we ask him if he could please go to a study lounge or something because it was rather hard to sleep with the lights on. This should have been a reasonable request being there are many days that “unidentified person” has late class and sleeps in until 11am, in which Chris and I leave the room and hangout or study else where. “Unidentified person” decided instead of being courteous and studying somewhere else to go on a rant to Chris, he never does any homework. This is completely false. Chris then explains that he didn’t have a lot of class on Mondays and the day working on homework. Then “unidentified person” goes on a rant about how he had been working on homework all night and Chris should shut up (in a slightly more vulgar way.) (This whole argument that is starting has no relevance what so ever to studying out of the room.) Chris now offended at “unidentified person” attacks asks him if it was studying when he spent 2 hours hanging out with friends after class, or the other 2 hours he spent playing Frisbee. Well this opened the floodgates of hell. “Unidentified person” goes off on a loud line of vulgarities un-comprehendible to the human ear. Along with this yelling he begins kicking and punching the loft above him, which is where my bed is located. I was up until now trying to stay out of it. I remind him of the times when we go else where to study when he is sleeping, and ask him to just study else where and we can get some sleep, and if he still wanted to argue we could postpone it until morning. So “unidentified person” refuses, Chris and I give up decide it isn’t worth fighting over. So we are quietly talking back and forth which is nothing to the neighbors next door loudly bragging about how awesome they are at “landing girls,” so “unidentified person” instead of confronting the neighbors goes off on us for talking. So again we ask him to just go to a study lounge and finish his homework, we even provided a list of about 10 all within a minute of our dorm and the two located in our dorm itself. Well that didn’t work out and another yelling battle started. Eventually Chris I gave up and just sat in bed waiting for him to finish. At about 1:30 am “unidentified person” finishes studying and goes off to brush his teeth shutting off the light. We now roll over and begin trying to salvage the rest of the nights sleep. Well at about 2am we hear all of this ripping and “unidentified person” running in and out of the room. We figure it wasn’t worth investigating and we would leave it until morning to deal with.

So we wake up this morning to find pictures and other things we had decorating our desk, literally taped to it gone. Well this obviously pissed us of but “unidentified person” was still asleep so we left it to deal with later. To be continued….

p.s. I have confirmed karma, “unidentified person” ended up sleeping through his alarm and getting up 5 minutes before class started.

Well today I made a much needed pilgrimage to uptown. We were originally planning to go to Pandora’s cup. However, due to an unfortunate turn of events, some police tape, and note scratched on to a crumpled piece of paper our fate changed. It turns out that Pandora’s cup is no longer open for business, disappointment befell our wet bodies. We turned around dragging our feet on the cold pavement below us. Good fortune prevailed and we stumbled across our oasis, another coffee shop rose in our midst. So without any better options we decided to try “uncommon grounds.” From the instant we stepped into the house, we knew the treasure we had befallen. The coffee house took the form of and old victorian style two floor house squeezed tightly between a menagerie small shops lining the sides of Hennepin Ave. The dim lights and candles soothed the weary souls of its visitors, the scent of espresso and chai danced through our nostrils. Sitting there staring into the flickering candle sitting on the table before be filled by heart with a strong sense of inner peace and tranquility. This is my home.

I am now writing under "Reservedforyou" so if you are interested in reading my rantings please go there.

For 7 days and 7 nights you've sewn a cloth copy of your nervous system to a turtle neck and pair tux pants.


So on Thursday and Friday of last week I got to experience the wonderful world of college orientation at the U of M. It was overall a pretty useless process that was stretched into two days when one would have been satisfactory. The orientation itself didn’t really hold anything exciting except for a few rather different things discussed in the next paragraph. It was however the time in between orientation days that held excitement.

(Note: I do not mean to offend anyone with this next selection; I am merely reporting what I saw. I’m not trying to attack anyone’s lifestyle; I just have found it to be very different from life in a small midwestern town. It’s the initial shock of jumping into a bigger pool so to say.)

The first of these major shocks came at a section of orientation where we walked around and stopped at different booths of major university clubs, activities, and sports. So here I am walking around and I come up to the booth representing the campus’s union for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students. Now I am a fairly open minded person so approached it. As I neared I noticed that there were handing stuff out, a common practice used by the different activities to lure people to their booth. As I got closer curious to see what they were handing out, then I saw. This booth was not handing out pencils, or buttons, or candy like all of the other booths, but rather tubes of anal lube. Needless to say I was a little shocked. The second weird thing that I saw was on a bus stop advertisement, you know the side panels on all of the metro transit bus stops. Well this particular advertisement was rather profounding. It was a black and white picture of a man ( the typical Greek style athlete posed nude in an action pose,) the midsection of this man was covered by a giant picture of a condom that went from his knees to his mid ab region. Through the condom there was a man’s face looking out this one in color, looking out like the condom was over his face. One the man’s (greek one) chest syphilis was scrawled in script style writing. As I scanned the rest of the ad trying to find some clues as to what was the point or message of this advertisement. The only other writing on the ad was “A growing problem among gay men,” which was located at the bottom of the ad. I had a picture however it was at night and the glare made the ad un-distinguishable.

To move on I will start with the evening of the first day of orientation. We went to one of the dorm buildings and got our rooms, dropped of stuff etc. We got paired with whoever was standing next to us in line I roomed with this grant guy that’s all I new about him and didn’t really see him after setting our stuff in our rooms. We then had to go to one of the many stupid programs to help transition ourselves into college, WOW. After that got over we were supposed to hang out in the Coffman Union Hall where we were at and go bowling and meet new people. I left, taking out my CD player and hitting play on a mix that I had inside it currently (atmosphere, 13 &god, fisherspooner,…) took to the city. It was about 9:30 and I walked around for about a half hour taking in the city before returning to the Coffman Hall to hook up with Matt. So we meet up and went back to the dorm, changed, and decided to see what things we could find to do in the city. We started our adventure and about 11:00pm. We crossed the Washington avenue bridge making it to the west bank campus. As we walked around trying to get off campus we found this park along the river. So we are hanging around this park for a while figuring out which way to travel. Were sitting there pondering this as a loud growl picks up in the background and steadily grows louder. We turn around to see that a gang of 15 motorcycles were entering the park. Deciding we should now leave we snuck into some bushes and trees separating the park entrance from some other roads. So we were going through there for a while before stumbling out into a broken down residential area. By this time we were lost. I know my way around the downtown and uptown areas pretty well so we began walking through the neighborhood trying to take a shortcut that would land us in a more familiar part of town. So we are walking through the residential area and made it to a small business district filled with cracking buildings most with severely cracked glass or even some with holes left from the last robbery attempt. The streets in this area were very dirty and un-kept and the streets were very dimly lit with old streetlights that covered the 5 foot area around the lamp and nothing more. This gave us and eerie feeling being it was now midnight, and we picked up pace. We started to relax a little bit as we noticed that the streets and buildings were becoming a little nicer. We saw a few people pass by in cars one of which started screaming something at us neither of us are sure exactly what, we shrugged it off thinking drunk people heading home after a night of barhopping. We continued all the sudden the man pops out of nowhere and stands in front of our path. This man was no small man either he was late thirties early forties about 6 feet 5 inches and weighed at least 250lbs. So here are matt and I, both being of a relatively small build. In a heavily slurred southern accent he asks us for our money. Obviously like anyone else we said no. He started making up some story about how he really needed our money and it would be in our best interest. We said no again. He then proceeds to tell us we should be a friend of Jesus and give him our money. Both Matt and I were becoming very uneasy about this situation. I start explaining that we are college kids and don’t really have that much money in the first place. Didn’t work. I then continue on explaining even if he wanted our money we didn’t have any cash because we use our u-card. He starts realizing he isn’t getting our money without using force and he approaches us further standing within 4 inches from the both of us. He then tell us that were all going to just have to take a trip to an atm machine than. Now we are really scared, not only is this guy huge but he is carrying a giant umbrella. Its night, it hadn’t rained at all that week, we knew at that moment he hade different intentions for that umbrella. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed another person approaching, I kicked matt in the foot as a signal and we took off. The man started to pursue us soon realizing that with the other person approaching attacking two kids was probably not be a good thing. He then turned around and started moving toward the other person, we felt guilty knowing that he was now trying to prey on a woman walking all alone. However everything worked out. The woman happened to be talking on a cell phone and in the other hand carrying a thing of mace. The man noticed this and continued walking past her. As we continued walking we noticed that all of the select few people that were walking around did not only have mace, but were holding it in there hand ready to fire at anytime. We then approached the bar district as we walked trough I recognized a few buildings from a motorcycle trip with my dad in which we ended up in this part of town in broad daylight, and remember that it was in fact a bad area of town ad had a very high crime rate.
We continued on our journeys nearing the downtown area. We were standing on this intersection in which we had been waiting at to cross. After realizing it was going to be a while we started walking down a side street. A car waiting at the intersection rolled its windows down and the passengers began screaming stuff at us. I don’t recall what they said just that we quickly turned around and took a different route. After the bar area we went into another broken down area. This one however was a lot nicer because all the building were abandoned and there were no people or cars in sight and our path was through a old loading area that was open. We luckily were not approached by anyone however interesting event fell upon us in this area. We were passing an overhead streetlight we were still very alert after our last experiences as we pass it goes out. So we begin talking about how eerie that was and were trying to figure out the name of the movie in which there is a guy walking to a street at night and as he passes the streetlamps each of them flickers out. We gave up after a while and started a new conversation, then we pass another street light and it flickers out. We look at each other in an “oh wow” that was creepy look. We continue our quest to get into the downtown area which is much safer and familiar. We pass the metronome and notice a guy standing on the corner throwing mysterious can like things into the bushes. Were not sure as to what exactly he was doing we noticed him and immediately crossed to the other side of the street and it was rather dark. As we walk the streets leading into the downtown area two more streetlights go out exactly as we pass beneath them. We mill around downtown for a while and decide to rest for a while in the Nicolette area by the water pool fountain thing we sat for about 10 minutes before a noticing a security person coming out looking for us, we later noticed cameras around the area; I guess sitting on a bench is a crime. Well anyway we take off and continue our journey. We found a rabbit that was hopping along the sidewalk we cased it for 30 minutes trying to get a picture of this urban dwelling creature, no luck. We start heading back at about 2 am. As we went back we had a few more car screaming incidents and being approached by the occasional drunk person wandering around after being kicked out of the bar due to its closing. We make our way back, with nothing else terribly exciting. However as we passed under the first street light we went under on the way there that flickered out, flickered back on. About a ¼ mile later a black cat ran out from an ally and stared at us for 10 seconds before running across the street. We get back at 2:30 expecting to return to parties, drunken people, and fun times awaiting at the dorm when we returned. This is what we got one drunken guy who after drinking alone and running out of vodka was walking up and down the hall crashing into walls, looking for some doors that have people talking and hold potential for having alcohol. We approach him and although he was drunk he was still able to talk well and was very polite. We actually ended up sympathizing with him, and hung out with him for almost and hour as we wandered the halls looking for interesting people surprisingly we found none. Everyone else was asleep except Matt, the drunken guy, and myself. 500 kids there and three are all that’s left awake at 2:30. At about 3:30 we give up I returned to my room made the bed in the dark my roommate was sleeping since we left the first time. I passed out waking up to the alarm to get me up for an 8:30 meeting. I shut it off not snooze I shut it off, Matt is also counting on me to wake him up. 30 minutes later matt knocks on the door and tells me were late some how he woke up on time. I hadn’t bothered to take off my clothes or my shoes the night before so I grabbed by bag and wallet and left never once seeing my roommate after we dropped our stuff off. Next day was registration and crap I slept through a bunch, damn those remotely comfortable chairs. Yeah after that I hit up cd warehouse and picked up 13&god’s self titled. I already had 90% of the album downloaded, but I like to support bands I like a lot by buying their album. Yeah that’s the majority of it.

You rip open the door of your car throwing an armful of personal belongings into the passenger seat. You then proceed to fumble with your keys jamming them into the ignition and turning them as fast as you can. You throw your car into reverse and firmly press your foot onto the accelerator causing the car to leap back from its parking space. You glance up at the clock muttering “shit” under your breath as you realize you are horribly late. You proceed to wrestle with levers and shift your transmission into drive never taking time to let off the gas. As the car clicks into gear it moans and rapidly jumps forward splashing the coffee resting between your legs all over your clean shirt, you mutter another four letter word as you speed along the road. As you grow closer in proximity to your destination the traffic picks up and more four letter words are dropped as you jockey your car back in forth between lanes trying to make up time. As you come within a few hundred yards of your destination the light in front of you turns red, causing you to slam your foot onto the brake pedal, causing you to slide forward in your seat and your coffee to have another interaction with your once clean clothing. When your car finally returns to equilibrium you sink back in your seat and slam you fist violently against the steering wheel.

It seems that this scenario is becoming all to common on our roadways, everyday driving becomes more and more of a rat race as everyone speeds through the streets and freeways laboriously shifting back and forth trying shave off some seconds of travel time. My only question is WHY?
I mean what are we always racing toward? …to work, to school, to home, to the restaurant, to the morgue. I am not trying to argue this from the standpoint of reckless driving is dangerous and we could hurt ourselves or others, but more from a mental standpoint. Everything has to move fast we have to get our food faster, we have to get our errands done faster, we have to do our work faster, and I again ask for what? Are we really gaining that much free time or are we simply coming closer to our destination… …DEATH.

Instead of racing through life we should slow down enjoy the journey and just enjoy the moment. I find driving to be a very stress reliving activity, despite the large amount of people the are driving reckless that I need to dodge trying not to pulverized by their speeding mass of metal. Even if I’m late I hardly rush to get to wherever it is I am going. I mean even if I race and speed I might shave off, what, a couple of minutes max, and if I’m already late I don’t think a couple more minutes sooner will save my ass. Every time I jump into my car I grab a CD off a pile of carefully chosen CD’s, usually sitting on a desk in my room, that seem to fit whatever mood I may be in, whether that be a mix or whatever album I may be feeling at that moment. I get in my car turn up the stereo and take it easy. We are always running around and dealing with any stresses or whatever else is going on in the world and to me through driving even if it’s only a 5 minute drive to the store or whatever still can be one of the most relaxing moment during my entire day. I mean what a better way to get away from everyone and have some time with yourself and once good music is added in the background it just makes the experience that much better. I always end up warmly welcoming the so despised red light to me it is just another minute or so that I will get to listen to music and relax before starting work or whatever. So I propose that next time you are getting in your car muttering “Fuck” because your late, stop for a minute and ask yourself WHY?

So here I am done with the AP Calc test. I am fairly confident I did not do well but I’m done so I rejoice. I left school today with no homework a rare phenomenon that left me wondering what to do with such a freedom. So I did the only sensible thing first I went onto my computer and watched random video clips, and reading news headings, while listening to Frank Sinatra (yes the old school singer.) It was absolutely amazing to just sit back with no worries or obligations and enjoy the world for a while. So after looping the 6 songs of his I have a few dozen times I moved on to my guitar, well actually my old crappy acoustic guitar, I left my good one at school. Playing guitar took up a good three hours and has left me in a state of complete tranquility. I love my new freedom.

So it has come time for my posting on prom, now before you roll your eyes and figure this will be another clichéd post of what a magical evening prom was ill inform you that this will not be one of those.
It all started at about 7am on Saturday morning, I called Breanna to finish our last minute scheduling for the plans that would take place during the day. We talked for about 2 hours reminiscing about random stuff and planning all of our adventures for the night. After that I went about with my day by cleaning my car (fun I know), getting flowers, dressing myself, etc, etc. Then the festivities began at 2 when Breanna came over with her mom and little sister to take pictures, we had allotted 1 hour for this event, which ended up lasting 15minutes for about 80 pictures. Since we didn’t have to be at school until 3 we went up into my room where I was asked to play guitar for Breanna which went pretty well although I forgot the guitar parts for “When the saints come marching in” sorry Sean. Then after that was all done with we headed off to grand march and mingled for a while before we actually got to participate in the “marching.” So after Grand March and a few million more pictures we headed off to Maple Grove (Granite City) for dinner. During the car ride we sang along to a CD I made for her composed of some Damien Rice, Maroon 5 (sorry), John Mayer, and other romantic music. We finally arrived at dinner to find out Granite City messed up our reservations so we would have to wait a while (1 hour.) Well as much as that sucked being everyone was hungry we were all kept somewhat entertained for that time. Well then was the actually dinner which was pretty good, and after an extensive deep conversation on crappy music such as “Drop it like its hot,” we had a nice trip to the bathrooms to enjoy the lcd tvs that were mounted in the bathrooms. After that was all done and over with we made a stop at Barnes and Noble for a while to look at books and give Sean an opportunity to get an Andy Warhol book. Well Breanna and I left after a little bit and drove around town while Breanna told me randomly to turn right or left so we did that for about a ½ hour, while singing along to Damien Rice and headed to the dance.
And this is where everything turns terrible. So here we are the night has been going really good, I really like Breanna and she seemed to be having fun and be really into me, I was really excited by this time, all of my attempts at being romantic (CD, A Rose, and a flower drawing I did with color pencils and white charcoal) were taken wonderfully. So we get into the dance and I thinking this will be so fun yay. Well after not to long a slow sang comes on and we have our first dance. Well after that one another comes on and along with it came Nick, Breanna’s ex boyfriend asking her to dance. Now this didn’t bother me. I mean they broke up a while ago and were just friends. So I was a gentleman and let her dance with him without second guessing myself. I went and mingled for a while talked to friends while they had a dance. Well the song came and went and she and Nick continued to dance, and again I didn’t play the angry jealous guy and get pissed I just sat back and kicked down a glass of punch. Well eventually she got done dancing with Nick and returned and we danced to a faster song. She then started to get a feel nauseous, so she went to the bathroom and threw up (Although she tried to hide that she wasn’t feeling good.) Well it wasn’t that hard to notice that she wasn’t feeling good, so we sat out for a while to see if she was feeling better she didn’t seem to be feeling any better and returned to the bathroom and threw up again by this time I sacrificed our prom plans and convinced her it would probably be best if she went home and slept it off. Eventually she agreed under the stipulation that I come back to the dance. So I took her home and made sure she got in ok, and it was on this trip home where I managed to spill my heart and tell how i felt about her and was met with apathy from her. There ended the fun of prom, minus the after party which was pretty fun thanks to the people's chord progression (G) and Andy Warhol quotes. So after a while of pondering I started wondering if maybe she liked Nick rather than me. So after talking with some of my connections it was established that all the fun we had will be over for good, she still liked Nick. So now I sit back,just laugh and say “Damn, I never saw that coming!” Yeah so now I’m back to the easy life of drinking coffee, playing acoustic guitar, and never taking the dark melodies of Bright Eyes out of my CDplayer.

Well today certainly was a busy day. First I had to get up at 8am to go to church now normally this really isn't that much trouble, however taking into account that I haven't slept very much thanks to musical. So here I am sitting in church and my church is boring to begin with and since I was tired it was just worse. I ended up falling asleep during the sermon, fun fun fun. Of course my mom wouldn't let me enjoy my slumber she had to poke be bluntly in the side. I open my eyes and a frown came over my face as I realized i was still in church. Well anyway I got home and scheduled talent show practice 1 with Isaac and Sean. We played "Daughters" about 50 times and then Isaac came over and we attempted to record it (it didn't turn out very good, we are lacking on transitions and by the time we fixed that we were sick of the song and the emotion was gone). Once we finished that i had just enough time to eat quickly and then head to talent show practice 2. That consisted of going over to Corey's house to work on our Blues/Thrash metal song. Surprisingly it turned out marvelous. We played through it 1st time with one or 2 mistakes due to members forgetting the song order(its a medley of like 3 songs.) We ran through it a second time flawlessly, and then played it two more times working on the make fun of 80s metal my doing random thrash moves (Back to back guitar solos, headbanging in a circular motion that’s chris's department with his 14 inch long hair, and jumping around.) I really like the ending riff, which is this accented 16th note rhythm that is played really fast by me under chris's guitar solo, we then i go off into this 1 1/2 step bend on the 17th fret making my guitar squeal will chris pulls off another solo ending with 5 open 16th notes on E. It will be really fun to play however the ending is really fast and when I move around on stage doing weird stuff with chris my fingers tend to like to get a little to close to the high b and e strings giving me some respectable cuts on my thumb and index finger (kind of like running your fingers over a cheese slicer). So anyway that was about all I did today so I think it may be time to start thinking about homework. I can't wait for another week with very little sleep and constant running around.

It all started yesterday morning, my dad told me to get up early and go with him to some home improvement store, and as an incentive to get me to go along he said we could stop at guitar center. Seeing that I don’t really have money I wasn’t all that excited but decided I would go (There is some weird outage thing going on at the power plant so my dad is working nights for a while, so I really never see him.) So I got up and was forced to walk around Lowes for an hour while I was complaining in my head about not being able to sleep in. Then we went to guitar center (For those of you who don’t know this place has everything ever made for guitars and is an orgasmic experience for any guitarist.) So I got there and I was back checking out acoustic guitars (My acoustic guitar is a piece of crap and the bridge is starting to pull up from the body causing all sorts of problems.) So I was testing out a few cheap ibanez guitars and my dad was like you should try one of those $400 ones. So I picked up the Yamaha acoustic-electric guitar and played around with it for a while (It was one of the hottest acoustic guitars I’ve ever played.) After messing around for a little bit I went to put it back on its stand knowing that I would never get enough money for that guitar with my limited work schedule. Then my dad asks me if I thought that one sounded better than the other cheap ones I was playing (Obviously it did.), and then out of nowhere he was like its yours. And this is about the time I had an orgasm in the middle of guitar center. My dad has spent the last 2 years trying to convince me that playing guitar is a waste of time and I should stop spending money on buying guitar stuff, and then this it was surely a miracle. Then I had to fill in at work for someone, which usually sucks but I there was no manager and we screwed around the whole time so it was actually fun. After work I decided to go to Abe’s halo party going against my better judgment (I was the only person who doesn’t play video games so I was murdered like always.) Then I came home and played guitar and talked to Breanna until 3am. Needless to say yesterday was one of the best days ever.

Well today reality set in I took my Math placement exam for the U of M and scored 17 out of 30. Yeah pretty sure that was the hardest math test I had ever taken, it makes the Act test look easy. I’m to afraid to even attempt chemistry yet being I took that class last year and have long since forgotten it all.

Well after a rigorous selection process of figuring out who i would like to go to prom with. I now have a date yeah.

Another week drifts by as I stroll aimlessly down the path of life. This week had proved to be a terrible week to go to school. Any sense of meaning my life at one time possessed was quickly stolen from me, replaced with low moral caused by a barrage of bad grades and the wasted time I spent achieving them. Finally Friday rolled around as I watched the clock impatiently waiting to leave this prison that had controlled my life for the past week. I commenced my freedom by doing the only sensible thing, that is the making music and escaping the world for a few hours. It was a very nice feeling to once be making music with some talented musicians, with the exception of a certain drummer who still lacks a little in the talent area. We worked on our rendition of “Helena” for the talent show, for about 3 hours. Leaving my vocal chords almost unable to mumble out my drink order at ember’s later that night.

‘So long and Goodnight.

Our practice was pretty successful. Andy got the guitar parts down to near perfection in a matter of minutes, which is no surprise with the high caliber of his playing. Chris soon got bored with his bass parts, so being the creative genius he is. He wrote his own slap bass like part that followed the basic riff with some added improvisations for his entertainment. Darin’s drumming is better than usual, although he is having trouble keeping time, which I’m thinking we might resort to finding him a metronome with headphones. The vocals have been some what of a struggle for me. It takes about and hour of playing to warm up my voice into that kind of singing, which is completely uncharted territory for a someone used to singing melodic numbers by bands like bright eyes, pedro the lion, and the decemberists. We got a alright version of it video taped and everyone has fairly strong confidence that we could make the talent show even without the dance numbers. (I still doubt the strength of my singing, but I will enslave myself to practicing for the next month and hopefully it will all work out)

Dancing on a plastic pad is overrated, but still better than the Saturday night alternative.

I made the decision not to go to the snowball, being I didn’t care to spend the last of the little money I have left to my name and I wouldn’t probably enjoy spending time with “but I wait till the last minute and friends try to hook me up with a date” girl. So I made the smart responsible choice I will stay home and try to do a humanities paper so I can have my freedom back. Well that plan lasted a long time that is until Chris called enlightening me on an alternative to a late night of homework, an anti- snowball party. Now I was left with a choice…

TO LIVE? OR NOT LIVE

Well I decided that going to a party would be better than a paper on Transcendentalism so I went off and chose to live. Well Chris and I had communication problems do to cell phones and background noise that left me no clue as to where I was going. However in the end I guess I really did enjoy driving for and hour while listening to a Spanish band singing about a salad, on The Current. Well to make a long story short I eventually got there ¼ tank of gas and 50 cents shorter. It was pretty fun I got to test my skills trying to master dancing on a plastic pad to pre-choreographed techno from the 1995. The results I still don’t follow directions on a TV screen well. After the lost dual with the plastic pad the black box and the TV screen. Chris and I worked on artistic photos using various color filters, on his camera. It was an interesting endeavor to say the least. Today was filled with a delightful combination of work, and homework.

Chris and I are in need of a new wilderness area to walk around in to fill up our nights, so If anyone has some ideas we willing to listen, maybe.

More Adventures in the life of Jason!

 

I’m going to start halfway through Thursday night for most of it (one-act cast party) turned out to be more of a drag than I had planned.  The patrons of happiness grenades (lack of a new band name) consists of myself, Chris, Sean, and drum machine that was kid knapped by Zach Zierdan, assembled at the Sean residence to record some happy music. Well music we did record, however it was not met with smooth sailing. We had arrived at about 11:30 (almost and hour later than we planned) and set up our make shift studio in a room containing a stereo (turntable, cd player, speakers etc.) and a computer. We filled it with a wide variety of traditional, contemporary, and even experimental instruments. This included 2 acoustic guitars, 2 electric guitars that were strikingly similar, a bass guitar, a keyboard, three guitar amps, a ukulele, Indian drums, a harmonica, I know I’m probably forgetting something but oh well. Well we assembled all of this into the confines of the 10’ by 12’ room leaving only enough room to fit our sleep deprived bodies (adjectives make more sense later.)  We soon realized we lacked a crucial element of recording, a microphone. We were met with heart ache we were so close and yet we failed. After searching every spot in the endless expanse known formally as Sean’s house we gave up. Well with no microphone we were discouraged but did not give up for we found the best tool for indie recordings…               … The cassette player/recorder made in 1970, there is nothing like the high quality unpolished sound of analog recordings. So we re-assemble in the “studio” and begin trying to work. We decided we would start by getting tabs off the internet and going from there. Well that works out fine and dandy except for when the internet decides to revolt. Well failure after failure lead to our first “recordings” a random collection of songs each played in less than 2 minutes. How can you go wrong with hits such as: “we wish you a merry f***ing Christmas” “Ode to crack- cocaine” “the ultimate emo song” “Eat your bread (the red anthem)” “the Chris Kibler song” “Yellow submarine (saints go marching in (Gotta have soul) remix)” “day-a-a-a Tripper” and many more. This is Grammy material, critically acclaimed by giants in the indie music scene (Shane Oquist). “This is the new Kid A” says guitarist, singer, harmonica player, and keyboardist Sean. (Release date is to be determined at a later date) So anyway that ended with falling asleep on the couch after Garden State at 3:30. Fast forward to Sunday.

 

            My music filled weekend continued with a trip to Darin’s house to work on talent show material. On a side note I was hard pressed to find the perfect “fast” song to do for the talent show under the name VOID. ( Darin is responsible for the fast song parameter). I however was enlightened on to which song I could play. I was watching music videos on the internet when on came “Helena” by My Chemical Romance. (For those who do not know that is my favorite song off of “Three Cheers…”) I did not stop there however I want to create this song as more of a show than simply us playing it. In the video (watch it at mychemicalromance.com) they have dancers clad in black funeral apparel that dancing in front of the casket, so I am going to get 20 or so guys and girls to get up and dance on stage as the main focus. SO THAT MEANS PEOPLE NEED TO VOLUNTEER especially if you’re in musical. It will be epically awesome, and probably the most complicated act done in talent show history. Well anyway so I went to Darin’s and we started practicing being that it was 12 o’clock when we started we moved down to the stage area we built out of a detached garage and began working our magic. Practice was structured like this: play a song run back up to his house and sit in front of a space heater and repeat. It was very challenging to play guitar in the sub zero temperatures of Minnesota. We played through a bunch of Alkaline Trio songs to start (Radio, Queen of Pain, Private Eye, and Goodbye Forever.) The Queen of pain intro turned out to be my worst nightmare, it is centered on a riff moving fingers rapidly down the third string (a small one) and turned out to be very painful in the cold. After that we started working on “Helena” (this about the time I decided to work only on vocals for a while to save my frost bitten fingers) We made fairly good progress and played through old favorites such as I’m Not Okay (I Promise.). Now we are to the photo part of this post.

 

Darin pounding out the verse of “Helena” with our makeshift back drop containing both our new and previous band names. (cliché I know not my idea)

 

Jason (hey that’s me) singing “Helena,” with a happy blow up monkey in the back ground.

 

Jason again this time screaming out bridge of I’m not Okay (I Promise)

 

Myself again hanging from rafters during and interlude to MCR.

 

Random picture

 

another random picture

 

another other random picture

Who are you?: Jesus? no sadly i can't say im that cool
Body: Body: Body: L A Y E R O N E

-- Name: Jason
-- Birthday: July 3, 1987
-- Birthplace: Minnesota
-- Current Location: Somewhere between the past and the future, in a land far away.
-- Eye Color: blue
-- Hair Color: brown and dirty red mixed into a color that looks as bad as the style.
-- Height: 5’ 11’’
-- Righty Or Lefty: righty

L A Y E R T W O

-- Your Heritage: Norwegian, German, French, a little of everything.
-- The Shoes You Wore Today: Black converse low top all stars.
-- Your Weakness: My Strengths
-- Your Fear: God
-- Your Perfect Pizza: Green Olive
-- Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year: Happiness, the feeling of satisfaction.

L A Y E R T H R E E

-- Your Most Overused Phrase: fuck
-- Your Thoughts First Waking Up: "Why am I still alive?”
-- Your Best Physical Feature: my… …ummmm… … I’ll get back to you on that one.
-- Your Most Missed Memory: Youthful innocence (bliss)

L A Y E R F O U R

-- Pepsi Or Coke: Pepsi
-- McDonald's Or Burger King: Ick (I would rather starve)
-- Single Or Group Dates: Either
-- Lipton Ice tea Or Nestea: COFFEE
--Chocolate Or Vanilla: Vanilla
-- Cappuccino Or Coffee: Coffee – Depends on my state of mind.

L A Y E R F I V E

Do You...
-- Sing: Certainly
-- Take A Shower: While working on the previous.
-- Want To Go To College: I’ll give it a try.
-- Liked High School: Umm definition of liked please…
-- Want To Get Married: Yes in time
-- Believe In Yourself: sometimes, when I am not thinking straight
-- Get Motion Sickness: No
-- Think You're Attractive: Umm I’m not a narcissist
-- Think You're A Health Freak: Some times
-- Get Along With Your parents/grandparents: Depends on the weather.
-- Like Thunderstorms: yes.
-- Play An Instrument: guitar, bass, trumpet (very mediocrely), drums, keyboard.

L A Y E R S I X:

In The Past Month...

-- Drank Alcohol: not in the past month
-- Smoked: no
-- Done A Drug: no
-- Gone On A Date: Not any I want to remember
-- Gone To The Mall: no
-- Eaten An Entire Box Of Chips Ahoy: I don’t really even eat cookies
-- Eaten Sushi: No, I’m a bit more conservative in my Japanese food tastes.
-- Been On Stage: Certainly, I live for stage attention.
-- Been Dumped: no
-- Gone Skinny Dipping: no
-- Stolen Anything: not anything unless downloading music counts

L A Y E R S E V E N:

Ever...

-- Been Trashed Or Extremely Intoxicated: no
-- Been Called A Tease: come on do I look like a 13 year old girl
-- Gotten Beaten Up: no
-- Shoplifted: no


L A Y E R E I G H T

-- How Do You Want To Die: in ecstasy ( not the drug)
-- What Do You Want To Be When You Grow up: umm myself… What will I become: a failure of some sort
-- What Country Would You Most Like To Visit: France (paris)

hey everyone from monticello needs to join montifucks. we need to form a community on here pass the word. until later.. jason

Somehow I find immense pleasure in watching delicately crafted paper airplanes crash into the seats 50 feet below. Well as a background I am doing lighting for the musical and the other day lacking anything of real importance or meaning to do we decided that a notebook could satisfy our childish longing for real fun. So perched high above the seats in the auditorium catwalk, we began crafting our paper wings. Our eyes lit up in excitement as we watched them float around crashing into hanging objects then falling rapidly to the ground. Some of these crafts were not so fortunate to have found a warm home on the seats below but rather remain lodged in between support beams and the ceiling structure. They remain there waiting for a the breeze of an air vent to free them and guide them to a new resting place. I don't know why I became so enthralled in this sport, but it seemed to adequately fill up my afternoon. I will have to wait until another time when I can once again resume my childish sport.