Hump Day!

• So I forgot to mention it the other day, but I did something I've never done on a snowmobile before. Went over water. At first, it was just over a frozen bog which is only a couple feet deep. I can totally handle that. Later though, it was over a lake. A very large lake. My uncle told me to just follow the tracks already laid down and keep it around 20-30 mph. I did exactly as told on the way out to the middle of the lake, but on the way back I wasn't taking any chances and floored it. I think I'll stick to land thank you very much. I don't like fishing much, and really don't want to have to fish a 400 pound snowmobile out of a lake.
• Got a hair cut today. The before... Go ahead, say it... its not long enough to get cut! Well if I can grab the hair, its too long.

This however, is a little too short, but that's ok. My head's like an effing chia pet, so it'll grow back in like 25 minutes. Justin may have coined the phrase, but I'm the one bringing sexy back...

• Good win by the Celtics tonight. Very good defense played, although I'm still worried about the lack of rebounding from anyone not named Garnett. Its all about the playoffs at this point though. They're in (barring a catastrophic collapse), so they need to rest the old guys and eventually set a firm rotation. The only thing that really worries me is Doc's coaching. I'm pretty certain that he lost that Phoenix game himself. His substitution pattern was... well it wasn't a pattern that's for sure.
• Have you heard about this? I've always been fascinated by the idea of Hitler hiding his spoils, only to be someday found. Only time will tell if these guys are right, but imagine how amazing it would be. Finding the Amber Room? Wow...
• So in my office at work, I have a panel that shows me which floor the alarm is going off on, when someone sets it off. (whether it be fire or emergency pull cords). It goes off probably once a day, and the majority of the time it goes off, I sprint up the stairs (and it always seems like its on the top couple floors) and try to find which apartment is in need. 90% of the time I get to the top of the stairs and the alarm shuts off (I hate that, I sprint up the stairs, huffing and puffing, only to have it shut off. Such a waste of precious energy) but a couple times a week, I get to go running into an apartment to save the day (I have a superhero complex, just ask the wife. I'm constantly having dreams where I save the day. Bizarre, I know). In every instance so far, its been people burning their dinner or whatever. Well today, I go flying up the stairs, find the apartment where the alarm is coming from, burst into the apartment (the door automatically unlocks when the alarm is going off) and the tenant is sitting in a chair, calmly watching tv. The entire apartment was filled with smoke (he left something on the stove too long) and I don't think he even noticed. He was just sitting there watching tv. Now mind you, the alarm is so loud that you can't hear yourself think, and he's sitting there like its a bird chirping in the window. Stove still on, smoke still coming from whatever it was he was cooking. Amazing...

Quickies

• So have you ever seen that M&M commercial, the one where the people turn into M&M's? Like in one shot they're regular looking and in the next one they're M&M's that sorta look like the person in the previous shot. Well one of the M&M's, the one walking his dog, totally reminds me of my friend Rick. Weird I know, but I think its the hair...
• I would like to thank all my loyal readers for an outstanding turnout yesterday. We here at the Morrissey Chronicles brought in a record number of hits on the site for one day, a whopping 46! So thanks, I love that you guys actually read my little random, occasionally funny, mostly incoherent site.
• The wife and I watch A LOT of home improvement shows and house shows in general. I gotta say, this whole granite counter top trend really bothers me. People put granite in their kitchens just for the sake of putting in granite! People won't even look at a house if it doesn't have granite counter tops. How stupid are some people! There are a million and one types of material to use for counters, with granite being the hot item now. Its like people think that if there's granite in the house, then that makes the house expensive and nice.. riiiiight. Half the time it doesn't even fit the decor/design of the room, but they put it in there anyway.
• Anyone watch the Oscars last night? I caught bits and pieces, but it really didn't interest me this year. Half the movies I didn't see and really have no interest in seeing, and the other half I've never even heard of. Apparently I live under a rock or something.
• Went to Dunkin Donuts this morning and got a bacon and egg sandwich on a croissant. Because I'm lactose intolerant, I said no thanks to the cheese. Smart right? Wrong. Being the dumbass that I am I failed to remember that croissants are 90% butter. Did I mention I hate being lactose intolerant??? On the bright side, the new ovens being used make the sandwiches taste better. Everything always came out of the microwave a little flat, so this is a nice change.
• If you've seen the Sarah Silverman, "Effing Matt Damon" video, you HAVE to see this. Its Jimmy Kimmels response to it, "effing Ben Affleck". Hysterical stuff, and definitely funnier than the Silverman song. (careful, there's some bad language, but its bleeped out) Check out all the cameo's in the Kimmel version. Fantastic. I told the wife that she and I need to start making parody video's but she had no interest...I think its cuz I'm funnier than her, and she doesn't want anyone to know.
• If you haven't seen this video, I highly recommend it. The look on Jennifer Garner's face is absolutely priceless (sorta like the girl at the bar being hit on by the creepy guy, only 10x more scared). And who in the heck thought it would be a good idea to let Gary Busey into the Oscars?

Da Weekend

Ok, before we start, a very happy 26th birthday to my brother M. I may be older, but at least I have more hair than you do..
Good weekend all around. Nothing all that crazy, but solid.
Friday...well, we didn't do a darn thing Friday to be honest. Hung out all night, ordered some Chinese food and watched some tv. I know, I know, sometimes we're just too crazy.. we really need to take our excitement down a level..
Saturday we made what has now become our weekly pilgrimage to Lowes. The wife wants to start prepping for the spring, and picked up a bunch of veggies, etc to plant in our currently snow covered would-be garden. Personally, I love her optimism, but I think she's batsh*t crazy. There's like two feet of snow out there still!

The rest of the day was spent working on our bedroom. The wife is working the skim coat, while I'm still plugging away at spots of wallpaper that are refusing to separate from the wall. Then again you can understand its reluctance to leave the wall, as its been there 100 years or so..

She sure is tall huh! I don't have a steady hand, so I leave all the finesse work to the wife. Thankfully she doesn't mind doing it and is doing a really great job.
Fantastic angle, isn't it. That's not even my good side. Then again, I have yet to discover my "good side". I'll let you know when I find it though.

After too many hours of scraping, we retired to our respective couches where we watched Psycho, the old Alfred Hitchcock movie. He does an amazing job filming the movie, but by today's standards the suspense just isn't there anymore.

That night we did our usual weekend routine, movie and apps. This week we saw Vantage Point. Really good movie. Although I have to admit, the wife figured it out before I did. There's a first time for everything I guess. And for the first time, the theater was more than halfway full. We actually had to take a minute to survey the area and find a seat. Well, find a seat that was 3-4 seats away from the closest person. Anyway, the movie takes place over the course of 20 or so minutes, and they just show the same chain of events from different perspectives. It was quite obvious that a lot of people in the theater had no idea what the movie was about because we could hear the grumblings as it kept going back to the same starting point. It was a very good movie though, and I definitely recommend seeing it.

After the movie, we decided to hit the Olive Garden. I know what you're thinking.. why would we go to the Olive Garden? Well, we really miss everyone, and wanted to feel like family again. Sorry, that was a horrible joke, we've been hitting all the different area restaurants after our weekly movie, trying the food/drink and this time it was the OG's turn. The food wasn't all that bad, serviceable I guess, but it was their beer selection that really revved my engine. Check out their list of "Premium Beers"...(excuse the pic, it was taken with my phone camera)

I didn't know where to start! So many fantastic options to choose from!! I can't stop using exclamation points!!! Seriously though, are you kidding me. Thankfully they had Sam Adams on tap, so a crisis was averted. Although as the waitress cleared our table, she managed to somehow knock my beer over, spilling it across the table and onto the wife's coat. The wife thought it was funny and laughed to break the tension. I, on the other hand, flipped out, threw a chair through the window, body slammed a busboy and cursed out our waitress. Well, at least I did in the pretend world in my head. I really should have though, I mean, c'mon, she spilled my beer... totally not cool..

Today, nothing all that exciting. Hung around the house, went snowmobiling (with every trip out, I consider it the last trip of the season. So each additional time out is like bonus time to me), came home and made a very tasty stir fry for dinner. With vegetables and everything! Ever since we moved, I've been eating much healthier for some reason.

The wife finally broke down and got a Facebook account too. I think I may have created a monster though, as she's checked it at least 50 times in the past two days. I'm the internet junkie, not you my dear, so put the mouse down and slowly back away from the computer.

We've got a busy March coming up, with two trips to Boston on the calender and two different groups coming up to visit. Can't wait. It'll be nice to see everyone again, that's for sure.

Sidebar..

Now the following has absolutely nothing to do with me, but its really cool, so I thought I'd share these fun pictures with you. My brother-in-law Jamie, lives out in LA and recently got hired to act in a Movietickets.com commercial. You know, the ones they play at the movies, before the movie actually starts. Well apparently a friend took some pictures of him doing his thang, so I thought I'd pass them along to my loyal readers. Enjoy...

This looks like the director going over the sequence with him (that's Jamie in the orange)
There he is in the background... Up, onto the tables!

Excuse me, pardon me, coming through!
The big finale..
Geronimo!
Yeah, I totally taught him that move.
Ok, maybe not.
A safe landing, while making a very funny face..

So pretty cool huh. And my humorous captions did nothing but add to the pictures right? Next time you're at the movies, keep an eye out for him!

Thoughts From A Forever Wandering Mind

• I don't know about you, but being surrounded by all the cats like this, would creep the heck out of me.. but I'm not a Northrup, and they don't seem to mind this sort of thing...

• Have you heard those beef commercials on the radio with Matthew McConaughey narrating them? He sounds just like his character Wooderson from Dazed and Confused. I keep waiting for him to end with "Well, alright, alright alright" in that slow southern drawl.


• Did you see the eclipse last night? The wife and I had a perfect view right out our bedroom window. Pretty cool stuff.


• One of the dummy lights went on in my car the other day. Stayed on for a day, then shut itself off and hasn't been on since. Should I be worried? It was only the light showing a problem with the exhaust system.


• I don't know if this happens at other grocery stores, but it definitely happens at Shaws, and not just the ones up here. The kid bagging the food, puts everything in its own individual bag, so I end up with 40 bags for 35 items. Eggs, one bag; bread, another bag; three bottles of juice, soy milk, regular milk, another bag. So they're obviously not that bright, but its a pain in the tuckus for me. What the heck do I need all these plastic bags for. I really have no right to complain though, as my mother gave us a couple of canvas bags to use, but I of course, always forget them in the car.


• Any Dancing With The Stars fans out there? I don't really watch the show, but I find the list of participants pretty amusing (found here, just scroll down a bit on the link). How nice of them to give Steve Guttenberg work too!


• My lovely wife found this link. Just a little sketchy... too bad they're not selling anything good


• Great story on Kevin Durant's older brother. It talks about how its not easy being the older brother of someone so successful. I have too younger brothers, but have yet to run into this problem.
• So they cancelled one of my favorite shows, Las Vegas. After being on Monday nights, the moved it to the purgatory of the tv land schedule, to Friday night at 10pm and the execs at NBC couldn't figure out why it wasn't bringing in good ratings, go figure. Thankfully its in syndication, so we can still catch all the reruns on TNT.
• If you're not watching LOST, you're missing out. This season is just chalk full of questions, with answers coming very slowly. The show is written just like a novel, the the same pacing and give and take, really fantastic stuff.

Thoughts

• You might judge me, but having a handheld Tetris game in the bathroom is perhaps the best thing ever. Although it kills when I have an amazing game going (over the course of a couple of days) and then next time I go to play, it mysteriously says Game Over, or a new game has been started...
• It poured pretty much all day today. Normally I pray for snow, but if today's rain had been snow, I'd still be shoveling out.
• My phone hasn't rung since last Thursday. Is that sad or what? hahaha
• Since we've moved to Maine, somehow I've managed to lose twelve pounds. Haven't been to the gym since October, so I'm not sweating off the weight. My guess is that its because we eat smaller lunches (before we both worked in the city and would get lunch a lot there, whether it be subs or fast food or whatever, it was more than we eat now) and the misses has me eating more veggies at dinner. I even eat broccoli now too, go figure.
• Ladies and gentlemen, ready your jokes! So I decided to mix things up some and try some new "products". Everyman Jack. Really good stuff. Recently I've been getting some razor burn when I shave, but with the new stuff I didn't get a hint of it this morning. All told, I tried the body wash(soap dries out my skin too much, go ahead, laugh, but I choose to face my maladies head on), face wash, shaving cream and after shave/moisturizer. Not a single complaint. If you're looking for something new, I'd give it a go.
• Anyone else see this story about the Navy trying to shoot down a satellite thats falling out of orbit? I don't know about you, but the thought of shooting missiles at something that far away, moving as fast as it is, and as small as it is, scares the bejezus out of me. Ten bucks says they miss and blow up a flock of sheep somewhere in the middle of Tazmania.
• Two new beers were tried this evening, one by me and one by the wife. First is Butte Creek Organic Ale. I was honestly surprised by this one. It wasn't the best beer ever, but it certainly wasn't the worst either. Just a normal flavored IPA. Nothing extraordinary about it, but when I saw "organic" I though, bad tasting. The second one (via the wife) is Belgian Floris Apple. This one was very good. It was the perfect marriage of fruits and beer. Not overly fruity, yet still retained some of the beer qualities. I'm finding that I'm becoming a bigger fan of the Belgian fruit beers. And it doesn't hurt that the wife likes the either.

Weekend Report

Fantastic weekend. Lets start with Friday, shall we?
So normal crazy, insane day at work, but that night the wife and I decided to see a movie. Went and saw "Definitely, Maybe". As most of you know, I like a good romantic comedy from time to time, and I'm man enough to admit this. We were looking for something light and entertaining to watch, and this flick fit the bill. Lots of laughs, not too cheesy, good acting and a believable storyline. If you're looking for a good movie to see, I recommend it. An annoying thing happened while we were waiting for the movie to start though. We walk in and pick a seat, and like most nights at the local movie theater, it was about half full. So obviously, we pick some seats away from people, so we can put our feet on the seat in front of us/won't block anyones view. About two minutes before the movie starts, this 20 ish age couple walks in, surveys the theater for a seat, and decide to sit down DIRECTLY in front of us. Now there were empty seats to their left and to their right, but they choose the ones right in our line of sight. (not stadium seating either!) With their freakishly large heads blocking our view (no joke, i'm pretty sure the guy had popcorn orbiting his melon), we moved a couple seats away... people are just clueless sometimes.
After dinner we continued our trend of apps and drinks, this time at Uno's. Not too bad, mini burgers were tasty, slight mistake in getting the chicken lettuce wraps though (grilled chix strips with 3 day old lettuce), but overall good. And once again, the wife found a new colorful, yummy imbibe.
Saturday we made our weekly trip to the home improvement store, and this time it was Lowes. We ended up getting a rug for the third floor and a new light for the third floor hallway. I've got ten bucks that says the people that run Lowes, also own property in Vegas. We were in there for almost two hours and we had no idea we were in there that long! No clocks, pumped in air, they took our money... all they're missing is the thick layer of cigarette smoke and lots of annoying tourists, and wal-la, casino!
Nothing all that exciting today, as we spent another 5 or so hours peeling wallpaper/fixing the wall. Below is a pick of the before and after..
The right side is with the first layer of skim coating. The left side is the before. So as you can see, the wife's hard work is paying off. Its her project, so she gets to make the decisions and run the show. Unlike when its my project and she makes all the decisions and runs the show....waaaait a second..
Randomness:

• Its a good thing I got married before I really discovered country music. My lovely and patient wife would never have married me if she knew this is what I would turn into. All my wailing must get so annoying, but it sounds great to me :)
• Tried a new wine this weekend. Yellow Tail Sparkling White. Very tasty. Goes down smooth, no bite or bitter aftertaste. Little bubbles, which is good. (little bubbles, little headache; big bubbles, big headache) If you like their other wines, and who doesn't, I highly recommend this one.
• Finally, we found some good chinese food! Its a small chain restaurant called Noodles. I, of course, got the General Gau's chicken and it was fantastic. Might have been the best I've ever had, and that's saying something, cuz I've had A LOT of chinese food in my day. And the best part is, they deliver to pretty much everywhere around here.
• I think in a past life the wife and I were gypsies. Not that we move around a lot, cuz we don't, but because we're constantly rearranging furniture in the rooms of our house, so it kinda feels like we're always moving. We've already had the bedroom furniture in two different layouts, and now we're going to move it a third time.
• It's sad, I know, but one of my goals in life is to go see a taping of America's Funniest Home Videos. I love the show, always have, and those people just look like they're having the best time there, don't they?
• If you get a couple free minutes, check out this site: http://www.nextlevelstunts.com/ Yes, one of those freefalling fools is my brother-in-law. (and I'm actually in one of the videos. In the intro, he dunks off a trampoline in a gym and in the bottom right of the screen, there I am. Nice.)
• Haven't tried any new beers lately, and can't really seem to find anything I want to try. Any suggestions out there?

Coincidence?

So I served a tenant with a preliminary eviction notice on Friday. If you don't shape up, you're out essentially. Today he comes to see me, basically tells me that he's in very high standing in the community, dad was the police chief yada yada yada. (he's the building bully btw, annoys people just for the sake of annoying people) So he says to me, "oh did you buy a new car? cuz its not your normal car in your spot." I tell him no, that I just took my wifes car today (the new car). An hour or so later I leave to go to lunch, and low and behold, I have a flat tire. Cost $25 to get the hole patched.
I'm not saying he did it, but that's an awful strange coincidence. And its also the 2nd flat tire I've had since moving up here, both of which occured in my works parking lot....

Ever see that Slim Fast commercial with all the girls showing their bellies. The wife and I are in complete agreement on this one, why are they doing this? Its supposed to be a weight loss commercial, but no one is remotely thin. I don't get it. Plus, tv is for pretty people and pretty people only. If I want to see normal looking people I'll go to the mall or look in the mirror or something.

I was thinking about something today. Remember way back when, when microwaves didn't have the rotating tray in them? You'd have to cook your food halfway then rotate it yourself and continue cooking it. I'd like to thank the person that came up with the spinning thingy in the microwave. They saved me the time of having to rotate it myself..

Finished two books. Triumph by Jeremy Schaap, was all about Jesse Owens and the Hitler Olympics. Fascinating read. I highly recommend it if you're into sports and history, which I am. I'm not a huge fan of the authors writing style, but the information gets relayed so thats what matters.
Also read Tip Off, which is all about the 1984 NBA draft. If you're an NBA fan, I highly recommend it. Barkley, Jordan, Stockton, Bowie, Hakeem, all came out of this draft. Great read..

Back Home.

So I was supposed to be in Boston Monday thru Wednesday, but I was sick Monday, so it was just yesterday and today. I did get to see my parents, gramma & papa and Phil & Sue which was nice. P&S were also nice enough to burn us copies of a bunch of comedy cd's they took out of the library. They know how the wife and I like to listen to them (the wife likes books, I like the radio, so for some reason comedy is a comprimise, works for me) when we drive to and from Boston. So thanks guys!
About Freeport, I pulled over to get some gas and took this picture...
Notice how the ice formed on the antenae? Pretty cool huh. And I wasn't even driving fast. But by that point, the entire car had a coat of ice on it.

Anyone listen to/watch the Congressional hearings today? I was listening at work/while driving home. Neither guy came off particularly well, but it sounded to me like Clemens was lying thru his teeth. There's most likely not enough evidence either way to bring perjury charges, but still, one of them has to be lying. The Congressmen/women though came off as blowhards for the most part. One guy even seemed to have MacNemee confused with another trainer (Radonski) in his line of questioning. I find it helps to know who I'm questioning when I'm accusing someone of lying, but that's just me.
Can you tell we keep it a little chilly in our house?

Yes, thats my hand at my desk. It gets so cold in the office sometimes that I bend the lamp down to shine directly on my mouse hand to keep it warm. Pathetic huh..

Let it SNOW!

So we were supposed to get six inches of snow today, snow all day, but it didnt start until 6ish. The wife and I left the house at 6:30 to go celebrate my uncles birthday at his house. Just as we left, it really started to snow. When we left my uncles house a couple minutes before eight, there was 2-3 inches of snow on the ground! Apparently Mother Nature decided to release all the snow at the same time.
Man, I need to go someplace warm and sunny for a bit...

Weekend Report

And what a weekend it was! Lets see...
It started off with Mom, Dad, brother S(aka Smush) and his girlfriend Sasha arriving just before 8 o'clock. That day was spent fevorishly cleaning, as both Mom and Sasha are really really allergic to cats, and we have four. All that cleaning paid off though, as both of them were sneeze free the entire weekend, and we spent a lot of time in the house. When they arrived, we were just taking dinner out of the oven, so we gave Smush and Sasha a tour of the house and sat down at the table to eat. Dinner was fantastic (thanks again lisa for the chicken pot pie recipe, its always sooo good), and my Uncle B came over to hang out for a while. I love it when the family gets together as the stories start flying and theres always tons of laughing. It also marked the third time we actually used our dining room table.
Saturday, I was up at my usual hour of seven, but everyone else "slept in". Meaning Dad didn't get up until almost nine, which for him, it might as well be noon. A quick trip to Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts for morning refreshments, home to grab the girls, and off to Uncles B&M's house we went. We hung out there for a bit (Smush and Sasha got yet another tour) and then we headed over to Uncle D's house for some snowmobiling. Four-five hours later, we finally put the engines to rest. SOOOO much fun. Everyone got their turn riding/driving and everyone came back all smiles. I can't thank my aunt and uncle enough for letting us use all their toys.
While we were riding, Mom, Uncle B and Uncle M went out to get some lunch. A quick lunch trip turned into 2+ hours... wanna know why? They went to the casino! I haven't even been yet. Mom and B ended up winning $100 playing slots too! Go figure.
Saturday night was spent at dinner with Uncle D et.al. followed by many hours of domino's back at our place. (we also played before we went to dinner and it was confirmed that I suck at domino's)
Gotta say, this was one of the best weekends we've had since we moved up. I can't remember the last time I laughed this much. Story after story being told, and even though I know most of them, they're still hilarious after the 10th telling. Its funny, cuz sometimes I think that everyone down south has forgotten about us, but weekends like this remind me that I don't care haha. It was so great to be able to hang out with my brother and his girlfriend, to get to know her a lot better, and to hang out with the parents. The best part is, EVERYONE who stays in our guest rooms says the same thing. "that was the best sleep I've had in forever!" With the Indian shutters blocking out all the light and noise (not that theres any noise up here anyway) you can really get a fantastic nights sleep.
And yes, I forgot to take pictures of all the events so Sasha and Breezy if you guys have any good pics, forward them on to me please?

Anyone else out there see the Celtics game this afternoon? Great game. One of those games where in years past, the Spurs would have slowly clawed back into the game and eventually won. This year it was different though. The C's played great defense and got huge minutes off the bench. Fun fun game to watch..
And the writers strike finally appears to be over! Whoo hoo!!! Maybe we'll actually get some decent tv now instead of all the reruns and reality shows.. one can hope at least..

One More Day To Go..

Finally, one more day of work, then the weekend. Although

• I heard today on the radio that Target's profits are way down. I figured that with the amount of shopping she does there, the wife alone would put them in the black
• Tonight we went out to Target to grab a couple of things and the wife was looking for a duvet cover. Of course she doesn't like their selection so off we head to Linens and Things. After 25 minutes of staring at the same 4 duvets, and a spirited discussion on the difference between something matching and something going, she finally picked one. (matching vs. going? I had no idea there was even a difference. Sometimes I think girls make this crap up just to keep us guys in a state of perpetual confusion) Now the one she picked, I picked out of course, but when we got home it didn't fit the bed. Not sure how that happens when it says "queen/full size" and we have a full size, but it ends up reaching the floor at the bottom anyway. False advertising I say!
• I also learned that there is monumental difference between tan and brown. It was a very educational day for me.
• The Senate passed the tax rebate bill today. So it looks like we'll see our money this spring. Again, I'll believe it when I have that check in my hand.
• Guest arrive tomorrow! We got a couple more inches of snow the past few days! Its going to be a good weekend.

Do you think its cold in our house? We keep the heat pretty low. It's cheaper to throw on a sweatshirt than to turn the heat up...
As you can see Lucy found a nice warm spot. She managed to borrow her way into a folded up "egg crate" for a bed. Apparently it was warm in there..
Don't worry though, we turn the heat on when we have visitors.
Anyone else out there watching American Idol? There's really nothing on tv, so we've been watching it on a fairly regular basis. I've come up with a couple of theories so far. If you look like a dude, but you're not a dude then you most likely can't sing. If you need some sort of prop, then you're probably not going to Hollywood. The bigger your group of friends and family (waiting outside the audition room) is, the less of a chance you have of moving on to the next round. Seriously, who gives these people this much false hope? It's just mean to tell someone they can sing and encourage them to try out for the show, knowing full well they can't carry a tune in a bucket. Well, its mean to them, funny as hell for me...
We got some snow today, 2-3 inches or so. And we're supposed to get a couple more inches tonight. You know what that means... Snowmobiling!!! Yeah, I know, I get way too excited about it. You would too if you've ever been..

Are We There Yet?

Man, I can't wait for the weekend...

• Only eight more days until Spring Training. Can't wait. Although it seems to come earlier and earlier each year.
• Whatever happened to all the hoopla around the rebate checks Congress was approving? Last I heard, the bill was still stuck in the Senate. 435 Representitives can figure out a way to make it work quickly, but 100 Senators can't? Gotta love it..
• So you know Jared from those annoying Subway ads? Well apparently he's getting divorced. Get this, his now ex wife gets $250,000, 60% of the sale of their house, and 60% from the sales of HIS book. Umm, how is that fair? Granted, I can't stand the guy, but he does all that work, losing all that weight, and she gets 60%? I don't care how bad my marriage gets, I'm never getting divorced. I can't afford to lose out on that much!
• Great news, as of today its official. Mom, Dad, Brother S and his girlfriend are all coming up this weekned! Can't wait to see everyone. Its nice to know they haven't forgotten about us up here. Gotta keep praying for more snow though, we all want to go snowmobiling! Right now there's barely enough. Another couple inches would be great. Maybe we'll take the brother and Sasha out clubin', Bangor style, Saturday night, we'll see. Anyway, should be a great time, can't wait.
• Tough loss for teh Celtics toinght. No Garnett, and a very sick Pierce lost by a point to the Cavs. Can't say I watched a whole lot of the game as the Cavs aren't a very pretty team to watch. They don't seem to run an offense, its give the ball to LeBron and get out of the way. Playground ball basically. The Celtics need to rebound the ball better and they'll be just fine I think.
• So the spellcheck doesn't seem to be working when I type this out, so please excuse any typos. But can you really complain? Compared to my emails, these blogs are utter perfection.

So that's where my name came from

I was in class today learning all about maps and the guest speaker was talking about how for the most part in the northern hemisphere maps are printed "North up." After he said "north up" a few times I realized that it sounded quite familiar... now I wonder if my family was a one time mapmakers... I also wonder who in the past added in the extra letter, but maybe I will learn that in a later class!

I also learned what a south up map looks like:

Weekend Report

So lets see..Friday, the wife and I spent a lot of the day (i got out of work at 3) peeling wallpaper, so we kinda forgot to have dinner. So we decided to head out and grab a drink and an appetizer. Chili's here we come!(its the new golfcourse) When we got there, the bar was pretty full, it seemed to be a bunch of regulars, so we took one of the high tables. The waitress comes over (she was maybe 20), introduces herself like they always do (why do they do that, its not like I'm going to remember her name, or shout across the restaurant at her for some more chicken fingers or something) and asks us if we'd like a drink. I get a Sam Adams and the wife orders some fufu drink. The waitress then looks right at my lovely wife and asks to see some I.D. Didn't need/want to see my license, just the wife. So of course the misses thought this was the funniest thing ever (the pointing, laughing and yelling "she thinks you're old!" gave it away). Rest of the night was pretty uneventful.. Saturday, what a day. Lets just say we didn't leave the bedroom until after 4 o'clock. Went downstairs once to make a sandwich, but thats' it. Yep you guessed it, it was one of those afternoon delight kinda Saturdays, where I got GUILTED INTO SPENDING 8 HOURS PEELING WALLPAPER!!!! And we still have 1/4 of the room left to finish. There's at least two layers on the wall, and the plaster behind is falling off in some areas. Its really a nightmare in our bedroom, like out of a horror flick, (whereas before it was a romantic comedy! cue the rim shot! thank you thank you, i'll be here all week, tip your waitress!)

The white is the plaster, the blues are wallpaper, and theres a top layer we already took down. I do my part to help too, its just that the wife never thinks to grab the camera and I'm really not able to take a picture of me scraping the wall..
So I think we're going to finish taking it down then replaster where need be and put a skim coat of on top of the entire wall surface area followed by painting it. I love old houses, I really do. I'll never buy something new, its just way too square for me and kinda Stepford-y (i never want to drive down the street and have all my neighbors houses look exactly like mine. i'm not smart enough to go in the right house everytime). Obviously, we still have quite a bit of work ahead of us, but we have nothing but time on our side, so its fine. We haven't decided on a paint color yet though, so if you have any ideas, feel free to let us know.
That night, we again decided to have a late dinner (8pm or so) and headed out. After a quick stop at the Texas Roadhouse (where there was a two hour wait), we moved on to the next restaurant, The 99. Say what you want about it, but its consistently good. We sat at the bar (the wife really liked it cuz their bar stools were padded with arms, so she didn't have to worry about falling off), got a couple of drinks each and had a really good dinner. After dinner we watched John Tucker Must Die. Those of you that know me, know that I love a good high school comedy. We really weren't expecting much, but it was actually really funny. Its your basic knock the high school jock down a few pegs, almost date him but end up dating his less cool younger brother and living happily ever after flick. Not exactly Citizen Kane, but its a movie and neither of us wanted to think, we just wanted to laugh and enjoy the show.
Sunday... well I really don't want to talk about the game.. but we had lots of people over, which was fantastic, and lots of good food too.
Tonight I went with the wife up to school (she had to use the computer lab for something real quick) then to Target. The Target part isn't important, but while at school some dude came down the street riding a unicycle. Not just a regular one either, he must have been 8 feet off the ground. It wasnt one of those olden times bikes with the HUGE front wheel and itsy bitsy back wheel either, it was just one big wheel with a seat and peddles. Bizarre...
This coming wknd, my parents and one of my brothers are coming up to visit. Can't wait. Funny huh, 10-15 years ago, I would have dreaded them visiting, now its the highlight of our month haha. We've made a lot of improvements to the house since they were last up, so I'm excited for them to see the changes. My brother hasn't seen the house yet, so it'll be nice to get his perspective on it. Its always fun, the first time someone sees the house in person, we always get the "wow, I can't believe you live here!", or "how many rooms are there!?". If you can't tell, I love my house.

WTF?

I was going to blog tonight, but for obvious reasons I'm just not feeling up to it. I'll have our weekend report tomorrow when I'm feeling witty again..

One cat related post too many...

Earlier in the week we bought new phones for the landline, partly because I would forget to hang up the single cordless phone at night and when I was trying to use it for work purposes it would die mid-call. Very professional. So now we have a base phone and two floaters.

They are fancy, each phone has speakerphone, which of course I tested today when the husband called. As soon as she heard him talking, Princess (the really fat one) started meowing. She then jumped up on my desk and started sniffing around the phone and trying to move pieces of paper- I think she was looking for him. Especially since after I hung up she moved to the far end of the desk to practice being a paperweight, paying no attention to the phone at all. This is a lesson for me that I should refrain from speakerphone when talking to anyone who would not find this amusing (namely clients & group conference calls when I might need to speak).

Okay that is it for cat related posts for a while now as I don't want that to be the only time I post anything...

Happy Friday!