Well little one I thought that I would be updating this a little more regularly but I got busy this weekend, my bad. But to make it up to you I will be giving you a full update on the week. First and most importantly we saw Pearl Jam. Now this has been my favorite band for roughly 13 years or so needless to say I was pretty stoked. Your mom by the way was a real trooper. See we took the metro down and had to get there quite early as all of the fan club people have to get their tickets from the will call. The line was impossibly long but it moved quite quick. The story here is after 10 years in the fan club I was pretty confident our seats were gonna be very close.
So up we go to get the tickets and by this point I am getting nervous I really want good seats and had not seen PJ in about 5 years so my excitement was growing. Opening up the envelope ..... drumroll.... OUR SEATS SUCK!!!!!! yup section 100 on the side. Not even on the floor. I was crushed. It seems when I renewed my tenclub membership in '06 I did something funky and screwed up my seniority. So I was about as disappointed as I had been in a while. (Side not the following day I got the problem fixed and our seniority back but obviously the show was already over. So maybe the next tour we will be close) At this point all the wind is out of my sales and I really just wanna crawl under a rock. I quickly typed out an email to tenclub on the ole blackberry but I know there is nothing that can get done now.
So we head off to the Green turtle which is a sports bar that is in the arena. Needless to say your mom reminded me why she is truly the yin to my yang. Almost right away she goes into her "cheer up the husband" mode. See this is a mode that she normally reserves for when she really needs it. It does not come out often but when she sees that I am really crushed about something. It's just a few small changes on her part. Her smile gets a bit brighter and I can really see the love she has for me in her eyes. It always turns me around. She laughed at my corny jokes and before long (and after a few beers) I was feeling pretty good. It wasn't the perfect situation but it was what it was. I was seeing my favorite band hands down with my best friend who also happens to be my wife. I didn't have to drive home and the atmosphere for a Pearl Jam concert is like nothing you have ever seen before. See, they are by no means a trendy band. The stadium is filled with other idiots like me who have been following them for years and know every word to every song. Many of the people in the arena have been or are going to multiple shows on the tour and everyone is just really tuned in. So getting to sing Black (again this has been my favorite song for as long as I can remember) with 18,000 other crazys is just a really special experience. Another thing I like about them is every show on every tour is different. You are gonna get different songs every night. The only song you are pretty much sure to hear is Daughter. I would have also said Betterman but they didn't play at this show. So this is the first time I have seen Pearl jam and not heard that. Other than that you have no idea going in what is gonna get played. This was the set list for our show.
MAIN SET: Hard To Imagine, Severed Hand, Hail Hail, Do The Evolution, Small Town, Evacuation(Partial), Corduroy, I'm Open, I Am Mine, I Got ID, Daughter/(Hey-Ho), Light Years, Even Flow, Green Disease, You Are, You, Who You Are, Why Go
ENCORE 1: Comatose, Sad, Given To Fly, Come Back, Grievance, Black/(We Belong Together), Rearviewmirror
ENCORE 2: No More, Last Kiss, Crazy Mary (Victoria Williams), Alive, All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan), Yellow Ledbetter/(Star Spangled Banner) ((Francis Scott Key))
Needless to say the show was awesome. Even their new stuff from thier new album was seemlessly stitched into the show. It was just an awesome night. The Verizon center turned on the main get the hell out lights and Eddie just powered right on through.
Anyway that was Sunday. On Monday we got together with our neighbors Rob and Jennnaahhh. They are the young couple in our complex that we live in. They are us like 5 years ago. Sometimes they can be a little young in how they approach stuff. Or more accurately me and your mom are getting old. Rob and Jennahhh are like yeah it's 9pm what are you guys doing? Me and the wife.... "watching the end of the O's game and going to bed." Yeah I am starting to feel like Dan and Rosanne Conner. I don't know what the heck happened but I am so ready for bed by about 1030 anymore. I remember the good ole days when I would be up gaming till 2 or 3am..yeah not anymore. I am freaking tired. Anyway they wanted to play some Mario Party 8. A game that is me and your mothers current obsession. The Wii has really brought us together, and as long as I don't win too much the Wii filled nights are a blast. The thing is that I think your mother is actually pretty good at video games. The problem is I have been playing them about 20+ years longer than she has. Sooo generally I win. But I do believe that if she honed her skills she would be Kick ass at games. As you can tell we have been playing alot of Wii lately and I was more than up for putting the smack down on the young bucks. It's all fun and games till I gotta defend the family video game honor.
So over we go. Me your mom and Ben. for a video game collision of titans. Needless to say me and your mother wiped the floor with them. There was blood and carnage everywhere. Even Ben was Like Damnnnnnnnnnnnn we owned you. He did his part by relentlessy assulting thier dog's ear at every opportunity. Then we went to coldstone got some icecream and we were all in bed by 11. Wow we are so freaking lame..... But it was fun but lame, again this is why we need you to come along the party jersey is retired. We are settling into a more adult lifestyle. We had been resisting it for the better part of the last 10 years but now instead of crazy nights a bars and clubs we genuinely enjoy playing some games walking the dog and capping it all off with a trip to ice cream shop. Wow We really need football to come back just to spice things up a little. Maybe go all voodoo crazy and have hotwings while watching football.
Finally on to Tuesday and Wednesday... Two words Mario Kart. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an elusive copy of Mario kart. Which is a Mario Racing game. We have pretty much been just playing that for two solid days. It is a really good time that the two of us can do together. Again your mom is really good at it.. Her big thing is that she gets very frustrated whenever say a turtle shell gets slammed into her butt. (in the game) It really throws her all off. I find that it sucks but hell it happened lets get back into the race. Once she gets over that she will Pwn.
Mini housing rant incoming (read at your own risk)
We also spent a good portion of our day looking at homes. I have no idea what is gonna happen with that. We just currently hate where we live. It is getting too small. We are already dreading things like the holidays because once you put a tree and the snow village up we are pretty much out of space in our home and there is no where to go. With Ben no longer a puppy I can only imagine that this year will be even worse. It's just not fun at all as I Like the holiday decorations and I like having people over. But right now our house is just to small. Even for the three of us. It's like sardines in there. There is no way we could add you in such a small space. I would seriously go off the Bay bridge. I just hate the place we live. Other than Rob and Jennahhhh all our Friends have left and those two are moving in August.
See you would think the easy solution would be to buy a house. Unfortunately I am a chicken. I want to buy a house.. I do.. But the problem is I sell new homes.. and this year absolutely sucks when it comes to selling houses. I just am not selling enough to feel comfortable taking on a much larger payment for 30 years with the economy right now. Everyone tells me it's gonna turn around and I believe that it will. But until I can regularly start selling homes again and your mother finishes grad school I just think that us doing this right now would be stupid. Even if we were to buy in January I think that would be dumb. We would be coming of a record low house selling year and your mom is gonna graduate in July.
With a masters degree and the income boost that will provide and hopefully the economy returning mid '09 seems like we will be in a much stronger position to buy a house you can grow up in. Where as buying this year will likely get us something we may or may not be able to sell in year. I think buying a house for a year is a really crappy idea to tell you the truth. Why buy it when hopefully we can get something twice as big and nice if we wait a year. Also if we buy this January and we want to move into a non starter home next Jan. We will have a house we have to sell. Which we will most likely lose money on. The whole game seems dumb. It seems to me patience is kinda a virtue here. But we HAVE to get out of where we are now. I hate it. So we are currently looking to rent something a tad bigger for next year. At least big enough that when you come along we will not have to have you sleep in a car seat on the bar :).
I really want to buy and Honestly I think your mom would... But I am taking the bullet here, I think for us .. it's a really bad time. The wife is looking at like a 50% pay raise with a masters and I have only sold two houses so far this year. I just feel like what we can get as a family in 2010 is gonna dwarf what we will be looking at '09. Not gonna be a popular choice as far as the extended family goes but kinda what I am seeing for us right now. I keep telling myself when my parents were my age they were renting a brown house in Colorado. It's not the end of the world if we don't buy now. Things turned out great for them. This is turning into one of the hardest decisions me and your mother may make, with how much it could affect our futures. I really think jumping now because we want to or feel pressure to buy is gonna hurt us more than if we wait. Needless to say a lot of prayer is going into this. It's also a complete departure from how I felt even a week ago. The more I pray the more I feel like we should wait. I tend to listen when I hear a little voice telling me to wait. Especially when I put this much prayer into something. That's how we ended up in MD and that has turned out ok.
Life is complicated. But it sure is fun. Ok this is wayy to long.... see ya soon.
Dad.
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