What a Week!!

The Steelers are headed to their second Superbowl in four years and Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States.

First things first, wait which one is first? I cant decide?

OK, Steelers. I watched the Steeler game at a local Steeler bar with about 200 other fans dressed in head to toe Steeler gear. The bar is called the 'Outta the way Cafe' and is located in Derwood, MD. Apparently for playoff games you have to get there at 11am and get a ticket to get admitted into the area where they watch the game at 4pm. We got there at 10:30am and there were like 60 people ahead of us in line. The game was amazing, beer was drank, good food was consumed and hugs and high fives with random Steeler fans were exchanged after every good play.

The Superbowl festivities are already planned, here is an outline:

-Arrive in Pittsburgh on Saturday morning, make a stop at the parents.
-Meet with friends in early afternoon and head to bars
-Leave bars at 2am and become part of an impromptu Steeler parade in the streets of the South Side until 3am.
-Wake up around 9am and commence drinking beer,eating food and throwing a football in my friends backyard with about 30 people all day until game-time while Steelers songs play in the background.
-Watch the game on one of two Big Screen HDTV's (one of which is being imported for the event) with 30 people in a space that fits about a dozen.
-When the game is over, have a good celebration cry and grab a backpack filled with Beer and depart for Carson Street to celebrate with 20-30 thousand other intoxicated fans in the streets.
-There is an 'alternate ending' which also involves tears but we shall not even speak of it.
-Wake up on the floor of my friends house at 8am and drive back to MD.


I feel that I have to include a postscript that I am not an alcoholic, quite the contrary in fact. In my youth I could drink beer excessively 5 days in a row and never bat an eye. In my old age however I have lost my ability to drink excessively. In fact, I probably only drink in excess once every few months, but when the Steelers are in the Superbowl I pull out all the stops and am ready to pay the price for my actions in the form of decreased ability to function properly as a human being for the next two weeks. That's Life..

Now onto Obama. Not as much to say on this topic except for, WOW!!! How great is this? It gets me really excited to be proud of my country again. The video of Bush leaving Washington in the Helicopter and Obama raising his hand and taking the oath gives me goosebumps.

There is an amazing website that one of my co-workers turned me onto. Its run by the Boston Globe and simply publishes sets of high-quality photos on different topics every few days. The Set of the Inauguration is great and so is the set on "Earth, Observed" as well as the "Scenes from the Gaza Strip". I would advice you all to check it out on a regular basis. It provides a myriad of desktop background photos as well as some insight to the world. Its called the "The Big Picture" and can be found here. Let me know what you think.

Google

I occasionally Google myself and find it interesting that the first hit is of a cemetery in New York with my name in bold below the title. I was a pallbearer in my Granfathers brothers funeral and my name is listed as such. However, I cant help but think that someone at some point in time has googled me and been freaked out for a few moments. Perhaps I'm giving myself to much credit and nobody has ever googled me. However, I have been known to google people I have once known and lost contact with and would like to think that some people have reciprocated.

The Scoop

I started my on-line class last week and it is actually very difficult. My first assignment was to make a web site, Ha. I made a new page through Google sites and am going to intentionally not have any links to sontavas from that site (not sure I want people from the class to be able to read things I will/have posted here). I will post a link to the site from here but its not finished yet and don't want to put it up just yet.


The Steelers play in about six hours. I cant believe that the Ravens won last night and Im a bit pissed. If they do better than us in the playoffs I will be in trouble. We live in close proximetly to Baltimore and I have done a substrancial amount of s*#t talking over the last few weeks and may be forced to hole up in the house until the whole thing blows over.

Update

Since I haven't blogged in quite some time, I will attempt to fill you in on the latest goings on that I have neglected to inform you of the last several months.

Charlotte started a new job about a month ago. Her office is only about 5 minutes from our house and she eliminated about 45 minutes off her commute each way. She seems to really like it. Well On Tuesday she was the first one at the office, when she pulled in the driveway she noticed that the lot was filled with flashing lights, to her amazement the entire building had burnt to the ground overnight. Her office was completely destroyed. The following day we walked around the building and found a picture of us that had been on her desk. The wood frame was charred and the glass was as black as night but the picture survived, it was really the only thing that was not completely destroyed. Her work is now in the process of rebuilding the entire program from scratch, its going to be a long process but I know they are up to the challenge.

We bought a new computer the other day, a desktop. Our laptop is still kicking but on its last legs. We wanted to have an 'office' type of room for when we both start classes in January. I debated getting a laptop but ours still works and I also have a really nice work laptop and I Figured that three was just too many.

We both spent about a week in the burgh' over Christmas, it was nice to see everybody again hang out. We celebrated our first dual family Christmas (which actually worked out ok) and got to spend a good amount of time with our friends. One of those nights I spent with my friends involved large amounts of booze and a 40 min walk back to my moms place at 3am. I later learned that I passed the time during that walk by calling most of the people who's numbers were stored in my cell phone. Many messages were left and I apologize in advance if anybody who reads this blog got one.

We started making our annual camping reservations at Assateague Island. You can only book spots up to six months in advance and we have a "PRIME" spot reserved for a few key weekends. If anybody is planning on going you better make reservations soon because the good spots do not last long.

What I do for the next few weeks is subject to well the Steelers do in the NFL playoffs. If they do well then Ill have to start putting in for vacation days, but that's a long way off and I don't want to 'Jinx' (SP??) anything.

I'm sure there is more to fill you in on but that's all I have for right now. Happy New Year!!!