Last night was the big night, we finally got to meet our little brother and little sister! We followed our case manager (Greg) over to their house, which is just a mile or so south of the stadiums. They live in a duplex house with their mom and two twin sisters who are 5 years old. Their house was really nice and clean, which I wasn’t necessarily expecting. They have a ton of fish, a cat and a hamster. Both Dominique and Bianca were very nice and polite when meeting them. Bianca seemed a little more shy at first, but she is only 10 (11 next week). We sat with Greg and their mom to sign all of the paperwork. Greg gave us some gifts for being matched up (t-shirts, water bottles, etc.) and even a football that we can use.

From there we took them out to Dairy Queen for some ice cream. We only had 45 minutes or an hour with them, so they recommend taking them to some place familiar or that every kid loves. All kids love ice cream, don’t they? We all decided on a blizzard and sat down on the curb outside to chat. We talked about their school, their summer activities, their family, etc. They both had a bunch to talk about, which made it easy for us. Once we were done, we dropped them off and made plans to get together again early next week. It was such a nice relief from the normal stressful week. I am really looking forward to this and should enjoy each day we spend with them.

Dang, work has been busy lately. Speaking of which, my boss came in today to tell me about his proposition. He is thinking that I should continue on with my test automation project but also take on what he is called a version control project as well. Those two items together would eat up most of my time, so I would then have little time for testing the application. That isn’t a bad thing though.

The test automation stuff I’m doing now involves scripts that are setup to run through different parts of our application and to make sure that the functionality is still the same. This can be used all the time to make sure what we are doing now doesn’t break things that used to work. I haven’t been doing too much with it recently, we have way too much to test and way too few testers.

The version control project would involve maintaining our own copy of the latest development code and all previously released versions of the product. I would also have part in updating our clients to newer versions when applicable, which is mostly an after hours task currently. This leads to the next task which would be to create an installation script that we could use instead of having to do the work ourselves later in the night.

They’ve always wanted someone do something like this, but Steve thinks it would be easier for me to do this than for them to find someone to do it. He can then hire someone else to become a tester since that should be much easier to find and train. He said to think about it for a couple of days and get back to him. I’m almost 100% sure that I’m going to say that I’ll do it. I think I would much rather be in some sort of coding than testing the application all day. Now if only this came with some sort of raise…

I’m back at work wishing I was still in Wisconsin. That was a great weekend, and we may just have to head back up that way next year when DMB returns. Here’s a recap of what happened:

My hockey bag weighed 48.5 pounds on the airport scales! The lady at check-in said I was lucky. After an uneventful flight, I met up with Weeba at the airport in Chicago and we headed over to Tracey’s apartment. Our friend Pat was already there and the rest of the clan was already out at a bar. We quickly got ready and took a cab over to meet up with everyone. A friend of a friend was having a $20 wristband party. I guess these are a popular thing in Chicago. Basically you and your friends pay $20 a piece to drink whatever you want for a certain amount of time. I think we got our money’s worth even though we only had an hour and a half of drinking time. From there we went and checked out a little bit of the Greenstreet show but we didn’t stay out too late since we wanted to get up to Wisconsin fairly early.

We woke up at 7 AM or so, Tracey said that we looked like kids on Christmas. We were way too excited to sleep anymore. After some breakfast and showers we packed the rental SUV (aka the urban assault vehicle) to the roof and headed off. I’m not sure why, but we hit some traffic that never seemed to end. We ditched the highway route and headed on the back roads to the campsite. It probably should have taken an hour and half to get there but it took us over three hours. Not the best way to start off the weekend, but oh well. We finally got our site, setup our camp and waited for the rest of our group to get in. One problem with the setup, I forgot the tent poles for my tent. Ooops. We did have 3 other tents though and there were only six of us so it was alright. Once everyone got there we ate some food and drank some beers until a very scary storm quickly approached our camp. At the front of this storm were some rotating clouds right above us. We were in the middle of a field with a tornado forming above our heads. It was fairly frightening and it almost canceled the show. We didn’t know this at the time, but when this all was blowing over the venue they closed the gates to the lot. We left really soon after the storm passed and were then stuck in traffic for awhile waiting for the gates to open again. Unfortunately we didn’t get into the lot until around 6 and OAR was starting at 7. As we found out the next day we should have arrived earlier, the party scene in the lot is incredible. The show was great, the seats were great, everything was great. After the show we sat in our seats for awhile and when everyone was gathered we exited the venue. We quickly saw the insane amount of traffic trying to get out and the large number of people who were giving up for now and carrying on with the party. We joined in for an hour or two after the show and then ventured back to camp. We did stop at some local country bar on the way back for a drink and on the way out had a little fun with their sign (see the pictures). When back at camp we hung out some more and before we knew it the sky was getting lighter and lighter. Three or four of us managed to stay around the fire for awhile and I don’t think any of us managed to keep our eyes closed for longer than ten minutes.

Later that morning everyone else decided to get up around eight. Later on I took a pretty nice nap under the canopy and was ready to go again. We took everyone back to the bar we visited the night before for some lunch. From there we headed into the lot to take full advantage this time. We brought along our cornhole boards and beer and had a blast despite it being about 110 degrees with the cars packed together, people everywhere, grills going, etc. It was worth it though, the partying was great! The show was of course excellent again and we were all pretty much in the same 5 rows of the same section. After the show we hung out like the night before and headed back to camp. We tried to keep the party going but you could tell everyone was dead.

The next morning it was time to pack everything up and head back to Chicago. We stopped back by Tracey’s to clean ourselves up and were off to the airport. Sarnovsky and AP were also flying out around the same time we were. We soon found out that all of our flights were being delayed though. We had some lunch and a few drinks to kill the time and then we were all on our separate ways, thus ending a great weekend. The nice thing is that most all of us will get back together again in a few weeks at Pig-Fest!

I got home last night around 5:30 and with Kim’s help had everything laid out to be packed by 7:00. At first I put both canopies, 2 chairs and tent in my hockey bag and it weighed like 53 pounds or something. So I took one of the chairs out, now it weights 46 or 47 pounds. This is what I’m going with, so hopefully they don’t try to charge me $50 later today. I’ve also got a large roller bag filled with all my sleeping supplies and then my backpack with all my clothes in it. I had to put this all together fairly quickly because we had plans to watch Wedding Crashers with a rather large crowd.

The movie was great, I can see why my brother has already begun to quote some of the lines. I haven’t laughed that hard at the theatre in a long time. After the movie we went down to our favorite plaza watering hole, Tomfooleries, for a couple of drinks and then returned home to finish packing.

I’ve got all of my bags in the car right now. After work I’m going to pick up Kim from work and then we are off to the airport. I’ll fly to Chicago tonight, meet up with my buddy Weeba at the airport, go out with everyone for a little bit, and then stay at my friend Tracey’s place. From there we are heading to Wisconsin on Saturday morning to camp out and watch DMB and OAR blow the roof off of Alpine Valley two nights in a row!

My last couple days have been all about the trip this weekend. My friends and I have been searching all of the DMB boards (antsmarching.org, nancies.org, etc.) for tickets to the shows. Many of us already have tickets in our hands (I am not one of those people) and are looking for better seats, while others have been holding out for the best seats possible. It’s a known fact that ticketmaster.com will release some unused band comp tickets as the show date approaches. With this in mind, we have also been checking out the site at least every half hour. I got a call from my good friend Nasim (lead singer of O.A.R.’s wife). She told me that I’ve got at least one ticket to each night this weekend, so I can finally relax thanks to her. Although I’m still checking ticketmaster quite often to see what they have and also to let my buddies know when something is there.

With my ticket concerns mostly out of the way, I’ve been concentrating on my packing. We will be camping the whole weekend and our friends who live in Chicago don’t have much camping gear. This means that I am somehow going to take some large things with me on my flight as checked luggage. I’ve borrowed two canopies from my parents that I hope to bring with me. However, each one of them weights nearly 15 pounds! The limit on southwest flights is 50 pounds per piece of luggage. So two of the canopies in one bag is already 30 pounds. The next problem is that they are so large that only one will fit in the biggest piece of luggage that we have, and it only fits diagonally across the bag. This doesn’t leave much room for other things. The good news is that I can check up to three pieces of luggage. I’ve been considering using my hockey bag to transport some of the supplies, but it seems that it might be too big to use as a free item. In addition to these two canopies, I’m also taking one or two bag chairs, a smaller sized tent, an air mattress, a pillow and sleeping bag. That’s in addition to any clothes that I’ll pack. So you sort of see my dilemma that I face when putting it all together tonight. Another problem is that I’ve only got about an hour to get it all done. Wish me luck…

It is so loud in here that it is very hard to concentrate on anything. Let’s see if I can make it through a blog entry without getting distracted. The reason for the loudness is that they have knocked out the back wall of our break room so that they can expand it. They are also currently working on our office expansion into another quarter of the third floor. Currently we have one quarter of the floor, with a psychiatrist office occupying another quarter. That leaves half of the floor empty and we have signed on to occupy half of that giving us almost double the space we have now. The downside is that we keep losing employees and don’t really need the added space.

I snuck into the expansion area after work yesterday along with another guy I work with. He showed me where the new conference room is going to be and then I counted at least eleven new offices that are going to be over there. We don’t even have eleven people right now in the cubicle alley, so I’m guessing that we’ll have more offices than people once this is done. That is unless they start hiring some people, but we all know that it is a long process for them to hire anyone here. With all of that being said, I better get my own office. I don’t mind sharing with Margaret at all. In fact, I don’t know if there is another person here that I would rather share with. Wouldn’t it be nice to have my own room though? I think so.

With all of the noise I’ve been forced to listen to some loud music. This reminded me that I have not added a song of the moment in quite some time. That is until now, feel free to download a new Pomeroy track that I’ve been listening to a whole bunch lately titled “Soundtrack.”

I neglected to mention this before but I am going to be a Godfather. My Uncle Andy (my Godfather) asked me to be the Godfather for his daughter Emma while we were at Karen’s wedding. It just so happens that the baptism will be the day after Julie’s Wedding, which we are already in town for. It couldn’t have worked out any better really!

Crazy weekend number one was a ton of fun! The drive in, however, was not. We got stuck in traffic leaving Kansas City and again just before St. Louis. One nice thing is that they are finally making repairs to I-70 across Missouri. Oh yeah, and the highway speed limit in Indiana was bumped up to 70 MPH. That leaves Illinois as the only state between here and Ohio with 65 MPH speed limits (well Ohio is 65 too). We finally got to Kim’s family’s house around 3:30 AM and crashed before 4.

Saturday morning came early, but that is to be expected. We hung out with Kim’s family for awhile and then were off to my family’s house. My dad and I replaced the back brake pads on the Jetta. We still aren’t sure why the back pads wore out way before the front pads, anyone? From there we all got ready and then it was off to my cousin Karen’s wedding. The mass was fairly quick although late in the day. The reception was excellent! The food was great, the facility was really nice and the attendees were in good spirits. I forgot to bring my camera along with me, but that’s ok since my mother was there to get everything on film.

Sunday we woke up and headed back to the westside of town to meet up with Kim’s family and head over to Indianapolis. It was her youngest brother’s birthday and he wanted to ride go-carts. They found a track just outside of Indianapolis, so a group of us headed there and rode the go-carts for 2 hours. What a tiring way to spend the day. I’ve got blisters on my hands, my leg hurts and I know Kim is a little beat up as well. I definitely give a little credit to NASCAR drivers now. After our punishment was over, Kim and I headed back to KC and got in around 10. We actually shared driving duties last night since we both were tired from the weekend.

Today starts the never ending summer of traveling…

This weekend my cousin Karen is getting married back in Cincinnati. We are going to drive back after work today so we should hopefully get into town around 3 or 4 in the morning. Yay! :| At least we have a Busch wedding to look forward to! I learned at a young age that a Busch wedding is not something to mess around with. I believe I was 18 years old when my Uncle Andy (my mom’s youngest brother, the baby of nine children) got married. Being that he is my godfather, I was asked to be in his wedding. The wedding went fine, and then came the bus ride from the church to the reception. This is where things took a turn and my Uncles decided to feed me with lots of beer. I barely remember being introduced into the reception but I do remember having a ton of fun. That is until I ended up outside of the reception hall, seated on a tree stub, puking my brains out. Hey, at least I made it outside, right?

The weekend after this I am flying to Chicago where I am meeting up with some friends. From there we are going up to Alpine Valley Music Theatre in Wisconsin. O.A.R. is opening for DMB for two nights, which is a guaranteed good time. All I need to do now is get some tickets for the shows…

The weekend after that we will actually be in KC but we have another wedding to attend. The Reynold’s are family friends of ours from our time in Huntsville, AL. My mom has kept in touch with them throughout the years, and when I moved out here we realized that they weren’t far away in Overland Park, KS. Anyway, their daughter Stephanie is getting married so Kim and I will be joining in the festivities. Hopefully my mom and dad can make it out too!

After that we have to go back to Cincinnati again, this time for yet another wedding. Kim’s friend from high school (Julie) is getting married and Kim is in the wedding. The nice thing is that we will actually be taking a full day off of work for this trip since the rehearsal is on Friday.

The weekend after that brings us back to Cincinnati a third time. This is of course for Pig-Fest. Enough said!

And one more trip the weekend after that for me. I’m heading up to Chicago once again for O.A.R.’s Feeling Better Than Everfine Festival. I’m sure this will be another kick ass weekend, just as it always has been.

After that I am taking at least a month off with no traveling. I should be very busy, but at least I’ll be having a blast doing it all!

If you couldn’t tell from the past two days of entries, it’s been a little boring around here. Kim has been up in North Dakota for the past couple of days, and I’ve been fairly busy at work I guess. Did you know that North Dakota is no colder than it is here? I just figured that it would be like highs in the 70s since it’s three states above Missouri, but Kim told me that it was in the 90s yesterday. That’s crazy.

In good news we have officially accepted our new Little Brother and Little Sister, and their mother has accepted us too! The only thing we have to go on are these bios that the case manager writes up about each of them. I’m sure that he or she also wrote up some sort of bio about both us as well. This is what I know about Dominique, he is a 13 year old african american male. He is soft-spoken, outgoing and friendly. He is struggling in school, but enjoyed playing the drums in band before his mother made him quit. He also enjoys sports but is not on any teams. His sister, Bianca, is 10 years old and is also outgoing and kind. She enjoys school and likes to learn, although she has been in trouble for talking too much. She is into girl things like helping to cook, and she really loves to shop. These biographies go on and on about their mother, their younger twin sisters, their home and neighborhood, etc. The really hard part about these is that they use abbreviations in place of everyones name, although I’m not really sure why. Here is an example:

APF is in Kansas City area. P states CL sees APF very little, once every few months, but CL claims he sees APF more often, at least once a month. There has been no response to APF letter at this point.

I’m really curious to see what my bio looks like. It looks as if we’ll meet up with them at their house sometime during the week of July 25th and then we are supposed to see them at least once a week for at least a year but it doesn’t have to stop.

Today I also got word that Greenstreet is definitely in for Pig-Fest! I guess I better come up with a name for this inaguaral event. What do you think about pigfestapallooza? Or maybe pigfestaroo?