To The Metal

So the big news in Warwick today is that a Price Chopper has opened nearly across the street from its main competitor – Shop Rite.

I had some shopping to do, so I figured ‘why not?’

Nice parking lot, nice wide aisle, decent selection of products, pricing is… not all that impressive.

Sure, they had a bunch of nice deals, but they were mainly for store brand products.  The meat selection looked good, but their burgers and steaks are HUGE.  That’s fine and dandy, but why spend $20 for 8 big ass burgers at PC when I can spend $8 for 8 fresh ground quarter pounders at Shop Rite?  Everything’s bright, and clean, but perhaps one day when I’m not towing along my 4 year old I’ll get a better look around.  I also noticed – no dark chocolate hersheys baking powder… WTF?  I didn’t get to see if they had a gluten free section either.

My first impression is that PC has a VERY large hill to climb if they expect to threaten SR.  The only supermarket I think that will be threatened is A&P in Vernon, which is very similar to PC in price, selection and size, and has plenty of NY plates in the lot every time I go.

I really don’t care for the ‘no turn on red’ crap leaving the lot either.  The visibility looks adequate for me, but then again local drivers are such retards I wouldn’t want to put money on them NOT having a dozen wrecks a day due to some impatient idiot.

My prediction, yuppies will go to PC, everyone else will go to SR, and A&P will continue to scrape by.

Big Tobacco claims NYC posters are unconstitutional.

Gotta say, I find myself siding with the tobacco companies on this one.  To summarize, NYC now requires any establishment that sells tobacco to now show downright disgusting posters showing the effects of smoking.

It wouldn’t be an issue if the only people who saw them were smokers, but instead normal folks who simply want to buy milk, eggs, or a lotto ticket are now subject to things that are forcing them to shop elsewhere.

NYC has been overstepping its bounds for years, the level of social control in that city is disturbing at every level, and the fact that the only way something can be done to stem the tide of bullshit from city hall is to partner with big tobacco – really shows how ridiculous things have gotten.

Picked up a Keurig pot for the inlaws from Rachael’s Daily Discounts a week or two ago.  Almost immediately, it had problems… it wasn’t drawing water from the reservoir.  So I call up Keurig, they walk me through a few steps, and it turns out the reservoir wasn’t seated properly.  I pump out 3 or 4 cups of coffee – no problem.  Find out a week later, its having the problem again.  I call Keurig one more time, now they’re shipping us a brand new brewer, 2 boxes of coffee, and all they want is the k-cup holder from the broken pot.

That simply blew my mind, pretty f’n good customer service!  Plus with the old one I can take it apart and try to fix it now… LOL

How is it that in this day and age, there are people who still do not ‘get’ how to use a drive-through ATM?

I’m stuck behind this older guy in a Caddy today for at least 10 minutes.  I pull up, he’s got the car parked at an angle, door open, reaching through the window to use the ATM.  He’s sitting there, hunting and pecking through the menus for 10 minutes before he FINALLY gets his money out of the machine.  How hard is it?  Pull up close, watch out for your  mirror, reach out through the window, enter your pin, select the account, select the amount, take your cash and leave.  It shouldn’t be a 10 minute 12 step process!!!

Finally saw Avatar on Sunday night, WOW.

Simply put, Avatar is a classic Cowboys & Indians movie, updated for 2010 with a decent plot, and mind blowing special effects.

What annoys me though is when people need to call it ‘predictable.’

Of course its predictable, it’s a movie, Hollywood has been reusing plots for 60 years, saying you could predict the outcome of a movie in 2010 is like saying you can predict breaking wind after eating onions…  Definitely worth the cost of the DVD, and I’ll probably watch it a few dozen times before I get tired of it. 🙂

Ran for it around noon on Friday, spent the afternoon home with my fiancee and stepson, watched knight rider, then headed to the inlaws for some bbq… Saturday, managed to run some errands in the afternoon, got our registration done for various wedding gifts, lunch at the diner, dinner at friendlies… Up again at 5am the next morning to go fishing.  I haven’t been fishing since I was 14, still have my tackle box, all my lures, and a really nice rod and reel, I just never bothered to get a license and go out for the past 16 years.  First stop was Glenmere over in Florida, NY.  Pretty big and WEEDY lake, I got one bite on the hook but that was about it for nearly 5 hours of fishing.  Got a pretty good workout (and sunburn) rowing around though.  Next stop was the Wallkill river off of Oil City Rd outside of Pine Island, NY, managed to land a single small mouth Bass but that’s about it.

As for Monday it was the first time we had a big family dinner with my fiancee’s family and my own.  It was an outstanding feast, we all caught up, shared stories, and had a wonderful time.

Memorial Day though, that’s a special day for me.  God bless the vets – but I have my own reason to remember that day.  See, 18 years ago, at the ripe age of 12, I finally worked up the nerve to ask a girl I liked to the school dance.  I had liked this girl pretty much since the first day she arrived at my school, just something about her caught my eye and wouldn’t let go.  After longing from afar for years, I decided that on Memorial Day 1992, I was going to do it.  She was in the high school marching band, so I knew she’d be in the parade.  My plan was simple, follow the parade, watch her perform, then when it was over ask her out.

The last thing I remembered for nearly 15 years was pulling down onto South St from Main St in Warwick, only to wake up in the hospital hours later surrounded by my family.  All I’ve been told is that I was found lying in the middle of Second street, between St Stephens church, and Christ church.  My bike was on the sidewalk of St.Stephens on its side.  Completely incoherent, I was there enough to tell the paramedics my name and telephone number… they actually pulled my ambulance from the parade.

I spent half a day at St Anthony’s hospital getting stabilized, then another 2 days at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, NY.  They weren’t sure that I’d come through OK, as I had a significant skull fracture, and the part of my head that got clobbered would affect my vision and olfactory senses…  I was also out of school for 2 weeks.  My folks had contacted the school to get me some homework so I could catch up, but when I returned – everyone had thought I moved out of town…

So back to the girl…  Since I was out for 2 weeks, I missed the dance, I missed my shot.  I spent the next few years of school back in the corner, admiring from afar, never working up the nerve to say more than a few passing words to her.  Eventually high school turned to college, where I had dropped out after 6 months to return to work, and my life kinda continued on its rambling path until a few years ago when I was browsing MySpace and found her again.  The second I saw her photo, everything came back.  I was in my late 20s and feeling like a kid with his first crush all over again.  Eagerly I clicked through each photo, read every blog post, and tried to see where she went after we parted ways so long ago… and then, I simply said ‘why not?’  So I emailed her and told her the story.

A day or two later I get a response… “Wait, what?  Are you sure you’re talking about me? Is this a joke?”  That did it however.  We started talking, sharing recipes, being friendly….  I was loving every minute of it!  Now a few times I had asked her to meet, just hang out, get some coffee, etc…  But I never really got a firm response until I asked if I could stop by when she was getting a tattoo done.  So I got there, she was getting inked, and we proceeded to chat for a few hours, catch up on a lot of stuff, and it honestly felt like we had known eachother the entire time.  We just started talking and kept going, I left the place that day feeling like a rock star, like ‘holy crap, I actually just talked with her!’  This was my dream girl, my unicorn, the one that got away… and I was finally catching up to her.

So some more time passed, and I tried to get her to come out to dinner with me… in the mean time I had also begun going to the same church as her family.  For a long time I had been talking about going back to church, but my standard RC upbringing just bored me to death.  After one visit to Christ Church, on her recommendation, I was hooked.  With very few exceptions, I am there every Sunday – a fact my parents are still shocked about.  Now one of the big things this church holds each month is a potluck dinner on the last Wednesday of each month.  I had missed the first one, she was there, and I – in a panic – left before it started since I was afraid to actually be near her – I was THAT nervous…  scared senseless that I would say or do SOMETHING that’d make me look like an idiot.

But time went by, and we began the process of smack talking, as we were both exceptional bakers, at the July pot luck – with some prodding from her sister – a challenge was born.  She would cook an entree, and bake a dessert, and so would I… the winner gets bragging rights, and nothing more… or so everyone else thought.  I saw an opportunity to place a bet!  The bet was simple, if I win, I get to take her out to dinner.  Now I had been trying to get her to come out for MONTHS, so this would be a major accomplishment. Up until the event, we continued to talk, smack and otherwise, but the night came and I was knocked over…

She normally had long hair, but she had gotten it cut short…  The moment I saw her, I had tunnel vision.  My tongue became tied, I think I broke out into a sweat, and everything besides her became blurry.  I honestly don’t think that ever happened to me before, but the evening went on.  She made a lasagna and a cheesecake, I made a chili and a chocolate cake.  In the end, after all the voting, I beat her by 1 vote.  Victory!

So I got my date, and several more…  I never gave up hope, I never stopped trying…  On November 21st we agreed to be exclusive, and on December 18th, we were engaged to be married.

Many people were shocked at our time frame, how fast things appeared to be moving from the outside… but for us, it was a life nearly 20 years in the making.

I will always consider Memorial Day 1992 as the first day of the rest of my life, as it was on that day, 18 years ago – that I decided to finally live this life that God has blessed me with, regardless of how many times I fall off that bike or crack my head open in the process.  Never stop trying, never stop believing, and everything is possible. 🙂

Back when I was a kid, every year we’d have school photos taken.  Nothing new, right?  The school would take a basic photo, and if the parents opted to – they could pay for fancy backgrounds, and various photo packages.  It was simple, it was easy, it was fair.  This practice hasn’t changed, however…

Now, later in the year, they take another batch of photographs, this time a little more artsy, outdoors, professional GOOD photos of the kid posing by a tree or something similar with a big smile on their face.

Then they send a packet home full of these photos, keychains, etc, with each child.

“If you want to keep them, pay us.”

My friends, while it works – I find that practice to be absolute bullshit.

It’s one thing to tell parents in advance, like normal photo day, that pictures will be taken, and again give them the option to buy a package.  It’s something else entirely to pull this sort of crap and extort cash from parents, especially after using the kids as marketing tools.

Needed something that’d both allow me to get my TV and Xbox back, as well as provide leverage for discipline for the kids…  So I picked up a used PS2 at Gamestop, a copy of Lego Batman and Lego Star Wars, and set it up in my kids room.  With this new toy is a massive BOOST in the hand-eye coordination, reading comprehension, and FUN factor in their lives, but also I believe it will be a great way to keep them in line, and also put a stopper in the boredom that can come from rainy days stuck inside…

That, and those LEGO games are addictive, so I’ll probably be playing when they’re asleep anyhow. 😉