SuperJason’s Personal Blog

Today we went to the North East Wisconsin Zoo, just north of Green Bay. I took photos of most of the animals, and you can view them all here. Melissa’s parents went with us, and we had a great time. We started with a picnic lunch, and made our way through the whole zoo in a few hours. The weather couldn’t have been any better. We just wished we had brought sun screen.

Shrek 2 Movie Review:

After going to the zoo, we decided to see Shrek 2. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first one, but I thought this one was pretty good. It was a little slow to start, and was was beginning to drift off. Fortunately, it got much better about half way through. There was quite a bit of action, and comedy. The music was interesting because it was all modern. You had to pay attention, because parts of scenes were actually from other movies or products. Overall, I enjoyed it.

I finally got some of the shelving up in the basement. They have a bracket that just hangs from the top of the wall. I had to cut a 2×4 down to 3″, so that the bracket had something to sit on. Each one is rated at 1000lbs. Because of the pipes on the other walls, I’m going to have to screw into the concrete to secure the brackets. Here is a photo of the shelves all loaded up to load test them. They can don’t work as good as I had expected hanging from the top of the walls. They have a tendency to turn, and if you put a lot of weight on the bottom, the bracket likes to bend outward. I’ll probably put some screws in to keep them stable.

I also have a picture here of the main wall going down the center of the basement. It should give you a good idea of the length.

I didn’t get the electrical boxes in like I had hoped, but I did get over to Home Depot and purchased them. Melissa and I are going to the zoo tomorrow, so I’ll be putting them in after that.

Melissa will be in Appleton most of the day tomorrow, so I need to figure out what I’m going to do in the evening. I’ll probably run to The Home Depot and get some electrical boxes so that I can get started on figuring out where to put them in the basement. It will be nice having more than 1 outlet down there. My dad is coming over Sunday to help me hook everything up. I should probably start looking at lighting options and suspended ceilings as well.

I’m also going to be hanging some shelving in the storage area. I’m putting up the same kind I put up in my garage. They are the ones that have the slots, and the brackets just snap in. Each bracket is rated at 240 pounds, and each shelf usually has 3 brackets. So basically, you don’t have to worry about the capacity. In some places, I can hang the bars right from the top of the concrete walls. In other places where pipes are in the way, I’m going to secure them with concrete screws. I’ll post some photos once I get them up. Once that is done, I can finally move everything in the basement into the storage room down there.

Tonight we saw Jeni’s new place. It’s pretty nice. She has a very big living room which is always a plus. It’s good that she finally has a place of her own. She also has a wonderful view of a junkjard out the back window.

The next time I go there, I have to remember to go through De Pere, instead of taking 41. That is probably a lot quicker.

This guy’s stuff is always hilarious, this is no exception. From what I’ve heard, he is right.
Here is the link: http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=i_robot

I had a dream that we were on a vacation in Norway. I’ve never been to Norway, and I don’t really know anything about it. Where did that come from?

So I’ll tell you the end of the story first to make it interesting. The police showed up at my house.

Now I’ll start at the beginning. We were out for a walk with Melissa’s parents and their dog. Normally when we go walking, Melissa’s mom keeps a Ziploc bag and a paper towel, in case the dog poops on someone’s yard. Of course tonight, she forgot. We walked about 2 streets down, and came upon a corner lot. The dog left a little pile of poop, and we couldn’t clean it up at that time. Se we kept walking down the street. After a few minutes, the homeowner pulled up beside us in his Trail Blazer. He started complaining about it, and said he was going to follow us home. We kept walking down the street, and realized that he was completely serious. He followed behind us in his car, not knowing that we were actually walking away from our house. We decided to talk to him to see what we could do to remedy the situation. When I asked, he started telling us that anytime you walk with a dog, you should have something to clean it up. He said that lots of dogs like to crap on his property. I asked him again what we had to do to make things right. He insisted that we immediately return to the property and clean it up. We explained that we needed to get something from the house so that we could get it. We offered to let him drive us home to pick something up. He then asked for our address so that he could call the police. I wouldn’t normally give someone like this our address, but I thought it would be a good idea to have some police intervention. He then drove away.

On the way home, we found a piece of paper, so we went by his house, and picked it up. We kept the evidence available in case someone did show up. Of course, in about 10 minutes, a cop showed up. We explained the entire situation, just as I have here. He said that was fine, because the home owner was under the impression we never cleaned it up. He just told us that we could get a citation if it happened again. I asked him if everyone in the group would get a citation, and he said only the dog owner would. We don’t even own a dog! That was the strangest part of the whole situation. The angry home owner was mad at us, yet it wasn’t our dog!

So to add more irony to the situation, we live on a corner lot just like he does. I could really care less if a dog poops on our lawn; I usually just rake it in, or use it to fertilize a tree. It is pretty scary when you meet people that eccentric about something.

Ever go Geocaching? Don’t know what it is? I’ll explain it!

Geocaching is a sport that has been invented only recently, because you need a GPS, or Global Positioning Unit . This device is able to tell you your position anywhere on the planet within a few feet! It uses signals from satellites, and takes advantage of the fact that those signals travel at a certain speed. The unit can determine how long it took for the signal to arrive, and can then calculate the distance. Using a couple of satellites, a position can be determined. Many modern units are capable of tracking 12 satellites simultanously. The beauty of these devices is that the technology is available because of the military, and airplane equipment. That free research makes handheld units as cheap as $100.

I have a $200 unit (eTrex Legend) that gives me all the major roads in the United States. I can also download new maps into it. It comes in handy while traveling. Using a serial cable, I can hook it up to my computer, and retrieve all the data that it has stored. It keeps track of every where you have been (up to 10,000 points worth), and can store waypoints, and routes. If you hook it up to a laptop with the correct software, you can have a map that updates as you drive, so you are always in the center of the map.

Anyway back to the point. People create things called Geocaches. They are kind of like a treasure hunt, except instead of getting something, you trade something. It’s usually not something valuable, just something interesting. A cache is usually a tupperware container, or an old ammo box. It also contains a logbook, so you can see everyone who has found that cache. To actually find a cache, you put the GPS coordinates of a cache into your GPS, and go! It’s not always as easy as it sounds. The person who hides the cache tries to hide it in a clever place.

There are also many different types of caches, one of which is known as a “multi-cache”. With this type of cache, you find the first hidden container, usually a film tube, and it contains the coordinates for the next leg of the cache. You usually go through about 5 legs, and then find the actual cache. I actually have a cache like that in the park just down the street from my house.

There is a lot more to it than I have described here. I recommend Googling it, or just go to http://www.GeoCaching.com.

Be sure to also look at Benchmarks and travel bugs. There is also an interesting project here that is trying to journal every latitude/longitude intersection. There are probably many other fun things you can find that I haven’t mentioned here. Be sure to let me know what they are!

Flight attendants beat up passengers
A monkey that always walks upright
Man eats 20,000th Big Mac. I told you that stuff was healthy.

Today I built our Dutch rabbit a cage for outside. It is different than the cage we have in the house, because we wanted here to be able to play in the grass. I took some picture of the new cage, and they are posted here and here.

The frame is built out of some 2×4’s that I bought to frame in the basement. The irony is that I had just carried them all downstairs, and I had to carry some of them back up for this project. I used chicken wire for the sides (which my mom had given me), so that she couldn’t squeeze out. That stuff is really a pain to work with. It doesn’t like to stay flat at all. The top is made out of some plywood that my uncle gave me a few months ago. Half of the top is on hinges, and has a latch, so that it is easy to put her in, and take her out.

If you would like to see more of Tabitha, all of her pictures are here. She is a little under a year and half old, and we have had her almost a year. When we are home, she is allowed to go anywhere in the house except for my office, because she likes to chew on my cables.