What has happened since my last post? Part 3...

This is the final part of the series.

Melissa and I are looking for a place to hold the ceremony and reception and are currently looking for somewhere in the Alma/Mt. Pleasant region. We haven't set a date yet but are thinking it will be sometime in October or November of 2009.

My parents are coming up from Florida to visit on Sunday night and for the full day on Monday. They have talked to Melissa on the phone but haven't actually met her yet. We are going to celebrate my birthday (which was a couple weeks ago) and her birthday (which is in a couple weeks) and go out to dinner. In preparation for them to show up we have been cleaning up the place and trying to figure out the best way to arrange the furniture we have into something usable. The condo is on the market at the moment, but I expect little to no interest in it due to the crappy market. It sounds like we will be there for a while so we are just going to continue decorating the place to make it more of "our" place versus the way I had it as a bachelor pad before. (No more Miller Lite Red Wings mirror in the living room... sadness...)

So anyways, just a lot of wedding planning and whatnot going on lately. Melissa bought a dress last weekend already. Once we have a date finalized we will start mailing out some invites.

What has happened since my last post? Part 2...

The weekend after meeting Melissa my roommate was moving out. He got a job down south somewhere and let me know that he was leaving at the end of September. Dave (the roommate) packed up all of his stuff and wished me luck with Melissa and I wished him luck with the new job... he was pretty cool overall. It was kind of weird to be in the condo alone again though. The place is far too big for just me and I didn't really feel like looking for another roommate, so I just decided to put the place back on the market (crappy, crappy market).

I was also seeing Melissa pretty much every day at that point. Mostly she would come over to see me but I also took the trip a few times to see her at her apartment in Vicksburg. Her mom and step-dad  decided to come visit her at the beginning of October so they could take both of us out to lunch. They showed up on Saturday afternoon and we all rode down to Shipshewana, Indiana in Melissa's van (well its a Saturn VUE... technically a SUV heh). Shipshewana was actually pretty cool. I had never been there before. It is a small Amish town that has a lot of small shops with antiques, baked goods, furniture, etc. The food there was amazing. We ate at this huge house in the middle of town that offered "family style" dining, which is where they bring out plates full of chicken, potatoes, beans, etc that you split with the 4 people at your table and you can get unlimited refills on everything. I ate sooo much chicken as did Mel, her step-dad... but it was so freggin good. Yeah, I would go back there. Her parents and I got along really well too.

After eating and shopping we headed back to Portage and her family headed back to near Alma, which is where Melissa is originally from. It was after they left that we started having some serious discussions about our futures and even talked openly about getting engaged sometime soon and what the future held for us related to our goals within our careers, finances, families, and everything. It was all so fast but we both felt totally comfortable with it. We have some kind of bond where we literally feel like we've known each other for years, it is hard to explain so I won't do it here! :-)

Melissa really wanted to plan our first weekend trip together and loves going to the UP. I have never been there before so it sounded like a good opportunity to try something new (and to see if we could withstand 800 miles in a car without killing each other!). We both took off Friday and Monday of the following weekend and headed up north. We visited her mom and step-dad again and I also got to meet her dad and step-mom as well as her brother. We stayed the night at her dad's place in Alma on Friday night and headed up to the UP early Saturday morning. Meeting her whole family was interesting. Overall, I felt pretty comfortable around them and it was cool to see her hometown.

So in the morning we reached the Mackinac Bridge, which I had never seen in person before. We stopped off at a park and took some pictures here:

 

I also taped the 5 minute drive across the bridge. Why not right? Once we got to the UP we headed up to Tahquamenon Falls and to the Shipwreck Museum. The museum was ok, we actually didn't end up going into it but checked out the lighthouse and Lake Superior

Then we got to the falls (amazing, by the way) and took some more pictures and talked some more about our futures. Things were getting very serious. I swear if I had a ring then I would have proposed at the falls... I do kind of regret that but its ok.

We then headed to Sault Ste Marie where our hotel was at and went out for a good dinner at an Irish pub there. Then afterwards we went to the casino where I played like 20 minutes of blackjack at the $3 table (yes, $3 blackjack tables... unheard of at the other casinos I have been to) where I turned $60 into $120. Then on the way out I threw $5 into a 25 cent slot machine fully anticipating to lose the money immediately. I have never won anything in a slot machine... in fact, I hate them with a passion. But I felt lucky because it had been an amazing couple weeks and a great trip so far. My luck played out and on my second to last pull I won $63! Bonus! I came in with $60 and turned it into over $180. That covered most of the trip outside of the hotel costs :-)

The next morning we saw the locks and called up my mom. Melissa and my mom get along great on the phone. After waiting there for a while, 3 boats showed up at the same time to go through the locks. It was pretty interesting to watch.

Then we headed back to the lower peninsula to go to Traverse City for the night. Our hotel there was pretty amazing... it even had a Jacuzzi and overlooked the bay.

We visited her grandparents and some more of her family there in Traverse City that night, also good people. Then the next morning we went to the Grand Traverse Mall to go shopping and I also wanted to get some kind of ideas from her on what ring she may want. Yes, really... I told you it was serious. When we were there she found some ones she liked. I then "asked" her to go to Target because she loves that store (along with like every other girl ever... what is it about women and Target?). So she went there and I got the ring she liked the most and also headed to JC Penny to buy a few shirts, which really was to just get a few bags and have a good way to hide my ring purchase, which was fairly obvious really. We had lunch at the food court in the mall. I wasn't very hungry so I just got a couple things from Taco Bell and she got some Chinese food (yuck!). You know how Taco Bell has witty one-liners on their hot sauce packets like "Pick Me!" or "Heads" and "Tails"? Well one of my packets was this:

So I gave it to her as a joke and told her to read it... to which she replied "You're kidding?!?" and I said "Yes, yes I am kidding. But just you wait." Yes, I can be pretty cheesy... yet another slick move by me :-)

After eating lunch we were done with the mall and wanted to go wine tasting because it sounds like a grand ol' time for elitists like us! We tried some wine at the Chateau Traverse or whatever its called and bought a variety pack and headed back home to Portage.

Later that night as we were getting ready for bed I gave her the ring along with another hot sauce packet with the same message and asked her to marry me. I know it was cheesy, but she said yes.

More to come still...

What has happened since my last post? Part 1...

Ok, I know it has been a while. Stop hounding me. I haven't given up on this whole blog thing yet... I've just been busy. With what, you ask? I hope you have enough time to read this post because a lot has happened since September 20th.

A month ago I could buy a Hot n' Ready pizza from Little Caesars for just $5. No longer is that the case. Just 2 days ago on my way home from work I was stuck at a light and saw this:

I know its a crappy picture, but the sign now indicates that a Hot n' Ready pizza is now $5.55! I have claimed for a while now that you know the economy is totally in the dumpster when the Hot n' Ready pizza index passes $5. Look at the gloomy clouds in the picture above. That's foreshadowing of what is about to happen. We may lose the 99 cent double stack sooner than we think! Speaking of double stacks... I went through a phase during my last blog post where I was eating several of those a week. Lately I have been down to around 1 a week. I may need to ramp that up a bit now that my money is worth less.

In September I purchased an iPhone. It is amazing just like everyone said it was. I like that I can be on the road and check the scores of my teams, check my email, play games, listen to music, make calls, take pictures etc, etc, etc all on one device. Right after I got it I went on a road trip to visit my cousins in Indiana and listened to streaming podcasts on it through my car stereo. Pretty amazing how simple everything is to set up. I could go on about this for like 18,000 paragraphs, but just Google it and get your 1,000,000,000 results instead :-) 

At the beginning of September I also randomly got a $59.97 charge on my credit card. I had no clue what the heck the charge was until it finally posted, but I was very curious because I consistently owe nothing on my cards and watch them like a hawk if something appears. It turns out it was a renewal fee for an auto 6 month billing from Match.com. Yes, Match.com. I was on it for a while after Jen and I split up in January. I even went on a few dates and they were ok... nothing special... just ok. Oh and there are a lot of crazy people on that site, so be wary of that if you join. Anyways, I pretty much had given up on that site back in August and just decided to be more assertive in 'real' life. (Side note on the 'assertive' plan... it led to me asking out a bartender at a local pub that I used to frequent, from which we went on a couple dates... things were ok until I learned she is crazy. For some reason the topic of willow trees came up during a conversation at Shakespeares. She must have guided the conversation to willow trees because I could not even remotely care about them. Anyways, once I said "willow tree"... she started crying a little and said "I loooove willow trees" and proceeded to take off her shirt (yes, in the middle of the bar) revealing a large willow tree tattoo on her back. That was pretty crazy if you ask me. She did have about 7 Guiness pints and a couple shots in her at the time though... seems like a lot for a 2nd date hehe) Ok, back to the whole Match.com thing. I log into the site to basically cancel my account and get reimbursed for the $59.97 renewal fee and there is a message waiting for me from someone who actually sounds like she has a great personality, is smart, and is really cute in her pictures (a rare combination on there). So we start emailing back and forth over the next week or two. Her name is Melissa, by the way. We eventually talk on the phone and set up a first date at Main St on Thursday of the following week.

Shortly after getting the iPhone, I went to the Sigur Ros concert with Eric. The concert was on a Tuesday night, so I ended up going to his house on Sunday and just worked remotely on Monday and Tuesday that week. During that time I was fighting a losing battle to insomnia... so I was exhausted the entire time and kept trying to fall asleep over there without luck. My first date with Melissa was scheduled for Thursday that week, but I received an email about a divorce party for Kevin at work, which happens to take place at Main St. on Thursday afternoon... the exact place where Melissa and I were going to have our first date. So, I call her up and see if we can move the date up to Wednesday and change the restaurant because I didn't want to go to Main St on Wednesday and Thursday and I certainly did not want our first date to be associated with a divorce party! We agreed to meet at Olive Garden on Wednesday instead. I hope I can live through this insomnia long enough to survive those days...

On Tuesday before the concert we went to Hockeytown cafe, which was right next to the concert venue, to grab some food. I had some steak sandwich panini thingamajig... it was mediocre at best. Then we headed to the show. The concert was fantastic. We had special preorder tickets that let us enter the general admission area ahead of most other people. So we got front and center on the first tier above the main floor. It was a really good spot. They played pretty much everything I had hoped and even dumped a ludicrous amount of confetti on the crowd during the middle of one of their more upbeat songs.

After the concert I drive home and get back around 2am. I manage to get a few hours of sleep and end up calling in to take the morning off so I can at least try to sleep some more. Melissa and I meet over at Olive Garden and continue our conversations from the emails and phone calls. We get along great and she is just as cute as she is in her pictures (also doesn't happen frequently with online dates, by the way). After dinner I didn't want the date to end yet and neither did she so we end up settling on mini-golf. About 2 or 3 holes into mini-golf we are both dying. Mosquitos are everywhere! I say "forget this, chalk this up as a bad idea... let's get a rain check" and we get a couple rain checks and decide to watch a movie instead. No good movies are out... so I ask her if she would be comfortable coming over and watching a DVD. She is ok with that and we watch Juno. It was a good first date overall, we talked through the whole movie and dinner and seemed to really be a good match (no pun intended). Good thing they didn't cancel my account on Match.com when my subscription ran out, otherwise I would have never met her.

The next day was Kevin's party. I asked Melissa on our first date if she would be interested in meeting me at Main St around 7pm after most of the party should be cleared out and she shouldn't feel too overwhelmed by meeting so many of "the guys" right away. She agrees and shows up at 7 and even brings Kevin a gift! Kudos to her for that gesture! A few people were still left and she got along with everyone. She came back to my place again after the party and watched some football with me and my roommate for a while before heading out for the night. It was a really good second date... we were totally comfortable with each other and that is when I started to realize quickly where this was going. Here is a picture of her at Main St. A lot more happened over the past month. It will take several posts to go over everything, so stay tuned!

 

Double Stack Attack!

See that juicy burger above? I bet you are thinking to yourself... "There is no way that costs 99 cents!" Well, you are wrong! And guess what? The burger is amazing. I could eat these for breakfast, lunch, and dinner... seriously... amazing.  Wendy's burgers are decent for fast food burgers (actually I don't eat other fast food burgers) and this is no exception and is worthy of a blog post. I would not trade my double stack back for the $1 I paid, ever. So they are right! If the entire US economy was based in  double stacks instead of $1 bills a barrel of oil would cost $40 instead of $100. Wendy's, get the word out! (Vegetarians, ignore this message)

A Question...

Has anyone ever purchased a Where's Waldo book for themselves?

100 Push Ups

As many of you know, I am on a difficult journey to lose some weight and get back into shape. Working in a cubicle all day can make it extremely difficult, but I am trying nonetheless.

The past month I have biked and lifted more weights than I have in any previous month in my life. Not much progress has been made yet though. I think my body is still questioning my commitment! Anyways, I have lost 6 pounds during the month of August and hope to lose 10 in September... a reasonable goal I think.

One interesting site that I came across was hundredpushups.com. The site has one simple goal: to put you on a 6 week plan where you can do 100 consecutive push ups at the end. I just completed the initial test where you try to do as many as possible in a row to see where you are at. I managed only 25... but it could be worse. Tomorrow begins week 1. I really hope that trying this, biking even more, and not drinking beer at all during the month of September will get me to my goal!

Michael Phelps and his 12,000 Calorie Diet

So today I read an article that Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories a day, which generally consists of the following:

Breakfast: Three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise. Two cups of coffee. One five-egg omelet. One bowl of grits. Three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar. Three chocolate-chip pancakes.

Lunch: One pound of enriched pasta. Two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayo on white bread. Energy drinks packing 1,000 calories.

Dinner: One pound of pasta. An entire pizza. More energy drinks.

I am totally jealous. Don't get me wrong... I have eaten a hot n' ready pizza all by myself for dinner many-a-time (always... always feel like garbage afterwards by the way), but if I did it every day I would look like this:

After he wins a ridiculous amount of medals in the 2012 games in London he should retire and take up competitive eating, which should become an Olympic event in the 2016 games. Imagine being the Gold medal winner for most hot dogs, grilled cheeses, ice cream, butter... whatever, you name it. How American is that? Kobayashi is going down!

My MS Paint skills are unbelievably awesome.