WhyTheHell?

We got to our house at about 11 PM. We left at 6:30 PM. That is pretty much record time for all the travel we did today. I had a good visit but it’s nice to be home. They’re good people who work their jobs and enjoy a pretty low tech life at home. They read the paper, watch the news or even play video games. That’s all great but in my home when I have leisure time indoors I use the computer and high speed internet. I was lost without it. I manage a couple different fantasy baseball teams and follow a few forums. I also try to post on my site but as you can see I managed to do that okay. Maybe I have messed up priorities and they have life figured out. Who knows? What I do know is that I’m not the only person who enjoys broadband access at home.

There’s not much I could say about the trip that I didn’t say each day in the posts when I was there. It was a good trip but I think at times we expect too much from these trips. These are just relatives of ours living their normal lives. They don’t stop for us and nothing special takes place. They’re not perfect people who always get along and neither are we. If you stop and realize this you enjoy the experience a lot more. We spent time with everyone, did lots of things and got some well needed time away. In a few days I go back to work and try to do the best I can.

My Mom is pushing hard to leave because she’s a little on the antisocial side. She lives alone and if she has to be around people too long she wants out. That’s just the way she is. At her age there’s no changing her now. If it was up to her we would’ve gotten here Saturday evening and left Monday morning. That would mean driving 4+ hours to spend one day here. I don’t really like that idea much so we left Friday afternoon and we’ll probably leave here in the late afternoon or evening. I’ll have a couple more days off and my Mom has time off indefinitely so there’s no hurry. We’ll probably take I-87 home again because it’s quicker and easier on the car without all the steep hills. Their are tolls in NY but nothing compared to the ferry prices of over $20. Unless you leave during the day on a nice day it’s not worth bothering with the ferry. It is supposed to be 55 degrees or so up here today but who knows when we’ll leave. Colby and Holden get out of school at 3:30 so we might wait until after then to take off.

I set my lineups before we left and tried to follow things as much as I could up here and it turned out okay. All the teams in my league finished closely except Deb’s game that she won 9-0. I won 6-5 as did a few others, which means the other teams lost 5-6 so we’re all pretty close to each other. No teams are really standing out after only a week but that’s normal. I did alright in my ESPN league 7-3.

Today we went to see the windmills in Ellenburg. My Uncle drives the escort vehicle that transports the pieces of these 300 foot high windmills. I’ll post lots of pictures from my phone when I get home. The blades (3) are 110 feet long and attach to three pole pieces that total 300 feet. With the part the blades attach to it takes 7 separate truckloads to get one windmill to a loaction. There are over 100 up here and thousands come from here to North Texas and other areas of the country. I got a lot of good pictures that will be up here some time tomorrow.

Edit 4/8/08: Picture added.

Today I have 5 pitchers starting and I’m tied this week so far. I don’t get a chance to check my team that often and only the next day after it’s all been updated. At home there’s a stat tracker but it uses java and my phone doesn’t have java yet. I’m sure the folks at Apple will bring it out soon but for now all I can do is keep an eye on the games to see how my players are doing. Not sure if there are any games on tv but I’m sure we’re going somewhere today. We’re leaving tomorrow but I don’t know exactly when. If it was up to my Mom we would leave early. I don’t know why but she doesn’t like to stay very long. I guess she gets bored and usually she has work to get back to but not this time. I don’t like to overstay my welcome either so we stay a few days and go home. I’ll write more later today.

It’s odd how I had 4 out of 5 bars on my phone for a while at my Memere’s house and then none. I roam for free on Unicel here and we’re in a spotty coverage area so it’s not the greatest speeds for data but it’s better than nothing. There’s no broadband here so I get on the phone to mess around once in a while. I love visiting but anyone gets bored in the same place for days. I love this phone. We needed a pizza place, found and called it on the phone. A store we were looking for, phone again. People love to make fun of me and playing with my gadgets but they come in handy more often than not. Using data and maps costs nothing extra to use and I do that more than I use it as a phone.

I helped my Uncle Clarence get his cell phone working in their new Ford Escape with Microsoft SYNC. It has built in bluetooth and they weren’t sure how to use a lot of the features. I paired my iPhone first and then their LG Verizon phone. It’s nice that my knowledge of tech can help in some cases.

Tonight we had pork roast, macaroni salad, green bean cassarole and potatoes. Before that at my cousin’s house they had pizza. One thing you always do here is eat well. I wonder how well they eat when we’re not visiting but I’d guess the same.

Alex has been playing pretty hard with Shaylee and Andrea so she’s sleeping really well. She’s not really a hyper kid who bounces off walls so keeping up with a couple of them who do can be tiring. She’ll be talking about playing with them for months after this trip.

I’m watching Kansas against UNC right now while my Mom, Colby and Deb play bullshit. I don’t really have an attention span for cards unless I’m drinking. They are definitely not drinking and I’m in Memere’s recliner with UNC getting whooped. I hope they lose. I’ll write more tomorrow.

Memere made as many michigans as we could eat and Colby watched Alex as we went to the little Indian casino (they call themselves Indians in this place) to play a little slots. We didn’t have much money to spend but we blew $20 and had fun. It’s just a room with 30 slot machines next to a big bingo hall. I think I’ve talked about it before but this blog is pretty empty right now. I have no idea what we’re doing tomorrow but the weather is supposed to get progressively better while we’re here and even better after we leave. We’ll go from mid 30’s to mid 50’s while we’re here. It’s getting late. Time for bed.

After the gas station in Round Lake or Burnt Hills we drove almost all the way here and stopped in Elizabethtown at a rest stop. Guess what we have a lot of here. Snow! Back at home it’s all long gone but here there’s a few inches on the ground and it’s coming down now. At that rest area my Mom and I had a snowball fight and everyone went to the bathroom. We got here maybe 10 mins ago (6 or so). I’m getting settled in and dropping our stuff and I decided to post real quick. Memere is making michigans right now. If you don’t know, they’re like chili dogs but unique to this area (called the North Country). Time to go for now. I’ll possibly write more later.

Grabbed some snacks and Mom had to pee like crazy. She kept smelling beef jerky in that Citgo store. This exit off I-87 was called Round Lake/ Burnt Hills. Very descriptive place. Mom’s just about done with her scratch tickets. Gotta go. More blogging from the road later.

We’re at my Mom’s house now and we should be leaving soon. Deb and I went to sleep around 2 and woke up at 7. We got here a little before 9. We went to get an oil change for the car and picked up a few goodies for the ride. I’m posting from my phone on the mobile app so no categories right now. I wanted to try it out before going to NY where there is no broadband. That is one thing you take for granted and really miss when you don’t have it. I guess it’s a good thing because I can focus more on visiting and less on using a computer. This little trip will be a good thing for my stress level. It’s been a high lately. I’ll post more later (on a stop in NY?).

In a few (maybe more?) hours we’re going to my Mom’s house and driving to Upstate NY. We’re going to spend the weekend up there and come back on Monday. The original thought was that we’d get the dog on Monday and I’d have a few days to spend with him before going back to work. We went to visit the dog this past Monday and he was much smaller than I expected. It may be a week longer than we planned so maybe we’ll stay late on Monday? Don’t know yet. Either way I have until (but not including) Thursday the 10th off. I need the time off because I’m feeling the crunch.

I watched a little web video on my computer (I subscribe to free video shows) and it talked about WordPress, which I’ve used before on my web server. I went and did a little research on their site about their latest version and came across the free hosting. It is surprisingly really full featured. Everything you could ever ask for is there, including password protected posts that can each have their own password. This is the best feature by far. I’ve been looking at doing just this for a while. I’m going to take a little bit tonight to customize things and probably post from my phone while on the trip to NY. more posts may follow tonight.