Seemingly impossible....

I got cleared to run on Monday. At first I was absolutely ecstatic. When I got back I ran for six minutes; unfortunately I was breathing fairly hard after such a short time. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day and I only got to run for ten minutes, after which I was somewhat tired. My quads are actually sore from yesterday's run, so sad. A few months from now I'll probably going to look back at this and wonder how I ever bounced back, but right now I'm looking into the future and wondering how the hell I'm ever gonna become a runner again. ~ Rich

My Music and Others...

G-wood, Howski, and I were supposed to open for Rich Hardesty tonight at the Duck Inn. However, his plane apparently had problems and he wasn't able to get another flight out here, so the show's been moved to next month or so. I think it's probably a good thing because I don't think we prepared well enough for the show. This will also give us a chance to work with some material that we had to scratch out earlier. Moving on....

There are a few CD's that I haven't been able to put down lately and I'd like to recommend them for your listening pleasure:

5.) Donavan Frankenreiter's "Donovan Frankenreiter" ~ Acoustic artist on Jack Johnson's record label. Has a laid back, good vibes sound that can be associated with Dave Matthews and Jack Johnson. His single "What'cha Know About" can be found on his website.

4.) Queens of The Stone Age's "Lullabies To Paralyze" ~ Although this CD sadly lacks the influence of Nick Oliveri's bass, it still achieves the creativity one would expect from guitarist/frontman Josh Homme. "Little Sister" promises to be one of the rock hits of 2005 with its catchy little guitar riff. Other notable tracks include "Tangled in Plaid" and "Everybody Knows That You're Insane."

3.) The Academy Is "Almost Here" ~ This is the The Academy's debut full-length album. I first heard these kids live in mid-January with Something Corporate and I've liked them ever since. The lyrics are clever, I like the guitar riffs, and it's a tad harder than your typical emo punk. Tracks to check out include: "Slow Down" "Almost Here" "Skeptics and Believers"

2.) Jack Johnson's "In Between Dreams" ~ Fellow teammate Doug Higgins has introduced me to both Donovan Frankenreiter and Jack Johson and I absolutely love their music. Johnson really delivers some good songs on this album including my now all-time favorite Jack song, "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing." So check this out because it's even better than his first 2 CDs.

1.) John Frusciante's "Curtains" ~ The final album of an amazing "Six albums in 6 months" streak. Each of the past few albums has featured a different style spanning indie-rock to electronica. This will probably go down as Frusciante's best work to date. The album is comprised of primarily acoustic singer-songwriter tracks. What makes this album truly special is the honesty and emotion that is poured into the songs both lyrically and instrumentally. "No Time Tonight" "Anne" and "Ascension" are some of the more noteworthy tracks on the album, though I must say there isn't a bad song out of the ten.

Insert Update Here

A three day weekend is just 24 hours and 40 minutes away, and like almost any extended weekend at USI, most of the high schoolers trapped in college student's bodies are packing their bags and heading home to mommy and daddy for at least the second time in a month. I, however, am not. This weekend will probably not result in any interesting developments in my life, probably just pool workouts and Geology book learnin'. It looks like I go back to the doctor's office to get cleared on Monday, not today as I had previously been led to believe. Oh well.

In other news I aced the paper that I had to pull an all-nighter on before Spring Break, so go me! That's all for now I presume. It doesn't seem to be much fun updating this thing anymore, sorry. I'll attempt to be better about it though.... maybe. ~ Rich

Garwoodism of the week....

Garwood has alerted me to the fact that I haven't posted a Garwoodism in awhile... so here goes:

THIS WEEKS GARWOODISM

Garwood on laziness: "At least when I'm not doing anything I'm not doing homework."

Spring Break

Looks like it's been two weeks since I last updated. Sorry. So spring break was one of the best weeks of my life. I went out to New Hamsphire and Vermont for some skiing/snowboarding with Jake England, affectionately known to some as "Flake." The snow was probably the best I've experienced in my life, mainly due to the fact that it snowed everyday except for one. Some highlights:

Sunday- Jake talks me into hucking a boulder conversation as follows...

Jake - Ferb, we're going to jump that boulder.
Me - You're frickin' crazy, I'm not jumping off of that. It's at least an 8 foot drop.
Jake - Ferb, you gotta burn it to earn it. You gotta rock it to shock it. You gotta grab that bull by the horns and hump it into submission.
Me - Errrr... fine, but you're going first.

Monday - Hit a shitload of double-diamond glades (trails where you ski between trees); hucked off of more boulders and jumps. One of the only downsides of the trip was that Bretton Woods usually has an amazing view of Mount Washington, but it was obscured by the clouds every day we were there.

Tuesday - We mixed it up a little and headed to Loon Mountain. It snowed the entire time we were on the mountain! The snow was great and the terrain park was incredible. Jake tried out the superpipe (15-17 foot high walls and over 400 feet long!!!). We decided that Loon had the best steeps and funnest long runs.

Wednesday - Went back to Bretton Woods. Upon arrival, the snow gods had greeted us with 1 and 1/2 feet of fresh powder!!! Almost the entire day was spent making FRESH tracks through the trees. On our second run we ripped down a lift line trail that had a huge dropoff. I didn't wanna do it at first, but as usual, Jake talked me into it. After Jake caught some sick air and landed in a really deep snow drift I decided it'd be ok, so I went off it and did the same; it was an awesome rush. One of the funniest (and possibly most painful) moments of the day involved Jake's face and a tree. After laying in the snow for about 5 minutes he was able to get up and continue; I was afraid he had pulled a Sunny Bono. Wednesday was by far the best skiing I have ever had, and I wouldn't want to have experienced with anyone else except my dad and Jake.

Thursday - Went to Attitash/Bear Peak. Probably the worst day of skiing, due in part to a warm and sunny day. The trails were kind of icy and the conditions weren't even close to Bretton Woods or Loon.

Friday - Killington was the venue of our final day. Killington features 6 mountains and 200 trails.... ya, it's friggin' huge! It was a fairly nice way to wrap up a great week. They had some amazing terrain parks. I got some big air off in one of the large parks. It took 3 major wipeouts before I finally stomped the jump 2 times in a row which felt really cool.

Basically, spring break totally rocked and I'm glad we went someplace cold instead Daytona or any of that bullshit. I'm hoping I can get out there this summer for some more fun. That's all for now. Peace ~ Rich

Atlantis isn't real... neither is Santa....

Well it's damn near 5:30 in the morning and you're probably wondering, "Rich, why did you get up so early in the morning?" Well, actually I'm still up from Thursday night thanks to a shitty 6 page english paper that I've been too sick to write the past few days. Now you might be thinking, "Yeah, but it's got to be a big one. You know, something important like 'Islamofascism' or 'the Human Genome Project.'" No kids, it's even more important than that. Atlantis. Who needs to write 6 pages about subjects that matter when you can write 6 pages on a fucking island that never even existed. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I actually can't wait for our argumentative paper that we'll be starting after break because then I won't have to write about such an ridiculously useless topic. Whatever the case I hope Jake doesn't get pissed when I sleep on the entire car ride back to the Region today. I need my sleep so I can drive our asses through Pennsylvania and New York on Saturday. After all the shit that has happened this week I'm pretty sure that suffering through 7-8 hours of Indiana and Ohio toll road is gonna be a breeze. ~ Rich

Well today was bullshit. Out of all the days I can get sick, it has to be the night before my fucking geology midterm. I woke up this morning feeling absolutely terrible. After screwin' up the midterm pretty badly I went back to the dorm and slept the whole day because I couldn't concentrate on anything. So now I have a 6 page paper to write tomorrow. Fun. I'm so pissed write now that I'm just gonna end this post here. ~ Rich