Truly unexciting update on J's life

Don't say I didn't warn you with the title! Its been a while though, so I thought I'd log on and share whats been shaking in cheeseland....

After all my posts complaining about the winter weather, we have finally started summer up here! The weather has been really nice, but I've been working about 60+ hours a week lately, so haven't gotten to enjoy it lately.

Lets see, just a few highlights of life outside work:

Soccer season is over but summer sand volleyball has started! We get a free drink if we win 2/3 games for the night, but even this motivation has only led to a winning record 1 night. It is a lot of fun though and a good excuse to leave work at a reasonable time 1 night a week :)

Next weekend will be my first time playing golf. I've already suggested helmets for my teammates.....safety first!

I've been to two weddings in the last two weeks - good times, good times....

I don't have any other official news - but check back within the next month, I'll have more to share on some changes of scenery in my life.

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone has had a great Easter :) I went to church this morning at Grace, then to the Barnes for a last minute Van Winkle/Barnes Easter bash. Good times as always, even though Kel and Sarah's bro and fam couldn't make it. A centerpiece of our traditional meal gatherings is the cake that my Mom makes. This year was the first attempt at a Bunny cake....Not bad, huh? He doesn't look as happy later in the night, but it was yummy! Sarah took these pics on her camera phone...pretty cool.


Life is crazy busy here in Racine these days. I'm now a soccer coach for 7 year olds in addition to my other activities I've gotten involved in, so this weekend was a much needed break. I'll probably have more coaching stories as the season progresses - this is definitely a new challenge for me ;)

Check out these pics from my first ever experience at the shooting range. Thanks Tim for capturing the moment!...


Oh and thanks for the comments on the juggling pic! We had a lot of fun playing circus and practicing our juggling skills. The neighbors across the street didn't act very impressed, but of course, they usually don't.

Well, its a big week at work coming up, but I'm sure Friday will be here before I know it ;)
Oh, and if you see my Mom, make sure to tell her I didn't make fun of her bunny cake at all :)

Happy (warm) days are here again!

Any thoughts on a good caption for this???

4 years!!!

Today is my 4 year service anniversary at Modine :) Wahoo! One more year til 3 weeks vacation!!!! I celebrated today by doing no work whatsoever.

Division IIIB consolation champ!!!

Being humble is very admirable, but sometimes you just have to brag for a bit....And what better place to do that than my blog!? OK, so I've been talking about it at work all week too and have my plaque hanging in my cube. But I haven't told any of you yet, so here it is....I won the consolation championship of the Modine racquetball tournament in the lowest skill level division last weekend! Racquetball is my new favorite sport....you can hit the ball as hard as you want and don't have to worry about it going out of bounds or having to run after it. Plus, it is really fun watching people swing and miss then having the ball bounce off the wall and hit them in the back. (Ok, so I've done it myself too more than once)

But back to bragging.....the women's Modine volleyball team that I am on won our division!!! Our coach told us we had to win 2/3 of our last games to win, and we did!! Although, it turns out she was intentionally lying to us to keep us motivated - we won by several games. Our last game was Thursday night and we celebrated at the bar before the games... and after the games :)

And now some rambling reflection.... It is very exciting now to win these local, low level competitions - but more exciting is that I've learned to have fun playing regardless of the outcome. As most of you know, sports defined my identity growing up, and reaching my goals meant everything to me. And here is a snapshot of my final moments in each of these sports:

*High school water polo - lost my last game 40-1 in the first round of the state tournament (I did score the 1 though....)(no, not a typo, that is *40*)
*High school soccer - after going undefeated the whole season, I was injured in the last game sophomore year and watched our team lose our last game from the sideline. (this was my last game because I played water polo instead jr and sr year)
*College soccer - We gave up 4 goals in the first 5 minutes of my last game and wound up losing 4-1 (again, at least I scored the 1)
*College swimming - My last serious competition - I don't have much to say about the meet, but I was so excited to finally be done swimming I had a little too much fun all night before getting on a plane to fly home......yeah, that was a rough flight
*High school swimming - My last high school swim meet was heart breaking. I can't do the story justice without typing a mini essay. It has been 10 years and I can still see everything like it happened yesterday. If you don't know the story, ask me about it some time.

So, what is my point? I enjoy winning, as everyone does, but God has shown me time and time again that neither winning or reaching my goals here will add any value to my life or make me happier. As I mentioned, I've been having a lot of fun playing, and I celebrate these recent victories with my teammates, but at the same time I know the true victory I have is eternal, and it is because Jesus humbled himself and took on our sins.

So....... I suppose I should try to be more humble ;)

Weather tracker......#!@#%in cold!!!!!

I don't think I've seen positive temperatures in the "feels like" section of weather.com since I got back from Montreal over a week ago. I'm really understanding now why drinking is such a popular hobby here in Wisconsin....although I'm still trying to figure out the cheese thing.... The good news is that it looks like it might get above freezing in about a week and a half, sheesh.

One year!

First of all, great job Whitney and Shannon on the Ayla challenge! You guys are awesome friends to remember the name of the main character from my favorite book. Of course I did read it about 3 or 4 times during the jr high/high school years, but it has been a while! I've still never cried while reading a book like I do every time I read the end of that book. Good luck with reading it again Kel!

So it is an exciting weekend to mark my one year of Wisconsin residency and the recently released report on global warming....We have a high of 0 degrees F today. Yes, that is a high. I think I'll run outside soon to celebrate the climb out of negative temperatures....Of course it is -27 with wind chill, so I'll have to celebrate on the right side of the fence....Actually, its ok, because I formed a layer of scales on my hands while I was up in Montreal so I can't really feel anything anyway.

I'm very torn with who to route for today in the Super Bowl....I think I do have to go for the Bears since Chicago is home, but I like the Colts a lot too. So, I guess I'm rooting for great commercials this year!

So, I still don't own a cheese hat, but its crazy, I really have developed some wisconsonite drawl, especially after a couple beers....actually I think that is where their accent came from :) I think the only thing I picked up in TN was y'all since no one down there says "you guys" like everyone does up here as a gender neutral expression.

A'ight....enough ramble for today.
Go Bears!!

Ayla

Ayla just wanted to say hi to everyone! Yeah, Van Winkle pets like to do that.... according to my Mom's emails.
For those of you who haven't heard the story, Ayla was a puppy when I got her from a pet adoption group in Nashville. She was very cute and loveable, except for the fact that she didn't sleep at night and chewed everything she could get her teeth on. My parents still had our first dog, Logan at the time. After I brought Ayla home for Christmas (she chewed off one of the door handles in the back seat) she never came back to Tennessee. My parents needed help destroying the place before doing some remodeling, so Ayla was perfect for that.

Anyway, Kelly took this picture on Christmas Eve. She is now a very good dog and sadly is the only pet in the house these days.

Another fun game - you win bonus friend points if you know where the name Ayla came from :)

Great websites

In honor of the upcoming holidays and the fact that if you are reading this you already have some free time on your hands, check out some of these great websites I have stumbled on. (I installed "stumble" on my firefox browser) Anyway, I hope you enjoy!!!

For the engineers:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/unwork.htm

Random:
http://www.iiiiiiii.com/
http://www.milk.com/wall-o-shame/waterproof.html
http://www.virtualstapler.com/

Pictures:
http://selfdestruct.net/misc/geneve.jpg
http://www.asa100.com/
http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/flash/cntower_timelapse.swf
http://www.younggalleryphoto.com/photography/brandt/brandt.html

This just in.......

So, after I posted this morning I got another update from Mom.....the 'rents just bought another Buick Rendezvous. That makes 2 in 1 year. Yeah, I live in that family. One is white, the other is "cappuccino" according to the email.... I asked them where my Rendezvous was....no response yet.

Snow tracker.....still here!

Ah yeah, do you like the new coffee colored blog? While I'm working on my image with a new hair cut and continuing to seek out new arctic condition survival apparel (sweaters) I thought I'd splash some new colors on the blog - brown is definitely the new pink...

News from the Van Winkle household:
My dad has a new cool job at the college of Lake County. I don't know what this means, but I guess he has a big office....go Dad!
My mom really likes her job, but unfortunately the office is moving and does not wish to commute so she is deciding what to do next.
Kelly is still a skin farmer in Madison.

Last night I received a late 16th birthday present from my parents. So its a little over 11 years late, it is still very cool. They bought it when I was born intending to give it to me when I turned 16 and forgot about it until they found it recently...

Lets see what else...today is the Christmas party at Lazarus house so I'll be celebrating Christmas in the 'hood with about 80 kids running around. My bible study small group spent a few hours (with no heat) clearing out the gym there to get ready for this. It is very exciting to see God working in Racine - hopefully I'll get a chance to post some pictures soon!

"Near blizzard conditions"

That was the term we heard all morning as we stayed nicely sheltered while our cars were growing back their thick white covering everyone had fought to remove to get to work. I also read that they were calling this "heart-attack" snow because it was so heavy it could give people shovelling it a heart attack. I understood this a little better when I got home and to my joy discovered that my place was a perfect backstop for the storm and there were snow drifts 2' deep in places on my driveway.....yeah....plus a plow hadn't come down our road, there was only one lane cleared from people driving through so I had no place to put my car until I could shovel the driveway, so I drove it into the snow. The walk into my place was when I discovered the snow drifts as snow came up to my knees in spots (and I still wasn't close to hitting ground). I then spent the next hour shovelling a spot for my car, then shovelling my way out of the spot I had chosen to drive my car into. Ah, good times....at least it wasn't too cold - although the warmer air is what made the snow so heavy (I'll probably be hurting tomorrow) so maybe cold wouldn't have been so bad....hmmmm.....Oh, and they did let us leave work early today so that everyone could get home before it got dark. And I guess they couldn't call it a true blizzard because winds did not sustain above 35 mph, it was closer to 30 with gusts up to 40. OK, thats enough about the snow.

Well, I saw that 38,000 people in Knoxville lost power this morning - I hope all of you down there have your power back if you lost it! Have a good weekend!

New hair

Yup....this is what I look like now....right now actually, well, about 30 seconds ago. There is actually some special stuff in my hair that isn't always there: extra grease from not washing it this morning and christmas tree sap (I think that is what makes it shine :0). Seriously, we are right in the middle of prayer time and the Christmas tree falls over - the stand design was very poor and the tree was pretty tore up from falling so it was quite a project getting it back up. Katee prayed for a hedge of angels to rise up around the tree after that.

In other interesting news, here is what I do at work when things aren't going well...ok, I'm not the artist, but I did give artistic suggestions. I had to crop it so none of you would steal our design and try to compete with us. (The parts aren't supposed to buckle like that....our favorite is the guy with the beanie)

Wicked!

Ah well, another excellent Thanksgiving break is almost over :( I made it back to Racine after enough big meals to last me until Christmas! I just downloaded some songs from Wicked which I saw with my family yesterday. Its a great Broadway musical which tells the story of the Wizard of Oz from a different perspective, telling the stories of Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West. I think my favorite song is either "defying gravity" or "popular".

In other news I actually got a quite dramatic hair cut last week. If I remember I'll try to post some pictures soon....Its awesome so far - I got it permanently straightened so it doesn't look like "Alice" hair when I try to blow dry it.

The weather has been great up here the last couple weeks. It was in the 60s yesterday in Chicago! And the sun has even been out! It is supposed to be a high of 20 on Thursday though :( Then I'll get my chance to start whining again.

Sorry I haven't been posting much like I said I would, but I'll keep trying to put any interesting news up from life in Wisconsin!!

Snow, bonfires, and a scary pumpkin

Ah, its definitely fall up here in Wisconsin. My first clue was snow on my car the day I got back from my trip to Knoxville....doh!!! Yeah, so the week was off to a great start as I tore my car apart looking for gloves and an ice scraper. I found 1 white glove and one brown glove, but my hands were cold, so I called that a success - then I found the bad scraper (the good one was under a few layers) and got the first ice covering of the year off my winshield.

Unfortunately, none of my pics from my trip to Knoxville turned out very well, which is too bad, because it was a perfect weekend. Oh, and some of you know all the airport fun I had on my way there. The way back was relatively uneventful, however my wing of my plane did hit a refueling truck as it was taxiing into the gate. I won't tell the whole story, but I spent quite a bit of time watching the 8 men outside the plane arguing as it took 30 minutes before they got us off the plane.

So, the temperatures warmed up to 50s by the weekend and the sun actually came out, so its been a great couple days. I went to a bonfire Friday night and carved a pumpkin in the dark, it is on my porch now. The only people who will ever see it are my landlord and the mail man, so I'm going to post it here for all of you :)



Saturday I went to a party/shower for my on of my best and longest friends, Whitney. Good times :) My parents were there too, so I got to tell them all about my fun week at work (don't worry, I'll spare you...the short story is my next trip to Montreal is delayed) Today I've been cleaning and playing video games - so its been a great weekend.

Word of the week: equine....try to use it casually in conversation, it will be fun

Sleepless in Racine

For some reason I'm having a little bout of insomnia this week - not bad though, I've had a lot more energy and have extra time to do activities such as....er....work.

My trip to Richmond, VA last weekend was great! I went to European Busch Gardens on Saturday and rafting on Sunday. Busch Gardens was a lot of fun, I hadn't been on a roller coaster in a long time, and the 210 ft near vertical drop definitely knocked the air out of me for a minute.

I just read in Time magazine that string theory is being challenged within the physics world. I'm not really sure if I care, just like I'm not sure if I'm anywhere close to understanding what it is, but it doesn't seem like this search for the "theory of everything" has gotten anywhere in the past couple decades. In other news, I read that we might have 12 planets - interesting article:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/08/16/new.planets.ap/index.html

Oh, I also saw my friend Russ's house that he is building this week. He is doing it by himself with his brothers and Dad helping him. It is sweet! Although he thinks he might run out of money before he can buy furniture when he moves in, doh!

Well, this is going nowhere fast - I hope anyone reading this goes and does something exciting to counteract reading this. Fast. OK, bye.

Mid summer thoughts

Long time no post, I'll try not to ramble too much....
Lets see I'll quickly go through highlights of the last 6 weeks:
Utah! Kelly and I went to Utah to go white water rafting/hiking for a week, it was a great time! We slept outside in the canyon (and yes, we got rained on), we hiked to the top of the canyon and our rafting guides set off fireworks, the picture below is our hike to cecret lake (no not a spelling mistake on my part, but it got its name when someone else mispelled "secret" and the name stuck). The cool part about this hike is Kel and I really had no idea where we were going, but it turned out really awesome.







Racing: I did do another triathlon last weekend. The swim was in Lake Michigan and the waves were intense the morning of the race, so that was rough, but the weather was perfect. If you are interested in browsing for cool looking pics of me, go to multisportphoto.com - my race was Spirit of Racine the sprint distance. I also stormed the Bastille in downtown Milwaukee (5K race at 9 pm at night to kick off bastille days) - one of the local bars hands out beer in cups during the race :) Thats about all for that.

Work: Yes, I still have a job. They did announce that they are closing the plant in Clinton (although not til 2009). I hate to see that happen, but no one there is very surprised. I was in Indiana earlier this week for my first customer visit, then flew here to Missouri for some serious partying (er, work).

Coming up: Another whitewater rafting/camping trip up here in Wisconsin over labor day, trip to Richmond, VA in August, trip to Atlanta in September, and hopefully a trip to Knoxville in October!

Yeah Settlers!

Well, I missed the Knoxville Settlers crew terribly, but since Anna wasn't up here playing, I actually won this time :) I wound up getting very lucky - Mathieu almost won but was short one resource like 4 turns in a row. Good times, and of course, check out the awesome party dish next to the game! Even better :)
Mathieu was wearing his Florianopolis, Brazil shirt for me....his roomate in Stuttgart is from there. Random story time... on Friday he was telling me a story about his shirt, then at the Brazilian restaurant I went to the next day, the waiter was from Florianopolis....crazy. I guess it is a fairly large city, but I hadn't heard of it before....



Tomorrow is the first World Cup game - I'm going to try to watch it - or at least the highlights - I think besides the Olympics this is the most watched sporting event in the world. Plus it is fun since I have German friends here who love their soccer.
Nothing else exciting to say right now....hope everyone has a great Friday!!!

Creepy game

Friends, help me out here....check out this pic and comment:

1. Do you think this person looks like me (I feel like I am looking in a black and white mirror....although the dress isn't really my style.... - what do you think?)
and for the grand prize
2. Who is this person - I'll give you a hint - you read work by this person in American Lit

Living room and weekend fun

In 12 hours and I'll be back at work....what an unpleasant thought. In better news I was home for the weekend celebrating 3 birthdays, a graduation, new jobs with my parents and another family we grew up with (the Barnes). It was good times as always - we couldn't find birthday candles so we put a candle holder with a giant candle in the middle of the bundt cake - it was great. Nate and Melissa announced they are having another baby - which was very exciting for all.
My parents have done some shopping for me - so I actually have a little more "stuff" in my living room. I'm still not sure about the picture, but I think it will grow on me....Hope everyone had a good weekend.