Here for a Reason

Only you can make every new day seem so new...

2010-06-07T22:54:00.003-04:00

I have arrived. ...and then I didn't post for a long time. Let me tell you though. Los Alamos is a cool little city. The drive instantly became more interesting as we crossed the border of New Mexico...and just got cooler and cooler until we got to the destination.

It wasn't really what I expected. I didn't know what to expect really. Los Alamos is completely located on a mesa. Actually, about three or four "fingers" a mesa, with beautiful canyons in between each one. The southernmost finger holds the main part of the lab (but there's all these remote technical areas and facilities everywhere too...something like over 2000 if I remember correctly). Going north, the next mesa is where the downtown area is. It's pretty cramped for space on that mesa (especially for Stan the van), all the roads are pretty skinny. Yet somehow there's a tiny airport, 2 museums, some hotels, a grocery store, and a handful of restaurants on there. It's also where I live. Across Pueblo Canyon is North Mesa, where a lot more houses are. There's also a golf course that is dangerously close to...yet another canyon. Then north of that there's this tiny standalone mesa where bigger houses are. It's even got a finger of mesa coming out of it that's only wide enough for a street with a row of houses on each side. Then..canyon. There are so many houses that have just a canyon as their backyard. It's like nothing I've ever seen before.

There are three seriously only three roads in to the town..and only two are open to the public. The main road is carved into rock and offers an awesome view of probably the most picturesque canyon of Los Alamos. What a cool way to end the road trip. The only problem is, I think all the roads are two-lane highways. Commuting onto the mesa I hear, is ridiculous.

Oh..and the MOUNTAINS. To the west we are right at the feet of the Jemez Mountains. They aren't terribly massive...the highest peak is about 11,500 feet. By comparison, where I live I am 7300 feet high, so they don't look absolutely massive from the city. None of them are snow-capped right now. To the east is a big valley, and then the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, which is the tail end of the Rockies. They're over by Santa Fe, which is about 40 miles away, but they are so beautiful from here. There's still a few that are snow-capped, and the clouds tend to float right over them and look like huge puffy fortresses that you could lower ladders down to the summits of the mountains. When the sun is setting, one particular peak makes me think of Mt. Doom from the Lord of the Rings movies. Now that I look at pictures from the movie...Mt. Doom was a little more standalone...but whatever.

Okay, sorry for the tour guide-like recap of what this whole place is like. It's just a breathtakingly beautiful place. I love mountains. I love looking at God's creation and feeling small and powerless beyond belief. When I witness nature's beauty like this, I just want to dive into it and experience it any way I can. Of course...then I would die. It's as dangerous to me as it is beautiful. If I would try to climb one of those mountains by myself, as beautiful as they are, I'd probably get lost and die. All I can do is stand in awe and stare...and think about how big God is and be amazed. Maybe that's what Heaven will be like...there will be unspeakable beauty all around us, and we'll be able to experience it in ways that we never could on earth.

Beauty on earth is still dangerous though. In a way, beauty, in it's many different forms, is what drives us. What a crazy life. We're driven by something that will kill us if we're not careful.

I never like when people make assumptions about life and then use the word "we" to describe it. I don't know why. In light of this, I also don't know why I just violated this too. I'm too tired to revise it though, so there it stays.

In other news, I started work at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the whole reason I'm here. I won't be saying too many specific things about what I'm doing on here. Even though it's not classified work and I don't have a clearance level, it's never a good idea to spew these types of things on blogs...in writing and in reach of Google. Besides, I'm pretty sure the lab would be one of those places that monitors content on blogger, searching for stuff about them. Basically I work with a testing program for supercomputers, and my assignment is to take another piece of software with this testing program and smash them together. And BAM! My summer. My mentor is a really nice guy. He put me in contact with his kids who are in college too, and he plays guitar in a praise band. I guess we have the whole praise band thing in common as well as computers.

It's certainly a setting to get used to. I walk around with a "badge" (everyone does), and I've already gotten in trouble for taking my phone (which has a camera) into a secure area. It was in there for like..two minutes..and in the lobby, where nothing sensitive was. But my mentor had to check the pictures on it, and I had to fill out an incident report and swear to never never never ever ever do it again. I do have my own office though. Sort of. I can still throw something over my wall and hit the person next to me...and it IS in a run-down, converted warehouse. But hey...it's my first office.

I think that's about enough for tonight. I'm glad I got this post off my chest. Hopefully as time goes on there will be less overview of stuff. I do need to get up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to make sure I'm there by 7 because the office phone people MIGHT show up at 7, and they MIGHT show up at 5 pm as well to install my phone.

I don't think I said anything that isn't readily available on LANL's public website. Otherwise, I might be in trouble again..haha.

Thanks for dropping by.

My Life in New Mexico: The First Post

2010-05-27T23:45:00.001-04:00

So, I'm in a van 10 miles past Guyman, OK, and I'm starting this blog up again for the first time (regularly) in maybe three years. Here for a Reason used to be pretty widely utilized by myself, starting around the end of '04 and up until after my first summer at Camp Phillip in '07. I loved blogging back then. It was really fun. A lot of my camp friends read it, left comments, kept their own blogs, I read those, left comments. I believe I stopped blogging because I didn't have a need to anymore. I changed as a person pretty dramatically I think. Blogging was my outlet to just talk about things going on in my life where other people would listen to me. You see, at the end of the summer of '07, after I made a blog post and Schleef created a facebook group called “I Follow Evan Samanas Blindly”...I think it still exists...I embarked on a two-year off and on relationship, and pretty much never blogged again. Quite frankly, my girlfriend replaced blogging as this outlet, and I didn't really “need” to anymore. However, to put a deeper meaning to it, I learned through that relationship how absolutely selfish and attention-seeking I had been for most of my teenage life. I associated blogging with this selfishness and attention seeking. What could be more selfish than developing an extensive personality for yourself on the internet, which is readily available for all to read? You could spend a long time thinking of the perfect witty anecdote to type so that anyone who reads it will think you are REALLY AWESOME and want to talk to you.

I don't really want to bash blogging as a whole...a lot of my friends still blog, and don't necessarily do it with this motivation. It was just the way that I approached blogging. I wanted people to read it and think that I was really cool. If you paged through some of the old posts on this thing, I'm sure you'd see what I mean.

Why does this post exist then??? I figured I should start it up again because I will be away from all of my family/friends back home for the next three months. I got a summer internship at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. It's my understanding that I'll be working on a test suite of theirs meant to continually run on parts of their supercomputer, which is the second most powerful in the world. Los Alamos is a city that was cloaked in secrecy and not really a city at all until after World War II, because the lab was where the first atomic bomb was developed. I am really excited for this new adventure, but I'd like to keep anyone that cares about me somewhat informed on what I'm doing. So really, I wouldn't be surprised if this blog dies again once I am back in Wisconsin. But my goal is to make a post at least once a week to keep people updated. If no one makes their way to this blog, then I guess I'll have these posts to look back on myself. If you do read it though, don't hesitate to comment or give some acknowledgment that you read it. It makes me feel like I'm not writing this in vain :).

This post was going to be a lot longer, but I think I'll split it up. That was another thing about my former posts, they were SO LONG. Reading them had to be like driving through Kansas lengthwise. I never exposed myself to the first torture, but the latter I just experienced most of yesterday. I hope my blogs were a little more interesting than that. Driving out here is pretty neat...majestic almost. We've just entered Dalhart, TX and are going to stop wherever we can. You can see for miles, and the towns we drive through are very quaint, run-down, and scream a simpler life. There are very few chain restaurants here. Just a bunch of large tanks, windmills, and trains stretching miles (literally). I counted 92 cars on the last one. It makes me want to have an excuse to spend some time in a town like this. But, alas, I don't. Maybe some day. I will post this as soon as I have internet, and then we can move on to posts that actually take place in New Mexico. So long!

How does God feel about me?

2010-04-06T00:49:00.002-04:00

I've got a lot of doubts against my faith. Sometimes I get caught up with worrying about living the Christian life and how well I'm doing. When I say sometimes, I mean a lot. I mean more than the bland feeling that sentence broadcasts...the one I get when I hear a sermon calmly explaining the road blocks we could run into while applying their message to our lives. I mean for months at a time, I get lost in thinking I'm not doing enough. So far, I don't think there's anything wrong with just that. I should be striving towards living a Christian life, but I make it everything. It becomes twisted in my brain so that I believe that my salvation depends on how hard I am trying.

It's during these times when I get to thinking and worrying, "How does God feel about me?". Just day-to-day, moment-to-moment. Is he satisfied? Is he angry when I blatantly sin against him, or when I don't know I'm sinning? Is he graciously hoping I will turn back to him, saddened by my sin? What's going on in that all-powerful mind? Is he really the God of love from the televangelists' shows, or the God of fire and brimstone from the Old Testament?

Of course I don't know this, but all I can do is turn to the Bible. I've been reading John 6 the last few days, and it's a pretty significant chapter. It's got 71 verses, so you know it covers a lot: feeding the five thousand, walking on water, the teaching about 'the bread of life', and disciples deserting Jesus. There's some words of Jesus that really stick out to me.

6:28,29: Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

6:37-40: All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

I am only taking His words at face value, trusting that the words are without error and that Jesus is truly the Son of God. These words combat my doubts against the grace that we are freely given. I tend to think that there's more than just believing. But those are Jesus' words, plain and simple. "I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life." (6:47) "Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me." (6:45b) It doesn't really answer my question of how God feels about me, but I know that I'm coming to him, and listening to Him the best I can. I won't be turned away.

I hope to talk more about this chapter, it's a sweet one.

2009-03-25T23:40:00.002-04:00

I felt like I was back in high school today. I had an apprehensive feeling in my chest all day which came out through my actions, my armpits stink again, and now I'm listening to Fall Out Boy on shuffle. So I figured I should post on the blog, just like high school. It's funny how I will never be able to carry my books to my locker amongst a large crowd of people whom I know. High school provided a good audience for young ol' me to figure out what the heck was going on. Sometimes I wish I could just go back to it for a day or two, and then leave right away.

I have a project due tomorrow. Oh boy.

Relient K

2008-10-03T01:21:00.002-04:00

I saw Relient K. I met them. I got them all to autograph my set list. I will try to read through the marker. I gave Matt Thiessen a hug.

1. Come Right Out And Say It
2. I Need You
3. Who I Am Hates Who I've Been
4. High of 75
5. Mood Rings
6. The Lining Is Silver
7. Devastation and Reform
8. The Addams Family Theme Song
9. The Best Thing
10. Sadie Hawkins Dance
11. Be My Escape
12. The Only Thing Worse Than Beating a Dead Horse Is Betting On One
13. At Least We've Made It This Far
14. Tonight (Ace Troubleshooter Cover...John Warne Sang)
15. Which To Bury..Us or the Hatchet?
16. Let It All Out
---
17. Deathbed

Joe told them he hated the way they always used to close their show out, but this was good. I thought that took some guts...haha. Matt Hoopes called The Best Thing boring when we were talking to him, and said he's wanted to cut that from the set list for a long time. It was silly.

"it's almost becoming too easy"

2008-04-15T23:05:00.002-04:00

Just because I'm too lazy to come up with a title doesn't mean I'll name it "untitled" or just not give it a title. I'll suck it up. The title was something that Joe said to me while we were eating tonight, referring to his ability to make really awkward comments to his roommate and his girlfriend. I found it kind of ironic, because I didn't think he ever put any effort towards awkwardness. Though Joe, in all his awkwardness, actually giving more effort towards being awkward would be pretty funny to me. I like talking to Joe because he is honest. Also, you can pretty much talk about whatever you want, and Joe will either know something about it, or convincingly act like he does. Then he'll blow you out of the water with more knowledge. Silly. I think he reads this. Oh man.

Some readers (HA! as if I have many readers) may not know who Joe is. That's okay... I hope that paragraph was entertaining anyways. I was pretty productive today I guess, and I hopefully will be after I am done writing this blog. While this is wasting precious time, I need to make this blog somewhat of a priority in order to keep up with it. In the past couple years, I think I was fairly obsessed with finding a part of myself that was 100% productive. I believed that if I just went all out in one thing and put everything of me into it, it would be the best thing ever....it's just that I never quite reached that. I will never reach that. I'm seeing more and more that if I focus on one thing for too long, my mental health dwindles, and while I am still focusing on what I want to focus on, my productivity has plummeted to 0. For the first time ever, I'm actually planning some things around the time of day and circumstances that I will be the most productive. It's kind of strange. I'm not sure if it's a good thing. I guess it's me getting to know myself a little bit more. I think I remember writing in this blog that that would be something I would be looking forward to when I am growing up. I suppose it's slowly happening...and I'm slowly becoming okay with growing up and getting old. 'Twill mix it up a bit I suppose.

My wrists and hands feel as if I am trying to play drums and they're saying "It's been too long Evan, you're just not as good anymore." It's not like I've taken a big break from typing or anything. I wonder what that is. I have to write a paper tonight. Better get warmed up....

Speaking of roommates and girlfriends, a couple Sundays ago I came into my room and found a condom wrapper. Awesome. It was on my green bin that he uses for a nightstand type thing. There's still a stain on it from the lube. I think I am fortunate that it's taken me this long to run into such a thing, but...ugh. I just threw it away, I don't think he knows he didn't throw it away. Unless he reads this. I'm not sure if that's even possible. I suppose it is. Oh well. Dave, if you stumble upon this, I found something that might be yours. I hope for your sake that you marry that girl.

Dave really is a very quality roommate. I don't think I've ever seen him drunk, and he doesn't bring random sluts in the room, it is his girlfriend of many years, and he usually asks if I'll be around. Those are better circumstances.

Last weekend I went to this Leadership retreat through the chapel. It was free, and I guess mandatory if I want to live there next year. I'm not sure if I mentioned that in here before. I'm gonna live in Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel for free next year. It should be fun. I learned a lot of cool things....got some neat new outlooks on life to sometimes pull out of my repertoire. I can't remember much of it right now. I've been meaning to review the stuff I got from there, so that I can set it in my mind a little more. I think I'm becoming more boring.

Darn. What a shame. I just had three tests the week before, so I didn't have much to do. I got to play Tecmo Super Bowl with Alex, whom I got to know a little more, played a little keyboard nascar racing on my laptop, and also did two puzzles with Ashley Klein and Nate Kuhl. I never really talked to Nate much before that weekend. It was pretty cool...he's a neat guy.

I'm once more a fan of NASCAR. It's amazing how many people react negatively to that, and will actually go out of their way to badmouth you for liking stock car racing. I understand if you don't understand what I like about it, but geez. Anyways, the hick image has almost left the sport, which I am grateful for that. I don't like the irrational, beer-drinking NASCAR fan as much as you don't like him.

Anyways, NASCAR allows me to get into the numbers and be a nerd. I so missed that. Right now Blake and I (mostly me) are trying to coordinate a season with our racing game on the computer, with all fictional drivers, complete with story line and a chance for advancement. Basically simulating what I've been missing in all those NASCAR games on the market now. It's pretty fun, we bought him a steering wheel and pedals for his computer, and I already had one, and we are two races into our test season. He drives the #56 Mr. Clean Ford, and I drive the #86 Sunoco Ford. I am leading the points, and he is in 9th after winning the first race and wrecking a lot in the second. I finished 4th and 8th. Not that you care. We made silly names for all the fake drivers though. We each wrote down 22 first names and 22 last names, then combined them. Such names as Ronnie Firecats, Ezekiel Abdul-Mohammed, Neil Duck-Soup, Princess Neenah-Menasha and The Brown resulted. Pretty cool.

Well, I should probably write another one of those crappy sociology papers. I swear I've turned in nothing but utter crap to that class, but I haven't gotten a grade lower than an AB. I usually just set a timer for an hour and hand in whatever comes out in that time period. The last paper I wrote I thought was the absolute worse, but it gets a 3.8 out of 4, and the only comments are "Nice paper Evan". Well, here comes another 2 and a half page paper written in an hour. Hopefully it delivers the same results.

Hello everyone.

2008-03-27T00:36:00.002-04:00

Hi. It's Evan. Remember me? I barely do. It's not often someone greets people by saying "Hello Everyone" and then following it up with "Hi." I'd say I probably do it more than a lot of people. I suppose that makes it apt for me to start my blog post with it.

So I've finally gotten off my high horse and realized that if I should actually post a blog and stop thinking I don't have enough time. I don't, but oh well. I was hoping to get to bed fairly early today. I probably won't now...

Have you ever had a day where your thoughts are in blog post format? You just can't wait to go home and post about your day, or the deep thoughts you've been having, or the seemingly deep thoughts you've been having, or post those silly, cheesy little remarks that made you chuckle and would fit perfectly with whatever your posting? I suppose that was more directed to those of you who have your own blog. It's funny that I say "those of you" as if I still have any sort of readership, after another 3 month hiatus. Well, I've had about 10 or so of those days, which could've been transformed into at least 10 blog posts. Once again, I'm sorry. Tyler reminded me that I should blog like...2 months ago, and now I'm finally taking him up on it. Sorry.

I could've blogged over spring break...I even started a post, but I'm not using it. I was in a bad mood. I can't say I'm in a GREAT mood right now...I'm kinda bummed that my eye stings a little bit...probably from my new eyeglass cleaner. These eyeglasses are turning out to be a pain already. Well...a lot has happened since my last blog post. I'll try not to cover them in too full detail, because I'd like to sleep tonight.

The biggest one was probably my aunt dying. I found out when I came back from the New Year's Retreat at camp, which marks the second year in a row I've come back from that retreat and found out that a relative died, seeing that my last grandma died last year(or I guess 2006) on New Year's Eve. It was pretty shocking though, my grandma was old. My aunt was 59. We can't say for sure, but it's about a 99.9% chance that she committed suicide. There were some empty pill bottles, and she was found slumped over her car in the garage in her pajamas with the gas tank on empty and fumes all through the house.

It's pretty hard for me to put much emotion behind writing this, because it happened so long ago, and I wasn't really that close to her. However, she was my aunt. She was always really nice to me, and pretty rich, so she'd spoil Blake and me whenever we visited her. I had seen her a month before...the day after thanksgiving. We were supposed to eat thanksgiving with her at my grandparents' weird nursing home community place. She didn't come though. My grandpa told us that she wasn't feeling up for it, and said we need to pray for her. That's the first sign I ever really got that she was depressed. I always kinda wondered why she wasn't depressed. She lived alone, she was married for 10 years a long time ago. Well...I guess I had the right feeling about her. It took my mom a lot to talk her into letting us visit her, which I thought was weird...we had made the trip all the way to Ohio. We went there and ate pizza, and my parents tried to comfort her and told her to live a little...I guess she'd gotten pretty burned out from taking care of my grandparents by herself.

I'll try not to weigh you down with too many family details, but apparently she stopped taking anti-depressants, which I learned in biology not long before that if you do that, it is almost impossible to feel good. Scary stuff. At least we can take that one comfort that she might not have been in her right mind when she did it. It was hard for me to see all her sisters devastated by it. A lot of people respected her. I broke down when we first saw her body and all my relatives were crying. Just seeing my grandpa, who I'd never seen cry, just completely sobbing was really hard for me.

I got to see my little cousins again though. That was pretty cool. They're not so little anymore. Before we went to Ohio though, we went to Florida. We saw the badger game. It was pretty cool, but the badgers lost. We visited USF. It was really cool. At first, I didn't want him to go there, but I felt tons better once we went to the campus. I think he'll really like it there. I'm excited for him. The people there treated him really well. He's one of like...three people going there from Wisconsin.

Hmm...what else. I went to MLC with Schleef. That was really fun. I organized all the cds in my house, so I brought every single burned one on that trip, and we listened to all the stupid mixes me and Blake made in grade school and early high school...and more. It was good seeing people, a lot of fun, good to experience the bubble of MLC. People were at class while we were doing nothing though, so Schleef and I just played a lot of video games, especially college basketball. We started a season with USF and created players. Mine was Kobby Latham. He was a poison to the team, especially in the locker room. He played his own brand of Kobbyball.

I got back and found out one of my best friends attempted suicide and was in a loony bin temporarily. That one hit a little closer to home. I started to realize that I'm growing up, and dealing with bigger things now. That was my christmas break. I left the state three times. Pretty good eh?

I thought I would have all this time over break to do stuff I've always wanted to do, but alas, I really didn't. What's new though. I'm thankful for what I got. I went back to school and I seemed far more on top of things. I started talking to Ashley again, a little bit before my aunt died. By the time I got back to school, we were talking probably more than we did when we were dating. I can't think of much that went on during this whole semester, but now it's going pretty fast. Camp interviews happened. I got hired again. The interview was pretty hard it seemed. I was actually almost more nervous the second time around, even though I knew it wasn't likely that I wouldn't get hired. I guess I feel expectations are much higher for me.

Truthfully, I'm pretty scared for the summer. I don't know why I should be more than last year, I kinda took everything in stride last year. Even though my faith is stronger now, I still don't feel like I should be teaching kids God's Word. I feel like I should be learning more. I have things to work on, especially in my counseling. I am not that strong as a counselor. I'm afraid of going back and doing things the same way and not improving at all. I can't really think of anything I've learned over the past year that will help me anymore than last year...other than a year's experience on SALT. I don't know...who knows my future at camp after this summer. Ashley got hired though. That was pretty exciting. We're back together again. It happened over spring break. It was really awesome. I'd say communication is a lot better than it was. The camp thing will be interesting though. She's the photographer. I think we might actually be the only SALT couple. What a strange turn of events.

I think it's about time I sign off. I know this post wasn't incredibly interesting, spontaneous, hilarious, in-depth, or anything like that. It was more broad and unemotional. I guess I just need to get that kind of post out, to cover some events? Besides, most of you probably don't check with any regularity anymore, so this will be the stinker that will be buried under newer blog posts by the time you probably do check. Thanks for checking, if you do.

"You were not on the receiving end of it all"

2007-12-14T18:19:00.001-05:00

I try to come up with blog titles that aren't from songs I'm listening to, but they said it like...15 or 20 times. It was the only thing on my mind. It's pretty easy to find meaning in your own life from lyrics. I don't think that really means anything. One time Jake was upset because of some class he's in. He's into all that crazy hoopla poetry stuff. Apparently in one of his discussions, they were dissecting a certain piece of writing and coming up with all these crazy meanings. He was all like "how could that guy have thought of ALL of that when he was writing that? Is he some genius? I don't do that. Does that mean I suck?" The people that try to get you to believe they thought of all of that before they wrote it are probably lying. I've only ever written one song, and I could probably talk for awhile about meanings I've found in the lyrics. I wasn't thinking about that when I wrote them though. I was mostly thinking "this would sound cool" with maybe an underlying theme tied in. The most powerful lyrics seem to be the ones that anyone can find meaning in. They just have to be that broad I guess, but they can't seem broad. Usually I only pick out a couple lines in a song that I like the lyrics to. I rarely even know what the rest of the song is talking about. Just the one part of words coupled with an appropriate musical theme has hit me.

Wow...I really didn't mean to start rambling like that. But hey....what are blogs for? RAMBLING. Today I completed one of my New Year's resolutions. I think I only had two. The one that is now completed was to wear my yellow jazz fest shirt on the 14th of every month of the year. It is December 14th, and though I appear to be not wearing it, it is under my sweatshirt. It's been a rough year. The quality of the shirt has dwindled since I got it on January 14, 2006. It was the first time I remember ever wearing a yellow shirt and liking it. I found it did an okay job at concealing my pit stains. Well...not anymore....the stains are permanently fixed in the pit. If my shirt was a chicken fetus, it's zone of polarizing activity would be slightly darkened. That's right...I can pretend I'm ready for my Zoology final on Monday, or I can stop writing this and start studying. I choose the pretending option. It's more fun. Even on August 14th, as the jazz fest shirt seemed to have glided through the summer without much of a hitch, I wore it on the FINAL day of actual camp. Well...I had to. There was a "carnival" that day, for Jesus Cares campers and little kids. I ran an event where you throw footballs in a basketball hoop. Then, for bonus tokens, I had the campers try to kick their shoes in the basketball hoop. Shoe fling golf was big that week. This game is not to be confused with "The Brett Favre Jumpshot Challenge", for those who understand that. I'm not sure if that was the official name. So the kids were able to use the tokens they won to vote for counselors they wanted to see get dumped with something. Usually it's not too bad, and usually I'm like...3rd or not at all. So maybe water. Not a big deal. Well...the kids voted me number 1. Apparently other counselors were giving out extra tokens if they'd put them in my bucket. So the jazz fest shirt endured a healthy dousing of pure pork grease. That was great. Fat even started to solidify in my hair. Awesome. I have footage on some camp DVD somewhere. Even through this, the jazz fest shirt stayed strong, though a bit smellier.

This whole idea came from when I wore it on February 14, 2006, and Jake noticed that it said January 14, 2006 on the back. So he said that I should wear it every 14th. I did, and came over to his house on April 14th of the same year, hoping he would notice. He had totally forgotten. I was crushed. I then went into a downward emotional spiral and never recovered. JK!!!1 Things were going great until I dropped the ball on July 14th, 2006. It was the second to last day of the two week band trip to Calgary, and it just slipped my mind. The shirt was probably dirty from wearing it earlier that week. Well, I was actually pretty bummed about this. So I vowed for a change as the year ended. Yes! Victory is mine! Are you up for another year jazz fest shirt? I'll let you think about it. You have about a month.

I got the new Relient K christmas album. I couldn't possibly ask for it for christmas, as I mistakenly did for their first one, "Deck the Halls, Bruise Your Hand". I would just be sick of christmas music by then. I'm usually perpetually sick of it, but I'll make an exception for Relient K. Luckily, the hit of missing out on "Deck the Halls.." is lessened, because this record is a re-release, with some new songs. No in-depth analysis of Relient K, their direction, or what not from me this time. Just that I enjoy the record. I mean geez...how much can you talk about? It's a christmas album.

I'm hot. I'm gonna take my sweatshirt off. Revealing the good ol' jazz fest shirt again. Yes! One topic I will cover about Relient K is this: Dave Douglas is leaving. Dave is the drummer. This hits me especially hard because Relient K was the first band to really get me to love music and want to be more of a part of it. Consequently, it was Dave Douglas's drumming that somewhat inspired me to play drums, and it was his drum parts that I tried to learn first. His drumming is not really anything special. He started out as a guitar player (kinda like me!), and he wasn't even the original drummer of Relient K. However, he's been there since "The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek". He's about as original as it gets for Relient K nowadays. Dave was the epitome of cool to me in high school. He and Matt Thiessen of course. That said, this is sad for me. He'll still be doing stuff with his band that is him and his wife. His wife is pretty. They will probably have my apathetic support.

I got a flu shot today. My arm is sore. I think that the beginning of this paragraph was evidence that I'm feeling a few side effects from it. Stupid flu shots. I liked getting it at Platteville better, even though it costs 12 dollars there, and its free here. The people were nicer. They even wanted me to wait for 10 minutes to make sure I didn't collapse and die. What caring individuals. The lady seemed elated that I chose to go get a flu shot. If I remember correctly, that happened almost a full year ago. Dec. 15, 2006? It was the night after I was done with finals. Two finals on Monday and I was done. Then I sat around and played City of Heroes. Then after going to bed at 7 in the morning, I got up at 12 for that appointment. Good times. I remember everything feeling very surreal at that moment. Surreal is usually a good feeling. At least it's out of the ordinary. The horrible surreal feeling is not good though. That is to be expected.

Recently I've been discussing with myself about how I should record the moods I feel in a day, and why. They change my thoughts so dramatically, I'd like to explore them more. I'm not sure how I'll go about this. Heh.

I recently saw Superbad. It was actually really enjoyable. My heart felt kinda warmed at the end. I thought "What??" It's true. It actually teaches some fairly good lessons while being really funny. If you can look past the whole dirty humor thing, it's a great watch. Now I want to see "Juno" which also has Michael Cera in it (he played one of the main characters in Superbad... his character's name was Evan). It looks all indie and stuff. I think I might be a sucker for indie-like movies. These movies won't change my life or anything, like some claim they do, but I just like the feelings they create. It's got a lot of stars in it though. Which means it is a movie in an indie suit. Whatever. I don't watch movies much. Whenever people suggest that we should watch a movie when I'm over at someone's house, I find it a little weird. Except for when I'm at Sydnie's house, because they have a movie theater. Usually they suggest it about an hour before I need to go home. It just seems like a bizarre way to pass the time...watch a movie you've already seen. Usually I haven't seen the movie though. So my comment is always "I've never seen that..." Then the person suggesting the movie, looking for approval, says, "well now we have to watch it!" or something to that effect. I'm all about watching movies and cuddling though. That is fun. Just know that if you are the person that falls asleep during movies, I am not. I hate when I'm watching a movie and I'm really into it, and then I look around and EVERYONE watching it with me is asleep. That happened when I was watching Seven of all movies. That was kinda freaky. Why suggest a movie if you're just going to fall asleep watching it? My mom sits and watches movies all the time. She searches the TV for "a good movie". I swear she's watched like...two movies beginning to end. It's always right in the middle, she'll fall asleep, wake up, and then whine about how she missed the ending. Then the movie will show again. So she can see the beginning. It seems pretty pointless. I feel I've covered this before. Whatev yo. I'm tired. It's only 8. On a friday night. I am blogging. I should be studying.

Right now I'm looking for all the distractions I can possibly get. I am finding it really hard to care about these finals. I hope I can get my act together....

"Son of Sam" by Elliott Smith is a great song. I recommend. Blogging desire has left me. I guess that's the end of the post then. I have something in me that tells me that I haven't written enough, but I think that's quite enough Evan. Love ya.

I wanna get back to the good life

2007-12-05T01:08:00.000-05:00

In my crazy, wacked up, "Integrated Liberal Studies" class, I read a lot. In fact I have two of these classes, so I read double a lot. Well, normally the professor for one of these classes starts every lecture out with a song, and they are always loosely based on the lecture. Usually it's rap for some reason. One time it was "Hang Me Up to Dry" by The Cold War Kids. There's one song I recognized. Well, we've been reading portions of The Politics by Aristotle. I hate politics, so I'm not that big of a fan of Aristotle. However, he keeps talking about the "good life", and how that is the goal of the state. "The Good Life" by Weezer would be a perfect selection, which is why my blog is titled in this fashion. It may also show up in the themes of the post, but we'll see about that. Well anyways, there is a very awkwardly-spoken 4th year TA leading the lectures for Aristotle, and he doesn't play songs. Drat. I would've liked to listen to Weezer before class.

So, I am not actually listening to the song that includes the words to the title of the post. Weird. I'm listening to the new Streetlight Manifesto album. If you read my blog when it was first created, it would be pretty evident that I'm a big fan of them. It was quite the ordeal to get this album it seems. I was in Ohio recently. Tried to get it there. Didn't work. The Exclusive Co. on State St. didn't even have it. Somehow Best Buy in Madison had it though, but I bought it almost three weeks after it came out. After listening to it, I started to think that maybe I have outgrown ska music. Maybe I am just that well-versed and well-educated after not even 3 semesters of college that I just crave more intelligent music. Well bull-doody. Let's take a look at the goals I had before I entered my first semester at Platteville. I don't think I really had any goals formally, but first I wanted to further my music abilities. That really has no bearing in this post, but I just remembered this. I pretty much thought I was the greatest drummer in the world at that point. Stupid pride. I've been put in my place. I didn't want to be like everyone else I had seen come back from a couple months of college. I didn't want to be changed by it. I liked the way I was. Why should college change me, and make my friends back at home see me different? Why should I abandon this? I didn't want to come back unshaven (I'd say "with a beard" but I probably still can't grow one), recalling all my drunken experiences. Mostly I didn't want to appear or act superior to anyone just because of I had graduated high school a couple months ago. I'm not sure if there was a single person I was basing this image on. I tell ya, I'll devote my life to being completely different from a certain stereotype that I might have just made up. I also didn't want to stay stuck in high school though. That can be hard to fulfill.

But now look at me. I'm still getting that stupid superiority complex. So I'm going to enjoy this Streetlight album and say "I hate college." After all, the first time I heard the first Streetlight album, I thought "I kinda don't like that." It turned into one of my favorite albums of all time. I just found myself liking a song I thought was stupid this afternoon.

College has been kind of a very dismal experience for me it seems. I've failed to find joy in it most of the time. All I did was whine and complain to myself when I was at Platteville. I thankfully made a friend that was as adamant against drinking as I was. I had a roommate that I got along with very well, although I'm not sure how much he enjoyed having me around. But I was still stuck at home, lamenting over some stupid girl, missing the life I built up there, missing my brother that I had recently figured out was my best friend, and also missing Madison, which would make everything monstrously better. I looked past a lot of the good I had there. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I am in Madison now, for Platteville is still pretty lame. So, I spent most of the year completely unhappy.

Right now, I'm really fickle and easily dictated by my moods, which is closely tied to the music I'm listening to at the given moment. Well...I've been that way for quite awhile. But I just get in these really stupid "Hate Everything" moods that I just want to throw stuff, and well, I usually blame them on college. To me, college has done nothing but take me away from stuff I like. College takes away all my free time, all my will to be productive whatsoever....blehhh. I can't help but look at the big picture and know that everyone goes through this, and that I'm learning valuable life lessons, I'm learning tons about myself, yadda yadda yadda. If I compared me as a high school junior to me now, me in high school would appear to be a complete, slobbering idiot. Despite this, the Streetlight-loving high school junior of me just wants to hit my locker as hard as I can. I can no longer spend hours in my basement after school just dicking around with instruments. I am constantly budgeting my time, and that always gets forced out. Then again, a normal, contributing member to this society doesn't just dick around. That's what losers do. *Queue throwing of some object and the saying of a few choice words* No..I sit in this stinky dorm room with some guy I don't really know. I don't really have anywhere to go to read when the tv is on, or play guitar, or talk on the phone with no one listening. I sit here doing work that takes up pretty close to all my time, and I'm still not even getting very good grades. Putting this work as a priority over everything, I watch friends grow more distant, my musical skills dwindling, and a naïve relationship with the coolest girl I've ever met fall apart. That one "this wasn't how it was supposed to be" feeling comes flooding in. The first of many. This blog entry has a lot of pauses. One even for a couple days. My thoughts are so freaking disjointed.

I suppose I should address that whole relationship issue. If any of you have logged on to facebook recently, you'd know that Ashley and I broke up. Three months. I don't really know how to describe how I feel about it. Just picture me sitting in a chair blankly staring at a wall. Maybe that comes close. I'm disappointed. I'm embarrassed. I'm just generally unhappy. I've come to grips with it more, a week after. What did I expect? We started going out the DAY BEFORE I left to go to that stupid week of band. No real relationship built up, we think it will be fine. I think I'll actually have free time. I'll only be a half hour away. We'll talk on the phone. Maybe I'll be able to sneak back on certain weekdays. Well...that didn't happen. What am I thinking now? I did a horrible job at keeping this alive. It was something I really cared about, and I just kept putting it on the backburner. I felt like I had to. Sarah Jones said she really wondered what I would be like in a relationship. I wondered this same thing. Here's what I'm like: I suck. I seem to get pretty boring pretty quickly. I keep thinking of things I could've done differently, but what was the point? Our distance situation was never going to get better. So it made all the sense in the world, for us to break up, and I really wanted to talk to her about it, but then she dumped me in as few words as possible. I was just afraid to bring the whole thing up I guess. I felt fine like...an hour after..talking it over with Blake over a couple close games of billiards. Then as I laid in bed it was all hitting me. As I made the drive back to the dorm, I started realizing that I was going back to the situation of old...the one in Platteville.

So that was pretty scary. I was feeling pretty hopeless for a couple nights. I prayed. A lot. God came through for me. A lot. I can kinda grin about it...except I still haven't talked to her since. I'm struggling...wondering whether to regret it completely. The first two months were pretty good. I just want things to go back to the way they were. I hate this. I'm spewing out such cliches. Through my life filled with lack of relationships, I've grown to really hate them. I already said that in this blog.

The worst part is I know how immature this angsty rant that my high school junior self is writing, and that I'll just look back at this and laugh in a year....5 years...10 years. It makes me feel so insignificant. Yes it's essential to continually learn and grow, but I'M going through the crap that'll make my future self better. Any opinion I form will be deemed absolutely retarded in due time. College, go screw yourself.

I'm honestly usually in a better mood. This last week was fine, so was the weekend. I just got 3.5 or 4 hours of sleep last night. Good news: I've been accepted as a housefellow at Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel. That means I get free housing, and I get to live in that freaking nice building that is the chapel, and I get to plan events and...probably just be crazy. I'm always up for that. I'll be serving the Lord. That's always a great thing. The chapel has a drum set. The owner of it told me I could use it whenever I wanted. On friday I was in the basement dicking around with instruments. It is something I haven't done in awhile. I drilled "Shorts in December" to death, and I think I'm actually comfortable playing and singing it. That's actually never happened since I wrote it like...6 months ago? It's time for me to write a new song. It's time for me to write many a new song. Now I have free time to do it...with no girlfriend. We'll see if that works out. Phil and I are gonna jam during christmas break, and now he's gonna live in Madison. As far as the "to be continued" of the last post...well that just turned into a messed up crapfest of words, as did this. So consider that the continuation. Or something. Ack. Thanks for being out there.

Stuck here waiting for a passing feeling

2007-11-19T01:33:00.000-05:00

I think I just regurgitate whatever prominent line from whatever song I'm listening to at the time. All over my blog's title blank. I don't have time to write this. I'll have plenty of time when I am in Ohio for thanksgiving. There really isn't much logic behind writing this now. School beckons. Yet, school can go screw itself. I try to keep anything I say on here completely unoffensive, in case a camper would stumble upon it or something, but I feel it just needs to be said. Alright, so it isn't even that offensive. Well. Pood. I thought I just made up that word. Turns out merriam-webster.com tells me it is a Russian unit of weight equal to about 36.11 pounds (16.38 kilograms). Interesting. There's my 1 new thing I've learned today. I've learned much more than that I believe. After all, I learned a new position at work today. I delivered stuff. That was dumb. Liz Waters the dormitory, not the some lady, is utterly confusing. The room numbers are expressed in 4 digits. I thought the first digit would be the floor number. Guess not. It is actually the unit number, numbered depending on how east or west it is. the second number is the floor. There's only 5 units too. Someone wrote on a ticket "room 6411". How weird. I searched and searched for unit 6. I even ran into Kayla Stone, who proclaimed that she had never been to the 6th unit. Not really implying that there wasn't one. I don't think she knew either. I was gonna ask her to come with me, but I didn't. She probably would've politely turned me down. How sad.

Elliott Smith is good at music. Er...was. His voice is weird and requires a bit of getting used to, but it's soothing. He has a way with simple melodies that just makes his songs so listenable. All they are are little vocal or guitar hooks. They serve their purpose, because his songs always seem to get stuck in my head. I need to get the new Streetlight Manifesto cd. I've heard good things. I also need to get Say Anything's cd. I've heard mixed things. I once was a deaf guy. I heard no things.

Man, I'm so hungry, I could eat a pood of food. Wait...I'm not hungry. Pood of food is just too good though. Man that's a good pood of food...Jude. Don't be rude.

Y'know who's crazy? God. It's weird how it seems like almost every sermon I hear in any church directly applies to my life at the time. This is probably pretty common for people..there's a lot of material in sermons. But before the service today, I was looking at my life and realizing that I need to make people feel more appreciated by me. I really appreciate a lot of people, but I never show that. Or much of any emotion for that matter. I used to be great at that. Then high school drama just took away any effect my efforts had. I shouldn't blame it on that though. I was really cheesy though. Maybe cheesy is good. Why must I always have the desire to do everything differently, yet alarmingly the same? Never mind, that was kind of an insane tangent. In a nutshell, I decided I was forgetting to be thankful. All that my mother had been hammering into my head my whole life had all of a sudden been neglected. So then the whole service is based on thankfulness, especially the story of Jesus healing ten lepers and only one coming back to thank him. I played drums at the chapel today. We had been practicing for weeks. It was fun. Nothing like that to set me straight and get me to thank God for any talents I have, instead of looking out into the congregation to see who would witness me playing. That didn't even sink in then though. It wasn't until I was sitting here on my futon with my laptop that I remembered those words and how apt they were. For starters, I have blessings like a futon and a laptop. Thanks God. Cue "Jury Duty" by The O.C. Supertones. So to all those that I appreciate, and even those I don't, thank you. Sorry for not acknowledging you.

I don't think I'm gonna get my program done on time. Crap. Stupid one credit course. Sometimes I wonder how I could ever be taken seriously. For this, I will cite the video of me trying to hula hoop on the SALT dvd. Sure, I was trying to be funny (sort of...I don't think I knew that was being filmed for most of it), but man, Callie was right. I'm so unbelievably awkward. I've always wanted to get a laugh out of people. I feel that I succeed in this a lot, even when I'm not trying to. I welcome the laughs regardless if I'm trying or not. But how could anyone talk to me seriously? Sarah Jones bursts out laughing pretty much anytime we talk...or anytime she sees me. I think this is evidence that her head is screwed on straight. And everyone else's isn't. Yeah, I don't know. I nearly just fell asleep on the crapper, so I don't think that says much for the integrity or intelligence of what I'm writing. I did not type 'think' in the first try of the previous sentence. I should stop this.

To be continued....

it's too late

2007-11-11T02:06:00.000-05:00

Firefox seems to have lost some of its functionality on me. It's way too late. One good thing about my test on Monday is that to study I am listening to music. From the 40's. You should look up the Nicholas brothers on youtube. They were great dancers. Probably the best that ever were. They did the splits a lot. One of the brothers had a severely mentally handicapped child. I wonder if that played a part in it at all? I only had two slices of roast beef on my sub today. It was disappointing. I pretty much subsist on sub sandwiches. haha...SUBsist. Now let's check if thats a word....yup. My listening to 40's music has brought me to youtube, which leads me to too many distractions. Now it's 2:11 in the AM and I need to wake up at 7:30 to facilitate kids from lakeside discussion or something. I like peanuts? Muffins aren't that cool. Blake told me they're worse for you than donuts, and they don't taste near as good. I like the chocolate chocolate chip ones though. That sentence that started with "I like" was supposed to end differently. I think it was supposed to be "I look like I'm 16." I had to stay late at work. I'm watching a music video with Weezer and the muppets. This was my first exposure to Weezer barring a 7th grade Danny Hahn talking about them at camp. How long ago was that? 2001? So a year before this song came out. Rivers Cuomo with a beard kinda looks like a childhood friend of mine named Andrew. I wonder what you're doing now Andrew. I'm facebooking you. Then going to sleep. I really want to make a real blog post, but I never have any time. Hopefully one soon.

P.S. I just saw a picture of my old roommate holding a tiny puppy. I broke down laughing. It was pretty much the funniest thing in the world. Holy crap it's late.

I guess I will protect myself from you...

2007-10-16T01:20:00.000-04:00

"Protection" by Ben Folds is a song that is on its way to being listened to a lot by me. Such a cool little drum part. So sorry for my last blog entry. With any luck, you won't get to read it. I don't even remember what it says.

I'm in a heap of trouble. A lot of work. All due around the same time. The end of October. Yeesh. I've got readings to do and an essay by Thursday, a MAJOR paper on the 30th, major program on the 26th, midterms on the 25th and 26th, major quiz in zoology the 22nd, and a lab report the 29th. This will be interesting. At least I'm thinking about it now instead of playing Madden or something. For this reason I left it at home this weekend, after some quality weekend playing of it. Ish. I'm in kind of a bizarre mood. One where I don't really feel anything. I guess that's the main governing one. Especially while at school. Probably the same as last year, but less....sharp? I don't know.

I tried to dissect the feeling I got while drinking Arizona green tea out of a glass bottle in front of my place of work. It was of Platteville. I get this feeling while drinking any sort of Arizona Iced Tea I guess (except for Sweet Tea), or listening to The Early November, Death Cab, Bright Eyes, Relient K's new album, The Shins....the list goes on. It's actually positive. This is what surprises me. Though I wasn't having a fun time, I guess it was still exciting. I had some good friends there, small resurgences with old friends over the phone, a fun little musical involvement, a lot of free time, and the hope to get out. Now that I am out, and here, I am completely emotionless. I still get down on myself for not working as hard I should've, just like last year, either in schoolwork or other personal endeavors, but I guess I'm a little more on top of schoolwork than before. I know a bit of what to expect. I know myself a bit more. The girl problems are solved, so the hopelessness doesn't dominate my mind any longer. It is replaced by a milder temporary loneliness. I don't have as much free time, not as much time to think I guess. The hope to get out is still there, but of course dulled...because the immediate out was Madison, but the other out was music. Music has become more distant to me. I don't exactly play drums once or twice a week like I did in Platteville anymore. So I guess everything is the same...yet dulled? I don't know what to think of this.

I guess milder negative feelings also mean milder positive feelings. I didn't realize this I guess until I found myself content to just sit on the futon and stare into space for 5 minutes instead of walking to class earlier, or staring at the Penny Arcade comic for probably a good 5 minutes. I found it humorous, but I didn't laugh. Only stared. Instead of marching band, the thing that gives me purpose in life during the week is football and fantasy football. I think I liked myself better when I didn't follow football as much.

The other day I was walking up a hill, and I sneezed. Into my hand. It was kinda gross. I said to myself, "Eww."

I looked up and saw a guy wearing an Indiana Football shirt, and he was looking at me. Then he said something to me. I was startled. He asked if I would take his picture. Now, I'm pretty sure this guy watched me sneeze into my hand. Yet he wanted to put his camera in my germ-filled hand for the sake of a picture in front of a lookout point. I thought a profound thought to myself..."Dude....what?!?"

The guy was really nice. I'm always afraid I'm going to totally mess up the picture when I'm taking one for someone else. I went through a short stint where I did, my fingers continually were placed over the the flash, ruining the picture. This was with a non-digital camera too...so you couldn't quite tell right away. Not until the only picture taken was ruined. These tiny digital cameras are a little easier I guess. Except for some of those ones with the super crazy delay. Anyways, the guy was familiar with the places my extended family was from, and I told him my dad graduated from IU. He thought that was cool possibly. 'Twas an interesting interaction.

Imdb.com has just told me that Ashley is up 351% in popularity this week. I knew there was a reason I am going out with her... Hopefully it doesn't go to her head too much. She'll probably dump me for some C-list movie star, and keep climbing her way up. There's no way she'll get any more popular with me....unless I start working on being famous...and soon. Dag. Maybe someday I will have my own page on imdb.com. I technically did just make an appearance in my first movie, as an extra in one of the Fifth Pew to the Front's. She was my date to the movie theater, and we were walking out. This was actually before we started going out. Weird.

I probably had more to say, but I should get rest. This means more thoughts for future blog posts, probably soon as I think of them. Maybe that means more frequent updates? The last one was finished technically only two days ago, so this one is quite uncharacteristic of me. Maybe not. If I do a couple more this frequently, then it will be uncharacteristic of me. So long!

i'm too tired for my own good

2007-10-04T21:52:00.000-04:00

My computer is weird. My mouth feels weird. I pretty much just ate an onion sandwich. I didn't want THAT many onions. For this reason, I have to go to work at 10:30 until 2:00 in the morning. I should go brush my teeth. And go call that girl that's really awesome. Dang...she didn't answer. She probably smelled the onions. Coming out of the phone. Gross. See, I got this job. It's at a place called Carson's Carryout. It stays open till 1, serves pizza, breadsticks, subs, nachos, quesadillas...a whole bunch of great stuff...pretty much the best friend of every college student in the area. But....I keep getting subs that suck. And are made slowly. So I thought...maybe I should get a job there and make good subs...not crappy subs. I mean they taste great...but come on. Obviously that girl never eats onions...because holy crap. She put on more onions then lettuce. And she put them right on top of the mayo she squirted out so that it was near impossible to take off. So I didn't. So I ate the onion sub with traces of meat watching the last two episodes of season 3 of Grey's Anatomy in a completely darkened room wallowing in my self-worthlessness. I've been doing the last one since about 3:30, as my midterms are done, and I've decided to be worthless. I hate it. Grey's Anatomy is a stupid show. Everyone's problems keep getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. I missed two episodes..I'm kinda lost, but not really. It's just a buncha drama...only major drama. Now everyone is getting married. It's kinda predictable I guess. I dunno. Hey...she called back.

So uh...apparently that phone conversation lasted about 10 days. Crap. It's so hard to actually find time to blog. I started this post on October 4th. All those people that joined Schleef's facebook group will be sorely disappointed. Or just not care. But I missed out on making another blog post to hook even MORE readers. Bwa ha ha. Oh well. Not happening anyway. I must say. It's pretty honoring to have a facebook group about me or some aspect of me. Thanks Jason. Remember when we used to write little notes to each other in our blog posts? That was cute. Then you stopped writing in your blog. It's still begging me to write you letters at camp. When you went for your FIRST year of SALT staff. I still love you. Your blog pretty much had the best name/URL. Unlike this one. How silly. You need to come to Madison so we can make up/play a good round of shoe fling golf. What a great game.

Anyways, thanks to all who joined. I love you all. I don't think I've even met some of those people. Silly. Shows that anyone will join any group. I would join, but I have a collection of group invitations that are not responded to. Right now I have 101. See if anyone can beat me.

Hmm...anything more interesting? Probably. After all, it's been a long time since my last blog post. I suppose this could possibly be because the fact that I now DO have a girlfriend. She for some reason is willing to sit and listen to me babble on the phone about whatever is on my mind and what kind of worthless things I did during my stupid day, so you don't have to? So I guess that's sort of the idea behind the blog. Not really. But I guess it's takes a little edge off of this desire I have to share what I am thinking, for it used to be that I had no one within arm's reach to listen to this.

Ashley is a pretty interesting person. She even has her own page on imdb.com (internet movie database) Check it out! You can even see how popular she is in comparison to last week. Crazy huh?

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1460638/

Dude. I just spent a long time looking at Badger athletes' facebooks, and realizing that they are now close to my age. Kyle Jefferson is catching touchdown passes for the badgers. I am older than that guy. Most of the stars on that field are about a year older than me. One time I saved a goal in an indoor soccer game from Nick Toon, former NFL wide receiver Al Toon's son. He is a freshman wide receiver for the badgers. He was kicking it, I picked it up, and he gave me a defeated look. One time Blake did a list of his greatest athletic accomplishments. I consider this one of MY greatest athletic accomplishments. Whoo! I think there's a buttload of badger athletes in my big bands class. I've only ID'd one of them though. His name is Chris Maragos. He's a transfer from Western Michigan, where he started 8 games when he was a redshirted freshman, and I assume he's sitting out this year. Crazy. I keep my eye out for these people, because I am creepy. I grew up idolizing badger football players in the 1994 Rose Bowl. Now they're my age. Just wait till I'm older than them.....weird.

My brother is the homecoming king. Way to go Blake.

This post is kind of like a stand up comedy monologue, except not funny. The only similarity is that I just introduce different topics with no warning. That's so dumb. I'd imagine a lot of my posts are like that.

I should go to bed. I'm not productive at all. Not even in writing blog posts. Bah. Maybe I'll write an actual blog post soon? So long.

's been too long.

2007-09-17T01:59:00.000-04:00

So you've probably thought I died. I guess a lot has happened since band camp started. First of all...band camp. Oh my. I never realized how hard it would actually be. The focus totally wasn't on playing, but more on athleticism and endurance, and how well you can march their way. Let me tell you, their way is quite a chore. Bleh. Let me explain...

The normal marching step consists of the knee coming up, and the thigh being at about...let's say 135 degrees with the chest. The shin is perpendicular to the ground, and the toe is cranked all the way down, so it is pointing towards the ground. Each step is snapped into position with a good force. Our first practice we went to the field and waited, it was pouring rain, lightning was flashing, and the upperclassmen were acting all enthusiastic and intimidating. Alex Paschke found me luckily, and wished me luck. He said this week is really hard, and he was discouraged at first, but now he really likes it. He gave me a little bit of assurance. We had to walk to Camp Randall...a good mile, to practice on an indoor practice field. It was hot, sticky, and crazy. The upperclassmen faced the freshman (which I still am to them), and they had traditions for all their stretches, and the freshmen pitifully tried to follow what they were doing. Then they all jumped up and down and yelled "freshmen suck, freshmen suck...." and then hop with the marching step up and clapping. Man...what a challenge at first. Through all the "hazing" (not really), I was starting to get the hang of it, and it was extremely tiring. We then went to sectionals. I thought maybe this would be a bit of a break in the action. Well...it was more intense than the whole band practice. The seniors relentlessly corrected our marching styles. There were about 32 freshmen trying out for the drumline, I wanna say. Just as it was going pretty well, and we watched them play cadences and worked on music for awhile, the second 2 hour marching practice came, and the put a snare drum on me. Holy crap. Probably one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do...their marching style with a snare drum on. I was really struggling. Meanwhile the drill leader was yelling away. By the second day we were outside, and I was feeling like just leaving practice and taking it easy for the rest of the week. I was still really struggling in the morning rehearsal. I think that was the closest time I came to quitting. The only thing that made me come back was that they said they'd be watching us and trying us out on different instruments the next practice. Sure enough, they moved me to cymbals. I was happy. I felt like I was possibly doing something right, the instrument was much lighter, plus it was fun learning then doing the crazy cymbal flips. We had to flip them on every turn, and every time we brought them up and down. Cymbals really appealed to me. I had to tape my fingers to protect them from blisters, so I looked pretty hardcore I imagine. Cymbals also provided me with a better chance to make it, with more spots open, but by this time, I was really not looking forward to making it...I was hoping I wasn't going to. They were trying to motivate us to get angry as we marched....I just want to play drums. They'd yell at us almost constantly "SHOW US HOW MUCH YOU WANT THIS!!!" At this, some people screamed, getting "fired up". I, as much of a bad mood I was in during all of these practices, would chuckle whenever someone did that. I mean come on....that's brown-nosing if I ever saw it. They want that though. So every time they said that, I showed them how much I wanted it....not very much. They really drive you into the ground. I don't think I've ever worked so hard. The practices started stretching to 2 and a half to 3 hours...and soon practices ended with "countdowns" which is marching 50 yards, then turning and marching 45, then 40...and so on. Everyone holds their instrument high above their head while doing this too. The first time we did it, I was really struggling to keep the cymbals up there. The next time I found a pretty good grip, but when we were done with that, he made us do a 30 yarder, right when we thought we were done. Gosh. Practices starting getting less intense towards the end of the week, and less and less people were showing up. About 4 people in the percussion section didn't show up to the second day of practice. But by now we were working on our show, and the freshmen had a small part...which apparently hasn't happened since 2001, so that was pretty exciting. This just meant sectionals got even more intense as they were watching us all extremely closely. They'd go line by line "32 to the rear, 32 to the rear" which was playing On, Wisconsin while marching, and halfway through, turning around and marching back, since our fight song is an even 64 counts. Never before has On, Wisconsin been so painful. The guy would make the lines march again if they sucked. One time, he made the cymbals march again, but he was like "hmm, do it again...not because you sucked, but because I don't know who to take. This is tough." I take that as an indicator that I made a good run.

"Reg week" as it was called, ended sort of on Thursday afternoon, and they gave us juice bars. One of the best juice bars I've ever inhaled...They of course told us we all did a great job for sticking with it. They were all nice people really, just not during practice. After this though, we had to load drums over to Camp Randall. That took a really long time. A carload of us stupid freshman idiots learned from this 5th year guy who wasn't in the marching band for the 5th year, that a lot of the selection process is based on how much they like you. I sort of doubted that, but I'm sure it did still have a lot to do with it. Getting to march in the game was kinda fun. I don't know... I was kind of in an off mood for it, but 5th quarter was pretty fun. I had come to grips that I don't know any of the music, and that all their traditions were dumb, so I just had fun. I was making up dances, and of course doing the wedding dance, in the middle of Camp Randall Stadium. I clanged my cymbals right behind this girl's head when she was talking on the phone. That was silly. She smiled at me. She probably shouldn't have been standing by the cymbals...

After the game, and unloading of the drums, the drumline wanted us to come to a drumline only get-together to say "thanks for trying out". Code for "we want to see you idiots drunk". To this I replied with a "screw you" and skipped for home. I had to come back on Sunday though...to see if I made it. I figured that with my non-passionate effort and complete lack of desire to make the band, I was pretty much safe. But there was this lagging fear that I would make it. I hoped not. Now don't get me completely wrong...a small part of me did want to make it, but still not really. After making us wait for like...a freaking hour, finally the results were posted. I didn't make it. I was relieved. Out of the 26 percussionists who made it through reg week, 10 made it into the band. Part of me was a little disappointed, but merely a shot to the ego...like a "so you thought I sucked too, huh?" It is definitely kind of a hit to tell people who ask "did you make the band?" That's why I'm so reluctant to answer a simple no. They don't know the whole story. Now, I will point them to this blog post, and then they will read about 4 sentences and say "screw this, Evan is a pansy."

Pansy or not, I have about 20 hours more of free time a week. Which reminds me....I need a job. The ego hit is truly the only thing that affects me about not making the band.

So now...classes have been crazy..and different. Lots of reading. The Iliad was a beast. Holy moly. At least there's no math...but geez. I've got two heavy reading classes with discussion sections led by TAs, where we are challenged to think deep, and really come up with some profound stuff. I laugh at those that are changed by these experiences. Madison, though it is much more exciting, fun, and respectable than Platteville, definitely is tugging every student to be more liberal, and intellectual almost to the point of being a pompous....donkey. In Zoology 101, they jumped right to evolution of course, and then talked in length of the the theory of creationism. The professor took on the attitude of "I know you guys think it's silly that I'm speaking of such a silly theory to all you educated people, but I believe it's important to learn about what a lot of people believe, and that it's not that far off from evolution."

So you may think that's better, but remember she's speaking to mostly college freshmen and sophomores. We are a crowd that's very easily influenced, however educated we think we are. So we think she is being fair...but what a false sense of respect she delivers. Yes, you educated people straight out of your senior slide. Welcome to college. You should think Creationism is silly, and be surprised that I'm devoting so much time to it. What...you didn't actually think that it's silly? Only uneducated people believe in that nonsense. I'm guessing a lot of kids right out of high school, public or private school, believe it, however loosely. Most kids have some sense of religion, and just kind of generally except that. But this is the University of Wisconsin here people....we are educated mo-fos. Sometimes as I'm walking to classes, I pray that I'm not influenced to the point of thinking my faith is silly. It's hard to get totally involved in studies...like they want you to be...and not throw away a few of your morals. We'll see where I am in a couple of months, but I'm planning on staying above the water.

I hope that wasn't too discombobulated. It's quite late. This is the first time this year that I've stayed up past 2. Right now I've got the feeling where certain letters I write are pulsing, and I am floating aimlessly through the room. It's pretty fun I guess, haven't felt this in a while...but also unsettling.

Hmm...what else to cover...I've seen a lot of people I know, so that's pretty cool. So now I find myself hanging out with old friends instead of making new ones. I feel kinda guilty for some reason for that, like I should know more people in my dorm, but I got Joe Z. on first floor, and Amy, also a junior staff, on third floor. I am on the second. I especially feel guilty when I'm leaving every weekend to see Ashley. Oh well. I'm sort of worried I'll alienate everyone and leave only her, and I hate it when people do that. In fact, all high school I've hated relationships, and how the two act, and the unwritten rules. Now, I am in one, and really the first because I don't count the other one. I find me hating myself lately, but it's worth it. I'm betting no one will get that. I'm betting no one will read this. Daggggg.

I just bought the new Motion City Soundtrack record. I was in kind of a bad mood when listening to it at first, so I was disappointed. I ruined it for myself by religiously watching their "webisodes", so the snippets I've heard from those are really familiar, and don't seem to fit in with the rest of the song. I'm listening to it now, I'm about through my second full rotation already, and I'm already liking it a lot better. I love Motion City....evidenced by me constantly mentioning them in blog posts, and the fact that I actually bought this cd, right on the release date too...I think I've only ever done that twice, the other time with Five Score by Relient K...if you don't count the pre-ordering of mmhmm. I got it 2 weeks after it was released. I was pissed man. O yeah...Relient K randomly played on State st. for free. It was some Mcdonald's promotion, where they have random free concerts outdoors with big names, and then you vote who was the best and who should win a McDonalds commercial featuring them. I wasn't expecting much, but it was pretty lame...even for present day Relient K. The Last Goodnight opened for them...a disappointing 6-piece band that's sure to get forced on to the radio because they're fake and a cross between Maroon 5 and Hinder. All of them dressed really stupid, were sort of old, sucked, and had bad haircuts...except for the drummer. This guy was awesome. He was a pretty big black guy with a North Face hooded sweatshirt on, and his backstage pass still around his neck. He was so talented as a drummer too. I was thoroughly entertained. He had this solo thing where he went crazy on the toms with his right hand and started twirling the stick with his left. Plus his style was cool...a lot like Carter Beauford of Dave Matthews Band. Relient K didn't play anything I'd never seen played live (at least...of their own creation). It was pretty much a condensed set of what they played in March. See for yourself:

1. Who I Am Hates Who I've Been
2. High of 75
3. The Best Thing
4. Head Over Heels (Tears for Fears cover) - classy..right before...
5. In Love With the 80's
6. Big Mac Theme Song/Must Have Done Something Right
7. Be My Escape

They were gonna end it there...because Matt's guitar wasn't working, but they came back out and played three more

8. Forgiven
9. Devastation and Reform
10. Sadie Hawkins Dance - at which point they invited some guy from the audience, Phil, to play guitar for the last chorus. He jumped around all happy like. As Sarah Jones eloquently put it, that was the coolest Phil will ever be.

The whole spectacle seemed so cheesy to me, but still cool. Relient K still manages to put a little bit of their flavor into these concerts, and it was good for a free show...but...there's still something to be desired I guess for us old fans. Bah.

I encourage you to watch the music video for "Salty Eyes" by The Matches. I've never been a big fan of there's...never really listened to them..but the video is quite cool. I enjoy the idea. The song isn't bad either. Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_7xWNUqxxI

Hopefully that will appease those of you who have really been looking forward to an update. A nice, traditional, long one. Even complete with a set list no one cares about. And of course not without empty promises to update more. Hopefully I'll be able to fill it a bit. And now I leave you.

well hello there

2007-08-26T23:54:00.000-04:00

Hi. I'm back from camp. The summer was wonderful. It's weird describing an entire summer with one sentence, as if it was ten minutes long. Especially since a lot of growth, learning, friendships, and just a bunch of stuff were packed into those almost three months. For that reason I'd love to just sit down and put a schedule in front of me and just try to recap every moment I remember in one ginormous blog post. That'd be sweet, but I don't know if I'll have time. I'll have evenings free...but days for the next week will be going through marching fundamentals and dying. I may be spending my evenings practicing music I receive. I'm really apprehensive. The UW band is quite a big deal. Honestly not sure if I'll make it...leaning towards not. While I do have college marching band experience...I feel I haven't improved like I should've this past year, and I could be so much better than what I am. Oh well. It'll be cool to make it, but it'll be a blessing if I don't as well. I'll probably be able to focus more on schoolwork...and writing music that I like....plus I just started a relationship. Things are staying busy I guess. But certainly, I will try to do this monster blog post, for the thought excites me.

I just moved into my dorm. It's a little bigger I think than my last one. It's really old. My dresser is built in to the wall and it's all this really old style wood. Pretty crazy. Well...I should go and work on some music before a crazy day. See ya later.

so long...for now

2007-05-28T11:20:00.000-04:00

As so many of the blogs of my good friends have thrown in the towel, I will post a pathetic plea to write me a letter. I'll be up at camp until the middle of August, so anytime you get bored enough to do it, I guess you actually could. I don't think I have to mention that you will earn my love forever.

Evan Samanas
W9944 Buttercup Ave.
Wautoma, WI 54982

Maybe I will actually blog something too... Y'know, I've never really replied to a chain letter. I usually read them though. I'm not sure why. Some have had kind of an effect on me, mostly I just lose a little respect for the person who sent them to me. One time I actually made up one. I was in 7th grade. Despite my youthfulness, I think it was actually kinda giggle-worthy. But I wonder...most of those chain letters tell you that if you don't pass them to a certain amount of people, you will get a certain amount of years of bad luck in your love life. I can't help but think that I've amassed enough bad luck for several love lives over the years. I wonder if it's working. I can't exactly say my love life has been going too well. Of course, according to a lot of those chain letters, I should've been murdered by about 15 ghosts, and my mother should be dead. None of that has really happened.

I can't help but think that my dwindling readership will go down to 0 after this hiatus. Oh well. We had a good run. I will still post, no matter who reads this. Bye.

hey there!

2007-05-22T12:56:00.000-04:00

I think my brain is about 40% good right now. That doesn't make sense. Shows you the condition of my thinking I guess...

I made the myspace for the band with Phil. We called ourselves "Phil the Band". This was already taken on myspace though, by a band called phiL or something. So, I had to make our URL

www.myspace.com/philthebandmusic

Redundant, I know. Well, you could check this out to hear 4 of the 5 songs we've made. Those are probably the only songs that will be made, for I am going to camp and then Lucas is moving to Georgia.

Also, I'm about to mix a song I recorded and put it on The Evans' myspace. It will probably be a place to put songs that will eventually turn in to Eisenhower songs. Here it is:

www.myspace.com/theevansmusic

I only have 3 friends, so if you have myspace, go ahead and add me. Tell me what you think as well. It'd be cool. I hate myspace, but it's so freakin' convenient.

Since I'm not functioning well upstairs, I think this is about it for this blog. Toodles.

I's got cheese curds

2007-05-14T01:37:00.000-04:00

There was this crazy moth on my window. I think it's a luna moth...also known as the moth in those lunesta commercials, that flies around and lands on people in their beds. Once this happens, they fall asleep. Well, I didn't fall asleep, but this prompted me to not study for my programming final and start reading about bugs. Pretty crazy..that thing was huge.

So I realized there's a couple things I've failed to cover. I wrote my first song..ever. It's only acoustic right now, but it will probably turn into a full band Eisenhower song. I will most likely soon record it and toss it on the dormant "The Evans" myspace. I also have a hankering to record a song with me playing all the instruments...hopefully that will be mostly or all the way done before I leave for camp. I will throw that on there too. I'm also gonna throw most of the songs that the Phil/Lucas/Me project made on to some myspace. I will update with the addresses once they exist.

I played an open mic last wednesday. I played "Lizzy" by Ben Kweller, and my song. I'm not sure how good my song actually is. I guess I need more feedback.

Most of the stuff is out of my dorm. I can't wait for school to end. I can't wait for these ten days that await when I'm not at camp and just at home.

It looks to be another Adam-less night. Those are rare. He must be coming back on Monday.

Blake got his ACT score back. It's really high. I don't know if he wants it on a blog, so I guess I won't put it, but it's really high. Yeesh. I guess I always knew he was smart, but never had a way to measure it.

I think that moth was sending me a message...almost an hour ago. Go to sleep Evan. I don't have anything to do tomorrow until 7 pm, but still.

Random good songs:
Company Car - Switchfoot
Cry On Demand - Gomez
In Other Words - Ben Kweller
I Need You Back - Ben Kweller

'night

I'm gonna cry.

2007-05-10T17:25:00.000-04:00

Motion City Soundtrack pushed back the release of their new record by two months. TWO MONTHS. I'm so sad. I was already waiting two months for it. It was originally coming out July 17th. Now it's September 18th. I'm so psyched about this album. I've been watching the webisodes of them recording it, and the snippets I'm hearing sound amazing. I want this album right now. Just thought I'd share my sadness.

I've got a lot ahead of me still. I have to write an at least 7 page draft tonight for my research paper. Ouch. No more distractions. I have to get back to work.

this isn't good

2007-05-08T01:11:00.000-04:00

It's much too late, and I haven't even started studying for discrete math. These next two weeks will be totally busy. Bother.

I like the song "Shiver" .

There are a lot of songs named Shiver. I like the one by Motion City Soundtrack and Coldplay. I like the Coldplay one a lot right now.

I went back to prom, but just to play the social hour. I only had a tux because I have it for school concerts here in Platteville. Speaking of which...you can find a picture of me in said tux on UW-Platteville's website. If you look hard enough. There's also some floating around on facebook, but those just aren't as official...

Playing social hour was kind of thrown together. Oh well. I hung with Phil. It was cool. Blake seemed to have a good time at prom. Now he has something under his belt that I do not...a good prom.

I went to Anna's sister's confirmation party. There's a funny story behind that, but it will remain relatively untold. I saw Mr. Larson. There was a chocolate fountain. Whoa.

I best be studying now. Good aft.

I don't know what to title this

2007-05-03T14:08:00.000-04:00

Last night, Jake and I went to see Jet at the Barrymore Theatre. The show was really good. I'm straining hard to think of anyone who would care to see a set list, as I don't know many Jet fans, but I'm putting it up here anyways.

1. That's All Lies
2. Get What You Need
3. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
4. Holiday
5. Take It Or Leave It
6. Move On
7. Look What You've Done
8. Bring It On Back
9. Are You Gonna Be My Girl?
10. Last Chance
11. Cold Hard Bitch
12. Stand Up
13. Get Me Outta Here/Something I didn't recognize...they brought it back to Get Me Outta Here

Encore:
14. Shine On (Nic alone with an acoustic guitar)
15. Rip It Up
16. Rollover DJ/Some improv stuff/Outro to Hey Kids

Those Jet guys are really good at putting together a set...let me tell you. They played an even mix of old and new songs, every song seemed to be placed perfectly. The way they ended was really awesome too. Rollover DJ and Hey Kids are possibly my two favorite songs by them, and they grouped them together for the final song. That was cool. They played an appropriate length. Everything was just cool. Nic liked to climb on top of Chris's bass drum. During Cold Hard Bitch he almost fell off. It was funny. He also seemed to sing the second verse in place of the first verse for Rollover DJ, and then when the second verse came, he didn't sing anything. They were all laughing. It was funny.

The atmosphere was a lot different than concerts I've been to. I'm willing to bet that a lot more people were stoned. There was a good amount of old-ish people there. A lot were drinking beer. As a result, a lot of beer was spilled. Moshing was pretty rare, and the performers had more of a "here's our music, dig it or not" aura about them. The Virgins were the openers, and the same way, but no one really liked them. Despite supposedly being signed by Atlantic Records (same label as Jet, Rush..but also Diddy and Missy Elliott), they were really bad. They all did not care at all. It was horrible. I can't find any other evidence that they are signed to Atlantic other than their myspace page. Their drummer played like a wind-up monkey.

Other than the concert, I signed up for classes at Madison. It was pretty interesting I guess. It's the reason I was in Madison in the first place.

I'm still getting used to my hair. It's not easy. When I shake my head, nothing moves. I still spend about two minutes in the shower getting all my hair wet. That is not necessary. My head gets cold easily. This is dumb.

I ran into former junior staff Arielle. That was pretty cool. We talked kind of awkwardly outside of Monty's Blue Plate for a couple minutes. 'Twas cool seeing her again. Okay bye.

eek!

2007-04-30T21:30:00.000-04:00

I am naked. Well not really. But my head certainly feels like it. I got a haircut. A drastic one. A very drastic one. My hair has not been this short probably since 7th or 8th grade. My hair made a whistling sound in the wind today. That's the last time I do little explaining to the hairdresser and hand her my senior picture. In this picture, my hair is not quite curling, it goes to about halfway down my ears, and halfway down my forehead. I can see my entire forehead, and I can barely make my hair even touch my ears if I pull on it really hard. I am extremely sad. I'm starting to get used to it though. Nevertheless, I've done reading on how to make hair grow faster. Basically I need to eat healthy, lots of leafy green vegetables and protein, and drink a whole bunch of water. Oh, and I need to massage my scalp every day. And take my vitamins. I wonder how long this will last. Oh well. If this is what it takes to make me eat healthy...cool. I wish I could do it better when I have my normal hair... I think I do for the most part, seeing that I haven't gotten super sick this entire school year.

This weekend was pretty cool other than the total butchering of my hair. I watched Blake's play. It was kinda weird. I didn't really get it. It was called Cheaper by the Dozen. I was told beforehand that it was based on the old book and movie, not the Steve Martin movie. I at least thought it would have SOME similarities. No. Other than the title and amount of kids, this is nothing like the Steve Martin movie. The cast, crew, and director did a good job for what they were given, but it just wasn't that interesting of a play. One of those plays that I figured there would be another act when it ends. Blake was pretty funny playing a little kid. He looked weird though, with his hair combed back and makeup all over his face. I hadn't seen Blake in a play since he was in 8th grade. He always seemed to get the lead anyways in the final two years. I think? I could be wrong. I know he had the lead for at least one play in the "junior high" years. I will have to check on the most notable Blake historian on this, presumably Blake.

I only have a couple more weeks of this stupid Platteville stuff. I can't just slack off though, I need a 3.0 to truly get into Madison, even though they accepted me. This may sound easy, especially since I got a 3.6 last semester, but I had easy classes last semester. I don't have any easy ones this time around. College is in fact hard. I think I'm getting a 3.1-ish right now though.

Supposedly Eisenhower will be playing during Social Hour of prom, and Blake told me that it will probably end up being mostly me with an acoustic guitar, since they have limited material. We'll see how this goes. As a singer I am iffy, but I think I'm getting better. The roommate has definitely heard some pretty bad examples of me singing. He hears pretty much everything. Poor guy.

Other than all that, I'm sure there's new stuff going on, but I've forgotten. I think I've realized what little amounts of my thoughts actually make it onto this thing.

I am struggling with having to re-create my own physical self-image in my head. I still scare myself every time I walk by a mirror. With this thought, I leave you.

anger!

2007-04-23T13:45:00.000-04:00

Ben Kweller = one of my favorite artists. The Orpheum = my FAVORITE venue. Ben Kweller is playing the Orpheum DURING my symphony band concert, and ONLY for CURRENT UW-Madison students. They are checking IDs. I am pissed.

There's no real point to this post other than to just post again, with a short update to my life. I have added to the filth on youtube with my own stupid video. Ben and I were fooling around with his video camera. We have another even weirder one... but here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_uwxIfODQg

Yesterday was a really awesome day. I played guitar and sang at Anna's church, and Blake, Anna, and Steve also played. It was a pretty good time, even though my voice kinda struggled the first service. It did the second I think too, just not as much. Then I played soccer with Eisenhower and Tom. Then the other parts of Eisenhower left, and Tom and I played Mario Party and walked around a lot. We bought kites and flew them. For a dollar. Mine was a My Little Pony kite, and Tom's was a Dora the Explorer one. Mine broke within the first minute. Our kites are in sorry shape. I ate ice cream and laughed a lot. I just walked to class, and then remembered that class was canceled in advance. Oops.

that's exactly what a catastrophe is, ignoring warnings and thinking kids will be kids

2007-04-09T21:44:00.000-04:00

If you can name what song THAT'S from, that'd be awesome. I don't think there's even lyrics of it on the internet. Blake would probably know. Maybe not. This is a dumb game.

I've wanted to write this for awhile, but I haven't had the time or the will until now. I still may not have the will, but I'm back in Platteville, so is there anything better to do? No. I don't really feel like recapping the recent events, other than that Easter was pretty good. The church service was very uplifting. I enjoyed it a lot.

So sometimes I like to narrate my life. Only at select moments though. Sometimes I narrate it with two voices, a play-by-play commentator and a color commentator. Assuming my life is interesting enough for people to watch it from home, as a sport. I remember doing this as I was walking to calculus class once, and I was almost sure I was going to be late. It was very snowy and slippery, and the commentators took note of this, and I passed through a particularly icy stretch at full speed without slowing down. They noted that this was a crucial part to my attempt to not be late. I ended up being late by about 1 minute though, but I got there and class was canceled. I walked back, called Ben, and told him about the sportscasters. It was silly.

Every once in awhile, after blogging, I feel that I must continue to waste more time, and check any blogs of my friends that have been updated recently. Usually, this only includes Becca. Usually, I just read her last post earlier anyways. At these times of desperation, I look up and see the "Next Blog" button. Maybe I can find a stranger's blog to read, and then I'll comment, and maybe they'll read mine, and it'll be cool. I like to narrate this in that kind of dramatic way. "Little did he know, that click on the 'Next Blog' button would CHANGE the REST OF HIS LIFE." Which I guess, you could argue that if it does change my life, that I DID know, or at least sort of expected it. It never has changed my life though. While I have found a couple of interesting blogs, and some people have sporadically found mine, it's never really amounted to anything. I never find anything on the first one either. For those who have tried this, you will probably know that usually the first click leads to not a blog at all, but a links site, or some other type of thing that someone decided to use blogspot for...not a blog. Either that, or it is a blog in a different language, one that I have no hope of gaining a shred of understanding through reading it. The narrator then gets flustered, and tries to recover with a "well...THIS next click would..." and so on and so forth. This process is not one I do often, but I thought I'd let you know.

Recently, I tried to give this process a go again. I hit the next blog button, and I actually came across a blog that was updated regularly first try, and I took interest in it. He talked about how there are many blogs, but most of them have to suck. Not many people seemed to read his blog. I left a comment. I said my blog probably sucks, but I still enjoy it, even though my readership is dwindling. He answered back. To my surprise, his answer was kind of demeaning. It seemed to be left with good intentions, but still demeaning. He said that yes, my blog does suck, but people still read it, and of that he was jealous. He was, in fact, using my own words though. Then he went on to say that he was an idiot as well when he was my age. I'm guessing he is in his forties (which is not very hard to guess by the comment). I read that and was kind of offended that he would call me an idiot. Even though he said that he was a bigger idiot than I was back then, I was still a bit perturbed. I then realized that I am an idiot, because he was again using my words, for my About Me thing simply says "I AM AN IDIOT". This is true. Every time I try to write one of those things, I'll read it later and think..."I AM AN IDIOT". So I thought it would be apt to put that in there. What purpose do those things serve anyways. Usually the About Me and the actual person differ significantly from each other. So...I am an idiot. I was actually getting a compliment to some degree I suppose. I then took into consideration the post that he read. It was probably the most random, thrown together post ever. Oh well.

He then, tried to give me hope.

"This should give you hope. In another, oh, 15-20 years, you will probably have interesting things to say, and you'll know enough about yourself to not much care about what other people think.

Being young is totally over rated. I'd never want to be 20 again. Except maybe for the sex. That seems to be the one good thing about it,"

I like being young. I like it a lot. These few sentences do not give me hope. Of course, I do look forward to knowing about myself....and having interesting things to say. I do sometimes believe that I have interesting things to say, but who knows how interesting they actually are. Quite frankly, I find his posts very boring, but I think it's because I am 18.

So there you have it. The ONE good thing about being my age is apparently, the sex. This is a bit disheartening. I would love to not waste any more of my youth and just have sex with as many girls as I possibly can. Good looking ones though. LOTS of them. This, however, is against my faith and my beliefs that sex can only be enjoyed in marriage.

I could just SAY that and move on, but wow, it really hits home. How many people think it's okay for this to take place. How many people my age that DO have sex with anyone they can. It makes me wonder...why can't I? Why can't I just join in on what is SO great about being young?? I think I'm so righteous by avoiding this, but I'm not. If you only knew what thoughts go through my head....wow. Especially these past 46 days or so, I've wondered what it's like to NOT think sexual thoughts or entertain them....maybe you could guess why. I've watched my life become totally consumed by this. Sometimes I think that I should take like...Salt Peter or something, just to put an end to this. It used to be that when I lusted, I would feel remorse. Now I do not. I have not for awhile. Some thoughts seemed to keep me above water. I know that that is my biggest obstacle, or the sin that I struggle the most with. I recall a sermon that the pastor inquired of the congregation what that sin was. I would never dare speak up. It's so embarrassing. He said that if that sin is not destroyed, it WILL KILL you. I've seen my heart harden towards it the way Pharaoh's did against Moses. Pretty soon, it will just harden automatically, and I will be lost. It's scary to think about.

It's going to take awhile to get away from this. It's going to be hard to sort through my thoughts and find which ones are temptations from Satan, and which ones are actually me. I've forgotten what I actually wanted to accomplish by talking about this. Maybe when I'm older I will be able to contain and organize my thoughts a little more effectively.

Overall, I am NOT looking forward to 15-20 years from now. I've touched on this before. Growing up is fun until you run out of role models. I do not want to have a semi-important job and become semi-important. As I go through this stupid year of stupid college, getting closer to my stupid degree in Software Engineering, actually obtaining this goal that I have set is becoming less and less appealing. I will sit at a desk and look at a computer. All day. I like computers. I do this a lot anyways. I still don't like this thought. I don't like the thought that some day I will be making lots of money, doing work that I won't be able to justify with myself. For WHAT am I writing programs for? Sure, it's an important job....high-paying....yadda yadda, but writing software to run climate control for an office building or something like that doesn't seem like it matters much. Not to me. I could always be fired, and someone else could replace me. Someone else who went through the exact program I did. How sad.

I think I started doing this because I figured I could. I have the skills to, and my skills could lead to a really great salary and a comfortable life. It will be good. Life will be good. I neglected a part of me in this thought process though. Money has never been all that much of a motivator for me. Money isn't worth this stupid crap that I have to go through in college. Not to do something that will mean next to nothing for me. There are too many people in this world who just work for their paycheck and do not care about what they do. It's sad. If anything, money will increase my chances of marrying a woman who has financial stability high on her list of qualities in a husband.

With this said, MLC has become a much more tantalizing option than it has been. I've usually written this option off very quickly. Blake is thinking about becoming a pastor though. I'll be honest, I really can't see him as a pastor. I can't see myself as a pastor. I can see myself teaching more and more though. This work would certainly be fulfilling for me...I think it would actually mean something. Blake also told me that MLC's costs are only 20 dollars more than UW-Madison. Seeing that I'm going there next year...that takes away my argument that MLC is way too expensive. Nothing is certain, but this is actually a serious possibility for me now. I think I'd actually like teaching, and it seems I'm finding myself missing high school, no matter how sick of it I was.

I don't want to be like all those other adults that I see in the work force. I don't want to be like my dad's work buddies, who just drink all the time and joke about sex. I guess not much really changes from high school... I don't want kids like me to think that about me.

Here I go again...I had lots more to say, but I can't pull it all together. I patiently await that wisdom I will gain when I am older. It's still hard to believe that my elders, no matter how unappealing they are, have lived more than twice the amount I have lived. They certainly know a lot about themselves. That will be cool. I suppose a lot of this learning happens in college eh? So I guess this year hasn't been a complete waste of time...

It makes me think of the song "College Kids" by Relient K. The song is about how (probably Matt T...) tried to go to college, but it was terrible, and how his parents wanted him to. The whole point of the song is not exactly what I'm thinking about, but more the last lines of the song, which are almost certainly his adaptation of his parent's advice.

"Do what would make you happy, do what you feel is right,
only but one thing matters, learn how to live your life.

Do what would make God happy, do what you feel is right,
only but one thing matters, learn how to live your life."

Learn how to live your life. It has occurred to me that even though I have nearly 19 years of experience, I still have no idea how to live my own life. I am still a drooling infant. I guess that will be somewhat fulfilling once I learn how to do this. The only problem is that I will be old and fat. Isn't it funny that as we gain more and more knowledge, we get less and less able-bodied? Sure there is a small period in our childhoods that as knowledge goes up, so does physical ability, but for the most part, physical ability goes down as knowledge goes up. This world is mean. It's a good thing I am not here for long, and yes, it is for a reason.

and to go back to where I was would just be wrong....brian's mom

2007-04-02T23:02:00.000-04:00

Dear Smith-Jacob,

Today was pretty fun. I woke up, and my teacher was mean to me. He laughed at me as he said that he wouldn't even look at my Time log. I got a 72 instead of my deserved 88. That part wasn't fun. I went to wal-mart with Ben. That was fun. We did lots of silly things, and we both decided that it would've been perfect for the documentary we'd love to film. I was looking for colorful swirly straws. They didn't have any. I bought colorful bendy ones though, and some iced tea. I found a plastic baseball bat shaped like a carrot. It came with a ball, and I traded one dollar and fifty cents for it. We then briefly played carrot baseball in the park(ing lot). We drove back, and I held the carrot baseball bat out the window and screamed with authority and old ladies in their cars. I don't think they were pleased. Then we had to take movies back. I yelled at people walking to classes, again with my baseball bat. I told a girl to eat her vegetables in quite the forceful tone. She laughed at me. I am crushed. Some girls yelled back at me on the way back. Then, as we were walking to the dorms, we kinda ran into them. Our yells were then less audible. The rest of the day I sat around. I can be pretty worthless when I want to, which is usually most of the time.

Love,
Singapore Adams

I guess that's my stage name. Sorry for the self-loathing post, I feel I need to follow up...

Ha.

New York turned down this one dude for another dude. The first dude called her a "crazy-choice-making-ass girl". That is my new insult for everything I believe. Or maybe I'll just hyphenate a whole bunch of words together. It'd be funny close-captioning that show, because that is how I watched it. Having to type "ass" after everything, and [bleep]. What a silly job. What a stupid show.

I watched the musical. I was actually very impressed with Platteville's musical-putting-on skills. My watching-of-musicals-put-on-by-Platteville skills need sharpening though. I should find a watching-of-musicals-put-on-by-Platteville skills sharpener. Yeah, I definitely copied and pasted there.

Someday I'll grow to be big and strong. Just kidding. Y'know how long it's been since I've spun a top?? Me neither. Probably a while though. Do tops even exist anymore? I'd say I'm rather top-less. I should create a porno site involving fully clothed women who don't have tops. Then, there will be this top spinning club, and they won't allow those women. Then I could advertise it as including topless women. It's probably already been done. I'm afraid to google it to find out.

I saw Andy drunk. It was funny. He tried to give me girl advice. He doesn't remember doing so. I'd never seen him like that.

I'm jumping around. Actually I'm sitting in my church. Y'know what's weird? Bats. Bats is what's weird.

Someone kick me into gear. Before I sit here for yet another year.

Sydnie gave me the new Bright Eyes EP. With her classic Dynex cd and classic green sharpie writing. I remember when she told me to throw away this terribly scratched Fall Out Boy cd, but I said I couldn't, because it was an original John Pauer burned copy. Then she said that sometimes her brother is so popular it annoys her. I guess I really didn't mean it that way, but her cds have a greater hold on my recognition.

There ya go kiddies, adulties.

garrgh!

2007-03-25T01:10:00.000-04:00

I think i just realized how completely dull, bland and pointless I am. Oh my! I'm in one of those moods that I must have some sort of social something going on, or I won't know what to do with myself. I just got off the phone and got done talking on the internet, yet I'm still like this. I think I'm going crazy sitting in this stupid room alone. It's amazing. How my roommate being gone can effect me so much. It's not like we really talk, just having someone there to bounce my voice off of is all I need. As if the pitiful, stupid, bland things that I do in my life are of interest to anyone else. I must annoy the freaking crap out of him. I've realized that my conversations are all quite similar. I either:

1. Listen to someone else talk, and just respond with a "yeah" or a "wow". Most of the time I am interested, and I'll try to add some sort of commentary in there to show it. I don't know what else to do.

2. Tell a story. Always about the past. Usually relating to what the other person said. My stories are so full of detail and thorough, that I end up completely taking over the conversation. And I act like they are just SO interesting. Gosh.

3. I talk about music. Anything about it. Just music. I'll go on and on forever. This is when I don't even think about the other person. It's like it's the only thing that interests me. Maybe it is. Man.

4. Maybe, I'll talk on the topic that has been brought up, but not by me. I'll usually take over this conversation too.

When did I become such an over-bearing, self-serving asshole?? I've gone through so much of my recent life just thinking that I am so cool. Taking everyone's compliments to heart and running with them. I always feel that what I think is best. My methods. My way. I'm just a big child on the inside, that thinks my minimal education and flawed logical reasoning makes me cream of the crop of my generation. Who in the world do I think I am? My existence feels completely and utterly pointless. I don't know what sort of point this is even making, writing in my blog, that certain people may come and read. Almost ironic. I've found that a lot of my relationships just fade away. How do I make them not? I think to myself that I am able to relate to a lot of people, because I've been pretty much everywhere on the social food chain. But have I ever been able to maintain a super-close relationship without it fading away? Not really. The only one I can possibly think of would be with my brother.

I'm not happy about this. Just a couple hours ago I was feeling great, and before that I was feeling bad. It just keeps going around in circles. My moods change so rapidly it's crazy. You'd think I....have mood swings...I don't know. This depresses me. It makes me question my self-worth, which right now in my opinion is not very high. How I can be so sure of something, and then just change my mind. I was so sure I wanted to apply to camp after my AC year, and then a couple months later, I was so sure that I didn't. Now I did and am going to work there. What's with that? I remember on the band trip changing my mind about Libby every single day. From extreme like to extreme dislike. EVERY DAY. Holy crap. That must've been so confusing. I've tried to base my personality on being sure of what I do think, but how can I even do that? I'm a terrible hypocrite.

And I know that if someone that my stupid, tainted mind thought worthy would just knock on my door and talk to me for hours into the night, this feeling would all go away. I'd completely ignore all my faults and just feel happy again. How can I even trust myself??

And why am I writing this?? To get my thoughts down for one, as if they're freaking gold. I'm retarded. But why do I go on and on with this useless blather about how I am so disgusting? I put this down so you will read it, and hopefully leave a comment, and make me feel better about myself. Refute my stupid words. Get reassured. Get my confidence boosted up again. I'm just crying out for attention. It's so pathetic!

screw your head on straight so it stays

2007-03-24T15:07:00.000-04:00

If you are not easily offended by Girls Gone Wild commercials, then you should watch the music video for "Kiss Me, Diss Me" by Home Grown, who could possibly be defunct? I can't find their website and their purevolume says they're signed to Drive-Thru, but Drive-Thru doesn't agree anywhere on the internet. Well anyways, the video makes fun of the Girls Gone Wild commercials, and it's hilarious.

My mind is wandering way too much, so I'm making a blog post to try and bring it back so I can maybe do something productive today. After all, I stayed home this weekend, and everyone is gone. It sucks. I stayed because I couldn't see myself doing homework at home, and I don't know. Even Adam went home. He never goes home. Last night was my first night alone in my dorm since band camp, so before the actual school year started.

The Early November is going on an indefinite hiatus. I am angry. They're finishing out their tour, but the shortest I'd be able to drive to see them before they break up would be 3 and a half hours. That would involve skipping class. That's in Chicago. Another possibility would be St. Paul, MN, which is 4 and a half hours away. I suppose another option would be to go to Cleveland over the weekend, because there's a saturday show there, and maybe stay with my relatives? All these plans sound pretty ridiculously crazy, and I'm not sure if I like The Early November THAT much. If anyone's up for joining me on a crazy road trip to see one of their last shows though, let me know.

I'm disappointed. I was really looking forward to them improving and becoming one of my favorite bands. They still are up there.

I'm going through a rough patch. These next 11 or so days will be tough. How did Fall Out Boy get so big? Were they really all that different? I guess they were. I really like them, but I'm wondering what exactly it was that shot them up the charts so quickly. Patrick needs to lose weight. It's weird. Believe it or not, I've actually seen them in concert twice. Weird, huh? Kinda like The Fray. I don't think I like them nearly enough to have seen them in concert twice, I guess they're another "believe it or not I've seen them twice". I guess there's only 4 bands I've seen twice anyways. The other two make sense, as they are my two favorite artists, Relient K and Ben Folds.

I really need to stop wasting time and being so unproductive. I should've went home. I'd be having way more fun and getting the same amount done.

"When you get to Milwuakee, take a right"

2007-03-20T18:45:00.000-04:00

That's an old quote that really has little to do with this post, but I thought I'd put it down. Blake said this as direction to Jake when we were driving down to Chicago. It popped into my head last night.

So I skipped Monday's classes and extended my spring break to watch Relient K in concert. Their openers were Sherwood and Mae. I really want to just post the set list and get right to talking about Relient K, but my sequential style of blogging forbids me to do this. I will do so towards the end.

Blake and I first drove down to meet Becca and friends near WLC. That was a fiasco. We left an hour earlier than we needed to because Blake had a lapse of thinking, and I just kinda went along with it. We tried to get somewhere in Milwaukee to spend the extra hour, but all we did was drive around and fail to make left turns. It was terrible and quite pathetic. Finally Becca and co. arrived. We followed their two minivans to some small restaurant that was crowded, mostly because of us. It was cool meeting some of her friends though. There was this guy, Josh, whose face kind of looks like a girl that goes here, but I didn't tell him this. It's not even worth mentioning really. He was a cool guy. After eating we headed over to the Rave.

I hate the Rave. With a passion. Yet it seems to be the only place that bands I like will go that is near me. Except Streetlight Manifesto and Ben Folds? Oh, I'm sure there's more. We went in to see Patched Apart playing the pre-show party. They played at Lakeside's chapel this year says Blake. Aaron Schmidt plays bass for them. He sort of lives on our street. They were okay I guess. I really don't like the singer's voice. They played in the bar area, which as doors to the actual "Rave". As soon as these doors opened, almost everyone left while Patched Apart was still playing. I felt bad, but I wanted a good spot. I was really surprised that Relient K wasn't playing the ballroom. It seems that they would, seeing that their new album has debuted at #6 on the charts, and they've made it on TRL twice. I'm definitely not complaining. Even though this was my first show not in the ballroom, I hate it there. It's so huge and everyone sucks. We were probably about 6 rows from the front.

We waited for about half an hour before Sherwood came out. I had actually heard of them, I had their Summer EP they gave out for free briefly. I don't have that anymore though, because of the great computer crash. I can't get it back either, because they aren't giving it out for free anymore. Most of the songs on there are on their new album though, which could still be on myspace? If it is, I'm sure by the time this is read it won't be anymore. When listening to it before the show, I didn't like it all that much for some reason. I really like the song "Middle of the Night" though. They played a good set, I thought. They were exciting, and their music was good. Soon after they started, jumping started. It was cool at first, but then people started pushing and leaning. It was kind of dumb, but I was sure it was going to get way worse. Luckily a mosh pit never formed. This is what I like about Relient K. I had to stop jumping to avoid getting my skinny stature overpowered and pushed aside, farther away from the stage. I mostly just pushed back from then on.

Mae was next. I of course had heard of them, but never quite listened to them. I familiarized myself with about 6 songs before the show, and I really liked the sound of them. They played a boring set though. They didn't say anything until 4 songs in, and it was only "What's goin on Milwaukee?" A couple songs later they talked about how it was good to be there and back on tour again, leading to a quick advertisement about the album they just recorded. They really didn't look like they were having much fun. I don't think I saw one smile at all. It was probably enjoyable for a big fan of theirs, but not for me, who was only semi-familiar with them. They have to expect that a lot of people there aren't familiar with them, so I thought it peculiar that they asked us to sing along with "Suspension" three songs in. I was still able to sing along, but still. There was a stocky girl in front of me for most of the show that was my brace for not falling down. She left after Mae stopped playing though. I was devastated. She probably didn't like being my brace. Sorry. During the Mae set, I was also behind this huge guy that talked to this other dude, and they agreed to push backwards as hard as they could to get people away from them. I'm glad I overheard them, because I nearly died. I dodged their attempts to push.

Relient K came on after more standing around. It was glorious. They came on to a recording of "Plead the Fifth", an a capella track off their new record. I almost thought they were going to finish it, but they didn't. Now, here is the set list:

1. Who I Am Hates Who I've Been
2. High of 75
3. Devastation and Reform
4. Chapstick, Chapped Lips, and Things Like Chemistry
5. The Best Thing
6. Forgiven
7. In Love With The 80's
8. Must Have Done Something Right

"Campfire sing-along"
9. Faking My Own Suicide
10. Surf Wax America (Weezer cover)

11. Life After Death and Taxes
12. Which to Bury, Us or the Hatchet?
13. Let It All Out

Encore:
14. Sadie Hawkins Dance
15. Be My Escape
16. I So Hate Consequences

I realize that this is probably uninteresting to a lot of people. I have no idea who even reads this anymore anyways, but it's still most likely bland. It isn't to me for some reason, for that is why I write down set lists now. I'm sure The Fray's set was really boring to read, but I wanted to try out writing one down.

All the shoving seemed to stop when Relient K started playing. It was just a whole lot of fun. I was kinda disappointed with their song choices though. They should've played longer. I don't like "The Best Thing" very much. At all. I wish they would've played "Come Right Out and Say It", or something cooler off the new record. "Bite My Tongue", "I'm Taking You With Me". Those would've been great choices. Oh well. Before they played "In Love With the 80's" they had some sort of 80's trivia thing. It was cool. Matt picked a person from the crowd and told them if he could answer his question, he'd get a free shirt, but if he gets it wrong, he'd get to throw something at his face? It was funny. The guy got it wrong, but someone else got it right. Someone threw up a sweaty shirt, and Matt wrote "Free Shirt" on it, and told the guy to trade it in for a free shirt.

I'm not much of a fan of "Faking My Own Suicide", but the way they presented it was cool. He said they'd slow it down and kind of have a campfire sing-along thing. They then activated one of those fake light campfire things. It was neat. Somehow, Ethan Luck was acting as their roadie, and he played the steel guitar for the song. Ethan Luck was one of the guitarists (probably the most well-known, but I'm not all that sure) of the O.C. Supertones. To clear that up, the Supertones only had one guitarist at a time, I think he was with them, left, and rejoined. When they broke up, he was with them. I didn't know he was that burly and full of tattoos. That was crazy. Then they covered Surf Wax America, which was cool because they talked about how a lot of people don't know it. Blake and I did though, so it made us feel special singing along I guess. I had just found out that they sometimes covered that that day, so that was kinda neat. It isn't usually acoustic in nature though...

Wow. This must be really boring. Oh well. I'm entertained. It was really cool that they played "Sadie Hawkins Dance", but I just wish I could see them play "Pressing On" live just once. That is my all time favorite.

I was utterly disappointed at the way they ended their encore though. "I So Hate Consequences" is a good song, but not a final song. They didn't even play the last slow part, which is my favorite. I thought maybe they did it to go out on a bang, but that song ends on a bang anyways. What's the deal?? Blake and I stared in disbelief.

I know it must look weird for me to be jumping around and then whip out a little notebook and pen to write something down. Kevin Schweiss showed me his opinion of this with his facial expression. I really wish I would've done that way back at the MMHMM album release show at Benedictine University though, because I can't remember much of anything from that show. Maybe I'll go back and read the ol' blog....? No, I don't think it goes back that far. Crap! They must've played a lot from Two Lefts though, so that would've been cool. It was pretty soon after Brian Pittman left, and I found out he was gone only when Relient K took the stage. It was terrible. I guess I got to witness the changing of the guard and part of the stage of Ace Troubleshooter's death. It was the start of the change.

A lot of my friends don't even know what the band members of their favorite band look like, or their names. It pains me when an original member leaves. I remember getting depressed over Streetlight Manifesto's numerous lineup changes, and finding out that those that I thought were original weren't, but they are a ska band, I've kind of accepted that. Brian Pittman leaving was dumb. He never seemed much like the other members anyways, with the tattoos and somewhat less joyful demeanor. Yet John Warne was about the best replacement any fan could ask for. But then. Then they had to go ruin it and add a fifth member. I guess I don't even have much beef about that, I know that piano was being used a lot more on the records, so they needed another member to recreate the album on stage. I'm glad Matt keeps playing guitar, and transitions, that's pretty cool. But tell me...why did it have to be Schneck?? He's probably a really cool guy, but the jumping around in the videos and on stage, the mohawk. It just didn't fit in with the image of Relient K. Maybe it was part of Relient K trying to grow up. Maybe they wanted a new sort of Pittman replacement. I don't know. To me he is kind of the scapegoat for Relient K's changes, but I'd rather a member of Relient K NOT give me ghetto-like looks and flash me peace signs. I tried to throw a pencil at him, but I missed and almost hit his bells. The keyboardist from Sherwood and two girls were backstage and saw this happen. They laughed. I felt kind of satisfied.

I remember writing in an earlier post about how bands shouldn't change your life, or at least not blink-182. I feel weird saying this, but I think Relient K had a major part in my transformation to what I am today from what I was freshman year. Also, a big part of that was camp, junior staff, growing up, and all that other good stuff. I just thought that "Two Lefts Don't Make a Right...but Three Do" was the greatest group of songs ever conceived. Before that I listened to the radio, and most recently, country. COUNTRY! Thank you Relient K. It was the first album of Relient K I listened to, although I knew a lot of the songs from Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek from being at camp. I came home and looked them up, and learned about their new cd. "I can't wait until it comes out," I thought to myself.

Then I quickly told myself that I was not very smart. It had been released on March 11, 2003. It was June 2003. Oops. It was the first time in my entire life that I listened to an entire album and liked each and every song. It had such humor, such wit, such creativity. There were a few exceptions, but it seemed like it was split in half, with the first 8 songs being fun and quirky, and then the rest was the serious, reflective part. Except for "Gibberish". That was not very serious or reflective. This is where I do what I do best, play catch-up. I was soon informed enough to pass off as an original fan. I spent a lot of time reading their old tour journals. Those were gold. Matt Thiessen wrote a lot of cool stuff in there, and I wish I could find those again. I'm really in the mood to read them.

It's weird, but this band seemed to give me identity...something to be excited about. They showed that it was cool to be off-the-wall, and not take yourself seriously, but also they taught me that it can be cool to be a Christian. "Christian" was a term that was lost for me, going through Lutheran grade schools and a year of Lutheran high school had caused it to lose any sort of excitement it had. Camp was the main thing that brought this to be exciting again, but Relient K as well. For once, I was happy to be me.

Obviously there were a lot of other factors, but I can't help but think this band was a big part in this, especially when music is such a big part of my life. But really, come to think of it, I didn't really start playing guitar or drums until after I listened to them. They are the ones that drove me to play drums definitely, guitar was a mixture of both them and Camp. Wow. I guess I never realized how large of an impact they actually did have on my life.

This is why it hurts to watch them not play my favorite songs. I missed a bunch of opportunities to go see them in concert before, when Two Lefts was their newest record. It was over a year since I had gotten into them when I went to see my first show. And this was only my second. Mang.

It hurts to see them grow up. Matt Thiessen is no longer 21, and he no longer looks like a total spazz. He used to be that goofy young guy I felt I could relate to. He was really cool and funny, but he could get serious if need be. Almost like a youth group leader or something. He's still off-the-wall, but now he's 26. They've grown up, but I still don't want to grow up. It's hard to believe.

It hurts to read interviews with him and MTV, and read what he said. How a lot of their older songs don't deserve any exposure. I'd be kind of embarrassed by the old songs too, but I'd also be proud. I guess if the band's sound doesn't mature, they die. Look at bands like MXPX, The Offspring and NOFX. I'm not an expert by any means on bands like these, but their stuff kind of remained the same, and they've just become 30-40 year old guys with tattoos and graying hair (or soon to be graying) playing power chords. Relient K matured so much with each album, and there wasn't even that much time in between their albums. MMHMM was the next step, and for awhile I considered it their best album. I don't anymore though. There are some great songs on there. I really wish "This Week The Trend" would've been their second single off that album.

I can safely say that Relient K has matured in a great way. Their new songs are really great, lots of them topping their old ones. They've kept their silliness. It's all I can ask for. I will still be a loyal fan, still buy all their albums and go to as many shows as I can. Just know that I am severely disappointed that 2003 Relient K is not with us anymore. I hang my head when I think that I may never hear a lot of the songs that I love dearly played live before me, but I can still enjoy them on my own. I will hold on to Self-Titled, Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek, and especially Two Lefts with a death grip. Those songs mean so much to me.

If you made it this far, seriously you get my sincere congratulations. If I was not me, but a friend of me, I would've stopped reading a long time ago. Especially if I didn't know much about Relient K. As I continue on with this blog, I'm realizing that me writing these posts are more for myself to get my thoughts out than for other other people to read. There are still some faithful readers...some might drop by on occasion. Oh well. I'm pretty sure I never took off that whole thing about not having to be a member to post a comment, but I'll double check. I'm not expecting many comments, but it'd be cool if you could let me know if you read this entire thing. I am really screwing myself over. It's almost 12:30. I still have homework to do. Probably won't start on it for a little bit either. Oh bother.

sure was fun

2007-03-13T01:29:00.000-04:00

My quality of life has been up there lately. As applying for camp and UW was a very stressful time because of the close due dates, the benefits have come close to each other. Wednesday was my interview, and Matthew hired me. Friday I got notified of my acceptance to UW-Madison. Now I am on Spring Break, I had a fun weekend, and now Phil is over for the whole week, and possibly Lucas for at least most of it. We will be playing/recording songs. I'm sure soon we will have a band name and a way for you guys to check out the songs we have done. So far we have one done, but they're only demos. They sound pretty bad, quality wise. They're also kind of thrown together. A couple of you have listened to it.

So there is how I'm doing in a nutshell. If you want the long version, read on.

Wednesday. Crazy day. I had to borrow Ben's car to drive up to camp. I left at about 8. Ben's car, the ol' taxi cab, oh man. First of all I borrowed Adam(my roommate)'s car kit for the cd player. It picks up a radio station or something. I pop in Relient K, and alas, it isn't coming in very well. It was bad. Turned out I had it plugged in wrong, and the cd player was too loud. As I listened, I was displeased. Plus, Ellie got me all excited for "Crayons Can Melt On Us For All I Care", because she said it was awesome. Well, it's 12 seconds long. It IS awesome..but... They were all talking about how three of the songs were recorded with the producer they've used on all the previous records, while the other songs were with this new guy. I had a feeling that these songs would be better. Well, two of those three songs were stupid short ones, including the aforementioned one, so they didn't even count. But the other was the last song, "Deathbed", clocking in at 11:05 or something like that. Wow. The car kit started being clear at this song. I loved it. I don't know, a lot of people would probably find it cheesy or stupid, but I thought it had an awesome message, sound, storyline...oh man. It just meant so much to me. In case you buy the cd though, I want you to form your own opinion on it. It seriously nearly brought me tears the first five times I listened to it. I hate it when people say that songs make them cry, like they cried after listening to The Path by The Early November. I don't like being so heavily influenced by songs I guess. If you cried because of The Path...come on...I find that pretty weak. Well, Deathbed put me on a good mood again, and I was able to listen to the album for a second time. This time the sound was clear, and the album was awesome. A lot of the songs are kinda mushy, not as sporadic and crazy as they usually are, but MMHMM definitely took a step this way. Now that Matty T(lead singer, for those who don't know) has a girlfriend he really really likes or something, he has to write a majority of the songs about her. That's kinda dumb to me, but I like some of them. I'm still super excited about the album. Relient K is still cool, and still openly christian. I'm happy. Especially after Apathetic EP was such garbage. They need to stop being so dumb with the acoustic versions of their songs. It seems that when I get a new Relient K album, all their old songs get better, and I don't want to listen to anything else. I can't wait to see them.

So my day turned into an album review. All was fine on the way up to camp, and I was quite early, so I sat in a parking lot for about 20 minutes listening to The Shins. I didn't expect 13th Ave. to be so full of snow. It was all packed down snow and ice. Oh man. I only got about 100 feet down it when there was a slight hill and Ben's stupid car couldn't get up. Oh gosh. After trying hard to get up, I put it in reverse and started going around a corner without knowing if anyone was coming. Good thing no one travels that road. I decide to try and turn around and find a different, less snowy and icy route. As I'm turning around, my nose gets into a snow bank, and the car won't go in reverse because the tires are so terrible. I was flooring and going nowhere. The tires were smoking. It was terrible. I was stuck completely sideways in the middle of the road. Again, good thing no one travels the road. I called Ben, and I started digging at the stuff on the road around the tires. I don't think it did much. Finally, I just went forwards and backwards constantly until I shook it loose. I had to call Matthew for an alternate route, which had sand on the road, and a little less snow. I tried to keep momentum up for any sort of hill, while also trying not to spin out. It was really hard. I missed the turn, so I turned around, saw the turn, was going to fast to make the turn, turned around again. Oh man. I was cheering the car on. I finally got to the entrance of camp, and I didn't even try the gravel roads at camp. They were almost making me fall just walking on them. I think the car would've blown up. Don't ask how that makes sense.

The interview was nerve-racking. Especially when Matthew acted like a kid who didn't know much about Jesus, and I had to answer his questions. Wow. It was good seeing him again. It was good being able to finally explain to him why I didn't apply last year. He said he'd heard rumors as to why. This makes me kind of smile. I remember all I wanted to do after my last AC week was to call him up and just talk about what was bothering me about camp. I never did, but it seems like the problem is gone now.

After that whole answering questions part though, it was pretty much done. Matthew reminisced to when all the AC's were sitting in the basement of the registration building, and they were all mad about the changes of camp, and the switching up of cabins. During my chance to speak, I talked about how change can be good, and that I want to work for the good of camp. I said a lot of things I remember, I don't remember exactly how I said them, or what they all were. I do recall being very satisfied with it, and it was very well received. Matthew told me that after that speech, he thought that there was no way he wasn't going to hire me if I applied. Which, then I didn't. I was surprised at this. Very surprised. Then, he hired me. It was nuts. I was very surprised at this too. I knew I had a good chance, but I don't know. The whole waiting a year doesn't always seem to work out. I was pretty happy after the interview. I may not have shown it, but I was bouncing around inside. I had "Must Have Done Something Right" stuck in my head as I walked out into the cold, and a big smile on my face. I'm sure that song will forever be associated with these happy memories. I got in the car and just blasted it. I called Matt, who was in Arizona, and he seemed fairly excited. Jake was not so much, because I would be gone. A lot of people didn't seem as excited as I was. I didn't tell that many people either...I was planning on making this post earlier anyways...

I ate at Burger King, and saw this dude riding a bike around the gas pumps. He had a hot pink snow hat on. He asked this lady what the gas price was, even though there was definitely a sign. I didn't hear much of the conversation, but he made a scornful whistling noise to show his disapproval of the high gas prices. He then talked about how riding bikes was cheaper, and healthy too. I went in and ordered food, then came back out. He was circling the desolate gas pumps. I think he was actually looking for more people to flaunt his bike riding to. What a loser.

The way home was long. I listened to the Relient K album 4 times on the round trip. I had to fill up the gas tank twice, and it was such a pain. Gas kept spilling, and I smelled like gas as I sat down for Jazz Combo practice. At least I upheld one commitment that day.

So that's it. Crazy day. The possible girl of previous posts is not possible anymore. It is most likely because I just stopped talking to her/wanting to hang out with her, so I'm not broken up about it at all. Just thought I'd keep you updated or something.

I got the acceptance letter to Madison in form of a package at the front desk, which was all ready to sit at the front desk all week, because I found out about it about 5 minutes after it closed. I made my RA go get it for me, who was reluctant, "It's from Madison, one of those 'you got accepted' letters or something. Did you apply there?" He was trying to downplay this. As if I didn't want it. Good thing I got it, because one of the deadline things is in two days. That's pretty good.

Blake and I then went shopping for mother, a week late. Her birthday was a week before, but I was stranded in stupid ol' Platteville, so I couldn't celebrate her birthday with her or get a gift. Then I forgot to call her. Bad move. We took Libby with us to shop, and good thing. We would've been screwed. Ironically enough, her birthday was two days later. I don't think she had too great of a time though. It's tough to shop with Blake and I, because we're constantly laughing at our own humor. I had a pretty good time. We got mother an assortment of random gifts. She eventually enjoyed them.

Then we went home, and I played guitar for Libby. I guess that's her birthday present or something. It was pretty fun. By the way...have you ever heard her play piano and/or sing? HOLY CRAP! She's amazing. Her voice...wow. Exactly like her sister's.

We went to her house for some sort of party for her birthday. She got quite the haul from her birthday from her parents. Yeesh. It was a fun time, but there wasn't many people there. That was fine with me. I WAS way older than everyone there though. That was kinda weird. Oh well. The perils of Mountain Dew and caffiene caused me to want to leave sooner. I was proud of myself as I got to the house early, only to find that we had lost an hour, and I was actually late. Gah!

Well there's a pretty sizable Evan update for you. Not many people will read this anyways. Oh well. At least it's there for reference I guess. Not a total waste of time. Lucas is tired, so we will probably go to bed now, but Deathbed just started playing, so I must listen to it. Ahhh....

More precious time wasted...

2007-03-07T00:55:00.000-05:00

...this time staring at pictures...of MYSELF...on facebook. I'm ugly. I need a haircut too. It doesn't really seem all that long to me, but I just have a feeling I'll go home, and people will be like "WHOA! YOUR HAIR IS HUGE!!!" That happened once. I didn't enjoy it too much I guess.

Next week is spring break. Hooray. I just bought two cds. Of course, I bought the new Relient K, Five Score and Seven Years Ago. The day it came out. I'm pretty proud. I also picked up Wincing the Night Away by The Shins. I know this album front and back already, because they didn't take it off of myspace for a really long time. I was there almost every day listening to it. I really really really want to listen to Relient K right now. I'm holding off though. I'll be too distracted here. I seem to really like albums more if I listen to them while I'm driving. Now, normally I wouldn't be all weird and wait until I'm in a car to listen to a new cd, or just drive around in circles for no reason until it is done. But I have to get up at 7 tomorrow, and I have a 3 hour car trip ahead of me, so it seems to make a lot of sense. Which is a wonderful segue to my next topic...why must I drive 3 hours you say?

My camp interview! Hopefully it will go well. I don't really know what will take place, or if I'm supposed to prepare myself somehow, or what. It's encouraging that camp people have been asking me about it though. Thanks.

I get to skip my classes tomorrow for it. It's pretty sweet because we're not going to really be doing anything, and I don't have to do anything tonight. I only have 2 classes anyways. I think I'll be able to be back by jazz practice too. I'm gonna have to find a bunch of cds to keep me entertained though. Thats 5.5 to 6 hours in a car in one day. Alone. I get to drive Ben's car up there. Ben's car is a retired Chicago taxi cab. It's kinda neat. Crappy car though. It doesn't drive at all in winter weather, and the gas tank is situated so that you can't just put the gas pump in there and let it run. You gotta stop it like...every half gallon or something like that. Oh well.

I should go to bed. Get at least some sleep. See ya later.

They think they got your number, but they'll soon discover...

2007-02-28T23:21:00.000-05:00

I googled google. Why hasn't the world blown up?

While gallivanting throughout youtube today, I came upon a strange video, involving a girl who walked down into the basement in her underwear and got stuck to the floor. It was really stupid. Then I thought, "What is the deal with this?"

Apparently, they have like...10 videos with different girls getting stuck to the floor. It's supposed to be scary. They get stuck, and then some guy comes and kills them. Some people actually really enjoy these videos, and wait for the next one to come. Since I am interested in destroying my brain, I watched tidbits of all of them. Nothing really varied between them. They even had their first video they made in like...1998. Who does that for 9 years? What in the world? It was usually the same spot in the basement too. This one had shoes and socks on. She would get the shoe off, CLEARLY not stepping in any sort of adhesive. Then, once she got both shoes off, the foot that HAS NOT MOVED is now stuck in adhesive. How dumb.

Wow. I had one day where I didn't do have to do much, and now I'm just sitting around. The work plan I made for my program said I'd pretty much be done by tomorrow. I am a joke. I am not near done, and I doubt that I'm gonna work on it tonight. I have to catch up on Calc. There's no winter drumline tomorrow! Hooray. Teacher said I had one of the best papers. I'm happy.

I am cautiously hopeful. Aren't we all. No. That's stupid. It seems like now is a very stressful time for a lot of people. I guess I am stressed too. I gave blood.

I am sporadic, even more so than usual I think.

I don't think I have any wisdom to impart. I don't think I really ever do, I always feel like it's on the tip of my tongue. If only I put more thought into it, maybe I'd say something totally profound. I guess it's not as late as I thought. "Bitch" is not a very funny word.

My nose bothers me! It has a cut in it, or at least had, and anytime I'd rub it wrong I would have to sneeze. Now it's just stuffed all the time. Not with that gooey stuff either. I know what you're thinking. Well...maybe. It's probably along the lines of "eww."

I have just wasted a good portion of my night.

my teeth chattered rhythms

2007-02-21T16:32:00.000-05:00

I'm in kind of a good mood right now. I really needed to make an update soon, and I have an hour to kill before Jazz Combo. I came from the Writing Center, and it was actually very helpful. What I SHOULD be doing is putting those ideas down while they're fresh in my mind...but you know me.

Two people in about the last 3 minutes made a comment on my shirt. Is it really that weird? I can't think. It's just my "Paul Lenser for President" shirt. When I was walking out from the writing center (it's where most of the teachers' offices are), some teacher pointed at my shirt and said "I'll vote." I was taken by surprise. I guess I forgot what shirt I was wearing. And then, on the way to the student center to start my hour to kill (which is actually long gone now), these four people were standing in a group and talking, and one of the guys just turns to me and says "nice shirt." I don't get it. Speaking of I don't get it, Jazz Combo was weird today. Joe wants us to play in all these weird time signatures, he even split up the band into playing 3 time signatures at once. It sounded really bad, but he seemed to like it. I don't know.

Last weekend was pretty cool. On Friday I went to the Pine Cone with Ellie, Anna, Sydnie, Blake, and Steve P. It was good seeing Ellie again, but I didn't really talk to her much. Jake and Dave showed up later. They had the one dining room closed when we got there, but they let us go in, there were other people eating there. Then, this huge group of people came in and ate. Every once in awhile, they would pound the table twice and then yell "RARR" really loud. It was weird. Dave retaliated with a "RARR" of his own. Then, whenever they'd do it, we would do it. The only other table in the restaurant besides us and the big group only did it once. It was pretty cool though, the whole dining room was in on it at one point. Turns out they were playing a game or something. We all took a group picture. It was very surreal.

There's a possible girl. Heaven forbid I talk about girls on my blog. GEEZ! I'm so tired. I don't want to write this anymore.

crap, I'm listening to new found glory

2007-02-01T02:59:00.000-05:00

Which means I don't want to post their lyrics as my title. I swear, it's the only song of there's on my computer. It came after listening to I Am the Movie by Motion City Soundtrack. They repeatedly blow my mind. Seriously. They are really really really good.

It's days like this that make me wonder why I even exist. I had plans to do a lot of homework today, because I only had two classes. I was gonna catch up on sleep too, because I was stupid and stayed up really late. Well, it's two in the morning, and I'm barely getting done what was less than about a quarter of what I wanted to. Crap. I already need another vacation. It's when it is this late that I wonder if it's even worth going to bed. I have fitness class at 8 in the morning. I'm so totally screwed. O my. What am I getting myself into?

Discrete Math has to be the dumbest crap known to man. Here I am proving really stupid things like...why a number is odd or even, why it's divisible by another number, or that two even integers, when multiplied, result in an even product. This is retarded! I'm not sure why it is required to take for computer science and software engineering majors, but it's annoying. There's too much words on the chalkboard in class. The concept is simple, but we have to explain EVERYTHING, establish EVERYTHING. I like Calc III better. Honestly. Right now at least. Plus the teacher for discrete math is foreign. I LOVE foreign professors. But hey, if I'm gonna go to Madison, I should probably get used to that. Both my applications are in by the way. I think the camp app essay part ended up being 17 pages double spaced? Quite the chunk of words.

But seriously folks, where did my motivation go? I'm pretty sure I used to have some. College has taken it out of me. I thought college was supposed to be good. Not that I was motivated much during high school.

Doo do do do do do do do doooooo

Do's mean so much to the writer of the blog post, but not squat to the reader. If you can name what song that's from though, holy crap. That'd be neat. I've asked stuff like that before, but seriously that'd be really cool if you mention it.

Okay, I have to get to bed sometime.

But before I go, I believe Phil, Lucas, and I might be forming a band? It's pretty cool, we're working with the songs Phil wrote. Hopefully we get some substantial work done very soon, and you all can hear it. For now though, sit tight. We don't even have a name. I don't want to talk about a name. Bah! Sitting around thinking of a name is such a waste of time to me. I don't know why. Maybe because other things could be getting done.

The words are jumping out at me. That means it's too late. Weird how my body tells me that I'm really dumb. Night.

twins are homo's

2007-01-23T01:03:00.000-05:00

Seriously. Sometime I feel like I'm completely surrounded by idiots. By writing on a certain pair of twins door "twins are homo's," what are you saying? That a homo owns these twins? Is it weird that stupid punctuation errors on printed announcements that are not thought out bug me so much? Grammar errors are easily fixed. Of course I make grammar errors. I've probably already made some. Some grammar confuses me, but easy stuff like that....come on! On a piece of paper that is printed out for one purpose with about twenty words. You'd think someone could take the time to make those twenty words correct. It's not that hard.

And geez, the stuff I hear here. This dude won't shut up about the Bears going to the super bowl. He's super loud. The Bears are a terrible team. They should've lost in the first round, and if Matt Hasselbeck would've played like even half of a piece of crap, Seahawks would've knocked them out. I'm really surprised they beat the Saints though. I didn't really watch the game though.

Today was the first day of classes. I can easily say I didn't start the semester off on the right foot. I went to bed at about three. There's this really annoying lady in my programming class. I'm already sick of her. This is not going to be cool. She's like...50 or something, and class is like a conversation between her and the teacher. Stupid Platteville has a "computer science" list of students and a "software engineering" list of students for the exact same class. This determines what type of credits we get. That's really dumb. Somehow I'm on the computer science one. Gosh. Stupid buggy Platteville. I'm really sick of it. School actually gave me some sort of purpose to my life. I'm really sick of down time. Which now I'm back in it and I'm disappointing myself once again. I'm writing a blog post instead of doing anything remotely productive.

By the way, I read more old posts. It's crazy. I also watched the old dvd of the first ever show of Fuel the Flame...the ol' band. Holy crap. That was like...the worst thing ever. We didn't even realize it. I read the posts leading up to the show, and how I was so excited about it. I read the post about it, and it was kind of neat after just watching the dvd. I actually thought it went well though. Oh my. Caleb squeaked so much. He really did sound like a mountain lion. I never realized how we didn't have like any lyrics. We were worse than Panic! at the Disco...we repeated the same LINE over and over and over, not just a whole verse. I was quite oblivious to this, occupied with playing the drums. I was really bad back then too.

What's also funny about old blogs is seeing all the comments once left. It's been a long time since I've been that friendly with Chrissy Olson, and she said in a comment that she would never give up on my blog. I wonder if she remembers writing that. I'm not sure what she meant exactly, but I highly doubt she reads this anymore. I think that could be considered giving up on it. Long has it been since I've even talked to Emily Waldorf or Ali German (especially Ali). They used to come on here and tell me they loved me. It's not like I took that the wrong way of course...I'm just saying....well I don't even know. Things really change. All I do is look backwards. I don't think it's healthy. I even got a comment from Jared Greanya once. Gosh...who else haven't I talked to in awhile. Sara Stigen. I saw her a few times on there, it's been awhile with her. A lot of those posts seem like they didn't happen long ago, but they're like...1 to 2 years old. Blogs sure are interesting when one looks back. I will be happy when these applications are not hanging over my head.

I called the latin guys today. The one didn't remember me for a really long time. Just as I thought, things are looking cloudy in that area, and even if I did drum with them, I can't understand them. It's really hard. You'd think I'd have the patience after dealing with Lucas. Talking on the phone with them is SO UNBELIEVABLY PAINFUL. They just repeat everything, and then say something I can't understand. Mostly the one guy though. It sounded like he had talked to Joe Caploe (drum teacher guy) about it, and other drummers from Platteville might be getting involved? I'm not sure. If that's true, I won't touch that whole thing with a ten foot pole. I HATE most everyone in the music department at Platteville....or at least the music majors. I just hate seeing their stupid faces. Them with their stupid jargon and their stupid fraternity and their less than desirable looks and their little to no future. Here I go again, bashing someone online. That's no good. At least it's not singling people out. Of course there are exceptions as well.

I was listening to Jack's Mannequin when I read a part in my post about first getting into them. Ironic eh? Now, that really WAS jumping around.

"Mess" by Ben Folds Five just hit me hard. REALLY hard. I'm sad now. It's what I listened to get me through the day, or night, when I first got here. When all my feelings were still back at home. Holy crap. I think that was a bad idea to listen to this song, but I can't turn it off.

I'm not sure what force is keeping me from doing all these things I want to do, but I think it needs to be overcome.

some obscure song lyric

2007-01-22T03:12:00.000-05:00

oh come on...guess what song that is from. I'll give you a two dollar hug. That's right. Some observation about something I just observed.

Stupid unneeded apology about how I never blog or a comment about the frequency of my blogging.

A narration about my boring life, littered with stupid apologies about how I jump around too much, am incoherent, or just plain dumb.

A possible section of random phrases that no one understands/possible section about my feelings and what I feel about things.

A clever attempt at a goodbye.

There is how to write an Evan blog post I guess. That means I just went back and read a bunch of my blog posts from the past. I do believe that's a good reason for why they are there. I realize that I really like myself from end of junior year all the way through senior year. College, and weird attempts on girls, has completely ruined me. I actually laughed aloud at some of my own blog posts. I can see why people actually liked reading it at one point. Then everyone dropped off the face of blogger, and with it went much of my desire to blog and the entertaining writing. Am I really too busy to blog? Are you really too busy to blog? It's so commonplace for me to go to bed so late anymore. I fear I'm becoming my dad, who stays up until 3 am and then takes naps in the evening. This does not make much sense to me, but it's starting to more and more. I don't want to grow up.

That's what has really changed me. The fear of growing up. A lot of people are ready for it. I for some reason, am not. Looking at old blog posts, I also see me talking to a lot of people I barely talk to anymore. The kind of people that seem to even avoid my gaze at basketball games and stuff. Am I really that awkward that I can't go out of my way to make useful conversation with someone that I got along with and had fun with? How can one-on-one conversation be so easy, yet so hard? I hate all the stale questions and conversation starters so much that I don't want to use them, but without them, a lot of the time I'm totally lost.

Am I really so desperate and useless that I need to hope every conversation goes well with someone I really care about, and feel depressed if it doesn't? Do I need to be held at the mercy of what they do, and whether they would like to talk with me? Old Evan says no. Old Evan needs to come back.

I was never good at talking...but the perks are so fantastic

2007-01-20T23:13:00.000-05:00

How true it is. Ace Enders' (of the Early November) writing style seems to be a lot like mine would be if I DID write songs. I do not though...and sometimes his writing style bugs me. On a lot of songs actually.

My hands are cold. I am cold. Guess what kids...I'm back in Platteville. I do not enjoy this. I had to go back early to make sure I had books at the start of classes, because the bookstore is closed on Sunday. Everyone I know has decided to come back late Sunday and get their books later. Well frickin great. I could've been having fun today. Oh well. Instead I'm alone in a dorm, and next to nobody is here yet. Maybe now I will have time to do those applications...except I haven't done anything today. Tomorrow will have to be productive. I mean REALLY productive. I'll say this to myself, and then it won't happen, 9 times out of 10.

I don't think of the patience to write a blog post right now. I think I should go to bed or something.

Did I ever tell you guys about how for some reason I find Cookie Dough ice cream embarrassing? It is my favorite flavor, and a lot of people's favorite flavor, but every time I order it, I almost feel like I'm going to be made fun of for being a loser. It's quite weird.

Bye.

i like the horses

2007-01-14T01:06:00.000-05:00

Yes, Tyler. I actually did once. She seemed incredibly real. She answered all my questions, but kept changing the subject to her webcam. Something tells me she actually was real. She was like...."come and see my show, all you need is a credit card", and I told her I was not 18. She said not to mention that, but she had to go because she was late for her show. It was bizarre.

So a lot has happened since my last real post. I got done with exams...christmas happened, I started working again at Timber Creek, I went to camp, I've sat at home. I still have not started on the applications I have to fill out. I should really work on those.

Yesterday I went to the Lakeside game after work. Did you know that in the past four days I've covered for three different sick people at work? Ridiculous. Today Rebecca dropped soup on the flour and it looked like puke. The Lakeside game was really fun. I played pep band, and got to hang out with some very quality people. I really miss being in high school. A lot. I still feel like a high school student. I still LOOK like one. Last year I was often mistaken for a sophomore. High school was way more fun. The only thing I like about college I think is the freedom. But even that causes me to lose my concentration and will to do anything. For some reason I'm not looking forward to anything in my future I don't think. All I see is work. I'm planning what I'll be doing from 9-5 for the rest of my life, and that's just not my idea of fun. Someday I will be old and fat and become like everyone that I used to admire but do not anymore. I will make stupid jokes, and be faced with pressures at work, and my eventual mortality. Oh, I'm sure there's more to it. I think my mind is messed up. I even consider 22 to be old. I suppose it's because I do not look up to many that are older than me anymore. I look at the twenty's and visualize a stupid looking drunk guy who is chubby and clutching a red plastic cup. I think that's why college is so fun. No wonder I'm not having any fun. High school was the life man. Especially at Lakeside...where drinking was still sort of thought as a bad thing.

So a day has passed. My mom made me go to bed. I think it's safe to say that if Christmas break was over right now, I would've finished this blog post. Ironic eh?

I still can't even bear to think of going back. Classes resume the 22nd, I'll probably leave the 21st or something.

I have a feeling that before those two short paragraphs and the whole day change thing, I had a thought that is now going unfinished. Oh well. Often I feel free to jump around my emotions at my own convenience on this thing. Why not?

I went to John Pauer's LAN party...last weekend? It was fun, and I brought my computer...and Blake's computer, which never got taken out of the car. We still both had to share the same computer owned by the Pauers. I brought my computer in, plugged it in, and it didn't even run windows. My hard drive crashed. I lost all of my stuff. Everything. Except for what I put on my backup hard drive before I reformatted my main one (means I erased everything). That was like...over a year ago..possibly over two years ago. So I lost a lot. I think the loss of music hurts the most. Plus anything that I think is really cool and saved on my computer. Good thing this happened in between semesters...because I could've lost a lot of important school work. Another good thing is that it's not costing me anything to get this computer up and running again, because of my other hard drive.

Speaking of years a little while back...I believe this blog is quite old. So old that it is over two years old, and I didn't acknowledge it. Sorry blog. I forgot.

I went to camp. That was cool. I've realized that I am absolutely privileged to be friends with a lot of the people I know from there. Some of them make me laugh just when I think of them. It was especially nice to see Dan. He stopped being junior staff, so it's been awhile. A lot of people at camp seemed to be excited that I was applying. It was encouraging. Hopefully it's a good sign. Afterwards I went to Shinnick's for New Year's. I realize that it was probably not the best thing for me, as for some reason I was not feeling very outgoing or fun by any stretch, and the majority of the people there were people I did not know, yet most everyone else did. I spent most of the time on the couch, for fear that I would lose my seat. I got some fairly good sleep though, and I had a pretty awesome chat with Schleef. It's kinda weird talking about this, because I know Tyler reads this thing, but don't feel bad Tyler. It had mostly to do with the mood I was in.

I'm not sure what to do with my mind. I try to find pride in being a person that is open-minded, but knows his stance on most things. Deep down inside I know how fickle I really am. I can change my mind with any sort of cleverly worded argument or lengthy exposure to the opposite opinion. It's true. I am like a sheep. Despite my slight gifts and talents, different opinions, and shortcomings, I am mostly like every other sheep. This fact does not make the part of Evan that thinks he is somewhat sophisticated very happy. It makes him rather hopeless. It's times like these that I'm glad I am a Christian, because I have no idea what I would be clutching to if I wasn't. I could see myself going after some girl, thinking that a relationship will solve all my problems. Then it would go wrong, either I wouldn't get her, or it doesn't solve everything, and I would get in the fetal position and not want to live anymore. That would not be fun.

This of course, doesn't mean I don't have doubts. My human nature DOES NOT like the fact that I am a mindless sheep, and in order to stay away from terrible things, I have to look to my shepherd to protect me, and follow him....blindly. Though I'm not exactly happy with the URL of my blog, it seems to fit. I'm not sure how I came up with the names and titles for this blog. It was on a whim. It DOES NOT like the fact that pretty much none of my opinions really matter...or at least the way I'd like them to, in fact many other sheep share the exact same opinions, and alas, I am not as different as I thought I was. I want to run around, to explore, like all stupid sheep want to.

Tell me, is there a Christian explanation/representation for the sheep dog? No one seems to mention him. Oh well.

I can't really think of more to say on the subject. I don't really feel like writing a conclusion to that whole analogy. I sort of like when things don't have an ending anyways...but of course most of us can figure out the conclusion to that. I'm just saying. I seem to like things without endings.

My mood fluctuates. I may not show it, but

no really, a real one will come soon.

2007-01-13T02:13:00.000-05:00

So this girl named Avi keeps commenting on my myspace, using profiles of other friends of mine. Weird. Seems we would've run across each other with the same friends. She has blonde hair and likes to clutch her boobs. Maybe I'll click here to check her out on her cam.

Seriously...does anyone really fall for that?

"Tom and Mark need each other like Sunny and Cheer"

2006-12-14T02:05:00.000-05:00

What? Sunny and Cheer? What?? Blink-182 was fun to listen to, but I hate it when people say blink changed the world for them. In fact I don't like it when anyone gets really defensive about their favorite band. I've definitely done it...but I do not like it. Like...when someone talks about music that they like, and someone else says "no, you gotta listen to this band, they're so much better," as if that's the only band in the world worth listening to. I'm listening to one of +44's songs right now. It's pretty good. Some of the lyrics sound dumb though...they don't rhyme, and they don't pull it off gracefully either. Kinda like Socratic, only they are WAY worse. But with +44, I like the fact that Travis isn't going super crazy on the drums. It blends well with the song.

Y'know who I think I'm going to end up getting into? The Early November.

I smell like smoke. I was in a bar tonight. It was crazy. I'll give the short-ish story, because it would just take too long to type. I know...I would normally do it, but it's just so late. I played in the Jazz Combo concert last night, and it was probably the best I had played. I had trouble with this latin beat, and it took me a couple days to perfect. Joe brought in these two guys from Colombia to play congas with us. One of em ended up playing sax. They were good. They spoke mostly in Spanish, I guess they've only been in the country for like...4 months. Now they're bringing salsa music to Dubuque. Weird, huh? Well, they were the reason I was in a bar. They thought I was good for some reason, and want me to be a part of their salsa band. So...I guess I'm gonna have to really brush up on these kinda beats eh? Apparently we'll be playing gigs and practicing every week, possibly making some fairly decent money. That all sounds really good to me. I was in awe when they asked me to do this. I thought they were going to think I sucked, being all authentic and stuff. They invited me to see their band's first full performance at an open mic tonight. It was interesting. They were really good. Their drummer actually dropped the beat once. Apparently he's a pilot and going to California in two weeks. I suppose that's where I come in? It'll be crazy man. We're starting when I get back from Christmas break. Their horns are really good. Like...really really good. I'll actually be playing with them? Who knew I'd be playing in a salsa band? Honestly. It all seemed like stuff I could do though. It should be amazing.

We almost got thrown out of the bar. The grownups told them to keep us there though. It was me, Ben and JC. JC and I danced a little. It was weird. I wanted to say I did it I guess. I danced in a bar. An IRISH bar. To Colombians playing salsa. Man.

The way I wrote that didn't really do the impact of the situation justice...but not much could.

So, Dave, I've heard that now you have a girlfriend. Good job. I must say I am fairly boggled. Not that I thought you were gay or anything...
You always seemed....above girls. Or maybe below...yeah...that could definitely be it. There was a definite maturity difference. This girl has to be pretty freaking sweet though. I hope you've told her about all your homo tendencies..because if not, you can rest assured Jake and I will. I'm sure others will too. This better not take away from reading my blog time either Dave...

Y'know what's crazy? My COMPLETE and UTTER lack of motivation. I have done nothing but sit here since I got back. I still have stuff to work on. It's 1:38 in the AM. I got back at like...11:30. I've done NOTHING. I don't want it to end either. I'm so close to the end, and I lose any motivation to do anything. My floor is really dirty. I'm still not gonna get started with my homework.

=Bye.

dude...this sucks

2006-12-07T02:02:00.000-05:00

It has been half a year since the band trip started. That doesn't seem very long ago. I don't believe I've changed as a person. If anything I've become angrier and more oblivious to life around me. I was happy back then. It was fun. I was excited to see what each new day held. I had friends on the trip, and friends waiting for me back home. Life was good.

Life is dumb now. I feel that those parts of seclusion, studying, or putting off studying that used to play a small role now dominate. I don't have much to look forward to, the way I see it. The weekend? So I can catch up on the studying I haven't been doing? Christmas. I'm looking forward to break. There is no exciting prospect here that makes me want to get up in the morning. I wake up from not enough sleep to walk in the freezing cold to learn about calculus. As the day gets closer to afternoon, the weather gets better, and I realize I got screwed over because I had to walk through it when it was 7:40.

I'm trying to find something to live for right now. The only thing I can think of is God. It's hard to do that when I'm so complacent in what I do wrong. I see myself doing these things, know it's wrong, yet have absolutely no problem with it. That's bad. That means I am being overtaken. My heart is hardening. That's not good at all. I'm rather sick of a lot of pastors, and I don't go to bible study here anymore because the pastor reads of a freaking sheet every week. No one talks. It is a waste of my time. I'm tired of cheesy ways to relate to God. God is not cheesy. Why do we make him this way? How have we ruined religion so much that God has become a drudgery?? That's what happens I guess when you give humans something and they try to hold onto it for two thousand years. We mess it up. I guess that's what happens, when I realize I've been taught this stuff my whole life, and now I am sick of hearing the same things. Can I be blamed? I don't know. Probably. I wouldn't dare not believing in God, I know whole-heartedly that everything in the Bible is true. I'm just sick of hearing it all the time. It's funny that I'm saying all this now because I'm NOT hearing it all the time now. Maybe it's the christian kid freaking out because this is something he hasn't experienced.

Bother. I need to keep taking that stuff. Those happy pills, as I like to call them. What is with me and blogging at 1 AM? I don't even have a reason to be up this late. I stayed up late to do almost nothing. I can't wait till this school thing is over for awhile. I should get some sleep. I don't think I even remember what I wrote in this post. I just typed. It's doubtful that it is at all coherent. Best of luck.

post number |121| + (0/(14/25)) - ln(1) + 3 + (-4) + 1

2006-12-05T01:43:00.000-05:00

Stupid humor in math. That was probably the lamest one of those ever. This is my 121st post. What significance does that have, you might ask? Well...ask a friend, they might tell you. 21 was once the number of Rob Granato. 100 is a large number in comparison to like...4. Add them together and...you have 121. Y'know who else had the number 21 on the badger hockey time? Joe Bianchi. He was really good.

I went to Chicago with Jake, Blake and Raquel on Saturday. That was spur-of-the-moment and quite delightful. I ate kalamari for the first time, and Ikea is a really neat store.

Today has probably been one of the least productive days of my college career. I corrected three english papers. Ate oreos, drank soda, played guitar a lot, played video games, watched a lot of crap on YouTube. You name it, YouTube's got it. What a crazy site.

Stupid school. I was just starting to get in a groove with it when I went home, and now I think it's dumb again. Oh well. I won't be going home again until christmas break. Which is a whole month! Hooray. I get to go to work again. And hopefully do a lot of the things I've been planning on. Like..get better at music again, or go to camp.

I hate seeing rotting bananas, but that seems to have gotten better.

My fingers hurt when I play guitar. They are soft. They used to have callouses. I like those on my fingers. A song that is climbing up the ranks of my liking right now is definitely "Sowing Season(Yeah)" by Brand New. I also still really like the new Taking Back Sunday cd.

Speaking of music, Relient K is coming out with their fifth album "Five Score and Seven Years Ago", which is a very cheesy title. But remember, this IS their fifth album, and it will come out in 2007, 7 years after their first album was released in 2000. March 2007, early I think, maybe March 5th? No. March 6th. Their single sounds very happy, and easily will be annoying on the radio, but I do like it. I hope and pray that this album is good. I still need the new Jet cd. Bah. I have no money. Maybe I'll just make a bunch of YouTube playlists. I am cheap. So goes life.

It is again 1:00 in the AM. Gosh. Gee golly whiz. So long.

homtail

2006-11-28T01:42:00.000-05:00

I was just reminded, as I now have to type in my hotmail email address to sign in to blogger, to warn you to never misspell hotmail when trying to go to hotmail.com. For if you make that grievous mistake, as one Stephanie Aisbet did, and spell it "homtail", you will get a porn site. Er...or something like a porn site. Funny enough, I keep misspelling it "hotmial" as I'm writing this. Even funnier, I spelled it right when I was trying to spell it wrong. I just checked though, and the consequences are much less severe if you go to hotmial.com. You've probably already gone to both anyways by now. At least homtail.

Y'know what would be the greatest thing ever? I'm sure you're already thinking it. A Pimp My Ride movie! Maybe they could merge it with Trick My Truck, or have a battle between the two. I mean...the workers on both crews are superb actors. They really do their job well. Especially in that one scene where they gather around at the table and talk about what they're going to do. I don't know about you, but that scene seems so natural to me. I can hardly tell that it's scripted. It just flows man. Y'know, they should replace Xzibit though. With...you know who...Steve Guttenberg of course! What a great actor.

I watched this terrible movie with Steve Guttenberg in it. It was about him being Santa Claus's son, and how his dad was gonna pass on the family business to him. Pretty really cheesy. Christmas was almost cancelled because he nearly messed up so bad. Who cancels christmas? Oh, I'm not feeling the spirit man, I think I'm just gonna go to work. I hated how absolutely phony this guy was, and as he got closer to this girl, he kept asking her why she didn't believe in Santa Claus. That would bug the crap out of me. I also hated that they all walked around humming "Oh Christmas Tree". What's worse is that they didn't know any of the other words. Just oh christmas tree. Man! I had to watch it for 10 minutes because my mom was watching it, and I was waiting for a dvd player that worked for Garden State. I'm surprised I didn't die. I'd much rather watch Beerfest, and that's a really bad movie.

A great movie though, Employee of the Month. Whoo! I almost cried when Jessica Simpson said "you employees of the month are all the same." So emotional. She's right up there with Steve Guttenberg and the Pimp My Ride crew.

I think I'm starting to like drums again. I didn't have motivation before to work on the winter drumline tryout piece, but I'm finding it again. It's in traditional style, which I appear to be getting better at. Cool. I watched some videos of Carter Beauford today...er...yesterday. He's amazing. Utterly insane.

So I haven't really explained why I'm even writing this. I couldn't sleep. I laid in bed for about 45 minutes without even feeling drowsy. I have some kind of buzz going and I have no idea why. I thought I would sit and write down some things I've been turning over in my head, but I always forget by the time I make a blog post. I should take notes or something. Notes on my day. I'm sure I've said something like that plenty of times before. I should probably go though, Adam is asleep, and alas, once again it's 1:00. I went to bed before midnight...honest. Toodles.

there's no...reason, reason

2006-11-27T01:08:00.000-05:00

...to stay up this late. But i figured while I am already up this late, and I still need to put the sheets on my bed. I mind as well make that blog post that needs to be made.

So now I am back from thanksgiving. I was thinking all the last few days before I went home, that I would have so much time to do whatever. Well, it's only a long weekend. Now it's already over. It's technically Monday, and I have to get up for class in less than 7 hours. This next month or so is gonna suck. Homework, tests, and then exams. I'm shuddering. That reminds me of a song, but I'm not sure which one. Right now I'm listening to "Take Me" by Hawk Nelson though. It reminds me of camp. Camp is so sweet. I'm hoping that I am eligible to go to that one thing over new year's...some sort of staff reunion. I guess I was technically staff for a week last year, so I think I can go. I look forward to it. Dude.

I ate thanksgiving with absolutely no relatives. If we aren't going to travel, we only have one option for relatives close by, and they had other plans. I was perfectly fine with this. I spent most of thanksgiving playing video games. I don't seem to do that often. I then went to Jake's house, played Dave's Wii (it's pretty nifty), and found out how crazy his whole family is. They pretty much treat Black Friday religiously. Dave, Jake, and Jordy camped outside Circuit City. Apparently Jake and Dave were spooning outside the store, and some crazy German guy filmed them. They're probably all over YouTube by now. The rest of his family and relatives woke up at like...3. They had teams with names like "Alpha", "Delta", and "Bravo". They had assignments, and planned out which items to get first depending on demand. Yeesh. They wanted me and Blake to join them. We declined. We have but little to no funds. At least I do.

Friday was the baritone party. That was pretty fun. We went to Anna's house, and then this one crazy restaurant that was kind of expensive, but agreed to be totally date-worthy...even though they really only sold sandwiches. Interesting. We checked out this crazy christmas tree by a playground. Kristina came late, Blake and I stood outside a window, and no one noticed us for a really long time. Anna went and looked for us. It was funny...she walked right by and didn't see us. We then rented a movie that Blake and I wouldn't watch, because we had to leave for Paul's house. We stayed and talked anyway though, and that was a good time. At Paul's we played this weird track and field game, and then made some sort of remake of Saw 2. Paul and Co. enjoy making weird movies. Half of us hadn't even seen the movie. I had a tight shirt thing on, and carried a dumbell. I was the muscle man or something. I challenged the other people to a pushup contest to see who dies. My personality came right out in the role. I felt weird that night. The rendition of Jigsaw was the best though...it was a doll riding on some sort of stuffed animal, duct-taped to a toy car. It made the movie. I then woke up, ate donuts, played Bible Trivia on the xbox, and drove home. It was kinda crazy hanging out with mostly sophomores, but fun.

Blake and I tried to watch the Grey's Anatomy episodes we missed on abc.com, but they are really bad at keeping the video going. Yeesh. Everything was freezing. On saturday we also attempted watching Garden State. What a great movie. That kept freezing too. I cleaned the disk though, and everything was cool. Jake called, and he wanted me to go to Kirsten's house...it was her birthday. Blake and I attended, and we met the legendary Bryce. The man who caused Jake such jealously by meeting Kirsten on some trip to Australia like..3 years ago. He lives in Arizona, and he sent her an iPod out of the blue. He came to visit her when Jake was on vacation, and he was super worried. Well...it's been a long time since Jake and Kirsten broke up, but Bryce still brings up rage in Jake. Bryce is not a quality guy by my first impression. He just kinda sat there. If I was coming from Arizona to see a girl, I would do more than sit there. I guess he goes to school in the Dakotas...but still. That's dumb to me. A good time was had though, I got to see the rest of Grey's with no freezing or skipping.

Sunday is today. I went to church, then some party at this guy's house that goes to my church. I had a fulfilling discussion from Justin from my church. He's a fellow drummer, and also more of a computer nerd than I am. Goes to Madison too, and gave me some valuable information. It got me thinking more about what I want to do. I don't know. I then went to get coffee with Jake, Kirsten, Kelsey, Jake S, and of course Blake. Neither Blake or I got coffee. That's what cool people do. It was fun. Then they left. I went home, then headed back here. Boo. On my desk was a mysterious package from some game store in Orlando. In it was an xbox controller. I did not order an xbox controller. I didn't even look at one on the internet. I only really told a few people about how my newly working free xbox needs new controllers, because they are faulty. I bought one, but now this one comes. This is weird. Also, about a month ago, my roommate got a mysterious package from a guy named Ross in New York. In it was a computer game, Flatout. I might've mentioned this earlier. He didn't tell anyone but me that he had downloaded the demo and was playing it. The real version was sent to him a week later. I don't get it. I think someone is stalking the room. This is extremely weird.

What else was I supposed to cover? I think I did well on my calc test. At least sort of well. Hopefully...I studied a lot. Platteville effed me over and I wasted about an hour and a half on absolutely nothing...having to do with programming. If I explained it, you probably wouldn't get it. This was after they nearly effed me over with signing up for classes because of some payment that I already payed, but they were still holding against me. That's two strikes Plattevile, and I'm not allowing much.

Last weekend though...there's not much to cover. I hung out with Steph. That was pretty cool. She left for Florida and her garage door opener in my car somehow. I also set foot in Kettle Morraine Lutheran for the first time...which I was sort of surprised at. I was also surprised to realize that she is pretty much the only one I know who goes there anymore. Everyone else has since graduated. Bigfoot was near her house. This is making some pretty big news too. Now I can point to that story and mention that I know someone who is close to that. Neat stuff.

It's almost 1:00. I was stupid to stay up this late. Really stupid. I'm listening to Death Cab now. They are good. It's funny how songs remind you of things that were going on in your life when you listened to them. I remember when I first came to college, and there was no internet. All I had was music. The albums in rotation were "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner" by Ben Folds Five, with emphasis on "Mess", "Like Vines" by The Hush Sound, "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" by Bright Eyes, and "Plans" by Death Cab for Cutie. Death Cab may have come a little later, but it reminds me most of Libby, because she was sort of the one who reminded me of how I should start listening to them. Well, at least she only ruined one of their albums. Transatlanticism has hints of it, but for the most part it's clean.

I think God is pretty cool, no matter how much I don't listen to him. I need to more. Toodles.

eek

2006-11-21T00:20:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I have no classes, but a test at five. How weird is that. Bittersweet. No classes...but the time will be spent studying. I can sleep in though. I'm really not looking forward to this test. I have a program due Wednesday. I'm not looking forward to the next two days. I just wanna get out of here again.

I was home last weekend though. I'll tell you more about it..and everything else I haven't covered in awhile when I have time. For the record, part of this delay was because of blogger's switch to google something or other, and they never sent me an email that I could start blogging again. I was waiting...

Bye

gahhh...

2006-10-31T13:36:00.001-05:00

I am sick of:

Sexual innuendo
The fact that most people regard sex as normal in college
same thing as above with drinking
hearing sex stories
the city of Platteville
the Platteville campus(oops, I repeated myself)
that stupid graveyard I walk by about 6 times a day.
the fact that I'm unwilling to clean my dorm room
finding dust everywhere
me swearing profusely
me not being bothered by swearing profusely
procrastinating
homework
going to bed late
recurring girls in dreams, no matter how minor of a role they play nowadays.
Jennifer not talking to me.
the face of almost every single person here
my chinese programming professor
calculus being hard again
drums
being told what to play
marching band in general
cold weather
my lack of organization
my stupid self

Believe it or not, I'm actually in an okay mood. I once again had plans to get a lot done, which I still can, but I'm not. I don't want to. I've lost all motivation. This is not good. I talked to Kristina on the phone last night for like...almost an hour and a half. It was really fun. She still remains a cool person. Sometimes I wish I hadn't had such a cool high school experience, because I would probably be having fun in college now, because I would be glad to be out of high school. Now I feel college is stupid, but when I look back at high school, it seems childish and stupid. I'd still rather be there though.

A lot has happened since my last post. This needed to happen sometime. I once again got someone angry because of what I wrote on here. Take a frickin guess. I need to be more careful. It's hard to not talk about everything on here, because I can't really bore people at Platteville with my stories, yet I'm starting to do that more.

Last weekend, I thought I was doomed to a very boring time filled with homework and studying. Well, Andy and Kyle were going up to Madison to party, and asked if I wanted to come with. I was very apprehensive, especially because it's halloween weekend. I told them that if I did go, I would probably have them drop me off at Jake's dorm, and I'd take it from there. Then Ben wanted to go, so he actually drove, which worked out better. We picked up Jake and went to State Street just to see what it was like, and had to pay 5 bucks. Well...Jake payed..haha. It was pretty lame. There were more cops than people. A couple good bands, some good costumes, my parents told me to not go though, so we only stayed until 9. It doesn't get crazy until 1-ish I guess. Ben and I took in the scenery of...girls. This is something that is very rare where we come from.

We left then, and I realized that Sydnie was having a party, so we went to that. That was a super super good time. I haven't had that much fun in awhile. I stayed up until 5. Not smart, but worth it. Ben seemed to click with everyone.

I went to church in the morning, and that was pretty nice...kinda weird actually getting noticed in church though. Everyone saying "welcome back". I didn't think I was gone that long. I've been home fairly often, and usually went to church at St. Andrew. Weird.

I then actually went home and played in this Lakeside pickup soccer game. Pastor Clark has been putting them together. That was fun. Now I'm sore.

So...back in Platteville again. Bleh. It was nice going home on a weekend that I thought I'd be stuck in the dorm. I think I'm coming home next weekend too.

A week ago I was marching homecoming. That blew. I was outside in the rain, cold, and wind from 9-5, with about a half hour or so break in between. Then I went into the bathroom for the third quarter. I couldn't feel my hands, let alone move them. I could barely hold onto my sticks, and I couldn't really do much of anything on the drum. It was horrible.

There are pros and cons to Platteville and Madison. I'm thinking of making a list, but I'm almost sure that I don't want to graduate from here, and that I don't want to be a software engineer. I don't know what made me think I wanted to be an engineer. I don't care to improve anything or design anything. In fact I hate that. That's the only reason I'm in Platteville. Engineering can go to hell. I have a leaf on my speaker.

I am angered.

2006-10-12T01:20:00.000-04:00

Somehow, the beginning of "Such Great Heights" by The Postal Service soothed me a bit.

I'm staying up late again! Again! I meant to make a blog post soon after the last one, and start more on the road of regularity. But no. I waited too long. I just finished proofreading papers for english. I hate my english class. Everyone seems really dumb. No one knew how to spell sesame. The papers all have a lot of mistakes. We're put in these peer groups, and we exchange papers and proofread them. Much like College Prep English. This group and I did a presentation, where we taught the class about comma splices. We split it up, me and this guy taught the class, while the two girls did the activity. The guy has a lot of comma splice mistakes on his paper.

I'm aware that what I'm writing may not be perfect english. Especially in the capitalization area. The girls who did the activity printed off a sheet they found on the internet, and made copies for the whole class. It said "fix the comma splices, run-on sentences, and fragments". They gave me the sheet after they had handed it out to the rest of the class, and said that it didn't come with an answer key. They asked me to do it! Almost nothing on there had anything to do with comma splices. I was amazed. That's all they did! Print and copy! I did their work. I even told them what to say when a student got a right answer. Wow, almost made a big mistake there. It's late.

Anyways, these papers are kind of interesting in a different way. They're narratives, so we write about a significant event in our life. The guy wrote about playing in the division 5 state football championship. One of the girls wrote about being a cheerleader for the other team for the same game. They had no idea. So I had to read about the same game twice. The last one is really hard to do anything with, because this girl's boyfriend died in a car accident, and she wrote her paper about it. That's touchy. Holy crap. It was titled "The Worst Night of My Life".

Yeesh. Well, I'm done with that now. I was talking to Jennifer. She told me to update this blog. She needs to update too. She's made 2 posts. One is the "here is my blog" post, and the other is an email she sent to me and Blake awhile ago, containing a story in response to some questions we sent her. That was pretty sweet, and I encourage you all to go and read that story, but it probably wouldn't make much sense to you. So Jennifer needs to update her blog too.

Now um...more on my day? I went to Walmart today and finally used my gift card. So essentially, I bought City of Villians for 86 cents. I was already in a bad mood from getting raped by Jazz Combo. Jazz drumming to me is like trying to speak chinese. I CAN'T. I'm learning, but it's hard. It's so foriegn. I thought I was a good drummer, but alas, I am not. I will not wow anyone here. College music is deep stuff man. I'm not sure how well I'd do as a music major. I might fit in, but that's about it. I wouldn't be special. Part of me wants to go back to high school where I was something special. Part of me knows that I'll soon get this stuff, and in the process not even realize that I've gotten much better. Y'know, I don't listen to jazz. That's another that makes it hard.

So anyways, the people we were with kept messing around in Walmart, and I just wanted to go. I did figure out the intro to "Title and Registration" by Death Cab for Cutie on a little kiddie piano though....even though it's actually played on guitar. I wish I would've gotten into Death Cab earlier and went to go see them at the Orpheum. The Orpheum is amazing. This could be a segue to an event that happened over the weekend...but one more thing.

After Jennifer signed off, (wow, I've really jumped around the day) I committed myself to doing homework, and resigned to the fact that there would be no new messages from anyone on my computer tonight. A little while later, hotmail notifited me that I got a new email message from Alicia Hart. I realized right away that this was probably a chain letter. I read anyway, and proceeded to watch my day get a little worse.

There was a story of a 3 year old kid who was in the mall with his mom. 2 10 year olds pulled him away when he was away from his mom for "about a second". They then tortured the kid and did very grotesque things to him. Now I have terrible, terrible images in my head, of a 3 year old boy crying for his mom while he gets paint rubbed in his eyes, batteries shoved in his anus, and left on railroad tracks to die. I'm picturing his mom screaming, sobbing hysterically, searching for her son. Now these kids are possibly getting out of jail. What purpose does this email serve?! We're supposed to put our name and location down and once the list is big enough send it to some sight for some lady justice. HONESTLY! That never works! Who believes this crap? No one in ANY position of authority is going to read a list of TYPED names and do ANYTHING about it. Anyone could sit and type 1000 names and locations. A list won't do anything. What are we petitioning for anyway? That these kids rot in a jail cell as well as hell? What control do we have over this? I can't believe my mind has been polluted with horrifying images because some retard decided they'd try and make a difference by sending out a chain letter. Oh my! It keeps saying things like "stop this from happening! People like these kids could live near you!" Well... I bet those kids have never even heard of this story, and will keep on in their own evil ways. I'm disgusted that anyone would believe that adding their name will stop this from happening. Now I'm probably going to have nightmares. I think I've typed something like this in an email to Alicia before. Well, thanks a lot. I almost swore a lot in there too.

On a lighter note, last weekend I came home, and it was fun. I saw the homecoming game, hung out with Lucas, Jake, Sydnie, Tom Mackey, and Phil Trapp at my house, got to jam. It was the first time letting loose on a drumset in quite awhile. It felt amazing.

I went to Milwaukee on Saturday with Blake and Anna to hang with Anna's cousin Charlie, and also to attend the Fray concert at the Rave. Charlie was having this 24-hour comic thing at his house, where he'd shoot a 24 page comic in 24 hours, or something like that. He's way into picture comics. He's published a book, and is close to finishing his second one. There were some of his other friends around drawing stuff. He kept moving us around his apartment so we wouldn't get in the way of his shots. We then watched the last half of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" it was weird. I missed the beginning though, so no conclusions can be drawn. We then went to drop off Charlie's friend Kevin, and we also went to eat. Wherever we ate...I forget...something about a fat cat, and Bella? It was good. On the way back, Charlie showed us a carving in the sidewalk near his house that looked almost exactly like him. It was pretty neat. There was something in French written above it.

We then decided we should probably attend that concert.... We missed the opener, Aqualung, which we probably shouldn't have missed. I've heard they're good, and it's mainly one guy. They're huge in the UK. Oh well. The concert was good. It wasn't mind-blowing, but the music was awesome. The rave and the excited crowd hindered me from being able to hear what they were saying between songs. As I watched them open the concert with my favorite song of theirs, Little House, I thought that I should keep track of the set list, because it really enhanced my Ben Folds experience. It seems to convey the experience more than anything else. I wrote all down my arm, and some on Blake's arm when I ran out of room. If anyone is curious, here it is:

1. Little House
2. She Is
3. All At Once(had the crowd sing what the crowd sings all at once in the song. Makes sense..)
4. Fall Away
5. Dead Wrong (tried to call Steph on this one, but she couldn't hear any of the music. Bummer)
6. Look After You
7. Heaven Forbid (always amazing live)
8. Vienna
9. New Song(Slow/Joe Sang/mostly acoustic/possibly titled What It's For)
10. New Song(kinda fast. It sounded great.)
11. Song from 1st EP (I think it was Together, not sure)
12. Over My Head
Encore:
13. Route 66(Acoustic, just Isaac. Anna and Blake recognized the song, but I didn't. They said something about route 66 and Cruella de Ville. I don't know.)
14. Trust Me
15. How To Save a Life

Overall good show, and I didn't even have to pay for parking. Pretty cool.

I'm going home tomorrow, it's fall break. Fall break is only a three day weekend. I can't say I'm looking forward to coming home as much, seeing that I was just at home, and there's not a concert or anything to look forward to. It's still much better than gay ol' Platteville.

Now I'm losing my edge, and moving from mad to sad. The natural sequence I guess. I don't like it. I don't like much right now though. It's late. Really late. I'm also to the point where I don't care much, and could stay up later if need be. I really shouldn't though. I'll see you guys later.

If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks...

2006-09-30T03:33:00.000-04:00

...then I'll follow you into the dark. That's a beautiful song. It seems a tad contradictory to the good ol' beliefs though... Not technically..because he's only using if, but still.

It's too late, I shouldn't be making this post. I've probably not done anything academic in the past three days other than go to class. Now I have a whole weekend to do my minimal amounts of homework.

I think I had the urge to make this post because I was in a blog-reading mood, and have found that no one really has updated. Which means I need to step it up, and put more out there. Dave told me via facebook that he still reads, so I'm sure that'll make him happy.

Why do I stay up so late? 2:30?? At this hour I'm very susceptible to stupid spelling mistakes. I already caught one in the title. That would've been embarrassing.

Tomorrow my parents are coming down for the game. I'm kinda sad Blake can't come down to see the marching band. Oh well. I get to eat lunch with them, and then go to the game. Which means I need sleep.....haha.

I continue to depress and disappoint myself. Don't pay attention to that. I jammed today with this guitar player. He was really good, but kept dropping a beat every now and then. It was a little tough to deal with. He suggested that we start a band and play around town to make money. I'm bad at drum set. I keep doing the same thing. I'm getting lessons though. I'm learning a jazz and shuffle beat right now, which I was having a hard time with in the lesson, but I think I had it down as I was walking out. Well...with my hands in the air. It doesn't sound all that great on the set, because I'm uncoordinated.

Some other guy messaged me on facebook wanting to jam. He likes bands I like, like Relient K. He says he wants to start a pop-punk group. That'd be pretty sweet.

It's becoming evident to me that I still miss Libby. I was wondering if I should still continue to write about this on here, but I really don't have anyone here to talk to about it, so I'll talk to my blog. It's weird. I'm so dumb. Again...I ignored her up until almost the very last moment. I thought..hey, I should capitalize on this. She presents herself in such a way...almost like she's telling you to use her. Always trying to talk to you, but not expecting anything, yet persisting. It's like...the natural instinct of a guy would just be to get physical and then forget about it. I found myself completely incapable of doing such a thing, even though I tried. As I got close to her, I got sucked in. I mean...we both knew it wasn't going to work...I was going to college. Why did we even bother? I've found she doesn't place much of herself in these things she does, I don't think...allowing her to do pretty much anything without getting hurt. I cannot do that. She's pulled out, and I was just going in. I'm so dumb. Of course, the theme in my brain has been "I've been avoiding her this whole time, and now I'm the one feeling bad". That's dumb.

So now, with all the ways she bugged me, I'm liking her more now that I never see her, and rarely talk to her. Part of that may be the fault of the complete lack of women on this campus.... When she kissed me, I don't recall feeling happy, or floating on top of anything. I remember observing the completely meaningless conversation that immediately followed, and thinking "I honestly don't think that happened". I remember driving home with kind of a blank stare, not really sure what to feel. Just....weird. I called Jake and talked about it, how I didn't really feel any better...or any worse.

I think if that happened now though, I might actually feel happy, as stupid as it sounds. There are so many reasons why I wouldn't want to date her, and I know I never will, but that doesn't stop part of me from wanting to. I am stupid.

I feel like kind of a pedophile...she's in my brother's grade. She was not born in the 1980's. It's only two years...but still. Jake and I would always joke about that, because Hilary was the same age. I miss Jake. Talking on the phone just isn't the same.

Wow...I need to get over this. If this is hard, then real, actual dating would kill me. I just need to forget this. I really don't think it's healthy. This is dumb!

I'm using lots of separate paragraphs. What's with this? I'm coming home next weekend. It's past 3. This post is kinda embarrassing. I wonder who will read this.

I never knew...

2006-09-27T01:14:00.002-04:00

...how much swearing could actually take place during a simple game of Mario Kart. I need to cut back on the swears...they're not good. So yeah, I played Mario Kart in a girl's dorm room, she has the same name as my mother. That's weird. I ate at about 9:30 tonight, because of Symphony band from 7-9, and a calculus test from about 5-7:20. That was dumb, I couldn't figure out the last question. I'm going backwards.

I had lots of free time today, because I only had one actual class from 10-11, so I was able to wake up at 9:20, better than my usual 7:00. Plus the one class I was in, the teacher pushed back all of the due dates. I think the only real responsibility I have is that stupid English presentation, but I'm glad I'm getting it over with. Is that how you use that? I don't think I've ever written over with, just spoke it.

I don't really have anything to say. I had lots to blog about yesterday, but elected to do some homework and chat online. I talked to Lucas on the phone last night, and we might get back into City of Heroes, seeing that our lives are incredibly boring now that we're in college, and there's less to do. I'm really not feeling very thoughtful right now. I guess you can tell with the way my topics are sporadically jumping all around. I'm really enjoying the album "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" by Bright Eyes, but right now, I think that's the only album I recognize songs off of right now. He keeps talking about a yellow bird. I wonder what that means.

My roommate is asleep. He's only seen me go to bed about once. I don't feel like going to bed. I guess blogging about nothing is the way I'm stopping myself. I really shouldn't stop myself though, I need sleep. I'm recovering from illness, but I don't have class until 9, and really the next two classes are naps, Music Appreciation and General Engineering. Tomorrow is a cupcake day man. No calculus, just those two classes, and programming, which is basically review right now.

I'm missing my drumset. I'm turning into an enormous drum nerd, which makes me feel dumb, because I'm not near the best here. I should start writing songs or something. Maybe I should use these times to make songs. But, I'm not feeling thoughtful, and would rather not think.

I miss you. And you, you and you. I wonder if Dave reads this thing anymore.

Do you ever get this weird muscle twitch in your shoulder..or maybe somewhere else, that it feels like someone is tapping you, trying to get your attention? Isn't that weird?

I miss the presence of girls. Guys suck. I'm in the midst of so many guys...filthy, disgusting, revolting guys. I cannot stand their rambunctious, boisterous personalities, though those are only certain types. Guys are gross. I'm gross. Sometimes, especially lately, I wonder how girls would even want to be anywhere near us. It just doesn't make sense. We're so retarded. All we think about is sex. I'm surrounded by guys that talk about women is such terrible ways, totally objectifying them. That's one thing I can't stand. It didn't really bother me before I came here, because I knew when people at Lakeside talked that way, they were usually joking, they usually knew what was right. Of course, not all the time, but usually. Here, I do not have that knowledge. I hear talk like this, and I start thinking about girls at Lakeside. While they are much more attractive than the ones at Platteville, I think of them because of their general innocence. Of course, not all were, but it makes me sick, thinking of how innocent they were compared to girls here, and how any guy here would talk terribly about them. Wanting to do terrible things to them. It's not really as bad as I'm making it out to be, but I know it's pretty much all these guys care about. I think if I was ever involved in a one night stand, I would want to kill myself. Imagining these girls with guys like these, which I know they'll meet guys like them, just makes me want to puke. They might actually give these guys 5 minutes of their time. They're not worth it.

Most of all I hate watching girls talk to these guys. Seeing these good-for-nothing guys get the time of day with these girls. This fits right into Catcher in the Rye, when Holden can't bear the thought of his roommate Ward Stradlater "giving the time" to his old friend, whom he had spent so much time with, and only really kissed her once. She meant something to him, and now some guy that "gave the time" to plenty of women before forced it on her. He never really found out if he did, but he asked, and Stradlater smiled and didn't say anything. Holden got mad. The great thing about that book is that there's something in there that anyone can relate to, and I can really relate to that.

Of course, that's more of a specific example, but why must such crappy guys even talk to girls? The kind of guys that are total cocks to anyone but someone that they want to stick their dick in, and that someone doesn't even see it. They just say that they're "a nice person". I really hate that. I can think of a couple times when I would talk to girls about some total dickhead, and she thought he was nice, because he's only nice to girls.

And just think, think of all these girls, and what they were like 10 years ago. They were like...8. They were little kids having fun. Think of them as babies, toddlers...their parents running after them, exasperated but loving these kids. And all some stupid crapface wants to do is sleep with them. Take advantage of some parents' pride and joy. These guys were little babies and kids too. They were innocent. To me, it's like they're spitting in their parents' faces. When someone says that they had fun drinking, they used the same word to describe going to the zoo with their mom. It makes me want to cry. And throw up.

I'm not blameless, but I can at least pride myself in not wearing some kind of cologne or body spray, not having a sorry excuse for a moustache, not caring only about fast girls, cars, and drinking, and I can say I've never even come in contact with a girl that is drunk, much less try and take advantage of her. Most of these situations, the girls are also to blame, but I don't really care. Guys suck. Even with my rantings against all this, I still have that small desire to bang some hot girl that I don't know the name of, and wouldn't mind if she was intoxicated. I hate that part of myself. I don't think I'd ever do that though...even if I was paid large sums of money.

This sucks. Being human sucks. You guys all suck, but if you'll excuse me, I must go, because I have a plank in my eye, and I have to remove it.

I don't think I'll be buckling down anytime soon

2006-09-23T15:17:00.000-04:00

...on anything worthwhile doing, so I'll write a blogpost. Today is apparently some big college visit day...already. Pioneer Preview or something? Well, I went to lunch and was tapped on the shoulder by Stephen Rahn. It was quite a shock, I must say. I told him that if he likes girls, he probably shouldn't come here. Stinkin' Platteville.

Yesterday I hung out with JC, Ben, his roommate Damian, and this girl from marching band named Katie. That was weird. We tried to play football in the dark, but that didn't really work. Then we found a cat outside Dobson Hall. It was really nice, and followed us around everywhere. It didn't even nip at any of us like normal cats. It wasn't declawed though. That hurt. It really liked me. It liked Damian too.

I talked to this guy that they call "Indy" from Marching Band. Apparently he's from Vanguard, and I ended up knowing his sister from camp. He invited me to come to the WELS campus ministry meetings, so I'm fairly excited about that.

We eventually went to Katie's room and sat there for awhile, and then JC left. We ordered pizza, and watched The Italian Job, which actually none of us had seen...except for Katie. That was dumb, because we stayed up until 2, and I definitely wanted to sleep. It's hard to continue sleeping when the curtains do not block out any light.

Today is our first time playing for an actual UWP football game. Neat huh? Yeah...not much going on here. At all. I've wasted most of the day doing nothing, and I'll be tied up from 5-9 with marching band, so uh...woohoo. Once again...weekends are boring when you don't drink. Home is more fun. Maybe I'll call Blake, or...do calculus?

Oh dude. I had this crazy dream. But first, I must say something about this sort of childhood friend I had, whom I found out was going here about a week before I came. Well, I didn't recognize him at first, but he's in my calc class, I found his paper under mine in this pile. It was crazy. So now I know who he is, but we were only really friends because our moms were great friends, and we haven't talked.

So...I think it was Thursday night that I had this dream, and I think my mind is playing terrible, terrible tricks on me. Most of the dream had to do with Libby, and I was at some event. This part lasted for a really long time, and everything was fine and dandy. The whole time she was sort of trying to avoid me. The event ended, and I was saying goodbye to her and talking, and this childhood friend, Tim, comes up to me and asks for a ride back to Madison. I didn't find this weird, and I also didn't find it weird that he was with Chris, our occasional cymbal instructor guy. I had a shiny new, red Honda Accord too. So they went by that, and then thought I was taking too long, so they got in and started driving off. For some reason by the time they drove off, my car had transformed into an old VW beetle. I started running after them, and then somehow they drove past me on a motorcycle. All of these vehicles remained red. Tim was driving, and he took off on the motorcycle, like super fast. I thought to myself "Uh oh, what's he gonna do..." He drove to the end of the street and there was a house right in front of him. He kept going at full speed. When he hit the house, it acted somehow as an upwards ramp, throwing the motorcycle, Tim, and Chris about thirty feet in the air, probably going about 80 miles an hour. I looked on in shock, thinking that this would yield very serious consequences. The bike crashed down, and Tim hit the side of some building...all except his head, which of course caused it to be severed from his body. Chris landed somewhere on the ground and was either unconcious or dead...but I knew Tim was dead. My mind made it seem so real, and a shock after such non-chalant ignorant bliss in most of my dream. I freaked out and grabbed my cell phone, thinking about Tim's mom, and how I really only knew her, and how sad she would be, and if I would be blamed for his death. It was terrible. When I dialed 911, I got a machine, asking what cellular phone I was using. I waited, thinking that it would list off options and I would choose them...but it didn't. So I figured I'd type in the brand name. I just stared blankly at my phone, trying to get my fingers to dial, and I woke up dialing in the air. It was very disturbing.

I think that's about all I have for you. So long.

Let the poets cry themselves to sleep...

2006-09-18T19:44:00.000-04:00

Evan is starting to listen to Bright Eyes more. Weird. Also Death Cab for Cutie. I must only listen to them sparingly though, because they're both fairly depressing. It's been a week since I last posted...and not much has gone on.

I went home this past weekend. That was exciting. Jake and I went to the football game friday night, and I even got to play pep band again. I miss playing in the Lakeside band. All the snares seem so small compared to Platteville's. It's weird. Snowball gave me his drum, and proceeded to praise me for doing nothing special. It was quite hilarious. Lakeside snare line has kinda gotten a lot of new people and aren't that good anymore. Of course, we weren't all that good when I was there either. Libby and Andy are the only bright spots. Oh well. After hearing Snowball go on and on about me, Jake asked how I survived the band trip. He didn't realize, after all the stories, that he was THAT bad. At least he's building me up though. Silly guy. He wanted to take lessons from me for 50 bucks a lesson. He also made up some story about me being really good at skateboarding, and being able to ollie 2 feet in the air. He even told Blake this. I don't understand this. I can't stay up on a skateboard to save my life.

After the game, Paul, Caleb, and Jake slept over, and Tom M stayed late too. That was super fun playing soccer in my backyard. Jake, Tom, and I were involved in a close match, but soon widened our lead until they decided to go in. Hahaha. Of course the opposing side all had to get up early to go to the cross country meet. That's probably why. Talking to them, the soccer, and swapping Snowball stories was probably the most fun I've had in awhile.

Saturday I went to Fond du Lac for the cross country meet. I realized that Blake was going to be gone all day for this, and he was going to hang with Becca afterwards, so I figured it would be a great opportunity for me to go. Pretty much everyone from Lakeside dominated, except for guys varsity. Cameron Stark has turned into an amazing runner though. He PR'd, and this was the Big Bertha. Big Bertha is like...the toughest one, because of this huge hill, and he actually ran his best, and finished 3rd. It was nuts. The varsity girls got all 5 scoring runners into the top 25, a lakeside runner won both boys and girls jv races, with girls jv taking the top 6 positions. That was crazy.

That was my first meet. It was a lot of fun. I wish I would've been in cross country. That would've been cool. Afterwards, a good time was had with Becca and her friend Sara. Apparently I scared Beefy away from eating with us, because Blake said he'd eaten with her before. Weird. On the way home I felt like I was going to fall asleep, so I called Steph, and we chatted. I then figured out my new phone does not have a very good speakerphone thing. Blake and I loved having conversations with both of us and someone else in the car. Now we can't, because of the cruddy phone. That night I hung out with Brittany, Luke H, Mike Hartwig, Jared, and Tyler Abitz. I've realized how different I am from all of them, except for Brittany, who pretty much said the same thing. It's kind of sad, but oh well. It was just hard to have fun with them. It's weird thinking of all the fun we had freshman and sophomore year. I guess we're just different now. It was sweet seeing Brittany again, seeing that she lives in Indiana now...

Sunday I went to church alone. That was weird. People treated me nicely like I was a visitor. Awkward. I then went to the parade in Jefferson (I'm not gonna try spelling the name of it). I got to see Lakeside marching band for the first time as a spectator. Actually, it was possibly my third. I saw them once when I was a freshman during homecoming, and supposedly at an Oregon parade in 1990 when I was 2. Although maybe I didn't see them because I couldn't see through the tears I was shedding, on account of fire truck sirens and horns. Though I don't remember any of this..

Now I'm back. Back is stupid. Home is so much more fun. Marching band is still fun though. I actually know my music better than a lot of people on snare, because I'm practicing a lot. I practiced the entire way home, which is a two hour drive. I think I practiced about 2 hours today. It was nuts. I don't even notice how long it's been when I am, I just sit down with the practice pad, and soon an hour has gone by. Maybe soon I'll be able to do flam taps super fast. That'd be neat. I still practice the Lakeside stuff that we couldn't play. When I get that down-pat, I'll be happy.

I have calc to do, and should probably start on programming, and I might hang with Ben tonight too....so I should probably go. Happy trails!

Rain

2006-09-11T23:29:00.000-04:00

...is not pleasant when it just...rains. All the time. It gets you wet. There's no cool lightning...nothing cool in the sky to look at (much to the dismay of Steph). Unless you really really love the color grey. Which ya know...I could take or leave. It does cancel marching band, but ya know, that may actually be a bad thing, seeing that marching band is about the only thing here that gives me purpose in life.

I made some Jazz Combo, which I think just means they don't want to discourage me from being involved in jazz band. So...is that what I'm doing because I'm not good enough to get in jazz band? I'm not surprised, I'm not exactly talented in the field of jazz drumming. I know many of you would say otherwise, probably citing my drum solo...but that song was latin. I am not diverse in my jazz beats, and my jazz fills are limited. I just don't play it enough. Plus, there are a lot of good drummers here...that are better than I am. About 7 or so that I've seen so far.

So the weekend was mostly taken up by marching band, and as a result, my mood was raised. We played the national anthem at Miller Park for the Brewers. It was fairly uneventful. There were no drunk hecklers that put alcoholic drinks on our drums, and none that were trying to touch our drums. We were actually advised to not let anyone touch the drum, and had permission to hit them. Well, we didn't get close to anyone. A pitcher tried to get us to "rattle something off". I should've told him we would if he tossed a winning game.

The Brewers were down by 4 before we even got into the stadium, so obviously the game wasn't worth watching. Jake, Kelsey, Lindsey and Jordan came to see the game though. That was sweet. We sorta hung out for awhile. There were these drunk people behind us that started talking to me, asking about Camp Phillip because of my shirt. We talked about music, and how two of them played guitar and drums, just like I do, and so does this other guy from Platteville named JC that I was with. They wanted to jam. It was funny, because they took Ben's phone number, when he only plays limited bass. JC and I were the jammable ones. Besides, we live three hours from Milwaukee. That's pretty weird.

We went back then. It was late. It rained all Sunday and today. It was dumb. So there's another update. I'm in a fairly good mood because of Something Corporate, and I hung out with Ben watching Damien (his roommate) play Zelda. That was a much better time than sitting here getting screwed over by homework that really isn't all that bad. Not yet anyway. So long.

Are you getting somewhere? Or did you get lost in Amsterdam?

2006-09-09T00:33:00.000-04:00

I'm really enjoying that song. It's by Guster. I'm not sure what told me to try and listen to them recently, but I remember Hud disputing my claim that the Ben Folds concert was not the greatest ever, because of Guster, and some band about a sea. That was a while ago though.

Y'know what I find funny? Going on a myspace profile of some teenager, and reading their about me blurb. It's hilarious when some kid decides that this is a great place to impart wisdom on others. As if some 18 year old kid or something, has lived through something monumental, and actually has good advice for people. Like, don't do what others say, and live your life and all this crap. Who are you to think you are wise when you haven't even lived a quarter of an average life? Much less on myspace. Doing something meaningful on myspace instantly takes the meaning away.

So today(which is now technicaly yesterday), we had our first marching band performance. Nothing special, it was a bit rough. We just did our field show for the Platteville High game. The whole time was pretty boring. I'm realizing that I've actually memorized my music a little faster than the rest of the snare line. Except Alex. This is because I put a lot of time into it. They are better than me. I tried out for Jazz Band. I'm sorta kicking myself. They gave me a piece to sightread, and I suck at sightreading. Although all it said was to keep time, in a jazz way, and it gave me ensemble accent notes. So really all I had to do was read the easy rythyms of the accent notes, and play those on snare while I kept the jazz beat going. I just kinda played. I lost my spot in the music about 3 measures in. I forgot turn the snare on for awhile too. That was embarrassing. Then, the guy played something on piano and told me just to jam in both jazz and rock styles. I don't think they turn anyone down though. The guy just seemed excited to have me there. Now I get free lessons from him. That's pretty cool. People from the music program are nicer it seems.

I'm listening to this cd by a guy named Nick Motil. He played at our orientation, and he was pretty good. His songs sounded the same, but he's good. He has two albums, Ben bought one and I bought the other. I'm in a new music mood I guess. He plays just acoustic stuff though, and sometimes piano. He lives in Las Vegas, and told us he'd play 5 times a week for 4 hours at a time. That's a lot of playing. Now he's on tour, and basically playing only colleges. Kinda weird. He's got a really awesome voice. Check out his music I guess. www.motillive.com I don't feel like linking it.

Speaking of music....Earth, Wind, and Beatbox recorded their debut album, Escape the Cause, and it is available through my brother Blake. Only 2 bucks. One of the greatest buys you will ever....buy. Not sure how he's doing on production of the cd. Heh heh. What a joke.

I think I finally have this Libby thing off my chest. It feels nice. I think I've said most of what I wanted to say. We're just friends, and it seems that we're both cool with it.

Tomorrow I have to get up early. We have to march a parade, and meet at 8:30. Then we have to go to Milwaukee to march at the Brewers game, and play the national anthem. We won't get back until...midnight I think. That kinda sucks. Homework has been fairly light. School has been boring. Marching band is fun though.

I think I'll get some sleep now. I have a feeling this post was possibly a little less sporadic.

Yawn!

2006-09-07T00:40:00.000-04:00

So a lot of time has passed since my last stupid update. I didn't feel much different from the way I felt during that post in my first few days here.

Band camp at least kept me busy. I was nervous about where they would place me on the drumline. All we did for auditioning was go to each instrument and do these warmups on them. I find it a fairly good accomplishment that I was able to make snare on a college drumline as a freshman. I was the only freshman to do so, but there are only 5 incoming freshman in percussion. 3 on cymbal, 1 on bass drum, and me. Also, UWP percussion doesn't seem all that special. Just a whole lot of people that are better than I am. The bass drums are really bad though. The whole thing is kinda like Lakeside only....much more swearing. Our instructor guy swears like a freaking sailor.

I'm not sure how much to cover. I'm apprehensive to type because this keyboard is fairly loud. My roommate is in bed. UWP is different in the fact that there is way more music, and we have to memorize it all. They're based around field shows, definitely not parade like I'm used to, so there's a lot more drill. The whole thing has been a challenge. Being the only freshman on snare also means you're pretty much the only one messing up.

I met a couple friends during band camp, Ben and Andy...and then there's Dan, he provided us with interesting conversation fodder when he wasn't around. I don't really feel like slandering someone again on this thing, even though no one here really knows about this.

I don't feel like my blog writing self. I'm so bored. College is freaking boring. I went home after band camp ended for the Labor Day weekend. I got to visit Lakeside percussion practcing outside, that was kinda cool. I also visited Jake a lot, and realized that pretty much every aspect of Madison is much cooler than Platteville. The people actually talk there. Girls are actuualy attractive there. There's nothing here. There was maybe 2 girls I'd be willing to look at in marching band. Everyone is fat. All I saw for most of band camp were rolls of fat, moobs, and my drumsticks on my practice pad. Oh...and lots of music. Jake's dorm room is about twice the size of mine. Then there's Steve and Tim's room, which is actually three rooms, including a bathroom. It's nuts. Their ceilings are so high. Everyone I've met here that is cool wants to transfer to Madison. Go figure.

Not only is there a shortage of good-looking girls here, but a shortage of girls in general. It's a weinerfest here. I hear if you don't get a girlfriend in the first two weeks, you're pretty much screwed for the rest of the year. They're all taken by then. I don't really have any desire to get a girlfriend here anyway.

I got a new monitor. It's a flatscreen. My keyboard and mouse are new and wireless too. My parents haven't bought me things in a while. I guess there's one good side of college. There's also less class time meaning more time to do nothing.

This is sporadic and crappy. The words I'm typing are starting to look small, and they're jutting out at me. That means I'm tired. My roommate goes to bed early. He likes the dark, and is pretty quiet. Posts will be better once I update more, then I'll actually remember things. Good night.

ohmygodohmygodohmygod

2006-08-21T18:37:00.000-04:00

It's starting to hit me. Lakeside went to their first day of school today. I didn't go. I don't go there anymore. It's not that I want to go back there...it's weird. I'm sad. I'm finding myself sort of envying those that are younger than me and going back to high school. I don't know what to do myself. This is pretty much my last full day home. I'm going camping with Jake, Dave, Ben, Matt, and Dan for the next 2 days. Right after that I move in. First day of band camp.

I have to go through band camp again. What am I getting myself into?

My mom always thought I was panicking by hanging out with friends all the time. That was just me wanting to not be bored. I think now the panic has started, sitting at home alone, nothing to do but think of what's coming on Thursday. What am I going to do with myself in Platteville. I don't know anyone, I won't even meet my roommate for another week and a half, so I will be alone in my dorm room for a week and a half. What am I going to do without my brother? Out of anyone here he's the one I'll miss the most. These weeks he's been gone at camp, I've nearly killed myself out of boredom. Usually that was because I was alone. He's always there to talk to, to tell what's bothering me, or what is dominating my mind at the current time. I am amused, because my little brother is a mentor of some sorts. I am also amused, because I've said this stuff before on this blog I think.

I'm worried. I'm scared. This thing with Libby is eating away at me. She opted to not hang out with me last night, first to go to the opening service to be with Breanna, and then she ditched that to talk to her sister online in England. She said she hadn't seen her in forever, yet she saw her a week ago. I can't fully understand it, but whatever. That was the last chance to see me before I went to college. I've already been going crazy not seeing her in the past 3 or so weeks. I think. It doesn't seem right. Why does stupid Evan have to feel bad about this? I am Stupid with a capital s.

Some guy from a fraternity in Platteville is coming to interview me for a scholarship. That's weird. Work scheduled me on Monday when I told them to not schedule me after Tuesday. They didn't have the new schedule up when I was there on Thursday. How gay is that? So now I'm pulling a no call, no show. Crap!

I want to swear. But I shouldn't. I'm frustrated, worried, scared, and hopeless all rolled in to one. I know everything will be fine in a couple days. Everything I'm fearing will be fun. No words of condolence needed. I'm sure I'll meet quality people, but all I've met there so far are cockfaces it seems. I clicked with a whole bunch of people when I visited Madison. I am unsure and afraid of change.

Goodbye.

here comes another post

2006-08-15T00:26:00.000-04:00

So Rae totally had the timing of Evan down today, as she started talking to me on msn as soon as I sat down and then asked me to post right when I was about to post. Nice going. Also nice going for making me a postcard out of a Nerds box. That's definitely the coolest postcard I've ever recieved. And with such an action, my love is earned, along with Jake and Brittany, who also sent me mail at camp. Congratulations.

I was at camp all week. To be honest, it's probably the most fun I've ever had at camp. Archery went really well, Thursday was tiring though, because I lead cloud shooting for 10 to 530. Of course with breaks for lunch and quiet time in between. I had fun because I knew I wasn't being evaluated. I'm sitting here wondering if I was even having fun at all my last year of junior staff. A lot of people told me to apply next year, and I'm seriously considering it now.

I'm trying to remember camp. Yeesh. Emily Waldorf coincidentally volunteered the same week. That was cool. Aaron Schulz got his own cabin as a regular counselor, even though he's still junior staff, and he did an awesome job. I got to cover his cabin on night off, and lead reflections and stuff. That was fun. The kids had a lot of fun, and they quieted down quickly while I played guitar. Haha...that sentence had two q words in it. Hahahahaha. Borck, Blake, and Steve Vandenberg would get that.

I stayed in the shack out back with Borck and Nick. That was a pretty good time. The shack kept progressively smelling worse everyday though. It was weird. Everyday was like a new, worse smell. It's better than staying in one of the wagons like we were supposed to at first though. They don't have power...and are hot. I am thankful for the shack out back. I stayed there the last time I was at camp, that same week last year. My slacking week. My week of worthlessness. Fun week. Thinking about such a time makes me realize how old this blog really is. I remember being an experienced blog writer when writing that post, and that was a full year ago. Good ol' blog.

Uh...what else to talk about. Emily K's cabin was pretty hilarious, because they all had crushes on me. These types of girls cabins were a little easier to get interested in archery. They would always yell "EVAN!" and stuff. It was crazy. The thing that cracked me up the most was during one of the evening games. It was a field game, and there were frisbees everywhere, so the campers had to get the frisbees and bring them back to the base thing. Counselors got to tag the kids, but when they brought a frisbee in, they'd get an x on there hand, and they could then tag the counselors and bring them to jail. Well, we weren't expecting all the kids to be able to chase us within about 5 minutes. We couldn't struggle as they were bringing us to jail either, so jail was all full pretty quickly. Then, we were granted the right to struggle.

Well, oh boy, this group of girls actively sought me out, and probably caught me about 5 times. They would actually tell other campers to go away when they tried to help bring me into jail. They would steal me away from other campers that caught me. At one point I was sort of playing dead, and one of them actually says "Ooh! I wanna give him CPR!" Yeesh. These girls are 11. At most.

So that was crazy. It was so amazing seeing everyone again, and getting to know some of the SALT staff I didn't really know before. Amy Holtz really helped me with leading archery, and taught me how to do a lot. I had never really talked to her before. She was a sweet help. I forgot to thank her. So uh...thanks Amy..haha.

When I came home from camp, I had an email address written on each arm, which I really didn't give any thought to until everyone started making comments at work...and at Sentry. "Oooh...are you picking up chicks' email addresses?" To avoid further explanation, I usually just said yes. They were from Brian P. and Steph A., so one of them was a guy. Haha. I like them. They're both in their last year as junior staff, and I can see them both being amazing SALT staffers.

Wow, I'm really not in the mood for a marathon post with millions of details. I'll probably add more about specific experiences in a different post.

Yesterday (or 2 days ago now) was fun, because I hung out with Jake at his church's dedication picnic for their new school. We then went to house, and Dave came over. We went to Prairie Athletic Club after that, to pick up Jordy from work, and then we played indoor soccer, and some hoops. That was fun. Dave and I were going to sneak in with Jake's work shirts, but Mrs. Hanke ended up paying for us to get in anyway, so we didn't. We went back to house, and Dan came. Dan is a sweet dude. The Hankes served us an amazing dinner, and we sat and reminisced about high school times, mainly all the times Dave got in trouble. He has a lot of those times. It was funny.

Dan gave me a ride home, and we talked quite a bit, it was a lot of fun.

My phone just inverted the colors on the screen. Yeesh. This thing is like...new. Come on. I didn't even drop it...in the last week or so. I think I've dropped it a few times, but this screen thing is unprovoked. Maybe it's because I used a different...charger? That's the only thing I can think of, I left one of them at camp. It was the one from my old phone, so I grabbed the one that came with the new phone.

I'ma go to bed. By the way, by "everyone can comment", that means you may comment anonymously now, without a blogger account. So now, people like Dave may comment on the blog. So uh, feel free to take advantage of my desperate attempts to get more comments. Buh bye.

oh crap

2006-08-06T02:47:00.000-04:00

So uh....Libby is a blog reader now. Oops. We had a conversation about that. I'm not really sure what her exact emotion was during the time, seeing that it was on the internet. I don't remember much from it either. All I remember is having this weird feeling like I was floating. That lasted awhile...until I got up and turned on a light. I said I don't know a lot. I couldn't remember what I wrote either.

So I went back and read it. Wow. Some of it is valid, what I've been thinking. A lot of it was me being pissed off talk. Not only that, but it's probably the worst, most incoherent crap I've ever written. I'm thinking of deleting that post, even though Dave told me it was the best one ever. I kept skipping words. How do I miss words? It looks so dumb. I've probably already done it in this post. I'm probably doing it right now. I'm too sleepy to notice perhaps. Hell!

I knew it was a bad idea to write that...and I'm sorry. Especially since I still liked her all through that.

Wow. So I promised Anna a blogpost. We hung out the other day, because she had to pick up her piano books. We ate pizza, and then went shopping for chapstick, and deodorant for me. It was a pretty cool time. We kept running into the family that she is employed by...being a nanny. That was funny. They all thought I was her boyfriend. We ran into them on two separate occasions. Awkward. We also saw Josh. He cut his hair.

I was supposed to talk about my graduation party. I don't really want to. Not that I didn't have fun...I just don't like graduation parties. When I am holding them. I guess. I don't know. They're awkward. I saw my old friend James though. That was pretty cool.

I'm going to camp next week. That's out of the blue. I get to be program staff. Blake told me I'm leading archery and staying in a conestoga wagon. Lead archery?! That'll be interesting, I was always average at best at archery. One time I hit the stuffed Barney on some target really far away at some weird horse barn. I got 10 dollars for it. That is my one archery achievement. Oh well. Hopefully no kids die when I'm leading it. I'll probably die of heatstroke. Or sunburn. If you can die of that. I'm sure I will. So uh...while I'm gone all week it'd be super cool if you'd send me mail. I think I'd most assuredly love you forever. I don't believe I've forgotten others that I now love forever because of past responses to pleas similar to these. So if that's assuring...come on down!

Evan Samanas
W9944 Buttercup Ave.
Wautoma, WI 54982

If you would like to send Jason Schleef any mail...like say for his birthday, which is the 8th according to Myspace (if I remember) then:

Jason Schleef
W9944 Buttercup Ave.
Wautoma, WI 54982

Alright. It's 2 in the morning. I shouldn't be up this late. I have to get fairly early...to go to camp. To drive myself to camp. Whoa boy. I'm hoping this will be more enjoyable, seeing that I can probably just unwind and have fun, without worrying if someone is judging me on my junior staffing abilities. huubeh!

Everyone can comment. Ah ah ah.

lizzy i'll write, i'll sing

2006-07-22T00:35:00.000-04:00

It's been awhile since I've written a blog that wasn't playing catch up for the lack of time I have written. Being faced with college in a month makes you think. Why does everything have to change now? Why am I doing marching band?? Should I even continue to exist here, with a month to go? Weird stuff man.

It's weird how my mind works. It confuses me, which in itself is confusing, because my own mind is confusing itself. Heh. I feel I've gotten to know my mind pretty well though, through 18 years of using it as my primary thinking tool. But it's only been in the past few months that I've particularly noticed a specific trait of it. The dreams. Wow, the dreams. My brother talks about how he can never ever remember his dreams, yet I can. Almost every night. Not always in great detail, but usually the main plot. Yet lately I've noticed that if a certain girl is on my mind she pops up in my dreams. Yet, usually it's when the situation with them seems hopeless. It's like my mind uses its dream state to cheer me up, make me feel like everything is okay with them for a little bit. Usually the situation is better than what I think it is. There's another mind trick. But that's another tangent.

The thing is it keeps happening. Over and over. I'll wake up and swear quietly knowing that it was the 3rd or 4th night in a row that she's appeared in my dreams again. Once, 9 out of 10 nights in a row were dreams about a certain girl. Of course I'm not naming names, and I hate talking like this. So, I'll move on. It's just something to think about. Maybe it happens to everyone, who knows.

This past year has been fun, but it went fast. Half the summer has flown by, quite quickly. It's funny how I just spent two weeks in close contact with a lot of people I've known for awhile in high school, and now my contact with them will drop off quite severely. I was thinking about some of my old friends as a little kid, and how I barely ever think about them. Yet, there were summers that they'd be over at my house every single day. Like my friend Lee. Lee was from Taiwan. He was over a lot. Our friendship kind of died when his parents got divorced. Mostly because his mom and my mom's friendship sort of died. One time, I gave him some food in the drive-thru at Arby's. I didn't recognize him until he drove away. He ordered a Beef 'n Cheddar. With his dad. The dad that sort of ran off for a little while, which caused the divorce. The dad that used to drive us and some others to the Dells on Lee's birthday. Those were fun times. There's James, who I also spent a lot of time with. He recently left a voicemail message on my phone. I haven't talked to him in years. I should hang out with both those guys. But the funny thing is, through high school, I barely thought of those guys. They probably barely thought of me. Life was still good. I'd imagine that's the way college will be like. Here I am thinking about leaving this life that I've only been around for 4 years.

One of my fears though, is these people that are important to me now becoming awkward conversations years down the road. I really don't like that. Like when I talk on the phone with someone that I really enjoy, and we're both fairly speechless. Will conversations not go further than "How's life?"? I hope not. I should work so they don't.

Another thing I find fairly amusing is people noticing a change in me. People have actually said I look taller to them. On several occasions. Jake said I looked more muscular than before. Maybe this is the source of the higher levels of attention for girls that I've recieved...because I'm using to getting none. Of course I can never confirm a lot of it...yet it just seems that a lot more girls are willing to flirt with me than before. This couldn't happen when I had one more year of high school? Now I'm just going to get lost in the shuffle again. Haha.

I can't think of any more stuff to think much more about. What?

I got a 4 on my ap calc exam. Holy crap. Jake got that too...and he studied one night. He's smarter than he realizes. Mr. 31. I studied so much...and I don't study much normally. He would always talk about how he wasn't getting calculus, how Kirsten was the only reason he was doing okay. He'd get so frustrated, yet somehow he got out okay. Good ol' Jake.

Tomorrow is my graduation party. I don't even want to have one. If you didn't get invited, it's probably because I forgot. Especially if you aren't associated with Lakeside, because I just used the yearbook to make out the list of people I wanted to invite. I can't really send invitations to the people I think of later, because my parents sent out the invitations when I was gone. And by the time I thought about it, it was only a week till the thing. But the party starts at 2, for whoever, and ends whenever. Stupid parties. I don't like hosting parties.

I think it's about time to wrap this up. And if this girl pops up in my dreams tonight, well then that'll be night number 5 in a row, because she's on a 4 night winning streak.

I love you, whoever is still here.

i need to get this in soon

2006-07-17T23:22:00.000-04:00

So today I went shopping. Kind of ironic, seeing that I had two weeks to shop, and really didn't. I bought the first season of Grey's Anatomy for 20 bucks, and a John Mayer's first cd. Sometime, before summer ends, I'll be sure to be having a marathon of Grey's Anatomy, so if there's anyone like me out there, that missed the first season, or most of it, let me know. We'll set something up. As far as John Mayer goes, every song I heard of his on the radio I liked, so I figured it was time to buy a cd. I hung with Lucas for a bit, and then we went to Phil Trapp's house, talked, wathced Robot Chicken. That's a funny show. Then we ate at Culver's. A good time was had.

Do I normally use tab? Well, this paragraph is gettin it. Yesterday was fun too. I went to Jake's house, and we played soccer with Dave and Mr. Hanke, and then we shot off fireworks. The Samanas brothers are once again dominant in the game of backyard soccer. When we shot off fireworks, this guy came out with his shirt off.

"You shootin' off fireworks?"
"uh..yeah...."
"Well knock that s*** off! Next time I'm callin the cops"
"Excuse me?"
"Some people are trying to sleep, I have to get up at 4:30 in the morning!"

It was 930. What a retard. I've lost the will to blog...I'll start up again tomorrow.

Okay, so it's the day after tomorrow in my past self's perspective. Enough rambling about my useless days at home...let's talk about the band trip. Er..what I can remember at least. The first day was of course...when we left. Jake and Dave were there to see us off, so that was cool. I had to go ask Mr. Fenske if I could bring my guitar, because he had asked me to play "Getting Into You" at church in Calgary with Caleb. As I had figured, he forgot, but he said yes, if there's room. I then got all these weird looks from everybody for bringing my guitar. I felt like a douchebag. Oh well, I put it under the bus with the luggage. We had the leaving church ceremony dealy, and Pastor Clark preached. That was pretty cool. Jake gave me his sunglasses. I really didn't know where to put them for awhile, so they may have gotten a little scratched up. Oops. Later I hung them on the blinds on the bus. The thing ended, and then we said our goodbyes, got on the busses, and left. It's really weird riding in a coach bus down Main Street of Lake Mills, but it has to be done to get out. Sort of.

So we were off, and I was seating partner with John Fenske. I've never been that close to John, but he's the only guy my age that I can halfway relate to on the band trip. Our roomies were sitting in front of us, Josh Niedfeldt and Matt. I'd never even said a word to Matt before this, and he's only one class below me. I don't remember much from this day. I remember stopping at a rest stop right across the border of Minnesota. I discovered that girl's bathroom lines are very very long at every rest stop, and you get to walk through it and proclaim how empty your bladder feels. They don't like that too much. I remember going up to this freshman who has the same name as a certain lead guitarist for the All-American Rejects. Somehow I didn't realize this until after the band trip though. I walked up to him with ear plugs in my ears. Like a good, not awkward freshman, he said hi to me. I then replied with a "WHAT???" Heh heh. I like doing that. He's a good kid, but he may turn into a jerk because of the major attention he got from girls right away. I hope not. I hope he stays a good kid. I believe we drove to some hotel in South Dakota, and we pracitced in the parking lot of a KMart. It was weird. There was a pool at the hotel. That was pretty cool. There was also a hot tub and a tiny sauna. The sauna made me itchy. Wow.. that was a cool time. I remember going into the shallow end with a bunch of people, and we were all running around in a circle, and it created this whirlpool. If you stopped at this one point, the whirlpool would throw you out of it and kind of pull you under. You seriously couldn't go the opposite direction. It was nuts. I learned that girls are way more open about when they shave their legs and when they poop on band trips. They talked about it a lot. It was weird. This was also probably the night that Josh and I stayed up to watch that stupid as crap documentary on porn. It was weird. Really weird. Like an actual documentary. Totally not worth staying up till like...2.

We traveled from this hotel to go sight seeing. We saw the badlands. That was okay, but I've already seen them. I've also been to Wall Drug, Mt.Rushmore, and Crazy Horse, and all those South Dakota attractions, so it really wasn't new to me. Badlands was more fun the first time, because we weren't allowed to climb on anything with the group. I remember sliding down the weird formations with a bunch of kids the first time. That was actually fun. This time it was just kind of dumb. We traveled through a whole lot of nothing to get there. We then went to Wall Drug. Blake and I walked around for a bit. The cafeteria smelled like oversalted pretzels. We had already picked out our lunches, and we had little colored tickets that made me feel like a douche. Oh well. I drank a milkshake, hung out with Steve and Aaron a bit. That was cool. I played Die Hard arcade with Aaron, which is just about the best game ever made, introduced to me by my old friend from kindergarten, James. We then were supposed to go to Mt. Rushmore, but we didn't. I guess people were lined up since like 7 in the morning to get in, because of a fireworks display. So we went to Crazy Horse, which we weren't planning on. We watched a movie that told us that Crazy Horse is taking so frickin long because it's basically being built by one guy's family and is funded by the gift shops on the bottom. They turned down government funding. So it's taken more than 50 years to get a face and part of an arm. For a while, it was just one guy working on it. I don't think it will ever get done. I'm not sure why they don't accept government funding. It was kind of boring there. We then went to Spearfish, SD, and stayed at this really nice Holiday Inn who gave us a sandwich spread. Kristina taught us all how to make that one annoying sound when you rub your finger on the top of a crystal glass. This day seems like ages ago. We swam again. Brittany told me her swimming suit top fell off, and I was regretting not coming to the pool sooner. So was everyone. I don't believe anyone saw anyway. I was in this hot tub that had so many people in it, it almost overflowed. It was funny when John and I came in, and Josh and Matt were sitting in there with this asian lady. She was sitting on the steps, head down, eyes closed. As soon as we walked in there, she booked it out of there. She was weird.

The next day, we marched to parades. One in Belle Fourche, or something like that, the other in Spearfish. Belle Fourche wasn't all that fun, it was a horse poop-a-thon. It was okay though. Fairly short, a little muggy, and cars parked on the side of the street didn't allow us to do our routine very much, which doesn't matter to me...I'm percussion. Spearfish was a really fun parade though. It was a nice, comfortable temperature, sunny, we were towards the front, so no horse poop. There was this time we were going down this hill, and there was this mountain in the background. It looked so cool. Someone there said we had a good drumline. Well...let him believe whatever he wants... After was pretty cool too. We went to this weird Spearfish July 4th party afterwards, where city council members served us ice cream. Then they had these weird things called outhouse races. There's these outhouses (or they were supposed to look like outhouses) with wheels and no doors. One person sat in the outhouse, and 4 people or so pushed them to these poles with all these toilet paper rolls on them. The object was to get all the toilet paper rolls in the outhouse, without dropping any on the ground or touching the pole, that was a 5 second penalty or something. Then you had to go around the pole before going to the next one. There were about 5 of these. Then there was a cone that also had to be rounded, and then a race back to the start. How bizarre. The chaperones won. I think they got trophies with an outhouse on them. What a weird place. We then moved on to stay at a school in Billings, MT. There were fireworks all over the city. That was pretty cool. We ate pizza, and I played guitar and stuff. Some chaperone needlessly yelled at me for checking out where the graduates were sleeping, seeing that I AM a graduate, 5 minutes before lights out. The chaperones were mostly gayfaces. They liked to just yell at you. There was no understanding of any situation. They just got angry. They'd get angry at Blake for asking valid questions. Plus they never knew what they were doing. Hm.

In the morning we had a practice to work on our field show. It still needed so much work. After 2 or 3 hours, we finally had it under control. So that was fairly good. We then left for Great Falls, MT. There must've been a hotel there, I don't really remember. O yeah, it was a super 8. Our last stop before Canada. Nothing special happened there I don't think. We ate cakes that Brittany's parents brought for the graduates and birthday people. They were tasty. I think that's about it.

It seems weird talking about all the activities we did. Seeing that I had the most fun talking to people, yet I can't really right too much about conversations I had. So blah blah, we left Great Falls, and headed towards the border. We made one last gas station stop in Sweetgrass, MT, which is right on the border. I remember talking to Libby a lot this stop.

I suppose I should address the issue in this here blog. I don't think I ever talked about her on here. Libby is silly girl. Who is very pretty...and who I also recently found out that she's liked me for about 6 months. I never really payed much attention to when she would flirt with me because...Libby is a special case. She's a major tease. Flirting is like her second language..as put by her last boyfriend. I would go home and talk to Blake about it early on, when I started sensing it. He would just say, "It's Libby, she flirts with everyone". Well, so it was kind of in the back of my mind. But no, she's been thinking about me well before she broke up with her last boyfriend, and probably others too...supposedly Ben Paynter too. What a weird girl. Well, Libby is also a snare. In fact I unseated her as lead snare. She's only Blake's grade too. By this last band camp it's been kinda kicked into high gear...her sending me text messages, asking when we should hang out, stuff like that. On graduation day, I didn't feel like going to some graduation parties, and I ran into her at a gas station, so Blake and I just went over there and, we had a hot tub party. Just Libby, me, and Blake. Now, it's very weird when you have a very pretty girl throwing herself at you, you don't date much..at all, yet you know that this girl will hurt you if you get close to her. What a weird situation. I always kept Blake around when she came over. We would laugh about this, saying I was going to be the only guy that didn't give in to her. So weird. So here, Evan, with little to no girl experience, is sort of leading this pretty girl on. One time she came over before summer band practice, and my relatives were still over. I'm pretty sure they all thought she was my girlfriend. Hahaha. Wow...I don't I've covered any of this stuff. One time Blake and I were just sitting around watching world cup soccer. So she sent all these text messages asking if I wanted to hang out today. So after sending back non-descript replies, I finally agreed. And we sat and watched soccer. Then she watched Blake and me play music, and play quake 2 against each other. That's probably the funniest. Here's me and my brother sitting at our computers, blowing each other up, swearing at each other, and she's standing there watching for probably around 15 minutes. What a date, huh?

Now I would've never done this to her if I hadn't known about her, had I not had Blake around to tell me all this stuff, and her reputation. Like how last band trip only lasted a weekend, and she was in to three guys throught that. Three. In three days. She probably made out with all of them. One of them was Alex Opperman. ALEX OPPERMAN. She also cheated on Austin Ziche. My brother's best friend when we were little. A kid I used to make fun of with Ryan. And now she's going after me?? Everytime I got a little too caught up in her I would tell myself all of this. Just think..."alex opperman. alex opperman. ALEX OPPERMAN!" It's hard to dodge a pretty girl. I still felt bad for kind of jerking her around, but I know it's what she would've done to me.

So this all made the band trip a bit more awkward, going somewhere for 2 weeks with a girl I had no idea what to do with. It's funny because everyone around in band knew it. In fact, everyone knew she was coming on to me. I didn't think it was THAT obvious, but geez. Even the last boyfriend knew while they were still going out. Haha.

So uh...there's my Libby rant. There'll be more to come though. This will be extremely long. I'm sure that'll make Dave happy. And mist, whoever you are, thanks for reading my blog too. It feels weird typing all of this for about 5 people. Oh well.

Going across the border was weird. We got stopped after we made it through, because we didn't have some liscense, which later we found out we didn't really need. So they were just messing with us for about 2 hours, while we sat there. I played my guitar on the bus throughout that, and sort of had a little concert. It was fun. I also played camp songs for devotion a couple times. That was cool too. This also I believe was the day I rubbed Kirsten's feet. I told them all the story about how mother would make us rub her feet on long trips, and would put one foot on each armrest, and I would rub the left one, and Blake would rub the right one. Y'know, I never ever think of foot rubs, but apparently they're pretty important to girls. I was also told I'm very good at it. Score one for me I guess. So we went to Calgary. We stayed at a school, which everyone claimed that we were getting judged by the way we lined up our stuff. That's only half true. We aren't actually scored on behavior. That's what they want us to believe. Really it's only if it's close, they give it to the better behaved. So this was the day before the big Calgary Stampede parade. Calgary Stampede, by the way, is this enormous festival that lasts about 9 days, really centered around rodeos. Yet there is a parade that's over 3 miles, that is pretty stiffly judged. There's also a marching band field show contest in the Saddledome. That's a weird place. We practiced for the parade and stuff like that, and at night, they kept us up so we could hear lots of pep talks that really made this parade sound like more than it was. 300,000 people there...nationally televised numerous times. Y'know. Kind of like Canada's Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. That kind of magnitude.

The day of the parade was interesting, fairly hot, and snares weren't being clean during cadence, so that kinda sucked. It was kinda neat though...we marched behind the Calgary Flames hockey team. They were riding horses. That wasn't fun. As we were in the parade, I could hear people counting how many of us stepped in poop...because we're not supposed to avoid it. It was a pretty good rush when no one can hear me start up the cadence, or hearing my drum alone echo through the skyscrapers and stuff. That's pretty neat. The guard couldn't even hear my drum ever. They do cheer a lot at times. Yet sometimes they were pretty quiet, which was sort of a let down. They had me start the song both times while I was in a turn, which means I can't see drum major's signals, and I'm taking about 3 foot strides to keep our line straight. Doing rolloff isn't exactly ideal for that. So that was dumb. I got pepped up again at the national tv area. This camera went right up to Sara and did a close up on her bells. She marches right in front of me. Then he went way close to me, and down the snares. Too bad that was the part of the song that we don't play. I was hyped about playing snare close up on national tv, and if the guy would've come sooner or later, I would've. Darn. It was a long parade, but I felt like I could've marched another one afterwards. There were about 5 people that fainted. And Melissa, who carries the banner and does zero work, was the only one to go down actually during the parade. Some knee problem she had. She was doing cartwheels a couple days later. Not many people liked her after that...or before that for that matter.

My parents surprised us and came up to see the parade. Those crazy people. They left the day after. After the parade we went back to the school to shower and change. Oh yeah... we found out we got 3rd out of about 19. The Calgary Flames stopped while we were in the judging area to do crowd pleasing stuff, so we had to do our routine standing still. That hurt us. We were confused, and got out of step, a lot of us. There are two judges areas, this happened in the second one. We were stopped later in the judges stand by a train. They let a train cross. So this was disappointing seeing that all the other times we've come to Calgary we've won the parade. We all feel we could've won I think though. A judge at the first area gave us a perfect score, and that never happens. We got good scores overall. Guard tied for second in the parade too, pretty sweet. After the parade we went to this ranch outside of Calgary, which was sort of cool, they had hay rides, food, whatever else. They taught us line dancing later. That was weird. That was a day I started responding to Libby a bit more. So uh...line dancing. Katie made me do it. And for awhile I was the only guy under 40 who was doing it. That was definitely awkward. Then, Matt came and joined me. That was silly. Later as we were about to leave, Blake told me that two of Libby's friends on separate occasions came up to Jake Stubblefield and talked about how much she wanted to make out with him. This pissed me off. I have heard about her doing this, but she never actually did it to me. Which she still didn't. She technically had nothing binding her to me. But on the same note, she was still going after me, and I was giving in a little more. This is wrong. So I got totally pissed at her...didn't really talk to her for a little bit. So went back from the ranch, and learned we had to get up early for some weird standstill performance, and then eat at a pancake breakfast that's free to everyone in Calgary.

So we went to this standstill, where we play all our songs. It felt really weird. We were 10 minutes late, and it was in a mall parking lot. The people we were going to be performing for could hear us warming up, while a country band was playing on a stage set up maybe 200 yds. away, if that. So we marched this distance, and then played, after they heard us warm up, and then returned to the busses, all in plain view of them. How weird. We then went to eat breakfast, which was pretty frickin good for being cooked for the entire city. After this we had a little free time. A couple of us were watching the country band, and they said something about having people come up and dance, and they'd give a cowboy hat to the best dancer. Caleb Schmiege and I were the first to jump in from Lakeside, and we started skanking. So then, a small little skanking pit formed, with people who really didn't know how. It was funny. Then lots of the band came in and used the line dancing we learned the night before. This made the people happy. Me and Caleb line danced for one song, and then started jumping around while everyone else kept line dancing. We were coined "energizer bunnies" by the country band. That was awesome. We danced until we had to leave, and before the last song, Caleb was holding two white cowboy hats, and he gave one to me. Turns out, there were these two women that were pissed that we didn't win the hats, so they gave us theirs off their heads. Wow. That was really neat. So I got a cowboy hat, for skanking to Johnny Cash music. That made me really tired. And WOW! There's still so much more to say.

After this we went to another standstill performance, where we marched through the stampede grounds, and then played on the steps of the Saddledome. That was fairly thrilling. I was angry after our first performance on the grounds. Percussion got off during one of the songs. I wanted to kill them all, and I told them this. I guess I was in a pretty sour mood. After that though, it was fun, because we got free time on the Stampede grounds, which is kind of like one big carnival. I didn't really spend much money, just the lunch allowance they gave us. They had these slurpie type things there called "Cold Sucks". Funny as they sound, they were amazing and only one canadian dollar. What a deal, I'll tell ya. So I was hanging out with John, Josh, Matt, and Kristina until we went to these chuck wagon races. Those were dumb. It was fun showing people this trick I learned from Kristina though, some were actually fooled by it. It was really funny. It's not that good of a trick. Maybe I'll show you some time. I sat by all of Blake's friends, they're a lot of fun. I also sat behind this one dude that was from Austria, but lived in Canada. He sounded a lot like Tomas Kalnoky, lead singer and guitarist of Streetlight Manifesto, and he kinda looked like him too. Tomas's brother Achilles lives in Hungary, implying they're from there or something, because Kalnoky is some sort of European name. Well, Austria-Hungary used to be a one country. So I guess there's the connection. It was funny, later I looked behind me and saw Libby, and she waved at me. Now..I was still pissed at her, so I just gave her the finger and yelled at her. Fairly uncharacteristic of me. She sucks. It was still fairly light-hearted though. Later she was walking in front of the bleachers with her friends and waved at me. I kept yelling at her, and then I told my Austrian friend how much of a slut she was. She really wanted to know what I said to him.

Mmm...apple pie a la mode....

Later I left the races with Steve, Anna, and Caleb, and possibly others, and I got this really good ice cream, which was the first time I ever liked Breyer's. I was almost late to get back to the busses.

The next day was church. The day Caleb and I were supposed to play Getting Into You, but he lost his voice. So we just didn't mention it to Mr. Fenske, who forgot again. Oh well. Turns out the pastor there is a heck of a guitar player. They fed us pancakes, and we had church outside, sitting on chairs, hay bales, and the ground. It was called Mountainview Lutheran Church for good reason, there was definitely lots of mountains in view. The pastor hooked up his acoustic-electric to an amp and sang a bunch of songs with us for preservice. Geez. He could play. Our choir sang during the service. We then left for Banff National Park. Most of the ride there I spent air drumming, trying to learn "Hold Me Down" by Motion City Soundtrack in its entirety. It's really hard. Banff is a beautiful place. We went to two lakes formed by glacier water, and they were really beautiful. I'll post pictures probably, but they don't do it justice. Then we went up to this glacier, where was a really nice hotel. On the way up, word got around of my foot rubbing, and Denise, the guard coach, asked to get her foot rubbed. It was kind of awkward rubbing her feet, but I like Denise, she's cool. She also said I was very good at it. Alright. The Ice Chalet hotel whatever thing was huge. Our rooms were crazy. There was two double beds, one being out of a couch, and then two single beds upstairs. That's right...upstairs. There's a freakin staircase in each room. I got an entire double bed to myself. They were adding two other people to some rooms, but not ours I guess. And...our room was right across the hallway from Libby and her roommates. Whoa boy.

So we went to eat, and y'know, it was funny how with every day I had a new outlook on Libby. I kept changing my mind. Anna told me she overheard Libby talking in the shower, about how she still likes me but I'm "really hard to read right now". Yet she still liked Jake, because she's always liked Jake. What a crapface. At least I'm hard to read... So I was with Libby during dinner and stuff like that, and she kept flirting with me..and asking what I said to Mr. Austria man. Also asking why I was mad at her, what'd she do. This was a good segue. To talk about all she's done, and why I am afraid to get closer to her. So when they walked up to their room and for some reason I was with them, and then I realized I was locked out of my room, I talked to her about that. It was weird. She just took it. She didn't try to put many of my fears to rest or anything. She just couldn't deny any of it. I told her I did kind of like her, which was true. But geez....me being retarded, after this I started to like her more. Really my only attraction to her has to be physical, because she sort of cycles through things to say when I'm talking to her. There's the "heyyyyy", "whatever", "HEY!", or some random conversation about something we've talked about in the past. Regurgitations, I like to call them. She does that when she's looking at me from across the room too. About 3 different facial expressions, and then she cycles again. So not much personality to love I guess. To give her credit, I have had a lot of fun with her. She has a better personality than a lot of girly girls, she's more down to earth, cooler than that. Yet you just don't see this when she's flirting with you. So leads to the saying of Blake's "Libby is cool until you date her".

I guess she was fairly upset after that conversation...but hey, she's got other guys to chase after too. Hm...what happened later. Josh was being gay, and pretty much showed Nicole his weiner, while she was standing outside her door, locked out of her room. That bugged me. I don't wanna watch some kid get excited by exposing himself to some girl. We're only supposed to be naked behind closed doors. Oh well.

The next day we went on this tour on the glacier. Theres these crazy vehicles that travel on them, and it's really cold. It was raining when we were up there, but I guess it snows all the time. There was this glacier water freely running through some parts. It was incredibly pure. You could just drink it off the glacier. Very tasty, cold, fresh water. That was fun. Then, we went back. To go to Banff the city. That was the gayest time ever. EVER! 5 hours to walk around this stupid little town and shop. 5 hours!! I didn't really want to shop, so I didn't. For awhile, we just walked around aimlessly. John left our group because he was embarrassed by me and Josh in the toy store, shaking those "Magic Bars" that make this really weird noise. We were being loud. Oh well....me, Josh, Matt, and Jake Stubblefield went to an oxygen bar to try it out. It was only 5 bucks for 15 minutes of Spearmint flavored oxygen. Jake and Matt went first. Josh and I wandered around for a little bit, and we went into this store called the Hemporium. What a crazy place. All pot accessories. There was this guy in there that worked there, and he seemed stoned. He asked us if we wanted a job as soon as we walked in. Well, we told him we were from Wisconsin, and then he made a wisecrack about cheese. Original. He then asked us if we agreed with our president. Everyone in Canada asks that. We said sort of, and he went on this huge rant about how our president makes us look bad, and how we should get up and be heard, and piss off 1 person every day about our president. He was nuts. We left. When we got in there, Matt and Jake were laughing their head off, like they were high. Well, this removed doubt from us that it would be cool. So we went in and put the oxygen things on. Then Matt and Jake told us it was absolutely worthless, they were acting high so that we would spend our money. Darn. It did make me feel a bit lightheaded I guess. I don't know. It was a waste of time. There was this hot girl working there though.

Matt really wanted a zippo lighter. He saw some being sold before, and after tricking Nicole, Greta, Blake and Andy for a bit that we actually got high off of oxygen, we walked around the whole stupid town looking for that store again. Matt went into hemporium again and saw a zippo, but it turned out to be a bong in disguise. Weird stuff man. We also went into this camping store, and laid in a display tent for about 10 minutes, and the storekeeper never noticed us. That was fun. Matt, Josh and Jake were then just loud. Really loud. Josh and Matt had made this cheer to spite the people that wanted to do actual band cheers before parades. It was basically Matt saying "BAND!" and then Josh would say "WOO!" and they just kept going. People got really annoyed at first, but then everyone liked it. Jake has this weird voice he does too, where he acts like a kid. They did this over and over, everyone was staring at us. I was pissed after all that crap. It was mostly 5 hours of nothing, with a couple of good stories, but not even oxygen bars did anything. Matt finally got his stupid lighter.

We went back to Calgary after this. I don't remember what we did. The next day was a lot of free time, because of laundry. Anna did my laundry, and about 8 other people's too. She's great. We might've done a standstill, I don't even remember. That might've been the time we did one in a stadium before a dog show, and the announcer said we were from Minnesota.

The day after that was crazy, because that was the day of the field show. There was a pretty good amount of people there. I don't really want to talk about it much though. We're never good at field shows. We got 3rd out of 4, beaten by two bands from Calgary, all-city. Of course, I felt crappy because one of them was comprised of 7th to 9th graders. That sucked. We beat them all in the parade though. So we got 3rd. We got 5th four years ago..so I guess it's an improvement. I think we got 5th..I wasn't there. So then, we had to prepare for sleeping on the bus and driving through the night. That kinda sucked...but Ben Folds puts you right to sleep. By Jesusland, I was out. They watched Signs too. I woke up, watched my favorite part, and then went back to sleep. I woke once more to hear Mr. Riedel yelling "NIIIIC!!! NO!" and some other things, I guess he was found in the same seat as a girl. I only heard that and John saying "Oh my God..." and then went right back to sleep. I didn't even notice that we weren't moving at the moment. Sleeping on the bus hurts your neck.

So we went to our secret stop after a big hangup at U.S. customs. They were training people, so they ran some of our bags through x-rays. We ate at a lot of buffets. Then we went to a secret stop, which was a hotel with sort of a waterpark and a mall built right on it. That was kinda cool. We stayed at a lot of hotels. More so then what I remember band trips being like. We had our graduate dinner that night, at Pizza Hut. I ate lots of pizza. Then, we had to get up at 430, because we had to drive from there in North Dakota, to River Falls, WI and then march a parade there. That sucked. I wasn't able to sleep on the bus the way there. My neck hurt too much, and I wasn't in a window seat anymore.

The parade kinda sucked. We were the last entry. It was super hot. We had a lot of time to sit around and wait. Libby started flirting with a lot of people, and me sort of included. This made me very angry. I wasn't in a good mood to start with all the heat, and the snares were sucking. I threw my stick at them. It hit Libby. HA. Starting then I decided not to make eye contact with her, and see how much she actually reached out and talked to me. Just as I thought, she was in a mode that whatever guy came into her sight she would flirt with, and I was not in that sight. So we did not say a word to each other starting then until...well now. She didn't even say goodbye when we left for good. That could be the last time I see her for a long long time. But she doesn't actually care about the guys she likes. This is what made me really angry. I flipped her off once more on the ride home for good measure, and this time I actually felt hurt. She still kept me around while she was around other guys, and I kept getting more attached. Still, I can't find too much cause for me to be this mad at her.

But oh yeah...we got second in River Falls. In some stupid parade that we're always supposed to win, we didn't. An all-city band beat us. We won best wind section though. And percussion I heard was 1 point off the best. That would've been nice to win. We went to the school we were staying at, and the chaperones we're being jerks about everything, yelling at us for stuff that didn't matter anymore, like lining up our beds. Come on. It's not like we're being judged for anything. So then morning came, and we went back to Lake Mills. That was kind of cool. They got a police and fire department escort to the school for Mr. Fenske, and called in channel 15, who did a report on us. All because it was Mr. Fenske's last year of summer band. 27 years. We had our homecoming parade, and I made it on tv. It was neat. Also, Borck, Shinnick and Schleef happened to see our busses as they came back for the .38 special concert. So it was kind of crazy how they came to the homecoming thing. I was excited about that. Then we went home. I still felt really bad about the whole Libby thing, but I at least got to see her sister. She's a babe, and plays piano and sings like Norah Jones. Maybe I should go for her. What's 10 years? I hear she also has a stage name. Hot.

I also neglected to mention Brittany during most of this, except for the swimsuit thing, but I probably had the most fun being with her. We made it a point to sit next to each other for every devotion. Quite the streak. We also counted rubber bands together, because of something I said about, do bags of twist ties actually have the exact number they say, because no one's going to count them.... Well in a bag of 85, we actually found 104. Her arm is really comfortable too. She's quite an amazing friend.

Talking to Jennifer about the whole Libby thing made me feel a lot better. She finds the situation quite comical, and it's kind of funny to have her on my side, sort of giving me advice.

Okay. Now I really have to go, I've spent a whole lot of time on this post. Who knows if the length will stack up to some of my other monsters. I have to work, and clean up outside, and shower. I don't have much time.

See ya Dave.

bleh

2006-07-02T01:09:00.000-04:00

I'm in frickin canada for 2 weeks. No one reads this anyway. Except Dave. Hi Dave.

Dear Blog...

2006-06-16T01:23:00.000-04:00

My irrational hate for mint ice cream has been confirmed. It tastes like frickin dental floss. I don't like twizzlers either. Blake got two day camps, a Jesus Cares week, and a 6-8 week. I am glad, it sounds like he's doing awesome work. Alex Karev is in the Wedding Planner, and he's this weird Italian guy with a weird accent that loves J-Lo. That's weird. I was in West Allis. That was dumb. I'm going to pick up Blake tomorrow with mother, so I should probably get going, seeing that it's pretty early. Everyone go listen to Ben Kweller. I'm really liking him lately. I need to get his other cd. So long.

I keep having to remind myself....

2006-06-15T00:25:00.000-04:00

that I can't use "wow" and "whoa" as blog titles. I think I've used them both. Today was interesting, I worked longer than anticipated, I actually ran 2 miles after not running for a really long time. Maybe that'll become more commonplace. Knowing me, it will for about a week, and then I'll lose it.

The house is quite empty and boring because Blake is at camp. It'll be weird at college, because he won't be a regular part of my life. It's funny, because he's always my second opinion on things, or he's the guy I tell everything to, like something I'm excited about. I suppose it is fairly nice being completely alone though. I mean, I can walk around the house naked, or play music really loud downstairs while I'm running or practicing drums, without someone giving me a weird look and asking about what I'm doing. That's pretty cool I guess.

So...what's new since I last blogged? A lot I suppose. After all, school is done, summer's here, I've graduated high school. That was interesting. I walked down the aisle thing with Chris Schallert, and as we were walking back we skipped. That was silly. Before the ceremony, Ryan handed out bouncy balls to everyone so they could hand them to the guy giving us our diplomas, as he shakes our hands. It was cool, but only about 15 people did it, which was dumb. I think Adriane and Ellie were the first to. Caitlin Ristow even did it. I mean, come on. Stupid class. It's funny how I've grown to hate most of my class. Well, perfect timing...I won't see them for awhile, but it's a shame I'll have to see a lot of them at reunions. I'm trying to recall events that I heard Dave's voice saying to me "Evan, can you make a blog post about this?"

Summer band has started. That's been interesting. I'm lead snare and leader of the entire percussion section now. I've come a long way in a short time. No one would've thought this would happen when I came as a sophomore or even last year. Band camp was on Wednesday and went until Saturday. The graduate class is not full of many of my friends, unfortunately, but as always, it's full of people I can get along with and generally like. I can tell this won't be much like my first band trip, with Jake, Dave and Derek as roommates. The first night, Jake and Ryan were going to sneak in and spend the night with me, but I didn't bring my phone with me, so I couldn't open the door for them. I was with the girls for part of that night anyway, and slept with them the next night in their tent thing they made. There were no chaperones, and it was better than sleeping with John, Jimmy, and Andy I guess. I actually slept on Kristina's mattress (in separate sleeping bags of course), but now I can honestly say I've been in her pants (I wore her pants at her graduation party, mine were wet. I am rumored to look quite good in girl pants because of my skinny, girly legs) and slept with her, without meaning anything dirty. I suppose I feel accomplished? That was an awkward night. It felt like a weird chick slumber party, but I was there. They were reading Cosmopolitan out loud and stuff.

We traveled to Appleton. I did some bonding with Micah Arndt on the way up, and I got to see Alex Vandenberg. That was awesome. He was telling me about his job and how he has to go there at like 4 or 5 in the morning or something. He gets off at 2 though, so I guess that's okay. Brillion parade went terribly for me and the snares at least. Percussion section kinda blows right now. The bass drums don't care for the most part, the quads are pretty good, the cymbals suck, the snares are getting better, but still suck, and the bells are gross. It's sort of disappointing, but we're making strides. We did much better at the Appleton Flag Day Parade. In fact, I was sort of happy with percussion.

My parents picked us up and we went to Texas Roadhouse for my dad's birthday. While we were waiting, Allie Goodman came up to our table, because she recognized me. That was a sweet little turn of events. I hadn't even given thought to the fact that I was still in Appleton.

I went to a bonfire at Dan Hahn's house the other night, and that was fun. I also went to Jake's for another bonfire the night after. That was interesting, because it was me, Jake, Dave and two of Jake's work friends, Hilary and Raquel, and also one of Raquel's friends, Jackie. Supposedly Jackie was drunk the last time she came over, and was peeing in Jake's yard by his trampoline. Well, she didn't disappoint, she peed yet again in Jake's yard, but I believe she was fairly sober this time. Although Jake's mom was pretty much watching her pee from the house. It was silly.

All the days in between were lazy summer days. Cluttered with either work or band practice. I've got a parade tomorrow in West Allis at 7 I think. I have to be at school at 4:15. I should definitely run and keep the streak going. I should also post this really soon, so that today doesnt mysteriously turn into yesterday. I also read all of the Penny Arcade comics over the past few days. They're really funny. G'bye.

the most useless 100th post ever

2006-05-23T19:11:00.000-04:00

Darnit! I had so much to blog about, but now I'm in finals week, and in the van on the way back from Indiana, because my Great Aunt Martha died. She was 103. I missed first day of exams. Eisenhower played a good show on the 13th, An American Tragedy absolutely blew, but bounced back on the 20th, and now they are broken up...Caleb is going to the Air Force. I Voted For Kodos put on an amazing show. I'm not going to study very much. My own grandmother doesn't even recognize me. She even sort of recognized Blake, because "he has the face". I guess I'm faceless or something. So much for the normal image of a grandmother. My other one is dead and the step one sucks. Man, relatives depress me. This was a little better than most times though. I'm not going to study in the car. This is insane. bye bye

I am currently satisfied with my stink

2006-05-07T19:22:00.000-04:00

Ironically enough, my mom just addressed my stink right after I wrote that title. Even more irony..my mom might just read this. I just got done spreading mulch not too long ago. I like the smell of dirt, mulch, and sweat. I also like my farts. Weird huh? Good thing there's no one(except my brother) around.

New things...Eisenhower had an acoustic performance in chapel, playing "Getting Into You" by Relient K. I played guitar, Blake played bass, and Caleb sang. I might as well exaggerate while I am at it....after this we are touring Canada with it and shooting a music video. (Both are happening...yet on a lesser scale). Be sure to do whatever you can to help Cody Schwartz and come out to the May 13th show to see Eisenhower and An American Tragedy. The show is at Lakeside, costs 5 bucks, has 5 bands in it (neither of mine are playing first...finally!), and it starts at 6 pm.

Also..some more big news is that An American Tragedy is playing a show on May 20th in Oconomowoc. Alright...maybe that's not news...BUT I Voted For Kodos has been added to the bill. They're a band that's now sort of a cross between Motion City Soundtrack and a ska band...but they used to be more ska, and they played Skappleton yesterday. They've toured the US before, they're playing some warped tour dates, they've played with Fall Out Boy, Motion City Soundtrack, Mustard Plug, and a bunch of other cool bands...and we're playing a show with them!!! Check them out at www.iv4k.com. Also they have mapquest directions in their shows page. Tickets are 5 bucks...7 pm. This has just gotten exciting.

Speaking of Skappleton, I believe that would've been a much better way to spend my time than going to freaking prom. I feel so crappy right now about that. Both Lucas and I thought it was going to be so much fun, because all of a sudden our dates were friends and so are we... Well, it was more on the not so fun side. Now I feel my friendship with Jennifer has taken a swift turn from fairly good to awkward. Somewhere in between the asking and the going, and us not communicating, she decided that it would be fun to avoid me. Well, she was right. She did have fun while avoiding me...and she was right to think that she would have an awkward prom. I also had fun every once in awhile...but I always had that hanging over my head. It's hard to make things not awkward when you know that your date is trying to avoid you and not making any effort towards conversation. It just kind of sucks. I just want to talk to her and get us back to friends again...which who knows what we are now. She might not feel anything's different.

Well...now a day has passed. I sort of got interrupted but oh well. I went home with Lucas early, and he was bummed too. On a greater scale. Malinda told him she didn't want a relationship, and he really did. She said they would be too busy. Lucas looked at me and asked "Evan...am I busy? I'm always sitting at home."

I feel really bad for him. We jammed our frustrations out until about 2 in the morning, and Phil came too. I love Phil. Even through his all too often fake punches in the face, and his falling out of time in his music every once in awhile, I still love him (awkward sentence). He's just such a great guy, and an awesome songwriter. Well, I think I gotta do calculus now. I'm pretty sure there was much more to say, but that'll have to wait. O yeah... and I think passing the AP calc exam is a possibility. Pretty sweet I guess. I'll see ya all later.

OMGZRZ!!1

2006-05-02T22:07:00.000-04:00

studying for ap calc exam. It's tomorrow. Oh man. Stay tuned.

Everybody's going crazy, everything's out of control

2006-04-26T21:38:00.000-04:00

Come on. Specifically what song is that from. What I'm thinking right now. This won't be too long of a post. Dave told me to make a post before he got home, and to use one of the pub room computers. Well, Lindsay Riedel blew up about everything. She gave my brother a hard time today. He wasn't even talking to her, wasn't even close to directing questions her way...was just making comments, and she started answering them in a very annoyed tone, and then preceded to bitch about how people should stop asking stupid questions. Man. I think I remember how much I hate her.

Whoops. Curse word. That curse word is really the only way to describe it though. By the way, my internet wasn't working until you got home Dave, guaranteed. Hey, at least I'm posting. Although this will be pretty worthless. Lucas and I seem to be going through a period of renewed closeness, probably due to the fact that our prom dates are best friends, and we had no idea until they were our prom dates (almost). That was kinda sweet. I'm pretty sure even having prom dates is a first for both of us. That's kinda funny. Last year's prom was fun. We beat Halo 2. It's funny how Jennifer and I rarely even talk face to face. I think I just realized that. This needs to be fixed. Cody got ran over by a car, but I think he's okay. His knee is pretty messed up though from being under a wheel and dragged along the pavement. That's very unfortunate, and I'm sure he learned a lesson. Cody's an awesome kid. I'm sure he will have a prosperous life. We're playing a benefit show for him May 13, I think in Lake Mills, but we're not sure. Then, we're playing a show in Oconomowoc on May 20th. O yes! Renewed band activity. Eisenhower will also make its debut at the may 13th show. Isn't that nifty. It'd be really sweet if you could come to either or both.

Today me, Lucas, Blake, and Mrs. Schommer we're playing some crazy game with this purple-ish glittery ball of Jennifer's. That was ridiculous, but really cool. Lucas and I also hung out and did various things. We jammed. I met the neighbor's dog. It's a Katrina refugee, and they just found out it was bred to be shown, and was just spayed 3 weeks ago by people who didn't know. So now no award-winning pups. The dog was afraid of me. Today was pretty cool. Except for physics, which layed on 3 projects in the next 3 or so weeks, while I still have to study for AP calculus, which is in a week, and I still am not very good at. Each time I think I'm really gonna study, I always find some really cool way to spend my time. Tell me, why can't I find these really cool things when I don't have anything to do. Outside is fun.

That post was pretty sporadic. As are all of them.

I sir, am fatigued

2006-04-20T22:28:00.000-04:00

I'm not really sure if I have many readers anymore. Oh well. I'm really trying to make a resurgence in the blogworld. I read a lot of people's blogs that I haven't read for a really long time. It was fun.

Today was kinda stupid. After I made that last blog post I was in a really bad mood. I could barely sleep thinking about that stupid jazz clinic. I felt like I was really being forgotten about in the band program. It wouldn't be such a big deal if it wasn't for how hard I've worked to get where I am. I only started band in 8th grade and skipped freshman year. Although when my sophomore year, I saw I was way behind the pack. I've really worked to improve on that. Finally, my senior year, I'm happy with my ability. Yet, I walk in the first day of school and am given...bass drum music. Again. After playing all cymbals last year in symphonic, I was hoping to step up. They made an announcement that they won't switch the percussion instruments around, you play what's in your folder. So, I kept my mouth shut. I think that was the main reason for acting up so much. It's funny. Me, Evan, was almost kicked out of band this year. Since then I made a turnaround. I started caring about band again. I got opportunities on the drum set, which I was denied of last year, although I was capable.

Yet this past jazz clinic just made me feel like that didn't matter. With people like Jake Alward and QP getting a lot of time on set, I was kind of getting steamed, despite what I had.

Man, I really didn't mean to ramble on like that. I guess I thought I'd just recount the events.

So I went into band with the wrong attitude today. I've just been on this angry spree ever since Appleton(which I guess isn't very long). All of a sudden, I was just handed bass drum music again. You see, I'm probably going on the band trip, up to calgary, one last time. And there's no way I want to play bass drum. I threw the music on the ground, and I didn't get anything out. After awhile of Fenske not noticing, and Justin Johnson being an absolute weiner, 4 of us who didn't do anything got a little taste of Fenske's wrath. Of course, I didn't get the brunt of it. Steve and Josh were in "Siberia" building a fort with a whole bunch of stuff in there. It was pretty funny, until all these people start telling on them, and Mr. Fenske just storms in there and said something about detentions. It was pretty gay, but who knows if I'll get the instrument of my choice for the band trip. If I don't, I'm not going.

I'm really really sick of thinking about it, talking about it. It's not really even a big deal. I just spent the whole day pissed off, and most of it was my fault, wanting to stay pissed off. It's just that I've been stepped on in this stupid band program for too long.

Eh...let's get on to some cooler things. There's a lot I didn't cover that I wanted to, and I'm trying to think of them. This one time in the past few weeks, Jake and his brother Jordan were over at our house. They usually just stop by to drop something off, or grab something, but they usually end up staying for hours. It was definitely a sweet time. We were sitting and talking, and me and Blake started reminiscing about this one tape we had about emergency situations, and how it scared the crap out of us when we were kids. We decided to embark on a journey of finding it. We found it, and I remember distinctly this one kid being allergic to bees and getting stung, and he had this really fake mask on that made his face look swollen. It was pretty much the most ridiculous stuff ever caught on film. Yet, it somehow wasn't on the tape. That was weird. Maybe I'm crazy.

It was really weird what happened next though. Blake was looking through the grand ol' video vault (drawer underneath old tv), and said that there were a whole bunch of tapes with my name on it, and none with his. So, we popped one in. There was me, sitting at this desk, probably about 2 years old. Across from me was this weird lady with an english accent, telling me to do different things. "Ayven! Ayven, now I want you to make lines on the paper. go zip! zip!" Me, being the little genius I was, drew in random circles, no matter what she told me to do. Man...I was dumb. I also had problems with this one yellow block with like six holes, and all I had to do was put these six red pegs in the holes. Well, first of all, everytime I did it, I skipped the second hole. The second hole always, ALWAYS, went last. I also had this weird idea that certain pegs had to go in certain holes, and kept switching them around. Then there was the putting the right shapes in the matching holes. I didn't have too much of a problem with this, yet, for some reason, when I had one shape left, and one hole...I was confused. MAN!

I was yelling at the tv, kind of like cheering at some game, except I was telling myself how dumb I was. I also couldn't talk much, but somehow, SOMEHOW, I could say the words "Rocky Rococo" before I could say the word "dog".

As you could imagine, I was pretty perplexed by the whole idea of this. There were a lot of these different tests too. It's like they were giving me the stupid test, and I think I passed (meaning I'm absolutely and unmistakably retarded). Why in the world was I tested?

Well I guess it was this random test thing, where they'd get you to come into the Wiseman Center and get tested for certain things. I guess at first it was because I didn't really talk until I was about 2 and a half, and they were testing me for developmental problems. Later on, I guess I became a standard for other kids to be tested against, or something like that, and my parents were actually payed for it. Kind of interesting.

After seeing that, I had a renewed appreciation for my mom. Just seeing her help me out was kinda cool. I saw the incredible love for this little kid. I almost get choked up looking at pictures of little me. Thinking how neat that is, and how crazy it'll be having a little kid someday. That'd be awesome.

That's all for me right now. Good night, and good luck.

fred sturm is a dickhead

2006-04-20T00:37:00.000-04:00

Man, just when I start feeling awesome about my life, like everything's okay, then this day has to come. Last night I was up late doing homework, and I was listening to Relient K. That was really cool. I started feeling like my old self again. That crazy fun-loving kid who was always in a good mood and was open about his faith. I think I'm still getting him back. But one step...I actually enjoy Relient K again. Except for the Apathetic EP. That thing is dumb.

I was also reading these really old conversation I had with Kirsten. I was looking for something she said to me the other day about calculus, because I couldn't remember. Well, it didn't save, but I remember having fun talking to her. Reminds me of the time when everyone wanted me to ask her to prom, but I couldn't. I had asked Lucas to skip prom with me, and he said he was thinking of going, and if he was, he would've asked Kirsten. Well, I couldn't just ditch our plans and go with the girl he wanted, now could I? So that was it, we played Halo 2. I'm not a big Halo guy either. It's just weird looking at that stuff, because I remember who I was back then, and how fun it was, minus all the girls and the stupid crap going on in my head.

Well today was dumb, because we had this jazz band thing where we had to go up to Lawrence University and have this jazz clinic with this guy, Fred Sturm, that wrote one of our songs. I was kinda looking forward to it, I got out of half the day, but was supposed to get home at like 9 p.m. The only thing was, that's the only song that I don't play set on, so I learned the guitar part quickly so I didn't have to do nothing. We were playing the song I had a solo on the drums anyway. Well I dressed up and went to school. Realized I didn't have to dress up. That was awkward. Had a rough time condensing my 15 some pages of guitar music into one page (i had a copy of the director's copy, and had to cut and paste). That was a task. We left on the bus after waiting at school for quite a while. The ride there was kinda dumb...and long. We finally got there and had half an hour to kill around campus. Worthless. They had this huge 675,000 dollar organ there. We came back at our time and waited another 20 minutes or so. Then this Sturm guy came out. We all packed into this little room, Lakeside and Lawrence Universtiy jazz band. I sorta had to move back and forth between the guitar and the drums, and I had to crawl over people to do so.

We started out with them doing crazy jazz instrument stuff, and I was doing this really stupid generic drum beat. I was looking forward to go crazy on that set. It was nice, and there were K customs. I wanted to try those out. Well I didn't, I probably hit the snare about three times. The stupid drum guy had a lip ring and bad breath. He kept telling me to hold my stick a certain way, which didn't make me sound any different. Man that was annoying. Then he got me off and started playing, then Quinten played. I was playing around with the instruments on the vibes, and I volunteered for this solo where I could only use two notes. That was kinda dumb. Then we had to go play our Sturm song. I left music on the other side of the room, and after crawling over like 7 people to get there, I couldn't find it anyway, and Ms. Schlomer decided to just start the song without me, so I started on measure 20. Then the guitar was really loud, and I was trying to remember the song without the music. It was hard. The foreign guitar guy said that I did pretty good for not having music, and only working on it for like 2 days. Then they played the same song, and then played one of their own songs. He opened the darn thing up for questions, the guitar guy taught me regular and pinch harmonics on guitar, and then, we were somehow done.

I was waiting the entire frickin time to play drums. All I did was the stupid crap keeping time, and I couldn't do anything else. Those people probably thought I sucked. We didn't get to play the solo song. What a ripoff! I came 2 and a half hours just so I could sit around and play 20 notes on a guitar and watch??? Man! I was frickin pissed. Stupid QP played much more than I did, and I'm way better than him. That's his only frickin song. What a waste of time!!! Fred Sturm is a dickhead.

The highlight of the night was going to Old Country Buffet for free. I called Tyler Shinnick up, and he met us there. We had a kickin time eating. Tyler thought it was pretty cool that commando wednesday had spread to Lakeside, and someone completely not related to camp brought it up. The food was good. The bus ride back was kinda fun. I just played air drums for a really long time because I didn't get to play real drums. I never got to hit those frickin K customs.

That really pisses me off. I had to get home at 9:30 for practically nothing, and then I ahd to stay up late doing homework. Again. Oh well, at least I got to hang with Shinnick. That was a good time. Borck will be jealous. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

I've been eating candy all day

2006-04-17T21:43:00.000-04:00

...and it sucks. I think I should stop eating things that taste sweet. I feel like crap. Stupid easter. I keep eating those Cadbury creme eggs thinking they're good, but they're not. By the way, that Mr. Lakeside thing (prom fundraiser/male beauty pageant) happened. I played "Taylor" by Jack Johnson on guitar and sang, wore a band uniform, and this crazy zoot suit type tux, among other things. I got 3rd out of 9 guys, and got some kinda cool gift cards and free stuff. I should be studying for AP calculus. I just don't have any motivation though.

This desk is cluttered with papers. It sucks. Preparing for college via mail sucks.

Me and my brother are in another type of band. I'm not quite sure what to call it. I'm still in my other band of course, we just aren't practicing much. Blake has wanted me in this band with Caleb Schmeige for awhile. We've recorded a few songs in the time we have here in this ol' house, one over spring break, and the other this past week. The recordings kinda suck, but hey, they were recorded on a guitar pedal. If you'd like to give us a listen, go to www.myspace.com/eisenhowerband. I encourage you all to give it a visit. The songs were written by Blake. With everything on the song "Seattle" played by Blake except for drums and vocals. The other one's kinda sketchy, but I think it sounds way better when we just play it. We wanted to get it done before easter though, Jer Schmeige told us to.

I really wanna record my own cd. Pretty soon, but I just can't find time. I'd say I'm at the height of my musical prowess (so far), and if I could write, things would be just dandy. I can really only jam by myself. I got a few ideas running around, but I got other things I have to accomplish first, and I won't let myself do the things I want to do until the other things are done. That's all good, but then I just don't do the things I need to get done. We need to get rid of cable television. It's pretty much useless except for ESPN. I watched the World Sumo Wrestling Classic or something like that. That was interesting. Me and Lucas were laughing so hard at that. These little hairy Polish guys would just waste these 700 pound guys. It was amazing.

Prom is coming up. I don't want to go, but it looks like I have to. It seems I've completely forgotten about it.

Well, I can't think of any more to tell you, and I don't want to bore you about how I don't like calculus. See ya later.

It has come to my attention...

2006-04-15T23:20:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm not sure. Let me think...where to pick up? I had a whole bunch of things to say in this post in my head, but due to the length of time it's been, and this old movie playing in the background that I just watched about 5 minutes of...where was I? Man, these movies.

That was kinda cheesy. Last night I slept over at Jake's. Kirsten broke up with him. So now we went and hung out with him so he didn't think about it. It was only me Dave and Matt. I gave Jordan his first drum lesson. I'm not really sure how to do that, but it's in return for that snare.

Wow. I was gonna try to not mention too much how much I suck about not posting, but uh, I suck? Me and Matthew Werner have decided to start COAT. Which stands for Coalition Of Accomplishing Things. We decided we both suck at accomplishing things, and blog posts was one of them.

I've been working a lot lately, at least it seems. Actually, lately according to this would actually mean I've been working not at all, and then a lot. Either way, it's crazy. I'm for sure going to UW-Platteville. Wisconsin wanted me to go into their little connections program, which is pretty much useless. This one lady at Kohl's today recommended I get this one shirt. She was wearing a UW-Platteville engineering sweatshirt. She seemed cool. I bought the shirt. It was ate dollars. It look Matt Thiessen-esque. I figure I could wear it underneath a brown sweater or something like that, and suck my lips into my mouth, and dye my hair blonde. Then people would probably think I'm a fag. I'm going to actually try to wear a pink tux to the prom by the way.

Man, I'm just all over the board here. I don't think I'm all here right now. Did you notice I typed ate dollars? Man! Theres too much to cover! At the end of spring break, Blake and I went to this grade school basketball tournament to hang out with Becca. There was this team from Madison East or something who seriously just stood there for the entire second half wasting time because they were up by so much. They tried to do this at the beginning, but the ball was stolen, and with 18 minutes left, they started again, and the other team was so pissed, they just stood there and let it happen. Never have I seen such a celebration for a timeout. I should hang out with camp kids more often. I don't want to lose touch. Forget it Charlie.

Did you know that there is a place that you can touch a woman that will make her go crazy? That's right. Her heart. Stupid cheesy movies. Why must they occur behind me. I am not myself. I ate a dough cone. All I can say is better luck next time.

Dough cones surprised me. They got to the bottom before I did. Cheddar and sour cream potato chips don't taste as good as I remember. It is. It is a little weird. Blake told me I should play this often sampled drum beat. Tom is retarded. I'm a teenybopper.

This is the most worthless post of my career.

more ben folds blather...

2006-03-13T23:58:00.000-04:00

I'm sure a lot of you don't care about some stupid kid's concert experience, but hey. I left a comment on Lindsay Jamieson's myspace. Much to my surprise and delight, he commented back on mine. He said they were fine, and that Phil shouldn't feel bad. That makes me super happy. A rock star commented on my myspace. Of course, how do I know it's not someone else just answering for him? Eh...I'm pretty sure it's him. For those of you who are curious, I'm going to post the set list. Why not? I thought it was sorta cool. I think one of Asian's friends wrote it down.

1. Missing the War
2. Gone
3. Bastard
4. Jesusland
5. All U Can Eat
6. Zak and Sara (stupid people in front! request something he probably won't play, and don't keep bugging about it!)
7. Still Fighting It
8. New song...the one for the turtle that is Garry Shandling (sp?) eh..I don't feel like looking it up
9. Trusted
10. You to Thank
11. Annie Waits
12. Landed
13. Losing Lisa
14. Bitches Ain't Shit("This will be on the soundtrack too...")
SOLO:
15. Don't Change Your Plans
16. One Down
17. Gracie
18. Evaporated (Stupid girls three rows behind kept screaming during this, and it's a soft song, it was really pissing me off.)
19. Army
BAND BACK:
20. Ascent of Stan
21. Give Judy My Notice
22. Narcolepsy (I heart you Lindsay Jamieson)
23. Late
24. Philosophy + Part of Theme from Dr. Pyser (I went absolutely nuts for this. Dr. Pyser really surprised me. I guess he always does this at the end of Philosophy, but not many recognize it).
ENCORE:
25. Underground
26. Rockin' the Suburbs (w/ Ben on bass at the end)
27. One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces (Perfect way to send us out, I read in an interview with Mr. Reynolds that he loves trying to go as fast as he can on this. I definitely witnessed this first hand).

I was in this crazy section where there was a walkway in front of me. Three times people tried to stand there and got kicked out. I kinda like the second ones, only one tried to con Blake and talk him into standing in front of him. "Oh.. i'm so sorry, you can stand in front of me if you want." I told the girls they were going to get kicked out. They laughed. Then the fat lady came. "Your time has come, I hope you had fun..."

Man. What a great time.

since I have a little extra time...

2006-03-12T16:54:00.000-04:00

...and I know I'm not going to work on my research paper anyway, I mind as well write a blog. My parents are away at the band fest concert, and Blake and I stayed home. I work at 430. Until 8. I'm not working much lately, but it seems the shifts I'm getting seem to be elongated by certain means that are out of my control. I was originally scheduled at 5 today, but Adriana needed to get somewhere sooner or something. Once I stayed a couple hours later because no delivery driver came. It was snowing a lot, and Ben was coming in to do it. He fell into a ditch. He finally got it pulled out when he realized he had also locked his keys in his car. I hope I never lock my keys in my car. It's just like printing an opinion article of your local newspaper titled "I'm a Dumbass." That'd be a kind of cool Onion article.

Band Fest means we had 4 kids over to host, and 1 band director. It was cool because the kids were from Shoreland Lutheran, and one of em was Dave M. It was a kickin time.

Alright...I can't hold it in any longer. BEN FOLDS WAS AMAZING LAST NIGHT!!!!!! Man. Just when you think nothing can get better than a Ben Folds concert, it's topped by...the second Ben Folds concert. Don't worry, I won't recall lyrics from a certain Dr. Dre cover this time... Yesterday was a cool time. I got some really cool stories coming up. Stay tuned.

Early Saturday I ran and got a book for a research paper that I should be working on. It's on the Loch Ness Monster. It's due Friday. I still haven't started. Rube Goldberg Device is also due Friday. That's going slow. I'm in a group with Jake and Phil T. for that one. We went to Phil's house to work on it Friday, and we pretty much sat around and did absolutely nothing. By the way, for those that don't know, a Rube Goldberg Device is this stupid thing that has like 10 simple machines to complete a silly task. Like in the cartoons with the hammers and pulleys and candles burning strings and such. Except we don't have candles or hammers. Well, we got a little more work done on Saturday, but left for the Orpheum at 4. I drove four people down, Anna, Blake, Jake Stubblefield, and Jennifer Leverence. Anna brought this 2-liter bottle of Coke. Which closely resembled the one of Dr. Pepper she gave me last Ben Folds concert. Well, it again became the community soda. We met Ben, Katie, Tom, and Asian at McDonalds, and followed Phil all the way to the chapel (Phil, if you don't know is the son of the pastor at Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel, at UW.) Phil was a super awesome help. He hooked us up with free parking. Unfortunately, we lost everyone that was following us on the way there. Ben and Katie finally got to the chapel, but Tom and Asian were still driving somewhere. They called me.

"Evan, we don't know where we're going"

"Where are you?"

"We're driving on State Street"

My jaw drops. "You can't drive on State Street, cars aren't allowed!"

"What? Are you sure?"

I can't really give directions too well, it's a good thing they were in eyesight. Well, at this point, Jake, Tom, and Asian decided to go down to Urban Outfitters, and the rest of us went to see if we could buy Phil a ticket. He didn't have one, and wasn't sure if he was gonna go. They usually sell tickets and stuff before even though they say its sold out. Silly Orpheum. On the way, I was just kinda glancing at the different buildings. We went past this one restaurant, I don't remember the name. As I looked in the window, I thought "Hey, that guy looks a lot like Lindsay Jamieson." Lindsay Jamieson is Ben Folds' drummer. I looked closer, and realized that it had to be him. I started getting excited, and then I looked across from him. There, wearing a pretty cool hat and facing away from the window, sat Ben Folds. I went crazy and told everyone around me. They went crazy too. I almost went in, asked for an autograph, just said hi, anything. I didn't really want to go in there with no reason except "Hey, I saw you in a window" The only thing I came up with was that they were the ones who are celebrities and sat in a window seat. They left pretty soon after we went back and we're trying to decide if we should go in. I thought they were just moving, because we were bothering them, but everyone but Phil said they got their coats and left. I hope they did. I'd feel really bad. Someday I'll meet Ben, and I'm going to tell him about that, and apologize or someting. Someday. Well, the doors to the orpheum were closed, and there was a line about a block long. Ben and Katie decided to stay behind and wait in line (get away from us and be alone). We went to Qdoba. Phil still wasn't living down this restaurant sighting. The more I thought of it, the more I felt bad. Qdoba was awesome though. Jake called and realized what he missed out on I guess. We then got in line right by Ben and Katie, which was cool. We had this one conversation with this funky dude about what the names of the ghost things from Pac man are. Blake has a shirt with three of them. It was kind of funny.

I looked and saw this guy that looked like one of Ben Folds' roadies. He had longer hair, but he was peculiarly wearing the same shirt that the roadie wore last concert, and in a picture on Ben Folds' site. The only reason I knew about this guy, was because last concert, he was being totally gay on stage, just because I think he's gay. He was like, making out with the piano and Ben's microphone. It was weird. Anna and I did not like him. He was walking in a group and smoking cigarettes. After waiting in line for countless hours (try 1 or less), they finally opened the door. We sat there for a while, and we didn't know there was an opening act, but there was. Chris Mills was his name. He looked new to the scene and incredibly excited to be there. I liked his music, but I started to get bored during his set. It was just him and an electric guitar. It was cool though. Anna fell asleep halfway through it, and I woke her up. It was very sleepy in there at that time, but man, falling asleep during a rock concert, that's a new one. Well, turns out this guy's been making music for like 10 years, he's from Chicago. Yet, still he's very unknown. Check him out.

His set finished, and they started setting up for Ben. Anna fell asleep again. Then, I saw the roadie. It was him that I saw. Stupid gay. I woke up Anna for that. She was fairly disappointed. I realized that if I would've acknowledged him on the street, he might've really appreciated it. I mean, who recognizes roadies? Those could've been the other sound guys that were with him, now that I think about it.

Well, then Ben started the show. So cool. He played a lot more Ben Folds Five, and it made me so happy when he opened the concert with Missing the War. I love that song. I can't even describe the next two hours. I don't think words can. Just, hands down, Ben Folds puts on the best shows known to man. They've beaten every single show I've seen by so much. They do such cool stuff, and he's also a funny guy. It was crazy though. During one song, I can't even remember, he was kind of looking out into the crowd. His eyes seemed to meet with mine, and I was kinda groovin to the music. He was swaying his head back and forth. Then I started doing it in time with him, and as soon as I did that, he laughed, and I laughed. It was such a cool feeling. I wouldn't have thought he was actually looking at me until the head thing. That was cool. After the song, Anna and Phil looked at me with this "Whoa!" look. "Did Ben just look at me?"

"I think he did!"

So I was pretty close to meeting Ben Folds...or whatever. Pretty frickin sweet. Now I'm trying to think of my favorite parts. They played a new song that's on a movie soundtrack they're writing. The movie has something to do with animated animals. It was really good. He was kinda like "This may really suck, I don't know, I just wanna do something different." He described how this was a song for when the turtle, played by Gary Shandling, is really bummed, because all the animals like Bruce Willis better, who's a rabbit or something. He was really making fun of it.

"It's really an original idea...see, they're animals, but they're animated."

"It's the kind of movie that, a kid will be like 7 or 8, and see the movie and have a lot of fun, but 10 years later they get stoned and watch it, for nostalgia. So there will be these four guys, and y'know, three of 'em saw this when they were little and are like, man this is really great, and have all these fond memories and stuff. Then the 4th guy will be watching it and he never saw it, and he'll be like, 'man, this really sucks.'" Something like that. It was hilarious.

Ben played bass at the end of Rockin' the Suburbs. That was awesome too. Mr. Reynolds grabs the mic. Lindsay Jamieson going absolutely nuts on Narcolepsy was golden. Oh man. We sat closer this time, so that was really cool. Maybe next time we'll go all the way to the front or something. I dunno...the stage is so high. On the encore he played Underground, my favorite, and I finally got to sing along with it. By the way, I never said, Phil got a ticket as we were walking in, from this guy on the street, a buck under face value. That was sweet.

I can't really think of anything else to say. The whole thing was so awesome. I can't do it near enough justice just talking about it on blogspot.

Hm..I really didn't talk about anything else. Mr. Lakeside is on March 30th. Come if you can. Vote for me. I've been working hard on my acoustic guitar thing, and I need the words to "It's gonna be me" memorized by tomorrow. I'm also going to get my tux tomorrow for formal wear. I gotta go to work everyone. So long.

psychological bullstuff!

2006-03-05T00:49:00.000-04:00

I watched most of A Beautiful Mind. I did homework. Both of our basketball teams lost, girls were a game away from state. I got new cymbals. They're frickin sweet, and 400 dollars. 2 of them. 2 kids were expelled from my school because of stuff they had on myspace, and now drinking busts are happening. Life is frickin crazy. I need to learn some boring piano song for band, complete all these in-town scholarships, and on top of it my mom has been bugging me to line up some really good job for the summer. Meanwhile calc is crazier than ever, I've a research paper in two weeks, and an interview essay due sometime, which I interviewed my monk uncle for. Also that Rube Goldberg machine is comin up too. It's that crazy time of the semester. Things will start quieting down right before exams. I want to live my life. I really want to sit in my basement and write songs, or go hang out with friends whenever I want to. I want to be able to sit down and type a three hour blog post. Monday i get busy again...math meet, jazz band practice, and possibly practice for Mr. Lakeside competition. Geez.

Sorry for not posting in forever. Sometimes I realize that I don't even allow myself to get done what I have on my plate. I spend so much time staring off into space. I can't focus. I think I have ADD or something. Man.

Now I'm just spewing. I figured it's been awhile since my last post, which it has. Maybe you need an update on Evan. Seems a little self-centered, but what else is this page for? I think I've got a long post coming. Once I find the time. Once I allow myself to create time. I still need to give Ali a call too. I'm dumb.

see ya.

comin up for air

2006-01-30T23:29:00.000-04:00

Everytime I think about it, it's just so true. No matter how much I say it. Ben Folds Five blows my frickin mind. Never have I heard such enjoyable music come out of such talented people, time and time again. Yet appealing to my stupid silly generation that is angry and can't make up their mind.

That opening paragraph sounded sort of unintelligent. Well, it's been a good week. Musically, I got to play drums with an esteemed, professional clarinet soloist. He's frickin awesome. Well, awesome at clarinet. I really respect all those crazy good music guys. I'll bet I could be one of those if I had undying interest at a very young age. Oh yeah, and had big hands. I definitely wasn't a motivated young child. If only I could've at least gotten it into my head when I was a kid that I had no shot in the NFL, maybe I would be a better musician today. I really do love drumming in all these different styles though. From the swing/big band grooves, to the latin drum solo, it's been such a blast and really broadens my horizons. The day before Mr. Zello (clarinet soloist) came to rehearse with us, I didn't really know the part where only he and I play. So Wendland told me just to keep time. I don't like that so much. So I went home and put in the recording. It was pretty sweet, and it ended up being really close to the same beat in Steven's Last Night In Town by Ben Folds Five. I worked hard to learn that beat a little while back, and man I'm glad I did. Wendland was impressed when I came the next day with it learned. It was awesome. Mr. Zello told me I was easy to follow and did a great job. That's even greater. Having the crazy music guy's approval. Like that saxophone guy singing my praises at jazz fest. Of course, the percussion guy had stuff to say, and these guys don't know much about percussion, but I'll take it. I got the recording of my drum solos, and I don't look as cool as I remember...but I'll still try to post it somewhere I guess. Perhaps myspace, I hear you can do videos on there now.

Now that I'm done with my stupid little "look how great I am" music paragraph, I guess I'll move on. Man, it looks so self-serving. Sorry. The week was fun. Calculus wasn't too bad, and on friday I hung out with Lucas and Matt. That was sweet, and Matt and I had some very heated matches on NCAA basketball, between him not knowing the game very well, and me not playing in awhile, and overall being a worse gamer, the games were close. I won one with a Pittsnogle three at the buzzer. Matt called it too. Of course it was tied, I didn't really have to, but oh well. The other one was bad, Matt's 14-0 run at the beginning really killed me in the end. I never had the lead, but came close, but ended up losing sorta big in the end.

I then drove to Jake's house with Blake. We were gonna watch Cinderella Man with Dave, but he never came, so we never watched it. Ben never came either. So it was just me and Blake, Jake and Jordan (his brother). It was still a terrific blast. Any time with Jake is a fun time. Sydnie called me at 12:30, when I was about to go to bed and already home. They invited me to go to Lundsten's. That was silly. They stopped over at Jake's though, I'll bet that was fun. I wish I could've slept at Jake's. That woulda been crazy cool.

On Saturday Becca and Sara(from camp, for those who don't know) came to the dance with Blake and me. That was pretty cool. I don't like dances, but hanging out with them was pretty fun. They seemed to have a pretty good time. It was kind of completing the Christmas party, because they were one of the only ones that left by the time I came. So that was cool. I've realized more than ever that I just can't let any of these friendships from camp die now that I won't be up there as much. I still haven't seen Ali German in frickin forever. That's lame, and needs to be fixed.

Today I went to Jake S's house with my brother. That guy is about as zany as they come. He's also a whole lot of fun. I don't care if I hang out with my brother's friends. They're a lot cooler than most people in my class by now. It's pretty sad. My former friends from my class seem to have fallen off the path....Well, whatever. I'm not altogether sure what that means, I'm just disappointed in them. I guess I'm still their friend and all. Whatever. I contemplated getting new cymbals, I really need them. Hopefully I'll be getting that new snare soon. I should schedule a music store trip, and test some stuff out.

Well, I'm gonna go, it's been fun, and hopefully this updating thing will be more of a trend. See ya.

P.S. Thanks Beth, for your wonderful comment. For some reason your words always make me feel really cool. Thanks for your encouragement, and thanks for what you gave me at camp, I'll never forget it.

Missing the war

2006-01-22T20:12:00.000-04:00

..till pizza sun might hit me in the mooorrrrning. Hey, that's what it sounds like. I'm not sure what the actual lyrics are. Well anyway, I suppose I really am missing the war, that is if the war was a little more than a month and occuring on my blog. Because yes, I've now waited more than a month to update. This might be the biggest gap ever. I'm not really sure. I should at least get back to once a week blogging...sheesh.

Well, a lot of things happen in a month. I mean geez. Geez! I didn't even cover Christmas. This is ridiculous. I'm never doing this again. I had plenty of time to post during Christmas break. Come on. I'm pathetic.

Well, even though it was forever ago, Christmas was pretty cool. It was pretty much a Ben Folds christmas. I got two Ben Folds Five cds, and three Ben Folds/Five piano books, two of them with bass and drum arrangements, and whatever else. I really like them. I'm really not much of a piano player, but I'd really like to get started again, and it allows me to play with people who can play piano well, with Blake on bass and me on drums. So far it's proved awesome. Anna Kanter is a good piano player, and we've played a few songs. It's awesome. I've almost learned how to play Underground, and of course, part of Brick. The bass parts in those books are really sweet too, because of course, Ben Folds Five didn't have a guitarist. So the bass plays much more of a major role in the music's sound. It's not just the low-end. So that's real fun to look at. I also got some cool Ben Folds DVDs. One of Ben Folds Five on west 54th, which was a music tv show thing. That one' s really cool. I also got Ben Folds live with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. That one's awesome too. So yeah, there's my christmas.

New years was sweet. Sorta. I went to camp. I'm glad I went, but I believe I realized that I don't want to apply for SALT staff next year. For those of you that haven't heard, this may be a big surprise. I was all gung-ho applying next year. That's kinda silly. How many times I've been absolutely sure of myself, and then a couple months later I change my mind. It's kinda scary. There's a lot of reasons for this I guess. I still would like to be involved at camp, but being full time just seems to have so many reasons piled against it.

It's weird. I don't think that last year was all that enjoyable, looking back. Even though I enjoyed it. It was the year I was most accepted at camp, the first year I didn't talk and nobody knew me, and the second year everyone thought I was a first year, because nobody knew me the first year. So I guess socially, it was definitely one of my better years. Well, now that I think about it, it was overall my best year of camp. I was up there more than I ever had been, and it was fun. As I look back though, it's all polluted. It's polluted by the fact that competition ruled the ACs. It sucked seeing my peers being so affected by this. I'll admit, I was too.

I was constantly evaluating the people around me, just like I was being evaluated by my peers. It was dumb. I saw my friends change. It was weird. Especially when I sat there watching Borck make fun of me because he had one more volunteer week than I did. That really bugged me. Borck got incredibly swept up in the whole thing. I love Borck, but he's Borck.

I suppose my Day Camp experience wasn't so good. That one really bugged me. I went into it with such high expectations. Going with Chrissy and Borck, I couldn't imagine one that was much better. Everyone always talked about day camp being loads of fun and stuff. I just didn't have as much fun as expected. I haven't been as close to either of those people I went with. Borck just takes control of everything at camp. Or anywhere I guess. The way Borck socializes and the way I socialize is completely different. It's hard to explain. Chrissy has just bugged me ever since that. I'm not all that sure why.

That whole Day Camp thing was dumb. Our people were Kristy and Amber. Amber is really sweet, but I really didn't know either of them before this. When we first piled into the van, the theme of the week was pretty much established. Kristy asked us our names. Then she was like "Oh, well I know Borck.", and she knew Chrissy too. I was the only one she didn't know. The whole week I felt like I could've left at any time, and Day Camp would've gone through just as smoothly. I was almost given the role of Cody, and then Kristy decided that Borck should have it. Not that I really am torn up over that, I just felt completely useless. Chrissy led crafts, which I'm horrible at. I won't get crafts, guaranteed. The kids get it before me. So I didn't volunteer for that. Borck got a cabin. I got to help with Outdoor Sports in the first half, and crafts in the second. I had a lot of downtime during the day. I could've walked to Kmart, and then shopped for 2 hours, came back, and no one really would've cared. I got Borck's cabin when he left the last day. That was a little better. It was funny because Kristy was worried once he left. She would always give Borck so much credit.

I had a lot of awkward moments during this week. And every week. Like "what am I supposed to do next" thoughts. That happened a lot during Jesus Cares week too. I felt like I was under a lot of pressure. I felt like I might've been treating these people wrong. Like I'm supposed to reach out to them more. All the while under surveillance. I really wish I could've gone through that year knowing I wasn't going to apply. Those three weeks in a row were tough, and at the end, I got sick. They were all fairly unfavorable weeks. Day camp sucked, Jesus Cares was pretty stressful, and a 7th grade cabin with Igl while getting sick sucked. Strept throat...honestly. And Igl changed. Not for the better. He was all of a sudden so superior. He was still only a year above me. He's a cool guy one-on-one, but he still possesses that one thing in his brain that doesn't hold himself back from openly criticizing someone. I hate that. The only thing that made that week sweet was all the people, and the coolest camper in the world, Luke Bramstedt. That kid was amazing. He would be encouraging, despite being 12. He was so obedient, had fun in everything we did, and told me I'd be an amazing SALT staff member. I hope I get to talk to that kid again.

The best week I had was when I was one of three ACs. Matt said the same things. We had a long chat about camp, among other things, over breakfast at McDonalds somewhere in Christmas break. That was a great talk.

Well, I don't really want to go on with all my reasons, but I probably should. I've always felt like I never quite had the SALT staff's respect. I always felt looked down upon. A HUGE reason, the main one I thought of up at camp over new years, was the SALT staff relations of last year. They didn't get along. I can't see that making all that big of a change in one year either. After seeing them on the last week when I was there, it was horrible. Ryan hated a lot of people on that staff, and I was with him a lot that week, but I could really see where he was coming from. Seeing the SALT staff the way they were took away all the glamour. I guess it's what I needed. When I first was a camper, I wanted to be a SALT staff, and had ever since. Why? Because of the incredible love I saw between them. That was the main reason. Seeing them like that made me never ever want to be a part of SALT staff, no matter how much it changes for the better. I don't believe I can respect many people there anymore.

Another big reason is, well, I never got a spirtual high from camp last year. I was too caught up with whatever else I was caught up with to have my faith strengthened. I feel like my faith is really not as strong as it used to be. Instead, what I saw was a bunch of cheesiness. I was up there for the people last year I think. I believe I would be on SALT staff for the wrong reasons. It's a job, no doubt, and a very hard one. That doesn't pay well. I've found myself not even liking reflections or anything like that. This is totally uncharacteristic of me. Camp was all I loved, and then I get sick of it.

Well, enough of that. The retreat was cool. We had 22 2-liters of Mountain Dew there, and a 12-pack. We all chugged a Dew through the new year. It was silly. I felt horrible that week. I didn't drink as much as Shinnick or Schultz, but I still drank a good amount. By early the second day we weren't using cups anymore, just drinking from the bottles. Seeing all the old friends was awesome, and I sat out hole four because of my experience last year. Go figure, it was warmer this January than last April. It just left such a bad taste in my mouth, I didn't want to do it again in the winter.

As soon as Christmas break ended, homework took over again. I'm looking to keep calculus under control, but ya know, I just bombed the last test, and the quiz that I thought I did well on. I hate school. I was put off by UW-Madison, so I'll know by I think March whether I'm getting in. I really want to now. A lot of friends are going, and Dan Karow is going to Platteville. Frickin' hooray. We can talk about Star Wars and how we want to have lightsaber fights with them turned down to stun. "Wouldn't that be AWEsome?" I guess Dan...to tell you the truth I really haven't given it much thought. Platteville is also far away, and pretty much a guy school. I didn't get all that great of a vibe from visiting there. Towards the end it was okay. We'll see where God takes me on this one.

Gee...what else happened over the past month. Jazz fest. That was cool. I learned a lot. I got a drum solo. People clapped. It was really really cool. Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on some video evidence, and perhaps I'll post it. I know Quinten recorded some of my practice drum solos, and I look way cooler doing them than I ever thought. Not to brag or anything, but I guess I can see now why people would praise me so much about being so good at drums, and how I was so awesome. It seriously looks great. I really didn't think I looked that cool, or was doing anything that cool. I talked to Mr. Schlomer, he's a really cool guy. He told me I was great for my experience, and I have the raw talent, and lessons would really skyrocket me. I'll definitely look into that. Man, I don't like self-promotion. I hate it. I'm sorry. That's why I hate scholarship essays. After Jazz Fest, I caught the last two hours or so of the Junior Staff Christmas party. That was a bit more fun. I would've enjoyed it much more if I wouldn't have felt like falling over the entire time. I was dressed up complete with tie and stuff too. It was silly.

Matt drove Blake and me home. It was a time. I should really hang out with Matt more. It's funny. He has such a reputation for being a slacker, which I suppose is partly true. But really he's an awesome guy. He has a strong faith, and is just admirable. I've found myself patterning myself after him sometimes. We had a chat about saying things we shouldn't have, but I know from experience he knows how to keep his mouth shut at the right times. It's really cool seeing him with campers, because he loves them. I've thrown out all structure in this little paragraph, but oh well. I love Matt.

Y'know, I should probably wrap this up. I feel sorta like I'm doing homework. More blog posts Evan, come on. By the way, I was a little more blunt than usually in my posts. I think all the things I've typed up there needed to be said. Maybe posting them in a blog isn't the best way, but I guess it's the way I chose. To all those I sorta bashed in here, I'm sorry. I still love you guys, even though I don't really talk to you much anymore. I guess I was sort of venting.

Hopefully happier blogs to come. I've been spending most of my free time learning Ben Folds Five songs and doing other musical stuff, and I think I should cut out more time for blogs. But with homework everywhere, and band and jazz band to keep up with too, it's been really hard. But hopefully I'll get my lazy bum on the right track and posting regularly, because I've found I'm usually happier when I post more. I think. Well, good night.

Evan

a year? more?

2005-12-17T01:19:00.000-04:00

That's right. I forgot to make a "Happy birthday 'Here for a Reason'" post. What does here for a reason mean anyway? Maybe they'll explain someday. In a DVD. I hope so. My brother put on an "Andrew McMahon" playlist and is now lying on the floor by his subwoofer. I've spent a lot of the day downstairs with musical equipment. It was cool I guess. I started playing piano again. I realized I was actually pretty good. If only I would've been more dedicated, and liked it. That woulda been cool. But ya know, I'll still wouldn't have become the next Ben Folds. Because I have very little hands. Most girls have about the same size. Although, there is a lot of women pianists that are good. So what am I talking? Well, I was having trouble with my recital piece from about 5 years ago, so I think that seals the deal. Probably more like 7. It's so simple I already memorized it, but I still can't play it perfectly. That bugs me I guess.

"Indent and die" Name what that's from. I won't even help you out on that one. I'll give you a kiss if you know it on the spot. Be honest now. Well see, what's the last time I blogged? Awhile ago. Except for those lame photos I posted. Except for the Evans. They're quality kids. They still don't have a song yet. I feel kinda sorry for them. Maybe I'll help them out. I was almost going to write a song for them, but then I started playing piano. Weird. This "I Woke Up in a Car" business is likeable. Very. Y'know.

All week I've had to dress up like a lawyer. Because I am one. AND I'm facing off against Jake and Kelsey, some great friends. It really sucks. Stupid mock trial. It's for government. It was kinda funny though...I cross-examined the prosecution's witness (I'm defense...even better), and I totally badgered her, but no one knew how to object or objected. So I got away with a whole lot. It was kinda sweet I guess. I felt sorta bad though. I mean, I broke the rules or something. So afterwards, Mr. Doering is telling me what I did wrong and stuff, as if I'm ever going to cross-examine a witness again...haha. So therefore, there were no consequences to my actions. That's the way I like it most of the time, but not always.

The highlight of the week was the snow day. I had stayed up till 1:30 the previous night doing calculus. So I realized that I was laying in bed and felt extraordinarily well-rested for a school day. Long story short, I got up at 11:40. I don't think I woke up that late in summer even. Probably because I had to get up for password for half of it... But those were great times. It was even more fun bonding with Ryan, and sleeping through password. I haven't talked to him since. It makes me sad. I missed LITs because of snow too, and he possibly was there? I don't know. A lot of people were there. By the way, nothing against password or anything, but it felt nice for a couple days, and neither of us were really all that needed the whole week.

So during the snow day, I picked up a book that I really should be reading right about now. It's
"Catcher in the Rye". For you faithful readers, this would sound familiar. I already read this book. Well, I'm re-reading it. It was on a list of books we could do for the american lit. book report, so why not read a book I already read. I think I'm liking it better this time around. It's making more sense. Well, the story of getting it was really crazy. I drove to the Lake Mills Library, which is the greatest waste of time in the world. You seriously do not know what a waste of time feels like until you look for a book in the Lake Mills Library. Even Waterloo has a really nice library. Lake Mills sucks, literature-wise..I mean come on. I once went there to get a book on Roger I can't remember his name. Williams perhaps? I think he founded Rhode Island. Well I did an I Am speech on him, and just needed another source. The only thing I found was some stupid cliche book about Rhode Island in the children's section. I was sitting in a chair about the size of say...well, half my butt. And it was some stupid color. and the book mentioned Roger Williams about twice. It's dumb. The library itself is super-old, it's like a transformed crazy church, or a mansion, or something old and stupid. Well, they didn't have the frickin' book. So I placed a hold on it, and then decided to drive to Waterloo's nice library to get it. The computer told me it was there. Scott Voigt appeared there, and advised me in this direction. Then he asked me some question about a magazine article on Lewis and Clark, and where he could find it. Those events actually happened in reverse order, but I couldn't answer him. I can't think of a single magazine that would cover news from the early 1800's. Probably some old magazine. He probably found what he was looking for at the Lake Mills library. Not.

Well I drove through snow and ice to get a book to reread. It was a very crazy process too. I was doing well, and I made the right turn, and then saw a big building with cars parked by it and christmas wreaths. So without even looking at it closely I just figured it was the library. So there was nowhere to park, so I tried to turn around. It's funny how I don't notice the easiest things. I was gonna park in this parking lot, but it was a municipal parking lot, right next to the LIBRARY. Right Evan. Nice deduction. So I turned around, but actually kept going in the same direction. I tried to turn on to a side street, and started driving on these series of side streets, and stumbled upon the Fireman's park. And in reality I was a bout .1 miles away from the actual library. But no. I did a turn-around somewhere. Come back and park across the "library", right in front of a Miller Lite truck. I did a little jaywalking until I got to the front door (go ahead. turn me in.). I didn't realize until I saw all these other rooms that weren't the library, and saw a door labeled "Police Training" that this in fact, was not the library. At all. I was in the police headquarters. Weird. So I did more jaywalking and another turn around, and found the very easy to find library. At least the librarian was nice. So I found the book. And I went home.

Blake was at Ming's Garden with Jake Stubblefield and Tom Schoenfeld. I guess it's something that they just do. I don't think I've ever actually been in that place, but Lake Mills actually does have a Chinese restaurant. With tables. And a buffet. Not just take-out. It's really crazy. Well, at least I've heard...

Blake just fell asleep on the floor. I think. Later Blake came home that one day, and said he needed to get a book for outside reading. So we went to the Lake Mills library and once again came away completely empty-handed. One time I got the idea to get a bunch of music from there. Then I realized that all the cds they have are pretty much public domain already. What a joke. He read a book I had in my backpack "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" The movie is way different from the book. Not that I've finished the book yet. I'm getting there, but I'm really really busy.

Boy, I am just jumping randomly from story to story. I suppose it's kinda fun. It's apt for what time it is. Blake woke up. So he really was sleeping. Now I would like to tell you about Tuesday. Of course, I believe that was the day I badgered my witness. So I was all dressed up. I was walking to my locker during commons, and realized. Oh yeah. I'm a junior rotarian. I filled out a little slip about me so it could get put in the paper with my senior picture. I'm now part of the rotary club, for the month of December. They forgot to pick me for the first week. Those jerks. So they take me away, and feed me lunch I was told. In reality, the whole experience resembled a very strange, bizarre dream. Or, a normal dream?

So I came into the office, and this old guy was waiting for me. He took me into his blazer and introduced me to his wife. They were nice people, but very awkward. They were listening to a recipe on the radio. No joke. A recipe. Some lady calls into a radio show, and they figure they're not doing anything, so let's make her recipe. So she named off the ingredients, and each one the radio host would translate it into phony radio talk, which is startlingly a lot like english. But he was actually doing the recipe. I heard him crack the eggs. Maybe it was just a sound effect. What a phony. So we stopped by Lake Mills and picked up this guy named Lucas Ward. He proved to be a good guy. This other girl was one too. Her name was Sammi Heimstreet, her dad owned a pharmacy on main street, and now it was bought out and he works in Watertown. He's still flippin' rich, and part of the rotary club. So we drive to the Pine Knoll, which is a supper club, that I've never been to before. It was an interesting place. We got out of the parking lot, which happens to also be a small desolate country. It's frickin huge. It's about 10 times the size of the restaurant, or more. And the restaurant isn't exactly small, either. I'm not really sure what the point of having such a huge parking lot is, but if you do the math, if everyone is the only person in their car, they're about 1/8 of their car let's say. So if the parking lot is filled up, and it's ten times the size of the restaurant, I'm pretty sure the restaurant won't be able to put them all in. I was never good at math anyway, besides, as if all cars only have one person in them. Besides, as if that parking lot is EVER filled.

Well we started walking in, and I starting noticing a strange thing. Everyone had a present. EVERYONE. But me. There's one embarrasing facet that would be in a dream. I asked Lucas about it. He said, they talked about it in the last meeting, but I wasn't there, so I wouldn't know. Why wouldn't they pick me for the first week? Those bunch of jerks. So we walked in, and I was pretty impressed. It was a nice looking place. I commented on it. They were both surprised that I had never been there. Lucas told me not to drink the water. I guess they're kind of legendary for how bad their water is. Which is funny because they're one of the few places that gives you water glasses right off the bat anymore. Figure that one out.

So we hung up our coats, and made our way to this huge conference room. It was completely decked out in all these Christmas decorations. I had to make myself a nametag, and quickly regretted not putting my last name on there, because I quickly found myself telling all these old people my last name and spelling it. It was pretty awkward. Then the president of the whole thing came up to me and greeted me. He gave me a handshake, if you could call it that. We just sort of fumbled around. It was easily the worst handshake I've ever received or taken part in. Extremely awkward, let me tell you. Let me tell you, you are NOT supposed to feel a man's fingernails on the palm of your hand when reaching for a handshake. Not for more than a second either. Both rules were broken. He gave me this small packet, and told me that "this explains everything". There's another dreamlike part. We talked a bit, and he told me of all the things the club will expect of me in the coming weeks. Like talking to them about who I am, reciting their theme or whatever it is. Maybe it's like the boy scouts. I suppose I wouldn't know. The only boy scout function I ever went to, I was a visitor. I sang Christmas carols for old people, and I almost fainted looking at an unresponsive man in a wheelchair that happened to have an unusually long and lumpy neck. I guess I wasn't too strong for those kind of things.

So it was their Christmas celebration, so they had a lot of good meats for lunch. Unfortunately, whenever I am in an awkward situation, it is my rule of thumb to take the first thing I see as my main course, not knowing that there's plenty of better things down the road. Then I really regret it. I took this stupid piece of chicken that was really really stupid. It couldn't even integrate e to the x power. (Y'know, I don't like Caitlin.) Well I hardly ate any of it. And then I took ham. That was weird too. Darn. I felt a little weird when the two rotarians sat at different tables. I didn't want to be alone. So I went to Lucas and asked him if we were supposed to all sit and different tables, he said he thought so, but I was new, so maybe I didn't have to. I didn't. No one objected. Turns out Sammi was just going to sit by her dad. Well whatever. The first thing I did was take a sip of my water. Mistake! It tasted like mucus. No lie. Lucas and I sat there and awkwardly ate our (or at least my) awkwardly chosen food. Then people started sitting at our table, but not TOO close to us. Then this fat man with red glasses started giving me this huge speech about how there's rotary clubs all over the world, and they just help people. Like dig wells for people that don't have water or something. Well good for them. Finally, the president must've seen me getting a little comfortable. So he picks up the microphone, makes it feedback, just the rockstar he is, and starts talking about us. He has each of us stand up and introduce ourselves, even though I was the only new junior rotarian. So I was last, and he said "just joining us this week from Lakeside Lutheran..." So I stand up and say "I'm Evan Samanas" all the others said their name and the school, but since he already said the school, I figured it was not needed. Obviously the entire rotary club felt that it was though. They just kept staring at me until I said it. So I made a complete ass of myself (another weird dream detail). I sat down, and the red glasses man told me that "it was cool" Thanks a lot you stupid crap. He was also flirting with this one stupid thin woman very weirdly.

GAh! Man. It's funny because before we had to introduce ourselves, all the rotary guys introduced their guests. All it was was 50 old guys taking turns standing up and saying "this is my wife _____" I'll tell ya. There's pointless for ya. Now, here comes an important facet of this whole thing, and very dreamlike, but I'm must neglect mentioning it for now. You'll know why later. So for about half an hour, they had this weird white elephant gift exchange. The thin woman got to open like 6 things, because people kept trading with her. She ended up with a stuffed pink flamingo. Lucas said something about how this was better than class, but I think I begged to differ. But that guy was cool. I had fun with him. So that continued until it was over.

I really should go. It's late. I know this post is slightly (very) incoherent, but I guess that's how I am at 12:30. I have more to blog about. Honest. I'll see ya later.

2005-12-06T00:16:00.000-04:00

I know this is a lame way to blog, but I've got some cool photos to show, so I hope you enjoy. I'll start out with some random stuff, and then my day. Here's the newest band around. I think they told me their name is...The Evans. I'm sure they'll have a purevolume site up real soon. (I think im a purevolume whore) Hope you enjoy.

2005-12-06T00:14:00.000-04:00

my incredibly bright blood blisters. from 2 hours straight of drumming.

2005-12-06T00:12:00.000-04:00

Look closely, and towards the top. You may see some hair that used to belong to a certain Ashley Beth.

2005-12-06T00:11:00.000-04:00

Ha! Got Mr. Hackbarth when he wasn't looking. Served!

2005-12-06T00:09:00.001-04:00

Mr. Wendland being a concert band percussionist

2005-12-06T00:09:00.000-04:00

Paul L in band.

"ohio is for bummers"

2005-11-25T01:15:00.000-04:00

--The title from my brother's blog. It pretty much sums up my day. Is this normal font? It doesn't feel like it. I mean..I guess I don't not like it or anything...

So yeah, I haven't blogged in almost a month. Which testifies to my hate for school. My school week was pretty much hell. Right before we got off on wednesday, I stayed up until past 1 in the morning the past two nights. Doing calculus, working on scholarships, working on my physics project, which was making a catapult. I ended up getting an A- on it.

I have a lot of things I'd like to blog about, but I'm pretty short on time. I guess I can't have one of my signature long posts.

Yesterday we left Lake Mills pretty close to when we got out of school. We took some alternate route to not drive through Chicago, we knew it would be incredibly swamped. The route was out of our way by quite a bit. We even got caught in a traffic jam with those Illinois tollbooths. There wasn't an accident or anything. It was just large amounts of traffic and little amounts of tollbooths. But good thing. In chicago a train hit a bunch of cars stuck in a traffic jam, and injured like 12 people..or 12 cars. Something like that. We quite possibly could've been involved in that, and if not, the traffic would've been unmovable.

So we traveled through the night. We had a hotel room a little outside of Dayton reserved, and arrived there at about 2:30 in the a.m. I didn't sleep a wink in the car either. I don't have much sleep. Oh... and on the way down Blake and I watched the Ben Folds Five DVD Dave lent us. It was hot.

We had to wake up at about 8:15 or something like that for God knows why. I ate some crazy biscuits and gravy. Some lady at the continental breakfast thing asked me what it was. I told her. I was very surprised, because normally when I'm in a hotel, I'm in a southern state. I forgot I was in Ohio, and these people have no idea what country gravy is. She thought it was grits or something. Which isn't even close. Oh well. I also followed the tradition and kept my average at 1.0 cheese danishes consumed per hotel stayed at. Pretty sweet huh?

So we took off for Waverly, Ohio. Which is about 30 miles from the Kentucky border. I'm not used to this. I really haven't explained the reason for this trip have I? Well....Thanksgiving...see grandparents and one of my aunts. My aunt lives in Columbus, and my grandparents used to live in Cleveland, but they moved to this crazy retirement neighborhood. I guess it's better. The house they're in is like a smaller version of their old house. We went there, felt awkward, watched football and my fantasy players sucking. My aunt ordered thanksgiving dinner from a restaurant. It was very good. Only good part of the evening, except for now. After dinner I went to watch the Dallas/Denver game. I fell asleep in a chair. My mom woke me up for dessert. It was this weird carrot cake with all these nuts in it. It was gross, and I was already super full. I also had absolutely no clue what was going on... I just woke up. Mom kept asking me questions too. It was really annoying. I just told her I didn't want to talk. Then she laughed and started explaining to dumb relatives why I was acting like this.

I don't like my relatives. They don't know me. That one lady that's supposedly my grandmother doesn't really even care about us. But hey, I've done enough complaining about her...and she didn't drink as much wine as usual tonight. At least I don't think.

Well now I'm staying down the street from them in this house that looks exactly like thiers. It's really nice, but tomorrow we head off to Columbus, which will be better. I'll be there till Sunday though. It's really not any fun here. There's a waste of a long weekend. Well, since I have no communication really, it would be super nice if you would like to send me an email. I guess I'll be checking more often because there's nothing to do, and this computer doesn't accept any new software. I guarantee a very gracious response and my life-long love.

Thank you all. Goodnight.

P.S. Mountaineers are like cleaning up. This crazy. They keep forcing fumbles. I like it. I really love West Virginia, ever since I did that one dynasty thing in that one video game with them. That was like 2 years ago. That was also goofy good. And Ron Dayne had an amazing day. Give him a hug.

G'bye loves.

holy moly

2005-10-28T23:12:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was pretty much the greatest night ever. I've decided now that any time Ben Folds is within 100 miles of where I am, I'm going to go and try to see him, because he easily puts on the best shows of anybody. No other show I've seen even comes close. Truly amazing.

Well I guess it makes more sense to go through the day from beginning to end, so I figure I should do just that.

Well...I went to school, after I woke up of course. Well I guess the whole school day was pretty uneventful. I was hit with calculus and physics quizzes or tests, or whatever they are. I don't think I did too well on them. Oh well.

Well I was really waiting for school to end. And then it did. Anna Kanter gave me this 2-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper in this bag that said "do not open unless you are Evan Samanas". It was pretty funny, but I had no idea what it was for. I found out later that it was because I am the ultimate California Gamer.

To explain, not too long ago I went to this movie with her, Ellie, my brother, and Stevie P. It was for Anna's birthday I guess, because last year at about this time we happened to see a movie, and it was super fun. So we watched Wallace and Gromit, and then went to Anna's house. We ate dinner with most of her family, and then played these crazy Atari games. California Games was like this tournament thing, that everyone could play. There was all these cool games like...square hacky sack, downhill whatever, and surfing...that absolutely no one how to get points at. Well..it was a lot of fun, and I tied for first with Anna at the end...so she gave me Dr. Pepper?

Well anyway, I pretty much drank the whole thing. It was pretty good. Blake moved all his stuff into a different locker, because he was sick of the old. For a couple of reasons. But we got it out of the way. Then, Adrianne, Anna, Tom Mackey, Blake, and I headed off to my house to just kind of hang out until the Ben Folds concert. We had to meet at the Stubblefield's at their house, and then I would follow Charlie...seeing that I do not know my way around downtown Madison. Well, I guess we all decided to watch some stupid shows on that one video game channel. And then, the girls got hungry and so they just opened up these boxes of macaroni and cheese and tried to turn on the stove to make it. Well...they aren't that familiar with gas stoves I guess, and didn't think to light the flame, but just turn the thing on, so that the gas line just starts running and eventually makes us all very sleepy until we're dead. Man. That was dumb.

I feel really stupid writing all of this. I once again feel like one of those sixth-graders, trying his/her hardest to try to put what happened down on paper but doesn't have the sufficient attention span to get the pencil on the paper long enough to write anything.

Well I eventually ate some crazy microwaved hot dogs, and then we all piled in my little car and drove the entire .000342106 miles to Charlie's house. On arriving there, we were a little puzzled, because no one appeared to be home. Well, I made some calls to try and get Charlie's cell phone number, and Alex Paschke eventually came through in the clutch. Well, we finally realized that the door was open, and that Charlie was at the whole shop thing down the street a ways. Adrianne and Anna, being the ever self-serving folks that they are, thinking that they can just open people's macaroni and cheese and try to intoxicate the owner's bodies with incredible amounts of natural gas, just walked right in.

So Jake (of course, Charlie's brother/Blake's best friend) was at the dentist, and we later found a sign on the back door, inviting us (or Tom) to just come in and do whatever. But y'know, I'm glad we didn't go in, because while I was sitting in the car with Tom and Blake, I uncovered that Tom is the cousin of local camp counselor Ben Stein. We had a time talking about this.

We finally got on the road towards Madison, and Charlie is a super fast driver. It was tough keeping up with him. Especially while trying to drum ska on the steering wheel on busy one-lane highways. Yeah...it was a fun drive.

Charlie stopped to pick up Josh Cairney (who happens to have a lot of fun documenting his facial hair situation on a website - www.beardsummer.com). And then we parked on the top of this parking ramp, for free. It was pretty sweet. Then we kind of had time to kill, and the Stubblefield's hadn't eaten yet, so we went to Noodles and Company. I didn't eat anything, but it was kind of cool being there. We then went into the Orpheum for the sold out show of The Fray and Ben Folds. Upon entering through the door, we stumbled upon Phil Trapp, who got a ticket at the last minute somehow. We got there right at about when The Fray started playing, and we had to go to the balcony. They were crappy seats, so Charlie and Josh went to find better ones. It was pretty amazing. We had a lot of people, and somehow they managed to find amazing seats for each one of us, including Phil. I don't know how it happened, but I'm glad it did.

The Fray put on a really good show. They'd be great headliners if they had more music out, but their first cd just came out. My brother at first only wanted to go to this show because of them. Then we both figured out how amazing Ben Folds is, and I bought him Songs For Silverman. Well, this concert was the only time I ever heard laughter coming from the crowd at a concert, and interestingly enough, The Fray started this off, with a story about how they went to some Mexican restaurant in Madison, and found a cockroach in their food. The waitress was really apologetic, and then gave them water, which one glass had another bug in it. It was pretty funny.

So they finished their set off, and I only knew one song of theirs. I highly suggest giving "Cable Car" a listen. I know there was some really good ones they played that I didn't know too. Then all the stagehands came out and started moving stuff around. The Orpheum is really a sweet venue. It's one of the best I've been to. It's got this really great, intimate feel. They brought up Ben's piano, and this one super gay looking guy with this big gut started completely stroking the piano, and Ben's microphone. It was pretty weird.

So I was getting sick of hearing the crappy in-between music, and watching this crazy fat Santana look a like grope his girlfriend and get even more alcoholic drinks. Jake asked this girl out that was sitting next to him. It was pretty funny. So finally the lights go off, and this creepy-sounding music starts playing. And you think Ben and the band is going to make this dramatic entrance. But the creepy music just kept playing. Then the drummer and the bassist came on and started playing this crazy music, and then Ben walked onto the stage. Man. That was really cool. They started playing this really weird sounding version of Jesusland. I think it was making fun of the kind of "peace on earth, love one another" music. Ben gave this speech about how we need to love another and how there's a top floor and a bottom floor (there's a balcony at the orpheum). And it was really funny. Then they closed the song out with this crazy finale and Ben shouted into the mic "Thank you Milwaukee!" and just walked off. It was hilarious. Cheering persisted, and he walked back on and said "thank you all very much, you're very kind. We'll play one more for ya." That alone made it unlike any other concert I've ever been to. Throughout the concert he pretty much played almost everything from his two solo albums, and some of the great Ben Folds Five songs. Unfortunately, I only knew "Brick". There was this sweet period of time when the band left and he was alone with the piano, playing all these great songs. It was so cool. The musicianship was absolutely amazing. The sound was so good, and only 3 people were making it. The bassist and drummer were also doing the background vocals. They were all so good at what they did. It was so amazing. So many great songs were played I was completely satisfied about a million times over. I would've been satisfied if the concert was half as long.

There were these times that he would have the crowd do some background singing, and harmonize, like the trumpet on "Army", and all the crazy singing parts of "Underground". My favorite song of the concert was probably "Bitches Ain't Shit" a cover of a Dr. Dre rap song that he wrote music for. It's so hilarious. He was singing the part about how he gets bailed from the county jail and goes home "and i open the do', look on the flo', and it's my little cousin daz and he's fuckin my ho". The crowd goes nuts, and you think he's going to end it there. But then he goes on, true to the song. "man, then I uncocked my shit. I'm heartbroke......i'm heartbroke." "But I'm still loked" At this point in the recording, you hear this faint voice that says "man...fuck that bitch....3, 4" and then the refrain starts again. But in the concert, the aussie drummer starts giving him this speech about how these "hos" aren't up to his standard, and that he should just give her up. So the bassist just goes to the microphone and says "man...i don't know... I think you should just....fuck that bitch. 3, 4" And the gloriousness of the song just overtook me. It was incredibly good. It ended out with the crowd chanting the background "bitches can't hang with the streets" while Ben starting singing stuff like "oh yeah, you know that" "it's a well-known fact that..", and "all the children say" in between.

It's so hard to describe how amazing this concert was. They played all these other songs, there was only about 3 songs from each of his solo cds he didn't play. They even found a way to play Rockin' the Suburbs with no guitar, and make it one of the greatest songs of the concert. That song was truly amazing. He left the stage, and the encore was deafening, he came back and played "Late", and then "Not the Same", which he taught us the three-part harmony to it, and it sounded incredibly cool. And that was it. Rarely would I ever describe a concert like this, but according to the word of the day...it was quite amazing.

We drove home and Blake and I had an interesting conversation with Adrianne and Anna, but it didn't last too long, in favor of singing to Ben Folds in the car.

So that was pretty much my day. Unfortunately I started writing this post yesterday, so when I refer to yesterday at the beginning, it was actually two days ago. I visited UW-Platteville. I saw Matt there. They had good food. I went to Dubuque, and then ate dinner in Galena, Illinois. Then I came home.

I like it when I finish long posts.