House Post #1 - Main Floor

I bought a house in Canton that needs a lot of work. I see it as my project for the next 2+ years. It is in livable condition and the second floor (where I will be living) is in pretty good shape. This leaves the whole first floor as my workshop and my retreat from any stress I may feel at any time. Here are some pictures of the first floor from when I first moved in.

Weekend round up

After my night out Friday, my old roommate dropped her dog off for me to watch over the next week.

Skye (the pit) is a county dog and was really confused by the lack of grass during the first walk. She didn't go to the bathroom until the third time I took her out. So after walking her I left her to go to my sister's boyfriend's uncle's grandmother's thrid cousin's 30th birthday (- the uncle, grandma and cousin). My sister recruited me to work the grill about 4 months ago.

The party was a suprise for Bryan and it turned out he had no idea. His parents, sister and about 25 - 30 friends showed up in the back yard of a Baltimore city house, needless to say, it was packed. While cooking I had plenty to drink (helped get rid of the hangover from the night before), inhaled at least a years worth of grill exhaust, and felt my eyebrows singe on more than one occasion. The food turned out great, the rain held off (aside from two less than 10 minute showers) and everyone seemed to have a great time. Instead of staying for the 3 - 4 hours I had planned on, I ended up leaving after midnight and riding my bike home drunk. Being that I got my bike back last week for the first time in about two years and was riding home drunk around the same time other drunk people were driving home from the square ... I felt good about my chances of not getting hit by a car. I got home fine and took Skye out for a walk then went home and passed out.

Sunday I took Skye to my mom's in Columbia to play with Joey (the blonde mutt in the picture) and do my laundry (my house is under construction and I don't have those appliances (well, I do but not in working order)). Other than Skye trying to get in my lap as I drove through the Harbor tunnel and almost killing me, the drive was fine. Joey and Skye did great together and I got my stuff done and went to look at a new phone (they didn't have the Curve in stock so I will go back later and get it). Got back to Canton around 6 and put on a movie while I cleaned up the house a little. Watched the first disc of "The Tudors" and went to sleep.

I have determined that I do not want a dog until I have a yard. The whole needing to walk the dog three or four blocks to find grass right before bed when I have already been lying in bed for 3 hours and needing to get dressed and walk the dog in the morning before taking a shower and actually getting dressed is too much of a sacrifice for me. I have no problems walking the dog in the morning, but would rather do so after I go through my wake-up routine ... this would result in cleaning up after the dog being added to that routine. I need to have a small back yard for short bathroom only breaks before I have a dog.

Anyways, I am in for a fun week of Dragonboat practice, volleyball practice, and dog watching on top of the always exciting work day.

Last night

So last night ... and by last night I mean Friday night since it is now past midnight and last night would really mean tonight.

OK ... so last night I went to a happy hour for this guy (who said he would add me to his "Blogroll") with Brian and Dave. I now have several things I must do as a result of this excursion. I volunteered to help this girl with some home improvement demolition (which I would actually love to do). I need to try Haggis because the happy hour host and his Mrs. spoke so highly of it. I have to take a glass blowing class and need to remember to get information about doing so from Charissa (and I need to not eat the Hummus at Don't Know). I met a lot of good people and learned other people's reasons for blogging and can compare them to my own (or at least what I think my reasons for blogging are).

After meeting all those good people (and winning a game of shuffleboard (and losing Dave and Brian to random circumstances)) I headed to Mother's then realized everyone I was meeting up with was at "the Magic Bar" (Illusions). I went over there and had a couple beers and watched the show then we left and went to ... Mother's. After a while and some more beers I went to leave but there was a horrible storm out the front window. I went back and had another beer with my friends hoping the storm would pass, when I went back to leave it was still raining. I asked the person next to me (some random stranger) if they knew when it would stop raining. They looked at me funny and just walked away ... I was confused so I looked out the side window and it wasn't raining there. Apparently someone or something hit the fire hydrant across the street and it was spraying all over the front window but I was too drunk to realize it wasn't raining until that person gave me a funny look. I left through the front door (because I was too stupid to use the side door and not get sprayed with Baltimore fire hydrant water).

Overall a good night.

Realization

So I've realized that while I think of things I want to blog about just about every day, I have zero desire to sit at my computer while my house is still in a state of disarray. Also being a devoted procrastinator, I don't see myself logging too many entries throughout the work day (as I am doing right now). Hopefully I will be able to get into some kind of rhythym and post on a semi-regular basis and maybe this will become worthwhile for you to look at more than once a month. I decided to post today because I am going to a happy hour tonight at Don't Know and there will be a bunch of bloggers there that I have never met and am really interested in meeting. Plus, I have to buy this guy a drink because it's his last month of blogging and he has brought much joy to my workday.

That's all for now, maybe I will add something meaningful one of these days.

Today and some weekend pictures

So today was a productive day, I joined the dragonboat team at work and had my first practice and joined the gym in Canton and am planning on going tomorrow. I hope some of the pictures someone took from dragonboat practice get sent to me so I can post them.

Speaking of pictures, here are a couple fro this past weekend semi-camping at my friend Lucas' parents farm.

The tents set up in the yard The rough camping set-up

Yes, that is us playing rockband on a sheet with a projector in the middle of no where, Westminster

... or are you just happy to see me?

So my sister's boyfriend has a little garden in his back yard (which makes me wish I had a yard instead of a 8' x 12' concrete slab) and grows some random vegetables ... including the zucchini pictured above. He also put me in touch with his friend that has season tickets to the ravens he was trying to sell. The quarter and can are just there to show the size of the zucchini. I'll probably grill it this weekend during my graduation party since there will be enough to go around.

Yeah for my first post about something random that actually happened the same day I posted it! I'll put up those pictures I said I would soon (don't know who I am talking to since I am pretty sure I am the only one that reads this)

Oh, and btw ... The Dark Knight was f'ing amazing.

About time

Well ... I know it has been a while since I posted that first post saying I was going to post a lot during the first few weeks and then maybe drop off. Hopefully this means the opposite has occurred and I dropped off early and will not start to post on a regular basis. It's just hard for me to sit down at a computer when I get home from work. I thought about posting several times (is this a repeat of my first post or what?) but didn't have the energy or desire to fire up my POS laptop and hope the keyboard worked. So on that note, let's re-cap what has happened so far in July ... with plenty of occasions forgotten I am sure.

• Went to NYC (brooklyn) to visit Vanessa (V)
• Went to a Staten Island wedding with V - I consider her my default wedding date because we always have fun together (this was also the most elaborate wedding I have been to in my life and I have been to quite a few)
• Saw Hancock with V and Wolfe (V's friend) - Still don't know what I think about it ... what kind of movie were they trying to make ... I think they got lost somewhere in the development and made half of two different movies and decided to connect them
• Did absolutely nothing to celebrate the 4th even though I was in the biggest city in the US that had a $40 million fireworks show (fireworks just don't do it for me unless I am setting them off)
• Went to Spamalot on Broadway (much funnier than Monty Python's Holy Grail I saw for the first time less than a week earlier ... British comedy is like fireworks to me, the dry wit is only funny to me when I am doing it)
• Randomly went out for drinks with Lucas and Nancy (from MD but happened to be in NYC at the same time)
• Left V to go to a "White Party" with Lucas and Nancy (for which I had to buy a white outfit that I didn't have)
• Had fun at said "White Party" on a small boat that took us around NYC till 5 AM
• Commuted back to Brooklyn only to pack up and commute back to Penn Station and catch my train back to B'more
• Worked for a few days then got sick and worked from home for the next couple days
• Went to Roy's Hawiian Fusion in Harbor East with MK (I love this place but when dinner is this expensive it can't be a frequent visit)
• Watched Happy Gilmore for the first time in years, "the price is wrong ... bitch" (one of Adam Sandler's funniest)
• Went out with Brian and Jill for one of their friend's 30th bdays this night included a rooftop deck, Saute (which has some of the best calamari I have had), Claddagh's Pub, dancing on the pool table at Claddagh's (not me), more roof deck, passing out on couch, walking home at 5:30 AM
• Had 59th Bday dinner at my mom's for my dad ... always an interesting time when you get my family together ... I swear it could be a successful TV show
• That brings us to yesterday on my dad's actual bday we went golfing, Waverly does not have enough trees to provide shade for my Irish skin (which is now red), went to Ryleigh's in Fed Hill for Shore night and had crabs, oysters, the best corn on the cob ever, calamari (not as good as Saute's), and ended up in Canton to go to Vaccaro's for desert and show my house to Aunt J and Uncle G (sister's godparents)

So that may be a lot to take in right now and maybe I'll post some pictures from the random events on there (when I get home since I don't have them here at work ... shhh! I'll get back to work now, and by that I mean start setting up my fantasy football league)