the weekend

Mike came to visit me this weekend, and it was great to see him after a stressful week filled with so much uncertainty! On Saturday we went to a bluegrass festival in Niles, MI with our friends Heather and Paul. The festival was pretty small, and we were a little disappointed by the small number of fiddles! But it was nice to spend the afternoon outside and relax a bit, and there were plenty of overalls! While there, I mentioned our 1-time experience crossing Elephant Ears with Bluegrass down in Bean Blossom, IN. I think Heather and Paul were intrigued by our elephant ear tales, and, since Andrew (my brother) was working at a race track nearby, we took another field trip. Mostly we watched the races while we were there, trying to figure out what about the sport attracts so many fans. But we took a brief stint inside the trailer and sent Andrew and crew out on possibly the first real break anyone has ever gotten at the racetrack. Both Heather and Paul tried pulling an elephant ear, and Heather, getting a little overconfident, challenged Mike to a pulling contest. Due to his extensive experience at the Indiana State Fair last year, Mike came out victorious. They are each holding their end product in this picture. It was kind of fun to visit the track as a spectator, though I don't think it is an experience I will repeat too often.




elephant ear contest

My new race car

I mentioned that I've been searching for a car. While my car is still running, it is on its last leg, and since the defroster doesn't work needs to be replaced before winter sets in. So I started searching last week, and on Thursday drove up to check out a Honda Civic. On the way home, as I was driving down the highway and trying to talk myself into spending a little extra money and getting a reliable car, all of a sudden there was giant doe at the corner of my car. While I think she took the hit worse than I did, I was less than ecstatic to have a newly open-wheeled race car without a front headlight. Luckily, my car pulled out of its fishtail, I was able to drive away, and it was raining just enough to take care of the blood splashed across the side of my car. I guess it has speeded up my car hunt just a bit! In the below picture, the corner of my bumper is actually being held up by clear packing tape, but that's just until I can get a proper duct tape job done.



my new race car

Week 1

First, I apologize for the lack of a picture with this entry. Somewhere in my boxes is the cord to hook my camera to my computer, but I have not yet run across it!
After spending both Monday and Tuesday desperately searching for both an apartment and a car, I started work full-time in South Bend on Wednesday, in spite of our lack of an office. There are a lot of unknowns in my life right now, as none of those three issues have been resolved even yet! But Justin and I met at Justin's kitchen table, and put together a marketing plan, two press releases, and made tons of phone calls to get a better grip on both the advertising and business environments in South Bend. On Friday we had a field trip morning, where we visited the local Chamber of Commerce, the local newspaper, and a local small business incubator. The incubator is a bit of a dive, with orange shag carpet in an entire section of the building, but is really cheap, and might become our new home. Robert, out trusty CEO, should be in town by now and will join us full-time on Monday.