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Katahdin Trip 2007

Published by -MiKe- on September 24, 2007 in Outdoors Club. 4 Comments

So I finally popped my Husson Outdoors Club cherry this weekend and ascended Katahdin, in one fell swoop.

The HOC taking a break on Katahdin.

I’ve been a “member” of the HOC by proxy for about a year now. About this time last year I went on my first Thursday Night Climb at UMO, where I met Christine and Spenser. Now, practically all of Jen and I’s mutual friends are HOC members. I never attend meetings, and until now, I never participated in any HOC events, besides Thursday Night Climb.

I found out I was going on the Katahdin trip on Tuesday evening, when Jen told me there was a hike the coming weekend, and she had signed me up.

This is usually where I say something like “I was skeptical at first…” but I wasn’t. Right from the get-go I knew it would be a great trip, and it was.

We left late Friday afternoon, Continue reading ‘Katahdin Trip 2007′

2 + 3 = 5, right?

Published by -MiKe- on September 19, 2007 in College. 1 Comment

So, yeah. Third week into school and we’re still alive. That’s some thing to be proud of, right?

All the incoming students came in on the first, which was an image straight out of hell if there ever was one. Figure, there are 9 floors, 37 students per floor, with an average of 10 of them being incoming students. Thats not to say that only incoming students came in on the first either… That said, about 130 students arrived in Bell Hall (thats right, I’m only talking about one of three dorms) from 7am to about 11am on the first of September. Now, consider that each student is traditionally accompanied by Mom and Dad and you have tripled the foot traffic. Add another 80 or so for the odd brother, sister, aunt or uncle, and your looking at 400 pairs of feet, accounting for over 1000 trips trough the lobby, and nearly 45 personal attempts at suicide. Per RA. (in case you didn’t get that, that was a joke)

Moving on.

Continue reading ‘2 + 3 = 5, right?’

21st Century Sex class. What my kids are getting.

Published by -MiKe- on September 3, 2007 in Internet. 0 Comments

Laughing Squid featured this site the other day, and so happy I am they did! This is what we need! Sex education that isn’t boring as hell. “Sex Edutainment” if you will, although they claim it’s not real “sex education” in the traditional sense, and that “the formal education [will be left] to classrooms and textbooks.” It’s a shame really, as all those oh-so-important statistics will still be falling on napping ears int he classroom…

The girls over at the Midwest Teen Sex Show have struck gold, and I hope they keep going. Click below for their latest episode, and surf on over if you want more. Which you will.

Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play

When you think about it, it sure bests the alternative…

First shots of Husson, Fall 2007

Published by -MiKe- on August 31, 2007 in Photography. 0 Comments

Got bored this evening. after putting up all my door tags. Decided to go for a stroll with Benjamin. :-D

My Favorite

Pretty proud. But I’m not bragging. Theres also a shot of lightning thrown in for good measure. Click the big one for the gallery, the smaller two are my other favorites (there are only five or so…).

2007-08-30 at 23-45-50.jpg2007-08-31 at 00-00-52.jpg

Basically, this was me experimenting with long exposure (all were at 30s) with my new tripod. Success… I think…

So the bed’s made…

Published by -MiKe- on August 30, 2007 in College. 0 Comments

Guess that means its official. I’m an RA!

I have been on campus for almost two weeks now, and I was sleeping on the futon up until last night. Why, I’m not sure. At first it was because I wasn’t sure I liked the way the room was set up. Then it was because I didn’t want to raise the bed (too lazy) by myself (too lazy to get help). Then, conveniently, once it was raised and everything was ready, I found that my sheets smelt like… well, crap, and I needed to get detergent, a laundry card, etc… and wash them. And now it’s done, and school is in session.

Well, not yet. The freshmen haven’t even arrived yet, not to mention I am still Jen-less, but for me, the ball is rolling. Fun fun.

So summer didn’t go exactly as planned, on the bloging front anyway. Personally this was one of the better summers I have had. Continue reading ‘So the bed’s made…’

Vacation at Val’s

Published by -MiKe- on July 15, 2007 in Personal. 1 Comment

So yeah, I made it to Valerie’s in one piece yesterday, and the shit hit the fan. Talk about a circus!

Val's House - Morning After - Front Yard(ish)

I came down to take pictures for Al’s 70th Birthday Party, and it was crazy. Over 180 people attended. There was a live band, a convention-sized tent, four fully stocked open bars, an inflatable “moon bouce,” movie screen and full buffet. The total budget ran right around $15k, to give you an idea, and it showed it.

Val's House - Morning After - Back Yard

I got up around 4:30am yesterday morning to catch a plane at 10am in Manchester, NH and arrive in Radnor, PA at about 2pm. Basically, I am exhausted.

All in all, though, everything went pretty well. Recently all of my 1gb CF cards started dieing on me, so I had to pick up some new 2gb CF cards for a whopping $21.99 (big money, big money, big money), and they worked out pretty well. I did have a scare in the beginning, while my short lens was having some connectivity issues with my Maxxum 5D. I would lose control of the camera for a second or so at a time, while the camera was under the impression that there was no lens attached, and I was losing shots because of it… Luckily the symptoms subsided after a little while, and the night when on as planned.

It seems like Al had a great time, so I am pleased as pie right now.

Since yesterday was so crazy today is my vacation, and I am about to go take it. Heading out to the pool now, for some fun and sun. Later this afternoon I am heading to the Genius Bar to get my Mac looked at, then Verizon for a new phone. Happy days…

Past few weeks

Published by -MiKe- on July 10, 2007 in General. 1 Comment

Well it’s been a bit, again, and now summer is in full swing.

Quite a bit has happened since we last spoke. It’s hard to wrap my mind around just how fast this summer is going by.

Tara AllainThe Miss Maine pageant went off pretty well. You know, back in June. Karissa Staples passed on the title of Miss Maine to Tara Allain and the controversy began.

Tara is a good looking young lady, and smart, and talented. You know, just general Miss “Some State Here” material. However, usually “Some State” is the contestant’s home state, and when it’s not, people get pissy… In this case, Tara meets all the criteria to run for, and take home, the Miss Maine title, by residing in the state of Maine for such and such number of months out of the year. Unfortunately, as Tara hails from Worcester, Mass, the finicky folks in the crowd decided to put up a fuss…

And being the webmaster (and in turn, receiving all mail sent to missmaine.org, but not a real mail account) I get the mother-load of complaints. To top it off, administration refuses to make a public statement about it, so I am liable to keep receiving them as word gets out… I feel like saying “I don’t get paid enough for this,” but bitching like that requires that you get paid for it in the first place… Which I don’t…

[2008-01-07 Update: I noticed some links coming in regarding this post (particularly this topic in this post), and I thought I would elaborate. Things have been officially cleared up. It wasn’t long after this post that the head of the board started explaining things to those who were concerned, and there is no longer (hasn’t been for months) confusion about Tara’s legitimacy. She meets all the criteria to run for Miss Maine, and she has turned out to be a wonderful representative for our state. We’re all quite proud of her, and feel she’ll do quite well at the 2008 Miss America Pageant in Vegas in two weeks. See you there!]

Whats a good pageant without a little controversy. Donald knows what I’m talking about. Continue reading ‘Past few weeks’

Fucking people.

Published by -MiKe- on May 31, 2007 in Work. 2 Comments

As you may or may not know, when it comes to tech-things, I am pretty much the “man with the plan,” if you will. The go-to guy.

I’m no good at explaining things, or teaching for that matter, but tell me what you want and let me be. Usually I can get it done.

As such, when something goes wrong with a site I oversee, I get the brunt of it, and right now, I am hurting…

namasp/porn

I am taking a break from witch-hunting right now to rest my brain a bit…

What you have here is what happens when you let a domain expire in todays world. It gets hijacked and turned into a portal for porn.

Continue reading ‘Fucking people.’

Thats awkward…

Published by -MiKe- on May 29, 2007 in Personal. 1 Comment

So, I was looking at visitor statistics for no steam shovel yesterday afternoon, and I came across something very unnerving, and, a little bit funny (depending on how you look at it)… I have visitors coming to my site from Susquehanna (or in relation to, rather) University.

Evidently there is a new college-search website out there that pools blog posts mentioning various colleges and displays them on the college information pages, and my last post evidently made a blip on their radar…

Needless to say, I was quite surprised to see a few visitors originating from: http://college.mychances.net/college-1274-Susquehanna-University.html. Yet, in a way, it was a pleasant surprise…

I don’t know how it finds posts mentioning these colleges. I didn’t link to the university home page (and won’t) and I highly doubt the school has a ping-back server… As far as I can tell it identifies posts based on tags (as thats the only thing that identifies the university, other than the text, in my post). If thats the case, they must find pertinent posts via Technorati. Very sneaky.

How ever they do it, maybe now I can say all those unpleasant things about SU that I have been harboring for so long, and someone will actually read them… Excellent…

Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have a listing for NESCom, so all my praise will unfortunately fall on deaf ears… Alas… Can’t win them all… :-D

Jenifer and I are going Kayaking this afternoon. Where to, I have no idea, but it will be fun never-the-less.

She should be arriving shortly, so I should probably get things cleaned up a bit before she arrives.

Hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend.

Aaaand we’re back… again…

Published by -MiKe- on May 23, 2007 in Personal. 4 Comments

Geez, keep taking these breaks… Have to get a handle on that.

So! Summer is finally here! Made it through another school year, I’m out of that damn apartment in Old Town, and I’ve got a new kitten. :-D

Meet Mali.

Summer is a kitten.

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Sorry, couldn’t help it. She’s just so adorable. Stole her from my ex-roommates actually. Jen and I bought 4 cans of cat food, fed her one, left for two days, came back, and there were still 3 cans left… So I fed her some and waited to see if Caleb made a move to feed her. He didn’t. Fed her the next morning (both times being careful no one noticed, to see if anyone else cared to feed her), Caleb left for work, making no move, so I left for home. With the cat. And if you are reading this Caleb, tough.

:-D

Wow, that was all kinds of grammatically incorrect. Oh well.

So school is out and I am back to mowing. Every day. All day. From 8:30am till 6-9pm… And I enjoy it. :-D

God I am happy to be out for a bit. I mean, I love NESCom (MUCH more-so than SU), but I was dogging it there in the last few weeks. Mostly because of English (contrary to the stereotype of most Bloggers, I HATE structured writing…), which I was sure I would nearly fail.

That in mind, imagine my surprise when I received my grades the other day and pulled in a B+ or higher in every class but Intro to Media (C+). Yeah… That look you just made? Imagine mine…

Pretty much, everything is awesome right now, save the back of my hands, which are sun-burnt to the very edge of blistering…

I’ve spent fair amount of time with Jen the past two weeks. Once last Wednesday, then again this past weekend for my birthday, for a full two days. Makes me smile, real-big-like. I’m going back to Waterboro tomorrow night, Justin in tow, to catch a 1am showing of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 with Jen and the crew. Should be fun. And then we’re going kayaking next Tuesday.

You know, I think I could dig this woman. ;-)

Got some pretty cool stuff on my birthday. John and Cathy (Jen’s mum and dad) got me a remote-controlled helicopter, which absolutely kicks ass! I am in the process of calibrating the tail rotor over the past few days… Out of the box they are only roughly calibrated to stay straight, but if you want, you can fine tune it to stay more true (not spin around in circles). We’ll see how it turns out.

Jen’s Grandma got us tickets to WARPED TOUR 2007! Fucking right!

I played with Jen a bit (I got both tickets in my one card), and I think she actually believed I was going to take Justin with my spare. HA! Right…

Jen got me a “Meh.” shirt (much cooler than you think, I can assure you), and a book on photographic lighting. I only looked over the book briefly, but I can tell I am going to like it. I will review it after I get some time to go through it in detail…

And last, but not least, mom got me a watch (which I have yet to really wear, as I am afraid to dirty it), and some shirts…

But not just ANY shirts… Company shirts. Namely, CoverThis Photography. I really can’t describe them, so I will have to post a picture at some point. :-D

There was something else, but I can’t place it… :-/

Anyway, the past few days I have been dubbing around, trying to get Step Mania to work on this old laptop. Had a turn for the better this afternoon, but still not quite there. I’ll document it here in a few days.

Right now, however, I need a shower, and some aloe-vera. Just wanted to check in, tell you I’m not dead, and such. So, that said, have an evening…