New & Improved

I was so bored that I put all kinds of stickers on my laptop. I've always wanted to do something like this but I never had the time. It took forever to finish and it was really hard to make it look half-way decent. Some inspiration came from Common's new album entitled Universal Mind Control. Hip-Hop saved my life!

I also tried new things with my blog. I was tired of the tiny ass pictures I was posting in the past so I selected a new layout which stretched out the posts so I can add larger pics. It's worked so far.

Jackson (1/4 of the "Fun Yuns")

Instant Favorite

The Revenge of the Nerds is probably one of my favorite movies of all time! How can you not like the fact that the nerds get the girls and the jocks don't. Classic!

All I Want For Christmas...

Foreign Family x Flip The Script x Selector Varsity Jacket

Click to ENLARGE

http://www.digitalgravel.com/servlet/Detail?no=8761

I wear X-Large. Thanks Santa. =)

Tell It Like It Is

The sign used to say: "Yes We Can Cape County. Obama."

This is what is left of the Obama sign that I put in front of the house the other day. It was burned and the rest of the sign either dissolved from the fire or is lost. To make a long story short... The Midwest is strongly republican or seriously racist. Hmm.. A matter of fact they are BOTH!

There was some serious controversy within this household when I put that Sign up in front of the house. I put it up Monday afternoon and found out that it was immediately taken down by one of my housemates. So I went outside to realize that the sign was laying in the grass off of it's post. To save me from getting into a confrontation in the future, I took the sign up to my room to put it on the wall. As I was walking into the house with the sign, The people across the street yelled out, "Throw it away!" ...Another housemate went to my room and told me that the person that took the sign down has no right to do that. He also said that it was un-American to not allow me to express my support. So he then took the sign from me and put it up himself. MY DAWG!

Now there is a political war within the house. But I express no hatred towards the candidate I'm not supporting. I'm Pro-Obama, Not Anti-McCain. The person that took down the sign is Anti-Obama. He even bought a t-shirt that hated on Obama directly. Watching the 2nd Presidential Debate last night just made me want to support Obama even more. McCain's comments were complete low-blows and out of line. He was attacking Obama while Barack kept his composure and spoke with great confidence. The Debate made me sick to the point that I wanted to change the channel but I decided to watch the entire thing.

The worst part about all of this... I'm unable to vote this Presidential Election. I am registered in California and I cant go back home to get my absentee ballot. It is also too late to register here in Missouri so I'm shit out of luck. That doesn't mean that I will stop showing support. HOPE & CHANGE is what we need as a nation.

I also got to see some of my family when I played at Jacksonville State in Alabama. It was great to see all of you guys. It also feel great to reunite my two grandmas. =) Love you all!

Obama-Nation

I just took advantage of a great sale that went on yesterday at Digital Gravel. I got an email from DG saying that they will be having a 50% OFF the entire website for a 12 hour period for those people needing some gear for back to school. Since my check came in a few days earlier, it didn't hurt to purchase some stuff from their website. What I got was a steal... 2 tees and a hat for $35.50... can't beat that. =) I told $b about it. She knows wassup.

This Entry Is Way Overdue

Hey guys!! It's been a very long time since I last blogged. Most of you think that I'm still homesick because that was my last entry before I actually got busy. Just to let everybody know... I'm doing just fine. I'm in my second month of school and I'm lovin' it! I've made a lot of friends and I'm fitting in a-okay.

There are some ups and downs to being busy out here. I find myself forgetting about those who are important to me back at home. I'm trying really hard to become comfortable in my life here in Missouri and it leaves me little to no time to keep in touch with loved ones. But I want everyone to know that I'm going to make a conscientious effort to keep in touch with y'all. <-- (the south is getting to me. haha.)

We got our scholarship checks in last week and it's great to see a large sum of $$$ appearing out of nowhere in my bank account. Direct deposit is the best invention ever. And since I'm on a forever long mission to complete my room, I went and bought a whole bunch of stuff over the weekend to make myself more at home. My room is actually starting to look like a room. The only things I think I'm missing is another source of light, a dresser, and trim around the floor, windows and door. =) It's all coming along great. WALMART was my main contributor to my room looking good. Here are some videos that I uploaded on Vimeo that display before and after footage of my room. I apologize if that AFTER video is a little hard to see. The lighting in my room is horrible when it starts to get dark. Enjoy.




Over the weekend, We got a taste of Hurricane Ike. Nothing to serious but we had really strong winds that took out a few cars and our power was out all day Sunday. Here is what I woke up to...



Here is a little preview of my house of for the people back at home. It's a nice crib with 6 football players living in it. For some reason this house is referred to as the "football house" and rumor has it that we throw the best parties... I'm just throwing that out there. BANG!

I'm going to be dedicated to blog more often. But until next time... peace!

Shout-Outs:

-Bobo and the Balboa Girls. I hope all is well and from what I see from JPL's blog, your house looks great.

-My boy Deepy is finally 21. It's a shame that I wasn't there to share it with you like you did with mine. Good times... Miss you bro.

-Sarah & Mom. Love you guys. Straight up.

-Uncle Jack. You da man!

Homesick

These past 6 weeks have been a life changing experience for me so far. Coming all the way out to Missouri sounded like a exciting adventure that would allow me to see and understand a whole new surrounding. I must admit, this past month and a half has been nothing but a struggle. A struggle to find out who I really am as a person and to test my emotions as I leave the people I love and care about back at home. This test not only quizzes me on my willingness to adapt to a culture that is foreign but also test my physical, mental, & spiritual strength.

I have been fighting to prove to myself that I can compete at a D1 level, but so far... my efforts have left me disappointed. I tell myself that I'm here for strictly business and to show people here in Missouri and the people back at home in California that I can do things on my own and can take care of business. It is so hard to know that I have nothing but my own efforts to take me where I have to go as a man.... .... I'm so drained that I sometimes just want to call it quits. I know that the people I love and care about are only a call away, but I want to be able to hug them and embrace them because I miss them so much.... .... It's so hard to write an entry like this.... I'm breaking down emotionally and I can't even see the screen clearly due to the tears that are building up and running down my face. I'm so homesick. I.... .... can't even explain the things that are going on in my head right now. I want to say so much but I'm afraid that I won't stop crying. Sometimes I wish that I never left home. I wonder if this was the right path for me to take in life. If being out here in Missouri is one of the chapters written in my life story. I wish I could be with all of you right now...

Sarah:
You know you mean the world to me, right? You are my best friend and the best sister any brother can ask for. I miss the stupid things we used to laugh about all day long. I miss the times we spent in my room just chillin' with Kranny. I just want you to know that I'm here for you, sis... I want you to be able to tell me anything without hesitation. I want to be able to be there for you at all times... even if I'm 4,000 miles away. Even though I strive to make the Lord my number 1 person in my life, just know that there can be no better replacement then you. I love you so much, Sarah. Dammit I miss you.........

Jennifer:
It's been 6 weeks since we've been apart. I know I was acting a little shady when I first came out here but it was to help me deal with trying to get over the fact that I had to force a break-up between us. You mean so much to me and I'm so glad that we are trying to make things better. It was just so hard at first because this whole thing was forced even though we really didn't want it to end like this. I know that having a long distance relationship is one of the toughest things to do (especially at our age), but just know that we overcame most of the obstacles along the way. It tears me apart to know that I have to find someone else. But the fact of the matter is that... I don't want to find anyone else. The pact that we made for the future is here to stay and I want you to know that I honestly see me with you later on down the road. When that day will come when we get back together.. only time will tell. But I want to assure you that it will happen. I love you, I miss you, and I want to kiss you. What is Love? Love is Us.

Mom:
You have know idea how much I miss you, Ma. You are the main reason I'm even here today. You've helped me in so many situations that I couldn't have dealt with myself. You taught me to respect women and to treat others as I would like to be treated. You've raised me up to stay out of trouble and to find the right friends that would eventually help me later on in life. I want you to know that this is going to be my turning point in life. From here on out, I am going to be a changed young-man. I don't have room for excuses for why I can't get stuff done. I'm going to suck it up and take matters into my own hands. I know that you are scared/afraid of me having to manage money and to have to budget everything. But just know that I'm here to prove to you that I can do things on my own for once. I'm here for one thing and one thing only. Focus. I don't have room to make mistakes anymore. You are my role model and my Mother and I'm going to do whatever it takes to make you proud. I love you, mom.

Blueprint 3!!!

Football Update

Here is just an update on how I'm doing here in SEMO during double days. Tomorrow is going to be our first day in pads and I'm quite excited. We can actually bang and I can showcase my talent. These first few days have been long and tiring... I don't even want to think about how the next two weeks are going to be. They are probably going to be the longest 3 weeks of my life. Everything is so mapped up and scheduled. We have to be at certain places at certain times and so on. Here are some pictures I took today. Get at 'em.

These are my knee braces that I have to wear during every practice and every game. These are the real deal. Don Joy is what every Division 1 and every Pro linemen wear. These are no joke and are a bitch. They are hard to get used to but it's not all that bad once you break them in. These braces are not only high performance but also high priced. The price of these two braces are $1,800. yeah.

This is my locker with my helmet and shoulder pads on top. I'm here daily and basically live out of this thing. My boy, Robby (the equipment manager), hooked it up with all the goods. He knew that I wanted a Revolution helmet so he told people that they ran out and waited to give one to me. He's the man when it comes to washing our stanky clothes everyday and hooking it up with all the SEMO gear.

Current Livin' Situation

We just moved into the dorms for 3 weeks for Fall Football Camp (Double Days). I thought it was going to be like a prison but it's just as if these were our actual dorm rooms. It's not all that bad having a roommate but it sucks when you have to get up in the night and you don't want to wake that other person up. That is why I'm glad that I am moving into a house with my own room rather then dorming. I wouldn't have to worry about other peoples privacy.

Ju-Ju & Hammer regulating the freshmen. We told the freshmen that there was a mandatory meeting on the 11th floor when in fact we just brought them to the bathroom and shaved all of there heads. MUHAHA!


My Dorm room w/ Walt. Room 1108. Pretty chill if you ask me.

Kill Joy

I've been real lazy to anything these past few days... that's why I haven't been blogging. So, since I'm feeling real lethargic and don't feel like doing shit, I'll just post pictures and say something brief about them. Enjoy.

Exploring Cape by foot.

SEMO gear @ Steve & Barry's.

Helping my future housemates (Mike, Steve, Pat & Nick) move/renovate the house.

Kimber & I in the morning. She's super cute.

$5 Chinese buffet. Can't beat that.

Heat Storm captured in a photo.

Designated Driver for the night.

Taking Cape By Storm!

*Side-note before reading my blog: You can now click on the images to see a larger size. Before it was just 320x240 and now you can view them at 800x600. =)



It was about noon here in Cape and look out the window and what do I see?? 3 cops cars arresting some dude across the street. I swear it's a crack/whore house over there. Every time I go outside, there is always people coming in and out, people just chillin' on the porch, not to mention they start drinking beer in the wee hours of the morning. Now who do you know that has a 9-5 and is always around the house... It's got to be some at home work.. that's it.

BTW, I hate walking around with my camera and always taking pictures of random shit because the people who witness me either think I'm the poporatzi or I'm some sort of Asian tourist. But never the less, I do it anyway because it makes a great blog.

That's how we roll here on the corner of Hanover & Merriwether St!! You may notice how in this picture of the street signs it's dark and in the pictures of me on the porch it's light... It was the storm that made it so ugly, so fast.

I bet you are wondering why I'm sitting outside writing this blog entry. About 15 minutes ago, as I was watching Maid in Manhattan (yeah, that's right.. I was watching it), the screen turned completely red and said that there was a SEVERE THUNDERSTORM on it's way to Cape. 60mph winds and chances of a tornado touching down... its not exactly a smart thing to do, sitting with my laptop in my lap while flashes go off over my head and winds start to pick up, but hey.. I'd rather see the storm rather then hearing about it on the television.

This is the first time I'm actually putting my own video on here. I tried using YouTube to upload my videos but it was messing up so I decided to switch over to Vimeo. It's way more efficient and it also has a cool look to it. Expect to see more videos in the future. I apologize for the videos being so dark but what do you expect... a storm was coming! AHH! haha.

Doing My Part

Today was a very productive day for me. I woke and told myself that I'm going to get shit done. I must say.. I picked the wrong day to do a little walking around campus. The heat index on the news said that it was 110°F today. That explains why I was always drenched in sweat all day long.

I was walking and I thought that the trees would make a nice picture. So guess what I did? I took a picture of the trees! hehe. One thing that I love about the South/Mid-West is that it is so green. That is the one thing that Cali is lacking... but what do you expect when you're always having wildfires. Cali still shits on Missouri any day. =)

I was on my way to campus and I decided to take a couple pictures of the things that make the campus what it is:

A random painting right outside of the campus of a Redhawk. It's right next to an Irish pub and a pizza/pasta joint where I had lunch. yumm.

Houck Field where we play our home games. It's not a huge field but It will get the job done when we are smashin' on teams... hopefully. It doesn't help that we were placed last in our conference during media day when discussing pre-season rankings. =/

The main entrance sign before entering the campus. If you can see behind the sign, they are doing construction near the field to eventually have new dorms as well as a new locker room.

I was hyped up when I saw that the University Center had a New Era fitted of SEMO. I was shot down when I found out that they didn't have my size and that they are discontinued. =( But I'm going to try and talk to the person who orders all of the apparel and see if she can special order me a hat. That would make me happy.

I've always passed this Obama '08 building and wondered what it was all about. Being that Obama is awesome and that I'm here for change in this country, I stopped by and checked it out. I spoke with a guy by the name of, Meno. He told me that they've been there for about a month and that everyone is curious about it. Not just Democrats come in but Republicans as well (which came as a surprise to me, being that it is the mid-west and everyone is a die-hard republican). What was interesting was that Meno was also from the Bay Area and understood how I'm feeling living here in Cape. He told me that it is great for someone like me to be able to participate in promoting Obama's campaign. He said that since I'm on the football team, I would be able to reach a more social crowd of a younger age which would mean something because a football players voice is actually heard in this city. I'm excited to do my part in this election and hopefully get people to realize that change is necessary in this world.

"Nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change." -Barack Obama 2008

Meno hooked it up with a few bumper stickers and a few others. This is only the beginning of what is to come with me helping out. And you already know I had to pick up some SEMO gear from the University Center. The nice lady at the Admissions Building told me that all gear is 25% off on every Friday. So I'm going to have to report back there and pick up some more SEMO stuff, ya digg?

Patience

I finally got my package from Digital Gravel after 3 weeks of waiting. It's all good because being patient is rewarding in the end. I opened up the box as if it was Christmas already.. anticipating to see if I got what I wanted.

I look at the Pink 'White Out' fitted first as well as the Heather Grey 'Garden Variety' zip-up hoodie and it was just what the doctor ordered.

I then saw that the Black 'Wax' zip-up hoodie didn't have blue on the front. I opened it up and I find out that I have a Black 'Set' zip-up hoodie instead.

I was actually ecstatic that DG made a mistake on my order. One of my first choices was the 'Set' hoodie but it was SOLD OUT on the website. So... I'm Happy!

I got all of this The Hundreds gear 50% off so I don't really have room to complain. Big ups to DG for the great deal & upgrade.. in my opinion. =)

Hallelujah

Yesterday was quite an eventful day for me. Just when I thought that Cape Girardeau couldn't get any worse... the impossible happened. I actually had fun! Now fun out here isn't exactly the same type of fun back at home but I found out something very important. Fun is what you make of it... You have to actually get up off your ass and be creative and think of something to do. I thought that I was going to be cooped in this house all day until I got that call... and that call may have changed my whole perspective on Cape and the people in it.

I got a call from one of the football players that was recruited out of Fullerton and he invited me to play some two-hand touch football out on the stadium field with some of the guys. At first I didn't feel like getting off lazy butt but I went ahead and agreed to join. Good thing that I did because I had a ton of fun. Me, Hammer, Joe, Dustin, Taloa, Grassi, BB, Aris, Kendell & his Dad (Pops we called him) played a shirts & skins game of 5-on-5. It was awesome because not only was I the leading receiver with at least 10 catches (3 for touchdowns) but I also got some sun at the same time because my team were skins.

Kendell's Dad was clutch because he did so much for us that day. He brought a cooler full of powerade for the game, after the game he took us out to Kidd's (a liquor store nearby) and bought us all slushies, and not to mention also feeding us pizza after swimming at Cape Place apartments. Shout out to Pops.. thanks for all that you've done.

So like I mentioned before, after the football game we all decided to go swimming at a apartment complex close to campus. It was such a great feeling jumping into that pool after running routes on that football field that had to have been at least 100°F. We played 3 flies up for more then an hour and then grubbed on some pizza. It was getting dark and we weren't sure what was going down for the rest of the night.

Someone mentioned that Step Brothers came out Friday and that we had to go see it. Sure enough we all went (all 16 of us) to check this kiss ass film. I must say... it was pretty damn funny. Other then that, it was quite a fun-filled day.

Today I was invited to a church here in Cape. It was actually a beautiful church that felt very welcoming. I met a lot of people that were very friendly and I used the bible that SB gave me as a going away gift. I'm going to be using this bible pretty frequently and I want you to know that every time I look this bible, I'll be thinking of you, Sarah. I know it will make you happy that I'm putting your gift to good use. Miss you. =)

How I'm Livin'

I think it was cool that as I was about to indulge in some savory maple & brown sugar pop tarts, there was a picture on the wrapper that said, "So Many Hats. So Little Time." I found that awesome being that I'm a hat kind of guy. LOL =)

And just to give you all at home a little preview of what my current living situation is here in Cape:

My Bed and my Dresser.

Bada-Bang. Bada-Boom.