Not too much access

Since I have been I haven't had too much acces to a computer. I absolutely despise to one at my parents because it is too slow!

I had a great Easter with friends and family and am now in Grand Rapids. I don't have a phone or anything because my bro didn't pay his bill so it got shut off.

This week I am seeking employment, I already started donating plasma to get $50 bucks a week, and my buddy Inferno is either going to hook me up with a cool temp job OR something at with the Whitecaps! It all depends on if I want to work all week like 9-5, or do I want a day to day thing. I havent really decided yet, I should take a long term thing so I can make more moula, but I'm lazy!

We'll see whats up.

I Don't Think You Know!

I don't think you know how good it feels to drink TAP WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God Bless AMERICA!

First of all, Happy Birthday to my wonderful Mother, 29 right! Wait, I think she has been 29 for as long as I can remember, if I questioned it, I got grounded or had to stick my nose in the corner! I am a mama’s boy… and proud of it. If you are a young lady seeking for my heart, my Ma better like you or she will call you a hussie or a hooker and it will never work out. Te amo madre!

If feels good to be back in the USA. I did a couple of all American, twenty something young man things. I watched late night TV (no networks in Mexico, aka no CONAN!) Then I watched about 4 episodes of Sportscenter (the same one) in a row! And loved it! Now I am watching the World Series of Poker.

Tomorrow I am going to see my first Red Wings game (even though it is in Chicago).

I ain’t gonna lie, I had a couple beers (cleared out Pat’s fridge) in my own little celebration. I figured I should keep it low key since I have a LONG 4 day weekend ahead of me with the wings game, a pseudo reunion with my high school classmates, a UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) pay-per-view party, my childhood friends 26th b-day party (our parents had to put a gate between our backyard gates because they were scared we would hurt ourselves climbing the fence at a very young age), and last of all EASTER with the fam. AND I just talked with my old roommate (Kunik) in college in The D (Detroit) and he wants me to come by for a Tigers game and a night downtown! I’m down for that! All before I reunite with my old crew in Grand Rapids for the Old Boy’s game and a couple weddings! But I was like, I can pretend like I am 21 again… I’m on top of the world! If not, I’ll just be hurtin’ for the rest of my trip. Sorry Ma, if I can’t get up for Easter Egg hunting on Sunday… I still have the flu… If you don’t believe that, I blame Kainski, Greg Cornejo and Matt Brukavich (sp, Buke), they were the first to introduce me to alcohol… WHEN I WAS 15!!!! I guess I can blame the blood after that… Naw, I’m still young, just havin’ fun.

Be cool like me! Life is good!

24 hours later...

Well, I feel 100% better. It is exactly 24 hours since my first symptoms. After my puking rally and my body aches, I started to get a fever (and the only cure is more cowbell!!! For those fans of Christopher Walken SNL moment fans). It got up to 101.5 degrees, I took a semi cool shower and popped some Aspirin and stated to feel way better. I ate some applesauce and chilled. The next time I took my temp it was a 99.8 and falling. I just hope I didn’t get my sis sick.

So, here I am at midnight wide awake because I slept all day. But… I will be in the good ol’ US of A tomarrow!

First Puke in forever that alcohol wasn't involved!

The first time in as far as I can remember, I puked without the aide of alcohol. The last time I think I puked without alcohol was when I was a kid, between 8-10 or so. I at a salsbary steak T.V. Dinner and puked my brains out that whole night. Lets just say that I haven’t ate one yet.

I don’t know what it was but last night starting at around midnight I started to get a really bad stomach ache, similar to the pain I had before I got my appendix out. I was just chillin’, watching TV and trying to ignore it. I am not one to complain about pain that much, but there was definitely something wrong. I went into the kitchen to take some chewable Pepto Bismol (NASTY!) ad laid back down on the couch. Not 5 minutes later I was feeling worse.

I went upstairs to my bathroom to take a big dump (usually solves any stomach problems for me). I was in so much pain I couldn’t even play my electronic solitare game. I decided that it was time to take a shower (my ideal puking environment). As I stood up from the toilet I got a huge sense of dizziness and thought for sure I was going to pass out and smack my head on something. But I fought it, and managed to get the shower turned on and get the right temperature and sat on the floor and just waited.

Sure enough it came out with something fierce, it didn’t taste that bad though… I had some good strawberries and a he bowl of Cocoa Krispies for dinner and it tasted like Booberry! But it was still nasty. Karin came in to check up on me, but first she went to look downstairs for beer bottles and didn’t find any, so she knew something was up.

After I finished, I could tell that I didn’t get everything out, but I was feeling beer so I went back to bed. Not sure how much time later but I got up 3 more times through out the night and just had at it. I figured it was just a type of Montezuma’s revege or something, but by time the morning came I was SUPER SORE, which led me to believe that it was some type of flu (I hope not). Karin brought me some crackers and Gatorade before she left for work. So I took some Gatorade and aout 5 min. later I was back hugging the shitter.

Since then I just have been sitting on the couch curled up and sleeping. I new I had to drink something but if I did, it would just come back up, so I just took little drinks spread out so that seemed to work. I was feeling better but still really weak and sore, if I went upstairs I had to lay in my bed for a couple min. to catch my breath.

Karin came home for lunch and was cooking some greasy ass bacon and burgers that just gave me back my nausea, so I went upstairs to lay in my bed. Ended up taking like a 3 hour nap. I am feeling better now, I at least have enough energy to sit up and get on the computer and I took a big swig of some Gatorade and it seems to be saying down (its been about 15 min. I hope it was just a 24 hour thing because I don’t want to bring a deadly Mexican strand of the flu to the US, and infect everybody on the plain. Karin said that she is going to make me wear one of those masks… I might just have too.

Thumb Twirling

Absolutely nothing has gone on this week. It has been a drag. I guess one thing happened, my buddy Fernando and his family came over last night to hang out and we looked for a plane ticket to visit me in Michigan when I am home. As we looked, we found a super good price so he bought it, it was under $250 round trip with all the taxes! So he will be there from May 1st until the 9th. I plan to take him to Saginaw to meet my family and also up north to experience Michigan, probably Mackinaw (Bridge and Island) and the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, maybe stop in Petoskey on the way.

Other than that I’ve just been bummin’ around doing nothing but watching TV, and surfin’ the internet, modern day thumb twirling. I even managed to talk myself out of doing the one thing I do once a week, go to rugby training last night. It is a long drive to Mexico City and since I sit around all day, that’s all I want to do. I made a lame excuse that Karin had to go to her Spanish class so I didn’t have the car to go (sorry if some of my teammates are reading this).

I’ve just been real blaaaaish the last week or two in waiting to go home. Time has seemed to stop (very different from before where it was flying) as I have been anxious for the 12th. I am very excited to go home for a while. I have a pseudo reunion planed with my classmates on the 14th which there are several people that are going to be in town from all over the state, country, and even the continent… ME! I get to spend time with my wonderful family for Easter. On April 29th I have the 4th Annual GVSU Rugby Old Boy’s game where a lot of guys come back that have played there in the past to play against the current team and then have a big party, basically all us old guys get to time travel back in time and act like we are in college again (not that I have gotten past that stage yet, but there are a couple of us that have real jobs, wives, and families). I get to be a host to somebody that has never been in the sates, let alone the best state of Michigan. And I have two weddings to go to of past rugby buddies. A month and 10 days may seem like a long visit but I am going to keep busy. I also have some friends and family in the Detroit area I want to visit as well.

I will get my tax return back on the 10th but most of it will go to Karin for buying my plane ticket and paying for my trip to the caves, among other things. I plan on selling my plasma (I used to do it on and off for 4 years, it’s completely safe) and getting a temp job through my buddy Inferno who works for a temp agency in Grand Rapids to have money to spend while I am home and hopefully have some left over to bring back.

I haven’t heard anything from the Wall Street Institute in a couple weeks, which I think is incredibly unprofessional, but I think they may just be waiting until I get back to get things rolling, I hope. They told me before that it was no problem that I was leaving for a while and that I didn’t have a FM3 (green card). They keep sending me e-mails telling me that there are no problems and that they want me to come in the next week, and then I reply and ask when a good time to come in is, and no return. That happened twice, just getting a little frustrated. I really don’t have very many options to get some dough. I fell kinda bad free loading all this time…

We’ll see what’s up. Be cool like me!

Good Immigration News

I thought I was going to have to get an extension on my tourist visa because my 90 days is up on Wed. But after I looked at my immigration form, they already gave me 180 days! Usually if you travel my air they will give you 90 days, but if you cross the border by land (like we did) they can give you 180 days, but I read that you have to ask for the extension. But apperently they did it automaticly! Now I dont have to find the immigration office and pay whatever they charge.

To bad I didn't find out this information untill after Karin woke me up at 8am to take her to work so I could use her car. Right before we were to leave I mentioned what I read about asking for 180 days, then I looked at my form and it had a 180 up in there. As soon as Karin was like "cool," I had already changed back into my jammies and was laying on the couch for a morning nap.

Rugby in Celaya, Guanajuato

Let me start by saying my total time on the couch was like 65 hours. I ended up going into my bed to sleep that night. But as soon as the morning (afternoon) came around I went right back to the couch, but I did end up getting out of the house that night to drive to Mexico City to pick up Karinski at the airport. Thursday was pretty much the same but I again drove to Mexico City for Rugby practice.

Saturday –
We were to go to the land of our grandfather's family, the state of Guanajuato. They were from a small town called Santa Getrudis. I tried to find it on a map but with no luck, that would have been cool to visit and take some pictures to share with the family.

We woke up early; we were to meet at the place where we practice at 9:30. The schedule was to head out early (it was about a 3-4 hour drive to Celaya, Guanajuato, just North West of Queretaro) because we were going to supposedly the best place for barbacoa (sheep) in Mexico for breakfast. It was amazing.

We got to the University of Celaya with plenty of time to relax and let our meal digest although I was still burping up my barbacoa up until we started to play. I guess I should have chilled out a little bit, but it was sooooooo good, especially with the cilantro, sebolla, limon (lime), cuarto tipos de salsa y jugo de naranja.

Celaya is one of the good and organized teams in Mexico. It was a good match but again we were on the losing side. They had a really big and strong pack that controlled a lot of the game. I started at inside center, didn’t get very many touches though. The second half I was moved to flanker. Usually I prefer the backs but lately have been really digging the flanker position. A lot of time the rucks are very sloppy with a lot of opposition falling on the ball and using their hands so I like to teach them a lesson here and there… with my boot! It is also really fun to clear out the rucks with my fists when a dude is trying to poach the ball with his head down. Nothing like a nice smack in the face to remind them to think twice next time they try to kill my ruck. So I think it is the fact that I get to play more around the ruck that I like, I can really use my experience to help clean up the bodies and hands.

The social was at a hacienda. The members of Celaya have a lot of money so they have cool places to party. We drove out to the country and there was a huge house, there was a courtyard with a pool and it would be a sweet place to throw a party. Basically we hung out for a little bit, ate some food, drank a couple beers and were on our way… it was a long drive back. I have a couple cool pics of the sunset in guanajuato but I am again having trouple posting them here, so you can see them at my photobucket link.

After a couple beers after a match, you get the itch for more. So we decided to get some roadies to booze cruise on the way home. Don’t worry, technically it is illegal but you can do whatever you want in Mexico so it was no problem. It was Karin driving (because I drove there) and my good buddies Ofo, Nico, and Christian. It was a rather short ride with all the fun we were having. We were jammin’ to tunes and we were smokin’ Cuban cigars!

We got back to Ofo’s place for more boozin’ in Mexico City. We didn’t hang out for very long because we were tired and still had a long drive back to Toluca. IT took us a while to figure out where to go but we finally got there. I made a couple calls to a couple people and pretty much hit the hay. I woke up with my face hurting (got popped in the nose) and a really sore shoulder. Busted up shoulders are the worst because you can’t do a lot of the normal everyday things you are used to like wiping your ass, washing your hair, and sleeping in the positions that you like. It feels a lot better now, I just hae to have a constant flow of aspirin to help me out.

I have two new video clips to show. The first one is a really short one of a lineout
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=620593073&n=2

And then the secod one is the ride to the hacienda for the social
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=620602671&n=2

They are kinda lame but I was just tryin' to have some fun.

ONLY 10 MORE DAYS TO OUR TRIP BACK HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hasta la vista.