Tag Archives: snow

You Can’t Spell Job Without OH BOY!

Posted by on March 28, 2008 No comments

It has been a while since I’ve made a personal blog post; as has been kindly been brought to my attention.  It is because a lot of things and yet at the same time, not much had happened.  I feel confident now in having something substantial deliver to my audience.

Important things first:  I purchased Super Smash Brothers Brawl (Wii) and Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (X360).  SSSB is an amazing game with a surprisingly very enjoyable single player and co-op.  I recommend it for any Wii owner.  (We even got Elizabeth to play and she seemed to be having a bit of fun once she found a character she liked.)  RSV2 is a lot like RSV1 with sprinting and a RPG aspect not unlike COD4.  The single player story is fun to play but ridiculous.

Hockey has been down right amazing.  The Gophers went on a streak to beat Mankato 2 out of 3 games that all went into over time to get into the Final Five.  The Gophers then went on to beat St. Cloud State and Colorado College to make it to the championship game.  Ultimately Denver won but The Gophers put up such an amazing effort that it is impossible to be upset.  If they continue to play this hard they have a great chance in the Frozen Four.

This past Tuesday I made crab cakes.  They were pretty good and with some tweaking they could be great.   Perhaps I’ll share the recipe if there is any interest.

I leave on my Ski Paradise vacation soon.  A whole week of water skiing in wonderfully warm and sunny weather.  It should be an absolute blast.  I only hope that my body can survive 4 sets a day for 5 days.  I leave on the 5th and come back on the 12th.

I had a slight cold this past couple of weeks, but nothing Halls cough drops couldn’t fix.

Visited the family on Easter.  Really strange when only half the family is there.

Gas is expensive ($3.10+) and influences me not to drive anymore.  I have the feeling that when I look back and read this post I will be jealous of the low price.

It appears that a lot of my favorite shows are starting to air new episodes again.  Reaper is on, South Park has been on for a while and I think the office should be coming back sometime soon.

The snow is melting and things are heating up.

I got a job.

…

Wait what?  Yup :-)  I have been offered a position at Accenture as a Consulting Analyst and I have accepted it.  The start date is May 27th.  Meaning, I’ve got a couple of months to wait.  However, as an entry level job I would be hard pressed to find anything better in this line of work.  The job will require hard work, networking and perhaps frequent travel, but at this time of my life that sounds incredibly exciting.

The last week or so I’ve spent going through the interview process.  I first was contacted by the recruiter and communicated with her.  After that it was a phone interview.  Having success in the phone interview led to an office visit.  At the office visit I had a couple of interviews and lunch with a fellow potential hire and three employees who were in our position a year or so ago.  Even though it was an interview and interviews are supposed to be huffy, I had a great time and met some very wonderful and interesting people.

I had originally been informed that I could start in April.  This date has be canceled for some unexplained reason.   My guess is that they don’t have enough new hires to warrant batching the training process.  This means I will be starting in May with all the new college graduates.  That’s fine and waiting the extra month while I live on a budget is fine.  Where things get complicated is the 2 weeks of training at Accenture’s campus in Chicago.  This will likely occur at the end of June.  Right about the time Becky and Brad get married.  I can only hope that I’m allowed to fly back, if even on my own dime for that, or that the training wraps up on Friday and we leave Friday night.  If anyone has any thoughts on this I’d be happy for any advice.  What if I’m not able to come back?  For now it’s as the old adage goes, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

I now have about 2 Months (minus vacation) to spend on a side project or catch up with friends, because once I start working I have a feeling I will fall off the face of the earth.  I kid, but seriously during the week I will be a ghost.  You will only be able to catch me on the weekends.  Weekends are pretty sacred at Accenture.   I’d be happy to share more details in person.  I don’t feel comfortable expunging details on the internet, never know who is listening.

That leaves us with today.  I’m going to be picking up the parents from the airport after their two week long cruise.  They have yet to hear about my job, so that should be good news for them.  I’ve got laundry that needs to be done and some other misc. cleaning to do in preparation, so have a great weekend everybody!

Shatter expectations and conquer the world!

Things I’m looking forward to:

  • Starting training for my Job
  • GTA4
  • Spore
  • Water Sports

Things I’m not looking forward to:

  • Juggling personal and work life
  • Commuting/Driving

The Great Christmas Wrap Up

Posted by on December 28, 2007 No comments

…or Boxing Day if you have government funded health care.

So Christmas is over (or almost, Justin says he has something in the mail for me. He shouldn’t have, but it’s very nice of him to get me something and I’m excited to see what it is.) I’d like to thank everyone who went out of their way to gift me something and at the same time I hope everyone who received gifts from me enjoyed their gifts. I wish I had the funds to buy gifts for everyone and the time to spend the Holidays with all the people in my life, but sadly the world doesn’t work that way. In an effort to appear non-materialistic (ha!) I will now see how the list faired (the one’s in red are still missing):

-Needs-

  • Men’s Ware House Gift Certificates (Received some for Graduation)
    • Received a wonderful dress shirt and tie from Elizabeth’s parents, Thank you!
    • Dress Socks from Mom and Dad
  • Electric Blanket (Thanks for that already Mom.)
  • New Cellphone
  • New Slippers
  • Those fancy ear muffs that don’t mess up your hair

-Wants-

  • Nintendo DS Lite (Uber shocked to cross this out. Elizabeth is the greatest girlfriend ever.)
    • +Games!!!! (The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hour Glass, came with the Limited Edition Zelda DS)
  • Music CDs (Secret Santa: Uncle Craig got me $40 at iTunes.)
  • New Computer
  • Hockey Goalie Equipment
  • Spare Xbox 360 Controller (I purchased these items shortly after I put up the list.)
    • Rechargeable battery pack for Xbox 360 Controller
  • 2 More Wii Remotes
  • Digital SLR Camera
  • New earbud headphones

I received some gifts from Mom and Dad that I had mentioned earlier in the year and completely forgot about come list time. Most notable is a Makita Hammer Drill and Grinder set. After working at O’keef’s I’ve grown to love Makita products. In addition they gifted me more construction related tools and utensils. I’m pretty pumped because I find myself in need of tools and it feels like a sign that I am growing up. Purchasing a house doesn’t seem so far away. My sister bought me a pretty sweet zip up hoodie from Buckle. Look for me to be wearing it often. She also bought me some Jägermeister that, because it was a gift, came in a pretty cool metal slip tin. Now before you get all up in arms because she is underage, she had someone else purchase it for her and I am of age. Now all we need is some red bull.

To follow suit, I ‘ll do what Justin did and write what I got for others.

Elizabeth: 3 Different Types of Scarfs. She asked for a scarf for Christmas and not knowing what else to get her and not having the funds to buy what I really want to get her, I went over board and got her multiple scarves. I bought her a University of Minnesota scarf first because I knew the moment I saw it that I had to get it for her. I realized that it probably wouldn’t be appropriate for work so I figured I would get her scarves to match whatever she wore. I went with a fancy black scarf and a big fluffy white scarf. She seemed to be happy and I hope she likes them. I’ve already seen her wearing the Minnesota one. (After her gifts, though, I felt that my gifts just didn’t match the awesomeness of hers. She totally won this year and at the same time I win because of that.)

Melissa(sister): I got her $20 at Buckle because she loves that store. She is also going to Mexico for school this January so I tried to get her a CD that contained popular Latin Musica. Wow. Shopping for music in a different language is hard. I’m not terrible when it comes to Spanish, but I still struggled. I was able to find a CD that said it was the winner of 4 Latin Grammys. It was either that or one of the bajillion mariachi bands present in Wal-Mart’s Latin Music selection. So you can guess which one I went with. When we popped the CD in on Christmas day we were all pleasantly shocked. It was a pretty sweet CD. Juanes – Un Dia Normal, if you are interested.

Mom: Our family is big on “TV on DVD”. Mom is always hard to shop for. It seems that women are much harder to shop for than men. I think it is because women don’t like to express what they like and would prefer you guess. So I picked up that my Mom and Dad like Boston Legal. My Mom even told me that they really liked that show, so I purchased the first season on DVD for my Mom.

Dad: Continuing the theme, I purchased Battlestar Galactica Season 2.5 on DVD for him. This one was pretty easy. We already own all 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1 on DVD, my sister was picking up Stargate Atlantis Season 2 for him and we own Battlestar Galactica Season 1 on DVD. However, this is where I erred. I thought the extra “.5” meant it was season 2 with bonus features. Silly me. When I eventually bothered to check, I found that they split the season up. Those capitalist bastards. So today I actually went out and got Battlestar Galactica Season 2.0 on DVD so that we can watch them in order.

Secret Santa – Cousin Mike: He didn’t put anything down on the list. So I got him the multipass of gifts; a Wal-Mart gift card. I also made him a card with the following poem I wrote the morning of Christmas Eve:

Santa’s confused this Christmas Eve,
For on his list your name he does not see.
He’s checked it twice,
and he’s sure you’ve been nice.
It must be that you’ve asked for naught.
Now you’re stuck with what he bought.
Lucky for you, he’s a nice guy,
And left it up to you with what to buy.
A golden ticket to the land of lights,
Where they never close for holidays or nights,
A land of toys, games, food and mead.
A land with everything you may need.
Santa hopes you’ve learned this year,
Forget again and you’ll get a kick in the rear.

That is all the giving and receiving I was involved in. Christmas Eve was spent with the family at Andy and Theresa’s. We managed to set the house on fire only two times. We had to open all the windows, get the air flow going and clear out the smoke. It wasn’t so bad when we did it before most people arrived because the sun was still up and it wasn’t too bad outside. However, when it happened right before dinner it was dark out and much colder. To be fair, I think only one involved actual fire and that was with the ham in the oven. The earliest incident was just turkey juices spilling over in the oven and being turned to steam. The rest of the evening was a run of the mill family event with everyone playing their normal parts. The most unlike normal role goes to Tigger (Andy and Theresa’s cat) for actually being playful with so many people around. He was pretty good until people took his playfulness for granted and got him all ornery again. Dakota was in heat so we had to keep her penned up (don’t worry she has a nice heated garage.) It’s too bad too. She is such a wonderful dog and it has to be hard for her to be excluded. It doesn’t help that her new friend in life, Chase, is away at training.

Everyone stayed for a pretty long time. Eventually we all made our way home and the night drew to a close. I couldn’t read the book I had read on the way up, Negotiating for Dummies, so I decided to sleep .

Christmas morning, I woke up at the bright hour of 10:00am. It wasn’t long after that we opened presents. Santa brought the family Scene It Deluxe Movie Edition 2 so we played that a bit and watched Christmas movies on TV. The day was spent relaxing with the family and it was very enjoyable. Elizabeth stopped by late at night after her family event had concluded. She stayed pretty late which was surprising considering we would be going skating the next morning. It’s a family tradition of hers to go skating the day after Christmas. Braving the winter weather she headed home around 2:00am and I was relieved to get a message saying she had made it home safe. My Christmas 2007 came to a close then as I went to bed to get some well needed rest.  I would need it, for the next day we would play hockey and skate.

And there you have it! The great Christmas wrap up of 2007. The culmination of a month or so of shopping and hours of preparation and cooking. I hope everyone had a wonderful time, I certainly did.

The Pre-Christmas Warm Up

Posted by on December 24, 2007 No comments

If you haven’t noticed, it’s been a few days since I’ve last posted.  A very influential reader informed me that it would be best if I did so again.

I feel I can not be blamed for the passing of time and of the rate at which it travels.  To me the past few days have blended into one giant super day.  It is mostly the effect of a multi day graduation celebration.  A number of us made trips to Minneapolis (or stayed there since some live there) and we got our “party on” as the kids (ha!) say these days.  Greg found it in his infinite wisdom to purchase a Breathalyzer.  We turned it into a game of sorts and were certainly surprised by the results.  The most interesting part of the night occurred when JJ while playing wingman happened to be the only one to come out “victorious”.  JJ ended up staying and chatting with the girl when the rest of us decided to get out of his hair and head to KHK to see Quigley.  He was a wonderful host but that doesn’t change the fact that my desk is better than his.  Afterwards we stopped at the lovely Burrito Loco to get some food.  Back at Chops’ place Greg and Elizabeth quickly slipped off to dreamland after finishing their Loco. They were the top players in the Breathalyzer Olympics.  Elizabeth being the winner with a BAC of .21.  Chops and I entertained ourselves by making a video of JJ’s empty room and then watched TV while we waited for JJ to return.  JJ showed up in short notice to inform us of the anticlimactic end to his evening.  Unsurprisingly the girl was not JJ’s type and who could blame him?  It’s not that he didn’t have the chance to make things happen, it’s just he is a better guy than that.  Still, it was something out of the usual and that is always a good time.   That was pretty much the end of that evening.

Saturday was quality time with Elizabeth.  We just relaxed the whole day together.  Moments like that are far and few between.  It is wonderful when we get to enjoy each others company alone for so long.  It had rained the previous evening and sequentially dropped back below freezing so I had to veraciously scrape off my car.  The roads were pretty nightmarish when driving Elizabeth back home.  Capped off the evening with some COD4 and some ranked doubles in Halo3 with JJ.  We pretty much rocked everyone we played by a good measure.

My effort to go to sleep early last night failed.  (I blame myself, although JJ could hold a close second.)  Which in turn threw my plans to wake up early and finish my Christmas Shopping into blarney.  (English references ftw!)  Woke up around 4:00pm.  Found, to my wonderful surprise, that my parents had cleared out the middle stall of the garage so that it could now be used to berth a car like it was intended.  Thus, scrapping ice from my car as previously detailed has come to an end.  It was with good timing as today we were hit by a good dose of snow and wind.  So at around 5:00pm I headed out into the storm to finish my Cristmas shopping.  I still had my sister, Secret Santa and few more items to purchase for Elizabeth.  I headed over to W******* L**** and W**-M*** to make my purchases.  I was lucky I had woken up so early (</sarcasm>) because W******* L**** was closing at 6:00pm.  I stopped in 3 different stores and was able to pick up some gifts for my sister and Elizabeth.  With still a few things in mind I headed off to W**-M***, the store that never closes.  I was able to pick up the remainder of my gifts for all three people.  Total time was 40mins for that shopping trip.  Given the terrible driving conditions and the amount of walking between stores I must stay that I deserve some kind of medal.  The only demerit I deserve was forgetting a battery for the garage remote.  A23 battery?  Honestly, what the crap kind of battery is that.

I must reiterate that people are terrible drivers.  You live in Minnesota.  It’s going to snow.  It kind of happens every year.  Long term memory exist for a reason!  Remove head from arse!

Able to rest having completed all my shopping I spent some quality time with the parents.  We prepared for the family Christmas Eve party while Discovery Channel was on in the background.  (A cool show about a couple living with Wolves in Idaho.)  My Dad helped prep the Turkey, my Mom made the stuffing and I made the Chex Mix.  I had to improvise a bit because of the size of the batch we were making but it turned out well.  (Kind of hard to screw up.)  When we were done cooking and the show about the wolves was over we switched it over to Comedy Central where we watched Trading Places.  As the night drew to a close and the show was over, I retreated to the basement for some COD4 with Chad.  We tried to get JJ to play with us, but he his home for the holidays and doesn’t have the mechanical means to connect to Xbox live.

And now we come to the present hour and find me wrapping up this post with a cliche conclusion.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas Eve and if you are having a party, party in moderation.  Enjoy the holiday season and be safe on the roads.  Merry Chirstmas everyone.