PY Get-Together

For those of you "not in the know," PY stands for Professional Year and is a sort-of-graduate degree program that only results in a teaching certificate, but earns credits that can be applied to a Master's degree later on if so desired.  Last Sunday (the day after the bonfire) there was a mini-PY get-together at Fuel and Fuddle in Oakland for brunch, and we took what is now the "annual" post-bonfire PY picture (annual because it's happened twice now, so it's tradition, right?)

From left: Ashleigh, Kristin (hidden), Dave, Allison, Scott, Me, and Matt

Only Ashleigh, Dave, Matt, and Scott were actually in the teaching program.  There are a few other people from the program that we still keep in touch with but they weren't able to make it.

I have a "blog in progress" about what I call Teacher Talk.  Teacher talk is a unexplained phenomenon that occurs whenever teachers get together - ALL they can talk about it teaching.  For us non-teachers, this sort of banter gets old really quickly, so I conducted an interview with Dave to try to get to the root of the problem.  I also tried to explain the non-teacher perspective, since if you tell a teacher that he or she talks about teaching too much, they quickly get defensive.  So, expect that to be completed later this week.

Pitt versus Conneticut - Another tailgating story

The content of this post has been removed by request. 

Here's a picture to prove I was actually there.

Pitt Game and Tailgating!!!

Being faithful University of Pittsburgh alumni, Dave and I try to go to at least one game a year and September 19th was "that game" this year.  I actually enjoy going to football games.  Dave enjoys the tailgating more, but this time, we had really good seats care of my brother-in-law, which means that Dave is actually able to see the game.  That helps significantly in keeping his interest.  

First shot of the day - literally and photographically speaking

I bought all of us $5 t-shirts from the truck down near Pitt's student union, and considering that a regular Pitt shirt runs around $20 a pop, I think we looked pretty sharp in our knock-offs!

Don't you agree?

We had the best parking spot that we've ever gotten.  We were in the "gold" lot, which is the one right next to the stadium. That's great in itself, but the particular spot that they parked us in was only 1 car away from the being the closest to the stadium!  There was one vehicle to our right, and then beyond that it was a party of people, with music playing, kids games and bouncy things.  It was great.  To top it all off, the car to our left was a media person who had his car valeted there, so we were able to spread out instead of being confined to an area the width of our car. 

Our $5 shirts were totally different shades of yellow. Now that's quality.

As you can see from the sky in the background, the weather was absolutely beautiful.  It was a breezy, sunny day.  I wore jeans, expecting it to be cool, but I was HOT in the sun, and actually rolled my jeans up.  Once the sun set, I was comfortable, and I'm not complaining at all - I couldn't possible ask for better tailgating weather.

Pitt was playing Navy and right before the start of the game military helicopters flew overhead.

Or were they Navy helicopters?

Although I did partake in the tailgating festivities, I designated myself as the designated driver to keep my next-day hangover headache at a minimum.  As the only sober person there - and probably the only person who watched the entire game since Dave was drinking and Laurie and Kevin were busy making new friends - I can confirm that Pitt did, indeed, win.  I think the score was 27 to 14, although since it was almost two weeks ago since we were there, don't quote me on that.

We stayed for the after-game fireworks and feared that traffic was going to be a nightmare but actually lucked out by getting onto the HOV lane within minutes of leaving the parking lot and we FLEW home.  The HOV lane - if you didn't already know - is the best thing about living in the north hills.

Up next, the after-party shenanigans...

Pitting the I-phone against the Blackberry Storm

I wrote the other day about how we decided to dump Verizon as our cable, home phone, and internet provider, based on their unwillingness to entice us to remain customers.

Well, actually we're looking to jump ship from Verizon altogether, and have been investigating AT&T as a cell phone provider because I am sooo ready to jump onto the iPhone bandwagon.

The problem?  Well, because Dave's entire family is on our "family plan," the entire group has to wait to cancel until the person with the latest contract is allowed to cancel.  That means that if we want to leave Verizon, we would have to wait until the end of February, which seems SOOO far away when Dave and I are ready to switch NOW.  (And, he and I are both eligible to cancel now as well, but it's financially wise to have the whole "family" switch with us if they are willing to as well.)

So, now we're also considering the smart phone options that Verizon offers as well.  I am strictly interested in getting a touch phone, and want something that is as similar to the iPhone as I can possible get.  Which means my only option is the BlackBerry Storm.

Isn't it pretty? If only looks were everything.... 

Source

The scary thing, there are very mixed reviews on the Storm, which might mean that it's not all that great.  The third-party electronics sites reviews are generally neutral, stating features and functions that it either has or lacks, but these sites don't really say whether or not they would recommend the phone.  And, most of these sites are only reviewing a sample phone that they received for a short period of time, so most of them can't comment on the long-term reliability, which is concerning.

On top of that, user-generated content about the phone - even on Verizon Wireless's own site - isn't great.  They give the phone 3 out of 5 stars, and there are a variety of negative comments.  Below are some of the negative comments that I encountered, and my "justification" of whether or not it's an issue that bothers me.

1. The keypad is annoying. 
I know no other keypads, so this would be the standard for me.  Most people that hat the "soft" keyboard are used to the hard keyboards on older BB models. It would have to be really bad for me to hate it.

2. The battery dies quickly.
This actually might be the standard for smart phones, since I read this about other phones as well.  This could definitely be annoying, but with a car charger I could probably deal.  I am currently used to charging my phone once every other week or so - I know that won't be case with a newer phone.

3. The phone locks up a lot.
This could definitely be annoying, and I've heard about other BlackBerry's - not just the Storm - that do this as well.  Some people have gone through 3 or 4 phones, which is crazy to me.

I don't know what to do.  Ultimately if it was up to me, Dave and I would switch to AT&T tomorrow.  We would both get iPhones and we would live happily ever after.

I need to TRY a Storm.  I need to find someone that I know that has one who will let me sit down with it for 10 minutes and play around with it.  I want to try to type a text message, make a call, browse the web, map directions for an exotic destination.  I feel like I can't get a sense of whether or not I'll love the phone if I can't  test these things out before buying this $100+ phone that has mixed reviews and signing on to a two-year contract that will raise my monthly access fee by an additional $60 for the two of us.  At the Verizon stores, they only have a fake, unusable version of the phone with a plastic sticker that shows what the screen might look like.  ATT, on the other hand, had a fully functional iPhone available for use with tons of apps and features readily available for playing with.  That fact alone makes me like them more, and I know that I like the iPhone because I was able to use it.  Anyone out there already own a Storm?  If so, do you want to spend some time with me while I use your phone?

I'm so impatient but I'm also trying to be reasonable.  I know that we'll save money if we stay with the Hartman family plan, and I wouldn't mind getting a new phone sooner rather than later. Staying with Verizon means that could happen, versus having to wait until February to switch to AT&T.  If I could confirm that I would enjoy the Storm, life would be so much easier...

The World of HD

Dave and I have long been hold-outs - for no particular reason - in upgrading our cable package.  I have long wanted a DVR, but couldn't justify the cost, and we don't watch a ton of TV - usually just an hour or two a night, plus the Today Show in the morning.  So exorbitant channel line-ups and high-definition options just didn't seem necessary.

We were Verizon Fios customers, and we were happy enough with what we were getting, but our contract just expired and the rates were going to go up.  Around the same time we started getting advertisements from Comcast showing similar rates to what we were paying now but with significantly more features - namely, free HD and a DVR for a full year.  The DVR was enticing, but I hate the hassle of having to sit at home waiting for the cable guy, having to deal with all of the equipment returns, etc. and for me, it wasn't really worth the hassle, so I told Dave that it was up to him.  He called Verizon to see what they were willing to give us to keep as customers.  Their answer?  A big, fat "NOTHING."  They weren't willing to work with us at all, and top of that - as I mentioned above - they were raising our rates.  We are people of principle who value good customer service, so after that encounter we immediatley cancelled with Verizon and signed on with Comcast.

He decided to go with it, and yesterday Comcast came to set everything up!

A quick side note - when Verizon Fios first installed here over a year ago, our house was not equipped for Fios.  It took 7 trucks, including a cherry-picker basket truck to run all of the appropriate lines from the street.  For those of you that are familiar with our house, you'll know that it's set in the middle of a pretty steep hill.  The pole that is the connect between the street lines and our house is set into the steepest hill of all right next to our driveway.  It's literrally a dirt cliff.  Apparently, when Verizon was setting up their lines on this particular pole with the easy-breezy cherry picker, they decided to rip out and totally disconnect the cable lines that Comcast woud need if we ever used their service again.  This created quite the dilemna for the poor guy sent to do our installation and resulted in Dave setting up multiple ladders to help the Comcast guy anchor his ladder on their loose dirt cliff. 

We watched some of the Steeler's game on Friday night, and kept switching back and forth between the HD and standard cable channels.  The difference was remarkable.  We never really felt that we noticed it on other people's TV's but now that we're really analyzing the quality it's truly remarkable.  Dave kept exclaiming about how amazing it was, and said something ridiculous, like "My world is now filled with vivid color."

See how bright the upper-left corner is? I'm pretty sure that it was that bright for us TIMES TEN. 

Source

This free HD/DVR deal is good for a year.  Why can't cable companies just extend their best offer to all of their customers?  I'm pretty sure that we're going to resign ourselves to swtiching cable providers every single year, whenever our current provider decides to raise our rates and won't extend any promotions to us.  We already spend well over $100 for cable and internet, and for me it's impossible to justify spending any more.  Which means that in a year from now, we'll probably be handing out with the Verizon Fios man once again.

Bonfire

Dave and I have quite a nice set-up in our yard for hosting bonfires, and generally we have one at least one or two per year since we've moved to this house.   We decided to make October the month of our official "annual" bonfire, which would we call Oktoberfest bonfire.  And Saturday night was the date for this year's event.

The fire

Everything went well. The people that were there were a diverse, yet great group of people.  We drank beer and Blue Maui (well, I drank Blue Maui), we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, and just enjoyed a beautiful October evening that wasn't too cold.

In total, there were 11 or so people there, which is a great number, but it's far smaller than we were expecting, and I was a little sad.  Over 20 people had ultimately RSVP'd, either through our e-vite or via e-mail.  But, for some reason, at least 10 people (I say "at least" because some said that they might bring a guest) who had previously told us that they were coming either texted us last minute to say that they weren't coming, or just didn't show up at all.

I'm starting to realize to that I might be totally behind the times in thinking that a phone call is more appropriate than a text message if you're cancelling plans for someone.  Text messages are so impersonal to me and I think a lot of people use them as an easy "out," to not have to actually "face" the person by actually talking to them on the phone.   And, to add insult to injury, it costs me an extra 20 cents per text message every time someone "wrote" to cancel since I don't use text messaging, and an additional 20 cents if I decided to reply (which I mostly did not.)   So, it cost me nearly to $2 just to have people not come to my party.  Of course, I guess that I should be grateful that I knew at all that they weren't coming....

This weekend made me realize that perhaps our bonfires are just not as appealing to others as they are to us. Or perhaps we're having them too frequently (we did just have one this past May.)  Or perhaps there was just something in air last night that made everyone want to stay home.  Even though these events are pretty low key, we still had to do a lot of prep work to get the house and the yard ready for guests.  I'm having a hard time putting my finger on why I was so upset by so many people bailing on us, but I know that in the long run, it doens't really matter anyway.

Oh well - we had a great time with those that were there, and appreciate them all the more.

My New Rings

I have long wanted a "placeholder" ring for my engagement and wedding rings for when I travel, am outdoors for long periods of time, or in an situation where my expensive jewelry might be at risk.  When we went on our honeymoon, I only wore my simple wedding band since we were afraid of losing the engagement or it being stolen by leaving it in the hotel room.  But I was sad, and I felt naked without my engagement ring. 

Soon after - while my rings were being sent away to be soldered together - I purchased a cheap bling-ring at Claire's to use as a placeholder.  But they only sold their cheap knock-offs in size 7, and being a size 5, I foolishly thought I could make it work.  No such luck. Not to mention that the cheap metal turned my finger green after only three days.

So I recently made a purchase on Amazon.com for a fitted platinum overlayed sterling silver and cubic zirconia bridal set.   And I couldn't be happier.

Can you tell which set is real and which is the fake? 

For those of you who know what my original engagement ring looked like, it should be easy to tell the difference since one ring is a three-stone setting and the other is a solitaire with side-stones.  But if you DON'T know what my setting looks like, can you tell the difference?   If so, what gave it away?

I, for one, am amazed at how similar the two rings are.  Dave was so blown away that he declared that he should have purchased silver and cubic zirconia in the first place and saved us all a couple thousand dollars.  I actually almost (almost) agreed.

Side view

The set on the left (4-prong with larger side stone) is my original white-gold and diamond ring set.  The six-prong setting on the right is the silver/cubic zirconia set.  I love how similar it is to my original ring set, but I also love the slight difference, and am excited to get to wear it out soon!  I'm not sure when that will be, but I'm fairly confident that no one will know the difference, and I'll definitely be taking these to our vacation - wherever we end up going.  I'm not yet sure how the metal will wear over time, and I hope that it doesn't turn my skin green, but I hopefully silver cleaner will take care of that!