Travel

Sick

So, we left for Bay City on Monday afternoon and checked into our hotel, the which was rather crappy (the one across from KFC/TacoBell). Jenn went to see her friend Karen from SVSU while I hung out at home. My dad came over and we made some bbq chicken, and had some german potato salad, deviled eggs, roasted potatoes, and cheesy garlic biscuits. After Jenn was done and we sat and talked a little more, we went back to the hotel for the night.

Tuesday morning, we went to Macy’s to look for bedding, but found nothing good. On the way to Bay City we stopped at Papa Georgio’s for their pizza buffet, which Jenn enjoyed by I was rather so-so. We hung around at my house until about 4:30, then went to the mall and checked Younkers and JC Penny for bedding, before our movie at 6:05. Transformers was REALLY AWESOME! I liked it, Jenn was so-so. Nice to see guys from library, Jeremy and his girlfriend, Davey, and McGrath made it, rest were busy. Following that, we went to my house and walked toward Lafayette bridge to watch fireworks. We were rather tired after that, especially Jenn who was really being hit by a cold, so we stayed their for the night, and came home to Big Rapids Wednesday morning.

When we got to BR, we stopped at the airfest before coming home, which wasn’t real great. Later that night, we watched the BR fireworks from across the street. There was some guy who spent a crapload of cash in Ohio, and we actually thought he was the fireworks until the real ones began a while later.

While in Bay City, we picked up my aquarium, but couldn’t find anything here to put it on. We checked Meijer and Wal-Mart, and ended up buying a stand 1 size smaller, but after putting it together it obviously wouldn’t work.

Today, we went to Mt Pleasant and bought a proper stand, and a blue chiclid. We just got it set up and it seems to be happy, very active.

Sadly, I seem to have what Jenn suffered with for a weeks now. Hopefully it will be gone in time for her vacation. I think it is my August sickness, hope so anyway. I don’t want to go through this twice.

Tour de France begins today for anyone interested. As always you can catch it on Versus (formerly OLN).

OK, that is all. Here is a pic of fishy.

Fishy
nick

Happy 4th

So, I haven’t blogged in a while. That is probably because I haven’t done much in a while.

Last week Jenn’s Parents came down, and we made them dinner and went to their hotel for some swimming.

I have spent the last 2 days outside sanding the headboard Jenn bought at the auction last month. I got a rather bad sunburn on my back Saturday from being out there, but is much better now.

We are leaving in a few hours to Bay City. Going to have a bbq with family today, go see transformers with guys from library tomorrow, and of course watch some fireworks. I am a little pissed at Bay City 8, as they still do not have times up for TOMORROW! I have been waiting for days to find times, but they just wont post them, nor do they have on phone.

I think that is about it. Will try and update you on how holiday went on Wednesday or so.

nick

Road Trip

So, today began with a trip to the Iron’s Area Flea Roast and Ox Market, which consisted of an “ox market” and “flea roast”, as the name would suggest. The market was not so great, nothing used like a good flea market would have, just meople trying to sell various crap that they bought as a make money form your home on eBay type thing. The flea roast was your choice of 2 hot dogs or a flea burger, with potato salad, baked beans, and a drink, for $5.79 or so. Sadly, the burger was not a burger, but a rather fatty roast beef, with a very minor amount or bbq seasoning on it. There was also a midway with elephant ears and rides and games, which we played a bit.

Feeling like we had to do more, I suggested Ludington, but Jenn wanted to go home. I said if she really wanted to, fine, so she went to Ludington to not have to hear me whine. This most likely have meant I would have to listen to her whine, but luckily we did have fun. We walked around several of the shops, saw the ferry, went to some cool stores. On the way out of town, we stopped at Amber Elk Ranch. They were grilling elk burgers, but I wasn’t allowed to have one because there were turkeys walking around and Jenn is afraid of birds, especially large 30 pound ones. So, we walked around in the gift shop where I almost bought a kahki bush hat, but decided against, a decision I slightly regret, but oh well.

Jenn has July 13 – 17 off, so we may return to Ludington to go camping, maybe not. Interlochen has also came up, as has a trip through the U.P. (do you use 2 periods if an abbreviation ends a sentence? I guess it doesn’t matter having placed a large parenthetical before the period). We will see what happens when the time comes.

Also upcoming, we plan to return to Bay City later on the 2nd, watch the fireworks, go see Transformers with the guys from the library, and return on the afternoon of the 4th.

Christmas

So, late friday night, or more precisely 2 AM Saturday, Jenn and I were bored so we left for Alpena. We arrived there a little before 5, after making a stop at Wal-mart in Tawas. Saturday Jenn’s sister came over and we opened presents then had a small dinner. Sunday we went over to Jenn’s grandma’s for dinner there, then headed home a few hours later. Monday we had Christmas dinner here, then went over to my Grandma’s for presents there.

Tuesday Jenn and I went to Saginaw to spend our Christmas money. I bought 4 shirts and a down throw blanket, and she bought another for me. Wednesday I worked for the 2nd to last time. Thursday Jenn, Chris, my Mom, and I went to Genji with Scott who is in town for Christmas, then we came back here and played Super Mario World and watched Office Space. Then Friday was my last day at the library. Today I again sat around and did a whole lot of nothing.

Total Christmas gifts:

  • $140
  • 2 new pair of pants
  • 1 new shirt
  • BBQ tool set with apron
  • Chocolate covered pretzels and peanuts, snickers, mixed nuts, hershey kisses, and a fruit cake
  • Silver necklace
  • Flashlight
  • Leatherman clip
  • Candle
  • Robe and slippers
  • Folding camp table

Tomorrow I am going to the Library for the last normal day. They will be closed for 2 weeks, then go to the new reduced schedule, so most all tech pages are going to be showing up for that.

I hooked up out Super Nintendo last week and the Nintendo early this week. I have been playing Pin Ball on the NEW mostly, though it doesn’t always like to work. It is nearly 20 years old though.

We don’t really have much for plans for tomorrow night, just going to wing it I think.

I made some small updated to the site earlier today, namely the partial re-posting of the Library and the addition of a comment-spam blocker. At just a day old, it has already caught over 500 comments. Its sad that I got more comment spam in a day than I get real comments in 3 years. Maybe you guys should comment more?

I’m not sure what else. I think that about covers it all. I may update at some time tomorrow, just to get in my final post of the year and last one at the library most likely as well.

Merry Christmas

I promised you an update by the end of the week, so here it is.

I got my grades on Tuesday, I received an A in Fluid Power, Psychology, and Intro to Business, and an A- in Blueprint Reading. Once again, the A- was from a specific professor who has a strange grading scale that I have griped about before (and likely will again as I have her for winter semester). Wednesday evening Delta called be to let me know my Industrial Safety class was canceled due to low enrollment. The issue here is that I need the class to be able to graduate at the end of the semester, so I left the professor a voice mail and hopefully (I am 99% sure) we can set up an independent study.

Tomorrow morning I will be going with Jenn to Alpena until probably Monday morning or afternoon. We will visit all her family and do the Christmas thing on Saturday. When we get home my Mom and Brother and I will do our Christmas thing, and then at some point I will go visit my Dad and Grandma for their Christmas thing.

Today being Friday, I have today, next Wednesday, and that Friday left of work. Just about 2 and a half days left, 11.75 hours actually.

Jenn and I watched Talladega Nights, Cars, and My Super Ex-Girlfriend over the last 2 days. All were quite good, especially Talladega Nights and Cars. We still have 3 of 4 movies we want to see over break.

I think that is about all I have to report. Will update you all on Christmas Day, or maybe the day after.

nick

Oops

Sorry, I have been neglecting my blogging duties.

Christmas went by without too much issue. Jenn and I went to her parents on Friday, her grandmas Saturday, then back here to my grandparents Sunday. Lots of cool gifts from all around, including a lantern, clothes, and cash.

Suchyta is in town for christmas, so I saw him Monday. He burned me a Tiger DVD so I upgraded to 10.4 yesterday. Having fun with that. It’s faster because it’s all newer, better formed code, and I erased HD so bitrot is fixed, but is also slower sometimes due to higher memory use.

So, since I had to reboot to install (actually, like 5 times, as I install, upgrade, install, upgrade, etc…), I lost my uptime. I did manage to wait for a bit of a milestone though: 45 days, 3 minutes. That comes out to November 12th at 10:07 PM as my last restart. In that time, I downloaded 1.8GB of data, uploaded 425MB, read 42.5GB from the HD and wrote 48.5GB. Now, I guess I need to shoot for 60 days.

I am waiting to hear on new job as a tech page at Bay County Library. YMCA just isn’t for me, and the 2 I applied for at Delta’s library didn’t sound promising, most were taken already. Beth Rye at BCLS sounded like I have a good shot though. Should know tomorrow.

My final grades came out as A, A, A, A-. Not sure if I mentioned that. I am needless to say a little proud.

WordPress has a WP 2.0 Release Candidate out. That means sometime soon I will be upgrading from WP 1.5 to 2.0. Not sure if I will mess with the RC beta or not though.

There is probably more, as I haven’t blogged in a while, but can’t think of anything now. I will post again if I think of anything though.

In case I don’t blog again within the next 3 days, Happy New Year.

nick

FUBAR!

OK, so I sell my eBay stuff, ship it out, leave to Tawas, come home, have an e-mail, crap. Guy claims CD is horribly scratched and won’t load, respond immediately or I get negative. My first thought is enough of this shit, screw you and I quit eBay. I calm down a little, ask if he has tried using a disk cleaner and if computer meets full system requirements on box, specifically that it is a mac CD and isn’t compatible with Windows. Haven’t heard from him in 2 days now. Isn’t it fun when someone expects you to be really fast but takes their own sweet time? Bastards.

I got a headache Thursday night around 1:00 AM. It went away about 2 hours ago. Last night was the worst of it. That was just plain wrong. I actually wonder if it was wisdom teeth or not, as it seemed a bit too far up to be, but I don’t know.

Did some fun looking today, on locomotive engines. GM’s biggest car engine, for the most part, is the 502 cu. in. V8, the Vortec 8100, used in full sized trucks. GM-EMD’s (GM Electro-motive division) biggest engine is the “H” series 16V265. It has a displacement of 1010 cu. in. (16.6 liter) PER CYLINDER! That means each of the engine’s 16 cylinders is bigger than TWO 8100s! It has a total displacement of 16160 cu. in. (265.6 liter). The main bearing is 10.24″ (260 mm), compared to about 2″ in a standard engine. The engine also has two very large turbo chargers, and produces over 6000 horsepower. I can’t find a torque number, but I’m sure it’s insane.

And in closing, WHO THE HELL IS “ME”!!!!!!!!!!!!!

nick

That’s when I swore that someday, someday I would get outta that basement and travel to a magical, far away place, where the sun is always shining and the air smells like warm root beer, and the towels are oh so fluffy! Where the shriners and the lepers play their ukuleles all day long, and anyone on the street will gladly shave your back for a nickel!

And So This is Christmas

So Jenn and I went to Alpena Thursday night. We stopped at Pizza Hut in Tawas for dinner, and talked to her parents for a while after getting there fairly late. Friday we went to see her best friend Gwen then to her Grandma’s house and I met her Dad’s side of the family. We spent a few hours there, then went to see her former fellow employees at Staples. On Sunday, we had a big breakfast, then opened gifts. Following all the gift exchanging we had Christmas dinner of ham, roast beef, potatoes, carrots, rolls, and sweet potatoes. We left for home a little after, and visited my grandparents for a while after returning.

A note on the trip though, pertaining to air beds. Thursday I fell asleep on an air bed, and by 3 woke up on the floor. After a few minutes of trying to re-inflate, I just went to sleep. After 3 patches throughout Friday, I managed (I thought) to fix the 1/2″ separation in the seam. But no, each time I awoke through Friday night I was slightly lower. So for all those interested in an air bad, make sure you carry patch kits and duct tape.

So, gifts I gave to people…

For my Mom, I got a telescoping snow brush. Her truck is big, and her old brush wasn’t cutting it.
For my Brother, a pair of pretty cool wire strippers. Insert any wire (10 to 22 gauge) and squeeze. Easy as that.
For my Dad, a TracFone card.
And for Jenn, a very nice pearl and sapphire ring.

I also went along with Jenn for gifts for her parents, sister, and my grandma.

Gifts I received…

A new Dockers coat and matching gloves from Mom.
A Keyspan Media Remote, ThinkGeek Pi shirt, set of coasters, and grooming set from Jenn.
A Belkin USB light and a pair of flannel pants from Dad.
A pair or divided pans from Jenn’s sister.
A giant can of Kool-aid, Cashews, and War and Peace (the book) from Jenn’s mom.
A sleeping bag and cash from my grandparents.
and some more cash from my Uncle Mike.

I think Chris is getting me something, an I will likely be getting a Hess truck from my Uncle Steve, as I have for 15+ years, and I haven’t yet actually given my dad his gift yet.

So thats about it. Guess I will be back on Wednesday.

nick

Merry Christmas (in 2 days)

A few things to make note of

1) Scott, why do you hate Zales?

2) I will be leaving tonight for Alpena, so I will be unavailable until at least Saturday evening.

3) The guy that bought my video card on eBay (the videocard caused problems already when the last person who won it refused to pay) requested his money back claiming it was “old and worn out”. No, I am not refunding.

That’s all. News on the trip and a Christmas wrap-up Sunday evening.

nick

General Congratulatory Remarks Toward Your Respective Nondenominational Winter Holliday!

So lets see…

We did our Chinese today. It was good. Nice to see Scott and Sarah. We even got gifts from the restaurant. A nice bamboo type wall calendar.

Jenn and I exchanged gifts on Saturday. I received the ThinkGeek Pi t-shirt, a grooming kit, a set of coasters, and a Keyspan Media Remote for my computer. She received a pearl and sapphire ring from Zales. We exchanged early so she could show it off before we left for Christmas to Alpena, since when we get back it needs to be resized, which takes about 2 weeks. Had I known that I would have given it to her earlier, but I just found out on Saturday morning.

Hmmm…

Well, as I hinted, I will be in Alpena for Christmas. We are leaving either Thursday or Friday, and will be back Saturday evening or Sunday, depending on weather.

I think thats it. Guess I will see you all Thursday.

nick

If I had a nickel for every time I needed a nickel, I wouldn’t need a nickel anymore.