Mitchell's first flight

For those of you who haven’t read the MacLachlan Family forums, Mitchell and my dad got to take a flight with me yesterday. We flew to Detroit, over to Belle Isle and then up the coast for a little bit before heading back to Pontiac. My dad took a few pictures and Mitchell was glued to the window the whole time.
On another note, our house is harboring some sick people. Meagan is just getting over some kind of cold, Melinda has a cold and Emma has come down with her first cold. Now I am no expert on children’s health, but it seems amazing to me that she is almost 9 months old and has never been sick before now. Anyway, the streak is broken.

I'm speechless about this one.

They say it started because of decomposition deep inside the pile. I think that a couple of teenagers thought it would be cool to have the world's largest flaming pile. Check out the article.

www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/28/cow.fire.ap/index.html

For all your costume needs

I know that it is a little early for Halloween, but check out Buy Costumes.com for all your costume needs. Maybe you need an Easter Bunny costume. Guess what, they got it. Need a nice leprechaun costume for St. Patty’s Day? They have that too. Personally, I always wanted a good costume, but the Target, Kmart and Wal-Mart costumes rot. Next Halloween, maybe you will see me in a pirate costume. Maybe I’ll get the gorilla outfit. Who knows. What I do know, Buy Costumes.com rules and their prices aren’t that bad either.

Wow, I just wanted to share a site I thought was cool and after reading my post, I realized that I ended up peddling their product.

Disclaimer: This website referral by MacLachlan…Out! does not constitute an endorsement of the activities of leprechauns, Easter Bunnies and pirates. Actually, if the leprechaun wants to show me the way to the pot of gold, I’ll endorse him.

...And since I am on a roll...Do you need some new Bling Bling? A new hat? Feather boa? Cane? If you answered yes to any of those questions, surf over to Pimp Hats.com. Even if you don't buy anything, the site will give you a chuckle.

Enough silliness. MacLachlan…Out!

I have your real snow right here!

We have about 11 inches of snow right now and it is still coming down!

All this snow has to be plowed. Billy and I plowed his and my driveway, Gordys driveway, Jayson's driveway and Pastor Randy's driveway, not to mention our road, depicted here.

Preview new features before they go live.

Have you ever wanted a sneak peak of something before it was released? Did you miss out on the Gmail beta test? Do you even know what the Gmail beta test is? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then do I have something for you! Even if you answered no to the questions, I still have something for you. Later today or tomorrow, the MacLachlan Family website will be updated and you have a chance to preview a new feature before it is live!!! Check out our NEW and IMPROVED forums by clicking HERE. Just register and give your opinions on everything that is going on. If you have suggestions, post them in the suggestion forum.

I know, I know, it is unbelievable, MacLachlan Family.com is going to be updated. Sorry about the slowness of the updates, but I have lots of pictures to post. Check the site tonight or tomorrow for the new pictures!

P.S. If you would like a free Gmail account, let me know and I will send you an invite. Mandy probably has some invites also.

Ultimate Burger Update

I am feeling a little defeated this morning. My mom just called me to let me know that someone just finished the 6lb burger from Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub. She also told me that the girl, yes, girl is on GMA right now. A quick scan of Denny’s site and GMA’s site turned up nothing, but once I Googled 6lb burger, the evidence to support my mom’s claim quickly surfaced. Check out the following links:

http://www.kron.com/Global/story.asp?S=2819450
http://xo.typepad.com/blog/2005/01/images_of_the_c.html

Can you believe that the chick was only 100lbs?

The Leaders and Best?

This morning’s Detroit Free Press is reporting that The University of Michigan is planning renovations for Michigan Stadium. At first glance, I thought this was good, but upon closer examination, I became pretty cheesed. First off, I would not necessarily call myself a Michigan Traditionalist. I am ok with the athletic department adding luxury suites and I am all for adding more bathrooms. What I am not ok with is reducing the size of the stadium or staying at the current capacity. Take a look at the article and you will see that the writer sort of dances around the subject of capacity. They are going to widen seats and add suites and box seats, but there is no mention of adding much more capacity. I read the Detroit News article and the Ann Arbor News article and they dance around the subject also. Here is my advice to the athletic department, if you want the fans and alumni to accept your renovations with minimal backlash, INCREASE the size of the stadium. There is demand for the seats. The stadium capacity could be bumped to 114,000 and still sell out. The demand is there. You can talk all you want about luxury suites, no advertising in the stadium and bathrooms, but what matters to the fans and alumni is stadium capacity, specifically being the largest in America. Michigan’s athletic department took so much flak about The Halo, they took it down. Don’t make the same mistake with the renovation this time because it can’t be undone.

UPDATE: Check out the Ann Arbor News Q&A. They asked the tough question of seating capacity and it doesn't look good for the increase.

Raleigh’s version of the Winter Death Storm

Head on over to Mandy's Blog and read about Raleigh’s version of the winter Death Storm. If you want to see pictures and video, check out WRAL. This whole thing is truly amusing. Hey Michiganders, when you want to get frustrated at our stupid drivers, just be glad that you don’t have North Carolina’s. The biggest laugh I got was when I saw some of the pictures from the storm and some of the lawns weren’t even covered. That little snow and so many accidents was hilarious. I know that they don’t have a fleet of huge salt trucks like we do. Actually, from what I hear, they have from zero salt trucks to a small fleet of salt S-10s with mini plows on the front. Anyway, that is no excuse for stupid driving. For anyone who doesn’t know, the MacLachlan crib is located way out in the country on a dirt road and we are one of the last roads that get plowed. I make this point to say that we often get 5 or 6 inches of snow and we don’t have the accidents on our unplowed roads. Yes, we do get the occasional accident on White Lake Road or M-59, but nothing like the pictures on WRAL. We do get accidents on our plowed roads though. I’ll leave that for another entry. Note to all the people representing Raleigh, you folks got a dusting, that is all. When we get that much snow in Michigan, the counties don’t even bother firing up the salt trucks. We just use our potholes to get traction :). In the UP, they think that 6 inches is a dusting, so I guess that this whole thing is all about perspective.

Movies, movies and more movies!!!

If you stop by the MacLachlan household, you will now see that we have some furniture in our front room. The couch and chairs are compliments of Melinda’s grandparents and because her Dad didn’t have any more room at his house. The dining room table and hutch are compliments of my Dad. Now, where can I put the Bowflex? I guess it will have to go to the basement. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, a very special thanks goes to Billy and Brian for helping me to move the dining room furniture from Saline!

This weekend was a movie watching weekend at our house. We had a chance to check out four movies, Paparazzi, Mean Girls, The Village and iRobot. With the exception of The Village, I enjoyed all of the movies. I didn’t expect much from Paparazzi and Melinda and I both were pleasantly surprised. It had action, a couple of twists and two cameos. All in all, it was enjoyable.

Mean Girls was pretty funny. I didn’t really expect more than some juvenile laughs and this movie didn’t disappoint. It took me back to the day of the funny teen movie. For those of you who didn’t know, the brunette who played Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert) was the same girl who played Claudia Salinger in Party of Five. After Brian made a comment about how hot she was, I told him that she was the little girl in Party of Five and he couldn’t believe it.

The Village held so much promise for me. Melinda wouldn’t even watch it because it looked too scary. Wow, her perception of this movie couldn’t have been more off. After watching this flaming pile of dog doo, I can’t believe that it came from the same guy who did Signs, Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Those movies were good, but this one was terrible. DO NOT see this movie. It was terrible. Not scary, the monster was stupid (If you watch the movie, you will see how stupid), and even a twist at the end couldn’t help.
The kids and I watched iRobot yesterday and even though I saw it this summer, it was still enjoyable the second time. Now, if you are a Will Smith fan, you need to see this movie. It really wasn’t as good as some of his other summer blockbusters, but he has his customary one-liners and action sequences. On the 55” beast, this movie was visually awesome!!!

The MacLachlan Family now has HD!!!

My laptop auction is now over and I am glad to say that it brought in $750 dollars to put toward my new 55” TV. Look for more auctions coming soon. Here is just a preview of what I am thinking about selling to finish paying form my new TV:

VW 6-CD Changer
Sony MiniDisc Player w/ blank Mini Discs
Dish Network Receiver
Minolta Maxxum 5 Camera

Speaking of my TV, it is now set up and producing wonderful HDTV pictures for our family to enjoy. I ended up going with this model: KDF55WF655 because it was still 55”, but it had the footprint of the 50” TV. There is a guy at work who is going to buy the same TV and he says that it was rated #1 by Consumer Reports. Just in case anyone is wondering, I was in rare dealing form the night that we bought it. You all know that Best Buy isn't like ABC Warehouse in the way that ABC will wheel and deal, but I am happy to say that the TV was on sale at Best Buy and I still got them to lower the price quite a bit from the sale price!!! Brian and I put an antenna on our roof this weekend to receive over-the-air HD signals and man is it impressive! The antenna is pulling in channels from as far south as Toledo and as far north as Saginaw! Now, all I have left is to add ESPN HD to my dish and I will be set.

Fog so thick, you can cut it with a knife!!!

For those of you who live outside of Michigan, we had some thick fog yesterday. We even had a 100-car pileup on I-96 just outside of Lansing. If you want to see an example of the fog, or just want to see video of the accident, click HERE. The fog was so thick in the White Lake area that we couldn’t even see our neighbor’s house. Heck, I couldn’t even see 50ft in front of me when I was driving home. It’s a good thing I didn’t have a flight lesson yesterday or I would have been cancelled for sure.

Auction Craziness!!!

Last night on the news, I saw another funny auction. This guy is auctioning off his forehead as advertising space on Ebay!!! Check it out HERE. Ok, my thoughts on this are, why didn’t I think of it first!!! The money he is getting, clearly would have helped me make a whole home theater room in my basement. So, why don’t I advertise? Well, if you check it out, none of the copycats are getting near the amount of cash as the original guy. He got all the media attention, so his dome is prime real estate. Following are a few of the copycats I picked out (Click on the names to view their auctions):

Poser Guy - This guy is the anti-original. He doesn’t drive a minivan. I have news for him, driving a minivan doesn’t make someone uncool. I would know. Coolness is something you are born with. Most Ebay users know this, thus there are no bids at this time. Or, it could be that he is asking too freaking much to rent his forehead!

Dog Guy – He is offering up his dog as well as his head for advertising space. If you think about it, this isn’t a great deal unless the dog takes walks with lots of different people. On the plus side, he is paying to have a doggie sweater made while all the other auctions seem to put the burden of creating and paying for the advertisement on the auction winner. He is giving half of his proceeds to the tsunami victims, so that is good. All I have to say about him is, he jumped on the forehead bandwagon and now he is jumping on the tsunami bandwagon. Hey, if the Detroit Lions are good next year, he will probably jump on that bandwagon.

Girl Power – Ok, you knew there had to be one of these. This man’s women has offered up her breast to the advertising world. She even offered up her construction working husband for a bonus advertising space. Unlike the last husband-wife team, this woman chose to concentrate on what she believes is deal maker part of her auction. By the way, this woman is from Macomb, Michigan. I am sorry to say she is representing our state in this latest craze.

Classic Advertising - Is there no limit to who will accept forehead advertising? Check her feedback, this granny is an Ebay juggernaut! You can trust her because she sells battery operated bug swatters when she is not auctioning her forehead. If you are a good negotiator, maybe you can get her to advertise on the forehead of her “huge pile of great-grandkids.”

Anything Goes – If you noticed, all the other auctions do not allow vulgar logos or language. With this guy, anything goes. He will put anything on his head.

UPDATES!!!

With all the hype that our latest Winter Death Storm(tm) had, it was sure weak. I know, I know, it isn’t over yet and we still could get a couple more inches, but geez, is that all we are going to get out of the monster storm? A measly 4 inches? Oooo, Death Storm(tm), I’m sooooo scared. Please don’t dump too much snow on me. Please spare me from the bad road conditions. Ok, I’ll stop. So, all the schools are closed today and I would have to say that travel may have been worse yesterday. Sure, it took me a little longer to get to work today, but that was because there was an accident on M-59 today and I stopped to get gas. It only took me about 15 more minutes to get to work. I could have easily spent 5 of the 15 minutes getting gas though. Maybe I am taunting the storm a little, but maybe I just wanted the weather monkeys to be right for once. I would have loved the day off and a chance to see how high I could get the snow piles at the end of my driveway.

THIS JUST IN: Utica schools are open. Congrats to Utica for not backing down to the winter bully storm.

So, my Ebay auction is going pretty well. As of this morning, the bidding is up to $595 and I have drawn the attention of one Nigerian guy who wants to buy my laptop for his daughter. He wants to pay me $1800 plus shipping for it. Yeah, right. A quick search of Google will tell you that this is a scam. Oh well, you know what they say about things too good to be true. Anyway, if you want to read a similar question to the one I got from my Nigerian scammer, here is the link for it:

NIGERIAN EBAY SCAM

Speaking of my new TV, I have spoken to a salesperson at ABC Warehouse and he seems to be giving me the best deal and I haven’t even set foot in the place yet. You know, they are the closest thing to wholesale! Coming in a close second is Hod’s Home Theater. Hods can deliver quicker and they even will set up your TV and make sure it works and you know how to use it before they leave. I don’t think that I would have any problem figuring out how to use it, but I do like the setting it up feature of their delivery. We shall see which way I decide. Does anyone out there have HDTV? How do you get it, cable company, dish, or over the air? Any good deals out there? Let me know what you think.

Storms, TVs and such.

So, the second Winter Death Storm (Thanks for the name Stu) is in full swing now. It made things a little tougher to get to work this morning as the roads were covered with snow, but all in all, only added about 5 minutes to my drive. It seems that the eye is passing over right now because it is strangely calm at the moment. I just checked out the weather map and it looks like the storm is going to crank up in a few hours. You know, it is like a water fight that you think is over, so you turn around and open your eyes, just to get a bigger splash in your face. Hmmm….a summer water fight sounds good right about now. Anyway, I am looking forward to firing up the 4-Wheeler when I get home to plow. As I said before in a previous post, I don’t think the plow thing will ever get old.

Hey, check out my Ebay auction. I am selling my laptop and some other things so I can purchase what I really crave, the Sony 55” Grand Wega HDTV. I had considered the 60”, but with our entertainment center situation, that may be a little large. Oh well, I guess I will have to settle for the 55. :). Now, all that is left is to go to ABC Warehouse and wheel and deal for a low low price. If I play my cards right, I may even be able to watch the Super Bowl on it.
With all the crappy weather lately, I haven’t been able to fly that much. I was able to fly on Monday though. My instructor told me that I should be doing my solo in my next one or two lessons. Pray for the weather to hold out so I can solo possibly next week. Also pray that I pass my flying physical.

Strange things happen in Canada

Ok, this is guy is stupid, but don’t call him lazy:

Christmas Tree Crime

So, if I was going to trespass and steal a Christmas tree, I would cut the tree down, load it into a pickup and then haul it away. That way, there would be no trail of pinecones and needles. This guy lived in Winnipeg, not the most populated place in the world. Why didn’t he just drive out to the forest to perpetrate his crime. He could have cut down the tree, loaded it, enjoyed Christmas and not been caught. Maybe he was lazy since he didn’t drive to the outskirts of town to cut down a tree. Anyway, his story is that he bought the tree from a door-to-door salesman. Nice! Now he is getting charged with receiving stolen property. All I can do is shake my head to this one.