I’m Home.

I’ve come back from Israel! Unfortunately, this is the first blog I’ve had up in awhile because of my limited access to the internet. However, now I’m back and will upload lots of pictures and blog about some fun stories soon! Stay tuned!

I feel as though I’ve almost forgotten how to blog! Ha

much love.

Fun in the Middle East!

So I just recently got back from visiting Las Vegas and had a great time. Before I had time to blog about it all, I am already preparing to leave on another trip. This time it is a little farther away and even warmer then Las Vegas. I am headed to Israel! I’m extremely excited! Be sure to check out my blog/twitter for updates! I’ll be sure to take a lot of pictures and have plenty of stories to share!

Here is my twitter link. Follow Me!

much love.

We have a 416 in progress…requesting back-up!

So here is the real reason I visited Vegas. I went out to check out the Las Vegas Metro Police Academy. My buddy Wade graduated from the academy last summer and now is on patrol in the Las Vegas area. I flew in to visit, hang out and get a feel for what it would be like being an officer. It was a great time. I had the privilege of doing a ride-along with Wade one night and it was a phenomenal time. We started out at the station where he showed me around. Then we jumped into a patrol vehicle and hit the streets. Little did I know that for the next ten hours, we would be busy the entire time!

(Above: A picture of the massive amount of patrol vehicle parked in the lot. However, somehow they are still short a few vehicles every shift!)

This is a picture of Wade as we are waiting down at the jail for some paperwork to be done. We started out the afternoon with a few traffic stops and transporting a prostitute down to the city jail. It was a whole different world at the jail. It was interesting because a lot of the individuals in there asked if I was an undercover cop, to which Wade told them I was, which made everything that much more interesting/terrifying. That wasn’t all we got into though. We responded to a wide variety of calls ranging from a teen who wrapped himself in plastic wrap and was wondering the streets, to a man with a gun threatening to kill! It was a completely different city then Minneapolis.

It wasn’t all business though. We managed to have a lot of fun outside of work too! He showed me Fremont street in downtown Vegas, where some of the first casinos were built. It was also home to the world’s largest TV (it’s in the picture above, the big white roof looking thing. All the lights would go out and it would play something on it every half-hour or so.). After that we went down to the main strip…but that’ll be another blog for another time!

Believe it or not there are plenty of things to do in Vegas outside of gambling! I know it shocked me too! In fact, one of the days I was out there Wade and I took it upon ourselves to hike up to the top of a mountain. To my shock, even though it was 96 degrees in Vegas, there was still a bunch of snow up in the mountains surrounding the city! There was even a ski slope on the other side of one of the mountains! After we got to the top I snapped a few pictures. The view was incredible and the pictures do it no justice what so ever!

In the first picture above you can see the houses that were at the base of the mountain. They were absolutely huge! They all had multi-level porches and huge windows! The second picture above is looking down into the valley through the mountains. You can’t really tell from the picture, but you could see the tip of North LasVegas from where we were on the mountain! To put the temperature change into perspective, when we left Wade’s house it was 96 degrees, when we got to the base of the mountain it was 70 degrees, and when we got to the top of the mountain it was much colder then that even! It was so cool to experience the temperature change by driving 15 minutes!

More to come on my Vegas trip! Including pictures of the famous Vegas Strip, professional stray painters, sinking ships, and an amazing yogurt place!

much love.

Trip to Vegas via Frontier Airlines = ‘+’

Las Vegas, or “Sin City” as some jokingly call it. Until recently, I have had little desire to go there. I’m not a big fan of deserts, I don’t gamble, not a party animal, and I haven’t had any sudden urges to get married by Elvis. However, in the last year, my desire to visit has grown ten fold. You see, my buddy Wade works for the Las Vegas Metro Police Department, one of the busiest police departments on the map. And ever since I can remember, I’ve had the desire to be a cop. Could this be my opportunity or my calling? I’m not entirely sure, but I wanted to go see what it was like and maybe find out, so I did.

I flew out to Vegas last Sunday on Frontier airlines. I knew immediatelyupon sitting down that it was going to be a good trip. Not only was the Frontier flight cleaner, more comfortable, and more relaxed then any other flight I have ever been on, but the individuals in charge of designing the the seats at Frontier decided to provide each coach passenger with their very own gift in the headrest of each seat. These ‘gifts’ that were provided for us each had a variety of different visuals that could be displayed in a 3″ or so area. If you haven’t caught on, there were TV’s in the headrest of each seat-back. DirectTV did promos with Frontier airlines and provided a variety of different channels to watch while you were waiting to take off and for the first 30 minutes of the flight (to continue watching for the rest of the flight it was $6). Needless to say, I watched quite a bit of Discovery Channel on my way to Las Vegas (can you name the show in the picture?).

That wasn’t all the trip out had in store. At my lay-over at the weird and crazy looking Denver Airport,  I met a World War II Veteran named Raymond (on the left) and he told me some old war stories and how he was having one nasty time with keeping the bears off his property back home just outside of Denver. When I told him I was headed to Vegas, he got a big grin on his face and told me to have myself a good old time. ha Kind of makes you think if old Raymond made a few visits to Vegas himself back in the day…

When I got to Vegas, Wade picked me up from the airport and dropped me off at his buddy’s house that he was house watching/dog sitting for. He had to head into work so I got to hang with Dakota and play some PS3 till he was back. It was my first PS3 experience, XBOX360 still has my vote. And me and Dakota (the dog) bonded quickly! 

Check back for the fun and more exciting parts of the trip later. I promise to try and have them up by the end of the weekend!

 

Much love.

Trip to WI.

This past week I had six days off in a row and accomplished quite a bit during that period of time. I was able to spend plenty of time out on the lake and took a quick day trip to New Richmond, Wisconsin. There was a lot happening on this particular day…a couple city folk were coming into to town to visit, some garage sales, and a birthday party that had rented a trailer full of weird and exotic animals from all over the world including a massive African porcupine and a pair of odorless skunks (which just might have made the front page of the local Sunday Newspaper). However, we were there to spend some time with my roommate Stephen’s brother and shoot some guns.

(I hit the bulls-eye…for real)

(Stephen’s action shot–if you look close you can see the shell)

(Amanda owning the range…who said girls can’t shoot?!)

(Stephen adjusting his “protective eyeware” with a 12g in hand)

It was a fun trip, however, we felt a little left out. As we were leaving, everyone (the entire town minus 5 or 6 people) was headed to the race track for the Saturday night late model races. We were the only traffic leaving the city! You may think I was kidding, but of few of the NASCAR  racers were going to be there and NASCAR was sponsoring the night, so people were coming from all across northern Wisconsin and even Minnesota. That’s not all that happened on my mini vacation, the next day I jumped on a plane to Vegas to visit my buddy Wade! Check back for updates on that!

 

Much love.

Good times, Great oldies, Kool108.

Due to my lack of commitment or just plain laziness over the past few weeks my blog has been slightly neglected! This blogger’s issue has been strongly due to the twitter phenomenon. Yes, I joined and no, I’m definitely not upset about it! I can’t stop, it is extremely addicting. It is basically blogging throughout your day…just in 140 characters or less. If you happen to have twitter, follow me! If you don’t even know what that means, check it out anyways. It’s great! Back to wordpress though. Although I haven’t been consistent with my wordpress blog, I haven’t stopped taking pictures with hopes of adding them to my blog (but instead of a blog for each one, it’ll only be a quick rundown). 

The first two pictures really go together. Stephen, Amanda, and I were out cruising around in St. Paul one fine afternoon when we stumbled upon the Blue door. It is an amazing restaurant where the wait is short, the food is cheap, the vibe is excellent, and you can substitute your fries for tatter tots! You can’t do that at any other restaurant that I’ve ever been to!

For those reading this that are under the age of 21, the cup in the picture above is of a new type of soda that hasn’t come out yet. For those 21 and over, Blue door is also a pub and have a great variety of “daddy pops.”

This picture is a little out of the ordinary. It is not everyday one comes across a truck full of radioactive waste. Well not only that, but I had the “privilege” of assisting the individuals with picking up some of the radioactive waste that the science department at Bethel needed to disgard. I tried to keep my distance, after all, I am happy with the amount of arms I have and where they are currently growing from.

Another thing that you don’t see everyday is this. A Jaguar X-type on its roof…in the middle of the road…with no one in it…at Bethel. So you can imagine my surprise/panic when I rounded the bend in the road and saw a car flipped over. Thankfully there was no one inside and the car had just popped out of gear, hit a light post, and flipped itself over, but it was in sad shape. I managed to step away far enough to snap a picture while I was working.

On a less intense note, I got 10th row, meet and greet tickets to Sugarland at the Target Center! I’m not saying, I’m just saying, several thousands of people had worse seats then I did! Guess how much I paid for them–if you said $0 you won! Thanks to some good friends that were nice enough to share the wealth, I got to see Sugarland live at the Target Center! It was a great ‘mini-vacation.’

I also got to take a mini-vacation last weekend. I got to go home for a day and see the family. My friend Sweendawg tagged along for the trip to see her boy play in Chicago. I decided to tag along for the trip to Chicago and got to be a tourist for the day. I told myself I wouldn’t, but I took a picture at “the Bean.” You can’t just go there and not take a picture! Also, managed to be that guy again and take a picture with a mounted police officer. Again, it is one of those things that you just can’t pass up if the opportunity is there!

This coming weekend I am taking another trip and I am pretty excited about this one too. I am headed to Las Vegas, but not for the usual gambling and partying reasons, my buddy works for the Las Vegas Metro Police Department and I am going to go hang and see if the life of a police officer is for me! I’ll be sure to keep you updated via blog and twitter!

 

Much love.

Too good of friends?!

I don’t know what it is about dogs, but they are great. So many times we have heard that they are a “man’s best friend.” Some of us are fortunate enough to experience that special bond that develops between a dog and its master. Unfortunately, for so many of us jobs, hobbies, school, or other life adventures keep us busy, too busy for a canine friend. However, just like any important relationship, those who are devoted to experiencing this special bond find ways to make it work. If you aren’t one of these people, we all know someone who is. The people that think their dog is too good for dog food so they feed it steak and mashed potatoes, or that a dog bed is too uncomfortable, so they invite it up into bed with them (I admit to both of those). You even see people driving around with their dog riding shotgun and half of the dog hanging out the window. Even then, if a person doesn’t like the idea of a dog so close to the driving controls, it is not uncommon to see a dog in the back of a pick-up truck or people that have a cage installed in the trunk of their car so that the dog can hop in the back. However, I saw something new the other day that caught my attention. What happens when it is a beautiful day and you want to ride your motorcycle to the park, but you want to bring your dog too? Well, up until now you would sacrifice the motorcycle ride and jump in your four wheel vehicle. That is until the “Honda Goldwing Canine Friendly Edition.”

Personally, I think it is a brilliant homemade contraption that gives you the best of both worlds. The experience of a joyous motorcycle ride on a beautiful day and bringing your best friend along for the ride! A little dangerous? Maybe. Does the dog have to wear a helmet? I don’t think so, but don’t quote me on that. Nevertheless, it is just another invention bringing man and his dog closer together!

much love.

failure.

This is me having plenty of time to blog, but not near enough brain power to do so.  It is four in the morning and thats a good enough excuse for me. I just had to let everyone know three blogs are in my “edit” category. I have three titles and thats about it. I will get those finished by the end of the week!

Least favorite country artist: Kenny Chesney
Amount of Jags I’ve seen resting on their roofs this week : 1
Miles on the BUSS truck right now: 105,615.4

much love.

Yogi, Smokey, or the Berenstain Bears.

 Now we have all heard Smokey the bear’s saying, “Only you can prevent forest fires,” and have seen on the local news station that during times of drought we must refrain from burning trash or having camp fires, but how many of us have actually thought that we could cause a forest fire? I never thought that, nor would I ever have thought that I would see one up close and personal.

Well, recently I have had the chance to see one. I know I said I would stop blogging about work, but this was just too unreal. Two fishermen who came to fish at “Bethel’s lake,” were fishing on the north coast of the lake, about 100 yards from Bethel housing. Apparently one of the fishermen was smoking and decided to toss his cigarette onto the ground where he was fishing. Why he choose to throw his cigarette on the dry ground instead of the lake he was fishing, the world may never know. Well, one man’s mistake caused quite a bit of damage, as seen in the pictures below.

The fishermen took off in a hurry, leaving behind their boat (which has seen better days). You can’t really tell from the pictures I took with my phone, but there is quite a bit of burnt landscape behind Bethel. The fire department got there in time so that none of the Seminary buildings were at risk, but it spread like wild-fire. You’ll have to excuse the pun, but I now know how quickly that can be and can properly use it. Alright, now I’ll try to quit blogging about events that happen at work, but no promises.

much love.

the ‘toon ride.

 

 There aren’t many days in the month of April when the weather of Minnesota is nice enough to take a boat ride, however, this night proved to be an amazing time for such an event. This picture was taken during the first week in April when the ice had just melted and Mr. K just put the pontoon out on the water! It was a great ride and I managed to take a pretty cool picture too! The sky still looks blue, the water is nice and calm. It was a great night.

 

much love.