No Golf

Well, it looks like I am not going to be playing golf this weekend... The golf course is safe!... for now.. :-) I will be traveling once again to Heritage Reservation to visit with my son tomorrow. His mother was supposed to be going, but she isn't able to go, and I don't want to leave him up there for two weeks straight without a visit. Especially after his injury the previous week... Oh well, at least I can be back in time to play cards at my brother's house in the evening. My mother just celebrated her birthday yesterday... Yep it's official, she is still older than me! We went to Fire Mountain buffet restaurant, and then visited for awhile. I really should visit with her more often. We had a good time. There are quite a few other birthdays in the family coming up. My youngest is going to be 11 in a few days, and the middle girl will be 15 a couple of weeks after that. Some where between the two my brother, Rick, celebrates a birthday... It might be possible that he has finally gotten older than me. :-) My niece in Ohio has a birthday the day after my middle daughter... I believe she is having her sweet sixteen! So I better go get some more birthday cards and presents! I wonder if they will accept an I.O.U.?

Stop Driving...

Ok... ok... I have heard the pleas... I have parked the car, put on the parking brake... for a few minutes... While I sip my tea, I will make a post! Not much to tell, except what everyone has guessed, and that is that I have been out driving my car too much. I have already put over 2,500 miles on it, which is about 130 miles a day since I bought it. I better slow down, or I will have almost 50,000 miles on it within a year. Yeah, I like my car! Most of my trips have been to visit my son at camp. He is spending the summer at Heritage Reservation's Camp Freedom. This Boy Scout camp is 10 weeks long, and he is living on camp as a paid staff member. The drive is about 115 miles one way, which takes a little over 2 hours to drive. I have been to the camp (up and back) seven times in the 4 weeks that he has been there. This upcoming weekend will be the first weekend that I will not be going to visit. Enough about him, you can read about his adventures in his own blog: "A Little Deeper". This past weekend I got to spend time with my girlfriend, Marianne. She called me at work Friday afternoon and told me she had three free VIP tickets to a concert at Post Gazette Pavillion, our local "outdoor" ampitheater. She told me who was playing, and even though I had never heard of them, I said "Yeah, by all means, let's go!". I was thinking "free tickets... cheap date!". She wanted to find a third person to go so we wouldn't waste any of the free tickets, and after a few minutes, she found a co-worker that had never been to the Pavillion, and was interested... I left work a little early to pick Marianne and her co-worker friend up and away we went to the concert. The Pavillion is a nice 30-45 minute drive depending on the traffic, and which "short cut" you decided to take, so we all talked and joked along the way, and enjoyed the trip. About 2 miles from the Pavillion I asked Marianne how we got into the concert... She said we just had to call her friend that gave her the tickets, and she would meet us and in we go. The VIP tickets gave us free parking, access to the VIP tent with free food and drink, and great seats for the concert, so we were all excited and couldn't wait to get to the VIP tent and start chowing down, and drinking. Marianne called her friend and asked if they were still serving food, even though it was still a whole hour before the concert started, which of course they still were. Her friend said they had no trouble getting in, the food was great, they were having a great time, and couldn't wait for us to get there. Marianne told them the three of us were just getting ready to pull in to the Pavillion. All of a sudden Marianne's tone changed from excitement to concern, and was saying "really", "Are you sure?", "oh my", and "I don't believe it", into the cell phone. She hung up and said "We have to turn around"! I was shocked... Everything seemed to be going great. We were just about ready to pull in, why would we have to turn around now? About this time I recalled something I had said to my brother earlier in the evening. He had invited Marianne and I to go watch "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" with him and his family. I told him, "I can't go. My luck's changing, and I got free VIP tickets to tonight's concert!". This is probably what "stirred up my bad luck pot". If you need a refresher about my bad luck read my post from April 2004 about luck. Anyway, back to the story... As she hung up the phone, she explained that her friend did not have 3 tickets, instead, she only had 2. There were three of us in the car, so we had to choose to either not go, only two of us go, or the third person would have to buy a ticket (if available) and sit in a different section, and miss out on the VIP tent and food... To not avoid a scene and hurt feelings she decided, and rightly so, that we shouldn't go, and instead go get a dinner together. So we drove to Chester, WV, and visited "Connie's Corner Kitchen" (I think that's the name), after passing the "World's Largest Teapot". We had a wonderul, and delicious dinner there. So even though we missed the concert we had a great time. The following day, we were driving once again to the camp, but this time to take Marianne's son with the rest of his troop to stay for the week. We brought my son back from camp so he could go for a doctor's appointment today (Monday). Marianne's Dad rode with us to see the camp and enjoy the sites along the way. He said he had never been to Uniontown, or to the camp, so he got to enjoy our tour of the area, and he also go to wish his grandson a pleasant goodbye at camp. Next weekend I am thinking about digging up a golf course in an attempt to play on a Par 3 course... I hope someone has warned them I am coming! :-)