Stay with me, this is going to be a longish update, starting with the US long weekend.

On Friday, my brother-in-law's friend was found. He had been missing for a week in the lake after a boating accident. There had been a search party organized that was going to go out on Monday morning that I was going to go lend a hand with. On Sunday, it was Timmy's first birthday (my brother-in-law's kid). Other than those 2 events, not much happened that weekend.

The weekend following, Teresa and I went to the Kruzin' Klassics Fun Run in Escanaba on Saturday. We walked for quite a bit, saw a lot of nice cars, saw the burnout competition finals and saw a couple dyno runs. On Sunday, we went for a nice 4 mile hike/walk on the "difficult" trail at Fumee Lake. It turned out to be pretty difficult (for us anyway) but we made it.

This past weekend was our first anniversary. On Saturday, we headed out to Porcupine Mountains State Park. We got our camp setup at the Union Bay campground and went for a short interpretive hike at the visitor's office of the park. We returned to the camp site, lit a fire and had supper. There was a really nice sunset that night (all digital pictures are here). Saturday morning I was up at about 8 after a crappy night's sleep. I sparked up a fire and after Teresa got up, we had some breakfast. After that, we got involved in a good bit of hiking. I think we did about 4 miles of some good elevation-changing trails. Near the end of the day, we drove to the west end of the park and saw the falls in the park. They were pretty amazing. We ended the day back at the campground again with some campfire food and a less appealing sunset. Teresa had a good headache in the evening so she spent some time in the tent while I sat around the fire eating marshmallows. On Sunday, I was up early again after a slightly better sleep. We packed up and were out of the campground by 12:30. It was a very nice campground and we'll probably go back again. Hopefully next time we're not next to some middle-aged man who talks to both of his parents like they're complete morons. Not only that but they couldn't hear very well so everybody around heard him yelling at his parents and making them feel useless. Anyway, after packing up, we drove to Ontonagon and spent a few hours there. We went a tourist information booth (AFTER spending most of the weekend in the area) and got some info for stuff on the way back and for other weekends. We spent an hour or so walking around an old Irish cemetary right outside of Rockland. It was a pretty interesting place. I think everybody there is directly from Ireland. Most stones we saw were from 1860-early 1900's. There were a few later 20th century stones but not many. It's a shame that the cemetery isn't kept up but at the same time, it's kind of neat letting nature take it's toll on the place. I'm sure it would be a very beautiful cemetery if it was trimmed up and all the stones were set back in place but I'm not sure it would have the same feel to it. After leaving there, we stopped at Bond Falls. We tried to find the town of Calderwood which was partially flooded with the Bond Falls flowage but had no luck. There were a few hours left before dark so we didn't get to see the Paulding Light but I'd like to go back for that someday.

That's my update for now.

Here is a lady who should've been shanked early on in life. Or perhaps Darwin will remove her from the gene pool and do everybody a favour.

Once again I've let this slip a little bit. There hasn't been a whole lot to report on lately but I'll do a short update.

Gas has gone crazy here. At one time, it was a bunch cheaper than at home. Now it's $3.24/gallon ($0.94/L as of today's exchange rate). Diesel is cheaper for the first time since I've been here. Last time I checked, it was $3.09/gallon ($0.89/L).

The weather has been up and down. Right now, it's 26°C/81°F with a high of 29°C/85°F. Tomorrow is supposed to similar. Some nights have still been around freezing though.

Last weekend, Teresa and I spent about 4 hours walking out at Pier's Gorge. If anybody comes to visit and wants to go, I'd happily go for a walk out there again. I wish I had brought a pedometer to see how far we went but I'm sure it was probably around 4 or 5 miles. The last marked trail point is 1.25 mile from the parking spot and we went well beyond that.
I found a nice spot that would work for camping but I'm not sure it's allowed there. I have to do some more research on that.

I've bought a few more cameras since the last update. Since then, I picked up a Kodak Tourist II, a Ricohflex Model VI, a Canon T70, and a Yashica Lynx 14E. The Yashica showed up with a stuck shutter and an extremely corroded set of batteries inside (pictures in the link). I've got it all cleaned up and working so I'll have to put a roll through it and maybe sell it. The T70 I bought to resell. I've got a roll of film in it now that's almost complete. I had thought about keeping it but it doesn't have a depth of field preview like my AE-1 does and it also doesn't display the shutter speed in the viewfinder.

Hmm....what else is new? I don't think there's much. Teresa and I are trying to find a cheap house to live instead of pissing away money on rent. We have to go see what we can get pre-approved for and then start seriously looking since our lease is up on this apartment at the beginning of September I believe.

I think that's about all for now....

Holy fucking shit. People have lost their minds. Why? Click here and here. Why must people keep trying to make their pets like people? I watched Penn & Tellar's episode of "Bullshit" this week all about pet love. It's simply stunning how many nut jobs out their that think they know what their pets want or need.

The ultimate douchebag asshole lawyer? I think so.

Yesterday the camera sealing kit I ordered off of E-bay showed up. It was $6 (free shipping) and it supposed to be good for 6 camera bodies. I figured that was a decent enough deal. I started yesterday evening and finished this morning. It was pretty easy, just a little time consuming. Pictures are here of my work. I did a good general clean-up of the body while I was doing it as well. Now it's ready for film. That's really about all I have to comment about right now.

I went out and worked on my farmer tan for the first time this year. It was 21°C (70°F) yesterday so I sported shorts for the first time and walked to Teresa's work. Today it was even nicer (23°C/73°F) but I spent the day inside. Teresa's been gone on a scrapbooking thing with her sister and sister-in-law since Friday night so today was "take shit apart" day. First off, I spent roughly 4 hours tinkering with and breaking my Canonet that I mentioned in a previous post. After that, I tackled a minor swap on my AE-1's and took a couple things apart to see what they did. The other day, I took apart the Kodak Brownie Target Six-16, Brownie Target Six-20 and Brownie Hawkeye Flash to clean them up after they arrived. Today I took them apart again because I forgot to take pictures of the insides. Tomorrow I think I'll be going out to tinker with that trike so I suspect I'll have another day of "take shit apart".