Photos
My sister’s graduation Part 2
Let’s see, where was I. We just got done with the terrible service for dinner at Kruse Muer in Grand Blanc Michigan.
My friend Jen from Midland met us at the restaurant and after we said our goodbyes to extended relatives, we led Jen back to the Czinders house in Flint.
All five of us hung out and caught up, had some more drinks and had a great time. I learned all about the fun of Lonestarrunner.com, a flash animation site that has all sorts of silly humor with it’s leading character Strong Bad. Jen and I loved that, and think we may one day have to do something similar and make lots of money. Lonestarrunner.com makes all sorts of money from merchandising and stuff. Wouldn’t that be a sweet ticket?
We stayed up until about 2:30, but not before we had gotten out Super Mario for the Super Nintendo and played that for over two hours. We kept switching turns and it was funny to watch the girls play without any success. Jen couldn’t figure out in those two hours how to make Mario jump without spinning. Good times. Jen actually left and drove home after all of that!
The next morning:
We got up at a decent time and decided to go out to Bob Evans for breakfast. But the night before Sarah and I had some problems getting gas in her car we thought as a result of a deposit problem we had over the last week. So we had to go to the bank first and see if we could clear that up. We waited in line forever, and then when we asked, it seemed that everything was fine. So that was frustrating to have wasted all that time.
While we were in line we had this crabby old lady walk in. Now, I am not making the generalization about older women. This lady seriously walked in, looking at the four of us standing there, and said in the most old crotchety voice you could ever imagine, “How many people does it take to make a transaction at the bank?” While I was talking to Thomas and turned around she actually tried to edge her way in front of us, so I made sure that I got back in line and then she looked at us and asked us the same question again. We were just standing there. Ah well, anything to know that I brightened up someone’s day just a little bit.
After all that we didn’t have time for Bob Evans because Andrea had to work, so we got some donuts at Tim Horton’s, took this picture and called it a day. Sarah and I had to go back to the apartment because she packed something where she forgot she packed it, thinking we left it at their place. So after a ton of useless driving and time wasting, we got on the road just before 1 p.m. and made the long drive back to Grand Haven.
New Computer
The top photo is of course the ceiling hole we found on Sunday when I was working on the new computer and moving my boxes around. We thought for a moment that we had an infestation, but it is a leak. Beech Meadow was supposed to come by and look at it, but they went up in the roof and “fixed” the leak. It’s like trusting a compulsive liar.
The bottom photo the computer I got from my parents for Sarah. I put my old CD Burner in it and tried to put a second drive I got here at Virtual Scavengers Project for a small trade, but the drive was bad, so I have to get a new one. But I had to get out the drill to take out some stupid rivets and do some frame modification to make it fit. So that was fun and frustrating all at once. There are a ton of other little things I had to do, but I won’t bore you all with that right now.
But I am done with it for now. I need to get back to freelance work, and I look forward to that tonight.
Event: My sister’s graduation
Friday was a busy day. Jessica’s graduation, due to some genius planning by an engineering school based mostly around that concept, started at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. I don’t think there is one person in the whole that would say, “Gosh, that is pretty convenient but I wish the graduation could have been at 2:30 on a Wednesday.” I think it would be more along the lines, “They can educate young people on how to design such wonderful cars as the classic Pacer but they have the planning skills of one of Oscar the Grouch. (Seriously, you have to have been pretty messed up to be living in a Garbage Can).
So enough of that. We left at 11:00 a.m. in Indy, I took a half day and came in early so I wouldn’t have to use Vacation and Sarah was able to get a mom to sub in a few hours before a fellow teacher took over her classroom due to some difficult circumstances in getting a sub for the rest of the year.
We got there at about 4:00 p.m. The ceremony was really short actually. It was only about 2 hours from 4:30-6:30.(Check out the top picture, that is the field house with the Kettering Banner. They have blue and gold for colors, original.) Nothing like my graduation day where you funneled probably 50-70 thousand people into the Big House, made them wait 14 hours for all of the 12,000 undergraduates to process in, and then held a less then engaging ceremony for another 3.5 hours. I swear, all one parent needed to do was throw a beer onto the main speaker and that place would’ve looked like Detroit a few weeks back.
Afterwards we all headed to Grand Blanc for dinner at the Kruse Muer. DO NOT EAT HERE! This place has service about as much as President Clinton had morals.
It took us about 25 minutes to get our water and drinks, and more importantly, my parents made reservation at this place last October because of the seating space they had for a large group in the back room. But when we got there, “Dah, we don’t know nuthin about no seatin in da back mister.” They kept trying to tell us that they didn’t understand why someone would sit us back there when the front right next to the front door would be just as quiet. Not once did they say, “Oh, were sorry for the inconvenience, let us move you back there” or “We realize what a huge event this is for your family, here is a discount on your meal, sorry about the problem” or “We’re sorry we are stupid, we’re going to go bury our
head back in the sand with all the other ostriches and your meal is free”.
Kruse Muer in Grand Blanc has horrendous service that will not help you but will gladly overcharge you and take all of your money.
Ah, doesn’t everyone feel better?
Tomorrow : After a couple of beers and a lot of bread we played Mario and hardly went to bed.
Mid Ohio Comic Con – Photos
Some more photos to go with my entry about the convention in the “Comics” section. From top Christine and (Jason) who beat us there in line, the convention center in Columbus, Me and Megan in Mansfield, Skottie Young with Christine and my sketches, and Adam feverishly working on my drawing.
Purdue vs. Indiana University Football Game
This was barely a game. With over 500 total yards in the first quarter, over 760 by the end of the game, and over 500 total passing yards the Boilermakers trounced IU 63-24.
I have only ever experienced the Big House in Ann Arbor, and this stadium is very different.
Nestled in between campus buildings and dorms, the Boilermaker stadium is open at one end with a shape like a horse shoe. It only seats something like 75,000 which is a far cry from the 110,000 plus that the Big House packs in every game day.
They had some different cheers that I got to exercise throughout the game with so much scoring. A 1,2,3,4 thrust of the arm forward and then a thrust flat palmed with a “First Down!” in the direction of the first down.
It was just a lot of fun. I went some people from church, Paul Johnson and his daughter Paula who is our age and Fred Willig (Whose wife is the kindergarten teacher that Sarah worked with last year.) It was the first real out of college “tailgate” party I had. It really wasn’t a planned one, we just kind of sat around the car, drank some beer, ate some sandwich rolls with meat and cheese and watched all of the crazy college kids go by. A lot of them were dressed up like Halloween for whatever reason.
We babysat Lady
Christine Mulligan had tickets to the Colts game, 16th row or something insane like that and it had been about a month since we got out and walked Lady. So, we offered to baby sit her for the day while Christine was at the game.
When they arrived, I came dashing out to see lady, I was excited. Well, being in a foreign place and having a big tall dork dash out at you would scare me too and she kind of piddled on the floor. I felt really bad for scaring her. But at least now I know what it is like to clean up dog pee in the house.
She wasn’t as spunky as she usually was, but she was quiet and sweet like normal, and I think that she missed Christine all day long. We took her on a walk and talked about how and what we might want to do in getting our own dog, which is always fun to talk. We took her home after about 6 hours of having her around, and right away the house felt weird.
More images of our new home
You requested it, and you get it, more photos from our new home. Our closing date is in a couple of months, and even though we are excited and freaked out all at once, we know that the time will fly until that point.
