19 posts tagged “joyleen bautista”
Every year, around this time of the month, the end of October through the first week of November seems to be a busy week no matter what's happening. Look at last year ...
Halloween, we were busy Chipotle hopping throughout the Springs. When I say "we," I'm talking about me and my Harrison Crew. Then we celebrated Joy's birthday and then later in the week, the first ever Powder Puff Game at Harrison before finishing that weekend off with our "Hotel Gathering" at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort.
Again, that was last year.
This year, things are a little different. We're no longer in high school, and most of us don't really keep in touch with each other anymore, well at least for me. I did the whole Chipotle hopping as well, except I did it on my own in Downtown Denver. It seemed like that whole weekend, and the week following it, I've been keeping myself real busy with things. Saturday I worked a mid-day shift before getting picked up to head to the Nuggets-Lakers game. This game was special in particular because it was Allen Iverson's last game as a Denver Nugget. Not only that, we got to see Montell Jordan perform, LIVE !! Things didn't end just there though, I got to do my usual window shopping at Cherry Creek before heading home to settle down Sunday. Monday seemed like to be the only normal day of my whole week. Nothing special really went on. I just went to class, then hung out with the crew in the student lounge chillin' and playing cards before heading out to pick some stuff up at the library. Those first two day of the school week that week I was really looking forward to because it was when I had to meet up with my scholarship advisor and my regular advisor about some major problems I had to get fixed ASAP.
After Monday, that's when things began to start happening. My Sociology class was cancelled in advance because of elections. After I dropped off my mail-in ballot, I thought I was going to be late for class, so I rushed to get to my Core Comp class on time. Little did I know, that class, too, was cancelled. So pretty much, Tuesday was a day of relaxation for the most part. The day went by fast too, because I had to work that night. Wednesday, was a day I had been looking forward to for the past couple of weeks because it was the day I planned to come to the Springs for the weekend. I went to class, as usual, then went out to downtown to eat some lunch with some friends before heading back to the lounge on campus to chill. I ended up heading out of Denver around four that afternoon to get to the Springs. I ate for a little while before deciding to hang with Dennis that night.
Thursday, the plans were to go to Harrison to watch the second annual Power Puff Game before going to Brunswick for College Bowling Night. It seemed like every day for this past week, something was going on ya know ?? It was great. On my birthday, I went out with my dad to eat out before going to Anthony and Amanda's house to celebrate Talia's .... or Lia-ta's first birthday. The night of my birthday was finished off with some late night grubbin' at Denny's with Giane and my sister. My birthday seemed to be celebrated again when me and a group of my friends went to Red Robin to go out to eat. We then finished the night watching Madagascar 2.
I haven't done one of these traditional "journal" or "diary" entries in a long while. So that means that something huge happened this weekend. Well, by just reading the title, you can assume what's making this period stand out more than a normal weekend or whatever.
Friday, it was the day before I planned to head to the Springs. A couple of days prior, my mom thought it would be a good weekend to come down because I could visit DJ and Tin since they were coming down for the weekend. After Math class, I decided to finish some errands to start off my "usual" Friday. I headed straight to the Denver Public Library to pick up a new book because I was on the way to finishing the book I've been reading that week before the next time I head back to the library; and to drop off and pick up some new CD's to copy to my music library. I seriously expected that my weekend was going to be relaxing and what not. I finished off the day hanging out and playing a couple hours of pool on campus with Dung before heading home and laying back for the night.
I packed up and everything the next day before heading to work. Everything was going grand; I was reading and finishing up reading my book on the train to work and I was excited to go back for the weekend. When I got to work though, I ended up finding out that I had to work both the next day and the day after that. Catch is, I couldn't or in other words, it was near impossible to have someone cover my shifts so either I had to lie and call sick, or go to work that next day. The thing that made things bad is that my mom was more than half way to Denver to pick me up when she found out the news, so I kind of had to go to the Springs and come back to Denver the next day; unless of course, I just not show up for work the next day (Sunday).
I arrived in the Springs around ten or so that Saturday night. I ate a little before I headed out to Joy's place first then to Tin and DJ's place to hang. It's great when you're talking to people you've grown up with all your life even though it was only for an hour or two. Even though we prolly only see each other once or twice a year, it's still quite easy to conversate and talk to each other. What a night though. I was hoping to wake up the next morning a little early so I can roam around the house and possibly study for my midterm exams that next day. I wasn't expecting to sleep twelve straight hours. I guess the weekend was really wearing me out. It was around one in the afternoon when I woke up and my mom's plans was to head to Denver around 3 or 4 so I could head to work on time. After eating a little at home and at Denver, I said my goodbyes and went to work. I wouldn't mind going to work, but considering I have two back-to-back midterm exams the next morning, going home around midnight and studying was going to be a hard task.
The next morning, after doing some studying the night before, I studied some more before going to my Math exam. Finished that with some uncertainty that I was going to finish the test coming out with an A. The same went for my History exam as well. It's ok though, I got my midterm paper from my History and was relieved to find out that I got a good grade for my paper while most of the class got worse. But things don't end there, I also had to go to work to finish that day. After playing some Killer, a card game I just learned today, I headed straight to work to finish the night off. What a weekend indeed. In the end, I figure all this hard work will pay off sooner or later.
As many of you know, I just got a new job. Thing is, I haven't started yet; I start next week. I'm not on the schedule till next weekend. So I decided to come down to the Springs to hang out for the weekend. I was supposed to come down on Saturday morning. But with special, special, special thanks to someone, I was able to come here on Friday afternoon. Joy, Darlene, and I walked around 16th Street Mall after checking out my dorm. We didn't know what to get to eat, so after meeting up with Ray, we headed south for the Springs. We caught a little traffic, and we were getting a little hungry too. What we decided to do is to stop by the Castle Rock outlets to grab something to eat. When we got back to the Springs, we did a bunch of things before deciding to do a movie night. We went to Target to window shop and "try" to find some things to buy for my dorm. That didn't really turn out well. We met up with Briana and went to Hollywood Video to choose a movie. Prom Night was the movie we ended up choosing. Other people came by to watch the movie: Jeff, Jon, and Matt.
The next day, Joy, Darlene, and I went to Matt's house to celebrate his birthday. We ate, talked, and sang karaoke there. It was a fun time and the highlight of the weekend. Matt even shaved for the first time. What an accomplishment ayy ?!
I originally was supposed to head back to Denver EARLY Sunday morning, but that plan changed to Sunday Afternoon. Then yet again, the plan changed to early Monday morning. What can I say; I miss being in the Springs. Sunday night, Steven and I gathered up everyone to hang out. BTWITIAILWU !! (inside joke). Anyways, we met up in Wal-Mart before we headed to Anthony and Amanda's place to hang.
For those who don't know why I have this 'break' from school. My school campus is basically being used for the Democratic National Convention. Thus the reason why my school and Metro State and Denver's Community College started weeks before pretty much every other college in Colorado. For that reason, I decided to get away from Denver because of two main reasons:
1. I haven't made friends in which I can just call up on the moment to hang out. I sorta forgot to grab some numbers before the start of the break.
2. Everything's crowded up in Denver; you don't even know. Places are being blocked off. The main place being blocked off is my school's campus. I don't really know Denver's spots to hang so the campus is the only place I know where to hang out at the moment.
Anyways, so the break started for me basically when I headed off to the Springs.
Monday.
I woke up around 9 that day so I could make sure I could ride the earliest FREX bus to the Springs. 9 was a little late because I actually planned to wake up around 8 but I kept snoozing the alarm. As usual, I was waiting for the last minute to do everything. My clothes weren't packed yet and my room wasn't cleaned up. I had dirty dishes scattered throughout my room. Ray called me to come over for a short while to pick up some movies from me. He's the one that gave me the idea for just stuffing all my clothes into just one Hollister bag instead of bringing my huge red suitcase with me to the Springs. I ate a couple of fruits for breakfast and packed some of them planning to eat them for a small lunch before going home.
After Ray left, I started working on my Myspace profile for a little while and finally posted it up on my Myspace. This was my 2nd ever amateur level layout I made using mainly Adobe Photoshop to make and slice the layout. I checked up the times in which the FREX is running to the Springs. I found out that the only choice I had to choose from was the bus scheduled to leave at 12:40 that afternoon. The bus before that I had already missed. That bus left at around 9:30. I had basically no chance to catch that bus lol. When I checked the times up, it was around 11 o'clock so I still had time to spare. I was put on pressure though because not only did I start cleaning up and packing around 11:15, if I were to miss that bus at departing at 12:40, I would have to wait for the next bus which leaves around 3:30 later that day. I was not going to let that happen.
I finally got out of my place cleaned up, packed, and ready to go a quarter past noon. When I got downstairs to the lobby, I double checked with the front desk to ask where the FREX station was. She scared me because she said that the FREX might not be running that whole week because of the Democratic National Convention. Time was ticking because like usual, I was running late yet again. Apparently from the information I received, the FREX bus stop was at the Market Street Bus Station. That would mean I would need to hurry my butt up because the station from my place is about five blocks away. I was planning to ride the 16th Street Mall Shuttle to the Market Street Station, but that ended up not happening. It was beginning to get crowded as well because of the Democratic National Convention. The shuttles were running and I was in hope to ride one to the station. The problem was that all of the shuttles somehow to only be running south bound, which was going the opposite way to the station. SMH. With only minutes to spare, I power walked to the station to go ask for info about the FREX. So I found out that the FREX and RTD were run by different companies so the teller couldn't help me out, Eventually I went to a nearby restaurant and got helpful and specific directions to the FREX bus stop.
When I finally got to the bus stop, the FREX bus happened to just arrive at the same time. It was an experience to ride that bus. It was amazing actually. The ride was comfortable because of the shock absorbers for it as well as the nice cool air conditioning being provided. For $9 for a trip from Downtown Denver to Downtown Colorado Springs, that's not too bad. At first, I thought I was going to be the only person riding the FREX down south cause I was the only one to board at that bus stop. But eventually, by the time we got to the Alameda FREX bus stop, we had almost a full bus. It sucked cause I had to share my seat with some guy all the way until the bus stop at the Castle Rock Outlets. During that whole ride, I was hoping to get as much reading done as I can. Defining Memories, the book I was reading actually wasn't getting too bad as I headed near the Springs. Instead of using the free wifi provided on the bus, I decided to try and read the whole bus ride. I was sort of successful with that. I was able to read almost 30 pages. That may not seem much, but with how fast I was reading that book back in Denver, it was a huge improvement.
When I finally arrived at the bus stop on South Tejon near Downtown, my dad and my mom wasn't picking up. I didn't want to stand around at the bus stop. I felt tired and exhausted. So I rode the free downtown bus shuttle to Kiowa and Tejon. From there, I walked a block or two to the downtown's public library. I finished up reading as well as eating a couple of apples. My dad eventually came and picked me up. We went to China Doll to pick up a bunch of food from my mom and we then went straight home. There, I ate till I bloated and started stocking up on movies and everything I can download. I didn't really do anything else that night. None of the hanging out happened till the next day.
Tuesday.
The lechon and the sinigang from last night had me stuffed. I slept good because of it. I didn't anything much other than sit at home and go on the computer. Around noon, I went over to Dennis's house to hang out before he had to go to class. We sat around and socialized for a couple of hours. He also showed me a HUGE spider that I thought looked like a brown recluse spider, which so happens to be found in Colorado. Just looking at the spider was scary enough. Woah. Dennis got hungry. So as we were watching the movie Arachnophobia, Dennis made a nice looking chicken sandwich with sharp cheddar cheese while I ate a thick slice of that same sharp cheddar cheese. It was pretty tasty.
Once I headed out, I went back to the house to chill and relax for a little while before heading to $1.25 Scoop that night. I went there to meet up with Jon first at Target. There, I went to look around for a little before heading to Baskin Robbins. I was looking to see if they had rim replacements for my bike. A day or two before I headed to the Springs, I caught yet another flat while I was biking around the Cherry Creek area. I eventually found out my fact of the day. So I had a feeling that I needed the long strip of rubber on the inner most part of the rim to prevent my tire from catching a flat because it helps keep the inner tube in place. So I figured I probably have to go to a dedicated bike store to pick something like that up which I will have to do within the next couple of days.
On the way to Baskin Robbins, we met up with Keanan and Matt. I got some cherry jubilee ice cream on a cone and Steven got a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a cup. We chilled in Baskin Robbins for a short while before we went outside. It was so weird because we were having the most random and not-so-normal subject during our two hour long conversation. We talked about things from dreams all the way to things like the different ways to pick out your wedgies without catching any attention. We finally called it a night around the time Baskin Robbins closed. I gave Steven a ride home before going home myself. At home, I did the usual things like download movies and surf the net. I also did the beginning processes with my third Myspace profile layout on Adobe Photoshop CS3. I stuck with that as well as watching a movie on TV while chatting online with some friends before finally calling it a night.
Wednesday.
I started the morning chilling on the computer and staying in the house. Brian came over a little later to hang out for an hour or two. We socialized for a little while before he headed out and I left to the Citadel Mall to meet up with Joy. Prior to leaving, I took a shower and got ready as well as ate a delightful lunch. I ate a bowl of rice with some corned beef. I ended up running a little late to the mall because of that. When I got there, I met up with Joy at near Aeropostale. She apparently walked and browsed through five different stores while she was waiting for me. I need to seriously get better with my time management because all week, during my stay in the Springs so far, I've been running late most of the time. Anyways, for about an hour or so, I helped her out with some shoe shopping. It took us a while for her to finally choose something at Lady's Foot Locker and Journey's.
After the mall, Joy wanted to drop by the Wal Mart down the street because she was looking for a planner. I guess what happened, what that UCCS, the school Joy goes to, didn't give her a planner at all. I was assuming that they were going to give her one during her freshman orientation, but I guess they didn't. Again, it took us a short while for Joy to choose what to buy. She debated between numerous planner until she finally chose one lol. During that time, we also picked up snacks and food for her to bring during class. I tried helping her out by choosing to buy in bulk so she could save money. She was choosing to buy the individual lemonade packets instead of buying a huge pack of lemonade powder for almost the same price. Joy argued about convenience over price. SMH. Anyways, after Wal Mart and the mall, we parted ways and said our goodbyes.
I then drove to Steven's place to pick him up so we could hang out. We decided to go to my house to plan what to do that night. There, couldn't figure out what to do for hours and hours. We sat there watching TV and staying on the computer before Jon finally called me with plans to go to the Ft. Carson gym to go play some racquetball. I thought I was going to drive. But what ended up happening was that Jon, along with his mother and his brother, Tim, came to my house to pick us up. We first went to go to Steven's to go pick up his ID because he forgot it. Right after, we went to Darlene's place to go pick her up before finally being able to get on post to the gym. We got there around 9. The gym was to close in about an hour, so we had to be quick about playing. I went and changed into my gym clothes and went straight to the racquetball courts.
We played three games in total. Everyone that came except Steven and Mrs. Pugh played that night. The first game was me and Jon vs. Tim and Darlene. The two of us came out as victors. The second game I play with Darlene as my partner. Darlene and I came out as victors for that game. The last game we played, I had Tim as my partner. Jon and Darlene came out of this game as the winners. During that whole time, I ended up getting hit by the ball a lot. I got hit on the back of the head and on the arm. Darlene got hit or almost hit by the ball many times that night, somewhat because of me lol. Jon had it the worst though. During the second game, I think, he tried going for the ball running towards the front wall. He ended up slipping as he jumped on the wall and he banged up his knee pretty bad. This night of racquetball was filled with injuries. It was pretty bad, but was also extra fun and exciting.
The night didn't end there though. After we dropped off our borrowed equipment, me and Steven got dropped off at my house to pick up my car while the Jon and his family went to go drop off Darlene and go home. I got a couple of downloads ready and had a short conversation with Dennis before heading out to Jon's house to hang out for a little while. When we got there, we ate a piece of pizza and chilled for a while. That night too, we had more weird topics during our conversation. Tic Tac and Tator, Jon's dogs were also wild as usual. Jon was showing us how Tator smarter than Tic Tac. He showed us how Tator responds to "ball", while Tic Tac pretty much just followed Tator and did whatever he did lol. It was a fun night. Before we headed out of Jon's place, we also played three games of Super Smash Bros. on the N64. After dropping off Steven and going home, I relaxed and stayed up till around 4 before passing out to sleep.
This weekend was amazing. I couldn't really log this blog like I usually do cause I was pretty busy the whole weekend. After finishing my first week of school, it was time to just relax and have fun going back to the Springs to hang out, eat, and dance at the 2008 Filipino Pageant. I woke up that Saturday early as I did that whole past week. I did try to sleep in though, that didn't really happen though. My main plan for the day was to meet up with Ray at the Alameda RTD Station at 3 that afternoon. Before that, I tried to finish up as much homework as I could. I stopped during the middle of the chapter and called it quits. I eventually finished up the homework though. Going to the RTD, I brought my laptop, Math homework, and a suitcase with all my dirty clothes. The stupid thing I did this time was that I had intentions of doing my English homework in the Springs, right ?? But I ended up forgetting to bring my laptop's AC adapter. So the whole weekend, I just needed to use the battery I had left on my laptop as efficiently as possible. I met up with Ray a little past three. From there, we headed to the County Line Station. That station's the same area where Park Meadows Mall is located at. From there, we patiently awaited for Giane's arrival.
Picture Downloads:
Note: The pictures were compressed with the default compressed within Windows XP. So you shouldn't have a problem extracting these picture, if you do, holler at me. These are only the picture from my Lumix camera and my Olympus camera. I have more pictures though from other cameras. If you want that, let me know and I'll upload those too.
Instructions: Download any of the files. For each "zip" file, right click and click on extract. Enjoy !!
Well the process lasted for two days. The way things were going for me at first made me a little nervous. That Saturday, the whole family went up to Denver to get things settled straight with the housing and all. Everything in the end turned out well. At first, when I knew that I wasn't going to be at the Campus Village, I was being negative about my whole stay up in Denver. The alternative place I was going to stay at was the Inn at Auraria. I double checked it the night before online. I'm being very honest when I say that I thought I was going to be living at a broke down dorm. No lie. Looking at the pictures though, I found out the total opposite. The place was huge. Not only did it have a full kitchen, but I was going to have my own room. That morning, I told just about everyone that Friday was pretty much my last day to see everyone. I had so much going through my mind during that time. Well, it wasn't compared to how much was going through my mind later that night. Walking through downtown, I kept thinking of the fact that I was actually going to be living in Downtown Denver for the next year. During our stay there Saturday,we got some frozen yogurt with a bunch of chopped up fruit on it from this ice cream place. It was pretty good. After we finally made my housing official, we all drove down to Alameda and Federal to the China Town they had in ghetto Denver.
The first thing we did when we got there was that we went to the Vietnamese restaurant we always went to and got something to eat. Usually I would get the pork chops plate with rice, but instead I got a squid plate with lemon sauce with rice. After eating, we walked around to the shops and picked up some food there. Once we got done, we drove home. On the way home, I passed out and woke up when we arrived in the Springs. We stayed home for a long while. Julie's head was hurting, so she didn't even leave the house any time after that. I first went to Target to try and print out some pictures. That didn't work out at all. I then went to King Soopers to pick up some money to pay people back. I dropped off the money I owed Geoff before heading to Joy's house to give her one last goodbye. I stayed there for about an hour before heading home to meet up with Brian to help me finish up packing. I didn't end up finishing up packing until about 2 in the morning. And still, I still manage to forget a lot of stuff. That night though before I even headed out to Target, I had a little private sad moment. My dad came up to me when I was in my room and asked me if I was ready to go and handle Denver. I told him that I was sure. The second after he replied that he knows I could handle it, I started to tear u and breakdown. I couldn't handle it, so I had to turn my head away so no one could see my face. It was a sad moment that lasted for about 20 minutes.
The next day stayed hectic from the time we got there till about 4 hours later. It was that bad. We arrived on time for the move in, 8 to 8:30. I thought I was bringing a lot by bringing my TV and my stereo system. Nope. There were people that were bringing washing machines, mini refrigerators, and 40+ inch screen TV's. The worst part about it is that I had to bring my stuff to the 17th floor. Since we were without a dolly, It was taking us about five or so trips to get all of my stuff moved in. I can finally relax now that my stuff's moved in. The problem now is that I still have to organize my room and set up my stereo system.
After moving in, the fam and I went to a restaurant called Picante, a Mexican restaurant. When walking in there, it eerily reminded me of an exact duplicate of Chipotle, except there was a much better selection there. Not only did they have a nice selection of burritos, there were choices for breakfast burritos as well. There were taco salads available and combination plates available as well. The best part about that place was that they gave us literally double the servings Chipotle has ever given me. I love it.
After we ate, we went to a Super Target near the Cherry Creek Mall. We went there to pick up some last minute things I needed to get. We got things like a toothbrush holder, a soap holder, and a bicycle helmet. I got dropped off and said my last goodbyes to my parents when they were dropping me off at the University of Denver RTD station. I rode back to the Invesco Field stop and walked back to the dorms. After laying down, Ray hit me up to hang out cause he just finished moving in. I bike over there and met him up. From there, we hung out and walked around downtown. We also ate at Picante for dinner. As we were walking, the food like hit me really bad. I was looking for a bathroom on the 16th Street Mall. It wa almost impossible. Every store didn't have a bathroom and the one that did were locked to "paying customers only". That was crap. Thank goodness I found a nearby Starbucks. As we were walking downtown, we discovered where stores like Ross and Walgreens were at. We also discovered were fast food joints were at. There was a McDonald's, Taco Bell, Arby's, Pizza Hut, Good Times, pretty much everything we would need while living here. We also have a movie theater and a bowling alley nearby as well. This place is great.
We finished walking downtown and decided to grab some ice cream given free by my housing. Then we decided to walk to the Campus Village, we Ray stayed at to hang out a little and check out his dorms. I met his roommates and played some Guitar Hero III with them before heading home and trying to fix up my place.
The day started right on time. Joy, Darlene, and I arrived at Waterworld about thirty minutes before opening. Luckily, the park opened up early so we were able to settle at a good place to put our towels, clothes, and cooler at. The bad thing about it was that none of the water attractions were open till ten o'clock. When ten hit though, the three of us went on the Pharoah tube ride and one of the small water slides. We also went to Thunder Bay before we took a break to wait for Nick and Steven. On the way up to the lockers, we saw a little bunny roaming around in the grass near one of the water slides. When we got to the lockers, we called up Nick and Steven to see where there location was. When they arrived, we went straight to the rides. The thing that really surprised me was the amount of people that was there at Waterworld compared to what it would be if we were to go on a weekend.
We officially started our day at the half pipe type slide. I kind of forgot what the name of the ride was. Right after that, we went straight in line for the ride called "The Revolution". But to me, that ride was known only as "The Denver Nugget Slide". That ride after the first time riding it that day, we already claimed it as the funnest ride in the whole park. While waiting in line, we saw AJ Tao there. I thought Joy was making a joke when she said she saw AJ, but it was actually him lol. We took a short bathroom break before we did anything else. There, I took the largest doo-doo I've had in the past couple of days. After washing up, I was ready for whatever was next. The next ride we went to was the Voyage to the Center of the Earth, known to me as "The Dinosaur Ride". The line wasn't too bad. What was bad about that ride was the walk up with the tube. It really sucked. Towards the top at the beginning of the ride, I found out that there's a new thing Waterworld was doing with special valet passes. For $20, we were to get full access to the red pink tubes at the top of the rides instead of waiting in line for one. Sounded like a good deal to me. The Dinosaur ride wasn't too bad. Throughout the whole day though, the line for that ride stayed long the whole time. It was about three hours in and we finally called it quits for a while so we could eat lunch. We pretty much ate everything we had there through just the first round. That killed like thirty minutes right there.
After digesting and relaxing for a short while, we went and took the transport vehicle at the entrance of the park to go to the other side of the park where the fun house was at. The ride we went in line for next was the toilet bowl slide. The wait wasn't too bad except for the fact that the sun was hiding and cold water was being sprayed and dropped all over us continuously throughout our wait. I tried taping myself on the toilet bowl slide, but that didn't really work out very well lol. We were left undecided on what else to ride. We ended up going in line, yet again, on the Denver Nugget Slide. Darlene didn't want to wait, so she left us to go to our table and wait for us there. The wait was about thirty minutes, but it was worth it. Riding this ride again was probably one of the highlights of the day. We took some picture while on the ride. When we got off, we were quickly confronted by one of the security guard about jumping out of our tubes. No one was about to talk, so I pretty much just told him what I did and got a warning for it lol. After that ride, Joy called it quits for the day when it came to getting wet.
When we went to go meet Darlene, we got her and the four of us left to ride as many rides as we can before the park closed. The first place we went to was the ride, "Storm". The lines were surprisingly short. We ended up riding that ride a total of three times before going to ride a different ride. Shoot, the lifeguard even remembered us and took a picture or two with us during those three rides on "Storm". We rode a ride called the "Colorado something" I forgot what it was called lol. Let's just say it was a really bumpy ride. We rode that twice. Darlene wanted to go somewhere else, so she left us haha. So the three of us went on the ride that fitted two adults. The ride was called "Thunder River". I would put this probably second funnest for the rides. The ride was intense because we called ourselves "seventeen year olds" instead of adults. So what ended up happening was that we filled our tube past occupancy. This was another highlight of the day. Before actually going down the ride, we ended up being stuck on a ledge for about 15 seconds. It was funny cause the lifeguards were just staring at us like we were stupid haha. We ended up riding that ride a couple times too. The lines towards the end of the day seemed to be shortening surprisingly. Too bad the lines weren't that short throughout the whole day.
The way back home was extra boring. We got lost for about almost an hour and a half trying to get back to Katherine's apartment. No lie, that really pissed me off ....... really .. pissed me off. I wanted to rip someone's head off. When we finally got there, we picked up our stuff and started to head back to the Springs. I sorta fell asleep through the ride out of Denver. When we got back to the Springs, Joy dropped me off at Steven's house to watch the new Harold and Kumar movie. There we just watched the movie, chilled, looked at the Waterworld pictures we took that day, and pretty much just went home. What a fun day overall. If you don't include the whole episode of us getting lost in Denver, the day pretty much turned out almost perfect. With just the five of us, I had so much fun at Waterworld. Thanks.
Note: Here are the pictures from that day. Since there were so many high quality pictures taken, I had to compress them via WinRAR. if you wanna check 'em out, you gotta have WinRAR (which is free, go to rarlabs.com to download it). Download all the parts, put 'em in the same folder and extract only one of the files by right clicking and clicking on extract.
WaterWorld Pictures Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
WaterWorld Video Clips Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
The plans for this day was pretty much well planned from the very beginning. We were to go to the University of Colorado Denver to finish up the things I need to officially call myself a student there. Then I was to go with Joyleen to spend a night at her sister, Katherine's apartment. I woke up later than I was originally planning to. There was a pancake, made fresh by the madre. I had to wait about an hour or two though before we actually left to Denver because she left to go drop something off at the bank. When we finally left to Denver, we stopped by the McDonald's and Shell by Harrison to fill up on gas and to grab something to eat so we wouldn't get hungry while we were out. We exited on exit 195 on I-25 to drop Julie's car at the RTD parking lot to ride the light rail to the University of Colorado Denver.
So Julie bought three student tickets for all three of us instead of two adults and one student to save some money. My mom was planning to not buy any tickets at all because through the all the other times we rode the light rail, there were no checks for legit tickets before that day. At one of the stops before the Auroria Parkway stop, a RTD security law enforcer, if that's what you call them, came in and asked us if we had any tickets. Luckily for me, my ticket was legit since I was a student under the age of 20. Not lucky for my mom and Julie though. The officer ended up giving them "warnings" for buying the wrong ticket. The funny thing was that my mom was acting, not that well though, like she didn't know what she was doing. It was really annoying because she was bugging the officer about not knowing that it made it obvious that she was lying lol.
When we arrived to the Auroria Parkway station, we eventually found out that it was much closer to the Campus Village if we were to wait one more stop in the RTD, which was the Invesco Field station. We finished up the paper work for requesting a room and everything after clearing up some major misunderstandings thanks to the attendant there. From there, we walked to the financial aid office near the North Classroom to talk to someone about my financial aid. After that, we walked to the Tivoli to do a couple more errands. I finally got my student ID and bus and RTD pass weeks after the freshman orientation when I was originally intending to get it on. I also went downstairs to check out the bookstore where I picked up one of my books and got information about the rest of my books for my classes. I walked out of that store, not only with that one book for my class, but my mom also bought me a new CU buffalos book bag too. Because of that, I can finally replace my old worn out American Eagle book bag I used all summer.
Once we left the bookstore, we went back on the RTD to head back to the car to go to the Park Meadows Mall. When we arrived, everything surprised me there. I knew that they were building a Border's there as well as an outdoor section to the mall. But what surprised me was that everything was finished already. I wasn't expecting that. We ate some dinner right when we arrived. I was seriously thinking about just simply getting Chick-Fil-A to eat, but something changed my mind. There was a worker that was giving out samples of their meats from Cajun & Grill. They gave me about three different samples before I finally decided to just get their food instead of Chick-Fil-A. I got the barboun chicken plate with a side of veggies and fried rice. I even got a full serving of my mom's and food and Julie's too because, I guess, they were getting full. I said my goodbyes to my mom and Julie and went to Border's to look around and wait for Joyleen to pick me up. I looked at the photo albums as well as some Adobe Photoshop books. About thirty to forty-five minutes later, I got picked up.
We went straight to Katherine's apartment to get settled for the night. When we arrived, we chilled out for a little while and watched some House on TV. After that, we dropped our stuff off and soon after, went to Albertson's to grab some supplies for Waterworld. We picked up some chips, Chex Mix, Spam, and Oatmeal Cream Pies. When we got back to the apartment, Joy made those spam rice sushi looking things that Mav's mom made when we went to Elitches early this July. We didn't do much after that. Most of us were passed out by midnight. I fell asleep pretty fast and according to the people sleeping in the same room with me, I snore.
This was the day after Elitches so you gotta believe that I was tired and drowsy that next morning considering I didn't get home till about two in the morning because I was at Giane's house. Well I woke up, had a large serving of my favorite cereal, Wheaties. Soon after, I biked to the Target at the Cheyenne Mountain Area near Tinseltown. There, Matt and Keanan picked me up to go meet everyone else at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort. It took us a while to actually get to the incline because we had to pick up Nick, who was still probably asleep when we were getting him. We arrived at Manitou Springs around 10:00 to 10:30. We started our hike up the incline with some who have done it before and with some being their first time up. Joy, Nick, Darlene, and I were the ones who've already hiked up the incline before. The newcomers to the incline that day were Matt, Keanan, and Mina. For all of us I thought, this was the fastest we all got to the top. For me, I got around 45-50 minutes to get to the top while the rest of the guys made it around an hour. It was an improvement, but I don't care what anyone says, hiking up the incline'll never be fun no matter how many time you do it. Real talk.
On the way back down, we decided to take Barr Trail down. All of us ended up separating and going into groups because of the different paces. Me personally, I started to basically run because I started to hear thunder rolling. A little past the halfway point, when a couple drops started to fall, I thought it was going to start raining harder. So I freakin' book it. When I got to the bottom, I went to take a long drink at the water fountain and washed my feet off at the sink there while I was waiting for everyone to finish up. We all finished the hike by going to the Subway near Target and Tinseltown to grab something to eat. After eating, we just called it a day for all of us I guess. Most of us I believe went home. I did the same and got something to eat. While I was waiting for 6:00 to come for bowling, hosted by the Thompson family, I ended up passing out for about two hours. When I woke up, I got dressed and left to go to the bowling alley.
I picked up Steven and arrived at the bowling alley on time. We played and bowled with two lanes for all of us. We played a couple of games and eventually got tired of it. During that time too, my head was hurting so much. It was probably from not hydrating myself enough after we went hiking. Thanks to Amanda's ibuprofen, my headache went away after a couple of hours. What sucked about it too was that I was getting really really hungry. But I wanted to save money and not give in to their bowling alley food which was overpriced I thought. Luckily, I found my last can of tuna and pineapples in the trunk of my car. We stayed at the alley for hours before we finally left. Part of the group had to leave earlier, which was Robert, his cousin, Ed, and Danielle. The rest of us were stuck at the parking lot for a short while trying to figure out what to do. Another part of the group decided to go to Taco Bell, which was Mina, Gabe, and Bri. We finally decided to just go to Denny's near Harrison. We waited for Anthony, Amanda, and Talia there, while they dropped off little Gabe home.
When they arrived, we ended up sitting there for another thirty minutes deciding on what to get. I was planning on not eating. But I finally gave in and got some biscuits and gravy. Steven and Matt got the samplers and Amanda and Anthony got the bottomless pancakes. While we were eating, we saw some coked out crack heads. It was pretty interesting watching them trying to spit some game to one of the waiters there. After finishing our food and talking for a short while, we went to the parking lot to talk yet again. Eventually, we officially called it a night there and went home.
Updated July 30, 2008
Note: Here are the pictures. They are simply zipped up and ready to extract without any extra software. Download then right click on the file and extract. Enjoy.
Pike's Peak Incline [from Matt's Camera]
I said that this was memorable night for a reason. Nothing happened at all for me during the day. I pretty much didn't step a foot out of the house until almost 9 that night. I got picked up by Nick, Keanan, and Steven to join Ed and the others at Red Robin for dinner. When we got there, we had to wait for others to arrive. It was just the people riding in the car with me, Ed, and Robert with his cousin. The rest to arrive was the girls, Kristie, Joy, and Christine. From there, we all ordered our food. Well, I didn't order though as well as Steven. We stuck with the simple free water and the bottomless fries Red Robin provided. Surprisingly, that really filled me up. All I ate was fries and the leftovers of Joy's chicken sandwich. After that, we all drove by the theaters, I guess, to sneak in to the movies. We didn't go though. We instead went to Quail Lake to chill and relax. The other car, Robert's car, ended up following us. Before I left with my sister, we played some midnight basketball at the park. There was this game we started to play called, I think, Celebrity Basketball.
When I got picked up, Julie and I went straight to the Mendoza's place. There we got a couple of drinks, a shot or two, and all that good stuff. We just basically sat around for a little while and socialized for most of the time. I even tried a cigar just to see what it's like. It tasted like a strawberry Pop Tart to be honest, but I doubt I'm ever try that again. Steve and I eventually decided to go grab some late night Mexican food cause we were getting really reallly hungry lol. We went to the Albertacos on Austin Bluffs. I was looking forward to get a churizo burrito, but they said that they were out. I suspect BS, but it's whatever. I instead got a breakfast burrito with extra green sauce. When we got back to the Mendoza's house, the night was only beginning. We got back to find out that people were missing. Justin and Julie ended up to be the ones missing. They were dropping off Ralph and his cousin to his house I suppose. Anyways, when Steve and I walked to the basement to see what the other were up to, we saw the whole crowd except Ryan in the bathroom. I looked over to see he-who-shall-be-remained-nameless bleeding to death and everything. Ok, that may be a little over exaggerated, but it was pretty bad lol. So what ended up happening while I was out was that the dude tried to open up a bottle with his mouth and it ended up breaking on and cutting the dude on his chin really really deep. It was basically deep enough to the point where it needed stitches lol. Well, I still can't imagine the possibility of that happening especially when you look at the result of the bottle. I thought that was the buzz kill of the night. But it wasn't. Some of the people were nice enough to take the dude to the ER; the rest of us went back to the basement to watch a zombie movie, Undead. What a night.
