Busy weekend
Dec. 3rd, 2006 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
revchrisThursday night we drove to North Chicago to see ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
teeka's nephew (Grant) graduate from boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Center. The ceremony was interesting, but we really wished he'd gone through it during a warmer part of the year. Thursday night and into Friday they got about 12" of snow. As we were in line waiting to drive into the base, we were watching these bright flashes of light in the distance, but not hearing thunder, we weren't sure what they were. Later we learned that they were probably power lines parting from the weight of the snow and ice (the pre-ceremony briefing warned of power outages, and told everyone that if the power went out, remain in your seats, the emergency lighting will come on, but the main lights take 12 minutes to start up after power is restored). It was still snowing heavily when all the recruits were marched in, but the Navy really doesn't worry about the weather - they just march the recruits through it.
After the ceremony we hung out with the family and then crashed in Milwaukee overnight (thanksmistropinion and k4tj3, we apologize for sneaking out Saturday morning, but teeka wanted to get going). Saturday we went to Gurnee Mills Mall and checked out some of the gaming places with Grant and the rest of the family, but there really isn't anything else to do in that area, as can be seen by the number of Navy uniforms visible hanging around the mall. We then went to Chuck E Cheese, so that Austin (the younger nephew) would have something to do while the rest of use talked, but we all played games instead.
Why doesn't anyone in Illinois know how to plow? The Interstate and the US Highways were reasonably well plowed, but everything else was fairly crappy. 30+ hours after most of the snow was done, they still hadn't cleared some of the lanes of the larger numbered routes, and the ones that were "clear" still had great big patches of ice turning them into washboard. I realize that it was the first real storm, and that it dumped a lot of snow, but crossing the Illinois/Wisconsin border Friday night and Saturday morning/evening, there was a distinct difference in the quality of the snow removal.
Saturday night we got home expecting to have to shovel, but one of our nice neighbors had blown our sidewalks clear for us, so all we had to do was scrape the ice and snow clear on the driveway. It's mostly done, and I sprinkled a layer of sand/rock salt/ice melter over it, so as soon as it warms up a little or the sun comes out, it should clear right up.
Today we caught up on a lot of the house cleaning we didn't get done Thursday-Saturday, cleared more of the driveway, and made pretzels.
I shot out four of the batteries for my camera on Friday, and thought I'd have to buy batteries because I'd left my charger and the fifth battery at work, but I then discovered that the AC cord for the camera does, in fact, charge the battery in the camera (I thought I had tried this earlier and it didn't work, so it was a pleasant surprise). In the ceremony the lighting was low enough that I had to use the big flash, but that requires that the camera be in the full auto setting, otherwise it fires the on-board flash too, which causes all the pictures to come out dark because of the nice white navy hats in the row in front of me screwing up the brightness. Full auto, however, also forces the camera into continuous autofocus, and that sucks down the batteries quickly.
teeka's nephew (Grant) graduate from boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Center. The ceremony was interesting, but we really wished he'd gone through it during a warmer part of the year. Thursday night and into Friday they got about 12" of snow. As we were in line waiting to drive into the base, we were watching these bright flashes of light in the distance, but not hearing thunder, we weren't sure what they were. Later we learned that they were probably power lines parting from the weight of the snow and ice (the pre-ceremony briefing warned of power outages, and told everyone that if the power went out, remain in your seats, the emergency lighting will come on, but the main lights take 12 minutes to start up after power is restored). It was still snowing heavily when all the recruits were marched in, but the Navy really doesn't worry about the weather - they just march the recruits through it.After the ceremony we hung out with the family and then crashed in Milwaukee overnight (thanks
mistropinion and k4tj3, we apologize for sneaking out Saturday morning, but teeka wanted to get going). Saturday we went to Gurnee Mills Mall and checked out some of the gaming places with Grant and the rest of the family, but there really isn't anything else to do in that area, as can be seen by the number of Navy uniforms visible hanging around the mall. We then went to Chuck E Cheese, so that Austin (the younger nephew) would have something to do while the rest of use talked, but we all played games instead.Why doesn't anyone in Illinois know how to plow? The Interstate and the US Highways were reasonably well plowed, but everything else was fairly crappy. 30+ hours after most of the snow was done, they still hadn't cleared some of the lanes of the larger numbered routes, and the ones that were "clear" still had great big patches of ice turning them into washboard. I realize that it was the first real storm, and that it dumped a lot of snow, but crossing the Illinois/Wisconsin border Friday night and Saturday morning/evening, there was a distinct difference in the quality of the snow removal.
Saturday night we got home expecting to have to shovel, but one of our nice neighbors had blown our sidewalks clear for us, so all we had to do was scrape the ice and snow clear on the driveway. It's mostly done, and I sprinkled a layer of sand/rock salt/ice melter over it, so as soon as it warms up a little or the sun comes out, it should clear right up.
Today we caught up on a lot of the house cleaning we didn't get done Thursday-Saturday, cleared more of the driveway, and made pretzels.
I shot out four of the batteries for my camera on Friday, and thought I'd have to buy batteries because I'd left my charger and the fifth battery at work, but I then discovered that the AC cord for the camera does, in fact, charge the battery in the camera (I thought I had tried this earlier and it didn't work, so it was a pleasant surprise). In the ceremony the lighting was low enough that I had to use the big flash, but that requires that the camera be in the full auto setting, otherwise it fires the on-board flash too, which causes all the pictures to come out dark because of the nice white navy hats in the row in front of me screwing up the brightness. Full auto, however, also forces the camera into continuous autofocus, and that sucks down the batteries quickly.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 11:55 pm (UTC)Of course, I was smart enough to go to boot camp in the summer. We got lots of days when they couldn't make us PT because it was too damn hot. That was good.
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Date: 2006-12-04 12:02 am (UTC)We met one group of people at the hotel that were from Texas. They bought winter coats, hats, boots, and gloves just for the trip. We also overheard another group at the ceremony who were somewhere in the south. They were mostly freaking over the weather.
One of the graduates was from Kingston, Jamaica. I have to wonder if their family came up for the ceremony and what they thought.