Today was all travel, but I'm home now. I got my hani at the Coney and chatted with the rents for a bit. Now I think I'll pass out since I've been up since 4 a.m. No word on the move out in SLO, no one is answering. I hope Nikki got moved out, Blake finished his project and Armen doesn't have anymore gray hairs. Night guys...

-StM

(If you are reading this from Facebook, you can also check this out on my blog at http://blog.mattstaniszewski.net )

Well after 4 years in this town, I must say things have truly come full circle. I started my stay in this house sleeping on the couch. Now I'm sitting on the couch once more, where I'll be sleeping before my flight tomorrow at 6:30 a.m. The house is now a shell, just as it was back in the fall of 2nd year. I mean, just look at our rooms, we're gone (sorta):

Me














Kristen














Marlize














Nikki












I mean, Nikki's working on it, although I'm sure she'll hold true to the lease and definitely be here until 11:59:59 on June 30th. It's amazing to think of all the history we have with this house (just look back at my list a few posts back). It was a good house and I'll miss it...

The same thing is true of my hike up the 'P' hill today. I drove to campus thinking I'd feed a meter and quickly hike up and down this hill to feel accomplished. After all, I said I wanted to hike all my usual trails, and this was the last one on my list. The hike, like the couch, invoked another string of memories and stories from my time here in SLO.

I'm glad to see my 'StM' was still carved in the boards next to the 'P', although Khanh's 'Genghis' is now pretty faded. I continued up past the 'P' to the top, a mere walk now to me compared to the tough haul it used to be for me freshman year.

After getting to the top, I searched out another familiar sight: the folding chair. It's always been tradition for there to be at least one folding chair stamped with "Cal Poly Housing Department" up there. This time there was not one, but a whole family of seven chairs up there. I'm glad to see the viewing section for SLO is growing. The sight from the top of that hill is still just as great as when I first hiked up the 'P' hill almost four years ago.

The first time I hiked the 'P', Khanh and I just decided to try our hands at hiking up there. Hell, I still have the pictures from then, man do we look like little freshmen! (Too bad my old photos are on a hard drive that's packed somewhere, maybe I can put them up later) I stood on the edge of the rock face overlooking Cerro Vista, although I passed on doing the Titanic pose off of it like Khanh and I did years back. Same thing goes for the fake "Help! I'm falling!" poses. It took a while to master those...

On another occasion, Khanh and I went up the steep way instead of following the trail. One the way down, Khanh kinda slipped and fell on a yucca plant. For those unfamiliar with a yucca plant, it looks like an aloe plant, just much larger and with little spines on the edges ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca ). The spines on those things will draw blood even if you're wearing jeans. MAN, I never heard Khanh swear so much in my life! Those things have gotten me from time to time also. No wonder then call the back of the 'P' hill Yucca Ridge; the entire hillside is an old botanical garden for yucca plants.

The 'P' is also where Rob and I met Kristen and Marlize for the first time. Rob and I were really into exploring everything on and around campus, especially at night. One Friday night, we decided to hike the 'P'. Using Rob's flashlight, we made our way up the trail. We stopped on the service road to check out all the little lights up at the 'P' from other people up there already. One seemed to be blinking at us. Taking it as a signal, Rob flashed his light on and off several times at the light. We continued on our way up there and took a seat on one of the steps next to the 'P'. While sitting there, we overheard two girls behind us talking about who the hell just blinded them with a flashlight. We felt pretty stupid, so we introduced ourselves as the jerks who did it. They turned out to be pretty cool with it. We went on to hike up to the top of the hill that night, and then hike Bishop's Peak and have dinner later that weekend.

Now, I know I've left out all my encounters with animals on the 'P' hill over the past few years. That includes the horses that graze up there. On more than one occasion, I've been chased by the horse, and I don't know why. I steer clear of them and they still find me. On the other side of the hill, I had a bad experience with a stampede of hungry cows. Apprently, opening the gate signaled food to them, so I swung it shut as fast as I could when they came running over. Finally, I had a flock of wild turkeys pursue me up Yucca Ridge. I guess animals must naturally want to chase me...

Finally, I will never forget our night hike to the 'P' second year. It was very foggy, but we climbed above the fog and stopped at the 'P' to check it out. All around, you felt like you were flying above the clouds. All you could see was the clouds below lit by the moon and stars above. I will never forget that sight...

With that, I bid my final goodbye to SLO. Of course I'll be back in July, and back again either as a recruiter at a job fair or as a grad student, who knows. Another chapter of my life has ended, but only to begin a new and exciting period full of unknowns, challanges, and plenty to do. Sounds good to me!

Later SLO and I'll see you Detroit tomorrow afternoon...

-StM

(If you are reading this from Facebook, you can also check this out on my blog at http://blog.mattstaniszewski.net)


Well, over the past few days, I've finally managed to completely move out of our house here in SLO. It's really strange going back and looking around, I never remember it being that empty.

I spent the last 3-4 days taking trips to the dump, carrying boxes and furniture out of houses, up and down stairs, and into apartments. Nikki's still got a little work to do on her room, but I think we're all set for the handoff on Wednesday. Our landlord Menzo came up to check out the place. He didn't seem to find anything wrong so hopefully (fingers crossed) we'll get our deposits back! I mean, I have repaired so many things in that house, they probably outweight any damage we did, if any.

Thank god Kristen came back down to help out at the house. It takes two J's (as Nikki would put it) to really get things done. The last 4 days have been a whirlwind of moving, but it looks good. I'm especially thankful for her help moving my bed and kitchen table, which I was sure was gonna need a U-Haul. We got a hell of a lot accomplished.

Craiglisting is finally over with. I can't believe how picky people get about free stuff. "What color is it?...Can you hold it for two days?...Umm, is it this specific type of material?..." COME ON, IT'S FREE! Just come and take it and don't complain! I STILL cannot get rid of the red/pink/whateverthehellcoloritis couch. I stripped off the fabric and cut the price multiple times, but no dice. Everyone keeps telling me after a few calls or emails that it's too long, EVEN THOUGH that's in the description! Well, Kristen thinks it's destined to become mine. I don't know about that, but apparently I'm supposed to take it. (Just like I've never had Nutella and now I'm destined to get some as a house warming gift :-P) It doesn't fit in, but FINE I guess I can take it and slip cover the damn thing lol. We'll see, I'll shove it in the garade and consider it.

But, who says there wasn't fun along the way? I've gotten a chance to go on all my SLO hikes over the past week (minus the P, which I'm hoping to do tomorrow) and go on a bike ride or two.

Kristen and I had a particularly interesting experience while moving stuff to Rob's old place. A guy was dancing behind a large straw beach umbrella on the a street corner when we drove back towards Santa Rosa. I'm thinking, "Okay, this guy is probably nude" and wouldn't you know it? Down goes the umbrella and that was definitely all him there, totally naked. It was pretty hilarious. I was pretty impressed by how into it he was. I mean, his dancing was really good. As soon as we drove by, a school bus came off the freeway behind us. We slowed down to watch; thankfully he covered up with the umbrella and just continued his little dance for the bus.

Laying out and swimming over at Armen's place was also awesome. Thanks man for letting us stop by these last few days, hopefully I'll look a little less white before I head to Michigan.

Man this entry was long; I'll try and write more frequently to keep them shorter. (Some pics would be nice too!)

One more night in the house tomorrow then off to the 313 to see my homies in DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-troit. Later!

-StM

P.S. If you don't know what I mean when I say 'J' type, check out the personality test, Nikki would LOVE to know what type you are (just don't use it as a mental crutch lol). Just Google 'personality test' and click on the first result. For the record, I'm an INTJ just to get it out there.

Wow, today's been another day of non-stop chores, clearing out the house, moving stuff, etc...but there are two points about today that I figured were blog-worthy.

First off, I feel like a got the Office Space treatment today from ASI. I received not one, but THREE notices about my paycheck being on hold. The first email was a generic one saying that my paycheck would be put on hold and I needed to provide an address. I figured I would just pick it up on Friday, since that's when it usually is available. Yesterday, my boss sent me another email about the same thing. I told him I already got it, but now I thought "Maybe it's already in the office?" Nah, they come out Friday. My buddy Armen then mentioned it to me last night. Now I'm thinking, "Okay, it must be ready if so many people mentioned it."

Today, I drive over to campus, put money in the meter and go into the office. Guess what? They aren't going to be there until Friday! Imagine that. I wasn't too surprised when she mentioned several people had already come in asking about it. Oh well, there goes 50 cents in the meter. It is kinda funny how it parallels Peter and his TPS Reports in Office Space:



The other news of the day was the fish tank move. Today I hauled all my reef tank stuff over to Armen's place after much swearing and spilling of water everywhere. Thanks again Armen for keeping them and to Bob and Mark for helping carry it all in. I gotta say, it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected; the transfer went pretty smoothly and the setup was much faster. Taking it all down was kind of a pain by myself, but what can you do, there's a lot of stuff. It was definitely a good dry run for the move to San Jose. Bagging up all the corals and fish takes a long time, but hopefully they all will survive this move and the one to SJ. I'll hafta check in with Armen and see how they're doing

Until next time...

-StM

The clearing out of the house continues. We've been selling all the big stuff and I've been cleaning out all the front rooms and my room. Here's a few shots of the demise of Calle Malva:

Progress is kinda slow just because there's a TON of junk in this house after three years. I still find it funny that the lady from the garbage company was like "How many year's have you been in the house? 3? Honey, you better go to the dump, you'll have a lot of junk." Thanks.

It's starting to wind down a bit though. The house is starting to look emptier and emptier, and I'm starting to feel a little said about leaving. I mean, we've been in this house for three years! It's hard to believe all the stuff that went down there, here's just a short list:

- Hide and go seek at 4 a.m.
- Homework burning sessions
- Trying to jump up in the air and take pictures
- Blake's mom hiding in the closet to scare Nikki on Halloween
- The Great Flood of 2007 (and 2008...oops)
- 2 Thanksgiving Dinners, 2 Easter Dinners, a Superbowl party and countless birthdays (we'll never forget Blake's 20th)
- Improv piano solos from Blake, Nikki, and whoever else sat down at the piano
- Numerous sessions of Cranium, Twister, Apples to Apples and every other board game under the sun
- Watching the life of Bobby the Lobster come and go
- Gossip parties that somehow ended up convening on my bed
- Fraternity initiations and random parties
- Angel the neighbourhood drunk golden retriever showing up at our door
- Countless pranks pulled on Nikki...including appearances by Nancy, Vlad, and PDC to name a few...
- Turning the hot water off while Rob was in the shower
- Stealing a bunch of Nikki's wigglers just to get served and find out that she found the hiding place
- Knowing that you could always find someone awake in the middle of the night procrastinating or thinking about doing work

Whew, yea lot of stuff (feel free to comment about more, I've forgotten some of it).

Well, time to head over to Rob's old place, I gotta keep on shipping stuff out of here. Hopefully we'll be pretty good by the weekend. Move out is the 1st, so we should be good.

After that, it's off to Detroit, DC, Boston, back to SLO, and finally to SJ to start my new job! I can't wait to get started, I love moving in to a new place (it gives me an excuse to buy a bunch of new stuff). First on my list...brand new flat screen baby!

Peace

-StM

Alright, so this will be the 1...2...3...4th time I try to keep up a blog. I promise to do a better job now that I am out of school and have more time. I find it very relaxing to keep a log of my thoughts and happenings. I'm also planning on putting my book notes and info on my site here (more details soon). Be sure to stay tuned, I'll be sure to blog my transition to the real world from Cal Poly as I move and go on my trips this summer.

Also, pardon my dust while I touch up my blog. Being a computer geek, I love messing with all the colors, boxes, and other random settings. I try to make sure the text is still readable though :-P.

Now, off to do some blogging...

-StM