Yo Ho Ho & A Bottle of Rum

Rusty came by early this morning & surprised us. Normally we've been calling him around 9am with our intended plans of the day. We're going on a boat tour of LA Harbor.

We thought that we'd be off for Catalina today, but the cost of the round trip boat ride has gone up to almost $100 per person. It doubled since I was out here last year. Now there is also a requirement that you book the trip at least 3 days in advance. I'm a bit sad since that is my favorite place in California & really the only place I had my heart set on going to.

We're using today as the "educational portion" of our vacation. We went to the San Pedro fish market, where Joe ate a seafood combo with chips. Other than the deep fried squid, I've got no clue what else was on his plate. After that we took a 45 minute ride around the harbor on a double decker boat. I took a lot of pictures of seals & pelicans. In that same area we saw the Maritime museum, as well as the Lane Victory ship.

To kill some time before dinner we went to Rodondo Pier at sunset. I took some amazing pictures. Then it was off to a sushi place for dinner.

Joe loves sushi, but he even tried some new stuff too. It was my first time trying sushi, so since I don't eat meat, I tried a veggie roll for the first time. I didn't like it, but I didn't not like it either. Sake is pretty interesting, though. I tried it without realizing that was alcohol. Rusty may have had a cup too much of it because he got really talkative. The yummiest thing was the fried ice cream, also known as tempura ice cream. I can best describe it as ice cream wrapped in a fortune cookie.

Now it's late & time to settle in for the night. I hope Joe doesn't get fishy farts from all the seafood!

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Walk of Fame

Today we went with Rusty over to Hollywood & took a walk down the streets with all the stars. Joe made me take a ton of pictures of the celebrity stars. He bowed down to the Chuck Norris & Kiefer Sutherland stars. Look for those online when we get home.

We also went to the Hollywood Wax Museum. That was pretty cool. Some of the wax figures were dead-on replicas, while others sorta left you guessing. It was something that I had never gone to before, nor had Rusty, so it was nice for all of us.

Scaratinos was a great little family owned Italian restaurant we went to for lunch in Glendale. We took a mini shopping trip at a set of luxury condos that had exclusive shopping there. I may have to go back, since all I got was a book.

We tried to go to the Warner Brother Studios, but all the tours were sold-out. I know that Joe was a little disappointed, but since he saw the walk of fame & Graumans Theater, he was ok. Oh yeah, he even got attacked by Jason Vorhees at the theater. He also stood in the footprints of Christopher Walken, who based on footprints, is probably about the same size as Joe. My hand prints & footprints matched up with those of Marilyn Monroe.

Now we're just back relaxing at Nana's house & watching the Simpsons. More to follow tomorrow!

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Is It A Portal?

Our first day began with me waking up before everyone, per usual. I walked out onto the porch where I encountered a small brightly colored bird that was trapped on the porch. Since Joe was finally awake, he helped me usher it back through the sliding glass doors & off to freedom. As I watched I fly off I thought, "Damn, there went my chance at another pet." I'm sure Joe was wondering why I was trying to free it instead of trying to tame it, but he opted not to vocalize any thoughts he was having.

I really wanted to show Joe the Venice Beach area. So Rusty came by mid-morning to take us to the body building grounds of the "govenator". I hadn't been there since my first time out here in 1995, when mom & I went there with her cousin Patty. The most memorable moment from that day was when we saw a guy who looked like he was wearing a mohair body suit was walking down the beach in a speedo. Mental note: never put Joe in a speedo.

We walked from the Santa Monica pier down the Venice Beach pier. Joe decided that there was a portal that kept the Venice type separated from the Santa Monica type. We watched a machete juggler for a little while. Joe saw a Samoan guy in a speedo, now he has his own traumatic speedo memory. Then we walked down to the water for most of the walk back to Santa Monica. Joe was really surprised by how cold the water was. What do you expect from water that flows down from Alaska?

After that hefty walk we went to Ye Olde Kings Head Pub for a late lunch. Since Joe is more adventurous with food, he ate fish & chips for the first time. He also tried scotch eggs, which is a hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage. He loved it & wants that when we get home.

Shortly after that we drove through downtown Hollywood. It was getting dark, so we planned for the walking tour of it tomorrow. We may get lucky & tour the Warner Brother studios too. If Joe sees a celebrity, like anyone from "24", I may have to call people to get some bail money together. Be ready to answer your phones...

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Layover Vacation

We woke up at some horrible,horrible hour of dark blackness yesterday to go to the airport.

We flew out of Scranton to Newark to Cleveland to Los Angles. I'm still not sure why we began the trip flying backwards in order to fly forward. I was told by the airline that it had to do with budget cuts or something of that nature. The flights we all good. The flight from Cleveland had Joe & I separated by about 10 rows because some stupid family didn't book their seats together & because they had small children, they needed to be with them. That flight had 10-12 kids all under the age of 8, but it was surprisingly quiet. I guess they we all playing with their new toys.

Joe read his book during most of the flights, while I took power naps. We got here safely. Rusty picked us up at the airport to bring us back to nana's house. We had dinner there before I promptly fell asleep. Joe stayed up reading for a bit longer & enjoyed the view of the lights of the LA basin.

Now I'm awake typing this, Joe is asleep (he's adjusted just great to pacific time). More blogs will come as the vacation goes on!

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Merry Christmas To All

This was a very nice Christmas. I was in the holiday spirit this year, which is a stark change from last year. Last year there was just so much going on & we didn't really decorate for the holidays because we moved in so close to Christmas. Plus, after buying the house money was really, really tight. This year, however, the tree was up & decorated the first week of December. The front of the house got decked-out the following weekend. There was a vast difference in my mood this year, having the time to prepare for the day.

Christmas Eve was spent at Joe's parents house. His mom made dinner for everyone. It was nice to see Mark & Sihbon there. We don't get to see them too much & I know that Joe wishes he could spend more time hanging out with his brother. After dinner, we watched some old home movies of the boys. That was pretty cool. The funniest video was the "lost wedding toast" that Mark had done for a college project. After that Joe sat under the tree & handed out gifts to everyone.

Once we got home, we stayed up until Midnight & opened our Christmas stockings. I really wanted to do the big Midnight breakfast's like I used to have with Grandma Johnson, but we just couldn't stay up much longer, so we reserved that for the first thing in the morning on Christmas Day.

Christmas Day has the two of us staying home. We were invited to go to dinner at my parents & to go to dinner at Grandpa Rizzo's house, but opted to keep it low-key this year. I think that too has helped me enjoy the day more. It's hard to enjoy the day when you are having to rush around to get to a particular place. I just made dinner for us here tonight. I made Joe cinnamon apple coated pork chops with garlic-rosemary potatoes. He ate it up! Now he's down in the mancave playing one of the various video games the he got. I probably won't see him again until we're packing up the car to go to the airport for the California trip.

We got Sugar a new storage bench for her good & toys. Based on the box, it looked fully assembaled... yeah, right. So Joe spent a good half hour putting the dog's toy box together, all the while he was muttering, "We don't even have human kids, why am I putting toys together today?!" I think that was the funniest moment of the whole day!

Well, here is where I end this entry. We hope that Santa made it to everyone & gave you all what you wanted.

Falling Snow

The snow has yet to stop falling. This picture is from this morning when the two of us got home early from work. I shoveled the driveway a few times, Joe did the final run-through until the morning. Let's see what it looks like when the sun comes back up, but so far it's making me smile.

Christmas Cards

Joe & I spent time with Rob & Lauren on Sunday night. It was nice to get caught up with them, swap Christmas gifts, & eat some yummie food.

Joe & Rob were playing Xbox & watching the Dallas vs. Giants game that was on. We still have no clue why it was on at 8pm, but whatever. Lauren & I were sitting around the dining room table, leafing through sale fliers when she mentioned that the Christmas card from us was the first one that they got. Now, I know that my neurosis makes me send out cards on December 1st, but it made both of us realize that there seems to have been a Christmas card shortage this year. Of the 30 or so cards that we sent out, we only got back 7. If I remember right, Lauren said they got less than we did. This made us both decide that next year the card list will be short for both of our households.

I don't know if in this age of email, most people are sending those stupid free e-cards. That just seems a bit tacky to me. Take your lazy asses to the store, buy some cards, fill them out, address them, go to the post office & mail them out. Believe it or not, sometimes family & friends want to you know that you're still out amongst the general population... so that we can be sure to run away if we see you out there.

Addendum: ABC News

What A Wonderful Day

Driving along the back road on my way to work this morning there was a mini rock slide. I managed to avoid all but 1 rock, hitting that huge bastard with my passenger side front tire. I pulled over immediately & inspected the tire. There was no damage as far as I could tell. Things we cruising along smoothly in the fast lane for about an hour when I suddenly heard that horrible, horrible "thwump, thwump, thwump"

Yep, the tire was blown up & shredded. I was standing on the side of I-84 in the rain, staring at my remnants of a tire. A quick call to the NYSP had a tow truck coming to me to change my tire. I know that everyone is laughing because I should know how to change a tire...and I do. However, this car has locking rims, so the standard tire removal junk in my trunk is not designed for what is actually on my car. Yippee

Spare tire gets put on & I head to the cheapest tire place that I can think of- WalMart. There is nothing that place doesn't have. Of course, when I get there it's going to be a 6 hour wait because there is only 1 employee in automotive and a ton of cars in front of me. Yippier

So here I stand, in front of the store awaiting a ride from one of my co-workers. At least I can go to work instead of waisting my day here. Yippieist

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The NEW Average Joe at the Movies

The Average Joe at the Movies blog isn't about just movies anymore. As a way to add more to the blog on a regular basis, I've opened up the flood gates to include all aspects of entertainment. I'm talking movies, television, video games, comics, sports..........you name it, I'll talk about it. I have an intro to the blog there, and I've already put on a few new entries. I encourage anyone who reads it to give some input, make suggestion for stuff to talk about..........anything at all. As much as I'm doing it more for myself, I'd like to know if I'm getting more out of it too. So feel free to check it out.

Reconciling Renovations

After a year of living here, things have progressed a lot from where we began. I know that we both expected to have a lot more done by now. Innocently enough we thought we would be able to tackle 1 room a month. But, as most of you know, Joe was laid off for several months, right after we bought the house. Oh, then there was the failure of the furnace, along with the hot water heater the day we moved in. Between all that, our savings was eaten up. Then the spring time brought the disaster with the septic. I know that I'm looking at this very bleakly. I have to focus on all the good. The guestroom is done, except for the flooring. Our hallway is completed, so is the project of turning the half wall into a full wall. Once I focus on the good, I'm reminded of the roof leak. That dip-shit home inspector told us the roof was 5 years old.... yeah well, he left off the "1". The friggin' thing is 15 years old!

The house is still worth a lot more than we paid for it, so there is some solace in that. We have decided that the next house will be turn-key ready... more or less. The next house is also going to be the one we plan on living in until one of us buys the farm.

My words of wisdom to people buying homes... forget going on the word of the home inspector alone, have a contractor there the same day as the inspection so that you get the truth. While there are probably some good home inspectors out there, I think that the bulk of them are going to tell you what you want to hear to buy the house & give the bank what they want to hear to give you the loan. I know that everyone says when you buy a house "the work will never be done". I have to think that can't be completely accurate. After all the crap that we've gone through with this place after having a moronic home inspector, I have to believe that there will be some sort of light at the end of the tunnel.

Let The Battle With The Mice Begin!!!!!!

The "Raccoon Wars" have been over for quite some time. The porch has been closed off to the outside, so the raccoons have not been seen since. All has been peaceful in the Rizzo household. Yet, those of this household could not imagine the underground war that would be started by the small infiltrators known as "the mouse."

When we first occupied the home, we knew the mice were already inside. But so far, other than leaving their turds in various spots, not much activity was seen. One mouse was caught by me after the cats had worn it down. After that, there was nothing new to report. Nothing was out of place. There was harmony. Until a few weeks ago.........

The first sign was the return of the turds. This time, they were found in the kitchen cabinets, around the silverware, Tupperware, and other utensils. It was getting out of hand. My wife and I sought a means of properly disposing of the mice without killing them. However, no humanitarian traps were immediatley available, not without a high price. Peace would inevitably come with a cost.

The raids then began to get worse. The spices in the high cabinet were getting ransacked. The paper labels were getting torn off, and plastic tops were torn into. Only the chocolate sprinkles were effectively opened and eaten. Every time we heard noises from the cabinet after, we immediatley opened them, hoping to catch the spy. But all we would see was a glimpse of the mouse's tail as he crawled back up the duct work for the hood fan. The mice were becoming more than a mere nuisance. My wife and I knew they had to go soon.

The last instance where the intruder was almost caught happened today. As I watched television, the quiet essence of the house was disturbed by a bumping sound. I went to investigate the back bedroom, thinking our refugee cats were causing the ruckuss. They were relaxing, and seemed to be making no trouble. While visiting them a second time after a repeat of the noise, I heard it coming from the kitchen. The infiltrator was in the cabinet. I rushed to the doors and opened them. What I saw stunned me just a little. The mouse was right in front of me. So was the overturned bottle of vanilla extract. It was almost as if he didn't notice me. He stood there, reaching one paw into the bottle, pulling it out and licking the extract. The smell of the vanilla was strong. When I regained my wits, I reached out for him. But he was to fast. He crawled back up the duct, and all I could do was stand there in defeat.

What must I do to end this threat without it coming to violence? It's almost impossible to fortify that duct so nothing can get in. The rest of the cabinets even more so. Glue traps, snap traps, and rat posion are unexceptable according to my wife. The only alternative I've seen is an attachment to a soda bottle in a catalog, but it doesn't seem plausible. What can be done to end the mouse's menace? I must find a way before more damage is done. We may not be in this house for long, but dammit we will make sure there is peace!

Polar Express

This past weekend my parents took all of us on a Polar Express train ride. I have to admit that Joe & I were getting a bit alarmed when we saw carloads of children. We were both under the impression that it was going to be more along the lines of an old time train ride.

On the train ride, passengers re-live the experience of the little boy in The Polar Express book, written by Chris Van Allsburg. The story focuses on a little boy who has been told by his friends that there is no Santa Claus. Unwilling to believe this, he lies awake in his bed on Christmas Eve, waiting for the sound of Santa's sleigh. Instead, he hears the hissing steam and squeaking metal of the Polar Express as it stops outside his window, ready to take him and other children to the North Pole. During the ride you listen to the story, children are served hot chocolate & cookies. Santa visits each child, his elves ensure that every child receives a very special bell from Santa. After all, only those who believe can hear the sound of Santa's sleigh bell. Believe me, Joe still hears that bell.... loud & clear.

All trips are pulled by historic antique diesel locomotive #8142 & consists of antique restored passenger cars from the 1950's. The passenger cars were so neat, it really kicked in some feelings of nostalgia. Of course, we just snuggled together in a seat, smiling at all the holiday bliss. Mom, Sean & the kids were all in the same holiday mood. It was a good bit of fun.

It departs from Lehigh Junction located in the Historic Main Street area of Phillipsburg New Jersey. Getting there was a complete pain in the tooshie. Whoever wrote the directions should be taken out & beaten by all the people who get lost.