vacation 1 Comment

Vacation *insert Go-Gos tune here*

Eleven AM on a Tuesday, and here I am, chillin’ at my computer downstairs. Good times.

So, to catch everyone up on what’s been happening at the Schnuth abode: we’re both on vacation. I return to work one week from today, and Aaron doesn’t go back until the following Monday. Our original plan, way back when we requested our vacation time, had been to attend the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas, but we had to choose between buying a house and going to our very first Star Trek Convention.

Then, I had thought that maybe we could use our new tent this week. However, Aaron brought up the fact that it’s the middle of summer, and it has the potential to get damned oppressively hot lately. With that in mind, we opted to wait until Labor Day to go camping.

So, what are we doing this week? All the shit in Toledo and the surrounding area that we haven’t done yet (or haven’t done for a while).

Ann Arbor Art Fair - photo by Aaron Schnuth (c)2004

On Saturday, we went to the Ann Arbor Art Fair. In years past, we’ve always missed when it was, so we were thankful to have gotten a flyer from one of the artists at this year’s Crosby Festival.

Anyway, Aaron and I went with Kris and Jamie, leaving Toledo around 9:30am or so. We arrived in Ann Arbor at the mall shuttle pick-up around 10:30am, paid our $3 per person round trip, and off we went. When we got to the fair, Aaron and I discovered that not eating breakfast had its disadvantages, and that we were starving. So, around 11am, we headed into Amer’s and were delighted to find that they have some pretty decent salads there. Yum.

The rest of the day was spent looking at art (obviously), sitting on the grass in the diag and talking, browsing various stores (including, of course, Wizzywig), taking pictures, and just generally enjoying ourselves. I think we left around 4:00pm, and by then we were completely drained from walking all day. Great time, though.

As for the rest of our mutual vacation… Sunday was our normal errands / groceries / laundry day, and yesterday we went to the Toledo Zoo. Today we’re planning to go to COSI, tomorrow we may go to Sauder Village, sometime this week we’re going to see Fahrenheit 911 (since I haven’t seen it yet), and we’re contemplating going to Cleveland to check out the Rock Hall in its entirety. (We browsed the first floor during last year’s Gravity Games, but we didn’t get beyond that.) We may also visit Aaron’s grandparents while we’re in Cleveland, but I think the jury’s still out on that. Although we would be allowed to sleep in the same bed now, if there’s one big enough for the both of us…

On Saturday, it sounds like Frieser’s neighborhood is having their ‘hood-wide garage sale, so we’ll be checking that out, then on Saturday evening we’re joining Kris and Jamie again for the Full Moon Walk at Oak Openings Metropark.

So, even though we’re not really going out of town this week, we’re still having a pleasant vacation. Oh, yeah… I was so ready for a break.

randomness

Just One More Thing…

I’m awfully prolific with the posts tonight.

Anyway, I just searched out and located a ZIP file with WAVs of the coverage of the Hindenburg crash of 1939. I’d never heard the whole thing through—just the reporter sobbing, “Oh, the humanity!” But, listening to the whole thing, it’s really fascinating to hear an example of radio reporters’ ability to convey what they saw verbally. The listener can almost see the majestic airship coming in and being tethered to the ground—then, after its grand transatlantic flight, suddenly bursting into flames.

The guy really loses it, too. I believe Aaron told me that journalists and reporters, especially back then, were expected to report factually and unemotionally, and that this particular man’s reaction to the scene lost him his job. Seriously, though—he’s almost sobbing uncontrollably and babbling by the end of the clip. I can see why they fired him, devastating though the scene was.

If you’re interested in hearing it yourself, you can download the ZIP here. Also interesting is the blurb that comes in the text file packed with the ZIP files: “This file contains WAV files of the most compelling moments of the famous Hindenburg Crash Radio broadcast of 1939.  They make for interesting Windows Startup sounds.”

What a fine disregard for history.

randomness 1 Comment

Popular Culture

Why does TV suck? Why can I not turn on the tele at night and find at least one decent program to watch? It’s all overdramatized gameshows or reality shows or home improvement / reality shows or makeovers or just crap. Have sitcoms always been completely stupid and I just didn’t notice? When did I become a fan of 20/20?

Add this to my distaste for popular music, and I’m completely rejecting American pop culture in general. Skinny hos, talentless hacks, and stupid bimbos just don’t keep my attention these days.

randomness 3 Comments

Potpourri

Like the Jeopardy category: snippets of random this-n-that I’m finding as I’m sifting through all my old Post-It® notes.

Quote from a 50-something woman in my old office to a 40-something: “You gotta get some old lady shorts! You can’t be bending over there on the golf course and everybody can see Christmas…!”

Really bad joke from the Sky intranet:
Q: How do you keep a skunk from smelling?
A: Hold its nose.

And then there’s this thought: I forget what class it was in, but I remember learning in college about the four levels of competence. First, you have Unconscious Incompetence: You don’t know how to do a given thing, but you have no knowledge of it whatsoever, so you don’t know that you don’t know. Then there’s Conscious Incompetence: You know what it is, but you also know that you don’t know how to do it. After that, you have Conscious Competence: You know how to do it now, but you still have to think about it. (This is me in my new job right now.) Finally, there’s Unconscious Competence: You know how to do the thing so well and thoroughly that you no longer have to think about it.  Learning my new job in Loan Corrections made me think of that.

Oh, and speaking of my new job, I was on phone duty for the second day today (my first day was Monday). I actually didn’t mind it today, although it got annoying around 2:00 when I got call after call after call for a half hour straight. I learned new things today, too: I learned how to cut a loan refund check, and how to fix the billing schedule on a screwed-up loan, and all sorts of other stuff that I didn’t know before (and would make you yawn). I actually felt like I had a good, enjoyable day… but that’s probably just because I’m going on vacation after tomorrow. Whee!

Speaking of, does anybody know of a good place to camp? I think Aaron and I were looking at Harrison Lake, Maumee Bay State Park, or Mohican. Neither of us have been camping in years, either (outside of Amy’s and my ill-fated October camp-out with the girls on our floor in Kohl). We have no outdoor cooking implements (well, I think we have metal skewers) and only a couple crappy flashlights. Of course, we do have our one sleeping bag (I don’t know where mine is, but we have Aaron’s), and our new-last-year-at-the-wedding tent, and our two folding camping chairs.

I think that pitching the tent will be a test of our ability to work together. 🙂