Thanks Giving Weekend

This Thanksgiving was pretty fun. I didn't travel anywhere. My family just stayed around in Trempealeau. It was my parents, my sisters and their husbands, my grandma and I. We usually go to Milwaukee for Thanksgiving to visit my dads side of the family, but it's usually really hectic so we didn't want to go there this year. Most of my day was spent sitting on a recliner playing super Nintendo with my brother-in-law. We played NHL '93, which is a very hard game to get used to. It was kind of uncomfortable in my house though because our loft doesn't have any flooring right now, so we were walking on some weird floor made of particle board. The meal was awesome. We had turkey, obviously, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole(GBC), stuffing, squash, coleslaw, that cranberry stuff that know one ever eats, and rolls. Then we had cherry pie, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, and cheese cake. I was stuffed after it was all done. We had tons left-overs, which is the best part of having Thanksgiving at your own house. The next morning everyone had left-overs for breakfast. My older sister and her husband had to leave Friday morning to go to work, so it was kind of disappointing that they could only stay one night.

It's going to be my birthday on Sunday and I'm going to be 19. I'm kind of disappointed leaving 18. I don't know why, usually people want to get into their twenties as fast as they can but I like being a teenager and I only have one more year of being one. It seems like going from 19 to 20 is a big jump in age. To me it feels like your going from a youthful teenager to a maturing adult. So now I'm figuring out my plans for tonight to celebrate my b-day. I'm pretty excited for Tuesday though because I'm participating in No Shave November and I will finally get to shave on Tuesday.

Swine Flu

I recently had the swine flu and it was no day at the beach. I started getting a small cough when I was riding my bike home from work one day. I thought it was only a cold, but last Sunday I started feeling really crappy. I started feeling achy and it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. Later that night I woke up at 4 in the morning freezing in my bed. I got up and took my temperature. I had a fever of 101%, so I knew that I had the swine flu. I was hoping that I would wake up the next morning with nothing wrong with me, but it never happens. I woke up the next day and felt even worse. My fever was still only 101%, so I thought that's as bad as it was going to get. I, of course, didn't go to school that day and stayed home watching TV all day. Later that after noon, I could barley stand up to go to the bathroom I felt so crappy. I took my temperature again and it was 102.4%. It was getting really high. I kept getting cold and hot again. I took my temp again a little later and it was up to 103.1. I felt the worst I had felt all week that hour. It finally went down after a while and I had an appetite for the first time that day. That night I had the craziest dreams. I always have really weird dreams when I have a fever. I had a fever again at about 4 in the morning and it was up 103.3, the highest it got. I was so uncomfortable that I could barely sleep that night. The next day, all I did was watch TV again all day. I got up at noon and watched I watched Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, then I watched the worst Chuck Norris movies. After that I watched The Best of Dana Carve from Saturday Night Live with my brother in law. Then my girl friend came to visit me and my sister, brother in law, girl friend, and I watched Boondocks Saints. Then everyone left but my girlfriend and we watched Spinal Tap. All I did that day was watch TV. The next day, Wednesday, I didn't have a fever anymore. I finally started feeling normal again. I probably could have gone to school that Thursday, but I decided to stay home to get totally better. I had missed an entire week of school so now I have a lot of make up work to do, but at least I don't have to worry about getting the Swine Flu anymore.

The Van

I bought got a van about a year ago from my boss I've probably driven it about 30 time since I got it. It's a 1984 Chevy Beauville passenger van. I got it because I like old vans, and because I play the drums so I need a vehicle to move them around whenever I play somewhere, which hasn't been for a while. The reason I haven't driven it so much is because things keep going wrong with it. Well only two things, but they were pretty big problems. Last Spring, the alternator went out and I didn't get it fixed until a week ago. Now that it was fixed, I got the insurance put back onto it. I wasn't planning on driving the van a whole lot, just when I needed it for moving something or just to drive around town. I put $20 of gas into it a couple days ago and yesterday I took it to La Crosse to find out a new thing that's gone wrong with it.

I was driving it to school and everything was going fine. It was running good and everything works in it including the heat, stereo, blinkers but not the wind shield wipers. I parked on the street and looked around for any no parking or 2 hour parking signs. There wasn't any so I went about my business. I got done with class at about 12:15 and went back to the van. I had no tickets and everything was going smoothly, so I began my trip back home. I looked down at the gas gauge and noticed that I had a quarter of a tank left of gas. It gets pretty bad millage so I check the gas frequently. As I was driving, I noticed a familiar smell. I smelled a little like fumes or gas. I didn't think much of it because it's a pretty old car and that can happen from time to time with old cars. I kept driving and looked at the gas gauge again. I was only about half way home and I was already down to an 8th of a tank. I didn't think much of that either. The gauge must be wrong thought. As I kept driving, the gauge was rapidly moving down when all of a sudden, the needle was all the way down. "There's no way I could have used $20 worth of gas in one trip to La Crosse", I thought to myself, so I kept driving. When I got into Trempealeau, the inside of the van reeked of gasoline and when I opened my window, it was as if the smell got stronger.

I arrived to my house and instantly called my boss to see if he knew anything about the smell. He didn't answer his phone. So I took my dog out for a walk. While I was walking down the drive way, I noticed a big trail of some sort of liquid. All the pieces in my head matched up. The van was leaking gas on my way home. But it was hardly a leak, the trail looked as of a whole river of gas had just flowed through my drive way. I figured out that there must be a leak in the fuel line of the van because no gas drips out when its just sitting there. Now I have to get that fixed. Who knows if I'll ever get to drive the van without any problems going wrong with it.