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.

Bruce Springsteen

Erin and I went to see Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band on Friday night. It was a very entertaining show. We are pretty much Greatest Hits fans. We don't know much of the album cuts. I've always heard how great it is to see Bruce live and we knew going in that he wouldn't be playing the hits. So we were set up to not be let down by the fact that he didn't play Glory Days. Which of course he didn't.

We have been listening to his new CD the past couple of days and he played a few songs off of that. Highlights from the new album were Devil's Arcade, Long Walk Home, Last To Die, and Radio Nowhere. There was an interesting cover of Blinded By The Light. The place went nuts from Badlands and Born To Run. He also did Erin's favorite Bruce song Thunder Road. She was excited even though she thought the timing as all over the place. I enjoyed hearing Murder Incorporated.

He opened the show with a video montage to Danny Federici (Bruce's keyboard player) who passed away about a week ago. During the show he thanked the fans for all their cards and prayers, saying "We appreciated it much, his family appreciates it much." The song Blood Brothers played and you couldn't tell if the band was playing it or if it was pre recorded. It sounded recorded but the harmonica part sounded live.

The whole band brought great energy to each song and Bruce's face looked like it was in pain as he played. He handed out a few of his harmonicas after he played them and one went to a little girl who just lost it. At one point Bruce was on his knees in front of the crowded and a few people were actually reaching up and playing the guitar with him.

Max was slamming the drums and everything Clarance went up to do a solo the place went nuts. Clarance seemed to shuffle around the stage and before the encore instead of going off with the rest of the band he sat on a throne in the corner of the stage.

A few fans in the front had signs with song titles on them and Bruce grabbed two of them, showed them to the band, and then placed the signs at the bottom of the mic stand as they broke into the song.

He ended the show with American Land which was this really cool Irish jig type of song. They even put his teleprompter on the screen so we could all follow along.

The set list:

Reason to Believe

Out in the Street

Radio Nowhere

No Surrender

Blinded By the Light

Your Own Worst Enemy

Trapped

Murder Incorporated

Prove It All Night

She's the One

Livin' in the Future

The Promised Land

Bobby Jean

Point Blank

Devil's Arcade

The Rising

Last to Die

Long Walk Home

Badlands

Encore:

Thunder Road

Born to Run

Rosalita

Tenth Avenue Freeze-out

American Land

Back In The Saddle Again

Back in Atlanta and the trip went well.

Long Island was fun, but cold. Shannon got to spend a lot of time with her cousin Caitlin. Every day we took them somewhere different. One day was to a park that just recently opened down by Lake Ronkonkoma. It used to be a trailer park and the town bought over the land and kicked out all the trailers. Now there is a really nice big play ground right on the water.

Another day we took them to Wood Kingdom where they got to play on indoor swing sets and inside big moon jumps.

Most of the week was filled with family visits. Got to see my mother, grandparents, as well as Erin's family and some of her AOB sisters.

Tried to do the 18 hour drive in one day but didn't even come close to it. We ended up stopping in Salem Virginia for the night after driving for 10 hours. Then getting back on the road the next morning.

Shannon did really good in the car. She didn't have too much to complain about and would tell us when she had to go to the bathroom. Each leg of the drive we would stop at a McDonalds and let her run around on the play ground.

Tallied up all of our gas receipts and the whole trip came out to $312.55. Still cheaper than buying 3 plane tickets.

On The Road Again

We leave for New York today. It is overcast and rainy in Atlanta right now so the drive looks like it is gonna be a grey one.

Driving to Roanoke Virginia today and we are crashing with the Mathers for the night. That leg of the drive should take about 7 hours.

Saturday we leave in the morning and finish the drive to Long Island. Should get in in the evening.

The car is packed up and loaded with entertainment for Shannon. She'll have a bag of toys at her feet, a portable DVD player in front of her, and a bag full of smaller bags with Apple Jacks, Cherrios, M & M's, pretzels, you get the point. The goal is to keep her as quite as possible. If she starts getting fussy and whiny then it is gonna be a looooong ride.

We will be up in New York for about a week. Erin is on spring break so we are going to visit family.

It's Been A While

Sorry for the lack of blogging on my part. Not due to the fact that there is nothing going on, more due to the fact that I just didn't have the time to do it.

Here is what has been going on:

• The family went to Buffalo to visit my relatives. While we were there we went to a country club that my father belongs to for an Irish themed dinner. Irish food, drink, music, and dance we all had. Shannon loved the dancers and we even asked to dance with them. She had a blast. She usually is standoffish with people she doesn't know but she went right to the girl. Once all the dancing was over and the floor cleared off Shannon wanted more. She actually went over to one of the dancers, grabbed their hand, and wanted them to dance with her gain. Very cute. When there wasn't dancing going on Shannon was running around the dance floor with all the other kids.
• Easter was fun. I (I mean the Easter Bunny) set up a trail of plastic eggs from Shannon's room, down the stairs, and it lead right to her basket. We took Shannon to mass and she was very good. Sat for the 45 minute wait and the hour mass. Thank God for Apple Jacks.
• Played Rock Band for the first time over at Susan and Jason's house. I've never played Guitar Hero either so it was all new to me. What an addictive game. They should just call it Crack. I played mostly Bass cause I was a big wussy and didn't want to mess up on the Guitar. The highlight of the night was my vocal rendition of "Won't Be Fooled Again" by The Who. My score was like 169,000. I crushed it. Shannon had a lot of fun screaming into the microphone and loves when her daddy does his 80's rock screams. She even tried to play guitar and do a few beats on the drum kit.
• Plans are underway for a trip to Buffalo in June. First stop will be to Pittsburgh to see the Pirates and Yankees. All 3 games are sold out so I had to buy tickets on Stub Hub. My first time doing it and it went fairly smooth. Once we get to Buffalo, we are going to go to Toronto to see the Braves and Blue Jays.
• Plans are underway for the "Best of the Boys" dinner. Buck won the fantasy football bet so we have to take him out for a steak dinner. The city of choice is Baltimore. We are going to see the Orioles play the Nationals that weekend.

That is pretty much what has been going on.