Nice to be back in ‘Big Sky Country.’ I bought a keychain at the Flying J in Billings, and commented to the cashier, “Ah, yes– prices as marked. I have missed Montana.”

So we got in to our hotel at about 11:15 MDT. The place that we’re staying is called The Imperial Inn. It is in downtown Bozeman. It is cheap, and it looks like it, too. We’ll have to take some photos of the room before we leave tomorrow so you can get a sense of how we’re ‘roughin it.’

Have a bunch of photos from the Badlands that I want to put up on the site. I will probably have time to do that later on. Right now, I’m waiting for Michelle to finish up in the bathroom, then we’re going to get breakfast, do some laundry, go shopping, and mill around the campus at MSU. I still need to call the Wolffs, too.

We’ll be sleeping in Bozeman again tonight, then tomorrow we head out for Yellowstone.

Just getting in a quick note from the Flying J in Rapid City, SD. (I paid 5 bucks to get online, so thought I better make it worthwhile.)

Michelle and I had lots of fun walking around the Badlands yesterday. Today, we decided to skip Mt. Rushmore, cuz we’re a little pressed for time. Still want to make the Little Bighorn battlefield, though.

We sleep in Bozetown tonight, probably will have more of a chance to write then. Time to eat and run…

Had to get a cable for the internet from the front desk, even though there’s wifi in this hotel. So I dunno…

Yesterday, after taking care of some other things in Milwaukee that needed to be done, Michelle and I finally hit the road at about 5:00pm.

We stopped for dinner in Madison, at Applebee’s. It was OK. I had a “Black & Bleu” burger, and Michelle had some sort of chickeny-vegetable-quasi-quesidilla-type-thing, but she liked my burger better. Maybe we’ll go to Burger Bob’s in Bozeman tomorrow.

We made it to Albert Lea, MN just before midnight, and we stayed over at the Country Inn. They have a very good continental breakfast, so considering that the room was 90 bucks, good thing the breakie is free.

Today, we need to make it as far as the Badlands, cuz we’re staying over there tonight. Here’s a link to the accomidations we have booked: Badlands Inn.

There’s wifi at our hotel tonight, so I’m sure I’ll be back later on. Maybe I’ll even put up some pictures that we take during the day.

See ya later…

PS – Michelle says hi to everybody, too. And she says free stuff at hotels is really cool.

And I’m not talkin about bras (or b-a-r’s, depending on how embarassed you are).

Just barely making it in on a blog for Friday here. I am quite primed up for the vacation this coming week, and I did a whole mess of crap at work today to finish up. However, I did need to finish one more thing and didn’t have a chance because the computers went down promptly at 4:30. Like, on the dot. I couldn’t believe it. 4:30:02 the server was down. Kinda wacky.

Anyway, I was all done with the packing last night, and then just needed to leave a note for Dave, who said he would stop by the apartment to check the windows and water the plant this week. I got out of Osh Vegas at about 5:30 or so.

I hung out at Jen and Joe’s for a bit when I got to town, tried to get back on the work server, then realized it was gonna be down for the weekend. I played a little Super Nintendo before making it to Michelle’s house at around 10.

She still needs to finish packing, but it’s been a stressful week. I’ll tell you about it later on, maybe.

One of the things I worried about today was having all my student loans posted as “paid off,” given that my consolidation loan went through last week. Great Lakes has been really, really slow about finishing the paperwork.

Oh, but hey– how bout them apples, they just finished it up today. This is good.

Ummm… OK, so I’m kind of tired and realizing that I’m not making as much sense as I could be. Given that that’s the case, I’m going to get some more of Michelle’s clothes in a suitcase and say “talk to you from the road.”

Being an avid reader of Curly Tales of War Pigs, I got myself subscribed to the ‘Advice of the Day’ RSS feed from the Old Farmers’ Almanac (or is it ‘farmer’s’?) quite some time ago. There’s some good advice in there some days, and some downright hilarious advice some others.

Well, I thought I would just toss together a list of things that you can maybe just chew on, ponder, think about, etc., derived from my own experience or observation.

THINGS THAT IT IS A BAD IDEA TO DO:
Tape a firecracker to it
Throw a firecracker in it
Tell a kid that you’re gonna do something, then not do it
Take a nap at work (when you’re not on lunch)
Make out at work
Stack books higher than you can see over
Assume you dropped the class
Carry a 32″ TV by yourself
Trust the woman on the phone at the cable company
Just charge it
Bleach your jeans with toothpaste
Climb the ladder when it *seems* like it might be safe…
Take the back cover off the TV while you’re watching it
Eat popcorn while your case is open

I’ll try to think of some things that are good to do, too. Or feel free to share your own.

I’m going to keep packing for my trip now.

I love you.

Really.

I just thought this story was funny, for a couple reasons:
Pam Anderson and Kid Rock getting married for sure

1. Who in America or anywhere else gives anything close to a crap
2. They called Pamela Anderson an “actress”

I had a different word in the title at first, but I decided to make it more TV-friendly, for whatever reason.

Yeah, so I bought these speakers on Amazon:
shitty RCA speakers

And yeah, the reviews on them were lukewarm, but I figure that I paid less than 60 bucks when all was said and done, and there are much more expensive ways you can go. I wanted to use them as the rears in the home theater setup, cuz it would be difficult to string the speaker wire in my new place.

Yeah, for that application, they are ass. These were clearly designed for sucking as much as possible, and in a “wall-sharing” environment where your neighbor *probably* has some device working on a 900 mhz frequency, suckitude is maximized.

I don’t think I’m gonna send em back or get rid of em, though, cuz they’ll probably work OK for something else, like maybe I could put em down in the garage and use have tunes outside if I want. I dunno.

But it’s back to the rear-channel drawing board, that’s for sure.

In unrelated news, it’s still hot, but not as.

I’d like to have as much variety as possible in the daily blogging, but I have to just mention the heat again. It is soooo blasted hot around here. I didn’t walk to work this morning, because I got home from MKE too late to be ready in time, but then I was going to walk back from lunch.

Forget that, my thermometer was telling me it “feels like” 102 out there. This is Wis-damn-sconsin. I hope it cools off in time for the fair in a couple weeks. It has the potential to smell very bad in those barns…

I re-read the post I did at midnight on Sunday (or Saturday night, depending on how you look at it). It was kind of funny. It’s evident to me that I’d been drinking, and that my language skills had been influenced a bit. I didn’t feel too “influenced” when we got home, though. So I dunno.

The Brewers finally won a game, so that’s something. Do you think there’s any chance we can sweep San Francisco? The Giants suck this year, right? You’re right, it doesn’t seem likely.

I don’t know how I managed to drag myself in to work this morning. I was dead tired when I got home at 7. I really can’t wait for vacation next week. I guess I’ll have to keep an off-line record of what we do, in case I lack the Internet access at night, eh? I suppose there will be at least a day or two (in Yellowstone for sure) when we’re out of ‘tech’ contact.

This entry is really, really random and poorly constructed.

Yesterday afternoon Michelle and I went shopping for some clothes we need for the vay-kay. We both lacked adequate shorts. Michelle took care of that yesterday, but I still need one more pair. I tried some on that were really lightweight and seemed like they would be comfortable, but what’s with men’s shorts going halfway down your calf and ballooning out like you’re about to jump out of a plane? Maybe I’m just too fat or something, but I don’t seem to have this issue with regular pants. I guess I’m gonna need to pack some jeans for this trip, too.

Shit, I’m gonna have to pack for this trip pretty soon.

After we got done shopping, we met Joe @ Nice Ash (formerly Ambassador) to play Golden Tee. It was Michelle’s first time; she did really well. She’s also gotten very very good at driving my car. I think if she only had a manual to drive for about a week or two, she’d be a pro.

I need to balance my checkbook again, too. And I have to do laundry today. I really need to go make a list.

Talk to you later if you haven’t melted from the heat.

Hey.

I told you I would try to blog daily, so even though I’m a little drunk, here I am.

I got up late this AM (around 10) and I had waffles for breakfast at noon. I was impressed that Michelle and I got up around the same time (although she was at home at her place, and me at mine).

But I got not a lot done around here during the day; I haven’t had much time in the last… oh… year and change to have a day of doing diddly around my house. So I watched a whole mess of History Channel and moved some things around in the apartment. Christy got here around 4:30, and we’ve been doing some misc being out and drinking drinks since then. Just got home from Oblio’s, and I think we’ll play some Atari.

I have to get up in time to head down to MKE to get camping equip. from Joe tomorrow, so I better remember to take my vitamin.

Lookin more and more like the Crew’s gonna have to trade Carlos, which is a M-F’in shame.

Talk to ya tomorrow.