a guy and a bee
a collection of random thoughts and ideas from me, her, and sometimes us
home ownership woes
so last night, almost exactly 2 years after the house flooded for the first time, it happened again. same
plastic pipe broke but in a different spot. the pipe carries the water to the fridge for ice and water dispensing on the door. since the pipe cracked and it’s a compression hose so that when you want water from the fridge, you get it, it keeps running until there is the right amount of pressure on it. it probably ran for 7 or 8 hours at the most and wasn’t as bad as the first time it broke. serv pro is here working on the demolition to get the water out and has set up fans and dehumidifiers to dry the place out.
this is not the type of thing you want to experience once, let alone twice in two years. hopefully state farm won’t drop me! the picture above is from the kitchen where they have pulled up the lament flooring. the water ran downstairs and messed up my man room and the laundry room. hopefully none of the electronics will be messed up either! i think all my dvds have survived thus far.
there are good things about being a home owner, but this is a serious woe! 
summer time
not sure about you guys, but summer time is one of my favorite times of the year. it combines two things i really enjoy, the beach and baseball. and although you can enjoy baseball all year around, there is nothing like sitting in the stands of the stadium.
the beach is a place i’ve enjoyed since being a kid and still enjoy as an adult. i just got back from being there over the 4th of july week. as i spent time at the outer banks, i continue enjoy it as a place that keeps me calm and serene. the sun, the surf, the sand, the salt air, i enjoy it all. and who doesn’t love a good tan?
as many others, when i think of america’s pastime, baseball immediately comes to mine. if there was one sport that is my number one, it is definitely baseball. as some might remember, my wife got us a partial game plan for the orioles this year and although the team hasn’t won in awhile, it’s something we enjoy doing together. and it is something i can teach her all i know. having played and umpired since being a young kid, i can say, i know a lot and have seen a lot. from the days of going to memorial stadium as a young kid and seeing stars of the late ’80s and ’90s to being at camden yards for 10-15 games a summer from being a kid to being an adult. this year i have also made it to nationals park for the first time and experienced my first non-baltimore stadium. nice little stadium they have down there in dc, but it’s no oriole park at camden yards. #justsaying. as well, my buddy and i are making our rounds to some of the minor league affiliates. on july 1st, we rode down and caught the shorebirds game and also got our manny machado bobbleheads. we even met @2131andBeyond finally. later this summer, we are going to make it to a game or two at bowie and next week, my wife and i are going to head to aberdeen to see the ironbirds and ripken stadium. we got tickets through my job so they were easy to get a hold of. i’ve wanted to see it since it was built and have driven around it several times, but this will be my first visit inside the stadium. we even went to an outer banks daredevils game as well. they are a summer wood bat league for college kids and are part of the coastal plain league. it’s really a neat experience and as one friend it’s probably like summer catch with freddie prince jr. haha, that’s almost true!
so any way, that’s what i’ve been up to this summer so far. i have some pretty good pictures from the fireworks on the beach the other day and will share those a few from my first visit to the shorebirds stadium once i get them downloaded. i really intend to blog more so look out!
well that was a fun vacation
from atop the great smokeys!
so for the last year or so, my wife and i have been talking about a cross country trip this year and we had settled on a 3 week adventure and she had all the plans put together. after 3 days into the trip, i was having bad anxiety issues and we decided to turn around. we had made it from maryland to elon, nc and then to just out of knoxville, tn where we stayed in seiverville, which is just a few minutes from the great smokey mountains. our next destination was memphis.
weird! wonder works in seiverville
it was a frustrating experience because i thought i had gotten past my anxiety issues and would be fine. apparently not. as i have explained it others, it’s like walking on one leg when you are having anxiety flare ups and for me, the nausea related to it. you can limp around, but you know you aren’t right and you can’t fix it like you hope you would be able to. had i really wanted to lose 10 or 15 pounds by not eating properly, it would have been a good way to do it, but would have only gotten worse and me being miserable wouldn’t been enjoyable for the wife either. so we decided to turn around and went to the Outer Banks instead. having vacationed there all my life and a free place to stay allowed us to get to a place we knew would be okay. after a few days, i was feeling better and we enjoyed a week and a half at the beach. since it was a joint decision to not continue, i don’t feel like it was the wrong decision, but disappointed it’s how it ended.
sunset at the OBX
when we started out, we said we were going to go as far as we could go and that was what we did. ultimately, i am annoyed, frustrated, sad, disappointed, upset, and happy that we tried. i am disappointed for her more than anything because we were supposed to visit her dad in nebraska over this coming weekend for father’s day and that would have been a great time for her to see him since we last saw him in october. he will be out here july so we will at least get to see him soon.
pass and stow
upon returning to maryland from the beach, we took a couple day trips to annapolis and philadelphia to see America’s first Zoo as well as the Liberty Bell. if you haven’t seen the Liberty Bell, it’s smaller than you might expect but still worth a visit!
unfortunately, it’s back to work and telling them the same story. at least someone told me they were happy i was back.
i will post some more pictures of our trip and the fun adventure in the great smokey mountains, the Appalachian trail, gambling in Cherokee country, the weird towns of seiverville and gaitlinburg and more.
MRI
So the other morning, I went and had an MRI. Nothing major, mostly for exploratory reasons. Everyone has seen an MRI machine on TV before so I knew what to expect. Ultimately it is what I would expect space travel to be like.
You get slid into a tube that isn’t much bigger than you body and they start the machine. At first, I was wondering if I was in Star Wars or outer space with all the wild noises, but after the internet radio kicked on, it wasn’t bad. A little Jimmy Buffett to sooth the soul.
I can understand why anyone with spaces issues would flip out, but I was really calm. Really the hardest part was trying to lay still for 45 minutes. Not to sound rude, but the tube was only a little bigger than me, especially after they strap a cage over your face and put a mirror over your face so you can see your feet/end of the tube, so is there a special MRI machine for obese people? Was thinking about that after I left.
Anyway, just thoughts that were on the mind.
how do you travel?
the last couple weekends i have traveled down to my alma mater (Elon University) for some alumni events and it made me wonder, how do others travel? I don’t fly because of control issues so driving is my number one item. I also always over pack. Left last Friday and returned Sunday afternoon and was barely. I easily had 4 options for clothing, 3 pair of shoes, 3 hats, and more. i guess this is a result of me always worrying that if i get stuck somewhere, i’d want to have an extra pair of clothes, not that i couldn’t buy another pair if i got stuck somewhere though.
outside of clothing, we always pack snacks and lots of drinks. i usually eat breakfast in the hotel and avoid the free breakfast, although i always use their milk for my cereal in the morning.
do you have any special quirks when you travel?
Food Review: Kings Contrivance Restaurant
The other week we went to the Kings Contrivance Restaurant. We wanted to have a nice one year anniversary dinner, but didn’t want to drive downtown so we decided we would give it a shot.
I had heard lots of nice things about the restaurant and the food and it lived up to the words from others. We stayed away from the apps and salads, mostly because they all included things I wasn’t really interested in but I am sure they were good.
For dinner, my wife went with the Sea Scallops and although I didn’t try them she said they were fantastic. I, on the other hand, had the Beef Tenderloin Tips in a portabello mushroom sauce and a nice mashed potatoes. The beef tips were delicious and the sauce was rich and tasty, although I gave the mushroom pieces to her. They were large slices and I’m not a real big mushroom fan anyway.
For desert, we decided to get two and share. Although we had our wedding cake at home, I figured how many times do you celebrate your first wedding anniversary? Once! We got both a slice of chocolate cake and their Key Lime Pie. Both were rich and very yummy. The pie had a great tartness offset by the creamy texture of the filling. The chocolate cake was a thick double chocolate cake and was so tasty I even got some on my shirt. Haha.
All in all the night was great. We got a good, fine dining meal and didn’t have to drive downtown or put a tie on.
If you are looking for something similar for a special night, give it a try.
one year
This time last year I was rotating jobs and getting married all within the same week. What a way to go about things. Knocking out two big events in 6 days. Well here I am a year later and still in the job and more importantly, still married. It was a crazy year.
From the time we got married until now it’s been one thing after another. We went to another wedding, we made two trips to our alma mater were we serve on an alumni committee, we celebrated her birthday, enjoyed the beach, went to our Homecoming, another wedding, drove to Nebraska, went to a third wedding, ate lunch on the Mississippi River in Mark Twain’s hometown, celebrated the holidays with our family, celebrated my 28th birthday, laughed, cried, smiled, and just kept swimming.
This year, we have some fun plans too and we (read “I”) hope to document it with our cameras so we can show all our family and friends (and readers) what we are up to.
So with that, this Sunday, we will share in the newlywed tradition of eating your cake from last year and toast to an interesting year and exciting years to come. Happy Anniversary B! Love you.
Ps… why is it a tradition to eat freezer burnt cake anyway?
pet peeves
I’m not one to complain (a lot), but for those that know me, I tend to have an opinion on most things. Two things lately have been bothering.
The first is a winter issue and it has to do with cleaning off your car. Today we got a couple inches of snow and some ice. Wasn’t the easiest to clean off. Might have taken you 10 minutes instead of 5, so please take the time to clean your car. Don’t just clean off the windshield so you can see and therefore endangering others when it flies off the top of your car. I drive an SUV. I got out my brush and cleaned off the top and scrapped the windows like any good driver. I think it might actually be a law in Maryland as well. Can’t say for sure but it sounds like something this state who have. Anyway clean off your cars you clowns.
My second pet peeve is how much bathroom etiquette has gone the toilet. Pun intended. I don’t know what it is lately but please stop talking on your phone, talking to me, looking around, or leaving your newspaper in the bathroom. You aren’t that important that for the 2 minutes you are in the can, you can’t hang up the phone. Don’t get me started on blue tooth either. Also, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk to me. I don’t need to hear about work or the game or whatever you think I’d want to hear about in the bathroom. Not the time or the place. It’s also not the time or place to make eye contact with me. Keep it straight ahead or on the floor, gentlemen. The other thing that annoys me is people that leave their newspaper or internet articles in and around the bathroom. Have the common courtesy to take your trash with you, pal. Well that’s it for now.
In case you hadn’t read my other issues with movie etiquette, check here.
/end rant/
Oakey’s Grill and Salads
These are two completely different food reviews, but I decided to post them together.
If you are from Maryland and you don’t know about pit beef or don’t like it, it’s a shame. Oakey’s is a little pit beef and sandwich place in @EllicottCity and it’s definitely tasty. They do a good pit beef, probably not the best but it’s pretty good. You don’t get a lot of char on the meet, but you do get a nice juicy sandwich. It’s also a large sandwich. They also have pit ham, turkey, burgers, wings, etc. Lastly they also do a great hand cut french fry. Try some ranch dressing on them! @howchowblog did a review of a few years ago as well. Worth a visit if you are looking for a local pit beef place besides The Canopy. If you buy a shirt, Steve will give you $0.50 off your fries!
Salads… I enjoy a salad like most, but if there is one salad I can’t stand, it’s a spinach salad with walnuts, goat cheese, apples, and a raspberry vinegarette dressing. There are about 8 things wrong with this salad, but I tell you this because my buddy had us over for dinner and I got a text before that said, “do you like walnuts?” Well, I instantly knew they were serving this salad. Their’s had oranges and beets. I didn’t know it could get worse, but it did. Glad I refused to eat it. So to wrap up, if you invite me over for dinner, do not try and serve me this salad. Worst. Salad. Ever. In my humble opinion of course!
egypt civil unrest
don’t get me wrong, I really understand the concept of revolting against your government, but the egyptian civil unrest has gone too far. when you start trashing your own history and the history of the world it’s a complete shame and speaks volumes of the some of the people involved.
revolting against a government and trashing national history are two completely different things. now you’ve crossed a line to make a point that has nothing to do with your point. granted a few bad people were the ones that were ultimately involved, it’s still overshadowing the main issue for the country. also as a result, many people who would have traveled to the region in the coming months will not visit and the economy and people will continue to suffer. so are you any better off? who knows. guess we’ll have to keep an eye on the situation.
hey there
a guy and a bee 