Meijer had a special event today in celebration for Halloween. They set up tables throughout the store that were giving away candy to all the little trick-or-treaters. Seeing as Tiffany will be taking Kylie out tomorrow I figured we could at least go and do this today, so we all got dressed up and went to do some trick-or-treating, yes all of us. They even had a photo shoot setup to capture the memory: 
Category Archives: Ed
FREE Kindle books!
While checking out the specs on the new Kindle I stumbled upon this page at amazon that lists all the FREE kindle books. These are all mainly old books that are out of copyright and in the public domain, but there are some great reads here; like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Dracula and many many others. I know there are a lot of things that I want to read on this list and seeing as I also just discovered the Kindle App for Blackberry, now as long as I have my phone with me I will have books to read! Eventually, though, I want to get a Kindle!
Kindle; I still want one
I’ve wanted a Kindle for a while now, ok basically since they have come out, but one
thing more than anything else has been holding me back; you can’t share books. However, according to this article that may be changing. According to the article “Amazon will allow Kindle users to lend books to each other for 14-day periods” with the restrictions that the “lenders will not be able to access the book on loan during the 14-day period, nor will they be able to loan the book to the same user more than once.” While I am not positive that i could find the time to read most books I would borrow in 14 days, it would certainly give me more incentive to find more time to read. While not all books will be available to lend, this is dependent on publishers and right holders, but it is a big step closer to making me cave and buy one. Original Kindle Community post.
The Zoo Boo Returns
After missing last years Zoo Boo, I am very happy that tonight Melissa and I took Kylie to the Detroit Zoo Boo, this was Melissa’s first time going so she was particularly looking forward to the evening. They had it set up a little different this year compared to previous years that I have gone. I remember the trial leading off to the left when you first walk in, but this year it lead to the right. One of the first things we came to this year was the big tent where they hold the “Zoo Boo Review” show, in previous years this was one of the last things we came to and hadn’t gone because by then it was late and everyone was tired. This year though, we decided to go, and I am really glad we did. They put on a show called “Phantom of the Zoo Boo” that was fun, upbeat, and rather entertaining. I know Kylie liked it a lot, she was dancing at our seats and waving to all the characters on stage. There was Witch Hazel, Mummy Moose, Alligator-stein, Fuzzy the Werewolf, Count Batula, and Witchy Poo. Makes me wonder what we have missed in previous years under the tent. Also new this year was a section off to the side, but still on the path, where they were carving pumpkins while the children watched. There seemed to be fewer pumpkin and gourd animals and creations than I remember in previous years as well, but the reptile house was still open and that is always fun to walk through. I am not positive, but it also seemed like there were fewer candy stops for the kids too, but they could just be because the path was different so they were spaced odd different than I remember, one thing is for sure though, I don’t remember them handing out cans of Mt. Dew before, yes full cans. That was a little odd. It took us about two hours to walk through everything and sit and watch the show and we all had a great time! We took a lot of pictures, and they can be found here.
Go Gears!
Oh man, I haven’t played video games that long in a long time. So yesterday my brother Chris came over at about 1pm, it was a rare weekend when we were both available for a few hours and so we thought it would be cool to hang out like when we were younger and play some video games. Now, keep in mind the last time he and I played video games together is somewhere around the 15 year ago mark! So needless to say I was pretty stoked that he was going to come over for a few hours, I am even more stoked that those few hours turned into an overnight Gears of War 1 and 2 marathon! He had never played Gears 1 so we played that game all the way through so he could get most of the achievements for it and I could get a few I needed for playing as second player, and then we made it more than half way through Gears 2. Seriously, we didn’t stop playing until 3am and then were back on it at 9am. I haven’t had this much fun playing video games in a very very long time. Not to mention spending some serious quality time with my brother, that was awesome! I forgot how much fun it was to hang out with him and chill like that, like I said it has been many years since we have done that. I know there is no way this is going to happen every weekend, and really it shouldn’t, but I do hope we can arrange to hang out more often. Besides, we need to finish off Gears 2! 🙂 Epic weekend brother, thanks a million!
U of M vs. MSU
Today was my annual EMC vendor tailgate party, and this year it was the U of M versus MSU game. As usual the party was a blast! Lots of food, drinks, really fun people. Again this year I was able to get a couple of tickets to the game so Melissa and I were able to go watch it live. We almost didn’t make it though because we were unaware of a new rule that the University of Michigan put in place this year, they no longer allow any bags in side the stadium, this includes purses. Melissa, of course, had her purse with her and we were unaware of this new change until right before the game. Seeing as we didn’t have many options we though we try to go and see what happens, and once we got to the gate they told Melissa she couldn’t bring her purse in. Apparently we now have the option of going to Crisler Arena and checking her purse, she wasn’t thrilled with that option so luckily we were able to lock it in the truck of one of the vendors at the party that I know and trust. I guess we will need to keep this in mind for next year. Unfortunately U of M lost, but it was still cool to be in the stadium again, and seeing the flag and game ball parachuted into the stadium by the 101st Airborne Division was pretty sweet too.
A Day At The Library
Today we decided to have a quite day, which means no use of the TV or anything that requires it. We have had days like this countless other times during which we play games, color, read, or go someplace. Today Kylie asked if we could go to the library, so that is what we did. We went over a browsed through the books and after finding a few Halloween books that interested her Kylie asked me to sit and read them to her, so we did that for a while. Then she asked if she could play in the children’s area with a few other kids, and of course I let her. While she played for a while I sat in a rather comfortable arm chair and read my book. After what seemed like a few moments I looked up to see a man walking in with a beautiful white dog that I knew Kylie knew from pre-school, so I went to get her. When she saw the dog she looked at me with a big grin and said “That’s Storm!” Storm is an assistance dog that has come to her pre-school on multiple occasions; and apparently he was at the library to meet with more people today. Kylie then went back to playing with some new friends she had made while Daddy read his book. It was a really fun and relaxing day and the time just flew by. By the time we left we had been there for slightly over 3 hours! I love my weekends with my daughter.
Four Days Later
I’m still in a lot of pain, not really sure how long it’s going to take for my back to calm back down this time, but the muscle relaxers Mom gave me seem to help some and my best friends is now officially my heating pad. I had to bring the trailer back to u-haul today though so I also went to Meijer and picked up some fabreze to spray the love-seat down with because it smells like smoke; guess that’s to be expected though, all things considered it’s not too bad. One day I am going to take Mom’s suggestion and go get an upholstery cleaner and give it a good cleaning. But that will definitely have to wait until my back is feeling a lot better, for now the fabreze will have to suffice. Now it’s time to get back to the heating pad.
Mommy Gets A Recap
Tiffany picked up Kylie about 9:30 this morning, and they were both very happy to see each other. Kylie told Mommy all about her trip to NY and seeing everyone, playing at the park with Tyler and then going to his house to play. She was so excited and happy with the trip, it was great to hear her talk so happily about it. She kept saying how fun it was and how much she wants to go back and see everyone again soon, hopefully we can all get together again soon.
After they left I spent a few hours on heating pads and then unloaded some more of the trailer, this time though I drove the trailer right up to the front door of the apartment, not sure why I didn’t think of that last night. Melissa came home from work and, after telling me how foolish I was for unloading the other items alone, we took the old couch out to the dumpster and brought the new love-seat in. On a side note Melissa was right, I definitely did not do my back any favors. More time on the heating pad and pain meds for me. -sigh-
There Goes The Back
Well, today was the day that was supposed to be equal parts fun and work for me, but it turned in to almost all pain. It started out well and as planned, I started going threw the stuff i still have at Mom’s to decide what I was bringing home and what I was getting rid of, turned out there was more than I thought there was. I thought everything went fine, even got rid of some things that I realized I didn’t need, then I jumped in the shower to clean up for the family picnic and when I reached to adjust the shower head my back went out. Apparently I moved something wrong and that last reach for the shower head was all it took. How awesome is that? Second day of my vacation and now I’m in a lot of pain. Oh well. Pushed threw to the family picnic, it went really well and it was great to see everyone again. After the picnic we took Kylie and Tyler to the playground, watching them run around and play was great!