Arizona’s great, I’ve been having a lot of fun. Jobs are hard to find around here, scarce. Somewhere online says Phoenix is number seven for “job availability”. Hmm, maybe north of this city. I’ve been meeting new people, which was what I wanted to do. Mallory, a Wyoming native, loves the Broncos as I have found out. We’ve been talking about a possibility of a quick trip to San Diego where the Broncos will come into town to play the Chargers – her idea. See see if we’ll do walk the walk. Back to jobs, I’ve been contemplating on starting my business and I have had several ideas. I’ll keep you guys updated and tuned in on that. I have already had godaddy.com parked a domain name for me (www.bigzshop.com). Orginally wanted bigz.com but it was taken.

While in Arizona, I have surprised myself by going out and buying a pet. I bought a dog and he is a 9 week old pitbull/rottweiler (more of a rottweiler look), his name’s Zeus. I’ve grown to love him and he does a pretty good job with potty training and listening to commands such as sit/shake (even silent when I use sign).

Of course, I miss my family – especially my Dad. I plan to drive up to Denver for Thanksgiving and Christmas (with Zeus as well). But I’ll be flying there on the fourth weekend of September for a few nights. My stepmom’s birthday and her father/my grandfather is being inducted into the Colorado’s Hall of Fame in petroleum engineering for his lifetime achievement. Such a great honor for him and I’ll be there to celebrate with him. My brother Kevin will also be flying down from North Dakota too and I know my Dad is looking forward to having the family together again.

I’ll try to update more frequently, it has been a pretty hectic one I may add.

I don’t have something to say that is not pointless at the moment. (Does this even make any sense? I’m not sure, either that or I’ve been looking at it for too long.)

But — RIT/Gallaudet Sports Weekend 2009, the event I am assigned as the Coordinator – will be the next non-pointless thing I would be sharing, so stay tuned!

If any one of you who is alive out there, please feel free to spam my comment option under this post.

• Acapulco, Mexico
• Cohutta (Real Word: Sydney) and Paula (RW: Key West)
• Josh Beekman
• Operation Arizona updates

According to my list, I’ll start with Acapulco. I left United States in efforts to prevent a civil war from emerging in Mexico between the government and its dangerous drug cartels. I was given this assignment by the Pentagon to identify those responsible in deaths of two Americans who were beheaded.

…. No, I’m kidding.

But kidding aside – I did go to Acapulco. Arrived there by plane with my former 1-quarter roommate, CJ and a current roommate Chrissy, along with Lizzie (Chrissy’s fellow Long Islander) and JW from Buffalo. We stayed 7 nights – AMAZING. When we arrived, we went through customs smoothly and a shuttle was ready to transport us to Copacabana – but we had to be dropped off at the Playa Suites (StudentCity.com Headquarters) for orientation. We were in the primary stages of becoming the trip’s V.I.P.’s. We found out that not many students have registered at our original hotel at the Copacabana and we asked to be transferred to the Playa where all the parties are at. Indeed, we were transferred to room 648 at the Playa.

Can’t exactly remember details and the order of events during the whole week. It was a fun-filled booze spring break. The first event we encountered was when we decided to see some of Mexico’s culture and that is bullfighting. I believe it is a tradition for Mexican boys to fight with a bull to get their manhood. There were 4 fighters who were assigned with different bulls. First things they’ll do was to frustrate and tire a bull by having it to run around the ring. Then they have a special decorated type of spears to attack when the bull was approaching. Then the two blindfolded, padded horses would come out and the rider will attack the bull with his spear to penetrate the back – make it bleed quicker. Sharp swords would come after and they will need to stab it deep from the top of the bull’s neck. It will help the bull to become dizzy and lose more blood, it’ll even come out of their mouths. Then a person of an important role will come onto the ring with a short knife to repeatedly stab the top of a bull’s head to ensure that death is imminent. Same procedure for all 4 bulls, after a death – a donkey duo will come out with chains on their backs to drag the bull out of the ring. Trippy to watch but I think that’s gonna be the only bull fight I’ll ever see.

Hmm – oh Cohutta and Paula. Yes. I met them and became friends – no joke. They’re former Real World cast members, from Sydney and Key West respectively. They are pretty awesome people and deaf friendly. They liked to learn some signs – of course dirty signs are popular to teach. Cohutta and Paula were paid to come to Acapulco, just to make an appearance and get drunk everyday. That’s what they get for having their fame. And Cohutta has certainly made use of his fame – he is definitely a pimp. We hung out everyday and one day, Paula wanted to go bungie jumping with us and so we went. The platform was 170 in the air with the ocean ahead, and a pool on the bottom. The elevator took us to the top and Paula was so nervous. CJ went first cause he was the most nervous of all, wanted to just get over it. And I went second. I loved that feeling of getting onto the edge and I was like oh man, don’t fall off yet. I was hoping not to hestitate and the guy in the booth was counting to three to make us jump so that their equipment is ready. I jumped. It felt like forever and adrenaline was rushing all over my body – a feeling that is hard to describe. I see the pool getting closer and closer, then I closed my eyes and half of my upper body got wet. That was awesome.

Another time, Cohutta wanted us to come eat pizza at an Italian restaurant when he spotted us at the pool area. I told him to let me go to my room first to grab my money for expenses and he was like don’t worry, it’s on me. He is cool and we all went. The pizza was absolutely DELICIOUS. And at one point, two girls walked by our table outside and of course they recognized Cohutta. Sat down with him on his laps. Yeah yeah, and what else? Oh we did a lot of flip cups with Paula and Cohutta. And oh, Paula seriously injured my neck/back. No not seriously, but it was painful for a few days. We were outside playing chicken-fight in the pool (person on top of another person’s shoulder – need I say more?) and of course, Paula was on top of mine. We were up against JW and Lizzie. End results? We lost. Reason? Paula was drunk, I emphasize DRUNK. She had no sense of balance and no sense of reality. As soon as we both fell into the water, I thought Paula would let go of her legs as it was squeezing against my head. I couldn’t breathe, of course. She was expecting me to be as strong as Superman and pull both of us out of the water like its no problem. News flash, life doesn’t work that way. So I had to make a huge attempt to withdraw myself from this ordeal and to be able to breathe again. If you are wondering, yes – my neck/back’s doing wonderful right now and I thought I would need a professional massage.

To summarize – Paula and Cohutta are cool people! Next on the list? Oh Josh Beekman.

He’s a cool dude. He is a Chicago Bears offensive lineman out of Boston College. I asked him all kinds of questions about football and one of them was – is Rex still the Bears’ QB? He answered promptly, “We might look for a trade or get someone from Free Agency.” BAM! There’s inside information just like that. Haha, and I asked (of course) if the Bears would win the next Super Bowl. And of course, he said, “I hope so!” The gang and I taught him some sign and it was “Chicago Bears football”. He practiced it everyday, even every time he sees us – he’ll do it and we’ll give thumbs up. Josh told us he’ll do that in front of the camera at one of the Bears games so I’m gonna be sure if I could catch him doing it. If he didn’t do it, it’s alright – we saw it live in person. Like I said earlier, V.I.P. – Josh, Cohutta, Paula, and the gang including myself were in the V.I.P. booths at all of the clubs. It was amazing. All of the people there are treating us like deaf celebrities. YEAAAAAH. Living the dream you can say – it didn’t last for long but I have enjoyed it.

For more photos – check Chrissy’s or Clayton’s albums.

Operation Arizona update/forecast: 75/25 – narrowed down houses for lease (with a pool), flights purchased and obtained for April 30- May 4. Am very looking forward to the move – planning on going white water rafting trips, paintball, golfing, and just chilling by my pool drinking a cold drink, perhaps a Pina Colada. I’d really like to do a Grand Canyon rim-to-rim hike. Anything to do there, I’m up for it – under one condition: completing my assignments and to ensure that I’ll pass the course.

That’s all folks – more to come. Hope you’ve enjoyed this!

- Leeper

I’m most looking forward to May/June for multiple reasons. First, RIT/Gallaudet Sports Weekend 2009 is this April 18 and I can’t wait for that to get over with – coordinating a year-long preparation can make one very anxious. Secondly, I’m graduating with a Bachelors degree from R.I.T.

So what’s after graduation? I don’t want grad school obviously.

I was left with these options:

• Colorado – with some of the connections I have in the sports industry
• Stay in New York for the summer – I have three classes left to complete degree (all online) and I know how much I hated staying in Rocheshitter last summer
• Arizona – get a rental house with two good friends and enjoy life, get a temporary job. Saw a $1.7 million home for approximately $1,700 a month. Not too bad at all for a pool and a waterfall, 5-car garage.

I guess I’ll just see where life takes me. Flow is my best friend.

What else have I been doing since October? Oh I can’t forget the wedding ceremony I went to in Phoenix (and Las Vegas staying at the Luxor) for Steph and Tyler. I was glad to go there instead of the usual routine of visiting home for Thanksgiving. It was so good to see old friends since freshman year and I really miss those times I spent 11 days there. Wedding itself was beautiful and I was asked to be a groomsman, replacing someone else who unfortunately couldn’t go financially. I gained a lot of weight while I was there because friends kept wanting to go to In-and-Out once too many times as well as eating out everyday. Weather was amazing, I left Rochester just as the first winter storm arrived. Today’s 9 degrees and that’s frigid cold.

I’m looking forward to go to Acapulco, Mexico for this year’s spring break with a small group. 2 roommates CJ and Chrissy and Chrissy’s fellow Long Island friend Liz. Chrissy and I couldn’t stop talking about this and we checked the weather in Acapulco yesterday – it was 88! I’m definitely heading to the Rochester airport in summer clothes no matter what the weather is around here. This is my first spring break, as well as last during my college career that is out of the country and thought that was a great trip to end it.

Another positive thing was that Gea and I are now seeing each other, starting over and taking it slowly day by day. It was a great feeling. I had my ups and downs most of 2008 and I am sensing that this year 2009 will be a better year. An awesome spring break coming up, coordinating RIT/Gallaudet Sports Weekend,  graduation, and moving back to Colorado at the end of the summer. I’m definitely going to miss RIT – the friends I met and the social part (not the homework and studying).

I have started to learn that we are living life once. Once I thought that, I’ve begun to think of all the things I wanted to do and becoming aggressive to pursue them. I did for spring break, so cross that off. I’ll list the things I want to do before I die – sort of like a Bucket List, some I’ll want to do in 2009 and before settling down.

• Dog-sledding in Alaska
• Climb Mt. Everest
• African safari
• Backpacking in Europe and Asia
• Take my parents on a vacation
• Go to a Broncos game several more times
• Ice-fishing
• Sailing alongside East Coast to the Keys
• Get a motorcycle
• Attend a Summer Olympic event
• A volunteer when/after a natural disaster strikes (Like Hurricane Katrina – help build homes)

… and you didn’t read the whole thing, did you?

Am so glad and relieved that I’m all done with a strictly math course for the rest of my life. Passed this stupid Calculus class with a B. Woot, and now moving on…

Oh, I got a new car and am loving it. Looks like an ’08, but it is a ’06 with black interior leather and sunroof and some other sweet stuff my old car did not have.

Hmm.. I’m no longer a XBOX360 owner. Fourshots – you were wrong, my friend. But now I have an itch to get a Playstation 3 that already comes with Metal Gear Solid 4. *sigh* But first things first, I’m getting computer speakers and a new LCD computer monitor to complete my new computer makeover (I’ve already bought a new tower, keyboard and mouse.) Technology is seriously owning me.

I think I’m addicted to LovinCup. It is a pretty groovy place and very cultured. And, that’s about it. Good night!