Quite a few things are pretty much hard for me to wrap my head around in my life currently…

1: I seriously get married one week from today. I don’t think this has truly ‘hit me’ yet. The whole idea seems a bit surreal even now. Maybe because we’ve been dating so long already? Maybe becaue we already live together? I’m not sure. I feel passive regarding the whole thing. I guess in my mind it feels like the wedding day is still months away. It’s not, vanberge.

2: Bachelor party to end all bachelor parties. Last weekend was legitimately the most fun that I believe I can have. Getting shot with paintballs hurts, but not nearly enough to shy one away from jumping right into the next round. My legs were soar for 4 days, and i still have bruises from some of the impacts. But overall I feel paintball is something that will soon be visited again by the Vanberge. Losing at the casino, nonstop rain, not even drinking very much… none of these things hindered the weekend even one bit. I had a fantastic time, and I’m glad that everyone was able to make it out. Vanbergs, vanlandw, flo, payner, russ, jja, tom, enfuego… Thank you all very much.

3: Big Vacation. I have to work on monday, and then tuesday… but following that I will not be returning to work until October 18th. I’m definitely looking forward to an extravagant honeymoon… but more so looking forward to ‘not working’. I haven’t had a vacation in quite some time, so some time away will do me some good for sure.

4: Linux. I don’t know what is wrong with me, but for some reason i just have to uninstall / re-install OS’es like every 2 months. Today i embarked on the task of finding a new linux OS for my laptop. The laptop is decent… 900 mhz, 20 gig hd, 256 megs ram. So a good clean OS is worth it… Previously, I had been running ubuntu for some time, but that’s grown stale for sure. So, i being searching for my next laptop disrto… I started with Slackware Linux 10.2 – terrible wireless support (although, a very cool distro). Then went to Simply Mepis 6.0. Mepis has KDE which is abysmal… And i couldnt see any easy alternatives. I tried fluxbox unsuccessfully, and then decided mepis was not for me. Then we stop on Fedora Core 5. The default desktop is Gnome, the look and feel is good… so I decide to stick with Fedora core 5. For some god hideous reason i find it necessary to tweak with this Operating system and hack the gibson to make my wireless card work. I’ve never spent so much time on something in my life. Jesus. Hopefully these steps will help out some poor bastard some day… Since it took me forever to arrive at this scenario.

1. Download ndiswrapper
2. gunzip ndiswrapper.tar.gz
3. tar -xvf ndiswrapper.tar
4. cd ndiswrapper
5. make
6. make install
7. ndiswrapper -i /dev/cdrom/WindowsDriverFile.INF
8. modprobe ndiswrapper
9. echo “alias ndiswrapper wlan0” >> /etc/modprobe.conf
10. Configure Wireless Settings accordingly.

So, i’ve been working on writing little “FAQs” about all the Groomsmen who will be in my wedding.  Evidently this little excerpt goes into the program. Well, I’m not nearly as good of a writer as vanbergs, so especially for a semi formal occasion like this I have some trouble. I figure i’d post a rough draft and take some comments/suggestions on them.

Thanks in advance everyone! Please leave comments/suggestions on these…

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Steve VanBergen – Best Man
I chose Steve to be my best man not only because he is my younger brother, but because he is truly my best friend. Being close in age, we shared many of the same interests and hobbies as we made our way through childhood, which allowed us to become very close friends. We’ve managed to remain very close as we’ve grown into adults, and I’m very grateful for that. I couldn’t have asked for anything more in a little brother.

Jason “Tom” Farquhar – Groomsman
Jason is our cousin on my Mother’s side. Jason grew up just a few houses down from our family, and has always been close friends with both my brother and I. Unfortunately for him, he’s a few years younger than Steve and I, so he spent alot of time being picked on and pranked by the both of us. Even though we picked on him through most of is teenage life, Jason is really like a brother to Steve and I.

Ryan Payne – Groomsan
I met Ryan during my freshman year of college at Grand Valley State. He lived on a different dorm floor, but his outgoing personality and unique sense of humor allowed him to become pretty good friends with everyone. We kept in touch all throughout college, and eventually lived together during our super senior year. Even though he now lives and works on the east side of Michigan, Ryan has remained great friends with all of us.

Eric Florence – Groomsman
I also met Eric at Grand Valley. He started college a semester later than the rest of us, but quickly became a great friend. Eric and I lived together for most of our college careers, so he’s gotten to know me alot better than he probably wanted to. I consider him to be wise beyond his years, and he’s always provided a level-headed perspective on any trying situation. He’s seen me at my best as well as my worst, and I’m glad to consider him a great friend.

Wesley VanLandschoot – Groomsman
Wes was one of the first people I met when moving in at Grand Valley. Sharing a technical inclination as well as the same nerdy major of “Information Systems”, Wes and I helped each other make it through alot of difficult classes. It was definitely easier to spend 24 hours straight in a computer lab knowing that Wes would be there as well. In addition to classes, we also lived together and both worked for Grand Valley’s I.T. department. Wes carries a mild and humble nature, and over the past 8 years has really become one of my closest friends.

Recently, I watched season 1 of “The Wire” on DVD. It’s a great show, well worth the view. But that’s all beside the point. One episode caught me off guard- and had a bit of a unexpected effect on me. It made me really miss college.

In the show, this character is a heroin addict, and has made a decision to “get clean”. He doesnt have a home, he doesnt really have any friends, he doesnt have any family, so really – he doesn’t have any help to do this. Instead of hanging out in the projects sleeping in abandoned buildings; he starts hanging out in a park, sitting on a bench. The same bench. Every day, just watching people and listening and letting time pass. In the show, it’s actually a pretty lonely and cold feel that you get. But something about this scene made me desperately miss college. I want to be able to just sit down and watch the day go by without any worries, without any cares. That really doesn’t happen to often in the real world.. But in college, there were plenty of days where it did.

In college, things weren’t real. You didn’t owe money (although you were sure in debt), there was always a way to get some food, classes were optional, studying was optional. Something about it was just not real. Some how, some way, I just knew things would work out. That made it dynamic, and that made it fun.

I suppose i’m pretty lucky. I met a great group of friends at the very beginning of freshman year, and we pretty much all stayed friends through our entire tenure of higher education. And there’s just some passively liberating feeling that I don’t have anymore now that i’m in the “real world”. That’s nothing new, i suppose.. I have been graduated for over 3 years now. But that doesnt really change how i feel about anything. I miss walking over to 17c laker village and just sitting on the porch. I miss playing wrestlemania 2000 and super smash brothers for 5 hours at a time. I miss 30 packs of bush light. I miss skipping my one class of the day to go to a concert. I miss calling in sick at meijer. I miss laughing at cechg. I miss making fun of kramer’s imac. I miss our custom names in Revenge. I miss burgetta. I miss laughing at febreze (the person). I could go on and on… I definitely miss college. My immature, childish side will always have a soft spot that wishes college lasted forever.

There are, of course, plenty of things i do not miss… Cobol. Theresa Peterman. Public Safety. Housing. Joe Hornik. Scheduling. Buying Books. Moving. bb.gvsu.edu. River.it.gvsu.edu. Finals. Assembly language. Dishes. ICQ. etc… But, these are really trivial. And don’t hold a candle to the things i have now come to miss.

College really was one of the best things to happen in my life. That’s another one of those wierd decisions. It seems so small, so insiginificant when you’re a senior in high school. “where should I go to college?….. Hmm… How about GVSU.” And then, it shapes your entire life.