Tag Archives: joe & april

Twinkies Photos

Howdy… in case you were wondering, I expanded the TwinCities photo gallery this morning with 26 more shots from Michelle’s camera.  She took a whole bunch of pics from our karaoke night at LaFonda, so if you’re interested, take a look…

There are also a few from the hockey game and the Depot.

Any big plans for the weekend?  I’m gonna watch the PRO BOWL!!!

No, I’m actually not.

Friday in the Twin Cities

It’s about 10:30 and I’m still working on my first cup of coffee.  It’s a vacation-y weekend, that’s for sure.

Michelle and I made it in to St. Paul yesterday at about 5:45.  We met up with Joe and April at a sushi place called Saji-Ya for dinner.  It was good, and as usual, deceptively filling; sushi never looks that big on your plate, but it goes a long way.

We missed the first period of the hockey game, but had (relatively) good parking, and it was fun to watch the rest.  The second was slow, but in the third, the Wild dumped in 3 more goals after Edmonton kind of fell apart.  Hockey is cool.  I had to ask a few rules-related questions, but it’s basically a simple game– put the puck in the net more than the other guys.  So, fun for the whole family!

We got back to Dave and Andrea’s place at about quarter to 11.  They’ve got a nice house on the south side of the city of Minneapolis.  Their dog, Boo, is fun, too.  It’s pretty cool to have peeps to stay with around here…

When I got out of the house this morning, my car BARELY started.  I let it run for 20 minutes and the defroster was still blowing cold.  I drove around a little and found the nearby Caribou Coffee joint, and that pretty much brings us up to speed (except for the part where, as I was turning in here, I discovered the hard way that they don’t seem to salt the roads in Minneapolis, and I almost crashed my car into a light pole).

Later on today, we’re meeting up with Joe and April for a little Mall of America fun, and we have yet to locate a good karaoke place (but it’s a big city, we’ll find one).  Stay warm if you are living in the upper half of the US… it is FROSTY out there!

I'm Gonna Start Forwarding THIS Stuff…

Sorry for all the microblogging, but I’m coming across good tidbits here and there.

Remember that telemarketers will not and CANNOT call your cell phone.

And of course, our friend and colleague Joe Knitt would just tell you not to get a cell phone.

    • and a ‘PS’ Just to clarify– Joe Knitt did NOT pen the above-linked tale…

Snow Covered, Etc.

The weekend, considering the weather and stuff, turned out as well as could be expected.

On Saturday morning, I got up at my regular time so that I’d be ready for movin’ fun w/ the Knitts when they called. Snow removal pushed the excitement back to around 10am, after I stopped off at the U-Haul joint on Ohio & Witzel for a few extra boxes.

Joe and April had plenty of help, and a lot of stuff already loaded up, so the moving itself didn’t take too long. I’d say the biggest pain of all was removing a few doors in order to get furniture in and out of houses. I definitely favor moving into a house over an apartment, big reason being the shorter trip from the truck to the door. Hiking up and down a lot of stairs with armloads of stuff sucks.

There is a not-too-flattering photo of Joe and April in their living room at the end of our Saturday on my Flickr page, and I took a couple more pics around the house, too.

It’s a nice little old house. Apparently, the previous occupant had been there for a very long time, and it was in need of some significant renovations. At this point, though, there is fresh paint on all the walls, new carpeting on the floors, and some new windows, too. The only other work it desperately needs is a coat of paint on the outside, and that’s going to be tackled once the weather warms up.

Saturday evening, Michelle was due to show up around 5:30, 6-ish, and we were going to go to Dave Schrubbe’s birthday grand re-opening of DHI. We ate at about 7, and then Michelle needed to finish up some other stuff online before we went over. I don’t even really remember what we were watching on TV or whatever, but it was around 8pm that I just curled up on the couch and fell asleep, basically for the rest of the night.

I felt bad about missing Dave’s shindig and disappointing Michelle with a boring evening, but I guess I was just wiped out after the moving day. *That* realization also made me feel like a tool, because it wasn’t as if we busted our humps for hours upon hours on Saturday– I got to Joe & April’s at 10, and we were done with everything by 3:30. *Shrugs*

I guess I just suck.

On Sunday, Michelle and I did make it to Sheboygan for her Grandma’s 92nd birthday. I was pretty nervous about the weather before we left, but it turned out to be not that big of a deal; it was crappy when we were leaving from there, and we had to drive pretty slow between Sheboygan and Fond du Lac, but otherwise didn’t have any problems.

I was glad we went. I got to meet another one of Michelle’s aunts and her Uncle Larry, and Grandma was looking & feeling lots better than the last time we saw her (she was in the nursing home for a week or so when she came down with the flu earlier this winter). We also watched some old home movies that had been dubbed over to VHS. It was neat.

You’ve probably heard about or experienced the weekend’s snowfall. It’s actually really warm today (34), and the snow is just a mess. I had a wet, treacherous walk to and from work once already today, and if it freezes a little bit later, I expect more of the same.

Tonight after work I have to go the WI Review office and help with the choosing of pieces for the spring issue. Basketball tonight is at 8:15.

I think we have something like 3 games left. Could be a couple more depending on the “playoff” situation. I’ve had a pretty good time playing basketball, but I don’t expect that I’ll do it again next year. It’s been a little frustrating that we never have time to practice (we only show up for the games), and my weekly basketball nightmares, while silly, are pretty annoying. Long story short, it seems like too much anxiety and stress for something that is supposed to be a good time.

Thinking about this sort of thing makes me worry that I’ll be a bad “sports dad” at some point in the future– I won’t have the skills to teach kids sports, and who knows if I’ll have the right sort of attitude to be a good spectator at their events.

I wonder if other people who don’t have kids (or even a spouse) worry about crap like this.

Calm Before Another Storm

You thought I was talking about the radar, didn’t you?

Work has been very quiet this week. All the problems associated with the unstable first weeks of the semester are settling down. We’re passing the “point of no return” for dropping and adding and getting refunds. It’s been good for catching up on things.

Next week, though, the storm is going to hit when we shift the focus to next year and the freshies and their folks start calling. It’s the time of year when I feel the dumbest, because there are a lot of questions that you have to answer that only come up for about three weeks every spring. Most of our problems (and hence, my job) relate to making money show up in the kids’ accounts or sending it back. OK, that’s a major over-simplification, but it’s not like you care.

Point is, right now is when the relative-weirdos come and ask you their questions:
“Well, I live with my Mom on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and weekends from October to May, but from June to September I actually go to Tiajuana and get drunk with a talking chihuahua named Jose. None of this is that important, though, since Madonna adopted me with Brad Pitt back when I was 13. So whose information should I put on the FAFSA?”*

So, I thought I would take this opportunity to do a posting during the day for the last time for a while. What can I tell you that’s new?

Had the toilet overflow the other day. That sucked. Got up in the morning to take a shower and there was water EVERYWHERE. I got a little upset, and Michelle got upset because I was angry about the toilet, but we calmed each other down a little and took care of it.

I called my landlord the next day to tell him what happened and ask if he wanted to come over and look at it. It really seemed like he didn’t believe me when I said it overflowed during the night and we had no indication it was going to do that. I don’t know that much about plumbing, but to me it doesn’t seem like it should be *impossible.* He hasn’t been over yet, but it’s just some veneer that’s peeling away from the base of the vanity, and the flooring bubbled up a little near the toilet. So it’s not the end of the world or anything; I’ll put a note in with my rent next week if he forgets about it.

I really, truly do not care to hear another goddamn word about Anna Nicole Smith or Britney Spears, preferably ever. What’s happening in celebrities’ personal lives has never been on my radar, and when people get obsessed with a particular story, for me it becomes a game to learn as little about it as possible.

Just don’t be surprised if you bring it up to me and I bitch-slap you.

The Bucks narrow loss at the hands of the Pacers earlier this week really got me excited about baseball season. I called up Dave Schrubbe, and we agreed to go in together on a 9-pack of Brewers tickets. We chose the “Retro Fridays” package, viewable here:

One of the cool things about it is that we get an ’82 Brewers player bobblehead at all 9 games. Pretty sweet. We also get “free” tickets for Opening Day. So when you average it out, it was about 23 bucks a game for 10 games. I can live with that.

Also, like I mentioned to Dave– last time we bought a multi-game ticket package for a professional sports team in Milwaukee, they had a pretty good season.

Later this weekend, I am due to help out with the Knitts’ move across town. The weather may factor in to their plans, so we’ll see how it goes. Dammit, I gotta do some laundry tonight, too.

Enjoy yours…

* - the answer is David Hasselhoff