Category: holiday

Well, tomorrow is Christmas (actually only 6 more minutes here), so I thought I’d wish everyone a Merry one.  I’m chillin’ up with the family for the weekend, and then heading back home Monday-ish.  For those of you that are also driving, drive safe and tell everybody hi for me.

For Thanksgiving, I made the trek home.  Normally this isn’t that bad.  It is 5.5 hours, but it doesn’t seem like it’s that long.  However, this time, the weather didn’t want to cooperate.  The Midwest was set to get its first snowstorm of the year, which of course means retarded drivers.  Instead of battling it in Chicago, I decided to try and outrun it by heading to Indianapolis first, and then head North.  I’m definitely glad I went that way, since I was able to avoid the snow until Fort Wayne.  Plus, the traffic was greatly reduced than what it would’ve been in Chicago.  However, going the other way still didn’t aid in shaving off any time.  Instead of being a 5.5 hour journey it ended up being close to 8.  As much fun as going 35 down the freeway sounds…

What made it that much worse was just outside of Ann Arbor, the freeway becomes three lanes, and by that time the roads were just wet (no lake effect).  You’d think that speeds would go back to normal, but no, people still felt the need to go below 40.  My speed delta during the snow/rain was MPH.  It was loads of fun.

Thanksgiving was good: fried turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry relish, pumpkin pie, etc.  It was nice not having to be at work, which, unfortunately hasn’t gotten any better.  I helped my parents get a couple of new TV’s, got some of the grease used for the turkey fry (biodiesel), played some xbox on said new TV, and put up Xmas lights. 

All and all, not a bad weekend.

First I want to wish a Happy Birthday to my dad.  He’s old! 🙂

Secondly, I want to wish a Happy Birthday to Lori Rogers of the famed, Those Rogers.

Well, summer is officially over and as proclaims the Traverse City Record Eagle, it was a Bummer of a Summer.  However, everytime I got up there, including this past weekend, it was beautiful.  Granted, I only made it up there twice this year, but let me tell you, I can pick the weekends to go! 

It’s always a good time up there.  Chillin with the fam, blasting old ladies with tennis balls on the tennis courts, running through the old cherry orchards, putzing around on the float boat, eating like kings.  What’s not to like?

When I go up, I meet my parents in Grand Rapids, MI and then we carpool up to Leland, MI.  Now, we went up on Friday and came back on Monday.  Needless to say, on the way home, I wanted to avoid the I-80/I-94 Interchange mess, especially with all the returning Labor Day traffic.  Instead, I took every back country road I possibly could through IN.  I left Grand Rapids at 5pm CST, and didn’t make it home until 11:30pm CST.  When I was going up to Grand Rapids, it only took me 4 hours.  Needless to say, the trip home took a little bit more time.  However, who knows how long I would have been backed up in Chicago.

Taking the back roads really makes you appreciate interstates.  I was on the best state roads IN had to offer too: IN-25 and IN-231.  Just the fact that you have to drive through every small town, and consequently have to slow down is enough to drive you mad.  Add to the fact that it’s raining and that the road had just been repaved and the lines hadn’t been repainted, added to the fun.  Let me tell you how nerve-racking it is trying to pass someone when you have no clue where the passing lane starts and stops in the dark and rain.

It was definitely an adventure though, and the fact that it only took 1 tank of gas both ways (~650 miles) makes it that much sweeter.  I’d definitely want to have a companion in the car next time I do it though, that’s for sure.

Just want to wish Colleen a happy birthday!  It’s about time, she got “old” like me 🙂  In other news, her website is leaving us because she doesn’t want it anymore.

Wow, of all the posts I just made, I almost totally forgot this one! 

From everyone here at rebelpeon.com, Happy 4th of July!  And remember to play and party safe.

It’s my birthday.  I accept cash.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

More to come later…

I don’t really feel like updating this, but I figure I should, since I’m not doing much of anything else. Just a heads up, project dancepad for DDR was a success. And now on to other things…

Christmas in “Quin-tuckey,” aka Quincy (Colleen’s home), was a good time. We left on Wednesday since the University was nice enough to give us the full day off (we were originally only supposed to have a half day). Since no one was going to be intown, we also took the cat. Nothing like listening to a cat for a few hours in the car. Always a good time. Anyways, we went to midnight mass with Colleen’s mom (Colleen fell asleep, tsk tsk tsk) and then celebrated Christmas at her mom’s house on the 25th. Later that afternoon we went over to her dad’s and had Christmas too. Nothing like meeting more strange family members ;). We went and saw “Cheaper by the Dozen” with her dad that night. It was a decent movie, but according to Colleen, “Nothing like the book.” Colleen and her brother Mick had pictures taken the next day (yesterday) and then we came home.

Later that evening, we went to see “LotR:Return of the King.” Wow, go see it. Talk about a great movie. It’s amazing though, how after watching/owning both the extended versions of the first 2, you start to pick up on where they’ve cut stuff out. Like when the eagles /hawks first appear. One of the characters sounds as if they know where the heck they came from. However, as an audience member, we have no clue. I know they’ll be something added about that in the extended version. Also, when Gandalf and the crew meet up with Pippen and Merry on the flood plains, if you hadn’t seen the extended version you wouldn’t know that they found the food and weed to smoke. Such a great movie though. I can’t wait till the extended version of the third one comes out. I can only anticipate 4 hours of goodness.

Oh yeah, and on the stick of movies, I really am beginning to hate all the commercials they put before hand. Thankfully, I noticed that the previews actually start at the advertised starting time of the movie. So, in order to avoid most of them, just get into the theater at the correct time. Oh, and don’t even get me started on those lovely MPAA commercials with the stage hands, etc about piracy. Maybe if they’d pay the actors/actresses less than 75% of the movie’s spenditures, maybe there wouldn’t be such a problem. Hell, if I were a movie producer, I’d go back to High School economics and learn that Net Profit = Total Gross – Spenditures. If I were to pay the actors/actresses 50% less, that’s more $$ in my pocket. Woh, now, there I go making sense again…