| My Senior Picture, taken Fall 1998. |
 |  | This is me in Chicago, March 2002. If you look closely, you can see the St. Patrick's Day green river through the wall behind me. | This is me sitting on an historical treasure, Hadrian's Wall, in the north of England in May 2000. |
I enjoy a lot of different kinds of music. Rock is probably my favorite. Pink Floyd, U2, and Led Zeppelin are some good bands. I can’t stand rap or most pop. Pop all sounds the same, do something different for God’s sake! Most country is pretty awful too, but some of the older stuff (Kenny Rogers, Charlie Daniels) is pretty good. Of course with my band background I love to listen to classical and jazz as well. Speaking of music, I have a bone to pick with Black Sabbath. In 1998, during their “Reunion Tour,” they were scheduled to come to Fargo. I had a ticket in the 10th row in the center of the Fargodome for their show. The friggin’ concert was canceled! I’m still mad about it.
As for television, The Simpsons certainly ranks among my top picks. I’m also a big fan of some shows that aren’t on any more. I was never all that in to News Radio when it was on NBC, but watching the reruns as often as possible has made me a big fan. (Although that has become difficult now that A&E has taken them off the air. JERKS!) I also enjoyed Family Guy. It was such stupid and exaggerated humor, it really appealed to me. Much like Andy Richter Controls the Universe appeals to me now. (“I’m going to build you a temple….. out of shrimp…… in my stomach…..”)
In the movie area, I would have to say that Braveheart has got to be my all time favorite movie. Perhaps it’s because one time I got to watch it was on a bus in England. The following day we traveled to some of the areas shown in the movie, such as Sterling. Office Space ranks up there as one of my favorite comedies. So many great one-liners from that movie. “Um, yeah.” Dumb and Dumber, Strange Brew, UHF, and Blazing Saddles all rank high in my list of comedies as well.
Well, most of my awards and accomplishments are from high school. Kinda sad, huh? I got a few awards in band, mostly for ensemble play, including, but not limited to: 4 Superior Ratings (3 ensemble and 1 solo) and one Outstanding Performance Award (Brass Choir) at the 1999 State Solo and Ensemble competition (North Dakota), and the Symphonic Band (then the top band at Fargo South) took 1st place overall for a high school band in Chicago in 1998. In JROTC, the top awards I received include the Humanitarian Award which is the 3rd highest award in all of AFJROTC. Much of our unit received it in 1997 for sandbagging efforts in the ’97 flood. In 1998 I also received the Military Order of the Purple Heart. No, I wasn’t wounded, it was a leadership award. (Although in the fall of 1998, I did dislocate my right shoulder the day before I was to be the Adjutant in the annual Change of Command Parade. I think Chief is still mad at me about that, since we were doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing anyway, playing football as a unit. By the way, I did manage to remain the Adjutant of the parade, but my salutes were slow and painful.) My Quiz Bowl team also took 3rd place in the Upper Midwest Challenge in 1999 at Cretin Durham High in St. Paul Minnesota. The Orienteering Team (of which I was not a member) also received third. They were the first trophies our unit took home in a long, long time. Everyone was happy that day.
Okay, before I start listing some of the highlights of my life, I want to ask you all not to laugh at some of this stuff. It may not sound like much to you (like my high score in bowling) but I had fun doing it. So, here we go:
Well, let’s start out with my high score in bowling. 178. I did it in January 2003. Before that, it was a 162, set in 1998 at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska (long story).
Now that that one’s out of the way, I’m going to tell you about the kick-buttest (is that a word?) band trip ever. In May of 2000, just after my freshman year at UND, the Wind Ensemble went to Europe. We hit Waterford, Killkenny and Dublin, Ireland; Edinburgh, Loch Lomond, Glasgow, and Sterling, Scotland; York, Oxford, Stratford, and London, England. The entire trip was great, except for our tour guide through England. She was, uh, something that rhymes with Witch but starts with the same letter as something a Witch flies upon, get it? Frankly, I could talk about this trip for a long time on here; instead, I may set up a pictorial tour on my site someday. I have all of the pictures scanned in to my computer and they’re actually up on Webshots, I just have to get them set up on a page on here sometime. (NOTE: if you are so inclined to see the pictures, go to My Webshots Page to view them.)
Coming in a close second to that trip was the NDSU Concert Band trip to Chicago in March of 2002. Even though we only had one free day that entire week, the fact that it was in Chicago over St. Patrick’s weekend made it really great. Saw them dye the river green, heard the Chicago Symphony, and I spent an afternoon at the Art Institute of Chicago. We also ate at Ed Debevic’s, Gino’s East Pizzeria, and Carson’s Ribs. I saw more in that one day in Chicago then I saw in the 3 days we were there in High School in 1998.
Hopefully I’ll continue to add on to this column especially, so check back sometime. Frankly if I have no more highlights in my life, well, I’m not even going to think about that.
I’ve only held a couple of jobs in my life. I’ve worked at Knight Printing every summer since 1997. They produce Premier School Agendas. If you go or went to high school in the United States, you’ve probably used one of these assignment books. The last few years we’ve tried to produce around 2 million of these books each year. It figures out to around 30,000-40,000 books a day for an average day. But working there for going on seven summers now, there is no average day. I’ve done almost everything there is to do in the PSA project. I started shipping in 1997. In 1998 I punched holes in books. Very exciting work. (You know, sarcasm is very hard to convey in writing.) From 1999-2002 I worked on the collator doing numerous duties. This year, I line stuff up to be collated. In other words, I run around the plant all day looking for the right covers to go with the right books.
I also worked at the Fargodome for three months in 2002 in the concession stands. It was interesting work, but the pay was really awful. The last night I worked was at the State 'A' Boys Basketball Tournament Championship Game. I grossed over $1000 for the Fargodome that night. I made $18 for myself. And for some reason, I was never called to work again after that night. I suppose they don’t want people that are too competent working there.
I also worked at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks for about four hours. I only made it to the orientation session. I would’ve liked to have worked there, but they hired around 250 people in my department. The first show needed 13 workers. That led me to believe the people running the place were incompetent oafs. But that wasn’t the first indication. When I first arrived, I had to wait in line 45 minutes to get a sheet of paper saying I was smart enough to bring my two forms of ID with me to the job fair. I then went directly to the ballroom and sat for two hours. The reason I sat for 2 hours is because of the stupid people that didn’t understand the whole “bring two forms of identification to prove your residency status to the government with you to the job fair.” They had to wait in line to get their IDs copied. In addition to the morons that don’t get the whole “two forms of ID” thing, the people running the Alerus Center brought out ONE copy machine to copy IDs that night. Imagine 500 of the most inbred yokels you have ever seen waiting in line to get their IDs copied. Yet another reason the night ran two hours behind. Yet another reason Grand Forks Sucks.
Yes ladies, I am single…..