St. Augustine

So this weekend we had a little fun. Britney, Josh, Lindsey, and I drove up to St. Augustine for the day, which was a Saturday by the way, mainly to watch the lighting of the town and to go to the Ripley's Museum. But we did some other things here and there too. Fun fact: St. Augustine is the oldest town in the US….and it shows. I ended up driving, which I had no problem with, I actually really wanted to see how the Kia would fare on the interstate at 75mph. Shockingly…..ok. Not great, it shakes and sounds like the engine is running around 5K rpm, but it made it there and back, and got pretty great gas mileage too! I'm proud of my little Kia.

Anywho, back to the important stuff. We ended up driving straight to the Ripleys museum, which was alright, not as great and grand as I had expected. I think the TV show was better than the actual museum. But they also had some pretty cool stuff, like a thirty foot erector set ferris wheel, and this spinny tunnel thing that makes you feel like you are falling when you walk through it, when you are actually stationary. Its sort of like walking down a spinning barrel with a platform bridge down the center, but it really messes with your head and made me feel kind of sick.This poor old man, probably in his 80s, was in front of us in this thing, holding onto the railings with his life, taking a step every three seconds. It had to be horrible for him.

Then we  headed to the Castillo de San Marcos, which is right next door. I really wanted to go in but it was like six bucks a person so we said forget about it. I think we probably missed out though. It was pretty neat to see something that old though. You don't really get to see three hundred year old things around the States too much. After the castle we walked around town a bit, checked out the old stores and restaurants and such. Pretty touristy place.

Later we headed to a winery that was nearby, but only after getting lost in the ghetto of course….I think. The neighborhood looked like a ghetto but they all had pretty nice cars, so I'm not sure. Hmmm. Anywho, the winery was kind of a letdown too. Everyone that worked there seemed pretty disinterested in their jobs and in us. It was kind of a large winery and you could tell that they give tours constantly because they just send you with a group of people and you stop at four or five different stations to taste a couple of wines. Some were good, some weren't. Getting free wine is always good though.

Dinner was ok, just some bar/restaurant with some pretty odd live music from an older man who would literally just pick random strings on his guitar then tell a weird story about Walmart or some girl he met. Maybe he was being innovative, or maybe he had done too many drugs in his life, I don't know.  We ended up missing the actual lighting of the town by the way haha. It was during dinner, which was a few blocks down the street. The lighting of the town was a pretty big deal in St. Augustine, I mean they had bands playing and vendors and the whole nine yards. Once we got downtown, it was awesome though, really impressive! So me and Josh got out our celebratory cigars that we had bought earlier in the day, and destroyed our lungs and the lungs of various nearby children with them. Ahhh, good times.

Oh, we also stopped by Flagler College on our way to the car. That is one beautiful place! I was in awe of how elegant it was! We went into what looked like their union to use the facilities (pisser), and it was like we were in some type of kings court. Not the bathroom (although they were also very nice), but the whole place. So if you get a chance, google it or something.

So that was our Saturday. We drove home after that.

Heres that tunnel

ChiroGames

So this weekend was chirogames at Cocoa Beach, which is when chiropractic students from all over the county come to compete in various different sports, Britney was signed up for tennis. We got there Friday evening, went to dinner at a place called The Pig and Whistle, or something like that. It was a bar….and bar food is always good food. We didn't really do much Friday night though, just hung out in our room with our roomies Josh and Lindsey and drank a few beers. All the other students there were crazy though! It was like one giant party all weekend long. I know that a lot of Palmer students stayed in the same hotel as us, actually I think all of them did, and they were absolutely nuts! It was a madhouse outside. Makes you wonder about doctors….

In the morning we had breakfast then drove over to the tennis courts where Brit was playing. Oh by the way, it was freezing Saturday! It was in the 60s and cloudy and windy. I didn't like it. Anyways, we watched a few matches here and there, and waited for the time when Brit would get to play…..but it never happened. The whole thing was pretty unorganized so no one really knew what was going on, and it turned out that some guy didn't show up for the team that Brit had to play, so they had to forfeit. So I guess she technically won, but was pretty peeved that she didn't get to play at all. So we left and had lunch and drinks with some friends, watched some beach volleyball competitions, and watched the air show. Oh by the way…..there was an air show going on! It was pretty awesome! There were fighter jets breaking the sound barrier and doing tricks and stuff, it was pretty sweet. We were at the point on the beach where they would turn around and head back to the good spots, but it was awesome nonetheless. After that, and going back to the hotel to nap for a few hours, a group of us headed to dinner to a place called Fish Lips, or as I would call it, Fish Tits haha. Probably the coolest part of the whole trip was right before we went into the restaurant, there were like four or five Navy guys (and girl) parachuting down from a military plane to the restaurant! They landed somewhere across the street from us and I later saw them at the bar. It was freakin awesome! What show offs. I took a picture of it with my phone.

So this morning we got up and headed home, stopping at Dunkin Donuts first, of course. While we were walking up, a man (I can only assume he was homeless) with his bike was sitting on the sidewalk trying to get my attention, so I went over to talked to him. He said something about the weather then asked if I could get him a couple of donuts because "he looooved donuts". So I said I would see what I could do. The guy in line in front of me said that he had already given him a dozen or so haha, so I brought him back one, a sprinkle one (good thing he looooooved sprinkle donuts) and he was chit chatting about  how when he was young, before him and his friends would go surfing, he would stop by Dunkin Donuts and recalls the coffee being soooo hot that….I'm not really sure what he said about it being hot actually haha, but he did mention that he would put his donut on the dashboard of his car and the heat would melt the icing off, so he would put the melted icing into his coffee. Seems logical. Anyways, we shook hands and parted. Brit and I ended up taking the long way home, through Cape Canaveral. I really really really wanted to see the launch pad…..but we never did. I'm not really sure where it is. We did see the Kennedy Space Center though, and some type of astronaut hall of fame. I really wanted to go to the Kennedy Space Center, but I'm sure we will visit it in a few weeks when Abby and Trent come to visit for Thanksgiving. We are supposed to see a rocket launch then! Can't wait!

So anywho, that's how the weekend went. Brit and I started writing our Bucket Lists tonight, but this post is getting long so I think I'll postpone that. Bye!


This cup was in our hotel room, thought it was funny.

 Heres Josh "planking" the beds

 You can just barely see one of the Navy guys (or girl) parachuting

New Post

Well I finished my book last night, Beautiful Outlaw. It was pretty good. The ending was great I thought, very thought provoking. I won't go into detail, you'll just have to read the book yourself…..or at the least the ending haha. But no, the whole thing is worth reading. I just started A Catcher in the Rye tonight, I've always wanted to read an old book like that and I've had it forever, just never got around to reading it.

Not much to talk about, I really haven't been up to much this week. Brit's mom commissioned me to do a couple of drawings for the salesmen that she works with, she wants to give them to the guys as Christmas presents. She works at a tractor dealership, so one of the images will be of an Apache sprayer and the other of an old tractor that her boss owns. Pretty cool stuff, I'm excited about it. I love commissions because I get to be knit-picky about the drawings and I actually have a deadline, so it makes me work harder. If I'm not commissioned for a drawing, I get lazy and it takes me forever to finish a drawing with sacrificed quality. I'm also doing a painting for our friends Josh and Lindsey, they found a painting online that they wanted to buy, but they also wanted something unique and something from me in my type of style, so here I am making them a painting! But it is based on the one they were going to buy, and I'm ok with that. (I don't really like reproducing other peoples work). It looks pretty cool and is different from what I usually do, but I'll make it my own.

I did get to create some (what I think is) unique forms of art this week. I don't know, I was just sitting at the computer and saw Brit's camera next to me so I started messing around with it, taking blurry images of what was on the screen. And I thought they looked pretty cool! So I took about 200 more haha. I messed around with different colors and different subjects like the blinds on the window or the lamp or the ceiling fan, and created some pretty cool looking images. I did some editing in Photoshop too, but not much. I'll post some pictures at the bottom. I think they look pretty "modern artish". I'm gonna try to sell them on etsy, but I'm pretty doubtful of that site. I've tried selling things on there before but it's next to impossible (for me), it's just so large that its hard for people to find my stuff! We'll see how it goes.

Brit and I are going to Cocoa Beach this weekend for "chiro-games". She is playing tennis for her school against other chiropractic schools. It should be a good time, I'll let you know how it goes!

Ben and Britneys Grand Adventures

Yep, we went on some grand adventures this weekend with lots of driving, lots of laughing, and lots of fun. And Id like to tell you a little bit about what went on. It all started on Friday afternoon, we all left work early, that is, the cemetery guys and I, which was great because I knew I had a long drive ahead of me that night so it gave me some time to get cleaned up and packed for our adventures. So I got home, ate some lunch, showered, got things together, and left around 1pm. I finally got my car back and fixed on Thursday, it only took forever to get it finished, and just in the knick of time for some roadtripping. And of course it was insanely hot on Friday and my air conditioning in my car wasnt quite up to par, so on the way down while I stopped to get some gas I also bought some freon to recharge my air conditioner. And, of course, I had no idea how to do it. So as I was fartin around with it for about 10 minutes, I asked the guy at the pump next to me if he could help. And of course, he didnt know how either. So I said screw it and went on my way.

Two hours later, I arrive at Britneys apartment in West Laffy. I took a little rest and we got everything together and packed up the JEEP. Yes, I said Jeep! If you know me, you know that I love Jeeps. Britneys mom has a really nice 2008 Wrangler and had let us borrow it for the weekend. I cant thank her enough for letting us take it, that was the highlight of my year, just having the privilage of driving it. Anyways, we set off for St. Louis from there.

Well, actually, before getting to St. Louis, we had to stop and visit one of her friends that she had met in Greece. I dont wanna say that we HAD to visit her, lets say that we WANTED to see her, just for the sake of me not getting yelled at by Britney. Anyways, she lived somewhere in central Illinois, Im not really sure where we were though, but the GPS did. So we went to TGIFridays with Melissa and her boyfriend, not sure what his name was, Im bad at remembering names. We'll say it was Dan, just for the sake of the story, he looked like a Dan. It was a pretty good time though, Melissa and Britney just gabbed the whole time so that kept us boys entertained. After a little while there, we hit the road again, straight for St. Louis.

A couple hours laters, we see the big arch! St. Louis was absolutely beautiful at night, the sky was clear and the moon was out, and there were big spotlights on the arch, it was great. Well, from what I could see in the 5 seconds I got to look because I was driving in heavy city traffic. It was great....for a while, until we ran into some construction that our GPS didnt know how to get around, and we got lost. Im not really sure why we got off the big highways, but I think that was the wrong thing to do. Oh yeah I remember why, I thought there was a detour so I was following a car that I thought would take us around the construction....but didnt. This place that we were stuck in was shady. I saw one white person the whole time we were in that neighborhood. I mean, I dont have anything againt black people, but when your from a small town like I am, this place is pretty scary. That turned my mood quickly. It was late, about midnight our time, I was cranky, and that place was the last place I wanted to be at that time. This is the time that Britney had discovered that I had inherited my fathers temper. Luckily she was the calm one the entire time. So we stopped at a gas station, of course I didnt want to but she made me, and asked for directions. I swear the directions just took us into deeper and darker places. So we just punched in the Fridays that we had eaten at into the GPS and got the heck out of there. We wound up back onto the road we had entered the city in, turned around, and found a bunch of detour signs that we had missed the first time. Whew! We finally made it to our hotel around 1:30am I think. We were both terribly exhausted.

The next morning, Saturday morning, I had discovered how nice our hotel room really was. I couldnt tell you what floor we were on, but it was up there! And we had a king sized bed, there wasnt a position I couldnt lay and have a limb hang over the edge, I think it was bigger than a dorm room! And the best part was, it was all free! And included a free breakfast!! We were in St. Louis to visit a chiropractic school that she is thinking about attending after Purdue, like a Day on Campus sort of thing, and the school payed for the hotel room.

So after our delicous free breakfast, we headed for the school. It was pretty nice, and they had a lot of credentials and impressive statistics, but ill say that the day on campus thing was pretty boring. Just a lot of people talking about how great the school is. But, there was a lot of free food. AND.......I got to see a dead body. During one of the tours, they took us to a lab where they have a bunch of cadavers, probably 30 or so, laying on metal tables, covered in plastic, waiting to be disected. They told us ahead of time that we dont have to go look, but of course I wanted to. So they pulled back the plastic on one, and there he was, cut open down the center of his back. The doc showed us some muscles and nerves and stuff. The entire time I was thinking about two things. First, my mind kept saying "so this is what lies beneath my feet at the cemetery." And second, "Those muscles sort of look like dark meat turkey." MMmmmm, turkey.

After our little campus visit that lasted most of the morning and part of the afternoon, we got back in the Jeep and headed for good ol' grampa Toms house. He lives about two hours from there, so we thought we'd make a visit while we were in the neighborhood. Once we got there, I gave her a tour of the town, we took some pictures of the huge energy windmill thingy, and then headed to nowhere else but the Cardinal Inn, my grampas favorite restaurant on the face of this planet. After conversing with anyone and everyone, we had decided that we wanted to go the bus derby that night at the county fair. If you dont know what a bus derby is, Ive run into some people who dont, its where people get old schoolbusses and wreck them into each other and the last one standing is the winner. Its the best thing ever. There was a lot of steam and fire and crunched up busses. While at the derby, we ran into a little bit of a thunderstorm. Luckily we were under a roofed stands, but man that wind and rain and lightning was nuts! After the storm passes, we watched a boring round of bus derbyness, it wasnt exciting because the rain had made so much mud that the busses kept getting stuck. So, we left after that. Went back to grandpas and went to bed.

The next morningSunday morning we got up, went to the Cardnal Inn for some breakfast, and decided to do some riding! That is, motorcycle riding. My grandpa has a couple of bikes so he lent me and Britney one for the day. We rode with my grandpa and a couple of his old retired buddies. I think we went about 80 miles that afternoon, down some back roads and some really nice places near the Illinois river, and I think we were running parallel to the Mississippi River for a while. I enjoyed it, and Im sure Britney did as well. She made a good addition to the bike. After riding, we loaded up the Jeep again, said our goodbyes, and heads back east for lots of driving, LOTS of driving. I was so freakin tired the whole way home, Britney drove probably most of the way back while I was in and out of conciousness. We got back to West Laffy, and after a long goodbye, we parted and I headed back to Bremen. I got back about 10:30pm. Whew, what a weekend.

It was great being able to visit my grandpa and especially nice to spend some time with Brit. Its amazing what you learn about someone by spending every waking moment with them, especially on car rides. She learned that I can have a bit of temper when I am cranky and lost, and I learned that she likes to change the radio station a lot haha. I kept my mouth shut until now, but once she reads this Im gonna get it. But all in all, it was a great weekend. Sorry for the long post, its hard to fit three days into a single paragraph.

Boating Adventures, with a Twist

This weekend I went down to West Lafayette to visit Britney and have some adventures with her. My sister let me borrow her car for the weekend so I was actually able to make it there without any worries! And its a convertible so of course I drove the whole weekend with the top down....and of course burnt my face and head from the blazing sun.

On Friday night, Britney and I went and saw a movie, Life in Ruins....or My Life in Ruins.....or something to do with Ruins, it had the same woman from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It was an okay movie, Britney really enjoyed it though because it was all about Greece and she had just seen all the places in the movie from over the past month.

Then on Saturday we went boating with her family. That was a pretty good time but it was kind of on the nippy side most of the day, and the water wasnt much better. I had fun otherwise. We did a little bit of swimming and tubing, not much tubing though because I was kind of afraid of Deans driving style....he liked to make us hurt.....and drive us into packs of geese. Her family is really fun to hang around though, I felt like part of the family the entire time. One moment that is glued into my head about this weekend is sitting at the front of the boat with Britney, she was looking out over the water, looking for driftwood to dodge for the tubers (although she would never tell the driver when she saw some, just say something quietly to me or herself), and she just looked so beatiful with her hair blowing in the wind and her outfit of bikini with shorts and a white sweater jacket thingy set into the green and blue background. It kind of took me aback, and made me smile. I wish I wouldve had my camera, that wouldve been an amazing picture.

Oh and I met her real dad this weekend. He seemed pretty scary to me at first, hes tall and has a really deep voice, and had just woken up from a nap when I met him so he was kind of disoriented and looked aggrivated. But after a while I figured out that hes a pretty nice guy, not too mean I guess....but ill probably still be afraid of him.

And tonight I drove back early because we had a little something going on back home, some big plans. If you havent heard yet, let me be the first to tell you about Abby and Trents engagement proposal.

So Todd and I got to be a part of something really special tonight, we had been helping Trent out with his proposal for a couple of weeks now and tonight was the big night. Heres how it went: Abby and Trent left for Lake Wawasee to get some dinner and stopped by Mary and Jerrys house. Meanwhile, Todd and I were about ten or fifteen minutes behind them. Abby and Trent get to thier house and Jerry offers to let them take the pontoon out on the lake for a spin. So they head out on the lake and come to an area across the lake next to the shore where you can park your boats and its really beautiful and so on and so forth. After about ten minutes of waiting, Todd and I pull up on a speedboat, all dressed up in black pants, white dress shirt, and black tie. We are thier servers for the night. And as Todd and Trent and I are helping to get dinner ready for him and Abby, Trent sets down a fancy napkin in front of Abby that is embroidered with "Abby, will you marry me?" So he gets down on a knee and asks. She says yes of course, then proceeds to fight back some tears and loses the fight miserably. This, in part, makes me tear up also. But once we got the food on the table, she calmed down a little. Then we all ate dinner, well not together, Todd and I ate on the other side of the boat. Oh and I was also the photographer for the night. I ended up taking nearly 150 pictures of them and the ring and the cups and whatever. Some of them turned out really really good though. Ill put some on my flickr when I get a chance. But yeah, after five and half years of being just boyfriend and girlfriend, they are now an engaged couple. Isnt that special.

ATO 2009 Serenades

Check it out!

Im one of the guys with that chairs. On the far left.

Oh Dear...

So lately I have been in a pretty weird mood, Id say for about the last few months. Id say ever since I had mono, Ive been feeling this way. Nearly every day, I feel like doing absolutely nothing. I have no interest whatsoever in doing even the simplist tasks like going to class, going out with friends, sometimes eating, and sometimes I dont even want to get on my computer or watch TV or anything, I will just sit in my room and stare into space, or pick at my guitar for hours on end. It seems like when I have to do these tasks, it is somehow a burden to me, my instict always says to do otherwise, which is nothing. But, I force myself to do stuff every day. I lay in bed nearly every morning (sometimes afternoon) having to talk myself into getting up to start the day.

And there are other things, little things. I havent dated anyone this semester, I havent even tried. I was all about dating last semester and looked for every oppurtunity. Its not that Im not confident anymore, its nothing like that, I just dont feel like it. I dont feel like meeting new people. The other day I was at a restaurant and our waitress was pretty cute, and she seemed extra nice to me. I thought to myself, I could probably pull something off and get a date with her, but eh, I dont feel like it. I cant even get around to making plans with anyone, or returning phone calls, or really doing anything. Everything seems like such a burden for some reason. All of the things I used to be interested in before like drawing, blogging, photography, being creative in general, meeting new people, dating, all that stuff is just boring to me now, is seemingly not worth my time.

Also, I have been extremely tired every day. I thought at first it could be that Im not getting enough sleep, or too much sleep, but no matter how much I get, Im still tired every single day. At any given moment of the day, I could just take a nap, and thats all I want to do, and thats all I think about, how tired I am. I even find myself drifting off in class sometimes. I slept for 40 minutes in a 50 minute class one day. Today, I layed down to take a cat nap before class, and woke up an hour and half later to find out I had slept completely through my class.

I figured that these might be some symptoms of depression. But the thing is, I dont feel sad or anything like that. Im actually pretty positive, Im still the same old Ben when Im hanging out with my friends, I just have no drive or motivation to do anything anymore. So I got online tonight to look at some of the symptoms of depression and sure enough, a good portion of these were there. And as I read on, I came across an article about nervous breakdowns. Here are some syptoms of a nervous breakdown from the article I read:

• Loss of interest in normal daily activities
• Agitation or restlessness
• Persistent crying
• Appetite changes
• Sleep disturbances
• Trouble concentrating and making decisions

I have most of these except for persistent crying. Although, on a couple of occasions I have felt emotional for no reason. While I was driving home for spring break I started to tear up thinking about all of my friends being in Florida while I would be at home. I cried during the movie Bolt. Sometimes I will even see a commercial or some tiny tidbit of something touching and get really emotional. In the past, I rarely cried. Cartoons or commercials dont generally tug at my heart strings.

One article I read linked caffeine to depression. I have been drinking coffee and tea and workout stuff like its my job this semester. In that past I hardly ever had that stuff. Maybe this has sparked it? I dont know, but I think Im going to give it up now after reading that. I also noticed that I feel a whole new sense of renewal when the weather is warm. Maybe its just cabin fever or something.

Man, a nervous breakdown? Just the words sound terrible. What is this, a quarter life crisis?

Serenades!

Its that time of year, serenade time! This is when our fraternity goes around to most of the sororities on campus and dance for them to try to make them fall in love with us, actually we are just trying to get them to come to our philanthropy (event to raise money for a cause, if you didnt know). The greek system is very complicated, I was trying to explain the things we do to a GDI (gosh darn independent, to be clean) and most of it sounds crazy and complicated but its still fun.

But anyways, serenades. This year I am part of the dance crew. We just started going around to the sororities tonight....and I just learned the dance last night. Originally I was supposed to be Patrick Swayze's character in the SNL Chippendales skit, but I never practiced and I didnt really want to do itanyways, so now I have a different part. Me and three other guys have four chairs, we dance a little to a song, then pick four girls out of the audience, sit them down, then dance for them, and eventually get on one knee and sing to them. Its so much fun! While Im dancing, I usually turn around and shake my butt for them, one girl actually spanked it once. Then while Im on my knee, I hold her hand, kiss it, do the little 'boop' thing (finger to the nose), and gaze into their eyes with my cute puppydog eyes. Im sure their hearts just melt. We did four tonight, I think we are doing sixteen altogether all week long. Good times.

Casino night!

So Im officially on spring break. Im a little bummed that I had to come home for spring break. A good majority of my friends went to Panama City for spring break this year, but Im not able to go because I dont have any money or a reliable car to take me down there. But then a few nights ago, a couple of friends and I had come up with the idea to take a roadtrip to California, one of them knows some people in Fresno. We figured it would take about 36 hours to get there, and we would live cheaply, sort of like my Fall Break trip. But then yesterday, the day we were going to leave, the driver decided he didnt want to take his car, so then we had no car, which means we had no trip. I was very disappointed. That drive home was the most depressing drive home ever. But I feel like I am offending people back home when I say that I didnt want to be back here. Its not that I dont want to see my family, the problem is, I have lived here for 18 years, Im not missing anything by being gone. Bremen will always be here. Spring break in Panama City with all of my best friends happens once in a lifetime, and I cant go.

But anyways, casinos, that what I wanted to talk about. Last night my mom took Abby, Rachel, Trent, and me to the Blue Chip casino last night. I thought it was a pretty good time. I went to a casino once in Wisconson with Todd and Chuff, but I only played with three dollars, and I lost it all, so it wasnt that much fun. But last night, my mom surprised with $100 to play with.

So I started off with the penny slots, I was a little hesitant to spend the big bucks at first because I didnt want to just waste my moms money. And, I lost. Then I got brave and played with the $1 slots. I put a $20 in, got down to my last two dollars, then.....won $50! That was pretty exciting! After that, I wanted to learn some of the other places like the roulette table. My mom taught me how to do it, we played together at the same table, and right off the bat, on my very first bet, I won $70. I bet a couple more times, then cashed out. Later on, I pleyed roulette again with Trent, he was trying to win back the money he had lost, and I won another $40. All in all, I almost doubled my money, I made $90 last night. I tried giving it back to my mom, but of course she refused.

Most of us got pretty lucky last night. My mom made a good pretty good chunk of money, Abby was up for a while, then lost most of it. Trent found $20 on the ground, then made his loss back on the roulette table. Im not sure how Rachel did, her boyfriend Derek was down when I left. And my moms husband Mike was up to $250 from $100 on the roulette table.

I found out that at a casino, you have to bet big to win big. Playing penning slots is a waste of money, you get nowhere. The roulette table seemed to be the best chance for winning, unless your name is Abby. It was a minimum bet of $10, but you had a 50/50 chance of doubling that each time. Also, you have a very good chance of getting lung cancer in one night from secondhand smoke.

Official Christmas Break

Oy! Finally, Im on Christmas Break! I went back to school on Thursday to take my final exam on Saturday. I went back kind of early because we were supposed to get hit by a huge snow and ice storm that night and I didnt want to drive through it. But once I got back to school, I was really surprised at how many people were still on campus. Usually during finals week, everyone leaves like halfway during finals week, but apparently there were a ton of people with Saturday finals, like me.

My exam was pretty easy though. It was for Spanish 202 (my second time around in that class), my fifth semester in spanish. I started studying for the exam about two hours beforehand. I had an energy drink while studying and it was pretty effective, so I had another before my exam. Then afterwards, while driving home, I had one more energy drink. Thats a lot of energy. But I needed it because of the long, boring drive home.

But right after my exam, I had to go to my aunts house for a Christmas party. I only showed up about two hours late. But at least there was still some food left! So I did the usual: ate, we did some gift giving, then I played Rock Band with my cousins and sister and Trent for the rest of the night while my uncle got drunk and stunk up that basement because he gets bad gas when he has beer.

And now, Im staying at my dads house in Granger. And Ive been really sick all of last week. It sucks....hard. I think I caught the flu. Im not throwing up or anything but Ive gotten fevers and chills and aches every night since last Monday. I hate getting sick, and I rarely do, Im usually a pretty healthy person, but this one has lingered for far too long.

Anyways, thats just an update from the last few days.

Poor Decisions

A couple of days ago I blogged about how I like being young because I get to be stupid and make poor decisions. Well, I made one the other day. And it actually doesnt feel that great, actually I feel really stupid.

For lunch on Friday, I went to Harry's Chocolate Shop, one of the more popular bars on campus. Adam and I go nearly every Friday because they have a good lunch special and its just great being in that atmosphere, especially when its cold out. We are like regulars there on Friday afternoons, the waitress even knows us and expects us. But since it was the last Friday of the semester, we decided to invite several other guys in the house to join us. So I arrived there with Brad at about 1:30pm and met up with four other guys who had already been there a while, Adam was still at an exam.

When we got there, the guys already had a pitcher waiting for us, it was their third and couldnt finish it, so me and Brad took it. And usually when Adam and I go, we'll each have a beer with our lunch, or maybe even nothing, but since it was the last Friday, I decided to allow myself a couple more, but not enought to get drunk because I was taking a girl out later that night and I wanted to be prepared for it. So throughout our lunch, Brad ordered a couple more pitchers. Then Adam eventually came, and we ordered a couple more pitchers on top of that. I kept saying no more, but would cave in and finish my share. All in all, I think me and Brad had about 4 or 5 pitchers of beer. Thats a lot! We left Harrys at 5pm after being there for 3 and a half hours. Needless to say, I was gone.

So I had to pick up Christine at 7pm that night, we were going to a dance show in the art building, a show for the dance majors. She is on the Purdue Dance Team, so I thought she might be interested that. But anyways, once I got back to my room I started eating a bunch of crackers and drinking a ton of water to try and sober up. But I eventually fell asleep (passed out) on my couch at about 6pm. I was awaken by my buddies at 6:45, and I felt like I was in no shape to go anywhere. So I texted her that I couldnt go because I wasnt feeling well, but never sent it because that wouldve been really really crappy of me to cancel 15 minutes ahead of time. So before I left, I decided that I needed to get all of that crap out of me. So I went to bathroom and made myself purge. Once I got back to my room and got my teeth brushed, it was 6:57. I put on my coat and shoes and a ton of cologne, headed out the door, and sprinted to her dorm....I mean, I was at a full out sprint the whole way, which luckily isnt too far, only three or four miles. Ha, just kidding. But once we met up, I tried to play off that I wasnt drunk, but probably wasnt very convincing. I probably smelled like alcohol and vomit, and couldnt really walk straight. So as we were walking over to the art building, I confessed that I was still a little drunk from lunch and apologized, she just laughed and said it was fine, but who knows.

I sobered up during the dance show though. It was actually a pretty interesting show, and a lot shorter than I thought it would be. But anyways, as we were walking back I invited her back to ATO to hang out, and she agreed. So we talked for a while, then popped in a movie, then I walked her back.

But I feel really stupid that I got that drunk right before taking her out. I should have just stopped at the first pitcher. And I hope she doesnt think Im some big stupid fratboy drunk or something because she is a really sweet and really pretty girl. But anyways, theres one more lesson learned. Idiot award goes to me.

Shenanigans

Last year I had two roommates in the fraternity, Adam and Cam. And Adam and I would always play pranks on Cam, and they just kept getting worse and worse, and more creative. Actually, we started playing pranks on Cam even before we lived in the house. At first we started off with little things like putting his things in Jell-O or taping all of his possessions to the wall or ceiling, but then we got to more creative ideas. Its not like we dont like him or anything, hes just really easy to prank, and hes not creative or brave enough to get us back. But Id like to tell you about some of the things we've done to him.

The first big one I remember pulling was before Adam and I lived in the house, but Cam did. One weekend Cam went home to see his girlfriend, which kind of upset Adam and I because neither of us really liked her. So while he was gone, we figured it was the perfect time to pull a prank on him. We went to the store Priscillas, which is like one of those adult stores, and bought a gay porno magazine. I had to be the one to go up and pay for it, Adam absolutely refused. So we went back to the house and broke into his room. Once we got in, we ripped out all of the pages of the magazine, there were hundreds of pages of naked dudes, and hid them all over his room. I mean, we hid these things EVERYWHERE. We hid them in his bed, in his pillow case, his cereal, laundry detergent, behind his posters, in his books, in his clothes, everywhere! Once he got back, he found out what had happened and went on a search for them all. He found most of them right away, but still kept finding them weeks later. The very last one that was found was after he had moved out and the next guy, Brady, was moving in. Bradys dad discovered one while moving some old stuff around. Very funny.

Another small one included taking his towel while he was showering, which turned out bad for Adam because once Cam got back to the room, he chased us around naked and rubbed his balls on Adam. Bad news for Adam.

The next big one involved his vehicle. We put his car up for sell on craigslist, a 2004 Chevy Trailblazer, for $3500. I forget exactly what the discription said, but it was something like he needed to sell it quickly because he was leaving the country for a job and money was really no object. And we put his cell phone number on there so they would call him right away. Needless to say, he got a ton of phone calls. I think he ended up getting like 20 calls in the first ten minutes. But shortly after the sale was posted, they shut it down because it was fake, so Adam and I started calling a bunch of people having them call Cam about his truck. I even called my grandpa, who got a hold of Cam, and refused to accept the fact that the sale was a prank, my grandpa kept saying he needed it for his grandson. That was great.

Shortly after, we did another craigslist prank, putting his picture and information on the Men seeking Men section. I believe he got a few calls from that too.

Other small pranks. Adam got on Cams computer, onto Microsoft Word, and AutoCorrected the word "and" to say "Cam is gay". So everytime Cam would type the word and, it would automatically turn into Cam is gay.

We also signed him up for a Playboy tryout at Purdue. Playboy was in town trying to recruit girls for a special Big Ten edition, so we signed him up for a tryout.

We have signed him up for many online newsletters.

One prank that I am in the process of pulling is pretty creative too. I wrote a note saying, "Im terribly sorry, but I have smashed into you car. I have gone to the hospital to get my injuries checked out. Call me and we can work out a cash settlement, I dont have much money but I will help any way that I can. Call me at ************* and ask for Cam. Again, Im very sorry this happened." I made 50 copies of that and plan on putting them on 50 cars around campus. Some people think it wont work, since there will be no visible damage to the car. But I think that if I got that on my car, I would call and see whats up.

We have several other creative ideas, but havent gotten around to doing them yet. So there you have it, there are some of the shenanigans I get into with my friends.

Fun Date

So a couple of weeks ago I met a girl named Lindsay. Ive been hanging out with her quite a bit lately, but havent really told many people. I dont wanna get my hopes up, its seems like every time I do, I get my spirits crushed. But anyways, yesterday I called her to see if she wanted to hang out for the night, go to dinner or something. I didnt even plan anything for the night, just knew that we were going to eat somewhere, not even sure where. I picked her up at 6 and asked her where she wanted to eat. We agreed on a really nice place called Red Seven in downtown Lafayette. So we ate there, I got some salmon (which was scrumtulescent), and she got some Thai dish. Somewhere during our conversations we got to talking about Candyland, not sure why though (some foreshadowing), but overall the dinner was pretty fun. We always have these weird conversations about random things......which I love doing.

After dinner we decided to walk around downtown Lafayette a little to check it out. But we didnt do that for long because it was so freakin cold out. So we drove to Starbucks and got some coffee. And what do we see there as we're waiting in line? Candyland. So as we were sitting there drinking our coffee, we played a game of Candyland and ate a giant rainbow cookie. She won the game. I was very upset.

So as we were drinking our coffee, we were trying to come up with things to do for the rest of the night. She knew that I was taking a ceramics class and had been asking if we could go to the art building and play on the wheel. I was hesitant because I didnt want the instructor to be in there and chew me out, but figured it would be worth the risk. So we headed there next. They also had a gallery going on, so we checked that out first. Then headed to the ceramics room. We played on the wheel for a while, she made a nice plate with swirlies, I made a couple of cylinders, it was a good time. Cleaning up sucked though.

Afterwards we were at a loss for what to do. I brought up the idea that later we should buy a disposable camera and head to the bars and get our pictures taken with a bunch of drunk people, so we were planning on doing that later. It was probably 9:30 or 10 by this time, so it was far too early to meet drunks then. So we just got in the car and started driving around, thinking we would see something interesting and check it out.

Then we created a really fun game in the car. I told her to get a coin and at every intersection we would flip the coin to decide which direction to go. Heads is left, tails is right. And she came up with the rule that if its the same side as the previous flip, we go straight. But after every 10 minutes or so, we would forget which side meant which direction. So she came up with the expressions "Left our heads....", and "Right on our tails." And needless to say......we got lost. But we just trucked on until we found something familiar. We eventually made it back to campus and back to ATO. Once we got back we watched to movie Blow, and after the movie we were too tired to take pictures with drunks and she had to get up early for church, so I dropped her off and called it a night.

So that was a pretty fun, random night.

Eventful Night

So tonight was interesting and full of a variety of emotions. It started a couple of hours before chapter, maybe around 6 or 7pm. My friend Cam, a brother in the house, came up to me and told me that our Housing Director was coming to the house tonight to inform four of us that we are being evicted from the fraternity. This was a little upsetting, but I wasnt going to make a big deal about it since I didnt have all of the facts, and since I was proven innocent by the brothers, I figured I wouldnt be getting evicted also. So after chapter (thats our house meeting every Monday where we do fraternity business), we had a little discussion with Ty, the house director. He came straight out and said that all four of us were getting evicted next semester. Like I said earlier, I was proven innocent by the chapter, so had no punishments according to the brothers due to the fact that it wasnt my alcohol that was found in our room. But, since I knew it was in the room, the housing corporation decided to evict me, which is separate from the fraternity. I was just a tad upset about this, and told Ty what I thought. The whole thing was sketchy to begin with, it seemed like they were targeting certain people, mainly the people I pledged with. So I told him how shady everthing seemed, told him we deserved a second chance, and told him that because of this about a quarter of the house might be quitting.

So after our conversation, I was walking upstairs to my room when about three or four guys stopped me and asked about our conversation. I explained, and they were also upset with the decision. So they gathered as many guys as they could, and headed to the kitchen to have a huge discussion with Ty. This was pretty amazing. There were about 25 or 30 guys in there defending us four, we all told Ty how we disapproved of him, the corporation, and the Board of Trustees, telling him that they are more concerned with punishing us than helping us, which in turn is hurting the house. This whole conversation went on for a couple of hours, just Ty against all of us. It was pretty amazing how everyone came together to give him our opinions, and we were really blunt about it, telling him that his decisions and leadership skills are disgusting. We have had problems with this guy in the past, hes really unethical and unprofessional, but this was the breaking point. We eventually told him we wanted to get rid of him as housing director, that he wasnt helping the house at all, only ruining it. Im still not sure if I am still getting evicted though, either way it doesnt bother me, I had half of the brothers tell me I could stay in their room next semester. Shoot, I wouldnt have to pay rent that way.

So after that, Im sitting in my room talking to some guys about the events of the night when I hear some yelling and running coming from the staircase. Earlier in the day, some guys on the first floor had set up a fort in their hallway made of mattresses and challenged the second and third floor to a battle. This was the battle, and it was freakin awesome! We started out using brooms and frebreeze or axe spray as our ammo. The guys on the second floor (my floor) would charge and all of this smelly stuff would just cloud up the whole hallway. I was using a stick of deodorant as my defense, wiping it on anyone near me. Then I got my airhorn as a defense. And, eventually, someone got the idea to use the fire extinguisher, which, looking back, was a horrible idea. That thing left the biggest mess, white powder was everywhere, I mean, everywhere! Then everyone was on the verge of throwing up because of the white cloud of dust filling the air. We all ran outside and were coughing and spitting trying to get the taste out of our mouths. The dust cloud even made its way up to the third floor. We eventually settled down just before 1am. Im not sure who cleaned up the mess, but it was huge. Someone even threw a pumpkin. Yes, I know, we are wild and irresponsible, but we had so much fun!

Random Thoughts and Events

You know how movies have dramatic music in the background of each scene, and there are different types of music for each type of scene. During tense moments, theres the dramatic, high beat music. During love scenes or moments of happiness, there are the soothing violins and flutes and whatnot. During sad parts, the music makes you feel emotional.

Wouldnt it be cool if our lives had that music playing? Im sitting here in my room, just got up from a nap, and there is this music playing somewhere, Ive been hearing for like the last half hour. I looked all around to see if it was from the speakers, from a computer, from the house, but couldnt find the source. Its really faint, but it sounds beautiful. I thought for a moment that I might be going crazy (even more so than I already am). But I think I found the source, Im not 100% sure, but I think its the Purdue band, they are practicing down the road, I can hear some drums every now and then. But the music Im hearing sounds way too love storyish for a school band to play. But that got me thinking about having music to the events of our lives. I think that would be awesome, it would add to the emotion, but probably get annoying after a while.

My week hasnt gotten any better. Just as I predicted, it got worse. I might be getting evicted from ATO now. Its not because of the rent issue though. A couple weeks ago, while we were on fall break, some guys on the Board of Trustees decided to do room checks for alcohol. There was some beer in our fridge left over from tailgating with my roommates parents, and they found it. There were quite a few others that got caught too. We were sent to J-board (judicial board), which decides punishments for breaking the rules, and I was found innocent due to the fact that it wasnt my alcohol or refridgerator. But this week, I recieved an email that said that I still might be getting evicted because of the incident, although I was found innocent. It doesnt make sense, and its kind of a harsh punishment for my first house offense. But I dont really care if I get evicted, I will probably just turn in my pin (quit the fraternity), and find an apartment, it costs too much to live in a fraternity anyways. There are quite a few guys that are fed up with the drama around the house and are considering quitting also. Im actually going to look at a house off campus with some guys this weekend for next year. So, we'll see what happens with this.

But for now, Im just gonna listen to my lifes background music.

Bad Day

I am having a bad day so far. First of all, I couldnt sleep last night, I woke up at about 4am because my bladder was gonna explode, and when I got back from the bathroom, I could not fall back asleep. I layed there for about two hours. My mind was just going crazy, I kept thinking about EVERYTHING. Then I got up this morning in just a blah mood. Lunch was blah also.

I went to my ceramics class, my only class of the day, hoping to brighten my spirits. The one girl that is in my class that I sorta had a crush on, well I asked her to be my date for a party we are throwing this saturday. I think her and her boyfriend split, but really it doesnt matter. This party on saturday is sort of like a high school dance type thing with food, dancing, hayride, but theres alcohol there, but you need to take a date. So I asked her a couple of days ago with no response, then asked again today and she said she couldnt go. I didnt get an excuse, but I dont really care what it was, she probably just didnt have enough time to make one up. She is the third girl to turn me down for this party. That didnt help my already bad mood. Then, we had homework due for this class, some sketches of an absract object based on a poem or song. So I did the sketches based on the poem I wrote, but didnt bring the poem to class. Needless to say, I got chewed out, and she didnt believe me that I actually wrote a poem, she thought I was making that up. On top of that, we are working on a hand made from clay, it has to be as realistic as possible, and I spent about an hour on just the thumb today. I got it attached, was in a bad mood for how difficult this hand had been to build, and...........it fell off the stand. The thumb broke, the hand became deformed, I had a few choice words, nearly grabbed the whole thing and threw it against the wall, but decided not to.

So that has been my crappy day so far. I just wanted to walk out in front of a car on my way back from class. Actually, the whole week has been kind of a rollercoaster. Im ready for it to be over. Except, it will only get worse since I have to be bartender for our Halloween party on Friday. So for the rest of the day, I might drive to Rochester to put some money in my account, I still havent paid rent for this semester. But once I do, I will once again be flat broke. Fun time is over.

Fall Break Part IV

TUESDAY
So once again we woke really early, AJ set the alarm for like 5:30 or 6am, it was still completely dark out. We wanted to get up before the sun came up so we could watch it rise, plus we needed to get off the beach before patrol came by and arrested us. So we packed up the tent and sleeping bags, headed to Dunkin Doughnuts for coffee and a doughnut, then to a Kill Devil Hills beach. It took a while for the sun to come up, we had to wait like a half hour or so, but when it came up over the water, it was absolutely magnificant. I couldnt believe how beautiful a sunrise would be over the ocean, the colors were so saturated, I wanted to paint it or something.

While leaving the beach we discovered that this beach actually had outdoor showers to wash sand off....so we whipped out the bottle of shampoo and washed up a little bit before we hit the road. Kill Devil Hills had a bunch of monuments for the Wright brothers since its where they took the first flight. So we checked out some monuments, then hit the road again.

This is the last day of our adventure, and we knew we had a long day ahead of us because we had to drive all the way back to West Lafayette. After leaving the Outer Banks, we hit Roanoke Island, which was also beautiful. Most of the drive through NC was pretty uneventful though. Once we got to the western part of NC, we hit the mountains again, which were gorgeous once again. We knew that on the way back home, we wanted to hit the Blue Ridge Parkway, a scenic road along the ridge of the Appallacians. So we got on that shortly after arriving in Virginia. This road was pretty awesome, every so often there would be a lookout so we would stop and look at the views and take some pictures. They were pretty astounding. The road was taking forever though, we were on it for a couple of hours, and the speed limit was only 45, so although it was scenic, we lost a lot of time there. Once we got off in Roanoke, VA, we got lost and couldnt find the interstate, we had to stop again and ask for directions. We actually had to back track, we probably could have made it through Virginia in like a half hour, but it actually took a good part of the day to get through. We finally made it to the toll road through West Virginia, and somewhere in VA or WV, we drove through Tobaccoville, which as you can image, smelled like delicious flavored pipe tobacco. So we stopped there at a Wendys and asked people where the smell was coming from, apparently there was a tobacco factory there, which makes sense. And once we got to Ohio, it was beginning to get dark already.

So we drove in Kentucky along the Ohio-Kentucky line for a while, drove over the Ohio River on another awesome bridge, and stopped again in Ohio. We were both pretty exhausted, I had to get a 5 hour energy shot at the gas station. AJ got coffee, and drove for a while till we got to Cincinatti. My energy shot wasnt very effective, it gave me a hyper drunken feeling. So in Cincinatti I got a Starbucks double-shot drink, I needed the energy since it was my turn to drive, to get us back to West Lafayette. Man, that drive from Cincinatti to West Lafayette was a struggle. AJ was in and out of conciousness the whole time, everytime he would doze off I would jerk the steering wheel or roll down his window to keep him awake, but it didnt help much. We would even be in the middle of a conversation, and literally after one second, I would look over and he would be asleep. What a horrible co-pilot. I was just singing really loud trying to stay awake, it wasnt too hard for me to stay awake since I knew the consequences of falling asleep.

But eventually, at around 2am, we made it back to school!! Ill tell you what, this is one trip that I will never forget, it was probably the best vacation Ive ever been on. And, surprisingly, AJ and I are still friends after the trip haha. A couple of times we both got cranky, but it wasnt a big deal since we were running on little sleep the whole weekend.

Here are some stats from the trip:
Miles traveled: 2,528
Fill-ups: 7
Gas Milage: Appr. 28-29mpg
Hours driven: Appr. 45 hours
Money spend:
-gas: $272.10 ($136.05 each)
-food for me: $22 for seafood dinner, Appr. $20 in coffee and misc.
-helicopter ride: $22
-total: $200.05 for me
States traveled through: 7

Surprising twist: Wednesday, the day after the trip, I was on my way to the Indiapolis Airport to pick up Stacee and Steven, got about 10 miles down the road, and my car broke down. It started to overheat, so I pulled over, then steam started shooting out the hood. It turns out, where the radiator hose joins the radiator, the connection is busted off, so I now have to buy a new radiator for my car. God was on our side for this trip :) His hand must have burned like hell holding that hose on the whole trip.


Watching the sun rise

Wright bothers sign

The hill from the first flight

Blue Ridge Parkway

Scenic outlook

The end of the adventure!

Fall Break Part III

MONDAY
Monday was also jam packed with adventure! Again, we woke up early, I think AJ set his phone alarm for 6:30 or 7am. So we got up, said goodbye to Steven and Stacee, and hit the road again. We drove for a few hours up the coast when I accidentally took a wrong turn to the Isle of Palms, an island off the coast. And since we didnt have a plan, we just went with it. We arrived at the Isle, found the closest beach, and watched the ocean once again. This time the weather was perfect, and there were some pretty nice houses along the beach. Also, I found a one-legged bird hobbling around on the beach, it cracked me up! AJ said that its other leg was just tucked under, but I still think it only had one leg. We didnt stay at the isle for very long, maybe 20 minutes, then hit the road again. We knew that we wanted to drive through Myrtle Beach, just to say that we've been there, so that was going to be our next stop.

On our way to Myrtle Beach, we drove through Charleston, SC. One of the highlights of the trip was driving over this big beautiful bridge. We could see it coming from miles away but had no idea that we were on the road that drove over it. What a shock! It was great though, theres pics below.

We arrived at Myrtle Beach sometime around noon, I think. Stacee had been telling me not to stop by Myrtle Beach, that it wasnt worth it, and was just a huge tourist attraction, but she was wrong, and it was probably my favorite stop on the trip. Shortly after arriving, we were driving down the highway when we saw a huge sign that said "Helicopter rides-$20." We looked at each other in disbeleif and agreed that we had to check it out. When we got there we found that it was true, the Intro flight was only $20. So we signed up, waited about ten minutes, then were in the air. This flight was the first time I had ever been in the air, I have never been on an airplane or a helicopter before. The flight only lasted a couple of minutes, we just made a small loop around Myrtle Beach and a little bit over the ocean. But we were so far up! Ill admit, I was scared for a second when we banked to turn. That was a great experience that Ill never forget.

After the helicopter ride, we headed to the ocean once again. I looked around for a while for a public bathroom or changing room so I could change into my suit, but for some reason there wasnt one anywhere along the beach. So....I changed on the beach, got as far down to just my boxers, put my suit on over them. Im sure people enjoyed that free show. Then we played in the ocean for a while, actually a pretty long time. The waves were huge, I mean, some of them had to be like 10 feet tall. After we played in the water, we had to scope the beach for some honeys, but unfortunately, the beach was full of old people and people that shouldnt be wearing anything less than sweats. I think we counted about three cute girls along nearly a mile stretch of beach.

After we left Myrtle Beach, we knew that we wanted to head to the Outer Banks, a long stretch of islands off the coast of North Carolina. It took us the rest of the day to get there. On the way, we did run into a few incidents. At one point, I pulled up to a guy on a crotch-rocket at a stoplight and once the light turned green I took off like a bat-out-of-hell to race him. I just wanted to see him fly past me, which he did. But that must have gotten him all excited, because for the next fifteen minutes or so, he kept driving crazy and doing tricks on his motorcycle to try and impress us. First he sat on top of the tank and stretched his legs out. Then he jumped off to the side of the bike and let his feet drag along the ground, which made his shoe catch on fire. He started shaking his foot to put it out, and it smelled pretty bad, we could smell burning rubber from inside the car. I pulled up to him at one point to tell him to stop because we didnt really feel like seeing someone die that day, but he couldnt hear because he had headphones in his ears. And......he died. Just kidding.

Later on, once it got dark, AJ was driving and kept whining about how dark it was. I think hes afraid of the dark or something. Plus, we kept missing our roads, and eventually got lost, we had to stop at a gas station and ask how to get to the outer banks. We had to drive all the way to the north part of NC to get to the north part of the outer banks because that was the only way to get to the islands, well thats what we thought at the time. But when we arrived to the northern outer banks, it was really creepy. It was night time, hardly any traffic, and nothing but swamps. Then I saw a random guy in overalls in the ditch facing the fields. I think he might have been a ghost or serial killer or something. That was pretty freaky. We finally got to our destination at around 11pm, stopped at a rest stop to brush our teeth, make a poopage, change clothes, then once again headed to the beach.

We stopped in a town called Kitty Hawk, which seemed like nothing but a residential area, there were nothing but nice houses along the beach. We got to the beach, scoped it out, then AJ brought up the idea to pitch a tent on the beach. I was hesitant, just because I knew that the other beaches had no sleeping as one of the rules of the beach. But we looked at the rules for this one and it never said we couldnt sleep, so we found a vacant house and set up camp right behind it in the sand. We got to bed at around midnight that night. It was tough falling asleep though because I was worried about getting in trouble for being on the beach, plus we thought the high tide might wash up and drown us. So I only got a couple hours of sleep that night.


The awesome bridge in Charleston
Nice houses in Isle of Palms
Isle of Palms

One legged bird

First flight ever

Banking over the ocean

Crazy dude on motorcycle

Just after sunset

Stay tuned for the final day of adventures!!

Fall Break Part II

SUNDAY
Sunday was jam-packed with adventure! AJ set his phone alarm for 7am, so thats when we got up. Sleeping in the car wasnt that great. My car is pretty small, and the seats dont go all the way flat, but I still slept well enough to get a few hours. AJ didnt do well either because he had a steering wheel to avoid, and hes taller. We then headed to the gas station across the street to clean up. I got changed, brushed my teeth, and washed my face in the bathroom at the gas station. Then we grabbed some coffee, shouldve gotten gas, and hit the road again.

It didnt take us long to get to Tennessee. We were driving through the mountains, it was pretty astounded, when I realized that there hasnt been an exit in a while.......and we were getting low on gas. So I watched for exits, and watched the range. My car has a feature that shows how far you can go before you run out of gas. It was very low, so we started putting the car into neutral when going down hills just to save some gas. We finally found an exit with a gas station with only 16 miles to empty. That was a close one! So after that, we got back on the interstate, and after a long stretch we saw a road sign that said "tunnel" with some exit number. And of course we wanted to see it! So we took the exit, but couldnt find the tunnel. So we just drove down some back road for a while and stumbled across this awesome old train bridge. We got out of the car and played on that for a while, got on top of the tracks, thought we heard a train coming, and booked it off the bridge.


We went as far as Knoxville in Tennessee then headed east again, toward North Carolina. In our atlas, there is some tourist attraction information and AJ stumbled across the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC, which I guess is the biggest mansion in the US. So we called the 1-800 number to get some information on tours, but it was like fifty bucks to get on the grounds, so there was no way we were gonna do that. But we went to Asheville anyways to see if we could get a glimpse of the mansion from another area. We stopped at an art gallery to ask some locals if they knew of a place where we could see it without paying, but they said it was impossible. Until we were leaving. A man stopped us and said that we could see it for free, but it would be risky. Theres an area on the grounds with a fence that we could jump, but if we got caught we could get into trouble. But we decided not to take the risk.

Somewhere in North Carolina we got tired of driving on the Interstate and quickly pulled off onto a back road to see some of the countryside. We drove several miles and saw a couple of cars pulled off the side of the road. Thinking it was a lookout, we too pulled over. The countryside was amazing! The other car belonged to a couple from Nashville, AJ and I talked to the husband for a little bit about our vacationing adventures while his wife stayed in the air conditioning in the car. Then we made lunch, more PB&Js, and hit the interstate again.

We had talked about going to Hilton Head for most of the morning, but were a little unsure since it was so far away, southern South Carolina. Stacee and Steven were vacationing there for fall break and she insisted that if we are in the state that we stop in for a night. Actually, it seemed she was nearly begging me to come. They were staying in a nice condo on the beach, so of course, we talked about decided to stop in. It took a while to get there from Ashville, but we eventually arrived at around 5pm. The weather at Hilton Head was really crappy though, rainy and windy. We had some time to kill once we got there since they were out shopping, so we stopped by the visitors center, got a map, headed to the beach, which was our first stop at the Atlantic on the trip. It was windy and rainy on the beach, not very appeasing. I met a woman named Virginia near the beach though. I was wearing my "Virginia is for Lovers" shirt and she stopped me and said that her name was Virginia. She was nice. We finally met up with Stacee and Steven, went to their condo, and finally got a shower! That was a great shower, I felt so refreshed afterwards.

On our trip, AJ and I had agreed that since we were going to the east coast we had to splurge and get some seafood, go to a local seafood restaurant. So we asked Stacee and Steven if they wanted to have dinner with us. We went to a place called Tapas. Apperently when you go there, you order two things and share it with everyone else. I was really dissappointed in the quantity of the food, they were in appitizer portions. I really wanted a lot to eat considering we had been living off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for most of the trip. But the quality was magnificant! It was probably the best food Ive ever tasted, Im not even kidding. I got lobster ravioli and salmon. MMMmmmm, I can still taste it, kind of. It was kind of expensive though. Then on our way back from Tapas we decided to get some beer. Its a good thing South Carolina sells beer on Sundays, we were a little worried about that. We got a couple of six packs and headed back to the condo. We made up a drinking game with UNO cards (I won), smoked cigars on the balcony, ate some cake, then headed to the beach. The beach at night was amazing! It was low tide at that time and it seemed like hundreds of yards of wet beach from the earlier high tide. The rain had stopped and the moon had come out, it looked awesome. So we played on the beach for a while and headed back to the condo. After a while of talking on the balcony about marriage and politics and life in general, we headed to bed. We got to bed a little after midnight. I had to sleep in a tiny bunk bed, but it was better than the car.


Railway bridge

NC skyline

Stop in NC

Fancy McDonalds in Asheville, NC

Making love to a tree in Hilton Head

AJ in the tree.

Stay tuned for parts 3 and 4 for even more and better adventures!!

Fall Break Part I

Well, the trip did happen....and what an adventure!! Last week I had an idea to go on a road trip for fall break, just to go wherever, not even have a plan. The only plan was to make it somewhere along the east coast, it didnt even matter where. And I didnt want to take any major highways, no interstate, just state roads and back roads so we could see more of the countyside. I also didnt want to use a map, just a compass. And I was trying to do this trip as cheaply as possible, only wanting to spend about $100, I figured gas and coffee would be the only expenses. So I asked a couple guys if they wanted to go, everyone was a little hesitant to go since I asked just a few days before fall break, some guys already had plans, some just thought it was a dumb idea. But I had a couple interested, and I eventually got one person to go with me, AJ. AJ is one of my friends from high school and now goes to Purdue and is also in the same fraternity as me.

SATURDAY
So, finally, saturday at around 1pm, AJ made the decision to go on the trip with me. But he was back in Bremen, so he had to drive 2 hours back to Purdue so we could leave, because Bremen isnt exactly on the way to the east coast. So when he got to the house, we packed up a few things. We packed some food: two loaves of bread, peanut butter, jelly, nutrigrain bars, apples, grapes, granola bars, and some instant tea and grape drink mix. We also brought a small tent, two sleeping bags, a blanket, two jugs for water, a bottle of shampoo, some other toiletry knick knacks, and a couple days worth of clothes. And of course, I had to bring my compass. So at around 4:30pm, we finally left.

We started off going south to see where it would take us. Shortly after starting, we decided to fill up the tank, which only required about a half tank. Then we headed west for a while. It was great seeing the countryside of Indiana, passing through some small towns along the way, but it seemed to be taking forever. Our first stop was in Noblesville. The town was having a car show at the city hall so we decided to stop and take a look. While there we saw this huge dog that this guy was walking, I mean, it was nearly as tall as its owner. So I walked up to the guy and asked him what breed of horse it is. He didnt catch on to my joke though. We looked at some cars, took a bathroom break, then hit the road again. Once we reached Indianapolis (on accident, I didnt want to hit any major cities), we decided to change up our plans a little bit. It took us a good 2.5 hours to get to Indy, which should have only taken about 1. So we decided that if we wanted to make it to the coast, we would have to take some interstates. Plus, we wanted to drive through some mountains. So we got out the atlas from my trunk, jumped onto I-74, and headed to Cincinnati. After going west for a while, we hit I-75 to go south through Kentucky and Tennessee. After we got through Cincinnati, it got dark pretty fast, so we just wanted to drive until we got tired, then try and find somewhere to sleep. We stopped along the way at a McDonalds to pee and get some food in us. So we made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ate them in the parking lot next to my car. We got some looks there, people wondering why we dont just eat at McDonalds Im sure. So we hit the road again for a while and wound up somewhere in southern Kentucky, not too far from Tennessee, when we decided to stop for the night. We searched for some camping signs, found one, and headed there. When we got there, we didnt realize that the front office would have been closed already, but it was at about 11pm, so it shouldve been obvious. And the cost to stay there one night was about $30, so we said screw that, and drove off. They did have a pool though, and we really wanted to just go swimming before we left, but didnt. We drove back to the town, found a couple of hotels there, tried to figure out which had the dimmest parking lot, and slept there in the car. It was a Hampton Inn. We got to bed (car) at about 11:30pm.



Noblesville City Hall