sometimes i want to cry

A letter to the head management of Chipotle-

It hurts. I went in on monday. I wanted my borrito and yes I do feel like I have the right to call it my borrito because when you eat it three times a week for years on end, you get the feeling of ownership. Chicken borrito, no beans and extra rice, corn salsa, cheese and a side of guacamole with a Arnold Palmer, half ice tea and half lemonade, with two lemons squeezed in.

But nonetheless, I was going through the line, ordering my borrito, this time without guacamole because I didn't have enough money. When I arrived at the end of my journey through the line, the cashier tells me 6.34$ at first it was simply uttter confusion. When I was told that the chicken borrito prices rose by 55 cents because it wasn't the normal, and impecably delicous chinken any more, my confusion turned into sheer outrage. I didn't turn on the chashier, they are very nice people. My favorite one is the short older lady who always smiles when I come. You should give her a raise because she knows my order without me telling her. But no I didn't turn on them, I didn't turn on the manager because I knew. I knew it wasn't thier fault. It wasn't thier choice. No David, Dawn and Joe decided something. They took thier chiikcen out of the line; the backbone of the meats, the heart of thier armada on the line, the reason I go to Chipotle and not to Qudoba or any other borrito place. Oh, trust me, I have choices. Qudoba, Santiago's, Illegal pete's and the quite miraculous...Big City Borrito. But no, I go to Chipotle. My dietary needs involved Chipotle. Yet now, I'm not sure.

Two main things bother me. The chicken, which I'm assuming to be one of the top two selling meat tiems at chipotle, was taken of the line. Retired for an unreleased amount of time. It was replaced by a new "Marinated Chicken" and personally...I'm not a big fan. I'm sure many people think that it is delicous. I trust that you guys have reason for the switch. But please, for the long time fan who makes 40 dollars a week and spends close to half of it on Chipotle, let me have my original chicken borrito. Give the customer the choice.

"I would like a chicken borrito," says the customer.
"Marinated or Original," says the line worker.

It's real simple. And I think alot of people would appriciate it. Oh, and for the other main thing that bugs me, well that i have to pay above six dollars. Please, I'm okay with a price raise. I understand completley. But you took away what I loved about Chipotle, relaced it with something not as good and want to charge me 55 cents more becasue it's "marinated". If I could still give the chashier a five and a one and be able to imidiateley turn for the drinks, I would be less frustrated. But now I have to give seven, and receive a hunk of chagne back, that I dont' know what to do with.

From a huge fan. Honestly I have gone out of my way many times to make sure that I have Chipotle and not a Qudoba or wherever. I have gotten in intense arguments about witch place is better and I have always sided with Chipotle. I am a Chipotle lover. So from me to you, personally, bring back the original chicken and if or when you do, let it be under six dollars. It's a reasonable price. We both can agree.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration. I honestly appreciate it very much.

-Ryan Haagenson

If you feel the same as I, and I know you do. Please go to www.chipotle.com, go to thier "speak" section, and tell them what you think. They promise that they will personally respond. Let the Original Ckicken movement begin.

something else?

I hear the summer afternoons, full of boards on wheels, Frisbees in the air and trips through the backcountry, calling my name already. It’s rough, you know? I have the ACT testing in a week, a Chemistry midterm to study for and a ten page paper to write for English class detailing on how the 60’s affected Kurt Vonnegut’s writing style in the book Slaughter House Five. Yet, all I can think about is six weeks left…six weeks left…six weeks left.

Everyone told me that your junior year will be the hardest to get through. I am only a testimony to that statement. Each day that goes by, reminds me how much closer I am getting to summer. I feel my motivation draining as we speak. My inspiration…depleting. My will power…going, going…gone. Abracadabra…poof. Now you see me, now you don’t. You get the picture.

I heard a question the other day. If you had your financial situation secure for the rest of your life, what would you do? What you answer would be what you should pursue in college and for a career. I have a problem though. I would just play my guitar, go backpacking, ski and really just do what ever I do besides school. I’m not sure how to pursue any of that and if I did, I really don’t think that I could live off of what salary I receive. Bummer.

I’m coming to an epiphany. Really I am. I feel it coming at my like a train in the night. Hopefully Amos Lee is on board and we can ride home together. I’ll pass on the cocaine though, and really I don’t like coffee either. Sorry if you didn’t get that joke. I have to decide though. Is school something that I need to put my heart into? Everyone tells me so, but some of the biggest mistakes that people make are made because everyone was telling them that it was the right thing. I can do well at school. Very well, if I want to. But honestly, so can anybody. Just because I can succeed in mathematics and science, does that mean I should? I can also mow lawns real well. Maybe I should be a landscaper? I heard they make good money.

I know it’s slightly ridiculous that I’m questioning whether school is right for me or not. Of course I’m going to go to college. I’m going to have a career someday, but I don’t know if math or science is where my heart is. I don’t know if getting my masters degree has a real value to me. I don’t know if taking all of these AP classes will benefit me in the future. What value are they anyway? I will forget most of what I learned in them soon. In the future, when I’m trying to teach my kids how to ride a bike, or throw a Frisbee, or when I’m somewhere on the other side of the world on a mission trip building a house, or when 60 years old and pondering on the thought of writing a book, I’m real sure that Calculus won’t help. Physics, not really a huge help. I know that just the fact that I went through such rigorous situations will help my character to grow and develop. But still...I’d rather do something else. Yeah, something else. Is that a career choice?

Myspace...cough cough...lame

To be quite frank with you, more people then I thought read my blog. I'm still trying to decide if that's a good thing. I hope that my writing doesn't suck. If it does, just let me know and I'll start to try harder. I just want to say thanks for supporting me. I didn't really know what I was going to do with this blog, and honestly I don't know what I've done with it. It's just...well you see the thing is...what I'm trying to say is...I'm not sure.

My goal for this post is to be as random as possible and still have a main focus. How am I doing so far? I don't' think that I'm going to capitalize my i's anymore. Microsoft does it for me and Blogspot doesn't and that annoys me. So take this... i am rebellious.

i've tried to get my friends to get blogs. i said that Myspace was overrated and they should turn to the good side. But really, Blogging is so far into a new and better league than Myspace, they aren't really comparable. Blogs allow one to express oneself in creative, honest and interesting ways. Mysapce is so lame. Really, really lame.

i have some crazy ideas up my sleeve for the future of this blog. i don't think you really care, but maybe you will be when i show you. i can't tell you yet because, well i haven't decided if it would be nifty or not. That's right i used the word nifty. What are you going to do about it?

So there. This blog was better huh? Shorter at least. Easier to read too. Thanks again. See you on the flip side.

this one is shorter, i promise

I feel that, even though fairly well written with developed ideas and organization, my last post exceeded the length that most posts should. At least on a high schooler's blog. So what I was in dire need of saying today in this post, I will attempt to say in as few words as needed.

We lost. Twice. We lost in a pathetic way too. One team blew us out 11-1, and the other game, well that one still hurts to much to talk about. On top of that, we lost three of our starters, two of which are our captions and one of which was our lead scorer, Hank. Hank tore his ACL strait trough and is out of athletics for six months. Yesterday was our first practice without him, and everything has changed. I feel like our team is very vulnerable right now. I mean our leader, the guy who got us going, pretty much the guy we played for, is sidelined and that takes a toll on the moral of the team. I'm not sure how we will bounce back from this. Thankfully we play steamboat springs next, and they pretty well suck. Its true, history says so.

It's hard to loose a leader. I never really had a relationship with Hank. I never really talked to him except calling for the ball on the field once in a while, but honestly, my heart sinks at the sight of him hobbling around on crutches. I miss him. I miss his words in the huddle. I miss the way he could find a way to put the ball in the net when no one else could. I hope the whole team feels that way so that together, we can fill the void of Hank's absence and still be the team that we always have been. You know, in 2002, there was a man named Drew Bledsoe. He hurt himself and was out for the season. He couldn't lead his Patriots anymore. Everyone wrote of that team as ruined and yet, a man named Tom Brady stepped up to the plate and was the MVP of the Superbowl. If you don't like that metaphor here's another more resent one. We, Dawson, are down to our last three hundred men. We were a massive army until fate tore us apart and now we stand at our last 300. That's a reference to the movie 300, if you didn't catch that.

Crap. I tried. I truly did. This post was going to be short. I had it set in my head. But here we are, a couple scrolls down, and its still the same post. My fault. I let you down. (really I wanted to right more too) But there's always next time I guess.

sometimes you just have to say hell yeah

I'm back from Florida. I'm tired from flying, the altitude is going to work on my lungs, and dry heat is absorbing my energy. Ah, home sweet home. I saw plenty of warm weather down there. I left Colorado the day before a snow storm hit and returned the day after the snow melted. I guess that's lucky. Along with the sunny 70 degree weather, I got some bruises as promised. A real nasty one on my left shoulder. Its splotchy and seven different colors if that helps you to visualize. But as for the long beaches, well...I'll just say I had sand in between my toes when I hadn't planned on it.

I don't know if you have ever seen a lacrosse field. I don't know if you know what an actual game looks like. So, in effort to ensure that I have the correct background knowledge presented for my reader, here goes a short, informational summary of a lacrosse game. In the beginning of each quarter and and after each goal, there is a face off. This occurs at the center of the field where two players meet to fight over a ground ball. Quickly after the clock starts, two more players from each team join the scrum for the ball. Once one player obtains possession, all the players are aloud to fight for the ball assuming the player who originally obtained possession, lost possession. (That happens quite frequently) After the ball is in one team's control, they proceed to move the ball, by either passing it or running it, near the other teams goal. In front of the goal is where the action mostly happens. It is where players are setting picks, cutting, checking, tripping, driving and bouncing the shots from. All of this being a large, team effort to take the ball and put in the the other teams goal or to take the ball away from the other team and move down to the other side of the field. So the gist that I'm trying to get across is the the center of the field, where the face off occurs, and directly in front of each goal is where most of the action happens and therefore that is where the field takes the most beating.

The field that our team had the great pleasure of playing on, could be considered a beach in broader terms. In these certain areas that have been mentioned before, the ground was sand. Coarse, refined beach sand. It was terrible, miserable and almost disrespectful. Only an eyes view away are top of the line baseball fields that have stadium seating while our lacrosse fields are behind the cafeteria with a fence as one end line, and a telephone pole in the corner of the other end line. Moreover, the facility somehow thought to only have two trainers when there are easily more then ten athletic teams present at one time. That's probably around 150-200 players. That's a 1-100 ratio, trainers to players. And the worst part was, both the trainers where home sick for the week. (sick...wink wink) And lastly, lets just say their "All Star Cafe", wasn't so all star with their broken chairs, unrecognizable food and lack of air conditioning.

But coming back to the title of this blog, honestly, sometimes you just have to say hell yes. I spoke of the teams way above our level in an earlier blog. And don't get me wrong they were great teams. I just didn't know that our teams level of play could be so high. After considerably defeating the team from Penn. 10-5, our team went on to beat the defending state champions of Georgia, Lassiter, 11-8. Hell Yeah! There isn't a feeling quite like the feeling one gets when you here the buzzer sound in an almost glorious fashion and you and your team mates, no, your brethren take the field in a triumphant huddle after coming our victorious in an epic battle. I was, and still am, ecstatic about the win. It made a statement and I know that teams around the league back here in Colorado are starting to wonder who Dawson really is. Oh, and to top it all of, I got the game ball from the captains but really, everyone on the team pushed themselves and each other to win that game.