Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Arson (?)

We're getting to the time of year where my wife & I get extremely busy in terms of our schedules being overrun with matters of the season. For several years now it's been that we're almost always on the move usually from the second week of November right on up through the new year. If it's not a family event it's some other type of festive gathering that has us tied up, but for good reason obviously.

2014 is the first year since we've been married that we did not take a vacation the week of Veterans Day. That had become our week to take a trip seeing as how we both have the Veterans Day holiday off; the free day makes it particularly ideal for going out of town seeing as how that means we didn't have to take as much leave as we would otherwise. We took a cruise to the western Caribbean in 2011 then we went to Walt Disney World in 2012 and 2013. Not this year, though, now that The Duke is in our lives. (I don't want it to sound like I'm blaming him for us not being able to go somewhere because I know that's exactly how that last sentence would make it seem. If I had to choose between a vacation and him, I think you already know what I'd choose!) He'll be able to get out and about soon enough as he'll be getting his immunizations in the next few weeks and at that point we won't have to keep him cooped up any longer.

That said, the past few weeks have been very eventful for us. I hate to say it but we've had a bit of a string of bad luck when it comes to our vehicles. Both my truck and Jill's car have had to have work done here lately - the thermostat in her car went bad and the starter in my truck finally decided to die after having been on its last legs for about a month. My wife's father was able to get her car back in working order (he's that kind of awesome) but the truck wound up costing me in the area of $350 for parts and labor. Car repair never seems to be something people plan for, or at least I don't. I've made the statement to several people in the past that just once in my life I'd like to actually budget for tires as opposed to having to buy them on the spot as a result of absolutely having to have them when an issue arises. That's a goal to work towards, I guess.

At any rate, here's a recap of what's been going on with us here lately.

Thanksgiving

I think I look forward to Thanksgiving more so than I do just about any other holiday, including Christmas. Why? Well, I guess in my mind Thanksgiving doesn't seem like work or that a lot of showmanship is involved when you compare it to the goings on of December. With Thanksgiving you know what you're in for - time with family, lots of yummy food, and nothing else to do but sit around and watch football on TV while enjoying a plate of leftovers. Christmas, on the other hand, seems like it's so much more of a production to me. Not that I dislike Christmas, I simply prefer Thanksgiving.

For the past two years we've hosted family at our home for Thanksgiving and it has been a real treat to be able to do that. There was a point in my life where I wouldn't have believed you if you told me I'd have my own house much less that I'd have the opportunity to do something like we have with these occasions.

It's become something of a tradition that my Father in-law brings his infrared fryer and cooks the turkey for us, and that's exactly what he did this year. I'm not sure how that device works but it somehow uses propane to generate the infrared heat waves to cook whatever is inside it. (Note how I referred to it as an infrared fryer and not just an infrared turkey fryer; you can cook all sorts of things with it, not just turkeys.) Some guy who's way smarter than I'll ever be figured that out and now we have tasty Thanksgiving turkeys for which we should thank him.

My Father in-law isn't the only one who contributes to the meal, of course, as most everyone pitches in with some aspect of the menu. Case in point, my Aunt brings her potato salad which - and I'm not exaggerating here - is literally the best potato salad you'll ever have. She uses a specific type of potato, Duke's mayonnaise (which is the only mayonnaise you should ever consider using for things like potato salad), and adds in diced bell pepper which gives it a great flavor as well as giving it an interesting textural contrast to the soft (not mushy) potatoes. Other selections on this year's menu included ham, dressing, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, as well as an assortment of pies - pecan, sweet potato, coconut cream, and coconut custard.

After the meal while we were all sitting around enjoying each other's company, Jill was looking through print advertisements for sales that would be happening throughout the upcoming weekend. She brought up to me that Walmart had what sounded to be a great deal on an Xbox One bundle that included a copy of a game I've been looking forward to called HALO: The Master Chief Collection. (Long story short, I'm a HALO nut and have been since I played the first game.) The Xbox One up until a few weeks ago had been retailing for $400 but it's recently been lowered to $350 - this deal at Walmart had the console, the game, and a controller for $330. The only trick to it was the fact that it was a Thanksgiving day sale, as in one that would be kicking off at 6 PM. By the point in time my wife had discovered the sale it was creeping up on 4 PM.

In my head I was going over the logistics of the proposal. Yes, I wanted an Xbox One but did I want it at the expense of having to brave the lunacy that would certainly be the Walmart in Orangeburg, South Carolina on an occasion such as this? (As proof of that statement, I offer the story about the time I almost got run over while walking in the parking lot.) With it being so late in the day, relatively speaking, I wondered if there was already a line for the consoles and if the allotment at that location had been claimed by eager shoppers. Jill's Mom was staying with us over the weekend, and she had no issues at all with taking care of the Duke if we wanted to give it a shot, so I knew we wouldn't have to worry about his well being. All things considered we decided to go ahead and risk it - yes, we were going to Walmart on Thanksgiving, and not because we forgot the cranberry sauce.

We arrived just after 4:30 PM and I was more than a little shocked by the fact that the parking lot wasn't overflowing with cars by the time we got there. I fully expected there to be cars jammed into every conceivable spot around the property, but it was only at about half capacity which is about what it is at any given time of day (it seemed very comparable to how it is when we're typically there, to be honest). As we entered the store we were given a map detailing where specific sale items were set up. Fittingly enough, the Xbox Ones were in place behind the counter in sporting goods.

Making our way to the very back corner of the store (I've always wondered why sporting goods get stuck in one of the most remote sections of these stores) we noticed that the central portion of the space had been taped off so as to limit customer access. We could see product stacked up on pallets and wrapped in plastic - to me, they looked kind of like they were innocents being held captive and in restraints prior to being sacrificed to the oncoming horde. There were balloons labeled with the name of an item floating above the locations of each, a tactic I thought was quite clever. Also, I pointed out to my wife that many of the store associates were wearing bright yellow ponchos; we both agreed that this was most likely so that they could easily identify one another amongst the crowd.

When we got to sporting goods and I spotted the Xbox One balloon I prepared myself for the line - which I could not see from the angle of our approach because of the fact it was running down an aisle. I anticipated it being at least 30 people long and that all the consoles in stock had already been spoken for. To my amazement, there were only 9 people in line and I could see at least twice as many consoles stacked up behind the counter.

 My anxiety subsided as all we had to do now was stand around and wait for 6 PM. The goings on of the people around us provided plenty of entertainment to make the time roll by. We chatted with the people around us and we all got a real hoot out of the fact that it seemed as though the section of the store we were in was the most organized of any. As 6 PM approached we noticed that the crowd noise inside the store was incredibly loud and that there was no longer a whole lot of room to move around. About 10 minutes before 6 we heard the sound of plastic ripping followed by the shouts of a store associate who was trying to maintain order around their quadrant. I think by that point an effort geared towards maintaining order was like trying to use a fish net to catch smoke. Suddenly the notion of putting us at the back in sporting goods didn't seem like such a peculiar idea.

When 6 PM finally rolled around it quickly became evident that things weren't going well. For this sale, Walmart was offering two different Xbox One bundles at the same price point of $330, one that came with Assassin's Creed Unity and another with the Master Chief Collection as well as a free $30 Walmart gift card. We were in line in sporting goods around the gun case as they had the systems set up behind the counter there. As the sale starts those of us further back in line begin hearing rumblings from the front that the bundles aren't ringing up at the right price.

Turns out they had a different Assassin's Creed bundle that came with Kinect incorrectly mixed in with their inventory. They were ringing up at the correct price as they weren't supposed to be included in the inventory for this sale. I pointed this out to one of the clerks myself - the boxes were visibly different and no one else seemed to notice.

In advance of the sale an associate had gone through the line, counting out how many people were there to buy one of the Xbox bundles (separating the buyers from the hangers on, as it were). I believe she had our number to be somewhere in the low twenties, and she made a point to announce to everyone that they had 36 of the bundles on hand. Unfortunately that 36 included a number of the Kinect bundles - I'm sure there was at least someone in that line who didn't get a system that day.

To make matters worse a customer that was 2 spots ahead of me in line purchased then returned and re-purchased a bundle. She bought the Assassin's Creed bundle then asked for her $30 gift card. Thing was, the AC bundle didn't come with the gift card, only the Halo bundle got those. So she decides she wants to return that bundle and buy the Halo bundle instead. My point in detailing this is to say that this experience was made worse by the fact that either that customer was a crook or that the associates didn't seem to know what they were selling.

The biggest challenge we faced that evening came after I had my Xbox One in hand - that being the process of getting out of the store as well as out of the parking lot. I would love to know how many people were in the store as we left as I would assume it had to be at least 1,000 souls. We ducked, bobbed, and weaved out way down the aisles until we were out the door and into the sea of cars that was now the parking lot. When I say the lot was full it literally was full as there were people parking at businesses across the street and walking over.

I saw that there were several Orangeburg county sheriff's deputies vehicles up on the curb in front of the store as we entered; apparently they were there for crowd control and not traffic control as it took us nearly an hour to get out of the lot. I have no idea what the delay was from, other than there just being so many cars coming into the lot with nowhere for them to go. We wound up making our escape through a gap created by a pair of empty parking spaces and we got home in the area of 8:30 PM. I'm glad that I got what I wanted that evening but I severely doubt my wife and I will be making another outing like this any time soon!

Black Friday

I said we wouldn't make another outing like the one we had Thanksgiving night and yet we went out on Black Friday - go figure. Truth be told, we're not like your usual Black Friday shoppers in that we don't get up at the crack of dawn to begin the assault on your bank account. Rather we wait until around lunchtime because by then most of the real crazies are already at home or they've found somewhere with sufficient cover to allow them to crash.

I'm not going to go too deep into our experience with Black Friday this year because there's nothing too terribly interesting about the day to share. We shopped, we ate lunch (at Chicken Salad Chick - if you like chicken salad as much as we do, that's a restaurant you need to make a facet of your life), we shopped some more and then we went home. However, notice in the last sentence of the previous paragraph that I said "most" of the real crazies were out of action when we began our day...

We went to the Harbison Boulevard location of Buy Buy Baby in Columbia, SC. As we were getting in the car to head to the next shop I hear what sounded like someone yelling. I didn't pay it a whole lot of attention at first even though it seemed like the sound was somewhat nearby because I wasn't sure what I would wind up being witness to. (If I can at all avoid getting involved in a bad scene I'm going to do so at all costs.) I heard the yelling again and this time it became clear that this wasn't a sound produced by someone in distress but rather someone who was just plain pissed off.

I looked to my right and saw a young woman roughly 50 yards away, probably in her early to mid-twenties, wearing a pink hoodie who was obviously agitated. She yelled something I couldn't quite make out, stomped over to the driver's side of her vehicle, got in and slammed the door in the process. She then proceeded to crank up the car and speed off before pouncing on the brakes, putting the car into a slide with the tires smoking. I hadn't noticed yet but she stopped where she did because there was a man standing on the grass beyond the curb near a tree in the parking lot; I guess he figured he was safer there, although from the look of her she didn't appear to be the sort that would let anything get in the way of her tirade.

The two of them exchanged words. More accurately, she screamed at him about how much she hated him while he stood there trying to talk to someone on his phone. This went on for a few moments then another car pulled up behind where she was - she'd stopped in a lane of traffic, I should have bothered to point out. The driver of the other car honked their horn which didn't help matters at all as the woman got out of her car and shifted her rage to the driver of the other vehicle. Lets just say that this driver saw a couple of wild birds fly by and also got treated to an assortment of colorful metaphors.

I don't know why people get into arguments like that, never having been in one that escalated to that degree myself. Believe it or not the guy she was yelling at got into the car with her. As Tom Arnold's character in True Lies said, "Ballsy...Stupid, but ballsy." Now that I think about it, that quote kind of encompasses the notion of going out on Black Friday as a whole. Something that takes a certain amount of bravery and at least as much ignorance.

Arson (?)

During the afternoon hours of November 29, I was working in our yard assembling our Christmas decorations. We don't do anything too extravagant, just a few rope lights strung along the railings of our front porch and some net lighting in the shrubbery. Later that evening as Jill, my Mother in-law and I were settling in to watch the kickoff of the Iron Bowl our doorbell rang. This was particularly peculiar because of the fact that we don't get many visitors out our way, but especially not of the unannounced variety at night. I got up off the couch while attempting to calm down our dog who is always quick to notify us with a chorus of barks that the doorbell has, in fact, rang.

When I got to the door I saw George, who is the teenaged son of one of our neighbors. I opened the glass door and while pointing to his right he immediately said, "THAT HOUSE IS ON FIRE!"

My brain didn't instantly process what he was saying. I looked in the direction he was pointing and my eyes couldn't believe what they were seeing.

The house two doors down from ours was on fire. (I took a tiny amount of relief in this realization because at first I thought he meant the house directly beside ours. My fear there, of course, was that the fire might spread through the trees that separate the two lots and that it would then jump to our home. That house is new construction and, fortunately, is unoccupied.) "On fire" is too subtle of a description for the flames that were coming out of the house. "Blazing inferno of Hellfire", maybe, but to say it was just "on fire" is a horrible understatement.

We're all in our pajamas at this point and I was barefoot. I went back into the house to put on a pair of shoes, and of course the most readily available pair were my trusty Nike sandals. (I believe Jill told me later on that when she first went into the yard she was only wearing socks.) Jill grabbed our house phone, called 9-1-1 and alerted them to what was going on. We saw one of our other neighbors running to the house next door to the one on fire to get the elderly woman that lives there out of harms way. In the mean time, George and I were standing there watching the blaze when I realized that the grass was burning.

The flames were advancing like a tiny wave of destruction, consuming the dry, dead grass and leaves on the ground. I knew that the fire department would be on their way but I had no idea as to how long they it would take them to respond. I did the only thing I could think of doing at that moment - I went after one of our garden hoses and began unreeling it.

My first thought was to take the hose and connect it to a spigot on the house beside ours. I knew there had been water there as the builder had set out sprinklers and taken great care in making sure the fresh sod he put out got plenty of water. Apparently the water had been shut off, more than likely at the tap in the yard, because the spigot was dry. My next best option was to drag the hose back over to our house and hope that it reached far enough to do some good. I believe that hose is 250 feet in length - if it had been any shorter than that it would've been useless.

Luckily by the time I had the hose ready to go the fire department showed up. It felt like it took them 20 minutes to get there but in reality it was less than 5 minutes from when Jill made the call to 9-1-1 to when the first truck was on the scene. I was relieved, certainly, but with the adrenaline that was coursing through my system I'd be lying if I said that I was a tiny bit upset that I didn't get to earn my amateur fire fighter status by participating in the containment of the blaze. My hose may not have had the girth of theirs but I was more than ready to do what I could (no, there was no way I couldn't not make that joke here).

Bear in mind that the temperature that night was around 40°. I was wearing basketball shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals. Between the heat from the flames and the adrenaline in my system I didn't feel the cold at all - not until an hour or so later, that is, when the fire was mostly out.

We've learned since the fire that this house was nearly 100 years old and that it was built out of what's called fat lighter or fat wood. I had never heard those terms before, so if you're like me and are wondering what that means I'll tell you that essentially it means the house was built out of matches. Fat wood is typically used as kindling nowadays but in the period this home was built it wasn't uncommon to see houses made out of it because of how hard the wood is. There was likely very little that could've been done to save the house as the fire spread very quickly across those old timbers.



Once the fire was out, there wasn't much left of the house. It's difficult to see in the picture below but the majority of the structure was gutted and the roof had collapsed.

The photo below is an image of the vinyl siding on the house directly beside ours. I'm guessing here but I believe the two houses are roughly 100-150 feet apart. That's all the evidence you need to be able to understand just how hot the fire was burning. (In contrast, there is another home on the other side of the one that burned. That house is less than 20 yards away yet it suffered virtually no damage at all.)

I believe there were either 3 or 4 fire trucks that responded to the fire. In addition there were a number of volunteer firemen who drove their own vehicles, at least 1 ambulance, several Saint Matthews Police Department patrol cars, and I believe trucks from a few of our utility companies as well. I can't tell you how much we appreciate their responsiveness - it goes without saying that there were plenty of opportunities for an event like this to get out of hand, but thanks to them the damage was limited to only one piece of property.

In the next photo you can see just how much damage was done to the home.

You may be wondering about who was living there at the time. This house was actually a rental property and was vacant before the fire. We had very little interaction with the people who had been living there (they offered us a dog once; we respectfully declined) and, as a matter of fact, it had been several weeks since we had seen any cars parked at the home. Allegedly (I use the word seeing as how what I'm about to add to this story is hearsay) the electricity had been turned off, they had been evicted, and they were supposed to have been fully moved out by the day of the fire.

If that isn't a suspicious scenario I don't know what is. The day after the fire, our local police and agents from the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division poured over the scene. I have no idea where they stand with their investigation but I feel as though there's a high probability that this was a case of arson.

My faith in humanity has wavered because of this incident. It absolutely baffles me why someone would do such a thing in a crowded residential neighborhood. Did they not stop to think about what would have happened if the fire had spread? Forget the houses and the stuff in them - all that can be replaced. What about the potential for loss of life? If you have a grudge with someone, settle it with them - don't set fire to a property that's nestled in between so many other homes filled with families.

We've Been a Bit Busy

Before I begin, I'd like to note that I'm aware of the fact it's been almost a full calendar year since last I added anything to this here blog o' mine. Hopefully no one's been using this journal as a means of knowing whether or not I'm still alive and kicking - if you were, I can certainly see why you might have thought I'd fallen off the face of the Earth but I also want to say thanks for waiting around all this time. It's been too long, don't you think? Yes, I do too.

So, where do I begin? I guess the most obvious answer would be to handle this linearly, so as to keep a logical order of events flowing. I have a hard enough time remembering what happened to me two weeks ago which is why I wouldn't dare engage in some kind of Quinton Tarantino-esque re-telling of the past year where the ending takes place before the beginning and the middle is filled with random exposition. My issues with brevity are well known by this point, however I feel like my advanced usage of Twitter may have helped in that regard. We'll keep an eye on that, though - drat, I'm already well past 140 characters.

We Bought A House

Around the point in time that I last wrote an entry, my wife and I were in the beginning stages of house-hunting. Renting was no longer a desirable arrangement for us as we wanted something of our own instead of continuing to pour money into something which would never be that. Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed the house we were renting. It had been my home for almost 3 years by the time Jill and I were married, and we'd been living there together for nearly 2 more years when we began seriously looking into financing options and available properties.

I will be blunt in saying that our search for the house that would become our home was not a completely enjoyable experience. Things in the realm of real estate are altogether different than how they were several years ago, or at least that's what we were told throughout the process. Neither my wife nor I had ever gone through this sort of transaction previously, thus we had nothing to which we could compare it. Apparently a whole bunch of backhanded dealings by bankers, investors, real estate agents, and the like lead the powers that be to recognize a need for change which is why things are much more tightly run these days.

My wife and I became frustrated with our search at one moment in particular. We'd found a house that we both liked (although in hindsight I would say Jill liked it far more than I did) in a neighborhood where people we already knew lived which was in our price range. It needed some work in terms of updating but I think we both felt like it had solid potential. After talking with our agent we submitted an offer that was a bit below the original asking price. The owners then came back with a counter offer; we thought we could get them to come down more since it was an older home that we'd have to put some sweat equity into, so we made a counter to their counter. At that point the owners offered us a price that was higher than the original asking price - yes, you read that correctly. They were now willing to sell it to us at a price HIGHER than they had listed it. Essentially they were blowing us off, which wasn't a huge bother to me truth be told as I'd begun to have serious misgivings about that particular property. It was nice but not worth what we'd have wound up paying for it.

As an aside to this, I can tell you that the house in question was never sold; from what I've been able to gather the owners instead decided to take it off the market.

We continued searching and our frustrations mounted. It just didn't seem like there were many houses within our price range in the area that appealed to us enough to actually want to buy them. (There were some that we probably could've afforded that were above the ceiling we'd set for ourselves but it wouldn't have been reasonable to pursue them; the last thing we wanted was for our new home to become an immediate financial burden.) I feel like this upset my wife greatly because having a home of our own in her eyes (mine as well) was something of a gateway to us beginning our own family, and I agreed with her completely.

Honestly, we more or less stopped looking for a while. We'd literally seen all there was to see, from beautiful homes we'd have loved to have to houses that looked like they'd been better off demolished. (We viewed one home which had been repossessed; apparently the previous owners decided to ransack the place prior to leaving and we toured it in its as-is condition.) I was in a state of mind where I was content with what we had, that if something came along we'd look into it but no longer was I all that interested in the pursuit.

I forget the date but one afternoon I took some time while working at my desk to look at real estate listings in the off chance something new would have become available. I noticed a new listing in Saint Matthews, a nearby town I've known all my life seeing as how my Aunt & Uncle are residents there. It was a home built in 2006 at a corner lot on about half an acre of land. It looked to be well-maintained and equipped with everything we'd hope to find in our first home. What blew me away, though, was that the asking price was set at $119,000 which was well-within our price range.

By way of fate, coincidence, or whatever you'd like to call it, Jill had seen the listing as well - we wanted to check it out immediately so we contacted our agent and he arranged the viewing. (He happened to be the listing agent for the property, so scheduling for us to tour it was a snap.) After seeing the house in person we both wanted to move in so we entered an offer of $115,000. Our offer was accepted within 24 hours - I'll never forget when we found out as we were walking around the electronics section of Walmart. Jill got the call and it was all we could do not to start celebrating there in amongst the cell phones and DVD players.

We sought out pre-approval for our loan before we ever began looking at houses, and this was a big help in terms of looking at numbers when we would try to plot out what we might be paying per month based on the asking price of a house. (We knew what the bank said we could spend but we knew we didn't want to get anywhere near that.) Unfortunately, our loan officer decided to leave the bank we'd been working with while we were still in the middle of ironing out the transaction. I'm not going to harp on this because clerical mistakes do happen in every line of work, but I will say that there were quite a few occasions where we were called into the bank to fill out corrected documentation because the person who'd taken over for our previous loan officer had botched them. It was all handled ultimately but suffice to say that something of this magnitude is not when you want to find out a supposed "premiere lender" has trouble with numbers.

Be that as it may, we were fortunate to be able to work with a number of great professionals who assisted us tremendously in ironing out matters related to the business end of things, main among them Manny Andre with the Century 21 office in Orangeburg, SC. I can't say enough about how thorough he was in dealing with us as our agent; he was there every time we had a question or concern, coached us through every step of the process, and provided a wealth of information along the way about houses, how things work within the industry, and the whole gamut of potentialities we might've been facing. I would strongly encourage anyone in the Orangeburg/Calhoun area who's looking to buy a home contact him for assistance - he hasn't started mailing me my royalty checks yet for all the clients I've steered his way but I'm confident they'll arrive, at some point.

The Moving Process Sucks 

We closed on our house June 1, 2012. Knowing when we'd be moving out, we began the process of packing up all our belongings in anticipation of the move. You'd never think from the amount of stuff we pulled out of the house we'd been renting that only two people had lived there - more like a half dozen or so it seemed.

I rented a Uhaul for the occasion but obtaining the thing and returning it was something of a chore. I made the reservation online for a truck that would be larger than we actually needed - I figure if it's worth doing, it's worth over-doing. I wound up having to get a relative to drive me 30 miles out of town in order to pick up the truck, which according to Uhaul's dispatch operator was the only one of its size within a reasonable distance. More details regarding why this particular Uhaul experience was painful will be divulged later on.

I drove the Uhaul to our soon-to-be former abode where we had a small army of friends & family over to help us load and unload our wares. Jill and I truly appreciated all the assistance we had that day because without it the process would've taken days instead of just the better part of an afternoon. I have to admit that I promised those folks a barbeque at our house which hasn't come to fruition yet; one more thing for me to work on and look forward to having, I guess.

Now back to my Uhaul debacle. When we were finished unloading the truck, I dropped it off at the nearest local "rental office" I could find. "Rental office" is in quotes because while this joint is officially in business with Uhaul it consists of a guy who has about as many teeth as I do fingers working out of an old building guarded by what looked like a German shepherd who's had a very bad upbringing. I was told doing so would be perfectly fine by the agent who leased the truck to me that morning so I assumed I had wrapped things up in returning their property.

I began getting phone calls from an unknown number the evening I returned the truck. I ignored them at first as I figured it was just someone mistakenly calling me, then they finally left a voice mail. The message was from the guy at the "rental office" I'd dropped the truck off at earlier in the day. He told me that I had to come pick up the truck as soon as possible else I'd be charged a significant return fee, fuel surcharge, etc., etc. - I don't know how much money we were talking about but he made it seem like it would be quite sizable. (Bear in mind that it's almost 10 PM when this conversation is taking place.) I ask him why and he describes to me that the lease agreement I signed was for a round trip rental, meaning I had to return the truck to the same dealership from which I'd leased it. This wasn't what I had been told when I picked up the truck - for that matter, I had no idea Uhaul even had such a thing as a round trip option - but I had no ability to argue with this guy about it seeing as how he wasn't involved in that transaction.

My only recourse was to pick up the truck in the morning from where I'd dropped it off and return it to its point of origin, which is exactly what I did. I wound up having to put more gas in the truck (you have to return it with the same amount of gas in it when you picked it up), incur the bother of having a family member drive 60 miles round trip to get me back home, and in the end I was billed for an additional day's rental.

Suffice to say what I learned from this experience is to make sure what you're agreeing to before you drive off with someone else's property.

This wasn't the only moving we'd wind up doing.

Saying Goodbye to 200 Colonial Avenue

My Grandma passed away in July of 2011. She and my Mom had lived together in the home where I grew up for years after I'd moved away for work, but the house had become a burden upon them in more than one way. The house is 2,500 square feet (tri-level with 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths) situated on a piece of land just shy of an acre. It was way more house than they needed or cared to continue keeping up, so they'd put it up for sale. Unfortunately when they initially listed it was when the housing market was at its deepest lows thanks to the economic recession, which meant that people weren't looking to buy a home. It sat on the market for almost 2 years before it was finally purchased by a family with kids enough to fill it up and make use of all it has to offer. Their timing couldn't have been more coincidental as they wanted to move in to my family's old home at just about the same time that Jill & I would be moving into our new home.

We were elated that my Mom would get out from under the issues she had related to maintaining the house by herself. The financial and physical burden it had placed on her was a tremendous weight but she'd bore it just as she has so many others throughout her life. Still, it was an emotional process in emptying what had been our family's home and a time consuming one as well. There were lots of old memories stirred up in the process, believe you me. Things that hadn't seen the light of day for years suddenly being pulled to the forefront of your mind. People tend to collect a lot of stuff after living somewhere better than 30 years, but after many trips to Goodwill and at least one yard sale a majority of it was whittled down to only that which was deemed necessary or otherwise needful.

It was a real stroke of luck that this happened when it did as my Mom was able to move into our old house in Orangeburg. The house we'd been renting is perfectly suited to her needs as it affords her and her dog Chewie plenty of room and privacy. There was a bit of overlap between when my Mom moved out and when our old house would be ready for her as it needed a coat of paint and she wanted to put down fresh flooring as well (the carpet that was there while Jill & I had lived there was ancient, green and in need of replacement). She lived with my Aunt & Uncle during the time in between and her belongings took up temporary residence at a nearby storage rental unit.

When the day came to move Mom's belongings I found myself driving yet another Uhaul truck, this time from Rock Hill, South Carolina to Lancaster to pack it up before finishing off the day in Saint Matthews. I found myself identifying with my fellow truckers, to the point where I felt like I should begin a new diet consisting of beef jerky, black coffee and speed. The truck I drove that day was the same size as the one I'd rented to move my wife & I into our new home - the difference this time around being that we'd wind up using every bit of space the truck had to offer and then some.

As I mentioned earlier, we put her stuff into a storage unit temporarily until our old house was ready for her to move in. The concept of loading the Uhaul to then unload it knowing that we'd eventually have to move it all again seemed like an incredibly daunting task but with a lot of lifting, patience and help from friends & loved ones we got it done.

It's been about 7 months since we moved - it certainly doesn't seem like it's been that long. There was a couple days in there where I was fairly distraught about the whole ordeal but I think I hid it well. For the first time in my life I felt like I didn't have a home town anymore. I didn't have a reason to go back to Lancaster, a sensation I'd never felt. It took a while but I began to realize that the old adage of "home is where the heart is" holds truth. It doesn't matter where a house is, what matters is where your family is.

The Space Between

Almost immediately after we'd finished up the move it was time for our annual trip to Myrtle Beach with Jill's side of the family. This vacation has become something I look forward to every year as it's a fun-filled week of time away from work spent with family in a locale that couldn't be more picturesque. We rent a spot within Pirateland Campground that's owned by some friends of Jill & her family; it's located on a small inlet which makes it ripe for fishing (we haven't caught anything yet but we know they're out there by the splashes they make) and nature-watching. Some traditions we've built over the years are our trips to Medieval Times, the House of Blues, and the Annual Truesdale Myrtle Beach Putt-Putt Challenge Championship. To save time on describing what the ATMBPPCC is, Jill & I play a best of 5 series of putt-putt matches at various courses around Myrtle Beach and whoever wins the most matches gets the title. Jill bested me in 2012 and in so doing gets the rights to the trophy for one calendar year. A new pastime that I grew fond of thanks to this trip is the game of cornhole, or bean bag toss as it's referred to by some. Every camper slot seemed to have their own set of boards which made me want my own as well, except I wanted to build my own which I finally did just a few weeks ago - free time has been a valuable commodity for us over the past year, you see.

Around the early-middle portion of 2012 I began writing album reviews for a site specializing in critiquing releases by bands subscribing to the genre of heavy metal and its associates called The NewReview (check it out at http://thenewreview.net/). The site is owned and operated by a couple friends of mine that I got to know during my college years through the music scene in and around Myrtle Beach. It was a great opportunity for me as it allowed me the chance to do two things I've grown to love, those being to write and listen to music. This was a hobby, though, and as 2012 progressed it wound turn out that I needed to focus elsewhere. I left my position on their staff towards the end of the year.

I Got A New Job

My employment with Orangeburg County government was the reason why I originally moved to the midlands. If I had never taken the job I would've never met my wife; if I had never met my wife, we wouldn't own the home that we do. There are a whole bunch of other "if not for this" scenarios I could add but I think you get the idea that things (in my experience, at least) happen for a reason. By the latter stages of 2012, I had been with Orangeburg for almost 5 years and they'd been a great 5 years. Orangeburg afforded me the chance to grow professionally and learn more about real-world IT support than I ever did in a classroom. More importantly, Orangeburg allowed me to meet some of my closest and best friends. For those reasons it made the decision to leave Orangeburg all the more difficult.

I'd seen that Calhoun County government was in search of an IT director; I wasn't necessarily looking for a new job as I was fairly content with where I was but I weighed my options anyway. Saint Matthews, our new hometown, is a part of Calhoun County and their administrative offices are within 10 minutes of our home, meaning getting the job would immediately cut down on my fuel usage. There was a significant increase in salary from my position with Orangeburg to what was being offered in Calhoun. I'd have essentially the same benefits in terms of health insurance and retirement investing as those I'd enjoyed in Orangeburg. Everything seemed great on paper, like a real win-win situation, which is why I submitted my application and carried through with the interview process. All the while I knew that if I landed the position I'd have to say a whole lot of goodbyes, and that was going to be the most difficult part of it all.

I will admit to thinking I had a snowball's chance in Hell of getting the gig (a 32 year old guy with less than 10 years of experience in the industry just didn't seem like a top contender in my mind), so when it was offered to me I genuinely didn't know what to do. I'm not one to burn bridges which is why I did what I felt was best by informing my superiors at Orangeburg of the opportunity that had been presented to me. They made a gracious and generous counter-offer, which I will point out is something that they did not have to do. As I said before, I enjoyed my time in Orangeburg and more than that I will forever be grateful to them for allowing me the chance to be a part of their operation. I opted to take the position with Calhoun, though, because (much like when I left a previous job to move to Orangeburg) I felt like I would be missing out on a big step forward in terms of my career if I didn't accept it.

The last day in my old office was tough. It's the people you encounter and build relationships with that you miss the most and who are often the biggest pieces of collateral damage when it comes to the changes life inevitably brings. It's not as though I moved across the continent and would never see my friends in Orangeburg ever again; even so, there's a fair amount of adjustment involved when you're accustomed to seeing the same group of people every day then they're suddenly no longer a part of your life.

It's been said that life goes on with or without you - you either stay where you are or you learn to adapt. I'm still adapting to my new surroundings but I'd say they fit quite nicely. Every day is a new challenge, but every challenge is a chance to grow. I'm going to stop with this section now because the more I write, the more I'm starting to sound like someone who comes up with slogans for motivational posters.

Walt Disney World is Awesome

Jill & I have developed something of a tradition when it comes to taking a vacation around the second week of November. Why such an odd time of year for a vacation, you ask? She's a government employee as well, you see, and we government types have fairly consistent schedules when it comes to holidays that are observed every year, Veterans Day being one of those. The strategy being that you take a vacation when you're already going to have a day off anyway so that you wind up using that much less annual leave time.

In 2011 we took a Carnival cruise to the western Caribbean and enjoyed every minute of it - even the night when the boat was sailing at what felt like mach 2 because we were rushing back to port due to there being a passenger with a medical emergency on board. That was the second cruise we'd taken in two years, the first being our honeymoon, and while we love those trips we wanted to do something different this time around.

I will fully admit that when we got married my ideas for the honeymoon were Hawaii or Walt Disney World. I don't think I ever really thought of Hawaii as being a realistic option because of the expense. I more or less included it because I figured if my wife didn't want to get involved in that much travel Disney would win by default and I'd have wound up getting my way regardless. The cruise was her idea and it was a great experience, but be that as it may I still wanted to get her into the House that Mickey Built before we take the next hurdle in life as a couple, that being starting a family and having kids. Fortunately, it didn't take any arm-twisting at all for me to get Jill's interest up in going to WDW as she wanted to go just as much as I did.

My family & I went to Disney every year when I was a kid, or so it seemed, and I have always adored it. I've seen those parks expand and evolve over time; I probably know more about their development than an average person realistically should, a fact about me that my wife found out about thanks to me spouting off trivia about them ad nauseum. It had been close to 4 years since I'd been to WDW by this point, however it had been probably 20 years since Jill had last visited - that point made, I really think she may have been looking forward to the trip more than I was.

We booked our vacation directly through Disney and we opted to stay at the Pop Century, one of their value resorts which is on the lower end of the spectrum as it relates to hotels run by Mickey & Co. I can tell you with absolute honesty that the low-rent section in Disney is nicer than most 4 star joints, so don't let the classification fool you. We knew going into this adventure that we were going to be in our room to sleep and not much else, and that's the thing I've always tried to keep in mind when booking a hotel - they all look pretty much the same when your eyes are closed.

I had spotted a deal on the Disney Resorts Facebook page that offered a free quick service meal plan which would include two quick service meals and a snack per day for each of us. Quick service in Disney terminology refers to, as it was described to us, any meal that you pick up on a tray; it's their equivalent to fast food, more or less, but this is unlike any fast food you'll see anywhere else in the world. The quality is second to none, the options are vast, and the fact that we were getting what amounted to a package worth several hundred dollars for free was unbelievable.

To anyone who may be reading this and thinking about going to Disney, keep the last two paragraphs in mind when planning your trip. If you luck up you can get 7 days at a value resort with your theme park tickets and a whole bunch of awesome food included for around $1,700. It may sound like a lot but if you book in advance you can make a deposit and pay off your balance over time. Please don't snub your nose at free food either because trust me when I say that unless you bring your own you're likely to drop a good chunk of coin on sustenance during your stay.

The trip itself was every bit as magical as we'd hoped it would be. I could spend days on end talking about our experiences but I'm going to sum up every bit of it in one picture.

That's my wife while riding the Flight of the Hippogriff attraction at Harry Potter World within Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure theme park. I love to see her smile and there were plenty of those to be had during our time in Walt Disney World. That's what life is all about for me now - striving to live not just a content existence but one where joy can be found in every moment.

Our time with the Mouse flew by - something that seems to happen with all our vacations - but I know we'll get back there someday and make a whole bunch more memories.

The Holiday Season (aka, The Chaos Season)

Thanksgiving was upon us almost as soon as we got back from Disney. We hosted our first family Thanksgiving dinner at our new home, and it was quite the spread as we had everything from deviled eggs to fried turkey. There would be many more epic meals throughout the weeks that followed as it seemed like we were on the road every weekend from roughly the end of November up through the beginning of January. My wife and I are fortunate in that our families are all within driving distance, so while we may log a lot of miles in getting from here to there at least we aren't like many other families who wind up spending more time around the holidays sitting in airports or dealing with other travel-related woes than with their loved ones.

My Mom's birthday is in December and she would be celebrating her 60th in 2012. Since it was a definite special occasion, we took her to a local restaurant that offers a style of cuisine that's quickly become one of our favorites, that being a Brazilian steakhouse. I had been introduced to them earlier in 2012 when a good friend of mine and I visited one while we were attending a software conference in Greensboro, NC. This particular restaurant is called Cowboy Brazilian Steakhouse (note that that's the correct spelling; they don't use a plural or possessive form of the pronoun) and it's in the heart of downtown Columbia. I don't think I can give credence to the food with mere words; do yourself a favor and search out a restaurant of this kind near you. If you're a meat eater like me, trust me, it's some of the best food you'll ever have.

I planned a quick trip to Charleston for Jill & I the weekend before Christmas. Charleston is within a 90 minute drive for us and we love visiting that area. We go down to the low country (as it's referred to here in South Carolina) a couple times a year but the days we spend there always seem to get cut short because of having to drive to and fro. For this reason, I thought it would be great if we spent the night. I booked us a room and we got into town fairly early in the day that morning. We normally wander around the historic city market as there's an amazing assortment of shops and restaurants to enjoy in the area, and we began this trip there.

It was while walking around the market that I got a call from my Uncle notifying me that my Mom had been injured while stopping at a gas station in Kershaw county. She and my Aunt had been on their way to Lancaster to see some friends and members of our extended family when they decided to take a restroom break. Mom doesn't remember what happened to cause the fall but she wound up taking a tumble that resulted in her suffering a laceration to her lower lip and an upper humeral fracture on her left side. To put that in more simplified terms, she broke the part of the bone in your upper arm that connects to the shoulder socket.

Luckily enough, Mom wasn't alone when she got hurt. Like I said, my Aunt was traveling with her that day and she was a great ally in helping my Mom through the process of getting treatment. My Uncle coordinated the flow of information amongst everyone as the situation changed throughout the day. Jill's Mom & Dad were brought into the ordeal. We'd dropped off our dog at my Mom's house since she'd agreed to keep him overnight while we were out of town, so Jill's Mom came and got him then took him to their home for safe keeping. I felt bad that we were out of town when this all happened, but there was nothing we could've done to help. I've talked with my Mom about the calamity she went through that day and she agrees with me, which makes me feel better in light of it all.

Mom has since had surgery to repair the damage and is going through physical therapy now. She has a lot of work ahead of her in getting back to being fully functional, but I know how strong my Mom is. She's endured divorce, raised a child as a single mother, taught elementary school for more than 30 years, had both knees replaced, successfully fought breast cancer and undergone a double mastectomy, lost both of her parents, and now this. No, her name isn't Job, it's Barbara - she's my Mom, I love her, and I know her spirit and her body will endure this trial as well.

We had originally planned to host Christmas festivities at our house but with Mom's injury it wound up being more convenient if we all came to her. Me, Jill, my Aunt & Uncle, my Mom and her dog all celebrated Christmas together (yes, Chewie opens his own presents). It was a house packed with family and that's the way it should be.

Jill & I have a unique arrangement as we get to open presents 3 times seeing as how we celebrate once with my family, again with her family, then a third time with just the two of us - well, three of us counting our dog Roddy. It was a really special feeling to have Christmas in our own home. It's one more thing that only a few years ago a part of me never thought I'd get to do.

To Infinity...

I'm going to go ahead and be blunt about this. Right now I have no idea what comes next for my wife & I. I mean I have things in mind that I'd like to do but to say we have definitive plans for what we're going to be doing with ourselves in the near future is totally up in the air. (The only definitive venture we're plotting now is trying to start a family - bow-chicka-bow-wow.) That's not a bad thing, though, because I'm discovering living life one day at a time to be fairly rewarding. We're one month into 2013 and life is about as good as it's ever been for us. We're both gainfully employed, we have our own home, we're healthy, and we have a fantastic relationship. I wake up every morning feeling thankful for all that I have and all that I am, pleased with another opportunity to go out into the world. I have everything that I need and so much more. I think that's about the best way I could end this update entry, by simply being appreciative.

And so much for that brevity thing, huh? It's overrated.