Year in Review-3/19/02-3/18/02-Lollipop if you read it all.

Apparently, over the year running from 3/19/01 to 3/18/02, I wrote 70 single spaced, 12 point font pages. Go me.

3/19/01-I wanted to add that counter to the bottom, and perhaps my e-mail address. If you really care, the e-mail is easy to find and you could always just count the number of times you've been here and then mail that to me. Maybe I'll acknowledge your existence with some sort of tribute to your visit. Then again, probably not. I sort of assumed that I'd have random thoughts to write about when I made this page. Turns out I really don't. Not at the moment at least, and the theme of the day is "ramble about nothing". I have a feeling that will be the theme of a lot of days. Anyway, I'll put myself out of my misery.

E1st

3/20/01-11:15 PM-I had all kinds of interesting stuff to say yesterday, but I was resistant to writing twice in one day on the first day, so i didn't. And now I have nothing. Well now, I hate to leave with absolutely nothing. What shall I do to appease the masses, all 1 of them that comes on an average day? Zimbal is at the web page now as we speak. That's my one for the day, and since i'm typing now there's no real point to make her happy about reading this, so I'll call it a night. I swear i can do better than this though. Some day my true literary potential will present itself across this forum. Mark my words.

E1st

3/21/01-11:14 PM-I beat yesterday's time by a full minute. Actually, i don't remember which clock i based it off of last time, so it might actually be the exact same time. But I digress. Can you think of anything worse than walking in on Coach Gulden in the bathroom? Well i can't, yet josh did it today. That must have sucked. He's a barrel of laughs that kid. Or not really. Anyway, he's a nice guy. Speaking of which, nope, that's all. The time has come, the song is over, thought i'd something more to say.

E1st

3/22/01-8:45 PM-You know what i think about sometimes? What if we didn't live on this planet? If our culture had evolved elsewhere. A solid majority of the stellar systems in the galaxy are made up or two or more stars. That means one planet(assuming planets can arise in such systems) would have two suns. The closest stars to us, Alpha and Beta Centauri are a double(actually triple but the third one is very dim) star system. If you put one star where the sun is, then other would be out near where Uranus is. If the earth was in the same place, think about how our concept of day or year would have evolved there. There would be times when the main sun would be up all day, and then once it set, the other sun would be up all night. It wouldn't be as bright, but it would be like we had day and half day. There would be other times when both suns would be glaring down at the earth at the same time, drastically increasing the amount of heat recieved. It would be possible to have both a sun rise and a sun set at the same time. The concept of "year" might include the main year, the time it takes to go around the one sun, and a secondary year, the time it takes for the other sun to go around the one sun.

There's more too. If we lived on the outside of a globular cluster, a densely packed cluster of up to a million stars, our night time would be the most awe inspiring and radiant sight i can imagine. There would probably be a few stars almost as bright as the moon(only pinpoints as opposed to an object with diameter). Then there would be a dozen stars brighter than any stars that we can see from here. That might be followed by thousands of stars which combine to dwarf the brightness of the Milky Way. But then, some times of year, when the sun is between the earth and the rest of the cluster the night sky will be almost blank. All the stars will be on the side that the sun is on, and since those clusters are far from the rest of the galaxy that part of the sky would be almost blank.

I think about that some times. Think about how much different our culture would be.

E1st

3/22/01-10:16 PM-This bonus coverage is because my mind is working a little better than normal. So this is another thing that i've thought about before. I had a dream once. I was standing on Pluto i guess it was. Just some planet far away from the sun. And i had just gotten dropped off there, I couldn't ever leave. And i looked up at the sky, and saw the sun. But since the sun was so far away it was barely brighter than the moon. It was silent, and i could still see the stars. All i could think was, "This is daytime." It was what we would consider to be night. But the sun was up, and it never got any brighter than this. I thought of how small i was. Now when i think i understand things, all i have to do is think about what my life would be like without something like a sun. It was dark and cold and their was no future other than more dark and more cold. There was nothing that we consider to be normal. Empty was normal.

E1st

3/24//01-9:33 PM-It wouldn't let me on last night. I know the password was right, but it was like, "incorrect login or password" about a dozen times. So i gave up. Turns out i was going to write something about popcorn anyway. Not that i have anything any better tonight. I bought oreo's, in a strange role reversal with Josh. First he gives me social anxiety disorder, and now he's trying to pass his fun little eating disorder on to me too. His insanity is contagious, i'm just banking on it being reversible after this last however many weeks is over.

So i started getting music again today out of nowhere. I haven't resorted to getting millions of classical music "pieces"(i don't feel right calling them songs) yet. As of now i'm just going through the artists i already have and getting more in each of them. My "everything" list, which doesn't include any classical music, is now over 500 songs. I think i probably have near a thousand once you count absolutely everything. "Everything" is a misnomer for that list. Not that anybody cares, since very few people my age like this movie. 50 year old guys probably think i'm just the coolest cat on the block or something. That's enough.

E1st

3/25/01-9:09 PM-I need to get a picture for this page. But i've gotten out of the scanning phase, so i didn't even bring my scanner to school. Plus i have no pictures, because i don't take pictures of anything. Pictures don't do anything justice.

So now i'm getting music. Audio Galaxy decided to screw me at the moment. I'm getting the present song at 51 bytes per second. And i only have 30 songs left in my queue. I've been epic the last two days with music. Another few hours, and I'll have upgraded my list completely.

E1st

3/26/01-10:49 PM-It was ridiculously annoying to get on this page tonight. Does that sentence make sense? Not entirely, but you(...me, the only person who'll ever see this) understand. You know what i was just thinking? Guess.

Anyway, i was thinking if anybody wanted to stalk me, they could get a working knowledge of at least my most assinine mental processes by reading this webpage. Wouldn't that be cool. I need a stalker. But then again, why would anyone ever stalk me? Tis a pity really. All i'm saying is that if i was stalking somebody, this page would be a gold mine. I suppose this merely captures the most useless of my thought processes though. In the end, any stalker would just get the garbage of my mind; the stuff that i don't deem important enough to communicate through some real medium. Not that i communicate through real mediums but if i did, i wouldn't talk about this, that's for damn sure. Anyway, Robin's probably as close to a stalker as i have: hi robin, i know you're reading this. That'll have to do for now.

If any stalkers are lurking in the cover of cyberspace, i encourage you to come forward and make a threat on my life/profess your love for me. It would brighten my day either way. But alas, i only get about 1 visitor a day, and any self respecting stalker would check in at least 3 or 4 times daily. Feel free to stalk me at any time.

E1st

3/27/01-11:22 PM-Well, all i'm really thinking about now is how outgunned i was at FCA tonight. I had the task of leading the group through a difficult study, and i was getting holes punched in our viewpoint from all sides. Tis a pity, and it's preventing me from making up anything good to say on here.

E1st

3/28/01-11:03 PM-Some people find it odd that i leave at 9:20 in the morning and don't get back to the mod until 11 some nights. To be honest, it's not that i have wall to wall work all the time, i'm more lazy than anything. You see, i'm all about efficiency. Today for instance, i could have come home for an hour at a time at various points of the day and sat around and done nothing, but that would have required a 20 minute round trip walk. I can do nothing just as well someplace near my classes. It's a rare day when i walk back and forth to my mod more than once.

This is a reoccurring theme in my life. Back home i live a mere 3/4 of a mile away from my school. Yet i would sit at the school for an hour after practice waiting for a ride just because i didn't want to walk home. People point out the obvious contradiction, "But Eric, you run like a million[sic] miles a day, why don't you just run home??" Well, because i don't want to. That's why. It's possible to be perfectly motivated in a lot of areas and still be lazy when it comes to walking home. I think i had a big point that i was planning on making, but i've been too distracted in the last 2 minutes to remember what it was. So i'm just going to end now and leave that stuff dangling with no grand conclusion to culminate my work.

E1st

3/29/01-11:25 PM-I still have a training log to write in after this, not to mention my reading and other journal which i apparently have now, so this will have to be brief. I don't know what to write really. I had a good day in the end. I went to IV(intervarsity) tonight and it was pretty decent. It's another Christian group on campus. In some ways they make our group look like the minor leagues of Christianity, but it's basically a church service. Which is good and all, but for Fellowship and personal contact, we have them beat. I think that for those interested, you get a good mixture or the worship and the fellowship if you do the both.

E1st

3/30/01-10:10 PM-I have this meet tomorrow. The first one in a while. It's at Penn St, and i'm in the 1500. I want to start this season off right, i left off pretty well, and if we're going to grow as a team, the guys need to have faith in their anchor. So tomorrow i can show them that i can run a fast mile too, and when the DMR or 4xmile comes around, they'll know that i can do it when the time comes. You'd be amazed how much faster people run when they have faith in their anchor. If you think you have a chance in the end, you squeeze so much more out of yourself. It will be so much different next year, but this year still must be dealt with and i'm not about to pack it in waiting for the greener pastures to come. I'm making my own greener pastures this year. With help of course. Anyway.

E1st

3/31/01-10:27 PM-House party weekend, and i've choosen to stay home. On a side note, is that how you spell choosen? It looks strange with one o and it looks strange with two o's also. Boggles the mind. Anyway, There's just something about house party i don't like. It just may be the complete disregard for everything that is just and decent in the world for the sake of having a few hours of complete wanton perversion. But then again, i'm not really of this world, which becomes more apparent every day. That's OK because i'm not supposed to be, so good for me. Might as well get ONE thing in my life right, even if i only get it right half the time. It's better than nothing.

The race went ok, but i don't think it's good to call it a race. I never really seemed to care as i was running. It was more of an up-tempo run than anything, and i'm pleased with my time if it was really a workout. My lungs thought otherwise, but as the weather gets warmer they'll fall in line. Next week is the time to shine, i just hope we stay in that race long enough for me to take a crack at some of those big time anchors. It's near time for me to join the big time as far as running goes.

But then again, none of that matters.

E1st

4/1/01-12:11 AM-Look at me, i'm wake at 12:12 AM. Isn't that special. I don't think i'm going to write much today, because nothing much happened today.

E1st

4/3/01-10:59 PM-I guess i forgot last night, and i'm tired and somewhat sickly today. I have to shake this off before this weekend, and hopefully by tomorrow to give me a chance to get everything squared away by the weekend. So I'm going to go to bed early and not write much in here. Tomorrow i can complain about how much i had to do during the day(well, until 10 at night). For now, i'm going to bed.

E1st

4/4/01-10:57 PM-I wonder why they named the Bucknell Radio Telescope "BURT". Sure it's one of those anachronyms, but Burt sounds like a nice friendly name. Is Burt friendly? No he crashes the damn computer every 15 seconds. If that's my friend, i don't need enemies. Well Burt, I don't like you and you don't like me, but i need you to do this project for me, and if you don't work with my, I forsee a bent antenna in your future.

That being said, I'll be gone for a few days at Colonial Relays in William and Mary. While i'm sure Burt will take this opportunity to urinate on my stuff(i'm on to you Burt), the rest of you might miss reading this. Now, i notice that all maybe 20 people have been here since i instituted the journal page, and Kim Zimbal is most of them(a stalker perhaps???), so i doubt too many people will care. But I won't be here regardless. They are running us in more races at this meet than we'll be doing in any other meet, so it should be interesting. I personally have an open 1500, anchor on a 4x800 and somewhere on a 4x1500. Should be fun...

E1st

4/8/01-10:47 PM-I just spent the last 3 hours doing crap, mostly useful crap, on the computer. I don't really feel like writing here, but oddly enough i was actually looking forward to doing so when i was completing the 20th page of my race describtions log. I better read all of that someday. In theory, i'll be able to live in the past wonderfully. I make such effort to document every step on take on the track for posterity's sake, but i never read it. I reference times every so often to tell my brother or father for some reason or another, but i never go through and read about the races. Maybe i will one day. It's just that i live in the past less than most people. I don't really live in the present either. I guess i only live for the future. And i don't really actively work on making my future any different than the present. There's an infinite recursion hidden in that philosophy.

I'm boring myself by writing about that. Apparently BJ's choice words have found their mark. Which i suppose is good since that was afterall the goal of, but i'm certainly glad i didn't know of that fact on that 8 hour van ride yesterday. I would have likely been more depressed than i already was, and it would have been nice and awkward too. Whatever dude, i'll just let my fate do whatever it's going to do. In this area at least.

In other areas, i'm all about fixing this whole running thing. Mid-distance sucked this weekend, and i certainly didnt provide anything spectacular to motivate people. I'm not even making any sense, this entry sucks.

E1st

4/9/01-9:41 PM-Word up web page. I'm done with all my work for the night at a decent hour, and can now start doing nothing. But at least it's nothing that never has to be completed nor is it held to some sort of nothing guideline. I guide my nothingness to be whatever i want it to be. Unfortunately, nothing for tonight includes doing laundry. Some jackass has 5 loads in the dryer at once. That's like 10 loads worth of washing machine loads. I personally removed 3 of them from the washers myself. They were probably just sitting in there for hours.

I've found that as inconvenient as having one of those lung shattering coughs is, it is very effective at toning one's abdominal muscles. Its been a few days since i've done crunches(because of the meet), but as a result of my african whooping cough, i don't think i've missed a beat. The way i see it, as long as i'm not coughing hard enough to dislocate my jaw(you'll have to trust me that that is not fun), a cough is really a 24 hour involuntary ab workout. Who would ever think to do crunches at 3 in the morning? No one has a level of dedication that can match the involuntary spasmic contractions of my diaphram. I bet schwabe doesn't do a 5 minute set of sit ups in the middle of class. Though i suppose they probably have a class devoted completely to doing crunches at Army. They're useless like that after all. If only my lungs worked, this situation would be ideal. It's kind of like the theory that i made up last year that the bass vibrations eminating from someone's bigass stereo system at 1 AM were giving me something similair to an ultrasound session. They weren't keeping me awake, oh no, they were slowly working out the kinks in my muscles. Anyway, drier time.

E1st

4/10/01-10:56 PM-I don't really have anything concrete to write about. Had another conflict type thing in the workout today, but it was my fault this time. I said something in the heat of the moment that i shouldn't have, but i meant it and i guess it had to be said sometime. At least i was able to establish that just because i disagree with people on running doesn't mean that i dislike them as a person. That was a point i meant to get across, and i think that was clear enough.

I just don't have too much to say, so that's it.

E1st

4/12/01-10:39 PM-You have got to be kidding me. I forgot to save yesterday's entry. It was good too. Man, that sucks. It was pretty long, and had all kinds of useful stuff. And of course, i forgot all of it, so i can't reuse it. Oh well. You ever do that? Put in time doing something, and it's going good and then all the sudden you lose it and you just really don't have the will to bring it back? It really pisses you off. And you don't have to be referring to papers or webpages either. All of life is that way.

That's my deep thought for the day.

E1st

4/13/01-9:51 PM-What to say what to say. Easter is coming up, and i'll see my family again. That should be good. I feel bad for the people that won't be with their families for easter. I wish that i could bring them all with me to whatever restaurant we'll be going to. But that is implausible unfortunately. Maybe if i find people that would like to do that, i could get us to just go to someplace really cheap. Heck, we could get food together here and then cook it all. I doubt my mom would like to cook during her time here, but i could and i bet she'd help me if i was doing it. I'm going to keep my eyes open for that. Anyone that would be interested in going to dinner with a family, even if it's my family, let me know and i'll make it happen. You have to trust my plans, they're nice like that. It'll work.

E1st

4/14/01-11:08 PM-I'm getting frustrated. My running isn't going quite as well as it should be. All i have to do is run fast and maybe, just maybe that could be the step that pulls my entire miler group out of the mires of mediocrity. Oh well. What can i do about it now? I'm tired.

E1st

4/15/01-7:52 PM-It's Easter, and that's a good thing. My family came up, and since that instance i've been gorging myself with food. And we're not talking about saltines here, i'm eating straight crap. I can't be around sweet food, i will eat it non-stop until it's gone. It becomes a test of wills after a while. After a few hours of eating it, it no longer tastes good, but i must finish the damn stuff so that i don't have any to eat in the future. I have a lot of crap to eat though before i accomplish this, so i will likely be the kid walking around like his stomach hurts constantly for the next few days.

To top that off, we went to this restaurant in Danville. It was a good restaurant, a classy sort of place. The sort of place that my brother and i can transform into something less than classy. But we behaved, since neither of us vocalized the fact that the meal was an eating contest. It's always an unoffical eating contest, and i always win of course. He's small beans compared to my superior food consuming talents. So i end up eating my meal and various portions of everyone else's. This does not include the French Onion soup(which was exquisite if i do say so myself), or crab dip(which was also quite good). Then you need to get dessert, because what would a good dinner be without dessert. So i end up eating half of my mom's and my own.

It'll probably go straight to my hips.

E1st

4/16/01-10:35 PM-All of the sudden, it's pretty windy out. It's so windy, in fact, that i had to turn by fan on to exhaust high, because when it was on exhaust low the wind was strong enough to actually reverse the way that the blade was turning. That is pretty impressive for wind to do if you ask me.

As expected, in the course of one day, i've gained a solid 4 pounds. This is post run weight my friends. Easter will do that to you. I only have a few days worth of food left, and when i run out, i'm going on a diet. Or more realistically, i'll say that i'm going to go on a diet and then not do anything at all. It's amazing what can transpire while a single sentence lies half completed on a webpage. It's a half an hour later now and my theories on certain people have been confirmed while i'm also powerless to help Matias with his life questions. Anyway, time to try at least to remedy things.

E1st

4/17/01-11:00 PM-FCA went well tonight, if i do say so myself. My group was awesome, people were answering everything right and saying things better than i ever could. Good for everybody. It was an Easter study, not much bad can come from it.

On and unrelated topic, i really like pectin. These particular jelly beans have pectin in them, they're even call "pectin jelly beans" and they're mad nice. If only the inside of my mouth wasn't decimated by 3 straight days of candy consumption, this moment would be awesome. What else, what else? Go to the FCA website sometime soon, Sonic will be putting new pictures on it. <a href="http://www.orgs.bucknell.edu/fca/"> Here it is.</a> Since i'm all about putting in links now, here's another good one: <a href="http://www.space.com/"> SPACE.</a> There are two links for you, assuming they work.

E1st

4/18/01-12:19 AM-It's really the 19th, but i keep it here. Because it's my web page. I just spent three hours, from 8 to 11 trying to figure out what was wrong with our data. We changed two things. The first one allowed us to read data after line 100. The second one made the speed of light negative to correct for a sign problem. Three hours, and the speed of light is negative. That's it.

E1st

4/19/01-11:17 PM-This is a good song that i have on now. Eric Burden does it. He did this particular one with "War" but was also in "the animals". Based on those titles, you'd think it was some sort of hard core band. However, it's really not at all. Check out "Spill the Wine" on audio galaxy, you too can listen to this song.

I'm almost done with my candy, so perhaps i can go on that crash diet that i plan on going on. You know, the one that i'll talk about and then do nothing about. Bottom line, i'll be testing the waters 4 lbs over weight until i burn it off in the 80 mile weeks this summer. Ah son. i'm actually looking forward to it now. To be honest, i'm not terribly excited about the rest of this season. It's way to controversial to bring up, but it would be better for the team if we didn't even go to Penn Relays. I think that not going would leave a stronger impression than going and coming in 8th place in the last heat. All i can do now is set up the future.

E1st

4/21/01-12:44 AM-Again, it's the 22nd. Maybe i should change the way i record dates. Like by actually recording the day that it is as opposed to the day that it was. However, i'm not about to change it now. I'm really really tired. Really Really. So goodnight

E1st

4/22/01-10:42 PM-On our trip down route 15 to mount and back, i came to the realization that the appearance of a house has nothing to do with anything but the people that live in it. The property values on rt 15 must be awful, and you can tell by some of the houses. But you could also see that there were people there that cared so much about owning a home that they threw their hearts and souls into it until the houses, though quaint were absolutely radiant. These people decided that regardless of their comparative poverty, their children would be growing up in a wonderful home that reflected the health of the people living inside. I really respect those people.

Ron and Jess are getting a house. They sent me a picture, and i'd put it up here but motivation is waning, waning, waning. Growing, Growing, ok, i'll do it. Hold on.<a href="hesshouse.jpg"> Ron and Jess Hess' house.</a> Let's see if that works.

E1st

4/23/01-11:37 PM-After i did all i could with my project tonight, i spent a good portion of my evening watching a butterfly walk around with matias. The butterfly wasn't walking with matias, matias and i were watching it. It's was a big beautiful butterfly, and we think it just came out of its cocoon.

When i was in third grade, my butterfly was the first one to come out of its cocoon. I was very pleased with his victory. Matias had a similiar experience. He let his butterfly go, and right before his eyes some clever bird who noticed little kids with butterflies walking around swooped down and ate matias'. He cried.

E1st

4/24/01-11:19 PM-Josh is trying to drive me crazy then he says some nice thing about my faith growing of late and now it's just hard to tone him out. He means well, he just makes no sense whatsoever.

Much like me in my study tonight! I felt like i was awful, and it went very long. I hope that i can be better next time. I know that i'll have more tools by when i get back next year.

E1st

4/25/01-11:24 PM-I'm tired, and i have to wake up early, yet i'm procrastinating about going to bed. I decided that i'm wearing my new shirt tomorrow, whether or not it looks stupid. New shirts need to be worn, or else they're useless. I'm trying to think about when i might possibly eat tomorrow. There's a decent chance that i won't be eating, or maybe i'll just be grabbing meals at odd times. I still have this project poster to work on, not to mention my other project(thank God it's not due friday, because i'd be so screwed right now). I'm still pretty screwed, but at least i'm in control of the extent that the screwing is occurring now.

I'm trying this new thing. I don't write everything down, yet people are telling me about 5 times more stuff than they used to be. As a result, i have much more responsibility, and yet am relying completely on my memory. I know that there are some pretty nasty repercussions if i forget some of this stuff, so that's my motivation to remember it. I'm hoping that this "force my memory to work better through fear of failure" strategy makes my mind more powerful. It's more fun when the voices in your head are more interactive, and you need a powerful processor going on in there to get multitask enough people to replace reality.

I'll stop now, don't listen to me.

E1st

4/29/01-12:14 AM-I had an interesting day. Actually, it's been an interesting bunch of days, but if i talk about penn, i'll get in a bad mood and the rest of the entry will be all pissed off sounding. So i'll skip that part.

I was still latently angry this morning, but i went to church and they did a big service on spirituals. They weren't sung as they were supposed to be, but for white people it wasn't bad. I'm going to find a black church in Pittsburgh this summer. For some reason i want to be the minority. Anyway, moving onward.

I ran for about 2 miles, because my knee felt terrible, but it has since loosened up a little bit, and it should be good to go for leagues. The FCA picnic went very well, we probably had 60 people there, and that's about as good as i could have ever hoped for.

Matias tried to soil the day by committing felony theft, but i'm still in a decent mood despite the ominous cloud of work that looms overhead. The whooping cough is making me less than happy also, but oh well.

E1st

4/30/01-10:09 PM-Since my old friend Jenny Sue came to my page out of the blue and was concerned, i can assure you that my knee is fine. If anybody else ever wants to get mentioned in this thing, just make some comment to me about it, and i'll put you in. I'm all about people responding to me about stuff.

So coach talked to us today, and used me to proove a point. It was very flattering what he said, but basically it can be summarized by, "People like Eric who don't look at all like runners can still run well." I don't look like a runner?!?! This is a depressing revelation to me. I thought that i at least looked like a runner. And i know my form is sort of ugly, and not really fluid, but it's bad enough to be used as an example of someone overcoming their shortcomings to do something decent? I had no idea that my form was THAT bad. I'm almost considering trying yet again to fix it.

I was hurt a lot my freshmen and sophomore years in high school, and after i took off a couple months at the end of my freshmen year, i started running again and had just beautifully fluid form. But then about two weeks later i got a stress fracture in my foot, and a month after that when i started running again, that form was lost, and i now picked up this "don't pick up your feet" form that i have now. Well, you're supposed to run forward not up anyway! I'll run however i please, thank you very much.

E1st

5/1/01-11:46 PM-So a few people mentioned my website which means that i have to mention them. Actually, by a few it was just misty, robin's friend who revealed that my webpage is a pillar of light in her normally boring day. Well Misty, if my website makes your day better, then your day must really suck.

I like how some sort of impromtu party began at my mod tonight. And might i add that i'm being sarcastic. I just love noise you know. Anyway, i just this second got in a bad mood, so away i go.

E1st

5/2/01-11:56 PM-I think i'm bloated. Apparently girls get that way, you want to explain to me what that's like? Maybe i'm just almost 20 years late or something. I might be preggers.

We leave tomorrow for leagues, so i won't be here for a while. They'll probably give us $30 meal money for 3 days again, which is absolutely criminal. I nearly starved last time.

I'd write more, but i'm too bloated.

E1st

5/5/01-1:19 AM-It's really the 6th right now, but i'm way way too confused to even think. That was the worst bus ride of my life, if i had a shotgun handy i probably would have used it. And unfortunately, i'm serious. My head is lost.

How do you explain today to people that ask you? I can't say that i was hurt. After all, i didn't tell anybody before hand, so who would believe me. Not to mention the annoying attribute of my knee that it feels better 2 days after the race. I was hurt. But not hurt enough to run like i did. I was hurt enough to get scared of getting more hurt, and that's why the day went the way it did. Plan and simple. The first race, after feeling it twinge at the gun and feeling it get tired after 400 meters, i just dragged the leg along for 3 laps. It was such and easy race. And by the way, how could wally say, "that was your kind of race." What evidence does he have for that. We aren't trained to run any kind of race, unless it's a race that involves running short intervals with full recovery. Such a thing doesn't exist; we were not trained to run a negative split race. You need short recovery workouts to be ready for that.

Then after i couldn't stride without limping, i thought i couldn't even run the 2nd race. But would i ever lose that reputation? Again, who would understand? so it wasn't even worth thinking about it. And the race was the sorriest league meet 800 in history of anywhere. I finished, and with the exception of my knee which i had dragged the whole damn race, felt like i was jogging. It was such an easy race in retrospect, with that one exception. But IT bands are not blisters. It's structural, you can't just run through it and tough it out. If the thing won't work, it just won't work.

How do i look anyone in the eye here? I don't want to see anybody or talk to anybody until XC. I...I just don't know what to say or think. My head wants to die. My consciousness just wants to cease. It just doesn't want to be here. Ugh.

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5/6/01-10:33 PM-Let me assure people that i'm more resilient than i sound some times. I tend to be candid on this page, and while my head might be humming in the midst of some catastrophe, my heart remains in the right place most of the time.

Apparently my words were too harsh speaking of misty's boring day a few days ago. I rescind my comments before the carebear police maul me to death with their politeness. And don't take offense at that anyone.

I wonder if they still make care bear cartoons. I remember them from when i was like four. I also remember the day that they stopped being cool to watch, when i was like 5.

I spent a solid chunk of 6 hours studying this afternoon and evening. It's the most that i've ever done at one time, and since i had music, it wasn't really that bad. Hopefully I'll be as productive tomorrow, because if i'm not than my electronics test will pummel me severly.

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5/7/01-11:02 PM-Interestingly enough, that girl from last year, for whom i've been reamed mercilessly, Lakotabean, just decided to message me again. You may remember her from the puke skit, where i took a sound beating for the experience. Anyway, i really don't feel like explaining it if you don't know it(and i have 3 regular readers and only one knows it, so you others are out of luck.) Just thought i'd mention that.

I realized about an hour ago that i haven't showered since saturday. I didn't even care before right now, but all the sudden i feel dirty. I'm going to have to grab one before bed.

An 8 AM final awaits me tomorrow, then just one more and i'm gone.

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5/8/01-10:41 PM-Once again, a mid-distance sweep at the Quad Race. Maybe we need to have two different races, one for mid distance, one for distance. I wasn't too impressed over all though. The time was 3 seconds slower than last year, and Tom won by a decent margin too. I'll be honest, Aaron looked like he was tieing up, and he probably benefitted big time by Bandit's fall.

I had an 8AM final this morning. I had to wake up at 7:10. Do you know the last time i woke up that early? I don't. It's too early. However, tomorrow i have to wake up at like 9:30 so that i can get the remainder of my physics questions answered before the final, and after that, no more waking up until almost june. I'll be able to sleep nearly indefinitely. Sleep. Ahhh...

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5/9/01-11:45 AM-That's right, AM. I might as well do it now before i tear down everything to go home. Speaking of which, i'm going home tonight! Which means that there might be some temporary web page shortages. But i plan on hooking everything up properly by tomorrow. I have big plans for tomorrow already since i am just so freaking productive this week i might as well roll with it.

So my roommate had a rough night last night. Not normally a drinker, he came back plastered and smelling pretty awful of something. So he was puking with his head actually inside of the toilet(like an inch from the water, i kid you not). Now the funny thing(at least to me), occurred when he left the bathroom. You have to know him i guess, he's kind of skatterbrained most of the time, and when drunk he's just non-functional. So he walks out of the bathroom, and in tow is literally a 7 foot long piece of toilet paper. Now, as a fan of randomness, the sight of my roommate, a normally interesting sort of guy, towing 7 feet of toilet paper across the room was just hilarious to me. You had to be there i'm sure, or at least know him.

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5/11/01-10:44 PM-So i actually have been home for a few days. And tonight i've thought up a question. Are ambulances required to use blinkers? I guess no one is required, but shouldn't ambulances who aren't carrying people use that common courtesy? Well, they don't in the town of Florida, New York. I was sitting there waiting for the one ambulance that had its lights on to pull out, and after it did, i figured the other one(which made no attempt to move and was empty in the cargo hold(if you will)) was waiting to pick up someone else. After all, i don't see what two ambulances can do for one person, unless they were somehow dismembered. So then the inert ambulance all the sudden pulls out. Now, i was about 10 ft from hitting it mind you, there was no real danger of that. But he gave me this, "hey buddy, i'm driving an ambulance. That's right, look at me, i'm driving an ambulance." look. Well, a blinker would have been nice mr ambulance driver. All you were doing was following the other ambulance, you were pretty much useless. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed that you were picking up somebody else. But no, just running point for the other one.

Then both ambulances started driving about 40 in the 55. Which is something, since i could have transported the guy to the hospital about 5 minutes faster, and i would have used blinkers. I would have considered putting my flashers on just to let other people know that i was transporting some guy, but then you probably wouldn't see my blinker so i'd have to yell out the window or something. Luckily, i know back roads and also luckily the deer were kind to me tonight. Speaking of which, Steve pr'ed for the 3rd time in 7 days with a 4:34 mile. He's a sophomore.

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5/12/01-10:46 PM-So you wonder what we do with our nights in Goshen. Well, first we BBQ'ed. I had 4 or 5 cheeseburgers and a good deal of sausage. Then we decided to throw bits of bread from hot dog rolls into this hole that's about 8 feet up on Matt's tree. I wasn't the first to sink one, but i did have the record for most, with 3. I'm sure that no one else was counting like me however.

Then i pitched Richmond a little bit of BP with the tennis balls and his good old stickball bat. After a little while this became a full scale batting session, which i didn't bat at, but played deep outfield. At one point this pudgy little tot came and talked to me, despite his parents entreaties that he not. So what do you do in a situation like that? Anyway, there's 3 people in here talking and it's really hurting my concentration. My style is being cramped. Shut up everybody!

So this went on until it was dark, then some people left leaving rich, matt, AJ and I. We decided it would be fun to try to get the manhole cover in the middle of the road up. This is normally fairly easy, but with the construction at the school, all those big trucks had really pounded the cover into the road. So we ended up needing to chisel away at the edges and then use a crow bar to get it up. We did however, and spit in the hole a few times then put it back down.

You can't do that to just one manhole cover, so we went looking for more. We found one of those little water things in the middle of the four way intersection next to matt's house and pried it open, then of course spit in it again. There was water in it, so i decided i wanted to see if it was sewage or clean water. It was clean, except for the spit that i dipped my hand in. That wasn't terribly pleasant.

After a while we settled down at that corner. You see, there's only a stop sign for two direction at that corner, and the other street has the right of way. Well people don't know that apparently because they like to stop no matter what. We made it our mission to yell at them when they did. We did this for literally 2 hours, yelling at cars that stopped and complaining when cars didn't stop for long enough. At one point, rich and matt strategically walked back and forth across the street just to prove a point to the cars that weren't stopping properly. One time this lady did stop at the street you weren't supposed to stop at. We heckled her a little bit and she rolled down her window and was like, "i was just checking to see if my son was one of you" He wasn't, but think about how much it would such if you were her son. Anyway, we told her she was holding up traffic(of which there was none for 5 minutes at a time) and she moved along.

Eventually i went to bring richmond home, and of course we stopped at that intersection improperly, just for kicks. This led to AJ chasing us around the block a few times, until we stopped improperly at it again. It was mighty stupid.

Anyway, that's what we do at Goshen. At Bucknell people think that stuff that i do is the most random around, but we do random strange things all the time at home and everybody loves it. Randomness is the spice of life.

E1st

5/13/01-10:47 PM-I have a nice little cluster of times for my posts going here. Anyway, you'd be amazed how frustrating it is to look through a telescope for 2 hours and not see much of anything. The cluster was pretty decent, but that was about it. We didn't find anything else basically. Though our setting circles were right, i think we were just mis-aligned with north. Anyway, that sucked.

I forget the rest of my day. I think i had one. Matt wanted to get his name mentioned because he looked at my website. So there it is. Ask him about his love quadrangle some time. It's a good story. Only it's disgusting.

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5/14/01-8:59 PM-I might as well write early, since i really don't have much better to do right now. I was talking to jen malcolm, but she stopped talking to me after a few minutes. Doesn't matter, she can't write complete words anyway. Yet if i just left now without saying goodbye it would be rude. Then again, when people don't say anything for 10 minutes then say goodbye out of nowhere, it's pretty retarded.

Meanwhile, i did next to nothing all day. Had a million dreams last night, yet i only remember the ones that aren't appropriate at all for public narration. If i did something, then maybe i'd have something to write about, but i really was pretty worthless today. Oh well, maybe i'll have something for all-y'all tomorrow.

I don't really say all y'all.

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5/15/01-10:12 PM-I should start picking different topics to write little essays about when i have nothing else to say. Independant studies if you will. By the way, i wrote some independant studies earlier this year, but they pissed people off so you might not want to read them.

That being said, i haven't prepared a topic for today. I spent my day burning CD's, and the latest CD burning shareware that i found only has 1X capabilities, so it takes forever. However, the results are as good as something that i would have to pay for, so i can live with it.

I got my grades today and also my eyes checked. Good news is that i did much better than last sememster, and my eyes will supposedly not get any worse than they are now, which isn't terrible. So i guess i had a good day. Wonderful.

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5/18/01-10:46 PM-Wow, it's been three days? Time flies when you're a lazy sack of crap. I had an interesting day today, if you want to call it that. I had to wake up at 6AM which is ungodly for a college student like myself so that i could drive my father to work. My car's in the shoppe(that's shopPE) and it worked, trust me, i tried to get out of it. So i drive home, sort of. I wasn't really there i don't think. Here's the thing that i do remember though. I'm on resevoir road, about 10 minutes from home, and this maroon mini-van pulls out in front of me. Like 2 minutes later, we pass a maroon mini-van sitting at the end of the street on the right waiting to get on to resevoir. Probably no more than 30 seconds after that, on the left, there's a maroon mini-van waiting to get out. So i'm thinking, my goodness, look at all those marroon(one r or two?) mini vans. Well, that's not all. A few minutes later, when i was getting towards town(Goshen), another marroon mini van pulls out. So it's two marroon mini vans followed my me in my dad's outback. This was starting to freak me out. I was thinking that perhaps i was asleep and didn't know it. Well, to top things off, i pull in my garage, and as the door is closing, a marroon hatchback drives by. And on top of that, when i went to the eye doctor a few days ago, one of the words that i had to read(the one in 6 point font) was "marroon". Only it was spelled correctly if i misspelled it. You think God is trying to tell me something? Maybe i'll get marrooned someplace. Ok, sorry.

So i get back home, and try to get back to sleep. I sit there for 40 minutes and start thinking that i'm just going to give up soon(this is starting at 7:20 btw). Then right near 8, bam, out like a light. I dreamt that i was some sort of fugitive from the law. The dream seemed like it was forever long. This is the second forever long dream that i had about being a fugitive from the law in the last 3 weeks. Anyway, i was a slippery little bugger and i could always evade them, even though there were several hundred officers looking for me. So low and behold, it's 11 before i wake up. Take my word for it, that's straight for me.

So i did nothing for like an hour or two, then all the sudden i had to do phase two of our car swap plan. I carried that out, and got some whisteria from my grandparents house.

Anyway, this is boring. So i get home with my car from that, and like a half hour later i have to leave to go to IC's. So i did that, and it was a 2 hour drive both ways and i only stayed for 45 minutes at the meet. So all the sudden, it's now. And i still haven't realized that i ever really woke up. I've been moving all day, never really figuring out that the day has begun. It's like i lost a day of my life, and now because you read my webpage, you've lost 5 minutes of yours.

Thank you and good night.

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5/19/01-9:59 PM-So i'm a little behind on my "shout outs"[sic], i might as well catch up now that i have nothing else to say. In the last week, three people have said that they've been to my page, and all three have been female long/triple jumpers on my team. When i think of it, they are basically the entire girl jumper contigent, give or take a couple people. So why is it that female jumpers have a this odd complusion to read my webpage? I may never know, but it's interesting that i've developed a following in such a seemingly random clique.

Maybe it's because i went out with one of them and spent copious amounts of time in her room, while another one was there, since she lived in that room. And then the third is one of my FCA friends, so i guess she has an excuse too(plus she lives in upstate NY and is probably very bored...they don't even have cows there to tip). But more likely than that is that they've formed some sort of cult in my honor. An Eric Furst Foundation if you will. Well, frankly i don't deserve such an honor, but i'm flattered nonetheless. Maybe the school could recognize you as an actual club and give you funding, which you can use to lavish me with appropriate lavishes.

And please please Robin don't be insulted. I'm being facetious. And probably spelling it wrong too.

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5/20/10-5:43 PM-Coach Gulden and I never really talked much. I think that we both wanted to talk to each other, but he knew that i thought that we didn't talk enough, and that only makes it harder to try. A good microcosm of this relationship occurred at IC4A's less than 2 days ago, less than 24 hours before he passed.

I was at the meet rooting for Greg. I kind of avoided him, because i knew there was nothing to say and i didn't want to face the demons of my disastrous Patriot League performance. But before i left, i decided that it would be an insult to be there for 2 hours and not even check in with my own coach. So we had a little small talk type conversation. He said that he was feeling pretty decent, though anemic. I told him I'd see him in august. As i look back on it now, something in his face said that i wouldn't. I almost asked him if he planned on coaching next fall, but i decided that it wasn't the right time too. He just didn't look like that was going to be the case. I'm fortunate that i got to say goodbye, even if it was in the form of "see you later".

After leagues i didn't even want to make eye contact with him, because i was ashamed at my performance. If i hadn't seen him on friday, i would have felt very guilty about not talking to him earlier. I still do, but God gave me a chance to redeem myself and i thankfully used it.

Right now the best thing that anyone reading this could do is pray for the family and everyone whose life Coach has touched. Matias, who has a knack for oddly placed strokes of brilliance, related Coach to a tree. He said Coach was like the trunk and sprouting off of him were the thousands and thousands of people who he's helped in some way or another in the past 30+ years.

I can't think of anything more to say. Thanks Coach, and goodbye.

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5/21/01-10:02 PM-I can't say that i remember today. I got up and spent the first half of the morning on my irrational going back to Bucknell today kick. There was no good reason to, and after i ran i guess I understood that at some level. My little fast went fine, i wasn't terribly famished ever and was only counting down to when i would eat again the last hour. When i thought of it, i've almost gone 24 hours by accident before, so this was no big deal. I'll have to roll 48 some day when i'm not in training, that's a real fast.

So the run absorbed another chunk of my day and then the rest of it sort of flittered by, and somehow it's 10 and i want to go to bed. So i think i will. Maybe tomorrow i'll get something done, but i wouldn't bet on it. Plus i'm out of allergy medicine, this won't be pretty. I'm going to bed.

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5/23/01-11:10 PM-Since all i did was drive today, i'm going to talk about driving. First and foremost, there is no such thing as the acceptable passing lane speed limit. You go in the passing lane to pass. Just because you're going 74 doesn't mean that you're neccessarily justified to be in the passing lane. It's not like, "Well, going 74 in the slow lane would be almost contradictory!" It's nothing like that. If you're not passing people, get your non-passing self in the right lane. Meanwhile, even if you are passing people, if there's a line of cars that would like to pass people at a faster pace than you are, slide over every so often to let them by.