National Lampoon's Spring Break Vacation

Yes, yes, it's been 12 days since I've done this. I'll try and fit all those days into one post...

Spring Break

As I've stated on here before, I took nine other people to Minnesota of all places for Spring Break with me. It was awesome, to say the least. The drive up began at 6:30 on Saturday, March 3. A mere 17 1/2 hours later, we were at our final destination. The "cabin" was gorgeous as usual, and there was a fresh blanket of at least 18 inches of fresh powder waiting for us.

Ben arrived Sunday afternoon in Minneapolis, so Matt and I drove to a family gathering in Cambridge to meet my sister, who had picked Ben up from the airport. I got to see a spattering of relatives on my mom's side, and we departed after about an hour there. Upon returning to Gull, we figured out our meal schedule for the week, had dinner, and concluded the evening with a viewing of The Prestige, which was quite good, even though I had it figured out about 45 minutes in.

Monday was another light day. Matt, Ryan, and Lee went to Danielle's house in St. Cloud to use her snowmobiles for a couple hours, while the rest of us stayed to play in the snow, which included digging a fort, tossing a Frisbee, a mild snowball fight, and throwing people in the air on the lake (Lots of snow on the lake, so it wasn't painful). My parents had everyone over for dinner Monday night (delicious), and we played two rounds of Battle of the Sexes, which we split.

Skiing on Tuesday meant we were on the road at 7:30. A light snow persisted all day, adding three inches of snow to the already impressive totals, and making the roads a little slick (which resulted in a nasty spill for Tim that left him at the cabin for the day). Wild Mountain had hardly anyone there, which made it that much better for the people that went skiing. Jess and I didn't really want to ski, so we stayed in the chalet until lunch, then went over to spend the afternoon on the tubing hill, which we found out was closed during the week. Thus, we ended up back in the chalet, which allowed Jess to take a much-needed nap while I began reading Harry Potter for the first time. The first car left Taylors Falls at 4:30, the second at 7. We relaxed that night, and watched Stranger than Fiction, which I liked a lot.

Wednesday was our day out at camp. We slept in and arrived just after lunch, beginning with the sliding hill. There was so much snow it was hard to get going, especially at first, but we slid for an hour before things dissolved into a mass snowball fight. Eventually people got cold, so we went to the gym and played basketball, floor hockey, and carpet ball. Then, we climbed the Ice Tower, which was a ton of fun, and four of us even made it to the top (me not among them). That night I went to hear my dad preach at the Assembly, and came back to play Pinochle with Ben, Julie, and Jess.

We spent Thursday at the Mall of America, which went by really fast. I picked up a shirt, a pair of shorts, and a 9000-piece puzzle (which is ridiculously huge, and will not be started until we're in a new house). Sarah and John had everyone over for dinner after this, and then we went to see "Triple Espresso", which included a unscheduled pre-show tour of downtown Minneapolis. The show was hilarious, as usual.

Friday was the day everyone recharged. 6 people went to the casino around lunch, while the rest of us went into Brainerd to get groceries for our Italian feast a la Jess that evening. My family came out for dinner too, and we all had a great time and great food. The rest of the evening was spent cleaning and prepping for our departure, which we all agreed came far too early, and if I was not in school and had a job that would allow it, I would have stayed another week just to chill.

The drive back on Saturday was faster than the one there, and was thankfully uneventful.

I have to go to Showdown now, but I will be back on to talk about the last couple of days this evening.

Hypocrite, thy name is Al

According to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, the Gore mansion in Nashville accumulated a combined natural gas and electricity bill of over $2400 last month, a fact that the Gore camp does not deny. $30,000 a year on energy? Talk about an inconvenient truth.

It's all Greek til someone gets hurt

Class is over for the day, but I'm still at Belmont. Why is this? I'm being inducted into the "presitigious" school of business academic honor society, Betta Gamma Sigma. I never in all my life thought I would be a member of an organization with Greek letters, but here I am. I'm still not entirely sure why I'm joining; it cost $70 for lifetime membership, and it's supposed to look good on resumes and stuff, but who in the music industry, in all reality, has even heard of such an organization, let alone cares about my membership enough to make it the deciding factor in whether to interview me or not? I don't know. But I do know that I'm sitting in the Massey 3rd floor computer lab in a shirt and tie at 4:30 in the afternoon, and I feel extremely out of place.

The weather today was absolutely gorgeous. It made me want to keep running, which I knew I couldn't do if I wanted to:
a. Get my homework done for the class that ended up being canceled today
b. Be able to run for an hour tomorrow.

I have not been to see a movie in theaters since Pan's Labyrinth, if my memory serves me right, and that needs to be corrected soon. Maybe we'll do a Sunday night movie in Minnesota, and everyone can experience what it's like to be a high schooler in Brainerd on a March weekend.

March? Already? That is quite preposterous in my opinion. That's right, I said preposterous, and I mean it. I have 74 days to go to MN, find a job, find a house, finish my classes, pass 2 exit exams, and graduate. Here goes nothing...

Melissa Ethridge? Really?

Well, the Oscars have come and gone. I got 12 of the 24 winners correct, including 3 of the 4 actors and best director (I picked Little Miss Sunshine for Best Picture, just because it seemed like the type of picture they would go for, and I wasn't sure they'd give the best picture and best director to the same movie). I was only really surprised by two of the winners:

1. Pan's Labyrinth, which won three technical awards, lost Best Foreign Language Film to a German movie, The Lives of Others. There was so much talk about Pan's, and it was a pretty good movie, I thought that was one of the only sure things of the night. Guess I was wrong.

2. Melissa Ethridge?!?!? I do not understand that one at all. Everyone was saying that Listen would win, and even if it didn't, my money was on Our Town, being from an animated film, written by Randy Newman, and performed by James Taylor. This was probably the stupidest award of the evening, and I'm still a little pissed about it.

In my blog contest, I won, with 110 points. Steph was second, with 10 correct answers and 77 points. Everyone else was in a collective third, since no one else submitted their guesses. I also won in my house pool, so I have bragging rights for a while.

I'm getting more and more excited about going home. They just got over a foot of snow, and events are falling into place for our schedule. Should be awesome, and we take off in less than 5 days...

Only 3 days left...

HEY! You only have 3 days until the Oscars and, subsequently, the end of the Oscar contest. Don't let this chance for bragging rights pass you by...

CLICK HERE! CLICK HERE!

I should have taken out a loan

In case you were wondering, the portfolio that I created as part of a project for investment portfolio management on September 18 has seen a 21.6% increase in 5 months. The market as a whole is up only 10.6%. Had I actually invested the just over $50k that I made my assumptions based on, I would now be $11,387.50 richer. Just thought you should know.

Close and getting closer

Huh.

I completed the first big assignment of my semester this morning, having started it at 10 last night. 6 hours of work, 6 hours of sleep, and 14 pages later, part one of my strategic management case study was complete. It was definitely not a difficult assignment, and I think I did a good job on it.

If you ever want to fall asleep, but simply can't, attend my Record Company Operations class. It never fails to put me on the brink of sleep, and if I didn't force myself to stay awake, it would do me in every time.

This past weekend I went to PM with a bunch of people for Doug's 21st, which was a good time. I had never been there before, and the chicken sandwich I had was quite good. After dinner, Jon and I went to see Florez at 12th and Porter (Jon got us in free). The show was pretty sparsely attended because the roads were getting slick with a fresh layer of snow/ice. The performance was very good, however; I was very impressed.

Still no word form anyone wanting to use the PSA. I am supposed to be in charge of contacting movie theaters and the local film festival, but I:
a. Don't have a lot of time during normal office hours in which to contact them without taking time off of my internships or skipping class
b. Don't really have a desire to try and convince advertising managers to show or video for free because we're poor college students and it's for a good cause and not for profit and all the jazz.

Things are coming together for spring break quite nicely. The roster is almost set (still waiting on up or downs from two), and we worked out a rough schedule on Sunday that now includes a day at Shamineau playing broomball and climbing the ice tower. 10 days and counting on that front...

I crossed the six mile barrier yesterday, which coincided with the hour mark as well. No running today since I was working on the paper and I've come to the conclusion that I can't bring myself to run once I get going with the rest of my day. But, no huge homework plans for Thursday, and it's warming up a bit, so the rest of this week looks good.

I'm hoping that tonight turns into a card party somewhere somehow. I guess we'll see...