I Suck At Blogging

Yep, I suck at blogging. I think it's been about two weeks since I last posted something. Without a doubt, time seems to pass by at an exponential rate when raising children. I remember other parents telling me that way back when when I had my two year old (Briana). It's so true. After taking care of the kids, writing a blog post seems like the last thing I want to do especially when there are other chores to do as a result of raising kids.

Anyway, I figured I'd chain myself to the laptop tonight to write something before it gets way too late. As it is, it's been about two weeks. So here is a recap of all the things I had sucked at for the past two weeks:

Wreck-It Ralph: Awesome movie. My friends (Marc and Kelley) organized a movie night to go see Wreck-It Ralph in the theaters in Randolph. My BFF (Kerry) and my friend (Andrea) also attended. I absolutely loved the movie.

UFC 154: That same night, Marc and Kelley invited us back to their place to watch the UFC pay per view. The pay per view featured the return of Georges St-Pierre (also known as GSP). The main event definitely did not disappoint. It was a great match between GSP and Carlos Condit. Of course, my measuring stick for matches correlates to the amount of blood spilled... and there was plenty of it. Blood aside, it really was a great match between the two. (For anyone curious, GSP won.)

Pre-Thanksgiving dinner: On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, my parents invited us to their place for a "pre-Thanksgiving dinner". In addition to Karen's parents, my cousin (Betty) and her son (Marvin) attended. It was good seeing Betty and Marvin. I still can't believe Marvin is a Junior in high school. I remember when he was a newborn baby, Karen and I took him and Betty to the airport. At the time, they were leaving for Hong Kong with hopes of returning in several years. They did return several years later, but it seems like yesterday that I recall going up the escalator with Betty and Marvin. As a side note, the food at my parents was delicious.

Thanksgiving: This year was the first year that Karen and I hosted Thanksgiving. Joining us for Thanksgiving were Karen's parents, Karen's grandmother, my parents, and my friends (Marc, Kelly, and Andrea). It was definitely a neat experience to cook a turkey. I had the pleasure of taking the innards out of the turkey. All in all, I think the day went very well. I think everyone enjoyed the turkey and the side dishes. I also made one of the side dishes (green beans), because Karen thought there should be at least one green dish. The only downside of the day was that I had a headache for most of the day. I hardly ever get headaches... or sick for that matter. I think, however, that stress may have been a contributing factor on Thanksgiving as I had such a headache with massive neck pain. And truth be told, I don't really stress that much... consciously anyway. I suppose subconsciously I do.

Black Friday: The day after Thanksgiving, Karen and I took our nine month old (Bridget) to get pictures done at Sears. Briana had pictures done when she was young. So in all fairness, and to avoid the neglected youngest child syndrome, we took Bridget for her pictures. Aside from that, the only real shopping that I did on Black Friday was to purchase an air compressor. I've been wanting one for quite some time now. I figured it was time to just bite the bullet and get one... with hopes of actually finishing some projects around the house. Of course, now I need the nail guns to go with the compressors. Baby steps.

6th Annual Black Friday Dinner: Black Friday would not be complete without dinner at our friends' (Cass and Ellen). This year, there were many attendees. In addition to Karen and I (and our kids), my friends (Adam, Aimee, Andrea, Marc, Kelley, Garv, Leeann, Scott, and Ofelia) and my BFF (Kerry) came. There were definitely a lot of laughs that night. As usual, it was a great time hanging out with everyone. Plus, it was a good way to get rid of our leftovers from Thanksgiving.

Memorial Mass: On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we attended an anniversary mass for Karen's grandfather (her father's father). Surprisingly, Briana and Bridget were very good during the mass. If not being Catholic were bad enough, I may have gotten some stares from parishioners for not standing up during the appropriate times, which normally isn't too bad but I happened to be in the very front pew. The way I look at it, I wasn't about to get up and down numerous times with a two year old draped all over me. So I opted to just remain seated. I guess that's my original sin working.

Quincy Parade: On Sunday, I begrudgingly attended Quincy's holiday parade. And nothing says fun like trekking a two year old and a nine month old out to stand in the freezing cold during a parade. To me, it almost seems like cruel torture to have kids stand outside in cold weather for a couple of hours. But it's crazy what people do for "tradition". Surprisingly, Briana loved it. I'm going to have to work on that.

Cookie Swap: Following the Quincy parade, my friends (Jen and Bill) had everyone who attended the parade back to their place for a cookie swap. I must say, some of the cookies were very delicious. Granted, I only tried three cookies there: Karen's, Kerry's, and Jen's aunt's. Needless to say, it was good to see Jen and Bill. All in all, it was interesting seeing everyone there.

And lastly, that brings me to today, where I attended a factory tour: My coworkers and I went to our neighbors in Norwell at Zildjian for a little tour. I must say, the tour was great (free t-shirts aside). The history of the company is quite fascinating. Zildjian (which roughly translates to son [ian ]of a cymbal [zil] maker [dj]) had its roots in alchemy. As well, Zildjian has ties to Quincy because one of the sons, who had worked for a candy factory in Quincy, said that he would take over the family business if the company came to the US. As a result, the first Zildjian factory was in Quincy. I thought it really was a great tour to see how the cymbals are made. Plus, Travis Barker's drums are there. Yay Blink-182!

So that's pretty much the highlights of everything the past two weeks. Hopefully it won't take another two weeks for another post.

I Suck At Birthday Parties

On Saturday, Karen, our seven month old baby daughter (Briana) and I attended a birthday party. Now, I suck at birthday parties. The special occasion, however, was for my friend (Sam) and his two children.

Sam is in the armed forces. He and his wife (Tara), who normally live out of state, were making their semi-annual trip up to Massachusetts. It just so happens that in the month of October, their children were celebrating their birthdays. Sam and Tara have two twin boys (Alex and Ben). And the big birthday celebration was for their first birthday.

For Karen and I (and Briana), this was our first time meeting Alex and Ben. Because Sam and Tara live out of state, we have only seen pictures of their two boys. So it was good to meet their little ones on Saturday.

Interestingly enough, the birthday party for the twin babies was held at Blue-22 in Quincy. For anyone curious, Blue-22 is a bar. Normally, I would think that having a baby party at a bar is somewhat peculiar. It just so happens that all of us are childhood friends of one the owners of the bar (Garv). And since Sam and Tara live out of state, I can understand how the party ended up at Blue-22.

Regardless, it was a good time celebrating Alex and Ben's birthday at Blue-22. Joining in on the festivities were Sam and Tara's respective parents, Tara's sister, Garv, my friends (Marc, Kelley, Leeann, Cass, Ellen, Aimee, Jim, Aimee and Jim's children, Scott, Ofelia, Scott and Ofelia's son), the parent (Peggy) of one of my friends, and some of Tara's other relatives. It was a motley crew of sorts.

Sam and Tara got a little present for Briana, which was very thoughtful. Attached to the present was also a specially selected Little Mermaid PEZ dispenser in my honor, which I thought was pretty funny. Speaking of which, Aimee also cracked me up. She gave me this ginormous gummy bear from Yummies in Maine. The gummy bear was absolutely huge. It made me laugh. It is moments like that which make me thankful to have the friends that I do.

Needless to say, it was a fun time to hang out with everyone. Speaking of which, following the birthday party, Karen and I ended up at Marc and Kelley's house to meet their new cat, Jack/Jackson. The cat is very cute and very active. Also meeting the cat for the first time were our friends (Andrea and Steve) and my BFF (Kerry). Andrea, Steve, and Kerry were in town and met up with us after their own little excursion for the day.

All in all, it was a nice day of just hanging out with friends.

I Suck At Hanging Out With My Friends

Yesterday, a few of my friends came over. Unfortunately, I suck at hanging out with my friends.

My friends (Renee and Jeff) visited during the day. Renee and Jeff live up on the North Shore of Lynn... the city of sin. As both of them have such hectic schedules, yesterday during the day was the only opportunity they had to come down for a visit to see our newborn daughter (Briana). Consequently, they decided to bring lunch for both Karen and I.

Needless to say, lunch was good. It was nice to see Renee and Jeff especially since I could not hang out that long. After all, I was working yesterday. (For anyone curious, I work from home most days of the week.) My employer is gracious enough to provide me with the opportunity to work from home because they know that I am extremely disciplined. Granted, I probably end up working more hours during the week from home than I do if I were in the office. So while I had a little work emergency to tend to for the rest of the day, Renee and Jeff hung out with Karen and Briana.

Later that night, my friend (Scott) also stopped by. Scott lives in New York. He happened to be back in Massachusetts for a couple of days for work. Consequently, he also wanted to stop by to see Briana. It was definitely great to catch up with Scott again. Scott and his wife (Ofelia) are one of the nicest couples I know. It turns out that in addition to raising their own child (Xavier), they will now also be raising two of Xavier's cousins from the Dominican Republic who would not have had the educational opportunities otherwise. It's great that Scott and Ofelia can do that. Anyway, it was definitely great seeing Scott. I don't get the chance to see him that often. So it was nice to hang out for a while.

And as a way to end the night, Karen and I put our new movie package from Verizon FIOS to good use. Well, I put the package to good use. I don't think Karen was as thrilled. While waiting for Briana's next feeding at night, we decided to watch the movie "Sex Drive".

(Below is a trailer for "Sex Drive".)


The movie is the average teeny bopper virginity movie. The plot is simple: virgin boy gets propositioned by a girl he meets online. He then takes a road trip to meet the girl to lose his virginity. A couple of friends join him on the journey, one of them obviously being his BFF/real love interest. Hilarity ensues.

Essentially, the movie is like all the other generic movies about teenagers losing their virginity. I think "Eurotrip" did it the best thus far. And since I like silly teeny bopper movies, I of course had to watch "Sex Drive". Plus, the movie had Seth Green (of Buffy and Robot Chicken fame) as a wise-cracking Amish character. So I had to watch it for that.

All in all, the movie was enjoyable. Predictable, but enjoyable. It was a good way to kill time before Briana's next feeding.

I Suck At Hanging Out With My Friend

On Thursday, Karen and I hung out with my friends (Marc and Kelley). We had pushed back our weekly get-together to Thursday as Marc had planned to attend something for school on Wednesday. As it turned out, Karen also had a meeting herself on Wednesday with the Friends of the Norwell Public Library. So Thursday it was.

For dinner, Marc created a pasta dish with garlic bread and homemade turkey meatballs. It was delicious. For dessert, Kelley had made some apple bread. The apple bread was also very good, which comes as no surprise because Kelley is quite the baker. In my act of instigating, I would like to see Kelley and my BFF (Kerry) have a bake-off. (For anyone curious, Kerry has been historically praised for her mad baking skills.) I think a bake-off between both of them would be cool. Of course, that's just my opinion. I am just hoping to benefit from eating the baked goods.

Needless to say, the meal was delicious. In fact, the meal was so good that I practically passed out from a food coma during an episode of the world's greatest television show ever: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I must have gorged myself because it was so hard to keep my eyes open while we were watching the episode.

For anyone curious, the episode of Buffy that we watched was "Life Serial", about Sunnydales's three criminal geek masterminds testing Buffy's abilities. It was a comical episode. It's a good thing that I've watched Buffy many times because I had pass out due to the food coma.

Anyway, I shortly came out of my coma thanks to my good friend... sugar. (I had some raspberry lemonade... yum!) And as luck would have it, I came out of my coma just as my friend (Scott) stopped by. Scott lives in New York, but happened to be back in Massachusetts for work. As he was in the neighborhood, he thought he'd stop by.

As always, it was great to see Scott. I don't see my friend, Scott enough. In fact, I suck at hanging out with my friend. We had placed bets on what Scott would be having for dinner that night because Scott is a funny eater. (Scott is not much for vegetables.) Needless to say, he surprised us with a meal from Boston Market... a meal complete with two sides of mashed potatoes.

Needless to say, it was a great night to hang out and laugh with everyone. It was good seeing Scott again.

I Still Suck At Blue 22

yesterday was my normal night to drive the two miss daisies home. by the term, "the two miss daisies", i am referring to karen and my friend (hot amy) who both teach a course at simmons college.

karen had expected the two of them to finish rather late with their teaching. luckily for them, my chauffeuring services tend to arrive rather early. (i like to be early, if not punctual for things.)

anyway, as i was driving in to pick karen and hot amy up, i noticed a truck that was a couple of blocks ahead of me. naturally, i got pretty excited when i saw the truck because it had the name of my favorite brother-in-law (pj) on it. so like any good driver who should be focusing on the road when driving, i pulled out my camera and drove as fast as i could to get next to the truck. luckily for me, i caught up with the truck at an intersection with a stop light.

(the picture below is of the truck.)


for anyone curious, pj does not own the truck. the name was just one of those coincidences. i thought it was pretty neat. yes, it's the little things that i get excited about.

anyway, i arrived to pick up karen and hot amy. nothing too exciting happened on the ride home. hot amy polished off the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that i made for her. the both of them also ate most of the strawberries i brought too. (the strawberries smelled good... cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.)

on the way home, my friend (marc) had called. apparently, my other friend (scott) was up from new york and wanted to get together... that night. seeing as how we haven't seen scott in a while, we naturally agreed. the place that he wanted to go: blue 22 in quincy.

as it turned out, we were heading in the direction of blue 22 anyway because hot amy had parked her car at the quincy center train station. and because karen is a worry-wart, we walked hot amy to her car... because a person with a knife or gun would never attack three people in a dark garage... but it was all good because hot amy ended up giving us a ride to the front of blue 22.

anyway, i still suck at blue 22. interestingly enough, it was the second time in six days that we have been to blue 22. prior to that, i can't remember the last time i have been there... possibly on my friend's (garv) birthday... which is in january.

it also happens that garv was working last night. so, basically scott, garv, marc, my friend (kelley), karen and i got to hang out together... amid the trivia night that was going on. (as a side note, i dislike it when a team playing trivia night has more than the allotted number of players... that's just cheating. okay, so maybe i'm a stickler for rules.)

it was great seeing scott. scott seems to be in good spirits, considering him and his family have recently been flooded out of their house in new york. as scott told us, there was water flowing out of the windows on his second floor. for anyone curious, scott and his family went on a trip to the dominican republic only to return to a flooded house. the furnace died while they were away and one of the pipes burst. that's a major bummer.

i enjoy scott's stories. scott told us about how his son (xavier) tells himself jokes and just cracks up laughing. xavier also points at things with his middle finger... all interesting facts, i know.

anyway, it was a great time last night... hanging out with friends. it was even great to see garv's cousin (steph) who waited our table. steph is great. oh, and for anyone curious, i had the beer-basted burger last night. it was good. needless to say, it was a fun night.

I Suck At Terms Of Endearment

in the latest installment of spy vs spy, my friend (marc) tried to take out my other friend (kelley) with a furnace. after all, tonight is wednesday... and wednesdays are what i call "marc and kelley" night. every week, i always look forward to "marc and kelley" night because i can always count on having a great time... laughing... and just hanging out with people who i admire and consider great friends. the weekly hang out provides a constant in what has become a rollercoaster ride following the death of my son (braden) over two months ago.

anyway, tonight marc tried to get rid of kelley via a furnace. i had picked up dinner for everyone from the falafel king located in quincy. (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound... the falafel king is so good!) when i got to marc and kelley's place, there apparently was some sort of technical problem with the thermostat.

as luck would have it, i have been installing thermostats... a lot... within the past week. marc explained that the landlords already had someone come to look at the furnace that day. that person did not find anything wrong with the furnace. yet, for some reason, marc and kelley's thermostat was not working. kelley thought the pilot light was simply out.

anyway, karen and i thought that perhaps they should just hit the reset button on the furnace to see if that would restart things. so kelley got ready to go down to the basement to hit the reset button. before she went down, marc adamantly suggested that i accompany her. thinking nothing of it, i agreed.

both kelley and i ventured down to the basement. i was expecting a somewhat modern furnace. to my surprise, the furnace looked... ancient. i would consider the furnace "old school"... quite possibly an antique even. there was a metal lid, that reminded me of the hood of an old car, that had to be removed in order to get to the reset button. anyway, kelley pushed the reset button.

in what was quite possibly a scary... yet comical moment, flames shot out from the furnace for a brief second right in front of kelley. kelley's groin was considerably close to the flames... in fact, had the flames ignited kelley's groin, she could have possibly been like lindsay lohan... a "fire crotch". (that's a pop culture reference.)

needless to say, kelley was fine. and the heat started right up! so naturally, we had a good laugh over it. we have since used our creative licensing to change the story to make it seem like marc was trying to eliminate kelley again, using me as a pawn in his master plan. it sounds better at least.

after the incident, all four of us watched the latest episode of heroes. we were even able to catch another episode of the greatest show ever... buffy the vampire slayer. (the episode was about giles... the librarian/watcher... and his seedy past.)

as the episode was nearing its end, my friend (scott) was actually up and stopped on over. scott lives in new york. he occasionally has to come up to massachusetts for work, which he thankfully still has. his company recently had some layoffs. layoffs are never fun, especially in our current economy. i should know, i've been laid off twice in my short professional career (during the "dot-bomb" years).

anyway, it's always good to see scott. he is a great guy. while he was at marc and kelley's, he got a call from his wife (ofelia). not that we were eavesdropping or anything, but scott had used some terms of endearment when referring to ofelia.

naturally, karen asked me how come we don't use any terms of endearment. i didn't want to say... "because i suck at terms of endearment"... because i do. karen and i have never used any terms of endearment for one another since we have been together. no "honey", "hun", "sweetie", "schnookums"... nothing. we just never had the opportunity to use any terms. i guess you can say we are a strange couple that way.

this is not the first time this topic has come up in conversation. awhile ago, we discussed creating terms for each other. she couldn't come up with one for me. i, however, came up with "kiwi" for her. no, karen is not australian... and to my knowledge has no ties to australia. i chose "kiwi" because of the fruit with the same name.

karen is a registered dietitian, so i figured... fruit equals good! plus, the kiwi fruit is just such a cute looking fruit. and as it turns out, according to my friend wikipedia:

"The kiwifruit (or kiwi) is the edible berry of a cultivar group of the woody vine Actinidia deliciosa and hybrids between this and other species in the genus Actinidia. The Actinidia is native to Shaanxi, China."

the kiwi was apparently originally called the chinese gooseberry and was actually declared the "national fruit" of the people's republic of china. so i guess the term "kiwi" has more meaning than i thought.

the more that i think about it, the more i like... kiwi.

I Still Suck At Buffy The Vampire Slayer

yesterday, i hung out with my friends (marc and kelley). for anyone curious... wednesdays (not tuesdays) are usually the days i hang out with marc and kelley. obviously, yesterday was an exception because i have a corporate meeting on wednesday.

needless to say, i had fun at marc and kelley's. interested in trying something different, karen and i bought some frozen pizza complements of paul newman. paul newman has a new line of frozen pizza. it's too bad paul newman passed away. the idea that all of the newman's own profits go to charity is very commendable. it sometimes makes you think why other celebrities or famous athletes cannot do the same with their exorbitant income. after all, i'm sure after a point money becomes just a number to them and no longer a means for survival... unless of course you eat gold nuggets with fries for lunch.

anyway, newman's own frozen pizza... very good. (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.) shortly after trying the pizzas, the four of us did our usual watching of the tv show, heroes. heroes... such a good show! it's no buffy the vampire slayer (and really what can compare to that show?), but it is very good. i won't reveal anything about the episode in case people have yet to watch the show.

in addition to heroes, my friend (scott) stopped by for a visit as well. scott, who lives in new york, was up for a corporate meeting as well. it seems like corporate meetings are the rave... everyone's doing it. just kidding. but it was great seeing scott again. the five of us hung out for a while before his work contacted him. once work contacted him, scott was not too happy. scott did, however, provide a memorable quote for the night. as he was talking to his coworker, scott mentioned that someone "got fingered".

the 5 year old that i am, i turned to kelley and said "someone got fingered!" kelley astutely replied "freddy?" and then had to leave the room as she burst out in a hyperventilated laughter. yes, we are silly. (that was a reference to the awful movie starring tom green.)

needless to say, scott had to leave to re-attend his corporate meeting. but, it was good to see him. i'm glad he stopped by. from there... we started season 2 of buffy the vampire slayer.

now, i still suck at buffy the vampire slayer. we were only able to watch the first two episodes: "when she was bad" and "some assembly required". the former episode featured a sexy dance from buffy (not that i am jealous) as buffy deals with her issues with season 1 nemesis, the master. the latter episode was the frankenstein-ish episode where someone attempts to create a new woman from dead bodies. ah... good episodes... good episodes.

in high school, if i were to create a new woman... hmm... i'll stop there. i'll probably get in trouble for whatever i'd say to complete that sentence.

anyway, it was a fun night... as usual.

oh yes, marc is supposed to send me a non myers-briggs personality test, but he has yet to do so as of this writing. i'd be curious to see the results of that test when i take it. i enjoy taking personality tests. the last time i took a personality test was in college. i believe the results said i would enjoy being a firefighter and an actor. sadly, i am in neither profession.

i should be an acting firefighter... oh what could have been...

I Suck At President's Day Weekend

this weekend is president's day weekend. luckily for me, this holiday is one of the few holidays i actually get off from work, which makes this weekend a three day weekend. anyway, because i have president's day off and want to avoid sucking at president's day weekend, i decided to visit my friend scott, his wife ofelia, and his son xavier, who live in new york, with a few of my close friends. (the following picture is xavier with karen).


anyway, my friends (marc, kelley and cass), karen are i left bright and early saturday morning. packed in one car, we made good time making only one pit stop at a ruby tuesdays for lunch. it's been a long time since we've seen scott and his family. the last time that i recall was after thanksgiving and my infamous choking on steak incident. (luckily, i'm still alive after that incident.)

regardless, we got to hang out with scott and his family. it was good to hang out with them. we ended up watching a couple of movies (which were pretty funny movies), and playing "dead rising" on the xbox (which was also pretty funny... because killing zombies is always fun). in fact, it was sort of a zombie weekend as one of the movies we ended up watching was "planet terror".

scott and ofelia totally spoiled us with their hospitality. they provided such great food for all of us, etc. i would say everyone had a very good time hanging out, eating, laughing, etc. i sometimes wished they were closer so that we could hang out with them more. (although, if you read my post about how i suck at hanging out with ron, physical location may not matter in terms of my suckitude). anyway, i hope to see them soon.