I hope everyone else had a good Thankgiving, I know I did. We started off on our Turkey-Day break bright and early Wednesday morning. Me and Susan drove (mostly me… ok all me =P) down to Farmington, MO to visit my folks. The trip was suprisingly uneventful, though there was a half-dead deer still kicking in the middle of the interstate. We didn’t even get lost either, well except for the slight detour in Inidianapolis (got to drive by where Peyton plays) and missing one of our first turns. In the end it took us just under eleven hours to get there. I brought the Wii and had that hooked up, I think everyone was impressed (told you it was worth camping out for!) Joey Joey Joey had a happy Thanksgiving as he and his mighty Dolphins bested the Lions (I thought they always win on Thanksgiving…) Aside from that dinner was excellent. The turkey was deep fried and Susan made candy-yams and chutney. The turkey was delicious and the yams were good (albeit a little sugary) and the chutney was good (if you like cranberries…)
Before going, me and Susan decided it would be fun to go to the zoo and check out the Anheuser-Busch brewery. We spent all day Friday at the zoo and had a good time. We even got to see the baby elephant (someone was getting anxious about that…) The brewery was neat to see, there were even a few clydesdales hanging around, but I would have liked to seen the bottling plant in action. We also learned how the “professionals” remove a tree by using a jack-hammer (not even joking…)
All and all it was a pretty good break, I got to play a lot of pool (and Wii when I had a chance). I learned how to play a pool game called “Melvin” which is pretty neat until you figure out how to shoot the balls (then it gets pretty lame shooting the same shots over and over again). We ended up taking more stuff back with us then what we left with (yeah… it’s my junk, but hey it’s mine!) The drive back was a mere ten and a half hours (we made pretty good time, no turn-arounds in Indianapolis). Other than that, just trying to get back into work mode after a nice relaxing break.

Well as you may or may not have heard, I got a Wii this weekend, w00t! Oh yeah there’s a big story behind it too. So about 8 o’clock PM, on Saturday, me and Susan headed to Wal-mart to wait in line for a Wii (they were doing a midnight release). Online an uncofirmed report of 53 were suppose to be coming to the store. We saw the long line and figured we probably wouldn’t get one, Meijer here we come (also doing a midnight release). We went to the electronics department where atleast twenty people were in line. I asked the sales associate if this was the Wii line, she said it was but they were only getting eight. After hearing this, one of the guys in line was like “Dude, did you hear that?” I bet there were more than a couple disappointed customers… Meanwhile back to Wal-mart. On the way back, we saw the line went around the corner at Best-Buy and there were even a couple tents (didn’t figure we had a chance there…) Back at Wal-mart we found out they were getting only twenty and there was definitely more than twenty there. Things weren’t looking to good for getting a Wii on launch day. We did some shopping and decided to take a spin by Target; only a few people were lined up there. Only problem was they opened at 11:00 AM and I had to be in church to usher at 10:30 AM, so that was a no go. Then Susan suggested K-Mart. I was like, yeah they’ll probably only have one. So off to K-Mart we went and I was wrong… they had three. There were three people waiting outside, and I thought all was lost. Just to be sure I asked if they were all waiting for the Wii, well apparently two were and the other was just a friend keeping them company. Well I looked at Susan and asked if it’d be alright if I camped out. My loving wife fetched me a chair, a pair of gloves, a warm blanket, and my winter coat (already had my hat and a sweatshirt). And so began the great Wii campout of ’06 (K-Mart wasn’t selling until 8:00 AM). The people I waited with were pros and had all kinds of stuff, including a portable DVD player. I got to watch movies, eat the snacks I had purchased at K-Mart moments before they closed, and had a pretty good time (despite being a little cold out, luckily it didn’t rain or snow). There was a couple pretty funny people that showed up. One guy showed up just after 11:00 PM thinking K-Mart was still open. At one point he mentioned he didn’t memorize the schedule which had us all laughing pretty hard (guess you had to be there…) Then a woman pulled up asking us what we were doing. I mentioned we were camping out for the Wii, and for some reason she didn’t believe me, eh whatever. Only one more person showed up to get in line around 4:30 AM, but was disappointed as all three Wii’s were taken. We were suppose to get vouchers at 6:00 AM and the lady said we could get some breakfast and warm up, of course this was the lady that kept coming out to see if we had enough money to buy the system, anyway after getting our voucher we could then come back at eight to get our Wii’s. Well that wasn’t the plan of the store manager, though he did let us wait inside the entrance area. At this point (6:00 AM), I was suprised and happy to see Susan show up bringing with her a steaming cup of hot chocolate (isn’t she thoughtful?) We waited out the last two hours together and finally… we got to buy the Wii. There were about three other people who came looking for the Wii as we were buying them, but they were turned away (should’ve been here more than eleven hours ago =P). After all three of us paid for our Wii’s, we had to be escorted back to the front of the store, by the store manager, for our safety (yeah… someone actually got shot over a PS3). So… you may ask if it was worth sitting eleven hours all night in the cold, I just have two words… you betcha! (even Susan can attest to that, as long as she didn’t have to camp out 😉 )

Well the PS3 hit the markets this week, so me and Susan decided to see how many fanboys were waiting in line to get one. Wal-mart seemed like a good choice as it was releasing a minute after midnight and it was all nice and warm inside. Too bad they made the line outside, anyway they were projecting getting 10 units (if that even came in), but we didn’t see anyone in line. Our next stop, the local Best Buy store, at this point Susan was like “no one’s going to camp out for the PS3”. Well, to her contridiction, there was a line up around the corner at Best Buy at 8 pm (and I don’t think they had a midnight release). Someone had actually brought a tent out to stay the night. We won’t bust our tent out, but we’ll be hitting Wal-mart tonight to pick up a Wii (probably get there about 3-4 hours early and at 12:01 am hopefully I’ll have one in my hands). Other news this week, I finished my Dowtran class and my group was the first one to get our project finished (we almost set a record, woohoo!) My officemate, who has been dealing with Dowtran since he started, and was working on the project during class fell second to our group, of course I had to hassle him about that!

Day number two of the Dowtran Development Class and boy is it exciting. I’ve got three more days and a project due at the end of the week. At least they give us free food! Other than taking this course, my job’s going pretty good. I’m making a big impact on validation of a system we’re adding onto. This weekend I got to try something new, me and Susan went to a wine tasting party. We got to test a few different wines (even though I don’t care for wine, pass the sparkling grape juice for me please!) Susan’s co-workers put it on and they made a ton of hors d’voers, so that was good for me (I ate most of the sesame crackers and sampled a variety of cheeses). Unfortunately the Lions (those stupid, stupid Lions) couldn’t manage to increase their win record to three… typical Jon Kitna, down in the 4th with a chance to win, let’s throw an interception… On a happy note, I just picked up a couple tickets for the Bears-Lions game on December 24th, section 129 row 6, about the 15 yard line (look for us on the TV, even if Susan may have a Bears jersery on… traitor!)

Okay, this entry’s gonna be kinda long so hold on to your hats… Last weekend, the weekend before Halloween… I know I should have put an entry way back then, but anywho… Susan’s folks came down to visit and we went to Frankenmuth. I somehow “lucked” out and got to be the driver. It was a nut house, especially if you try to go the wrong way down a one way in a parking lot (in my defense, it wasn’t marked clear at all). After finding a spot to park at the Bavarian Inn we met up with Susan’s aunt, uncle, and cousin. Last February me and Susan met up with her aunt and uncle and went to Zender’s and the indoor water park. Zender’s and the Bavarian Inn have a speciality dinner (better be… it’s like 30 bucks a plate) where you get a full course meal brought out to you. I was really excited because the chicken was so salty at Zender’s that you couldn’t hardly beat it, needless to say it was really good (and probably really bad for you). Unfortunately the Bavarian Inn’s chicken wasn’t quite as salty but they did have orange sherbert twist for dessert which was pretty good (and the rest of the meal was good too!)

Well if you go to Frankenmuth, you better stop at Bronner’s (open 361 days of the year…) Lucky me I got to try and find a parking spot again. As I was scanning the lot for a space, a minivan driver decided since they were bigger than me, they owned the lot. After a couple toots on my horn they backed down (they were trying to back out into me…) After that little escapade (no harm no foul), me and Susan went on a hunt to find a “Our First Christmas” ornament. After looking at the personalized ones we decided a laser engraved one would look really neat (I was gonna take a picture of it, but the fact it reflects the camera makes that kind of difficult, you’ll just have to stop by at Christmas to see it =P). The engraving process is pretty sweet, they use a laser to cut the design we picked out and it took all of about 5 seconds to finish. The ornament also comes with a light you can hook up to your regular Christmas light string (now all we need is a tree). After we got our ornament and paid for it, it was time to round up the gang (I think everyone was at a different end of the store). Eventually everyone found there way to the South entrance, except for Susan’s mom. She was lost and had to call Susan’s dad to rescue her. As they made their way back to the South entrance, it was time to go. All and all a pretty exciting weekend.

Halloween, the night of ghosts and ghouls and most importantly, candy! Wanting to save a few bucks, I decided getting candy the night before Halloween would be a good idea. I bought about 12 bags of candy for 2 bucks a piece, saving almost a dollar on each bag (yeah I know I’m a smart shopper). I probably went a little overboard on the candy, as we didn’t know exactly how many kids we would be getting. We also got our pumpkins the day before Halloween (and we got a good deal on them too!) Actually, I’m not so sure we got the best deal as my pumpkin was starting to rot on the bottom. I figured if I flipped it over it’d be alright, but it still looked pretty sad. We picked up a carving kit and Susan made an owl, while I took the easy road and finished mine in about 20 minutes start to finish (I think she put in atleast 2 hours… and I quote “It doesn’t take that long, it’s easy.”) Besides… my pumpkin made hers look better, a good pumpkin by itself is alright, but put it next to a sad one, presto, it becomes magnificant! We did get quite a few trick-or-treaters, though I was dishing out the candy by the hand full. We set up a couple of chairs on our porch and after it died down (and someone couldn’t take the cold and wimped out) we came in with about half a bag of Twix bars and a handful of other candy bars. The next day I come home anticipating biting into a chewy, chocolatey, caramel candy bar, I found out there were none left (someone had eaten them all, and not just one or two or a few, but like two dozen, thus she got her new nickname, Twixie).

This weekend wasn’t too exciting, except for the Lions won and da Bears lost (aw poor Rexy lost to Joey Joey Joey). My jobs going pretty good, or shall I say I have a lot todo. Today I had a meeting to review the protocol I was working on the past 3-4 weeks to validate the system that will be going in. I only have to rewrite pretty much the whole thing by the end of the week. Oh and I have class all day tomorrow and Thursday… luckily I can work some overtime this week and if the need be next week (I have a full week of class next week, all day long…) Time and half here I come! (sometimes it’s good to be hourly) I did interview with a company last week about a job opening. That job sounds pretty exciting and I’ll be “the man”. The guy that is currently in the position is leaving and no one else can fill his shows at the company, so they’re looking to hire someone to do everything (sounds like a phat paycheck to me, cha-ching!) I dunno if I’ll get a call back as they were looking for someone with a ton of experience I didn’t have, but it was a fun interview nonetheless. I’m gonna cut myself off here as I still have quite a bit to do tonight (new Heroes tonight, “Save the cheerleader, save the world”, check it out at 9 on NBC).

Hmmm… haven’t added an entry in awhile… I’ve been pretty busy. The job’s going pretty good, I’m currently working on developing a simulation of a chemical process. We tried to compile it today, but the guy who I’m working with had about 150 errors with his code. Needless to say, he had some things to fix. I’ve also developed a test protocol for validation (I am a software validation engineer after all) of our current systems. It’s being reviewed and once that’s done I get to do up about half a dozen more (whoopee…)

Unfortunately Great Lakes Ice Cream Company closed, so we went to Cold Stone Creamery the other day. I got white chocolate ice cream with white chocolate chunks and caramel and whipped topping; it was a little too sweet for me… Susan got watermelon sorbet with gummi bears, her’s was a little overkill on the watermelon flavor and the gummi bears were stale. This place has nothing on the other ice cream shop. We went to TCBY today and their cotton candy ice cream is pretty good (I know… I’m an ice cream addict).

This weekend wasn’t too exciting, the Lions lost (those stupid, stupid Lions), but we did go see The Prestige. That movie was pretty awesome, even if you sound like a dork saying it’s about magicians. I bought a ticket for me (Susan didn’t want to go) to a late night showing of Saw 3 tomorrow, I’m pretty pumped about that. If you haven’t seen the first or second Saw, I suggest going done to your local video store and rent them (they are worth it, then check out Saw 3 in theaters). Just a caution though, it’s about a serial killer (though he doesn’t actually kill anyone), so it is kind of gruesome.

An update if you’ve been following the picture of the day, Susan has gotten really good at tossing the football back and forth. Hopefully it stays nice enough for us to go out after work… it’s suppose to start snowing soon (though they projected some flurries this week and they haven’t come yet…)

Let’s see what’s new this week, oh yeah… the Lions won!! About time they got their first win of the season, though I thought they were gonna do typical Jon Kitna and lose it in the 4th quarter. They played a decent game, even if number 98, Kalimba Edwards, had two off sides and a roughing the passer penalty (bet he’s gonna run some laps at practice!) Our kitty’s doing good, for some reason she thinks an old palm leave is really exciting. She’ll jump up on the coffee table and run with it in her mouth. We actually didn’t know where it was for awhile, she had hidden it in her house (see picture of the day for a visual…) Ebgames had their Wii preorders on Friday, I went at lunch and missed getting one of the twelve by about twenty minutes… someone said they’d drop by and reserve one because they had the day off, but she didn’t go… Oh well, I guess I can forgive her, she did make a delicious lasagna with fake wine and apple crisp for dessert! We ended up getting some ice cream today, and the guy had to smile when I wanted sprinkles and gummy bears in it (yup… I typically get that) Other than that, work is going pretty good, I might start programming soon… Right now I’m creating a software acceptance test protocol which gets to be a template for all future projects… probably should do a good job on it then 😉

So I haven’t written here in awhile, so this entry might be kind of long. Last weekend we decided to take a drive over to Mount Pleasant to see exactly what’s over there. I didn’t really see the need to go but was glad I did because I saw something impressive. Navigating Mount Pleasant isn’t as easy as you think it is, especially if your avigator (navigator) doesn’t know where she wants to go. After turning around in the Home Depot parking lot, and then turning down some side street, we finally arrived to the main street of Mount Pleasant. We were blown away by all the different establishments they had (ok, not really most of what we have in Midland was there…) Like I said though I was glad we went, because outside of the KFC restaurant was Colonel Sanders waving to traffic. He had on the full get up and we had to go around the block to get his picture (using a camera phone, maybe we’ll figure out how to get the picture off there). Next time we go, we’ll have to grab our camera, who knows what we’ll see… Wendy, the King or maybe even Ronald McDonald chilling on the side of the road.

The other exciting news (I know seeing the colonel is hard to beat) is that I started working at Dow Chemical this week. Monday was my first real day and things were pretty good. So far I’ve read a lot of manuals and other pertinent information to the job. I get to program in a very logic oriented language called DOWTRAN (derived from FORTRAN). Which isn’t too bad, it beats programming assembly using the MIPS architecture (and is a little better than BASIC, if you’ve read my other entry). My supervisor took me out to lunch where I got to meet a couple people I will be working with. We went to the China Palace and Susan was so jealous I had Chinese food, we had to go out to Pi’s Chinese Restaurant later that night. They’ve got nothing on the Chinese restaurant in Grand Rapids I favored, Yen Ching, that place was awesome.

Ok, enough talk about Chinese, back to work… I have an office that I share with someone, he’s a pretty cool guy even if he’s from U of M. They hooked me up with a laptop and docking station so I can use a real mouse and keyboard and a pretty nice LCD monitor. Other than that I’m still meeting people and have a small project to work on. I did find out that Dow makes the active ingredient for Lunesta, which is pretty cool.

Lately we’ve been hitting up the Great Lakes Ice Cream Company for their mix-ins, it’s pretty bad when the guy knows what you want without saying anything. Oh well, it’s still good… we should probably cut back though (I think they’re closing this month anyway…) As for our kitty, she’s doing pretty good, she’s gotten a lot bigger since we’ve gotten her (especially her eyes). Even though we spoil her with all kinds of toys, she really likes a paper bag with a hole in the corner. That’ll keep her (and us) amused for quite some time… it might be time to get her another one though, she’s made the hole so big she can walk through it. Susan’s not feeling to well this week, she ended up coming home early from work yesterday, hopefully reading this post will make her feel better (she always likes to see new posts… and if you’re still reading this you must like new posts too!)

As per requested, I am writing this blog entry… Even if the party in question has turned off her computer. I had some really exciting training classes on Tuesday and Wednesday, ok not really… The first was about something that didn’t really apply to me, the guy said he wasn’t really familiar with software validation but he did have 1.5 slides about it (out of about a hundred). The one on Thursday wasn’t so bad, it was the first session out of four, and if I attend the rest and do the homework (that’s right homework), I can be a certified software validator (w00t!) The only problem I had with this one was that our network went down during the middle of it (it was a teleconference), so we lost track of which slide the presenter was on… and the hand out was only a small book…

This week I also find out my offical position title, I’m a Software Validation Engineer (sounds pretty fancy, huh?) I’ll probably have a lot more to say next week as my first day isn’t until Monday, if I can figure out where I’m suppose to go. The other exciting thing we found out is the local ice cream shop has these really good fruit sipers, a little apple cider and some apple sorbert mixed together topped off with a cinnamon stick. Unfortunately we went there this week and they were all out of cinnamon sticks (luckily I had gotten a mix-in… cotton candy ice cream with sprinkles and gummi bears, yum!)

This weekend was pretty mundane, we did go out and drive by some houses… Hopefully we’ll be able to move into one once our lease goes up here. We also tried a new restaurant on the north sound of town, Los Cuartos Amigos. The atmosphere was nice, but the service wasn’t too great… We were seated and it took awhile before our server got to our table, he took our orders (I got a steak quesadilla and Susan got a chicken quesadilla). Afterwards we got to sample some of their homemade salsa and chips, it was pretty good. We get our meals and I notice mine is chicken, so I ask Susan, “Did you get chicken?” and she responded yeah… Near the end of the meal, she says something like, this kinda looks like steak… Neadless to say the meal was good (even if I didn’t get the so-called “Dark Chicken”). Then we waited for our bill, and waited, and waited, and then just for fun we waited some more… we finally got it paid, left and decided not to go back…

As for today, it’s been pretty exciting, safety training!! No it’s not really that exciting, but the instructor was funny and it went by pretty quickly. Next up I have orientation at Kelly IT & Engineering Resources… and more training tomorrow and Wednesday (sweet…) Then I finally get to start Monday the second… using what some refer to as a “high level language” (or as what appeared to me… a language that’s more basic than BASIC…)