raining cats and dogs

dont remember if i wrote about saturday. it was hectic. saturday night we went to ruby tuesday, then rented the graduate and got abuot halfway through it before sleep took over. sunday i ate with my parents. then karlie and i took my dog kasco for a walk at the riverwalk and then to rachel's house. her dog and mine didnt make friends as we'd hoped. oh well.

then we got karlie's pictures developed from boone, nc. theyre good. then we finished the graduate and started bridget jones diary. we'll probably finish it tonite. we're about to go to school. peace.

relief

relief finally.

its so good to have someone that can make your day better just by seeing them. :)

work schmerk

last week, for the first time since working at the bike shop, i thought to myself "i dont wanna go to work today." i thought the same thing today. this whole software thing sucks. i stared at a computer screen for five hours. ugh. cant wait until we get done.

karlie is the best girlfriend ever. i still cant believe i am so fortunate. i am looking foward to what the future holds for us, but i dont want to jinx anything, so thats all im gonna say about that.

i have a meeting at the pastoral institute for servant leadership at 8am. on a completely different note... we finally finished "how to lose a guy in 10 days." we started it like tuesday last week. and on another completely different note... i am going to do my first downhill race on feb. 5th up in fontana dam NC. and the race is at night. how cool is that? should be nice and scary. but we'll have lights. and hopefully a "pit crew" of buddies and a few coolers. hehe.

goodnite

a short post

went to work today. it was super hectic. our "go live" date is nearing, and emotions are flying. not to mention i got a call simultaneously from wisconsin and somewhere else. while there were twenty people in the store. and trying to sell a bike at the same time. left there, got karlie, went to see meet the fockers. left there, went to a keg party, got hunch punch spilled on me by some girl. on my substitute teacher jacket, we played a quick (i lost first) and embarrassing game of never have i ever. then promptly called it a night. leaving for SC in a few hours. peace and bugs.

pink is for wussies

i realized last night that this blog is becoming a means of communication... its like "who needs phones when you have blogs?" well, maybe not that extreme.

continuing where yesterday's post left off...i went to senior seminar. it should be nice and challenging. we have to present a chapter of our text to the class, choose a research topic, present that to our class, write a 8-15 pg paper on the same topic, and (optional) present the same topic to the school's student colloquium. he said that would pretty much be an automatic A for the course though. hmmm. and we have to formally write the solution for a problem on our weekly problem sheet. the subjects range from college algebra to real analysis and abstract algebra. should be fun.

i left class and went straight to phenix city to ride with kevin and matt. we got there right as the sun was setting, and relied on our trusty lightsets to keep on track. granted only one person reading this has any clue what the trail is like out there...but its truly like riding a different trail. i for once felt like the wussie of the group. matt and kevin, both in their 40's, were hauling ass down twisty unforgiving singletrack. during the daytime, you can pick and choose a line around roots and depressions, and well, at night your main concern is just staying between the trees. i remember one specific section when i got a little too proud... i'm like "man guys, this section separates the boys..." and it really does, especially in the dark. its up by the dam, after you start coming back south, theres inumerable switchbacks and a series of uphill sideways log crossings. i made it over the two difficult ones and then spoke my pride, and then clipped my handlebars on a tree. i think the tree actually just jumped out, but who knows. so that really put me back in my place. we did keep a pretty good pace, we rode 7.3 miles in about 2 hours. thats not really a good pace for the standard XC trail, but anybody who rides the trail of tears in PC, alabama knows. Its sorta like the cirle of trust. Meet the Parents? well, maybe not a circle of trust, but anyways.

so i left the trail around 8:30pm, went home, showered, went to attempt calculus problems i had no idea how to do (its been a while). ddand a bowl of kashi rice puff cereal, and diet v-8 splash (made with splena not aspartame, mmmm good) and came to school. i get to go skiing this weekend. should be fun. peace love and bugs.

school is cool

hehe. what a goofy title.

i am not going to type much, as i have yet another class starting in about 37 seconds, yes i know i will be late, but man it is all good. i had health at 9:30am, then non-western culture at 11:00, then wore a toga to my art history at 1:30pm, then worked out, it felt so good, then came here (library) and am currently running late for senior seminar in math.

this semester is going to be awesome though, my non western professor was like: "we're going to watch seven years in tibet, last samurai and sailor moon." okay, were not watching sailor moon, but i was singing that barenaked ladies song...anyways.

tonight, around 2am is officially a month of boyfriend-girlfriend-ness between me and karlie, or rather karlie and i, whichever you prefer. that makes me happy. i cant believe she put up with me that long. hehe. and if i remember correctly, there is another kb having their one month soon. anyways, like a built in reminder.

leaving for class, then riding mtn bikes in the dark. woooo hoooo.
jg

great days

friday night was a good time. i went to fountain city around 9:30 and listened to BJ and joel and this other guy play guitar, and it was slow so karlie got to sit down with me a bunch, and i looked at bike porn online. And we left and well...thats all. hehe

woke up next to her, which is such a great feeling. I went to the bike shop and we were pretty damn busy. And Lisa, an older lady that rides, brought me and byron a margarita in a water bottle. That made work much more fun. I got to leave about an hour and a half early, and walked around broadway with karlie and joel. So i went home for the first time in a day or two, and headed back downtown. I hung out with joel most of the night, we met and hung out with karlie's roommates (before she even met them) and played Halo2. I was embarrassed after the first couple games, but got warmed up and won against brian. kevin succeeded in putting me back in my place, and that was it for halo.

sunday morning i woke up, met Josum Grillo (a badass ranger guy) at the bike shop, and we headed over to the trail. we rode for about three hours. I had a personal first, Yay! there's this skinny ladder by our log rides that lots of people ride up and over, but as far as I know, Paul Luker was the only person (before yesterday) to launch off the top. I did twice. It was super F-in scary, because the landing is almost vertical (so it seems) and about a foot and a half wide.

So I ate lunch with Karlie, worked a crossword puzzle, cleaned out my car, sat through a "talk" with my mom, then went to play Halo 2 with the boys. Karlie showed up and eventually went to the other room to spy on their location with the flag. she's getting the idea. we were playing headlong CTF and they had some really good flag hiding spot. haha.

now its monday, I'm at school. Found out this morning my perfect schedule ain't so perfect. our servant leadership class that was supposed to meet three or four times this semester is now meeting EVERY friday. What's up with that? Oh well. I got really good oatmeal earlier at Publix, that made breakfast good. later. jg

school...yay!!

its thursday, i work today, tomorrow, sunday and monday. ugh. we're doing a physical inventory of the store. that'll be fun. not. i rode my singlespeed down from home today. it was a good ride, i had like a 14mph avg. the past few days have been really good. i've been with karlie a bunch. i know she's getting tired of me, so i'll try to find something else to do tonight.

night before last we (me her denise and april from kinnucans) watched "meet the parents." i liked it, never saw it before. now i need to see meet the fockers. i cant believe it, but my parents have already seen it! so last night we (me her) watched garden state. its a semi-artsy film with zach braff and natalie portman. and to my amazement, natalie portman said fuck. anyways. its a good movie. watch it.

so school is starting monday. well, for me it starts tuesday, not to brag or anything... but i have the best senior year spring semester schedule in university history. ren. art to 1800, golf, concepts of fitness, servant leadership biography, senior seminar in math (think i am gonna research topology), and asian religious traditions. all my classes are tuesday thursday, and for my first semester ever, i dont have ANY night classes. wooooooooooo hoooooooooooo! thats all for now. i have a quizno's turkey sandwich waiting to get eaten. yum.

jg

p.s. for anyone posting, please put your name if you post. thanks. :)

wasted days

its sunday evening. i have succeeded in doing absolutely nothing today. i woke up around 8am, took a shower, went back to sleep until 2 or so, ate lunch, slept some more, went to fountain city for coffee and inspiration to write in my journal, and now i'm about to eat dinner. i am feeling better, at least my fever is gone.

i miss karlie. she is in atlanta, but moving back to columbus tomorrow. i'll be seeing her tomorrow to help her move in to Rankin. thats all for now. jg

123RUB

i finally made it to the ER for something other than a mountain biking accident. ha. the other day i had a 104 degree fever. it sucked. but i'm feeling better now.

last night was a good time. i spent it with rachel, wayne, suzanne, ashley ? c/gra(i)g ?? coach jim, cheryl, and a twelve year old Yale grad. okay, thats an exaggeration, she's at least 16. so we just hung around wayne's place and i watched everyone else sip/gulp away at an assortment of mixed drinks. i didn't partake (the codiene cough syrup and alcohol dont mix) but did have a sip or twelve of champagne. we took off around 1:15am or so.

I didnt do much the rest of the day, took a four hour nap, then went to wayne's to watch The Thomas Crown Affair. thats about it. going home to go to sleep.

back at home, work

Everybody slam on your brakes!!!

I am going to go ahead and do my complaining... On my journey from Spartanburg to Marietta last night traffic managed to see brake lights and slam on their own brakes. Talk about peer pressure. So we'd be going 80 or 85mph and somebody way up ahead would tap their brakes and traffic would instantly stop. And to top it all off... when i noticed traffic was stopped ahead of me i'd take my car out of gear and coast in an attempt to lessen my personal impact on the world's petro shortage, and to save a few bucks... but anyways, some jerk off alabamian cadillac guy was riding my ass and i'm like **finger out the window** i move over, still coasting, he zips past me and we end up next to each other once we reached stopped traffic. I'm thinking "Ha jackass!" Okay, enough.

In better news, Christmas with the Barnes and Oalmans was good. I got to Woodruff around 9:15am Saturday, after racing a Corvette on I-85 and accidentally reaching a new top speed in the WRX...115mph...and anyways, he pulled way ahead when i realized how fast we were going, i let the cruise take control again, around 85 or so, and he disappeared. But for anybody with a bike rack and sports car, make sure its tight on the roof... my trusty yakima slid about 3 inches back on the top. Made me sort of nervous. So thats that. We exhanged gifts, and I actually managed to suprise Rach with the Mtn biker wallet she didn't think she was getting. We went to her Nana and Papa's and did our secret santa thing (i guess thats what its called, not really sure though) and Susan Marie walked in with way more than ONE PRESENT, but thats to be expected I guess. It was too late to ride when we left, so we worked off our lunch by hiking around the woods. The following day we lazied around and got to Southside around noon. We met one other rider in the parking lot and otherwise had the trail to ourselves. We were like, lets go slow and ride two laps, and shortly thereafter forgot our agreement and were racing as usual. Probably rode around 8 or 9 miles and called it quits. We found the parking lot full of people getting ready to test out their new christmas gifts. There were probably twenty people or more there. So I guess we finished just in time. We went back to their place, I loaded my car, we took flowers to her father's grave and I was off.

I stopped once for yellow roses, a diet mtn dew, and a snack. Stopped somewhere inside Georgia for gas, debated stopping at (the surely infamous) exit 173, but didnt and got to Marietta around 9 something. We watched TV, watched Steel Magnolias, and went to bed. I woke up to CNN and coffee and a crossword puzzle and she woke up a little while later. Now were going for another gourmet breakfast at waffle house.

nothing rhymes with purple or orange

Wouldnt it suck to be a word, and not have any word that rhymed with you? I was just thinking about that.

monday night we all (chris, jd, denise, bobby, ryan, stephanie, brian, frank, me and rachel) hung out at jd's house and watched the last samurai and played halo and drank beer and stuff. it was a good time, and a somewhat scary ride home.

tuesday was ok. everybody cancelled on riding (frank, rick powell), and rachel had a nasty hangover so i didnt ride. i did however go shopping for some supplies for a "christmasy" arts and crafts project. can't really comment on that more.

went to work and played on the computer for four hours. yeah. me and rachel worked on our bikes. i finally put good brakes on my singlespeed. yeah. so that was last night. today was a long day at the bike shop. i left and ate dinner with my folks, then took a nap, then awoke to my cell phone ringing. so now im at wayne's (rachel's moms boyfriend's) house about to play scrabble.

still smiling
joseph
p.s. i just checked my grades... i made:
art resources B*
modern art history A
ancient/medieval art history A
pop culture/art history A
discrete math A
servant leadership films A
american government A
history of mathematics B
*this class will be changed to an A in january.
this semester pulled my GPA up from 3.46 to 3.53 hehe. im such a nerd.

finally done with finals

this weekend passed by pretty well. i went to work saturday, bought my parents bikes, sunday i went to my grandparents land for our gift giving day. i got some good stuff. a camp hammock, rain fly and bug net, got DMB The Gorge, got a DMB poster, tons of snack food, my tires (saturday) were part of my present.

i went to the mall to do some xmas shopping. then took my discrete final, and made my way to the library to use the internet. found bobby there, we did some running around to get wendy's and got my bike, took him back to school, met rachel and we went to flat rock. i rode my singlespeed and we explored the place. we had a good time riding this rock wall. it was really tall, like 6 feet. wait 6 inches... or 4 inches... anyways. we had coffee at barnes and noble, and saw what mountain bike magazine had to say, then we went our separate ways.

i had dinner with my parents, then came over here (to wayne's house) to pick her up. we're going over to jd's house to play halo...wait to drink beer and eat pizza...and play halo.

auburn tomorrow to ride, then work. and work wednesday, and thursday, then hang out with my family friday. dont know when i'll post again. so merry christmas. peace

jg

socks

today was good. me and my dad took my car to superior tire this morning. then i went to work. and it was boring, i played with socks all day. i got to talk about mtn bikes a couple times. i went over and joined them at the cannon. then we went to fountain city, and then i went back to the socks. then i bought my parents' bikes, and called it a day. went to Ocean's twelve, and then to waffle house. the movie was pretty good, but the plot was twisted just enough to be the sequel. so that was it. i'm being boring today, and dont have anything else to say. i'm gonna ride tuesday though, should be fun.

jg

pigs dont fly

at least they didnt last time i checked. i took my other two finals and they went okay. after my math history final i went to flat rock park and did a night ride. i only rode about 2.9 miles on my rigid singlespeed and my helmet lightset went out. i realized the importance of a full charge. riding across slick rock under a dark sky proved to be scary, especially knowing theres random three and four foot drops and one rather large twenty foot vertical. so i made it back, cold and safe. i showered and talked to my parents, who i've probably seen a total of twenty minutes over the past week. so that was the rest of my day.

i found out that rachel's holiday party has been changed to tomorrow, but we're not going. we're still gonna go up there on saturday, which reminds me i need to call frank to get some bourbon. i'm gonna go ride tomorrow with rick and b rank (brian). thats all. jg

one down two to go

i took my modern art final earlier. i think i did well, definitely enough for an A in the class. now i'm wasting time before my others. wish me luck

8

raw fish and the end of the world.

today was a fun day. we slept in, until 10am or so. then i went and took my dog to the groomer's to get a bath. i went to school, finished up a journal for servant leadership and dropped that off.

that was a good time. got california rolls, cucumber rolls, and tuna rolls. she had a tough time with the chopsticks. i wanted to order some saki, i thought that would help. but i wussed out. only my second time, but i'll be a conoisseur in no time...

i went to work and talked to a guy in trekland (wisconsin) for an hour and forty nine minutes. we talked about the new program for our bike shop. we did this online meeting thing through ATT.com and i was looking at his screen and could have interacted on his computer from mine, but i didnt really know what i was doing, so i sorta chilled. it was funny though, he had his own customer database with lance armstrong, sheryl crow armstrong and other famous people. and all that was showing up on my screen. he didnt think it was that cool, but i convinced him that for "us georgia rednecks" that was pretty cool. anyways. i finished with that whole phone call thing i talked with this homebuilder guy about a bike for his kid, and then it was time to close the store. it was a quick four hours.

then i left. and i went home, shaved and made my way back to the girls' dorms. and i have three finals tomorrow so i am gonna study now.

jg

p.s. the title of this post was sushi and the end of the world. well, i mentioned sushi already, and so click here to see the end of the world.

brrrr its cold

as the title of this post suggests, it is frigid here in c-town. i am currently in the (warm) library, but am about to brave the cold to go print out a few hundred pages in the computer lab. well, mabye only like 60 or so. anyways. today has gone by steadily, cant complain at all. no thanks no whine/wine or cheese today.

the day started by waking up (what a profound statement). were running a little late. So i went to tutor Melisha for the last time in abstract algebra. It went well, and she seemed confident for her final at 6pm today. So went and got jazz, took him to fountain city, he got a strawberry smoothie and actually didnt complain. it was surprising. Although he did complain that i only kept him for an hour. but thats not a surprise really. then stopped by the bike shop, then came to school. I just typed a two page paper for servant leadership about Mona Lisa Smile. I realized today that i have three finals on thursday and i actually need to study soon. that sucks cause i have work tomorrow. so im about to go cram for three finals back to back to back. But i figured first, i'd post something, no matter how boring on here. ha.

My weekend should be filled with fun. The WRX is getting new Toyo tires saturday, then I'm gonna break em in with a trip to ATL saturday night for Rachel's xmas party. Then sunday my family is having our in-no-way-related-to-christmas-or-any-other-holiday-"family-time"-gift-giving-get-together. It should be fun. I'm buying bikes for my parents. Yeah.... we'll see how that goes. Hopefully i'll fit a ride in friday morning before work. okay. i'm leaving now.

p.s. i must add... today i threw away my favorite pair of jeans. :( it was tough. i almost cried. well not really, but it was tough. those jeans had more holes than all my other jeans combined. they had rust marks from the time bobby got stuck in his jeep and we tried to push and they ended up sitting in a wet muddy pile of random clothes for a month. the belt loops were starting to break. the right pocket was falling apart from my pocket knife getting clipped on for the past year or so. if i would have dipped, there would have been a circle from my dip can. they were those kind of jeans. they had a faded square from my wallet. i guess you could say they looked like a pair of jeans you could buy at abercrombie & fitch. i remember when me and my mom picked em out back in tenth grade. that was like...2000 i guess. they were probably 70 bucks. but if you look at it on a payment plan... thats only 17.5 dollars a year. thats only 1.45 dollars a month. well, you get the idea. so. i guess they're gonna get replaced with my old navy pair. we'll see.