Treasure hunting

Anna and I took our first Geocaching adventure today. If you've never heard of Geocaching before, here is the definition from Wikipedia:

Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure," usually toys or trinkets of little value. Today, well over 540,000 geocaches are registered on various websites devoted to the pastime. Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica.

We set out to find 2 of them here in Mankato that looked pretty easy. The first one was in North Mankato near the Highway 169 bridge. We found it pretty quickly, Anna spotted it under a tree. It was a small prescription pill bottle painted green to blend in with the surroundings. Inside was a small pencil and a logsheet of other people that have found it. We were number 56 on the log, we wrote our names on it. I also logged it on the Geocaching website.

The cache under a tree

Anna and I posing in front of the hiding place

The second one was in Sibley Park near the animals. There is a walking path to the top, then we had to walk through the woods a bit and down the hill. This time I spotted it first; it was under a large rock with rocks piled in front to keep it hidden from view. It was a very fun adventure and we can't wait to do more!

Cache number 2 under rocks

Anna and I after pulling it out from under the rocks

We are going to be painting our kitchen and dining room since white walls are boring. We went to Menard's today and decided on the colors that we want and picked them up. We're going to get everything prepped, cleaned, holes covered up today. Painting should take place in the next few days.

After several days of no appointments at work, now I've been quite busy lately. This is definitely a good thing since I would much rather be booked solid with appointments than to have a lot of downtime where I'm not doing anything. So work is going very well and I have no complaints about it.

I'm getting serious Spring Fever. Its to the point where I'm getting very antsy and I want warm weather. I want to go outside, go for walks, hikes, take pictures, visit new places. I suppose I could do that now, but I'm a wimp and I don't want to do it in the cold.

2 weeks until our vacation to Orlando, and we are SUPER EXCITED!

I'm not obsessed

Anyone that knows me knows I absolutely love to cook. Well tonight I made my world-famous lasagna. It is rediculously tasty. I also had some fresh baked bread, salad, and a nice bottle of red wine. Both Anna and I love the Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi brand of wine. We had their Cabernet Sauvignon and it was spectacular, and a killer deal at only $7.49 for the bottle.


Needless to say, we both enjoyed dinner quite a bit, then we retired to the sunroom to chat for awhile before doing dishes and cleaning up. I'm looking forward to the warmer weather so we can sit outside with our glasses of wine and chat. Maybe we'll get a fire bowl in the backyard to have a small campfire when the mood strikes.

In other news, Anna found out today that she has been laid off from her job. After our initial shock and confusion wore off, we realized that this is a good thing. She had to deal with many many things that a person really shouldnt have to put up with. She hated it there, and usually worked a 3pm - 11pm shift, which means we didn't see much of each other. She's been wanting to get out of that job anyway, so now she is. We both feel very confident that she will find a much better job soon, and things will improve here for us.

A tour of my house

Anna and I bought our first house together in December 2006. The mobile home we lived in before that for 4 years doesn't really count since it cost less than a car, not that big of an investment. We absolutely love the house, can't really think of many bad things about it.

You can click the photos for a full size version.

The view from our front door into the living room, dining room, and sunroom.

The living room and my super-comfortable chair and ottoman

We inherited the dining room table from my Grandma and Grandpa Harvey. Its a fantastic table with 2 leaves to expand it to fit quite a few people. We had Thanksgiving dinner here last year and it was great. I'm pretty sure I want to have Thanksgiving again this year depending on people's plans.


The kitchen is awesome, a HUGE improvement over what we had at the mobile home.

Good food is good

We had the Easter feast and Grandma and Grandpa Harvey's house this year. It was quite the feast with ham, potato salad, fruit salad, baked beans, deviled eggs, asparagus, au gratin potatoes, rolls, and carrot cake for dessert. I don't know how I managed to eat only one plate full of food, but I'm glad I didn't gorge myself on feel the pain later.

Was great seeing everyone there and everyone seemed to have a great time. I fixed my grandparents' printer; perhaps fixed isn't the right word, all I did was discover that the color cartridge was damaged and preventing the printer from doing its thing. I guess my dad had been working on it for quite awhile trying to get it working for them. I tried my best to not insult his intelligence or repair ability.

My poor wife had to leave early from the feast around 2:30 or so to get to work. She got home shortly after midnight then had to be back there at 7am for her shift. She really deserves her Tuesday and Wednesday off from work now! My work has been a little slow lately, not as many appointments to go out and fix computer as I'd prefer, but I guess that happens from time to time.

A short day

For work today, all I had was a meeting this morning where we learned about Apple computer products and just went over company news. Nice and simple, didn't need to really use my brain much. I tried to get the guys to head over to Perkins with me for breakfast, but no one wanted to. So I saved about $8 and made pancakes and coffee at home.


Anna and I are greatly looking forward to our vacation to Florida next month. I called the hotel today to confirm our room and book a reservation for the luau the hotel puts on. We have never been to a luau, and I have read many excellent reviews on the one they put on, so this adds one more level of excitement.

I dont think I broke it

Yesterday was my dad's birthday, and I joined mom and dad for pizza and beer at our favorite pizza place in the world: Pagliai's Pizza here in Mankato. Anna wanted to come, but she was working that night, so I brought home leftovers. We had a good time, I made dad a "This day in History" card, with events that happened on his birthday. I inserted a few joke ones to tease him about his age, and we all had a good laugh over it.

Later that night at home when I was walking into the bathroom, I banged my foot on the doorframe and bruised the hell out of one of my toes. I guess it would be the ring toe if I used the hand analogy. It hurts this morning if I walk on it, but its managable, and if I wiggle it, the pain really isn't that bad, so I'm like 99% sure its not broken. It isn't swollen or anything either, so I should be fine in a day or so.

It snowed a bit last night, and its snowing/sleeting right now. I dont have any appointments for work so I can just stay home and stay off the roads.

Why?

It snowed another inch or so overnight. I was woken up by the sounds of the snowplow going down our street. I'm not really sure why they are bothering to plow that small amount, since the temperature is above freezing and it will all be melted shortly anyway. Maybe the guys were just really bored and had nothing else to do.



In other news, today is mine and Anna's weekend since we both have Tuesday and Wednesdays off from work. We dont really have any plans for the day other than going to the pet store and getting our cats more food.

Disappointment

It snowed, but just barely a dusting. Not that I wanted to shovel out 8 inches of snow before I could leave the house, but still.

I have the next 2 days off from work, so it can snow 2 feet for all I care. We just went grocery shopping, so we have plenty of food and coffee in the house, so I dont have to go anywhere.

Let it snow?

The past week here in southern Minnesota has been unseasonably warm with some days hitting 50 degrees (Fahrenheit for you metric weirdos). Anna told me that we are in a winter storm watch now with 6+ inches of snow possibly falling. I love Minnesota for the variety and unpredictability of the weather.

I knew it would snow pretty soon after the big melt we had, but we'll see if the weatherman was right this time. I assume that all weathermen just drink a few scotches and throw a dart at a dartboard to come up with the forecast.

Video Games

I am on a rental service for video games called Gamefly. It is just like Netflix, where I can have 2 games out at once and keep them as long as I want, for a monthly fee. I just got Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and I've played it for a couple days now. This game was highly anticipated by many people, but I dont get it. Maybe I'm getting too old, but I dont understand the draw to this game.

In other news, I made steak tacos tonight which didn't turn out very well. I didn't burn the steak or anything, but it made so much smoke while grilling it, I had to open all the windows in the kitchen to vent it. The seasoning all must have burned off or something, because it really didn't taste like anything. Oh well, if I mess up one or two dinners in a year, I guess I'm doing ok.

Brand new old blog

I'm trying out using Blogger to host this instead of my website server. It looks like I get more options here, better templates, etc. For a week or so, I will mirror the same posts to both sites to see which one I prefer, then I will make an announcement to which one will be the primary site.

mmm, Thai

Friday was Anna's birthday, and it just so happened that my brother and his girlfriend were in town to visit her parents. My parents, me, and Anna met them in Minneapolis to go to a wonderful Thai restaurant. At my brother's encouragement, I ordered the Pad Thai with beef. Holy wow, it was one of the best things I've ever eaten. I really need to figure out how to make something similar to it, because I cant be driving up to Minneapolis when I get a craving.

April is soon approaching and it will be a very busy month for me between work and our upcoming vacation. I am very excited about the vacation, and I have to say that the upcoming events for work are somewhat exciting as well. I will be at an all-day career fair representing my company, there will be a technology training at the corporate office, and I will be leading a training at my store to teach the sales department all about the Macintosh line of computers we are now carrying.