Like A Chicken With It’s Head Cut Off

Today was the last full day I had to get everything taken care of that I needed to get taken care of. Below is a list of what I needed to accomplish:

Change my address

Get an oil change

Get my tires rotated

Get a haircut

Finish packing

Help clean up the apartment

Photog Kara’s last day at work (and all the rides in the snow)

Surprisingly…I accomplished everything.

It was stressful, however, to say the least. On top of everything listed above, I took a bit of time out of my day to surprise Kara with lunch at her work. I thought it was a nice gesture, and she seemed to appreciate it. Everything else that I had planned ended up working out great.

Discount Tire, where I go for everything tire-related, had a zero minute wait to start the day. It was truly incredible. For all of the years I’ve been taking my car(s) to them for service, I’ve never seen the place deserted like it was today; I was in and out in less than twenty minutes. Leaving from there I headed to Best Buy to recycle an old TV of Kara’s and then it was off to Goodyear to get my oil changed.

While there, they tried to poach me of $15 to replace a light bulb…Uhhh, no thanks!

After thirty minutes there, I headed to my haircut place, but was greeted with a 30 minute wait. I opted to then head to Valleyfair and bring Kara a chicken caesar salad to brighten up her last day employed with the same company she’s been with for the past seven years. We ended our food together and then I headed back to get my hurr did, headed home to get a shower and then took off again to get my change of address taken care of.

Once that was done (and stunningly, they informed me it would take place tomorrow…score!) I made my way back to Valleyfair and we took a 45-minute lap around the park, getting photos of all of the rides draped in snow. Most of the pictures came out very good, and I’m glad we took that last opportunity to do that.

The rest of my day was spent hunting down a Mobil station, almost running out of gas (literally…check my Twitter upload) and making it back home to unload the huge boxes from my car, rearrange the boxes already occupying the apartment, and prepare for Kara’s arrival. Once she got home, we had three solid hours of packing, cleaning and rearranging.

And it truly is amazing what two people working together can get accomplished.

Now it’s 11pm on Friday night, and I work my last shift ever in Minnesota tomorrow from 8:45am to 5:00pm. Kara is on her way to the airport to scoop up her dad who is helping us with all the finishing touches, loading of the Penske truck, and the trip down to Florida. I even had time to get a couple games in on Modern Warfare 2 with my boy B-40.

For as hectic as the day was (and it could’ve been half as much if I wasn’t such a procrastinator) it sure did turn out well.

The next time I get to scribe, we’ll probably have already completed the first leg of the drive to Illinois. Here’s to a good weekend of packing, and a safe trip!

Getting It Together…Sorta

Kara and I are both huge procrastinators.

Likely the two worst in the world, and if not, we get honorable mention.

It is now T-Minus 4 (FOUR!!!) days until we load up the Penske and hit the road to Florida and tonight is the first night we’ve actually gone gung-ho on the whole packing situation. She gently crammed her amusement park cup and shot glass collection into a box last night, but that was the first of any packing for either of us.

For me, it’s not such a huge ordeal as I tossed most of my crap when I moved from Orlando to Minnesota in July, and most of what I did bring has been sitting dormant in boxes the whole time I’ve been here. For Kara, however…This may take awhile. On top of all the packing anxiety, she hasn’t been feeling too well this evening and I’m convinced is because of stress and uncertainty. We both know everything is going to be alright, but the fact that we’re finally getting around to actually getting everything taken care of is wearing on her.

This week, on the other hand, has been a food extravaganza! We’ve been making our Minnesota food rounds, trying to eat our way through the state; filling up on all the amazing delicacies that we will be missing out on once we get to the south.

Monday night we gorged ourselves at the amaaaaazing Mystic Lake Casino Buffet, where you’ll find anything and everything. I started off with a humongous caesar salad before moving onto my first plate of blackened grouper, mac n cheese, mashed potatoes, barbeque chicken breast and garlic cheese toast. That plate alone should’ve been enough, but oh no! One plate is never enough at Mystic Lake. Plate numero dos was egg pasta, some pepperoni and sausage pizza, and some more garlic cheese toast. The food extravaganza ended with a delicious mug of vanilla ice cream topped with hot chocolate and M&Ms.

Tuesday for lunch we headed to one of my new favorite burger places, Culver’s, and munched out on free cheeseburger kids’ meals, and topped the stop with homemade Rocky Road custard. But the food fun doesn’t stop there! Today for lunch we hit up Buffalo Tap and shoveled a large cheese curd basket down, and shared a barbeque chicken, bacon sandwich. Hopefully before we take off, we’ll get the chance to feast upon BD’s Mongolian Grille for one last time.

That’s this evening’s update. Most of my stuff is all packed and ready to go, now time to turn around and help out the Misses in her never-ending quest of sorting out jump, packing away memories and setting aside clothes for Goodwill.

Maybe we’ll get some sleep before Monday.

My 2009…

…Was amazing.

There’s really no other way to put it.

New Years 2008/2009 was spent with a bunch of my closest friends. We spent the night hanging out around a bonfire, playing games and just enjoying each others’ company. Soon after the New Year, myself and two friends from Chicago headed south to Gainesville and Orlando to celebrate the Florida Gators winning the 2009 College Football National Championship and theme park-hopping. It was in Orlando where the foundation was laid that would lead to so many life-changing decisions that would take place the rest of the year.

While in Orlando, my friend Corey played the middleman in bringing together me and the best thing to ever happen to me. Her name was Kara.

A few weeks after getting back to Tallahassee, I packed my bags and flew up to Minnesota to meet Kara for the first time. Now, I had a lot of big plans for this year, and none of them included visiting Minnesota, but it turned out to be the most life-changing trip of my life. I instantly fell in love with this girl and we enjoyed a short 5-days together touring the state, playing in the snow for the first time, visiting the Mall of America and getting to know this amazing girl.

Shortly after returning to Florida, I moved to Orlando with my friend Rob, and where I’d hoped that Kara would soon find herself as well. Things didn’t go the way I had planned, but my time spent in Orlando provided me a few months to build a great friendship with Rob and provided us the opportunity to have some of the best times of our life. The work situation was far from ideal (more like non-existent) and it really seemed more like a five month vacation, but the memories were irreplaceable and I’m grateful for having that time there. We spent all of our time hanging out, park-hopping, checking out the Orlando nightlife and becoming best friends with his puppy Corgi, Kumba. These are five months that I’ll always look back on, thankful that I got to spend all that time there having fun.

While living there, a month and a half of the time was spent living in Minnesota with Kara, and her visiting me in Florida. While out of state, we managed to hit a couple of parks that provided us great memories. In May we hit Silver Dollar City (Branson, MO), Six Flags St. Louis, Worlds of Fun (Kansas City, MO) and Adventureland (Altoona, IA) and rode a ton of amazing rollercoasters and made a bunch of great memories. In April, she visited me in Orlando and we enjoyed our time relaxing, as well as attending a boat wedding in Ft Myers and visiting Busch Gardens Tampa for the first time together.

Revisiting my earlier comment about Minnesota not being in my visit plans this year, July would provide quite a life change that was far from expected in that we made the decision that the best thing for our relationship was for me to move to the Land of 10,000 Lakes. And so it was, I packed up all my stuff into my little 2-door, threw away what I didn’t need, and hit the road on a 3-day, 25hr, 1,600 mile drive to Shakopee, MN.

On the way I stopped in Louisville, KY to stay and visit with my cousin Brett. it was great getting to see him as it had been awhile since we hung out. The second leg began with a quick stop at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom and ended with a stay with my friend Scott in Chicago, and the third leg began with a quick trip to Six Flags Great America. Finally arriving in Minnesota, I was afforded the opportunity to meet Kara’s mom for the first time. It was so great to be back with her, and I felt fortunate to finally get to meet the amazing woman who raised her.

My time spent in Minnesota has been all of a culture shock, a great learning experience, frustrating and amazing all wrapped up in one snowy package. For one, I LOVE the food here! Cheese curds are my new favorite snack/appetizer. I’ve got a new top 3 favorite restaurant in BD’s Mongolian Grill, and all the dives I’ve experienced have been amazing as well. If there’s one thing I’m gonna miss the most about this state, it’s the food.

What I’m not going to miss is the way everything is done. It took me six weeks to get my driver’s license. The highway system is absolutely absurd and whoever designed the roadways here needs to be shot. Also, there’s a saying here about people and it’s called “Minnesota Nice,” as in people are nice to your face and not so nice behind your back. I’ve definitely noticed that this is alive and well in a few instances, but there have been a few people I’ve met that this does not apply to. In fact, there’s a couple people who I’ve become friends with that I’ll actually miss.

In August (and again in October) we visited the Wisconsin Dells for Mt. Olympus, Timber Falls and general touristy stuff. That place is just amazing, and is easily one of my favorite places to visit now. Also in August we visited the Minnesota State Fair where we gained 20lbs each gorging on anything-on-a-stick (my favorite was Hush Puppies), checking out the portable rides and seeing Quietdrive in concert. We also witnessed (for about 3min before we got sick and had to leave) a cow giving live birth to a calf.

Let me tell you about how amazing Kara is. She’s never been a big football fan, but liked going to games for the tailgating and cheers. She had never experienced southern football, and my parents warned her that when football season began to be prepared for how crazy I am about it. She handled it like a champ. She put up with every Saturday being dedicated to sitting around with 4 games going at a time, and she was very considerate of my requests. She took to heart the fact that I couldn’t call up a bunch of friends at anytime to come over and watch the games, and did everything in her power to be understanding and enjoy the time together.

For the first game of the season we met up with the Twin Cities Gator Club and met a bunch of people and got to watch the game surrounded in orange and blue. It really made the transition a lot easier for me. The following week we headed to Michigan where we spent a day at the Michigan State-Central Michigan game, touring East Lansing and meeting up with a couple of her friends. We spent the rest of our time in Michigan visiting with her family, jet skiing on Lake Michigan, visiting Michigan’s Adventure and getting to know where she came from. It was an amazing trip and one I’ll never forget.

In this time I also tried getting back into school. I was determined to do it, enrolled and started taking classes at ITT before realizing that it was a sham and I got out before I took a hit. It felt good to get back in school, but that just wasn’t the right way to go, and after reading through other people’s experiences, I’m extremely happy with my decision to get out when I did. I also got a job here working at Dick’s Sporting Goods, which has been fun in that I’ve gotten to meet a couple of friends and have had, for the most part, fun getting out and doing something.

Thanksgiving we spent in Florida visiting friends and family. Our time was split between Tallahassee, Gainesville, and Orlando. I’m not gonna go all into this trip since I wrote a long post on this site recapping that amazing week, but suffice to say, I couldn’t have wished for a better holiday. Christmas was spent alone as Kara went back to Michigan to spend it with my family, and I had to stay in Minnesota to make up for not working over Thanksgiving. And New Years was a nice, relaxing night of having some champagne, playing Battleship and celebrating EST and CST New Years. It was a great time, and I couldn’t have asked for a better way to celebrate the New Year.

So what now?

WE’RE MOVING BACK TO FLORIDA!!!

I can finally talk about it! Two weeks from today we will be hitting the road and heading back to Orlando. Kara has finally had it with the winters here and wants to pursue her dreams of palm trees, grad school and a dream job. I’m grateful for finally getting out of this state. It’s been a great experience and I’m thankful for getting the opportunity to live in another state and experience a whole new world, but my roots are calling and it’s time to go home.

2009 will go down as the best year of my life, and with the upcoming changes, 2010 should be just as good if not better. I can’t wait to get back to Florida, and I especially can’t wait to live there with Kara. She turned me into a northerner, and now she gets to be transformed into a southerner.

That alone should make the year one to remember.

My Christmas Eve, 2009

Well, this isn’t what I had planned.

Here I am, in the middle of Minnesota, being pummeled by a winter storm that’s expected to drop 20+ inches of snow on us between yesterday and Sunday morning, and I’m spending Christmas all by myself.

Due (mostly) to the fact that I took off to Florida for Thanksgiving and left my retail position in a bit of a bind on Black Friday, I offered to make it up to them by offering up my full ability for Christmas week. It was one of those slap-yourself-in-the-face moments when you realize right after you said something that you probably just made a big mistake. Kara, of course, missed seeing her family for Thanksgiving and would not be denied Christmas with them, so in lieu of not quitting my job we decided it would be best for me to just stay in Minnesota and work through the holidays.

So now, here I am, bundled up with just myself and Kara’s cat Maggie. Maggie won’t speak to me, we tend to have a love-hate relationship (mostly hate). It’s nothing too bad, but she tends to get excited very easily, and I’m not a fan of being clawed, so I tend to let her indulge herself anywhere but on my lap; this, she doesn’t take very well to, and in turn, essentially avoids me like that plague.

Back to this winter storm. It’s bad. So bad that for the first time in my life, I had to dig my car out of a 9 inch tall mountain of snow this morning before going to work.

Kara and I went out practicing driving in the snow a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I had a pretty good handle on the whole situation. Just drive slow, don’t accelerate through the piles of white powder and take turns very, very easily. All of that is easier said than done.

Five minutes from arriving to my destination this morning, I managed to lose control of my car…Only for a fleeting few seconds, but it was enough to physically shake me up a bit. I tried to brake too quickly and in turn, proceeded to do a 180-degree spin in the middle of the road; but I did not panic! I calmly regained control of the vehicle, and then proceeded to overcompensate and ended up coming to a stop in the middle of the road after doing another 360-degree spin the other way.

Luckily, there weren’t any cars within a half mile, and I didn’t end up in a ditch or wrapped around a pole…But it was definitely a shaking experience, and not one I’m looking forward to ever repeating.

So now, after a long, uneventful, dragging day at work I’m back home and ready to kick of my Christmas Eve/Day off with a bang, literally.

It is my goal to play 24-straight hours of Modern Warfare 2 on my new, shiny XBox 360. I’ve been hooked on the game since I got it, but now, with no one to share my holiday with, I am opting to share it with hundreds of random gunslingers online. I fully intend on lasting a full 24 hours, starting here in about 20min, and lasting all the way until 9pm CDT tomorrow evening.

It’s going to be long and grueling, but I hope and have faith that I can pull it off. And maybe, just so I can look back down the road at how dumb this idea probably will turn out, I may even give updates throughout the night on here to chronicle my progress.

So Merry Christmas to all! Enjoy your families, friends and loved ones.

To all my Florida people who may or may not read this, enjoy the warmth…You have no idea what you’re missing.

And to my XBox….Please, please don’t Red Circle of Death me, kthx.

A Tale of Two Weeks

It’s amazing how different two weeks can be. The last time I blogged, I was reporting on the awesomeness of our trip to Florida. The sun, friends, family, roller coasters, perfect health and a Florida victory. So what went wrong this week?

Really, that’s not the best question in the world…The question should be what HASN’T gone wrong in the last week?

It all started the night after I wrote my last entry. The day started off good as I had a friend from work over to indulge in my new XBOX360 with me, but ended bad after he left. When I returned from gathering the parking pass from his car, it didn’t take long to realize that our front door broke and I was locked outside; Kara inside.

After about two hours of being out in the cold (literally) our handy-dandy apartment mechanic had it all fixed and working better than ever. I was finally out of the cold and back in the nice, warm, loving arms of my other. The following day started off not terribly bad, but as my work day went on, I gradually felt worse and worse. I became light-headed, nauseous, hot and dizzy. I decided to tough it out and stayed for my whole shift, but as the night wore on, a nasty sore throat joined the party.

Not much sleep was had that night, and when I woke up Friday morning, I was even worse off than before, and a small rash on my hands and forearms decided to hop aboard the Nussy Sick Train. I called Kara half-freaking out, and she rushed home and rushed me to Urgent Care – which was closed. A short time later, after vomiting in front of three people for ten minutes, I was admitted to the E.R. where I donned a beautiful hospital gown and began a three hour adventure of facing some of my biggest fears.

Needles.

With a complete disregard of my protestations, the nurse hooked me up with an IV which I took like a man (tongue-cheek) that was set to constantly pump me full of hydrating fluids and benadryl. Ohhh my, benadryl.

You sneaky, sneaky drug, you.

Benadryl knocks me out cold. Usually it takes about twenty minutes, but regardless, I’m out like a rock and there’s no waking me. And now they’re pumping it into me through an IV? I knew immediately that this was going to be an adventure. I was out like a light in no less than five minutes, and for the next three hours Kara and the nurses guarded me in my coma-state.

In the middle of my benadryl coma, I was ushered out of my room for chest xrays. I don’t recall this movement one bit. Apparently they wheeled me to another room, asked if I wanted to stay in my bed and do the test there, or get on the table (I, again apparently, answered “Stay in bed”) and performed the test with me sitting up in my bed. Again, don’t recall a minute of this.

The next time I was awaken was to give a urine test in which I somehow managed to get up and walk to the bathroom and do my business with not falling over onto the toilet or floor. I conquered this like a champ, and I do remember the sheer accomplishment I felt by completing the mission.

After an unknown amount of time, the doctors came back in and diagnosed me with the flu. The didn’t, however, mention to me that it was H1N1…The elected to just let me read the paperwork’s diagnostics after we left the hospital to realize I was a Swine.

The remainder of the day was spent sleeping heavily, with Kara waking me up periodically to feed my grilled cheese and my drug cornucopia. My only wish was that I would be better enough the following day to enjoy the SEC Championship game, and that was not to be.

Saturday I woke up feeling slightly better, but this rash that was just on my hands/forearms had spread to cover about 60% of my body and it itched like mad. Another trip to the (closed) Urgent Care and a few hours later I was sent home with even more drugs to partake in (but no IV!) Now what could be worse than being diagnosed with Swine Flu, you may ask?

The 2009 SEC Championship Game, that’s what’s worse.

The game made me nervous but I had a quiet confidence about it; and honestly, there were three to four other games throughout the year that I was more worried about. If I had known the outcome, and how we came out completely unprepared and completely uninterested, I would have just stayed in the hospital with no TV. Our players were completely nonchalant, our coaches got completely out-coached, and we came away with a loss that still stings and is probably up there in my top three “Worst-Feeling Defeats” as a Florida fan. The two days before the game provided me with obvious foreshadowing that I just chose to ignore as bad luck (with my health, that is).

Since Saturday, my health has been on a constant roller coaster (heh)…One day I feel like death, the next I feel like I was never even sick. I finally do feel, however, that I am getting a lot better but now there’s a side symptom that I genuinely hope isn’t here to stay.

I’ve become a snorer. I’ve never snored bad. Occasionally, yeah probably…But not night after night.

Poor Kara, Bless her heart. She’s done everything in the world to make this Hell week better, but now she’s not feeling well and my snoring is causing her even less sleep. I hope it gets better and is just a side effect from all these drugs I’ve had to pump through my system for the last week.

Otherwise, it might be another Hell week; but for her.

Return to the Tundra

I already miss Florida.

In fact, I missed Florida the second we got to the Tallahassee airport to head back to the Frozen North. I miss the sun, I miss wearing my shorts and t-shirts and I miss no snow.

Visiting there again after being here for five months really made me appreciate everything that I grew up taking for granted. Seeing palm trees everywhere was a particularly great sight. Kara always says “I want to see palm trees!” and I always laughed at her.

“They’re just trees,” I’d say.

But no, they’re not just trees. They’re a symbol of warmth. They’re a sign that you will not have to deal with cold weather for more than a month.

They truly are beautiful and from here on forth, I vow to never take another palm tree for granted.

Kara and I landed in Florida on the busiest travel day of the year without a hitch. No delayed flights, no lost luggage; not even any problems in security or a single hold-up whatsoever. It was incredible. My only complaint are the idiots at the Memphis airport who didn’t realize they could lift their chairs up to move them instead of sliding them all over the floors making the most God-awful noise I’ve ever heard. But I digress.

My parents picked us up from the airport and man, was it good to see them. As I’ve written here before, I’ve grown closer than ever with them over the past year so it was a definite breath of fresh, sunny air to see them again. We caught up for a couple hours before Kara and I (from here-on to be known as “we”) headed out to Los Compadres, a staple of Tallahassee dining, to meet up with 15 of my closest friends for an all you can eat buffet of Mexican goodness.

We had such an amazing time gorging ourselves and catching up with these great people. If there’s two things about Tallahassee I miss, it’s my awesome friends….And food. I miss both of these things dearly, and it was great to get to spend a couple of hours enjoying both.

The following day was Thanksgiving and, as usual, was spent napping, snacking, watching football and gorging ourselves even more. Kara being the antsy person she is, got my family and I to play a heated game of Scrabble in which she ran away with the W at the end. And to be honest, we let her win because my parents and I all felt bad about her not getting to spend the holiday with her family. Dinner was terrific, and after a bit of spending more time together, we called it a fairly early night.

Black Friday was spent not at my retail job (THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!). We got up early and hit the road for Orlando. After taking care of some business, we headed to SeaWorld for a bit to see Shamu and get Kara’s Manta credit. I was really excited for her to ride Manta as it quickly became one of my top 5 favorite roller coasters and I was ecstatic to see her reaction. Unfortunately, I hyped the ride quite a bit and she was left a bit disappointed after the first time around. Luckily, though, her second ride was a lot better and I’m very happy she enjoyed it as much as she did.

After a photo op with a Shamu costume, visiting the real guys, and checking out the baby dolphins, we left my second favorite place in the world and hit the road to Gainesville. We spent the night at Chris and Amber’s house watching the Gators beat #2 Michigan State (sorry baby ), hanging out, and playing some Guitar Hero before it calling it a night.

Saturday was by far the greatest day of the trip. We woke up early and headed out to UF for a long day of College Gameday, visiting friends, tailgating and FOOTBALL! Florida came away with their sixth straight win over florida state (and I WILL be writing a huge blog about all of that) but more importantly, Florida came away with a new huge fan. The Swamp won Kara over immediately, and I’m so lucky to have someone whose so open-minded and accepting. The stadium was rocking that night, and she loved every minute of it, to the point where she remarked to me the other day: “I don’t want to wait 10 months to go back!”

Sunday was another early day as we headed back to Orlando to meet up with my grandparents and Kara’s friend Dan. We were supposed to go to Universal to ride their new coaster Hollywood Rockit, but it just didn’t work out. Instead we had a great lunch with my grandparents, and had a invigorating game of mini-golf at Congo River that came down to the final hole. Overall, this was another great day, but the drive back to Tallahassee afterward was long, tiring, and frustrating due to the traffic.

Our last day in Florida was spent relaxing, and lunch at my favorite place in the city: Po’Boys! I finally got to introduce my parents to the wonder that is this amazing Cajun dining joint. We were all stuffed to brim afterward but golly, was it worth it. A few hours later and my parents dropped us back off at TLH and it was back to the skies.

As the snow falls outside and I get to experience my first time driving in it, I look back at the last 25 years of my life and realize just how much I took palm trees for granted.

Not anymore.

Palm Trees For Winter

I’ve never come to fully appreciate the beauty of a palm tree. Being surrounded by them my whole life, to me they were always “just a tree.” You take certain things for granted when you’re around them all the time, and for me, one of those things are palm trees.

Man, lemme tell ya…I cannot WAIT to see palm trees in two days.

Kara and I are flying to Florida on the busiest travel day of the year (Wednesday) and will be spending 6 glorious, sunny days in my home state. We’ll be spending Thanksgiving with family and friends, rollercoasting in Orlando, and seeing the Mighty Florida Gators send the florida state seminoles to the hells of six and six. Everything about this coming week has me absolutely giddy.

I can’t wait to see my parents for the first time since August, and devour hoards of turkey and cranberry and mashed taters and everything else amazing that comes with Thanksgiving.

I can’t wait to gorge on All You Can Eat with a bunch of close friends.

I can’t wait to go back to Orlando, check out the area, ride MANTA and get a new credit at Universal.

I can’t wait to finally be back in THE SWAMP for the first time this season and watch Florida demolish the Noles.

And most of all, I can’t wait do all of this with Kara at my side. This truly is going to be a week worth being thankful for; just like this entire year has been.

Palm trees, I’m coming home.

Changing of the Seasons

Happy Friday the 13th! And what makes this Friday the 13th particularly scary?

I turn 26 tomorrow. Now THAT’S scary.

Birthday’s used to be something to look forward to, now I’m just dreading them. I feel like I’m caught in a parallel universe between still young and fun, and time to buckle down. Where does the “fun” have to end? I know I’ve dragged my fun around for a lot longer than most people. I guess everyone goes through this sort of thing, I just like to vocalize everything that goes through my mind.

You know what else is fun? Sun.

I love the sun, which is no surprise considering I’m from Florida, and this Northern weather adjustment period seems to have been a long process, that’s only about to get longer. Apparently the three snow showers/storms (whatever they’re called) we had here in early October were just an apparition. From what I’ve gathered, it never snows that early and was the earliest recorded snowfall here ever. I enjoyed those snow encounters, since it was the first time I’d ever actually seen snow fall, but now it seems as though it’s really gonna be winter.

The weather here the past two weeks has been perfect fall weather. Upper 50′s and low 60′s, sunny every day, light breeze, no rain or snow. But as Kara and I were leaving the movie theater the other night, and the air became a bit brisker, she made a comment that she “felt like winter was upon us. I bet it starts snowing soon.”

I went straight to my Blackberry and pulled up the forecast for the next ten days. No snow, same perfect weather.

*phew*

But even I started to notice a change beginning yesterday. There was no sun, the temperature was dropping slightly, and the breeze was picking up. As I sit here and type today, overlooking trees with dwindling leaves and a gloomy sky, even I can feel the changing of the seasons upon Minnesota. And a quick check of the forecast now mentions the possibility of flurries in the next week.

So much for fun in the sun.

There is a silver lining, however. The massive amounts of snow that I’m sure is just right around our corner does bring us the opportunity to do new, fun things. I am looking forward to trying skiing, snowboarding and snowmobiling. And you can’t go wrong with snow angels.

Maybe I’ll even build a snow fort.

So Much for Being A Floridian

I finally did it today.

I went to the dark side.

I became a Minnesota resident.

A few weeks ago I tried, and failed to do so. Apparently a different state-issued driver’s license and a social security card aren’t proper forms of identification here, so I had to have my dad mail me a certified copy of my birth certificate. It arrived yesterday, and if there was one thing I learned from my first failed attempt, it was to get there early.

I arrived at the DMV 25min before opening and ended up being the second customer through the doors. After taking a number, and three other people who came in after me going before me, my ticket was called and I was off to take the test. I was nervous, considering most of my studying was a 15min cram session about three weeks ago, and with all of the crazy roadways in Minnesota, and the fact there’s snow here, I figured I’d probably have to retake the test.

In the end, I passed with a score of 82%, and by my calculations, that was one wrong answer from getting a DENIED on my application. It ended up costing me $24, which was less than I thought it’d be, but the funky thing happened with everything was done.

“You’ll receive your new Minnesota driver’s license in the mail in 4-6 weeks.”

HUH?? 4-6 WEEKS?

“Yes, 4-6 weeks. Here is a temporary license, keep it with your Florida license at all times until you receive your Minnesota-issued license. Have a good day.”

Since when do they mail you your license? Do other states do this? I know in Florida you get your shiny new State of Florida license on the spot, within 10 minutes of completing the test/application.

Regardless, I’m no longer a Floridian…But hopefully not for long.