Welp, I'm just wrapping up here. Meredith left a few minutes ago from saying goodbye...I was glad she came down. We had a good chat. The house is all ready for me to leave. Everything's cleaned and nice again. I'm nervous about the drive tomorrow, but I think I'll be alright...so, the next time I'll be online probably won't be until late Tuesday or on Wednesday. Hope everybody has a good 4th of July and there should be some interesting posts to come. Peace out.

Hahahaha....my roommates are funny. I finally got a hold of them. One of them, Nate, was like..."yeah, I saw you called. I didn't listen to the voice mail, though, I figured you'd call again." And then I had to talk to another dude about how the White Sox are dominating the Twins right now. Oh well, all in good fun I guess. But yeah, I'm for sure going to be staying there for sure Saturday night. I'm not sure who'll be there...so drinking may not be in the plans, but it'll still be nice to catch up a little.

Today was more of the same....packing, running errands, getting the house cleaned up. I figured out where I need to go to find the correct highway on Sat. It's way out where the "prairie" starts again. By the time I got all the way out there, though, there wasn't a place to turn around so I had to keep driving for a good five miles before I could do a u-turn.

I thought it would've been a nice day to drive today. Sunny for most of the day...but then there were some nasty rain and hail later on....it was big too....I'm talking actual accumulation. I swear, I've seen more hail here this month than I probably have my whole life. And the crazy thing is, the storm sirens haven't gone off once. If we had weather like this back in Lakeville, the sirens would go off everyday. It's pretty crazy.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited to get up north again...even if I'll only be there for like a day and a half...it'll still be good. Lots of driving, but oh well. My biggest problem right now is trying to figure out what to do with all of the trash I've accumulated. I think I'm going to give it to my mom's cousin....let him deal with it....hehehehe.

My parents got home tonight from spending two weeks in Europe. I talked to them for a while about various things, mainly about me going home. It was pretty much decided that, as long as my roommates have a spot for me, I'll drive to Waverly, IA on Sat. and spend the night there. Then, on sunday I'll drive back to MN with a brief stop in Lakeville to drop off some of my clothes and maybe take a little nap and shower or something, and then get back in the car and continue driving north to Park Rapids, MN where my family will be spending the week at a resort there. I was a little bummed at the beginning of the summer because this would've been the first time in my life that I would've missed it. I mean, we've been going for what....27 years now? Maybe 28....anyway, we go there and, for the majority of the time, sit and cruise around in our boat. Last summer, though, it was waaaaay cold and we didn't get one day of sun while my brother and I were there. Kind of a bummer. But it's always a good time. Ever since I've gotten older, our family seperates ourselves more and more from the rest of the resort....partly because our cabin is on the very end.....but mostly because we don't need to partake in the group activities anymore. If you don't know where Park Rapids is, look at a map of MN and find duluth...and then go pretty much straight west from there and it's in the middle of the state. Right in resort country.

So yeah, I've got two big driving days coming up fast. And that's going to be rough on me....'cause if you know me at all, you'd know that I hate driving long distances...especially if it's by myself. I mean seriously....even if I'm back in Lakeville, G-master drives me everywhere if we're going to hang out. Her first question is always, "do you need a ride?" I'm suspecting that I'll have to take a few breaks to take a nap. ha...yeah...

Tonight I watched "The Saint," while picking up around the house. I realized part way through the movie that the last time I had seen it was a few weeks before we moved from Rockford to Lakeville. Over at Steph Jones' house...with Angie Heins.....now she was one casualty of the move that I'll never forget. Going into the end of 8th grade I had a HUGE crush on her. She was always kind of a flirt...but for some reason she and I would always kind of end up "together." Anyway, my parents decided on the move like a week after graduation....the weekend of her birthday party, come to think of it. So I couldn't do anything about how I felt. Bummer. Big time. Oh well....nothing I can do about it now. I haven't seen her since I was back in MN for their prom when I was in 9th grade. I really haven't seen any of my friends from there for a long time....except Steph....who always remembers to call me and send me a card on my birthday. yeah....she's a good friend...

I had a dream about Chad last night. It's one of the ones I usually have. As I've mentioned in the past, I have about an 8 dream rotation with him. They all usually have him as being sick or terminally ill in some sort of way. But not this time. I think this is the first dream in a few years with him in it, where he wasn't sick. Which is probably why I didn't even realize it was him, until later today when the dream popped back into my mind. Craziness.

Today I did a lot of cleaning up and packing. As I was looking for some of my brother's stuff, I stumbled upon some more of my own clothes that I had left here while I was in Denver. So I packed that up in one of my suitcases I have out here. I also pretty much gathered all of my crap that I had scattered around the house....just so I don't leave anything here. It'll be good when my parents get home tomorrow, because I have several questions for them about different things regarding the house.

I had some bad news today....I called up that SA that I had talked to last week, and the manager said he really didn't have a spot for me. So, It's looking like I'll have to call my old manager about his store...and if that doesn't work, then when I get home I'm going to go to all of the SA's in the area and talk to the managers and leave my cell number, in case someone quits or gets fired there....I'll be ready. I'm thinking I'm also going to swing in at Snyder's and talk to my manager there. Technically I never quit and I never was fired. I just sorta stopped working. I'll see if he needs any help....'cause I worked there for so long that it'll take me about 2 seconds to get re-familiraized with the registers. And the crazy thing with that place, is that 5 kids that worked there while I was there are still there. I doubt he'll take me back....even if he does have room, but it's worth a shot.


Oh yeah...and this computer is starting to act funky again, so if I suddenly stop posting, it's because of that. Don't worry, though, I'll be back in MN by Sunday....Monday at the very latest.

Wooohooo! So I was setting up a new site meter, when I realized I might be able to use my old account and retain my old statistics. And it worked! And I got a new style! So scroll aaaaaaallllll the way down to the bottom and ch-check it out! I win again.

And comments are working finally, so you can do that as well.

hah...well...I was kind of sick of that same old template I've had since forever, so I mixed things up a bit....knowing full well that I would lose any customizations that I may have made to my last template.....but I totally neglected to think of my site meter....gosh dangit! I wanted to see that rollover to 10,000 and I was over 8,200 too! Oh well....I guess maybe part of growing up is realizing that doesn't matter....but you'll notice it did matter to me less than an hour ago. Huh...

Well, my brother gave me the thumbs up to take his car back to MN, so that's one less thing I need to worry about. He also sent me a list of items he wants sent out to him and his wife from their house. So today I started rounding them up...which is a little difficult because, even though they attempt to remember where they left the stuff....they've been out of their house for over 5 months now....and it turns out, they don't remember that well. So it's been a little bit of a wild goose chase, but I'm starting to find things...and am waiting for the rest of the list before I dig too deep and end up skipping over stuff that I'll need to find later. I also went shopping for them and got some food and whatnot to send....but when I got back I remembered I was going to call a gas station back in MN today....but it was after 2 when I got back, and the managers rarely stay after 3 there...so I missed out today. I'll have to remember to do that tomorrow.
I also looked at the atlas today and started figuring out which way I'll take home. I realized my parents didn't go through Iowa because they always stopping in Sioux Falls, SD to visit my grandparents on the way. I don't need to do that...so I'll go through Des Moines....though I did decide to bypass Denver and take a few back-road highways to link up with I-76. It'll take roughly the same amount of time, with 10x less hassle. And I think I am going to spend the night in Waverly that Sat. night. I just need to ask one of the Iowa folks out here which is the best way to get there from Des Moines. And I still need to call my roommates....I don't think I'll do that tonight. It's Monday. Still a long ways away from Saturday. They won't know what their weekend plans are yet.

In other news...that you won't care about...people must have noticed my frequent posts, because my site traffic is the highest right now since probably December. Yeah, I have stuff to post about now....but who knows what'll happen when I get home. Probably a lot of....soooo, at SA today I stocked some cigarettes....boooorrrring!

So I was a little bored tonight before going to bed and I decided to go online and remind myself what courses I'll be taking next year and who will be in the classes. I was stunned to realize that of my classes during fall term, there's only one class where I know several people.....and it's a class that I'll do poorly in because I'm unprepared for and despise the subject matter, but have to take it for my major. It's a communication arts course....a journalism course. I have to take several of them next year....and because I chose to finish my english and creative writing courses first....I'm the oldest in the majority of the CA courses....yup, me and a bunch of first and second years. Wooohooo! But then I noticed something even in my English courses I'm in: (purely electives....might as well get more versed in writing) I either don't like or don't know pretty much any of my classmates. Except for young David Kordahl. And his older sister Angela. And actually, I have one class with the brother/sister team Winter Term. That should prove to be interesting. As a side note, I thoroughly enjoy class with David...probably because he'll hold an intelligent conversation with me, even though our views on life (especially on what to do with our free time on the weekends) are pretty much the opposite. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that tonight is the first time I think I truly saw that the column I wrote for the May Term issue of The Trumpet (Time for a Difficult Goodbye) is 100% true for me. Even though they weren't my closest friends by any means.....all of the people that made my English courses fun and interesting were the students that graduated this year. Now I'm looking at the people who make up the courses I'm enrolled in and they're, quite frankly, a bunch of douchebags. My last course with my absolute favorite English prof. is compiled of students who have never had him before. How do I know? Because I've been in every single course he's taught for the past 3 years and most of them are on a several year rotation. So now I'll be in my last course with him and I won't be able to share the inside jokes with the rest of the students. They don't know his idiosyncrasies....I mean seriously....last year for his birthday (which falls on April Fool's day) I gave him one giant hoop earing because he had recently pierced his ear in response to a dare from his daughter (who, ironically, was in my French course my first year and my partner for the oral final). I dunno...there's just a lot of different sides of him that makes his courses fun, even though he's literally known on campus as "Dr. Satan."

Sorry this post was really random....I'm just bummed I won't be surrounded by fun people during my last year at Wartburg. At least I have an amazing schedule Winter Term....which coincides nicely with Meredith's schedule consisting of pretty much nothing. booyea.

You know what I did today? Read a book. That's it. I saw that my brother had a series of books that I own at home and I read the first book. All of 370 pages today. Yup.

I'd say that my eyes have totally turned back to Minnesota now. I think I'll leave on Saturday...because there should be less holiday weekend traffic. Really the only thing to decide (unless my brother doesn't let me drive his car back)is if I'm going to go straight back to MN, or if I'll swing through Wartburg and spend the night at the house where a few of my roommates are staying for the summer. That way I can pick up my trombone that I left at school and have some fun with my roommates. But if I do that it'll be out of my way and I'll be so close to being home that it doesn't seem worth it...plus, I can always go down there when I have a few days off from work. The other thing is which way to take back to MN. I know for a fact that my parents don't take the way the mapquest told me to take....so I need to wait until they get back from Europe before i totally decide that.

Other than that, though, I just have a list of things I need to do before I leave the house. I can't do everything everyday...but I should be able to spread it out over the week. So I took today to literally just lie around the whole day. Granted, I've been doing that a lot lately....but in light of recent events, it was also nice to have my mind totally occupied by something else.....and actually, because of those events, I could really use a wild night out with my roommates. You all know how few of those I had during my May term and I defintely haven't had any out here. I mean really, this is my first summer being 21....I guess if I have the chance to spend some more quality time with the roommates I should take advantage. I need to call them. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. Add it to the list.