Hi Ben! Glad to hear you're in Italy....it is beautiful in the north - I haven't seen the southern part. I didn't realize Turin is the site for the 2006 Winter Olympics - cool!
Hey, Beth - I'm an English teacher but I overlook the spelling now and focus on the great content in Ben's messages. I'm his aunt who loves him though, so he gets all kinds of slack from me!
Enjoy Italy, Ben....Love you! Laurie

haha yeh my spelling....i dont even know where to begin, though some of it i would like to blame on the keyboards but that prolly only accounts for about 10 percent of the spelling errors......yeh the other two are moving out and exactly what that bridging period is for.....it gives uconn the two weeks to get in there and clean up those two rooms for the next people....since emmett and i are staying we dont become subject to that so have to do the contract......well i guess we dont have to technically but i think we would have to clear our things out and move them back in which would be much more worth just goin for the contract...til later ben

Great Ben - I'll take care of Emmett's contract. I don't know what happens with the other two guys, but that won't be our problem. I've just printed out your postcard from Barcelona and will be passing it on to a co-worker to read. She was there about 3 weeks ago for a wedding and loved it. I thought she'd enjoy reading your notes. The only problem, she was an English teacher. She will probably cringe as she tries to interpret your creative spelling. You must have had the same Kindergarten teacher that Emmett did - you've surely excelled in what they call inventive spelling. Stay safe, and adventurous.

Hey emmetts mom...haha.....yeh emmett mentioned you were checking in......well as for the contract i believe i am all set.....we had a hall director switch so i think that didnt help things.....but when the new one came he had me sign a special one cause my sublet would be staying their during the gap period.....does that make sense......but yeh thanks for checking in and i hope all goes well...talk you soon...ben

Hey Ben -

The lurkers are coming out. I've been enjoying the post cards and the message board. It does take a lot of time to get through the details of your days though! I'll be looking forward to the pictures and summaries when you get back. I'll come up for an afternoon and you and Emmett can take me out to lunch. Emmett doesn't have very good internet or cell service up in VT, so I am often filling him in on your comings and goings. Which gets me to the important part of this post - did you fill out a "bridging contract" before you left for the summer? I called Charter Oak apartments today and you guys were supposed to have submitted that by July 23. They are sending me a copy that I will fill out for Emmett. If you didn't fill out the contract you should probably have your mom call UConn and have them fax a form for her to submit (860-486-2639). By the way Ben's mom, I'm loving your posts to him. You've got a fine son there and I'm so glad he and Emmett are roommates. Take care Ben - looking forward to seeing you soon! Beth (aka Emmett's mom)

Hey Bud, I emailed you some names and adderesses, let me know if you receive them. I hope they are helpful. Keep your socks dry...Ray

safly in italy but i cannot chat....ben

Hey mary anne glad to see you found the site....thanks for helping out to get gram some of the updates.....they they are kinda lengthy.....hope all is well up there.....i bet a lot less muggy then here....

michael....yeh it totally makes sense now that i got it explained ot me.....umm as for mutiple pics that is what got me in trouble in the first place cause i foget to change the setting back.....but i will try....it is a pain cause i am not always in the photo mentality let alone get photos for online as well......will work on it though.....

ms megan glad to hear about the college and job situation.....and thanks for getting the address up to maine.....be good and no boys.....:-P

laurie...yeh what the heck how could he not get into the hall of fame.....that is garbadge.....i have about 350 different cards of him......it was a sickness for a while......wow i have always been tunel visioned......hummm......but yeh the olympics......well will i be going with them or do they just have the tix for me......getting it to me humm....i will need to think....but maybe soon because.....

...i just booked a flight to the town of tulin i think...i spelt that wrong i am sure.....well it is in italy in the north and ryan air flies there......it was fairly cheap and everyone tells me not to worry of money and i figure it will save me so much in travel time that i will give it a go.....the flight is wed afternoon so i ahve tonight to get to girona tom to see the town and leave the next day......i hope this plan works as changing it would be rough....

back to laurie umm so with that in mind it is not so far off from germany......i am just hesitant to make solid plans regarding once i land cause i want to see how ray works out on thursday.....i know not the answer you want........so yeh there are my thoughts......hopefully i can give you a call or contact you somehow soon and maybe we can hash it out more then......til then i must get a train, food, and tonights accomodation..... ben

Hi Ben,
I printed out you latest post card to share with Grandma. I'll havee to get her over here some time and show her how her how your website works. Take care. Have fun.
Mary Anne

Well Ben..........I haven't posted in a long time and wanted to let you know that I check in frequently and have been enviously following your adventures. Hope all is well and you are enjoying yourself. Let me see if I can clarify your picture resolution confusion. For posting on this website, the 640 x 480 resolution seems to work great. Yes you are correct that to print at this resolution would be awful. No, 640 x 480 is only a 307.2 kilobit file. 1280 x960 would be 1.2 megapixel and so on. Always mulitpy the the numbers to get the total megabit size. Maybe you could take a few shots in the low resolution for posting and then take the rest of your photos at 5 mp. I know I am not alone in wanting to see some of the people you've met and some of the beautiful sites you're experiencing. Can't wait to here about your next adventure.......Michael

Hey, Ben...Just a couple of technical difficulties with posting a message here! I heard on a radio piece on Friday that you can still get tickets to a lot of events at the Olympics; in fact, the guy said just half of all tickets had been sold. Seems hard to believe but you might want to look into that when you get there. Pretty neat that Lance Armstrong won again! We'll need to figure out how you're going to get the ticket from Helga pretty soon....I know you aren't into planning but this one requires some planning! Stay warm, dry, and safe! Love you, Laurie

Hey benny. I've been pretty gosh darn busy lately, but I'd just like you to know how freakin jealous I am that you're in Spain grrrrrrr. I wish I was there to help ya w/ the language barrier. Maybe someday :) Anyway, I finally emailed Maryanne this site, and her addy is [email protected]. I got a job at Dunkin Donuts about a month ago; it's going much much better than McDonalds and it's all good :) Oh, and the college search - I really liked Dickinson and Gettsyburg too, but not quite as much. I liked Dickinson cuz it had a really good foreign language program, traveling abroad, and such. It also was a good size, and the atmosphere seemed relaxed, but the college still seemed prestigious and gave me the feeling that I could accomplish a lot there. Anyway, hope you're having fun wherever you are, and I wish I was there with you, googling at the mexican boys. Love you benny