I will take the long way home... (Part 2)

The week I was in Michigan just happened to be the week of the DeKalb County Free Fall Fair. And if you live around here you're used to the fact that life usually just stops for a week and we all go to the fair. Well, I was in MI so I took vacation Friday of that week and the first week of October. We went to the Fair Friday night and again Saturday morning for the Parade.

Emma getting ready to fish for a shark.

Aiden trying to make sense of the whole thing.

Aiden's new Scooby Doo hat.

Saturday morning:

Uncle Kirby, Aiden at the wheel and Emma.

The Waterloo Fire Dept. Model A

Aiden and BopBop.

What the parade looks like from the Model A.

"What is my Dad doing?" FYI, that's 3 generations in the front seat of that truck.

FIRE DOG! The kids love Fire Dog!

After the parade it was off to the rides for Emma. I have a lot of pictures but I won't bore you with them all.

Butterfly face painting that was done at Jeremiah's Brewed Awakenings.

The following week we bought Emma a real bike. I found it on Craigslist for $10.

When you buy your daughter a $10 bike off Craigslist you know it's going to look like this real soon.

But I got it painted, greased, decorated and back together all in the same chilly day. You can't see her face but she loves it!

Later in the week Emma and I went to see Uncle Duane and Aunt Kari at Emma Warehouse where we cashed in our store credit and got a bunch of goodies - some of which we needed, some we didn't. We did get new black tires for her bike.

Emma trying on a farmer hat. I was tempted but, no, we did not buy it.

We took a random back country way home where we found a heard of bison in a field right near the road.

That Saturday we went back to Lagrange for Corn School (their fair.)

Emma and her cousin Alayna on the spaceships.

Emma and a random little boy on the spaceships. They both wanted to ride in the blue and there were two but the other had a broken cylinder so they shared.

And after what was more or less two whole weeks off I had to go back to work. It's hard to count the three days of class in Michigan as "work" because I like learning and it really was fun. So this last week was madness after being gone from work for so long. Who knew... they actually need me there?

I will take the long way home... (Part 1)

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. Where to begin...?

The Waterloo Fire Dept Pancake Sausage Supper was on Saturday Sept 22nd where Aiden took one of the fire trucks out for a quick drive.

The following week I went with my co-worker and fellow lab rat Travis to LECO Corp in St. Joseph Michigan for training. Metallurgical analysis - I live an exciting life. We stayed at the Boulevard Inn in downtown St. Joseph which was a major disappointment... especially at their rates. I shall now summarize my stay:

Upon check in around 9pm I walked into my room to come face-to-face with another person in the room. Thinking they'd double booked the room, I nearly ran back down to the front desk to throw a fit. Turns out he was a hotel employee working on the plumbing (at 9pm!?) and had no warning that I was headed to the room. He asked for five minutes to finish what he was doing so I went back to the car to get my luggage.

There is no good way to get your luggage from the parking lot to the building that doesn't involve a long walk, a huge step up a loading dock and then a long ramp or a long walk and up a flight of steps in the lobby.

The revolving door at the main entrance was out of order for my whole 3-day stay.

My room came with the unpleasant surprise of a pile of broken glass under the kitchenette counter.

This tells me the room was not cleaned well :(

Now, with my food allergies, I always bring my cookware and a full supply of food since I really don't like to rely on restaurants. Sadly, there was no cook top and the microwave was terribly inadequate. And because it wasn't a full kitchen, there was no flatware and no plates - only two glasses and two disposable coffee cups. 

So I had to go to the local Meijer which was an interesting drive through Benton Harbor...

It's a closed hospital I think. But it almost looks like it's an apartment building now.

And there was this heavily armored (WTF!?) backhoe.

Anyway, at Meijer I bought a set of toddler flatware (1 fork, 1 spoon, 1 knife) and a set of large square plates on clearance. I figured the plates can go in our camper (when we get one) and the kids can use the flatware.

 My plates didn't fit in the microwave or kitchen sink...

So I had to wash them in the bathroom.

There wasn't room for a drying space on the counter so I had to use the nearby reading chair.

The single serve Keurig did this to every K-cup.

Now, I have a Keurig at home and one at work and I can tell you with great certainty that this is NOT normal. But worse yet, when it blew the top off the K-cup it also blew coffee grounds all over the place! Something I then felt responsible to clean up. And being a coffee lover I cleaned that effing Keurig many times during my stay!

However, on the pleasant side of things, my room was on the 7th floor overlooking downtown St. Joseph. I was greeted by this view every morning.

I don't wake up to scenery like this at home.

And I was close to the beach.

Little hand prints in the sand made me miss my kids. 

I made Travis take my picture with the snow shovel pirate.

This art gallery was a block away but was closed when I got there.

And after all that I must say that LECO Corporation is one of the most gracious companies I've ever had the pleasure to visit. I look forward to the chance of a return visit. However, I will be making alternate lodging arrangements.

Camping: as seen by my little girl.

I finally found Emma's camera. She actually took more pictures than me while we were camping. And the pictures are pretty awesome.

Emma's idea of getting ready to go.

Mommy saying goodbye.

Menard's: Our second home. Getting camping supplies.

Mack in Emma's lap.

Checking in at the campground.

The fire.

The fire with a flash.

Reflection in the car window. I don't know how she accomplished this.

Our Dodge Nitro.

The smoking excuse for a morning fire. I really didn't bring enough wood for a second fire.

Emma really loves our Nitro.

So I have to go out of town for work next week but I have the following week off. I'm hopeful if the weather hasn't turned too cold that we can try another camping excursion... but with more planning.

Part II - In which I haphazardly take my 3 year old tent camping.

Earlier this week I promised to take Emma to Pokagon on Saturday. Which I ultimately did - though not as anyone had expected.

Emma on Trail 3 (maybe?) - Pokagon State Park 4/2012

To date, our concept of a day-trip to Pokagon consists of lazing around all morning, realizing the day is going fast, hastily getting ready and finally leaving the house around noon. Once at Pokagon, we park and set out on an easy trail. After finishing the "easy trail," we reach a point of return and I realize we've not really walked very far or taken very long to do it. So I choose a series of trails which should take us a little farther and a little longer. At approximately the halfway point of the new series of trails and after an hour or two of walking, my daughter is exhausted and I realize it's dusk and I'm about to carry my preschooler on my shoulders the three miles back to the car with nothing more than a trail map, a mostly-empty bottle of water and the shirts on our backs. God forbid we take a flashlight. But seriously, how much danger can we really be in? It's Pokagon! If you walk more than a few miles in one direction you'll either come to the highway or fall in a lake if you don't reach a house or some other sort of civilization first. Ultimately we always make it back before dark, no worse for the wear.

The other form of a Pokagon trip involves the whole family at the playground for a few hours. Not as much drama but she still has fun even if it's just the two of us.

Either of these would have been fine. Either would have sufficed. Even a shortened version of the "never-ending trail" would have been more than enough to make my little girl happy. But at some point on Friday my brain short-circuited and I decided we should go camping. Just the two of us in the little two person tent. Just for one night. And that's what we did.

I'll spare you the details. From my point of view it was a near-disaster. However, she's told everyone so far that she had fun.

Lesson learned: "PLAN" - Plan ahead now to be able to relax later.

When camping with a preschooler: HAVE A MOTHER-PLANNING PLAN. Like more than the night before.
And maybe get a camper.
But definitely MORE PLANNING!

Emma at Pokagon State Park Campground Site #227 - 9/2012

Part I - In which I realize my hobbies don't involve my family.

As some of you may (or may not) know, I'm a confirmed guitar nut. I have something on the order of a dozen guitars. I'm really not sure on the exact number right now. I don't even have them all at my house. Not as many as some guitar nuts but it's way more than anybody really needs. I get a little light-headed when I think about the combined MSRP of my "collection." Thank God most of them were bought used and therefore fairly well-discounted. But still, there's a lot of money in guitars here.

At any rate, I'm finding that the longer I play, the more I favor just a few of them. It therefore seems rather silly to have so many when all the majority does is collect dust. Not only that, but my kids are little and they really don't care much about guitars. I mean, they might think it's fun to watch daddy play but... it really is just another thing for them to break. (I type this as my son gets tangled in my laptop's power cord.) They're my kids and they're clumsy: guitars aren't going to factor into their equation for like another 10 years - if ever. Besides, my son likes to beat the crap out of things and would probably enjoy drums more. My daughter seems way too analytically-minded - she might make a better composer.

So I decided to start selling off some of my old stuff and get into a new hobby that my kids can be a part of: RC airplanes. Because RC airplanes are cheap, safe for kids of all ages and virtually unbreakable. Yeah. I didn't think that one through.

Try again.

More bang for your buck.

This is the age of mass-produced, mass-marketed, over-priced, under-quality crap. It's the latest rage in New York, in less than a second they'll know about it in Los Angeles and everywhere in between. Within hours they'll make 8 billion of them in China. Within months they'll all be broken. A year from now no one will care or recall that they ever did.

crazy dream

So I had this dream last night and completely forgot about it until about halfway through my day at work. It's wicked.

I was at work. From outside of myself, I watched myself walk out of the building. The building itself resembled my real life work a little but looked more like an aircraft hangar - it makes me think of Navy Pier. Most of the area outside the building was concrete except for a small grassy spot just beside the door. A group of my co-workers were standing off to that side under a tree. Back in the first-person, I walked out the door. I looked at the sky and as I was about to make a comment about the strange weather to my co-workers, I was struck by lightning. But it was not instantaneous. I could distinctly hear the lightning coming toward me, it sounded like a heavy piece of paper being slowly torn. When I heard that sound, I knew what was about to happen. I wanted to run but I knew I couldn't move fast enough to get away. I was instantly deaf and blind and I knew it was happening. There was only the sensation like a giant hand on my head, shoving me into the ground - literally pushing my entire body into the concrete like a nail being pounded into wood. It seemed to be the most painful and frightening thing I'd ever endured yet I wasn't afraid. The calm I felt allowed me to overcome the pain. I recall thinking something to the effect of, "I've just been hit by lightning. There's a good chance I'm dead. I'm neither in pain nor afraid. This is amazing!"


Suddenly I was back in my body, alive and well. I was standing some distance from where I was hit by lightning, facing the spot with the building in the background - a similar view to when I first watched myself walk out of the building but a little farther from the building. I could tell some time had passed (days? months? years?) There were people standing around me and they were all amazed that I was not only alive but completely unscathed. I was telling them how I felt fine, maybe even better than before I was hit by lightning.

At that point I woke up and went WHOA! I better not forget that one! Not only is this the first dream I've remembered in a VERY long time, it's strange even by my standards. And now I've potentially overcooked my hardboiled eggs by 10 minutes while I was typing that all! Yikes!

Anyway, what does that dream say to YOU?