We didn’t give much thought about how or when we’d go home but it was more or less agreed that we’d take off by 10:00am. Debbie packed up most of the car and by 10:15am or so we were off with some space to spare. It was pretty sunny out so we decided to stop at a Babies R’ Us and pick up a couple of sunshades for the car.

I woke up at about 7:30am today and started getting ready for mass. Everyone had gone the night before so I was left to choose which one I wanted to hit. There was the usual one we went to at 9:00am or I could go at 12:30pm and just stay there and meet everyone for Boofus’ baptism at 1:40pm. Originally I thought it would be more efficient to just go at 12:30pm and stick around but since I got up so early I decided to hit the 9:00am mass.

Mass was surprisingly crowded for such an early mass and we sang a mom-themed song in the beginning. After mass I went back to the house where I was informed of a minor crisis. Mom had lost the plastic tube for the cookie press/deviled egg filler thingy so they sent me out to find one. I grabbed the box the press had come in so I would be sure I bought the right thing and took off for Meijer’s.

I spent a bit of time in the small appliances aisle at Meijers but didn’t see anything except coffee machines, toasters, hand blenders and waffle makers. I decided to head over to Wal-Mart where my luck was about the same. Kohl’s was the next stop and had an impressive small applicance section - but no electric cookie press. The last stop was the HomeGoods where I managed to easily find a manual cookie press with pictures of deviled eggs.

Debbie tried out the press when I got back and it worked perfectly. Making the deviled eggs was a bit of a torture to Debbie because she couldn’t have any due to Lillian’s current egg allergy.

We all decided that 1:20pm would be the time to head over to the church and Debbie and I got ready at 1:00pm. Mom snapped this family photo of us:

We arrived at the church about 10 minutes later. Already there was pretty much everyone else: Patti, Jason and Andrew, Heather and Steve, Mr and Mrs Uhrig, Jason’s grandfather, Jodi, Brian, Henry, Mr and Mrs Sargent and a couple of other people I’d never met before.

* leave at 9
* The Reds HOF and the tour
* Camp Washington chili
* waiting for the game
* inside
* 2 balls - almost
* big red smokey
* great seats
* home

After getting up somewhat early I got a bunch fo work done and then headed towards Easton to buy a new camera. I found the Circuit City and settled on the Canon SD450 due to it’s small form factor. I also picked up a Dazzle 10-1 USB 2.0 card reader and a 1 GB SD card.

As I left the Circuit City I wondered if the SD450 was small enough to fit into an Altoids tin. Passing a WalMart I decided to head in and buy a tin. Putting the camera up side-by-side it looked like it could fit. Back in the car I emptied it out and tried to make it fit. No luck - it was millimeters to small. Oh well.

I also stopped at Easton to pick up a Reds hat at Lids. The guy behind the counter asked if I was a Reds fan and I feigned a ‘yes’. That all got blown as he asked if I watched the game the night before and I had to answer no. It got even worse as I tried to cover by asking how Griffey did.

He hit a walkoff 3-run homer in the bottom of the 12th. That completely blew by fake fandom - any real fan would have known that.

Next I headed over to Ruehl and picked up shirts for me and Debbie.

Back home I decided to look for any alternative camera cases for the SD450 and discovered that a guy actually did make one from an Altoids tin. He did have to use a Dremel to cut out a bit from the corners but he made it fit perfectly. I made a call to Jason and asked him to bring his Dremel over. Later one with Dremel in tow we headed down to the basement and started chipping away. Eventually we got it in there but the lid wouldn’t close. I decided to just let it go.

I then headed over to Justin and Suzi’s. I hung out in at the house for a bit and then Suzi asked me where I wanted to go for dinner. Hmmm… for some reason I hadn’t done any research thinking that maybe they had a place in mind. I racked my brain for a bit and then I remembered this Balinese restaurant I read about on Citysearch called Taste of Bali. We loaded up in the car, Justin next to the baby seat and drove over.

Dinner was a great adventure. The menu was filled with Indonesian and chinese dishes. We ended up ordering the following:

Soda Gembria for me - consisting of condensed milk, a pink syrup and club soda

Balinese Sampler - Indonesian egg roll, melting crab in a crispy shell, perkedel, sate kambing and sate ayam.

Red Snapper

Opor Ayam

We then headed over to Cafe Mozart for coffee and dessert. Mozart’s had a really, really awesome pastry display case which even contained some Sache Torte. I went with a big Napoleon this time and as I sat down with my coffee I remarked on how much the place reminded me of a Viennese coffee joint Debbie and I went to in Austria. They got the emulation down pretty good. Best of all were the low, low prices. These dessert would have cost twice as much at No Joe’s.

After dessert and a couple cups of coffee we headed back to the house where I hung out for a bit and then left. Great night.

I got up this morning around 7:00am or so and discovered Lillian sleeping next to me. Debbie had plopped her there sometime after 4am and luckily she fell asleep. I never noticed though as I must have dozed off. Debbie had a conference call at 9:00am so at around 8:00am we went to check out the free breakfast. The last time we were here they had cereal, coffee, a apple and orange juice machine and maybe bagels and english muffins. This time they also had a make-your-own waffles machine. This was prompted by the Best Western across they street also proclaiming that they had a waffle bar (or maybe it was the other way around. Who knows.) Nevertheless, we had to try it. It was set up like this: There were cups of waffle batter lined up on a rack next two two hot waffle irons with digital tmers on them. You simply pured the batter onto the iron, closed the lid and flipped it. This started the 2:00 minute timer and when it was done simply lift it out with a plastic fork and cover with the single-serve syrups provided. It was pretty cool.

After breakfast Debbie started in on her conference call while I played with Lillian and then packed up the car. At 10:00am Debbie was still on the call so we checked out and left. Before heading to Pittsburgh I stopped at Sheetz and picked up some water bottles and more Jolt.

The weather in New Stanton was warm and overcast. The weather report mentioned thunderstorms coming through but possible fading. The doppler showed a green band coming through. I was trying to remain optimistic for the Pirates game. However as we drove up 76 and then 22 it started to rain. The it started to pour. The Clemente bridge was closed by the time we got there so we had to go down the 7th Street bridge. It wasn’t looking good but I remained hopeful.

By the time we parked Lillian had dozed off so Debbie decided to stay with her. I ran out to get tickets and grabbed a couple under the overhang on the 1st base side. Then I ran back, gave Debbie her ticket and asked her to metet me when Lillian had been fed. As I ran back to PNC Park it really started to pour and the guys at the gate didn’t even want to check my backpack and just waved me in saying that I should get 2 free tickets for coming out on a day like this. I spun around and took this shot before heading in:

I went up the left field rotunda, checked out the bleachers (and the nice short 6 foot wall out there) and then walked around to the Riverwalk and into the first base concourse. I kept going until I got to the Pops Stargell plaza and then I walked back and found our seats. I debated on whether to get a Primanti Brothers sandwich now or if I should wait for Debbie. I stoood near the Primanti Brothers counter and called her but she didn’t answer. I stood around for a few minutes trying to make my decision and suddenly it was made for me. Apparently today was some sort of kids day at the ballpark and a HUGE group of kids were coming down the concourse. All of a sudden one of the kids screamed out, “There is is! Primanti Brothers!” and they all ran to line up. I decided I better get my sandwich then.

Debbie called soonafter and asked me to meet her near section 127. Soonafter I noticed a couple of Pirates pitchers throwing around so I went down to try and get the ball. No luck. I ran back up and then bought Lillian her first ever hot dog. Debbie peeled the skin off of it and she loved it. I also went and got Debbie some pierogies. Halfway through my sandwich Matt Capps and Ryan Vogelsong started to thrown so down again I went. After they staopped throwing I yelled out Matt’s name and the ball came towards me. Sadly it died about 5 feet from me and I tried to get it on a hop and missed. Oh well. Had I not been surounded by kids he probably would have whipped it a bit harder. Stupid kids!

Next we went over and bought the thing we really came out for - a stuffed Pierogi. We found a stand and picked out a stuffed Onion Oliver pierogi for Lillian. He’s a funny looking stuffed… food.

We moved over to our ticketed seats and watched as a steady rain fell. It didn’t look good. There were periods where it stopped raining but it would just start up again and come down even farther. Earlier however an usher mentioned to me how they would probably do everything they could to get this game in since it was the Diamonbacks only east coast road trip of the year. So I remained hopeful. The start time of 12:35pm came and went with no reprive in sight. I decided I would get more food so off I went to order some wings from Quaker Steak and Lube. Lillian seemed interested so I peeled off parts of chicken wing for her and she loved it. They were good wings.

Then I decided that aybe she’d like to get sugared up some so I plunked down $3.00 for a big blue cloud of cotton candy. At first Lillian seemed interested but after a few bites she didn’t want anymore. Oh well - she has plenty of time to love sugar later.

After my wings I decided to take some photos. I took out my camera, fired it up and noticed a weird pattern on my LCD screen. It was all white with black splotches and a spiderwed crack. The LCD was cracked and broken. I wondered how this happened. Leaning over a railing? Hitting a cup holder? No idea. I was bummed but other than the screen the camera seemed functional. I decided that this was the camera telling me it was time for a new one.

The usher in our section passed out All-Star Game ballots so I filled one out:

The bluriness was due to the fact that I was without an LCD screen.

At about 2:00pm the announcement everyone was not anticipating was made. The game was postponed due to rain. Our tickets would be good for any future Mon-Thurs game or for the makeup game on July 19th.

And with that we headed for Columbus. In St. Clairsville we stopped to get Lillian some rice and vegetables at the Eat & Park. The waitress tossed ina cookie for Lillian:

We reached mom and dad’s around 6:30pm or so and dad came home a bit later with dinner from City Barbecue.

Boofus is getting baptised on Sunday and Debbie is the Godmother so off we go again to good ol’ Columbus. Since this is sort of a supplementary trip I loaded it up with a few things that I wanted to do on the side including a day game at PNC Park, dinner with Justin and Suzi and my very first visit to the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati. This should be fun.

We spent the morning packing up and Debbie loaded up the car Tetris style. The plan was to leave by 10:00am and when all was said and done the clock read 10:06am when we departed. Not bad. We stopped at the Wachovia by Attilio’s to grab some cash and while Debbie was inside puching up the ATM I called TeePee Tim’s to see if it was open for business. I was shocked when someone answered the phone on the second ring:

TeePee Tim’s: “Hello?”

Me: “Hello! You’re open?!”

TPT: “Sorry, we’re not open until 11:00am”

Me: “No no no, I’m just glad you’re open at all - everytime I’ve driven by you’ve been closed. Great! I’m coming in from out of town and I’ll see you in a few hours.”

TPT: “Great, see you then”

Me: “Bye”

This was a good start to the trip.

Lillian took a good 1 1/2 hour nap and we motored along for about 2 hours. Debbie had to stop for a bathroom break and we found a Turkey Hill Minit Mart off the Turnpike near Reading. While she went to the bathroom Lillian and I walked around and checked out all the snack foods. This convenience store was something else. It was stocked with a Krispy Kreme cabinet, tons of drinks and a full-service sandwich counter. Back behind the microwave were these beauties:

I didn’t check to see how many ounces this thing was but you can kind of get an idea of the scale by comparing it to the ham, egg & cheese sandwich next to it.

Shockingly, I didn’t buy it because we were getting close to lunchtime for both us and the baby and I wanted to get one of those sandwiches that Starbucks makes now.

I don’t know what it is about the relationship between long road trips and junk food but I totally buy into it. I guess it’s just giving myself an excuse to pick up some beef jerky, non-diet soda and bags of chips. I love it though. I probably won’t get dried chicken bites on this trip unless I find the elusive buffalo flavored ones but I may spring for some peppered jerky this time.

46 miles or so after the Turkey Hill stop we stopped at the Lawn rest area and got lunch. I was hoping to grab the turkey and spicy mustard sub-type sandwich that they had at the Starbucks on our last trip out, but this time all their sandwiches were on foccaciia bread and the turkey one had mayo on it so I opted for the ham sandich with brown mustard. I gave a bunch of the ham to Lillian and Debbie and I split the rest of the sandwich. Afterwards it was time for a Burger King burger break. I had to wait a bit however because a bus full of seniors on a trip had stopped the same time we did and were all lined up amusement park style on the Burger King line. I snaked my way through the line fairly quickly and ordered two burgers, giving one to Debbie. While I waited I noticed on the counter was a listing of upcoming exits and their mile markers:

Right before the midway point of the trip (Breezewood) we stopped at the Sideling Hill rest area so Lillian could get out and stretch her legs. We grabbed the ball and played around outside for about 30 minutes:

After that it was pretty much a straight shot to New Stanton, our final destination for the night.

In New Stanton we checked into the Days Inn with the free wireless and free breakfast (now with waffle bar!) and moved all of our stuff into room 136. After a change and a quick warm dinner for Lillian courtesy of the in-room microwave we headed over to good old Teepee Tim’s BBQ:

I had my eye on the ribs this time and Debbie had the Carolina Pulled Pork sandwich. She initially asked if the sandwich had cole slaw on it. She was worried about this because of Lillian’s egg allergy and passing it on through her feedings. However it turned out that the slaw was BBQ style - no mayo - made with vinegar only. Debbie got a sample of it and procalimed it to be the best cole slaw she’s ever had.

After I had my ribs I was still hungry so I ordered a pulled chicken sandwich which was great. We gave Lillan some of our food and she is now a big fan of BBQ.

After dinner we headed over to the mythical Sheetz gas station that is the only place that I know of where you can get all flavors of Jolt cola. I picked up 3 cans: a can of regular Jolt cola, a can of Jolt Red and a can of Jolt Ultra. I plan to grab Jolt Blue and Jolt Cherry Bomb later.

Back at our hotel room I had to make a ton of edits to the playing card set. So many edits that Lillian couldn’t sleep. Finally Debbie got her to bed around 11:00pm and soonafter I conked out..

Only to be awoken at 1:30am by a couple of drunk retards in the hall buying water at the vending machine outside our hallway. They managed to wake up Lillian and she refused to sleep until a bit past 4am. I don’t know how she did it but Debbie managed to lay her down and get the baby to sleep in our bed. I didn’t even know she was there until a couple hours later. Now I know how the chicks in the King Solomon story felt. Sort of.

These are just about done. Hopefully they’ll be in stock in time for Vulgarthon:

These cards were inspired by the Hold ‘Em table I designed for Kevin back in October 2005:

Creating a whole set was fairly difficult as I had to dig up enough artwork for a 52 card set plus find appropriate quotes for each of them. Then 2 Joker cards had to be created and then a card back. We started these way back in late November in hopes of completing them by Christmas but things came up and they got pushed back.

Barring anything unforseen I think these are done and will be off to the pressed.