blog reader kristen

My journey into Twilight the Movie, and other movie related paraphernalia

January 5, 2009

Friday 11/21 was a day was the day I had been waiting three long weeks for. I bought my Twilight movie ticket online in advance in order to get a free iTunes download of a special “Bella’s Lullaby” remix. Since I didn’t already have a date for the evening I talked Renee into seeing it with me. I practically had to twist her arm. Here’s what I posted afterward on the cklahr forum:

Here is my experience (no spoilers, or anything specific about it for that matter)

Twilight definitely did not disappoint. I thought they did a great job adapting it, but am still glad I had the knowledge of the book. For example, they could have explained the vampire conversion process a little better, Renee was confused. She liked it a lot too, which surprised me because she made it quite clear before hand that she’s not into the whole fantasy thing and didn’t like Harry Potter or LOTR. I practically dragged her kicking and screaming. I think the only reason she agreed to go was because I told her you guys liked the book, and that even Curtis wanted to see the movie. So I was really surprised on the way out when she told me if they make a second movie we have to see the midnight showing so there will be less irritating girls there. Sweet, she’s in.

It would have been a lot better if the theater wasn’t full of teenagers, although it was humorous to see the hordes of parents parked outside waiting. And the moms taking pictures of whichever group of girls they were chaperoning. Here’s pretty much how our experience went: Movie starts = excited murmuring, clapping. Enter Edward = squealing, seat bouncing (yes, I could hear them bouncing). They only had one reaction to funny parts. Giggles. No laughing, chuckling, gasping or otherwise scene appropriate reaction. Giggles were the only vocal remedy to whichever situation arose. It was really distracting actually. I think I missed the entire scene after Edward first entered the cafeteria because Renee and I were laughing so hard at them. Good times, good times.

The experience was definitely crazy. The line of traffic to get into the theater was absurd, but apparently it was all drop offs and pickups, because we got rock star parking and there were tons of spots open around us, which is unheard of in Maple Grove on a Friday night no matter what time it is.

2008 MN State Fair, days 2, 3 & 4

September 23, 2008

Wow, where did the summer go? I just realized I never finished blogging about this year’s fair experience!! I’m not sure where to begin since it’s been so long.

Nick and I had trip #2 to the fair on Saturday 8/23. We enjoyed yummy foods such as foot longs, corn dogs, a pretzel with cheese, a chocolate peanut butter Rice Kristy Bar, pizza from Spaghetti Eddy’s, a caramel apple, a quesadilla from Quesadilla Junction, fried flour tacos from Del Sol, Tiny Tim mini donuts, a turkey to go sandwich, and a twist cone (me) and chocolate malt (Nick) from the Gopher Dairy Barn. Best. Twist. Cone. Ever. I also got one of those refillable State Fair cups, which over the course of the rest of the week saved us around $5 between the root beers, sprite and lemonade. Other activities on Saturday included looking at the Greyhounds :D, watching kids play Rock Band and people watching in general. Also I noticed a misprint on the Juanita’s Fajitas stand. Three sides said “Juanita’s Fajitas” while the fourth said “Juantia’s Fajitas” … woops.

(By the way, I kept notes about our food and activities. I’m smart and all, but I haven’t been storing all this info in my head for the last month.)

We attended the fair again on Wednesday 8/27, this time with Kristen. Curtis opted out of the fair this year, attending a fun dive instead. Fair foodstuffs included foot longs, corn dogs, Australian battered potatoes with ranch and sour cream, tater tots on a stick (at Axle’s … very delicious), a twist cone at the Dairy Building (I didn’t think it would be better than the Gopher cone, but it was), a caramel roll, corn on the cob, a gizmo, cheese curds, Sweet Martha’s cookies, and a taco from Taco King. I know it sounds like a lot, but we were splitting 3 ways this time and we did throw out a few partially eaten foods. Funny story about the corn, I ended up burning my lower gums on it because of the precise fashion in which I eat my corn. I didn’t realize it was burnt until the next morning. I thought I had something stuck in my teeth so I kept picking and flossing, but it kept hurting. I couldn’t pin point the pain either, it just kind of hurt everywhere. Then when I woke up on Thursday I had a bunch of little water bubbles on my gums. Woops. It was worth it though, probably the best State Fair corn experience.

Our fourth and final trip to the fair was on Monday 9/1, a.k.a. Labor Day, a.k.a. the last day. Travis came with us and we met up with Smitty and Deebz once there. I wasn’t very hungry and my internals were feeling kind of crappy from the fair food from the week before. I ate some mac & cheese on a stick, a pork chop on a stick, all the milk I could drink, which was the equivalent of Nick’s last cup, another twist cone, more kettle korn, mini donuts and a couple french fries that I sniped from Jordon. It was also hotter and muggier than sh1t, which probably added to the lack of appetite and all around feeling of grossness. We were only there for a few hours before we couldn’t take it anymore. It was no way to end the fair season, but what can you do?

Until next year!!

Gruntenheave, Joan

August 17, 2008

Dive: 20
Season Dive: 5
Site: Gruntenheave, Joan
Max Depth: 41 feet
TBT: 79 minutes
Grand Total: 15 hours, 28 minutes

Curtis, Kristen, Nick and I woke up at o’dark thirty to get our dive in yesterday. We loaded up the Explorer the night before so the only thing to do when we got up was eat breakfast and pack some snacks. We hit the road shorty after 7am.

After going through the tangle town of the mine pits and doing a turn around or two we arrived at the dive site Gruntenheave. Our mission was to find the submerged F-350, complete with dualies and chromies.

I got my tank hooked up and wetsuit on without a hitch again. Had to wait for Nick to use the bathroom so I put my BCD on myself. It was a tad bit cumbersome, but not too hard to do. Again I put my own weight pouches in. Last time I felt I was still a little bit too heavy at 20 pounds, so I ended up using 18lbs this time. We had to tackle a steep hill with our gear on in order to get to the pit. I think Curtis was afraid I would tumble into him. I wasn’t too worried, I figured the tank on my back would put an end to any perpetual rolling that might occur if I fell. The four of us got in the water. The surface was all scummy and a nasty film covered my gloves and mask. Nick and I swam out a bit into the clearer water to finish suiting up. We were on our way shortly after.

At first I was afraid I wasn’t going to sink. I hovered right below the surface for a little bit. Once I got to the 5 foot mark I started going down faster, but not so fast that it was uncomfortable or that I had to kick to slow down. Finally, the perfect amount of weight. The water was 73 degrees at the surface but seemed to get chilly early right around 20 feet. I didn’t want to stay too shallow because I knew the top of the truck was around 35 feet and I didn’t want us to swim by it. There were strange patterns in the water, almost like fog. There were whispy white spots and deep blue streaks. At first I thought it was the sun shining through, but I’m sure that wasn’t it. It looked really neat. For some reason it reminded me of the old Scooby Doo cartoons. After what felt like an eternity Curtis turned around and gave the victory fists, we finally found the truck.

I got an extreme case of vertigo as I approached the F-350. I think it was a combination of 1) it being at such a steep angle and 2) I’m not used to floating weightless around any vehicle. For some reason I had pictured the truck pristinely preserved under the water, shiny black with sparkling chrome rims. Quite the opposite was true. It was covered in moss and algae. Apparently it was red underneath all that business. The chromies weren’t as impressive as I pictured either, but then I realized I have no idea what makes rims impressive if they aren’t shiny. But according to dive instructor Dan, “if there was some way a guy could retrieve those chromies…”

I hovered around the bed of the truck for a little bit and tried peering in through the missing back window when suddenly I felt a bit of claustrophobia coming on. I quickly scurried away from the truck. Underwater vehicles give me the heeby jeebies. I reflected for a moment what it would have been like to have been in the truck when it slid down the hill into the pit. At 35 feet it must have felt like an eternity of a swim to get to the surface.

I didn’t have my camera with. I remembered seeing it somewhere when I packed up all the dive gear at home, but I kind of forgot about it until I had my wet suit on and at that point I was hot, stiff and didn’t feel like searching around for it. Then I remembered that the batteries were almost dead and the spares were still at the cabin, so that pretty much sealed the deal on not looking for it. [Side note: I just went to retrieve my laptop charger and found my camera in my laptop bag, so the search efforts would have been in vain.] Fortunately Curtis had his camera with and took a lot of photos of the truck.

Awesome pictures over at .:cklahr.

After leaving the truck I realized how cold I was. We ascended to 15 feet and I felt the drastic change in water temperature. My dive computer told me to do a 3 minute safety stop, so I tried to stay below the 15 foot mark.

The remainder of the dive we stayed above 20 feet as we made our way around the perimeter of the small pit. There were lots of beaver dams and real tiny fishies. We saw a couple of northerns. The boys saw an eel pout, but Kristen and I missed it.

Somewhere along the lines my hood flipped back and my mask started leaking water. It wasn’t hard to clear out, but it was starting to become a pain in the arse. I thought about taking a glove off and fixing it, but at 40 minutes I assumed the dive would be ending soon so I didn’t bother. My snorkel was also in my face the whole time and it ended up pulling my mask a few notches tighter so it was really doing a number on my nose and upper lip. Had I known my TBT would be 77 minutes I would have fixed it.

I attempted blowing air rings a couple times. The first time I had four good ones in a row. The second time I had one good one. I was hoping to get another chance at the end, but there was really no where convenient to stop and do it, besides the fact that Nick was low on air and had surfaced and Kristen was already at the surface for what seemed like 90% of the dive. Oh well, maybe next time.

I liked diving at Gruntenheave. It was a one tank kind of place, but there seemed to be a lot to look at.

Diamond Cove, Hopkins

August 17, 2008

Dive: 17
Season Dive: 2
Site: Diamond Cove, Hopkins
Max Depth: 32 feet
TBT: 61 minutes
Cumulative: 12 hours, 12 minutes

On Friday night, 8/1, Nick and I headed up to the cklahr cabin early to get a Friday night dive in since Kristen and I were running in the Cross Lake Dam Run 5k marathon on Saturday morning. We finally got all of our dive gear and were eager to try it all out. We met at MSD, got some last minute necessities like clips, extra weight, tank covers, a noise maker to get Nick’s attention underwater, etc., drove to the cabin, consolidated our dive gear into the explorer and took off to Diamond Cove.

Once there, a bunch of dumbheaded actions by me took place. I grabbed my shiny new pink tank and started to hook up my brand new reg, an Apeks ATX50 with Suunto Gekko dive computer, when Nick advised me to put my BCD on the tank first. Woops, I knew that, I was just so excited. I strapped my brand new turquoise trimmed Diva XLT onto my tank then proceeded to put my regulator on. The first stage swivels for maximum mobility and I was real confused as to how it went on. First I put it on upside down. Woops. Then once I got it on it was backwards. What the heck? Then I realized my BCD was on the tank backwards. Good grief. I redid my whole set up. Next step, putting on my new Pinnacle semi-dry suit, which is really just a glorified wet suit that you don’t want to pee in. It’s a one piece suit with hood attached. It was quite a struggle to get it on. I needed Nick’s help to yank it up and he pulled me right off my feet. It was a hot day and the layer of sweat my body was producing wasn’t helping the suit go on any easier. “All right,” I thought, “now just for the hood.” I looked down in front of me at an empty hood, something didn’t look right. The opening of the hood was pointed at me. Then it dawned on me that my suit was on backwards. AAARRRGGHHHHH!!

At this point Kristen was already in the water yelling, “Are we going diving?” The struggle of getting it off and back on made me very frustrated. I was ready to say screw it and sit in the car for the night. The hood seemed tight and felt like it was choking me. The suit made me a lot less mobile than the farmer johns I was used to. Nick had to stick my weight pouches in for me. I decided to go with 24 pounds, afraid that the suit would make me more buoyant.

We got in the water. My new black Atomic split fins with spring backs went on quickly. Finally something worked out for me!! My mask, tried and true, went on quickly as well. The gloves didn’t work out quite so well. I couldn’t get them over my wrists. They came free with my suit, which I bought online at Leisure Pro, so I couldn’t really complain, but it was a damper on the already tainted dive. I was going to go without gloves as the surface temp was quite comfortable. Nick poo-pooed that idea and gave me his gloves to wear since he wanted to stay in the shallows and play with his dive computer. I didn’t want to wear them because they were quite large on me and I was worried they would make it difficult to use my camera, but once underwater they snugged right up and I was very glad to have them.

Curtis, Kristen and I headed out while Nick stayed back near shore. There wasn’t a whole lot to look at underwater, so I spent a lot of time checking out my computer and making sure Kristen was still in her favorite place, directly above me. We made a few resurfaces during the dive. One was over 5 minutes because my computer started recording it as a different dive. Eventually Nick caught up with us, bare hands and all. I had a real hard time with my buoyancy during the dive. I could tell I was over weighted. Better that than severely under weighted. It’s all part of the learning curve with new stuff I suppose.

The thing I enjoyed the most during the dive was knowing that everything on me was mine. No more questionable rental equipment. All my gear would be with me the next time I dove and each time after that. It was very comforting knowing that this was all the gear I would come to trust and get to know like an extension of my body. Maybe I would even learn how to put it together correctly on the first attempt!!

My purple tank, modeled here by Nick:

Scuba Nick:

Air ring by Curtis:

Sleepy Hollow (Mangan)

July 12, 2008

Dive 16

Finally, Nick and I got to go diving this year. We headed out early Saturday morning (approx. 9:30) with Curtis and Blog Reader Kristen. Kristen and I rented gear from MSD on Friday night, Nick was using Ted’s gear and of course Curtis has his own. I bought a dive computer on Monday (along with a BC and another dive computer for Nick, both on back order, the BC of which I’m going to exchange right away) but decided against using it because I didn’t want to unhook any of the rental stuff.

We decided to go to Sleepy Hollow, part of Mangan, because of some Beaver dams and fishes. It wasn’t terribly hot outside, mid 70s, but once the farmer john wetsuit is on it becomes quite uncomfortably hot. It took a while to get everything set up, we haven’t had to do it since October and I was a little rusty. The water was a bit chilly, but it felt good considering the wetsuit. The dive went good other than a little fiasco with my weights. One of my pouches slipped out of my BC. I thought I felt something tugging, then I looked underneath me and saw the swirling of the silty bottom and something black. I thought it was my camera and I did a panicked check for it. I found it still attached to me but suddenly I started rocketing to the surface. I figured I just didn’t have my buoyancy under control because I’d been struggling with it for the dive… I think I was a bit over weighted. Anyway, I let some air out of my BC and started swimming along. My tank kept falling over to one side. At first I didn’t know why, then I realized my weight pouch was gone. I was about equal distance from Nick and Kristen and assumed Nick would be the better diver for assistance in recovering it. I struggled to lopsidedly swim to him while staying at the same depth. I grabbed his fin and gave the thumbs up sign. He looked at me and immediately turned around and kept on going. Fortunately Kristen saw the event transpire and surfaced with me. Then we waited for the boys to realize we were missing. It only took a couple minutes for them to return and find us. I tried to assist in finding the weights, but without the extra 9 pounds I was helplessly stuck at the surface so Kristen and I stayed while the boys went searching.

It wasn’t a very fun time at the surface for me either. I stayed fully inflated and upright. I couldn’t snorkel around, swim or even look underwater because I’d just tip over sideways. Nick ended up finding my weights, Curtis got them back in my pocket and away we went.

The dive was fun, although most of the dive was uneventful. There was a spot with a lot of fishes. Curious little buggers. I tried to stay really still so they would come up to me, but I was having trouble with my buoyancy, so I tried my best not to get in Curtis’s way or stir up the bottom and ruin the visibility.

On our way back there wasn’t much to look at again other than trees, so I snapped a couple pictures of Kristen and Nick.

After the dive Kristen and I were pretty tired so we hung out while the boys dove again. Maybe next time I’ll be up for two tanks!! Maybe next time I’ll have more of my own gear as well :D

More pics in the gallery.

Read Curtis’s account of the dives.