Category Archives: Family Stuff

Minnesota Pictures

Here are some of the pictures that Harold took while visiting his folks.  I hope to have time to put them on my site soon.  But I figured everyone would like a peek at them.  =)

Recovered?

Does it matter right now? I leave in 3 days for Portland so I guess it doesn’t matter if I am recovered from my trip up north or not, I barely have time to write this post, but I writing it anyway, sometimes you just have to say fuck it.

I am still pretty tired, I cant seem to get the sleep my body wants me to have, and when I am trying to work it screams at me “sleep more” so it makes working a bigger pain the ass then normal, but since I am like a month behind on shit I have to get done, I don’t have much choice.

My trip to my parents was fun, it would have been more fun had Pauline joined me, but it is what it is, she will soon be working from the house permanently, so this should be the last trip I take without her. I am not counting this week’s trip since she is going to Indiana for a wedding, so it’s not like she is at home alone while I am looking for “strange”.

My parents moved to Northern MN permanently 10 years ago after going up there since my dad was a kid, we started going there when I was 5 or 6 as a family and ever since my parents have gone 4-6 times a year, they found a great place near all their local friends and turned it into a great place on the river with a shabby cabin into a really fucking nice area with a huge house.

It has been 5 years at least since we was last there and there has been a lot of changes, my dad built the house himself and did a really great job, and there is just a few things he needs to do to “finish” it, but I know my dad, it will never be finished, he will always be tinkering with something.

We did some site seeing and really just caught up on what was going on in all of our lives I met some friends of theirs and we had a few cook outs and went 4 wheeling and stopped at the local bar and dad and I got his dock into the river and made some minor repairs to the dock and took one of his 4 boats out for the first time of the year. The rivers were thawed but the lakes were still mostly ice, some of the lakes still had snowmobiles riding the ice which is pretty late in the year to do it, we did walk about 30’ onto a lake which was a first for me, but that’s as far as I would go, too many cracks and “thin” spots.

Pauline and I are hoping to fly out there for 3-4 days in October, we will be in Portland permanently in mid September so by October it should be settled enough to fly out there and just visit with my parents again, October will be cold, but hopefully not too bad. I have already priced tickets and this time I am going to avoided MSP like the plague, and I found a airport that is about a hour from my parents for $500 or so each which is more then we have paid for tickets in a long long time, but taking into account the 4 hours we will save driving and that the car rental at this local airport a small business and not a chain, the car is much cheaper then Alamo or whoever, so really it will cost us the same in $.

Almost forgot, as I said my family has gone to this area of MN for over 30 years, from my first time to my 2nd to last time I have seen MAYBE 5 deer total, the last time Toni and I went up there we counted 20 deer in 6 days, a new record. This time I saw 60+ deer in 3 days, they was just EVERYWHERE! And the deer doo was all over my dads yard, on every path we walked, and in the middle of the woods when we went off the path, you just couldn’t avoid it, it was not a “oh look, another mess” it was “Geeze, don’t they ever stop pooping?”

My Dads dog, Troubles, which is a perfect name for this 110 lb hyper lab mix.

My Dads river

My Dads dog, Blue, this dog always looked like he has something to say.

Deer #45…. or something like that.

Still somewhat frozen lake

How Do I Feel?: okay okay

Work, Work & A Good Family Visit

Ok, that settles it, I need a clone and I need one bad.  All my plans that I had for myself got totally shot down.  I’ve been home since 18:30 and it is currently 23:16 and other then speaking to Kathy and Harold for about 30 minutes I’ve been working on my online stuff the whole time.  And it just dawned on something that I forgot to do.  So as soon as I get this done I will attack that.

I will say that I had a great conversation with my mother-in-law Kathy, she has just been over joyed with Harold’s visit.  It has been going well.  They had been having the wine that we sent them for the holidays and when I called she started to pull my leg on asking who I was…………LOL  I’m like his wife, the one he has been married to for 10yrs in May…..it was too funny. She was just over the hill happy.  It was really cool
Harold got the printer going.  It was one of those things that they had hooked everything up correctly but it didn’t want to work until you unplugged and plugged it back in and do the restart thing.  Computers can be a pain some times.  Kathy was telling me that the pc talks to her.  Boy, that would drive me batty.
She was very surprised at the amount of pictures that he took when they went out to the falls and few other site seeing things.  He took about 450 of them in a short time.  For us, that is normal for us, for them it is stunning.  She really loved how well the pictures came out.  I took her that she has to poised for some pictures so I can have some. The only one we have is one they gave us years ago.

Kathy was surprised at how he has changed. All the things I’m use to him doing, simple things like helping on a rough trail, holding a door open she says she hasn’t seen that in years….sounds like before he left for the Navy…her polite son that she knew is back.  For me, he has always been that way, but what I noticed is that his overall coping skills have come a long way and so has his patience.  He really has grown though the years……even though he can still drive me nuts………grin

She says that this visit is what they needed.  I’m just happy as hell that it is going well.  He really needed to see his folks.

I need to get back to work before I head off to bed.

Space Needle

Spur Of The Moment

Ok, wow……Harold will be heading to see his folks next week. It is a spur of the moment thing.

He had ordered his mom a new dell a few months ago since her old pc had so many issues. Well, we didn’t think and when he ordered it, it came with Vista….oops. His mom doesn’t know and we don’t know it at all to help her. She hasn’t been able to get the printer to work and of course, telephone customer service isn’t all that great in general.

I hate the fact that she has this pc and printer and isn’t able to use it for what she needs. We wanted it make it easier for her to stay in contact with family and print out pictures, not harder and more frustrating.

Then I feel bad about my work schedule……I just don’t have the time off for us to head up there to visit and we haven’t seen them in about 5yrs. We were planning on heading up there in Feb., but Harold broke his foot and had to have surgery. =( I really don’t like not seeing immediate family for that long and the fact that Harold hasn’t seen his own folks in that time……icks. So I suggested to Harold about flying out in the next 2 weeks to see them before he heads to Portland and I on to Indiana for the wedding.

What I’m not going to miss by not going up there is to see Harold get frustrated when trying to get everything hooked up and dealing with dell………grin At least his folks knows how his mouth can get…….lol Plus, he will not be happy dealing with Minnesota cold…….lol

I’m happy that he is going to see his folks, since it has been a long time. I just wish I was able to go and we’ve been able to do it sooner.

Speaking of family, I’m so looking forward to visiting with mine at the end of the month. =) I fly in on Thursday and on Friday, my sister and I are going to take a road trip and visit 2 of our great aunts (Mary & Evelyn). They are in their 80s & 90s and some of the very few family member left in our grandparents generation. I would like to spend some time with them since there isn’t much left. Saturday I’m heading to Purdue (thank god, the Grand Prix crowd is the weekend before) so I can get some shirts and other Purdue things. Then off to Jessie & Chris’ wedding. Sunday, it is all about spending that day at my folks with my sister, nieces & nephew. I can’t wait, I’m going to be running everywhere, I just hope I remember how to get to my locations….I have a horrible memory when it is hasn’t been used in awhile.

Rats, time to get ready for work…..at least I have Sopranos afterwards tonight………..grin

Goofy Harold

I talked to D today

He sounded much better and more like his old self when I talked to him today compared to when I spoke to him on Wednesday when his voice was a completely different pitch. He said he was sitting up in his room watching TV with his boys eating sherbet.Prior to talking to him I spoke to his wife and a mutual friend who was visiting him, and both told me he is better, but he’s not out of the woods yet. The tumor was removed and was cancerous, but how bad it really is we don’t know yet, and it will be a week or so before we do now once they run some test.

His heart “problem” could have just been stress at the time his EKG was taken, and the surgeon noticed a “lump” or something on the side of the neck which could be a cyst or a mole, their family Dr will have to look it over.

So I feel better, a bunch of us who know D are sharing emails so everyone is keeping in touch and I have more phone numbers to call to friends who I only seen 2 times in the last 15 years.

Its “odd” to realize that as popular as D is with all the friends he has, that I am included inside his “family circle” which includes some really great people from all over the US and Canada, I just never been the most popular person but yet, D and I stuck together for over 16 years.

So I feel somewhat better today, his wife will tell him everything in a day or so and they will be meeting with some specialist this week.

Just taking one day at a time right now, and odds are I will be driving up to see him when I am in Portland. That fucker… makes me drive 6 hours there, deal with customs and 6 hours back… I better get some BBQ out of this.

How Do I Feel?: okay okay
Live Strong