My First Amazon Product Review

Joy Bidet C2-SC on Amazon

Great Product!

At some point we will all get these installed on our homes. I had personally knew of bidets but never used one until I was in Buenos Aires. I started looking for options for my home as soon as I returned.

This particular one was simple to install and I have no issues with leaks. It works brilliantly and our whole family is very satisfied. If you read up on this and decide to buy one you won't go wrong here. I prefer this option over an entirely separate bowl.

They gave me a free one to write a honest review. I had already had one but never written a review for it. Now I have a backup.

My Review on Amazon

Redefine FREE

The word FREE has been thrown around so much lately that I feel it has lost its meaning and we need to do something about it. Turn on the TV and all you hear is FREE this and FREE that. In reality IT IS NOT REALLY FREE!!

Free is not free if you have to buy something else to get it free.

There are eateries that advertise 'Kids Eat Free On Tuesday's'. Hey guess what? Kids do not eat free at a restaurant if you need to buy an adult meal to claim that offer. In that case you get an adult meal and a kids meal for the price of an adult meal.

Buying something off a TV commercial ad and getting a second one totally free is not free. You are getting 2 for the price of 1. They need to change the term to Bonus or something because to say something is free when it is not is totally diluting the meaning of the word.

FREE to me means, and I believe the dictionary would back me up, acquiring something for nothing. I want to go into a business and get something without having to give back anything in return. That is FREE. Giving even one cent or having to leave information like filling out a survey or giving them your zip code or phone number or buying 3 tires and getting the 4th one free, I repeat for the 10th time, IS NOT FREE.

Has everyone lost their freaking minds?!?!

QNAP

I thought we had a networking solution last year when we bought a new router that had capabilities to attach an external hard drive. It seemed to work at first. We could get to all of our files, stream videos to our devices and FTP in remotely to access things but then weirdness started. Files we know that were there or updated starting disappearing. This was particularly troublesome when we were trying to do the bills. Permissions kept giving us trouble. We couldn't delete or move things sometimes and there seemed to be no consistency on what or why. We needed another solution.

Ale did some research and found this, a NAS server for home use by QNAP. I had thought about getting a server in the past but I was hesitant as I wondered if I knew enough about it that I could keep it operating 100% of the time. Ale seemed confident so we went with it. We had to buy our own hard drive for it but that wasn't an issue. It all came in a few days and we started setting it up. Best. Decision. Ever. The thing works like a charm. It has an awesome management interface that we can get to over the wifi at home or over the internet away. It has an app for about any use that the system can do which makes things super easy. No more having to go through the crashy Windows Explorer interface. It is giving us no issues moving, copying, deleting anything so far. No files have been lost and it still even has a port for external drives so we don't have to burden it with gigs upon gigs of video files. We just moved the documents and pictures over and it's been like a dream. I wish I knew about it sooner. Just read that website about the stuff it can do. If you are looking for a place to store all your files where you can access them anytime, this is what you want.

Now if we can just find an awesome picture solution to tag and sort through all my folders of pictures. I like Picassa by Google but it seems to be a single machine solution and not for a networked environment. QNAP has a picture app that is functional but doesn't have the tagging and other bells and whistles that Picassa has.

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

Who are the Terrorists again?

I saw this picture on the internet the other day and found its message disturbing. We need to pay attention to our own affairs and leave the rest of the world alone for the most part. A lot of these events are none of the United States's business and these actions have caused the major of the rest of the world to have a negative opinion of this country. I do not abide these actions. We need to shave money off the defense budget, off Congress's bloated salaries, close the loopholes so the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxes and then use the money for science, education and mental health issues instead of this kind of crap.

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.

So I'm a Marathon Runner now

I ran a marathon.

If someone would have told me a year ago that I would run a marathon I'd have laughed at that person.

Maybe if it's not 26.2 miles then its not a real marathon but whatever. It was pretty long from my point of view.

I guess it started when I decided I to walk 10K steps every day. I've been doing that for close to 5 years now. I suppose its helping me be healthier. Moreso than your average schlum who doesn't walk at least. I got an email from Mario Lemiuex (or at least someone from his foundation) notifying me that there was going to be a Pittsburgh Penguins 6.6K Run and Family Walk. I guess it would be a good bucket list item to say that I ran a marathon in my life. If you figure 6.6K is about 4.1 miles and since I walk so much that should be doable. I can walk a mile in 16 minutes or so. As long as they give me enough time I could probably do that even just walking. I told Ale about it and she said she would do it too. I guess our first plan was to just walk it together. As we got closer I started to feel like I should do my best and that I should be able to run a good percentage of it without much training. On the way back to the parking lot from work I figured I could try to run. It's a mile. So I did for a week or two. I still couldn't make it the whole way without stopping but I know I was getting better. I don't think Ale did much training. It hurt her lower extremities.

On 2013/10/06 we woke up early and went to the arena parking lot. I didn't know what to expect exactly. We found tents set up to let them know we were there and we got a T-shirt and a chip we were to put in our shoe. They said there were about 4000 people there. After a while we were told to line up and Mario fired the starting gun.

I stayed with Ale for only a short time before she down shifted to walking. I continued to run. I wasn't going at a break neck speed but I was passing people. Soon I passed the first mile mark. I was still running that was amazing. I figured I could slow down now but then I argued with myself that I should go as far as I could so I tried. At the first water station at 1.5 miles I did finally have to slow up and catch my breath. After 2 miles from my ankles down went totally numb but I kept going. I tried to keep going and also grab a few pictures. I varied from walking to running for the last part of the race but eventually I ended up back at the arena and crossed the finish line.

Race Results

I was sweating like crazy and I got a horrible blister in the last mile but I made it. I grabbed another water and tried to find a place to wait to watch Ale finish. We got cool medals for our effort. Now I even started looking for other marathons. Crazy.