Great Night

I get the pleasure of waking up at 6am and heading to work. So, this morning, when I stepped out the door and the cool air hit me, I was loving the weather. 55 degrees this morning and I feel like fall is in the air. I think I've changed my favorite season to fall. Part of that also has to do with soccer. I don't like the beginning of the season so much because of the heat. Tonight, however, was great. Tonight, I got to AR a JV soccer game. A great evening to be at the soccer complex, where I find I'll be spending lots of time. Not just to oversee and sometimes referee in the high school games and college games, but also for state tournament coming up. I'm looking forward to us hosting that down here. But, with soccer off to a start, it's time to get back on the road. I have a handful of games away from here, but for the most part will be back and forth between here and Sioux Falls. Hopefully I'll be seeing you at a soccer field coming up soon.

Breakfast? Try Hell's Kitchen!

I've heard this from more than one person now. When in Minneapolis, you need to go and try Hell's Kitchen downtown for breakfast. Now, I've never seen the television show, but apparently this is not the restaurant that is part of the television show. So, I heard this once before we went, then when in the Cities last weekend, we were standing in line to get into Saturday night's game, and the man standing in front of us was giving us some advice. He said, "You've got to try Hell's Kitchen for breakfast. Now, mind you that this was around way before the show, but it's amazing. Now, on Sunday's, they do things a bit different. They have Gospel brunch. Now, I personally think it's kind of funny that they have gospel brunch in Hell's kitchen, but hey, that's how they do it." I just had to smile and nod. It's fairly ironic indeed. We didn't get a chance to try that place for breakfast. We got down to the field and stood in line for tickets. We got some great seats, and we were in the shade for the entire game. That was my favorite part, was keeping cool. One advantage to the dome is you always knew what the temp was going to be. After Saturday night's game, we got poured on. The game only took something like 2 hours and 4 minutes. It was a really fast game, but if it wouldn't have been, there would have been a rain delay for sure, and lots of wet people. Anyhow, we got the good seats, and you can check the photo gallery soon for some pictures.

Arby's Fiasco

Have you ever had a frustrating visit to a fast food resturant. This past weekend, Mom, Dad, Heather and I spent the weekend in the Twin Cities to take in a couple Twins games. On Saturday, we drove out there, getting up at 5:30 to give us plenty of time to make it out there and do some shopping. Yes, that's 5:30am, and the shopping didn't even happen. We did get to stop and see Heather's family though, so it was nice to sit down with them instead of shopping. So, we got out to the Cities and got checked into the hotel and had a great time at the baseball game. Then, when we returned to the hotel, we were feeling a bit hungry. So, we headed down the road, and found an Arby's. Now, it's after 10pm, so the Arby's dining room isn't open any longer. We had to go around through the drive through. Now, I pulled up to the drive through and started to order, only knowing what a couple people in the car wanted. I said that I needed a small jamocha shake and a hot ham and cheese, and dad said that he wanted a roast beef sandwich, and I wanted that two so I said I wanted two of the roast beef sandwiches. Then dad chimed in he wanted a jamocha shake too, so I put that on the end of the order. So, the girl reads it back, "So, we have two roast beef sandwiches, a hot ham and cheese and a large jamocha shake, that is 11.83 please pull ahead." I spoke up right away saying, "No, no, that isn't right. We need two small jamocha shakes." The confused "OK" that was muttered from the girl in the drive through was enough to trigger me to think that she didn't get it, so I said I would start again. I was getting a bit irritated mainly because I'd been up since 5:30am, but also because dad kept trying to change his order slightly. I didn't think we were going to get the order like it was desired anyhow, so I didn't submit his change. I just decided to start from the top, "Ok, we need 2 roast beef sandwiches, one hot ham and cheese, and two small jamocha shakes." I'd now ordered this 3 times, and was given a new total, "Ok, it's 12.75, please pull forward." As I'm moving forward, it's plainly evident we aren't going to get what we ordered, but I'd been clear we needed the two small jomocha shakes, two roast beef sandwiches, and a hot ham and cheese. We get to the window, and the first thing out the window to me was a large jamocha shake. WHAT PART OF SMALL JAMOCHA SHAKE CAN YOU NOT UNDERSTAND. I ORDERED THEM 3 TIMES!!! I just took it with a extremely shocked and annoyed look on my face. Then the small came. I don't think that it was big enough for a 2 year old. It was more like a jamocha shot glass. We just took the shakes, and I did check the food before we pulled away from the window, just to be sure, but when the sandwiches were correct, a heated Tyler pulled away from the Arby's, with all three of the passengers in the car laughing quite hard. Ohh, and I almost forgot, but when she handed me the shake, she asked if I needed sauce, and I said yes we needed two. I get the back, and how many sauces were in it? ONE. As it turned out, one had fallen out of the bag in the car, but I didn't discover it until later, and at the time when it was only one sauce after I'd specifically said two, it just added to the circus that was that Arbys. What a nightmare.

Updates coming soon...

Well, I don't have much time this morning. All I know is there is going to be some new posts this week. I thought of a new name for this blog over the weekend, but now can't remember what it was. It stemmed from a problem at an Arby's (which you will hear about soon).

Over the weekend, got the chance to go to the Cities and catch some baseball. Man was it a good time. You'll also hear more about that as well. Today, I'll be doing some travelling to the land of Tennessee, and Heather starts school and volleyball practice as well. Soccer starts at the end of the week, so Fall looks to be as busy as summer! We'll see where the adventures take me next.

TSA Problems

After the 9/11 problems, I can see how security at airports is beefed up and how every once in a while you get pulled aside and searched randomly. But seriously, some of these guys take their jobs waaaaaay to seriously. Today, coming home from Portland, Heather got pulled aside for a random search. I didn't see this happen, because I was pushing our belongings we were carrying on to the x-ray belt. So, I stepped up to the metal detector.

Before continuing, lets rewind a bit. On Wednesday, I found that I was going to be short a shirt to wear on the plane on Friday. So, since Heather was on my trip with me, I sent her out to find a couple new polos for me, and I wore one of them on the plane today. So, now, head back to present day with me standing at the metal detector....

Normally, when I travel, I'm wearing an untucked tshirt. Today, I not only had my jeans and a polo, I had the polo tucked in. This left my belt exposed. Now, I've been on a few planes with this belt, and been through security many a time. In Sioux Falls, TSA isn't picky, especially if you don't set off the metal detector. So today, the TSA agent with me ready to walk through said that I should really take off my belt. I proceeded to tell him that since no other metal detector would pick it up, his wouldn't either. So, after I said that, I got to take off my belt, and as soon as I got though the metal detector, without setting it off, I was immediately put into the holding pen to be searched. I got my own two TSA agents to come and search me and my things, and completely swab my entire back pack. After they of course found nothing, I started looking around for Heather. I finally saw she was sitting at a different TSA agent station getting searched as well. When she came back, she said that she got pulled randomly, and then asked how I got pulled. I told her that apparently mouthing off to TSA personnel gets you into trouble. She just laughed and said that it must be our last name that automatically make them suspicious. Then I remembered all the years of flying on Uncle Paul's passes, and how I'd get searched every time because of the pass I was flying on. Then I remembered in Romania being searched by 3 different people before I got on the plane. I think I'm just cursed to always be a TSA/Security target.

One of the coolest finds online!

So, I've been digging around on the Wii looking for some cool games from the old Nintendo console I had when I was a kid. I've found some great ones including Ice Hockey which I played with my cousin Jeff for hours during our winter stays with our great Aunt Delcie and Uncle Joe. I found one of the ones I owned as Double Dribble basketball, and I've purchased Super Mario Bros, and Techmo Bowl. World Cup soccer is another one I had for a while as a kid that i might look for. However, with all these great games, I've been looking for baseball. One game in particular: Baseball Stars. I remember the times as a kid that I spent playing Baseball Stars on the Nintendo. It was so much fun. It was super real, and I remember hitting monstrous home runs, home runs into the center field screen, and just plain fun games being played. Baseball Stars II was not quite as good, but still quite fun. I loved the original and used to own the second one for Nintendo for a while, but have lost it since. Tonight, I may have found the coolest thing ever. I found a website that allows an emulated version of Baseball Stars. OHHHH MAN!!! I played one inning and am now saving it for later. This one might get sent to my work computer for when I'm on the road in the hotel and need something to do of course. Not sure what you think else I'd do with it, but I'm a happy camper for sure! If you were a fan as well, click Here to check it out.

Review

Well, it's been a while since I've written, and since I'm going to see Grandma this weekend, I better get one post on here. Let's see, what all has happened since our last camping expedition. Not a ton. We have been camping again, although it was with the big family campout. It was slightly different as our camper was a borrowed camper after mom and dad's got wrecked in a bad storm a few weeks ago. Otherwise, things have been somewhat quiet, except when I have been leaving for work. That's because it's back to the trusty old motorcycle. Ok, it's the trusty newer motorcycle, but still. We're reduced to just one car again. The Pontiac is taking a break, which seems to be happening a lot recently. There is something up with the starter. Haven't quite put my finger on it yet, but that's what I'm going after next. I went out to leave for work the morning after returning from Minnesota for the 4th, and it was dead. Don't quite know as sometimes it will start, and other times, nothing but clicking. If we wouldn't have put the new suspension on it recently, I'd think more about shipping the thing out. Time to shape up, or get shipped out!

That's been the most recent battle, but Heather gets the Trailblazer and I ride the motorcycle and if it's raining she also plays taxi. Coming up, I've got a trip scheduled, but with only one vehicle, it makes it tougher. So, we've got the logical plan for that. Heather is going to just come on the trip with me. I've got some travel credits to be used, so she's coming along pretty cheap. That's what's kinda nice about it, everything else is paid for, her food and her plane ticket (minus the $350 in credits) is all the expense. I looked at it on Wednesday afternoon, and it was somewhat spendy. When I checked again i the evening, the price was far cheaper, so she got booked to come along too. It's kinda the last harrah trip for the summer. Hard to believe that they'll be back in school in one month. Where did the summer go?