Mama Saugatuck

Well, I missed my One Week anniversary here. But I think this might be the anniversary of my posting? Or something? No maybe not. Doesn't matter.
I've been here roughly a week. It's all been fine and dandy. I'm getting to know my way around the outskirts a little more, now, and I'm getting used to the uber-small town feel.
What really helps is that I'm being taken care of pretty well.
This past weekend, as most would know, was Memorial Day. National holiday to celebrate and remember those who've fought for the freedoms of the country since the civil war. Naturally, this little town with more guns than people has some patriotic spirit.
There was a nice parade in the morning (9am on a day off...I was not prepared for that) and anybody who's anybody had a barbecue.
Overall the weekend was pretty good--I'm describing it all a little out of sequence, sorry.
But the weekend started late Friday when I drove up to the Ludington to see my parents. We had a quaint little weekend of patrolling the streets of a town that I now consider to be Gigantic. Lots of good family memories.
I followed this by heading back to the Saug' on Sunday morning. There was a little Sunday barbecue/get together where I got to meet and spend time with most of the rest of the family, here. Kind of a way to make family memories with NOT my family.
But yeah, it was fun. I learned to play Mancala. I kicked butt.
I then played 12 hours straight of the board game Sequence. My butt got kicked. I'm just no good. At the end of this 12 hour tirade of my sucking, we decided to switch to Euchre. And that was when the Giant arrived. He lives over on the East side of the state where I'm from, but I'm here living with his family, so he decided to come visit for a few days (starting late on a sunday night...weird). So yeah, he arrived and we played Euchre with Auntie and Muncle(derived from Uncle M) for about 3 hours. It should be noted that we were in Auntie and Muncle's house. And Muncle is a master barbecuer. So he had made ribs earlier that day. Which means that I ate ribs when everyone else did. Then with Giant when he arrived. Then again that night while playing Euchre. Then again with the Giant before we dove for our respective bedrooms before we went into food comas. Tasty.
The next morning was the parade. We all ran down there to see it. It was nothing big, fancy, or spectacular like apparently happens on Labor day. It was just nice. It had the Miss Saugatuck Area there. a Model-A driven my Oma, my keeper. A Jeep Willy(Oma's) but driven by her son Da Jimmer. A small regiment of the veterans in the area (Including 3 of Oma's sons). And a marching band the size of small car. It was a band of all the kids from 6th-12th grade. Maybe 40 kids total. but they got the job done.
Anyways...The parade did stuff and there were speeches and a 21 shot salute and such. Easy peasy. Very interesting.
When we walked back from that we retired back to Aunti and Muncle's house. We played about 3 hours of Euchre. Then another 12 hours of Sequence.
Clearly these people dont play games when it comes to playing games. (play on words?)
I did better at Sequence, though.
Anyways, that was monday, and that was ALL of monday.
So Tuesday morning the Giant headed back to the East side and I had to head into work.
First thing in the morning I had a conference. I'd brought in our designer from Wisconsin. So I got to talk with her and then we skype-video-conferenced with my programmer in the UK. I felt very fancy. I got to call a conference with people from NOT my town...and the responded to my call. Overall the conference went very well. I think I impressed alot of people.

And now onto some even better news.
I've really impressed them, here. The work I do for the state only offers me 20 hours a week at my office. So the office is offering to pay me a nice sum of cash to work as a 'Professional Systems Consultant'. Which I can handle. So I'm making that extra bank. They're also paying to have high-speed internet installed in my home (hopefully by early next week). And they just picked up probably $100 worth of groceries so that they could entice me to eat lunches with them and teach them things.
Pretty sweet.

Ummm....Aside from all that?
I got nothing.
Wings are doing great--
There are people who run websites who pay bloggers to post regularly on their sites. I'm going to see if I can nab just a little position doing that. I mean...what could be better? Get paid to watch sports and talk about it. There are quite a few positions open for the Wings, so that's good news. I'm going to look more into it once I've secured my high-speed internet in the house (exciting!!).

So for now I think that's it.

Umm...when I came home from work last night, Oma was planting some flowers and doing a little bit of weeding. Now, if there is one thing in the great outdoors that I hate more than anything else....It's weeding and planting those little flowers. But I figured I'd offer a hand...I just had to drop off some of my papers and such in the house. When I came out she gave me the run down. It went something like this: "I dont care too much. I'm not the gardener here. Opa is. And he's not with us any more. And look at these! people say their weeds...but they're so pretty." Needless to say, I was pretty pleased. We did some tandom work and got it done pretty fast. What really put a damper on the whole thing though, is that i got a mosquito bite on the TIP of my finger whilst planting my FIRST flower. ouuu, I was mad.

But yeah.
We did that, I cleaned up some weeds and stuff and she went inside to fix us some dinner.
American Chop Suey. It was very tasty. I'll have to spend a blog post talking about my views of her dietary intracacies someday. I did the dishes from the table and then while she was cleaning the things off the stove, I took a shower. Then we sat down, watched the game all the way to the end. She fell asleep in her chair. and I ran off to bed at 10:50.
Moral of the story?

I'm turning into an old person.
I actually ENJOYED watching Antique Roadshow the other day!
How does that happen!?!?


Hopefully ya'll are being as well taken care of, out there.
My thoughts go out to those lives who are being touched by those who don't necessarily come to bear benevolent fruit. Especially my prayers go out to the members of my sister's church, in Nepal. Hopefully these tragedies only serve to strengthen your resolve and show that your devotion to a spiritual sanctuary is more important now than at any other time in history.

And to Buffalo: Take good care of her for me. She's very important to many people back here and I know that you have the undying gratitude of so many people here for ensuring her happiness and keeping her safe for us. Thank you.

Take care, everybody! I hope I get to talk to you all soon!

Day....something

Ooooook. So I figured it out. It's day 3ish.

While I still haven't done anything super-useful at work, I still technically started doing THINGS yesterday. There was some big banquet thingy over at the Saugatuck Center for the Arts. This banquet was thrown by the Visitors Bureau, where I work. Now, as it turns out, the banquet was more of a intra-city political move than anything else. Basically, what the Bureau was doing...don't you love the word 'bureau'? Whenever I say that "I'm going to the Bureau." I feel like I'm going to the Bat Cave or something. Anyways, the Bureau was trying to bridge a little cross town rivalry by inviting all the owners of all the businesses in town to a party for a little yearly kick-off. I understand that it may seem a little late in the year but, as it turns out, this super-little town is also a HUGE tourist attraction and, therefore, their year begins when the first tourists start pouring in.
So yeah, there was this big banquet thrown by the Bureau. And I, being the only employee below the age of 55, was tasked with the transportation and set-up of...everything? yeah. mostly everything. So I did all that. Set up some stuff. Made some things pretty. I basically took care of everything but the cooking--which is a good thing. But yeah, I, at least, got to stretch both sets of muscles. I got to carry around all this food, pottery, flower arrangements, old people, and booze. And, quite geekily, I got to set up the sound system for the night, which was borrowed from the local middle school.
So, originally, I had been asked to simply arrive at the banquet at 5pm so that I could be introduced to some of the people there... I had no idea what the banquet was for, at the time. But I ended up coming in at 11am so that I could do all the set up and everything. No bigs. But then the party started and they were lacking a bar tender. So it was Steve-OH! to the rescue!
It was actually pretty fun. I served up about 4 liters of tequila, 16 bottles of wine, and a gallon of...more wine(we put a gallon of burgundy in the Sangria). All of this was between some 60-70 people. It was quite a jolly event.
So I'm working the bar and everyone files into the auditorium to hear the big speech by my boss, the head of the Bureau. While they're talking I'm still working the bar for any stragglers who are just wandering in. Eventually I turn to the a few people close to me in age, Julie and Victor(kids of employees at the Bureau) and tell them that I think they were going to introduce me sometime tonight. So they tell me to run into the auditorium in case I miss my big moment.
Wouldn't you know it? The boss was introducing me to a crowd of 200+ people JUST as I was walking in. It was so nice it appeared choreographed--Like I was some Pro sports player coming out at the beginning of the game. Timing is everything, I guess.
So everybody thinks I'm like...the coolest, now. And every drunk business owner to come up to the bar basically said the same thing "Hey barkeep...HEY!! you're that...Internet...dude!" And that was that.

I went home shortly after and watched the Wings game in a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt and ate some cheese-its. It was a glorious end. I might've gone out to a bar or something to watch the game, but I was afraid I would see some of the night's earlier patrons wandering the town.

Today I spend mostly just carrying and loading things OUT from the banquet and then I spend a few hours acquainting myself with the Bureau's website (Saugatuck.com). I then spent some time doing boring nerdy things with the boss, and telling her why I thought her wonderful, beautiful, brand-spanking-new website was trash. Upon reviving her, I told her what I thought she should do about it and what things her designer had been blatantly lying to her about.

All fun and games.

I'm still not sure exactly what she expects me to do all summer, but I'll start doing them at 10am tomorrow morning...I know what you're all asking yourselves right now..."Do businesses open that early?" and "Can people be expected to do QUALITY work with COMPUTERS that early in the morning?!?!"
Sadly, the answer to both of those is, most regrettably, a great resounding "uh huh..."
So I suppose that by tomorrow morning, I'll hopefully understand the kind of work that I'll be doing here.
In addition to that, I think that the next time I update, I'll share what ELSE CoolCities is asking me to do in this dainty little town. It's quite a gas, if you will.


Now, on to the important stuff--

For the first time, since I arrived here a few days ago, I visited the beach today.
I was on my way back from work (on my way here) and felt like getting a little lost...So I wound my way through some random neighborhoods and ended up pulling up to one of the most picturesque beaches I've ever seen. And what a perfect day for it, too. 81 degrees with a stiff breeze to cool us down. Not a cloud in the sky....(when I first wrote that sentence, I had spelled 'cloud' with an 'wn' so that the sentence read "Not a clown in the sky..." Needless to say, I felt I should share that with you). But yeah, it was wonderful. Didn't feel too hot - I'd guess that it was actually closer to 78 degrees...but who am I to say - and the breeze was just enough to play with my newly cropped hair and lift some of the dust that had accumulated over me while I sat on the computer for most of the day. It was fantastic. Nothing like looking out over the great Lake Michigan and seeing nothing but sand, topped with dark blue, topped with light blue.
It was like looking into a continuum of perfection...not seeing something that was perfect, but seeing something that was what perfect things were made of. It was awesome.
And there were kiteboarders...That was kinda cool too. (I helped found the MSU kiteboarding club at the Michigan State University campus).

So I think that is all for me, today. I'm going to take off and see if I can find myself a good place to check out the stars tonight. With such clear and warm weather, I'd hate to miss the opportunity at seeing just a little higher than that sand, blue, and blue.

Hope everyone reading this is doing just fine and I apologize to them for the excessive length of this entry.

Take care everybody!

Day 1

So it's day one here in Saugatuck.
I moved in yesterday evening with a woman in her late 70's, and as such does not have a reliable internet connection. That being the case I'm currently at the public library...I had to sneak my way onto the computers because I'm not a tax-paying member of this extremely small community. It looks like the neighbors have hidden networks around the house, though, so I'm hoping that I can con one of them into letting me onto their wireless. This whole 25 minute drive to get to a functioning computer might kill me.

The town, itself, is actually quite beautiful. I'm nestled in between the Kalamazoo River, the Kalamazoo Lake, and Lake Michigan. Needless to say, the town has something of an aquatic theme.
I gave myself a tour of the town, yesterday, for about an hour an a half. It's only 10 square blocks, technically, but I'd say it's closer to 8. It's two blocks deep and 4 blocks across. Not much space to take a tour, but I got around.
I also found this place, which is actually the shared library with the neighboring town of Douglas (right on the other side of the lake/river).
Everything here is very nice, though. There are some 30 art galleries in the area, if you can believe it, and a few years ago a McDonalds try to buy it's way into the neighborhood. The residents fought it off...The closest chain store or restaurant (what they call a "box store" or "walmart store") are about half an hour north, in Holland, Michigan.
I don't mean to dwell on how little this town is...I'm just extremely surprised that it could BE so small and that it hasn't collapsed in on itself.
The woman I'm staying with, Oma, is in her mid to late 70's and she has 8 children...7 of which live with their families within a mile of Oma's house. Krazy, right?
Fortunately, though, they're all very nice.
I'm extremely welcome and everyone seems very happy to welcome me here, tell me to make myself at home, and invite me over for dinner. Additionally, I've already fixed a computer scanner and a wireless network...My work here is cut out for me.

So far I haven't found anyone who doesn't know Oma and the family.
I went to visit the place that I'll be working (Saugatuck&Douglas Convention and Visitors Bureau) and everyone there knew that I was Oma's new resident because they'd never seen me before. Small town.
I'm here at the Library, over on the Douglas side of the river, and everyone knows me.
As it turns out, the project that I'm supposed to be working on...The Cool Cities Catalyst project...Well, Oma was the Chair of the project. Linda(Auntie), one of my neighbors, was the head of some committee for the developement of it. And one of the cousins, also in the area, now runs all the events in the building and runs a Dance Asylum in the upper levels. So the people that Cool Cities brought me to interview...well...I'm living with them. Cool.

Obviously, I have quite a bit to say, but my time on these computers is limited...So I'll be taking off soon.

In closing, though, I'm safe. I'm sound. It seems that I will be well taken care of, here, and that I have a lot to learn from the people I will be spending time with. Hopefully I can get alot from this summer, and I look forward to updating on how that is going.

Lastly, I packed way too much stuff......I have a room, with a BIG, bed. But it's a little room, so the big bed takes up most of the space. So I have only a small path from the door to the bed and I have to navigate everything else by touch. Well...Here's hoping.

I'll see you all later and I look forward to updating as often as things come up! (maybe sooner...I'm not sure how often things really HAPPEN here).

Ok, take care, everyone, I hope to hear from you soon.

Ciao!