Sunday, December 18, 2005

Baby it's cold outside

I would just like to point out that it's cold here. Dang cold. Current air temp: -8. Current wind chill: -20. Ri-frickin-diculous.

Saturday, December 17, 2005

It was beauty that killed the beast

So I saw King Kong tonight with my parents. It was... decent. Maybe even good. I just can't get past the fact that movie was 3 hours long! Seriously, he could have cut at least a half hour without losing any storylines or impact moments. There were multiple times when I thought a scene should have ended and it just kept going and going and going. It was very well done though overall, and it was worth seeing, I think.

I heard some people on some entertainment show talking about whether Kong was going to top Titanic at the all-time box office. The answer: No freakig way. I'll be surprised if it breaks $300 million. This is not the type of movie that I can see large numbers of people seeing multiple times. What got Titanic it's biggest boost was 12 year-old girls who went and saw it every weekend for two months. I remember sitting in 6th grade during DARE and Officer Bruer would ask us what we did that weekend and this one girl said she saw Titanic every weekend until she had seen it a dozen times. I can't see that same girl sitting through repeated viewings of scenes like a man getting eaten alive by giant centipedes/epitome of nastiness things that come up out of the mud (This seriously happens and is not only one of the grossest things I've ever seen, but is also one of those scenes that just keeps going).

All right, tomorrow brings the BHS Christmas Choir Concert, an annual ritual that includes some great music, my little sister, and a director who is a bit too full of himself for his own good. But I'm not bitter about him. Not at all.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Christmas Party = Wednesday, December 28, 7 PM

Before I forget, I'm having the Christmas Party on Wednesday the 28th this year (I guess it's a post-Christmas party, but that's the best night for my schedule). My house, 7 pm, be there. Everyone.

All right, finals have been over for a few days, but I've been in transit, so here's my turn to say they all went fine, and my final grades so far are all A's except for a B+ in speech (which should really be an A-, but I'm not gonna argue with her on that, cause I never have to see her again, and this makes me happy). So I was done with tests on Tuesday and finished up a few essays on Wednesday. I then helped Tracy move to her new apartment and headed out. Started at 2, drove til 9, and stopped in Bloomington, IL. Started again today at 9 and got home at 5:30. So thats 15 and a half hours, which would have been less if it wasn't for the snow. The roads weren't too bad until I got to MN, and even then not terrible. I survived.

I got quite possibly my favorite e-mail ever on Tuesday. It went something like this:

Hey Mark,

Congratulations! You’ve been selected as an intern for Jan 2006. After further review of your resume and qualifications we decided that you would be best suited as an intern with the A&R department. Have a great Christmas and we’ll see you next semester.

edlyn forero

marketing coordinator

gotee records


Basically amazing. I'm really excited for this, it should give me great experience. Now I just have to figure out what to do this summer...

I like being at home right now, and one big reason for this is the snow. We have tons of it! A lot better than the last few years. And it'll stay until Christmas, so we'll probably have at least a foot of snow. I love it.

Home until the first, then back to the 'Ville. I'll have to make the most of it.

Friday, December 09, 2005

Hmmm...

This ad was played before Narnia. I think I like it. Maybe.

New Orleans, Narnia, and Ninjas (Actually, no ninjas, but some other stuff)

All right, New Orleans...

We left Thursday morning and the trip was good, pretty much identical to the October one. Coming in to the city was different this time, however, because it was dark. Not just no sun, but no street lights, houses, anything like that. There's something about knowing everything that is there and should be there and not being able to see it. It was definitely more disturbing.

Friday started out with the whole group going to a man named Roger's house to clean out his yard. His house had already been cleaned out, but his back yard had all sorts of knick-knacks strewn about that needed cleaning. We got that stuff cleaned up, and then started working on a dilapidated fence and raking up the leaves and debris left on the ground. Roger told us his whole life story and brought his wife over for us to meet, and they were both so great and thankful.

We went back to the church after this, and most of the group went on to work on cleaning out 2 houses, which they finished up in the afternoon. I went with Pete, Dick, and Whit to clean up trees with this guy named Tom. I remembered Tom from the last trip because he led worship on Sunday morning. The man I saw that afternoon was completely different from what I thought he'd be after seeing him singing up front.

The tree we were supposed to get down was approx. 60 ft tall and tilting at a 55 degree angle. Because of the location of the tree, we had to get some of the branches off so it wouldn't fall on either the house next door or the orange trees in the yard. I confess, I was a bit confused as to how this was going to happen, but Tom sounded confident. So we started out with a 20 foot ladder, which didn't get Tom high enough to use any branches. So then he started nailing boards to the trunk, making a ladder that got him maybe another 10 feet. This allowed him to reach a branch, which he cut down.

Once he got this high, he just started manning it up the thing! He wrapped his legs around the trunk, and, because of the angle, was able to shimmy up the thing. He tied a rope to his boot and whenever he needed to cut a branch, he pulled the chainsaw up from the ground. The rope was 50 feet long, and at one point he was so high he only had about 5 feet of rope to spare. Seriously, one of the most ridiculous/amazingly sweet things I've ever seen!

That night Sara Beth and her sister Catherine made chicken and sausage gumbo, which I had never had before and was excellent. Those two were so hilarious together, I was very happy they came along. Things are always interesting when the Geohegans are around!

Saturday we stayed together as a group and went to Franklin avenue Baptist, a large church in the 9th ward. The area had only just opened on Wednesday, and the church had been under a ton of water. Mold was rampant, the stench was incredible. We were there with about 300 other people to try and get the church cleaned up as quickly as possible. Several thousand people attend there on a regular basis, and its in a poor area of town, so the faster it gets back up and running, the faster the church can start helping its neighbors.

Me, Sara Beth, Catherine, Catie, and Ryan all went with the "N" team to clean out the gymnasium. The place was covered in mud, sewage, and water. We started out by taking out the chairs, then moved on to the tarps that had been covering the floor, which now were waterlogged, slippery, and overall gross. Once this was done, they started tearing down the walls. The sheetrock came pretty easily, but was really heavy and crumbly, so we brought pieces of the tarps back in to drag it out on. The only problem with this was that the tarps were so heavy already that dragging them out took way too many people.

After a few rounds of this and an annoying old guy thinking he was in charge and bossing us around, we switched to the kitchen, where I spent the rest of the day. This involved a lot of swinging a crow bar, hammer, and sledgehammer to get drywall out. Ryan was working on the pantry, getting things cleaned out of there, including several jars of old mayo. When he got everything cleaned out, we started sweeping it out, which released the absolute foulest, most nasty stench I have ever and ever hope to experience in my life. Ridiculous. It died down a bit when we started piling sheetrock on it, but still smelled pretty potent.

Around 3 they closed down the site so they could clean up while it was still light outside, and our group stuck around to help with that. Then we drove to the 17th street canal break, which looks 100 times better than it did last time, which is to say it still looked pretty creepy and scary and disturbing. We went out to eat at the Flying Burrito that night. Good food.

The trip back began after church at First Baptist New Orleans, which was very Christmas-y and got me in the mood for the next month. The next 10 hours were all very uneventful, filled with music, Trivial Pursuit the 90's, and Sudoku. We even got back in time for me to work on homework that night.

Overall, another great trip. A different group dynamic; not bad, just different. It was great to get to work with Pete down there, as well as other people that I knew from before. I also met a lot of really cool people for the first time. I would love to go back down this spring some time if I get the chance. And if I'm supposed to,
I'm sure I will.

*******COMPLETELY UNRELATED*********

Ok, my classless period has been amazing. Tuesday night was Refuge and Apples to Apples. Wednesday involved watching Alias, getting groceries, playing Rummikub, going to Famous Dave's, and watching Elf. Yesterday began with more Alias, then Narnia tickets, followed by more Alias and making Monster cookies, then eating beef stroganoff and playing Spades (which Autumn and I killed Ben and Jessica in). Then, Narnia!

OK, I'm not going to write a whole lot about this for several reasons:
1. I don't want to say anything that I thought was negative and jade you from liking that aspect.
2. The movie and book differ in some respects, as they should, and I don;t have a problem with that.
3. I want you to see it for yourself.
I thought it was an excellent movie, and I'm excited to see it again on Saturday. And that's all you need to know.

I e-mailed Gotee to see if there was any news on whether or not I got the internship, since Danielle had already been told she has it and several other people had been told they didn't. I got a response that they're circulating the applications around a few other departments for them to pick their interns. So I should know by sometime today or Monday. It's kind of encouraging to know that I haven't received a definite yes, but also a bit unnerving that I haven't received a definite no. I'll keep you posted.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Trains and sewing machines

This is not the New Orleans post, that will come Wednesday most likely. I will say that it was a good weekend, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Today was not as bad as it could have been, mainly because I put off studying for my tests and focused on my paper, which I just finished roughly a half hour ago. I think it turned out decently. Seriously, I just need to get through 6 PM tomorrow relatively unscathed and I'll be set for the semester. I think it might just happen.

After tomorrow I have nothing until Monday, so the plan is as follows:
Wednesday: Sleep in, chill out, go to Famous Dave's and watch Elf
Thursday: Sleep in, chill out, Chronicles of Narnia at midnight (my year will be complete then)
Friday: Sleep in, chill out, more chillage
Saturday: Sleep in, chill out, Chronicles and pizza at 5, more chilling
Sunday: Church, football, community group, chill

This could be one of the greatest weeks of my life.

Glory be, da funks on me.