Wednesday, March 30, 2005

"There's a battle ahead. Many battles are lost..."

I'm saddened by the news of Crowded House percussionist Paul Hestor's suicide. The members of Crowded House wrote some brilliant pieces of music and this loss is a great shame.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Oye..

You might ask why I am posting at the rediculous hour of 1:45am on a work night. It's called a 100-degree temperature and the inability to sleep after getting bountiful amounts earlier in the day when I left work at noon. I don't quite understand how that works. I thought when you got sick, you could sleep unfettered for hours, only to awake in some sort of delusional state several days later. Instead, I sleep for two-three hours and then lay in bed pondering how one gets chills and hot flashes within seconds of each other. Bleh.

But may as well make this productive. Our house gets inspected later today. Matt and I are scheduled to tag along. My main goal is to take lots of pictures for the family. They're all super excited for us, especially my grandma.

Speaking of. Easter weekend was good even though that's when my sickness came on. We went out to our favorite family Italian eatery on Saturday with my grandma, Aunt Margie, and my parents. I lament my canolli that sits in the work refrigerator as I type. Saturday night is when I took some decongestant medecine, slept for three hours, only to wake up and have a sort of panic attack. I worried about everything from work, to the house, to the ham that was already cooked and ready. Needless to say, I wasn't in prime shape Easter Sunday, but managed to eat and make conversation at my grandparent's house and Matt's cousin's house in South Buffalo.

As it approaches 2am, I'm wondering how crazy it would be for me to go out to a 24-hour drugstore to buy more pain reliever. We ran out. My head is not happy. Anyway, I think I'll get caught up on the news and blogs before either attempting to sleep again or actually getting into my car to try to remedy this madness.

Friday, March 25, 2005

We Got The House!

At 6PM EST I got the call from our realtor while standing in the middle of one of the Hallmark stores my Aunt oversees as Regional Manager. We got the house! Much happiness abound! So now we start the serious work starting with the house inspection followed by oodles of paperwork, financial mumbo jumbo, and legal-ease. I've decided to be daring and share a picture of the soon-to-be new abode:


Our House-To-Be Posted by Hello

Argh!!!

I feel like Charlie Brown in the Peanuts cartoons where he throws his head back and lets out a loud, frustrated "Argh!!"

The owners of the house made a counter-offer when they already have two offers on the table. All we can figure is that the other people came in with an offer that was the same as our's or that they're bluffing and our offer is the only offer. Matt suspects the latter and is pretty pissed off. We agreed to some of the terms they're looking for, but not the extra $1,000 they'd want us to kick in for the price of the house. So we wait again. My realtor hopes to hear back sometime today after their attorney reviews the "offers" again.

On a fantastic note, my grandmother has apparently regained her appetite and is eating more normal portions again. I guess the doctors put her on a morphine patch and that's more or less gotten rid of her queasy stomach. We might even go out for dinner somewhere on Saturday when we go up to Buffalo for the holiday. This is big news because the doctors said she could get up to six more months if she was able to eat healthily again (as opposed to the 2-3 without the good nutrition). I consider this a pretty awesome Easter gift even though I'm not into the religious stuff around the holiday.

On an even brighter streak, I had some highlights added to my hair. Three to be exact, although the other two colors are really classified as lowlights. Think blond-ish, red-ish, and an ashy-brown lowlight. This combined with light brown hair. Fantastic! Actually, I haven't quite made a verdict. I like it, but it's pretty different. On the otherhand, I've always wanted to do some red.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

"If you pump for oil, you have to fight wars for it."

In terms of its governance and human rights issues, it's difficult to praise China. However, I do have to give kudos to their zeal to develop a car that uses alternative fuel sources. Wired.com has the article on China's Next Cultural Revolution.

Nail Biting

Sometime today we'll find out if the offer we made on a house has been accepted. There's a chance it might not be since another offer was made at the twelth hour. Our realtor was not pleased about this at all since she had been in frequent contact with the listor for the house. He had told her there was no interest other than us. But she feels we have a "clean, strong" offer. Now it's just a wait and see. But I'll take it as a good sign that the County Legislature pulled the local law to raise the mortgage tax again!

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

I'm Going to Be Locked Up!

For those of you who want to help with a good cause, I've been nominated to be "locked-up" in order to raise funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Lock Up.


MDA Posted by Hello


My minimum goal to "make bail" AKA send a kid to to MDA Summer Camp for a week is $600.

I know money is tight for everyone, but even $5 would be a great help. I average around 30 readers a day (I know, pathetic, but y'all are consistent) so if every reader donated at least $20 a piece then I'll make my goal in one day. I'll be grateful for however you can help!

Click Here To Become One of My MDA Lock-Up Sponsors

A Crazy Idea to Save the Planet

A lot of bizarre things have transpired over the Internet. The latest is World Jump Day.

The idea is to get 600-million people to jump at the same exact time in order to change the Earth's planetary position. The theory is that if we can knock our planet into a new orbit that we could "stop global warming, extend daytime hours and create a homogenous climate." Sound nuts? Apparently 85 milllion have registered to jump to try to accomplish this.

Monday, March 21, 2005

It's Hockey Night

We started and ended our weekend with two great Amerk's hockey games.

Friday Night - Rochester
The game was a little sticky in that it seemed like Amerks' had a hard time getting their game together. Thankfully it all worked out and we won 5-3 against the Albany River Rats. A heckler sat behind us and kept yelling at #42 David Cullen because he had made some dumb mistakes. He redeemed himself a little by scoring a goal later on. Goalie Ryan Miller did some incredible dance moves when blocking shots. May I say pretty-fucking-amazing moves? I think so.

Sunday Night - Buffalo
Before a crowd of over 15-thousand people, we saw a record-breaking 2-0 shut-out on blue ice. That's pretty great, but what made it awesome for my dad and I was that we got to see #8 Rory Fitzpatrick score a short-handed goal (that's a goal made when your team is down a man on a power play). Lots of cheering and yelling. It was a much tighter game than Friday night. You would think that playing several games in a row would have worn the team out, but they were in good form. I think playing before a larger-than-usual crowd helps too.

The Verdict on the Blue Ice
In the stands, it wasn't that noticable. In fact, after the players started skating it was all "white" anyway. The one thing that needs to change is those darn orange face off areas. The orange line that replaced the "blue line" works fine, but after players have made the go around the rink several times, the lines delianating the face off areas gets a little blurry. We did look at the jumbotron to see how the colors translated to tv, and it wasn't too distracting. I think we can expect more blue ice and funky colored "blue" lines if the NHL ever has a season again. If.

From the player's point of view it was a little more distracting. Here's a short list of stories:

Democrat & Chronicle: Blue ice, orange lines didn't faze Amerks players
Sports Illustrated: Blue Ice Makes It Debut in HSBC Arena
Cleveland Plain Dealer: Amerks' Mastery of Barons Continue

The Weekend: In Arts

I'll talk hockey in my next post, but in the meantime, Matt and I had a nice weekend in Rochester. It was a bit harried at times running around, but almost everything worked out fine. We had the opportunity to get caught up with some friends we hadn't seen in awhile. Unfortunately, our schedule and some miscommunication led to not seeing a few friends, so I feel bad about that, but we'll be in town again soon!

First off, it's probably too late to get tickets, but this coming weekend is the final weekend for performances of Black Friar's "Great Expectations." We thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm being unbiased when saying that even though two friends were in the production. City Newspaper has a short review here.

The set design, costuming, acting, and stage management (*wink* to Sue) were all stellar.

To back up a bit, both Friday and Saturday night we ended up at one of the various MacGregor's. I personally partook in Smithwick's Ale on Friday, then a 1/2 pint of Harp lager and a 1/2 pint of Saranac's Caramel Porter (surprise, surprise!) on Saturday. All were good.

The hockey games were excellent, but I'll save the details for later.

Friday, March 18, 2005

Alternatives to IKEA

Ruby-Gordon Furniture in Rochester is opening a chain of EZ Home stores that sells ready-to-assemble furniture much in the same vein as Ikea, but supposedly not as expensive. The line of furniture the stores will feature is made by Sauder. I'm interested in checking out their new store in Henrietta since Ikea is a bit far to drive and there's that whole customs thing to worry about if you happen to buy anything.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Car 54 Where Are You?

Where have we been? Well, hopefully we'll officially be knee-deep in the house buying process as of my lunch hour today. Other news in list format:
- The audit is done. We came out squeaky clean with very minor issues from what I've heard.

- My iPod is busted. Again. We're talking about the replacement Apple sent me. It pretty much wouldn't work right out of the box. This is not good. NOT GOOD.

- I have 50 invites available for Gmail. Email me if you want an account.

- We're taking in TWO Amerk's games this weekend along with a performance of "Great Expectations." Much happiness abound.

- We're going to Rochester! Buddy will get to run around in my parent's fenced in backyard. He better enjoy it since our new house (should we get it) has no yard. That's not a bad thing when considering Matt's bubble-boy tendancies.

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Recaplet

It's audit week at work and crazy the rest of the time, so blogging is not a priority. However, I still wanted to post something, so here's a recaplet list:

  • My grandmother has stopped chemotherapy for her pancreatic cancer, even though it was successful at shrinking her tumor. The doctors give her 2-3 months if her nutritional intake doesn't improve and up to 6 months if she can start eating healthily again. I'm under orders by my parents to start looking for sheet music for "How Great Thou Art" and "Amazing Grace" to play on my violin at her funeral. We won't get into how sad this and the whole situation has made me.

  • Buddy has taken to eating any edible items that we don't put on high shelves or locked away in the kitchen. This includes fish food. I think he'd crack into some canned goods we had by the door if he could figure out how. Our doggy has fish breath!

  • We would like to buy a house, but we think we need to save more money. We're going to look at a house near us this Saturday anyway. Our list of dream houses that people with normal incomes could afford has grown to two. Did I mention you can buy a 5-bedroom, 1 1/2 bath house for under $70,000 here in Jamestown?

  • My iPod went on the fritz, so I sent it back to Apple to be repaired. Thank god for warranties and protection plans!

  • At the pleading of one of my numerous pregnant friends (must be something in the water), I'm taking a water aerobics class twice a week at the local community college with said friend. Don't call it "old lady exercise" until you try it yourself!

  • The concert for the civic orchestra I'm in had to be moved to April due to all the Thursday rehearsals we've had to cancel due to cruddy weather. This Thursday night's weather looks to be no better, so we'll see what happens there. I'm secretly hoping the concert will get canceled. As much as I love playing in an orchestra with a higher skill level, I'm not so enthralled with the way my weeks have become jam-packed with "to do" stuff after I get home from work. It's not very cool when you have to "schedule" time so you get to spend time with your husband.
That's it for now. Look for more trips to Buffalo in the future weeks. I hope to get back to my regular blogging schedule by the weekend or so.

Friday, March 04, 2005

Woo-Hoo!!

Great news from our front. Our friends, Kevin and Clair, are getting married August 27th! Woot!

At the rate my group of friends is going, we'll have attended a wedding every summer for three years in row now. I'm taking bets on who is next!

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Not So Commonly Confused

Oddly Advanced

You scored 6% Beginner, 13% Intermediate, 87% Advanced, and 55% Expert!
Your test results are extremely interesting. Though your test scores in the beginner, intermediate, and expert levels weren't very high, you got at least 75% of the advanced level questions correct. Possibly you guessed very well in the advanced level section? I don't know what else to say. You puzzle me immensely.


The Commonly Confused Test

Fitzpatrick Joins Amerks

I was excited to receive the news from my dad this morning that Rory Fitzpatrick will be playing the rest of the AHL season with the Amerks. This means we'll get to see him back on the ice whenever we get up to Rochester for a game. Right now, I'm going to try to convince Matt that we must get to Buffalo for the April game they recently set up. There were almost 18,000 people at the last game the Amerks played at HSBC arena.

Cutting to the Scene with the Pixie

Ten years ago, I decided to do one of the most drastic things I had ever done to my hair. I went from a long style (below collarbone) to a p...