I guess this would be a good time to blog since not much is going on. Alright well here is the rundown. First we have thanksgiving, which ended up being pretty enjoyable. It was my family, minus my sister april and grandma that matters. with the Luthers, and my moms brother and all of his family and i forgot dan also made it out. So we start eating some pre-meal food and then out of no where we hear screaming and i guess some rumble started upstairs due to one sister calling another fat, so punches were exchanged and then it was ended, pretty exciting stuff. Before the meal also dan, andy and i had a had a "secret meeting" downstairs which consisted of a beer chuging contest Sam Adams Octoberfest, freezing cold, not easy to chug, so andy ended up winning, dan in second and of course myself in third with a very weak performance. then it was dinner time, i dont know how much i can say about dinner, it was good times, dan brought some great wine and i had my fair share of it. Then andy got to have a catholic vs protestant debate with my uncle who is a pastor which was somewhat entertaining but not as good as the football game so thats what i decided to do. Then Pie, and by this time leighan had shown up which was good. we ate desert and then it was time to leave, dan and leighan came over to my house watched a movie and that was pretty much the end of the evening. Friday was nothing to write home about, it was phills birthday, i got to work, and well enough said. Today i woke up really late, like around 11 for some reason, i then headed to leighans house because she was sick, picked up some mickey d's nuggets and got hassled for wanting a lot of sauce. leighan and i just sat around for most the afternoon, it didnt look like she was up for much as she looked very ill, yet for some reason jcrew wouldnt give her the day off, so she had to go into work tonight, i left before that and went over to daves house, where we watched football, ate a great dinner, watched the ufc ppv from a few weeks ago or last weekend, watched notre dame, and i learned i might of worked with mika more than once, and learned some fighting moves....I want monday to come for only one reason, so i can get a full workout going again, i would of gone if that damn fitness center wasnt closed this weekend but yeah i guess no one wants to man it. I kind of wonder if it is open during the summer, i sure hope so, but id guess probably not let alone jterm i hope it is open too, and i am thinking it will be since my teacher teaches a couple classes in there over jterm, anyway that was my weekend thus far, tomorrow is church, saying goodbye to leighan till xmas :( and well, whatever else i get led to do.

Remember when you had to trace your hand to create a turkey, well i think i was better at that when i was about 5, then i am today.

one of my role models.

Your welcome here anytime. I am speaking to winter when i say your. I really like the winter and cold, a lot of people seem to hate it, but i much rather have this then 100 degree weather. However, i nice 70 degrees everyday wouldnt be all that bad i dont think either. Anyways winter is here it was cold as hell at work today, and the wind really pissed me off when i had to put windows down on cardboard outside and it kept blowing away. After work it was to fitness i went a nice 100 or so question test, and then a work out. Lifting weights feels really good, although i kind of think i could do more than what im doing, or maybe it is just that i wish i could do more because id rather see results faster. I am however following the guidelines to fitness my teacher and the book has laid out so hopefully it ends up working, i do need to up my cardio a bit, but yeah thats about all. after class i went to my parents house and picked up my zao dvd that i got in the mail, and holy cow it is long. more than i had ever wanted to know about zao it is ridiculous, however their thoughts about Christianity and whatnot were very intersting, and i somewhat agree with what they had to say. so that is really how i spent my night, i also made some stir fry which was mighty good, i love trader joes for yet another reason quick easy frozen stir fry, yum. And really that is all thats going on, i mean dave did invite me and dan out to vegas for super bowl weekend, but i honestly dont see how that is going to happen. After dan put in prospective how much it could end up costing even with a cheap flight and hotel, it made me think that maybe febuary would be too soon to take another trip, although the thought of seeing a possible Liddell vs Couture 3 fight would be quite amazing. but really thats all that is really tempting me at this point. Also leighan comes home this friday, i am super pumped about that it has almost been 5 weeks since i last saw her, so that should be great, however i made a boo boo and didnt ask off work for saturday which is festival of lights although i am not sure if her family is going to end up doing that anyway due to her grandma falling down the stairs and breaking her leg, get well soon grandma bradshaw. Sunday is our 3 year anniversary pretty pumped about that as well. 3 years. wow. that is really all i have to say about that it has been nice, difficult at times due to the distance but very wonderful at others when we get to actually spend some quality time together. and that is how i will leave everyone, oh yeah and using the heat is for losers, spaces heater till i die. peace

DAY 4

Well, I am actually kind of tired of having to describe everything with details. I will say we woke up and headed to the sports bar for some breakfast. yes breakfast and football. THAT EQUALS AMAZING. we got to watch the bears game, it lasted long enough for us to eat lunch at the same bar, we also got some more pop-a-shot action in. then we walked around the pier for a while. the best part about the pier was that i got to finally see the GIANT octopus!
Anyway. that was exciting, we also went to venice beach. the best part about that was muscle beach, maybe you would recognize it from such movies as Pumping Iron. anyway, to describe the rest of this beach i will show you via text. BONG STORE- TATTOO-BONG-BONG-BONG-TATTOO-TATOO-BONG and well you get the point, a really disgusting place actually there was also naked rollerbladers i have a picture but it didnt come out all that well . also i did get my compton hat there. after that we searched for sushi for a while and came up empty, ended up at this restraunt called Thaibeer, not exactly sure why it was called that but anyway ate some dinner, went back home and fell asleep. the next morning woke up extremely early and flew back home. and tada that was the magical trip

DAY 3 aka IN AND OUT, UCLA, 10 HOUR NAP

Alright lets get this party started by saying we had no breakfast because well, just no time for it, so instead we decided to go to In-and-Out Burger a california fast food chain. best part about this is the secret menu, all of us ended up ordering the same thing though 4x4 animal style and a neopolitan shake. just amazing fastfood some of the BEST EVER!!! Then to costco for some of the silver bullet, and then it was time for dan to shotgun a beer in the middle of the parkinglot, a warm beer mind you.
After watching a little bit of college football at home it was time to go to a game with one of daves buddies and some of his buddies and girl friends and her buddies. they were all really great people i unfortunatly do not remember all that many names but mike and i believe christine were really nice, as was rob, and mo, and i think thats all the names i remember. first off trying to follower the biggest asshole driver in the world from santa monica to pasadena was difficult mike was just an insane driver speeding, u turns just nuts. anyway we made it in one peace, a tailgate at UCLA is something ive never seen before and made me laugh there were people who had satelites on tripods and lcd tvs and yeah just crazy stuff like that, we also got to park on a giant golf course so there was tailgating for like 50 miles it seemed like. we started cracking some coor's light and having a good time chatting it up.
That of course is just a picture of the boys being boys the girls got a picture so i thought it was only fit that the guys got one such a proper picture too with the kneeling and all.
That would just be Likens, raging like any Likens would at a tailgate
Wrigley field has rooftops, the rose bowl has moutain top viewing simply beautiful and amazing.
this is like the third picture i have of me with dan and dave at the game, dan seemed to be very drunk and like to flick off the camera everytime
This was a failed attempt to get me to do 35 pushups after a huge UCLA touchdown. I wil have to say we tried this again at 42 with rob and did really well, we had at least quarter of the crowd watching us.

Dave and Dan showing everyone whats up with a lil' teen wolf action.After every touchdown myself and dave showed everyone whats up with a diamond cutter "BANG!!"
also let me say UCLA serves the best kabobs a man could get for 10 dollars and the eight clap is simply awesome....ucla my new westcoast college football team. U-C-L-A FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!
After all that we drove home including past a lit up staples center which is awesome at night, and then it was time for a nap......that nap ended up lasting 10 hours.....

DAY 2

This day started off with a nice breakfast from a restraunt i do not remeber the name of, dave if you read this please fill in the blanks for then names of the restraunts. anywho that was breakfast, walking back from breakfast we saw one of the most badass cars we had seen in a
while, so we dan and dave got their proton packs out and ready to blast.

then it was time to get ready for our trip to the laguna beach. on the way there i noticed something very odd about the LA freeways, not only do they have carpool lanes which are pretty sweet, and have tons of a-hole drivers (dave being the number one or two on that list) but they also have razor wire on signs...

Now i dont undersand this because theres no median or shoulder so how the hell is someone going to climb that anyway without getting smashed by an automobile. strange strange strange.
then we saw the sign.


Yes, we were there Laguna beach, unfortunatly the rest of the gang were back where we came from in chicago, but that didnt stop us from having a great time there we had some lunch at this place daves mom actually worked at back in the 70s or something, great fish tacos. we took a walk for a while.
then it was time to shop, the best store we went into was this crazy t's shop, i think thats what it was called anyway this girl started talking to us that worked there and after a while of chatting her boss came over and went on this rant about how we should go down to pacific beach because that was the best place to "RAGE" he kept saying that we looked like the guys who wanted to "rage" and that people were "RAGIN" everywhere along the whole street, so yeah that waas one of the better things of the trip. RAGE!!!! after looking through all the shops we started walking back on the beach, then low and behold we saw. THE KARATE KID!!!
After all that excitement it was time to go shopping in santa monica, got some clothes from rip curl, dave and dan got their ucla shirts from champs and we were off. On our way we stopped at a 7-11, there was no parking so we figured to be out in a matter of seconds so hey lets park in a handicapped spot, so that is what happened, i decided to stay in the car and dave left the car on, after about one minute i see this guy pulling into the 7-11 and i notice him glaring at me, he parks and opens up the door and i notice a cane, think to myself oh crap, and then look away, he knocks on the window and asks me why the hell i think i am allowed to park in the handicapped spot i told him i dont know and that we werent really parked, he was really pissed yet he got a closer spot. Back home we rested for a while, smoked a swisher sweet had a few beers and then called up a cab to take us out. we started at this bar i believe to be called obriens, had a beer and i bought dave and dan some VERY expensive jager bombs, we then moved on to this place i believe to be called the new world. at this point we were in full liken mode. Dave then got a text to go to this bar called the brig, so that is what we did, we met up with his friend amber, and her freinds, no idea what their names were. the best place about the brig had to be the bathroom where it was co-ed, one at a time. while i was waiting in line this really drunk lady id say around 30 just barged into the bathroom security grabbed her right away and told her to get back in line so of course she cuts in front of me, but whatever i thought she was going to puke and i didnt want her puking on me so i allowed that. She started talking to this cubby asian kid in front of her and then i see him wink at me, the person gets out of the bathroom and he grabs her hand and they run into the bathroom, once again security has to grab her and throw her back into line. the rest of the time there was spent with dan trying to start a dance party, i have a photo of this but dont feel like showing it. then it was time to go home amber and her friend came along with us, so off we went in a taxi, and we played some card games and i fell asleep. the next day this girl told dave he was gay because his place was so clean. so that really won points with action...........oh i have said to much this is day 3 i must make another post to come soon.

I hope everyone is ready for what could possibly be the longest post of my career. I was just going to post using bullet points, but then i figured no one would understand any of the back stories to what i was talking about, although unless you were in california with Danimal, Dave and myself i dont think you could really understand what the hell is going on or why we found so much stupid stuff funny, but here we go.
Dan and i got to o'hare around 330, for a plane that left around 500 or so, after we figured out that we got there way to early it was time to walk around for a super long time we finally got some food and coffee and sat down and waited for our plane. After about 15 minutes of waiting, over the loud speaker we hear a report that our plane is broken and that it is going to be fixed in approx 2 hours, that is when that picture was taken (above) and that is our reaction to that, faces of pure joy. Luckily it only took about an hour, and then up we went into the air. We decided to watch Constintine and Anchor Man while on the plane, which made the ride a lot shorter, luckily we had no leg room and the jagoff in front of me decided to lean his seat back and then not lay down, and not only not lay down but stand up. Anyway we finally landed and were snuck attacked by Dave who was hiding behind some sort of pole. At luggage claim there were like 15 of thse huge locked army cases which were kind of scary, and a man with the longest beard i had seen in a long time. After getting the luggage it was time to go to daves. He has a really nice one room apartment in Santa Monica, his place looks like the place the karate kid lived in the first movie. The first night we decided just to take it easy and go out to a sports bar get some grub and have a couple beers and that is what we did. We also played some pop-a-shot, because hey "I'd Rather be Pop-a-shotting"Dan was going nuts on the pop-a-shot when the ball flew back and destroyed his beer and broke the glass as held by dave. after that we decided that was good for the night so we headed out. then problems struck as we couldnt find daves car anywhere and started presuming it was stolen, luckily that wasnt the case and it was just parked a lot further up then we presumed, however, a great thing did happen due to searching for daves car, on the journey we saw 3 guys sitting in a pickup truck looking at a porn magazine pointing out what was great about it or something like that fairly entertaining though....then we went home and it was soon time for the first nights sleep.....i know i said this was going to be the longest post ever, but i decided to break this up and do it by day so that it will be easier to add photos because for some reason photos keep getting put to the top and thats a pain in the butt.

11-10 till 11-14
be good ya'll

well as most could probably guess not much is going on. this week has just been a whole bunch of school/work and recovery. Other than a damn cough that i can't get rid of i am feeling a lot better. Yesterday I ended up working out in the fitness center, there really is no one in there on a saturday. I also got mcribs with boz, i was a bit disapointed, mine had very little bbq sauce and really you dont want to taste the meat in the mcrib so not so good. Boz and I also took a trip to Sams club, where upon exiting the guy who checks your reciept said i should be playing basketball as all people say, and then i told him why i didnt play and how i was home schooled in high school in which he responds with "are you in some kind of cult" dont really understand where that comes from but ok, i just thought that was funny. I come home and hang with ej and watch some football and the bulls lose a terrible game. Then craig arives and we watch some Ultimate fighter finale, really really really good event, one of the best i have seen in a while, kinda funny that this free event was so good and the PPV kinda sucked. I also kind of wonder if like they could rig the free event just to make it better so that more people order the ppv, just a thought. after that it was night night time and well thats about it. This week i have a paper due, and exam and lots of working out. I also leave for Cali on thursday with dan, should be an interesting time although damn the people of laguna, no stalking for us.

ITS BACK!!!!

Wow on a kinda crappy day this picture sure makes me smile. thanks mr. jackson for sending this to me.

i have been sick the last couple of days, and it has really sucked. also not being able to work as much sucks. less money equals suck. lifting weights a couple times a week is very painful. and going to the dentist today to get a cavity filled sucks. thats about it.