Wednesday, September 1, 2004
Today's Log 8.30.04 5.7.04 5.4.04 5.1.04 4.29.04 4.26.04 4.19.04 4.16.04 4.13.04 4.8.04 4.2.04 4.1.04 3.29.04 3.24.04 3.22.04 3.17.04 3.15.04 3.4.04 3.1.04 2.27.04 2.25.04 2.24.04 Special Edition 2.23.04 2.17.04 2.13.04 2.13.04 Special Edition 2.5.04 2.4.04 2.2.04 1.28.04 1.21.04 1.9.04 12.17.03 12.15.03 12.09.03 12.05.03 12.02.03 12.01.03 11.23.03 11.21.03 11.19.03 11.18.03 11.17.03 11-16.03 11.14.03 11.13.03 11.12.03"The Twins, a Big TV, a Neighbor's Pool, and Toenails"
There's still plenty of things to talk about this summer that went on in the Twin Cities. Here's one particular day that will go down in the books as maybe the best of the summer, or at least top five. It was June 28, a seemingly ordinary Monday. I had asked for the day off long in advance because Liz Burke was participating in the Doug Mientkiewicz Bass Fishing Classic at Lake Minnetonka. Patrick Lynch and I wanted to go see the dozens of Twins players, past and present, wandering around the shore. In the morning, Patrick and I headed over to his parents' house in Eden Prairie for a little grill-out on the patio. Next, it was off to the lake to welcome the players back onto shore. Liz had spent the morning on a boat with Twins pitcher Kyle Lohse since her dad is involved with Wildlife Forever, the charitable organization Mientkiewicz was donating proceeds towards. Patrick and I watched as guys like Bert Blyleven, Terry Steinbach, Johan Santana, Lew Ford, and Jacque Jones mingled with the crowd. I got my picture with Jack Morris, Kent Hrbek, and Brad Radke, and chatted a little with each of them. It was quite the day on the lake. Things couldn't have gone much better. On the way home, Patrick decided he needed to clip his grotesquely long toenails, so we took a detour back to his parents' house. On the way, we noticed a big screen TV sitting in someone's yard. There was a sign saying "FREE," so we loaded it up in Patrick's pickup and hauled it back to the apartment. To our amazement, it not only worked, but there didn't seem to be much wrong with it at all. After a little TV and a game of catch, we cooled off by walking to the apartment complex down the street and using their pool illegally. Needless to say, the LaPlants and Travis were all stunned to see the big screen in the living room as they returned home at night.
"Returning From VF in Comparison to Past Years"
Here's a little uninteresting story I tried telling to Jason and Chris today, but they refused to listen. I was telling them how I felt returning home to South Dakota after my summers in Minnesota the past three years. Jason asked if I needed a dress to go along with spilling my emotions. In 2002, I was extremely depressed after returning to college. I was literally so depressed to be back home that I was almost 100% sure of transferring to U of M Twin Cities at the end of the semester. I even made four weekend trips back to Minnesota in the first two months, and one trip to Omaha to see Liz Burke. It honestly took a good month for me to get back to the swing of things in Madison. I guess I just missed all the friends from work and life in the metro area. However, the following summer was nothing the same. I came home and was happy to be there. True, I had to work a couple September weekends so I would see everyone again soon, but I was just ready to call it a summer and get back to college. I OC'ed 22 times that summer and put in over 800 hours, so it was understandable that I was okay with leaving. This year I haven't had enough time to evaluate the situation entirely. I think it falls somewhere in between 02 and 03. I definitely miss living in St. Louis Park. I really don't care much for the city of Madison. I liked having everything so close to where we lived. I miss the people from work too... maybe not the job itself so much. In Minnesota, I had like 100 friends that I could hang out with. Here in Madison, there are about twelve, and none of them are girls. So overall I think I have had enough taste of the Minneapolis life to realize that if I had a choice, there is no way I would choose Madison over the Twin Cities.
"One Day of Classes Down"
The first day of classes have been completed, and I can say that my Tuesday/Thursday schedule should be pretty decent. I am looking forward to the Computer Graphic Effects class that goes from 4:30-6:45, an entire six hours after my second class ends. That gives me an enormous afternoon break that will soon be filled with a work study position and newspaper editing. My other morning classes are Web Application Programming at 8 and Desktop Publishing at 9:30. Today I have chorus at noon, Marketing at 2, and Drawing at 5:30. I was in the 1:00 section of Marketing until I found out Jason had the class at 2, so I switched so we can have one class together anyway.
"Ri-frickin-diculous Statistics"
Here's a new feature to the Daily Log that takes a look at statistics that absolutely no one, including me, should care one ounce about. Today's stat: work shifts the past two years at Valleyfair. How do I know every shift I've worked since May 13, 2003, you ask? Well, I've actually kept track, and here's the breakdown.
2004 BREAKDOWN
OPEN 26 That's actually down 32% from 2003.
SWING 12 Swing shifts went up 600%, the largest change by far.
CLOSE 36 Close shifts increased by 23% from last year.
O-C 11 The OC'ing was way down--by 45% in fact.
DAY OFF 15 The real shocker: I had 47% more days off in '04.
2003 BREAKDOWN
OPEN 38 A lot of times I came in early to unload a truck or something.
SWING 2 Not as many of these on the lead schedules.
CLOSE 28 Had to leave early for intramural sports.
O-C 20 Yep. Lotsa hours in 03.
DAY OFF 8 And only 8 full days off. Even I'm shocked to see that.
2-YEAR TOTAL
OPEN 64 It's amazing... in 2 years, I opened and closed 64 times each.
SWING 14 Swinging only accounts for 7% of my shifts.
CLOSE 64 Like opening, closing shifts accounted for 32% of the work.
O-C 31 Almost 1 in 6 days were spent working open to close.
DAY OFF 23 Just 11% of the days were spent away from the park.
There. Now you know something about me that you will never even know about yourself. I guarantee that. Seriously, if you can show me your work shifts over two years, I'll post them right here! But I don't think anyone has that much free time but me. The real stat that jumps out at me is the number of days off in 2003: 8. Remember, 2 of those were spent at Cedar Point, and 1 of them was during a trip back to South Dakota. So that means that I had just 5 real days off. Wow.
"On This Date in RG History: September 1, 2003"
I haven't decided just where to put the History feature on my site yet, but I do know that it will remain in tact. On this date in 2003, I was already moved into the house. Chris Ahrendt arrived and moved in later in the day, but not before I swung by to visit Jake Drotzman and my cousin Ronnie Froke. The person of the day was none other than Nick Sandbulte, who won for the first time on that day.
"Briefly..."
Here are the songs I want to download as soon as the Internet is up and running in our house (which isn't until September 8). "I Got You" by the Split Enz; "Buddy Holly" by Weezer; "Somebody Told Me" by The Killers; "Roses" by Outkast; "Everlasting Love" by Howard Jones; "Pepper" by The Butthole Surfers; "Blister in the Sun" and "American Music" by The Violent Femmes; and that song that goes "because your kiss, your kiss, is on my list."... The Twins won last night in extra innings over Texas on a walk-off Torii Hunter homer in the 11th. I would never root against the Twins, but I would love to see Texas make the playoffs too. If I had things my way, the Twins would win the Central, with Boston winning the East, Texas winning the West, and Oakland taking the Wild Card. In the NL (within reason), I'd like to see Atlanta, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and San Diego make it. The possibility of a World Series featuring underdog teams like Texas and San Diego is what baseball is all about... In other baseball news, I have to root for Cleveland just once and say nice job on the 22-0 shillacking of the suddenly awful Yankees, who resemble a playoff team very little...
Bye
Ryan