Kalamazoo Metro Trek 2009

This past Saturday my good buddy, Darren Tigelaar, and I participated in the 2009 Kalamazoo Metro Trek. This was an 8-10 hour urban adventure race. It consisted of a combination of biking, running, canoeing, orienteering, urban orienteering, and a short ropes course all occuring across the greater Kalamazoo area.

This was Darren's first Adventure Race, and my third. And to be quite frank, Darren carried me through this one. I had a pretty off day, and had some fairly serious cramping problems about 7 hours in. If anybody happened to see somebody wearing a bike helmet and a backpack, doubled over on the side over on the side of the road near Wallbridge St. and Kalamazoo Ave, that was me. I couldn't stand up. When I tried to stretch my quads, my hamstrings cramped, and when I tried to stretch my hamstrings, my quads cramped up. It wasn't fun. I started eating and drinking anything I could, including a handful of salt from the train depot downtown. The cramping did eventually let up a little and then I could run for 2 to 3 minutes bursts. I thought I had done a good job of staying hydrated and eating throughout the day, but apparently I was wrong.

In spite of me being slow and crampy, it was still unbelievably fun. We ended up biking 36 miles on mountain bikes, ran anywhere from 10-12 miles, and paddled a canoe about 1.5 miles.

This was easily the muddiest and most difficult orienteering section I have done. We routinely found ourselves in mud/clay/water up to ours knees and hips. We did get ourselves turned around a few times, and stuck in the middle of a briar patch, but I am proud to say that we found every single check point on the orienteering section.

We finished in 8 hours 28 minutes. It was a perfect day for a race, I didn't lose the passport this time, and Darren was an awesome teammate to have out there. Hopefully next year I won't slow him down as much!

Post Race Interview

Going to the Chapel...

That's right everybody. I am getting married. Last night I proposed to Jenna, and she said yes! :) I will try and give little rundown of how it happened. If you feel like you want more details, feel free to talk with us:)

I took yesterday off from work. I am actually off work today as well, hence the blog in the middle of the morning. I spent most of the day moving furniture out of my apartment and then decorating it. My sister, Theresa, came down from GR to help with the decorating and Abby came over after school.

Jenna likes lights of all varieties, especially little twinkle lights and star lights. I had made (with some much appreciated help) a long string of paper star lights and then hung them up in my apartment. I pretty much then just littered the rest of my apartment with other strings of lights.

I wanted everything to be a surprise, so I did my best to give Jenna the impression everything was a normal Wednesday. I got up at my usual time so we could chat on g-chat, sent texts throughout the day, and even waited till the normal time I get out of work and went and picked her up in my work "uniform".

We went out to eat at Applebee's. Not the most romantic places, I know, but I had a gift card and it was the only rational explanation for going out to eat in the middle of the week. We needed to eat so that there was enough time for it to get dark out, so that all the lights in my apartment would look better.

We had planned to go back to her place to hang out for the evening, but I needed to get her to my apartment somehow. So, I told her I wanted to watch some of The Office Season 5 on DVD which I "accidently" left at my apartment, in preparation for the season 6 premiere tonight. It was a bit odd, but she went along with the idea.

I had held it together pretty well for most of the night, in my opinion anyways, and was able to act fairly normal. But as soon as we headed down Milham Ave towards my apartment, my heart started pounding. She was telling a story, but unfortunately I have no idea what it was about as my mind was elsewhere.

I opened the door, and flipped the switch which all the lights were connected to, and then we saw this...

The ring was hanging from the ceiling on a thread right in the middle of it all. The TV was playing a video/slideshow that I had made for her.

I proposed. She said yes. Then I put this on her finger...


Here's the video/slideshow that I made and was playing on the TV.



Everything went well, and pretty much according plan. We are both extremely excited, and I can't wait to marry the woman that I love. I love you Jenna!

10 Reasons I Hate Grocery Shopping

I have never enjoyed grocery shopping. I love eating the food that I buy. I just don't enjoy the process of going to the store, so while I was doing my shopping yesterday I started thinking of all the reasons I don't like it. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Most other shoppers in the store always seem completely oblivious to everything else going on around them.
2. The cart I choose always has a wobbly/squeaky wheel, even if I give it a test run before committing to it.
3. There are about 5 aisles of things I rarely need situated between things I always need. For example, all the dairy in the very back then rows of paper towel, cleaning supplies, booze, etc. before getting back to food aisles again.
4. The personal hygeine items and food are on opposite sides of the store.
5. There are cart corrals every 50 to 75 feet these days and people still can't manage to take the time to put their empty cart in them, so they end up rolling all over the parking lot.
6. People seem to think that a grocery store is a great place to carry on cell phone conversations.
7. People like to leave carts in the middle of the aisle. I understand leaving your cart to look at something, but at least leave it to the side.
8. Not everyone realizes the u-scan lanes are supposed to be quick and are not intended for a full cart of groceries.
9. I always seem to pick the wrong/slowest check out lane. Instead of having an aisle number lit up, the cashier's should have their scan rate in items per minute displayed, to make it easier to choose which check-out lane to use.
10. The aisle I need the most, usually the cereal aisle, is always the most crowded.

There you have it. Basically what it comes down to is that I have no patience while in the grocery store. Maybe with a little patience, I could solve my problems, with the exception of #5, because that's just being lazy:)

That's My King

Who do I serve?

That's My King! from Albert Martin on Vimeo.

I can't help but get goosebumps by the end of that video.

Labor Day Weekend

This year the Mejeur family headed to Muskegon, MI for a weekend away on the beach. My parents rented a house with a beautiful view of Lake Michigan.

We had awesome weather all weekend. It was sunny and had temps in the mid to high 70's. The water temperature was a balmy 52 degrees, so we didn't do much swimming, but did manage a few plunges into the lake.

The best thing about the weekend was that we had absolutely no schedule. We laid on the beach, went for bike rides, played a pretty competitive/argumentative game of ultimate Frisbee, enjoyed a sunset every night, ate a lot of food, drank coffee, and played games (which usually resulted in more competitiveness and arguing).

It was a great way to cap of an all around solid summer. It makes me a little sad to see it go, but I had a wonderful time spending a few days with my family.

We took a few family photos on the beach...

Jenna and I explored Muskegon via bicycle...

The sun was a little intense for two people who spend their entire working day inside, so we fashioned a shelter out of a blanket, two shovels and two rubber bands. Not bad, eh?

Nate and Abby got married!!!

This past weekend two of my good friends Nate DeVisser and Abby Czap got hitched! The ceremony was good, the reception/food was amazing, and the dancing was just downright spectacular. Below are a just a few pictures to chronicle the night.

The Bride and Groom in all their glory...


Happily dating and Happily married...


Busting a few moves...


And then the air guitar made an appearance...


Overall it was an awesome night. Congrats Nate and Abby!