14,000 posts.

1337 blams

1337 saves

Level 30

Now neutral considering the equal Blams and Saves.

what fun.

School starts up again tomorrow. One of my profs. won't be there this week, so we get to do the class via the library. I wish he gave us more notice, so I didn't freak out and do my paper he assigned. Well, it's done.

Today I leveled up. it was sextastic, although I'm not a huge fan of the level 30 Icon (hmm..never thought I'd say that)

and I reached 1337 blams, which brings my blamming days to an end and i'm only a few dozen saves away from 1337 saves...which would bring all of my B/Ping to an end.

now to convince about 400 people to start B/Ping better than me and then the rest not to...so I can have 1337 on three lines.

Also, 14,000 posts coming up in a bit...perhaps all in one day?

I <3 my pet Boa. She's pretty. Her name is Io, like Blind Io from Discworld.

We thought it was a He at first, but during a vet visit, the vet told me that our he was a she.

I fed her a frozen mouse (her 5th since switching from live mice).

This was the first time I dangled it for her to strike. It was sort of exciting.

No action pictures of her eating, sorry, but here's one of her right after swallowing the last of the tail

Ah, orientation for the ski mountain rolls around again.

This year I am going to bite down and take one for the team and shell out the excessive amounts of cash needed to become certified.

And, since I'm already getting raped financially by American Snowsports Education Association (ASEA) for the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) certification I figured I may as well get certified with American Association of Snowboard Instructors (AASI). Bother are part of ASEA, but are two different professional level certifications for the respective disciplines.

There are 3 levels in each one can attain, Levels 1, 2, and 3. Since I'm a new registered member (a $97 due..though I may get to only pay $67 for being a full-time student) I can only attain Level 1 in both this season.

Each certification is $130 or so, which brings my potential total to $357.

It's a fucking drain of money since I need to pay $97/67 every year and every other year I need to dish out $130 each for recertification.

The upside is that it's a professionally accepted certification and helps greatly when seeking employment at other resorts.

I am also going to work in the rental shop at the Cross Country ski center with a friend of mine who promised more hours and higher pay, so I can make the mad cash during the holidays instructing and still make a steady income at the cross country skiing center. I spoke to the manager of that and he said as long as the ski mountain didn't have any problems with it, he'd be happy to have me work.

Today was technically my last day on the schedule at the Canoe Outfitter.

When I began this summer I'll admit I knew almost nothing about canoing or kayaking and I told that to the owner. Well, he hired me anyway and even hired my fiancee when she lost a job halfway through the summer until she found a new one. Since joining the ranks there I have learned quite a bit about the whole paddling industry and the sports too.

This summer was insane. Though not Camp, it was still a worthwhile job. I am happy with how well I did and how quickly I picked things up. Early on the other employees were talking behind my back about how well I was doing, so what I hear. It was truly a job in most sorts. I worked in the office doing paper work (and it's all on paper, no use of his computers at all...) and taking reservation calls, setting people up with their rentals, packing food for clients, cleaning returned rental gear and selling products, using the cash register...everything. Everyone did everything, even me.

Well, as I said, today was my last official day. We went from having 6 racks of canoes and kayaks outside to just one. Each rack is made of wood and has up to 10 slots to fit boats...they aren't light. My boss and I rolled the racks on a poor and abused dolly down a street to where he stores them and starting moving pretty much the entire rental fleet (all but 10 boats, 1 rack) inside of the store. We hung them on the walls, made piles on the floor, hung them up outside, even putting the whitewater kayaks on top of a lean-to inside of the store itself. It's been grueling work and this warm weather that's completely unseasonal for October really isn't helping with us putting gear away, as last minute paddlers keep wanting to go out for a day or an overnight.

It's funny to think that snow flurries were happening last Friday while right now I'm sweating just typing away here.

My boss is now working on writing a guide book, and he's basically just been having staff at the store with him to keep him company. But now I'm leaving and he's only got 2 other employees left from the 10 he had over the summer. I'll probably get calls through the winter to man the shop while he's away and maybe I'll be able to start much sooner next year than I did this year (I started in June this year) and I won't be left unemployed from April to June again.

Next weekend is the Returning Staff Orientation at the ski mountain and I already called a guy about a job at the rental shop for the Cross Country Skiing facility that the Olympic Authority runs (The ski mountain is run by it too) My friend who does it told me he needed staff and he'd pay me $10 an hour and give me as many hours as I want (which is hard at the ski mountain because if I don't teach a lesson, I don't get paid for the day). So, life goes on and maybe I'll get a few weekends to myself to actually get outdoors (Because despite working at a canoe outfitter, I've been unable to go out on any camping/canoing/hiking trips this summer)

I'm back from Maine

it was nice.

I want to live in New Hampshire.

My fiancee wants to go to school on the coast, any coast...even the Alaskan coast, because she loves the ocean and really enjoyed the Maine coast.

My sister is going to college at some small private university on the coast. Nice place, but their "family and friends weekend" wasn't very well planned, but it's a nice place and my sister seems happy there.

back to my grind work. I have studying to do which apparently never gets done despite me always being on the computer....I mean, you'd think instead of refreshing the NGBBS every two seconds I could make a two minute detour to google and scrounge up so research for an annotated bibliography I have due tomorrow evening.

I opened my fridge today to look at what there was to eat. there's some V-fusion that my fiancee uses for her smoothies and some milk and not much else...I threw out some turkey with green stuff on it, and apparently my fiancee had thrown out some rolls and cheese earlier today for roughly the same reason.

I saw the Romain hearts sitting on the second shelf and thought "heh...not too much brown on it" so I took one out and started cutting it up noting to myself the sort of rubberyness of the green part of the leaves...so I threw most of it out and kept any crispy parts and some green just to be sure...well, now I have a bitter after taste in my mouth...I wanted to put some of those shredded carrot bits all over it,but I reached into the shredded carrots bag and was rewarded with goo all over my hands...so tossed that to the trash.

It's sad when you're poor...

a few weeks back I got a sexy looking package in the mail

it was my Endless Crew T-shirt from aviewaskewed and I have totally wanked many a time into it's loving emblems. (which, thanks to avie's comment, was created by HuIk
either way, I like to show it off in public (preferably under a heavy jacket...)

it's a sexy little thing with this logo on it

Apparently it's not about Popular Culture in the general sense I was expecting.

Instead it's a class about the Anime of Hayao Miyazaki.

The class consists of watching a full movie on tuesday nights, then when we come for class on thursday we just free write and discuss the movie.

Then for grading we just write essays that don't require research if we don't want it to based on a favored discussion during the classes.

It's a shame that this wont actually transfer...but what the hell, it's a Humanities credit and it's watching kickass anime.

Now back to my biology reading.

And it begins yet again.

This semester I'm taking:

Principles of Biology (MWF) at 10am, with a Lab on Tuesday Mornings
Sociology of Addiction (MW) at 11:15am
State and Local Government (MW) at 2:30pm
Popular Culture (T,Th) at 7:20pm

So today, Thursday, I only have my Popular culture course at 7 tonight.

I'm considering telling my boss this so I can perhaps work 3 full days a week (and since he's open for 11 hours a day, I can almost get go full time)...But I'll see how it goes.

mmm, 13 credits is always less stress than the 18 I took last semester and 17 I took last fall.