Paul and Emily dot com

So for Thanksgiving this year, we did something that Emily has never done in her whole life – we went to her dad and Colleen’s house in NY. Normally we bounce between St. Louis at my Mom’s and staying in Cinci with family coming into town. It was a long long trip, but quite fun! The weather held out until the very last day. We took a few pics, although we should have taken more (Emily’s dad took some so we will get a copy of those):

We left the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving and stayed in a hotel north of Erie, PA. It was Lillian’s first time staying in a hotel and she was NOT interested in going to sleep..at 1145pm. I rocked her until around 130am and she finally went to sleep.

We did the usual camp stuff – walked in the woods, road the four wheelers, etc. We got to visit with Emily’s Uncle Bob (a car enthusiast – Audi TT RS, so I got some car talk in) and Aunt Sue. Thanksgiving was delicious – stuffing with sausage in it? YUM! While we were up there, My good friend from college, Adam B. and his wife Kim drove up to visit friday – saturday. Haven’t seem him in years and it was our first time meeting Kim.

I also tried a local vodka made in Lake Placid, NY by Lake Placid Spirits called P3. This is bar-none the smoothest vodka I have ever had. So much so that when I poured it in a glass over ice, Emily actually asked me if I had watered it down! The final filtration process uses garnet! they have another vodka called 46 peaks that is filtered over diamonds. Only problem – its ONLY sold in New York!

Big thanks to my mom for lending us the Orange Honda Element for the trip!!

I flew to Minneapolis/St. Paul for my birthday this year to spend with Sean. Again, didn’t take many photos, but there will be other opportunities. We hung around his apartment a lot (because I had to work 🙁 )but we got out to the Mall of America, Best Buy Corp offices, I at a Juicy Lucy called Spanish Fly (Yum!), went to the mill district and took some photos, and we had our Birthday dinner at Manny’s Chophouse (where the maitre’d called Sean … my …”partner”. what? business partner right? hmmm). I made a small album of the photos taken. Most are from the mill district that has some “ruins” from the original mill infrastructure from the late 1800’s/ early 1900’s. Photos are not in any order because we took some with my cell phone using both normal and HDR mode; and others with my camera (well, Sean took most of those). Gallery:

We are doing Christmas in Cinci this year and I think My mom, Megan (and matt?), and Sean are coming down for that. I don’t think I have seen Megan and Matt since Christmas last year! Crazy! Will get pics up when that rolls around.

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I took the pics off my cell phone from September and put them in a gallery:

Its not much – will try to pull anything down from Emily’s phone later. Also have some better quality pics on Brian’s camera of the trick-or-treaters.

I put two video’s I randomly took of Lillian, up to YouTube. Click me I was messing with the video recorder on my phone and switched it to the forward facing camera. Piqued her interest 🙂

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I ordered a T-shirt from TurboJunky on August 23rd of this year during my lunch break. I should have googled the company first because there are a number of bad reviews for them. Anyway according to the FAQ on their website:

How long will it take for my order to ship?
Once an order has been placed your order will be processed and shipped within 1-3 business days.
How long does it take for my order to arrive?
Domestic orders are shipped via USPS Priority Mail (2-5 business days). International shipments via USPS Express mail or FedEx and usually take about 3-10 business days.
*(Weather conditions, holidays, or incorrect shipping information can delay shipments)

A few minutes after I received the payment confirmation email, I received an order confirmation for this shirt:

$4.99 plus $4.00 shipping. On August 31st, I hadn’t received any update to my order so I filled out the form on their website asking for an update. For some reason my account on their site isn’t working so I was unable to login there and view the details. Maybe I didn’t create an account. I’m not 100% sure on that. Never heard back.

On September 5th, I shot an email to moe@turbojunky.com and executive187@gmail.com (the email address I received a form confirmation from). Never heard back.

On September 10th, I posted to their Facebook page asking where my order was. I also sent a private message via Facebook to Moe Lufti who is listed as the owner-operator. TurboJunky posted a reply to my Wall post that it “will arrive shortly i am very sorry for the delay we are extremely backed up”. I replied asking for a tracking number and to define shortly. Never heard back.

One September 17th, I received an email notification that my item shipped. Thank God. His operation runs out of California so shipping via first class USPS or UPS ground should take 5 to 7 business days. Today is October 1st and it is exactly two weeks since the shipped notice. Nothing. I replied to the shipped notice this morning (sending to both the gmail and turbo junky account) and re-posted to my comment on the TruboJunky.com Facebook wall. I’ll bet I don’t hear back from them.

I should have paid with a credit card instead of a debit card, but in all my internet transactions, I honestly can’t recall a bad experience that didn’t eventually get resolved. If you google “turbojunky.com scam” there are currently 967 results and “turbojunky.com order problems” results in 3,630 results. I read through a number of forum posts where people either didn’t get their order, only got part of their order, or the order was wrong. Not only that, but the Better Business Bureau rates them as an “F”.

Isn’t this the stuff law suits are made for? I think I may spend a couple nights looking into that. Or talking to my father-in-law (he’s a lawyer). May contact the local sheriff as well. I did have one experience back in 2001 or 2002 where a guy took some money for aftermarket car parts in a “group buy” and we got him arrested. That was for more than an $5 tshirt though.

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We have a lot of Catholic churches in our area and they all hold annual festivals. We went to one last night and Sean is all about the rides. He was JUST tall enough to ride the Scrambler

We took some more and you can click here to see them.

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Last summer, we enrolled Sean in the Happy Feet soccer program. He really didn’t enjoy it too much. He was really shy and did not want to participate at all. This year we enrolled him again and its been a complete 180. It probably helps that we practiced with him since last summer so he was more familiar with what was expected of him. Today was the first day and he did great. He needs to learn to follow/keep his eye on the ball and not follow where the pack is running, but he does have really good ball control so far.
Click here for the gallery!


And to the victor goes the spoils!

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OMG – a blog post!
We had Sean and Lillian’s photos taken by Denise and DMB Photography. I uploaded them to teh gallery. Click the pics below to get to it!

In other news, Big Sean moved from Seattle to St. Paul, MN a few weeks ago. I flew up there with Stephen and then the three of us along with Tim drove back to St. Louis. Over 3000 miles in 4 days. We have a ton of photos to share, but haven’t had time to edit yet. Soon!

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If you aren’t on Facebook, you’ve missed out on everything about everyone that you know. Its crazy how one website has replaced so many means of online advertising and communication. When I first got online, if you didn’t have a website on geocities or some other free service, you were not online.
Basically, Emily and I will be posting new photos here and there to our Gallery, but most updates and instant photos will be posted to facebook. We both have android phones, so it makes it very easily.
I may try to tweak our website to post some of our facebook stuff here, but with two kids, two very busy jobs, and only 24 hours a day…your best bet is to join facebook and start sending “friend requests” to all the people you know and knew.

Radio is dead.

Paul

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We’ve been really busy with the now passed holidays, work, and taking care of the kiddos. I’ll try to get a new post up this week with pics and news from the past couple weeks. I did get a new cell phone and service that has a HD video camera built into it. I puty some random videos on my youtube account.

More later!
–pc

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Lily has been sleeping in the cradle that Lary made Sean since she came home. We put it next to our bed so we could get to her quickly. This has worked well, but she’s a very noisy baby (she squeaks and grunts all the time) so I wasn’t sleeping very well. Last night, we tried putting her in her crib for the first time. She actually did really well! We think that because the cradle was so close to the floor that it was a little chilly for her. She must have been toasty last night because she slept really well. I slept well too; probably because over the monitor, I couldn’t hear all the little grunts and squeaks, just the cries when she woke up to eat. Good job Lily!!

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I know I know – Emily and I have been poor fan club managers of the Lily and Sean Fan Club. I am back in the office full time now and since Emily has me out of her hair during the day, she finally got to edit some pictures 🙂
Lily is doing very well – she was back to her birth weight within 5 days or so of being home. She is doing well with her feedings (every 3 hours or so) and sleeping. Emily is gracious enough to let me sleep most of the night, only requiring me to bear hug Lily once in a while (she passes out when I hold her).
A big thank you to my sister, Megan for knitting some of the cutest booties and little hat for Lily (Emily calls her Lily Bug so it s a perfect match!):

The rest of the photos can be viewed in the Gallery
Thanksgiving is coming up and Megan and Mom are coming down for that. They are going to head back to STL on Friday and then Emily’s dad and step-mom are coming down on Saturday for a longish weekend. Ought to be a lot of fun and plenty of photo-ops! And then shortly after that…I’ll turn the big 3-5! EEP!!

(if you need my address for gifts, please let me know – i keeeed i keeed 🙂 )

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