Laments of a City Folk Denizen
Well lately my gaming focus has slowly shifted from the PC to the Wii. Now I’ve been playing as much Animal Crossing as a person can really play in any healthy manner. Andrea complains about my dedication from time to time (even though she’s the one that bought the game for me)!
So I’ve gotten enough bells saved up that I can really start getting involved in the good ol’ stalk market. I have a horde of turnips laying around my house, just hoping for a good price now! Unfortunately since I got the Nookington’s remodel, Nook’s hours are now 9AM – 9PM. This wouldn’t really be a problem if I hadn’t recently discovered that turnip prices change twice a day. One AM price and one PM price. Well since I have to be to work by 9 AM and I don’t get lunch until after noon, I never get to see the AM price! I could be missing out on some prime profit making opportunities!
The good news is, that eventually Nook gives you the choice between a better selection of items (Nookington’s) or better hours (Nook n Go). While I do enjoy the better chance of finding furniture that goes with my place, I think I’m going to go back to the Nook’s that’s open 20 hrs. a day. At least until I make more bells than a person could know what to do with!
A tragic dilemma, I know. I suppose it’s times like this I’m thankful I’m blessed enough to complain about stuff like this! Ha ha!
Geeky
I just found out that my webcam can do some really neat stuff. I can take pictures, videos, and even “Burst mode” pictures. You know those avatars that you see in peoples signatures and stuff that are “animated”. Well, that’s what that is.
Here’s a little two shot one I put together.
"Do di do di do.....AHHHH!"
Ooooh yeah!
Just ordered up these bad boys. Andrea and her family all pitched in and got me a hefty Sears gift card for Christmas… I had my eye on an air compressor but I couldn’t get anyone at the store to help me at the time. Now it’s not on sale any more. It’s only a matter of time though. In the meantime, I ordered a cordless drill, circular saw, and light from their website. Awesome deal on it too. $95 shipped for everything. Can’t hardly beat that! Now I can BUILD STUFF! Ha ha.
Still have $100 left on my card, so if it won’t pay for a new air compressor by itself, it will sure take a nice chunk out of one. Just have to wait for another good sale now!
Animal Crossing and the internet
Well I figured I’d share a few of the pictures I’ve taken in the new Animal Crossing: City Folk.
Me and my house decked out for Christmas.
Snowman melting.
Biebs and I decided to test out the Wi-Fi connection last night. I headed over to his town and met some new animals. One of them even sent me a present already. It’s much better than the DS connection, because all the animals don’t just retreat to their houses. The towns are very much alive when you visit. I cleaned out half of Nook’s Cranny, and Biebs and I got together for a photo op.
Left: Matt - Right: Biebs
"Online interactions are not rated by the ESRB."
For the record, we were comparing fish we caught! And one last picture of the “Northern Lights” I snapped last night.
Northern Lights
Holidays officially over
Well, wrapped up the last of the holiday visits with the Althouse family Christmas this past weekend. Got some very nice gifts from everyone. But I’m glad the season is over. Even though I’ve begun my first FULL work week in almost a month, it’s still a sigh of relief knowing that I don’t have any plans for the week ahead!
Here’s to a long, boring, uneventful routine!
Happy New Year! (Year in review)
New Year in Sayuri. Courtesy of biebsworld.com
Andrea and I spent New Year’s Eve in La Crosse at Biebs’ place. A couple of his friends showed up and we had ourselves a “Wii Party”. It was a good time. Found out I’m quite the fencer in Mario Olympics! And as the time ticked down, Biebs fired up his Animal Crossing town and we counted down with Tortimer and his very cool marquee board. He handed out party poppers and at midnight fireworks filled the sky! It was very neat in that cute and subtle Animal Crossing way.
2008 was quite the year for us. Getting married, new town, new jobs all in June. Went to Hawaii in August. All along with the assorted hailstorms, new Wiis, promotions, birthdays, holidays, and highs and lows that came our way. It started out tough with Grandma Pat going into the hospital for her stroke. She’s had perhaps the toughest year of all, but Grandpa said she was able to come to the house for Thanksgiving, definitely something to be thankful for! The beginning of the year also meant saying goodbye to my 1977 El Camino, as the landlord chopped down a limb and it smashed in the roof of the car. On the bright side, the insurance company ended up paying me more for the car than I bought it for!
Spring for me meant job hunting. I applied to a lot of places for a lot of different jobs. I wasn’t even sure I’d be staying in radio at the time. I had even applied for a job as far away as Georgia. Job hunting is seriously one of the least fun things a person can do, and with the tough economy, I feel for all the people out there that are looking for work. Looking back on it in retrospect without all the stress, there were some cool adventures. Like the trip out to Gove, KS where I stopped by the small little town where my car was sold and got to talk to the guy that actually sold it! Something I’ll remember and hopefully he will to for quite a while!
Once the job hunt ended life REALLY started to fly by. My last day a Platinum Broadcasting was on a Wednesday in June. Thursday we moved to Great Bend. Friday we were in Udall, KS for the wedding rehearsal. Saturday we were Mr. & Mrs. Althouse. Sunday we got back to our “home” that we had yet to even sleep in. And Monday I started work at Rocking M Radio. We never could have done it without all the help we got from our family and friends, and it was a time that we both were reminded how many absolutely fantastic people we have in our lives, and how blessed we are.
From this point on the year has FLOWN by! Getting settled into our new jobs and the general disorientation that comes with it really makes you lose track. It seems like no time and we were on the long flight to Kauai. Hardly a day goes by I don’t think, “Man, I wish I were sittin’ at Duke’s with a cold drink in my hand.” While I realize living there is a bit un-realistic, I sure as heck plan on going back a few more times before I kick the bucket. That whole trip we had a whole lot of nothin’ planned, and had the time of our life!
I hope they're still holding our table at Duke's.
Everything from the wedding to the honeymoon seemed so surreal, that it took a little bit to adjust to our new reality. But things are finally starting to seem “normal” around here. I’m starting to get the hang of my new Program Director position, and I feel like 2009 is going to be a good year for growth for the stations I’m working on. The holiday travels are almost over, and I’m looking forward to settling in to a long boring stretch of steady progress. We’re looking to get Andrea’s car painted this spring, and maybe even investigate buying a house. Who can say what will happen? God only knows. But I have a feeling this year will be almost as action packed as the last one!
12.23.08Working out
One of the perks of my job here is I get a free family memebership to the fitness club here in Great Bend. Until yesterday I’d never utilized it. But Andrea and I decided that it couldn’t hurt us to be a little more active. I already knew that I was phenomenally out of shape. That and I could stand to lose a few pounds so starting this week we’re going to start going at least twice a week.
I’m certainly no health nut, so I couldn’t tell you what a “smart” workout is supposed to be like, but we started out 20 minutes on a treadmill. I did a brisk walking pace of 4 mph. I was quite embarrassed by how quickly my calves and shins developed that burning sensation. But it was tolerable, so I powered through at the same pace for 15 minutes. I planned on running the last five minutes, but I could only make it about three and a half before I slowed it back down. Now my chest was burning in addition to my legs. I used the last few minutes to cool down at a walking pace, and when I stepped off my legs felt real weird. Like they were going to keep walking away without the rest of me!
Next they had a bunch of equipment setup to work different muscles, so we went down the line. I tried to do two sets of 10 on each piece of equipment. Some I could, some I couldn’t. The one that really kicked my ass has you hanging at a 45 degree incline doing crunches. I got about 15 in and that was all I could handle. So I went over and picked up some dumbells and tried to look like I knew what I was doing, but I could tell I was starting to get a little queasy from the crunch session.
I don’t really remember what Andrea was saying at the time. All I remember is feeling real shaky and then a cold chilled sensation on my face. I took long deep breaths trying to get the nausea to subside, but the more I thought about it, the more overwhelming it became. She was in mid-sentence when I calmly headed straight for the front door. When I was outside in the freezing cold in shorts and a shirt, I took the opportunity to color me some snow.
Oh how out of shape I am! But I guess that’s why we’re doing this. I don’t have any aspirations of running marathons or anything. Just be a little healthier. I still plan on going tomorrow (if they’re open). Hopefully we can stick with it!
The gift exchange
First off… Sorry about the sporadic posting lately. I have no excuses.
We had our gift exchange at work today. Our limit was $5. There’s not a lot you can do with $5 these days, but Chris Elsen from the Nightshift sprung for a very….practical gift. I’m now the proud new owner of a 9-pack of Charmin Ultra Soft toilet paper.
First off, I think he forgot to get something so he just grabbed something he saw laying around the house. Let me be the first to say at least I didn’t get USED toilet paper. But the more I think about it, it’s not a bad gift at all. It’s practical. It will defiently get used. And I always hate having to spend some of my hard earned money on paper to wipe my ass with. So I have a couple weeks’ reprieve from TP buying.
Thanks, Chris! Merry Christmas.
12.17.08For all you tax payers out there…
Thanks for the chocolate bar!
Picked this up at Andrea’s company Christmas party a week or two ago. She works for a finance company and apparently AIG sent out some free candy bars. I’m just glad they aren’t wasting any money.
Oh what a night
Well I got my first sour taste of the glorious “responsibilities” of being Program Director.
Last night I’m just relaxing as I usually do. I take a shower and throw on some comfy clothes and sit down and play a little Wii. I had some leftover Wii points that have been on our account for months, so I decided to go ahead and download Super Mario Bros. 3 for the virtual console. Yeah, I have my NES still hooked up and everything, but the virtual console is so much more convenient! So I’m getting ready to start the “angry sun” level in World 2 when the work phone rings.
The transmitter calls saying there’s an audio alarm. Of course the station it’s calling for I can’t actually HEAR in the house. I can just barely pick it up in my car stereo. Then all of a sudden I have ANOTHER call incoming from one of the other stations. WTF is going on? These stations are 60 miles apart with studios in completely different towns! But quickly they all come back and the alarms are cleared. Then seconds later the Hays station calls again. Welp, gotta at least go out to the car and try to tune it in. Nada. So I drive into the radio station so I can remote login to the computer in Hays. It’s about 11:45 right now.
I still don’t know exactly what happened. Either the satellite wasn’t feeding any audio, or the reciever locked up. But I had to sit and play an hour of non-stop PSAs before the satellite finally came back. I waited for a few minutes to make sure it was going to stay on and I finally get back home around 1 AM. I get all set in bed, but I can’t get to sleep. Then I realize I forgot to reset the log for the next day. I could just leave it, but I decide that might as well go back and deal with it since I can’t sleep anyway. That was my stupid mistake. So I get back home, still restless and finally fall asleep sometime around 2AM.
Then what feels like 20 minutes later, the damn phone rings AGAIN! I look at the clock and it’s 5:15 AM. This time it’s the other PD’s station. But of course, he’s on vacation. Luckily this station actual has a signal that reaches Great Bend, so I head to the living room to try to figure out WTF is going on. It’s a satellite morning show, and it’s supposed to play our local commercials automatically, well it isn’t. So I have to head back in AGAIN. Turns out that satellite receiver is locked up too. So I plug in some emergency music and reset the damn thing. Of course then I have to wait 25 minutes until the next break to see if its going to work. At least I get a few commercials for the weekend done while I’m waiting in my PJ’s.
So at about 6:55 AM I finally get back home. Just as I’m laying down in bed…the alarm clock goes off. And so began this day.