I've been back for a while - I'm just lazy

Well I've been back from Michigan for almost a week now and this is my first post since. Heres the recap:

I flew out of Orlando on Wednesday. My family has a cabin in the woods of Northern Michigan around the Treverse City, Lovells, Gaylord area. It was built by my Great Grandfather on my Dads side. It has become pretty modern as time has gone on and there were several additions to it. Today it is just like a normal house w/ satellite TV and everything. Dont get me wrong, it is still in the middle of the woods down long windy dirt roads, we just have made it more hospitable. It is on 80 Acers and a river runs through it.

There were a total of 17 people there:

The Hambrook Family (Dad's Sister)
- Uncle Charlie (dentist)
- Aunt Chris (dental assistant)
- Kelly (3rd year dental student at UF)
- Charlie (3rd year in a south florida college i cant remember the name of)
- Colleen (2nd year UF student, same age as me)
- Chris (going into 2nd year of high school)

The Opellas (family friends)
-Mr. Opella
-Mrs. Opella
- Margeret (3rd year at small college in Illinois)
- Moreen (1st year at small college in Iowa)
- Matt (High School senior)
- Mike (going into 8th grade)

-My Grampa and Grandma (dads side)

- My Uncle Tom (PGA pro, now works at the Arnold Palmer Golf Academy)

Breakdown

Wednesday - We get on the plane in Orlando and they come over ithe intercom and say "Sorry for the delay, the FAA is here and we have to be extra careful. There seems to be a problem with one of the wing panels so we have decided to remove it. We have a book that tells us what we can remove and still fly with and we can remove the panel and still fly, so that is what we are going to do." I dont know about you, but to me that doesn't seem too safe. Arrived in Flint in the afternoon. Met up with half the family (all girls) and they went shopping at the outlet mall there. My brother got a minidisc player from the Sony outlet for 50 bucks under retail. Me and my brother went into the Bose Speaker outlet store and the manager in there was a funny middle age guy. He greeted us with a hearty "whats up dudes." He then went on to tell us about his son who is 14: "I wish I knew what he was up to, probably sparking up a dube somewhere." LOL. Drove about 2 hrs back to the cabin and met up with everyone else there. Had pizza and played Outburst with everybody, where you are on different teams and you pass around this electronic device that flashes a word that you have to make the players on your team guess. The name Gallager flashed for Matt Opella so he gave the clue "hitting watermelons with a mallet" and my grampa yelled "NEGROS!" I thought that was the funniest thing ever. He isn't racist, he was just trying to be funny.

Thursday - We got up early and rented a pontoon boat with 2 wave runners to go out on a nearby lake. It was my first time on any kind of personal watercraft and it was awesome. They went up to 50 mph on calm water. Midway through the day it started to rain hard, and it got cold and windy. Everybody on the boat huddled under the covered part and shivered for about 20 mins. good times. Apparently when me and little Charlie were out on the waverunners the rest of the family almost sunk the boat by putting too much weight up front. Half the boat was underwater before they were able to balance it out. We docked at a restaurant on the lake to eat. We came home, had grilled chicken and watched a Kevin Cosner movie called "For the Love of the Game" It was about baseball and I thought it was pretty good. We also played a mean game of volleyball with 6 people to a team, it was lots of fun.

Friday - Went on a 4 hour canoe trip starting at 11, it was me and my brother together in the canoe, with him in the back steering. This is a recipe for disaster. Everything was going good until about 3/4 of the way through the first hour. We came around a corner and greg turned it too wide and we slammed parallel into a large log that was halfway into the river. So I'm thinking no big deal, we will just push off with our paddles. In Arnold voice: "BIG MISTAKE" We flipped it over and tumbled into the cold, rushing water. The canoe ended up being wedged under the log almost completely underwater. After much struggling and the help of my Uncle Tom we got the Canoe out from under the log and flipped it over to get all the water out of it. So we were the butt of the jokes for quite some time after that. Words of my Uncle: "You better not fall in again because no one has ever failed twice." LOL That night we had ribs on the grill and watched Jerry Maguire, good movie.

Saturday - We went into Lovells and played mini golf and went on go-karts. We watched My Cousin Vinny that night...it was really funny. We had a rematch of the volleyball game, but we brought out a CD player playing rap and club music (LOL) this time and everyone was dancing inbetween serves it was funny as hell to watch.

Sunday - Flew home, we were stuck in the Flint airport for 4 hours and was suck in Atlanta for 3 more. It was fun.

Around the Cabin in strategically placed spots are deer feeders that we fill with corn. So every day we see deer all around the cabin, its really cool.

:: End of Cabin story ::

I finally broke down and purchased the HP Deskjet 5650 and Im really happy with it.

Im getting tired so I'll catch up tomorrow.

Life of Brian. Get it? Man am I clever

I worked again today 9-2:30. I accidentally went on break with the store keys (which opens the registers, the lockup that has all the electronic items in it, and the money box). I realized I had them when I was on my way back from McD's so I felt like a tool.

I downloaded the new Dashboard Confessional (A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar) and the new Saves the Day (In Reverie) CDs today off of mIRC. I am totally disappointed by the new STD. Sounds wayyyyy too mellow and even more Weezerish than Weezer. Its a good CD to put on when you want to go to sleep I guess. The new Dashboard is good, I've just given it a quick listen-to while I've been doing shit on the computer so I'll have to get back to you when I have a full opinion of it.

I was just thinking today. I really pisses me off how conservatives have a double standard when it comes to presidential lying. Bill Clinton lied about a personal issue that was really none of anyone's business and had no effect on the state of America (economically, socially, or politically) and he was raked over the coals for it by everyone. Bush lied to take us to WAR! He used totally unfounded claims to push for military intervention in Iraq when now it looks as if Iraq had little to no WMD, so the threat was TOTALLY overstated and the war was a misdirected and foolhardy blow to our nation's economy and international relations. Im not sure if the UN will ever recover from the Bush administrations undermining of its authority. The US was one of the major players in the UN and when it did not agree with us for once, Bush dropped it like it was yesterdays news.

-- End of Rant --

Ok I think I pulled a muscle in that last tirade, Im gunna try to sleep it off. C-ya.

Yup I suck at this

I worked from 11 to 6:30 today. It was ok.

Funny Manager Brian Story:
Brian was going to order pizza for him and Dylan and was going to have Dylan pick it up. Well Dylan walks in just as Brian is finishing up the order and says into the phone..."by the way, the person who is coming to pick up the pizza is going to bitch slap you." Both Dylan and the guy on the phone say "What?" and then he hangs up. Good Times.

Im going to Michigan on Wednesday for a couple of days. Our family has a cabin up there in the woods. It sounds shady but it is actually a nice place on a river. Quite a few members of my extended family are up there right now. I think it will be a lot of fun.

::Tech Section::
I put a new video card in my computer the other day (Radeon 9500 128mb OEM for $100) and its been giving me some problems. I've been spending the last couple of days messing with that and tweaking my desktop. I like those kinda things haha. I have definitely decided to get a photo printer so I can use my new camera (Canon Powershot S230 3.4 mp). I think that I am going to get the new HP 5650. For $150 I can get good quality borderless prints. I also am going to get a 10 gig Ipod. I can get them on www.apple.com for the student rate of $260, which is the lowest anywhere. I only have like 5 gigs of music so I think the 10gb version is the best. I haven't been playing too many games as of late. I think im going to try out the new Mario Golf game for the GC, should be a good multiplayer game.