Posted on

Home alone

It’s seems to be an annual tradition of sorts. Right after school lets out for the summer, the family packs up the minivan and either heads to the airport or points the van West to journey out to the great State of Ohio. In Jamie’s words, she is returning home to “God’s Country” to rest and recharge in good ole Putnam County for two weeks or so. I am left behind to work and tend to the house as I will often tackle a bigger project such as in recent years I stripped and repainted the whole deck while they were gone.

Most of my friends think that I’m living on easy street by having the house and schedule to myself for such a long duration but I can assure you that the euphoria quickly wears off after a night or two of going home to an empty house. I will admit that I tend to get more exercise in since I can go either before or after work without having to worry about cutting into family time.

I also have a weird habit where the first night they are gone (which will happen tonight I guarantee you), I go home and clean the house from top to bottom and will keep it that clean for the whole two weeks they are gone. By the way, this isn’t meant to infer that our house is dirty in any way since Jamie does a bang up job of keeping everything ship shape. I do this simply to allow Jamie and the kids to come home to a nice clean house. By doing this in advance, I just simply don’t have to worry about waiting until the last night to clean up my own mess or rush around to get it done since there have been some years that I either get called out of town or they come home early.

Now that you know how I actually live my bachelor life, I’m headed home to scrub the floor and make myself some food as soon as I get done with a nice long run.

Posted on

It’s concert season

Jamie and I like going to concerts. Up until last year we would always look longingly at those right up against the stage and wonder how people got those seats. When we wanted to see a band we liked, we simply waited until the day they went on public sale (or so we thought which I’ll get to in a minute) and purchased the best seats we could find.

Last year our whole planned changed after experiencing Tim McGraw right in “The Pit” where we enjoyed the show right against the stage. We used Stub Hub (that’s a whole other story that is mixed with bad then good) to grab some front row tickets where we had a blast to say the least. In short, Jamie’s dream of shaking Tim’s hand became a reality.

What we’ve learned in the last 18 months to consistently recreate that experience and to get the best seats is by joining the fan club of each of our favorite bands. Each fan club typically has a minimal fee to join (roughly $20 depending on the band) and you’ll also be subscribed to a mailing list that will alert you to the upcoming tour schedule as well as give you inside info on when the tickets will go on sale. Membership allows you to gain access to fan club only sales which typically happen the Tuesday of the week the public sale of tickets occurs.

By following this method we’ve been able to secure General Admission “Pit” seats for all the shows we want to attend this summer which if we get there early enough, allows us to enjoy the concert right from the front row. You really can’t beat being a part of the show and sometimes interacting with the band.

Here’s a few pics from the Tim McGraw show that we saw last Friday. There is also obviously a quick video highlight up above as well.

Posted on

Life Observations… Water Balloons

File this under useless information and or the equivalent of a random thought but I had an epiphany of sorts this evening while filling a few dozen water balloons for my daughters field day tomorrow. What did I discover? The darker the balloon color the less likely it is to break. After busting several of them, I can safely say that pink was the weakest (no offense to those that associate pink with a gender by the way) and that the red was the strongest. Therefore, if you want to win a water balloon toss, grab the darkest balloon in the bucket.

Told you this was useless and random. Dear kids, my apologies that your Dad is a weirdo.