MSU?

I think it's starting to hit me that I wont be going back to MSU this fall. Everyone is talking about welcome week, football games, tailgating, etc; and it's making me pretty depressed. Not fair. I feel like college flew by quicker than any other stage of my life.. and I thought high school flew by pretty quick.

Kind of makes me think.. Am I growing up too fast for my own good? I mean fuck, I'm only 22 years old and I already have a full time job (maybe two) lined up. What ever happened to backpacking across Europe, being completely irresponsible, traveling the USA, or going to Australia for a few weeks? I feel like I'm missing a huge part of life by jumping into my career this quickly..

Summer is ending..

Well the summer sure has flown by pretty quickly. Here we are, already August 10th, and I have no idea where the summer went. It hasn't hit me that I'm not taking the usual trek back to East Lansing, but I'm sure in the next couple weeks I'll wonder why I'm not on the road. Well, I guess I will be on the road, but only to start a new chapter of my life in Texas. It feels pretty weird getting a full time job, having to look for a semi-permanent place to live, and moving all my stuff across the country again. I really started to love living out in CO, but I guess the job had to end sometime. Met a ton of awesome people and had some amazing times. At least I'll have a place to stay out here if I visit again.

Had quite the weekend. Went to the shooting range with Mark yesterday. Shot an AR-10, .38 special, .40 pistol, .22 magnum mousy-gun, and of course, a 12-gauge. Felt good to explode some clay pigeons! Then I got the full time job offer for Choke Canyon State Park, went fishing a couple times- caught a nice little brown trout on my kastmaster lure (first one ever!), ate lunch in Steamboat and caught up with Siggy, and did my laundry. Awesome weekend.

Hoping to make the best of the rest of my time here. :-)

Job

Mark - "Did you patrol all the campgrounds?"

Me - "Yeah, except McKindley. I was up their earlier today and only one site was occupied by a tent."

Mark - "Oh great. Now some poor child is getting sodomized by his grandfather in their tent because you didn't patrol around McKindley campground. "

Hahaha! Gotta love the job!! :-P

Colorado

Ok well quite a bit has happened since I updated last. I still havent heard ANYTHING from Texas.. and my hopes are dwindling everyday.. So I came out to see what Colorado had to offer me. So far it has been a blast. I've met a ton of sweet people and I'm doing what I've always wanted to do. Life is going good!

Been training all week for the job. Lonnnnng days of classroom time. Then got OC pepper sprayed on Wednesday. Quite possibly the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life. Basically it burns like you just put the hottest chili pepper juice in your eye, and when you try to wash your eyes out with water, the burning gets more intense, yet you have to wash them out. One hour of pure torture and temporary blindness. Then its the gift that keeps on giving. The next shower you take, the pain comes back as it all washes down your body, stinging EVERY place there is. Just terrible.

Anyway, I just finished my second day of work, and have yet to write a single ticket. A good thing, yes, but it gets so boring when people are doing the right thing all the time. Haha. This morning a guy got a fish hook stuck deep into his finger, so another guy volunteered to cut into his skin until he can get the hook loose. Awesomely entertaining!

Going out on voluntary patrol tonight to see if people will get a little rowdy.. maybe a few citations will be written.

Graduated.

I am officially a Michigan State University Alum - Class of 2010!!!

Were they the best four years of my life? Thats hard to say considering I'm only 21 years old, and still have over 79 more years to live (I'm predicting to be 100+ when I die). So far during these 21 years of my existence, I believe it is safe to say that these past 4, hell even the past 8 years have been the best.

Whats next?... Colorado? Texas? Hopefully I'll know for sure by 5PM tomorrow...

18/10

18 days left until graduation. It seems like nothing, but it is going to be the busiest 18 days of my life. Wahoo!! Working all week on a group GIS project, writing a paper, going to Texas for a job interview, and presenting the final GIS project next week. Sounds like a piece of cake, but that project is half my grade. Still have lots of work to do on it.. :-(

Actually now that I think about it, my last day of class is next Thursday. INSANE! so that really puts the countdown at 10 days... oh snap.

Spring Update

I guess I should probably write about spring break, eh?

Well it was a great time. Drove down to P-Cola to see Nick the first night and partied with future pilots again. Went to Kristen's grandparents house the second night, making our way to Miami. The cruise ship was like any other, of course. Immediately got our bathing suits on and hit the deck. Met a ton of people, had a great time.
Nassau was ok. Kinda cloudy all day, but we had fun in Senor Frogs doing free shots, drinking yards after yards, jumping in restricted water and getting ourselves some seashells. Later we went to the beach, where the tide was rolling in. Waves were a good 5 feet high, breaking on shore. Needless to say, swimming wasn't the best there. Haha. So we chilled out on the beach, got solicited by drug dealers right and left, and took some quality pictures.
CocoCay was the next day. That little island was the best! Jill and I signed up to do snorkeling, which was fantastic by the way. So many fish, saw some cool plane wrecks and ship wrecks, along with some cannons. So they had this little scavenger hunt game, where if you found a wooden fish somewhere out in the ocean, you get a prize. Well Jill found a wooden fish, and she won a free parasailing trip. So I go out on the boat with her, in hopes that we can sweet talk the boat drivers into letting me go. After a little negotiating, Jill was able to jump her way into letting me go with her.. Haha. So we both got to go parasailing, a $180 value, for free. Awesome! Celebrated later that night with some quality rock climbing on the wall, dancing, and a midnight buffet.
Key West was the last day. Jill and I decided to go on our own barcrawl of Duval Street.. aka the Duval Crawl. Over 50 bars, and we made it to about 10 of them.. Haha. Met quite a few people on the same quest as us, and had many delicious drinks before having to get back to the boat. Successful bar crawl! That night we played Quest, the adult scavenger hunt game. The most ridiculous things you could even imagine. Naturally, Team Number One placed in the top 3 out of 70 team. We got a medal and everything. Awesome! It was a great end to the trip :-)
The next day was our drive home. We hit the road, knowing that we needed to stop and get gas soon. Well we came upon the last exit before the toll road, and got off there hoping there was gas. We drove over 50 miles on E before deciding to pull over to a worksite, and beg some workers to give us gas. They were very generous people, and gave us half a tank for free! So we were on our merry way to Kristens grandmas house again.
The next stop was Atlanta! Saw my friend Ben, havent seen him in 2 years. It was a great time.
The rest of the trip consisted of driving, driving, and more driving. That was pretty much the end of Spring Break 2010.

Anyway, St. Patricks day was also a blast. Went to Harpers at 8am, was completely blackout by 12om, and really dont remember a whole lot until after 7pm. I guess I had a great time, judging from my pictures! Haha.

Easter was fun, went home with Kristen and met her family. Had some great food, a great easter egg hunt, and rode a good 70 miles on the back of Kent's motorcycle on easter sunday :-) Awesome time!

Got a job this summer working at Stagecoach State Park in Colorado as a limited commissioned park ranger. Basically enforce laws, but I dont get to carry a gun. I'm cool with that. Haha. Getting paid $11.27/hr, 40 hr week, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, living in the park for $50 a month. Not bad at all!

San Diego lacrosse tourny is this weekend. I guess our team name is Team Awesome. Awesome! haha. Lookin forward to catchin up with some Alumni players, going out, and having a great time. Oh and playing a few games of lacrosse too I guess.. Haha.

30 day til graduation. One more paper, and a project/presentation to do, then I'm FREE!