Some pictures of the Ice Storm

Here are some pictures of the Ice Storm that blew through this week, we have been without electricity for 26 hrs now (I'm at the truckstop now posting this) and have about a half inch of ice on the roads. The pictures aren't that great but I thought I'd post some.

Year in Review: Part 4

Year in Review




Note: This is the final part of a four part series, the object being to give a quick review of my experiences in the year 2010. In this part I will cover the months of October, November and December.





October – Checking into Work



I actually started my first blog series in about half a year this month with my Experience List series this month so I did a lot more writing than I had in awhile.



At the start of the month I took my car into get its 15,000 mile check up, ended up costing 300 bucks so I wasn’t too thrilled about that. I also got a call from a job I had applied to online asking me to fill out an application in person so I drove up to Indianapolis to do that. I ended up getting an interview, and then later a second interview and then bam I had a new job. I was actually on my way to apply for a job working where my friend Bruce had got on when I was offered the job. In hindsight maybe I should have applied to the other one, as it paid more money, but here I am with the job I did get offered.



Since I started my new job they had me training at a different center in Southport… and thus began the start of me entering the working force and 2 hours a day driving sucking my free time dry…



I trained for a little less than 2 weeks and then they sent me off to run my own store… and ever since then I’ve been doing/trying to do that as successfully as possible.



One advantage of doing the driving is that I started listening to audio books which has been nice, I have tracked my reading/listening efforts on the blog.



Around Halloween, Megan came up from Bloomington to party with her family, and I went to see “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” with her and Emily at the old Strand theatre in Shelbyville. The Strand is where we used to go watch movies when I was little. It was old and the floor was always sticky but I have some good memories of watching movies as a little kid there. Anyway they have been restoring it to its original look as a stage theatre, but they decided to play some movies for Halloween. I enjoyed the show.







Bruce came over later that night and we played some chess and just sat around, Casey had some friends out as well. But overall that was Halloween and the month of October.





November - Riding along in my automobile



Yep now that I am in the work force again I was quickly getting used to the daily grind and driving to Indianapolis 5 days a week. Really this shot down the majority of my free time so I was beginning to miss being unemployed. Really I don’t have a lot else to say about working again, other than I had realized that I don’t think this is a job I want long term. (though maybe that sentiment will change?)



Bruce had introduced me to a game called “Heroclix” at the end of October and I bought my first few game pieces this month, actually Bruce got me a Jonah Hex set as well which was cool. I’m not completely sold on the game yet, so I don’t think I’m going to get that much into it. But I don’t mind playing it. Bruce, Brock and Joe are all pretty into the game so that’s cool. Basically the game involves making a team of comic book / super hero figures and having them fight against each other.







Thanksgiving came up next and I had my usual set of Thanksgiving dinners. Dad’s family was the same as always, it’s nice to see Grandma, Grandpa, Pam and then Mom, Dad and Casey. It’s small but nice. I had the day off, but Casey had to work so we had Thanksgiving supper together. I had to wake up early the next day though and work a 12 hour day for Black Friday.



Thanksgiving with Mom’s family was on Saturday in Hagerstown. Fun as always, though I had to watch Purdue lose the old oaken bucket on TV that day, and then Purdue’ basketball team lost our first game to Richmond that night… blah but other than that it was great. Including our Chinese Firedrills at every stop light in Hagerstown. (Clockwise or counter clockwise on the fire drill is the real question…)



December – An End to the Year



Well the start of the month was pretty calm, just the same old working and hanging out with friends. Well, I should add that I talked to my cousin Melissa for the first time in a long time, and found out she was living really close to where I work in Indianapolis now days. So we meet up once and had dinner at Fazoli’s.







On the 12th I had my first family diner, with my Dad’s extended side of the family; we had it at the country club. It was nice, these always feel weird as having them at the country club doesn’t feel like a family get-together, but I’d say this is one of the best ones we have ever had there.



The next day however I was on the road to a training class at work for a full week in Lexington, Kentucky. To be honest, I thought I would hate this… but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit actually. (some pics can be seen in the post about Howie in Lexington) My classmates where a pretty cool group of people and the class ended up being a nice relaxing break from the “real world”. I actually ate a ton of food down there since we had 15 bucks to spend on dinner and they catered in all of our lunches, it was pretty nice, as I even got to be a big tipper a few times as I always wanted to spend the full 15 dollars. The last night we went to this pizza/arcade place which ended up being a fun thing for our group.



Funny thing is that we got a snow day from the classes even because Lexington had a small ice storm on Wednesday night… but it wasn’t bad at all… in fact we rode around with a guy from Florida driving most of the time, just to give you an idea on how bad it was…



The Saturday after my trip I hung out with Steve and a few old friends to play some games of Risk. Steve wanted us to meet his new girlfriend Macy, so he arranged this gathering. He must really like her as he never wanted me to meet any of his other girlfriends. She is nice, and things went well… though she totally had him under her control in those games of risk.







After getting back from classes I had a week of work until Christmas, I ended up finishing the audiobook “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair this week, and really must say it’s been my favorite audiobook thus far this year.



After work on the 23rd I went with and met my family at my Grandma in Knightstown’s house. Mom, Grandma and my cousin Steve had been making candy all day there. I got there last as I came from work and ate some soup and candy. The drive back was foggy but it was a nice gathering.







Christmas Eve I had to work until 4 pm, which was nice to get off early. Then I came home and opened some Christmas with my family. I got some Tabasco Sauce, The Great Mouse Detective on DVD, Madden 2011, some toothpaste, undershirts, a back-up hard drive and a bunch of other items. As well as giving all of the gifts I had got for my parents and Casey of course. It was a great Christmas and I got way more than I needed.







On Christmas Day we went to my Grandma and Grandpa’s and had dinner and presents with them and my Aunt Pam. I got a new video camera! Since I broke mine while hiking over the mountain in July. (Ok this wasn’t a surprise as Grandma had us buy a present, but I’m happy with it.) Again I also got way more than I needed, and it was a great lunch and then dinner later on. Dad and Mom threw in their picks for who would win the NCAA tourney in March as is family tradition, leaving only Grandpa needing to lock in a team and him lamenting that all of his picks got taken before he jumped on them.



Grandma went first and got Duke back in November; Pam took Michigan State, Casey Syracuse, Me Kansas, Mom Purdue, Dad Ohio St…. Grandpa has until the 31st to make his pick.



Between lunch and dinner Dad and I went to visit my great grandma in the nursing home… and sadly she is in much worse shape than the last time I saw her.



The 26th was my final Christmas dinner this time with my Mom’s extended family. Again a great time, Casey had to work so Derek, Erika and I ended up going back and getting her when she got off work. I got a new tie and then of course had a great time hanging out with family. We were going to play Derek’s version of Purdue monopoly but never got around to it.



I must say it was a great Christmas when it was all said and done, I felt sort of sad and very tired when I rolled out of bed on the 27th and headed into work. I even commented on how I was sad all of the Christmas songs were gone until next year, even though I was sick of them on the 24th. Funny how things like that work out sometimes.



Now all that is left is figuring out my New Year’s plans… and that has been yet to be determined as per this writing.

Christmas Eve

Photos from our Christmas Eve gift opening, it was a great Christmas. Even Kong had fun playing in the wrapping paper.

Year in Review: Part 3

Year in Review




Note: This is the 3rd part of a four part series, the object being to give a quick review of my experiences in the year 2010. In this part I will cover the months of July, August, and September.



July – The Hike



At the start of this month Casey and I went with our Grandma to a family Reunion for my Grandpa on my Mom’s side of the family. Case and I didn’t really know that side of our family that well since we never met our Mom’s dad.



Mom wasn’t able to go to that family reunion because she was in Europe, visiting England, France and Italy. You can see some pictures of that trip featuring Howie by clicking to post from July of this year.



The 4-H fair came and went, still isn’t the same when you aren’t in 4-H but I went to it a couple nights and watched the Demolition Derby.



A big story this month was the return of Kong! He had went missing back in June and miraculously returning 5 weeks later. He was really skinny when he came back, but he was alive. I took him to the vet and everything checked out and he has been happily living inside with us again.







In pet news Pepper was still doing good, mom bought her a new soccer ball and she has gotten really good at playing ball.



Then of course the main event of the month was the Hike over Mount LeConte which I have reviewed in detail here: http://nomadwaystation.blogspot.com/2010/07/hike-or-that-time-i-walked-over.html



I had gotten pretty good at doing my walks here at home, regularly doing 10-11 mile walks in 90+ degree heat so I was pretty prepared but it was a tough trek for sure. The rest of vacation was good as well, Casey and I saw Ramsey Cascades, and we played putt putt golf and all of the rest of the great Gatlinburg things.





August – End of Summer



Well as we transitioned into August I began to walk less, I guess it was because the Hike was over, but I kind of wish I had kept up better with it.



Dad had his Power of the Past, he didn’t seem to enjoy it as much this year but it is a lot of work for him. I went a few days of the show but it was about the same as always. I hadn’t been the year before though since I was living in Indy.



Megan Brant had a party at her new place now that she had moved to Bloomington, it was a good time. I was going to take Bruce and Megan S. down but Bruce bailed on us so it was just me and Megan heading down to hang out with Megan, Emily and Amanda. We played board games, talked and just hung out that night.



D&D games were still going strong throughout August, but people’s schedules where changing so we could see the beginning of the end on that front. I also remember hanging out with Bruce and company one night at his wife Megan’s place that turned into a great night in which we ended up at Denny’s and someone took a syrup shot… lots of great quotes from that night.



Mom went back to work at school, and Dad was getting ready for the harvest. It had been super dry this summer so he was going to be starting right away. Really I don’t know if we had a real rain all August.



September – Farming



While my August wasn’t very eventful, September started off with me doing a lot of farming. Dad was hitting the fields and since I wasn’t doing anything I spent the biggest part of the first 3 weeks helping him by hauling wagons and emptying them. Grandpa hurt his back so Dad did really need me a little this year. Honestly not a lot to say about that, other than I listened to a lot of talk radio those weeks.



Here are a bunch of photos from farming: http://nomadwaystation.blogspot.com/2010/09/september-photographs.html



Also during September Mom, Casey, and I went to a Purdue game with our cousins since Derek had just started his freshman year at Purdue. Purdue won the game vs Ball State. We all had a good time. (Again a pic is in the above link) Dad had stayed home to fix some of the machinery we had broken while working in the fields. It was actually good for him to have a day to fix things since the weather had been so good, we hadn’t had any reason to stop since no major breakdowns had occurred.



Earlier in the month I had began putting books on half.com, books I had from school and wasn’t ever going to use again. I did pretty good selling them and made a little money.



I also bought a new laptop this month. Since moving home I had been having some trouble with my desktops hard drive. As well as the fact I don’t have wireless on my desktop I was back to using my old laptop, which was a middle of the line laptop from before I went to Purdue (2004). Needless to say it was very outdated. So…. After about three weeks of looking over computers and thinking about what I wanted. I pulled the trigger on the Dell laptop I’m using now.







Since school had started I had put in an application to substitute teach and this month I had my first class. A half day for my old Biology teacher in high school, it was easy… had them watch TV and that was about it. It was nice to do some I guess real work that I got paid for, even if it wasn’t much, and would lead to me having to fax like four papers to the unemployment office telling them that this wasn’t a full time job.




I was also searching a lot more for jobs this month, going to the truck stop at least once a week just to upload applications. I knew my unemployment would be out in November so I needed to get something by then.



On the entertainment side of things, a cousin of Bruce’s came home for Labor Day weekend and ran a one shot D&D game, but this was pretty much the end of the summer of D&D for my group of friends. All of our schedules had begun to change and getting together late at night wasn’t going to work anymore.



I did also start his blog in September, and began the tedious efforts to import all of my old MySpace blogs over here, since Myspace and Blogger don’t work well with each other, this is a time consuming process. But I’m glad I started when I did now that Myspace’s Blogs are set up differently. (I don’t know if I will ever be able to see my oldest myspace blogs so they may never get over here)

Winter Pictures and Putting up the Christmas Tree 2010

Winter

Pepper




Howie





Putting up the Tree 12-5-10

Casey



Mom and Casey



Howie



My Hippo Ornament

Year in Review : Part 2

Year in Review


Note: This is the 2nd part of a four part series, the object being to give a quick review of my experiences in the year 2010. In this part I will cover the months of April, May, and June.



April – Easter and such



The major event in April was spending Easter with my family. I remember Mom worked to guilt Casey and I in to watching “The Easter Beagle”… not that great of a show. After that Casey and I worked on dying some Easter eggs of our own, including our attempt to produce the famous “pirate egg” (which is really just our effort every year to somehow make a black egg)



























Easter morning we ate breakfast and went to Church with Grandma, Grandpa and Pam like always and then headed to Grammy’s to spend the rest of the day with Mom’s side of the family.



Derek, Erica, Anita, and Joe brought the foreign exchange student they were housing with them, and events of the day included flying kites and a trip to the woods in which there was some getting wet and throwing of sticks into the water, as well as Howie getting some photo ops in a junk pile back there.





















I also really got into Xbox live this month, and enjoyed a few games of Civ Rev online with Bruce and Brock. However this would be short lived as near the end of the month I found myself packing up and moving home as the lease ran out on my apartment on the 24th, and with me being unemployed and no idea where my next job would be I moved home with my parents once again.





May – Homeward Bound



At the end of April I had packed up and moved home, so the start of this month was me settling back in at my parents. Casey’s Birthday was on the 6th, and Bruce’s wife Megan also had her birthday party around that time.



I remember going to the horse track in Andersonville I believe three times between the end of April and through May to watch my Grandpa’s horse run, but she never did very well in those races.



I guess overall May wasn’t that eventful, probably the biggest development was my group of friends getting into D&D 3.5, a game that would provide us a lot of fun over the course of the summer. With Casey moving back and being unemployed, myself being unemployed, and everyone else working Part time at Fedex or at Taco Bell we were able to get everyone together for a game session at least once a week if not twice.



A few days this month I helped my Dad in the fields but overall I was just a bum most of the month of May to be honest.







One last thing to mention was somewhere near the start of this month was the great Jack kidnapping, in which Jack the dog went missing… turns out he was picked up by someone driving by thinking he was their bosses dog who lived a few roads over, and had gotten lose. However, once their boss got home she realized Jack wasn’t her dog and set out to find the real owner…. She couldn’t find the owner and left him with a neighbor who called the pound on him.. so Jack was kidnapped.



Mom eventually found out he was being held for ransom at the pound and had to bail him out, which was crazy because she was giving him away in a week. But he is living happily now where he is an inside dog and gets to sleep in bed with his owners and has a lot of other dogs to play with.



June – Walking



My Birthday was on the 1st and my family and I went to the NASCAR grill to celebrate it, as well as my Dad’s birthday the next week.



Job wise this month I was still unemployed, but I began to start thinking about getting in shape again… and well I was in pitiful shape so I began to go for walks. At first they started out as 2-3 mile trips and I would take Pepper with me and sometimes Mom, Dad, or Casey would come along as well.



However as the summer would draw on these walks would become longer and longer until they would hit the 10 mile journeys I took almost every day in July. Infact a couple times I walked to St. Paul via the rail road tracks… in which I got these pictures over the Flat Rock River.











I also remember it raining a lot…. And getting stuck in the rain on walks quite often at the start of the month… but a little rain never killed anyone.







We did also come home once from my Grandmas and see this huge turtle…











On the job front I was still unemployed, but I did help my Dad bale quite a bit of hay this month which helped keep me somewhat busy.



In entertainment… not a whole lot going on this month, Steve and I started hanging out more as he moved back home, sometimes we would go to the truckstop for some high speed unlimited bandwidth interneting, as well as doing quite a bit of late night cruising around Decatur and Shelby Counties, trying to find some of the spookiest places…. Including the famous floating horse!