randomness

Thunderstorms Lower IQ’s Exponentially. News at 11.

It should NOT take me an hour to get home to Toledo from BG. It should not.

Now, I’ll admit, I gladly drove 50 mph when I could barely see the SUV in front of me even with the wipers on high. But there were several places between the Lucas County line and home where traffic was slowed or stopped for no goddamned good reason.

As I was approaching the corner of Hill and Holland-Sylvania, just about 20 minutes after I would normally be home, I saw Aaron driving the opposite direction. I caught his eye—he was about to turn left onto the road I was on, and I was about to turn right onto the road he was on. We waved to each other, and as he turned left and drove past me, he warned, “Be careful—there’s deep water down Hill,” which was the road he’d just come from. I barely had time to yell “thanks” before he was gone.

And he was right. The most potentially treacherous part of my journey home was the least congested, and I felt perfectly fine going 15 mph or so through the almost-wheel-deep water.

But everyplace else—I-475, Airport and Holland-Sylvania, and my entire trip down Holland-Sylvania—WTF?! Get your heads out of your asses, people. It’s just a thunderstorm.

randomness

I’m gonna be old and broke…

I’ve always joked around that I’ll get my student loans paid off just about the time I retire. Sadly, it looks like that’s not far from the truth. When you consider that my education cost just about half of what our house cost, and we’ll have that paid off in another 30 years… If I keep paying $160 toward interest and $15 toward principal, that’s about when I’ll have my student loan paid off, too.

The good news, though, is that I have a pretty good start on my 401(k) plan. Just gotta stay with Sky for another three years to become fully vested and reap the rewards of the sweet, sweet profit sharing.

Not to be a financial evangelist, but considering that Social Security could well be defunct by the time we young’uns retire, I would highly recommend that you—yes, you—enroll in your company’s 401(k) plan, if they have one. It’s worth it to save early—I only put back $50 a month, and I’ve already got a pretty decent chunk of change in my plan. Might even keep Aaron and me sated for an entire month or two of retirement! 🙂

Points to ponder…

drumcorps

So much to say…

…so little motivation to say it.

As I’m generally disinterested in posting today, I’ll keep it (relatively) brief.

Aaron took Friday night off of work, just because. I like having my honey-muffin around.

Saturday night was Mark’s gathering of friends and brohams, at which Aaron and I joined Mark’s friends and UPS co-workers in games of Crokinole and Hearts. Hot dogs were grilled and eaten and low-carb beer was imbibed (though not by me). Overall, a very fun time. It made me realize how much I miss playing cards.

Sunday was the Bavarian Festival in Frankenmuth, where the LakeShoremen performed in the annual parade. I left the house at 8am to meet Russ and Barb at their place in Clawson (north of Detroit) at 9:15am. Took another hour and a half to get to Frankenmuth, had lunch, warmups started around 11:30-ish, parade step-off was at 1pm. Overcast all day except when we were marching in the parade. (Go fig.) Impromptu group photo after the parade, post-parade party after that, got to eat bratwurst and meatballs and sausage and all sorts of low-carb yummies. Finally got back home to Toledo at 7:30pm. Fell asleep on the couch by 10:30pm, and was whisked to bed by my honey.

Today, when I got home from work, I tried a new photo transfer technique I read in this month’s Popular Photography & Imaging magazine. After a few paper jams and a few test prints, this was the result:

wax paper inkjet photo transfer: porch swing, 1999

It reminded me of the Polaroid transfer technique Beth was telling me about some time ago. When I have a photo-quality color printer (or even just a color cartridge for our current printer), I’ll have to try this again.