Random...

Well, I haven't posted in awhile, so I thought I would take a bit of time to do that. I am in my last day of work (actually it is about t-5 hours till I am done) and one rehearsal until Love Me or Die opens at the 2009 MN Fringe (get your tickets here: http://savageumbrella.com/default.aspx).

I also wanted to take some time to post some pictures I took with my new camera. Getting geared up for the next big adventure. South Korea, here I come...soon. Remember to follow the other blog I have started, the adress should be posted in a previous post, so you may want to check on that.

First picture. I got to go to Rock the

Garden, which is this awesome, outdoor musical concert. It was a lot of fun. I saw four or five bands and The Decemberists were included in that list. They were really, really good. They put on a great show and all their music was very tight. One of the best outdoor shows I have ever seen. The sound was soooo well done. Nice work to the band and the techs on this one. That is them there...onstage. It was great.

Second and third pictures. My cousin Matt took me to a Twins game! Great seats.

Switching it up a bit...

Looks like I have now started my travel blog.

http://toddsadventure.blogspot.com/

I don't know how much I will post on both of these, so check both...or just follow both. That way you can be notified of when I post...

Uninteresting

Not sure how interesting this post will be, but I haven't written in awhile, so I figured I had better get to writing. My hope is that I write on a fairly regular basis while I am in South Korea. At LEAST once a week, but who knows, maybe it will turn into more.

Yes, I am just plain ready to go to South Korea. I am needing a change so badly right now. However, I don't want to get into all that, I want to talk about my best friend who is a new, first-time father.

I got to call him yesterday on Father's Day and wich him his very first Happy Father's Day wish ever. I really am so very happy for him and his wife and their whole family. Little Elizabeth Rose was born a month early, but she and Mom are doing great. I am so happy and proud of my friend. He is a good man, maybe one of the best I have known in my life. He is kind and funny and sweet and smart and just plain great. So very glad that he and I have been able to be friends since third grade. I am very sorry that I will not be around for the first year of this baby's life, but I am really excited to be called Uncle Todd already. Thanks.

Because I am very excited to see him, his wife, and their new baby, I decided to leave work early. My last day will be July 31st, then I will do a Fringe show (and sleep on some people's couches) and then go home to Iowa. During this time I hope to be able to do some part time work or some manual labor at my sister's house so I can travel and visit my friends down there before leaving on the big adventure. I fly out on the 25th and then start up on the 28th with training. I am trying to think ahead as far as sleeping on the plane and adjusting that way so the jetlag won't be horrible. Perhaps I will try to stay up all night or something so I can sleep on the plane when it would be night time in South Korea. Any suggestions are welcome. I am sure I will feel it no matter what.

Well, back to the work I suppose. I hope this post finds all of you well and happy.

-t

I love office life.

Okay, I am gonna try and lay this out so you all can understand this.

I am leaving this job in September to go to South Korea, which you know if you have been reading this blog lately, if you haven't...1. get caught up 2. sorry to spring this on you.

I let my employer know pretty early because I wanted to allow them enough time to train someone in to do my job and also because my new employers would be calling my current employers to do a background check. I figured this was the good thing to do.

Now, every fiscal year (from August to August for us) we get three weeks of paid vacation. I was curious if I would be getting paid for this three weeks of time or if it would just 'dissolve' when I left. My supervisor said to me, "It will just go away, so you better use it up. I know I would", so with that information I started thinking about what I would do for three weeks in August. Of course I will need some of that time to move my stuff to a storage space and then to say goodbye's to people as well. This would be perfect!

Today I find out that I get ten hours of vacation since I am leaving in September.

Ten.

Ten does not equal three weeks.

So, it ends up this way...it would have been MUCH better for me to just plan three weeks for vacation in August, come back to work for a week, tell them I was quitting, and then left. What. The. Crap? Sooooo apparently I would have been rewarded for being a total butt.

Gosh, I sure do love working here.

Saved By The Bell

I never watched the show. Well, I shouldn't say that...I have seen the show twice and both times I saw it, it was the episode were Jesse becomes addicted to caffeine pills. Everyone knows this episode, it seems. I mean, I hardly get done telling people my story and they jump in with, "I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so....scared!". Well, if you are one of those people who would jump in with that or perhaps know all the moves from the music video in the middle of the episode...have I got a theatre show for you.

Starting this Saturday, May 16th I will be in a production for "The Saved By The Bell Show". It is written and produced by my two good friends who also wrote and produced "Hamluke" (Hamlet and Star Wars mushed together). The show is a lot of fun, especially if you were a fan of the TV show, of course.

Our production plays the 16th, 21st, 23rd, 28th, & 30th at the Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis, so if you happen to be in the area...come check it out. Doors open at 6pm and the show starts at 7pm. There are commercials from the 80's and 90's thrown in throughout the show as well. In case you didn't like the show (like me), then don't worry...we poke fun at the show just as much as trying to stay true to it.

Here is the link to the site you can go to to reserve tickets:

http://blb.ciceron.com/calendar.asp?date=5/16/2009

Hope to see you there!

Laptop time

Well, it has been decided that I will need a computer when I go overseas to South Korea. I will use this computer ot keep in touch with friends and family. My mom was excited to learn that we could talk on the internet via Skype, which I have never used. The laptop I have choosen is this one:

I like the way it looks, I like the specs on it (thanks Blue and Andrew), and it will do the things I need it to do. It comes with a web cam in it, so if my mom ever wants to see me while we are talking, she can. I don't know if my mom has figured this out or not, but the time difference is pretty hefty. Oh well, it will work out. Also, they will have to go over to my sister's house to use the internet and the computer because my folks have neither of those things. It will feel weird buying a laptop because I have always thought that people who own laptops are super cool. I am not super cool.

See? However, I am pretty excited to play some City of Heroes on this machine. I mean, it won't be the greatest ever, but it will be much better than the computer I am borrowing from my room mates all the time. There are a lot of complaints about the set up, but hey...at least I get to play once in awhile. Now I have to decide if I want to get Champions Online for PC or Xbox 360. The release date for PC is July 14th and there isn't one for the 360 yet. We will see what I feel like after I get the laptop.

In other news, I plan on writing down some things about my adventures with scoot'n. I plan on telling the origin of the scooter's name (Jane) and some stories surrounding that all, some things I see (I have already seen a pickup truck and a giant Daffy Duck statue in the back), and various other little tid-bits. Hopefully some of those stories will make it onto this blog. Also, I plan on posting more pictures on here because I got a digital camera in preparation for my overseas adventures! I was pretty excited to find one for a very reasonable price (thanks Andrew...again) AND I got to use a gift card that I got in the mail for helping out a friend (thanks B-Diddy).

That's all I got for now. Thanks for reading. Have a fun day.

About time!

This post should have happened a long, long while ago...but work has been real stupid lately. There is a lot to get to, so I should get started.

1. I have some pretty amazing friends. I have really been blessed with really good friends all of my life. This is something that I don't ever want to take for granted. I love the people that I am surrounded by and they care for me deeply. Hopefully they understand that I feel the same way about them...I should tell them more often how wonderfully great they really are. Also...my friends know how to throw a party! Here is one of the many reasons why I have the greatest friends.

30th birthday time has been something that I have been dreading for a little while now. I remember as a kid thinking about how you are old when you turn 30. This, added on top of my parents expecting me to have done more with my life by the time I turned 30, meant that I was not the most thrilled person when it came to April 18th of 2009. I didn't want to spend my day thinking about how I had just turned thirty years old...and I certainly didn't.

It all started with an open mic at Janine's where I had invited a bunch of people to share something from their childhood. Themes From Your Childhood went really, really well and was really laid back. A couple of good friends had come up from Iowa for the birthday weekend, and one of them got up and performed for the first time in front on an audience. Same thing with my friend Andrew too. He sang and played a song on the guitar for the first time in front of an audience. Happy birthday to me!

We started our day at 11am by going to brunch at Hell's Kitchen (there were probably 15 people in our group), this place in Minneapolis that I had heard had great peanut butter. They did have great peanut butter...and the place looked pretty cool too. I was really creeped out by the pictures hanging in the bathroom. As you moved past them, they morphed from sweet looking children or grandfathers to ghoulish figures. I didn't like it all that much because I am already a little creeped out by bathrooms (mostly dark bathrooms, but bathrooms are scary to me in general). The food was pretty good, but now that I have gone there...I don't know that I ever need to go back.

After brunch a few of us walked over to Gameworks and met some more people there. A friend from one of my past jobs in Minneapolis from about five years ago was there, so that was fun. For those of you who don't know, Gameworks is a Sega owned, video game bar...with bowling. Phew. I think that is it. It is a pretty sweet joint, but I hear it is being put up for rent...anyway, beside the point. Gameworks was awesome. I played a LOT of Time Crisis Four, some Dance Dance Revolution, a jet flying game that you couldn't lose at (I tried crashing into the ground but it would no let me), some CRAZY air hockey that was two vs two and had about 4 pucks going at one time, speed skeeball, and a giant racing game in which all of us could play together at one time. I spent most of my time laughing and playing. It was awesome. I got an engineer hat and a magic growing egg and some candy to share with everyone with the tickets we all won. It was pretty spectacular.

Then, we had to RUN back to the cars and drive to the next location. Keep in mind that all of these activities were all surprises. I had no idea what any of them were. We finally arrived at our destination which was...the Parade Ice Garden, an ice skating facility that the MN Wild (my favorite hockey team) practices at. I was pretty pumped to go skating, but then I saw Andrew and Blake pull my hockey bag and sticks out of Andrew's car. "They won't let you use that during open skating," I said. "Oh," they responded. We entered the building and it was pretty quiet in there. Out in front of us was the freshly cleared ice. Zamboni smooth. "Alright. Go," Andrew says. "WHAT!?! Out there? THE WHOLE THING!!?!" I ran down as quickly as I could and put on my skates. We had the WHOLE rink...all to ourselves. The WILD practice rink! It. Was. Awesome. Pictures were taken, slap shots rang off the glass, penguin slides where done across the Wild logo. Kyle M skated for the first time EVER and was great! We played a game of H-O-R-S-E out there. Gosh. It was amazing.

Then, after that we went to a meat store and bought stuff to grill at a park. We played outside, ate a lot of food, and talked a lot. We watched a deer walk around the park in the middle of the city, which was weird. We ate Zots, which were great and reminded me of being in middle school and buying those delicious candies at the gas station on the way home.

After we finished up our food and made a quick rest stop at a gas station bathroom, we made it back to the house. More people joined us here and Andrew presented the unbelievable cake. It was my favorite dinosaur, the ankylosaurus. As soon as I get some pictures from the birthday, I will post them, but right now I don't actually have any. Here is a picture of the dino though:

The cake looked and tasted amazing. My favorite frosting, rainbow chip, was dyed green and used all over this tastey beast. We all ate cake and had some drinks. They had made a trip to WI and bought my favorite drink (which you can only get in WI), which was given and then told to go outside. Into the backyard which had been tranformed into a dreamland or an Elf village. There was a firepit with a great fire going. There were candles hung from the tree, which made it look like there were little fairies hovering around the tree. It was beautiful. Then we had some sparklers and played with those. Then my friend Joe played and sang a song that he had re-written for me. It was very funny and nice. Then everyone told stories about me. That was really cool. I liked that a lot. We all just sat around and swapped stories. I think even the people who didn't have stories enjoyed that. It was just really, really nice. Amazing friends, I'm telling ya.

2. SCOOTER!

I finally got my scooter! Now I just need to get the license plates and all that and I am golden! I can't wait. I have driven it around the block a few times and it is really nice and sturdy. Very nice. More pictures to come of that and me riding it.

3. NO MORE CRAPPY JOB!!!

Starting in September I will no longer be working here. Thank goodness. It has been two years longer than expected, but I told myself when I started that I would HAVE to leave when we reached order number 3000000. We are currently at 2927793 which meant I didn't have any more time. I had been looking for a new job for a looooong time, but had just recently (within 6 months) started looking at teaching programs overseas. And now, I am going to South Korea to teach English. I need to get my work visa, but after that is done...I am official. The time that I am leaving is set for September, so I have all summer to enjoy. I look forward to the experience and you will for sure be hearing/reading more about this adventure in my life.

4. my beard is gone. sad. I am really sad about this. I had to shave it off for a show that I am doing at the end of May. The show is The Saved By The Bell Show and we basically do an episode of the show on stage. Pretty fun stuff if you liked the show at all. More details on that later too.

Right now...I have to do some more work.

Thanks for reading. Hope you are all doing well.