3 Weeks in My Summer

Picture of the Day 06-08-05
Bought this book today. Heard it is supposed to be real good. It's the behind the scenes of the Cardinals-Cubs series last year from Tony La Russa's view. I also got Shoeless Joe (the book they based Field of Dreams on), War of the Worlds, Harrington on Hold'em (supposed to be AS good as Super System if not better), and the Essential Calvin and Hobbes (cause I saw it and just remembered having some of those books when I was younger). Also bought a wireless router today, so now I can get the internet on my computer anywhere in the house.

Workin for the man:
I have a job interview tommorrow. It's for a job at medical records at Washington University School of Medicine. It's with some of the people my mom used to work with. Should be a lot of filing, with some other office work mixed in. I'm kinda happy about it. I'd rather just be here and chillin playing poker all day to make money.

Stop Speaking Fucking Sputnick News:
I've been playing poker pretty much every day since I've been home. My bankroll when I got home was at about $5,ooo. Now it's at $11,000. Pretty good but I had it at even more than that. I've lost a bit lately. Stepped my game up pretty good. I'm proud of myself. But my mom keeps reminding me, "Don't you ever plan on that instead of a job." And as awesome as that would be, I'm not good enough. Maybe after a few years.....Maybe.

Summertime:
Home has been pretty boring so far. No one is home. Pretty much all my friends from here are at school, on vaction, or just plain out of town. Kinda sucks. And everyone else is in Chicago, except Matt who I'm goin to a Cards game with in about 2 weeks. I might be visiting Chicago in the next week or so. I heard that Kim might be up there then, but only for a few weeks and then she's on to Europe and Asia. And because of all that, here's how my days have been: Wake up around 10 or 11, watch a little TV or play a little poker for a couple hours, then get dressed and stuff, then usually watch a movie and do some chores around the house, then play poker for a few hours, by then my mom comes home and I spend some time with her, and usually watch the Cardinals game, then chill for the night. Pretty boring. On the weekends either we've gone to Springfield or my brother and the rest of the clan comes here and visit. My nephew has gotten big and is walking real good.

Quote of the Day: "Dude, don't pick your nose. Come on, the camera guy is pickin his nose." - Larry Walker in a live post game interview.
Song of the Day: "I am the Walrus" by Styx. This is a pretty cool cover of a Beatles song. Another song since it's been so long: "Life's Been Good" by the Eagles. There was a cool concert by the Eagles on TV the other day.

I'm gonna post some pictures that I have from throughout the year in the next few posts. This one's from moving day as I had to pack up stuff I looked under everything so I didn't forget anything. Oddly enough, I forgot my shoes cause I was wearing flip flops and I left my shoes in the living room.

This is me after we beat Louisville to go to the NCAA championship. This is me chugging some orange windex at Jimmy John's

Crazyness at the quad after we beat Louisville to get to the NCAA championship.

More crazyness at the quad after we beat Louisville to get to the NCAA championship.

This is probably embarassing for Matt, so I figured that I should post it. This is Matt trying on the hoody he won for his girlfriend. No, it doesn't fit well.

From left to right: Me, Scotty (Arrogant Fuck), Wagner (Vagner), and Alan (His Hupeness). Person taking the picture: "Ok guys, make a cool pose." I guess I thought the person said 'a stupid pose' cause I look like an idiot (so it's a normal picture)

The beautiful tower of Rolling Rocks. This was built by engineers. What was even better than this was when the table got nudged and all the bottles fell on someone (can't remember who though)

Alan drunk off his ass, but I guess everyone wanted to see how much we could put on him.

Nico drunk off his ass. He said he stole some stuff and then bribed us by offering us all $10,000 as a bribe. He also tried to call Jack Bauer.

Sean passed out in his chair after it fell onto his bed, thanks to a little help from Jim Beam

School's Out For Summer

Picture of the Day 05-18-05
Well my sophomore year is finally over. Spring semester seemed to turn out much better than fall was. Everything was still a little crazy to start the fall. Eventually I got in the swing of things, but in some things it was a bit too late. Spring semester though, I felt a little more renewed. I had more fun, did more work, and overall felt better about a lot more aspects of my life (I just realized that this is going to be a real reflective post. This might be really boring, so as you run away, let the women and children go first). But before I get more reflective, I’ll let you know what’s happened over the last week of school.

Finals, Exams, Tests; Whatever you call them, mine were hard:
Want to know another reason why engineering is so hard, the finals. We do so much work during the semester and at least 1/3 of our grade is from the final. I had one class where the final was 45% of the grade. It’s crazy. Now that I’m done bitching a little, I’ll tell you what happen. I basically studied from last Thursday til right before my final on Wednesday night. I had a few breaks in there (in all honesty, I had a pretty long break on Saturday night, but come on it was Saturday night). There were also several distractions from other people who hung out cause they didn’t want to study, but it was cool to hang out cause I didn’t want to work either. I thought I got owned on the ECE final (found out I got a 62, avg was a 67). I ended up getting a B- in that class which is pretty big cause it’s a 4 hour class. I had my TAM 251 (the hard class with the horrible prof) final Monday morning. I was worried the test would be crazy hard, but it turned out that I might have actually known what I was doing. Then on Tuesday I did decent on the other TAM class’s final. After that I studied the hardest out of the whole week, trying to learn physics. That stuff is hard. I took the final and did great until the last few pages, I could have done well, or I could have done bad, probably somewhere in the middle. I think I did enough though. Hey it could have been worse, Dave said he guessed on most of the questions, hopefully he got lucky cause that would suck to take that class over again. I just checked on it and I passed the final and got a C- in Physics. Then after that final I had to quickly finish my cheat sheet for my GE final that was in a couple hours (don’t worry, we were allowed to use a cheat sheet). I actually finished the cheat sheet with time to spare and played poker in the lounge for ten minutes before I went to the final. By the way, the game was pretty big and I was a little mad that there was such a good poker game going during my only final that was at night. I did good enough on that final to get a C in the class and maybe even a B if I get lucky or the prof gives our grades a little bump.

You Ain’t Gotta Go Home But You Gotta Get the Heck Up Out of Here:
Packing up was interesting. Pretty much the whole time I packed, someone was hanging out with me. Me packing was more interesting than studying finals so it seemed like a lot of people stopped by. I cleaned all the chalk that was left on the walls off, with the help of Matt by the way. Most of the packing was easy but the stuff at the end seemed to take forever. I realized that I basically had all my winter and summer clothes up there. For most of the stuff I used our family’s cheap luggage, plastic trash bags. I didn’t think that I had that much stuff, but the car was packed to them brim. I mostly blame it on having so many clothes. Moving out was long and sucked cause I didn’t have a cart til the end. But at least Elleni helped with some of the stuff. After what seemed like forever, I had all the stuff out and went to say my goodbyes. My part of the room looked depressing, it was completely bare and the walls in the living room were void of all the chalk. It didn’t seem like my room anymore. Probably will be the last time I’m in there unless we make friends with the people who live there next semester. And knowing me and Matt, I think we’ll hang out a little up there, maybe even teach them kitchen ball.

Home, James:
Well, I’ve been home for a few days. It’s been pretty boring. So far, I’ve seen no one. I haven’t seen any friends or family outside of my mom and uncle (for like a second). I don’t really know who’s even in town out of my friends. Guess I should find out what’s goin on, but I’m just chillin for now. I already tossed away some cash on DVDs. I did finally get my phone fixed. I now get voicemails, so make sure you leave me one (618-420-3636). Just make it funny and I’ll be sure to return the favor. I’ve had a good amount of time to play poker on ub though. It’s been nice. I’m playing pretty good. I won a $40 tourney the other day and made about $1500. That’s about it, not much else goin on.

Chi Town, What’s Goin On:
So first off, Kimmy’s goin down to Florida for awhile with her parents. She can’t get out of it and it sucks. It’s sounding more and more like we won’t be seeing much of each other this summer, if at all. What sucks is that we both want to be together but can’t find a way for it to happen. So I’m not sure if I’m gonna visit Chicago at all this summer. It’s not the same trip now. Elleni really wants me to visit but I’m just not sure if I really want to now. I’ve talked to a few people from Chicago and everything seems to be cool with everyone. We’ll wait and see what happens with me visiting though.

Quote of the Day: Janitor: "Scooter!" JD: "Huh?" Janitor: "Your nickname will be scooter." JD: "I don't get it." Janitor: "Like Scooter Pies. I HATE Scooter Pies!" JD: "Oh... now I get it." - from Scrubs dvd that I just got
Song of the Day: "School's Out for Summer" by Alice Cooper. Guess why this is the song of the day.

This is the Farthest North I've ever been

Picture of the Day 05-06-05
So last weekend I went to the White Sox game with Lenny and Alan. The trip up was pretty fast. I had never seen offensive driving until I saw it in Chicago. It was little crazy for me, I think I would of hit someone by now if I drove like that in Chicago. We got to the game and of course I decided to leave my hoody in the car since Lenny went in short sleeves and Alan had on basically what I had. It was so cold all night. We froze pretty much the whole time. Before the game we met up with the U of I WhiteSox nation for a pregame bbq. They made a sign for the game that said to put us on tv and it had some of the sox anouncer's catch phrases on there. They actually put us on tv. If I can figure out how to do it, I'll put a picture up of us on tv. The renovated Comisky looked really nice. We had seats in the right field bleachers. Great seats for the price. It was a different brand of baseball then I was used to. There weren't that many people there and it was a Friday night game when the Sox have the best record in baseball. Nothing like how many people show up for a Cards game at Busch. Lets just say that at least 30,000 fans at Comisky that night were dressed up as empty seats. The game was pretty good though. Close tight game all the way til the end. Another thing that got to me though was the DH. Watching the game just made me despise the DH even more. I mean the DH is like half a man, he can hit but is such a hinderence in the field that they made a special position just for him. Anyways, the game. The Sox came back in the ninth to tie it up but couldn't hit in the go ahead run and ended up losing in extra innings.

My dork or Lover in the Hotub (in Will Ferrell voice):
I really missed talking to Kimmy cause last weekend she was gone and I never got ahold of her to have a converastion. She actually said she might not go to Europe this summer just so she can spend time with me. That would be so great but I'm not sure she'll stay here because she doesn't want to regret missing this trip. Whatever happens I hope she makes the right choice. I got to talk to her a lot this week and it was great, I can't wait to see her this summer.

Aren't I Boring News:
Most of what happened this week that I might put in here was boring or I forgot. Sorry bout that.

Rolled Up Aces Over Kings News:
No news on my bankroll it's stayed in place for the most part. But I've been playing a lot here at IT this week. Been having a blast and winning a little cash too. Yesterday we tried playing a H.O.R.S.E. tourney. The way we did it was play a tournament of each of the following games: Hold em, Omaha, Razz, Seven card stud, and Eight and below omaha. We had decent sized tournaments for Hold em and Omaha. The Razz and Stud tournaments were only 4 people and for a dollar though. And the Eight and below tournament was just me and Matt. I had fun though and enjoyed the games, just not some of the guys bad play that beat me a few times.

Finally, it's almost over:
All my classes are done and now all I have left is finals. Some are gonna be tough but my grades should be much better this semester. I still need to work a lot this week, but I'm going to do it.

Quote of the Day: "Monroe, Monroe, where's MAGG-LIO" - this was one of the chants shouted throughout the night. WE were shouting this at the right fielder Monroe who was replacing the former Sox player Magglio Ordonez
Song of the Day: "Let It Be" by the Beatles. I'm listening to it now and it is such an amazing song.

That's a winner

Picture of the Day 05-23-05
Well, Me, Matt, Dave, Nico, and Lenny went to the baseball game on Friday night. It was a great game. Here's all that happened.

Is This a Sign That We Shouldn't Go?
We planned on leaving Champaign at 3 to head to the game. Since everyone except Nico had class til 3, we had him get the car. The car was at the E-14 lot. Nico didn't go to the right lot though. So he was late to get the car and since he was getting directions from his friend on his cell, we didn't know what was going on. Matt ended up going down to E-14 while Lenny and I waited to see if Nico would show up. Eventually Nico call and said he got to the lot, but then he couldn't find the car even. Then Matt showed and we had hope again. He found the car and got in with Nico. And of course, the car wouldn't start because the battery was dead. So they tried to get it jumped, but for some reason it wouldn't jump. So, Lenny and I went to go get Dave and walk to E-14 to get Lenny's little car in case we needed to buy Matt's car a new battery. When we started to walk to Dave's, it started to rain. All of this wasn't a good sign. But right after we got Dave, Matt called. He had the car running and picked us up. We finally left Champaign at 4:15ish.

The Long and Winding Road:
We we're kinda bored for the ride there, so we decided to play a game. We played the name game, except with baseball players. So, one person said a name and the next person had to say a name where the first name started with the same letter that the previous player's last name started with. So if one person said Mike Piazza the next would say Pablo Ozuna (my favorite name that I used cause everyone was trying to give me a hint, saying to think of a Spanish first name. They were thinking Pedro. Maybe you had to be there). You got three strikes (passes) if you couldn't think of one after a little bit. We played the whole car ride there and actually the whole car ride back too. It could be said that either me, Lenny, or Matt won. There were some rule changes later that let people get back in and some other stuff too.

Baseball Been Berry Berry Good to Me:
The game was great. We sat in the right field bleachers. Good seats for the price. We got to the game a little late, we blamed Nico for that, but he bought everyone dinner at the game so it made up for it. Big inning for the Cards in the second inning. Note: you don't put Reggie Sanders on to pitch to So Taguchi, he's the man. It was so cold at the game, the temp said 50 but it seemed so much colder with the wind. Dave even signed up for a credit card just to get a free blanket. The game got close late and we moved to better seats. Me and Matt showed the guys the finer points of Busch stadium. Then Izzy closed out the game and we won 8-7.

Random Stats:
The new Busch stadium that they're building looks great. They put up a lot of the brick and the outside looks great. The inside looks good too. The top of the stadium has different kinds of arches but they still look nice. The inside really is looking like a ballfield, it's great. Also, on the way out of the parking lot to the highway, Matt decide to blast some rap music. He rolled down the windows and opened his sunroof. When we got to the highway, he tried to close everything. The sunroof wouldn't close so we drove back to champaign with the sunroof open the whole way. It's was a little chilly.

Quote of the Day: Me: "Actually out of the all the Kevin Smith movies, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back cost the most."
Elleni: "I can understand that, they had to get monkeys and other animals."
-Jay and Silent Bob cost like over 10 million, mostly cause of the monkeys I guess
Song of the Day: "In a Gada da Vida" by Iron Butterfly - All 17 minutes of it.

Hello Springfield

Picture of the Day 05-21-05
This is who I was with on Saturday. Thomas had his first birthday last week and I hadn't seen him in ages. He got big. He's walking now and it's adorable just to watch him walk around. I got to see my mom, Matt, Amy, and DC too. I had a great time and wish I could of spent more time with everyone. My brother ended up driving me back to school. He hung out for a bit. He really had fun drawing stuff on our walls in chalk. I took him out for dinner and then he left. He said he had a real good time.

Technology Sucks News: Kimmy's computer is broke. Like it was hard enough being so far away, now we can't talk as much. She tries to use a friend's computer to email me and im me if I'm here but it's nothing like our conversations before, there just too short.

In Class Out the Ass News:
I am finally done with all my tests until finals. It'll be smooth sailing until then, it's great. I got a B on my ECE test the other day. I got a D though on my GE test but at least I did good on the first one. And I think I did reall good on the TAM test the other day, but we'll see.

Red Means Go:
I'm going down to St. Louis tommorrow for the Cardinals game. It should be great. It looks like it'll be me, Matt, Dave, Lenny, and Nico.

Quote of the Day: "That's what you get for being smart, you have to take more hours." - Elleni. Got love that what she said is completely right.
Song of the Day: "Chewbacca" by Supernova. I bought the Clerks soundtrack and this is one of the best songs on it, only 3 lines in the song, but hilarious nonetheless

You Two, Fight to the Death

So Now Apparently I'm Richard III.
I have officially been attacked by Kimmy, the other front. She compared me to Richard III. I don't know what that means but I'm told that it's bad. I tried to negotiate peace but neither would have it, so war you will both get. This war is not supposed to be mean, and I am not worried because neither of these two could be mean. But I'm sure I could be embarassed, but I really can't embarass them that well, this might be a quick war. Oh by the way, if you want to follow the other side of this war, the losing side, here are links to their blogs. Kimmy's
and Elleni's. Both of them, I have to say are subpar blogs, come one, I have pictures, they have smiley faces. They intend to conquer me, ha (*see below*). So Elleni and Kimberly, Bring it on. No matter what though, I still heart both of you. I'm sorry Kim but I have to tell people this, you need to go to school a little more. Kim believes that Dinosaurs are extinct because they smoked. Pardon my friend, she's a little slow. kkkkkkmay.
That's all for now
-Doug



*Oh yeah, they think I'll lose if they conquer me. Two women trying to conquer me, at the same time, should be fun. Either way I win.

Blog War. Oh Yeah, It's On!

Picture of the Day 05-15-05
This is the Iraq to my Kuwait (not sure if this is even a good analogy, if not, substitute USA for Kuwait). This is Elleni taking a swipe at me and my camera. She wanted to throw down, verbally that is. So she started a blog war. She posted some stuff about me in her blog trying to make me sound like a jerk (like she needed to quote me to make me sound like a jerk, I do ok on my own). She even misquoted me so I'm gonna quote her. This is some of the stuff she's said: "I'm" "mean". "I" "eat" "children". "I" "like" "UNC". Listen to all that, how can she even attack me, it wasn't a pre emptive strike. She started this war and it will go on until she concedes the war by giving me some of her country (a spot in her blog) or until I get bored by all this. Oh yeah, she even tried to bring Kimmy in on this to start a war on multiple fronts. You won the first battle on a sneak attack Elleni but I've won this battle and will win the war.

That was all I really wanted to post on but I'll give you a quote and a song.

Quote of the Day: "In the US you say, 'would you like to go out for dinner' and in Canada we say, 'you wanna fight'" - One of the guys in BNL during a concert
Song of the Day: "King of Bedside Manor" by BNL, yeah I've been listening to a bit of BNL lately.

Tommy Can You Hear Me

Picture of the Day 05-13-05
This is a picture of my nephew, Thomas. His 1st birthday is Friday. On Saturday I'm going to go to Springfield to see him, my mom, Matt, and Amy to celebrate. He's been walking for a bit now but I haven't seen him in awhile so I haven't seen him walk yet. I can't wait to see him and the rest of my family on Saturday.

It's For Cancer News:
Last Friday night I went to the soccer field on the south end of campus. I went with Lenny to support Elleni and everyone else walking for relay for life. Stayed there til almost 4. I had a good time. We walked some laps, listened to some live music, played bags, watched some games of dodgeball, and even tackled a guy in a cigarette costume (that guy got rocked a few times. never underestimate how much people will want to hurt random people if they can). Anyways, had a good time and hey, it was for cancer.

Study, Study, Study:
Most of the week I've been studying for my TAM 212 test today. It didn't go to well, I made some stupid mistakes and just didn't feel like I knew enough of my stuff. And now that I'm done with that test, I've got 2 more next week. I'll be studying some more but after that, no more tests til finals. Can't wait. It seems like all I do lately is work, it'll be nice to relax a little.

You Knew It Was Coming:
Well if you've read any of the past few posts, you probably knew this was coming, Kimmy time. Still been talking like crazy and been wanting to see each other like crazy. Sometimes it really sucks that we can't be near each other but it's so great to talk to her that I deal with it. She's so sweet and caring, I can't wait to see her.

Quote of the Day: "I'm a hug whore." - Elleni. She said this because Kimmy had Elleni hug me so Elleni could describe it to her.
Song of the Day: "Du" by David Hasslehoff. Yes that is the song of the day, but it's more of a joke than anything. This is the song from Eurotrip. So funny found it on the network and took it, the entire song is absolutely hilarious.