In the past month I’ve spent a couple quality weekends helping my dad and his renovation project… Things ramped up quite a bit when my mom suffered some health issues and we needed to get things done… quickly! I’m slowly becoming an expert at insulation, drywall, tiling, painting, and various other home improvement projects. Something must have rubbed off, because I’ve gone ahead and started a couple of projects around our house as well.

From what I’ve seen/heard the average cost of an Invisible brand dog fence installation is ~$2000. Looking to save some green, we decided to do it ourselves. After a bit of research, I had found a site that sold a very similar kit (made by the same people as the Invisible brand dog fences) for under $300. Wanting to make the installation easier, I had wanted to rent a trench digger that automatically buried the wire. Somehow I was talked out of doing it this way, and needed to come up with another plan.

After buying a riding lawn mower not too long ago (which is very, very sweet) and being a member of the Sears shopper rewards program, I had about 25 bucks I could use at Sears. I thought I would use this money towards an electric edger/trencher. Edging with a weedwacker works, but I had wanted an edger anyway and this seemed like a good opportunity… or so I thought.

When I went to pick out the lawn mower, the employees at Sears were super helpful and friendly. That was not the case when I went to pick up the edger. Wanting to get an early start on Saturday, I stopped into Sears after Susan’s award dinner (5 years at Dow Corning!) I got there about 15 minutes before the store closed, but knew exactly what I wanted. The person who was “helping” me wasn’t very friendly and didn’t seem to be very cooperative. Long story short, I went to checkout and when I told him I wanted to use my shopper reward points he said I needed my PIN number… which I had no clue of, but I could reset it on-line… I wasn’t exactly happy about this, because that was the only reason I was buying this thing, particularly at Sears…

After a quick skim through the manual, I had the edger trenching in no time. I soon found out the directions for “locking” the extension cord weren’t very good and the cord kept unplugging itself from the unit. After messing around with it, I finally got it to stay in as I was trenching around our yard… this process took 4 or 5 hours to finish. I mounted the wall unit and started dragging wire around the yard, when I realized we weren’t going to have enough.

The box says the kit was good for 25 acres, but I failed to see the small print that said additional wire/flags would be required. Luckily they had the same type of wire at Lowe’s and we were able to continue with installation. Once everything was wired, we tested the system, made a few tweaks and started burying the wire. Our grass on the one side was pretty viney and I was having a lot of trouble getting the wire to the bottom of the trench.

I pulled out my new fangled trenching device and was able to bury the wire coming from the wall unit to the outside loop (the cross wire). By this time it was getting dark and I left the rest of wire burying for the next day. It took another 4 or 5 hours to bury the wire, using lawn staples and caulk to go across the driveway… I was happy to see a green light on the wall unit when all was said and done.

We wanted to take training really slowly with Waldo, I figured once he gets running, he would probably being going fast enough to run right through it. The first couple days we had him on his leash and went towards the boundary flags until the collar beeped. We used “retreat” to turn and run towards the inside. This went really well and I was ready for an off-leash trial… not sure if Waldo was though… He was doing good, fetching the ball and following me around the yard. He started doing his circles, then figure 8’s and started going faster. Sure enough he hit the boundary… he let out a cry and just stood on the other side… I was happy he didn’t run off into the neighbors yard, like he usually does. I managed to get his collar off and decided that was good for today and brought him inside.

The next day we went out and did the same thing, this time however when we were walking around the house, he slowly made his way to the boundary… he heard that beep and turned around and jogged towards the inside… he got a lot of praise for that… success was at hand!

The other project I’m working on is getting our basement/garage into a more organized area. I’m putting together a workbench (hopefully pictures to come soon). I searched the internet and found some plans I liked and modified them using Google’s SketchUp software. Not having a truck, I knew lumber would be a pain to get home, but figured I could rent the Home Depot truck to get everything I needed.

So Monday I headed over there to find out the truck was being used by someone else… did I put off getting the lumber? pffsssh of course not, I did the next best thing… rented a U-Haul truck just down the road. Once I got the truck loaded up and heading home, I got the great idea of dropping a couple things off at Goodwill on the return trip.

I don’t recommend backing down our driveway in a 14′ U-Haul truck with no spotter, I managed to scrape a little paint off the truck on our mailbox… whoops! The other night I spent a bit of time cutting the 2×4’s to size. When I had about 3 cuts left (using my circular saw… yeah I need some real tools :P), our neighbor came over and offered me to use his stand which would have definitely helped to cut the boards. I really appreciated the offer, but like I said, I only had a few more cuts to do… I felt bad he hauled that thing over and didn’t use it, but he should have came over sooner! 😉

We did have a nice talk about what I was doing (I think its an unwritten rule to see what the neighbor is up to when they have their power tools out) and he wanted to know how the invisible fence was working. I did want to get my plywood cut to size, but figured I’ll wait until another day to do that as I told him I was just about done cutting…

I’ve also put together a makeshift bike stand… I still need to put a base on it (that will come from the 4’x8′ piece of plywood I need to cut) and hopefully I’ll get some pictures of that up on here as well. I really like my new bike and was sad to see the bike computer wasn’t working properly.

During one of my last rides I noticed the cadence sensor wasn’t picking up any information, but the speedometer was still working. I stopped and tried to fix it on the side of the road and quickly learned it’s not easy to clip in going uphill (totally biffed it on the road… nothing but my pride was damaged). Then the last time I took it out, I saw the speedometer wasn’t working nor the cadence sensor… I picked up a new battery and I think that solved one issue. I then realized the magnet for the speed sensor had moved and wasn’t crossing over the sensor, hopefully that fixes everything.

With the dog fence installation this weekend, I wasn’t able to get my Sunday ride in to see if everything’s fixed, but I’m hoping it is. With the weather to surely get cold/rainy/snowy out I had wanted to get a bike trainer I could use on the really nasty days. Bike Nashbar was having a sale and offered free shipping on all trainers and rollers. I opted for the rollers and they FINALLY came yesterday. Not sure why, but two days in a row FedEx had a “delivery exception” and didn’t even make an attempt to deliver to the house.

Once I got home, I took the dog out (who was really good) and decided I needed to give the rollers a try. Well, it’s like learning how to ride a bike all over again. With a trainer your bike is usually locked on the back axle, while on the rollers you are essentially balancing yourself on 3 drums. After a quick trial run I noticed the drum furthest back looked kind of funny. Sure enough there was a good size dent in the aluminum drum (heavy sigh…) It wasn’t long before I was packing the rollers back up and heading to the local FedEx office, hopefully my next set comes in on time and undamaged! 😀

This triathlon bug has really gotten a hold over me. For some unknown reason I decided to throw my name in the Escape From Alcatraz lottery at the end of September. Names were drawn the first week of October and somehow I managed to get picked. After planning the trip out and looking at the cost (entry fee is $405) I finally made the decision I wasn’t going to do it next year… This would have been the longest tri I would have attempted and I was feeling pretty bummed about getting picked and not going (although I want to do this race someday!)

I really wanted to attempt a tri around this distance and started looking around at different races around the same time (June). I stumbled upon the Rev3 page and remember reading about their race in Knoxville on www.BeginnerTriathlete.com. It didn’t take long for me to decide I wanted to do this race and Susan seemed pretty excited to spend a long weekend in the Knoxville area the first week of May. Today I made it official, I’m signed up and getting super excited!

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!

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. 😉

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…