We survived the storm! Last week Mother Nature really hit Michigan with
some of that “pretty” white stuff. Wednesday afternoon, the snow started
to really come down. On the way home I got behind the flying V of snow
plows and that leg of my trip was easy going. Then I hit M-47, which is a
Freeway, but I sure wasn’t speeding along today… The highway was not
plowed and right down the middle of mostly farmland. The wind was
billowing across the open area and I couldn’t see more than 15 or 20 feet
in front of my car. There was atleast six or more inches of snow on the
ground and everyone around me wanted to go faster than my cruising speed
of around 15 mph… just because you have four wheel drive, doesn’t mean
you can see any better… Thursday after the storm, Susan and I spent
about 45 minutes shoveling the snow out of our driveway. It was upto two
feet of snow in some spots and our sub-division wasn’t even plowed! Making
a small dent in the road in front of our house (which was about a foot of
snow deep), we reared our cars down the driveway and managed to plow
through the snow. It was slow going to the end of our street, but it was
do-able. Then came Webster, it was actually plowed… but only on one
side, luckily no one wanted to go the other way while we were traveling
down this “one way” road! Yes the storm was bad, in fact there was an
alert released to Saginaw County the night before to stay off the roads as
people were getting stuck and abandoning their cars (in the middle of the
roadways!) I got to work without too much trouble, but my officemate
apparently got stuck twice on the way in, decided it wasn’t worth making
into work and got stuck twice on his way home!

I needed to get to work, because I had planned on taking Friday/Monday
off and needed to talk to my boss to make sure she was okay with that (and
she was!) The trek up north was easy going, the roads were clear and the
sun was shining. We stayed the night with Susan’s folks, and headed up to
Tech on Saturday. The statues were pretty amazing this year (as usual =P
), and hopefully I’ll have pictures up soon. It was a little cold, but I
didn’t need any of my snowgear I had brought. As the day went on, the
clouds came and soon it began to snow a little. We ended up getting a bite
to eat at The Library (the brewery, not the place with books 😉 ). The
service was pretty crappy, and we waited almost an hour before we got our
food. For some reason, we got behind a big table (the girls hockey team),
and our waiter wouldn’t bump up our order (he only got a 36 cent tip…)
After we ate, it was up to the McInnes Ice Arena to watch the Huskies play
Wisconsin. Our seats weren’t that great, but we had a good time, even if
Tech lost…

Winter Storm, part 2… The trip back to Michigamme was almost as bad as
my commute home from work a couple days before, luckily I wasn’t driving!
Visibility was poor, but the roads were plowed, and again people wanted to
zip by us. When a car did race by, I knew we would see him in the ditch,
and soon up the road we did… he was being helped by another person, so
we didn’t actually stop, but he sort of deserved it for going so fast in
crappy weather. The next day wasn’t much better and we ended up playing
Cranium pretty much the whole day. It’s a pretty fun game and everyone was
really getting into it in the end. After switching teams, the boys were
champions over the girls, but it was close (a little too close!)
Back to work, with still not much to do… I’m still working at Dow, but
I do have an interview this Friday! The whole thing moved really quickly
and the job involves actual programming, I’m pretty excited! The company
is DICE Corporation and is out of Bay City. If you want to take a look at
what they do it’s over here. Wish me luck!

Ever have one of those days you whished you hadn’t gotten out of bed?
Well, Monday was a day like that for me… I got up late and was on my way
into work. The roads were pretty typical and didn’t seem to be too
slippery, especially the freeway M-47. I was going along fine, until I
came to the exit ramp onto US-10 West. Before I knew it, I had hit a patch
of black ice and was quickly making my way towards the guardrail. I was on
the brakes as soon as I started sliding, but that did little to prevent me
from bashing the passenger side of my front-end into the guardrail.
Luckily my airbags didn’t go off, and my car didn’t stall out. I put it
into reverse, pulled myself onto the side of the road and waited for a
black hummer to pass… yes he saw the whole thing, and no… he didn’t
stop. I got out of my car, looked at the damage, checking if the tire
still had air and whether there was any fluid leaking… there wasn’t… I
hopped back in, fired it up and off to work I went. On the way, I tried
getting a hold of Susan, but she’s been having a hectic week lately and
couldn’t make it to the phone. A couple hours later I get a call from her
and told her what happened. She said I should probably call the police and
let them know I was in an accident (even though I didn’t get hurt, and was
the only one involved)… reluctantly I called and that was a lot of
fun…
Since I was at work, in Midland, I decided I would call the local Law
Enforcement Center:
“Midland Law Enforcement, how can I help you?”
“Hi, I’d like to report an accident that happened this morning.”
“All reports must be filed using 911.”
“Ok, thanks.”
“Your welcome, bye.”
Okay, so I had to dial 911…
“Midland County 911, what’s your emergency?”
“Hi, I’d like to report an accident that happened this morning.”
“Where did it happen at?”
“The exit ramp off M-47 onto US-10.”
“I think that’s Saginaw County, I’ll transfer you to their 911 service.”
“Okay…”
“Saginaw County 911, what’s your emergency?”
“Hi, I’d like to report an accident that happened this morning.”
“Where did it happen at?”
“The exit ramp off M-47 onto US-10.”
“I think that’s Midland County, hold on let me check…”
5 minutes later, “That’s not Saginaw County, let me transfer you to
Midland County.”
“I already called there, they transferred me to you.”
“Hmm…let me check again…”
10 minutes later, “Oh, you’re right, that’s Bay County let me transfer
you to their 911 service.”
“Kay…”
“Bay County 911, what’s your emergency?”
“Hi, I’d like to report an accident this morning”
“Where did it happen at?”
“The exit ramp of M-47 onto US-10.”
“Where are you at now?”
“At work, the Dow Chemical Co.”
“In Midland?”
“Yeah.”
“What time did the accident occur?”
“Around 8:00 AM.”
“Why didn’t you report the accident at the time it ocurred?”
“I didn’t realize I had to, I wasn’t hurt and it didn’t involve anyone
else…”
“Okay… how far from Bay County are you?”
“About 5 or 10 miles.”
“Well, I can’t send a Bay County trooper that far to take your report.”
“Can I set up a time to meet with a trooper in Bay County?”
“I can’t really set up an appointment, because after I hang up with you
I might get another call in…”
“I understand that, but what should I do?”
“Let me check something, hold on I’ll be right back…”
“Okay…”
10 minutes later, “It looks like Midland County has a trooper on duty
today, I’ll transfer you to their central dispatch…”
“Sure… thanks”
“Central dispatch, how can I help you?”
Okay, so I finally was able to get a hold of someone in Midland County
that could get a hold of a Bay County trooper to take my report… even if
I went through three 911 numbers to end up at the spot I started with…
Central Dispatch is in the Law Enforcement Center… pretty effective, I
know! After I met up with the trooper and gave my report, I learned that a
guardrail is considered another party… and if I damaged it, I would get
a citation… the trooper said he’d take a look and let me know later that
day… After meeting with the trooper I went over to the Credit Union to
talk with a Liberty Mutual representative, and was told how to file a
claim.

The rest of the work day was pretty boring, I left a little early
because I wanted to get a couple estimates on my car… my first stop was
Garber (dealership). The guy took pictures of my car and wrote it up as an
insurance claim (although I hadn’t called Liberty Mutual yet…) He gave
me a figure and said all I needed to do was call back and schedule an
appointment… I stopped in somewhere to ask where a body shop was, and
they said Daniels’ on Wackerly was pretty good, so I set off in that
direction. Not having an address I stopped in another place on Wackerly to
see if they knew where it was. The guy told me it was right after a street
called Dublin on the right, there was a bright red sign I couldn’t miss.
On my way out there I passed by a body shop, that had appeared to be
Daniels, but the sign was blue and I couldn’t be sure. I made my way up to
Dublin, but didn’t see any red sign, nor Daniels’… I thought, that must
have been the body shop, the two people were talking about and turned
around. When I got closer to the blue sign, I saw it was actually
Duane’s… It didn’t look like a great place, but there was an open sign
and I thought, what the heck… I pulled in and entered the door to find
the place wasn’t much more then a big two-story, two-car garage. Upon
entering I looked down to my right to notice a box full of empty beer
cans… hmmm… that’s interesting. So I asked the guy for a quote, he
grabbed piece of paper and we went out to my car. After getting the info,
we went back inside and he started working on the quote. While I was
waiting, one of the mechanics took the tab off a beer can and threw it in
the box of empties, hmm…that’s a little odd! Anyway, I got the quote
(and it was the cheapest), but I was quite skeptical of the establishment,
thanked the guy and left. I thought to myself, ok, that wasn’t Daniels’,
where is this place? I decided to go up past Dublin and found that
Daniels’ was quite a ways past it, but they were closed, shucks…
On my way home, I decided I’d go to one more place, the dealership in
Freeland, McArdle. The guy was friendly and quickly got a quote wrote up
and said he might be able to finish it in a day (whereas Garber would take
about three). I thanked him and left… Garber was the most expensive, but
they deal a lot with Liberty Mutual, and the cost to repair outweighed the
cost of the deduction and increase to our premium, so we decided to take
it there.

I had stopped at McDonald’s for a quick bite, I knew I was going to be
home late, and as I pulled up to the second window, my phone started to
buzz… I answered it, it was Matt, he wanted to play some racquetball
later. We agreed on a time and I was pretty excited, because the day
hadn’t been going very well. After eating, I got my gear on and headed off
to the MCC, being extra careful not to hit any guardrails. I picked up
Matt and we were on the courts pretty quickly. After the first game, I
noticed I was bleeding, sure enough I had a bloodnose. I headed off to the
bathroom to try and get it to stop bleeding. I couldn’t really breath for
the rest of our games and I was feeling pretty nauseous from the
McDonald’s I had ate not too long ago… I was still trying pretty hard
and our first few games were really close. Then, during the third or
fourth, after my server, Matt delivered a powerful forehand directly to
the side of my head. My ear started ringing, and it defintely stung for
awhile, but I still kept playing… After we finished seven games I had
more then I could take (though I didn’t lose a single one). Coming home
after that, I was sick and had a killer headache, and to top it off, my
car was pretty banged up… one of those days, you wished you hadn’t
gotten out of bed…

Luckily the next day was much better, no accidents, my headache
subsided, though my ear would still be sore for a couple more days. Worked
dragged on and I managed to make it through a couple boring days.
Wednesday night, I was ready to hit the courts again, I wanted to get some
practice in before my next match (scheduled for Sunday at 3 PM). I did my
typical warm-up of six laps (1/2 mile) on the track and made my way to the
courts. I was just about to start my practice, when someone I didn’t know
came up to me asking if I was looking for a pick up game. I told him I was
if he was… we introduced each other and man did we play some really fun
games. Apparently he comes with a couple other guys every Monday or
Wednesday and asked if I’d look to join them, I said sure, that’d be great
(things were looking up!) I did managed to beat him the first two games,
after a stunning come back down eight points in the first game… he won
the next three and we were kicked out before we could finish the last
game. It was still a lot of fun…

I somehow managed to get up really early for work and as per usual I
checked my email before leaving the house. My job scout, found two jops
that matched my skillset, I briefly looked at them, and thought I’ll apply
for these while I’m at work… Sure enough soon as I get to work and get
settled, I start the application process for each job. It was about two
hours later when I received a call from a 616 number (Grand Rapids I
thought…) Being a screener I let it ring, and thought, wait that one
company I applied for had an office in Grand Rapids. About two minutes
later I get another call from a 616 number (a different one). I thought,
okay I’ll answer this one, sure enough it was the company I had just
applied for, sweet! After talking a little with the guy, I found out I
don’t have enough “professional” experience to do the job… a Network
Security Analyst… I have a lot of experience working with networks at
home, but that wasn’t good enough for him, so I didn’t qualify for this
job. He said he’d hold onto my resume if something came up, but still it
was cool that I threw my resume into the dark abyss, only to get a
callback a couple hours later!

Winter is upon us, we did manage to make it out to City Forest last
weekend to break our ski’s in. It was pretty fun the trails were nice,
except for the people walking on the cross-country ski groomed part…
with snowshoes… Currently, we are supposedly getting 5-8 inches of snow
by 10 o’clock tonight, so maybe we’ll go out again this weekend, after
shoveling… My job’s really boring, I don’t have a lot to do, but to take
off for vacation next week to go up for Winter Carnival, I have to get a
bunch of stuff done for a project I’m working on… It would be doable,
but I don’t have any information for the stuff I need to get done, wow
that’s helpful… if it comes down to it, I might call in sick, saying I
caught whatever my office-mate had… shh, don’t tell anyone! Oh, I did
call into Liberty Mutual, and that was easy enough, though they didn’t ask
for our policy or the police report/incident number, which was kind of
strange… and I have an appointment to take my car in after Winter
Carni– err, when I’m feeling better, ;). Hopefully I’ll get some pictures
of the damage up soon…