Adam & Amber’s Blog

It is kinda sad to say, but I can forget that Rochester has a downtown for months at a time.  That is not to say that we don’t have a very nice downtown for a city our size (I usually tell people that Rochester’s downtown is exactly like being in a major metropolitan downtown only it is 3 square blocks in size) it is just that there usually isn’t any reason to go down there other then to eat (unless you are sick).  I am not the only person with this opinion, which is why Rochester is working very hard to change this image.

One of the ventures meant to help change this image is “Thursdays on First” which is a weekly downtown market/concert.  They have done it for a couple years, but I have never gone to it until tonight.  I know that to people that live in a large city small festivals like this are a common if not nightly occurance in the summer, but for a small city like us it was a surprise.  The street festival has a good mixture of art booths, produce booths, and food vendors.  The food was by far the biggest surprise, I was expecting the same sort of food as Rochesterfest, I was wrong.  The vendors that I saw (or ate at) included Jaspers, Newt’s (with the best burgers in Rochester), McGoon’s Taxi Co, Bilotti’s Pizza, and City Market (with Fresh, as in made on the street, cookies), it was kind of like an all-star food court.

Does this mean that I will remember that Rochester has a downtown?  Well, there is still winter, and it is easy to forget that fun exists in a Minnesota winter.  However, at the very least I know what my plans are on Thursday evening’s for the rest of the summer.

It is officially no longer Amber’s Birthday, but we had a great day here in Dayton doing Amber activities. What are Amber activities? Well, shopping, Target, Scrapbook Stores, etc. We also got together with Amber’s side of the family for a Birthday Party at Amber’s Grandparents. We re-introduced the family to this blog so maybe our readership will now double Check out the full set of pics here.

It was cool to read the Post Bulletin online today and see an article about a student I have worked with. Stephanie this summer has been showing cattle at local shows. I am hoping to see her and another student of mine at the local fairs this summer. I am becoming very well versed in cattle showing.

What is cool about Stephanie is like anything else in life she has not let the fact that she has CP get in the way of her doing what she wants to do. Read on and enjoy.

Stephanie

Yesterday was Amber and I’s First Wedding Anniversary we celebrated by taking a vacation from our vacation to go to Grand Rapids, MI for the day. We are currently on a week long vacation visiting family for the 4th and Amber’s birthday (the 6th). I am writing this post from my parent’s house in Muskegon, MI. We are here through the 4th before heading to Dayton, OH on Thursday to celebrate Amber’s Birthday at her Mom’s.

As I said we took an excursion to Grand Rapids for our Anniversary (who wants to spend their wedding anniversary with their parents). The picture to the left was taken at the Frederik Meijer Gardens, which is a sculpture garden as well as an actual plant garden (I am sure there is a fancy name for that, but it isn’t coming to me). I suggest taking a look at all the pictures I have posted of the sculptures and plants (Including Amber “The Thinker” and some phallic looking cacti).

While in Grand Rapids we stayed at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, one of the nicest in the area. Staying on a Monday of a holiday week we almost had the hotel to ourselves. This had a couple benefits, we didn’t hear any noise our entire time in the hotel and they upgraded our room to a suite after learning it was out anniversary.

The room was spectacular, easily the best hotel room I had ever stayed in. We stayed on the 19th floor and had views of the Grand River, The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, and downtown Grand Rapids. The suite had two rooms, 1 1/2 baths, and some of the most comfortable hotel furniture I have ever used.

For our Anniversary dinner we went to the The Grille at 1913, which served Dry-Aged Steak (like one of our favorite Cities Steakhouses, Manny’s but had a much more attentive wait staff). The entire restaurant staff spoke to us by name, we had white-gloved service, two-waitresses to serve us, and the food was wonderful. The prices were comparable to Manny’s but the portions were smaller (i.e. you payed for the service). Besides the steak, I had some of the lightest garlic mashed potatoes I have ever tasted, they were so light it was almost like eating the essence of garlic potatoes. For dessert Amber had the largest creme brulee I have ever seen, and I had a chocolate souffle that gave me my first opportunity to eat 24 karat gold leaf.

Overall our first anniversary was relaxing and elegant.

“There is a truck in our yard”, That is what Amber said when she called me at work this afternoon.

At first I thought she meant that someone had parked over the curb a bit and onto our lawn. Then she started talking about the recycling bin being crushed and I thought to myself, “Why would someone run-over our recycling bin?”. At this point she told me that the truck hit one of the trees in front of our house, I finally understood the scope of what she was talking about. Sometimes my slowness is astounding.

While Amber checked the car for passengers (there were none) and called the Police (because we figured that is what you do when someone parks their truck in your tree), I headed home from work to help her sort it out.

Driving home I had plenty of theories about why there was a truck in our yard. I figured that it couldn’t have been a sober adult because if you accidentally drove your truck into my tree you would either knock on the door ad fess up (which I would prefer), or you would immediately drive away (dragging away my recycling bin). I thought about an intoxicated adult, but then why would you run? And if you were drunk enough to park your truck in my tree, I would imagine you couldn’t run very far before ending up on your face. The most obvious choice to me was that a neighborhood kid, of which there are plenty, went on a joy ride that ended with an amateur parking job in my tree.

It just so happened that at almost the exact moment I arrived home, I also learned how wrong I my theories were. After meeting Amber in our front yard (that had a truck parked in it) and talking about a variety of topics mostly surrounding the fact that there was a truck parked in our tree. A neighbor from a few houses up the street comes running out her front door, very curious as to why the truck she parked on the street a few hours before was now parked in my tree. Apparently, she had borrowed the manual transmission truck and was given instructions not to set the parking break. An old transmission and gravity took care of the rest.

Luckily no one got hurt and the truck didn’t make it to the intersection at the end of our street. The tree held up like a champ with only minor bark damage and the remarkably springy recycling bin was, well, remarkably springy. So other then losing 15 minutes of work and wasting a few minutes of the Police’s time, no harm was done (Well except to the front of the truck, but come on everyone knows you set the parking break on manual transmission’s, especially on a hill).

For those of you who don’t know, Mr Wizard died yesterday morning at almost 90 years of age. For those of you that don’t know who Mr Wizard is (hopefully the graphic helps), think Bill Nye in a 1980’s setting, at least that is who he is to me. I can still remember watching Mr. Wizard’s World on Nickelodeon when I was a kid, the magical experiments, the corny animated transitions, and the even cornier futuristic 80’s music. Mr. Wizard is where I first learned about chemistry, physics, and probably the first place I saw anything resembling a computer or robot.

It wasn’t until today when I was reading up on Mr. Wizard that I learned about what a full career he had before the 1980’s. Mr. Wizard whose real name was Don Herbert was born in Waconia, MN (which is about 2 hours from Rochester, straight West of the Twin Cities) before moving to the Twin Cities and finally Lacrosse, WI. Mr. Wizard graduated from State Teachers College with a degree in English and General Science, but instead of going into teaching he decided to go pursue acting and moved to New York City in 1941. Being a young man in 1941, he did what a large number of young men did and volunteered for service, specifically he served as a pilot performing 55 bombing missions over Northern Italy before leaving the service in 1945. After his service, Mr Wizard went back to acting and various other jobs in the entertainment field before starting “Watch Mr. Wizard” in 1951 in Chicago. “Watch Mr. Wizard” continued with great success until 1965 when NBC canceled the series (that I never knew existed). For the remainder of the 60’s and 70’s Mr Wizard did a variety of things, writing books, making classroom videos, special appearances, and even a few other TV shows. In 1983 “Mr. Wizard’s World” was picked up by the new and fledgling Nickelodeon Channel and continued for 7 season ending in 1990, with reruns continuing until 2000. I can still remember getting up for zero-hour in high school at 6 AM and watching re-runs.

There have been plenty of educational shows for children, but Mr. Wizard was special because he never talked down to children. Something if you watch the educational programming on Nickelodeon today you know they do all the time. How they went from a man planting the seeds of interest in science, math, and technology to a talking television screen and a blue dog is probably something that should be examined. That alas, is not the point of this post. Today I say good-bye to a good friend from my childhood, Rest in Peace Mr. Wizard.

Check out Mr. Wizard’s Official site here, with all sorts of interesting information.

Our friends Andy & Darcy got married this past weekend (Congrats Guys!) and both of us were honored to be in the wedding party, Amber as a bridesmaid and myself as the best man. As an additional duty that I bestowed on myself I decided to organize a group gift among our Rochester friends.

Andy and Darcy have been together long enough that they have most of the things you need to run a household, which meant that they really only needed a few small things and couple big things. We of course decided to go big and bought them a Blue Ember Grill with just about every bell and whistle a person could ask for. However through the generosity of our group (and the large number of people that contributed) we had enough funds to buy the grill, every grilling implement known to man, a fire pit, and even a chefs hat for the cook. A large haul by anyones standard, but how to package it? Such a large gift deserves more then a simple card and bow, that is when genius struck.

I will now give a dramatic (and inaccurate) dialog on how Jon and I came up with the idea:

Adam: Hey Jon, I had an idea for how we should package the gift.
Jon: You’re an idiot
Adam: I was thinking that we build a box large enough to fit the grill and all the other gifts inside.
Jon: You’re an idiot
Adam: We would have to make it HUGE, like 7′x7′x7′ just to make sure we can fit the 6′ wide grill inside.
Jon: You’re an idiot
Adam: We can put it on their deck, wrap the entire thing and make some ribbon and a bow out of fabric to make it look like a gift.
Jon: You’re an idi……. Can we fill it with balloons?
Adam: YES!

And that has nothing to do with how the idea was born, other then that Jon and I talked about it and he thinks I’m an idiot

We had this crazy idea 4 days before the wedding, which meant that to pull it off we would need to find a group of people as crazy as us, people willing to put in long hours building something thats entire purpose was to be destroyed, people willing to work for pizza and laughs. Luckily, Rochester is just dull enough that we convinced a good chunk of our friends to help out.

After putting out a plea for cardboard, purchasing a crap-ton (it’s metric) of 1×2’s, finding silver table cloth rolls to use as wrapping paper, and getting strange looks by going alone into Jo-Ann’s (picture a large guy perusing the fabric section in the middle of the day) to get “ribbon”, we were set. We gathered 2 days before the wedding to pre-assemble as much of the box as possible. The plan was to frame nine 3.5′x7′ panels, cover them in cardboard, and individually wrap them. The tenth panel was the exception, it included a door so that the contents of the box could be accessed and would be wrapped on location after the box was assembled.

One of the best times when doing a project like this, is the moment when everyone buys into the idea (still realizing that it is completely absurd and insane). As I watched 11 people work for 2+ hours on this completely crazy idea I couldn’t help but think how hard it was going to be to convince them to help assemble it after the reception, being past 1 AM and having partied and drank for hours. But we had come to far, so this box was going up!

The wedding was of course beautiful, went off without a hitch, the women all beautiful and the men handsome. The reception was a blast, everyone danced more then they should have, ate more then they should have, and some even drank more then they should have. However, that is not the purpose of this post, all that is important is that everyone was well dressed, tired, sore, tipsy, and it was 1 AM.

It took another two hours but we got the box up (with the magic power of zip-ties), put in the gifts, filled it about half full of balloons (over 300), wrapped the visible surfaces one more time, slapped on the bow, and at around 3 AM called it good. Were we tired? Hell Yes, But we had accomplished something! We had build a completely useless, but impressive, 7′ gift box. Now all that was left to do was to go home, get my 5 hours of sleep and goto the gift opening in the morning.

Luckily there is video of the remainder of this story, so I can stop typing and you can stop reading. The reaction was completely worth the effort and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Congratulations Andy and Darcy!

Enjoy the video.

That is right, after the previous storm last weekend that dumped over a foot of snow on us we had only a couple days rest before round two came Thursday and Friday and dumped another 10+ inches. I would guess that at our house the undrifted and unshoveled total of both storms is about 2 1/2 feet of snow. We are starting to run out of places to put it. We have tried hiding some under the deck but now that is so full it is blocking the entrance. We have crested the neighbors fence next to the garage and have started throwing the snow over it. And don’t even get me started on our poor mailbox.

Where the plows have helped create snow banks they are easily topping out over 5 feet tall and where they have not helped we have piles nearing 4 feet. Each foot, mind you, shoveled by hand by Amber and myself.

The good news is that snow is out of the forecast for the next week and we might even start warming up! We just have to keep reminding ourselves that soon it will be spring and then we will just have to deal with all the flooding.

Checkout more pictures of the aftermath here.

I grew up on the west coast of Michigan, went to school in the Northern U.P. of Michigan, and now live in Minnesota. Point is I have always lived around snow and truth be told Minnesota has the least snow fall of any place I have lived (although that is made up for by being the coldest place I have ever lived). Most of the time I love the snow, it is beautiful to look at and fun to play in. That being said there is a dark side to all this winter bliss, snow removal. Amber and I do not yet own a snow blower (from our time outside this morning, we might be the only ones on the block that don’t), this means we get to remove our snow the old fashioned way shoveling.

Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. This weekend Southern Minnesota had a blizzard. Judging from the snow in our driveway, which was between 6 inches and over 2 feet deep (after I already shoveled once yesterday), I would bet we got over 15 inches since Friday afternoon. The snow wasn’t so bad, it was the fact that we first had 1/4 inch of ice first is what made things interesting. Our temperatures hovered around freezing so most of what fell was either freezing rain or really heavy snow. Today Amber and I spent the better part of 2 hours shoveling the driveway while trying our hardest not to slip down it.

I did take advantage of my time outside by taking a few pictures, check them out here.

When I was in high school the thought of going to a movie alone was terrifying, the feeling of utter rejection one must feel to walk in and sit down alone. There were times when I would walk into a theater alone (when the person I came with was getting concessions or something) and I would feel like I needed to explain to people that I was not one of those people that went to the theaters alone. I am sure all that says something about my self confidence as a teenager but these are different times.

I have seen two movies alone in my life and I am afraid that what they are might say something about me. The first I saw because there was no one to see it with which I assume is the reason most people go alone to a movie. I was in Rochester on a co-op and it was in a time when everyone I knew here had either gone back to school or wasn’t around and I really wanted to see the movie. That movie was “Lord Of The Rings: Two Towers”, does that make me a dork? Probably, but I am OK with that. The best part was it was on opening day, yeah I know that definitely makes me a dork but the beauty was the theater was packed (I can only presume with a couple hundred other people who were there alone) so I didn’t feel too uncomfortable.

The second movie I went alone to was because no one wanted to go see it. This was fairly recently when there was a number of movies I wanted to see and my friends wanted to see one less then I. I setup to go see four movies of varying goodness over the course of two weeks. The movies were fairly well attended until it came to the last one, “Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny”. A movie that, from looking at how it did in the box office, I may have been the only person in the US that wanted to see it. This time it was the opposite situation, I was the only person in the entire theater. For those of you (which assume is all of you) who have never had the opportunity to watch a movie in a theater completely alone it is cool experience. You can laugh as loud as you want, although laughing is a bit weird when there is no one there to hear it or laugh with. Also, the theater is a very creepy and dark place when no one else is in it. Even though it is a little weird, there is no reason to be uncomfortable because there was no one there to make me feel uncomfortable.

My point is that in high school I was stupid. There is nothing wrong with seeing a movie alone, as a matter of fact it would seem to be one of the best things to go do by yourself. I mean you sit in a dark room and quietly watch a large screen, the experience really isn’t that different with or without someone else. And yet, it is still something that most people won’t go and do and even though I know it is irrational I wouldn’t choose to do it. How about you? Have you ever seen a movie alone? Do you think you could? Maybe your answer says as much about you as “Two Towers” and “Tenacious D” say about me.