Observe and Report

When you work at a bar, much like I do, you get to see some pretty entertaining and interesting things. People are very intriguing as is, but when you add alcohol, music, and in some instances other substances into the mix people become far more entertaining. I work at two of the more popular bars in Laramie, the Buckhorn and the 2^nd Street Cowboy Bar and Dancehall. Despite how small Laramie may be these two venues attract a far different crowd from one another. For those of you not familiar with either of these places the Cowboy is, go figure, a cowboy bar with a country atmosphere and live music. The Buckhorn on the other hand is more of a hip hop atmosphere with an upstairs that houses what is called the Parlor and offers Laramie a sort of dance club.

Since I have started working at the bar I have picked up a new hobby, people watching. People watching may sound a little weird but it is actually quite fun and you learn a lot about human interaction. People watching is simply just inconspicuously observing people from afar. As a communications major I enjoy studying people and how they act and interact with one another, so that may explain why I enjoy this unusual activity so much. In a sense it is a form of real life reality television for me and I get paid to watch it, which is a nice bonus.

As a bouncer I have to be assertive to the world around me and can not help but watch and laugh at times. You never know what you are going to see when on the job, especially since alcohol tends to make people a little unpredictable. Some nights the bars are really quiet and there is no drama or problems just crowds of people having fun, dancing, sharing stories, and laughing. However, some nights are the polar opposite, and this when people watching is at its prime, think Jersey Shore minus the tans and the steroid use. Even in little old Laramie we manage to attract drama, and a lot of it, welcome to college! Fighting is not something that is tolerated at the bars but it is always fun when it occurs. The back stories that the individuals have to tell about the occurrences are what make them the best too…you can imagine how ridiculous they get. Even after a long night at the bar I can always look back at the quality people watching achieved throughout the evening and realize that it was a good night and I am walking away with some good stories. Blog you later

Same Shizzit, Different Day

One thing that you get used to growing up in Wyoming is waking up to a world that rarely changes and it is as much of a good thing as it is a bad. Being enrolled in college doesn’t help this fact either. I wake up knowing that I am going to see the same people, the same scenery, go to the same classes, even the same weather (which in Laramie is generally cold and windy). There are very few things that change day in and day out. I still have the same sarcastic yet entertaining roommates that are unique in their own way. The only things that seem to change in my daily routines are the comments that those sarcastic roommates have to make, the lecture topics in class, the assignments I receive at my internship, and whether it is going to rain or snow that day.

We all, in some way or another, have a daily routine that rarely changes. It is just human nature to form routines and structure out our daily lives. We may not realize it, but it does exist and it is so monotonous. Being involved in sports my whole life having a routine was something that had consumed my life. Having to go to lifting, then rehab for injuries, class, lunch, more class, film, practice, rehab, dinner, study tables, and finally sleep. This is the very routine that I lived six days a week for three straight years playing college ball. Now, even without collegiate sports in my life, I have managed to form new routines that have helped the days fly by. Today is one of those days where I had an epiphany about this fact of life. I realized that my days seem so boring and literally fly by because there is nothing that changes throughout the day.

I am very fond of change and enjoy changing my daily routines, but have been so caught up in life at the moment to make any changes. I still find myself waking up, making breakfast, going to class, going to my internship, then going to another job, and then going home to watch a movie and do homework before I randomly pass out at some point. Up to this point I have been content with this monotonous routine. However, due to this lack of change in my life I have made it a personal goal of mine to make at least one change in this routine every day. Read a book, go see a different friend every day, go for a run, etc. And I challenge everyone who reads this to do the same, change your norm and break free from your routine to do something new and unusual. Blog you later

My First Blog....But Not My Last

"Don't let making a living get in the way of making a life." ~Andrew Hammond

It is interesting enough growing up in a state that a disturbing amount of individuals in the country do not even know the whereabouts of, Wyoming, but it is even more interesting coming from a town within that state that people who even live in Wyoming do not know where it is or that it even exists. This is an accurate way of describing my hometown, a place unknown to many that live in a place unknown. Greybull, Wyoming is a peaceful little tight-knit community where everyone literally knows everyone, and is set at the base of the Big Horn Mountains in north central Wyoming. A town that sits in the bottom of a hole that is small enough that if you blink, you just might miss it. Growing up we would have to drive an hour (54 miles) to go to the nearest movie theater or Wal-Mart and drive over two hours (125 miles) to shop at the nearest mall. Being from a small town is a luxury that a lot of people in this world will never get the chance to experience, and for that I am very grateful.

Although I come from an awfully sheltered and shut off community that is worth a blog in itself, that is not why I am sitting here today writing this. I am not here to offer up words of wisdom but instead to share my journal entries about someone that comes from such a place as Greybull, Wyoming, and has escaped the black hole to live the kind of life that not many “small town boys” get to.

So, a brief introduction to all who stumble upon my post, my name is Garrett and I am currently a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming. Probably another place that many people do not recognize nor care to, but for a person like me Laramie is a big town (roughly 27,000 including students). I am a former football player majoring in Communications with a minor in Marketing Communications and am approaching graduation in May without a clue of what I am going to do next. On top of being a full-time student I also work three jobs and still find plenty of time to enjoy the shenanigans that college has to offer. I have already managed to experience a lot of life’s curveballs in my 23 short years of being alive, and am sure to encounter many more, both good and bad, in the years that I have ahead of me. That being said let’s get this blog rolling and hopefully my senioritis does not affect my blogging as much as it does my school work. Blog you later