"Time is moving all to fast, I tried to grab some but it passed"

Popped in Hives' debut album Barely Legal. I really like this album because the energy on it is so raw, yet they are able to keep the music very tight... something a number of other groups have trouble doing. Their new album comes out in less than a month and I'm pretty psyched about that. Omar Rodriguez of The Mars Volta is also putting out his debut solo album in July. John Frusciante is featured on it too, so I'm definately picking it up.

Well I'm gonna have go run in a few minutes. Speaking of running, it looks like I'll be making a little trip down to Evansville for the 4-mile Night Flight at USI the 16th. That should definately be fun and I'll probably get to meet alot of my incoming teammates. I dunno how well I'll run today because I smashed my left knee into the frame in between the cushions on Matt's couch. Ohhhhhh well. I'm outty~ Rich

"I know I mean what I'm forgetting"

I'm going to the beach. I haven't read this book I bought on my vacation for awhile and it's really interesting. So I'm gonna run and then chill on the beach. Nice and relaxing. Finally, free time. Laterz~ Rich

Currently listening to: Wishing by John Frusciante
Mood: peaceful

"Do you throw it in a well, wishing you had someone to tell?"

I'm in this mood right now where I'm really happy, but I wanna listen to sad music; it makes me feel good lol. No folks, I'm not on crack. So right now it's John Frusciante that's blaring through the headphones on my laptop. Yet again, I must mention that this CD totally kicks ass and if you're up for expanding your listening horizons, then get this CD (or ask me for a listen).

Today marked the beginning of appointments and I didn't do too bad at all. Tomorrow's probably gonna turn out to be a very busy day as well. I'm hoping to head over to Joe G.'s open house as well as Jason Reinbolt's. Wow, it's pretty late right now and I have to wake up in the morning to run. Yikes. I'll manage. I always do. Because I've been pretty busy over the past 3 days with training and such I have not been able to really do alot of things that I wanted to do originally. Much of the free little moments that I have had were spent on thinking about my vacation last week. That had to be one of the best times of my life.

I really wanna live out in Vermont or New Hampshire. The only thing I don't want is to put up with extreme leftists such as Patrick Leahy that already reside in these two fine states. Sound familiar? Ya, that's the guy that Cheney went ballistic at according to the liberal media. Of course what they don't tell you is that Cheney has plenty of reasons to hate the guy. Plus, the Senate was not in session; so technically, Cheney could say (and did say) whatever the hell he wanted. Also take into consideration that Leahy's really cool to begin with. Back when he was a "Republican", he was in reality a closet liberal. Then when the house was split, he conveniently switched to the Democratic party, after being elected as a Republican. Moreover, Leahy spent plenty of time playing the Haliburton blame game. Which I can totally understand, because Haliburton is a big company which makes it bad. Cheney was associated with this big bad company back in the day: so naturally, that makes him bad too. Whatever the case, if stupid accusations were thrown at me everyday in the workplace, I think I'd probably take it even a step farther than Cheney when it came to dishing out less-than choice words. Of course, I can get vulgar very quickly when irrate so it's probably a good thing I don't, and probably never will, hold public office. Now I will admit that I am a staunch conservative, but my basic opinion of the matter is that Leahy is very audacious, in that, he not only screwed over his original party and basically lieed to those who voted for him under the Republican ticket; he takes it a step farther by playing mindless blame games with the VP of the US of A. So kudos to you Mr. Leahy, in my book: YOU, are the certified jackass. After reading this, please read the nifty disclaimer that follows and stay tuned kids, because in the next few days I will be serving up a rant about tax cuts and why they DO and SHOULD benefit the rich. In that rant we will also dive into the details behind some corporate tax cuts as well. Because if you are like Mr. Leahy, meaning that you think all big corporations are evil and do no good for the rest of the public, then you might want to read this.

DISCLAIMER: ALL OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS POST AND ANY OTHER POLITICAL POSTS IN THIS BLOG ARE WRITTEN BY A STAUNCH CONSERVATIVE. THEREFORE, KEEP IN MIND THAT MANY STATEMENTS MAY SOLELY BE THE OPINION OF THE AUTHOR. IN ANY SERIOUS RANT, SOURCES WILL BE CITED AT THE END OF THE RANT TO ALLOW THE READER TO CHECK ANY FIGURES THAT MAY HAVE BEEN STATED IN THE RANT. ALSO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS NOT A VERY PROFESSIONAL DISCLAIMER, I JUST DON'T WANT PEOPLE FLIPPING OUT AT ME FOR THE OPINIONS I CHOOSE TO EXPRESS ON THIS BLOG. IF YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO WOULD LIKE TO FLIP OUT AT ME IN REGARDS TO MY OPINION, KEEP IN MIND THAT I PROBABLY CONSIDER YOU AS JUST AS MUCH OF A LUNEY OR JACKASS AS YOU PROBABLY ALREADY REGARD ME. I MAY ALSO CONSIDER YOU TO BE AN INDECISIVE FENCESITTER HELL, I MIGHT EVEN CONSIDER YOU A HYBRID: A LUNEY/FENCESITTING/JACKASS IF YOU WILL. ALSO KEEP IN MIND THAT RANTS ON HERE ARE USUALLY INSPIRED BY STORIES FEATURED ON CNN OR MSNBC. THE INTEGRITY OF THESE STATIONS, OR LACK THEREOF, MAKES ME MAD AND MAKES ME LAUGH AT THE SAME TIME. ON A FINAL NOTE, PARDON ANY POOR GRAMMAR I USE AS I USUALLY END UP WRITING IN MY ORAL SPEECH PATTERNS. CONGRATULATIONS, YOU MUST BE REALLY BORED IF YOU ACTUALLY READ ALL OF THIS PARAGRAPH. HAVE A NICE DAY. ~ Rich

Mood: very happy
Music: Far Away by John Frusciante

Quick Update

Okay, so runnings going well and hopefully my cash flow will be as well. I just got a job with Vector Marketing and tomorrow is my last day of training. I'm a sales associate and as such I sell Cutco cutlery. Which in all sincerity, they make the best knives I've ever seen and I get some for dirt cheap since I work for them (which makes them even cooler). The only thing I don't like is that I have to make cold calls to people and I feel like an idiot when I do lol.

I'm finally hitting my stride again in my base training. I ran a 5-mile tempo yesterday in 33:08 with relative ease even though I was cramping up hardcore. Tonight I'm doing a casual little jog through town with Alexis. That's all for now. Later~ Rich

"I'm before the equation and I'm the answer"

Yes I know, it's been a number of days since I have posted my last entry in here. Since then I have concluded what was the best vacation I've ever been on. Some of the most enjoyable moments of my life came out of that trip. The way I look at a lot of things has changed too. Before the trip there were alot of things that I wouldn't say I gave up on, but I definately took them for granted. I guess it would specifically be God. It kinda came around to me again when we went up Mount Washington. Never have I been so moved by the sheer beauty of my surroundings (I do live in Indiana, people). Nor have I really thought about just how small and insignificant I as a person am compared to everything that surrounds me. Maybe I'll throw some of my trip on here later. Even if I do it really won't do justice to the scenery. My trip up Washington was basically 4 hours of awe and you would honestly have to there yourself to understand. Anyway, I've now decided that I'm hiking it next year. Anyone care to apply to be my sherpa? Haha.

Anyway, there was a lot of other stuff I saw on my trip that was beautiful, weird, or funny. But, I'm really not in the mood for typing page after page. I'm just really happy right now. Yesterday I picked up John Frusciante's new CD The Will to Death. It's safe to say that the CD was a very good buy. Frusciante's lyrics continue to get more meaningful and I love it. My favorite song as of right now is The Days Have Turned. He basically sings about how people turned away from him and he lived a life of seclusion after he became addicted to heroin. It's pretty sad, but his voice sounds so great on the track. A number of the riffs on the albums are very catchy. The layering of guitars is pretty good. The one downside to the CD is that there are not as many harmonies layed down compared to the last album. But, it's still awesome, and the next CD in out in less than 2 months. Bleh!.... g2g.... Later~ Rich

Today we went golfing at this small course in the town of Bradford, VT. When I had first gotten up I went on a run. I must be in better shape than I was in last year because I did a 45 minute run, much of it uphill without much problem. Whatever the case, we're staying in VT for one more night. Tomorrow we'll finally be heading over to my cousin's place in New Hampshire. I will probably be climbing Mount Lafayette tomorrow if all goes according to plan (summit elevation of 5249 ft). Hopefully my dad will let me borrow the camera for some awesome shots at the top. Later ~ Rich

My trip thus far.

For those of you who might have otherwise become scared and confused after reading this post without this notice, please keep in mind that I have been typing this up on the laptop and waiting until I had an internet connection to post everything.

Friday, June 11

Star light
Star bright
We’ve driven halfway through New York,
Yet we’ve only seen one Masshole tonight.......

That’s a little poem that Dad and I made up on the way here as we passed the only Massachusetts car we had seen en route to our current locale.

Anyway.........

Greetings from just East Greenbush, NY! It’s 11:43 PM central time, which equates to 12:43 AM Saturday where I am now. I got up at 10 ‘til 6 this morning and got the rest of my shit ready to go. We were out the door at 7. Today was extremely long, seeing as I drove about 8 of the 15-16 hours. The trip was fairly uneventful I guess, but it was quite enjoyable seeing as we were driving the Bimmer. I can’t wait until tomorrow (or I guess it’s today now). We’re less than an hour from Vermont which is already apparent with the hills growing ever taller as we push farther east. The first town we’ll hit is Bennington. It’s a very beautiful town for a number of reasons: colonial architecture, green mountains on every side, and college girls scurry here and there. Guess that’s it for now. ~ Rich

Saturday, June 12

We’re on vacation damnit! That’s our excuse for doing whatever it is we want to do. Should we eat the continental breakfast at the hotel, or eat out? We’ll eat out. We’re on vacation damnit! Should we take the fastest way to Bennington from Albany, or should we take the scenic route? We’ll take the scenic route. We’re on vacation damnit. I guess that kinda gets the point across. I’ll move right on along now.

This morning I got up at around 8-9, I really don’t know or care. We ate breakfast at Denny’s because neither of us really wanted to eat that continental breakfast crap. After we got out of the city area we pulled off the side of the road and put the top down. Dad decided that it would be fun to “wind the piss out the car” by taking some of the county roads through the remainder of New York and into Massachusetts. So we did that, and it was beautiful and fun. The roads went back and forth; up and down; and all around. The roads were also freshly paved with the same stuff they used on Route 8 which made for an incredibly smooth ride. What was even cooler was the fact that we did not get lost. Anyway, we took some roads in New York east and headed over to northwestern Massachusetts. From there we headed north into Bennington, Vermont. We stopped in Bennington and walked around town for a little while. I really do like that town but it was disappointing and sad to see some of the people that called it home. While there, I saw at least 3 people in tie-dye shirts. One of the guys I saw had to be around 35-40 years old and he had 2 kids. He was wearing an orange tie-dye shirt with a peace sign. Sorry man, but the 60's are over. The other things that were disturbing include an old woman in a Volkswagen Passat with a spotted owl environmentalist license plate and a bumper sticker with the words “Howard Dean for America!” Puke.

Moving on, we got to my uncles house in Bridgewater, VT at around 1'ish. FYI, Bridgewater is a short drive away from the tourist trap that is Killington. Therefore, the hills in the area are still quite nice. All I can say is that I really wished I lived here. His house is actually a nicely remodeled barn. It has 3 bedrooms and a brook in the backyard. In fact, right now I’m upstairs with the window open listening to the water trickle between the rocks. About an hour after we got here I wanted to run and my uncle wanted to show my dad this microbrewery in town (in case you didn’t know, they make beer). So, I went running and they took the Bimmer to town. I don’t know how long or how far I ran seeing as I did not have a watch. I really don’t think I care about either for that matter. My run was just so beautiful. The road is surrounded by trees on each side. It’s at an elevation of about 1400 feet at my Uncles’s house and after what was probably just a few minutes of running I had gotten up to around 1600 feet. On one side of the road there is a steep hillside that leads up to the top of the hill. The other side of the road has a sharp drop of about 200 feet to the brook that runs behind my uncle’s house. On the other side of the brook there is another steep hillside. Basically, there is a gorge on one side of the road and a steep forested hillside on the other. I can’t even begin to describe how peaceful it is out here. All I could hear the entire time I ran was water running between the rocks and birds chirping in the trees. That definitely beats Hebron’s cars and lawnmowers. That’s about it for now. I’m not sure if we are staying longer or if we are going to head to East Stratford tomorrow. Then again, we’re on vacation damnit: we’ll do what we want. ~ Rich

Sunday, June 13

Today we headed up to South Strafford, VT where one of my dad's old high school buddies resides. This is probably the third time I've gone here and probably the most enjoyable yet. His house is much like my aunt's in the White Mountains; it takes a dirt road to get up to the house and it's situated on a hillside. Anyway, shortly after we had gotten here we decided to hike up to the top of the hill. Whitcomb Hill is the hill I'm referring to and it has an elevation of 1800ft. The of the hill is bald so we had an awesome view of the White Mountains. That's what I love about New Hampshire and Vermont: you can be on a hillside in one and see all the mountains in the other. God blessed us with sun and temps in the mid-70's.

Tomorrow I'm either going golfing or hiking Mount Cardigan in NH. Either way it should be fun. I'm glad we went on our little hike up the hill today because it kind of served as a precursor to Mount Lafeyette which I will hopefully be climbing in 2 days. That's all for now... later~ Rich

"I've got no money. I've got no secrets....."

Mike came over yesterday and gave my Zwan CD back; I was elated. Thank you Michael. I actually did a few things yesterday. PJ called after work and we decided to head up to the dunes for a run. We stopped by Dre's first to see if she wanted to come. She had a friend over and they had been "washing cars all day," so they decided to follow us up. When we got there it was beautiful. It was just starting to cool down and the sun was reflecting off the lake. But, before we could lounge around we had to run. I made the mistake of suggesting trail 9, a trail which features rolling sand dunes and which I am in no shape of trying to tackle at a good lick. After we had run a good portion of the trail PJ too a dive straight into the sand after tripping over a root. I felt sorry for him, but it was pretty funny. When we finished we ran into Scott, Aaron, and Sam. So we shot the bull with them for awhile and then headed back to Dre and her friend.

Today was pretty fun as well. I went over to Brown's house with Will for a little bit of gaming. After I got back I ate and ran. Went over to PJ's house for awhile and listened to some old vinyl records. I have a new-found appreciation for DEVO. That about wraps it up though. Tomorrow I leave for Vermont at 3 in the afternoon. I've kinda felt like I've been missing something lately, hopefully I'll be able to find it while I'm out there. We'll see~ Rich

Mood: happy
Music: "Declarations of Faith" by Zwan

Insomniac

My biological clock is so screwed up right now. It's going on midnight and I feel like it's 12 in the in afternoon. Whatever the case, I have 3 days to get back on track before we head out east. First we are going to my Uncle Rod's house near Killington, Vermont. Second, we head down to East Stratford, VT for a day to see one of my Dad's high school friends. I was happy to hear that we would be going there because last summer when we visited I had 2 of my most enjoyable runs of the summer around the town and surrounding backroads. Next, we are heading over to my cousin's house in the White Mountains of New Newhampshire. I'm hoping that I can finally hike Mount Lafeyette, Cannon Mountain, or some other noteworthy mountain. Besides that there are always hill repeats from hell just outside my cousins door and innumerable breathtaking views. Finally, it's down to Connecticut for the reunion and back to Indiana.

Right now I'm listening to Incubus' Morning View album. I love putting this away for awhile and then taking it back out a few weeks down the line; it's just one of those CD's that never gets old. That's kind of how my Zwan CD is. I'd really like to listen to that right now. But MIKE HASN'T GIVEN IT BACK YET. It's okay Mike, I'm not too mad.... but I really want it back :(

I think I'm gonna go now. Hope you are all having fun sleeping right now... something I wish I was able to do right now. Oh oh, tomorrow I'm gonna start running every day again. Laterz~ Rich

Louisville/State Meet Rocked!

Earlier this morning, at around 1:00 AM, I returned to the booming metropolis that is Hebron. I left Friday morning at 8 with PJ. We got to Lousiville around 12 and went to athletic director because he had to get some forms. After that we grabbed lunch and a few hours later we ran around L-ville. That town's kinda weird because it goes in and out of ghetto; there really is no bad side of town, instead there are many little bad blocks. This setup made our run even more interesting. I think PJ flicked off at least 2 inconsiderate drivers lol. After we had run, we ate at this place called Qdoba (KUH-DOH-BAH). It was a mexican restaurant, kind of in between the quality and price of Taco Bell and Don Pablos. Nonetheless, the steak tacos were the shit! I wish we had one of those places around here. We took our food over to this coffee house where a guy that lives in PJ's apartment was playing. I think his name was Chase. Anyway, he played an hour long instrumental acoustic set that was incredible. I mean this guy just blew my mind away. I'm probably gonna have to ask PJ what the guy's name was because you can buy his CD online. The record store across the street was the next place we went to after the show. It was by far the best record store I've ever been in. They had every indie artist or unpublicized side-project I could think of, except for Banyan (which made me upset). Since I actually had money in my pocket for once, I decided I'd pick up a few things. Now that I'm a college freshmen I thought it would be wise to invest in some of the basics. I picked up the Velvet Underground's Andy Warhol and a Steve Vai double pack that includes Sex & Religion and Alien Love Secrets. As I was browsing through the posters at the store one caught my eye; so I picked it up too. The poster has at least 100 different beers on it and there is a caption on the bottom that states "Life is Full of Difficult Decisions". When we got back to PJ's we went down the hall to a party for like 5 minutes. It wasn't great, so we headed over to a house that a few of his track buddies were renting and stayed over there for awhile. Those guys are absolutely hilarious. After returning to the aparment, we walked down the hall to another one of his friend's rooms and we ended up hanging out with her til' around 5 AM; Louisville is on eastern time, so it was 4 AM at home... my biological clock is really f'ed up after this trip. We got up at noon yesterday and got breakfast at 1 PM at this really weird, but very good restaurant called Lynn's Paradise Cafe. Then, we got lattes with double espresso shots over at the coffee shop we were at the night before (we needed something to perk us up). After that it was off to Bloomington for the state meet! PJ thought we'd be an hour late, but after we looked at his cell phone in Columbus it occurred to us that we were back in the central time zone. This was really nice to know and also insured that we were only 5 minutes late and that's only because the lattes on the way left us in dire need of a bathroom break while the first leg of slow heat's 4x8 was being run. The meet was probably one of the best state meets in a long time. Carmel broke the 4x800 record by running a 7:41. John Hiestand almost broke the open 800 meter record by running a 1:50-something. He was off by 2 tenths of a second! Christian Wagner ran another amazing double, clocking in at 4:13 in the mile and 9:04 in the two mile. The mile and two mile fields had incredible depth this year. The top 7 (at least) all finished in under 4:20. In the 2 mile the top 8 or so were all finished in under 9:20. Two years ago the event was won in 9:22. Well I need to go. The trip home was quite uneventful and if we hadn't blared the music I would have fallen asleep. Later~ Rich

Mood: frickin' excited... I leave thursday for New Hampshire!!!!
Music: Velvet Underground's Andy Warhol album

"Smashing through the boundaries, lunacy has found me, cannot stop the Battery!"

MY LAPTOP CAME LIKE 5 MINUTES AGO!!!! SCORE!!!! The past few days have been awesome. I turned 18 yesterday, which was pretty gay because of the reasons I explained previously, but I had a "get-together" after the awards banquet and a bunch of my track peeps came over. I'd like to thank of all you that showed up; I had a fun time and will definately miss chillin' with the team. Thanks also go out to Mr. O'Connor, Matt, Jake, Alexis, Meow, Mao, Mikey Marshall, Ryne, the Sjoersdsma's, the Hamann's, and my folks for the cards and gifts. That was unexpected and I am truly thankful to be surrounded by people that are so supportive and kind. Later on tonight I graduate (hurrah) and then celebrate with the fam. Tomorrow morning PJ and I are heading down to Louisville (pronounced "LUHL-ville" by the southerners haha). Saturday we drive back up to Bloomington for what promises to be an awesome state meet. Next week it looks like I'll be heading up to the beach a few times and also lacing up my shoes yet again for some runnin'. That's all for now because I gotta play around with the new computer. Later~ Rich

Mood: psyched
Music: Metallica's Master of Puppets album

"And now you're leaving New York, for no better place"

I am very happy today. Last night my Dad dropped a bombshell: he's taking ten days off of work for our vacation out East AND we're taking the Bimmer!!!! This is soooo frickin' AWESOME I can't even begin to tell all of you how cool this is. What's even cooler is that this means we're definately heading up to Vermont and New Hampshire (which means hitting 5 of my "Places of Interest"). The hills/mountains out East will definately help get my legs back into good shape early since I will only be into about 2 weeks of my base training when I get out there.

Earlier today we had our graduation ceremony practice thingy: it was dumb. I'm really not very excited about the graduation ceremony seeing as it will be twice as long as it needs to be. Tonight is the academic awards night(which means I ain't pickin' up sh*t). I got a letter saying I'm getting something, but it will probably end up being something stupid. At least I know it's not perfect attentendance, primarily due to the fact that I almost maxed out all of my absences this semester (and it felt oohhh so very good).

Today's my last day as a minor (well except for alcohol, if I drink that they will still throw me in jail). Really, turning 18 sucks. I don't smoke, I don't gamble, I don't plan on getting into credit card debt, and I don't see the since in paying women to take off their clothes. Thus, all of the "wonderful" possibilities that will be opened up to me tomorrow are worthless. On a more positive note, I am going with PJ down to Louisville Friday night and then we're heading to Bloomington to watch what could prove to be the best state meet eva! This will be my first time watching the unstoppable Christian Wagner set the track on fire (he really does too... you would too if you could run 2 miles in under 9 minutes).

Well I've gotta go. ~ Rich