The agony of defeat

I don't know which of these two guys I hate more: The one on the left or the one on the right.

(From the classic 1996 film: Swingers)

Mike: How did you get over it man? How long did it take you? 

Rob: I don't know, man. Sometimes it still hurts. I don't know, man. It's like you wake up every day and it hurts a little less, and then you wake up one day and it doesn't hurt at all. And it's like, and this might sound weird, but it's like you almost miss that pain. 

Right now, I yearn  for the day when I wake up and it doesn't hurt at all. I know it's coming eventually, but it still seems like it's a hell of a long way off. 

Man, we love sports

The above picture is why I love baseball. 

Go Rangers. 

Random playoff musings

I've kind of slacked off on the sports intensive talk here ever since I bailed out on the bit of trying to write about every single Rangers game during the regular season. (Failed) But it's postseason time in the Vittas household, and we mean business. So let's get to it.

The playoffs have undoubtedly started for our little Texas Rangers here in the big A(rlington), and through two games it saddens us to say things have a different feel than last year.

That's not completely surprising. Last year was such a high pretty much from the point of that giant winning streak over the summer and landing Cliff Lee that you could make the case it carried on through the playoffs. The claw and antler craze was also huge in building fan momentum. This postseason it's just seemed, I don't know, different. Yes the club reached the best record in their history, but there was no idea who their opponent would be or where they would play until the last day of the season. I think that caused a bit of uncertainty amongst playoff ticket buying fans. A quick look on StubHub revealed plenty of tickets available for each of the first two games well up until game time.

I think that we, as Ranger fans, all got a little spoiled in one sense or another by the success of last season. It's not always going to be that easy or chock full of good times. (Editor's note: Not that it was all "easy" the entire run through the playoffs last season. It did go to a final Game 5 versus the Rays. And need I bring up any of the activities during that opening ALCS game against NYY last season? I wanted to strangle someone. But I digress.)

There were many memorable moments from last year that linger with me, but one of the most lasting memories from 2010, aside from the obvious celebration of defeating the evil Yankees and reaching the World Series, took place during the ALDS opener at home. It had come fresh off the heels of taking a 2-0 lead in the series and the park was full of pent up excitement. You could literally cut it with a knife. The video to that Kid Rock song right before the lineup was introduced was awesome as well because the crowd was so spontaneously towel-waving and ear-shatteringing noisy that it brought us both goosebumps.

Then we went out and lost the next two games and hand to go to a final game in the ALDS to move on, but that's besides the point.

Fast forward to this season, and my earlier point was especially driven home after Game 1's 9-0 drubbing at the hand of the Rays. It was so miserable. It was beyond miserable. It was miserably miserable full of miserableness.

But then Game 2 happened and....a sign of life? A turnaround in the series? Too early to tell. But the crowd had more life to it, and so in turn did the Rangers. The Mike Napoli single to tie the game last night was easily the most exciting moment of this series thus far, and the crowd reacted as such. 


Game 3 occurs Monday. I'm definitely much more a fan of going to Tampa tied 1-1 instead of down 2-0, so we'll see what happens.

Home life

The Vittas' love America.

We've gotten a little lax on this whole blog thing. Sorry about that. When you work 374 hours a week it tends to cause you to become a little lethargic in other areas of your life. Like blogging.

But the other part of that is simply - we have no life.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. We aren't world travelers. We enjoy the simple things.  A lazy Saturday afternoon, a baseball game, etc. To put it another way, if we owned a hammock I'd be in it as much as possible. It helps the ol' central nervous system but it gives you crap as far as interesting things to blog about go.

So what's been going on? 

Well, September has marked the two month mark of home life on the corner of Hinsdale and Whistler. Overall, I'd say it's been a peaceful existence. Also a learning experience.

In the two months that we've lived here, some of the things I've mastered the art of are:

- Watering the lawn: When the climate around you closely represents the atmosphere of the sun as ours has over the past few months, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep your yard alive. At first, I thought I watered too little. Then I saw our water bill and realized I had been watering too much. Now with the drought reaching epic-crazy levels, we have been sacked with water restrictions as much of the state has, and I'm down to a simple two day a week watering schedule. It's been okay so far, and we had some pretty good rains yesterday evening, so it's surviving for now. But if it dies, it dies. Oh well. Life goes on.

- Taking out the trash twice a week: Is this notable? No. But do you have a blog of your own? Most of you can also answer no. So there. Our nice little corner lot has a little patch of grass (that had been devoid of any kind of mowing for awhile and started to get kind of gnarly - more on the lawn mowing in a moment) that collects our refuse twice a week. When we first moved in, this was crushed cardboard box central. Any child looking to built a fort or castle out of them would have been in heaven. But over the weeks to come, it's been toned down to a bag or two of garbage and our recycling bin. Cool, right? This is noteworthy to me because for the first time since living at home I've been saddled with the responsibility of taking out the trash. I feel so adult.

- Mowing the yard (front and back): Ah yes, here's what we all came to read, no? For starters, let me begin by saying that when we purchased our lawn mower off Craigslist from a fine fellow in Carrolton, I realized it was a push mower. I didn't think that would be a big deal, and for the most part, it hasn't been. Am I whipped as a speckled pup by the end of the affair? Yes, but I'd like to think that a great deal of that is also because it's been hotter than hades each time I've had to go out there and mow this summer. But overall, a push mower has sufficed.

Roots have proved to be a semi-major annoyance and have been a beating for my poor little lawn mower to navigate around, but I've learned to just go to town on the area around them with the weed eater and it's made life a little easier.

As far as the bagging versus not bagging the grass clippings debate, I have chosen not to. Mainly, my reasoning for having decided to do this is because it would take me way too freaking long to mow the lawn if I had to stop and empty the bag every five minutes. And that time frame is probably generous, for you see we have mutant grass that likes to grow an inch every day. Maybe every hour, I don't know.

- Met some neighbors: Only some, not many. And nobody has come by with a basket full of fresh baked cookies or a bottle of wine or anything of that nature yet, but I've exchanged pleasantries with a few of our street mates while out mowing the lawn and getting the mail. We've also learned from our previous owner that we've got someone living by us that cooks up a mean brisket. I've got to make friends with him.

And finally

- Nailing down a good route to and from The Ballpark: Silly yes, but key if you're a Vittas. It's no quick two minute trip any longer but it'll do. 

Before and After Pics

Well, I tried to wait until we had some semblance of things in place and boxes out of the way. So, here you go. Noticeably absent are the two extra bedrooms which are still an assortment of bags and boxes. One will become the guest room, the other will morph into the office/sports room.


Family Room

before: (gross)






after: painted and added crown molding






Dog Room

before:





after:






Master Bedroom (Hey Now)

before: ugly paint






after: paint and crown molding






Master Bathroom

before: attack of the sponge-painted stars





after:






2nd Bath

before: aaaggh, scary






after: the baseball bathroom still has some work to be done.
(please note the baseball bat towel rack on the counter that I just got in the mail today)






Living Room

before: (awesome curtains)





after:





Kitchen

before: 1979 threw up in the kitchen and never left.





after: box light = gone, can lights in / popcorn ceiling = gone, smooth ceiling in / terrible border = gone, new paint





Dining Room

before: blech





after: popcorn ceiling, ugly fan = gone / new ceiling texture + new light fixture + crown molding = in

Homeownership: Day 26

Well, we're all moved in. Pretty much.

Moving day came and went without too much of a hitch. Mel talked me off the ledge re: moving everything ourselves and we went the approach of a moving company, Two Men And A Truck.

They made everything much smoother, and probably saved multiple vertebrae fractures for us. We even provided them with pizza. They had some, but didn't partake of it too much for fear of vomiting. Nice.

We had some pictures of the new house to blog, but that was before there was furniture and whatnot firmly in place. Now we must take more pictures, and those are the ones we will blog.

Soon, my friends, soon. All good things come to those who wait.

Homeownership: Day 13

Creepy. 

The first weekend of yard work is in the book

(Editor's note: I meant to take pictures of this momentous occasion but I did not. I'd like to think that I was just too into the task that was at hand. While that may be somewhat true, I was also lazy and didn't want carry a camera or my phone in my pocket while I was pushing a lawnmower around, or climbing through hedges in order to trim them an appropriate distance back from our house all while dripping - and I do mean DRIPPING - with sweat. Sorry. Sue me.)


Here's the lowlights highlights of the weekend.

Mowing and edging
When the reality set in that I was going to spend my time mowing our front and back lawn using a push mower and not a self-propelling one, like the ones I had used as a kid and for pretty much my entire life, I got a little defeated because I knew that when the chore of mowing the lawn was concluded I would likely be extra-extra tired instead of just regular tired.

Wasn't too bad, as it turns out, as evident by my still being alive to talk about it. For a push mower, and a Craigslist purchase, the thing worked like a dream and made the sometimes arduous process of lawn mowing a fairly easy - and might I say, somewhat enjoyable - task. Thank you Briggs & Stratton for constructing such a fine piece of machinery. High-five.

Edging proved to be a little more difficult because of some nasty angles near the street. That's gonna take some practice so that I don't carve up the lawn. But for now, it'll do.

ANNOYANCE LEVEL: 2 (Low)


Trimming the grapevine
When we last left our backyard, it was a little overgrown. One of the two apple trees we have was being attacked and overtaken by a nearby grapevine, creating some kind of apple/grape plant hybrid. A trip to the local hardware store (not Home Depot) produced a rather sharp pair of shears, and a little while later, a ladder, and then I was off to work.

The job of getting all this mess cut down and untangled at first appeared to be a daunting one, but once things got rolling, with a few snips here and there and then a couple of yanks I was pulling down sections of grapevine out of our poor old apple tree like nobody's business.

Granted, I'm not sure if that was the appropriate method for getting that stuff out of there, but it damn sure was effective. Most annoying part of it all was having to bag it up and throw the shrapnel away.

ANNOYANCE LEVEL: 1 (Annoyance? What annoyance?)


Weedwacking
I know what you're thinking, and stop it. There's children reading this. 


This should have been a relatively simple thing to do. There wasn't even a lot to necessarily weedwack, but I wanted to get the initial wacking (I said, stop it) out of the way. 


Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it was. Except for the fact that turned one trip to the hardware store to purchase the appropriate spool into two because I had no idea what kind to purchase. Struggling.

ANNOYANCE LEVEL: 4 (For unnecessary trips to the hardware store)


Trimming the bushes
I mean it now, stop with the giggling.

Here's where things became the diciest for me in this whole process. We had acquired an electric hedge trimmer from Craigslist at the same time we purchased the weedwacker, lawnmower, et al. All that remained needing to be purchased was an extension cord of the outdoor variety, which was picked up (this time, from Walmart, on a Friday night no less.....what possessed me to do that I have no idea). A nice long 100 foot long one (hey, I wanted to to err on the side of caution).

So as I climbed through the bushes to trim them back from the kitchen windows, getting poked at and pricked (.......) through my shorts (!!!!!!!!) and sweat-soaked t-shirt, I managed to somehow get the cord caught into the blades of my electric hedge trimmer and cut clear through the dang thing.

Kaput. Dead.

Fail.

Welp, that $18 went far.

On the other side of the house, lay the treacherous blackberry bush, complete with some of the thorniest thorns in the history of thorny plants. Let's just say I'm lucky there was minimal blood loss.


ANNOYANCE LEVEL: 8 (For obscenely high levels of plant hating)


Painting wraps up this week. Moving day is scheduled day for Saturday. 

Almost home.