Baltimore

I spent May 17th and 18th in Baltimore. It was Best of the Boys weekend and a great time was had by all.

A few of my high school friends are in a fantasy football league with me. There was a bet made that whomever makes it the furthest in the playoffs wins a steak in the city of his choice. We titled the bet Best of the Boys. Buck won the bet and picked Morton's in Baltimore.

I did most of the planning and organizing for the trip. Mainly because no one else was doing anything. I contacted the Orioles sales office and bought group tickets. I also set up 6 hotel rooms and got a deal that only cost each person 33 bucks.

Highlights of the trip:

• Had lunch crab cakes at Inner Harbor. Saw some street performer juggle fire.




• Dinner at Morton's. The porterhouse did not disappoint and everyone loved my big surprise. We had special custom menus printed for us with Best of the Boys at the top of it.




• Smoked cigars in the rain and then walked around looking for a place to drink. By the time we found one it was last call.


• 2 hour rain delay for the Orioles game on Sunday. So we hung out at Pickles Pub outside the stadium. Then hung out in the famous Camden Yards Warehouse drinking beers till the rain let up.




• Got to see 7 innings of the game before we had to leave for the airport. The game itself was pretty dull, but the Orioles did put Best of the Boys up on the scoreboard for us. Very cool stuff.

Was very scared that the game was gonna get rained out. I had never seen a game at Camden Yards and who knows when I was gonna get back to Baltimore. Thankfully the rain let up and Camden Yards became the 10th baseball stadium I've seen a game at.

Check out more photos at: http://community.webshots.com/album/563573944WWILbW

Work Around The House

We've been doing a lot of different things around the house these past few weeks. More recently we spread 20 bales of pine straw across the slope in our backyard and Erin planted flowers.

A tree service came over and scaled back the two trees we have in the front yard. Cost us 200 a tree. The trees had never been trimmed or pruned before so it really need it. One of the trees was almost touching the house.

Our central air was also on the fritz so we had an HVAC guy come and look at it. Turns out our A/C unit was leaking Freon and a lot of it. Our unit holds 4 pounds and apparently it only had 1 pound in it. After a few tweaks it runs as good as new. Another thing in the house that has never really had service before.

In a few weeks we will be redoing the kitchen. Erin and I are spending our economic stimulus money on new flooring and paint. We hired a contractor who is gonna do all the work. So we are looking forward to that.

Some pictures:

Erin Planting Flowers

Before

After

Before

After

HD

I finally joined those lucky souls that have HD at home. We have an HDTV in our bedroom so I decided to upgrade. Erin paid for the $200 upgrade and it goes down as my Fathers Day/Birthday present.

The guys that Directv sent over were scheduled to be at my house at 4pm. They showed up at 2:30pm. I locked Daisy in the garage and they went to work.

I removed my older box and moved that into Shannon's room. So now she has a DVR that can record 100 hours of Dora if she wants it. One guy started to hook up the HD box and the other guy began putting up the new dish. They had to remove the old dish from the side of my house and put the new one up on the roof.

All went well and when it was time to check everything there was a problem. The HD box wasn't recognizing my second satellite line in. So the guy went back outside and did some things and came back and still no 2nd line. He reset the box. Still no 2nd line.

The whole time I'm just kinda hanging out in the room reading up on the HD box and checking out the work. He resets the box again and still no 2nd line. I think look behind the TV and notice another coax cable going nowhere. So I ask, "What about that cable? Is that the VCR coax or the 2nd line." He tells me he is sure it is the 2nd line and checks again.

He follows the cables again and.....HE HAD THE VCR COAX GOING INTO THE SATELLITE BOX INSTEAD OF HAVING THE SATELLITE COAX THAT WAS COMING IN FROM THE WALL. As soon as he switches the wires out and resets the box.......my 2nd line was back.

The moral of the story is if something doesn't work, always check the easiest solution. It may actually be the problem and you might save some time. In this guys case, he would have saved himself an hour and not looked like an idiot in front of a customer.

Either way my HD is hooked up and I'm ready to watch TV the way it was meant to be watched.