Well, here we are in the New Year already, about time for a new blog
\nentry! Seeing as how this entry will be quite lengthy, I’ve decided to
\nbreak it up into multiple sections<\/p>\n
Christmas Came Early this Year:<\/p>\n
Not wanting to haul all the Christmas presents down with us to open and
\nbring them back, we decided to open them a couple days early. I was pretty
\nexcited to get a new video card for my computer (with a lifetime
\nwarranty), one of the best mario games ever… Super Mario Galaxy, a new
\ncomputer game Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (putting the video card to good
\nuse!), and some racquetball gear. Tonight’s my first match on the new
\nladder… and I’ve got a spiffy new dual racquet case, that houses my new
\nracquet, ball saver (pretty neat thing, creates a vacuum to make the balls
\nlast longer), a new glove I got and my safety glasses. I took the gear for
\na test run this past weekend, and am pretty excited for my match tonight!
\nSusan must have been a good girl again this year (even though she blamed
\nme for losing her stuff… see below…) She got a couple movies, Superbad
\nand Ratatouille, the Golden Compass book set, Kite Runner, a LightWedge
\n(story behind this, see below…), moisturizing socks, a set of
\nspringforms (hopefully I’ll be getting yummy cheesecakes without the
\nsmoke!), two packages of rechargeable batteries, a teddy bear with the
\nyear 2007 on the foot (it’s tradition!), and a competition bocce ball set
\n(for when the new lawn comes in, and dang those balls are heavy!) from me.
\nScout saw this really nice gift basket (well mostly a really nice big
\ngreen bow), and gave that to Susan, it had (besides a bow) a 6 pack of
\nSmirnoff Ice, Hairspray (the movie), and a box of dove chocolates. Scout
\nmust have been a bad kitty, she only got one present, a kitty-training
\nset… hopefully she’ll be able to learn some new tricks (besides
\ntalking…<\/p>\n
The Case of the Missing Items:<\/p>\n
Getting ready to head south for the holidays, it took us longer then
\nexpected to pack for the occasion. Doing the compressed work week schedule
\nwe had the Friday before Chirtmas off… giving us plenty of time to pack
\nand get ready (not quite =P ). We spent the day enjoying our new gifts and
\nmentally getting ready for the trip. The next day was crunch time, we got
\nour suitcases ready and the car was being loaded (we even managed to
\nremember the Christmas presents for everyone!) Just when I thought we were
\nall set to go, Susan couldn’t find her neck pillow (aka “Horse Collar”) or
\nsleep mask anywhere. The search began… first in the basement (where I
\nassume everything is that I can’t find, it’s a mess down there…) Then we
\nscoured the first floor and guests bedrooms, while Susan insisted she
\nalready checked those places. I started going through the bags in our
\ncloset (again, hearing the “I’ve already checked there!”) Back down to the
\nbasement we went… it still wasn’t there. Finally, tucked away in a
\ncarry-on bag Susan found what we were looking for (thought you checked
\nthere… and I didn’t have anything to do with it being there =P). Our
\nnext item, the sleepmask, it could only have been in a couple different
\nplaces (again I was the one to blame for losing it…) We tore all the
\nsheets off the bed, looked under the bed, looked in the washer, and in the
\ndryer, until… I found it, hidden away in Scout’s secret area of
\ntreasures (under the rug, by the back door…) The second item I was
\naccused of losing, turned out not to be my fault once again. There was one
\nmore case where I “lost” something, the rechargeable batteries from
\nSusan’s camera (thus why she got some for Christmas). Before we moved, I
\nhad used the batteries for a game of Madden on the Wii, being a good
\nborrower I had put the cameras back (or so I thought…) Days turned to
\nweeks, turned to months and the batteries were no where to be found (or
\nwere they?) As it turns out, they were in the camera the whole time (where
\nelse would they be?) The case of the missing batteries had been solved<\/p>\n
What the Heck is a LightWedge?<\/p>\n
That was the response I received from many a-people on my quest to find
\nSusan her book reading light. Oh, but it’s not just any book eading light,
\nit’s a Lightwedge… so what does that mean exactly? Well, it’s this
\nnew-fangled contraption that you place on your book and through a piece of
\nplastic it lights up the whole page (if you get the right size). I started
\nmy search by heading to the Lightwedge homepage. On this site they have a
\nvariety of Lightwedges for sale, coming in different shapes and colors.
\nThey also have this really neat feature that lets you put in a zipcode and
\nit’ll come back with the three closest stores that carry these nifty
\nlittle inventions (so one would think…) I slap in Midland’s zipcode and
\nvoila… three places came back, Target, Barnes & Noble, and OfficeMax…
\nhmmm… that was easy, a little too easy. During my Christmas shopping I
\nstarted off at Target, no luck on the Lightwedge there, okay, lets try
\nBarnes & Noble… a book store, logic choice, right? Nope, the British
\naccent guy had no idea what I was talking about. Well, seeing as how
\nOfficeMax was on the other side of Eastman (a treacherous stretch of road
\nthis time of the year), I decided to hit up Staples (similiar to
\nOfficeMax)… but that was a no go either. Finishing my shopping at
\nMeijer’s and Wal-Mart… neither had the Lightwedge, I decided to cross
\nthe road and go into OfficeMax. They didn’t know what I was talking about
\neither, but the cashier said someone had bought something like that 30
\nminutes ago… but they didn’t know where to find it or what it was called
\n(that’s helpful…) So, did Susan get one before we left town, you betcha!
\nI quickly ordered one online, paid a nice sum of cash for two-day delivery
\nand it was there in time for me to wrap it up and put it under the tree,
\nyay! Now she wants a bigger one, even though she said she wanted the
\npaperback one. -.-<\/p>\n
Bransen Missouri, Here we Come!<\/p>\n
This year for Christmas we went down to see my folks in Bransen. They
\nhave a timeshare there and invited us down for a real Missouri Christmas.
\nThe trip down was pretty easy going until we were about 30 miles from the
\nIllinois border. It started to sprinkle and then really started coming
\ndown. We had a late start, but thought we were at a good stopping place…
\na Hilton Garden Inn in Effingham (about 4-5 hours away from Bransen). My
\nmom had hit the same storm during the day and apparently it was a
\ntremendously dark and large raincloud she drove into. That same storm had
\nclosed I-70 in Kansas where there was an 80 car chain reaction pile up due
\nto the snow! Not wanting to pay seven bucks for the Hilton breakfast
\nbuffet, we hit up the local McDonald’s and were on our way. Not having
\ncell phone coverage outside Michigan, we never got the messages from my
\nmom telling us which room they were in… We got to the front gates, told
\nthe security guy we were there to see the Jeske’s and that I have no idea
\nthe room number… He let us through, and we stopped in at the front desk,
\ngot ahold of my mom and were on our way to the room. Apparently there was
\nsome sort of mix up, as my parents expected to be getting a cabin (but
\nthere were none left)… then there was a problem as my mom only received
\na key to half the room (it’s split into two parts, an A and a B). She had
\ngotten just the B room, which was just that, a room and a bathroom.
\nGetting everything straightened out, we stayed in a really nice room (the
\nA part had another room with jacuzzi bathtub, a living room with a
\nfireplace, a screened deck, a kitchen, and a dining room), not quite a
\ncabin, be really nice nonetheless<\/p>\n
Showcapital, USA:<\/p>\n
If you haven’t heard, Bransen is famous for the numerous shows they have
\neach year. We picked a few that we wanted to see… first on our list was
\nthe Kirby magic show. We tried to get discount tickets, but found out we
\nhad to listen to info from a timeshare to get them. Seeing as how we were
\nby the theatre, we decided to just suck it up and get the tickets there.
\nIt’s a good thing we got there when we did, as the line was getting to be
\nquite long after we got our tickets. We managed to get tickets that were
\nin the center about seven rows back from the stage! The magic show was
\nreally good (better than the one in Mount Pleasant) and that was only half
\nof it. The second half was a Christmas play that was super funny. The
\nguest comedian apparently didn’t say any lines from the script, which made
\nit all the more funny. The ears kept falling off the elves (one was
\ndripping with sweat), and all around it was a very entertaining show! The
\nnext show we went to see was the Dixie Land Stampede. They had a pre-show
\nentertainer, and he was one of the best jugglers I’ve ever seen! That
\nalone was almost worth the price of the tickets, but the stampede was
\nreally awesome. They seat you around this huge arena filled with dirt. In
\nfront of you is a couple of cups a plate and a bowl (but no silverware.)
\nDuring the show, you’re eating a full course meal with just your hands, so
\nto clap, they had these boards set up in front of your feet you got to
\nkick (otherwise known as a Dixieland Stampeded)… The food was good,
\nalbeit a little much… soup, rotissarre chicken (a full bird, small, but
\nstill all the parts), pork, corn on the cob, baked potato, and an apple
\ndessert (again… no silverware, it was messy and fun!) and the show was
\npretty sweet too! Next up we went to see 50’s at the Hop. This had a
\nhandful of male and female vocalists singing the popular songs of the
\nfifties and dancing (for almost two full hours!) The show was
\nentertaining, but they could have used an upgrade to their soundsystem
\n(still it was really impressive!) We also paid a visit to the Butterfly
\nhouse, where we got to see a 3D movie about butterfiles, go through a
\nmirror maze, and of course we saw butterfiles (and turtles that look like
\nrocks!) It was neat to see all the butterfiles, and the mirror maze was a
\nlot of fun (unless you ran into the mirrors \ud83d\ude09 ). We also spent a whole
\nday at Silver Dollar City, where we saw A Christmas Carol, glass being
\nblow, a saloon Christmas show, got to ride a roller coaster (frontwards
\nand backwards… yes it was cold, but at least it wasn’t raining!), and
\nhad a fun (cold) filled day<\/p>\n
The Day Before Christmas Day:<\/p>\n
The day before Chirstmas, Wal-Mart was open, but didn’t have a lot in
\nthe grocery department (Jubilee was already closed when we got there…)
\nIt was a mad scramble to get everything we needed for Christmas dinner,
\nthere were tons of people there and the store was closing soon! We managed
\nto get everything we needed, and the dinner was really good. We also got
\nto watch A Christmas Story a few times (my dad still didn’t get to see the
\nending, heh!) My parents seemed to enjoy the gifts we got them, Este
\nLauder for my mom, and a bucket of beer for my dad (with a movie and a
\nfancy bottle opener!<\/p>\n
The New Year:<\/p>\n
There are quite a few colorful pictures of me getting our Caribbean style
\ndrinks going in the picture section (recipes are in the archive section =P
\n). Just as I was pouring the first glass, we realized it was almost the
\nNew Year… we had forty seconds to spare (whew… we didn’t miss it!) We
\nwatched the ball drop on TV, then flipped through the channels and found
\nsomething more interesting to watch… (sadly we didn’t get to see any Law
\n& Order marathons…) and off to bed it was (yup… not very exciting…<\/p>\n
Work and Other Such Non-sense:<\/p>\n
Coming off a two week break and going back to work isn’t my idea of fun.
\nSomeone forgot to pack a lunch yesterday and almost forgot again today! \ud83d\ude09
\nLuckily with this compressed work week schedule we only had to work
\nyesterday and today, and tomorrow we have off… if only we could work two
\ndays every week… and still get paid! I did manage to get a phone
\ninterview with Chater Communications (shush all you anti-Charter folks =P
\n). I wasn’t exactly what they were ooking for in the position I applied
\nfor, but they have an upcoming opening they’ll be contacting me (hopefully
\nshortly) that I’m an exact match for… keep your fingers crossed<\/p>\n
Day Two:<\/p>\n
This entry has been so long, it took me two days to write it! I ended up
\nplaying my match last night and man it was a lot of fun. The first game I
\nlost by six points, but the second game was defintely more exciting (no…
\nI didn’t win \ud83d\ude41 ). We were stuck 12-7 (me being the seven), for quite some
\ntime… until finally I scored a point and then he scored one. We switched
\nserves a few more times and he got another point, 14-8, I managed to hold
\nhim off and was up to 13, until he got the game winning point. It was a
\ntough match and he challenged me to a third… I whooped him 15-2, if only
\nI had a couple more points in the second game, I would have won the match!
\nWell, that’s about all I can think about that happened over the past
\ncouple weeks, stay tuned for more… and Happy New Year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, here we are in the New Year already, about time for a new blog entry! Seeing as how this entry will be quite lengthy, I’ve decided to break it up into multiple sections Christmas Came Early this Year: Not wanting to haul all the Christmas presents down with us to open and bring them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnjeske.ddns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}