You can now text message me on my phone from my web page.
Just go to www.tlmason.com and click on the link that says "Text Messaging @ tlmason.com", fill out the form, and hit send. Check it out!
word
tm
I went whitewater rafting this weekend 
For those of you who don't know, I went whitewater rafting this weekend with Forrest 4B. We went to Appalachian Wild Waters in West Virginia. We rafted the middle and lower Gauley River. It was an awesome time. I didn't even fall out of the raft once; however, the whole right side of our raft went swimming.
The water on the river was a bone chilling 44 degrees while we were rafting. The air temperature wasn't too much warmer when we started, but it ended up climbing to the low 60s by the time we finished. The rapids were awesome! We rafted through five Class V rapids and the rest weren't much easier. There were a few Class IIs at the begining and some Class IIIs later on, but most of the rapids were Class VI and Class V, which was awesome. It is one of the more difficult rivers to raft on the west coast according to their web site.
We were going to go down the New River (under the bridge where the Blazer was bungeed off of in the commercial) but the water was way too high (17 feet above normal). The guide said that we wouldn't go down it mostly because he wouldn't send himself and his friends down it. The Gauly River wasn't any lower though, in fact, it was higher. It was at 20-30 feet aboev normal. It's difficulty must not change with the water height.
The river rocked, but the facilities were really bad. It made me appreciate all the hard work we do at Ransburg to make the camp clean and working for the next week of campers. The showers weren't clean, the wetsuits smelled like the river had died in them, the campsite was flanked on one side by a highway and a strip mall with no trees between the tents and the road, the food sucked major ass… They had a pig roast where the pig must have been deprived of any kind of liquid three days before it was slaughtered, the potatoes were soaked in oil…worse than Long John Silver's (sorry Tony, they suck). The staff…man…what hicks! I don't mind people who are hickish, but these guys were to the extreme. They were very insensitive of any culture other than Hillbilly. They were saying things that were just down right rude and wouldn't be accepted anywhere else, if they were accepted there… After our rafts were stored and everything was put away, what did they offer us to drink? Beer…Now, you high school folks who are reading my blog need to realize that on a university sponsored trip, the whole dry campus thing is still in effect. These guys at AWW were serving beers to minors without even inquiring if they were old enough to drink on a university trip! Wow…how nieve can you be? If it weren't for the river, it would have been a really bad trip.
Matt and I were scheduled to be the drivers and man are we glad we didn't have to drive. That would have meant that we would have had no sleep before hitting the water (granted the water temp was enough to slap anyone into sobriety) and we would have had no sleep on the drive home either. I was so exhausted from a full eight hours of work on Friday that I was ready for a nap about the time that I would have had to start driving.
Just for your reading pleasure, some of the rapids we went through were called "Pure Screaming Hell", "Heaven Help Us" and "Canyon Doors". Those are three of the five Class V rapids we went through. It was awesome.
Enough about that, I'm outta here.
Quote of the day "You shouldn't pass up a diamond for a piece of sparkling coal." — Me when talking to Shelley last night
Mac fund: $314.41 I've had to pay bills, so this is staying the same.
peace yo
tm
This post is especially for my friend Dave "Homestead" Elyea.
What's happened in Tom's life since the first of April you may ask…
Well, a lot has happened. Tuesday night I played some basketball with Joe, Beth, Jacob, Neil, Mike…etc…etc. I ended up rolling my left ankle, twice. I had to go out Wednesday morning to get an ankle brace so I could heal myself.
Wednesday my mom and littlest sister came down to take me out to lunch. Last week was their spring break, so they had too much time and not enough to fill it. I talked to my mom again about setting up a wireless network in the house so that they could get some broadband internet and not have to wait for things anymore.
Thursday was a very busy day. It was also Ryan's (my roomate) birthday. I ended up playing frisbee after my classes. We lost…Silly rookies. anyway, after frisbee, I went to the bowling alley with Ryan, Beth, Devon, and the rest of the bowling gang. Ryan doesn't know this to this day, but I was stealing sips of his beer when he would go up to bowl hehe. That's the excitement of Thursday night.
Friday, we took Ryan out to the bars. I was the DD. We started at Nicks, went to The Upstairs Pub, then over to Sports. This is where we ended. The entire basketball team was at Sports. Tony decided early on in the night that he was goign to randomly hook up with some girl. Well, he did. When we were leaving, he and this girl (he doesn't even remember her name) were dancing upstairs at Sports. Rosemary, Ozzy, Ryan and I were all watching them dance. Tony puts his phone number into her cell phone, but sadly he hasn't heard back form her. Now, you have to realize that they weren't really dancing, they were more like swaying back and forth and holding each other up so they wouldn't fall. Well, this didn't work too well, because they fell flat on the floor….hahahahahaha. It was hilarious. Then we went home…blah
Saturday was new consultant orientation. I lead an orientation group around all day (well, until 3). At 3:30, I met with the guy who is on my debate team for R170. At 4:30, I went over to Vince's house and helped Kirstee and Vince make plywood pentagons. That's about all that happened on saturday…We watched the Syracuse Texas game and I fell asleep during the last 5 minutes. I come to find out later that Kirstee, too, fell asleep during the last 5 minutes…but that doesn't matter. So on to Sunday…
Sunday was the marathon, closed session executive council meeting. We got a lot of discussion and planning done. That's about all that happened on Sunday.
Monday was back to work and my mom's birthday …Tuesday class…and work…That brings us up to Today.
What the hell is up with the weather. Why is it freakin 40 degrees in April? I do not understand why this weather decides to be winter in the spring and summer in the fall…makes no sense.
I have so much to do today that it's not even funny. I need to edit an outline, meet with Sean at 4, etc, etc…I don't know how I'm going to get through today without pulling out my hair.
Here's a special congratulations to Tracie for being outstanding student employee for UITS.
I'm out
Quote of the day "It's been 'What an awesome day!' for eight days now Tom…" — Homestead.
Mac fund $314.41
peace out to
tm
Today is beautiful, but tomorrow is going to be better!
It was depressing to me that I had class all day today. I wasn't able to enjoy the beautiful weather that has been in Bloomington all day. I am, however, extremely happy that I'm a CSS now. This means that I'm getting paid to walk around campus and check on various labs. I'm in the main library right now and everything is well. You can tell when there is a slow day at work because I post in my blog quite a bit.
It's that time of the semester when classes start meeting outside and I have to do evaluations for the consultants that work on me. This is a good thing because now my english class is meeting outside form now until the end of the semester. Unless the weather is bad, our meeting location has been changed form Woodburn Hall Basement to Showalter Fountain. What a great thing. While I'm talking about my english class, I've got yet another english prof story. Today in class, she tries to explain away that she hasn't been ill the last couple weeks. She says that she was in LA because her grandmother was in the hospital with cancer. Now, granted, it's really cold of me not to believe this, but It's kinda hard to once she has told her substitute AI another story, that he passed on to us. He told us that she was so ill that she was in the hospital. This is either a flat out lie, or she was lying to us today. But that's not my story. Today she is going on a rant that she is consistently "teacher of the year" in the english department. This is a direct quote "I'm usually wonderful, you'll have to trust me." Yea, I believe that after everything that has happened with her this semester. anyway, she keeps going on this rant about how things are going on in her life and this that and the other. blah blah blah. Then she says, "You're not getting 100% of my teaching ability this semester, only about 60%." WTF?!? To me that's just unacceptable coming from a professor. But here's the good part. She then explains to us that since she's not giving us 100%, we don't have to give 100%. So I take this to mean that as long as I pull a 60% in the class, I will get an A. This seems reasonable to me, doesn't it? It's not like I'm doing bad in the class, I've gotten a perfect score on all my assignments but one, that was worth 5% of the grade, and I was too bogged down to do, so I didn't do it. I should still get an A…if not, a high B.
Anyway, that just made me a little ticked off at her. I like being challenged at school and I need deadlines or I will never complete assignments. That's why I was a little pissed. I'm over it now. Thought you all would like to know.
Then I found $5…that's for you John…..now find something to do other than make fun of people 
I say that with the most love…hehe
anyway, I'm out. gotta get back to work.
serve it up to spring!
Quote of the day "You're not getting 100% of my teaching ability this semester, only about 60%." – Danielle Hartnett, English Professor.
Mac fund – no change $314.41
werd
tm
Since is it April Fool's day, I have a joke for you all.
In my town there are three churches: a Methodist church, a Presbyterian church and a Catholic church. All three of these churches sit on the same corner of the town along with the largest park in the county. For many years the churches have co-existed with nature. The Presbyterian Church has spikes installed on its steeple so birds don't crap on the bronze-green crosses on them. The Methodist church has beautiful green ivy creeping up and around its stained glass windows. The Catholic Church has installed a sentinel owl (it's one of those fake owls that keep the pigeons away) on both of its bell towers to keep the birds from defiling the pristine white limestone walls of the church.
One day a couple weeks ago, the Presbyterian Church had noticed that there were squirrels living in its belfry. Upon asking around the community, they discovered that both the Methodist and Catholic churches had the same problem. Where did the squirrels come from you ask? They came from Canada, but that's not important. Back to the story… So the Presbyterians decide that they will take all the squirrels, put them in cages, and then take them in vans to the county line and drop them all off. Well, since these squirrels are from Canada, they are extremely intelligent and found their way back into the church.
The Methodists, watching all of this from the safety of their corner of the intersection, decide that it is not worth their time or efforts to try to rid themselves of their new bushy tailed friends. The Catholics, however, found a solution. Both the Presbyterians and Methodists were afraid to venture into the cathedral-like confines of the Catholic corner for a couple weeks, when finally a couple adventurous Presbyterians decided to cross the street and ask Father Macao how he did it. Father quietly and calmly explained… "We simply baptized them and made them a part of our congregation. As good Catholics, these squirrels only show their furry little heads and black laser eyes twice a year: Easter and Christmas."
This story was told at my church, Saint Joseph's Catholic Church of Shelbyville, two weeks ago as a light anecdote at the end of mass. Hope you all enjoyed my joke
peace out yo. Happy April Fool's Day!
tm
