January 26, 2010

Wow, it's been awhile since my last post, and I apologize for that. I've just been pretty busy, stressed out, and somewhat depressed over some of the recent problems in my life. One of which would be my college loan taking forever to go through. This is a combination of my mothers "lack of drive" let's call it, the government taking so damn long on this just like everything else, and the school putting a hold on my registration. I'm still waiting on this loan to go through and I have until February 1st to register, but I'm getting nervous. From what it sounds like everything should be fine, but there's still a part of my that worries, a big part of me. Hopefully everything works out because I truly believe Landscape Architecture is what I was meant to do and I would like to stay with the great friends I have made in the class.
As far as everything else goes I really haven't been doing much, went out last friday, had some drinks, went to the hockey game, went back out for more drinks. Then saturday I just went to the hockey game. Lately I've been wanting to try to get some more lady friends, but I'm not too graceful with that, and at the moment I'm so stressed out it wouldn't be a good idea anyway. So, as far as life goes right now I'm kinda fucked, but it's pretty much whatever, I'll suck it up like I have been and go with the flow, hopefully the flow takes me where I want to be though. So, for this blog post I am done, have a good night, good morning, good whatever time of day it is. I hope your life is going much better than mine.

January 18, 2010

So lately nothing good has really happened to be quite honest. I still can't register for classes and they start tomorrow. This is because my parents decided to wait til the last minute to get loan things covered, so I have a financial hold on my account. So, because of this I'll be going back to school and waiting to be able to register while trying to figure out how to get this hold taken care of quicker. Other than that nothing has been happening. I've been working somewhat, and realizing that the people there, well, some of them, actually do respect me even though I'm a lowly skate guard. So, who knows, if I can continue this work ethic I could be well known in the Landscape Architecture community some day. Other than that I've just been trying to get some other things straightened out before I head back to Champaign, in a way I'm gonna miss Peoria until summer. But I'm thinking that's more the city itself and some of my friends, and eventually my family although at the moment I'm not too happy with some of them, there are a lot of issues that need to be brought up at some point so they can be resolved later on. As far as life goes at the moment I can tell you I'm not really down, or pissed off like you think I should be. I've kind of accepted the fact that things like this happen, especially in my situation, I should've seen this coming a long time ago so it didn't surprise me in the least bit. So I'm taking my own advice and just going with the flow, I'm sure it will work out for the best in the end. As far as getting to school goes I can't wait to see my fellow classmates, I miss the hell out of 'em but I may not get to see them right away thanks to the earlier stated situation.

So, wish me luck and hopefully this works out sooner rather than later

January 10, 2010

Not a whole lot of good things have happened recently, in fact, almost none. I'm not completely sure what all has happened since my last post considering days have run together a lot lately. A couple days ago is the most fresh in my mind at the moment. I was going to go out to Steak N' Shake with Kayla, Zack, and Justin around 2 a.m. So I left a little early to get gas and pick Justin and Zack up. The car was running just fine. We headed down the street and got to War Memorial, things are going great and I mention how the car had been a little problematic lately when Zack says, "Wouldn't it suck if your car broke down?" To which the car replied immediately with a total engine shutdown, while I was travelling at 45 m.p.h. At that moment I was trying to get the car restarted but it wouldn't do it, so I pulled it over to the shoulder, let it sit for a minute and tried again, no luck, not even one turnover of the engine. So I got out and checked the engine, it was steaming and fizzling/popping so I closed the hood and got back in. We got ahold of Kayla and she came and got us and we went to Steak N' Shake, now it's about 3 a.m. if I remember correctly. Once we had our fill of conversation and food or beverage we headed back to my car for a possible fix, after a bit of canoodling no luck at all. So Kayla took us all home. I did not go to bed that night, it was a combination of horrible sleep pattern, caffeine, and worry that either the car would be towed/impounded/ticketed or my parents would freak on me.
I worked later that day as well, so it was a longggg day. I also worked that night, and William, my best friend, wanted to go see a movie that night, so of course I did after not seeing him for awhile. We saw the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. I did not sleep for about 40 hours or so, it sucked. I ended up in bed at an early 1:30 a.m. last night. When I woke up I went back to work again, I should mention now that the last 3 shifts I've worked have been great, mainly due to the influx of beautiful girls coming to skate and the people I worked with. Then after work I watched a hockey game, picked up my Xbox from Burl's house, came home and ate, and sat on the computer up until now, in which I'm writing this blog.
This is the first blog in which I'll mention on idea I had today when we stopped at Kroger's for dinner. When we pulled up for some reason my attention was drawn to the roof of the buildings housing the several shops, including Kroger's. Some odd things catch my attention lately, but I think that's all a part of my mind trying to explore my surroundings, which I'm trying to do a lot more lately. Anyway, back to the point. It brought a memory back about how we should conserve materials and energy by moving back into city centers, which can only work if we provide jobs and supplies in the area within walking distance. But I thought, seeing this huge area of unused space on the roof, what if we took that same idea and reworked it a bit? When you see a downtown area, mainly one that is taking on the reurbanization idea, a lot of vertical space is taken up which allows for surrounding environment to be undeveloped therefore making the climate more acceptable. Now, if we applied that same "stencil" lets call it, to the business that promote urban sprawl we could provide several more people places to live. But what would make them more appealing? Well, one, it's within walking distance of shops many people feel the need to normally drive to so it saves fossil fuels and drastically cuts down on pollution. These spaces could also be affordable housing or government subsidized for the less fortunate allowing people to work their way back to the median and helping the city to eventually increase revenue. This is also appealing because it combats the very thing the buildings are a part of, urban sprawl. In a way it doesn't really stop sprawl, but because so many people come to these areas, stripmalls and whatnot, they become city centers and eventually downtowns deteriorate. So if these living spaces were built it strengthens this new city center. This contributes to an earlier idea I had had about a way to combat terrorism by making several different centers instead of one therefore making it harder to cripple an area like New York so easily. But in order for that to work and be environmentally friendly we would have to promote public transportation more, maybe once I think this stuff over a little more I'll come up with a better plan and post the clearer more readily do-able version.

January 5, 2010

So nothing has happened since my last post really. And all I have to right about is the fact that the stress I'm experiencing at the moment is rooted by the fact that I'm deathly afraid of failure. At the moment I cannot register for classes, because I owe over $6000 for my student account, and seeing as its been like 30 days or whatever they put a hold on my registration. This sucks because so far it hasn't been paid and I still need to register for classes. Of course it doesn't help that it is taking my Mom forever to find a cosigner for the loan, which will pay off most of this debt and allow me to register. I guess this just wears on me because I don't want to miss a semester of college. If I do I'll feel like a failure, like I'm failing my family, friends, everyone. It sucks, and at the moment it's making me feel sick and tired.
But, I guess everything works out in the end, for better or for worse, in my case hopefully for the better.

January 3, 2010

First off, Happy New Year everyone. Now that that's outta the way let's talk about whats happened the past few days. It's been pretty nice to be off work for two days in a row now, but I kinda miss it as well. Lately my brother Jake, our friend Burl, and I have been playing a lot of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in Burl's basement, it's usually a pretty good time even though I get really ticked when I loose and begin to yell and swear. But, on New Years Eve there was a party at a friends house, and I had to attend, mainly cause it had been too long since my last beer, so it was nice to drink again. Seeing as it was a good occasion and my friends were all together I got really fucking hammered. I only remember patches of the night. When I got there we chatted for a bit, I cracked open the first brew and from then on the night got better, then way bad, then kinda lackluster. Me and another friend, Reid, played pool for awhile, then Rockband 2 in which I sang and played guitar/bass. At this point I was pretty damn drunk, so I'm not sure how bad I sounded/ played, but I have heard that I wasn't the main source of "entertainment" at that time. In between Rockband and the like we celebrated the New Year by drinking champagne and just hung out. At one point in the night there was a little blowout between two friends which resulted in several angry people, but all in all the night got a little better. It was around the cool down time when I decided I needed another beer, once I finished it I repeatedly tried to smash it on my head, at least 5 times from what I'm told, I do have a bruise, but not much of one. At some point in the night I had shotgunned two beers as well. Needless to say I got pretty drunk that night.

Best part was I woke up with not even the slightest hangover, just a sore spot from trying to smash that beer can. Once we got up we headed home, at that point I was still extremely tired since I went to bed around five a.m. and woke up at eleven a.m. So I went back to bed til about four p.m. I was still somewhat tired but not nearly enough to go back to sleep, so I ate dinner, then me and my brother headed back to Burl's house. I informed Burl of what had gone on after he left the party early, he hadn't had a drink and saw that the party was going to be a shit show from midnight on. From then on we played Call of Duty. It's been somewhat of a ritual lately, we buy Arnold Palmer's from Walgreens, play the game, and drink the Arnold's all night, head home, do it again the next night. It's fun, and we haven't seen Burl in a long time, so we're getting time in now.

Other than that nothing has been going on really. I did some things at that party that I can't remember and no one else I talk to can help me with. But it's not a horrible thing. But seeing as how the year started I think this is going to be a great year and I hope it is the same for you.