Spare Change?

Sometimes a little change can go a long way.  I found that out back in 2006 when I saved change in a piggy bank for a year.  After a year of dropping my pocket change into the piggy bank, I ended up cashing it all in for around $250.  I was able to finance most of a trip to Milwaukee to see my beloved Atlanta Braves play.  It's amazing how it can add up and you don't even notice it.

But these days, I don't ever have any change, because I don't use cash anymore.  I know there are banks that will round up your purchases to the nearest dollar and put it in your savings account, which would be amazing, but I don't think our bank does that.  I should ask.

Anyway, in the age of plastic, there are things that are definitely out of the question as far as purchases are concerned until new technology comes along.  I've always wondered why they don't have card swipe things on vending machines.  I mean, I can go the corner store and buy a coke for a buck and a half and use a debt card, why can't I use a vending machine the same way?  I mean, there are just some things where you need cash, but I don't ever, ever have any.  They have card swipe things on gas pumps, don't you think they could use similar technology?  Perhaps it's not worth the cost to implement it?  But I digress, per usual...

Like for instance, I always feel weird paying for something with a card at the Farmers Market.  I mean, they're out there selling vegetables in a tent, and you want to swipe plastic?  It just feels strange.  Like, I should have cash in that situation.  Also, things like parking meters and whatnot, you need change for it.  So I have a bit of small change in my car in case I'm in a situation where I need meter fare.  Boom, taken care of.  But basically, I never have cash amounting to over a dollar.

I guess they have ways to pay for donations to the Salvation Army and their red buckets at this time of year, but I haven't seen it yet.  I think I saw on the Thanksgiving day football games, during the halftime show with Enrique Inglesias, they had Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys dropping a bit of change into the bucket, and then they showed someone swiping a card along one of those iPhone/iPad card swipe thingies they have.  I was like, "okay, first off, Jerry Jones is a billionaire, he can afford to drop in more than a handful of change, and secondly, I doubt that the dude waving the bell down the street at our Kroger has an iPad with a card swipe thing.  Granted, I didn't look, but somehow I doubt it.  So if I'm gonna donate, I gotta get some cash, which never happens.

So I hope that card swipe thing works out, I mean for the Salvation Army.  I think people would use it.  I would be a bit paranoid about it, but that's just me.  Cash is simpler.  I just don't have any.   I really hope they put card swipe thingers all over the place.  I would spend more money, which is bad, but it's just easier.  

Vloggerated: 2010 Clip Montage

Now, don't expect this video blog stuff to continue everyday like this, but right now, while I figure out all the things I can do with Windows Live Movie Maker, I'm going to be doing this often.  I really like that I can make these things, because I've never been able to do this sort of thing before.  So it's not going to continue everyday, but I think I'll be doing this often.

While today's video is finishing up it's upload, I decided to actually write words here today, which is a nice change for a minute until the video is ready.

I was going through the videos we have stocked up on this computer and I noticed we have a lot of footage of us hanging out with our old friends Dave and Erin. Now for one reason or another, we're not really friends anymore, but while making this video I was thinking back to the good times we had, and I miss it terribly.  You'll see some of that in the video, I suppose.  So, without further ado, (didn't I say that the other day, too?) here's today's video.  It's got cameos from all kinds of people.  I think it's pretty good for about 45 minutes of work.

MOM IS YOU WATCH THIS VIDEO, DO IT ON MUTE.

Vloggerated: The Shopping Cart Escalator

Bloggerated Presents... Vloggerated!!!

Yeah, that's right, I've unintentionally ventured into the world of video blogging, or vlogging.  This is the first installment of... oh, who the heck knows if I'll actually do more than one of these.  This damn thing took 2 minutes to record and 5 hours to upload.  That's just precious internet bandwidth I can't afford to be giving up all the time.  But hey, I'll try.  I also hate vlogs, so there's that..  But without further ado, here it is.  Enjoy.

Thanksgiving Trip pt. 4: Going Home

So the Thanksgiving trip has come to an official conclusion with us returning to Nashville earlier this evening.  Technically as of this writing, it was yesterday, but we all know what I mean by "earlier this evening."  The final day of the trip consisted of us waking up far too early and packing up all our things.  After the goodbyes were said, and a few tears from grandma, we set off for Nashville at around 8 a.m. Eastern time.  We got on the road and things were going smoothly, and then...they continued to go smoothly until we got home.  There was no trouble on the ride home at all.  Little baby Evie slept just about the entire 11 hour trip, after sleeping a solid 7 or so hours during the night before.  Can you imagine sleeping for 18 hours?  That's what my little baby did today.  I didn't think she would sleep the whole time and I figured she would get fed up with the car after a short while, but that never happened.  About an hour outside of Nashville she woke up and was starting to get fussy, but it was time for her to eat, so that solved that.  I can't believe how well she did.

As I said, the drive home took a little longer than Google maps says it should take.  That's because we stopped a few times and took our time getting back into the car when we were finally ready to continue on.  We had to stretch out the legs, both canine, infant, and adult alike.  Somewhere in northern Indiana, we stopped at a Burger King to eat.  After letting the dog go pee, we put him back in the car by himself, which I have never really done before, and if I have done it, it's been years since I did.  I was worried he was just going to freak out and bark at everyone that walked past, so we sat at a booth where I had a clear view of the car and the dog.  If he was going to misbehave, I would be able to see it.  I was surprised to see that he just laid down, at least I couldn't see him, anyway.

So inside the BK Lounge, we needed to change the baby's diaper, but there was no changing table in either bathroom.  This is odd, as every restaurant and store these days has a changing table, at least in the ladies room.  We asked about it, and someone said the manager or whatever didn't want to have a changing table in their place of business because of the "liability."  Are you serious, bro?  That's ridiculous.  So, like any good parent we just changed her right there on the booth.  Screw you, hick Burger King, in your hick town.

One pretty cool thing about this Burger King was that they had this Coke machine for your fountain drinks that would dispense not only Coke products, but also flavor mix-ins, whatever you wanted.  I got a cherry, vanilla Coke Zero.  It was pretty cool.  It said there was over 100 drink combinations you could make out of the thing.  I hope that they get this machine at every Burger King.  I though that was a really good idea.

As we were eating, we put a crown on Evie's head and took pictures.  It was around this moment that I realized that Bowser was being such a good boy in the car, he must be getting into something he shouldn't.  This is also when I remember that left a bag full of Thanksgiving leftovers on the floor of the front seat, right where he is sitting.  Suddenly, visions of mashed potatoes and stuffing and gravy strewn about the floor of the passenger seat of our car started flashing across my thoughts, and I figured we better hurry up and go check on him.  Thankfully, he truly was a good boy and just laid on his bed on the passenger seat and waited.  If nothing else this trip helped me understand that our dog has matured and is actually a pretty good dog.  Bowser of 2007 would have been a nightmare on this road trip.  He basically handled everything well, and that's more than I expected.

As we drove through Kentucky, both Bethany and I were so sick of being in the car, but obviously there was nothing we could do about that.  We just trucked on, and made it home with enough time for me to take a nap so I could come into work and be slightly refreshed.  While on the drive I watched the sun rise and then set again.  That's always weird to notice.  I mean, the sun rises and sets everyday, but you usually don't notice it if you're indoors.  This was the first time that I can remember that I actually drove through Kentucky in the daylight, at least most of the way.  We stopped at a Dairy Queen for a diaper change and a snack.  It got dark out while we were in there, so the rest of the trip was in darkness.  It was odd to stop when we were only about 100 miles away from home, but I needed a break.  We all did.


It's funny because I remember thinking at about the time we were crossing into Tennessee, that this whole thing sucked so bad and I was miserable in the car that long.  But now as I sit here thinking about it, I think to myself "it wasn't that bad." Overall, the trip went extremely well.  It gave me confidence that we can travel with this family and everything will be fine. There was some uncharted waters that we had to just endure, and everything went smoothly.  Will it always go smoothly, traveling with this family? I doubt it, but at least this gives me hope that it won't be such a nightmare, and don't avoid traveling altogether in the future out of fear of hell in a Ford Focus.  It was a wonderful trip, and I can't wait to do it again.  

Thanksgiving Trip pt. 3

There is just something about the comfort of being at my parents house on a fall/winter holiday.  Now, my moms house is not necessarily home, as I didn't grow up here and she only moved to Big Rapids, MI in 2008, it's still my moms house.  When I'm here, I sleep better than anywhere else on earth, that I've found so far at least.  It smells like cinnamon and spices and stuff, just like our house home did while growing up, so that helps, I think.  My dog like it here because it's a bit more open than our little apartment back home.  There are four pairs of hands to hold a increasingly heavy baby, which is nice.  The refrigerator and pantry are filled with food, unlike my house.

It's not like it's a super nice, new bed that we sleep on when we're here.  It's an old bed, and it's really not that comfortable, actually, but I sleep so hard every time we're here.  Another thing that's neat about being here is she lives in an area where there is no neighbors.  I mean, they are around, down the street a little ways, but you can't see them and they can't see us.  When I was walking the dog last night, I couldn't help but notice how dark and quiet it was out there.  Living in the city, I never see stars, except for the very bright ones.  As I walked the dog last night and my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed the stars beginning to appear, peaking through the partly cloudy skies.  You forget how many stars there are if you never see them anymore.

Another thing about being outside here in Big Rapids is that it's actually cold outside.  22 degrees is way to cold for my new southern blood.  I had to borrow a jacket, which is a fantastic 90's Columbia jacket that actually used to belong to my brother.  It's pretty ugly, but when there is no neighbors and no traffic, no one will see me, so I really don't care.  Here's a picture of me wearing that jacket.

So, now the gross turkey is in the oven, (well, I'm sure it's tasty if you eat that sort of thing) but I would have to admit, it smells pretty good.  There are a lot of things cooking right now that smell great.  Some chick just sang the national anthem for the Packers Lions game, and I couldn't be happier right now.  I have to go enjoy this day now.  See ya later.  

Thanksgiving Trip pt. 2.5...Pictures

I think it would be okay to post pictures here every so often, don't you think?  Here's some pictures of Evie and Vada that I took yesterday.

Thanksgiving Trip pt.2

Let me drop by and say that everything is great.  We left Nashville at around 11 central last night and arrived in Lansing at about 8 eastern.  So we did the supposed 9 hour drive in 8.  Pretty good if you ask me.  It was totally uncharted waters, and we pulled it off without a hitch.

Baby fell asleep right away after we left the house and slept for just about the whole time, except for when she got hungry.

There was definitely a moment in Indiana, somewhere in the middle of it, where I lost interest in watching the road.  I was just sort of bored with the whole thing.  I know I shouldn't admit to such things with such precious cargo in tow, but I was just over with the whole paying attention to the road thing.  I started to fist pump to keep the blood flowing and keep me awake, which surprisingly worked very well.  Also, there was a convenient free preview of Sirius satellite radio going on right now, so I had a very wide assortment of tunes to choose from, which made the drive very, very tolerable 

Overall, it was a very easy drive.  Even though it was in the dark, I never missed seeing scenery.  It was just a little boring, but not the worst drive of my life, by any means.

So now we're here in Lansing, hanging out with our good friends and comparing babies.  Theirs is a bit older, but they're still cute little babies.

Here's Evie eating a bowl

Thanksgiving Trip Pt. 1

24 hours from the time I am writing this, I will be out of the state of Tennessee. This will be baby Evie's first trip away from home, and it's a doozy. I think the farthest she has traveled away from our tiny apartment has been Cool Springs, which is less than 20 miles outside of Nashville. We are going to my moms in Michigan for thanksgiving. Thanks to my schedule, I am able to take five days off and travel without using any vacation time, so that's excellent.

We are going to drive overnight because I'll be coming off midnights, where I stay awake anyway, so
It makes sense to travel this way. Plus the added benefit of light traffic on the roads because it's the middle of
The freakin' night was a deciding factor. Also, its possible that we might get to travel with a sleeping baby for the majority of the trip. I've never driven through the night before though, so I don't know how my body and brain are going to react or with any certainty how baby Evie will fair. I've got a good feeling though, that I know myself well enough and my happy baby well enough that we'll be just fine.

Another issue with our thanksgiving itself is my vegetarianism. There is an amazing company out there called Quorn, and they make meat replacement foods like chick'n nuggets and meatless balls and things like that. Well, they also make a turkey roast that I've eaten on thanksgiving the past two years. Only problem is I haven't had a chance to go pick one up before we go. Their website says it's not sold in any stores near my moms house, so we have to bring one if I want one. I'm not sure it's going to happen, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I know one thing, I'm sure as hell not eating turkey.

So a week in Michigan. I hope to keep regular updates while there, maybe even while on the road? That would be fun. Of course I won't type while driving. Do you really think I'm that reckless?

(any huge autocorrect typos in here, I apologize for. I didn't see any in my quick read through, but I probably missed at least one. Sorry about that.)

Here's a picture of baby Evie holding a pizza crust like a cigar.

Take Pills

This is a buspar

After reading an article about drug abuse problems in rural areas of the country, it recalled an incident that happened to me sometime around my freshman year of high school.  There was this dirtball kid around town, let's call him "Jimbob" for the sake of anonymity.  I think he probably was a nice guy, but he had a reputation of being a troublemaker.  Anyway, one day, I was hanging out, minding my own business when I saw him and a friend walking around as well.  We both knew that both of us smoked cigarettes, so we had a bit of a connection because of it, therefore I guess we were acquaintances, I suppose.  So, while we were talking and probably smoking cigarettes, he tells me he has this drug that he or someone he knows takes to correct a lazy eye, and if I take one, it will make me feel amazing.  He said the pill was called a "Bushpar."  In the days before Google, I just had to trust him that that was what this drug really was.  But, I couldn't confirm it, because it was just a little white pill.  He said "Are you going home after this?"  I said I was, so he suggested that I don't take the pill right now because he figured if I went home, I'd be all messed up on this drug and he didn't want me to get caught by my parents.  So he suggested I shove in in my pocket and take it the next time I had a few hours to kill.

I did just that.  I stuck the pill in my pocket and walked home. I never told anyone, not even my closest friends that I had this pill.  I couldn't shake the feeling that he was playing a joke on me or something and if I took this drug, something terrible would happen to me, like going into a coma or something.  I carried that pill around in my jeans pocket for about a week, fiddling with in in my pocket, thinking about what ill effects or what sweet effects it would have on me if I took it.  I kept in the back of my mind something that my dad had always told me, that my dad had pills in his medicine cabinet that if I took trying to get high, would stop my heart.  He had pills that would drop my blood pressure so low that it would put me in a coma.  He had all of these to make him better, yet I had this unknown pill in my pocket that was supposed to make me feel great.  What if Jimbob was wrong?  What if this killed me?

I threw the pill in the trash, because I was afraid to take it.  I had never heard of a "bushpar" so I didn't know if he was just making up a name for some pill that I shouldn't really be taking. (turns out after searching for it years later it's actually a buspar, and it's an anti-anxiety medication)  I was tempted to take pills, I was given it out of the courtesy of an acquaintance but I said no to drugs, mainly because I was to scared of the unknown.  I guess my dad taught me something.  

An App For That

Jesus Christ there's an app for blogging? Sorry, didn't mean to take the lords name in vain there, for those of you that get offended by such things. But remember before how I said I could blog from my phone and I thought it was the most badass thing that humankind had come up with this far? Well now there's an actual app that I can type this nonsense up with. Pretty damn handy if you ask me.

I've attempted to insert a picture to this post here, but I'm not sure where it's going to put it. Well anyway, that's a picture of my activity for the past 24 hours. A dead computer and a good book from the library. I want to thank my good friend Tagan for the suggestion. It's actually a pretty good book, even though the thing started with a bunch of nonsensical explanations of characters that I wasn't entirely sure I needed to know about. At any rate, the book picked up a bit, even if it's still not clear what the plot is or what the purpose of this books existence is just yet. I'm nearly done with it, by the way.

I want to give a shutout to spellcheck, more specifically autocorrect. From the looks of things, I'm a perfect typer on this touchscreen, when in reality I'm pretty much just mashing my fat little fingers on the screen and somehow, this bastard knows what I mean. It's pretty incredible.

So, that's whats up. It's 3 in the morning and I'm blogging on my iPhone. I did not expect this to be my life at 28. Honestly, I've pounded this thing out faster than I wrote some posts on a traditional keyboard. Guess I am pretty good at this iPhone typing thing.

266 Hits and Counting...

I feel as though I did the World Wide Web a serious injustice by writing a post a few months back titled "Instant Netflix v.s. Hulu Plus."  I felt that if I wrote this piece, and then titled it something that I knew people were eventually going to Google, I was probably going to get some page hits.  Little did I know that I was very right.  I got page hits alright.

A typical post of mine, depending on how hard I promote it, gets about five and thirty views.  Not this Netflix post.  To date, it has gotten 266 page views.  I'm sure that's a very small number to other sites and stuff, but for me, someone who wants readers and wants people come keep coming back, that's a big number.

The problem is that the post itself was so non-informative, I feel embarrassed about it.  I didn't go through the pros and cons of each service as clearly as I could have, and thus, making it a real hard read.  I know that people came to that post for a reason, they wanted a clear cut answer to the question, what is the pros and cons of these services.  Now, I did answer that in the blog post, but the post was so full of opinion and other diatribe and meanderings that it made it useless to a reader.  If I happened upon that page when looking for answers, I would have closed it after the first paragraph.

So I didn't expect people to actually read what I wrote, but they did.  It makes me realize that when I go fishing for hits by titling a blog post something that I know will be Googled, I need to make sure the post is actually relevant to what people will be searching for...or, it should at least be entertaining and funny...that would help, I suppose?

Who am I kidding, I've never really been funny on these virtual pages, have I?

A Shameless Plea

Do you see that up there?  Right at the top of this post, right above what you're reading right now?  That's my feeble attempt at begging.  Yes, why not beg?  You see, just because none of you have ever tried it, as neither have I tried it before just a few days ago, doesn't mean it's not going to work and it doesn't make it wrong. What it makes me is shameless.  I know that all of you readers desperately want to support the blog without having to buy all that stupid merchandise I am selling on my side bar.  Who really want's any of that anyway.  But what you really want to do is support me and the things I say and whatnot.

This is a donate button.  Yes, you give me money, I give you my presence, both physically and on this here blog.  The less donations, the less content, got that?

Here's why that button exists.  On Sunday night, I was just hanging out by myself here at the apartment, and I got to thinking about just how expensive it might be to fly home for Christmas.  You see, the family has plans to go to the great northern Upper Peninsula of Michigan, our place we call home, for the holiday season.  At one time, the tickets were actually moderately priced.  Damn near cheap, actually.  We failed to lock up tickets at that time, and as the date has grown closer, the cost of a couple round trip plane tickets have skyrocketed.  Now, it's not that we we're necessarily paying for these tickets out of our pockets anyway, as some of you may be thinking.  Parents were planning on giving a gift of flying home for Christmas as a Christmas gift itself. But as the cost is so high, I thought it would be a good idea to chip in ourselves, and this is where you all come in, and donate.

 I always feel that if I ever announce that I'm doing something, like going to a hockey game next week, then beg for you to give me money to fly home, it all seems a bit like I'm doing something wrong.  I know, it really doesn't look good on my part.  But the truth is, no discounted hockey ticket will make a dent in the cost of these plane tickets.  I also seriously doubt that begging for donations is going to help either.  But do you know just how much effort went into creating that PayPal donate button up there?  Next to none.  So I can ask, it doesn't mean I expect anything.

However, if you want more quality posts, unlike this one, you better start donating, jack.  I mean it.  That's the only way I can afford to do research for the posts I write, or something.

So that's the fact.  I want you to donate money to me and my family so my little girl can meet her family then donate if you have the heart.  If you don't donate, you don't have one.     

Daylight Savings Time

This is this guy's only job. 

I think it's only fitting to talk about daylight savings time for a minute.  I wasted a perfectly good story about my personal experience this morning with daylight savings time by posting it as a Facebook status.  Honestly, it was such a brief encounter, a Facebook status makes sense instead of an entire blog post.  Also, I think that it was way funnier to me than it actually was as a story to tell your friends.  Anyway, if you don't like to read Facebook very often, as I don't like to do, basically, someone showed up to work an hour early this morning and couldn't get in the doors.  For the people that work here, there is a section of time where their access is restricted (I think it's 12:30 a.m. until about 5:15 a.m.)  So when I told her she couldn't get in because it was to early, I found it hilarious, even though it's really not all that funny.

I think I find if funny because I have always been afraid that I will also make that same mistake.  One of these days, I'm going to forget to set my clocks back or forward and I won't realize it.  It only happens twice a year, so I mean, what, I've only seen it happen 56 times in my whole life.  That's not a whole lot of times.  I've checked into the Kroger down the street from my apartment on Foursquare in the past 6 months more often than daylight savings time has occurred in my entire life.

But daylight savings time, oh what a weird thing we do.  Set the clocks back an hour in the fall, because we couldn't possibly stand to have all that sunlight in the evenings for four months?  Daylight savings time was put into place in the 70's during the oil crisis to save fuel.  If you don't have to turn your lamps on in your house until 9 o'clock instead of 8 o'clock, you will have your lights on for a shorter period of time before you go to bed, thus saving the amount of energy your house is sucking up.  Also, I'm pretty sure that the plan is that if there is more daylight in the evening, that equals you most likely to staying out shopping instead of heading home when the sun goes down.  Arizona doesn't observe DST, for the logical reason that it's hot as all Hell, and the last thing they need is more sunlight and heat late into the night.  That makes sense to me, because people sleep better when it's cool.  If the sun goes down sooner, the sooner it gets cool in your house.  But why oh why did Indiana opt out for all those years?  Just to be dicks?

My problem with DST is that in 2007, they extended it an entire month longer, making it from early to mid March until the first Sunday in November (today).  Okay, that's 237 out of the 365 days in a year that we are on a "special" daylight savings time.  A mere 127 days we're on "standard" time.  Why not just shift the whole thing to always be on "daylight savings time?"  I mean, now that it's switched, it's going to be getting dark here in Tennessee at around 5:30, I think.  That's ridiculous.  And by Christmas, it's more like 4:30, and it's pitch black outside.  There is no reason for that, in my opinion.  Especially after extending it back in 07, it's a blink of an eye that were on this so-called "standard time."  It's not a special thing if DST last two thirds of the whole year.  Might as well make it all of the time.  I think it would help everyone out.  There would be more business activity later into the day and there would be less seasonal depression due to lack of sunlight.

Another problem I have with "daylight savings time" is that we're not saving any daylight, there is no such thing. It's just darker in the morning.  There is still the same amount of daylight, it's just not out when it's convenient for you people.  Extended evening daylight time would be the appropriate title for this event.  Who are we saving this dreaded daylight from, anyway?  But hey, we saved some daylight for a while, and it was fun, but now it's time for daylight wasting time!  That's what they should call it.  Daylight wasting time.      

Feeding Baby

om nom nom

When it comes to having a baby, as she gets older, I realize that she is a human being.  I mean to say that I always knew she was a person, just the baby version, but I mean certain things change as she gets older.  For instance, she is getting old enough to eat solid foods, instead of just jamming a bottle into her mouth and filling her up.  The thought that when I make food for myself, pretty soon I'm going to have to cook something for her, too.  I've been a bit resistant to giving her solids lately because she means she's getting older.  I'm pretty sure I've written before my fear of her getting older, but all the while knowing that that's how life works.  So many people have told me that they grow up fast and you need to cherish the days of when they're little and sweet.  I know that this won't, no can't, last forever, no matter how little solid food I give her.

When I give her food, it's this strange feeling of providing nourishment.  She needs me to do that for her.  I feel powerful, like I'm important.  When I give her a bottle, It's just, you know, fill 'er up so she stops crying.  No, not that extreme, but there isn't a connection as I get when I'm shoveling rice cereal into her mouth, or when she's munching on a stick of root vegetable.  Basically, it's just different.  As hard as I want her to say as a little baby forever, for a number of reasons, I can't change it.

So the little girl is graduating to solid foods at a rapid pace and it's a little scary.  If I'm scared about her eating food, how am I going to react when she goes to preschool, or kindergarten, or even a daycare sometime.  It's enough to drive a loving dad crazy.  The reality is that if I want to make more money with a better job, she'll probably need to be in daycare.  So, I'm not getting a new job so I can be a daddy more.  I'll eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so she can have the best, and have her daddy holding her.

Alright, so that's it.  She's starting to wake up now, she's happily cooing into the monitor right now, so I gotta go get her.  What a cutie.