since i'm past due...

since i'm way over my posting limit (haha, jk) i thought i woud post a few fun and exciting posts before I left for TURIN :) :) :)

Thank you to everyone who has contributed physically or mentally to making my birthday awesome! esp to mari -- for holdin my hair, SORT OF! :) Being 21 is fun, but it doesn't really feel any different. But that's ok, it feels funny to be further into my twenties, but such is life.

Currently I am FINISHED with my fall semester at MI Tech and now I'm working A TON to get some $$ saved for Italy. I'm probably going to be coming home Dec. 23rd for Christmas and leaving soon there after, so if you'll be visiting the BL area, be sure to let me know!! :)

As of now.. I'm in Iron Mtn visiting Adam. It's kind of boring being here during the day while he's at work, but that's ok, i've been watching a lot of CMT (country music television) hehe, just kidding -- well, not entirely. I have been semi productive on my trip down here.

I've discovered that Iron Mtn is pretty lame.. even compared to houghton. maybe it's just cuz i don't know the area very well, but so far, i'm not overly impressed... oh well, I'm headin back to houghton tomorrow and SNOWBOARDING :) but for now, I'm gonna go work on some Christmas cards!!

Ciao!

Happy Birthday to my Meegan!!!

this time my away msg was too small to carry all my words!


happy birthday to my bestest friend in the whole wide world!!
who saved me from pink glasses and my wardrobe of sweat pants.
who rocked that whole igloo building back in mr. merriman's class.
who had so many damn girl scout patches that you could have built a small town out of them.
to the girls who got two holiday dinners because we had to go to both together!
to the girl who watched the frog get eaten by that big fat stuipd duck.
to the girls that spent hours and hours with beefcakes on the floating dock.
to all the rollerblading, the running and going to sweet papa bears!
to making pajama pants-- and other trips to ben franklin's for spur of the moment craft ideas.
who was the best "b" in softball that i've ever seen.
(btw, u have a very hot butt in the shortstop's opinion)
to my favorite pumpkin carver and best car driver i know ;)
(don't fall asleep anymore while driving)
from blue showers and fun dip to missing the call from A.Starr and those tight cowboy pants.
from ARCADIA HILL to all those late night phone calls about stupid boys.. oh man.
bumpin' in the blazer and singing the bad boy song at the top of our lungs all the way to TC town and back.
to pickin my ass up from the airport!
and we can't forget the fun times had in blue mtn :)
(I'm gonna miss that place this yr!)
to the best policewoman in training there will ever be!
i love you for everything meegan!
and most of all because we're every other year friends ;)
<3 always, a.starr

Halloween antics!

Two nights of tremendous parties and costumes galore. College costumes are always better and more creative than any costumes around.. For instance, I saw someone dressed up as a wine box -- including a working spout. Amazing.

Well, halloween was fun, even though it hasn't really happened yet, but for some unlucky students studying must commence. Tomorrow we plan on getting a group together to go see Saw II, should be a good time :)

I totally touched a snake last night too! It was pretty crazy too, a foot long boa constrictor.. uck.. hehehe.

More photos.

Sample of the festivities:

halfway through...

School... sucks.. but everything else is goin great! I can't wait to get on the plane to Italy!! I might even start preparing a little bit more for what cultural/language differences might await me. I've been told that may be a smart idea... haha..

As for everything else, I think I'm kinda bummed that I'll have to miss a winter in Houghton. I hear this one is going to be a doozey based on the above average temp of Lake Superior. Sounds like many a days at Bohemia! :(

On the highest note of my semester, I'm in this journalism class.. and if our stories are good enough, they get posted in the Houghton newspaper -- The Daily Mining Gazette. So far, my article on the Keweenaw Brewing Company was published and turns out my article on new mountain biking courses will be in this saturday!! I'm two for two!

Well, that's all i've got for now.. sorry these updates are lame and less exciting :( I'll work on that..

So... it's about that time...

Well, since it's been almost a month since my last post, i've decided to grant you all the greatness of my ramblings. :) jk. This semester is turning out to be way busier than i had hoped for. But it's ok, the countdown to Italy has begun :)

Here's a shocker, it's October 3rd and I'm sitting in my chair in a pool of sweat. It's seriously way too hot outside to be healthy -- for an October.

I've been undergoing a lot of personal reflection recently, not so sure what i've come up with, but maybe some changes are what's in store. I can't wait to go back to b-town and visit all the old classmates.

In other news, I've been camping at least once a week for the past three weeks, I like it :) And today I saw a girl running and didn't even flinch, I can safely say I've lost all desire to exercise again, Mari help! Speaking of Mari, we've decided that the best thing for Jake is to make him a corporation with part owners. Currently there are six of us in on the gig, if you'd like to be part owner of Jacob please send a detailed resume to me and we'll schedule an interview ;)

That's all folks, sorry for the randomness!

Ontonagon County Animal Protection

Way back when Adam got Zoey, I told OCAP that I would be interested in creating a web site for them, if they were interested as well. They were! And since I'm slower than molasses, I'm just now getting around to it.

But anyways, I am working on it and was hoping I could get some feedback on the design. Hardly anything is functioning yet so don't get too excited, but you can poke around and see for yourself.

Thanks guys. -- Click the pic to get there :)

oh man.

me: grrrr
adam: bear?
adam: this is a fun game
adam: my turn
adam: quack

passing out is WAY cool!

So yesterday after my modeling debut -- i had to wear pink (UCK!) I saw this sign advertising a blood drive. Normally I donate whenever I can, but today I didn't really want to UNTIL I saw that they had SUBS listed under refreshments! Well yeah, free food will get me to do just about anything. So I went.

I filled out my paperwork and they got me in the chair and the nurse stuck me with the needle, but the vein just wouldn't have it... so after she dug around in my arm for awhile, she asked me if i wanted to try the other arm instead. Since I was bound and determined to get a sub, I said sure. My stomach was a little queasy from her playing hide and go seek with my vein, so I grabbed a scrumptious looking brownie and it was yummy.

Since my faith in this nurse had been tested, I snuck over to another chair w/a new nurse. She got me with the needle, found the vein and I was happily half way through my pint of blood. Then my friend Shawna came over. She told me she was very afraid of needles so I was talking her through the whole thing, and watching her get poked. As all of this was going on and I neared the end of my pint, I started to not feel so good. It was kind of warm in the room we were in and watching Shawna probably wasn't the best idea. So after my pint was over, I told the nurse I wasn't feeling awesome and she made me comfortable while keeping me in the chair. I felt hot, dizzy, and not too good, AND i had to go to the bathroom.

The nurse sent me to the bathroom with a volunteer who was very nice and told me to tell her if I felt any different. As soon as she finished the sentence, I told her I felt different and went down right in the doorway of the bathroom. As the volunteer held the door open so I wouldn't get stuck and people were freaking out, i came to. I stood up and made it into the stall and as I was taking care of business my body told me it wanted to throw up. There I met that yummy brownie all over again. Such excitement for the bathroom.

After all that Ingrid (the volunteer) and I made it back to the room where the blood drive was and I was feeling much better. They advised me not to drive home, so I called Adam and he came and picked me up.

Fortunately, they sent me home with three sandwiches. In hindsight, that was the worst cost-benefit analysis I've ever done.

Mallery will be so proud...

I'm quitting school to become a model...

Today I got a call from Amber, one of the girls from downwind, asking me if I wanted to help out w/the Univeristy Catalog. I don't have anything goin on tomorrow, so I decided to do it! YAY! It sounds like we'll be parading around in university clothing for pictures on campus.. here's to my new profession!!

I'm a Copperman!!

and so is Mari!

As we took our places to start the race, Mari and I noticed this little twig of a girl standing in front of us in a floral bikini, with the number 13 (her age) on the back of her leg. Figuring that she felt out of place and had more goosebumps on her body than I count, I said hi and gave her a friendly warning to watch out for other people kicking and splashing in the beginning. She politely informed me that she knew, since she had done this before and went on to WHOMP on my butt all the way through the stupid race. Geez, how was I supposed to know.. I should have been asking for pointers.

Luckily I survived the swim through mutant algae and scary seaweed (it was so gross) and met Mari who finished a little ahead of me as we mounted our bikes. I was excited to know that the GUY who was set up in the transition area between Mari and I had not yet gotten onto his bike.. But it was short lived, as he past me a mile into the biking portion. The bike went well, didn't see any bears and not a ton of hills.

It was cool because I got to see everyone on the way out (even if they were coming back) it was nice to have something to do. lol. As I luckily passed a 10 yr old before the bike finish, I met up with Mari again for the run and managed to stay ahead of her for about 40 ft. and then WHEW -- she was gone...



But it was ok because I ended up running with this super cool girl named Abigail. We talked, walked and ran the whole 5 miles. Without Abigail my finishing probably would have been questionable, at least in under 3 hrs.

Believe it or not, I think Mari and I will definitely be participating in more triathlons. Maybe even more than one per year!! Imagine that. There was quite a turn out with Greg, Adam and all three of the dogs. Moral support is definitely a plus :) (thx guys)

Mari finished with the unofficial time of 2h 29 mins, and I was 10 mins behind her with 2h 39 mins.



As always you can find more pics at my gallery.

Drummond Island 2005

Oh the Island.



Oh the Golf.



Oh the cutesy deos. (nope, not "does" spelled wrong)



Oh the dogs.

Oh more pictures.

Keweenaw Trail Running Festival

da na na, I SURVIVED, it's amazing! :) Now with under a month for the triathlon (wah), we've got tons of training left and plenty more good times to be had.

The Trail Festival was very fun. Mari's mom and sister came up to check it out and we even had Arni (downwind sports owner) on the trail helping everyone out (but mostly to cheer us on). Adam brought Jake, Zoey and Casey, so all in all, we had quite the crowd.

Greg whopped on everyone and finished with a time of.. oh wait, results aren't posted yet... but those will come Mari came in a bit in front of me, and I dragged up the rear. But hey, I beat a few people.. :)

So here's a pic of Mari and I after the race, lookin sweaty and oh so fine -- for more pics, go here.

excessive amounts of strawberries....

Wouldn't ya know with the Strawberry season almost over, that I would be able to drag Adam out and force him to pick strawberries with me. However, I recommend that before you decide to go strawberry picking you should determine the amount of strawberries you are willing to deal with after they are picked...

Needless to say Adam and I picked a flat each... Which is equivalent to 16 quarts of strawberries... Since I was in the kitchen being tempted by these great tasting treats, I decided to eat as many as humanly possible -- also not a good idea.

A few good things did come from strawberry picking... I learned online recipes aren't always accurate... proven by Adam trying to make jam with vinegar.. hmm. Fruit roll ups, when dried in the oven can break into a ba-jillion pieces. Dehydrating strawberries can be fun... when you can think of stuff to do with them afterwards.. and tummy aches from strawberries can be soothed by drinking lots of water. last but not least, using that ice cream topping that hardens when cold can be awesome on strawberries.

And, you can have a full top shelf in the fridge w/nothing but berries..

August 6: I can do it!!

Alright, so this is how it went down. In the early month of may-ish? I decided to explain to Mari that we need to do a triathlon this summer. Mari shot this idea down with incredible speed! Her needing to generate a thesis was the major problem... but then there was Neil... Neil is a friend who ran the Copperman Triathlon last year, and has an incredible ability to persuade.. Hence, Mari calls me up late May/early June to inform me that we are running the Copperman...

and it's all downhill (or up?) from here...

Oh man, what a couple of weeks. We put in a decent... 4 days training and then I left for the vacation/wedding in Virginia.. I was so adamant about my training... not. But here we are, already July and Mari and I are workin it.. :) or tryin to..

On an even sadder note, we also signed up to run in the Keweenaw Trail Running Festival, which is a 10k, and practice for the tri. Did I mention that it's on July 8th? yeah... oh man.

Good thing I bought an uplifting book today entitled: "Triathlon Training in Four Hours a Week." The biggest thing is going to be a positive mentality! right? I hope so...

virginia and back!

Now that I'm back in Houghton, I'm busy missing vacation...

We got to (Adam's) Aunt Judy's house after a riveting 11.5 hr drie (the last hr and a half were construction, yay) and she took us to get the night view of the memorials!! It was really interesting to see how famous figures have been remembered. This picture is taken with Thomas Jefferson's feet -- he is a very popular guy in Virginia.



Virginia was a lot of fun, as was West Virginia and Washington DC. We had such a variety of things to do! My Aunt Carol and Uncle Greg hooked up with us in DC where they got us an "all-access-behind-the-scenes" riotous time. Private tours of the capitol building AND the national archives were very fun! The weather was perfect!!

After Virginia we hit up some Williamsburg action -- good times, especially at night with the ghosts!! The ghost tour we took was a tad bit on the scary side.. but enjoyable :)

After the wedding we made our wonderous car ride back home and then took a mini vacation at my house! Looks like Zoey was semi-supervised by my brother and ended up being a little bit more of a terror than we are used to... looks like it might be awhile before I can talk my fam into pet sitting again... oops...

thus ends my good time vacation! back to work...

Puppies to the third Power...

If that isn't a MI Tech title, I don't know what is... Anyways, I decided to get some pics up since I'll be off on a fun and exciting adventure to Virginia next week!

Jake and Zoey


Casey and Zoey


Sad news, Jake goes back to the shelter tomorrow :( It was fun being his foster mom... Hopefully he'll get adopted by someone now since he's had more socialization -- but maybe i'll just adopt him myself. After I've had the chance to socialize a few more deserving fur balls.

Whew!

Alright, this is like a mini post, since I feel bad about not posting since Seattle... But I'm back in Houghton now, along with Adam's new puppy (Zoey) and a foster pup named Jake (and of course my Casey), we're engaging in activities such as moving to hancock, playing softball, naps on the couch, and eating all my shoes... the joys of puppyhood. I am going to try and be more adamant about pictures in the next couple days here, since I feel like i'm finally getting stuff straightened around...

it's almost friday -- and it's sunny!!

another exciting day in Seattle...

so today was another reason that i should just move to seattle. we got to check out the pike place market which is home to the famous fish market where they throw fish.. it was cool. I wanted more people to buy fish so they would throw more, but there just wasn't a whole lot of fishin action.. lol.. What i didn't expect was the MOST beautiful flower places in the whole wide world. but here is a cool pic of the fish market...



another exciting adventure of the evening was dinner. yes, i tried the sushi. crazy i know, but i was driven to it!! This is sort of what it looked like..



i heart seattle...

Seattle, WA

Well here I sit in the beautiful Seattle which is full of pretty green things. Living in Houghton has definitely deprived me of the joys of city life -- such as people riding up the street on "double-decker" bicycles or modified big wheels... Yeah, I haven't been here for 6 hours yet and already random city things that make me despise houghton. I want to live in seattle... cost of living is ... outrageous.. as are all the rest of the prices, lol. But it is good times, good sites, and hopefully a good conference, I'll keep you updated.

btw, i'm staying less than 2 miles away from the one.. the only..


space needle... neato..

madness i tell ya....

Here we are, at the very beginning of another week of finals... I don't even want to contemplate the list of "to-do" this summer... but here goes,

For Exam Week: 2 finals

For the Summer:

Moving to Hancock
Seattle, WA for an STC Conference
Hanging out w/my Meegan
3 Weddings, One in Virginia, one in Ann Arbor, and one in Lansing
Backpacking w/OVC (twice)
Backpacking w/Mom
Working at Downwind
Working at Perkins
Working the Summer Youth Program
Working on the Great Events Website for the Rosza Center
Working on the Ontonagon County Animal Protection Website
Finishing work for the STC Enterprise
Coordinating and Running Dog Obedience at CCHS
Going Home??? -- I hope :)

I think my head hurts already........... happy summer!

DU Formal

Well, I finally got to attend my first formal at college -- thanks to Adam. It was a fun and exciting weekend in copper harbor at the Grand Mariner -- good times had by all, except when I got sick... no, not drunk sick. Anyways, lots of drunken DU's and I found one G rated picture that I could put online.. I was proud of myself. lol... Plus, I haven't had any pics up in a long time, so wahoo!



And -- if you want to visit more pics of my recent and not so recent adventures, visit here.

4 weeks left!

It's absolutely incredible, unbelievely awesome, and extraordinarily cool -- i am done with school in 4 wks! The sun has started to come out, the days are longer and I even had a fly land on my arm the other day (don't worry, I have been taking showers) but life is starting to reinhabit Houghton, *sigh*

For the next 4 weeks I can be found glued to a computer, working at perkins, or working on projects in the lab........... but still -- there's only 4 more wks, I CAN DO IT!

saggy ass pants

I have become extremely grateful for people that wear pajamas to school every day. Thanks to these people I no longer feel it necessary to wear pants that conform to my every move. I have now decided that I need to buy more pajamas so I can also don this trend. Regardless of how saggy my butt appears while carrying out this revolutionary style, I will be a much happier person...

I tried to find a picture, but failed... I'll try harder.

happy belated birthday to mallery!!

Yes, I must say that I'm late in everything :) but it's ok, cuz yesterday was mallery's birthday! happy birthday girl!

Sorry no recent updates, i'm in the process of building a web site with my own blog! omigosh! but there are some quirks! so bare with me!

talk to you all soon -- hope your winter is going well! mad love.