Alevacation part 6

2010/07/07

Today we got up and out a little later so we decided to skip breakfast and go straight to lunch. We went to the TGIFridays in Greensburg and ate. It was very delicious. Today we were going to stay local since we had a very important event to attend this evening so we could relax a bit and just see the stuff around my town.

After we had lunch I figured we needed dessert and to fit in the theme of our day I took her to try the best ice cream there is: Baskin Robbin's Rocky Road. So we went to the mall had some and walked around there for a little while so she could see the subtle differences and similarities between her malls and ours. Not so many I think.

I decided then to slow down on the vacation stuff and do some real world, every day life kind of things. If she comes up here and lives she will have to see what kinds of things need done and how I currently go about doing them. I thought to take her on a grocery shopping trip with me so we went to Wal-Mart. It was cool to do a stupid little thing like that. I needed to get this done anyway. I showed her my pattern of going through the store, what things I bought and how I decided to pick them out and all that good jazz. It was all nice mundane stuff that I hope will be more special for us both together.

After we went back and put everything away it was getting to be late afternoon so we went back out to Greensburg for one more task: Hit up the Best Buy because Ale wanted to get some tech! So we did and she grabbed up some stuff she wanted. I am pretty sure she loved this place and I found that extremely awesome. I bought Picross 3D for my DS. I figured since we both liked puzzles it would be a cool new experience for us to share.

Our last destination before the big event was to go see Dan at Unique Ink. I still liked showing her the tattoo shop even though she would probably never get any ink. Dan didn't have a ticket so when it was time to go he only walked us as far as his car. We said goodbye and went further up the road to where a crowd was already gathering. Something big was going on. Something amazing. Something that would rock this small town for the next few hours. There was a man I needed to introduce Ale to. A great man. A man of greatness. A great man who had some great greatness and this greatness made other great people come to see him. This man was the reason Ale was here. He was why we even knew each other. She did not come to his fan forums to find love but it found her anyway and it was all thanks to MR WEIRD AL YANKOVIC!!!!!

Yes I said WEIRD AL YANKOVIC was in town at the Palace Theater for one night only. This was the reason we picked this particular week for this trip. Ale wanted to see a Weird Al show and damn it here we were.

We walked around out front to see if we would run into anybody that we knew. Matt was here and he came up to say Hi. As we went in and found our seats we also saw Jeremy and Denise and her pack was sitting right in front of us. If you never saw a Weird Al concert than I'm not going to spoil anything for you here. GO SEE HIM YOURSELF!!! He is amazing and it will totally be worth your time and money. TRUST ME!!

The Set List
Polkaface, Frank's 2000" TV, Good Old Days, Smells Like Nirvana (he tossed his gargling water right on us which I felt was an honor), Skipper Dan, You're Pitiful, Dare To Be Stupid, CNR, Let Me Be Your Hog, Canadian Idiot, Wanna B Ur Lovr, (ALE GOT THE FULL WBUL TREATMENT!!!) Medley: [Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies, Whatever You Like, I'm In Luv Wit Da Skipper, Confessions Part III, eBay, Bedrock Anthem, Another One Rides The Bus, Ode To A Superhero, Trapped In The Drive-Thru, Gump, Eat It], Craigslist, Amish Paradise, White & Nerdy, Fat, We All Have Cell Phones, The Saga Begins, Yoda

Al knew she was there. He had to. He many a few references that we knew he was talking about her (Now all the Venezuelans!!). That made it so extra special that we both almost burst with weirdy happiness. We knew he'd be waiting out after the show to meet the fans so we lined up with everyone else and I got to meet another internet Al buddy, Heather, real quick and Jeremy got in line with us. We didn't have to wait long and it was our turn. I thanked him for coming out to our little town and he signed my VIP badge while Ale took pictures and then she got to meet the man himself. As she talked to him he signed her Al's Brain keychain she got at AlFest 2009 then she received a big Al hug. To remember her she gave him an Argentinian flag and some candy and soon we were left standing by ourselves somewhere in awe as the grins slowly faded from our faces. That would not be a night we would forget anytime soon.

Is This Enough?

To say I had a productive week last week (WE 11/13) would be an understatement. If accomplishing all of this doesn't make me feel good about myself then what the hell do I need to do?

• Finally after months of having the same basic conversation with myself about what I would say to get them to drop these bogus charges I went to my lawyers office to discuss the matter with them. They didn't even want to hear my carefully constructed, overly repeated story of the events they went straight to what my last offer would have been: Pay what I think the remaining balance is and I'm clear. I did so.
• I also asked them about this other BS that WM County is trying to collect off me. Probation charges from 15 years ago. They seem to think that it may cost me more to pay them then to pay the charges. I'd rather that happen than the county think they can push people around like that.
• I put off my grocery shopping way too long and was out of stuff. I took care of that.
• I've been good at keeping up with my bills but I've just been stacking up the papers afterwards. I finally took this mountain of paper and properly filed it away in its correct folder and cleaned up that mess.
• I haven't backed up my new movies since at least September. Since Ale and I had made enough progress on the MovieDB, I accomplished this task as well. Moved them all to the external back up drive and logged them in the new DB.
• I did two days worth (4 lessons) of Spanish learning.
• I called about this medical bill thing I was having issues with. They quit sending me the bill for the balance remaining on my MRI from last year.
• I called the karate place to get the scoop so we can get Isaac going on that.
• I called HR about my new job and what was going on with it and when was it going to start.
• Nate was down at Bakery Square doing some work and I met up with him and we found the geocache that I couldn't find before (Joe's Got Your Back).
• I called Bushy Run about my geocache. Do I have permission to hide it there? (I still don't have an answer)
• We also found 5 other geocaches on Saturday and my first travel bug.
• We went to Lowes and Isaac built a periscope. (We also found out that in December they will be doing 3 train cars and Stephanie said as long as we sign up she will grab them for us on the days we can't make it)
• We also built the Funhouse Mirror that he got during Trick or Treating after we got home from Lowes.
• I helped Chuck with repairs to his shed so he can store some stuff in it for winter.
• We got Isaac's school pictures for 1st grade and his report card (Grade-wise: Great, Behavior-wise: Meh)
• The stuff I ordered for my family for Xmas started arriving. I should have everything taken care of and paid for well beforehand.
• The Pens and Fleury have been winning.
• I signed Isaac up with an email address (I did this before but I forgot the password and Google will not release it to me) and thus I was able to create for him a PSN account he can get credit for his trophies he earned himself.
• I read Isaac all the stories in his newest Highlights magazine and helped him do the puzzles and games.
• And most amazingly enough I had a productive conversation with Lisa and maybe I can finally getting the rest of my stuff (vgs) off of her.

Wow that does seem like a lot of good things that happened this week. :D

Getting There - MoobeeDeeBee V1.0

I have christened the first version of the MovieDB last night. It's not to where I want it yet but it does work and is serviceable. I used it for the first time last night to enter the latest batch of movies and it worked fine.

I feel this was a very simple task for a first project collaborating between myself and Ale and I am happy with what we have produced so far even though it probably took way longer than it should have. It is still a bit rough to work over Skype with each other. I feel if we were in the same room we'd have made better progress but whatever. Something is better than nothing.

The task was to create a database so that as I acquire digital copies of movies I can log them in so I know what I have, when I got them, file size, etc, etc. I thought to put several other attributes in associated with each movie as well so I pull different reports on them. Say I want to know what horror movies I have or something along those lines. I have been using a regular Excel spreadsheet to keep track of this but it was getting too much and it was time to start a database.

So we hashed that out and started making tables and a form. Not too difficult. Ale thought typing in the information for each movie was stupid though when in the file properties that information already existed so she branched off trying to invent what we have come to call the Magical Button. Apparently you can use the internet to acquire movie information from a bunch of different websites (Amazon, Netflix, IMDB) and she found a site called TagChimp where you can register and get some information on APIs to do just that. She got it up fairly quickly but it's not working 100% yet. I figure this will be something we will work on for version 2.0 of this project. I didn't mind the typing but I can see where once finished this could be a powerful tool plus it would be valuable experience in coding and development so I am happy she was able to research that option.

There were a couple additional issues working with new version of Access I had on my PC but we hammered through those. I was happy to be using a current tool for once. We still use ancient versions of Access and Excel at my work.

After the main form was established I got a switchboard working and made a few reports and it seems like we were ready to go. It worked just fine as I entered data in last night. I didn't have any problems but I already see room for improvement. We still have to get the keyword system implemented. That is another big fix that will bring some benefits as any crazy word we feel like entering and tagging to a title will be able to be searched on. I think that is when it will really feel like we did soemthing awesome.

Again I am very happy with how this turned out. I think it did take way too long to come up with it but oh well. I'm glad Ale was there to talk to and assist me with this. She is wonderful and the only person I've found in my life that cares about my concerns and it makes her happy to help me. She is so smart and awesome. I can't wait to start another project. (We are thinking about making a Firefox extension that can add a movie to your Netflix queue from any web page anywhere) I just know that working together we will become smarter and better than we would separately.

Alevacation part 5

2010/07/06

I had set up today to introduce Ale to Joel. When we were all still in high school he was the one that drove us down to the big city on the weekends because he knew all the roads. I was using this as my thinking when I figured maybe he could take us somewhere that was a little hidden, a little under the radar but still cool. His idea was different. He works at the Tribune Review so he got discount tickets for the Carnegie Art and Natural History Museum so we went there. Not my original idea but still cool. We did stop at my work on the way past so Ale and Lana could meet but Lana didn't have her phone on her and we couldn't get a hold of anyone so we waited 10 minutes and just left. Her loss.

Joel's discount was buy one admission get one free but due to some snafu with the lady we ended up getting buy one get all the rest free so that was cool. We had a good time. First we saw the Natural Museum side, the old architectures, the dinosaurs and gemstones then we saw the Art Museum side. I've been here a bunch of times but not for a while so it was nice to check things out again. I think Isaac had came here recently with Penn Pals because I remember him telling me how awesome he thought the dinosaurs were.

When we were done the plan was to go to Schenley Park and play some disc golf because I borrowed some discs off my friend Billy (Carl) but the consensus was that it was far too hot to do anything outside if we could help it so Joel suggested we check out the new Rivers Casino. I had never been there before (gambling was not really my thing) so we thought why the hell not. On the way over we stopped to check out where the Pens play. She got to see and get a picture taken in front of the old Civic Arena before they tear it down so that was cool. Next time she comes here that building will probably not be here anymore. She also got to see the new arena but it was not done yet and we couldn't check it out as much. At least that one will still be here when she comes and I'm sure I'll end up taking her to a lot of games and events there.

It's funny that almost the exact same thing happened here as the last time I went to a casino. On my honeymoon in Niagara Falls Lisa and I went to a casino and for some reason she didn't bring her ID so when we tried to walk in they said she couldn't enter. We continued walking around until we came upon another entrance and no one said anything. We walked right in. So when we parked in the parking garage and took the elevator down and the guy carded us to get in and he (for whatever reason) didn't accept Ale's foreign ID as legitimate I knew exactly what to do. We took the elevator back up one floor, got out and took the stairs back to the ground floor and walked around to the main entrance. No one was standing there and we walked straight in. Yay slot machines. We texted Joel that we made it in but he said he had already lost $5 and was on his way back to the car. Lol. That didn't take long. We saw a complimentary drink machine so we got some pop and then we did a quick look around and I made sure we walked out right past the guy that wouldn't let us inside in the first place. We met up with Joel and by that time he needed to head back to start getting ready for work.

We went back to my mom's and she cooked us a nice home cooked turkey dinner with mashed potatoes and all the good stuff. I don't think she and Ale talked all that much. It's funny that people think they have to say different stuff to her or something because she's from far away. I don't get that. She's as normal and awesome as anyone from around here. Since this was the first time she was at this house I gave her a tour. I wanted her to see it because we may end up buying this place from my mom when she moves away. We thanked my mom and went back to Jim's to crash until the next day.

uwvark27's Favorite Movies Of All Time

Here is a partial list of some of what I think are the best movies of all time. I'm sure I can work on this more in the future but I just wanted to get this out here as a start.

• Anchorman
• Back To The Future (series)
  
• Billy Madison
• Crank (series)
• Death Wish (series)
• Dude Where's My Car
• Freddy vs Jason
• Grandma's Boy
• Harry Potter (series)
• Iron Man (series)
• James Bond (series)
• Kill Bill Vol 1 & 2
  
• Lord Of The Rings (series)
• The Matrix (series)
• Mr. Deeds
• Old School
• Porky's
• Saw (series)
• Scott Pilgrim vs The World
• Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny
• The Big Lebowski
• UHF
• You Don't Mess With The Zohan

History Was Made

This past weekend seemed to fly by. I can't believe it's Monday morning already. Now that I think back I guess we did do a lot but it seems like I should have at least one more day to rest and recover here. That is disappointing. What isn't though is the fact that Isaac came with me to the Pens game on Friday night to kick off our weekend and the Pens made history. They got the first ever win in the new arena and we were there for it. Now Isaac can tell people when he gets older and all the kids grow up and forget there even ever was a Civic Arena that he was there for this historic victory. I'm super happy about that. (you can read more about the game here)

He was very good during the game although he did get a bit delirious towards the end. We went right to bed when we got home because I thought I had way too many things we needed to get done on Saturday. It turns out I was wrong. My mom was supposed to go with us to the toy store to see what kinds of toys Isaac wanted for Xmas and to get him something for his birthday but she was too busy. I think she's taking him Monday while I'm at the game with Joel. We also skipped grocery shopping because I couldn't figure out how to fit it in without having to leave the stuff in the car while we did other stuff.

So Saturday morning he ended up playing video games all morning for the most part. He did take a birthday call from Pappy and open Aunt Autumn's card to him. I talked to Chuck about various things including some interesting information about his house and he helped me look at my car again. There was an issue with the battery light and so far I got a new alternator and battery but it still flickers on every once in a while. Hopefully that doesn't turn out to get more serious. Once that was fixed, we took off. We needed to work on his Halloween costume so we were headed out to Greensburg to find the Halloween store. On the way however we made a bunch of stops because I discovered a new pastime that I wanted to share with Isaac, Geocaching! We ended up stopping a bunch of places that day and while we did experience some frustration finding the one we did find all we attempted. It sucks that it's almost winter or we'd be out more often looking for them. No hurries I guess. They ain't going anywhere.

We found one cache and then made it to the mall. I could have sworn there was a Halloween store here behind the mall but I was wrong. I decided to try our luck and actually go in the mall. Maybe it was in there so we went inside and did find it. Whew! Why is it half toy store though is my question. The whole front end of the store was toys, not just Halloween toys but regular toys. That was confusing. No good costumes here either for kids here unless you want to be Spiderman or a fireman. Looks of sexy adult costumes though. Isaac wants to be a zombie so we did find fake blood capsules. That was all the good this place was doing us so we left. On the way out of the parking lot we found one more cache and then another down the street further. We stopped Arby's to get some food as we headed out to Nate's to watch the Pens game. I got us there a bit early so we could walk out to the lake to find the one cache we couldn't find last time I was here. That's 4 total for the day. Good job us!! The Pens destroyed the Flyers and we had a blast hanging out with Nate and the family and then we went home.

The next morning we went over to Brandon's again to watch the Steelers game and played a little frisbee after. For dinner he had his favorite meal of tacos and afterward we all sang 'Happy Birthday' to him and ate chocolate cake. Yes, these will be the time I will love to remember when I'm older.

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY ISAAC!!!! :D

Stupid But Funny

There was an email going around in my group today about the boss's birthday. You know the usual stuff, everyone give $2, when is the best time to present the cake to him, can someone stop and pick out a card, etc. I don't know what grabbed a hold of me but I decided I needed to reply using old timey speak so after taking a few minutes to decide what I wanted to say and how to phrase it I replied:

That’s a humdinger of an idea! :D
I vote the 15^th, I reckon that’ll send him into the weekend as happy as a dog with two tails!

I made myself laugh with that. Why don't people use these crazy words anymore? We need to start a wiki or something to catalog this stuff. Lol

PennDot is an embarassment

Let me explain how I saw this whole deal go down and you can make your own conclusion.

Nov 2009
Changed insurance companies
Nationwide -> Liberty Mutual

Jan 2010
Involved in a fender bender where another driver struck me
Police were called
Claim filed at both insurance companies
No questions if I was insured or not.

April 2010
Renewed License plate registration (which involves sending them insurance info)
PennDot sent me my sticker no questions asked

2010/08/09
Cop pulls me over after running my plates says I don't have insurance
Showed him insurance card
Advised me to call insurance company to get this straightened out

2010/08/10
Called insurance company they told me that they sent them proof in Nov when I switched and they can send it again.
A woman who worked there, Tanisha, faxed it to them again
They told me to follow up next week with PennDot to make sure it was okay

2010/08/17 Called PennDot to verify receipt
They told me my license plate registration was suspended since March? for failing to provide proof of insurance?
Did not receive any of the multiple correspondence sent to them proving that I had insurance
According to Adam (who dealt with the phone call slightly better than I hoped) the PennDot person I talked to said I needed to fax my Identification Card with the date that my insurance started that I'm sure they received at least once before.
I'm not to fax it to any specific person either which I'm not sure very productive.

He told me they sent a letter to me in Dec and another in March. I do not have these letters in anywhere that I see and I save and file things like that. I do sort of remember something about this. I am pretty sure I called PennDot in March about this letter and they told me that registering on-line would be fine. Adam says because the proper forms were not filled out nothing counted yet. Who am I supposed to believe. What if the story changes again after I fax this info?

2010/08/18 [1029] talked to Stacy at Liberty Mutual to tell her what PennDot is doing do me. She apologized several times but I told her that it wasn't her fault.
She can resend me identification cards and she will fax 1 copy of every form she can find to PennDot to make them accept it. I gave her the same information that PennDot gave me. Send my Insurance Identification Card showing the date (2009/11/09) that my policy was effective to the fax number 717.772.1550 and put on that Attn: URGENT VEHICLE UNDER SUSPENSION. She will also send me information down to her underwrites and they will also contact PennDot and send them the forms too.

2010/09/27 I had to go to my hearing to fight the traffic citation I was issued. Again I had to explain and explain that I have insurance. I had insurance the whole time. Their argument was that anyone could sign up for insurance, pay the 1st month and get the insurance card saying they were covered for 6 month or a year or whatever and then just cancel or not pay anymore. All I can say is :|
The magistrate made me call my insurance company (AGAIN) and fax them ANOTHER letter saying that I had insurance on the date I was pulled over. I did all that right there before I left and made them do it now. She poked her head thorough the window thing and said they got it and it was good enough. I guess when they send me back my $50 (cost of fighting ticket) this whole affair will finally be over with.

I don't know what kind of outfit it going on over there at PennDot but it seems to me that there is no accountability. Nobody feels like doing their job anymore and that's okay because it is the common person that will have to suffer the wrath of their incompetence.

Hiiiiii-ya!!

Isaac started karate lessons through the PT community program this week. He has it every Tues & Thurs for 4 weeks. For some reason I have been gung-ho on him doing karate for a while now and I'm glad we finally got this chance. What I'm even happier about though is that after both classes so far he has run up to me when it was over and exclaimed how much he LOVES karate!!

He seems like he is the youngest one in the whole class and he's not doing all the things right yet but he is learning. That's what this is for. It's good for him for many reasons. He will get exercise out of it and be physically fit and healthy and another main reason is learning discipline. He will learn to follow the strict commands of his Sensei. He will learn to sit up straight and tall. He will learn to be confident in his responses and actions. This is what I was hoping for and it seems I hit pretty close to the target on this one.


We'll keeps tabs on this one and see how it progresses.

Alevacation part 4

2010/07/05

We got up today, got some food and headed down to Station Square for the Ducky Tour. We checked out some of the stuff as we killed some time. We saw the foundation and some of the old steel mill stuff that was sitting around. Ale bought a sexy pair of sunglasses at a stand and soon it was time to board.

Amazingly enough I had not gone on this before but I was glad we got to now. The vehicle drove all around Pittsburgh and the tour guide told us all kinds of cool things that I didn't even realize. Ale had a blast and soon we hit the part where we drove into the water and that was neat. The driver called for some guest driver's as we swam(?) along. You even got a cool sticker that says 'I drove the Ducky Boat' but Ale was too chicken to go up there. Oh well.

When we got back we hit up the Incline and walked over to the observation decks to get some good pictures of us and the city. I have done that before several times and I was happy to share this experience with Ale. We got some great pictures and I think she liked seeing the city from this perspective.

After we went back down Mt Washington we started checking out all the shops and things that were in Station Square. Ale wanted to get lots of gifts and souvenirs that had PITTSBURGH stamped on them so that's what we did. We also went a hurricane simulating machine which was fun. It just blew air at you really hard. We stopped at Houlihan's and got some delicious chicken nachos for lunch.

It was late afternoon by this point and we promised Aunt Dee we would stop out so we headed back stopping at dairy queen to get Ale a Blizzard (another treat she never tried). We did that and when we stopped at my Aunt's she got to meet her and my cousin and we played with some sparklers and stuff. It was another adventurous day!

Alevacation part 3

2010/07/04

We woke up today and I got to show Ale some of my domestic skills. I used some of the food I bought to make a kick ass breakfast for us. Eggs and bacon and toast and all the good stuff. I think she liked it. When we finished up and got ready it was time to head out to do our activities for the day.

The first stop was Laurel Caverns. It was a bit of a drive to get there but it was awesome because we just got to sit besides each other for real and enjoy us just being there for once instead of just over the video screen. It's cool that we can talk over the computer and chat and all that but to finally be in each others presence was a totally different kind of awesome.

I may have been here before but I don't remember it and it was around this time that Isaac was going to go here on a field trip with Penn Pals so that's how I got the idea. With both of us going we could talk about what we've seen separately and that would be cool. Plus it's a cool activity to do anyway. The view from the top of that mountain is insane. You can see forever and it's just very peaceful and awesome up there.

When we walked inside the building they have at the opening of the cave we saw all kinds of cool brochures of the other stuff that was around here so we grabbed a few as souvenirs. There were also all kinds of cool pictures of bats and maps of the caves from different viewpoints all over the wall and we stopped to check that stuff out too. We had a few minutes to kill before the next tour so we played with some of the crap in the gift shop and soon they paged us to begin our descent.

You'd have to experience this yourself to see what it's like. I wish they'd give you a map and a flashlight and let you go at it yourself but I can see they don't want morons getting themselves lost and killed and stuff. I guess if we'd really want to do it we could join their group and get in that way somehow but not right now.

The tour lasted about an hour and we got to see some cool stuff. There was one point where they locked us in a room and shut out the lights. You totally could not even see your hand in front of your face! They played a song with some colored laser lights that lit up to the beat and that was neat too.

There wasn't much left to do when we walked out of the cave so we just hopped in the car and headed out to our next destination.

Westmoreland Arts & Heritage Festival @ Twin Lakes
This was pretty fun. Although I hear horror stories about how packed this place is being as it was the last day, it wasn't that bad at all for us. I was cautious though and parked maybe a little too far away. We had to walk a distance to get there but that was okay. We played on the fun activity thingies they have on the path as we went and just talked and enjoyed each others company. We took the wrong path and had to walk the whole way around both lakes to get there but again, what was the hurry?

When we got there Ale got to have funnel cake for the first time ever and she loved that. I also bought her a tie-dye shirt so she can be a hippie with me now. We looked at some of the crafts and other stuff that was there and that was about it. We hit the end and walked back through a second time and then decided we were tired and it was time to head back to the car. We went back to Jim's and that was about it for that day. We ate some of the food I bought and went to sleep.

2010 PT Fall Festival

This past weekend was the 4th Annual PT Fall Festival and of course Isaac and I went. We went last year and had probably one of the best times of our lives and when I heard midway through August when the dates for this year's was (Sept 17th & 18th) I immediately marked those off on my calendar. I don't think this year's was a super awesome as last year but that would have been difficult to achieve. We still had a blast, saw many of our friends and family and had an all around great time.

It started on Friday night.
Isaac wanted to go the second I picked him up from Penn Pals but I knew we needed to hold off a bit. I did splurge and order some Pizza Hut pizza for us to eat that way we wouldn't be hungry and spend money when we were there. (Side Note: The new Big Italy pizza sucks. The Bigfoot was better. Don't waste your money) I waited until about 6:30 or so and we walked down. It wasn't exactly pumping yet but at least it was still light. We did see a few people we knew, Candy & Bob, Brandi, Walt, Becca so that was cool. I did find out in horror that the cost to ride the crappy rides had gone up considerably. $2 a ticket or $13 for a bracelet to ride everything. The bracelet did not cover both days. I was hesitant to spend that kind of money but I did make a deal with Isaac that since he has been doing good in school and following the rules that I had a 20 dollar bill that was pretty much his to spend as he pleased. I let him know that rides today equal no rides tomorrow and as you would expect he opted for rides now!! Did I mention the rides were crappy? I mean they were serviceable but not that thrilling in any sense of the word. He did ride the swings and the teacups and anything else they would let him on. I was making sure we got our moneys worth. He did freak out on the haunted house as he did back at the WM county fair so that was funny. He was terrified of someone stepping on the thing that activates the screaming noise.
It was starting to get dark and there were people streaming in from the football game going on across the street at the high school but we stuck around to play a few games first. He won a little dolphin stuffed thingy at the fishing pond, a whistle at the 'throw darts at balloons' game and a lollipop at the kids shoot basketball game so that made him feel accomplished I hope. We walked out of there happy and went home to go to bed. We had to get up early the next day!

And continued into Saturday
Although I gave Isaac the choice to sleep later and hurry or get up early and take our time I decided when I opened my eyes at 8:30am that it was time to get things moving. We got up, got dressed and I made some breakfast and we were out of there. We had to walk the whole way to Aunt Dee's to get our seats for the parade. (I found out via RunKeeper that it was exactly 1 mile from our house to Dee's) This year there was no Nicholas or Jed or Zippy but it was still fun. The parade was nice and we remembered to bring a bag to keep the horde of candy that was thrown his way. We chilled at Aunt Dee's for a bit after it was over and then headed down and checked out the classic car cruise that was there as we entered since Isaac loves those mighty machines! We met up with Stephanie and Allie at around 1pm and walked around with them for a while and went to the petting zoo. We saw Mary Jo and her daughter Kim there and then we went up to the Warrior Wonderland (or the 2 playgrounds as we call it). Anne met us there with Sean and Ella so that was nice. We walked back down to the fair and they were as outraged as I was about the ride cost. Luckily for us most of the ride operator's must have not been checking too closely because they let Isaac on with the bracelet from yesterday so that was good. We got some food after a bit and we did find the Walking Tacos that Isaac loves so much so that was also good. We got some ice cream and farted around a bit more having fun until about 4pm. I was sunburned at this point and everyone was casting off for other things they needed to do. Isaac and I walked home and took a much needed rest. Last year we went back for the fireworks but this time we didn't seem to care as much. We did see some of them through the trees from the front porch when it was time but we didn't fell like standing there in the dark getting eaten by bugs so we went back in to whatever we were doing at the time.

All in all a definite fun time that is going to be part of our yearly activities. I'm just kind of hoping to bring a special someone with us next year so I can enjoy it with someone rather than just Isaac.

Another great day

While walking around the parking lot on a break on Tuesday I was showing my new shoes off to Billy and I said offhandedly that they were so awesome I could totally beat him in a race. Now I'm used to hanging out with lame people who would never take me up on that, never even consider it, but to my pleasant surprise he took off running!! It was close at first but about halfway thru I pulled away and he couldn't keep up. That was amazing!!

That wasn't even the best thing about that day. I love when things just come together. When I left work and picked up Isaac I thought it would be a cool idea to stop at Bushy Run park and take a walk. It was. (I just wish my walking tracker thing would have worked. I must have not hit the button or something) So we got a nice little workout there to keep our fat asses in shape. We went home and did our bookbag thing where I looked at all his papers and he did his homework. No Mimi today so we got to cook our own dinner (tacos, of course) and cleaned up after that. There was a little time to play and I used that chance to update my MovieDB with something I was working on and it worked!! I can now change the results of a drop box menu box based on the choice from another one. We made our lunches for the next day, got cleaned up and our clothes ready and even read a story good night. I just love days like that!! <3

2010 Labor Day Weekend

We've been having a lot of fun lately so I wanted to give a quick update on some of the stuff that has been going on.

Friday was the start of Labor Day weekend so I had the car packed and ready to go so when I left work I went straight to get Isaac and hit the road. My dad was moving this weekend so we had to check out and enjoy his resort one last time before we weren't allowed in here anymore. It's also hopefully the last time we have to take those twisty wine country roads that slow you down. I found a new route that is all highway that I can't wait to try out. On the way down we stopped at our usual Burger King that we always go to. It's our tradition. We got there late but still a good drive time and hung out for a little bit. The house was a wreck. Everyone was packing and moving stuff. This is where it was first hinted to me that I have been shanghaied. I thought we were coming for some pool and playgrounds but apparently I was one of the main work horses they were waiting for. That was okay I guess. I come down here and have fun all the time so the least I could do to help my family was help them move. Olivia's boyfriend Kyle was also here to help.

We woke up early on Saturday and went at it. We were hauling stuff out for the Uhaul at 8 in the morning. We completed our first load by 11:30 and thought we were having a good time. Until it was 8pm and we could barely life our arms anymore. We did 3 loads and although we did get most of the big things that needed moved, there was still stuff at the old house. We were all exhausted and La ordered way too much pizza. It was cool that we got to spent one night at the old house and one night at the new house, the first night anyone stayed there.

Speaking of the new house, it was great! It had very similar qualities to the old place but it was way bigger. It had a real finished basement instead of just dirt. The only drawback really was that it was not on the resort. I wonder what sorts of things will we do now when we come here to vacation?

At least on Sunday morning since most of the moving was done we got to take a break. After an awesome breakfast at my favorite place in the world IHOP (only 5 minutes from his house!!), we went up the road to a playground. It was pretty nice and there were some other kids there. Dad and I played some frisbee and he later told me how much he enjoyed that. I guess that's one activity we can do. I wanted to try and hit another park but dad had to go to work later so we decided it was time for pool. The resort put in a new pool area and we hadn't hit it yet so that was our destination. It was very nice two new huge pools and two hot tubs too. Dad didn't stick around but Isaac and I had a blast. We were very sad to drive out of there knowing that we were probably never going to be back.

We went home and packed up all our stuff (in the craziness of moving we did forgot some shoes) and gave everyone a hug good-bye. They were very grateful for our help and we happy to be there for them. We drove home and brought our stuff in. We still had a whole day of vacation to go!

I woke up early on Monday and changed my oil. I was hoping to do that down in VA but that didn't work out. Mimi took us to get Isaac some school clothes at Kohl's and we both got new shoes so we were very happy about that. After that we hit the last 2 close playgrounds I had on our list and then I took Isaac to see the Scott Pilgrim movie (best movie ever) and he really enjoyed that. We went home and got some much needed down time after getting our clothes and lunches and backpacks ready for the next day. An awesome ending to a great weekend.

Pet Peeve: Sunoco gas pump too slow

I've been annoyed by this for some time now but this was the first time I thought to write it down. Sunoco gas stations in my area here have all seemed to have upgraded their pumps within the last few years and I'm sure they are nice and new and shiny and have pretty colored lights on them but damn, they are slow and clunky and take too much time to begin dispensing fuel!

I go to the gas station to put gas in my car. I do not want to have to answer 50 questions to make the electronic pump menu system work. No, I do not want a car wash with that. No, I do not want a free bumper sticker or credit card application or GRRRRRR!@*@^%!!

The optimal solution is pull in, swipe card, push button selecting grade and go. That is not how the pumps at Sunoco work. Not only do you have answer a series of questions, the machine is maddeningly slow between asking and responding. Shouldn't your swiper machine know if it's debit or credit? If I swipe it and don't enter my PIN then guess what, it's credit. I'm sure this new crop of gas reward cards are very useful to some people but not me. There shouldn't be a specific question asking me if I'm going to use one. If I scan it, accept it, if not then I don't have one. Duh. Let's go here!

In short, speed up the process. Customer surveys are for people that actually go in the store. You should feel lucky that the owner of this store chose to locate it as he did and the route that I take to go to work intersects it or some other petrol company would be getting my money instead of you. Please take my feedback in mind when rolling out your next series of pump upgrades. I do not appreciate this minute or more of my day being wasted this way.

How Pathetic Is That

If my job seems redundant it's because it is.

I needed to send this guy an email about sending in some of his missing files. I searched through my 'Sent Items' to find a template of a prior email I sent so I could just change the dates I was asking for and resend. I found an email that I sent on this exact day last year 2009/09/02 and in it I was asking for the exact same files but from last year. Not even cool. :|

"Scott Pilgrim Vs The World" Crowned King!!

I saw both Scott Pilgrim and Piranha 3D this weekend.

I don't know how it worked out like that. I should have seen Scott Pilgrim twice. After seeing how awesome it was the 1st time with Danimus on Friday night I tried to rally the troops to come see it with me on Saturday night. Everyone seemed to be amenable to that but when it came time no one showed up and for some reason Joel switched gears and wanted to see Piranha 3D. I think because I knew I'd see it again anyway I agreed so I could see 2 different movies in 2 days rather than the same one twice.

Now as shocked as I am to say this after only seeing it once, Scott Pilgrim may be my new #1 movie of all time. It blew me away and I just don't know how it is not making good money in the theaters. I am definitely going again before it disappears so I can take Isaac. If you love anything about video games go see it immediately. It's nerdy as hell, lots of insane vg action and hot young girls.

In a nutshell, Scott is dating a cute young Asian girl and all his friends just think that's a bad idea. Soon he has a dream about the delivery girl, Ramona Flowers, and sees her at a party. As soon as he begins obsessing about her, his roommate makes him break up with his current gf and she doesn't like that and swears vengeance. As Scott and Ramona's relationship begins budding, Scott starts being attacked by random guys (and one girl) that are ex's of Ramona. There are 7 to defeat in all to be able to successfully date her.

I love the camera work at the beginning of the film. Scott is busy doing a number of mundane everyday life activities and is just going thru the motions. The camera will zoom in on him so you can't see any of the scene we were just in and then zoom back out revealing his moved to a different location. Like he is blacking out between activities and time is just escaping him. I believe 'Spun' used a similar technique.

With the exception of the DDR machine at the beginning of the film I don't think they really reference video games directly at all which is weird if you think about it. Although they kind of are the video game or are in the video game they still have to kill boredom like everyone else I think. The fights are sick even though Scott seems to win pretty easily most of the time. I don't know what power or training he possesses that he is able to defeat this other obviously stronger opponents. For example, one ex is pounding him mercilessly and Scott just stops the fight and challenges him to skateboard down some icy rails. The guy does it all right but he's going so fast when he reaches the bottom he crashes and is defeated. That would be the only minor gripe I have about the movie. I absolutely love the enemies turning into coins when they get defeated. The other extra power up stuff is awesome too. At one point Scott is asked why he challenges a character to fight and he answers 'For Ramona'! for which he gets a power-up of a glowing 'Power of Love' sword the he pulls from his chest. When he gets defeated and has to use a 1-up to restart the battle he answers 'For Myself' the second time and the 'Power of Self-Respect' sword is his bonus this time. It is a different color and much stronger. Very subtle but very video game like.

I absolutely cannot wait until this movie is available on disc so I can own it and watch it a million times. I have a feeling that even though it, by Hollywood standards, bombed I know that it will do exceedingly well as a cult classic and make its money back that way. I will award this movie a definite 10 out of 10 but I will have to watch it at least 9 more times before I decide where to slot it on the uwvark27's favorite movie of all time list.


AND THE OTHER ONE...

Piranha 3D was good but not best movie ever. I love bloody horror movies and this was right up my alley. If you don't like blood, violence, or open water stay away. Those piranhas ate everything and everybody. There was really no plot except for that. I can't believe how many famous people were in this movie! DOC BROWN!! The end sets up the sequel well (which I prob would have rather seen than this).

Religion

I'm not very religious but this is the kind of view on religion that jives with me.

I like this post which I have reposted here.

The Egg
By: Andy Weir

You were on your way home when you died.

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.

And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.

“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”

“Yup,” I said.

“I… I died?”

“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.

You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”

“More or less,” I said.

“Are you god?” You asked.

“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”

“My kids… my wife,” you said.

“What about them?”

“Will they be all right?”

“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”

You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”

“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”

“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”

“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”

“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”

You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”

“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”

I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.

“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”

“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”

“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”

“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”

“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” You said.

“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”

“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”

“So what’s the point of it all?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”

“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.

I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”

“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”

“Just me? What about everyone else?”

“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”

You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”

“All you. Different incarnations of you.”

“Wait. I’m everyone!?”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.

“I’m every human being who ever lived?”

“Or who will ever live, yes.”

“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”

“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.

“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.

“And you’re the millions he killed.”

“I’m Jesus?”

“And you’re everyone who followed him.”

You fell silent.

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

You thought for a long time.

“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”

“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”

“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”

“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”

“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”

“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”

And I sent you on your way.

Can you believe I just talked to Weird Al Yankovic on the telephone?

Al just tweeted his phone number again and I GOT THRU!! It's been 15 mins and I'm still shaking. I can't believe it. It only took like 15 tries before he answered.

I said Hi and asked how he was. I told him who I was and mentioned that I'm the guy with the 8 arm Al tattoo. He said that was so weird that it would be me that got thru then. He told me he was at the airport getting ready to go to Kansas City and that it was early. I just gushed on for a bit saying that I was so happy he came out to Greensburg and that I really enjoyed his show and that I was extremely awesome that he knew Alejandra was there and sang to her, etc. She was really blown away by his fantastic treatment and it was because of him that we met. He mentioned it must be hard having a long distance relationship like that and I agreed. We didn't set out trying to be together but we couldn't really help it that we just clicked. [AL FANS RULE!!] He said to say hi to her and hopefully he'll run into us again and then I wished him continued success with his tour and that was about it.

*nerdgasm

Alevacation part 2

2010/07/03

There was hardly any traffic. I shot thru town and made it to the airport super early. I started tweeting and texting to see where she was but she must not be here yet. I hung out by the baggage claim for what seemed like eternity until I finally saw bags coming down the chute. I tried to hide around a corner so I could sneak a picture before she saw me but she came running when she saw me. *HUGS & *KISSES

I grabbed her stuff for her and we headed back to the car. I was so happy she was here. It felt so right. We held hands the whole way back to Jim's to unload and relax. Luckily her flight wasn't too bad. We scheduled her a bit of a delay in DC so she'd have time to get thru customs (unlike my experience) but it turns out she flew thru and probably could have scheduled an earlier flight. Oh well better safe than sorry I guess.

We got back, spread out our stuff and made the place our own. We chatted about the trip and how everything was going. We didn't really need to talk too much since we all together online so much. Ale got cleaned up and ready and we went together in PA for the first time. We were going to try to stick to our itinerary as much as possible so we went straight to Primanti's to allow Ale to experience some real Pittsburgh cuisine. She ordered a real Primanti's sandwich and I took a lot of pictures of her trying to eat it. I was happy she liked it and now she was at least 10% more Pittsburgh than she was previously. :D

After we were down eating the next thing on the agenda was to stop over at Gall's for his 4th of July party and meet some of the Greensburg crew. Ale was nervous because like me she is not exactly a people person but this were my guys so I reassured her that everyone here was cool and that she should totally feel relaxed. We saw Dave and Callie, Dan and Steff, Q and Tina and bunches more. I was so happy to show Ale off to someone finally. She is so great and I love talking about her and telling people how awesome I think she is and this was the first time I got to do it when she was actually standing right next to me. I almost died. There was a little friction at one point because I forgot Ale didn't drink and wasn't really familiar with the culture we were in. She objected to me having a beer while we were there which kind of shocked me but I wasn't going to start a fight about it. I was all her's while she was here so it was no big deal. We didn't stay for too long since she had such a long day so we headed out and back to Jim's. My dad was in town for the weekend. I told him he didn't have to come the whole way up just to meet Ale. I had no place for him to stay and I really couldn't do nothing with him since I was with her but he really wanted to meet her so when we got back I called him and he stopped by. They talked briefly and we watched a little bit of TV until we were all passing out. I think day 1 was a success.

TO BE CONTINUED

Alevacation part 1

I don't want this blog to drag on and I never finish it like #revacation but I do want to blog about it so I can remember how awesome it was and hopefully reading the main details will trigger my memories of the other in-between stuff that is really hard to convey. I'm hoping to make it like the other blog just shorter and more to the point so I can get these out faster before my memory dims.

PROLOGUE

2010/07/02

Today was a busy day. I had to get out of work as soon as I could to go get ready and when the time finally came I was extremely happy to be free. More so than usual because tomorrow I will be at the airport to pick up my girlfriend who is coming all the way from Argentina to hang out and be with me.

The first thing I needed to do was finish with my packing. I had most of my clothes and everything I was going to need. I just needed to make sure I had all my electronics and plugs, presents for Ale, etc.

Once that was square I had to go to the grocery store and get us some food for the week. I went to the Giant Eagle and bought a ton of stuff: cakes and sweets and sandwiches and breakfast stuff. Now I have to get all this stuff over to Jim's which is where we would be staying. (Instead of renting an expensive hotel room for the week I had asked Jim if we could rent out one of his rooms since he traveled a lot it seemed like a much better idea, lucky for us he had no problem with the idea)

I talked to Jim earlier in the week and got a copy of his key off him in case he was traveling at the time and wouldn't be around to let us in. I pulled in and hauled some bags down to his door and when I walked in I had to make sure I was in the right place. It was clean! I have never seen Jim's house this clean and I was amazed. Not that Jim always had a dirty house you know it's just... let's call it a single man's house. I guess he was practicing for when his girlfriend moves in. Whatever the reason I appreciated it because I wanted to make sure Ale would be comfortable here.

I brought the rest of the stuff in and put it away. Then I set up everything in my room and decided it was time for a break. I called Matt and he stopped by for a bit and we had a little party and then I crashed. I think I was supposed to do some chore for my mom in the morning but I don't remember what it was. I think it ended up being done anyway so not knowing how Pittsburgh traffic was going to be, I left early to go to the airport.

uwvark27's Tattoos Part 1 - Luigi

I'm pretty sure I used to keep a page that detailed the progress of my tattoo's but that has been lost with time. I decided here would be a good place to try and recreate that.

Let's get this out of the way. I am a hardcore gamer. Whatever you think that means, I don't care. I play video games. I love video games. I am steeped in video game culture and I always have been and always will be. (You can read my gaming blog if you want to get more insight on that) Anyway growing up I was always a Nintendo first kind of guy. Their games were the best Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc. The list goes on. Now everyone loves a Mario game but to me I had always thought Luigi was better. Can't exactly put my finger on why though. More personality, better abilities, cooler color scheme, I don't know maybe I just liked rooting for the underdog and I was sick of all the attention Mario was getting. Whatever the reason was the bottom line was I liked Luigi better. So much more in fact that my homage to Nintendo tattoo was going to start with him.

I didn't really have a plan for this I just know what I thought I wanted. I figured the tattoo guy would allow me to describe what I was thinking and he'd be able to interpret my mental image into something awesome and I'd just go with that. My friend Gary told me he knew a guy named Heasley that lived close by in his trailer that did tats. I brought a picture of Luigi from a Mario game manual. He didn't exactly use that picture to make a lot cooler version on my arm like I thought. He straight up made a photocopy of that on some stencil paper and pretty much just duplicated that exact picture on me. Although I was hoping for a little something better, I didn't think it was horrible or anything and I was fairly pleased with it. Yay for me and my first tattoo!!


Luckily my close friend Dan was learning how to be a tattoo artist himself and although there were a series of events that caused us to not hang out for a few years it was around this time we were becoming good friends again. I quickly went to him with what was going on and he introduced me to Tom Sinnamond the tattoo artist who was mentoring him. He totally scoffed at what I had already gotten and told me that he would fix that mess and give me a real tattoo.

I was astonished when I saw what he intended to do. It was very large but he assured me large was best. I sat there for 6 hours and he did a marvelous job with it. I made another appointment and he did the piranha plants which finished completely covering up the old little Luigi.

From there on Dan took over the project. In the next few years he added more piranha plants on my shoulder, the lava flames down my arm and the Giga-Bowser that is underneath. There are still a few things I want to get done on it but I am not in a hurry. It took so long to get this much that I was eager to start working on a new design elsewhere. Enjoy this video of the whole piece and watch for the upcoming uwvark27's Tattoos Part 2 - Weird Al

Revacation part 8 THE END

2010/04/02

For the 2nd day this week I woke up in the morning on a bus pulling into a bus station. We grabbed all stuff and hauled it out of there and found a taxi to get back to Ale's house. When we got there we just dumped it off and crawled in her bed to finish sleeping.

When we woke up we didn't do much. Today was a resting day. We basically sat on her bed all day (like how she is every time I call her on skype :P) and played with our computers. We copied each others pics from the #revacation. I gave her a bunch of media that I had on my hard drive that I put on there specifically to give her. She downloaded Windows 7 for me and installed it on my laptop along with a bunch of other stuff which was awesome. It was a nice day to just be together in a more normal setting than with the excitement of vacation all around us. Later I actually wish we had spent more time doing stuff like this. I love how tech savvy Ale is. <3

As the evening approached we both could fell our hearts growing heavy. It was time to pack up her dad's car so they could ride me to the airport to go home. The was the most glorious week I had ever experienced in my life so far and although it seemed to stretch out for longer than it actually was it had to end sometime and this was now. I knew this moment would eventually come and I dreaded it. I was getting sad because I had to leave.

It was a crappy long ride to the airport and when we got their her parents stayed with the car and Ale walked me in as far as she was allowed to go. I checked my bag and we walked to where I had to walk thru the security gate and sat down. What was I supposed to say? I don't think I needed to say much we were both just crying. We hugged and kissed and stuff until I got up to go to my plane. I think I cried thru about 3 security gates before I was able to stop. It sucked. I don't know why I had to go thru so much security either. It was pretty stupid but I eventually made it to my gate and boarded. It was time to leave this country and go home. I knew I'd be back someday. This was after all the trip of a lifetime.

EPILOGUE

2010/04/03

When I woke up and got off the plane in Washington DC I had a little less than 2 hours to get to the next plane back to Pittsburgh. I knew we had to go thru customs but little did I know I still had a bit of adventure yet to go. I scheduled everything this way because I felt I'd have enough time to get back to make it to Isaac's first ever baseball practice. Something I did not want to miss. When I got off the plane and shuffled down with everyone else to customs I started thinking that not only might I not make it but I might be stuck here for a long time. The line wrapped between those velvet rope things throughout the entire room. Sure they had a lot of booths at the end to check the people out but like only 3 of them were staffed at this time. I got on chat on my phone with Ale and told her what was going on. She didn't want me to worry so she kept reassuring me that I would make it. She didn't see this line though. It moved agonizingly slow. You could hear everyone bitching to each other and to loved ones on their phones that they were stuck in this line and were going to miss their flights. It took about an hour and half for me to make it to my turn but it seemed like forever. I was thinking at this point I wouldn't make it. The guy looked at my stuff and let me go thru. I started running.

In the next room was all our bags. I saw mine immediately and grabbed it. Ok, I have a few minutes. Maybe I would make it after all I thought. The next room was another security station. Take off all your clothes, etc. Good god man. Where do you think I got a gun from between here and where I got off the plane? For real. Again the lines moved so slow. Well there goes my hope of making it. I finally got thru this and started running again.

I came out in the airport proper and although I knew what gate I needed to make it to I had no idea where that was. I asked some guy and he said go back the way I came. That confused me. I went back down the stairs to the security station. This wasn't right and I was wasting valuable time. I went back up the stairs and looked the other way. There was a sign for gate A. I ran. Oh boy did I run. I had less than 10 mins. There was no way I thought. You always see in movies people running thru the airport like that but never have I experienced in in real life until now. That was me. My gate was of course at the furthest point away from where I currently was. At least now I had running buddies coming along with me. Other people were killing themselves as well to get to their respective gates. We all got a small break to sit down and rest when we got to the shuttle that went between gates. My legs were killing me. When the shuttle stopped we all took off again but I could barely run anymore. My luggage was too heavy and my calves were on fire. at least now I was at the right gate and I had an early number like 3 or something. As long as they went in numerical order I was almost there. I couldn't be that lucky. It, of course, was in reverse numerical order. My gate was way at the other end. I kept running the best I could. I kept telling myself that I could rest when I got to the plane.

I finally made it and I burst thru the gate throwing my boarding pass at the lady. Oh man, the plane wasn't here. This just opened up into a whole other corridor I had to run down and without fail my gate was the very very last. I could see the words Pittsburgh on it as I tried to catch my breath. I was sweating and dying here but I MADE IT!! I don't know how but I did with 1 minute to spare. Luckily I was in seat 1A so I could finally sit down. Just a quick 45 min jaunt home now.

There was still some more pain hauling my stuff to where I parked (if you remember my first #revacation blog it was pretty far back) but the worst was over. Oh no someone in DC broke my luggage. I only had one wheel now. :| That's going to make it harder.

I packed up my car and blasted straight to the municipal field. What a good daddy I am. Flying home from another country overnight on a 12 hour flight to go straight to my sons baseball practice is a story I enjoy telling. I texted Ale I had made it and sat down to see my son learn the wonders of team sports. Could there be anything better? A leg massage would be nice. :P

THE END

Revacation part 7

2010/04/01

We had to check out of the hotel today but apparently your still allowed to check your bags and hang out there for free so rather than haul our stuff around all day that's what we did. We grabbed what we would need and checked the rest. We then started our day by grabbing a quick breakfast at the hotel and then walked down to the beach for the 3rd time. The first time it was cool and no one was there. Yesterday it was warmer and some people were there. Today it was beautiful out and blazing hot and it was packed!! We grabbed a spot to lay our towels down and jumped into the water. This is where we got some of my favorite pics. I also did some picross puzzles as we tanned. After a few hours it was time to eat so we decided to grab some lunch at that castle restaurant at the end of the beach. I think we had to pay more to sit on the outside deck but we went for it because it was nicer then sitting in the cramped inside. It was a bit windy but we still enjoyed ourselves. The food we got here was probably, I don't want to say bad but, the non-best we've had the whole week. The chicken thing I got was good but it was small and the pumpkin mashed potatoes were good but meh.

After we ate we walked down to where all these street vendors were selling their junk. Everyone other booth was sunglasses and stupid stuff made out of wood. I made fun of it and Ale thought I was hilarious. She is so sweet and awesome. It was a good walk down there and on the way back we walked down towards the water. Here there was no beach just rocks but it was fun to climb over them and jump over the cracks.

When we got back to the beach part there was some kind of memorial sidewalk area where all kinds of famous Argentinian people cast their hands in the cement. Ale acted like I heard of some of them but I have not. Excuse my ignorance dear. :(

Even though we had checked out of the hotel, our coupons for a free spa treatment were still valid so decided to cash those in. This was an awesome, relaxing time. It broke down into 3 separate stops: the sauna, the Finnish bath, and then the jacuzzi (15 min at each stop). First we went into the steam room with the heated rocks. It was damn hot. I kept pouring water on the rocks too for some reason which just made it worse. We almost couldn't take it but the lady came and pulled us out right before we gave up. That was a hardy sweating for sure. The lady showed us where the showers were between each stop. I guess you were supposed to rinse of all the sweat and cool down a bit before the next thing. So we did that, dried off and walked back out.
We went in the next thing which I had never heard of before, the Finnish bath. It was like being in a bathroom. The sauna was wood and this was bathroom tiles. More steam came from everywhere and it was almost so hot you couldn't sit down. The steam even smelled like a clean bathroom somehow. Once again though it was extremely hot in here and I think Ale did wig out and left the room before our time was up.
We took a quick rinse off shower again and hit the last thing, the jacuzzi. This was the best. Although this one wasn't as hot (as I expect a jacuzzi to be) it was very calm and relaxing. The bubbles and jets were very soothing and we just sat there and vegged out for a while. Actually a long while I think the lady forgot about us or soemthing because it seemed she left us in way more than 15 minutes.

We got cleaned up once last time and got dressed. It was time to check out the casino.

Neither of us really see the point in gambling so we didn't have that great of a time here. We walked around saw the tables and slots. I remember having trouble breathing because there were so many smokers around. I think we played the slots for about a dollars worth and then I dragged her over to the bar so I could get a drink. She ordered some fries so she wouldn't be drinking on an empty stomach and we both got some fancy drink. It was nice. When we were done that was all we needed to see. We left. I remember being amazed at the bill. It was so cheap. Back home just one of these fancy drinks would cost more than our whole bill!

We walked thru the town and stopped in some of the shops. There was an arcade here so we went there too. I had a strange sense of deja vu at one point like I had been here or dreamed about this place a long time ago. That was weird. They had one of those cool things where you put on 3D glasses and go into the small room and sit on one of those chairs that jerk around and watched a short roller coaster movie that they advertised was in 4D. I like those kinds of things and I think Ale liked it too.

When we left there we walked back to the mall to eat some dinner. We went to a normal burger type place and then got some ice cream after. We were getting tired after such an exciting week so we went back tot he hotel and chilled in the lobby till we took a cab back to the bus station.

The bus still wasn't too packed and we claimed our same, top of the bus in the back seats that we did before. No snack this time though. When we woke up next time it would be my last day here. :(

TO BE CONTINUED

Keep Right, Pass Left

Kindly Driving Advice via uwvark27

If you are in the fast lane and aren't passing anyone, move over.
If you are in the fast lane and someone is directly behind you, move over.
If you are in the fast lane and people are moving into the right lane to get around you, move over.
If no one is in the right lane and you are in a long line of cars in the left lane, move over.
There is no pride in driving. Don't get the attitude that 'I am driving fast enough' and stay in the fast lane blocking others. There is always someone driving faster than you whether you agree with it or like it or not. Pull over for a second and let them go by then you can pull back and proceed.

If you change lanes, use your turn signal. This includes turning into the turning lane.
Use your turn signal to turn even if you are in a turning lane and you think it should be obvious. Believe it or not, that's not always the case. Using it removes all doubt.
Put your turn signal on before you start turning. This is intended to be a warning to other drivers. Once you start it's obvious what you're doing so putting your turn signal on then is kind of pointless although then we do know for sure what's going on and you're not just weaving around willy nilly.

If everyone lets one car in front of them at a merge point then we don't need to stop the whole works. That's why it's called 'Merging'.

They put the 'Maintain Sped Thru Tunnel' signs there for a reason. Please heed them.

Informative article about older drivers and how long they should keep driving

Today was a Good Day

2010/07/19 didn't start that great. It certainly didn't get any better in the next few hours but I do consider it to be a good day. Let's see what happened.

First I woke up. I was still tired. I stayed up late all weekend and wasn't able to fall asleep early enough to get enough rest. Not good.
I got to work and the lady from the Westmoreland County Clerk of Courts called me back about a letter I got on Saturday. They say I owe them $575 for me being on probation for 23 months between 1996 and 1998. Apparently whether this is made up or not or a 12 year charge or not, I have to pay it even though this is the first I've ever heard of it.
I also looked up obtaining an immigrant visa for my fiancée. That costs $455 to submit a form. Yes you read that right.

You could definitely say my day didn't start off that great.

After I finished my work and went home though things really started to happen. I was waiting for this and I jumped right in. Since it was possible for me to sit and the computer and get stuff done without Isaac bothering me (he was at his mother's this week) that's exactly what I did. I was just in the zone when I got home and I feel I made the most of it. I did branch around and do a lot of smaller tasks not my 'main list of things' but the bottom line was that things got accomplished.

• I ended up making progress on one of my work related goals.
• I started a LinkedIn profile.
• I started cleaning up the mess that is the 'My Documents' folder on my desktop PC.
• I messed with my Delicious toolbar and made it way more useful and productive.
• I updated the progress on a bunch of my Goals.

It seems like I did so much more too but I guess most of those 5 items there are a lot more detailed than the one sentence description I gave there. My main point here was that doing all that made me very happy. It was a few weeks since the last time I had a day like that. If I could find a way to increase the number of those days I'm certain that things would really start happening for me. Alejandra was with me last time and I was sad that she wasn't this time but that's cool. She was at a belly dancing performance. I would like to see one of those live someday soon but it's okay because she will be with me later this week.
Right now when I don't have Isaac we take out 3 days to 'Be Productive' - 1) Work related goals, 2) learning Spanish and 3) learning development by hobbyist programming. I can't wait until all my hard work on these areas pay off. :D

I need a new phone

Well despite all the news going around right now about the iPhone 4's reception problems I went out to the AT&T store the other day (07/14) and ordered one. I had to. I had a bit of an accident with my almost 2 year old 3G.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Me and my friend, Lana, were standing outside of work that day and we were underneath the awning in front of the door. She was talking about doing pull ups on the beams holding up the awning. She is short and I didn't even think she could reach it but whatever. I didn't think it would hold up to anyone hanging on it but I wondered if I could reach it. I jumped and touched it no problem. Unfortunately for me my phone was in the breast pocket of my shirt and jumping like that caused it to fly out. It sort of hit my shoe and the hard cement at the same time and the glass shattered. I had a screen protector on so right now it still works. I think it's the only thing holding the glass together at this point. I am very bummed and kind of shocked that happened. I took such good care of it for this long.

WHAT DID YOU DO?

I went right to the AT&T store after I picked up Isaac and did a few errands after work. It was kind of busy but I got my turn eventually and the lady was very nice and helpful. I knew I bought the Applecare plan but she told me I was going to have to go thru Apple directly to make a claim on that and that would cost money and be a pain and yadda yadda yadda. That wasn't going to do me any good so I did not get it on the new phone. It would be $199 to get the same phone (which didn't make sense), $99 to upgrade to a 3GS and $199 to get a 16GB 4. I knew before I even got here what I was doing. I ordered a 4. It would take a week to get here and because UPS needs you to sign for it I had it shipped to the store directly for me to just pick up. I was trying to convince her that I couldn't use this broken phone for a week and asked her if they had any loaners. I guess they don't do that and I'll have to deal. :|

I don't know what to think about this issue with the dropped calls. It seems to me this issue is more media driven trying to put a dent in the iPhone party. I don't know anyone who is having this issue. I was kind of forced into getting this because of the accident. I hope it is not a tough fix and that it ships to the store repaired before I even pick it up. There is a press conference today in a few hours that Apple will announce what their plans are. I'll note what they say here and when I find out how that affects me.

UPDATE:
It actually took 2 weeks to get here and I had to deal with my crappy broken phone for that much longer. Now that it is here though it was awesome. It's like a brand new phone but one that I already know how to use. I do get a free case which I already downloaded the app to order it.

Another Wild Weekend

The father and son team of Isaac and Marc were at it again this weekend. Talk about a contented state of exhaustion. We were all over the place and saw tons of people and hung out with family and it was awesome. I'd just to highlight our adventures here so we can remember that this one is going to be tough to top.

It all started on Friday June 25th. Lisa had to go to work so she had to drop him off to me as soon as I got home. So I tried to be nice and get home as soon as possible to facilitate this. I needed to talk to Jim to get the key to his house off him because he was going away again for work and might not be there next weekend when Ale gets here to open the door for us. (We are staying at his house instead of a hotel for the #Alevacation) He wouldn't be home for a while so we chilled out and played some Red Dead Redemption. Isaac isn't that good at it because he doesn't care about doing the missions. All he wants to do is sometimes shoot a bunch of people but mainly chase down the train and ride it around. You do know he loves trains right? So we did that for a while until I got a text from Jim saying that he was home but he was going to cut the grass. I figured I could take Isaac out to eat and by the time we were done and drove over there Jim should be done with his chores so that was the plan we were going with.

We stopped at The Great Escape Clubhouse to have some dinner. This place is okay. It's a local place and the prices aren't too crazy. Isaac was excited because I guess when hanging out with his one friend Adam and his parents once they took the kids here. So he was familiar with it and he was telling me all the stuff they did. I grabbed some quarters from my car to let him play the games. I got a buffalo chicken sandwich and it was pretty good. After we were done I needed to stop at the state store next door and guess who I saw walking out? It was Aunt Dee and Aunt Mary Jo. They just came from a funeral home and they invited us to come over. I told them I had to meet my friend but that we would stop over later. From here we got in the car and went to Jim's.

I was glad to see that Jim was watching the NHL draft. For whatever stupid reason the place we were at had NBA draft coverage on and who the hell cares about that. I talked to Jim about what was going on and everything and he was really cool about it. He let me go upstairs and see the room and then told me if we were going to need an air conditioner that there was one in the basement we could use. I said no doubt we would need that and I went downstairs to get it. From there we started moving more things around. He needed a couch to go in the basement so we moved that. The futon bed that we were going to use needed hauled up to the room. That was a little harder to pull off but we that too. I asked him if he needed anything else but he said that was it for now. By around that time the draft was only on pick #12 or something but it was quarter to 9. How can it be that late already? My plan was to hang out until the Pens picked (#20) but if we were going to go to Blair's house we would have to leave now. Jim gave me the key, I thanked him for everything and we were off.

Last on our stop for today was Uncle Blair and Aunt Mary Jo's. It was fun to go over there and hang out. Mary Jo loved Isaac (cuz he's so cute) and since I haven't talked to those guys in a while it was nice to see them again. Isaac caught lightning bugs and Blair teased that he would give Isaac a dollar for every one he caught (He ended up not paying out :P). I got to run me and Ale's house idea past Dee to see what she thought. It was good getting additional input on that. I should write that up in a blog next. We didn't stay too long because it was late and getting dark and this was only the first day of our fun so we went home and pretty much went straight to bed.

Saturday June 26
I talked to my friend Anne this week and she invited us to go with her out to Keystone State Park today. Her boyfriend Ryan didn't get off work until 3 though so we wouldn't leave until shortly after. (Check out the band Ryan is in, The Boogie Hustlers, pretty awesome!!) That gave us some time to relax. I got my bills done and worked on backing up some of my videos and adding them to my tracking sheet. Isaac played more of the cowboy game (as he calls it). Around 3 we got our stuff ready and left. I told Anne we'd meet her at her house. When we got there and knocked on the door some dude I never seen answered. His name was Dan and apparently he lived there since April. Good job keeping me up to date on this stuff Anne. :| She texted me that she must have assumed she already told me she moved. Whatever. Not a problem. We just went back to my house and waited for them to come by and we followed them to the park.

This was another place I have not been in forever (see Father's Day 2010) but now I was sharing some time there with my son. He did mention that he was here before with Lisa and her cousin Katie. Not sure if that is true or not but hopefully so. At least she is doing some stuff with him. We picked out a spot on the beach and started playing and swimming. I warned Isaac about doing that gagging thing he does when he gets water in his mouth. He was pretty good about it today but he did puke once and I had to take him out of the water for a bit. I still don't understand that. I've never seen anybody else do what he does and it bothers me a bit. Besides that he played in the sand and with Ella and Sean. He made some new friends too. I took him out to the deepest parts a few times and let him go to see if he could swim and he did great. He's not a strong swimmer but he could probably stay afloat and save himself if he had to so I am proud of him for that. We may have got there late in the day but we stayed until dusk came so it was a good long time. I know I was exhausted. After we got dried off and changed we even fit in some playground time. There was a nice playground right there so I let him play around on that and got some more pics for 2010PlaygroundFest. I lit some of his fireworks when we got home since we really couldn't do that at the beach. Nothing spectacular since we are in lamo anti-fireworks PA but he still enjoyed it. The little neighbor kids even came over to check them out. I made us some food and we took showers and went to bed after that.


Sunday June 27
We woke up today and had one more awesome thing to do before the weekend was over. It was Allie's 4th birthday party!! She is my cousin Stephanie's kid. Aunt Dee called in the morning about this. I guess she was coming too so it would be a good idea to pick her up when we left. We ate breakfast and got our stuff ready to go. Zip was supposed to follow us over but he was not there. He had one of those inflatable jumping houses for kid's birthday parties and he was going to set it up for them. That was cool! We made a quick stop in Delmont at the Wal-Mart to pick up some presents and we were off. This is in an area I don't normally go so I had to use my phone's GPS to get there but we had no issues. I couldn't wait to see their new house.

There were already lots of people there when we arrived. Lots of older people that must have been Sam's (Stephanie's husband) relatives because I did not recognize them. I did see Elaine (her mom) but from what she told me most of the other relatives that I know from her side of the family were on a cruise in Alaska at this time and were not coming. I did see a girl that I went to high school with there and that was weird. We had a blast though! The house was amazing! I am so jealous. This is the kind of house that I could picture myself being happy with. It's big and there is a room for everything. Their property is very nice. A whole acre I think they said. I walked all around everywhere when I first got there and checked it out. You could say it's sort of close to Pittsburgh but it's still in a woodsy area which is nice. Their pool was awesome too!! I know Isaac loved it. I think my child is turning into a fish. We could not keep him out of it once we let him in. Everyone seemed to be apprehensive at first about going in except a few of us and then the pizza came so we had to get out to eat. We went back in for a bit but it started storming so we closed it but it stopped after 20 minutes so we opened it again. We had to get out again when it was cupcake and present time. The cupcake's she made were awesome. They were Oscar, Cookie Monster and Elmo cupcakes!! Allie loved all her presents. A lot of people left by that time but there were a few of us who stayed. We got back in the pool and played some volleyball for a while. They had flippers and I never used them before but I love them. It's amazing how dramatically they can improve your swimming skills. With those on I could motor across the pool in seconds. I kept them on for the rest of the day and my ankles were hurting later. We also got see and play with her new baby Jillian. She is so super cute. Actually the last 2 groups to leave were us and her mother. I got to talk to them seriously for a bit. I also told them the house thing and she was kind of bugged that my mom made excuses not to come. We also planned what we are doing to do next week when Ale comes because they want to meet her. I guess she gets some deal at this bowling alley nearby so we are going to do that. I hope to show their house to Ale so I can give her an idea what I dream of for us together.

We probably didn't leave until like 8. We stopped at Burger King to get some dinner and even after I was nice enough to put on a shirt the kid still gave me crap for not wearing shoes in the store. I was going to call and bitch the place out about him but whatever. As big of a total no-issue that was I guess he was just following rules. We took our food home and ate then took a shower. I put Isaac to bed because it was getting late and he needed some sleep after that weekend since he had to get up early with me this week to go to Penn Pals. I called Ale on Skype and pretty much fell right asleep after telling her about what all we did. I can't wait until she can come with us when we do those things. <3

Revacation part 6

2010/03/31

We woke up and went down to the hotel dining room to get us some free breakfast buffet. Being free meant of course that there was nothing really good there. It was just a bunch of little desserts and things and some cereal. We still filled up as much as possible to get us moving. We want to try and hit the beach again.

We stopped on the way at the Human Body exhibit. It happened to be right here in Argentina while I was here. I missed it when it was in Pittsburgh. I don't think I actually tried that hard but now that it was here we could see it together. How cool is that? Well, while it was neat it wasn't like the greatest thing we've ever done in our lives. We saw a lot of dead people and their guts. If you like that kind of stuff then for sure go see it. I would think it would be a must for school children to attend like for health class or something. In fact there was a tour of them in there at the same time as us. They were not dead. You could hear the teachers pointing and talking to individual things telling the kids more information. If I had it to do over, not sure I'd be in the mood to do it again. We blew thru it in less than an hour and got out of there.

Oh it was definitely nicer today outside. A lot warmer, not super hot mind you but at least you could hang out and get in the water without freezing (The water here must come up from even further south because it is freezing year round). There were more people here today. We walked to this shop and bought one of those beach mat thingies to sit on. I took a lot of awesome pics of the environment up and down the beach trying to capture the atmosphere. There was a guy in the water trying to wind surf but he kept falling down so that was funny.

We went back out on the street for a walk to start sight seeing. I found a nice store right away that had souvenir shirts for small boys. I finally found what I was looking for to get Isaac! A Mar De Plata t-shirt. (PIC) We kept on walking down the beach seeing what there was to see and I got even more awesome pics. Some of the best were at this high point where you could almost see forever down the beach in either direction. We sat on this wall and took pics of both of us from all sorts of angles. It was awesome. These are some of my favorite pics that we got. (PIC)

We walked back to our home base area at this point and got some lunch. I was knocking out all the awesome Argentinian dishes that I wanted to try and I finally got to have some milenesa at Montecatini (she got the chicken I got the beef, both with eggs). After we ate we stopped in Italia and got some Cannoli which was this amazing ice cream thing. It was a churro covered with ice cream that was filled with peanuts and all with a chocolate shell around it. It was so good and super hearty but I could barely finish it I was so stuffed from everything.

There were more touristy things to do further down the beach at the port. So I let Ale drag me along to a bus stop to take about a half hour ride down the coast. I saw houses with actual yards and stuff which was cool. This is stuff I was used to rather than straight 100% city all the time. We got there and we right next to this circular plaza. Nothing really interesting here so we walked a bit down the road to the actual port. Here it turned into a pedestrian area with a bunch of souvenir shops and you could see about a million boats on the water. Where the concrete ended by the water there was another level underneath for the boat people to get to their boats I guess. That is where the sea lions were. There must have been at least 20 lying there sleeping. I wondered being so close if they would ever attack someone if they got in range but there were boat people walking back and forth and neither of them seemed to pay each other any mind. The fun thing to do while looking at them is to say 'Hey' to someone and point and go 'That one looks like you'. That was good fun to do that.

We left there and I found the perfect little trinket for my mom (even though I already bought her some stuff) and we found a dock that gave a tour via boat. We looked at the time and we were here right at the time we needed to be. We bought some tickets and hopped on. While is was a nice tour, it was the slowest damn boat I had ever been on in my life. We only went out and made a huge circle around the bay but damn. We sat on the top at first but it got chilly so we went down inside. There was a spot on the shore where more sea lions were. There must have been 200 of more at this spot. I wondered how they climbed up the rocks to get where they were.

When we got back we grabbed the bus back to the beach and went back to Manolo's to have submarino. I guess to tide them over until dinner since everyone eats so late, the popular thing to do is get warm milk and a chocolate bar for a snack. You stir the chocolate in the milk until it melts and then you drink it. I was happy to be doing these cultural things. We went back to our room after that and I think we were so tired we didn't even go back out for dinner that night.

TO BE CONTINUED