B.G. Willers

01.6.14

8 Below

[youtube=http://youtu.be/-2sqdmC8V7w]

Well, it was downright cold this morning.  -8 degrees.  The Cutlass had been sitting outside all frigid weekend long, so I really had my doubts as to whether it would start up.  We’ve had issues with the choke sticking in cold weather before.  But with some reluctance, it cranked right up!

I was a little worried at first when the gauges didn’t read right, but after a gentle tap, they all sprung to life!

Sure it’d be easier driving something new, but you wouldn’t get that thrill of living on the edge, right?

01.5.14

Best of Intentions

I had every intention of accomplishing something productive this weekend.  Seems like it was the first one in a while that we weren’t traveling, or working.  I had 48 solid hours here at the homestead.  Now it’s Sunday night and I look back on it and accomplished pretty much zilch.  I mean, I guess I did scrape the one inch of snow off the driveway… so that’s productive.

I have very little regrets though.  From the looks of it, we’re going to be hanging around here more often this year.  We looked at our budget and we are going to go hardcore into saving mode in order to meet our goals for our house.  Hopefully this time next year we’ll be talking about home shopping.  But one thing is for sure, you absolutely never know what life will bring you.  All we can do is prepare as best we can, and see what tests God has in store for us this year.

Andrea’s 49ers won their playoff game tonight, so that always makes for a happy house!  I’m excited for her.  She is as invested in that team as I am in my own geeky stuff.  So I’m always glad to see her passion able to be rewarded with a win.  She even has Luke all on board and cheering on the team.  Here’s hoping they win the Super Bowl!

It’s back to the grind tomorrow.  Actually kind of looking forward to having a whole week to get everything done.  This cramming it all in to make time for the holidays makes for fewer days, but definitely longer ones.  So I’m setting a goal of getting out by 5PM each day this week.  We’ll see how that turns out.

As for the rest of the weekend, I think I’m going to spend it playing some retro games and a cold beverage or two.  A toast to a good weekend.

01.4.14

Vegetating and getting caught up.

What a great day.  I slept until 9AM and got out of bed and Luke was already up, goofing around in his crib.  The Saturday morning ritual commenced with pancakes and Care Bears.  I actually had zero obligations today.  Well… I did have to work on a website for somebody, but that only took about 15 minutes.

Biebs has been bugging me to play Hexxit, a Minecraft mod pack with heavy emphasis on adventuring.  Today I finally got the opportunity.  At first I pretty much dove right in.  I made a wooden sword and started rolling through some of the light dungeons near the spawn.  I promptly got my butt kicked.  So at that point I decided I needed to establish a stronghold and build up some resources.  There’s a TON to do and a ton you can do in this version of Minecraft.  And I’m excited to dive into it.

I’ve been enjoying Animal Crossing: New Leaf to a great extent.  With only one big gripe… there’s only been the fishing pole, net or shovel for sale at Nookling’s since I started the game.  I really need my slingshot, watering can, and axe.  It bugs me to no end as I’ve seen about six presents floating overhead so far and no way to get them.

This is the first Animal Crossing game since the first that really feels different.  The biggest difference is you get to be the mayor as Tortimer has retired to a tropical island.  It’s cool because you get to decide in what order you want to enhance your town.  It definitely would benefit from multiple players as many of the projects are pretty expensive.  Right now I’m working on getting my house filled out with more room, so that soaks up all my bells.  But there will be plenty of time to get to it all.  Animal Crossing is a long term dedication.

I’d really been craving a game of this type too.  Something you can build on incrementally.  You end up feeling pretty invested in games like this after you’ve been playing off and on for a couple years.  You have your favorite residents, the collections you’re trying to complete and all the different holidays you want to check in on.  We even used Animal Crossing as our official New Year’s Eve countdown!

All of the holiday travels are done.  And they weren’t without some eventfulness.  We got all loaded up to head to Kansas City for Christmas with Andrea’s family, that’s when I noticed a steady stream of antifreeze dripping from underneath the Jeep.  It was coming out quick enough that I knew we weren’t going to try taking it.  I looked it over quickly and couldn’t exactly deduce where the leak was coming from, so Andrea, frustrated, loaded all our gear into the Cutlass instead which made the trip without issue.

When we got back home Thursday, I looked the Jeep over a bit more and it looked like it was leaking from the gasket.  Which meant the pump had to come off, which in turn meant, might as well replace the pump.  Long story short: I have learned never to be shocked by what you find when you buy a used vehicle.  The water pump had a HOLE in it!  Like an actual hole through the pump.  Sometime before we bought the Jeep someone had dabbed some RTV sealer over the hole.  It’s amazing that it lasted over a year.  But now we have a new pump and thermostat and it seems like it’s working great and doesn’t leak a drop.  Even got it put back together in time to head to Cimarron on that Saturday!  Not too bad for the old KartMaster’s Garage.

Also did some work on the Jeep that was more, “scheduled”.  For Christmas I got Andrea a new amp and speaker box.  We already had the speaker which is what made the project affordable.  It was quite a bit of work, but I’m glad I did it right.  Had the front seat out and all the interior trim apart on the passenger side to run the power cable.  Ended up breaking off one of the bolts that holds the seat down because it was siezed up, so that won’t be fun to drill out and fix… but I’ll get it done eventually.  The finished product is the only thing you can really see is the power cable under the hood, and the speaker in the back.  No ugly wires showing anywhere.  Real clean.

So that kinda gets caught back up to today.  Got a little more snow, but just about an inch or so, nothing that will slow anything down.  Maybe enough for Luke and I to go play in tomorrow morning!

01.2.14

3028 Barbara Lane

Over the Christmas break, Dad and Jamie were talking about how our old house was up for sale in Dodge.  Jamie said that the real estate company had pictures of it on the internet and that it looked exactly the same on the inside.  So I had to pull it up and sure enough it’s pretty much just like I remember it!

I still drive by this place once in a while when I’m passing through and feeling uber nostalgic.  So many great memories here.  That driveway I used to take sidewalk chalk, draw out a bunch of city streets and drive my big wheel around them.  We had a rocker/glider that sat under the windows next to the door.  And Mom and I stood out in this front yard at 3AM one cold frosty night to watch the Space Shuttle zip overhead.

The living room is pretty much exactly as I remember it.  I’m glad these pictures are of the empty house, because it makes it that much easier to picture all of our old stuff in there.  We had an entertainment center on the wall in the far right of the photo.  We didn’t have a television in the living room though, just a stereo.  I remember how big of a deal it was when we got that Sony Hi-Fi with a CD player.  That was a big day.

That fireplace probably still has the black ovals on the stone flat part where I used to play with my Nascar race cars and have them all doing laps right in front of there.  I remember trying to climb the rocks and not getting too far.  The farthest door led to the kitchen.  The hallway to the right led to the dining room and had the utility closet that kept the washer and dryer.  Then to the left of the living room out of this shot was the hallway that led back to the bathroom and bedrooms.

We had a matching sofa and loveseat.  Hard to describe… white with vertical pinstripes and wood across the back and down the armrests.  We also had Dad’s old recliner.  It was epicly green if I remember.  We re-arranged the furniture every now and then, so no particular arrangement sticks out in my mind.  Since this year’s New Year’s Eve is fresh in my memory, I remember one NYE in this house, my parent’s friends Bart & Robin came over with their three girls.  While the adults were doing whatever, we pretended that the living room was a club called “The G Club”.  I was the manager and some of the girls were customers, and some were waitresses.  All the while we had cool music pumping out of the Sony.  Mom always had sparkling grape juice ready for the kids at midnight.

As a kid I didn’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen.  Unless it was to grab a box of cereal out of the pantry, or bug Mom about something.  I don’t think the color of the walls was the same but other than that it’s exactly the same.  I remember one day Mom was making some meatloaf and used a recipe that called for beer.  I remember her assuring me, the alcohol would bake out and all that it was just for taste. I remember thinking…. “Suuure, Mom.”  It did smell good though.  Lots of good smells from this room.

Again… this is just an empty room… but so many memories flash to my mind all at once, it takes some focus to pull each one out and reflect on it individually.  We had a couple tall chairs that sat at the counter top.  The kind where the seat flips up and you can use it as a step stool.  We had a little 12″ black and white TV that sat at the end of the counter next to the wall.  There’s a cable TV outlet there and we had to use one of those coax to RF adapters to hook it too the cable, and then we could only get the first 13 channels.  I remember watching TV while we ate supper together, which is something we did more often than not.  Eat supper together that is.  Something a lot of families, including my own, probably don’t do enough.

Our crazy dog, Tiger ran head first through the screen on that sliding door.  It lead out to the patio where sometimes in the summer Dad would bring home a horse tank that we’d fill with water and go swimming.  And the spot where the picture above was taken from is where our computer desk eventually sat and was home to our very first computer, the Apple IIe.  To the left out of the shot was the door to the garage.

Here’s Mom & Dad’s room.  This is where “the TV” was.  As I mentioned before, we never had a TV in the living room, and as a result I never really watched a lot of TV until we got TV’s in our rooms.  More on that later.  I remember though, this is where we discovered that Jamie needed glasses because of how close she would stand to the TV screen.  Mom & Dad’s bed was pretty much right in the position this picture was taken from.  I do remember laying in their bed as I fought off the chicken pox, and our cat Princess would crawl up in the bed next to me to keep me company.  To the left out of this shot was the private bathroom.

Here’s Jamie’s room.  I realize you’re just looking at a corner between two walls… I see…  too many girly toys!  I recall that she had a LOT of stuffed animals.  In the corners she had multiple Pet Nets to accommodate all of her different animals.  One year for Christmas or birthdays, Mom & Dad got us our own phone line.  Jamie and I had our own phone number that we shared and could give to our friends.  I don’t recall calling my friends much, but I did dial a local automated phone system that could tell you the forecast, horoscope and time and temp from time to time from my sweet Bill Elliot phone.

And finally… my room.  I have to chuckle thinking about most of the people looking at these pictures that just see some white walls and a closet.  For me I see so much more.  Against the left side wall were my bunk beds.  I usually slept on the bottom but would put blankets all the way around the bottom so it was my own private little space.  I started doing that after Dad got up for work one morning and noticed my light was still on… I was up reading all night.  I used to read all the time.  The window to the front yard is right behind the camera in this shot.  The far wall to the right of the closet had my dresser.  The same dresser Luke uses for his clothes now.

Mom frequently had to hassle me to clean my room.  Seeing it this clean is remarkable.  I’d sit on the floor in front of my bed with Mom’s boombox recording songs off the radio, or recording my own voice.  Or I’d set up my slot car train track next to my bed and play with that.  One year Mom & Dad got Jamie and I each our own TV’s for our rooms.  Just little 13″ TV’s, but still, I felt like we were rich!  I would lay in bed and watch Nick at Nite.  Mary Tyler Moore, Dick Van Dyke Show, I Love Lucy… even at a young age, I had an appreciation for old stuff.  Funnily enough, the TV’s that we had survive to this day.  Ironically I have Jamie’s old TV just sitting in my closet here, and Dad has my old TV in his basement.  I should see if he wants to swap.  Haha.

We only lived here about 4 years.  From my 2nd grade year to almost 6th grade.  But still so many  important memories to me.  I could probably write an entire blog site just on my time here in this house. I should really write a lot of those memories down before they’re lost forever.  Like the time the Killer Bee’s fountain attacked Mom in the waterway on the 4th of July.  Or when the neighbor kid Brent and I wanted to build a pedal car which he awkwardly named “Steve”.  Great nights with Paul staying over, and visa versa at his house.  Learning to mow the yard on the old Ride King mower.  Shooting cans with my BB Gun in the back yard.  Easter egg hunts… man, I could literally write for hours.

Thanks to my parents and my sister, for helping create a really great home back in the day.  I’ll always remember those times fondly.

12.22.13

Let it Snow

I think the key phrase in the song “Let it Snow” is “Since we’ve no place to go…”  Without that qualifier, the song could take on a whole different tone.

We had a nice little snowstorm roll through Saturday afternoon and evening.  Probably had around four inches by morning.  And it was great!  Usually I dread snow, because it means cancellations, idiots on the road and potentially getting stuck.  This time though, I literally had nowhere I needed (or wanted) to be.  It was timed perfectly!  For the first time in a long time I didn’t have to go in to work on Saturday, and nothing to do Sunday.  So as the snow fell, I just enjoyed watching it all pile up, while Luke and I dreamed about playing outside on Sunday.

As per usual, when the snow starts falling, people start freaking the heck out.  At about 8PM, church cancellations started to roll in.  Thanks to the internet, here I am, with three inches of snow on the ground, able to record audio here at home on my laptop, transfer it to the radio station, load it up and cue it up to play.  Without a single person in the building.  I just had to marvel at the technology and that it was even possible.

This morning I got up and had breakfast, then relaxed a little bit.  Wasn’t long before Luke was up too.  First thing we did was look outside at the snow.  Luke was excited and instantly wanted to go outside.  I remember the same thing when I was a kid.  I was ready to get the sled out the moment the first flake hit the ground.  All said we got about 4 inches here, maybe 5.  Enough to have some fun.  Before that though, we had to eat breakfast.

I got Luke all bundled up with two pair of socks, two shirts, sweat pants, snow pants, his coat, and his mittens.  He was as cute as he could possibly be.  And ready to GO PLAY!  He was pretty timid at first.  This isn’t first time he’s played in the snow, but it’s definitely an unusual experience for him still.  I got the snow shovel out to start on clearing the driveway, and he got excited to help.  He would hold on to the handle as I pushed the snow to the edge of the driveway.

“Luke helpin’!” he’d say.

“Yep.  When you get older, I’ll let you do it all by yourself!” I told him.

Andrea came out and hung out and did a little work herself.  After I was done with our drive, I went and shoveled my neighbor Chris’s drive, because he just happened to have a turkey for us in his smoker.  A pretty awesome (and tasty) Christmas gift.  I felt like it was the least I could do to give back.

The snow was certainly the highlight of the day.  The rest of it we spent inside and we played with toys and had some good food to eat.  I didn’t get any Wii Fit U in today, but I shoveled two driveways, so even though I don’t get a stamp for it, I’m going to say it counts!

12.21.13

Long Day

Man.  What a day.  Our office Christmas party was last night.  We didn’t stay out real late.  Got home at 11PM.  (Geeze, you know what.. yeah that’s real late for me these days).  I was super tired by the time we picked up Luke from the neighbor’s house and got back home.  I pretty much went straight to bed.  I usually listen to a podcast while I drift off, I didn’t even get it started last night.

Then I slept in longer than usual today.  Didn’t get up until 6AM got around and headed in.  I had a remote and ballgames tonight.  I was on vacation Monday and Tuesday, so I was instantly behind for the week.  Long story short, I finally got out of the radio station at 1am.  Ugh.

There was some good stuff today though.  I got all my work done so I shouldn’t have to be in over the weekend.  We aren’t going anywhere.  And we got pre-approved for a home loan!  Kinda exciting though.  We’re in no big hurry to buy.  We kinda just wanted to know what we could do and stay in our comfort zone.  We haven’t even set any goals yet or anything.  But felt like we were finally taking a baby step towards being home owners.

And so that’s it.  I probably would have just gone straight to bed on a day like this, but I wanted to get a brief blog in.  So there, I did it!

12.18.13

Back at It

One of the reasons I love vacations is that they are a great way to hit the “reset” switch.  You get time to get caught up on those things that have been piling up and you head back into the working world with a resolve that you aren’t ever going to let that happen again.  Of course it always does end up happening again, but I do enjoy this time where all is right with the world.

I totally hit the ground running today.  Literally even.  I got out of bed to a pot of coffee that I remembered to get ready the night before.  Enjoyed one cup then headed for my Wii Fit U workout.  I like that you can customize your routines for the activities you want to do and how long you want your workout to be.  I started with some warm up stuff like bicycling and hula hoop.  Then a 10 minute jog, some push ups and jacknifes, then a short run.  It took about 35 minutes, which isn’t too bad for a morning workout I think.

I had a lot of setbacks at work today, but I approached them with a much more positive attitude.  It all just seemed a lot easier.  I dunno.

Then I came home to my 2014 Nintendo Calendar from Club Nintendo!

It’s pretty cool, but a lot smaller than I thought it would be.  Hey, it was free!

12.17.13

Catching Up

As usual… the blog has gone neglected. Man, I never really thought when I had a kid that so much of my free time would be completely soaked up. Existing parents feel free to laugh it up in the comments. But seriously. After Luke is in bed at 8:30 (when things go smoothly) that leaves me 2 hours to get what I want and NEED to do done.  That’s just about enough time to start something and not finish it.  Work has been pretty exhausting the past few weeks as well, and when I do finally get a chance to relax I’m really only in the mood for something completely passive, and writing isn’t it.

Was that an excuse?  An explanation?  I don’t know.  I feel a bit of regret that I don’t put more of my thoughts here these days.  Seems like if I don’t write it down, it’s a day that can be lost forever, and if that’s the case what good was it?  Good, bad, tough or easy, I really need to remind myself this is one of my favorite places.  It’s the place I feel comfortable talking about anything other than bitching about work.  That’s just not a practice I recommend for the internet…

So what have I missed?  Well if you follow my Twitter you’ll see I’ve got the Christmas lights up on the house.  Did that the weekend after Thanksgiving (appropriately).  The two weekends preceeding Thanksgiving were absolutely gorgeous.  Just knock down beautiful days.  That would have made the most sense to put them up then, but I just can’t do it before the holiday.  Not because it’s tacky… but because I refuse to dilute my joy of the Christmas season.  I really love Christmas and all the traditions surrounding it.  But I don’t want to be one of those people that as soon as Halloween is on the horizon, it’s Christmas time.  I prefer my holidays to be potent and rare enough to be savored.

So I spent one of those weekends working, and the other one I spent Saturday being productive otherwise outside of the house, raking leaves, cleaning out the garage.  Got the black car tucked good and away for the winter.  And that Sunday I was a total bump on a log.

Thanksgiving itself was very nice.  We drove out to Cimarron and spent the holiday with Dad and Carrie’s family.  Then we stopped by Mom’s house briefly and Luke and Daisy chased Mom’s cat around.  It was good to see everyone as usual, but it’s just so hard to see everyone in a day.  I’m glad that Mom is coming up for New Year’s so we can hang out and do some level 5 relaxin’.  Some people’s idea of thrill is zip-lining over a forest canopy (read: Andrea), my idea of an absolute blast is sitting with some good company, enjoying a beverage, and soaking myself in the lack of urgency.

I don’t think Andrea gets that sometimes.  How much, when I’m sitting at home, beer in hand, staring at the firepit… that inside I’m going out of my mind nuts with joy.  There is literally no place else I’d rather be.  God bless her, she wants to go everywhere and do it all.  And I’m up for it from time to time, but it takes a toll on me, because it’s not a release for me.  I think we do a fairly good job balancing each style though.  I don’t always get what I want, but then again, neither does she.

Post Thanksgiving has been a blur.  I really couldn’t tell you much of anything specifically that’s happened in the two weeks since.

Yesterday I took one of my last vacation days.  No particular reason other than it was use it or lose it by the end of the year.  I pretty much hunkered down in the basement for the entirety of the day.  After breakfast with Luke we went down stairs and he played with his toys.  We built a scale model of Albert out of his blocks and then I installed Morrowind on my computer from an old disk I had while he continued to play.  I also played a significant amount of Guild Wars 2 and made some considerable progress with my character, something I haven’t been able to say for months!  I’m up to level 72.  Only 8 more levels until I can finally start investing in my “final” gear and progress towards beating the storyline.  After that I hope to play some World vs World… but I don’t know if MY real world has time enough for what I know that game could occupy.

Today was another nice day.  I spent the morning in with Luke doing our usual “weekend” routine since today was a day off too.  Breakfast, Care Bears then lots of hard core playing!  It was actually almost 60 degrees outside this afternoon so I decided I needed to get the salt washed off the Cutlass and give it a good wax to keep it protected for the winter.  Luke and Andrea hung out with me while I had the tunes on in the garage.  It was a job that was over due, but an enjoyable task with the company I had.

I’ve started “playing” Wii Fit U.  I use the quotes because I’m not so much doing the games as I am actually trying to use it as a fitness tool.  Andrea got a Wii balance board ages ago that she apparently had been keeping tucked away for some reason.  So upon the realization that we had a balance board, we downloaded the Free Wii Fit U trial.  It only last a month, but here after Christmas I’m planning on buying a Fit Meter and registering it, then we’ll get the whole game.  I like it so far.  I use it mostly for the “Free Run” to get my heart rate up and burn some calories.  I think it’s pretty need to “jog” through Wuhu Island.  It’s been in so many other games from Mario Kart to Pilotwings, that getting down on the ground level and taking a slow jog brings a really neat and immersive perspective for me.  It has really exposed how out of shape I am though.  I’ve been aching for the past few days from all the workouts, which I guess is a good thing.  I’ve been trying to get in 30 minutes to an hour a day with it.  I’d love to find a good Wii Fit U Community to help keep me accountable.

Back in the day, as I’ve written here before, I used to spend a lot of time on the IGN forums.  Well… lately I’ve been kinda sucked back into the forum life.  Not on IGN.  Sadly it’s just a husk of what it once was.  But I’ve found two new more niche forums that I am really enjoying thoroughly.  The first is N64Forever.com.  As you would assume, it’s a message board focused on only the N64.  It’s not a huge community and the topics don’t move very fast compared to the old IGN days, but they are all good mature people.  Many with families of their own like myself now.  It’s fun to share with a group of people that’s as passionate about those old games and system as I am.

The second is the new ClassicGameRoom.com forums.  CGR has recently put a lot of effort into their website since some YouTube policy changes, and it is really blossoming by the day.  The forums there largely center around retro gaming, but also touch on modern releases, just as the show does.  But much like N64Forever.com the demographic skews a bit older, and with that, a bit more mature.  Lots of good folks.  Guys that just love old games, love beer and are just there to relax and have a good time.  If that’s not right up my alley… I don’t know what is.

So that’s it.  That’s everything I could have been writing about this whole time.  It feels good… this writing thing.  I’m so rusty. Just like Wii Fit… I need to keep exercising this skill.  I really have plenty to put on here.  It’s just getting the uninterrupted time to do it.  Here’s to making it important enough that I find time to keep it up.

12.15.13

What happens when you give Luke the camera?

[youtube=http://youtu.be/NQ9TQi2JgpY]

11.24.13

Tagging Along

Andrea and Mom have been playing more Guild Wars 2 lately, and I’ve been kinda tagging along in there quests to help them along.  It benefits me, because first of all… the more I help, the faster they get to where I am in the game and we can play on together.  And second, because GW2 is so awesome, I get rewards appropriate for my higher level, even though I’m helping them in areas that are many levels below my own, so there’s no reason NOT to!

And as always, I appreciate all the details that go into this game.  Enjoy some fresh screenshots!

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