My Kohl's Victory

I visited Kohl's recently and purchased a short-sleeve button-down shirt for $24 and a pair of shorts for $29.99. Not the most exciting thing you'll read online today, but I rarely buy clothes, and these purchases made sense. Later that day, I received a 20% off coupon in the mail from Kohl's. Between the coupon and my wife not being a fan of the shirt I bought (I already had one that looks similar), I went back to Kohl's a few days later and returned both the shirt and shorts. I then repurchased the shorts, which were on sale for a lower price. With the 20% coupon, the cost of the shorts was $19.99, a savings of $10 in only a few days. I then bought a nice "dress shirt," something I badly need since some of my long-sleeve button-down shirts are older than my recent 6th grade graduate, for $27.99.

The total was $47.98 before tax, and Kohl's had a promotion where you get $10 Kohl's cash for every $50 spent. I went back through the store trying to find something useful for slightly more than $2. It was like going shopping on Wheel of Fortune. (Why did they always have ceramic animals?)

I found a bath towel for $3.99 (after the 20% off coupon) and earned the $10 Kohl's cash. So now, I have a new pair of shorts for $10 less than originally purchased, a new towel, a new shirt, and $10 off our next Kohl's trip, which will be soon to get clothes for the kids for camp. Good job, me!

Ramblings Round-Up

I usually call these posts "Random Ramblings," but I thought I would mix things up a little today. 

* Earlier this year, we took the kids to see Newsies Jr. at our local middle school. The kids really liked the live performance and the show. Since that time, we have watched both the 1992 Newsies movie (starring Christian Bale) and the Broadway theater performance of Newsies (starring fellow Ithaca College graduate Jeremy Jordan) on Disney+. I mention all of this because I want to take the kids to more live theater and shows. So over the weekend, I took The Moose and Pedro Tulo to the Kennedy Center to see the world-premier of The Mortification of Fovea Munson. It's a musical based on the book of the same name about a pre-teen who works in her parents' cadaver lab. It's a very cute and sweet (and funny) show. 

* I need to take a recertification class and pass a test each year to be a soccer referee. Since COVID began, everything is online. There are certainly benefits to this format. You can break up the learning modules and test over days or weeks and take them at your convenience. The drawback is that I was used to taking a 5-6 hour class every year in December and being done. Without the structured and set class, I only just earned my recertification, so I was ineligible to work any games until now. 

* The focus of the referee class this year was on the behavior of coaches. There is little tolerance for any referee abuse or questioning of calls from coaches or team officials. One warning and then cards come out. I also found it amusing that the US Soccer Federation regularly included a slide showing former national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann seemingly complaining.

* In honor of having a Kohl's credit card for 23 years, the store sent me a $5 coupon and 30% coupon. Will I receive a gold watch for 25 years?

* We receive a weekly report about The Moose's online activities. While he generally spends much of his time on YouTube and ESPN, last week, he visited Redfin multiple times. I had no idea he was in the housing market as a 6th grader!

* Our cat Ziggy now throws up every 2-3 days. He definitely didn't do this when he was younger. While I should probably contact the vet about this, do you find this concerning?

* Finally, The Moose was all in for the women's college basketball conference tournament games last weekend. Because of this, please join the Sean's Ramblings Group Women's NCAA Tournament group on ESPN, and I'll probably create an Oscars pool just for fun too.

Welcome To The Serene Tundra

In the late 1980s, Guns N' Roses emerged on to the music scene with Welcome to the Jungle. With lyrics like, "I want to watch you bleed," "Feel my, my, my serpentine" and "You know where you are? You're down in the jungle baby, you're gonna dieeeeee," they were an intimidating and even scary band.

Thirty years later, you can now purchase your GNR T-shirt at the very terrifying, threatening, and menacing store called, um, Kohl's.

Does this qualify as a "Sean on Fashion" post?

Summer of Sean: Paris Edition

After my summer program at Lancaster University ended, I had the opportunity to travel for another week before I returned home, so several friends and I decided to go to Paris. Sure I saw the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Versailles and the McDonalds around the corner from Versailles, but today, I'm writing about visiting (or not visiting) some of the greatest art museums in the world.

The Louvre

The Louvre is perhaps the best known museum in the world, built specifically for the movie The Da Vinci Code starring Tom Hanks. There was a huge line to enter, but of bigger concern for me was the giant backpack I was carrying. I couldn't enter The Louvre with it and there was no place in or around the museum to store it. So instead of going inside to see Mona Lisa, I found a park bench near the museum and read the recently released fourth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Musee d'Orsay

While probably not as well known as The Louvre, Musee d'Orsay may be the best art museum in the world featuring the Impressionists Gallery and much more. According to Trip Advisor, visiting this museum ranks #1 of 1,170 things to do in Paris. Unfortunately, I don't think Trip Advisor was around in 2000. Fun fact: Did you know that Musee d'Orsay is closed on Mondays? I didn't either when I tried to visit on a Monday and left Paris on Tuesday morning.

Musee Rodin (The Rodin Museum)

A museum that I actually entered! Go me! Plus, I'm the only person in history to "think" of taking a picture like this.

Fun fact #2: I just bought this exact same orange shirt at Kohl's over the weekend.

Click here to see more Summer of Sean posts

Weekend Review

- Virginia had no sales tax on clothes this weekend, so I ventured to Kohl's with dozens, if not hundreds, of my closest friends. After trying on probably eight pairs of pants, I settled on exactly one pair along with a few shirts. Then, I ventured upstairs to buy some kids' clothing. I happily found 3 pair of size 4 boys pants. They seemed a little big, but I figured that my older son would grow into them. Apparently, the growing into them could take a long time. I needed to buy size 4T pants not size 4. Who knew there was a difference between the two? I later returned them to Kohl's but did not stay to search for 4T pants. I had my fill of shopping for the week month day.

- I own two suits but wear them only a few times per year. However, between a conference, a wedding and Rosh Hashanah, there's a period in September when I'll need to wear a coat and tie nearly every day for a week. I tried on both of my suit coats recently and noticed that they are huge. They were slightly big when I first purchased the suits, and then I lost about 30 pounds over the years. So I went to Men's Wearhouse over the weekend to see if they could help me. They refused. I had the same result at the place where I take my dry cleaning. In both cases, there would be too much to do, and the arms and shoulders would still look awkward. So now I'm stuck looking like this:

Of course, the Men's Wearhouse guy offered to sell me two suits for $500. I declined.

- Another weekend highlight was my driver's side car window going off track. I was able to close the window but now it won't open. You can hear the power window mechanism trying to work, but the window doesn't move. I called the dealership to get an estimate, and they believe that they need to replace the regulator. (Who knew there is a car part named after the legendary Warren G song?) The estimated repair cost is $491 or the cost of two suits. I guess I'll just open my car door if I go to a fast-food drive-thru or ATM or when exiting the Metro parking garage.

- My 4 year-old could be a photographer one day judging on how much he likes taking pictures with my phone. This picture of Ziggy came out rather well.

Of course, then there are dozens of pictures of the TV and floor like this one of the remote, so he still has some work to do before becoming the next Ansel Adams.

(Though perhaps there's some meaning behind this picture. Maybe it's a post-modern reflection of society's need to have the remote control and how lonely things can be with the remote on the floor. Or something.)

- If you're a fan of all Pittsburgh sports, I hope that you watched the Pirates regular season game on Sunday evening rather than the Steelers pre-season game. The Steelers didn't even play Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, Le'Veon Bell, Maurkice Pouncey, James Harrison, and Martavis Bryant. Meanwhile, the Pirates scored 9 runs in the 7th inning to defeat the Dodgers 13-6. Naturally, I fell asleep with the Dodgers leading 5-1, so when I later woke up to see the Pirates leading 12-5, I was shocked. Let's Go Bucs!

Weekend Thoughts

* I’d like to call out Christine Brennan of USA Today. On Good Morning America this morning, she said that the Tiger Woods accident story would have gone away at this point if it wasn’t for the internet and the blogosphere. That’s an interesting point since the Tiger Woods story is on the front page of today’s USA Today (A1) and was also the second item on GMA behind only the incident where four Washington police officers were killed. Yes, this is definitely a story because of bloggers.

* I thought that Dennis Dixon played well in his first NFL start. The loss is definitely not on him. While I certainly understand that the coaches wanted to put him in as little risk for injury as possible, I really would have liked to have seen a play call or two in OT where Dixon could have run the ball himself.

* By the way, I liked the old Pittsburgh Pirates hat Dennis Dixon’s father wore at the game.

* Shopping at Kohl’s recently, I noticed that they are selling perfumes from the following celebrities: Elizabeth Taylor, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Halle Barry and Usher. I hope that Miley Cyrus and Beyonce are looking for new agents!

* Since the Penguins scored eight goals at home against the New York Rangers on Saturday night, does that mean that everyone with a ticket stub received free chili from Wendy’s? This promotion that occurred when the Pens scored seven or more goals has probably been over for about 20 years now.

* Congratulations to the Woodland Hills High School football team for winning the WPIAL AAAA football title against the Gateway Gators on Friday night. For folks not familiar with Woodland Hills, famous graduates include current NFL players Jason Taylor (Dolphins), Ryan Mundy (Steelers), Shawntae Spencer (49ers), Steve Breaston (Cardinals) and Lousaka Polite (Dolphins) as well as “famous blogger” Sean (Sean’s Ramblings).

Today could be the last day of the mustache. More on this tomorrow, but you can donate to the Movember Foundation by clicking here.