Another great day!

Hej! today has been great so far. we walked all around Gothenburg today & it is a very wonderful city.
but we're about to eat... again, which i am really starting to like. Oh, you may ask about my walk from last night and are wondering if we did go swimming? yes, we did. BRRRRR the harbor was a tad bit chilly . & the wind was strong, but it was worth it.
well, bright & early tomorrow morning we are off to Stockholm. should be a good time.

later!

Scandanavia Lands!

WOW! i must say, i liked Iceland quite a bit. it was a little chilly & a lotta windy, but when we went to the "blue lagoon" to enjoy they natural hot springs, it was amazing! Copenhagen on saturday was very nice as well. i loved it too, very beautiful & it was very warm. ... i was unfortunately in the shower while the sunscreen was being passed around and missed out. I was very red at the end of the day. We got to Gothenburg, Swededn last night at about midnight, & well it wasn't completely dark yet. The sun sets really late...about 11:00 & i doesn't go completely black, its so weird. & today after church we had an amazing Swedish lunch & then went an island up north & visited and old army fort, very sweet!
well, it is almost midnight & my cousin & i are about to go on a walk & maybe even take a dip in the ocean.. wish me luck!

for those of you that care, i am doing great & do rememeber you! :)

hej da!

I Fly Like Paper!

In less than 22 hours from right now, I will be as high as the plane that will be flying me away from this land that I live in and be on my way to a land where my ancestors once lived.

if you want to know how i feel about going to Sweden tomorrow, I'll tell you that i feel just like I look in this picture! (if you are unable to tell how i feel in this picture due to the lack of sound, i'll tell you)

Jag är mycket glada!!!! (translation: I am very excited)

Be sure to check back over the next week and a half as i will surely be updating, as often as i can, with the events that i will be encountering!

Hej då!

Look out Sweden, Here I Come!

I'M GOIN' TO SWEDEN!!

On this coming Thursday evening I will be boarding a plane with my sister Jen & cousin Lisa and the three of us will be on our way to Sveriege, and I am VERY EXCITED!!

I don't want to know how fill w/ anticipation this week is going to be because as I sit and think about my trip, I am already very anxious and can't relax one bit. I have 3.5 days of work that I need to get through before I leave & do believe that it will unfortunately end up being a bit stressful. With my boss leaving the company last week, my work load has grown just a tad, actually a lot. I spent 4 hours at work today trying to get somewhat organized so I won't end up staying too late on Thursday and missing my flight... ooh, can't think about that possibility. Whatev.

In order to get ready for my Sweden trip, I've been taking Swedish lessons off and on for about the past 6 months, gotta love the PimsleurApproach. I'm by no means fluent, but I do think I will be able to ask any woman, with confidence, if she'd like to eat dinner at my place :) I've also been listening to some Swedish rockers so I will be hip to the local music scene..... or maybe a few of my favorite bands this past year just happen to be from Sweden and I won't be too hip, who knows? Anyways, check out these bands: ShoutOutLouds, Peter,Bjorn&John and TakenByTrees. I like them all, they are good!
Oh, and I really like SigurRos who are not from Sweden but from Iceland. We'll have a 8-10 hr layover there so we'll be able to go out enjoy some scenery & I'm very excited about that too!!!

Alarm Clocks

My alarm didn't go off today. I think i need a new one. It just doesn't seem to work like it used to. I remember waking up at 4:48 and checking to see if i had actually set the alarm for 4:44, which i did but i had missed it. I set it for 5:05 and never heard from it again. i am usually at work by 6:30 or 7:00 at the latest, today i woke up at 7:16 thanks to my roommate knocking on my door to check if i was alive. Now traffic is REALLY going to suck.

do they make alarms that send an electric current through your bed? maybe i just need a bigger, louder clock to get me going each morning. does anyone know of any great alarm clocks?

Impossibly Addictive!

It all started as a typical cold, cloudy, rainy & very dreary Mother's Day Eve. After i did some "people watching" w/ my sis, i arrived home to find my roommate, brad, in front of the television watching sports. i joined in because of my love for baseball, futbol & hockey. As we were both slowly losing interest with the Twins losing to Boston, I was struck with something. Ouch! A Rubber Band! I picked up that little strand of rubber and deflected it off the ceiling only to hit brad in the knee, i don't think that hurt too bad. Now, with his eyes shooting flames of anger combined with his stellar physics knowledge, he shot at the ceiling which then led to the rubber band getting me square on the top of my head, nice shot. i shot back, missed. The Twins were now looking kind of like dead fish, we lost focus on the hockey & this little game of shooting each other was now boring. Brad then points his finger in the direction of Brando's statue that is resting on the mantle (the statue that represents the horrible "Trail of Tears" that the Cherokee Nation suffered so many years ago) and says, "do you think i can get the rubber band around his head?"

We took a few turns shooting our one rubber band, missing the statue and then getting up to walk the 10 feet to pick that band up once again. This went on a good 7-12 "rounds" when i remembered that i have a stash of rubber bands in my room (i open the mail at work each day and it is bound with many rubber bands. i come home every day with 2-3 bands on my wrist). I came back upstairs with a few handfuls of bands and we continued to try and "Ring the Rider" (patent pending) and have continued to try every night since that crazy Saturday. Have we rung that rider you ask? Well, Brando has even joined in on the challenge a few times and with all three of us getting scars & bloody thumbs, the answer is..... NO, we haven't.

This game is IMPOSSIBLY ADDICTIVE!

We have shot a few thousand rubber bands over the past 4 days and not once have we been able to "Ring the Rider". If you think you have the rubber band shooting skills to do so, come on over to 3dudesplace and show us what you've got!

People Watching

How many times have you found yourself "people watching"? for me its been about....hmmm, roughly 1,456 times. The past couple of days i've seen some very memorable cases. Last night i had one of the better mullet sightings of my life! it was somewhat similar to the attached photo, and it was great!

This morning i was sitting at the MOA with my sister and saw many a memorable folk walking past. As we sat discussing life and throwing in various comments of people that we saw pass by, she reminded me of when we were younger and would sit with my dad and "people watch", he has taught us so much of the important things in life :) but I really do enjoy it. it is never the same, each person is so very different than the person that passed by the minute before. It never gets old!..(unless you're people watching in a crowd of like 5 people, that gets old tooquickly)

I kinda want to go back to the mall right now, just to smile & enjoy the the variety of wonderful people in this world. but as i think about going somewhere with the intent to "people watch" and enjoy the "funny looking" people in particular, i can't help but think, "who is there to 'watch' me?"

Grilled Pork Burgers = Deliciousness

i love grilling!

tonight i went to my normal wednesday night guy's group, this week we were at nick's place. He was grilling in the back yard & asked as i walked out, "have you ever had a pork burger?" my response was, "nope" then he asked me if i would like to try one to which i responded with a very energetic "Would I!?" he then told us how these burgers were really good and he hoped we'd like them.

Moments later his wife came home and asked the same question as nick had moments earlier. After the both of them had told us how much they like these burgers and that the ONLY place you can get them (pre-seasoned, frozen & made with love) is a small meat shop (i don't remember it's name) in Jordan, MN. They were starting to feel as if they talked these pork burgers up just a little too much and said that it would be ok if we didn't like them. (just as everyone does when they have something that they love and really hope others will like but don't want them to feel that they must eat it just to polite regarding the feelings of the people doing the recommending)


the time came to eat the pork burger, i was very excited to try it. my burger was topped with 3 slices of melted cheese, ketchup, lettuce and was set between two wonderfully sesame seed covered buns. i took a bite.... and it was just as great as it had been described.

well done Tessler family, well done.

What's the Deal?

Hooray for Tuesdays!!

What's the deal with monkeys? why do they never cease to make people smile?

anyways, as another week is now under way i have a few questions that have come to mind. What's the deal with people not being able to communicate? don't we live in a world that has countless forms of communication? aren't e-communicatios supposed to save time and help us get things done in a timely manner? how is it that there are still thousands upon thousands of miscommunications per day? I'm not complaining about any one person in particular and if you think i am writing about you, you are straight up wrong. I just think it is strange that no matter how many people you communicate with in a day, there are always going to be a few people who don't understand what you are trying to communicate. Maybe someone skipped a word while reading (i've never done that) or maybe someone skipped a word while typing (i've never that either) or you wrote something with a little bit of sarcasm that was read by someone who has no sense of humor and the you suddenly realize that you shouldn't be communicating with someone if they don't have a sense of humor because they are lame! i dont' get it, what's the deal?

Will there ever be a day when all communication is smooth and wonderful, like the communications of the future that i dreamt about as a young boy? what's the deal? when will be be able to communicate via holographic message like in one of the star wars movies? whats the deal? when will we be able to talk to someone and be absolutely 100% positive that they for sure understand what we are trying to say when we say it in the most down to earth, common sensicle explanation ever possible? what's the dillio? why is so hard to communicate in such a communicable world? do you think we will ever solve this eternal mystery?

Turkey Time

This weekend i went turkey hunting for the first time in my life. I had never been hunting until last fall when two of my pally pals, Brad & Cliff introduced me to pheasant & grouse hunting. I have never hit a bird, but when the idea of turkey hunting came up i was all in!. Going into this weekend i had strange feeling.... no, not a strange feeling...um.... let me rephrase, i KNEW i was going to shoot a turkey and the anticipation had me bouncing off the walls for weeks, even more so when i woke up saturday morning at 4:37am, 3 minutes before my alarm!

It was 5:11am and the three of us were already running 11 minutes late. we started the 3/4 mile walk to our "spot" on a morning that was very brisk, with a temp around 30 degrees (i didn't actually check, but it sure was cold). Brad and I were on a mission to get set up, Cliff had a heavy bag and small boots (in other words, he was a ways behind us). As we crossed the creek and doubled back i looked back across the creek and noticed Clifford standing still. I asked him how he was doing and he said to me, in a whispering shout, "can you help me, i'm stuck!" I dropped my decoys & gun on the ground and hustled back to help him get out of the very wet, sloppy mud. You may ask how myself & Brad had made it through without slowing down. Well, as i mentioned before, Cliff had a "heavy"(as he called it) bag and small boots so he had more weight and less of a base for that weight to be distributed over the wet mud causing him to sink right in.
After a few minutes, we were all on the move again. We get to our destination at about 5:38-5:40am (roughly), set up the decoys & our blind and took a seat beneath a very old & large Oak tree. We were all camoflauged up and started with a couple of hen calls... Nothing. after a little bit (about6:45am) we heard a gobble off to the Northeast. Cliff & Brad started calling the old Gobbler in. As it got a little closer i asked them, "who gets the shot?" Since I was was still a beginner hunter & had never shot anything, they told me i had first shot, to which i am very greatful (thanks guys). As the turkey got closer and closer, gobbling in response to one of our calls every 5-10 minutes i started to get a tad excited, visually. I started shifting around in anticipation of shooting a turkey! I was shaking ever so slightly when Cliff whispered to me, "he's coming out of the woods." I leaned over my already drawn shotgun and waited for him to get in clear view, after i had waited for him to get with in 20 yards (what seemed like forever!) i took a deep breath, held the gun somewhat steady and pulled the trigger! I HIT HIM!!! i was so excited seeing that turkey drop to the ground! I was not 100% sure if i had hit him well enough to kill him, i jumped up and was ready to put him out of his suffering but was quickly reminded by my trusty hunting companions that it was just nerves and he was already dead. At that point, it was 7:30am on our first day and i had just got my turkey, i was SO pumped!

We headed in to get breakfast and to register my bird. Hits stats were:
weight: 19 pounds, beard: 9 1/2" and spurs: 3/4". He was a 2 year old Tom. I fileted him up and got 8 pounds of meat from his legs & breast.

I was just a "tag along" the rest of the day as we kept on trying to get Brad and Cliff some birds, to which we were actually successful. It was 7:30pm (we had until 8:21pm to shoot for the day) and we decided to call a few more times to see if were could get a turkey to come in towards us just as Cliff was getting very anxious and couldn't relax any more... yep, as antsy as i was throughout the day, i wasn't the one that couldn't take another minute of sitting in the woods. we soon heard a bird gobble to the northwest of us. we called him, he was then directly west and a little closer. we called again and i heard him even closer and just southwest of us when i heard brad (behind me) whisper, "there's two up on the hill" i turned around and directly to the east there were 2 toms coming across the field (about 200 yds out). we kept calling and they kept coming. Brad noticed 2 more a little further behind them to the north as well. What the heck! its 8:00, we have 21 minutes to shoot for the day and we had 5 birds very close to us, but were they going to get within shooting range before 8:21? i was shaking more than i had been when i was about to shoot mine (partially out of excitement and partially because i was freezing cold) as we kept calling them in. Finally, 2 of them came over the hill between 2 of our decoys (well within shooting range) as they poked around and stayed close to eachother Cliff shot, HIT! dead turkey! the other tom jumped (i would too if whoever was standing next to me was shot) and was about 10 feet from his "pal" and Brad shot, HIT! not dead, the bird was running away, limping badly. Brad shot again (as the bird is running away, yep, in the back. brad is such a coward, who shoots something in the back? ha) and this time, the bird went down & was dead!! what time was it? 8:18pm!! we had our 3 birds! in one day!! and with 3 minutes to spare!!








































WE ARE THE BEST TURKEY HUNTERS EVER!!!


















(my turkey was not available for this photo)

It was awesome and as i sit here typing, my heart is racing and i'm super excited for the next time i go turkey hunting!!

GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!!!!

Oooogity Whoop!

My oh my, today was just a wee little CRAZY! It all started with getting up & out of bed at 5:15am after only hitting the snooze 4 times (big accomplishment as of the late). i got to work at 6:34am and the day was off to a quick start, even though there was only one other person in the building for the next hour. The day could not have gone by any faster than it was going and i didn't think there could be any more fires that could possibly start (it is truly a rare occasion when i feel like a professional fire fighte, but today was that day) when yet i had one more fellow co-worker bring another wonderful techology problem my way.

It is now 8:45 am and i'm starting to shake from my 2 cups of coffee that each have 1 creamer packet of irish cream and a 5 count pour of sugar into my cup (I count each of those 5 seconds in my head as "one mississppi, two mississippi, three mississippi, four mississippi, FIVE mississippi" all while trying to sound like the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show (an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbs64GvGgPU )). I like my 2 cups in the morning, even though i was told by a Dr. a few years back to stay away from caffeine, oh well. ... Anyways, I sit down in my office and all buy 5 minutes later i have my visiting manager from our downtown office asking me where a good Chinese place is so he can order lunch without having to leave the office. Really?... couldn't he see that i had my boots & fire fighting helmet on with face sheild down? how am i supposed to know where a chinese place is? so, i sent a few emails out to some co-workers to see if there were any recomendations (hoping that someone was a preferred customer and would have everything taken care of for me or at least maybe they had favorite food item to tell me to order) all i got was one response out of 5 but nothing else. I had to google the only 3 places that were close to get a phone # or menu or something. I called "the jade fountain at 9:38am and it rang FOR.E.V.E.R and there was no answer, again 10:14am, no answer. I bring this info to my Mngr & he says to me he does, "this is good, but i need to get from A to Z, right now i'm at L,M,N. gotta get to Z" (it didn't come across as bad as it does now as i write this. he's a good Mngr) dang. so again send out an email asking "my 5" for some help. maybe they can find some menus around, give them to our Mngr or just take this might task off my hands. they all jump on board but unfortunately everyone has come up short. ugh. so i again go to my good friend mr. google and look for an office catering place i had used a few years back. sure enough within 5 minutes i had lunch ordered for the office and had stomped out one little campfire... oh then i see an email that our normal "lunch ordering lady" had sent me since she was out of the office. the email was a receipt for a lunch that was already coming in... OOPS, two lunches (each able to feed about 20) and with one team in AZ there were only 17 of us in the office today... and yes, i did try to cancel one of the lunches but it was too late. oh well. Dang.

the day just kept right on moving and i had more and more people asking me the same questions that they've been asking me for the past week and i kept telling them, "i know, i've done everything that i can. It is out of my hands, i can't go any higher. ... yes, i can try calling tech support yet again but it won't do any good. there is a problem with the system and we're working on it. please be patient? thanks :)" which is pretty much what i've been telling them for the past week. BOO for technology & being in charge of it for an office!

before i know it is is 4:08pm and i remember that i have a chiropractic appointment at 4:30. Yikes! gotta go gotta go!! .... really, i had to hit the water closet before i went to have my body all twisted and popped back into place. when i get the the chiro about 5 minutes later (its just down the street from the office) and am walking in i noticed that it is REALLY nice out, i was inside all day and it looked so crappy i just thought it was crappy. nope. 68 and a nice breeze.
back indoors i am now on a chiro bed with hot packs on my back and electro shock shooting through me i am finally starting to relax (yes, sometimes i can) when the Dr. comes in and starts pushing and twisting me in not so relaxing ways. done, on the road. traffic sucks. I just CAN'T RELAX!

as i get home and think of how there is still a chance, a dreamful wish, one small glimmer on the horizon that i will be able to relax tonight. Then it hits me like a cows hoof to the side of the head, THE OFFICE AND LOST are on tonight!!! OooOgiTY WHOOP!!!