Armin in NYC!!

So I went to NYC on friday to go and see Armin van Buuren at Pacha. We left Pittsburgh around 2pm after waiting for people to get organized, etc. There were 4 guys and one girl, Con, who we picked up in Harrisburg. En route to NYC it seemed like we were destined never to get there, it snowed, it rained, it poured, and there were many miles of non-working one lane road works. We got to NYC without too much hassle, but from the Lincoln tunnel in, it was one lost hell. The tunnel was crazy with about 5 lanes of traffic going down to two. After the 20 min crawl in the tunnel, we got really lost because it was pouring and hard to see anything. At one point we were in the middle of an intersection when the light was green for the other direction (the traffic was at a standstill, not dangerous, just crazy). We got more and more lost until Con remembered that she had GPS on her phone. It was our savior. We followed the directions it gave us and we ended up at our destination in queens around 10:30, 30 min after the show had started. We quickly all went to the bathroom, got changed, and followed john's friend to the subway station. We got into downtown to find that it was raining harder, fantastic. We stood under shelter for a little bit waiting for a bus to take us near the club. We finally got there and I found that they were in no mood to move quickly, even though we were getting wetter by the minute. We got to the club around 11:50pm, hoping that Armin wasn't starting at midnight.
I got in the line and managed to huddle under a someone's umbrella while the line moved. I got to the front and showed my ID. He said it was no good, I panicked a little. He took me to someone else and they said I was fine, I just couldn't drink, duh. He told the bouncer not to give me a wrist band, but the bouncer seemed a little tipsy himself, slightly slurring that he didn't really care and decided to give me a wristband anyway.
One of the guys, Sanders (or Jason), had brought a camera, but decided to leave it behind because they might take it away and charge him to store it. Of course, they didn't care at all, so we lost out. Thanks to YouTube, though, all is not lost. I did take a few pictures with my phone, which I know sounds dumb, but I actually took some really good ones and one that is inexplicable. It just came out really well and I can't figure out how, but it's fantastic.
Anyway, we finally made it in the club and it was good. It was huge in there and plenty of people. John went to the bathroom and we lost him so we went downstairs to the dancefloor. Everyone else decided to go check their coats downstairs (the first of 4 floors) but I decided to get as close to the DJ (DJ Remy at the time) and stay there until Armin came out. I didn't want to lose my spot or miss Armin, so I just put my coat on the DJ booth, and there it stayed for the entire evening, safe and sound in plain view.
Remy played until about 1:30am and then, finally, Armin came out. Now, it was crowded before, but as soon as people saw him coming out it went crazy. I have never been in contact with that many people at the same time. I had to time my jumping up and down with the people around me because that was the only option I had. It was amazing, the #1 DJ in the world, playing in the best Superclub in the country, with the best sound system (115 Db noise ratio). I went crazy and just kept going. We lost each other quite a few times, but managed to find each other through a random slew of "where r u?" text messages and pure chance.
The population was very diverse. It ranged from middle aged professionals to crazy E fiends dancing like their life depended on it (I was actually asked twice if I wanted to buy some, which I politely declined). Armin loved every minute of it and had a huge smile on his face the entire time. He played a lot of stuff I didn't recognize and a few that I did, but it was great! Eventually the rest of the group tired out, but I refused to sit down and rest (despite my lower back being really sore). By 6am the crowd was mostly gone, although the dancefloor was still busy. Armin finally finished, but the crowd managed to coax him into playing a few more songs. You could tell that he didn't want to stop, but it was getting early. He finally stopped at 6:50am after many cheers and attempts to keep it going. When we went outside (through one of the seemingly infinite fire exit doors) it was light.
We walked the 7-8 blocks to the subway station, which I regretted when I found out how sore my feet were. We were going to swipe our cards when a nice new yorker (they do exist!) pointed out that we needed to be on the other side. We went to the other side and John tried to find a bathroom so I tried to figure out which stop we were going to. In about 30 seconds I heard my name and saw the rest of the group in the subway car waiting for me. I tried to swipe my card and get on before the doors closed, but my card didn't work so I hopped the gate without anyone seeing and got to the car, but the doors were closed. I tried to pull them open, but that wasn't happening. Then I watched the train leave like a kindergarten kid watches his parents leave him on his first day of school. I just sat and waited for the next train and found that they had gotten off at the next stop and waited for me. We got back and after getting breakfast (my first meal in 15hrs) and walking through queens in the freezing cold we left NYC. We got lost a few times before we actually made it out and finally got home around 5pm. Then Teddy from downstairs had his 21st birthday party last night and we had a keg of rolling rock, a welcome change.
I'm coming home on monday the 19th, I changed it last night, luckily it didn't cost anything. I also finally applied for the Southwest Credit card. It has an annual fee, but it's worth the points I'm going to earn w/ it, hopefully going to Hawaii for spring break. I'm thinking that I want to go back to Pacha w/ Carolyn on the 22nd to see Oakenfold, hopefully she'll be up for it.
On a more somber note, I got rejected for the internship with Aldi, depressing, but from what I've heard, not as depressing as the internship itself. Oh well, you can see how much I care by the amount of space I've devoted to talking about it, haha.
I actually have work to do today, which is probably why I decided to sit and write this whole thing out to kill time.

Wow, it's been awhile

So my last post was on Valentine's day, I guess it's about time to put up another entry. I had a really rough summer, but I learned a lot and am really glad that I did it. Now to the present and future.
I just found out that I am going to be accepted into a program to volunteer for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing!!! Crazy, I know. I got early confirmation from the director because I found a "cheap" ticket at $1400 and it is going to expire soon. The price of the whole thing is going to be about $4000, which is a lot, but this is the experience of a lifetime and I know it's going to be crazy! I really hope I get to watch men's water polo and swimming. Also excited to travel. I'll get to do my own thing for about 4-5 days out of the 14 day period. I just downloaded the chinese learning programs and I'm glad I have time because this doesn't look easy. I can barely pronounce the sounds, once again, it's gonna be really fun!!
The director actually let me know early also because of my expansive knowledge skills, haha. So hopefully when I get there I will speak German, a little Dutch, a little Afrikaans, some Bulgarian, and basic Chinese all in addition to English.
I have my first big meeting for the SHRM thing today, hopefully people will show up and we can the the show on the road. I'm going to try and get an agenda together of what we need to do before I leave in two hours.
I'm going back to Aldi tonight even though I went yesterday because I was in a big rush yesterday and Mark (from SIB) said he could take me. Now I'm going to take a really good look at everything and might buy that camera if they have it (the computer is tempting as well). I have the dinner for Aldi tomorrow night and then the interview on Friday morning. Not too nervous, especially seeing that I've already had a mock interview with the lady from Aldi.
Don't know how much of polo practice I'm going to be able to make, but I really want to go and see if they're up to anything tonight (considering it's halloween). I want to go out tonight and rock my Napoleon outfit once again. I've been wearing the Vote for Pedro T Shirt today, and it seems like that's all people need to get the idea.
I love how things are just working at this point and falling into place. I just hope my ticket is available tomorrow and stays that way.
I am definitely living life to the fullest considering the Michigan game, Cancun, the Penn State game, Skydiving, buying Carolyn a signed Led Zeppelin III album, and organizing to go to China have all happened in the past month and a half.
I am also throwing around the idea of traveling somewhere (maybe S.E. Asia) with dad. Mom said he's as crazy as me and I guess I can't really go alone. It would definitely be a good time and we'd come up with some crazy ideas and stories. I just have to get dad into shape. I don't know when it would happen, but maybe after I graduate (which is Dec 13th, 2008!).
So all is well and I hope to be busy and excited enough to keep this thing going for quite a while!

Ugh

Well, I'm finally hitting that wall i've been running at for a while. I just don't feel like doing anything right now. The snowday yesterday didn't help much either. I just found out that the guy i'm supposed to retain this suite with doesn't have guaranteed housing, so after panicking about trying to find people so that I can stay here, it was never an issue because I can't stay here anyway. It's such a stupid system. Now I have to go and look for an apartment, that should be fun. I also have to do these spreadsheets for Qlique, which aren't bad, it's just a little tedious. Sklyer still hasn't called me back about the internship. I need to know things so that I can book my flights home, etc. It's weird how quickly things can change. I know that everything will turn out well soon, it's just that right now i don't feel like dealing with all of it right now.
Growing up sucks

Back from work

As promised, i'm writing after i got back from work. Worked kind of sucked today because we only had 2 people instead of the normal 4. So justin and i had to work twice as much.
I have to turn in my 5 pg paper today, hopefully i did a good enough job. I sent it to be reviewed, but she only reviews the outlines, so she didn't have time to look over my paper. I can't send her an outline because i didn't make one. I just wrote the paper. Oh well, we'll have to see what happens. I'm not feeling as bad about all this work that i'm going to have to be doing, even though i have a ton of stuff to do when i get back from class today at 6pm. I have to revise my german paper, do my german hw, i have a hw, extra crdit, and test in financial accounting all tomorrow, and a an exam in oragnizational behavior (one of 3, the only thing our grade is based on). So tomorrow should be a barrel of monkeys. thursday i have a test in ethics and probably some reading to do. writing down all the stuff i have to do is good because i can see how much i have to get done. I didn't really realize how much i have to do for tom until i wrote it all out. I also have to try and find more people for the Qlique thing before friday. I have two people confirmed (i think) and i need a few more. I sent out facebook messages, but they hardly ever work, even if the person is interested, it sucks. It's amazing that no matter what i do, it seems like they're doing a favor for me, even if they get $60 for me asking them to do it. People that i recruited already made $30 so far, and are going to make another $50 on friday, you do the math. I know i'm going to get something good out of this. It's nice to be able to get paid in two different ways at the same time (lifeguarding and qlique). I would like to get a little more for the recruiting, but i'd rather leave it to later to see how well i actually did. I hate asking because i feel so greedy, but it is warranted to ask for a little more, i guess. We'll have to see how it turns out. If i can manage all this stuff that i have lined up for the near future, i should be in really good shape in a few different areas. Let's hope i can handle being spread across all these different tasks.

Here it comes

So I haven't been posting at all lately because i haven't really had anything to write about. Now that i'm working in 20 and need to leave soon, i have the sudden urge to write. I got my internship w/ college works painting for the summer, so that's going to be fun (i hope). Right now i'm still helping Qlique by recruiting more specific people. I get $5 a person, and then the people i recruit get $10 initially, and then $50 for a second session. It's kinda crappy that I get paid $5 to pretty much give someone $60, but I get more out of it surprisingly. They are only part of the process for a week or two, where as i'm on a long term basis. So i would rather get paid a little and eventually be the manager of the entire campus than get paid more for a short period of time. unfortunately, the internship and possibly being the manager of the campus might happen at the same time, so it's going to be fun trying to balance those two, water polo, and 6 classes. I know that school is the most important, so i'll have to keep that in mind. I'll write some more when i get back from work, gotta go!