First Pumpkin of 2012

Well, yesterday I picked the first pumpkin of 2012.*  This is the earliest I have ever picked a pumpkin.  Since I picked it on the last day of August and it was clearly in a big hurry to ripen I decided to name this 14.4 lb beauty . . . wait for it . . . August Rush.  I know; my creativity knows no bounds.  Sometimes I'm amazed my brain doesn't explode under the weight of all this creative genius.

*Technically, the first pumpkin I picked was the one that had gone rotten.  This was the first intact pumpkin of 2012.

Pumpkin Patch Update

 

Well, I am happy to say that the pumpkin patch has been doing incredibly well this year.  Due to an unusually hot summer the pumpkins have grown faster and become ripe earlier than they usually do.  I actually have several that I could pick right now if I wanted to.  As a result of this heat and fast growth I actually have new pumpkins starting up even now.  In fact, I hand pollinated two female buds just this morning.  If things keep going well with these new ones I could actually end up with somewhere in the area of 20 pumpkins this year.  That's more than I have ever gotten in case you were wondering.

The pumpkin shown above is Pumpkin #23.  This was one of the later pumpkins.  I actually almost snipped it off thinking that I should stop any new pumpkins from starting so the plants' energy could go into to the pumpkins I already had.  But, I saw that the pumpkin was already staring to grow so I let it alone.  I'm glad I did.  Even though this one started somewhere in the area of a month later than most of the others it grew like crazy and may very well end up as the biggest jack-o-lantern pumpkin I get this year.  I'm sure there's some kind of Sunday School lesson in there.

Above is Pumpkin #13.  It should probably end up as the smallest of the batch this year.

 This guy (Pumpkin #18) decided to hide behind the butterfly bush.

These are Pumpkins #15 and #16.  Not much to say about them.

Here we see Pumpkins #17, #5 and #22.

On the left is Pumpkin #8.  This is the one competing with #23 for the distinction of being the biggest of the jack-o-lanterns.  On the right is Pumpkin #4; one of the three Big Max pumpkins I got this year.

In the front you can see Pumpkin #1.  This will undoubtedly be the biggest of this year's Big Max pumpkins.  Pumpkin #7 can be seen in the back and should be the second biggest.  Now, this picture is missing something.  Pumpkin #6 is not here.  A few weeks ago I came out and looked it just to discover to my dismay that it's bottom had turned to mush.  As a result, I had to pick it.  It weighed in at 8.6 lbs and I named it Oh Potter, You Rotter.  It seemed appropriate.

Collin's Excavator Cake

So, back on August 7th our little Collin turned four.  Since Alisa took care of all the presents I decided that I would take care of the cake.  Alisa found this excavator cake online and I baked the pound cake and turned it into the above.  It was a big hit with Collin.

2012 Pumpkin Patch - Engage!

Well, back on May 9th I planted the Pumpkin Patch. As you can see from the above picture I planted three hills. The one in the middle is your regular jack-o-lantern pumpkins. The other two are planted with the seeds from the 36 pound and 26 pound Big Max pumpkins I grew last year. I have high hopes that I will set a new personal best this year. My goal is to get a 50 pounder. We shall see.

Oh, so you noticed the newly redesigned pumpkin patch sign. Now some of you may be rolling your eyes and saying; "Oh no he didn't." Well, yes he did! You may feel inclined to point out; "But Ryan, that show ended 2 years ago. When are you going to move on." To which I say: "NEVER! Indeed you are correct, it did end 2 years ago. But, I have the complete series on blu-ray so for me it shall never end!!"

Anyway, if you think that's nuts check this out. As you know, I love to grow my pumpkins and I just feel like I could never really ever have enough of them. So, I decided to try planting some pumpkins on the roof. I'll let you know how this works out.

In case you were wondering this post has been backdated. I actually wrote it 8/2/12. I decided to show the date I meant to write it.

It's Been A While

OK, so it has been just over 4 months since I last wrote a blog post. Here's a summary of what happened.

• After being out of work for month I got a job at a 3PL called Pro Star Logistics.
• I finished my yearly reading of Harry Potter.
  
• My new favorite currently running show "Once Upon a Time" premiered. (LOST is still my all time favorite show in case you were wondering)
  
• The 5th and Final Season of "Chuck" Premiered.
  
• We had a fun Halloween in which I dressed up as a member of The DHARMA Initiative, Alisa was a witch, Collin was a dinosaur coming out of an egg and Liam was a pea-pod.
• We had a fun Thanksgiving at Grandma Norberg's house and one at my in-law's house in Idaho.
• I began my yearly reading of The Lord of The Rings.
  
• We all celebrated Kari's return to her family.
• Season 19 of "The Amazing Race" concluded.
  
• The first season of "Terra Nova" concluded.
  
• Collin (or one of his little friends) threw something at my TV and cracked the screen causing an annoying black line that extends from the crack to the edge of the screen.
• We had a wonderful Christmas.
• 2011 ended.
  
• 2012 began.
  
• I began watching the 4th Season of "Merlin" via iTunes
  
• I lost my job at Pro Star and became unemployed again.
• "Alcatraz" premiered.
• Liam turned 1 year old.
  
• The 5th and Final Season of "Chuck" Concluded.
• Alisa and I started watching the show "Prison Break" on Netflix while up in Idaho and got ourselves hooked.
  
• I finished my yearly reading of The Lord of The Rings.
• Season 20 of "The Amazing Race" began.

So, that's about it. At the moment Alisa and I are waiting for the next few DVDs of "Prison Break" to arrive at the library but my main focus is job searching. Things are going pretty well. I have had several interviews and one coming up tomorrow and I'm actively networking. More posts soon.

The Pumpkins are Here!

So, here we have it. Ryan's record breaking 2011 Pumpkin Patch. In spite of the fact that this year there were only ten pumpkins I broke my own personal weight record, grew my first white pumpkins and produced my first truly successful Big Max Pumpkins. So without further ado, here they are: From Left to Right - On the Stove: Super-Sonic Sucker Punch (12.0 lbs), Megatron [This Year's "Big Mutha" and new personal best] (36.4 lbs.), My DHARMA Lady (10.6 lbs.) - On Chair: Starscream (26.8 lbs.) - On Shelf {Top Shelf}: Fighting Whitey (4.0 lbs.), Cookies (11.0 lbs), They Might Be Pumpkins! (5.4 lbs.) - On Shelf {2nd from Top Shelf}: Wannabe Softball (2.4 lbs.) - On Shelf {3rd from Top Shelf}: You Will Be Assimilated (5.2 lbs.) - On Shelf {2nd from Bottom Shelf}: Goobermeister Meistergoober (9.0 lbs.)

And We're Back

I suppose that most, if not all of you out there are aware of the fact that I am once again unemployed. A little after 4pm on September 20, 2011 my manager came into my office and let me know that they were going to have to lay me off. I was in a state of shock for a few seconds in which time though I didn't really think it was joke I did kind of hope it was. My manager was very upset about it as well and the next day she actually called me up with a job lead. Lisa, if you are reading this; thank-you.

So, for the past 2 weeks I have been working on trying to find employment. I don't really want to spend to much time on this but I do want to say that even though I didn't expect to be in this situation again so soon I am much more optimistic than I was back in 2008 when I got laid off before. I know a lot more about how to effectively job search so I won't waste nearly as much time as I did before.

So, in order to help myself not to get too stressed out I have prepared a list entitled: The Top 5 Ways that this Unemployment is different than the Last One:

5. Last time I was out of work I referred to that period as "The Dark Time," borrowing a phrase from Star Wars. This period of unemployment shall be known as "The Second Darkness." A phrase borrowed from The Lord of The Rings.

4. While I search for jobs I get to listen to the same annoying, noise-making toys as I did last time. This time however, they are being played with by a different kid.

3. Alisa is not working this time. This is a down side in that we don't have her income but it is a plus since this means I can devote more time to job searching and networking and less time chasing babies.

2. I have two more years experience in shipping now than I did then.

1. There is no way in $&#@ that I will allow this unemployment to last 14 and a half months!