Revised Packing List

2008 26 March

My initial list was (with items I’ve taken care of with a line through them):

New tennis shoes
Casual dress shoes
Chacos (I hate sandals, but apparently I need them. I wasn’t going to get any, but when I saw they were made in Colorado, I needed no more convincing) To hell with Chacos and their ridiculous shipping date.  Therefore, I bought - Tevas
Some kind of knife
Ipod shuffle (?) (for when I don’t want to haul around the big Ipod and only need a select 500 songs, or when big Ipod gets stolen)
Solio Ipod Charger (apparently this is crap, so I’m not getting it)
Big duffel bag
Some short sleeve button down dress shirts
Sewing kit

Jump rope
Bicycle wheelset/fixed-free hub (There’s no way in hell I’m going 27 months without a bicycle)
Digital Camera (pictures for all you readers out there, not me)
Hot wheels car (you tell me what I’m going to do with my spare time)
Roll up chess set (I’m going to start a chess club)
Playing cards
Headlamp (for those days where I’m adventurating at night)
Tent (?) (for the day I accidentally burn my house down) Don’t need one apparently
New weightlifting gloves (those monkey bars are brutal on your hands)
Some silverware (I might as well pretend I don’t eat with my hands)
Backup set of headphones
Bed sheet/sleeping sack (I’ll probably just sew myself one with my sewing kit!)

So that leaves me with the following to acquire (as well as things I’ve added)

Some kind of knife
Ipod shuffle (?)
Big duffel bag
Sewing kit
Jump rope
Roll up chess set (debating this now since I am totally terrible now, it’s pissing me off and I want to just stop playing forever)
Sleeping sack
NEW TSHIRTS!

Oh yea, and I bought a huge flash drive. Man, I’m on top of my game! Still trying to figure out what I’m going to do about a bicycle though. I think I’m going to get a derailleur from Jon so I can convert my bike to a single speed (you all out there need to learn that you don’t need more than one gear).

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Geeks who drink, Bikes, Buying sprees, etc

2008 25 March

So on Saturday I celebrated my birthday in my typically unorthodox manner. Being my golden birthday (22 on the 22nd), I decided to shoot for something incredibly significant – an extremely long bike ride. Now I’ve done long rides in the past – 21 miles on my 21st birthday, 45 miles riding from the NW corner of DC to George Washington’s house in Virginia, and several weeks ago I took a 35 mile bike ride as preparation for my then undecided birthday ride. However, this one blew all my previous rides out of the water (not to mention all strength I had in my legs). I met Jon, my bike buddy down at a coffee shop by my house at 9 AM on Saturday. From there we proceeded to take an epic bike ride around the Denver metro area that included riding to Cherry Creek State Park, Centennial (a new city for those of you who know the pre-2005 Denver), Park Meadows Mall, Littleton, then ending for lunch in downtown Denver. All in all, the trip was a length 69 mile bike ride (coincidentally, the combined ages of Jon and I). Mind you we both did this ride on a fixed gear bike, and it was just great – but after around 50 miles, my quads really just wanted to fall off. All this lovely riding was coupled with, of course, a ridiculous 15 mph headwind, and 45 degree weather (after hitting 70 degrees, or 20 degrees celsius for my international/pretentious readers, the two days) with a chance of snow and rain later in the day (which I beat!). I was shooting for golden birthday significance, so I had an elaborate plan for the rest of my day all planned out. However, as most know things do not go “according to plan” (see Corpse Bride allusion), and I clearly was not anticipating how exhausted I’d be after the bike ride (it’s ONLY 70 miles). So I took a nap – one that turned into a 2 hour nap – and following it, was too tired to go out to dinner or follow through on the rest of my plans. So the rest of my birthday consisted of ordering a pizza and eating birthday goup/parfait (delicious by the way).

The next day, in light of my inability to properly stand up, I took it easy for the most part. However, then the inevitable happened – restlessness. Those of you that know me probably know what this means. Yes, that’s right. I went on a bike ride. I had some DVD’s that I borrowed from Jon, so as if I needed some excuse to go riding, I decided to take the 6.5 mile ride to his house to return the DVDs (Corpse Bride and Quicksilver if you were interested. Quicksilver by the way is one of the worst movies ever created. Shoddy story? Terrible continuity (continwhat?)? Kevin Bacon? Sounds like we’ve got a winner here.). After a couple of hours of bike talk, agreeing on the acquisition of yet another bike (I’ve still got over a month here!), and buying a bike bell off of Jon (which most likely will lead to my lynching on behalf of my neighbors), I headed home for a brief Easter (oh yea, it was Easter) dinner then off to Goosetown pub for – you guessed it – trivia night! So I rode on over there (of course!) where Phil and I served up a 5th place finish and an amazing 8 dollar beer tab!

To cap off all this crap – I have pretty much finished all my big purchases for Peace Corps. I ordered a headlamp, backup set of headphones, digital camera, 4gb camera memory card, and I might order some tshirts (so I don’t have to ruin all my awesome tshirts in PC).

Maybe I’ll buy an umbrella.

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Checking stuff off the list

2008 16 March

Well, I finally sprung on some sandals – the most overpriced pieces of footwear I’ll ever purchase in my life. Nevertheless, I didn’t have much choice, so I’ll refrain from whining too much (unless they break). For those of you that are curious, here they are in all their open ugliness:

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Who knows, maybe I can save some of my socks and not do laundry as much by starting to wear sandals. Or maybe I’ll hate them and will need even more socks. Time will tell I suppose – and you’ll all know when that time comes. I’ve still got to buy a flash drive as well as the majority of the other things on the list. But whatever, time to focus on other things – like my bicycle I built!

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Magda and Bella
Some people are going to bring pictures of family to plaster all over their respective rooms in PC. Me? I’m going to bring pictures of my bicycles. Better yet, when I acquire a bike when I’m down there, I’ll post pictures of my bikes everywhere around my Nica bike. That way it can aspire to bigger and better things than the crappy bicycle it surely will be.
I could bring BOTH bicycles with me to Nicaragua and still have room for 20 lbs of luggage. Whoa man, there’s an idea.
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Sometimes vacations can be stressful

2008 14 March

So as you might all be aware, I’ve been putzing around since I graduated in December. Just to mix things up, I went to South America to go practice my Spanish. I’ve been pretty productive! I built a bicycle, my 22nd (and golden!) birthday is next Saturday, I’ve gone on miles and miles of bike rides, done some volunteering for a TEFL program, been a regular at trivia night. But, as most know, such activity can be wearisome. Therefore, I am doing what every cestovatel would do, I am going to take another vacation. Where to you ask? Why none other than Ft. Myers, Florida. Maybe I could write it off as a business expense on my taxes. I bet I could say that I’m acclimating myself to Nicaraguan weather. It surely will help me do my job better! Who knows? Without it, I damn well may have to ET my Peace Corps service. We don’t want something like that to happen, so I am playing it safe, and going on vacation.

In other news, I went to a Peace Corps event at REI where we could speak with RPCV’s and ask them whatever. I went with the intention of picking their minds about what I should pack. Coincidentally, there were only two people who went to the event (out of about 50-60) who had received an invitation to serve in the PC – me and another girl. And what do you know – she’s going to Nicaragua as well! She is going to be the same type of volunteer I’m going to be (Business educator/advisor) and is from Boulder. So I told her about a group we had online where she could converse with everybody (as of now there are 10 of us in the group) about things to buy/preparations to make before we take off. Exciting! The RPCV’s were great. I ended up speaking with a lady who served in Honduras (it’s right next door to Nicaragua, so I figured she’d be a good person to ask), and she gave me some good tips – get a digital camera, a sleep sack is good for visiting other PCV’s, and “Oh you’re going to have so much fun!” This lady I might add, had a warm bubbly voice that I can describe in no other way than an old woman who makes cookies regularly for guests. Not an old woman scratchy voice, but an upbeat/rolling/warm type of voice. She was an over-50 volunteer with her husband and apparently they had an amazing time. She mentioned that after he husband cut himself with a machete, the PC medical kit was “wonderful for butterfly stitches.” Well I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m considering self-mutilation. Now that I think about it, this lady’s voice freaked me out for the first 10 minutes.

Aside from all the aforementioned nonsense, Phil and I have been seeing endless concerts, with more to come. I think before I leave, we’re seeing at least 4 more. The great thing about going to concerts with him is that we’re always up front which yields but one thing – Phil being harassed (I use this term lightly) by the band. An example from the last concert we went to (British Sea Power): We are standing right in front of the stage when one of the guitarists bends down, grabs Phil’s shoulders, turns him around, and then proceeds to ride atop Phil’s shoulders until Phil dropped him on the next victim. The guitarist than crowd surfed all the way to the back of the room and back to the stage where he made an almost catastrophic landing with his face. Luckily he pulled through. Phil must have some sort of a magnetic “look at me, terrorize me” look to him at concerts. Whatever though, at least I get a good laugh out of it.

On an unrelated note, I might have decided on a pair of sandals to buy!

And to cap off this entry, check out the rad-ass picture I found!

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Man my last name rocks! Apparently this is the album cover for the band Pain. They made an album called Goggins.  So rad.  Not even that – they have a song called Goggins!  Sure, it’s a crappy band – but it’s my name!


Something that I realised today…

2008 10 March

I was thinking while riding my bike tonight:

Perhaps the thing I’m most excited about with regards to joining the Peace Corps and moving to Nicaragua is that I will be able to see the night sky with all its stars minus the bright lights of a huge city.

Can’t wait.


Geeks who drink, and more…

2008 5 March

So 2 months from today I’m getting on a plane and heading for…wherever Peace Corps is sending me for orientation (I think it’s D.C.). For those of you that are curious – Yes, Indulgencefest 2008 is still continuing. In fact, it’s picking up hardcore in the coming weeks (or rather, days). Still going to Geeks who drink trivia night will Phil (I was no longer Here for a beer) but I threw our names in a mixer and we formed a team with 4 other nerds. The result? We got 7th place – AKA a thousand positions higher than where we typically find ourselves (at the bottom, but never last!). So I shall immortalize Geeks Who Blackout forever in this journal (although it might already be eternalized in the Geeks who drink blog),  whatever, I’m trying to plaster my face all over the internet.

The look of a champion squad. If “champion” meant 7th place

 The look of a champion squad…if “champion” meant 7th place

 As is painfully obvious, Phil and I were the youngest warriors on the team. But don’t be fooled! Phil and I knew our shit , though I spaced that the Velvet Revolution was in Czech Republic. There goes my CIA credentials out the window, I guess I’ll have to join some other less demanding spy organization.

In other news, I think I’m finally narrowing down the list of things I have to buy. I’m holding off on buying the Chacos/Teva sandals though. First (I wanted to use firstly here, it’s a word, but I remain sceptical) because they’re ugly, and secondly because they’re sandals. I hate sandals. I think I’m going to spring on an portable speaker system for the Ipod so I can completely change the music people listen to in Nicaragua from horribly crappy to my kind of music. Maybe I could start some kind of musical revolution in Nicaragua. It will be like the 60’s in America, but with indie music instead. To hell with those mariachi bands, hello cello-toting, untraditional Nicaraguan bands. I do have a degree, maybe I could convince some people to tour. Furthermore, I’m trying to decide on other shoes I should bring (this is obviously one of my only concerns) as I have a pair of shoes from Prague and then a pair of really comfortable (albeit unsightly, to me at least) Rockport walking shoes. I’ve seen some pictures of Nicaraguan roads from some other Peace Corps Volunteers blogs, and this tells me two things:  1. Garbage shoes are a bad idea and 2. I should consider a mountain bike (more on this later). I’m leaning towards the hideous Rockports due to their comfort level, and the fact that they’d probably last me the full 2 years. So that leaves me with Rockports…and missing running shoes (who cares, I’ll deal with that later), Chacos (if I get over myself), and then some other mystery pair of shoes that I’ll probably need. Man, Peace Corps really cramps my style. I’ll have to mix things up with a Goggins hat or two. My main concern is what I’m going to rock while being a badass on my bicycle (which I will immediately require if whether Peace Corps gives me one or not). I’m going to spring on a 4 GB flash drive I think, followed by some workout gloves (monkey bars, as I’ve previously mentioned), and a solar Ipod charger (maybe?).

Almonds!

 

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