What am I doing down here, you ask? Well I got a job with the campus IT Department and have for the past week been working the Help Desk phone line. So if you called for help and got a steamy, lucrid man’s voice on the other line… it was 100% most definitely my lungs breathing hotness upon your eardrum by way of my good bud Alexander Grahmcracker Belt. I don’t know why he likes being called that, either, but he always insists when I blog about him that I use his nickname that his wife uses. And no, I don’t know where that name came from, and I probably don’t want to.

Anyways it’s been pretty good so far, though it’s a bit daunting answering peoples calls like that. In terms of computers, I’m a software guy, not a hardware guy. I wouldn’t know a quad-core from a pelican, or even a Super AMOLED from a pelicula. But I can tell you the subtle differences from Adobe’s CS4 and CS5 packages and use all of them proficiently. There’s another group of people who got hired who are working on capturing, photoshopping, tutorialing, and blogging how-to’s about our new “social” education platform we’re replacing Blackboard with for next semester. And they keep asking me for help with photoshop, wordpress, or whatever else. Why couldn’t I be there? *Sigh* Maybe I’ll talk to mi boss ’bout it.

In other news: as of next Sunday I’m homeless, which is pretty weird. First, it’s super weird spending my first Summer away from home. And to add, I have nowhere to live here, either. I had a housing contract to live in Eagle Landing for Summer, but I didn’t get into the class (photography) that I wanted to, so Res Life is saying I can’t live in campus housing. See, in the agreement you have to check that you will be attending classes, otherwise you’re on your own. The only exception they’ll make would be if my boss tells them the IT Dept is “sponsoring” me to live on campus, which would involve them paying for my meal plan. It’s all just such a big hassle that my parents and I finally decided it would just be better if I got my own apartment that I could keep for the Summer and then maybe room with someone next semester. Today my dad and I were out scouring the Fredscape for apartments and we found some surprisingly good places! This leads me to my next point…

My good friend Williamson McDungheap (AKA Will) got into Mary Washington! Now I don’t know if he’s going to choose here, but that’s super cool for him. If he comes down, who knows? Maybe he’ll end up being my roommate next year. Time, patience, talking, thoughtfulness, and flatulence will only tell!

I can’t think of anything else at the moment… they didn’t clean up Eagle Landing any before they moved us in… I found peoples’ clothes in my drawers, for instance. The third episode of Neature Walk was released from vicscrappyvideos! Woohoo! IT’S A BEAR. I THINK. I’ll post more about ideas and projects coming up soon…

I’m thinking of getting a Canon Rebel T3i (600D), that would be the most amazing thing ever. Either a Rebel T2i or T3i… though the swively screen is neat, I’ve heard the T3i is a little better with video, which is what I really want from my first DSLR camera. Now I just need money I have no doubt all of our videos would be a billion times cooler if we had anything better than the DV camcorder. Not that the hardware makes things automatically cooler, it’s just hard to find inspiration worth being reviewed by people with that thing. Bleh. We’ll see. (pictured is the T2i, of course)



Happy Trails,
Sam.



PS – Here’s a picture of an alien colony I took:

The first episode of the first season of the new YouTube series “Meet the McGrimmy’s” was just put up early this morning. In fact, I put it up at 6 AM this morning after staying up all night finishing it This is the next generation, a new start for this often-failed show. This time, however, we have a REAL direction, story, and good acting. Enjoy it below, and head over to the YouTube channel to subscribe:

Happy Trails,
Sam.

Happy Trails,
Sam.

10. post-kitten stage fat cats

9. Star Trek haters

8. Katy Perry (excpet in the California Girls video)

7. Eragon the movie

6. people who destroy guitars on stage or in music videos.

5. Carbon Monoxide

4. Wesley Crusher

3. “friends” (with purposeful quotation marks)

2. you

1. bananas

Some interesting things to note about this newest iteration: Wesley Crusher has rightfully taken the place of “terrorists” from the last list. Also bananas made a comeback, as I remembered once again why they are the most vile, detestable things on earth. PS — I don’t actually hate you depending on who you are jk of course



Happy Trails and Namaste,
Sam.

10. Spy Kids 2

9. Nickelback

8. people who only solo on guitar all the time — learn something someone wants to listen to

7. death

6. suicide

5. Twilight series (including all characters)

4. Terrorists

3. Hitler

2. LOST haters

1. Angry ghosts



Happy Trails and Namaste,
Sam.

10. Rap

9. when someone sneezes and you say “bless you,” but when you sneeze, they say nothing

8. Sony (especially all PlayStation iterations)

7. cardboard cutouts of people that are too realistic

6. Fish people

5. The Zombie Apocalypse

4. Lady GaGa

3. I spend all my time crying. (Cameron wrote that one on this list about herself)

2. people who type “jajaja” for laughing (I don’t care if it’s a language thing)

1. bananas



Happy Trails and Namaste,
Sam.

Don’t worry, though! All is not lost! I have decided to bless you all with a single frame. Below, you will see a single frame of an awesome object:

If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering how this awesomely nifty object/device works. The picture below shows exactly how this process takes place and gives you all the information you will ever want about it:

Happy Trails and Namaste,
Sam.

I’ve been all over the country in the last few weeks, and boy are you guys gonna get some long-awaited info from me this week. Might as well start by talking about how much I love the fair state of New Mexico. There’s a reason it’s called “The Land of Enchantment” (and yes, that is a rhetorical statement). Because it’s so enchanting (well, looks like I answered it anyways…)! I was over there for two weeks, and did everything from disc golf to hiking to tubing to hot-tubbing it in some natural hot springs. My cousin and I were even presumed dead twice by our parents. (Note to readers: do not walk to a river in the middle of no where, leave your phone and jacket on one side, then cross over and out of sight; just in case your parents find them and suspect the worst.)

I left my jacket on that post for a few minutes, thus claiming the mountain for Mary Washington

We hiked a mountain in Colorado up to what’s called “Sharkstooth Peak”, and it was one of the most awesome, epic things I have ever done in my life. The hike up to what we will affectionately call “the tooth” was beautiful and nice. But once you finally reached the tooth, it was a thin-aired, straight-up climb over thousands of loose rocks. The views were equally stunning. For evidence, just look below! (click to enlarge)

There are the thousands of rocks I was talking about

taken up near the top of The Tooth, the air was getting thin

Climbing straight up the rock that is Sharkstooth peak

Of course, this was just one of the many awesome things we did. I haven’t even started talking about disc golf (of which I am now obsessed)! But that’s a post for another time.

Happy Trails,
Sam.