2010: The year in review

As I sit here watching my baby girl who is only 3 days old sleep I realize it's time to do another "year in review" post. Wow. What a year it has been.

January started out with Lauren and I welcoming a new member of the family. Munch the cat was brought home from Rude Ranch Animal rescue. He has been a great addition to the family after losing Quincy last December. Several nights were spent at hockey games with friends. A snowstorm added a little chaos to the mix, but it also began what was my busiest travel year. I left home for Bahrain at the end of the month and spent 3 days there before going to Belgium for 3 days, both trips for work. I got to see a bunch of sights in Brussels and definitely enjoyed the waffles. :)

February was the month that mother nature decided she was mad at us. Two massive snowstorms dropped more than 3 feet of snow. In between snow storms I was able to sneak out of town and head south to the sunny but cold beaches of Daytona for speedweeks. It was a good time, even with the track issues. I returned home to shovel even more snow and wonder where that lovely thing called Global Warming was. Yes, I know it's possible to get more snow with global warming. However at the end of February brought the birth of my nephew who brought much joy to our family.

March helped us thaw out and saw the snow begin to melt. It also brought on the fact that I required surgery on my left ear. That was scheduled for mid-April. Towards the middle of the month an issue arose in Bahrain which required me to take a unexpected trip there. That trip began with an unexpected 24 hour layover in Atlanta due to a missed connection and going to work at 1 AM in Bahrain. Lauren surprised me with a surprise (which I had to spoil) 30th birthday party. Even though I was jet lagged and had way too much to drink (Thanks Diran) it was a great time with family and friends.

April was the month of the year. It started with a trip to Columbus to celebrate my 30th birthday with a Caps road trip with Lauren, Al, and Katie. We had a blast with our hockey friends seeing a city we had never seen before. My 30th birthday came upon us and I entered my 3rd decade in this world. A couple of weeks later I went under the knife to discover a mastoid called cholestatoma in my left ear canal had been causing all my problems. That was removed, but I was informed that my hearing would remain a problem for at least another year. Then came the Caps losing in the first round of the playoffs, which caused the month to be sour. The next day my life changed forever. I got a call from Lauren saying that she had taken 3 pregnancy tests and all of them had returned positive. Holy crap. I was going to be a dad. Time to panic!

May saw me return to Bahrain again for more work, followed by a weekend in Germany. I was able to sneak side trips to Amsterdam and Strasbourg, France during that trip. While in Bahrain it was confirmed that Lauren was pregnant and that she was due sometime in early January.

June was fairly slow. No trips, just work and enjoying warm weather.

July saw Lauren and me taking a week long trip to Greece. I had given her plane tickets and a hotel reservation for Christmas, so we were able to enjoy a week in Athens and some surrounding areas. Waking up every morning with a view of the Acropolis was worth it. Visiting the islands of Aegina, Poros, and Hydra was pretty awesome. I highly recommend visiting Greece. The food, the people, and the history are all worth the trip!

August brought us to New York to celebrate my parents' retirements, their 40th wedding anniversary, the opening of the cabin, and the birth of my nephew and future child. It was a great time. We also purchased a new car in August to prepare for the arrival of "Bean" as we had been calling the soon to be added child.

September saw the return of hockey, work for Lauren, and the beginning of nursery preparedness. We began the transition of our guest room into a nursery. Not an easy task. Towards the end of the month I was asked to take a two week trip to Italy for work. I spent 2 weeks in the town of Latina working, but made side trips to Rome to see the Colosseum, Vatican, and other touristy sites. We also spent a day in the city of Pompeii. The food in Italy was amazing. I talk about how I was doing great on my diet and exercise schedule until I got there. I think we had one average meal while in Italy. The rest of the time the food, wine, and grauppa were amazing.

October brought back hockey. We were glad to see our hockey family and tell some of them the news that they had not heard yet. It was pretty awesome. They were all excited for us. The rest of the month was fairly quiet except I did get to take my annual trip to Martinsville with a relative since Lauren did not want to make the trek this year. We had a great time.

November began a month of craziness. The Sunday before Thanksgiving Lauren's cousin had an unexpected loss when her son had a seizure and passed away. Thanksgiving day saw Lauren's grandmother end up in the hospital. A week later she passed away, leaving her family to cope with two losses in two weeks. It made for a rough holiday season.

December brought the biggest joy in my life. After 9 months of waiting and worrying, Emily Luan Roberts was born on December 28 at 4:55 AM. She has made my life complete. While she isn't old enough to understand everything that is going on yet, she has made me realize that there are greater things in life than work, hockey, NASCAR, etc.

The summary of the year: lots of travel, new additions, losses, but most of all: a great year. I look forward to 2011 to enjoy watching my daughter grow and enjoying life with her and Lauren.

Speaking of Emily, she's starting to get fussy. Time to go tend to her. Happy New Year everybody!

Snow, cold, and Bean

We got our first significant snowfall today. A whole inch of accumulation! Shut the state down! Our neighborhood was a little slippery, but not bad. I shoveled my driveway and moved on. The bad thing is it's been cold for the last week or so, which means my heat has been running almost non-stop. I'm usually a cheapskate in the winter and keep my thermostat around 65, but soon that won't be possible.

Since I've been yelled at for not putting anything in my blog by my loving wife, I'll finally post in here that she is pregnant. By now, she is due any day now. The actual due date is Jan 4, but she could go at any time. So I've spent the last 8 months preparing myself as best I can. Soon "Bean" will be here and I will have no sleep, worry about everything, and no money for the next 18 years. It will all be worth it. :)

However, "Bean" is not going to enjoy 65 degrees, so I will have to play with the thermostat.

Capital woes

As most of you know, I've been a Washington Capitals fan for a long, long time. I've been there for the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly. I wasn't there for the early early days, but have seen my share of the bad.

This six game losing streak hurts. Why? I know the team is capable of better than they are doing. It's insane how a team with that much talent is losing and more alarmingly not scoring. I'd be less than alarmed if they were losing but putting up a fight. Lately that hasn't been the case. They're losing games and getting shut out. It's frustrating.

As much as I complain, bitch, and rant, I will be a Caps fan til the day I die. Why? I guess I am a glutton for punishment. The Caps have broken my heart many, many times. I should be used to it by now. You'd think with the team that they have on the ice now they would win here and there. It just hasn't happened.

I do think that if this losing skid continues that changes will need to be made. I personally think something should've been done already, but that's just me. I'm no expert.

Martinsville

This past weekend was a trip to Martinsville for my last NASCAR race of 2010. The weekend started off crazy. I usually stay with friends Saturday night before going to the race on Sunday. I picked up my companion and started south. We got to within an hour of my friends' house and called. My friend picks up and informs me she is in the ER. Apparently she had some sort of intestinal problem. She was waiting to find out if they were going to have to do surgery on her. How crazy is that? We ended up spending about 30 minutes with her on Saturday night before heading to her house and staying the night.

Sunday we drove up to Martinsville. We got to the track around 8 AM. We got settled in the parking lot and went souvenir shopping. Picked up a few items and headed back to the car. Got our gear and headed to the track. We enjoyed some Martinsville hot dogs (they're awesome) and saw one heck of a race. Denny Hamlin made it interesting and won yet again - it's been nice to see him win and come close to a championship!

Since we got there early and got a good parking spot, we were out of there in 15 minutes and on our way home. I got home in 5.5 hours, which is not bad considering. I even got to bed at a reasonable hour!

All in all a fun, good weekend.

Italy

A little tardy in updating, I know.

I left home for Italy on September 25. Arrived Sept 26 and headed to the town of Latina, about an hour south of Rome. After checking into the hotel, we went to the town of Anzio on the coast.

Monday we went to work and found that things were already set up and all we had to do was prepare the computers for class. After work, we went to try and find an open restaurant. Didn't happen. So we ate at the hotel. Not great, but not awful.

Tuesday was more work, almost done.

Wednesday we finished working for the first week, so Thursday we went to Rome. We hopped on the train to Rome. Made it to the main station in about an hour and headed to the Colosseum. Walked around the Colosseum for about 2 hours, then headed to Palantine Hill. Next was a short lunch, followed by the Roman Forum. All very nice. Afterwards we headed to the Pantheon, which was amazing. We headed back to Latina afterwards to have dinner with some of the folks we were working with. The food was amazing. We never made it to the main course - the antipasti and pasta were just that good. And the desserts - amazing.

Thursday we headed to Vatican City to see St. Peter's Basilica, The Vatican Museum, and the Sistine Chapel. What an amazing place. There was just so much to see and everything was just amazing. The Sistine Chapel itself was worth the price of the trip. I've never see anything quite like it, and probably never will again. A full day's traveling made for tired travelers!

Friday we stayed in Latina as we had lunch plans with the folks we were working with, as well as preparing for Monday's class we were teaching. We also made the trip to the American Military Cemetery in Nettuno. It reminded me of a small Arlington National Cemetery. Made you think twice about your life.

Saturday we headed to Pompeii. After a long drive, we arrived and toured the remains of the city. It's amazing how well things were preserved after Mt. Vesuvius erupted 2000 years ago. I was really surprised to see how advanced those people. A plumbing system, streets designed for vehicles or just pedestrians, etc. It was really cool.

Sunday we stayed around town. There was a flea market in Latina, so we walked around there again. We went back to the same restaurant we went to on Wednesday for dinner - amazing again. First taste of wild boar. It was really good! Sunday night we went to a cafe that had internet access to watch the Ravens - Steelers game. Even watching on a Slingbox and Wifi, the game looked good. It was nice to be able to watch a NFL game 5000 miles from home!

Monday we went to work, teaching a class. Students were very good and attentive. We had a great day teaching and working.

Tuesday was basically a repeat of Monday. Nothing special.

Wednesday I headed home. It was a nice end to what was a very long and exhausting trip. We did a lot and got to see a lot, but getting home, sleeping in my own bed, etc was very nice.

I definitely recommend a trip to Italy, even if I only made it to Rome and Pompeii. Both were awesome. Latina - there just isn't much to see there.

Insomnia

2nd week in a row I can't sleep on Tuesday night. What is up with that? No matter what I do, I can't fall asleep. Ugh.

Lately I haven't been happy with a lot of things besides my marriage. That's about the only thing that I'm happy about right now.

My job sucks. It really does. I don't think I've ever been this miserable in my work. I don't like being miserable at all. But right now I dread going to work. It's just not fun anymore. And it's affecting my daily life outside of work. I'm not as cheerful as I was and I'm not happy about things. So I'm starting to wonder if a change is in order.

I guess the only saving grace is I have a good family that is there for me through thick and thin. Without them I probably would've gone insane by now.

Greece

Yep, I'm a little tardy on updating. So here goes:

Lauren and I took a trip to Greece from 10-18 July. The trip was Lauren's Christmas present. After the long wait was finally over, we made the trek.

We arrived on Sunday and proceeded to just walk around town getting an idea what was where and started our plan for the week. We ended up having a nice dinner in Syntagma.

Monday we trekked to the top of the Acropolis. What an amazing sight. Seeing the Parthenon, Athena's temple, among other things was amazing. It was hot, but was worth the trek. We then had lunch at a place near the Acropolis, then headed to the Temple of Zeus. The heat was taking its toll on us, so we headed back to our hotel for some pool time. We went back to Syntagma for dinner.

Tuesday we went back to the Acropolis museum. Unfortunately it was not part of the mega Acropolis ticket. We toured that and enjoyed the statues and other artifacts that have been recovered from the Acropolis site. We went to Monistraki for dinner.

Wednesday was our one-day cruise to the surrounding islands. Our first stop was Hydra, which was about 2 and a half hours from Athens. We spent about an hour in Hydra. The port area was beautiful. The only way around the island is mule. We didn't hire a mule as we didn't have enough time. Next stop was Poros. There isn't a whole lot to do on Poros. We walked around the port area and took a few pictures, but not much to talk about. We departed Poros for Aegina. During that time we had a very nice lunch on the boat. We hit Aegina and decided to take a guided bus tour of the island. We got to see a lot of beautiful sights and enjoy it. The end of the tour took us to a cafe where we got to sample Ozue and some seafood. We arrived back in Athens around 8:30. Since we were short on cash and didn't want to do anything special, we went to Goody's, which is basically the Greek equivalent to McDonald's.

Thursday we headed to Monistraki for shopping and food. Lauren and I both ended up buying some sandals from the Poet sandalmaker of Athens. We went to Hadrian's Library after that, which was pretty awesome. The afternoon was spent by the pool as Lauren was rather worn out from the week to that point.

Friday was a climb of Mt. Lycabettus, which was awesome. The view of the city was amazing. Unfortunately with the haze it was hard to see, but we still got a great view. After Lycabettus we had a good breakfast and headed to the hotel to relax. That afternoon we headed to Cape Sounion to visit the Temple of Poseidon. The drive was about an hour and a half long, but it was a really good time. The view was amazing from the Temple. We got back and crashed as it was a long night.

Saturday was our last full day in Athens. After a quick breakfast, we headed to Monistraki to do a little shopping and ended up finding the ancient city of Agora. We toured that for a while, but it was so hot it was hard to keep going. We left there and headed to the Benaki Museum. It was similar to the other museums in Athens but had a lot more modern items. We left there and headed towards the hotel. I decided to head to the ancient Olympic stadium. It was amazing. 85,000 seats, all marble, and an amazing view of the Acropolis. We headed to dinner early since we had to get up early enough to get on the plane the next morning.

Unfortunately Sunday arrived and we had to depart. A week of heat, fun, and sun was worth it. It was even better when we were upgraded to business class on the flight from Athens to Atlanta. That made the departure a little easier to swallow.

It was an awesome trip. We had such a great time and I will always remember what we saw and what we did. I highly recommend visiting Athens if you get the chance. But don't spend a week there- venture out to other islands and other parts of the country. There's a lot to see and do.

Tonight I learned something pretty darn cool: 200+ sparklers lit at once = 5 ft high fireball but an awesome show!

One more week

and I'll be on a plane headed to Greece! Can't wait!

Father's day

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!

NJ, how you are not my friend

Two weekends in a row we've been to NJ for a baby shower and a wedding. I love NJ. My favorite place to visit. But it was good to see friends. I'm not one for baby showers but enjoyed seeing friends get closer to a major change in their lives. And of course weddings are fun. I have awesome friends. What can I say?

Livejournal sucks

Since LiveJournal and Blogger aren;t playing nicely I'm just posting here.

I just got back from a week and a half trip to Bahrain and Germany, with side trips to Amsterdam and Strasbourg, France. What an interesting week.

But while I Bahrain I learned why there is such a high obesity rate. This was the 3rd trip of the year and all I see on the roads and billboards are signs for places like McDonalds, Hardees, Chilis, etc, all with free delivery. No wonder the obesity rates are climbing. People can't even walk to McDonald's. They simply call and have it delivered. Sad.

On the flip side, Germans, while they cook just about everything in grease or lard, are getting healthier simply because they walk and bike everywhere. There were more bike paths and trails to use than I have seen anywhere else. You had to dodge bikers, but it wasn't that bad. I can deal with that compared to everyone driving everywhere.

It's good to be home, but traveling sure teaches you something.

New blog

Welcome to my new blog! I'll move my Livejournal posts over but decided to move here instead.