We are finally starting to approach spring up here in the northwoods.  The pot heads are coming out of the forest and visiting the store once again stinking up the place, and the roads are full of pot holes again too.  Life in Michigan: where tourists can pretty much count on losing an axle on the roads as soon as they cross the state line.  Speaking of traveling, I did finally take a vacation (after 6 months of constant work) and took a trip down to the corn fields of Iowa to meet my new niece Lucy.  It was nice to see that Sarah and Brian run a tight ship, emulating the fine examples of our parents.  Christopher has grown and is finally learning to speak using complete sentences, something that will always make him my favorite nephew (make sure you remind him of that) and Lucy was sporting a fine head of hair, clearly preparing to wear home made barrettes made of bright pink sequins for the annual family pictures.  It was nice to see them all and even help them to acquire new channels on their TV.

On my way home from Iowa I managed to spend $10 on tolls going through Chicagoland only to end up at Ikea to spend a paltry $35.  I had never been to an Ikea store before and I had planned on making some bigger purchases to help furnish my new house.  Once there, I decided that other things really needed to be accomplished prior to setting up a Swedish sweat lodge in my basement.  Really, I simply can’t have a country bumpkin, collection of random things going on.  I need more consistency than that so some planning is going to be in order.

I am enjoying my new 47″ TV that I purchased with my profit sharing bonus at work.  Of course everyone I know is simply amused that I refuse to get cable TV to go along with it, they all think that I’ve wasted my money because I can’t watch 600lb men behave like fools at national sporting events in 3D.  Little do they know that there is more to entertainment than learning how many feet there are in a yard.  Like, perhaps watching the latest episode of Glee.  Gavin the wonder dog has been having a good time exploring his new house and it has not taken him long to get quite comfortable wandering around outside, soon I’ll be able to fence him in and I won’t have to stand out there and watch him every time he needs to go out.

I won’t even go into all the drama lately at work.  Let’s just say I’m glad I’ve got my shit figured out since at least that means I’ll be able to keep my job.

So that’s about all I have to say for tonight.  We’ve sprung the clocks ahead by an hour this weekend and so my body still thinks it’s much earlier than it really is.  I must be off to bed if there is any hope of me waking up in the morning.

I am eagerly awaiting news from Iowa within the next several days.  For anyone totally out of the loop, I am expecting news of the birth of my niece!  Sarah and Brian are expecting their second child any day now and the parents have gone down to Iowa to be with them.  I know that Sarah is very much ready for this to be over with and of course the grandparents are just beaming I’m sure.  Should be within the next few days….I hope.

Not much else going on up here in the northwoods.  I have the weekend off and I’m planning on going out to the lake to dig out my folks.  Hopefully I can figure out how to run their snowblower.  Then I am going to take the dog over to Lake Michigan to take some pictures.  Good Harbor should be mostly frozen by this point and I’ve not made a trip into Leelanau for quite some time.  It’s time to use that camera of mine.  I’ll upload new pictures to my web site if I manage to capture some good ones.

I’m off to bed now.  Hopefully I can convince myself to write again soon.  By the way Happy Birthday  A. A. Milne

As we get closer now to the new year, it’s time for a little reflection on this past year.  It’s been quite a year for me.  Back in January of 2010, I had no idea that by the end of the year I’d be living in my own house, that I actually would qualify and get a mortgage after so many years of financial damage had been done to my credit report.  I had no idea that it would take me the better part of 6 months to fight with the credit reporting agencies about their own failure to report and document things correctly or that, by the end of it, it would only take me 30 days to close.  So now I own a house with a mortgage, in the little town of Interlochen with a dog, a yard, and new neighbors.  And I’ve done all this largely on my own except for the bits and pieces of financial help and MASSIVE amounts of encouragement I’ve received from my folks.  I think they are as impressed as I am that I was able to get this done without having to borrow lots of money from them.  It makes me feel good that I didn’t have to, after all, I SHOULD be doing these things on my own at this point in my life.  I have a good job, a good income, and finally, I will now have a tangible asset and of course a LOT more responsibility.

This has also been quite a good year for me at work.  My income only continues to grow but more than that I’ve finally reached a point now at work where I can be considered an experienced manager at least by my companies definition.  In April of this next year, I’ll be entering my 7th year with my company and my 5th year as part of the management staff.  I think that without question, that gives me a degree of credibility and earns me some respect from my peers and employees.  People listen to me as a leader, not necessarily because I’ve got the experience under my belt but more because I have and can keep a level head in a VERY unleveled working environment.  I have been able to stick it out and make my job work for me as my career and I’ve been able to promote (or rather convince) other employees that retail employment can really work for you if you let it.  NEVER in my life did I envision myself becoming a retail manager, I think this job is not one that most people dream of having.  I never did.  But, it has worked out very well for me despite having to put up with random idiots, freaks, and fools, I do enjoy my job quite a bit and I enjoy the fact that it keeps me entertained.  I could never go back to a desk job at this point.  How boring, how tedious, how monotonous.  Every day is new adventure for me and I hope that I’m never forced to change that.  It takes a toll on my body but that is of my own doing.  Part of my new routine now going into the new year is to start taking a little better care of my aging body in hopes that it will last me a while.

My photography has also taken off quite well this year.  I purchased a professional level camera in February which has allowed me to capture quite a number of truly amazing photos.  While photography is still just a hobby for me, my work has been featured on Leelanau.com 4 times in the past year, I’ve had multiple requests from people to buy my pictures, I’ve even had to sign an affidavit at Meijer because they could not believe the pictures I was developing with them were my own.  That puts me in an exclusive little club at this Meijer up here.  Their little file isn’t very thick which I suspect says more about their inability to develop quality images using quality materials than it does about me since there are so many great photographers in this region who rightly choose to develop their photos through professional photo labs.  I am looking forward to moving ahead with my photography this next year and perhaps doing another book in addition to the others I’ve already published.

On the family side of my life, I am looking forward to the addition of a niece named Lucy.  This will make child #2 for Sarah and Brian and I could not be a prouder (is that word) Uncle!  I am always saddened that I don’t get to see them very often however that is not uncommon for people in our age group.  Families simply don’t all live in the same city or state any more and I accept that fact I think more than my folks do.  I know they would like to be closer to their grandkids and to Sarah and Brian but it’s not a reality that is possible at this time.  At least it gives all of us a reason to get out of the state every now and then and visit other places.  I’m sure if we did not have family in Iowa, we never would have made it out to Colorado this past fall.  Exploring our environment means having to take risks and having to take trips.  I can’t wait to make a trip out to see little Lucy and her brother Christopher this next year.  I look forward to learning the nickname for Lucy to counter Wally.

I’ll wrap this post up for now and leave by saying that I hope you readers do stick around.  There are lots of things going on in politics right now that I want to write about and share when I can find the time to do it.  At the very least, you will all find some amusement or pleasure in reading what I have to say.  Today then I’m off to clean out my garage in hopes that I’ll soon be able to park my car inside it.  Cheers!

Sarah is making her famous white chili recipie for dinner tonight.  That means the car ride tomorrow should be interesting.  Perhaps it will be nice enough to keep the windows down for a bit.  So for now, off to relax.

Just some statistics about this blog for you:

Visitors over the past year: 1681

Unique Visitors: 824

Average Visitors Per Day: 15

Returning Visitors each day: between 3-7

Obviously not a huge drain on bandwidth but some of you apparently find me at least interesting enough to read my writing.

SO, stay tuned, Like I said, I’ll be posting something here every day for the next 10 days or so.

DES MOINES — It’s official.

A joint resolution sponsored by 18 Senate Republicans was introduced Thursday proposing a constitutional amendment specifying marriage between one man and one woman as the only legal union that is valid or recognized in the state.

“This starts the ball rolling. It’s imperative that the citizens of the state of Iowa have something that they can point to as a mechanism to start the ball rolling,” said Sen. Merlin Bartz, R-Grafton.

“Now that we’ve had this introduced in the Senate, they’ll have the opportunity to contact their legislators and ask them to support the Senate joint resolution,” he added.

However, Bartz conceded Senate Joint Resolution 2001 faces nearly insurmountable odds in being debated during the 2010 session — given the steadfast opposition from Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs.

A crowd gathered to express their rage towards homosexuals having been given the right to get married in their state.  This group is seeking a ballot measure to repeal marriage equality by popular vote in 2014, the soonest they could possibly get it on the ballot.  Thank God those Iowans have their shit together in the state house and understand that equality should never be subject to the whims of the majority.

Watching this, I kept waiting for them to haul out the pitchforks!

The words of his daughter could not be more true or pointed.  Opposition to this issue is largely a generational and religious one.  It’s over.  You’ve lost.

I promise one of these days I’ll quit writing about politics in this blog but you’ll have to admit that it’s far more interesting reading than anything about my boring ass lame life that I live.  Spring is apparently not going to come to northern Michigan this year, rather it will just continue to snow and be cold up until about June when the ice will melt and it will be in the 90′s for a week.  Then the leaves will fall off, the lakes will freeze again and we will go back to huddling under the blankets to keep warm.  I’m so sick of this weather I could just puke.

Looking forward to a day off on Tuesday although due to the weather, I may not do anything productive.  I’m sure the folks are enjoying much better weather in Virginia.

Are you fucking kidding me? Read more from DES MOINES Iowa. It’s OK Sarah and Brian, surely your child will grow up far more civilized and will understand that to get back at teammates, public embarrassment and ridicule is far more effective, not to mention cleaner, than playing with the body parts of dead animals.

I could see this sort of thing going on up here in the north woods except up here these would be feral pigs rather than fetal pigs and the team playing with the pig parts would be members of Larry’s Bowling Team vs. the Hooters Mud Wrestling referees (2 groups of 30 year old unemployed men, rather than 2 groups of 15 year old school boys).  Some people just never grow up do they.