leapinggnome.org

Hello again! Looks like another large pile of time has passed since I’ve posted. This monday will be week 3 into the new semester already. Time never ceases to move quickly. Christmas break was great. I got my ’74 Arctic Cat running (engine pictured in previous post) and my little brother and I bombed around the fields near my parents’ place. I was able to put some time into the water cooling setup for my new computer (post later) and have even had a few car problems (definite post later) since I arrived back in the UP.

I’ll leave you with a final closing thought and picture. I’d say about 8 months ago I was trying to figure out what company’s logo was the guy, sitting in his chair and being blown away by his stereo system. It’s an old logo, and it was really bothering me that I couldn’t figure it out. Well today I was burning a CD in my computer, and happened to notice the logo on the blank media! Sure enough, it’s the maxell logo and is commonly referred to as ‘Blown away’ or ‘Blow away guy.’ Man that’s a great logo (TV commercial it was marketed in, for those of you with the bandwidth).

Hello! I’m sorry for the lengthy intermission this site has been on recently…er…the last month. Things have been busy. We had a week of Thanksgiving vacation in there somewhere, and I am very thankful for it. I was going to write an entry here while I was on vacation entitled ‘6 pies and a cheesecake’, which basically describes dessert after Thanksgiving dinner at my Grandma’s. It was pretty amazing. I had two pieces of the best tasting blueberry pie I’ve ever had, and 1 piece each of a dutch apple pie and a traditional apple pie. It’s ok though, they were small pieces 😉 The week of vacation went by fast, and obviously I never got my post out here.

Anyway, my return from break saw green grass most of the way through the UP, including up here in Houghton. That didn’t last for long though — the Tuesday after we got back, snow clouds filled the sky and then opened up to cover the Copper Country in beautiful white powder. Since then, it seems like we’ve been under a winter storm warning more often than not. If I had to guess, I’d say there’s probably 2 feet on the ground at least. It’s been really nice. All the snow ‘inspired’ me to put my snowmobile back together. A heavy work load in classes this past week kept me from tinkering with it all week, but Saturday I got up early and installed the steering, put in the rear suspension and dropped the engine back in. With some help from Chris, we had it up and running (great) by 6 pm. We went out for a ride last night and it was great. No mechanical problems for either of us.

To finally reference the title of this post and the picture that goes with it, since getting my snowmobile engine and suspension off of my workbench and out of my room, things have been a little empty in here. I decided I’d bring up the engine from my old ’74 Arctic Cat I had sitting downstate. The engine for that needs to be rebuilt, so I’ll see if I can get that done (or at least mostly done) by the time Christmas break rolls around. Hopefully replacing the crankshaft end seals will breath some life back into this old 440. Even more hopefully — we’ll have a sufficiently white Christmas down in GR for me to install this engine and take the old Lynx II for a spin. That’s enough for tonight, I have schoolwork to do and sleep to catch up on.

Hello all! Monday afternoon saw our first real snow of the season, as well as our first snowstorm for winter here. We have about 2-3 inches of snow on the ground now and the lake effect snow machine is kicking in (thanks to some cold air coming from the north) to give us a couple of inches tonight. There’s definitely a buzz here in the Nutinis Apartments, as the start of the snowmobiling season seems to be just around the corner.

Speaking of winter sports, MTU Hockey is doing very well so far this year too. As of Saturday morning, Michigan Tech was ranked the #1 hockey team in the WCHA! This is an impressive feat; the hockey team has been fun to watch since I started here at Tech but they haven’t necessarily been doing well. I don’t think MTU has won a WCHA championship since the late 60’s/early 70’s. Certainly a large part in our recent success is our goalie Michael-Lee Teslak — who just happens to be ranked #1 in goalie stats for the WCHA as well. Here’s to hoping this will be the year for Tech Hockey.

Let’s see…need 1 more paragraph…ah yes. Thanksgiving break is coming up! It is a mere 1.5 weeks away and I can’t wait to head downstate to visit friends, family and pets again. It’s been since July that I was down there last, and I am really looking forward to it. MTU is kind enough to give us a whole week off classes for the Thanksgiving holiday — add that to the long list of things I have to be thankful for. House is on in a couple of minutes, so take it easy and take some time to enjoy our little winter wonderland.