Life – Page 9 – AllisonYax.com

Sick

Trip home, aquarium, and Tour.

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.

nick

Happy 4th

Plans for the 4th and Transformers movie.

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

Irons, Ludington, Camping, and 4th.

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.

Stupid Car

Tubing and my damned car.

Yesterday Jenn and I decided we needed to go tubing. Our first idea was to go buy some tubes, so went to Tractor Supply and found 2 that seemed worthy and brought them home. Upon inflation though, we learned they were much too small for what we needed. Plan B was just go rent some from the Sawmill, which worked out much better. The trip took about 90 minutes or so, maybe an hour and 45 minutes. I saw at least one turtle, and a trout jump, and heard a few more. It was quite fun. Afterward, we returned the tubes we had bought, and are now even more set on buying some, as it seems like something we might do often.

Today when I ran out to take back some movies, I returned home to find a faint brake odor, which I quickly traced to my front right wheel well. I was told when Chris fixed it that there was still a lot of gook in the line that he couldn’t get out, and apparently it is coming out into my 1 month old caliper. I don’t drive much anyway.

The movies, by the way, were Ghost Rider (not that great) and Casino Royale (among best Bond movies I’ve seen, though he isn’t one of my favorite Bonds).

OK, thats all for now.

nick

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Widgets

Widgets and Dates.

So, WordPress 2.2 comes with Widgets, which are supposed to let me move the elements of my sidebar around easily, without messing with their individual code. The problem, is that the widgets included and that I can find don’t accurately replace what I have in the sidebar. I went through editing the code to work with widgets, I looked all over for widgets to use, and tried creating widgets to serve my purpose, then I turned off widgets because it’s just being a hassle. Besides, how often do I change the sidebar? Is it really that hard to copy-paste a section of code to move an element around?

Anyway, today is the 14th, meaning Jenn and I moved 1 month ago today. Tomorrow, the 15th, will be 1 year since I bought my car. Coming on the 19th, will be Jenn’s B-Day.

I have one more thing, but I am going to wait with it, since I have so few readers lately. It will come in a day or 2 maybe.

nick

WWDC 2007

WWDC and Sushi.

So, once again, WWDC seemed like not that much, but the video made it better. The three topics were Leopard, Safari, and the iPhone. Leopard now sports a new interface, that looks much better than anything else available. It’s nice to see that Apple is changing things up and trying to keep it looking new. Some features that were hoped for didn’t make it, and some that did make it were rather so-so. Overall though, it does look good. You can look at it here.

The Safari update was also rather mediocre, as a 3.0 beta goes, but did have the surprise of now being available for Windows. If you are looking for an alternative to FireFox (I know none of you are using IE, right?) here is one to try.

The iPhone stuff, well, I actually skipped over. I really don’t care, as I can’t afford one, or service for one, or need one.

Tonight Jenn and I decided to try the sushi kit. It came out pretty good, but the rice wasn’t right, too glutinous. I’m not sure if I made it wrong, or if I just got the wrong rice, probably both.

Freaking Finally

Back-entrys, Excitement, WWDC, TV, Ferris, and Wildlife.

I just finished the re-categorizing of all old posts. I could have been done with it a year ago, or more, but I am slow at such things and it become tiresome. Still, it gives a chance to read old posts. I will update the To-do list after this post.

Yesterday, I was sitting here online, and the cable box made the “power off” click. As I sat wondering why it went off for about a second, I heard a very loud buzz from behind me. Something like when you are connecting speakers while your stereo is on, but WAY louder. Then, after another second, another buzz. Next, I started to smell smoke. My first thought was the speakers next to the couch were acting up, but quickly remembered they aren’t hooked up yet. Next, was something was wrong with the wiring here and there was a fire in the wall. I looked around, quickly unplugged both laptops as they are the only things not on a surge strip (that will be fixed very soon), and stood in befuddlement (thats a real word, the spellcheck says so) for a moment. I went outside to see if there was anything going on, and holy crap. In the 20+ mph winds, a power line snapped and fell. Not the nice 220 line, but the 11200 volt lines, all three were on the ground arcing and starting the grass on fire. In the other direction, more lines were down, but no power was going to them as the other side was down. Next, I see even more some about a 1/4 mile away, what looked like a transformer fire or the like.

So, fire departments and Consumers Energy were all out here in a few minutes, and traffic on the road seemed oblivious to it all. After about an hour all the fires were out and the lines were back up, but no power for another hour or 2. Jenn was at work and missed most of the excitement, but we drove around a bit later to no avail, as I couldn’t find what the big smoke producer was toward the airport.

Next week, Monday morning, is Apple’s WWDC. It is well known that 10.5 Leopard will be shown in more detail (it was originally supposed to be released for sale about now), and the iPhone is supposed to be released near it as well (announced by Apple and AT&T as the 29th). Other than that, few rumors have circulated. Some said MacBook or MacBook Pro, but those were both out over the last few weeks. Finally, yesterday, the first decent rumor: Metal cased iMacs (brushed aluminum) and the discontinuation of the 17″ model (with price drops on the 20 and 24″). Also, minor upgrades to the Cinema Displays including the replacement of the 23″ with a 24″. There is also some small hope of a MacBook Thin, but that has been rather hushed recently, and may not happen. For the most part though, the keynote will be the “secret” features of 10.5.

Also next week, is the first episode of Man vs. Wild season 2, on Friday. Survivorman season 2 should come as MvsW ends in the fall.

One of the grants I got from Ferris was the Transfer Academic Excellence Scholarship, for transfer students with a 3.7 or higher GPA. I’m not sure how they figured me to have a 3.7, but I’m not going to complain or ask questions. I also received my letter from Delta letting me know I made Vice President’s list again for last semester.

Jenn mentioned maybe camping next weekend, that would be nice. Then again, living here is kind of like camping, with the weird bugs and abundant critters in the woods. I swear I only recognize 1 in 10 insects I see around here. Must be because Bay City sprays for mosquitos and kills off everything else in the process. I also noticed a near complete lack of squirrels around here, though have seen a few in town.

Ok, thats enough for now. More early next week probably.

Nick

You’re Not Reading This

Apple, The Site, Jenn’s Gift, My Car, and Scott.

Nobody has read this in, well, a while. Scott is on a leave from the Navy and hasn’t had internet, Sarah is in Bay City or Traverse City with no internet, and Jenn isn’t being counted. That leaves googlers and spiders, and nobody else. I just wanted to point that out to nobody.

So, we have the new sofa, love-seat, and mattress, and they are all very nice. We ended up needing a new bed frame too, as the old one was apparently partially to blame for jenn’s old mattress dying.

Scott is supposed to arrive in Bay City today, until Friday morning. He was supposed to spend a day coming to see me, then going on to see his sister in Wyoming, but she has moved back to Bay City. So, somehow, I am supposed to go see him, but I am not sure enough about my car to be willing to drive there and back. I could take Jenn’s vehicle tomorrow, but I don’t know if Scott has tomorrow free or not, and that is the only day this week Jenn has off and I would be able to take her vehicle.

Apple released new MacBook Pros today, as well as restarting the free iPod with computer purchase promotion. Sadly, the MacBooks are just not up to what I would be willing to buy, and the ones I want will probably not be out until November. The WWDC begins next week, and there have been rumors of another MacBook coming out then (MacBook Thin) that may fit what I want, so there is a chance with that. Either way, I don’t have the money to buy a computer anyway, and if I did it would need to go toward a new car, not a laptop.

I installed Windows XP on Jenn’s MacBook yesterday, since I will need it for school in the fall. I had installed it under Parallels, in emulation, but it was rather slow. I have it installed with BootCamp now, running fully native. You just need to hold the option key while starting up, and you get your choice of OS X or XP. It runs much faster than emulated, and is actually one of the fastest Windows computers I have used.

My present to Jenn for our anniversary (which was actually last month, but was the day before we moved, so we postponed) came in today. I still need to get her a birthday present by the 19th though.

I haven’t started reading either of my books yet. Not for any particular reason, I just haven’t. I think I feel bad sitting here reading while Jenn is working, but I really haven’t cleaned and organized as much as I did earlier last week. I think I was better off without cable or internet, it gave me no other choice but to be productive.

During this post, I am passing 130,000 words. That’s kind of fun.

If you haven’t noticed, the gallery has been totally pulled from my site, and is now only on Picassa. I think I mentioned that before, but just wanted to re-highlight. I posted some pictures of our apartment, and the various views outside. Once inside is neatened up some, I will post some pics of that too.

OK, I suppose that is all.

Enjoy your week.

nick

Happy June

Count, Test, Fin Aid, Watersports, Dinners, and Brews.

So, as predicted, visit count has dropped quite a bit in the last few weeks as a result of Jenn’s IP being un-counted. I will need to find new readers.

Today, we received our new couch, loveseat, and mattress. We went shopping Tuesday and picked them out. They are very nice, you’ll have to come sit on them sometime.

Jenn received her authorization to test this week. It means that SVSU told the State of Michigan, who told the NCLEX testing board that she passed all her classes and received a degree, and they all approved and she can take her test now. When she takes it is up to her, as long as it’s within about 6 weeks to keep Spectrum happy.

I received 2 more grants today, as my final transcript was finally entered by Ferris. Still waiting for SMART Grant though. As I receive more grants and scholarships, they keep reducing my loan offers, but mostly the unsubsidized so thats OK. I would prefer if they leave my Perkin’s offer alone though, as that’s the nice one.

Last night I made a shrimp salad for dinner. Normal tossed salad mostly, but with teriyaki marinaded shrimp on top. Was pretty good, Jenn liked.

I went for another bike ride Monday, saw at least 6 canoes and 12 tubers. Told Jenn, we need to get some tubes, living right on river and all.

I tried Blue Goat from New Holland Brewing Company. It was pretty good, Jenn even liked and she tends not to enjoy beer. We are actually looking into visiting their brewery and pub in Holland sometime soonish.

Anything else…?

Don’t think so.

See you all later then.

nick

Four Years

Four years, Muskegon and Books, and Bike Ride.

Four years. There has been good, and there has been crap. Thanks for reading through it all. It works out to about 3.6 words every hour by the way.

So, what’s been going on…

Today was sit around day, which is nice to do on a Sunday.

Yesterday Jenn and I went to Muskegon to get a book for her nursing exam from Barnes and Noble. I also picked up the Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, both by Max Brooks, son of Mel Brooks. Of course, I then came home and found I could have ordered them from Amazon and saved $15, which is enough to cover shipping, and with gas added in even more. Still, we were going there anyway and it was a mostly fun trip.

Wednesday through Sunday was mostly picking up and moving stuff around. I went Thursday to mail my applications to the DNR because I had missed the mailman, only to get them back Friday morning due to insufficient postage, so had to go to the post office for the second day in a row to get them out.

Jenn and I went for a bike ride Friday night after dinner. We went about 3.5 miles, which isn’t much but a start, especially having left at 9 PM. We around to the White Pine Trail, over the bridge, into a city park, then back. We will maybe do more tomorrow as the wind is supposed to die down.

Once again, I waited too long to update, and that’s about all I can recall right now.

See you all in a few days…

nick