House Hunting News!

Mom called earlier today and said that she's been negotiating with the owners of the house we're interested it. She said we pretty much unofficially have the house! The owners aren't moving out until September, but Mom is apparently going to sign papers next week!

:D


As promised, here are the pics I took during my trip to the Star Wars concert:



The drive is pretty :)


View of the arena



Stormtrooper



Darth Vader and the Imperial Guard



Chewbacca



The actual suit Anthony Daniels wore when he played C-3PO



View from my seat



A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away....


(sorry these two are shaky :\)

Main title



Pictures taken during the concert







The venue


The camera lens fogged up lol. The car was worse :P

Star Wars in Concert

Yesterday I went to the Star Wars concert in Hershey, PA. I went by myself because Mom couldn't go and Dad wouldn't (he can listen to the music on CD for a cheaper price he said). I drove there yesterday (5 hour drive) and got there an hour and 45 minutes before the concert started. Luckily I only had to wait in line for 20 minutes before the doors opened. My seat was on the floor, 20 rows from the stage. I'll upload the audio I recorded of my favorite pieces on this post, then make a separate post later with the pictures I took.

The thing I used to upload audio (audioboo.com) only lets you upload 5 minutes at once, so the opening was cut short. Instead of posting that audio file, here is a youtube clip of another performance:




Now here are the recordings I made. If you hear an annoying guy cheering, it is not me. Some idiot sat behind me who said he was only there "for the lights." And he kept saying Star Trek instead of Star Wars lol. I think he had too many beers before the show started :P


Duel of the Fates:




Anakin's Theme:




The Flag Parade:




Across the Stars:




Battle of the Heros:




Imperial March:




Asteroid Field:




TIE Fighter Attack:




Light of the Force:




The played The Throne Room and End Titles at the end, but the cheering idiot behind me pretty much ruined that recording...


After the concert I went to my brother's who lives near Hershey and spent the night, then came home today.


Pictures later.

House Hunting

As I've mentioned a few times before, Mom is planning on buying a house this summer. We went looking Wednesday and saw a nice one only 10 minutes from her work and 20 minutes from my college. Then Friday we went again to look at others and the realtor said that that house already had 2 offers and there was some kind of problem and it could take months to sort out, so that one was off the table.

One of the houses we looked at Friday is *really* nice. It's kinda in a city, but the neighborhood looks decent. The garage is at the back of the house, and the back yard is really private. You can't even tell you're in the city back there. Oh, and it has a pool!!

It's 10 minutes from college and 20 minutes from mom's job. She would like to be closer to her work, but it'll be a better drive for her, especially in the winter.

We think we're gonna try for it :)

Tried and Failed

Tonight is the last for the camper to be up. We'll put it down tomorrow because it's supposed to rain Friday. Alex knew about the camper being up, he knew tonight was the last night, he was invited to camp out sometime this week, but he never followed through.

Of course, I was a bit upset when he never contacted me about camping out. It shouldn't have been a surprise though. I was sitting outside kinda waiting for him to show up ready to camp out, but he never came.

This is going to sound stupid to most of you probably....

I was upset, and I just closed my eyes and started talking to God. I said I knew that I am in a toxic "relationship" with Alex and that I need out. I asked Him to help me get out of it, and I also asked to help Mom with the house hunting. I want to get out of here. I need to get out of here.

After talking to God, I felt (and still feel) better. The camping thing this week was my only attempt this summer to try and be friends with Alex again, and it didn't work. So that's it, I'm done. I take comfort knowing I at least have tried (over and over again) to be friends with him.

The sad thing is, I don't think he really realizes how much he's hurt me over the last couple years.



Please don't leave any comments saying that you're sorry or anything like that. I don't need to hear that. I feel even better after writing this.

:)

Almost Ready!

Got the camper moved and opened up today! I won't bore you with the details like yesterday; instead I'll skip to the Alex part :P

After we got the camper opened up and got the inside situated, I texted Alex to tell him he could come over and check out the camper if he wanted. He texted right back saying, "ok I will... I'm so bored lol." He came right over :P

We just kinda sat around in there for awhile. He played with my iPod most of the time, and we talked. I told him my plan for tomorrow: sweep it out and get rid of the cobwebs and stuff. I also told him that hopefully it'll be ready to sleep in by tomorrow night. He didn't say one way or the other if he wanted to camp out at all or not. I didn't ask either.

It was really hot so he said he was going to go back to his house. He asked if I wanted to come over, but I couldn't because I had to go up to Mom's for dinner.

Here's some pics I took today:

The Camper, and Alex

NOTE:

If you don't want to read all about my day with the camper, just read the first paragraph, then skip down to the second section.


Section 1: Camper

Whoa what a busy day!

I woke up this morning at 7 a.m. I wasn't supposed to be awake then, I just randomly woke up. So I laid in bed thinking. I started thinking about camping and all that. I got the idea, like last year, of using the camper. Last year I got discouraged when I saw how bad the canvas is. But that is only in one corner. I decided I want to try again. So this morning I got the game plan together:

Phase I - Take the tarp off and clean it.
Phase II - Patch the area where siding is coming off (in that one corner) then wash the outside.
Phase III - Move the camper to a level area.
Phase IV - Open the camper (it's the pop-up type) and inspect the canvas.
Phase V - Clean the inside.

I figured it would take today and tomorrow, but I didn't fully realize how much work was going to be involved O_O


Phase I:

Taking the tarp off and cleaning it was probably the easiest thing I did today lol. It's pretty self-explanatory so I won't bother going into detail here :P

Phase II:

My idea for patching the area where the siding is coming off was to staple it back on with a staple gun, then put duct tape over it. Well, the wood behind the siding is in bad shape, so it wasn't even catching the staples. I couldn't wash the top since the bad corner is on the low side of the camper and all the water would have run right into that hole. The sides of the camper really weren't too bad. All I had to do was go around it with a broom and knock all the spiders off lol.


Phase III:

I knew this one would be the most challenging. Obviously we need a vehicle with a hitch to move the camper. The only two people who we could have used were my brother and my mom. My brother is on vacation, and Mom was out today. I had already pretty much planned on doing Phase III tomorrow anyway, so it wasn't a big deal. However, we were still going to take the camper off the blocks it sits on (it doesn't sit on the trailer's tires) so it would be ready to go tomorrow.

Well....

When we took it off the blocks we discovered both tires were flat. We have a small air pump that we use to inflate the mower's tires with, so we got that and inflated one tire. The second one though didn't inflate. Dad said the tire was off the seal or something like that. We even took it to the gas station to use the air compressor, but it didn't work.

We have another trailer that we used to haul our tractor and push mower around in when we used to mow several yards in the area. The tires are a bit smaller than the ones on the camper trailer, but they would work. The tires looked good, so we decided to try it. Dad tried to get one of the tires off, but it was rusted so badly it would hardly turn even. Discouraged, Dad just said the other tire would be the same.

Well we couldn't move the camper, then the whole day would have been a complete waste. It was already after 6 by this point. Dad was ready to quit, and I was pretty pissed off. I told Dad to try to get the other tire off.

Guess what?

It came right off!!!!

So we put it on the camper and put some air in it. By this time it's after 7. There wasn't anything else we could do today, so we put the tarp back on top of it. Tomorrow I'll bring Mom's 4Runner down and we'll move it if all goes according to plan.


Section 2: Alex


After we got all the tools and things put away, I went to sit out on our stoop. Alex was playing hockey at his house earlier and still had the net but he wasn't out when I went and sat on the stoop. After awhile, he rode past on his bike. Then a bit later he skated up to our driveway and asked me why a State Police car went down the road. Obviously I wouldn't have any idea. Then he skated down the sidewalk and talked for a little bit.

Then we saw two people walking up the road. He said he thought it was some girl and his "ex-girlfriend." (this would have been the girl I've mentioned on my old blog. They never went on any dates or saw each other outside of school so I don't call that a girlfriend, but that's what he said). As they got closer he could tell that that was definitely who that was. So we went back over to his house to "hide" lol. As he was leaving he said he'd be back in a few minutes.

After they passed our houses, he came back over and asked if I wanted to come over. Of course I did! I stood around while he was skating around his driveway and we talked some more. Then it was getting darkish so he was going to stop skating. He asked if I wanted to go sit out on the porch. If you'll remember from two years ago, his porch is where a lot of the "action" took place nearly every night :P.

So we sat out there for awhile. We just talked. He said if I needed help with the camper tomorrow to let him know because he doesn't "have anything better to do." So during church I may ask him if he wants to come over (my mom will be in church tomorrow; sitting with us). Anyway, we just sat out there talking for awhile. It was about a 11:15 by the time I left.


So today has been a great day on two fronts! I can't wait until tomorrow :D





(this post is too long. I'm not even wasting time proofreading it :P)

Dentists, Baseball Games, and Automobiles

Yesterday was a really busy day!

In the morning, I had to go to the dentist to get my first cavity since I was a kid filled, and also an area that is hard for me to get to had to be protected. Why is it hard for me to get to? It's a long story actually haha.

In addition to all that I also had to get a panoramic X-Ray done to see where my wisdom teeth are. The two bottom ones will definitely have to come out sometime. They're coming in horizontally :S

Of course they had to numb me up before they did anything. That lasted a few hours. It felt like my lip was fat >__>

So after the numbness went away (right after I ate something), my brother called. He asked if I wanted to go to the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game. Of course I did! They're boring to watch on TV but really fun when you're there!

So here are some pictures I took with my cell phone's camera. Some are kinda bad quality :\


I-79



When going to Pittsburgh via I-79, you make a turn and this is what you see




Walking across the Roberto Clemente Bridge





From our seats up in the nosebleed section lol






Everytime I go down to a Pirates game they win. Last night was no different :D



Final view of the stadium


We had a great time!


Now today, I woke up at 8:30 and had to go to the bathroom (TMI?). Dad asked if I wanted to get dressed so we can go car shopping. I said I just wanted to go back to sleep. So he went by himself. Then he called me around 11:30 and told me to get up and get dressed. He's on his way back here right now so we can go back up to the car dealership to get MY car. MY car is actually his old car :P

This has been a great week!