So I figured it’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted, and I should give you an update on things. 

I like the job a lot.  The possibilities are endless really, and the opportunities are there to make great things happen.  It will take some work to make some of the long term goals work, but that’s why they are long term goals.  I am very excited about that.  

It’s been a learning curve trying to get everything together.  There was a lot of catch up work to be done in order to bring the office back up to speed for the 3 months that passed without a fulltime director.  So I’ve been working on that.  I’m also working on moving away from Microsoft Money 1999 for the financials.  It’s a very outdated program, and I’m not a fan.  So moving away from that will take some work as well. 

So overall the job is going good.  Working on one project to bring about 200 or so jobs to the city.  It’s in financial negoiations at the moment, but hopefully that will be finalized before too long. 

We found a house to rent in Wells as well.  So I’m staying about 5 blocks from the office in Wells, which makes for a great walk to work.  It’s really nice to have that.  I enjoyed living with my brother for 2 weeks (Thanks again Aaron and Connie!), and it was great to hang out with him more.  But it’s also nice to not drive an hour and fifteen minutes one way each day.  That adds up to a lot of time in the car, and a lot less sleep.  

I’m liking the job, and liking being home with my wife this weekend!  She’s great!

That’s right!  I’ve got a new job!  I’m very excited about this new opportunity.  It’s the Director of Community Development position for the City of Wells, MN. (Map link)

I’ll be working with Economic Development Authority, the Planning and Zoning Commission, and the Housing and Redevelopment Authority.  I’ll be using my Master Degree heavily, and it’s simply a great step on my career path.  I’m really excited about the opportunities that lie ahead in this position.

Beth and I have checked out Wells, and some houses there as well.  We’re a little disappointed about having to move (we love our house!), but we are really excited about this next step in our lives.  So over the next week or two we’ll be working to get our house on the market.  If you know anyone who is in the market for a house in Blaine let us know!  As for buying a house in Wells, we haven’t found the one we really love yet.

I start the job on Monday, and I’ll be staying with my brother in New Ulm for a bit and be back here on the weekends.  That part will kind of stink, but it should only be for a few weeks. It will make for a few busy weeks, but it will be great!

With the Legislature back in Session things are busy again at the Capitol.  For the most part that’s good.  The hours are a little long again, but that’s alright. I really like working with the Freshmen and helping get them acclimated to life at the Capitol.  It’s also really fun to work with my Representative, Tim Sanders.  Having worked with him on the campaign trail, it’s made things pretty easy to work with him there.

Life on the home front is good.  Owning a home is interesting… Our dishwasher broke and we’re waiting on fixing that.  We bought it new, and of course it stopped working about a month after the warranty went out.  With in the next month or two I’ll do my best to fix that.  The garage door sensor isn’t working quite right either.  We ordered parts to get that fixed, but they’re on back order.  So once those get here I’ll get that working properly again.

For the past month we’ve been going to the gym on a regular basis.  One of Beth’s coworkers gave us a couple of free trial passes and we used them, and liked working out.  So we joined up. Back in December we went to check out Gold’s Gym, but that was not the place for us.  The people were a little too pushy and trying to sell us stuff we didn’t need.  We joined the AnyTime Fitness and it’s a good place.  It’s a smaller gym, but it’s just a bunch of people getting fit.  No real body builders or anything.  Plus it’s not too busy most times.  So it’s easy to get in a quick workout and get back on with your day.

So life is good.  It feels like spring a little bit this weekend, and that puts a smile on my face.  Too bad I have to do homework today.

So I’ve been spending a lot of time in my car lately.  Between a quick trip to the LP on Saturday and minimum hour and fifteen minute commutes (one way) to work this week I’ve been thinking some good podcasts would be nice to listen to.

Ideally it would ideally be podcasts that are updated daily so I could sync my iPhone in the morning and listen on my way to work.  But weekly podcasts would be alright too.  I was looking through the podcast listings in iTunes and there are a lot of them.  I figured I’d turn to you, my trustworthy friends, to suggest some good listening for my daily commutes.

Life has been crazy!  Work is at a dead sprint right now.  From what I hear in the blogs we’re supposed to finish up today.  Well I’m watching Kare 11 and they just said “lawmakers hope to wrap up by sunrise on Sunday”.  So I guess I’ll get home tomorrow just on time for church!  That sounds like fun.

So that’s the main part of my life.  Two weeks ago I was able to catch a Twins game with some co-workers which was fun.  They beat the White Sox.  They were at the top in the Central, not sure where they are now.  But I’m hoping to take in a few more games this summer.  (That’s for you Anders!)
There’s been some political topics on my mind lately, but I can’t think of them at the moment.  I think my mind is still sleeping from teh late night last night.  Perhaps more on the flip side when work slows down.

They’re nice.  Work has been busy, and so it’s nice to have a break.  If only it were a little warmer outside I could enjoy our deck!  Wouldn’t that be nice?

I have been enjoying the warmer weather though.  Beth and I have been going out for walks and having fun enjoying the nice neighborhood.  We’re getting to see more of it now.  We really like it.

Today after the secretary at church held a gathering for the young couples in church.  That was pretty fun.  I got to meet about 4 other couples that are all in their twenties or so.  It’s nice to start to get connected, and make more friends.  And most of them live close by, which is also helpful.  Beth couldn’t be there because she had to work, but this might turn into a monthly thing.  I like that idea.

For those of you on Spring Break: I’m a little jealous.  (I was hanging out with Roelf and Pat this weekend and we relived some of our fun spring break memories to Cali.  Good times.  Good times.)  But enjoy your time in the sun.

That’s me tonight.  It’s a nice change.  although the relaxing weekend was quite fun as well.  It seems like it was our first truly relaxing together in a long time.

Friday I picked up my parents from the airport.  Their plane was late so we didn’t get back here til like 7:30.  We hung out that night and they told us their fun stories of Texas.  It sounded warm and fun.  I’m jealous.

Saturday morning the parents left at about 10 am.  So we hung out.  Took a nap.  Then we went out to a movie and dinner.  We saw The Other Boleyn Girl.  Beth had just read the book and she enjoyed it.  The movie was alright.  Natalie Portman was in it, so that rocks.  But I don’t think I would have put her in that role.  It didn’t seem to fit her.

Sunday was DST.  We set the clocks ahead before we went to bed.  Not a big deal.  We were still late for church though.  We’ve been going there for nearly 4 months, and we still cannot remember when church is.  Oh well.  Then it was home to relax and do some reading.  We both read for most of the afternoon.  Granted mine was homework.

Brad and Bethany came over for dinner, which was fun.  Their a fun couple.  And they’re getting married in October!  Congrats to them.  We had a good evening.  Except Bethany didn’t like the game we played (she lost, that could be why).

So tonight I got home from work (and boy was I glad to get out of there today) and got to work on some of the projects around here.  My drivers side rear window on my car was falling down.  Similar to what happened to my passenger side rear window a few years ago.  So I fixed the window.

After that I got out my drill and drilled a hole in the kitchen floor so we could hook up our automatic ice maker.  That was not nearly as much work as it could have been.  Mainly because the previous owner had tapped the pipe in the basement for other reasons which I’m not sure of.  So basically it was just drilling a hole in the kitchen floor and running the pipe through it.  Now we have ice automatically made for us.  Sweet.

So that’s my fun evening.  Now I’m relaxing.  I should read some homework.  But that will come shortly.   I need to blog more, so here it is.  Happy reading!

Have a great week!

Today was the endorsing convention for State Representative.  The delegates endorsed Tim Sanders.  So that means that I will not be running for State Representative in the fall.  The best of luck to Tim!

Work is picking up.  The transportation bill was passed on Thursday.  If you want to see some fun times tun into the House floor debate on Monday to watch the veto override attempt.  That will be very interesting to see.

Class is done for the quarter (Well after I finish my paper).  Then I have a week off.  So it goes from being a very, very, very busy week to this week (hopefully) being a chance for me to relax a little bit.  I’m looking forward to that!

I can’t believe how crazy work got in the past 2 days.  I had almost forgotten how much fun session is.  Seriously, it’s very busy, but it’s very fun.

Today I was up in St. Cloud to help with the State of the State address.  That meant leaving the house at 5:40 this morning.  Getting to work around 6:15, doing a few quick tasks before getting in the vans to go to St. Cloud at 6:30.  The event was fun.  I got to meet some great people.

The speech, over all, I thought was good.  I am not really sure what to compare it to.  The State of the Union had more fire in it, and that one was better.  I didn’t not agree with everything the Governor said today, but he did say some good stuff.  It was kind of fun to be in the room.  It was a some what strange feeling.  Because you usually only see those things on TV, but to see it in person.  It was fun.

We got back to the Capitol at 2:30 this afternoon, then it was hunkering down to write 3 news columns, attend a meeting, walk through the press corp to inform them of a press conference one of my members is having, and to get all the stories from the mornings papers.  It was quite busy.  I think I left work about 5:40, nearly 12 hours after I had gotten there.

So work is at a dead sprint.  They are pushing so many bills through so quickly this year, it’s interesting.  There is some kind of political strategy behind it, but I’m not sure what.  They may be trying to end the session early so they can brag about it during the campaign season.  They may also just be trying to pass the bills early, because they know the Governor will veto a lot of them.  We’ll see.

Anyway, I should be working on my final paper for this quarter.  It’s due on Sunday.  Another quarter has gone by, and it’s been quick (mostly).  Not as much fun as the last quarter, but good.  This next one could be interesting.  We’ll leave it at that for the moment.

That’s right.  Today is the Super Bowl.  I am rooting for the underdog, so Go Giants!  It’ll be a fun party and good times to watch the Bowl.

Tuesday is Super Tuesday, and I’m looking forward to that.  It marks the official kick off to the political season in Minnesota.  I’d encourage all of my friends, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, or Constitution Party Members, to go out to your Precinct Caucus, support your local candidates, and cast your vote in the Presidential Straw Poll.  Don’t know where to go, you can find out here.  Make sure your voice is heard.

It’s going to be a fun week, and I’m really excited about everything that’s coming up.  Work is picking up, and the end of the quarter for my class is coming.   It’s going to be a fun and extremely busy month.  The type of atmosphere I strive for.

So I hope everyone enjoys their Super Week!

Unfortunately not a whole lot.  More of the same old stuff.  I have today off, and so we’re going to look at some houses today.  There are a few that look promising.  Unfortunately there not in our most preferred area.  We’ll see what happens though.

Work is work.  Enough on that.

Tonight there is a Staff Appreciation night.  I’m kind of excited about that.  It should be a good time to kick back with co-workers in the non-work setting.  That’s usually a good time.  Plus my co-workers are pretty sweet.

Enjoy your Thursday!

And I’m still around.  That’s always the plus side of things.

This weekend will be busy.  Tomorrow we have a wedding in Bloomington (I think), which should be good times.  It’s some Bethel people, so there will be some other college friends there.

Then we’re going down to my brothers house, because Lacey is coming to visit.  And since I haven’t seen her since our wedding I figured I should probably prove to my sister I still lover her (although I don’t think she really doubted it).  But that will be fun to hang out all of us together again.

Work this week was pretty good.  Nothing overly spectacular.  I set my summer hours, which was good I guess.  It needed to be done.  Although it is a bummer that it’s fewer hours.

But I am thinking about applying to the Apple Store to be a Mac Specialist as a part time gig.  That could be fun I think, but I don’t know if I want to deal with all the hassle of part time jobs: working weekends mainly would be the big thing.  I think working at the Apple Store would be fun, although I may come to want a bunch of things I couldn’t afford.

So I’m split on that.  Any advice on what I should do?

Thank goodness!  Even though the House will be debating the Transportation bill tomorrow I get the day off.  It’ll be interesting to watch, and I’m sure I’ll watch some of it on TV.  I don’t know what’s going to happen (well the bill will pass), but it could get interesting.

I was planning on heading over to Mooney’s for movie night tonight, but I didn’t get out of work on time.  In fact I didn’t get out of there til about 8 pm tonight.  Yeah…  it was fun times, what can I say.

We had ice cream at work today!  That was tasty.  Plus it was a chance to sit down and have a one on one talk with the minority leader, which was fun.  He’s got a nice size office.  In fact some of the LA’s there said his office is larger than their apartment.  They must have small apartments!

The weather is supposed to be great tomorrow.  I think I’ll enjoy it with a nice walk or something.  Check out the trails around this place, see how nice they are.  Maybe go look at a few houses which are having open houses on Sunday too.  We’ll see.  It could be something fun to do.

I’ve read some more about the Apple TV that came out.  I think that I will wait on purchasing one for a few months.  Because rumor is that they’ll come out with an HD Apple TV.  Plus there is thought it might work similar as a TiVO.  We’ll see.

That’s right, it’s Tuesday!  That means I’ve been at my new job for a week.  I’m liking it so far.  It’s fun, and busy.  I like it more than the UMN, basically because it’s political stuff.  That’s the best part.  I get to be aware of the political process more so.

I went to see my new neice this weekend.  She’s a cutie.  It was fun to go down to New Ulm.  First time I had been there in about 2 years, I think.  It’s been a while.  We’ll go down there again this weekend (I think) for the baptism. That’ll be fun, cuz the whole family (minus Lacey) will be there.  If only that silly sister didn’t live so far away.  Although somedays I don’t blame her!

After some hassel taxes are filed.  Now we’re awaiting our return so that we can pay off some bills!  Yeah for getting our money back.

If you want to hear some crazy bills that are in the MN Legislature right now?  Check these out:

•  H.F. 1015: Some people are calling it the Freedom to Poop Act
• H.F. 1048: The DFL want a smaller government, but they don’t want anyone to loose their job.  So you loose a state department, but very little (if any) of the cost of it.