What happened was I came across a Fantasy-Faction.com through twitter. The website is one based primarily on Fantasy reading. In addition to the blog, where you can find reviews and such, there is a growing forum. I have been spending a bit of time reading the various topics and attempting to participate where I can.

Shortly after signing up for the forum, I received an email reaching out to the community for contributors. I dropped a link on Twitter to my Best Served Cold review and asked it that was the sort of thing that the site was looking for. The response was positive and I decided to try my hand at contributing a book review once per month.

Because of the complete random nature of this blog (One week I talk about guns, the next writing, and the next parenting), I decided to put my book reviews in a place where they would be more niche specific and get more people reading them. In the long run, I think this will help my reading goal in forcing me to read a book per month to keep up with my review commitment.

Initially it is going to be a little tough (Review scheduled to appear on Wednesday, February 23rd) because the book I am currently reading has already been reviewed on Fantasy-Faction. Fortunately I can fall back on Robin Hobb’s Dragin Keeper and Dragin Haven (both of which I haven’t written a review on, but have recorded video). I’ll be using those two books while I finish my current book and read through another for a future review.

My plan is to post an except of my review here, along with embedding the video. I’ll then be pointing you to my Fantasy-Faction.com post for the review in its entirety. So far I am excited in the direction the site is moving and look forward to seeing it grow. While there are other Fantasy based reading/writing forums/blogs out there, this is only the second one to appeal enough to me to read on a reglar basis.

I’ve also got a couple of ideas for future blog posts, it’s just a matter of getting caught up around the house to sit down and create them.

Post from: Walt in PA

What happened to your writing goals?

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I could write pages upon pages of things that I would like to accomplish this year, but I am going to focus on Reading and Writing, as they most relate to this blog.

Reading

Reading is one of my favorite hobbies. As a child, I used to read regularly. As I grew older, got my first job, developed a busy social life, I read less and less. It wasn’t until after I got married and started spending more time at home that I got back into it. Using this blog as a reference, I was able to look back and get an idea what how frequently I was reading. In 2009 I read twenty-four books. The following year, in 2010, I managed to read fourteen.

When my daughter was born, I found that many of the hobbies that I enjoyed doing were pushed off. Spending time with my daughter took priority and I had less desire to read. As she gets a bit older and becomes more independent, I’m finding myself with bits and pieces of time. The desire to begin reading again washed over me and I have decided to make use of those random bits of time by placing my nose into a book.

My goal for 2011 is to read no less than twelve books. This allows me one month per book, which seems very attainable, even for fat epic fantasy novels. In addition to my twelve book goal, I want to mix up authors. While I enjoy reading a series straight through, I find it difficult to get into a novel by a different author after having spent weeks or months reading a single style of writing.

Flash Fiction

Last year I decided to take a break from my normal writing style and write some fiction. I enjoyed it and the reader response was good. Like any new hobby, I started researching to see if there was an online community to learn from. I stumbled on to Fiction Friday from Write Anything. Each week a prompt was posted and participants were asked to use that prompt in a piece of writing. I gave it a try and enjoyed myself, participating as often as possible.

I developed a rhythm and was able to quickly generate story ideas shortly after looking at the prompt. Some stories were better than others, but I wrote often and felt as though my writing improved each week. After a long absence, I decided to head over to Write Anything and take a look at the prompts. I started at the screen for minutes and the only thought that came to mind was the sounds of crickets chirping in the distance.

Flash Fiction was something that I enjoyed a great deal. I want to get back into doing it again this year. My unproductive look at the prompts showed me that I am going to have a hurdle to get over. Once the initial piece is written, I fully expect some sort of rhythm to return and things to get easier.

I haven’t the slightest idea how often I want to participate, or how frequently I’ll even be able to. What I do know is that I have every intention of getting back into the swing of creative writing.

Blogging

I absolutely hate the idea of a stagnant blog. It is bad for traffic and it is bad for my blogging morale. Like with other hobbies, having a child rearranges your priorities, no matter how much you think they will remain the same. I want to keep a pace of two to three blog posts per week. I think this goal is achievable and shouldn’t leave me scratching my head waiting for an idea to strike me.

In addition to blogging here, I also realize that my writing on Stogie Review has been reduced dramatically. I hope to remedy that as well, even if it is only an extra blog post or two per week.

Post from: Walt in PA

2011 Reading and Writing Goals

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A few minutes passed and the alert nagged at the back of my mind. What if it was Brian, Jerry, or Mike trying to reach me regarding Stogie Review? What if it was a reader with a question? What if it was just a friend looking to chat? The curiosity was overwhelming. I reached out, grabbed the phone, and dragged open my eyes to see who it was that was messaging me on a Sunday morning.

I deleted the Sunday Morning DM, this is one that I received the day before.

In the past I have written an article on my Twitter and Facebook Annoyances. I realize that posts covering what is wrong with Twitter and Facebook are like beating a dead horse, but perhaps focusing on self promotion via Twitter may be beneficial.

Who I Follow

I follow a wide range of people on Twitter. The bulk of those individuals are made up of cigar people. Since I am an avid cigar smoker, I like to see what others have to say about the industry. Mixed in with consumers, there are manufacturers and bloggers. The latter are people with a brand that requires promotion, be it a small niche blog or a large company manufacturing cigars.

Behind the cigar folk are those involved with creative writing. In this group I probably have the most diversity within a given niche. These individuals range from best selling authors, to self-publishers, to writers publishing content on their blogs, to those that simply enjoy reading what others create. Because this group is made up of people from all over the world, it generates fascinating tweets.

The final segment of people that I follow is complete and utter randomness. This group contains celebrities, news organizations, retailers, and people that simply tweet things I enjoy reading. At the time of my writing this, 1,157 people make up these three roughly outlined groups.

DM Spam: The Worst Offenders

Seeing the groups of people that I follow, you re probably thinking that the most Twitter Direct Message spam comes from Celebrities and News Organizations. These people make a living in the public eye and have a brand that requires a vast amount of promotion to succeed. You may be surprised to learn that this group is the least problematic. I don’t recall ever having received an automated message, from anyone within this group, promoting their brand. Their public timeline, on the other hand, can be a very different story.

That settles it then, the vast amount of self promotion must lie within your largest group, the cigar people? Again, you may be surprised that this large group is rather tame when it comes to self promotion. Sure, there are some bloggers and manufactures out there that can get annoying, but they are generally not the largest source of spam.

That only leaves one group of people, the creative writing crowd. When it comes to direct message spam, this group is, by far, the worst offender. I find it simply amazing how a little success can turn an author in a self-promotion machine. The scenario usually plays out by them following me. The follow prompts me to check out their profile, if the excerpt of their writing looks interesting, I follow back. Within a few hours some of these authors will fire off a direct message thanking me for the follow and suggest that I visit their website (link included, for my convenience).

Begging for Clicks

I suppose that I could be considered some type of content purist when it comes to blogs. If I see new content via Google Reader, I’ll take a look if I don’t have anything else going on. I’ll read or watch the content and then consider my options. I may think about copying the link and posting it to my Twitter timeline, I may leave a comment, or I may just leave the blog without taking any action at all. The content determines what course of action I will take.

The same applies to links in Twitter, with one exception. In the event that a link is followed by someone asking for re-tweets, I generally ignore it all together. For one reason or another, I see it as someone begging for clicks. It tells me that the content probably isn’t good enough to stand on its own. Because if it were, why would the author ask for favors in promoting it? If the content were truly compelling, I wouldn’t need the author asking me to share it with my friends. I would do it because my followers might enjoy it just as much as I did.

My Twisted Philosophy

When it comes to this personal blog, I have the luxury of not relying on my content to pay my bills. Sure, it would be fantastic if my content were to go viral, but there is no pressure to try and force it. As a result, I have a more relaxed approach to getting my creative work out in the wide world.

TwitterFeed

Like many bloggers, I have this WordPress blog integrated with my Twitter account. Thats means that anytime I click the publish button, the link to the published article is pushed to my Twitter timeline. While this may seem spammy to some, I find that a single post every couple of days (or even daily) is not abrasive when mixed in with a healthy number if genuine tweets.

The Manual Link

Sometime after one of my articles is published, I like to manually link to it via Twitter and Facebook. By generating this second link, I am able to add more personality to the Tweet, rather than having a generic “New From WaltInPA” followed by a long link. Sure, two links to the same article can be a little on the spammy side, but I try to spread them out so that they do not overlay one another. This exposes me to the morning crowd and the afternoon / evening crowd later on

Participation

Back when I was more involved with creative writing, I found that one surefire way to get eyes on my content was to participate. I threw my hat into the ring for Fiction Friday as well as #FridayFlash. In addition, I would read through the writing submitted by others and comment. Most blogs allowed me to include a link back to my blog with my name and email address.

By taking the time to comment on work other than my own, often times I compelled the author to visit my blog and do the same. Over time this lead to a relationship being developed and we would routinely comment on each others writing. This also lead to genuine re-tweets and cross linking through twitter.

One of the common complaints of this system is that newcomers feel that it doesn’t work. True, as someone new you may need to put forth a great deal of effort for little return but relationships aren’t built overnight. By sticking with it and showing that you are in it for the long haul, it will slowly begin to pay off and you will eventually become one of the guys. The same applies to any niche, you do not need writing memes to actively participate in the blogging community.

Post from: Walt in PA

Self Promotion on Twitter: My Twisted Philosophy

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Press coverage is something that we take very seriously. In addition to networking with as many manufacturers as possible, we do our best to bring our viewers video footage of the event. This year we had a lot more on our plates than previous years. This caused us to divide our time up between the Twitter Brothers of the Leaf Cocktail Hour and press coverage. In all, I think we managed our time well and walked away with plenty of footage.

Unlike previous years, I was only able to dedicate four nights of my time to the trade show. With a new baby in the house, I was reluctant to even go this year. To my surprise, my wife suggested that I go simply because several manufacturers would be expecting to see me and that it would be beneficial to Stogie Review.

I settled on flying in on Sunday afternoon and leaving Thursday afternoon. This put me at the show the day before things got underway and allowed me two full days on the trade show floor. An incredible stress factor cropped up in Tuesday when there were reports of a Tropical Storm heading directly for New Orleans. While I wasn’t concerned about another Hurricane Katrina, I was concerned about having my flight cancelled and spending another day away from my wife and daughter. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time with the guys, but I wanted to be home on time.

When the Tropical Storm began to dissipate and head east, I felt as though a weight was lifted from my shoulders and I was able to get back to concentrating and having a good time.

Wednesday night was the Stogie Review and Hava Cigar hosted Twitter Brothers of the Leaf Cocktail Hour. The turnout was excellent and we had in excess of 120 people attend. Several manufacturers came out and we all had a great time smoking cigars and enjoying adult beverages.

In my downtime, which was mostly at the airport, I intended to write up a story for Fiction Friday and #FridayFlash, but I couldn’t concentrate. Now that I’m home and back to my usual routine, I hope to have an addition to my Memoirs of an Assassin Serial sometime this week, as well as something separate for a Friday fiction piece.

Post from: Walt in PA

Its Good To Be Home

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Last week I celebrated my twenty-eighth birthday. Ever since turning twenty-one, I haven’t seen birthdays as the exciting days that I used to. I suppose in my youth, each year drew me closer to the legal drinking age. Once I crossed that milestone, there wasn’t anything else to get excited about.

At twenty-five, I received an auto insurance discount but that is hardly something to mark the calendar for. Despite my lack of enthusiasm, my wife loves birthdays. Even though I told her not to get me anything, she did. Not only did she get me a gift, she blew me away with that gift.

After a normal day at work, I came home to a smiling wife and two gifts. The first one that I opened was from my daughter (Obviously a 3 week old couldn’t go shopping but her name was on the gift and I thought it was cute).I smiled from ear to ear at the two My Father brand cigars and a cute monster card.

The second gift was from my wife, a Barnes & Noble Nook. I have wanted one for a couple of months now but couldn’t justify the purchase. She not only got me something that I hadn’t realized I told her I wanted, but she researched several eReaders and double checked with a tech-savvy friend of mine (Jerry Cruz).

The Nook came with a joke, “The Nook is actually for the both of us. Now you can continue reading, which I know you love to do, and I’ll have a bookshelf that no longer overflows with Fantasy novels.”

If you are on the fence about getting a Nook for yourself, keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks because I plan to do a write-up of my experience with the device. So far it has been fantastic, as were the cigars.

Post from: Walt in PA

Happy Birthday to Me

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With this increase in popularity Twitter has been going through some growing pains. Those pains have becoming more apparent and began to make headlines on social media and tech news sites. The blame for the downtime has been laid at the feet of the World Cup.

When I first read that bit of news I was a little skeptical. I knew the World Cup was popular among the Twitter crowd but enough to topple the service? We began to see little additions to the service to make tweeting about the game more fun, mainly icons to designate a countries hash tag or the soccer ball for the mention of the game itself.

It wasn’t until yesterday that I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the World Cup was Twitters Kryptonite. While scanning my Twitter time line, team USA scored a game winning goal and things went crazy. In a matter of mere minutes, my stream was flooded.

The image below is a screen capture taken when the wave of tweets rolled in. The blurred out names are the few accounts that have privacy controls enabled.

Post from: Walt in PA

I Suppose The World Cup Really Is Twitter’s Kryptonite

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The baby hasn’t arrived just yet but I already know that friend was correct. Over the last couple of weeks I feel as though I’ve been working around the clock. I rise at 4:30am for work and spend all day at the office. While a desk job may not be labor intensive, it is highly stressful with no outlet for frustration aside from a keyboard.

Over the past couple of weeks my routine has been similar. When I arrive home from work, I let Syrus out for a bit and I get changed into work clothes. I spend the next four hours working around the house to prepare for the baby. This lies mainly on demo and construction so that there isn’t any banging and lingering dust when the baby joins us.

After a much needed shower, I make my way to the computer and try to address some of the email that I have neglected throughout the week. Once I’m satisfied, I make a quick pass over Twitter and Facebook before stepping away. Depending on how tired I feel, I consider a cigar while I do a little reading to unwind.

An hour later I’m in bed and sound asleep shortly after my head touches the pillow. When I wake up I feel the pressing stresses of all the tasks that I hadn’t finished the day before. Things like writing Fiction Friday, Writing Adventure Group, or the three book reviews where I have video but no text. Over on Stogie Review I’m scrambling to do last minute reviews because I simply don’t have the three to four hours that I used to devote to them.

I keep telling myself that time is tight because I’m trying to pack in as much renovation as possible, when the baby comes things will ease up a bit. I tell myself that my wife will no longer be pregnant and have more energy to help.

The realization is that finding a spare moment is going to get harder. While my wife will no longer be pregnant, she will spend her maternity leave caring for the baby while I work. I’ll come home to her needing a break and I’ll take over with child care.

I’ve already arranged to take some paternity leave from Stogie Review, so that will ease my nerves a bit. I’ve got my fingers crossed that I’ll find spare moments throughout the day to do other things that I enjoy, such as reading and writing.

In fact, I already told my wife that I refuse to give up reading and that if I must, I will read Epic Fantasy to my child as we hang out. It can’t be any different from the fathers that read the sports section to their child with a soft reassuring voice.

As strange as it may seem to have little free time, I’m looking forward to it. I’ll adapt and find a way to get everything done throughout the week. I suppose this will be a good lesson on learning to be more efficient and productive when a spare moment presents itself.

My apologies if things get a little sporadic around here (I’m sure they already seem that way), but I’ve got a lot on my plate. Just prepare yourself for lots of baby-photos and the quick stories that come with being a first-time father.

Post from: Walt in PA

Time Isn’t On My Side

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Once we were fed, we headed across the parking lot and ventured into Gently Used Books. I’ve been in the store on two other occasions but this was her first trip. We parted ways and I made my way over to the Fantasy section while she looked at the Thriller / Horror offerings.

Just like my previous trips, I was a little disappointed in the selection. Being a used book store, I realize that stock is generated from books people are willing to part with. This often leads to only portions of a series being available as well as a lack of newer releases.

After having spoken with a few people about The Wheel of Time, I was quite interested in picking up the first book of the series, The Eye of the World. I was hoping to be able to find the popular novel but only managed to find random offerings from the middle of the series.

As I roved along the books, I came across yet another book that resided in the middle of a series. This book was Joe Abercrombie’s Before They Were Hanged. With a price tag of only $5.00, I couldn’t resist and simply made plans to order the first book, The Blade itself, from Amazon.

Wanting to walk out with something that I could dig into, I looked at a variety of other titles. I found what I thought were two stand-along novels by Elizabeth Boyer. The first was The Troll’s Grindstone, the second was The Wizard and the Warlord. Both books came in at less than $2.00 each. Unfortunately, when I got home I found out that they might be a portion of a series which encompasses several books.

Even though I purchased books within a series, I am happy with my purchases. For less than $10.00 I walked out with three books in fair condition that I look forward to getting into in the months to come. For now I have roughly three-hundred pages of Ship of Destiny to finish before moving on to something else on my ever growing to-read pile.

Post from: Walt in PA

A Trip to Gently Used Books

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With that said, I thought I would use this opportunity to touch on a couple of things I had in the back of my mind.

Fiction Friday:

I have been participating in Fiction Friday for the past month and have to say, I’m enjoying it immensely. Some weeks are much harder than others when it comes to formulating a story but I manage to learn something new with every passing week. In addition to being fun to write, I also seem to be getting the most comments on those articles, which tells me they are becoming more engaging than other things I’ve written. Because of this phenomenon, I’m going to try and work more creative writing into the mix. I may even increase the post schedule to four days per week instead of three, but that all will come down to how much time I have.

I’m sure when the baby arrives in July things are going to get super-hectic. On the plus side, I’m sure I’ll have loads and loads of amusing stories to tell (which won’t be creative fiction, but it will be fun). For instance, I had no idea how a diaper genie worked. i thought you place the dirty diaper inside and it wrapped the diaper in an air-tight bag so that it could be placed in the garbage and not stink up the place. As it was so colorfully pointed out to me on Twitter, it would seem the device does wrap the diaper to prevent odor from spilling into the house, but it also contains the waste. I’m told that when full you have to remove what looks like a sausage link of foulness. Sounds like fun….. lol

The Baby:

Speaking of the baby, things have been going really well. In fact, I hope all of my wife’s future pregnancies are this easy. She never experienced morning sickness, she doesn’t get weird and crazy cravings that send me running to the local convenience store in the middle of the night, and her mood swings aren’t bad at all. From time to time she will get a bit emotional but it generally lasts for a few minutes and she is back to her normal self.

All of this stuff being easy on her translates to this pregnancy being easy on me as well. With any luck the baby will be just as easy (in terms of sleeping half-decent and what-not). This may be the calm before the storm but I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Reading:

Over the last couple of weeks my reading has slowed down a bit. As a result, my book reviews are naturally coming more few and far between. I just finished Mad Ship, by Robin Hobb, last night. If I can find a little spare time tonight I’d like to record a ten-minute video discussing the book so that i can post the review on Wednesday. I enjoy Hobb’s writing very much but I think I may take a quick side-trip to break up my reading. Jumping right into Ship of Destiny would be fun (I am enjoying the series) but it would be the sixth Hobb book in a row. With that said, I’m going to take a one book break from Hobb, at which point I will return with the final book in the Liveship Traders Trilogy.

Post from: Walt in PA

Cigarfest Weekend and a Lack of Original Post

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On my latest post, I received a comment that I thought could be expanded and turned into a full post rather than a simple comment reply. I wanted to use it as a springboard on talking about my writing history. While there isn’t much to talk about, the question warrants the telling.

A Well Aged Cuban Wrote:

Hi Walt, very nice work. The best one yet in my humble opinion.
Have you ever done any creative writing classes or anything? I was part of a writers workshop a few years ago and I really loved it. The guy who ran the workshop would always say ‘Write, doesn’t matter what, just write’. Anyway, I hope you keep it up.
I was far too lazy and very easily distracted! Cheers.

I’ve been writing on and off for as long as I can remember. I was once told that before I could read and write coherently, I would scribble random letters and words onto paper when bored. This ultimately turned into short stories as a I got older.

I can only recall ever having written fiction and most of what I wrote was modeled after myself. Writing in this way seemed to open up my imagination and make describing the protagonist simple. The older I got, the more I branched out into more diverse characters.

When I was in Middle School, my writing began to stand out and grab the attention of various English teachers. Each day we would be given time to write in our journals. There was a fifty-word minimum to these assignments and they often carried no strict topic. In the allotted time, my entries generally turned into two-hundred word stories. I found it entertaining to be able to take such a simple assignment and make it something that I enjoyed doing.

In my High School years, I began hearing from various teachers that I should consider going to college to take up creative writing. I would have considered it, but my nemesis was grammar. It was the one thing that sucked all of the fun out of writing assignments. Ultimately, it was the reason why I had virtually no interest in furthering my education in that area.

When I reached my sophomore year in High School, I made a decision that I wanted to take up a trade and build cabinetry and furniture. I spent half of my school day in a traditional classroom and the other half at a technology center.

I found little time to write for fun and stuck strictly to the assignments given in class. The college suggestions continued to come, but I just put on a smile and gave a light nod whenever the subject came up.

Just as there was a reduction in my writing, I also began to read less. This trend of little time spent reading and writing continued after I graduated High School and took on a full time job as a Cabinetmaker. While I excelled in my cabinetmaking class in high school and did well on the job, I wanted to expand my horizons and be more valuable as an employee.

Several years out of High School, I decided that I wanted to go back to school and learn Architectural Drafting. My thoughts were that since I had spent years building furniture, it would give me an edge when it came to designing cabinets. Just like my choice in High School, I did very well as a drafter and quickly excelled in the classroom.

Along with the drafting classes, I took a variety of others to earn an Associates Degree. Among those classes were Business English and Technical Writing. I did very well in both of those courses, with the exception of the grammar portion of the Business English class, and found myself excited about writing again.

Technical Writing was rather dull but I found it relatively simple to type up the documentation required for the class. This was also around the same time that I began doing more and more writing for Stogie Review.

When my schooling was complete, my writings for Stogie Review increased and I found myself writing primarily for the new cigar smoker in an educational fashion. This writing resulted in a handful of Guest Articles on a couple of different cigar sites. I opened up this personal blog as a way to get my writing fix and expand the topics of my writing.

My writing here and at Stogie Review lead to my being published in the March 2010 issue of Cigar Snob magazine. A few months prior to that publication, a piece of my work was printed as an educational pamphlet for customers of an online lighter store.

On a whim, I decided to get back to writing fiction and try my hand at a story where I was out walking Syrus when I was attacked by Zombies. The reaction to the change of pace was positive and I decided to do a little more creative writing. I began poking around the web and came across Write Anything and their Fiction Friday Prompts.

Post from: Walt in PA

Responding to Readers: My Writing Past

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A Beautiful Spring Day

Saturday was beautiful. Not only was it the first day of Spring but it was also the first day in nearly a week that wasn’t tainted by cloudy skies and persistent rain. This little ray of sunshine was just the kind of motivation required to stretch the legs and do something other than sit around the house and watch reruns on television.

Even though the day was off to a wonderful start, I was fully aware that it was nothing more than a tease. The local news was reporting cloudy skies and a light rain by early afternoon. If I was going to enjoy any part of this day I was going to have to get started in short order and soak up the sun while it lasted.

After a pleasant breakfast, I thought it would be a good time to take Syrus out for a walk. From our pit bull’s demeanor as of late, it seemed as though he was just as sick of the wet weather as my wife and I were. I was sure that he wouldn’t mind spending a little time in the warm morning sun. As I stood in the living room, staring at the leash hanging near the door, I considered holding off until after my morning errands were complete. My concentration was broken as Syrus realized what I was staring at and began whipping me with his tail in excitement.

Before setting foot out the door, I gave my wife a kiss on the cheek and told her I would be back in about an hour. I turned to head towards the door and was tripped up, nearly falling flat on my face. Not wanting to have me slip out past him, Syrus was in a tight heel position, snug against my side. This, I determined, was the cause of my sudden loss of balance

I managed to stay on my feet but had to break into a run in order to do so. I crossed the living room in no time at all, trying to keep myself upright. Behind me I heard my wife’s hysterical laughter at my clumsiness and Syrus’ raw excitement for a dry walk through the neighborhood. I tried to give Syrus a stern look for tripping me up, but all I could manage was a slight smirk as I thought about what I must have looked like trying to regain my footing.

The Encounter

Once Syrus’ leash was fastened, we stepped out into the warm morning air and headed away from the house. It didn’t take long before the house was out of sight and Syrus’ tail was wagging a mile a minute. The happy look on his face made me smile and appreciate the day all the more.

About thirty minutes into our walk we reached a wooded park area. While Syrus sniffed around to take care of business, I reached into my shirt pocket and retrieved an Illusione 88. I was so wrapped up in the walk that I nearly forgot to light my traditional walk the dog cigar.

Before Syrus could his thing, he began acting strange. His intense sniffing of the ground came to an abrupt halt as he stood frozen, staring off into the tree line about fifty yards away. Once my cigar was lit, I took a couple slow puffs and offered Syrus some words of encouragement in hopes that he would ignore whatever was in the woods and resume our walk.

Even though my pooch returned to sniffing the ground, he seemed too distracted to take care of business. In an effort to make him more comfortable, I began to move away from the tree line. My assumption was that there was an animal of some sort roaming around and he didn’t recognize its scent.

As we began to walk, I heard a low gurgling noise off in the distance. Syrus suddenly froze and the hair along his spine stood up on end while he let out a low growl. The more I tried to break his concentration and walk away, the more he resisted and fixated on that low sound off in the woods.

Frustration mounting, I turned my back to the woods and crouched down directly in Syrus’ field of view to break his concentration. He looked up at me with worried eyes and I knew that something was wrong. We needed to get out of the immediate area.

The very instant that I began to rise I heard a crack behind me. Before I could turn to see what the noise was, Syrus was off like a shot. He charged out six feet and was brought to an abrupt halt as the leash, which was looped over over my wrist, lost all slack and pulled taut. Upon his violent stop, Syrus immediately took a few steps back to put himself into a protective position as I tried clambering back to my feet after being dragged to the ground.

Everything seemed to happen in the blink of an eye, that is until I turned my head to see what the ruckus was all about. In the slowest second of my life, my eyes scanned the area and began to focus on the grotesque being no more than twenty feet behind me. With its sagging greenish skin, it gave me a deathly look as the full weight of the situation came to bear on my mind.

With a screech that would have made Will Smith in his Fresh Prince of Bel Air days proud, I began scrambling to create distance between myself and what I thought of as some sort of Zombie. This time, it was I that hit the end of the leash and was brought to an abrupt halt as Syrus refused to give any ground.

Trying to remain as calm as possible, I began to assess the situation. The creature ahead of us was not pressing forward, instead it emitted a low growl that raised the hair on the back of my neck. I tried to formulate some sort of plan to get out of this serious problem. A quick shifting of Syrus’ head alerted me to two more creatures off in the woods.

I once again tried to move away but Syrus refused to move. Seeing me try to flee must have triggered aggression from the beast. It slowly began moving forward, all the while showing off it’s broken, jagged teeth through its menacing smile. With the creature making ground, the other two off in the woods broke into a trot to move in for the kill.

In a panic, not knowing what else to do, I leaped to my feet and hurled my Illusione 88. Despite my pounding heart and trembling hands, I managed to strike the monster in the face with the lit cigar. On impact a tiny poof of smoke rose into the air as the ash exploded on the loose skin of my foe.

Stopping immediately after being struck, as if too angry to consider what to do next, it just glared at me, paying little attention to my growling pit bull protector. It just stood there, body trembling with rage, the lit cigar at its feet burned on. A thin wisp of smoke rose to meet its disfigured nose. With its concentration broken, it bent and retrieved my makeshift weapon from the splotchy dead grass at its feet.

Curious of this burning object, the beast brought it closer to its face for examination. In an unanticipated move, it tilted its head back and roared. I felt weak in the knees from a sudden wave of terror. As if calling them off, the trotting beasts came to a sudden halt and stood frozen watching the event transpire.

The lead creature stared into my soul with its inky black eyes as if it could stop my heart with nothing more than a look. Without breaking concentration, it placed the lit cigar into its mouth and took a long violent puff. The cigar glowed red and the smoke leaked from its disfigured mouth and through a puncture in its left cheek. As if pleased by its conquest, the beast turned and walked off towards the woods, letting out a low menacing laugh as it went.

Not wanting to loose my opportunity, I began tugging on Syrus’ leash and quickly got out of the park and back on the busy streets. Before long Syrus and I were back home standing before my wife as I explained all that had happened. With a look of amusement on her face, she announced “Only one problem with Reading, too many damned zombies. To make matters worse, they’ll do anything for a cigar”

Post from: Walt in PA

Took Syrus for a Walk and was Attacked by Zombies

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I like to think of myself as a mans man. I love building things and getting my hands dirty. Having spent more than a decade in the cabinet industry, I’m always interested in seeing a new tool operate or getting my hands on something new for around the house.

Being comfortable around tools and machinery has made me no stranger to television shows that feature construction and information on how to do things around the home. I’ve seen my fare share of episodes of This Old House, Hometime, New Yankee Workshop, and the plethora of design shows on cable television.

Somewhere along the way, television shows that feature construction have become more about the outward appearance of the carpenter / woodworker and less about what they know. Sure, these men and women have no problem operating machinery and instructing a homeowner in creating their own piece of furniture, but when that same host begins telling a homeowner that a particular kitchen cabinet is top-of-the-line, I find myself yelling at the television that “they must be high because there is no way that half-inch flake board box is top-of-the-line“.

The statements like those above are what has driven me away from the televisions shows similar to those that I have grown up watching. More emphasis is placed in the design aspects of the project and how good the carpenter with the sexy accent sounds.

It wasn’t until just recently that I found myself glued to the television watching a show on home renovations. Despite the trend, I came across a show that featured a contractor that knew his stuff. I was blown away by his attitude on Making it Right. The host is none other than Mike Holmes of Holmes on Homes.

While the show has been on the air for a couple of years now, I saw my very first episode just the other day. Once the episode was complete, I sat staring at the television for a second episode. When that second episode was complete, I was kind of bummed out when something else came on.

A week after catching that first episode, I began scouring the internet for a place to view shows online. Once I found the Holmes on Homes section of HGTV, I spent the better part of a lazy Sunday afternoon catching up on what was available.

If you enjoy watching construction shows and aren’t familiar with Mike Holmes, I strongly recommend checking out the show. To view them online, head over to the HGTV Website to stream them at your convenience. Once you watch a show or two, or if you have already seen it, head over to the comments section and tell me what you think of it.

Post from: Walt in PA

Holmes on Homes

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With little time to formulate the review, I was left with no time to write a post for my personal blog. In addition, I’m suffering from a bit of writers block. So, if you have any topic suggestions, I’m all ears.

Anyway, I thought I would simply post something random this morning. I thought a little “Three surefire ways to get a reaction from your wife” would both be fun and educational.

Scenario 1:

Every morning before leaving for work I drink a glass or orange juice and take a multi-vitamin. In the event that I am running a little behind, my wife is kind enough to have both items waiting for me as I emerge from the bedroom, hastily dressed and ready to run out the door.

I would then thank her for the “OJ Juice” and my vitamin. The first time I said it she let it pass and didn’t say a word. The following day when I asked her if she would be so kind as to pour me a glass of “OJ Juice” she corrected me before doing so.

With a smile on her face she explained to me, like I was two years old, that it was either OJ or Orange Juice. I gave her a little “pfft, I know what this is called and it’s OJ Juice”. She let out a slight laugh and told me to call it whatever I wanted but I was wrong.

Of course I knew I was wrong, I just found it fun to say incorrectly. I continued to refer to my orange juice as “OJ Juice” for the next few weeks. I could tell it was slowly grated on her nerves, and in a playful way I got a kick out of it. One morning my effort paid off and she referred to my glass of orange juice as “OJ Juice”.

As soon as my wife realized what she said, she reached her breaking point. With a smile on her face she began yelling at me, at which point I fled the room laughing like a little boy as I went.

Scenario 2:

This one is an oldie, but a goodie. At some point during the weekend my wife usually sits down and makes out her grocery list for the week to come. After its completion she would generally hang it on the refrigerator just in case something random came up that needed to be added before she left for groceries.

In a bit of boyish fun, I used to add to the list as the weekend progressed. All of the items added to the list were legitimate, but worded improperly. One afternoon my wife picked up her list and headed off to the store. A short time after she left, I got a phone call from her asking me “What the hell is a jar of ‘A horse’s radish’?”.

After saying it aloud I think it dawned on her that I wanted her to pick up a jar or horseradish. While I had tears in my eyes from laughing, she was not nearly as amused.

Scenario 3:

One early morning, my wife was in the kitchen making coffee while I sat in the living room putting on my shoes. As I sat there getting ready to walk out the door and go to work, my wife began to sneeze. She had a bit of a cold and the result was a strange, high-pitched sound. In this particular case the sneeze was followed by another two in rapid succession.

I looked down and Syrus, who was watching me curiously, and said “Syrus, did you hear that? That was the call of the tard-bird, spring is in the air!”. What followed was yelling with a little laughter mixed in. In haste, I fled the room to safety with Syrus at my heels.

In Closing

Don’t think for one second that I am cruel for playing pranks on my wife, she certainly gets her fair share in as well. We have a very fun relationship that keeps us both smiling and laughing. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Post from: Walt in PA

Three surefire ways to get a reaction from your wife

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Being a creature of habit, I like to have things prepared and ready to go at a certain time. This is very true about my blog, and if you are like me you were probably wondering where todays post was when you checked the site? The simple answer is that I was slacking off last night and didn’t manage to get it taken care of.

Before I was sick, I had a handful of posts written and waiting to be published. This worked out great for when I wasn’t feeling up to typing or if I had writers block. Unfortunately, all of those posts have been used up and the last few posts have been written a day or two before posting.

On schedule this week I had a review of the Robin Hobb novel Assassin’s Quest, which would have closed out the Farseer trilogy. The book has been read and the written portion of the review is nearly complete. I need to record a quick video to go along with the review, which I didn’t get around to doing last night.

So what prevented me from doing this, well I ran into a chum with a bottle of rum. My father and I have been spending our free time working on a side project as of late. We completed this project on Monday and I was delivering it last night. Not only was the project being delivered to a fellow cigar smoker, we met up at our local cigar shop, Kensington Tobacconist.

After we shuffled all of the parts from my car into my friends truck, we headed in for a cigar. Before long, this friend of mine was cracking open his locker and pulling out several bottles of rum to do a mini tasting (my experience with rum is almost non-existent and he planned on giving me a small look into the world of rum).

After about a tablespoon of two different rums, I was poured a healthy glass of Zaya on the rocks and we settled in for a couple of hours. The first of the rums was an inexpensive bottle that was more geared towards mixing. The second bottle was far smoother but lacked body. The third rum was simply heaven in a glass.

While we sat sipping and smoking, we had some great conversation. Some of our talk was serious while other topics were highly comedic. Two hours after that glass was poured, we were wrapping up our cigars and getting ready to call it a night.

While I may have slacked off in getting that book review posted, the time I had last night more than makes up for that slight pang of guilt I experienced for missing a post. Keep yours eyes peeled for a future post on that Zaya that I had the pleasure of drinking, I’m most definitely going to have to get myself a bottle now.

Post from: Walt in PA

Ran into a chum with a bottle of rum

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The last four to six weeks has seemed far longer than it has actually been. It all started with me getting a bit of a scratchy throat on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. By Sunday, that scratchy throat had blossomed into an all out sinus assault. I found myself faced with more sinus congestion than ever before. Along with the congestion came sinus headaches that made it difficult to do anything that required more than vague concentration.

After about a week, and two bottles of Nyquil, I finally felt my symptoms begin to lift. By day ten I felt about ninety-percent and went back to my usual routine. About two weeks later, a cold began to make the rounds at work and unbelievably, I got sick all over again. Fortunately, this second time around was far less severe and lasted about five days before the symptoms were all but gone.

I can say with absolute certainty, that coming home from work and climbing into bed gets old very quickly. I wound up falling into a system where by 7:00pm I was doused in Vicks Vapor-Rub and taking a swig of Nyquil. By 8:00pm I was sound asleep and hoping for a better day when I awoke.

Post from: Walt in PA

The joys of being sick

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Ever since my early teens, I have held some sort of job. Those jobs ranged from delivering fliers for a local pizza shop to working in a manufacturing facility doing shipping and receiving work. After a long day at work, I would come straight home and get cleaned up before I even thought about doing anything.

At eighteen years old, I wouldn’t take a ride to the home center to pick up a bag of potting soil without first getting cleaned up. If I were in the middle of a project and needed to go out a buy something to finish the job, I would get cleaned up first, only to come back home with the needed material and get dirty all over again.

A couple of years later that attitude was relaxed a little. I was less worried about what people thought of me as I stopped off for something after work, or if I needed something mid-project. Just a couple of months ago I made several trips to a local hardware store for plumbing supplies. Each time I walked through the door I was covered in more drain slime and dirty dish water.

My concerns of my outward appearance aren’t all lost just yet, there is still a well defined line in the sand. While I have little concern about how presentable I am while seeking out materials and Lowes or Home Depot, I don’t want to be un-presentable elsewhere.

Even though a line does exist, I found myself doing something just the other week that surprised me. After letting Syrus out for his morning pee, at roughly 4:45am, I began to make breakfast. After a few minutes I stuck my head out the door and saw that Syrus managed to get his leader tangled around our picnic table.

With an audible sigh, I realized that I was going to have to trudge through calf-high snow to get him out of his predicament. My first thought was to throw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt so that I could be presentable had a random neighbor been out for a morning jog, or some other early riser activity.

What I wound up doing was throwing caution to the wind. I cinched up my bath robe, kicked my slippers aside and threw on my waterproof, insulated, calf-high, camouflage hunting boots. I stuck my head out and peered around my porch to make sure no one was looking and strutted my bare-legged stuff out onto the snow covered lawn. Once Syrus was free, I took one quick look around before dashing back into the house.

I can’t help but think that in another thirty-years, I’ll be that silver-haired man strutting out to my mailbox to gather up the morning paper, wearing a pair of gray tube socks, slippers, and a bath robe while puffing on a cigar.

Post from: Walt in PA

Hot Stuff Comin’ Through

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There are two distinct scenarios where this question will arise. The first is when I repeatedly ignore Fan and Group Requests. The other is much different and involves a chat session going unanswered. Of the two, the only one which I feel guilty about is the chat session.

Fan and Page Requests:

As I have said in my Twitter and Facebook Annoyances post, I am very particular about what I support, especially on Facebook. For example, if my local tobacconist were to create a Fan or Group page for Kensington Tobacconist, I would support it in a heartbeat. I am a regular customer there and recommend the business anytime I find someone locally looking to purchase cigars.

To expand on that example, lets say that a friend sent me something to invite me to become a fan or follow the group page for AutoZone. In this instance, I probably would ignore the request. While I do shop at a local AutoZone, I just as frequently purchase automotive items from PepBoys, Advanced Auto, and NAPA. I wouldn’t recommend AutoZone any more than I would the rest, so the request would go ignored.

I feel that in order for me to support a business on Facebook, it has to show me that it is willing to go above and beyond the call of duty for its customers. In the examples above, AutoZone is just a place to buy automotive supplies. Kensington Tobacconist, on the other hand, is a place to buy cigars as well as being a place were I can hang out for hours at a time while chatting it up with friends.

Chat Sessions:

Chat sessions are one thing I always feel guilty about ignoring, although I am rarely aware that I am ignoring them. Because I use my computer on a regular basis, I generally leave many of the heavy use applications open. One of those applications is Mozilla Firefox. Within a single FireFox window I generally have about a half dozen tabs open, that stay open. Those tabs may include the Stogie Review Dashboard, Walt In PA Dashboard, Stogie Review Fan Forums, Google Wave, and Facebook.

This, in and of itself, is not a problem. The issue comes up when I walk away from the computer, as I do regularly, to attend to other business in the house. More often than not, if a chat session goes unanswered it is because I am not in the room when the message appears. When I do find it, fifteen to twenty minutes later, it is often too late and the person who started the chat session has logged out of Facebook.

The only time a chat session is purposely ignored is if I am reading. I often read books near my computer because it is kept in the only room in the house that I smoke cigars. As I lean back in my chair, puffing on a cigar, reading silently along in my book, I ignore any chat notices I may hear along the way. When I get to the end of a chapter I’ll take a look at what was sent but it is often too late and the other person is offline.

Post from: Walt in PA

Why are you ignoring me on Facebook?

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I saw the video and burst out laughing. When the video ended, I saw an option to create my own version. The first person that came to mind was Jerry Cruz of Stogie Review. It was a tough choice selecting a photo but I opted to go with the Jerry McCruz variety and used a photo of Jerry in a St. Patrick’s Day hat and fake beard.

After creating the video, I wound up watching it about five times before the day was through. Each time I watched it I laughed until I had tears in my eyes. After one last view, I called it a night and went to bed. I suppose that since the video was fresh in my mind, I wound up having a dream which featured the Stogie Review crew.

This dream of mine was a little strange but not all of it was far-fetched. For the past two years, Jerry, Brian, and I have traveled to cover the annual IPCPR convention together. In my dream, we were back in Las Vegas for the trade show. After a long day of talking with cigar manufactures and reporting from the show floor, we went our separate ways when the day came to a close. All three of us made plans to speak with different manufacturers before the day was through. After we finished, our plan was to meet up at our hotel before hitting the town.

Just before we separated, Jerry was telling us about the door to his hotel room and how much he hated it. He was going on and on about how much it sucked and he vowed that he was going to “take care of it”. We all had a laugh and headed off to our respective appointments.

After finishing up my conversation with Jose Blanco, I began making my way back to my hotel room when I saw someone walking through the casino dragging something behind them. As I got closer I realized that it was Jerry and that he was dragging along an old, beat-up, ugly green door. I caught up with Jerry just as Brian came around the corner and gave him a very confused look.

Jerry went on to explain that he found this door back on the trade show floor and he liked the way it looked, said it had character. Since he hated his current hotel room door, he was going to replace it with this new door of his. While Brian and I were confused, Jerry spoke with excitement about how this door was split into two sections. The bottom half could be locked to keep out intruders while the top section could be opened up, which would allow him to see those walking past his room.

After another hearty round of laughs, I excused myself to use the restroom before we went back to our rooms. As I came out of the restroom, just a minute later, Jerry and Brian were walking away from one of the gaming tables. While I caught up with them, I noticed that Jerry was carrying a circular saw as he dragged away his door.

All three of us arrived at the elevator at the same time and it was at this point that Jerry began telling me how he won the saw at a gaming table, all the while Brian roared with laughter. With his new saw, Jerry told us that he had all he needed to install his newly acquired door.

As the elevator doors parted and we began to enter, I heard a buzzing noise which shook me from my dream and brought me back to reality. My alarm clock had gone off before I got to see Jerry install his door and wave at those walking past.

While this was not the strangest dream I have had, it was one of the few that had chuckling to myself as I rose from bed and got my day started.

Post from: Walt in PA

Huh, your gonna replace the door on your hotel room?

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After several days of extra rest you begin to feel better and see the cold you’ve managed to catch, begin to dissipate. At this point your body goes through the nasty phase of getting rid of all that excess snot and congestion so that it can go back to operating properly.

Towards the end of that cold you find yourself in a situation where you can feel the congestion break up and require removal. It is like the perfect storm as you draw air into your lungs. You place the tissue against your face and blow through your nose with conviction. As the air rushes through your sinus, it feels as if the sticky green snot is slurped from your brain stem and sent screaming down your nostrils. As the snot exits your nose, it makes an unmistakable slapping sound as it flies into the tissue, much like a fast ball cracking into a catchers mitt.

Now that the glob of sticky green and yellow snot if free from your body, what do you do? If you are like me, you pull that tissue apart and take a look at what is going on. You’ve got to take a quick peek to make sure everything is copacetic. You certainly wouldn’t want to be blowing out blue or purple snot and not know it, am I right?

I followed the above story, to the letter, just the other morning before going to work. While I didn’t think anything of it, apparently my wife was appalled by the fact that I pulled apart the tissue to look at what came out of my nose.

Can you believe that, a pregnant woman that would probably spritz pickle juice on ice-cream was grossed out by me checking out my own snot? To be fair, the sound of that snot slapping the tissue was unmistakable and there was no way she didn’t hear it. Perhaps the grossness was a combination of hearing what came out then seeing me look at it.

After she finished a gagging, laughing, and yelling at me to stop looking at my snot, we got to talking and laughing. She asked me how I could do such a thing and simply couldn’t understand that men such as myself feel the need to check our work, so to speak.

I was amazed when she told me that she never did such a thing as to look at what came out of her nose. Apparently when the conversation turned to checking your work after taking care of business in the restroom, the conversation got a little too deep for her and we could no longer hold a conversation with her laughing so hard.

Post from: Walt in PA

What, you don’t check your work?

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On Saturday February 7, 2010, Reading PA was hit with a snow storm. In all I believe there was an accumulation of about a foot of snow. Just a mere four days later, the Reading area saw a second snow storm. This one dumping more than a foot and a half in some areas.

The first storm to hit the area wasn’t terrible and I was able to to clear my sidewalks in short order. The snow was light and fluffy which made shoveling a breeze. To make things easier on myself, I shoveled in two shifts, clearing roughly six-inches each time. After the second shift was completed, I moved to dig out our two family vehicles.

With the township plowed, shoveling out the cars wasn’t so bad. The difficult part was finding a good place to put the snow so that it didn’t get piled up in an poor location. I wound up walking with each shovel full of snow so that I could pile it up out of the way and simply add to the mountain that the plows had already helped create.

When the second storm came to pass, I found myself doing much more walking and a lot more throwing to move the snow into a position which was not in the way. I spent about an hour out in the snow on three different occasions clearing my sidewalks during the storm. The first two times I moved between six and eight inches of snow while the third time was a mere three inches.

Once the sidewalks were clear, it was time to tackle the two family vehicles once again. Between the snow piled up beside the cars and the drifts created by the wind, both cars were completely covered. It took me nearly four-hours to dig out those two vehicles. Each and every shovel load of snow had to be carried to my growing mountain of snow.

By the time I was finished, my snow was piled over six-feet tall, five feet wide, and more than ten feet long. Granted, the snow plow helped me build such a monster pile of snow, but I added an incredible amount to it as I dug out those vehicles.

As I write this article, Reading is expecting yet another snow storm to come through the area in a matter of a few hours. We are expecting a mere six inches this time around but I am quickly running out of places to pile the snow.

Post from: Walt in PA

Berks County Snow Storms

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My distaste for shopping has nothing to do with spending my hard earned money, but has everything to do with the behavior of my fellow shoppers. I can remember a time as a child where I would be reprimanded for not having the common courtesy of holding the door for the person just a few feet away.

Holding the Door:

Having gotten into the habit of holding the door for strangers as a child, I don’t even think about it today, I simply hold the door and wait a couple of seconds for my fellow shopper to make it to the door. More often than not the person that I hold the door for doesn’t even have the common courtesy to say thank you. Often times they avoid eye contact and continue walking, as if I had just done something embarrassing.

Depending on the situation, I take it even a step further. Not all that long ago an older couple was approaching the doors to a local store (I don’t recall what store it was). The couple was just a few steps behind me, walking hand in hand. Rather than walking through the door and passing it off to the couple before I continued on, I opened the door and stepped to the side, holding the door so that they didn’t even have to touch the door themselves. I didn’t find it to be a big deal but the older man insisted on thanking me and shaking my hand, as did his wife.

When roles are reversed, I become agitated quickly when the person approaching a door ahead of me lets the door go without passing it on. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve had doors slam shut mere inches from my face because my fellow shopper couldn’t be bothered with holding the door for a couple of seconds.

Blocking the Aisles:

This simple door situation is enough to put a damper on the shopping experience, but it gets worse after entering the store. Depending on the store that I am visiting, the frustrations change a bit. The most agitation comes from my local Walmart, where children run wild in the aisles and the parents pay little to no attention.

While I understand that kids are going to be kids, I also feel that parents should take responsibility for their children’s actions. It is a common occurrence to find a couple blocking up an aisle as they carry on a conversation, meanwhile their kids are pulling items off of the shelves so that they can play with them while seated on the floor. In an extreme case, I’ve seen a child pull a bike off of the rack and ride it around the store, completely ignored by their parents.

In the local grocery store, where playing children are less of an issue, I always seem to run into the person that must turn their cart sideways, blocking the aisle completely, while they select their items from the shelves. What is even more frustrating is that these people don’t seem to be bothered when I physically move their cart so that I can pass.

When shopping for groceries with my wife, which is rare, I tend to frustrate her by how anal I am in making sure my cart is oriented so that people can easily pass us in the aisles. I also keep a watchful eye on the cart so that I can move it in the event that I am preventing someone from pulling an item off of the shelf.

I Hate Shopping:

The examples outlined above are just two of the many reasons that I hate shopping. Each visit to the local big box store seems to reinforce my thought that people are becoming more and more rude as each day passes.

Perhaps if everyone took just a few seconds out of their day to do something nice like holding a door or not blocking an aisle, shopping would be a more pleasurable experience and fewer people would walk around with agitated looks on their faces.

Maybe I’m one of the few remaining people in a dying breed of shoppers. If this is the case, I’m more than happy to spend my money online where I do not have to deal the frustrations of shopping in a physical store.

Post from: Walt in PA

Dying Breed of Shopper

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Both stories revolve around the topic of childish fun. The main difference is that this story takes a deeper look into the inner workings of my mind, which quite frankly may frighten some of you. At the end of the day, I not only keep myself entertained, I usually succeed in making my wife laugh. At times she does more laughing at me than laughing with me but it is all in good fun.

One evening while chatting it up on Twitter, I saw some comments fly back and forth between two people I converse with on a fairly regular basis. The tweet which prompted my story came from Skip (@ChiefHava) and had to do with being “Gangsta”. Shortly after the tweet was made, Lindsay (@TheCigarChick) responded to Skip by asking him just how many of these “Gangsta’s” resided in Skip’s home state of Texas. The brief exchange between the two made me chuckle before moving on to a conversation of my own.

The following morning I rolled out of bed and began making breakfast. While things were sizzling on the stove top, I reached for my Blackberry to get caught up on any tweets I may have missed while I slept. By the time I was finishing up breakfast, I managed to read through all of my new tweets and came back around to the short exchange between Lindsay and Skip. Before getting up from the breakfast table to move to the next stage of my work-week morning routine, my mind began to wander off into this Texas Gangsta thing that was jokingly mentioned the evening before.

Having a rich imagination and a fondness for entertaining myself with inner dialog, I began to put together a Texas Gangsta in my mind. The first stage of this mind game of mine was to create a mental image. I immediately began working through typical stereotypes to generate a framework for my fictional individual. I settled onto taking the Triple O.G. character Damon, from the movie Friday After Next, and putting him in a classic cowboy getup.

As if taking it far enough to generate a mental picture was not enough, I delved deeper into making this mental image into something more. Having an image in my mind was a good start, but my Texas Gangsta needed to make a living somehow. Being little more than a your typical cowboy was kind of lame for such a mental excursion. Dipping back into the stereotypical vault, I decided that to be a socially respectable Gangsta, my character would be a lyricist, slinging rhymes for the masses.

As I arose from the kitchen table to make my way to the shower, I couldn’t simply stop at this stage. My character not only had an image, he had a calling in life. I decided to go one step further and give my rhyme slinging Texas Gangsta lyricist a name. As I ran thought a series of ridiculously stupid names, I settled on one of the more comical in the bunch. At this point, Bovine S-Creations (es-cree-shuns, like excretions. I know, childish wit and all) was born.

As I stepped into the shower, I found myself enjoying this very childish mental exercise. I was repeatedly making myself laugh out loud, which I’m sure would have seemed outright mad had my wife witnessed it. Having gone to far as to create Bovine S-Creations, I had to take it a bit further and give him a platinum single that every teenage kid would be singing in the corridors of junior-high.

This hit single would have to be just as outrageous as S-Creations himself, so I thought about what a Texas Gangsta just might rhyme about. I thought it would only be suitable to draw from the Texas part of the equation. With the stereotype of Cowboys and Steer, I focused in on an essential tool of the cowboy, the spur. Singing about spurs alone would be boring, so I had to give it a little twist. Digging back in to the stereotype vault, I selected sex as the Gangsta part of the equation.

I began to wonder how in the world I would be able to tie sex and spurs together. Rather than forcing it, I instead pictured what the music video might look like. Not having lyrics or a song title made this a little more difficult. Having a general direction of where I was going with all of this, I placed the mental image of S-Creations into an outdoor scene with a variety of barely clothed women. Before long, “Put Cha’ Spurs On It!” was born.

Having taken things this far, I was just about ready to wrap up this mental voyage when I made a last minute decision to come up with a couple of quick lyrics to tie it all together. I’ve always been absolutely horrendous when it comes to rhyming, so I knew the end result was very likely to turn out poorly.

After a series or terrible attempts at rapping, and a number of loud belly laughs as everything unfolded in my mind, I was just about to call it quits and move on with my morning routine. After finishing up in the bathroom, I reached for the door handle and everything finally clicked into place. The lyrics weren’t very good, but I kind of liked them.

Having exerted all of this mental effort on a ridiculous topic brought on by a few random tweets, I thought I would share the end result with my wife. As I came through the bedroom door, dancing as best as I could (which has always been terrible), I found my wife lying in bed, half asleep. I leaped into the bed and nuzzled up behind her. As she stirred from the sudden jolt of the bed moving, I got down to business with my rhyme.

As we lay here, I whispered into her ear “Take her down, go to town”, before kissing her neck. I then pulled away a little and raised my voice a couple of decibels for the next line, “Pick her up, spin her round”, all the while nuzzling closer. I finished strong by ringing out in an obnoxious voice, “Put Cha’ Spurs On It” as I threw my leg over her and gave her a tap with the heel of my foot to simulate a spurring action.

The result of all of my hard work was a look from my wife that simply said “What the hell is wrong with you?”. I put on my best emotionally hurt face and hopped out of bed. As I stood there in my bath robe trying to play the part of an emotionally scarred husband, a little smile spread across my wife’s face as she let out the slightest little laugh and rolled over to go back to sleep.

Now that my fun was through, I continued on with my day and started getting ready to head out to work. As I got dressed, I was finding that the final part of my song was rather catchy. I would randomly sing out “Put Cha’ Spurs On It!” then shake my head and laugh out loud. My wife, was not nearly as amused as I with my newly found way of entertaining myself.

In the course of a single morning, a Texas Gangsta lyricist named Bovine S-Creations was born. He went on to create what he thought was a hit single and music video, only to be shot down by the critics. In my mind, the world just wasn’t ready for what he had in store for them.

In this case, my wife just couldn’t see the humor in the manner that I did. While she may have been laughing at me this morning, she hasn’t heard the last of “Put Cha’ Spurs On It!”, I’ll be belting out that line for weeks to come.

Post from: Walt in PA

Put Cha’ Spurs On It!

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On a cold January morning, I stepped out my front door and made my way down to my car. As usual, I attached the face plate on my stereo and started the vehicle. I gave the car a couple of minutes to warm up while I read a newly received email on my Blackberry.

In the back of my mind, I thought the car seemed to be idling a little rough this morning. I assumed it had something to do with the bitter cold it had been exposed to throughout the night and put the thought out of my mine. Once I felt the car had sufficient time to warm up, I shifted into first gear, let out the clutch and pulled out of my parking space.

As I accelerated down the street, the car felt as though it was bucking. If you have ever driven a car with a manual transmission, imagine putting it into first gear and gently tapping your foot on the gas pedal. The bucking wasn’t violent, but a gentle surge and drop in power as I held the gas pedal steady.

When shifting into second gear, the car continued to buck, although it was more difficult to notice. My immediate thought was that I had a dirty fuel injector which was limiting the supply of fuel, causing the car to surge instead of maintaining a steady flow of power.

More than nine hours later the morning routine was reversed and I hopped into my car to make the drive home. I experienced the same rough idle, but things were much different when I attempted to pull out of my parking spot. As I let the clutch out, there was an immediate reduction in power and the car almost stalled. I quickly stepped on the clutch and watched the tachometer climb.

Giving it a little more gas than usual, I was able to pull out of my parking spot without much trouble. The earlier bucking in first gear was now much rougher. When shifting to second, the reduction in power was more noticeable and again made me think that I was dealing with a fuel shortage problem due to a filthy fuel injector.

On my way home, I swung into an auto supply store to pick up a can of fuel injector cleaner. I wearily made my way over to the gas station to top off my gas tank and help mix the injector cleaner with my fuel. Once I finished filling up, I continued on my journey home.

The following mornings trip into work seemed as though it was slightly better, as was the trip home that afternoon. I assumed that I guessed correctly and the fuel injector cleaner was slowly doing its job throughout my ten-mile daily commute.

When Friday rolled around, I experienced a brand new problem which had me second guessing my fuel injector theory. About a mile into my five-mile commute to work, my check engine light popped on. When the yellow light came into view, I let out an audible sigh and began dreading how much this problem would cost to repair.

After returning home from work, I made way for my limited supply of mechanics tools to retrieve my code reader. Once connected, I discovered the warning behind the check engine light. My problem was a P0171 OBDII Code. After some research I learned that this was a problem with the engine running too lean.

With mixed signals, I picked up the phone to speak with my father. While not a mechanic by trade, he has forgotten more about cars than I know about them. The consensus was that since my research pointed to a dirty mass airflow sensor, we should start there and simply clean the unit. Being able to do this in a few minutes, it was the fastest and least expensive attempt at resolving my problem.

The following day my father and I got together in an attempt to remedy my problem. While trying to remove the sensor, something caught my eye. On the hose running from the air cleaner box to the throttle body, there was a rather black spot on a rather dirty hose. Upon further inspection, we found a large split hidden within the ridges of the hose.

Knowing immediately what my problem was, I called the nearest Mazda dealership for pricing on this dealer only item. I was happy to learn that the dealership had four hoses in stock, but I was disgusted to learn that they were nearly $100.00 each.

Without much choice in the matter, we drove over to the dealership to pay the insane rate for an intake hose. After returning home, my father had the new hose on before I could even tweet a photo of my problem.

Fortunately, the fix was simple and didn’t require much time or effort. The obvious downside was that the part practically cost me an arm and a leg, considering what it was that I was buying (a short length of hose).

Post from: Walt in PA

That length of hose costs how much!

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When I say that at times I have fun at my wife’s expense, you are probably thinking practical jokes. Truth be told, it is actually a very rare occurrence for me to perform some sort of practical joke on my wife. I prefer the more subtle annoyances that make her laugh in frustration.

I’ll give you an example of making my wife laugh in frustration. A couple of weeks ago she was watching television in the living room. Syrus was sleeping on the floor next to the sofa and all was peaceful. I came out of my cigar smoking room to get a drink in the kitchen and otherwise see what she was up to. I was in a pretty good mood and for one reason or another had the Sanford and Son theme song stuck in my head. Naturally, I mouthed all the instruments as best I could as I went about my business.

When my wife heard the strange noises I was making to mimic instruments and patch together this theme song, she turned and gave me an odd look. From then on, for the remainder of the day, I mouthed the words to the Sanford and Son theme song while I went about my business. I added a little flare as the day went on and found myself shuffling about, as I imagine Fred Sanford would, as I mouthed the sounds.

By around dinner time, and a solid day of my childish antics, my wife was beginning to get annoyed. Even though she was annoyed with me, she couldn’t help but laugh at the total package of old man dance moves and badly mouthed instruments to the tune of a television theme song that has been off the air for more than a decade.

What made it even funnier was the fact that I was getting into it. I knew it would make my wife laugh, but at this point that was simply a byproduct of my having fun. As I shuffled around the kitchen filling my glass with iced tea, not paying attention to my wife, I on occasional turned to see an annoyed look in her eyes with a smile on her face.

Post from: Walt in PA

Childish Fun at my Wife’s Expense

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Shortly after creating the Walt In PA blog, I wrote a piece on some plumbing trouble that I was struggling through. Since that post I have been lucky in that that I have only had to get involved in two other plumbing projects. Both projects, however, revolved around the same basic problem with my kitchen sink.

You see, I have an old house in need of work. When I bought the house I was excited and thought that I could save myself plenty of money by working on projects on the weekends and a few nights during the week, after finishing my day job. I have since learned a very important lesson as a new home owner, never underestimate how difficult it will be to find the time needed to work on an old home.

One of the many problems I have run into with my home is that my kitchen and bathroom are on opposite ends of the house. Being a small house with one story and an unfinished basement, this really isn’t a problem in and of itself. The problem is that both rooms utilize the same plumbing vent, in which case the kitchen gets the short end of the stick.

Because my kitchen sink is not directly vented, it has a tendency to drain relatively slowly. The slow flow of drain water lead to a clog several months ago in which I found myself covered in residual cooking grease and soap residue. While this may not be as bad as dealing with the raw human waste involved in a toilet related project, this kitchen sink waste is retched.

After an hour or two of being wet and filthy, I managed to use an auger to clear the clog and my drain was back to working at its relatively slow pace. I could have prevented future clogs by installing a vent on the drain, but I did not want to cut a hole into the exterior wall of my house to run a vent line at the time.

Sure enough, because I decided against installing the exterior vent, I wound up with another clog. The first time my clog reared its ugly head, I was able to make due with a simple plunger and a bit of drain cleaner. Unfortunately, this was just a temporary fix and my problem returned just a few short days later.

For the remainder of the work week, I made due with a plunger to open the drain when it clogged. This was becoming more and more difficult as the week moved on, as was the level of nagging from my wife on resolving the problem.

I was hoping to put off getting into the plumbing until the weekend when I would have a chance to go out and purchase a pipe wrench. The only wrench I had to remove the galvanized drain plug was a large adjustable wrench. While my wrench may have worked, the arm was far too short to give me the leverage required to break the plug free.

On Saturday, mere hours before heading to dinner party where I was required to wear a suit, my wife began complaining about our clogged drain. Having had enough, I stormed into the basement to remedy this problem once and for all. I found my large adjustable wrench and gave the clean out plug all I could. The plug didn’t budge.

Stopping a moment to assess the situation, I realized I was never going to get the drain plug out without more leverage. This is when I realized that I had a five-foot piece of two-inch diameter tube steel that might just work. Before long I had the plug remove and was staring inside of a drain pipe.

The first time I dealt with this clog, I was working further into the drain to clear it. This time I was surprised to learn the clog was back towards the kitchen sink. Dreading inserting my auger, I prepared myself for a gush of water as I broke the clog free and made a path for the sink full of dish water above.

After a little ingenuity, I was able to catch the rush of water in a five gallon bucket and keep most of the filthy water off of myself. After reaming the pipe for a couple of minutes, I flushed more water through the drain and thought my problem was solved. I cleaned up the basement and put the clean out plug back on the drain before heading back upstairs to flush a final bit of water down the drain.

I plugged up my sink and filled it with hot water in an attempt to flush out any remaining clog and be free of this nuance, once and for all. After removing the stopper, the water began to drain. At this point in time I felt confident and proud of my work. Then the water stopped draining. It was at this very moment that I realized a critical mistake. I assumed there was only a single clog and that the first one had not reappeared over several months of slow draining water.

Wet and angry, I stormed back down into the basement to get back to work. I pulled out all of the tools I just put away and got down to removing the clean out plug once again. This time I wasn’t so successful in catching the flowing water. I was splashed in the face and hit square in the chest with a disgusting gelatinous glob of residual cooking grease and old dish detergent before I was able to get the bucket back in to the proper position.

When the flow of water stopped, I removed the bucket and got out my drain auger once again. I began reaming out the galvanized pipe as if we had a long unsettled score. Within a few minutes I had the clog broken up and flushed away. I put the plug back in place and went back upstairs to once again fill the sink with water.

Just like before, I removed the stopper and the water began to drain. This time the flow was never interrupted and my job was complete. I stood there in front of my kitchen sink, plunger in hand, filthy and wet, staring at the drain with confidence as if I had slayed some sort of evil beast.

With a little swagger in my step, I went back down into the basement to clean up for a second time. Fortunately, at the first sign of trouble, the week before, my brother and I installed an under the counter vent while we discussed a future project I would need his help with. With the drain completely clear and the new vent system installed, the kitchen sink works perfectly.

After cleaning the vile smelling gunk off of myself, I celebrated with a cigar and a beer as a way of patting myself on the back for a job well done. Thinking back on the project, I am confident that plumbing is my absolute least favorite thing to do around the house. While I don’t mind getting filthy while working around the house, I absolutely hate being both filthy and wet.

Post from: Walt in PA

Plumbing is the Devil v2.0

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Today has been what seems like one gigantic ball of stress. Since I awoke this morning, my cell phone has been making non-stop noise. If it wasn’t the sound of someone calling to talk, it was the sound pf my email, text, voicemail, or blackberry messenger alerts. Just when I thought one issue has been dealt with and behind me, another came roaring forward.

On top of my Blackberry causing my blood pressure to rise, my house phone seems to have rung out more in this single day than it has all of last week combined. Couple the noises of being connected to the grid with my overly clingy pooch and you’ve the workings for a stress related breakdown. No matter where I go within the house, the stresses seemed to find me.

While the stresses I mentioned would be enough to drive me crazy, on top of all that, my wife insisted on showing me each and every free sample she received at a Babies R Us store wide baby shower for expecting women. I know these things are important to my wife, but today was just not the day to show me the inner workings of a baby bottle which we won’t be using until July.

More than once I tried to simply find myself a quiet spot to do something fun, to try and take my mind off of the things that were picking at my sanity. Unfortunately the stresses got the better of me and I simply couldn’t enjoy myself with any of the things that I normally find to be fun and entertaining.

My wife, who I love dearly, could see the stress on my face and was kind enough to run out and pick up some dinner so that we wouldn’t have to cook. After dinner, she went out to a movie with a friend and gave me a quit house to try and unwind in. I’ve turned my Blackberry off, turned the ringer down on the house phone, disconnected from Twitter and Facebook, turned off my email client, and am finally starting to feel the stresses of the day melt away.

Days where I get this stressed are few and far between, but they do arise from time to time. It is times like this where I wish that I wasn’t so plugged in. With so much going on each and every day, I find that a day or two of being disconnected is exactly what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately it isn’t often that I can afford to turn it all off without the burden of being buried in correspondence when its time to get back on the grid.

I’m curious as to what you do when stress begins to build up beyond normal levels? Being winter with snow and ice on the ground, I’m unable to spend an hour at the range sending lead flying at paper targets, which I find to be a fantastic way to de-stress in the warmer months.

Post from: Walt in PA

The Stresses of being too Connected

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The more time I spend on Facebook and Twitter, the more I am coming to see that social media is in such an uphill swing, companies will pay someone to play the part just to get in on it. Unfortunately, I think the companies that do this are missing out on what makes other companies so successful.

A prime example of a successful social media account in the cigar business is CAO Cigars. If you were to log into Twitter and start talking to @caocigars, you would be talking to someone important at CAO International. Now, you won’t be talking to Tim Ozgener, President of CAO, but you will be talking to Jon Huber, Director of Lifestyle Marketing.

The same can be said when referencing @PadillaCigars, @TatuajeCigars, @EPCarrillo, among others. In those cases, you are speaking directly with Ernesto Padilla, Pete Johnson, and Ernesto Carrillo Jr. (The son of the person you know from La Gloria Cubana).

What Makes These Companies so Special:

Well, the major difference is that there is a person at the helm that cares enough to do it themselves. Not only that, but when you talk to companies like these, you are talking to someone who makes a difference.

Think of it this way, you have an obscure question about your cigar. In this case, lets just say that cigar is an Illusione Epernay. So you Tweet @Vudu9 (Dion Giolito) your obscure question. Chances are great that you will get a response in a timely manner. If the account was actually operated by a paid employee, what are the odds that they have the answer you are looking for and do not need to pass it along to someone in-the-know?

What Makes These Accounts Successful:

In my eyes, what makes these companies successful is the level of interaction you get from them. It isn’t a matter of “Thank you @waltw, please hold while I pass along your question to someone capable of answering it.”. That delay, even if it is just a few hours, is enough to kill your account. Heaven forbid it if the answer to your question prompts you to ask a follow up question.

The Bottom Line:

The bottom line is simple. We are not on Twitter and Facebook to be brow beaten into smoking your cigars or get updates on your sales events. To be successful in social media, at least in the cigar world, you need to be accessible to your consumers and not simply pay someone to play the part of someone in-the-know.

What you may not understand is that people like myself don’t just find the whole process annoying; it is a blatant insult towards our social media character. We do not follow manufacturer accounts to listen to your employee spew gushing praise all over your product. We follow them for interaction and an inside look at the brand that no one but a figurehead of the company could provide.

The funny thing is, because of all of the interaction with those passionate enough to cover their own accounts, I find myself smoking their product more often. I do so because it can be fun to talk shop directly with the person responsible for producing the cigar. By this shop-talk, you get to learn little tid-bits that you wouldn’t otherwise find out.

Thank You For Connecting With Your Consumers:

@caocigars: John Huber, Director of Lifestyle Marketing – CAO International
@Vudu9: Dion Giolito, Illusione Cigars
@TatuajeCigars, Pete Johnson, Tatuaje Cigars
@PadillaCigars, Ernesto Padilla, Padilla Cigars
@EPCarrillo, Ernesto Carrillo, EPC Cigar Co.
@DylanAustin, Dylan Austin, Camacho Cigars Marketing Director
@JamesonCigars, Brad Mayo, President Jameson Cigar Co.
@OlivaIan, Ian Hummel, Sales Rep for Oliva Cigars
@OlivaJosh, Josh Rushlo, Sales Rep for Oliva Cigars

I’m sure I’ve forgotten several in my hasty write-up, but the people listed above are those that I converse with on a semi-regular basis. There are also several manufacturers on Facebook, but I don’t converse with them nearly as much.

Post from: Walt in PA

Hey, is that really you in there?

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So, being in need of a new coat, my wife picked one up for me as a Christmas gift last year. When I opened it, I was a little skeptical because of how light it felt. It looks like a much thinner version of the old Marlboro Down Coats from the 1990′s. The coat extended beyond the waist and contains a draw string to snug it up in spots.

Not wanting to disappoint my wife, I put my new coat on the very first time I had snow to shovel. I was amazed at how warm it was and actually broke out into a sweat a few minutes after getting started. After having used it a couple of times, I began referring to it as my Hobo Coat.

With my wife thinking I was teasing her for buying me a coat that a homeless person would wear, she demanded an explanation for the naming of my coat. With a laugh, I explained to her that a homeless person could wear this coat and survive all winter long. It has enough pockets and compartments that they could easily store a winters worth of canned goods, with room to spare. In addition, it is dark in color to show less wear and the liner has an old time flannel pattern (which stands out inside the detachable hood).

While she may not appreciate the name I have given my coat, I think it is fantastic. Not only does it keep me warm, it also has a place for all kinds of gadgets when I walk out of the house. At times it works a little too well and I have to take it off before going on a long drive or I find myself traveling with the window down.

Post from: Walt in PA

Winter is here, time to break out the Hobo Coat

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Jerry From Stogie Review Says…

In City of Heroes I’m known as The Butane Flame and my warrior in World of Warcraft is simply known as Tatuaje. I know many of you are shaking your heads right now. Its probably bad enough that I play these games let alone being a total cheese ball and using cigar themed names for my toon/character

The topic of discussion today revolves around a similar sort of geekiness that gets lost in translation. Having spent a number of years actively using the internet and computers in general, I like to consider myself tech savvy at the least. My wife, on the other hand, is not so tech savvy when it comes to computers. This is where the lost in translation part comes in to play.

Being a bit of an online gamer for period of time, I’ve added a few words to my vocabulary that may seem strange to most. When these words come out in conversation, especially among friends, I get the lost in translation, “I can’t believe you just said that”, look from my wife.

This look can be brought on by the simple mention of Awesome Sauce when referring to how cool something is. Fortunately, Awesome Sauce is a saying that is pretty easy to pick apart and most people don’t find themselves completely lost when it is used in conversation.

While some words or phrases flow freely within my vocabulary, there are some that I inject into conversation purposely, because I know it bugs my wife just a bit. The occasional “lollerskates”, or “rofl-copter” are a couple of the words that instantly make my wife stop and shake her head.

In addition to having picked up computer and gaming slang words, I’ve also picked up a lot of cigar vocabulary over the years. While far less geeky, these words often get me a blank stare when used among the wrong crowd. On occasion, my wife will fire off some cigar vocabulary and give me a look that just screams “see how dumb it sounds?”.

While the words don’t necessarily sound dumb when coming out of her mouth, they lack the confidence it requires to pull off the use of such vocabulary.

Who am I kidding, even if used with confidence, the majority of my geek / cigar vocabulary probably sounds pretty dumb to anyone out of the know. Regardless of how cool I think it sounds, or how dumb it actually sounds, I get a kick out of using the odd phrase or internet buzz-word in conversation. Besides, even if all I get out of it is a look of confusion out of my wife, I get a smile on my face and it all becomes worth it.

Post from: Walt in PA

Geek Speak – Lost In Translation

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On Thanksgiving night, I made a post on Twitter that announced my wife and I were expecting a child. I did this in an indirect way which many people did not pick up on. It felt kind of weird announcing it to the Twitter world so soon, so I wanted to do it in such a way that required a little effort to find out.

How I did that was by posting a picture to Twitter which showed off a positive pregnancy test beside a Davidoff Cigar.I placed the same image on Facebook and received a number of congratulatory messages.

A short time later I took it a step further and posted an article on Stogie Review on selecting a special occasion cigar. I used that same Davidoff picture at the head of the post, in addition to a picture of an Illusione ~hl~ placed on top of one of our first ultrasound photos. This article had the same result and I received some congratulatory messages from people who read between the lines, so to speak.

It wasn’t until just the other evening that I came right out and made a direct mention of the pregnancy. While my wife and I sat in the doctors office, awaiting our ten-week ultrasound appointment, I snapped a photo of the toys in the office and posted a message to both Facebook and Twitter.

When I got the very first congratulatory message, I suddenly felt weird. Between my personal blog and Stogie Review, my life is relatively exposed. Even with all of the exposure, it was a very awkward sensation when I informed the world that my wife was with child.

In the very early stages of the pregnancy, my wife and I were keeping the news to ourselves just in case something were to happen. We wanted to wait a couple of weeks and make sure that everything looked good with the doctor before we moved to informing our families.

Once we got the good news from our doctor, we made plans to inform our families. After giving our families the good news, we began informing friends. Even informing some of our friends gave me an odd feeling, as if we were giving away very personal information. I’m thrilled about the pregnancy, but informing the world left me with a strange and uneasy feeling.

Being our first child, I suppose that we are just worried about everything going just the way it is supposed to. So, officially, and without being required to read into pictures, my wife and I are expecting our first child in early July.

Post from: Walt in PA

Official Pregnancy Announcement

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Because my wife tends to shop at two different locations for groceries and toiletries, I tend to miss telling her that I’m in need of certain items. The latest of those items came in the form of toothpaste. Since my wife and I moved in together, we have drawn a line in the proverbial sand and will not use one another’s toothpaste or mouth wash (I don’t like her brand and she doesn’t like mine).

The other day I ran out of toothpaste and it dawned on me that I forgot to tell my wife that I was running low. Later that evening I asked my wife if I could use hers until she had a chance to get to the store to pick up more. She told me she was trying some new stuff and that I should grab the can out of the medicine cabinet.

A can of toothpaste, that seems rather odd, I thought to myself. My wife told me that it foams up on the toothbrush and that I should use just a little to get the job done. Like an eager little kid I squirted a little on the toothbrush and watched eagerly for it to begin expanding.

As I stood there staring at my toothbrush, nothing happened. So I did what any man would do, I squired more on and got the same result. I added a little more and finally got tired of waiting. I stuck the toothbrush in my mouth and got down to brushing, feeling a little deceived by this, so called, foaming toothpaste.

Before I knew what was going on, the toothpaste was foaming up and expanding at an alarming rate. The though never occurred to me that it would expand when I started brushing with it, I expected it to act sort of like shaving cream where it expands as it comes out of the can.

I must have had a look on my face like I was being greeted by death itself, because my wife caught site of me as she was passing the bathroom and roared with laughter. I couldn’t spit this killer toothpaste out fast enough. At the rate it was expanding, I was afraid that it was going to start coming out of my nose!

Needless to say, I think I’ve learned my lesson. When my wife warms me to use the toothpaste sparingly, I’ll know better than to load up the toothbrush waiting for something cool to happen.

Post from: Walt in PA

Attack of the Killer Toothpaste

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Most people don’t mind the time change in the fall because it is viewed as gaining an hour of sleep. While telling yourself that may work for you, my body doesn’t buy it. You see, I am a creature of habit and thrive on routine.

Monday through Friday, my alarm clock sounds at 4:30 AM and I begin to get ready for work. There are times when I even wake up before the alarm clocks sounds. In those instances, I just turn off my alarm and get my day started a little ahead of schedule.

The truly fascinating thing is that in the event my alarm doesn’t sound (power loss or user-error), I generally only oversleep for a certain amount of time before I awake in a panic. That panicked feeling comes without me even having to look at the clock, its almost as if my body knows what time it is.

When the time change takes effect in the fall, by body isn’t aware of the reason for the change. Instead, my body continues on with its routine and I wake up in a panic, roughly an hour early every day. It seems to take about a week for my internal clock to make its adjustment and my sleeping pattern gets back to normal.

You are probably wondering if I just start my day an hour early or if I just go back to sleep? It is actually a little bit of both. Generally during this week long re-adjustment period, I try and go back to sleep until the alarm sounds. Kind of force my body to learn the new routine. Often times though, I just can’t fall asleep. My mind is racing due to that “I’m late for work” panic that jars me from my slumber.

Most people seem to love getting that extra fifteen to twenty minutes of sleep in the morning. For me, that extra time is all the difference needed for me to feel miserable first thing in the morning. My wife often refers to me as a morning person, unless I try to take advantage of the snooze feature of my alarm. In that case, I feel more like a zombie walking around half asleep.

In those extra few minutes, I must begin to enter a stage of sleep that is difficult to recover from unless done naturally. When you introduce an alarm to that form of sleep, its tough for me to shake it and my days don’t get off to the greatest of starts.

Fortunately, at the time of my writing this post, I’ve only got one more work day until this time adjustment week is complete and I can look forward to my normal sleep pattern once again.

Post from: Walt in PA

Time Change Woes of Fall-ing Back

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Growing up in the 80′s, I like to think that I grew up in the golden age of video games. Sure, the systems now can do some amazing stuff, but I have some very fond memories of the old 8 bit Nintendo Entertainment System games that I was introduced to as a child.

As the years past, newer systems were released. If I wasn’t fortunate to have the latest gaming system, I always had a friend or family member that did. One way or the other, I kept pace with the current offerings all through childhood.

Some of the fondest games of my childhood were Role Playing Games (RPG). I had a blast playing titles like Final Fantasy and the like, but the one that hooked me the hardest was Shining Force for Sega Genesis. This game was later replaced by Final Fantasy Tactics some years later on the Playstation console.

If you are familiar with these titles, you probably remember that the battle system was very different from your typical Final Fantasy game. Rather than entering a battle in a fixed position and fighting turn by turn, these games dropped your party on a map and forced you to move around to attack. Think of it sort of like chess, different scenarios called for players to be configured differently.

I used to love getting into a tough battle where I can to shuffle characters across the map to gain an advantage and pull out a win. While the concept wasn’t as straight forward as other titles, I easily had the most fun with this system. It would seem that I was in the minority because I don’t recall very many other titles set up this way.

Just the other day I was digging through some of my old Playstation games when I found my copy of Final Fantasy Tactics. I was washed over by fond memories and couldn’t resist putting it into my Playstation 2 and playing for old times sake.

While Final Fantasy Tactics may not have the bells and whistles of newer games, it does a great job of keeping me entertained. Now, I wonder if I still have a Super Nintendo around here and a copy of Sim City…

Post from: Walt in PA

Old Time Favorites: Final Fantasy Tactics

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Not long ago I was at work and found myself with a little time to kill. I was between projects and didn’t have anything to get started on before getting the answer that was holding me up. While I waited for that answer, I thought I would poke around on the web.

I wound up checking out Google Maps Street View. After looking at a few arbitrary locations, I punched in my childhood address to see what would happen. The first time I tried this, street view wasn’t available for the city block that I lived on. This time, however, I was virtually inserted into my destination.

Before long I was staring at an image of the house I grew up in, and it was depressing. Fond childhood memories became clouded by the Google images of a neighborhood that was literally falling apart. Homes were missing and my old home looked like it wasn’t too far from joining them. Some of the others homes on my block had fallen down over the fifteen years that I’ve been gone.

I moved up and down the street to see the houses of old friends. I was not surprised to see them in the same condition as my old house, if not in worse shape. The corner store that I shopped at as a kid was gone, as was the old mill down the street. All that was left were scattered empty lots surrounded by row homes.

Curious to see how other sections of the neighborhood were holding up, I virtually headed over to visit an old friends house. This one particular friend easily had the nicest house out of all the people I hung out with as a kid. I easily found the house, but it appeared to have began to fall apart when the family I knew moved away.

This house was rather unique and it quickly stood out against the other homes on the block. It was a corner house and due to the way it sat on the lot, there was a car-port just outside the back door. Above the car-port was a large deck which we used to sit out on at night as kids. Sometimes we would sneak a couple of beers up there and have a good time carrying on.

I moved on to check in on the previous homes of other friends and family members only to find them in much the same shape. The neighborhood appeared to be slowly deteriorating and it was a sad sight to see.

Before my family moved out of Philadelphia, things were getting pretty bad. Crime was running rampant and the sounds of gunshots and fighting drug dealers filled the night air. When we moved I wouldn’t accept that the neighborhood was going downhill and resented the fact that my family was exchanging their urban home for a suburban one. Looking back at it all and seeing what has become of the old neighborhood, I can easily see it was the best choice my family could have made.

The image above is what is left of a close friends house. The wooden mass above the gated area is the deck I mentioned. It looks nothing like it used to. In fact, based on my memories, the old deck would have made for a great place to sit with friends and enjoy a cigar and a beer while we got caught up on years past.

Post from: Walt in PA

Looking back to childhood places

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It has been a good long time since I’ve done any real ranting. I don’t air dirty laundry on the internet, but I’m finding myself highly annoyed as of late from a few things I have been seeing. These things aren’t anything major, but they do tend to tug at my nerves.

I won’t be calling anyone out in this little rant, simply because I’m seeing these things from a variety of people and there isn’t any one particular source of annoyance. While these topics of discussion are not hard and fast rules, they fall under the netiquette guide that I have tucked neatly away in my head.

Facebook

I was very late in getting in on the Facebook game. The service just didn’t seem all that appealing to me and I felt my time was better spend on forums rather than the newer social media sites. It wasn’t until my wife signed up and started talking to old friends that I had any interest in checking it out.

After playing with my wifes Blackberry to get a feel for Facebook, I decided to go ahead and sign up. Within minutes I had an account and was on my way to friending people. After finding a couple of old friends that I grew up with, the swarm of cigar folks came.

These new cigar friends turned my rather slow Facebook account into one that was far more lively. I was connecting with new people and had an incredible pool of cigar related links to pull from when I was bored. The service turned out to be far more interesting than I expected it to be and I kind of regret not signing up sooner.

Even though I enjoy the service, it does have its annoyances. These annoyances don’t come directly from the service, but rather from people using it. On a daily basis I get Fan Requests from people looking to promote their site. The easy thing to do would be to blindly click the Accept button, but that is not my style.

I don’t like to blindly endorse a product or service without having tried it. Sure, I’ve seen many of these sites before but I wouldn’t consider myself a Fan of some of these sites. Unless I really am a fan of the site and would spread the word about it, I click the ignore button.

Sure enough, a few days after ignoring the request I get another one. Once again I click the ignore button and a few days later receive the same notice once again. I begin to wonder just how many times I have to ignore the request before the hint becomes apparent, but I would guess these requests are done en mass and the sender isn’t even aware of who is getting them.

I really don’t see this as anything other than spam. I don’t want your request, yet you send it to me several times per week. Some of these sites have gotten so annoying that I’ve began to loath them. Not only will I not become a fan, but I refuse to talk about your site to others because I don’t want to promote it.

The next item on my list of annoyances is the friend suggestions. Some people seem to think its a good idea to refer every single person they friend to you. At first this isn’t bad, you connect with new people and all is well. When this particular friend goes into a frenzy making new friends, he can bury you in suggestions in no time at all. While the intentions are good, it can still become annoying. When I suggest a friend, I make a point of suggesting only people that others might know, not a Facebook account for a store in a state that I don’t live in.

Twitter

Twitter is a service that I have been using for some time now. I signed up when it was fairly young as a means of conversing with Jerry Cruz, from Stogie Review, on the fly. It quickly grew into much more than quick notes about Stogie Review and became a chat room filled with cigar enthusiasts.

Before long, I found myself checking the site numerous times each day and spending a fair amount of time on it during the evening, participating in active conversation. Since I’ve gotten my iTouch and Blackberry, I am essentially always connected and checking periodically.

Because of the frequency in which I use Twitter, I find it my largest source of Social Media annoyance. Just like Facebook, there are a couple of things that are a big no-no in my book of nettiquette.

Just like Fan Requests on Facebook, I frown upon begging people to support your site by asking for re-tweets. Isn’t the idea of a website to write compelling content that makes people want to share your content or have them come to your site to get it? If you were doing a good job or passing on information or entertainment, wouldn’t people be inclined to pass along the information without you begging them to do it?

Any time I see “← RT Appreciated”, “Please RT”, or anything similar, you just ensured that I will not re-tweet your link. In addition, just like Fan Requests on Facebook, I won’t be talking about your site because I don’t want to promote your behavior. Getting a re-tweet out of me couldn’t be simpler, write compelling content and when I see it I’ll pass it along.

Closely following the re-tweet begging on my list of annoyances are the groups of people that work together to effectively spam my time line. This occurs when a website or blog has a Twitter account that auto-posts links. This account is its own entity and doesn’t do much aside from post things from an RSS feed as they are published.

Since I probably follow this sites RSS feed, there really is no need to follow their Twitter account. But since I am friendly with the authors of the site, I follow them. My blood begins to boil when the sites Twitter account makes a tweet and said tweet is then re-tweeted by all authors of said site. This effectively blankets my time line with tweet after tweet of the same link.

To make matters worse, you sometimes see re-tweets of re-tweets among the authors to effectively get the link out. Plain and simple, I just see this as well structured spam disguised as innocent re-tweets. This gets annoying fast and results in my ignoring your site. I’m funny about who I actively promote and these grey practices do nothing but ensure that I ignore you.

To Sum things Up

I know what your thinking, why am I complaining about this and not doing something about it? Thats kind of tricky because a solution is simple. I could un-friend or un-follow these people, but I engage many of them in daily conversation. Its like having a good friend with an annoying habit that you have to accept.

While I have made it know in the past how I feel about the practices outlined above, maybe this post will help lighten my load of requests and tweets.

Post from: Walt in PA

A Rant: Twitter and Facebook Annoyances

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Just the other week, my wife and I were talking about things we saw for sale in the Sunday paper. I mentioned kind of liking the idea of having a Slingbox and my wife was eying up a bedding sale at Boscov’s. Like usual, my interest was passing and I didn’t give the Slingbox a whole lot of though. My wife, on the other hand, decided that the sale on bedding was too good to pass up.

Before heading out to Boscov’s to make her purchase, my wife made an attempt at getting my opinion on the bedding. I’ve never cared much what the blankets that I sleep on look like, but she tried to get an opinion out of me anyway. After about thirty seconds of looking, I told her they all looked about the same to me and that she should definitely make the decision on her own.

A bit frustrated with my blowing her off, she made her way out to the store. She wound up coming home with a $249.99 bedding set marked down to about $90.00. Inside this massive bag were eleven pieces that appeared more complicated to me than a Rubik’s Cube.

The following day, after sending all the new items through the wash, they found their way onto the bed. While the end result was a bit frilly for my taste, I can’t complain about the color scheme and pattern. Topping it all off were three pillows of different shape and size. I thought that was kind of odd, why would one bed have such a strange combination of pillows to match the bedding?

Wanting to give the new bedding a test drive, I stretched out on the bed and flipped on the television while my wife was occupied in the living room. After a few minutes, I looked over to see my wife entering the bedroom with a pained look on her face. She blurts out “What are you doing, those pillows are for show! Get off of those pillows before you mess everything up!”.

Not knowing proper pillow etiquette, I leaped up and out of the bed. In an instant my wife was readjusting the pillows behind me and smoothing out the wrinkled comforter. Up until now we have only ever used regular pillows and a comforter. I wasn’t aware that some of the things placed on a bed were merely to look at rather than having a practical use.

I guess that perhaps I’m a bit of a brute. Up until now I had no idea there was such a thing as pillow etiquette. Would some of my bed-savvy readers care to fill me in on any others gems of wisdom that I may need to know, before I upset my loving wife further?

Post from: Walt in PA

What are you doing, those pillows are for show!

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We got Syrus when he was approximately eight months old. He has been absolutely filled with puppy energy from day one. Even after a walk and a good romp around the house, he still doesn’t always get his fill. He likes to grab one of his toys and drop it in my, or my wife’s, lap while we watch television. If he gets tired of waiting for you to throw his toy, he takes it from you and begins tossing it himself so that he can chase it down.

Up until recently, I Haven’t minded him throwing his own toys. Most of the things he plays with are either rubber or relatively soft. The accidental toss into something doesn’t typically lead to any damage, and he seems to get a kick out of it.

Because of Syrus’ breed, he has been blessed with powerful jaws. Those powerful jaws do serious damage to toys in a short amount of time. It seems like the more expensive the toy, the less time it lasts. Because of this apparent trend, we try and buy cheap toys wherever possible (again, they last longer).

Just the other day I was over at Petsmart picking up dog food and a new collar, when I decided to get him something new to chew on. I paced up and down the toy aisle frowning and shaking my head and practically every toy that was marketed as “indestructible”. Ever since my purchase of a Kong Tails and Air Dog toys, I won’t fall for that marketing ploy again.

I left the toy aisle and headed over to the one filled with treats and bones. Raw hides are amazingly expensive for what they are, but my dog loves them. The downside is that they last little longer than an expensive toy. Before the day is out, he generally has them chewed into multiple pieces, which he plays with individually.

As I continued on down the aisle, I saw something that seemed promising. This item was a rock hard bone with a hollow center. I suppose it would be very similar to a soup bone. They had others that were filled with marrow of sorts, but I opted for the much larger hollow bone.

I brought the bone home and gave it to Syrus, who absolutely loved it. Like with any new item, once it was given to him he raced off into the living room to drop it on the floor and prance around it. Before long he figured out its intended purpose and went into chewing. So far it has held up surprising well and he will definitely be getting more in the future.

Like any other toy of his, he likes to bring it to my wife and I as we watch television. The first time, we ignored him and sure enough he took the bone back and threw it himself. Right about that time I had an OMG moment. While the bone didn’t break anything, it crashed across the floor and images of it sailing through my television or through a window began to enter my mind.

I find myself constantly telling him “no throwing bones in the house”, but he goes ahead and does it anyway. Granted, he hasn’t got a clue what I’m saying but that doesn’t stop me from telling him anyway. He seems to slowly be getting the idea, but that all goes out the window when he gets excited.

I’ve had the pleasure of feeling the wrath of this bone one early morning as he dropped it on my bare foot. I’m telling you, this thing has the potential to put a hurting on something fragile and my pooch has me paranoid.

While my wife and I don’t have children at this time in our lives, I think Syrus has been giving us a bit of practice for what a young child may bring to our lives.

Post from: Walt in PA

Is this what its like to have kids?

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Every fall my yard becomes a complete mess. It in part has to do with me retreating inside due to the attack of the walnut tree. Because I spend less time outside, I spend less time fretting over how bad my yard looks.

In addition to the walnuts that litter my yard from two Walnut trees, my grass is entangled with these brown strands. The first time they appeared I was rather confused, that was until I looked up at the trees above.

When my wife and I bought this house, I made mention that it was going to be nice only having to rake up leaves from three trees. The remainder on my property, about a dozen in all, are all evergreens. That first fall, I found brown needles all over the yard.

Within a few days, most of my yard was covered in these old needles and my rain gutters were overflowing. This time of year I would kill for regular leaves littering my lawn. Instead, I have these needles that get tangled up in blades of grass and require far more effort to rake up. If left too long, they become matted down in the grass and are ever more time consuming.

The real problem comes in the form of disposing of these needles. I’ve heard mixed things regarding township pickup of this litter. I’m hoping this year I can get a straight answer direct from the township office so that I can pile them up at my curb rather than bag and trash them.

Shortly after writing up this post, I got a direct answer from the township. They will pick them up! No more bagging and trashing over several weeks, now I can be done with them one two to three sessions throughout the fall.

Post from: Walt in PA

Evergreen Trees Shed Needles – Who Knew?

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One of the things my wife likes to tease me about is my dreams. It all started several years ago when we were dating. We were together watching a movie on television and I fell asleep. I awoke to the sound of her laughing at me, asking if I had any idea what I just said.

A bit confused, I said no and asked her to fill me in. She went on to tell me that out of the blue, I asked her to hand me a chisel and mallet off of my workbench. At the time, I was engrossed in work and must have dozed off thinking about a project. In turn, I started talking in my sleep and asked her to pass me tools required in my dream.

Ever since then she has been taking shots at me about my dreams. This morning, while getting ready for work, was no different. As I was heading through the living room, my wife told me that she had a dream last night that we adopted another dog. My response was simply, “I dreamed that I was digging in the basement and found a crypt”. She roared with laughter and all I could do was join in.

It is kind of funny, for some reason I can remember a lot about my dreams while my wife struggles to remember anything about her own. I’ve never looked into the meaning of that, but I have heard that being able to remember dreams is a sign that I may not be getting a deep enough sleep and I am waking mid dream (the mid dream part is common).

Back to this dream of mine, so my wife said that I couldn’t be that vague and just had to tell her about this Crypt in the basement. I went on to tell the story, although it was kind of difficult with her laughing at me the entire time.

For some unknown reason, I had to run some pipe through my basement floor and outside. The easiest way to do this, as I was told in my dream, was to dig down a bit into the floor and then try to angle out under the footer of my exterior wall. So the digging began.

It turned out to be far more digging than I thought it would be and the hole for the piping was getting rather deep. I was digging at an angle to get under the footer and pass the pipe through when, all of a sudden, I broke through something and the dirt just fell away.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that the footer of my house was actually placed on top of a flat ceiling of sorts. When I dug down to get under the footer, I apparently stumbled onto a hidden room beneath my house. I widened the hole I was digging to get a better look and peered in.

I had to crawl into the hole head first (because of how narrow it was) and poke my head into the room to get a better look. The ceiling wasn’t very high, but there was no way I could drop down head-first without taking on some kind of injury. I did my best to look around without actually entering this hidden room.

With the aid of a flashlight, I was able to see the dirt floor below. It was covered with hundreds of insects with transparent shells across their backs and long antenna on their heads. Some of these insects were climbing up the wall and across the ceiling towards the freshly opened hole.

Before pulling my head from the room and scrambling away from the insects, I noticed a stone bench at the far end of the room. On this bench was the figure of a woman wearing a pale green dress. The figure was faded and I could see through her partially. Beyond her there wasn’t much to see and the darkness of the room washed over whatever lay beyond.

I was able to get back out of the freshly dug hole and start back filling it to cover up the room beyond. Before I could fill the hole entirely, a few of the creepy insects were able to get into my basement. They didn’t appear to be harmful, but they freaked me out none the less.

After stomping on one of these bugs and hearing a satisfying crunch, I lifted my shoe to find the remains in a pool of thick green goo. I quickly moved to squash the remaining few when I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock.

By the time I was finished telling my story, my wife had a tear in her eye from laughing so hard. She thinks that I have been reading a little too much fantasy as of late and it has crept into my dreams. I agree with her for the most part. As I was telling the story, the faded female figure in my dream made me think of a witch character from The Child Thief. I have no idea where the insects would have come from but they were nasty looking things.

Post from: Walt in PA

Tell me more about the crypt in our basement

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One of the most appealing things to me when looking at buying our home, was the ability to sit outside on a nice day and enjoy the weather. On many days throughout the spring and summer, this is easy enough to do.

I generally grab a cigar and beverage before making my way out into the yard. On occasion, I’ll bring my iTouch or a book along as I sit outside. Being back up against the woods, I sometimes have to battle with the occasional swarm of gnats or mosquitoes throughout the day, and a few bats hunting when the sun begins to set. Overall its nice to have a quiet place to sit and think.

Even in late winter, when the air has a stiff chill to it, I still enjoy sitting out in my yard. By wearing a sweatshirt and limiting myself to hanging out during daylight hours, it isn’t bad at all. The only problem comes in the fall.

Each year, when the season changes and cooler weather creeps in, I find myself chased into the house from my chair in the yard. It isn’t the chill in the air or a pesky insect which ruins the experience, it is the sudden drop of hefty walnuts from above my seat.

In my relatively small seating area, I have a walnut tree. During the warmer months it does a great job shading me from the sun. In the fall it not only drops leaves, it drops hefty walnuts on anything down below.

While I have never been hit by one of these walnuts, I have seen the hurting it has put on one of my plastic adorandak chairs. It seems that one day a walnut was let loose from the tree. As it began its descent to the ground, it began picking up speed. By the time the walnut reached the chair, it had picked up enough momentum to separate the arm from the seat back.

While I do enjoy puffing on a cigar, sipping a beer, and sitting out under my walnut tree, that pleasure has officially been put on hold for the next few months. While the addition of a hard hat wouldn’t be all that difficult to manage, I do think it would put a slight damper on the mood.

Post from: Walt in PA

Fall, Its Hard-Hat Season!

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If you have been checking in on Walt In PA over the past couple of months, you probably noticed that I have been posting a lot of book related articles. While it isn’t something I did intentionally, it does seem to have become the default subject matter.

Back in June I picked up Wizards First Rule and was simply hooked from then on out. I’m finding that bits and pieces of my free time are being spent with my nose in a book rather than typing up something for my personal blog.

I’ve found reading to be a huge stress reliever (and in some books a stress maker) and a great way to unwind in the evening. While writing for my personal blog isn’t exactly stress free, I do enjoy it none the less.

I can’t promise that the trend of book topics will break anytime soon, but I do plan on trying a bit harder to work in other things. If you like the book content over the topics in the past, never fear, I’m going to try and keep going with my current one book per week system. If you preferred the older topics, keep an eye out as I’d like to begin to work more in between things.

Post from: Walt in PA

What is up with all the reading?

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photo credit: gui.tavares

Have you ever woken up before the alarm clock went off and began preparing for work? I’ve gotten myself into a rhythm and wake up around the same time every day. On occasion I wake up a few minutes before the alarm goes off, so I take advantage of the extra few minutes and get my day started.

Wednesday was one of those days, and some. Like any other day, I opened my eyes in a dark room with the low glow of my digital alarm clock emanating from the bedside table. I shifted my position in bed so that I could get a clear view of the time, then climbed out of bed.

Through blurry eyes, my mind told me that it was few minutes before 4:30 AM and I should get up and start the day. I picked up my bath robe and headed for the kitchen to make a quick breakfast. After filling the tea pot to boil water for oatmeal, I glanced down at the clock on my stove.

As I stood there staring at the clock, I thought to myself that something just wasn’t right. By now Syrus is normally bouncing around the house and starting his day as I get my own underway. Then it hit me, it wasn’t 4:30 AM, it was 2:30 AM.

At this point I let out a low sigh, placed the tea pot on the stove, then walked back to the bedroom slowly shaking my head along the way. Upon entering the bedroom, my wife stirred and asked what I was doing up so early. I began telling her the story as I climbed back into bed. Afterwards, she let out a little laugh, rolled over, and fell soundly asleep.

While it wasn’t the best way to start the day, it sure beats getting half way to work before realizing that it was a Saturday.

Post from: Walt in PA

Waking up before the alarm clock sounds

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A few days ago, my wife called me at work and said that her car was making a loud noise. She went on to tell me that she left the house for work, started her car, and allowed it time to warm up. Before pulling out and heading off to work, she flipped on the air conditioner and the car started making all kinds of noise.

I asked her to describe the noise to me, which she did, and I got the impression that a belt needed to be replaced as it was slipping and making a racket. I told her until I could fix it, she needed to keep the air conditioner off and she should be fine, since it wasn’t making any noise otherwise.

The next day my wife and I went out for dinner and drinks. At the last minute we decided to take her car. After pulling out of the parking spot and reaching the end of our road, I turned on the turn-signal. After flashing a couple of times it simply stopped. Rather than turn around and get my car, we decieded to just drive the two-miles and worry about the problem later.

When we got home, I picked up the phone to call my father. Over the years he has forgotten more about cars that I have learned and I wanted to get his thoughts on the turn signal problem. After talking for a few minutes, we made plans to get together at my parents house that weekend to take a look at the AC problem and try and fix the turn-signal issue.

Since I hadn’t heard the noise first-hand, I simply assumed that I was correct in thinking that the problem with the air conditioner was a belt in need of replacing. After talking with my father, he reasoned that the flasher relay was my problem with the turn-signal.

When we met up, we briefly went over the problem with the turn signal and figured that I was going to need to buy a flasher relay from the auto parts store. The air conditioner, on the other hand, was a bit of a mystery as I couldn’t reproduce the problem my wife was having.

I told my father that we could take my wife’s car to the auto parts store to see if I couldn’t get the belt to start slipping, just to be sure that was my problem. As we got onto the highway, the car started making a horrendous noise that I knew was not a belt. The confused look on my fathers face told me he was sure what he was hearing was not simply a belt slipping. After turning off the air conditioner, the loud noise and vibration stopped.

At the store, I picked up a replacement turn-signal bulb and purchased the flasher unit which was specified in their in-store catalog. Knowing a belt wasn’t the problem with the air conditioner, I skipped buying a new one and planned on trouble shooting it when we got back to the house.

Rather than taking the highway back home, I pulled out of the auto parts store and drove through the city. Along the way I stopped at a traffic light and waited to make my left hand turn. As I was making the turn, my father and I were in mid conversation when we head a bang, a clunk, and then a thump.

Looking over at my father, I said something just fell out of the car and I ran it over. He shook his head in confirmation and told me to swing around and try to find the part. I pulled into an unpaved lot and we got out of the car to start our search.

In the middle of the road I spotted what looked like might be my missing part. I headed out into the street to grab it and showed it to my father. As soon as he looked at it, he determined that it was the clutch to the air conditioner condenser and that it was definitely what was making the noise and vibration.

When we got back to the house, I learned that the flasher unit that I purchased was not the correct one. After some research online it seems that the 1999 Volkswagen Jetta has the flasher integrated into the hazard lights and does not use a conventional flasher relay. Seems that I should have consulted the internet before relying on the store catalog for replacement parts.

In this bout with car trouble, I have learned two things:

• Ensure that I am correct and not assume a problem is as simple as it seems (belt replacement)
• Consult the internet to make sure the car doesn’t need something non-standard (flasher relay)

Post from: Walt in PA

Something just fell out of the car

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Yesterday I had a little free time to myself and thought that time would best be used to work on a quick video post for the site. With me being back to work, its been rough falling back into the routine I developed for myself some time ago.

Not having anything in mind to discuss, I thought it was as good a time as any to do a quick update on Syrus. I believe the last update was around the time he graduated from obedience class. Things have been going very well with him and he hasn’t “lost” any of the training he learned while in class.

Also,
At the end of the video I talk about Syrus tearing off into the living room in the middle of the night barking. The next night he did the same thing around the same time. I’m thinking it was less than him dreaming and more of him hearing something going on outside.

I took a look out the window and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but when I left for work a neighbors vehicle was moved from their driveway to the street. I’m guessing they keep odd hours and Syrus heard someone either going to, or coming from, work.

Post from: Walt in PA

Shooting The Breeze: Update on Syrus

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I took my Flip video camera along and shot a little video here and there, including the post game fireworks. The game was very fast paced this time around and it made attending alot more fun. With things going on for the kids practically every inning, it can sometimes feel very draw out.

Post from: Walt in PA

Reading Philles and Post Game Fireworks

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Post from: Walt in PA

Shooting The Breeze: Video Games

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Most days of the week, at about 4:30 PM, I find myself getting dinner started. With my previous work schedule, and my wife’s work schedule, it only made sense for the first person home to get dinner started. Each week all that I ask is that my wife create some kind of menu so that I know what she wants cooked as the week goes on. With a menu that reads something like “Monday: Pork Chops and Veggies”, I get the food prepped and try to have it ready for when she walks through the door.

Ever since I was younger I enjoyed cooking, especially grilling. I’ve never been one to stick with a recipe or follow directions, yet I’ve always managed to make things turn out just fine (and my wife just hates that). Every now and again I’ll get an idea for something new and I’ll give it a shot.

A couple of months back I decided that I wanted to try something a little different and sort of bake some pork chops on the grill with a variety of vegetables. The end result was far better than I expected it to be and my wife loved it.

With the weather fairly pleasant, I decided to make up that same dish for dinner tonight. It is very simple to do, so I thought I would share it with anyone that is interested. One thing to note is that I am horrible at judging portions. We always wind up sticking leftovers in the fridge (especially vegetables).

To make the meal shown above, I used the following:

• 3 Potatoes
• 1/2 Bag Frozen Corn
• 1/2 Bag Frozen Carrots
• 2 Butterfly Cut Pork Chops

To get things started, I lit my charcoal grill and allowed it to get hot. Once all of the coals were burning and producing plenty of heat, I tossed on the pork chops. The meat was seasoned beforehand but I couldn’t tell you what I dumped on, as I never pay much attention and just grab what seems good at the moment. After about two minutes I flip the meat and allow it to cook for another two minutes.

After the meat is partially done, I remove it from the grill and place it on a bed of vegetables. I generally make up the vegetables while the grill is coming up to temperature. To do so, I simply cut up a couple of potatoes into bite sized pieces and place them onto a sheet of aluminum foil. On top of the potatoes I place corn and carrots. Before putting the meat on top, I season the veggies (typically a little garlic and black pepper) and add a little butter.

Once the mound of food has been assembled, I place another sheet of aluminum foil on top and fold the top and bottom pieces into a pouch. Before placing this pouch onto the second level of my grill, I close off the vents a bit to slow down combustion and reduce the heat within the grill.

From here I grab myself a cigar and a nice beverage while taking it easy for about an hour. After about an hour I remove the food from the grill and allow it to stand for a few minutes before unwrapping and serving. The end result is a juicy piece of meat with pork infused vegetables.

Post from: Walt in PA

Grilled Chops with Veggies

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I started off the video discussing the post frequency here on Walt in PA then moved into discussing my new picnic table. I finished the video off with some discussion on an incident with Syrus and a meter reader from the electric company.

Post from: Walt in PA

Shooting The Breeze: Random Talk

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We had a great breakfast and a popular place called Uncle Bill’s Pancake House. As breakfast was coming to a close, the weather began to break and the rain started to taper off.

A few minutes later we were on our way home. As I type this on my iTouch, the weather has turned beautiful. The sun is shining and the gray clouds have disappeared completely.

Yesterday I posted a quick video from the beach. That video was intended to be day 1, to be followed by more video from today. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate and the original is all I have for you.

Post from: Walt in PA

Shooting The Breeze: Weekend at Wildwood Crest

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Below is about two minutes of the Atlantic ocean from a couple of different spots.

Post from: Walt in PA

Wildwood Crest – 2009

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