Dear Ann Eliza G. Smith,

I am writing to you on this great day to tell you that the future is pretty great. Our society has made tons of new and very efficient technological advances that you couldn’t even imagine. Mostly everybody has a little square box plastic electronic phone in their pocket today, this little box is called a smart phone and a smart phone knows almost everything. Although I am not here to tell you about phones because there is already a letter coming your way telling all about that subject. I am writing you today to tell you about the ways people communicate here in 2014. I will first tell you about the World Wide Web because that is basically where most of the communication is today.

The World Wide Web is this amazing invisible (in a way) storage place that has so much knowledge, business, entertainment, and communication. It is great. If you have a question regarding anything you just ask it and you will get so many results. The web has changed the way people do things in a huge way. People rely on the web to do everyday tasks and some use it to make a living.

The world uses a lot of communication techniques on the web and I guess you could say it is very convenient. There is this web site called Facebook which is an online socializing site where you can talk to all your friends and family. Moreover, it helps you keep up with your friends day to day life with a selection of photos so you can get a better perspective of what is going on. Also, you can use it to chat with people right away instead of waiting to get a letter back from them. Facebook is probably the most popular way to communicate on the web in our time. I really like Facebook a lot and I am sure you would love it!

There is another social web site called Twitter which I basically a shorter way of telling people what is going on from day to day. The messages or posts you make are called tweets and you can write anything you so please. To find friends you just type in their names and “follow them” (view what they are doing). I was actually knew to twitter this year but I really like and I think I will continue using it.

Another way of expressing yourself is a thing called “blogging” which is just a longer way of telling people stuff online and gives a better description because there is really no limit to your words. This was also knew to me this year. I enjoyed it a lot because I got to express my thoughts and post it on the internet for everybody to see if they so please. There are all kind of blogging sites with all kinds of different categories.

Social media has changed the lives of so many people in today’s world because it helps you reconnect with people in your life and also bring new people into your life in some cases. People use social media for dating purposes as well and it is actually a booming industry. Although social media and the technology are great ways for communicating with people in today’s world, some view it as a sort of nuisance because people have become more anti-social in public. I personally think that you would love today’s communication because it is fast and you definitely wouldn’t feel lonely. And on that note I will say farewell to you Ann Eliza and I hope your unfortunate loneliness will come to an end soon enough.   

   

Social Media Project: Memoirs of My Life

For my project idea I decided to switch it up a little and make my memoirs a little more visual but with a lot of story line behind them as well. To sum up my project I would be posting a couple pictures each week and I would explain the what, where, when, why, and how questions that might come from just looking at the photo from my life. And if I had not summed up the picture in the long summary that I put under the picture the viewers could ask any further questions about it. For this project I am just trying to make some memoirs of my life but I added pictures to the descriptions so it will give the reader a better understanding of what it looked like without them having to guess or imagine. Also, I kind of incorporate a first person view throughout all the memoirs. I really believe that one saying “a picture can tell a thousand words,” after doing this project because I had never really tried to explain some of the pictures that I have and didn’t realize how much I could remember and the small details. I was going into this project with a pretty bad mindset thinking that it was just going to be another boring project but I actually liked bringing up old pictures and remembering the stories behind them.

Senior Year Football Season

                     

These pictures are from 2012 when I was a senior at Princeton High School in Princeton, MN. We came into our senior year season with a record of 0 and 23. The three seasons before that were some depressing Friday nights and our town had lost almost all their desire to come and watch us play (except for the parents). I was the strong safety on our defense, number 81. We started off our season with a victory against Mora High School and that got our spirits up a little bit. By the regular season we were 4 and 4 which wasn’t too bad compared to our previous years. The first game of section playoffs we played Hibbing High School and ended up killing them. So them we went on to the section semifinals to play Cloquet High School on a very cold afternoon game and we beat them in a double overtime win. Though that was probably the worst game I had ever played in my entire high school career so I wasn’t very happy even though we won. The next weekend we played at Hermantown High School against the Hawks on another cold deer opener weekend. We were all nervous because this game was for the section championship. The final score of the game was 42-0 with Princeton taking the victory and we were all so excited because this was the first time Princeton was going to state since 2003.

 Our next game was to be played at St. Cloud State University the following Saturday. People started talking about how we could have a chance to make history by being the first Princeton Football team to be going to the Metrodome in Minneapolis because in 2003 that Princeton team had lost in the State Quarter Finals. We set off to go to St. Cloud to play one of the biggest games any of us had ever been involved in. Our opponents were the Detroit Lake Tigers who were going in to the game with an undefeated record of 10-0 so we were all pretty skeptical about this game. This was one of the most tear jerking and nerve racking games ever. We went into 4 overtimes and the Detroit Lakes field goal kicker had missed 2 game winning field goal kicks but I couldn’t even imagine the pressure that he felt. The final score was 34-30 and Princeton was on the road to the dome! The two photos on the left are from the St. Cloud game. We all stormed the field and the crowd was roaring so loud. It was one of the best moments I have ever experienced and we made history that day. It felt so amazing because my whole family was there watching and almost all of Princeton was there.

We got out of school and went down to the Metrodome on a Wednesday afternoon but when we were about to leave I guess the whole town had set up a parade for us to ride the coach buses through. The spirit and support was incredible and got us all pumped up for the game. We felt like kings. There were people all over Main Street and they let all the schools out early to come and watch us. It was so crazy running out onto the Minnesota Vikings field and it was the first time for many of us that we had stepped foot on that turf. Looking at our home stands and just seeing a wall of orange blocking out the blue seats. Our opponent for the State Semi Final game was against Holy Family a catholic school I believe, they were 9-2 going into the game and we were 8-4. It felt weird going from playing in below freezing weather to about 65 degree weather. Sadly this was the end of the road for our unbelievable football season. Holy Family had won 49-28. There were a lot of tears on our sidelines. Even though we didn’t make it all the way it still felt crazy. In the beginning of the season none of us were thinking we were going to go to the State Semi Finals in the Metrodome. The pictures on the right are from the Metrodome game.  

The Badger

               

                This is a picture from 2012, I am on the right and my golden retriever Baxter is on the left. We were bird hunting in Big Fork, MN at my uncle’s cabin on a pretty nice day. I was with my cousin Noah and Baxter going out for hunt. We took some back roads looking for some trails and then we came across this trail that looked pretty good so we jumped out and got our guns ready. We started walking in, got about half a mile when Baxter pointed in the woods with his nose and then ran in and jumped a grouse so my cousin pulled up is gun and dropped it on the fly. We were pretty confident that this trail had some more grouse so we kept walking and about 100 yards further Baxter pointed with his nose again so I got ready. I saw it running on the ground to the left of the trail about 50 feet in under some pine trees and I took a shot. When I shot, another grouse jumped to right and was flying through some thick popple trees so my cousin took a shot at it. We ended up getting both of them.

It was around 12 so we figured we would walk up a little ways and see if we could jump anymore before going in to eat some lunch. We walked about 200 more yards and then it started to smell really bad like a skunk. I was pretty nervous because didn’t feel like getting sprayed by a skunk that day or letting Baxter get sprayed because he had already been sprayed before and it is not fun. It was still pretty thick with leaves at the time and you couldn’t see much but I on full alert for a skunk. We walked about 10 more feet and then Baxter pointed in the woods. I thought it could have either been a skunk or a grouse so I put my gun to my shoulder and was ready for it to run or jump. Baxter jumped in ran into the woods and started growling and barking so a grouse was out of the picture. I was pretty hesitant about going in after him at this time.

I heard Baxter growling and barking up a storm, but then I heard another growl that didn’t come from Baxter. I was then mind blown and didn’t know what it could be, so many things ran through my mind like a wolf or a mountain lion. I walked into the woods and the safety on my gun was off at this point. My cousin stayed on the trail and was yelling into me asking what it was and I yelled back to him “badger!” I was pretty amazed because I didn’t even know we had badgers northern Minnesota. So Baxter and the badger were both at a standoff growling at each other as I was yelling at Baxter to try and get him to leave it alone and head back down the trail but then they both went at it. The badger was pretty quick and latched onto Baxter’s neck with his mouth. Baxter was also biting down hard on the badgers back and it began to hiss. I was standing next to them not really knowing what to do but I knew that I either had to get Baxter away from it somehow or shoot it because it could kill Baxter.

The badger had the upper hand in the fight because it was connected to Baxter’s neck and not letting go. Baxter was yelping in pain so I then began to hit the badger on the back repeatedly with the butt of my gun trying to get him off of Baxter’s neck. It wouldn’t let go so kicked it with my steel tow boot and it finally let go but Baxter was not going to let it be and the badger wasn’t walking away either. I put my gun to my shoulder and the barrel pointed right at the back of the badger then waited until Baxter was a few feet away. I took the shot. Baxter was bleeding from his neck but the holes from the badgers teeth didn’t penetrate to deep so he ended up being alright. I didn’t feel too good about shooting the badger but Baxter was in danger and something deeded to be done. (I googled why the badger smelled like a skunk and I guess badgers and skunks sometimes try to take each other’s holes in the ground but badgers kill the skunks).

The Legendary Fisherman

                

These are pictures of my grandpa Tom from my dad’s side of the family, on Lake Kabetogama up in northern Minnesota on the border of Canada. He died about 2 years ago in August of 2012 right after coming out of surgery on his hip because he fell and broke it. He was 86 years old and was born and buried in Buhl, MN located on the iron range. He was one of the legends on Lake Kabetogama in his time along with another guy called “minnow.” He has been fishing on this lake since he was about 8 years old with his dad. He used to tell stories of how much fish they would catch and keep because there wasn’t a slot limit back then. He said him and couple of friends would catch up to a hundred walleye in one fishing trip and then bring them back to their hometown Buhl to have a fish fry for the whole town. Fishing was his favorite thing to do and he did it well.

 He never used any special lures or anything, he just used a plain old hook with a couple split shots and a chub (type of minnow). He said that lake was riddled with fish back then, every time you through your line in the water you would have a walleye on in about 20 seconds. He knew every good fishing spot on that lake and we would always ask him first where he wanted to go because we always caught fish where he went. I don’t think he missed 1 opener fishing on this lake the whole time he was alive. It is a tradition to go up to Kabetogama for opener fishing every year even if the lake is still frozen (like last year but we still got out there).

We would always have to pick him up to go up to the lake because his eyes were bad and he couldn’t drive anymore which was pretty sad to see. But he was always sitting in the driveway in a fold out chair waiting for us to pick him up. We still use his red Lund boat with a Yamaha 40 horsepower motor to get around on that lake (bottom left picture). In that picture is my two cousins in the middle, my brother is at the back of the boat and I am at the front. My grandpa always caught the most fish when we went fishing and we were all amazed because we were doing the exact same things as he was. It’s definitely not the same without him up there on opener but it is still fun and we all look forward to it every year.

My Family

                My family is pretty awesome, they have been there for me through everything and I don’t know where I would be without them. Over the years we have racked up some pretty good memories from vacations, holidays, family events, and just living at our house in Princeton. I am so fortunate to be in a family so great. I know there will be lots more memories to come in the future as well and I’m excited. My dad’s name is Tom who is 56 years old, and he grew up in Buhl, MN (wearing the light blue shirt in the lower left photo). My mom’s name is Karla who is 55 years old, and she grew up in Brooklyn Park, MN (wearing the white shirt on the left of me in the lower left photo. Then there is my brother Joe who is 22 years old and goes to Bemidji State University to major in chemistry. My sister Allison is 21 years old and goes to college in the University of North Dakota to become a physical therapist. Then there are my two animals Baxter the golden retriever and Indi the black and white cat.

                The picture in the upper left corner is a picture of my siblings and me at a cabin on Lake Kabetogama with our dog Baxter. The picture in the upper right corner is from our Christmas Eve last year at our house. The picture in the bottom left is after my graduation from Princeton High School with the whole family. And the picture in the bottom right is my dog Baxter and my cat Indi hugging each other.                          

Future Plans

                After spring semester at Lake Superior College I plan on transferring to Bemidji State University and attending the project management program in the 2015 fall semester. My older brother goes to Bemidji and is majoring in chemistry so it will be nice to live with him and have him show me around. Right now I am just picking a career path and running with it because I don’t really have any concrete ideas or plans on what to do, but I guess most people have that same problem so I’m not too worried. I do on the other hand have one goal for when I get out of college and before I start my career and that is to travel a lot! I am pretty excited to see what my future holds because you never really know where you might end up in life.  


All of the pictures got all scrambled around so that is why it looks like this.

Crystal Cabinets Tours!

On Wednesday, November 19 Crystal Cabinets invites potential buyers or long time buyers of our products to join us on a tour around our factory. We want to ensure you that you have chosen the right company to invest in by showing the way we do things at Crystal. Nothing is more important to us than making sure your purchased product is exactly what you’re looking for and that it is done on time. Moreover, we take out time with our cabinets so they are done right and look good because if you are going to do something, do it right the first time.

The tours will start at 9 am on Wednesday the 19 and will end at 3:00 pm. There will be more than one tour guides so the group will not be too big and everybody will be able to see what is going on. Our tour guides will be taking you through the steps and procedures needed to craft a fine cabinet. The list below shows the different departments located throughout the factory that the tours will view in order from first to last:

1    1.  The wood cutting and shaping department.

2    2.  The panel door department.

3    3.   The painting department.

4    4.   The drawer assembly department.

5    5.   The final assembly department.

6    6.   The final inspection department.

7    7.   The shipping department.

It may not look like a lot of things to look at but every department has many more little areas in it that play a big part in the making of cabinets. Also, you will get to look at some of our new products that haven’t been released onto the market yet.

Around 11:20 there will be hamburgers and hot dogs with beverages located in the cafeteria for everybody that is involved in the tour so help yourselves and it is free! Plus everybody will be called together to meet the owner of Crystal Cabinets around 12 pm. After 12:30 pm the tours will resume where they left off until 3 pm. We are 100% sure that if you haven’t purchased our products yet, by the end of the day we will have you convinced to buy. We highly encouraged everybody to come out and see what Crystal Cabinets is all about. 

Crystal Cabinets

For my business I chose to do Crystal Cabinets because I worked there over the summer and I have a pretty good idea what they do there. It is a cabinet making business located in Princeton, MN. Crystal is a very friendly working environment so it was really fun to work there even though the hours I worked weren’t very convenient since I am not a morning person. They mostly only hire people that know other people that work there like family or friends and since I grew up in Princeton I knew a lot of people that worked there. I believe there are about 7 different departments in the building that I knew of: wood cutting, panel doors, painting, drawer making, assembly, and shipping. I myself worked in the painting department but I mostly sanded the pieces of the cabinets so then they could get painted.

Crystal Cabinets is a private business so they don’t sell their products to big businesses like Walmart, Menards, and etc. The cabinets are sold all throughout the world and they are mainly sold to homeowners or other small businesses because they are very expensive. I was looking through the ordering book they had there and the most expensive cabinet I saw was about $6,000. They were estimating on bringing in about $4 million in profits at the end of 2014. They really take pride in the way they make the cabinets with the amount of time it takes to get the details right. 

One Amazing Trip!

This is my family visiting the JFK museum with the Boston Harbor in the background.

When I was about 11 years old I remember going down to my grandparent’s house in the cities because we were going to drop my dad off at the airport that night for his work trip to Boston. He had traveled a lot when I was younger for his job so it was nothing out of the ordinary for my siblings and me. My mom told us that after we drop my dad off at the airport we were going drive over to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to see my aunt and uncle. We weren't very excited about this because we had to wake up at about 4 to bring my dad to the airport and then we had to drive a longer ways to a not very fun place. So we got up around 4 just miserable, piled in the car, and drove my dad to the airport. When we arrived I told my mom jokingly that I was going with my dad and she responded with “how did you know” to my surprise. All of our faces lit up with excitement because we were going to Boston! Although my dad wasn't very excited because he still had to go to work out in Boston while the rest of us toured around Massachusetts.

When we arrived at the Boston airport we had rented to cars, one for us and one for my dad. We started our adventure by going to the city and checking out all the buildings and historical sights. We walked the streets of Boston looking at some of the historical American revolutionary places like Paul Revere’s house, and the church where Paul Revere rang the bell to let people know the British were coming. Also, we went and checked out all of the old graveyards where Paul Revere and Benjamin Franklin were buried. That was probably one of the coolest parts of the trip for me. Later that day we went to the harbor and ended up going on a whale watching boat. Whales look way bigger in person, I was a little scared when I noticed they were bigger than the boat we were on.

The next day we took a ferry over to Martha’s Vineyard which is little island of the coast of Massachusetts. My mom had told us that this was the island where they filmed the movie “Jaws” so us kids were a little nervous about that. Martha’s Vineyard was one of the coolest places I had ever been to. It had this little town filled with tourists and a ton of little shopping places and food places. Later that day we actually went to the beach where jaws was filmed and swam there for a little bit (although I was still a little scared so I only went up to my chest). The next few days we just hung out and went to the beaches around Boston before we had to say goodbye to that awesome city. I will for sure be going to Boston though in the near future!!  

Summer Conflict

I had this one complaint that started last year with my roommates that I have today. I am usually not one to complain about something but this problem just had me confused and kind of mad. Last year I had gone in on renting a house with 5 of my friends to live in for this year. I went home for the summer so I could work and make money to pay for my colleges expenses and so did 3 of my other roommates. The two roommates that stayed up here were working in Duluth and living at the house for the summer. The problem arose when they wanted the other 4 roommates that went home for the summer including me to have to pay for utilities over the summer when we were already paying for rent. I just thought it was kind of stupid because I was paying for stuff that I wasn’t using. It wasn’t that big of a deal but I just didn’t understand why they couldn’t just pay for the things they used when we weren’t even living there. Also, some of the bills in for the utilities were just crazy for only 2 people living there. The electric bill came to $63 for 1 month. I was a little bitter about that because that is pretty high for two people. I asked them why it was so high and they just said they must have left lights on or something.

 I’m not going to lie, at first I wanted to call them up right away and tell them there was no way I was paying for that stuff but then my dad was the one that talked some sense into me. He told me not to get in an argument with them because it wasn’t worth the fight. I wanted to have a fun year this year without any tension going into the year so I just bit my tongue and moved on. Sometimes people just need to stop and think about what they are fighting about. The small things that get people angry are not worth losing a friend or messing up a relationship. So far I am having a very fun year and making lots of memories with my roommates. 

Grouse Hunting Fun

(Don't mind the fingers haha it was a joke to my other uncle that couldn't come)

Every year after summertime comes the best part of the year in my perspective. The temperature cools down to a nice 50 or 60 degrees and the leaves start to change. Also it is the beginning of football season. But the best part of fall is the beginning of the bird hunting and deer hunting season. One of the best feelings is driving up north to the cabin to hunt. When you step out of the truck, after arriving at a trail that you feel will have grouse down it, then you grab your gun and slide a few shells into it. Finally you start on down the trail with high hopes of seeing a bird after waiting about 8 months.

It is kind of startling the first time you jump a bird in the beginning of the season because you have all this excitement built up in the off season. After you get a couple birds you head on back to the cabin to clean them. Then you start a fire, have a couple beers, and joke around with your relatives and just relax. I love grouse hunting because it is just a chance to get away from reality for a couple weekends out of the year and step out into the woods to have some fun with your friends and family. In my opinion I would rather be at the cabin or out in the woods instead of sitting at home watching TV.