Mike's Blog

Priority Pro - Beta Release

2008-06-20T09:20:00.005-06:00

For the past month or so, I've been working on an organizer for myself. It's called Priority Pro (click HERE to download it) and it's sole purpose is to make organization as quick and simple as possible while providing you with powerful tools in case you might need them. To achieve this, it integrates Google's Calendar, Gmail, and Documents online applications with a handy to do list feature. Below are a few screenshots of the program. The top is the calendar, the bottom is the to do list and settings windows. Click them to see the full screenshot.

The beta release is free and will help me find some bugs in it. Feel free to download and distribute the program to friends/family as you please. If you find bugs or have any ideas about improving the program, drop me an e-mail and I'll either fix the bug or consider using your suggestion.

Gosh I'm bad at this...

2008-06-11T15:16:00.002-06:00

Currently listening to: Opeth - The Lotus Eater

It seems every time I update this thing, it's been months since the last update. Anyways, here goes...

First the bad news... My cousin Kelly has been fighting alcoholism for quite some time now. Eventually, her cirrhosis got so bad that doctors told her she would die if the drinking didn't stop. The addiction was too strong and she didn't listen. Internal bleeding started, her kidneys and liver shut down, and she slipped into a coma a few days ago. Unfortunately, she passed away today... She'll be missed :/

On a happier note, my internship with GM is going quite well. I'm in Detroit again for the summer, but this time doing work I actually enjoy. Luckily I was placed in the Emulation group, which I already knew quite a few people from. Officially, here's my job description: Develop software to generate memory maps for the PLC's so that we can plug them into Demo3D, emulate the factory environments, and verify that PLC logic is correct and the factory environments are set up properly. Quite a mouthful, eh? In Lehman's terms, I'm writing programs that automate the process of verifying all factory layouts and electronics are good before we install them. Since writing programs is right up my alley, I'm fairly happy with it. On top of that, my co-workers and roommates are pretty cool.

A few weeks ago, some friends and I went to see the Red Bull Air Race. In case you're not quite sure what entails an "air race", picture this: Airplanes fly through the start gate at 230 mph, 20 feet above the water. They race through giant, inflatable floating gates, pulling turns so tight that their wings are literally straight up and down. They make it to one end of the course, then pull a 9G turn (a turn that puts a force 9 times as strong as gravity on your body, making most people black out), then fly back to the beginning, pull a loop, and repeat once more. It's incredible. Here's a cool VIDEO. Let me know if it doesn't work. There will be some pictures up on Facebook shortly, so keep an eye out there if you're interested.

Last weekend I headed home to help out with Duke. Apparently my family's having quite a difficult time taking care of him. I'm not quite sure what's going on there- he was an angel the entire time I was home. Anyways, I was really happy to spend some time with the family. We went out for Mom's birthday on Friday night to a place called Bella, a nice Italian restaurant in Blaine. They had some amazing food and a pretty chill atmosphere, so I'd suggest it to anyone that likes Italian. I had the cappellini. On Saturday, we went out to dinner for Jenny's birthday at Joe's Garage, which is a cool restaurant near Loring Park. They also had some great food- I had the walleye with pico de gallo, chipotle cream sauce, and garlic mashed potatoes. Delicioso. We got to eat out on the roof too, which was cool.

Anywho, hopefully we'll be going on some cool trips this summer. I'll keep you guys posted and post some pictures for sure.

Lata.

Pirate Bay Facing More Legal Attacks

2007-11-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

While doing some research for my Intellectual Property class, I came across a few amusing articles about Pirate Bay. For those of you who don't know what Pirate Bay is, here's a quick rundown. They were started in 2003 by a Swedish anti-copyright organization, Piratbyrån, but have since separated. The site, thepiratebay.org, is a bit-torrent tracking website that basically enables LOTS of people to easily find and download files from other users sharing them. However, most of these files are copyrighted and so obviously, many bodies around the world have serious issues with the site. However, they've withstood many legal attacks so far.

Here are a few links to some recent articles about them:

I found the first article interesting just because this is one of the few organizations able to withstand the legal assaults regarding copyright infringement that seem to be becoming more and more prevalent. The current administrators are quite confident in their ability to fight these attacks off, which I think is pretty cool.

For being such a huge part of our society, music prices are ridiculous, especially for music that's increasingly worthless. Artists, who in my opinion, are making increasingly repetitive, monotonous, and overall pathetic music are making MILLIONS. Not to knock on one specific genre, but main stream rap is a great example. I could write the lyrics to most of those songs in 2 minutes. Not only that, but do you seriously want to pay for and condone crap like "I'm gangsta cuz I kill people, have a million girls all over me, I'm so cool"? I for one don't. Again, in my opinion, junk music like that is only polluting the airwaves and not doing any good for anyone. You can already see the effects everywhere too- I'm only 22 and I already think kids nowadays are being surrounded with garbage. Granted, some music is great. Many artists put a lot of hard work and effort into their pieces and the result is music that enriches a lot of peoples' lives. THOSE artists are the ones that deserve the money. However, no one deserves the millions of dollars that the big time artists are receiving.

I don't think the solution is Pirate Bay (or stealing music in general), but I think they're giving some power back to the consumers of music and helping to make a statement in general. WE are the ones that control prices, not the media companies. Our society has demonstrated its inability to control its consumption and companies play off that factor a LOT. At the same time, I think people should still buy an album if they really do enjoy it. Currently, I don't buy much music because I can't afford it- I have far better things to spend the money on. Once I've graduated and am making a decent amount of money though, I fully intend to purchase music from the artists I think came up with worthy material.

Some Amazing Music

2007-10-18T10:00:00.000-06:00

I realize this gets imported into Facebook too, so those of you who actually read my notes on that site, ignore this.

For those of you that don't, DEFINITELY check this out. The John Butler Trio is an amazing band that has a sound pretty much anyone can listen to and seriously enjoy. This specific song has to be one of the most amazing guitar instrumentals I've ever heard. If you like this video, head over to JohnButlerTrio.com and buy the album "Live at St. Gallen". Grand National is another great album- I've yet to listen to all of them yet though.

Let me know what you think.

The Breakup...

2007-10-16T13:01:00.001-06:00

Currently listening to: Porcupine Tree - Blackest Eyes

Alright I have to get this off my chest. As some of you may know, I have a new girlfriend and I've gotten some flak for the whole breakup with Cassie as it seems quite shady at first glance. Several people seem to think the reasons I gave for the breakup were bogus.

I'm aware that actions speak louder than words. However, that doesn't mean words aren't part of the story. A lot of people have been taking those 2.5 years of the relationship and flushing it down the drain, hardly making attempts to work out the details in what happened before judging me. The reasons I gave were truthful and I meant every bit of it from the heart. If you doubt that, please talk to me and I'll explain myself further.

Unfortunately, the timing of my new girlfriend coming into the picture was horrible. She was most definitely a catalyst in the whole situation, but no where near a reason for breaking up with Cassie. She simply made me realize a few important things about my life that impacted the situation.

A combination of my own life's changes and future circumstances changed the situation with Cassie and I broke up with her for completely legitimate reasons. I've explored those reasons and NOW I've moved on. I know this might seem a bit awkward to post about, but I'm incredibly sick of being wrongly accused by those who supposedly love(d) me because they won't look a little bit deeper into a situation.

If you'd like to know more about what happened, feel free to ask me.

22.... What?!

2007-10-08T16:31:00.000-06:00

Currently listening to: Soil - Halo

I can't really believe I'm almost 22. It seems just a few months back I was thinking "Oh man... I'm 21?!" Times flies though and this summer went especially quickly.

Speaking of summer: Everyone I met at GM last year is already talking about our new offers for internships next summer, so we've decided to room together where possible and then we'll all hang out on the weekends. A few of us will be based in Warren (where we all were last summer) and a few will be in Milford, which is about 40 minutes from Warren. Luckily, friends working at Milford means we get to test drive cars... hehehe. They've upped our pay this year to $3,900 per month. O_O. Yeah...

We're also organizing a week long trip down to either northern New Mexico (where there are actually mountains... yes I know some people are amazed by that) or Colorado to go snowboarding. Obviously everyone's quite excited for that... Hopefully I'll be learning a few new tricks here at Mt. Ripley so I can try them out on so bigger and more fun jumps/rails out west. Regardless, it's going to be a blast to shred the hill all day with great friends and then just come back and have fun at the hotel or out on the town.

Things in Houghton are going pretty well. I've almost completely gotten over the dread of getting up at 7 every morning for my 8 o'clock class. My brain still doesn't quite function perfectly at that hour, but it's getting there.

The last few weeks have been a torrent of rain. I believe it has rained at least a tiny bit every single day for quite awhile now, with most days completely overcast. I love any kind of adverse weather though, so I'm actually enjoying it.

Anyways, I suppose it's time to get back to homework.

Which way...

2007-09-22T16:17:00.000-06:00

I don't even know why I'm writing this online, but I guess maybe some input on the issue would be nice (if anyone even reads this...).

I've come to a turning point in my life. Throughout the years, there have been quite a few big changes in my life, but one thing has remained constant. Ever since the 3rd grade, when my family moved away from Prior Lake, I don't think I've had more than 3 or 4 real friends. If you're looking for names, I'm not giving any out. I'm sorry to anyone that offends- maybe my view of a friend is just way out of whack. Before I continue though, I'll have you know that I enjoy being around every single one of you and I consider you all friends, at least on my half of the equation.

However, here's the thing that pisses me off. It seems that for every 25 times I ask people if they'd like to go do something fun, I get a "yes" maybe once. There's always some lame excuse like, "I'm too busy," "I'd like to, but I have this going on," or something too. Then later on that night or the next day, they're out with other people doing just the activity I suggested and they magically made it happen. Do people really just not like me but not have the balls to tell me or quit leading me on? If so, for the love of God, quit pretending to be my friend and just tell me. I'm sick of tagging along like the annoying little kid brother that can't hang out with the "cool" kids.

Before this summer, I did think my view of a friend was out of whack. I thought maybe my ideas were a bit too ambitious. Then I met an awesome group of people. These people renewed my hope of actually finding some real friends. I had the most amazing summer of my entire life- hands down. It seems that fact has aggravated at least one person so far. So if you find yourself in the same position, ask yourself when the last time you noticed I wasn't around was. I bet most people would be hard pressed to remember a single instance.

With all that said, I'm beginning to think I just don't fit in here and that it's time to move on...

Back At It.

2007-09-18T17:20:00.000-06:00

Currently listening to : Iced Earth - Dante's Inferno

Well, I'm back at school. Classes started and they're going well, so I'm excited for this semester. I'm pretty glad to be programming again and I'm actually going to try to expand what I know about other languages while also branching out into web design. That might mean my own site later on that's not hosted through Blogspot. We'll see. One of the things I'm excited about is programming my own calendar/to-do list. It'll be free and Java-based (for those of you who don't know what Java is, this will basically mean it doesn't matter what OS you're running- Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, etc...) so if any of you might be interested in it, be sure to keep an eye on this blog for info on how far along it is.

As I'm sure many of you have heard, Cassie and I broke up about a month ago now. The decision was mine and I made it for a few reasons. I'm not going to go over them here, but if you want to know them, feel free to ask.

Sorry for the short update, but it's back to homework.

Wow, it's been a long time...

2007-06-27T08:51:00.001-06:00

Currently listening to: He Is Legend - Suck Out the Poison

It's been a super, super long time since I last posted in here, so I'll give a little rundown of what's happened.

I'm interning at General Motors again in Detroit for the summer. My job assignment basically consists of ensuring that a conveyor system for a new plant gets built. It's pretty annoying because it has nothing what so ever to do with my major, but at least it's good money for the summer ($3150/month and they pay for my rent, utilities, internet, cable, etc...). They acted like I'd never told them I had changed my major, even though that wasn't the case at all. Then when I complained this year, nothing was done to move me into a job that was related.

However, I got super lucky with my roommates and friends this year. My roomies are both awesome and we've had a blast so far, so I'm really glad to be rooming with them. Jose is from Puerto Rico and Michael's from Texas. It's been fun talking to them and hearing about all of the differences that exist between the places we all live. I've also met a lot of cool interns and to be honest, I'm actually kind of sad I'll probably never see them again after this summer.

A couple weekends ago we went off-roading at a place called Mounds, which is about an hour north of us (near Flint, MI). That was a blast, but my truck took quite the beating from it. We drowned the distributor, which killed the truck for an hour and a half until it dried out. I sank the truck in 2 mud holes, snapped my 30,000 lb tow strap getting out of one of them, and ripped a few plastic screws out in my fender liners. A tree also attacked the right side of the truck, so now I have a big scrape on my door. But it was the most fun off-roading I've ever had, so it was worth it! I bought the truck to beat on it and still be able to get around and it's done a good job so far. Some other GM interns came out with us, we went camping, and just had a good time. We learned a lot of the small town people in this area are nowhere near as friendly as home, but oh well.

Last weekend we went camping in Ontario at a place called Wheatley, which was really fun too. We did some fishing on Lake Erie, relaxed on the beach, had some awesome camp fires, etc... We also took a trip down to Point Pelee National Park in Ontario. It's the only place in the world (I believe) where waves collide with each other from completely opposite directions on a normal basis. The point is super long and narrow. We took a shuttle out there and then walked a boardwalk out to the tip and it was pretty cool. I'll have pictures on Facebook shortly- I'm catching up on them all! Once I do, I'll post links in here.

This weekend I head home for the 2-week July shutdown here at GM. I'll be home from this Friday (hopefully) until next Sunday. After that, I'm coming back for the second week of shutdown to work and earn some more money. I'm really excited to see everyone though and have a good time hanging out for July 4th!

Wise words about our country...

2007-03-19T12:16:00.000-06:00

Here are some lyrics from a song called "Ignition" by Trivium. Most of you would definitely not like the music, but the lyrics do a great job of describing some of our country's actions lately:

Raise the guns at every self-made suspicion
Build the bombs, corrupt policy's decision
Thats the sound of integrity breaking its back
In a country founded as a thievery act

Raise the guns at every self-made suspicion
Build the bombs corrupt policy's decision
Times are dark with our children spoon-fed ignorance
Inheritance of an anxious trigger finger

Raise the guns at every self-made suspicion
Build the bombs corrupt policy's decision
Our leaders preach if we disagree
We're the traitors of society
Homophobia, racism, and sexism
Our systems breed supremacy

Ignition, inception
Burning is a fuse to destruction
Break the walls of ignorance
To disarm the world for its last chance
Ignition, inception
Burning is a fuse to destruction
Break the walls of ignorance
To disarm the world for its last chance

Time again for a war on an enemy that isn't real
Creating selfish warlords
Feed the agenda, death's the meal

That's the sound
Impending fear crawling up your spine
In a country, where nothing is truly made clear

Raise the guns at every self made suspicion
Build the bombs corrupt policy's decision

Our leaders preach if we disagree
We're the traitors of society
Homophobia, racism, and sexism
Our systems breed supremacy

Ignition, inception
Burning is a fuse to destruction
Break the walls of ignorance
To disarm the world for its last chance
Ignition, inception
Burning is a fuse to destruction
Break the walls of ignorance
To disarm the world for its last chance

Europe Trip

2007-01-05T01:14:00.000-07:00

Expect some pictures from my trip to Europe last summer to be on here soon....

Finals, Christmas, New Years, etc...

2007-01-05T00:38:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to: Opeth - The Grand Conjuration

Well, the end of the semester went quite well. I finished it up with a 3.76 GPA, which I was happy about, especially considering I arrived 30 minutes late to my computer science one due to an alarm never going off.

Anyways, onto break and relaxing. Awhile before break, Cassie and I took a few day trips: one to Lac la Belle and one to the Porcupine Mountains in Ontonagon. Both were a blast and we got some beautiful pictures. If you'd like to see them, click HERE for the Lac la Belle pics and HERE for the Porcupine Mountains pics.

Then after finals, it was time to head home for winter break. Christmas was awesome and it was a blast to see all of the families again. We all enjoyed it a lot I think and of course got some cool gifts. One of the gifts I got was a tripod, so expect some better pictures now that I have something to stabalize my camera on things like sunsets and what not ;)

After Christmas, I headed down to the Thiels' place for New Years. There was a very grand ol' party there and I got to meet a few new people, which was fun (and of course, so was hanging out with the ones I know!). Cassie's room was recently overhauled and is very, very cool now. She's got an Amish-made bed with dresser to match, along with new paint, new carpet, etc... Dick, Scott, Phil (who I got to meet for the first time and was cool), Allison, and I watched a lot of "Band of Brothers", which they gave me for Christmas. Yesterday morning Cassie, Allison, and I joined Dick at the Sandhill Wildlife Area and checked out some of the traps he'd set for porcupines to do some research. Don't worry, just like the wolves we trapped, nothing hurt them.... It was just to take measurements and stuff. For pics of that, click HERE. Then we hung out with some of Cassie's friends from home, went to Culver's and played some Boggle lol, then went to see "Night at the Museum," which was pretty funny. This morning we got up and headed to Eau Claire to eat a delicious lunch at Famous Dave's with Cassie's grandpa. The food was to die for and it was a good time, but it was also time to head home after that. So here I am, updating my journal, making new photo albums online, and then crashing in bed.

Lots of Thinking

2006-11-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to: Tom Petty - I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately- about a lot of things, too. I'd really like to talk about one specific thing though...

First and foremost, I've had such a wonderful life. I may not have travelled the world (okay, I have a little ;) ), become an incredibly influential person, done anything great for humanity, etc... but I still feel like life's been awesome journey so far. I know you're all probably thinking that an incredibly cliche thing to say, but it's cliche for a reason- life IS incredible and that's just the easiest way to describe it.

I could not ask for anything more than I have now- family, a girlfriend, friends, and the outlook and ability to appreciate them for all they're worth. I've been trying to do a lot more photography lately. My new camera really helped that along since I was pretty stoked to have a nice one. I'm not going to lie- I think I've taken some beautiful pictures with it. But I don't love those pictures because of the credit or praise I get from taking them, though.

It's just a high when I look at that picture and am able to relive that experience. It reminds me of all the happy faces I saw, all the beautiful things in nature, all the intricacies of life, and the simple fact that life is made of lots of ups and downs. Ups wouldn't be ups without downs and downs wouldn't be downs without ups. It also reminds me of how small I am.

Hence the reason I love photography- it has the ability to remind me of all those things, then remind other people, too. Those things all have the power to bring people together and push through borders and boundaries They break us out of the daily grind and our usual trains of thought during it, enabling us to see what the world is really like and all the things we love about it or feel we could fix. They bring about appreciation for all the good things, and change for all the bad. They remind us of the simple commonalities that all humans hold. They bring about the compassion in those of us with the ability to provide or support others and encourage us to do so. They remind us that humanity should struggle together to survive, not struggle with eachother to survive.

Lion Mutilates 42 Midgets in Cambodian Ring-Fight

2006-11-28T10:07:00.000-07:00

THIS is a hilarious BBC article.

Pics from My 21st Birthday

2006-10-25T12:39:00.000-06:00

HERE are some pics from my 21st birthday party at the Ambassador here in Houghton.

Woops, it's been awhile...

2006-10-16T12:48:00.000-06:00

So, I'm finally 21... On my birthday, some friends took me out to the Amabassador (an awesome restaurant up here) for BLT, Tostado, and Garlic Chicken pizzas and a few drinks. I had a thing called a fishbowl- basically it's a big wine glass that you can get whatever you want in, so I had a raspberry lemonade with some whiskey and Triple Sec in it. After that we headed over to the Keweenaw Brewing Company (KBC, a locally microbrewery) where I had a six beer sampler of all the beer they brew. Then Joe, Matt, and the bartender at the DT (also a local bar) bought me a few shots. Contrary to what most of you are probably thinking, I did NOT get trashed :P I was perfectly sober and fine by then end of the night, so it was fun. There's no sense in getting sick because of alcohol on your birthday- that'd defeat the point of having fun.

Cassie's folks were up last weekend and took me out to the North Shore Grill, where we had some excellent food (I had elk chops). The next day we went up to the Harbor Haus before it closes for the winter and had some excellent food there too.

Then I went home for a huge family birthday party for my brothers, my aunt, and myself. We got together at Grandma's house and had some delicious food, opened presents (so money lol) and then visited St. Thomas with our cousins. My step-grandpa Bob also dropped off a CB radio for my truck, Emma and Sam bought me a set of jumper cables, and Jenny got me a book about every nation's air force, so that was all really cool to get. It was really fun to see everyone again too, I always love going home to do that.

Anyhow, I'm back up at school now and it's going well, too. Speaking of which, I must be on my way to Psychology, so I'm off. I'll update next weekend too, probably.

Offroading Again

2006-08-30T18:57:00.000-06:00

Sooo we went offroading again today. We met up with some friends from Sigma Tau Gamma, which used to have a cook named Clive. Clive owned a very small cabin right on Lake Superior, along with the land around it. He died awhile ago, but before he did he told the Sig Tau guys that they could go ride out there any time they wanted, even stay at the cabin once in awhile. I'd been there once my first year up at Tech and loved the ride out there, so we went there again today. We invited our friend Dana to come along, so she did.

Today the trails were a bit rougher. We got the truck pretty muddy today and crawled through a lot of puddles and cool ruts. At the end of the trail is the cabin. The shore is made up completely of sandstone and it's beautiful, so we got a lot of cool pictures HERE.

Moving up to School and Offroading

2006-08-28T23:51:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm back up at school. The move-in went smoothly and the apartment's pretty much completely set up, after some help from my dad and Cassie. It's a nice little studio right on the main street that leads through campus, so it's in a very convenient location. I'm living next door to my buddy Nick now and Cassie's just down the street- about a block away.

Last weekend Cassie's folks came up and we took a trip down to their land in Crystal Falls, MI. We cut up some trees that had fallen, then watched the dog swim for a bit, talked about the cabin that's going to be built withing the next couple of years, and headed back home through Marquette, stopping at Culver's on the way.

Today Cassie and I felt like doing some exploring on our own, so we took my truck and did some light offroading on a few logging trails up north. There are miles upon miles of beautiful trails just south of Copper Harbor (which is the far northern tip of the Keweenaw), so we drove around back there, packed some food, and got some great pictures which can be seen HERE. We found a little area where water had backed up (we think from where a beaver had built a dam), so we decided to take some pictures because it was beautiful. Well then we noticed a beaver swimming around in it. We just froze, kept quiet, took pictures, and eventually the beaver came within about 10 feet of us... We also got some good pictures of a a frog, painted box turtles, and a cool caterpillar in the same area. On the way back, we drove up Brockway Mountain to check out the awesome view, then headed home.

Tonight we hung out at our friend Billy's house, caught up with some friends, and watched "Inside Man," which is a very good movie in case any of you haven't seen it.

This coming weekend we're heading down to Tomah and picking my friend Bobby up on the way, then spending the Labor Day weekend in Tomah and heading back up to Tech with Bobby. He'll stay here for a week, then head home. Everyone should be back up at school by then, so we should have a blast.

Wolf Trapping & Lynyrd Skynyrd

2006-08-11T15:28:00.000-06:00

Well, two nights ago was the long-awaited Lynyrd Skynyrd show at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. As we entered the place we realized how many people were there and just how insane leaving was going to be. So anyways, we started walking in and they were checking all of our chairs and stuff for anything dangerous or items like cameras, etc... Scott had a little pocket knife on him so they made him go back to the car (which was a million miles away) and drop it off. I managed to sneak my camera phone in though, so HERE are a few pictures. Both Lynyrd Skynyrd and their opening acts were nothing special, but we did have a good time watching drunkards stumble around.

The next morning we headed out to check on some wolf traps that Cassie's dad's group had set up (he's a wolf biologist) on a cranberry bog. A family had reported that a wolf family with 5 pups had been living in/near their cranberry bogs. There were some traps set up around the place and after checking a few, they found one that had caught a small 28 lb pup. They drugged it, then bandaged up the wound from the trap. Despite all the blood in the PICTURES, he was totally fine. They tagged him, tried to radio collar him (but he weighed too little), then released him. We also got to see one of the parent wolves on the edge of the bog, which was really cool.

Hanging Out with the Thiels

2006-08-07T15:18:00.000-06:00

This weekend was awesome. On friday night, I drove down to Tomah, then left in the morning with Cassie's mom and grandma (Deb & Loretta) to go to a birthday party for a 98 yr old woman. It was fun meeting a bunch of new people, along with a pontoon ride, playing po-ke-no (bingo with cards), visiting Deb & Loretta's old hometown, etc... We stayed with Loretta's sister, Alice, that night, then headed out in the morning to Chicago to pick Cassie up from the airport.

O'Hare is a pretty cool airport and it was quite easy getting there, so we had a bunch of time to kill before Cassie arrived. So we decided to hit up the Cold Stone Creamery for some reeeeeeeally good (but rich) ice cream since they'd never been there before. After that, we headed to the airport and waited for a few hours for Cassie's plane to arrive and for her to get through customs. Cassie had no idea I was going to be there too, so I hid behind a pillar and when they walked past, Loretta said, "Are there any bag boys that might be able to help us out here?" and I popped out and said, "Oh I think I could help a lovely lady like her with some bags!" and Cassie started crying lol. She was really happy to see everyone and be home, so we had a good ride back listening to her stories and stuff. Considering it was 11 and Cassie had been up for over 24 hours, we headed to bed.

Then, this morning we woke up and lounged about. Deb made us some awesome food from the garden, then Cassie and I went swimming in the pool. The temp was perfect and we even got J.D. (their little Jack Russell terrier) to swim with us. Afterwards, Cassie was picking some flowers in the garden for the party at her grandma's tonight, so I decided to take some pictures with our new camera. Below are some of those ;)

Audio blogging?! What?!

2006-07-27T07:33:00.000-06:00

That's right. I can now post an audio clip to my blog simply by calling a number on my cell phone from anywhere, recording a post, and hanging up. That's it. Look for that soon :)

Moved from GooglePages to here

2006-07-26T10:50:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone,

I decided to move my blog from GooglePages to here, simply because it's so much easier to archive past entries here. I don't have the webspace to archive my own and I this interface is so easy to use when publishing. Also, you guys can post comments in here now. So from here on out, this is the official source of information from me if I don't talk to you regularly :)

Home-sick

2006-07-20T18:28:00.000-06:00

Currently Listening to: Pink Floyd - Us and Them

Okay, I finally finished up the Europe update. Click each country on the left to check it out.

I also finished my program at work today. The only thing that's left to do is wrap it in an .EXE file so everyone can read it and I'll be done. Then I can use it to finish up analzying the data I downloaded awhile ago, and I'll be competely done at GM. Dad's coming here next weekend to check out where I work, then we're gonna pack up and head home. I'm super excited to see all the family again...

I guess this is the first time I've really been home-sick... Up at school I don't get it because I'm so used to it up there now... Cassie and all my friends are up there too, so... But anways, I guess we're going to start rebuilding the Honda Mini Trail 70 (1 of our mini dirtbikes). I'm really looking forward to that, too. Jeez, I'm just realizing how much stuff is going on right now. I got a new cell phone number and most of you should have gotten an e-mail about it. Just in case, the number's (906) 281-6019. I bought some tickets to the Tool concert on September 16th and I'm soooooooo excited about that! I've wanted to go to a show of theirs for so many years but they sell out instantly. They're supposed to be absolutely insane live, so it's no surprise. Hopefully it'll be Dan, Cassie and I going... although she has no idea I bought them yet, so I guess you can decide if you wanna go now Cass!! :D

France

2006-07-14T17:42:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately, we were misinformed about train times and ended having to take a later, much slower, and sweltering hot train. We were all pretty pissed off about that because there was no air, the windows barely opened, we weren't brought food like they said we would be, and we were out of water for most the trip. Not only that, but now our reservations to go see Normandy were completely shot, which was a huge thing we wanted to do while in France. Anyhow, we made it to Paris after a long time and took a subway to a hotel we found. We all took a much-needed shower, and then Cassie and I took the subways to the Eiffel tower. When we got there, we were bummed to find out it was closed for the night and that we couldn't eat in the restaurant inside of it. We got some good pictures though and ran into some drunk French teenagers that offered us whiskey, lol. They informed us that the metro (subway) was closing at a certain time, but we'd planned on walking back to our hotel anyways. So we started walking, got some dinner at a place that charged 6 euros for a bottle of water lol, then headed back to the hotel. On the way back we got some awesome pictures of the Eiffel tower and of some statue on the bridge, then caught a cab after we realized it was going to be way too long of a walk.

The next morning, we headed to the most retarded airport I've ever seen in my entire life- Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport. There were no signs telling which terminals housed which airlines, which buses went where, which check-in facilities belonged to which airline, etc... Two people told us to go to the wrong terminals, then finally a bus driver knew the correct one. Then, some guy at the check-in line asked me where I was going...

Him: "Boston or Chicago?"
Me: "Neither... Detroit..."

That went on for about 5 minutes before some other lady realized he was being a moron and helped me out lol. So I said my goodbyes to Cassie and Allie (which sucked), then headed out.

The flight back was quite interesting... I lucked out and got Business (First) class, which is absolutely amazing on international flights. The chairs recline to a full sleeping position, you get realy nice headphones, an entertainment system complete with music, movies, etc... that flips out with an LCD screen from your seat, 2 full 4 course meals, the whole works! The guy sitting next to me was making small talk and I ended up telling him that I was flying standby because my dad worked for the airlines. He goes "Is your dad anybody at NWA?" and it confused me a bit, but I just answered yes. Well within 2 seconds I realized what the snob meant. The guy goes "Tell your father that the service on these European flights is TERRIBLE. The Asian service is okay, but Europe is bad," depsite the fact that the flight attendants could not have babied us more... They didn't bother us, yet they gave us anything we wanted. He went on an on complaing about how he had booked coach seats with his wife, then tried to upgrade them with their frequent flyer miles. Well they were on separate accounts, so he couldn't use his miles to help her our when she ran out. So he made her sit in coach alone while he took first class.... nice, eh? I was fed up with hearing him at this point so I just started to try and get him to stop talking to me. Eventually I think he got the picture and ended up moving seats to somewhere else in first class lol.

Spain

2006-07-13T17:40:00.000-06:00

Oye, oye, oye.... we did so much yet so little in Spain. The vast majority of the time we were there was in Gandia, a small town on the Mediterranean Sea. Juan, a friend of Allie's, was basically our tour guide the entire time. He showed us around to various places (listed above), took us to good restaurants, etc... Also, he has a flat that's a block and a half away from the beach in Gandia. So needless to say, we swam a LOT. It was a blast being in the ocean again- it's been way too long. The water was super salty, but the waves were really fun to jump into and all that. As we were leaving the beach the first time, a sea shell cut a huge gouge into the bottom of my big toe, slicing about a nickel-sized chunk of skin out. Of course, I wasn't too happy about that considering I'm already recovering from a freak accident affecting my foot. So we walked back, got it all bandaged up and it was fine the rest of the trip. Haha one day Cassie and I were walking to the store though and I had my shoes on without socks- something I do fairly often, I never seem to get blisters. Well apparently this time was different... I couldn't even feel the blister forming on the back of my heel (since that's the leg with the messed up nerve) until it was huge lol, so then I had yet another thing wrong with my right foot... Anyhow, we took some walks along the beach at night, checked out the local night life a bit, etc...

After Gandia, Juan took us back to his real flat in Valencia for a few days. We toured the town a bit, saw a huge flower mural dedicated to the Pope since he was visiting at the time, and ate at a few cool restaurants. It seems I never got enough food there, but that could be because they eat so late.... Most Spaniards eat at like 9 or 10 at night, it's crazy. Another of Allie's friends, Jose, took us out on his sailboat. That was just awesome.... we went maybe a mile off shore, then just drifted and swam for a bit, ate some snacks, then dilly-dallied back to the harbor while we slept on the deck. We also got to see the America's Cup area, which was built for a year-long sailing contest. We visited this really posh, uppity bar/lounge place and had some fun, then went home.

We also got to see Juan's and the other Jose's university, which was cool. We watched Italy win the World Cup match there, then toured the town a bit more. The next day we all headed out to a pretty remote little town called Alcublas, where Renee (actually a Spanish guy's name) has a little place. There were flies EVERYWHERE but the countryside was beautiful. I got a few pictures of the flowes and almond trees out there, so I'll post those.The next day, we had to leave Juan and hopped a train to Paris.

Valencia

2006-07-12T18:27:00.000-06:00

Well, currently I´m in Valencia, Spain. Sorry it´s been so long since the last update, but we haven´t had a decent amount of internet access until now. If you want to see if the entries for each country, click the link on the left to whatever country you want to see my entries for it. I wrote them based purely off memory today so they´re not too detailed, but you´ll get the picture. The first day, I flew out of Detroit and into Minneapolis, where Dad gave me my passport and a few other things I needed, then I flew out of Minneapolis after waiting for a few flights and into Amsterdam. Check out the Holland section for more. The order of my trip was: Holland, Italy, Spain, France. As of right now, we have a lot of pictures but can´t put them online yet. I´ll be posting a link in here to an online photo album later, along with posting a few key ones in here.

Italy - Third Day

2006-07-04T17:39:00.000-06:00

After Venice, we caught a train to Milano. We spent the night in a hostel near the train station, which was okay. They told us we would have air conditioning and we didn´t, so we got our money back. It was extremely hot though, so it was sorta miserable sleeping. Now here´s the funny part: There were a couple people just going at it in the room next to us when we got there. So to distract ourselves from it, we watched Italy play in the semi-finals match for the World Cup. They won, and the entire city went ballistics. The people next to us stopped having sex, and anyone who had a car was flying down the streets, waving an Italian flag, and honking their horns non-stop. Everyone hung flags out of their windows and yelled, etc.... We got some good video footage of it, so I´ll post that. The next morning, we flew out to Valencia, Spain.

Italy - Second Day

2006-07-03T17:38:00.000-06:00

The next morning we got up and headed to the train station in Tuscany, where we caught a train into Venice. Venice is an AWESOME city. The canals make the landscape completely different from that of any other. We stashed our stuff in the hostel (which was right by the train station), then took a little stroll while the sun set. The train station sits right on the main canal, so we got to see tons of stuff. We didn´t go on a gondola ride, unfortunately, because they´re suuuuper expensive. But we walked around saw some cool stuff, listened to some guys play music in front of a church for awhile and danced with some locals, then headed back. The next day was insane. In the morning, we headed out to the tour boats, which took us around to all the different islands in Venice. Each island had it´s own unique little characteristics. Murano had the glass shops, which were really cool. We got to see some glass blowing demonstrations and ne of the guys made a glass horse within a period of maybe a minute, like it was nothing at all. Another island specialized in making lace, so the girls bought some stuff there. I got pictures of the glass stuff and the lace island too, so those will be up later. After the boat ride, the girls shopped for HOURS. I about died of boredom, but some of the stuff was kinda cool, especially the glass from Murano. I also had the best pizza I´ve ever had in my entire life. So after a long, hard, hot day of shopping, it was back to the hostel.

Italy - First Day

2006-07-02T17:34:00.000-06:00

The flight into Florence was beautiful. It went through some of the Alps, so I could see snow and some really cool cities that were up in the mountains. After arriving, I took a bus into the main train station in Florence, where I met Cassie, Allie, and Deb. Cassie and I were obviously really excited to see eachother. We all headed out into the town and walked around. We went to see the statue of David at a museum and as we were contemplating standing in the 2 1/2 hour line, we saw my friend Jonathan Hatch from Edina! I did a double take a first and when Cass, Allie, and Deb saw me say hi to him they were all sort of blown away I met a friend within an hour of being in Italy. So we all talked for a bit while we stood in line and then eventually, we got into the museum. It was really cool to see so much old art, but unfortunately we weren´t allowed to take pictures at all. After the museum, we grabbed some groceries at a local deli, then took the train back to Tuscany and had an awesome spaghetti dinner with the rest of the people staying at the hostel. Everyone there was really cool, so we hung out at the table talking for awhile, then went for a swim. There was a kid from Whales and another from Pittsburgh who were both pretty trashed from the wine. The Pittsburgh kid (Lee) decided to skinny dip in the pool since his swim trunks were a whole 100 feet away in the hostel. Then Owen (from Whales) decided to join and Lee had a ball pretending like he was hitting on Cassie´s mom. Then, before heading to sleep that night, we realized Allie had been stung by a scorpion the night before...

Amsterdam

2006-07-01T17:28:00.000-06:00

Today was a loooong day. I got up at 4:45 a.m. and Isaiah drove me to the airport in Detroit. I ended up not getting on the first couple of flights out because they were packed for the 4th of July weekend. I met a couple people from Minnesota at the airport though and we all ended up flying to Appleton, WI together, then I got a flight before them back to Minneapolis out of there. Since I didn´t make it to Minneapolis at the intended time, Dad brought my stuff to me at the airport (my passport, some blank CD-Rs, etc...) and then it was off to catch a flight to Amsterdam. I ended up having to wait a few flights, but I made it on the last one and it could not have been better timing. The flight left at 9 p.m. and we had an awesome airplane (an A330) which had in-seat entertainment systems in every single seat. The flight got into Amsterdam at noon the next day, so I felt virtually no jet-lag whatsoever. The flight out of Amsterdam to Florence, Italy had already left at 10 a.m. so I booked a hotel for the night and took a walk around the City Centre. It was an awesome city and had a crazy social scene, but it was incredibly dirty. Garbage was everywhere in the streets. But I went and grabbed some food at a local pizza place, had a Heineken (after all, it´s brewed in Holland) and watched the England-Portugal World Cup match. The the morning, an airport shuttle picked me up and after heckling with the gate agents who knew NOTHING about the open-ended ticket I was using to fly standby, I finally got on the flight to Florence, Italy.

Gotta get out!

2006-06-28T18:23:00.000-06:00

Maaaaaan I cannot WAIT to get out of this place. I'm so close to finishing this program but there's some really weird bug I can't fix. At least in the next couple days I'll pretty much be preoccupied in getting ready for this trip but at work I just can't help of thinking about how much I wanna get out of this town. Not only am I excited because of Europe, I'm just sick of the whole scene around here. The city's layout, look, feel, the work, etc... is just old now, despite only being here for 9 weeks so far. The trip will be awesome, then it's only 1 more week of work before I leave GM. After that I have a month or so to do whatever I want, but I get the feeling that'll just be boring because I need SOMETHING to do. A couple weeks before school starts I'll head up there, so I guess 2-3 weeks of nothing won't be too bad, haha. Sorry I'm not in the best mood, but I just don't like it here and there's so much to look forward to once I'm out. Anyhow, back to work.

The mall and pre-Europe

2006-06-26T18:26:00.000-06:00

Currently Listening to: Nonpoint - The Wreckoning

This weekend actually went pretty well. Friday and Saturday I was bored out of my mind, but Sunday I went out to lunch with Scott at Somerset's food court. Somerset's a huge mall for incredibly rich people.... There's a Gucci, Sak's Fifth Avenue, etc... We checked out the Bose store, which rocked. They had a mini theater setup with their Lifestyle system. We walked in and there were huge speakers, a couple receivers, etc... and they all looked real. But then after hearing all this amazing sound, they took off the fake covers to reveal 2''x2'' speakers that were making all that sound. Not only that, but they completely covered up one of the speakers with a wooden box and the system listened to itself, then corrected the sound so you couldn't even tell the box covered that speaker. Pretty cool, huh? Too bad it'll run you $3,000. After the mall, we watched the new Jet Li movie, "Fearless". It's not even out in theaters yet but Scott's got a friend who's in an exclusive file sharing group. TERRIBLE subtitles, but definitely a good movie with both plot and action. After that, we all headed out to dinner with Vanessa and Chanel at Champp's, which was fun.

I absolutely cannot wait for this week to be over, but I know it's going to be soooooo slow. Hopefully on Saturday I'll be leaving for Italy! The flight will require at least a transfer in Amsterdam, possibly Detroit or Boston. I have to fly home to grab a few things before I leave and to get my passport, so it's sorta weird that I'd be flying back into Detroit again. However, flying out of Minneapolis gives me a few more options I think. I really don't care how I get there- just that I get to see Italy, Spain, and France with Cassie.

Anyhow, I better keep crackalackin' on my program so it's finished this week.

Stupid roomies...

2006-06-23T18:03:00.000-06:00

Currently Listening to: Trivium - The End of Everything
I gotta get this off my chest because it's bugging me like crazy. Usually, I play Counter-Strike (an online PC game) every night with my friends. Some of these friends are actually from back home and I know them. Others I've just played with online for a long time and we're good friends now because of it. Usually I wouldn't play that much, but during the week, there's just nothing else to do without spending money. That may sound rediculous, but read further and hear me out. Well, here's the deal: My roommates keep saying stuff like "Haha, I wish I could be like Mike and play CS all night, every night." Yesterday I took a glance over at the TV while waiting for a round to end and asked them a perfectly normal question about it and they just go "Shut up Mike, we're not gonna answer that," and then claimed it was because I was being too loud on voice chat with my friends and it was annoying. They made a huge deal out of it, but never even asked me to quiet down. I have my big headphones (which is so I'm curteous to them, they can't hear all the gun fire) on so I can't always hear if I'm being too loud, but I gladly would've quieted down if they'd just asked me. Here's my main bone to pick though: First of all, when I have other stuff to do, I do it. I stay active by working out and going for a a run every other day, I go to social events, obviously make dinner every night, all that. So when we all come home at night, they sit and watch TV all night while I play Counter-Strike. TV involves no interaction except amongst themselves a tiny bit. I, however, am playing with both friends from back home and friends I've made online, interacting constantly and even making more friends. So what's so funny about playing? Not only that, but why the hell do they care in the first place? They have their interests, I have mine. Scott sits and watches the same British car show EVERY day. Isaiah and Kevin are addicted to ESPN... that's literally all they watch. Actually, I take that back. Kevin tapes like at least 3 soccer games a day and hogs the TV at night to watch those, without considering that everyone else might just be a bit sick of soccer. It's just rediculous. I thought people would mature in college and get past all that crap, but I guess not. On a more postive note, the friends I do have now are the best I've ever had. Yesterday was the GM Intern picnic, too. That was a blast- a lot more fun than I thought it would be. There was tons of good food, we played some football, and then I played probably 3 hours of volleyball with a bunch of cool people I met. One kid that actually goes to Tech was playing. He came in at the very end and kept talking himself up like he was a pro or something. Well, we served the first ball and someone on his team missed it, so he starts yellin "Oh my god! You suck! SUB! We need a sub!!" and was completely serious. Ironically, there were 5 serves hit straight to him towards the end of that game and he missed every single one. Serves him right :) The big toe on my right foot (the screwed up one from the nerve injury) got stubbed a ton yesterday from running around barefoot in pretty hardpacked sand and in some slippery grass fields. So that's sorta bruised up right now, but oh well. I suppose that's about it for now. Europe's in about a week, so I'll be updating on that for sure, at least once I get back.

More grad parties

2006-06-20T18:03:00.000-06:00

Currently Listening to: Opeth - The Leper Affinity Last weekend was Dan's other graduation party, this time at our mom's house. As expected, it was a blast. It was really fun to see friends I hadn't seen in years. Sean, Nick, Bobby, and I hung out with some of Nick's friends on Saturday night and that was really fun too. We played some Super Smash Bros. and Soul Caliber with some girls lol, it was quite interesting. Ellen (I think that's her name) was a major button masher haha, but oh well. Bobby's going to visit everyone up at Tech come fall, so that will be sweet. School's comin' and I can't wait!!
I'm thinking about buying a newer truck to replace my current one, but I'm not quite settled on that topic yet. Work's going okay. Today I sat down with Jeff (my mentor) and we were talking about what's going to happen within the next 3 1/2 weeks. Then it hit me.... 3 1/2 weeks only?! Huh? I realized he was right though.... another week and a half before the 2 week shutdown and my trip to Europe, then only 2 weeks after that. As it turns out, I can't work an extra 2 weeks at the end of my internship. They set the max at 12 weeks but since shutdown takes 2 out of there, I was going to see if my supervisor could request I stay an extra 2 weeks. They told him that it can't happen that way though, so July 28th is my end date. I guess after that I'll move back home, get my stuff ready, then a couple weeks later head up to school and get all settled in for another 9 months up there. There's so much stuff on my plate right now (for once) that I don't even know where to begin. The truck's an issue, I want to rebuild the 1963 mini-bike we have, Europe's in 2 weeks, I still have some programming to finish up here at work (along with an accompanying presentation), I haven't even been able to start programming the game I told Dave (my uncle-in-law? lol) I'd try to create for the card game he created and is marketing, etc.... The lists goes on.

The program (at work, not the card game one) is going really well though and I've learned a TON about Java in the process of writing it. The web interface that I designed earlier also contributes and together with this program, I feel I've developed quite a nice package for the people here to use after I've left. Overall, this internship is giving me a lot of experience and that's what I came here for. It sucks being here sometimes, but oh well. I've been lifting a lot of weights and doing some running, so I'm finally getting into better shape. For once I'm actually keeping it up and not quitting after a few days, so I'm super pumped about that. No more being a twig. We have a weight room at school so I can continue up there, too.

I'm going to try and make this site Flash-powered as soon as I get around to it... Sorry for all of the scrolling in the mean time. That's about it though!
P.S. Oh yeah, forgot that I got a new roommate. Scott's his name and he's pretty cool. He drives a Spyder MR2, which is also cool 8)

Cassie's Europe Blog

2006-06-13T18:01:00.000-06:00

Currently Listening to: Fuel - Hemorrhage

Check out Cassie's blog for her trip in Europe!!

Grad parties

2006-06-12T17:58:00.000-06:00

Currently Listening to: In Flames - Bullet Ride

It's been a busy weekend! This past Thursday I flew home and then drove to Tomah to stay with Cassie for the day. We had a good time just hanging out, then swimming at her pool party later on. Friday we drove into Eau Claire and visited with Ray (her grandpa) and he showed us a manual from a computer that GE received (and he worked on) during 1956- that was pretty cool. Next we stopped at Culver's and had lunch with Mike Lee, a guy Cassie's whole family knows. He's going to Iran to work in the Peace Corps so it was a good-bye fo a bit. Then we drove back to Minneapolis and hung out with Nicky (haha), Sean, Austin, and Halley(?). We had a blast talking with Nick's family before hand and then went to see "Cars", which was quite a good movie- definitely worth $7. Saturday was Dan's graduation party at Dad's house, then Joe's at his. Both were a great time and it was really fun to see everyone. I took on the daunting task of creating a computer game for a card game that Joe's uncle invented, so that will be interesting... Cassie and I took some sweet pictures with our new digital camera. We were just playing around with some settings and stuff, but it was fun! Here's a picture we took that filtered out all colors besides green.

Here's a picture of McKenzie, too.... We were having some fun making her the guinea pig for our new camera :)

Then, at 5:10, we had to leave and get Cassie to the airport so she could fly out to Denmark and meet up with her sister for the 2 month journey they have planned in Europe. That was obviously no fun and we'll miss eachother, but she'll have a blast and I'll be meeting up with her in 3 weeks to travel around Italy, Spain, and France. Then I leave, she tours Ireland for 3 more weeks, and comes back. Anyhow, time to go! If you guys ever want to comment on something I post in here, drop me an e-mail at mdtrewar@gmail.com. Thanks!

Not enjoying this...

2006-05-30T17:57:00.000-06:00

Currently Listening to: Trivium - Ascendancy

Memorial Day weekend went okay. Our plans for yesterday completely fell through, but I got to go swimming plenty, sat in the hot tub for awhile, played some football, and just relaxed. Sleeping in was definitely nice, too. I miss everyone back home and at school because I'm not really making true friends up here. Kevin (my roommate) and I are getting along well and becoming actual friends, but with everyone else it's like we're just hanging out for a day. It was so much fun at school because we're all finally becoming really good friends. Nick's screwed for the summer because of his broken leg and I feel REALLY bad for him. Hopefully next summer will be better though. Cassie's looking at a job shadow in Minneapolis while Nick and I might start up our own computer repair business. If both happened, we'd have a blast. Speaking of which, if anyone knows potential customers, let them know about us! We're going to try and keep it sort of low key, just getting customers through word of mouth. Anyhow, it's time to go on a tour of the Orion Pontiac G6 plant. I'll update later about how it went.

Memorial Day Weekend

2006-05-26T17:56:00.000-06:00

Currently Listening to: Atreyu - The Curse

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND. wOOt. Kevin, Isaiah, and I (those are my roommates in Detroit, by the way) are having a small party tonight, so that should be fun. We're expecting our other roommate sometime this weekend, too. If we get some cool pictures I'll post 'em up here.