Facie’s Ramblings

I have a handful of thought in my head (and by a handful, I think I mean about 30). So rather than try to pick one topic, I am going to bullet point some. Let's see how many "some" actually ends up being... When the Penguins are done with hockey, so am I. I am not even sure who is still playing and if we are down to the final teams. I think the Rangers are or were in it. But that is all I know. I really like hockey, but as a true Pens fan who watches pretty much every single game, starting in October, once the Pens are done, I typically have had enough. Let the record show that I rarely complained this winter. So many people talked about how hard/bad the winter was. I did not see it that way. I am guessing that is because I drove to work this winter, unlike last winter, when I found myself waiting for the bus in frigid temps quite a bit. Even 5 or 6 minutes in windchills at -5 or even 0 degrees tends to bring you down. So this winter was like a picnic in comparison. I...

I really could not decide on the better post title to aptly describe the blogger dinner I went to Saturday night, so I used them both, probably creating the world's longest blog post title! Considering this is going to be a long post, it kind of makes sense. So here is how it went, blow by blow (get your popcorn ready): Brian thought with the nearly always awful traffic on the Parkway East combined with a Pirates game and a closed exit that I should leave at 4:30 for the 6 p.m. dinner. I figured that 4:45 would be safe. In reality, even with a traffic backup at the North Shore, I was driving past the restaurant at 5:20. Unfortunately, the restaurant is BYOB and does not have a bar, so I had a dilemma. After driving around for six or seven minutes, I noticed a bar a block or two up the street, so I parked near it. As I was walking to the bar, I thought back to a time in '94 or '95 when I walked into a bar near the campus of IUP one weekday afternoon. I had hoped and ass...

Last night my fellow Zumba-doers and I did a demo at our church festival. Well, I guess mini-class is a better description; we danced for about 30 minutes, doing something like eight songs. I had misgivings about "performing" in front of everyone. I am not the most graceful person. Actually, I am not even remotely graceful, and I am fairly uncoordinated. And the last time I did anything close to dancing on a stage was for a dance recital back when I was about 10 or 11. When you are a kid, adults will generally oh and ah at you, or at least smile or giggle at the silly moves you make. But at 40, doing the wrong step, being off beat, or tripping, as I have been known to do once or 100,000 times in my life, you will  pretty much just be embarrassing yourself. But I decided to throw caution to the wind and just have fun. Well, as much fun as I could with the sun beating down on me, not a lot of space to shake my groove thing, and knowing that people, being people, were probab...

What do you consider a vacation? Does your trip need to be a certain number of hours or miles away? Do you need to be gone for at least three or four days for it "to count"? Or as long as you are off work or school for more than two days, is that enough of a vacation? I was a pretty spoiled child. We went to the beach for a week pretty much every year in addition to going to another place or two for a day or more. When I was in high school, my family had a house in Ocean City, Maryland, which meant several weeks at the beach. And for about a year, my family also had a house on Indian Lake (near where Flight 93 crashed), so we had many weekend getaways there as well.Yep, rough life I had. But as an adult, I never felt the need to go away every year. And once I got married, we often went several years in between "going on vacation." In fact, during our 13-plus years of marriage, the only week-long trip we have taken was to Disney for our honeymoon. It took us 10 m...

This summer I made it a point to try to take at least one pic of Jordan whenever we went somewhere, which most often was a park. I wanted to capture all the great, fun things we did this summer, knowing that it was probably going to be my last summer not working for quite some time. So here goes. I have expressed my love of Frick Park, particularly Blue Slide Park, in other posts ; it really is one of our favorites. And this summer marked the first one I did not feel the need to follow J around like a little puppy dog. I actually let her run around and explore, though, admittedly, I would panic if more than three minutes went by and I had not seen her. In the pics above, J is at the end of the blue slide, and then hanging several feet above concrete (which scared the crap out of me). We also visited another section of Frick Park, the area on the corner of Braddock and Forbes, a few times. There is not as much to do as Blue Slide, but we go there to mix things up a bit. In the p...

Kennywood! Kennywood! Kennywood! Kennywood! Kennywood! Kennywood! Kennywood! Yesterday, Bri, J, and I went to Kennywood to celebrate J's excellent grades this year. The last time I was at Kennywood was in 2000, when the Aero 360 first opened. I won a contest on the now-defunct B94 and was one of the first few people to try out that new ride. Even though my body started rejecting spinning/turning movements back in the late 1990s, I managed to employ mind over matter for that experience. The last time I had spent an entire day at Kennywood was back in 1994 or 1995, when Bri and I were just dating and had gone with one of my friends from high school and her boyfriend. Back then, I could ride all things that spin, twist, turn, or loop. The good ole days! We started off our morning on the Phantom's Revenge, which is a super-fast coaster (85 mph) with some twists, but fortunately no loops. In hindsight, it was probably not the best way to begin a day at Kennywood for someone li...

This evening Jordan and I attended the second of three Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy meetings focused on Kate and Peter's treehouse . You may recall I blogged about the first meeting before it happened, and was not even sure we would end up going, thanks to Jordan's reaction to Kate and Peter's death. I am happy to report despite my concern, Jordan seemed to accept what happened, and that meeting went well. Here is the treehouse masterpiece she and a friend's daughter created that evening: Tonight's meeting was held at Frick Park. On our way to the three areas we were to visit, all the treehouses the kids had created from that last meeting flanked the pathway. I thought it was pretty cool. Jordan is standing near hers. Not nearly as cool is my shadow! We then went to the site of the future treehouse and wrote down our ideas on cards hanging from/on wires as well as on trees. At first, I kind of struggled with this creative process. I worked at a design firm...

I am quite certain that on several occasions I have already said words similar to what I am going to write, but here I go again. Most of us have too much stuff/junk. Kids especially. Do you remember when Valentine's Day at school meant filling out a box of cards for your classmates and getting cards in return? Now, parents feel obligated to send in candy with those cards. And a simple lollipop or bite-size candy bar is no longer enough; now most parents send in treat bags that consist of several pieces of candy, perhaps one of those annoying foil-wrapped pencils that are nearly impossible to sharpen, tiny erasers that are too small to be useful, and some stickers or fake tattoos. Halloween works much the same way. And some parents even send in small gifts for the class for the Christmas party. Don't even get me started on birthday parties, which now involve take-homes for each party guest as well. You might be wondering why I am bringing this up now. I will tell you, but on...