I'm Going to Jail

So over my lifespan, I've pulled hundreds of good pranks and practical jokes. I have never had one go as wrong as the one I pulled on Saturday. A friend of mine turned 40 this weekend, and we had a surprise party for him, at his house. Of course everyone proceeds to get completely wasted, except for me (because I like to be able to drive home safely) and a friend of mine who is pregnant. While we are watching people get more and more drunk, I decide we should start to mess with Ted. Sitting in the living with a bunch of other people, I got up and took a huge ass picture of a deer off his wall and took it out the front door to my car. The plan was to hang it up in the ER, and see if he noticed it when he went back to work. So after I came back in, and a few hours later, he notices it is missing but is completely unsure how long it has been gone. All the drunk folk are now trying to remember if they saw a picture hanging on this big empty wall now. Funny for me. He than starts to talk about how he thinks his very recent ex-wife busted into the house and took his picture. Seriously. For one thing, it was an ugly picture, and secondly, why would she break in and steal only that? I guess maybe alcohol does funny things to a person. So a couple of days go by when I go into work and find Ted there. He starts talking about how his ex-wife may be going to jail. I asked him for what, because she is actually a pretty nice, honest lady. He told me for stealing his picture. I tried to explain to him numerous times how he shouldn't be calling the cops because I know where the picture is at. He, of course, doesn't listen. He proceeds to call the state police, get in touch with a detective, and his attorney. Seriously? If you had a big group of drunks at your house and something came up missing, wouldn't the first thing you do would be to question everyone who was there. Oh no, not in this case. Needless to say, I had to actually physically present him with the picture before he would call the cops and explain to them that it was just a big misunderstanding. Opps. You know what though, I don't even really feel that bad about it, and still think its damn funny!

Anyways, this morning was one of the coldest mornings I can remember. And who has to get up before the sun comes up? Yup, me. At a -21F, I tromped out to the ski hill to patrol for the Special Olympics. I seriously thought I was going to freeze. Sadly, there wasn't a big turnout, but I guess that worked out for the better since it didn't last as long. It did warm up to a balmy 18F! The sun was shining, I felt like I was in heaven. I think I may even have gotten a bit of a sunburn! The best part of the day was the hour we had between the Special Olympics and the high school ski practice, so the patrollers actually had the hills to themselves. It was pretty sweat!

Last day off tomorrow before heading back to work. Sigh....

We're Having a Heat Wave!

Yup, that's right, a heat wave. Temps the past couple of days have been in the 20s! Of course that is all going to change when the arctic air pushes its way back into Northern Michigan. Work was so miserable this past stretch, I didn't wake up until 1130 yesterday. So the past couple of days I've just been vegging. Did a quick cross country ski trip, did some snowshoeing today. Just felt like I had to get outside while it felt so warm out!

The rest of my days, sadly, are already planned. I prefer to live with no plans, and let how I feel in the morning predict what I'm going to do that day. Mostly I'll be out doing ski patrol. Next week they are hosting the Special Olympics. That should be a riot! Plus a surprise 40th birthday party for a friend of mine. I've come up empty handed for a gag gift, so I've decided to a: go with no gift at all; b: just bring a card; or c: continue to think of something..... Anyone have any ideas?

Off to bed!

Burr!!!

So tomorrow, or today now, is supposed to be the "really cold day." Currently the temp is -17 with a windchill of -25. I was out snow blowing in those temps tonight. It felt like I didn't have a jacket on I was so cold. I couldn't seem to get done quick enough!! So the weathermen are calling for windchill readings in the range of -25 to -30 throughout the day. Since I'm headed back to work, I'm hoping that this keeps everyone indoors and uninjured! Only the really sick people can come in! But more than likely what will happen, as it always does, the really dumb ones will come in also. Job security I suppose!

The highlight of my night........my neighbors porch light FINALLY burnt out. When they come up, one of the first things they always do is turn on all of the lights inside and outside of the house. Not too sure why that is. But many times they have left a light on outside of the house. When they left well over a week ago, this was no exception. The light they left on perfectly shined right into my house, and it was some super 10,000 watt bulb nonetheless. Finally though, it burnt out and things around the house are dark again, just the way I like it.

Baby It's Cold Outside

Its more than just cold, it is freezing up here. Currently the temp is -14, not too sure what the windchill is. Today the highest I saw was 4, but the windchill reading was anywhere from -10 to -17. What did I do? Go outside and play in it of course! I went snowshoeing in the Pigeon River for a few hours this afternoon. It was rather quite deceiving since the sun was shining all day, even had to put my sunglasses on! After I finally got back to the car, and for several hours after that, I felt like someone was poking my face with a sharp little needle. It was fun, just cold.

The wonderful news about the weather, is that it is supposed to get colder with Thursday being the worse. The weatherman said tonight, "Things do warm a bit Friday as it looks like all areas should reach above zero." Woohoo!! Above zero! That is a reason for celebration! I don't understand why no one wants to come visit me up in the great north.......

What I've Been Up To!

First off, I've been making too many major purchases lately. I need to cut back, if for no other reason than the fact that I haven't worn out my other toys before I buy something new. Anyways, latest purchase: a kick ass air hockey table! It is some 5 feet long, the kind you would find at the bar or an arcade. I bought it at the junk store. I'm not sure what the name of the store really is, but my friend found it at the place he always calls the junk store. Everything there is new, it is just full of junk. The guy was asking $500, but I jewed him down to $200. A steal!! Oh the fun we've been having with this thing. I've had all sorts of people over, which is unusual for me, since I'm normally not the entertaining type of person. But between the wii, the foosball table and now the airhockey table, my house is like an arcade. Kids love it here!!

Spent Saturday out doing ski patrol. Or at least thats what I told people I was doing while I was there. I had some friends stop by, and we ended up tubing for over two hours. Its a lot less work when you don't have to walk your ass back up the hill! It was a riot!!

And something totally crazy. I had a dream last night that my old garage cat, Ruff, showed up. I seriously woke up sweating. For some reason either he was shaved or all of his hair was coming off. I don't know, it was just weird. Anyways, while I was sitting on the couch tonight my two indoor cats started freaking out at the back door. I get up to check to see whats going on, and guess who is on the porch....Ruff! I hadn't seen that cat since July, and since she is so little, I just assumed that the coyotes or something had her for dinner. I can't believe she is still alive!! I'm not about to open up the garage and start feeding her again. I seriously don't want that stray hanging around the house again. Obviously someone has been taking care of her. Just shocked the hell out of me that she showed up tonight, especially after that crazy dream I had last night.

Finally, some exciting weather news! The weather is always a topic of conversation in Northern Michigan, since it is forever changing. Anyways, we are supposed to get up to 10 inches of snow tonight. Wind gusts of 30 to 40mph. And the exciting part is windchill readings of 20 to 30 below zero!! So a few things pop into my mind. I want to go out and play in the cold tomorrow to see how well I can tolerate and endure these subzero temperatures and to test my survival skills. Secondly, think about it this way. Even if it warmed up 60 degrees, it would still be below freezing. Doesn't that sound oh so pleasant and make everyone want to come visit me!!!!!

Why I Love Kids!

I was out tonight doing ski patrol, when this little guy who was maybe 7 or 8 skis up to me and says, "are you a kid?" I laughed, and asked him what he thought, and he said, "you look like a kid to me." I asked him how old he thought I was, and he said 12. Granted, I do look rather young for my age, but don't kids just crack you up?

Road Trip!

If you ask me, there is nothing better than a last minute road trip! I've been wanting to get up to Tahquamenon Falls for awhile now to see what everything looks like all frozen. So when I woke up today, I decided today would be the day. Of course that meant I got a late start, and for some reason, Tahquamenon Falls seemed a whole lot longer away from my house today than it has in the past. And if there is one thing I hate most about winter, it has to be the fact that it gets so dark so darn early. Needless to say, I didn't have a lot of time to goof off like I wanted to. So my first stop was the Lower Falls. I am pretty sure that the campground is open all year around there, so I thought I would be able to get back there. But when I pulled in, there were two cars parked near the entrance, but for the life of me I couldn't remember how far away the falls are from there. So I opted to skip out on those this time around, since they aren't as spectacular as the Upper Falls, and just head to the Upper Falls. I was surprised how accessible the Upper Falls were. Sure only half the parking lot was plowed, which was no big deal since I was the only car there anyways, but the path to the falls was pretty well packed down. I even opted to carefully navigate down the slippery steps so I could get as close as possible. The falls were awesome! I would say half of the falls were frozen, but the water still came raging over the ledge. The orange color of the water seemed intensified surrounded by all the white snow. It was awesome!! At the end of the day, I had just enough daylight to head up to Whitefish Point to see what, if anything, was going on up there. The whole UP seemed to be totally abandoned. There were no people, no cars, all the driveways were buried in snow, businesses and hotels were shut down for the season, it was all just so eerily quiet. And as expected, Whitefish Point was all desolate. Oddly enough though, when I finally made it out to the beach, there was mostly sand. It was so tempting to kick my boots off and go running through the sand. But reality quickly came back when a cold brisk breeze knocked me in the face and made my eyes water. It was freezing up there! I didn't stick around too long, just long enough to snap a couple of pictures. No standing around enjoying the breeze and throwing rocks in the water like I normally do when I visit Lake Superior! Other than hitting a bird with the jeep on the way up (seriously, a bird, caught me by surprise!), today was a day well spent!

My Apologies to the Neighborhood

I got home tonight, and it appeared to me that my neighbors who have been up at their cabin for the past 2 weeks had finally gone home. My schedule lately has been difficult, so I simply haven't had time to snow blow the 6 inches or so of snow in the driveway. So, I figured I would do it when I got home tonight, at 1am. Well, lets just say that I found out the neighbors are still here. All the lights came on, and people were peaking out the window. Opps. I had two options, to finish as quickly as possible or quit and get up early tomorrow. I decided to try and hurry up and get it done, which I did, in about 30 minutes. When I shut the snowblower off, all I could hear were dogs barking. Apparently I woke the neighborhood dogs up also. Which I actually didn't even know I had any neighborhood dogs. I guess on the plus side of things, I'm assuming that all these people and animals I woke up are all from downstate. Which in most situations, they probably deserve it. I know I've had my share of being woken up from excess noise. So I guess I'm not really sorry.......

Happy New Year!

Can you believe it is 2009? I remember as a kid, dreaming about how far away the year 2000 was, let alone 2009! Yikers! Soon I'll be turning 29....super yikers!

So I rang in the New Year with friends and a herd of kids. Kids are hilarious. They are so simple minded, I aspire to be more like a kid the older I get. So one kid says to me, do you know the difference between toilet paper and milk? Of course I say no, and his reply, good thing you don't do the grocery shopping! That is funny, I don't care who you are.

I've spent the past two days out doing ski patrol. It has been a lot of fun and pretty eventful. Just a lot of minor injuries, but since I'm the most qualified medical patroller, I get to call all the shots. I only wish they had an x-ray machine there (yeah right), than I wouldn't have to send so many people to my friends in the ER. Yesterday I spent most of the day standing at the bottom of a jump everyone kept crashing on. There were two little kids, 4 and 5, who would crash almost every other time. Than they would just lay there waiting for me to come pick them up. They were funny. I can't believe how young they start them, its amazing! I suppose it is a good age, since they have no fear. And don't let them fool you, those little ones are pretty damn good. Most of the severe injuries happen out on the tubing hill. Which I had to play on this morning before it got busy, only because you don't have to walk up the hill, they have a rope you hang on to. Its a riot! I wish I had more free time to spend out there.

Today was the Winter Classic Hockey Game at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Of course Detroit won, 6-4. I taped the game, and just finished watching it. It looked like a lot of fun for both the players and the fans. I need to make it down to Detroit for a Wings game soon!

Back to the real world tomorrow when I return to work. I'm sure it will be super busy thanks to an extended holiday weekend.