Finally an update...vacation

So I haven't posted on here in over a month, sorry. I'll bring you up to speed on some of the various things that I had discussed before and new stuff.

So last we left our adventure...
I was getting ready for a road trip with the family in Myrtle Beach.
I should start this with the cast of characters:

Me - Your host





Teri - Wife of host





Rebecca (Becca, Bec) - Daughter and The cutest little girl in the world!





Cindy - Sister, wife of Kurt Jr, mother of Candice, Kurt III, and JR





Candice - Niece, mother of Tabitha





Kurt Jr. - Brother-in-Law, father of Kurt III





Kurt III - Nephew





Tabitha (Tabby) - Great Niece





C&C is the whole group with Cindy and Candice.

Chris - Friend

Thursday evening: On the way home from the train station I stopped by Cindy's house to get some of her luggage, golf clubs, and beer and potato chips for JR and Mary (my sister).

Teri, Becca, and I FINALLY got on the road after I harvested the garden. I was hoping to leave around 4:00, but we ended up leaving around 6:00. We head to Roanoke Rapids (RR) and spend the night.

Friday: C&C meet us in RR, kind of early actually. The plan was to take a quick visit of Teri's kin. But they blew us off. This really irked Teri (and me). But on the road to MB.

From 2008-08-18

Once in MB we got to the hotel, but couldn't check in until 3:00. So I went and got some pizza from Hungry Howies, one of the better pizza's I've had. Well, C&C didn't think much of it, but I didn't know this as I went and got drinks, but they eat a lot of it anyway. But then we were hanging around, and LK was playing with Bec. He was raising her up over his head, and hit her into the ceiling fan. And I yelled at him! Cindy didn't like me yelling at him. But ya hurt my kid, and I'm gonna yell at ya (at least). I think this set a bad tone for the evening. Anyway I wanted to go to dinner at my favorite restaurant down there (Drunken Jacks). We went, but it was crowded, C&C couldn't take waiting 2 hours. I tried to explain that it wasn't that big of a deal, but no. So we went to the restaurant next door, which we had an hour wait. Kurt Jr was felling pretty sick. He could barely eat anything. Teri and I felt kind of bad for him. Other then Kurt feeling sick, it went fine, and back to the hotel.

Saturday: My birthday! BFD. Baby gets up by 6:30 no matter what. We know this. So we got up and went to breakfast. I wasn't keen about the hotel's breakfast, so we went out. On the way back, we stopped for golf. But when we went out on the course, no babies allowed due to bad golfers. We went back to the hotel. On the way we picked up breakfast for Cindy. Teri offered to make soup for Kurt Jr. Cindy told us he and III went to the Go-Kart track. He wasn't real sick, he took cold pills and drank 3 beers on an empty stomach. Cindy said she would watch Bec while we golfed.
Back to golf. We started at the driving range. I made sure we stretched out before playing. But I threw my back out while on the driving range. I didn't think it was too bad, so we went ahead and played 9 holes of Par 3. Wrong! It was a mess! I rested up the rest of the day until we went to Charleston for the Springsteen concert (remember, that's the whole point of this trip). The show was really good! And the venue was nice.

Back to MB. C&C had taken Bec to the Dixie Stampede, and both really had a good time! Rebecca really enjoyed all the stuff that was going on!

Sunday: Back wasn't any better, Teri got the phone book and called Chiropractors until she found one that would see us. And we found one. It helped a good bit. JR (Sam Jr) arrived and got his beer and your crap. We did get out to the beach, but Bec didn't think much of it, or the pool.

From 2008-08-18

We did have dinner at Drunken Jacks, but Cindy was in a mood where nothing was good, tough shit, it's some of the best food around! Back to the hotel to pack.

From 2008-08-18

Monday: Ride back. The decided that they wanted to have breakfast at IHOP. It took us north, and they kept going north. This was a stupid way to go, but we finally got to 40, then 95. We gave passed the kid off in Petersburgh, VA. We had the Tom-Tom and meet a friend of mine, Chris, at the Richmond train station. We stopped off for dinner.
When we left the TomTom told us to make a turn. The first turn was for 95 south, I knew we didn't want to go in that direction, so I took the north exit. This is where Teri had a mini-meltdown. "Why don't you listen to it! You are so stupid! Why do we even have it if you aren't going to listen to it!!" Well when it showed that we were going the right direction, she apologized. I got a kick out of her meltdown.
When we got to the train station, Chris had met some dude on the train going to the show. The guy had flown in from California and needed a ride from the train station to the arena. We gave him a ride.

From 2008-08-18

The show in Richmond was phenomenal! One of the best of the tour to that time! In hind sight, I should have taken the whole week off and followed the tour to the end in KC. These were just AWESOME shows. We got home late early Tuesday morning without incident.

Tuesday: I went to my normal chiropractor. He worked on me and I'm feeling fine now. Teri did bail out of going to the Hershey show and I ended up selling her ticket. The show in Hershey was also excellent, but not quite as good as the other two. But it's splitting hairs with the difference too.

Wednesday: Dropped the van off to have some work done, and went back to work myself. End of vacation.

I was a Bachelor for the weekend...

...So what! As of late last week I had a decent weekend planed. With Teri out of town I planned to get together with Heather on Saturday, and go to the Black Crowes show with The Donk on Sunday. This got totally messed up!

First off, Heather called me Friday evening to see if we could get together that evening. Well I was in the middle of making dinner, and planned on helping Teri pack so I couldn't. But she said she was going to call me Saturday morning. She didn't call.
Saturday night I ended up going to Hollywood, MD and played poker with Cindy. I didn't win, so it turned out to be a shitty night.

Well at least I had Sunday right? WRONG! The STUPID Donk called and canceled the show. He offered me the tickets, but I didn't want to go solo. It was suppose to be a guy thing. But he is so busy with his messed up marriage, it's not funny. So basically, this totally blew my whole weekend.

I ended up picking vegetables in the garden all weekend. It needed to be done, but I sure would have liked to do something FUN!!!

This has put me in a rotten mood since then. Last night the baby didn't go down until late. And she got up early. I didn't want anything to do with anything, but I eat breakfast, and went up to check on her. She needed to have her diaper changed which I did. I am halfway though doing this when Web comes into the room acting like he is about to puke. I run him out, and Rebecca starts crying. I snapped and yelled, "SHUT UP!!" I didn't need to do this. But I am just so bored with everything going on.
I am seriously considering canceling the party this year. I can care less about seeing any neighbors, I see them all the time anyway. And there isn't anyway else who would come to the party that I care to see. It's just a lot of money out the door for a crappy time.

On the job front:
Progress is being made on the Census job, but they are trying to low-ball me on the salary. Tough, I'm not going to work for scraps. They WILL pay or I don't accept it. 1513: I just got an e-mail, they are stuck on the low ball. Doesn't look good for this one.

The job at Andrews is making progress. I have a face to face interview on Thursday.

I told the folks at the USDA job that I am interested, but understand that there is a funding problem and I need more info. The HR woman said she is working on an offer.

I haven't heard back from the Library of Congress folk. But on my other office phone, it looks like the tried to call last week. They should try to contact me some other way.

Vaca Update:
So the whole Myrtle Beach trip is completely out of control! Originally it was going to be Cindy, Teri, Rebecca, and I. Well then Cindy asked to bring Candice and Tabitha, then little Kurt, now big Kurt. And my poker play is so bad lately that I don't want to play in a cash game on the gambling boat, and be stuck out there for 6 hours!
I told Mary that I don't want to go out on the boat, but would pay for a night for her and Bill in Myrtle Beach. She didn't want to do this. She says its because of all of Cindy's crew. Whatever!

This is why I am in a shitty mood as of late!

Happenings this month...

Not much...

It's been a little while since I've posted, but there really isn't a heck of a lot to blog about. I'll break it out a little.

Garden

The garden is coming along fine. I've been meaning to take some pictures, but it basically looks like last year. I have had some kind of bug infestation that is really wiping out my squash this year. I have tried pesticide, but no luck. Cucumbers have been coming on pretty well (as usual) and I've been bringing them in for the folks at work. They seem to enjoy them!

Work

Speaking of work, all is going well here. It seems to be a pretty tight knit bunch and that's a good thing. The only problem is that it's God awful boring. I can pretty much come and go as I please, but while I am here, there really is NOTHING to do. So here I am blogging.

On June 30, Teri and I did bring Rebecca in to see all the folks. That was a big hit. This kind of set me up in a situation where I can stay here a long time. The 3 of us also came down on Sunday 7/13. I needed to do some work, and Teri and the baby went to the Portrait Museum. It was right around the corner from Legal Seafood (where we had dinner). All in all, it's going as swimmingly as it possibly can.

Friends (relationships)

It seems like I am the Rock when it comes to my friends. A couple of them are having problems, but they lean on me to keep them going. I don't know how I ended up in this position, but I try to lend as much support as possible. I don't really want to go into a lot of detail and break their trust, but I do try to remain supportive and give the best advice I can.

Concerts and up coming stuff

Well July is a boring month, just like I thought it would be. That's okay, because August looks like a total blow out! I'm now going to do 3 Springsteen shows, and work a vacation into the works too.

On the evening of August 14, Teri, Rebecca, Sister Cindy, Niece Candice, Great Niece Tabitha, and maybe Nephew Kurt, are traveling to Roanoke Rapids, NC to stay with Teri's kin. Then on August 15, we continue down the highway to Myrtle Beach, SC. The night of August 15, Cindy and I are going out on the gambling boat for a poker tournament. The next day, August 16, my birthday, Teri and I go to Charleston, SC for the Springsteen concert.
We have a 'free day' on the 17th, then it's time to head north on Monday, 8/18. When we will see Bruce again in Richmond, VA. Cindy will take Rebecca for the remainder of the trip back to MD, and watch her the next day when we see Bruce the final time in Hershey.
Not 100% sure if all of this will happen, but at least that's the plan at this point.

So that's the news here. I will try to update a little more often, or as near as I can make it.

September to Remember

On September 2, 2006, Teri and I set off to go back to Myrtle Beach for our 10th anniversary vacation. It started off okay, even though it was raining in MD. But after about 2 hours of driving, we got a call from our house alarm company. Gram triggered the alarm because she knocked the phone off the hook. My brother Chuck arrived soon after and all was fine. Then the adventure began...

On the ride down, we stopped and I reach into the back of our van to pull something from the luggage. I had a back spasm. No big deal, I would take it easy the next day. I did, but on Monday, we hit the driving range. This did my back in. We went to find a chiropractor on Tuesday. This was a Chinese chiropractor and in addition to the normal chiropractic adjustments, she did a Chinese technique called cupping to relieve the inflammation. This seemed to work ok, but left circles all along my back side. It looks bad, but it didn’t hurt or anything, and did seem to relive the inflammation. The picture with the glass jars is the cupping procedure.

The next day Teri and I had a golf lesson and went out on the Dolphin Adventure, which we went about a mile out in the ocean, followed shrimp boats and watch the dolphins come up to feed. All went well.

Thursday we went Gulf Stream fishing. This was a 3 hour ride out the Gulf Stream, 5 hours of fishing, and 3 hours back to port. On the way out, I got sea sick BIG TIME! And stayed that way the entire trip. Teri did okay, and I managed to get about 90 minutes of fishing in. We ended up catching about 30 pounds of fish. Once on shore, I was okay, just know to take caution (and Dramamine) next time.

Things were fine for the next week and a half. Doing the work thing, and getting into golf a little more. On Monday, September 18 I watched the football game. They discussed the appendectomy that the Pittsburgh Quarterback underwent (with computer animation). It was informative; file it for long term info. Went to bed and had some stomach pains. I thought it was something I eat earlier, but it didn’t settle down with Tums or Pepto. Uh, oh, feels like it could be another kidney stone. Took kidney stone pain pill, no use; off to hospital.

They got the pain under control and I received a CAT scan. Around 5:00am I’m informed that it’s my appendix. My first thought, “I’ve got a busy week coming up, can we schedule this for next Monday?” I’m informed that I’ll be the first surgery of the morning at 7:30am. That really messed up the week.

It took a little longer then they thought, but got it out via Laparoscopic surgery. I woke up in my hospital room Tuesday morning around 9:30am. I recovered in the hospital until Thursday afternoon, and was discharged. Everything went fine Thursday, I eat normally. No BM yet, but that was normal for this operation.

Friday, I wasn’t able to keep any food on my stomach. This was cause for concern, and back to the hospital Friday evening. They ran a bunch of tests, but found nothing wrong. All is well on Saturday. Everything is functioning properly.

With this surgery, I did miss a big concert Saturday, the Virgin Festival. These things happen. I’ll probably be out of work another couple weeks.