My route to work takes me through a pretty busy intersection. It’s a goal of mine to make it through this intersection with as few stops as possible. I was a bit annoyed early this week when all of the cars stopped in front of me half way through the intersection. I became alarmed when the light then turned yellow with me still in the intersection and the cars in front of me only creeping forward. It then turned to humor as I saw the cause of the hold up. A large turkey was standing in the middle of the road in front of me looking far too comfortable considering how much trouble he was causing.
He finally walked into the grass on the side of the road and let the traffic go. I didn’t think any more about the turkey as I went through my normal work day until the drive home. As I pulled up to this same busy intersection I looked to my left, and there stood the turkey in the turn lane blocking all the cars that wanted to head west on their way home.
This wasn’t the first time I’ve seen turkeys in town. Around thanksgiving I saw a whole flock of turkeys hanging out by headquarters.
Now they seem to have been reduced to one lonely turkey who is considering employment for the streets department.
I kept an eye out for the turkey all the rest of the week, and I saw him each day on the way to and from work. One day he was sitting in the grass in front of Channel 2 news. Another day he was sitting right in front of the Rockwell sign as if he owned the place. One of the days when it was raining out he was sitting under a spruce tree trying to stay dry. It seemed the proper thing to do was to name the guy since he kept making appearances around town. I consulted my older sister and we finally came up with Goblin – since he gobbles and also appears to have goblin powers.
I took my camera to work today in the hopes of getting some better resolution pictures, but for the first time the whole week I didn’t see him on the drive to work. The sun was just beginning to set on the way home and I wondered if I would see him or if perhaps he had found a better home in the wild somewhere. As I drove through the busy intersection I quickly looked around at each corner and sure enough, he was sitting in the grass while cars whizzed by him in both directions. It was late enough that the turn lane wasn’t too full and I thought I could safely snap a picture of him as I pulled past. Here’s what I ended up with.
I realized it was a little fuzzy and pulled into Rockwell’s parking lot in order to turn around and get one more shot. I swung past and got another picture.
I figured I would get one more shot since the lighting was good and turned into Rockwell’s parking lot one more time. It was then that I noticed a van parked in the corner closet to the intersection where Goblin was hanging out.
The van was for news channel 2 and next to the van, was an SUV and a crate!
I wasn’t too concerned about channel 2 taking a video of the turkey that had made the intersection his home. But the crate looked like something they might try to put Goblin in and take him away. I called my older sister again for a consultation. As we talked I kept an eye on the guy with a crate and on Goblin. Suddenly I realized the crate people must be putting their plan into action because I saw a person slowly approaching Goblin from the left.
The woman approached Goblin slowly and then bent over – and took a picture of him. So it appeared the woman was not part of the Goblin attack force and was really just another photographer. Goblin didn’t appear to appreciate this attention and fluffed himself up.
Who knows what carnage would have ensued if a truck hadn’t pulled up just then and the woman jumped in and drove off.
My attention then returned to the cage people who did not appear to be in any hurry to capture Goblin. My guess was they were waiting for the dead of night to carry out their capture. My sister suggested various ways to save the turkey, like honking at it or running at it to make it go find someplace safer to live – away from crates.
But then I was distracted again by the image before me.
Goblin appeared to have intentions of crossing the road. No one has ever satisfactorily answered that nagging question of why the chicken (or in this case turkey) did cross the road. I guess I was about to find out.
Things seemed to go fine while the light was red, until…
Goblin appeared oblivious to the dangers. Cars began zipping past him as he crossed one lane, and then another.
He safely made it to the median and waited for the cars to clear before beginning the second half of her perilous trek. After the median there was the turn lane, and two straight lanes.
Goblin used the turn lane as his starting point. This stopped up all traffic in that lane as the cars zipped in front of him.
The driver of this SUV was not happy. Goblin got stopped up between the final two lanes and trucks and cars went zipping past him on both sides. I decided I would try to get one more picture of him right beside my car in the middle of the road, but he was too quick for me and made it to safety in the channel 2 news lawn before I could get over to him.
I snapped one more picture of him eating some of the apparently greener grass from this side of the road, and then headed for home.
I noticed the channel 2 news van and SUV with crate had left the Rockwell parking lot. I checked the channel 2 website in the hopes that I would see more of Goblin, but didn’t find anything. I did see this article from channel 9 around Thanksgiving of a very similar looking turkey causing similar troubles over on 32nd street.
http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/Wild-Turkey-Dodges-Traffic-in-Cedar-Rapids-134441303.html
Later that night my wife and I were driving through the same intersection. The sun had set and all you could see was the darkened lawn next to channel 2 news – and a small dark lump curled up for the night by the Rockwell parking lot.
I figured it’s finally time I should post about our trip to Florida. No, we didn’t get to see a Space Shuttle launch – maybe next year – but we still had a great time. And so, I present Andrew and Laura’s Florida trip.
I like to have goals when traveling. The following were a few of our goals for this trip.
#1 See the space shuttle Endeavour launch during our stay – live – as in not on TV – in person
#2 Visit the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
#3 Go to at least one beach (Laura hadn’t ever been to the beach)
#4 Parasail (It was Laura’s Idea…really)
#5 Swamp Tour – And hopefully see an Alligator
#6 Relax
#7 Not get sunburned
#8 See a space shuttle launch
#9 Eat ice cream with Jenna’s money after seeing a space shuttle launch
The space shuttle was our main goal for the week, but as many of you probably know, it was the only goal that we didn’t accomplish. Other than that, I have to say it was a very successful trip. Here’s a visual summary of everything we did.
Thursday – Departure
We flew on an MD-80 with Allegiant Air
I took a picture of the cockpit so I could see our initial heading
Friday – Recover from Travel
Strange ducks that lived at our resort
Saturday – First Launch Attempt Scrubbed
No pictures – but seriously who wants to see a grown man cry 
Saturday – Parasailing
Pictures coming in part II since I have to scan those in (didn’t want to take the digital camera 800 feet in the air)
Saturday – Atlantic Ocean
Pictures coming in part II since I also didn’t want to risk the digital on the beach.
Sunday – Swamp Tour
I can't remember any names - so this is a bird taking off
A tall white bird
Baby alligators running away from us
Year old alligator swimming away
This guy totally could have eaten the Ern alive - good thing he didn't get to come
A cow hanging out by the Alligator lake
We found a Lamborghini on the way home and I insisted we get pictures!
Spook Hill
Ok Spook Hill needs some explanation. There is a legend that in the old days, farmers found that their horses were actually struggling to pull wagons DOWN HILL. And thus the name “Spook Hill” was given to the hill. I heard of it, and since it wasn’t too far from the swam we went to, I figured we’d stop by. The picture doesn’t show it as much as a video (and maybe that’ll be in Part II) but basically what you see the the picture shows a road going down to a dip and then climbing. If you drive to the dip in the road and put your car in nuteral – it will actually roll backwards “Uphill”. Of course the truth of the matter is that the dip is an illusion. Notice you cannot actually see the skyline. So that was Spook Hill!
Monday – Rest Day
Laura didn't get to see the white sands beach - so we had to do with golf course white sand
Phase 10 took up much of our rest day
These guys were everywhere, we made a special trip with our camera just to photograph them
Tuesday (Day) – Kennedy Space Center Tour
Coming in Part II – in order to build suspense!
Tuesday (Night) – Second Launch Attempt Scrubbed
Ok – here’s the closest you get to see my cry
At this point - I just wanted to go to bed
Wednesday – Rest Day
You can't have a rest day without Krispy Kreme
Then we went to Disney World (since we were resting)
Saw Epcot
And rode the tram - well ok we saw the tram
Ok so we didn’t actually go INTO Disney World – that’s not really important though is it?
Thursday – Fly back Home
Big storms moving through just before we take off - That's our plane through the window!
Wonderful view from our plane!
That’s something worth remembering!
And I must end with this completely cute picture of Laura!
Laura in our apartment / hotel room
When we got home – The Ern did not appear to have missed us or even realized that we were gone…
The Ern is Out
I want to see a space shuttle launch.
I’ve always wanted to see a space shuttle launch
When I was younger, I used to wake up at 3 in the morning just so I could watch the space shuttle launch or land.In fact, I would sleep in the TV room with my digital watch smashed between my head gear (for my teeth) and my ear.That way I would hear my alarm go off and wouldn’t have to get up but could just turn the TV on.
Alex and I used to take cardboard box lids and draw “complicated” gauges and dials on them and number pads and position them all around us as we lay on the floor and did simulated rocket launches.
I watched Space Camp and the Challenger Investigation video so much that the VHS tapes were almost burnt up.
I would record hours and hours of NASA TV on tapes and not let ANYONE touch them because I might just want to watch that launch or landing again.Incidentally, I’ve never watched any of those VHS videos again, but I kept them, just in case
During college my desire didn’t go away, but got preempted by the less exciting but more important aspects of education.I did however get the chance to see an Astronaut speak once and watched as many launches as I could be near my computer for.
When I heard that the space shuttle was going to be retired in 2010 I resolved in my heart to see a launch before I it retired.Last year at Iowa State, with the help of family, Laura and I decided that we would try to go see a launch sometime this year.What with her school and scheduling a trip around a particular launch, it’s been difficult to get the trip off the ground.
This week, the pieces are finally falling into place.Actually the first piece fell into place last summer when my parents graciously gave us permission to use their resort in Orlando for our vacation.This was for my Birthday last year on June 1.I also got some graduation money from other relatives and placed it in the “Florida” fund. It didn’t work out to go down that summer (2008) because of my new job and I was already taking time off for Boundary Waters.During the school year, it’s almost impossible to get Laura a week off, so that left this summer 2009.
As the winter months ticked by I watched the launch schedule weekly if not daily.Unfortunately, there were no launches scheduled for this summer.There was one in May, and one in August, but none in June or July when school was out.About 3 months ago, I noted that they had scheduled the Hubble mission (STS-125) right over top of STS – 127 in May.This seemed odd to me as it’s impossible to launch two shuttles at the same time.I decided it must mean they were going to delay one of the two missions into the summer gap.I found out the double schedule was because the Hubble mission was not for sure yet.NASA didn’t want to commit to it in case the Hubble broke down again (as it did last year right before they had tried to launch this mission).If that happened, then the Hubble mission was off, and STS-127 would be in May and there would potentially be no summer launch for me to go see.If the Hubble mission did go ahead, the STS-127 mission would delay to June 13th.
Perfect, right in the middle of the summer.Now I had my potential date, but nothing is for sure with NASA.Dad and I made several plans, but couldn’t solidify any of them until the Hubble mission actually launched and we could be fairly sure that STS-127 would be in June.
On Monday I watched with great excitement the launch of STS-125, the Hubble mission.I was happy, not only because I like watching shuttle launches, but because this began to pave the way for me to view the June 13th launch.On another front, I had been watching Allegiant Air’s ticket prices from Cedar Rapids to Orlando for the June 11th flight.They had been as high as $149 per person per way and had been steadily coming down as the 30 day mark came closer.I had watched the site enough to know that they usually went to $69 per person per day about 30 days out and that was about as good as you were going to get.
Sure enough, last week they went to $69.But the launch hadn’t happened yet, I didn’t want to order my tickets and then have the Hubble mission get delayed.So this week, after we had a successful Hubble mission launch, I ordered my tickets and Dad reserved the resort.I reserved a car the next day which only left the actual tickets for viewing the launch left to buy.
I happened to go to the site that was selling the tickets on Tuesday, the day after the Hubble mission launched.Now I had been to the site before, but it had always be advertising tickets for the Hubble mission, and they don’t sell tickets for any other mission except the one that’s coming up next.Tuesday they finally updated their site to get ready for the STS-127 ticket sale event.It is, in fact, an event similar to buying tickets to see a really really good movie that has been anticipated for about 5 years.The reason being is that they only sell about 2000 tickets per launch.“Two thousand, that sounds like a lot” you say.I thought that too, until I read some people’s stories online about trying to buy tickets and having them sell out within minutes – MINUTES – of going on sale.Also, people warned that you have to get ALL THE WAY through the purchase process and get a confirmation email before you’re guaranteed to have your tickets.In other words, clicking buy doesn’t reserve the tickets for you.Clicking confirm at the end of the purchase form does.So you have to get all the way through the form before everyone else does in order to get your tickets.
The message on the site Tuesday said “Tickets will go on sale on Wednesday at 9:00 AM EST.”I figured the whole “selling out in minutes” was probably an exaggeration, but I wasn’t going to take that chance.I got in to work at my usual 7:15 this morning and first thing set an alarm for 7:55.I wrote out all my information into a notepad document and double checked it all so that I could just copy and paste the fields into the order form when it became available.I went to the website and hit refresh a couple of times.I got the “Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 AM EST” message again so I knew I had to wait.
7:55 came and my alarm went off.
I pulled up an online clock of Greenwich mean time adjusted to central standard time so I would know exactly when it went to 8:00AM (9:00 EST).I hit refresh every minute and got the same “Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 AM EST” message.At 7:59 I started hitting refresh every 20 seconds, just in case they let us in early.
“Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 AM EST”
At 7:59:50 I hit refresh every second.
“Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 AM EST”
I remembered what people had said about being part of the way through buying their tickets and having them sell out.My hands began to shake as I held the mouse.
I hit refresh at 8:00 AM – the page changed.The message now said “Buy Now!”I selected the ticket I wanted and the purchase form came up.
Now my hands were really shaking.I realized in my haste to have everything ready, I had totally forgotten to type my address out beforehand.Quickly I typed and double checked my address.I copy and pasted my credit card information and selected 2 tickets (one for me, and one for Laura).
I hit submit.
I looked at the clock – it was 8:03AM
I waited for two seconds.
Then, the confirmation page came up.I checked my email, and sure enough, I was confirmed two tickets had been purchased.I double checked everything again just to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake in my haste but everything looked good.
Phew well I guess those people saying everything sells out in two minutes were exaggerating right?
I went back to the main page and hit refresh again – the page now read SOLD OUT
It was 8:04AM
Ernie got to spend most of Saturday over at Mom and Dad’s causing trouble. Mostly he just runs around the kitchen-living room-dining room circle about 10 times and then gets tired and lays down in whichever room is most full of people.
Ernie has severe anxiety about the rapture happening while he’s not in the room so he has to always move rooms if his people do and this leads to him not getting much rest during the day if people are around.
We had steak for dinner and The Kid was bad and fed Ern some steak fat. He didn’t tell him this until Sunday morning – AFTER Ernie threw up…
The Kid doesn’t get my computer anymore if I die.
Anyway, Ernie didn’t feel good at all Sunday and mostly just layed around looking at Laura and me and making us do things for him with his big eyes. Stuff like carry him outside to go to the bathroom and giving him extra cheese for his breakfast.
Here’s a picture of the Ern looking pathetic, even though it’s not from Sunday – you get the idea.
The good news is, Ern seems a little better this morning…
Ernie is our dog. He’s pretty high maintenance in that he is very needy and has to be in the same room as any humans in the apartment and if he’s not, then he howls expressing his fealing that the world is coming to an end. But that feature of Ernie will be demostrated in a later video.
Today’s video exibits the Ern’s hatred for air blowing on his face. This was realized years ago when he was a puppeh. Last week Laura was blowing up our exersise ball and realized that Ernie was extrememly anxious about the foot pump that blew up the ball. It was blowing air on him and he didn’t like it. We grabbed the camera and got some great reactions from him. Enjoy.
I figured I would take a few moments this morning (now that I’ve got my disclaimer out of the way) to introduce myself into the blogosphere.
My name is Andrew and I live in the beautiful Midwest of the US of A. I have a lovely wife name Laura and we have a dog named Ernie. My family is mostly addicted to blogging and everyone except for myself, Laura and Ernie had a blog. My sister Jenna decided it was high time I entered the great world of bloggers and so she kindly set up this blog for me.
That is the origin of this blog, the title of the blog (I Analyze Things) was also set by Jenna, but feeling comfortable with the fact that I do indeeed analyze things, I don’t plan on changing it. Whether I actually analyze things on this blog or not has yet to be seen.
Hey it's me!
The Family
This picture introduces those who will most likely be referenced in this blog. On the left is my wife Laura, next is myself (after I cut off that hair from the previous picture). Next is Stephen and Ashley Nicole my brother-in-law and sister. Mom is next followed by Dad. Jenna and Joey, my other sister and brother-in-law are next, and my brother alex who can’t decide if he wants to be negative (the thumbs down) or positive (the smiling face) today.
This picture was taken just before we headed into the great wilderness of the Boundary Waters which you can read about on my sister Jenna’s blog where she has tons of pictures and great comments about the trip.
