Boy oh boy - talk about a break in posts. Contrary to popular belief, I have not fallen off the face of the planet. Rather, it's just been awfully hectic over in this neck of the woods. Let me try to sum up what has been going on...

I think my last post was last week on Monday. Last week went pretty much as usual - basketball on Wednesday, softball on Thursday (we lost again...big surprise). On Friday, a couple of our college frinds came up to visit. Angie and Chris Lau (Angie was Liz's maid of honor) came up from the Madison area to spend the weekend with us.

Of course, Dad's birthday was Wednesday last week. I called the guy to wish him a happy birthday but I he wasn't around and, unfortunately, I still haven't gotten in touch with him. :-(

With those two here, we made a trip up to the cities to go to the Mall of America. When we got there, we saw a huge line gathered around a guy in the middle of the mall - Jim Craig was there signing autographs. How cool is that?!? (In case you don't know, Jim Craig was the goaltender for the 1980 US Olympic hockey team that beat the Russians in what many people consider to be the greatest upset of sports history.) We were on the third floor and he was way down on the first so I figuerd we'd wander around a bit and, when we got a little closer, I'd get in line and see if I could get an autograph. Unfortunately, not more than a half hour after we got there, he packed up and left. :( So I never did get to talk to him. Nonetheless, it was still cool to see him there.

After a brief stay at the Mall of America, we headed back to Rochester because we had tickets to go and see Shrek 2. I must say, I enjoyed it as much as the first one (or nearly so). It's a great movie and certainly worth checking out.

Anyway, Ang and Chris left Sunday afternoon and Liz and I tried to relax for the rest of the day.

This last week started off being very busy. I've got a project I'm working on for Regis Corporation right now. Regis is a huge conglomerate that owns all sorts of hair salons (Great Clips, for one) and a lot of hair care products. They're a multi-million dollar company so it's a good customer for us. Well, I've been working hard on this project for them because we want to have it in production by the end of next month. That doesn't leave a lot of time.

Well, the project hit a bit of a snag earlier this week and it had little to do with the project. The father of Terry Bradt, one of the guys I work with and the Regis contact for this project, had a heart attack on Monday night. Terry's dad had been in the hospital all week and I've only heard from Terry once since then. Wednesday night, Terry's dad passed away, so I'm not sure when I'll see him back at the office. Liz and I will be headed off to the wake tonight after work.

So, with all that drama going on, I've had my hands full at work trying to take care of all my work plus some extra things for Terry. It also didn't help that Todd was off in Colorado on business all week, either. I was pretty much alone in the office to make sure things continued to run smoothly.

Outside of work, I've been keeping just as busy. As usual, we played basketball on Wednesday. We've got a new guy doing some work for us at Relion - he's a college kid and into sports, so I invited him down to play ball on Wednesday. He's quite the good player and it's nice to have another person playing ball.

Last night, we had another softball game. We finally won a game. Of course, I wasn't playing, so maybe that's saying something. It's a co-ed league so you have to have as many guys as girls playing and we have more guys than girls. Therefore, the guys need to take turns playing games all season. Out of the 12 games in the season, I think I'm playing in 9. So, if this trend continues, we'll win 3. :-/

Well, that brings us to today. Like I said, Liz and I will be heading to the wake for Terry's dad tonight and then I think we'll head home and get ready for the weekend. We're off to Oconomowoc this weekend for another wedding. This time, it's Jon Odishoo and Daphne Eder getting married - I worked with both of them at UW-Platteville. I imagine I'll see some folks from school again so I'm looking forward to going.

Since we're in that area, we're going to be spending the weekend with Liz's sister, Theresa. She's living near Milwaukee (New Berlin, if I remember correctly) so we're going to crash at her place all weekend and visit with her. That should be a good time. I'm actually hoping we'll make a stop at the Pettit Ice Arena down in Milwaukee. I've been past it a number of times, but I've never been skating inside it. I think it would be a lot of fun.

Anyway, I think that just about sums up the last couple weeks. Of course, if I remember correctly, I was promised some pictures of a certain nephew with a certain instrument some time ago... As of yet, I haven't seen any pictures... It appears I'm not the only one that's forgetful. ;-)

Take it easy, folks.

Corey

Hi everyone.

Well, it's the start of another week. Liz and I had a busy weekend travelling through southwest Wisconsin. We left Saturday morning to get to Jon Stoeger's wedding. In case you don't remember him, Jon was one of my college roommates and stood up in my wedding. The wedding was in Wiota, which is about 30-40 minutes from Platteville and the reception was right in Platteville, so Liz and I were back at our alma mater.

We got to see a handful of people at the wedding that we hadn't seen in quite a while. Of course, we got to see Jon a little bit, but he was a little busy getting married and all. Anyway, he seems to be doing very well and is working for an engineering firm in Monroe. We also saw Fred, who was another roommate of mine and was in my wedding. He's just the same as always - but he left his old job working for Rayovac, in Dixon, Illinois, to take another job working for Airens in Brillion, which is where he grew up. He's pretty happy to be home. There were a couple other folks that we saw, but that was about it.

Anyway, the next morning, we went out to breakfast with an old co-worker of mine from UW-P. He was moving to Madison that day (he just graduated from UW-P), but we went out and had breakfast and got to chat for a bit. As soon as that was done, we took off to Madison to see Jen Antony, one of Liz's old roommates. We went out for lunch and gabbed for a while there, too.

Then, we were finally off for home. We made it back to town around 6 or so and just vegged out for most of the night.

That was our weekend, in a nutshell.

I did get a call from my sister, though - apparently, she bought Gavin a new drum set. :-) Of course, I haven't yet gotten any pictures of him playing it (which I was promised), but I'm sure they're on their way.

Well, I suppose that's enough of that. I'll catch y'all later.

Corey

So I lied - one more post before the weekend.

10 Worst Album Covers of All Time.

Things you can learn about computers from the movies.

• Word processors never display a cursor.
  
• You never have to use the space-bar when typing long sentences.
  
• All monitors display inch-high letters.
  
• The most relevant information is displayed in a separate windows right in the middle of the screen, but there's never an Ok button to other way to close it.
  
• High-tech computers, such as those used by NASA, the CIA, or some such governmental institution, will have easy to understand graphical interfaces. Those that don't, have incredibly powerful text-based command shells that can correctly understand and execute commands typed in plain English.
  
  
  
  • Corollary: you can gain access to any information you want by simply typing "ACCESS ALL OF THE SECRET FILES" on any keyboard.
    
  
  
• Likewise, you can infect a computer with a destructive virus by simply typing "UPLOAD VIRUS" (see Fortress).
  
• All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain's desktop computer, even if it's turned off.
  
• Powerful computers beep whenever you press a key or whenever the screen changes. Some computers also slow down the output on the screen so that it doesn't go faster than you can read.
  
• The really advanced ones also emulate the sound of a dot-matrix printer. (See The Hunt For Red October or Alien)
  
• All computer panels have thousands of volts and flash pots just underneath the surface. Malfunctions are indicated by a bright flash, a puff of smoke, a shower of sparks, and an explosion that forces you backwards.
  
  
  
  • Corollary: sending data to a modem/tape drive/printer faster than expected causes it to explode.
    
  
  
• People typing away on a computer will turn it off without saving the data. (See the opening credits for The Hunt For Red October)
  
• A hacker can get into the most sensitive computer in the world before intermission and guess the secret password in two tries.
  
• Any PERMISSION DENIED error has an OVERRIDE function (see Demolition Man and countless others).
  
• Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be accomplished in under three seconds. Movie modems (especially the wireless ones they must be using when they're in the car) usually appear to transmit data at the speed of two gigabytes per second.
  
• When the power plant/missile-site/whatever overheats, all the control panels will explode, as will the entire building.
  
• If a disk has got encrypted files, you are automatically asked for a password when you try to access them.
  
• No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it'll be readable by any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all computer platforms.
  
• The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it has (Aliens). However, everyone must have been highly trained, because none of the buttons are labeled.
  
• Most computers, no matter how small, are able to produce reality-defying three-dimensional, active animation, photo-realistic graphics, with little or no detailed input from the user.
  
• Laptops, for some strange reason, always seem to have amazing real-time video phone capabilities and the performance of a CRAY Supercomputer.
  
• Whenever a character looks at a VDU, the image is so bright that it projects itself onto his/her face (see Alien, 2001, Jurassic Park).
  
• Either a Jacob's Ladder or a Van Der Graaf Generator is absolutely necessary for the operation of new, experimental computers (especially when built by brilliant scientists), although in real life, these devices do absolutely nothing.
  
• One can issue any complex set of commands in a few keystokes (see Star Trek).
  
• The internet connects to everything in the movies. You can edit credit records, search hotel registries, lookup police criminal files, search (and edit) drivers license databases, edit social security files and more just using the internet! (see The Net)
  
• Smashing the VDU prevents the whole system from working (see Speed).
  
• You can launch nuclear missles from any bedroom using an analog modem, but only if you know a single secret password (see War Games).
  

Grrrrrr....

I just finished writing up a nice long post for my blog and, when I tried to publish it, I got a nice error from the server and, poof, no more blog entry. 3:-[

Anyway, let me try to recap...

As you already know, I got my head cut open on Monday. Well, even though Liz keeps telling me that it's looking better, my head seems to hurt more every day. I was up half the night last night it hurt so bad and it seems as if I've been living on ibuprofin. (Note to self - don't get head cut open again.)

Then, to add to that, I had the pleasure of visiting the dentist yesterday for a cleaning. Yuck. I always wonder if torture devices are modeled after dentistry tools or if it's the other way around. Ever see that movie, True Lies? There's a guy there that's supposed to torture Arnold...*ahem* Governor Schwarzenegger until he tells the terrorists what they want to hear. You get a look at the tools that guy has? He's a dentist!

Anyway, I got my teeth cleaned and had one filling - I knew I had it. But, the icing on the cake is that, because the guy coming in after me cancelled his appointment, I got to get my filling right after my cleaning. I suppose it was good to have it all done and taken care of, but it still stinks. My jaw still aches from the novacane. :-(

Well, I suppose that's enough whining from me. (There was less the last time I posted, but now I'm grumpy about losing my post, too.)

We've gotten a ton of rain this week. I suppose the timing is really pretty good with all of the shrubs we've been planting. If the rosebush and holly don't take root with all this rain, I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

Our softball game was cancelled last night due to water on the field so I got out to mow my lawn. It was still a bit wet, but my lawn was starting to look like a jungle so I mowed it, anyway. Now I just need to figure out how to get rid of the dandelions. I've tried putting weed and feed on it, but it seldom seems to do any good.

This weekend, Liz and are headed back to the alma mater, Platteville. My ex-roommate, Jon Stoeger (he stood up in my wedding) is getting married there this weekend so we'll be headed South tomorrow. Then, on Sunday, we're headed to Madison to see Liz's ex-roommate, Jen. We'll probably stop there for luncg and then head back to Rochester for another fun-filled week of work.

I doubt I'll be posting anything more before next week so have a good weekend, everyone.

Peace out,
Corey

Another day, another post in the blog.

It's been a fairly eventful week since we got back into town. The week started off with my surgery at the clinic. It actually went pretty well, I guess - as good as can be expected for getting a hole cut in your head. :-/ Now I've got a little bald spot on the back of my head and about 4-5 stitches in there. It's not that big of a deal now - I just wear a ball cap most of the time. The worst was the day that I had it done - I had a pad of gauze on my head and had to wear a goofy elastic strap around my head to keep pressure on it. That was attractive. :-(

Anyway, that aside, the week has been going pretty well. We had softball practice yesterday. Practice was better this time. People started to work a little bit (perhaps the shlacking in our last game had a little something to do with that). I guess I'm being moved to shortstop for this week's game. It's not that big of a deal, but it's been so long since I've played there that it looks awfully different. We'll see how it goes, I guess.

When we got home we got a call from Nate. Apparently, he's headed back to school at FVTC. He just wanted to chat for a while last night to see what we thought about the various programs and the job market. I'm interested to see how that goes for him, but I'm happy to see the boy going back to school. I've been considering going back for my masters now for some time, but I never seem to find the time or money to do so. Maybe seeing Nate go through school will get me off my duff to do the same.

That brings us to today. Liz got to take the afternoon off. Her team released their work today. Basically, that's the euivalent of giving all of your work to someone else and claiming that you're done (like it's ever "done"). ;-) They did that this morning so her manager told her to just go home and take the day off. Nice, huh? You think if I told the guys here at work that I released something today they'd give me the day off? ;-)

Normally, I'd be playing basketball tonight, but I'm going to take the night off due to the hole in my head. It's not really that bad, but I don't want to get hit on my head and bleed all over the place. Besides, we've got a softball game tomorrow night, so taking tonight off to rest probably isn't a bad idea. Instead of playing basketball, I think Liz, Nate and I are going to spend some time playing video games online - you know, quality entertainment. :-)

Anyway, I suppose that's about it. Hope you're all doing well.

Later,
Corey

Well, another weekend down and it's back to work. :-(

Liz and I were back in Clintonville last weekend for a whole lot of celebrating. Of course, Mother's Day was yesterday. In addition to that, though, my buddy, Nate, just turned 25 and my dad's birthday is coming up in a couple weeks, so we were busy celebrating all of those things.

As always, the biggest challenge is to try to see everyone over the course of a short weekend. This weekend went pretty well, but we cheated a little bit. ;-) Kara and Dean were over at my mom's place for Mother's Day, so we managed to see all of them with one shot. Then, my dad came over to Nate's place Saturday night so we could see both of them together. I tell you - it sure saves a lot of time when you can get some folks together.

Anyway, it was a nice weekend and it was a lot of fun seeing everyone again.

Dean is in the running for the phys ed/athletics director position at Clintonville Senior High right now. It sounds like his interviews have gone very well and it's down to just him and one other candidate right now. Supposedly, he'll know by the middle of this week. I sure hope everything goes well.

Gavin is doing well, of course. He's still as cute as ever and getting bigger all the time. He's almost 2 now so it's getting to the point where he can start being naughty. I haven't heard too many bad stories, but I guess he likes to run into the kitchen and hit the water button on the fridge so that water runs all over the kitchen. ;-)

Kara is busy as can be at work right now. She says it just keeps on getting busier until the school year is over. Fortunately, she's only got a few weeks left and she's done for a couple months. Gee - that must be nice.

Anyway, it was a nice weekend and great to see everyone again. Liz and I made it back home last night around 7:30. It was looking like rain, but I fertlizied the yard last night, anyway. It really needed to be done and it's supposed to rain all week, so I supposed last night was as good a time as any. Of course, last night around 10:30, we had a monster storm hit Rochester. The lightning just wouldn't stop and we even had some hail come down for a while. It was a little nastier of a storm than I'd have liked, but we needed the rain. Of course, if it rains all week, my lawn is going to look like a rain-forest before I can mow it again.

Well, I suppose that's about enough for my scatter-brained post this morning. I've got my appointment at Mayo this afternoon (which I'm really not looking forward to) but no real plans for tonight. Maybe Liz and I will run some errands and try to chill out a bit.

I suppose I should actually do something, so I guess I'll get going. Take care, everyone.

Corey

Geez. It seems that another week has slipped by and nary an update from me. :-( Let me try to recap...

Liz's mom left on Monday and Liz was left with a bit of gardening to do. She planted some more flowers Monday afternoon and she's been nurturing the rosebush she put in all week. It seems that we're giving it a lot of water, but it just stays wilted. On the up side, it doesn't seem to be getting worse, but it doesn't seem to want to really take hold. I guess we'll just see what happens.

Liz and I made it to the batting cages for a while on Monday. It was nice to see that they're working again...kind of. That place is such a dump - I just wish someone would make a good one. The only reason we still go to those cages is because they're the only cages in town.

Tuesday night, Liz and I made it to the ball field for a while. We didn't do a lot (it was just the two of us). I worked on my pitching for a while and we worked on her footwork at first base. Pretty low-key, but we were there for an hour or so working things out.

Wednesday night, I had basketball with the guys again. We had another gorgeous day for playing ball. It was a little windy, but, besides that, it was perfect. The basketball is getting a little better, but there's still an awful lot of wheezing going on. ;-)

I also called up a topsoil place in town to see about getting some dirt delivered. We built that retaining wall in our front yard and now we need to get it filled in. We picked up some holly over the weekend to plant, but had nothing to plant it in. Anyway, the guy told me it would be over $80 to get a yard of dirt! I couldn't believe it. That comes out to over $3 per foot. Unreal. So, Liz and I took it upon ourselves to pick up 30 bags of topsoil (1 foot each) from Wal-Mart for $1.30, each. We got more dirt than we would have and payed less than half as much. Regardless, we were out in the yard until about 9 that night emptying bags of topsoil into our retaining wall.

Yesterday was a rather long day. Besides work, I had an appointment to see my doc at the clinic. I've had a bump on the top of my head for a few months now and Liz wanted me to have it looked at. So, I went yesterday. Turns out it's nothing to worry about - it's a cyst from a plugged up oil gland. Anyway, they said things like that can eventually get infected, so I'm gonig in Monday to have it removed - it sounds like it's about a 10 minute procedure, which would be shorter than my appointment to have it looked at.

After work, Liz and I were out planting our holly. For the most part, it all went in okay. We gave 'em a lot of water and now we'll just have to see how well they take. Hopefully, all will go well.

Then, after my work day was over, we had our first softball game last night. As I expected, we got clobbered. I can't say I was surprised. Last season, we had it all too easy - we were easily one of the best teams in our league and we seldom had to work to win games. Because of that, we were moved up to the next division this year and I don't think it sunk in how much better the other teams would be until last night. I can't say I was surprised, but it seemed that most of our teams was. There were a lot of missed plays and general laziness on the field. Maybe now, people will start coming to practice once in a while and actually try to work at practice instead of standing around having a siesta. Forgive me for ranting, but I was pretty disgusted last night after our game.

Anyway, that just about puts a close on the week. It's Friday (woohoo!) and Liz and I will be headed back to Clintonville this weekend. We've got major celebrations this weekend. It's Mother's Day, of course. In addition, Nate turns 25 today and Dad's birthday is coming up shortly. I think we're going to try to celebrate all those things this weekend. It should be fun.

Well, I suppose that's about it for a recap. Liz and I are going to try to get everything done quickly today so that we can get on the road and get home. See y'all then.

Later,
Corey

Hi all,

Well, it was a pretty busy weekend. Liz's mom came up to visit and the girls set out to plant every flower they could get their hands on. On Saturday, they were at a number of nurseries for about 6 hours. Unreal. I'm sure glad it was Liz's mom and not be there for that long - I'd never have lasted so long.

Anyway, they got some new flowers in the flowerpots we've got sitting on our front steps and they got some more in the big pots that we put on the deck in the back. We pulled out one of the junipers that we've been hating since we moved in - this one was right next to the side door of our house. In it's place, Liz picked up a climbing rose bush and a trellace. I'm sure that'll look alot nicer, but that juniper sure took up a large area - I think we're going to need something more than just that rosebush to fill the area. Regardless, it'll be a nice improvement.

Also, we found some holly to plant in the front yard. That's going to go into the bed behind our new retaining wall. We had one guy at one nursery say that it wouldn't survive the Winters around here and another guy from another nursery that said it would. We found some holly at Wal-Mart that has a one year warranty on it, so we're going to try to put it in and we'll see what happens. Now, we just have to get a bunch of dirt to fill in that bed.

We had softball practice again on Saturday. Liz wasn't there because she was out at the nurseries with her mom. I just don't know what to make of softball this year - it just doesn't seem like anyone is very interested in playing. It doesn't make for a whole lot of fun if no one wants to be there. :-( We'll see how it goes when we start our games this week.

We also went out to Mankato to visit Liz's little sister, Sarah, too. We were only there for a few hours - just long enough to grab some lunch and chat a bit. Nonetheless, it was nice to get out there for a while.

Anyway, I suppose that's about it for us right now. Liz's mom went home today right after lunch and I've been at work all day. I'll catch y'all later.

Corey