Volunteer, Advocate, Trekker.

Wow, what an active Memorial Day weekend :D First, Friday we had Patsy & Ritz' going-away-to-camp party at our house! Which I gotta say, was by far the most successful party this (half of the) house has ever held! Had a good number of people, and I would say the crazy was for the most part well within acceptable tollerances. (at least until I went to bed at 3 something, after which I'm told it got significantly crazier. But I won't blog about things I wasn't present for.) Except that apparently an ambulance was called for a diabetic emergency, and some were up literally all night!? Well, the best thing to come out pretty much was -- oh! And Patsy met her soul mate, a guy who loves Boy Meets World, makes random references to Pokemon, and is getting a job/doing an internship at Disney World!? Ahahaha, oh Patsy. Right, but pretty much the best thing to come out of the night was the discovery that there are MORE "literal music videos" out there! I totally saw

MWAhahaha! After a long winter, consider this the return to abandoned building exploration! A few weeks ago, me and Panda went a-drivin' to give her some more 'sperience, and when I saw this and we had an afternoon to kill - we had to stop and do some reconnaissance on this Abandoned Hospital in Cleveland! The Dudley P. Allen Memorial Building , aka: Saint Luke's Hospital . This article on Cleveland History suggests that it was built in 1894, and closed in 1999. I dunno what this glass thing at the bottom is, but I can't wait till Sarah gets back and we try to explore our way into this building! A green house does not seem very logical to me. Hmm. This is a look at the side, from where another wing was demolished at some point. Next to this building is another medical center, significantly smaller but is still active so exploring during the day/work week even during the summer is not very likely without them reporting us. There is also a brand spankin new pre-school o

So I was logging into my blogspot account, and saw in the feed of blogs I follow: "Interesting Analysis of North Korea" and was like "WHAT!? WHich of my friends wrote about that - that is so what I was just about to blog about!?" But then I saw it was one of the Hillary Clinton blogs I follow, not one of my friends, so alls good - lol. Anyone following the news lately surely knows that the evidence (and anyone with an ounce of logical deduction) says North Korea sank a South Korean military vessel and killed over 40 South Korean young soldiers. I'm sorry, but killing another country's soldiers on purpose is war in my book. And I understand we all want international peace, but if North Korea refuses to cooperate maybe it's time the international community kicks their ass. No big surprise, I don't like North Korea. And I don't like when people talk about sanctions as a punishment, then no real change happens. It's the same with mom and Dave.

I miss Sarah! :"( I'm so bored without her, even doing nothing is more fun when she's around. And lately I've been doing less than nothing - it's been class, work, sleep all week. I have done practically nothing fun all week and all I have to show for it is a little extra spending cash, which I can't spend! Cause I have to save up for a security deposit. Sigh. So grandpa passed away over a week ago. I don't think I'll go into funeral details, but it was very sweet and appropriate and I am glad we were able to honor his memory in the way he wanted at his funeral. And I am again incredibly thankful to the awesome super-fantastic friends that were able to make it. But now I think I'll share some family drama because it's just so darned entertaining. Firstly, Aunt Betty mentioned to us that we'd be taking a limo from the church the funeral was held at to the cemetery. The day of the funeral, she mentioned how her "car was so low on gas, she

Okay. It's time to get out of my rut and go on with my life. When I'm not living each day to the fullest, it just makes me more depressed - so I should be more determined to have fun and be productive! So some pieces of good news have come my way. First, a Lady Gaga Breaking News Update: Leaked Photo from the Alejandro music video.... Found via a French Gaga fansite . Haha, no music video will reach the awesomeness that was Telephone. I foresee Telephone being the next "Andrew song" in a long line of ridiculous Andrew songs, from Independent Women, Part 1, Milkshake, Cameltoe, Lipgloss, ... ah, its fun to be crazy. And I can't wait for the Three Stooges jokes with those wigs. And note the Gaga cross on the robe-thing she's wearing. In further Gaga news, (I swear-- soon Gaga will not be the center of all my blog posts. Even I have gotten tired of only ever writing about her.) The Gaga Glee episode is this Tuesday!! So you can imagine where I will be at 9:00p --

Grandpa died on Wednesday, May 12th at 8:00 pm at Akron General Hospital. I don't handle loss well, anyone who has known me for any length of time probably understands that. I've gone through a lot of loss, this is a boy who lost his best friend-role model-hero at age 8, his home, pets, and vast majority of his possessions at age 16 , and now the only male figure left in my life at 21. I keep thinking of 8 year old me on the morning I asked mom if dad had died, or days later when I was the center of attention at his funeral balling my eyes out and all the visitors couldn't help but wince at how agonizing it was that this little kid no longer had a father. These past few days I've been trying to find things to occupy myself so I don't have too much down time to think about all this, or worse write it in a blog -- and I've been pretty successful. I know my loving awesome super-fantastic girlfriend wishes she could be here to comfort me, but I would much rather he

Well followers, it's been quite a stressful May I have to say. Grandpa is likely spending the last of his nights in the hospital, as his treatments aren't working and he isn't responding to medications - so his wishes are that he be taken off the breathing tubes. He was breathing with struggle on his own when I had to leave earlier to come to work (cause I couldn't get ahold of my boss.) I don't want to lose grandpa, but the Doctors seem to indicate that it's only a matter of time. Then there's the, by comparison, comically unimportant issues of working the Census and CAing and trying to figure out when each is. Add to that starting Monday I start classes. And thanks to enrolling in another class (3 credits) I don't risk losing a chunk of my CA paycheck to something, and I get a parking pass included in my tuition. (Parking was going to be an issue: taken care of.) Then Sarah goes off to China tomorrow morning, driving her to the airport in Cleveland. Is

Wow. Left to my own devices (or rather Sarah's) I sure got bored quickly into Summer. Working the desk AGAIN cause stupid me picked up a bunch of shifts at Summer CA Schedueling when I was worried about my finances. Didn't think about how little time I have with Sarah before she goes to China :( But at the same time, I have like $2,000 in credit debt I defs need to pay down. Another boring day of Census work, but at least I got to catch up on some sleep. Tonight will be much more fun, somehow, because I don't work Sunday! But Sunday's mother's day, and I want to give mom her gift and we're going to visit Grandpa who's been moved in and out of Intensive Care alot this week. The details of his condition are not known by my branch of the family, Aunts Betty and Mary keep giving us contorted and conflicting details that we don't know what to believe anymore and I don't think Grandpa knows all the details himself. Working the desk is ridiculous, it's

Okay, I admit it -- Sarah has discovered this thing that is "Parkour" (or "Freerunning," depending on how picky you are) and I want to be able to do that! :( That is sooo cool. Long story short, it's like a running-gymnastics where you do crazy flips and things to jump over and around obstacles in modern urban environments. All I keep thinking is "Wow, that'd help me get into Abandoned Buildings WAY easier!" Sarah busted her knee a tad at Kyuhun's going away party, adding that on top of her ACL damage from last year. I'm sure otherwise she would be just as eager to find some kind of class to learn how to do this in! It was mentioned in a second season episode of Heroes that Monica used it. Her power being she's a "muscle mimic" - or she can recreate any motion she sees without formal training. So by watching a video of parkour (pronounced to rhyme with hardcore - it's French) she was able to perform it to jump in/aro

Huh. My finals week is over before I even knew it. I had my Japanese final on Tuesday morning (it went... eh. If I want to have a prayer in Japanese 201 next semester I'd better study ALOT this summer.) And with my Macro final last Thursday, and most of my Ed classes didn't have "traditional" finals -- one was email in answers to five questions the teacher asked on the first day, and another was "participate in a class discussion on being a teacher." So yay for a light finals week which is over, even if I didn't do too well on Macro or Japanese. Eghhh. (Book for next sem of Japanese. Remarkable prices: Amazon new, 48$ Amazon, used: 62$ (wtf?) Random Used Book Site: 36$ Better World Books: 134$ Yeah. Screw you Better World Books.) The rest of my spare time this week has been reserved for Census training. Now that "GQE" (Group Quarters Enumeration) is complete, we're moving on to NRFU ("Nar-Fu") or Non-Response Follow-Up. AKA: I g

http://www.examiner.com/x-2912-Seattle-Exopolitics-Examiner~y2010m5d1-Why-is-Hawking-affirming-time-travel-theory-and-appearing-ignorant-of-DARPA-secret-time-travel This link includes an interview with a guy who claims the government operates top secret Time Travel portals. This will be entertaining soon.

Saturday night we had a going-away party for Kyuhun, who this week is returning to Korea! =( Even decorated Sarah's house, we put the South Korean flag on the one blank wall in the living room and had a diplomatic table flag for the kitchen! Fabio's thought-board even said "Good Bye Kyuhun!" in Korean. Attendance wasn't as unmanageable as the Halloween or Gaga party, but it was just the right number of relatively big I think! :) "Once you kill the cow, you gotta make a burger." We had a big cookout before the party with slow-cooked barbecue chicken, scalloped potatoes, and macaroni and cheese - mmm. Some korean friends of Kyuhun's and Van der Kamp's from Kent stopped by, and taught some people Korean dances - lol. It was like a cultural exchange! Also, a person invited by a person that was invited through another person (?) mentioned to me (after trying to steal some of my drinks...) that he parties and drinks with my brother (!!WHAT?!) and show