Ben's Ramblings

I'm going crazy I think

2009-04-16T13:36:00.002-05:00

I rarely remember my dreams but I had one last night that was really weird. I dreamt I was in the bedroom with Anna and we were hearing this sound or music. We couldn't figure out where it was coming from other than it was coming from our bedroom. I started to panic because the music was just coming from thin air and I screamed out loud "STOP!!". I instantly woke up from the dream and my eyes snapped open.

I'm not sure if I actually screamed it out loud or not, Anna said she didn't hear anything. But man it was crazy.

TOYS!

2009-04-03T08:40:00.001-05:00

My new cell phone arrived a couple days ago and I'm really enjoying it. I have made quite a few calls in my house with it and it has worked flawlessly. The last phone was starting to die and I could not get reception in my house. The new phone also has many other non-phone features that are very handy to me, such as a full featured web browser for getting on the internet. I can also get all my email right on the phone and it has a nifty little slide out keyboard.

Its been a week since I had the crown put on the tooth that was cracked and it is still hurting when I chew on that side of my mouth. I'm going to give it another week before I call the dentist, hoping the pain goes away so I don't have to have more dental procedures done on me.

In other news, I've been struggling with getting a corporate-issued laptop at work for almost a month now. The first one they sent me had some glitch that made the computer completely unresponsive and impossible to use. The replacement showed up a week and a half later and it wouldn't even connect to the internet or let me log in to the computer whatsoever. They claim the replacement for that one should show up today. I'm really hoping everything works out quickly so I can get rolling with the new TV Calibration I'm able to do at work now.

Sunday

2009-03-29T16:41:00.001-05:00

The dentist appointment resulted in a nice new crown on my cracked tooth. It was a partial crown, but it does cover the majority of the top of the tooth. Was pretty sore the first day. It still is sore today, its the same pain I had before they did anything where it hurts when I chew on that side of my mouth. Hopefully that pain goes away because so far its no improvement over how it was before the crown.

Of course, my dental insurance doesn't cover crowns, only cleanings, x-rays, and fillings. So I had to pay full price for the work, whatever that ends up being. This sure has been a horrible last few months for unexpected expenses and I really don't foresee it getting better for a long time. Maybe a giant bag of money will fall out of an airplane flying over my house and land in my backyard.

I suppose I could get into part-time diamond robbery. It sure looks like fun from the movies I've seen.

I'm a king now!

2009-03-26T12:47:00.001-05:00

I just got back from the dentist where I had a crown put in on one of my molars. It had cracked in a couple places so he had to drill out the filling and prep it to be crowned. It was actually a pretty cool procedure once all of the barbaric drilling was done. He took some pictures of the tooth with this instrument that turned it into a 3D model of my tooth. From there he was able to sculpt out the crown which in turn got sent to an automated milling machine.

In about 20 minutes we had a perfect crown, he got it put in and glued down or whatever they do to secure the thing, and I was good to go. It was a 2 hour procedure and was pain free, just some discomfort at times. When I got home, it looks like a perfect tooth. Its kind of weird not seeing the silver filling there anymore that I've had for something like 15 years.

Cheers

2009-03-24T06:55:00.003-05:00

Anna and I have inherited Grandma and Grandpa Harvey's bar glass collection. They are very nice glasses and quite the assortment. We spent a little while cleaning them all and figuring out the perfect way to display them. We like how they look and they add some sparkle to the room. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Spring?

2009-03-16T22:11:00.004-05:00

Anna and I finally got to go out Geocaching on Sunday. It was an absolutely beautiful day to get out and go hunting. A quick recap for those that don't know what Geocaching is:

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.

We set out with GPS, cell phones, and our Geocaching bag which currently contains a small first aid kit, baby wipes for cleanup, hand sanitizer, a towel, spare batteries, and trinkets to put into the geocaches that we find. The first one on the list was very close to our house and we got to the area that the GPS wanted us to go to. But then after lots and lots of searching, we did not find it.

We moved on to the next on our list which was supposed to be a multi-stage cache. The posted coordinates contain not the geocache itself, but a clue or the actual location of the end point. It led us to downtown Mankato but we came up empty handed again. It seemed to want us to go into an abandoned building, which we know isn't right because these things are always on public property. We were disappointed when we could not figure it out so again, we moved on.

We drove over the river to North Mankato to a nice park. We quickly found the area the cache was supposed to be and had some ideas of where it was. We were not finding it at first, then Anna had an "ah-ha!" moment and found it! Since readers of this may want to go find it, I will not give away any details other than it was an extremely clever find.

The final stop on our list brought us to Hiniker Pond in North Mankato. We headed off in the direction the GPS was pointing us, but after awhile I got confused that we'd walked a couple hundred feet and the GPS didn't appear to have realized this. I then realized that I had the wrong thing punched into the unit, I punched in the correct coordinates and realized that our destination was 60 feet straight ahead. As we were approaching, I got a low battery warning and hoped we would find it in time before the batteries died.

Once again, Anna quickly found it and we wrapped up our day. 2 found, 2 not found. Not too bad for the first outing of the season. We can't wait to do more!

Oh, you're still here? I'm not.

2009-03-13T22:59:00.001-05:00

Lets see, whats new in my life?

Our basement flooded due to something horrible happening to our water heater. We were in the basement on Sunday, noticed nothing bad. Tuesday morning, right before I left for work, I went down there to scoop the cat's litter box and quickly realized that my socks had become wet. I looked around and saw that the carpet was completely soaked and in many places there was about an inch of standing water.

Needless to say, I got that horrible panicky sinking-feeling. I went back upstairs to the bedroom to remove my wet socks and change into some shorts so my pants cuffs wouldn't get soaked from the water. I let Anna know of my discovery and we both went back to the basement to inspect everything. The utility half of the basement which covers 2 rooms was all wet. It took us a little bit to figure out that it had come from the water heater. I noticed that the water on the carpet was warm near the water heater and we saw some drips coming off the bottom.

We also saw evidence of water that had come from the top of the unit as well. We tried towelling up some of the standing water near the washing machine and quickly realized that it was an act of futility. I got through to my insurance company for advice and they recommended a company they have worked with before that could help us. I got them on the line and they were out within a few hours to inspect the situation.

They brought their equipment in to suck up the standing water and a lot of it from the carpet. They then set up 2 giant industrial dehumidifiers and something like 9 giant fans to dry everything out. They said with the amount of amperage all the equipment requires, it is maxing out our house's electrical system. Ideally, they said they would have preferred to put in a couple more fans to help dry everything, but had to make due.

That was all on Tuesday. Today is Friday, and today they removed 4 of the fans and we should be good to go tomorrow for the rest of the equipment to be removed. We also had to have a new water heater installed on Tuesday which went great. I called my dad to get a recommendation on a plumber and he referred me to a guy he'd done business with several times in the past. Real nice guy and we were very pleased with his work.

The thing that frustrated me the most about the whole ordeal is about a month ago when we got our tax refund, we made a very large payment on a couple of our credit cards. Being how this event that happened in my basement was expensive, I didn't exactly have the necessary funds in my bank account so I had to charge it all to my credit card. It was almost exactly the amount we had paid off just a month ago.

Just my luck, Murphy's Law, that's how it goes, ain't that the shits, could be worse, at least you have your health, happens to all homeowners, and that's life. They are all true statements but damn if I wasn't quite upset at having our debt progress wiped out by a faulty water heater. At least I helped out the local economy in my own little way.

Im home

2009-03-05T23:02:00.001-06:00

Yep, I'm home. Its so good to finally be back, felt like I was away for a long time. I'm worn out and looking forward to a couple days off. I learned quite a bit on my trip and it was some pretty cool stuff. I learned a lot about HDTVs and color theory. But right now my brain is kind of a mush ball, so I'm going to bed.

Training, Day 3

2009-03-03T21:46:00.002-06:00

I forgot to mention that we did get the hotel snafu corrected. I sent an email to my contact at corporate who took care of it almost instantly.

We had day 2 of classroom training and hands on experience with the calibration equipment. Pretty intense stuff, we prepped for our exam which made me realize I didn't know nearly as much as I thought I did. We got some good experience using the equipment so that helped quite a bit.

Tomorrow we attend a short meeting with other installers that are already certified, then we will go on ridealongs to see more work done out in the field. Will be nice getting out of the classroom, the day goes much faster.

I'm pretty worn out tonight. My roommate and I needed a change of scenery so we headed out to the Mall of America to bum around and have dinner. We discovered that we both love Famous Dave's so there we went. Ate way more food than any one person should consume in one sitting. And I couldn't even finish my plate it was so much food. Beef brisket, pork ribs, cole slaw, country fries, corn on the cob, and cornbread muffin. Delicious!

Training, day 2

2009-03-02T17:02:00.002-06:00

Today was the first day of classroom training for our ISF Certification for HDTV calibrations. I have learned a ridiculous amount to information today and got to play with some very cool and VERY expensive calibration equipment, test pattern generators, and light meters. At the end of the training, I will be given a large equipment box similar to the ones you see in movies that transport a nuclear warhead. I'm pretty sure the cost is similar between the warhead and the calibration equipment.

I'm very please that they are providing lunch for us over the 2 days of classroom training so we don't have to leave and pay for lunch on our own, me being the cheap bastard that I am.

I'm still up here for 3 more days and I really can't wait to come back home. I already miss my wife, house, bed, comfy chair and couch.

Day 1

2009-03-01T21:09:00.002-06:00

Today was my first day of the HDTV calibration training. They had me and my roommate go along with one of the guys that is already certified to do calibrations. we got to see him do calibrations for 4 different customers' TVs. We learned quite a bit and I was surprised at how much of a difference it made for their TVs. The detail and color was quite a bit better and the picture just looked better overall.

I had met my assigned roommate before at a prior training and we're getting along pretty well, so that's great. Our hotel reservations are a bit screwed up, my company told us we had reservations through Thursday, but the hotel has them only through Tuesday. We're going to have to figure this out or there's going to be some bad stuff going down.

End to the week

2009-02-26T13:47:00.001-06:00

It has been a very long week for me. Luckily, my only appointment today canceled on me. It is snowing quite hard here and it would have been difficult to get to their house anyway. I’m home for the day now, then early Sunday morning I head up to St Paul to begin my HDTV calibration certification training. I will be coming back home Thursday night.

At least I can see across the street now, earlier today it was snowing so hard I could barely see the houses across the street. We were planning on going grocery shopping today but I think it would be a bad idea to be out on the streets if it weren’t completely necessary. I’ll have to get creative for dinner here.

I'm running out

2009-02-18T22:42:00.001-06:00

It would appear that lately I have been running out of things to say here. Ah, I thought of a short story to tell about something that happened to Anna and I a few days ago.

We were doing a shopping spree in town of various items we needed. It is coming near the end of the year to spend my Healthcare Spending Account money or I lose it all. Unfortunately there is a lot of money still in there because they seem to deny every doctor visit I have submitted, but they have no problem if I buy 5 bottles of Tylenol.

We stopped by Target to stock up on more medical supplies and found some very nice disaster/first aid kits. Full of all sorts of bandages, ointments, thermal blankets, and other disaster-preparedness items. There were kind of expensive so we decided to get 3 to really use up some of the money. One for each of our cars and one for the house.

We then had to pick up some groceries so we headed over to Wal Mart (yes, I still feel dirty for shopping there) and as we were getting out of the car we heard someone's car alarm going off. No big deal, someone bumps into the car and it goes off, right? Well soon another alarm goes off, then another, and then a 4th!

Anna and I looked at each other as we were walking to the Wal Mart entrance and I asked Anna half-seriously if we should run. We were able to swiftly walk inside and avoid whatever gremlins were causing the car alarms to go off. The rest of the shopping inside the store went uneventful. On the way out, we almost got hit by a car which honestly I expect every time I'm in the Wal Mart parking lot.

We are headed for home less than 2 miles away and up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light. No, it was not the Hotel California but 5 emergency vehicles. It would appear that there was a collision between one of those large vans that can transport 15 people and some other vehicle that was already gone. The van was pretty smashed up, it is my theory that some idiot pulled out and tried to make a turn when the van was coming right for them.

Between the weird car alarm stuff and all the emergency vehicles at the accident site, I felt very relieved that we were ready for any disaster with our new kits from Target. Needless to say, once we got home, the front door was immediately locked and we stayed away from all windows. Safety first!

below freezing? Booooo.

2009-02-13T10:02:00.001-06:00

Its a chilly morning today, thankfully I have the day off and don't need to leave the house unless I want to. We were thinking about a road trip in March, head out somewhere for a few days but we realized we really can't afford it right now. As much as we'd like to take some time off and get away, we would end up having to charge it to the credit card and thats just stupid.

We're loving the new grill, I think I've cooked dinner on it more times in two weeks than I used the last grill all summer. Did up some BBQ pork ribs last night, and although they didn't turn out as good as the ones I made last July 4th, they were still very tasty.

I found out yesterday that I was confirmed to get ISF Certified to do professional calibrations on high definition TVs. Its actually a very big deal and would be quite expensive if I had to pay for the courses on my own. My employer will be sending me to Minneapolis for 2 days for about 15 hours of training. Then I will be able to calibrate a client's TV set which would give them much better picture quality and decrease the electricity usage of the TV by up to 70%.

Kitty House!

2009-02-07T16:07:00.002-06:00

We (I) decided to turn the box our grill came in into a kitty play house. I cut a couple doors, a window, and a skylight in for them.

Its the weekend!

2009-02-05T07:38:00.002-06:00

…for me at least. I have Thursday and Friday off work and I greatly need it. The past few days at work have been pretty rough and trying on my sanity. Luckily, Anna and I went out for dinner and drinks at Applebees last night and I felt much better from the good food, drinks, and company.

I do have a couple errands I have to run today but that is no big deal, plenty of time to get things taken care of. In geeky news, I’m normally a Mac user in the computer world, but right now I’m using Windows Vista so I can test out some software. Let’s see if that also chips away at my sanity. I’m sure I’ll be just fine.

We’re going to have to go grocery shopping today so that means we can buy more stuff to cook on the new grill. yay!

Thank you, Taxman

2009-02-01T10:42:00.005-06:00

Anna and I have been talking about getting a new grill for quite awhile. Our charcoal grill was falling apart, and I'm not even sure the food cooked on it was safe for human consumption. We really wanted to go with a gas grill for the convenience of it and the ability to slow-cook food on it.

We decided to use some of our income tax refund and pick one up. I found out that Sears was having a clearance sale on their Kenmore brand of grills and we decided on a beautiful red grill that normally would have been out of our price range if not for the huge sale they had.

When the Sears warehouse person wheeled out the big box it came in, we realized it was not going to fit in our car. Lucky for us, a very nice gentleman in a pickup was getting something and offered to bring it to our house for us. I took him up on the offer and we loaded it up in his truck and I hopped in the passenger seat. There really are nice people still in this world.

It took us about 2 hours or so to assemble it. I ran and got a full LP tank from Kwik Trip down the road for a killer price. Sears wanted to sell me an empty tank for $40. Kwik Trip sold me a full one for $49.99. I was very happy with that price.

I brought the tank back home and hooked it up. I had a bit of an "OH MY GOD ITS GOING TO BLOW UP" scare when I first attached the connector to the tank and it did a little burst of propane. But I tightened it up and there were no problems. I waited a few minutes then fired up the grill for the first time. All 3 burners inside lit with no trouble and there were no explosions.

We had some steaks to cook up and they turned out delicious. I didn't get any pictures of it because by that time it was pretty dark outside and we were too busy getting everything ready anyway. I'm pretty sure we're going to be doing a lot more grilling now that I don't have to mess with charcoal.

The grill in its new home

The old dying grill

Me reading the instructions carefully

What shall I write about tonight?

2009-01-28T21:55:00.001-06:00

I don't have much on my mind that is very interesting or thought-provoking. Today is my Friday, as in I have the next two days off work. I had a tough day at work today so the time off is welcomed.

We made a very yummy stir fry for dinner tonight, everything made from scratch. A lot of the time it is much cheaper doing it that way and it always tastes better. Plus I feel good knowing exactly what went into the meal. Well, I can't exactly tell you where the meat came from but I do trust the store that the chicken and pork were actually chicken and pork.

Our sales on Half.com are going very well. Anna's textbooks from college have sold surprisingly well and of the 12 DVDs and video games I put up, only 3 remain unsold. This plus the tax refund is a very nice economic stimulus here at the Meyer household. Screw Congress, we're taking control of our own destiny.

Thoughts and reflections

2009-01-23T10:40:00.001-06:00

I'd like to talk about 2 topics that really have nothing to do with each other. Our new president Barack Obama, and Wal Mart.

First, President Obama. Of course anything I can say has already been said five hundred times over, but I will say it anyway. I am excited and optimistic at having a president who has the country's best interests in mind when making decisions. I was very disappointed with George W. Bush and his stubborn stay-the-course way of thinking. He'd stay the course even when it was very obvious it was the wrong way to go.

I'm excited that President Obama understands the need for research and development in this country towards alternative, zero-emission energy sources such as wind, solar, and geothermal. Our country has so many brilliant people that are able to make serious advances in these fields if given a chance. There was such little funding given out by the last administration that its no wonder other countries are starting to leap us in technological advances. It is going to be a very interesting next 100 days to see what all he accomplishes.

Secondly, on to Wal Mart. I do not like supporting that company, I do not enjoy shopping the store, and entering their parking lot is taking your own life in your hands...or possibly some idiot's hands driving through there not paying attention.

We have started grocery shopping at the local Super Wal Mart in an attempt to save money. The adjective used, super, is quite ironic. My dictionary defines super as: very good or pleasant; excellent, which aren't exactly the words that come to mind when I think of Wal Mart. It is dirty, employees rarely seem to want to be there and are rarely friendly. The customers that shop there are different than what you would find at say Target or Hy-Vee grocery store. Different in that they also seem more crabby, rude, not paying attention.

Not to mention how Wal Mart's business practices are sketchy and unfair to the manufacturers. To get the low low prices they have, the manufacturers either have to accept a lower profit margin (i.e. razor-thin) on items sold to Wal Mart or lower the quality of the items they sell to Wal Mart.

Why after all these negative things I have mentioned do I continue to shop there then? It simply comes down to price and cost savings. Its a tough time right now financially for many people, us included. We have seen a price savings buying our groceries at Wal Mart vs. the local megamart grocery stores. I still feel dirty and a feeling of gloom and regret comes over me as I enter the building.

Is it as bad as I describe? Possibly. Am I exaggerating a bit? Probably. But that does not mean there is not an ounce of truth to my statements. Yes I know I just used a double-negative. I'm not a professional writer, so go screw yourself. ha ha ha :)

Its sunday!

2009-01-18T12:12:00.001-06:00

Hooray the temperature is finally above 10 degrees so I was able to get my VW Geekmobile washed today. That poor car was so dirty and the windows were almost opaque.

Anna and I are eagerly awaiting all of our various tax documents so I can process our 2008 tax return. I'm really hoping for a big refund this year since I made some changes to my W4 and was putting in a lot more taxes. And I've had some various pre-tax deductions as well that were new, so here's hoping for a large refund.

When doing our laundry, I've always noticed something strange. When we're folding the clothes and putting them away, a large majority of the shirts that Anna has worn are inside-out. When she puts the in the hamper they are not inside out. And the majority of my shirts are not inside-out. She can even wear one of my shirts and it will come out inside-out. We are baffled at how this is possible.

What to do?

2009-01-14T22:35:00.001-06:00

My weekend is here: I have Thursdays and Fridays off. I don't think its going to be possible, but I really do not want to leave the house whatsoever. Its going to be so cold on Thursday, I'm afraid of getting frostbite from just looking out the window for too long. Nope, I'm staying inside where its warm. Drink coffee or tea all day and snuggle up with blankets and my cats.

I say I probably will have to leave the house at some point because we are going to need to get groceries probably Friday. We're running out of things to have for dinner so I'll either have to get very creative or we go shopping.

My half.com sales of old video games and DVD movies are going great. I have sold 10 items already in less than a week. I need to pick up a few larger padded envelopes for some of the DVDs, but as I said, I really do not want to leave the house. Am I a baby? Yes.

Come to the Dark Side

2009-01-11T19:23:00.001-06:00

We have been shopping at Wal Mart the past couple times for groceries. I really dislike Wal Mart for several reasons: Its kind of dirty, the employees are usually rude, the customers are rude. But we are definitely getting better prices on things and right now, we need it.

A good friend of mine turned me on to www.half.com . Its a site that specializes in selling used books, DVDs, music, and video games. I put a bunch of video games and movies up on there this morning that we don't use anymore and already 2 items have sold. Will be a nice little bit of extra money.

Been a couple weeks since the physical therapy ended for my wrist/thumb issues and there has really been an improvement. I don't have the constant pain all day and I'm not waking up at night in severe pain. I just have to keep doing the stretches and exercises they showed me and things will keep getting better.

It is now less than 20 days until our new president, Barack Obama takes office, and I am thrilled! It will take a couple years for him to undo a lot of the damage that has been done to our wonderful country, but I have faith that he can help facilitate the rebuilding.

Limbo!

2009-01-06T21:32:00.001-06:00

Right now we're in that weird limbo period between paychecks when money is low and we don't have a lot of food in the house. I improvised dinner tonight and made a pasta dish that turned out to be absolutely delicious. I cooked up a box of penne pasta and made a sauce of out a couple pieces of bacon, minced onion and garlic (with my new garlic press), a little bit of cream and milk, red pepper flake, fresh thyme and grated parmesan cheese (with my new microplane grater!). Some salt and pepper to taste, and holy wow it was so good, and it was all from supplies I had around from other meals I made. We also made some tasty garlic bread from the rest of the bread we made last week.

I really like being able to improvise meals and have them turn out good. Following recipes is fine and all, I have no trouble with that. But coming up with stuff on my own is pretty cool.

I had an appointment today in Spirit Lake, Iowa which turned out to be about 220 miles round trip for me. It actually was a nice drive with nice weather, dry roads, and plenty of audio content on my iPod to keep me entertained. The clients were super nice too and were very happy with the work I did for them, which always makes any long drive well worth it. Yeah I know that sounds cheesy, but its nice making people happy while enjoying the work I do. I suppose if I pissed everyone off I wouldn't enjoy my work as much.

Cooking!

2009-01-02T19:49:00.003-06:00

My sister in law Angela had my name for Christmas this year, and wow did she get me exactly the stuff I love. She got me an awesome cast-iron skillet and an enameled cast-iron Dutch oven. Both of which I have wanted for a long time. She also got me the world's best garlic press and the world's best hand held micro grater. I've been using all of them quite a bit since I opened them and they are awesome.

Included are a few photos of them in action. Thanks again Angela!

Melting some butter to cook up the French toast.

The French toast! With bread we made from scratch the day before.

Pork chops cook up real well on cast-iron.

I love the Dutch oven. Making some pasta salad here.

New Year

2009-01-01T13:36:00.001-06:00

Anna and I celebrated January 1st by sleeping in. I haven’t slept in in weeks, and it was fantastic! Neither of us could stay awake for midnight to hit. I kept dozing off in my comfy chair in the living room until Anna recommended that we just go to bed.

This morning we sat around for a bit, had some coffee, and planned out our day. We decided to make some French bread from scratch to go with the homemade French onion soup we will be making for dinner. Both are rather time-consuming but very enjoyable to prepare. They are even more enjoyable to eat!

We are both very antsy for spring now that we have a nice GPS unit to go Geocaching. I keep looking over at that little yellow unit, longing for the snow to melt and the daylight hours to be longer

An update on two things

2008-12-30T08:36:00.004-06:00

I have finished my 2 weeks of physical therapy on my wrist and tendon issue and there has definitely been an improvement. I wear a hard plastic split on my arm overnight and there is no more pain like I had before. Throughout the day it is less stiff and painful as well, so I am very happy.

I picked up the car from the mechanic last night. Turns out the idler pulley went bad and sort of exploded, shooting its bearings out which knocked the serpentine belt off. That would explain the racing noises I heard, which would have been the bearings going out. Then the clunk which was the idler pulley exploding. They said everything else looked fine, no damage was found. The repair was surprisingly inexpensive.

On the way home the power steering pump was making some bad noises so I checked the fluid level when I got home and it looked almost empty. There was some fluid that got sprayed around inside the engine compartment that I noticed before I had the car towed to the mechanic. I'll just add some more fluid and I'm pretty sure that will solve the problem.

It is still a pain in the butt to get a car repaired that is barely driven.

Really? Again?

2008-12-27T18:42:00.001-06:00

My Ford Taurus started making some odd noises the past few times I've driven it. I had to run to the grocery store tonight and the noises were definitely louder, bit of a grinding, ball bearing sound. Well on the way back home the noise stopped, it squealed, then the battery light came on. THen a bunch more warning lights and I noticed the headlights dimming.

I lost power steering as well, luckily it stayed running long enough to get home. I was going to back it into the garage to make it easier to jump start if we had to. I flipped from drive to reverse and the engine died. I had no more battery power left so I just pushed the car into a parking spot on the street. I popped open the hood and saw that the serpentine belt was not looped around the alternator.

I pulled on the belt and it wasn't broken so it looks like it just came off somehow...which is rather odd. It was already quite dark outside so I didn't feel like messing with it. I may try and fix it myself, but I'm concerned at the rattling/grinding sound I heard. It is possible that some part of the tensioner pulley or something actually broke. If this is the case, I'd have no clue whatsoever on how to fix that.

My car knows I will be getting a tax refund when I do my taxes next month, so it fired a preemptive strike against that.

Yay Christmas was fun!

2008-12-26T18:08:00.001-06:00

Its been busy around here, as I'm sure it has been for most people. Anna and I headed off to my Uncle Bob and Aunt Molly's house for the annual Christmas Eve get together which is always a great time. The food this year was several lasagnas, baguettes with pesto, bruschetta, plus many other sides, munchies, sweets, wine and booze. Good food, good company, can't really go wrong there.

We spent Christmas day at my parents house with my Grandma and Grandpa Harvey and that was also a great time. Consisted of more munchies and the main course of mom's homemade clam chowder which is ridiculously good. We had some of our favorite wine with it: Starling Castle Riesling, which is a nice German white wine.

We all exchanged gifts and the big gift from mom and dad for Anna and I was a portable GPS unit so we can finally go Geocaching properly. Its the perfect unit, good size, easy to use. Later that night at home, I was playing around with it and saw on their website they had some updates available for it. I ran them and they locked up, even after half an hour. I had to pull the power to the GPS, then it would not turn back on.

I didn't have it in me to troubleshoot it, so instead Anna and I watched an amazing documentary on coral reefs. It was originally filmed with IMAX cameras that play back on 10 story high screens, but it was converted to High Definition for watching at home. Let me say, the picture quality was the absolute most beautiful thing I'd ever seen featuring footage from Tahiti, French Polynesia, and Australia.

Then today, I managed to figure out a way to revive the dead GPS unit and it is now fully functional, which made me very happy!

Anna is up at her parents house this weekend to celebrate Christmas with family. I was unable to come with since I'm unable to get time off during this time of the year. I'm not too upset about it since thats just the way it is and thats the way it has been for years, so I'm used to not being able to travel over the holidays.

And to close out, the weather here today is crazy. Its been above freezing all day and a lot of the snow has melted. will be nice to get the roads a little more cleaned up. Its time for me to warm up some leftover clam chowder, I'm starving!

Busy Sunday

2008-12-21T22:16:00.003-06:00

Anna and I slept in this morning until about 9am. The cats were meowing at us to come feed them, so we finally got up and gave them what they wanted. We sat around for a bit then went to dig out the massive snow drifts in our driveway. I made sure to put a pot of coffee on first, then when we got back in we made a delicious breakfast of homemade hash browns (shredded using our new food processor..yay!), bacon, eggs, and toast.

Dad came by around noon to pick Anna up to go back and make Christmas baked goods with Mom. I headed off to New Ulm for my only appointment for the day, which was a very simple printer problem. The wind was pretty strong and was blowing snow all over the place, which reduced visiblity to less than 100 feet. I foolishly snapped a few pictures with my cell phone to share.

I quickly finished up in New Ulm and headed back. Since that was my only appointment of the day, I stopped in at Mom and Dad's where the ladies were very busy in the kitchen. I helped Dad update his GPS unit to the 2009 maps, then helped decorate some of the cookies which was definitely fun.

We had a good dinner then Anna and I headed back home to relax. Definitely a good Sunday.

a new piece of hardware

2008-12-19T22:43:00.001-06:00

My physical therapist fitted me today with a hard plastic split that immobilizes my wrist and thumb. I've been wearing it most of the day and it does seem to feel better. One downside is that it renders me unable to play video games while wearing it. Perhaps that is a good thing.

I had yesterday and today off work and I'm back to work on Saturday. A nice hectic day it looks to be as well. Hopefully the blowing snow won't be too much of an issue as I go from appointment to appointment. Anna and my mom are going to bake Christmas cookies and goodies on Sunday. I loves me some cookies!

Tuesday's gone....with the wind

2008-12-16T23:06:00.001-06:00

...Skynyrd song lyric in case you didn't catch it.

So Ben, what did you do today?
I actually had a pretty busy work day. I rolled into the store about 10am today and got all 5 things on my to-do list done. I then hit the road to head over to Faribault, MN to clean up a virus/spyware issue on a computer. The client was very excited to have a working computer because before I got there, the computer would not even start up.

My next appointment was for the folks whose furnace stopped working yesterday. I had to make a return trip because their new internet service wasn't quite active yet when I was there. They were so excited when I was done, they gave me an African Horned Melon that they grew in their garden. They had a bunch of them laying around. The gentleman wanted to get a few pictures taken with me, his wife, and the Geekmobile. Now you might think this is weird, but honestly it would be the 5th time or so that a client has asked to take my picture with the Geekmobile. They also explained to me that they have owned 3 different Volkswagen Beetles together over the course of time.

I helped out one more repeat client of mine setting up her new computer then made my way back to Mankato from St. Peter. Anna had sent me a few text messages warning me of dangerous road conditions and a large accident involving multiple cars on Highway 169 near Highway 14. I opted to take Highway 22 back, which is my preferred route anyway. Everything went fine, I didn't slide around at all. I did see a couple cars in the ditches though.

I have physical therapy Wednesday, a full work day, then the next two days off to stay home and relax.

I can't help it!!

2008-12-15T22:27:00.001-06:00

Ok ok, so I'm doing a blog post about the cold weather. Yeah I can't help it.

Chilly day here this morning. Woke up to about -10F but at least it was bright and sunny outside. I went to go get the cars started and driveway shoveled and surprisingly both cars started right up no problem. Of course the plow went by about one minute before Anna left and I was able to pull my car in the driveway, so it left a nice pile of snow around my car. Luckily I was able to move it out no problem after Anna left and even better, the plow driver made another sweep through my street to clear out the pile left by my car in the way.

Had my physical therapy again on my wrist and it seemed to make a bit of an improvement. Even tonight it isn't quite as sore as it has been. It could be just that I've been so cold all day that its being kept numb.

My first appointment at work today was in the town of St. Peter. When I arrived at the house, the clients warned me that their furnace has been down all day but someone was on the way to fix it. Needless to say, it was very cold in there, about 50 degrees (I saw the thermometer). They had space heaters and the oven door open just to keep the house from being frozen. The furnace guy finished up right as I was leaving. Turns out their problem was simply an exterior vent clogged with snow. Stupidly simple, but was enough to keep their furnace off.

My second appointment was at a house in rural North Mankato. The computer room was quite cold and the client made sure to point out to me several times that she can't wait to remodel that room and duct in more heat.

I didn't take my coat off at all today while at work, and I work inside! I feel so sorry for the people that have to do road construction, deliver mail, fix utilities, etc in this cold cold weather.

Topic? awww dammit

2008-12-14T22:37:00.002-06:00

It would be cliché for me to complain about the blizzard conditions right now, so I won’t do that. I’ve also been complaining about my wrist issue lately so I won’t anymore either. Hmm, what’s left to talk about then?

Anna and I watched a couple movies tonight, including the 1981 cult-classic animated movie Heavy Metal. We’ve never seen it and we both found the film very interesting. It was a collection of short stories all tied together by a theme. Some parts were trippy, others were funny, and others were downright ridiculous, but overall enjoyable.

Pets

2008-12-13T22:38:00.003-06:00

Our male cat Simon hasn’t seemed to happy lately. We were pretty sure he doesn’t like the food we give him, it seems too hard for him to chew so he usually just swallows it whole, which doesn’t make him feel good. We picked up some canned cat food for them and he seems much more happy now. Yay Simon!

The pet store also had some cats there from one of the county’s Humane Society on hand for adoption, so we played with a couple orange little kittens for awhile. They were very cute and well behaved. We both wanted to take one home, but now is not a good time for that.

I had a good day at work and put on over 150 miles today. I really don’t mind the long drives, its actually pretty relaxing since I don’t have to travel through any metropolitan areas or anything.

It would appear that retail stores here in Mankato are doing just fine. Everyone has packed parking lots and there were cars everywhere today. Its good to see people out spending money.

Physical Therapy

2008-12-12T16:50:00.001-06:00

I had my first of 7 visits to the physical therapist. They decided to apply some type of drug to an electrode and attach it to my wrist where the inflammation resides. For the next 10 minutes, it delivers the drug through my skin, then they take an ultrasound device to it for a few minutes which further drives it in deep.

Apparently this is desire over giving an actual injection. Seems like a lot of work for a sore wrist, but hey they are the experts.

I also have some stretching and massaging exercises to do to my wrist twice daily. At least I go 3 times a week for the visits so it will be done with in 2 weeks. I just hope this fixes it. I'll be pissed if I still have to receive an injection after all of this. I have nothing against injections whatsoever, but if it turns out I needed one anyway it would have been nice to just get it from the start.

Doctor visit results

2008-12-11T10:27:00.001-06:00

I saw the orthopedic surgeon today and he deduced that I have De Quervain's Tenosynovitis. Don't ask me to pronounce it because there is no way I can. It sounds like it is nothing serious and can be fixed with just physical therapy instead of surgery. I'll be going to one on Friday, hopefully it isn't something I have to go in for weekly or anything since those office visits get expensive after awhile.

Going to the doctor

2008-12-10T21:02:00.001-06:00

I don't think I've written about this yet. For the last few weeks, I've been experiencing some pretty crazy pain in my left wrist and thumb. It wakes me up at night and when I try and pull the covers up it is a ridiculous amount of pain. I made an appointment to see an orthopedic surgeon and I finally get to see him Thursday the 11th.

Hopefully something can be done because it is definitely impacting me, sometimes it is painful to lift things up, and waking up during the night due to pain isn't very cool. I do have the next 2 days off so I can relax in case they do something to my wrist that requires rest.

Kitty!

2008-12-09T21:58:00.002-06:00

My client today had a very nice Bengal cat. Anna and I both love the look of a Bengal, very wild looking with the spots of a leopard, but very tame and social. This cat was very playful and really enjoyed watching me hook up her owner's computer. The cat loved to be pet and played with and I was kind of sad I finished up with the work quickly and had to go.

I've been wanting to get another cat lately and it would be awesome to find a Bengal cat, but its probably not very likely we'll find one at the Humane Society to adopt. I know I could get one from a pet store or a breeder, but they are expensive cats so I wouldn't go that route.

Here are a few pictures I found of Bengal cats.

ITS GOING TO SNOW!!!!

2008-12-08T15:34:00.002-06:00

Apparently southern Minnesota is about to get hit with 4-6" of snow shortly. YAY!

This video is related to the subject of snow and makes me laugh out loud every time I watch it. Thanks to Tony Doll for sending it to me!

Whoops, halloween pics

2008-12-07T21:59:00.004-06:00

I realized today while going through pictures that I did not post Anna and I dressed up for Halloween. These are our Renaissance Festival outfits that we ordered online this summer. As always, click the photos for a larger view.

One thing leads to many

2008-12-07T14:10:00.006-06:00

Anna and I purchased a Nintendo Wii video game system a little over a year ago and at first we played it all the time. Now it just sits there and never gets used. It did however, develop a video glitch that would make the picture on the TV go fuzzy. Luckily, I bought it from Best Buy with the 2 year replacement plan on it. I took it in and got store credit for the original purchase price, since we didn't want another Wii.

I proceeded to browse around the store for at least an hour trying to figure out what to spend the store credit on. I have been wanting a wireless keyboard and mouse to replace the stock ones that came with my computer. Finding a set that would fit my needs and also be Mac-compatible was actually rather difficult. I ended up having to return the first set because there was a glitch with the mouse that prevented a Mac computer from ever entering sleep-mode to conserve power.

I ended up getting this fantastic ergonomic set from the Logitech company, and I am completely satisfied with it.
We have both been wanting a food processor for at least a couple years now but never got around to buying one. Luckily this time of the year, Best Buy carries a larger assortment of small appliances, so I picked up a KitchenAid food processor that was just the perfect size and matches our KitchenAid stand mixer as well.

There is still some money left over on the store credit so we'll have to find a few little things to pick up sometime. Nothing like going on a free shopping spree! Well, not exactly free since I paid for the original Nintendo Wii in the first place, but over a year ago so that money is written off.

Storm Chasers

2008-12-05T12:46:00.001-06:00

Anna and I are finding ourselves watching HDTV programming almost exclusively now that we have a pretty large TV. One of the shows we have started watching is Storm Chasers on the Discovery Channel. Fantastic and beautiful show documenting a team of people that hunt down and study tornadoes in the midwest United States. These people are pretty crazy and also ridiculously smart.

One thing I noticed though: there is some definite male sexual tension in the TornadoVideos.net vehicle between Joel and Reed. I'm pretty sure these guys get sexually excited when they are approaching a large tornado on the ground. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against this lifestyle, but at times these guys are pretty silly.

The show overall is very good though, very entertaining and thrilling. A must-watch if you have an HDTV.

Christmas is here!

2008-12-03T20:35:00.003-06:00

Anna and I put up the tree and ornaments tonight. Its always a good time doing that, going through all the ornaments and the memories they bring back. She was able to get Christmas weekend off to head back home to spend Christmas with her family. I'm not allowed to take time off during November and December so I don't get to come with. I'm not too bummed out since I'm used to not being able to take off on holidays.

I'm such a geek

2008-12-02T13:42:00.001-06:00

And not just because I work for Geek Squad. Last night, I had a very long dream about owning the Apple iPhone. Yes thats right, I could have dreamt about winning the lottery, living on a private island in the Caribbean, or having magical powers. No, I dreamt I had an iPhone.

And I'm almost ashamed to admit that I enjoyed the dream.

I blame my wife

2008-11-30T23:14:00.001-06:00

Anna showed me several kitty videos on Youtube today. Now I want a kitty! We already have 2, but I'd like a little kitten now too.

At work, they are changing our cell phone carrier from Sprint to AT&T. This change makes me nervous since Sprint has phenomenal coverage in my area and AT&T is questionable. I got the new phone and it should be active in a few days so we'll see how well it performs around the area. The phone is a slightly different model and it does feel a bit more refined and solid.

We got a little bit of snow today and both of us would definitely like more. I think we will also set up our Christmas tree and decorations on Monday. So far, I'm not too grumpy about the holidays. Some years I can't wait for it to be over with and other years it is no big deal.

Ho ho ho

Geocaching, Dad's turn

2008-11-27T10:59:00.007-06:00

Dad finally got his handheld GPS unit so he could go Geocaching. For those that don't remember, geocaching, as defined by Wikipedia is:

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 800,000 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.

I went over to their place so Dad and I could figure out the new GPS unit and how to download the Geocaching stuff into it. After about an hour we had it set and we were off towards a cache that was about 2 miles from their house. It was down a minimum maintenance road and thankfully we were in Dad's Ford Expedition with 4WD. Without that we most likely couldn't have made it in there. Dad was able to zero in on it pretty easily and we signed the log book and took photos.

Getting his bearings

It led us to this suspicious pile of rocks

I think he's onto something

What's this barrel here?

Hey what's that?!

Dad and I taking a look at what we found

Dad signing the logbook

Panorama I made of the site. Its pretty big, you might have to scroll from left to right to see it all

My new car

2008-11-25T22:03:00.004-06:00

My 2004 Volkswagen Geekmobile has been retired and replaced with a brand-new 2009 with 6 miles on it. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to get my first new car! Granted, its not exactly my car, but I'm the only one that drives it and my personal car gets maybe 2 miles a week put on it, if even.

Sorry about the poor quality, I didn't have my digital camera with me when I picked it up so I had to use my cell phone camera.

Its been a very enjoyable experience so far with the new car. Some of the highlights I really like about it: Heated seats, very nice especially since it is getting cold now. It has a jack that I can plug my iPod into and listen to my music and stuff. In the last car, I had to hook it up to this FM transmitter thing and tune in to a certain station to listen to it which had a ton of static. Now it is crystal clear.

Somehow, it has slightly less legroom up front now but it isn't too big of a deal. I've already driven it 40-50 miles one way to an appointment and it is very comfortable.

Whoops

2008-11-21T11:20:00.001-06:00

Looking back at my last post, it probably wasn't a good idea to have such a long delay in posting to here again. No, I did not suffer any brain damage or physical harm from my bout of insomnia.

Not much to report here lately. It is coming up on the busy season at work so the stress levels are rising a bit. They wouldn't be so high, but one of the supervisors at the store quit so they have me doing some of the responsibilities. Its been pretty good at work lately though, I've had lots of appointments so I've been out on the road quite a bit.

For some reason I had an appointment in Eden Prairie which is about an hour and a half drive for me but I made it up there no problem. It was a difficult computer issue for a business but I was able to recover the guy's files and get him up and running again. He was incredibly excited since he had quite a few documents and presentations he'd been working on for months. At some point it looked like he wanted to give me a high five but I wasn't sure so I stuck my hand out for a handshake so I didn't look like a complete idiot.

Saturday is my good friend Andy's birthday. He and his girlfriend Holly will be in town so we're going out for dinner and drinks with them. Its always a good time hanging out with them, a shame they live in Burnsville so its tough to meet up as often as we'd like. Its been over a month since we've all met up so we have lots of catching up to do. At least we can keep in contact via the internet so we're not completely isolated.

HAHAHA your drugs have no effect on me!

2008-11-15T20:30:00.001-06:00

As I blogged yesterday, I had a 6am meeting today at work. Neither of us were very tired and didn't get to bed until shortly after midnight. I laid down, got comfortable, and after a few minutes I realized that I wasn't tired and there was no way I was going to fall asleep.

The music of Bob Marley always relaxes me and puts me in a calm mood, so I tried listening to his music in my head, but to no avail. I got up, took a swig of Nyquil and watched the History Channel for an hour. This combination is deadly for me, as Nyquil or History Channel by itself can lull me to sleep within 30 minutes. Don't get me wrong, I love the History Channel, but the guy that narrates the show Modern Marvels has such a soothing voice, it puts me right out.

I started feeling a bit drowsy after an hour of being subjected to a show about swords, axes, and knives, so back to bed I went. 20 minutes later I was not asleep and didn't feel any sign of it coming, so I said to myself, "Screw it, I'll just stay up!"

By this time it was around 2:30am and I had a 5am wake-up time, so I just decided to play some video games until I had to go to work. Had a full day, 6am to 2:15pm, and I got through it just fine. Here it is, almost 30 hours since I last slept, and I really don't feel any more sleepy than I normally would in the evening after a full day of work.

I really have no idea how my body rejected the coma-inducing effects of Nyquil and the hypnotic narration on the History Channel. Perhaps my body was going into overtime processing the massive amount of Taco Bell I had for lunch yesterday and it was not done when it was bedtime. Perhaps this experiment should be tested again under more controlled circumstances.

I just know I'm going to read this post after a good night's sleep and realize that right now as I write this, I am stark raving mad!

Back to the grind

2008-11-15T00:08:00.001-06:00

I had a very nice relaxing day off today. Simon (one of our cats) woke me up today at about 8:30 and wanted some food. I obliged him and got some laundry started before catching up on the day's news. A few hours go by and I'm absolutely starving so I made a run to Taco Bell. I swear that is some of the most delicious food on the planet.

Of course I got sleepy after eating this delicious food, so I took a nice nap which is incredibly rare for me. I got the long awaited Fable 2 video game this afternoon in the mail, so I had a go at that for awhile. Anna offered to cook dinner tonight and I was more than willing to surrender control of the kitchen so I could keep playing my game. heheh

Back to work tomorrow though, starting with a 6am meeting, then a couple of service calls. It shouldn't be too late of a day, and I could even be home before 2pm. I should probably go to bed since I have to get up in about 5 hours. Goodnight!

When it rains, it pours

2008-11-10T22:17:00.001-06:00

Why does everything happen at the same time? We've managed to rack up quite the debt in the past month. First Anna had her sleep test and subsequent CPAP machine to allow her to get good sleep, totally worth it. Then her laptop died and needed to be replaced. My car needed work so it would run this winter, and then we had to put new headlights and a battery in Anna's car. Plus insurance on my car and license plate tabs are due on her car now.

Seriously, this stuff couldn't have spaced itself out a little more? I think I'll save money by shredding up old bills and junk mail and boil it for dinner. I wonder how much a kidney goes for on the black market? I have 2 of them, I'm sure I can get by with just one.

Other ways I could make money:

- Get into bank robbery on the side.
- Part-time treasure hunter.
- Get a loan for $50,000 and use it to buy 50,000 Powerball tickets. You'd have to at least break even with that many, right?
- Become a heroin dealer. People need heroin!
- Marry a rich old woman on the verge of death and get into her will.
- Figure out what kind of paintbrush Pablo Picasso used, buy one, and create million dollar paintings
- Blackmail. The person knows who they are. *glares*
- Sell off the 75 gold bricks I have in my basement. I don't think I really need them
- I've had this idea of making a website where people could sell stuff, in the form of an online auction. I'm pretty sure no one has thought of that yet.
- Travel back through time and purchase lots of shares in Apple, Google, and Microsoft
- Stop buying those cute little pony figurines by the dozens
- Those 3 Van Gogh paintings that nobody knows I have...they might be worth something.

There be snow here!

2008-11-07T09:49:00.002-06:00

I stumbled out of bed to find this today:

I was definitely surprised but it rather pretty. My assignment for today is to get a new battery installed in Anna's VW. It hasn't been starting as easily in the morning and our favorite repair shop said that it is just the battery. I'm going to call around and see if I can just get prices on a battery since it really shouldn't be hard to do it myself at all.

Rain? really?

2008-11-06T17:06:00.001-06:00

I was hoping for non-rainy weather today or tomorrow so we could have a fire in the backyard with some of the new wood that my parents brought over. Anna and I like to make dinner and go eat by the campfire. It is always nice and relaxing, eating under the stars with a warm fire going.

I realized I haven't actually commented with words about the elections here. Anna and I were both shocked, amazed, and overjoyed that Barack Obama will be our next president. Wasn't as pleased that most of the Senate/Congress spots went to Republicans, but I guess you can't win them all. We're still waiting on the results of Al Franken vs. Norm Coleman. It looks like Coleman has won by just a few hundred votes, out of almost 3 million votes cast. That is just crazy close and I really dont plan on hearing the official results for a few weeks.

It is definitely a relief that the election is finally over, we can all rest easy now and not have to deal with all the TV commercials, mailings, emails. Speaking of campaign mailings, it really did get ridiculous the amount of ads we would get in the mailbox every day. A few days there were over 10 of them, but we never read a single one that got sent to us. It didn't matter who they endorsed, I am not basing my voting decision off what is basically propaganda.

So this will probably be the last political blog post in awhile from me. Hopefully, haha

Yes we can

2008-11-04T23:29:00.003-06:00

The Big Day

2008-11-03T22:28:00.001-06:00

Tuesday is election day here in the USA. It is ALMOST HERE!! I will be able to vote in less than 10 hours from now. This campaign season has lasted almost 2 years and I have to admit, I am exhausted.

I'm hoping everything goes smoothly with the elections across the country. I've been reading reports about states that have early voting and I am concerned. There have been problems with many of the electronic voting systems either not registering the vote at all or switching the vote to the opposite of what they voted for. Very scary stuff!

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T17:25:00.002-05:00

Yaarrrrrr I be a pirate!

Its ALIVE!

2008-10-29T16:33:00.001-05:00

Anna and I decided it was probably a good idea to bring in our old '96 Ford Taurus to the shop to get it fixed. It was Anna's car when she was still in high school, and I use it to drive to work and back since its barely a 2 mile drive. It hasn't been running very well for many months now: jerky acceleration, hard shifting, backfiring sometimes.

Turns out it just needed new spark plugs, wires, a tuneup. I had the oil changed while I was at it. It was still kind of expensive but much cheaper than having to buy a replacement car. It drives wonderfully now, the best I ever remember it running. Kudos to the guys at Car-X here in Mankato. I really don't know if they are expensive compared to other places in town, but they have always done quality work for us.

How important is a witty title? Very.

2008-10-27T11:44:00.001-05:00

The weekend came and went rather quickly. Granted, I work on the weekend so those days are nothing special to me. I did manage to finally get a haircut on Saturday after work. For a couple days after I get it cut, my head kind of looks blocky until the haircut blends in a bit.

We're preparing for the cold season here at the Meyer house, pulling up the tomato plants, raking leaves constantly. We washed all our winter blankets so we can snuggle up with fresh blankets now.

Anna and I finally had dinner at the Hunan Garden restaurant in North Mankato. Good Asian food there, but the place itself was pretty ghetto. You could tell they are trying to get by as cheaply as possible in there. All the plates and silverware were plastic disposable and very cheap low quality at that along with the smallest cheapest napkins I'd ever seen. The decor was half-assed at best, but there is something kind of fun about eating at a trashy joint. The portions were gigantic, even I wouldn't finish my meal and took half of it home.

We were going to just have it delivered but they only accept cash for delivery payments. Who keeps cash around nowadays? We sure don't, so we told them we would just eat in. We could have picked it up and brought it home to eat, but were already driving there, we may as well eat there and see how it is.

Anna said it would be fun for her to pick up some food for dinner on her way home from work, since it is kind of on the way home for her. She has about 3 different routes she can take, and that is one of them. So we may do the Chinese food takeout thing from time to time.

A disappointment

2008-10-25T17:29:00.001-05:00

As I previously blogged, I received my Star Wars video game, which I proceeded to play all the way through to completion in just 3 sittings in 2 days. While it was a very fun game, I'm rather disappointed at how short of a game it was. At least I didn't pay the normal $60 that they sell for. I'm a member of Gamefly.com, which is an online video game rental service. I get to have 2 games out at a time for as long as I want. When I mail one back, they send me the next one in my queue, all for a low monthly fee. Very similar to how Netflix does movies.

I figure I have saved hundreds if not thousands of dollars by renting games via Gamefly versus flat out buying them for $60 a pop. And I'm all about getting a deal and saving money on things.

ahhh the weekend

2008-10-22T16:23:00.001-05:00

And today marks the start of my weekend, since I have Thursdays and Fridays off from work. I should be stocked up and ready to go: I stopped a the store and picked up some beer and a bottle of bourbon. I should also be getting a new video game in the mail tomorrow: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Should be a good weekend.

Out with the old...

2008-10-20T22:09:00.001-05:00

I finally made it up to JC Penny to spend my birthday gift certificate. I have this special gift to know when they have a killer sale, and this time was no different. I picked up some long-needed new jeans and some shirts. I also replaced my wallet. I've had the same wallet for probably close to 17 years. It was beat to hell and falling apart. Anna helped me pick out a very stylish new one and it it is about half the thickness of the old one. Its going to take some getting used to the new one as I'd gotten to used to the last one. I knew exactly where everything was in it, not that there was ever actually money in it.

In other news, I've been very busy at work, full days and tough appointments. Some of the appointments felt like I was just banging my head on the desk for several hours trying to get the computer fixed, but thats the way it goes somedays.

An update

2008-10-17T22:03:00.001-05:00

I believe I am over my caffeine addiction now. I'm not suffering from headaches and as far as I know, the grumpiness associated with caffeine withdrawal is gone. The nice thing about not having coffee in the morning is not having to go pee 4 times before noon now.

In other news, I have a very busy day at work this saturday. I just plotted out my course and I will be driving over 250 miles to get to my 3 appointments. Half of my work day will just be spent in the car, which isn't all that bad since I'm getting paid while I drive and the VW Beetle is a comfortable car to drive. I know I'll be exhausted by the time I get home, which I'm guessing if I start my day at 7:45am I should get home around 7pm at the latest.

I've also learned that my cable company will be adding the Food Network to their list of High Definition channels. This is going to look fantastic on our new 50" plasma HDTV.

Oh, I didn't blog about the new TV did I? Here's the story on that! My laptop had to go in for servicing several times and under the Best Buy service plan policy if it requires a 4th repair, they will replace it. They added a new option where if you can't find an acceptable model for replacement or if you didn't want the same type of product that you could just get store credit. I really didn't use my laptop all that much, most of the time it just sat there being unused so I opted to get store credit.

The laptop I bought was fairly high end at the time so it was rather expensive. With the store credit, I was able to get a 50" Panasonic plasma TV literally at no cost, pretty much just sales tax. It happened that my laptop was worth what a huge TV now sells for. We got rid of our older TV and entertainment center and it is now a very nice smaller TV stand with the big TV on top. It actually gave us more room in the living room and the TV looks amazing. Anna and I are both very happy with it.

Fun times!

2008-10-13T22:47:00.001-05:00

Lots of fun can be had with a webcam:

Be sure to click them to get the full size picture.

Houses! Houses for sale!

2008-10-13T15:46:00.002-05:00

There are three houses for sale on my block. That is a significant percentage of houses, do they know something about this block that I don't? Is the apocalypse going to start on this block? Is an asteroid going to crash into the street?

At least we are very happy with our house. We have been very fortunate in the 2 years we've been in it, no issues nothing has fallen down or crumbled apart. Looking at the market now, we paid too much for the house, but it was in the perfect location, had almost exactly what we wanted, and it was a pretty fair price to start with.

On a completely unrelated topic, Taco Bell is the most delicious food you can possibly have. Especially when its night time and you are absolutely starving. $6 got me a ridiculous amount of food and a large drink last night and I was so very satisfied. After a couple drinks and you start getting the munchies, Taco Bell can be the perfect answer to that problem.

Have you hugged a tree today?

2008-10-12T18:13:00.002-05:00

I'm becoming more and more aware of how wasteful our society is with materials. I try my hardest to not only recycle everything that I can, but also purchase items that use less packaging or packaging that is recyclable.

At work today I had a few hours to kill before the store opened, so I went through and cleaned out the old forms, invoices, brochures, and other promotional crap that we had laying around. It was all expired so I started piling it up to take it back to the recycling box for paper that we finally have in. I quickly realized I was going to need a shopping cart to hold it all and by the time I was done, the cart was half full of paper. I was glad that we now have our paper recycled but still kind of bummed me out a bit that so much paper was created, never used, and had to be recycled into something else.

Even though all this paper will be recycled, it is still incredibly wasteful. The process to both create and recycle paper consumes quite a bit of other resources like water and wood, and to create paper can sometimes require harmful chemicals. You would think working for Best Buy's Geek Squad, a very high tech company, we could figure out a way to not need to use so much paper, but apparently it is the opposite.

This isn't supposed to happen!

2008-10-11T15:30:00.002-05:00

I did laundry today and since the forecast was for clear skies, I hung 4 loads of laundry outside. Was sunny, a slight breeze, perfect for drying clothes the natural and environmentally friendly way. They were outside for around 3-4 hours and were probably dry, then I heard thunder. At first I thought it was just from the road construction a block away but then I heard it again and softly said "Oh Sh&@", since Anna was napping.

I ran out with laundry baskets in tow and started pulling the laundry off. Just a few droplets of rain, no big deal, I'll be fine....WTF its POURING NOW! I was getting soaked and so were the clothes. I frantically got everything pulled off and brought it inside where I surveyed the damage. The clothes weren't all that wet but I will have to run them through the dryer to get the dry again.

Damn you mother nature...DAMN YOUUUUUU!

Emergency meeting

2008-10-11T10:52:00.002-05:00

On my way to an appointment yesterday around 3pm, I got a phone call from work saying that the general manager of the store wanted to meet with me and the other Double Agent at work. He wanted to meet with him at 6am and me at 6:30. I immediately had a bad feeling about this, since we have not had that many appointments lately. I was concerned that he was going to fire or demote one of us.

I got pretty anxious for awhile, got to my appointment and forgot all about it. Soon after leaving I remembered it again and got anxious. I let Anna know about what happened and we talked about it for a bit. We were both worried, but after a little while we were fine.

I woke up at 5am this morning, got ready to head over. I got there a bit early so I waited while they were in the meeting. When they came out, it was my turn to go in. The store manager sat me down and started in his speech, which sounded like a "You're being demoted" speech.

Turns out, my job is safe but the other guy is being demoted to just working in the store, acting as a trainer to get the store's performance back up to where it used to be. He does have the option to get his spot back if business deems it necessary.

Needless to say, I was incredibly relieved that it wasn't me since I absolutely love to work out in the field. I feel bad for the other guy since he'd been in that position longer than I have, but my hard work and performance level assured me the spot. I'm also glad that neither of us were let go or anything like that.

Overall, my meeting was good, the store manager had many good things to say about me, so I'm happy. And my stress level immediately went down after he said that I wasn't being demoted. One plus side of this is I will be the only Double Agent for the Geek Squad here in Mankato (for those that don't know, I do on-site computer repair/setup/maintenence, wireless networking, etc) so all the appointments will go to me, keeping me busier and probably opportunity for overtime.

I've got a bad feeling about this

2008-10-09T17:10:00.002-05:00

For quite awhile, I had coffee in the morning. Two, maybe three cups, then I would go to work and that would be all the caffeine for the day. For a few weeks now, I have been starting to get headaches in the later afternoon and evening and I would usually wake up with one too. I get a very specific kind of headache if I haven't had caffeine in awhile and it is certainly not pleasant.

I don't like this reaction my body has, and I dont want to have to be consuming caffeinated products throughout the day, so I have quit caffeine more or less. Its been 3 days since I've had any morning coffee and I've had just a few Diet Cokes.

I haven't been doing too bad, but I do have a pretty decent headache going on right now. I took 800mg of ibuprofen about half an hour ago but there hasn't been much change. I dont feel too grumpy yet but I'm sure it will happen since that is also a symptom of caffeine withdrawl for me.

I would say by Tuesday or Wednesday I should be doing just fine. Its sure going to be a fun ride there and I apologize in advance if I'm mean to you.

My stance

2008-10-07T17:33:00.003-05:00

My new bumper sticker is here! Took long enough, jeez.

The 2nd debate between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are on tonight, but I'm not really sure if I'm going to watch it or not. I've known for a long time that I would be voting for Obama and I really don't need any more convincing, nor have I seen anything that would sway me from this decision.

I'm getting incredibly tired and a bit sickened at the extreme negativity of the McCain campain and the Republican party in general. I think there are a lot of people that would greatly prefer that the candidates stick to the issues and their stance on things, not making up rumors, spreading false information, and downright lying about their opponent. Unfortunately, the McCain campain cannot seem to do this. I guess McCain's "experience" also means he knows how to run a dirty campain, and he's certainly proven he has experience in this aspect.

So there it is, there's my political rant.

Monday

2008-10-06T22:17:00.002-05:00

Anna and I are very easily amused. Case in point: grocery shopping. It takes us about an hour to do and we actually find it to be fun. What isn't fun about going to the meat counter, picking out the perfect steaks while imagining how delicious they will be.

One bad part about the grocery store is the wide variety of coffee available for purchase. We got fancy and started buying the "gourmet" coffee in the bags in the whole bean variety. We have to grind it ourselves at home, which really isn't a big deal because we both agree that it is a much more tasty cup of coffee. The bad part about that is we are spoiled now. The cheap stuff really does not taste nearly as good, so we're stuck getting the expensive stuff now. Lesson learned: it's sometimes ok to settle for mediocrity if you don't realize that is what you've done.

Monday nights are also enjoyable because 3 of our favorite TV shows are on. Heroes, Chuck, and How I Met Your Mother. All are great shows and have something unique that appeal to us. Very glad we have a Tivo box that can record 2 programs at once for us, plus we can watch a program that has already been recorded. If not for Tivo, we would not be able to watch all 3 programs since some of them overlap.

One more down

2008-10-05T11:20:00.002-05:00

We had a great time celebrating my birthday last night. Anna and I went out for dinner with our friends Andy and Holly, had a delicious dinner and good drinks. Of course the staff had to come and sing happy birthday to me but I got a free dessert out of the deal!

Afterward, we all headed back to our house. Holly hadn't seen our house yet, so we took her on the grand tour and ended up in the basement where we played a few games of pool. Then it was out to the backyard where we had a nice fire, enjoyed drinks, and told stories and joked around. A good time was had by all.

Was a good birthday, I didn't have to endure too many "don't break your hip" jokes from friends and coworkers. Not that I mind anyway since I don't plan on acting like a grown-up for many years yet.

Saturday night's alright for fightin

2008-10-04T14:55:00.003-05:00

I suppose I should acknowledge that today is my 30th birthday. I've really had 30 of these things already? As long as it doesn't mean I have to stop giggling at fart jokes and silly hand gestures, then I'm fine with it.

Anna and I will be going out to celebrate with some friends this evening, which is always a good time. Nothing like steak and overpriced cocktails to celebrate any occasion, such as someone's birthday, the stock market going up, or just the simple fact that the sky is blue. Yay! The sky is blue! Lets have steak and cocktails!

Its me?

2008-10-03T15:17:00.003-05:00

Its not that I wasn't writing in here; I was abducted by aliens and was temporarily unavailable. But I'm back now so everything is back to normal.

I had to pick up a few essentials today: ground pork, hair gel, and coffee beans. These are going to be used independently of each other, not some crazy mad-chef concoction. The bored checkout girl asked the normal "paper or plastic" and I answered my normal "Paper, please."

I prefer paper bags since they are recyclable and will actually break down if they actually make it to a landfill, unlike plastic bags which will be around for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Here is my paper bag from the grocery store:

And this is what was inside. One bag of coffee beans, and whats this? 2 plastic bags? What on earth?

Now, wrapping the ground pork in a plastic bag sort of makes sense, just in case the sealed package was leaking (which they never do from my experience). But why on earth did she need to put the hair gel in a whole separate bag? Did it need to be protected from the sealed back of coffee beans? Is having the plastic hair gel container pressed up against a paper bag recipe for disaster?

You have to wonder how many plastic bags are wasted this way. I'm going to guess its in the tens of thousands every day in this fine country of ours.

I'm apparently not that interesting.

2008-07-23T21:57:00.001-05:00

I don't have much new to report on. I am over my cold, which is a relief. Work has been keeping me quite busy which is nice.

Hmm, I really can't think of anything else to share, so goodnight!

( )

2008-07-19T20:03:00.002-05:00

I've been battling a cold for the past couple of days and it is starting to gain the upper hand. I don't have much of a voice right now so I sound pretty pathetic when I try to talk or even laugh. At least I have the weekend off to recuperate before going back to work on Monday.

In other news, Anna and I have almost narrowed down what we will be getting for our Renaissance Festival outfits. Its pretty exciting and we are both looking forward to it next month.

Home sweet home

2008-07-12T09:48:00.003-05:00

I got back in town Friday evening, completely exhausted from both the intense training and the long nights out on the town with the other Agents there from the training. Our group did exceptionally well, the average grade on the exam for the group was 93%. I only missed one question and got a 98%.

We had a great time there, learned a ridiculous amount of information about troubleshooting and repairing Apple Macintosh computers. At the end of all the training, we got a great tour of the Best Buy corporate headquarters, sticking mostly to the Geek Squad-related areas. The founder of Geek Squad wasn't in the office when we went there, but they let us in to poke around and take pictures.

Our whole group went out to the parking garage where many Geekmobiles are kept along side the Geek Squad limo behind us. Click the picture to get a better view.

out of town

2008-07-08T16:21:00.003-05:00

I will be in Minneapolis Wednesday through Friday this week with my colleague from work getting certified to repair Apple computers. We're both very excited to go up there, learn about new technology, meet other agents from the Geek Squad, and see the sights of Minneapolis.

We convinced the management here to just put us up in a hotel, otherwise we'd have 3 hours of driving every day round trip to get there and back, which they would have to pay us for, and the gas for the vehicle. Much less stress that way, and we wont have to deal with rush hour traffic as much since we'll be right there.

Huge success

2008-07-05T19:16:00.002-05:00

Dinner yesterday went off without a hitch. The smoked ribs and homemade baked beans were absolutely delicious and everyone had a great time. We nice relaxing in the backyard with Anna and my parents, drinking beers and chatting. The weather was perfect and it couldn't have been nicer.

Right before my parents left, we loaded some wood they brought us into our shed in the backyard. I managed to drop the heaviest piece square on my big toe. Luckily it didn't break my toe but it hurts like hell, very bruised and a laceration (if that's the right word). It will probably be pretty sore for the next few days, but I'll live.

Stressed? naaaaah

2008-07-03T21:41:00.002-05:00

Anyone that knows me knows I absolutely love to cook. The more complex and time-consuming the cooking process, the better. For Independence Day here in the USA, I will be making BBQ smoked shortribs and smoked baked beans. Its about a 5 hour ordeal and I'm very excited. My parents will be coming over to spend time with us and enjoy the wonderful food as we celebrate our fine country's 232nd birthday.

This will be the first year Anna and I do not go up to the University to grill, hang out, then watch the fireworks show. We noticed it was the same exact fireworks show every year and it would be more comfortable to grill and entertain here at the house. That and there is no security here hassling us for grilling in the parking lot at the university. Like I was the first person to ever grill in the parking lot there. Maybe they've heard of a tailgate party before?

It is done

2008-07-02T21:58:00.003-05:00

I finished up the patio today and I feel great! It took 3 days to lay down all the bricks, but its finally done.

It looks a little goofy, but that's because of our yard. It is not even close to being level, so the patio somewhat follows the contours of the yard otherwise it would be way above it in some parts.

After dinner we celebrated by putting our chairs on the patio and making s'mores. It was a lot of fun and the fire was very successful now that we have dry wood.

Funny moment of the day

2008-07-01T22:55:00.003-05:00

We went grocery shopping tonight and Anna really wanted to get a watermelon. She found the perfect one and we were on our way. She was really excited to cut it open when we got home, after all the groceries were put away, she got the biggest knife we had and went at it. I heard a "What the F__K is this?!?!" from the kitchen and looked at the cutting board.

We somehow got a watermelon that is yellow on the inside. It tasted like a normal one, just yellow in color.

Pictures!

2008-07-01T09:08:00.002-05:00

Here is the lawn all dug up, ready for smoothing, sand, and bricks:

Load #1 of sand. 35 bags

I wasn't happy about having to go back and get another 20 bags

Sand all filled in, just have to place the bricks now

Apparently I'm still here

2008-06-30T22:20:00.002-05:00

Sorry I haven't updated lately. I'm trying to figure out what to do with the blog here. As of right now, its a journal of what I'm doing lately. A lot of the time, I don't do anything interesting so I'm trying to think of other things to write about.

The past couple days we've been working really hard on getting the walkway/patio done in the backyard. We are both worn out and very sore. It seems to be taking a long time for the relatively small size of it, but it is coming along very nicely. We gave ourselves a deadline of July 4th to have it done, and there will be pictures up once it is done.

Welcome home

2008-06-21T21:57:00.002-05:00

I picked up my computer yesterday from getting repaired. They replaced the video card in it and it works perfectly again! I wouldn't have been able to do that repair on my own without spending a lot of money on the parts for it, so I'm very glad I purchased the 3 year warranty.

I did some tree trimming in the backyard a few days ago and we finished picking up all the twigs and branches today. We cut them up into smaller pieces to use in our firepit in the backyard.

Work still continues on the brick patio and walkway as well. I decided that I wanted to dig down a little deeper than I had so I can place more sand as a base. We picked up some very high quality landscaping fabric today to keep weeds from growing up into the patio. Before we went to the store, we figured out about how much sand we will need: about 16 cubic feet of sand. The store sells sand in 1/2 cubic foot bags for $3 each. this is going to be expensive, and a lot of damn bags of sand. Oh well, go big or go home. And do it right the first time.

Video time!

2008-06-18T21:05:00.002-05:00

I found this video rediculously funny. Speakers are required for this.

I broke it!

2008-06-16T13:21:00.003-05:00

I have a rather expensive, and very awesome Apple Mac computer. It decided to stop working on Thursday and I was troubleshooting it for the next couple days. After exhausting everything I could think of, I determined it must have a defective part in it which would need to be replaced.

Unfortunately the closest location where there is an Apple Store is in Edina which is an hour and a half away. However, the computer is still under 3 year warranty so it isn't going to cost me anything. it turns out they need to put a new motherboard and video card in it, which are the 2 most expensive parts for it. Without warranty it would not have been economical to fix it so I'm very glad I bought the AppleCare 3 year warranty.

The guy that helped me there used to work for my company: Geek Squad. So we got along very well while he troubleshooted the computer with me. I had to leave it there so they could replace the parts and it is supposed to be ready at the beginning of this week. I really hope it is done on Tuesday since I will actually be up in that area for work so it wont require a special trip to pick it up.

Oh, you're still here

2008-06-13T22:03:00.003-05:00

The digging continues in the backyard in anticipation of the bricks. We've used the outdoor fireplace a couple times now but we haven't had much success. The wood we have is still rather damp so we will let it dry out for a week or so before another attempt at fire is made.

This country isn't so bad afterall

2008-06-06T17:20:00.002-05:00

As I'm sure you already know, Barack Obama has enough delegates to be the presumptive Demcrat party nominee for president. This makes me absolutely ecstatic! I watched his victory speech on TV that he gave at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, MN and wow am I impressed. Was an amazing speech, very passionate and well delivered. Hopefully come November he will become our next president.

I took the week off from giving plasma, and I'm going back tomorrow. Easy money! On the 11th, it is our 3 year wedding anniversary. We don't have anything planned yet and probably won't be taking a trip to Minneapolis like we did the last two years. With gas prices the way they are it would pretty much cost $30 in fuel just to drive there and back. Right now, that is a lot of money to us, so we're going to just keep it low key.

We have started a project in our backyard and hopefully we can get it done soon. There is a pathway made up of some bricks and they really didn't do a good job with it, they are uneven and not placed well. We pulled them all up and we are going to lay new ones down. A good friend of the family donated about 30 of them to us, we just had to pull them up out of her yard but they were ours to keep. They are beautiful blocks, 18" by 18". We have been digging up the path we are going to place them in, and digging down deeper so we can place a layer of sand first to help stabilize the blocks. We are also going to make a 54" by 54" patio right off the end of our deck which I'm sure we'll find a nice use for.

It is pretty hard work since we don't have a wheelbarrow, I am shoveling the dirt into a large container and carrying it about 30-40 feet over to where I am dumping all of it. The digging is easy but carrying the dirt is hard hard work. I would say we are over halfway done with the digging which is going to probably be the hardest part.

Wow!

2008-06-03T13:30:00.003-05:00

I had a great day at work yesterday. Business has been slow lately, but yesterday was quite busy for me. I had 3 appointments scheduled, but they were all very far apart. I ended up driving about 260 miles. I got to work early, about 7:15am and didn't punch out until 9:20pm. Half my day was just driving which was fine, I had plenty of podcasts on my iPod to keep me entertained.

I'm taking a break this week from giving plasma to give my arm a chance to rest and heal up. I've gone 4 times now and made $131. Its easy, very little discomfort. It would be great if I could give from my left arm too but it just didn't work very well, so it all has to come from my right arm's vein.

In other news, we're still eagerly awaiting our economic stimulus check. Since we had to pay in federal taxes this year, they don't have our direct deposit information so we have to wait for a check via snail mail.

We are also eagerly awaiting the results of the final Democratic primary elections to see if we may have a nominee today. Hopefully Hillary Clinton will do the right thing and admit defeat to Barack Obama so we can move forward towards winning the presidency.

You'll also notice links in this blog post. I'm going to start linking various terms that may not be widely used or common knowledge so people know what the heck I'm talking about. They will all link to Wikipeda which is a fantastic website.

Political rant time

2008-05-29T22:47:00.004-05:00

I've held off ranting on politics on here, but here it is.

I read a story about how this Dunkin Donuts ad is being pulled because of ONE person's complaining on her high-profile blog.

Here is a link to the story

This woman from Fox News named Michelle Malkin felt that the scarf that Rachel Ray is wearing in the ad "looks like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men." She then makes the claim that this is supporting terrorists. She basically makes the claim that anyone that wears one is a terrorist.

She wrote this column in her blog, I've never been there and after reading this article I definitely won't be paying her a visit. Her claims are so incredibly intolerant and racist that I can't believe anyone would take it seriously. That is the problem with blogs, any idiot can post up whatever they want. Hell, even I have one and you're reading it right now. But the problem is, there are no editors, and many times, no journalistic integrity.

Unfortunately she has many many visitors to her blog, apparently all of which share her same closed minded racist views. This caused an uproar and Dunkin Donuts decided to pull the ad to avoid negative reaction to it. I hate that one person's incredibly warped view on something can have this strong affect on things. Fox News in general seems to be guilty of this kind of thing all the time: distorting the news, having an obvious conservative stance on things yet constantly have graphic stories about sexual material, violence, etc.

It just seems that the past 7 years under the George W. Bush regime that this country has really suffered. Maybe it is just because I'm older and I notice more of it now, but it just seems that there is a lot more closed-mindedness, racism, intolerence, etc.

Witty topic goes here

2008-05-26T17:02:00.002-05:00

Today is Memorial Day here in the USA. I of course had to work which really is a good thing since it is overtime all day and we need money. Anna's sister Amelia visited us this weekend and had a good time. Not a whole lot else is new and exciting here and I'm going to go fire up the grill to cook up some chicken. yum!

Its Tuesday!!

2008-05-20T08:34:00.002-05:00

Anna and I are watching my mom's dogs while they are on vacation with Mom's parents. They aren't used to living in town, they bark at pretty much every sound: cars driving by, people walking in the street, foreign rustling leaves. Our cats are somewhat warming up to them, but there has been no inter-species playing yet.

I also gave plasma for the first time on Monday at Biolife Plasma Services. Plasma is one of the components of blood and is used to manufacture life-saving products to help people with certain problems. Takes about an hour and I get paid for it, so its a great way for us to pick up some extra money because we definitely need it.

Vehicles

2008-05-14T16:09:00.002-05:00

My VW Geekmobile is in the shop getting some work done on it, so I had to get a rental car. I'm driving a Mazda 6 right now which is a nice looking car but man I barely fit in it. I'm very tall, so I have little headroom in the Mazda. The little VW Beetle has a ton of headroom and much more comfortable to drive, so I'm really looking forward to the repairs getting done so I can have my VW back.

Everybody's workin for the weekend

2008-05-09T22:40:00.003-05:00

I finally convinced my manager to let me have weekends off and just work a normal Monday through Friday schedule. I never seem to have appointments scheduled on weekends, so it didn't make sense to have me working weekends.

It will be nice now, Anna and I will finally have the same work schedules and have the same days off. Yay for being normal

I'm in the wrong business

2008-05-06T21:51:00.002-05:00

Today I made some homemade bread and French Onion Soup. Seriously, this is some of the best food ever cooked. I want to make a gigantic pot of it and invite 100 people over to enjoy it with me.

We also cracked open a couple bottles of wine to enjoy with our soup and mmmmm what a good idea. Granted, we didn't exactly drink all of it since I used some in the soup. Needless to say, we're both feeling great! I'm sitting here enjoying one more evening cocktail and listening to classical music.

I was checking the regional symphony orchestras to see if any of them are having a Mozart or Bach night, but it doesn't look like it. If anyone knows of anything like that happening in southern Minnesota, do not hesitate to contact me to let me know when and where!

I love it

2008-05-05T19:27:00.003-05:00

Today is another wonderful day here in southern Minnesota. Evening temperatures in the 70's, calm winds, low humidity. I took advantage of the nice weather and cleaned some of the windows here at the house.

I checked on the GPS unit at work and I can get a discount on it, but there is no way to order one into my store. And Amazon.com sells the unit cheaper than I could get it at work with my employee discount, plus I wouldn't have to pay tax. So sometime we'll have to order it.

I have Tuesday off from work, so I plan on spending a good part of the afternoon baking bread and preparing my wonderful French onion soup. It takes a good couple hours to properly make the soup, and it is worth every second. Its hard to believe that a meal of soup and bread would be filling and satisfying, but one bowl of my French Onion soup, and you will understand.

Anna and I walked down to the local liquor store after dinner and bought some wine in preparation of the upcoming meals. They had such a good price on our favorite wine, we bought 4 bottles for only $32. A person can spend much more than that on just one bottle of wine.

SPRING!! OMG OMG

2008-05-04T23:29:00.004-05:00

It was a beautiful Sunday spring day here in Mankato, MN today. I woke up bright and early at 7am, as I always seem to on my day off. I put some coffee on after awhile and let Anna sleep in until 10.

I made a fantastic breakfast with leftover potatoes, fried up some bacon, added onions and asparagus and a few fried eggs. its hard to picture it, but it was absolutely delicious.

We then set out to find more Geocaches. Look back a few posts on here for my explanation of what that is. We ended up finding 5 of them today, but had some difficulty. We are using my cell phone to do it, which has a GPS chip built in. We have been finding though that it wasn't really designed to be used on foot, so it really doesn't register slow movements, making it hard to zero in on the location of the geocache itself.

We've determined that we are going to have to buy an actual GPS unit if we want to continue doing this. After some intense research, I have found the Garmin eTrex Venture HC is the best candidate for the job. Affordable, easy to use, great reviews. and its pretty, see?

We'll just have to figure out a way to pay for it since money is tight. I may be able to get it from work at a discount, and since we haven't needed to run our furnace, our gas bills will be significantly less, so we may actually be able to afford it pretty soon.

Even though we had equipment issues while Geocaching today, we had a fantastic time out walking. We stopped at several locations, a few of which went along the Minnesota River, which was absolutely beautiful. We probably hiked a good 1.5-2miles today which felt great!

Forgive me

2008-05-02T23:08:00.002-05:00

I have not written in this since Monday. My sincere apologies. Hmm, well no not really actually.

Not much new going on here at the Meyer household. Anna is doing great at her new job, it really sounds like management there wants her on the fast track to more responsibility, more complex assignments, and hopefully more pay!

I am a Minnesotan, so I am allowed to complain about the weather. Seriously, I'm ready for spring to happen. It should be any day now, but its 39 degrees, cloudy, and raining. I want spring, dammit!

I don't think I have anything else to report, time to relax for a bit then get to bed. Enjoy your weekends!

Mission failed

2008-04-28T21:19:00.004-05:00

When Anna and I got back from Orlando, it was getting close to dinnertime. We decided that it would be fun to go to that awesome Thai place we went to on her birthday when my brother Andy and his girlfriend Sarah were in town. We got it punched into the GPS and made our way over. The road construction confused us and we took a few wrong turns but eventually made it there.

We pulled into the parking lot and there were no cars there. I checked the hours on the door and a small sign said they were closed for remodeling. Talk about a disappointment. We didn't really feel like trying to find another place to eat since we aren't all that familiar with Minneapolis so we just drove home.

It was nice to see our cats after being gone for 4 days and they were very happy to see us. We didn't really have any food in the house so we went to the best pizza place in the state, Pagliai's Pizza in Mankato. Amazing amazing pizza. And they did not disappoint.

Behold the power of the internet

2008-04-25T20:06:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the rant, but since I've had a really bad experience with a company, I want to make it loud and clear how unhappy I am with it. Maybe it will prevent someone from giving them business.

I recently wrote about my bad experience in canceling my website hosting from 1&1 Internet. I finally got it cancelled and most of my money refunded. Now it could be my fault for not reading the hard to understand 15 page terms and conditions, but by cancelling my hosting, it also canceled the domain name I had registered: hyperchicken.com. I was unable to do anything with it now and in talking to their not-very-helpful tech support, I found that it is in some type of limbo. I can recover it by faxing them a form, calling a phone number, and paying them $40.

I'm sorry, but thats complete BS. Website hosting and having a domain name are two separate things, but they tie them together and are basically using extortion against me since I still wanted to keep that domain name.

It looks like I won't be able to use that domain name until it expires some time in 2009. So yeah, 1&1 Internet is a horrible company. Tell your friends and neighbors.