It's been a while

Bin Ladin is dead. Yeah buddy. I had deactivated my facebook account on the principle that I wouldn't touch it until finals were over in order to not be distracted, but this was too momentous to pass up. I'm going to list some of my favorite statuses that I've seen tonight regarding the news, just for fun. Really though, I want to dedicate today to my best friend, Troy Smith. He's a ranger stationed out of Savannah, Georgia, and pretty much the coolest dude you'll ever meet. Here's to you, Troy.

Instead of studying and typing a paper I find myself in the backyard lighting fireworks with Steven Warden

‎.. I swear to god if netflix doesn't start working osama isn't gonna be the only dead piece of shit around here...

fireworks and neighbors singing God Bless America from their balcony ♥

love all the positive statuses supporting the US, really grossed out by the ignorant ones taking away from the moment. you're allowed to be respectful, despite your political views.

New mission in COD?

Finally, peace to all those who were affected by 9/11, my family included. Some may say its wrong to celebrate death, but I am glad to have peace of mind after all the sufferings America's Military and their families have had to go through. You may think I am not a good human, but I think otherwise, I cannot be more happy to know the mastermind terrorist who was behind everything from the beginning is dead.

‎-I hope this isn't gonna be like the SAW movies, where the fucked-up dude dies and the game still goes on. Noooo thanks.

And for some twitter action....

Top 3 Osama Tweets I've seen:
1. Dos Equis Man "He has found Bin Ladin several times but has released him because he enjoys the hunt... On May 1st, 2011 he decided enough was enough"
2. Hoodie Allen "Osama just peeped the 'Friday' video and merked himself... America wins"
3. Chet Cannon "He wins... 30 virgins."

Some funny stuff. But in all seriousness, I'm extremely happy with this news, and I'll leave all you readers with that. It'll be good to stop focusing on the negativity, bigotry, segregation, and fighting that our country puts itself through for a while, and actually celebrate a big W for the US of A.

For the song of the day... Yeah, I had to do it.

This time of year...

sucks. To put it lightly. This is probably the busiest 3 weeks of my school year, and I'm definitely not looking forward to it. Thank goodness no one in my apartment drinks coffee except for me and occasionally Jake's girlfriend when she stays over, but I'm still running low on creamer. Anyways...

I spent about 2 hours after work tonight looking through random youtube videos and stumbleupon stuff. I know, really productive right? I absolutely cannot wait for summer... Boating, beach volleyball, beers, and oh yeah.. that little thing called interning. Sweet.

I'm seriously considering switching my focus over to journalism rather than sociology. I enjoy both, but I've really been into sports media and sports writing the last few months. The production stuff I'm doing for 80's babies and Bash Events has really got me thinking if it's possible to use these skill sets in a viable job... I mean I know I taught myself, but everyone seems to be impressed with my work. It's nice getting paid to do it as well finally. We'll see where things go, I mean I still have another year in Iowa City, and that's going to consist of internships, and mostly a frantic decision making process on whether I should do grad school, or brave the storm that is the job market right now and attempt to find a big boy job. Only time will tell.

In the meantime, enjoy this little jewel. If you know me, you know of my love for all things acoustic - and that means John Mayer is one of my favorites. Although this song doesn't have a lot of lyrics, the movie it's associated with and the simple line of "say what you need to say" has so much power in it's own right. Anyways, enjoy. Back to working on the 6 pager that's due tomorrow.

Know what you deserve

This will be a shortie since I'm tired and have a long day tomorrow, but simply put - don't settle. I've been coming to find more and more lately that my forgiving nature can be a fault. My Dad had a few great nuggets of wisdom he shared with me over the phone a few weeks back, and it seems pretty fitting right now.

(i'm paraphrasing a bit, but you get the idea.)

"Don't go out of your way to make an effort for some people, sometimes it's just not worth it. Anyone that treats you differently when they're drunk than they normally would, or makes you their second or fall back option when their first doesn't work out isn't worth wasting your time. Now I'm not saying don't be friendly, or to disrespect these types of people, but don't feel like you have to go out of your way to try and make them see that you're a great person. If they took the time to get to know you, they'd realize that. Duh, of course I mean mostly girls, but there's jackass guys out there too that need friends to walk all over."

I doubt he remembers this convo, but can I reiterate how much I love my family?

I'm digging this song right now - definitely time for some out with the old, and in with the new with many different people in (or at least, they are some of the time) my life right now.

http://youtu.be/1AJmKkU5POA

Thursday, Thursday, Thursday.

Considering I really don't post until later at night, this one is sort of random.

Got to the gym a few minutes ago only to realize that my iPod was dead... I really don't like working out without music, it just seems to keep me focused and my mind from wandering. It's a lot better than listening to the grunting of the guy on the squat rack next to me too. So, now I'm back home, going to grab some of the leftovers I made last night (healthy Plus+ penne noodles, marinara, steamed broccolo and asparagus, with diced fresh onions and tomatoes. Yeah, I love cooking.) Delish.

I'm leaving for Veishea tomorrow - I'll only be up there for a night but since I haven't attended since freshman year, it should be a good time.

In the realm of girls, they still confuse the shit out of me for the most part. Whatever, I guess i'll just do me and be myself - if that's not enough for someone then so be it. However, my step brother and his girlfriend did introduce me to one of their friends... we've been talking an awful lot lately and she's pretty much awesome. Too early to tell if there's something there, but I definitely enjoy talking to her.

Thats it for now. Time to hit next song on iTunes and see what pops up.

Dashboard. One of my favorite all-time bands. Carpe Diem peeps.

Wow.

"You seem quite nice for a girl with good looks

And I’m the kinda fellow that’ll make you feel better when your life gets shook
So give it a chance according to your plans
I bet I'm not number one on your list to kiss, but please understand "

So fitting, it's almost scary.

Chances

First and foremost - what a few weeks it's been. Andrew's bachelor party was incredible, and I was lucky enough to run into one of my very close friends from high school who I've fallen out of touch with over college. We went to prom together two years, and she was out on her bachelorette party as well. Small world.

The other part of my weekend was slightly more interesting. I've definitely come to find that I'm interested in a certain someone. My friends tell me how much they like her, but to be cautious because, well let's face it, they know me better than anyone and don't like seeing me unhappy. Regardless of how you perceive what it means when someone tells you, "Hey, I'm interested in you" In this situation, it's simply interested in getting to know her better, but there seems to be a wall there that's almost impossible to break through. I do see glimmers from time to time of her opening up, but I can tell she doesn't like talking about her feelings just as much as I don't.

It took a little bit of a leap for those words to come out of my mouth this weekend. The events that followed don't need to be rehashed, but they left me even more confused as I was before. This girl is completely and utterly complicated, hard to read, and a mystery... and I think that's why I'm so intrigued in wanting to know her for her. A close friend told me I was wasting my time - that things like this don't change, but there's something about her that leaves me wanting to know more of her story.

I'm just hoping for a chance. Even if it's for both of us to let our guards down for 5 minutes, I just want to learn what makes this girl tick.

This song fits me perfectly right now - and it just popped up on my playlist.

"Chances are the fascination

Chances won't escape from me
Chances are only what we make them
And all I need"

Here's to hoping she gives me one.

five for fighting - chances

time for action

You know, I've decided that I've spent more than enough time picking and choosing my battles. I can't just sit back and expect things to unfold the way I want them to without any effort. It's like my dad always told me, "If you want something bad enough, you have to fight for it."

Time to actually make an honest effort. If it gets thrown back in my face, I can at least pick myself up and be content with knowing that I tried. No 'what ifs' this time.

Here goes nothing.

iTunes song playing now - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-OezHB6zQo&feature=fvwrel

yowza. what a weekend.

What a.... wait whoops, forgot to turn on itunes to random before I started typing, you almost missed out on my song for this post. John Mayer as the first song? Oh yeah, this is going to be a good post. You should be excited.

What a weekend to end spring break. I should mention that my sister graduated from cosmetology school on Tuesday, so I drove up to Ames to see her and the rest of my family who was also there. I couldn't be more proud. She's gone through so much to get where she is, and she deserves all the awards given to her during her graduation. I fully expect her to make a bang in the industry, and who knows, maybe even move out to NYC or LA and get all famous and stuff. But really, I couldn't ask for a better squirt sister - she means the world to me and I'd do anything for her. We've grown tremendously close ever since I got into college, and I honestly don't know what I'd do without her advice sometimes. Oh, and I expect free haircuts for life.

After that, I ended up staying at Jon's place for the night to catch up since I hadn't seen him forever. He's another one of the groomsmen in Andrew's wedding, and another of my 5 best friends from my childhood. We sat around and played black ops, then decided to go to the bar for a bit. Skyy vodka mixed with arnold palmer afterwards made playing black ops again nearly impossible, but we sat and talked for a good hour about girls, school, and life. No homo.

After that, Jon and Tonna came to Iowa City Friday night so we could all do some FAC and pregaming at my place before downtown. This again ended in karaoke at saloon, and we knew chawn was wasted because he was sitting off by himself and "pondering" while he consumed numerous saloon appetizers.

Saturday was probably the busiest of all. The wedding party had events in Muscatine - the guys a tux fitting, and the girls a wedding shower. Katy (andrew's fiancee) insisted that we crash the wedding party, and since there was free food we were more than happy to oblige. After numerous cupcakes (check out the first video of Jon... he ate about 4) we made our way to Katy's family's farm where we played football, drank numerous beverages, and got to play on their mini ferris wheel.

SO awesome, I had a blast. We also had the great idea to chug beers while being spun on their merry-go-round. Bad idea. Tonna puked after about a minute.

After we ate, the guys decided to go back to Andrew's for some ping pong, homemade beer which his dad made and was delicious, and a game of poker. I hadn't seen their new house since they moved from Pella, and seeing Divella and George is always great - they're some of the kindest people I know.

Sunday consisted of driving back to Iowa City, and cutting Jon's large fro off of his head. Conor did the honors while Tonna and I lounged around. Jon also never had had a shorts burger, so Tonna and I picked one up for him. A fried egg on a burger? What's not to love?

I can also say that the apartment is spotless, thanks to yours truly spending about 4 hours last night cleaning. Score.

All in all, such a refreshing weekend. I've been in a bit of a rut lately in my life due to various events with girls, work, and school. A weekend with my closest friends was just what I needed. Besides those five guys knowing everything about me, we're always able to bounce ideas and thoughts off each other and expect an honest answer. That's what you need in light though, someone that sees through you justifying situations and decisions and just tells you when you're being retarded, or simply wrong, and gives you another idea you never would have considered. I have the best friends anyone could hope for.

I read a quote again the other day and it really stuck out to me, and really fits my mood right now. "happiness is a mood, not a destination." I guess to me it just means that if you look for it and try for it too hard, you're never going to get it right. Just let it happen, live your life and don't try to force your way into happiness - it's not real if you do.

hitting next on itunes brings up... wow. for tonights song we have Lifehouse - all in all. I honestly can't think of a better song for my mood right now. The chorus is perfect.

"Stand tall

It's going on
It's going on
It's gonna be just fine
You're holding on
Holding on today"

goodnight world.

sb

in Iowa City is boring. The end. I'd much rather be sitting on a beach sipping on a corona than hanging in IC doing nothing.

Oh well, it's St. Patties day. Time to drink

blah.

Sunday funday makes monday hurt.

In other news - this weekend was great. seeing Tonna and Conor was awesome, and I even had a little bit of a blast from the past with Kelli showing up to hang out with Conor. Great girl, and they're awesome for each other.

I didn't go to milwaukee (long, long story there) - but having my friends from home here made it a very memorable weekend. A select few got to see us karaoke at saloon on friday night, as well as dance battle asians at union on sunday. Tonna and I went out to the rec fields on saturday to throw the football around. Got to talking about high school ball and how much we miss it. On the drive home I started getting pretty nostalgic and really missing playing college football too. Stupid back, why did you have to give out on me? Hindsight is 50-50 though; i've made so many friends and such good memories at Iowa that I wouldn't trade it for the world. Also, not paying 32k a year in tuition is kind of nice for a change.

Spring break has consisted of nothing but work so far. I know it's only monday, but my roommate Ty is already in PCB and sending me photos of the beach, and Jake leaves for colorado on wednesday with his girlfriend. I have half a mind to call off work and just drive down to my parent's place in siesta key for the week.

Uhh, I think that's about it for now. I'm going to go play some NCAA before I have to go back to being a corporate slave at OG tonight.

itunes song playing right now - relient k - hope for every fallen man

rollercoasters, ricochets, and redoubts

What a day.

I've been up since about 9, and I didn't really get to sleep until about 4ish last night from what I can recall. Social life issues during midterm week can blow me. At the very least, I've gained a little more clarity and purpose on recent happenings from bouncing ideas off some of my friends - albeit those friend's own social lives are far from a shimmering example of excellence, but i'll take what I can get.

I think that if there's one thing I've learned about relationships and friendships this week it's the volatility of them. One action, one word, even one little thought that was seemingly innocent can come back and blindside you on some idle tuesday.

Life is simple. You make a decision to do something, or to do nothing. There's no point in feeling guilty when the wrong decision is made - what matters is what you take away from it. Will I make the right decision? I don't know... but 'right' is in the eye of the beholder. A quote came back to me while I was writing this, I think Teddy Roosevelt said it - "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing." I need to do a better job at looking before I leap. Sure, spontaneity is a character trait that I value within myself, but I'd rather look where I was walking than step in a smoldering pile of life's dog shit.

Just my two cents. Back to studying.

song of the night - drake & coldplay (october's very cold mix) - the fly scientist (GREAT song)

midterms, madness, and a melodramatic outlook

Let me just preface this post in stating that the first few paragraphs makes me sound like a whiny, stubborn asshole. I'm okay with that - the story has a good meaning behind it.

Well, leave it to yours truly to completely disregard others situations for his own. I'm not sure if the realization came between being called a liar and fake by a girl that was genuinely interested in me whom I didn't give the time of day for over two years, or when I almost single-handedly ruined a friend's relationship. It's all become pretty murky.

I was sitting in the library around 1:30am this morning trying to cram more information about scottish nationalism in my head, but there were so many other emotions and thoughts swirling around it was like a wet sponge that inevitably wouldn't be able to soak up any more school information with it being completely saturated with the ridiculousness life has become lately.

Dating and I have never been the greatest of friends - and now I know why. Blown off by two separate girls that I was foolhardy enough to think I had somewhat of a "connection" with just doesn't seem to rationalize the effort. I'm not saying that these responses weren't warranted given the certain circumstances regarding each lady, but honestly, to all women out there - it's fucking dinner. If you can't (or don't want to) deal with my company for an hour or two, then I'd rather you get up and leave than give a false, or even worse, fake sense of interest.

Karma is a huge bitch, isn't it? Taking something for granted and playing with peoples emotions is an asshole thing to do - even if you don't know you're doing it. The same goes for you being the reason two separate couples are having disputes is even more pathetic.

This isn't a "boo hoo, look at me pity party." This is a wake the fuck up and quit meddling in others lives just to entertain your own whims.

In other life news, I was going to be going to milwaukee to visit said friend listed before this weekend for spring break. We'll see if that happens. I am, though excited for next weekend, where I will be reunited with all the guys in andrew's wedding (minus troy, because Savannah blows and has to be a gazillion miles away) for tux fitting. Should be interesting.

I guess my ending comments are going to relate to something I tend to see every time I'm driving to work. Around 4-5:30, (depending when I have to go in to work) I literally have seen the same man standing on the side of the road in the same general vicinity. It was a bit leery at first, but the more I paid attention, I noticed that he was, in fact walking slowly in the direction I was coming from. I'm assuming he had just gotten off work, and was on his way home. The part that really strikes me is that every time, without fail he is smiling and waving at every single car that passes. It doesn't seem to matter how long it takes him to travel those 3 blocks along that road, but the most important thing is for him to say hello to everyone that crosses his path. I've come to make the assumption that the man is most likely a little bit slow or handicapped.

Listening to slow music, feeling sorry for myself and being downright pessimistic, this man was able to make me laugh and just smile. It was raining and below 30 degrees out, and he was still there, making sure I knew he wanted to me to have a good day. I thought to myself, "How unselfish is that? That's incredible" and immediately got me thinking about how selfish I've been lately, and what I needed to do to quit being so ridiculously pessimistic and self-loathing, and just have a sense of selflessness towards others. It was a really cool feeling.

Thanks side-of-road-guy, you did what you were trying to do - you made my day.

Good morning world

Morning blog! Just getting in a quickie before class... ha.

I'm writing this after downing a delicious breakfast made by yours truly. I've recently really got back into cooking and eating well - it almost makes me regret my decision to opt to play football in college over going to culinary school, but hindsight is 50-50.

More snow? Really? I'm sick of it to say the least. I also don't have a passenger side window which makes things slightly difficult... but i'll manage until Tuesday (and $500 later) when it gets fixed. That car is a money trap...

Uhh what else... Just set the date for myrtle beach for a weekend in April (by now you know i'm not good at remembering dates unless they're put into my phone) and I couldn't be more excited. We're also doing a tux fitting for the wedding party over spring break in Muscatine with Santi and Katy's families, then celebrating after that.

Quote of the day and song:

Pursuit without passion is trivial - Coach Ron Schipper, RIP

Fink - this is the thing

Time for class, TGIF. Later all

better late than never, but better late is better

Blog post numero dos. Go me. A lot has happened over the last few weeks, but it's 2 A.M. so i'll attempt to keep it short.

Laying here in bed reflecting on my week gives me a lot to talk about. First and foremost, big10weekend has been a huge time consumption. Seth came back from Chicago a few days and we did some promotional stuff and also he gave me a rundown of what my responsibilities would be as far as setting up trips and handling things with Kelsey from the Iowa City end. I'm definitely pumped to be involved in something with so much potential.

If you haven't heard it from me yet, go check out big10weekend.com. I'm pretty positive that no one reads/could find this anyways unless they googled me or something. Yes, I know I'm awesome enough to google, but really, waste your time on finding dumb youtube videos, it's guaranteed to be more entertaining than my ramblings. The basic idea behind the business is there, but if you're too lazy to click the link I'll lay it down for you. The premise is based upon doing student travel services. These would be basically weekend getaways where big10weekend would facilitate the hotels, transportation, (most) food costs, club experiences, and other events within the weekend all for a flat fee. It would be extremely cheaper than trying to do the trip on your own, and would also give you access to things like four star hotels and VIP club treatment just to name a few. A few of the ideas for the trips are things like Cub Game Weekend in Chicago, or weekend getaways to Okoboji or the Ozarks. Eventually, we'll be taking big10weekend travel services and putting the majority of our planning towards away football games. The idea is to take the awesomeness that is Iowa and Hawkeye tailgating on the road to all the away games next year.

Seth has always had the most ambition out of anyone I've ran across in my 2 1/2 years at Iowa. I'm lucky and grateful to have him as a friend. We actually went up to celebrate Alicia's birthday in Chicago which was amazing, but that's way too much to write about tonight.

Santi and Troy (two of the five best/childhood friends in my life) are having their bachelor party soon this spring. Santi gets married to Katy sometime in late May, (yeah, i'm bad with dates off the top of my head, much like names, so sue me) and Troy and Mary have yet to set a date. We've decided on carpooling 19 hours to Myrtle Beach to a timeshare, and spending a while down there. I'm pretty excited to say the least.

I've also had some pretty shitty days lately. On top of it being in the negatives about 2 weeks back, I happened to lose my wallet, get locked out of my car and house, be late to work, AND shatter my passenger side window of my car due to the cold all in the same day. Awesome, right? Luckily, the wallet was waiting for me at the U of I lost and found the next day with all 212 dollars still left in. Told you I was lucky. My manager also let me bail from work early to get my window fixed. I returned a wallet and a clutch-thingy (I'm pretty sure that's what girls call those mini-purses) over the past two years... What goes around comes around.

I'm also in the process of switching over to my own phone plan and car insurance thanks to the parental figures. I love growing up. I still have no idea what carrier or what phone I'd like, even after about two weeks of searching. I've come to the conclusion that picking out a new phone is a lot like picking out a girl to go on a date with: no matter how aesthetically pleasing the outside is, the brains don't always match, don't be in such a hurry to choose one just to say you have one - you might like the one you accidentally get introduced to by a friend, and to choose wisely if you want it to be worth sticking around for a while.

At the end of the day, I guess that's what we're all striving for. As long as someone is there to put up with your bullshit and knows that you'll put up with theirs, it can work. No one ever said relationships (friends or otherwise) were supposed to be pretty. People fuck up, people make mistakes, it's part of life. Live, love, learn, forgive and forget. Life is too short to hold grudges and argue semantics.

Goodnight world. We'll see what you have in store for me this week.

Ooh, almost forgot. The song for this blog is The Maine - Inside of you (acoustic version) Enjoy

A.M. thoughts

Shit. I've never been a huge fan of sleeping pills, but this is getting ridiculous. Tonight marks two weeks since I've laid down in my bed only to either stare haphazardly at the ceiling or check my phone every 10 minutes. It's not my roommate Jake playing video games next door, I usually just turn on my fan to give a little ambient noise to drown out the sounds, but lately even that hasn't helped. Asian Village (which is what I like to refer to my apartment complex to, but I'll talk about that another time) is relatively quiet - most foreign exchange students aren't much of the partying type. I've never been the type to drug myself up just to fall asleep either - I mean who wants to feel that groggy in the morning? I'd rather not have to start getting a size larger starbucks to wake up in the morning, I'm already addicted enough as is. This guy is definitely not a morning person.

I guess the whole reason I decided to start this whole blog experiment was two-fold. First, I need something to do to pass my time while I can't sleep. Maybe writing down all of the thoughts swirling around in my oh-so enlightened college head at night will be better than trying to sort them out in between worrying about if my alarm is set, or contemplating what time I'm going to get out of class to go start drinking for FAC this weekend. Secondly, I need something to occupy my time other than John Mayer/The Fray/Coldplay/random YouTube videos while I attempt to fall asleep.

So yeah. This whole sleep thing. It's kind of a pain in the ass trying to decipher whats been keeping me up the last two weeks. It's not like I've come to any life-changing, morals-altering epiphany that I need to mull over lately, life has been pretty bland. College is college. Go to class, be late for work, but not late enough to get yelled at, hit up the grocery store to shop a lot less than I should, because let's face it - easy mac and milios subs are just easier, and it's definitely not girls... maybe a lack thereof, but lately I've come to realize that banging my head against a brick wall gives about the same amount of headaches that being interested in a girl does. Waste of my time? Maybe so, but it's like my Dad told me once, "Girls are only a waste of your time until you find a good one worth keeping."

We'll see where this blog thing goes. I don't expect anyone to find this, let alone read it. I haven't really decided if I want to post the link on my facebook or not. I'm always up for trying something new as long as it doesn't involve something detrimental to my health or eating anything with peas in it. Thank you Grandma Pol for making me loathe them. That's it for now I guess. The jury is still out on whether I'm going to go grab some nyquil.

Oh, another thing I wanted to do with these. Being a huge music fan, I'm going to post the song that is playing on my itunes or whatever when I finish the blog post. Tonight it's Peter Bradley Adams - Los Angeles

Maybe I'll go make a PB and J instead of the Nyquil.

Goodnight world,

Derek