Snow!

Late late Fall is over now that we have some decent snow on the ground.  Just in time for Christmas too. In the meantime I kept up my normal travels.  Although we'll see if I slow down a little over the next couple weeks.

Garrison Hills for Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve I'm usually really busy jumping from church to church.  I like to go to First Wes with my Mom, then my church, and finally to Saint Philip Catholic Church for Midnight Mass.  This year I started at my church and ended up at St Phil once again. It's my traditional Midnight Mass only without Rob this year. We enjoy knowing that through the differences, they still believe in Jesus Christ as their savior.  The music is always enjoyable as well.

St Phil has a very beautiful building.

On Christmas day I opened a couple presents from Mom, then we rolled out to the airport in Kalamazoo.  After that I figured out my friends, Ethan and Liz weren't busy that night so I joined them for some games.  We started with Mario Kart, then played Creationary (a gift from Rob).  It's like Pictionary with Legos.

Can you see my bench?

The day after Christmas I was expecting Adela, Emily Calhoun, and Brad Smith to come out.  While they were on the way I met with Rob and Elizabeth for lunch at T-Bell.  I decided to ride my bike there. It was great... and awful... but also great.  Stinking cold, and the snow started up, beating me in the face.  So I didn't horse around much on the way home.

You can't see the snow in the air in this picture.  It was painful.

When they arrived we basically hit the town.  Around here that means checking out downtown and the Festival of Lights.  We missed some of the indoor stuff, but the ice sculptures were up.  It didn't take long before we were pretty cold though, so we headed back in fairly quickly.  At home we enjoyed watching Youtube and Hulu videos.  Some from Saturday Night Live, Olan Rogers, and a lot of Funniest Home Videos.

I think it's the Denso ice sculpture.  Brad, Adela, and Emily.

On Thursday we met with Hannah Ford to see the Hobbit for my first 3D experience.  It was all right.  I didn't like when they put stuff out of focus jumping out of the screen.  And the glasses are fairly uncomfortable.  I enjoyed going out though, and especially eating Red Robin afterwards.  I was very sad to see them leave, but it is nice to have the house to myself.  Just not for too long here.

The obnoxious curvy bench looks really cool with snow on it.

Here I am.  Living in Battle Creek.  No job quite yet.  I'm pretty antsy to get out of the house, but I'm not really worried about it.  Something will turn up.  I'm still hoping to work close to home, and if needed I'll check out substitute teaching.  There is a small chance that I might pursue full time teaching too, although I'm much more interested in engineering at this point.

Doh!

Here's the bad news.  The roads near my house don't get salted and are slick for days after it snows. So I was on the way home and slid into a curb.  Man!  I stay out of trouble with accidents for the most part, so it really bugs me when it happens.  But stuff happens and it's too late.  So far I'm trying to work on it with some friends that are more adept at working on cars than I am.

After taking the tire off we discovered the mount for the shock is broken right at the wheel hub.  It's something that I might be able to get some help on and figure out, but I still need to buy parts.  I budget well for  things usually, but I knew I'd be tight between working at Camp and getting a job.  This is the catastrophic cost on my budget.  But here I am, and I'm sure we'll be able to figure something out.

To get it parked my friend Jake (who helped me tremendously with all of this) pulled me on a sled.  His Grandpa lives near me and he welded a chain to a metal plate and we put some lumber on that, then dragged the whole deal about 80 yards down the road to my house.  Not too shabby.

I find myself thankful after something like this.  I'm sad because it could have been prevented so many ways, and I didn't even think I'd be making the trip with my car in the first place.  But with all the miles I've laid into this thing I don't feel like complaining about something that I was able to step out of safely.  Especially knowing other friends are having a much more difficult time after a car crash.

Boo.  Have a great Holiday Week!