Whats goin on?

Ha ha, I totally forgot about this blog until a few minutes ago, a great friend reminded me of it, lets call her AJ, because that is her nickname. A few things about AJ...she gave me a job at Aquarena Center, we became like best friends, adn then she upped and moved to f-ing Virginia. what the hell? jk. she had to. She comes down everyonce in a while and we hang out, not long enough though. anyways enough about her.
I am currently at work, still at Aquarena. Things have changed around here, I am now the Boat Supervisor, which means i make the schedule for my fellow boat drivers, mantain the boats, and take care of problems. It's fun, I don't see why everyone hates this place after they quit, it is probably the best, worst paid, laid back job in San Marcos, I mean you get to drive glass bottom boats. Also, I am still working in the conference center, weddings and conferences and what not. I plan to stay here until i graduate...Speaking of which, should be this August of 2007. I am super excited, after this semester, if I pass everything, I only have 5 classes left to take, plus 2 interships...
Other things that have changed.... I am now living at Post Road Place apartments, with this guy named matt, who is bonnie's boyfriend, it is alot of fun. He has a pitbull mix named meatloaf. No longer living with Sam, he moved to the stupid baptist academy.
Classes are going ok so far, 4 on campus, 1 online, and 1 assistant instructor scuba class. Can't wait to be done with classes, they just get in the way of having fun. Speaking of having fun, I turned 21 over the summer, and have had lots of safe fun. who knew. I ran into a guy I grew up with and he was shocked to see me drinking, it was really funny.
I am almost off work now, so I should prolly start to wrap this up. hopefully more to come, I have a retreat this weekend with CRU, so that should be lots of fun. Also, this week on the 4th is the 1 year anniversary of my Nana passing away from cancer, so that is gonna be a really hard day to get through. I have classes all day, and a test, so maybe I will be distracted somewhat, so I won't have to think about it much. Wow. I just realized it has been a year since that, so much has happened in the past year, I think I have matured alot more (when I need to of course). This past year has had its ups and downs', but I think it has been a great year.
Well, it is almost time to go home, so i gotta start closing down the Spring lake Complex. have a good night everyone, you might get another post in like 8 more months.

So i haven't updated in a while....oh well. Ummm lots of things have been going on lately. I got a job promotion at work in January, I am now the Diving Supervisor. I just work with the divers on weekends and check them in and brief them and take their money. It is a great job. I am still doing my other jobs too though. (boat driving, aqaurium, and special events, where I am taking on alot more responsibilty. Umm....I got another snake. a ball python. his name is monty (sorry jen but it was too cool to pass up). Umm.. i took a turtle home from work because we got rid of the turtle display, so I now have a musk turtle named Gunther. Also, last weekend Sam went to the pound and got a dog, we think she is part border Collie and part Australian Shepard. Ummm... Sam took her to the vet and found out that she has heartworms, and we can't afford to treat her, so he was going to return her to the pound, but his girlfriend's dad offered to loan him the money, so we get to keep Zoey. That is all the pets for now. Umm... school is going alright this semester, switched major over to Criminal Justice, so thats what i am gonna keep. i need to get outta here within a couple of years. Not much else important has been going on. Except Logan moved out and so now it is only Sam, Jason and I, but sam is taking over for logan...(see pic below).....Oh ya, this is not a lie. I have a date this weekend with a very awesome girl. I am very excited about it. More details to come on that later. Well, i thihk that is it for now. here are some pics of some of the animals.

Buddy has gotten alot bigger since you last saw him:



Monty:

Gunther:
Sam:
(He was like this for a good 45 minutes to an hour at like 7:30 on a friday)

Zoey:

There's a hole in my soul.....oops I mean head.....

So, I finally got my head cyst taken out today. Its been there for over 5 years, and I never dealt with it. Finally, I got it taken out. It was a very wierd feeling going in, because my cyst and I have lived together for over 5 years, its like we are best friends, so going in was kinda sad, and scary. Luckily my mom came up here to go with me, they number up my scalp around the cyst, and then started to cut my scalp open....while talking to me, I was wide awake. It was freaky feeling. Then I started to feel a lot queezy, so we stopped, I puked, then they made me lay there for a few minutes, and then we continued to remove the cyst. It went alot better, because they finished with me feeling fine. Along the way I knew they were inside my scalp, because I could feel them up there, I could feel them pulling the cyst to the side so they could cut it's "roots" or so they called it. There was alot of those roots. SUcked alot. So once they got him out, they showed him to me, and he was about the size of a cherry, well between a marble and a cherry. At least now I don't have a HUGE bump on the top of my head. But it does hurt a lot, I have never felt pain like this before. These were my first stitches to get, and they had to go so deep , that they put a few stitches about 3/4 of an inch below my scalp, and then alot more on top of my head too. And my parents want me to get the other 3 SMALLER ones taken off before the year is over, but I don't really want to go through that again. EVER....... So, then after it was over, I puked again cause I got up to fast after losing alot of blood, then my MOm and I went to Subway, where people were staring HARDCORE at the pads of Gauze covering 1/4 of my head. This one guy soon as he saw it, goes "So what did you do to your head?, I replied I just had surgery." His reply was "I bet the other guy is worst huh???" Dumb question.....
Anyways, soon as I got home, I headed to work, which i didn't want to do, but I am commited to Aquarena Center, so I went in, didn't have anything to do for a while, so we stood and talked about my head, then I loaded a boat, went and talked to one of my bosses that scheduled me for today, and she was like "I don't know why I scheduled you for today." I was hoping I could go right back home..but no, then we foundlots of stuff to do....yay!!! SO after work, I went home, and napped til CRU, then went to Taco C, and then watched Kicking and Screaming... hilarious movie... now off to bed, but here are some pictures of my bald spot and stitches... night night ya'll



P.S. I HATE SCHOOL, my classes suck, and I am not good at CHem/Physics. oh well. BUT MY SNAKE IS GETTING HUGE. HE WILL BE ABOUT 6 FEET LONG.....YAY!!!!!

The Rain today was the angels' crying

Crying for joy that is. This morning at about 4 am, my Nana passed away. She has had stage 4 brain and lung cancer since the beginning of July. We have been expecting this to happen any time, but it finally happened today, after being in a lot of pain over the past couple of months. When my mom called me to tell me this afternoon, I was at work, and then when she said she had bad news, I knew exactly what it was, and when she said "Austin, its Nana, she passed this morning," this terrible feeling of sadness and happiness set into me at the same time. I am very sad that I will never get to spend time with my Nana anymore, but at the same time very happy that she is no longer in pain, and will get to see Jesus and her husband, and my Paw-Paw up in heaven.
My brother and I had soo many fun times growing up with Nana and Paw-Paw going on herpotolgy meets, going camping out in Big Bend, camping other places, and many other activities. Once my Paw-Paw died in middle school, most of my time spent with my Nana was jsut helping her around the house, going to see movies, going shopping, hanging out, it was alot of fun. Now we will not be able to do any of that again. It saddens me that in high school I was real busy with working and school and whatnot, that I didn't get to spend alot of time with her. It got even worse when I went off to college, since I don't go home that much.
Luckily, due to Hurricane Rita theating to hit the Texas Gulf Coast, my Mom, Nana, and step dad and brother came up to my apartment for the weekend, So I got to see Nana one last time before she passed on. But the trip up here made it even worse on her, she got sick to her stomach on the way up here, but at least I got to see her one more time. She has been really out of it and seeing things, and not all there, but when I got home from work on Wednesday, she was asleep, and my mom woke her up, and she shot the biggest smile I had ever seen on her face, she was soo happy to see me. About a month ago, she talked to my mom very seriously, she said the only thing she minded about dying soon was that she wasn't going to see me graduate from college. That made me feel very happy that she cares so much for me.
So, I am going home this weekend for the funeral, which is going to be in Wharton, where she will be buried next to Paw-Paw. This weekend also happens to be Fall Retreat, so I will not be attending anymore, at least I already had the weekend off, so I won't be an inconvience to anyone at work, even though they wouldn't mind. Also this week, my mom called me to tell me that our dog got hit by and car and died. I had honey since I was in 4th grade, so it was a hard thing to hear that she won't be there this weekend when I go home. But at least I got to play with her alot this weekend when she came because of Hurrican Rita.
Please be praying for my family and I, as we go through this. My mom has been living with Nana taking care of her since August, and trying to work and trying to start her new life with Dennis. So that will give them time together, but he has been so nice to us while this has been happening. He was a blessing through all this, since I am in San Marcos, and my brother has been in Europe since September.
Well, I need to start studying for my bio test tommorow, hopefully I can focus on studying, and not being distracted by things.
Thanks for your prayers.RIP Nana, I love you sooooo much, Glad you aren't in pain anymore. Love you.

Floor Darts

So, just now Sam, Jason Pierce, and I spent 25 minutes playing floor darts. I was bored, saw my dart board on the floor, put it in the middle, and started throwing darts at it. The new craze caught on very quickly, and we continued to play for a while. Then a debate broke out between Sam and I, about which ring was the double ring and which was the triple ring. Of course, Sam swore he was right, because "I watched darts ONE time on ESPN, and they said that was the double ring on the inside, and I was like dude, I have had a dartboard for 10 years, i know whats going on, he was like so do I..... So i looked it up and was like see, I told you so....
Anyway, so I was like, I bet we will play this at the next party we have....everyone was in agreence (Sp). Then I came up with the idea of playing off Reid and Sean's balcony on the 3rd floor down to the bottom. Well, peace out for now.

My New Pet

So this is my new pet snake. He is a california striped King Snake. I have been wanting a snake for years, and now that I got my own apartment, I got one. I am still trying to think of a name...what do you think?

School started this week. This semester might suck. I switched my major this summer to Wildlife Biology, so it means 1 more year of school, and alot of hard classes. This semester I am taking Bio, Calculus for life sciences, Chem, and Physics. Oh well. Apartment is great, except for my alcoholic roomie Logan. WEll, I am out, take her easy.

Adventures on the Hill side

So today at work, we decided today at work, we decided to BBQ after-work, so we did it at Ethan's cottage, which is right on the lake and overlooks the lake, so we moved a table up a ladder onto the roof of his house, then all 10 of us there ate the delicious food (except for Jessica's eggplant) and shared it with the bugs, so after about an hour of drinking and smoking, we decided to go swimming, so I jumped into the lake, swam across, maybe 50 yards, stole the dive barge, and drove back across the lake to pick up the others who were gonna swim. So then we went and got mask, fins, and dive lights, and drove out to Deep Hole, the deepest part of the lake, and dove in and swam around, then we were sitting out there, and we saw a flash in the Landing, which is rented by Parks and Wildlife, but also patrolled by UPD, so we jumped on and drove off, then we got back to dock, and started walking through the park back around the other side of the lake, and while we were walking we saw parking services pull into the parking lot, so we all froze, thinking that we were gonna get totally busted and lose our jobs at Aquarena, but then they drove on, and we walked in front of the hotel, then up to the river deck, and saw the parking services guy drive off, then we decided to go walk around the hotel, which was very lit up and bright, walked around there for a while, probaly being seen by whoever drove by (UPD and Parking Services), so we went up on the roof, watching about 20 different talopia (sp) fish swimming around, so we starting throwing rocks off the top of the hotel, when a car pulled into the parking lot, and stopped, kinda looking right at us, so we went rushing off back to Ethans' cottage, back to the safe house, and of course I was barefoot walking through the woods on the rocky paths, in complete dark, so it was kinda freaky. I left my shoes at Ethans since I had to swim across the lake, and so I was walking kinda slow, and got left, so I took a wrong turn and hit the lake and then found my way back to Ethans cottage. Overall the night was awesome, I think it is a great idea to be friends with co-workers outside of work. But just friends, I don't agree with dating inside the work place with fellow employees.

The past couple of weeks have been lots of fun, even though I know my Nana is at home suffering, she is doing alot better though, she is out of the hospital, and now living out the days at home, the doctor told her she has 6 months, and we were very excited to hear that they were thinking that long.

Hanging out with MW Rice (www.dailyrice.blogspot.com) has been a big adventure this summer, throughout this past year I knew him, but never really started hanging out with him until everyone moved away for the summer, that guy has all kinds of ideas for adventures, one night we hiked though devils backbone, another we rode little bikes around his neighborhood, one day I took him to Fiesta Texas (look at his blog pics for more info) because he had never been, but this past week he left to go to Army Reserve training, so he will be gone for 3 weeks, no more crazy adventures. Have fun in California Michael Warren Rice.




Some more random adventures/dance party, of course I was the photographer, cause I don't dance. But this was at MW Rice's going away for a few weeks BBQ. Which I was late to because my car battery went nuts, and I had to replace it, but then the terminals were all messed up. thats the fun in having a car.

ONE LAST THOUGHT/QUESTION?

Why is it that you can go months/years with no one really interested in dating you, or at least telling you. Then all of a sudden within a month or so, 2-3 different girls you know or just met seem very very interested in you, or tell you that they are? God works in mysterious ways, and I just know I have to trust him and talk to him about what to do, and talk to all the girls and decide what to do..I need Grace back in town, cause she has all the answers to women problems.

Night ya'll