Ben's Bits

I feels like it’s been a really long time since I’ve blogged. Probably because it has been. My summer turned out to be a lot busier than I had origianlly invisioned and the time just wasn’t there to blog, hopefully now that I’m back at school I’ll be able to get one in at least weekly if not more often. Better catch you up on my summer first though.

I got home towards the middle of May and jumped right in with the upcoming Current Jam concert at that time. I’ve already blogged quite a bit about that I think so I’ll leave that as is. For the last month of school though I had been looking for an interesting summer job and hadn’t found that yet. I didn’t want to be one of those average college kids home for the summer painting houses or whatnot. As luck would have it one of our vendors for Current Jam which is responsible for the intellegent lighting rental was looking for some extra work as their business was growing rather rapidly and they also needed someone with a bit of computer experiance to straighten out the network at the office. After a lunch meeting with them I was offered a job that would provide me with around 15 hours of work a week, which sounded pretty good to me, plus it was doing something I really enjoyed. As it turns out we were even busier than we had imagined and they ended up needing me for 40 hours a week which was fine with me because it was a blast working there. I got some great experiance and got to work on some interesting projects for them. If you’re ever looking for intelligent lighting rental or installation in the Twin Cities be sure to give the great folks at Light N Trax a call.

This kept me pretty busy weekdays after Current Jam so things at home piled up for me and I spent most weeknights and weekends dealing with those times, leaving little time for, yu guessed it, blogging about the summer. You must be saying to yourself that even with all this work I must have had a little time to myself or I’d go crazy. You’d be right, I did and it did stop me from going crazy. Now you’re asking yourself well great, but what did he DO with that time? I’ll tell you that too.

Towards the end of June the lake my Grandma lives on where we usualy have the boat and go waterskiing was flooded out. We quickly got the boat and dock out of the lake, anticipating it would stay out for the rest of the season. After haveing the flooded engine cleaned and checked out we kept the boat in our garage at home, this made it very convenient for us to go and chaeck out the skiing on a number of lakes near our house, specifically Bryant Lake in Eden Prarie. I got to ski more than I probably would have otherwise which is great because it’s something I love to do. The last few weeks of August it actually got low enough we took the boat out twice on my Grandma’s lake and I got in a few more ski runs. There are some pictures of me skiing on Bryant Lake in the Ben and Family Galleries located at http://ben.franske.com/gallery/ be sure to check those out.

I also got a girlfreind this summer, something I haven’t had before, it was never quite right until now. Katie and I have been good friends for a few years and over the first part of the summer we grew closer as we learned more about each other and spent quite a bit of time together. Towards the end of June we both got honest with each other and admitted we liked each other a lot and agreed to start dating. As the summer progressed we spend even more time together, walking around some of the lakes and parks in the cities. We went out to see the Music Man at Chanhassen Dinner Theater, and to see Sum of All Fears. At the beginning of August we took a one day trip up near Duluth to a camp where I usually spend a week during the summer but didn’t have time this year. We also started whittling down the James Bond movie series, Katie admitted to only having seen one or two and since they are such a look into the periods of American history since the 50s I thought we should watch all of them, we got through most of them and have just a few to finish up. Just before we left for school we decided together that we didn’t want to see anyone else, so we’re keeping up our relationship via phone, email, letters and occasional visits. It’s interesting that only 30 minutes by car seperates you a lot more physically when you don’t have a car. In any event we’re doing quite well and both have a great outlook on our future together.

I moved back to school right at the end of August, but after visiting the fantastic and unparalelled Minnesota State Fair. Classes started the day after labor day and I came back home for labor day weekend for one last ski run. More on that and my first week of school to come in a future blog, this one got long enough!