Snoeshow during the storm

Hal writes:

For those of you who don't live in the Midwest or the east coast, there was a snow storm that went through the heartland last week. On Sunday I walked through the woods to RD Jen's place to watch the Wisconsin Badger BBall came with some friends and took my camera along. Below is a "self portrait" of me as I began my journey.

In the woods I found some animal tracks and a few different places where animals had slept through the storm. It's hard to see the footprints below, but this looked to be a small rabbit's shelter for the evening. You can see how its little body warmed up the snow beneath it until the snow melted down to the grass.

The woodwork below is in preparation for the bridge that will link my halls to the other halls and the dining hall. The bridge will be a single span when fully in place, the wood is just to hold up the three sections of bridge until it is welded together. Once complete, the posts will be knocked out from underneath it. I walked right by the bridge and had to duck walk my way up the hill on the other side.

I found a stump during my walk to set the camera on to take a timed delay photo. Every try running in snow shoes for your own picture in the middle of the woods? I wouldn't recommend this. One false move and the wolves would have had me for dinner.

I decided not to post the photos of what my students made out of the newly fallen snow as it may prevent you from viewing this blog if your web browser screens for inappropriate material. Jim's post indicates similar snow structures were erected on his campus, so maybe it's a UW thing...

Tastefully Simple meets Cage Dancing

Hal writes:

I tend to write about my co-workers a great deal, which makes sense because in addition to working with them during the day this is also my core group of friends in Platteville. And since most of us are "E's" on the Myers-Briggs type indicator, we draw our energy from group activities.

Thursday night was sign-up night for housing on campus. I already completed the process for my hall two weeks earlier, but the other halls had an internal sign-up process in their halls earlier in the week. The Thursday night was for students who wanted to move to different halls on campus for next year. Unlike in past years where this occurred in the individual halls, we decided to have all of us in the basement of the dining hall for sign-up. Since my building was full, I played crowd control, line monitor, and joke teller to the people who were waiting in line to sign up. To make sure everyone knew I was in charge, I wore my ref jersey for the occasion.

After an evening of worked up students, it was time to relax. The RDs started off the evening with sampling of items from the Tastefully Simple catalogue. In the past couple of years, we have had a few parties and we are all familiar with the products, so this time we just made a number of items for people to eat and handed out order sheets. Pictured below was the "dip area" where you can see Anna made cards to let you know which dip was "Onion Onion", "Fiesta Party Dip", etc., etc. If you would like to order some wonderful products from Tastefully Simple, I would suggest placing an order with our consultant by clicking here.

As I have probably mentioned before, my hall is not 100% complete. Prior to students moving in this past fall there was a flurry of activity to get the things that "need" to get done completed prior to student arrival. The rest of items on the punch list are not, as my friends in maintenance would say, a "priority". One of those items was a storage space for me. Each RD has a storage space in the basement, but Anna and I have been without one since we moved to the new building. But new developments have occurred, and the construction of a cage is almost complete in our basement. After eating tastefully simple, the RDs went to the forbidden basement for some cage dancing, which consisted of a CD player, a strobe light, and what will one day be the RD storage. Pictured below are my colleagues in the cage.

Among the fun treasures to find amidst the basement was a button that is an emergency shutdown for some machinery in the basement. Below Stef and Matt and playing "Deal or No Deal" with the button. What do you think? Deal or No Deal?

Anna was unable to attend the coffee convention in Chicago due to weather. Her and her coworkers only made it a few miles out of town last night before turning back. But I am happy to report my parents made it back from their "spring break" trip in Florida.

Family filled weekend

Hal writes:

This weekend Anna and I went to the Twin Cities. Dale is skiing the Birkebeiner ski race (whether permitting) and flew in from California this weekend. Sandy and Kat came down as well, so we got to spend some time together. Of course, no trip to the cities would be complete without a trip to IKEA.

Additionally, my parents and grandma were flying down to Florida for the week, so I met up with them at Jay's new house. Lindsay was also in town for the MIAC swim race. She brought me some Career Builder merchandise as she is now employed with the company. (I'm a little sad that they monkey commercials are no more...)

In addition to seeing Jay and Tabby's new house, I got to play with Alex and Haily. This picture below was taken in between "flying" the kids around the rooms. As you can see from the background, there is some more painting to do. The curtains in the background and the bedspread we are on were made by my mom for Alex's room.

When Anna and I first moved to Platteville, I was excited to find Sprecher root beer in the local grocery store. Shortly there after, they stopped carrying the Milwaukee beverage, and I became bitter. Jim got me hooked on the stuff in grad school and I had hoped that moving to Wisconsin would provide an abundant supply. In a surprise move, I checked in the soda section this past week and I found that the root beer is back. Hooray!

Happy Valentine's Day

Hal writes:

Well, that had to be the longest dry spell in between blogs that we've had. I was talking with Jim about how I'm just not sure if people check this or not, be he assured me inquiring and curious minds are always prevelant, and that people do check in with us from time to time.

I am happy to report I am sleeping much better after getting through my hall sign-up process for next year and RA placements that occured on Monday. I found myself last night feeling like I was forgetting something, simply because it was evening and I was not working. I don't know what I am going to do with myself once my living space and office are not a few feet from each other.

Anna and I celebrated Valentine's Day a day early (in part to her working at the coffee shop last night), but it was nice to enjoy the evening in a quiter atmosphere than what the actual evening would have brought. We went down to Galena and enjoyed a meal at Vinny Vanucchi's, one of a fewItallian restaurants in the area. There were a handful of post-college to 30 something couples in the restaurant with us, probably having the same idea of avoiding the crowds. The food was ok, but I think we prefer Fried Green Tomatoes as the restaurant of choice in Galena. Below is a picture of us in the restaurant, but unfortunately the camera was on the wrong setting, so the picture isn't that clear.


Outside of the restaurant was this poor little lion. The icicles made it look like he had a cold with a snotty nose. It humored me enough to take a picture.
Anna created some Valentine's Day cupcakes for her classmates in the PT program. Here they are on display with the cupcake display rack that Anna's grandma got her for Christmas.


This afternoon I have my yearly employee evaluation. Last year about this time I had my first evaluation which only covered September - December of my first semester here, but now my supervisors have a whole year's worth of dirt on me. Hopefully they will want to hire me back for next year. ;)

Up north for the weekend

Hal writes:

This weekend Anna and I went up north to visit both families. Our first stop was at an outlet mall on the way up for some good deals (multiple $4 items at the GAP!) before getting to Shell Lake to see Anna's mom and Kat. The next morning we went to a local Scandanavian imports store that was closing. Everything was 50% off and it was the last day so there were deals to be found. I walked away with two Scandanavian sweaters direct from Norway and we both found some other treasures. After our shopping adventure we had lunch at Alley Cats, a coffee shop in Spooner.


"But baby, it's cold outside..." Brrr, not the best weekend to head north. While in Spooner there were activities for "Jack Frost Days". Here is a picture of the temperature at high noon.

In addition to Ice Fishing, snowmobile races, and other winter games, I also participated in some winter contests. Below is me attempting to Turkey Bowl on the frozen lake. I chose the Butterball in an attempt to knock down the pins. The first few tosses were wide left, but after the turkey and I came to an understanding, I was able to knock a few down. Next up came the four hole golf course on the frozen lake. You can see the tire and flag on the left acting as the hole and pin. Clubs are the same, but we used colorful nerf balls that you can see in the snow. But, as cold as it was, I only completed one hole.
After Wisconsin we were up in Minnesota to visit my parents for the rest of the weekend. In addition to Valentine's Day presents, my mom put together a shadow box of items from my second marathon (medal, newspaper clippings, pictures, etc.). And my dad made it known that he added the bracket on the back to be able to hang it up on the wall. ;)

This week has been very busy for me with hall sign-up processes. Last night I was up to 1am working on consolidation. I enjoy this type of work, but I can go without the nightmares I have been having where I mess up the process and my supervisor yells at me. No fun!

RA Interviews

Hal writes:

We are currently on our third day of interview RA candidates. It is a tiring process to continually do 30 minute interviews back to back, but since we are having all of the interviews take place in my hall, I can sneak back to my apartment for an occasional break. Here is a picture of me and one of my RAs welcoming candidates. Who wouldn't want to be an RA candidate after looking at a photo like this?

My parents bought us a wine rack for a Christmas present, but the first one they bought us had some parts break during the shipping process. We finally got a new one shipped (only one part broken that I was able to fix) and Anna and I put it together. Looks like we may have to go wine shopping to fill up some of the empty spaces...

Anna returned last Friday and began school this week. Here is a photo of some flowers that were waiting for her when she returned. They have been in the apartment for a week and still look nice. This was also an attempt to take a photo with a special setting for up-close photos.

Back to more RA interviews...