Doing the Right Thing

Sometimes life gives you lemons..... and sometimes you get the shaft! OK thats not how the sayings go. Somehow though thats how things usually go in life. Today I can report that on one occasion a company stood up and is doing the right thing. More than 4 years ago we remodeled our kitchen. We spent twice what we wanted to, but in the end had a great up to date kitchen which didn't break the bank. The company that we had do the job was great to work with. In fact last year we hired them again to tear out our '1970's basement (in our 1990's home) and give us a modern update. Again we loved it and the work was done great. So now you're wondering whats coming up now...

A few weeks back I noticed a spot on the floor in the kitchen was starting to rise. I was on the way out of town and mentioned it to my wife over the phone. It never went away and I never really investigated. A couple nights ago during a huge rainstorm I went to the kitchen about midnight and in bare feet felt another small raised area in the wood floor just a board over. Now I knew we had a problem but I figured I would look in the morning. I went back out to start the dishwasher and when I grabbed the detergent from the cabinet noticed a spot. Uh-Oh I found the leak or at least the general area where it was. The next day I called the contractor who had done the kitchen and he sent someone out to have a look. He of course found it and it was a copper pipe fitting that just wasn't sealed with solder. Needless to say there is a mess. The guy repaired it and took photos for his boss. I figured I'd get a bill for the repair and would need to do some ripping out.

The next morning the contractor called to say they would be covering it all! They didn't have to do that since their warranty is up, but they are doing the right thing. It really is nice to have a company do that. Just thought i'd share.

My Hockey Players are Growing Up!

If you are friends with me on Facebook this is nothing new, but I thought I would post a couple photos of the 2011-12 hockey players in the family. This season has me traveling 16 of 21 weekends and I just finished my first non traveling weekend of the past 6 weeks. We still had 2 home games for Frudoch and a 'team' trip to the Columbus Blue Jackets game vs. the Anaheim Ducks. Both were hard fought wins and FREE tickets to the CBJ game (thanks to Anaheim player George Parros) where they actually WON! Yes for the CBJ its been a tough start to the season at 2-9-1. In any case this post is about my hockey players and I do have one this year playing for the CBJ. Poppy is playing on 2 girls travel teams and while she did play some travel last year its only Oct 31 and we've already had more travel for her this year compared to all of last year.Just last weekend we went to Windsor Canada for the Hocktoberfest tournament and our girls team did a great job in going 5-1 in the tournament with our only loss being in the championship game by a score of 3-2. In 6 games they gave up only 6 goals with 4 shutouts! Frudoch has returned to play for the Capitals again this season but has moved up to the Bantam AA team. We've hit several out of town games and have several more to come. As one of the couple "new" guys on the team he's still trying to assert his place on the team. So far he's scoring a point a game thru 15 games and is winning faceoffs at a 71% pace. Both are tops on the team despite a second line role. This weekend we have 7 games between the 2 kids with Poppy drawing 5 and Frudoch 2. Oh yeah I'll be out of town for a portion of the weekend and its for a race meeting. Its all part of being a hockey parent.

Wisniewski Got Robbed

Welcome to Cbus James Wisniewski. The land where suspensions are handed out to teach a "weakling" franchise a lesson. Whether it was Campbell or now Shanahan the cycle continues. I see this from a Jackets perspective of course, but what we see here is what Shanny references and Clutterbuck came at Wiz. He knew what he was doing and then milked it. Shanny played favorites and we lose again.

D you need some Inspiration?

I saw this making the rounds on Facebook today. Inspirational to say the least.

Cleveland Air Show 2011--We Picked the Wrong Day But....

So if you have read my blog before you know that besides traveling for hockey I also love to take the kids to Air Shows. This year we hit only 2, but wow what weather extremes over 6 weeks. In late July we went to Dayton and it was upper 90's and on Labor Day we went to Cleveland and had 60 and 30mph winds. Unfortunately for us the only day I could truly make Cleveland was the third and final day on Labor Day Monday and a stiff cold front had moved thru after Sunday's show had concluded. Saturday was upper 90's and sunny. Sunday was 80 and Sunny and Monday was the previously mentioned dreary cold and misty. However the performers still put on a great and most importantly SAFE show. Even the RC planes flew and those pilots did an amazing job in the winds. The weather also featured a very low ceiling which forced the performers to fly their "flat" shows which I did not mind as it keeps the planes closer to the ground and is different than the normal show so some variety is nice. Now to be honest when I saw the forecast I really didn't want to drive 2 hours to be outside in bad weather all day, but I had promised my son we would go to see one particular plane fly: the F-4 Phantom II.

The photo is not great as there was so little light, but I did work hard to get a few good shots as this was likely the final air show for the F-4 in US markings as this plane and the other 6 still flight ready are due to be destroyed later this year. They have all been converted to QF-4's and are actually able to be remote operated. They use them to test our missile systems and shoot them down. The F-4 was first flown in 1958 and saw heavy use in the Vietnam War. It can do Mach 2.2 and is a huge hulking beast when you compare it to the more modern fighters like the F-16. Even though the weather stunk I'm still glad we got to witness this proud bird thrill the fans one last time. After the show it returned to Tyndall AFB in Florida. The only way to see one now is in a museum.

Also appearing were a US Navy FA-18 Hornet which put on a great display and made sure everybody was hard of hearing with lots of low afterburner passes to make up for the lack of vertical climbs.

We even got a couple of bonus passes when the plane departed with a wingman to return to Virginia Beach. Nothing like having a couple of Hornets high and tight.



We were excited to FINALLY get to see the A-10 Wathog perform and it put on a great show with lots of low passes and simulated bombing runs. It also paired up with the F-4 for the Heritage Flight and although the P-51 Mustang could not go up and take part it was still a memorable Heritage Flight.




Entertaining the fans is important and School Time running 300+mph sure does the trick especially the kids!


Most air shows feature one of the big US military teams like the USAF Thunderbirds or the US Navy Blue Angels. This year we got 2--The US Army Golden Knights feature guys with serious skill jumping from planes. However, the weather was so intense that on this day only the best of the best were able to leap from 2000 feet and that mean several soldiers had to stay aboard the C-31 Friendship. Still the 5 jumpers did an amazing job all landing right on target.


While the Golden Knights were buzzing around the sky preparing to jump we did get a special visit from up north. A Royal Canadian Air Force CP-140 did several low passes. Its pretty amazing to see an aircraft that big banking and turning at such a low altitude. This plane flew at both the Toronto and Cleveland Air Shows on each day.



Finally the show ended with the headliners: the USAF Thunderbirds. Due to the conditions they were forced to fly an alternate show and for the photographers this makes things tough. Catching one or 2 fast approaching planes is doable when they are low. For 6 planes its difficult since the zoom is your friend (if you have a good one). I tried my best, but the conditions were ever worsening and I decided to shoot a few photos and just enjoy the show. I got some nice pics, but not what I'd call great. Here are a few.





So as you can see it was a great air show and I left off many many acts and all the static aircraft. It is a great place to watch even in dismal weather. Probably my favorite locale with Lake Erie and downtown Cleveland providing dramatic backdrops. While I did the best I could with the photos I'm not particularly happy with the results. Maybe next year!

I Told You we like Eagle Hockey Gloves

Here is a sampling of our stock. More to come too.

We Went to Grand Cayman BWI.....WOW!

Our "El Cheapo" view!

So I'm kind of catching up here from June. Earlier this year we decided to take the kids to Maui. Well the day we were to book the trip our Subaru decided it didn't want to be turbocharged anymore and well the bill to repair it (so we could unload it) consumed a great portion of our budget. Shortly thereafter I began to look for other destinations that would have a similar WOW factor, but would be cheaper for the family. After debating south Florida vs. the Caribbean I decided the kids would really like to get their passports stamped and I picked Grand Cayman. I am so glad I did!

Grand Cayman is the largest of the 3 island chain and while its not Maui it is pretty awesome in its own right. Travel for us entailed a 6am departure from CMH and a connection barely 2 hours later in ATL where we boarded an old MD-80 for the 2:30 flight into Grand Cayman. We used Delta Air Lines (who else) and collected lots of Skymiles and bonus miles swelling my account to about 150k miles. We booked thru Delta Vacations and got a killer package on flights and hotel and transportation in Cayman. While we booked the "el cheapo" rate consisting of no balcony no view we did in fact get a great room with both the balcony and the water view. We stayed in the Marriott Grand Cayman Resort and it was everything we hoped it would be. The only issue we could come up with was the lack of cold water in the shower and the air conditioner working so well that it got too cool at night. To me those are not issues but expectations. While technically it was the start of hurricane season the chance of a big storm in June is almost non-existant. The weather for us was great. The beach.....Seven Mile Beach lived up to its reputation of one of the best beaches in the world. Our end was so quiet and the snorkeling was amazing on the artificial reef that have been created just off shore at the Marriott.


The Reef Balls artificial reef at the Marriott

The downside to the trip is eating. It's not cheap anywhere-even fast food was $35 for a family of 4. A sit down meal at a family place is going to cost you roughly $75-100 and a nice meal for 2 is about $150 or more. We knew this going in and just considered it part of the expense of a trip. There are so many cool things to do there, but the number 1 attraction (for non scuba divers) is Stingray City. This sand bar about 4 miles out is super cool. A chance to get in the water and play with hundreds of wild Southern Stingrays in their environment. I will never forget holding a wild female stingray as long as I live. This 7 foot across and 180 pounder was the highlight of my trip. We went there with Red Sail Sports and they took great care of us on their catamaran with a great sail home after some awesome snorkeling in water that ranged from 12 feet to 6000 feet. So neat to do.

The money shot
Flying home was the reverse of the trip down with the exception that our departure was much later at around 1:30pm and that put us into ATL at the busy hour. Our MD80 was again old, but this time it was empty and allowed us to have full rows to stretch out. We also got a chance to see Cuba as we flew over. We also said to heck with carry on's and checked our luggage since it was free for AMEX/Delta cards and this made it much easier to travel and end our journey on a relaxed note. After the fun of the trip I even managed to get a bottle of Dom Perignon home from the Duty Free shop without hacking off the US Customs people.

Swimming with the Stingray

Why we ONLY use EAGLE Hockey Gloves!

One question I frequently get from other parents is: Where did you get those gloves for your son/daughter? The brand is EAGLE if you haven't noticed from the many hockey pictures. A quick short answer is they are the best gloves made for hockey. This is a pretty bold statement when you consider the massive numbers of pro hockey players using gloves from other manufacturers such as Reebok, Easton and Bauer just to name a few. Unfortunately the Eagle gloves you can buy today are NOT the ones we use. EAGLE was bought out by Vaughn a couple years ago and while the logo is the same the product isn't quite exactly the same. I'm lucky in that I stocked up with LOTS of gloves and I also am willing to buy custom versions of the old ones that EAGLE will still make (for a price$$$$$$$).

Eagle today is now chipping at the market in more than just gloves. They've recently launched a new stick line as well as hockey accessories in addition to new models of gloves. I'll reserve judgement on those as we see how they work. Eagle was built originally on a mission of uncompromising excellence in a hockey glove and based on the 7 pairs we have here thing are great. I may just buy a new pair and see if that fit and comfort of the past are back. If not its pay the big bucks and have the old ones custom made.