LYFZ GR8

so if you dont know it, the title of this blog is actually my dads license plate... yea not so cool but oh well thats his slogan for his life. even if he does have bad grammer. he puts it on his business cards too, the 8 and the Z and everything. but moving along. a lot has happened in the past two days. last night justin, mark and i decided to take a chance on a rumor that The Jimmy Buffett was going to be making a surprise appearance at the Randy Salerno Foundation event at lippold to raise money for kids trying to major in broadcast journalism. the only downside of the night was that the rumor was false and jimmy buffett actually did not make a surprise appearance but really that was the only bad part. we got to meet his right hand man Mac Macanally, shake his hand, say hello, talk a bit, and get a picture with him. im sure it will be my profile pic in the near future. it was $75 bucks to get a ticket into the event and because of that we decided to go all out. we took full advantage of the free drinks, appetizers, and dinner that they served. out of the drinks and food alone we banked at least $100, that didnt even include the most personal concert that we got from Mac and a t-shirt that the band before gave out to me, personally. RIP Randy.

so this is the first day of RAGBRAI (registers annual great bike ride across iowa) in which we dont ride today but we are setting everything up to get going for tomorrow. right now im at a friend of my dads house in omaha, nebraska and going to sleep in a king size bed after i finish this complimentary Bud Light that they gave to me. life is great. my dad, sister liz, and i woke up at 5 this morning. left at six. and drove all the way across iowa, picking up my aunt carol along the way. i never knew it was possible for one lady to fill up half of BUKLE UP 1 (our astro van that is carrying all our stuff) but she some how decided to go for the gold and do it. she even brought along freakin watermelons. watermelons. seriously? they are rolling around the car like bowling balls. im making it a goal of mine to not ride in a car this whole week. it will happen.

ill make sure to update hopefully everyday. also ill find out the website where we are uploading pictures. lifes great, through and through.

Hello Chicago

so i visited chicago with my friend susan and saw this show called Cirque Shanghai at navy pier. it didnt start out very well with me being late to go pick her up. we missed the train in cary and then it was off to the races to barrington to hopefully beat the train. word of advice, trains go in a straight line and cars zig zag and all that shit. i did not make the train. so we waited for 45 min for the next one and parked my car in a permit only parking lot with the possibility of getting a citation. so with being late we missed abour 30 min of the hour and 30 min show. but it was still awesome. the Cirque Shanghai is just a bunch of oriental gymnasts doing very tricky tricks like fitting 30025 people on one bicycle or jumping and climbing poles like they are monkeys, except cooler. the hour of the show that we saw was awesome and then we headed over to the Grand Lux Cafe on michigan avenue. im tellin ya, chi-town food is expensive but damnit it its good and i definately recommend the "caramel crispy chicken" at that place. oh yea i also tried Newcastle Brown Ale for the first time and it was awesome. im thinking about picking up a 6 pack right now. being 21 owns.

We Tried Our Best

so this weekend my life revolved around the gala. i was an intern there and that ment i had to be a bitch boy and do whatever the people running the gala needed me to do. i will be getting $500+ dollars for working it but the days were rediculously long and the nights were short because i had to wake up the next day. it sucked not being able to see some friends that were in town but i got to meet some awesome people that were also interns that i hope stay with me for a very long time. sometimes you dont get out of your circle of friends very much and its a fresh of breath air to do so even though you love your preexisting friends a lot. plus the 15 hour days did help with the bonding situation. ill probably do it again because of the money and people but ill make sure to get enough sleep when im not working.

i lost my keys to my apartment, bike lock, and my $10 frisbee. ive been praying to St. Anthony of lost and found a lot. i just wish i knew were everything important to me was.

i love when people say great quotes, this is a quote that i heard from my cousins friend; "What will you do with your one wild and precious life" by Mary Oliver. it makes you stop and see actually what you are doing. its crazy.

got a ton of Miller Lite signs from the beer garden at the gala, my apartment is going to be decked out and my room is going to be the "VIP LOUNGE."

i havent been on a date in a really long time. i feel in need of a change.

went on a bike ride today to Mchenry just because i need to get in the miles. it was only 31 miles but it was still a work out with some of the hills that i tried to obilterate but totally owned me. another thing i noticed while riding in Bull Valley (right next to mchenry) was that people give iowa and what not a bad rep because they dont know how to experience it. like biking past this;
some people thiink that this is boring, i find it peaceful

a lot of people complained about the gala. i shouldnt really care about it but im just letting everyone know that 66 nieghbors at the Lakefront signed a petition kicking the gala out in Feb leaving them to either not have the gala or find a dif place. and even though the parking was really bad, it cost to get in, blah blah blah i just want to let everyone know that we tried our best. as to getting it set up and trying to run things smoothly with what we were given we did out best. i wonder how many people could argue with that?

its good to be back in camp, to play vball, and to bike.

Still Summer

so this weekend was pretty boss. it started off with making a trip down to the ilstu for adam and natalies birthday party. everything went smooth as butter and the best part was getting adam this gift.

its a bottle of vodka shaped into the form of a rifle. if you dont know, adam was big into drill team in high school so this was the perfect gift for him. the thing is that i dont know if he will ever drink it.... oh well.

that was the friday night and saturday morning. going against my original plans i decided to go with the willes, andy, jake, and kyle to lindseys house warming party in rockford. that too was pretty awesome. they have an actual house that comes out of a legit suburb so it was kinda odd bringing in good amounts of beer into her house while her old nieghbors were outside on their porches. classy. oh yea and wolfy brought Wa-shoo's which is basically bags but with washers. it was intense.

then today right when i get back from rockford burkle calls me up and asks if i want to hand out some flyers for the gala at the taste of chicago. im tired and sticky and definately not in the mood to go but hell. i do it anyways. ive never been to the Taste and i only have one beautiful and precious life so why not make it good. it was awesome. the gala graciously paid for the train ticket and a butt load of food to have at the taste and all i had to do was hand out flyers with burkle, aubert, and turk. it was a damn good day. but this week is going to suck. the gala is going to own my soul so im thinking i very well might just have to stay in this week and get some extra sleep.

this was definately the best weekend of the summer so far. hope all is well with everyone.

Perfect Summer Day

so today was the first day back from vacation in wisconsin, which was also awesome. but today is turning out to be perfect. biked to work for the first time this year and just flew. work was awesome too and my group and i at the beach just went off; sand castles, digging holes in the sand and then making pools with them, canoeing... a lot, playing hide and seek at the play ground, then at the rotary building i organized a huuuge hike around VA which was pretty legit. went to the Devils Pit and hiked around for a good 6-7 miles. the greatest thing about the hike too was that it nearly took up the whole day. just walking around experiencing freakin nature, man, and then boom, its 3 o'clock and its nearly time to go. then i biked home and cruized at a steady pace all the way to crystal castle where i played 6v6 sand vball for around 3 hours. just awesome.

this is how summer should be.

bummer dude

so the cubs are pretty much the best team in the mlb. i love it. in other news i fell off my bike a week ago while wearing sandals and scraped my left big toe. its hell. its summer and i cant go in water, sand, and i hobble around like a drunk gimp. actually i take that back. i did play vball 2 days ago but i wore a latex glove on my foot to keep out the dirt. it looked pretty risky.
-camp started last week and it has been awesome. been fishing, canoeing, all the good stuff. oh yea and we went to enchanted castle on thursday. i won a big squishy ball out of a claw machine. thug life.
-took a bike ride with kait around crystal lake yesterday. it was pretty sweet. i am still surprised at some of the houses that are in CL. some Hollywood movie set should come in and use some of these houses for a movie
-Wayne's world is hilarious
-showed a bunch of friends to the game Nurts. its been in the family for quite some time and now im happy that its been shared with some of my closest friends. its very competitive and makes you swear like a sailor
-next time your with someone and someone in a car either has an annoying muffler, a bass system as loud as hickeys, or screeches their tires by you just say "why do we need Menards? we have so many tools around here." its a good one.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1814685

24 hour run

so it was bad but not as bad as i thought it was going to be. some of us had the good idea of actually sleeping in between runs at night and are not as sleep deprived as past 24 hour runs. i also found out that my Power Song is "Bombs Over Baghdad" by Outkast. That song is boss. But the run was fun, caught up with some friends that i havent seen in a while and met some new friends on the team. Everything went well other than the fact that i thought i was getting a heart attack on my last mile. well thats over with and now ill just be looking forward to RAGBRAI and Urban Assault Race. go summer 08