Merry Christmas every...Oh damm, Parker is out!

Hey gang,

Well, we have had a full two weeks since the last update: where to start...

Family- We did the Christmas party at the condo on the 15th; lots of fun. I feel bad for the Brussin's as they were all sick that weekend and could not make it over. But, our friends Amy, Wayne and his boys, my friends John and Nicole's friend Michele and Quino all came by - even her parents made a cameo. It was alot of fun. We did a gift exchange where I gave Amy, Wayne and Nicole gag-gifts for the gag-gift I got as a new daddy. We played some games, ate too much food and cookies and got the seasonal pic done - posting very soon :)

Chris is now 3 months old today- he is sleeping thru the night still, and now in the goo phase of babyhood. He is using his hands more and is very funny sometimes. He also gave me his first smile and its all worth it :) I am a very happy daddy :)

Steelers - well, let me say that if by some miracle they do good in the playoffs, then cool. Parker is out with a broken leg.. they also lost a game to the Jags, which makes me unhappy - especially when they should have done better. I think they were a bit tired and not ready for that game. They did blow out the rams and have Davenport scoring 2 TDs and 140 yds - TOO BAD HE WAS ON MY FANTASY BENCH!

....speaking of which, Carlos and Rick are in the Superbowl for the IFL. I lost my week 15 game, so Im in the looser bracket. I play Dave Brenneman again, and have a feeling I will loose..who knows.

GAMING:
We are back to World of Warcraft again. Here is the story here - Nicole was upset that I would play on the xbox at 9:30 at night and not spend time with her after Chris goes to bed. We did movies but I think she wants to do something more interactive. We talked about going back to the game with the knowledge that we would only play a few nights a week and only with each other. Wayne and his boys reactivated thier accounts for Christmas and they are on a PvE server, which means that the other faction in the game cannot attack you without permission to do so. This was a huge issue with us the last time, and we spent countless hours getting ganked by higher level characters with nothing better to do.

So...with that said, we created new characters and now play. Amy made a Blood elf hunter, Wayne made a warlock and a warrior, Nicole made another mage and I made a priest. A co-worker made a rogue and might stick around.. Trever made a warrior and has a 49 priest and Tyler has a rogue and the 61 Druid. We then created a guild called Circle of Friends and have most of the characters in it now - even created a guild forum just incase.

More importantly, Nicole and I made rules for each other as to not get too into the game and keep it sane. So far, we kinda did it over board, but its new to us again and we are playing together and having fun. Xbox will still be there, just not used a frequently as before.


MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone! Next update will have some pics and gift news from the loot that we received from St Nic :)

Look for dunk-the-baby cards invitations in the mail and we wish you all a good holiday!

Tuesday - Steeler blues and some good deals

Hey gang,

Yep - Steelers lost a tough game; I think had Mr Smith not said jack squat that the turnout might have been different: Key notes on the game
1- umm if you are the 'safety' and no one is suppose to get behind you, why ON EARTH would you let a Mr Moss (Number 81 for those that dont know..) run right by you...TWICE!! WHY!!
2- Speaking of Mr Moss - he doesn't like to be touched.. so TOUCH HIM!! ITS FRIKING FOOTBALL!! If you jam him at the line, he runs a funked up route.. so push him around!
3- MR pretty boy Brady does not like pressure and folds like a girly man when you blitz him... so BLITZ HIM!! I think after the 2nd quarter, the Steelers said.. naw we dont need no stinking blitz...
4- DO NOT EVER guarantee a win. Nothing ever good has come from a NFL guarantee.. Not only did Mr Smith say on thursday 'we will win' but also on monday comes out and says 'We will see the pats again in the playoffs..' STFU!

ok.. rant over.

Some good deals going on:
1- Amazon has a buy one, get one free on HD DVDs: Check it out here
2- Disney store has some good deals on sale too (slickdeals):
Free shipping with $50 Purchase with Promotion Code FORYOU.
Disney Shopping has a few new coupons available for up to 50% off select categories. They also stack with 15% off coupon code 3199 (no additional requirements) or 20% off coupons STAR or SAVINGS (if using Disney Visa Card). Use code SHIPFOR5 for $5 shipping on $50+ orders, otherwise shipping starts at $8.50 and depends on your order value (shipping chart).

Available coupon codes:

• 50% off Snowglobes with code MERRY50
• 40% off Adult Apparel or Holiday Decor MERRY40
• 30% Off Home Collection items MERRY30
• 25% Off Kids' Apparel MERRY25

There ya go!

XBOX: Playing Mass Effect now; excellent so far - good graphics and a definite roll player. Some action, lots of laser fights.. and a fun game with the space theme going on. I dont get on much recently, but I hope to play some more with friends this week..

FANTASY FOOTBALL: is going ok- I play Dave in the Tideybowl, Rd 1. my match ups are good, so we will see what happens; The real playoffs are looking good too, so we will see who comes out ahead.

Chris is doing good; sleeping thru the night and eating like a lil horse. He is very interactive - loves to be talked to and has started the goos.. :) Happy dad :)

More pics are posted on the gallery, so check em out!

-S

Game Rental Sites Reviewed

Hey all,
For those that have ever wondered about renting video games, let me share my experience with you in a 6 month adventure of Online video game rental websites. This experiment is real, used my money and taught me several things.

To start with, as most know, I am an avid Xbox360 gamer. I love playing games with friends online and even play some with friends and my loving wife at home (She loves to race). In the past months, when a game came out, I would look for a deal but would buy it at the store for the whopping prices of $50 or $60 only to see that the rest of my xbox friends (Some are long time friends) would move on to the next game a few weeks later, leaving me with the game that use-to-be played [see GRAW2, Shadowrun, and a few others]. Feeling like I was loosing money big time, I decided to test the rental market to see if things would improve anymore and save me some cash. Since we have and love Netflix, the online rental/mail it back option seemed to be the best and only deal around

MY Disclaimer: I live in NJ- if you live in a different part of the country, select appropriately, but know that sometimes, closer does not mean faster (See Gamerang).

PRE-FIGHT: Getting info- After doing an online search for game rental, several sites came up and a few I heard of before - Gamefly, Gamerang.. and several others. I found THIS review site that listed the websites, what they offered and their ranking based on some basic criteria:
a) Feature Set
b) game selection choices
c) website usage / searching
d) game arrival times
e) number of renting plans

At the time (May 07), one of the top rental sites was Gameznflix. They offered one game unlimited for $8.95 a month - CHEEP!! AND the had 1st class mail shipping. When I asked some clan members, 2 of them actually used it and liked it.... so if its good for them....

ROUND 1: GAMEZNFLIX: ... It must be for me! So, I went to their website, registered my email address, picked some games, and I was off and running. Within a few days, a game was in my mailbox waiting for me to play it - Command and Conquer 3; Lots of fun but I did like the fact that since it was a rental, I had no obligation to keep it for any length of time. I found it nice to be able to just send it back when I was done with it, and get the next one in the mail.

It was only after about a month of this did I find why they were not #1 on the list; Game selection. Their selection was about 30 games total for XBOX 360. 30 games. That did not include the new releases either, but I know for a fact that there are more than 30 games for the xbox out now. When Call of Juarez was announced, I thought - yea, I can rent that one - it might be like GUN, but newer.. so I made it my #1 game on the rental list. I then started up a spreadsheet with the games, dates shipped, dates received and dates returned to keep a running tab on things.

One thing I found positive with them is their turn-around was amazing. 3 days total. I would ship a game out on Monday and the next game was there by Thursday. The most I waited was over the 4th of July weekend, and that was only cause the USPS takes the day off. Simply Fast from Georgia.

BUT, I was very upset when my #1 choice was always never in stock. Not only was it never there, but other newer games were not there either - I'm talking about 3 month old games, like GRAW2 and Transformers. These games were released in the summer time and they were not even an option to rent!! The only ones I could rent were the older games - 1 year or more older; It was then I decided to go back to the rental review site and see who else was rated higher..

ROUND 2: GAMERANG- I found their #1 pick to be Gamerang. Not sure why or how, but it was their top choice. After looking at their website, i found some interesting things about them that really seemed to appeal to me:
1- they have 4 shipping centers, one of which is here in NJ (By NYC)
2- good selection of new games
3- a 2 month for $20 plan offer with WIRED magazine for free. (Hey!)

So, I decided "Forget gamenflix - they offer no new games - and I never did see that Call of Juarez game..." so I opened a gamerang account in early August to test them and compare em out. M first selection was a new game - it shipped out the same day (Tuesday) and 3 days later I had it (Friday): Madden 08 football. It was excellent timing too, as we have our football draft in august at my place, and madden was a hit over the weekend. I thought - This is a good thing...

Since this was it, on Sept 11th, I closed my Gameznflix account and kept the gamerang account - single game a month plan. Since it was $20 for the 2 months, that was almost the same price as before anyways, so why not. Their selection was much better than gameznflix and since their shipping center was up the road 2 hours away, I thought 'This is it.. finally..' I made my selection list about 10 games long, and had new and old titles on it..

My first warning sign of a bad rental website was the 2nd game: Tiger woods golf. When I returned Madden back, it shipped on the 30th from my house; On the 5th of September, I emailed gamerang and reported a shipping problem - returned game not found. I asked about the next one too, but since it was over the holiday weekend, I put it off and attributed the delay to the USPS factor. On the 6th, I got noticed that the tiger woods game shipped on the 5th and would arrive around the 11th.. THE 11TH!! WTF! 5 days to ship down the NJTP?? Is a mule carring the stupid thing?? After calling their west coast, 4 hour phone number, I got hold of a guy. "Hello.."; I replied 'Yes, I returned a game on the 30th and now I show that my next selection is going to take 5 days to get down the turnpike - what gives??". He then informed me that the game was being shipped from another center and that gamerang chooses the game selection over the shipping location. Sorry - 'I gotta wait' was the response I got.

12 days later, I had the next game at my door. 12 days (sept 11th) . Yes, Labor day weekend.. but give me a break. ok- call it a fluke, I played golf for several days that week and had some fun, but found it too realistic for me. Back in the mailer it goes - Sept 17th. I figured that the next game should be faster since this one would be returned back to NJ shipping center. The next game (Call of Juarez) shipped from gamerang on the 24th and est arrival home was the 29th - WHAT GIVES!! 10 day turn around???

I called my USPS buddy and asked about shipping rates, and how it ships. Since all the mailers were deemed 1st class, there should be no reason why the games returned should take more than 3 days. So Why was I getting 4-5 days each direction??

This happened to all the rest of the games too - not only did it take 7-10 days on average to ship and return a new game to me, but at times games were listed as 'available' i had a rental at home. By the time gamerang listed my returned game back, the 'available' games were gone and I got the next option...

That was it. time to find another game rental site....and give gamerang a final test of will.

Round 3: GameFly- Gamefly was one of the first and after looking at the reviews of it found that they offered renters some good deals.
a) good intro prices - FREE!
b) excellent selection and easy to use website
c) Gamefly bucks- basically you get a discount on rentals for each month you are a member.. and so on. EX: After 6 months, you earned $20 of discount towards a used game. Not bad at all!

They now have 2 shipping centers - LA and Pittsburgh - WOOT - the 'Burgh!! (Note : this is a sign of good things..), so I took the 2 week trial offer for free, loaded 5-6 games into the game 'Q' and waited for the fun to being. This better work....

MY TEST: Since I was on a free trial period, I decided to test them out. If I rented one game from gamerang and another from gamefly, who would give me the next selection faster?? I made the game Q look identical and waited.

1)* GAMEFLY: 2 games arrived 2 days later. Assassin creed and Simpsons; Simpsons was my 'test game'.
* GAMERANG: sent me Burnout 4; This was their 'test game'.

2) On the 30th, we played both games - Simpson's and the racing game. Both were then out back into the pre-paid envelopes, and mailed out to the usual USPS box on the corner on Saturday afternoon before the pickup for the day (2pm). Now we wait and see..

*Monday, Dec 3rd: Gamefly emailed my MONDAY AFTERNOON - "We received your shipment of Simpsons.. " (WOW).
*Tuesday, Dec 4th: Gamefly emails me back - we shipped your next game: Skate. huh?? That was last on the list... guess the hot titles are still too hot...
*Thursday, Dec 6th: Gamerang - website shows that they finally received my game and shipped the next title (Mass effect); game will arrive on the 10th.. typical 5 day shipping for them..
*Also on Thursday, my mail has the Gamefly game included- Skate.

WINNER: Gamefly wins. Excellent website, good selection, coupons towards used games, and fast shipping make it worth the $15 a month.

I then went to their website, changed my plan to 1-per-month for $15, and will return a game (or both) very soon. On the 14th, I will then log into gamerang and send them a copy of my excel sheet with all the rentals.


LESSONS LEARNED:
1- KEEP YOUR LISTS SHORT: If you give the rental websites alot of selections, what you get in the mail will not always be the #1 game; keep 2-3 on your online list and keep a master list off line (Excel or Word..)
2- LOOK FOR A DEAL: coupons or free 2 month/ cheep month offers will get you started.
3- BE PATIENT: ...but not too patient. 3-5 day turnaround is what I expect, not 10-12.

I will post some screen shots of the Excel sheet and can email it to you if you want - just let me know!


Good luck!

Weekend of Sickness; Steelers win another and another beatdown..

Hey gang,

Just a quick post today: Everyone got sick this weekend. it started with me (I think) with me and dad seeing a movie this weekend, right before it ended, I felt it coming up..and just made it to the trashcan before my entire daily meal decided to leave the wrong direction. Least to say, it was not fun. Then Nicole got sick on Sunday morning.. so that made me feel worse. Thank God Chris is not sick....and Amy was able to come by and help us for the afternoon.. Thank you :)

I'm doing better, but still have this chest cold, and Nicole is doing better too.. call it a 24hr stomach flu.

DEAL OF THE WEEK: Call of Duty 4 for Xbox360 is $40 at Circuit City; Go get it! Cheapest it will ever be for a long time...so time to price match it!

FANTASY FOOTBALL: Another Week, another beat down. This week was Carlos Young. He lost his game by Friday morning, thanks to my high scoring Dallas/ Green Bay WRs and RBs :) Next week its the last divisional game, then the playoffs :)

STEELERS: Won another one; It was funny to read about the 'improving' Bungals offense, but like every year, two games and two losses for them. Eventually they will figure out how to win vs the Steelers.... NAW. They did better with the field, just hope the weather hold out long enough for the Jags in two weeks... This week we goto Foxboro for a good match up vs the Pats. (upset??)

I'm loving my new phone - the Dash; I still haven't figured out how to get the addresses on it yet, but I know it will be done. Figure it will be nice to have everyone on the same thing once and for all.

XBOX: Scott and I did some R6 on Thursday; good stuff. I hope to catch them online soon.. Eventually :)

As for the rental sites, I think Gamefly will be the winner; I got an email today about them receiving my game I shipped back on Saturday. WOW - 2 days?? :) finally!


Ok - back to it.. Look for more updates in the week !

Steeler game review; deal of the day and some other random highlites

Hey gang, just a few things for the last few days:

Steelers: What the hell! Lets see... rain and ice in the forecast, so lets... replace the sod! what a disrespectful way to show colors on MNF. At least its a win... and lets hope the ground crew gets next week right when the bungals come to town..

DEAL OF THE DAY (week??): Best buy has HBO series DVDs on sale for 60% or more.. ROME: $32.. (hint hint- Xmas gift for Joe..), and all the others...Band of brothers(We got this one..), Sopranos.. all of em are on sale.

Got the T-mobile DASH: It comes with a free BT headset, so I can give one to nicole to use for her phone now. It should arrive in a few days, so that will be good. Maybe now I can remember all the plans Nicole makes for us and also use the calender for other stuff too.. Also, having mobile web and email isnt too shabby either :)

DEAL OF THE DAY (Bonus): Xbox live for $38 on buy.com. List Price: See Details $49.99
You Save: $11.00; Our Price: $38.99; Shipping: FREE
Buy.com Total Price: $38.99 Use the 5% coupon too:)

Christopher is doing well - he had his 2 month visit yesterday; 3 shots and he was good to go. he cried for about 10 minutes and then he was good :) Also, he is starting to sleep thru the night :) :D :D the last 3 nights we put him down around 9ish and he sleeps till 6am or so. He is maintaining 6 oz bottles too :)

Nicole has her Birthday next week! Look for an email invite today or tomorrow! (Big 3-0)

XBOX: Still on COD4; Scott finally got online and now has R6 Vegas, so we might be going back to that for some excitment :) I love R6 and always will be willing to give it a go (until R6 vegas 2 comes out..

FANTASY: Beat down Rick.. look for my next victim Sunday :)

See ya tomorrow!

Post BF deals

Note to future BF sales: Stores DO NOT Price match other stores and thier adds; I got rejected from Joe Buy for trying to pricematch a game tonight.. punks.

So, next year, pick your stores wisely :)

Some random deals online before Black friday adds go away

1- Rainbow 6 vegas for $20 shipped...amazon

2- a 2GB MP3 player for $35: Best buy online or in stores..

3- 2GB SD memory card for cameras, so on: Best Buy; also in store the have the Micro SD cards too..

Also, I am now between the DASH and the Blackberry Curve; not sure which is better - the Microsoft flavor or the blackberry flavor; will have to look more into this..

ok - back to Xmas shopping :)

Random Stuff Before Thanksgiving

Hey gang, just some random thoughts on the 2nd busiest travel day of the year:

1- Don't go to the store- I swear that there were about 20 cars at the Wendys drive thru today at lunch..
2- Todays best deal: TomTom for $130: This is the best time of the year to buy stuff. LOTS of good sales around....
3- I got Eric's Christmas gift: After I used 2 $10 coupons, a $5 coupon for an item, and a $10 gift card, it was dirt cheep - like $25.
4- Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays as a kid- we would goto my Uncle Berney and Aunt Nancy house in Cypress and play Civ with my 4 cousins, thier friends and myself. Turkey was excellent and lots of football.. this year, its almost the same. 16 people will be over at Tonys apartment this year, and I will be bringing a game or two to play :)
5- I'm loving COD4; last night we played some good matches, but I will say this- teamwork will make or break your score.

Travel safe and I will update everyone on Friday :)

Turkeyday approach and new way of blogging..

Hey gang,

Ive been doing this bi weekly blog for the last 2 or so years.. its been good and alot of fun, but I think I might modify this to be something more of a daily rant like a... blog :) I will see what I can pull off, so look for more posts about all sorts of BS like...

FAMILY: Christopher is now 2 months old tomorrow! HOLY CRAP MAN! The boy is growing bigger each day and getting the 'ohh so cute..' from the females in our lives. I think its time to goto Hooters with Chris for lunch :P Here is the latest pic: Chris meets Santa :D HE goes to his next appointment next week, and 3 shots will be coming his way :)

Nicole is doing well- she and I are going to try and figure out the 'get back to the gym' thing and might have to take turns or something to do a workout until he can sit in the daycare at the gym by himself... should be interesting.

XBOX: Its a good time to be an XBOX 360 owner recently. Lets see - the top 5 games on Metacritic:

1- 96% Bio Shock- a single player game that rocks
2- 96% Orange Box (TF2 and Halflife..)- pure fun
3- 95% Call of Duty 4- GAME OF THE YEAR. This is what I have been playing since last week.. go get it!
4- 95% Rockband - The game I would like to play with everyone at once :) and I call drummer :)
5- 94% Halo 3- yes, H3 is #5 on the list.. Great game and finished the series... or did it??

Least to say, this does not cover all the games like Mass Effect (Scifi RPG should rock..), PGR4, and many more. Im going to do the 'rent one and play COD4' thing.. figure if there is some downtime I could play the rental for a bit...

SHOPPING: ok- Here is the scoop; look for the Black Friday deals online before you go out. HERE IS THE BLACK FRIDAY WEBSITE ....use it wisely. So far since we have all our shopping done, if we did go, it would be for fun gifts for ourselves...but whats the fun in that :) EVERYTHING!! I will be trying for the $230 laptop at best buy, but doubt I will get it.


DEALS: Here is the best deal in town so far: Some bestbuy coupons for $5 off games- save the picture to your desktop, print em out and go get me a game :P

ho-ho-ho!


CELL PHONE STUFF: I need one.. anyone have suggestions?? I have t mobile and was looking at the shadow, but heard its not all that.. then I looked at the RIZR from Motorola.. and also now the blackberry (Jason has one).. Anyone ??? HELP!! I could really use a new phone as I usually get the short end of the stick for the last year or so..

PRE CHRISTMAS EVENTS: Yep - Christmas is everywhere and we have not even had a thanksgiving meal yet! Pre-Christmas sales, music on the radio, wreathes on the walls.. trees in the stores, lights on the malls.. and this is before Halloween!! Give me a break.. Yes, Im all for the ho-ho-ho ness of the season, but at least give me my fall time! For F sake, let the leaves get OFF the trees before putting lights up. Nicole and I passed 2 homes last week with lights already out.. Typically for us, we wait for the 4 day weekend and bust out all the bins, do the Christmas thing and enjoy the time off of work.

Maybe its cause gas is almost back to summertime prices... hmm maybe its time I talk with Dave about that mini cooper :)

THANKSGIVING: Should be excellent - lots of family and good food and thats what its all about :) 14 people this year over at Tony's apartment... yes, the one-room apartment will be loaded with all of us: Me, Nicole, my mom and George, Her mom and dad, brother and G/F Skye, Her uncle and their family and her aunt and Tony - and oh, the two kids Chris and Jason Jr.

..so I will eating outside on the steps :P

Pics and more Black Friday posts very soon!

Evil prevails, DST brings the cold and much more

So, after being happy that the trees are starting to turn shades of gold, yellow, orange and everything else, something happened overnite and now its FRIKING COLD! I'm not sure what happened to the fall time, but we are expecting temps in the 40s by the end of the week - 40s!!

..then the time change hits...

Christopher came back from the Dr on Halloween and gained 3 lbs since the first visit - that makes my son 11 lbs at 5 weeks old. Thats Awesome :) I cant wait to teach my son how to tackle a person.. hes my padawan learner for being the next running back or linebacker for the Steelers :) Oh, and hes cute..... ladies man...

AND we have GOD PARENTS!! Dave Brussin will be making people offers they cant refuse and Gabrielle R. (Nicole's cousin) will be the godmother.. Look for baptism stuff in January sometime..

In other news, the biggest football game so far this season was excellent, and just like I thought, Evil - I mean the NE Patriots won over Indy. Not only did the colts loose their #1 WR but also lost their new guy - so basically they had their #2 and #4 WR playing.. meanwhile, emperor 'bill-i-cheat' had his full arsenal of players.. results in a win for Pats. I am convinced that if Indy had their full team against the full team of the patriots, they would win - and bet your ass they will in January when the colts beat the patriots in the AFC championship game if the Steelers don't do it first. In the AFC for the superbowl will be one of 3 teams: Colts, Pats or Steelers. Of course, Steelers could pull the 2005 season playoff run again and make me a happy man :)

Other news: I need a new phone - my cell is slowly dying... I have a razr and its ok, but I cannot send or receive pic messages, since its unlocked. Also, the other phone we have, the #5 key doesn't work.. so it sucks. We got Nicole a new phone in the summer, so its time for me. As much as id LOVE the iPhone, its not worth it for us to switch over. besides being the $400, there is the drop the phone number from tmobile charge and then we gotta get a new phone for Nicole... so not gonna happen. I was looking at the new Shadow: its like a iPhone, but the lite version of it. It has some smartphone features, and looks like the cost is worth it.


XBOX: After some hours with Halo 3, Im ready for Call of Duty 4 now. I will keep Halo 3 for the Eric factor,but if we both get it, I will consider selling my Halo 3 copy... Also, my refirb Xbox arrived and I will test it out tonight or tomorrow, then sell it to Wayne for $150. He was very interested in it, so i will cut him a deal.

Tomorrow COD 4 comes out and it will rock. Look for the CP clan online tomorrow and thru the week :)

GAMING: We finished up our first adventure with Palladium RPG this weekend. Everyone seemed to have fun and I hope to run another adventure very soon. I think the next one will have less combat and more CSI stuff - investigation, a lil BnE for the thief, maybe some clue work and some thought in it. Also, the chessix order will arrive this week so that will be good. I have another megamat on the way, so that will be good to use with the miniatures, which Ive re-started painting.

PRE-CHRISTMAS: Yep!! The holidays are out in the stores!! I warned you... look for the holiday music in stores now.. complete with the standard ones that we hear all the time. Black friday sales started early this year - Walmart had a 'secret sale' on HDDVD players friday for $100. look out.... wonder what Joe buy will have on sale... speaking of which.. Gabrielle (Nicoles cousin) got a job at the new Bestbuy in south philly... :) can you can 'employee discount??' hehe..

ok - Im off to the Dr with Nicole tonight, then come home to watch the Steelers play vs the Ravens... Im calling it 24-12 Steelers. Steelers own on MNF and over the division, so no surprises here.

S!

Fall is FINALLY here!

Hey gang,

Yea, 5 days..new record.. but hey, I missed out on alot of stuff over the last month. The weather FINALLY changed, and not subtitle like either.. it went from a 90s with 80% humidity to 60s and windy rain just like THAT..(yea, like that..). The next 5 day forecast:
67/40, 64/40, 69/40s, 69/40s.. go figure..

Christopher is doing well.. 2.5 weeks and getting bigger! He seems to have gotten a small sniffle, and I'm sure its from the weather change and A/C last week.. so least to say he isn't a happy camper right now. He wants to sleep in a chair position (upright) and wakes when he goes horizontal... so its a learning curve for us now. 3oz is standard feeding every 3-4 hours.. once he took 4oz and slept for 4-5 straight.. so Id like to get back on that curve :)

Now for the other stuff:

XBOX: Yep - HALO 3 made its way to my birthday presents and its been alot of fun; We got it for Eric, so he and I have had a few chances to get on and play together. We are trying to finish the game together in normal to get thru the game, then will restart it on Legendary..hardest setting. Multiplayer is almost the same, except the weapons have been modified and a few new ones added. COD 4 beta ended in September and it was alot of fun; the 3 maps were getting old, but the gameplay was alot of fun. The perk system is excellent and the weapons are todays army stuff, so its good. I still miss the R6 Vegas matches and will find myself going back to it occasion.. its too much fun not to. See, Halo3 is good, but lacks the realism of COD or Vegas.. so each are different games.

The other game is Orange Box, or rather, Team Fortress 2. This is the 10 years waiting game that was released back in '98 with Half life. Team Fortress Classic was the game du jour for a long time for me, and to have it come out now is awesome.. So many games, so little time...

My xbox also got the RED RING O DEATH!!! Yep! October 2nd (got figure) we went to watch a movie and the ring came on in the corner.. NOOOOOOO!! After a 20 minute call to XBOX, the RMA was set and the return box was mailed to me. With some considering (I did not get the PSP at Joe buy cause I bought it at Toys R Us), the only thing I could do was go get a new one, and sell the old one to someone else, ebay or Craigslist it. So, I took my $250 and a small loan from Mr credit card and my loving Wife's blessing, I went to Joe buy and got the Halo 3 Xbox; After hearing that the new boxes had the Falcon chipset in them (Changing the Moboard and shipset to the newer and cooler ones) was the main selling point. So, My original is off to be repaired and when it returns, Wayne expressed interest in it - Figure $150 is a good starting point, plus any games I might have that I want to sell...

GAMING: This weekend we will be starting up the Palladium RPG game - Wayne and the guys, Amy and maybe Dave will be over to start up a new RPG adventure; I figure once a month is the first goal, and take it from there. I hope that some of the other players will vounteer thier house to host it every now and then - I know nicole and I love having company, but lack good lighting and gaming area that might be needed to do this right. I will be busting out my D20s, D10s and the other assorted shaped dice tomorrow as we start up new characters: Wayne made a priest; Tyler made a wizard, Trever made a Ranger, Amy made a Longbowman(Wo-man..), and Nicole made a Paladin. I also made an NPC Dwarf Mecr and an NPC Thief, just incase we get more players.. should be alot of fun.

Paintball: Im done for the season and will clean up my gear in the next week - When we all goto CA next year, I will probably bring it, but i think between now and April it will be on hold. I think I have an air leek, so that will be something to fix too... great..

HOME: Everything is going well - I have to fix up the bathroom and re-clay the drain in the bathtub - i think its leaking.. Otherwise, all is fine - the carpets need to be seriously cleaned and the next big project will be the kitchen/dining room. we want to re due the floor, paint the walls and possibly re due the cabinets in the kitchen.

Weddings: Michelle and David finally got married this weekend! It was a very nice wedding and all the Maiz clan was there - my sister, dad, aunt and both my uncles. Everyone seemed to have gotten sick afterwards, and we think its because of the AC - very cold inside the rooms. Everyone seemed cold - even use guys in suits. It was alot of fun - Mom Pezzetti watched Chris for us and Nicole and I made the trip up the NJTP. After the ceremony, the reception started right away and everyone at the table made a 'when the 1st Madonna song would play' pool [Michelle is a Madonna freak!]. My cousin Kay won it with #12.. it was alot of fun :)

OK - thats good for now - Look for more stuff in the next week and lots more pictures in the Gallery.
-JS

ITS A BOY!!

Yes, this is the 'Better late than never' post of our first child, so I will backdate it to the right time..


IT'S A BOY! Christopher was born September 21st, 1:23pm, 7 lbs 14oz, and 20" long. Mom nicknamed him a linebacker, and so far, its true.... so without waiting, here is the story of our first Child and the hospital stuff..

Thursday 20th - 5pm - Nicole's mom came over the house Thursday afternoon with Nicole and went shopping, then took Nicole back to philly for dinner. I left work at 4 and headed home to check on the cat, get a few things, and left for philly. at 5pm, I arrived and we sat down for dinner.

6pm -during dinner, Nicole started telling me that her tummy was hurting a bit, then a few minutes later said it again... that got a few eye brows raised. I started to time them to see how far apart they were.. close to 10 minutes on average.

8:30pm- We left for home, Nicole still hurting every so often. I told her that if things continue, that we should call the Dr and consider going in if things got worse just to be safe for the baby. We arrived at 9

9pm- Beauty and the geek started (Nicole's show) and as soon as she sat down, things really amped up. More pain and closer together. I started to write them down - 7 minutes apart!.. wow.. somehting is going on. I called Dr Levine and left a message. 5 minutes later, he called us back and said to keep the breathing going on and to call back if it continues or gets closer.

10:00pm- Show was over, and things were still going strong. Nicole had the breathing thing going well now and the contractions were now lasting longer - close to 70 seconds long. She wanted this to end.. and there was nothing I could do... So we called back to the Dr. He told us 'Look, things are happening and it looks like it will only get closer.. so bring your things and come on down..I have the night watch here, so we will see whats up..." So we got the bag (which was finished packing the day before), got a pillow, locked the house and left... the whole time doing the breathing thing.

10:30pm- arrived at the ER; Nicole took a wheelchair ride to the 2nd floor and I parked the xterra. We did the triage check in and got one of the last rooms there - room 11. IT was a single bed room, so that was good.. On the way I called her parents to let them know we were going to the hospital..

11:30pm- Her parents arrive. Nicole was still going thru the contractions and now there are starting to get more intense. 7-6 minutes apart now..

midnight - Dr Levine pops his head in to see whats up - 1 CM dilated, but agrees to let us stay instead of sending us home. He knows Nicole has a low tolerance for this kind of pain, so he orders the Epidural.

2am Friday morning - The Epidural Dr shows up to put it in. It was the worse part of the process (to this point). They had Nicole sit up, head down and arms together to get the thing in - during which time the Dr took her stuff out, placed things down...etc. Keep in mind that the contractions are still going on... and even took one when she was being held in this acquard position... I was crying when the amount of pain she was being put thru and almost wanted to jump up and tell this woman to do her job..but knew it would only lead me to jail....

2:30- epidural in.. Nicole was feeling better.. After the 30 minutes of making sure she was fine, the nurses check her again - 2cm dilated.. They then told us that it would be sometime tomorrow that the baby would come out. Her dad left at 2am, so her mom took my suv and went to our house to sleep - I got the lounger chair.. Nicole was asleep by 3am, riding her contractions without feeling much at all...

5am- I woke to the nurse checking her - 3cm...

Friday 12st, 7am- I woke to my stomach growling.. so I called the house to let mom know that we were at 3cm and that the best time to come down was either before 8 or after 9:30..she said she would come down after cleaning up and feeding the cat.

8am- Mom arrived and we took turns hitting the cafeteria - I got a bad egg n sausage breakfast and made a breakfast sandwich from it.. the eggs were runny, but it was something to have.

9am- 5 cm dilated. The Morning nurse, Marie Claire, was very nice and really seemed to care about Nicole and the baby. Her contractions were still going on since 2am and they were now getting closer together..

10am- My mom called me to let me know she was going to come down for the weekend, Thanks to my uncle Richie.. I gave them directions and said that we were expecting around noon to 3pm..

11:30am- 8cm dilated. Marie Clair told us it was only a short amount of time before the baby arrived. I called dad to let him know what was going on. He told me he was stuck in center city and would get there ASAP.

Noon - 9.5 cm and close. Marie Clair suggested to roll on one side to get the baby's head to help open things up.. as soon as she did that, Nicole told us that she felt some higher pressure and no sooner that Marie Clair took 2 steps away, she went back to check Nicole - 10cm!! Baby Time!!

12:15- Nicole started to feel more pressure so we started to do a few pushes.. 10 seconds long and 3 times in a row.. After 2 sets of these, Nicole said to me she felt like she had to goto the bathroom... I told the nurse and she said it was suppose to feel like that..

12:30- Dr Levine was called as we continue to push - Nicoles dad arrived and was asked to wait outside... I'm sure he didn't like that..

12:50- Dr Levine came to the room - more pushing.. the baby was doing excellent - Nurse told us that the baby was coming out naturally and doing excellent. When Dr L checked her out, he said - its all on you.. no C section now.. Alot of pain but Nicole was doing SOO WELL

1pm- The babys head started to show now and I started to get REALLY excited. Nicole was upset and in pain... but holding it together.

1:22- baby's head is out and in the Drs hands..one more push....

1:23pm - We have a BOY!!! WOW! I was soo happy!! I would have been just as happy with a girl.. so to me it was awesome either way... BUT no C section and a healthy boy! They took him to the baby table, cleaned him up, wrapped him, and gave him to me.. wow! My son!!! I took him to mom and she held him close as the Dr started to clean up the aftermath of the birth process (Thats the placenta and stuff..ewww). We got wrist bands put on his feet, my arm and Nicole's arm.

1:30- all done with the stitches and cleanup, Her Dad came in the room - we took a few pictures and Nicole was put on the 1 hr watch before being moved to her room. By 2:30, We were being moved to the 3rd floor to room 307. I then escorted the Nurse to the nursery for the official weight and measurements.. etc. What a big kid! 20 inches, 7lb 14oz and all baby... Good size too..

That afternoon, we stayed in the room when my mom and uncle arrived. We took more pictures and got some lunch. Richie went home afterwards and mom and I went back to the room.

For the rest of the weekend we were at the hospital for the most part. Alot of family came to visit Nicole and Christopher in the hospital, and at one point there were close to 8 people in the room. Sunday was going home day- the in house Dr gave us the OK and we took Christopher and Nicole down, loaded into the car and went home. Nicole was still in alot of pain, so it was a bed rest for her. Christopher was still a very sleepy baby to this point, only waking for a feeding and the occasional diaper change.

Some things to note:
a) When Nicole is in the hospital resting, I should visit, but also go back home to do the dishes, laundry, clean and get the house ready. I felt so overwhelmed when getting back from what felt like a 4-day trip to a messy house that needed attention.
b) I really DISLIKE Unos pizza now - not only does it not take-out well, but its loaded with grease.
c) I felt so happy Friday afternoon.. the best feeling ever and was as good a feeling as when I saw Nicole walk down the aisle.
d) Everyone likes the name.. Nicole picked it.. at first I was a bit Skeptical and wanted Anakin Fett Skywalker Maiz, but was promply shot down.. I still got the Padawan nickname :P


Yes, I will post another for the other stuff going on - Birthday, Michelles wedding, so on, BUT will do so later - My son deserves his own post..

OH- His email: Christophermaiz@gmail.com :)

-JS

Kickin off the Fall season...and football is also gonna start too

Hey all,

It's almost kickoff time! Yes, football too, but I'm referring to our baby :P Nicole is full term and can go anytime between now and the 1st week of October. We saw the Dr. last night and all is good. The room is done, except a few decorations, the house is getting cleaned every chance we get, and the baby pool is now at 42 people. The pool gets locked down on the 10th, so make your pick this weekend. I wanted to let everyone know now that a BIG THANK YOU is in order for everyone that has helped us out over the last 9 months, with words of advice, some things-to-get lists and everything else. THANK YOU!

Tonight ends our Baby classes - we took the Baby basics last Saturday and have been going to a baby birthing class for the last few weeks. Tonight that ends with the last class and a tour of the labor floor in the hospital. The only class I want to take next is the baby CPR and they offer it there as well.

And yes, the NFL Season starts tonight :) Saints @ Colts at 8pm - yes Im taping the game. figure I would get home about 1/2 time, so I could skip thru the commercials and catch up in the 3rd quarter. Should be a fun game too..everyone expects a shootout, but what usually happens when that is - a low score game.

Superbowl pick: Steelers over Eagles - 55 t0 12 ... ok ok..thats what I want.. Chargers and Eagles in the big game in Arizona for superbowl 42.

On to events:
IFL: The draft is done! We drafted 10 rounds thru email, then had a fun weekend. Rick and Doug came over saturday afternoon. We played some Madden 08, ordered some pizzas, then busted out BOOTLEGGERS and BANG. Then on Sunday, Rick and Doug played one more match of Madden before the rest of the crew came over. By 11, the room was setup, the laptop was booted up with a video chat to CA (Carlos Y, Carlos M, Jorge and Dave), and the food was gettin ready. By 1pm, the draft was finished and we were set to eat lunch - pulled pork sandwiches, cole slaw, and all sorts of extras. In all, alot of fun.

The rosters are now set and the waver wire is now active for people to get free agents. In all, there is no one dominate team - everyone has a good team this season and it will make things interesting.

PAINTBALL: Went to OTP on the 26th for half a day with mike and quino. We left at 8 and got there about 9am. We played about 6 games before we had to leave due to Mike having to work at 2pm. My Ion was acting funny, so its time to get it looked at - I will give it a cleaning this week and see if there is a leek or something in there. Then it will be time to hang it up until next year.

XBOX: The game rental saga continues. So far its one of two choices. GAMERANG has an excellent selection - lots of games, reviews, etc. You would think that with one of their shipping locations up by NYC (2 hrs from here) that the turn around time would be in the 2-3 day period.. its not. I mailed Madden 08 back on 8-30 (Thursday)..and I'm still waiting for my next game. Granted, it was the labor day weekend, but come on!! Even if they got the game on Saturday, you would think by Wednesday they would mail it back...

The other website is Gameznflix. They are awesome at the turnaround time - 3 days. I mail a game back and I get the next one 3 days later. The problem is their selection and the availability. I put Call of Jaurez on the list as my #1 game when it was released (Back in June). According to the website, it is still not available. Want older xbox 360 games?? don't bother.. they don't have them either. What does that leave me?? Viva Pinata and the one Im loving now - Godfather (this came out over 1 year ago..).

Since getting Godfather, I have found the love for more GTA style games. This one is in the 1920s error - think about 1927-32. You create a new thug - italian of course - and join the Capone gang. From there, its all you. Extort businesses?? check.. run around with a tommy gun or a fancy new colt .45 auto?? check. Get missions for the Godfather?? check. do side jobs for various people in NYC? check.. it has it all. You use a 'safe house' to save your games, avoid the heat and also hang out in to plan your next missions. You can extort businesses and open up the back room to see if there are any other businesses back there (Gambling, drinking.. you name it). Everything you do earns you respect, which you use for upgrading your skills - fighting, shooting, street smarts, health and speed. Overall, an excellent game that will take alot of time to play (with the baby on the way, this one is a good one - i can pause at anytime, take care of business, and get back to the game..)

I also have the beta for COD4 - excellent game so far; its a shooter and its modern day. You get 3 perks which you use thru the game - shoot thru walls, last stand... check it out over HERE

HOUSE: We are loving our home. Alot of stuff has been purged, boxed up, given away.. and getting to a cleaner house very soon. I have some things to do this weekend - rearrange the living room and dining room to make room for the swing and stroller.. stuff like that...

SCHOOL: Lab 1 is done! I finished my last lab yesterday and emailed it in. The grades should be posted shortly and I'm expecting a B or an A. The next lab will be different - it starts on Nicole's due date... guess I have to contact the instructor about this one...cause I'll be damned if I'm going to miss our baby because I'm in class... who knows.. maybe I can still take it.

OK - Look for another post right before the baby comes, unless its in the next 2 weeks... and more pictures are on the gallery, so check em out. I hope to drop off a roll this week to target and get more finished baby room pics up by then.

Adios!

Almost there....Week 33 and going...

Hey all, Just wanted to give a few quick updates on stuff happening around these parts :)

Nicole's shower was a hit! She never knew it until she saw her cousins by the door as we walked up to the room. She loved every minute of it and everyone had a good time :) I took the guys and we hit Hooters, then back to the condo for some 300, but by the time the action was about to start, mom called us back to pick everyone up. WE got back home and I grilled some burgers and dogs - then played Fluxx and Apples to Apples. By 10pm, everyone went home and we called it a night.

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone that attended and also those that could not but still sent a gift :) We are very fortunate to have good friends and family that are excited as we are.

BABY POOL IS STARTED! Yep! Sign up, use the link to the right and make a guess. Winner will have a party at thier crib for 2 with our new child - includes bedtime and a diaper change!! kidding... WE will see about a prize for the winner :)

Babys Room: Is almost done! Between the hours of working my ass off, some help from Amy and Nicole, and some good ol cash, the room is starting to come together nicely. The paint is up, the closet is done and fixed - including the doors, and the border paper is up. Check it out over at the Gallery.

Furniture comes today! YEP! Its in! Once they deliver it, I get to put the crib together and set that up. Then comes the touch up painting on spots that got damaged or where the paint never took. This weekend is ceiling fan weekend, bathroom door painting and master bedroom closet door replacement weekend. I'm going to replace the outlets, install the ceiling fan and also put the finishing touches on the window still - the blinds.

Once it is complete, I will take more pics and update the gallery, but also post a few in here.

IFL: The Fantasy Football league I run with 11 other crazy guys that think they are better than me lol.. WE are in the midst of our fantasy draft now. So far so good, but its the weekends that kill everything. Between people on travel, vacations and time zones, the email draft sometimes gets bogged down. Either way, the live draft weekend is looking good :) I just received my shipment of Sprechers Rootbeer and is waiting for fridge room that weekend. Pulled pork sandwiches and home made salsa will make it complete :) Doug and Rick are coming over this year to join myself, Dave B, Tony, Jason and Jerry. Amy 'volunteered' to help with the draft board and Nicole will run the chat room, as usual. In all, lots of fun to be had.

PAINTBALL: So far, its on hold, but the 26th could be the day for OTP. Its like a last call event for me, cause after that, my paintball career goes to slowdown mode for several months. I hope to make it.

XBOX: Joined a 2nd game rental place - this time it was Gamerang.com. They have 4 centers in the country, including one here in NJ. Im going to keep Gameznflix for now till the subscription runs out, then close the account. They just dont have the selection as the others do, but the price is good. Gamerang has a better selection and similar prices; I got 2 months for $20 promotion, so if they cant deliver in those two months, then they go bye bye.

We love the fridge - lots of room and water!! That was a fun night hooking up the water line thru the cabinets. When I drilled the holes, it was too far away from the wall behind the oven, so it stuck out several inches. I had to re-drill the holes, but in the end all is well.

Thats it for now - Look for a better update next time with some paintball, football draft pics and room pics :) Maybe I can update this faster as each thing happens.. :)

August arrives with a flurry of events!

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay in postings - its been really busy and eventful. Lets just get to it..

BABY and BABY ROOM: We are now in the 30th week and going well. Nicole is fully preggers and has a defined waddle. I reference her to 'you two..' and she seems to like it. So far all is well with the Dr and after this next appointment we will be starting the classes on Thursday nights. We have one Saturday night class later in the month, and the only other class I can think of is a infant CPR class from the Red Cross.

The room is doing well and should make more progress this weekend. I will be painting the trim work, putting up new trim on the walls and painting out the closet and window area. After that, the carpet comes in on the 10th and the only things left will be the ceiling fan and the border wallpaper, both can be done in a day. The furniture should be arriving near the middle of the month, with a crib, dresser and combo dresser/changing table. The last part will be a glider and that is either a gift from someone or a purchase by labor day. Overall - we are good.


For the kitchen, we decided to get a new fridge. Ours is 14 years old and starting to show. I wanted to be proactive about it, so we went with the brother-in-law discount and got a great deal on a whirlpool. We are getting THIS SUCKER :) . It is a side-by-side model and has all the bells and whistles we ever need. Ice maker, water, lots of shelves, white, it fits.. and it comes next Friday :) I got to run a water line now from the sink, but thats not too hard.

PAINTBALL: Nothing new to report here - no new events or games. I was trying to get a small group for the 26th with a few friends around town, but not sure if there is still interest in it. Dave might have plans and Quino/ Mike were interested but felt they needed to buy a marker. I suggested to them to just try it out before they buy equipment to see what they like or don't like - that way they don't get stuck buying somehting they don't want.

GAMING: Well, I got a good entry for this. Dan (Old navy buddy) and his wife Angela invited me to visit over a weekend back in May/June. We looked at possible weekends and when talking with Nicole she told me that if all is well with the babys room that it would be ok with her to make a weekend trip - I held my end up and she let me take the trip.

FRIDAY NIGHT (July 27th)- I arrived at the parking lot around 6:15, parked my xterra and got a pick up from the shuttle in like 5 minutes, if that. They dropped me with my stuff off - one bag with Bootleggers, Caylus and Pit; also included 2 shirts, socks, the usual... And my laptop with a movie and a crossword puzzle. The flight was suppose to be from 7:15 and land at 8:45 Milwaukee time... Least to say Philly airport SUCKS ASS! Not only did they delay our flight 2 hours right off the bat, but within a 15 minute time span, shut down all traffic leaving the airport due to 'weather' - there was a storm moving into the area and they did not want to risk people outside. now, normally I would agree to this little dilimla, but here lies the issue - the storm was 2 HOURS AWAY. Why delay EVERY GD plane 2 hours to wait for a rain drop. Yep! 2 hours later they open the runways back up - while it was raining... now - I seriously pissed.. WTF!! Who runs this armpit of an airport!

Our flight eventually took off at 12:45am. We landed close to 2am in MKE where I met up with Dan. We loaded up in his Prius and took off for the hour drive to his house. Once there, I met his wife angela and thier friends Tom and Angela...(#2) . It was right after I got my bag in the guest room when i heard - 'Lets play..." and I knew it was a gaming weekend. It was also that time that Tom and Dan were thinking about the Keg.. Keg ?!?! Beer!! NO! Root Beer. Yep! Here is the pic:

Notice the logo - Sprechers Root beer. Tasty stuff. More on that later. Anyways, a quick trip at 3am to the 24/7 store and we left with trash bags and ice. After getting back we loaded the keg into three bags and poured ice into them - then called it a night (?)....

Saturday - 5 hours later, I was up and heading to the shower - Tom and Angela were on the Wii playing a game and Dan was getting some omelettes going. After a cleanup and some food, it was close to 11. A few more people showed up when we broke out a game called Fluxx - a card game with changing rules. lots of fun - one for the collection (eventually). After a Fluxx game, we busted out Bootleggers and I showed Tom, Dan and Steve how to play. The high lite of the game was when Steve played a 'G-Men bust on my truck' and right afterwards Tom played a 'Hey, free truck' card on it, thus leaving me by turn 4 without a truck. I got them back when I denied Steve his delivery of 14 cases of beer and gunned down Dans control in the 2nd bar.
After Bootleggers, we played Outpost - a bidding game with a space theme. You bid on cards which give you something to enhance your buying power for larger cards - I always seem to forget to just build for 2 turns before bidding.. its an economic strategy, but works - Dan won, but not before loosing two straight bids on the top card - a Moon base. When the game ended at 3:30, we split into two groups - one played a game called Power Grid while the other, including me, played Caylus. We took the rules and removed the favor option to get a feel of the game flow - we should have left them in the game as it would have made a difference in the outcome.

By 6pm, Dan grilled up some burgers and brauts and we finished up Caylus and they finished up power grid. We then switched gears and busted out Nuclear War - Man, I forgot how fun that game is. Dan (like me) has all the expansions and the mini cards they sold back in the 90s. He modified his deck to make it go faster than the entire thing. We also tossed out the countries and went straight up. After two games of destroying the world, we busted out a brand new Railroad Tycoon. I volunteered to run it and Dan and Angela teamed up. Bill made a discovery that we were doing wrong - the playing card go out on the first turn, then one after that per turn. in a 6 player game, there were 15 cards out to choose from. Least to say, since it was a new game for everyone, it was a slow, but steady game. Tom came out winning, thanks to his hotel in Baltimore and multi-link deliveries. After that game, most left as it was close to 11. We never stopped as right after that we opened up Puerto Rico to discover that it too was a never opened game. I showed Angela, Dan and Tom how to play and we went - Dan took the shipper role, I went for builder and tom flexed in the middle. Angela had a ton of plantations and made alot of goods. In the end, I think Tom won - if not Dan won.. I forget. I messed up by not building with 6 quarries in turn 6 and 7. It was now 1 am; time for power grid. What a fun game! You start off with money and bid for power plants, buy your fuel (oil, coal, garbage or nukes) then build into cities and power them up. Then get paid for each city you power. repeat the process. Tom won by a good margin, but not without Dan and I on his heals. I would have liked to played it out, but succeeded the game because it was 3am.

SUNDAY- 9am come fast on gamer vacation, but hey.. its time ti play! We played some on the Wii and went to a buffet breakfast at the MineShaft - an infamous restaurant in town. Turns out this place is the largest restaurant in the state!! its 4 storefronts long and has 3 levels. After a filling breakfast, we headed off to thier friend Joe and Angelas house for Sunday gaming. Joes brother Will was on leave, so with Ben, Tom, Me, Dan, Angela (x2), Joe and Will - it gave us 8 players. after setting up the Keg, which was 1/2 empty by now, we busted out Nuclear War, Caylus, Bootleggers, Puerto Rico and even Fluxx. WE did play 2 good games of BANG!, where both times Ben was the sheriff. The one game I was a vice and the other I was the Renegade. Both games were excellent, expecially when the outlaws ketp shooting eachother while not knowing they were both outlaws. Then I finished them off each and almost killed off the vice. The problem was that the sheriff had the guy which can hold unlimited cards. At that point, he pulled out every defensive card and gave the vice a drink and by then it was too late - I kept getting thrown in jail and never got a turn after that. By 9pm, we wrapped it up and headed out. We got back and cleaned up a bid.

In the end, here were the stats of the weekend: (Thanks to Angela)
Hours of total gaming: 35
# of people attended: 11
# of Dan and Angie’s cats high: 1 (she is just high on life though)
# of hours waiting in an airport: 5 (Joe M)
Furthest distance traveled: Philly to Milwaukee ~870 miles (Joe M)
Calories of Root beer drunk: 31,900
# of people sick from too much root beer: 1
Pounds of Jerky eaten: 2
Pounds of Cheese eaten: 5
Bags of chips eaten: 5
# of towels used to clean up the water because the bag of ice used to cool the root beer broke: 10
And last but definitely least, Person with the least amount of sleep all
weekend: Tom G.

Look for another event in the near future - maybe this time we can get a large hall somewhere and get both groups together for a massive game event weekend :)


XBOX: Nothing too exciting here - playing Rainbow 6, Saints row (finished the gangs out.. just screwing around now..) and Shadowrun. I rented CnC and did not like the interface - something about not having a mouse to command troops... I also rented Lost planet, but its another shooter, so back that went. Now I have Crackdown at home - its ok, but takes some gettin use to. nothign exciting on the horizon yet aside from COD4. I hope to get Call of Juarex in the mail next week after I finish goofing off with Crackdown. Carlos M stopped playing xbox and Eric is on late because of his work. Im still in CP, so I some online friends there...

This weekend we are hosting a game party at our place. The usual suspects should be there, so expect another fun sunday! Joe burgers in the works :) Also, this saturday is paint the closet and window sill, and the trim, so we will see what that looks like in a month. I want to do the bathroom door, but it will be too humid to paint. When it gets bad, the paint will blister in a few weeks, so its important to have low humidity when painting..

Lastly, There is talk about doing another big game weekend in the future, but it wont be this year - Were having a BABY!!!

- Striker

4th of July events and Paint!

Hey gang - its been awhile, so I figure I would do another update of stuff going on..

George (My stepdad) is going under surgery today- He will be getting a hip replacement and will be undergoing alot of therapy between now and September and maybe longer. We wish him our love, thoughts and prayers in this tough time. If you wish to send my mom a note to send your wishes and thoughts, email her: jngdoonan@mailstation.com

The 4th was awesome! WE went to Dave and Allies house and broke out Railroad Tycoon - it was the closest game to date and took the 3rd tie breaker to determine a winner! WE then BBQd with some good food and then since it was going to rain, we went to see Ratitoui - its a good thing because it was cats and dogs when we walked out..

The latest events happening around the house, and to start with, Comcast SUCKS once again as usual. First it was loosing the NFL Network to a pay channel status. Now not only will I not be able to catch some 'just football' news (vise ESPN), but now I will not be able to see the Rams-Steelers game in December! someone must die.. The latest events were the cable modem; we started to have incremental issues like dropping off and on at random times, so I called their techs. They told me to replace all the splitters. Now thats done, it still didn't fix a thing, so I called back again to see if the IP Address was right, which it wasn't.. so its Finally fixed, but I'm still not happy with the router at home. The solution - new router.

BABYS ROOM: Is doing well - we got the desk out, the file cabinet gone, and took off the false paneling on the 2 walls. I then sanded them and started to put up compound up. After that, it was ready to do a final touch up and hope to start with primer on Saturday morning and see what happens to the walls.

Saturday Morning: Amy came over around 10 and I put the girls to work on the doors - the bedroom ones - while I did the prep work for the room. We wanted to be ready to paint the room on Sunday. By 5pm, the walls were patched and dry and the primer was going up. We stopped for a dinner break when I noticed the doors were not exactly the same white that I expected. turned out that they were actually ANTIQUE WHITE, not ULTRA WHITE.. Opps on my part! So after a quick trip back to Loews, we got the right white color and they were back to it again. The ceiling paint and primer were up by 9pm and the girls had finished the last coast on the doors. By 11pm, the doors were done and in the room drying.

Sunday: The first thing I did was look at the walls to check the primer and patch jobs that were done. the lower wall needed a 2nd coat, so I put it up and by 9am it was starting to dry. After some 3M tape on the ceiling, we were ready to paint by 10ish. Since the weather was very sticky, we decided to NOT paint the bathroom door and to keep it inside for the day. Amy came by again, since I wasnt too keen on Nicole painting pregnant in an enclosed room. I closed the vent and put the fan pointed out as we started to paint the green on. By 2, the green was on a 2nd coat and started into the brown trim work. By 3:30, both colors were up- 2 coats of green and 1 coat of brown. We watch a movie and looked at the results - Not bad! I then made a decision- I was tired of painting and needed to get out of the house - the vapors were starting to get to me and the heat was getting bad, since the room wasn't venting correctly. We went to see The new Harry Potter movie and called it a night.

Next stuff to do is to get the ceiling fan installed, get the trim installed and painted, get the carper replaced and get the closet doors replaced... so over the next several weeks more finishing touches will be going in :D

Check out the pics on the photo area so feel free to check it out :)

PAINTBALL: Nothing new- I received the vest and its awesome. I cant wait to try it out; its too bad that the team that i was playing with has yet to pick a name, BUT they still go out and practice every now and then..so we will see. At Michelles wedding, both Michael (Her brother) and Quino wanted to go out one day, so I will setup a date in August to do a day out ballin with everyone interested. Email me if you want to go!

GAMING: Xbox has been fun as usual- Shadowrun and Vegas are the games du jour still, with a few arcade ones thrown in - Catan and Carcassonne. For board games, Nicole and I did talk about it and we agreed that if the baby's room is working out nicely by the months end that I would be able to take a trip up to see my buddy Dan and game all weekend long. I tried to go for the 'Tomapolouza' plans on labor day weekend, but the Dr feels its too close to the due date. I also joined the online game rental website: http://www.gameznflix.com/Default.aspx Its not bad! It takes about 3-4 days to get games back and forth, but its a cheap alternative to buying games just to see if they are good or not. We also agreed that it was too close... so since that was out and all the flights to CA are now over $400, it was a cheaper flight and for a shorter length. So I will be out there for a weekend if all goes well, and so far, so good.

Michele and Quino and now OFFICIALLY MARRIED!! WOOT! After a long time, they finally did it. THey are off to Hawaii for a nice 10 day honeymoon and should have a great time. Since I was out that way for several years, there were alot of questions for me, but nothing that isnt the usual. ABC stores are the source of EVERYTHING you could ever want for beach and your hotel room.. Goto the Arizona Memorial in the morning, go see a sunset.. hit the beach often, leave your AC on in the room from the moment you walk in to when you leave.. goto Cheeseburger Waikiki.. and of course, A luau is in order..

Ok- look for more pics soon on the galery of Michelles Wedding and more baby room pics!

Dog days of Summer kickin it in

Hey all,

Its that time of year - 90s with that lovely humidity with thunderstorms every night! YEEPPIE! I cant wait for the daily power outage at 5pm later tonight! Usually what happens is that the power glitches and knocks off my router just enough for the vonage phone to get out of sync - then it cannot resync nicely and blinks all night long until someone calls the house and goes to my cell phone.. oh well.

As promised: THE GAMING TABLE OF YESTERDAYS!:

From left to right: Benji (?), Carlos M, Eric S (blue & white), then its Bruce (black shirt), Brian C, myself (in the red) then Dave C (hidden), Carlos Y(green shirt) and finally Joe D (blue/white plaid).

This is the dining room in my dads old house; the table is 4'x8' and the bench was on the left side. The chair at the hutch end was where the GM would sit - usually me or Joe D. The table was originally a train table for my trains when I was a kid, but since the 9th grade, i took it from the living room into the dining room - mainly because my dad wanted us to play in the non-TV room.. Least to say, it was used almost nightly and always on weekends. It was so busy there at times, I got a OPEN/ CLOSED sign for the bedroom window - that way people could drive by and see if things were going on or not...

This weekend was good: Saturday we got some paint for the baby's room and we painted some patches on the wall to see what we like and don't like.. Then decided on Green and Brown.. I'm not sold on the brown yet, but we will see- maybe a shade lighter than the poop brown that it is now (thou it might have advantages with new born babies and poop...EWW!) Saturday ended with a Star Wars Ep1 and Ep2 DVDs.

Sunday was good too- I was able to get garbage out of the file cabinet and now I'm down to the rest of the last drawer; Tonight I get to empty it out and move it into the truck. Then tomorrow Kent will take from me for some $$$ and its a gonner! The file cabinet in question is one of those 5 drawer monsters..It does fit into the back of my truck, so I hope it fits in Kents Jeep!

Anyways, After the cabinet, we had lunch and Dave and Allie came by along with Amy; We play some Puerto Rico and Pit, then grilled some burgers (Not Joe burgers, just regular ones..) Whats a Joe Burger?? Well, you gotta just try it. I basically take about 8 oz of the good beef, mix in some spices and grill it up to leave the middle cooked and the juices hot and fresh. Then put it on an Arnold's bun and BAM- Joe burger. My next burger batch will include pineapples and BBQ sauce.. anyways, we played PR where Dave won with his builder plan - I tried the shipper route, but that turned to crap.

STEELERS: Who else DID NOT get Steelers tickets this year!! (raises hand) I swear, the bes deal in town was the mail a way tickets; Most people didnt know about them and only the loyalist fans could remember when to send in their money and requests. It kept the scalpers at bay and I was able to at least get to some games; I would make the trip across the PA Turnpike and make a weekend out of visiting the best city in the US of A. Now that the box office moved the ticket sales to ticketmaster, its going to be IMPOSSIBLE to get a single game in, let alone find seats at a good price. I guess paying a few hundred for 2 nose bleeders might be worth it, but we will see with the new coach..

PAINTBALL: I ordered the new vest,
knowing that I got $30 for my old one. The new one is similar to the other one but a tad different..Its OD Green and has no tank holder on the back, but it does have a zipper in the front, which is sweet; easy off and on.. Also, it has all the pouches that I could use and has the bladder for the water bladder on the back :) Next up is better camo: MARPAT camo which the Marines use...

SCHOOL: Start tomorrow - I got ECE Lab 1; Not sure on the class stuff et, but I will check it out later today.. I'm glad to get into the class as its near impossible to get the night lab classes and they only start once a year..

XBOX: The CPers stopped playing the shooters and now moved onto Shadowrun and FM2; Every now and then I catch em on R6 Vegas, but everyone seems to be doing their thing. It's not a bad thing, as I know summertime is vacations, lazy days with family and house projects, so I'm not going to put too much into it. I just wish my CA buddies would get off their asses and get online so I can kick their butts at Catan or R6 Vegas..

BOARDGAMING: My buddy Dan is planning a game weekend in WI; The problem is that we are in the midst of a baby room renovation and my time is limited to getting stuff done. I think that by the time the end of July comes around we should be ready to go for carpet, so we will see about the trip. I would rather visit my sister and dad in CA, but the tickets are too much now! They cost almost $425 for a round trip..and up!

Anyways, I'm still waiting for some pics from the party last weekend, so I will put em up as soon as i get em. Also, look from some progress pics of the baby's room too!

Cheers - And enjoy the heat!
JS

Coming up to the Longest Day of the YEAR!

Hey gang... I'm back again :)

Its been a wild week since the Paintball NJ NAM game weekend.. I had finals, more baby room stuff, a trip to Wilwoods and more.

SCHOOL: Isnt great, but its done. I got a B in JAVA- I pretty much spent all weekend working on this project because of two reasons: 1) 2 of the other people in the group took off to visit home. Now Im all over going home, but when there is a FINAL PROJECT DUE before you leave, one might wanna.... FINISH IT! oh 2) since two of the 4 members could not figure it out, it was up to me and the 4th to finish it. ITs a good thing that the other guy in my group knew how to write code... Anyways, we got a 95 on it and I got a B in the class.. MAth- well, lets just say that I gotta retake that one too. Im not doing well in these high level math classes; at least this instructor was a good one; just the grading system.. tests only- kills me. I suck at tests, especially ones that involve memorizing complex math equations that I will be seeing used in software.. yea yea I shoudl know it because Im a 'great engineer..' but give me a break! Finding all the roots of e(sinx+cosX).. comeon...

Next quarter - LAB 1! nice 2 hour class; too bad this one will involve a partner once again...

BABY: WE are STILL trying to get the rest of the old stuff out.
The file cabinet and desk go this week- that leaves the closet, walls and floor to be done.. My plan: Get the old furniture out and rip apart the room - leave the closet for now. I can always take the stuff out and trash the carpet before we get new stuff. I got almost 6-8 weekends to work on it, plus weekdays we are not going out. There is a plan :)

We did find a good crib and furniture, so thats a good start..

PAINT BALL: Well, I sold my vest for a cool $31; so that goes into the new vest war chest fund. I found one I like so we will see what happens. The group I am trying to get into is in the midst of changing their team name and leadership, but its not a bad thing- they love to play, have fun and just wanna goto events and have a good time = my kind of group! Some practices might be coming up, but Id like to get to OTP with Dave and anyone else that wants to go... maybe in a few weeks! (1st of July??)

SHORE: YEP! The shore is now an official Strikers QD entry;
Whats da shore?? THIS IS THE SHORE. Its the Wildwoods, OceanCity and all the rest of the famous NJ shore locations. Also, Boardwalk fries, Kohr Bros Custard (Sprinkles!)and more. We are now contributing towards the shore house this year and probably will for years to come. Do I like the house?? its ok- but for the price its great. Id LOVE to own one down there and just rent it out to ourselves in the summer.. pics to follow!

This weekend we went down for the night with Amy; she was a Wildwood 1st timer (Virgin!) She liked it- very unique experience there... the TRAM CAR :) the people..everything. It was a nice break for Nicole and I to get out; I knew she wanted to go... so why not.

XBOX: got Forza Motorsport 2 and its a cool racing game. I made a Steeler car and its sweet. The racing is cool, but I hope to play some of the gang in CP; Last night we did more Rainbow 6 stuff - I really love that game.

BOARDGAMING: Well, Gaming weekend was a disaster- everyone but Amy backed out; Im really getting tired of these so called gamer friends I got... I need to pay them more!! No... I know everyone is busy doing summertime stuff and gaming is taking a slow down - simple as that. We will get one weekend in soon :)

MY old navy buddy Dan found me on boardgamegeek and sent me a note to say hi; we traded emails and just updated each other on our lives. I hope to get in some gaming soon! Hes doing a WEEKEND FULL OF GAMES.. wow.. just like the golden age of the Gaming table of Maiz house (WHICH SHALE RETURN!!) Whats the Gaming table of Maiz house?? picture a 4x8' table with an old bench on one side and chairs around the rest to seat 10. On the table is a hand painted map of Supremacy, thanks from my Sister - Supremacy's map is the World.. You could eat your dinner in Siberia - thats how big the map was.


Anyways.. Off to work! Look for more updates on the room; Pics from Evelyns first birthday in CA, and much more!

JS!

Summer time is here!

Hey gang

Just a quick note this week on some highlights of random events..

PAINTBALL was awesome. I met up with Chad and his team on saturday morning in the pre-Africa heat. Game time started at noon, so after the 1hr registration line and the 40 minute chrono line, game on eventually went on. We flanked far left and met up with the red team after about 10 minutes of walking. The first fight was a stalemate, with both sides taking alot of hits. The field was more square than I prefer, with alot of the trails running thru the thick brush. It was so thick, you could hardly move thru it without getting ticks or something else all over you. About 2pm, i headed back to refill the pods and also get some water/ snacks. By 2:30, the rest of the team was back at camp re-hydrating and no sooner than 3:15, we were ready to go, only to be told that the game was called off till 6pm - WHY!! Well, it seems that a few folks decided to go and get heat exhaustion because they didn't drink water in the 95 degree heat with 80% Humidity! Least to say, I went home about 4pm..

Sunday was better- game time started about 10am, and it was alot cooler out with a lite drizzle. WE played till about 12:30 when my batteries started to go on me. I left shortly after that because Nicole was feeling sick and she needed some TLC and medicine :)

SCHOOL- Finals are this coming week, so I will be doing my group project for JAVA and also some math studying. Im more worried about the JAVA stuff because: 1- I suck at Java and 2- its a team project= noone does anything and its hard to reach the other full time kids in my group. I will see what happens.. I just wanna pass this class...

HOME- Got a few projects done, BUT the PC is now in a new home and the corner desk is at Tonys house. I now need to remove the old desk, clean out the file cabinet and also get the room ready for minor demolition. Then remove the carpet once the closet is cleaned out some more... Lots to do and it will start once I get done with finals..

FAMILY- Nicole is doing well- she had a DR appointment last week and all is good. Dad is doing well; he sounds kinda bored, but he is doing well. My mom is coming down to visit this weekend with George and it should be nice to see them again. She is gonna help with the Kitchen and organize it with us while I install new tiles into the cabinets.. pics to follow soon.

XBOX- Same ol stuff here; I talked with carlos and NFL is now in the drive some more. I started a superstar QB- Joe Striker- hes now on the liones.. we will see whats up. I still play Vegas with CP and Saints when nothing is goin on- The yellow gang is almost done, making the city Purple!!

Oh well - Im off..

Look for a better post in a week when I got more time :)