NicholasYax.com

So, I left off at us getting home on Monday the 12th.  We stayed home Tuesday, then Wednesday left for Bay City to drop Jenn’s dress off at Clayton’s to be cleaned and preserved and leave her bouquet with my Mom to preserve it.  From there we drove to Novi to shop Twelve Oaks.  We arrived at the mall but decided to go look for a hotel first.  We found a nice hotel in Waterford, checked in, then went to dinner at Mitchell’s Fish Market in Birmingham.  After dinner, we decided to skip the mall and went back to the hotel for the night.

Thursday, we headed to the Detroit Zoo for the morning, which was rather dead due to being off season, a weekday morning, and rather cold out.  Still, we had fun, and saw some cool reptiles and amphibians.  Next we headed further down Woodward right downtown to Greektown.  You can tell you are heading deep into Detroit when you  stop seeing McDonalds and see only White Castle, Popeye’s, and Church’s.  So, we had lunch at the Greektown Casino buffet, played in the casino for a little while, then went out to the street and stopped at a bakery for some baklava.  From there, we left Detroit via 94 and headed down 23 to Dundee to walk around Cabella’s.  We went through the St. Julian Winery outlet, and walked around Cabella’s, then headed north to Milan for the night.

Friday we woke up and headed up to Howell to shop the outlet.  Picked up some cool stuff, then headed over to Okemos to shop the mall there.  I got two dress shirts and ties at a really good deal, and we stopped at Big John’s for lunch.  From there, we headed home for the weekend.

Tuesday, the 20th, I had an interview at Grand Rapids Spring and Stamping, which Jenn drove down to with me.  Interview was short, and I still haven’t heard back from it, so not seeming very promising.  We then dropped Jenn’s computer off at the Apple Store to have the palm rest repaired (free, even out of warranty, awesome).

Wednesday, we returned to GR to pick up her computer and drool over the new 20 and 27” iMacs. Also stopped at Robinette’s Orchard.  Tasted some wines, got some apples, had some doughnuts and cider, had a good time.

Thursday night, Jenn went back to work, and the honeymoon officially ended.  The week and a half since have been rather uneventful.  Applied to a couple more jobs, asked for info from Western Michigan on grad programs, not too much else.

In all, over 2 weeks, we visited Alpena, Arenac, Bay, Clare, Clinton, Crawford, Eaton, Genesee, Ingham, Ionia, Iosco, Isabella, Kent, Livingston, Macomb, Mecosta, Midland, Monroe, Montcalm, Montmorency, Oakland, Osceola, Oscoda, Roscommon, Saginaw, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties.  Quite a list.

We got a new neighbor upstairs yesterday, apartment had been empty since August.  Kind of strange someone moving in in late October in a college town, but whatever.

So, that would be about it.

nick

I just upgraded to Wordpress 2.3. As with any upgrade, if you find errors, hickups, bugs, or other abnormalities, let me know.

The first SME meeting was today. It was a little disorganized, but we got a schedule for future meetings and a little discussion on what we will be doing over the upcoming year.

Other than that, mostly just been going to class. Had a test in 311 today, 341 tomorrow, 340 Tuesday.

Might go to River of Time Saturday. We were going to go Sunday to see Todd dressed as a Voyageur in his cousin’s wedding, but not sure. Maybe I will just find an apple orchard/corn maze type farm around here and call it good.

Jenn and I were actually talking yesterday, and decided we were going to buy a pumpkin farm and have a corn maze and pumpkin catapult and give cow-drawn carriage rides, and charge people $1 for a picture of them kissing our ass (our donkey that is). I have said before, Autumn is my favorite season, and pumpkin farms are the heart of this time of year. Besides, fresh hot pumpkin doughnuts in warm apple cider is just so damn good.

nick

Alot to cover this time.

Wednesday, Jenn and I went to Grand Rapids for the SME show. Show wasn’t really bad, but not good. Nobody hiring like I was told, but we got some cool swag. Afterward, we went car shopping up and down 28th street. There were a few cars that maybe had some small chance of possibility, but not much. We had lunch at Red Robin, which was pretty good. We did some quick shopping through Woodland Mall, including checking out the new iPods which have grown on me.

After enough of not finding cars, we went to Centerpointe Mall where Jenn bought a new work uniform and I bought a suit and dress shoes. It was originally marked $550 and I got it for $145, not bad. I need to have the pants tailored, but it should be good. After all that, we headed home.

Thursday, Jenn’s parents arrived around 9 am, and after chatting for a while they left with Jenn to GR for their own shopping (Jenn and I avoided shopping because we knew she would be back the next day). So they shopped around most of the day while I enjoyed a day off because my professors were all at the SME expo. Jenn stayed at the hotel that night, rather than driving home, as she worked the next morning.

Friday, I had my class and lab, then sat around for a little while before driving Jenn’s vehicle down to GR. On the way, a semi blew out a tire in front of me, and I accidentally took the wrong exit, but got there OK. Once at the hospital parking garage, I tried to call Jenn and tell her I was there, but had no signal, so I decided to go into the hospital to check if I had some there. Once in, I figured I could try and find her, not realizing the size of the hospital. I actually managed to find the right building, and take the right elevator, but for some reason thought she was on the 4th floor, when she is actually on 5th. Having signal, I gave her a call and found her quickly.

When she was done, we left and headed over to Van Andel Arena for the Built Ford Tough Series Presented by Wrangler Professional Bull Riders Tour (Yes, that is actually the official name) rodeo. So, we found parking, made our way in, and found our seats. It was actually pretty good, we all enjoyed it. The actual bull riding was not bad, but the show between was really good. When you think that 45 people compete to stay on a bull for 8 seconds, thats only about seven and a half minutes of the 120 minute show. From the rodeo clowns to contests and pyrotechnics and all kinds of other things, they fill the time. They even shot bratwurst from a t-shirt cannon (note: spellcheck doesn’t like the word bratwurst).

After the rodeo was over, we tried to find our way back to the hotel, where we spent some time in the hot tub, then went to Steak n’ Shake for a Caramel Apple Shake, which was awesome.

Jenn left for work before I was up, around 6. Her parents woke me up around 9 for free breakfast, then we drove back here where they left me, and continued to Traverse City, then home. Jenn called me around 6:30 (actual, 4:30, but I was asleep, and she didn’t mention it in the message) to tell me that she accepted OT, and wouldn’t be home until 12 – 12:30. Last night, she was complaining she wanted to call in, and then she took a 16 hour shift? Well, she gets out early tomorrow at 3, 4 hours early, so that’s something.

So, I went to KFC for dinner, and was sitting outside after ward since it was nice out. As I sat, I saw something out of the corner of my eye, jumped startled, and it was a deer. As I stare at it, it just stood there and stared back, then her 3 kids walked up one by one and did the same. After a minute of “Whoa! Look, there’s a dude there. Why is he in our yard?” They decided to walk off into the tree line.

So, right now, I am watching the rodeo again and it is really sucking. If I wasn’t mostly blogging I would have turned a long time ago. All the cool between the rides stuff, is not of TV. No t-shirt guns, no pyro, no Enterprise rent-a-tank, nothing. Oh well.

Fish are doing better, ich is nearly gone. Will keep treating for another week to make sure though.

My dad might be by tomorrow, he is going fishing in Baldwin, which isn’t far away.

I think that’s all.

later,
nick

So, Friday afternoon we left for Alpena, which was about a three and a half hour trip. We stayed at Camper’s Cove, which is about 10 minutes from Jenn’s parent’s house. We made a trip to Wal-mart for some supplies and then had some hot dogs. Saturday we went for breakfast at Jenn’s parents, then came back to the campsite and rented a pontoon for 2 hours and took out Jenn’s mom, sister, and niece and nephew. The kids fished for a while with no success, and I tried swimming. After that, we went out for dinner, then to see Jenn’s grandma. After we got back to our campsite we sat around a bit, then Jenn’s parent’s joined us for some marshmallows. After they left, we made some hobo dinners, then after a bit more sitting we headed to bed.

Sunday, we packed up after the rain ended, then went to Jenn’s parents for lunch, then went with her mom, sister, and Johnny to the putt-putt course and for a go-cart ride, then to 7-11 and home (by the way, big gulp floats are pretty good). After that, we headed home. On the way, we stopped at Big Buck Brewery in Gaylord, which was good. We tried to go to Jay’s, but they were closed.

My Dad is coming tomorrow to visit, so we have been picking up and cleaning here and there in preparation.

OK, that’s it.

nick

So, I am down to under 3 weeks of summer remaining. I could probably go to some site and find the exact number of seconds or something, but don’t feel like it. At least I finally got my SMART Grant figured out: I don’t get it. It seems that you are ineligible for the grant after you reach 96 credits, and I am at 113 right now. Another reason to not be undecided for 4 years. So, I accepted my loans and am waiting for verification of my MPNs from Ferris.

Jenn and I went to see The Simpsons Movie on Sunday night. It was quite good. Too often a TV show will eventually make a movie and then the show dies (see The Simpsons are lucky enough to be in an unchanging world, and the movies don’t need to necessarily have anything to do with the TV show, and vice versa, everything that happened is conveniently reset when the show ends. Besides, name something more popular?

Apple held a press conference this morning and introduced new versions of all their consumer apps, iMacs, keyboards, and .Mac. The iLife apps all have really nice upgrades, except they changes iMovie’s icon to some gay “walk-of-fame star” looking thing. iWork also got some nice upgrades, including a spreadsheet app finally, but I still probably wont use it. The new iMac is nice, and now aluminum. They dropped the 17″ model in favor of now two 20″ and one 24″ model, all with faster processors, more RAM, and bigger HDs with better graphics. Interestingly, you can now get a 1 TB HD in your iMac, but not in your Mac Pro. And, finally .Mac now has 10GB of space for the same $99, up from 1GB. That is a nice upgrade, and actually makes it possible for me to back up everything on my HD to the .Mac server, but still isn’t worth rejoining. Besides, there is still no scripting or database support, though some of the new galleries and pages for iPhoto, iMovie, and iWeb certainly hint to scripting existing somewhere.

Jenn worked last night, tonight, and tomorrow, following which we are going up to Alpena for the weekend, and possibly Mackinaw. We will be camping at some point in that trip, either in her parents back yard or one of the campgrounds around Alpena. On a sad note though a family friend of theirs passed away last night so there will be a funeral to attend probably Friday.

Dirty Jobs on the bridge was on at 9, and is replaying either as I type, or at 1. I am sure there will be another replay come weekend.

I think that might be it. Maybe another post before we leave, if not right after.

nick