For all the people who I have given computer help to over the years, I ask for a small favor in return. I am sure everyone has heard of the freeipods.com site. Well I want one doggoneit. So please click on my referral link below, and sign up for one of the offers (they are all free trials, but do require a credit card).

I can personally vouch for this being 100% legitimate, I recommend signing up for the infone service, because it’s a pay-per-use service unlike most of the other offers, so if you never use it you have no risk of every being charged. There are actually some other good offers too, from Blockbuster and Stamps.com

At any rate, please help me out, I need a total of 5 people in order to get myself an Ipod.

Link: http://www.freeiPods.com/default.aspx?referer=10615796

Yea I have been balls to the wall busy lately. Industrial Design has been an amazing experience so far, I absolutely love what I am doing. Tomorrow is our final presentation on my current project, afterwards I will put the presentation online for everyone to see and with the permission of the other’s in my group I may put theirs online as well. Because frankly I think they are all really amazing ideas.

I traveled down to the great land of Georgia for Fall Break, got to see Georgia Tech and Midtown Atlanta, went to the Botanical Gardens to see Chihuly in the Gardens (photos here) and had a great time visiting Laura. I was really amazed how clean and aesthetically pleasing the city is. It really reminds me a lot of San Francisco and Boston. Though I hear the public transportation is a nightmare, we walked pretty much everywhere we went while I was down there.

I was notified by mail last week that our landlords won’t renew our lease. We have been in an all out battle with them since about June of this year. They have been extremely unprofessional and unpleasant to deal with. So if you ever consider renting a property from WW Management (who isnt listed with the BBB and has no publicly listed telephone number or address) run like hell. It is going to suck horribly moving my car and everything with it out of the garage and honestly I have no clue where I would put it in a new place. I guess I will just hope for the best with it.

Today was my opening day as a flag football quarterback.

I threw 0 touchdowns, 5 or 6 interceptions and I had maybe 10 complete passes. It was absolutely pathetic. We lost 29-0. I take complete responsibility for the horrible performance of our team.

On a side note my arm seriously hurts. I think I have been over practicing last week, so I am going to really lay off of it for the rest of the week. Hopefully my swimming won’t mess things up even worse.

On a positive note, I am making great progress in Studio and I absolutely love school. I just hope I can keep my finances in order, I have got to get a better system going.

I love Industrial Design.

My life has been going 1000 miles an hour for the last month. And it just keeps speeding up. I guess it’s time to get back to work, but I really enjoyed the long vacation.

We are making great progress in Studio, I will probably start building in the next couple of weeks. For those who don’t know we are designing new strength training equipment for the athletes at NCSU. I am about 90% decided on the machine I want to build, still have some tweaking to do to the design though.

I need to finish assembly on my desk, it’s been ready to screw together for about two weeks now. I am just putting off the whole pulley system to raise and lower the surface. But my current desk SUCKS, so I have to get this new one finished soon.

Triathlon training has been put on the backburner for a few weeks, I have still been working out, but I have been shortening my days to accomodate this schedule, but next week it’s going to kick back into full pace. I need to get back into it and quit screwing around at home so much anyway.

I think I am just going to scrap the car in the backyard, it’s becoming a complete money pit. I will just put the car on hold till I can afford a working engine and tranny and then resume the project again, it’s looking like this will probably be next year sometime.

I will try to do some more small updates about stuff, but no garauntees!

I wrote this poem while doing 85mph down the highway in Arizona.

Soutwestern Fabric

Tuft of green wool
  on an earthly sheep
and beyond,
  layers of faded indigo
       velvet
scattered in the pelt are
  the revenous fleas.

Fleas who grow and prosper
  until sheep grows weary
 of being bitten, cut,
  ravaged.

Sheep snorts hot and fiery
  breath, fleas burn,
 fleas are suffocated in the
  thick, intolerable dusty winds

And yet still, fleas is the ruler
of sheep, all until both look up
          Heavenly tapestry above

 Brings down yellows and blues
Gold and sugary globs
 candy for sheep
  life for flea

And all is content
       wool and velvet
  candy and life
 sheep and flea
  beautiful balance

Well today was my birthday. I had a pretty uneventful but enjoyable day. Splurged on some food at the boardwalk and played some neat games in the Arcade. Laid out on the beach for a few hours, read a bit more of a book I just bought and rode my bike around town.

I love to see the few people who actually acknowledge my birthday every year. I don’t ever tell people as a matter of course when I was born, nor do I expect or really want anyone to congratulate me. But it’s nice to know the people who go out of their way to know and to say something to me about it

The one downside to today has been that the one person I really wanted to hear from I haven’t heard from, but oh well life goes on.

Ok so yesterday I went out to go get supplies and various things I needed. This process was made much harder by several facts:

There is no Walmart, Kmart or Target.

There aren’t any big shopping centers.

There aren’t any super markets (Grocery Stores yes, but nothing even close to the size of a Harris Teeter or Winn Dixie)

Which pissed me off for about 10 minutes until I realized that somehow by either fortune or careful planning, this city has yet to be overrun by the consumer whoredom that has consumed the east coast.

I did find a small mall and a Sears where I was able to get most of what I needed. Then I went to a “Sporting Goods Store” which was maybe 1/10th the size of REI or Dick’s, and got some shoes and new swimming goggles.

Holy crap, yet another awesome city. The parks system in Santa Barbara is just absolutely incredible. The entire city is absolutely beautiful and spotless clean. They have awesome facilities, bike paths, running paths, pools, courts, etc. There is an overabundance of civic activities always going on, from yoga to volleyball to tennis lessons.

The downtown area is the perfect size to not need a car at all, biking is faster and you can get everywhere much more easily. Though there is still ample parking for cars and easy access back to the US 101 Freeway.

SB City College is just phenomenal as well, hopefully I can get up some pictures of the area sometime soon.

Dallas Texas was awesome. It is hands down the best place to be as a single mid twenties male in the US. Hotties are a dime a dozen, plus they are educated and have good jobs. If you are single and looking move to Dallas. /commercial

Ok seriously though Dallas was fun times and I definitely want to go back.

The rest of texas however sucked. 600 miles of nothing isnt very much fun, and the entire state is a damn speed trap. They WILL pull you for 3-4mph over.

I stopped in Tyler texas. Pictures will be up soon

I am sitting here in Taco Bell at about 10:30 mountain time.

I have made the decision to try and go all the way through to California tonight. Only time will tell if this is going to be a stupid one or not. It’s another 8 hours from here, so if I can make it, that will be 22 hours of continuous driving. So far today I have driven about 1100 miles in 14 hours. So I think I can make it to Santa Barbara in 6-7 instead of mapquest’s estimated 8. I decided that I will stop here in Flagstaff on the way back to see the Grand Canyon.

I have to say that Western New Mexico and Eastern Arizona have to be the most beautiful places for highway travel I have yet to lay eyes on. The time just floated by from seeing one beautiful scene to the next. I took a few pictures, but on the return trip I will be sure to really stop and take some better more composed shots.

Amazingly the only rain I have encountered on the entire trip was a light sprinkle in east Arizona for about ten minutes. I didn’t think it ever rained out here!