Orion’s Weblog

The Friday of Memorial Day Weekend was a lot of fun. Tim and Kathy came out to visit me in New Buffalo on their way to Chicago for the weekend. We went to St. Mary’s Festival. Tim and I rode on one of the rides. After that, Tim, Kathy, and I went to New Buffalo’s Beach and watched the sunset - very beautiful. Thanks for coming out guys!

This year I once again spent one of my days off for Memorial Day Weekend on Lake Michigan. Once again with my good, close friend Tim. And once again with Tim’s girlfriend (this time Kathy, not Erin). I’m starting to sense a pattern… or maybe a tradition?

I met Danette at the movie theater in Michigan City today. We watched “28 Weeks Later”, the sequel to “28 Days Later”. After the movie, we went to a nearby Mexican restaurant.

I met Danette at the Applebee’s in Valparaiso tonight. We had a nice time. After dinner we took an impromptu walk on a nearby park’s nature trail.

I went back home for Mothers’ Day.  I had a nice time hanging out with Mom and Kurt at Grandpa and Grandma’s place in Leslie.

I didn’t quite celebrate Cinco de Mayo today, but I did spend part of the day with someone who speaks Spanish… does that count?

At noon today I joined De, Holly, Brayden, and Patrick at the theater on Edgewood in Lansing to see Spider-Man 3. I very much enjoyed it. The movies are starting to feel episodic.

After the movie we had Mexican for a late lunch. I was then able to have some fun playing with the kids. De and Holly told me about how they are moving to Colorado.

Later on I headed over to Bret’s to catch the movie again with him and his son. Pretty good movie-filled, friends-filled day.

Yesterday we opened the City Beach.  And by “we” I mean the Parks Department, and by “opened” I mean we started charging people to park in the beach’s lot.  Last night I helped close the beach - e.g. I helped kick people out before we locked the gate.

Today sometime around noonish the City’s Parks Superintendent fell off the barge into the Mariana while attempting to pull a tree out of the water.  He had his life jacket on, but he still got a little beat up being between the barge and a slip.  This left me with trying to get everything in place for tonight’s closing, tomorrow’s opening, and scheduling, etc., as he would have been able to do that had he not been hurt.

I didn’t get a couple of things quite right, but I think things worked smoother than the first close-open cycle, so I’ll rate that as positive.

Tim got a new job! Huzzah! We all came out to help him celebrate. Congratulations Tim!

Today, I hung out with Tim, Chris, Dan, and Kathy. At Kathy’s behest, we perused the flea market at the back parking lot of Studio 28.

To get there, I had the privilege of riding on the back of Monk’s motorcycle. Huzzah! Afterward, we picked up Dan, who traveled with Kathy and Tim, in his new car. We had lunch at Olive Garden.

When we all returned to Tim’s place we took a bicycle ride down Kent Trail, and followed it up with ice cream. Huzzah!

Yesterday, I went with Tim, Brad, Andy P., and Richard to the prerelease for Magic: The Gathering’s newest expansion, Future Sight. We went to the one in Detroit, more specifically it was at the Rock Financial Center in Novi. We saw Casey, Jamie, Andy S., and a few other Grand Rapids Magic Players there too. Tim and I played in Flight 7, while pretty much everyone else played in Flight 6 (32-players each). Team Grand Rapids didn’t fare too well at this prerelease. I came in 7th place and won 6 packs. Casey also won 6 packs, and Jamie won like a half-box or a box.

The deck I built was G/B. It mostly was Green fat with Black creature removal. My first match I lost to a deck with serious life gaining (Soul Loop, plus others) and flyers. Flyers were a problem the second match too, but I got 1-0-1. I was able to pull out enough wins to make it into seventh - yay!

After MTG, Tim, Brad, and I header over to Steve’s and Gina’s Birthday Party at Laser Quest. We all had a lot of fun. I lost to Brad and Tim at air hockey. About 30 people played in three rounds of laser tag. I really enjoyed it - it was my first time playing. Tim took first the first round, third the second round,and I do not remember for the third. Brad and I were around 20th place the first round. Brad improved a lot the second round, and I improved a little. After we were all done having fun and wishing Steve and Gina well we headed to GR.

A local TV news crew (WSBT-22, the CBS affiliate in South Bend) was in City Hall today, following up on a speech the mayor gave our chamber of commerce this morning. The mayor was meeting someone here regarding the Wayfinding (directional) Signs Committee. The crew wanted to get some back ground shots of the mayor, and I was the third person in the shot, as that I am the staff member assigned to that committee. I’ll of course not see that segment because I do not get any TV due to not having an antenna. /me shrugs