Don't Plunder the Wonder

Because it has been the subject of a little friendly teasing by fellow bloggers, I'll skip out on welcoming you back, reader. Just know that my thanks are still present.

Had quite the weekend here in the Burgh, and it was a nice change from the weekend I had last week, being at J Hop and all. Some great news though, my Mom has returned home from the hospital. She was discharged Sunday evening. So that is some wonderful news. She will most likely be undergoing some Chemotherapy and radiation treatments. During the surgery the doctors removed 30 lymphnodes and 1 of them was malignant. 1/30 isn't bad, but she'll still need the treatments. A small setback but overall her situation is very positive and manageable. Thanks again to everyone for your expressions of encouragement.

So Friday night was an interesting one. Activities included a free happy hour at McFadden's that wasn't free at all, but still a great time. I was sort of a big deal while we were there. A bartender gave me 4 free shots for my friends and I. Ok so I'm not that big of a deal, it just so happens this girl is currently "knowing" one of my coworkers, in the biblical sense of the word. Free shots just the same though.

Saturday was a fun one as well. I destroyed most of my intelligence and civility by playing GTA: Liberty City for a good 10 hours. It was pathetic. I got home at 9am (I obviously crashed somewhere other than my apartment since I was wasted the night before) and began playing then until 7pm, stopping only for sustenance and the callings of nature. I got my fill of car jackings and killings though. I shoot this one bitch consistently because every time I go to get a burger in the game (thus "healing" me from all the gang fights I'm in) she calls me a fat ass. Obviously a bad ass gangster cannot let this indignation go unpunished. Unfortunately she always comes back to life to insult me again, so the murder does little more than the assuage my annoyance.

Saturday night had a great game of poker in-store for me. My fellow blogger and friend Mike McCall has already given you a rundown of the evening and some "how well do you know your friends?" trivia in his bog, McCall of the Wild (http://mccallofthewild.blogspot.com), so I won't spoil the fun with a recap.

So you are perhaps wondering what significance the title of this blog holds to the story that I've just told. Well, up until now, none at all. I got this little phrase from a bottle cap of Magic Hat. This is the second time that I've become greatly amused by Magic Hat caps, the first being "You Can't Be Real Unless You Feel". So I've now decided to follow in so many others' footsteps and collect the caps in hopes of one day having enough to cover a table or some other piece of furniture that wont' fit in my apartment. Anywho the point I'm telling this to you is so that you can help me achieve my goal. If you enjoy a Magic Hat at the bar or at home, do me a favor and throw it in your pocket, or a cup, and the next time you see me, give me a little present.

Well my lunch break is over, so I guess I've got to finish this up. Until next time!

Life in the Fast Lane

Oh, hello again!

Ok just kidding, that was dumb. But thanks for coming back to read my blog. So I'm sitting in the waiting room of the surgery wing at J-Hop, and I'll be here all afternoon in fact. Perhaps the coolest news I've gotten so far this morning (I know you might be thinking, "it's only 930, how much news could you have seen?" I've been up since 5 am, so suffice it to say, I've heard a lot news) was heard from the waiting room coordinator. I asked her where I could find some wi-fi so I could get online. She smiled at me, and said "have a seat honey, we have Wi-fi right here"

So that's how I was able to get online. We're waiting here basically all day, mom's surgery is scheduled until 3pm. So I have some time on my hands, and I thought what a great time to enter in a new pondering.

So on a recent road trip to Allentown, I got into a discussion with my traveling cohorts about proper highway etiquette, and more specifically, proper usage of the left lane. Now everyone knows that I'm a fairly excitable guy, some might say I border on high strung. What ever your opinion on that topic may be, you all know if you've ever driven with me that I get very VERY upset when I come upon someone driving in the left lane, when in fact they shouldn't be there.

Now I wouldn't profess that I'm the best driver in the world. Well...not openly at least, haha, but I would say that I do posses an above average knowledge of the road, and how to handle a car, ect. This is perhaps why I become so frustrated when I encounter someone going 50 mph in the left lane, with not a car in sight. They post signs everywhere, "Keep Right, Pass Left"

Now this is not to say that you cannot ever drive in the left lane. This adage doesn't suggest that you should weave in and out of the left lane for every car that you encounter going slower than you. It's completely acceptable to stay in the left lane to pass a line of cars that for what ever reason are choosing to progress slower than you are, and then when you find a stretch of open right hand real estate, to move over.

This thought again resurfaced last night as I was driving from Pittsburgh to Baltimore. I encountered numerous times a vehicle lazily cruising along in the left lane. Just hanging out, all "Sunday drive" like. I even encountered someone who moved over for me (also a topic of discussion, but a different time perhaps) and the moved BACK OVER after I passed. Now that doesn't make any sense to me. The right lane was open for miles and miles. Oh well.

Now I can hear all of you saying it now, how hard is it to just go around them on the right. Not hard at all, it's just the principle of the subject that I'm discussing. Now I am not seeking to offend anyone with this thought, and I apologize if you feel that it was targeted. Not at all. I only write this blog with the intent of informing you. Food for thought if you will. Perhaps next time you're on a road trip, or on your way to work, or off on vacation, this post will stick out in your mind and you'll flick that turn signal to the right, and move on over. Then a person, not unlike myself, won't have to floor it by you, engine racing, horn blaring, expletives pouring out of their mouth, flicking you a signal of their own.

Well thanks for listening till the end. To jump on the "music video in post" bandwagon, I leave you with this. It probably doesn't have any relevance other than the title, but it's a damn good song, so far as I'm qualified to say. Ta-tas for now ;)

Just a quick update

I'm heading home today, well actually directly to Baltimore for my mom's surgery. You guys can get updates at this website,

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/debbiepagach.

I'm going to try to update it regularly as information is available.

Thanks guys, and I'll talk with you later.

Money In, Money Out

Hello Friends,

Thanks for coming back for another read. Upon being nagged for another posting, I'm taking some time out of my lunch break to write a little bit.

First let me again thank everyone who's been supportive and thoughtful during this hospitalization issue with my Mom. A quick update; she got to go home last night, after a second ERCP. What's an ERCP, and why'd she have to have another one you ask? Well, and ERCP is an endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography procedure. Basically they snake an endoscope through your digestive system, and then place a stint in her bile duct which hopefully opens the blockage and allows her biliruben to drain naturally so her jaundice will go away. Well the first one didn't work, so they went back in and did it again. Apparently that one didn't work either, which is odd but they sent her home anyway. I guess because she's going to be back on Tuesday as it is. Tuesday is when she will undergo surgery to have the mass around her pancreas removed. It's apparently a long, envasive procedure, so your continued thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated. I'll be heading home Monday night for a few days to be there.

So moving on. I've realized that though my blog's title leads the reader to believe that it is a collection of thoughts and well, ponderings, I haven't actually pondered anything yet. Well let me assure you I'm trying to change this. Life has just been a little busy since the creation of this blog.

So since I've started my full time job and moved into my own apartment, I'm painfully aware of how expensive it is to do anything. Now I can already hear you guys making comments about how frivolous (read: frugal if you're Jamie) I am with my money, but that's just because I have to furnish my apartment and such, and I'm really very conscious of my money and try not to spend it.

Recently I tried to sell a set of the extra wheels that came with my Saab, but I wanted to keep the tires. So I called up all the tire shops in the area and asked them if they could remove the tires and how much that would cost. To my overwhelming surprise each of these places wanted to charge me upwards of $20 per wheel to remove them. Now I dont know how many of you have ever had your tires changed while you stay at the shop, but it's actually a very mundane process. All these guys do is stick your wheel, tire and all onto a machine, flip a switch and stand back and watch. The machine spins the wheel around and peels off the tire, the guy steps over, places the new tire on, and flips the switch in the opposite direction, and presto! Process finished. Now how can a company seriously try to charge someone $20 for that process? There's hardly any labor involved, the machine has long since been paid off if the tire shop has been in business for any amount of time. Really, I mean come on. Well to make a long story short because I have to go to a job training, the guy at Pep Boys must have realized how ridiculous this was because he hooked me up with a really sweet deal. $10 to have all 4 tires removed.

So I ran out of time before I was able to talk about todays ponderance, but I promise that soon there will be some. Thanks again for reading!

Driving it like I stole it..."Boosted"

I forgot to update everyone on "the Saab". I got it back on Thursday, thanks in no small part to Lauren Parker's excellent tolerance skills for rush hour traffic. It drove beautifully on the way to Waynesboro, and I have once again tuned it up to "Stage 1", which is how it was tuned when I bought it.

Let me just say this. If I was able to get speeding tickets in my mother's Buick, then you should all make arrangements in advance to bail me out of prison. This thing is F....A....S....T....

Home Sweet Home, with a bitter aftertaste

Hello friends, thanks for coming back for a second read. This week's entry is going to be slightly less upbeat than the first one, due to some unfortunate circumstances surrounding the previous week.

As many of you may know by now, my mother received some unfortunate news on Thursday. After noticing that she was jaundice one evening she went to the hospital the next day and upon testing, the doctors discovered that she has a small mass pressing against her pancreas. Indeed, this is unfortunate and disturbing news. When I learned of all this I decided to come home for the weekend and accompany my parents to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore this coming Monday. We do not yet know what exactly is in store for her down there. We assume she will have some sort of biopsy done on the mass to determine if it is cancerous or not, as well as being admitted to remedy the jaundice. Beyond that, we do not know what is going to happen.

That all being said, we are all hopeful and optimistic, especially her. My mother is an amazingly strong woman, and she has been taking it all very well. She is coming up on her 11th year of remission for her breast cancer, and that is giving her great strength.

Thank you all who have expressed your encouragement in this matter. We appreciate you keeping her in your thoughts in prayers.

Sorry that this entry was so short, and so solemn. I promise once this one is past I will actually have an entry on something to ponder, for the blog's namesake. Haha. Thanks once again for reading.

Lemon Flavored Turbo

Well I decided to give this "blogging" thing a try. A bunch of my friends are doing it and it seems like a fun endeavour, as well as a great way to keep everyone up to date about what's going on with me, since we dont see each other nearly every day like during the school year. So that said, let us begin.

Since graduation at the end of April lots of big changes have been happening for me. I moved to my own apartment in the small neighborhood of Morningside. If you ask Jamie to give you directions she'll undoubtedly lead you into the backwoods of Ohio, because she believes that's where it's located, but it in fact isnt that far from everyone. Its just a stone's throw away from Highland Park and the all too familiar Negley Ave. Its a great little 1.5 bedroom. (technically its 2 but the one is so small its just an office to me). I know I havent had everyone out to it yet but I promise that sometime in the near future I will have a get together and we can "break in" the place, though no actual "breaking" please.

Also, I'm realizing throughout the course of writing this last passage that I have no clue how to tell the difference between "its" and "it's". If anyone would like to shed light on this dilemma that would be great. If memory serves me its('s) completely backwards from every other standard way to use an '

Also about the time of graduation I started my first full time, college graduate job at the Bank of New York Mellon. I spent several weeks trying to describe the position as exciting and flashy and financially minded as I could (partly because I was afraid it was an accounting position and partly because I didn't really know) Now that I'm a month and a half in, I can tell you, without a doubt.....I'm an accountant. Haha, oh well, thus is life. It's going really great so far and I'm very excited about where this job is going to take me.

I've just decided to alternate my usage of "its" and "it's" because its driving me crazy not knowing which one is the appropriate usage. Anywho, now onto the "main event"

Anyone who's spent more than 5 minutes talking to me knows that I'm extremely interested (read: obsessed) with automobiles. I love them, I love driving them, I love reading about them, I love buying them. Indeed, anyone who's spent another 5 minutes talking to me knows I've had 8 cars since I started driving at the age of 16. Well everyone, number 9 has just arrived. Last week I got my 9th (and hopefully final for quite a while) car. It's a 2003 Saab 9-5. Its black, it's fast, and.......its in the shop. Yes that's right had it a week and already broke it. Anyone who's spent a yet additional 5 minutes, that's 15 minutes total time talking to me knows that I'm incredibly unlucky with cars, and that anything can and will go wrong with them. Luckily, this one came with a factory warranty, and it shouldn't cost me anything out of pocket. *Crosses fingers* So come Monday I hope to be back in "The Saab" and having a carefree, happy time with it, sans any downtime.

Well that's it for now. Thanks for reading my first blog. Sorry it was so long. I'd love to hear what you have to say and I look forward to the next post :)