Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Well they say on St. Patrick’s day you’re supposed to plant your potatoes. I got that done! I planted those and my yellow onions, and my garden is already half full! I think I’m going to have to tear up some more ground for the pumpkins and watermelons for sure. Plus I still have corn to plant, and peppers, and… yeah, my garden is going to be too small I think. And tearing up all that ground took me three days! Haha. Roto tillers are for wimps.
Funny story, a co-worker of mine and I were talking and I told him that I was planting a garden. He asked how it was going and I said pretty slow because I’m just using a spade to do all the cultivating. He said that the local hardware store was renting tillers pretty cheap. “I’m communing with my ancestors,” I said.
“Oh, you mean you’re cheap!” he said.
Ha ha. Well, ya, I guess that’s no secret. But honestly there is something pretty therapeutic about sticking the shovel in the ground and breaking through all the years of roots. Does kind of make you think of how many years people all over the earth lived like this. There were no part-timers to schedule, or mufflers to change. It was a very basic way of life, and to think if my survival was penned on my gardening skills… God help me!
So afterwards I felt like I deserved a reward. And after all it was St. Patty’s Day so…
Which I am still enjoying now. It’s a medium dark beer, and QUITE hoppy. Boulevard makes some great beer, and this is definitely my seasonal favorite. Not a beer you want to sit around and drink a lot of, but a nice treat.
Now gonna kick back and relax for the rest of the evening. Might even bust out the telescope and take a look at Venus and Jupiter!
Holidays are over, it’s 2012.
Well I’m finishing up my last day off before getting back into the regular world. This time of year is always crazy with all the people there are to see, so there’s just not much of a routine. It will be nice to get back into something consistant and being able to spread out all my work over a whole week. It just doesn’t pay to take time off because I have to do all the work either before or after I leave anyway. But anywho.
It was a really nice holiday season as far as I can ascertain. Doesn’t seem like as stressful as those of the past few years. Even with Luke here, it just felt like everything kinda fell into place. We made it out to Cimarron, Wichita, Kansas City… all in less than a month. It kinda blew our gas budget, but we made a little extra money with side jobs to come up with the difference. Seems like the Lord still finds ways to provide!
This last quarter of 2011 has really rekindled my excitement for gaming. I got Zelda around Thanksgiving and the new Mario Kart for Christmas. On top of that I got back into Guild Wars for the Wintersday, getting hundreds of holiday items that I need to consume now. Let’s just say I’m not too worried about Death Penalty for a while! I still need to get Super Mario 3D land, but I think that can wait while I work my way though Zelda and Mario Kart.
I’ve been having more fun with Mario Kart 7 than I’ve had with any game for a real long time. Honestly after the Wii and GameCube versions being so similar, I really didn’t expect this to be so compelling. But I’ve really been enjoying the new courses.. a lot. Online mode has been pretty fun too. There’s no communication between you and the other players, but it’s clear that you’re not just racing the computer. Mostly because there’s so many more cheap shots in Muliplayer. In the context of Mario Kart though that’s a good thing. For everytime you get screwed at the finish line, there’s an equal chance that you’ll be able to screw over somebody on the next race, and really that’s what Mario Kart is all about. Haha. I haven’t played a whole lot of Time Trials yet… but the couple ghosts I raced were very fun. I’m not quite ready to give a final review of the game yet, but initial impressions are very good and I’d already recommend it if you have a 3DS.
I’ve been getting into retro gaming more too. I’d like to bolster my collection some dating back to the Super Nintendo and before. I have the N64 pretty extensively covered, and besides a few more brand new controllers, there’s really not a whole lot else I’m looking for right now. I want to go real old skool. In fact at the top of my “retro list” right now is an old “Vectrex” console from the early 80’s. I never had one. And until a few months ago I didn’t even know one existed until I started watching some reviews from Classic Game Room on Youtube. I think I like it because it’s so far and different from anything that is still around today. It really hearkens back to the day when the real games were in the arcades, and if you had something at home that could approximate that experience… man you were living.
Well, happy new year. Hope yours is a good as mine is going to be. I’ve pretty much made up my mind it’s going to be awesome.
12.24.11Merry Christmas 2011
Merry Christmas! It’s 9:30 Christmas Eve and little Lucas just woke up from another nap. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get one in today too. Luke’s first Christmas will be exciting as we’ll be in Wichita for Andrea’s family’s Christmas. I know Santa has some presents waiting for him there!
I’ve played quite a bit of Guild Wars the past couple days. It’s been exclusively the quest Strength of Snow which is only around during the Winter’s Day Festival going on now. It’s pretty mindless, but sure has netted me a whole stash of holiday items. I figure I’ll play some Guild Wars while the festival is around, and once it’s gone, get back to beating Zelda Skyward Sword.
I hope your Christmas is a joyous one. Thank the Lord for his Son born on this day! God Bless!
11.29.10Status Update
What a windy good for nothing day. You know those pictures NASA sends out of the Martian landscape they get from the rovers up there? Desolate, windblown, frigid… yeah, that’s today here in Great Bend. I opted out of walking to work today. Take away my street cred if you must, but I just wasn’t feeling it.
Andrea and I have been talking about whether or not to get our free membership to the gym going again. I’d hate to get it and not use it because it costs the station money whether we use it or not once we sign up for it. I know it’d be a good thing, but that place just closes too early. If you’re not wrapping up your workout by 8:30 then you’re liable to get locked in. And heading down anytime before 7:00pm is just madness. I know I’d be good for us though.
Everything at work is really starting to come together. It’s hard to believe the hell we were going though back in September with the whole system change. There’s another radio station here in town that has been stuck on the wrong satellite all day. Been giving Charlotte traffic reports all day. Nice to know that we’re not the only place in the world that’s had a rough time.
Other than that, just plugging along. I’m so darn proud of myself. I’ve got almost all of my Christmas shopping done already. Between the radio auction, and Black Friday deals online, I’ve knocked out about 90% of the Christmas list. It’s a big stress reliever actually. The money is spent already, so that’s behind us, and I don’t have to fret about what I’m going to bring as gifts for that trip to someone’s house we’re making THE NEXT DAY. I know nobody’s suprised, but there’s been several years I’ve been wandering Wal-Mart at 8PM Christmas Eve hunting with all my might to find a somewhat reasonable gift. This year… a breeze!
So keep on keepin’ on. And I’ll try to do the same on my end!
12.23.09Christmas Time
So glad that Christmas is finally here. Get a nice 4 day weekend. Then New Year’s will be here and I will get another 4 day weekend. Thank goodness for floating holidays and PTO time. We would get paid at our regular hourly rate for the floating holidays, but I figured I might as well use them if they’re there, right?
Going to try and enjoy my day off tomorrow. Got a lot of stuff to do around the house though. I guess I’ll try to get those out of the way ASAP so I can get back to being lazy. Hoping to be able to sleep in tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes.
Safe travels for everyone that is travelling this holiday season – us included. Pretty icky weather out there to be driving in.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Let the travels commence!
Well tis the season to hit the road and visit all the family. Andrea’s been down to Wichita the past two weekends while I had to work. But either tomorrow night or Friday morning we’re both heading to Cimarron to make the rounds.
It all depends on the weather. First they were calling for a Blizzard Watch, then cancelled the Blizzard Watch, then this morning they re-instated it. Doesn’t sound like we’re going to get a lot of snow, but the wind will be the problem. It sounds like it’s going to all be wrapping up Thursday evening, so if the roads are fairly clear we’re going to make a break for it. If we can get out there, the trip back should be a piece of cake!
Got all my Christmas shopping done except for one person. And that Christmas isn’t until January, so I’ve still got time!
Merry Christmas, everybody!
11.27.09Black Friday Experience
Well today was my first ever participation in Black Friday. I’ve always heard the news stories, and talk to people that have gone shopping at that insane hour in the morning. But I’d always just shrugged it off as a sort of niche thing that “normal” people didn’t really have much to do with. But apparently (once again) I’M the one who’s far from normal.
I had a live broadcast today from Orschlen’s. It’s a new personal record for earliest remote I’ve ever done (6AM – 9AM). And as I was driving across town, I first noticed the cars lined up and parked around the block from Sears. “Wow,” I thought. Must be some deals there or something. THEN I drive past Wal-Mart. HO-LEE-CRAP. There wasn’t an empty space in the entire parking lot. Infact people were parking at the stores and fast food joints next to Wal-Mart just to get in that place. I can’t even imagine what it was like on the inside. And this is just Great Bend, Kansas! I mean good greif!
So I pull up to Orschlen’s about 30 minutes before they opened to start setting up equipment. Sure enough, there were already people lined up outside the store. I’ll be honest. I assumed that Orschlen’s would be 2nd or 3rd on people’s priority list. But that place was jam packed for a good 2 hours and then pretty steady after that.
I mean they had some good deals. Pretty much everything I didn’t really need. But they had a really nice mounted work light set that I snatched up for $20. I figure for $20 that will help working on stuff after dark. With the shorter days, it’s a shame to let all that time go to waste.
So that’s my Black Friday introduction. After seeing that Wal-Mart parking lot though I can’t imagine I’ll ever be bold enough to run in THAT crowd.
11.26.09Happy T-givin’. And a re-detication.
Well, Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope everyone’s had their fair share of food by now. Taken a nice long nap, and just generally been able to enjoy the day. It’s been a nice day around here just for Andrea and I to spend together. Seems like we don’t do that as much as we should. Went bowling last night (where I beat her all three games! hehe). Then we slept in today, I rolled out of bed around 8:00 and realized a few things we forgot at the store.
Oh how I LOVE the small Dillon’s here in Great Bend. They don’t have the huge selection and six brands of everything. But they’ve got everything you need, and as long as you’re not there during the peak hours, it’s not too busy. Plus it’s super nostalgic to walk through that place. I grabed some pineapple slices for the ham, and some evaporated milk for the pumpkin pie, and it was off to the short drive back home.
We REALLY need to have home cooked food more often. Even with the tons of stuff we made, it wasn’t too hard, just had to take the time to let it cook. Preperation really wasn’t a sweat at all. And it was just downright delicious. I’m gonna be eating ham sandwiches, pork and beans, ham and eggs, etc. until Christmas probably!
And geeze, almost Christmas already. Time really has been flying. And I mean supersonic jet speed, flying. I don’t really know what my holiday plans are other than Christmas at my Aunt’s house over the New Year weekend. I need to make the Cimarron rounds, as well as the Wichita/Winfield rounds. It’ll be fast and furious I’m sure.
One thing from now until 2010 at least that I want to do is get back into the blog. It’s fun to go back and read my daily ramblings, and much of them are just little inconsequential things, but fun to read and remember none-the-less. So until at least the New Year, and hopefully longer, I intend to resurrect my “one post a day” rule. Unless I’m completely without internet access I’m hoping that forcing myself to write SOMETHING will get me back into the swing of things around here. It’s been truly pathetic, I admit and apologize.
SO. I hope you all had a great holiday. I’m off to bed because I’m up early tomorrow to be at a Orscheln’s remote at 5:30 AM. See ya then black friday shoppers!
A few random pics.
Well I haven’t been blogging much lately. I guess it’s just been pretty dull lately. So for lack of anything better to post, heres a few recent pics I pulled off of the digital camera.
My halloween costume. Whatever that's supposed to be.
Andrea's nieces up to visit. Annie and Lyssa.
Andrea's nephew Nick.
Covered in animals.
Andrea and Sydney
Invisible pilates ball.
Invisible pogo stick.
Enough sun for both of us.
Bored-ing
Source: Spoofshadow
Welp, just hanging out at the station tonight as I have most Fridays so far since football started. I’m running the board for the Great Bend High School game. It’s not too stimulating, it makes for some long days, but I suppose the extra money is worth it.
Andrea’s sister and family are heading up for the weekend to go trick or treating. I asked around at work here and have some good leads on the “sweetest” neighborhoods in town. Should be fun!