So Beth and I had been wondering what to get with all of our Target gift cards.  We looked at some TV’s, but decided that we’d wait on that for a while, since TV’s would cost a lot more than we had in gift cards.  We thought about some other things, and then one time strolling through I noticed they had some decently priced home theater systems.

A few days ago we went and looked at some, but didn’t make any purchases so we could think on it and probably wait a few weeks.  Then Beth was like, ya know, that would be really nice.  We should go get that.  (I think that we both have jobs now, it helps).

So today we went to Target and purchased it.   It’s pretty sweet for us.  It’s the RCA RTD528.  It’s a 5 Disc DVD/CD System with HD Multimedia Interface, and a total of 1000 watts.  I haven’t used it a whole lot yet, but I can say that’s it’s pretty sweet sounding!

Now we just need a larger TV, but thanks to Kari we’ll have one of those (for a while anyway).

I see my podcasts are done updating, so I’m gunna head home and make some food before I go out and play some broomball in the freezing tonight!

That’s right!  I’ll be starting work down at the UofM on Monday.  I don’t know exactly where yet, but I’ll be doing some IT type of stuff.  I’ll be working with the Dean’s Office and Executive Students at the Carlson School of Management.  The U is switching from Novell to Active Directory, and so I’ll be doing some Help Desk type of stuff during that time.  The only downside is that’s a 1-3 month contract.  So after that time period I’ll be looking again, but I might be able to get in full time at the U then.  We’ll see.  I’m just pretty excited that I have a job!

They’re from our Photographer, on his reprint site:

Part 1

Part 2

Enjoy!

So still no job yet, but some promising leads.  Hopefully I’ll hear back from one of them tomorrow.  They want to fill the position by Monday, and I think I’ve got a good chance.  So we’ll see.  Hopefully there will be more info on that here soon.

I’m pretty excited about the State of the Union Address tonight.  Of course, by the time I actually get a chance to post this it will have been over.  But I’m probably downloading the podcast of it while this is being posted.  Right now I’m listening to the podcast of the State of the State Address by Gov. Pawlenty.  He has some good points, and I hope some of the proposals happen.

My parents came down this weekend.  They brought us some more furniture.  Now we have a computer desk, and dressers in the bedroom.  We have more drawer space for clothes!  Plus we have a few more things.  So this place is starting to look pretty decent.  One thing I wish we had: Internet.  It’d be nice to have that here.  There are 2 access points that I can reach, but both are protected via WEP.  Sad.  Once I get a job, then we can get Internet!

On Sunday I want to a UMN Wrestling match with Beth’s dad and brothers, or I guess you could call them my in-laws.  That’s a little strange to say.  It was fun.  I don’t get into wrestling much, but it was still a good time.  Plus the tickets were only $1.  They went against Penn State (which is the match the Hibbs guys always go to because Ron is from PA).  The Gophers dominated.

I also got a chance to watch some football this weekend.  I got to see part of the 3rd and all of the 4th quarter of the Bears vs. Saints game.  The Bears took it to the Saints in everything I saw.  I must say I’m rooting for the Colts in the Super Bowl.  They did a great job against the Pat’s.  So to all my former roommates from Chicago I’m sorry, but the Colts are going to win!

But now I should clean up and get ready for the big speech!

Thanks to Amy!

Here they are.

Okay, so the left has gone way to far with this, but according to Wolfe Blitzer, “fans of the action thriller series ‘24′ are actually so-called neo-conservatives.”

Before I go further, here’s the transcript from last night’s show.

They try to make the case that conservative people watch 24 so they can validate their political beliefs.  And apparently NewsWeek Magazine has called the show a “neocon sex fantasy”.

Why is it that the left is so worked up about this show?  Why is it that only people who are conservative can watch the show?  I have a number of friends who put themselves into the moderate or left column and they enjoy watching the show just as much as myself.

The liberal media makes me pretty upset on a lot of things.  This issue just tops the cake though.  Does the left really feel that threatened by 24 that they have to call it’s fan base “neo-conservatives”?   Gee, I sure am glad that the left is so much more open-minded than the conservative people in this nation.

So this morning I was sleeping soundly, as I should be since it was about 5:45 am. I thought I heard a knock on the door. I laid and waited…. yup that was a knock. So I get out of bed, try to grab a sweatshirt, but before I can do that I hear a key in the door and the door opening. Good thing we put the chain on the door.

I yell: “Hello?”

“I’m the plumber, your neighbor called and said the heat was out. We need to check it out in your room.”

“Ok, hold on.” I’m somewhat skeptical at this point. It feels warm to me, but then again I did just get out of a nice warm bed. Of course Beth was awake at this point when I enter the room. She asks what’s going on.

“The heat’s out. Grab the phone and stay here, just in case.” I grab a sweatshirt, throw it on, and close the bedroom door on my way out. I walk to the door, and look through the peep hole.

“Do you have any I.D.?”

“No, only my work pager. But your neighbor says they have no heat and we need to check it in your room.” (We have hot water heat in our building, and aparently the pipes go through all three rooms in our part of the building, and some where there was a problem.)

Not really sure what to think I slowly open the door and let him in. He seems legit, but I’m not to easy about this. He looks around at the heat register, does some stuff, and says:

“Do you guys work tomorrow? It looks like I’ll have to come back and fix it then.”

At this point I start to notice the coolness of the place. So the heat really is out.

“No, we both have tomorrow off. But you can come back whenever.”

It took me a long time to get back to sleep. The adrenaline was still going through my system.

He leaves. 9 am I hear a knock again. As I roll out of bed, grabbing the sweatshirt, go to open the door.

“Oh, you guys are still resting.”
“Not a problem, if you could just give us 10 min we’ll be out of your way.”

We get up, and get ready. He comes back in 10 minutes to fix it.

He says, “I talked to my manager this morning and told him about the I.D. idea. It’s a good one, cuz at 6 am you don’t know what’s going on, especially when you hear a knock on the door. I thought this apartment was vacant still, and when you hear some one coming in like that, it’s not a good situation.” (The building we’re in doesn’t have many people in it, it seems.)
I thought to myself: that’s right, you don’t want me to go all Jack Bauer on you or anything.

“Yeah, that’d be a good idea. We just moved in a month ago, so we haven’t been here long.”

He fixes the heat, and we get back to our day.

It looks like St. Paul is planning on putting a fiber optic link for the entire city.  The plan seems strange to me, but I could see it being really nice.  There are some ups and downs to the plan though.

One thing I’m not sure of is the free market competition and how that would work.  I think the city might not gain much from it, but if it drives prices down then it’s a win for the consumer which is great.

The price tag on the project is pretty large though: nearly $300 million.  And would fiber be a whole lot better than wireless?

Any thoughts?

Holy Buckets!!  This season is pretty good so far, and it’s pretty intense.

I think that Jack might not make it to the end of the season.  Knowing that he has said he that he “can’t do this anymore” it makes me think he might not make it much longer.

Any thoughts?

Some of my relatives posted a few wedding pictures on their sites.

Here’s the link.

Yesterday I had an over the phone interview with CH Robinson.  The interview seemed to go all right.  They said they had a few more phone interviews to do, and then they’d have in-person interviews and they’d let me know by Friday if they wanted me to come in for one of those or not.  So we’ll see.

The next interview was with an IT Placement group called TEK, who is located in the DQ International Building.  That interview went well, and it should yield interviews with about 3 companies right off the bat.  So hopefully those will get scheduled for sometime in the near future.  The three are: Northwest Airlines (located in Eagan), Boston Scientific (located in Shoreview), and a Children’s Hospital in Roseville.

One note about the DQ International Building:  It’s pretty nice.  It’s not overly big, but the big kicker is the free Dilly Bars in the lobby area when you come in.  So I grabbed one before I left.  How sweet is that?  I think if I worked in that building I’d probably eat to many Dilly Bars… but they are so good.

While I was in the lobby waiting to meet with TEK I got a call from Robert Half Technology, the placement group I interviewed with back in December.  They said they had an opportunity open that they thought I’d be a good fit for and asked if I’d like to interview with them.  So I said sure.  That one is located in downtown Minneapolis.

So there are some possibilities on the job front, which makes me happy.

Last night Beth and I were busy entertainers.  We had our friend (Beth’s former roommate) Amy over for some Tuna Noodle Casserole.  However, we didn’t have enough tuna.  Turns out we had chicken in a can, which I thought was tuna in a can.  So we substituted chicken for the tuna, and had Tuna Noodle Casserole.  It turned out pretty darn good though.

Then Beth’s family was in Maple Grove having dinner with one of her Uncle’s who’s in town on business.  We were going to go meet them, but it was about 8 before we would have been able to leave, and at that time they were all just sitting around at the restaurant.  So we decided to invite them all over to our place, and I decided to make brownies.  So I made brownies, Beth ran out to get some ice cream, and they got here with 1 minute left to go on the timer for the brownies.  It was good times.
So that’s been my busy last few days.  Did I ever mention that I got Season 4 of 24 on DVD for Christmas?  Beth and I have been watching that the last few days.  It’s a good season, and I hadn’t seen it all before, because I started in the middle of the season.  So we’re enjoying that.  Anyway, I need to get moving.  Have a sweet Thursday!

Nothing to exciting.  The weekend was really nice.  We had people over both Friday and Saturday night.

Friday night it was B.Fast, B.Gerdin, and J.Johnson (I would normally use full names, but figured I’d try something new) who came over and on the menu were enchilada’s made by myself.  We were going to watch Mr. Hollands Opus but we got to busy playing a bunch of different games were were actually quite fun!

Saturday night we had Kair Blair and her boyfriend over with spaghetti on the menu.  We watched Click.  It was interesting.  Not what I was expecting at all.  I was thinking it would be some pretty funny comedy, but it actually was a rather serious movie, that had it’s funny parts to it.  So there’s my thoughts on it.

I started watching 24 Season 4, as I got that for Christmas from my new brother-in-laws.  I don’t think I’ve seen the first 4-6 episodes so it’s kind of fun seeing those.  And of course the big season premeire happens this Sunday and Monday and you get bet your bottom dollar I’ll be watching them, in HD!  That’ll be fun.

I’ve also started looking at the GRE.  I’m going to take it sometime this spring hopefully.  We’ll see.  I’d like to start on that stuff more but the job search is taking a lot of time.  That’s alright, I’ll work on more both and life will be good.

That’s all I have for now.  Peace out!

Hey Everybody… I put new pictures on my pictures page.

For those of you who don’t want to check that page… here are the direct links:

• Honeymoon Pictures (Part 2)
• Honeymoon Pictures (Part 1)
• Wedding Pictures
• Beth Graduation

The flight back from Cancun was bumpy I thought, with lots of turbulence. And it was cold in MN. We landed at about 4:10 on December 31. It looked like it had just changed from sleet to snow. And by the time we made it through customs and out to our awaiting ride (Thanks again Janelle!) there was a fair amount of snow on the ground and it was cold. So we had to brush off Beth’s car when we got to campus in the snow. Did I mention that I wore my shorts and flip-flops on the airplane? Coming from 80 degrees to 30 degrees is a shock.

But we made it back safely.

The next day (Jan 1) we had our gift opening up in Elk River at Beth’s sisters place. It was good. We got a lot of nice presents. Thanks everyone! So we spent most of yesterday and today putting our place together. After another trip to Target to return some duplicate gifts I think we should be good. We might buy a few big things with all the gift cards we got. Most of the money will likely be spent on the honeymoon and our bed.

So now we’re at Bethel (because we don’t have internet at our place yet) and we’re looking for jobs. I thought I was supposed to hear back from the place where I interviewed twice by December 29th, but haven’t heard anything yet. I tried calling today and just got the voicemail. So I’m still waiting to hear, and in the mean time I’m still applying for jobs.

Now that you have read the saga, I hope you enjoyed it.

I don’t have the pictures up, but hopefully will soon! But in the mean time here are some other photos:
Wedding (thanks Jeremy)
And for those of you with Facebook look there. I’m trying to get originals from those people so I can post them on my site, but until then check facebook.