Nobody Cares if You're in the Newspaper...

As many of you know, I was interviewed for a story in the St. Cloud Times about the wildfires in Southern California. Because, well, I live there. Here.

I was hoping more would come of it than it did. I even updated my website to include a way to email me. I figured that since my blog address was in the article, and I was on the front page no less, I would get more people who I've lost touch with want to email me or something. I know if I saw the article I would totally go to the website and email me.

Well, two people did. Kudos to them; I really appreciate it. Where's the rest of you? You either don't have the internet, didn't get around to it, or plumb don't care about me. Or maybe you thought, "what a chump! He only got in the paper cause his momma works for Gannett!" Well, that's partly true. She was my "in."

Nevertheless, I don't have a way to track my website traffic. Not yet. I really should get on that. Who knows how many more visitors I had because of that article? Maybe a few. Two for sure -- the ones that emailed me. I am most proud of the fact that they printed a photo that I took, put it on the front page of a pretty well circulated paper, and in color to boot.

Okay, enough of that. I think my mom got more attention for it than I did because no one around here really cares, of course.

A thank you goes out to Frank Lee for putting together the story. Thanks Frank!!

Wait, did Frank even bookmark my blog?



This is the article from the newspaper. Click on it to enlarge it. I don't know if it's okay to reproduce, but it's about me, so ok.

Friday Nights As An Accountant

I pretty much had the best Friday night I've had in a long time. Now, compared to yours, it may not be anything special, but remember, I'm an accountant. My scale of excitement is probably much lower than yours.

The mood was set by the fact that some smoke has cleared and blue sky was finally visible, at least to the West and to the looking-straight-up direction. It was also a good night because I went to see one highly anticipated movie, for me at least, Dan in Real Life. Steve Carell sort of started out his career being a goof. Well, that's an understatement. He was as dumb as a brick in Anchorman, so much so they even named his character "Brick." He was not quite as dumb in Bruce Almighty, but equally annoying. In fact, I didn't care too much for Mr. Carell at that point. Sure, he was great on The Daily Show, before he started his film career, but the future didn't look bright.

That was, of course, until The Office. This was his chance to shine. And he has. It's given him the chance at some more meaty roles: Little Miss Sunshine and yes, even The 40-Year Old Virgin. The former even generated some Oscar buzz. Well deserved.

Am I surprised that Dan In Real Life may be his best performance to date? No, in fact, my expectations were set pretty high. And Steve met them. What a fantastic movie. Juliette Binoche, an unlikely casting choice, shined, and Dane Cook wasn't even annoying! I don't really need to get into the plot details; you can look elsewhere for that. Let me just say, Dan is one of the better films I've seen this year. And that's saying something, at least to me, and it's this: I see a lot of crappy movies.

Go see it.

Alright, if that wasn't enough excitement for the night, Friday also marked the new release of the Mac's newest version of its wonderful operating system (OS): 10.5 (Leopard). Of course it doesn't match the hoopla of it's consumer electronics, but if your a big Mac fan, you will be pretty pumped about Leopard.

All of the Apple Stores were closed for two hours yesterday to prep for the 6pm release of Leopard. I went after my movie, at about 9:30. The place was packed, as usual, but there were plenty of "geniuses" available and I was just told to get in line and they'd get me a copy. Well, one minute later, I had a copy in my hand while the "genius" rang me up via a portable point of sale device. My receipt was emailed to me. And I got a free OS X tshirt to boot! (No matter how hip Apple is, it's still nerdy to wear a computer shirt. Got it?)

I got home and installed my new OS. So simple. Click the language you prefer, accept the license agreement, and that's pretty much it. Less than an hour later I was up and running. I don't remember a Windows install EVER going that smoothly.

I could go on and on about how many of the 300 new features I think are completely awesome, but either you are a Windows user and depressed, or you are an Apple user and have put Leopard on your Christmas list so you can see for yourself.

See, now does a Friday get much better than that?

Amazing Picture of the Santiago Wildfire

I'm not sure who took this, I got it in an email. I'm guessing it was taken around Wednesday night.

This is Lake Mission Viejo looking North, I believe. My apartment is that way. I could see the glow above the houses across the street. I'm glad I didn't get this good of view or I probably would have been freaking out!



As of this afternoon, the fire was heading East and South. The firefighters are trying to establish a perimeter around it, to stop it from destroying more homes, and from crossing over into Riverside County. It's hard to get personnel to the locations though, because the fire roads in the Cleveland National Forest aren't maintained.

I'm approximately 4-5 miles from the south end of the wildfire right now.


View Larger Map

Here's an overall view of what's going on. The red line is where firefighters are trying to make a stand. The gray line divides Orange and Riverside counties. This map is courtesy of the O.C. Register.


View Larger Map

Fire and Brimstone

I took some pictures today. It's the smokiest it's been yet. Ash is falling somewhat. I'm not in any immediate danger, but also not entirely in the clear either.

Here are the pictures I took today.

The view from my balcony as the sun came up in Mission Viejo.



This was how the sun looked this afternoon in Lake Forest. You could look right at it.



This smoke is about 2-3 miles North/Northeast of me. Taken Wednesday at 5pm in Foothill Ranch.



This is what's next!! *Note: This photo has been altered!*


View the rest...


The fire is about 4 miles northeast of me...



View Larger Map

Close Up

This is how close the Santiago Canyon fire is to me at 1PM CDT.

2.1 miles away.

View Larger Map


I'm still at work, though. Safe for now!

Fire Day

Sounds like a title to an episode of "The Office."

I got sent home at 11AM today because one of the DOZEN wildfires that are ravaging Southern Cal right now was pretty close to my office. Close enough that flames could be seen. I'm still about three miles or so from that, so...oh wait, that's pretty close.

Anyways, check the news. It's pretty freakin unbelievable.

The locals tell me that this isn't that unusual though. Fire season. It's just usually not this close to homes.

Oh, and the winds don't help. I was driving home from Vegas yesterday morning, and apparently there were 85mph winds coming out of the canyon. That's hurricane force!! Yikes.

What a Rough Week!

No, not really. I worked this week, sure, but it was mostly spent flying or driving. You see, I had to visit clients all week. Since Monday I've been in Louisville, KY, Nashville, TN, Kansas City, MO/KS, and tonight I'm in Wichita, KS. It was my first trip by myself and it's actually been kind of fun. I've had a lot of down time, so I've been trying to make the most of it.

I've had a hankering to go to Nashville since last year, so it was cool to be able to hangout there Tuesday night. I spent some time down by the Cumberland River, then tried some local brew at a brewhaus downtown. There's just something about Nashville that I've always loved...It feels like my second or third home. I can't put my finger on it. I intended to cap off the evening by enjoying some live bluegrass at the Gibson Guitar Showcase near Opryland, but I missed it by one night. Bah!

Wednesday morning I flew from Nashville to Kansas City. I was welcomed with rain. And lots of it. First of all, our plane leaving Nashville was DOA or something, so they flew an empty plane over from Dallas just for us. Yay, Southwest! It only took an hour. Not bad. When we got to KC they wouldn't let us pull up to the gate because the ground crews were taking cover due to t-storms. Boo. By the time I got my rental car (a Suzuki XL7 SUV. totally pimp; my choice for my next car), it was almost 4. Why does this matter? Becuase my big plans for the afternoon were to go to the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri. BUST! Didn't have time. I was a little bummed about that. Plus it poured rain all night, so whatever.

I ended up just going to downtown KC to the Barnes & Noble. It was pretty cool down there. I've been through/around Kansas City probably a half-dozen times or more driving from MN to TX and back; I wanted to go downtown so I could associate something else with it than Suburb City, USA. Downtown was worth checking out. I would have liked to have more time there. And for all you folks in MN, think about going to KC for a 4-day weekend or something. It might be fun.

Today I had to drive to the middle-of-nowhere: Salina, Kansas, to visit our last client for the week - 3 hours to the west. With Harry S. Truman's library out of sight and out of mind, I passed a billboard for Abilene, Kansas: Home of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and - I am not making this up - the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library!! Exit 275!! I had no idea this was there. It's almost like the Presidential Library gods were shining down on me.

I was ahead of schedule for my next appointment, so I stopped. I was a little short on time, so I couldn't go to the museum. I did, however, use the restroom. There was nothing presidential about it. Dwight D. is buried at this place, too. That was very weird to experience. I mean, this guy was such a major influence to the world and our country. Fifty years ago, he was one of the most powerful and popular fellows in the world. This is the dude behind D-Day! And I was standing six feet above and two feet back from his body. I was the only one in the chapel. Just me and Ike. That blows my mind. Seriously.

After that I took a peek in the library. It's really not a big deal. It's mainly for Eisenhower historians and scholars and researches because they have access to basically everything having to do with his life. I suppose that's the point of all of these presidential libraries.

There was a huge statue of Ike in the center of the grounds that was worth seeing, too. I have pictures of all this, don't worry. I just have to get home first.

I went to my appointment in Salinas, it only took 15 minutes. It was 2:45, and I didn't need to be to Wichita anytime soon. I decided to backtrack 30 minutes and go to the D.D. Eisenhower Museum that I missed out on before. How nerdy is that? I really did. It was $9, and probably worth it. I was totally into it for awhile. Reading all the deals and things, but then it got really general into the WWII era. Like, not even about him, half of it. And the "First Lady" exhibit? Like I care about the wardrobe of his wife? No, I don't.

There were guns all over the place. That was really cool since I recognized some of them from "Call of Duty" on the Playstation 2. For real. They also had his huge staff Cadillac on display, the olive green one. Overall, it was worth seeing. Would I drive to Abilene, Kansas just for that? Hell no.

But it was sure awesome to be able to see it while I was passing through. All expenses paid.

Now I'm on a mission. To visit the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., and the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif. Too bad I didn't go to Lyndon's and G.H.W. Bush's while I lived in Texas.

Tomorrow I'm flying back to Orange County and then hopping in Mable and driving to Vegas. My sister's going to be seeing friends in O.C., so it's just going to be me, Marc and the nieces! Saturday night I'm going to Jimmy Eat World at Hard Rock Casino, it's going to be tops. The new album, which came out Tuesday, is nothing but greatness.

I guess that's all I have to say about that.

Louisville Slugged Me

I don't know what that means.

So here I am. In Louisville, Kentucky. The Bible Belt. Middle America. It's quite charming. It reminds me a lot of home, even though KY is probably technically considered "The South" and not remotely at all like MN. I think it's just because I haven't really been out of California for 4.5 months, it makes me remember how different things are out there and how normal the rest of the country is. I can honestly say I didn't see any Benz, BMW, or Audis today. Weird.

Anyways. I'm here in Louisville tonight. Then off to Nashville tomorrow. I'm working alone for the first time and it's going well so far. Although, all I had to do today was get here. I was up at 4AM and to Louisville by 3PM. In fact, that was actually 1PM Pacific time. No one told me Eastern Kentucky is in the Eastern Time Zone. So now it's only 8PM Cali time and I need to go to bed because I have a 6AM Cali time meeting. Brutal!! It's okay though, all I have to do tomorrow is have two 20 minute meetings and drive a few hours.

After I picked up my rental car and checked into the hotel, I drove downtown to the river front park. It was kind of fun! It was really relaxing to sit and watch the barges and the duckies making their way down the Ohio River. I got some pretty good pictures I think, but I won't be able to upload them until the weekend. I didn't bring my camera cable.

I was planning on going to a local brewery pub (Cumberland Brewery) for dinner, but I couldn't find the place. I'm sure my directions were good, it's just that it was dark, there was storefront after storefront, the streets were narrow, cars were parked on either side, headlights were in my face, and I didn't really know what I was looking for. I mean, a McDonald's sign is easier to identify than some pub you've never seen before. Right? I should have pulled over around the address number and just walked it, but I didn't think of that until I was back on the freeway.

I hope to have better luck tomorrow night in Nashville.

I ended up walking to the convenience store and getting a sandwich, Fritos, and a Corona in a brown bum bag. Oh and some guy with a gas can asked me if I had any money. His truck ran out of gas on the freeway and he left his debit card at home. I gave him a $1. In hindsight, I shoulda just filled him up. I didn't use all my per diem today anyways. Oops.

Estoy Contento

Lately I've been bumming myself out because I think about how rich I would be if I lived at home (or at least in St. Cloud) and wasn't paying this outrageous amount for rent. Even my coworkers think it's way too much, and believe me, I looked for something cheaper. Price aside, this is a great first apartment. No complaints. Perfect size. I really didn't have much of a choice when I moved here not knowing a soul, really. And how many times does the random roommate thing work out?

I had enough on my plate just moving acorss the country and starting my first job. Now that that's behind me, I need to really start to figure out what I'm going to do about my living situation for next year. Once my student loans come due, and God forbid, Mable bites the dust, I'm going to need an extra $500 a month. At least. I also don't really dig the area I'm living in. South O.C. is really suburban and kind of boring. Not that I do a whole lot anyways, but there's just too many soccer moms driving Porsche/Mercedes/BMW SUVs. And here I pull up in my Grand Prix with 288,000 miles on it. I'm hardcore.

Back to my bumming myself out. If I chose to stay in Texas or move back to Minnesota, I would have plenty of disposable income. I'd pay off my student loans in less than two years. I wouldn't have to clip coupons and pay $3.14 for gas regularly.

But, alas, I realized I have nothing to complain about. I live in a great part of the country. The weather couldn't be better. There is tons to do with Los Angeles an hour north, San Diego an hour south, Vegas 4 hours east, and oh yeah, lots of stuff right here in Orange County. I have enough money to pay the bills on time, eat, and still manage to have a little fun. I know it will get better. That's a fact. I need to stay patient.

I have a great job. I think that's something I realized in the last couple of weeks, too. I've been there 4.5 months now, long enough to sort of not feel new anymore. I've seen the progress I've made in that time, and continue to make. I'm enjoying the traveling I get to do. I really love the people I work with. That's probably the most important part. I'm pretty sure they enjoy working with me, too. Which is good, when you're stuck in Alabama for a week with the same people from 8am-8pm every single day.

One thing I do need to do is make some friends. I've put it off, mainly because I feel like my coworkers are my friends. Sure, we don't really do much outside of work or on the weekends, but we travel enough, that when you've been with the same people for a week or more straight, you kind of like to not hang out with anyone for awhile. Alone time is good, too.

Still, I'll need to make some non-work friends. It's going to be hard to get involved with something once January rolls around though. I'll be on the road pretty much every week for the first quarter of 2008. I thought about getting involved with something before then, but I'm going to be traveling for work pretty much the next 6 out of 8 weeks. Then I go home for Christmas.

I'm not complaining that I don't have a life. I quite enjoy being a homebody. Especially when I need to really buckle down and study for that CPA exam looming over my head.

Okay, that's enough of that.

I'm going to Kentucky, Tennessee, and Kansas starting Monday. All alone. It's going to be a good time. I'll hopefully have updates throughout the week.

Until then...

Kyleigh's High School Musical Birthday

Last weekend I went to see my family in Vegas to celebrate my niece Kyleigh's SIXTH birthday. It was a rip roarin' good time. Let me tell you. My sister went all out on the decorations for the High School Musical theme, most of which she made herself. Hey, I even cut out a few letters from poster board. Besides coupons, I haven't cut anything out of anything since art class in 8th grade. It's not as easy as I remember it.

I got to Vegas at about 12:30AM Friday night after 5 hours of driving. It should only take 4-4.5 hours, but that's L.A. to Vegas traffic on a Friday night for ya. I was tired from the drive, but Krysti was frantically decorating until well past 1AM. Then I had to fix the internets. 2AM.

My wake up call came around 7AM when I had to take Marc to the mechanic.

My only real job all morning was to go pick up the balloons.

The party went off without a hitch. Ten girls. Two boys. One black girl. One "innocent" racist remark. Kids....

Anyways, here are my favorites from the day:

Marc manning the grill.



The pre-party Doritos Girls.



East High Wildcats!



Kyleigh taking a shot...



Zion, Kyleigh, and Alyssa



Craft time!!



The birthday girl.



The Christensen Booster Club


View the whole set!

What An Unproductive Day (And I Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way)

Really. I think I must've watched TV for about 8 hours today. But hey, it was fun. I haven't slept past 7AM for 14+ days (a fact, not a complaint) so it was nice to not have an alarm kick me outta bed this morning -- even though I only slept until 8. It was only 5 months ago that I slept until 11 every day!

I managed to get to the grocery store today and ignore the Cub Scouts selling their goodies with a promise of "I'll be sure and bring cash next time." Yeah, right.

I read the newspaper.

I went to deposit my expense check. How long has Wells Fargo been open on Saturdays untl 2pm? Nice.

I went to "The Heartbreak Kid" at the local cineplex. Skip it.

It's great how the movie theatres give jobs tearing tickets to the handicapped, but then, who's making them work in the first place? This kid had cerebral palsy, and thanks to my extensive TV watching, I now know that people with this condition still have full mental functionality, so for the first time ever I wasn't really even uncomfortable around a handicapped ticket taker. What their mental capacity has to do with my being comfortable or un, I have no idea. I'm such a bad person.

Yeah, then I watched TV the rest of the day. There are so many new shows on, I've had some catching up to do. See, I got the internets finally. "Lyons," if you're reading this, thanks for letting me use your wi-fi since June! My new fast internets have allowed me to not buy cable tv, but instead watch all my shows on ABC.com, etc. And since my TV is also my computer monitor, watching video on my computer is good stuff.

I was going to talk about my experience at Dave Matthews Band from 10 days ago, too. In fact, I just went off on a huge tangent, because that was my original intent of this blog. Oops. Let's just say, that's the type of concert I want to have someone to go with to next time. It was very cool, though. I've never heard a more tight-sounding live band before. How they all get their timing down when they are constantly improvising is beyond me.

I know DMB have a propensity to "jam" and go on ridiculously long musical journeys, but I didn't realize how long they were until I read the review in the newspaper the next day. The first song was 20 minutes! There were several others that were near the 15 minute mark. It's no wonder that they'd only played a handful of songs and almost two hours had passed.

Where I was sitting, I could see the full moon ascend into the sky; I could also see the vast ocean of cars that would prevent me from getting home at a decent hour. I ended up leaving the concert on what I thought might be the last song before the encore, so I could avoid the hour it was going to take to get out of the parking lot. Again, the review in the newspaper informed me that I did leave on the last song before the encore, but I missed out on about an hour encore consisting of 3 songs. I was okay with that, though, because I was in my car and home in 15 minutes. What a stick in the mud I'm turning out to be. By the way, I could get used to going to concerts outdoors. I've been treated to two concerts in a row on beautiful nights. Wilco back in August and now this.

Work this week kind of sucked. We had a new client, which is cool, but it also lacks consistency of having done the audit in prior years. We were supposed to be done by Friday. We weren't even close. It's possible we have to go back for a day or two next week. Don and I were working out near San Bernardino. For you folks not familiar with the greater L.A. area, this is in the Inland Empire, or "I.E." which is in the desert, hot, and generally ghetto. It was an hour drive each way every day. $10 round trip in tolls. I can't wait for my 4 mile commute to the office Monday morning. I miss it.

Stop, Thief!

Well, not really. You see, I lost it. It wasn't stolen.

At least, I think I lost it: My Delta Sky Miles American Express business expense-y credit card.

Don and I are working out near San Bernardino, Calif. this week and we were at Chili's for lunch. I got the credit card caddy thing back with the bill, I signed the merchant copy, and didn't bother to pull out the customer copy. What do I care? I don't need to turn in my receipts or anything. Well, I guess maybe the card was underneath there or something, and I forgot to grab it.

Let me preface by saying, I've never lost my wallet. I've never lost my keys. I've never even locked them in the car. I just don't do it (I've been close a couple of times.) So to lose my credit card? What the heck, man?

The weird thing is, it didn't even cross my mind that I didn't have it until like 3AM this morning, when I was up to go pee (I'm getting old), or maybe it was in a dream, I can't be sure. All I know is that the first thing I didn when I woke up this morning was check my wallet. Yup, it was gone.

I called Chili's this morning. Nothin'. We stopped by Chili's during lunch. Nothin'.

I finally decided I'd better call AMEX and cancel my card. No problem. What was the last charge? "Well, we have Chili's yesterday, then after that is Chevron."

Wait a minute, I didn't go to a Chevron yesterday. I didn't even buy gas. That was Sunday, and it was a Shell. I bought Chevron petrol Friday, but that was on my debit card. CRAP. Someone DID steal it. Or, well, found it and used it? Whatever. I think it was our waitress. She had a bun in the oven.

And who steals a credit card and only uses it to buy gas? And how did they buy gas? They certainly didn't pay at the pump. You need to enter your zip to do that here.

The nice gal at American Express said I can dispute the charge once it posts. And I will.

It wouldn't be a huge deal, but I neeeeed to have the card back by October 15th 'cause I'll be traveling again. I certainly don't have $1200 cash to blow on hotels and rental cars that week.

I'll be eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new card. The waiting game begins. I have a feeling we'll be cutting it close.

I've Made a Discovery

Frozen Pop Tarts. Yeah, freeze em, them eat em. Amazing. Especially the chocolate fudge ones.

In other news, I have plans for a few blogs this weekend, but work is crazy right now. Until later...