Sunday Stealing #6

I just got back from Virginia for the week. We left on Tuesday and came back yesterday. We didn't do much "fun" stuff, it was all about spending time with family and friends. I ran off from the in-laws for a couple of days to spend time with my cousin and family outside Asheville, NC. Not much more to say about that, like I said, it was all about spending time with family and friends.

I ran into this Sunday Stealing post and liked the questions so here goes.

1. Are you satisfied with the way your life is right now?  Yeah, could always use more money but my life is way better now than any other part of my life.
2. Do you drink enough water?  Nope, my wife tells me all the time.
3. When was the last time you ate at Burger King?  Week or two. We don't have it a lot but occasionally.
4. Do you prefer the beach or the mountains?  Mountains, not even a contest. Love the mountains, hate the beach.
5. How do you usually feel when you wake up on a morning?  Sore, very sore.
6. Would you rather take someone on a date or be taken on a date?  Doesn't make a difference to me, it's all about the time spent not the quality of the date.
7. When was the last time you wore high heeled shoes?  Um, never.
8. Vodka or wine?  Vodka, I rarely drink but I prefer hard liquor when I do.
9. How often do you cry?  Rarely do I cry cry, but I tear up all the time. I'm an emotional guy.
10. Ever had a crush on a teacher?  Probably, I would assume most boys do at one time or another.
11. Can you wire a plug?  Nope.
12. Do you wear socks to bed?  Yep, wear them all the time. My feet get cold, I get cold.
13. What is currently bugging you?  The damn teenagers in my house, or I should say 2 of the 3 teenagers in the house.
14. Can you change a car tire?  Yes, changed many of them.
15. Have you met more than ten celebrities?  No, definitely not. Can only think of 2.
16. Do you sleep naked?  Almost. I used to before kids were roaming the house.
17. What was the best music gig you’ve ever attended?  Nothing comes to mind, I've been to hundreds of concerts but nothing stands out.
18. Have you ever had sexual feelings for anyone you follow online?  Sexual feelings as in she's hot and I'd like to see her naked, sure. Sexual feelings as in I want to tap that, no.
19. Who is someone who has changed your life positively?  Cheri, she's the reason I can answer question 1 like I did.
20. Favorite city?  I guess Chicago.
21. Can you drive?  Got my license the first day the law allowed.
22. Cigarettes or alcohol?  Neither. Smoked 1 cigarette in my life. I drink alcohol but very rarely.
23. Favorite and least favorite accents?  Accents do nothing for me, as long as I can understand what they are saying, that's my favorite.
24. Did you play Red Rover when you were a child?  Yes.
25. Do you like 1980s fashion? No, only thing that should survive the 80's is the music. The rest of it needs to stay there.

Travel and TV

I'm back, I know, again. We'll see what I divvy out.

Went to Indianapolis this past weekend and spent some time with Skyler at her new place. It was a cute little home and she lives by herself which is good but better than that, she took us down to her local spot and it was full of hipsters which she'll fit right in with. It makes us happy that she is happy where she's at. That's all you want for your kids is to be happy. It's certainly not everything she wants or deserves but it'll be good for her for awhile.

Since there isn't much on TV right now, we've been watching Sons of Anarchy. Skyler, and others, have been telling us we'd like it. We should finish season 1 tonight. We've like it so far so I'm sure we'll stick with it.

I plan on watching the MLB All-Star game tonight, I haven't told Cheri yet, she hates baseball. When I watch the Sox games I can fast forward a lot so it doesn't take nearly as long. If I watch it live, plus it's an exhibition, it'll probably go until midnight. Cheri may not love me anymore after that.

Not much else going on. Still waiting on my office to get finished at work. The skeleton part is up and pretty much finished. Now I've got to pick out counter tops and a sink and have that installed and then it should be good to move my desk in.

Lots of Snow

6 posts in 4 days, including 4 days in a row, I must be dreaming. You could say I'm kicking ass in the resolution this year, even though it wasn't really a resolution.

When I left this morning, I pulled out onto the main road off our neighborhood and went to accelerate and my tires just spun because it was pure ice. So right then and there, I decided that I was going to take the main roads all the way to work. Normally I take back roads but for the first time, I deemed the roads unsafe and drove through town. The roads were much better that way and I realized it only took me about 5 minutes longer than usual so that worked out.

Pretty boring day, had all kinds of problems with the line running again but I had stuff to do with the tanks so I was good. Plus I got to kill some time eating a donut and filling out an anonymous survey about the company.

I've decided that I just must be getting old because all the people I work with have a good time, joking around and such but I just don't think a lot of what they say is all that funny. I'm all for cutting up and goofing off but it just isn't my kind of humor. Don't get me wrong, I like everyone I work with and get along with them. I just find myself standing with the group with a big smile like I'm laughing but I'm not. It's really bad in the morning meeting but I think a lot of that is I'm just not awake yet. I work with a bunch of mid 20's employees but they are actually the ones I get along with for the most part.

They posted that we were working Saturday because of all the issues with the lines. No biggy, I have a vacation day for Monday already so I still get a 2 day weekend. I have to go back to court so the judge can continue to tell me that theEx doesn't have to pay support.

I got off, headed home (took the back roads) and picked up Samantha to run her to a friends house then back home for my shower. Just as I was getting out of the shower, my phone rings and it's my mom asking me to run to my grandma's house and measure her doorstep for a ramp because she'll be going home in a wheelchair, hopefully tomorrow. We got all that figured out and my uncle just happened to show up which worked out because he had a garage door opener and I was able to get her shovel out and do her sidewalk and driveway before I left. Now when I was out shoveling, it wasn't snowing and it was decent, except for being very cold.

I leave and start heading home, I get just up the road and all of the sudden, the snow is just coming down with big flakes (lake effect).

I posted that and once I turned off the North/South rode, it just stopped. Usually lake effect isn't that patchy, it tends to lighten up the further you get away from Lake Michigan but not patchy. It was just weird.

I got home and proceeded with our usual ritual of chilling in our recliners. Nothing exciting. As I was researching my driving for this post, I found out the main roads are actually about 5 miles shorter which would explain why it didn't take me much longer even though it's much slower and a lot more traffic. We'll see how bad the roads are tomorrow. It's still supposed to snow through tomorrow night, possibly 4-8 more inches but we all know how accurate the weather can be.

Our Weekend

I haven’t disappeared, well not completely.  Last Thursday, Cheri and I headed out to Virginia for a weekend visit.  I dropped the kids off at the bus stop and once Cheri got up and ready we were on our way to leave the apartment, but apparently not ready to head out on our trip.  We had to run something over to Skyler and then we went to my mom’s house to drop the kids stuff off because they were going to spend the night there and get on the bus in the morning.  As we were leaving, I noticed the door to the garage was open.  Upon further investigation, the door was forced in because the frame was still attached to the door.  So we called them and hung around at the house until they got home.  Nothing was taken, I don’t believe anyone could have fit in the door because they don’t normally use it so it had stuff in front of it and the car barely fits in the garage so when it was forced, it would only open 3 or 4 inches.  But on to our trip, we finally got going a little later than we had planned.  First we hit a McDonalds to grab some lunch, but they didn’t have any sweet tea so we bailed, I told the lady on the speaker never mind, we would hit the next McDonalds since they are on every block.  We eventually found the next one and bonus, the McRib was back.

I love the McRib so I got 2 of them.  I figured that was a sign that things were looking up after our late start.  Now I’ve eaten McRibs while driving, they are messy, but you can do it.  I usually hold the box underneath while I eat it, but upon opening the bag, there was bar-b-que all over the outside of the box.  So I pulled over to eat so I didn’t make a mess, especially since there were no napkins.  Yes, that’s right, 2 McRibs and they didn’t give me any napkins.  So much for our day looking up.

We eventually got on the road again but ran into major traffic problems 3 times during the 600 mile trip so we ended up taking awhile longer to get there.  When you get into Virginia it turns into 2 lanes for awhile and you are going right up and over the mountain.  So it’s 2 lanes that are really curvy and at some spots, nothing but a guardrail to protect you from falling down the side of the mountain.  Being as we got a late start, we were going over this part in the dark and I don’t know the curves really well so I would have to really slow down in order to go around them.  This is where the one good thing happened, or at least good for me.  We got behind a semi with a trailer during most of this part.  Now that would normally be a bad thing because there aren’t very many spots to pass, but the dude was flying.  Usually around 60 mph and I figured if he could take the corners at that speed, then my little 4 door sedan should be able to do them at that speed as well.  The reason I said it was good for me, is because Cheri was freaking out but we made up some time so I was all for it.  We finally got there a little after midnight.  We talked to our son for a little bit before finally crashing.

We slept in on Friday but when we did get up, the first thing we did was hit Bojangles for breakfast.  Cheri loves her some Bojangles and we don’t have them up north so it was one of the restaurants she wanted to hit while we were down there.  We then went bowling with Chris which we usually do when we are down there.  It’s one of the few things that we have in common so I usually enjoy going.  I especially enjoyed it this time because he wasn’t having a good day and I actually won both games, which is rarity.  I am a decent bowler, averaged around 160 last time I bowled regularly but he usually still tends to kick my ass.  He can be a very good bowler when he wants to be.  I don’t think he was really trying on Friday but I’ll take what I can get.  We didn’t do much the rest of the day until the evening.  We went out with Cheri’s mom, stepdad, sister and nephew for supper.  Cheri’s other request was for Japanese food because we only have one place up here and she doesn’t like it.  So we had a pretty good supper, I love Japanese food.  I sat next to Cheri’s sister and while we have talked, we’ve never really gotten to know each other so I mostly talked to her and her son.  They are both sci-fi geeks like I am so we had plenty to talk about.  I made plans to hang out with her on Saturday since Cheri was going to be doing her BFF’s hair and I didn’t feel the need to hang out with them.

We woke up later than we had planned but we still made it on time to meet Cheri’s BFF at IHOP.  After a late breakfast, we ran to Walmart because I was looking for a cord that would go from my phone to a HDMI jack on the TV and Cheri’s BFF needed formula for her baby.  We split from there and I headed over to her sister’s house.  The night before I had grabbed Star Trek:  Into Darkness from a local Redbox because she said she hadn’t seen it yet so we watched that for a couple of hours and then I hung out for a couple more hours chit chatting.  It was a pretty good time, I am a talker when I get going.  It was nice because I didn’t know much about her other than what I’ve been told by Cheri and her other sister who lives closer to us.  When I left, I called Cheri and they were finishing up doing each other’s hair so I went and hung out at her BFF’s salon until they were done then we went out for some supper.

After supper, I hit a gas station to fill up because my gas light had come on, and we were leaving in the morning so I needed to fill up.  Only one problem, it wouldn’t take my debit card.  I figured it was an issue with their computers so I went to another gas station and once again, no dice.  Now I was pissed because it was our card not working and we had just used if an hour ago at 5 Guys.  So we went back to the condo where we were staying and got online to find out what was going on.  We got the number to call and of course, their hours are Monday thru Saturday and they were no longer open so nobody would tell me why it wasn’t working.  We left to go back to her BFF’s place to drop some stuff off and hit another gas station.  Once again, denied.  So I ended up using our credit card so we could get home.  We went over there and then stopped at her mom’s to say goodbye before heading home.

Once again, we got up later than we wanted and got a late started heading home.  First, we had to check off the last restaurant on Cheri’s list, Pal’s.

This was a daily stop for Cheri when she lived there.  Every morning before work she would stop for some Cheddar Rounds and a sweet tea.  So we grabbed some breakfast and heading out.  We got through the mountains unscathed but once we hit the interstate in Kentucky, it was massive downpours that slowed all the traffic down.  We finally get through it and start to get into some sunny skies before turning west onto the next Interstate.  But I’ll let you read that on my article that Yahoo paid me to write (that means I can put paid publisher on my resume now right.)

Upon returning home, we had power and all was good.  Until a couple of hours later it went out.  Go figure.  We had just ordered a pizza and then it goes out so we enjoyed pizza by flashlight for supper.  It was a good weekend while we were down there, the traveling itself could have been better but we survived.

On Monday, Cheri called our bank to find out about the debit card.  Apparently we have to notify the bank when we are leaving town.  They said they deny any charges at gas stations, drug stores and grocery stores when it’s used out of state.  Except that we used it in Kentucky to get gas on the way down there, and Walgreens on Friday.  They say it’s for our safety but they are just covering their own asses.  How do I have to get permission to use my own money when I travel?  Stupid banks.

the Weekend camping trip

Some of my family have been doing a fall camping trip and this year, we decided to attend.  It ended up being 44 people, I guess technically all family since most were by marriage.  But my mom and stepdad, my brother and his family and my family all went.  It had been raining pretty steadily since Wednesday night but it was supposed to be done by Friday night.  Once the kids got off the bus, we headed out.  Our little caravan consisted of my stepdad’s truck pulling his camper, my sister-in-law’s suv, my brothers jeep wrangler, me driving my moms minivan and my brother’s friend.  I was following my brothers Jeep because he needed someone with decent reflexes behind him because his Jeep tends to go into what is a called, a death wobble (it’s a thing, Google it) occasionally and the only thing you can do to get it to stop is slow down.

So we are driving down the bypass, doing about 65 mph.  We are passing a semi that is moving a little slower.  My stepdad gets over in front of it, then my sister-in-law and my brother.  Finally I get behind him and before his friend can get in behind me, the death wobble occurs.  My brother slams on his brakes and pulls off the side of the road, I slam on my brakes and start to go over, then I glance in my rear-view mirror and see the semi right on my ass so I floored it.  Needless to say, my brother was playing catch up the rest of the trip.

We made it up there ok and set up camp.  Had some burgers with mac and cheese and cowboys beans for supper.  Pretty much just hung by the camp fire all evening.  It was a little chilly but considering we usually end up camping when it’s 90° so we can deal with a little chill.  Cheri and I both slept like crap, and our air mattress had a leak because we woke up on the ground.  Saturday, we took some time to go to the beach (Lake Michigan) because with the wind, we could hear the waves from our campsite and we wanted to check it out.  So everybody walked and Cheri and I drove on down to see these.

I have never seen the waves like that there.  Not that I go up every week or anything, but I have been up off of the lake quite a bit of times.  You can see a 6 second Vine video here, or at least I hope so.  My brother said his dogs were too afraid to go near the water.  As you can see in the picture, it was a pretty clear day and sure enough, look what you could see on the other side of the lake.

Yup, that would be the Chicago skyline, and pretty clear at that.  Cheri and I didn’t stick around long, it was just too cold.  When everyone got back to the campsite, we started setting up for some more Saturday activities.  What’s a Saturday without some college football?

What?  It’s too cold for the beach and there wasn’t really anything else to do.  The intention of taking all of this equipment was to watch the Michigan/UCONN game but because it was on local ABC, the WatchESPN app blacked it out and we couldn’t watch it anyways.  Don’t even get me started with that.  They need to realize that not everyone can be home in front of their TV’s to watch the game, they need to realize that there are all kinds of devices to watch TV on and quit with the blackout restrictions.  Oops, I got started.  There’s more but I won’t get into that.  By the end of the afternoon games, we moved the table next to the fire (good thing the cousins weren’t there) because it was getting colder and we needed some warming up.

For supper, everyone brought enough chili for their family and we threw them all in a huge pot and cooked it all together.  We pretty much hung around the fire all evening before crashing on our air mattresses for the night.  My mom and step dad ran into town and got us a new one and we slept a whole lot better.

Sunday morning we packed up and left.  It was a good weekend but we are beat.  I’m looking forward to sleeping in my bed tonight.  Trevor spent a lot of time playing his video games so that wasn’t much different from staying home.  He did run around with other kids on Sunday morning so he got some play time with others.  I didn’t really see Samantha much all weekend, she hung out with her cousin and she was chasing the boys that were with the group.  The kids both said they had a good time and that’s what the trip is all about.  Got to head back to the grind tomorrow, and it’s a long week on top of that.

Maize and Blue day

Don’t worry, the post isn’t all about the game.  It was too embarrassing to speak of anyways.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it on this blog or not, but my family have come across a fellow Michigan fan family who has season tickets to the Michigan football team.  They don’t always go anymore so they always sell my family 3 games (2 tickets each game) and I get a set, my brother gets a set, and my mom gets a set.  Anyways, since I got first pick last year, I got last pick this year.  Which means I got today’s game vs Akron (who?).  Yeah, I know.  A nice cupcake game (so I thought).  I didn’t really like spending $75 on a ticket for a game that will probably be over by the end of the 1st quarter but I love going to see a game in the Big House so I was going anyways.  Plus, living in South Bend around all the Notre Dame fans, it’s nice to hang in Ann Arbor and surround yourself with a bunch of Michigan fans.  I usually take a guy from work with me but he couldn’t go this year so I grabbed my brother and we headed off to Ann Arbor.  It takes us about 2 1/2 hours to get there and we made great time.  We hit McDonalds for a quick lunch before heading up to the stadium.  Well, not so quick because it was 10:50 am and apparently they don’t serve lunch until 11.  So we chilled for 10 minutes, grabbed some food and headed for the golf course (that’s where we park).  As you can see from the picture to the left, it’s right across from the street.  Now it’s not like we park right there next to the stadium, we are usually further towards the bottom of the picture.  They actually let you park on the course, everywhere but on the greens and in the sand traps.

We headed on over to our seats.  Now luckily, since it wasn’t a top tier game, when we sat down, we actually had room because some people weren’t there.  I say this because it’s a tight fit in the seats.  On top of that, there is this really big guy and his really big mother (pic of him below.)  They fight all the time, it’s actually rather humorous to sit and listen to them.  I’d feel bad for her because the son treats her like crap, but she’s just as annoying as he is.  As a matter of fact, today I overheard them argue about who was wider.  Anyways, their seats are about 4 or 5 down from ours but today when we got to the stadium, they were sitting right next to ours.  You see, as season ticket holders, you have the option of getting padding put down on your seats every game.  The ticket holders that we get the tickets from specifically get the padding just so you can make sure you get their seats and they don’t push you off the edge.  Specifically because of these 2 that are in the row.  Like I said, when we got there, they were sitting in the 2 (4) seats next to ours.  We figured it was because those ticket holders had purchased the padding as well and they wanted those.  I told my brother, I know those aren’t their seats so I’m not going to cram in there just to please them, and I didn’t.  When I sat down, the son was sitting next to me and pretty much sat on him.  He sat there a bit then bitched to his mom about not having room so he switched with her.  I don’t know if they thought I wouldn’t push her around or what but I stood for the national anthem and the kickoff and when I went to sit down, she was there.  So I sat right down up against her as well.  She got upset and had to pull her jacket out from under my ass.  I ignored her.  I also had my cellphone in my right pocket so every time I got a text, it would vibrate up against her as well.  Eventually she was moving away from me.  At one point, towards the end of the game she had her foot up against mine, guessing that I would move it.  Instead, I started tapping it to the band until she moved it.  I know you think I’m picking on a big old lady but like I said, they weren’t her seats.

I won’t go into the game, it was rather rough.  After beating a higher ranked Notre Dame last week in a great game, we barely squeaked by an Akron team who has won 1 game in each of it’s last 3 seasons.  It was ugly.  We looked like crap but a win is a win and hopefully they learned from it.  It got me thinking about all the previous Michigan games I had gone to.  I was thinking I started off with a losing streak but I had been to a bunch of wins in a row so when I got home, and after Cheri made fun of me for getting fried sitting in the sun,

    

(notice the sunglass mark and also the right side of my head and face got very little sun compared to my left side)  I checked to see what their record is at games I have attended.  I had to go back through their schedule and guess at what games I went to but I’m 95% sure that this is accurate.

9/14/13 - MICHIGAN   28, Akron   24
11/17/12 - MICHIGAN   42, Iowa   17
9/15/12 - MICHIGAN   63, Umass   13
9/8/12 - MICHIGAN   31, Air Force   25
11/19/11 - MICHIGAN   45, Nebraska   17
9/3/11 - MICHIGAN   34, Western Michigan   10
9/4/10 - MICHIGAN   30, Connecticut   10
10/24/09 - Michigan   10, PENN STATE   35
11/15/08 - Michigan   14, NORTHWESTERN   21
10/6/07 - MICHIGAN   33, Eastern Michigan   22
9/8/07 - Michigan   7, OREGON   39
9/23/06 - MICHIGAN   27, Wisconsin   13

Michigan is highlighted     -     winner is capitalized

So after starting with a win, then a loss, then a win, then 2 losses I have seen 7 straight wins.  Granted, Brady Hoke took over in 2011 and they haven’t lost a home game since so that goes for most everyone but I still feel better.  I’m thinking Michigan fans should pay me to go to all the home games, maybe even pay to have me fly to away games, just a suggestion.

The weekend

In case you missed my last post, we went down to Bristol, Virginia.  The main reason of the trip was so that Cheri could see her best friend’s new baby she had a few months ago.  The secondary reason was to see Cheri’s family.  For those of you who haven’t been around long, Cheri lived in Virginia when we got together before moving back up here with me.  So we left on Thursday after dropping the kids off at school.  It generally takes us a little over 9 hours to get down there, it’s a little over 600 miles.  The sad part is, it takes 6 hours to get through the first 500 miles because it’s all interstate driving where the speed limit is 70.  Then it takes 3 hours to get through the last 100 miles because it’s highways around the mountains and the speed limit is only 55.  It sucks on the way down because after the first 6 hours, you know your close but it takes forever to get there.  On the way home, it’s not as bad because as soon as you get through the first 3 hours, the next 6 seem to go quick.

On Friday, we basically drove around and said hi to everyone, visiting a couple of hours with each.  Then I went to the local card shop and spent about an hour looking at cards before buying some.  And on Friday night we had supper with Cheri’s sister and her boyfriend before crashing back at the condo.  Then Saturday, I climbed in the car a little before 7 am and headed further south.  I have family in the Asheville, North Carolina area and I went to spend the day with a cousin.  We are both into sports card collecting and since I don’t have crap for shops around here, he was going to take me to the couple he frequents.  I got to his place about 8:30 and we climbed in his car and headed down to South Carolina to a flea market where a guy he knows sets up.  We spend a couple of hours there going through cards, before paying for our purchases and heading out.  We stopped at an out of the way collectibles place in Hendersonville, NC and spent a couple of hours there going through cards before paying and leaving.  It was very enjoyable day hanging out with people who are into cards, and talking about cards all day.  I don’t get to do that much other than blogging about them.  I get some interaction on My Sports Obsession but it’s different then actually sitting there and having a conversation about them.  I really enjoyed that.  We went back to his house and hung out for about an hour, going through our purchases for the day before I headed back to Bristol.

Cheri had spent the majority of the day on Saturday with her best friend, holding the baby.  Then had supper with her son before coming home right before I got there Saturday night.  She had informed me that she was all Virginiad out and wanted to go home on Sunday instead of Monday.  She saw everybody she wanted to see and she just really missed her bed and her kitty.  Besides, we really had no plans for Sunday anyways.  So we packed up Saturday night and left to come home on Sunday.  It was a pretty uneventful trip for drama which was nice because that’s what we usually get caught up in, is drama.  We got home last night around 7.  It was good to be home and relaxing in some furniture (there wasn’t much at the condo).

1,527 miles total on the trip.

We crashed a little earlier than normal because I had been sick the whole time we were gone.  Basically just a cold & sinus kind of thing.  Coughing, runny nose, sneezing and itchy eyes.  I never really felt bad, just looked bad.  Saturday night was the worst part of it.  Cheri couldn’t even sleep with me because of all the noise I was making.  I tend to snore when my nose is stuffed up.  I drugged up Saturday night and all the way home yesterday and am on the mend.  I’m definitely feeling better today.

I didn’t really do much online the whole weekend.  Didn’t check Facebook or Twitter hardly at all.  The worse part is now I’m about a week behind on my blog reading, I have almost 6000 unread posts in my reader.  Even my All-Star folder (blogs I try to keep up with daily) has over 600 posts in it.  So if you start getting comments from me on stuff a week old, that would be why.  Normally I would make it up at work but we are now now no longer allowed to use our tablets on the line.  The stupid part is the foreman who declared it a rule, was the foreman who used to come up and watch our tablets when we had to work weekends and we would load up football or baseball games on them.  But that’s a bitch for another day.

I am home now and getting back into the swing of things.  I’m getting my kids back later this afternoon as they stayed with theEx and the JackAss all weekend.  Maybe I’ll get back into blogging to.  I guess we’ll see.

Live from Bristol

I’m blogging live from Bristol, Virginia.  We drove down here yesterday (Thursday) so Cheri can see her BFF’s new baby.  We are staying at her mom’s condo with our son.  After just under a 10 hour drive, we arrived around 6 pm last night.  Basically dropped our stuff off at the condo and went over to her mom and step-dads for supper.  It wasn’t too horrible, we’ve had issues with them in the past so I thought it would be more uncomfortable than it was.  Cheri’s mom actually seems like she likes me now, I never got that feeling from her before.  Doesn’t mean I necessarily trust her any, but it’s different.

Today, we basically hung out with people.  We got up and went to a tattoo parlor for a little bit to hang out with her son while he was getting inked.  He wanted his mom to meet the tattoo artist who has been taking all of his money, I guess.  After that we headed out to breakfast.  We went to Bojangles because they don’t have them up north and I think that’s the real reason that Cheri wanted to come down.  She missed their biscuits.  Then we headed over to her BFF’s work and hung out with her for awhile.  She owns the place so we’re pretty sure she won’t get fired.  After that we headed over to her mom’s shop and hung out with her and Cheri’s sister.

Then I finally got to do something for me.  Not that I minded hanging out with people but it wasn’t all that fun.  I had googled the night before and looked for a local card shop.  We don’t have any ones worth a crap at home so I was excited to find one here.  I went in and found a few items, nothing terribly exciting but I enjoyed just hanging with some people and talking about cards.  Tomorrow I’m  heading down to the Asheville area to get with my cousin (who also collects cards) and head out to a couple of shops down his way.  We’re starting to get snow and I have to go up and over the mountains to get there so here’s hoping it doesn’t shut anything down.

We ended up coming back to the condo for a little while before meeting Cheri’s sister and her boyfriend for some supper before coming back to the condo.  So as you can see, we did a lot of hanging out with people today.  I don’t know how much I’m going to post while I’m here so I don’t know when you’ll see me again.  But I am still alive and around.  Although, with the lack of furniture here, it’s very hard to sit with my laptop and type one out so we’ll see what happens.

My Weekend

Before I start, I decided to use nicknames of my friends in case they are reading this and don’t want their names out there.  Although, I have told everyone about this blog, as far as I know, my wife and mom are the only ones that actually read it.  I should just use their names since most of the people in my life don’t give a crap about me anyways but I’m a nice guy. 

So I’ve had a busy weekend.  Friday, I rolled out of bed at 7 and Cheri and I took the kids to school.  We had about an hour to kill before doctor’s appointments for both Cheri and Skyler so we decided to hit this little diner in town.  I had been there years ago but not recently.  Cheri and I sat down, looked around, and immediately felt out of place.  Now we are almost 40 years old, and we were about half the age of everyone else in there.  Cheri took the picture to the left with the comment “A girl sure feels young in a place like this #old #feelingyoung”.  Food wasn’t bad and it was a pleasant meal.  We left there and met Skyler at the doctor’s office.  She came in like the typical teenager.  Half asleep, yawning, and putting her head down.  You know because it’s so early at 9am.

After the appointments we ran to the grocery store to pick up some burgers for later, and then went to Cheri’s chiropractic appointment.  He started feeling around on her back and asked what she did to get her all out of whack.  I proceeded to narc her out for carrying all the groceries up while I was at work and told him that he needed to give her a lecture about it.  Not that it will help because Cheri doesn’t like to admit she can’t do things that she used to be able too.  She’s hard headed like that.  I wish I could say she learned her lesson, but I know she hasn’t.  We head over to the pharmacy and then finally get home a little after noon.

I get to relax for an hour or so then about 2 in the afternoon then I headed out.  I picked up Big Daddy and the Latin Lover and then went to meet at Double D’s house.  We loaded up his truck and were off for Chicago.  A few months ago, the Latin Lover picked us up some tickets for a White Sox/Royals game.  After talking Double D into waiting until we got to the game to drink, we drove straight there.  Double D kept wanting to stop and switch with Latin Lover in the backseat, because the windows were tinted and he could start drinking.  We got there and tailgated for awhile.  Weather was kind of iffy.  We got sprinkled on a bit but nothing really hard.  We had brats, burgers and wild turkey on the grill.  Along with chips and pop for us and beer for Double D.  It was a good time hanging out with the guys.  The guys next to us offered us up a shot of Patron.  They all looked at me.  I asked what the hell they were looking at.  Double D says “I’ve seen you drink almost a fifth of tequila by yourself at my house”.  The Latin Lover says “He did drink a whole fifth at my house, only one other shot was given out, you had the rest of the bottle.”  I don’t know what they are talking about.  My virgin lips have never touched alcohol.

We had a great time at the game.  Double D apparently gets chatty when drinking but he behaved.  It was a back and forth game, lots of hitting so it kept the excitement up.  But in the end the Sox lost.  Since Double D was drinking, I got volunteered to drive us home.  I found out a few things on the way home, Double D’s truck tends to hydroplane in the rain at 83 mph and Big Daddy likes to ask “What’s your hurry?”.  We eventually got home around 2 am.  I headed to bed and slept till 10 on Saturday.

I got up and spent about 45 minutes with Cheri before heading out on the road again.  It’s a 2 1/2 hour drive from here up to Ann Arbor.  I topped out around 92-93 mph to try to cut down some of that time.  A fellow sports blogger text me on Wednesday night and asked if I could get an extra ticket if I could make it, I said “Hell Yeah”  He lives in Ann Arbor so I met him at his place which is north of the stadium.  He works for the school so we parked in a permit only parking garage for free.  Which can save you up to $40 to park.  I had never come from that way into a game so it was a unique experience to walk through the campus to get there.  To walk through the herd of maize and blue.  It was pretty awesome.  The game was good, a little close for comfort but I always love the atmosphere of being at the stadium.  The tradition at the beginning of the game and even the halftime show with the band is always entertaining.  Since we were playing Air Force, there was a lot of patriotic stuff going on too.  Flyovers by 3 helicopters as well as the stealth bomber.  An eagle flew down to it’s trainer on the field during the national anthem.  And all kinds of applause for those who have and continue to serve.  I left the bloggers house around 7:30, and after stopping at Steak ‘n Shake to grab my wife a shake, I got home a little after 10.

One thing I noticed with all the driving I did today was I have a lot of songs on my playlist at Spotify.  Since I just started using it again, I’m playing them in order and working my way down alphabetically.  Because I’ve been using it at work, I started where I left off there, that was at “Farther On” by Russ Taff.  Now you would think driving 5 hours yesterday, that I would have gotten most of the way through the alphabet.  But the last song I played when I pulled in to home was “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” by U2.  So I went through 3 letters of the alphabet, in 5 hours.  But that is also 69 songs and I have 700 on the playlist.  It might take me awhile to get through it all.

This leads me to today.  I’m not doing a damn thing.  Sitting in my PJ’s all day.  Picking up the kids at 7 so I wouldn’t even have to get out of my PJ’s for that but the wife wants to stop and pick up a few groceries before we get the kids so I guess I’ll have to get dressed, damn it!

Now I’ve only got one question to answer.  Do I really have to go back to work tomorrow?

 

I am participating in the Dude Write Starting Lineup this week where you can find some excellent posts by bloggers who happen to be dudes.  It’s not a great entry to follow up with my first card last week, but I’ve had a busy weekend.  Stop by, read them all and vote for me and 2 others.

Chicago, Bah-Hum-Bug!

Had a wonderful weekend planned out to go to Chicago this weekend.  We had to drop Skyler off at O'Hare around 2 on Saturday and my ex had my kids so we figured we would make a weekend of it.  Cheri got online, got us a room a block away from “The Magnificent Mile” at the Sax Hotel relatively cheap, plus she got our parking half off which is a big deal in Chicago.  She had gotten us a couple of cheap meals through sites like Groupon where we got 2 meals for the price of one.  She wanted to go down Michigan Ave at night and see all the Christmas stuff.  I had Googled a card shop I wanted to hit since my local card shop sucks.  Wanted to go by Grant park and see Buckingham Fountain all lit up.  Plans of hitting the Lincoln Park Zoo in the evening because they had a Christmas light display that you could walk through and it was free.  Then on Sunday our plans were to once again head up Michigan Ave to window shop and look at the Christmas displays and hit Macy’s and “the Bean” sculpture at Millennium park.  I guess it’s called “Cloud Gate” but it looks like a big bean.

So as you can see, it was supposed to be a relatively cheap weekend.  A few big expenses but most of what we were doing was free or we had already prepaid for a couple of cheap meals as well.  At least, that was the plan.  But it went oh so wrong.

Skyler’s flight left at 2.  Now if you know Skyler, she has to do everything herself, she doesn’t want help from her parents so we are not involved in any of the planning.  But when it blows up in her face, oh course, we are to blame.  This happens over and over and yet she still refuses to let us help her plan.  Teenagers, and Skyler, are just too hardheaded and some people have to learn on their own.  So we just let her do everything and then take the blame later.  We figure when she grows up, maybe she would have learned some hard lessons.  Probably not, but we cross our fingers and hope.  This was to be no different.  We left at 11 our time, which we gain an hour going into Chicago so that left us 4 hours for a 2 and half hour trip.  All the way through Indiana, things were great.  Skyler was a happy teenager, which if you have one, know the rarity in that.  Then things fell apart in Illinois.

We hit the Skyway toll, or should I say, got in line for the Skyway toll.  They only had 2 cash windows open and cars were backed up.  We lost half an hour sitting in the line just to give them our cash so we could proceed.  Then as you get into Chicago, traffic sucks.  But I was expecting that.  We eventually get to O'Hare airport and that place was just unbelievably huge.  We didn’t know where we were going so we just found short term parking and parked.  Of course, then Skyler let’s us know that she needs to be at terminal 3 and we parked at terminal 5.  We just grabbed everything and headed in anyways figuring it was all connected (at this point we had no idea how huge this airport was) so we walked around a bit, figured out there was a train to the other terminals and hopped on it.  We got to terminal 3 and went to check in her bag, but couldn’t.  Apparently, the bags have to be checked in 40 minutes before the flight (which we didn’t know), so we missed that by about 5 minutes.  We told her to just go and we would UPS the bags and she’d have them in a day or 2.  So she gets in line for security and we left and headed out to the car with her luggage.  We get to the car and we get a call from her telling us she missed her flight by 3 minutes.  Which of course was our fault for not getting her there on time, even though she was involved in the discussion on what time we left.  After huge drama and Skyler saying she doesn’t even want to see us so she’ll stay at the airport by herself and get a later flight (oh God, the drama).  We drive over to terminal 3 and take her bags in and meet her.  And let me tell you, that freaking airport was so huge, I think we made better time going into terminal 5 and taking the train over then walking from where we parked for terminal 3.  We finally get with Skyler and she is fine now, she has a later flight, she gets to check her bag and take it with her, so she’s happy once again.  We didn’t really want to leave the airport but her flight wasn’t until 8:40 now.  And for some stupid reason, all of the food places to eat at the airport are all behind security so we can’t just go sit down and eat.  We find a place to sit and and sit for a couple of hours before Skyler decides that she is going to go through security and get something to eat and just hang back there.  So we said our goodbyes and headed out.

From the airport, we were originally going to go to the card shop, but now that it was later, and we were hungry, we decided to go to the restaurant and skip the card shop.  So we drove over to Cemitas Puebla where are first dinner was planned.  It was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives for their Cemita Sandwich.  Our dinner was for 2 Cemita Sandwich’s, a plate of Chalupa’s and 2 drinks.  The Cemita Sandwich’s were pretty good and we enjoyed them but we actually love the Chalupa’s more than the Cemita’s.  But either way, it was an enjoyable dinner and nice time for us.  We hopped in the car and headed out for Lincoln Park Zoo for their free Christmas lights display.  GPS said it was an 18 minute drive.  But reality was, everybody else was going there as well and it took an hour and a half for that 18 minute drive.  We finally get there, get parked and head in for the lights.  Once again, it was an enjoyable time.  I’ve seen better light displays but it was still a nice time and something to do and we both had a good time going through the zoo and checking them out.  We get to the car, figure out how to get to the hotel and start to head out, only to be stopped at the exit to pay for our parking, so our free Christmas lights display cost us $17.  So an hour and a half, barely creeping a long in the car to get there, and now paying cash to leave.  We were so pissed.  We just wanted to get to the hotel and call it a day.  We totally forgot about going to Buckingham Fountain to see it all lit up.

We make our way to the hotel only to drive around it a few times looking for the parking garage.  So we decide, we’ll drive up, ask the valet where to park.  We didn’t see a need to use a valet, we can park a car ourselves, and we were afraid that would cost us more money.  He said that they will take care of it, so we said screw it, and let him park it.  We grabbed our bags and headed in.  We get up to the desk and we are so out of our element.  Motel 6 this is not.  They tell us that they will charge the credit card another $200 for our room and then after we check out, they will reimburse everything but our room charge and anything else we get into (pay per view, honor bar, ect.)  The problem would be, there wasn’t $200 on the card.  There wasn’t barely over $100, which was our spending money.  We paid cash for the room, which took all our cash and they wanted to take our last $100 leaving us with nothing for the next day.  It would get refunded after we check out but there was no guarantee on how long it would take to show up on the card.  So how are we going to put gas in the car, or pay for our breakfast or be able to pay for the tolls on the way home.  We explained all this to the lady behind the counter, plus the fact that the room would probably be cleaner when we left then when we went in, and she took pity on the pathetic poor couple in front of her at this rich hotel and only charged the card $50 which left us $50 for the other stuff.  We’d have to pinch but we could do it, I guess, and our lunch was already paid for by one of those deals.  Just as we go to walk away, I realize I don’t have my phone and I need it to charge in the room so I’ll have it tomorrow.  So I tell the lady at the counter where it is, she calls valet and tells him and he was going to bring it to them,  who would then send it to my room.  So once again, we turn to walk away, and I remember, I didn’t have my phone, Cheri did because she was using it to get us to the hotel.  I mention it to her, she reaches into her pocket and sure enough, it’s there.  So once again, we have to be a pain in the ass to the front desk and tell them to not bother with getting the phone.  We felt like such idiots.  Like some poor, hillbilly schmucks.  We got settled and walked down to get some snack food and some supper.  Since they took most of our money, we googled for a Subway and the closest one was about 4 blocks away so we went there, 7/11 for snacks and went back to our room.

We woke up the next morning, ready to make our weekend better.  We got up and got ready and called for our car.  Went down to the front desk, checked out, and started to separate what we were throwing in the car and what we needed for the day and realized we didn’t have the GPS that we took in to charge.  So once again, we are bothering the front desk for our mistakes. Cheri goes up to the room again while I load up the car.  I load up the car, then I feel like an ass telling the valet to go park it again because we were going to spend some time in Chicago.  I know it’s their job, but we just don’t like having people do things that we are capable of doing.  He didn’t seem too happy judging by the sarcastic “No, that’s fine, we love to do this.”  Cheri comes down, no GPS.  We have no clue where it’s at.  We figure it has to be in one of our bags somewhere and head on out into the city.

Cheri was feeling pretty good so we didn’t take the wheelchair and she walked.  We walked down to Macy’s and checked out all the windows and even went in and looked at how huge that place was.  We went up to the 5th floor which was marked Santa’s Playland.  Come to find out, that’s just the holiday nickname for the toy area.  So we got back down to the floor level and had to walk around awhile just to figure out how to go out the door we came in.  We basically looked for the most decorations and headed that way and finally ended up there.  Next we walked down to the Cloud Gate which looked like a giant bean that reflects everything around it.  It was pretty big, and the reflection of the city on it was pretty cool.  We then decided to head out to where our discounted prepaid lunch was,  Donna’s Café, a jazz café.  It looked like quite a walk, but we decided to press on.  We figured Cheri would be a little wore out, but once we got there, she could eat and get some pain meds in her and would be able to make the walk back.  We walked, and walked and walked and finally got there.  It was close to an hour walk to get there, Cheri was still going, barely.  We finally see the sign for it, we get excited, and then see the sign on the door.  “Closed Today, Go Bears”  They closed because of the damn Bears game.  So here we are, heading back to the hotel, Cheri needing a place to stop, eat, and get some meds in her and of course, we have very little money because our meal was supposed to be paid for already and we had to gas up the car and pay tolls yet.  So we walked passed all these nice restaurants and eventually find a McDonalds, about 7 or 8 blocks from the hotel.  We finally eat and Cheri gets medicated.  We head out to get back to the hotel to get the car.  Cheri is moving much better now, I felt like I was almost dragging her before we got to McDonalds.  As we are crossing the river, which our hotel say just off of.  We look at the building right next door to our hotel, and what do we see, a Subway.  After walking 4 or 5 blocks yesterday to get to one.  We finally get back to the hotel, and while waiting on the car, we noticed that we could see the Subway next door from the front door that we used when we left last night.  We finally get my car, we go to grab the sweet tea cups from yesterday out of the cup holders and realize that one of the cups got punctured and the cup holder was full of tea.  AAARRRRGGGGHH!!!  Cheri is bound and determined to find the GPS so she grabs the 7/11 bag that had our drinks in it from the previous night to move it off our bags and happens to notice the GPS somehow got put in there.  Neither of us remember putting it there, but there it is.  So we got in the car and got the hell out of Chicago.

A little under 2 hours, we were finally home and glad to be.  We did enjoy our time together, we always do, especially kid free and we enjoyed Chicago as far as what we saw and got to do.  But everything else about this weekend sucked.  It was supposed to be a stress free weekend, but that was not the case.  Now we are home, I’m going back to work tomorrow, Cheri has to run the kids to school and take care of everything here.  So much for our vacation weekend.  Now, hopefully the “deposit” that the hotel charged my card, will show up some time so we can get some groceries.

Cantigny

Cheri and I went to Cantigny park on Saturday.  We were in the area dropping off a stereo to a guy I sold it to on ebay.  He suggested we hit it up since we were in the area.  He even gave us free parking passes.  And we were glad he did, it was a very enjoyable.  We originally went to walk the garden’s but ended up going to the First Division museum.  In the museum, the went through each war that we have been in with displays, video and even some audio as you went through.  The visuals were tremendous.  And then outside the museum they have a bunch of different tanks sitting around that they allow the kids to climb on.  There were so many pictures we took, if you follow my wife on facebook you can check them all out there.  I’m going to post a bunch below as well but it would take me forever to detail each one.  But here they are.

  

        

        

  

The rest were taken of displays of each war.  The got jumbled when I saved them to my computer so it may jump back and forth between wars but you’ll get the idea.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

And some pics of just a few of the tanks that were outside the museum.

  

  

  

Like I said, a truly unique and great experience.  We are planning on making that trip again with the kids.  Plus they have all kinds of events throughout the year.  We are definitely going to the baseball game where they play with the rules and equipment of the 1800’s and there is a lego/train event next winter that we want to go.  Check out the website and if your in the Chicago area, specifically Wheaton, IL.  Check it out.