Tour of the Midwest in Six Days
June 28th, 2010 | 
Author: Last Tuesday I left Illinois and didn’t get back until late in the afternoon today. I had a great little vacation but got little sleep, drove lots, and purchased enough oil to make people in the industry happy. I think I need to go into cryo sleep to fully recover from the week.
Tuesday through Friday I was in Wisconsin with Liz, Reid, Matt, Doogs, and Bill at Liz’s lakehouse. We made sure to get up real early and drive to the nearby diner to watch America beat Algeria. Happy at the time, but pretty sad now that we know what happened to them next. Thursday night Liz’s sister Jacky came up with her boyfriend and his cousin…from Norway. Sindre (sp?) was his name and was a pretty nice guy and put up with lots of USA vs. Norway smack talk. Clearly America won.
Friday I got to drive through the worst storm ever on my way to Ross’ wedding in Minneapolis. Of the six lanes of traffic, four ended up being blocked off and the shoulders on both sides of the road under the bridge because people wanted to not get hailed on. Apparently golf ball sized hail in some parts of the twin cities.
Ross’ wedding was great, though he chose to schedule the most important day of his life as the same day the US played (and lost to) Ghana. Some foresight next time Ross!? Geesh. But the reception was a blast and after a Wendy’s AND Dominos run we all went to bed for the night.
After MN I had to drive to Des Moines to get some insurance stuff taken care of, namely the chipped rear light that I need to get fixed before I cancel my insurance which I won’t be needing in Japan. And I had to get my toothbrush I left at Joe’s. Reason enough to go on a roadtrip after you’ve used the electric toothbrushes and have to go back to manual for a few days. Not the same.
Finally back home, with cleaning and more prep for Japan.
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When I Geek Out…
Of course I rarely geek out, being super cool and all, but I have had random discussions with people about what websites we frequent most on the internet. So I figured I’ll give a little insight as to my normal rotation of websites that I go to. I’m sort of scared to show the Apple websites I go to at the risk of my friends beating me to the punch for news related to all things Apple, but oh well. Talk nerdy to me.
When I’m in an Apple mood the three websites I go to most are:
- http://www.appleinsider.com
- http://www.tuaw.com The Unofficial Apple Weblog
- http://www.9to5mac.com
When I want to check out general tech and informative but geeky stuff I go to:
When I check out videogame stuff then it’s:
- http://www.kotaku.com
- http://www.joystiq.com
- http://www.gametrailers.com (credit Reid here. He wanted me to give him his due credit since he was using the site before me)
Lastly….to somewhat show that I have an other side…my favorite sports sites:
So I really need more websites to go to though; there have often been times when I literally run out of things to go to on the internet. Thoughts?
First Victim of Bro Icing
There is a ridiculous website called brosicingbros.com, which is aimed at getting men across America to get their friends to drink awful malt sugar beverages when they really don’t want to. The idea is similar to the game where you hold your hand in an A-OK under your waist and if someone sees it you get to punch them. You must hide or in some way get your friend to see the Smirnoff Ice you have and if they see it they must….get down on one knee and chug it. In order to get your friends to actually look, you have to be creative. My method for getting Nick was to tie a bottle to the drawstring of my shorts and pull up my shorts like I had a cramp in my leg…thus exposing the sugary drink to Nick’s angry eyes. Check the video out of our first inaugural icing:
Thoughts? Apologies in advance for those that think this is inappropriate, it’s not. So I’m not sorry actually.
Memorial Day
Memorial Day means lots of different things to lots of different people, and I decided I’d explain the various forms of importance this holiday plays in my life.
To most people Memorial Day is a day for being with friends and family, enjoying the weather, and hopefully stuffing yourself with as many brats and burgers as possible. It’s a day of celebration and the idea of remembrance is lodged solidly in the back of most people’s minds, if it’s there at all.
And that’s totally fine, I’m not trying to be all high and mighty and act above anyone; I went to a friends house to imbibe, eat finger food and play catchphrase. But as I do this I also do keep in mind what the day is actually about, and I hope everyone else does as well. I am a very adamant patriot and am very proud of everything this country stands for, and all the people fighting now and in the past.
There was an excellent article was in the USA Today about how the other side celebrates Memorial day. The other side meaning those that have lost family members in the field of battle. It said that a dichotomy exists in that while the majority of Americans are putting condiments on their dogs, relatives of lost servicemen are more likely to go to the cemetery. I’m guessing most people don’t think about this when they are playing bags.
So I guess I just wanted to share my thoughts and make myself realize that there are all sorts of ways to “celebrate”, which is fine, as long as you take at least a minute to remember what Memorial Day is all about.
How I live my life….otherwise known as the homeless person manual
So the last three weeks I’ve been living between couches and sleeping bags. It has been real fun needless to say. My lease runs out May 31st and I am not done working until June 10th….which is a little bit of a problem. So Joe and Nick decided to let me stay at their place. It’s a nice little two bedroom apartment, both rooms are already spoken for. The couch is my bedroom and the lazyboy next to it has become my living room. Luckily for me they are not charging me rent for two weeks…though I have promised to make dinner; Grilled Cheese anyone? I’m whining and complaining but in reality I have no problem with it. If it really was a huge issue I’d have taken up offers for beds from Alyssa, Praveen, Melissa, and others…I may actually enjoy living like this. A capsule compartment in Japan may be a luxury for me.
Reason Enough to go to Japan
Everything is a gadget. Everything. I will spend my entire salary on this.
Japanese for Beginners…From a Beginner
I think I may do a weekly bit on what I am learning, or rather attempting to learn of the Japanese language before I go. In this way I’m hoping that I’m not completely dumbfounded when I get there. So consider my attempt to give you insight into the language my personal review session for myself.
So once I accepted the job I immediately went online to order the Rosetta stone package to learn Japanese. Once I discovered it was over $200, I quickly went to Borders and bought Japanese for Dummies at about one tenth that price.
I know I don’t have to really learn too much but I figured I should know the basic alphabet so I can write out words and form basic sentences. Problem: English has one alphabet Japanese has THREE. Yes, three.
The first alphabet is called Hirigana and the second is called Katakana. These are phonetic alphabets and each one consists of 46 characters that represent different sounds. The word Cat for example is Neko. In both Hiragana and Katakana I just put the character for the neh sound in front of the koh sound characher. It’s not going to be four characters like the english word. In Hirigana: ねこ and in Katakana: ネコ
So far I’ve got the first thirty five characters of Hirigana memorized and I’m hoping to start Katakana in June.
The third alphabet is so insane that I’ll never figure it out. It’s called Kanji and has over 2000 characters. Apparently if you memorize the most used couple hundred you’ll be ok. Kanji is not phonetic and a character could represent an entire word or different words depending on the characters they’re next to. Here’s some Kanji: 亜絵地家詩
I have no idea what I just typed. Awesome. That’s it for today…I got to vent about how difficult this is going to be and you now know there are three separate Japanese alphabets that can be used in conjunction. Oh and that neko means cat…I’m sure that will be helpful information.
Got a Reason to Blog Again…
Hello world….I very quietly exited the blogging world about a year ago when I began blogging about new shoes that I bought; knew right about then that I didn’t care too much….and I’m sure no one else did either.
However, I recently have gotten a slightly better reason to begin blogging than new shoes, which by the way are still great shoes. Just a few days ago I just accepted a job overseas for 12 months in JAPAN! I kind of still can’t believe it myself and I’m in the very early phases of planning everything, so I won’t go too in depth into all the things I have to think about quite yet: cell phones, what to pack, I don’t speak Japanese, how my great chopstick skills will transition, etc.
I am going to try and make a concerted effort to continue blogging again all this summer and hopefully the posts will actually get interesting once I leave for Japan and am able to post pics and videos of me eating weird stuff and embarrassing myself non-stop.
If you want to have an email sent to you when I post….(it’ll only send one email a day maximum, even if I post multiple times; I don’t want to spam you) go ahead and click register under the “Follow Me Here!” heading.
Next post I’ll actually post the details that I know so far about the position and where in Japan I’ll actually be staying. Unfortunately the job I accepted is not as a professional sushi critic, but it’s still going to be amazing.
You Know Parents are Mad When…
They come in to school and go through the whole school day with their kid. It’s fantastic. The student has never looked more ashamed in their life and they absolutely are not going to be exhibiting those problem behavior while their Mom or Dad is sitting right behind them in all their classes.
My favorite parent, that I see probably once a month, is this MASSIVE man with earrings and tattoos and a harley davidson leather jacket. At first glimpse I always assumed this man was going to bash my knees in with a lead pipe for not giving him my lunch money, until I realized he is a concerned parent. This Dad lays down the law. I saw him this morning looking through his son’s locker and bitching him out for not being organized and losing homework.
While this example is hilarious because I’m sure I’ve seen the guy in roadhouse, it is still nice to see parents come in to help ensure their student is staying on the right track.
Eating Like a King
I have been eating very healthy lately, and I’m learning that it doesn’t mean you can’t eat well. Opposite really, and much more rewarding. I recently bought a cookbook that lists some of the favorite recipes of the big food network stars. Basically I’m being personally taught how to cook by Ina Garten and Giada de Laurentis. I haven’t had a ton of time to cook during the week with coaching absolutely exhausting me, but this weekend went very well.
Friday I had Justin grill up an Ahi tuna steak that I bought. I put it on top of spinach greens, grilled potatoes and mushrooms I sauteed in sherry vigegar and garlic. Top the whole thing off with rasberry vinagrette dressing and I ate a meal that I will need to repeat soon. Awesome. Yesterday I bought two pounds of mussels and steamed them in a pot with lemon, thyme, c hicken broth, wine and garlic. Not quite Mussels in Brussels, but pretty awesome nonetheless.
I still have yet to make my own sushi, but I think I’m going to wait until I master some more recipes in the book.Sushi seems pretty advanced to me, I better not jump right in. Though I could see myself changing my mind and trying this weekend.More to come.