Go USA!

85 Percentage of Americans who can't Name the Chief Justice of the United States.

69 Percentage of Americans who believed the White House's claims in September 2003 that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 11 September attacks.

34 Percentage of Americans who believed in June 2003 that Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" had been found.

22 Percentage of Americans who believed in May 2003 that Saddam had used his WMDs on US forces.

85 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find Afghanistan, Iraq, or Israel on a map.

30 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find the Pacific Ocean on a map.

75 Percentage of American young adults who don't know the population of the United States.

53 Percentage of Canadian young adults who don't know the population of the United States.

11 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find the United States on a map.

30 Percentage of Americans who believe that "politics and government are too complicated to understand."

Were the chad's really so bad?

This election year we may be wishing we had punchcards to inspect when everything goes to hell...
I have this funny feeling that we may be seeing some strange things going on with these fancy new voting machines. Can you say Oh Shit!

By entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. It takes only seconds to change the votes, and to date not a single location in the U.S. has implemented security measures to fully mitigate the risks. - full story

Just don't mind the strange men in black sutis with laptops at your polling sations this year, they're just there to change your vote... It's best for national security right?

Where do I get an absentee ballot again?

Changes @Roundhere

Well, you may have noticed that this is no longer my travel-log. I'm sorry to say that I kindof lost the whole blog-posting bug while I was down in Cuba. (shhh..)
Really though, it's not a number one priortiy to be writing all about what you're doing while you're doing it. It's also a little limiting when you're in a country where the general population is restricted from most of the things we take for granted, including using the internet.
So, from now on this page will be a normal blog (yeah I hear ya Yawn) I'll post on here all the things you usually find on blogs such as my crazy ramblings and biased opinions, but that's what these things are all about right. You'll (whoever reads this thing) also be able to see pictures from whatever's going on roundhere in Athens, GA and wherever else I might find myself with a camera.
Until next time, and I'm finished with my damn independent study, I'll leave you with this classic.

China Beach

Amanda and I drove up to China Beach today, about an hour and a half up the coast here on the Juan De Fuca. I hadn't been up there since before I moved here... Didn't go the whole time I was here. I also didn't do any sailing, kayaking, hiking, and hardly any mountain biking.
What the hell was I thinking? Guess I didn't even realize what was around me until now... what does High School do to you?

Feelin a bit Better

I'm feeling a bit better now, thank god. Maybe I'll be eating some real food again sometime soon here.

The pictures I linked to in the last post were from last thursday I believe. That was an interesting night.

Dan, Jeff, Dean, Milbrath, and I started drinking at Dan's house during the afternoon after hanging out on the beach for a few hours. We watched the Hockey game, and then headed downtown to a club called the Red Jacket. The RJ is a pretty cool club with this upstairs section that Dan and I decided to go explore, having no idea that there was a private party going on and we wern't supposed to be going there (yeah right). So once upsatirs, lo and behold, I realized that I knew the people who were partying up there... Hell Yeah. So, we meet my friends Sarah, Jess, her sister Andrea, Sean Tack, Sean Oconner, and a bunch of other folks, along with a shitload of drinks that just kept on coming and coming...
I got pretty wasted, (we all did) but I made it home allright and got some Z's. Woke up in the morning to find that I had pulled down the shower curtain and evidently couldn't figure out how to turn out the light in the kitchen, so I simply used a paper towel to unscrew the blub - seems like I had everything under control. My neck was a little sore, and I had a scrape on the knee, but hey these things happen.

And a few days later we found out what happened..
Yeah like I said I was drunk... turns out I was a little too drunk as I was hitting on a girl that works with dan (she later put it into better words as "I was being a creep" - probably very true). This girl was with her ex-boyfriend, and he was getting a little tired of me. Now as many of you know, I'm not the best at keeping my mouth shut when I've had a few drinks, and this was no exception. I pushed it too far. The sore neck was from the punch that this guy administered to my face. The scrape on my knee was probably from me hitting the ground. They left in a cab just after, which is probably good, because I've been told that I was still talking some good shit even from the ground.
I've talked to the girl in question from this night, and she's really cool. I apologized for being "a creep", and her ex has gone back to New York, so I don't have to worry about being jumped.
All's well that ends well, and I can still say I had fun that night, a good punch in the face is good for you every once and awhile.

--I got an update today... evidently the drinks were not free, they were all paid for by Oconner and some other guy, and there were 256 vodkas and 35+ Gins.
And! Evidently the guy took like 4 or 5 shots at me and I was able to dodge them all before he finally landed one. HA go me!
btw. I'm a lover not a fighter

Just Great

Today is... The 12th, A beutiful Saturday morning, and I'm awake only because of the amount of pain in my mouth due to an Infection evidently due to my wisdom teeth trying to come in.
An Infection! I've been like this for the past 4 days! I can't eat anything solid that would require chewing, and I'm getting extremely tired of soup soup soup. Better yet, I've been on antibiotics for 3 days, and all that seems to have happened is that now both sides of my mouth hurt.
I have what, 4 days until I'm supposed to go to Cuba! This is great!

I'm sorry, but I don't even really want to think about the past few weeks here in Vic, because they were too much fun compaired to my current state. I will let you look at some pictures though - keep in mind that this was only one night.
Here

I hope you are feeling better than I am... bastards

Update Time!

Yeah Yeah it's about time I did some updating on this thing. It's really a bitch that I've been avoiding writing the 2nd lengthy installment of that first post because it's keeping me from posting other up to date news.
Well I'll do it now.
San Diego, where I left off. Great place... Although I realize that I was never really in the city that much. I spent most of my time in La Jolla and north, Del Mar and other places. But... There's nothing wrong with that. La Jolla is beautiful, if not for the somewhat family atmosphere especially down at the beach. Up north at Del Mar is a great beach because it seems that it may not be the most crowded beach, but it's one of the most fun. No problems with bringing the coolers down there, the only thing we got bitched at for was failing to keep some dogs leashed. Volleyball nets, the whole setup. Along with a nice little town up the road with good food.
Leaving San Diego I drove up through LA, I got there at about 2pm, so the traffic was not too bad. Highlights of the drive through town were the LAPD headquarters with their fleet of helicopters on the roof, and of course the Hollywood sign. I would have liked to see some of the city, Beverly Hills - whatever's there, but I really did not want to see the traffic, and didn't feel like spending the night there, only a few hours up from SD.
I took the 101/1 route up the coast opposed to the 5 which I've driven before. I'd seen enough desert in Texas, and the coastline seemed much more appealing. Along the way I saw the Hurst Castle, pretty interesting, evidently the playboy mansion of the times. However, the Views and scenery made the longer trip worth while on their own.
Arrived in San Jose around 7:30/8:00, and got in touch with my friend Pat who goes to Stanford, arranged to head up there the next day. Grabbed some Authentic Mex food, and head over to spend the night with some old family friends. In the morning (around noon) I drove up to Stanford and met up with Pat. He gave me a nice tour of the campus - which was beautiful. I was impressed with just about everything, but their athletic facilities and the original quad were the most impressive. I loved how most all of the sporting arenas were outdoors (gotta love Cali).
Pat had to get up really early in the morning for some reason, golf team meeting I think, so not too much craziness there, not to mention that they too were still in finals. Made it a little easier for me to get out and on the road the next day.
I continued along the 101/1 across the golden gate bridge in San Francisco, and up into northern California. I arrived at the Redwood national forest sometime around 6:00, and began searching for a decent campsite. Things were not looking good, I drove miles down this damn road through the woods to a site, and of course it was full. Driving back out of the woods, (it's getting steadily dark at this point) I see two girls walking down the road (dirt road, way back in the woods). I offered to give them a ride the couple of miles back to the parking lot where they had left their car, and found that they were from Denmark, and had just gone for "a walk in the woods" on their way up to visit a friend who was staying at a hostel up the way a bit. I followed them to the hostel which was nice as hell, right across the road from an amazing beach in the middle of the redwood forest, and stayed in a nice bed for the night for hardly more that it would have cost me to camp (it was pissing in the morning too). I also enjoyed a few beers and a bonfire down on the beach with some of the other guests... a group of girls from England (evidently lesbians), a crazy guy from Denmark, and this hippy girl (serious hippy) from Texas of all places.
Like I said, it was raining in the morning, and the rain did not stop all day. I drove through Oregon and Washington which are both also beautiful coastlines (even in the rain), and rounded the mountains on the Olympic peninsula to finally find some dry weather. I had a spot at a hostel in Port Angeles lined up for the night, a place called "Thor Town". Evidently some people just decided to turn their house into a hostel, and this guy was a huge Thor fan (it was kinda creepy)... But, also one of the most interesting hostels I've ever seen. I met a group of people from Wisconsin there, who had been driving into the Olympic Park when the got in a head on collision in the middle of Port Angeles. They were kinda stuck there for awhile while they sorted that out (could be stuck somewhere worse, the hostel was only $12 a night).
So we went out to a bar that night called of all things, "The Wreck". How fitting right, had a good time though, they were in high spirits despite the situation.
The next day, I hung out awhile in Port Angeles with the Wisconsin folks (a little longer than planned since I didn't make it onto the 12ish ferry). We happened upon a art/craft fair that was just starting for the weekend and had a good time there, so the extra time was not bad. At 5:15, I got on the Coho, and was off to Victoria!
Once again I am tired of typing. Ok, I'm just plain tired. So this seems like a great spot to leave off.
The Victoria stories are fun though, so don't go anywhere... I'll be back soon.

New Orleans Pics!

New Orleans Pictures!
My friend Jesse has created a really easy way for me to put my pictures on the internet, so I uploaded all of my shots from New Orleans. You can check them out here or by going to the Pictures page on roundhere.net where you can also see Kyle's N'Orleans pictures. That page is here.
And I will finish the post below, I'm just lazy.