Atlanta - There & Back (Part 1)

So this past Friday (the 8th) was J's birthday and I ran out of ideas on what to get her after recent perfume purchases. I remembered that it was "Opium" for Mother's Day after forgetting that five letter word at Christmas when I bought her "Chloe".

It had been over a year since I last had bought her some so I kind of forgot or one could say I completely forgot that "Opium" is her favorite. Okay my memory sucks for certain things. Actually I have a great memory it's just that sometimes I recall things a few days or weeks later. Not too handy of a skill. I knew when I had gotten the bottle of "Chloe" that it didn't feel right but rather than walk out of that store empty-handed I thought maybe I was just losing my mind.

Recent purchases had been books that she really wanted or music CDs I thought that she would like or that cool Keurig single cup coffee thingee. Little did I know that the single cup coffee things are ridiculously expensive even for a spendthrift like me.

Even bought her a power tool last year. Some sort of cordless drill that she ooh-ed and aah-ed about on one of her Lowe's trips. It surely wasn't my Lowe's trip. My walking in there is like sitting through one of H's engineering classes. I don't have an effing clue what's going on or what the eff I am looking at. I am like a doe, a deer, a female deer in headlights. LOL. I was truly laughing when I wrote that.

Anyways here I was June 7th; one day before her big day and all I could think of was getting her some Lady Antebellum tickets for their concert here in a couple of weeks with Darius Rucker and Thompson Square. Sadly they didn't have any pairs of tickets left. They had singles but nothing next to each other. Even went down to the BiLo Center box office and got that same answer live in person. I guess the younger lady behind the glass was not duly impressed by this Canadian's predicament because she kept on showing me a map of where the single seats were as if that would work. LOL.

So J and made our Friday evening (her b-day) plans and then Shazam I got an idea! Ouch that hurt by the way! My having an original thought. I knew that J's beloved Yankees were coming into Atlanta for a 3-day set starting on Monday. I figured that would be a good b-day present for her. Getting her tickets for one of the games.

Given that they were coming in on a weekday and Atlanta being 150 miles or so away I figured I would give her the option on which game we'd go see. We talked about it a bit on Friday and it was decided that Monday's game would be the best bet around our work schedules and parental responsibilities. Well hers anyways. H is happy any night that he has free rein at the house. LOL.

So when we got back to J's house I went a-searching for some tickets on MLB.com but then I got completely effing annoyed with Ticketmaster scamming a$$ prices for crap a$$ seats. I hate paying $12 to $20 in fees for each ticket to Ticketmaster or LiveNation. It is a total "cochonerie" paying this monopolistic fee. They aren't doing me $12 to $20 of favors per ticket by my purchasing seats on their site. Not helping my serenity either was the fact that the available seats weren't eggsactly primo deluxe either.



So off I went onto StubHub's website. Imagine my surprise by my finding two seats 12 rows up down the left field line (Yankees side) where the relief pitchers would be warming up at the Big O for a quite reasonable price. Okay the Big O reference probably doesn't mean much to those reading this blog. Let's put it this way. Raul Ibanez who starts in left field for the Yankees against righties plays deeper down the line when the opposing pitcher is at bat than where our seats were located. The seats were darn good! I didn't mind the fee either which was cheaper than the Ticketmaster fee. I may have paid above face value for the seats. It didn't matter as the Ticketmaster seats were more expensive and their location wasn't very good. Go figure!

Darn this is going to be a long blog. Thank Gawd that I have YouTube on play all mode.

So picked up J at her place at around 330 after filling up my tank for the 150 mile drive to Turner Field. Easy drive from Simpsonville/Mauldin. Take interstate 85 south until the Turner Field exit. Easy as pie. Whatever that means. LOL.

We did great time until about a few miles after "Spaghetti Junction" near Atlanta. I think that is about where Marietta is or the Druid Hills exit is on 85. What a effing adventure it is driving on 85 in the Atlanta area! 7 lanes I think. I am doing 70-75 in a 55 mph zone and I am in the way in the 5th or 6th lane. People drive on this everyday. Holy Eff Batman. That's insane!

To be continued...

Sunday Musings

So it's cloudy, somewhat rainy June summer day here and all of a sudden the urge to hunt and peck on my keyboard came upon me. I've noticed that it's been a while since I last typed on here.

It takes some discipline for me to type regularly on here. It isn't that I am at shortage for words because those that really know me; they would say that I can be rather chatty. I think that many of ramblings on here occur in the middle of the night when I am not able to sleep. Lately I have been trying to avoid using electronics like computers or TVs in the middle of the night because I read somewhere that these devices act as waker- uppers for the brain at night. In other words if you avoid 'em your brain is calmer and you can sleep better. Ha! Not bloody likely. I wake up every night at 2 or 3 am it seems. Just like to point out that I read that waker-upper thing on the internet so therefore it must be true. LOL.

Anyways I guess we are three weeks into summer here in the Upstate. A sure sign of it being here is when the younger kids got out of school ten days ago I guess. Sure helps cutting down on morning traffic. Now if I can only calm down somewhat on these drives into work. "Cris de calis" comes into my vocabulary way too often on these drives.

Summer has started off busy so far. I will likely delve into the following events in some blogs to come in which J and I have partaken in since the Memorial Day weekend. There's been lots of grilling (her place and my place). There have been a couple of forays downtown for Main Street Fridays. There have been dining experiences at Greek Fest, TakoSushi, Chicora Alley, Wasabi and Tequilas. We've seen the hot air balloons fly over my house and decide to land in fields and streets right nearby. There was the Eddie Money concert from a couple of weeks ago as well as the 3 Doors Down / ZZ Top concert this past week. Tomorrow will be fun as we are heading down to Atlanta to catch the Yankees and Braves play. Hopefully the rain will hold off. H is off to Pictou County, NS in a week or so to visit his grandfather. I am off to Niagara Falls, On soon for some meetings. I think that this is my 3rd stay at the Falls in the last five years. Weird lived in Canada for 37+ years and never saw the Falls. Been down here and I have been there at least 3 times in the last little while.

Mixed into all of this good stuff was reading that a dear friend of mine from Montreal passed away a couple of weeks ago at the young age of 57. I know that I will devote a blog to the memory of my friend Ted Lukasiewicz real soon. He played a key part in a big turnaround that occurred in my life when I was 27 years old. It's still too hard for me to type about the passing of Ted without losing focus and starting to cry. I'm sure that writing about Ted will help though.

Okay on that note I've lost my train of thought. I'm going to prep supper. Grilling some more steaks tonight. Be back soon.