the tonedef blog

Saturday was my annual company picnic. The company I work for is awesome. Every year they through a picnic at Olgebay Park. They give everyone a wrist band so that all of the attractions are free. They cook up a bajillion hamburgers and hotdogs. They supply a ton of other food and pop and water and juice.

We got to the park around 1. First things first we got some grub. Before we were even done eating, Things 1 & 2 were already mapping out our days activities. After we ate we hit the first stop, pedal boats. Thing 2 is still too short to pedal, so that duty fell to Thing 1 and myself. We pedaled around the lake for a little bit. Since Thing 2 couldn’t pedal, we let her steer for a little bit.

After the pedal boats we headed over the hill to the Good Zoo. We took the long walk over the hill, and then made our circuit through the zoo.

Then we took a ride on the train, which takes a good half hour. By the time that was over, it was time to head back to the picnic for the annual prize drawings. The company gives away a ton of stuff every year. Last year I won an air conditioner. The year before a $50 gift card to Cabelas. This year no luck. I didn’t get anything. Oh well, I got a day at the park hanging out with my family and that’s enough for me.

Not long after the drawings, we headed out. On the way home we dropped Things 1 & 2 off at my folks’. They were going to spend the night and then go swimming tomorrow (weather permitting). So that left Band Mom and I on our own. What to do? What to do?

Well first we headed home and took a nap. Woo us! We got up and moving again around 8:30. Band Mom wanted to stop off at the hotel and visit with Princess for a little bit. Woulda had dinner their if the damn kitchen was still open. What kinda place closes the kitchen before 9 on a Saturday night. Oh wait. What was I thinking? Its the hotel without Band Mom’s mad management skilz. So dinner for me was a couple of beers.

Finally a little before 11 we headed out…and to the…wait for it…the casino. We played for a little bit. Then I got hungry. I had to take a break. I grabbed a slice and pop. Then I headed back to the gaming floor. I was having no luck. I ended up losing all I came in with. Band Mom on the other hand, won what I lost, and then some. Go Band Mom! She seems to have luck on this one game every time we go. This trip though she had some real good luck. Then she played a game that she doesn’t really play often since she had some extra cash and hit again. I was almost getting annoyed with her. Her luck was up and mine was down. Band Mom had her starting, my starting and a little extra money.

Then she got a call from a friend and we were going to leave to go pick him up. Then we didn’t. We headed back into the casino and both had $20 of her extra cash to play with. My luck stayed the same and it disappeared after a while. And Band Mom’s mojo was broken as well. Her $20 also disappeared. Stupid friends breaking the mojo. But we still left with what we came in with thanks to Band Mom’s earlier winnings.

After we left we headed to Waffle House for some late night grub. We ate and then headed home to get some sleep…

Friday after work I got home and Band Mom was getting ready to go. I had to take my car to get some tires on it. My inspection is up at the end of the month and there is no way my rear tires were going to pass. When Band Mom was ready we headed out to Wal Mart. Band Mom had to get some stuff for her Mom and I dropped my car at the automotive center to get the tires. We did our shopping then Band Mom headed out to her Mom’s while Things 1 & 2 and I killed some time looking at video games waiting for my car. A little before 8, I got my car and the 3 of us headed home. We waited for a few minutes and then Band Mom showed up to pick us up.

Our next stop was to get some dinner. We didn’t have a ton of time, so we just headed to McDonald’s. We sat down and ate and when we were done we headed out.

Then we had to head to the airport to pick up Band Mom’s Aunt and cousin. So I drove. We got to the airport with a little bit of time to spare. I dropped Band Mom at baggage claim and then circled around the terminal. And circled around the terminal. And circled around the terminal. The flight was a little delayed. I ended up circling about 10 times when it was all said and done. But finally we got everyone loaded up and headed home.

We dropped everyone off at Band Mom’s Mom’s. We visited for a few minutes then headed home. The kids headed straight to bed and Band Mom and I hung out and watched some TV before doing the same ourselves.

Sunday was Father’s Day. The kids let me sleep in a little. We all finally got up and Band Mom made some scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast. Things 1 & 2 gave me the home made cards and posters that they made for me for Father’s Day. I lazed around and watched a little DVR. I eventually got a shower and got ready to go. I wasn’t going anywhere yet, but that gave me more time to watch a little DVR.

Finally, Pooh got to our house a little after 4. So then I called my Dad and let him know we were ready to go. We were all meeting for our annual Father’s Day mini golf outing. We headed to Red Carpet Golf & Recreation Center to play some golf. Well, we got there and then I was ready to pay and they don’t take any cards. So I had to run down the road to the nearest ATM at the Foodland. Their ATM wouldn’t read my card so I had to run farther down the road to the Sunoco. No biggie.

I got back and paid for our round. Band Mom didn’t come mini golfing with us. So it was me, my folks, Pooh, Thing 1 and Thing 2. Everyone had fun. I won of course.

After we played our round, we decided on dinner at Red Robin. I swung through the house and picked up Band Mom and we met my folks there. We ate and then headed home.

I spent the rest of my Father’s Day enjoying some DVR.

Hope all the Dads out there had a Happy Father’s Day!

Saturday, Band Mom and I slept in a bit since we were the only ones home. Today the only plans were some cleaning. When I got up I had the leftovers from last night‘s trip to Old Mexico for breakfast. Band Mom and I both slowly got moving. What’s the rush?

I spent most of the day watching TV with some help cleaning spattered here and there and Band Mom spent most of the day cleaning. We’re two weeks away from the big 4th of July/birthday/graduation party and she’s getting stressed over the condition of the house. We just sorta kicked around most of the day. In the late afternoon we got a visit from KJ, Princess and her boys. The boys were a little bummed that Things 1 & 2 weren’t home yet, but they kept themselves busy for the most part. We hung out and visited with them for a while. When they left I got a call from Thing 1 to see if I was ready to pick them up. They were back from the movies and finished dinner.

So I headed over to pick up the girls. Then the 3 of us made a quick trip to Wal Mart to get some dog food, and Father’s Day cards for my dad. Then we headed home. Now it was pushing 9. I had a quick dinner and watched some more DVR. Then Band Mom and I basically had a movie night. We watched The Dark Knight…well I watched the whole thing and she watched parts of it. But late night we actually both sat and watched The X Files: I Want To Believe.

The Dark Knight was better than I expected. There was all the hype around the movie because of Heath Ledger. I figured a lot of the hype was more about his death than his performance, but I was pleasantly surprised. His Joker was killer (no pun intended). The movie as a whole was pretty good and damn entertaining.

The X Files: I Want To Believe was another story. The movie wasn’t bad. The story was pretty well done and kept me in suspense for most of the flick. But it wasn’t very X File-y in my opinion. I knew from reading about the film when it came out that it didn’t tie in to the previous movie or to the overall story arc of the series. The X File in question, as Band Mom put it was more like something on Fringe. Which isn’t necessarily bad and may just seem that way since Fringe is fresher in our memory than X Files. But the point is there was so much they could have done with a continuing X Files story that they chose not to do…

After the movie we finally headed to bed…

Friday after work I took Things 1 & 2 to my folks’ for the night. I got back home and Band Mom was getting ready to go. We eventually decided on our game plan for the evening and headed out.

First stop was dinner. We decided on Old Mexico. The kids don’t like it there so we don’t normally get a chance. The food was excellent. There’s nothing like real Mexican food. We got to have a nice relaxing meal since there was no time we had to be anywhere. And we had plenty of leftovers to take home.

Second stop was Bradford’s. We decided to stop in and catch a little bit of Bill Ali and Matt Barranti. We haven’t seen them in a while since Band Mom’s not working at the hotel anymore. We caught a set of them and had a drink while we were there. They rocked as always and it was tough to leave before their show was over, but…

The final stop was our new addiction, the casino. We always have a blast there. We spent a few hours and a few bucks there. We didn’t win, but we did leave with some money on us. We don’t go to the casino with the goal of making a lot of money. We go because its something that we can do together and both enjoy equally. If we went with the goal of making money, we wouldn’t have any fun at all. There’s a reason casinos make so much money. The odds are in their favor. But if your having fun…And there’s always the chance you could hit for something. We watched a guy hit for over $1200 dollars on a $2.50 bet on a penny machine. Now that guy had fun! Or maybe not. Maybe he’d already spent $1500 earlier in the evening. Either way hitting for over a grand has to feel pretty darn good. Unless you think about the fact that if he’d have gotten one more thing it would have been a $40K win. Now that would’ve been a fun night out!

After we’d spent a few hours at the casino we finally headed home to a nice quiet, empty house and headed to bed.

Tuesday. Just like any other Tuesday. Work. Home. Dinner. The usual. But not this Tuesday. Band Mom and I needed to feed our addiction.

See the casino was running a special. For every can good item that you brought in to donate to the Food Bank you got $5 in Free Play (up to $25 dollars). Plus, we each got a flyer saying we got $5 in Free Play this week just ’cause…That’s $30 bucks worth of gambling that doesn’t cost us a dime. How can you pass that up.

So after work I headed home. Band Mom had a meeting to go to so I just missed her. Pooh, Thing1, & Thing 2 were all at home. We decided on left overs for dinner. We all ate and watched some TV. Band Mom got home a little before 8. Then she and i got ready and headed out to the casino with our canned goods. We got there and traded our food for play. The Food Bank has to love this promotion. You wouldn’t believe the amount of canned food that was stacked just outside the casino doors. You could probably feed the whole county for a month.

Well we played for a couple of hours on $20 a piece plus our Free Play. I ended up on the winning end for the night while Band Mom ended on the losing end. All together we walked out with the $40 (+ 16 cents) that we walked in with. Not a bad way to kill a couple of hours…And besides it was for a good cause.

Saturday was way laid back. I had to leave the house around 1 to go get Things 1 & 2 from their stay at a friends house. After that it was laze around and get caught up on Season 1 of True Blood. A couple of friends have been talking about this show for a while, but I never got into it for whatever reason. But all the episodes were on OnDemand so I started watching. And got sucked in immediately. I even got Band Mom hooked. The new season starts Sunday night so I had some watching to do. Also episodes 1 – 9 were going to be removed from OnDemand on Sunday so it was important to get at least those watched this weekend.

I did take a break and cut the grass in the afternoon. Usually, my neighbor cuts the grass during the week and cuts my grass while he’s at it. That’s just fine with me. I hate yard work. But he was cutting today and his lawnmower was dieing. It was pouring smoke into our house so bad Thing 2 thought the kitchen was on fire. So I went and got out my lawnmower when his did die and finished both yards.

After the grass got cut I jumped in the shower, because we were going to pick up another prescription for Band Mom’s Mom and drop it off and then maybe go out to dinner. On the way to Band Mom’s Mom’s though Band Mom started to feel ill. Massive headache and nausea. So I dropped the stuff off and then we headed home and ordered pizza for dinner.

Later in the night Band Mom was feeling better so we dove back into True Blood. We got the first 10 episodes down. 2 for tomorrow before the premier of Season 2.

Friday. I was planning originally to sit at home with Things 1 & 2 and watching the Stanley Cup Finals Game 7. But Things 1 & 2 decided they wanted to spend another night at their friend’s house. So Band Mom wrangled me into going to a celebrity bar tender fund raising event at the hotel. They have TVs and will be playing the game so I figure I can do that.

So after work I get home and Band Mom’s not ready to go. We have time, but we also need to pick up some stuff for her mom on the way. We end up goofing off and running late though. Band Mom wanted to get to the hotel before 8 to get set up for the fundraiser. So I dropped her off then ran to Giant Eagle to pick up what we needed to pick up for her mom. I got her stuff and dropped it off to her.

I got to the hotel a little after 8. Band Mom and I ordered some food since we hadn’t eaten dinner yet. Then we settled in and watched the game. And what a game. No score in the first period, but the Pens seemed to be controlling the majority of the play. Still it was a crazy period.

During the period break, I decided to take a pee. Of course, I wasn’t paying attention to how much time had passed from the end of the period. I had to use the restrooms on the second floor of the hotel as the one in the bar was occupied. Just as I was about to open the door to the bar upon my return the bar erupted. Talbot got the first goal of the game to give the Penguins a 1 – 0 lead. As I entered the bar, everyone started yelling at me to go back to the bathroom, since that was obviously the lucky thing the ‘guins needed to score. I chose to treat it as only a coincidence and sat back down at the bar.

Luckily it was a coincidence and later in the period Talbot got another goal to get a 2 nil lead. And that’s how the period ended. The Wings got a goal in the 3rd and brought all the tension back. We needed to hold them to win. With like 3 minutes left the Red Wings pulled their goalie and gave everything they had to tie the game. And came damn close. In the last minute of play there were so many stoppages to play it seemed to last forever. The final 16 seconds of the game were the most tense seconds I think I have ever had watching a sporting event. And thanks to the outstanding goal tending of The Flower, they kept the lead and ended on a diving save to win the Stanley Cup!

We hung at the bar for a little bit after the game, watching the trophy presentations and some of the post game coverage. But we weren’t spending the whole night at the hotel, even if Tom Terling was playing. We were heading to the casino again.

We headed out around 11:30 and headed to the casino. We didn’t do great. We came home with money in our pocket. Not as much as we walked in with but still more than 0. We had fun and that’s what counts.

We got home and Band Mom had a snack and we sat and chatted for a while before heading to bed.

Thursday, just another day right? Well sorta. I got a call in the afternoon from Band Mom to let me know that Things 1 & 2 had gone to a friends house and were going to spend the night. Wow a quiet house on a work night…Woot! I got home after work and Band Mom and I kicked around for a little bit. Then Band Mom took a short nap. We were trying to figure out what to do for dinner. Since there were no kids cooking seemed silly since most of the stuff we have at the house is for the family not particularly good for a dinner for 2. Well the casino has food and today there’s 7X points on the Player’s Club cards…hmm…what to do?

So Band Mom and I headed out around 7 to the casino. It was packed. Duh 7X points and we thought it wouldn’t be packed? But we played a while…both losing a little. Then we hit the food court and got some dinner. Dinner was cheaper that if we’d have gone to a restaurant, and we were both unable to actually finish our meals there was so much food. Then we headed back to the gaming floor. Band Mom found a machine that was fun and she was winning on and I did the same for a while. We ended up making back most of what we came with which is always a good thing.

Now some of our friends make fun of us for going to the casino. Saying its just a waste of money. But here’s the thing. We took a night out and including our dinner spent over 3 hours having fun for about $40 or $50. Now you tell me something else we could have done for 3+ hours including dinner for less $ than that…And sex doesn’t count! That can happen before or after going out anywhere. I mean out in public having fun around other people…When Band Mom was working at the hotel, a typical Friday night including dinner was easily over $100…so who’s laughing now?

Tuesday was Pooh’s high school graduation. Yes you read correctly…high school graduation. When I started dating Band Mom Pooh was 4 and I was fresh out of college. When we got married and Pooh was Band Mom’s maid of honor she was 7. Now she’s 18 and graduating from high school. Time flies is an understatement! I think we did okay…She graduated 2nd in her class by like 1 100th behind the valedictorian. She’s off to Dusquesne in the fall for pharmacy. She’s a pretty good well grounded kid…But damn…high school graduation. I was noticing on Facebook over the past few days some friends were going to their kids’ 4th grade graduations and I’m off to a high school one. And in 9 years I’ll have to do it again…And again in 12…

The ceremony itself was kinda nice. Pooh’s graduating class was only 41 people so pretty short. My high school graduating class was like 450…a considerably longer ceremony. Pooh had to give a speech as the salutatorian. It was pretty good. Not too long. Not too short. Touching. Humorous.

Pooh had all kinda family there. 2 sets of parents, 4 sisters, 4 grandmothers, 2 grandfathers, 1 great grandmother, 1 great grandfather, a couple of aunts, uncles and cousins. Pictures after the ceremony started to get almost silly. It was a little sad that both of her natural grandfathers weren’t there to see their eldest granddaughter graduate from high school, but there were enough other family members there to make up for the absence.

Congrats to Pooh and the rest of the Avella class of 2009! Good luck! Now its real…

…

Oh and the Pens won game 6 to force a Game 7 in Detroit!!!