Vacation

I'll be on vacation starting tomorrow until September 2nd. That means no posting during that time, unless I get bored while in South Carolina. I don't think that will happen though, because I never seem to have enough time there.

Bye!

Mail to ME Please

I'm declaring this week "send David mail week". I've been getting an awful lot of store advertisements and decided instead of that and bills, I'd like REAL hand written addressed letters and/or postcards from people. With real, peel and stick stamps (the lickable ones are OK too). So, can you make it happen?

If you're a complete stranger from some random place that reads this blog, I will be happy to give you my address in exchange for mail.

Thank you.

Good Sunday

I met a girl names Anna today, in the best way you can meet someone. More on that later.

I had a really nice weekend in general. Maybe the weekend was so good because last week at work was a bad start, but either way I'm very thankful for the past 2 days.

Yesterday I went to Lake St. Clair with some people from work. I haven't been on a boat in years. It was fun to go out into the lake and see what Michigan water was like. I got to swim, and I got some sun.

Today I slept a little later than planned. I was exhausted, so I missed church today. I went outside and did a little yardwork, and then went to the grocery store to get some things. After I got back and made something to eat, I laid down on the couch to read. I'm reading "The Catcher In The Rye" right now before we start the next bookclub book. I read for a little, then shut my eyes for about 15 minutes.

I decided I should take Walter to downtown Plymouth (about 1.5 miles from me). I walked there because it was nice out today and Walter needed to be worn out. I walked around the town square and got Walter some water from the Dairy King. I walked back to the square and thought this would be a perfect environment to meet someone in, just randomly in a park. Like a movie.

I sat on a bench and started to read my book. Walter laid down on the ground. I looked up and noticed a girl sitting on a blanket with a dog. She had a notebook and looked like she might have been sketching, or maybe writing. I glanced up every now and then, to see what she was doing. She looked like a beatnick, with bracelets and shorter hair. She had a nice smile. After watching her for a while, I decided she looked approachable so I walked over to her blanket and asked if it was ok for Walter to visit with her dog. She said sure, but her dog was old and sort of shy. So I just talked to her for a little bit, I think we started talking about dog stuff, like how old Walter was. She was nice, and could hold a conversation. Good. So, I decided I would go ahead and walk back. When I turned to leave she said "what book are you reading?". Interest! I turned back and told her, and then we started to talk about it, because she had read it. I sat down on the grass beside her blanket and we just started talking about everything. She had a Bible on her blanket, and somehow we started to talk about religion and she goes to the church I do sometimes. We talked for a long time, about all sorts of things. She was as inquisitive as I am, if not more. I love that. She's a vegetarian. She goes to U of M Dearborn. She's the youngest of 4 children. She grew up in Canton. She loves to travel. Her birthday is September 1st. She's going to Nebraska with family for her birthday. She has a dream to randomly take food from a stranger's plate, eat it, and run away. She's 3 years younger than me. I like her. She seems spontaneous and lively.

She perked up after a while and said she could really use some ice cream. I asked her if she wanted to walk and get some. We walked back to the Dairy King and got ice cream, and sat outside with our dogs talking more. I think our conversation mostly consisted of religion, about what we do in different situations. We walked more and more around downtown. She asked me what time it was and we realized we had been walking around for 3.5 hours. We decided to part ways. We exchanged e-mail addresses and said we'd go eat Indian food together sometime. It was really, really nice to meet someone like that. It's pretty easy to know right off the bat, or with a few sentences if you'll get along with someone.

So, I will e-mail her sometime this week and see if we can get together. But, just knowing there's someone out there like that is re-assuring. Being able to just talk to a stranger and hit it off like that is amazing.

It was a nice feeling.

Case of Mondays

I lost my temper at work today. I'll be honest, the "newness" has worn off after a little over a year now. I still like the job a lot, but the politics are a little clearer now. I'd say ignorance is bliss is a true saying, because once you learn more...you start to form an opinion on certain things. I felt like a ping pong ball today, being bounced between our manufacturing plant and the design center. Over something superficial and downright petty.

When I had enough, I raised my voice and told a few people I was pretty sure there are 3rd graders out there with more maturity, and I'm done dealing with petty garbage. I'm just ready for a vacation - or get away for a while because I want a break from some of this.

Anyway, I'm done with that for now. The weekend was really nice having mom and dad visit. I think we got a lot of great work done. They were also nice enough to get me a grill, a patio table with chairs, an area rug, and some yard tools for the garage. They were all very much appreciated. We landscaped the front and side of the house, and mom painted the living room and dining room. Saturday dad and I went to the Woodward Cruise, which is an event with around 1 million people (seriously) driving classic cars up and down Woodward Avenue from Detroit to Birmingham. It was really interesting to see all the people and all the cars.

I go to Subaru in Indiana Wednesday and Thursday this week. I'm looking forward to it actually. Getting out of the office for 1.5 days is what I'm looking forward to and dealing with a good customer is nice.

Oh, and another thing I just remembered. Tomorrow night I start going to a small group through church. I'm looking forward to doing that. It's a group of 6 guys, ages 21-28 who meet once a week to do a Bible study and hang out. I'm really hoping it will be a good opportunity and praying that it's a good group for me to fit into. I suppose I'll have more on that later.

This video is a good rendition of what my day was like.

Me

I was wondering how other people would describe me. You know when you hear someone talk about another person, and they describe them, or their personalities...what they like or dislike about them, etc. Tonight I went rock climbing with Paul from work and the phrase he used to describe me was "puppies and sunshine" and then his wife chimed in and said "and you fart rainbows". I thought that was interesting. I think people think I'm much more innocent than I really am.

Down By The Dunes

"So how do you and your brother Mac like it down by the dunes?". That's what Will Ferrell asked Rae Murphy (Molly Shannon) in a Saturday Night Live skit once. The dunes are amazing!

The western part of Michigan along Lake Michigan has miles and miles of large sand dunes. It can take you up to 3 hours to walk to the water in some of the largest places. I went with 2 people from work yesterday to Silver Lake Dunes. We met another mutual friend at a campground since they were staying for the whole weekend. We all decided to rent Jeeps for 3 hours and drive all around the dunes. The experience was pretty interesting. The dunes were packed with all sorts of 4-wheelers, dirtbikes, big foots, and some people in random SUV's driving all around the dunes. Take a look at these pictures. I made sure to document the whole dune experience.




We did have a little mis-hap though. At the peak of the dunes, there is a steep drop off from where the wind blows the sand to the peak, and then it levels back out. If you're going really fast, you'll jump the peak and bottom out. That happened to us. Another Jeep also did this, but they did it so hard they went airborne. There was a representative from the rental company out watching all the rental Jeeps and he stopped us and told us we were not on a baja-trip, but a tour and to cool it. He said this was a warning and if he caught us again we'd loose the deposit. So that put a damper on things. After that we didn't really drive much more, so we walked along the beach on Lake Michigan and watched people climb up the really high dune.

This past week at work was very annoying and frustrating. I'm ready for a vacation...a long vacation.

Thank You, Chrysler

Today was interesting. I met Paul at work at 6:00 AM to make the 4.5 hour drive to Shelbyville, IN to visit a supplier. Our rental car was dropped off Friday afternoon so it would be ready this morning. So there it was, a 2008 Chrysler Sebring with only 13,000 miles on it. I drove it for about 1.5 hours until we met up with another guy from work at a Park and Ride. We picked him up, and drove the rest of the way.

On the way back today, all was going well. I even took a nap in the car. Right before we entered back into Michigan the car suddenly lurched forward and the warning chime came on. The check engine light was on. The car went into some sort of "limp" mode because it wouldn't down-shift and had no acceleration at all. It started shuttering really bad and the check engine light started flashing and the chime kept binging. So I looked in the owner's manual and it said if the check engine light flashes, the car should not be driven because severe catalytic converter damage could occur. Oh well, it's not my car and Enterprise shouldn't buy junk. So we kept driving it. In our defense...would it be wiser to pull over on the side of the road and wait for help, or drive to a dealer? I think drive to a dealer. The car was under warranty anyway so it's not like the damage wouldn't be paid for by someone other than Chrysler.

When we got back to Michigan we pulled back into the Park and Ride lot and I suggested shutting the car off, and re-starting it to see if the error message cleared itself (I thought the car just mis-fired and got confused). So we shut it off, and when we went back to start it the car just cranked and cranked and cranked and I finally floored the gas and it started rough. Paul was nervous about driving the car anymore. So next to the lot, there was a Chrysler dealer. We drove the car over (it was around 7:00 PM now) and asked them to pull the code so we could find out if we should keep going back to Detroit in it or not. Well, the car never set a code. It just said "Fault". When they started the car, something was REALLY wrong. The car was knocking and shuttering and would almost stall, then rev really high, then shutter and act like it would die. The service manager said he would NOT advise us driving this car anymore and to call Enterprise. So we called Enterprise, but the office was closed so we couldn't get another car. So...a taxi ended up taking us the rest of the way back. I finally got home at 10:00 PM. A long day, and a junky car.

What I Did This Weekend

I think I accomplished a lot this weekend. As I sit here relaxing now I have a sense of accomplishment. Saturday I helped my friend Bill from work fix his windshield wipers on his car, and then he came over and helped me finish the electrical outlets in my house. They have all been changed out now. We both got shocked, again. For some reason random outlets are not on the same circuits as the rest in the room, so you get a nice suprise when you touch the bare outlet. It doesn't hurt, but just suprises you. It takes around a second or two for your brain to register that the feeling you are experiencing is you being shocked, and you should let go. Bill got it pretty bad, I heard his yell quiver as the juice was going through him.

Today I completely pulled up all the ground cover in the front of the house to prepare for some landscaping that's going to happen when mom and dad come. I left the small trees, but pulled up all the garbage and weeds. It looks better. Then, I came inside and painted the small bedroom. The result is below. I'm very pleased, I think it came out amazing.

Where did I get that really cool black chair you ask? I'm glad you did. I bought that today for $20....$20!!! It was the last day of a yard sale and everything was half off. Baaaaargain.

I like my Honda a lot, but I swear, for a car that is bigger than my Saturn it sure doesn't hold odd things like my Saturn could. I think the Saturn had larger doors and a larger trunk opening, because I remember fitting some pretty large/odd things in that car. The Honda just can't really hold much. It has lots of interior space, but the openings are small. When I bought that chair and tried to load it in the car I got really scared because it wouldn't go in the trunk, and not in the back seat. Finally I pushed the passenger seat back as far as it would go and then laid it down, and shoved the chair in. So I got it home. It had cat hair all over it I had to vacuum up, but for $20 I'm happy. It's a great chair to read in and is very comfortable.

Bill brainstormed turning the living room into a theatre with a projector and movie screen. I like that idea...a LOT. Maybe with more money...