We had quite the Memorial weekend! The weather was excellent for being outside, although not for flying hot air balloons. We headed down Friday night to see if the balloons would take off. After some discussions and wind analysis it was confirmed there would be some flyers! Henry was pretty pumped and Ollie managed to stay awake this year! Henry wanted to stay for the balloon glow, but it was late and two little boys needed to get to bed.

On Saturday I took both boys to see the dog show. It looked like rain, so I was hesitant of going and didn’t want to get the Burley out. We walked down and managed to make it under a tent for the brief rain shower.

Once the rain stopped, we headed over to some bleachers to watch the dogs catch Frisbees… yes our butts got wet! Ollie was getting bored, so we decided to find something else to watch. We made our way over to a lure chase. Basically two bags on a string that goes really fast around some obstacles. It was pretty neat, but they were having some difficulties and Henry was bored with it. We walked around some more, saw a lot of “puppies” before we headed home for lunch.

We wanted to try to catch the balloons on Saturday night, but the deal was for Henry to go, he needed to take a nap (which he didn’t do -.-). Sunday was a different story, both kids napped really well, so we made our way back to Frankenmuth for the evening launch. Unfortunately, the winds were too harsh for flying and the balloons would not be going up. I think everyone was a little disappointed. We headed over to one of the shops and picked up a souvenir, a hot air balloon that hangs outside and spins in the wind.

After trying to get Henry to nap on Monday without success, we headed to the grocery store to get food for the week. I picked up some teenage mutant ninja turtles plates and napkins for Henry’s birthday. He was super excited about this and had to carry them through the store, out to the car, and on the way home. When we got home, he showed Susan and exclaimed “ninja turtle birthday”.

At this point Ollie was still sleeping, but that didn’t stop Henry from trying to show him. After a few “ninja turtle birthday”s, Ollie sat up with a disgruntled look on his face. One more shout of “ninja turtle birthday”, Ollie had a WTF look and went right down to try and finish his nap. I wish I could have caught that on video, it was hilarious!

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!)

For all of you patiently waiting for an update, here it is! I meant to do this sooner, but unfortunately Zelda was consuming a lot of my time (ok not that unfortunate =P ) and I’ve been busy with Christmas stuff too (like surprises for the wifey!) The first of these was to come a couple weeks ago… During mid-November tickets became available for Dow employees (and contractors) for a Ray Charles tribute, “I Can’t Stop Loving You”. I figured this would make an excellent Christmas surprise for Susan and the scheming began. I figured we would go somewhere romantic to eat and head over to the Dow Event Center in Saginaw to watch the show. I made reservations at a place I’ve been to (not ate at, but stopped in for some wine-walk tickets) and was able to book a table next to the fire place (doesn’t get any better than that). Of course I mentioned to Susan to keep her plans open on December 9th and to figure out something dressy to wear… well then the questions came. I played it cool and managed to get her to think we were going to Mount Pleasant, when in all reality we were going to The Atrium in Bay City. During my planning, I remembered way back in June, around Lori’s wedding, Susan had mentioned she really wanted some beach glass earrings. I thought about driving all the way back past the “End of the World” to pick up the earrings she liked, but couldn’t see myself doing that and decided to hit the internet. I found a site that had Lake Erie beach glass jewlery and ordered not only a pair of earrings but a necklace too! Everything was coming together, until Susan comes up to me the day before saying she has to play at 4:30 PM mass on Saturday (sigh… thought I said keep your plans open). So she called the church and said she wouldn’t be able to do it, alright… one bullet dodged. The day has finally come, we start getting ready when Susan realizes she doesn’t have any shoes to match her dress or pantyhose to wear (didn’t I say get something dressy to wear a month a head of time… women…) A quick run (quick so we could make it to dinner on time) to JCPenny to get pantyhose (and shoes while I was waiting ever so patiently in line). The person ahead of me wanted to ship something and the sales associate that should have been helping me was helping her co-worker sort out what the customer wanted (I think we waited 20 minutes before we could actually check out…) The rest of the night went unhitched. We got to the restaurant on time, Susan really liked the beach glass jewelery and we managed to survive going to Saginaw late at night (though the parking ramp guy was kinda scary) and enjoyed a fantastic tribute to Ray Charles. As for the rest of Susan’s presents (she must have been a good girl), she’ll just have to wait and see…

This last weekend was also pretty fun. We went to the DeHate family Christmas party. Boy was it an adventure to get out there. Being internet-savy I decided I’d mapquest the directions. Mapquest marked the path and the maneuvers and I thought we were set. We grabbed the directions and headed on out. We’re doing good until we were suppose to turn right onto old M-30 N. We turned on an old M-30 road but that must have been south because it dead-ended after about a mile. We get back onto M-30 and continued heading north. After about 10 minutes we see the road to turn on for the next step and did so (I still don’t know where old M-30 N is, unless M-30 just changed into it). This is where it gets tricky, the road splits and there is only about 5 or 6 street signs with different names on them and arrows pointing every which way. We took a guess to go right and we guessed wrong, but we did get a nice scenic view of the area (needless to say Mapquest had let me down). Finally we got back on track and managed to miss the turn for their driveway. Luckily no one was on the road and I just backed up and we headed down the driveway (which must have been close to a 1/4 mile long). We got to see my family, eat lots of food, and had a really good time. We got to play the panthose reindeer game. The objective was to blow up balloons (there were all kinds, long balloons, big balloons, and water balloons) and fill the pantyhose with them. The first team that could get the pantyhose on someone’s head and to stand up (like reindeer antlers) and sing Jingle Bells won. Our team was really close… we had the pantyhose full of ballons and standing up but the other group had already started singing. Probably a good thing as I was the one elected to put them on my head (whew…) Susan’s group couldn’t seem to get the balloons in the pantyhose (probably should have had a girl doing it…) There was also a gift exchange at the end that went by birthday (starting after Jesus’s birthday). The presents were laid out on a table and each person got to pick one, according to what day they were born, and open it up. If they didn’t like what they got they could exchange it with anything that had already been open (kind of neat idea). When it got to my turn, I somehow picked out a 6-pack of beer (lucky me… :\ ), though I’m glad I didn’t pick the “man” gift my aunt got. I ended up exchanging the beer for a set of Nascar mugs. Susan must have sniffed out the M&M’s… as she picked out the gift that was almost a pound of M&M’s (she got to keep them). It was a pretty fun-filled occassion. When we were ready to leave, we were of course blocked in… We got the car moved and were on our way. Only one problem… there were enough vehicles there to the point I couldn’t turn around and ended up backing the whole way out the driveway (that was pretty exciting…)

Recently me and Susan decided to apply for grad school at good ol’ Tech. Susan got her acceptance letter yesterday and mine came last week. It doesn’t look like we’ll be getting any funding so that’ll probably be a no go… I finally beat Zelda the other day and man I thought I was going to be disappointed. The boss of the last dungeon was super easy to beat and I thought that was the end of the game, well it wasn’t… there was still one more boss to go and man was he tough (which made it rewarding to beat). I forgot to mention above Susan had made Taffy Apple salad for the Christmas party. Well, it was so good we decided to make it for our work Chirstmas parties (both yesterday). The plan was Susan was going to make it Monday night for both of us to take to work with us on Tuesday. She wasn’t feeling very well and somehow I got the job of making it. Mine didn’t look nearly as good as the one Susan had made earlier, but everyone at Dow Chemical seemed to like it. Dow Corning on the other hand, didn’t seem to appreciate it as much (oh well… I tried…) After work yesterday I decided to try and get some of our packages sent at the UPS store. The line was almost out the door when I got there and I subjected myself to this again today. Though, I didn’t get puked on yesterday (or today) and that made me happy. As I was waiting in line, yesterday, I decided I’d fill out the form indicating I had three packages and where to send them. As I was going up to the counter to get one, I see this milky white liquid spraying to my left. I turn only to see this poor kid throwing up and luckily I was out of the projectile’s path (but just barely…) The poor little guy just kept vomiting and everyone felt bad for him (never thought the UPS store could be so exciting…) I did managed to get 2 out of 4 packages shipped. Your probably thinking that’s not too good, well I forgot to grab one present for the package (they box everything for you) and Susan wrote down the address for the other one to the point where I didn’t know what the road name was… That’s why I went back today and managed to get everything shipped out (without any puking…)

Lately I’ve been playing a lot of Zelda for the Wii (Twilight Princess). Which is a very cool (and frustrating) game. I had preordered it about a month ago selecting the cheapest (and slowest) shipping, because I knew I was going to be in Missouri last week and wasn’t in a hurry to get it. When we got back I noticed a note on the door left by the UPS driver (ended up getting bumped to 3 day select for only 2.99 =) ). The note said a delivery attempt was made on 11/22/06 and the package was left at the office. So after work on Monday I decided I’d go pick it up. Well the lady there was like I don’t have your package, and after searching the office and still no luck, I started thinking ok maybe Susan picked it up. I stopped by the mailbox and thought why would she get the package and not the mail. After getting the mail I headed back to our apartment. Well, Susan wasn’t home yet so I was like, ok where’s my package. I went to the UPS website and tracked my package. It said the package was delivered on the 22nd and that someone from the office signed it. I printed this off and grabbed the note left by the driver and went back to the office. The lady still didn’t believe me the package was delivered… Finally she looked around the office and managed to spot it on top a shelf (even though it wasn’t suppose to be there…) At last I had Zelda in hand and man I’m glad they opted out of cel-shaded cuteness.

I forgot to mention yesterday at the brewery they had flavored beer, and I’m not talking something somewhat normal like lime (though they did have that). You can get these energy-like additives to your beer. They had hot chocolate, melon, lime, and something else pretty random. None of us were brave enough to try one of these specialty flavored beers. However, as you walked through the cafeteria you would see these green or pink glasses of beer and you could definitely smell them as you passed by! I also failed to mention how excited our kitty was to see we were home. She purred louder than any other cat I’ve heard and was rubbing up against us for two whole days. We left a ton of food for her and she managed to gobble most of it up (and probably gained another half a pound in the process). We plan on getting her kitty paws until her de-clawing in January. That should be exciting, gluing plastic things to her claws so she doesn’t scratch up (ruin) the furniture (maybe I’ll get a couple pictures of the process…) Work is pretty slow, I’ve got all my tasks at hand done… still waiting on my co-workers before I can get any more work done. I just got a rejection letter from the place I interviewed at… oh well maybe I’ll start the job hunt again…

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.

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!)