[ b l o g . v o r a k . c o m ]
Today is the day Kathy and I leave for Duluth MN. We’ll be making the four and a half hour drive today and staying in Duluth tonight and tomorrow night before we head into the Boundary Waters on Monday morning. I’ll have some pictures of the car and the packing uploaded before we go in. I’ll get those online tonight and tomorrow.
Most experienced trippers would probably say that I’m starting way to late on my BWCA trip packing but I’ve finally begun! Kathy and I are going to spend some time tonight and the this weekend packing up our clothes and getting things ready here in Madison. I’m hoping we can cram all of our clothes into one bag so we have less to carry but we’ll see. In other BWCA trip planning news, I spent about an hour or so talking with Matt and Kelly (our trip mates) last weekend. We hammered out what was going to go into which pack, who is bringing what equipment and most importantly, food purchasing.
As I’ve mentioned before, we’ll be arriving in Duluth Saturday the 20th in the afternoon but won’t be heading into the forest until Monday. The evening we arrive the four of us will have to go shopping and to buy all of the food we are going to need for the entire week. We figured that instead of trying to split it up ahead of time and bring it separately, we’ll just all go together and split the cost down the middle. I’m still up in the air as to how much the food is actually going to cost but I don’t think it will be all that bad. Gas is going to be the most costly part of this trip.
On Monday, Kathy and I ventured out to the new Gander Mountain mega store (which is awesome btw) so she could pick out a rain suit. She got a pretty nice coat and pants so if it rains while we are up north, she won’t be the only one soaking wet :).
I’m really looking forward to getting away for a week and spending some quality time outdoors. I’m also really excited show Kathy what a great experience the Boundary Waters can be. More updates to come!
Craig came through again! A few months ago I bought a 2005 Mazda 6 to replace my old and dying 1996 Chevy Lumina and intended on selling the Lumina. I wasn’t really sure what it was worth but I figured I would be lucky if I got $700 or $800. Last week I decided to finally put it up on CraigsList and within three days, we had it sold for $700! My asking price was $900 so we let the buyer “talk us down” to $700 and he was pretty happy. Don’t think we scammed the guy or anything, this was a great car. I was just ready for something a little nicer.
Anyway, I’m pretty happy about the outcome and will now have enough money to pay for my vacation in three weeks. Plus, I can cross one more item off my list!
Here is a picture of the old beast. I wish her the best.
Tags: 101 things, car
I wasn’t sure how #27 on my list was going to come about, but I figured it would happen out of the blue and that is exactly how my first random act of niceness happened. I was in La Crosse for Memorial Day weekend and was driving to The Squeeze on Saturday afternoon. I turned off of highway 16 onto La Crosse St and saw a bunch of kids bouncing around in lemon costumes selling lemonade for 25 cents. I was thursty and wasn’t in any kind of hurry so I thought I’d pitch in 50 cents or a dollar for a glass. I parked my car and walked up to their table only to find that I didn’t have anything less than a $10 bill in my wallet. I debated in my head for a second or two and ended up giving them the 10 dollars for my cup of pink lemonade. Needless to say the expressions went from surprised to exciting and I was thanked multiple times. Hopefully they were raising money for a good cause but it was most likely just for fun. Thats OK though, I’m pretty sure I made their day.
Tags: 101 things
I was sitting at work on Monday when I just sort of got the urge to finally have my wisdom teeth removed. I called up the dentist and scheduled an appointment for this morning.
Fortunately I only have two wisdom teeth, both on the top jaw, and only the left one needed to be pulled. The one they took out was completely through so it was quick and easy. My other wisdom tooth is impacted so I will have to have surgery to get that one extracted but it hasn’t started bothering me yet and the dentist said it can stay a while.
The whole process didn’t take long at all and I was only in the chair for about five minutes. Three to four minutes for the numbness to take effect and then another minute and 30 seconds to remove the tooth. The numbness has been slowly disapating but the pain isn’t bad at all. I haven’t stopped bleeding yet but I’m hoping the hole in my jaw will clot up so I can have spaghetti tonight at Annika’s (while playing Mario Kart Wii!). We’ll see though.
As for the impacted tooth on the right side of my jaw… I’ll probably wait until that one starts bothering me before getting it removed. Surgery doesn’t sound too thrilling right now. I do have to go back to the dentist on May 12th though to get two cavities filled. Fun stuff!
Tags: 101 things
Today is a great day. I’ve just reserved my first Boundary Waters entry permit! My old friend Matt and I are leading a trip into the BWCAW with Kathy and his girlfriend Kelly in June and it is going to be a great time. We are heading up to our old stomping (camp)ground of Kawishiwi Lake and are planning on making the 17 portage trek all the way over to Sawbill Lake. We’ll be putting in on Monday June 23rd and exiting six days later on Saturday the 28th.
This marks an important milestone in my life because I’m finally heading up there without any parental supervision AND this will be my first time back to the BWCAW in six years. Growing up we would make a trip in August every summer and we always had a blast. We would go to Kawishiwi Lake and camp on the edge of the Boundary Waters and make day trips. As we got older we started canoeing farther inland but still never strayed much from our base camp. If I remember correctly, I stopped going in 2002 because I had work obligations and then I moved to Madison for College and was busy with school. I’m really excited to make my return.
Along side my 101 Things project, I’m going to start documenting the planning process for this trip and will provide pictures whenever possible (I promise!). The first step has now been completed and further planning is underway. I’ve got a spreadsheet going of all the gear and food we’ll need and will be updating and modifying that as needed. I also went out and bought the most important tool for any camper; the map! I picked up a waterproof sleeve for it as well.
Anyway, I’ll have more to come as Matt and I keep the planning going!
Another one bites the dust. I made it back to Vitense with Kathy on Saturday night and we launched about 100 golf balls into oblivion (read: 150-200 yards down range). The original plan was for Ben to come to Madison for the weekend and head over there to play mini golf and hit some baseballs in the batting cages but sadly Ben fell ill with the flu and couldn’t make it. Annika went back to La Crosse instead and that left Kathy and I to fend for ourselves. We decided to enjoy the night anyway and go through with the original plan.
I didn’t do too bad at the driving range, considering it was only my second time, but I think I did some damage to my left shoulder while at the batting cages. I could feel it bounce around in its socket every time I swung the bat… probably not a good thing.
Anyway, I would love to go back to the driving range again a few more times this year. It isn’t terribly expensive and with a few people along, it can be a really good time. I wonder if they sell beer…
Tags: 101 things, activities, friends, outdoors
Unless you read my blog entirely through an RSS reader, you’ve no doubt noticed by now that I made another theme change. My last one looked nice but it was getting old and it lacked a few things I wanted. First of all, I wanted to be able to add my twitter badge and my shared news feed to the side bar and I wanted a theme with widget support. The the old theme was pretty, well… old, and therefore lacked any newer Wordpress features, such as widgets. The new theme, however, is fantastic and both the left and right side bar are completely run by widgets. I have my tweets and my shared news feed along the far right and in the middle you’ll find my blogroll and social links, followed by my catagories and archives. I’m even starting to get into the habbit of tagging all my new posts so the tag cloud will also grow as I tag more items.
I’d like some comments to test the new theme out so feel free to let me know what you think of the new layout!
I never did blog about my new Mazda so I’ll start off this post with a little info on that subject. About a month and a half ago I bought a 2005 Mazda 6 (5 door) to replace my old 1996 Chevy Lumina that I’ve had for three years. This was a huge upgrade for me as it was my first car that I purchased through a real auto loan AND it is by far the nicest car I’ve ever had. Granted I’ve only had two cars prior to this but they’ve both been pieces of shit. Anyway, my new car (pictures in due time, I promise) is silver in color, has five doors (including the hatchback) and and is a five speed manual. I love it. Its fast, has tons of room for my bass equipment and camping gear and the stereo doesn’t suck! Now that leads me into my next topic…
Apparently in 2005 cars didn’t yet come with auxiliary inputs so I can’t simply plug my iPod into my car the easy way. Instead I had to drop $124.95 on an iPod Integration Kit so I can listen to music without CD swapping. On the plus side, this little piece of equipment does, in fact, charge my iPod while it is plugged in AND I can control the volume and change songs from my steering wheel controls. Nice.
So two weeks ago I drove back to La Crosse and my Dad and I installed the kit and it worked flawlessly. Sadly, I forgot my camera and couldn’t take pictures of the procedure but it wasn’t very painless at all. I was in business and enjoying 30GB’s of bliss; until the next day that is. I got into my car and noticed that both the front and rear speakers on the left side of the car weren’t working at all. I messed with the balancing and fading without any luck. Next I checked the radio to find that all of the speakers worked fine. Same with playing a CD, all four speakers in the car worked as they should. So the problem was definitely with the kit. Luckily it wasn’t very far into the console and I was able to check the connection but it was solid. It is possible that the connection on the back of the radio is loose but I highly doubt that, since it snaps in place.
Needless to say I was rather disappointed. I sent an email to the folks that I bought the item from (www.therpmstore.com) and they got back to me the next day and after some simple troubleshooting techniques, said they would ship me a replacement. I haven’t gotten it yet but when it comes, I will take pictures (and also some of the car itself) and post about it. Until then, I can’t cross this item off my list but I will definitely do so soon.
Update: The replacement iPod Audio Link came on Monday so I took some time yesterday afternoon to take apart my dash and replace the old one with the new one. Now that I know how to take the dash apart, it was really easy and I got it all done in under 30 minutes. The new integration kit works perfectly and I now have 30GB’s of music in my car and it all sounds great!
Tags: 101 things, audio link, car audio, ipod, mazda
Wordpress pushed out version 2.5 yesterday so I upgraded and the new design is awesome. You probably won’t see any changes on the front end but the new dashboard look and feel is great. For those interested, check out Wordpress.org for more information.
Tags: blog, new version, upgrade, wordpress
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