It's so hot

There is no AC...thankfully I found a job where I can escape into the AC for a few hours each day.
That is all for now.

Not Homeless

Today concludes my apartment-hunting in Chapel Hill. I had an apartment reserved before we came down here, and in true Smola family fashion, we looked at about nine more apartments before we settled on the one I had reserved in the first place. So that's good. If anyone has suggestions for where to find cheap apartment furniture/decorations/stuff, let me know!

Went to a planetarium tonight. I'd never been to one but UNC has one on their campus and my dad and I wanted to check it out. Mom came too. This was after we had dinner and went to a place for gelato (I had a mix of raspberry and dark chocolate--phenomenal.). It is clear from walking around UNC's campus that I have no clue about most of the history of the place. Top things I know: First state university, Jordan went here, basketball is huge.

So tomorrow I head home and get ready for a whirlwind set of weekends coming up. Next weekend we're celebrating my mom's 50th birthday, Molly comes to town. After that, I'm off to Chicago (Eric is invited but never really said yes or no, just that he doesn't want to go to a Cubs game, which wasn't helpful for me at all) to visit Matt (and I guess Mike too)! Massive photo-taking better be tolerated and encouraged. After that, I'm off to Michigan, then after that perhaps Cincinnati (although that's not for sure) and then it's moving time!

That's all I got. Congrats to Matt on getting a job, and to Eric for hiring a employment hitman.

Currently listening to: My dad falling asleep to NASCAR. Goodnight y'all.

LeBraby

Today I applied for jobs.

So all this coverage of Lebron is making me sick. He is a dick, now can't we drop it? I feel like the people who have had multiple status updates starting the second they found out about his decision is a little much. I also find the ones about how/what to destroy to be annoying. Seriously, stop it. People from Cleveland are almost as annoying as people from Chicago when it comes to bitching about sports. No, they are tied. Take a page from Lions fan's book and suffer through your misery quietly and don't subject the rest of the nation to it.

I called a head hunter today who is supposed to help me find a job. He didn't pick up. So now I am waiting. Fingers crossed.

I finally have something to do!

First of all, I would like to apologize for my long absence. I promise it will not happen again. To be honest I began to feel like I was treating this blog with the same lack of respect as Mike does and I couldn’t have that. (Just kidding Mike, kind of) However, my absence was not without good reason.

I spent 10 days, June 25 – July 4^th working at a booth for a Chinese restaurant the Taste of Chicago. While the money was good I would never do it again. I woke up at 6:45AM everyday and did not arrive home until after 10PM each night. The heat was unbearable and I have no desire to eat orange chicken for at least the next 5 years. I also mildly lost all faith in humanity as I watched hordes of unforgiving people savagely attack for food. Thinking about it makes me hurt, so that is all I have to offer on that.

However, in more exciting news, during the mess of the Taste I interviewed with and was offered a position to be a Site Coordinator/AmeriCorps*National Direct at a non-profit called LIFT located in Uptown Chicago. (see below for what I do) So for exciting news: I HAVE A JOB! (for the next two years anyways) I started training on Tuesday and absolutely love it! My co-workers are awesome, the organization is great and everyday is different. I’ve mainly just been learning the ropes and transitioning into the position as the outgoing site coordinator gets ready to leave. I’m also gearing about for the national training in DC in two weeks – everyone says it is going to be awesome. So hopefully this big change in my life will give me a lot more to blog about than the typical “Today I applied for jobs” that I had been doing.

My job: LIFT is a national organization based in DC and working to combat poverty in neighborhoods in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, New York and DC. As a Site Coordinator, I am serving LIFT by managing the Uptown site with one other Site Coordinator, one of our 3 sites in Chicago. The organization utilizes college students as volunteers to provide a variety of services to clients such a housing, employment and public benefits. I work to coordinate the volunteers, the client services, community outreach and mange the office. I am really freaking pumped.

There’s a quick update! Which I’m sure was way too long for Eric. Sorry for the hiatus, I’m back in the blog and ready to keep you engaged in the mundane and extraordinary! Peace out!

Wireless

I have become a member of the wireless revolution. I am now fully capable of surfing the 'net in my bedroom, or, as is the case right now, in front of the TV, or anywhere in between I would imagine. Its pretty nice. Maybe sometime later I will see how far my bargain router will throw a signal. I doubt I will blog about it though. You'll get over it.

Can I just point out how awesome Matt's cars have been? I mean, I was wondering how he was going to top the Acclaim. Aren't Sonatas the ones that they were having a buy-one-get-one-free sale a few years back? Hahaha. Just kidding, not everyone can have a sweet car like me. (confusion and disbelief just overwhelmed most of the people reading this)

Tigers are winning and in first place. Life is good. Johnny Damon just hit his 2500th hit.

I apologize for not bragging earlier about our volleyball dominance. I credit our win to the dysfunctionality of the opposition. There was a lot of yelling.

Went to the lake again yesterday. The boat was not cooperating, so we just swam in the shallow. It was kinda gross. I'm not a big fan of touching the bottom of the lake. Its muddy and full of weeds.

Ode to The Green Lady

It's been a while. I've been busy. And I've taken enough crap from my friends at home, so I'll have none of that here.

Had my sister's grad party last weekend (this was the cause of most of my absence); a handful of devoted friends came into town to celebrate. Eric of course beat everyone else here (even mdull who only needed to drive from her nearby home). There was cornhole with my wonderfully crazy aunt, volleyball in which we (Eric, Ben, Molly and me) defeated the punks who were on a team with my sister. It was great, and I'm surprised Eric didn't blog about it. Oh well, I got to.

The whole run-up to the party and the party itself left me pretty tired but finally this weekend I picked myself up and went out car shopping with dad. On Saturday I became the proud owner of a Hyundai Sonata, although this also marked the end of an era, which I'd like to detail a little further.

My junior and senior years of high school were laced with trips to and from school in a '93 Plymouth Acclaim. The third driver of this car after two great-grandmothers before me, I began to grace it's bench seat in 2005 when the odometer read a mere 50,000 or so miles. "The Green Lady," as she was so dubbed, was present for many of my fondest memories: doughnuts in the snow, trips to Cedar Point, commuting to my first science-y job (sans A/C), and a hopeful restoration of A/C by my grandfather with freon from Mexico (which failed). Needless to say, the 'Lady had been called on in my times of need, and she delivered with all four cylinders.

The only thing left of The Green Lady are her license plates, and a small pile of rust that accumulated when we shut doors, the trunk, or--most recently--freed her immobile back wheels. I followed her to her final resting place (as I choose to believe) in the back of the car dealership who gave us $250 for her. After a somber goodbye, I turned my attention to more pressing matters--the trunk release button in the new car. The Sonata currently has no nickname, and I'm not sure that it will. Maybe it will come, but I doubt that if it does, it'll ever be as perfect as "The Green Lady."

The Lake!

I went to the lake yesterday. It was not a perfect day, but we have come to expect that from our trips to the Irish Hills. For as long as we can remember (a year or two at least) every time we want to go to the lake, the weather is either cold, windy, overcast, raining, or some diabolical combination of these. This time it was just over 70 after two weeks of non-stop 90 degree weather, and was a little windy. On the bright side, it was quite sunny and the water was warm, so it was bearable.

We took the boat out just about as soon as we got there. No time to waste and all that you know? Well we made Joe unhook the boat, then it wouldn't start at first so he almost got pinned against the dock. Not really, he's a beast and just shoved it away. The ride over was uneventful. When we got to our usual swimming spot, we dropped anchor and jumped in. We soon realized that the boat was drifting away rather rapidly. We got back in, struggled with the ignition again, and moved back to where we wanted to be. This happened several times. Finally we just said screw it, and let it drift. We were drifting almost directly down the longest portion of the lake, so there was not much danger of hitting anything, especially since there were only 3 other boats out on the entire lake.

At one point, we were in 35' of water and the one anchor was obviously not even touching anymore, so I pulled that one in. The other seemed to still be on the bottom though. That has to be the most exercise we have gotten at the lake. Most of us were in the water the majority of the time, and that means we were swimming along with the boat for almost half a mile. It was drifting for almost two hours and was at the other end of the lake when we decided to head in. When Joe pulled up the anchor, it was covered in seaweed and had dragged up a rather large tree branch. In the end we all had a great time, got lots of sun, and you should just generally be jealous of us.

The goldfish is giving me dirty looks, I have put it in its place.