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.

Is This Enough?

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

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

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

Getting There - MoobeeDeeBee V1.0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alevacation part 5

2010/07/06

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

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

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

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

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

uwvark27's Favorite Movies Of All Time

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

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

History Was Made

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

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

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

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

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

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY ISAAC!!!! :D