St. Augustine

This last weekend was an absolute blast. A group of friends and I took a brief (but very fun!) road trip up to St. Augustine, which is about an hour or so up the coast to the north. Those who went included Josh, Casey, Chase, Kelly, Sarah, Craig, Tom, and myself. We got up there about 6:30 pm or so, fooled around at the hotel for a bit, and then went out to eat at a fairly nice restaurant called the Sunset Grille. They had VERY good food!

After going back to the hotel, we bravely tried to go swimming in the ocean, but decided after about 5 minutes that it was a bit too cold for our liking. We ended up just sitting on the seawall and playing charades! Eventually, we headed back to the hotel, played some rummy, and went to bed.

The next morning, we bugged the parrot in the hotel lobby, checked out, and went exploring in downtown St. Augustine. If you've never been there, it's REALLY cool. The streets are very narrow (some are pedestrian-only), and the buildings are all very old. There's probably a billion and one tourist shops and the streets are filled with vacationers. I love it.

Later on, we headed back to the beach for some "fun in the sun!" Kelly ruled us all at volleyball, but at least we tried, haha. We stayed there for a couple hours, briefly visited downtown again for ice cream, and then hit the road home.

The trip was a nice distraction from bothersome little things like, oh, say...finals! Ick. But it was a great mini-vacation and a sort of last hoorah celebrating our friendships before the end of the school year. I love you guys! Thanks for a great weekend!

P.S. Check out the video of this weekend on YouTube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgbxxwz5y8o

Soccer and Papers...

Today was a pretty typical Sunday, which means busy. I woke up at the nice, restful hour of 9:15, made myself some coffee, and went downstairs to meet Kelly and Tom for church. Kelly was changing it up a bit this week (per my request) and visiting my church. I explained to her that since I talk about my Riddle friends at church, I wanted her to meet them so they know who I'm talking about!

Church was great. Worship was good, the sermon was great, and Kelly was well-liked (as I knew she would be). After the service, Kelly, Tom, Steven, Drew, and I went out to lunch at Panera Bread. Good food, but kinda expensive. We came back to school, where I worked on a nasty paper I'm writing for my current issues class.

Around 3:45, Ryan picked up Chase, Tom, and me to go play soccer with some people from our church. Kelly was thinking about coming, but decided she needed to do some homework and get some rest. Soccer was great, but tiring (as usual). We play for about three hours, so it does tend to wear me out!

I came back from soccer, took a shower, grabbed some food, and now I'm sitting down to finish my paper. Ugh...I really dislike it. I'm supposed to write on the Walter Reed Hospital "scandal;" what it was, the issues involved, who was responsible, etc. I don't like the subject matter for two reasons. First, I think the media is overhyping what is going on there (what a surprise!). Second, I just get tired of reading articles written by knee-jerk liberals who can do nothing but complain! Argh. Only 9 class days left...then finals...then I'm home for the summer!! =)

Another successful tutoring session...

Ok, so tonight was cool. I went to grab some food with Kelly and then came back to my room to work on statics. Kelly brought her physics homework over, and proceeded to work on it, occasionally hitting me up with questions. Chase dropped by later on for another guitar lesson, so I taught him the E-minor and C-major chords. He found the E-minor rather nice...the C-major not so much so!!

It's neat how I always end up sharing what I know (no matter how little!) with others. Ever since eighth grade, I've been a tutor. I typically don't get paid for it, even when I'm supposed to. I just never press the issue. It seems weird to me to charge for imparting information to my friends. I guess that's one of my goodwill services to mankind....free tutoring! =)

An unfortunate side effect of this free tutoring is a late bedtime. It's currently 1:28 a.m. *Yawn*....

Current Picture and Video Links

To see the videos I've uploaded thus far, click on this link:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ThunderBird18&search=Search

To see pictures I've uploaded, click here:

http://s155.photobucket.com/albums/s311/ThunderBird2007/

I will post on here every time I load new stuff, so check back often!

The New Update Interface

I decided to create this blog as a better way to keep my friends and family updated on what's going on in my crazy life at school. My goal is for this blog to be a one-stop shop for people who want to know how I'm doing. I plan to post links to videos on YouTube, pictures on Photobucket, etc. I hope to update this blog at least once a week, probably more frequently.

So...check back frequently to see what's new! =)