The Phish Pond

Earth Shattering Kaboom

2009-11-11T00:43:00.002-06:00

Creighton always keeps the students on top of what's going on at campus. We get emails all the time telling us about the random crap going on whether it's scheduled power outages, break hours for campus buildings, or random street construction. One thing that they failed to mention caused shockwaves throughout the university quite literally. Last Friday night at about 1:20 in the morning, a bomb went off . . . sorta. They're making a new part to an overpass on an interstate highway that's been worked on since I made it Creighton as a freshman. For some reason that's beyond me, the construction crew decided to detonate some of the old stuff at 1:20 in the morning. The sound could be heard anywhere on campus and several people, shaken awake from this, went outside to see what was going on. We were all on high alert for a little bit, but all's well. We found out the next day what had happened.

Ben thought it was his car.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"The illudium q-42 explosive space modulator!"

Wow, I Guess This Is It . . .

2009-11-05T13:24:00.005-06:00

Every time I register for classes, I'm always looking for what I'm supposed to be taking. For most majors, there's a set schedule and you have to take certain classes at certain times. Now that I'm a senior, I'm no longer looking for what I should take, but what I need to graduate. I've just registered for the final time and it feels WEIRD. I have all but one of my major courses done for and I'm moving onto bigger and better things: core classes. While I'm taking three upper level science classes this semester (along with research credits), next semester I have one science class (CHM 523) and research. No labs! It's really weird because I'm only registered for 12 credits right now. I'm not used to doing the minimum, but it's gonna be odd not having class every day. My plan right now is to find some random class that's three credits so that I can drop a class if I need to. Oh wellz . . .

Monday
MUS 375 - Music of the World's Peoples - 9:00-10:15
CHM 523 - Bioorganic Chemistry - 11:30-12:20
SRP/HAP/THL/PHL 457 - Biomedical Ethics - 3:30-6:00

Tuesday
EXS 142 - Personalized Weight Training - 9:30-10:20

Wednesday
MUS 375 - Music of the World's Peoples - 9:00-10:15
CHM 523 - Bioorganic Chemistry - 11:30-12:20

Thursday
EXS 142 - Personalized Weight Training - 9:30-10:20
CHM 497 - Directed Independent Research II - 4:00-4:50

Friday
CHM 523 - Bioorganic Chemistry - 11:30-12:20

I'm so excited to be lazy for once.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"One Love: One Major"

Well, It Could've Been Worse . . .

2009-10-28T16:46:00.002-05:00

I spilled some chloroform on me today in lab when someone bumped into me while I was pouring it out of the bottle. I'm really light-headed now. I think I inadvertently almost set myself up to be date-raped . . .

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"Gonna go lie down now"

Golden Birthday: In Short

2009-10-25T19:33:00.003-05:00

So apparently when you turn the age of the day that your birthday is on (like turning 22 on October 22), it's called your "golden birthday." Never heard of that one until about a week before it happened, but I guess I just had mine. What did it change? I don't really know. I did have a blast, though. In an attempt to make sure that I didn't go through the same thing as last year, which wasn't horrible, but my friends still give me crap for it, I decided to take charge.

Knowing about the Power & Light District in Kansas City definitely inspired me to plan out something for me to do this year. I talked to friends of mine from KC and saw who could make it out there. It ended up being Ellen, Kat, Kevin, and me, which was an awesome group and just about the perfect number of people while keeping the party manageable and under some control. I didn't want this to turn into some massive sh*t-show or anything. We ended up going from one bar to another while I maintained sobriety to a degree that many of my friends would be upset at me for. All-in-all, I didn't get intoxicated throughout the night, but still had one of the best nights in recent memory.

The funniest thing happened while I was at this one bar called Howl At The Moon. If you're from Omaha, it's like the Blazing Pianos bar. It's basically where they have two pianists playing requests all night ranging from Piano Man by Billy Joel to Hips Don't Lie by Shakira. Yea, they're all over the place. Well, this was the second bar we went to and I'm only about 1.5 drinks into the night. I get back from the bathroom to find my friends at the table laughing to themselves. I soon found out why. When it's your birthday, they embarrass you by playing a song that you have to dance to. It's never anything tame and you're guaranteed to make an idiot out of yourself if you're intoxicated. Problem is that I'm stone-cold sober. Realizing that if I go up there and half-ass a dance, it'll be a total waste. I'd better just go all-out and make an idiot out of myself. Ya know, pump up the crowd. Besides, the only people here that I know are my three friends so who cares if they think I'm crazy? I'll never see any of them again. I was wrong.

After busting out the greatest dance moves of my life to Baby Got Back by Sir Mixalot, I left the stage to a standing ovation from the bar and several high-fives. I was walking back to the table when I hear a voice behind me saying, "CHIP!" I turn around to see a girl I went to high school with who graduated, and is friends with, my two older brothers.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"FML"

$4.99? Are They Out Of Their Minds?

2009-10-21T00:07:00.002-05:00

So people in Wichita have this attachment with a restaurant called Spangles. It's a local place that's getting to go beyond the city. I know they're in Salina, Lawrence, Topeka, and a bunch of other places in Kansas. Personally, I love the place and always make sure that I go there at some point during any time I go home. I went there yesterday and found some very disturbing news.

Well, one thing that Spangles is famous for is their $2.99 Gourmet Supreme value pack, which is a 1/3 lb. burger, fries, and a drink. It's one of the best deals EVER in fast food and everything is really good quality. In fact, I think Spangles fries beat out Arby's fries for best in Wichita, according to the Wichita Eagle newspaper, if that puts everything in perspective. Also, they make a huge deal about making the food right when you order it, not before. I dunno, I really like it. The commercials to this place are fairly legendary, mainly because of Renee Stevens, the owner. Nothing wrong with her or the way she does commercials, but she's kinda scary in all of them. Actually, she's borderline terrifying. The running joke is that you know you're from Kansas when she makes a cameo appearance in one of your dreams, which has happened to me. I've met her before and she's really nice, though.

In said commercial, they make a HUGE deal about how this value meal is only $2.99 and the line said by at least 5 people in the commercial is "$2.99?! Are they out of their minds?!" Oh jeez. Anywho, I went back yesterday to find out that the value pack has almost doubled in price to a whopping $4.99 and the old one is replaced by the "classic value pack," which is $2.99. I asked the lady at the drive-thru about this because I had exact change ($3.74). If you ate as much Spangles as I did, you'd know that the meal was exactly $3.74 and what combination of coins you could have to get the 74 cents. She frankly told me that it's the same pack, but the burger is a lot smaller. They add more toppings to it to make the two look comparable. DAMMIT! No freaking way! I'm way more pissed than I should be. The even funnier thing is that the commercial for the original $2.99 value pack was kept the same, but the name of the burger was changed. See for yourself.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"Spangles, it just tastes better."

Eco-f*cking-friendly

2009-10-18T00:23:00.003-05:00

So once again, I have made the trek back to Wichita, Kansas. I've been here for seven hours and have already begun asking myself what I can do to put off all the homework that I am faced with over the break. Fun, I know. Well, after watching KU suffer a disappointing loss at Colorado today, I just chilled with the lil sis for a bit, which added to the excitement. There's one thing about my house that I'm really having trouble getting used to and that's how eco-friendly everything is getting around here. It's nothing too bad, but all of the appliances we have in the house are, in some way, out to make the environment a little better . . . . . ???

Okay, so when I left for college, there was a group of people that I never saw eye-to-eye with and that's people that are organic freaks. I'm not talking about the people that only eat organic foods, but will get mad at you if you don't and force their philosophies down your throat. I'm entitled to my opinion and you can't change that. So go ahead and drink your $5 per pint glass of milk that came from a cow that is f*cking immaculate. We have these family friends who lived next door to us when I was growing up. Great family! After high school, they moved out to California to open a winery and they're doing really well right now. The only thing is that, when they went to California, they became those health nuts who get pissed off at people who don't eat whole grain pasta. I guess it makes you sh*t rainbows or something, but I got sick of it after three minutes of him talking about it.

Well, I come home from college after my FIRST YEAR to find that my mom has been converted into one of them; she has become the enemy. I'll never forget when my mom chewed me out for not having a Brita water filter in my college dorm room . . . . holy hell. I'm now back for yet another tour of Wichita only to find that our freezer has been emptied of almost everything that was in there. There is now (and I'm not joking when I say this) half of a cow inside paper-wrapped packages. My mom apparently bought a freaking cow. "It's organic!" was all she could say. My reasoning is that this country was built on making things more efficient. We give cows all that crap so that we can make them bigger than they would naturally. I'm not talking about what they did in Goodburger, the movie, but it's in that direction. We did that for years and everything went fine. I understand that it tastes better, but are you really willing to pay almost 5 times the price to get that? I dunno. Maybe that's just the college student in my talking, but I love food and am not ready to pay a crap-ton for a cow that sh*ts pure energy.

Another thing that I'm noticing is that the lightbulbs have been changed in the house. While we used to have normal lightbulbs in EVERY socket, they've been replaced with these bulbs I call "lazy bulbs." They're nice and all and work just the same way as the regular ones, but there's an interesting difference; they don't turn on immediately. Like sometimes it'll take the bulb a minute or two to reach normal brightness. They apparently use less energy, but that means that whenever I want to go into a room, I have to go in, turn on the lights, go somewhere for a minute, then come back in the the well-lit room. Going in before will almost assuredly end up in me tripping over something because this house is always a disaster area. First it was our friends, then it was my mom, and now it's gotten my house! I want my old stuff back.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"Perfect Dark was a video game; now it's becoming how I go from room to room."

Chip: The Politician

2009-10-13T11:40:00.002-05:00

So, in case you're just tuning into our show, I'm the current philanthropy chairman for my fraternity. I love doing what I do, but it's definitely a massive job that will oftentimes drive me into the ground. Being an exec member, I am often told that I need to watch my actions and words because I represent the fraternity more-so than many of the members do (not me in particular, but as a collective exec team). It's nothing too much to ask of me, per se, but it does kinda get annoying when I have to be the politician and promote Greek unity when nobody else is backing me up. I go to all other Greek philanthropies and glad-hand the other philanthropy chairs as well as all members of the chapter that I know. I love doing it, but it definitely cuts into my study time. So while I was supposed to be studying for my tests this Thursday and Friday, I ended up going to a chili feed for Kappa Kappa Gamma, and running my own soccer tournament the next day. There was supposed to be a Pi Beta Phi football tournament, but the 4 inches of snow we got on Saturday kept that from happening.

But we did have our tournament! We had it inside just in case the weather turned south, which it did. Last year we had an okay turnout and we ended up making about $300 for ALS in the Heartland. Not too shabby considering that neither Seth (my co-chair) or I had never done an event before. This time, we did a LOT better with 108 people in attendance and made about $500 in total. I was pretty excited because this year the event was run with a lot lower costs and with the experience of having run it before. It wasn't a well-oiled machine by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a little smoother.

Now I have to study:
Thursday - God & Persons Midterm, Cell Structure and Function Midterm
Friday - Instrumental Analysis Midterm

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"The work never ends"

(Re)Introducing: Parallel 40

2009-10-10T18:23:00.007-05:00

So my band just had our first show. Quite exciting if I may say so. The venue that we played at is this Christian youth center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which was fairly terrifying. It was a sweet place to play at, but the area it was in was kinda sketch and the building looked like it was actually abandoned. When we made it there, we found out that the owner of the place wasn't even there; he was picking up his daughter. Really confused, we just waited outside for someone to show up. What was really funny was that there was a lady sitting outside the venue who was "not all there." She was funny as hell, but I'm fairly sure that she was on massive amounts of medication. She was in a wheelchair, posted outside this venue, just smiling and talking to the people that walked by. She was our first impression of the venue and got us really excited for everything.

All in all, the concert went really well. We played our set and tons of our friends came to hear us. No complaints. The funniest bit came right before we started playing. Joe, Kevin, and I were getting set up when the owner of the place came up and told us a couple of things about the venue, like how this HAD to be a clean show (which was no problem), how this place served as a church on Sundays, and how the lady in the wheelchair will be our biggest fan there. We considered what he was saying for a little bit before just going on and playing our set. Sure enough, the lady in the wheelchair was yelling and cheering the entire time. Huge self-esteem boost. She was incredible.

We did manage to get a recording of the show, but the vocals are fairly silent so nothing much came out of it. It's more of a thing to mark the occasion. Excitement to the extreme!

3/5 of an AT&T commercial

Our #1 Fan

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"Like Rock Band, only better"

Tighten Up The Strings, Boys

2009-10-08T23:22:00.003-05:00

Playing guitar has been a great way for me to relax for a several years. It's calming and something you can do while watching TV or something like that. You can multi-task. But with any hobby like this, there is a certain amount of upkeep. For guitars, you should change your strings about every 4-6 months, depending on how long/often you play. My problem is that I always seem to put it off. By the time I actually do change my strings, the sound is really muddled and not as sharp as I'd like it to be. To be honest, it's like getting your glasses prescription updated; if you don't do it for a long time, you forget to notice how crappy it is. But as soon as you make the switch, you can't understand why it took you so long.

When I do change my strings, it's more of a ceremony. I have my coffee table in my living room, which sits right in front of my TV. I either watch TV or listen to music while it's going on, usually a sports event (right now, it's the Nebraska-Missouri football game). If it's music, it has to be a certain kind, like John Butler Trio or something really acoustic-ish like that. Everything has to be just right. Blanket on top of the table to keep the body from getting scratched, all the tools I need, and the guitar always facing the same way. I honestly feel like I'm performing surgery on it or something.

The only issue with this is that it takes a little while to change it (usually an entire football quarter or more). Most of the time, I don't have the time to get it all finished in one go. It's just tedious work that can oftentimes piss me off. Because my guitar is borderline 4 years old, some of the parts are wearing out and can snap a string while I'm changing them. It's absolute hell when they do break, though, because they can sometimes snap back and cut you. Surprisingly, these little bastards are REALLY sharp. No serious injuries, but I've gotten my fair share of cuts.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"Well I'm changing all my strings, I'm gonna write another travelin' song"

Wait, It's October?

2009-10-05T23:12:00.002-05:00

I remember when I moved into my room in Opus thinking, "Holy crap, school is halfway over."
I remember when I took the MCAT last May thinking, "Holy crap, I have only one more year of school."
I'm now sitting in my room wondering where all the time went. We've already been in school for over a month now and the clock is ticking so quickly that I have no idea of what's going on. It really hit me when my mom called me and asked me what I wanted for my birthday. "My birthday?" I thought. It's not going to be for another few-oh yea, it's in three weeks. I really don't know what is going on, but I'm almost out of college now and have begun to hit panic-mode. I'm now having to plan out every single step I take, especially with plans B and C if medical school falls through. My classes are hard as hell (this is definitely my most difficult semester), philanthropy is biting my butt pretty bad, my band is playing its first show on Friday, and I'm definitely hitting a MAJOR lack of sleep. I'm trying to juggle way to many things and I feel like I'm either gonna have some massive burnout/meltdown or die working my way through the year.

I thought senior year was supposed to be a time to reflect and spend time with friends!

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"Almost come to the point where I'm too busy to post anymore."

26 Miles Of Awesome - Chip's Marathon 2009

2009-09-27T16:38:00.002-05:00

I've talked about doing a marathon for awhile and finally decided to own up and do it. Today was the race and it was quite the run. Much longer than anything I've ever run, these 26.2 miles definitely kicked me butt into God knows what. The route was okay, but there were certain parts that made me think the most vile thoughts of my life.

Course Map

Everything went well minus an injury I had at about the 12th mile. That's the highest point on the map and I got a hamstring cramp then that lasted for a little while. Some of my friends came out to support me, which really did mean a lot to me. Thanks so much to all of you who came out.

But here are some of the notable thoughts that went through my head:

Mile 1 - Let's rock this b*tch!
Mile 3 - Am I really gonna do this? 23 Miles to go?!?
Mile 8 - That's a REALLY big hill
Mile 9 - Wait, is that the zoo?!? What am I doing out here?!?
Mile 12 - #$*%ING HAMSTRING!!!!!!
Mile 13 - O-oh! We're halfway there. O-oh! Living on a prayer!
Mile 15 - Theresa and Teresa came and ran with me! Kickass!
Mile 20 - I'm in the middle of Council Bluffs . . . Am I gonna get raped? I really can't defend myself at this point.
Mile 21 - There are cheerleaders cheering me on . . . Cool, I guess. Kinda reminded me of the Spartan Cheerleaders.
Mile 24 - Lady on the bike, leave me the f*ck alone; I'm fine. Stop asking.
Mile 25 - I mile to go. I should eat sh*t like this for breakfast, but I can't sprint this one.
Mile 26 - I can't see the finish line. This is bad.
Mile 26.2 - I just passed eight people in the last .2 miles. I kick ass.

So yea, that was a blast, but I don't see myself running another one until I'm in better shape. We'll see, though.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"I ran. I ran until my muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid. Then I ran some more."

The Problem With Chemistry

2009-09-26T13:07:00.003-05:00

Coming from the high school that I did, my teachers all liked me (mainly because of my brothers). I never had an experience when the teacher played favorites against me, except in weight lifting class because I'm a runner, not a lifter. But even then, I didn't really care because I wasn't planning on going into professional weight lifting. Coming to Creighton was very different. Being at a school where my brothers never were has its ups and downs. I can make a name for myself and not have to be "Matt and Tom's little brother" = UP. Not having it where the teachers already liked me because of my brothers = DOWN.

There are these two chem classes that all majors have to take; one is Quantitative Analysis and the other one is called Instrumental Analysis. They're both taught by the same teacher. The unfortunate part is that it's visibly noticeable from other people in the class that he does not like me at all. To put this in to a greater perspective, this man is not the guy you go in for help in his office unless you have some sort of death wish. He's very abrasive and WILL make you feel like the most unintelligent person ever. He uses negative thinking to encourage you to work harder. He think that his criticism will kick you into being more productive and intelligent. The problem is that most people don't respond well to this kind of talk. After talking with most of the class about this, he does this kind of thing to a lot of people. But if you're like me, then your mom would have given you so much of this type of negative motivation that you know that you don't respond well to it; you just grow a distaste for it.

So I'm in this Instrumental Analysis class right now and it's a beast. We had our first test on Friday and it owned me pretty hardcore. The test is only supposed to take an hour and start at 10:30, but if you want to start early, you may come at early as 7:30 (a.k.a. - if you want to even get close to finishing the test in time, come at 7:30). If I was in the test for 15 more minutes, it would have taken longer than the SAT. I was seriously in there from 7:38 until 11:19. Holy crap, I don't think I've ever taken a test that hard in my life (and I have taken the MCAT). I talked with Nick, who's a friend of mine and probably the smartest person I know at Creighton, and he said that even he knew that he bombed it. Holy hell.

Nobody is safe.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"The Chemistry Gods are making it rain"

Introducing: Parallel 40

2009-09-22T20:26:00.003-05:00

Two summers ago, Joe and I started jamming on almost a daily basis. It began as a little joke way of getting through the day, b*tching about the annoying parts of our lives. We just had fun with it and that was thought to be the end of the story. But it seems that fate had a different plan in mind. One day, I played something that I did sophomore year after an interesting experience (all music and no lyrics) and we started playing our own stuff. September 9th, 2008 was the first time we recorded anything and it was on Joe's computer with a program called Audacity, which is really sweet. After a little while of just Joe and me playing in Joe's tiny Opus room, we decided to add another person to the mix, Kevin, who plays bass guitar. And so it began . . .

Now we're 9 songs deep (all original) and playing our first show at the end of the week. Yea, it's the IRHG retreat, but a show is a show. It was really funny to think because we went through several names before we even played for the first time in front of people. We started with The Informed Citizens Brigade before we realized that it was a little too hardcore for us. The name was then changed just to the Informed Citizens. We then played at J'Amnesty, an outdoor jam session where bands can come play on the KFC patio. Because I was too nervous about playing in front of people, not only did I forget to say the name of our band, but I also forgot to introduce anybody in the group. So when we made the decision to change the name again, it didn't take too much of a change.

This is where Sean and Ellen come in. We asked our friends to come up with names and, even though several were proposed, many of them were crap. Names like "Mystic Water," "Flaming Ice," and "19 Baby" were all proposed by Joe's girlfriend, Dina, which means they AT LEAST had to make it to the table for discussion. Sean and Ellen came up with the idea of Parallel 40 and it stuck pretty well. The 40th parallel (line of latitude) is the dividing line between Kansas and Nebraska, the two states where all the band members were born. I dunno, though. We'll see what everyone else thinks of it.

We also booked our first real show on October 9th for a place called REBELS in Council Bluffs, Iowa. We're looking forward to it. The interesting thing is that their preferred method of communication is Myspace, which means that we had to make a page in record-time. There's absolutely nothing on it because we don't have any pictures or songs recorded, but we do use it to communicate. Feel free to look at it if you want. Although the names she came up with were too ironic or dramatic, Dina did do a great job at designing some of the stuff. Enjoy.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"Rockin' the IRHG retreat"

Fool Me Once, Shame On You. Fool Me Twice, FML

2009-09-18T00:18:00.005-05:00

I consider myself to know a large amount of people on Creighton's campus. If you're one of those people who knows me (whether from Creighton or elsewhere), would you consider me an aficionado of scary movies? F*CK NO!!!!! I relish in a good laugh, a couple of explosions, good plot, and the occasional drama. Look through my movie collection in my room and you'll see that the movie closest to a scary movie is Young Frankenstein. The first scary movie I ever saw was during my sophomore year in high school and that was The Ring. Because of class time constraints, we only saw the first 45 minutes. Even though we made it barely halfway into the movie, it did enough damage to make me a near insomniac. Since then, I've seen The Village (which wasn't scary at all), half of Saw I, all of Saw V, and The Haunting in Connecticut. So as you can see, my repertoire isn't all that inclusive. Then I got a text message from Ellen today.

"Wanna see a movie tonight? Rob Zombie's H2 (Halloween 2)! Star at 10:10"

Here's the thing with me and scary movies; I HATE THEM. The only time I willingly went to see one was when I was going with a girl I was interested in and she wanted to see the movie (As it turns out, neither of us like scary movies so the entire thing was an odd mis-communication). Anywho, when someone asks me to watch a scary movie with them, my mind immediately goes to battle stations. In the end, I treat scary movies the same way I treat spicy chicken wings: maybe THIS time I'll like it. But in the end, I end up hating my life and my stomach is churning.

Needless to say, I've been having a rough week and thought a night out with my friends would do me some good. So I bit the bullet and paid $7.75 to watch 30,000 people get murdered. There were so many people dying in this movie that, most of the time, their names weren't even mentioned. They were on screen for a total of three minutes before they were being hacked to bits with a meat cleaver. I'm not even joking; in one scene a girl who is a principal character hooks up with this guy she meets at a concert. The guy goes out to pee and gets axed in the back. NO NAME. He was somewhat referred to werewolf boy because that's what his costume was. I feel that Rob Zombie was eventually thinking, "Okay, I'm running out of names. Let's just kill the bastards and go on with the movie." Even though I managed to sit through all the movie, I really couldn't wait for it to be over. The whole thing just raped my mind and I am jittery as hell now. Sean was nice enough to give me a piece of gum a we left the theater and I've been chewing it at about 4 chews a second ever since.

Why, I'm so jittery that I'm awake at 12:32 in the morning after getting only two hours of sleep the night before typing a website post about my experience.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"Locked the doors and I'm carrying an AirSoft gun with me. No quick movements, please."

Ow! Ow! Ow!

2009-09-16T18:09:00.002-05:00

So last Saturday I went for a run of colossal proportions. With the marathon I'm training for being only a short time away (now a week and a half), I needed to do a long-as-bawlz run to make sure that I'm in tip-top shape in time. My run was a good one that I planned out on MapQuest ahead of time.

View Larger Map

I was so excited to get going and finish this 20-miler. Unfortunately, irony struck me pretty hard in the foot when I was my furthest away from campus (sorta). If you look at the map, you see where I get on this street called "Storz Expressway?" Right about when that street meets up with Abbot drive, I hurt my foot and had to stop. At first, I didn't make much of it. I thought I'd walk for a bit and then keep going. Little did I know that walking on it was only make it worse. I made it to the airport when I decided that isn't not worth it to walk back to campus. I went inside and explained my predicament to the people at the car rental place to see if I could use their phone for me to call someone back on campus. The lady there was really nice and let me call someone even though there were payphones across the hall (I didn't have any money). I called the room phone in Opus, but there was no answer; our phone sucks and goes to voicemail after 2 rings. I then called public safety, who were of no help AT ALL. In a really dick-ish voice, the guy said, "Sorry, we're not a transport service."

Man was I pissed.

So I go outside and talk with a guy with airport security. He was totally legit. I asked what to do and he said that I should just wait until the hotel shuttles come in and pretend I'm a guest. To be honest, I'd never thought of that. So there I was, wearing my running clothes and my iPod, sweaty as hell, and limping, getting on a bus and pretending I was a guest. The driver was skeptical, but I told him that I had just made it into town today and wanted to go for a run, but only knew of the airport as a destination. I stepped in a puddle that was deeper than I thought and hurt myself. Because I was a guest at the Double Tree, I figured that it's safer to get a ride with him. Odd side of that was that I had to go to the hotel lobby and sit there until the driver left back to the airport.

It's been several days and my foot still throws a b*tch-fit every time I rotate it.

EFF!

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"11 days until my marathon . . ."

Awesome

2009-09-11T08:55:00.002-05:00

Enjoy.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"At least he can make fun of himself."

Always Interested, Never Tested . . . Until Now

2009-09-08T22:15:00.006-05:00

Ever since I became interested in chemistry, I had a fascination with something related to it: safety showers. In labs, they have these showers that sit in the corner and, if someone gets doused in chemicals, they run there, pull on a lever, and get drenched. Downside, I guess, is that you're now soaking wet in your school clothes. I don't know if we have an extra set of clothes if you need to use the shower, but whatever.

Got this from UNL's Safety Shower Procedures.

There's also these eyewash stations throughout the lab, just in case you get some chemicals in your eye, which are cool and everything, but I never really saw the point of them. If you're wearing goggles, you shouldn't get anything in your eye, right? Well, today I was proven wrong.

Today was my first day of chemical research of the semester and I'm in the labs cleaning glassware. Not too much fun (12 pieces cleaned in about 90 minutes), but something interesting happened when I was finishing up cleaning. When you clean glassware like this, you use a soap complex (kinda like a chemistry version of dishwashing soap) and a chemical called acetone to rinse. The stuff we use in the labs is a lot nicer than the stuff used in organic chemistry lab.

So there I am, rinsing these brown glass bottles with acetone when I find that some of the caps aren't on as tight as they should be. I screwed them all the way on, but somehow, this chemical was leaking out through the caps. To rinse, I'm shaking these bottles pretty intensely, which allows a small drop or two to leak out of the cap. I didn't notice the first time, I guess, because just when I'm about to finish rinsing, I see in slow motion this little drop fly off from the bottle, arc itself just right, and land right into my eye. Conventional swearing did not convey the strong emotion that I had at that time and I was forced to make up my own swear words. That burned like a mother. So I'm in the lab by myself, flailing around, trying to get my bearings, when I somehow find a lab bench, set everything down, and grab ahold of the nearby eyewash station. Even though I have never used them before, I could piece it together and I got a nice sensation when I rinsed everything out.

Nobody saw this, though, which was good for my self-esteem, but I can only imagine what it looked like. I don't know what the hazards of getting acetone in the eye are, but I can't imagine that they're uber toxic because I'm still here. I can only say that, since we don't put acetone in our eyes daily, it can't be something that I should make habit forming.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"I wanna try to put some of my new swear words into circulation."

Crappy Sequels

2009-09-02T16:49:00.004-05:00

Last semester I was in that ever-so-delightful chem class called Quantitative Analysis. It was one of those times where I thought, "Yea, it was fun, but I never wanna do it again." As soon as the class ended, I locked my drawer, turned in my key, and (pretty much) flipped off the room on my way out. Too bad that I have another lab with the same teacher in there this semester. Eff.

This new lab is essentially the same thing, but there's a lot more work with instruments rather than effing titrations. The fact that we don't do titrations anymore really feels awesome, but the lab is still a beast. Today, I was doing something called Anodic Stripping Voltammetry (don't ask) and was so far into what I was doing that I didn't realize that it was 4:13 and lab ended almost 15 minutes ago. Hmm . . . Science is fun. Knowledge is power. Get used to it.

The funny thing is that the machine had an interesting piece of glassware that was specifically designed to be used for this purpose. That doesn't sound too weird, but the piece definitely looks a little out of place. Here's a picture that's actually exactly what we used in lab. But look at the glassware on the bottom-left of the instrument.

Yea, it looks EXACTLY like a shot glass. It's actually about the right size too! Interesting . . .

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"6 hours of science classes today. I'm all scienced out."

Day One: Toxic Chemicals

2009-08-30T11:22:00.002-05:00

So school has officially started and I couldn't be *happier*. Nose to the grindstone again really kicks my butt and these classes this semester are gonna be nothing but interesting. The class that's gonna give me the most grief is called Instrumental Analysis; it's pretty much Quantitative Analysis Part II. Remember that cartoon of a lab professor I had last semester? Well, he apparently also teaches Instrumental so I have him again! Joy. He's better this semester so far, but we'll see. "But Chip, how do you already know how he is in lab? You've only had three days of class!" Funny you should say something about that because we definitely have a story about that.

So we make our way to Instrumental class, sit, and enjoy the first day. We go over the syllabus and some review material, which was fine. The class goes from 10:30 until 11:20 and we got such an awesome announcement at 11:25 (yea, the teacher ALWAYS goes a couple minutes over). Just finishing everything up, he says, "Don't forget, you guys have lab today." At Creighton, lab is NEVER on the first week. They always give us a week off, which gives a nice little break before we go back. There was no email telling us, just this announcement in class. I then had exactly 65 minutes before lab and I didn't have any of my lab stuff. So that day, I'm heading back to my room to get it all instead of eating lunch.

We make it to lab where we all think that this is only going to be a check-in time and we can leave after that. No. I did a 4-hour Gas Chromatography experiment, which did not produce very quality results. I really can't do much well in lab when I'm pissed off. But for one part of the experiment, I had to use this chemicals that was really toxic. There were warnings all over the manual and bottle. It had to be kept in the fridge when not in use. So on my first day, I had to handle toxic boron while most other people just went over the syllabus. FML.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"Boron = The Fifth Element = Cool Movie"

One For The Money, Two For The Show, Three To Get Ready, And Four To Go

2009-08-25T19:27:00.003-05:00

Thus commences my final year at Creighton. I just took the MCAT again and it went a lot better. Worse part was that it took place the day before I go back to school. Yea, I just took it today (which accounts for the lack of posting). Most people said I was crazy for taking it today, but the way I see it is that if I can raise my MCAT score by a couple points before going to school again, I could get scholarships and such for med school. We'll see, though. As for now, I'm totally exhausted and ready to welcome the end of existence. I spent my last couple weeks of summer going over MCAT stuff again and I officially have 14 hours left of summer.

Here's the skinny for my schedule:

Monday
BIO 362 - Cell Structure and Function / 9:30-10:20
CHM 456 - Instrumental Analysis / 10:30-11:20

Tuesday
CHM 451 - Inorganic Chemistry / 9:30-10:45
CHM 496 - Chem Research / 11:00-12:00
PHL 320 - God & Persons / 2:00-3:15

Wednesday
BIO 362 - Cell Structure and Function / 9:30-10:20
CHM 456 - Instrumental Analysis / 10:30-11:20
CHM 466 - Instrumental Analysis Lab / 12:30-3:50

Thursday
CHM 451 - Inorganic Chemistry / 9:30-10:45
CHM 466 - Instrumental Analysis Lab Lecture / 11:00-11:50
PHL 320 - God & Persons / 2:00-3:15

Friday
BIO 362 - Cell Structure and Function / 9:30-10:20
CHM 456 - Instrumental Analysis / 10:30-11:20

So yea, not too bad considering what I did last year. Here's to Senior Year.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"We'll see . . . . . . ."

Season Finale

2009-08-16T13:15:00.002-05:00

Here it comes; the end of summer. Even though I've been doing a lot of random stuff these past few months, it's definitely been one of the best summers of my life. It really gave me hope for the rest of my life in that, even though we're all going to be working, I'm still able to do a lot of hanging out with my friends. I'm excited. Anywho, now we're coming to the close and I have to get a ton of stuff done. I told my research professor that I'm taking the rest of the summer (seven more weekdays, ick) off work so I could get some more work/summer-ing done before I go back to the chem labs for my final year. It just confuses me when I wonder where the summer went. I was talking to some of my friends about this yesterday and after we recounted all the stupid crap we've done since May, we now know exactly where the summer went.

But this work I have to get done isn't stopping me from having a little fun. Like yesterday, my friend Natalie and I played Zelda: Majora's Mask on Nintendo 64 while drinking beer. Seriously. We started a tradition last summer where we'd play the Zelda games the whole way through. The goal is to beat it going straight through; NO STOPPING. Earlier this summer, we beat all of Zelda: Ocarina of Time with 14 straight hours of playing. Nerbies even played a good majority of the game! We started at 2:00 in the afternoon and finished at about 4:00 in the morning. Awesome, I know. You're jealous. This time we played, it didn't exactly go as we thought it would. We started playing a little before 1:30 in the afternoon and didn't make it past 11:00 before we just got too tired to keep going. Personally, I didn't get more than 4 hours of sleep the previous night and actually did fall asleep for a few minutes while Natalie was playing. We did make it through a good amount of the game, though, before deciding to finish it another day. It just gets really funny when my roommate walks into the room to see us start the game, he leaves and comes back several hours later to find us in the exact same seats on the couch, still playing.

I always find it funny because, even though this N64 is my first game system, I really don't play it besides when Natalie and I play Zelda. But then again, there is the occasional Phi Delt page when we'll play Mario Kart. Aside from that, it usually just gathers dust next to the TV. Despite that, it's still a glorious and well-received addition to the room.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"Ocarina of Time > Majora's Mask"

My Family

2009-08-12T15:56:00.003-05:00

My family is all intelligent in some way, shape, or form. My brothers are engineers, my dad's a doctor, my mom knows enough about everything, and my sister is light years ahead of people her age with vocabulary. It's just that sometimes I come across something so unbelievable that I must share it with everyone. This is one of those stories.

So when I was in Colorado last weekend (awesome stories. I'll tell them sometime) we all got new phones. My brother, Matt, my sister, mom, dad, and I all retired our 2 year-old models for new ones, which is nice, but unnecessary for some. If you're like me, you'll have your phone for 2 full years and not have any problems with it. If you're my mom, you'll have three phones over the course of two years because you treat it like a football. Seriously, my mom had three phones. The first one just crashed on her one day because she dropped it too many times. From there, my brother, Tom, gave his old phone to my mom because he got a new one. The phone she had was the same one that I did. While we were in Lebanon, my mom accidentally forgot to put the cap on the sunscreen bottle while we were at the beach. The bottle was in her purse and every single hole on that phone got filled with sunscreen. This is where I come in. I have my old phone from high school that worked perfectly. Seriously; no problems with the thing and I was actually kinda sad to see it go when I got my LG phone sophomore year of college. Because this Samsung one was still in great condition, I mailed it down with the charger and she has been using that since. It's too sturdy of a phone for her to destroy it.

So now we've all got new phones. They're nothing special; just the basic ones that come with our plan. This is perfect for me because it does everything I want a phone to do; nothing fancy. The problem is that we got three identical phones. What we didn't know is that the phones were already linked to phone numbers of our family. Meaning that Phone X that we bought matches up to Mom, Phone Y matches to Dad, and Phone Z matches to Chip. DON'T GET THEM MIXED UP. They didn't tell me this so I just went ahead and grabbed one. I had a 1 in 3 shot of getting it right and I didn't. So basically, I can't activate my phone.

I told my parents and my dad decided that he was going to go to the Verizon store to get this mix-up fixed. One thing I love about my dad is his ability to talk his way into anything. He got the technician to go into the system and switch the orders around, which is awesome. The problem is that he got all the phones activated there without telling me. Let me explain. When he activates the new phone, he deactivates my old phone. I'm not in Colorado. I don't know what he's doing. My phone is suddenly not working. I don't know why. From this point, my dad CALLS ME to tell me what's going on. Because my phone is inactive right now, I can't get the call or check messages. I had to borrow Joe's phone in order to call my dad. My dad then asked me if I got my message. I dunno, sometimes my family does some stupid stuff. In reality, if I never had called my dad from Joe's phone, he would have NO WAY of getting in touch with me. This operation was obviously planned to a T. Hahaha.

All's well, though. The new phone works and I am fully in contact with the world again!

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"I just need a good background picture now and I'm set."

Good Thinkin' Time

2009-08-06T09:55:00.003-05:00

I run fairly often. I find it good for getting exercise, getting outside in the sun, and getting some good thinking in. There's nobody around and if you need to think out loud, you're more than welcome to. Just don't do it when there's someone running right behind you or else you'll look like a crazy person, which has happened to me before. Yesterday, I was inspired to go for a run. I just felt like there was thinkin to be done and I had some time on my hands. Got into some running clothes and I set off.

I ended up doing a running route that I haven't done in a long time; my classic airport run. You essentially just take Cuming all the way until you get to the airport. It's about 4 miles to get there so it's not too bad. The cool part is that you have to cross into Iowa to get there. So do this run, then nonchalantly tell all your friends from back home that you ran to Iowa that day. Anywho, I made it to the airport and just felt like going a little bit further. I found this lake-side path that goes all around Carter Lake and deep into really sketch parts of Council Bluffs.

So now I'm deep in Council Bluffs without a clue as to where I am. I know how to get back using the route I took to get there, but nothing really looks friendly enough to make me want to go back through the neighborhood that I just went through. As luck would have it, I found the road that the airport is on and followed that back to campus. Sweet. I looked up how far I ran on Google Maps, but I don't know if the route was 100% accurate. But according to this, I went 13.6 miles, my longest run ever.

View Larger Map

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"It's a bad sign when you're sore before you finish the run."

Kousa Mahshi

2009-08-03T19:55:00.011-05:00

This is part 2 of my post about foods that I've made in my dorm room. The first was on my Riz Bi Dfeen recipe and this one will mark the thrilling sequel.

For those of you who don't know, Kousa Mahshi is a stuffed squash dish that has been my favorite food for as long as I can remember. Without further ado, here's how it's done:

Kousa Mahshi
Lebanese Food
Serves 6

Ingredients:
2 lb sirloin, ground for chili
1 1/2 cups rice (though you can use up to 2 cups rice; it's your call)
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp pepper
4 Tbsp butter (melted) or oil
1/2 cup water
12 zucchini or yellow squash (I'd recommend squash)
2 14.5 oz cans of tomato sauce
2 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes

Utensils:
1 Large mixing bowl
1 Big spoon
1 Cutting board
1 Vegetable hollowing utensil (you can use things other than this. I used a spoon)
1 Can Opener
Measuring Spoons
1 Large Serving Bowl

Preparation:
First thing that you're gonna wanna do is to wash and then hollow out the squash. This process takes longer than anything else, especially since you have 12 squash. You might get nasty blisters and odd cuts on your hands so BE CAREFUL. Cut off the top of the squash, but leave a large enough hole so that you can hollow it out easily and stuff in the filling. Just core out the squash until there's barely anything left on the inside. Here's a picture of one of the squash that I hollowed but didn't fill.

If one of them breaks or gets a random cut in it, don't worry, it's still good! I've had them break in half and it still tastes just the same. Once they're all hollowed out, get out the mixing bowl. If you're using butter instead of oil, put the butter in a cup or bowl and put that in the microwave for about 15 seconds or long enough for it to melt. While that's going, take the 2 lb of ground sirloin and put it in the mixing bowl. Mix the spices (cinnamon, salt, pepper) into the melted butter and add into the meat mixing bowl. Then add in the rice. You should have this semi-nasty concoction where nothing is cooked. Then add the RAW rice. All of this stays raw until later.

In the bowl, you should have:
2 lb raw ground sirloin
1 1/2 -2 cups uncooked rice
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp pepper
4 Tbsp melted butter or oil

For this part, make sure that your hands are clean. Some people don't that this seriously while cooking, but it's absolutely necessary right now. Just guess how the bowl gets mixed? Yea, you use your hands. Don't be shy. It's seriously the best way that I've found to do this. Once everything is really mixed in, don't wash your hands or touch anything else that would necessitate you to wash them again because consider what I called this recipe (STUFFED squash). Now that your hands are decently disgusting, you won't mind stuffing the squash with the mix, right? Don't pack them all the way and don't pack the mix too tightly in the squash. You have to understand that when the squash cooks, the meat and rice cook, making them expand. If you fill them all the way, they're gonna spill out. I'd say to leave about 1 centimeter of space at the brim of the squash to allow for some expansion.

Once they're all packed, everything you have should still be raw; don't worry. Here's where everything gets cooking. Get out your big pot and put all of the squash inside. From there, you open all the cans of tomato sauce and diced tomatoes and pour them over the squash. One thing that I would do here is to mix everything up because if you have all the tomato stuff on top, you're not going to get everything decently cooked. Turn the stove on med-high for about 40 minutes. This sauce WILL boil and will probably boil over. Unless you want to be in a Mr. Clean commercial, I would put something over the pot to make sure that the sauce doesn't boil over. Use your judgment.

After that time, take one of the smaller squash out and cut it up. Pour a little of the tomato sauce on top of it. It just makes it taste better. Taste it to make sure that everything is cooked (especially the rice). When you're happy with how it turned out, you're done. Enjoy. Sorry I didn't get a picture of it. The thing is that this meal takes awhile to make so I was really hungry when it was done. This picture is from wikipedia.

Here's another little fun fact. You can use this same filling in green and red peppers and it tastes awesome. It's technically not Kousa Mahshi so I thought I'd leave it until now.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"Bon Appetit"

Favre

2009-07-28T09:54:00.004-05:00

I'm not a big NFL fan and I never really have been. Don't get me wrong, though; I do like to watch the occasional game. I don't have a favorite team and can probably name only 5 players. Here we go: Joe Montana, Priest Holmes, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, and Tom Brady! Whew, that actually took me exactly 1 minute and 3 seconds to do and Joe Montana doesn't even play anymore. Every morning when I wake up, I like to watch some TV while eating breakfast. Usually, there's nothing on and I must resort to ESPN. During college basketball season, I'm fine with that because college basketball kicks butt. The problem is that, during the summer, all they talk about is the professional football camps, possible trades for said football teams, and major league baseball (another sport I don't particularly have a taste for).

The one thing that I HATE is that every day, there is an update on whether Favre is going to play for the Minnesota Vikings or not. The funny thing is that, every day, all they have to say is that he is coming closer to make his decision, which will happen at the end of the week. If it IS the end of the week when this report comes out, it's about how he's decided to wait until next week before he makes his decision. HOLY HELL! MAKE UP YOUR EFFING MIND! You are not Jesus-incarnate of football. I do think that Favre is an amazing quarterback, but there's so much publicity about it that it makes me wanna throw up. Come or go. If you're leaving, then leave. Stop be a whiny on-the-fence b*tch about everything and make a decision. I seriously think that Michael Jackson dying and Brett Favre considering coming back to the NFL have taken up more television time than every single World War II news update. He's dead and he's losing his touch; get over it.

I dunno, I'm probably alone on these sentiments, but I seriously think that Favre has already made up his mind about whether he's going to come back to the NFL. After all this stringing along, he won't risk looking like a dick by saying that he's going to stick with retirement. It's the sports equivalent of leading a girl on when you know you're going to break up with her. He's going to come back to the NFL, play for the Vikings for one season, get his sh*t rocked, and then retire again at the end of this next season. I really do like Favre. He has done amazing things for not only the Green Bay Pakcers, but also the sport altogether. I just feel that he needs to stop taking up ESPN time just to tell people that he's, once again, waiting until next week.

Hugs and kisses,
Chip

"Let the hate-mail commence"