Boy My Life Sure Seems Boring

At least according to my blog...But I we have had a couple of adventures in the past few weeks.

Like this one:

Our Trip to Pittsburgh, PA

We went over Memorial Day weekend. It was a fun road trip with just the two of us to see a new city. And, it turned out to be a surprisingly nice place. I really liked it with all the bridges and the water and such.

Our first stop was to the Carnegie Science Center. Which, at first had me worried that we had paid too much for a kids museum, but it was awesome!!! They have all sorts of hands-on activities that give you an understanding of light, weather, sound, aviation and all sorts of other things.
Here I am building a structure to withstand an earthquake.

We got to go inside an actual submarine.

It was a lot of fun, and it made me feel like a kid again, which is a tough feat, considering how old I am getting.

The science center is located across the street from the home of the world champion Pittsburgh Steelers, Heinz Field.

Part of our reason for going was because Guy Fieri on the Food Network's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" is in Pittsburgh a lot. We like to watch the show, and have decided that we're gonna try to hit up some of these joints. So, in Pittsburgh we went to not one, but two restaurants that had been featured in the show.
First was to Big Jims, where I got an open-faced roast beef sandwich and fries. They put the fries on the sandwich and put the gravy on it. It was delicious.

The other was the Dor Stop Restaurant, located in a nice little neighborhood within the city. We went there for breakfast on Sunday morning. They have the most amazing pancakes ever. You should definitely check the place out.
Saturday night was probably the coolest part. We went to a redeveloped area on the water front called Center Station (something like that). It's been made into a nice shopping/dining area with all sorts of activities going on at night, including a cool fountain that does a show to the music. Unfortunately, the battery in my camera died so I couldn't get pictures of that, or the "incline." The incline is a mining trolley that takes you up to the top of a hill in the city, right by the downtown, and you get an amazing view. Below is a picture I found (cause, as I said, my battery was dead). I wish it showed how cool it was--and we were there at night, so it was even better.
After breakfast on Sunday, we planned to go to the Frank Lloyd Wright house, Falling Water, cause I've wanted to see that ever since I took an architecture class my freshman year in college. I called the place that morning, but there was no availability for tickets, so we decided to go to the zoo, and will go to the house some other time.
After being mis-led by the GPS to the opposite side of town we finally found the Zoo by calling to get a better address (based on the fact that the first selection on their call menu is "if you're having trouble with GPS, press one" I imagine that it's a pretty common mistake). It was a pretty cool zoo. They had all sorts of animals, and you could even see them there, which you can't hardly ever do here in DC's zoo. My favorites were the Polar Bear cause you could get so close to him.

And the Tiger Shark tunnel. (check out the guy's look in the reflection--I hadn't noticed it until just now).

All-in-all, I have to say that in my humble opinion, Pittsburgh is a pretty cool place.



Our Next adventure took us to Connecticut:

We went up there about two weeks ago for an open-house for Mel's family and friends who didn't make it to our wedding. It was nice to have good food, meet the extended in-laws and get a bit of loot to bring home with us.

We flew up, had the openhouse two hours later, then we got to take Mel's mother's birthday present from a year ago out for a spin.I think it suits us quite nicely.

I got to see more sights of Simsbury this time than I did at Christmas. For example, we drove past the haunted tavern, where Anabell Pettybone is roumerd to have been sighted by multiple guests after her violent murder at the hand of her husband.
And this:The largest tree in all of Connecticut (how they know? I don't know, but now you've seen it too) It is pretty big.

And I love going to cemeteries, especially when they're old. This one had graves from 1707. It was pretty cool. They have old-school writing on the head stones and some of them look like they're sliding down the hill cause the earth's moved over the past couple of centuries.
It was a quick trip, but it was a lot of fun.
So, there you have it. We do have good times since we've been married. If anyone has ideas for other fun adventures for newlyweds, I'll be happy to hear them.

New Motivation

So, as I previously mentioned, I have recently decided that I like cake and ice cream more than being thin. Having noticed that I have put on a couple of lbs since the wedding hasn't been enough motivation for me to stop eating crappy-like.
Well, with the absence of the wedding as a motivator, I was given a new motivation yesterday via a facebook invitation to my ten-year high school reunion. Now, don't be thinking that I really want to go to this thing, but hear me out. I have said previously that I didn't care for these people in high school, why would I want to see them 10 years later? It still holds. My two best friends from high school, Kade and Cammie Jan, were talking about their plans to actually go; I scoffed, telling them that it would be a cold day in hell before I would pay to go across the country for a reunion.
So, for the past few weeks, Mel and I have been talking about when we could go back to Utah to visit. She thought that we could go over Peach Days. I hate Peach Days, but have spoken about it to her in the past, and she kind of wants to see it. So, I said that it could be a possibility. And we were pretty much planning on it, and looking for tickets. Then I get a notification that the HS reunion would be held over the Peach Days weekend. Wahoo!! (note the sarcasm) So, since the two will coincide, and the fact that the two friends were planning on going, I figure that I might as well. Anyway, I also made tentative plans to get ready and run the 10k the morning of the big parade. I'm looking forward to this whole trip as much as one would look forward to going to get a root canal, but hey, I'll get to see my family and hang out with friends, so that will be fun.

Update

Not much has happened in my life lately (since the last blog posts, lately, I mean).
I just realized that my blogging skills (read frequency) have been woefully lacking. Small bits o' news. The company I work for is bankrupt, and is being acquired by another firm. Luckily, I will be making the transition to the new company. However, this did include needing to fill out an application for my same job after I received an offer letter. This was no small task--40 printed pages. But it looks like all will go smoothly.
I am in my last week of classes. I have had finals and papers. Tonight is my last final for this semester. Huzzah!! Only who knows how many more semesters to go.
I am also becoming a fatty again. This is not good. The past weeks with an abundance of treats in our house, lack of time to hit the gym regularly, and the absence of a deadline such as a wedding to look forward to I feel that I am getting all gross and fat again.
To that end, I will now commit myself to returning to a more healthy lifestyle after this class has officially ended. I hope to somehow find a way to include this in my blog. I have been watching The Biggest Loser this season, the only one I will ever watch (it's way too edited for dramatic effect). It has been kind of inspiring. If these people can run a marathon, I am sure I can train to do it. I am not happy with the brown team, however, and want them to lose. Please vote for Ron to make it to the final episode (call 1-866-613-0001). That way, either Helen or Tara will win.
Anyway, I also want to make my blog look more interesting. I will work on that.

Violated

My car was ravaged the night before last. Upon leaving my house for work yesterday, I was surprised to see the hood of my car was not fully closed. I thought, "That's weird, I would think I would have noticed I was driving with my hood opened." So I quickly went to the door to open up and make sure things were okay. I noticed they weren't. The locks were all unlocked, which was odd because I never leave the car unlocked. Realizing something was amiss, I completely missed the biggest problem of all (which I'll get to in a moment) searching for how the doors were unlocked. I then noticed that the rear passenger vent window was broken. I am sure I muttered some expletives when I looked at the scene and it all came together. I realized that the glove compartment was completely open, its contents strewn about the floor. Then I saw the gaping hole where the passenger airbag normally would be found. "What the?" I thought. Then I looked at the steering wheel and saw this:


Yes, they took the driver-side airbag too. This is how I felt (anger could not explain what emotions were running through my psyche, but Mrs. White here does a good job):

As I tried to turn on the car, nothing happened. I briefly thought "oh crap, this could be bad." Then I checked the battery cable, which they had removed very quickly as to quiet any noise that the car's alarm would have made, which explains why I didn't hear anything--they must have been real speedy with that.
It turns out that airbag theft is a growing trend. Thieves will steal the airbags and sell them to shady auto-body shops for a couple hundred bucks. Then, the auto-body shop can charge over $1000 to install them in your car after an accident in which your airbags deployed. In fact, as I was speaking to the police officer on the phone, I was informed that she had just finished a call with a guy whose airbags were stolen from his car.
It just pisses me off that people would do that. The funny thing though, is that they didn't steal anything else. Not that I had much else in there to steal, but my watch was left there, they didn't even try with the cd player, and to their credit, they did a good job at not damaging anything other than the window they broke. I haven't seen a scratch or broken piece of plastic where they did their work, so that's nice.

Here's a pic of the passenger side:So, my resolve from here on out will be that no matter how innocent the behavior, I will call the Fairfax County Police to report any activity that seems out of the ordinary on the grounds of the Fairfield Crossing apartment complex. I don't care if it's a family breaking a Pinata for their daughter's fifth birthday, or a man checking the air pressure in his tires. If it's not something that could be found in a scene from the Andy Griffith show, the cops are getting a call. Hopefully it will never happen again.
So, that was my fun activity for yesterday, what did you do?

So, This One Time, I Got Married

Once upon a time, I met this really cool girl. Long story, short...we got married about two weeks ago. Then, we went to Costa Rica on our honeymoon for a week.
Thus far, things are great. It's been interesting getting used to living with someone...sharing the same bed, getting used to one another's schedules, etc. But, at the same time, it's been great to have someone to come home to, to not have to say goodbye every night, and other perks that go along with marriage.
Below are some pictures from the big day, and from our Costa Rican adventure.

The Washington DC temple

Not your typical Mormon gym reception--you won't find any basketball hoops hidden by flowers here, nor is there a slushy drink found in a punchbowl anywhere.

First dance as Mr. and Mrs.

Cutting the cake

People having a good time dancing (further evidence that this is not a typical Mormon reception)

My lovely bride getting down

View of the Arenal Volcano from our hotel room

Our bag was delayed the first day, so we went exploring in downtown Fortuna.

Me looking pissy by the fountain in the plaza.

One of the two pools at the hotel/resort.

We went zip-lining, here were are in our safety gear great look for both of us.

View from our zip-line canopy tour

After the pool near our hotel room.

Lake Arenal

Tons of flowering trees.

We went to a pricy restaurant for dinner on our last night. Sadly, it wasn't the best meal we had there.

Opening our gifts. It was a lot of fun checking out our loot.

And there was no way we were going to let our cake stay in the freezer and get all gross for a year. We decided to dig into it the night we got back. Mmm Tasty.

So, that's my first couple weeks of married life in a nutshell. It's been great so far. Just looking forward to it getting better for, well, forever :)

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Four Days

So, I think the reality of my impending nuptials finally sunk in last night. See, before now, I have been excited and all, but I don't think it seemed real. Last night, however, I was lying in bed, and was just thinking "it's this week. This is awesome." I got so giddy. When I went into bed, I was so tired. This was at like midnight. Then I got psyched up, and I couldn't sleep until about 2 AM.
So now, I am dragging, but I am happy that in four days I'll be a married man. And not just that, but I'll be married to the coolest girl in the whole world.
Sorry if this is cheesy or sappy. I'm just stoked.