One door closes, another opens

It's Halloween and my costume is almost ready... Alexis and I are catching a plane to Lahaina, Maui this afternoon. Lahaina has one of the best Halloween block parties ever!! But I can't tell you about it yet since I haven't gone.... so this is a recap of my Denver trip, or SUPER Sports Weekend as I like to call it.

Saturday we went to the World Series game 3 at Coors field it was The Rockies vs. The Red Sox. The game was amazing... I can't explain the energy in the stadium. We had really good seats along the 1st baseline surrounded by Rockies fans and a few Red Sox fans. Thankfully Alexis and I decided to support the Rockies, because it was a tough crowd. Baseball fans are really intense and the World Series is a huge deal. Luckily mom and Bob had purchased us Rockies shirts and beanies prior to the game so we blended in... and mom and Bob kinda wore neutral colors so we weren't harassed too much. In the end the Red Sox won game 3, 10 to 5, and they won the series 4-0.

Sunday we dropped mom and Bob off at the airport and headed to the Pepsi Center, where I had purchased tickets to the Avalanche game for Alexis' birthday. The game was good, the Avalanche beat the Minnesota Wild 3-1. It was y first professional hockey game.

Monday was the BIG day! Packers vs. Broncos, Monday Night Football. What a great experience. I honestly thought we were in Wisconsin when we got to the stadium, Invesco at Mile High. There were more Packer fans then Broncos fans.... I guess we know how to tailgate. We arrived a little after 3pm with our beer and made friends with other tailgaters. Surprisingly everyone was super nice. Like I always say... nobody hates the Packers. I have yet to come across anyone that dislikes Green Bay and the Broncos fans weren't any different. They all seemed to respect Brett Favre and the Pack so it was a great experience. While tailgating we even ran into a couple of the famous sausages, that race at Brewers games. The game itself was really good. The Packers won in overtime 19-13, thanks to an 82 yard pass by Brett.

Denver was a great trip!!! Only bad thing was that taxi's were hard to come by.... but I heart Denver!!

Everyone arrived safely to Colorado.... and we finally made it down to Pueblo. It is so pretty here.... we drove around the CSU- Pueblo campus and did some light shopping. We are now ready to cheer on the Colorado Rockies and the Packers on Monday night (thanks to mom and Bob) thanks to our new clothes :-)

As of right now I spoke with a man in Colorado Springs that has tickets he is willing to sell Alexis and I for Monday Night Football!! We will know tomorrow if everything is legit!! But things are looking good so far!

I had my Political Communication midterm tonight and it was a lot better than I expected considering the amount of information that could have been on the exam. I also was able to work a bit more on my thesis.

Tomorrow I have a few errands to do, tie up some loose ends prior to leaving for Denver.

Yes, that is right... for anyone following the World Series ticket sales, you know that the Colorado Rockies ticketing website had major problems yesterday and had to cancel tickets sales and resume today. After nearly 1.5 hours this morning I was able to get into the ticketing section of the website and I was able to purchase 4 tickets for Game 3 this Saturday. Mom, Bob, Alexis and I will be on the 1st baseline...

After all the excitement of purchasing tickets I caught the bus to the State Library and did more research. I ate lunch with Alexis and headed home for an afternoon of more writing.

I'm hoping something exciting comes up tonight... studying is kinda getting to me.

Starting Saturday morning we woke up and went to the Arizona Memorial with Nicole. It was her last day in town and she hadn't been to see the Arizona plus she created a "Red Shed" t-shirt and I wore mine. She will be framing the photo and taking it to the Red Shed so it can be hung on the wall. At the Red Shed they have photos of people all over the world wearing Red Shed shirts. After the Arizona, we went for lunch and then Nicole headed to the airport.

Saturday evening we celebrated Lynn's birthday. She decided she wanted a themed party so we got all dressed up in 1940's gangster gear and hit the town. We started the night with 15 people at the Yard House for dinner and proceeded out after dinner. By the end of the night we had met a good portion of an Army Platoon freshly back from Iraq.

Not that I am a baseball fan, but this weekend has brought the Boston Red Sox's to my attention. A lot of guys at the bar last night were fans, and I also caught the end of game 7 today. It was really good. I can't believe how well they did! Plus they will be playing the Rockies next week, and tomorrow morning I will know if I have tickets to a World Series game.

I decided to try and work from home today since I have class on Wednesday evenings and I still needed to do a little reading for it. Upon waking up and learning the the World Series will be held in Colorado on the exact dates I will be there, I was finally able to move on...

I read a lot of articles today and did little writing. I guess in order to write I need to read so this is even more time consuming. If I were writing something based on my own knowledge or interests (more so than the History of something) I think the process would be a lot faster. However, another day done and I am making progress.

I also ordered my cap & gown for graduation.... and started looking for jobs.

Day Two....

I started off my day by purchasing the best movie made this year, TRANSFORMERS. After my visit to Wal-Mart I headed to the Windward side of the island to the Hawaii Loa campus of HPU. Things did not go well there. It cost me nearly $5 to park and then the library was crap and the librarian was not helpful to me. I am sure she was a fairly competent librarian but more suitable for the freshman who has never used a library.

After leaving HPU I headed to the beach to do some reading of my articles before the Kailua public library open at 1pm. The beach was nice, a bit overcast however I still got some color.

I ran a few more errands prior to the library opening. Again I was let down by the library. The microfische machine was acting up so I was unable to retrieve the additional articles I was hoping for so I headed home.

This evening I was able to write nearly one whole chapter and enjoy the movie of the year.

So I started my first day off of work today. I have nearly three weeks off to get going on my paper and go to Denver and Maui for Halloween. I spent nearly 6 hours at two different libraries today and I still have a bunch of research to do so I plan on actually starting to write on Wednesday... stay tuned!

The weekend went fast with Nicole staying at our apartment on Saturday night... we went to dinner at the Chart House and then out in Waikiki. We met the girls and got VIP entrance to Fashion 45 (not that great of a place), we then ended the night at Nashville.

Today we went and saw "The Game Plan" a movie starring Dwayne "the ROCK" Johnson. It was a really good movie and it was nice to be in the air conditioning. After the movie we headed to the Pali lookout to watch the Blue Angels perform their airshow over K-Bay. We were a couple miles from the show, so it was hard to see plus it was a bit cold so we didn't stick around very long. A nap capped off a relaxing day.

The week is almost over and it hasn't been that bad. Last night I worked until 7pm at a faculty reception, luckily there was pupu's and wine. This evening class was kind of exciting. We created a mock press conference in regards to the recent Superferry issues. Currently Hawaii has decided to cease all Superferry trips between Oahu and Maui until an environmental assessment can be completed. The catch here is that the Superferry was first negotiated back in 2004 and finally came to start operations just this summer. There are a lot of issues in the local news regarding the Superferry so the mock press conference was pretty interesting. The current status is that state legislature may have to call a special session to discuss the issue.

My friend from Nicole, from Madison, arrived on Friday. She is here for a little over two weeks for work. Friday night she met me at a local watering hole, where a large group of my friends came together for a couple drinks. Saturday was mellow, with lunch at Chili's and then a somewhat boring Ohio State vs. Purdue game.

Today we went boogie boarding in Kailua and then visited Lynn in Kaneohe. To end the night I cooked dinner for Alexis and John. The only sad part is that I have to work tomorrow and Alexis, John and probably a bunch of my other friends have the day off. At least they didn't rub it in too much during dinner :-)

I just got back from the Jimmy Buffett concert at the Waikiki Shell. It was a very cool experience. There were about 8,500 people wearing aloha shirts with blow up sharks and parrots. We had lawn seats but it worked out great. Jimmy had a local ukulele player open with a few songs and then he started playing...There were alot of regulations set for the concert but they weren't followed very closely. There was a lot of drinking and smoking. A few highlights or lowlights include a guy puking on my leg, ok only a little landed on me but still it was very gross and I found an awesome pair of sunglasses at the end of the concert. I'm happy to say I've seen Jimmy Buffett in concert.

Today Dr. Barnum told me that he would like to schedule all of our defenses on Nov 5th or 6th. What that means is that our professional papers or thesis need to be nearly completed and given to our committee to read prior to that date. I think my jaw dropped a bit when he told me. That is going to be pushing it to complete mine in a month, even with taking personal time at the end of this month I don't know if I can do it.

This by far is the most stressful semester yet. In addition to writing my thesis and talking a class in politics which I know nothing about, it doesn't help having to think about where I am going and what I will be doing come 2008. So in case you are wondering, I have no idea. But I promise I will let you know as soon as I figure it out.