Thursday, July 31, 2008

1200 Miles, 8 states, 43 license plates, and a partridge in a pear tree!

Well. Lots going on. Been working an incredible amount at CPK and working hard, but it's paying off and the money is coming in pretty well. Which is good because Steve and I finally found an apartment for the fall and having to put down a whole bunch of money up front SUCKS. This past weekend was the Kappa Sigma leadership conference in Richmond, VA. Richmond also sucks. The highlight of the trip was probably the trip itself. My grandparents were kind enough to let us borrow their car to drive down to Virginia and it was quite the trip.

We got on the road at about 5am on Thursday and before we out of Albany my trusty co-pilot had fallen back to sleep. It was torrential downpours for the first, oh 4 hours. Once we hit Pennsylvania the rain let up and it was smooth sailing. We actually traveled through six states in under six hours. We made it to Charlottesville, VA where our national headquarters are and it has a cool downtown area. The new headquarters is huge and has a lot of really interesting history from the founding of our fraternity in 1869. We also saw the meeting room over at UVA where the founding fathers met for the first time.

That night we went out in downtown Charlottesville. There was a cool little bar called Fellini's #9 that had live band karaoke night. It was your typical karaoke night some locals making fools of themselves. This one guy put in the most passionate karaoke I've ever seen. He did Fortunate Son by CCR and I think at one point he almost took out the bass player with his leg kicks. Then we went over to Miller's. Miller's was a real dive bar and no one else really wanted to go. But Daryn, Steve and I went and had a beer. What makes Miller's more than your average bar? In 1990, a certain little Dave Matthews was a bartender at Miller's where he met a lawyer who encouraged him to record and perform some of his songs. Today he is who is. Dave wasn't our bartender but the beer was good.

Friday night Steve, Dan, and I went to Buffalo Wild Wings to grab some food and watch the Yankees game. The wings were really delicious. I think they had 20 different sauces. Saturday we watched the game at Cha Cha's and ate a ridiculous amount of nachos before our dinner banquet and enjoyed some Dos Equis.

Sunday's trip back was not as smooth as the trip down. We made a stop in California, MD to see Christopher, Shaunna, Ethan and Kim and grab some lunch. We went to Cheeseburger in Paradise, appropriately since Jimmy Buffett is a KappaSig. From there on out my trusty co-pilot returned to his position of passed out. We came back a little differently and hit tons of traffic in Jersey. I'd like to think everyone was going to the Springsteen's show at Meadowlands even though I was not. A quick side note, I will going to Springsteen this Saturday night at Gillette Stadium. I will be sitting right near the soundboard (which means they will be tuning the speakers so that we hear the mix perfectly) at the 50 yard line. Now I just need to figure out how we are getting down there.

So we got through some of the traffic and I had to make a pit stop. While we stopped we decided to get gas too. After waiting for 45minutes in line for gas the attendant tells us that they are all out of regular. So we waited for nothing and we continued on our way. After leaving VA at 8:30, we finally pulled back into Gram and Pa's driveway around 10:00pm.

It was a long trip, it was a fun trip, and next time we're going to Disney!

Picking up my Springsteen's tickets today after work, double tomorrow, Springsteen on Saturday. Busy couple of days. Also waiting for a phone call to come and something tells me it may come today. If I get that call you'll be the first to know.

-S

Monday, July 7, 2008

Don't Ask Questions

So the past couple weeks I've been living by this philosophy: Don't Ask Questions. When people say there are no stupid questions they are wrong. There are stupid questions and there are unnecessary questions and there are questions that shouldn't be asked. So to solve this dilemma, I decided to enact this new philosophy. It's been working out great. It plays along with this idea of fate. When someone asks why this or why that, I simply respond "don't ask questions" and the discussion is over with.

Then recently (while at the movies watching Wanted, which tells you the quality of that movie) I realized that my new philosophy is totally stepping on the premise of one of my previous philosophies that to get a head in life you have to ask tough questions. So now here I am between a rock and a hard place. Which philosophy do I live by? Do I ask the tough questions and maybe get answers that I'm not ready for? Or do I keep up my current trend and just go with the flow and not stop to ask any questions? I think for now I'm going to stick with the no questions. Life is good and I don't really want to mess that up right now.

The job at Berklee has been posted and I submitted my resume and cover letter last Tuesday. Fingers crossed I'll hear something this week about setting up an interview. Last week was great because I had Sarah's car for the week while she was at Disney. We went to Costco and laid out by the pool for a day and drove to Carrabbas and just the freedom to go places very easily was awesome. If I get this job at Berklee I'm totally going to look into buying a car. I miss the shark.

Fourth of July was okay. I had to work on the bar Friday night, but we were able to catch a small part of the fireworks from right outside work. Fireworks aren't all they are cracked up to be. The best part of the Fourth is bbq and family. None of that this year, but maybe next year.

Summer is flying by. Can't believe its July already. It is sinking in more and more that I don't have to go back to school in the Fall and that the end of summer doesn't really mean anything for me in particular. Except that at the end of the summer I need to find a new apt. Still on the hunt for that apt and its not going so hot. But we still have some time.

Until Laters