life hereafter

random musings from a wannabe economist

kelly and andrew’s wedding

My brother’s wedding was this past weekend. Here are a few pictures from the ceremony.

I spent yesterday helping the family move from one part of New Jersey to the other. Moving day is never a fun day.

We ended up starting at about 6am, taking the boxed items and cramming our cars. (We couldn’t rent a truck until about 9am). After two trips back and forth from the old house to the new, it looked like we had barely made a dent. At 9am we were able to get the big truck and pack all the large furnature, bedroom sets, mattresses and TVs. Then we loaded up our personal cars again with as much random stuff as possible.

At this point I feel it is necessary to point out that items weren’t exactly packed into boxes before I came to help with the move. Everything was just kind of haphazardly thrown into whatever container looked like it could contain the item. Plates weren’t wrapped, and it is amazing that none of them broke.

Around 12 the entire family decides to show up, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, they all came. So not only is the house in utter and total disarray, we now have 12 extra people running around, getting in the way, asking where the food is, and completely unable to help carry anything heavy. Of course, we now have to feed these people, so my brother and I run over to the Italian deli about halfway down the street and order about $200 worth of sandwiches and french fries.

Next we headed over to the storage unit to load all of the furnature that my mother purchased but could not store in her current home. And of course, this was the heaviest furnature known to man. For some reason everything was made of marble and glass. At this point in the day, things started to get a little heated. Everyone had a different opinion on how we should load the items in the truck, where we had to place them so we wouldn’t break anything, and what to do next in terms of loading. By the time we got these items back to the new house and unloaded them, it was starting to get dark and we had to return the truck to the rental place.

Unfortunately, we were not done with getting all of the items out of the old place. My mother’s office was still completely put together.

The entire time we were doing all of this loading and unloading, the only room in the house they completed putting together and unpacking was the master bedroom (of course).

I ended up spending the night on a mattress on the floor with no sheets and an uncovered pillow. Woot.

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Comcast has not completed laying wire to this area and so they are not ready to sign up new customers at this location. On the other end Verizon has completed laying the necessary hardware for FiOS, however they haven’t finished marking the area as “existing” in their systems and so can not create a workorder for a tech to come out and complete the connection. My mother decided to buy a place in the middle of no-where and so there are no stray wireless networks. This place is completely devoid of any connection ot the outside world.

With that, I’m off to Verizon Wireless to sign up for a USB device to at least get one desktop computer on the Internets in this house. Whenever Verizon proper or Comcast decide they wish to service the area, they can cancel the service and get something a little more substantial. For now it looks like the only forms of entertainment will be reading, watching others play Wii and any DVDs that have managed to be unpacked.

I am spending the next two weeks in Florida (my second home.)

Friday night I flew down to Naples, I am spending the weekend in Naples and then driving up to Tampa on Monday. There I will meet up with two other people and drive up to Orlando for a week of training put on by The Firm. Next Friday, I’ll hop on a plane down to Fort Lauderdale to visit family for five days.

Unfortunately my weekend in Dewey has resulted in some severe sunburn on my upper back, chest and shoulders. After spending a week religiously applying aloe and moisturizer to my skin, I laid off on Friday. Of course, that means that after my flight landed and I looked under my shirt, all my skin has started to peel off. Ugh. It’s actually one of the grossest things I’ve ever experienced. I am molting. My first stop in Naples was at a target to buy SPF 50 sunscreen and bottles of moisturizer. After a few swims in the ocean I seem to have “exfoliated” a majority of the dead skin. I have now revealed my semi-burnt, semi-pink, semi-white next layer of skin that is very sensitive to the touch.

I think I have learned my ‘not wearing sunscreen’ lesson.

I had to travel to Dallas for The Firm on Thursday and Friday of this past week, so I thought, why not extend the trip a little bit and visit my family for the weekend.

First, I decided to stay at the W Dallas Victory which was wonderful, whimsical and not the least bit woeful. (Sorry.) The rooms were fantastic, the ghostbar was intriguing and the views were quite excellent. I checked out a lovely little restaurant on McKinney Ave called Bread Winners. Everything on the menu was unique in some way, but tasted absolutely delicious. Although, I do not recommend the spinach dip, honestly I think they just warmed up a can of store bought spinach dip you can find in the chip isle of a supermarket. I had the Buttermilk Pan Fried Chicken as my entrée and it was superb. The chicken was juicy and not over done, the breading was just perfect and the cheesy potatoes and gravy were as homestyle as you can get.

After finalizing work my step mother picked me up from the office and drove me about twenty minutes north to the City of Frisco, where my father is now a police officer. Frisco was very cool. Everything is extremely new, and you can tell that what is there now, wasn’t there just a few years ago. It is growing very quickly, but the cost of living and housing prices are no where near what they are in the rest of the country. A house that would sell for $1.1 million in the northeast was barely $600k in Frisco. As my father has been tirelessly attempting to get me to move down to Texas, he took me around to a few open houses. The houses were amazing. Five bedrooms, two studies, a third “living area” and media rooms were standard. Even the “cheaper houses” in the $350k price range included all of the above features. Not a bad place to move if you are just starting a family, although it is a little too far outside of a city center for my taste. Also, the houses sit on zero property and backyards are non-existent. To get real land you have to move even farther outside of the city limits.

Who knows, Dallas and Texas made a good first impression on me, and I dare say that I will return.

Last Saturday, May 10th, I found myself pedaling down Kelley Drive searching for the Three Angels (which had mysteriously moved from where I last remembered them.) After avoiding numerous buses and clueless drivers, Perez and I found the angels and gathered around the officials for the Coaches & Coxswains meeting.

During the meeting we were reminded that this was an official event and we must obey the rules of the river while also having fun. We were also reminded that we were not allowed to interfere with the collegiate races, and as such would not be allowed on the water until the last Men’s event came down the course. This was tentatively scheduled for 11:21am. I found the owner of Team Concepts and received our bow number, 172.

Back on the bike we start pedaling up river towards the finish line and corporate event tents.  On the way we pass the University of Delaware Alumni Associate tent and wave hello. A few tents down we find our corporate tent and notice that the only ones there are the caterers. I pick up the phone and find out our captain (Mike) and the rest of the team are already getting ready by Strawberry Mansion bridge. However, the boat does not currently have a coxswain or “cox-box” (the device that lets every rower hear the voice of the tiny person facing everyone.)

Once again, we turn around on the bike and head back to the angels looking for the Team Concepts owner. Riding around the area for a few minutes we don’t see him and think it best to call another member of our team who had his number. As we are dialing, he walks by and we ask him what we should do about getting a coxswain and cox-box. His reply is that he already spoke to our captain and we are all set. Gee, would have been nice for Mike to call us back and let us know he already had what we needed.

Back on the bikes we pedal up river past the Alumni and Corporate tent and run into our old college coaches. They were a bit busy getting ready for the next event (which they would win.) Up by Strawberry Mansion Bridge we find our novice boat and meet our illustrious high-school coxswain. We find out that the shirts we are receiving for the race are both sleeveless and size XL. Fantastic. I felt more bad for our cox, as she was about half my size and had the same size shirt in which I was swimming.

We figured that now that we had found everyone we could watch a few of the college races go by and get onto the water within the next 15 minutes. As we start watching the races we realize that they are very far behind and there was no way we would be able to make it onto the river by 11:21. Forty minutes later, at 12:00 we find ourselves getting “hands-on” the boat and heading down the dock. We were informed that our warm up would consist of just paddling down the river until we were at the 1000 meter mark. Not a very long warm up when you consider that most people are hands-on and in the water at least 45 minutes before their scheduled start time.

As we paddle down to the start line we take a few practice “starts.” Everyone is a little nervous and jump, but overall it was not a bad warm up. I was feeling very confident in our race and ability, however I was becoming more and more nervous. It felt like I was back in college getting ready for a race. I knew I should have been out there to just have fun, but I was really starting to feel like I needed to win the race.

At the 1000m mark, they stopped all the boats and lined everyone up, we started to paddle slowly with only stern pair and no pressure down the river attempting to keep even as we approached the official 500m startling line in lane three. We found that even though we were not putting on any pressure we were ahead of all the other boats. This gave me even more confidence that we could really do well in the race.

At 500m, they stopped everyone, staggered the start due to the shape of the river and lined everyone up “even.” I could tell from the beginning that our high-school cox was pretty nervous, and that we were most certainly not pointed at the finish line. As the official says “ready….row!” we do our start “1/2, 1/2, 3/4, lengthen, full, crash!.” Our port side oars were clashing with the oars of the boat in lane two. At first I couldn’t tell what was happening, but then I saw that we were way over the lane markers and completely out of our territory. We were also in a really bad spot, no one on port side could row due to hitting the other boat, however if anyone on starboard attempted to row, it would push us more to port. So, everyone just stopped rowing. At this point all the other boats are pulling away and we are in dead last.

We very quickly get reset, and we start rowing again. This time I’m really mad, but I most certainly do not want to come in dead last. The next thing I know, is that we are gaining on the fifth place boat and making moves on the fourth and third place boat. With about twenty strokes to go, we are even with the boat in lane one and we are in fourth place. With ten strokes to go, we are one or two seats up on the boat in lane one and we are in third place. We cross the finish line about 3/4 of a length up on the fourth place boat and take third.

I was amazed. We were in last place (out of six) and we managed to come back with a third place finish. There is no doubt in my mind that had we stared properly and had no mishaps along the way, we would have been in first place. We quickly spun our boat and headed for the awards dock where we received bronze medals and the applause of the spectators, drunk college kids and our co-workers.

Not too shaby for a “half-time show.” I will definitely be back next year.

Perez and I participated in the Philly Critical Mass this past Friday.

From the website:

Critical Mass is an unorganized coincidence that happens in cities around the world on the last Friday of every month. It is a ride through the city to celebrate and remind everyone about the use of the bicycle as an effective means of transportation.

It was actually a lot of fun and a very interesting experience. I was a bit worried as I’ve seen the videos on YouTube showing people crashing into cars or getting into confrontations, but none of that happened on our ride. People did yell at some drivers, especially the ones who tried to run them over. But all in all, everyone was very friendly and most people seemed to understand. A lot asked what the ride was for, while others cheered the group on.

We rode through Center City, South Philly, The Art Museum, Fairmount and West Philly. It was a great way to see the city by bike without worrying about someone crashing into you, or you moving fast enough for a car.

Rowing practice for the corporate challenge did not go as well as planned this past Saturday. In fact, it was awful. Practice started with our boats one rower and two coxswains absent. The coach offered three high schools kids twenty bucks each to come on the water and act as bodies.

We lined up our boats with the intended race day configuration. Perez was stroking and I was in seven. The other experienced member of our crew was in three-seat. After spending twenty minutes on drills and warm ups we decided to have all eight people row. Eight different people, and eight different ways of rowing. It was a disaster. It was very typical of a crew’s first time rowing all eight, but throughout the course of the practice people just kept getting frustrated and worse. I managed to only get jabbed in the kidneys twice. After an hour of flopping around the river we brought the boats back in and our coach suggested we drop down a level in the competition from ‘intermediate’ to ‘novice’. Advice I think we should really take to heart.

I know this is supposed to be fun, but that competitive spirit keeps popping up and causing angry thoughts.