Have I Finally Made Positive Progress?

I feel like I'm happy. What's wrong with me? :O

Usually when I accomplish things I feel as though that was expected to be accomplished and I barely get any joy of them but lately it has been different. I don't know if it's the meditations or the babby or what but I feel happier recently, more appreciative and I think I like it.

THE MEDITATIONS
I read a bunch of meditation books towards the end of last year and got some guided audio meditations on my phone I have been listening to. I've been learning to clear my mind and be in the moment more. In my life so far my brain just runs future scenarios. Whether they be I wish this interaction would have came out differently this way or planning for a future interaction I know will be happening that what it does always. Maybe doing that distracts me from being able to do other things I don't know. I have been clearing to clear my mind and then focus on what it does, label it and put it behind me. What I try to picture I try to describe as Super Mario Galaxy when I talk to someone about it. I picture the nothingness of space and myself flying through it and extraordinary speeds as when Mario gets propelled from planetoid to planetoid in the game. I picture a huge star that more than fills my field of vision but I am still far away from it but that is where I'm going; enlightenment. When I get distracted and my brain goes off on tangents as soon as I realize that I picture that line of thinking as an asteroid or something I temporarily landed on but the realization breaks it up and it crumbles behind me as I once again continue forward towards the light. I think that is working for me. Some days I can calm myself and clear my head rather easily, some days it just doesn't happen for me but I think continuing to try is worth it. I can push my brain to do more for me.

THE BABBY
Maybe it's the babby. He is super cute after all. Ale and I came up with the idea of Pax long before she ever moved here. When she finally got pregnant and he turned out to be a boy and then was born healthy things all seem to go according to some plan. I haven't had a newborn baby in so long I almost forgot what it was like but it's wonderful. I feel I love Ale even more for successfully producing such a wonder. Her family visited for almost a month to come see him and help her take care of him and they just left this past weekend and dang do I miss them. It was wonderful to have them here. I really enjoyed their visit and was sad to see them go. I feel sad when I think they will miss the babby being so far away. I feel like more of a family than we were before somehow. If I can just get my mom, Aunt Dee and Elaine to cooperate and help us with daycare we could even entertain the possibility of another little bundle of joy. That has to happen real soon though.

Quick substory to the babby I wanted to add.
We did have a bit of trouble with him at first. The feeding part did not go as planned. Unfortunately Ale's body was not cooperating with the plans to breast feed him and was only producing a few ounces of milk per day when Pax required much more. This is upsetting to Ale and that made me upset but I understand and it's not her fault. There's nothing you can do. The doctor's keep saying 'Oh it'll probably all work for the next baby'. Well that's great and all but what the hell is this one supposed to eat. He's the one screaming right now that he's hungry. >.< It took us the whole first weekend to figure that out (which was miserable) and that somehow set some red flags off when we took him for his first doctor's appointment. They expected him to lose a little bit of weight but not as much. We told them what we found out but they scheduled another appointment in a week to make sure we were on track. Then when we went to that appointment weight was good but now his temperature was low for some reason and the lady was alarmed about that. I may have taken this the wrong way but it seemed to me it was a threat that she would insist the babby go to the hospital if it doesn't rise in the next 20 min. I definitely did not like how she imparted that information to us. I had to jam the babby down my shirt, skin to skin, to warm him up enough so we could leave but at least that worked. A few other things that may have caused me some slight worry:

• There is the red mark on his nose and one between his eyes that hasn't gone away yet. 
• He had some skin issues at first too, flaky and such but that seems okay once I started using that lavender smelling babby lotion on him. 
• I feel weren't weren't washing him enough and he got some bad babby acne before I started taking care of that.
• Also after a bath one day and a few other times I've noticed his had a weird pattern of small red circles all over his skin. People have since explained that away to me but I still didn't like it.

Besides all that though he's perfect. :D


Anyway the point of all this is I'm happy. I feel happy. I am noticing that I am and feel happy which makes me even more happy. I don't think that used to be the case. Whatever is going on I like it and want it to continue. I love my wife and family!

Trilogy - Part X of 3 - Boy turns 11

The boy's birthday was approaching so I had to think of something special to do for him. He wanted to invite his friends over so even though I suck at talking to people I did my best to try and help him get the word out so this can happen. We did this last year with some success. He wanted to make out his own invitations and pass them out so that was good for me. We made 5 and 3 kids actually showed up and only 1 of them couldn't stay for the sleepover, Ayden and Dylan stayed and Gavin had to leave.

Those kids were cool and nice and I didn't have a problem with them. They only broke 2 things, Isaac's bedroom door and someone stepped on a Disney Infinity character. They played games and Legos and hung out in his room and watched videos on the computer. Due to Ale's pregnancy and relaxed dieting rules we even were allowed to order pizza and make a 'real' cake from a box of Betty Crocker. I haven't tasted anything like that in a while. We ordered way more food than we thought we'd need but they ate it all and drank 2 cases of pop anyway.

It was all very nice and I was very happy that Isaac had a good time. He got some Legos and Minecraft stuff and some gift cards so his friends were very nice.

I even got to eavesdrop on some of their conversations where they tried to outdo each other on how late they stay up at night hiding the fact they play games on their phones all night secretly after their parents put them to sleep. That sounds like a boastful claim I would have made back when I was their age.

Highlights 2013

Well I wanted to make a Top 5 list of the best things that occured in my life this past year but as I was looking for notable events that happened I found way more than 5 things I wanted to remember. Without further ado here is a list of things that happened this year that are memorable to me and a brief explanation of each. This is somewhat in chronological order.

Ear Of Luigi - According to Nintendo after pushing Mario down our throats for 20 some years it is finally time for Luigi to shine.

Data Analyst 2 - At work I have finally been recognized for my hard work and effort and after they retooled the job titles I have been promoted. Long overdue but at least I finally got a noteworthy bump in salary to help pay for the things that have gone up in price in the last few years when they skimped on giving us more money.

Attended 100th Pens Game - I've been to a lot of Penguins games and luckily I have a lot of friends that are fans that went with me. I don't know how much longer I'll have the tickets but I am super satisfied with what I have achieved so far. (add my record here)

May Trip To Argentina - Well I have been out of the country before. This was actually my 3rd trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina in my life but this time we were able to take Isaac. He is now an international traveller. I think this was super good for him to see another culture. Hopefully it sticks with him.

1 Year Anniversary - On 2013-06-08 I have been married to my wonderful wife for a whole year now! How is that not awesome?!

Took Isaac To See Weird Al - This wasn't the first concert the boy was ever at. We took him to see Phish before but we haven't been able to get him to a Weird Al show until now. Unfortunately due to the venue we were not able to meet up with him after the show but it was still a great experience.

Bushy Run Battlefield 250th Anniversary - Despite living only a mile or 2 away and it being around my birthday ever year, I have never been to the Battle Of Bushy Run Battle Reenactment before. We finally made it this year and it was the 250th anniversary to boot so it was a good one. I got some cool swag.

Ale Got Her Driver's License - She failed the test 5 times. I was admittedly not very happy. I couldn't understand how someone as smart as Ale could not grasp the concept of driving. She's still not a pro at it but finally at least she passed her test and is a licensed driver.

Green Baycation - I had on my 'bucket list', if you will, to attend an NFL football game at the holy mecca of football stadiums, Lambeau Field in Green Bay Wisconsin, for several years now. The problem is due to the way they make the schedule the Steelers only play Green Bay once every five years and of course last time they met they played here in Pittsburgh but finally this year it was our turn. I have been pushing this to all my friends for years and it seemed like I had a following but when it came time to put up or shut up, no one came forward. I was disappointed but not deterred. I had to shanghai Ale and take her instead. Luckily the whole trip worked out better than I imagined. We saw Chicago and the game went down exactly as I pictured it, snowy and wow what a game to boot! (link doc and pic album)

PS4 - Sony released a new system. Pretty impressive. I hope they follow it up with some good games. There wasn't really anything good that I craved at launch so I am still awaiting justification. Hopefully Infamous Second Son, Watchdogs and Destiny are kick ass.

Xmas Vacation - I took the rest of the year off after December 20th. Not only for the Green Baycation but to spend time with the boy and play with him and play video games of course. I had a lot of stress this year so it was nice to be off and not have to do anything for a while. Hopefully I can make this an annual thing.

Babbies - To say this was the year a lot of my friends had a baby is an understatement.

• ADELYN MAE WEYANDT  - MAY
• CARTER RYAN MEALS - AUG
• DANIEL MOOK FREY - SEPT 
• ZACK WEIN - OCT
• GALL - NOV 

Health - Also did a lot of things to stay healthy.

• I walked 4 million steps (4,322,302 to be exact)
• Did 10k push ups (10,220 to be exact)
• Read 50 books (52 to be exact)

IN CONCLUSION 
Well if you look at it like that it seems I had a fairly awesome year. Hopefully in my mind I can change my perception to think of this year in these terms and that should help me stay happy and positive. Next year as Ale and I have already discussed won't be filled with as many trips and events as we have been doing because we need to start saving money but I think it will still have some noteworthy happenings going on. Here is a small preview:

Big Stuff Planned for 2014

• Paying Off Student Loan
• Buying Property For Dreamhouse
• Groundhogs Day
• Cartwright Babby :D

What A Great Holiday

This was an absolutely fantastic holiday season. Perhaps one of the best ever!! Everything went great and with the exception of my car not a thing went wrong at all. I saw tons of my family and friends and did all sorts of fun things with them. I am so very lucky and happy and I wish I could feel this good all the time.

Wednesday 12/22
It all started when I went to the Pens game with Drew. (read more) We had a blast and got to see each other and hang out and catch up on stuff not to mention that the Pens whooped some ass that night. Perfect way to start the holiday.

Thurs 12/23
No more work for the weekend!! I was supposed to call Drew to invite him over to Matt's for his holiday/the dog's birthday party but he ended up being busy with his family but it didn't matter. I had another absolutely fabulous time. I got to meet Matt's new girlfriend Brandi and she seemed really nice. Plus tons of other friends came over and we watched the Pens and then the Steelers and did shots and got drunk and it was just insane. I remember wanting to cut out early when I started getting tired but because I was the first one there my car was jammed up in the back and there was no way I was getting out. I ended up sticking it out and being the last person to leave. The only bad thing that happened is that Brandon broke the ESPN food dispensing football thing that Matt had. Now it doesn't play the sound when you hit the button to open it so we had to do it manually all night. People wondered why we were doing that but it was funny to us.

Friday 12/24
I got up late today and decided to just laze around until 6pm when Isaac was supposed to be here. I had a package in the mail though when I went out to check and it was my copy of 3D Dot Game Heroes for PS3 that Ale had bought me for Xmas! Yay!! There was something for me to play.
Got Isaac, left out bells for Santa

Sat 12/25
Xmas!!
We played all day!! The big toy of the year, Snap Circuits, was a huge hit!

Sun 12/26
Globetrotters, went to see Pappy, Rick's for dinner

Mon 12/27
Played, went to see Pappy, saw the cigar box guitar museum at Speal's Tavern

Tues 12/28
Played, practiced karate, built Lowes trains

Wed 12/29
Thurs worked

Fri 12/30
Went to Nate's, played w iPad

Sat 12/31
Winter Classic, tailgating

Sun 01/01
Recover time, went over goals with Ale

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.

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.

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.

"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).

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.

Birthday party at Seabase

This past weekend I got to pick Isaac up a day early because he was invited to his friend from school, Nicholas McCracken's birthday party, which was at Seabase in Greensburg on 2010/03/18. I feared that Lisa would not take him (as she has failed to take him to similar events in the past) so I had to take charge and make sure he was going to go. Luckily she said she had to work or something so she couldn't take him and it was alright for me to get him a day early to make sure he got to go. Common sense prevails, YAY!! In return I traded her a day next week to make her feel like she wasn't getting slighted. A day that I needed her to watch him anyway since I wouldn't be back from my vacation yet so see how awesomely that worked out! ;)

So we went. Neither of us have ever been there before and it was really nice. Tons of climbing stuff for kids, a small arcade, a mini golf course, even a laser tag course and a big cafeteria area by the party rooms in the back. We were in the Whale room. All the kids had a blast and I got to meet a few more parents of Isaac's peers. I'm not good at the social thing but I thought I did an okay job of mixing in and talking to a few people. Although I have ran into Chris, Nicholas' dad, before (PT Fall Festival last year) I think this was the first time I met his mom, Amy. She was very nice and commented that Nicholas was always talking about having Isaac come over to play. I said we should make sure this happens then. Garret's mom, Tina, was there who I see often when picking Isaac up at Penn Pals but I don't really talk to her. They were at Isaac's party last year when he turned 6. I also met some other guy who I forgot his name or who his kid was. I noticed he really was going around chatting it up with everyone so I felt more comfortable talking to him. I think we talked about how we got here what roads we took and how crappy traffic was everywhere.

Anyway while we mixed it up the kids got to run around like nutballs and climb and run and jump all over the place. For as big as it was it seemed kind of empty. Amy told me that it's on weekends you don't want to be here because then it is packed to excess. We did that for about an hour and then it was time to go back to the room. They had pizza first and then cake. What really impressed me was the young girl that worked there. She seemed to be trained very well. She handled giving all the kids food expertly and afterwards when it was time for presents, she was handing them off, disposing of the wrapping paper and then storing them in a bag so they could take them home later. She must have done this many times because she had it down to a science I thought. I got this big Crayola pad thing for Isaac to give to Nicholas for a present. I figured it was better than a toy gun and I didn't want to randomly grab something that someone else may have also randomly grabbed (which happened, he got two of the same Star Wars Playdoh thingies). Plus I figured it was educational to help him with writing and stuff. It was something I would have bought for Isaac. I hope the kid liked it. After presents they all lined up at the door and the girl gave them all a couple tokens to play games with. Before I could get out and find where Isaac went he had already blown all his tokens at the arcade in some train game machine. A ball rolls out onto the back of this train car and you can control how fast or slow the train goes. The point is to get it past a few spinning obstacles that are trying to knock it off the car and get it the whole way around the track. I guess if you make it you win. He still got a bunch of tickets for trying though. He cashed them in for candy. That was about it. I let him run around for another half hour or so and I noticed people were already pulling out. My plan was the whole time to walk over to Primani's while this was going on to get some food and watch the start of the Pens game. I just wanted to scope the place out and make sure he'd be okay but I ended up staying the whole time. It worked out better that way in the end. The whole thing only went on for less than two hours but I guess it seemed longer to him. All in all a very good time. Glad we went. Glad we were invited. I made sure that Isaac thanked Nicholas and his parents. I also thanked them as we left and we went home from there. I did miss the Matt Cooke fight live (retribution for taking Savard out a week earlier with what some consider a dirty hit) but that was okay. Fluery got his first shutout of the season and we beat Boston 3-0. The day was full of win!