Camping!

In less than 2 hours, I will be departing on my first ever backpacking/camping trip. I've been camping a couple times before, once at the Grand Canyon (car camping) and once in Missouri at a place with sinks, bathrooms, and showers and along side about 500 of my closest friends. So this is the first "real" camping experience I'll be having. My pack is pretty much packed, and it's about 40 pounds! I didn't think I had that much, but I cleaned out most of the stuff I didn't need. So wish me luck!

Me as DJ

First, the good news: the space shuttle launched!! Woohoo!!!

Now, the thing that's been really pissing me off all day. In a week and a half, my little sister is getting married. She's in school, he just finished, and neither of the families have a lot of money. It's a small wedding, just about 100-125 or so people actually invited and a few more are expected to come to the reception and dance. So instead of paying $500-$1000 on a DJ, they asked if I could make some mixed CD's of all my music and play them. I've been working on this for a while, but just realized that with my camping trip that is coming up tomorrow through Sunday and with us leaving for home on Monday, I don't have much more time to look for music. So I posted on our "flea market" at work to get suggestions of fun, fast songs to play (I have plenty of nice, slow songs).

Most people replied with good suggestions that I can actually use. However, one person who I guess is a DJ on the side sent me this long email about how there's more to DJ'ing than just having fun songs. Like what to do if a music approach isn't working, interacting with the crowd, who the audience is, what kind of games I'm going to play, and on and on. Then he asked where I was going to get the equipment and said "surely you aren't going to use a boom box, right??" He said that when you download music from Wal-Mart or iTunes, it has a clause that you can't use it in a public performance, and that if you are going to do this, you have to have some kind of license and pay a fee. First, I'm not going to go out of my way to play games and teach people dances - if they don't know how to chicken dance, they're either socially incompentent or can just watch the rest of us. Second, so I can't play any of my music in front of people? I can only hope that he means I can't do it and get paid (which I'm not). If that's true, then you can never play any of your CD's at parties or gatherings of friends.

I emailed him back, being polite and thanking him for the info. I said it's a pretty low-key affair and they don't have much money and some more stuff that I can't remember. He wrote back and said he appreciates the money position, but doesn't think I should promote my idea of a budget performance on the flea market. What??? All I did was ask for song suggestions. He said if people think they can cut corners by doing their own music and still have a first-class event, they're WRONG. I'm not expecting a first class event, this is mainly just a social gathering (plus, the actual wedding is the important part, anyway). He goes on to say there's so much to think about like how often slow songs should be played, how much big band, oldies, etc, which songs are danceable, do I have spare cables and microphones (which I'm not having) and speakers, etc, what am I going to do when drunks yell that the music sucks, and on and on. He then tells me I'm completely retarded by saying "I'll bet you were just gonna put together something ahead of time and just let it play, right?...................good luck!" What a jerk. GRRRRR!!!!

Everyone that I've showed that to so far has agreed with my perspective. I understand that by not having a DJ we're not going to have the best performance out there, but we're really just out there to have fun and celebrate the wedding, not show everyone how much money we have by throwing a first-class wedding dance for like 100 people. And yes, if they had more money I'm sure they would want to hire a DJ and have it be a bit more professional. But they don't.

Wow...in the midst of typing that, I had a salesman come to my door to try to sell me cleaner. First, he asked if my mom or dad was here. I should have just said no, but I said I'm the owner. He said I looked 17!!! And then when I didn't want to buy anything, he went on to ask me out! How weird...a bit flattering, but no. lol

Three Day Weekends

I love my job. I love that it allows me to take a Friday off every other week. I love living in Colorado so that I have stuff to do on those three-day weekends. This past weekend was so awesome. Friday morning I went on a bike ride, which is totally making me want a new bike (my current one is a cheap walmart one and the brakes are sketchy). Then some friends took me out to brunch for my birthday. The rest of the day I bummed and painted, which I also love (mostly the bumming part). Saturday, like I mentioned in the previous post, I hiked Gray's Peak again. We left even earlier this time (it was me, Kelly, her bf Dan, and our friend Dave) but had to park on the road because there were so many people there. About 2 miles up the trail, it splits, one fork taking you over a place called the Knife's Edge, which is pretty technical. I absolutely refused to go on that trail, and Kelly volunteered to go with me up the old, boring trail. Dave insisted on going that way (it takes you up to Torrey's first), and Dan hemmed and hawed for a while, finally decided after about 15 minutes to go with Dave. Because of the huge number of people on the trail, Kelly and I went much slower than last time. However, because we were going slower and not exerting ourselves as much, we didn't take nearly as many breaks as before. We arrived at the top of Gray's by 10 am, making it in only 2.5 hours. We sat there for a half hour (it was so warm and nice this time, not windy and cold like the last time) then called the boys. They had just summitted Torrey's. We decided to descend the saddle and meet them in the middle. Then we rested some more, crossed a snowfield where I fell on my butt, soaked our feet in a glacial pond (very, very cold, but exhilarating!!) then headed out. That evening a bunch of friends came over for Cranium and a BBQ. They all said they liked the red wall, so hopefully they weren't lying. Sunday after church, Kelly and I went to Six Flags and hung out in the water park. It was a lot of fun! I love water. I really want to go white water rafting again this summer. Wow, some of the things I love nowadays I would never have considered doing two years ago! That evening after a two hour nap, Kelly, Stacy, and I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

So that's my diary of the weekend, which I'm sure none of you even care about, lol. I guess the takeaway is that I love Colorado and the outdoors and my friends. After this weekend, how could I even consider going back to school and giving them up for the next 4 years??? :)

The Second Time

It's about 5 a.m., and I'm getting ready to meet some friends for my second trip up Gray's Peak. This time, we are going to try to summit Torrey's as well. I'm drinking my normal cup of coffee, but I'm hoping it's not going to affect me too adversely. There is a bathroom at the bottom of the trail, and then it's wide open all the way to the top (i.e., no trees to hide behind). Last time I practically ran the last mile to get to the toilet (some girls ahead of us couldn't even wait that long, lol), but at least now I know what I'm up against. Therefore, the ONLY thing I had today was coffee, not my usual milk and water.

Yesterday I painted a wall in my living room red (finally!). I really like it, it makes the room look totally different. In a way, it kind of looks like I killed someone and smeared their blood all over the wall, lol. I guess we'll see the true reaction when my friends come over for a BBQ tonight.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

Yes, today is my birthday. It was a pretty good day. My group at work took me out to lunch, one of them brought me a cake, and they gave me a card and some mints I'm addicted to. Another group of friends is taking me out to brunch Friday. The only sad thing was that they didn't launch the shuttle. I really hoped the return to flight mission would occur on my birthday. But, as several friends pointed out, it's better to have it delayed than have it explode on my birthday. I don't want to remember today as the day the space/shuttle program ceased to exist.

I've been slowly fixing up my house over the last several weeks. I finally painted all the bedroom and bathroom doors (a total of five), and they look 100% better, especially with the new door knobs. I also replaced the cheasy knobs on the kitchen cabinets. The old ones were white with little flowers painted on them, the new ones are silver and much prettier. I haven't replaced the hinges yet, that'll come a little later. I also fixed the main floor toilet. Having a functional powder room makes the place seem much less ghetto! The next plan is to finally finish working on the basement. I had planned on doing a beach theme, but after seeing some space posters on sale in King Soopers, I reverted back to my original plan of a space theme. My sister laughed at me and said she knew I would go back to the space idea.

So for my birthday present to myself, I just got back from spending several hundred dollars on camping equipment...and all I really got was a sleeping bag and mattress (well, also a tent, but a cheap Wal-Mart one). I want to use the gear for backpacking, also, so I splurged and got a lightweight sleeping bag that packs down quite a bit with a good Thermarest mattress. I'm borrowing a backpacking tent from a friend for my trip the end of July, but I needed one for my trip this weekend (he's using the one I'm borrowing this weekend) so I just bought a cheap one. Next year I'll spend the money for the tent.