I love the Minnesota summer, and have been enjoying our neighborhood outings, with Brandy on her leash, and Emmett in the stroller. Jess sometimes rides her bike. But I’ve been pretty stressed out at work lately, so I was very glad for a break which we are using to head out to Atascadero, California via San Francisco. My brother is the Director of Wine Making at EOS Estate Winery, and we are staying with him and Kristin at their beautiful new house.

We caught a Sun Country flight from Minneapolis/St. Paul to San Francisco on the 15th at about 10pm. We got into SF at about Midnight, and to the hotel by 1am (local time). We were wiped out tired, but Emmett and Jess were perfect on the plane. Jess really liked flying, and Emmett only fussed for a total of about one minute the whole time!

The problems began at the hotel. We checked in fine, and got to the room, but Emmett would not sleep for anything. He finally fell asleep around 2:30am, but woke up at about 4:30am. We got a total of two hours sleep, and then I went and got the rental car from the International airport.

I picked up the family in San Bruno, and then we set off on the 101 heading north; our route was up across the Golden Gate, then down highway 1 along the coast to Watsonville. Turning inland, we would head through Salinas, stopping to pickup a few baby necessities, and then continue down 101 to Atascadero.

It was unfortunate and awesome that the fog was in, and as thick as it was. It was absolutely gorgeous, but the shroud of fog was enough to keep the tops of the towers hidden. We went across, stopping at the scenic viewing area, and then turned heading south. Going across again, we managed a few photos, and then we paid the toll, and exited onto Highway 1.

To be continued…

Image via Wikipedia

I’m happy. We have about two weeks before we leave to visit my older brother Nathan and his girlfriend, Kristin in Atascadero, California! We’re going to be flying into San Francisco, then driving down, along the coast for part of the trip. The recent fires around Big Sur kinda threw a kink into the plan though, but we won’t be downhearted about missing that part, we’re just excited to checkout their new house, and spend some time with them.

I haven’t been doing any work on the truck lately, I’ve been enjoying my new bike, and working on a couple of websites, one I hope to finish up tonight, if not this morning!

This weekend, I hope to start working on building a utility trailer for hauling the lawn mower/4-wheeler/motorcycle/etc., and hope to have it done, or close to it before we leave. I am hoping when we get back we’ll have enough money left over to buy a nice-sized cedar swingset for the kids. We might end up going with treated (they don’t use arsenic anymore, so it’s a viable option), but I’d really like to use cedar.

Finally, I’m thinking about going back to school to work on getting my associates degree, eventually working towards my Bachelors in Computer Science. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but just haven’t had the initiative. Lately I’ve been very blah at work, so I want to find something to spur me on in my career.

Related articles by Zemanta

• California fires threaten towns

Image via Wikipedia

I haven’t posted in a while because I’ve been busy working, working on website side-projects, and looking for a motorcycle. With gas prices being close to four dollars a gallon, the Jeep is really not the thing to be commuting with! So, we pretty much right off the bat liked the Buell Lightnings. We looked at V-Stroms, V-Stars, VTX1300s, GSXR1000s, and many other bikes, but kept coming back to the Buells.

Through the whole process, Michelle has been 110% on board, and seems to be as excited as I am about it. We just need to get her some safety gear now (Jacket, Helmet and Gloves, she bought new boots already), and we’ll be ready to go two-up across country… well, at least cross county for now.

We ran up to Duluth last weekend in search of a 2003 XB9S, but it had sold the night before. So, I found this 2005 on Craigslist.org, and so we loaded up, and went to Cumberland, WI yesterday about noon to meet the owner, and take it for a spin.

The first thing I found out was that Emmett did NOT like the noise when I started it up… he started crying immediately! Poor kid! The next thing was that it’s very torque-y, and has far more power than any bike I’ve ridden before. Because of the short wheelbase and my height, I have to look down to see the gauges, or any part of the bike for that matter! It feels as though you are floating out in front of the bike.

Here are some photos of it, I’m sure I’ll post more about it soon, but Emmett is starting to fuss…

It appears that every song for every user account on Muxtape has been replaced with the song “Aim (with Stephen Jones) - Good Disease [Babybird does a Prince thing]” including my own bcarlson.muxtape.com

Was it hacked?

UPDATE:

According to the blog, yes, it was. From the blog: “This afternoon, someone gained access to our server and caused some problems. We are investigating and will have more information soon. I’ve taken the site down temporarily as a precaution. Thanks for your understanding, watch this space for an update.”

We bought a 2008 Chevrolet Trailblazer on Tuesday evening. I had stayed home from work, sick (I am still sick three days later), but Michelle REALLY wanted to go look at this one. We bought it from Rick Schwab at Central Motors in North Branch, MN. Rick was the best salesman ever! No pressure, no rigmarole, no trying to sell us extra crap we didn’t need.

It’s a pretty basic truck/car/suv/whatever you want to call it, cloth seats, manual climate control, etc. but it’s pretty much perfect for our use. Lots of headroom (the sunroof model does NOT have headroom, FYI), and leg room, and should be able to tow a pretty good load. We’re really enjoying it even on our short trips to work, and to Emmett’s daycare. It’s much quieter than the Volvo as far as road noise is concerned, and has plenty of power.

Image via Wikipedia

Sometimes a fun experience turns sour. This is what happened to us during the last few days of car shopping.

We’ve been shopping for a new vehicle, and have pretty much settled on the Chevrolet Trailblazer. This past Saturday, we asked a salesman at a local dealer to watch for one that met our specs and price range, as we were having a tough time finding what we were looking for.

So, Monday, I receive an email from him stating he had found a 2007 Trailblazer for $20,500 and gave us a few specs on it, but no photos or details. He wanted to know if we would like him to have it brought to their dealership (it was at another dealer in the Denny Hecker group of dealerships). I asked for more info first, photos, etc. He said he would get them to me once his internet manager came in, Tuesday morning.

In the meantime, I was thinking…. “hrm… I think I’ve seen a Trailblazer with the same specs on another website…” so I went to the Denny Hecker site, and found one that matched pretty closely, except the price was $18,969. It had the VIN displayed, so I asked the salesman for the VIN of the one he was looking to sell me. You guessed it… the VINs matched!!

I was livid… for about five minutes. Then I realized I could potentially use this to get a lower price on the SUV. Fast forward to yesterday around noon. I get an email from the salesman saying the Trailblazer is now online (”oh, really?”), and do I want them to bring it up for me to see.

I checked it out on the site where it had been priced $18,969, and now it was priced $21,995!!! What the heck?!??!! Can this be legal? I proceeded to call the Minnesota Attorney Generals office to query them about this. They said it sounded very suspicious, and that I should pursue the vehicle letting the dealer know what I found, and if I was not satisfied with their response that I should file a complaint which could possibly result in their dealer license being revoked.

Needless to say, I’m going to file that complaint in the morning.