AHHH!!
I GOT A FULL TIME JOB! Like, I'm going to have benefits and money and security and get to drive a snow plow!!
Ok so it's not firefighting and not natural resources... but I get to do forestry work and that counts!
I never thought I'd be so excited to NOT move out of Detroit, doing a blue-collar job... But hey I like it, and that's all that counts!
Friday night, southeast Michigan was greeted by another snowstorm. Of course, I decided to wait until there were at least 4" on the ground before I decided to try and drive home. (It's more fun that way!) In these situations, I am always reminded of one simple fact: Just because some one has 4x4 does NOT mean they know how to drive in the snow. Seriously, some of these SUV drivers think that just because they have four wheels working for them, they will automatically be fantastic winter drivers; no need to exercise caution or patience, the car will take care of those details itself. Pfft. I might not have four wheels, but I do have more than a few braincells and common sense. :P
This set up a beautifully wonderful challenge in getting to downtown Detroit for the Winter Blast Festival yesterday, but Steve and I did make it (half an hour drive turned into over an hour, making our own lanes on the freeway). It was so worthwhile, and I can't wait until 2006 when the Super Bowl is coming! Detroit did a fantastic job of clearing snow so parking wasn't a huge issue, and the new Campus Martius park was alive with glowing lights, which reflected off the falling snow; 20 ft. tall burning torches; a huge Christmas tree; warming tents every 150 ft; plenty of live music... It was packed with people bundled up but having so much fun! They also had a huge snow slide, but the line was too long so we didn't get to ride it. There were, however, excited fuzzy huskies present for the dog sled demonstrations and to give dog kisses. :) Even better, they had large mobile HEATED restrooms instead of nasty little port-o-potties. We didn't end up eating there, but some of Detroit's best restaurants were serving food, all under $6.50.
So here's first-hand experience that Detroit is gonna ROCK next year for the Super Bowl, despite the cold! My pictures are on my Trekshare site.
I was playing on Photoshop and thought this looked kindof cool. :)
Yeah, you read that right - I moved, I worked... and I came home.
Believe me, I never expected to drive all the way down there, work one day, and leave for home less than 24 hrs from when I arrived! But trust me, it was one of the best decisions I've made in 2005. ;)
All signs pointed to staying in Michigan - including the heavy snow I was greeted with on Tuesday morning, forcing all freeway traffic to one or two slippery lanes, crawling along at 30 mph. The snow morphed into freezing rain somewhere in Ohio, but the clouds weren't done with me just yet! It poured nearly all the way down through Virginia or North Carolina. Overall, I think the weather cost me an extra 2 hours.
I spent my one day of employment raking pine needles and cutting down scrub oak within a 15 ft. radius of longleaf pine trees that had endangered woodpeckers in them.
Later that afternoon, I went into town to check voicemail and email and communicate with the outside world. Got some crazy news and I HAD to go home. I don't want to write down why I had to leave, but we'll just say it was entirely necessary and a very good decision!!
Left back for MI that night, but it was late enough that I knew I'd have to stop for the evening. So I call up my friend in Virginia out of nowhere and just ask him "What are you doing at 1 am tonite??" "Umm, drinking beer around my bonfire maybe? Why what's up??" And hence, I spent the night in Blacksburg, road weary and a bit flustered from the day's events, and passed out in the basement. I doubt he reads this, but Matt I promise one of these days, we'll sit down for longer than a few minutes when we're both healthy and not exhausted!
So began - and ended - my South Carolina adventure. Regrets? None. Just happy to be home where I belong right now!!
Wilbur my Navi-turtle, somewhere in Virginia? BTW, the weather was about 72 degrees down there.
Going away dinner at Papa Vinos!
Tired! Not done packing! 2-4" of snow tonite! Waking up in 5 hrs!
Ugh!
I've spent my last weekend day in Michigan sleeping, thinking about packing, pretending to pack, avoiding packing, chatting with people, and taking lots of painkillers to dull the after-effects of excruciatingly wonderful snowboarding this weekend.
Procrastination at it's finest. :)
Actually, considering we got home last night around 3:30 am, exhausted and sore, and I still managed to wake up before noon is amazing to me. Of course, I did take another nap this afternoon... but I've spent hours since then getting rid of old clothes to give to charity, recycling four grocery bags full of paper, sorting out boxes I haven't touched since college... Moving may be a pain, but at least I get a chance to "simplify my life" or whatever Zen enlightenment I might get out of eliminating some of my material possessions.
So, since I'm trying to pack, I found time to search flight prices from Detroit (DTW)to South Carolina. :) There are 3 airports that one could fly into, and so far I've found some fantastic fares. (Hoorah for alliteration!) $153 round trip is the cheapest. Here are the airport abbreviations to make it even EASIER for ya'll to look up fares to visit me!
Charlotte, NC - CLT
Columbia, SC - CAE
Myrtle Beach, SC - MYR
While cleaning my room, I found all my old painting supplies. Yes, once upon a time I was an aspiring artist. :) I felt guity for not having touched a paintbrush in over a year, especially considering I was in the middle of a painting of some wolves that was turning out very well... until I stopped working on it. This is what happens when you have too many hobbies!
Our dog Wilson knows somethings going on. Every time I move or leave for a long period of time, he gives me this look... like he knows that I'm leaving him, and he's trying to understand why I am going. I'm not kidding at all, either. Everybody in the family notices he acts a little weird... just follows me arround, then stands in front of me and stares at me. Sometimes he nudges me, but he's not begging. My mom says it's because he heard her telling people on the phone. :) For some reason, it's really hard to look him in the eye and not feel guilty about leaving him!
Wilbur the turtle will be my travel companion. How silly will that look, a turtle in a box as my navigator. I don't think he's as distressed as Wilson, because frankly Wilbur isn't that smart and runs into the glass of his aquarium all the time. ;)
This weekend was fantastic and I'm glad I got to have one last romp in the hills with my snowboard and some good friends. We trucked up to Boyne Friday night and spent all day tearing it up on Saturday. I can now say I am Master of the Easy Hill! The guys prompted me to try a black diamond or two... and it scared the crap out of me. I made it down all right - if you consider sliding down on your ass "all right". I need to be Master of the Little Bit Harder Hill before I try that again!
Anyway, back to cleaning. Here's a few funny pictures from our hotel room. My batteries died (again) so there's not much to show but some debauchery on the bed.
And so ends probably my last entry from Michigan for a while!
I know, it's been all pictures lately... but people like to see pictures. Anyway, I hope to have stuff to write about again soon, moving to South Carolina and all. ;)
Here's some from when Brian was back in town, and also from another party Jeff had. Also a few pics from hanging out with Brynn, Casey, Kirk and Heather, as well as pics of Steve's house. Good times!
New Years Eve pics are now up!
It was a fantastic evening at Leopold Bros bar in Ann Arbor, where my friend Erich's band, The Book Was Better, played a show. The last time I actually saw them was two years ago, at my old house in Ann Arbor - it was their first show, and they've come a long way since then! They played with two other bands, one which isn't worth mentioning, the other one called the Great Lakes Myth Society, which I really liked also. So me, Steve, Jeff, Kevin, Beth, Jess, and a few other people rocked to some good tunes, had a champagne toast at midnight, and welcomed 2005 in one of my favorite bars ever. Some of those other pics in the album were from me and Jeff hanging out at Kevin's, playing games and just being goofy. I'm gonna miss being around here!!
Uhh, so much for getting a few extra days to let me move. The dude wants me there the 10th... not even two weeks notice to get down there. He's mad at human resources; I'm irked because they weren't going to let me have enough time to fix my car, get packed, get shit taken care of... BLAH! So we "comprimised", and I'm moving TUESDAY! :( Excited to work, not excited about the time crunch.
So if you want to see me before I leave, you have 6 days. Then you'll have to visit me!
So I hinted at the idea that I have a job in that other entry. Not just any old job, like BLAHretailBLAH. Another fire job! My next adventure will be spending the next 5 months in South Carolina doing prescribed fire. I just found out last week, and they'd like me to start really really soon... like, I'd have to leave in a week. I'm going to ask for a few extra days though to try and tie up at least a few loose ends (I have a habit of having lots of those, it seems). It's weird to think I'll be somewhere "warm" and practically void of snow - I guess they sometimes get some flurries, but it was 70 degrees there today, for example. Figures that I get into snowsports, and I move where there is no snow. :)
I'm obviously very excited, sounds like this time I really get my own room, free rent, and - best of all - I get to bring my pet turtle Wilbur! I know it sounds silly but I had to send him to Steve's for over a year last year so he could be a foster turtle-parent. I've had Wilbur for 14 years and hated leaving him. :) I'm also about 2 hrs from Myrtle Beach = cheaper airfare. Now ya'll really don't have a good excuse to not visit me!!
Plus, I started reading "Looking for Alaska" by Peter Jenkins and it's making me want to head West - way, way West! - to Alaska again. I've thought about it ever since freshman year of college and I know that some day, I'll move there. It would drive me nuts to think about it and not at least give it a try! Who wants to move with me?
So that's the job news. Still much more to write about, but hard to make up for weeks of slacking off in this journal.
Oh yeah - where the heck did all the snow go?! Dammit!
This is more for the benefit of my family than those of you out there in Dot-Com world, just some photos of Xmas and Turkey Day at my mom's house and my dad's house. More fun pics coming up soon!
Drama! Exciment! Pain! Surprises! EMPLOYMENT!
All this and more sums up why I haven't written in a long time! Too busy living and being crazy and making my mom roll her eyes and being beat up by myself and my friends to sit on the computer!
Amadeo had some friends in over the holidays, and they were crazy fun! Probably too much fun for my own good... so here's my stupid story to end 2004. Ori, Andrew, Eric and Amadeo all headbutt each other for - fun?? Affection? Who knows why boys do things like that, and who knows why I joined in. Ok, so maybe the alcohol had something to do with it. This went on all night. I think at one point, somebody may have hit me a bit hard, but at the time it didn't hurt too bad.
So comes into play one of my favorite phrases: "It seemed like a good idea at the time!"
Dancing and more "good idea at the time" things happened - all in good fun! - and hot tub for hours and hours.... One of the craziest nights I'd had in a while. Grrr baby!
Woke up the next morning and my forehead was just aching! I had a huge bump on my head and just wasn't feeling all there. What a motley crew we must have looked like at Denny's in the morning - me holding my ice water to my forehead, everybody hung over, Ori eating mass quantities of cole slaw, half of us falling asleep... We were supposed to leave for our ski trip up north later that evening. That sure wasn't going to happen because...
I was driving home and started to feel not so good. Seeing things, not thinking straight. Concerned, I went to the ER. For 3 hours. Minor concussion from headbutting. STUPID! STUPID! I just told the Dr. I didn't remember how I hit my head, and he just said "Must have been one hell of a party!"
"Well, it was fun at the time!" Even the Dr. got to hear my philosophy for the weekend. ;)
Needless to say, everyone else was too hung over/too slow/too lazy to leave that night, and I went to bed early. I noticed my eyes were getting bruises around them; the ER nurse told me "Oh, it will get much much worse." Apparently gravity pulls the blood from the bruise on my forehead down to the "softer tissues" of my face, like around my eyes. I was warned, but still, nothing could prepare me to see myself in the mirror in the morning...
With big black circles around my eyes. Like a raccoon!
This was the 22nd. They JUST totally faded away today. Way to have to explain that to my large extended family over Xmas. :)
Since I was sleeping, didn't realize that my ride was leaving early in the morning on Monday. Fortunately, Amadeo was going up later that evening so I got to hitch a ride with him. Phew! I would have hated to miss my first chance to try out my new board.
And since life is full of surprises, we got a big snow storm on our drive up there. Couldn't even see the lines on the road. So fun! But I like weird things like snowstorms and low visibility and fishtailing. Ha!
We pulled up to Boyne Highlands, about 4-5 hrs northwest, and see some guy wandering around outside in the snow, a christmas ornament in his ear. Wait... we know that drunken fool! It was Ori, wandering hopelessly about the lodges.
"Ori, what are you doing?"
"Looking for a warm place."
What?? He was looking for his room but couldn't remember what building his room was in. We gave him a few suggestions, but he just shrugged off our ideas and kept on wandering.
Amadeo and I met up with the guys at the bar, who were already well into their drinks. We got two rooms - Amadeo had the more expensive one with a few people, I was in the cheaper one with Ryan, Jeff, and Ori - and we ventured out, feeling "warm and happy", into the snowstorm, running through snowdrifts and being loud and having fun. A little too much fun, as the "off-duty" rent-a-cop came by and scolded us bad children. We apologized and scampered off to raise hell elsewhere. :)
They had a huge outdoor hot tub, which was supposedly closed for the night... but what fun is that? We put on our suits and ran thru the snow, piled our clothes and towels on the side, and soaked in the hot, wonderful water while the cold air and snowflakes melted over the tub. Everything was so silent, blanketed in fresh white powder,the pines illuminated by the parking lot lights and just everything was so beautiful!
Eventually, everybody found their way into a bed somewhere and somehow, except poor Ryan. Apparently he was driving in the parking lot and got his car stuck in a snow drift! Amadeo and I looked at it to see if we could help, but he only option was for him to wait until the plows came by early that morning. They eventually got it out, but I do wish we had pictures! By the way, apparently Ori pierced his ear with a paperclip to get that ornament through a closed-up earring hole. Crazy crazy weekend!
We hit the hill on Tuesday, which mean that I had a very sore butt and lots of exciting new bruises to sport afterwards. Snowboarding is hard, but I'd like to think (at least, pretend) that I sortof understand how to do it. I absolutely loved it, despite the degrading humiliation of face-planting a few times in front of everybody going up the ski lift. That whole area is beautiful - it's hard to think there are such great views and rolling hills in Michigan, but I can't wait to go back some time!
Unfortunately, it was a very short stay - we had arrived Monday night and left Tuesday night - but well worth it. Of course we partied some more when we got back to Ann Arbor that night, but everybody was exhausted. I had a great time with some great new people and lots of stories (most of which can't be posted on here, of course)!
So here's my first update, now I still have to cover X-mas through New Years! Plus, I got a job and am moving in less than 2 weeks! All this and more, coming up (hopefully) soon!
