Scouting trip to Asheville, NC

A week and a half ago Niesha and I took a trip down to Asheville to try and find a place to live since we had planned to move down there at the end of the month. Smart eh? The 11 hour drive down to North Carolina went relatively smoothly but upon arriving at our friends, Michael and Dawn's place, and opening the trunk of the car Niesha and I made a shocking observation. It so happened that when I was loading the car with bags and stuff Niesha thought I carried her duffle bag down to the car. I assumed she had it on the final trip to the car that we both made. So back in our apartment on the floor of our bedroom near the closet sat Niesha's clothes and overnight supplies. I felt horrible. My wife, who is a very forgiving woman, said it was okay and we made the best of it (with a trip to Walmart and Dawn lending and giving Niesha a bunch of stuff).

Apparently Asheville is a very popular place, especially with school starting up right about now. We had a tough time locating many apartment complexes that had any available units when we called leading up to our trip. And it didn't get any easier. We had driven down on Saturday and so Sunday was our first apartment hunting excursion. The first place we had made an appointment at was only about 4 minutes from where we were staying and the place was quite decent. Next I called to confirm an appointment that I had made for later that night to see a small house for rent. But it had been rented. So next we headed to our second appointment. When we got their the lone employee was already helping a prospective tenant. I jokingly said to Niesha that that guy better not be stealing the apartment we were coming to look at. Turns out he wasn't the apartment had been rented the day before and they no longer had any units in our price range. So after seeing one apartment, that was actually available we were done for the day. That night we looked more online and made some more phone calls to try and increase the number of options we had left. We originally had only 3 more appointments on Monday so we increased that by a few.

The second place we saw Monday morning was very......interesting. We met a lady who worked for a property manager at one location and although the current tenants hadn't moved out yet she could show it to us and two other guys who were possibly interested. As we entered the two bedroom four-plex apartment it literally looked like a landfill had died there. We could not believe they would show a place like that, although the lady may not have known the state of it.

After a full day of checking out places we had narrowed our choices to three places. After further deliberation we got to two since the one was a little high on rent and didn't include any utilities. We talked and dicussed, made decisions, and then changed our minds. Finally we decided on a place called Willow Ridge. We planned to go there first thing in the morning, sign some papers, drop off the security deposit and head home to Kalamazoo. The next morning we arrived at their office at 8:40 am and the office was supposed to open at 8:30 but no one was there. A maintenance man came by and said they had run some errands and would be back in 20 minutes. 40 minutes later (and with at least an 11 hour drive ahead of us) the two female employees returned. When we told them we had been waiting for 40 minutes the one lady in a rude tone said, "that's why we make appointments". I replied, "Excuse me but your office hours start at 8:30am" She assured us she would help us. As the other female entered the office I saw her put down a grocery bag with hair products in it. Apparently the urgent "errand" these two women needed to do was get hairspray. Looking through an apartment chart the first lady said, "Oh, that apartment you wanted was rented after you left yesterday. And the other option we had mentioned is gone too." We stood there not believing our ears.
As we got in the car we realized we had wasted almost an hour at a place that didn't have any vacancies. So we headed to the backup place called Parkway Crossing. At Parkway they apartment was still available so we took it. It was two hours later than expected when we finally rolled out of Asheville and little did we know that thanks to three road construction sites, and a major interstate accident we would arrive home over 12 hours later, with Niesha having to work early the next morning.
But here's where it gets even more interesting. Four hours into our drive home we get a call on Niesha's cell phone from Willow Ridge, the lady who put the deposit on the apartment we wanted called and cancelled so it's available now. I told the lady we had put down a deposit elsewhere. I hung up. Niesha and I talked. I called Parkway and they could refund the deposit with no penalty. Niesh and I talked. I called Willow Ridge again and asked how we could get the apartment without being there. I got the info and hung up. Niesha and I talked. Now we were unsure of what to do. We obviously didn't like the office ladies at Willow Ridge. Niesha and I talked some more. I really wish Willow hadn't called us about the open apartment, it would have made the trip home much more relaxing. We ended up deciding to stay at Parkway. So here are some photos of the model unit they show to everyone. Of course it is decorated better than we will be able to do with our limited budget but it may give you an idea of our new home.



The kitchen is small and the two rooms aren't that big but it has a walk-in closet and the living room is much better laid out than Willow. Plus the bathroom is also bigger.


Our friends Michael and Dawn were awesome hosts. Somehow though I didn't even get a picture of them. Here's a pic (above) of their house and their CRAZY driveway.


The highlight of the trip for me was getting to drive Michael and Dawn's son's 2006 5.0 liter Ford Mustang. I have never driven anything with that much power. Screaming around the back roads of Asheville was a blast in that thing! I'll have more pics of our trip on my facebook account soon....hopefully.

Back on the Links

About four weeks ago (ya I haven't been keeping up very well) my friends Shawn and Johnathan from the Andrews hockey team and I went golfing. I hadn't golfed in 5 years but was itching to get on a course after my parents had sent me my golf clubs in the mail back on my birthday. The course played pretty difficult since it hadn't rained in over a month and the "rough" was simply trampled dead grass that resembled concrete more than any kind of organic substance. My goal for the day was to break 90. My final score was.....90. Not bad under the circumstances and I had a lot of fun spending the afternoon with the guys. I haven't been out on the links since then but I collect any empty pop and beer cans I can find to fund my next outting. Not that it's that expensive to golf in Michigan....unless you've been unemployed for 8 months like myself.

Sorry about the no posts

Hey there everybody......or anybody who still checks this. I have neglected to update my blog for almost a month now, not because nothing has been happening but for a few other reasons. One of the main reasons for the lack of blog posts has been my involvement in a little something called facebook.com. It's on this site that one can keep in touch with all kinds of people that one's met through their life. I've reconnected with quite a number of old friends. It's also a place to post a number of pictures and so that has been something that I've spent some time on. So anyone not on facebook that's interested can e-mail me and I'll send them an invite. Be warned however, facebook is known to be a time-sucking vortex.
The big news right now is that my beautiful bride and I are moving at the end of the month to North Carolina. We're both excited to be getting out of Michigan and I'm super excited to be moving somewhere that has mountains!! We're headed down there next weekend to hopefully lock up an apartment in the Asheville area. So keep us in your prayers.
Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to keep the one or two of you that still check this thing posted better on the events that transpire over the next couple weeks.

Belated B-day present

Two weekends ago Niesha and I took a trip an hour west and a bit north of Kalamazoo to Saugatuck Michigan which is a small town on the coast of Lake Michigan and at the mouth of the Kalamazoo river. Niesha had booked some spots on a sailboat for Sunday afternoon and we made a day of it.
The area was quite nice with lots of lush trees around the town and a real "summer fun" atmosphere in a town that had lots of shops and stores lining the streets. There was even a large wooded hill close to the river that had some stairs leading up it. The stairs looked like they went up a long way so I naturally wanted to climb it and see: 1)where it went, and 2)what the view was like at the top.

284 steps later, we reached the top of Mount Baldy as it was called (but it wasn't really a Mount by any means) and had a wonderful view of Saugatuck.



The sailing trip itself lasted a good two hours. First we had to meander down the Kalamazoo river for about 20 minutes until we reached Lake Michigan which upon entering the large body of water the captain put up the sails and off we went at about 7 knots (8.4 miles/hr) out to sea.......er lake.


We were allowed to go up onto any part of the bow but the captain said he had one rule, "Just don't fall in the water". It was a beautiful sunny day and the wind was blowing pretty strong, so even though it was warm on shore it was cool enough to need a light jacket on the water.
The day was awesome. It felt fantastic to be back on a body of water. I've been so used to being on the water in the summer I really miss it when I go long periods of time without bouncing on some waves.Niesha and I even managed to get sprayed a little while sitting on the bow of the boat when some large waves sloshed into the side of the boat and soared into the air to greet our bodies with a fine mist.


It was a wonderful birthday present and I'm thinking, now all I need is a sailboat of my own and the rest of the summer will have all kinds of adventures to write about!

Some of the scariest images you may ever see!

It's amazing how much laughter a simple computer program can produce. These images are from a program called photobooth which came with my friend Jun's new Macbook laptop. The computer has a built in webcam so it can take pictures of you or, as with this program, distort pictures of you. We nearly pee-ed (spelling?) our pants!

Chicago trip

This past weekend Niesha and I took a trip with our friends Shawn and Camille to Chicago. Shawn preached at the Lakeview SDA Church (although there's no lake to view, it's in a very urban environment actually) and we stayed for a potluch lunch after and enjoyed meeting some new people.


After the lunch we made our way to Lincoln Park Zoo which is free on Saturday's and Shawn and Camille are a poor young couple as well so we took full advantage. Somehow in my excitement I forgot one simple thing, free stuff = crowds. As we circled the park and surrounding area over and over and over.........and over, we could not find a single free parking space. Cars were jammed into parallel parking spaces like, well not like sardines because sardines are really not jammed in that close together, but the cars were jammed in like pickles, which are absolutely packed into that jar. To our dismay it also started pouring rain while we were looking for a parking spot to go along with the 92 F or 33 C heat outside. So hot and muggy is understatement of what it felt like.


Eventually we succumbed to paid parking and once we got out of the air conditioned car we realized how fast one can sweat in 100% humidity. After a little while the on and off showers cooled things down and it wasn't that bad.
For a free zoo the animals that were exhibited were quite impressive. I was able to see a Tiger for the first time in real life, up close, and he even smiled for me so I could get a picture.
I had seen Lions in the wild in Africa so that was a little less exciting. One of the female Lions did however have something against the lady who was standing behind me and to my right. The female Lion at one point looked directly at the woman and growled the deepest meanest growl I've ever heard. I turned around, looked at the woman, and although I saw no reason why the Lion growled, I promptly moved to the other side of the crowd. Maybe the Lion knew something I didn't.


It was fun throughout the afternoon to try and make noises to try and get the attention of the animals so I could take their picture. I assumed that the mating call of each species would garner the most attention so that was road I took. Of course I don't know the mating call of a single species, not even humans, so the noises that came out of my mouth were quite interesting. Not surprisingly, I wasn't the only person trying to get the animals attention. Grown men and women, along with kids were making a variety of calls. There was the universal "pucker your mouth and suck in" making a squeaking noise. There was the "growl loudly" especially used around the large cats. There was the good old whistle, but there weren't any dogs at the zoo so that one had limited success. And then there were even people who tried to just call out in english to get the animals attention. One question though, what if the animal doesn't speak english?
I do have to say that I was able to entice a black bear. The noise I made can only be explained as a cross between a mule, a goose, a walrus in heat and an angry armadillo.....ya it was quite the spectacle. Right after I made the call the bear stood up on it's hind legs and proceeded to eat some leaves. Whether it had planned to stand up before I made the call we'll never know. But it looked kind of impressive so that's my story and I'm sticking to it.



Although it was neat to see some of the animals I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. Many of them were very confined quarters and some of them looked very unhealthy. There was one penguin in particular that looked so sad. The fur or hair on it's back was falling out to the point that you could see it's skin quite easily in
places. It didn't do much but stand in a small room that housed about 40 other penguins. I guess I'll have to wait until heaven to be able to play with and see the many beautiful creatures of God's creation.

Two minutes for elbowing

I have never considered myself a "dirty" hockey player but it seems the same cannot be said of the way to sleep. Last week I apparently rediscovered how to smack, rake over, elbow and bump Niesha in the night without even realizing I had done anything. Such events had occurred afew times not long after we were married but after a while I had seemed to learn how to be nice......little did Niesha know.
The main problem seems to be that I sleep with my arms above my head often throughout the night. When it's time to change positions my sleepy brain somehow doesn't like to lift my arm closest to my beautiful bride up off the bed but simply drag it in a snow angel kind of motion down to my side. And herein lies the problem. My arms are long, my elbows are bony and Niesha has been rudely awakened numerous times lately. About a week ago I even connected with her face a record three times in one night. One of those was apparently a hefty elbow to the noggin.
Of course I feel terrible, but even after encouragement Niesha
refuses to hit me back while I'm sleeping. They have devices to help
spouses who snore. How about a restrictive arm sling to prevent
nocturnal spousal abuse?