i've decided that i'm bpreddt gahaha i'mff, hood at beer p[ong anddniht ah
if i eve xalled you guys toyou guys are the greatest friends ai've evrry caFF use i was pfretty a i'm soer had and stuff... yei'm definatally good heheheh i'm sorty that i cAlled y mightuou aND STUFUFF CAUSE I WAS i am the drunkest i have vever beneeeen. he dherah
I cal;led like t3 people tnoight
like mindy
and rache
and amy
man i think i eve called jayh, somone calle me at like noon tomorrow to wake me iup cause i got classs at 1 tghanjks man i appericate it .
rawer heh he h
CEDAR SPRINGS -- Ryan Gorter thought he had put the whole incident behind him when he agreed to pay $2,000 in restitution for the large-scale cleanup that ensued after he brought mercury into Cedar Springs High School.
Then he got a certified letter saying he owed another $47,000.
"I'd just like to see this all go away," the 19-year-old said Friday. Gorter made news in May 2005 after he brought a vial of the heavy metal to school to show some friends. Some spilled on the ledge of a whiteboard and onto the carpeting. A handful of students reportedly touched it.
Coming into contact with small doses of mercury can cause breathing difficulty, chest pain and headaches. Large concentrations can damage the brain, kidneys and lungs.
When school officials found out, the building was shut down for two days. Students had to be decontaminated, and Young's Environmental Cleanup spent a weekend using tracking devices to see where the mercury had been.
Within a few days, the carpeting was replaced and walls were scrubbed down.
Expenses totaling $47,045.89 were sent to the school's Indian Insurance Co.
A short time later, Gorter was charged with malicious destruction of property and unlawful possession of a harmful device, but those felony charges were dropped when he agreed to pay the district's $2,000 insurance deductible -- something that took the teen a year and a half to do.
"They told us it was all over when we paid that deductible," said Gorter, who works as a CAD operator for a monument company and has a 5-month-old daughter to support. He still lives at his parents' home and has been recovering from surgery following a work injury.
Gorter, who plans to fight the demand for payment, is not getting a lot of sympathy from Cedar Springs Superintendent Andrew Booth.
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"It doesn't include any of the pain and agony of all the families that had to find care for their children when the schools were closed," Booth said. "It's thousands and thousands of families that are affected."
Booth said Gorter has shown little remorse and was slow to pay the $2,000. He claims Gorter has changed his story about the mercury numerous times.
Gorter's attorney, Edward McNeely, said his client found the mercury while he was a lab assistant for a middle school teacher who was moving into the high school. While disposing of items from the teacher's old desk, he found a jar with the mercury in it, and was unaware of its toxicity.
"Ryan was doing what the teacher told him to do," McNeely said. "Where else would he have gotten the mercury?"
The attorney said it was up to the district to know about the mercury and its potential for leaking. He said if the case goes to court, the district will be brought into the proceedings to defend its actions.
Booth said he has no idea where Gorter could have found the mercury but says it was not from one of his schools. He said years ago the district did a sweep of all buildings and eliminated hazardous chemicals.
He said the cleanup investigation found mercury at Gorter's house and the high school, but none at the middle school.
McNeely said he has written the Chicago law firm representing the insurance company, saying the school district, not Gorter, "bears responsibility for the event in question."
Chicago-based Meachum and Spahr Attorneys at Law did not respond to calls seeking comment.
so i know this is a weird request, but does anyone have a spare lamp laying around, its kinda dark in my dorm room since my roommate took his lamp with him, the bastard also took my shelves.
::
2007 16 January :: 3.02pm
:: Music: British radio
I haven't been on woohu in months. I read a few pages back in my friend's pages and oh my dear God.. I feel like I've been gone a century, not just from woohu, but from all of your lives. I feel like I'm a million miles away. But I guess I am pretty far. Even a different state would make a difference. But here I am across the ocean, on another continent, in a country many of you know very little about, experiencing things most of you could never know. I am living another life here. Each of you are living another life there, even from each other. You're all friends, you all influence each other, intertwine each other in your lives, but you've all got separate worries, thoughts, problems.. I used to know what was going on. I guess the appropriate phrase is I feel "out of the loop." I'm not upset about it, it just really hit me now. I have friends, family, school here, everything I have in the USA, and my mind is consumed in them. My mind is in Poland and my life here. Coming to woohu right now and reading about all of you with boy/girl problems, school stresses, family frustrations, good parties, great nights out with friends, getting drunk.. your minds are consumed in your lives. Maybe all I'm saying is that life goes on, whether you're there or not. People keep changing, or maybe they keep up to their old habits, but whatever happens, nothing stops. When I get back to the states you guys may have partially forgotten about me. It's understandable. As far as you know, I hardly exist. I'm not around, you don't hear from me, you just simply know that I'm in Poland. And you might read my brief sugar-coated articles in the paper. It's just strange. All of my friends are living their lives and I'm not a part of them anymore. I'm living my life and none of you are a part of it.
It makes me wonder. When I come back, will we still be an ocean a part? Will things go back to being the same? I don't think so. I used to think 10 months wasn't very long, but really it is. We're all growing up. Should I work to read woohu, talk to people on msn, email frequently? Or should I stay focused on my life here that I'll be leaving in five months? But then again, I will never really leave this life. I'm going to be traveling constantly because the friends I've made here are the real ones that I can't fully leave. And when I get back to the states, I'm going to be there for a summer and then it's off to college. The closest there's a chance of me being is a few hours away in Alma, MI. But my hope is to be on the east coast in Boston or New York. I'm not trying to decide if I should stay in touch with all of you or not, because that's rediculous. I will stay in touch with those who I'm meant to, and I will drift with others. It's just life and I'm fine with that. Though it is hard to leave the people you care about so much.
Now I think I'm digressing. I was just struck by the strangeness of reading how all of your lives had progressed and for once not being a part of it, not being the listener or a prominent person in the "group." I feel like someone watching through the window, merely an outsider.
It's different, but it's not bad. I actually think I like it. I like my life and what I'm doing and what I plan to do. It probably will never involve Cedar Springs or even Grand Rapids very much ever again in my life, though. So drop me a line sometime and let me know how your life is and I'll let you know how mine is. It's nice to catch up with the people who used to be so involved in your life.
man, talk about a bonding day, my dad took a vacation day today, i thought we'd hang out or somthing, i was sitting there talking to him about cars and shit and he just kinda puts his headphones on and plays his PSP, kinda sucks.
to all of you who can hang out with your dad, props to you.
i wish i could.
hey phil, there is a $16 check hanging on my fridge, sorry i forgot to give it to you last night, just stop by some time today and my mom will give it to you.
hey phil, remember when we were at mindy's and we were talking about cats and stuff and i mentioned fruitcat but mindy wouldn't let me use her computer to show you.
