Christmas is not over yet!!!

Today, we celebrated Christmas with my mom. That brings the total Christmas celebrations to 3. We went to Jan and Gordy's on Christmas Eve, celebrated Christmas Morning and then today makes 3. Wednesday, we are going to the farm to celebrate again and then maybe next week we will celebrate with my dad. Don't think that I am annoyed though, I have always loved a good party.

Last night, Jen and I went on an Excellent Adventure (you know, like Bill and Ted). We went to 2 different Blockbusters to find movies. I was supposed to go with Billy, but when Jen's name was the one on the free rental coupon, she went in his place. The first Blockbuster (White Lake) was about as big as my first house in Ortonville, so it was tiny. We couldn't be bothered with looking for the latest new releases in a store that would hardly fit my DVD collection, so we went to the Clarkston Blockbuster. Boy o boy was I glad I went to the Blockbuster in C-Town because when I got to the register to pay, I had a $6.10 credit. All in all, I had 2 free rental coupons and then I rented a third movie and got 2 Cokes. The Coke was 2 20oz for 1.69. What a bargain, I got out of there and didn't spend one dime!!!

As requested, snow pictures!!!

A picture of our little forest.

More snow pictures!! 

Look at the sheds. Surrounded by snow!!

These snow pictures are for my mom.

The minivan era begins!

Here is a picture of the new car...errr...minivan. I actually like it more than I thought I would. Figures that I get rid of my 4x4 and then it snows...a lot!

The first Ebay iPod sighting.

Well, the sale was yesterday and it only took a little more than 5 hours for the first person to try to make a buck on their iPod purchase.

VW iPod Auction

Someone should send this guy an email to tell him that it has a VW logo on the back. He should advertise that because it may give him more money.

UPDATE: Here are 2 more tools selling their VW iPods on Ebay.

iPod idiot #1 - This guy doesn't really have an auction, he just has a Buy Now price. No Bidding. Send him an email and ask him why he wants $286 for something he paid $69 for.

iPod idiot #2

Crazy long lines!!!

Today we had an iPod sale at VWOA. There were about 500 people who stood in line for 90 minutes just to get a crack at buying one for the low price of $69. They were left over 15gb models from the Pods Unite promotion. Little did the people in line know that they only had 317 to sell and each person was allowed to buy 2. Once again, I underestimated my peers when I had planned to get in line at 12:30 for the 1:00 sale. At 12:15, I heard that the line already wound around the lobby, so I went and stood in the line. I estimated that I was about 125 people back in line, but when the cutters showed up, I was about 150. It was a gamble, but I stood in line for the chance to buy 2 iPods. Strangely enough, neither one was for me. I was waiting in line to buy them for other people. Anyway, back to the story. When I got within 5 people of the front of the line, they stopped letting people in to the room. The lady said they needed to do a count to get an idea of how many they had left. For a few minutes I was sweating. When the lady came back, she said that there were 22 left. WoooHooo!!!! I was going to be able to get the iPods. A short fist pump to the crowd and a few steps later I was passing a check to the lady and picking up my new iPods. The only catch in this whole deal was that there were some that had bad batteries, but they didn’t know which ones. I am glad to report that both of mine work and I will be shipping off the first one to my cousin tomorrow.

In other news, it looks like our Durango is getting traded in for a…gulp…minivan. I swore I would never do it, but that was before this latest Melinda getting pregnant thing. We outgrew the Durango by 1 seat and the only option I had was a minivan. Don’t get me wrong, I could have bought a Yukon XL, but they are too expensive and they don’t fit in the garage, two things I considered. We are supposed to pick up the van tomorrow because they had to send someone to the Lansing area to get it. I’ll post pictures tomorrow.

Speaking of iPods...ahem...Jen. I need 2 more people to sign up and complete an offer at Free iPods.com. Use the link here so I can get credit. They have a free Blockbuster trial that doesn't cost anything. I will sign up with another email of mine under you if you sign up under me.

Walk down memory lane

Remember when computers were 1mhz or less? Remember when we didn't care about processor speeds? This site has histories for all those old computers. Which one did you have growing up?

http://www.old-computers.com/

We had a Commodore 64 at home and at school, we had 2 Commodore Pets. There was nothing like playing Oregon Trail on the Commodore Pet. In middle school we had Commodore 64s and then in HS, we had Tandys.

Hackers are among us!!!

The best hackers are in Michigan. Proof below:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=333698

Three men from Michigan successfully broke in to the Lowes computer system and then tried to steal credit card data. They were not successful in stealing the credit card data, but one of them was successful in getting the longest sentence ever handed down for a computer crime. Way to go slugger!!! The thing that cracks (heh heh) me up about this whole thing is that the guys gained access to the Lowes network via a wireless connection in the Southfield, Michigan store. Let this be a lesson to all of you to lock down your wireless connection!!! I can say that all the wireless access points on Boston Blvd are locked down. Why would we worry about our home network security on Boston Blvd? We couldn’t have the kind of sensitive information that Lowes has, could we? The answer to the second question is no, but there is a man out there that is more of a threat than all three men put together. This man makes Kevin Mitnick (reformed hacker) look like Mitchell with a computer. Who is this man you ask? Read on:

Rich the Superhacker has already hacked his way into a grand total of 1 wireless network in the Grand Blanc area and he is moving in the near future to Boston Blvd. Yes folks, that house in between the MacLachlan’s and the Pinter’s is the future home of the Superhacker family. In the past few weeks, I have personally witnessed more than a few suspicious vehicles in and out of Rich’s construction site. They are moving in all of his hacking supercomputers no doubt. Rich has even had his wife Becki at the property taking pictures. She was trying to make it look like she was taking pictures of her house, but I am sure she was running a surveillance mission to pinpoint any weakness in our wireless internet connections. As a neighborhood we need to reach out to him to reform him of his hacking ways, but first, we need to protect ourselves. Lock down your routers my friends and don’t underestimate the cunningness of the Superhacker. He is going to check his email, of this you can be sure. Will it be your wireless connection he uses?

Quick LAN Party Plug

Ok, I know that Laura calls them Geek Parties, but whatever you want to call it, we are having one on Thursday, December 30. I am not sure of the exact time, but it will be sometime in the afternoon and will run until everyone is played out. The location is Ground Zero (Basement of Brett Johnson’s parents house). If you like computer gaming and would like to come, post a comment. Mat and I will be going and kicking some pixilated butt.

Random Thoughts

Wow, I think I will actually get to fly on a day that I am scheduled. Usually my scheduled day gets cancelled and I have a makeup day. It is going to be a cold day to preflight though.

Remember the days when Girl Scout cookies were for people who loved cookies? Now they are the in thing to have. Everyone wants to buy them because they are the thing to get. No more can you find Girl Scouts pimping their cookies outside Kroger for discount prices. Nope, you have to pay full price now and in some cases, I have seen some people markup the cookies to $3.50 per box. Shame shame!

Volkswagen of America just announced to their employees this week that shuttle service between the 2 buildings will cease as of December 23 because of budget reasons. I’ll tell you what, if they used a little less rock salt and diverted the savings to the transportation budget, we could have our shuttle back! I will have to post a picture because it is ridiculous how much rock salt is used. We have only had a few days of snow this year, yet our blacktop parking lot is white. Walking on the sidewalks feels like walking on gravel. Just wait until I post a picture because I am not joking.

Finally, while surfing the internet, I found an interesting site. It kind of makes you think where we are going:http://letitblog.com/epic/

An entry for Mitchell & Marissa

I forget now what they were eating. Maybe a sucker. Something made their mouth turn colors.

A frustrating lesson!!!

Yesterday, I finally got to fly. One more day and it would have been 2 weeks between flights. The actual flight didn’t go that well. I made 8 or so landings and only 2 or 3 were any good. It was really frustrating. I skipped a landing (picture a skipping stone), Ballooned a landing and then had a few that were just technically off. In the traffic pattern, I think that if it was possible to do it wrong, I did it at least once. All in all, I still had fun though. My instructor said that everyone has a few days like mine during training. I’m not really sure what happened, but maybe I was too consumed with the weather conditions. There was a lot of haze, which was making visibility a little difficult and the clouds were really low. The airport was very busy, which could have had an effect also. Anyway, I was able to correct for all the incorrect things I did, so it wasn’t all bad. If I was going for my license yesterday, I would have failed miserably though. Oh well, practice, practice, practice.

Doh!!! Woo Hoo!!! Doh!!!

Yesterday was one of those cruel weather days. I called my flight instructor (Wendy) and she said that the weather didn’t look good to fly. She offered to put me on the schedule for Thursday and I accepted. That was nice of her since Thursday is her day off. So anyway, I left work at 3pm and it was looking nice out. Sun was shining and it was 54 degrees. There was a little wind, but other than that, it was nice. I started to think that I may get to fly, then I looked toward Pontiac and all I could see was dark sky. In another 5 minutes, the dark sky was back and the day was crappy. Just like that, my flying dreams for the day evaporated. Hopefully I will get to fly tomorrow.

DISCLAIMER: The following is computer talk.
On another note, my computer is acting up. It started a couple weeks ago when I tried to boot it up. All I got was the windows logon and then a BSOD (blue screen of death). When I rebooted again, I lost my onboard network. I tried to reload the driver and it would not recognize it. Well, after a couple of reboots, I had my network back. Whatever. Everything seemed fine until I tried to play a game this weekend and all my computer would do is lock up. I checked the event log and I had a ton of errors that pointed to my motherboard. Now, I am in the process of trying to figure out what is wrong. At this point, I think it may have been my video card. Hopefully I will know soon because I hate having a broken PC.

My flying woes

In a couple more days, it will have been 2 weeks since I have been able to fly. Actually, I have a lesson today, but it doesn’t look like the weather is going to cooperate. That makes 2 weeks in a row that I will have been cancelled. How am I ever supposed to get out of my dead end job if I can’t fly? :) On another note, there was a day last week that I could have flown, but I told Rich that I would help him wire his house, so when the spot opened up, I had to decline. Turns out that Rich was late by 2 hours and I could have flown. Next time I will just take the time slot and then worry about helping after dark. In this case I could have done both. Oh well, I will pray that the weather clears up.

The Tent Story

Ok, if anyone has read the comments from the Car History posts, there have been a few references to a certain tent story that involved my dad. Well, for the first time ever in written form, I will tell the story for any who are wondering.

So, anytime us guys wanted to have a little fun or sneak out, we would sleep in the tent. We would pack as many as six guys into my red pup tent that was made for 2. It made for some cramped sleeping. One weekend when we were in junior high, a few friends and I decided to sleep in the tent. We did it right though, extension cord out to the tent for TV and radio. Anyway, we decided this night that we wanted to sneak out and go into downtown Clarkston. We snuck into the garage and got the bikes out. I had 2 bikes and so did my sister, so we were all able to ride. I am not sure about which friends were there that night, except for one. Jamie Kennedy was riding my sister’s Huffy and he blew the rear tire crossing Dixie Hwy by McDonalds. As I remember it, we rode to downtown Clarkston, then to McDonalds and then home. The garage door was shut when we got back, so we snuck the bikes through the service door at the back of the garage. This was a feat because our riding lawnmower was parked in front of the door. We had to lift each and every bike over the lawnmower and then around the cars. We were trying to be very quiet because my parent’s bedroom was right above the garage. When we were done putting away the bikes, we snuck back around the front of the house. As we were passing by the front porch, I heard a voice. Could that be my dad? Then I saw him. He was standing on the front porch waiting for us. He wasn’t dressed in a robe, or shorts though. He was standing there in his underwear. I am not talking boxers, I am talking tighty whiteys!!! If I was my sister, I would have been embarrassed, but we are guys, so we just went back to the tent and laughed. The ordeal wasn’t over that night though. My dad said he would talk to us in the morning. That next morning, he grounded me and told my friends that they needed to come by the house for the next couple of weekends to do some yard work. If they didn’t show up, he was going to call their parents and let them know what had been going on during the backyard camping nights.

On a side note, we did get caught one other time. This night we snuck out to climb the power lines in the field next to Spring Lake. There is a subdivision where the field once was and Spring Lake is called something else, but anyway, we got halfway down the driveway when I heard my mom. “You boys get back in that tent!” She was watching us from her bathroom window. We just turned around and walked back to the tent.

My parents weren’t always on the winning end of the tent sneaking out battle. We were able to successfully sneak out a few times. One of the times we rolled my Lemans down the driveway and then far enough down the road to start it up without the parents hearing. That was fun.

Funny Emma Story

Ok, a little background on this story. When Emma eats, she likes to grunt. Well, it isn’t exactly like a grunt, but that is the best way to describe it. If you aren’t quick in getting the next bite of food up to her mouth, she will grunt. At home, I find this hilarious.

So, last night, Melinda and I decided to go to Outback with Emma. I know, I know, big surprise. Anyway, when it came time for Emma to eat, Melinda fed her. After one of her bites, Melinda got distracted with something and didn’t get the next bite ready in a timely manner. Emma let out a grunt like I have not heard her do before! I lost it and was laughing out loud. The people at the table across from us were laughing also. Melinda, well she didn’t think it was so funny. From then on, she gave Emma bites as fast as she could swallow. It was just one of those funny memories that I will be sharing with Emma when she is older.

History of John's Cars - Part 2

If you weren’t bored with my first post on this, here is the second installment of “History of John’s Cars.”

1982 Buick Skylark – Though I only had this car a short time, we did have some interesting times with it. My Dad came up with this car for me after I tore up the ball joints and bent a tie rod on my Lemans. It was too expensive to fix, so he gave me the Skylark to drive. No mods were added to this car. It had a crappy radio, but at least it had a cassette and more than one speaker. Facts and stories about the Skylark:
-The first time I was pulled over was in the Skylark. What did I do? Well, I was approaching Dixie Hwy on Maybee Road and I pulled around the line waiting to turn left to get into the right turn lane. I had 2 of my wheels on the shoulder and 2 on the pavement. This IS illegal and some Oakland County Sheriff saw it, pulled me over and wrote me a ticket. I fought the ticket and she didn’t show up, so no fine and no points! Woo Hoo!!
-My first accident was in this car also. Something most people don’t know, Stu was in the truck that ran in to me. It was really just miscommunication. I’ll let Stu comment on this one.
-Trevor and I drove to Canada for a friend’s birthday party. What we forgot was that we had 2 BB Guns in the car with us. It was a little scary coming back into the US when they asked us if we had anything to declare.
-This car was affectionately known as the Sky Chicken.

1986 Ford Escort Wagon – When my sister turned 16, my dad gave the the Skylark to my sister and I got an Escort Station Wagon. It was my first attempt at driving a stick. It went well and really has contributed to making me the driver I am today. The radio in the Escort left a lot to be desired, so I bought a Sony detachable face radio. Boy did I feel cool.
-My Dad bought this car for $800 from a guy who won it in a card game.
-Shortly after I got the Escort, it started to hesitate like it was going to die. It didn’t do this all the time, but it did it enough to warrant taking it to AC Tire for diagnosis. They couldn’t find anything wrong with it, so I took it home. My dad finally took it to see if he could find anything wrong and the car wouldn’t act up. He got brave one day and decided to drive it to the airport. Long story short, it died on I-94! The car made a believer out of him. He had it towed to a repair shop where they replaced the fuel pump.
-Stu and I got hassled one night by a South Lyon cop who thought we flipped him the bird. I vaguely remember this, so maybe Stu can refresh my memory.
That is it for today. Next time we will cover my 1991 Grand Am and maybe the 1996 Golf. I believe that I have pictures. Everyone loves pictures

History of John's Cars - Part 1

Just as the post says, I am writing a history of my cars. What follows is a history of the cars I have owned and some fun facts about them. If you have known me for a while, this will be a trip down memory lane. At the very least, hopefully my history will bring a smile to your face. If you have any specific memories of these cars, please post them in the comments area. I would love to hear them.

1979 Pontiac Lemans – This was my first car and boy was it a fun one. It had a ton of power and got like 12mpg. Gas was less than $1.00 per gallon, so it only took $12 to fill it up. My Dad bought this car from Independence Township for $2000. Right after getting the car, I swapped out the AM/FM Radio with push buttons. It only had one front speaker, so I had to change that too. Since I was low on money, I bought a Realistic AM/FM/Cassette Stereo and 2 6x9s from Radio Shack. You haven’t lived until you have heard KMC Kru on Realistic 6x9s. Anyway, shortly after getting the car, the driver’s side door handle stopped working, so I had to get in Dukes of Hazzard style. I wasn’t complaining because it got me to and from school. No more riding in Joel Melon’s Chevette. I did like pulling the parking brake while the car was moving though. Anyhoo…some fun facts about the Lemans:
-My friends and my first trip to Canada was in the Lemans. I was at LTU and we just decided to go spur of the moment. We went to Don Cherry’s and walked around downtown Windsor. On the way back, the border guard asked all of us for our IDs. Well, Skunk didn’t have his, so the border guard had lots of questions for him. When Jamie asked why the guard was being such a “prick,” that was all she wrote. We were pulled over and the customs agents searched the car. I never would have believed that a customs agent and a dog could fit in my trunk.
-When I was 16, I worked for Independence Parks and Recreation as an umpire. In the fall, we were also called to work at the Haunted Forest at Clintonwood Park. This was always fun because we all got to dress in black costumes and scare people. Well, Nathan, Stu (I think), Darrin, Mull and I were going to pick up Jamie at his house. Jamie lived right by DTE Music Theater…err…Pine knob, so I had to drive down a dirt road to get to his house. Well, I was driving kind of crazy and hit a washboard, slid out of control and off the road. The car got stuck in a ditch and the mirror got ripped off the side door. After we got out of the car, Jamie’s neighbor came out and asked us if we needed help getting our car out of the ditch. Because of the way we were dressed, he thought we were going to play a prank on Jamie and parked our car in the ditch. Well, in order to hide my reckless driving, I went with the neighbor’s version of the story. So when I got home, I told my parents that I swerved to miss a skunk and went in the ditch. My mom bought it, but when she went upstairs, my dad told me he thought I was driving crazy. When I asked him why he thought that, he said, “I lived on a dirt road when I was a kid, I know how it is.” I admitted to my driving mistake and my Dad said he wouldn’t tell my mom if I slowed it down.
-Two words Brake Torque!
-Finally, when I was in 10th grade, Jamie broke his leg sledding and his parents paid me to bring him home every day so he didn’t have to ride the bus. Well one day, I couldn’t stop at the corner of Waldon and Pine Knob Road. We slid into a snow bank and I couldn’t back out. Since Jamie was the only one with me, He had to drive while I pushed. When I pushed the car out, Jamie wasn’t in a position to stop the car with his huge cast, so I had to chase him down the road, jump in and stop the car. It was probably very funny to watch.
Well, the Lemans went a little longer than I thought it would. Tune in next time when we will cover my 1982 Buick Skylark. You also won’t want to miss the info on my 1986 Escort Wagon!

2 Links

Not much to say here today, but I did find a couple of interesting things. One is a news article and the other is a website. First the website. Check out http://www.liveatc.net/ for live feeds from air traffic control towers around the world. They even have Metro Airport (KDTW). Now I know that the vast majority of people could care less about this, but I thought that someone like Stu may find it interesting. Melinda was getting tired of me listening last night, but it does help me to get speaking to the tower. There is a lot to pay attention to and sometimes just hearing the radio chatter helps to understand what is going on. Anyway, I digress.
Now for the funny news story. I really scanned the world for this one. Click HERE to read the story. Apparently, there is a new service from Virgin that you can add to your cell phone that stops the embarrassment of making drunken calls from your cell phone. Yup, you heard right. No more calls to cuss out your boss, ex or current significant other when you are drunk anymore. Virgin allows you to enter the phone numbers of people who you don’t want to call when drunk and then the phone won’t allow you to call them when you are smashed. Check out the stats that are cited in this article. Pretty funny.