CruizerBlog

just stuff

So nothing really new today. I am trying to design a sump for the saltwater aquarium, I dunno if it's going to fly, or if I want to put that much effort into the tank. I have though, already started ordering stuff for it. Speaking of spending money, there's a motor for the Corrado on e-bay right now for $50. The guy says it runs fine. Maybe I ought to just buy that motor, and put my car back together, and then rebuild the bought one. He's located in Michigan, so I'd just spend the 3 or so hour drive there to pick it up. I got 5 more days to think about it.

Also, I recently noticed that Yahoo has upped my e-mail account size to 250MB! WOW!

Christina's Birthday

Today is Christina's Birthday. She's got a nice surprise waiting for her when she wakes up. Not sure though, if she's gonna hate me for them...

Today Christina will wake up to a house full of red streamers. There will be 2 birthday cards and a birthday balloon on the table for her. One birthday card will say here's $5 to wash your car.

When Christina goes to leave, wondering what I ment by the $5 comment, she'll find this.

If you can't see it, it reads "Honk It's My Birthday" Along with red streamers on the antenna. Then she'll open the door to find a car full of baloons.

When she gets to work, she'll see her newly decorated desk:

Pic 1

Pic 2

An entire pad of Post-Its, each one hand written with either "I Love You" or "Happy Birthday"

:D

Blue Man Group

Short Version:
We had a great saturday! Lot's of fun in Chicago. Now go read the long version, it has pics.

Today was a fun day. For Christina's birthday, I planned a nice day in Chicago. My parents had given her money for her birthday so that she could spend it while we shopped the Magnificant Mile (aka North Michigan Avenue). While there we stopped at such places as Crate & Barrel and the Disney Store, where I picked up a Pirates of the Caribbean t-shirt for only $4.50! We made sure to include Water Tower Place on our journey. While there, we sampled a steamed asian bun, called a Bao, at a place called Wow Bao (as if that isn't Americanised). It was quite tasty. We bought a frozen six pack to take with us. Then we went to the Godiva Chocolates store, so I could get my usual, chocolate dipped strawberries. Also bought a couple Pabana truffles (limited edition), a Strawberry truffle, and a Mint truffle. Outside Water Tower Place, we saw a robotic man. And you thought they only existed in movies! We had to make a stop at the American Girl Place, so that Christina could buy a new halloween costume for her American Girl Doll, and a new book, and a new t-shirt. Then we hopped down the street and I thought Pottery Barn looked pretty cool, so we stepped inside. Well Christina saw this really big halloween candle tree thing that she liked, so she bought it. So I carried the really big halloween candle tree thing around. It was a nice big obtrusive box. We next visited a couple other little strip malls and shops that we liked. After abhout 4 hours, we were getting tired, and the box with the really big halloween candle tree was getting annoying, so we headed back to the car, which was parked between us, and our supper destination, Gino's East Pizzeria. The original plan was to go to Ed Debevic's, but I found out the Christina has never eaten as Gino's East, so we HAD to go there! I have been craving delicious pizza lately anyways. Only after we dropped stuff off at the car, and shopped in Rainforest Cafe, and took a gander at the Hard Rock Cafe, and THEN shopped at Sportmart, did we have our epiffany. The Rock 'N Roll McDonalds was gone! Come to find out why in this article. OK, just as a quick rant: this was the third busiest McDonalds BECAUSE it was the Rock 'N Roll McDonalds! If you redesign it to look like ANY other McDonalds, IT'S NOT GOING TO BE AS BUSY ANYMORE!!! Anyways, we ate a Gino's (which moved into the former Planet hollywood building, so it looks really weird) then on the way back to the car, we stopped and had dessert at Cold Stone Creamery. Then it was off the the highlight of the evening: Blue Man Group. This show was AWSOME!! The lights, the actors, the music! I want my own PVC pipe drumset! And nothing can explain the awsomeness of the toiletpaper and strobelights. I've never seen so much toiletpaper being passed around in my life!!! It was a fantastic show, and I was really sad to see it end. On a weird note, I kinda know (OK, I've meet him like twice) one of the Blue Men in the Chicago show. Though we're sure he wasn't in tonights show. He is my best friends fiance's best friends husband (get all that?). He recently just started as a Blue Man, though I guess he's not doing weekend shows yet. Anyways, that was our Chicago trip, now here's a few pics, and a few from in the Blue Man lobby:

Big Day

Yesterday was the big day to give my speech. I had worried myself over it sooo much I made myself sick. I didn't go to work at all yesterday, I felt horrible. I decided to do my speech over how ot operate the Weil-McLain Ultra Boiler mainly because we have a training case which incorporates the important parts of the boiler, and pretty much acts as if the boiler is running. It was a big hit, everyone loved it. They loved the boiler case, and thought it was a great visual. I even used the Ultra ad where I played Dr. Ultra. Everyone was asking if that really was me in the picture. I was so nervous though when I went up there, I was shaking through the whole speech. I would hold my hand out to point at an object, and my hand would be shaking violently. I was just waiting to go into convulsons...

Speech Sucks!

So for three weeks I have been wondering what I am going to do for my first speech in speech class. It's a process speech, I have to show how to turn on and operate a piece of equipment. I give my speech tomorrow. Right now I am down to 2 items. 1) The Injection Pump Panel, or 2) The Ultra Boiler. Both items from work. The IPP is directly related to my job, though I know the specifics on it, and the basics on operating it, but not 100%. The Ultra Boiler I know the specifics of the product, but not of the operation. The IPP, I do not have a working product I can hook up and operate, as for the Ultra, well I can't carry the FULL boiler, but I do have access to the operating briefcase, which basically has the control panel of the unit which you can turn on and run. I think I am going this route...perhaps it's because that is me on the product poster....

BirthDay

Yep, another birthday, another year older. Oh well. I lived through the last one, I plan on living through this one!

Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Ayyyyy Matey, It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Friday

TGIF! I think this every friday morning. But then I still get upset, because it's only friday morning, not afternoon or evening, or even later morning, but just friday morning. That means I still have all of friday to go through yet. And that sucks. But still, TGIF.

Funny thing is, i have to work after work, and probably tomorrow. But it;s a different job that I still enjoy, home apprasing. I think it's fun to meet new people, then get to snoop around their house, and check out what they have.

Dentist

Lemme just say, root canals = the suck.

And in a couple weeks, I'll be telling you wisdom teeth pulling = the suck as well.

Getting carried away....

Don't ya hate it when you get a little carried away?

So sat, during the Popcorn Fest, I decided to work on the VW instead of going. All I did sat was finally figured out how to remove that rouge rusted bolt that was holding my exhaust manifold on, and remove 3 of the 4 studs that were still in the block. The 4th stud proved to not want to go anywhere. After 4 hours, that was all I accomplished. I sprayed the stud with Rust Eater, and changed, then went to the South Bend Demolition Derby, where I got to see the photographer get run over by an out of control rollover car. Don't worry, he's OK. Sunday, worked at the fire dept all morning, and part of the afternoon. I came home, and figured I'd try one more time to get that stud out, then I'd go inside. Well one thing led to another (and the stud didn't come out) and I changed the serpentine belt, then I decide to look for an oil leak. Upon doing so, I found a coolant leak. But in order to get to the hose, I pretty much had to dissable the entire front of the car. I actually had a good time while doing it! Which is just wrong. You see that little hose piece shaped like a "T" under the passanger tire, yeah, that was the hose with the leak. So now, I hope I can put it all back together!

Popcorn Day

Today is Valparaiso's Popcorn Festival day. Way back in the day, Orville Redenbacher opened his very first popcorn plant here in Valparaiso. Hence the name Popcorn Fest. The company closed down the plant a couple years ago, but we still celebrate it to this day nonetheless. The Parade lineup starts on the street behind where I live, and the parade ends about 3 blocks west of me. So on this morning, the traffic and people copunt here are crazy. Most of the streets are blocked, so if you wanna get anywhere, good luck. The returning parade floats block most of the traffic on my street as well. The floats are always made of popcron, usually with some sort of theme. When I go to watch the parade, I hop on the bike, and meanuver through traffic. This year, most of my friends are out of town, and Christina went to Wisconsion, so I decided to stay home and work on the VW. The festival is about a 10 minute walk from the house, so if I wanna go, that's how I get there. I've been going for years, so it's nothing special anymore, I just go for the food.

Matt's Last Day

I met Matt probably back in early '98 in a calculus class. I would constantly tell him how I hated my job. He asked for my phone number, and said something might be comming up and he'd give me a call. Probably about 6 months later, completely forgetting Matt even existed, he calls me, says their is a position open and that I should send in my resume. He put a good word in for me, and I got the job. Matt is a bountiful knowledge of information. He was my "goto" guy. When I didn't know something, I would "go to" him. Matt would have 10 years of work in here in January. He is a superfriendly guy, and probably everyone here knows him.

Today though was his last day. And it's one I am sure he won't forget too soon.
He went into the Engineering Lab to say his goodbye, and he was attacked. They strapped him to a char and wrapped him up in duck tape. Then they wheeled the chair into one of the boiler testing rooms, where it's about 100 degrees, and left him there. Matt managed to get out on his own though.

Ladies and Gentleman, Matt has left the building!

Failed to yeild a stop

So yesterday I "kinda" ran through a stop intersection while turning. And to my demise, there was a cop right on the other corner watching me. I didn't see him, he was hidden by a truck. But he saw me. "Did you realize you ran through a stop light there?" "Yes sir I did." "Any reason why, are you in a hurry?" "No sir, I just didn't hit my brakes hard enough." Truth be told, I accelerated through the stop, I didn't even try and slow down. I didn't see the cop, and there was no one comming....Oh well, hopefully they'll send me a deferral. I haven't had one in LaPorte County in a couple years. I don't want a blemish on my "clean" driving record, you know?

Chemistry

So I am taking an entry level Chem course, CHEM111. For me it's in my senior level class schedule, for most, it's an entry level class. THe prof teaches it like an entry level class as well. The entire first day was about how to study. I'm sitting in there like, DUH! It's amazing to see the amount of stupid people in that class. Most don't know how to convert numbers to scientific notation. It's pretty hard for me to fathom, since I've been doing it for years. Yesterday, in an equation he wrote the chemical property for AU, gold. Most people could't understand that AU was gold. He got upset, because he had to explain it like 15 times. It was pretty funny, though alot of that class seems to waste my time, because he has to explain stuff that I've known as fact for years.

Cleaning up

The combination of lack of sleep plus playing volleyball for 6 hours made me so unbeliveably tired yesterday, I was having trouble staying awake at work. The worst part is all i had to look forward to was going home to clean up the yard, and put everyhting away! And that was after the eye dr. appt. Speaking of, my eye dr. really wants me to be able to see in contacts. She ordered me another pair to try this week, as well as gave me a third pair too. The third pair is more comfortable, but I can't see as well. The ordered ones here a little uncomfortable (because they're toric, I have a stigmatism) but I can see really good. Unfortunately, I went to put them on this morning, and one was ripped. Great. Anywho, we cleaned up the yard last night, and I borrowed the neighbors shop vac to suck the water out of the basement carpet, so it no longer squishes when I walk. I didn't get to bed until almost 10, I was a walking zombie.

Long Weekend

Had a pretty good Labor Day weekend.

Sat. Christina went with me to play paintball. She had alot of fun, including the fact that she got to shoot me, and hit me right in the side of the neck. Booo! Sunday, I woke up to a flooded basement. Our upstairs toiler ran all night, and apaprently we had a clog in the sewer line. So the toilet water just backed up right into the basement. Pretty much flooded most of it. Got the landlords out there to fix it. While they were there, I pointed out a couple different things that needed looked at. So monday morn they came back out and replaced a couple water valves in the basement. Unfortunately though, something went wrong. About halfway through the day (we were havong as party) I heard a weird noise comming from the basement. I went to check it out, only to find that one of the water lines came apart and was spewing water all over the back wall, and my washer and dryer. I tried to fix it, only to have it bust again 10 minutes later. The landlords came back out, and fixed it again. I think they got it this time.

Our Labor Day party was pretty good. Not as big of a turnout as usual, but alot of people did show up throughout the day. I think I played volleyball for about 6 straight hours. The last of the people left at midnight. I got to bed at 12:30ish. And I am really tired today. Only to get to go home tonight, and clean up!

Wednesdays Suck

Officially, I now hate wednesdays. It is the single longest day of the week for me. I go into work (usually at 6 to make up time) and end up in school until about 9ish. By the time I get to my last class, I am almost dead. I can't even pay attention in class, I just sit and think about how nice it would be to go home.
Oh well, only 14 more weeks to go!!

I went ot the eye doctor the other day, and got my eyes dialated. Then she used a solution that decreases the time the eyes are dialated, so that I could return back to work. The immediate result, bloody red dialted eyes. Within about 2 hours though, they were pretty much back to normal.