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.

Short

Not much new to post, other than the Wi-Fi Smash Bros. Brawl is a lot of fun, especially the taunting. That's all for now.

A Lot Can Happen in 3 Hours

Just as I was reading an article on Wikipedia about the most populated metropolitan statistical areas in the country, my Monday went from bad, to worse, to really great all in a matter of 3 hours.

The bad and worse you'll hear about in person, because I suppose it is significant. The great will stay to me, because the "great" is a life lesson I think I learned late at 24, but am glad I did. Things seem much clearer and balanced now.

I'm going to bed now, because tonight was a whirlwind and I'm ready for it to end.

Bulleted List

1) Tonight is a very special night. At 12:00 AM, besides the time change, Smash Brothers Brawl is going to be released. Alex and I are going to the Gamestop around 11:00 for the pre-party and getting our games at midnight. This has been a long time coming. If I were to guess, there probably won't be much posting next week due to me playing that game, but we'll see.

2) Last night Katey and I went to Troy to eat at the California Pizza Kitchen in the Somerset Mall. The Somerset Mall is a really fun place to walk around. It's 3 stories tall and nothing but high end stores. Then we came back to my apartment and watched House. She wanted to watch House, I don't really like those CBS shows but it was ok.

3) I looked at some more houses today in Plymouth, 3 to be exact. What I saw today was much nicer than what I saw when Mom and Dad were here. The prices were lower and the houses were in much better conditions.

4) It snowed again today.

Gotta go!

Wow

Have you seen this? Amazing.

My Goal - Crushed

One of my goals was to get through my first winter in Michigan without slipping and fallig on ice. We've had ice around since November, so I thought I was doing pretty well now that we're in March. Last night I got out of my car, had my jacket and a drink in my arm, and went to walk inside. When I stepped behind my car I felt myself go, and WHAM I was on the ground, and my phone / keys / drink were sliding over the pavement. My leg and arm just burned; my arm hurt the most. It felt really hot, really fast. I busted my elbow open from the pavement. I'm fine now.

It's a good thing nobody was around to see me, but I wish I could have seen myself because it felt like a good fall. My feet actually left the ground and I came down full weight on my leg and elbow. I wish I could have seen it, not felt it. It would have been a good laugh.

Yes There Are Stupid Questions

I mostly agree with the statement "there's no such thing as a dumb question", but today I heard one that made me mad because it was so stupid.

We had an all employee meeting at work. Someone actually blocked out time in the agenda to tell us about the "new" recycling bins, and how to use them. First of all, recycling has been around since I was little...so I think we all know how to recycle. Then, somone actually raised their hand, and said "Excuse me, but I just wanted to point out the slots in the recycling bin for paper are small...what do we do if we have larger paper, say 11x17 or a drawing? Can we get something done about that". I looked at Paul beside me (not you, Paul Hart) and said "You have GOT to be kidding me...did he just ask that?".

Apparantly some people don't know that you can do this thing with paper called tearing it. It will go from one big piece, to a lot of little pieces, hence it will fit in the small hole.

What a waste of time. So later this afternoon I was drafting and Paul walked up with a big sheet of paper and said "Dave, this is pretty big...what should I do with it?". HA!

Sometimes work actually feels like "Office Space"

Mystery In The Abbey

At Alex's tonight we played a game called "Mystery In The Abbey". It's very similar to "Clue", except you just have to figure out "who done it", not with what, or where. The only catch is it was a monk who did it, in a monastary, and there are 24 monks to choose from. There were 6 of us playing. It was getting close to the end, and Dan was very close to winning. However, someone answered a question and he yelled out "Damn! - now I have everyone crossed out...I did something wrong". I just smiled because I only had one person left - Brother Charles. Sophie yells out "someone made a mistake, because I also have everyone crossed off, so I'm just going to guess". So she guessed, and got it right, and it was someone I had already crossed off. So everyone looked over at me and said "Great Dave - you messed us all up". I did mess them up. For some reason in those murder mystery games I mark people off way to liberally. I'm not sure if I just have this gut feeling that they're not a killer, or what. It was fun either way.

I joined a small book club at work. We have our first meeting next Wednesday after work at someone's house. It's supposed to be very informal and fun. So I have a book to read before next week.

Cereal

I'm eating this cereal, that's very brittle, so much in fact that it almost cuts the roof of my mouth when I'm eating it. I just thought to myself "this cereal is way too crunchy...I don't like it". Then I look at the cereal box and realize I'm eating Captain Crunch, because it was on sale. So nevermind!

An Explanation of Sporadic Posting Is at the Bottom

Walter was invovled in a small fight at the dog park yesterday, but it was completey not his fault. It was a stupid beagle, who for no reason, bit Walter's neck (although all he was biting was loose skin) and started shaking him around. Walter didn't fight back at all, he just stood there shocked. It was the first time any dog has ever shown any agression towards him. He was fine though and the owner of the beagle corrected him.

I decided since it was so nice out this weekend (by nice I mean sunny and in the low-mid 30's) I would take Walter for a long walk after the dog park, to get him super tired. We walked about 3 miles roundtrip and he got very exhausted, which was nice. Last night I went over to Dan's house to watch Garden State. I haven't seen that movie in about 3-4 years so it was good to see again.

Oh, and I forgot, the real estate agent that showed us houses last weekend sent me another list of houses. One just came on the market in Plymouth that is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch house in a really nice neighborhood. It has a full basement and a detached 2 car garage. It was completely updated in 2005 and looked very nice from the pictures. I drove by it yesterday and it looks very nice from the outside. It's on an amazing lot, at the back of the subdivision on the cul-de-sac. I want to look at the inside of the house sometime soon. The price is very reasonable too. Plymouth's real estate values still remain very high compared to other parts of the metro area, mainly because Plymouth is considered "trendy" and has a neat downtown. It's ranked as one of the safest cities in the US and Plymouth Canton has a very good school district. Another bonus is that Plymouth is next to Northville, where I work, so the location is great.

I've decided I will go ahead and get pre-approved for a home loan to see what price ranges I can afford. Based on my calculations, the house I like in Plymouth would only be about $500 more a month to own over what I currently pay for rent - and that's including all of the taxes and insurance on the house. I'm so sick of paying some investor close to $800 a month to live in a 800 sq. ft. apartment. I'm getting nothing out of it equity wise.

So that's a big decision, but now is an excellent time to buy because the values are lower right now. I'll seee what happens/pans out over the next few months.

Dan from work went to chruch with me today. It was a good service about what Heaven is like. I didn't know, but Heaven is apparantly 1400 x 1400 square miles (Revelation 21). It also has Japser walls that are 200 ft. thick. We were wondering why you need a wall 200 ft. thick, made of Jasper of all things. The units ofcourse were in Cubits and Stadia, so as soon as I heard the pastor say the values I went to the conversion table in my Bible and started to convert things to inches and feet. Dan did the same. We realized after the service that we're nerds and typical engineers to be doing math/conversions during chruch, but we had to know.

Katey was able to come over today before she had to go to work. I'm glad she stopped by, and she said the reason she did was because we needed to talk about "us". That was scary at first to hear, but she said she is ready to say we're officially dating, and to use the label "boyfriend/girlfriend" now. So we're not friends anymore (well, we still are friends) but now I can officially introduce her to someone as my girlfriend. So that's good. I'm glad it's official now because it was weird explaining it to people when they'd ask. Oh, and I'm happy she's my girlfriend now too.

So I guess that's about all. I talked to Kiki the other day and we talked about how my posting has been slack a little. Maybe you're disappointed, but it's because I have more of a social life now that maybe a few months ago, so I actually go out now after work and on the weekends - hence the sporadic posting. I hope you understand, so when you log on to read a post, and there's nothing, just realize I'm out having fun and you'll feel better.

Good Friday for Somebody

I'm really, really tired tonight. This week has gone by so fast. I started German language training at work Tuesday. It's a blended class with online learning and 2 hours every other week with a German class instructor at work. We're expected to do 90 minutes of class on our own a week, and score >80% on all the exercises. I did well the first class, but German is much harder than Spanish. I have a very hard time pronouncing the German words.

Katey and I went to see U2 3D last night at the Henry Ford Imax. It was pretty good except for Bono's Coexist agenda. I just wanted to see the concert and hear the music and not get into the whole political agenda, but it was still good.

It started to snow tonight. As I was out tonight I thought to myself how nice it was to see the actual ground, but now it's going to be covered up again with snow. It's ok, it was a nice break.

I'm going to bed now, I need my sleep.

Let Me Catch You Up

Wow, half a week since posting. I've been pretty busy lately, so that's my excuse. It's a good one.

Mom and Dad came this weekend to visit. I really enjoyed having them. A strange thing happened with the weather...it was clear and sunny. It was still cold, but you could actually see the sky and the sun. That never happens in the winter here, or, if it does, only for a few minutes.
We took Walter to the dog park, and Saturday afternoon we went to look at some houses in Plymouth, Canton, and Northville with a real estate agent. The houses in Northville were close to $200,000 for something smaller than a trailer. The houses in Plymouth and Canton were nice. I think Plymouth/Canton is where I would like to buy my first house. I found out Plymouth/Canton is the largest school district in the country. Apparantly there are 3 high schools on the same campus, so students actually go to different schools for different classes...a lot like college.

Katey spent the day with us Sunday playing cards and being lazy, which was nice. It was pretty wet out yesterday. Today I woke up at 4:30 to get them off to the airport. Since it was such an odd time after I dropped them off (around 5:30) I just decided to go to work. I went to the gym at work and exercised for about 45 minutes, then took a shower, and actually got to my desk at 7:00. It's nice to go in early on sometimes before everyone.

Tomorrow is Friday, but Really Thursday

I found out yesterday that I can get a really good discount on Subaru's. Today after work Dan and I went to the Subaru dealership and test drove a 2008 Impreza. It was a nice car. It drove so-so, nothing really spectacular. The best part about the car was the all wheel drive. We took it down a neighborhood road with lots of snow and it handled very well. That is one thing about the car I really do like.

I think I will still go with the Civic though since it's cheaper and gets better gas mileage, and Paul doesn't like it so it will be fun to spite him. Sorry Paul.

Tomorrow is Friday for me, even though it's really only Thursday because I have the real Friday off. Mom and Dad are coming Friday morning for a long weekend. It will be nice to have them here. I think it's supposed to snow again on Friday. We already have about 7 inches on the ground right now.

Last night Katey came over and we watched "Little Miss Sunshine" and then "The Office". It was a lot of fun. While she was here it snowed about 3 inches though. I was trying to think when the last time I saw the actual ground was...and I think it's been about 2 weeks?

The Ski Trip - and Monday

Now I can finally write about the ski trip to Canada. It was amazing, and one of the best weekend I've ever had. It was so much fun to rent a huge house for the weekend with 15 of your co-workers and have a good time.

We left work Friday around 3:00 and got to Collingwood, Ontario around 9:00. There was so much snow in Canada it was crazy. There was about 3 feet of snow on the ground at the house we stayed at and the snow banks from plowing the roads were huge. Friday night we had a really interesting party that lasted pretty much all night. I didn't go to sleep Friday night/Saturday morning until 5:30 AM which I never do.

Skiing Saturday was hard because I was exhausted from the night before. My ski pass was good until 10:00 PM but a few of us ended up leaving around 4:30 PM to go back to the house and shower and relax. Saturday night was much more low-key.

We decided to leave Sunday pretty early, around 9:00 AM to get back earlier and because we didn't know what the roads were going to be like. Sunday was literally blizzard conditions. Driving was really hard and there were points where we just had to stop in the middle of the road because we couldn't see the hood of the van we were in. The snow was blowing like crazy and you couldn't see the road or anything. We drove south to Toronto and got on the 401 back to Windsor. The 401 was actually closed in one area because ofa weather so we had to take an emergency detour route around the closed area. All said and done, it took us almost 8 hours to get back because of the weather. We got lucky though, 2 other cars of people we were with actually had to stay in Canada because they closed all the roads they were travelling on and forced them to stay overnight because conditions were so bad. So I am glad we made it back last night.

I'll have to post some of the pictures I took from the weekend, but I'm going to get ready for bed now.

PS...I love my new computer! It's my first blog entry with it and I really love the way the keypad feels. Vista is nice too so far, I like the user interface. So far so good. Did you know today's high was 11 degrees!