Today is leaving me with a really upset feeling... today sucked. Last night I kept waking up thinking that I was going to be late for school even though I had my alarm set for school, therefore I didn't get much sleep last night and I skipped breakfast this morning as well. Yesterday I went to wells fargo to see if I could get another student loan, but I need a fucking co-signer which I don't have, and I still need to talk with Cecilia. She's been calling me a bad boyfriend lately and I didn't even know that we were dating... I really can't wait till all of this is over with. Tomorrow morning I will do my finances for the semester and see where I come up. God, life is sucking right now. Physics was kicking my ass, but I finally got an assignment done on time, and I dropped my 8:00am class. So things will start to get better, I just hope that I can sleep tonight, because I need if for this weekend. CSU is going to kick some ass!

When I travel I am used to seeing many people who have pot bellies driving big trucks or SUV’s which are tagged with either V8 or Supercharged. I’ll be honest, I drive an SUV that has a Supercharged V6, I’m not saying that the problem is owning one of these vehicles or being a bit chubby. I have a problem with the way today’s society is moving. It seems that the “fad” is to eat healthy and to buy hybrids. I thoroughly enjoy seeing the popular thing being taking care of yourself and the environment, but I have a problem when I go to the store to buy all of this “healthy” food and come out spending my entire budget for the next month for only a week worth of food; Or when I go to buy a car and it becomes cheaper to buy a car that gets around 20mpg than a car which gets 40mpg. Of course the demand for this type of car along with the rise of gasoline prices is pushing the prices of fuel efficient hybrids higher. Just like foods, because there is more demand for organic healthy foods, a business such as Whole Foods can elevate prices. A dream for me would to someday be able to “afford” to own a low to zero emission vehicle, eat healthy and therefore take care of myself and the environment. Is it corny to want an affordable solution to this wasteful lifestyle that so many of us live? Of course there are options, such as riding a bike to work, and spending the money saved on gas on healthy foods found at King Supers, but right now I’m making a 22 mile commute making cycling more difficult. I’m not the only one with this problem, a lot of Americans rely on their cars to get them to work which is sometimes another city away. When I was a wee- little one, my dad commuted to Denver from Fort Collins every day for several years then he got a job at Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. My mom commutes several miles to the Harmony Health Center where she works at the Brest Diagnostic Center. I would never expect my parents to ride their bikes to work. This means that to make a small impact on the environment would be with the heavily demanded Hybrid vehicle. My parents could afford a Hybrid, and I bet the idea of owning one came to mind before they purchased a new Toyota Solara. My parents are very frugal with their money and cannot see buying a car which costs an average of 5,000 dollars more then its gas guzzling cousins. The Hybrid also costs more for maintenance because they have to be maintained by specialty mechanics that understand and know how to work on these specialty cars. I read in the 2005 Consumer Report’s magazine that the costs of buying, maintaining, and the loss of resale value because of owning a Hybrid made owning one more costly than the non-hybrid version. Even despite the tax breaks and the savings in gas, the hybrid still costs more.

An unfortunate truth for all of us, I hope that someday I will be able to find grocery stores selling more healthy foods cheaper and dealerships selling hybrids at a price that makes sense for the consumer.

Damn, I'm so home sick... I only have one more week down here and then I get to go back to Fort Collins. I'm so excited. If I had my way I would be paid for this and next week and be able to move back up now. It feels like I'm missing out by being down here. I can't wait to finally be able to ride horse tooth again, or be able to hang out with my buds. I was going to come up yesterday for Kiley's Birth-Day, but she was in Wyoming. I hope you had a great Birth-Day Kiley! Well, this is me being home sick, ug. Hope to see ya all next week. It'll be a party.

On another note, I saw Modest Mouse at Red Rocks last Wednesday. They were pretty good, but they only played four or five of their good songs. Lol, it was still awesome.

Ug, I'm so tired today... A couple of weeks ago I told Cecilia that I wasn't ready to be in a relationship and that I still liked her. Sense then, we have talked some. I haven't talked to her in about three days, and I'll be honest, I'm glad. She really is a great person, but I'm just not attracted to her. I thought it might work because we seem to get along so well, but when it comes down to it, I just think about her as a friend and nothing more. So for her sake, I'm trying to end it before we get into a really tangled mess.

On the other hand, I've taken this really cute girl named Breezy out for a couple of dates now. She is really easy to get along with too, but the problem with her is that she is going to school down here and she is pretty young for me. I think 18 is too much. Man, am I to picky? Well, least I try. I know that she along with Cecilia likes me a lot, and I know that Breezy would want to make it work some how. To be honest though, I don't want it to work out. I like dating many people without being that serious. Someday however, I know that I'll find that girl that has it all. There is a girl that seems to be pretty close to someone who I'd like to hold on too, but the only problem is that she lives in California. Her name is Dani, she is my friend Matt's sister. We talk about once a week on the phone, which is good, but damn it! That's not a date.

On another note, I'm going camping and hiking a 14ner this weekend. There is a big group of us going and it is really going to be a blast! There's going to be a lot of everything up there. I can't wait.

Damn, I had a great weekend! Started off great when Cecilia came down and we partied a little at my friend Matt's house till about 1. Then we decided to get a hotel. The hotel that we got was a little too expensive but it was nice. It rocked! Then on Saturday I went to boulder and went mountain biking with my brother and his friend Matt... I know too many people named Matt. We made it to the top of White Ranch by the time the sun was setting, looked awesome. Then we railed down so that we wouldn't be caught in the dark descending a technical rocky mountain. That evening my brother cooked up some crab cakes and made a kick ass salad, after witch we ended up playing Nintendo Wii until about 2 in the morning. When we woke up in the morning we had Matt's girl friend drive us up to the top of White Ridge and we bombed down a different rout. I ended up having this crazy crash off of some rocks. After all this, I went back to Littleton to have my cousin Mike teach me how to play golf at the Country Club that he belongs too. What a great weekend!

My Forth was so great! I saw the Blues Traveler and the Violent Femmes at Red Rocks last night. During the concert you could see fire work displays happening all over Denver. The concert was so much fun, but now I am at work with three hours of sleep. Word.

My parents are putting Galileo to sleep some time soon... I can't believe that they're doing this, I saw him this weekend and he was acting like he always does. Of course I could see that his leg hurts him, he tore a tendon or ligament in his knee. They only saw one Vet and they said that the surgery to fix his leg would cost about $4,000. The Vet recommended that we put him down. He limps whenever he walks now. My problem is that they only saw one Vet and are decided that they must put him down. I want them to see another Vet just for another opinion. He just turned 9 years old this summer and Greyhounds can live to be 15, so he could possibly live another six years. He still seems to have a lot of life in him. He is still doing the things that he used to, like herding us to the kitchen for a treat etc... This is really hard for me to accept that my parents are putting him down for his leg. Just as surprising is the cost of the surgery to fix his leg. This is why I wanted another opinion. I am really going to miss him...

I just got back from San Fransisco on Monday, it fucking rocked! Friday night we went out to a bar and got stupid... Then on Saturday, we spent all day in the mineral spas that are naturally heated from the hot springs. On Sunday, about six of us went out for a bike ride by the vineyards around Calistoga. Later that evening my brother got married at this awesome vineyard which had a dinning room that was in a cave. My new sister rocks. What an awesome weekend!

Damn, I feel so shitty right now. I'm sick, and tomorrow I leave for California. My brother is getting married this Sunday; he has the best fiance! I'd probably take her if my brother didn't get to her first, lol. Tomorrow I'll be partying in San Fransisco (only if I feel better)! This is going to be a great weekend. On another note, Cecilia and I haven't been talking lately... I don't know why, but its not really bothering me. I'm sure I'll talk to her again soon. Man, I am really starting to get home sick. Fort Collins is such a great city, I could hop on my bike and be in the mountains within 10 minuets on country roads, while here it is all highways and interstates that take about an hour to really get into the mountains by bike. I know I can drive, and I do, but it is also really crowded everywhere I go, so that also makes it less enjoyable. As for my job, I'm actually doing work now. I met with microsoft today about one of there products that CoBank is thinking about purchasing. The meeting was pretty boring, but I was able to take some good information away from it. Then I wrote up two reports on two different software packages for my manager, and after that, I had another meeting with Jeff and my manager where we discussed Data Recovery techniques. A lot of what I'm doing right now is just busy work, but its a nice change, even though I rather enjoyed surfing the net all day...<-(Sarcasm).

Well, I just had a really stupid moment at work. I brought my lap top in from home and I was trying to listen to music. I had my ear phones in my ears and my computer was playing, but I could barley hear it. That's when I noticed that I hadn't plugged my ear phones into the computer. Lol, I hope the office likes the Guns N' Roses because it was playing quite loudly from my cubical.

Ok, so this week has been pretty hard, mostly because I found out something very bad last week and I have been trying to get over it. I finally worked it out last night, but I have been on my toes all week long. It really sucked! The only other thing that kinda sucks this week is I over worked myself at the gym last night and right now I can hardly walk... I'm walking with a nice limp today, but that was all my fault... lol.

Tonight I might see Cecilia, I haven't seen her sense I moved down here, so I'm kinda excited. We're still not a "couple" and I think that she is starting to really want us to be one... ug, I still don't want to have a girl friend. I think that I'm going to have to talk to her about that soon, I don't think it will be a big deal because of how often we actually see each other.

On another note, every day I find that I'm liking my new job even more. It is so laid back! I can leave an hour early if I want and no one cares as long as I get my work done (which I never have much to do). I usually do stay because I need the money, but its nice to have the option.

I just arrived at work about an hour and a half ago and all that I've done is finished up installing softgrid and went and got a coffee cake and some coffee (I've never tried them together before and ya know, they really do taste good together). Now I'm just sitting at my desk thinking... I often think about how I interact with other people, some days I feel like I do it well, others not really. I usually relate the way I communicate with others to how I was raised. Sometimes I can really see my mom and dad in me and sometimes I'm able to just be myself. I know that I wasn't very social when I was little, all I used to do was play video games every day when I got home from school. Even if I was imitating my father, it doesn't matter any more because I am who I am and I need to keep working forward. I know that I've always been playing catch up with other people my age, but I've finally reached the point where I feel like I'm about par with them now. Of course, I still have my days when I don't really have anything to say to anyone, but those days are few and far between. Ya know, I look back at my freshman year and my sophomore year now and I see huge amounts of progress in me. I remember thinking about how far I've come at the end of my sophomore year and damn I've made it even farther this year. I really love college and I see myself not wanting to leave, I still have about a year and half left, but these years are the best that I've ever had. I find that the goals that I've been making and the things that I've been doing are setting me on the right path for who I want to become. Joining all of those clubs and working on campus at the bookstore and CTSS were great opportunities. I can already tell that joining Beta Theta Pi was a good move too because of all the support. At first I was unsure if doing all of these things would help, but after a couple of months I started to feel more confident. What a great feeling.

A lot has happened sense the last time that I updated this journal. Now I'm living in Denver for my new job, and I'm no longer driving a small miata. Ok, so I bought a different car last Friday, I ended up buying a 2002 Nissan Xterra. Lol, with gas prices on the rise it probably wasn't that great of a choice, but I am getting a $500.00 gas card (one of the perks of buying it from Lethia Dodge). I can't wait to take it off-road. The last time I was off-roading was with my Dodge and that was the summer before my freshman year. It was a lot of fun, but I ended up fucking up my bumper and sway-bar. Well, the Xterra is designed to do better off-road than my Dodge was and it has a lot more power, man I'm stoked to take it out!

My first day at CoBank was last Monday, orientation lasted for about 5 hours, then we started our jobs. My cubical is pretty nice, I have a laptop with two monitors. So far, I haven't had a lot of work to do. Today, I talked to my manager for awhile, met some more people that I'll be working with on some of my future projects with, then for the rest of the time, I worked on finding new desktop wallpapers for my computer while listening to music. I had a little bit of paper work to do, but that took about 30 minutes to do. I'm not complaining, but it would be nice to have some more challenging work to do. I'm sure that I'll be more busy than this in the weeks to come.

Ok, today I met with my ex. I really didn't expect it to go all that well, but it actually went better than I thought it would. I still think that I need more time before we could actually be that good of friends though. The main reason is because I still don't feel like myself around her. She used to mean so much to me, and I still remember some of the great times we had together like they happened yesterday. Memories don't seem to fade with time for me. Well, meeting with her definitely answered some questions for me, and it was nice to see her again.

I am seeing someone else now, she isn't my girl friend yet, mainly because I don't want to have a girl friend right now. We're in that real fine line between. We do get along really well, I don't think that we've ever had any of that awkward silence. The best part is that we share a lot of the same interests. Well, that's about it for now.

Ok, what are people's problem today? I can't stand all of this irritability. Oh, tonight I was supposed to go out with this girl but I think I'm being stood up. Maybe I'll just chill with my roommates tonight and get down on some Halo...

I really don't know what it is that is bothering me right now. I can't seem to find someone to go to the Sundance with me today which sucks, but there will be other weeks. I guess what is bothering me are these two projects that I have due next week. One is a website which shouldn't be that bad as long as I have a partner that helps this time. The other project stresses me out a bit more. We have to make a GUI (graphical user interface) for this chat/server program that we've been working on all semester. I guess it is supposed to be something like AIM when its done. The hard part is that we've never experimented with a gui before in any of our previous classes and this assignment has us sending pictures over the server and adding the ability for the user to draw on the gui. I often wonder about csu's teaching methods, but I'm not the only one in this predicament, the whole class is. Lol, it'll be nice to go out next Tuesday and get them $0.25 beers.

On another note, looks like I'll be going white water rafting in early June. My cousin and I signed up for "advanced white water rafting." We will be doing several category 4 water falls.

Stress is really going to kill me some day. I had this huge project due tonight and I wasn't able to get it done. We were supposed to work in groups of two for this project but the person I was assigned never came to class. I emailed him and he never responded. My professor is going to let me submit it later for full credit. Then I have to work on this philanthropy project for my fraternity and a test for tomorrow. lol, then I have a project in my cs314 class due on Thrusday. On top of all this I miss her so much. God, I can't wait for this weekend when I can kick some ass at paint ball!

Its hard to believe that yesterday I was enjoying the warm weather and now it is snowing hard now. But this isn't what has been on my mind lately. My Grandmother from my mom's side is in the hospital right now because she was coughing up blood. She is going into surgery today. What can I say, I really hope she is going to be ok. She is pretty old and there is always risk when someone her age goes under the knife. My mom is supposed to call me sometime later today to let me know what is wrong with her. I really hope she'll be ok.

What a great movie. I really enjoyed this flick. I love movies that make you think, and better yet, make you think about current events. I know that this movie wasn't based off of truth, but wow. It puts a whole different spin on terrorism.