My blog n'at

I wasn’t going to make a tour of the Pittsburgh area and give my thoughts on local fish this year but when I stumble upon something quite tasty I feel the need to share. I present to you the Sheetz Fish Sub.

This was the first time I had a fish sub that was 4 pieces and not one whole filet. Actually worked out for me since I usually eat at my desk and it broke it down into segments. Made it really easy to eat and work.

Bread was incredibly fresh, lettuce was crisp, tomatoes were eh tomatoes but the pickles cold and crunchy as I like them. A little snap to it even. I didn’t like paying the extra buck for a few slices of cheese but I really can’t eat a sandwich without it.

Now for the fish. I saw advertisements that Yuengling was in the batter and quite honestly with this I couldn’t tell. Didn’t matter because this is still one stellar piece (or pieces) of fish. I waited for the screaming hotness from the fryer to cool and cracked one of the 4 pieces open. Fried to a golden crisp and tasted delicious. Seriously, its deep fried fish. Either it sucks or it doesn’t. Paired with all of the other toppings I now have my go-to Friday fish meal.

Overall 4 out of 5. If I could have tasted the Yuengling more probably would have picked up a perfect score.

I loved bachelor weekends. I’d have the house to myself for a few days to basically do whatever I wanted to and eat at all the places my wife wont go to.

That was before kids… and a house.

I’m not going to lie, I’ve been looking forward to the wife and kids leaving since she first told me about it. They went back to her hometown and I would be able to drink beer, watch sports, eat at all of the places she doesn’t like to go to. It was going to be Dude Time and a much needed break from all of the screaming in my house.

I only went out 1 night and that was for a Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week meeting. Before I would drink craft beer until my head popped and while I still drank good beer, it wasn’t the copious amounts of the past. I didn’t play any xbox and most of my nights were spent online doing some form of work. I did keep to tradition though and picked up a huge steak and shrimp to cook on the grill so that’s the plus side.

The temperatures were absolutely perfect and I wish I would have taken a day off to brew, that was my dream. I am thankful that we’re in a position where she can leave for a week with the boys and the house still functions but good lord why am I so tired? I’m hoping that the days of being able to unplug for a few aren’t over and looking forward to the first vacation in 4 years (and without kids!).

I know there is at least another week coming up this summer where they’ll all go away and my “honey-do” list will be an epic size but one thing is for sure, I’m taking my own break.

Steak, beer, brewing and sleeping past 6am.

A guy can dream right?

I really have no words to express how proud I am of this little guy and trying to rationalize the time that has passed since his birth is impossible. 3 years ago today I held my first child in my arms, weighing in at just over 3 pounds,  before he would be whisked away by 15 nurses to the N.I.C.U. to be hooked up to machines for the next 4 weeks. Scared, terrified, and wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Doctor kept telling us that he was a fighter. 3 years later they couldn’t have been more right.

With the energy of his mother and the persistence of his father this 33lb brick house is… wait, am I writing an intro to NFL Films?

Teaspoon, you’ve been an amazing little man in our lives and an incredible big brother to the O-man. Thanks for making the last 3 years an incredible ride and I smile with pride as I watch you grow up. You’re already rocking at pre-school and have shown a passion for hockey (thank you God!), are a role model to your younger bro and have better manners than most adults. Raise a bottle of chocolate milk buddy, you can kick the Most Interesting Man in the World’s ass.

I’m having a really difficult time judging time lately. Yesterday was the 3yr anniversary of when I was given my walking papers from Ericsson as the company started its shutdown process. Since then I’m making a living off a career that didn’t exist back then (well it did but but I don’t think anyone took it seriously), bought a house, had 2 kids and graduated college.

In other words things have been moving pretty fast and I haven’t had time to stop and look around which would explain how 36 crept up on me. Is it the downside of 30 or push for 40? I always put relation of age to where/what my brother was doing then which is a bad idea since it was the early 90′s. Lushie informed me that I’m at the age now that her mother was when we met. *UGH*

I was going to put a pic of myself as a squirt but decided at the last minute to refrain — the fact that the scanner is in my bedroom and if that thing wakes up the kids I’m a dead man.

I’ve been reading a couple of books that have made me re-evaluate how I do things online and approach business opportunities I passed on in the last year. What’s coming up will be fun, different and creative. The hardest realization was coming to terms with what I can do with my limited free time and being very selective going forward on what I can/can’t do.

Nothing over the top planned this year but one tradition I will keep is calling my mom this afternoon at the time I was born and ask her if she remembers how awesome my birth was. She’ll lie and say it was beautiful, I’ve watched the birth of both of my sons and know that my mom probably called my dad a slew of profanities.

cheers!

Oh OK here’s ONE picture.

This weekend I took Teaspoon out for a couple of firsts. First hockey game and first basketball game for his 3rd birthday coming up at the end of the month.

He has been asking me to take him to a hockey game all season so that was a no brainer. The real question was if he would be able to sit in his seat for 3 periods since the game was at 7 and would be pushing it on his bed time.

From the drop of the puck his attention was locked in and I thought the kid stopped blinking. The action was fast and he did his best to keep up with the only time looking away was to take a bite of chicken fingers. This was met with hockey moms gushing over him and he knew how to play it.

Towards the end of the first period the PA announcer gave a basketball update for the RMU Men’s basketball game. I felt a tug at my jacket and heard “Daddy, we go watch bas-ket-ball. pleeeeaassee.” I caved in.

We arrived to the men’s game at the start of the second half and once again he was mesmerized by the fast pace of a sport. What broke his attention though was Mr. Slice from Hometown Pizza. He’s never been afraid of larger than life figures before but this one was unique. He actually chased the pizza around so he could get a hi5 and then finally calmed down enough so I could get the picture.

Just before the game ended I could see he was winding down so he snuck in one more pizza hug and ran to the door. Only thought in my mind was “Please god dont let him run on the court”!”. He didn’t.

When we got home he ran to his mom and shouted “mommy! mommy! pizza! bas-keet-ball! haw-key!” Moments later he crashed hard.

We had a fantastic  night and its great to find inexpensive yet competitive sporting events in town. He probably won’t remember this night but I most certainly will.

(view online)

My wardrobe for years consisted of jeans, t-shirts, a few polo shirts and 1 white dress shirt to which I had 40 ties to cover me for any occasion and capped off with a pair of black chucks.

Well I still have the black chucks but part of that whole streamlining my life finally brought me to my closet and the hole I made was a significant one. The picture you see is one of many piles. Concert/beerfest/random sports t-shirts all are going on a permanent vacation to Goodwill.

I wasn’t aware of what a pack rat I had become even while my friends busted my chops when I moved over the amount of t-shirts I had. I’m also very anal about how they were in my closet. You see I had my “good shirts” and then ones I kept in my dresser. My dresser was the lesser worn shirts or ones that I used when doing dirty work. The closet was my snazzy collection (yes snazzy). High quality concert and beer shirts along  with my good Pens swag. They would be arranged by color and then by genre and all have to be facing the same way. It was more of an organizing thing so I wouldn’t spend forever looking for what I need. Plus when you have as many beer shirts as I do you need to keep things together.

I really don’t know why I held on to these. Maybe it was memories to a certain shirt or my affinity to hold onto everything I ever got as a gift (thanks my dad for that trait).

I looked at my closet today and basked in the glow of all the space I now have. There are a few t-shirts in there (I need to have some pressed ones for work) but I’ll need to resist that urge, come beer fest time, to keep adding to my collection.

Its become tradition in our house to celebrate Groundhog Day every year. Not really sure why but it’s a holiday I latched on to when i first moved to Pittsburgh and then when I found out we had family in the area.  Every holiday I can expect some type of care package in the form of groundhog themed cookies or trinkets. This year we took it to a disgustingly cute level and all four of us were sporting Groundhog Day shirts straight from Punxy.

That is a picture of my boys watching the celebration on TV. Teaspoon isn’t quite sure what’s going on while my youngest is just happy that he stopped teething for now.

I know when they get older days like this will seem corny and stupid as they rebel but today its for us.

It’s 1:22am and I have no idea why I’m wide awake. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately with my birthday coming up this month (woohoo), how I consume media and what I’m doing next.

Take for instance this post. I’m writing it on my DROID from my bed when I should be sleeping. Should I keep up a blog or use my Tumblr feed more?

Every day there is a new hot service that pops up and since I work in social media for a living I need to decide if its worth my time or that of my employer to have a presence on it. Not as easy as it may sound.

Keeping up with what we do have is already very tedious and exhausting but hopefully new tools I’m pushing to have in place will take some of that burden off.

Oh yeah February. Almost forgot about ya for a second fella. o O (Fella? How do we know Feb isn’t a lady? Why do I even care? Focus spoon!)

So this month will be an interesting one. Weather should be incredibly nice, taxes need done, county should bend me over and shove a new assessment up my rear soon and a certain utensil turns 3. Mix in pgh beer week duties, that podcast thing I do, write and get merchant ideas together the shortest month could be a pain.

Life moves pretty fast. If you stop and take a look,  you’re probably blocking traffic. Get the hell out of the way.

or El Nino or whatever it is in heaven above that has given this as our 15 day (and month of Feb) forecast:

Now if this holds true it will pose a few problems:

1. Hobos living under the bridges wont know wtf us going on. This will totally screw with their hibernation.
2. The Occupy people just caught a huge break if they’re still camping out. damn.
3. The Mayans probably did predict this & we’re all goners in December.
4. PennDOT will find some reason not to patch holes.
5. If I have to cut my grass I’m cutting someone.
6. I think it’s God’s way of telling me to get outside and exercise or else.
7. I can’t throw any more snowballs at Teaspoon

Plus side if this holds up:

1. I’m wearing shorts to Pens games
2. I don’t have to buy any more salt
3. I can brew outside
4. It buys me time to get the house properly insulated and fix more of whatever Capt. Obvious did.
5. My birthday is going to be very comfortable

I need to smile more. Jesus I didn’t realize it until I saw this pic and this was the best one out of the series on my webcam I just shot.

I wonder how long I can grow a beard until I wake up and find that someone shaved it off? At least let me make some designs first.

What’s with that funky eye thing from my glasses? I need to get new glasses or contact. Probably depend if I play softball this year what I’ll get.

Dropping pounds. Not from some great miracle diet unless you count sleeping in 2hr spurts a diet. Let my kids sleep over for a couple weeks and you can be as dashing as myself. If anything it making me cranky. Yes, cranky.

I bought a couple books today. I hate reading but something compelled me when I listened to the author speak. I never impulse buy. I did today. Books will be posted when they get here.

Did you ever notice the people that bitch most about how they hate the high school drama on social media sites are always the ones causing it? Even funnier is when they drag fantasy land into the real world and spend all of their time offline talking about what happened online. Watch out I might blog about it. Err wait. And people wonder why TV soap operas are dying *sheesh*

You thought all those D&D kids from grade school were freaks. They’re the ones building the apps right now you can’t stop using. Suckers!

I’ve paid attention more to the debates recently not because I want answers but because I want to see who’s going to get choke-slammed by Newt next. He probably won’t win the nomination because people are still too sensitive but man he’d be a bad ass. At the end of the day though my vote in November will go to Stephen Colbert.

If the biggest drama in your young life is if you should have kids now or later,  my advice is to wait until you’re 30. You’re obviously not ready to handle the mindscrew they lay on you so enjoy your 20′s. Just wait until there are 2 of them.

Want or need? The most annoying thing old people, especially my mom, say to me is “Do you NEED it or do you WANT it?” when it comes to making purchases. I have a feeling this has the legs for a good post subject. One that I NEED and WANT.

Late today I got the great news that this big project I’ve been stressing over got the green light to launch days earlier than expected. To celebrate I’m going to be the celebrity judge at a wine competition tomorrow night. Wrap your noodle around that one. Little know fact, I like wine… Franzia, thanks to Griff.

I have a couple more brew kits coming my way and I just need to pick out the yeast. Be afraid.

Looking forward to hanging with various groups of friends I haven’t seen in almost 6months. There will be bowling, mexican food and tequila involved. This can’t end well.

cheers!