What We Did This Weekend

I'm going to let you in on a little secret...what Grandma Hazel and I did this weekend. She got here about 45 minutes late on Friday. After I picked her up we ate dinner in Canton at Panera. Then we drove through Plymouth, to Northville so I could show here where I work. Back at my apartment, Walter welcomed her with jumping and craziness.

I think we were both really tired because we went to bed pretty early and slept kind of late (8:30 ish) on Saturday. We got ready and went to Partridge Creek Mall in Shelby Township. It's an outdoor mall that is dog friendly, so we took Walter along. We walked around for a while and put Walter in the car and ate at P.F. Changs. I took the long way home, so we drove into Detroit just a little so she could see the burned out houses and some strip clubs, then we took 8 Mile all the way back from Detroit to Northville. After that I showed her some of the houses I looked at in Plymouth and then we went to Meijer to get cooking supplies for dinner. We made chicken and dumplings and cornbread.

Today we went to church, at lunch at Famous Dave's BBQ, and walked around Twelve Oaks Mall and went into stores with $200 pairs of jeans that we couldn't afford. I played tennis this afternoon with Alex and his brother, then went back to church for their information session with Dan, and now I'm typing you this sentence.

It was a good weekend.

I've decided I'm going to throw a party/get together on May 16th here at my apartment. It's already my 1 year anniversary of living in Michigan and I want to invite a lot of people from work over to kind of say "thank you" for a good first year. I'll plan out good food to have out and spirits too. I think I'll move all my living room stuff into the dining room so we can have plenty of room to play the Wii in the living room. I'll send the invite out tomorrow and begin the planning.

A Friday Update

I'm about to go pick Grandma Hazel up at the airport. I'm so happy it's the weekend. The first thought that goes through my head every morning when I wake up is "I wish I could keep sleeping". It's funny how my first thought isn't that I'm hungry, or what will I wear, but that I want to go back to sleep.

It is absolute cruch time for my Civic. I'm watching every dollar...literally. I can't wait to get it. My first new car...only a few weeks away!

This Is Why

Some people told me they were disappointed in me, or that they would stop reading my blog because of my lack of posting (2 days worth). So I wanted to let you all know there is a good reason I did not post for the past two days. Those are:

Monday: It was Monday, and good TV shows were on
Tuesday: It was Earth Day - so I rode my bike

So that's why. I'm not ashamed. I went to game night tonight. I'm not sure if I'm just tired or grouchy, but it seemed to be one of those environments tonight that when you go to make a move, everyone has to analyze and critique was you just did...out loud. So you'd hear things like "Pshh, that was dumb" or "I don't even understand why you just did that" or "you're not making any sense". I like to think when I play a game I use a strategy, and I admit, my strategies usually are different from other people. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. What definately doesn't help is having people comment on your every move. So that's lame, don't do it.

Watch Your Mouth

Yesterday I was going to meet Terissa at work. This coming Friday, there is a "bring your child to work" day and Terissa asked me if I would help her make a drawing for it. I decided since it was nice out I would ride my bike to work to meet her. Well, I think I will start taking a paintball gun with me so I can correct those who act like idiots.

I was riding through Northville. I came up to a parking lot exit, and see a man exiting the parking lot. He stops, makes eye contact, and I cross in front of him. While I'm crossing he lurches forward and blows his horn. I just kept riding and ignored him. Then he preceeds to pull up next to me on the road, slow down, roll his window down, stick his head out, glare at me, and say "you're lucky you don't get yourself killed, you fuckhead", and he stares me down while driving off.

I guess yesterday must have been a day for the F-bomb in general. I also went to the Honda dealership to drive a Civic with a manual transmission to see if I might like that better than an automatic. I like the automatic better. I was walking around the Civics when I see this short skinny car saleslady walk quickly through the parking lot with a dealer tag and keys in her hand. She has really tall high heeels and is wearing all black - she looks like she means business. She hurries up to a car, looks inside and shouts "F*CK! It's a f*cking stick!". I thought "well, there's the one I should test drive then"

I took Walter to Hines Park today. I took a towel so I could read and let him walk around me, even though he couldn't go very far. I only have 4 weeks until I get my new car - it's getting very exciting. Nana is coming this weekend too for a visit!

Open Mouth, Put Foot In and Conversations

Open Mouth, Put Foot In:
I was at one of our plants yesterday and today because some of my parts were being assembled for a customer build. I went to watch and learn a little more about how they're assembled. I didn't really get to see much, because there were tooling problems that halted things. This morning I walked out to the floor to a machining cell, and a guy just looks at me and goes "who are you, another intern?" I said "no, actually I'm the design engineer for this program". Then said "you mean you're the designer then?". I said "No, I'm the engineer". (A designer is someone who just does CAD work, not an engineer, by the way). Engineers are expected to do both though. He just said "oh...sorry about that".

I think he felt really akward. It's nice to know I still look so young though.

Conversations:
At lunch we went to a "New York Style" Chinese Buffet. What's a "New York Style" buffet? I noticed there were 3 older women who came in, and walked up to the buffet. One of them was older than the other 2, but not old enough to be one of their mothers. Well, the older one, I'll call her Mildred (I don't know her name though) started to get her food. One of the other women was walking beside Mildred and saying "Oh look sweetheart, here's some chicken" and "Oh no honey, that's hot" and "Oh I know sweetie, those are breaded" and "Sweetheart, here's some of the beef you like" and "Look honey, here's the dumplings". All of this was said with a thick Michigan accent too. I wanted to say "she's OLDER than you, she's not your honey, or your sweetheart, or your sweetie". It's odd when people address those older than them as terms of endearment...except when I do it, then it's ok.

Saturn Story #3

Tonight I decided to list all the states my Saturn has been to. It's been around to Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, and Canada...whoo.

And...I got my oil changed tonight in my Saturn...for the last time. It's like when a movie comes to an end, you can tell it's about to end. That's like the ownership with my Saturn, some of the things are happening for the last time.

It's okay though, because my new Civic will take care of that. While I was getting the oil changed I test drove a new VUE. I'm just not impressed with the new Saturns at all. They feel so cheap. The service was really great though. My oil change was free because last time they messed up and used the wrong oil, so they gave me my last oil change free and this one free too which I thought was nice.

I also just got an email that made me do a double take. Northwest Airlines and Delta Airlines are merging to create one large airline, which will be called Delta Airlines. So there will effectively be no more Northwest Airlines. The email said they will keep all existing hubs, but I wonder what's going to happen to the Detroit hub? Interesting news though.

Mona Pizza

Mona Pizza is the name of a really great song I stole. I stole around 100 songs these past few days, thanks to Paul's help. "Stole" is relative, I don't think it's stealing so it's ok.

Yesterday was just nasty. It was cold and rainy. I expected it to be the same today, so when I woke up I peeked out the blinds in my bedroom and did a double take. It was snowing. Snowing. As in frozen precipitation. In April. It was actually snowing pretty hard, but the ground must not have been cold enough because it wasn't sticking. Friday was 70, and today was snow. That's crazy.

Not much exciting happened this weekend. I played Brawl online with Kiki and Paul for a while Saturday night. I think tonight I'm going to a movie with Terissa and Alex, if they call back.

Tomorrow it's back to work. I have a meeting at Ford tomorrow. I hope it will be painless. I'm going to go in with the best attitude I can. Hopefully this week I can do some more bike riding after work if the weather is nice. This week I'm also taking care of Dan's cats while he's in Japan. They're not staying here, but I'll feed them and check on them everyday. I really love the one cat, Harley. She stayed with me for a week once. She's an angel, and very affectionate. His other cat, Bobo, is nice too but he's got a little bit of an attitude problem (like smacking you when you walk by).

I drove around Saturday to some parts of Livonia and Canton to check out the neighborhoods and houses. They're nice, and priced much lower than Plymouth for the same houses. However, real estate is all about location, location, location (or so they say) and apparantly Plymouth is that location. The search will be on more seriously this summer I'm sure.

I hope this Pokemon of the week is better. I've been wanting to do this one for a long time, and this week is the week. Enjoy! David loves planes!

Cycling

Today after work I really wanted to ride my bike, because it was around 70 degrees outside. So when I got home, I took Walter out for a walk and clouds started to move in and it rained really hard. It was a quick rain, and it stopped raining around 6:45 PM or so.

Earlier this week Dan rode to my apartment from Plymouth, and I drove him back home. So I decided to do the same. The distance to Plymouth is about 7.5 miles, but the ride is really nice. I got really lucky, because when I was riding the sun was starting to go down and was cascading really pretty colors on the darker clouds. Since the ground was wet it had a golden sheen to it. The bike ride was good exercise too, so that's always a good thing.

Just Like The Movies

I had to watch two movies tonight that I didn't want to watch. I was obligated. One of the movies, "Rear Window" was loaned to me by Paul at work. He loaned me two movies. "North by Northwest" and "Rear Window" and said I had to watch both of them. The problem is, they were made before 1980-ish and movies like that (i.e. old) don't hold my attention at all. It's what I call "mid-evil crap". Anything old is classified as that to me, that's how I describe it.

Anyway I watched "North by Northwest" about 2 weeks ago, and it wasn't bad, but wasn't that great either. So I never got around to "Rear Window", and the other day Paul asked if I had watched it and when I said know, he kind of huffed and said "well am I ever going to get my movies back?" So I figured it'd be good if I went ahead and watched it. When I say I watched it, I mean I turned it on, and did stuff around my apartment like cook, eat, surf the internet, and then read the plot of the movie on Wikipedia incase he asked me, then turned it off about 45 minutes before it ended. I just couldn't take it.

So that was the first movie. The second movie I had to watch was "Monty Python and The Quest for the Holy Grail". Alex called and asked if I wanted to watch it, because it was supposed to be really funny. I always hear people quoting it and talking about it. Since it seemed so legendary I thought I should go ahead and watch it. Well, it wasn't good either. British humor is just stupid. Have you ever tried watching one of those British sit-coms with Judy Dench? Well it was like that, only this WAS set in Authurian mid-evil times so it was that much worse for me!

I guess sometimes you have to watch things you don't want to.

It's Tuesday

We took a field trip today at work. It was a pretty interesting field trip. I also went rock climbing tonight, in my new climbing harness that I bought this past weekend.

Granmda Hazel (Nana) is coming to visit at the end of the this month. I'm really looking forward to seeing her and having her here with me for a few days.

I'm a little confused now, too.

Saturn Story #2

I will admit, I had severe buyer's remorse after I bought you. I wondered what would happen to my old Saturn. Would the new owners take care of my old Saturn like I did? Buyer's remorse also came from the fact that I had to add massive amounts of oil to you when I first bought you. I even tried to trade you back in on a new Saturn, but that didn't happen and I wished you would just be totalled out so I didn't have to deal with you. In the end I just kept adding oil to you until you developed a slight ticking noise that kept getting louder and louder. Finally, to be on the safe side, your older engine was replaced with a new one. I didn't have to add oil anymore and you seemed fine. I racked up miles on you like crazy commuting from Spartanburg to Anderson everyday. I think in one summer I put around 20,000 miles on you.

It was at that 165,000 mile mark that you just began to tease me for the fun of it. Your sunroof track decided to crack when I was driving to Lake City for a job interview. Finally, on my way home from Charlotte after my interview in Michigan, your sunroof decided to pop up and not shut. So when I got home, I physically ripped the tracks out of you and broke them, and sealed the glass back down. That felt nice. Then it was the shifter cables...ohhhh the shifter cables. If you ever want to torment me, give me a Saturn with broken shifter cables...

*aside* When the shifter cables broke, I had to ride the CAT bus to class for a week. I woke up very early, because the bus only ran on 30 minute intervals and if I wanted to work out it meant I had to leave at 6:00 AM. I met this very odd lady at the bus stop. She was in her late 50's I'd say, and was a "cat" lady who was in school to be an English major, and worked in the school cafeteria. Come to think of it, she was actually from Michigan. That was weird.

That's enough about shifter cables. If you really want to hear the rest of it, ask Paul. He may not be able to repeat most of it though. Then, I think it was the radiator that decided to spring a leak. That was another thing.

I guess those were the only major things that broke on you...what was it, your engine, radiator, shifter cables, sunroof? I guess you still have your original transmission...that's a plus.

I think next week I'll do a photo story of your damage that occured during my ownership. You still look very good for a 10 year old car, but there are a few bumps and bruises I'll point out.

ALSO! The Pokemon of the week is, let me just say, BAMF this week. I wish I would have found this one earlier!

I Missed You As Well

Gosh I must have gotten slack again towards the last part of the week. Sorry about that.

This weekend was wonderful. Wonderful fun and wonderful weather. It was filled with game playing, house (apartment cleaning), fixing a car (not mine), detailing a car (not mine), and more game playing at work, on a Sunday night in a conference room.

Walter had fun this weekend too since he stayed out almost all Saturday. I'm tired now, so unfortunately the Pokemon update will be postponed until Monday.

No Really I'm Serious...

It's probably best not to discuss work all that much on here, because I have learned that Google's search function works well and people find this blog; people I don't even know.

All I want to say is that I love working with the Japanese. They actually know what they're doing, and that's nice for a change.

...this is no April Fool's. The Japanese are wonderful to work with, and there's another company...welllll, they're not so great to work with.

Off to A Good Start and Saturn Story #1

I'm off to a good start because I'm posting one day after my previous post. Also today was like butter at work. Paul used to say "like an old man sliding into a warm bath". That means it's smooth, easy, and relaxed. All Mondays should be like this. I mainly did administrative things at work today with our database and housekeeping (digital housekeeping that is). It's a good way to start off the work week. I also was able to send out a meeting request for Smash Brothers tonight. It's a mandatory meeting

A guy I work with, Bill, has two dogs. He hates them and talks about how he wants to kill them all the time. I mentioned that Shar Pei's have a short life-span, only 7.5 to 10 years. He said "That was a good choice then...you get a Jack Russell, you're stuck with that little F'er for 17 years or so". That's so weird to think of a dog as a comittment (in terms of years). I wonder what Walter and I will be up to in 5 years?

I also decided to start a special Monday post that will occur every Monday from now until May 19th. I decided this weekely posting would be random stories or occurances with my Saturn, since we only have a little less than 2 months left with each other before I divorce him. So let's start now, Monday, March 31.

Saturn Story #1

I bought you in February 2002 during my senior year of high school. It was by coincidence, really, that we met. I was with Grandma at the Saturn dealership while her car was being serviced, and noticed you off in the distance in the used car area. You had alloy wheels, a spoiler, and a sunroof, and were an angelic white color with black pinstripes. Surely you had Option Package 2, and would be expensive. I saw your price, $5,995, and didn't see you as cheap, but affordable. You had 88,900 miles on you in just 4 years. You were experienced in such a short time; my kind of car. I brought my dad back with me to look at you on a Sunday, when the Saturn dealer was closed and noticed you now parked in the customer parking. I thought you had been sold, but in reality I think you were about to be auctioned off because you had high miles. My first Saturn sat parked while I test drove you. The salesperson said my current Saturn was so clean he'd eat off the engine, and offered a good price on a trade in. So the deal was made, and you became mine. We had fun, you and I, in the first few colder months. Your sunroof was exotic and I used it even on cold mornings with the heater. Then I noticed your fault, and became worried...

Until next week...

A Sunday Update

It has been a long time since I posted. I'll do better this next week.

I just saw an advertisement for Lipozene, a weight loss drug, and one of their "customers" just said "I loved being able to loose weight without actually having to work for it". If you don't have any motivation to work in the first place...you're probably not going to loose weight, because it takes work.

I've had a fun weekend so far. Friday after work Paul, Dan and I went rock climbing in Ann Arbor. It's amazing how good rock climbing is for you. If you do it for a few hours (we usually stay for 3 hours or so) you burn around 700 calories. It's a good challenge too. I want to get a climbing harness sooon so I don't have to keep renting them.

Kiki was in Ann Arbor this weekend visiting U of M. So when Dan and I finished rock climbing we met Kiki downtown and got something to eat. I was glad I got to see her on Friday.

Saturday I took Walter to the dog park. We left a little early because he wasn't behaving very well. For some reason he did not want to come when he was called and kept walking away from me when I told him to come. I got to hang out with Kiki again on Saturday night. We played Rummikub and Fluxx in the lobby of her hotel and took lots of pictures.

I finished reading the book "Lamb" for the bookclub at work. It was actually very funny and a good book. The other one we're starting is supposed to be more serious and a tougher read. It's called "The Monsters of Templeton". I think I will start on it today. I still have to finish Paper Mario at some point. I will try to do that today, too.

A Movie

Tonight I saw one of the best movies: Elizabethtown. It was really, really, good and I recommend you see it.

That's all.

Happy Easter; Love Your Friend, Michigan

Instead of lillies, buds, and spring air we got this Friday for the Easter weekend. We had a nice week previously of actually seeing the ground, and the ground was starting to thaw out finally (i.e. it didn't feel like you were walking on a rock while walking on the grass). Then we got this. Luckily Saturday it started to melt but it was strange to see snow on the ground at Easter.

I didn't have to work Friday. A 3 day weekend should happen every weekend, if life were fair. I celebrated by sleeping later than usual, reading, teaching someone from work how to play Smash Brothers, reading more, then going over to Alex's to play more Smash Brothers, then I played 2 more hours with Paul online through Skype using a webcam.

Saturday I took Walt to the dog park. We had missed 2 weeks for whatever reason, but he was happy to go back and play with his dog friends. I also went rock climbing Saturday. I REALLY miss being able to do it for free at Clemson. Now I have to drop $25 every time I go. Friends from work go once or twice a week because they have year memberships (that's like $900). I try to go twice a month. I justify it because it's SUCH good exercise and a mental challenge as well.

I joined a program at work called "In Shape". The whole point is to be on a team, and encourage people to loose weight. Our engineering group formed a small team and I decided I would do it. Basically it's a 6 month long comittment in which you set a weight loss goal, and try to achieve it by the end of 6 months. As a team you're supposed to support each other. It's pretty strict, you have to keep a log of food you eat, and basically monitor calories in vs. calories out. I set my goal for 10 pounds in 6 months which I know I can do. I don't want to loose a tremendous amount of weight, but just firm up some. I lost 10 pounds in college, then another 5 pounds when I moved to Michigan. I attribute it to eating smaller portions, but still being healthy. I ate WAY to much when I lived at home. The portions were larger than I needed and there was always a snack of some sort on hand. So this program officially starts tomorrow.

Dan and I went to Easter service at church today. After that we went to Ruby Tuesday for lunch. I had Easter dinner with another friend from work, Paul, and his family.

I found this picture below online. This is the exact car I want to get in May. It's the same model and the same color I want. That's only about 2 months away now so it's getting closer.

Sort of Like Milo and Otis

I completely stole this from someone else, but I had to, because it's such a good video about a dog's relationship with their owner. I love it.



Yesterday when I was taking Walter for a walk I felt like Captain Olimar from Pikmin because on the grass I found a role of electrical tape, a pack of lifesavers, and a flip flop. What random litter, that could be treasure.

What I Did

I did a whole bunch of nothing this weekend. Friday night I went to one of the German intern's going away party. That was a lot of fun, but there were only 4 Americans there so I listened to a lot of German being spoken.

Saturday I decided to treat myself to some new clothes. I haven't bought any new clothes in a while, and decided I deserved some. Today after church all I did was read for most of the day. I'm trying to finish the book "Lamb" for the book club at work. I should actually be starting on our second book by now.

Tomorrow and Tuesday I have threaded fastner (i.e. nuts and bolts) in Troy, so I won't actually be at work for the next two days which will be a good break. This past week work was very annoying and just not fun. We have Friday off for Good Friday, but I have a very good feeling I will have to go into work to finish by a deadline. You know what's the most annoying thing: to be on a phone conference, and have 5 people say "you need to get this done ASAP so we can move forward...when can you have it done?". Yes, that's a legitimate question...however...I have learned so far that in this job, something that should only take 1 day, usually ends up taking 4-5 because there is a domino effect for everything. So that leaves me with the answer "I'm not sure, but I'm working as fast as I can". That gets frustrating. So a 2 day break is a good thing. If I didn't, I may turn into Paul. He already has 2 "me" days dedicated to himself!

I have been keeping up with my favorite quotes from "Lamb" and when I'm finished, I'm going to comprise them into a blog post. This humor should be shared.

Yuck

Today was not a good day. This week has not really been a good week in general, to be honest. I had to go to work for about 30 minutes to print stuff, and then drive to a meeting at one of the "Big Three". I won't say which one, but I will say their name begins with an "F" and ends with a "d" and has "or" in the middle of it. If I didn't have Subaru, and had to work with them only...I don't think I could do this job very long. Working with them is about as fun as watching paint dry, but worse because they give you work that is about as important as paint drying (i.e. not important at all). It's not all their fault to be honest. I am still learning a lot of the technical information, so I couldn't answer some of their questions, and I hate answering a question with "let me check on that and get back to you". So I was frustrated with myself too. Just imagine being in a grey, dark, drab building with nothing but middle aged men in tight cubicles arguing over whether or not a value should be 2 kN or 3 kN. It will kill your brain cells too, I promise.

The day did get better when I played Brawl online with Paul and got to beat him with Sweet Nana since he was playing as that dike, but then it got bad again when I noticed Walter was being way too quiet and not bothering me. I looked over at him: "Oh, he's just chewing on a bone". About 5 minutes later, I check again and the bone is beside his mouth, but he was chewing on something else: my phone. I yanked it out of his mouth, but he completely destroyed the bottom of it. It's mangled plastic and the charge port is dented, so they charger won't go in like it's supposed to. So if you call, and I don't answer for a few days, it's because I'm probably going to have to drop $150 for a new phone.

So...I'm just ready for this week to be over. Woe is me.