I canceled my Sprint account. Time to start saving an extra sixty-two dollars a month. At the end of this month you will only be able to reach me at my home or by e-mail. I figured it was about time to start saving some money, seriously. I kind of like the idea of being somewhat disconnected anyway.

Today I woke up and decided I was going to donate plasma. On the way I stopped by work to request next weekend off so I can go up to Sleeping Bear Dunes/Lake Michigan for some rustic camping with Jonathan and crew…much to my surprise, I actually got the weekend off. One last attempt at a good time this summer.

As for the plasma donation:

I spent about 3 hours getting set up with tests and paper work and waiting and getting hooked up to a machine that sucked my blood out, extracted my plasma, and then pumped my red blood cells back into my body. It went throught this cycle about 12 times while I watched the clock and read a rolling stone I found in the waiting room…laughing at the sorry excuses for critique and wondering why they call it 'donating plasma' when they pay you to do it. All in all it wasn't so bad, althought a little tedious pumping my arm and watching the container slowly fill with a funny yellow substance that came from my body. When I was done I didn't feel too bad. I was just a little bit dizzy, but i got my 25 bucks cash and continued to my car. I got on the expressway, at which point I started to feel really sick. I hadn't eaten anything all day and I'm guessing that's not a good thing to do when you're having fluids taken from you. I stopped at a gas station in Alma to put something in me, and I made it to the bathroom in time as to not pass out in public. But regaining consciousness on a gas station's bathroom floor with your face near the toilet isn't exactly what I consider a good time, either. I got up and drank from the sink…gulps and gulps. Bought two Gatoraids and drank to my heart's content in the parking lot while 'you can't always get what you want' by the Stones came on the radio. I felt better after about 15 minutes, but I'll be sure next time to eat something before I do anything like that again.

So in combination, between the cell phone and the plasma I'm up $87 minus $3 for Gatoraid = $84. I'm going to try and not blow it on music.

<lj-cut text="…And some pictures I've taken of this summer (broadband HIGHLY recommended.">

^right before my car died ^nonna's side yard Midland (hometown_): ^revere park ^so many beautiful houses in this town

Drive to Californ-i-a (Coachella):

^somewhere, arizona ^trev @ grand canyon. he found his spirit animal, which he later killed and ate. ^april on cliff: "Gabe, you ok??" ^the two biggest dorkmasters you'll ever meet. yeah, trevor's wearing a wool skirt because it was about 30 degrees out that morning. southern arizona was about 95. ^trev/grand canyon morning. 'piss on texas' yeah, we rode 4-deep in a honda civic, cross-country ^finally there. i think you can read the enthusiasm on my face ^fried ^i think this was during ...trail of dead 'art' gabe-drunk