the orientation

this past tuesday was our little dc reunion. vance bailed on us and supposedly jess’ car broke down. and i’m not sure if anyone ever called jordanne, which really is no big loss. it was good though. bittersweet as usual. i get so depressed thinking about my time back there and how i will never have that again. exactly this time one year ago ryan and i were trekking across the u.s. (somewhere in illinois i think) to our destination back east. i’m not sure i ever want to go back to dc only because what’s the point? i did everything i wanted (mostly) and repeating events will never live up to when i was actually living there. ah well. i left early tuesday morning and got there around 3 or so, met up with barry (that freaking genius is rocking the lsat right now) and caught up for a few hours. we all met up at chilis for a lovely little dinner and basically parted ways soon after. i stopped off at hard rock to replace my replacement slc glass then drove on down to my mom’s for the night. we talked for a good portion of the night about this and that. it’s weird seeing our relationship now compared to how it was five or so years ago. i guess just being a teenager i didn’t have the most respect for her because i felt she was always trying to keep a brutha down. of course she was just trying to parent a defiant child; nothing more. now that the control stuff is gone, we have a pretty decent relationship where we enjoy just talking about stuff. so i was glad to spend some time with her. and actually all the next morning and into the afternoon we pretty much just chilled and shot the shit (that's past tense). unfortunately i didn’t get to see my sis because she had school and i had to get back on the road. while i was out there i was supposed to buy a giant picture board thing that these people sell online. the lloyds know them so we were hopefully gonna get a hooked up discount and i could just pick it up from them instead of paying $150 shipping. but instead the idiots didn’t have any in stock. what kind of retarded business are they running? first of all, the prices are pretty steep so i’m sure they are making a nice little profit from this crap. they have a website and everything, yet they have no inventory? sorry for venting, but that’s the stupidest shit i’ve ever heard. apparently they are moving or something, but who gives a crap? i want to say that i hope their business goes up in flames, however i still want my board. after we buy it i may put a hex on them for STUPID BUSINESS DECISIONS. the trip back on wednesday was made in insane record time. seven hours to be exact. for those who have driven i-70 from provo to westminster, i will leave it to your imagination on how i was able to accomplish that impressive feat. this example probably isn’t the most accurate, but imagine driving from downtown to boulder in twenty minutes time. i’d say that’s about right. in fact, i’m on my way there now. my orientation starts in thirty minutes and i’m on the oh so familiar rtd headed west. it’s like i never left.

our costco here sucks compared to orem’s. the fireplace in our apartment doesn’t work. we have chipotle on every corner but i have yet to eat there since we’ve been home. (update: as of yesterday, that last statement is no longer true.) too freaked out about the massive amounts of calories i’d be consuming. i found a middle eastern restaurant in westy that i can’t wait to try. who doesn’t love goat? i took one of my anxiety pills right before i left today because i’m kind of freaking about this whole orientation business. it goes from 1 to 4, from 4-5 is pizza, then at 5 we get on a bus to the rockies game. hopefully kim is able to get to boulder so we can go together. and there’s the damn new law school building. let it burn. i’m not bitter. oh yes i am. so very much. i need a vacation. kim and i have one in the works for over thanksgiving, but they never turn out so i’m not getting my hopes up. my stop.

Little Manhattan (2005): a kid in new york experiences first love. it does well evoking emotions that we all had as children. good movie for ny’ers to watch. i really felt like i was really with him on his love roller coaster. the kid's narration is really excellent and never gets old. and his imagination is really a lot of fun. movies about kids really aren’t my thing, but if i were to ever want to watch or buy one, this would be it. it’s so much fun and will take anyone back to those early days of relationships. i complained before that i won this movie, but i'm now happy i own it. buy it.
memorable, B+

the day after the funeral in colton was basically a day of getting to know my hometown again. joey took off that morning and i spent much of the day at grandpa’s place packing stuff up and basically just walking around and taking pictures. lori drove me and em around town to find all the old spots of my childhood: chuck e. cheese, black angus, old homes, our church. i went around myself and did some driving. i spent a couple of hours over at the colton area museum and saw the many things that old dusty town had to offer at one point or another. in one of the displays was a picture of my uncle fred and aunt dortha’s 35th high school reunion picture. there was a very kind lady there who answered a ton of questions i had to the best of her knowledge. and then there was supposedly some expert who has written a number of books on colton, yet i could hardly get a word out of him. and he was pretty standoffish when it came to the history of mormons in colton. aside from that old fogy, it was a good experience and i learned a ton more about my fam. one of the books he had written and which i bought has pictures of my great-great-great grandparents and a picture of a distant aunt so that was pretty sweet. i spent some time in 104° heat cleaning up my grandma's little rose garden she planted at our church, so that felt really good. i tried stopping by my grandpa's house but like my dad, he was mysteriously gone. it really sucks because how great it would have been to see him. after cleaning up a bit i got my mom finally out of the house and took her and the kids over to universal to hit up the hard rock. i hadn’t been to the city walk in like ten years so it was sweet being back there and getting to drive through la. i love california so much (except fresno). from way out in hot, industrial colton, to crowed muggy la, i love it all. there really is nowhere like it. we were already starving before even getting into the car to leave, we had a long drive ahead of us and a 25 minute wait, but oh how worth it it was. add hollywood to the collection you ho’s. i’m glad the fam stuck it out with me. not like they had a choice though. we got back late and chris came over to the hotel to spend the night. we chilled and really didn’t talk about too much of importance. he’s young, so it’s not like we’d be talking politics or war. but a little quality time with the little bro is always good. that was my last night there.

the orientation for school went really well. i didn’t take a count, but i’d say there’s maybe thirty-five new students that showed. maybe 70 percent are from India, a couple from taiwan, ksa, iraq, pakistan, maybe five americans, and i’ll say about five or six girls. from what i could hear from my eavesdropping (“i haven’t been dropping no eaves, honest.”), a huge majority are engineers, either electrical or some other sort like computer science grads, crazy programmers, or they have had years of experience installing this, developing that. half the americans are military guys who have so much already that i’m not sure what they even need this for. basically, they are all geniuses. and then there is me. of course right off the bat i’m my usual anti-social self. i met some people here and there and tried to keep convos going when we’d get talking, but i’d get a little freaked out when we’d actually start talking about what we’ve done, what we know, and where we are going. it sucks enough that most everyone is starting in the normal classes, but i have to take the retard classes that is a pre-req to everything, which then screws up my schedule for my entire two years. they are all very nice people, but i just feel slightly dumb. everything is pretty tight though. the freaking lab they have to work in is just so unbelievable. there are tons of programs and even a student organization to join for loser telecom people like me. the best part is that they have t-shirts! we had pizza afterward and kim dropped by so we could all take the bus up to a rockies game. before the game kim and i made our way to the tavern bar where i kept playing this radio station contest to win a pair of tickets to either melissa etheridge that night, or devo and the psychedelic furs tonight. after losing to three or four people each time, they basically felt bad for me and just gave me the damn tickets. not being a lesbian, i of course chose devo but unfortunately didn’t go to. it was over at fiddler’s green which i’m sure was being rained on, or if not was freezing cold, and kim was pretty sick tonight so we stayed in and watched code 46 instead. anyway, the baseball game was tight believe it or not and the rockies kicked the padres trash so that’s always good. who doesn’t love a good baseball game? good food, overpriced drinks, crappy teams, and a whole section reserved for itp nerds. that would be me.

i'm also a buff now and season tix are on the fridge.