January 2003 Journal Entries:
1-31-03 - Personal Finance was pointless as usual today, but I think I might actually learn some stuff that I can apply to my life sometime. Lifted with Colin and Mark at noon. Had Horticulture lab from 2 to 5pm. Went to the hockey game with Kim and Maria at 8:30pm. We played NSU who had a total of 6 skaters on their team, meaning they had one guy on the bench. They also had no coach. I thought they put up a good fight considering their severe man-power deficiency. After the game me and Kim watched Rushmore in my room.
1-30-03 - TA'd zoology lab. The kids are starting to warm up a little. I'm having more fun in lab thankfully. I've picked out a kid to pick on so things should get even better. After lab I finally got the last of my water analysis started, the B.O.D. measurements. I won't bore you with details. Had the first IM Men's basketball game of the season at 10pm. We got down something like 12-2 early on, but the halftime score was 31-15 in favor of us. I think we went on a pretty good run. We ended up winning by 14.
1-29-03 - Took the second of my medical terminology tests today. I passed it. One more to go for the month and I'll be taking it tomorrow. Other than that, I slept from 6 to 8:30pm and then did homework until bedtime.
1-28-03 - No class today, but I did manage to go out and collect my water samples for my research project. Three of my six sites still had open water to sample from. I took Kimble's ice auger to drill through the ice at the other sites. It went surprisingly well, but it took a long time. I got back to Dordt at 6:30pm and immediately started to do some water chemistry on the samples. Did that until 10pm at which time we had our first IM co-ed basketball game of the year. The rules suck and cater way to much to girls. I should be able to gansta-block girls whenever I feel like it. They'd stop shooting in my face if I pounded the ball right back down at them. "Eat it, girl", I'd say. Anyway, we got beat badly. After the game I went back to the science building to do more water chemistry. Got done at 3am.
1-27-03 - Class, lifted weights, had meeting with Mahaffy for Zoology. Not much else.
1-26-03 - Super Bowl Sunday!!!!! After church me and Kim went to my Grandpa and Grandma's to eat dinner. It was good. Took a nap back at Dordt, woke up at 4:30pm and went to SV202 for the Super Bowl Party. The game sucked. But we had a fish fry which was very, very good. Did a little homework after the game in the computer lab downstairs because the internet hasn't worked in my room since Saturday. Nice job Dordt.
1-25-03 - Woke up at 1pm. Was supposed to have band practice with Dorhout, Huisken, and Thomas at 2pm but Huisken didn't get back from work until 3pm. Practiced from around 3:30 to 5:30. We mainly practiced "Today" which I think we might try to do for the talent show in a couple weeks. It was a good time. After practice we went out to eat Chinese (food, not people) at the Bamboo Garden. I had never been there before. The food was really good and relatively inexpensive. Good work, Chinese people.
1-24-03 - Horticulture lab at 2pm was cancelled which is always good. Spent a little time working on my research project instead. Afterwards, it was time to go to Anne's for a hot tub party. Got there at 7pm and ate. Food was very, very good. We had chicken fajitas or something. There were 11 people there I think. Sat in the hot tub and drank margaritas until about 1am or so. When I got home I saw one of those special Iowa license plates that said "Natural Resources" on the top and had a picture of the state bird on it. Where did I see this? On a Yukon. How appropriate. Nothing preserves natural resources like a gas-guzzling land yacht.
1-23-03 - TA'ed the first real Zoology lab of the year. My class is really quiet and boring so far, but last year things started off this way too and still turned out okay. After supper I managed to fall asleep in front of the tv again. I'm getting a little worried about this. It happens about every day now. After my unexpected nap, I did some homework until 10:30pm and then went to Buck's to do some socializing. It was a good time. Free popcorn makes any time good.
1-22-03 - Lifted weights and played a lot of basketball after classes. Pretty much nothing of any significance happened today. What a wasted life.
1-21-03 - No class today. I don't have any on Tuesdays now. On the surface this appears to be good, but I know better. A whole lot of nothing is going to get done on Tuesdays. I picked up my new video card from my mom and put it in. It doesn't seem to have much effect. Figures. We moved our ex-roomate's (Jian Wang) bed out into the living room so there's now a place to pass out if we can't make it to the bedroom. This of course only applies to Stefan. Poor Kimmy was sick today so I spent a little time over there at around midnight. Then I went to bed.
1-20-03 - Back to class. Afterwards I put some RAM in my computer and played some video games. The extra RAM seemed to help a lot. Had a meeting with Mahaffy about this weeks Zoo Lab. Later I played a little basketball and didn't play quite as bad as last time. After ball I went to bed.
1-19-03 - Sunday. Sleep. Not much football. Sleep instead. Didn't step outside of 403 all day. Did a little homework. Did a little watching TV. A very productive day.
1-18-03 - Ice fishing time. Left at 9:30am with Stefan and Kimble in Maria's pick-up which she had lent to me to drive there. We met up at the lakes with John De Jong, Ike, Paul, and Greg who had went a little earlier. They were freezing their asses off on the lake. Why? Because it was f'n cold. Luckily I bought some heat packets to put in my boots....they did a good job. Anyway, we set up the little shanties that I brought and starting fishing. Fishing was bad. I used one minnow all day. Not a single bite. We caught two little northerns on some tip-ups and that was it. We did snag what apparently was a big northern once, but it got away. So out of the seven guys, we caught two fish. A good day's work. We got back to Dordt at about 8 or so. I ended up watching a couple movies with Kim, Rachel, Colin, and Stefan.
1-17-03 - More classes. Sick of them already. I have lost all desire to do anything this semester. This is not good. I have a lot of stuff to do with my research project, not to mention my other classes. Oh well, I'm sure everything will work out nicely. At about 8pm I went to the Dordt hockey game with about 10 others. We got beat down pretty good, but in my opinion, we dominated the fights. After the game we went to Sharkee's in Luverne thinking it was karyokee night, but there was none. Instead we watched Yao destroy Shaq while we had some beers. Pretty much all of the crowd from the hockey game came to the bar. Dordt students love beer.
1-16-03 - Missed my first directed research class meeting, but it doesn't really matter. I dropped Business Writing and then went to TA the first Zoology lab of the semester. From the looks of it, my class it going to suck. Last year was a lot of fun with the kids we had in lab, but this year isn't looking so hot. I just sat at the computer looking up honeymoon ideas for three hours while the kids did computer exercises. Worked out and then went to VIP's for the first bar trip of the semester. It was a lot of fun. I drank a little, but not too much. Typical me. Everything in moderation.
1-15-03 - Managed to wake up for class, even after the long night of driving. Had Marriage and Family (which I'm taking with Kim, although she didn't make it to the first class) and Personal Finance. I like business classes. Eeeeeeaaaaaasssssyy. Took a nap afterwards and slept through my first Horticulture class period. Oops. Played some basketball at night and pretty much sucked it pretty hard. I'll attribute that to rustiness.
1-14-03 - Classes. Only had Business writing and Medical Terminology. I'm going to drop Business writing because i don't really have to take it anyway. After classes I sat around a bit. Went to Kim's to get the big tv. Took it back and hooked it up. While I was hooking it up, Colin started throwing pennies at me. Then he said "Here, catch one". I said, "okay". So I opened my mouth and he threw it at me. About the time that the NICKEL hit my front teeth, I realized that I had made a mistake. I now have two slightly chipped front teeth. Nice goin' Colin. Anyway, at 10 I had to go to Omaha to pick up Stefan who was at the Greyhound bus terminal. Surprisingly I didn't fall asleep or anything on my trip. On the way back I had Stefan's potent ass-gas to keep me awake. On the Sioux City bypass I got pulled over for doing 77 in a 65. I only got a warning. Good thing because I would have been screwed.
1-13-03 - Last day of work. I slept in and went to work at 8. After work I moved all my stuff back to Dordt. Classes tomorrow. Not much else.
1-12-03 - Church, then lots of sleep. Then more church. Then TV. I also played a lot of handheld Yahtzee. If you remember, this was one of my Christmas presents. Well, my little brother Nate decided to set the high score and I have been trying for a week or so to break it and have had no luck. I've only even come close once. It's very disheartening. Also, I would like to announce to the world that I am officially changing my favorite hockey team to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Sorry Florida Panthers. If you hadn't have given up Bure, I'd still be with you, but now you just suck ass and you have no one on your team. That 12-2 drubbing last night was the last straw. There will always be a piece of me with you, but the Pens have stolen my heart.
1-11-03 - Left Kim's at about 10am. Went home and played a lot of video games and watched a lot of TV. Went out to eat and went bowling with A-ron, Schutte, and Shaft. I drew some pornographic stick figure images on the score sheet and drew a huge Steve Meyer picture on the back of it. Then I put the picture up on the bulletin board to spite Marv. His bowling alley sucks ass anyway.
1-10-03 - Friday is finally here. To celebrate I worked until 5:30. Me and George (my supervisor) were the only ones in the department because everyone else took off early. Me and Kim went to Sioux Falls after work. We ate at the Dixie Bros Grill. I had some shrimp sandwich thing that was called the Po' Boy Sandwich. I think they call it that because you're poor after you buy it. We had to sit near three NCC kids who went on and on and on about Camaros and how awesome they are. The leader of the group was especially bad. He seemed hellbent on displaying his awe-inspiring knowledge about all things Camaro related. "I have a Z-28 with a 6 speed and a 350 with T-tops. It's a '93, that's the only year they had the 6 speeds with the t-tops. After that the only came in hard tops until '96 when you could get one with t-tops with a 6 speed again, but you also had the option of the 4 speed automatic. Then in '97 you could get the 30th anniversary edition with a big diesel and an 18 speed if you wanted to......blah blah blah." On and on he went. Morons. After that fiasco we went to see About Schmidt. It was really good. I ended up spending the night on the couch at Kim's house because I was too tired to drive home.
1-9-03 - Lifted weights after work. Bought some books on half.com afterwards. I got one book for $8 that was $51 at the bookstore. Eat it bookstore.
1-8-03 - It appears that my glowing description of this winter may have come prematurely. It's cold. And it's only going to get colder. We get tempted with a few days of heaven before the cold bitter hell sets in. Luckily I get to enjoy the whole day in the warm glow of the pale yellow lights of RMT. What a way to waste a day. After work I spent the evening in front of the computer and TV.
1-7-03 - Today was another beautiful day. Temps were in the fifties again. I can't believe how warm and un-snowy it's been for the last month or so. There is still no snow on the ground. This could be the best winter yet. I remember a couple of years ago when there were piles of snow 20 feet tall on the end of my gravel road. Anyway, I took off work at noon to take the last of my samples. I had to use a sledge hammer to get through the ice. Unfortunately there was a lot of water atop the ice so when I swung I got splashed with the icy-cold liquid. But once I got through it, sampling went a-ok. Afterwards I went to Dordt to preserve them and lifted weights with Kim.
1-6-03 - Back to work. The last week of work before school starts again. I'm really happy that I don't have to celebrate any holidays this week. Although that means there will be no days off work this week, I was getting very sick of holidays. Now it's a normal week, finally. After work I sat around and watched tv and played more video games. The perfect evening.
1-5-03 - Went to Kim's church in the morning and ate dinner at her house. Slept pretty much all afternoon and then went home.
1-4-03 - Woke up at 1:00pm and went out to do some more sampling on the river. Took two more samples. Only one left. Went to Dordt and preserved the organisms and hung out with Kim in the evening.
1-3-03 - Worked in the morning and played computer games in the afternoon. I played a lot of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. This is the first shooting game that has held my attention since Duke Nukem 3d. It's been a while. It was fun shooting up the Nazi's. I also played a lot of NHL2002. The big news in this game was that for the first time ever I started a season with a team other than the Florida Panthers. I've now switched my allegiance to the Pittsburgh Penguins!! Now I have more firepower to play with. However, my defense and goalies suck ass. Currently am watching Miami get beat by Ohio State. WOohoooo!!
1-2-03 - Back to work. Lifted weights with Kim afterwards. Watched Iowa get beat down by USC in the Orange Bowl. Now I owe Scott 5 bucks.
1-1-03 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Woohoo. Big deal, I say. This holiday is so stupid. The only good thing about it is a day off work. Maybe I'm so cranky because I have to go back to work already tomorrow. I spent all afternoon doing some more sampling on the Floyd River. There is a lot of sewage in that poor thing. When I got home I read an editorial in the Mail-Sun that some retard wrote about global warming. Again, a conservative NW Iowan is trying to tell me that global warming is just some theory that was made up by "global socialists". I think this dumbass got his information off of an oil company's website. He probably did so while driving around his giant SUV while running over a person in an economical car and shooting a big gun out the window. I have a question: Why does there always have to be some kind of huge problem before we try to fix it? Can't we try to fix problems BEFORE they start, especially in situations where we know the problem is going to get worse (ie. global warming). What is going to take for some people? Does Iowa need to be turned into a desert before we acknowledge we have a problem? I hate stubborn, braindead conservatives.