Welcome To The Weekend Getaway

This weekend I went up to Connecticut to visit one of my cousins. We had a lot of fun and my cousin showed me around his home town of New Heaven. It was a lot of fun and Connecticut pizza is amazing.

Visiting my cousin was my first big trip in the area and it was worth it. I was nervous about driving in a completely new area, but thankfully my roommate lent me her GPS. It worked great on the way to my cousin's house, but on the way back today I kept loosing the satellite signal. I just kept praying that I'd eventually find my way home.

Part of the fun of weekend getaways is exploring new places. Being new to the area allows for a chance to meet as many new people as possible and go to tons of new places. I still haven't seen a lot of New York City and Sleepy Hollow is about a 15 minute drive.

Weekend getaways can be planned out way in advanced or decided on in half a second. There's a guy who lives in my building who takes his motorcycle, picks a direction and just goes. I wish I could do stuff like that, but I'm a planner.

Some tips for a weekend getaway (for those who are on there own or with a friend).

1) Check for toll roads - if you don't have an EZ Pass or cash on hand things can get tricky. Also tolls in general just start to add up. It's almost 30 dollars to go from Baltimore Maryland to Ridgewood New Jersey. That's more than a tank of gas.

2) Where to sleep - this is more important if you are doing a spontaneous getaway. For the out door adventurer,  it might be a good idea to have a tent and spare air mattress in left in the car. Hopefully a camp ground can be found. Otherwise, hope a decent hotel has a vacancy. These are the days I'm so glad we have Yelp.

3) Avoid getting lost - at least avoid getting lost for too long. Investing in a good smart phone or GPS (for those of us who are technologically challenged) is extremely helpful. Sometimes you can even program them to avoid tolls and major highways.

4) Take chances - if there are a lot of cars in the restaurant parking lot, or a line around the corner. It might be worth it to stop in and try the food. It could be a tourist trap or it could be a great life time experience. Either way, there will be a story out of it.

5) Forget about work on Monday (or which ever day you have to go back to work) - yeah it'll still be there when you wake up bright and early Monday morning, but just for that moment pretend you don't have to worry about anything. Let yourself be in the moment and enjoy it.

I'd like to thank my cousin and his wife for having me this weekend. Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off), please like, share, or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you like hearing from me.

Welcome To Points of View

Happy Father's Day! It's the day  role to celebrate the dad in your life. It doesn't matter if they are biologically related to you or were just a great role model in your life, they are someone you call dad. I love and appreciate my dad (even when he's driving me crazy). If I were able to visit him today, I'd give him a big hug.

My parents taught me a lot of things. One of those was that you might not agree with everyone you meet. In these cases its good to listen to the other person's ideas and what they think and then tell them your point of view. Well, that's the ideal world any way.

Hearing other people's points of view, especially if they are very different from yours, can be very challenging. Often to avoid a fight, the person least likely to start a fight will just nod their head and hope that the subject changes soon. Other times an argument is inevitable. Those are the worst.

It's also hard to put yourself in someone else shoes. Until something is perceived it is hard to be aware of or understand it. It can be hard to relate to someone who has a very different way of viewing the world. It's best to be as respectful as possible.


Of course, sometimes no one in the party agrees to listen. Or they've both listened so much, but can't get their point of view across. This is typically when I have to walk away.

The only way to proceed is with an open mind and the ability to listen. Hopefully the both parties will be able to learn from each other.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post, or if really pissed you off, please like, share, or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and hopefully you guys like hearing from me. Being a grown up and acting like one is really hard.

Welcome to the Heat

I saw "Jurassic World" today. It was a great monster flick, but holds no candle to the original. I liked the kids. They weren't annoying at all. I liked Chris Pratt and the girl he was with. It was just so easy for me to predict who was going to live and who was going to die. I also missed the sense of aww and wonderment when seeing the dinosaurs. There wasn't a "look it's a dinosaur" moment where I felt like I was five again.

I've ranted too long...

Since moving to New Jersey, I would say the third thing that I miss the most (behind my friends and family) is the lack of central AC in my apartment. Oh we do have AC, it's just not on all the time and it doesn't cover the whole apartment. If I'm cooking in the kichen, then it's like I'm being cooked with the food.

Anyway, next weekend it will officially be summer and boy do I wish it was over already. I can't stand the heat. Yesterday I was in Newark for a festival, it was so hot I slid off the chair I had been sitting in. I felt so gross. 

And of course if you want to go from outside to any restaurant/store/movie theater you freeze your butt off. I just went to the movies in shorts and a T-shirt and I really should have packed a sweater as well.

Several ways I have been beating the heat this June (and will probably carry on through July and August) are as follows:

1) A fan - my fan is awesome. It circulates the air and I get cooled down. I use it with the air conditioning sometimes to help the cold air move faster.

2) Making iced drinks - I make a pot of coffee at some point during the day. Either pour fresh coffee over ice or stick it in the fridge for a few hours to overnight. Yeah refrigerated coffee gets a bit stale. But at least you have cold coffee for breakfast.

3) Go out in the morning or at night - it's the coolest time of the day and plenty of people are out at those times to talk to.

4) Cold showers - not only do they help with getting cooled down if your overheating, they help get rid of excess sweat.

5) Go to a coffee shop/the library - hear me out. You buy a drink or just sit down and enjoy a good book. It's also where a lot of creative things happen. You never know who you might meet there as well.

If the heat has you down, you can also find the local pool, head to the beach/lake or participate in other water related activities. Just have someone with you that knows water safety.

Hopefully I don't get too pink this summer. Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post or it really pissed you off, please like, share and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Have a good week.

Welcome To A Scary Reality

It Started With A Fairly Normal Saturday...

Yesterday was scary, different, and thankfully ended with everyone alright.

It started out as any Saturday. I had to drag my sleepy self out of bed to go to the DMV and finally change my plates to New Jersey plates (guess I'm officially from New Jersey now). It took forever to go through the lines and finally hand over all of the paper work.

I finally made it home, put the plates on, grabbed some grocery bags and headed to the food store. As I was leaving a cop car pulled into our complex. I didn't think too much about, someone had pulled the fire alarm in the building next to us last weekend. Maybe the cop was following up on that.

If only things had been that simple.

I get back to my apartment complex after shopping for an hour to see cops everywhere. I was told I couldn't go near my apartment. I called my roommate who was still in our apartment.

The Story

From what I understand, a young man who lived in the apartment building next to mine was threatening to commit suicide and claimed he had a bomb. We did not know about the bomb threat until much later. They wouldn't let my roommate and our friends who had lived next door to the young man leave the second apartment building until nearly an hour after the whole thing started. By then, I had been watching the SWAT team suite up (which was very intimidating). I decided to just get out of the area.

I ended up going to a friend's place to wait. Nearly two and a half hours later I got another text from my roommate telling me we could go home. However, our friend couldn't go home yet, so they stayed over at our apartment until the police left.

We found out through a local new source that the young man had been taken to a hospital for treatment. I am glad he is getting help. It was a nerve racking couple of hours. Especially since information was shaky at best and I had no idea what was going on. I at least knew my roommate and friend were okay, but nothing outside of that.

I am thankful that everything turned out alright. I pray that the young man gets the help he needs and that he will one day be okay.

Being new in town, I felt helpless not being able to get home, I was worried about my roommate and friend and frustrated that the police wouldn't give me a clear picture of what was going on. I'm thankful that a friend was able to help me out.

It was an experience I hope I never have to go through again, but I can't know that I will. No one plans for these kinds of things.

I do encourage anyone who is feeling depressed, anxious and/or suicidal to please reach out to someone. If you don't feel comfortable going to a therapist or social worker at first, that's understandable, but please reach out to someone. Friends and family (blood related or not) are there for you. There is also the National Suicide Prevention Hotline available 24/7 in both Spanish and English at 1 (800) 273-8255. Do not hesitate to call.

If you enjoyed this post (or possibly found it informative), please like, share or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Remember someone is always there for you, even if they are a million miles away.

Until next week.