the tonedef blog

Well the moving expedition is finally over! Band Mom’s Mom is no longer a resident of Maryland, and now resides in Pittsburgh, PA. This weekend was a rough one. We were never able to meet the schedule that Band Mom had laid out before leaving for the weekend.

Here is the original plan that was discussed before the weekend. Friday after work, Band Mom, Pooh and I would drop Thing 1 and Thing 2 off to my parents and head down to Maryland. We planned on getting in around 10 or 11 and getting a good nights sleep. Saturday would be up early, head out to get the moving truck from the rental place then pick up some breakfast from McDonalds or something for the crew. Begin loading the moving truck and Band Mom’s van. Finish loading (majority anyway) by 4 o’clock (6 at the latest). Then go to a nice dinner, come back clean the apartment and shampoo carpets then spend the night in a hotel. Sunday up relatively early, leave Maryland by 10 get to the new apartment around 3. Unload and get Band Mom’s Mom settled. Take Pooh back to her dads, and pick up Thing 1 and Thing 2. Monday, return the truck then, back home to recoop and maybe play some PlayStation.

Unfortunately that is not what reality gave to us. Following is how the weekend really went.

Friday after work move a little slower that we wanted and had to add an extra stop at WalMart, but got Thing1 and Thing 2 dropped off and headed through McDonald’s drive-thru for dinner and got on the road. We got in around 11:30 and pretty much went right to bed. (So far on track) I got up around 7:30/8 o’clock and jumped in the shower. After the shower Band Mom and I went and got the truck and some McGriddles for breakfast. (Still on track) While we were gone Pooh started boxing the kitchen up. This is where things start to stray from the predetermined plans. There is still a ton o’ stuff that is not packed. We are boxing shit forever. 4 o’clock comes and goes. Still packing boxes and loading the truck. 6 0′clock comes and goes. Still packing boxes and loading the truck.

We haven’t eaten since breakfast. Pooh starts getting whinny about food around 4. At 8 Band Mom sends me and Pooh to go out and eat. Band Mom’s Mom is trying to use all of the food in her refrigorator so she doesn’t go and Band Mom refuses to eat until its done. So I take Pooh and we stop at the motel to check in. We then head down the road to a Chinese buffet.

We get back a little after 9 and Band Mom is now way cranky. (Since we ate and she didn’t and because she broke the first piece of furniture, a TV cart) 10 o’clock comes and goes and we are still packing boxes and loading the truck. If you remember the original plan we were supposed to be done cleaning by now and heading back to the motel. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!! By 12:30 (thats AM for those not paying attention as in 30 minutes after midnight), Band Mom and I are both pretty much fried. We have the truck 95% loaded. And at some point I broke our second piece of furniture, a coffee table. Actually, a leg fell off, but I’ll take credit. All that’s left is her mom’s bed (since she refused to stay in the motel). So we head out for the motel around 1 with plans to return by 9 and clean and get on the road no later than 11.

Sunday comes. We are burnt. Its a very slow start to our day. Pooh, Band Mom and I indulge in the continental breakfast and all take showers. We finally get moving and head over to the apartment aound 10:30 or so figuring we have an hour or so and we are on the road. WRONG! We don’t get everything completed and get on the road until almost 5:30. I take Pooh in the moving truck and Band Mom has her mom in the van. About an hour into the trip I get a call from Band Mom. No way are we unloading today. We still have to get Pooh to her dads. So I call my mom and she if she can keep the girls an extra day and get Thing 1 to school on Monday. No prob.

We get into Washington a little after 11. Put Band Mom’s Mom up in the Spring Hill Suites, and take Pooh to her dad’s. Band Mom didn’t stop to get herself anything to eat during the trip, so we run through a drive-through to get her some dinner and me some caffiene. Band Mom and I head home, she eats, I drink my Diet Coke and then we go to bed.

Monday we get up with a feeling of “ahhh…It’s almost done. ” We get her mom around 10:30 and head to the new apartment to unload the truck. We figure we can be done by dinner time. Then we’d go get the little ones, return the truck and get a good nights sleep. HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!!! We didn’t get the last piece batch of stuff into the apartment until after 9. I had already talked to my mom earlier to see if she could handle the girls yet another night. While we were unloading Band Mom managed to break the one remaining TV cart. (Guess we need to buy her mom a new TV cart now…)

We got up early Tuesday returned the truck and headed back home. My mom was there with Thing 2. I left them all there and headed to work. Finally back to normal.

Well at least she’s moved and there were no major injuries. Some achy muscles and sore feet, but noone was shot, stabbed or beaten so thats a good weekend of Band Mom and I working together. It looks like life can start to get back into the normal flow again.

Well after work today Band Mom, Pooh and I will be heading down to Band Mom’s Mom’s to do the final move. We are renting a Budget Rent-A-Truck and loading all of the furniture and left over stuff up on Saturday and heading back on Sunday to get her mom moved in.

I can’t wait!

Not much intersting this weekend. Band Mom and I headed down to her mom’s on Friday to pack up more little stuff and bring it back here. All in all it was a pretty uneventful trip.

Band Mom was all worried that I was going to blog about the trip home. For the trip home Band Mom drove her car and I drove her mom’s car. I decided to just follow Band Mom for the trip home. That way if I got any tickets it would be Band Mom’s fault and she couldn’t yell at me. Band Mom was worried that I might write how annoying it is to follow someone for 4 hours that constantly is changing speeds. Or how when leading they pass and then pull out of the lane that is going to end and slow down, hence boxing me in on a lane that is going to end in 500ft. Or how when a police officer is sitting on the side of the road and traffic is moving an average of 10MPH faster that the speed limit and we are going about 5MPH faster than the speed limit it is necessary to slow down to almost 10MPH below the speed limit. But so as not to embarass Band Mom I’m not going to do any of that.

I’m just going to wait till next week to really bitch, when we do the final big move and I get to drive the moving truck through the mountains in the snow.

So…Last night I’m in the office working on the new Canonsburg Chamber of Commerce site, and Thing 2 informs me that she pooped and needs her diaper changed. Okay…I tell her to go into the living room and I will be there in a second. I finish up the line of code I’m working on and get up to go to the living room.

At this point Thing 2 starts screamin’ her fool head off. What? Did she fall? Did she stub her toe? Did she step on a nest of rabid wolverines? I can’t figure it out. And she is screaming/crying so much she can’t tell me what happened. So I tell her to just relax while I go to get a diaper. When I get back she has calmed (not really but she can kinda talk now.) I ask again what is the matter. She begins semi-incoherently babling between sobs about something like this…

nose… OUCHIESOUCHIESOUCHIES… *sniff*… *drool*… NOSE… owowowow… OUCHIES… LiteBrite… *sniff*… OUCHIESOUCHIESOUCHIE… green… nose… OUCHIE!

Okay for those that couldn’t follow that let me school you on how to translate. First pull out the non-OUCHIE words. So now we have nose…NOSE…LiteBrite…green…nose. Next get rid of duplicates and we have nose…LiteBrite…green. Now we try to fill in the gaps that the screaming and sobbing didn’t allow to escape from the 2 year old voice box…

• I’m so green with envy that Thing 1 has a LiteBrite and I don’t, so I hit her and she punched me in the nose. —No that doesn’t work Thing 1 is upstairs and has been the whole time.
• I saw a giant green monster on Thing 1′s LiteBrite and it bit me on my nose so that I wouldn’t tell on it.– No, I think I would have noticed a giant green monster trying to hide in our living room.
• I was picking my nose and accidentally got a big ol’ green booger on Thing 1′s LiteBrite — No the LiteBrite is in the office not in here.
• I’m a silly 2 year old and so just to see what would happen I took a green LiteBrite peg and pushed it up my nose. When it wasn’t really leading to any kind of meaningful sensation, I decided to take said green LiteBrite peg and push it so far into my nose that now it is lodged forever in my sinus cavity. Father could you please help me remove the green LiteBrite peg from my nose — BINGO!

Okay now that I’ve translated, what do we do about it. I look up her nose and realize I’m gonna need some tweezers or something. So I tell her to stay still as I go look for some. I can’t find any. Okay time to get Band Mom involved. Band Mom finally finds some tweezers and by now Thing 2 is pretty calm. That is until its time to hold her down and try to remove the LiteBrite peg from her nose. She really didn’t like that. Band Mom and I try a few times to get it. It’s no use. Time for a trip to the ER.

So we change the diaper, get Thing 1 and Thing 2 in shoes and jackets and head out. By the time we get to the hospital you can’t tell anything is wrong with Thing 2. She’s just as happy as can be. We sign in and sit down in the waiting room. Looking around, I start to wonder if we’ll be able to leave in time for me to get to work the next morning. After 5 or 10 minutes, out of nowhere, Thing 2 starts to scream and cry again. Obviously something in her situation has changed. Has the peg come to life and is now actually burrowing into her sinus like that thing in Wrath of Khan (okay that was in the ear, but you get the point). As she’s pitching her fit, Band Mom and I notice we can see the bottom of the peg sticking out of her nose now. I tilt her head back and hold her still and Band Mom grabs the peg with her finger nails and removes it. Instant end to crying. So we pack up and head home without even going through the check-in process.

Moral of the story…The Burger King Cheesy Bacon Angus wan’t that good…

I found another quiz. This one finds out how geeky you are. Try it out and put your results below. My score was 50.4931% – Super Geek!

The weather cooperated for the most part so we did get to play the Alameda Inn in Hopedale, OH on Saturday night. Since we were worried about the weather and traffic in and around Washington due to the closure of I70 & I79 through town we decided to get an early start. We loaded up and were on the road at 5:30. The route we were going to take as plotted by google maps was supposed to be 1 hour and 47 minutes, so we figured at least 2 hours with traffic and weather concerns. Boy was that a gross over estimate. We made the Alemeda in almost 1 1/2 hours exaclty. Thats after doing the first half of the trip at around a max speed of 30MPH thanks to all of the super slow drivers we got stuck behind.

Well now we’ve got 3 hours until show time. Keys isn’t even supposed to be here til 8 or 8:30. So we unload and set up. Mike and I order some grub and sit and eat. (Side note if you go to the Alameda, get some food. It was well worth it!) Keys showed up a little after 8. After we were all set up and sound checked, there was still a little over an hour to kill.

Some people started showing up, including some friends from the PA side of the border. By 10 we were all chomping at the bit to get going and we had a nice little crowd starting to build. I have to say those that came out seemed to enjoy themselves. The Alemeda has a nice riser style stage and a pretty nice room. We definitely had a good time. The Alemeda thought we did alright as well, and has already asked us back, so look for us there sometime in April or May.

Oh and after getting me in trouble with Keyser, Chris didn’t even bother to come and play bass for us. Just kidding. I hope everyone is feeling better by now…

Anyway, Saturday was a pretty good time except for the 3 hours total spent on the road to and from the show. We figure once the weather and construction issues clear up, this actually won’t be too bad of a trip to make so we are looking forward to our Spring show there.

Well as of now there is no snow to be seen. Looking at Accuweather Radar, it looks like we’re okay for a while anyway. Local news is saying we’re still gonna get 1-3″, but ya never know. Hopefully it holds and we can do the show.

Tomorrow we have a show. Its at the Alameda Inn in Hopedale, OH. I’m trying to get ahold of Keys to get the exact time. He told me 10-2, but Mike swears he told him 9-1. Either way we’ll be there…maybe.

Have you seen the forecast. Looks like we might get pounded with snow Saturday. If it does drop a ton I hope it drops before we leave. I would rather have to cancel the show than get stuck overnight in Hopedale, OH. Nothing against Hopedale (I’ve never been there), but its not my house and my bed.

Also, Band Mom went to her Mom’s on Thursday. She took Thing 2 and Thing 1 stayed with me this weekend. Band Mom was going to come home Saturday, but after looking at the forecasts it looks like the snow will be hitting bad on Saturday, but be done by Sunday. Hopefully the roads are clear by Sunday as well so she can get home safe.

Well, keep an eye on the weather and our site and be safe if you head out to see us.

Sunday’s plan was to head to Rock’s for the Super Bowl. He planned on having some grub (Rock burgers baby!) and Band Mom was making some stuff to take over, and Jason as of Friday was planning on coming over with some hot sausage and a habenero pepper mix. Well the weather put a damper on those plans. Band Mom got a call from Beck early and Beck and Jason were no longer coming because of the weather. We were still on the fence. Then Pooh’s Dad came to get her around 5 and said the roads were getting bad and he saw a couple of accidents between Target and our house. So we decided to just watch the game from home. Now that that decision was made Thing 1, Thing 2 and I dug into the chips and Band Mom’s dip.

Although it would have been fun watching with a group of people, staying home was pretty fun as well. First off I got to listen to Bill and Tunch on DVE instead of Madden and Michaels. I so much prefer the radio commentary to the national TV guys.

Seattle drew first blood with a field goal in the 1st quarter. The Steelers weren’t looking all that hot. We did get 7 in the second to go to halftime with a 7-3 lead. The third quarter opened with a bang for the Steelers with Fast Willie Parker busting loose for a 75 yard TD run. Although it was a nail biter for most of the game Pittsburgh finally won 21-10 to become the third team in NFL history to get 5 Super Bowl victories. It was definitely a happy day in Whoville.

Saturday was lazy day. After getting up with the kids and running to get some McDonald’s for breakfast. I napped a little on the couch, while Band Mom didn’t even try to pretend like me on the couch and just went back to bed for a while. Neither Band Mom nor I did much of anything for most of Saturday. We finally got moving in the evening, after some dinner. Pooh babysat again, so we could take advantage of Band Mom’s only weekend in a while.

First we headed to the V.I.P. in Washington for the Steeler tailgate party. Band Mom had to make an appearance. We talked so Councilmen Stanichewski (sp?) and the Mayor for a little bit. Band Mom also knew a few other people there so she gabbed for a while. After maybe an hour we decided it was time to head.

We went and picked up Rock and headed out to Rinky Dinks to see Ruff Creek. Ruff Creek just added a new member. They changed their guitarist and picked up Bob Curti formerly of The Majors. Rock and I decided Ruff Creek is now known as Majorly Ruff Guns. As you probably know our friends Donny, Jay and Mark from Ruff Creek are all formerly of Big Guns. We had to go out to see them again escpecially with the addition of Bob. This band has some of the best musicians around in it. Its a shame I really dislike country music, because I like these guys as people and players so much.

Band Mom got to talk to Pandora (Don’s wife) and Pan introduced Band Mom to Ruff Creeks manager/booking agent. Band Mom is interested in bringing Ruff Creek into some of the festivals she is involved with so keep an eye out.