Donde esta la zapateria?

Spain was totally awesome…  We had such a great time, both hanging out with old friends around the wedding and then cruising around Spain, France, and the Pyrenees in our rented Peugeot.  More details to come, but I’ve started putting photos from the trip up on Flickr.  That’s about half the photos right now, and the second half will come soon to that same spot.

Go-go Gadget Gosim

I got a prepaid Orange SIM card from GO-SIM today, after some panic it wouldn’t come before our trip to Spain.  The big question was whether or not the unlock trick I found online for my phone would work, and as far as I can tell, it has.  I guess the jury will remain out until I am on Spanish soil and the phone is working..  This trick seems pretty far-out, I wonder if this is an intentional back-door placed (and leaked) by the engineers or a exploited bug…   And if it’s a bug, who is the person who spent the time finding it?

The Girard Plague(tm)

Had a little get together for some various college friends this weekend in Hopatcong…   I’ve done this for the past few years, and everyone seems to enjoy it, especially when the weather is as gorgeous as it was this weekend past.  We just chilled out on the Party Barge, Regency Edition, swam, ate, and drank.  This party is always complicated because the boat really is the limiting factor, as it only seats 14 including the driver.  We were pretty much at capacity this year, which means I might seriously have to look into renting a second boat next year…  Which should make invitations less complicated but increase the planning required.

and

were among the attendees, and they came with a bit of a cold.  Unfortunately, I seem to have picked up that cold, and it is really kicking my ass (but I’m still glad they were able to come to the party)…   I’ve been out of work for the past two days, but I’m starting to come around…  I’m sure tomorrow I’ll be fighting off the congestion, and I probably won’t walk to work, but I’m starting to get a little stir-crazy in the house.

The couple buying the condo below us closed today, so it is our first evening with neighbors in two months.  I’ve gotten so used to having the run of the place, it will take a little getting used to.  They seem cool as hell, though, so I’m not anticipating any troubles…

Return of the Corn

After

returned from South Dakota on Friday around Midnight, we managed to get a few hours of sleep in before piling into Hawkeye and heading down to NJ. 

was visiting from TN, and I hadn’t seen her in quite awhile (Christmas?).  I also used the opportunity to trade cars with mom for the week and bring the crap I’ve kept in their basement to the new place now that there’s room for it.  It was a really busy 36 hours or whatever…  Saturday night we all went out to Outback to celebrate Father’s Day a little early (since we were all in town at the same time). 

was accompanied by Stosh and her “stepkids” (she and Stosh aren’t married, but she lives with him and helps take care of the kids when they are with Stosh).  They are cute kids, but a handful, and totally reminded me why having kids is a bad idea… =)

Anyway, I was in the basement with Mom and Dad, who were helping me spelunk the basement for my stuff, and helping me bring it out to the car.  My dad was bringing out a box to the car when I looked into my plastic Rubbermaid coffin and noticed the infamous can of corn.  I quickly sprung into action, grabbing the can and bringing it out to the car with the intention of hiding it in his car..  Unfortunately, he caught me as I entered the garage, and quickly proclaimed “Damn it!!”  Apparently, he had just put the can in the coffin a few minutes prior..  This was extra special, because this is EXACTLY how this whole can fiasco started almost 10 years ago when I was packing up to move to RIT (in late August or early September 1997).  The ball is back in my court… for now…

On the way back from NJ we stopped over in Manhattan for a few hours to visit with Sara, Dave, Sappha, and Finn…  To save time, I drove directly to their place down by Battery Park, so we could just blast up the FDR when we were done as opposed to taking the PATH back to NJ then driving from there…  The Holland Tunnel was awful, but the TomTom got us there without too much hassle…    Sara made some awesome baked Mac & Cheese, and we caught up for an hour or two before we hit the road…  Mom’s Honda Pilot treated us pretty well, but I really don’t like driving such a big car, especially when I can’t see out the back..  Fortunately I didn’t have to do all that much backing up…

We got back to Watertown around midnight, and we quickly settled in for the final episode of The Sopranos..  What a way to go out, it was everything I could have hoped for…  Exactly the kind of way I had hoped the series would end, I mean, I wasn’t “expecting” how it turned out, but I really hoped many of the “all wrapped up nicely” theories that were floating around leading up to the finale were wrong…  I’ll leave this spoiler free for awhile, but I’ll try and come back to it at some point…

Houses in Motion

I finally spoke with

last night, she apologized profusely for leaving me in the dark for so long… She seems to be having fun out there in South Dakota, at least in her down time… Apparently it is very beautiful out there, we’ll have to get out there as part of our travels sometime soon.

I’ve been spending most of my time unpacking, cleaning, and settling into the new house. I use the term settling loosely, because I’m sure of my decisions will be overridden by Corinna when she gets back… =) Yesterday I managed to get the last of the boxes out of the living room, dining room, kitchen, and den, which allowed me to mop all the floors. The floors were refinished before we moved in, and whatever they used on the floor (stain or whatever) was getting onto socks and feet, so I had been walking around in flip-flops and sandals all the time.. But once I got the bulk of the crap unpacked, I was able to move everything around in order to mop. Now the floors don’t seem to scum up socks and feet, although they may need another mopping to be sure.

I bought a grill the other day, a propane Char-Broil… I had some people for grilling over on Saturday because

was in town briefly, and afterwards some of us went to the Middle East to see a band I had never heard of before, CSS. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you if it was a good show because I imbibed a bit too much and I think I would have enjoyed a Barry Manilow performance at that point… Seriously, though, it was a fun time,even if it wasn’t exactly my normal listening fare.

Sunday started off a little rough, but I eventually pulled it together… Unpacked a bit, but mostly I just lounged around the new house… It was strange, but I think because I’ve had a seemingly unending stream of projects in the months leading up to selling Corinna’s old place,simply sitting around watching TV caused me to feel guilty, like I was neglecting something which needed to be done immediately. Once I Reminded myself that the boxes would still be there the next day, and we weren’t in a race to get a house on the market or anything, I was able to just relax and enjoy Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon. Later on we caught Severance with the film club, which had a big turnout and was lots of fun, even if I was tired and hungover…

On Thursday I’m headed to the dreaded Avalon to see Skinny Puppy… I caught them last time they came through town, and it was a great show, so I’m hoping for even more fun!

Missing in Action

If anyone sees or hears from , tell her to call home. I dropped her off at the airport on Saturday for her trip to South Dakota and haven’t heard from her since. Someone with her name has checked into the hotels she told me she was staying in, so I’m pretty sure she’s alive, but it’d be nice to know… =)

Beeeeeeeeewwww

Friday after work,

,

, and I left for Rochester…  We hit the road around 6:45pm and expected to arrive some time near Midnight..  Unfortunately, as soon as we were ready to leave, it started snowing..  Apparently in Boston it quickly turned to rain, but we had white-out conditions until the Mass border, delaying us like crazy…  We were planning on driving directly to Nick’s, but had to bail just because we arrived so late.   But we just revised the plans to hit Dinosaur for lunch on Saturday and grab some Nick’s for dinner just before FUMN started… 

We hit up Dinosaur with some folks as planned, and then headed over to CSH to hang out on floor for awhile…  Unfortunately, almost everyone was at some stupid RIT function that ResLife leaned on the house to attend…   I was pretty much set to go to Nick’s before FUMN, but I got guilted into attending

‘s birthday celebration..  It was a great time, but I really wanted Nick’s…

FUMN seemed to be a great success..  The committee picked a fine selection of flicks this year:

The films seemed to be pretty well received, although each flick had it’s detractors, but that’s to be expected..   We might have shown another film, but we got a late start as it was (after 10pm) and finished things up around 4am…  As it was I was contemplating dropping Oldboy and going out to Nick’s, but I decided to make that sacrifice….  :)

Sunday we swung by DiBella’s on our way out of town, which was as delicious as always.  We had a really nice drive back though…  The TomTom did us right, guiding us directly to Garrett’s for his Super Bowl party..  We watched the boredom of the Super Bowl and hung out with friends I hadn’t seen in awhile..   Finally rolled into Boston at 11pm, and crashed pretty quickly…

Christmas 2006 – Part 2 of 2

I’ll try and be a little less wordy in this half of the story; that last part was about 10x longer than I originally intended.  I did go and update part 1, as I unfortunately omitted Amy, Andy, and Colin.  My only defense is that I knew I was getting way too long-winded and was trying to stop the bleeding.

We arrived in Newark on time, even though the pilot thought we’d arrive 20 minutes early.  Turns out that even though we were ahead of schedule in the air, the ground was congested, so we ended up circling and blowing our lead.  The traffic at the arrivals area was pretty bad, but after 10 or so minutes of looking we finally saw Dad, who was there to pick us up.  It was smooth sailing on the way back to the house, though, and we arrived in no time flat.  Corinna needed some supplies, so we borrowed the truckster after saying hi to Mom and the dogs, and headed out to Rite Aid, which was closed…  So we headed over to Byram, where we found the Shop Rite closed…  Luckily the CVS came to the rescue.  The advantage of going this far out of the way, though, was that we were able to see quite a few light displays..   I even took Corinna past the Sign Art graphics display, which was a little underwhelming this year (more of the same).

Anyway, with our supplies in hand we settled in for the night, poured some egg nog and wine, and vegged out.   Stosh and

brought over a bottle of Captain Morgan Tattoo, which is rather tasty.  Larissa decided a year or two ago that the only night of the year she was going to drink is Christmas Eve.  And she makes up for lost time…   We tried to do the typical Christmas Eve night of classic Christmas films (Christmas Vacation, Christmas Story, and Die Hard), but only made it through the first before everyone was ready to pass out.  That Pennsylvania Dutch bottled Egg Nog knocks me out every time.

After a good night’s sleep it was time for Corinna to experience the wonder of a Graham Christmas Morning.  Aimee and Ben weren’t scheduled to arrive until late Christmas evening, so we decided to go ahead without them.  After everybody wandered out into the living room, and

and Stosh arrived,  and was “awake”, I started “playing Santa” and passing out gifts one by one.  There was a ridiculous number of gifts this year, to the point where I actually started to think we should tone things down a bit…  Anyway, we finished opening gifts and I then got ready to prepare breakfast. 

Corinna and her family started asking me while we were still in Michigan what our Christmas Traditions were…  I had never really given this much thought, but other than opening presents and stuff, we have never really had too many traditions.  For years, the routine was to open presents at our house, drive out to Bernardsville and visit with Grandma and Grandpa (Dad’s folks) for a few hours, then drive to Martinsville to visit with Grammy and Grampy (Mom’s folks).  By the time all that visiting was done there really wasn’t much time to do anything else.  My dad’s parents passed away, and in recent years we’ve been getting together with Mom’s side on Christmas Eve.  So it’s only been in the past few years that we’ve really started to form some semblance of tradition that didn’t involve travel.  :)   3 years ago Mom won a gift certificate at Sussex Meat Packers from work and we decided to get a bunch of breakfast meats to have on Christmas Day.  I made pancakes from scratch, as well as french toast and eggs at that first breakfast, and everything was a huge hit.  So we’ve continued this new breakfast tradition since (sans french toast, I’m afraid).  I love cooking, and I love breakfast, so I don’t think it’s that bad that I end up spending a few hours in the kitchen on Christmas morning..  I think next year, however, I’m going to try and get my parents to get an electric skillet to help streamline the process.  I simply ran out of range surface area this year while preparing the sausages so I had wait until they were done before I could really start the pancakes.  I used some advanced technology (foil and a back heating pad) to keep the stuff that was done warm, though, so everything was still warm when it was time to sit down.  Everything was awesome, although I wish I had let the bacon go a bit longer, it wasn’t crispy enough.

Aimee and Ben arrived much earlier than planned, which made me regret not waiting for them to arrive.  I think next year I’ll suggest we just eat and wait for them.  I feel like I never get to see Aimee, and I hadn’t seen Ben since their Wedding (I think), so it was good seeing both of them, even if it was only for a few days.  Chuck eventually came over and we just hung out, ate junk food, drank, and caught up.  Corinna and I got Chuck a copy of The Matador for Christmas, so at some point we gave it a spin, and it’s still hilarious.

The next day, everyone got up early to meet Grammy and Grampy in Chester.  The rest of the family was able to get together with them before we arrived, but Aimee, Ben, Corinna and Myself didn’t have that chance…  Of course, we met at the Park Chester Diner, which is my Grandparents’ favorite halfway point.  I was able to scratch my THC (Taylor Ham and Cheese) itch, and Corinna had some disgusting looking oatmeal and “fruit”.  That afternoon I was able to watch my dad fly, and subsequently, crash the new plane he got for Christmas.  It was a pretty light crash, though, so it was airworthy again with a little TLC.

The next day, Corinna and I met up with my friend Amy at a diner (surprise!) in Parsippany.  This was complicated by our lack of a vehicle, fortunately my father offered up his pimp ride.  I was able to find the diner thanks to my new GPS Navigation System.  It was great to see Amy and hear how well things have been going for her.  

I forget which night it was, but Corinna decided it would be good of me to cook dinner for the family.  We decided on turkey meatloaf, steamed broccoli and cous cous.  It was surprisingly well received, but I doubt my family would tell me it sucked, so…  Chuck came over for dinner too, and he was very apprehensive of the meatloaf.  It won him over, apparently, as he raved about it quite a bit afterwards (it could have been lowered expectations, though).

Corinna came down with some kind of plague on Thursday, so we just ended up hanging out at the house.  I did take a mid-day break with Chuck and his brother at White Castle….  Boy howdy, do I love those little burgers..   That night Larissa and Stosh came over and we watched Little Miss Sunshine, which nobody besides Corinna and I had seen yet.  It was still great, although I think I didn’t enjoy it quite as much the second time around. 

There was much debate about how we would return to New Jersey.  Originally we thought we’d take the Chinatown bus, but I wasn’t so into that as lugging our luggage and Christmas loot by hand to Manhattan and then from South Station in Boston to our house didn’t sound too savory.  Many of my family members volunteered to drive, but they all seemed intent on driving here and back in one day.  I tried to sell them on staying overnight, but everybody was reluctant.  So finally Corinna investigated renting a car and we were able to get a one-way rental for like $100, which was priced similarly to the bus would be (it would have been $30 for tickets, plus getting to Chinatown NYC, and getting home from Chinatown Boston, etc.)  Dad dropped us off at the rental place in Rockaway (directions, again, courtesy of the nav system), and they gave us a Toyota Matrix.  It was an OK car, but I wouldn’t want to drive one on a daily basis…  It felt weirdly geared, and constantly seemed to be revving too high.  But what do I know? 

One thing I do know, is that I have grown addictive to listening to music my way…  This car only had a CD player without Aux in, so I couldn’t use my iPod, and we didn’t have any CDs, so we had to resort to Old Fashioned, Boring, Terrestrial Radio(tm).  Holy shit did I miss Sirius on this trip with all of the driving we did.  All the static, the constant changing of channels as you move from market to market, the never ending commercials, and the total crap they play..  After 260 miles of playing with the radio, we finally landed in Boston, I returned the car, and we crashed hard.

The end.  So much for keeping it short.

Christmas 2006 – Part 1 of 2

It’s about time I wrote about the holidays this year…  [info]coco_b and I have never been able to celebrate Christmas together because it is such an important holiday for both of our families. This year, however, we figured out a way to be together, even if it did involve quite a bit of hectic traveling. Her family celebrates the Polish tradition of Wigilia on Christmas Eve, while my family does most of it’s celebrating on Christmas Day. So with some help from her family, who decided to celebrate Wigilia a day early on the 23rd, we decided to fly to Michigan on the 19th, fly to NJ on the 24th, and return to Boston via an undecided mode of transportation some day before the new year.

Someone Needs an Editor

Homes for the Holidays

Tonight,

 and I are jumping on a plane and heading out to Michigan to spend time with her family for Christmas.  Tomorrow, we are borrowing a car from her folks, driving out to a suburb of Chicago to visit some of her family living out there, and returning to Michigan that same night.  It should be a fun, but hectic, time.   We are celebrating Wigilia a day early, on the 23rd, so that we can fly to NJ the evening of the 24th to celebrate with my family.  It is going to be some hectic traveling, but it will be nice to spend Christmas together for the first time..  I also don’t know much about Wigilia, so it will be interesting to participate in that tradition too.