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June 30, 2004
Done With Marketplace!
I just got back not too long ago from my very last shift at Marketplace, woohoo! I worked 6-11:45pm tonight, almost all of which was spent in the chilly milk/juice cooler. Fun times. Don't get me wrong, I liked working there, but I am so glad to be finally done.
Last night after I worked 8-5 at MP, I went over to Nathan & Laura's place to play one last game of "Rail Baron" before I left. And despite my best efforts, Laura won yet again, extending her overall winning streak in that game to something obscene, like around ten. Nathan just had a horribly frustrating night with the dice the entire game and couldn't do much, and I was pretty close to winning before Laura pulled it out. I got back from N&L's at 12:45am or so, and then by 1:30 I was heading over to Mike's for a spur of the moment visit, hehe. Shaun was over there too, and we were just basically goofing off and watching funny commercials/videos until 4:30 or so. Being spontaneous is fun. :-)
Then today I spent a little time getting the photos from the Twins-Brewers game on my website, and I also had lunch with Profe at Adventure's Cafe in Rice Lake. We talked about all sorts of stuff, including politics. We're at basically completely opposite sides of the spectrum, but it's still fun to talk about that stuff with her. :-)
Well, I suppose I should be getting to bed. Tomorrow I've got to clean out the room I'm currently sleeping in, and probably also get a good start on packing, because we're getting company Thursday night, and then Friday night's my party. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll actually be able to hang out with Brooke tomorrow night and that she won't have to cancel yet again. She hasn't seen any of the "Lord of the Rings" movies yet, and I've told her that I can't go to Australia on a good conscience without at least making sure she's seen the first one, hehe. Just four days left in Wisconsin!
Posted by Jared at 01:36 AM | Comments (0)
June 27, 2004
Road Trip Trio
Wow, I really had a blast this weekend! Once Mike, Kevin and I finally got going on Friday, we eventually made our way to Andew's apartment in Mankato after a couple stops. One of those stops along the way was at Martin Luther Manor in Bloomington so that I could make sure I got a chance to see my Grandma Siesennop at least once more before I left for Australia. Man, it's hard saying goodbye to someone, especially a grandparent, when you know that it might very well be the last time you ever see them . . .
We got down to Kato a bit before 9, and had a grand ol' time playing some Tiger Woods Golf 2004, and NBA Live 2004 on the PS2. We even rented "Matchstick Men" but got distracted by that other fun stuff and didn't get around to it, oh well. I had some tacos from Taco Bell that didn't sit too well with me that night, but I was all better by morning at least. :-)
Once we all eventually got up on Saturday, Kevin and I headed over to Scheels, as I had to go get some shoes, and Kevin wanted to check out what they had too. I wound up getting a nice (though kinda expensive) pair of mostly-white Asics running shoes, and also a pair of brown waterproof Columbia trail/hiking shoes (they happened to be on sale too!). I like the Columbia's a lot more than the Nike's I got at Sports Unlimited in Rice Lake on Thursday, so I'll be taking those back probably tomorrow. They're cheaper too, and better shoes overall. :-) After that we both headed up to Gustavus to visit some of my friends for a little bit that are staying there this summer in Wahlstrom, including Seth, Laura, John and Brendan (Dave had to go home though, so he wasn't there).
Mike had stayed behind with Andrew to wait for Amanda to get done with work. They swung by Gustavus, and then it was time to go to the Twins-Brewers game at the Metrodome! Mike, Andrew and Amanda rode up in Andrew's car, Kevin and I in mine (Kevin slept most of the way, just like he usually does in a car ride of any length whatsoever, regardless of the time of day, hehe). I was a bit taken by surprise when Andrew all of a sudden pulled off to take a different direction to the Cities when we got to Shakopee, so we got separated. There was much frustrated hand waving and gesturing on their part to try to get me to follow them, but they made their surprise choice of route too late, oh well. So Kevin and I were trying to come up with ways to try and find them in the mass of people outside the Metrodome, but Kevin's cell phone had a dead battery, so we couldn't reach them and just had to wait outside the Dome. Fortunately they spotted us after a few minutes though, but as a result of us getting separated we couldn't get five tickets together. 
It worked out fine though, Kevin and I wound up with better seats than they did anyway. ;-) As for the game itself, it was pretty entertaining, even though the Twins lost to the Brewers 7-2. It was a combination of crappy pitching by the Twins and excellent hitting by the Brewers. They were just scorching every single ball, it was amazing. But both teams came up with some exciting defensive plays though, which was fun. And because lots of other people started leaving early, Kevin and I were able to make our way down to some seats in the fourth row right by the Twins dugout for the last inning or two! I'll try to get some photos from the game up here in the next day or two. [Note: I now have a photo album from the Twins game up on my Photos page.]
Mike, Kevin and I were all a bit hungry after the game since we hadn't eaten beforehand, so we were just cruising along 35W on the way home when Kevin suggested that we go to a sports bar/grill to eat. We saw a sign for one that looked promising called Jake's (in Mounds View), and pulled in. That was such good food!! None of us had ever been there before, but we were all very impressed. Nice waitresses too, we just might have to go back there again sometime. ;-) The three of us had to have been sitting there for at least an hour and a half, just talking and having a great time. It was the perfect finishing touch for our fun little road trip (even better than witnessing a big bar fight on the streets of Chisago City while I was filling gas, hehe). I'm glad I got to spend my last full weekend in the States hanging out with them, I wouldn't have had it any other way. :-)
Even though I didn't get home till 12:45, I still had to be at the radio station 5:30-11am this morning, for my last on-air shift before my trip. After that I came home and took a nice two and a half hour nap, and the rest of the day I've pretty much just been sitting around doing practically nothing (definitely not packing!). Only two more days of work at Marketplace, woohoo! Only six more days until Australia!
Posted by Jared at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)
June 24, 2004
One Cold Jump
After my six hours of work at Marketplace on Tuesday, I've not had any work! Woohoo! So guess what I've been doing with my spare time? Having fun hanging out with friends? Well, not so much. Getting stuff ready for Australia, seeing as how I leave in 9 days? Again, not really. Working endless hours on getting the other pages on my website looking better and using the same design as the main page? Bingo! I've had lots of little picky problems with my Photos page, but it's up and running now after a very major redesign. Not only does it look nicer (in my opinion anyway), but I also think it's easier to use now. There are still a couple little details I need to fix on it, but it's done for the most part. And my Links page, which is also undergoing a very major redesign, should hopefully be up before I go to bed tonight. I'll get to the Schedule and Contact pages either tomorrow morning or early next week. I won't bother with the Media or Writings pages that I used to have until I'm actually ready to put something on those pages. It'll be nice to have everything using the same design, it'll help give my site some continuity. And if you have any comments about the new look for my website, good or bad, leave me a comment.
On Tuesday after work I got a haircut with Kimm at The Hair Company in Cumberland. My hair was getting a bit shaggy, and although I've had a couple of people tell me that I look good with longer curly hair, I just wanted it nice, short and easily manageable for at least the first part of my time down under. That evening I went back into town to hang out on the pontoon with Mike, Kevin and a few other people. Mike &I even jumped in the lake once that evening, even though it was only in the 50s. And let me tell you, Beaver Dam Lake is damn cold! It wasn't quite as cold as I was fearing it was gonna be, but once was definitely enough for both of us, hehe. We had to give up the pontoon for the night and dock it when a squall came up though.
Last night my parents and I went to a meeting for CART (mentioned in my previous post) down in Almena. It's kind of interesting getting involved in a group like this, that's just a bunch of citizens banding together to try to get something accomplished, especially when it's lower taxes and smaller government. Now the group is trying to shift their focus from the recent petition drive to a longer-term focus, one of continuing to put pressure on the county board and get people elected to the county board who share CART's views.
Today I went in to Rice Lake to stop by the radio station and say goodbye to some people there, and also to get some suggestions for improvement from my bosses. And get this: the "lovely and talented Arnie Wheeler," the morning guy on Fox and one of my bosses, is actually interested in possibly flying down to Melbourne this fall if I can get him a ticket to the AFL (Aussie Football League) Grand Final! Arnie's crazy about Aussie Rules Football, he watches it all the time on his satellite dish. When September or October roll around he might no longer be interested, but I was kinda surprised to see that he was even the slightest bit serious about it. After that I went shopping for most of the rest of the stuff that I needed for Australia, such as a travel alarm clock, a voltage adapter, sunscreen, bug spray, etc. I even got a nice pair of hiking boots at Sports Unlimited in Cedar Mall, so now all I have left to get is a pair of running shoes at Scheels in Mankato or Galyan's in Bloomington tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow, I'm gonna have a ton of fun this weekend! I'm driving down to Mankato with Mike & Kevin, and we're gonna have a little get-together with Andrew tomorrow night! And then on Saturday afternoon we'll make our way back up to Gustavus to visit some people there for a couple hours, and then we're going to the Twins-Brewers game at the Metrodome on Saturday night! If you're watching the game on TV, watch for us along the first base side, near the Milwaukee bullpen, that's where we're hoping to get seats. Let's just say that I've been really looking forward to this weekend ever since we started planning it over a month ago. :-) I'm glad that I'll get to spend my last full weekend in the States hanging out with those two cool dudes.
Posted by Jared at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)
June 21, 2004
New Blog Design
Well, as you probably already noticed, I changed some stuff up on my blog this weekend. Notably, changing the background from black to gray, the text from white to black, and making some of the menus on the sidebar into rollover menus, which is kinda cool. I'm still having issues with the spacing on the "my friends' websites" portion, I'm trying to get that fixed. I've looked at the code many times, and I don't see why it's sticking in all that extra space between everyone's name. Argh. Another notable thing that I've changed are the four pictures at the top of my blog. They're now in living color instead of black &white, and currently I have it set up so that I can manually change to different themed sets of four photos pretty quickly and easily, so those photos will be changing fairly frequently. But there are still gonna be some relatively minor changes I'm gonna make to the main page here, and then my next project will be to make all the other pages on my website use the same theme and template. I might have to do more messing around with CSS style sheets, we'll see. If you have any other suggestions for improvement for my blog, leave me a comment or drop me an email. (Note: Thanks to Zach for pointing out a problem with my code in the friends websites portion of my page. The problem is now solved!)
Yesterday (Sunday) morning I worked at the radio station early again, 5:30-10. I almost didn't wake up for it on time, but it was nice being able to spend an hour or two working on getting the photos thing set up for my blog while I was on the clock at the station, hehe. I love my job there. After I got home I spent several hours working on redesigning the blog and learning how to do CSS (cascading style sheets) on my own, so that I could do the rollover links and other cool things.
This morning I worked at Marketplace 5am-2pm, mostly spent vacuuming out the bottoms of the ice cream freezers. Ugh. Let's just say that my body was not designed to wake up at 4am and be at work at 5am. I didn't really start "waking up" until around 10 or 11 this morning, and for most of the morning I was so tired that I was worried I might fall asleep while standing up doing stuff, and I knew that I would for sure fall asleep if I were to sit down somewhere. This morning was the most tired I've felt in quite some time, that's for sure. I was supposed to be in at 5am tomorrow morning as well, but Scott forgot what cleaning he wanted me to do next, so he said that I don't have to be in until 7am. Yay! That means I can actually get some sleep tonight! That two hours will certainly make a huge difference.
After taking a nice three-hour nap this afternoon, my parents and I went to the Barron County Board of Supervisors board meeting down in Barron this evening. The reason we went was because a citizen organization called CART (Citizens Against Rising Taxes) has been circulating a petition around Barron County for the last couple months. It basically calls on the Barron County Board of Supervisors to return the county budget to 2001 levels, and that if they approve any budget or tax increases, that they must first be approved by a county-wide referendum. So tonight CART presented nearly 7000 petition signatures to the board, and there were quite a few CART members (around 30 or so) that attended the meeting, nearly all wearing neon green caps, buttons or shirts, including myself. :-) Unfortunately, the board voted to send the petition to the finance committee, which means it'll probably die there, because those are the people whose free-spending behavior the petition is trying to rein in. Argh! It was cool to actually attend one of those meetings, as I'd never been to one before, but it was also frustrating to see how ineffective and inefficient our government actually is. For awhile it looked like it'd take them a month to even create a committee to take a look at the petition! Aaargh! Basically a lot of people in the county are fed up with how quickly taxes are going up, mostly due to runaway spending by the county board. Some people have seen their taxes double in the last two years here in Barron County. That's absolutely outrageous!
In the meantime, enjoy this Slate.com commentary on "Fahrenheit 911" by Michael Moore. Also, Ray Bradbury, the author of the book "Fahrenheit 451" has been after Michael Moore for six months, trying to get him to change the name of his film to something that isn't stealing from his book. Plus, it doesn't seem like even everyone in the mainstream media likes Bill Clinton's new book, "My Life." The New York Times wrote a scathing review of it that's worth reading.
Posted by Jared at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)
June 19, 2004
Luggage? Raincoat? Check
After another eight hours at Marketplace on Thursday, I had the day off on Friday (from MP, at any rate). So on Friday I went down to the Cities with my mom, to go shopping for some things I need for Australia. The luggage that my parents had previously bought for me turned out to be bigger than the baggage restrictions by Qantas Airlines, so I had to go looking for a couple bags that were slightly smaller. I wound up getting a nice 2-piece set of Champion luggage (one rolling upright, one rolling duffel), a pair of sunglasses, and three shirts at JCPenney in Rosedale. I absolutely love it how every single time I go in to JCPenney, the stuff I want happens to be 40-50% off! Seriously, every single time, it's great! That's why I buy practically all my clothes at JCPenney, nice stuff for not too much money. Anyways, then we headed over to the Galyan's in Woodbury, where I bought a nice yellow Columbia raincoat and a little stuff sack for it, so that it doesn't take up quite so much space in my luggage when I pack. Still a few more things to get, like a new pair of running shoes, maybe a pair of boots, a travel alarm clock, etc. But at least I'm getting more and more things checked off my list at long last! I can't believe there are only 14 days left until I leave for Melbourne, it's coming so fast.
Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to visit my Grandma Siesennop in the nursing home while we were in the Cities, because I had to be at work at the radio station at 6pm last night. It was a pretty busy night at the station, what with Rice Lake Aquafest going on and several people calling in to request songs, among other things. I didn't get outta there until after 12:30am, but it was still super-fun to work an on-air night shift again. They're more work than weekend morning shifts, but they're so much more fun to do! Speaking of weekend morning shifts, I have one tomorrow morning at 5am, blah. Good thing the Sunday morning Fox/Star shift is pretty much the easiest thing ever. I might even be able to take a nap while I'm on duty!
Today I worked 9-1 at Marketplace, and then this afternoon I helped my dad for about three hours, removing a bunch of brush from the trails around the pond and along the creek. It definitely needed to be done, and it certainly looks MUCH better now. I felt like I needed to help him out a bit, especially since I'm needing him to get the basement all cleared out in the next week and a half, so that I can have a bunch of people over July 2-3, right before I fly out.
I'm beginning the long process of overhauling my blog. I probably won't put up the new site until all the new things are finished, but what I'm in the middle of now is selecting groups of color photos to have on a rotation at the top of my page, replacing the four black & white ones that never change and have been up there since October. Man, that's sure a big project. And then I'm gonna pretty much reverse the color scheme by making the background white or light grey, and making the type black. I figure that would make it a little easier to read, and a bit less depressing too. :-) There are some other things I'm planning on changing, but let's let those be a bit of a surprise, shall we? Hopefully I'll manage to get done with all the changes sometime next week, as I definitely want them to be completed before I go. I won't have time to be fiddling with all that when I'm in Australia, that's for sure.
In sports news, former Gustavus wide receiver Ryan Hoag appears likely to sign with the Vikings! Hoag was "Mr Irrelevant," the very last draft pick in last year's NFL Draft, but with his lightning-quick speed (a sub-4-second 40-yard dash!) he's hoping to find a spot on the Vikings as a kick/punt returner or special teams demon, and eventually work his way up to receiver in a couple years. C'mon Coach Tice, give this kid a shot! I watched Hoag play football for two years at Gustavus, and he's simply an amazing athlete. He's the all-time leading receiver in Gustavus history. I just think it's amazing that a player from a small Division III school even has a shot at being in the pros.
Posted by Jared at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
June 16, 2004
Laker Haters Rejoice!
Well, three more days of work under my belt at Marketplace. With the 5am shift on Monday morning came cleaning duty (oh yay), as Scott had me spray and scrub out the milk coolers (not fun), and then begin on spraying out the ice cream freezers (not as bad as the milk coolers, but still not fun). I get to resume cleaning tomorrow, hooray. Another 8 hrs Tuesday, and then 7 today, 6 of which I spent stocking only yummy Yoplait yogurt. Some customers were even buying entire cases of the stuff off my cart! It's kinda tough to keep up with how fast it's flying off the shelves when that's going on, but in the end it saved me work because I didn't have to put it on the shelves. :-) But when I got done with my shift it certainly felt nice to get a change of scenery from that one spot, hehe.
Last night Kevin came over and we watched the Pistons annihilate the Lakers 100-87, in a game that wasn't even nearly as close as the score might indicate (it was 82-59 at the end of the 3rd quarter), to win the NBA title. Kevin was a bit sad though, as he's in love with Kobe and the Lakers. Sigh, that kid. I was thrilled to see the Lakers lose though. I hate the Lakers just like I hate the Yankees, Cowboys and Duke. It wouldn't be so bad if the media could ever stop obsessing about any of those teams. Anyways, Kevin was supposed to come over a bit before the game and teach me how to fish, but he kinda took an unintentional nap after a long hard day of painting, oh well. Mike came over when he got done with work at the radio station, and then the three of us were gonna go out on a paddleboat ride after the Pistons-Lakers game and maybe do a little night fishing, but then it started raining, quashing that idea. So we decided to mosey on into town to go on the pontoon boat they'd made, since it had a roof and all. But we'd hardly gotten there when Kevin realized what time it was and went home to get some sleep before another long day of painting today. So no pontoon ride either. Oh well. Despite all the fun things that almost happened, it was still fun hanging out with just the two of them for awhile.
Oh, and IFSA-Butler had an offer for a free cell phone to its students studying abroad in Australia next semester. They offered two choices of cell phones, one Nokia and one Sony Ericsson. I elected to go for the aqua-colored Nokia. It's the one I had been leaning towards, Mike also thought I should get it, but Dave voted for the Ericsson. Hmmm... Well, hopefully the Nokia will turn out well. I get the phone and AUD $30 worth of call credit for free, and then I get to add however many minutes I want to whenever I want to after that. Man, the Aussie way of doing cell phones is certainly far superior to the American way, where you have to be bound to a contract and everything. In addition to all that, they'll give me my new phone at orientation (hopefully the day we land), and they'll even send me my new Australian cell phone number via email within the next couple of days! Woohoo! I've never had a cell phone before, so this'll be a new experience for me, in a land of new experiences.
And in other news, the US Department of Agriculture, in a ruling backed up by a federal judge, has now classified batter-coated french fries as a "fresh vegetable." I kid you not. At least they're not gonna take it so far as the "ketchup-as-vegetable" school lunch fiasco back in the 80s, lol.
Posted by Jared at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2004
Carl the Ghost
Okay, so if you've already turned in your two-week notice at a job, and you only have four or five days left before you're to the end of those two weeks, normally you'd just finish out those four or five days so that you'd be able to theoretically get a good reference, right? Well, not if you're Tyler, who was one of my co-workers at Marketplace. He up and quit after his shift on Wednesday night, and he didn't even tell anyone. So on Thursday night I was supposed to work 3-11pm with this guy Mike, only because Tyler never showed up, we were there till 1:40am. Needless to say we weren't happy campers. And Scott called me in to cover for Tyler on Friday night, but there was still so much for Derek & I to do that we didn't get out till 1:15am. Aaaargh! And then to top it all off, I had to be at the radio station at 5am on Saturday morning (I was there till 10am), so I only got about three hours of sleep. I was at the radio station again this morning from 5am-9:30am, and I have to be at Marketplace tomorrow morning from 5am-1pm for cleaning duty. KAAAHHHNN! The plus side about all those hours at Marketplace is that I wound up with somewhere around five hours of overtime each of the last two weeks. Boo-ya! But I've really enjoyed my two days off from Marketplace this weekend, I was starting to get a bit burned out.
It's been interesting at the radio station recently though. Back on Tuesday night, the radio station (technically the WJMC-AM transmitter tower right behind the studios on Hwy 48) got struck by lightning. It knocked all the stations off the air temporarily, rattled the windows pretty good, and fried a whole bunch of equipment inside the station, including the EAS machine, a few satellites, and a few pots on both the WJMC AM and FM boards, meaning we've been unable to do some of the things we normally do, or at least not as easily as normal. It might be another whole week before we get the parts in to fix everything, so I might get a few bonus hours there this week, yay!
And then yesterday there was a massive power outage, where basically the entire eastern half of Barron County was out of power for about two and a half hours. I've heard at least a couple different causes for the outage, including the Barron substation experiencing an "electrical anomaly" (heh heh), or that it was the two main transmission lines between Eau Claire and Rice Lake getting cut. But Mike is convinced that the brownout was caused by Carl, the ghost who haunts the radio station. (Carl was a former GM of the radio station back in the 70s, who hung himself in a closet in the basement of the station. There have been many strange occurrences since then that have been attributed to Carl, such as lights randomly turning on and off in the middle of the night, weird noises, or the fluorescent light fixture that randomly fell out of the ceiling and nearly killed me three years ago.) Anyway, Mike and Tricia (another of the part-timers) had been poking around in the basement earlier in the week, and opened the infamous closet, and found a little bit of the rope still hanging or tied there (I don't have any idea why it hadn't all been removed 20+ years ago). So then yesterday afternoon Mike was showing Missy (another of the part-timers) the rope, and Missy said, "I don't believe in those ghost stories anymore." They turned around right after she said that, and at that instant all the lights went out. Mike told me afterwards that he'd never run so fast in his life as when he raced up the stairs as soon as the power went out, hehe.
And I'm just sittin here watching the Pistons-Lakers game on TV. It's a close game in the 4th quarter, but probably about as soon as it's over I'm gonna get to bed. I can't survive much longer on so little sleep.
Posted by Jared at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)
June 09, 2004
Mammatus Clouds
The last few days have been nothing but work work work. Well, work and a several emails that I have been meaning to write for awhile to various people. Sunday I worked the 5-10am airshift for Fox & Star, and then Mike, Adam & I each drove radio station vans in the Cameron Camerama Days parade. We got there way too early (those of you from around here know that Cameron's a hotbed of activity ... yeah right) and so just sat around for quite awhile. Fortunately once the parade started it was mercifully quick, hehe. It was actually fun doing a parade again, because it's seriously the easiest money in the world. By the time we got back, I'd worked 8.5 hours on the day already! After that Mike &I went to Subway for lunch and to talk about stuff, it was good.
Both yesterday and today I worked at Marketplace 8-4, with the same scheduled for tomorrow. Nothing terribly interesting to report on that front, other than I saw my friend Michelle for basically the first time in a couple years today, so that was fun. That is one thing I really like about working at Marketplace, I get to see quite a few people. Because, I mean, everyone has to buy groceries. :-) Usually at least one person that I know every day comes in, which is always fun.
I finally got around to getting my first set of photos from my brand new digital camera onto my computer and online tonight! Back on Saturday night there was a thunderstorm that created some eerie light and some spectacular mammatus clouds, which I managed to get a couple photos of, including the picture at right. Go to my Photos page to and click on the link at the bottom to see the entire album.
And it seems that Atlantis may have been found, as reported on BBC.com. One scientist has come forward with satellite photos that seem to indicate the temples and concentric circles (walls) that surrounded the ancient lost city in southern Spain near Cadiz, and that they have the same dimensions as Plato described those features from Atlantis having. I found the possibility that this could indeed be Atlantis very exciting and intriguing.
Posted by Jared at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)
June 05, 2004
Remember the Gipper
Well, it's been an interesting few days around here. After working 8-4 on Thursday, I went to see "Shrek 2" in the theater in Rice Lake with Mike and Shaun. It was definitely worth seeing again, especially since I missed the first 5-10 minutes of the film the first time I saw it, and because this time I actually paid to see it. ;-) It's a really funny film, and I caught quite a bit more the second time around. Puss 'N Boots (voice of Antonio Banderas) definitely steals the show! And the Three Blind Mice were great too!
After the movie we all went to Beaver Dam Lake to meet Kevin and a couple other people who were out on their homemade pontoon boat, complete with a second-deck (that's used as a putting green and driving range!). Anyways, Kevin and the rest of them were still way out on the lake when we got to the dock. They tried motoring into shore, but not long after they started up the motor to return to the dock, somehow the gas line got a bit loose, and was cut by the propellor. So Mike, Shaun and I are standing on the dock for an hour in the cold, until they finally make it back (after paddling the whole way) at 1am. But we were all determined to hang out on the boat (especially since I'd never seen it before), so that's exactly what we did for quite awhile, even though it was moored to the dock. :-) They even had a grill on the pontoon, and Mike was using his car keys as a spatula for the brats and burgers, hehe. It was great fun hanging out with them, and worth the long cold wait on the dock.
I celebrated my day off on Friday by sleeping till 12:15, and it felt great! I did a few odd jobs helping out my parents (like doing a bunch of the trimming), and then in the evening I went over to Nathan &Laura's for another fun game of "Rail Baron." Laura won yet again (her winning streak in that game is at something like 6 games, I believe), and yet again I failed to taste victory. But that doesn't happen very often to me in games, so I'm quite used to it by now. :-)
I stayed overnight at N&L's because I had to be at work at the radio station this morning at 5am for a five-hour shift, and it's only a 3-minute drive from their house in Rice Lake, as opposed to the 15-minute drive from my house outside Cumberland. But then this afternoon my dad and I drove down to Roseville to look at digital cameras. First we stopped at National Camera &Video near Rosedale, and I wound up purchasing a new Canon A80 digital camera, along with lots of other goodies and accessories for it! It was on sale $30 off of retail, and another $20 off because it was from an open box, so I got it relatively cheap, certainly as cheap as I could've gotten it off of the internet somewhere. I decided that the S410 was just a bit too small and with not enough manual features for my liking, the G3 was a bit too big and had too many buttons/features for what I wanted to do at this point, and that the A80 was a very nice compromise in size and manual features available. It's still small enough that it's able to fit in my pocket, which is a huge plus. I took some pictures with it tonight of some cool cloud formations (especially some spectacular mammatus clouds) and eerie lighting outside, but I don't have time to put them online tonight, since I need to get to bed because I work again at the radio station at 5am tomorrow morning (followed by driving a radio station van in the Camerama parade in Cameron, along with Mike and one other guy). I'll try to get a couple of them on tomorrow, but no promises.
Finally, I was quite saddened today to hear of the news of Ronald Reagan's passing, even though I figured it was coming for some time, what with his ten-year battle with Alzheimer's. America lost today a great man, and the greatest president of the 20th century. He stood for his ideals without caring what other people thought. He didn't care who got the credit for something good that happened to America, as long as it got done (i.e., he wasn't obsessed over building a legacy for himself). He played to people's greatest hopes, and not their greatest fears, and inspired people to greater heights, instead of encouraging them to feel sorry for themselves like so many politicians and bureaucrats do today to a sickening degree. He knew that people could best attain their greatest aspirations and dreams with the freedom and liberty that comes from a small and limited government; unfortunately, many today have forgotten that grand ideal. The Gipper was a brilliant beacon for freedom in America and the world at large (most notably by hastening the end of the oppressive communist regime of the Soviet bloc), shining out from the city on the hill. I've always been proud to call myself a "Reagan Conservative," and that's how I'll continue to proudly label myself. Reagan will be sorely missed. So tomorrow, on the 60th anniversary of the D-Day Allied invasion of Normandy, when you pause to take some time to remember all the veterans and their sacrifices so that we might have freedom, also take a moment to remember Ronald Reagan, who also fought tirelessly for our freedom.
Posted by Jared at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)
June 02, 2004
No Rain!
A couple more days, and a couple more days of work. Not too much to say, other than cleaning up a couple crates of broken eggs (a couple days ago, and even though I was pushing it when everything tipped over, it was my boss's fault for stacking the cart poorly), and a few broken containers of cottage cheese (today, and that was my fault) are certainly not my idea of fun. Nor is cleaning out all the crap from underneath the bottom shelf in the dairy coolers, and getting my arms scraped up in the process. Yep, that's what I did for a few hours yesterday. How fun. I hate cleaning at work, but fortunately Scott doesn't have me do that very much. I greatly prefer just stocking shelves and whatnot. But I'm excited for tomorrow, because it'll be the last of seven consecutive 8+ hour days (apart from Saturday's 5 hour shortened shift), before I finally get a day off on Friday. Yay! But tomorrow'll be extremely busy, there's a huge one-day sale going on. Sigh.
Tonight I watched a couple of fascinating PBS documentaries on D-Day, which was 60 years ago on June 6, 1944, one of which focused in on the story of the 507th Paratroopers Infantry Division, which actually had some major key successes in the Allies invasion of Normandy, but whose role often gets lost or ignored. It was fascinating to hear about some of the not-so-famous battles in Normandy on D-Day and the days immediately following it. And speaking of WWII, comparisons can be drawn between it and the War on Terror. Mark Levin has a column for National Review Online that has many excerpts from articles in the New York Times, detailing the problems that the Allied forces were encountering while they were occupying Germany in the months after the end of the war. Hmmm, and the left has been in an absolute tizzy for months, running around claiming that the resistance we're encountering in Iraq right now is unlike anything we've ever seen in our history... Just another point that they're dead wrong on! I mean, of course postwar occupation isn't going to go totally smoothly. It sure didn't in Germany, but I think that even the left would have to agree that things turned out fairly well. And the "Grey Lady" certainly hasn't changed either, it's definitely the same newspaper. The stories the NYT is reporting these days from Iraq are eerily similar to the ones that they ran out of 1945 Germany. Fancy that.
And apparently the arrogant, pompous, caustic, rude loudmouth known as Michael Moore has found a distributor for his Bush-bashing, vitriolic, hate-filled propaganda film "Farenheit 9/11," in the the Weinstein brothers, the ultra-liberal media moguls from Miramax. Surprise surprise. Too bad Michael Moore is a liar. I mean, seriously, if you have to completely fake an interview with someone in order to try to dupe people into believing you or your case, your case must be pretty weak.
And I'm finally getting around to looking at new digital cameras online. So many good choices! But the one I'm leaning towards right now is the 4-megapixel Canon PowerShot G3. A bit expensive (for my current lack of funds), but from everything I've been reading it seems like a very good camera with lots of features, great image quality and long battery life. I hope to have a final decision made by sometime this weekend.
And at last! There wasn't a drop of rain today! I think today was only the second day in the last three weeks or so where we haven't had any rain. It felt great to have a fantastic day out finally, despite having to spend most of it inside Marketplace.
Posted by Jared at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)