Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday DEAR RICH!!!! Happy birthday tooooooo YOOOOOU!

hey everyone...today is Rich's birthday! woohooo!!!!

- Lindsey

Currently Listening Mutter By Rammstein Feuer Frei! see related

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! I'm here! Gather round one and all and bear whitness to the greatest show on this earth!

Okay, maybe not. But hi, how's everyone? Honestly, I didn't think that anyone really read this (well besides Linds, but I talk to her everyday anyway!) But after seeing Paula's comment, I figured that people may occasionally glance here every once in a while. And so because of that, I figure it might not hurt to start updating this again. You know? Haha, it's only been 2 months! That's pretty crazy. But then again, I realized the other day that it had been moths since I've logged onto things such as AIM as well. I just haven't had the time online for that kind of stuff. So maybe it's not that I have NO time, but my time is spwnt elsewhere doing other things. And as you can see from the pics in the post that Linds made, I have been busy with other things... sledding, playing guitar, haning with friends, seeing movies, working, going to school, chillin at the zoo, staying up late, etc! And wow, so much has happened in the past few months... I have no clue where to begin.

So school's over! Woot, it's way too awesome! I have my last final on Monday morning, and now I'm on break for an entire month! How cool is college? It's like go to school for a few months, get off for an entire month, go back to school for a few more months, and then have the summer off. And it's not even like you've got every class every day! Some days it can only be one class. But then again, there can be alot to do out of class as well. So it all evens out in the end. I think though, that I am most happy to be done with English Comp 1101... for now. Next semester I've got English Comp 1102 (Ugh) and then Speech too (double ugh!). So I'm not really looking foward to those. But on the bright side... once they're done.... they're gone!

And since we're on the topic of school.... I applied to Moody last month for next fall! I'm really hoping to get in there, cuz thaqt would be like the coolest thing ever! (or at least one of the coolest) I should be hearing back from them sometime after Jan 17th. So I'm keepiong my fingers crossed (well, not literally, but you get the point).

Work keeps me pretty busy these days too. Well, only sometimes I guess. Like this week I'm working 27 hours. That's not too bad since I'm off from school and all, but it can make for some really long days. Especially when we only get a single 15 minute break for a 6 hour shift! Yet every other job I hear about gets 2 breaks for anything 6 hours or more. Whatever... sometimes I really just don't care for my job. And lately I've felt more and more like that. Just with stuff like having to stay late to get extra work done, or having horrible disasters happen (such as the entire place flooding), or having to put up with very lazy co-workers. It makes things interesting for sure. And then lately they've been having me work lots of weekends because everybody's going on vacation (which isn;t allowed around the holiday season), so I have to fill in for everyone. Like this week, I had to work Sunday afternoon, and i have to work this Saturday, Christmas Eve, till closing time! That's enough to make anybody want to say "Bah Humbug!"

Speaking of Christmas... what's up with all of this "Happy Holidays" crud??? I don't celebrate holidays, I celebrate on holiday... Christmas. I don't care what anybody else celebrates.... it's Merry Christmas. I don't want some fool imposing his views on me to the point of dictating what I can say and what I cannot say. That's totally ridiculous! Now if I know what somebody else celebrates, I'll wish them a happy Hannukah or Kwanza or whatever they celebrate... it's only the proper thing to do. After all, every other holiday is mentioned by name... but not Christmas. It's "Holiday." Yeah, right. It's the Christmas season. If I offend someone with the words "Merry Christmas" then so be it, I do not care. In fact, I take pride into setting someone off like that. Because it only shows how intolerable they are of others while at the same time they expect others to tolerate them.

Well that was quite a rant now, wasn't it? Yeah, things like that really get to me. I really don't like that at all. Like the other day when I was in the post office, they had stamps for the season, the Hannukah one said "Hannukah" and had the Star of David on it. The Kwanza one said "Kwanza" and had the Kwanza colors all over it. There was a stamp to stop family violence. But the Christmas stamp only has a picture of Mary and Jesus on it. Well that doesn't sound too bad, does it. But here's the kicker... it was entitled "Madonna and Child." C'mon people, that is stupid.

Ok, I've got to take the garbage out. Back in a few.

Its cold outside. I love the cold. I love the snow. I love winter. Today's the first day of winter, cool huh?

I'm tired, and beat up. 2 days ago I was hit in the head with a massive ice block by George. I got hit right in my left ear,a nd for a while I couldn't hear anything except for a high pitched whistle. I'm fine now, but my ear and head are kinda bruised if ya know what I mean. And my legs are all beat up from miscellaneous things. Like floor hockey, sink the bismark, sledding, and snowskating. Hehehe, I can barely walk sometimes.

And now I've got some other things to tend to. So I'm out... later peoples.

 - me

Hellow hellow, one and all.

This is NOT Rich...let me repeat....this is NOT RICH typing....

Due to threats from a certain comment-leaver, I thought I would post for the extremely busy Rich.... He is...extremely busy. He finished up finals at COD yesterday....and this week he is working a LOT...He's putting in at least 27 hours this week @ Dominicks.

He's also been busy hanging out with friends.... let's see if I have any pictures to prove this...

This is Rich (far right) at church, practicing for worship team...

and this is Rich going sledding with me...we went today and we went last week as well.

and we went to the Brookfiled zoo on Saturday and we saw the gorillas (that's the picture below) and the tigers and the Lions and...yah! the ZOO LIGHTS too... it was pretty icey cold! But it was super fun...

So yes, that's a bit of what he's been up to... church stuff, work stuff, hanging out with me and other friends stuff, Christmas stuff, a little guitar stuff, & he's finally done with finals stuff!

If he so desires, he will post again sometime. But I thought I'd leave a short little bit of a post in his long absense.

Thanks for viewing, please come again (unless you're a weird scary stalker...in that case BUG OFF)

~ Lindsey......

Currently Listening Ten Thousand Fists By Disturbed Sons Of Plunder see related

Heylo everyone, (or anyone who reads this... I'm sure it's not everyone)

It has been forever since I've updated this thing! Like well over a month since my last post. But I have not had the time for it. Oh trust me, I think about updating all the time, but I don't get much computer time anymore. The only times that I'm on the computer is when I am working on my English papers or doing Spanish homework, or writing the usual late-night e-mail!() And this week is just being crazy busy. But hopefully after this week I'll have more free time because then I won't be doing so much school and studying and then I probably won't have many work hours and all that.

Hehehe, you're probably wondering what the heck I'm talking about... so here's the re-cap of things lately.

School. Everyday except for Friday and the weekends. Spanish class and English class. I really don't know what to say about it... it's school. I get up at 6:30 and class starts at 8. It's spanish class Monday - Thursday. Monday we have out computer lab, and the other days is normal classroom stuff. Thursdays are usually the days for quiz's and tests. The la profesora hasn't said anything about a quiz this week, probably because she has to rush us through this chapter of our books becuase of the 2 in-service days that we have off next week. That will be nice... no school on Tuesday or Thursday next week. And then on tuesdays and thursdays I have english composition class. It's not a bad class.... it's ok. (Did I really just say that english composition was ok???) Yeah... it's working on papers all the time. Somedays writing comes easier than others. English class was cancelled yesterday, that was really nice. But tomorrow we have our midterms for english.

So then if I have midterms tomorrow, what am I doing sitting here in front of the computer? Well, to be honest, I couldn't take the studying any more. It's all I've been doing in my freetime over the past week. I go to school, come home, study, go to work, go to bed, repeat. So pver the past week, it was something like this: Study for the spanish test last Thursday, then I have been studying for the ACT and english midterm. The ACT is this Saturday. So I've been spending all of my time on those. Today was focused all on English, and then after class tomorrow, I'll spend all of my time studying for the ACT. It's at 8am this Saturday. CRAZY!!!! 8am?!?!?!?! I must be nuts. But oh well, I gotta do what I gotta do. Apparently it takes like 3 hours to complete. And once I am done with that... I will be free! I'm looking forward to that, because I am really tired of studying.  I'm gonna have to throw a party once I'm done with the test (either that or sleep, but a party sounds alot more funner.... yes, that was improper grammar ).

So there's all of that, and then I work too. Work's been meh. Nothing really fun there. We hired a new guy named Marty, and Jei went on vacation. But Marty has already quit, and Jei is back from her vacation. I'm glad that Marty is gone, cuz he was a mean person. Like he'd yell at people (co-workers), and he always had to try to point out something that you were doing wrong. Well, let's just say that he didn't catch on to things, and so he's gone. And then Jei is back form her month long vacation... at least she's in a better mood about things. I really haven't had to work with her much since she's been back. I only work with her on fridays now because they've done some crazy changes to our schedule. So now I work with Terri on mondays instead of Jei. Not that it's much better, because Terri yells at me... she's not very nice either. But let's rewind just a second... the schedule. My work schedule is so lame! My deli manager submits me for 20 hours a week, but once the head manager looks at the schedule, he takes me down to 16 or 18 hours. And it's not just me, it's all of us part-time people. And it's completely ridiculous. I need at least 20 hours a week, anything less is just not cutting it. If that's all not enough, the company is in the midst of trying to settle our new contract with the union. The contract is so screwed up. Everyone is complaining about it, when they have no reason to. The contract actually helps everyone.... everyone except for me and who ever else was hired around the time I got hired. Everyone is whining about not getting raises... when these are all of the people that make crazy $$$ because they've been working there for 8+ years. I, on the other hand, would get a raise out of this contract, but it's not really a raise... I'm just getting moved up tot he new minimum wage for my dept. So that means that any newbie can walk in and get the same pay as me, and I've been working there for months! And I'm supposed to get a raise every 6 months, and I haven't gotten one so far... so it's obvious where it's not very fair. Needless to say, I'm not exactly diggin my job right now.

So even though I'm busy with all of that... don't be thinking that I have absolutely no free time besides school, studying, and work. I just spend that time on other things. Things like going to Souled Out on Saturday nights, and then on Sunday nights Lindsey and I swap going over to each other's houses.

Souled Out's been pretty awesome. We're out of the Heart & Soul Cafe now... and we're in a Salvation Army building. Haha... let's just say that the jouney's are interesting. Besides moving to this new building and having one of the hardest of most cunfuzzling times trying to find it, I've had a tire blow out on the car on the way home. (yeah, I'm driving the Escort all the time now instead of the van. Because the van had to go in for a trans repair, so I had to learn to drive th car) That was definatly interesting. I've never has a tire blow out before, I think I handled it pretty well. I had a spare, but my dad didn't have a jack or a tire star in the trunk. So I had to call him to come bail me out. I'm glad he's good with stuff like that and can just come and help me out in a tight spot.

And then I look forward to Sunday night's like crazy. Lindsey and I hang out at each other's houses and have dinner, play games, watch movies, chill, talk, watch fires, go to forest preserves, bookstores, and whatever other random and fun stuff we come up with. Most definately the best times.

Hmm, so what else is going on? Oh! I'm going paintballing on November 5th! So far it looks like it's going to be me, Linds, my dad, Dan, George, Dan's brother, Adam, Byron, and possibly one of his sons. It's going to be an awesome time... I love paintball.

And then I'm hoping to get off of work for Halloween. I asked off for it 1 month in advance, but I haven't heard anything about it. So hopefully I can get it off. If I do... it's going to be an amazing night!

And now I have to go. I've got to eat dinner, and then I'm heading off to church for youth group tonite. It should be interesting. I've still got to put together worship stuff. And then I can imagine that all the kids are going to need major discipline adjustments. they've been so out of control lately, and it's only getting worse. So we as staff have a few surprises for them that they will probably not like. Mwahahahaha! Yes... the dark side has taken control. *Starts breathing like Darth Vader*

So hopefully with next week (and future weeks) looking alot less busy, I'll be able to post more. I know I'd definately like to be able to do that. So until then, I'm out!

 - Rich

Currently Listening Barlowgirl By Barlowgirl Pedastal see related

HEEEY! Well lookY who....is...posting!?! 

Actually... if you were hoping that Rich was posting, I'm sorry to say that you are going to be disappointed. Because....this isn't Rich. No...no, I certainly am not Rich. But... I know him! And I know he's been...um...busy these days. And barely has time to be on the computer 'cept for homework assignments and the occational late night stuff......

But this is Lindsey ***surprise!! I know, I know... you never would have guessed!!*** and I am going to post for him. Not a super great post. But a post, just the same.

Let's see... well, Rich has been keeping busy with college, work, church, youth group, and friends.

As for college, he's doing really well in his classes. He's scoring really well on quizzes and tests. He's a shining example of a true student! (okay this is starting to sound corny and...yah, I'm going to stop before I freak him out!) Anyway, he's already working on his second paper for his Comp 1 class. And done lots of other homework for that class. And Spanish....well, he's really good at that stuff, plus he's had it before so a lot of it is coming back to him.

With work... eh....its....work. Not the most lovely topic. But he's sticking with it and being a trooper, even when nights get long, co-workers go looney, dishwashers break, and poisonous spiders escape....

Church....yep, its church. Pretty sweet stuff! And right along with that goes youth group. He still doesn't have a worship band for Surge yet, but he's hoping to get one together soon. Surely those jr. highers can do SOMETHING musical... but then again, the kids can be beasts in Surge.

Let's end on an exciting note with the whole "Friends" topic! Um... such as how today was going to be boring, but then Rich got to hang out with me (or I got to hang out with him...whichever way you prefer to say it).... and we went to the forest and "looked at trees"....hahah! And we found this amazing path through the forest. So we went down it...and it was sooo awesome. Talk about the middle of nowhere. And yes, that was exciting. Then we went to Borders...wow...so many books, CD's, and calendar's everywhere! And then we went to Petland and saw the fishies, the kitties, the bunnies, froggies, and birdies. We had fun...most definitely. There's nothing like a random afternoon of running errands...me, Rich, Tanner, and my mom!

So yes, Rich is keeping busy...but at least he has time for fun stuff like looking at trees and playing with the fish at Petland!

- With your annual update on Rich's life, this is Lindsey....signing off! -