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Monday, December 17, 2007
ARMAGEDDON

Where to begin? What a night!!! I love wrestling but watching from ringside is an entirely new experience. Matthew winning these tickets was the most amazing end to 2007. I’m so thankful we are so lucky!!

So let’s start with a recap of the day. We watched the football games and I slowly watched Tom Brady get the worst score he’s gotten all season long (5 lousy points). Normally, he gets between 20-40 points for me but 5???? I thought for sure I was done for the superbowl of fantasy football. I was only one game away. But alas, the football gods saw fit to screw just about every quarterback apparently because Tim (The person I was playing) had a quarterback (Tony Romo) who only got 5 lousy points as well. So I guess we’re even. As I sit and write this blog at home watching Monday Night Raw on TV flipping between the football game, I’m set to beat Tim by more than 20 points, so long as the Minnesota defense doesn’t do anything useful (PLEASE DON’T DO ANYTHING USEFUL)! If this is the case, it will be me and John battling it out in the fantasy superbowl of the league – Who would have thought!!!

So after the insane games we watched (weather was nuts), we left for the event around 6:30ish when John got home from work. The weather sucked on the way in with some slippy roads, but we were determined to get there. (Thankfully the ride home was great – no problems)!

We got inside only a few minutes before the event started, what a crazy line out front. After literally crawling into our seats (we had to crawl over people smashed at ringside halfway through the row to get to our seats in the middle), wrestling really took a change for me.

It’s a totally different world when you’re so close one mistake could land a wrestler in your lap. They look different close up, many look much smaller than they look on TV> It’s quite weird.

The matches were great, starting off with Rey Mysterio who gave his mask hand delivered to the little boy in the row behind us. What an experience. We had a lot of action on the floor in front of us (See amazing pictures in the photos section). I took well over 400 shots but after weeding through the good and the bad ended up with well over 300 pictures. I put the best 40 or so up on the web (But there are many more good shots).

The ECW match with Kane and CM Punk was great; we just prayed that no one knocked Visera off the ropes into our barricade because he may have knocked us over too! We had many wrestlers run into the barricade in front of us, especially during the last match, which had a lot of action in front of us. Matthew almost had the undertaker in his lap. We actually got to touch the legend himself. Man what a feeling. That man is huge!!! We also had the two fake Edge’s lying in the ring in front of us for quite some time. Pure insanity! I loved every minute of it though.

The Jeff Hardy/Triple H match was amazing. I got some of my best photographs of action shots during that match. Of course, why not with as acrobatic as Jeff Hardy is in every match. I also got a lot of great action shots from the Undertaker vs. Batista vs. Edge match. I love it!

Being so close to the action gives me an entirely new look on wrestling. These people really put it all on the lines; there isn’t an easy way to get flipped upside down because you’re not landing on a pillow top ring that has to hurt! Not to mention getting flipped and thrown outside of the ring on those floor mats, it still has to hurt at least a little bit.

I was a little disappointed with some of the match outcomes; I really thought things could have been better. JBL interfering with Chris Jericho’s match was a little lame and the fake Edge wrestlers were kind of silly, but otherwise it was a really great night. I missed not having John Cena there who’s out on injury, along with a few other choice wrestlers who were MIA for the night.

I guess the bright side of everything is if the Pens get their new arena soon, we’re likely to get some better wrestling events in Pittsburgh, maybe even a major pay per view like Royal Rumble or something – now that would be something to see.

I think one of the best parts of the night was the joy in taking home my chair though. When sitting in the first few rows around the ring, the chairs are padded and decorative with the events theme. Our chairs look awesome and at the end of the night, they cut them apart and you can take them home to keep. We were nice enough to give one to John because prior to the event we made a deal that if either of us won and we did get to take home the chairs we’d split them. It’s only fair and it was a nice way early Christmas gift to each other.

We got home last night around midnight so obviously I’ve been exhausted all day today. When we got home I couldn’t sleep because I was still on an energy rush from the show. I woke up with no problems surprisingly, but I think I’m going to crash a little early tonight anyways – I’m already getting sleepy.

It’s going to be a very hectic week for me this week as tomorrow night I’m going to Waynesburg to give a presentation for work. This will be the first time I’ve had to do something like this so I’m a little nervous, but I’m sure it’ll be fine. Waynesburg isn’t that far and I’d hate to make April come from York to do the presentation when I’m only 30 minutes away and she’s hours away. I’m excited as much as nervous though because this is a big responsibility for me at my job. I’m thrilled they trust me enough to do something so important.

The holidays are quickly approaching. I can’t wait until they’re over. It’s been so insane since the beginning of the month. I’ll be happy when it’s all over and life will settle just slightly for a little while.

Check out the pictures I’ve posted on the event. I’ve put up my favorite pictures out of the 400+ I took at the event. Enjoy! LEAVE COMMENTS!Mon, December 17, 2007 link
Friday, December 14, 2007
KING OF THE RING!
What a crazy week! But what a great week!!!! Tuesday morning started off with amazing potential as Matthew woke up to his phone going off at 6:30am from Y108 calling him to be in the “King of the Ring” contest for Armageddon (WWE Wrestling) tickets. Basically, the contest is backwards from normal radio contests where you have to be the right caller. Instead, you enter online (I entered his butt) and they call you but you have to answer the phone “I’m Y108’s King of the Ring” otherwise, they hang up on you and call someone else! Of course, I had him trained to answer the phone so he did it right and that easily we won two tickets to Armageddon for Sunday night! Matthew was also entered into a drawing for ringside seats. He had a 1 in 5 chance (Because they only picked one winner per day for the tickets).
So we were very happy. We shared our good news with John and Debbie who also entered the contest online. Wednesday morning, Y108 called Debbie but she didn’t wake up to answer the phone. John attempted to save the chance at tickets and answered but since they were looking for her he could win. He was bummed! Oh well.
Thursday morning, Y108 called John and he did answer the phone correctly. So two winners in one household! How exciting! We just increased our ringside seats to 2 out of 5! Good odds! There was still one more day and no one had called me. I had won last year though, so no big deal.
The whole house was thrilled we were going to Armageddon, let alone all going together FOR FREE (key word there)! It was a buzz all night last night as I was elected to pick up all the tickets since I work in Robinson and Y108 is in Greentree. No biggie just needed copies of their license and a note saying they authorized me to pick up the prizes.
So that brings us to today and the big drawing for ring side seats. I told Matthew earlier that fate apparently wants us to go to this show somehow some way because he knew how bummed I was we couldn’t buy the tickets when they went on sale because floor seats were $175-100 each (little out of my range). At 6:30am today Matthew’s phone rang again (oh he was thrilled being woke up again). He answered… and thus a king was born…. He was crowned King of the Ring for Armageddon and the winner of all the goodies!!! Ringside seats for the show (and man are they good seats), a John Cena Fat Head (Which will probably be sold for lack of ANYWHERE to put it) and my favorite… one bottle of Diet Pepsi Max (not even a 2 liter… a 20 oz! LOL!).
So naturally we’ve both been on a natural high all day today. I picked up the tickets over lunch. I didn’t want to believe he actually won until they were physically in my possession (Which they are now). I still can’t believe it. Tonight we’re going to Walmart/Sams to load up on batteries, poster board and markers/glitter because ya’ll know I’m making a TON of signs for the show! Ah! What a week. It’s been crazy! But I love it and I can’t wait until Sunday! This is going to be the best!
Our seats are on off-camera side, which means we’re to the right of the announcers and directly facing ALL ACTION (as the cameras will be behind us). So I should have lots and lots and lots and LOTS of really great pictures from the show (and I’ll be posting them … if Matthew EVER locates my card reader which is lost somewhere in the house). I gotta clear the camera before we go, I’ll need every OUNCE of room on that card for pictures. Man I can’t wait! I can actually reach out and touch someone (And I will most certainly do so if ANYONE comes near me).
Well, look for a post-Armageddon report on Monday (If I’m still alive). It’s going to be quite a hectic week for me. Sunday is Armageddon, Tuesday night I’m working at a meeting in Waynesburg for my job (Yeah Overtime!), Thursday is our work Christmas part and then we get to Christmas Crazyness! GOODY!!!! Somewhere in there I need to finish making presents for people, wrap what I’ve got so far and finish a few odds and ends shopping. UGH! I’m going to need a vacation soon!
Fri, December 14, 2007 link
Monday, December 10, 2007
Countdown to Christmas


It’s raining….. Yeah! What a dreary day outside. Makes me wish I was home curled up with my kitty watching movies. Speaking of Artex, he has a new game he plays with me… it’s cute for about 10 minutes…. Saturday I was watching a movie with him in my lap and his paws on my belly (like always). Then he started gently pushing on my belly… when he did this Arabella kicked me in the same spot. This went on for about an hour (cute for about 10 minutes though). He’s done it a few times since then too! It’s like a game to them, kinda funny!
So how about the Steeler game yesterday? Quite a game? Good for me with massive Tom Brady points, bad for Matthew who I’m playing. Our game is still undecided. I need eight points from my wide receiver tonight to beat him. It could be a very close game to see who’s going to round two of the playoffs!
Works a little slow this week. There really isn’t much going on, but I keep finding random things to do to keep myself entertained! Lisa decorated the tree over the weekend so I get to look at the pretty purple tree in front of my desk it’s really pretty).
Our tree is up and running. We need to get a bigger one though, I’ve already got too many ornaments for the tree. I think after Christmas we’re going for a pre-lit tree from somewhere for next year – slightly bigger too. Perhaps a seven or eight foot!
Leeanne and I went shopping yesterday. I had to finish up a few people (Matthew mostly… it’s so hard to buy him presents when he’s always with me). I also got myself a few things at fashion bug! It was lots of fun.
I’m anxiously awaiting this afternoon’s basket raffle at Canonsburg Hospital. My mother told me about it and the baskets are simply gorgeous. They are drawing at 2pm today, I wish I could be there in person. I’d love to win just one of the baskets because they were all so nice (I spent like $30 on tickets!!). Here’s to hoping! I have some raffle tickets going off tonight on the PA lottery too for some Pittsburgh tickets (Steelers, pens, pirates, etc) and then on Friday the Amish Quilt raffle from Angel Ridge goes off (it’s like a $1200 quilt). I’d be happy to win that as well. Mom always says I’m lucky with raffles, we’ll see how my luck does this week!


Mon, December 10, 2007 link
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
SNOW!!!!!
So I woke up today to about 2 inches of snow on my car. Of course my butt wasn’t even thinking of cleaning it off in the cold weather on slippy roads so I woke up Matthew to do it (oh let me tell you how thrilled he was at 7am to be in the snow). After he cleaned my car off, he came back in with my keys (I asked him to warm it up for me too) and told me to park it because I wasn’t going ANYWHERE in the snow!
After a brief discussion (and the fact that his recent footprints were already covered and gone from the snow) I decided it was best to wait until they plowed our hill and salted the street. So I called work to let them know (no biggie) and sat down and took a nap (no sense in wasting a perfectly good time for a nap).
We woke up to the sound of John getting ready for work (upstairs neighbor). He worked at the mall so we kindly asked him to let us know how the roads were once you got off our silly unplowed hill. Well needless to say, he got to work with lots of slips and slides … so I continued my path of staying put until the roads were better.
Around 10ish, the wonderful sound of the snow plow came and I was ready to go to work. Matthew was still very uneasy about this decision but I felt it was ok. I was right, once I got off our hill the roads were simply slushy in town and only wet on the highway. As I drew closer to Pittsburgh, I was shocked to see where we already had about 3-4 inches of snow at the house Robinson had almost NOTHING…. It looked as though it barely snowed here (lucky them).
So I got to work around 11ish today. It’s been fairly crazy since then and just now finally slowed down for a little while. I’ve been watching the snow from my window, Robinson is slowly making up for the lack of snow they got this morning because my car, the parking lot and some of the roads are starting to get covered. There’s at least 2 inches of snow on my car already and I’ve only been here since 11am and it’s only 3pm. Driving home should be a real treat!
One of my co-workers had to go downtown a little while ago and he said the highways were ok, it was everything else that sucked. That doesn’t surprise me though. At least most of my drive home is highway!
Well I’m going to go get a few things done. Be sure to vote on the middle name poll. Matthew and I should be making our decision pretty soon. Wed, December 5, 2007 link
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Snow is Pretty!!!
Matthew and I took a baby care class night at Washington Hospital. It was rather useful, at least I think. The class covered basics from bathing to feeding and a lot on safety (very important)! I’m really glad I decided to take the course because it was really helpful in planning on what we need to buy for the baby and what we need to check out and consider before buying some items. I just wish the class wasn’t on a Monday night for three hours. Basically, I got home from work yesterday, ate dinner and then went to class … came back home and was ready to crash. What a long day, but very worthwhile. Matthew and I are scheduled to take two more classes in the spring for the baby at the hospital. I’m looking forward to those as well.
So Monday night football was a big disappointment for me yesterday. I was counting on Tom Brady to actually do a nice job and pull some big numbers, but the weather was fighting him with strong winds so they ran the ball most of the game (no major points for me…L). Oh well, I had to let John beat me sooner or later… I just wish it was never! Since Matthew also lost his game last night, he shook up the playoff bracket from what we were expecting and I got the shock logging in this morning to see that in the first round we play each other first! Not exactly what we wanted to do, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. At least for sure one of us will make it to second round… unfortunately not how we wanted to do it though. Ah well, such is life. It’s been a fun journey with Fantasy Football and I can’t wait to play again next year.
I think I’m taking Artex to Petco this weekend to have pictures with Santa. I guess we’ll have to see how well he’ll cooperate with me for this one. I’ll probably try to go up early in the day before it gets really busy and hope there won’t be a ton of other pets to scare him. Then again, between now and then I may change my mind… so who knows! I’d love for him to take a beautiful picture with Santa… but he’s a cat and might get a bit scared… I still may try though. The pictures are only $6.95 and $5.00 of every picture goes to help homeless animals… so it’s for a good cause at the very least. If I actually get him to take a picture, I will most certainly be posting them immediately afterwards.
So it’s day two without a computer at home too. I’m starting to feel lost. My computer has just been building up with junk and I got to the point this weekend to let Matthew finally strip it back to day one. I couldn’t take it anymore. Hopefully it will run much better now; it couldn’t possibly run any worse! He’s not done with it yet, so I’ve been going through withdrawal for not having it. I miss my computer L….. hopefully he finishes it tonight so I can have it back!
JMT converted all the computers over to office 2007 last night. I had been tinkering with some of it for the last month, but now I have real copies of everything. It’s completely different in look and function. At first, I hated it… but it started to grow on me after a while (and I figured out how to customize it to what I wanted) so now it’s really nice. Everything is set in tabs instead of drop down menus, which is nice because you can see all the functions easily and quickly and customize them to what you use most. I love it now. I think I’m going to work on Matthew to get us a copy for the house because it’s really a nice program (once you get over the initial reaction of looking at a screen and being lost)! I really like the new version of Publisher. So much has changed and it’s a much more efficient program. I’ve been messing with Word and Outlook all day, eventually I’ll make my way over to Access and Excel. I’ve opened all the programs to see what’s changed and they all work with the tab functions now. I like it though, it works for me! The new Outlook features are great at work with more customizable screens to see more than just one part of the program (You can put mini blocks for the calendar, tasks, etc so you can see everything at one glance. Great for me at JMT because I was constantly switching between the calendar and the mail to see upcoming due dates. I love it, love love love it!
I can’t believe how much Christmas music is playing on the radio already. It’s barely into December! I’ve been stuck on Y108 for the last two days trying to get registered for Santa’s sleigh, speaking of which I now need to try and do that right now as a Christmas song is on the radio (That’s the cue to call). Yesterday was a major bummer for me when I was caller 17 (they want 18). I like wanted to cry! This year’s Santa’s sleigh is absolutely incredible with a $500 silver necklace, $500 to Lowrys, $500 to some sports store, a $700 personal training package, and Hannah Montana tickets (could care less about the tickets)… I want the personal trainer! I also want to go on a shopping spree at Lowery’s! I promised Matthew if he helped me try to get registered I’d let him have the sports store thing and he can go nuts in the paintball section (or cooking) or whatever! I’m sure he’d find something he wanted! Well, I’ve still got another week before the drawing to get registered… here’s to hoping!
Well I should get back to work for a while figuring out these new programs. It’s been an experience thus far. I think the hardest thing for me is remembering to save it in the old format because not everyone in our company has the new versions yet so if you have to send a document to someone in another office they need to have it saved in the older format or it won’t open.
Until next time. Tue, December 4, 2007 link
Monday, December 3, 2007


It’s snowing! Again….. It was snowing on my way to work today and now while I’m at work I can sit and watch the snow fall out our office window. It’s rather pretty… but I know it’s really brutal out there today with the winds ever so strong. It was awfully fun driving to work today.

Another Monday, here we are with a post Steeler game high from last night (That I actually stayed awake to watch). Loads of fun! Matthew and I watched some of the other games as well (gotta love playing fantasy football… it makes you pay attention to everyone’s games). I played John this week (our upstairs neighbor) and now it comes down to my man, Tom Brady and how good he is. I need him to score at least 33 points to beat John (which he can do… especially against the Baltimore Ravens). The game is on tonight and the bummer is I won’t get to watch most of it because Matthew and I will be at a baby class we’re taking at Washington Hospital tonight. Ah well, the baby class is much more important!

Next week starts our fantasy football playoffs and Matthew and I are both in the winners bracket and up for some hard earned cash for the season. I hope we do well, it would rock to win some money! This has been such a great experience; I can’t wait to play again next year. I’ve learned so much throughout the season and did so well for having no clue what I was doing…. John was rather impressed. He apparently thought I’d play and hate it and be in last place… well I showed him! Leeanne wants to play next year too, I hope so we could use more females … though it was fun beating the guys one by one…

I finally put the registry up on the website, so many were asking me for it. I thought devoting an entire page to the baby registry would eliminate a lot of confusion and complication later on. I know the shower is months away (hey we finally have a date and place), but I like giving people ample time to find things and do what they need to do. The registry isn’t complete, but it’s getting there until then at least everyone can see what’s going on.

Well back to work for the time being….