Ka - Ching !!

Well I'm happy to report that my Memorial Day weekend has gone rather well. Despite the fact that today will consist mainly of organizing my apartment. I know I moved in a couple of months ago but it takes time to get it just right and when you are doing it all while working and everything else it takes longer.

So Friday night I drove out to West Springfield and met up with my best friend friend Mat and his friend Mich. We ate at a restaurant called "On the Border". I had never heard of this chain before but I will say it was rather good, the only ding it got was do to the slow service. The food was excellent though. Now it is a tex-mex kind of restaurant but the menu items were less than authentic. This is not to say they were bad just more inventive versions of the staples you would think to find at a typical Mexican restaurant. There were burritos and tacos and chimmichangas, but they were all a step up from what you would normally find. While I was unable to find a mole dish I was very impressed with my Buffalo Chicken Tacos. There were two tacos that consisted of grilled Buffalo chicken sliced with blue cheese, a little ranch dressing, and topped with some crispy fried onions. To bulk up the usual hard taco shell these were served in what seemed to be the restaurants signature flatbreads. They were good and made the meal that much more filling. The rice and refried beans were good but I chose to leave my beans, because I knew I would be sharing a hotel room later on and I like these guys to much to put them through that.

Anyways we went back to the Hotel, checked in and went to bed since 4AM comes early. Morning came and we are up and out and on the way to Hatfield but not before stopping to pick up the instructor who drove up from Connecticut. His name was Santo and he was a real great guy. He is an expert and knows his shit but does not have an ounce of pompacity. He is genuinely concerned for his craft and those who want to teach it. I know that my career in ballooning will only consist of random crewing and taking rides but if I ever wanted to learn from the masters it would be from him and Mich (of course I just ruined the surprise). So on the way to Hatfield Mich and Santo are in the back of the van testing while Mat and I are listening in up front. We reach our destination and its time to go to work.



After assembling the basket and burner support we layout the balloon.



We then filled the balloon with air and once full Mich and Santo took to the skies.



After Santo tested Mich on all his requirements it was time to bring the balloon down for a landing in a nearby field.



We packed the balloon up and it was all over by 7:30AM.



We headed to Cracker barrel for breakfast it turns out Mich passed with flying colors. As I knew he would. We said our goodbyes and I went back home to Natick. By that time Brian had already left for work and I went back to sleep and slept most of the day. I got up went out and went to Shopper's World. I have a couple of things that I was hoping to get namely a little portable usb drive for my keychain and maybe a new pair of sneakers. After being thoroughly disappointed with Best Buy I walked on down to DSW with much the same results. Knowing that is was getting late I headed over to Kelly's for a roast beef sandwich then back to the apartment to build more furniture.

Sunday came and Brian and I were able to spend a little more time together in the morning before he headed to work and I headed to Mohegan Sun. It was far to short of time but right now I guess its what we have to do. We parted our ways and I headed to JeffM and Sean's house. Allergic reactions aside we all made it to Mohegan and enjoyed Kathy Griffin. I even played my lucky $50 and converted it to a lucky $400. Of course that money will soon be spent on bills and groceries, but at least its something. Plus thats more money than Brian and I have ever put into the Casino.

Thats enough for now talk to you later and if you want to see more pics from my adventures in Ballooing ge here.

Things are looking up . . . literally!!

I just looked and seen thats its been a little while since I've written. To fill you in: I finished my trip to the DC, never did get a chance do go swimming though. I also ended up being promoted. I am now in charge of one of our customer service divisions. Its quite exciting really. Full staff it will be 9 people in all that I will be responsible for. I say full staff since I have to replace 4 of them. The good thing is they were all promoted to so its not like we had to fire anyone. I loathe the day that I will have to perform that function, but until then I am quite happy interviewing people. Its exciting. Its always something that I wanted to do so it was actually something I enjoying despite the fact that it can be grueling. The thought of putting together a whole new team is nice. We have some good prospects so its only a manner of time before we are at full staff again.

That all being said, I am looking forward to the weekend. It helps that my office is closing at 1PM tomorrow. That will allow me to get a head start on the weekend. It would appear that Brian is working this weekend so I am on my own again. Its ok I have some plans in place. Tomorrow night I head out to Holyoke, MA. ??????? Yes I know, what would posessed me to go out there? Well my best friend will be coming down from VT. He'll be down to crew for his friend who I believe is getting his ballooning license. I could be wrong but it definetly is about a balloon and flying one. They are a little short staffed so yours truely will be going along as navigator. No I am not going to fly, at least not this time. Basically the ground crew has to be directed to where the balloon lands, since balloons don't exactly have rudders or wings there is only so much direction it can take and the ground crew has to go find it. I'll be sure to bring along my camera and even though I won't be getting any aerial shots this time, I think I'll still be able to get some good shots of the balloon. We'll be launching the balloon Saturday morning so I'll be done with that come noon time. Then who knows what I'll do.

Sunday I will be going down to Mohegan Sun, to see Kathy Griffin. It should be a good time plus I just found a $50 bill in a book of mine. So I'm hoping its lucky Sunday, it wouldn't hurt to have a little more cash around. Monday I think will be spent on recooperating from Sunday, and since Brian may work I have no idea what I'll do, but at least I will have had a productive weekend by then.

2 Days in PA

Well this concludes my second day in Hanover, PA. While I was hoping to get a little more socializing in with the people who work down here, our group seems to have grown tired from the manual work they are not used to doing. Personally I am stiff yes but I am also invigorated, and I wouldn't mind heading out to town for beer, but I am in the minority with my group. Oh well there is always tomorrow night. Anyways I'm off to visit the hot tub.

Some Assembly Required

So last Thursday was particularly productive. Still on a high from the day before when I learned that I have received a sweet promotion at work, I woke up bright and early and got dressed. There was a plan in place and we were going to do it. Brian got dressed and we were soon on our way to pick up our U-haul. We hit our first obstacle when the person who mans the u-haul location was not there at the pick up time. We waited a while finally they showed up and gave us a truck. We then stopped over Brian's parents house so we could remove my comic book collection that was still there.

However after coffee the decision was made that Katherine and Jen would come with us, because they wanted to help. I didn't think they would be able to provide much help but I knew they would probably want to get out of the house for awhile, and since we were eventually going to end up in Auburn it would be could for them to see Mikey and Clarissa. So soon we were on our way to the storage unit so that we could load up the Washer and Dryer.

We arrived and I settled the bill and we emptied the unit. One less bill to worry about now. So then it was off to Auburn but not before putting some gas in the u-haul since the bastards only left me less than a 1/4 of a tank. I say bastards because they probably forced some guy to pay some outrageous refilling fee because they brought it back low but then left it up to me to refill the damn thing. The trip to Auburn was relatively uneventful; however I would not have wanted to drive that truck again on another day since the engine gears seemed to be slipping. Its amazing how cheap this company is and can't service there own business. I mean they give you a nice 1-800 number to call in the event that you break down. Why don't you do a little maintenance to make sure we don't break down. I mean usually you take the time to schedule a day off or whatever so its rather important that you get your project/move done that day. Who wants to put all their eggs in one basket? Thats what we are forced to do though, because they cut corners on the upkeep, so we have to depend on this one machine that seems all but doomed to break down when you need it the most. Not a good way to run a business, but everyone needs to move so I guess they can rest on their mediocrity.

So it made it to Auburn and we were able to unload the Washer and Dryer. My sister was very happy despite the "discussion" Brian and I were having on spatial relations and how to get them into the laundry room. However, even happier who were Katherine and Mikey who had not seen each other for a couple of years. I doubt really that they remembered each other since they were quite small, but this time they got along quite smashingly. They played for a little while and then it came time that we had to leave. So we packed up the truck and loaded the Subaru off to out next destination. IKEA! We did however stop first for lunch. While thinking about all the places in we could go we settled on that it would be best to eat sooner rather than later so we decided to eat local at the Classic Auburn Town Pizza. While I have eaten there for years, Brian has become quite a big fan of the place since I took him there a few years back. Not sure why but he loves it. So we had a good meal and set out for the next leg of the journey.

Things were mostly uneventful until we got to about Framingham when I felt the engine starting to have problems again. I thought that maybe we should have gone down the back roads on Route 27 to finish the route, but we decided that it would take too long so I kept on down the pike until 128 and then went that way until 24. There was a traffic build up on 128 but it was not as bad as we first thought.

Now I know no one wants to get behind a truck and that is why they want to get around you. But does anyone take into account what it would feel like to be hit by a u-haul. Let me tell and number of cars on Thursday are damn lucky that I was observant otherwise I would have plowed right into them and it would have been there own damn fault. Seriously if any of you who read this think its ok to pull out in front of trucks think again. Even if I was the most observant guy in the world, your fully loaded SUV is still not going to stand a chance against a fully loaded u-haul.

IKEA was good however I found more stuff that I wanted to get then I budgeted for put that is usually the case. All in all I think we did well as I had originally budgeted about $1200 and we cashed out at just under $1000 because I switched some things last minute. In all we got a TV stand, Dining Room table, 4 dining room chairs, the biggest book case they offer, two office/visitor chairs, a tall dresser and a shorter longer dresser. I don't think it was bad at all for the price. Some people may jest at the fact that the furniture was cheaper, but I'll tell you it holds up better than most of the expensive stuff plus if I do scratch it I won't freak out about it. If I bought a $700 table I would never want to use it.

Finally we left IKEA after loading up the truck. We got back to the apartment, unloaded and brought the truck back. It was 10:30 by the time we got back. I quickly jumped into the shower and freshened up before going out to see the Midnight showing with my friend Moe and Jeff M. It was a long and fulfilling day, and I was glad to have that bit of entertainment; even if were the oldest people there. I think its fun to see movie on premier night especially when its a big movie, becuase you are more likely to get a bit of audience participation. So even though it was packed we all had fun ooing and ahhing.

Today though was filled with assembling the various pieces of furniture that were purchased at IKEA. Part of the reason why things at IKEA are so cheap is because you have to assemble them yourself. Last night I assembled the 4 chairs. Today I completed the TV stand, book case and Dining table. I wouldn't have guessed it but it took a lot out of me. I will have to do the dressers tomorrow. I want to have it all done by tomorrow night so its done before I leave for PA so Brian does not have to worry about it.