Still in Junktown...

Four basic options for sleeping tonight:

1) Friend-from-college (though not Close friend-from-college) Alicia lives in town, with her parents for now. She knows of couches where I could sleep.

2) Mother's friend-from-highschool Barb, whom I've never met, lives in Grand Junction, and sent my mother an email saying that, if I ever needed a place to stay, the house was open.

3) Pay 12 bucks to sleep at the campground where I car-slept last night.

4) Find a place to sleep for free. Be afraid of cops jumping through my window with flashlights to beat my head.


Not sure which I'm going to do right now. I'll keep you updated. I'm feeling like a bit of a hermit right now...not sure I really want to interact with people, especially people I don't know. But maybe I do. Sleeping in the car was fun, but I felt weird in the morning. Took a very long time to get my car in semi-organized state. Also, I watched Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, Wedding Crashers, and Thee Big Lebowski. That was allsome...

Darn it, though, that my two stalwart west-slopers were Both gone at the same time!!! One to Mexico, one to Vegas. Shouldn't have made those assumptions of their presence...

5) The Impact/Grad shift was fun. I feel as if I'm fighting off a sickness...good thing I have my hippie meds. I was a bit spacey/tired for it, but it was definitely the easiest 4 days I've had at work so far. (FYI: "Impact" = first few days of program for incoming students. They remain in silence the whole time, don't eat a whole lot, don't get a ton of sleep, etc. Supposed to make them compliant. "Grad" = last two days of program for students who are graduating..."Eagles," (the most advanced phase for the students) have one last night with their fellow grads from other teams. The following day is 'graduation,' which involves eating breakfast with their parents/relatives, demonstrations for the parents of the things their kids do out there (making 'wiggies,' 'survival packs,' and starting fires.) It was a pretty emotional thing to see these dudes with their parents for the first time in 60, 80, 95 days. Four of the kids who were graduating were kids that I'd worked with. It was good to be there, to say goodbye. Hopefully their lives go well. Hopefully I impacted them positively.

6) At the coffee-shop-bagel-place today, I was looking at my computer intently and typing. A young girl (3, 4, 5 or something) tugged on her mother's dress, pointed to me, asked her mother "is he angry." The mother responded, "no, he's just focusing." Time to shave the uni-brow. Maybe the beard too.

7) Survival Pack = the backpack that the students make out of cordage, webbing, and a tarp.

8) Wiggie = what the students sleep in: a sleeping bag wrapped in said tarp (done with a certain flare so as to make certain that the tarp is tight and does not unfold).

9) I have 4 yahoo fantasy basketball teams. One team's in first, one in third, one in fourth, one in seventh (twelve teams in each league). The one in fourth is on its way down, though, 'cause it relies too heavily on Jermaine O'Neal and Marcus Camby, both injured. Team in seventh is on its way up: I have Kobe, and he's averaged 49 points, 7 3's, and 9 rebounds in the past two games. I'd actually given up on that team, so I didn't maximize my players as well as I could have. D'oh!

10) Just found out today that the Longhorns won the title. Go horns! It would've been fun to be in Austin for that, I would imagine. I will be in Austin tomorrow night. yippee!