My annual return to my old stomping grounds

It's time for that annual tradition that I so love since I graduated, returning to the city that I spent five adventureous years of my life in. Yes, that's right downtown Lincoln treated me well during my college years and it will forever have a fond place in my heart.

This month is quickly becoming very sentimental and meaningful. WW went off the air this past Sunday and the finale was just as hard as I expected it to be, of course my mom was drunk and crying next to me the last ten minutes so that made it worst. My cousin Benno graduated high school the same day, which I attended not just because it was my last shoot for the District video I was hired to do, but because he's my dawg. And now it's a trip down memory lane, one I have been looking forward to all spring, especially since it will also be my first vacation since Vegas (SXSW in Austin was sadly skipped this year). It will be a fun and relaxing weekend, attending Husker baseball games, eating great food, walking around campus and tearing it up on "O" street like I used to when I was a fresh 21 year old. I've said it before, but that although I thoroughly love my life right now, I really do miss the college days. In the spirit of "The Girl Next Door" which is one of my favorites, my list of UNL's "I will always remember..." days and moments.

I will always remember...

-Thirsty Thursdays. At first it was B and Adam's place, then when I turned of age, Dave and I hit the bars like clockwork. Then there was that Thursday when Scotty and I ran away from Dave after the bars closed for the night because he was puking in the street in front of the cops. "Happy Birthday dude", "It's not his birthday, it's just a thursday."

-Carrying a couch across O Street traffic to throw in the alley dumpster so that these two dumbasses who I didn't know wouldn't get arrested by the cops who told me that was the only way they wouldn't be going to jail.

-Sprinting across campus that night with Maslonka for a test we were way late for because we wrote down the wrong time. Maslonka has asthma and almost collapsed halfway there, I had to almost drag him to the hall where when we finally got there the doors were locked and I pounded on them and yelled thinking my college life was over. Oh how naive.

-Late night edit sessions in the closet turned film class editing suite on last minute film project deadlines. (The film program has a brand new building now with about a dozen editing computers in a nice big suite. Suck.)

-Film class and watching old movie classics with the man, Prof. WD. I had lots of classes with the legend of film critique and even one with Scotty and we chat about him frequently still today.

-The surreal week that was 9/11. The day itself, the Friday night at the bars that were eerily quiet, still packed, but very quiet, you'll never see them like that again. The postponed Rice game at Memorial Stadium. All of it was very strange. The world has really changed since that day, and most of it for the worst.

-My spot.

-Husker football student section, watching Dave go under when I pushed him in the fountain that is much deeper than I had anticipated, grabbing BK lunch at the union, living in the doorms, the shithole house on R St, meadow wood, the duplex, picking up boos at Osco Drug on 14th where the cashier ladies knew me by name, writing hundreds of pages of term papers, skipping 50 minute classes to get an extra game of NCAA Football in on PS2, getting stuck on the other side of the damn train when you're very late for class, fishbowls at Duffy's, and wings at the Watering Hole. Good Times.


In closing, "the juice was worth the squeeze".