Title courtesy of Alice in Chains. I miss Layne Staley. Great voice.

So, for the second time in a month, I have become the victim of some kind of fraud. Yes, it happened again. At the beginning of the month it was someone hacking into my eBay account and buying an $800 laptop. It took about a week, but I got the money back from PayPal and no harm no foul, except for the seller on eBay putting out a non-payment strike on my account. But F him. I told him numerous times I didn't buy it and it was unauthorized. So, it happened again, although slightly different. I was trying to relax at home on Saturday night with Missy and Keyser (I borrowed him for the evening. More on that later) and I get a phone call from my Visa card bank, asking to verify some purchases on my account. There was one for two $500 gift cards to Bed Bath & Beyond that I didn't make, and another one for almost $1,100 at the Apple Store that I didn't make either. So they canceled the cards, issued me new ones and started the process of refunding me the money. Needless to say, I was pissed. Twice in one month? The only thing I have to say to that is WTF?! I think the thing that pissed me off the most is that I really want a new MacBook Pro, and they probably bought a $1,000 laptop at the Apple Store. I'm debating filing a police report with my local precinct to maybe see if they can do anything. My best friend Brett, who is a police officer thinks its a smart idea, my dad, not so much. He said I'll get the money back, so I'm not out anything, and doesn't think the police will pay attention to something like this. We shall see. I'm debating it, like I said.

Onto my next topic, borrowing Keyser for the night. I figured it would be a good idea to take him to the house now that its actually hospitable and seeing how he reacted. The verdict? He reacted badly. He was all over the place, and didn't really know what to do. He wouldn't sleep and kept waking up every hour or so in the middle of the night, and of course the second we tried to crate him he whined and barked. And, the second it looked like we were leaving to go back to my parents house on Sunday for Father's Day, he started freaking out. So, experiment failed. All I lost was a nights sleep, and some sanity. Everyone was joking that its good practice for getting up in the middle of the night for a newborn. Ha ha... not funny people!

So that's about all for now. Peace out party people...

Title courtesy of The Doors.

So, last week was a bit of a rough week, and that's really putting it lightly. The worst week ever would probably sum it up a little bit better. I'll start at the beginning, because it started out pretty crappy and just got a million times worse.

Sunday, for starters, began decently at first. I met my parents and younger brother for breakfast, then went to the gym to get back into a fitness routine. Missy and I proceeded to throw out the rest of the paneling in our spare room, and I settled onto the couch for a relaxing afternoon. Then, I got an e-mail that set me off on a hours long odyssey of frustration. I got an e-mail from a seller of a laptop on eBay asking me to call him and give him a copy of my driver's license. I thought that this was very odd, because I wasn't bidding on anything on eBay, and hadn't even used my account for a very long time. So, I log into my account and lo and behold, there's a message from this seller and eBay is telling me I have feedback to leave for one item. I look at said item, and it's a laptop! That I somehow bought for $810.63. I immediately log into my PayPal account to see if there's anything fishy there. I pulled up my history and yet again, there it is, a transfer set to go through on Monday for $810.63. I immediately start freaking out. I get on an online chat with eBay to tell them that someone fraudulently bought something using my account, then went through the steps with PayPal to say it was an unauthorized transaction. I actually spoke to people at PayPal on the phone twice, and they assured me that everything that can be done was being done. They couldn't stop the transfer from going through, but the money would not be sent to the seller and it would most likely be returned to me in 7-10 days.

The money being taken out of my account would have sucked, but it happened on a Sunday, May 31st to be exact, and our mortgage payment scheduled for June 1st was being deducted from my account, the same one that was used to pay for the laptop the next day. I had enough money to cover the extra $800 missing, but later in the month we would've had issues. Missy transferred the money into my account to cover the cost until I got the money back. That finally happened this morning so I put it back into her account. Getting joint accounts that we can transfer money between easily was the smartest thing we've done, I have to admit. So, once I did everything humanly possible to get my money back I went on a tear changing as many online passwords as I possibly could. Credit cards, banks, any and all financial institutions, Facebook, Twitter... you name it, I changed my password. I even changed my eBay member ID along with the password. That's how paranoid I was. I even signed up for LifeLock, an identity theft prevention service because I figured if they got into my eBay account, who knows what else they got into.

There was also a bit of icing to this cake on Sunday. In my paranoia I changed my wireless network settings at home. I stopped broadcasting my SSID, and changed the wireless security from WEP to WPA2. I changed my laptop, iPhone and MIssy's computer, but when I went to go change it on my Wii, the damn thing wouldn't power on. There was no light indicating power. I went through the online instructions to diagnose the problem, but nothing worked. So, I filled out the online repair thing, printed a FedEx label and everything. It was only until the next day, when on a whim, I decided to give it one more shot and it worked. Turns out there's a fuse in the Wii power supply that'll trip to protect the Wii from getting fried. If it trips, you need to unplug the power supply from the wall or power strip for more than 90 seconds to reset the fuse. I had taken the power supply from the power strip and plugged it right into the wall without waiting 90 seconds. So I unplugged it and was getting ready to ship it all back to Nintendo. Then I tried it and it was OK. I called Nintendo just to make sure and the guy on the phone gave me the above explanation. So all was OK on that front.

All of that sounds pretty crappy... but it got worse. My grandma went in for open heart surgery on Monday. It was surgery that we were all fully expecting her to get through OK, her included, because she wanted to get better for when my brother and his wife have their baby in October. Well, sadly, she didn't make it. I won't go into the details here, but I'll just say she passed away at the young age of 85 on Monday and its a shame, because there was a lot of life left in her, and she definitely had a lot to live for. So Monday night and most of Tuesday was kind of a blur.

Wednesday morning was her funeral and as Missy and I were getting dressed to leave for the cemetery we got a call from one of Missy's best friends. Her mother had passed away suddenly the night before, and it was just a bit too much to take. I didn't really know her mother, but Missy did, and she was a mess over it. Her friend is an only child and her dad died when she was two, so her mom was all she had. She just got married, so that was a bonus, and her mom has two brothers, so she's got some uncles, but its not the same. So, we had that funeral to go to on Thursday, and then we went back to her mom's house yesterday to sit Shiva some more with her.

I went back to work on Friday and tried to just make it through the day so I could get to the weekend and relax a little.

So, like I said, worst week ever. Just trying to break through all the bad stuff on last week and focus on nothing but good stuff and good news ahead.

Title courtesy of Nine Inch Nails, off of Year Zero. Good album, interesting concept.

Anyway, so Missy and I finished taking down all of the paneling in one of our extra bedrooms, and all I have to say is, damn. What a mess. The graffiti that I spoke of continued onto all four of the walls and the door. The paneling itself was even inside the window frame as well. I was pretty shocked that they put this stuff all over the place. But now its all down, and about half of it was put out to the curb to get tossed. We'll put the rest out later in the weekend. We didn't want to kill our garbage men with all of it, because there is a ton of it. Not only is there a ton of it, but they used two different types of paneling! And, they're both equally ugly. So, just in case you were curious, here's what the walls looked like once the paneling was off.

Sick, right? Needless to say, we can't wait to cover it all up with some primer and paint. Soon enough!

Title by No Doubt! I'm seriously shocked that I haven't used this title before. I try not to re-use them, in case you haven't noticed, and I just find it odd that I've never used this one before, mostly because it's easy. And in case you were wondering, sometimes it is hard to find new song titles to use, especially after almost three years of using song titles as blog titles.

Anyway, so it is in fact Sunday morning, of a lovely three day weekend. So far the weekend is going quite well. Friday night we went to see Terminator Salvation, which was surprisingly decent. I went in thinking it was going to be pretty bad, so I basically went in with no expectations, and the movie surprised me. Was it the greatest movie I've ever seen? Not by a long shot! Best summer movie so far? Nope, that belongs to Star Trek. But you know what, it was entertaining, had a decent story, great special effects and it was better than Wolverine. So enough said.

Saturday I had my usual guitar lesson, with the added bonus of a much needed haircut afterwords. Then I came home and relaxed and cleaned a bit for company that came over last night. But before we did that, Missy and I started on what has been dubbed "Our Summer Project." We're re-doing one of our spare bedrooms. It started last week when I got her a new, smaller desk at IKEA and trashed her old, bigger one. We basically moved everything that was spread across our two spare bedrooms into one so that we can start ripping down the wood paneling that covers the walls. Ripping it down was a huge pain in the ass, in case you were wondering. It was just hard to get started, but once we did it started to come down pretty easily. The sheet rock is in pretty decent shape underneath too, its just covered with graffiti! The woman that we bought the house from grew up in the house. It was her parents, and she got it from her parents. So I think the bedroom we're re-doing is her childhood bedroom. My theory is this, her parents told her to write whatever the hell she wanted to on the walls and door, because soon it was going to be covered up with this wonderfully beautiful wood paneling for all eternity. We found shit scribbled on the walls from like 1969. It's crazy. And, we only took down one wall worth of paneling and the panel on the door. I can only imagine what's on the rest of them!

After that some of Missy's friends came over and we went out to dinner at a local burger joint, ate way too much then came back to the house to hang out and have dessert. My friends Seth and Shari stopped by on their way home from a BBQ at east and hung out for about two hours too, which was nice, because I haven't seen them in what feels like forever. A good time was had by all, I have to admit.

The plan for today is breakfast with my brother Randy and his wife Beth. They just found out that they're having a girl the other day. She's been dropping hints all over Facebook about it, mostly by posting status messages of song titles with the word girl in it. So we're sort of celebrating. We got them a little baby gift of a pink memory book. I also went ahead and ordered the kid a New York Rangers pink onesie, meant for a 3 month old.

After breakfast we're walking around to corner to see some friends in the neighborhood. They just had a baby about a month ago, so we're going to drop off a gift and say hello. After that, BBQ at the inlaws, and Monday, BBQ at my parents. So a jam packed weekend, for sure. I don't know when or where I'll fit in all the relaxing I'm going to need, but I'm sure I'll figure it out!

Title by Australian rock band Jet, who gave us the hit song "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?"

So an update to this morning's post! (I know, the constant blogging is quite the shock!) I went at lunch today to get an estimate done on my car. I took it to the same body shop that fixed my car back in February. I told the guy I wasn't going through insurance and that I'd be paying cash. He gives me an estimate of $916. The guy that hit me was in such a rush to get out of there that he gave me $960, so I just made a profit of a whopping $44. Not bad for one accident. I'd do this more often, but something tells me there isn't much of a future in it.

Title courtesy of Our Lady Peace, one of my favorite modern Canadian bands.

Yeah, so as the title suggests, I got into a little fender bender yesterday. The sad thing is, its like the third I've been in since February. I think I'm cursed. The first one happened in a parking lot and we were both pretty much at fault since we both backed into one another. I think our insurance companies split the cost, as I managed to get half of my deductible back. The next one happened about a month ago, in a parking lot as well, and it was pretty much my fault, again, backed into someone, she claimed she honked, but she drove a BMW, and if I remember from when my mom drove one of those pieces of crap that the horn sucked. Nothing really came of that one though. So yesterday, I'm turning left on a road that has two left hand turn lanes. I have the green arrow, I start going, I stay in my lane and then all of a sudden this guy in a Durango plows into me. I start cursing, and pull into the closest parking lot. The guy is all apologetic because he knows its his fault. He wants to avoid going through insurance, and I can't blame him, I did to. So he starts to offer me cash. $500 to start, which in no way would've covered it. I eventually got him up to a little under $1000, which I pray covers the damage. If not, I took a gamble and lost. We shall see. I'm going for an estimate on it today. Needless to say I'm pissed, especially since it wasn't my fault. But, its just a car, and I'm OK, and that's all that matters.

And look at me, blogging two days in a row. Go me!

Title courtesy of The Racontuers, and subsequently, its the title of their first album. I love Jack White and all he does, whether its with the White Stripes, the Raconteurs or his new project, the Dead Weather.

So, I was so close to just giving up on this whole blog site, mostly because it was broken when I tried to post this morning, and I almost didn't have the patience to try and fix it. I upgraded the blogging software on the back-end on Monday or Tuesday, and everything seemed to be OK. Until I tried to post something and there was no place for me to type anything! I tried uploading all the files again, to no avail. At that point, I was almost tempted to just scrap the whole thing, since I barely post anymore anyway. But I decided against it, mostly because this site is a great record of everything I've done in the past six years or so of my life, which if you think about it, is a pretty cool thing. So I basically went onto my site and deleted everything I thought was safe to delete, and then re-uploaded my blogging software, I rebuilt the site, and volia! I can post again. Crisis averted. Although on the downside, I might have trashed some pictures I've uploaded in past entries, so oh well. No one's perfect. Maybe one day I'll try to go back and replace them all.... when I have the time.

In other news, I don't think I've mentioned it on here before, but by now its kind of old news to me, but I'm going to be an uncle! Sadly, I've known this since about mid-February, but never thought to bring it up until now. Mostly because its fresh in my mind because my older brother and sister-in-law went this morning for her 20 week sonogram, I think its 20 weeks, and they found out the sex of the baby. I know, because they told me, but they told me not to post it on Facebook or Twitter, so I'm guessing this space is off limits as well. Sorry. But so far so good, everything looks great, and I'm very psyched about being an uncle! And, as an added bonus it takes the pressure off Missy and I to produce a grandchild, or at least it does from my parents. Her's are another story. Chances are that our first kid will be their first grandchild, unless Missy's brother and his new wife jump on it right now, which I doubt.

What else is going on? I'm in a battle with the furniture company that Missy and I ordered some furniture from for the house. We got a den set. A sofa, a love seat, a coffee table and two end tables of various sizes. We ordered this stuff back in early January when we first got the house. I'm talking on or about January 4th. We got our couches and one of our three tables in mid-April, and we've been waiting, not so patiently, for the rest of it. I've found that calling the furniture store gets absolutely nothing accomplished, so I've taken to going down there in person, which is convenient, because it's close to my office. I heard that they're going to get our tables into their warehouse today, and be calling to set up delivery, but so far nothing. I'll be calling them shortly to get an answer, because I'm at the end of my rope with these people. I realize what our biggest mistake was, we paid in full when we ordered it. If we hadn't, they'd be chomping at the bit to get the rest of our money, which means they'd get us our stuff sooner. But no, we paid in full, they have our money, so they're dragging their asses in getting our tables to us. Which of course is frustrating to no end. I'm praying it all gets resolved soon, so that I can never shop there again!

That's about all there is. I'm looking forward to the three day weekend, because the day off will be very welcome and very nice indeed.

Have a safe and fun Memorial Day!

Title courtesy of Green Day off their new album "21st Century Breakdown" which is pretty awesome after a few listens. I might even say its better than "American Idiot."

Right now my enemy is lack of sleep and exhaustion. There just aren't enough hours in a weekend to get everything done, and most importantly, relax! This weekend was pretty busy. Friday night we went to an Long Island Ducks game for my father-in-laws birthday. Saturday we hung out with some friends at our house, playing Wii, XBox and eating Chinese take out. Sunday I ran to IKEA to get a new desk for Missy, and spent the afternoon assembling it, and moving her stuff between rooms and setting up her computer. Her old desk was way too big to put in the new room that we wanted to put it in, so we had to buy a new, smaller one. We then proceeded to take apart the old one and throw it out.

We're doing all this moving stuff around so that we can empty out one of our two spare bedrooms so that we can start redoing it as our summer project. Both bedrooms have horrible, old carpet in them, and painted wood paneling on the walls. We have our old queen sized bed and a TV and DVD player in one of them, and now Missy's desk and computer are in there as well. Now that the other one is mostly empty (we still have some stuff in there, like pictures and stuff, that we need to move out) we can start taking down the wood paneling and getting the walls ready to be painted. We need to fix up the closet as well, because its pretty crappy looking. And then lastly, replace the carpet. We're looking to do most of it ourselves, aside from the carpet so that we can save as much money as possible. The only thing that might prevent us from doing that is if the sheet rock under the paneling is either non-existent or in really horrible shape. I think there is sheet rock under there, I'm juts praying all it needs is some taping and a fresh coat of spackle, then prime and paint it!

So that was the weekend, pretty much. The week ahead looks to be long. I may have to work this weekend, which is Memorial Day weekend, and I'm not looking forward to it. Although it was explained to me that there is a 90% chance that I won't have to work, so that's what I'm really hoping for.

Other than that, there isn't much going on. Just trying to get through another Monday in which I'm exhausted and just dying to go home and sleep.

Peace out for now!

Title courtesy of Pearl Jam.

I would say, hey, look at me, blogging twice in one week, but technically its Sunday, so its a new week. If I manage to post again this week, then I can boast about it.

Today marks the end of a very relaxing weekend which is leading up to a very hectic week. Missy's brother's wedding is on Saturday, and her dad's birthday is on Wednesday, so everything this week will be leading up to the big day. I hope the week flies by... but that's just me.

I had a very relaxing Saturday. The usual guitar lesson, then a haircut, then back home to unload some DVD's I brought from my parents. Then I went over to Brett's to hang out. His wife was at her soon to be sister in laws bachelorette, just as Missy was at her soon to be sis-in-laws as well. So we were both free, so we hung out. I saw his dog, which I hadn't seen since it was a puppy and damn the thing got huge! He has a German Shepherd named Jake, and the last time I saw it was in December when it was still sort of a puppy. Now, the thing is a monster. He's huge. Like 90 pounds huge. But he's gentle as can be. He spent most of the evening panting like crazy and chasing his tail around. It was really cute. After awhile Brett and I went out for some Mexican food, and then I went home and passed out.

Missy didn't get home until almost 4 AM, and then had to wake up at 6:30 to go to a post-graduate class. I felt really bad for her, having an exhausting night out and then having to wake up early, on two hours of sleep, and drive to class and make a presentation. But, she's home now and passed out upstairs. Me, I'm just catching up on the DVR before the Ranger game at 2 PM. They're up 3 games to 2 on the Caps, and can close out the series with a win at the Garden tonight... so Let's Go Rangers!!!