Toby's Log page 123

Sorry for the long delay between posts. A lot has happened since my last. I have my full fledged site hosted from my ibook, but that only worked when I had a high speed connection. Now its gone (bye-bye SBC, I’ll probably never come back to you), and won’t be reinstated till I move to a new place (hopefully soon). Then my full fledged, self served site will be back up.

My last year of classes is now over and done with. It was a little bit of a challenging year, since I didn’t much feel like being in school, but I made it through still maintaining my close to 4.0 status (I did get my second B though in Business Writing). There were also some classes that I liked, like my programming and biology classes, that helped me through. My memory of the school year is already a bit fuzzy though, partly due to my very bad memory. I also was focused on conversations with Krista there for a while. I’m still the same quiet person with few friends on campus.

I still live with Dwight Henson in NA Valley. I like it there. It’s quite cheap, very spacious, a nice place, and good neighbors. It also isn’t too far from campus, and I was able to bike to school every day that my bike was able (there was a big ordeal with the cold and water causing my freewheel to not turn the rear wheel on particularly cold days or any snowy days), and got an estimated 6 to 12 miles in each school day, which kept me somewhat in shape.

Soon though, I shall be moving to a nice mobile home. It’s a step above an apartment or rented house because I own the facility, but much cheaper than an actual house. I will be very happy to be able to do with the place as I please. I’d like to start with installing some appliances and stuff, perhaps a composting toilet and tankless water heater, and maybe, if I stay long enough, move on to install more insulation, my specially designed bathroom, and other such plans I have made for my ideal house. It’ll be awesome.

Went on GOBA again this year. We formed Team Us, a team of people known by my brother. There were six of us: Me, Jamie, my cousin Paul, and Jamie’s friends Max Monegan, Seffrey Brenneman, and Lindsey. Lindsey drove the truck and didn’t ride. It was kinda cool: we had a big tent plus a small tent, as well as a netted sun shade thing that we played cards in, and everyone else’s stuff got transported in Lindsey’s truck, while I, the packer, didn’t have to have a tent since I shared the big one (though I carried a tarp just in case and to make up for it). The trip was generally fun, though I found myself getting tired after 30 or so miles. One day, I accidently left my helmet in Lindsey’s truck, and since they don’t like you riding without one, I decided to take an alternative route where no one would see me. I had a map, but a big hunk of my route wasn’t on it. I ended up doing the whole riding in what should be the general direction of my destination. I eventually made it there, after a long tiring ride through mostly the country but also some city riding and some scary riding on the highway twice. The highway helped me there though, as it went straight to my destination town. I succeeded in going it cheaper than last year, taking grape nuts for my breakfast to alleviate that cost in addition to my peanut butter sandwich (no bagels this year, bread seems better) lunches. Generally a cool trip, though I didn’t like it as much as the first two for some reason. The price is getting to me: I could really ride myself anywhere and have a more personalized ride, though some of the stuff would be more troublesome, and it wouldn’t be as cool in some ways.

My band has been making progress. Our once new bass player, Rockwood, has now been with us for over a year and has fit in very well. Now with a bass player we sound much more full, and Rockwood helps with the singing as well. The Possum has changed its name to the Yars, after the video game Yars Revenge. We’ve played several parties at Rockwood’s house (our first several shows with the Yars) and had at least several people like our stuff. We met Dusty at one, whom we signed on as lead singer. He was a good singer, with a good, interesting voice and a way with the audience. After he came on we did a couple more parties and did another recording. But him and Dwight got in a fight and were both stubborn: Dusty wanted new stuff while Dwight wanted to continue on with the songs he’d already written, since he has about 90 that he considers decent to really good that haven’t been gotten out at all or much to the public. Dusty left and put Rockwood and Dwight back into the singing positions in the band. After that, we got several gigs at actual venues, all free shows except for one, at which we got $3. We are working are way towards real payed gigs and a fan base. We have about 2 or so shows a month right now.

At the Lizard, I’ve been pizza cook for over a year now and have been removed from busser duty (I only every once in a while, less than once a month, pick up shifts for bussers). Now I am about to start an internship there, the last thing I have to do to finally finish my degree. With this internship, I hope to learn the rest of the cooking stations and, more importantly, learn a lot of the office and management related things. I will need these skills a lot when I open up the Tipsy Skunk. Right now I can say no more classes, but until I’m done with the internship, I can’t really say I’m done with school. Soon enough though.