The Gospel According to Tim

2006-11-26T23:52:00.000-05:00

Black Friday

Black Friday is usually known for the craziness that accompanies everyone trying to shop the day after Thanksgiving, but we and my friends gave Black Friday a new meeting. We had come up with a plan where we were all going to drink in my friend Mehdi's basement with all the alcohol that we could manage getting from Thanksgiving dinner, which turned out to be a lot more than any of us thought. So after I went out with my mom and my sister to the Outback for a late birthday dinner, we went over to Mehdi's to start the festivities. To begin the night we went out in the backyard to light some fireworks, which was more entertaining than any of us thought. We then went down into the basement to where the party was really about to start. Everyone started to take shots and before we knew it, we were all drunk. The rest of the night was kind of a blur to me until one of the sober people there decided to drive me home despite me being completely intoxicated. This was a mistake. Upon arriving home and going upstairs to my room, I decided to walk around for a little while, which was when I attempted to walk down the stairs. This failed miserably. I ended up falling down all of them, injuring my ankle in the process and got up to find my mom looking over me kind of upset with what happened. This was when I was caught and when she decided we would have a little talk the next day about what I had done, which was as fun as always.

2006-11-26T23:47:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving '06

This year, Thanksigivng was a change from the usual, mundane kind of day. The problem initially was getting back from UMass to Norton, which typically is only a 2 hour drive, but I found out the day before that I no longer had a ride. Because of this I had to take a bus from UMass to Boston then from Boston to Foxboro, a town next to Norton. It was good to see everyone because it was different than any year before because I had not seen most of the people for a couple of months because I have been up at college. We went to my uncle's house for Thanksgiving dinner where I stuffed my face full of food and then took a two hour nap on the couch while watching football during any times I woke up. Later that night, when we got back, Chase, my sister, and I realized we were still hungry so we went out to CVS around 11 o'clock at night to buy some frizen dinners, 24 cans of Pepsi and a gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream. We got back and had a little Thanksgiving of our own after that.

2006-11-12T22:13:00.000-05:00

The Patriots

They couldn't have just lost to the Jets could they? Oh wait, they did. Six days after losing to our biggest rivals, the Colts, in a game in which Vinatieri missed two field goals in his first game back at Foxboro in a uniform other than a Patriot, the Patriots do it again and lose to the Jets of all teams. Simply put, the Jets suck. No one thought this was even going to be a game, but yet I come back from lunch to find that they lost. Now the loss to the Colts was hard enough to take. I don't think I've yelled that much during a football game in a long time. They looked pretty bad. I haven't seen a performance that bad from Brady in a few years, especially in a game with the magnitude of this one. These are the games that he steps up big in and picks apart the defenses, but instead he goes out there and throws 4 picks and can't move the offense down the field. Then our defense, which has always been great against Manning decides not to show up and they beat us. And then we go out the following week and lose to the Jets. This may turn out to be a very long year if they odn't turn things around soon.

2006-11-12T21:51:00.000-05:00

Rain

Why does it have to rain for the entire day? I woke up this morning, or afternoon I guess since it was around 1 o' clock, and it was downpoaring out. If it were during a weekday I would care so much less because I have classes and the rain would make me stay in my room all day so I could study and do homework, but no, it has to rain on a Sunday where I have nothing to do but play guitar and do whatever else I felt like. So instead I wake up and have to walk down to Franklin and get completely soaked which made eating much more unpleasant than usual, which was then followed by the walk back up the hill and getting even more drenched than I did beforehand. So with the weather so subpar, I proceeded to spend the next few hours hanging around in my dorm because there was nothing to do until I got a phone call from my friend who wanted to get the band together to play at the fine arts center, which normally I look forward to but the walk down to the hill in the rain with my amp and guitar did not seem too inviting but I did it anyway. So I had to wrap everything in plastic so my guitar or amp would not get ruined and walked to to the fine arts center to find out that one of our guitarists was not going to make it. So the entire trip was wasted because we only played for about two hours before heading back up the hill to my dorm which I have spent the remainder of the time since. And all this because of the rain.

2006-10-29T20:59:00.000-05:00

Poems and Readings

The poems and the readings that were given to us in class to read were rather confusing to follow along with. Throughout many of them I would reread them over and over again just to try and see where the writer was trying to go with their topic, but it seemed almost useless because many of the times it still wouldn't make sense to me. The biggest reason for this is probably because I didn't find any of the subjects of them very interesting, which did not allow me to get into them very much and actually enjoy reading them, especially "The Night of the Great Season". I understand that it definitely has a deep meaning that I fail to see, but the reason why I really feel as though I can't find it is because it does not interest me very much. I can also appreciate how well "Notable American Woman" was written but it just wasn't something that I would typically read in my spare time. The poems were probably the best pieces I read out of it because those were a little more enjoyable to read because they were a little less monotonous. It did, however, open me up to a style of writing that I do not typically see which is something that I do not typically do, which was a benefit from it.

2006-10-29T20:50:00.000-05:00

The World Series

Will someone tell me what happened in the World Series because it seems like it when by in a flash. I was very happy to see that the Tigers had made the World Series and I was rooting for them all along to face the Mets, which didn't end up happening, but they were the team that no one gave them a chance until they got there and then they became the favorites only to lose to the St. Louis Cardinals. I don't even remember seeing a single game of the Championship this year and the only thing I even heard about it was the Kenny Rogers pine tar and scuffing baseballs incident. It seems like I can never end up following the playoffs when the Red Sox aren't in it because at that point I think to myself, "why does it matter?" because usually after the Sox lost like they did, the only two things on a Red Sox fan's mind is, there's always next year and at least we have the Patriots. Once the Red Sox lose, it becomes Patriot season, which happened to be a little too early this year but at least the Pats are quietly winning again this year with a team that everyone said had too many holes for them to make a run at the Superbowl for a 4th time in 6 years. Then there's always the Celtics who haven't looked good in way to long of a time.

2006-10-29T20:32:00.000-05:00

Red Auerbach

This past saturday one of, if not the, greatest basketball coaches and owners died. Red Auerbach spent close to half a century coaching and building the Boston Celtics franchise into one of the proudest NBA teams in history. In his tenure with the Celtics, Red won 16 Championships as well as coaching 11 Hall of Famers in the process. He was one of the msot respected figures in basktball in history. He was known for lighting a victory cigar at the end of every game the Celtics had won, which was more frequent than anyone during the times. He coached greats such as Bill Russell and drafted Larry Bird when everyone had said what a bad idea it was at the time. Everyone during the draft time would always try and see who Red was looking at because they knew that if he had an eye on a player, that player was destined for greatness. No other teams would make trades with him because they knew that Red would always get the better of the deal in the long run. He helped basketball break the color barrier by drafting the first African-American player ever as well as hiring the first African-American coach in history. He will be greatly missed in the basketball world.

2006-10-22T23:40:00.000-04:00

Why I hate the Government

Now, I've always thought that our government sucks and for any of who disagree with me, I could careless. I've never been a big fan of politics in the first place. I don't like politicians because are very few if any who actually tell the truth most of the time and most of them buy their way into whatever positions they end up getting because last I checked, you need quite a bit of money to run for something like President in this country, which doesn't make any sense to me because the wealthy only represent a small portion of the country. Either way, I've realized to expect the worst from our governent after seeing all the stupid decisions that its made. My feeling was at this point was that as long as it doesn't affect me directly then I don't really care what it does. Within the past few years its broken that rule a few times, originally with this whole war thing because I know people fighting over there and it all seems to pointless and there's no reason for it. I hate having people I know fighting over there and risking there lives for something that we should have never been involved with in the first place. Then I find out, while I know it's not nearly as serious as a situation as the war thing is, that apparantly the government is outlawing online poker sites. This just absolutely ticked me off. Why is it such a big deal, especially with everything that's going on, that they had to take the time to write a bill banning online poker playing? How do they expect college kids like me to make money to go to college? Thankfully there are still sites out there that let me still play, which means I won't have to get a job for another few months until those sites don't let U.S. users play anymore, which will be a very sad day for me.

2006-10-22T23:09:00.000-04:00

The All-American Rejects

Now, I must admit I was ashamed to go to this concert because it exemplifies everything that I hate about what "rock music" has come to now. After saying this, I went to the concert anyway because it was a Friday night and I had nothing better to do at that point anyway and I got a floor ticket for only $5. So I went going with expectations so low that I couldn't possibly be disappointed. When I got there, I realized how close I actually was to the stage and figured that it was at least the closest I have ever been at a concert. The first band to come out was Damone, who I had only heard of by name before, but never knew any of their songs but they were surprisingly better than I thought they would be. So after they were done I figured that maybe the show wasn't going to be that bad after all, and then Ima Robot came on. I've never heard of them before and after they were done I wish that I still had not heard of them. The only thing I have to say about them was that there drummer was actually pretty good but nothing else was very good. The next band that came out was Under the Influence of Giants. They came and just by the way they looked I had a bad feeling about it. Surprisingly they were also not that bad and I ended up wanting to listen to some more of their music after. When they left stage, I knew the only band left was the All-American Rejects. Now like I had said before, I really didn't care much for their music eventhough I did find a few songs catchy. They were represented all the no-talent new "rock bands" coming out now a days whose music was filled with a bunch of power chords and two note basslines and whose "solos" could be played by 5 year olds. Despite all this they did put on a good show and I came away more impressed with them than I thought they would be, but I still wouldn't pay more than $5 for a ticket.

2006-10-15T22:58:00.000-04:00

Norton Golf Team

Over my four years at Norton High School there was only one sport I ended up playing because I never ended up playing basketball due to injuries. Now, I had been golfing since I was about 8 but I missed tryouts for the team my freshman year, which was probably a good thing because I wasn't that good at that point. However, not being able to try out made me work that much harder to make sure I made the team the next year. Over the summer before my sophmore year, I golfed more than I ever had. When I arrived at tryouts at the end of the summer, I was ready to prove to everyone that I was good enough to be on the team. One of the benefits to playing for the Norton golf team was that we got to play on the TPC at Boston (eventhough it was in Norton) which is the nicest course in the area. I was the second youngest kid at tryouts, the youngest being my friend Adam who was a freshman and I knew I had to show a lot to them to have them be impressed and surprisingly I did. I played better than I ever have and they were about as amazed as I was. I ended up making making the team, but unfortunately not as a starter. The season started and I soon found out that the team wasn't looking very good. We had only won about 1 match the year before so our expectations going into the year. As the year went on however, I soon showed my value to the team and finished the year playing in the number 6 spot in the order. We only ended up winning 2 matches and my personal record wasn't very good but the experience was very valuable because I was projected to be the number 2 golfer on the team the next year and the co captain in my second year. Over the summer I knew I'd have to improve a lot to even think about competing with some of the people I was supposed to be facing. When the season began again, I knew we were in for another rough year. We had the youngest team in the league and we were facing some of the best competition in the area. Our entire team knew this and we went out and just had a good time the entire year and eventhough we only won 2 matches again it was still fun. I played well most of the year but was hindered by a couple of nagging injuries which costed me a few matches but I was excited to find out I was going to be the captain and the number one player next year. The only problem with this was that we lost 6 of our 8 starters which crippled our lineup and we had a new coach who hadn't coached any teams before this. As always it was looking like another tough season. As usual again, it didn't disappoint. I started out struggling again and the team followed suit. We had one senior, three juniors and 8 underclassmen who switched in and out. It was another interesting and fun year to say the least. We ended up winning 4 matches which combined our previous two year's win totals and despite my struggles, I made the State Championships. Unfortunately, the year didn't end that well as I struggled during states due to a partially seperated shoulder I had gotten from frisbee a couple weeks before. At least I got out of school for the day to golf. I made a lot of new friends while on the golf team and I was happy to see that they are actually doing very well this year with the addition of a bunch of talented freshman and are looking to make the playoffs.

2006-10-15T22:30:00.000-04:00

Our Band

The beginning of my senior year was around the time where I really started to get into music. I began to listen to a lot more of the classic rock bands and started appreciating how good the music they played was. I started to listen to Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and The Doors and thought about how cool it would be to be on stage and playing in front of thousands of people. Two of my friends had played guitar for a fews years at this point and had taken lessons for awhile and both of them had become pretty good. They played in our schools talent show the year before and were the best set all night. I asked them what it was like to play in front of a bunch of people and they said that the first 10 seconds were completely nerve racking, but after that it was absolutely amazing. Over the summer I had thought about buying a bass guitar because I had always thought it was a cool instrument to play. I figured that everyone I knew had learned how to play electric guitar, but no one knew bass. So for my 18th birthday my parents ended up buying me a bass and I started playing. I was horrible for awhile. I knew a whopping one song (Seven Nation Army which is the easiest song u can probably play) and struggled trying to get anything else down. I had only played one instrument before this which was keyboard which doesn't really translate well into bass. At this point after my friends found out that I had gotten a bass and started playing they wanted to start up a band with two of my friends on guitar and another singing. We didn't have a drummer and there was only one of us who was very musically inclined and that was our lead guitarist. Once they saw me play too they knew that this was going to need some work. We never really got around to playing much during the school year since everyone was busy and I wasn't really progressing on bass and by the end of the year we didn't have a song to play at the talent show but our two guitarists ending up playing a song with a few other people and rocked the house again. We tried getting together over the summer and it looked like we were finally starting to put something together after spending 12 straight hours in my friends basement. While I still wasn't very good on bass, we ended up covering a couple of songs and created a couple of our own using our singers lyrics. We never got anything going to much as far as playing in any shows because we still didn't have a drummer and we figured that we were all going to the same college so we should just wait till we get there to put everything together. So we got to college and completely forgot about the entire thing until about 2 weeks ago. One of our friends had brought his drums up here and we figured that this would be the perfect time to bring our band back together. After spending a month up here and playing bass almost every night, I had actually become pretty good. Our lead guitarist was as good as always and our rhythm guitarist had also become a lot better. Our singer was iffy still but his lyrics that he wrote were good enough to keep him in anyway. Today was the first day we played together eventhough our drummer was unable to make it and eventhough it took awhile to get everything back together like we did before, we are all happy and are looking forward to playing together some more eventhough we still don't have a name so feel free to make some suggestions.

2006-10-05T00:27:00.000-04:00

Salvador Dali's "The Persistance of Memory"

2006-10-01T23:28:00.000-04:00

The 2004 Boston Red Sox

The summer and fall of 2004 ended up being one of the best and most exciting six months or so ever, mainly because of the Red Sox. Now I have grown up a Red Sox fan. I've seen everything from the good to the ugly, if not live than through numerous replays throughout the years. I've seen all the clips of Bucky Dent beating them to the ball going through Bill Buckner's legs. It's all been hard to watch and for anything that I didn't see, my dad would fill in all the blanks. I had lived and died with them every year, including the heartbreaking loss in 2003 where they had looked so good. After every loss, there was always "Well, there's always next year" which had been said for about 86 years. Every year the Red Sox would go into spring training with the hope that it would be the first team to win a World Series since 1918. Now it was not an easy year to say the least. The Red Sox had many ups and downs but were always in the hunt for the playoffs. It was always the Red Sox and Yankees fighting for the lead in the AL East. When it came down to the end of September, it didn't look good for the Sox as far as beating the Yankees for the division lead, but luckily there was the wild card, which they ended up winning to get them into the playoffs where they faced Anaheim Angels. The Red Sox had made quick work of the Angels and won the first three games to sweep the series. After the series had ended and the Red Sox were victorious, the big challenge loomed ahead. For the second year in a row, the Red Sox had to face the Yankees in the League Championship. It had ended in heartbreak last year after Aaron "Bleepin" Boone hit a game winning homerun off of Tim Wakefield to beat the Red Sox in Game 7. Now it was time for the Red Sox to get some revenge. This, however, did not look like it was happening after the first three games of the series. The Sox were beat in everyone, especially in Game 3, where they were absolutely destroyed by the hated Yankees. It looked impossible for the Red Sox to come back from this considering no team had ever come form an 0-3 deficit to win a series in any sport. Now being the die hard Sox fan I am, I had still believed that there was a still a chance because someone would have to do it eventually. I stayed up the next night for all 4 or 5 hours of Game 4 to see the the Red Sox win by walkoff to bring the series to 3-1. The next night was the same kind of game. I stayed up until about 1 in the morning to see the Red Sox win in dramatic fashion for the 2nd night in a row and saw them bring the series to 3-2 and had to head to Yankee Stadium for the next two games. Now after the Red Sox won Game 6, all bets were off. The series was tied and it didn't matter who won the past 6 games because it all came down to this. One game to decide it all and it was one of the greatest games I ever saw. While it didn't end in dramatic fashion or anything, it was the most satisfying win I ever experienced. They had beaten the Yankees. They made the biggest comeback ever in the history of sports to beat their hated rival to go to the World Series for the first time since 1986, the year, coincidentally, before I was born. Once the World Series began, it seemed like the Red Sox couldn't lose. They were facing the St. Louis Cardinals, but after they came back like they did, there was no way they were going to lose, and they didn't. They swept the Cardinals to win the World Series. I was so happy for every Red Sox fan who had been waiting since 1918 to see the first Championship for the Red Sox. They did it, and while it didn't always look good for them, they still managed to pull it off and there were celebrations for weeks after that. There were going to be no more "Well there's always next year" for awhile.

2006-09-25T00:28:00.000-04:00

The 2nd Best Concert I've Ever Been To (behind the Strokes and Wolfmother)

This past summer I made a valiant effort to go to as many concerts as I could. While it never actually ended up working out and I only went to a total of one conert the entire three months of summer vacation, it ended up being one of the best concerts I've been to. My friends are all big 311 fans and always go to their concerts every time they come to the area and would always rave about how great the concerts were and how, basically, they were just one big party. I figured that I might as well see them when they come around for the Download Festival this past summer to see what all the hype was about. I wasn't like a huge 311 by any means. I was more of a Sublime fan, but I did like a lot of songs 311 did. So I went out and bought four tickets. It ended up being me and my friends Chase, Katie, and Julia, who had all never been to a concert before. We all couldn't wait for the concert and we were pumped when the day finally came. My sister dropped us off at the Tweeter Center because it was a lot easier than having to pay for any parking. We got to the concert at around noon to see all the opening bands that were playing during the festival. The place was packed with people, most of which were under the influence of something. The first band we ended up seeing was the Wailers, Bob Marley's old back up band. They put on a good show, but they weren't the same without him singing. The next couple of bands that came up weren't very big bands but they were all local ones. They weren't too bad, but the most entertaining part was watching all the people try to crowd surf and all of them getting a mosh pit started. After the bands were down, we went into the main stage area and we found out we were under the cover of the roof, which ended up being really helpful later. There were three bands scheduled to be out there before 311 was even supposed to be on and we had only heard of two of them: Jurassic 5 and the Dropkick Murphys. None of us were a big fan of Jurassic 5 so we went back out to get something to eat and bought a couple of shirts and stuff before the concert and by the time we got back the Dropkick Murphys were about to come out. I'm not a big fan of there music or anything but they did put on one hell of a show. After they got the crowd up and excited, it was only a matter of time before 311 came out. About 20 minutes before they were scheduled to play, it absolutely started downpoaring outside. The people out on the lawn seats were getting completely soaked and were all trying to make their way under the cover of the roof. There was thunder and lightning everywhere. It was one of the worst storms of the summer for the area. Despite all of this going on, the members of the band had all gone on stage to a huge ovation from everyone there. The storm had only gotten the people more riled up. They started playing with the storm going on outside and it was one of the coolest things to be a part of. They put on an amazing show and lived up to all the hype that my friends had made. The entire day had ended up being fun and it was experience I can't wait to have again the next time they come around.

2006-09-24T23:54:00.000-04:00

Meeting the New England Patriots

I'm writing this blog even though I am very disappointed in the team after their performance on Sunday Night Football against the Denver Broncos. This past summer I worked at Norton Country Club, which is a small golf course in our town which also has a function room where people have weddings and stuff, as a sous-chef, which, for those of you who don't know, is basically the chef who ends up cooking all the food for weddings and functions because the executive chef doesn't feel like doing anything. Anyway, because I worked here I got to golf for free, eat for free, do whatever I felt like pretty much, which really didn't matter much because I was a member at the course and lived off of one of the holes. Over the summer though I'd be golfing alot to help my friend who was taking over my spot as captain of the golf team. I'd usually be out there at least once a week plus whenever I was on break or something. One day, when I had gone in to visit my friend that I was practicing with, Adam, who also worked there, he told me how four of the Patriots players had stopped in to grab something to eat after their round, which I just laughed at because I thought there was no way some professional football players would be playing at a public golf course in Norton of all places. He continued to try and convince me that he wasn't lying but I didn't believe him and just went on with my business. The next week, we went out to play 18 holes because there is nothing better to do in Norton on a Thursday afternoon than golfing. Six holes into our round, we caught up with the group ahead of us, which we noticed was full of four huge guys who really sucked at golf. We didn't think much of it but we just got frustrated because we were stuck behind them for a few more holes until we caught up with them on the 9th tee. At this point, we couldn't believe our eyes. It ended up being Rodney Harrison, Tedy Bruschi, Rosevelt Colvin, and Eugene Wilson. After we learned this, we weren't really as upset with the idea of being stuck behind them for the past three holes because even if we were, they were three times the size of us. When we got to the tee we began talking to them and told them our names and stuff and they asked if we wanted to play with them which we really couldn't refuse. So we finished off the hole and went in to eat with them at the turn and then went back out with them to finish off the 18. I probably haven't seen golfers this bad in a few years, but could they absolutely hammer the ball. They were just amazed that me and Adam kept up with their drives and ended up destroying them by the end of the round, which was the most satisfying part of the day, but we knew that in any other sport they would have destroyed us. Throughout the round, we held off on asking for their autographs thinking that they must get that all the time, but after the round when we were back in the parking lot, Adam had asked for them and they ended up signing the hats we were wearing, which I ended up losing a couple weeks later. It all turned out well though because later that summer we saw Wilson and Harrison playing with Tom Brady and Russ Hochstein, who was absolutely huge. We never got to play with them, but we ended up eating lunch with the in the clubhouse after the round after Eugene had recognized us from playing with him before. It was one of the coolest experiences to be able to golf with some of the biggest Patriot superstars on the team and it's something me and Adam will not forget eventhough I lost the only physical proof that we actually met them other than the scorecard they gave us which Adam has.

2006-09-17T15:13:00.000-04:00

The Strokes and Wolfmother

This past Tuesday, me and two of my friends, Pete and Chase, and my sister, Steph, went to a concert in Boston at the Bank of America Pavilion to see Wolfmother and the Strokes. We had bought the tickets about a month and a half ago knowing full well that we would be leaving out of UMass. However, we did not know how hard it was actually going to be to get from Amherst out to Boston. Due to our lack of communication, everyone had thought that the other person was figuring out how we were getting up there. The day before the concert we find out that no one has any idea how we are getting out there. Because Chase and Pete were arguing with each other because one though the other was supposed to plan the whole thing, I figured that it would probably be best if I went about planning it, which is never a good idea by the way because whenever I plan things, things never go according to plan but we do always end up getting there. So the night before a looked all over the internet for any way to get to Boston. I found out that the closest train we could take left out of Springfield, but there were no buses out of Amherst too Springfield. The only Peter Pan bus leaving for Boston that would get us there in time left out of Springfield too. It seemed like we were out of luck. Thankfully I remembered that there was a taxi company around here. So we called for a taxi to pick us up here at 2:45 to catch the 4:00 train out to Boston. Now that we found a way to get to Boston, we had to figure out how we were going to get back. There were no trains or buses out of Boston at any time after the concert so our best bet was to stay in Boston overnight and catch the next bus the next morning to Amherst. It turns out Pete's dad lives just a subway ride out of Boston and he agreed to let us stay there overnight and then we could catch the 7:30 out of Boston the next morning. Now that we thought we had everything figured out we could sleep easy and just wait to have to go through it all the next day. So when 2:15 rolled around the next day and we were all out of our classes, we headed down to the visitor's center, which was where the taxi was going to pick us up. After sitting there for a half an hour, 2:50 rolls around and still no taxi. At this point, we can't afford to be any later and thankfully the taxi comes along just in time and bring us to the train station, for quite the fee I might add. So we get to the train station thinking that we are in good shape when we find out our train is 3 hours late. Now I don't know how a train can possibly be three hours late, but we were to busy trying to think how we were going to get to Boston now to ask. The lady at the desk told us that if we get there in time, there is a Peter Pan bus leaving out of the bus station in 5 minutes. After learning this, we sprinted out of the bus station, down the street a couple of blocks, bought our tickets, and got on the bus with only about a minute to spare. Now that we were on the bus, we could rest easy knowing that we would at least be in Boston with about a half an hour to get to the show. When we got to South Station in Boston, we found out that we had another problem. We didn't know exactly how to get to the Pavilion. The only thing we knew was that it was on the water. Without having a very good idea which direction this was, I started off walking down the street figuring I should at least make it look like I know where I'm going so I wouldn't have to listen to Pete complain the entire time. Luckily, my guess was right and we could eventually hear the music and see the crowds of people heading to the show. We missed the opening band because we were outside buying some shirts and getting something to eat, but we didn't miss any of the bands that we wanted to see. Sparing many of the details, the concert was absolutely amazing plus our seats were great after we snuck up right near the stage after saying that we were helping the security guy we were following who had no idea we were using him to move up. After the concert we hoped onto the subway and headed to Pete's dad's house, which was also fun after finding out we had to take 4 different lines to get there. We got off the subway and grabbed something to eat at this small diner that was open until 2 in the morning. We began to talk to the guy behind the counter and told him about how we just got back from the concert and told him how we were big music fans and all played in instrument. He was telling us how as long as we kept practicing, we could make it big in music because his reasoning was that if people like Justin Timberlake can make it big, anyone can. We then headed over to Pete's dad's house and spent the night there. After only getting about 5 hours of sleep, we made our way to the subway and eventually South Station where we caught our bus back home. Despite the fact that the show ended up costing us about $50 more than we thought, not including the money we spent on shirts and food. It was well worth it and a trip I will have to make at least two more times over the next couple of months for other concerts.

2006-09-11T19:59:00.000-04:00

Ultimate Frisbee '06

This past summer was one of most fun summers I've experienced in awhile and mainly because of the frisbee games we got going. It was only the second year that I've been playing frisbee, but there was plenty of room for improvement. I started in my junior year when a bunch of kids in my gym class, who I had only vaguely known through some of my friends, started playing it almost everyday. With the choices being either frisbee or walking the track, I quickly chose to play frisbee. For about a week, I had no idea what I was doing or what any of the rules were and my main job was to stand in the endzone and use my height to catch touchdowns, which I did pretty well I might add. After the first week I slowly began to pick up the rules and strategy of the game. The problem was that I could not throw a frisbee to save my life which gave me a large lack of confidence, which was evident whenever the frisbee ended up in my hands. My feeling after awhile was that I wouldn't get any better unless I kept throwing. After the school year ended, a lot of the regulars who played frisbee in gym decided to set up games on tuesdays and thursdays over the summer for anyone that wanted to play. I saw this as an opportunity to improve my skills. After playing with all the guys, and a couple of girls, for a few weeks, I became good friends with most of the and earned the nickname "Green" because of the shirt I always wore, and because I'm Irish, but mostly because of the shirt. That summer came to an end and all of the people I played with had to go to college and I had to finish out my senior year in high school. My goal was that by the next summer I would have practiced enough over the winter to become one of the better players there, which was a feat consdering the ability of many of the people I played with, but sure enough, by the time summer rolled around and everyone came back from the colleges, and some people form jail, but we'll keep those charges underwraps, they were all surprised at how much I improved. Even my friend who plays for the Ultimate Frisbee team at Holy Cross was impressed with my improvement, and he's a hard kid to impress. Frisbee has led me to make some of my better friends now and it gives me something I can always look forward to doing. I have great memories of playing like the time when I made a catch after sliding into a fence pole and knocking myself out with a concussion. Well I don't remember much of that for good reason but there are still the many other memories I've made over the past two years and I'm sure many more to come. Plus I finally found a sport where my tall, lanky body plays to my advantage.