Friends, and Frat Part Duo

Ever judge the quality of your friendships by how much time you spend on your friends? Do you ever worry that you really don't care about certain friends simply because you never talk to them or interact with them? It's kinda scary if you give it much thought. Really shows who is truly important to you in your life.

But anyways...

Finally picked up my AA at NorthHenn. Wow, what a wonderful experience it is dealing with those admissions people. I have never once had a helpful experience interacting with those offices. Everyone is always rude and put out to help you in any way. And that guidance counselor I met with years ago? What a bunch of help. "What do you want to do? Ok, get your AA and then transfer. Now get out." Sheesh.

My goal this summer is to be out of the house by the end of said summer. I think it's about time, don't you? Sure. I'm just curious how I'm going to do that. Already I'm strongly thinking of getting out of the bakery. I do not ever want to work another graduation season/thanksgiving/christmas in that place. Any other department that doesn't involve food, perhaps, but not the bakery. And honestly I'd rather just get out of Costco all together. I'm not too keen on working in such a big Fortune 500 place, even though managers start at $50g. Life's not all about money, right?

As I explained to my manager in a little talk one day, the most important reason I could never stay at Costco is the cost to your personal life. Managers are expected to work at least a 12 hour day, one day off. And those hours can be from 5 am to 10 pm or really at any time. Can I get married and raise a family on that? "Shoosh, kids, daddy needs to sleep. I know it's only 6 pm, but he has to be at work at 4 am."

No thank you. So really, other than Supervisor, I'm as far as I want to advance at Costco.

So I'm seriously of finding another job. Problem is, I can't accept less than $12, and I'd prefer not to have wrist killing 60 lb bag manual labor. I shouldn't be living off extra strength Tylenol and Tylenol PM in order just to stay asleep at night.

I'm already thinking of how to move out of my parents and into the frat. First step is to do something with all this crap I've accumulated. The wrong answer is to toss it all. I'd have all of college paid off if my mom hadn't sold off my vintage Star Wars collection for pennies. And yes, she realizes she messed up, lol.

So, I've got some purchases to make before I can move into the frat. One, storage boxes that are water proof. Those will be for cd cases, books, magazines, etc. Misc stuff, really. I went through all my mags a few weeks ago and threw about a foot high stack away. What's left are keepers. Preferably I'd like to send them to a bindery, but that'd cost. My boxs of comics can be stored safely at my parents. They've been tucked away for three years now, with me just pulling them out to inventory or add to them on occasion. Those are fine.

(BTW, just Star Wars comics, I'm sitting on over a grand. Maybe two or even three grand.)

Next thing is obviously clothes. What's really important to bring to the frat, what can I leave her and grab when I really need them. But the most important thing, at least in my little world, is my television. Space is at a premium at the frat, and I definitely need my TV for dvds and games. (Might even buy a 360 and Xbox Live on the frat's high speed connection!!) So I'm strongly thinking of abusing Best Buys' return policy in a paycheck or two and trading in the SlimFit HD for maybe a 32" LCD flat panel or something. I love my TV despite it's flaws, but it's still too big for the frat.

So I've got some goals. Which I'm dwelling on daily. Still, it's gonna be a while before I actually make the move.

Pray with me on this.

Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, Live from Target Center

Wow...has it really been almost a year and a half since this show? Amazing...



The song of course is Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, from the Achtung Baby album. Just a little different arrangement from the original.

While the Minneapolis show was special because it was here in MN, obviously, as well as being the show where I officially "introduced" U2 to Joe and David...personally, I think my previous show in Chicago was better, May 12 (a few days after Bono's birthday). While the Chicago show was my very first U2 show, it was better for more reasons than that.

The one thing that bummed me about the Minneapolis show was the number of acoustic songs. Don't get me wrong; we got an awesome show, one that is always listed in the most downloaded Vertigo Tour shows online. "The First Time" was played, "Crumbs From Your Table" was played live for the first time, the above "Wild Horses" was also special...really, great song choices all around. But, in my mind, it was lacking.

What I really wanted, and especially wanted my friends to witness, was U2 overload. Specifically, the "ZooTV lite" segment on most Vertigo Tour shows: "Zoo Station," "The Fly," "Mysterious Ways," and "Until the End of the World" (especially this one). I got to experience this in Chicago...with the exception of "Zoo Station"... and it made my day. We in Minneapolis were treated to a variety of rare and acoustic songs; in Chicago, we got to see U2 rock out.

The more I look back on it, the more that Chicago show was the "perfect setlist" for me, or at least perfect for my first show. I got almost all the songs I've always wanted to see performed live. And I'm lucky enough to not only have audio cds of the show, but a really decent dvd of the show too (except for that annoying time delay in parts). For Minneapolis, I've only got a halfway decent (aka crap) audio copy. I know there are various cam shots from the show, which the above footage is from, but the only way I can get those is from a torrents site, and my internet connection doesn't have the horsepower to do that. One day...one day...

Still, I'm grateful for the shows that I got. Never mind that a friend of mine was literally on the edge of the ellipse during the tour opener, got to see them maybe 6 more times during that first leg, as well as getting to go see the last show of the tour in an open air stadium in Hawaii...

I'm still grateful.

Looking forward to the next tour!!

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You know, if people were to try to get to know me based solely on the strength and topics of this blog, they'd think I was obsessed with U2. I'm not. At least not entirely. I know that more people read this blog than I know of...I'm always hearing about someone else reading or at least knowing about my blog. And if they don't want to take the time to comment, that's ok. I'll do my best to keep you entertained.

"Your mama is so fat...on a scale of 1 to 10, she's a seven-forty-seven." -Sharpton to Obama

I really need to start to diversify my blog posts...