Cross-Country Trip --> Day Tres!

The highlight of our 3rd day was clearly leaving the Motel 6.  Not even gonna lie, I never thought it would be so cold deep in the heart of Texas.  Pretty sure it was like 33 degrees when we left, although a large part of that could be that we left at the crack of dawn due to our sketchy neighbors in the Motel 6 in Big Springs.  I halfway expected to wake up and see a corpse or some other unconscious individuals laying in the doorsteps of their rooms with trash and graffiti everywhere.  So, basically, I've been watching too much CSI/ Law and Order/ 48 Hours...you get the idea.  As a result, I'm going to get Stone Philips to narrate the rest of my blog.

So, we hit the road amongst frigid conditions and then we had the coffee incident.  We traveled about an hour or so towards El Paso and then stopped to get a warm beverage.  I had the idea that I could walk Sammie while Jill went inside McDonald's to get her drink.  About 45 minutes into the freezing free for all, I began to wonder where the deuce Jill was.  Thoughts of abductions filled my mind. All I could think of is some backwoods type movie involving chloroform and a house in the woods.  The kind of flick that at least one person in the group is deciding to wuss out off because they don't like to be scared or some crap like that.  These same people think that "Blair Witch" is a cuss word, by the way.  Not judging, just saying.

Just as my mind was about to go completely off the deep end, Jill comes walking out of "the restaurant" (it was McDonald's, so you can barely qualify it as a restaurant.) with nothing.  So now I'm totally confused.  Was she sitting inside the restaurant drinking her coffee while I was outside freezing to death?  She came into the car and was pissed because the girl didn't put the top on correctly and the coffee spilled everywhere and she was too frustrated to go back.  Being the supportive husband that I am, I told her that we weren't wasting the 2 bucks/45 minutes (which seemed more like half a day at this point) and that she was going to go back and demand a new cup, which she did and within a few minutes all was right in her world.  She was hugging the cup as if she was an eskimo sitting over an ice fishing hole and most likely happier than a bumblebee on a flower.

That is until we encountered Ciudad Juarez.  "HONEY!  THE BLACK LINE IS ON THE GPS AND WE ARE RIGHT ON TOP OF IT!!!!"  You can almost see her eyes bugging out of her head as she notices that we're driving alongside the international border that separates El Paso, TX and Ciudad Juarez.  Pretty sure she thought some Mexican pirates were going to jump out of a helicopter and land on our 65mph moving vehicle and pull off some Mission Impossible type stunt before hijaking our car, etc.  You get the idea. 

File this under "All Over the Place", but one of the more disturbing things is when we got out of the car at the "Welcome to Arizona" rest stop and discovered that there was absolutely no grass.  None.  Zilch.  Zero.  More grass in the glove boxes around the parking lot, than there was for miles on end.  This presents a problem when your dog has to go to the bathroom and she is used to going on the green stuff.  We walked around and finally she found a stony area that seemed to do.  What I didn't care for is that there were these little burrs everywhere and they were all getting stuck in her little paw pads and when I pulled them out, they were all bleeding.  Poor thing.  She's much more resourceful than I am.  I would have been crying like a bitch for the rest of the day.  Did I mention at this point the wife is still bringing up Ciudad Juarez, or the black line, or something else that I was unsuccessfully trying to tune out.

This day ended with a complete 180 from where we started.  We pulled into Tuscon at a Hampton Inn that seemed like a palace compared to the Motel 69 that we stayed at the previous night.  To make matters complete, it was like 70 degrees and there was grass.  And by grass, I mean resembling a lawn and not the Standing Room Only section of a Grateful Dead concert.  We walked to a local bar and grill, got some "To-Go" and ate the best meal we'd had in at least 3 days.  Next stop - SAN DIEGO!

Big Spring, TX and the Motel Seis

Day 2 in Big Texas - Man this state goes on forever!

Years ago, I was traveling in Florida and I decided that I wanted to save a few bucks, so I stayed at a Super 8.  How bad could it be?  They had a continental breakfast - that I decided separated it from the rest.  What I've since realized is that I'm at that point in my life where Super 8's are not exactly clean.  I was frustrated after a night where I literally slept with one eye open.  All I wanted was my continental breakfast.  To loosely quote George Costanza - this story is not embellished, simply because it needs no embellishing.  It is simply the story of my life.  So I went to the office to get some breakfast and this guy who is literally wearing a step up from a bathrobe shuffles over, opens a drawer, pulls out 2 honey buns and directs me to a pitcher of room temperature water.  That was the final straw.  I decided at that point that I would never again stay in an establishment that was this shoddy.  If I was in college, slumming it, then sure, no problem.  But, never again.

Enter - Big Spring, TX.  The gods of mileage and time converged on this small town between Dallas and El Paso, TX.  Once I got west of Dallas, there were tens of miles that we would drive where the road qualified as the most significant man made structure.  Big Spring kinda appeared out of no where.  The coolest thing about the drive into Big Spring is that we spent about 45 minutes driving into the sunset which was a really cool thing to see.  Picture it: An Arizona license plate.  Got it?  Ok, that's what it looked like.

The most reputable place to stay in Big Spring - which to remind you - is like a megalopolis compared to anything within a 50 mile radius - was a Motel 6.  Oh Freaking Dear.  It put Super 8 into a luxury class.  If they had a Continental breakfast, i wouldn't have eaten it.  No way.  I wanted to wear an astronaut suit so that my body didn't have to touch anything in that room.  It smelled like fajitas, which is the official air freshener of the Motel 6.  As we walked into Taquito haven, what struck me is all of these people staying there who had their doors open and were standing in the doorway.  Not exactly Donald J. Trump and Associates.  If you should ever get the urge to stay there, you can look forward to the comforter with the best of Motel 6 all over it.  And when I say the best, I mean the sun with the Motel 6 in the rearview.  That's literally as close as you should ever get to a Motel 6.  Honestly, I wish in retrospect that I would have risked narcolepsy and drove straight to Cuidad Juarez.  Clearly, that would have been a better option - trafficking included.

Day 3 will be a big day for us.  We'll be driving for a complete day for the last time and are looking forward to our night in a nice, clean Hampton Inn.  After staying at the Motel 6, you cannot imagine how great it feels to stay at a nice place.

New Guy!

One of the funniest things that a few friends adopted while working at Tops was that whenever a new person started working there, we'd refer to them as "New Guy" or "New Girl".  There was a guy, named Bobby Singh, who would actually go make name tags for the newbies that said "New Guy".  In fact, I left to go to school and came back months later and was shocked to see "George", or whatever the person's name was, on his name tag rather than "New Guy".  I was like, "New Guy, what's this all about," as I pointed to his name tag. 
In any event, I have carried this on to all of my other jobs since.  In fact, one time at my last job, a "New Girl" started and then a week later there was another "New Girl" in the same department.  Needless to say, it was confusing.  Proper protocol is that they keep the "New Guy/Girl" moniker for 2 weeks.  After that it becomes ridiculous. 
As I began a new job last month, I was now the "New Guy" and I told them that it was only customary that they replace my name plate with "New Guy".  On a positive note, they have me listed in the company directory as "Jeffrey Thomas".  UGH!  Who does that?  Was my mom in the new associate setup area?  I told them they could call me JT for short.  Ugh.  That, and whoever set up my email account used my full name and so everyone is emailing me, "Hi Jeffrey!"  Ugh! 
One of the best parts of the new job, other than being called "New Guy", is that I get to bring Sammie to work with me.  It's great, because she can play in the dog park that is on-site, or she can relax in my office.  It's a lot of fun for her and it makes my day a lot more interesting.  =)

Now For The Pictures!

First Day on the Job!  You can just barely see my "Scuba Hulk" placard that I was given when I got on board.  It's Rock Star!

I was trying to get Sammie to stay still but she was so excited about being at work that this blurry mess was the best that I could do.  This is her first day on the job!



Sammie checking out the happenings of the Companion Animal division. 




Sammie at the watering hole.




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Sammie asleep on the job!



I've found that one of the best ways to keep her busy is by stuffing her Kong with some food.  She literally is going to town for as long as there is even the slightest odor of food left on the Kong.  We are approaching "Squeaky Clean" status at this point. 

Friends Fo-Shizzle

So, I went out to play tennis tonight with my new San Diego best friend, Wilson.  He's my new San Diego best friend based on the premise that he's the only person in San Diego that I've actually had any personal interaction with outside of work for more than 1 minute and 15 seconds.  He takes the honor away from Erica and Tyler who are my neighbors across the breezeway and they were my best friends in San Diego based on the fact that I said Hi to them, they said Hi back and then I helped them carry in a few pieces of furniture. 

So, as you can infer, my social calendar has been rocking and rolling, so I went to craigslist to see if someone was looking for a tennis partner and sure enough I found Wilson.  I was pretty sure 20 minutes into our hitting session that he was going to walk off the court and tell me not to call him again as I was so rusty I couldn't sustain a rally of more than 3 shots (that's with the caveat that Wilson hit 2 of the shots before I hit a double off the fence or hit a grounder into the net for an inning ending 6-4-3 double play.)
Funny thing about tennis though, sometimes if you play for a long enough period of time, strange things happen.  In this case, I was sweating and the steam was coming off the top of my cranium.  Pretty sure Tom Cruise doesn't have this problem.  Wilson, who was very well endowed in the follicle department didn't have this detriment, I'm sure.  So, as the steam is accumulating around my face like I'm in a sauna, I actually started returning some shots in play.  Seriously, I'm not exaggerating about not hitting a shot in.  After awhile, Wilson stopped chasing my errant shots and just watched them like he was witnessing a fireworks display with his head cocked to the side facing up in the air.

One thing I've noticed after playing with my #1 San Diego friend (I'm going to play with a few titles and see which one sounds best for Wilson), is that I'm not 18 anymore.  I remember when I was 18, I used to run and play all day long and never think twice about it.  On one occasion, I wiped out on my bike, skinned my leg from knee to ankle, watched it bleed, and then proceeded to go on to the basketball game I was headed for.  I played a full game of hoops, then rode my bike home and felt like a champ.  In fact, I remember when I used to work at Tops, I had a friend, named Melissa, who came in one time to buy a sports drink and I was like what are you doing and she told me she was jogging around the city.  I was like, "What?!?  Are you crazy?"  By all estimates, Melissa lived about 7-10 miles from Tops, and I might add that the road she lived on was not exactly "jogger friendly".  I'm pretty sure that if she continued to jog and not get picked up before returning home that she probably jogged 20+ miles that day.  I don't know what happened after she left, but that inspired me to start running and now I'm pretty much in constant pain.  Ahhh...good times he said!

So, as I was saying, my game is pretty weak, so to compensate I've got to really hustle after every shot, because when I'm running all over the place, I actually tend to get some shots back.  It's the slow shots that are hit right to me that I lauch to the moon.  Well, after a few of these dead sprints across the court the thought occured to me that there wasn't a great flow of oxygen getting to my brain.  Wilson was doing just fine.  I could pretty much taste my spleen.  He destroyed me on the scoreboard and as I was walking to my car, I thought well this is going to be an interesting night if I don't get some ibuprofen immediately. 

The perfect ending to the night is that as soon as I sat down to relax, Sammie came and nudged me to go outside for a walk.  Mercifully, she wasn't pulling or else she might have ended up dragging me like a corpse on the end of a rope.

Miles Walked Today: 2 (Does the dog ever get tired - I'm setting all kinds of walking mileage records in the brief time since I've moved)
Friends Made Today: 1
Friends Elevated to "Best in San Diego" status: 1
Odds that Wilson will ever call me to play tennis again: It's a crap shoot, but probably 60%

That's Offensive...I think...



Here's how the move went down - it was cra-shizzle...

Day 1 - actually, let's back the bus up - Saturday before day 1 - 6 or 7 of my best friends came over for what I declared as about "an hour's worth of loading".  Sha-right.  About 5 hours later we were almost done.  Our house was trashed - literally.  The only things left in the house were garbage and an air mattress.  OMG - my body hurt so much!

Note to anyone moving - Forget u-haul, forget pods, forget 2 guys in a truck - they are all overpriced.  We used ABF U-Pack it and the money we saved allowed us to get movers on the other end to move our stuff out of the trailer into our new apartment.  ABF has it's pros and cons, mainly that you must have a place to drop the trailer on both ends and don't even think about the cubes unless you currently live in a shed or the like.  Your best and only bet is to go with the trailer.  It's a great deal.  You only pay for what you use and the rates are very affordable.  Instead, you could choose the other companies and while you're at it, why don't you just spend the rest of your money on mail order brides.  Duh...

So...

Day 1 - We got in the car and let me reiterate that sleeping on an air mattress only works when you're making like Blair Witch or something.  An air mattress in an empty room is horrible.  #1 - It's freezing.  Try sleeping on it - you'll literally think you're an eskimo.  I didn't know if I was ready for a blizzard or bed.  #2 - even worse is an air mattress on hard woods - the thing is literally moonwalking across the floor while we're sleeping.  I'm like - is this an air mattress or a turbo flyer?  On a positive note, we were already half way to the car by the time we woke up.

We got up at the crack of dawn - actually it was still dark outside when we woke up and I'm happy to report it was a balmy 17 degrees.  With an absence of sweat on my brow and the defrost on full blast we backed out of the driveway for the last time.  I don't get sentimental about most inanimate objects, but there is something to be told about all of the struggles we had in building our house and getting everything we wanted in it.  There were battles, fights, and there was no giving in.  Perhaps that's a good topic for the next blog, but for now, we were ambling down to the interstate and on our way.  

If you've never traveled for 4 consecutive days in a car with a "large" dog, then I'm not sure there is anything I can say to prepare you for what you are going to experience.  Side bar - according to all of the designations out west, Sammie is known as a "large" dog.  Don't worry - we're all properly offended.

In any event, we drove for about 12 hours and stopped just west of Jackson, MS.  It was a really cool drive and by someone's insistence (read: barking and slobber) we stopped about every 2 hours.  On a positive note, that made the trip much more doable because you're always a maximum of 120 minutes away from stopping and stretching.  I had never been west of Atlanta in the car, so there was a lot to see.  On the way, we decided that Blood Gnome would visit all of the "welcome" centers.  The best was on our way into Mississippi, there were 2 ladies at the desk next to the clock in shape of a state.  I told Jill to ask the ladies if they would pose with Blood Gnome and they did.  The picture was priceless because the one lady was smiling and the other was like - get this crap over with and get your sorry east coast/west coast wannabe butts out of our cotton-pickin state...If you look closely at the picture, she is ready to break the Gnome in half. In the vein of this is insanely ridiculous - I'ma tryin' ta do my state proud an'a I get these yayhoos comin' in with this stupid troll wanting a picture...

YIKES!

~Day 2 Tomorrow ~

Can you tell me how to get...[redux]

Stop me if you've heard this one before...
2 Adults and a dog, drive across country in a car that is stuffed to the gills with worldly belongings...

Not even gonna lie.  The first item in the car was my flat screen tv.  The flat screen was getting packed and then "let's see what else we can fit" was employed.  The dog was cramped.  The wife was cramped.  I was cramped.

Obligatory worst part of the trip -
Saying ok to my wife when she decided to put us in that Motel 6 in Big Spring, TX.  I literally slept with one eye open all night long.  That place smelled.  There were sketchy people lurking in the breezeways with their doors open.  Meh!  Don't even get me started on the fact that the bed sheets were collages of all that was well and good with Motel 6.  If that was truly the case, they would be empty/white except that the filth would show up in a NY Minute.

Obligatory best part of the trip -
Xanadu!  Staying in the Hampton Inn in Tuscon, AZ.  That place was heaven on earth or at least it seemed that way coming on the heels of the Motel 6.  I was like hell with the road trip, I'm going to live in this place because this is clearly nicer than any place I've lived, let alone stayed. 

So, here's the damage - 4 days, 36ish hours, stops at every "welcome center" rest stop to take the picture with Blood Gnome.  That's an inside joke, but the gist of it is that I have a broken Cincinnati Bearcats Gnome that follows me everywhere.  It's terrific and weird all at the same time. 
Most importantly - 0 incidents, and at the end of the day that's all that is really important, isn't it? 

So, while I'd really like to write more, the dog is pushing her wet nose into my arm.  For those lay people, that's the I have to go to the bathroom type of nudge.  So on that note...

Blog #2

Hey!  I'm working on another blog.  Feel free to stop by there if you have some time.

http://jleardini2.blogspot.com/

I'm going to be updating both.  Well, actually if you look at the frequency by which I've updated this blog, you might be thinking "Why not try updating one at a time, before trying to tackle two?"

I've thought of that, but to be honest, I felt like there were some different things that I wanted to try and I felt like if I created a new blog it would force me to write more often.  It hasn't worked yet, but never fear, I will come up with more entries.

So, About That Last Post...

No sooner do I submit the last post than I notice how incredibly hot it has gotten yesterday afternoon.  Long story short - Don't cut off your nose to spite your face!

There was no way our house was cooling down last night.  We could have had a fan in every window, so we broke down and turned on the AC.  What a great decision!  When I woke up this morning, it was warmer outside than it was in our house.  Ugh!  Just imagine if I had slept through that mess!  The morale of the story is that once the overnight low gets to be 68 or higher in the east, there is no amount of cooling you can do with open windows because the air is as thick as pea soup. 

After a few tense moments where the temperature was out of control, the house began to cool down and we were good to go.  We were still able to conserve though, because we were able to turn the AC off during the day, so there was a good 8-10 hours where the AC was not running - this while it was 101 degrees today!  When it cools down a  little bit we will be able to run it a little less, but as I said before, no need to be penny wise and dollar foolish.

The Grass Isn't Always Greener...wait, is that a Woodpecker?

In the "My Alarm Clock is Broken" category...

So, I'm sleeping the other morning and I hear this "waking the dead" kind of noise.  No idea what it is, but it's bothering me from the remainder of my slumber.  By the time I realize something has woken me up, the noise disappears and I am free to go back to sleep, except there it is again.  I turn over and notice that Jill is sleeping with her face towards mine.  That spells instant problem because she is a notorious mouth breather and I've now realized that she is inflicting some kind of bodily harm on my eardrums.  I go to nudge the top of her head and she shrieks out, "I'M NOT SNORING!  IT'S A WOODPECKER OUTSIDE AND IT'S KEPT ME UP FOR THE PAST HALF HOUR!" 

I walk over to our bathroom window, which is still open despite scorching heat (More on that later), and try to look out for our friendly neighborhood woodpecker.  Of course, I can't see anything.  Even if I had my contacts in, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have seen anything.  All of a sudden, I hear this jackhammer type noise and it sounds like it's coming from the part of the wall I'm leaning against.  I do what every problem solver might do in this situation, I pound the wall.  The noise goes away, and I'm left to wonder at this point whether or not this woodpecker is living in the walls of our home, or maybe the attic, or who knows where. 

Did I mention that the clock reads 6:27 am at this point?

A few days go by and there is no further performances from Woody.  But with the Memorial Day Weekend in full swing, he has been out with avengence.  Every morning, between 6:27 and 6:47, he has come back to our home.  I mentioned this to my dad and he suggested getting the hose and squirting him if I can see him from outside.  While I wasn't able to do this, I did notice that he is on top of our roof pecking at our gutter (which is made of aluminum, not wood).  This pecking of the gutter is making a noise that is reverberating throughout our house.  I think he's either mentally challenged, or this is some rudimentary form of beak sharpening.  My way to combat this over the past several mornings has been to go over and hit the wall/window and Woody flies away to another locale for the matinee performance. 

Good to know that he'll continue to come around because if the power goes out, I'm not going to have to worry about the alarm clock.  Woody's got me covered.

Heh, heh, heh-heh-heh.....That's all folks!

Cool Cash!

I really hate heating and air conditioning.  Mainly because all of the nasty particles that are in your house get sucked into your vents.  Then, no matter how good your air filters are, you end up breathing that junk back into your lungs.  People wonder why they are sick or have stuffy noses.  So each spring and fall, I relish the opportunity to turn off my heating and cooling system and open up the doors and windows.  The past twelve months have seemed much warmer than in years past.  I don't think I was able to turn off the A/C until deep into October and now here we are approaching 90 degrees on a daily basis and it's not even June yet.  In order to stem the tide for a few more weeks, what we have done is employed use of my trusty box fan.  Here is how it works -

Step 1: When we wake up in the morning, we wait until 8 or 9 (basically until the sun begins to hit the front of the house) and we shut all of the windows and doors.  We leave the blinds closed so that the sunlight is blocked from coming in.  We have those faux wood blinds from Lowe's that are white so they let in a good amount of light even if they are closed.

Step 2: Once the indoor and outdoor temperatures begin to equalize, or once the sun stops hitting the front of the house we open everything back up.  This worked until the overnight temperatures crept into the 60s.  Once this happened, our house wouldn't cool off fast enough.  The air is cooler outside, but there is no breeze to bring it inside, so we're stuck with the same stagnant air we've had all day.  At this point, we move on to Step 3.

Step 3:  We take our large box fan and stick it in the side window.  It's perfect here, because it's not visible from the road, or neighbors behind us.  This will ensure that we won't get the "Redneck Warning Notice" or "RWN" as I like to call it, from our Home Owner's Association. 

As a side note, are the Home Owner's Associations becoming like the mafia or is it just me?  We just a slap on the wrist when we moved into the neighborhood because of the red mulch in our front yard.  Not because it looked sloppy; because it was red.  Their logic was because if they allow red mulch, then they have to allow blue mulch, green mulch, etc.  Are you kidding me with this?  No one makes blue or green mulch.  It was the most capricious argument I had ever heard of.  I'm all for the HOA, because I don't want to live in a neighborhood with people parking on their front lawn, or putting a couch on their front porch, etc., but come on.  We had to get approval every time we wanted to plant a daisy by our mailbox.  (Fortunately, this ridiculous approval process has since gone away.)

Now that I took that tangent way out into left field, I'll go back to my clean air fantasy.  Last night, as an example, the temperature dropped 8 degrees in our house from the time we put in the fan, until the time we woke up the next morning.  We could have spent a bundle and used our A/C.  However, the fans - Which use almost nothing in electricity by comparison - did the job and gave us a cool night.  Best of all, our air is as clear as the suburbs will allow.  Once May turns into June, the humidity will hit and there will be no amount of fans that can cool off our home then, so we have to enjoy this while it lasts. 

A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush...

Who is going around thinking of these phrases?  I understand this to mean that the catch that you have is better than two that you could potentially get, but come on.  Unless you're hunting, why would you have a bird in your hand?

Discretion is the Better Part of Valor -
Now this is one of my favorite sayings.  I have to admit though, I'm still in the learning stage on this one.  Sometimes, it's so tempting to say exactly what is on your mind.

For example, we were eating dinner at my grandmother's house when we were younger and my uncle (her son) was recounting the Billy Joel song "Only The Good Die Young".  He said "Ma, if only the good die young, then you're going to live to be 150."
Perhaps, discretion could have been used here.  I have to admit though that it was pretty funny. 

The best part about writing this random blog is that while I'm typing, my wife, the Phillies fan, is sitting next to me, riveted by the Yankees-Orioles extra inning game.  To be honest, I'm not even riveted.  Sick to my stomach is probably more appropriate.  I mean, not to belabor the point, but if this game gets any worse, we're going to need a wet cleanup next to the couch.

Excuse me while I cut your head off to get ahead...

People don't care in this day and age.  To paraphrase Nene Leakes from The Celebrity Apprentice People will cut your darn head off to win.  Not news, I realize, but when did life become so impersonal?  I remember when I was in high school and college, my jobs were the best!  I loved going to work.  I tell many people that the best job that I've ever had was the one where I made $6.00 an hour cashing out people at the gas station. 
I remember that I came in to work on my birthday and all of the people who worked there came in to wish me a happy birthday and they made me cupcakes and we had a great time.  Now, you're lucky if you get the "Happy Birthday" email.  Then there's the card that everyone that works in the office signs and there is nothing close to a personal message in the card.  It's so impersonal that it's ridiculous.

Thinking back to that job, many of my favorite lines were born there:
1.  From a DJ that used to come by at least twice a week, in response to playing objectional music for an upcoming party he was working:
"That would fly like a fart in church"
2.  To a coworker when discussing our dumpster, which was painted blue:
"You have a date with Big Blue"
3.  Regarding the temperature that was out of control
Person 1: "Man, is it hot in here or is it just me?"
Person 2: "Oh no, it's me!"
4.  Coworker obsessively trying to clear something from eye:
Person 1 - "There's something in my eye"
Person 2 - "Ok.....ok....enough with the cheesy pick up lines"
5.  Proprietor to employee 1:
"Can I see you in the Manager's Office?"
Employee 2 to Employee 3
"Wonder what that is all about..."
Employee 3 *Winks*
"Oh she's going in there for a little extra..."*Nods and smiles*

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Leardini is like Smith

When I was growing up, I had many people tell me that my name was unusual.  Well, you can only listen to this so many times until you conduct some informal research to see exactly how unusual it really is.  Well, come to find out, if you research the name Leardini in Italy, it turns out that's it's much more common.  It's almost like looking in a phone book in the United States for the name Smith.  Ok, well, it's probably not that common, but there are several people with the last name "Leardini" in Italy and the surrounding region. 


There are even a lot of Leardini's in California that I have never even met or talked to.  So, the Leardini name is much more prevalent than even I knew when I was growing up. 

When I was growing up, I thought that everyone in the world was Italian and Catholic.  When I go back to look at my high school yearbook, about 85% of the people had a name that ended in a vowel.  I'm sure there were all different denominations of churches where I grew up, but I thought they were all Catholic.  Even when I went to college, almost everyone was Catholic.  In fact, there were even masses held on campus.  Come to think of it, though, not too many of my friends were interested in attending.  It was a huge surprise when I moved down south to see that there weren't very many Catholic churches.  In my area, there are 4-5 that are within reasonable driving distance, but there are a lot of other denominations that I am aware of.  To get to our church, we pass at least 2-3 different denominations, maybe more.  Growing up, we passed 2-3 Catholic churches to get to ours.  It's funny to think about how different things are and how my perception of things changed. 

Interesting little tid-bit.  One of our favorite news anchors/reporters was Ben Thompson, who was with our ABC affiliate.  Ben was the late night reporter during the week and on the weekend, he was on the anchor desk.  Then one weekend, he wasn't there anymore.  It's almost like some of these anchors become part of your family.  You see them every so often and trust them to bring you the latest news.  Then, one day, they're gone.  I spent moments over the next several months wondering where Ben went to and why he wasn't on the news any longer.  Then, this past weekend, there was a rain storm in our area and they reported on the NBC affiliate that Ben Thompson was reporting at the scene!  So, now I have a decision to make because, I really don't enjoy watching the NBC channel because I think there news broadcast is mostly fluff.  Also, there are quite a few "family members" that I enjoy watching on the ABC channel.  Let's face it, I'm a creature of habit, so it's going to be a rare day that I switch the channel, but I like Ben, so I just might check him out.  Who knows, maybe he'll bring some credibility to the news.

New Girl

So, today I met New Girl.  She's the new assistant in our office at work and pretty cool.  We went to Panera for lunch and she is just so excited about our office.  I'm really glad to see that because a lot times, people come into a new situation and are so indifferent. 
Best thing about New Girl is that she loves to play Disc Golf!  That's wonderful!  She is the first girl that I've ever met that enjoys playing Disc Golf.  Perhaps one day, she'll come out and play with us. 
Speaking of Disc Golf, I convinced a guy at work to play with us.  He eventually backed out because he was nervous about coming out and sucking.  I explained to him that at least once per outing there is one person in our group who throws the disc directly into the tree that is in front of them, only to have the disc bounce back in their face.  Our skill level is probably zero, none, sucks.  Basically, whatever the scale is, we're at the bottom.  We found it very humorous that someone was worried about not being good enough to play with us.  That would probably be about the same as an able-bodied person saying that he is not skilled enough to play basketball against parapalegics.

When I used to live in NY, I remember my friend Chris coming over every night when I lived in my apartment.  We would hang out and watch the NBA playoffs or whatever was on.  It was really cool to have a friend that I could hang out with and have a good time.  Chris and I used to play basketball, or backyard football.  He was the most real friend I can ever remember having.  I wish he lived near me more than anything so that we could hang out like we used to.

Grocery Time....Cha Ching

Ok, so we love going to Bi-Lo.  I know that it's pretty much the Rich Man's Food Lion, but I'm ok with that until I start noticing Food Lion tags on things and then I'm outtie.  This week though, The B-Lo has turkeys for 39 cents a pound.  My wife is practically frothing at the mouth about this.  She nearly knocked me to the ground to get to the Ad.
I couldn't tell you what else is in that Ad, because my wife was so excited about the friggin' turkey.  It is so inexpensive, I told her that we should buy a big huge one and freeze whatever we don't eat that day.  (The cooked, but uneaten portion)  I don't think that we could get a better deal than 20 pounds of turkey for 7 bucks or whatever. 
I'm all about trying to save a few bucks, so we'll see how this goes.  If I blog in a few weeks from the hospital, the dots shouldn't be too hard to connect.

So, onto other matters.  Next week, there will be some remodeling done in my basement.  My dad and I are going to frame out a wall and build some shelves so that I don't have to put everything on the floor in our store room.

Well, I'm sure that you all are excited here on the eve of the Venezuelan Feast of the Virgen de Chiquinquirá, because frankly, who isn't?  While I know that this observance gets lost in the shuffle of Shogi day, it still is a prominent celebration in the Leardini household.  It's been a tough celebration to maintain, however, because we don't want it to infringe upon our gala celebration of International Toilet Day, which will be celebrated this year on Thursday.  And who could think of a celebration that isn't more worthy?  I believe that we'll be able to squeeze them all in this week.  It's always a party to go in the Leardini Household.  HOLLA!

Can you tell me how to get?

In honor of this being the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street, I thought I'd share a favorite passage from "Bigfoot's Memoirs".  This is hilarious!  The gramatical errors are intentional, by the way.
Excerpt from Me Write Book, by Graham Roumieu...
When first start out audition for a lot of roles.  Agent at time think I suited for children program because I furry and talk simple.  Go in try out for role on new show for public television but get beat out by giant yellow bird.  Also try out for role of him friend but beat out by freaky elephant.  Get angry and throw chair across set, hit this talentless green guy who also no get lead role.  Turn out I break him back with chair and make him paralyze.  He try sue network.  He get miserable from not walk and start live in garbage can.  Network offer him role as settlement for lawsuit.  I try to get role as garbage man who carry him around but he just scream in terror and hid in can when I around.  So unprofessional.

So, one of the biggest drains on our finances seems to be eating.  Whether it's going out to eat, picking up things at the grocery store, or the like, more than half of our money goes to these places.  Have you ever gone grocery shopping and then gone back within a period of time to "pick up a couple of things"?  Pretty much, any time that we do that, we walk out spending at least 20-25 dollars.  I read a book that has helped me with a philosophy on this.  We try to go to the grocery store once a month.  During this one trip, we get everything that we'll need for an entire month.  If there are extra things that we need, like milk, we buy extra and freeze it.  For fruits and vegetables, we determine what the shelf life is of each item and then eat accordingly.  For example, bananas usually last about a week, grapes about 2-3 weeks, oranges about 3 weeks, and apples about 3-4 weeks.  So, when we're eating, we go for the bananas first, and then make our way through the fruit, saving the apples for last.  The main thing is that we stay within our set amount by making only one trip.  When we first started doing this, we brought cash, a calculator, a note pad, and the ad.  If we went over the cash that we had, then we had to put something back.  It was a good way for us to prioritize what we wanted to buy.

Going out to eat is another story.  I think that this is how we overextend ourselves more often.  Especially with the popularity of using a credit card, it becomes easy to go out to eat because you don't have to be accountable until the end of the month.  It's really easy for everything to add up.  One thing we're going to try is to have cash for when we go out to eat.  That way, we're having to phsically take out the money.  This helps us in another aspect that we're concerned with.  The whole idea of someone taking our credit card away from us to swipe it makes us a little leary.  It's become common place to trust the server that is taking your card from you, but how do you know that this person isn't a druggie, or in need of finding ways to pay their bills.  It wouldn't take much for them to write down the personal information of your card, google your address, and then charge everything under the sun online.  Paying with cash takes all of these variables out of the equation. 

Just last night, for example, I went to get some dessert at Applebees.  The girl, I'll call her Stephanie, was busy when we were seated, so the manager came and took our order.  Like, I said, we just ordered dessert, so there wasn't a whole lot to remember.  Stephanie came by and apologized for the taking of our order taking so long.  After a reasonable amount of time we got our dessert.  It was really good.  After some time, I began to look around for Stephanie for our check.  Another server came over and mentioned that I appeared to be looking for someone.  I explained that I needed my check.  This server approached Stephanie and asked for our check.  In clear earshot, Stephanie defiantly exclaimed, "I didn't even take their order."  Well, 'preciate it, Stephanie.  When we finally received the check, it had her name on it.  Acknowledging the fact that Stephanie did nothing for us, I left her a 0.00 tip on my credit card.  I couldn't help but think afterwards though that if she got pissed at us, then she had my credit card information to alter the bill in her favor.  This is what prompted me to think more carefully about not paying with my credit card in the future at restaurants. 

This blog was brought to you by the letter E.

Dissing me Hard

Ok, so I've gotten dissed not once but twice. We're going to a party on Saturday and there is a friend of ours who will be there. Well she is leaving this party at 10 to go to another party. What are we chopped liver, not cool enough, or what? This is on the heels of being dissed for our pumpkin gathering a few weeks ago. That was legit though as it was work related. I hope that she reconsiders. We'll find out Saturday.

Tomorrow night, I have absolutely nothing to do. Jill and I will probably end up staying home watching tv or something. I love all of the Halloween movies. We probably need to take down our Halloween decorations. You never know what the trick or treaters will do to your decorations that are on the front step. Our neighborhood is pretty docile, so there aren't any shenanigans. I remember this one time when I was in high school our neighbor used to work the lunch line at our school. There was a main line and a dessert line where you could buy ice cream products. Well, the ice cream line always got closed early. We would literally be standing in line and it would close. We'd look at the clock and there would still be several minutes left in the lunch period. One night we decided to exact our revenge. We walked down the street after dark and stopped across the street from our neighbor's house. "One, Two, Three, NOW," my friend yelled. We took the eggs that were in our hands and launched them as far as we could and then took off on a dead sprint in the opposite direction of the house, never turning around to see what happened. The sound of the eggs crushing against the vinyl siding pierced the night. Revenge was ours. The next morning we walked to school past our neighbor's house and saw the hose out and the house was dripping with water from being freshly sprayed. A quiet chuckle went around our group as we continued on to the bus stop.
Now, that's some sweet action. At least we thought. Most people are probably like, "Those Punks!" I think you have to react swiftly when met with such an injustice as the ice cream line being closed early. That'll learn them! MOOHOO HA-HA!

Game On!

Have you ever struggled with what to do with your money? On one hand I'd love to get a part time job, or find some way to make money on the side. On the other hand, I'm wanting to buy a new car, find new things for our house, etc. What a dilemma! I have a perfectly good car, which is completely paid off. So, why would I want to start with a car payment? Well, if I buy a Pontiac or certain other models, there is 0% financing for 72 or 60 months. That's a pretty good reason to start with.
Right now Sammie is wanting to play with her ball.
Ok, fast forward. I've been playing with Sammie/watching the ALCS (Right now it's Yanks 5, Angels 1). I've also been trying to locate a Pontiac Torrent. There is supposed to be one in Virginia somewhere. Somehow I feel like that's a bit far to travel for a new car. There is a front wheeled drive version here in Charlotte with all of the amenities that I need, but it's a little expensive, so they'll really have to knock my socks off in order for me to buy. I could get 0% financing for 72 months, but then I lose the cash back that GM is giving me, which is 2500.
We'll have to see what happens. I'm definitely not making a decision overnight or anything. I'm sure that there will be a better deal in a month or so when the dealerships are trying to get rid of their inventory. We'll have to see.
Yanks are still winning 5-1 at the end of the 6th inning. Go NYY!!!

Sammie's new bed

Based mainly on the fact that I didn't want to continue to drag Sammie's bed up and down the stairs every night, I bought her a new bed. Once in the store looking at all of the dog beds, I realized that I have one healthy sized puppy. There was only one bed that I was confident would fit her. I say bed, but it's really just an oversized pillow. Last night, she tried it out and I believe that we have a success story on our hands. Although there were a few times when she was tossing and turning that I was like, "What was that noise?" Her old bed was pure cotton. This one is covered with a fabric that makes a swooshing noise of some sort. It's not windbreaker material, it's more like a fancy pillow. Sammie stretches out on there and LOOOOVES it!!

Topic #2 -
Why I hate VERSUS and most cable companies for that matter. They are only in it for the almighty $$. They are in the middle of a fight with Directv and because of that, Directv has taken Versus off of their lineup. OK, let me answer 2 questions that you might have...
1. Why do I care so much all of a sudden?
2. Why don't I put as much blame on Directv as I do on Versus?
Well, that's simple.
1. The Sabres were playing on Versus tonight and because Directv dropped them, I missed the game even though I pay an arm and a leg for the Hockey package on Directv. Versus is doing one thing after another to bury hockey and ensure that no one will be able to watch it. First of all, they sign rights to broadcast the sport. Terrific! Well, many cable providers don't even carry Versus. Forget about Directv now because Versus sadly overvalued it's worth and told Directv that they had to up the ante for the rights. This leads me to....
2. Directv generally spares no expense to bring the best sports to their consumers. They have exclusive rights to the NFL package. They have exclusive rights to the MLB package. Plus, they usually make sure that you have access to almost any station that you'd like to watch, sports or otherwise. The fact that they're drawing the line with Versus tells me that this is something out of the ordinary because to just drop the station without moving it to the sports package tells me that the situation is out of control.

I say, GROW UP VERSUS! Your shrinking hockey fan base is being lost as quickly as water and the like going down a toilet bowl. This is probably a closer to home analogy that Versus may want to believe.

Grandma's chocolate cake

When I was little, my Grandma Leardini made this Chocolate Cherry Cake and I'm telling you it was the best cake I've ever had. It was so moist. Well, since then, my mom has passed the recipe on to me and I love making it. So, tonight I made it in the "Ghostie" pan that I bought at a garage sale several months ago.

A garage sale is always a mixed bag. On this occasion, I went to a neighborhood garage sale, parked and walked from house to house. By the time I was finished, I looked funny as heck. I was carrying a halloween decoration, several nik naks and a framed poster. Here's what the Halloween decoration looks like: Sammie is checking it out like, what the heck....

Anyway, one of the things that I bought was the "Ghostie" pan for like a dollar. That has to be the deal of the day. On a side note, you know you're getting old when you're bragging about how much you paid for a cake pan. But to put a bow on this story, that was the pan that I used to bake Grandma's cake tonight. it looks pretty cool, but you'd never guess that the cake is in the shape of a ghost. It just looks like a weird wave or something.

Work seems to be going ok. My goal over the next several weeks is to be more positive. I think that I'm falling into a rut of looking at the down side of things. There is plenty to be excited about, so I need to keep my spirits high. Nichole and I talked about that today. She is good at motivating me to look at things on a positive note but lately she hasn't been feeling too good. Honestly, I was like death warmed over on Monday. Shawn had the day off since he was traveling for a meeting on Sunday. He invited me to lunch and I'm sure that he was like, what the heck happened to you when he saw what I looked like.

Saturday will be a SBU alumni event at Charlotte Catholic High School. Nichole and Shawn are coming with us, which should be pretty cool. This will be my first alumni event so we'll see how it goes. Shawn and Nichole will be coming with us, so I hope that it's a lot of fun. After that we're going to make dinner and watch a movie and play games. It should be a pretty effective.