There was one thing that I forgot to add about Ceder Point: while there i was wearing a shirt that lots of people took notice of. During the day I saw tons of tons of people staring at my chest. I bet you're wondering what they were staying at. Here a link to the shirt:
http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/gallery-panflute.php
What I wanted to add was that while in one of the large lines for the newest roller coaster they got there I was stopped by another patron in line saying something along the lines of this: "Hi. I've read your shirt like eight times and I have to ask you what a panflute is."
I would try to describe it but I'd rather just show you by pointing you to a panflute shop in the amazing internet:
http://panflute.net/shop/index.html?http%3A//panflute.net/shop/main.html
You don't need one, btw.
I had a little mishap on my bike today. The weather was a bit foul today, raining most of the morning, and I had an appointment with my financial adviser. I didn't think I was in any danger but things just seem to happen when you least expect them to. I had to travel down state street where there's a decent shoulder/bike lane and out of nowhere my front tire slid to the left side hurling me to the ground. The first thing I noticed was that my head had hit a two-fist-sized rock. Don't be too alarmed. I was wearing my helmet. But I hit this rock pretty hard and I was surprised there wasn't any serious head wound. My bell was rung pretty hard. I also sprained my thumb on my right hand. This seems to be the only lasting injury that I acquired. The sprain is kinda bad, but I'll be over it soon. After I fell I got back on my bike to go to my appointment.
The appointment was the one where I actually wrote out checks to get my investments going. I'm excited. I wrote out bigger checks that I would have ever dreamed of writing while still 26 and not bounce. I'm really hoping this is a good move. I'll have to wait years to really know, but I'm optimistic. At least I think I think so.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Back to Ceder Point!
A few days ago I went on a 40 miler on my bike. The thing was that half of those miles were heading into a 20mph wind. Another problem was that I wasn't planning on going that far and hadn't eaten very much food the last couple of days. Getting to that half way point was tough but turning away from the wind was amazing. But by the time I got home I was super tired, so tired, in fact, that when I got home and laid down to do my stretches I feel asleep. I went at it a little too hard. While down something weird happened; I remember hearing snoring and I thought it was one of my housemates in the next room, but it turned out to be me.
The day after that we went to CEDER POINT! It was awesome. And it was really hot for October, around 75 degrees or hotter. I'm not sure how hot it got, but it felt like summer. It didn't matter though, cause it was super fun. We went on a bunch of roller coasters. My favorite is Millennium. This roller coaster starts out with this huge drop of 300 feet and continues for probably a couple of minutes with a bunch drops and loops and pure fun. It even makes people's nauseated stomachs feel better (based on a case study [you know who your are]). We went down there because Ceder Point is doing there Hallo-weekend thing where the theme park is Halloween themed and there were some discount tickets. We jumped on it and it payed off.
And Tomorrow I'm meeting with my financial adviser who's going to invest my money into a bunch of mutual funds. I'm excited about it but also a little nervous, mostly because I'll be writing a huge check over to this guy that I don't know that well. And I've never had this amount of money or even close to this amount of money. I'm basically jumping into foreign territory. And I hope I'm not going to be one of those people that check the ticker every minute. Just slap me if I do. Maybe.
The day after that we went to CEDER POINT! It was awesome. And it was really hot for October, around 75 degrees or hotter. I'm not sure how hot it got, but it felt like summer. It didn't matter though, cause it was super fun. We went on a bunch of roller coasters. My favorite is Millennium. This roller coaster starts out with this huge drop of 300 feet and continues for probably a couple of minutes with a bunch drops and loops and pure fun. It even makes people's nauseated stomachs feel better (based on a case study [you know who your are]). We went down there because Ceder Point is doing there Hallo-weekend thing where the theme park is Halloween themed and there were some discount tickets. We jumped on it and it payed off.
And Tomorrow I'm meeting with my financial adviser who's going to invest my money into a bunch of mutual funds. I'm excited about it but also a little nervous, mostly because I'll be writing a huge check over to this guy that I don't know that well. And I've never had this amount of money or even close to this amount of money. I'm basically jumping into foreign territory. And I hope I'm not going to be one of those people that check the ticker every minute. Just slap me if I do. Maybe.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Back from the rich coast
Guess what? We went to Costa Rica for the weekend! Why? Because it was cheap! Ellie found an amazing deal to go down there for four days, flight and hotel, for under four hundred clams (under 200,000 colons [Costa Rican money {Christopher Columbus' last name in Spanish}]) and, boy, was it worth it. We stayed in San Jose which is sort of in the middle of the country which means that we had to take day trips out to other pieces of the country. We arrived Friday night after only about six hours on two planes and one layover. Tired and hungry we left our hotel in search of dinner. Unfortunately we didn't have any colons at the time and didn't know any Spanish, or very little Spanish. So we walked around a little bit and decided to eat at one of the many Burger Kings we saw in the country. We made that decision based on the fact that they took my master card. It was a bad decision; the meat tasted weird, so after that we didn't eat any more American based fast food.
Day two we went our to the beach. Because we didn't know any better we took the scenic route, which wasn't bad, but slow. By doing this we saw a lot of small towns and went over a bunch of mountains and things on sometimes very scary roads including this bridge:
We safely made it to a beach but the sun lazily didn't show up
The rain started falling and it chased us back to the car. It did it's damage cause we were soaked by the time we got back. We thought there was damage on the rental car we had too cause when we started driving the whole car would start shaking. We had no idea what was going on. It wasn't a flat tire or anything obvious to two people who don't know much about cars. We looked pretty hard around the car and couldn't find anything so we decided to find the nearest office of the rental agency. But on the way Ellie, who was driving, noticed that the hand brake was still on. I laughed and laughed. She didn't so much, but it was still pretty funny.
The next day we went to see a volcano. The roads going there were friendlier than the ones from the day previous so we got there in good time. This day was sunny and it got hot and humid. It was better than rain though. Here's some pics:
Here's the volcano. I've been told that we were lucky to see the top of it. Most of the time it's said to be covered by clouds. So we were happy.
We drove to the base of it in the national park and hiked around to a recent lava flow.
It was pretty cool. It was also nice to walk around a bit cause we were in the car quite a bit to get to these places.
After we got back to San Jose we got hungry. It happens. So we look in a travel book to find a good place to eat and head out to find it. The thing about San Jose is that they don't name their streets; they do number them but they don't post those numbers often enough to know where one stands. It took awhile but we but we found the place we were looking for (it was raining pretty hard, btw) but it wasn't what we thought it would be (it was a crappy casino restaurant) so we went down the street and found an Irish Pub. It looked fine inside. I ordered a Reuben sandwich thinking I was going to get a hearty piece of food. I have never been more wrong in my life. It was the worst reuben ever. I don't even want to talk about it, but suffice it to say that it only had one thin piece of meat and no sauerkraut. Maybe that was the night before, but it happened and it sucked.
Finding stuff in that town was hard. I just remembered that the reuben was the night before. The volcano night we hired a taxi to take us to a restaurant we saw in the book. So we go down to the lobby of the hotel and ask for a taxi. Somehow we get some guy who wants to be our taxi (not really a taxi) and we're trying to tell him where we want to go, but they don't name their darn streets and they don't assign numbers to the businesses. He still wanted the address. So we did a lot of pointing and we finally got through to each other and we were off. It was kind of weird, and I'll admit that i was a little scared when he took us down this dark alley way in the opposite direction we wanted to go, but we soon got around to where we wanted to go. We didn't find our restaurant but found a good Italian place.
So now it's Monday, our last full day in the country. We were a little tired of driving so we spent the day walking around San Jose. I bought a Costa Rican bike jersey with bike shorts as my souvenir. Ellie got a bunch of stuff to for her and her family and friends. It was a nice day, not too rainy, but nothing touristy was open, like a few museums that we wanted to check out. It was okay, we had fun walking around checking out the local shops.
That's basically it. I did buy the new Stephen Colbert book and read it on the trip and I do declare that it was a good read. It gets my seal of approval.
thanks for reading.
Day two we went our to the beach. Because we didn't know any better we took the scenic route, which wasn't bad, but slow. By doing this we saw a lot of small towns and went over a bunch of mountains and things on sometimes very scary roads including this bridge:
We safely made it to a beach but the sun lazily didn't show up
The rain started falling and it chased us back to the car. It did it's damage cause we were soaked by the time we got back. We thought there was damage on the rental car we had too cause when we started driving the whole car would start shaking. We had no idea what was going on. It wasn't a flat tire or anything obvious to two people who don't know much about cars. We looked pretty hard around the car and couldn't find anything so we decided to find the nearest office of the rental agency. But on the way Ellie, who was driving, noticed that the hand brake was still on. I laughed and laughed. She didn't so much, but it was still pretty funny.
The next day we went to see a volcano. The roads going there were friendlier than the ones from the day previous so we got there in good time. This day was sunny and it got hot and humid. It was better than rain though. Here's some pics:
Here's the volcano. I've been told that we were lucky to see the top of it. Most of the time it's said to be covered by clouds. So we were happy.
We drove to the base of it in the national park and hiked around to a recent lava flow.
It was pretty cool. It was also nice to walk around a bit cause we were in the car quite a bit to get to these places.
After we got back to San Jose we got hungry. It happens. So we look in a travel book to find a good place to eat and head out to find it. The thing about San Jose is that they don't name their streets; they do number them but they don't post those numbers often enough to know where one stands. It took awhile but we but we found the place we were looking for (it was raining pretty hard, btw) but it wasn't what we thought it would be (it was a crappy casino restaurant) so we went down the street and found an Irish Pub. It looked fine inside. I ordered a Reuben sandwich thinking I was going to get a hearty piece of food. I have never been more wrong in my life. It was the worst reuben ever. I don't even want to talk about it, but suffice it to say that it only had one thin piece of meat and no sauerkraut. Maybe that was the night before, but it happened and it sucked.
Finding stuff in that town was hard. I just remembered that the reuben was the night before. The volcano night we hired a taxi to take us to a restaurant we saw in the book. So we go down to the lobby of the hotel and ask for a taxi. Somehow we get some guy who wants to be our taxi (not really a taxi) and we're trying to tell him where we want to go, but they don't name their darn streets and they don't assign numbers to the businesses. He still wanted the address. So we did a lot of pointing and we finally got through to each other and we were off. It was kind of weird, and I'll admit that i was a little scared when he took us down this dark alley way in the opposite direction we wanted to go, but we soon got around to where we wanted to go. We didn't find our restaurant but found a good Italian place.
So now it's Monday, our last full day in the country. We were a little tired of driving so we spent the day walking around San Jose. I bought a Costa Rican bike jersey with bike shorts as my souvenir. Ellie got a bunch of stuff to for her and her family and friends. It was a nice day, not too rainy, but nothing touristy was open, like a few museums that we wanted to check out. It was okay, we had fun walking around checking out the local shops.
That's basically it. I did buy the new Stephen Colbert book and read it on the trip and I do declare that it was a good read. It gets my seal of approval.
thanks for reading.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Costa Rica, Baby!
So I finally got some money from getting hit by a car and I bought a TV. Check it out:
So that's our living room. Let me tell you the tv is awesome. I've been told that its a guy thing but those who have seen this thing appreciate it. It's accepted unisexually. I got the full high definition of a beautiful 47". I love playing my PS3 on it. The games are sooo cool. I was playing a regular tube tv, not too big, and the difference is night and day. It's so rad. We rented Kingdom of Heaven from Blockbuster the other day and the picture is amazing. I love it.
And this weekend I'm headed over to Costa Rica with my friend, Ellie. She found some great deal and we signed up. We're going to be there from Friday, this Friday, to Tuesday I think. I'm excited. The weather is supposed show us some T-storms but I don't care. We're going to Costa Rica!
I'll take tons of pics, Ellie will too, and we'll be happy to show anyone who wants to see them. It should be great.
I've also had the thought to buy a truck out here for the winter. It's like 48 degrees outside now. So I would buy the truck now and use it to bring my stuff over to Utah where my parents live before I leave for Sweden, business school. And one night I was lying in bed and thinking about getting a truck, I was supposed to go look at one the next morning, and I was thinking that I don't really want a truck. I'm not really of that persuasion. I had also talked with a brother of mine that has a connection for getting vehicles for fairly good prices. There were a lot of things going through my mind that night and I had one of those epiphanies where I thought that it might be better for me to move home. There were a ton of pros and cons that I don't want to get into now, but it's still a viable option that I'm thinking about. so who knows, I might go back to Utah soon.
So that's our living room. Let me tell you the tv is awesome. I've been told that its a guy thing but those who have seen this thing appreciate it. It's accepted unisexually. I got the full high definition of a beautiful 47". I love playing my PS3 on it. The games are sooo cool. I was playing a regular tube tv, not too big, and the difference is night and day. It's so rad. We rented Kingdom of Heaven from Blockbuster the other day and the picture is amazing. I love it.
And this weekend I'm headed over to Costa Rica with my friend, Ellie. She found some great deal and we signed up. We're going to be there from Friday, this Friday, to Tuesday I think. I'm excited. The weather is supposed show us some T-storms but I don't care. We're going to Costa Rica!
I'll take tons of pics, Ellie will too, and we'll be happy to show anyone who wants to see them. It should be great.
I've also had the thought to buy a truck out here for the winter. It's like 48 degrees outside now. So I would buy the truck now and use it to bring my stuff over to Utah where my parents live before I leave for Sweden, business school. And one night I was lying in bed and thinking about getting a truck, I was supposed to go look at one the next morning, and I was thinking that I don't really want a truck. I'm not really of that persuasion. I had also talked with a brother of mine that has a connection for getting vehicles for fairly good prices. There were a lot of things going through my mind that night and I had one of those epiphanies where I thought that it might be better for me to move home. There were a ton of pros and cons that I don't want to get into now, but it's still a viable option that I'm thinking about. so who knows, I might go back to Utah soon.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Money!!!
Man, I can't believe it's October already. September raced by. So guess what? I finally got some money from my bike accident. That's right it's almost all over. There are a bunch of bills to pay and the lawyer is trying to get those dollar figures lowered so I can get more money later. But the settlement is all over, no more negotiations or anything. Soon all the bills will be paid and I can say goodbye to all the bad stuff that this has caused.
So what am I going to do with the money, you ask? Well, there isn't really much that I want, other than invest it so I can save for whatever life throws at me, but there is something. I'm told it's a boy thing, but I've been looking into getting a big, flat-screen tv. The main reason i want one is because I have a PS3 that doesn't look that great on a tube tv. Plus if I get one then we can watch movies and sports in HD and we could throw parties here to watch the Office or whatever. So I've been reading a bunch of stuff and decided on getting 1080p tv that's 40 inches or more.
After reading a bunch of stuff online I went to Sam's club to look at some. It was dangerous. I came really close to buying one. It was 50" and would've been awesome to play stuff on. I even asked a guy to get it for me, which would've entailed getting a forklift and pulling down off of some high shelf. During this time Ellie and I discovered that the box would definitely not fit in her car. So we told the guy and he said it was okay, cause if we wanted it we would have to wait a while to get it access to the forklift and everything. So that was the day the check came in the mail and I was a little sad that we drove home without the spoils. But it gave me time to look around and become more educated.
Today I rode my bike over to BestBuy to ask questions and to see if what I was reading had any truth to it. Once again I got really close to buying one. I was shown more of the capabilities and the difference between 720 and 1080 and getting to know the other brand, or at least seeing them. I actually told the sales guy that was helping that I wanted to buy it and have it shipped to my home. He was helping others as well as myself and that's what made him loose his sale. When I was looking at other stuff I remembered that I could probably get a really good deal on the same kind of tv at Sam's. I felt bad to not buy from that guy. I was there talking to him for at least a half hour. We were talking about gaming and other stuff too. The guy was cool. So I'm opting to save a few hundred dollars by opting for Sam's. I think it was a good choice, but it wasn't fun to tell the guy that I didn't want the tv anymore. I tried to come up with excuses but I know he knew that I didn't mean what I said when I uttered them. So I've emailed Liz, the other girl that lives with me, to see if she could call her dad and have him drive us over to get a tv. It should be good.
Another thing that I'm thinking about getting is a truck. yeah, a truck. I know, and you're right. I'm not really a truck guy. But here's the thing: I'm planning on moving in less than a year and I don't want to rent something to do it. I also need something for winter. So I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. It would be great to have the utility of a truck. And if I go to Sweden next year my family could use it. They've used a minivan for everything that a truck would be great for and this would help them out. So I'm going to look at a truck on Saturday morning to see if its in good shape. And right after that I'm going to the Michigan game (my first).
So things are going well. I'm glad to have money now. I highly recommend it.
So what am I going to do with the money, you ask? Well, there isn't really much that I want, other than invest it so I can save for whatever life throws at me, but there is something. I'm told it's a boy thing, but I've been looking into getting a big, flat-screen tv. The main reason i want one is because I have a PS3 that doesn't look that great on a tube tv. Plus if I get one then we can watch movies and sports in HD and we could throw parties here to watch the Office or whatever. So I've been reading a bunch of stuff and decided on getting 1080p tv that's 40 inches or more.
After reading a bunch of stuff online I went to Sam's club to look at some. It was dangerous. I came really close to buying one. It was 50" and would've been awesome to play stuff on. I even asked a guy to get it for me, which would've entailed getting a forklift and pulling down off of some high shelf. During this time Ellie and I discovered that the box would definitely not fit in her car. So we told the guy and he said it was okay, cause if we wanted it we would have to wait a while to get it access to the forklift and everything. So that was the day the check came in the mail and I was a little sad that we drove home without the spoils. But it gave me time to look around and become more educated.
Today I rode my bike over to BestBuy to ask questions and to see if what I was reading had any truth to it. Once again I got really close to buying one. I was shown more of the capabilities and the difference between 720 and 1080 and getting to know the other brand, or at least seeing them. I actually told the sales guy that was helping that I wanted to buy it and have it shipped to my home. He was helping others as well as myself and that's what made him loose his sale. When I was looking at other stuff I remembered that I could probably get a really good deal on the same kind of tv at Sam's. I felt bad to not buy from that guy. I was there talking to him for at least a half hour. We were talking about gaming and other stuff too. The guy was cool. So I'm opting to save a few hundred dollars by opting for Sam's. I think it was a good choice, but it wasn't fun to tell the guy that I didn't want the tv anymore. I tried to come up with excuses but I know he knew that I didn't mean what I said when I uttered them
Another thing that I'm thinking about getting is a truck. yeah, a truck. I know, and you're right. I'm not really a truck guy. But here's the thing: I'm planning on moving in less than a year and I don't want to rent something to do it. I also need something for winter. So I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. It would be great to have the utility of a truck. And if I go to Sweden next year my family could use it. They've used a minivan for everything that a truck would be great for and this would help them out. So I'm going to look at a truck on Saturday morning to see if its in good shape. And right after that I'm going to the Michigan game (my first).
So things are going well. I'm glad to have money now. I highly recommend it.
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