Stressed Out

I’m stressed. I don’t get stressed very often, but it’s happening right now. I tend to get stressed when I’m concerned about money and home projects/repairs, and those two are often related. We had a leak in our kitchen a few years ago any time there was a heavy rain and thought it was fixed. As you can see, it was not.

While the leak is now fixed and we confirmed that there is no mold, we now need to remove part of the ceiling, put up drywall, and repaint the ceiling. And by we, I mean someone that we pay to do this.

We also had a separate leak coming from our dishwasher. It turned out that the gasket needed replaced. We got it repaired a week or two ago, but the guy didn’t seem to do a good job attaching the new gasket. We opened the dishwasher yesterday to this.

The guy came back today and fixed it, but I have little confidence in him.

What else?

* The washing machine seems to be off balance thanks to an apparent broken leg.

* The Moose just left for 3 weeks to an overnight summer camp, and while I think he’s going to have a fantastic time, he doesn’t know anyone, and this is a brand-new experience for him. I worry a little about him.

* I’m starting a new project at work and constantly questioning myself about if I’m doing everything correctly.

* I received my retirement statement in the mail. Although I’m not going to retire for many years, my account lost a lot of money over the last six months. Like A LOT, A LOT.

* I haven’t watched this season’s Better Call Saul yet this season, but I saved the episodes on my DVR. I finally sat down to watch the first episode, and it was gone. Episodes 2 and 3 aren’t there either. It turns out that my DVR was set to keep only 10 Better Call Saul episodes. I guess I figured that I would always watch them immediately, though that clearly didn’t happen this season. I have episodes 4-10, but the first three episodes were replaced with some 2-minute “Stories from Set” specials and a Talking Saul show. Now, it seems like the only way to see the first three episodes is to buy them on Google Play, YouTube, or Amazon Prime. We have Prime but still must pay for them. Why pay for Prime if we can’t get these episodes?

* We just got a new kitchen faucet and had to get that installed.

* The lease on our minivan is up in several months, and I don’t want to deal with car shopping again.

* I received our county car tax bill in the mail. Ugh!

While some of these things are first world problems, many are not. I have no skills whatsoever in doing home repairs, so any project costs much more money than it probably should since we’re paying for labor in addition to the equipment and materials. Now would be the perfect time to make some money from this blog! Meanwhile, can I just go away to a summer camp for a few weeks and not have any responsibilities? (This might be the theme of Grown Ups, but I never saw the movie.)

My Busy Life

This is a very busy time of year. There is much to do to prepare for the start of the school year with my family and deadlines at work. There are other things that rank just as high in importance though.

1. Preparing for Fantasy Football

I think I'm in 4 or 5 leagues again this year, but I don't even know. I do know that I can't find a draft time that works for everyone in the league where I'm the Commissioner. This is a problem. Oh, my current draft plan consists of getting Willie Parker as a sleeper pick.

2. The Ted Marshall Open Television Death Pool

I've had a really good run in this contest to select 10 TV shows that won't make it to the next TV season. I won in 2011 and 2013 and finished near the top in 2012 and 2014. This may be my calling. Unfortunately, I really don't have a feel yet for the new shows or what shows are ending after this season like Parks & Rec, Glee and Two and a Half Men last season. While I'll probably have another blog post about the 2015-2016 Ted Marshall Open, you can enter now until Labor Day.

3. The LearnedLeague

This is supposedly the trivia league of all trivia leagues. It's an invitation-only league that was even featured in The Washington Post. After seeing the difficulty of the sample questions, I predicted that I would finish last. I mean, there's lots of useless knowledge in my head, but less useless knowledge than the people I expect to be in this league.

After three days, my prediction isn't that far off as I'm in 28th place out of 30 teams in my rookie division. However, I rank first in Correct Answers Allowed, meaning the total number of questions answered correctly by opponents in all matches. Basically, I've played the hardest schedule of the 30 teams. I'm also tied for first in the Most Common Wrong Answers category, so although I'm answering a lot of questions incorrectly, I'm at least providing some very good educated guesses!

4. My DVR

We're probably switching our TV provider meaning that we're going to get a new DVR. Now, I have about two weeks to go through as much on my DVR as possible. I should be able to watch the entire first season of Fargo, but I don't think I'm going to get to Silver Linings Playbook, The LEGO Movie, Captain Phillips, 42 and so many other movies.

Yes, this entire post could be part of The Steel Trap's next First World Problems post.

My Bucket List

There was a movie a few years ago starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman called The Bucket List. In a bit of false advertising, this movie was not about the various types of buckets or even about Buckethead from the later edition of Guns 'N Roses. Instead, this was a comedy (I think; I didn't actually see the entire film) following the two Oscar-winning actors completing a wish list of to-dos before they die. Seeing that a major milestone for me is quickly approaching (more about this in a few days), I thought I would share my bucket list.

- Travel, travel and more travel. I want to visit all 50 states (I'm only 9 short) and 6 continents. (I have no interest in visiting Antarctica.) My international travel has been limited to Canada, a few trips to Israel and a summer in Lancaster, England (with stops in London, Edinburgh, Paris and Dublin). I want to visit Italy, Australia, Japan and so many other places including Guam so that I can hang out with Ric Blas.

- See the Pittsburgh Pirates win a World Series. The Pirates last won the World Series in 1979. I was 4 and don't remember anything about it. I've been fortunate to witness the Penguins win Stanley Cups and the Steelers win Super Bowls, but the Pirates may be the team I care about the most.

- Attend National Hockey League games in every NHL arena. At our current pace of visiting a city or two every year, I think we're going to accomplish this goal in 2021. At some point I need to actually write about the last trip to Florida (besides the actual flight to Florida and the obnoxious person on the plane).

- Get 100 likes on the Sean's Ramblings Facebook page. Seriously, I've been stuck at 25 for months.

- Write a book.

- Get invited to the White House. I'm not talking about getting to attend the Christmas Tree lighting or Easter Egg Roll but an actual White House invitation. Maybe I'll get to attend when the Pirates visit the White House after winning the World Series!

- I'd like to attend the Bar/Bat Mitzvahs of multiple grandchildren. My oldest child is 4. Let's say that he has his first kid at 32. That's 28 years from now. Then, add another 13 years until the Bar or Bat Mitzvah. At that point, I'd be over 80. Okay, this one is a little deep. Let's lighten things up a bit.

- What I'd really like to accomplish is to watch everything on my DVR before I die. This is probably the most unrealistic item on my bucket list.

- Throw out the first pitch before a baseball game. While ideally this would be at a MLB game, I'm fine if this occurs at a minor league game...or Little League game.

- Win my fantasy baseball league. Achievement unlocked!

I'm sure that I'm missing some things, but I think this is a good start.

My DVR

Back in the early days of Sean's Ramblings, I wrote several posts complaining about good television shows or sporting events featuring Pittsburgh teams airing at the same time. Each time I wrote one of these posts, I received comments that I should get a DVR. They were right. Besides electricity, the DVR may be the greatest invention of all time. These days, with the exception of sports, it's rare that I ever watch live television. Unfortunately, I'm way behind in my DVR-viewing, and it shows that the DVR is only 14% free. I need to remedy this quickly, although the pending arrival of a new child will make this difficult. Challenge accepted! Let's take a look at what's filling up my DVR.

- Season 2 (12 episodes) of Homeland

I recorded this during a free preview of Showtime. I haven't seen season 1 yet, so these episodes just sit on the DVR until I get Netflix or hope that there's another Showtime preview that airs the entire first season of Homeland.

- 24 episodes of The Middle

I saved all these episodes since this is a show that my wife and I used to watch together. She is no longer interested in watching this show. I'm so far behind, that a recent episode I watched showed commercials for future ABC shows Zero Hour and How to Live With Your Parents for the Rest of Your Life. Both of these shows have been cancelled for nearly a year!

- 8 episodes of Modern Family
- 5 episodes of Archer

- Season 1 of Game of Thrones

I had a recent conversation with a friend where he said that he watched the first season thanks to a free preview of HBO. I replied that I missed out on recording the shows. Guess what? I didn't miss out. I just completely forgot they were there.

- Nancy & Tonya

I wonder if in this version of the retelling of the figure skating drama, Nancy Kerrigan arranges to have someone attack Tonya Harding.

- The Bro Mitzvah episode of How I Met Your Mother and a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode with Bill Buckner. Two excellent episodes that I didn't want to delete.

- A Jeopardy! episode featuring a good friend of mine. I should probably delete this, but how often do I get to see Alex Trebek giving my friend a nickname?

- Multiple episodes of Little Einsteins, Thomas & Friends and Dinosaur Train.

Best used during snow days. Plus, I'm so happy that there are now shows other than Little Einsteins that my son will watch.

During every free preview of HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, etc., I record movies. For example, I recorded the Academy Award-winning The King's Speech...in January 2012! Maybe it's time to watch it.

Other movies on the to-see list include:

Zero Dark Thirty
Looper
Wreck-It Ralph
Life of Pi

I've got work to do!

Greatest Day Ever (A DVR Story)

I am still relatively new to this DVR thing, but I think I figured it out. Up until yesterday, I generally recorded shows knowing that I would not be able to watch them when they aired. However, I finally discovered the full power of the DVR and may have even thrown a perfect game.

12:30 p.m. Watched the Pittsburgh Penguins-Philadelphia Flyers game in its entirety.
2:00 p.m. Pitt-Seton Hall basketball game begins; I DVR it.
3:00 p.m. Indianapolis Colts-New York Jets game begins; I DVR it.
3:30ish Penguins win 2-1. (Hooray!) Start watching Pitt-Seton Hall game.
Watch Pitt game in its entirety. Seton Hall wins. (Boo!)
5:00ish Begin watching Colts-Jets game
6:30 p.m. New Orleans Saints-Minnesota Vikings game begins; I DVR it.
Watch AFC Championship game in its entirety. Colts win.
7:00ish Begin watching Saints-Vikings game.
Catch up to the Saints-Vikings game early in the 3rd quarter.
Watch NFC Championship game in its entirety. Saints win.

I’m going to pat myself on my back. I did a masterful job of watching four entire sporting events while also balancing several phone calls, laundry and running the dishwasher.

Why didn’t anyone tell me about this DVR thing sooner?

(Messiah, WahooJ & Archi shake their heads.)