So, my sister and brother-in-law are now thinking of coming out not only visit me early this Summer, they're making plans to coincide their visit with my planned vacation out west. I had initially planned on making either Yellowstone National Park or Glacier National Park (I desperately want to see either!) on my own. Just me, my camera, and Momma Nature.

My sister and brother-in-law, however, did want to, at least, possibly see the Badlands and the Black Hills while they were here, so I told them of my plans. So, now we're trying to make our plans for when and where. Instead of trying to decide with park to visit, we're thinking of now hitting both!

In doing so, I made up a rough draft of what the itinerary might look like. If you're interested, this might be what it ends up being... If not, sometime very similar!

Friday, June 11:
- Leave early morning, south on I-29, stop by Watertown, SD to see Terry Redlin Art Center.
- Proceed to Sioux Falls, possibly stop and see Falls Park.
- West on I-90, stop by Mitchell to see either Corn Palace or Telstar Mustang/Shelby/Cobra Museum.
- Stop by Chamberlain rest-stop (neat overlook of the Missouri River!).
- Get to Wall, SD (find a place to stay) and possibly visit the Badlands before dark.

Saturday, June 12:
- Up early, take the Badlands loop, hike some (if interested!) through mid to late-afternoon.
- Head west to Rapid City and Black Hills, then taking 16A around Custer S.P.
- Overnight in Custer or Keystone.

Sunday, June 13:
- Up early, see Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse, and travel 16A (very cool scenic-highway!)
- Harney Peak?
- North on 385 to see Lead and Deadwood late-afternoon/early-evening.
- See Spearfish Canyon, then overnight in Spearfish.

Monday, June 14:
- Up early, west on I-90, see Devils Tower.
- Cross the Bighorn Mountains on the way to Cody, WY.
- Enter Yellowstone at Northeast Entrance, see Mt. Washburn & sight-see.
- Hiking?
- Overnight in Yellowstone.

Tuesday, June 15:
- Up early, sight-see central/southern Yellowstone.
- Hiking?
- Overnight in Yellowstone.

Wednesday, June 16:
- Up early, sight-see southern Yellowstone some in the morning, then south to Jackson.
- Sight-see Grand Teton and Jackson, overnight in Jackson.

Thursday, June 17:
- Up early, sight-see the town and Grand Teton in the morning.
- Trek back north, see Yellowstone more (if desired) during afternoon/evening.
- Continue north and overnight in Gardiner/Livingston/Bozeman, MT.

Friday, June 18:
- Up early, then proceed north on 287 to Glacier N.P.
- Sight-see southern Glacier late-afternoon/early evening.
- Overnight in Glacier or nearby city/town.

Saturday, June 19:
- Up early, explore Glacier N.P.
- Hiking?
- Overnight in Glacier or nearby city/town.

Sunday, June 20:
- Up early, possible morning/afternoon exploring.
- Return east on Hwy 2.
- Stop by Bear Paw Battlefield-Nez Pearce Nat'l Historic Park (South of Chinook, MT).
- MT-13 to MT-200S to Glendive, MT, then I-94 East to ND Badlands.
- Overnight in Medora.

Monday, June 21:
- Up early, explore ND Badlands.
- Hiking?
- Return east and north to Grand Forks by early/mid-evening.

It'll be a lot of time in the car and we wouldn't necessarily enjoy a lot of time anywhere, but we would see a lot! Again, this is just a rough draft and never know, we may just decide on one park and just enjoy the time and scenery there. We will see!

Hello folks,

I'm back into town and am getting settled back into the routine. You know, the working, sleeping, eating thing... Vacation went really well. Even though it seemed to just fly by, I was able to do pretty much all I wanted. I wanted to visit and catch up with friends - which I was able to do a lot of, to visit with family - which I was able to, and to relax - of which, I did quite a lot of, as well.

Traveling went pretty smooth... I ended up getting on the road by 12:30am on Friday the 4th, and with the weather cooperating, I nearly made it home in record time. Besides some hang-ups within the Chicago suburbs, traffic flowed fairly well. To avoid the apparent heavy construction on I-80 south of Chicago, I decided to take Highway-30 east off of I-39 in Illinois. This routed me through several very small towns and through Aurora, Plainfield, Joliet and Chicago Heights... and with construction going on within Plainfield and Joliet, it went painstakenly slow through that area. Still, I made it back into Bluffton by 4:00 pm. The same was true on the way back west on Friday the 18th, but the travel went even slower with scattered, light showers affecting traffic-flow through much of Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. Heavy rain in western portions of Minnesota really slowed things down... I was going 30 mph at one point because I couldn't hardly see in front of me.

The first night in town, I spent over at Jeff's (Justin's brother)... Justin and I decided to go swimming in his pool, since it had been a rather warm afternoon. Plus, it sounded really good to me, since I had been stuck in the car all damn day! Then it was off to Webster Lake, Saturday morning... Amy and Chris went along with us this year - it was the first time they had gone up with us. We had a pretty good time. Most of the time Saturday we were out on the water, tubing, or hanging out near the cottage, talking, drinking, and catching up with each other. It was nice to be around some of my closest friends again. It was nice to see Brian and Becky again, as well. I hadn't seen either in a long time... Sunday, the boat broke down, so we were forced to stay ashore most of the day. It got a little boring at times, but it was still nice to just be there with friends, relaxing.

The rest of that first week I was home, I spent down at Amy and Chris' down in Fishers... Chris is still in the process of beginning his real estate venture, so I was helping them out fixing up a home in Greenfield. It went pretty smooth and I enjoyed just helping them out and hanging out with my sister and brother-in-law for a week. Plus, they took me to Carrabba's - and damnit, that made it all worth it! I love that place!

Back in Bluffton, on Friday, I had to make it out to my dad's that evening for a cookout he was hosting for me. Several from my step-mother's family wanted to see me while I was home, so they were all there. It was nice to see them and visit for several hours. Saturday, I spent much of the day with Justin, Brian and Amy. Brian evidently had bought a new gun, so we were out at his parents shooting away. I have never enjoyed guns, per se, so I didn't shoot much, but did shoot his .45 caliber hand-gun. I didn't think it was going to be so loud, so I didn't have ear plugs in, initially. After that one shot, I put a pair of headphones on. As if my hearing isn't bad enough already! Then Sunday, my mother had yet, another cook-out for me. Members of my mother's family wanted to see me, as well, while I was home. It was nice to see them, as well, since I hadn't seen them in nearly 2 years.

Most of the second week, then, I spent at my mother's home in Bluffton. I was able to hang out with friends during the week and mostly just relaxed. My mother and step-father took me up to Bandido's for lunch on Wednesday (the 16th) and Justin, Brian and I all visited Bummies for dinner on both Tuesday and Wednesday. That's the one thing we lack up here in Grand Forks - a drive-in restaurant. As far as I know, we don't have one at all...

Thursday, I primarily spent packing things up... I wanted to visit with my dad, once again before I left, so I went out to his place for dinner Thursday evening. It was nice that they offered to make anything I wanted. :) I asked for my dad's famous fried potatoes. Ahh, were they good. Plus, they know how much I love steak, so they had steak on the grill ready, as well!

All in all, it felt really good to be back in Bluffton. And even though, I always said that I wanted to make it out of that small town, in a lot of ways, I miss it. I miss my friends a lot of the time and miss being close to my family. It was sad having to leave Friday morning - but I still have this thing deep in my heart for my career and know that eventually, I'll have a family of my own someday to love and support.

Maybe that will be my next "thing" to accomplish this year... To finally meet someone that just may be my next serious relationship. We'll see!

Enough for now... Phew!

Hello folks,

Thought I would let you all know, beginning late tonight, I will be out of town for the next two weeks. I'll be on vacation back home in Indiana visiting friends and family. I'll have sporadic access to the Internet, so I will try to make some updates in here, but I can't guarantee anything.

If you need to get ahold of me, e-mail should be the safest bet, however my cell phone number is on my web-site if something urgent comes up.

Take care and I'll think of you all while I'm soaking up the sun at the lake this weekend! ;)

- Matthew

I noticed while I was driving home from work about an hour ago that the odometer in my car read 50,127 miles! Apparently, my car turned over the 50,000 mile mark two or three days ago and I never realized it. I can't believe I have 50,000 miles on this thing already. I suppose, however, since my baby is now coming up on her 4-yr anniversary, 50,000 miles isn't so bad. That works out be around 12,500 miles a year. Which is actually below the "average" number of miles per year a vehicle racks up. Of course, I suppose this average can be argued. Especially now that many people are cutting back on vehicular travel due to high gas prices. Over the past couple of years, I'm sure the average has dropped significantly from the typically accepted 14,000 - 15,000 Mi/yr.

Now, I just need new tires and an expensive electronic overhaul. The cruise control started malfunctioning a couple of weeks ago, but I've been unable to get it into the the dealership for an estimate. Maybe within the next couple of days...

More later -

Hey folks,

I just thought I'd let you all know that I'll be out of town Monday through Wednesday. I will be attending the Northern Plains Convective Workshop down in Aberdeen, SD. If you need to reach me, I'll have my cell phone on me. You may want to double-check the workshop agenda, as well. It will, in general, let you know what I'll be doing and when.

Hope all is well!

I learned yesterday at work that over the course of the 3-4 day snow event over the central and northern plains this past weekend, that we received over 300,000 calls on our 511 system. At one point, supposedly during the morning hours of Monday, we were receiving calls at the rate of one every 3 seconds for our customers in Kansas and Nebraska. I don't have the exact numbers, but if I remember correctly, it was close to 345,000 total calls, give or take 2-5,000. Damned if I've ever heard of so many phone calls! That's just crazy...

I completed my 10:00am to 6:00pm shifts yesterday, have today off, then work a couple of mid-shifts (12:00am - 8:00am) tonight and Friday night, then pretty much have the weekend off. I don't have any major plans for the weekend, so hopefully I'll be able to get out and do something. I feel guilty for spending money, but I need to get out of this apartment. Last weekend, I was just feeling miserable (battling some sort of cold, I suppose) and was just too lazy to get out and do anything. I felt I accomplished some things - I got all my laundry done, cleaned up the apartment, and filed away some bills and some papers (something that's needed to be done for a couple of months).

I also received my federal tax refund check in the mail Monday. So, I've now received both my state and federal refunds. I guess I can say, that I'm fairly proud of myself for that. This is the first year I've completely done my taxes on my own. I went out and bought TurboTax, but for some reason it wouldn't let me complete my state forms... So, I took it back to Best Buy and decided to fill out the forms manually. Call me old fashioned, but it's cheaper (you don't have to pay for some stupid program or pay extra for e-filing). I'm sure Chris (my brother-in-law) would be proud to hear that! heheh... Anyhow, both of the refund checks are going to my credit card to pay off the purchase of my Digital Rebel XT. The federal check should take a good chunk of the balance off the credit card. I hate using my credit card because the interest rate is so frippin' high, but well, if you knew how bad I wanted this camera, you'd understand why I finally decided to use it. ;)

I've decided to attend the Northern Plains Convective Workshop down in Aberdeen in a few weeks (April 17-19). Initially, although I knew about it, I wasn't planning on going - mostly because of financial issues and, of course, getting the time off of work to go. I realized, however, Monday that Mr. Russ Schumacher is giving a presenatation on Extreme Rain Events... Russ and I were colleagues at Valparaiso University, so it'll be kind of neat to see him again. Hopefully, I'll be able to run into him and see what he's been up to after all these years. I'm going to eMail Erik Zarnitz, as well, to see if he's going to be there. He's living somewhere in South Dakota (I can't remember where...) so I'm wondering if he's considering it. It should be a fun experience and hopefully an informative and educational one, as well. I haven't attending any conferences in a couple of years, so even though I'll probably be spending $50-80 on the trip and for hotel accomodations (it's a 2-day event) I think it'll be worth it. I should know by tomorrow if I'll be able to get the time off work, but if I do, I'll be heading down with Justin Turcotte, a co-worker of mine. Which will work out even better... That way, we can split the costs of traveling and accomodations. I'm getting anxious for that, it should be fun!

Well, as we "Hartman's" tend to say... I'm running out of gab... LOL!
Have a great day, folks!

Hey everyone...

I figured I'd hop on here today to update you with what all has been going on in my life lately. I enjoyed some time at home this past weekend with my friends up at Lake Webster. Wow, was that fun! Enjoyed some time out on the water - going tubing and knee boarding. I didn't get up the nerve to try knee boarding this year, like I did last year, but really, the tubing was all I needed. The lake was a bit more choppy this year, so the tubing was rough. My muscles are sore and along with that, I think I got a bit more sun than I had anticipated. The buring sensations from my shoulders and arms and legs aren't too bad, but they're just bad enough for it to bother me. My neck is the where most of my pain is eminating. The choppy water took a toll on my neck! It's pretty darn sore...

Aside from this past weekend, a lot has happened in the last couple weeks. I received a call from Meridian Environmental Technology on Monday, August 16th with a job offer. Considering the offer is for an operational forecasting position, I knew I couldn't turn it down. I accepted that and ever since, I've stayed busy with finding apartments and making out a budget... The job is located in Grand Forks, ND - so it will be quite a move for me. I am traveling out there this week to look at apartments with my mother and will spend all of the next week getting things around and packed for a move over the Labor Day weekend. It'll be a big move and even though I'll be in a strange place all by myself, I'm still excited about the job and finally getting out on my own and moving on with my life. It'll be fun meeting new people, making new friends, and getting to know a whole other part of the country! I'm not looking forward to those cooold winters, though! ;)

I'll continue to post on here, my progress with the relocation and such.
'Til next time...

73!