Good stuff

After reading a great comment from SGA President Samantha Drews, I felt that I had to post this comic. Enjoy. :)

(Click to enlarge)

Headin' South

That's right, I'm heading south again. 9 of us are going back down to Slidell, Louisiana to do more cleanup work from Hurricane Katrina. The professors have all given us the OK, so we are good to go! For pics from last time's trip, goto www.twosouth.com/slidell. I will return on Monday at (hopefully) 6pm, just in time to turn in my MGT 488 midterm. That's right, take-home midterm. Score.

So what happened this week?? 4 sport events (2 soccer, 2 volleyball). That was, of course, a great time with Blue Crew. I got interviewed by News Channel 20, and they are going to be putting together a news piece about the Blue Crew. Since I am president and will be out of town this weekend for the pep rally and first basketball game, they taped me early. Yay.

And then one totally amazing thing happened this weekend. His name is VANILLA ICE. That's right, tickets to Vanilla Ice, right here in Springfield. After ordering my 1990 Vanilla Ice Tour shirt off eBay and getting tickets for myself and 7 other friends, we went to Karma Nightclub and totally rocked out.

Since Jen and I were the only ones 21+, we got to go downstairs to where Ice was performing. All the 20-under kiddos had to stay above on a balcony. So we headed down about 20 minutes before the show started, and got our spots about 2 rows from the stage. After about 2 songs we were to the front, no more than 5 feet away from 1990's One Hit Wonder Stardom for the night.

Vanilla Ice is not the man you might remember, with the lines in the hair, the goofy clothes, and overall stupid whiteboy image. He is now tattooed heavily, and full of anger. A lot of anger. He took his anger out on the crowd rather nicely, only telling us to F$%* off 15 or 20 times. He also soaked us with water, either from the bottle or backwash from his mouth, every chance he got.

Words can't really describe the level of awesomeness, so these pictures and video will have to do.

Vanilla Ice giving me the Double Rock (Those are both of my arms)


Vanilla Ice yelling about how he hates the media and record producers or something like that. His equally angry DJ, DJ Dirty Sanchez, or DJ DS for short, kept putting metal objects on this grinder, making wicked sparks.

And of course, notice Ice throwing water, as normal.


LL Cool Ice?


My Sweet 1990 Tour Shirt, which after hearing him talk about how much he hated his past, made me decide that it was best to stand behind Jen and hope he didn't see it.



And it wouldn't be fair if I didn't share some video with you:
ICE ICE BABY VIDEO
For the rest of the pictures and video, keep an eye out on Twosouth.com.

Best Part of the Vanilla Ice Concert? -- People that went wrote about it for class as going to a "concert" for Art and Music. Classic.

Sunday night was equally exciting. We went to Terror on the Square on a joint trip with 3 West and 1 South. Good times were had by all. Afterwards we went to a real scary house, and we are going to go back sometime soon.

The Scary House


I think Tom is trying to catch rain in his mouth?


Kyle eating Emily


Look at all that sweet UIS apparel! (Blogger Allie 2nd from left)




That's all for now Blogfans, see you next time!

Birthday Weekend!

So yeah, i'm 22 years old now. Insane. Fortunately, I since I am an RA and still live in the dorm, I don't have to act like one yet. My residents are amazing, probably the coolest ones ever, and we did some awesome stuff all weekend. It was like a 3 day birthday bash. But more on that later. Back to the world.

As mentioned in a previous post, I am the RA of Twosouth, the Healthy Lifestyles Wing of LRH. That means I am blessed with the opportunity to live with 40 other college freshman and sophomores who don't need to drink or do drugs in order to have a good time. Yes kids, that is possible! The community support is amazing, and there is no pressure to go drink yourself into a stupor on weekends (or even a Tuesday for those who are really cool!), do things you might regret later, etc, etc, you know what I'm talking about.

The fun started Friday night at Mowie's, a pool hall close by. We played air hockey, foosball, shuffleboard, darts, and even a little Golden Tee 2005 into the wee hours of the morning. Saturday was busier, we headed to D'Arcy's Pint for supper. After the usual 75 minute wait to get in, we promptly ordered our appetizers. I tried Irish Nachos, which were pretty darn good. Everyone then proceeded to eat their artery clogger, aka the horseshoe. Totally stuffed, we took a little break before 9pm ExTrEmE bOwLiNg . I headed over to Penny Lane, where we picked up tickets for the Vanilla Ice concert on next Saturday. Let me say that again. We picked up tickets for the Vanilla Ice concert on next Saturday. Just wanted to make sure you heard that. :) $15 gets you up close and personal with Ice himself.

I just ordered a shirt off of eBay for the concert, let me know what you think:
http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29392-2357-0?uid=165317148&site=0&ver=EOIBSA080805&lk=URL&Item=7553208073

Ice Ice BABY!

So yeah, back to the festivities. We headed to the bowling alley, and things got seriously ExTreMe. Blacklights, disco balls, strobes, it was all there. Here are some pictures from bowling!


ExTrEmE!!!!!!!



Jen and I :)



Cloe-y!



Must have been all that irish food for supper...



Jeremy goes between the legs



Me after another strike



Shelly rocks out the X



Kaley!!



Me and the girlzzzz



Sweet!

After that we went home and passed out.. from exhaustion. Good stuff. Sunday (my actual birthday) was more of the same. Church, Olive Garden with my parents, Jen's parents, and Kyle, who was out of town Sat. night for a retreat. After lunch my parents, Jen, and I went around to some fine establishments such as Barnes and Noble, Circuit City, Office Depot, and more. I occasionally found some cool birthday stuff, and it was promptly purchased. Woot. (My first blog woot!)

Later last night we made the usual Steak and Shake run at 11:30. It went like this: drive to Wabash SNS, closed. Head to Stevenson SNS. Decide to goto Chicago Style Gyros. Turn around and drive downtown. Park. Walk. Closed. Drive back to SNS Stevenson. OPEN! And there were like 8 other people who had been trying to call us, but we all had our phones off or on vibrate and could not hear. So the 18 of us had some great late night food, complete with the usual water fights, bad jokes, and overall fun times. After that we came back and finished homework.

So that's my birthday in a nutshell! A great time, and apparently I get more presents today because they didn't get here in time... I'll take a 4 day celebration!

So that's all. And my residents are awesome. And that's all.

These are a few of my favorite things!

Hey everyone!

Not much going on today, but I do have some random observations about UIS that makes me appreciate it more!

• Ever seen a dirty table at the cafeteria? I can only think of a handful...
• I love the fact that cafeteria workers know you well enough to say "What would you like, Brad?"
• The new quad is amazing. When I started here in 2002, the land to the east of LRH was a gigantic grassy knoll with a small parking lot. It was mainly used for football pickup games and hitting golf balls... Ok, maybe that wasn't sooo bad afterall.
  
• Online classes. I love being able to do work at my leisure. As in 11:50pm when the assignment is due at midnight.
  
• The people you meet! There are so many amazing people at UIS, a lot of the future of America is starting right here. Business people, historians, (crooked) politicians, social workers, lawyers, and doctors, all of which I will be proud to say I know (except for all of these crazy liberals!). :)

This list will undoubtedly grow as I continue to realize and see things I would want other potential UIS students to know.

Until then, GO STARS!

Brad

The Real Dizzle

Here it comes. Are you ready? The truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me UIS.
I have been selected as a UIS Blogger, joining an elite group of Blogger Emeritus such as my counterpart Matt Wallace,Jason Kennedy, Alicia Barrese, and more. It should be an exciting adventure; I always have a lot going on. Hopefully I can find time to type it all out so you can see what UIS is all about (Right John Kelly? ;) )

Just to give you some reference points, here are 10 quick things to know about me.

1. I am a senior at UIS, and I will be graduating in 2 short months.
   
2. I will have my bachelor's degree in Business Administration, which has been a great and relatively pain-free process.
   
3. I am from Rushville, IL, where the grass is just a little greener.
   
4. I rarely have class, which you will realize once you get to know me, because I love to let others know about my frequent 14-day breaks. :)
   
5. This is my 3rd year as a Resident Assistant for Twosouth, which is the Healthy Lifestyles Wing of Lincoln Residence Hall.
   
6. Fellow Blogger Jordan Haley is my wonderful next door neighbor, so we will be sharing similar memories, such as our trip to Louisiana!
7. I am the president of the UIS Blue Crew, which is the BEST club on campus!
8. I like to take pictures, and I take them in large doses. As in 15,000 in the past year. That's 41 a day.
   
9. You can see 1 of those 41 at my Picture of the Day blog.
10. If I wasn't already getting married to my college sweetheart, Jen, I'd marry UIS. I love UIS. UIS has been very good to me. I want to be with UIS longer. :(

That's all for today folks. And by today I mean until I blog again. Until next time, go Stars!

Brad