Outdoors

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For some reason, my comment span ended. I certainly don’t mind, but its kind of odd. I received like 900 in a week or so, then nothing.

Jenn is in GR for her interview at Spectrum. Hopefully it goes well.

I have applied for 2 internships for the summer. One at Parker Hannifin and one at Federal-Mogul. I will try for more as I find them.

We had another former tech staff meeting today. almost everyone showed up, including Beth’s husband and Dan’s gf. Only Dave and Kyle missed out. Well, and Leticia who moved away and Brandon who joined the air force and is apparently stationed at Applebee’s, but they weren’t invited.

The League of Michigan Bicyclists released their 2007 schedule, and the One Day Ride Across Michigan will be on September 8th. Now 1, I would rather like to ride that, and 2, especially on my birthday. But, I am standing in Todd Stevens wedding that day, so I can’t, and even if I wasn’t standing I would still need to be there (not need like I have to but need like he is a friend and want to except that there is something really cool happening same day). The ODRAM is always same weekend of September though, and my birthday will surely fall on Saturday again.

I took Jenn to Kingfish for Valentine’s Day. The plan was that she wanted lobster, but they had a special 2 for $30 buffet with alot of good stuff on it. King crab legs (huge), broiled fish, ribs, cocktail shrimp (also huge), roast beef, roast pork, mashed potatoes, and really good gravy. It was enjoyable.

Uhm, …, …, …
Ok, that’s all I guess.

See you all whenever I remember to do this again.

nick

Semi-Linky

Just in case anyone is unaware, Woot!

Yeah.

So, I skipped my class Wednesday, partly due to a complete inability to sleep, and partly because when I realized I had over slept, I considered the situation and decided I didn’t really give a shit.

My site currently consists of about 60 megs, over 50 of which are photos. I am on and off considering moving them to flickr or webshots or something. Not saying I will, but it has been considered. Then again, $0.01/MB/Month x 55MB x 12 Month = $6.60, so not really a huge deal.

I received my financial aid rebate, so I have money for a while. I will absoltely need somthing around Big Rapids though.

I found a camping/backpacking hammock at Wal-Mart a few days ago for $9. I bought it, as thats WAY less than most I have seen. It isn’t great, definately not the mosquitto net wrapped one I wanted from Campmor, but I will be happy with it for a while. I am still trying to figure out how to hang it in my room.

Ok, that’s all I have for you tonight.

Later,
nick

When Pumpkins Fly

This weekend Jenn and I went to Johnson’s Giant Pumpkins. Coolest thing I have ever seen. Ninety two pound pumpkins flying 600ft are just cool to see. They built a trebuchet in the back of the farm and launch a pumpkin every hour, plus they have a corn maze and donuts and cider and all that. We got a caramel apple too, but the apple wasn’t great (isn’t it always like that? shitty apple covered in good stuff, why not a good apple in good stuff?). We plan on returning this coming weekend because we didn’t have $4 each for the maze, and want more donuts (made right there, served still warm).

nick

Over the Summer

Way back, on April 9th, I wrote out the following goals for the summer:

Clean my room (lets just say the blog isn’t the only thing I’ve been slacking on)
Ride bike to Rose City (to camp at RRRA) in prep for…
Ride bike to Mackinaw (yes, seriously, like 180 miles)
Get some reading in
Catch a fish
Visit Ferris

Over the summer, that was modified to add in riding my bike to Ferris, building a hammock, and building a canoe/kayak. Then, it was further modified to remove the canoe/kayak and the hammock. As well, all the bike trips were constantly delayed.

Well, summer is over, and it is time for a recap on everything. I never did clean my room fully. I did clean it a few times, just not to the point of actually being clean. I never rode my bike further than the 18 miles to and from State Park, and have not ridden it since July 3rd on the way back from the fireworks to be totally honest.

I did get in plenty of reading, fiction and non, including a few things that I had wanted to read for quite a while. I still have a few things left on my wishlist but everything from the Bay County Libraries that I wanted, i found and read. I did not go fishing all summer, and have not even bought a license. I may though go salmon fishing with my dad in the coming weeks, we will see. And finally, I did visit Ferris with Jenn, though I was advised to revisit in the Fall when classes are in session and there are more to see, so I will need to set that up at some point.

So, overall, I did pretty well with the exception of biking, that’s what I am telling myself anyway. I may have set goals too high, or not tried enough, who knows. Next summer I will be living near Big Rapids and have the While Pine trail nearby, so maybe I can get some riding on that.

Alright, thats all I wanted to say for now.

nick

Will This Make Me Less Wise?

Yesterday I visited the dentist because my damn wisdom tooth was bothering more this week. They took an X-Ray, poked at it a few times, and told me come back next Thursday. Finally, after 3+ years of pain, I will be rid of the damn thing. I am still nervous, as I don’t particularly enjoy dentist visits, but it will be nice to be rid of it. I am sure some other tooth will take its place in causing me misery though.

Next weekend is also the River of Time. I once again have full plans of going, even if I do hurt like all hell from a pulled tooth. I am sure kettle corn is out for this year, but some cream soda does sound good. I may have to run over to Yooperville too.

I was reading on Michigan.org that Oscoda is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the legend of Paul Bunyan this weekend. It could be something interesting to go check out.

I think if I get some time I need to do some theme editing. I have like 4 themes I rather like, but want to combine certain elements into one that I can use year round, and just change the picture at the top. For example I should be putting a more fall-like pic up there very soon.

OK, I think that’s all I wanted to say for now.

nick

Comments

I have rescued all the comments from the old blog, all 158 of them. The problem now is reformatting and importing them all into wordpress, which is going a bit slow. It will, eventually, happen though.

We got our fall work schedule at the staff meeting yesterday, though I don’t really remember it. I will receive a copy to keep sometime this week I presume. I know is Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning, and some point Friday, but that’s as close as I remember.

Jenn and I were going to go camping this weekend, but decided are too poor. Maybe in a few weeks.

I posted a new poll last time, and yet only me and Jenn voted. How pathetic.

OK, thats all.

nick

White Castle

Alton Brown has a new show on food network in case any of you haven’t seen it yet. It’s called Feasting on Asphalt. He and a camera crew are riding motorcycles across the US over a month, and eating at roadside cafes, restaurants, pubs, bars, drive inns, and diners. So far there have been 2 episodes and I have really been enjoying it. Sadly, it seems it will end after the month, but who knows. It’s on Food Network on Saturday night.

Friday Jenn and I went to the Pig Gig. We were there around 12:30 so admission was free so we were able to spend some cash on food. I had a $6 pork sandwich and her a $5 skewer of overcooked shrimp, plus a $5 lemonade and $3 refill and a $3 french fry. It was all good (except overcooked shrimp), just not worth the money we payed.

Sunday we were going to go to the Fish Sandwich Festival, but since we had little cash after Pig Gig and the bank was closed, we decided to go shopping instead. On the way to Saginaw, we changed out mind and went to Flint instead. First off, to make sure nothing got in the way of it, we went straight to White Castle. We got the 3 burgers, flavored chicken rings (ranch or tobasco, we got ranch) and drink combo, plus an onion chips and a fish sandwich (for Jenn). After eating all that, we went back for 3 jalapeno cheese burgers and 2 more fish sandwiches. I didn’t try the fish, but everything else was good. If I were to return, I would go cheap and just get the regular burgers in a greater quantity perhaps. Chicken rings and onion chips and special burgers are good, but if you can get a $0.54 burger (I think it was anyway, between 51 and 59, the point is cheap), take it. After filling up, we went to the mall and we both found shoes, and they were buy 1 get 1 half off, so we saved some $$. Mine were about a year old, so it was certainly time.

Since I received my pell grant and such, Delta decided I didn’t need work study, so I am waiting for them to process my re-review form and get me set up. If I remain a library employee, I will stay at $5.70 an hour until October 1 when minimum wage rises, then I will go to about $7.50 or so. If, however, I get my workstudy, I go up to $6.50 on August 28, pay no tax, and go up to around $8.30. Now, that probably wont happen, since I doubt the increases will be increases over the new minimum wage equal to the amount over current minimum wage, but it is fun to imagine.

Which leads up to today. I went to the mall with my mom where she got some sandals, and I got a folding rocking camp chair since mine broke the last time we were camping (which we need to do soon). I fixed out doggie door for the second time, had lunch at Kingfisher downtown, and made shrimp, pineapple, and peach skewers with fresh mint, over coconut rice. It was as good as it sounds.

Also today was WWDC 2006. Leopard looks good, what we saw anyway. Mac Pro and XServe updates are cool, but unrealistic for me. Good news is Leopard is supposed to ship come spring, in time to come on my MacBook next summer.

And finally, I think I fixed the display problem. I figured it was CSS related, and just before going in to look over the code I decided to first check that it was still valid, and sure enough it wasn’t. Apparently Safari is more relaxed on validity so I hadn’t really noticed the problem, but Firefox and IE both choke a little on it. As I said, should be OK now, will check at work tomorrow to see for sure.

I suppose that is all.

nick

Our Little Trip

So, a week later and I finally write about it.

Saturday, as you should already know, I had off work to go with my mom to the funeral home for paperwork. Having the rest of the day free and needing something to keep my mind off recent events, I had told Jenn to be ready to go away at 10:30, and bring a bathing suit and towel.

We ran a little late, but did leave around 11:30 to a destination Jenn had no idea about. We headed off first down US-10 to Clare, where we stopped into Jay’s for a look around. Lot’s of camping stuff to wish for and inflatable boats to think long and hard for, but I ended up with a pocket chain saw and a rawhide cows head for the dogs (this thing was like 18″ diameter hunk of rawhide, with ears and everything). We then wandered next door to General Jim’s as I had never been there. Lots of cool things in there, military surplus and military pride and all that. They even had a 15 person life raft in the plastic case, like they throw off ships and auto-inflate.

Next we got back on 10 and for a few minutes I was excited that they redid 10 into divided 4 lane but that was quickly dissolved when we reached the freeway end and went down to a 2 lane road. After a while we came across a rummage sale and decided to look around. Among old dishes and clothing, there was a box of X rated tapes that were clearly recorded. We wondered if they were recorded from TV, copied form rentals, or home movies, but regardless purchased nothing. Further along the road we reached Reed City and turned south. We passed the Yoplait yogurt plant and headed down to Big Rapids.

Holy crap is Ferris big was the first impression. We stopped to look around the Alltel store for Jenn’s mom and I found a Big Rapids phone book to bring home. Next up we drove around the downtown area to look for somewhere to eat, but settled on Qdoba. We really didn’t want to eat at a chain restaurant, but at least this was a chain we had never eaten at. We really had wanted to eat in Paris, but the only restaurant was Pizza in Paris, and that wasn’t what we felt like. Anyway, Qdoba turned out to be very good, and now full we decided to drive around Ferris’s campus to see what we could. We never even got out of the car, a real campus tour will be come fall, but at least we got to see stuff. Following that, we headed toward the freeway, and down to Grand Rapids. On the way we saw a really bad accident, a trail blazer about 100ft off the freeway upside down. Sadly the paramedics didn’t look to be in much of a hurry.

GR is a big city, and our first stop in the big city was the museum. Very much on accident actually, we just saw it and were like wow, lets go. It turned out to be 4:40 though, and they were going to close at 5, so didn’t go in. Next we looked for the hospital, as Jenn would be working there. We found what we thought might be it, but kind of thought no, so kept looking and driving around, then gave up and went to find the mall. This took like an hour since we had no idea where it was. We went through some rather ghetto areas, but nothing bad, and got to see quite a bit of the city. Finally, we decided oh well and started heading for home when we decided to try 1 more exit, and after a ways we found the mall. Jenn went into DEB for a shirt, and when she came out I went looking for the Apple Store, but found it no where. I did find a shoe store with some nice shoes I would be dragged away from. I called my mom, and asked her to look up where the GR Apple Store was, and it turned out we were in the Kentwood Mall, and needed to be in the Woodland Mall, ACROSS THE STREET! We had come so very close. So, we headed out and across the street to the MUCH bigger mall. We had thought Kentwood was rather empty and blah for the mall of GR. So, we went straight to the Apple Store, having already walked around 1 mall that day, and went to drool at the MacBooks. Jenn decided they are too small, but I do like them. The graphics chip does scare me a little though.

Finally we decided to head for home, this time on I-96 to Lansing, the I-69 to Flint, and I-75 home. Just onto 69 we stopped in Perry to get something to drink at the Burger King. When we returned to the car, it wouldn’t start. I called my brother and Jenn called GM and nothing really amounted from it. GM was of the opinion it seemed that the car was there only concern, and what we did from now till Monday when it could be fixed (this was Saturday night remember) was our problem. Jenn got upset, and eventually GM sent a wrecker form Birch Run (to us, near Lansing) with an estimate of 90 minutes. I finally decided to give what my brother had suggested a try, since Jenn was not very focused at this point, and low and behold it worked. I got the engine started and as I understood it, it would be fine so long as we didn’t shut it off. This meant no White Castle, sadly, but oh well. We headed home and dropped Jenn’s car off at Dunlop to await repair on Monday. We tried starting it again, and it started right up fine, but decided not to risk it. We ended the night with Texan breakfast buffet with my mom (we went to Euclid, center used to be much better one, was left very disappointed).

So that was Saturday. I did see the Pere Marquette in Clare, and the intersection of Pere Marquette and White Pine in Reed City. As was suggested to me by Jenn, Big Rapids is still really far but much more logical goal the Mackinac, at least for now. That’s not to say I am canceling Mackinac or anything, just considering alternative near-term options.

Yeah, that’s about it.

Ohhhhh!!!
My mom fixed the iMac, she got a PowerBook. 1.67GHz, 15″ PowerBook G4, 80GB HD, 512MB RAM, and a SuperDrive. It’s the last PowerBook model made, and was a refurbished model too, and is now a “previous generation” which all add up to a hefty discount.

OK, see you later, hopefully a little sooner though.

nick

Number 389

So the Tour de France has been an exciting one. Tomorrow is the final individual time trial that will likely shake things up quite a bit, then Sunday is the final day of racing.

Jenn and I are going to Grand Rapids Sunday, staying there that night, then going to Big Rapids Monday. I am not fully sure what we are doing in all, but will let you know afterward.

I have been sleeping way not enough for some reason. Not as bad as Jenn trying to switch from working nights to working days.

I really have no idea what to put up as a poll. If you have an idea, comment it and I will be happy to post it.

Other than that, not a whole lot. WWDC is coming in about 2 weeks now.

Yeah, that’s it.

nick

Revised Mackinac Plan

Yes Scott, I am aware of that. I used a pre-made template for the blog which apparently wasn’t made all that well. I do plan on fixing it, but just haven’t gotten around to it.

On the Mackinac trip, I have decided fall would be a good choice. Expecting to make it by the end of June was rediculous, and July, August, and early September will be too warm most of the time. I figured though that once school started, I wouldn’t be able to though, so was sticking with Summer and becoming discouraged by heat and insects. I checked my schedule tough, and realized I only have class on Monday through Wednesday, no Thursday or Friday classes. So, there is the possibility of leaving Thursday morning and being there by Sunday, and get a ride back. That hives me 3 – 4 days to get there, which should be fine. Yes, I would have to take those days off work, but I would have for a summer trip anyway. So, I figure September is out because I want to get into the groove of school, and later October has hunting, so the last weekend of September or one of first 2 of October will probably be it, depending on school schedule somewhat, as well as the weather.

I have officially applied to and sent my transcript to Ferris. As I said last time, Jenn and I plan to go to Ferris next Monday. Gary, the head of the manufacturing program, said he may be out of town, so I wouldn’t be able to talk to him, and he suggested that I come in the fall to see everything up and running. Still, maybe they will have my application processed and I can talk to someone about how everything will transfer and financial aid and such.

My Grandma should be home from the hospital today. She has been in since Monday.

I think that is all.

nick