So it’s always been an interest of mine to get a scuba diving certification.  This past weekend, I took my firsts steps in doing so.  The Clarksville Athletic Club (CAC) had a barbeque kick off for their Scuba Club and I was able to test out the gear and find out how neat it really was.  After going from one end of the pool to the other, I was ready to sign up for the 5 day training class (times yet TBD).  The best part was if you signed up that day, you got a 50% discount on the class!

In other news, I’m still commenting the 60 miles to work and back.  Things are going pretty good…  I seem to be getting things done faster then can be assigned to me…  Last Friday my boss finally gave me a project that should take some time to finish (as of writing this I’m almost half done…), so much for that. 😛  The commutes not so bad…  I figured out the traffic patterns and try to keep an ear on the traffic reports on my travels.  It should get even better when my car comes in (2012 Ford Focus).  Haven’t heard anything lately, but it should be built very soon!

We are still both training hard for the Nashville 1/2 Marathon that is rapidly approaching.  We’ve decided the CAC is not really all that great of a club and really wished we hadn’t entered a two year contract.  The big seller for me was the racquetball courts, but I soon found out having three courts and tons of people showing up on the challenge nights means not a whole lot of time playing…  maybe if I found a buddy that would take care of that.  The rest of the gym feels small for the number of people that go there, they could really use another facility (possibly on the other side of town… near us :)).  Once we finish the 1/2 marathon, and assuming I’m still breathing, I’ll start my training for a triathlon coming up in July (depending on how well that goes I’m thinking of doing another one later in the year).

Test posting from my phone.

Well, it’s about time I got this site back up and running… over the next few days I’ll be adding all my old blogs in this new format.  I should have some picture galleries up soon and plan to be making updates on a more regular basis!  This template’s nice, but there are some things I plan on changing in the near future, bare with me as I relaunch this site.

Well, it wasn’t the ideal weekend for a camping trip to Cedar Point, but
we still had a lot of fun! Around lunch time on Friday, we finally made
the go decision… I went home, took the dog out and loaded our camping
gear into the car. A quick phone call and a couple clicks on the internet
and the dog had a reservation at the kennel, us at the campground and
tickets to get into the park. After we dropped the dog off, we headed to
Ohio. We arrived at the campground around 10:30 PM… yeah it was pretty
dark there and the numbers on the sites were hard to read. We found our
spot, the only one left in the row… there were quite a few campers there
that got to see us put our tent up, in the dark.

Either the tent is getting easier to put up or we are getting better at
it, because I think we had a record time of 15 minutes getting it up.
After transferring our stuff from the car to the tent, I went to hook up
our extension cord to charge my phone, that was quickly running out of
juice! Unfortunately, there wasn’t a normal hook-up on our site, or any
sites nearby…

The next day I went to the office, they have power convertors we could
have used, but they didn’t have any left… I did manage to get my phone
charged up enough to call my sister to find out they wouldn’t be coming
this time… we’ll have to plan something a little further out next time.
🙂 We headed off to get some food and see if we could find a converter to
buy… Upon entering Meijer, I was in front of Susan and sort of talking
over my shoulder. I turn and realize she wasn’t there and she wasn’t in
the parking lot. Apparently when she said, at the camp site mind you, she
had to use the restroom, she thought it’d be alright to just take off
without telling me… After I found out she wasn’t abducted, we got our
food and some things we forgot to pack, but no converter. Thinking a
hardware store might be a good spot, we went over to Menard’s and didn’t
have much luck. They had a converter that went the opposite way of what we
needed… so close yet so far.

We got into the park and it was pretty dark out. We were able to get on
quite a few rides without waiting very long at all, then around two
o’clock it started to sprinkle and a lot of rides were being closed due to
the weather. We decided it was a good time to get some food and wait to
see if the rain let up. After eating, we headed back to our campsite and
it was still coming down… I’m not sure how Susan was able to sleep
through it, but it really started to pour and there was some thunder that
was quite loud. After her nap, the rain finally started to let up and we
headed back to the park. We were able to get on a couple rides and decided
to head over to Millennium Force. It was the 10th anniversary of the
Millennium Force and we noticed in line there was this guy with the
anniversary shirt, hat, and a number of Millennium Force pins on the
hat… I dared Susan to ask him if he liked this ride, but she wouldn’t do
it. 😉 We managed to get on the platform, a few trains back from the
silver gates when they had to close it due to rain. Since we were staying
nice and dry, we thought we’d wait it out. Several annoying teeny-bopper
stories later and quite a few people leaving, they sent a test train (it
was about an hour or so…) Then the next trains went and every cheered.
If I were to guess, I’d say Mr. Millennium Force could have shed a tear…
Millennium Force is a whole different ride at night, but man it is totally
worth the wait!

Packing a wet tent up is never fun, but we managed to get everything
back in the car and headed back home… blue skies and sunny with a few
clouds… go figure! We picked Waldo up from the Kennel and he was really
excited to see us, Scout on the other hand not so much… She just wanted
more food (and water!) All and all it was a pretty fun weekend!

Whoa…where has the summer gone, *ahem* and the updates to this site?
Last week my boss found we were heading for Nashville this year… things
will be interesting over the next couple weeks, it seems she has had it
out for me for awhile now… Both of the phone interviews lead to on-site
interviews… I already got my rejection from one of the companies and am
still waiting and hoping on the other job. We went to the bookstore to
pick up a GRE prep book for me, not sure if I see myself going back to
school, but it is something I have been thinking a lot about lately.
So far our summer has been pretty un-exciting (could be the reason for
lack of posts on here?) We had planned to go up north to stay with Susan’s
folks for the weekend of the fourth. Unfortunately I was unable to go. The
Friday beforehand I was told I needed to get a bunch of stuff done for our
client out in California. Not wanting to get sent on site again, I stayed
down and worked through the weekend. Susan took the dog and found out he
isn’t really fond of the water.

As you can see on the gym page, I’ve been able to do quite a few races
this year. My times seem to be getting better overall, but my best times
are when it’s raining out… who said running in the sun was fun? I’m
still trying to get my training in for my triathlon in September, it’s
getting closer, and I’m getting more excited. I’m getting a lot better in
the water and am pretty sure I won’t drown during the event. There’s been
talk of doing a 1/2 marathon in Nashville next year, whether we sign up is
yet to be determined.

All the extra work I put in to getting our client live, I was still sent
on site a couple weeks ago (whatever happened to restricted travel?)
Things went a lot better this time, most likely because I wasn’t sent by
myself… They actually bought lunch for us a couple times and took us out
to dinner! We went to a few different places, including a Mediterranean
cafe, an Indian restaurant, and a seafood place. It was all really good,
especially the seafood place. Our customer is finally seeing what it is to
deal with the third party company in the project and I think they realize
it’s not us that’s the problem… hopefully we will get them running our
new software soon with no problems (or I’ll have another job 😀 ).

It was our annual users group last week, and I had to give a
presentation Monday. Luckily I got there early, as my boss said her laptop
was set, but she never tested the software. I spent a good 45 minutes
getting everything set up so I would have something to show during the
demo of the software I had been working on. I spent some time talking to
one of the video vendors later in the week, and the things they are doing
was pretty slick. They were excited about the video software I had created
(…if only they were located in Tennessee!)

Things are quite busy in the Jeske household as of late. Susan found out
about a job opportunity, with Corning, in Clarksville, TN. So, my job hunt
focus will now be going south (quite literally). I’ve applied for a dozen
or so jobs and have had two phone interviews already! Hopefully, I’ll hear
something back this week. Once I land a job down there, it’s two weeks at
DICE and I’ll be heading to Tennessee. Susan still has a few more months
left to finish her MBA and will probably move at the end of this year…

Scout’s become more adventurous towards Waldo, although she doesn’t
really care for him much. She will come down stairs nowadays, usually
begging for food. Most of her time is locked away in the dark on her
“throne”. We decided to scrape the toilet training, Scout seems set in her
ways and things weren’t progressing well. Waldo has gotten a lot bigger
(probably close to 50 lbs) and has lost a lot of fur… We took him in for
a haircut and he got shaved down… he actually doesn’t look quite so bad
anymore, maybe I’ll get a picture of him up soon.

We’ve had a couple races since the last time I posted… Susan’s still
doing good, finishing in the top of her age division. I managed to improve
my time a little bit in May, but for some reason the race earlier this
month was a tough one. The Pinconning CheeseTown challenge is coming this
weekend and I’m hoping to improve my pace time (even though it is a 5 mile
race 🙂 ). I’ve officially started my triathlon training last week… I’ve
already paid, so it’s too late to back out now! If you head over to the
gym page you can see my goals for each week in the three different sports,
so far, so bad… I didn’t quite make my goals last week… by the end,
there should be a lot of green on that table! 😀

Wanting to get the most out of my bike, we went to the bike store last
Thursday to pick up some clip-less pedals. For those not familiar clip-less
pedals are actually pedals you clip into (makes sense, doesn’t it?) You
wear these really spiffy looking shoes, that aren’t very much fun to walk
in, and become one with the bike. After installing the pedals, I tested
clipping in and out in the driveway and in front of the house… I was
ready, or so I thought… We hit the trails and the first stop we come to
I un-clip the right side and somehow started leaning to the left. Luckily,
I was able to get my left foot out in time before I hit the pavement… I
wasn’t so lucky last night. We were just about done with our ride and one
of the last stops, I really was one with the bike, all the way down to the
ground. I caught myself and didn’t really scrape my knee too bad… I
guess I must not have hurt myself that bad, as when Susan asked if I was
ok, she just kept going… I got back on my bike, only thing that really
was hurt was my pride. 😉

Job update… I had a phone screening with Dow for a DB Administrator
position! They sounded pretty interested in me on the phone, so who knows
maybe I’ll get a call back for an interview… although they said they
were considering a large number of candidates for the position (keep your
fingers crossed 🙂 ). This past weekend was quite the busy one. Saturday
Susan and I went to the gym together. She wanted to break in her new
Reebok fit shoes, and I was itching to get on the racquetball courts. As I
start putting my gym clothes on in the locker room, I noticed I forgot to
pack a pair of shorts. I ran over to Dunham’s, but by the time I got back,
my fellow racquetball players were gone, oh well there’s always Monday…

I managed to get the lawn mower out and as I was finishing up the
backyard… yes… it was snowing… lightly, but noticeable. Later that
night, we went to the Midland Center for the Arts for an orchestra
concert. It was… interesting… The first half was solar system themed,
and they had a couple narrators read a passage at the beginning of the
pieces. In the backdrop they had a large projection of various stars and
planets, which for some reason stuttered a lot… The second half, a huge
choir came out and in my opinion was more enjoyable.

After checking the forecast for the hundredth time, we were almost ready
for the 6K race in Midland on Sunday (it was gonna be a bit chilly 🙁 ).
Before the race, we headed over to the Verizon store to get our phone bill
discount squared away and decided to stop into Quizno’s for a bite to eat.
No… Quizno’s wasn’t my idea nor my ideal choice for a pre-race meal, but
alas that is where we went. After picking up our packets and catching up
with Susan’s sorority sister and fiance, the race was about to start. We
headed over to the start line (runners in front, walkers in back…
runners in front, walkers in back… runners in front, walkers in back…
ok I think we get it…) Carl Lewis was there and told us the MOST
important part of the race was to not go out too fast (pssh, fun, what’s
fun?) The start seemed to come really quick… “Runners on your
markBANG”… yeah there was no pause or “Get Ready” or anything… Even
though it was my fastest pace and would have been my fastest 5K and my
first 5K under 30 minutes I was told I needed to try harder… (fun,
what?) Susan got second place in her age division, beaten once again by
her sorority sister… maybe someone else needs to try harder. 😉
Well… I finally did it, I am now committed to doing a Sprint Triathlon
up in Tawas on Sept. 11. I’m hoping to get some updates to the Gym section
so you can see how my training is going. If all goes well, who knows maybe
I’ll switch to the Olympic length. 😀

I hit the two year mark at DICE a couple weeks ago, things are going
pretty good. I’m still working on my video application that is really
starting to take off. I guess it helps when the only other company that
produces a similar product is going out of business… Although, I did
take a personal day last Wednesday to take a trip down to Detroit. It
wasn’t a sight-seeing kind of day, although I went to parts I hadn’t seen
before. I was at the federal building for a few hours taking the FBI Phase
I exam. I found out recently I failed that exam, but I can take it again
in six months if I want. I’m not sure if I’m going to take it again, IF I
do pass I need to pass the physical fitness test with at least a 16 (12 is
the FBI minimum, but the Detroit office requires a 16) in order to go to
the next phase. I’ll probably take it if I’m able to pass the PFT by then
(it’s pretty tough… you can check out the requirements on the FBI’s
website…)

Waldo’s been home for a few weeks now, he seems to be getting bigger and
bigger every day. As of lately he hasn’t been having a lot of accidents in
the house (which is a good thing 🙂 ). Scout and Waldo are pretty much
mortal enemies. We ended up moving all of Scout’s stuff to the upstairs
bathroom (she wouldn’t use the litter box because that would require going
past the dog…) She pretty much spends all her time in there now, which
she seems happy… maybe they will get along some day. We are training her
to use the toilet instead of a litter box, it started off pretty rocky,
but since the upstairs move, she is actually starting to do a lot
better… We bought a Litter Kwitter, which basically is a litter box that
sits on the toilet. As the cat gets more used to the idea, you can put
different trays in with bigger and bigger holes. Right now, Scout is at
the no-hole phase and actually using the Litter Kwitter while it’s on the
toilet (something she wouldn’t do before).

St. Patrick’s day came and went and the Sunday after we were in Bay City
for the annual St. Patrick’s day race! I ran the 5K while Susan did the 5K
walk. I managed to beat my best time ever… Susan also did really good,
she got third place in her age division… and beat my super-competitive
boss! Susan also did a 4 mile walk the next Saturday and got second place
in her age division (beaten only by one of her sorority sisters she signed
up with).

Mexico

If you haven’t heard, Susan and I took a little trip down to Mexico in
January. One of Susan’s sorority sisters had a destination wedding, and we
thought this was the perfect excuse to get out of cold, snowy, Michigan.
Our trip started off pretty early (before the sun was up) as we made our
way down to Detroit. We took Susan’s car, so that meant I got to ride
shotgun. As most of you know, a good “avigator” gets the directions and
plots a route to make it easier on the driver. Since we’ve been to Detroit
Metro before, I figured it would be easy enough to wing it… As we were
getting into Detroit we managed to time it just right to hit rush hour
traffic (glad I wasn’t driving 😉 ). Whether it was early morning or
stress from so many cars around, Susan doubted I knew where we were going.
I told her to watch for the big sign that had “Detroit Metro Airport” on
it. Susan knew Detroit Metro wasn’t actually in Detroit, and expected not
to see such a helpful sign. Just as we rounded a corner, sure enough there
was a big blue sign that told us where to go… had it in the bag all
along. 🙂 We managed to get our bags checked and through security and
still had plenty of time to sit and wait for our flight…

The flight out of Detroit was on time and went smoothly, our connection
out of Chicago on the other hand was not so much. We boarded on time, but
had to wait on passengers from connecting flights. After at least 30
minutes with no one getting on, the pilot comes over the speaker to tell us
there was a problem with a light bulb. This particular light bulb was for
when the plane lost power, the pilot’s would still be able to navigate
using the control panel (probably important…) Finally, the connecting
passenger’s boarded and we were hopeful to take off soon, but it was
at leastan hour before we pulled away from the gate. Since it was pretty
cold out, we needed to get de-iced, well we waited in line for the de-icer
and that took a good 30 to 40 minutes. We started taxi-ing and before you
knew it, we were off, a couple hours later than expected.

We landed in Mexico and it was a nice change to see the sun shining.
Normally I don’t have problems flying, but I had a head cold this time and
my left ear was plugged up pretty bad… I couldn’t hear much over the next
couple days. The line to get into Mexico was crazy long and we spent quite
some time waiting with foreigners that had no personal space bubble
issues. Once through customs, we were ready to get to our resort. We found
our shuttle (the guys with the sexy flower shirts) and were soon on our
way. There were a few others on the shuttle and I think we were the second
to last ones off (which meant we didn’t get to the resort until late
evening). The resort we stayed at was really nice and we were happy to
finally be in Mexico, where the sun is always shining (or so we thought).

The next day, we met up with Susan’s sirority sisters on the beach. We
sat in the sun (and partial overcast) and relaxed, until the wedding party
left to go get ready for the wedding. We took this oppurtunity to explore
the resort and go monkey hunting (apparently the resort had monkeys that
came to the grounds, though we didn’t actually see any…) The wedding
was nice, although the armed guards roaming the beach in the background
was an interesting sight. There was a mariacchi band and drinks on the
beach after the ceremony. Someone got a pretty strong mojito and must have
been feeling pretty good before dinner. 😉

The resort was pretty big (it was technically two resorts in one) and
had four different restaurants you could go to (Italian, Mexican,
Japanese, and American Steakhouse). Dinner was at the American Steakhouse.
After dinner, we went to the beach, where a small hut serving drinks was
open for us. Apparently if you’re Greek, that means you need to drink a
lot… Susan was looking kind of tipsy, but the night wasn’t over yet. We
headed over to the DiscoTeca… where there was a dance floor, and of
course more liquid refreshments. It was getting pretty late, Susan and I
called it a night, but the rest of the crew stayed until they closed it
down.

The next day was a day of recovering, *ahem* for some of us… It wasn’t
particularly nice out… overcast and a bit chilly. We were invited on an
excursion with the rest of the group, but we had made plans for an
excursion the next day. This actually turned out in our favor, we found
out it was rainy and they didn’t really have a good time. We hung out in
the resort, read our books, and tried to find those darn monkeys.

Our excursion was quite the trip… we signed up for Tulum Extreme. This
included seeing the Mayan ruins and some extreme sports, zip-lining,
repelling, and snorkeling. We got up early and waited for our shuttle to
show up. Any where you go in Mexico, it seemed you needed to go through a
security checkpoint (atleast at the touristy places). After a half-dozen
checkpoints picking up the rest of the group from various resorts, we were
on our way. We headed off on what seemed to be a highway until we started
slowing down and turned onto a dirt road… no signs, no nothing. A couple
miles down this road, we pull off onto a two rut road with a gate. The
driver gets out, unlocks the gate, pulls through and locks the gate behind
us. As we’re traveling down this “road” through the jungle, we started to
wonder what we had gotten ourselves into.

We finally pulled into an area with other shuttles… and people, whew!
After putting our bags in lockers, we were fitted with harnesses and given
some instructions on our first activity… zip-lining. The climb up the
tower was interesting, they were pretty high up and the stairs weren’t
really level or the same size. Although the shortest, I think the first
line was the most exciting, mostly because I hadn’t done anything like
this before… There were three runs and it was really a lot of fun! After
zip-lining, we got to do repelling. Another short lesson before we started
and up the tower we went. I thought it would be down a rockface or wall or
something, but it was actually a free-fall repel. It was pretty thrilling
to walk backwards over the step at the top of the tower… and after I got
my picture taken, I went down… fast! 🙂 Susan was a little unsure of
repelling, but she was happy she did it.

It wasn’t a really hot day (like we thought Mexico would be), so we were
kind of anxious about the snorkeling part. We headed down to the cenota
(kind of like a cave with water in it) and put our snorkeling gear on. As
we got in the water, I was pretty surprised, it didn’t feel at all cold to
me… one of the couples commented it was warmer than the outside pool at
their resort. Our guide look pretty chilled, but he got in the water and
lead us through anyway. After drying off and changing clothes, it was
lunch time. The cooks at that place were awesome, we had some of the best
grilled chicken I had ever had. Once we got back on the shuttle, it was
time to go to the Mayan ruins… Unfortunately we weren’t actually allowed
to climb the stairs or touch the ruins, but it was still really neat to
see.

We got back to the resort later in the afternoon and hung out with
Susan’s sorority sisters until dinner… we had made reservations at the
Japanese restaurant. You get to sit around a hibachi grill and the cook
comes out and does a performance while he cooks your meal. Even though I
didn’t catch the shrimp in my mouth, after the cook flung it at me, the
food was great and we had a really good time.

The next day was our last day, and it was beautiful out… figures…
Once we got to the airport, we needed to check our bags and get our
boarding pass… no easy task. The line for our airline was big… almost
as bad as getting into Mexico… We finally get to the counter at least an
hour later and had our boarding passes in hand. We were pretty hungry, so
we got a quick bite to eat… heading the warning of a co-worker to stay
away from the nachos… Our flight started boarding shortly after we
finished eating. Once our group was finally called, we had to go through a
security inspection. Little did I know, Susan was going to try to hi-jack
the plane (ok… not really). She had a thumb drive on her (don’t ask me
why =P ) that the end retracted on and security didn’t know what it was. I
had gone through with ease and was wondering what the heck was going on…
After going through EVERYTHING in Susan’s carry-ons, including opening
perscriptions, she got the OK to board… The flight back was pretty
uneventful after that.

Although a short trip, it was a fun one, maybe we’ll go back some day!
😀

Work

Work has not be fun lately… my new motto is “They keep paying me, so I
keep showing up…” We’ve been told to work a set number of hours for the
past couple of months that has been well over the typical 40. I’m still
waiting for them to give us a requirement less than 40 (hah, like that’ll
ever happen). If you recall (or you can check out pretty much the only
blog for last year) I had a business trip from hell. Well, I didn’t
realize it, but that trip actually seemed pretty good compared to the one
I went on last December. I’ve been working on a video viewer application
and I was to deploy it on site. What I was told was not what the client
was expecting (yay communication!) I was in Ontario, CA (about an hour
south of L.A.) for about a week. The first day I got in late afternoon and
was a short day. I talked with their IT guy and the project lead about
what I was told and what they wanted, needless to say they were a little
disappointed and definitely upset.

I went back to the hotel… and for some reason I got the company’s
worst laptop and my programming environment wouldn’t compile anything. I
had grabbed the installation discs before I left and tried installing and
re-installing to no end. Finally, I decided to download a free
environment, which took quite a few hours on the hotel’s slow internet
connection. I finally got my laptop set up and was ready to code the next
day (or so I thought…)

I wasn’t given an entry code or fob to enter the building, so I had to
rely on someone being there when I got there. I knocked on the door and
rang the bell (which I found out before I left was broken…) No one let
me in. I jumped in my rental car, pulled my laptop out and starting
programming. The project lead showed up, but must have missed me as she
looked like she was in a hurry… I tried packing up my laptop and jumping
out, but I was a little too slow. This time I noticed a number in the
window. Gave that a call, managed to get a hold of the IT guy and he let
me in. This day was a long day, but I did manage to fix some bugs in our
software. The video portion wasn’t working quite to their liking… I
tried my best to replicate what their old software did, but it wasn’t
going well. I was in contact with my co-workers, but they couldn’t really
help me. I left this day feeling a little optimistic tomorrow had to be
better (hah!)

After I got back to my room, I decided to take a walk and went to the
mall not far from the hotel. It was one of the biggest malls I had ever
been in and was pretty impressive. After clearing my head, I went back to
the hotel room and started programming. It was getting late and I hadn’t
made much progress, but I thought I was on to something. The next day I
was stuck outside the central for only a few minutes, as someone actually
heard me knocking on the door this time. This day was by far the worst and
by late afternoon I was pretty stressed out. While I was working, people
would come in and talk to me and I would explain what I was doing (or
trying to do). Apparently the central owner came in (I wasn’t introduced,
but I guess that’s no excuse) and I told him I don’t know why it’s not
working or when it would be done, but I was trying my best. He seemed
pretty irate and stormed off. About 15 minutes later, the IT guy comes in
and tells me that I shouldn’t tell the owner I know jack-shit about a
project and that I should just go home. Yeah that was pretty nice, so I
packed my stuff up and went back to the hotel…

Another late night of coding and a call to Susan for moral support, I
was glad I had only one more day left on my travel. I actually made some
significant progress that day, I was able to demonstrate how the software
would work… eventually… but the project lead and IT guy weren’t too
impressed and wanted nothing to do with it until it was finished.
I’m not sure how I got stuck with my return flight, but it was not very
much fun. I returned my car, and got to the airport around 5 pm pacific
time. My flight out of California was at 7, and I landed in Phoenix an
hour later. I started walking around the airport, but couldn’t seem to
find my connecting flight. I must have looked lost, because one of those
cart driver guys asked if I needed help. I told him I was looking for a
Delta flight and he said hop on. There wasn’t hardly anyone in this
section of the airport, so we were cruising along pretty good when he
asked if I was sure I was looking for a Delta flight. I pulled out my
itinerary and it said Delta, even though my boarding pass had a different
airline on it (because I printed it from their kiosk). He brought me to an
exit and told me I had to go to a different terminal. Afterwards he
mentioned he didn’t work on tips, but if I wanted to tip him I could. I
gave him a couple bucks, reconfirmed how to get to the terminal and I was
off.

I ended up leaving security and had to go through it once again when I
got to the new terminal. I’ve been on quite a few flights lately and I
never had to take my shaving kit out of my carry-on. Well, as I was
pushing my bag into the x-ray machine, the operator clearly indicates to
remove all liquid items from your bags. I tried grabbing my bag, but it
was too late… oops! The operator than announces to remove all liquid
items from your bag and proceeded to list all the contents of my shaving
kit in an unfriendly manner. My bag was ran again and I had to have
someone inspect the contents of my shaving kit, including a chemical test
on my bottle of contact solution.

I got to my gate and had a few hours to wait, I was flying on the red
eye that left just after midnight. I must have been tired, because I don’t
remember much of that flight. I got in Atlanta around 6 am eastern time,
my flight here left at 9. If you’re thinking this flight plan wasn’t a lot
of fun, your right it wasn’t. I landed in Detroit a little after noon and
FINALLY made it home around 2:30.

I somehow managed to rack up 80 hours of work time in five days…

Winter Carnival and Puppies

We went up to Winter Carnival this year and even though the snow statues
weren’t AS impressive as they normally are, it was still a lot of fun. We
drove up Friday night and stayed the night in Michigamme. The next day we
headed up to Houghton and met up with a couple we knew. They had already
seen the statues, so we went out on our own. It was sunny and a little
chilly, but a nice day nonetheless. We had dinner reservations at the
restaurant on the top floor of the hotel downtown (the restaurant name
always seems to be changing). We had a window table and were able to see
the ski-torch parade and fireworks. That was a lot of fun.

After dinner, we headed back to our friends house. They had recently
gotten a cockapoo and she was really cute. We had been talking about
getting a puppy… a flyer had gone around at Corning for labradoodles…
and I think when we saw that cockapoo, it sealed the deal. We had gone to
see them before their eyes were open and they were pretty cute than. We
went back later to pick one out, and Waldo will be coming home next week
(not sure how Scout is going to like that, but it should be interesting 🙂
).

Fitness

As you might have noticed, there will be a new section to my website.
I’m going to try to keep track of my progress of 5Ks and my workout time.
Mostly for me so I can update it anywhere, but feel free to check it out.
😉 I have been playing a lot of racquetball recently and have more wins
than losses in my league. I really wish another one started up for the
summer. I’ve actually been debating upgrading my racquet, so I headed over
to a couple of sites online and signed up for the demo program. The first
racquet I got was the most expensive of the three, but it was really nice
and I’m tempted to get it… I’m still waiting for the other two to come,
but from reading online, I’m still leaning towards that first one I got.
I’m still trying to get in shape and am still running those 5Ks. I
already ran my first one for the year, in Montrose. Seeing as how I ran
this one last year, I figured I’d be able to find it pretty easily. I
printed off a handful of directions and left with plenty of time to get
there. Well, I guess I should have brought my avigator with me, as the
directions weren’t quite accurate and I somehow got turned around in
Saginaw. After retracing my steps, and getting on the correct road south,
I finally saw some familiar sites and new I was almost there… which was
a good thing, because the race was starting soon… I got to the school,
found a spot to park and headed to registration. They couldn’t find my
name to give me my packet… luckily I had looked the day before and knew
my number… sure enough my name was on that package. I tossed the shirt
in my car, quickly put my number on and headed to the start line. It was
probably less than 30 seconds and the race had begun (…no sense in
cutting it close or anything…) The sun was shining, the wind wasn’t
blowing, and I was packing some handwarmers. I wasn’t as cold this year as
last year, and had a lot of fun. I didn’t stick around long and headed
back home (the right way) with a 5K under my belt to start the year.

Playstation

I must have been a good boy last year, because Santa brought me a PS3
for Christams. I know I was promoting the Wii… and for good reason (it’s
still topping the sales charts), but the need for an upgrade was there. We
have an HDTV and having a video game console that could play blu-rays
seemed to make sense. 🙂 After getting everything set up, we watched our
first blu-ray, The Dark Knight, and I was hooked… and not sure if we
could go back to watching standard definition. 😉 I signed up for a
Gamefly account, which is kind of like Netflix but for games (…and a lot
slower…) and have been fighting for TV time ever since. We also have a
streaming disc that allows watching things off our Netflix account
instantly to our TV which is pretty cool… I was surprised how flawless
it looked, it was like watching a DVD, but over the internet…

Class

As some of you may know, I took an accounting class last fall. Before
our final, we had a chance to earn some extra credit by taking a ten
problem exam during class. Each question was pretty detailed and it was an
all or nothing kind of thing, and each worth ten points. Silly me, I had
forgotten to grab my calculator before I left for work. I get to class and
found out I wasn’t the only one who forgot one. The professor did have an
extra one, but I was the second to ask… I told him I had a basic
calculator on my cellphone and he said it was alright to use. After
getting through the first couple of problems, my phone starts vibrating…
it was a call from one of the guys I was to play racquetball with that
week. So, I hit the button to ignore it and continued with the exam. Sure
enough, ten minutes later, I get another call… I bet that didn’t look
suspicious… at all… I must have done decent on the exam, I think I got
7 out of 10, which meant a whopping 70 points of extra credit… I didn’t
necessarily have to take the final, but I did and ended up with a 98% in
the class! 🙂

Eyes

It was that time of the year when I had to get my eyes checked and
contacts ordered. I signed up for an appointment at Lenscrafters and
intended to get the contact brand I’ve been using for quite a few years
now. During my appointment, they kept asking if I wanted a scan of my eye
and were surprised to hear I had a previous eye injury (even though I
mentioned this before…) After getting my prescription and telling the
sales associate what brand of contacts I wanted, she outright told me they
would be more expensive then this other brand. I told her I’ve tried other
brands before and they didn’t work out for me. She said these were
different… so I said fine I’ll try them. I ordered two boxes (they had
two in the store) and was told I could take them back if I didn’t like
them.

One week later, I was back and said I didn’t like them and wanted to
order the brand I liked and didn’t care if they were more expensive.
WELL… it turns out the brand I wanted was 35 bucks a box and the brand
she wanted to sell me were 50 bucks a box… Yes, that’s right what I
wanted was less expensive then what she sold me. After returning the four
boxes I had and ordering the other brand, the price “magically” ended up
being the same. I had gotten a discount on the brand that cost 50 bucks a
box, but it was still nine dollars more than what I should have paid. I
wasn’t really worried about the nine dollars and was happy to just have
the contacts I wanted. I decided right then I would not be going back to
Lenscrafters… ever…

Funny thing is I got this thing in the mail the other day from them,
thanking me for going back to Lenscrafters. Well, there was an online
survey I got to take and I told them exactly what I thought of their
services…

The deck is really starting to come along now! We only have the border
boards to go around the frame, some feet for the railing and a little glue
to keep stuff from blowing off (mostly the caps on the posts). We managed
to get our patio set out this past weekend, and it looks really good on
our shiny new deck. Little did I know the boards we needed and had order
were already in at Home Depot, but they decided not to tell me. We went
grill shopping (my birthday present from Susan), and I was able to
convince them to put the grill on the truck with the boards and have it
all delivered this week (at no charge 🙂 ). Last week was our first week
of “real” summer, but it started off with a downpour.

The Pig Gig was in town August 6-9 and we had decided it would be fun to
run the 5K. Little did we know it was going to be a chilly, rainy run.
When we got there, we made our way to the registration tent, which had a
huge line. We registered online and thought that was the late registration
line, we were wrong. If you were a late registration, you could go to the
front of the line (makes sense, doesn’t it?) After standing in line, in
the rain for awhile, we noticed the start time was quickly coming up!
Lucky for us, they wouldn’t start until everyone was registered, but by
the time we threw our shirts in the car and got to the start line, it was
time to go! I managed to beat my last time by two minutes and Susan stayed
ahead of her competition! After the race we met up with one of my
co-workers waiting for the times. He decided it was not worth sticking
around and took off, we followed shortly afterwards. Cold, soaking, and
exhausted, we hit up the local Tim Horton’s for a hot cocoa and something
to eat. We both took naps later that day, but it was actually a lot of
fun.