This week is a week off school for the kids. We are down in Virginia visiting Mindy's family. Today is her grandmother's 75th birthday party so literally ALL of her rels will be there - it should be a very interesting afternoon, great people watching opportunity for sure. Yesterday was spent hanging out with her mother, sister, brother and cousin and eating Mexican food. Good stuff!
I am also lamenting Parra's slow start ot the season. Sure, they lost to good teams but it would be nice for them to win a few games to kick of the season once in a while.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Got Some
Got some Pearl Jam tickets. Fan club seating for the May 20 show. What a drama! First onsale went up on Tuesday at 3:00pm. I logged into the website 15 minutes early and was ready to go, figuring that I would click "refresh" every 5 minutes while on the page showing the shows for sale, hoping to grab the NYC tickets as soon as they became available. Another pertinant piece of information is that there was a notice on the website that if you have tickets in your basket, you have 10 minutes to check out otherwise the tickets would be reallocated to someone else.
Of course, it was not as easy as that. At 2:55, the website basically was just hanging as all of the other local fans were doing the same thing. However, slowly progress was made. For every step of the way - get to the ticket screen; select the tickets; confirm the purchase; check out - the system crashed but after a few refreshes I was able to get to the screen entering the credit card details. I entered everything and figured I was done...and then it crashed again. Went back and refreshed and tried again (figured if I was charged twice, I would deal with it later) . This time, I got the following messages - "Your order has been placed"...AND..."Your cart is empty"...AND..."You cannot check out with an empty cart". So, then I was MORE confused! Did they take the tickets from my cart prior to the order going through? So I check my email...and there was the confirmation email with an order number! Everything checked out OK...so May 20 tickets were in the bag!
Next stop, May 21 tickets...
They went on sale at 6:00pm, later the same day. Same plan but this time the system was even worse. Managed to get the tickets in my shopping cart but was unable to get past this point (kept timing out). Very frustrating!
However, I found out there is a final, additional fan club presale today at 2:00pm. I am assuming the seats will likely be a little worse but still better than the general onsale tickets. I am planning another assault in a couple of hours.
Of course, it was not as easy as that. At 2:55, the website basically was just hanging as all of the other local fans were doing the same thing. However, slowly progress was made. For every step of the way - get to the ticket screen; select the tickets; confirm the purchase; check out - the system crashed but after a few refreshes I was able to get to the screen entering the credit card details. I entered everything and figured I was done...and then it crashed again. Went back and refreshed and tried again (figured if I was charged twice, I would deal with it later) . This time, I got the following messages - "Your order has been placed"...AND..."Your cart is empty"...AND..."You cannot check out with an empty cart". So, then I was MORE confused! Did they take the tickets from my cart prior to the order going through? So I check my email...and there was the confirmation email with an order number! Everything checked out OK...so May 20 tickets were in the bag!
Next stop, May 21 tickets...
They went on sale at 6:00pm, later the same day. Same plan but this time the system was even worse. Managed to get the tickets in my shopping cart but was unable to get past this point (kept timing out). Very frustrating!
However, I found out there is a final, additional fan club presale today at 2:00pm. I am assuming the seats will likely be a little worse but still better than the general onsale tickets. I am planning another assault in a couple of hours.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Boys Of Summer
Starting to feel like we are shaking off the winter season. The weather is getting a little warmer and I had my first 2010 cricket hit out on Saturday. I had to drive into Brooklyn to a facility with indoor nets and as a result of the snow clearing activities, it took me 2 1/2 hours to make the 30 mile drive. It was all worth it upon arriving though. I bowled for about 45 minutes and did OK, will see if this can continue this year. I have resolved that if my bowling does not come back this year, to pull a Cameron White and shelve it. I was very happy with the batting, nice to get a few in the middle after 6 months.
Woke up planning to watch the 2nd T20 game and found that the channel guide was incorrect so the game did not record. Of course, this led to a call to Directv to ask them what they could do to compensate me for this inconvenience. 3 months of Showtime and Cinemax free was the result, not too shabby! Set a heap of movies to record and began watching them. Saw "Letters From Iwo Jima" - what an amazing film. At first I hated the overdubbed voices but that aspect actually grew on me as the movie progressed. Certainly highly recommended and a great showcase for Clint Eastwood's directing ability.
Also finished reading "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. It speaks of reasons that lead to the success of obviously successful people and shows how this success is the end of a sequence of events making them special. Also, highly recommended.
Rugby was entertaining to watch - Brumbies stole a win at the death and the Waratahs certainly improved from last week, so I am hopeful that the Wallabies will be have a decent squad this year. Deans needs to produce the goods now.
I am hearing nothing but good reports from friends about the Aussie AC/DC shows. They are coming back to the USA for some make-up shows in a couple of months, I am hoping they expand this schedule a little bit to get somewhere near NJ.
The eating better plan is working well although is taking a bit of a detour right now thanks to the arrival of the girls' Girl Scout Cookies. I think I am OK, if I average the calorie and saturated fat content over the year, it is really nothing much to be concerned about.
Woke up planning to watch the 2nd T20 game and found that the channel guide was incorrect so the game did not record. Of course, this led to a call to Directv to ask them what they could do to compensate me for this inconvenience. 3 months of Showtime and Cinemax free was the result, not too shabby! Set a heap of movies to record and began watching them. Saw "Letters From Iwo Jima" - what an amazing film. At first I hated the overdubbed voices but that aspect actually grew on me as the movie progressed. Certainly highly recommended and a great showcase for Clint Eastwood's directing ability.
Also finished reading "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. It speaks of reasons that lead to the success of obviously successful people and shows how this success is the end of a sequence of events making them special. Also, highly recommended.
Rugby was entertaining to watch - Brumbies stole a win at the death and the Waratahs certainly improved from last week, so I am hopeful that the Wallabies will be have a decent squad this year. Deans needs to produce the goods now.
I am hearing nothing but good reports from friends about the Aussie AC/DC shows. They are coming back to the USA for some make-up shows in a couple of months, I am hoping they expand this schedule a little bit to get somewhere near NJ.
The eating better plan is working well although is taking a bit of a detour right now thanks to the arrival of the girls' Girl Scout Cookies. I think I am OK, if I average the calorie and saturated fat content over the year, it is really nothing much to be concerned about.
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