Now that we're through Thanksgiving, it's the perfect time to, um, revisit Pittsburgh Pirates predictions made back before the season started. While the full post is here, let's see how we did.
1. What do you expect from Paul Skenes this year?
Skenes exceeded all expectations. He finished the season with a record of 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, and 170 strikeouts in 133 innings pitched. Skenes won the National League rookie of the year, finished 3rd in the NL Cy Young voting, and started the All-Star game. Josh predicted Skenes would have 10-12 wins and finish top 3 in rookie of the year. Point for Josh!
2. What do you think Oneil Cruz's state line will be for 2024?
Cruz had an uneven year. 21 home runs, 76 RBIs, .259 batting average, and 22 stolen bases. He also had 181 strikeouts and moved from shortstop to center field. Overall, a positive step forward, and Pirates fans hope that he builds off this season and becomes more comfortable as an outfielder for 2025. Josh was the closest again predicting 24 HR / 66 RBIs / 20 SBs / .252 average.
3. Who will lead the Pirates in home runs?
The answer was Bryan Reynolds with 24. Is this turning into Josh's Ramblings? He is the only one who predicted Reynolds. Jim, The Moose, and I all made the terrible call of Jack Suwinski. We chose poorly.
4. When will Livvy Dunne make her debut at PNC Park?
The answer was May 11th for Skenes' first start. While I hoped that people would give an actual date, the question was somewhat vague, so Brian and Amanda both said she would be there for Skenes' debut. Technically, they were right. Points for them.
5. Will Rowdy Tellez be more successful as a Pirate than Daniel Vogelbach?
If we answered this question on June 1st, this would be a definite no. Turns out he was pretty good the last few months of the season before being unceremoniously released during the last week of the season. His overall stat line was 13 home runs, 56 RBIs, a .299 OBP, 1 stolen base, and a -0.4 WAR. He also made three pitching appearances. In 2022 with the Pirates, Vogelbach had 12 home runs, 34 RBIs, a .338 OBP, and a 0.6 WAR. As fun as Rowdy was over the summer, I think the answer is no. Jim predicted no and Brian leaned that way. Points for them.
6. Will the Pirates be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline?
Overall, the Pirates were buyers getting Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Bryan De La Cruz, and reliever Jalen Beeks but the team also traded Martin Perez to the Padres. Brian, Gary, Josh, and Jim all get credit for their answers.
7. Overall Pirates record and place in the division
The Pirates finished 76-86 with the exact same record as 2023. However, the team finished last in the NL Central. No one thought the Pirates would finish below 3rd place in the division. We were also an optimistic group. Josh's prediction of 79-83 was the closest.
Congrats on Josh on doing the best in predicting. Let's try this again in 2025.
Photo of Skenes by Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images. Photo of Dunne by Charles LeClaire-USA Today. Charles is making the rounds!
My friend
Christian and I are attempting to attend a National Hockey League game in every
city with a team. While our annual hockey road trips haven’t been as annual
lately (thanks to kids and Covid), we’re closing in on our goal. This year,
joined by our friend Jason, we visited Winnipeg along with North Dakota. I
already wrote about our dining experience in Winnipeg and will write a separate
post about being a tourist in Winnipeg, our time in Grand Forks, North Dakota,
and how we confused both American and Canadian border agents. This post focuses
on the Winnipeg Jets-Pittsburgh Penguins hockey game. Please note that there
are plenty of non-hockey related items, so please continue reading even if
you’re not a hockey fan.
Let’s start
with scheduling this trip. Our initial idea was to attend a Jets game as well
as a University of North Dakota hockey game. Unfortunately, the timing didn’t
work out for a UND hockey game though we did incorporate a visit to a
University of North Dakota football game instead. Because why wouldn't you
go to a UND football game when you have the chance? Fortunately, the timing
matched up with seeing the Jets face my hometown team, the Pittsburgh Penguins.
I figured out that it's been over a decade since I attended my last Penguins
game. In the pre and early Alexander Ovechkin era in Washington, it was really
easy to get tickets to Pens-Caps games. That changed when the Caps started
being good, and ticket prices got a lot more expensive. And while I go back to
Pittsburgh at least once or twice a year, I haven't been to PPG Paints Arena,
except to see the Harlem Globetrotters. This is a long way of writing that I
was very excited to see Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in person again.
Trying to be a
gracious tourist, I didn't want to walk around Winnipeg and the arena
wearing Penguins gear. However, I wanted to show that I am from Pittsburgh for
people who might understand.
Even though
there were a lot more people in Penguins gear than I expected (I forgot that
Crosby is a national hero in Canada), exactly zero people commented on my
shirt.
Going with the
Jets (and Top Gun) theme, I liked that the home team hits the ice to Danger
Zone by Kenny Loggins.
That's Kenny
Loggins!
For no apparent
reason, the Jets have two mascots. The first is Benny, who served as the team's
mascot in the 80s and 90s before the team moved to Arizona and is now the
secondary mascot. Benny is named for the former team owner Ben Hatskin and for
the song Bennie and the Jets because nothing represents Sir Elton John's
longstanding ties to Winnipeg like a blue mascot with a giant red nose and
mohawk.
The second
mascot is Mick E. Moose, which may be one of the worst names in mascot history
and seems like a Disney lawsuit waiting to happen. The silhouette of Mick E.
visiting our section might give you nightmares!
When the Jets score a goal, the arena blasts Takin' Care Of Business by Bachman-Turner Overdrive (along with the goal horn). Fun fact: the band is from Winnipeg, so this song makes perfect sense. The mascot really should be called BTO rather than Benny. Anyway, after the initial playing of the song, the arena staff figure out who scored the goal, and each player has their own individual song. It's a very cool idea that I haven't seen before. While one player had your standard AC/DC goal celebration song and the others weren't very memorable, Adam Lowry's goal song is Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter which is certainly a choice.
The Jets have a
house band called Mach 10 that perform between periods. At one point during one
of their sets, the lead singer announced that they were going to play a song
that is a fan-favorite and represents Winnipeg. Was it a BTO song? Bennie and the Jets? If you guessed Bon Jovi's Livin' on a
Prayer, you win!
I appreciate
Winnipeg making me and others from Pittsburgh feel like home.
Mid-way through the second period, a chant of "Where is Rutger?" emerged throughout the entire arena. Rutger McGroarty was the Jets 1st round draft pick in 2022. While I don't know the entire story, it seems that Rutger never wanted to play in Winnipeg, so the team traded him to the Penguins over the summer. The one thing you can't do as a player is say that you don't want to be there. Fans hate that more than anything else, so even those wearing Penguins gear joined the chant. I tried to answer the question by explaining that Rutger is currently in Wilkes Barre-Scranton, home of the Penguins top minor league affiliate, but no one seemed to acknowledge my response.
Before the
game, the team had a nice tribute to forward Bryan Little who had one last
pregame skate with the team. I didn't realize that Little played his last game
in 2019 but only formally retired recently. He is a fan favorite in Winnipeg.
This is the
best jersey I saw at the Canada Life Centre:
If you really
want to see highlights from a game that occurred a month ago, please check out
the video below. The game recap is here too. You might notice that Pittsburgh center Lars Eller had two
goals for the Pens. I think he is a solid veteran that the Penguins would want
to help the team win. (Sean's note: The Penguins traded Eller to the
Washington Capitals last week, so never mind.)
A month after
this game, the Penguins are near the bottom of the Eastern conference standings
and like this game in Winnipeg, regularly lose leads. Meanwhile, the Jets are
16-3 with the best record in the league. If the Penguins aren't going to win
the Stanley Cup, I'm going to support the Jets especially since I can say that
I attended one of their games during their championship season. And here are a few more pictures.
The Steelers
faced off against their division rival the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday and
somehow prevailed 18-16. Here are some key stats from the game:
The goal in
football is to score more points than your opponents. To do this, you usually
need to score touchdowns. The Steelers scored the same amount of touchdowns as
me on Sunday with 0.
Wide receivers
Van Jefferson, Calvin Austin, and Mike Williams combined for 1 catch for -1
yards. Again, that's one less than my cat Lucy.
Baltimore
rushed for 124 yards on 19 carries for 6.5 yards per carry. With that type of
success, many are asking why the Ravens didn't run the ball more. Derrick
Henry, arguably the best running back in the NFL, only had 13 carries.
The Steelers
were 4 for 16 on 3rd down conversions. That's a lot of failed 3rd down
conversions.
The Ravens
scored two touchdowns in their two red zone attempts, while the Steelers went
0-4 in their trips to the red zone.
Based on these
stats, you would definitely think the Steelers lost. Again, they scored no
touchdowns against the highest scoring team in the league! However, the
Steelers forced three turnovers and kicker Chris Boswell went 6 for 6 on field
goals and that was the difference in the game.
8-2 is nice. Go Steelers!
Finally, I need
to give credit to Taco Bell for using Harvey Danger's Flagpole Sitta in one of
its newer commercials. Love this song.
Much better than Davante Adams looking miserable that he has a Taco Bell in his house. (Just ignore everything other than the commercial in the video.)
Late in the fourth quarter of the Pittsburgh Steelers-Washington Commanders game, the Steelers had the ball with a slim 28-27 lead. The Steelers ran three straight running plays with Washington using all of its time-outs to stop the clock after each play. The Steelers had 4th-and-1 with 1:02 remaining on Washington's 49 yard line and chose to bring out its offense instead of punting. I said to my kids that the Steelers were going to try to draw Washington offsides because there was no way they would go for it and risk giving Washington the ball only needing about 15 yards to get into field goal range. (I only said the first part.) Everyone knew this. Well, maybe not one person. Let's go to the video.
As the Steelers celebrated the win, all I thought of was this:
I watched a lot of TV over the last few days, and I've come up with this conclusion: There is too much coverage of the Dallas Cowboys. Seriously, they are a mediocre to above-average team and have been that way for nearly 30 years. While I stand by my opinion of the Cowboys and the media obsession with this team, that's obviously not the point of this post.
I created Sean's Ramblings as a diary of sorts. The purpose of some posts is to share something entertaining or interesting with people who read this, but there are other posts that are more for me. I like being able to look back at posts I wrote about major moments of my life over the last 20 years. Big things like the birth of my kids and the passing of my parents. I also see this blog as a bit of a time capsule for me. Because of that, I want to write my thoughts on the 2024 presidential election in real time.
Let's start with this. I'm disappointed with the results. I wanted Kamala Harris to be the 47th president of the United States and not just because I predicted in January 2020 that she would be president on January 1, 2030. (My prediction of the Kansas City Chiefs winning the most Super Bowls in the 2020s is looking good right now.) Obviously, this is 20-20 hindsight, and I'm not trying to play the blame game (though it may sound like it). Joe Biden never should have run for reelection. Back when he was running for president in 2020, he talked about being a 1-term, transitional president. At some point during his term, probably when he saw that Trump was going to be the Republican nominee, he changed his mind. Many believe that Biden thought he was the best (or only) person who could defeat Trump since he did it before. However, it was clear during his debate with Trump over the summer that Biden could no longer serve as president and campaign for re-election at the same time and then do the job for another 4 years. He should have bowed out a year ago, allowing for a Democratic primary. Again, I'm really not trying to blame Biden. I think he is a good person and should be remembered as someone who dedicated his life to serving Delaware and America.
Unfortunately, Biden's late decision to bow out of the race left Kamala Harris little time to organize. Again, this is hindsight, but even after her time in the Senate and as Vice President, she's not that well known to many Americans. I'm writing this acknowledging that I follow politics rather closely and understand that many people don't. At least by polling data, Biden isn't considered popular with the majority of Americans, and Harris struggled to show where she differed from him. For many people, illegal immigration was one of the most important issues in the election. Even though a vice president has little to do with the policies and actions of the president, by being part of the Biden administration, she became the candidate responsible for any real or perceived border crisis. Sure, border crossings are down and a bipartisan deal to provide increased border security was killed by Trump telling House and Senate Republicans not to support the legislation, but that wasn't the message much of the electorate heard. Same with the economy. Inflation in America was and is lower than most of the world and the unemployment rate is down, but people see higher grocery bills and higher interest rates on homes and vehicles and blame the current administration.
So even though Trump started campaigning for president nearly a decade ago and doesn't seem to have much interest or ability to formulate specific policies (see the concept of a plan for a new health care system) other than making bold statements (see ending the war in Ukraine in 24 hours), Trump appears to have won more votes based on the issues. Fine. I mean, not fine, but fine. I'll get more to the issues momentarily.
Character needs to count for something. Even Trump's biggest supporters admit that he needs to get off social media and tone down his rhetoric. That's being generous. He's a bully who constantly insults people. He's a terrible example for kids. He's a sore loser who never admits defeat or that he is wrong.
He was found guilty of 34 felonies for falsifying business records. A jury found him liable for sexual abuse. 27 women have accused Trump of sexual assault. I'm sure that there are some MAGA members who think that everything is a big conspiracy against Trump. Do they truly believe that ALL of this is made up? That's like believing that Cleveland Browns QB Deshaun Watson just likes getting massages from different massage therapists each time.
It really says something that VP Mike Pence, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, and many other members of his administration refused to endorse or support Trump.
Okay, back to issues. Deport criminals? Assuming there is some type of proof of crimes and/or due process, no one is going to argue with this. Get em outta here.
Mass deportation for all undocumented migrants including those who have been in the US for years, pay taxes, and contribute to society? Not so fast my friend. Trump also wants to pardon the January 6th rioters. But I thought it was antifa or government operatives who rioted. So why exactly is the "tough-on crime" Trump going to pardon those convicted? Oh, it was actually Trump supporters that rioted, and he wants to show his support for them.
This post is too long already. I haven't even touched on abortion, LGBT rights, the fact that Trump wants the licenses of CBS and ABC revoked, and that he will go after political opponents. I haven't included the role of Elon Musk (whose companies have billions of dollars in federal contracts; hello conflict of interest!) and Robert Kennedy Jr. (with years of experience as an environmental lawyer but will be in charge of health and have nothing to do with the EPA) in the administration. There's just so much. Maybe Trump will try to be a president for all Americans like he said in his speech after winning the election. Based on his history, I'm not counting on it, but I'm trying to be positive. I'm hopeful that Trump will be good for Israel in getting the hostages home and helping to end the conflicts between Israel and the Iranian proxies.
I guess I'll end with this. My parents were both government employees. Yes, they were in stable jobs with good benefits, but they both wanted to help people. We grew up directly across the street from a parkway exit. Over the years, friends and neighbors wanted us to put campaign signs in our front yard due to it being a high visibility location, but my parents refused to do so because they couldn't as federal employees. They took this very seriously. This is a big part of why Project 2025 scares me. Mass firings of good civil servants doing their jobs just because they don't share the same political affiliation of the administration is not the way to make America great again. It's the exact opposite.
Photo of Harris by Alex Brandon (AP). Photo of Trump from Getty Images.
Sure, there's a pretty big election tomorrow, and I still want to write about my Winnipeg-North Dakota trip, but today, I feel like sharing pictures. Warning: Some of these are not very recent.
I had no idea there are large groups of people who thought Honey Nut Cheerios are too big and need to be smaller.
I found a Wegmans-mobile in the wild (assuming you consider a Wegmans parking lot the wild).
Here's a fresh and current picture. While I knew that the Nathan's hot dog eating contest on July 4th wasn't aired live, ESPN really killed any suspense by showing that Miki Sudo won with the number of hot dogs eaten in the middle of the telecast.
For any of my Ithaca friends, my parents kept a bowl full of matches in their home. While we didn't keep any while cleaning out their place, I enjoyed coming across this one from Simeon's on the Commons (now called Simeon's American Bistro)
From a Nationals game this summer, I liked the look of these Japanese heritage jerseys.
Deer (and geese) really like "my" golf course at dusk.
It's a rainbow!
At the end of his time in first grade, Luigi drew George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Pretty good!
When I first saw The Moose's socks, I questioned why we bought him a pair with the picture of some type of angry bird
Turns out, that it's actually the Under Armour logo.
I recently travelled to Winnipeg and North Dakota as part of my annual-ish hockey road trip. While I plan on writing several different posts about the trip, this one focuses on food. Yes, today, I'm going to be a food blogger.
For our first night in Winnipeg, we ate dinner at Feast Cafe Bistro as recommended by Taylor at Tourism Winnipeg. Taylor and I go way back...to earlier in October. Feast is a 100% Indigenous-owned and operated restaurant using local ingredients. I split a bison ramen noodle bowl and a fire-roasted buffalo lasagna. Both were delicious and not something I would normally eat.
We went to dinner at the Hargrave St. Market on the second night, adjacent to the Canada Life Centre where the Jets play. I really enjoyed the Hargrave St. Market concept. It's a modern-day food court which seems to be becoming more prevalent. There were about 8 different food and drink restaurants serving pizza, tacos, Japanese bowls, burgers, and more, but it's not like Taco Bell and Sbarros that they had at the Monroeville Mall food court growing up. This was much more upscale.
On day #3, we went to the Forks Market. I want to live there! First, outside of the market is The Forks where Winnipeg began at the meeting of the Red River and Assiniboine River. (Please don't ask how badly I mispronounced this name which is all over Winnipeg.) The Forks Market has dozens of restaurants and shops. While there were many dining options, how could I not eat at the best named restaurant in all of Winnipeg? (And they had poutine too.)
On the third night, we ate at the James Avenue Pumphouse. Really cool venue. The building is over 100 years old and served as the pumping station distributing water to area fire hydrants. Much of the machinery is still there. I got the Dan Dan Thai plate. It was good but not great. A little too much tofu for me. Think I would go for something else next time.
I probably should have started this post with the view from my hotel.
Of course, I had a donut from Tim Hortons! I also visited a Real Canadian Superstore. When I told my brother that I traveled thousands of miles to visit a grocery store, he said, who are you, dad? I like going to new grocery stores. Although I didn't buy anything, I like seeing my normal Rold Gold pretzels in a darker yellow packaging and in French.
I was also intrigued by a strawberry milkshake flavor of Frosted Flakes. I almost bought one before going on my phone and realizing that they are sold in my area. Sure enough, there are boxes at my local Wegmans.
Consider this part one of the 2024 hockey road trip. More posts to come.
Coldplay has a new song out with Elyanna, Little Simz, Burna Boy, and TINI titled "We Pray."
I'm amazed at the number of people listed as the songwriters according to WikiPedia. Here's the list: Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion, Chris Martin, Simbiatu Ajikawo, Shawn Carter, Elian Marjieh, Max Martin, Damini Ogulu, Mauricio Rengifo, Davide Rossi, Ilya Salmanzadeh, Martina Stoessel, and Andres Torres.
That's 14 people! Seems like a lot for a song, but I'm not in the music business, so maybe this is somewhat common. You know who's not given a writing credit? Stanley Burrell, better know as MC Hammer.
I feel like the choruses for both songs are similar. Enough so that MC Hammer should get some credit here. And if this doesn't happen soon, please Hammer, don't hurt 'em!
For much of
baseball history, there was the National League and the American League. They
were completely separate entities with the winners of each league facing each
other in the World Series. Otherwise, teams from each league would never meet
during the regular season. There were separate league presidents, and
umpires were employed by either the AL or NL. Limited interleague games started
in the mid-90s with each team playing teams from the other league for a handful
of games, but the percentage of interleague games during the season was
still fairly small. Now, although there are still separate leagues, there are
no league presidents, umpires are employed by Major League Baseball, and every
team plays against each other each season. For the 2024 season, each team
played 46 interleague games. That's a substantial number. So why are there
still separate awards (MVP, CY Young, etc.) for each league? The hill I'm
willing to die on today is that there should be one baseball award winner.
Period.
Instead of Shohei Ohtani being the National League MVP and Aaron Judge
being the American League MVP, there should only be one like in every other
American sport. (The MVP debate this season would be unreal!) Look at the NBA
for the 2023-2024 season. Nikola Jokic won MVP while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished second
and Luka Doncic finished third in the voting. All three play in the Western
conference. If this was baseball, Giannis Antetokounmpo would have been the
Eastern Conference MVP which seems a little ridiculous.
In football,
Lamar Jackson easily won the NFL MVP last season. Would Dallas Cowboys fans
really celebrate Dak Prescott being the NFC MVP? The answer is probably not.
Let’s stop this two MVP and two Rookie of the Year award nonsense in baseball
and just have one award winner for the entire sport.
Please click here to see more of my extremely sporadic Hills I'm Willing To Die On series.
Over the
weekend, the boys and I ran a 5K for a good cause in honor/memory of a former teacher at their elementary school. This is the first time all four of us ran a
race together, so the plan was for The Moose (13) to run ahead, and I would
stick with Pedro Tulo (10) and especially Luigi (7). It was a contained race
course without any cars/traffic, so I wasn’t worried about splitting up, but I
still wanted to run with my youngest. I also figured that I could use him as an excuse to take a break and walk because he would need to take
a break and walk.
I figured
wrong.
The race
started with the experienced runners going first. The Moose declared that he
should be in this group, so off he went. About 20-30 seconds later, the
remaining runners started (including us) followed by those walking the course.
Luigi went ahead of Pedro Tulo and me, but I could still see him. As we
continued, it was Pedro Tulo (and me) needing to take breaks and not Luigi as I
expected. At a certain point, Luigi was too far ahead of me to see. On the
second lap of the course, I spotted The Moose ahead but no sign of Luigi. I
started getting a little concerned. I kind of figured that The Moose would have
eyes on him even if I didn't and thought that maybe Luigi stopped not realizing
that you had to run the course twice.
When I got to
the finish line, Luigi was there with his brother. He ended up finishing at
least a minute or two ahead of The Moose. (This wasn't a formal 5K with anyone
tracking the time, so we don't know the official time.) Luigi was just fast. As
we were drinking Gatorade, a guy who is probably in his late 20s or early 30s
introduced himself to us and said that he ran a good portion of the last
part of the race with Luigi. He said that he passed him at the end, and I
replied that I would do the same thing since I wouldn't want to get beat by a
kid. I mean, that was my motivation down the stretch in the last 5KI ran with my family.
I think Luigi
is excited to run another 5K. While I'll join him, I know that I won't be able to keep up with him!
Welcome to my third annual post of NFL teams sharing Happy New Year messages on their social media sites for Rosh Hashanah. Here we go:
While I don't like to give the Ravens any credit, I appreciate that the organization posted a nice new year's message. Same with the Jets, Bears, and Vikings. This is a significant decrease from the 9 teams last year. Four teams posted messages in 2022. The Jets and Ravens are the only two teams that posted greetings all three years.
It's an odd time for Rosh Hashanah. I mean, the Jewish
New Year is always in the fall and the start being in October is a little later than
usual, but the world is different this year. Except for three posts in OctoberandNovember last year, I have not written about the
Israel-Hamas war. I have not written about the protests at many college
campuses across the United States or what appears to be the start of wider war
between Israel and Hezbollah and Iran. I have lots of thoughts and opinions,
but either I don't know how to express them here or don't really want to. (It's
much more of the second option.) I don't want to write something and then
get drawn into a debate about the history of the Middle East or Israeli politics.
While I'm certainly thinking about what is happening in and around Israel and
hope for a peaceful resolution with the release of hostages in Gaza, I want to
wish those who are celebrating a Shana Tova (or Happy New Year).
Here are some maybe happier videos.
Six13 is back, all right!
Disposable plates are the way to go.
Here are two recipes that I will never make.
This video doesn't really have anything to do with Rosh Hashanah. It's just someone taking an hour worth of videos around Jerusalem.
This is a few years old but still funny to me.
Finally, check out this video from the amazing show Parks and Recreation. Starting around the 3:00 minute mark is the reason why.
I share this because there are hundreds of videos every year about the rapture being on Rosh Hashanah. Seems to go perfectly with the Parks and Rec video. Save yourself some time and don't search for those videos on YouTube. They'll be around next year too.
With our mom passing away a few months ago, my brother and I put her home up for sale. Part of this process included cleaning out her place, so last week, we went through her home for likely the last time. We donated some items to a breast cancer charity and others to family friends who will use it to support other organizations. We also threw away a lot of toiletries and other items. It's amazing how many pairs of reading glasses she owned. (These got donated.) We found some fun personal items and pictures and loaded them into her car and drove up north.
Before writing about the road trip, here are a few pictures we found from my younger days. (I'm on the left in both pictures.)
My mom also saved cards from the last 50 years or so. Many cards from my dad included the phrase, I love you more today than yesterday but not as much as tomorrow. Try getting this song out of your head now!
On to the drive.
There is an arms race in South Carolina on interstate 95. There are dozens of billboards advertising Buc-ee's in Florence and South of the Border in Dillon immediately south of the North Carolina-South Carolina border. And Buc-ee's is the clear winner.
I had my first experience at Buc-ee's this trip and was completely overwhelmed. There are dozens of gas pumps outside and thousands of square feet of retail space inside. If you've never been, it's a combination of the non-restaurant portion of Cracker Barrel (on steroids) along with maybe Costco. There are pre-made brisket sandwiches, hundreds of various Buc-ee's merchandise, an entire section for jerky, and every type of snack food you could imagine...while you're surrounded with about 1,000,000 of your closest friends. While I should have used the much discussed clean bathrooms, I just needed to get out. Maybe I'll try again when it's less crowded at 5:00AM on a Tuesday morning! Meanwhile, driving past South of the Border, the place looked like a ghost town. We didn't stop, but we also didn't see anyone on the grounds and only saw a handful of cars in the parking lot. Maybe the place gets more crowded at other times. Like on Tuesdays at 5:00AM instead of a Saturday afternoon.
We stopped at Zaxbys for lunch along the way. Although I did not order the Mr. Beast meal, I made sure to take this picture just to make my kids jealous. I mean, I didn't meet Mr. Beast. Just took a picture of a cardboard cutout! They were jealous.
I'd like to thank the Hampton Inn & Suites in Brunswick, Georgia for being there. Nice hotel, spacious rooms, breakfast included, and right off the highway. Good place to stop after 7 hours.
My brother and I decided to play the license plate game where we tracked the number of license plates by state. Driving from Florida to Virginia, we saw plates from 34 states, DC, and five Canadian provinces. My brother claimed to see two more states (Delaware and Vermont) after dropping me off. In case you are wondering, we did NOT see plates from Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Iowa, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Made it home after 27 hours and just over 1,000 miles. No one is walking 1,000 miles to fall down at your door or to just see you tonight!
This post is being published / was published on September 17th. This is my first post in September. I'm using this post to explain what I've been up to this month. Or maybe more accurately, what my kids have been up to recently.
School started for the kids on Monday, August 19th. The first two weeks represented the calm before the storm. No or limited homework and activities hadn't started yet. We had a significant family event over Labor Day weekend and then the fun began. The events below occurred starting on September 3rd through this past weekend. These are their stories.
* 3 flag football practices for Luigi (2nd grade)
* Cub Scouts pack meeting and a Cub Scouts den meeting for Pedro Tulo (5th grade)
* 1 flag football practice for The Moose (8th grade)
* 3 separate back-to-school nights
* Sunday school for all three kids
* Dentist appointment for The Moose.
* The first flag football games for both Luigi and The Moose
* Basketball try-out for The Moose
* Family outing to a Nationals game for Luigi's birthday
Oh, I should also mention that I saw both Bruce Springsteen & Pearl Jam over the last two weeks (though not together...that would have been a 6-hour show!).
Maybe I'll write more about the concerts later. In any event, there will be more posts soon. Or at some point.
We bought a new washer and dryer set a few months ago. The previous set had some significant problems near the end that made every laundry load an adventure. While the new set isn’t perfect, it’s nice to have a functional and dependable washer and dryer.
Recently, realizing that I left a load of towels in the dryer, I called The Moose and asked him to clear the lint trap and turn up the dryer, so that I could fold it when I got home. While I tried to explain what I thought was a very simple process, he struggled to figure out how the lint trap worked. Eventually, it seemed like he figured it out as he turned up the dryer before we ended the call.
When I got home, I found this.
I have no idea what he did to the lint trap, but it no longer goes all the way in. We have a warranty for the dryer, but I’m not sure it covers “13 year-old.” The dryer still seems to work fine, and I don’t know if this is a big concern or not. I also don’t want to spend the time or money on what is hopefully an easy fix. I guess I can probably just buy a new lint trap, but the point is that I haven’t really taught my kids how to use the washer and dryer. That’s going to change soon. Unless he manages to break something else!
On a different subject, I always called this the lint tray instead of a lint trap. Am I the only one?
Welcome to Sean's Ramblings! If you're looking for thoughts on pop culture, music, fun and informative links, random DC and Pittsburgh info, sports (particularly Pittsburgh sports), and just what's going on in my life, then you're come to the right place.
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