Monday, September 30, 2013

Music Mondays #8

zzz-musicmondays

Welcome to the next edition of Music Mondays.  It’s pretty basic, I take a playlist and put it on random, and post what comes up.

  • Playlist – “Anything & Everything”
  • Description – Anything from Christian to Rock, Rap to Country, Classical to 80’s.  It goes from the 1960’s to current.  Pretty much anything and everything that I like.
  • Number of songs on the playlist – 1,534 songs (up 104 songs from last post)

 

  1. Singing in my Sleep (Semisonic)
  2. 1, 2, 3, 4 (Plain White T’s)
  3. How You Remind Me (Nickelback)
  4. Locked Out of Heaven (Bruno Mars)
  5. Bad Religion (Godsmack)
  6. I Found Love (Geoff Moore & the Foundations)
  7. Know Your Enemy (Green Day)
  8. Take it to the Limit (Eagles)
  9. Fly Like an Eagle (Steve Miller Band)
  10. I’ll be There For You (Bon Jovi)
  11. Hero/Heroine (Boys Likes Girls)
  12. This Means War! (Petra)
  13. Piano Man (Billy Joel)
  14. Ice Cream Man (Van Halen)
  15. Always (Saliva)
  16. Speechless (Crumbacher)
  17. the Beautiful People (Marilyn Manson)
  18. Movin’ Out (Billy Joel)
  19. Trains up in the Sky (Mylon LeFevre & the Broken Heart)
  20. 21 Guns (Green Day)

In case, you didn’t notice up above, I added 104 songs to the playlist.  Usually when I add songs, I get an artist or song in my head (usually hear it somewhere) and then go to their page and get the songs they sing that I know.  After I do that, there is a page on each artists page that has related artists.  If I recognize one of those, I do it all over again.  Sometimes I’ll get a couple more songs, sometimes I’ll get 50 more.  I know I added 16 songs from a new genre, it didn’t get represented in the 20 above, but I’m sure at one point it will.

I’ve decided to randomly choose an artist from above and show all the songs I have on my playlist.  I used Random.org, put the numbers 1-20 and click random 3 times, the number 12 came up at the top which would be Petra in accordance to the list above.  This might take a few screen caps.

petra christian band - Google Search

petra christian band - Google Search(1)

Told you it would take a couple of screen shots.  I count 46 tracks above, but I also noticed I had a same song listed twice (oops).  As you can tell by the amount of different albums, they’ve been around awhile.  As a matter of fact, the title of their latest tour is the 40th anniversary tour.  So there you go.  According to Wikipedia, they released 20 studio albums and I know they released all kinds of greatest hits albums.  The last album I purchased was the last one listed above, Wake-Up Call.  They actually released 5 or 6 more after that, so good thing I stopped listening to christian music then otherwise I’d probably have 60 or 70 of their songs listed.  I had every studio album on cassette (ask your parents young en’s) up until Wake-Up Call.

They were probably the most famous christian band in the 80’s and 90’s.  I’ve seen them in concert a bunch of times, I’d probably guess about 10-15 times.  I was wearing one of their concert t-shirts when I got interviewed on the radio in Washington DC while doing a walk to the capital building (I don’t remember what the walk was for).  They asked me what the saying on the back of my shirt meant.  After thinking a minute and trying to remember what it said, I answered.  It said “Get on your knees and fight like a man”.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

WWW Wednesdays #26 & Stacking the Shelves #10

WWW_Wednesdays4

To play along, I’m supposed to answer 3 easy questions.

What are you currently reading?

Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files #1)

Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files #1) by AJ Aalto

A book with a forensic psychic.  Two things I enjoy reading about.  I haven’t actually started reading it as I finished my last book just before I left work so I will start this one on Friday.

What did you recently finish reading?

Social Media Holocaust

Social Media Holocaust by Brian Krogstad & Damien Darby

I gave this 3 stars.  It was a little far fetched, not that I mind having to use my imagination but I had trouble seeing this happen.  Sure, I could see a few murders happen this way but not enough to cause a holocaust.

Bottle Full of Scorpions

Bottle Full of Scorpions by John Dominick

I gave this 4 stars.  It was pretty interesting reading how the main character survives these scorpion like aliens killing everyone where he lives.  He survives just fine on his own until more survivors get stuck with him.  Then it becomes survival of the fittest.  I thought it was a good read and looked forward to picking it up when I had a chance.

Fraidy Hole

Fraidy Hole (Sheriff Lester P. Morrison #1) by Warren Williams

Another book I gave 4 stars.  This one was the type of book I used to read a lot.  Nothing supernatural, just a good old fashioned crime thriller.  Sheriff Lester P. Morrison and his deputy were pretty believable characters and I enjoyed their interaction.  It was a good read and I didn’t see who did it until the end, which is what I like.

Blood Crimes: Book One

Blood Crimes (book one) by Dave Zeltserman

I have this one 4 stars as well.  It was more or less a vampire book but quite a bit different as in it is a virus and the psychopath is trying to keep the world in the dark about them so they will always have food so he controls them all, except the one that got away.  This book is about him trying to survive with this virus with the help of his significant other who isn’t effected but wants to be.

Promise (Soul Savers, #1)

Promise (Soul Keepers #1) by Kristie Cook

I gave this 4 stars even though I didn’t like the cliff hanger ending.  I don’t mind endings like that but usually in a book, you at least get to finish the main storyline with an ending to make you want to read the next book but this one didn’t seem like it finished anything and is just continuing.

What do you think you’ll read next?

Six days with the Dead

Six Days with the Dead by Stephen Charlick

Zombies!  Yes, please.

If you want to join on WWW Wednesdays, click the logo on top or go tohttp://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/ and leave a comment.

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual.

Point Apocalypse

 

Point Apocalypse by Alex Bobl

A prison on another planet.  No laws to protect you.  Sounds good to me

Purchase Price – free

Kindle version

Sunday, September 22, 2013

the Weekend camping trip

Some of my family have been doing a fall camping trip and this year, we decided to attend.  It ended up being 44 people, I guess technically all family since most were by marriage.  But my mom and stepdad, my brother and his family and my family all went.  It had been raining pretty steadily since Wednesday night but it was supposed to be done by Friday night.  Once the kids got off the bus, we headed out.  Our little caravan consisted of my stepdad’s truck pulling his camper, my sister-in-law’s suv, my brothers jeep wrangler, me driving my moms minivan and my brother’s friend.  I was following my brothers Jeep because he needed someone with decent reflexes behind him because his Jeep tends to go into what is a called, a death wobble (it’s a thing, Google it) occasionally and the only thing you can do to get it to stop is slow down.

So we are driving down the bypass, doing about 65 mph.  We are passing a semi that is moving a little slower.  My stepdad gets over in front of it, then my sister-in-law and my brother.  Finally I get behind him and before his friend can get in behind me, the death wobble occurs.  My brother slams on his brakes and pulls off the side of the road, I slam on my brakes and start to go over, then I glance in my rear-view mirror and see the semi right on my ass so I floored it.  Needless to say, my brother was playing catch up the rest of the trip.

We made it up there ok and set up camp.  Had some burgers with mac and cheese and cowboys beans for supper.  Pretty much just hung by the camp fire all evening.  It was a little chilly but considering we usually end up camping when it’s 90° so we can deal with a little chill.  Cheri and I both slept like crap, and our air mattress had a leak because we woke up on the ground.  Saturday, we took some time to go to the beach (Lake Michigan) because with the wind, we could hear the waves from our campsite and we wanted to check it out.  So everybody walked and Cheri and I drove on down to see these.

2013-09-21 10.33.00

I have never seen the waves like that there.  Not that I go up every week or anything, but I have been up off of the lake quite a bit of times.  You can see a 6 second Vine video here, or at least I hope so.  My brother said his dogs were too afraid to go near the water.  As you can see in the picture, it was a pretty clear day and sure enough, look what you could see on the other side of the lake.

Yup, that would be the Chicago skyline, and pretty clear at that.  Cheri and I didn’t stick around long, it was just too cold.  When everyone got back to the campsite, we started setting up for some more Saturday activities.  What’s a Saturday without some college football?

2013-09-21 14.59.29

What?  It’s too cold for the beach and there wasn’t really anything else to do.  The intention of taking all of this equipment was to watch the Michigan/UCONN game but because it was on local ABC, the WatchESPN app blacked it out and we couldn’t watch it anyways.  Don’t even get me started with that.  They need to realize that not everyone can be home in front of their TV’s to watch the game, they need to realize that there are all kinds of devices to watch TV on and quit with the blackout restrictions.  Oops, I got started.  There’s more but I won’t get into that.  By the end of the afternoon games, we moved the table next to the fire (good thing the cousins weren’t there) because it was getting colder and we needed some warming up.

For supper, everyone brought enough chili for their family and we threw them all in a huge pot and cooked it all together.  We pretty much hung around the fire all evening before crashing on our air mattresses for the night.  My mom and step dad ran into town and got us a new one and we slept a whole lot better.

Sunday morning we packed up and left.  It was a good weekend but we are beat.  I’m looking forward to sleeping in my bed tonight.  Trevor spent a lot of time playing his video games so that wasn’t much different from staying home.  He did run around with other kids on Sunday morning so he got some play time with others.  I didn’t really see Samantha much all weekend, she hung out with her cousin and she was chasing the boys that were with the group.  The kids both said they had a good time and that’s what the trip is all about.  Got to head back to the grind tomorrow, and it’s a long week on top of that.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

I hate the radio

I hate the radio.

I understand why they have to have commercials and all the talking but it doesn’t make me like it any less.  It only takes me 7-10 minutes to get from home to work.  So when I get in my car, there is a distinct possibility that I will only manage to hear part of 1 song if they are on or go on a commercial break.  It’s way worse in the mornings because they run their stupid morning shows so I hear no music anyways.  It does no good to flip through the channels because they all have morning shows.  I used to listen to the Bob & Tom show in the mornings and I loved the show.  But it was a 25-30 minute drive to work so I got into the conversation, even if I got stuck with a commercial, it wouldn’t be the whole trip.  So I’m not against morning shows in general, just when I don’t have time to really get into anything.  So I listen to my Spotify playlist.

Depending on what section I’m in at work, I may get 2 hours or so of listening to Spotify.  2 weeks of the month I get a couple hours, 2 weeks I don’t.

On the way home from work, 7-10 minutes and since I get off at the top of the hour, it’s usually commercials to start with, so I listen to Spotify.

So you can see why I pay for the Spotify premium service, I get plenty of use out of it.  You can also see why I have such a huge playlist.  It currently has 1468 songs, up 38 songs from yesterday.  As you can see I’m constantly adding to it.  Another reason I don’t like the radio is because when a new song comes out, they play it every hour.  So there is even a good chance that in that 7-10 minutes to and from work, that I will hear the same song.  What I do with my Spotify playlist (Anything & Everything) is, I create a 2nd playlist (A&E II) and organize them and start playing it from the top to the bottom until I get through it.  First, I organized them A-Z by title, then I played it on random for awhile, then I organized them Z-A.  Now I have them organized by time, longest to shortest.  I have no idea what I’ll do next, but since I have 1400+ songs, it’ll probably take me a couple of months to get through all of them so I got time.

So in the end I have to say, I love Spotify and I hate the radio.

zzz-trackoftheday

Track – Watch the Lamb

Artist – Ray Boltz

totd-screencap16

This is one of those old christian songs from back in the day.  It’s about a father taking his kids and a lamb to be sacrificed in Jerusalem on the day that Jesus is crucified.  It talks about how the soldier made him help carry the cross and witnessing the crucifixion up close until he dies.  Here is the end of the song, that makes you tear up.

I stood for what seemed like years, I lost all sense of time,
Until I felt two tiny hands Holding tight to mine.
My children stood there weeping, And I heard the oldest say
"Father please forgive us, The lamb, Ran away.

Daddy daddy, What've we seen here, There's so much that we don't understand,"
So I took them in my arms, We turned and faced the cross.
And I said, "Dear children Watch the lamb."

Monday, September 16, 2013

Music Monday’s #7

zzz-musicmondays

Welcome to the next edition of Music Mondays.  It’s pretty basic, I take a playlist and put it on random, and post what comes up.

  • Playlist – “Anything & Everything”
  • Description – Anything from Christian to Rock, Rap to Country, Classical to 80’s.  It goes from the 1960’s to current.  Pretty much anything and everything that I like.
  • Number of songs on the playlist – 1,430 songs (up 21 songs from last post)

 

  1. Payphone (Maroon 5)
  2. Crystal Blue Persuasion (Tommy James & the Shondells)
  3. I Miss the Way (Michael W. Smith)
  4. Higher (Creed)
  5. Whiskey Hangover (Godsmack)
  6. You Are Not Alone (Michael Jackson)
  7. Wild Side (Motley Crue)
  8. Take a Look Around (Limp Bizkit)
  9. I’m Crying (Allies)
  10. Just the Two Of Us (Will Smith)
  11. Just Push Play (Aerosmith)
  12. Echo (Trapt)
  13. Pants (Here Comes the Mummies)
  14. Don’t Let Your Heart Be Hardened (Petra)
  15. Billie Jean (Michael Jackson)
  16. I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues (Elton John)
  17. Sick Love Song (Motley Crue)
  18. Let’s Get Upset (DeGarmo & Key)
  19. Lookin’ Out My Back Door (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
  20. For Those About to Rock (We Salute You) (AC/DC)

To start with, you can see I added another 21 songs.  I probably added a few more than that because I know I deleted some as well.  Some of those, I went through the websites of the local rock station and the local top 40 station and hit up their “Top Hits” page to find some more.  The problem I have with my playlists is, I never listen to the radio anymore.  I hate the radio.  But that stops me from hearing anything new.  So I listened to clips and found a few more.  They were usually songs I had heard before but didn’t realize it.

You can also see why I create playlist and listen from top to bottom.  Out of 20 songs above on random, I got 2 from Motley Crue and 2 from Michael Jackson.  I have 385 different artists on my playlist and I get duplicate ones in less than 20 songs.  I like more of a variety than that.

I’ve decided to randomly choose an artist from above and show all the songs I have on my playlist.  I used Random.org, put the numbers 1-20 and click random 3 times, the number 4 came up at the top which would be Creed in accordance to the list above.

RANDOM.ORG - Sequence Generator

Some people don’t like Creed, sort of like Nickelback, there really isn’t a reason, they just don’t like them because everyone else says they don’t like them.  Personally, if I like their music, I like their music, I don’t really care what everyone else thinks.  I can also like a groups music without liking the group.  I have 9 songs from Creed, as you can tell, I once again went through their greatest hits album so you don’t get to see the albums.  It’s kind of pointless I guess, to put the album in the screen cap.

What’s your favorite Creed song?  Do you have any songs you would put on your playlist from them that I don’t have?

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Maize and Blue day

Don’t worry, the post isn’t all about the game.  It was too embarrassing to speak of anyways.

zzz-coverphoto45

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it on this blog or not, but my family have come across a fellow Michigan fan family who has season tickets to the Michigan football team.  They don’t always go anymore so they always sell my family 3 games (2 tickets each game) and I get a set, my brother gets a set, and my mom gets a set.  Anyways, since I got first pick last year, I got last pick this year.  Which means I got today’s game vs Akron (who?).  Yeah, I know.  A nice cupcake game (so I thought).  I didn’t really like spending $75 on a ticket for a game that will probably be over by the end of the 1st quarter but I love going to see a game in the Big House so I was going anyways.  Plus, living in South Bend around all the Notre Dame fans, it’s nice to hang in Ann Arbor and surround yourself with a bunch of Michigan fans.  I usually take a guy from work Ann Arbor, MI - Google Mapswith me but he couldn’t go this year so I grabbed my brother and we headed off to Ann Arbor.  It takes us about 2 1/2 hours to get there and we made great time.  We hit McDonalds for a quick lunch before heading up to the stadium.  Well, not so quick because it was 10:50 am and apparently they don’t serve lunch until 11.  So we chilled for 10 minutes, grabbed some food and headed for the golf course (that’s where we park).  As you can see from the picture to the left, it’s right across from the street.  Now it’s not like we park right there next to the stadium, we are usually further towards the bottom of the picture.  They actually let you park on the course, everywhere but on the greens and in the sand traps.

We headed on over to our seats.  Now luckily, since it wasn’t a top tier game, when we sat down, we actually had room because some people weren’t there.  I say this because it’s a tight fit in the seats.  On top of that, there is this really big guy and his really big mother (pic of him below.)  They fight all the time, it’s actually rather humorous to sit and listen to them.  I’d feel bad for her because the son treats her like crap, but she’s just as annoying as he is.  As a matter of fact, today I overheard them argue about who was wider.  Anyways, their seats are about 4 or 5 down from ours but today when we got to the stadium, they were sitting right next to ours.  You see, as season ticket holders, you have the option of getting padding put down on your seats every game.  The ticket holders that we get the tickets from specifically get the padding just so you can make sure IMG95201309149514272395707you get their seats and they don’t push you off the edge.  Specifically because of these 2 that are in the row.  Like I said, when we got there, they were sitting in the 2 (4) seats next to ours.  We figured it was because those ticket holders had purchased the padding as well and they wanted those.  I told my brother, I know those aren’t their seats so I’m not going to cram in there just to please them, and I didn’t.  When I sat down, the son was sitting next to me and pretty much sat on him.  He sat there a bit then bitched to his mom about not having room so he switched with her.  I don’t know if they thought I wouldn’t push her around or what but I stood for the national anthem and the kickoff and when I went to sit down, she was there.  So I sat right down up against her as well.  She got upset and had to pull her jacket out from under my ass.  I ignored her.  I also had my cellphone in my right pocket so every time I got a text, it would vibrate up against her as well.  Eventually she was moving away from me.  At one point, towards the end of the game she had her foot up against mine, guessing that I would move it.  Instead, I started tapping it to the band until she moved it.  I know you think I’m picking on a big old lady but like I said, they weren’t her seats.

I won’t go into the game, it was rather rough.  After beating a higher ranked Notre Dame last week in a great game, we barely squeaked by an Akron team who has won 1 game in each of it’s last 3 seasons.  It was ugly.  We looked like crap but a win is a win and hopefully they learned from it.  It got me thinking about all the previous Michigan games I had gone to.  I was thinking I started off with a losing streak but I had been to a bunch of wins in a row so when I got home, and after Cheri made fun of me for getting fried sitting in the sun,

2013-09-14 19.55.51     2013-09-14 19.55.59

(notice the sunglass mark and also the right side of my head and face got very little sun compared to my left side)  I checked to see what their record is at games I have attended.  I had to go back through their schedule and guess at what games I went to but I’m 95% sure that this is accurate.

9/14/13 - MICHIGAN   28, Akron   24
11/17/12 - MICHIGAN   42, Iowa   17
9/15/12 - MICHIGAN   63, Umass   13
9/8/12 - MICHIGAN   31, Air Force   25
11/19/11 - MICHIGAN   45, Nebraska   17
9/3/11 - MICHIGAN   34, Western Michigan   10
9/4/10 - MICHIGAN   30, Connecticut   10
10/24/09 - Michigan   10, PENN STATE   35
11/15/08 - Michigan   14, NORTHWESTERN   21
10/6/07 - MICHIGAN   33, Eastern Michigan   22
9/8/07 - Michigan   7, OREGON   39
9/23/06 - MICHIGAN   27, Wisconsin   13

Michigan is highlighted     -     winner is capitalized

So after starting with a win, then a loss, then a win, then 2 losses I have seen 7 straight wins.  Granted, Brady Hoke took over in 2011 and they haven’t lost a home game since so that goes for most everyone but I still feel better.  I’m thinking Michigan fans should pay me to go to all the home games, maybe even pay to have me fly to away games, just a suggestion.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

WWW Wednesdays #25 & Stacking the Shelves #9

I know it’s not Wednesday but I kind of had to do the 9/11 post yesterday so I pushed this back a day.

WWW_Wednesdays4

To play along, I’m supposed to answer 3 easy questions.

What are you currently reading?

Social Media Holocaust

Social Media Holocaust by Brian Krogstad & Damien Darby

I’m either real close to finishing this or I finished it right before I left work on Tuesday.  I don’t remember which and the kids are watching Netflix on my Kindle so we’ll just go with I wasn’t quite done yet.

What did you recently finish reading?

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

World War Z – An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

I really enjoyed this, I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads.  I don’t really understand how it was made into a movie but the book was great.  It was a little different then what I thought because it’s written as a bunch of interviews.  Once I got used to that, it was pretty good.  It was nice to read a zombie book where we actually start to take back the planet.

The Nightlife: New York (The Nightlife, #1)

The Nightlife: New York (Nightlife #1) by Travis Luedke

I only gave this 2 stars on Goodreads, I wasn’t really impressed with it at all.  I found myself skimming certain sections just to get it done.  I realize it’s labeled erotica but the sex was just over abundant.  It’s one thing to have sex scenes along with the storyline, it’s another to just throw them in all over the place.

The Undertaker

The Undertaker by William F. Brown

I gave this one 4 stars on Goodreads.  It wasn’t my usual read, it had no supernatural feel to it but I liked it all the same.  The only thing I didn’t like about it was the way he got involved into the whole story.  It didn’t seem like something that would push you into investigating all of that.  It was more of something you’d shrug off and go, whatever.  But once he was involved, it was pretty good.

What do you think you’ll read next?

Bottle Full of Scorpions

Bottle Full of Scorpions by John Dominick

Alien scorpion like creatures take over the world and a few survivors keep on surviving.

If you want to join on WWW Wednesdays, click the logo on top or go to http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/ and leave a comment.

 

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual.

The Ghost Files

 

the Ghost Files (Ghost Files #1) by Apryl Baker

She can see dead people but ignores them.  Until she sees a kid who is labeled a runaway and starts to investigate her.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle version

 

 

Disappearance

 

Disappearance by Ryan Wiley

Follow the main character as he tries to figure out where everyone went and if he is the last person on earth.  Apocalyptic thriller, yes please.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle version

 

 

 

Born (Born, #1)

 

Born (Born #1) by Tara Brown

Another apocalyptic thriller, I’m sensing a trend.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle version

 

 

 

 

New purchase

 

The Dead Men (Zombie DOA series #3) by JJ Zep

I picked this up not realizing it was the 3rd in a series.  My OCD won’t allow me to read this until I find the first 2.  Damn it.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle version

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

9/11

I was with my kids on the way home and Samantha started talking about the holocaust and what she knew about it.  I was a little surprised, I didn’t know she knew anything about it.  But we ended up talking about what happened on September 11, 2001 as well.  I don’t think she ever connected that it was only 12 years ago because when I started to talk about what I was doing that morning, she was surprised I was alive.  Yes, honey, it happened only a year before you were born.  But when we were talking, I realized that I had never put my story of what happened that morning here on the blog.  The main reason that I do this blog is if something ever happens to me, my kids will have something to read and learn more about me.  My father died when I was 8, granted their wasn’t blogs back then but I would have loved to gone back and read things that he wrote.  So here’s my story.

zzz-coverphoto47

I was working 3rd shift at the time, and my regular schedule was I would get off work at 7 and home not very long after (I lived pretty close).  I would get home, hit the head and then crash into bed.  I was usually asleep before 7:30.  I got home that morning, did my usual routine and crawled into bed.  I couldn’t sleep.  I tossed and turned for awhile and decided to get up and do whatever, probably work on my baseball cards.  I turned on the tv and started flipping through the channels.  I ran across a live shot of one of the towers with smoke billowing out.  It was just a news flash on a regular channel so I turned it over to CNN and started following along.  All I could think about was how horrible that kind of accident was.  Then I saw the 2nd plane hit and I just knew it was no accident.  I followed along for a few hours, I think I called my mom at work and told her about it.  The odd thing was that it was very rare for me not to go to sleep right after work.  I don’t know what kept me up, some may tell you that I just knew something was going on.  I’ll tell you, I couldn’t sleep because that’s all I know for a fact.

That’s really about it.  There were all kinds of emotions that I’m not going to go into now.  It’s been 12 years and while we will never forget, it’s not something I want to relive.  The week following was the worst.  Time stood still that week and I took in all the information that I could get, it’s probably the only time I watched the news.  The heart-wrenching stories and the stories of heroic deeds put the nation on overload.  While we will never forget, the nation managed to move on.  While we were together as a nation for a time after that, we’ve gone back to killing each other so we are back to normal now.  I’ll always remember that day and I’ll always remember everyone working as one and becoming a nation.  I hope to never relive that day, but it would be nice if that nation would come together again.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Football weekend

I haven’t posted in about a week so I thought I’d sit in front of the computer and see what comes out.  I had planned on watching the Indianapolis Colts game but since Peyton Manning left, they don’t sell out anymore and they tend to black out their games now.  When Manning was there, every game was on TV because they all sold out.  So instead, my choices are the Detroit Lions or the Chicago Bears games, because I’m smack dab in the middle of those 3 teams.  (Chicago – 106 miles, Indianapolis – 156 miles, Detroit – 208 miles).  Ok, guess I’m not smack dab in the middle but you get the idea.

Of course, around here, last night was the big game.  I’m a Michigan Wolverines fan living 10 miles from Notre Dame.  I really don’t care about Notre Dame, but what I really hate are their fans.  They are unrealistic, delusional and just in general, rude.  All week long (actually all year long) I get on Facebook to all kinds of anti-Michigan posts.  Making fun of us fans, calling us names, ect.  What happened to if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.  I don’t talk smack about ND fans unless I’m defending myself or the team.  But this past week has made getting on Facebook at all unbearable.  Then after the game, to read what some people were posting was ridiculous.  I don’t mind going through my feed and reading Go Irish posts or pictures of ND stuff.  Your proud of your team, good for you.  I just ignore those and keep going.  But heaven forbid I post something Michigan related.  I get Go Irish posted on everything I post which isn’t even that often.  Maybe once a month I’ll post something Michigan related while some people post 3 or 4 ND posts a day.  Needless to say, Michigan won last night so I posted an anti-ND post and tagged all those people who had been posting anti-Michigan stuff all week.  At least I’m smart enough to wait until after the game to talk smack.

zzz-ecard09

Next week is my Michigan game.  We have a family that has season tickets and they always give my family 3 games.  Last year, it was my year for first choice, which means this year I get what’s left.  So I get to go see Michigan play Akron.  The guy I usually take with me (because I can’t afford both tickets) couldn’t go this year so my brother is using the other ticket.  So it’ll be a day of Michigan and a day with my brother so I’m looking forward to it, even if it will probably be over by the end of the first quarter.

I guess I’ll just continue to sit here and watch the Bears/Bengals game and hope to catch some highlights from the Colts game.  I’ve seen one highlight so far but according to the ticker at the bottom, last I saw, Andrew Luck was 10/10 with 2 TD’s and they are leading the Raiders 14-7.  It would be nice if I could have watched that game.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Randomness bullet points

After averaging a post every other day in August, I hit a dry spell and haven’t posted in almost a week, not since the 28th of last month.  I’ve had stuff to blog about but nothing spectacular so if I don’t blog about it when it happens, I tend to forget about it.  It was my long week at work and it was hot as well so I’m usually fairly drained by the time I get home.  I’ll give you some bullet points on my week to make up for the lack of posts.  Because my 2 or 3 regular readers are dying to know, not really.

  • I had one day that I pissed off my foreman.  I’m on my feet, walking on a metal catwalk for 11 hours a day in 100°+ heat and he wants to complain when I take a minute to sit on a bucket in front of a fan.  He caught me, again, and bitched me out.  Then he started to complain about how stressed he was at all these other people.  So I told him “You should relieve some of that stress by sitting on a bucket.”  Apparently, he didn’t appreciate the humor.  I heard he was complaining about me the whole rest of the day.
  • I had one day where I was pissed at my oldest daughter, actually I was pissed for a couple of days and still get pissed when I think about it.  Probably because nobody really acknowledged what happened.
  • I had one day where I didn’t do any social media.  Not on purpose, I just don’t usually do it much if at all at work and then I crashed early to bed when I got home.
  • theEx picked up the kids on Friday and returned them that night.  Then took them again at noon on Saturday and returned Samantha that night because she had a girl scouts function on Sunday.  Then I got Trevor back on Sunday night.  So Cheri was busy most of the weekend just driving the kids around because we can’t trust theEx to make sure kids get to their functions.
  • I’ve started listening to my first podcast.  I spoke of it in my last post but I enjoy the banter between the 2.  I usually hand the remote to Cheri and tell her to watch one of her shows, pop in my headphones, and listen while I go through my feedly (which I am way behind again).  I’m thinking about searching out a few more to listen to.  They’d have to be comedy and be really funny, and most importantly, free.  In case you missed my buddy’s, it’s at twoboredvets.com.
  • I have to bite my tongue all the time on my personal Facebook page because I live about 10 miles from the Notre Dame campus so I have a lot of friends and family that are Notre Dame fans while I am a Michigan fan.  The big thing is last year, Notre Dame bowed out of the rivalry and kept a few easier schools on their schedule when this was a huge (football and money making wise) game.  Coach Kelly (ND) said this week that he didn’t think of the Michigan game as a rivalry.  Really?  Maybe you should see all the anti-Michigan posts on my feed.  That’s all year long, it’s just doubled this week with them playing this coming Saturday.  I don’t even hate the school, just a lot of the delusional fans.
  • The kids are still enjoying their new school.  Samantha is running in cross country, that’s pretty much the only sport there is at her grade level.  I haven’t received any complaints on either one and Trevor actually brought home a progress report with a really good remark from the teacher.  .@lovejlaws - So proud of Trevor -) #ProgressReport #JimtownIntermediate #School - Webstagram - the best Instagram viewer
  • The previous weekend when I didn’t work, Cheri and I had a “Breaking Bad” marathon.  We started Friday night Aquoteforgenerationstocome-36774and watched seasons 1 thru 5 (first 8 episodes) on Netflix thru Sunday.  Then watched episodes 9 and 10 on demand, then recorded episode 11 live on Sunday night and watched those 3 on Monday night so we got all the way caught up.  We love the show and I think pretty much everyone in this family that watches it, loves Jessi.  You’d have to watch the show to understand the picture to the left, yo.  I posted it on my wife’s facebook page but I made sure she was the only one who could see it because I don’t think anyone in my family watches the show and didn’t want them to think I was calling her a bitch.  I’m sure that wouldn’t go over too well with either her or my family.
  • I started a new tumblr blog.  Mainly for my wife because I’m constantly showing her cat pictures and gif’s so I decided to just throw them on a blog and she could see them there.  Every 5th picture is a picture of our kitty as well.  You can check it out here - http://catsarewaycuter.tumblr.com/ or following it’s accompanying twitter account – @kitty20101
  • Had a great Labor day yesterday.  Pretty much all we did the whole day was sit at my mom’s in a big circle outside, eating and talking.  A day chatting with the family is always a good day.  Plus the weather was pretty good and made it more enjoyable to be outside.

I think that’s about it, I told you stuff went on, I just couldn’t sit my ass down and put it down on the computer.