Category: Life

Day to day happenings and other general nothingness.

Post #495

River of Time trip, Flying pumpkins, Clothes, and Site news.

Yes, we are that far along. Post 500 will be sometime in October, probably about 3 weeks.

So, our weekend was eventful. Jenn and I visited the FSU Bookstore Friday and got some shirts for us and one for my dad. He had asked for one when he was here, and knowing we were going to Bay City over the weekend, decided to pick up.

My Mom and Sue stopped by on Friday. They were in Clare to shop at the Amish General Store, and since that put them already halfway, they continued over to here. We gave them the quick tour of town and enjoyed a DQ Pumpkin Pie Blizzard.

Saturday Jenn and I left for Bay City around noon, and made pretty good time. We began in Bay City at the mall, where Hagen, Dunlop, Labadie, Thelen, and Graff had brought all their used cars for some supersale. There were a few I kind of liked, but nothing great. Next we went to my house for root beer bottles and to visit, then out to Johnson’s Giant Pumpkins to watch their trebuchet and get some donuts and cider. At first I was all “aww, we saw 2x last year, going to be so-so”, but then I did see it, and I was “WOW, I FORGOT HOW COOL THIS IS!!!!”. Yeah. They also had the prototype of the air cannon he wants to build next.

Next up, was Heinz’ fruit market, for some tomatoes and peppers. Jenn really wanted pumpkins, but I made her wait. We then went back to the mall, to see if we could recheck on a car, that was no longer there. We went to Thelen to see if it was back at the dealership, and having finally found it, was informed it had been sold. Oh well.

Finally, we went to the River of Time. We made a quick walkthrough, bought some rootbeer, both independently considered buying an 1800s map of Michigan without knowing it, and left. I have been to like 15 consecutive years of the event, and it really never changes. Maybe we need some new history?

After that, we headed over to Grandpa Tony’s for dinner, then to the Mall again, this time to shop. I bought a $40 shirt for $9, and that was actually all. Next we went to see my dad and give him his shirt. Following visiting with him and my Grandma, we went to see Todd and Ashley at their new house for a quick tour of that. Around 9:30 by then I believe, we headed home.

Sunday, after all the excitement Saturday, we sat on our asses. Not totally, we watched a movie (“Wild Hogs”, good, but not great, I think we weren’t in a real movie mood), went to Meijer, pulled out my winter clothes, sorted through my side of the closet for things that I never wear, and watched the Sunday night Fox lineup.

So, that was the weekend.

A few little blog related posts:
This (as mentioned) is post 495.
Post 500 will be in October, even if I need to make 4 posts in one day.
The 150,000 word isn’t real far off (this post should put around 140,000).
For the first time, Firefox outranks Safari among my visitors.
I have plans for an overhaul of the themes, more info on the way.

That should be all.

nick

Upgrade

Upgrade, SME, Class, River of Time, and Farm.

I just upgraded to WordPress 2.3. As with any upgrade, if you find errors, hickups, bugs, or other abnormalities, let me know.

The first SME meeting was today. It was a little disorganized, but we got a schedule for future meetings and a little discussion on what we will be doing over the upcoming year.

Other than that, mostly just been going to class. Had a test in 311 today, 341 tomorrow, 340 Tuesday.

Might go to River of Time Saturday. We were going to go Sunday to see Todd dressed as a Voyageur in his cousin’s wedding, but not sure. Maybe I will just find an apple orchard/corn maze type farm around here and call it good.

Jenn and I were actually talking yesterday, and decided we were going to buy a pumpkin farm and have a corn maze and pumpkin catapult and give cow-drawn carriage rides, and charge people $1 for a picture of them kissing our ass (our donkey that is). I have said before, Autumn is my favorite season, and pumpkin farms are the heart of this time of year. Besides, fresh hot pumpkin doughnuts in warm apple cider is just so damn good.

nick

Of Rodeos and Dress Clothes

A metric shitload. Not really.
Rodeo, shopping, cars, iPods, Jenn’s parents, Milkshakes, and a little more.

Alot to cover this time.

Wednesday, Jenn and I went to Grand Rapids for the SME show. Show wasn’t really bad, but not good. Nobody hiring like I was told, but we got some cool swag. Afterward, we went car shopping up and down 28th street. There were a few cars that maybe had some small chance of possibility, but not much. We had lunch at Red Robin, which was pretty good. We did some quick shopping through Woodland Mall, including checking out the new iPods which have grown on me.

After enough of not finding cars, we went to Centerpointe Mall where Jenn bought a new work uniform and I bought a suit and dress shoes. It was originally marked $550 and I got it for $145, not bad. I need to have the pants tailored, but it should be good. After all that, we headed home.

Thursday, Jenn’s parents arrived around 9 am, and after chatting for a while they left with Jenn to GR for their own shopping (Jenn and I avoided shopping because we knew she would be back the next day). So they shopped around most of the day while I enjoyed a day off because my professors were all at the SME expo. Jenn stayed at the hotel that night, rather than driving home, as she worked the next morning.

Friday, I had my class and lab, then sat around for a little while before driving Jenn’s vehicle down to GR. On the way, a semi blew out a tire in front of me, and I accidentally took the wrong exit, but got there OK. Once at the hospital parking garage, I tried to call Jenn and tell her I was there, but had no signal, so I decided to go into the hospital to check if I had some there. Once in, I figured I could try and find her, not realizing the size of the hospital. I actually managed to find the right building, and take the right elevator, but for some reason thought she was on the 4th floor, when she is actually on 5th. Having signal, I gave her a call and found her quickly.

When she was done, we left and headed over to Van Andel Arena for the Built Ford Tough Series Presented by Wrangler Professional Bull Riders Tour (Yes, that is actually the official name) rodeo. So, we found parking, made our way in, and found our seats. It was actually pretty good, we all enjoyed it. The actual bull riding was not bad, but the show between was really good. When you think that 45 people compete to stay on a bull for 8 seconds, thats only about seven and a half minutes of the 120 minute show. From the rodeo clowns to contests and pyrotechnics and all kinds of other things, they fill the time. They even shot bratwurst from a t-shirt cannon (note: spellcheck doesn’t like the word bratwurst).

After the rodeo was over, we tried to find our way back to the hotel, where we spent some time in the hot tub, then went to Steak n’ Shake for a Caramel Apple Shake, which was awesome.

Jenn left for work before I was up, around 6. Her parents woke me up around 9 for free breakfast, then we drove back here where they left me, and continued to Traverse City, then home. Jenn called me around 6:30 (actual, 4:30, but I was asleep, and she didn’t mention it in the message) to tell me that she accepted OT, and wouldn’t be home until 12 – 12:30. Last night, she was complaining she wanted to call in, and then she took a 16 hour shift? Well, she gets out early tomorrow at 3, 4 hours early, so that’s something.

So, I went to KFC for dinner, and was sitting outside after ward since it was nice out. As I sat, I saw something out of the corner of my eye, jumped startled, and it was a deer. As I stare at it, it just stood there and stared back, then her 3 kids walked up one by one and did the same. After a minute of “Whoa! Look, there’s a dude there. Why is he in our yard?” They decided to walk off into the tree line.

So, right now, I am watching the rodeo again and it is really sucking. If I wasn’t mostly blogging I would have turned a long time ago. All the cool between the rides stuff, is not of TV. No t-shirt guns, no pyro, no Enterprise rent-a-tank, nothing. Oh well.

Fish are doing better, ich is nearly gone. Will keep treating for another week to make sure though.

My dad might be by tomorrow, he is going fishing in Baldwin, which isn’t far away.

I think that’s all.

later,
nick

Light Work

Minor site changes and movie info.

I just did a little work on the blog. First, I finally figured out how to include old blog visitors in the new stats, so the visitor count magically jumped from 6850 to 12908 (Scott was 12908 actually). I have wanted to do this for a while but BBClone doesn’t make it easy.

Second, while editing the templates to get rid of the August date the new counter had started, I realized only one of the templates work. So, I did what any lazy webmaster would do, and just disabled all the non working ones. They will probably be up next weekend, depending on when I have free time. Until then, you will use what I give you. For now, Peppers works, I will work on Maple as it is very fall-ish out. That may actually be up within the hour.

Last night, Jenn and I watched Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters. Let me just say, that the TV show is only about 10 minutes long for a reason. An hour and 29 minutes is just about unbearable.

Other than that, we enjoyed the weekend off.

Will update again when something cool happens.

nick

Lots of Happenings

Bachelor party, Beer, Genji, Cars, School, Classes, Labor Day, Beth, Wedding, and SME.

So, where to begin…

Over the weekend, Jenn and I went to Bay City for Todd’s Bachelor Party. I met up with them at the texan in Essexville where we had dinner, then bid them farewell as they headed toward Midland St., then to the Vu. From what I heard the next morning they had fun, but I am not much of a bar person.

Jenn and I went to see my dad after that, then to see my mom and Chris. After catching up and all that, we headed for our hotel. Quickly bored, we went car shopping as my neon is not real healthy, and I have that nice refund check coming. We found a nice VW GTI, but as it was around 10 on a Saturday night, the dealership was obviously not open. we then went to Essexville to see if her old apartment had been rented out yet, and it was. Next, we stopped by Ideal Party Store where I found Screamin’ Pumpkin Spiced Ale. Back at the Hotel, we enjoyed our drinks and ordered Roma’s, and watched Feasing on Asphalt.

The beer is good, but odd. It has a taste of clove and nutmeg and pumpkin pie spice. Not bad, but as I said, odd.

Anyway, Sunday morning Jenn and I went back to see the GTI again, and noticed several small things, that quickly added up. It just wasn’t worth the asking price, and even for less you would need to be willing to put in some rather considerable effort. We then headed over to my house to see what was up and wait for my dad to get out of church so we (Jenn, Chris, Dad, and I) could go to Genji. Jenn and I decided to go ahead to Midland to do some shopping, and meet up with the rest there. Of course, my dad called just as we were leaving town, but that was fine.

With some good food in us, we headed to the Midland Mall where Jenn found fuzzy Crocs. As she wears them to work everyday, and the weather will be turning cold soon, they were quickly nabed up and we were on our way home.

Monday, I started school. I began my 2 years at Ferris by being 10 minutes late for my first class, as I underestimated the parking situation. After a mere 50 minutes of Industrial Engineering, I headed home. Jenn and I drove around most of the local dealers, and had some promising news that Phillips Ford may be able to find the car I want, or similar, for the price I want. Jenn then dropped me off at school for my CNC class, and picked my up after so we could peruse the bookstore, which still didn’t have my last book.

Tuesday and today were basically just go to class, come home. Although, today I tried sticking around campus from 11 to 1:30 between my 2 classes, only to have Jenn call me wondering where I was, and remind me my second class is at 3. I still stuck it out, but probably not again.

My classes, for the most part, are OK. My CNC class scares me a little, as I feel possibly under-prepared, but will deal with it. Also, the Manufacturing Program has a rather harsh grading scale, that I will have to deal with. My grades may slip some this semester, but from my Delta average of A, A, A, A-, a little drop is probably OK.

Over Labor Day, we have no real plans. We mentioned possibly going car browsing in Grand Rapids, but I am kind of sick of that. I kind of want to leave it alone until at least after I get money. I want to try and sand and stain the headboard, as it hasn’t been touched in over a month now. If I get that done, it will free up a good amount of space in the office, which would be nice.

Beth emailed all of us tech pages to let us know she got a job at Delta in the Office of Information Technology.

Weekend after this, I go back to Bay City for Todd’s wedding. Will be there Friday evening through Sunday evening.

The 18th, I might go down to Grand Rapids for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers’ Great Lakes Conference. Will depend on if I have a car yet (I should), and what is planned for my second class that day (my first class is cancelled, as the professor is speaking at the conference).

I actually just joined SME online last night. It’s $20 a year, and I save around $100 off my certification test when I graduate. Of course, if I want to remain a member after that, it is significantly higher for a non-student membership. Plus, Ferris’s SME chapter has an annual field trip to Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Detroit, and other surrounding areas to see several manufacturing plants. In 2004, they even went to the Trek bicycle plant.

That is probably all.

See you all later,
nick

We Were Visited

Visit, Town, Books, Party, and Misc.

So, my Dad came to visit yesterday. We took him to Qdoba, gave him a tour of Big Rapids, and watched Hot Fuzz (which was damn good). Other than that, just showed him the apartment and bull shitted for a while. My mom was supposed to come, but didn’t feel up to it and said would come visit later. He borrowed me his power sander so I could finish up the headboard a little faster too.

Something Jenn and I noticed yesterday was that Big Rapids is getting busier. Meijer had more college student’s walking around, traffic is getting heavier, and the hotels are all packed.

I was looking online, and Ferris says I can buy my books any time from August 20th through 30th on my financial aid, but need my ID. So, we planned on going Monday to get them to have a better chance at used books, but I don’t get my ID until the 24th. So, I guess I need to wait a few days. Ferris also lists a new student orientation of the 24th, but I’m not sure if its mandatory or not. Honestly, I would rather not.

Todd’s bachelor party is scheduled for next Saturday, but that’s all I have heard. Since I am standing in wedding, I am sure I am expected to attend, but I have not yet heard a time, place, or anything. Even the date was only picked because it was the night of Ashley’s bachelorete party.

When we were at Qdoba, I found they now have pork now. Its not bad, and the bbq sauce is good too.

Why don’t females get a Bachelorette of Science or Arts?

That’s all.

nick

Alpena Camping Trip

Camping trip recap.

So, Friday afternoon we left for Alpena, which was about a three and a half hour trip. We stayed at Camper’s Cove, which is about 10 minutes from Jenn’s parent’s house. We made a trip to Wal-mart for some supplies and then had some hot dogs. Saturday we went for breakfast at Jenn’s parents, then came back to the campsite and rented a pontoon for 2 hours and took out Jenn’s mom, sister, and niece and nephew. The kids fished for a while with no success, and I tried swimming. After that, we went out for dinner, then to see Jenn’s grandma. After we got back to our campsite we sat around a bit, then Jenn’s parent’s joined us for some marshmallows. After they left, we made some hobo dinners, then after a bit more sitting we headed to bed.

Sunday, we packed up after the rain ended, then went to Jenn’s parents for lunch, then went with her mom, sister, and Johnny to the putt-putt course and for a go-cart ride, then to 7-11 and home (by the way, big gulp floats are pretty good). After that, we headed home. On the way, we stopped at Big Buck Brewery in Gaylord, which was good. We tried to go to Jay’s, but they were closed.

My Dad is coming tomorrow to visit, so we have been picking up and cleaning here and there in preparation.

OK, that’s it.

nick

Less Than Three Weeks

School, Movie, Apple, Trip, and DJ.

So, I am down to under 3 weeks of summer remaining. I could probably go to some site and find the exact number of seconds or something, but don’t feel like it. At least I finally got my SMART Grant figured out: I don’t get it. It seems that you are ineligible for the grant after you reach 96 credits, and I am at 113 right now. Another reason to not be undecided for 4 years. So, I accepted my loans and am waiting for verification of my MPNs from Ferris.

Jenn and I went to see The Simpsons Movie on Sunday night. It was quite good. Too often a TV show will eventually make a movie and then the show dies (see the X-Files). This won’t be the case here though, as The Simpsons are lucky enough to be in an unchanging world, and the movies don’t need to necessarily have anything to do with the TV show, and vice versa, everything that happened is conveniently reset when the show ends. Besides, name something more popular?

Apple held a press conference this morning and introduced new versions of all their consumer apps, iMacs, keyboards, and .Mac. The iLife apps all have really nice upgrades, except they changes iMovie’s icon to some gay “walk-of-fame star” looking thing. iWork also got some nice upgrades, including a spreadsheet app finally, but I still probably wont use it. The new iMac is nice, and now aluminum. They dropped the 17″ model in favor of now two 20″ and one 24″ model, all with faster processors, more RAM, and bigger HDs with better graphics. Interestingly, you can now get a 1 TB HD in your iMac, but not in your Mac Pro. And, finally .Mac now has 10GB of space for the same $99, up from 1GB. That is a nice upgrade, and actually makes it possible for me to back up everything on my HD to the .Mac server, but still isn’t worth rejoining. Besides, there is still no scripting or database support, though some of the new galleries and pages for iPhoto, iMovie, and iWeb certainly hint to scripting existing somewhere.

Jenn worked last night, tonight, and tomorrow, following which we are going up to Alpena for the weekend, and possibly Mackinaw. We will be camping at some point in that trip, either in her parents back yard or one of the campgrounds around Alpena. On a sad note though a family friend of theirs passed away last night so there will be a funeral to attend probably Friday.

Dirty Jobs on the bridge was on at 9, and is replaying either as I type, or at 1. I am sure there will be another replay come weekend.

I think that might be it. Maybe another post before we leave, if not right after.

nick

It’s a Sad, Sad Day

Poor fishy, Bay City, and Tour.

Jenn and I left Friday for Bay City for the weekend, to go to Munger Potato Festival, see my Uncle Steve and family who are in, and go canoeing. The trip went mostly fine, but our return on Sunday was markedly not. We arrived to find, to our dismay, Chi-chi had passed away. Judging by his state, it had been at least 24 hours before, probably some time Saturday. He was not eating or acting quite the same since we separated him, but he had always eaten a little different from the others. It could have been the lack of constant feeding, a change in water circulation because of the separator, the loneliness of being separated even, or any of several other things. He was just so cool, although sometimes very evil bastardish. It scares me because he was the first, and I would hate if our 4 other fish also passed over the next week or two as well. I’m not sure what we will do, if we will get another Chi-chi, or a different fish, or leave it as is for a while.

So, as I said, bay City was fairly good. We missed Todd in the Demolition Derby Friday, but did see the Figure 8 on Saturday. Jenn’s Parents came down and spent most of Saturday with her, and I accompanied them to Munger to tour the festival. Jenn’s sister and her 2 kids who rode the rides and made it a little more fun. We all went to Rudy J’s after, then Jenn and I went back for the Figure 8 with my Dad and Uncle, which was very good except that a driver had to be taken to the hospital.

Sunday was the canoe trip, which was a bit of a pain in the ass. It was the first time we have tried the 5 hour, and all the really shallow rocky areas seem to be in the section between the 5 hr and 3 hr start points. After tubing here, the Rifle River is a joke. Jenn fell in 4 times, mostly while I was trying to drag us over rocks. One fall the current held the canoe down on her, and another we managed to get out, but the current had the canoe to hard pressed on a rock that it took my and my uncle 5 minutes to free the canoe. Thank god they rent aluminum, or we would have broke it on that one.

Today Jenn works, with a sunburn and several bruises, and rather sore from paddling 28 miles. We actually slept almost 18 straight hours from being tired and off of our normal night schedule. She luckily has tomorrow off though.

Tour de France has wrapped up, I am watching the recaps of what I missed on demand. Will be about 20 min before I see winner, though I have a good idea.

Ok, I wont sit here and wait to post the winner, I will just leave it at this.

Today, btw, is the anniversary of Jenn and I’s first trip to Big Rapids.

Hopefully next update sooner than later.

nick

Vacation Weekend

Vacation, iPhone, and Fish.

So, we took a vacation for the weekend, as Jenn had Friday through tomorrow off. Tomorrow isn’t really off, as she goes in to work at 7:30, but kind of. Anyway, we went down to Grand Rapids and got a hotel in Kentwood, and shopped around the two malls for the evening. Dinner was at Carrabba’s, Jenn got the Pasta Weesie (similar to scampi over linguini alfredo) and I had the Linguine Pescatore (shrimp scallops and muscles in a spicy marinara, over linguini). I also had soup, a spicy sausage and lentil, and we split calamari. After dinner we went across to Grandville for a little more shopping, then back to the hotel for bed.

Saturday we went to Holland, to visit the New Holland Brewing Company. We planned to tour their brewery, but we didn’t see any other potential tourers when we arrived, so we went to their pub. We tried the sampler, consisting of their Zoomer, Lucid, Red Tulip, Sundog, Poet, and Mad Hatter brews. We preferred the first three the most, as well as the pint of (hard) Apple Cider we tried. Jenn tried a chocotini, but it was rather bad. We ate as well, I had a phili steak and Jenn a stromboli, both of which were quite good. If you are ever in Holland, we highly recommend it. We walked around a few shops downtown afterward, as we were not in condition to drive, then went to the outlet mall which was rather dead. The mall was next, but also dead, so we said goodbye to Holland.

After a nap, we had some Thai food from a place Jenn heard of from work. Mine had red curry in it, and I regretted it until the next morning, as did anyone within about 25 ft of me. After eating was a little more shopping, a soak in the hot tub, a trip to Steak and Shake, then bed.

Sunday we checked out, and went up to Comstock Park. We had some IHOP, decided we were shopped out, and headed home. About 20 minutes away, we got a call from Jenn’s parents, who were in Clare and wanted to come visit. So, we did a quick cleanup at home, then visited with them for a while. Thery had been up in Soo St. Marie for the weekend, and were on their way down to Mt. Pleasant. We wnet out to eat with them for lunch, and they headed off on their way.

After some sitting and enjoying being home, we had a Meijer run, then more sitting, and that was our weekend.

At Meijer, we got our 5th fish. We have Chi-chi, our Electric Blue Cichlid (sick-lid), Rosy and Barb, our Rosy Barbs, Kitty our Pleco (like a cat-fish), and now Sunny our Electric Yellow Cichlid. Though not the biggest, she is the first, and Chi-chi obviously is dominant over all the other fish, almost to the point I want to remove her. Not forever, just for a week for her to loose her instinct of it being her territory. Maybe adding some more caves and tunnels will help, will try that first.

Part of shopping on Friday was of course a stop at the Apple Store. While there, I eventually got a chance with an iPhone. We were playing with them, and they are quite cool. Jenn decided to try calling and believe it or not, they all have service. I called home from one, but nobody was home. They are cool, but I don’t see the need for one for me.

So, that’s what I have for now.

Scott, you are not supposed to vote “by July 4th” on the 15th, as you obviously will not be here by 11 days ago.

That’s all.

nick