SuperJason’s Personal Blog

Today was Jeni’s bridal shower. I think Melissa had a great time, and from the looks of the photos, it looks like she and Adam got a lot of great stuff.

Make sure you check out the photo galleries because I uploaded a lot of photos of Ryan and Lizzy.

I’m really sorry that I haven’t blogged in quite some time. I feel guilty leaving people out of the loop in what is going on in my crazy life. I plan to make it up to you with this blog post.

Every year Melissa and I take a trip back to Pennsylvania to visit my relatives for a week. My grandparents live there along with most of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. I’ve been going since I was a baby, and it’s always the high point of my year. Since we have baby Ryan now, we decided to shorten the trip to only 3 days. We decided to drive out over night Thursday, and drive back overnight Sunday. We chose to drive overnight so that Ryan would sleep during the trip.

The trip started out great and we were making good time. We decided to take my Mom’s Saturn because of it’s exceptional gas mileage (40+ mpg). It’s a good car, but it’s much smaller than my Malibu, so it’s not quite as comfortable.

Ok, back to the story. So it’s my turn to drive, and it’s 3 o’clock in the morning, and I’m on a boring road in Ohio. Everyone in the car was asleep. At about the 45 mile mark in Ohio, I see some debris on the road, but it’s pretty small, so I don’t think twice about it. Unfortunately, the hunk of something took my attention off the real danger. A few yards away was a nearly fully intact piece of truck tire treads. It was about 3-4 feet long, and as wide as a normal semi tire.

Because of the speed I was traveling, and how late I noticed the alligator (trucker talk or something), I had no choice but to hit it dead center at full speed. The impact made a sudden jolt of sound, and awakened every passenger in the car, including the baby.

After determining that the car wasn’t going to explode, we decided that we would stop at the next rest area. I increased my speed, and resumed the cruise control. A moment later, I noticed a semi-truck that had sparks coming from wheels. It was potentially the truck that lost the treads. My mom decided to wave and yell and the driver, and he eventually pulled over to take a look at it. We were back on our way, when a moment later we noticed police car lights right behind us. I pulled over to the side of the road, and choas ensued as my mother was unable to find the button to roll her window down. We eventually found it and the officer asked for our license and registration. When he finally spoke, he said that I had been clocked at 76 miles per hour, and asked if I had any prior tickets in Ohio. I started to explain the freak story, and how the tire had caused a series of unfortunate events. He radio’ed to get the tire cleaned up, and let us on our way with just a warning.

Only a few yards ahead as we pulled away, was the next rest area. We pulled in, and I took a look at the bottom of the car. I didn’t have a flashlight, and it was dark, but I was able to see something hanging on the road. It turned out to be the brush/splash guard. It’s on springs so that it normally won’t be damaged. We pulled it off and put it in the trunk, and then we were on our way again.

Once we arrived in Pennsylvania, everyone took a nap. After that, we decided to call the local shop to get the car looked at. They put it up on the lift, and it turns out that another plastic guard was also damaged. In addition, pieces of rubber were melted to various parts of the undercarriage.

Our stay in Pennsylvania was pretty routine. We got to visit with everyone, and Ryan did very well. He enjoyed all of the attention, and I was forced to deal with less attention. We also got Ryan’s fifth generation photos taken with his Great, Great Grandmother. It’s pretty neat since I was also a fifth generation baby. Our photo will be going in the newspaper shortly.

Now if you thought the trip out was exiting, you’ll want to hear about our way back. On our last day in Pennsylvania, it snowed, which is very strange for the end of April. It had been in the high 70’s just a week before. When we left to return home, it was snowing lightly. As we made our way into Ohio, the snow increased so much that we were going about 20mph on route 80. Cars formed a train, and followed any cars that seemed to know where the road was. We saw car after car in the ditch.

I called back home to check on the weather, and Jeni told me that it wsa 50 degree’s in Green Bay. She checked online and it said that we were in “light snow”. That was very far from the truth. We pulled into a rest area, only to find about 6+ inches of snow on the ground. It was so bad that people were having trouble getting their cars moving after stopping. After about 30 minutes, we were in an area with only light snow. After another 30 minutes, we were on dry roads. The storm was obviously very isolated. You can read about the storm here if you want more information. I took some photos, but they are not on my camera yet. Once I get them, I’ll post them here.

I think that’s about it. Be sure to check out all the photos.

Yestery, Tom’s Hardware had an article that mentioned my UPS RSS Tracking feed. I was dissapointed to find that the page to generate the tracking URL was been broken for a few days. Apparently the Google search box I added broke the form. The script Google gives you is supposed to be pasted into the page, and you are all set. Unfortunately, that code had contained a form, and ended up interfering with my main form. Every time I’ve tried to use a Google script I’ve run into problems. I always end up hacking their code to make it work with my site. I can’t imagine how other people handle it.

Apparently Google filed for a patent that details many of the factors that go into ranking websites. This is very important because there used to be a lot of theories around search engine optimization, and now there is much more information available. There is also a great summary (or interpretation) of this patent. While I believe that pages should not have spend much time optimizing, that is not really the case. This may make it a little easier for people to optimize their site without becoming an expert.

Over the next few months, I’m opening an online shot glass store. Be sure to check it out. It’s called www.MyShotGlass.com.