For all the things I'm losing

Requested Enrollment Date: Fall Semester 2009
Application Type: Non-Traditional- Freshman
Application Status: Decision Made
Decision: Accepted
Degree: Bachelor of Science
Major: Biological Science


Imagonna be a college student!

I have a job, I start on friday. I'll be working at the midtown massage envy starting off at Mon 10-4 and Tue/Wed/Fri 3-10, which should let me go to school pretty easily assuming they accept me and I can get financial aid, I should be finding out about that fairly soon.

Please take a moment to read this article about a push to get some funding for science: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/02/04/making-sausage/
or an even briefer moment to just click here and fill out a form letter to nag our congressmen about supporting it. http://www.congressweb.com/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=apspa&hotissue=81

After a few months of total lack of success on the job search front, I've decided to try and see if I can scratch out my meager living on my own. I have a few recurring massage clients already, a few more and my bank account might just stop red lining! :D Please check out my website at http://zephyrusmassage.com and give me any constructive feedback you have. Any paying referral will get you half off a service for yourself as well. And if any of you who have received massage from me would like to give recommendations I'd appreciate that as well. Thanks!

Oh I'm concerned, I'm not apathetically a non voter, I'm a conscientious objector.
In good faith I can no longer vote with the people after the last election and them passing the "defining marriage" amendment into our constitution by an 80% margin even in supposedly "liberal" counties. I do not feel I can pretend the system works at that point.

We are in fact wolves voting the sheep for dinner
And is the sheep smarter for voting no or not voting?
He's going to get eaten either way, but at least one way he can say he didn't pretend he didn't know it was coming.

I don't feel I'm being overly dramatic after the people showed so willing to deny equal civil rights to people they felt weren't spiritually up to their standard. I feel like participating in this corrupt system even to supposedly try to change it is a moral compromise I am unwilling to make. Fairly akin to "if someone is holding your two kids at gunpoint and says to choose one to live or both die, what do you do?" the correct answer in my mind is to refuse to choose.

"A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion." We may not quite be to that point yet, but I feel we are beyond any attempt to prevent it.

Well, I saw a lawyer to file bankruptcy today, first step in getting on with my life. She said I should have no problem filing chapter 7, and should have no trouble getting student loans afterwords. My goal is to be in university by next fall.

I am really getting tired of people being too afraid of being hurt to dare to try to be happy. I just wish I could find someone who's romantic, but also bold. Someone who's so determined to be true to themselves that they can't help but be true to others. I hear women complaining so often that they can't find a guy who's both sensitive and strong willed, but you know it goes both ways.

"If I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I, then I am not I and you are not you. But if I am I because I am I and you are you because you are you, then I am I and you are you." -Rebbe of Kotzk

As most everyone already knows, I'm home now. Got home on Friday, been trying to recover since. :D I've uploaded the trip photos to flickr, you can see them here

I'm at a library with the continental divide in the window, and you're not. :P I headed out from the grand canyon yesterday morning. It had snowed overnight on my tent, the temp overnight was about 20. Just too cold for me to continue camping there. I didn't stop driving except for a brief meal break and a couple pit stops until 2:30am mst. The last two hours were spent getting from the vale pass to just outside Denver, at an average of 30mph. Driving in the snow, at night, in the mountains is... an experience. You can't see the lanes, you can barely see the edges of the road. Its sort of zen.. you can't try to keep tight control or you'll freak out and wreck yourself. I nearly got into an anyway, I was following someone who seemed to know what they were doing at 45mph, until they nearly hit someone going 25 and braked suddenly. So I braked suddenly, and then I was skidding. I actually turned into it and recovered, I was impressed with myself. Usually my reflexes aren't that good. Also I noticed my tires were making weird noises, I found out why when I finally stopped for a hotel.. ice had built up in the wheel well until it was touching the tires. Is that normal?

Oh, I realized I forgot to mention that I had went to carslbad caverns between texas and white sands. I paid for a guided tour to the lower caves, it was quite fun. And slightly creepy when you realize there's something like 800' of earth hanging somewhat precariously over your head.

Anyway, I'll be staying in CO overnight and most of tomorrow, getting a room somewhere between here and kansas tomorrow night, and spending a day or so going through kansas. After that its mostly just a long ass drive back home, I should probably be home by friday unless I find something amazing that distracts me.

I camped for a couple days at alamogordo, pretty desert, nice facilities, got some beautiful pictures which I will upload with all the rest when I get home. Went to White sands and enjoyed playing in the sand dunes, its really quite impressive. Also went to the missile range museum, saw a fat man bomb casing "here comes your man" a little eerie, though people under 25 really don't understand what it was like to live during the cold war.
Now I'm at the grand canyon.. and oh my god, its big, the way you think of gods as big. Impressive would be an understatement. Howerver while the park is beautiful, the campgrounds kinda suck. There's trash all over, the showers aren't available until 8am and are pay, and there's far too many idiots on spring break around. I nearly got a group of them arrested last night. They were playing music and generally being annoying, called the rangers and I listened to their conversation. Apparently there was beer all over, and not a one of them was 21. Also one of them had a warrant out on him. But they're rangers, not really cops, so they just poured out all the beer and told them if they had to come out again they'd be going to jail. I found it rather amusing, but then I'm an old man at heart. "You damn kids get off my lawn!" Also its freaking cold in the night here. I think I'm going to check out a few days early tomorrow, its just too blasted cold. I miss everyone, love to you all.

Left Denton last night, and not to sound all emo, but I had some tears in my eyes. I met some really wonderful people there, a few not so wonderful, but overall a great experience. And *waves* to new friends from there. I definitely want to visit again soon. I'll have to write more about it after I have some time to contemplate, but the desert should be great for that. Tonight I'm visiting an old friend in San Angelo, in the early morning I'm leaving for Carlsbad Caverns, where I'm going to be taking a 3 hour tour of the lower caverns, then to white sands. I imagine I'll be out of contact for a week or so, but should have some lengthy journals to enter in when I get to civilization again.

Had a really good weekend with Monique. We talked alot, watched some movies, went out to live music show with some of her friends who were also quite nice people. The band was the Asylum Street Spankers, who I'd never heard of before, but they put on a good show. Monique is a really wonderful person I have alot in common with. Unfortunately one of the things we don't have in common is geographical location, and while I like the looks of this area and people, I'm really too happy with my home situation to think about relocating. Still, I think I shall be visiting again in the future.

I started out a little late from sleeping with Mr. Nyquil (ooh the scandal) but seem to have left sucessfully. The only thing I've noticed missing thus far is the tripod. After a couple hours of driving I made it to Gwen's. She's still a cutie and a sweetheart. She bought me lunch at an italian place, then we went back to her place and napped and watched movies.

I headed out of her place at about 5:30 CST. This was the first part of the trip where I felt really like "oh shit, I'm on the road" The radio was still too stacked for the fm transmitter for the ipod, but I fixed that by removing the car antenna, go me. Pretty uneventful ride, though the car felt twice when it was shifting gears like it forgot to apply the clutch or something.. lost power for about a half second before finding it again. Hopefully not a developing problem. Also the bridges over the marsh and bay kinda scare me.. way too high and narrow. Anyways, made it to the hotel fine at 11:30, went and had beignets and coke at the cafe dumonde while they got a room ready. Wandered the french quarter, there were no street performers except for one sad clown, and that may have just been a hobo with flair. I was disappointed. I've already done the touristy shit of gawking at the buildings and so forth on previous trips. Hopefully the rest of the trip goes better
At night I headed back out at about 9:30 to bourbon St. it was in a decent swing. I peeked in a few bars looking for the one me & suzan enjoyed last time, and to my delight the same band was there! Yay! They replaced the one kinda skanky backup singer with another cute singer, and had the same other hawt backup singer. The guitarist knows his crap. I got a rather tipsy there, and tipped them $10 and asked them to play freebird lol. Both for the cliche factor and cause I actually like the song ("I like songs about drifters books bout the same, they both seem to make me feel a little less insane") They actually played it, and the lead guitarist was smokin'. Afterwards I went to Big Daddy's, a strip club on bourbon. Got a very nice lap dance from a hot brazillian, at least she claimed to be brazillian, and its not nice to question strippers lies. ;P Still not going to believe them when they tell me what will happen if I get a champagne room.. there is no sex in the champagne room. :P Besides, I was paying for the seduction, and she offered that up well!

This morning (well, 1pm, I had alot to drink lol) I went back out and had my beignets, and there were street musicians, yay! Had a fairly nice afternoon wandering around.. NOLA just isn't the same without street music. Went in a few museums, saw one artists stuff that was so good it makes me almost consider the $2000 price tag on his works. :P Do a GIS for Henry Asencio and you will see a few of his works. Anyways, at a internet cafe now, so I should go. Later!

I am leaving now on the start of my epic quest, hopefully I will find many phat loots along the way.
First stop Auburn AL for a night to visit my friend, then N'awlins. See you on the flip side.

Got new tires on the car today. I will be leaving town in a week, stopping by and visiting a friend in Auburn, then on to to New Orleans where I'll spend a couple days, before heading to Texas to see some friends. After that I'm heading to a few deserts, and the grand canyon, then back through colorado, kansas, missouri, etc. I will be gone for two to four+ weeks, depending on what my actual tolerance for camping in the desert turns out to be. If anyone has any quirky sight seeing ideas along these lines, feel free to chime in. Not sure how well this link will work for anyone else, but lets try Rough google maps route
I wish I could see trinity, but it is apparently only open to the public two days a year and this will not be one of them.

I look around, and within seconds I see who's hurting, how, and what they plan to do about it. Who will cling to who, who is clueless, who is looking to dominate. I see trouble in all its forms, the casual hurts done by beautiful people to beautiful people. I see these things I see, and I have no right to. Being autistic means my filters don't work right, or alternately I haven't figured out how to lie convincingly to myself: "She said we all not only could know everything. We do. We just tell ourselves we don't to make it all bearable."
I'd forgotten this was why I was planning a trip in the first place. Not to have an experience, or a story, or to see people along the way, but to go get lost from people. and maybe in the process be able to, in the quiet, hear who I am again. Because here the people won't stop screaming at me. I hear them and I can't do anything, and it kills me inside.

Closing on the house is rescheduled for tuesday, their loan has finally been approved. Will start remaking plans for the trip in a couple weeks.

and yeah, that's about right.

Your IQ Is 135

Your Logical Intelligence is Genius Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius Your General Knowledge is Exceptional

So I haven't posted in oh, a year it seems. I've been if not precisely busy, at least productive and exhausted. I am one week from graduating from the Atlanta School of Massage, and a week and a half from closing on selling the house my dad gave me. I am soon after, probably in early February going to be heading out on a cross country, or at least across the heartland road trip. I hope to find some way to regularly update my progress here, so those of you who are interested in trip stories detailing such wonders as the worlds largest ball of twine (incidentally in a town named Cawker, I hope to giggle maniacally at the town sign), or the geographic center of the USA may want to keep watching this space.