September 2016 may have been the best month of my life

I had a bunch of stuff scheduled for this month. I did not know how much was really going on though. Around the middle of the month I was like 'Damn'. I decided I should write this all down and make a blog post about it. I tried to put everything that I could recall happening here.

• Got tattooed
• Hung out with Danimus
• House related
• Met with builder
• Scheduled lot evaluation
• Got loan preapproval
• Got an ultrasound on my neck due to weird, scary pains
• They say they found nothing
• Went to Danny's 3rd birthday party
• Saw WEIRD AL at the Benedum
• New Weird Al cartoon, Milo Murphy's Law, came out
• Went to the PT Fall Festival parade
• Pax's first parade
• Boys got their picture in the paper
• I biked a bunch
• I ran even more
• Steelers 5K
• Best time ever!
• Greensburg 5K
• Even better time!
• Post race after party with free beer!
• Gabby 5K
• She's not dead!
• Went to my first BEERFEST!!
• I drank a ton of new beers (not only at this event but all month in general)
• Went to the eye doctor
• Took Pax to his 18 month doctor appt
• We paid our school taxes for the year
• Finally paid off the loan for our property
• Went to a ton of new restaurants
• Michael's Neighborhood Griddle
• Ricks
• Abruzzi
• Hugos
• Checked out the new bike shop in Greensburg, Flat Tire
• Watched the first presidential debate
• Steelers season started!
• Bought tickets to go to Joe Louis arena
• Started bingeing Luke Cage
• Got a new credit card with the fancy, secure chip in it
• Got myself the new iPhone 7

The best thing didn't happen until Oct 1st so I will write that into it's own post. 

It's getting better - Home Automation

I have this lamp that you have to lean over this table to turn it off and on. I was getting sick of it and it got worse when there were babby toys everywhere and you couldn't even stand close enough to reach. Isn't there a way I can just turn it off and on with my phone? I checked the internet and two days later I had a possible $20 solution in hand; Orbivo S20. You plug it into the wall and plug the thing you want to control into that. The set up did take a minute as one confirmation messages did not make sense but it wasn't too hard to figure out. There's just a big button on the app to turn it off and on. Beauty!

There are also options for timers and countdowns. So far I like it a lot. I am all about the home automation thing.

Continued Success

I own 2 acres of land. I have an 11 year old son and a 3 month old son. I have the most beautiful, real, soulmate that anyone could possibly hope for. I have every amiibo released so far. I get to play all the awesome new games that come out on the best systems. I have plenty of awesome bike trails to ride to my hearts content. Now I just got a promotion at work. It doesn't feel like a promotion you see on TV or in a movie but I think it's pretty darn good. Certainly turned this year around from the way it started. Let's hold this together and keep moving forward to even better stuff.

New Carpet

I think we were doubtful when we first heard that there were plans to get us new carpet but it happened and we are so happy.

You remember the old carpet right?
So dirty that even after we used one of those steam cleaning machines you rent at the store your feet/socks would still turn black if you walked on it. Plenty of marks and burns and other gross crap as well. That's where it started we told the landlord that we couldn't put the baby on that and it seemed like it was well past time to re-carpet this place. Ale started sewing a quilt thinking this would not come to pass.

We heard before Xmas to look for the end of February and then as that time approached a guy did come over to meet with Chuck and check things out. After that meeting it was definite. We were told we were scheduled for 02/24. Yay! I immediately started moving things off bookcases, etc to make it easier for later. Chuck said he would come over that prior weekend to assist with ripping out all the old carpet. Those 2 days, Saturday and Sunday were pretty crazy. You had to start pulling out the carpet on the edges and kind of cut it down to a strip and just keep going until you got it all. Under that was the padding and you ripped that out next. There were lots of staples holding that in so after that grab a pair of pliers and pull all those out. The amount of dirt that was under that carpet was extreme. In our bedroom we found newspaper from 1976. Even crazier under that was more newspaper, from 1946! We moved out as much stuff as we could shoved it in the back room and in Isaac's room. The only places we could since there either was no carpet or wasn't getting new carpet. It was a messy, dirty job but except for one spot in the computer room where the padding was stuck to the floor underneath, most everything came out pretty easily.

My mom came over and cleaned. That was not pleasant. Although she is a super good cleaner (as you would think someone who has spent every Saturday of their lives cleaning and re-cleaning their home would be) she was super bitchy about it. I was not dealing well with this conflict. If you insist you need to come over and clean that's fine but do we need to hear over and over how horrible you think we are because our house is below your impossibly high standard of clean? I don't think so. That didn't stop her. A couple times we almost started yelling shit at each other but it never exploded. I would like the focus of this article to be on the new carpet but this insane cleaning part has to be explained.

By the end of the day Sunday we had bare wooden floors.

Finally Tuesday came and I took a 'work from home' day from work because I knew I would have to be there to help move furniture around. I was not used as much as I thought I would be but it was still good that I was there. The one guy showed up and seemed irritated that there was still furniture around. Hey man there is no where to put it. What do you think we were supposed to do with it? We forked everything into the living room so they could do the computer room, the stairs and our bedroom. Once that was done we could move everything over to clear that room out. There was really no issue there and the guy did calm down but I thought he was rude and I think with his temper Chuck almost blew up but luckily we kept a lid on it.

Mainly I stayed in the boy's room working on my laptop until I was needed for something. It worked out okay. The other installer guy was nice and kept trying to engage in friendly small talk. In about 5-6 hours they were done and we started putting everything back. Apparently there is a lot of loose fuzz in new carpet because every time I've vacuumed it so far it's filled the canister up with fuzz.

The worst part again I hate to bring this up but my mother came back to iron our curtains or something. She was there when we weren't and when we came back and saw that everything was rearranged in a manner that I knew my mother favored and we got a little irate again. Furniture was moved, things that didn't need touched were touched, she even freaking rearranged our refrigerator magnets. That was quite enough. She insisted she come back to clean the boys room since he missed out on all this but as politely as I could, I declined. Fortunately she didn't push it. What a weird situation I was put in there. We all were grateful for her willingness to help but the way she did it, it was not worth it to us. I'd rather pay someone to come in and keep their damn mouth shut.

We had to make some new rules to keep this carpet as awesome as possible for as long as possible.

• No eating of any kind. 
• No drinks unless it's in a container that has a lid. 
• No shoes. 
• Someone must vacuum the carpet every weekend without fail. 

Hopefully the baby doesn't puke all over it and ruin it.

Biking

I'm starting get obsessed with biking. Ever since I had to (shhhh!) buy the boy a bike so I had one to do the Triathlon with I've been researching and riding on trails more and more. I think I'm going to have to buy myself my own bike soon because my bike is a piece of garbage and the boy's bike is his not mine. It's more of a mountain bike anyway and I seem to require more of a racing bike. I don't want to spend the money but it's fun and healthy and I enjoy riding with the boy and Joel comes out for rides too so there seems to be many good reasons to do so.

Father's Day 2014

There were a few things that threw me off this past week but for the most part it was a great time.

For starters this past week was E3 and there was tons of good stuff going around. The Nintendo event started with Reggie fighting Iwata and that right there was enough for me to call a winner. They showed a lot about the new Zelda and Hyrule Warriors and they finally became available to preorder on Amazon.

There was an incident where a cop punched my car but don't get me started on that. I was kind of upset for like a day after but I have since calmed.

I also got a little irritated trying to convey a lesson to the boy via Ale. Not sure what happened there but I guess it worked out in the end. I'm still not sure.

Besides those downers I guess everything started on Thursday. Since the boy was going away for the next week we had our Father's Day celebration this day. We had an awesome cookout outside and the food was great. I am really liking the grill we bought last summer and I think I am pretty good at cooking on it. We cook pretty much every piece of meat we have in the house when we cookout so we don't waste the charcoal and then we have food to eat for several days afterwards. I invited my mother for like the 10th time to our cookout but like every time but one, she ignored the invitation and did not show up. Her loss.

The boy made me a gold trophy at Penn Pals out of a piece of paper and Ale collaborated with him to buy me a new power screwdriver set so that was good. It's nice to get something useful once in a while. The boy did fail to call me on Sunday but I guess I won't mess with him over it.

Friday was awesome too. I had a tattoo appointment with Danimus. A lot of progress was made on the 'I bleed black and gold' tattoo. It may even be finished the next time I'm in. I guess I will finally be able to show it off. After we were done we even hung out and did some stuff. I was kind of jacked how Dan never acknowledges my texts or anything so I wasn't expecting to do anything but it seems like we are still friends and I should let stuff like that go more easily. He showed me a lot of what he has been learning about beer. Apparently he is at a whole different level than I knew even existed. He's online trading beer and I rediscovered that the Giant Eagle in Irwin has an awesome section of craft beers which would ensure I never have trouble trying something I've never had before. I even got a bunch of new badges on the Untappd app from all the different beers I tasted.

Weird Al got permission from Iggy Azalea to parody her so a cryptic announcement was released this weekend. July 15th the newest Weird Al album will be released.

In 2 separate trips I rode the boy's new bike over 20 miles this weekend in training for the PT Triathlon which is this next weekend (June 21st). My legs were killing me the 2nd trip but I am super happy with the bike's performance. Hopefully the boy really appreciates that bike because it was not cheap. I am happy my bike is still able to be ridden as I've enjoyed the couple times we have gone out together riding. Hopefully that continues.

Saturday after the bike ride I know I worked on and made good progress on my VGDB so that made me happy. I wish I had more time and resources to research and add all these games. I do it because I love it but I do kind of wish on the side that I could monetize it in some way. At lease showcase my skills to an employers that will let me do this would be nice.

The LA Kings won the 2014 Stanley Cup. They kicked ass. They were absolutely the best team.

The World Cup has started in Brazil and we watched Argentina beat Bosnia and Herzegovina 2-1 in their first match.

On Sunday I got a good few hours in on Watchdogs. That game is pretty fun and for as long as I played it for as much as I did I am still not even that far along. It is an extensive game to be sure.

Besides all that I got to spend a lot of time with my beautiful wife, Ale. I don't know what I'd do without her. We are still moving forward with the house. We do own the first acre of the property and we are still saving up I guess. I am still paying my student loan down and I hope to have that taken care of by the end of this year.

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

Boy Does Homework

The boy made us very proud today. It was unfortunate that he had to severely disappoint us first. He is learning long division and he had a 6 problem worksheet to do. It was not a good time. We kept trying to explain that it you just do the same steps over ad over again until you run out of numbers. He wasn't getting it. I tried. I could see the look on his face and none of the information or methodology was getting anywhere near his brain. I did example problems, walked him through a few and every time I'd leave him alone for one second he just went blank. Very frustrating. Ale tried. She did great as she maintained her patience a little longer than me but after 3 hours together it eventually ran out too. Nothing was registering with him and he wasn't absorbing anything so we sent him to his room. He had to be in there for 2 hours or so but when I eventually stuck my head in I was surprised to see he had all his papers strewn out on his bed and he was trying to do problems. This was a positive sign. So I sat in with him and asked him what problem he was on now. We went over the method again and something amazing happened. I could see the gears turning in the boy's head. I swear I actually heard something click. He was getting it!!! We all persevered through this day of long division hell and he boy was getting it! Wow was that amazing and totally worth it. The best part of it is the way I could see that he knew he was getting. He understood that at first he didn't know what he was doing. He understood the pain of the effort of working on problems over and over all day. Now he was understanding that he got it. I made sure he also recognized that progression. It was wonderful to watch and I was proud of him. He was proud of himself. I think that was even more important.

Satisfaction

I still don't understand my internal set of values and things that allow me to feel satisfaction. I think accomplishing certain things should make me feel good and sometimes they don't. Sometimes I do things that I feel are unimportant or insignificant and feel great satisfaction after completing them. It's strange.

I was super impressed with the help the boy provided this weekend. I had a huge list of chores that needed done, from cleaning, to phone calls, to errands run and everyone was extremely helpful in getting them done. The boy himself personally oversaw the cleaning of the bathroom and vacuuming. I again was very thankful and I've conveyed to him several times now how much that meant to me. I hope he gets my feeling and it helps him build on it and grow into a better person. I do wonder why most of my satisfaction comes from chore related tasks. I think I have my mother to thank for that.

Also I don't really like barking commands to be followed out to my wife. I like to bring them up in regular conversation at earlier points and be like 'Hey we're going to need to do this soon. I'll need you to do this.' Sometimes we reach the point where I can't continue until she comes through though so sometimes I do have to say to her 'Hey, get up, let's go with this'. What is absolutely wonderful about her is even if she not in the mood she is smart enough to realize the advantages of taking a few minutes of her day and getting up and getting things done. It's not like I'm trying to inconvenience anyone or that I'm asking some back-breaking, effort-intensive activity that benefits no one and I'm asking simply to irritate her. If you put a halt to what I'm doing here I may become cranky and who knows when I'll work up the gumption to get on this kind of a roll again. She realizes that helping me out really helps our whole family out and damn, after what I've been through in the past this is indescribably beautiful to me. I love that woman so much again I don't know if whenever I feel these waves of emotional thankfulness and I try to convey that to her if I could ever possibly come across in a way that she can understand. I love talking to my wife. She is my best friend. Most of the time I get the feeling that she listens to me and cares what I say and think. That is a good feeling. She shares my concerns. We are in this together. Sure some times I talk about stupid stuff that doesn't matter but even then she still half-listens. I can't really remember connecting like this with someone in the past.

I guess I'm just trying to say I love my wife, I love my son, I love my family and I am super lucky to have them. I am trying my best to be the best for them. Doing so makes me feel good. 

First Super Productive Day of the Year

Ton of productivity going on up in here this weekend. 

Bathroom; clean, 
new shower head; installed, 
boys room; clean, old toys and clothes; dropped off at goodwill, 
new household supplies; purchased at target,
Legos; put away,
clothes; washed,
floors; vacuumed,
burn barrel; cleaned out,
kitchen; swept and mopped

satisfaction; felt

Fixed the Desktop PC

I've had my desktop PC for a while now. I bought it new from Dell a while back and it's served me well for a long time but it's been so crappy slow and buggy for so long I almost couldn't stand it anymore. My plan was for Ale to help me redo everything when she came up for #mayvacation but that didn't work out so I needed to think of a new plan. What is the best way for Marc to accomplish something? Set a goal! So that's what I did.

I started on Sunday. I hooked up my external drive and started backing up my music while I made a list of everything else that needed saved off. As long as I got all my files (pics, music, databases, etc) and the programs I use on an every day basis saved off I didn't care what happened to the garbage that filled up the rest.

It took me another 2 days to get everything saved off but on Wednesday I was ready. Now my plan was to reformat the whole drive and use the bios to put Windows back on when it was done. I wanted the whole thing wiped and clean but Ale's idea was to just add a partition and install Windows there. I wasn't so sure about that. Wouldn't the garbage still be on there? I don't know but I put in the disc and picked the Custom install option. This says it will totally disregard any files currently on the drive but the first time I tried to install Windows it died almost at the end and I had to shut the PC off to break it out of that. Restarting set it in a repeating loop so something went wrong. My worst nightmare! What if I couldn't fix it and my PC was junk? :(

I went back in the bios and booted straight from the disc. What was this option.... What drive do I want to install Windows on? Oh reformat? Yes please. BOOM!! Not even an hour later my PC was up and running a brand new copy of Windows 7 and I had an entirely clean hard drive to put everything back on. I had done it. I put it off for so long but all it took was for me to make it a goal, write it down and plan it out. I am super happy. I starting putting everything back together and crossed this task off my list. :D

Quick Update

Sorry it's been so long since my last update. I have been doing so much (that I probably should have been writing about).

I finally got my new job in December. I moved from my old Miller project group to my new Stores group. I"m finally getting to learn new things and be useful. I love this job. I'm writing SQL and learning Appworx chains and all kinds of things. There's so much to know that somedays I feel like, 'Oh yeah I"m getting it' and then the next day I'm like, 'OMG I'll never ever understand all of this'. It's all okay though. I'm just going to do the best I can and I know good things will happen.

I finally got a new car to replace my beat down Buick. I bought a 2001 PT Cruiser from a junkyard that was totaled. Someone Chuck knows does body work so he fixed it up. It took 2 months but I finally have a sweet car that hopefully won't give me problems for a long time.

And lastly, I am finally back out on my own (w Isaac). It took about a month of constant hard work but we fixed and cleaned up Chuck's old farmhouse and I moved in there. It's pretty nice and big and we like it. It's just nice to be out by myself again. I'm scared about paying all the bills with Lisa still hounding me for money but I can't stop living my life just because she's a freak.

The best part is the #mayvacation is like less than 70 hours from now. I finally get to see and be with Alejandra again. She's so awesome. So many people were asking me, 'What's going on' and we finally get to sit togehter and figure out when she can move up here and stuff.

My life is rocketing off towards good things and I love it.

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

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.

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.

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.

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