Bye Bye Blue Belle

The car that we believed had a lot of life left in it, actually did not. The car that Holly owned was a 1997 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. It was her grandma's car before Holly got it. That is where the name Blue Belle is from. It was a huge improvement at the time compared to Holly's old car. Blue Belle only had 45,000 miles on it and was running great.  

 Holly had received the car when she was a junior at the U of M. The car made it through a lot. It was her mode of transportation between Iowa and home during her time at Iowa State University. 

Before Blue Belle came to its end, it made quite a few trips between Milwaukee and Minnesota. My Jetta is near its end because the rust is taking over we ended up driving Blue Belle home more often even though my Jetta got better gas mileage.

 This is the route of all problems with Blue Belle...the ENGINE!!!! It really didn't start to have any problems until Holly moved home from Iowa. It started with the idle on the engine and was down hill from there. We always got the problems fixed but something new came up. When we went home for Christmas, the engine was making noise and it sounded like a belt. Brought it in and found out the transmission was the problem. They replaced the fluid and did a few other things but they said it would be going out in the future. The temporary fix made the problem go away but in February the engine started making noise again. I brought the car to the shop that I have been going to since we moved to Milwaukee. Not knowing what the problem was, I said just do a diagnostic of the car and figure out whats wrong before we make any repairs. They said that it was the rod bearing and it was starting to knock. Bad sign. Very expensive to fix and pretty much requires the engine to be replaced. The guys recommend that we don't drive it and start shopping for a new car because rod bearing will eventually fail and the engine will blow. Then the car cannot be moved.  :(

 That day we drove the car home and were completely shocked because we believed after fixing it over Christmas we had some time left. Apparently not. Blue Belle at its end only had 90,000 miles on it and everyone expected it to last longer than that. We started to shop for a new car on all different websites. We were not sure whether we should donate Blue Belle or sell it or junk it. After calling some places, we decided to junk the car. We just needed to drive it there and they would give us $350. The car made it out to the junk yard that was nearly 20 miles away. It was pretty noisy on the whole drive and I really don't know how much life it had left in it. More that everyone that I talked to expected that we would get for the car. This picture of Blue Belle in her final resting place. 

One last thing that we had to do was take the plates off. It was kind of shocking that after the car had been through so much for Holly, all we got out of it at its end was $350 and the plates. Kind of sad.

This was Holly saying her last goodbye. It was really sad for her because she had gotten the car from her grandma and the car had helped her through so much. She had driven it so many times between Iowa and Minnesota and since we moved to Milwaukee. It was really hard to just walk away from it. Blue Belle you will be missed and will always hold a place in our hearts.

Christmas Present Recieved in February

Sorry I haven't been very good at updating my blog. Stay tuned this week because there will be a few new posts coming.

For Christmas, my parents gave me a gift card that I could use to buy a new TV. I had also been saving some gift cards from the past few years for Best Buy. After combining all the gift cards and money I got for Christmas and my birthday I finally bought my new TV. I have  always wanted a nice flat screen TV, ever since I worked at Best Buy in high school. It has been a long wait. I had shopped around on prices and on brands. I found Samsung TVs to get really good reviews pretty much every where I looked. I was trying to decide between the sizes 32" and 40". I ended up going with the 40" because it might look big in our apartment now but when we move, a 32" might look small. It was totally worth it. I went to buy the TV the first weekend in February, and ended up getting it the week after because it was a sale item and they didn't have it in stock. Wasn't much of a problem.

It was really nice to actually get the TV. I think that I appreciate it more after waiting so long for one. It is something that use everyday and it was worth the extra money that I spent. 

Blizzard. Wisconsin Style.

Milwaukee just got hit with a blizzard Tuesday night. It was the second of two winter storms in just two days. One came on Monday and was just a normal winter storm. The second was something I haven't really experience, at least not in a very long time. The first storm was really small and only snowed about an inch. It came during rush hour so people were frustrated in Milwaukee, that was just the start. The second wave was predicted to start at about 3 pm on Tuesday. The wind came earlier but really the snow didn't come until about 5 and when it came it wouldn't stop. Holly and I registered for a yoga class together and Tuesday was supposed to be the first night. The class got canceled around noon. That how bad they were thinking the storm was going to be. Since there wasn't any yoga, Holly and I spent the night playing with our bunny Dexter and actually watching the show Dexter. We made pizza and spent the night indoors and that was our night. The storm was pretty violent because of the winds that came with it. The wind was blowing about 40 mph and gusts more than 60. It made the big window in our apartment rattle all night. We went to bed early because I had to work on Wednesday. That is when the problem started.

Like I said, it was the start of the problems. I woke up plenty early so I would have enough time to make it to work. That is what I thought anyways. I got all dressed almost like I was going snowboarding. I went out to my car and this is what it looked like. It wasn't covered that much with snow because of the winds. The winds drifted snow all over. I was scheduled to open and our street had not been plowed yet . We normally open at 5 am which means we have to be there at 4:30. They planned on us opening at 6 instead of 5. Not much help in my mind. It is like giving someone a penny and hoping that would make them rich. Oh well. Before calling my boss I tried to move my car. The snow on the street was over a foot and I actually got my car moving but couldn't get my small Jetta onto the street through the knee high snow.

 

This is part of the reason that our street had not been plowed. If you look closely you can see a car in the middle of the picture. It is a car that was trying to parallel park somewhere in the night and their car stopped working or it just got stuck. They just left it in the middle of the street. So DUMB. It created so many problems all day!

 

See that is where they left their car. It pretty much blocks the whole street. No plows.

This is probably the best picture I have of the "white out" conditions. The wind was blowing so much it made the snow look like it was going sideways, sometimes even upwards. Crazy. I think the only other official blizzard I was in was the Halloween Blizzard of '91. I don't remember the wind back then though.

After I tried to move my car I called my boss and said that there was no way of moving my car. He called our district manager and decide it would be in our best interest to wait to open the store until 10am. I made some coffee at home, put in a movie, and took a small nap with Holly on the couch. I got up and checked on the snow. It had stopped around 9am but that didn't mean that I could go to work. Here is a picture of some of the drifts. See the snow on the fence.

Here's Jetta (aka Rusty) Not covered with that much now but the drifts are crazy. If you look right in front of my car there is a shoveled snow pile and the adjacent one is by the tree. Across the driveway is a snow drift the height of those piles which was probably around waist high.

Here is that dumb car again. Still in the same spot at 10am which means no plow all the way through the street.

This is my car. I got lucky where I parked it because the drifts didn't really pile up around it. I didn't even have to brush it off!

This was the car behind mine. There is a pretty big difference in the drifts between our cars.

Finally a plow came by around 11am. It was not even a city plow. The father of the dumb girl who left her car in the street, owned a truck with a plow attached. He came to help her with her car and plowed part of our street. I think he owed us that. After this I had to shovel for maybe three minutes and was able to get my car out. I was lucky unlike some other people on our block who had to shovel for hours. This was around 11am when my boss called. I told him that I got my car out but my scheduled shift was supposed to be done at 1pm. Did it really make sense to go in? I could have gotten there but I was most likely the only one. He couldn't even get out of his driveway. Again he called the district manager and decided to try for noon. He called back a bit later and said we were just going to stay closed. None of the other employees could make it and at what point are you going to be spending more money then you are making. Its just coffee, people will live on without it. So we stayed closed and I got the day off. Holly already had been given Wednesday off so we stayed in the apartment all day together. 

Here is by our back door. Again, the drifts were just ridiculous.

 This is the door going to our basement garage. Not going down there this way anytime soon.

 

This is probably just the best picture of the snow drifts that I got. It goes half way up the back door to our place. 

Overall, it was a crazy storm. They reported we got about 18 inches of snow in the 3 days of the storm. That is a lot of freaking snow but combined with the winds created a mess all over Milwaukee. It was a fun experience. Also, if you were wondering, the dumb car finally got moved around 6pm on Wednesday. It meant that our block missed one whole day of plowing.

Marquette Basketball!!!!!!!!!!

Last Tuesday, Holly and I went to a Marquette Basketball Game! It was part of my birthday present from Holly. She gave me tickets to the game of my choice. Neither of us really care about the "Golden Eagles" that much because we love our GOPHERS, so it didn't matter which game we chose. We went on StubHub to get tickets for the game and pretty much just looked at the best seats for the cheapest price. The game we chose was against the DePaul Blue Demons. The Marquette team plays at the Bradley Center which is in downtown Milwaukee but is only less than a mile away from campus. They have shuttles running on school buses for students to get to the game. The bus picks up and drops off about four blocks away from our apartment. The Bradley Center is not the most special arena but it is okay.

These were our seats for the game. When we got there they were really nice, until the people holding the signs showed up. We found out that they were fans from DePaul and a few of them ended up being Cheerleaders from DePaul. I don't know what kind of things that they teach them at DePaul but they should probably learn some better cheers. One of the cheers that they had before the game went as follows ..."Basketball ...Basketball...Bask...et...ball!!!!" Holly and I found that to be the highlight of our night. What kind of cheer is that?? The also found it to be very funny that some of the Marquette players were on MySpace. I really didn't think it was that big of a deal. I think it was more sad that they spent the time making a sign saying "Marquette is on MySpace." Who even cares!

This was right before the game when they introduce the players. Hard to really get into it when we didn't have those sweater vests.

 Here is the Marquette Pep Band. Nothing like the University of Minnesota Pep Band. They were actually larger than I thought that they would be but the arena was pretty large and their sound was not the greatest. I could hardly hear the trumpets during some of the songs. Sorry Carolyn, you can never really hear the clarinets. Just kidding.

 Another unusual thing about their band was they had two base drums. They played them on their side which isn't that strange, but usually you have two people playing one drum each. They had three people playing two drums which was a little weird. This is something you only realize when you have been in the bands before.

 

 This is the student section. They were pretty loud and were very good at wearing their gold colors and standing during the game. Which I usually expect out of a good student section.

 

Here is their Golden Eagle mascot. They used to be called the Warriors but they changed their name to Golden Eagles because then it doesn't offend Native Americans. Kind of a lame looking mascot but its definitely better than the Bucky!! I really don't like Bucky!!

I didn't really take many pictures during the game. We actually left with ten minutes left in the game. It had worked 11 hours that day. One of my coworkers father passed away that day so I stayed late to cover some of her shift until we could get someone to come in. It was a really long day and I had to open the next day. Marquette was up by 30 points when we left so it really didn't matter. Marquette won and the final score ended up being 94 to 64. 

Going back to the fans from from DePaul. I would not recommend that school to anyone. They eventually had to move because the seats they were in were not theirs and sat a few rows behind us. The people sitting around us were Marquette Season Ticket Holders couldn't believe how rude the DePaul fans were. They were drunk and swearing throughout the whole game. Their cheers were just plain out awful and it really didn't help that their team was awful too. Overall it was a fun night. We went for the experience and had a good time but probably wont go back until next year. 

Dexter Comes Home!!!

One of the things that Holly and I like to do is go to the Wisconsin Humane Society. It is about two miles away from where we live. We always go there just to look at the cats, dogs, and small animals they have. We have never really had intentions of the getting a pet. Our apartment doesn't allow dogs, so we will have to wait to get a dog. Yesterday, Holly and I visited the Humane Society and found a  one year old Holland Lop bunny. It is the type of bunny that Holly has always wanted. We really pondered it and even asked them about adopting a bunny. They said we had to have a cage. We left still thinking that we were not going to be getting a bunny. We decided to go look at a cage just to see how much it would cost and decided it  was too much. Then is when the ball really started to roll. We came up with the name Dexter. We have been watching the show Dexter lately and thought the name would be perfect for a bunny. We then thought about it all night. I woke up early because I had to work all day and that is when we both decided we wanted to get Dexter. The problem was we would need a cage and to get to the Humane Society early. I worked from 5:30am until 6pm because we had a store meeting, so getting Dexter was up to Holly. She did some research on finding the perfect cage and went to get him. The adoption fee was only $15 and we got him. 

This is our new bunny Dexter! He is a light brown with charcoal gray around his nose, ears and butt. He is so cute!

 Here is Holly holding Dexter. I really like his floppy ears.

This is Dexter's cage. Some bunnies can roam around the house but Dexter will need a cage for a bit. He is not quite potty trained and we have too many cords. Bunnies will chew on the cords if they are free so we will need to find a way to keep him away from them. He gets this nice roomy cage.

This is his little house. Its made of willow so if he eats it it wouldn't be bad for him. He hasn't quite figured it out yet but he will learn.

Dexter is not afraid of being held but it hard to pick him up just right. I struggled with this from the start. Holly is trying to teach me here. You have to pick him up from the front legs and support his butt. Very different from other animals.

After a few tries, I learned very well. It was difficult

Dexter is very soft. He likes to be pet but I haven't decided if he likes to be scratched around his ears like a cat yet.

I already really enjoy Dexter. I hope everyone can meet him sometime. He is my new best friend!!!

Apartment for Rent

Well I really do not have an apartment for rent but I thought after living in Milwaukee for over 6 months now, it would be nice to show everyone where we live. Our apartment is located really close to Marquette Campus. Only like 5 blocks away. Downtown Milwaukee is very close too. The city is not as pretty as Minneapolis and St. Paul but I still like it here. Now on to our apartment...(be forewarned there is a lot of pictures).

This is our apartment. Located at 833 N. 21st Street Apt#109
                                                    Milwaukee, WI 53233
Mail Is always accepted and appreciated.

This is our rug in front of our door. It is from Target. We have found a different one for each season. They are cute.

Here is our new Christmas tree. It is a fake one but that just means we can use it over and over again. It doesn't have many ornaments other than the shinny balls and garland that Holly likes.

Here is Holly, doing homework like always! Thats ok because that is the reason we moved here. This is our living room where we spend most of our time.

Look at our holiday penguin!!

This is one of my favorite things in our apartment. Holly's mom does some work with stain glass. She made us this lamp. It is awesome.

Dad would be proud of Holly's plants. It is not as impressive as his greenhouse under the steps but its a start.

This is our kitchen. It is kind of small and lacks counter space. It is nothing like my parents new kitchen. We had to do a lot of cleaning when we moved in. It was kind of gross but now its all clean!

 Our stove and my NEW Keurig! I have used it every day and like it a lot. It is very convenient.

These are our stockings. Nothing like the ones we both have at our parents houses but this is what we got. Mine is the snowman and Holly has the penguin. I hope Santa comes to the state of WisconSIN.

Kitchen Table. This was one of Holly's many finds off Craigslist when we were living in Minneapolis. It was a very good deal. The whole set was only $40.

 TCF Bank Stadium even made its way to Milwaukee.

Here is our tiny bathroom. It only has one outlet built into the medicine cabinet. Very strange.

Our spare bedroom is where Holly's desk is. Its in the middle with my book case on the right. That is right, I have a book case. I am pretty sure it is the first time I have ever owned one.

 This is our futon. We really don't use it but brought it along just for times when we have guests. Guests are always welcome.

Here is our bedroom. GREEN! Holly really likes green and decorated around the house accordingly. We got this bed brand new from one of Holly's family friends that works at Sealy. It is very comfortable.

 This is our little montage of pictures. You can buy things like it at the store were they are all connected and expensive. We made ours out of random frames from Goodwill and painted some of them black. It turned out well, and like most things in our apartment was the work of Holly. She is very good at finding things from the Goodwill and decorating with them around our apartment. Our apartment would be pretty lame if I was in charge of decorating. Maybe you could hire Holly out for decorating services.

Sorry this blog post was filled with pictures and sorry it has been so long since my last post. I will try to stay more on top of this blog thing.