The Summer of 9-5

I am really enjoying this summer - 40+ hours a week at two jobs, free time spent catching up on sleep, and money spent on gas making it to all the remote places within Petersburg National Battlefield's boundaries is all too fun! (Sense the sarcasm yet?)

My last full summer as a college student is being spent working a full-time job and I even have to work holidays like JULY 4! Who works on July 4th? The National Park Service does, but I figured since it was a government organization that I would for sure have it off. NOPE, I'll be working at the remote Five Forks unit way out in Dinwiddie County.

The best thing about this summer so far has been the VA Beach trip I just took last week with a bunch of friends. Besides that short trip, the highlight of my summer will be when it ends. I won't have to work a 9-5 and I'll get to enjoy the 3week period in between moving into Sunchase and the start of Fall 2005. Hopefully I'll plan a nice beach trip or something before classes begin.

I just hope your summer has been a lot better, entertainment wise. Financially, my bank account should be just fine by the time I save money from all my 80-hour checks -- great way to earn much-needed money before school.

'Bout time for the BEACH!

It is finally time for the Virginia Beach trip I've been waiting for all summer and it will definitely be one to remember.

Me, Thomas, Fernando, David, Patrick, Shawn, Matt L., April, Lindsey, Tracy, Emily and some other people (sorry if I left you out.. just finished a 40-hour week) will be heading down to VA Beach tomorrow around noon and won't be back until Sunday afternoon.

With a group like this, anything is bound to happen and I'm sure it will be a great experience. It's great to be at the beach with your friends. Not to mention

Here's to boogie boards and the boardwalk. Oh, AND Pizza - for some reason I always have a craving for pizza at the beach. I'm not talking Pizza Hut, I'm talking the GREAT pizza places along the boardwalk.

As for the weather, according to weather.com, it will be sunny and clear Thursday through Sunday with showers on Monday and Tuesday. Hopefully those showers will not creep up earlier than Monday and Tuesday.

Have fun at home going to your day job . . . I'll enjoy the waves, the sun, and the pizza.

Not what it seems. . .

Have you ever been in a certain situation where things are going awesome for a long time and you think nothing can bring that situation down?

Well, sometimes life just isn't what it seems. Life is the ultimate chameleon, changing colors and characteristics in just about every different setting. Personally, I'd rather have the chameleon be all white and stand out, that way I know EXACTLY what I'm dealing with and what will happen next.

But, life, like a chameleon, cannot be easily decifered from it's surrounding habitat and its surrounding beings. Life can be perfect one moment and completely turned over the next.

The best way to deal with it is to "stay the path." By that I mean that we should all go with our heart's desire in every situation. Go with your gut feeling. Don't pull the whole "fight fire with fire" routine because you'll just become a chameleon yourself. And definitely do not let anyone decide anything for YOU or persuade you in any way.

When things just aren't going your way, I'm sure you'll be down and blue for a small period of time -- just don't let being down and blue rule your life. Otherwise, you'll be just like that chameleon, who is defined by his surroundings, his situations, and his fellow population. Don't hide, just take it head on and as long as you are going with your gut feeling, you'll be fine.

Have faith and live on the positive end of any spectrum. To end this rant of mine, I'd like to insert a very popular quote as of late:

When you're down to nothing, God is up to SOMETHING!

And we have LIFT OFF!!

5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
The summer has officially gone from just starting to LIFTING OFF and heading into orbit.

What started off as quite a relaxed summer is now becoming a summer that I'm ready to pass by, mainly because I'll be working quite a bit. I guess I'll have to sacrifice sleep and fun for 40+ hours a week. Gotta get used to the "real" world and I'm definitly getting used to it this summer.

The main reason my summer has lifted off is because Petersburg National Battlefield went from having me there as an unpaid intern for just 40 hours total to having me there filling a $$PAID$$ position. I couldn't pass the opportunity up because 1.) i need money AND 2.) i need to get used to working 40+ hours a week.

"240 horsepower in that little 2.2L engine?" "Yes, dad. . . Honda DOESN'T play"
In the little free time I have had lately I have become extremely interested in the Honda S2000 (honda roadster if you didnt know) and I have now set my first goal for when I graduate and get settled into a job: Get one!

The 2,000-some pound car with a 2.2L, 240HP DOHC engine will fly! The only thing in which the S2000 lacks is in the torque department, but that is definitely made up with the horsepower-to-weight ratio as well as in the handling and suspension department.

If you had to read just one book this summer . . .
Besides hatching up a goal for buying an S2000, my free time has also been spent trying to think of better ways to manage my money and to start reading more. I haven't read a book in a while and my vocabulary is starting to deteriorate and slip waywardly.

So... I went out and bought a book and if you're interested in military history or modern war, you need to check out Thunder Run by David Zucchino, which is a narrative of the first tank invasion of 2003, marking the beginning of the Iraq War. Zucchino really does a great job narrating as well as setting up the scenes for the reader through his extensive, but not over-detailed account of the battles incurred by the tank divisions on the opening charge to Baghdad.

Crazy Memorial Day Weekend

Friday
The weekend started off well for me and just got crazier and crazier; I worked 9:30-3:30 at Ukrop's, which went by super fast because it was so busy -- almost a Christmas crowd. As soon as 5pm rolled around, Maria was heading home and we had plans to go out to eat at Don Jose in Colonial Heights. It was a great dinner and a much needed date with m'lady.

After seeing for a while, she started dozing off because of her long work week -- so I headed on out to Friendly's with Thomas, Shawn, Patrick, Matt, Tracy, Lindsey, Emily and a bunch of other peeps. Got hit with a piece of ice at Friendly's and got pretty mad, but just laughed it off later.

Friendly's then led me to Murphy's Law to shoot some pool with THE FELLAS (buds since HS) and a couple of chicks (April and Lindsey). Thomas and I got caught up in the worst game of pool EVER . . . just like playing golf -- took a million strokes to get the ball in the hole.

Saturday
Needless to say, Friday flew by quicker than any other day and I was back into yet another Saturday at Ukrop's. Saturday was pretty busy in the afternoon as the Memorial Weekend stragglers were buying their last minute groceries and the evening was managable. 2:45 - close went by, thankfully, pretty fast.

Sunday
It was 10:30 and time to meet up with Maria and her family for church so I went to church with them and then followed them over to Cumberland where Maria's aunt lived. On the way to church, Maria's dad got pulled over and earned himself a speeding ticket -- clocked going 17mph over the limit.

After churhc, it was on over to good ole Cumberland County. Talk about country.... nothin' touches a country cookout man -- ribs, cheeseburgers, hot dogs with chilli and (cole) slaw, macaroni salad, baked beans, the WORKS!

I learned two things in Cumberland:
1) You can have a COW
2) How to play croquet

I had never played croquet before in my life and had always thought it was a whack game to play, but don't knock it until you try it. For those of you who do not know what croquet is, you basically have a mallet and you hit a ball through arch-shaped plastic/metal boundary markers called wickets. Whoever gets to the end of the course first wins (For a more in-depth explanation see croquet).

The fun begins............
We stayed in Cumberland until about 5PM and I got back home around 6:30 -- from there I went on over to Brent's house where David had worked his magic at the sweet cookout they had to celebrate Memorial Weekend. Thomas, Brent, David, Brooks, and Ben were all over there and had just finished chowing down when I got there.

There was nothing to do so we decided to pop in a movie, Swingers, with Vince Vaughn and we watched that until we got restless. We turned the movie off and were just kickin' it until all of a sudden Brent spoke up:

"Hey, let's go to the beach guys"

This is at like 7:45PM and everyone was like "yeah right! not at 8 at night."

David then spoke up, "Where's the cooler.... let's get that." We thought Brent and David had planned a sweet joke..... NOPE!

10 minutes later we piled into 2 cars and headed to Virginia Beach just for kicks. We ended up meeting up with Lindsey, Tracy, April, and Emily -- they were there already because of the Rascal Flatts concert. We had fun just joking, talking, and strolling the beach and boardwalk. Time passed and we sent the ladies off from their parking lot and started heading to where we parked.

I had been bugging everyone the whole night to ride the trolley, so we decided to take the trolley to about 17th/18th street where we were parked close by (or so we thought). After the awesome trolley ride, we made it to our parking lot finally. But guess what?

NO CARS! Our cars had been towed away from a parking lot where we thought we could park (there was no sign that said NO PARKING). So we basically got screwed VA Beach style with $85 towing fees for each car (we had 2 cars), which cleaned me out for the rest of the week, which had 5 days remaining.

We're mad, I'm broke, and we finally started back towards Richmond around 2AM. We stopped at an Eckerd because Thomas REALLY had to piss and we were all thirsty. By the time we made it to Eckerd, we had laughed off the $85 towing fees -- we didn't let a "measly" $85 ruin the fun and our completely spontaneous night.

Wait.... I wasn't totally broke; I had $0.11 in my change compartment. I went up to the register while Thomas bought himself a drink and a snack and said to myself "What can I get for 11 cents?" Turns out, there was SOMETHING I could buy with that little amount -- an American flag pin, which ultimately rang up at $0.04, so at least I got 1 bargain at VA Beach and a great souvenir.

Monday
Monday turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day and softball was on the menu. Softball was fun and it was great to see we finally had enough people to play a real game instead of just taking turns hitting the ball.

I learned quick why I had played 2nd base my whole life and not 3rd base . . . I wasn't used to such a distance playing 2nd base my whole life so I kept thinking I had to hurry so I rushed myself and missed some routine grounders. Thankfully I moved on out to centerfield.

I had a couple bloopers between 3rd base and left field and even belted an in-the-park GRAND SLAM, which more than made up for my mistakes at 3rd. My team ultimately won and I was forever known as mud butt because I was sweating and then sat down on the bleachers which apparently had red dirt all over them.

Another random thing about Monday was that my roomie from Longwood, Fernando, pulled into my neighborhood as we were leaving to play softball. He followed us to the park, chilled with us for a couple hours watching us play ball, and then headed back to NOVA. It was an awesome random visit from Fernando and Vince was equally suprised and happy about it too.

Oh, and ANOTHER random thing -- my air force friend JP just got back from serving a tour of duty in Iraq and ended up calling us after softball. He came over, we hung out, he left, I ate dinner and then took Maria to see Madagascar, then I met back up with JP and Thomas and we hang out at Uno's.

What a HUGE amount of information. Needless to say, this past weekend was one of the most eventful weekends of my life, and a great way to kick off the Summer.