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November Update |
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Written by Andrew Freye
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Sunday, 03 December 2006 |
 So its been a while since I have last put anything up. Sorry for the delay in posts. I am sure many of you are trying to follow Freye, but are not having a successful time with it. Well I started the beginning of the month off with two cross races down in CT and MA.
The first race in CT didn’t go well at all. I had an asthma attack early on in the race. Usually my asthma attacks consist of my bronchia’s flaring up and its just hard to breathe. This time I seriously was worried about myself. I dropped out of the race and took some more hits off my inhailer. That night I stayed in some ghetto motel in some ghetto town in a ghetto state (MA). Sunday’s race faired slightly better, but not by much. I didn’t have any major asthma attacks, but I was pretty worn out from the attack on Saturday. I finished the race with out getting lapped and a finishing spot around 30 or so. Not the result I was looking for, but respectable.
Bomb Threats
 So the University Of Southern Maine has this thing with bomb threats, we like them. Well, actually they piss the entire student body off, but we seem to get a lot of bomb threats called in. I think the count is up to 9 so far this year. Every time there is a bomb threat everyone runs to the parking garage and tries to leave campus as fast as possible. However, you end up sitting in the garage for at least 30 minutes if you are on the first floor and over an hour and a half if you are on the 3rd floor. So those 30+ minutes I am sitting in my car I am thinking to myself “If there is a bomb in the garage I am pretty much screwed because my plastic Saturn isn’t going to hold up to any type of explosion.” So after the third bomb threat I decided screw parking in the parking garage. I now park a couple blocks away from the Portland Campus and walk to school. Now when there is a bomb threat I don’t have to wait around like a sitting duck. However, after bomb threat number 8, USM has made the decision not to evacuate the school if one is called in. Now this doesn’t seem like the smartest idea to me, but with the amount of school students have missed it's getting way more hectic with the semester winding down. So maybe parking a couple blocks away isn’t the best idea, but if a bomb does go off at school at least my car won’t melt.
Cops
 What does a Resident Assistant and the TV show Cops have in common? A lot more than you would think. Over the short holiday break I was watching Cops and realized how similar some of there situations are to an RA documenting residents. I thought to myself that it would be pretty cool and funny to have a reality TV show on RA’s documenting students. When you watch Cops and see some of the people on there you probably think “Wow what a dumb ass!” If you watched or heard some of my stories about what some residents have done you would say the same thing. Unfortunately us RA’s don’t have the same force as Cops, well at least we can’t use the same force as they can. Legally.
Hikes
 | | Maggie and I before the epic hike. |
I have been able to get out on two great hikes this past month. The first one I went up to the Bethel area and hiked in Grafton Notch, part of the Application Trail.  | | My old man and the dog |
I met my old man in some random small township and the two of us along with our dog Maggie headed up to Grafton Notch. The plan was to head west and hike up Old Speck Mountain. The weather was in the low 40’s to high 30’s, cloudy and foggy. The prior night to the hike my Old Man said jokingly he was going to bring a hiking pole so he could beat me when we got to the parking lot if the hike was too hard or to long. Well, when we made it to the top of the mountain, which wasn’t that hard, my dad saw a new trail.  | | Fire Warden's look out on Old Spec. |
There was a sign that said “trail not finished.”  | | Grafton Notch |
After some rational thought on who would build a trail from the top to the bottom, we decided the trail must go down the back side of the mountain and wrap around to the parking lot. After following the trail down the mountain, up over another peak, down the second peak, and up a second peak the two of us realized that this trail was not going back to the parking lot. At this time we took some compass bearings and started bush whacking for a mile and half back to the main road.  | | Yeah he was a little tired. |
Before we could get to the main road there was a roaring stream that needed to be crossed. Some tricky ballerina hops were needed to bounce from rock to rock like a fairy across the stream.  | | But I wasn’t tired. |
The dog was left to swim across. I think she was pretty pissed about that due the freezing cold temps of the water. I don’t blame her. After the fairy moves were busted out I ran 4 miles up the main road to the parking lot to get the truck and pick up my old man and the dog. The timing was perfect for it was just getting dark when I picked up my dad. The hike turned out to be much longer and harder than expected, but it wasn’t my fault because my dad was the one to make the decision about going down a new trail. So everything was good there.
 The following week I went up to Bigelow Mountain in Carrabassett Valley. After last week's epic hike my dad decided to stay home (typical old man). So I went solo and brought the dog. The weather was perfect, temps in the 40’s and clear skies.  | | Maggie working her way up Bigelow. |
I made it up the fire warden's trail, intersected the AT and headed east. 4 miles to Avery Peak, back tracked to the intersection, headed west on the AT to West Peak, and then went down some other trail to the base of the fire warden's trail. The hike must have been 12 plus miles and it took me 5 hours and 15 minutes. Not too shabby. I am excited to go back there this winter and free ski the mountain after hiking it on some snow shoes.
 
Turkey Day
 My parents and I decided to go out to eat for Thanksgiving this year. I just didn’t see the point in having my mom spend a day in the kitchen for a small meal that would only include my dad and I. My parents invited the Floods to join us. The five of us went to the Samoset Resort in Rockland for dinner. The food was great. You ordered off a menu and could choose from plates besides just turkey. I was the only one who kept the tradition alive by having your traditional Thanksgiving plate. It was a great time overall. After a great dinner and driving back home I headed back to school to work the front desk. On Friday it was back home for the rest of the weekend.
A
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; "Image")
; "Image"){kind=small}
; "Maggie and I before the epic hike.")
; "My old man and the dog")
; "Fire Warden's look out on Old Spec.")
; "Grafton Notch")
; "Yeah he was a little tired.")
; "But I wasn’t tired.")
; "Image")
; "Maggie working her way up Bigelow.")
; "Image")
; "Image")
; "Image")
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