This weekend was emotionally draining. Though, at the end of it, everyone was smiles. I’ll save a more lengthy write-up for later this week as I just got home an hour ago after 13 hours between leaving my brother’s home and arriving at mine.

I shed many tears and cried a fair bit through the weekend, my mother was an integral part of my life and saying goodbye to her is very difficult. I miss talking to her on the phone, I miss hearing her laugh, I miss her puns and so much more. But many things were said and shared this weekend to remind me of so many good times and good memories.

Also this weekend was an event mom would have dearly loved to be in the middle with the family coming together, playing together ranging from Poker to Charades to Guitar Hero 3.

I should also note that the Jarrett clan is looking for any family brave enough to stand against them in a Charades battle, we welcome any and all challengers. We rocked out with some amazing skills in Charades this weekend, by far some of the most fun we’ve had.

More stories to come.

I’m okay.

On the drive home from work, I’m slowing down for a stoplight and a bicyclist pops out between cars and hits the side of my car. He flipped off his bike and broke my driver side mirror. Let me tell you, time has never moved slower as I watched him come off his bike.

I stopped and began to pull off, opened my door as he stood up and picked up his bike.

“Are you okay?” I went to stand up out of the driver seat and felt the car begin to pull forward as my foot came off the brake, I had forgotten to shift gears to park and so I quickly sat down and regained control and pulled into the parking lot. I tried to play back the last thirty seconds, had I not been paying attention? How did this happen? Was it my fault? Is he okay? The questions raced through my mind as I pulled into a parking space at the 7-11.

As I shifted into park I checked my rearview and watched the guy bicycle away. I was perplexed by him leaving but relieved that he was okay.

Anyways, I parked the car and got out, looking around just trying to take stock of the situation. Two guys came over. One offered his info as witness to the guy riding off, he hadn’t seen the impact. And the other guy who came over kept telling me to wait for the police just in case someone called in my tag and assuring me it was alright and that he had seen the whole thing from the car next to me. He even said he tried to stop the guy from crossing but couldn’t.

I called 911 to be sure it had been called in, and waited. The chill hit quickly as the sun set and the cold front laid it on. I waited maybe 30 minutes before a cruiser pulled in with a young lady officer. We only chatted for a few minutes, I told her all the details but decided not to get a report. I took her card and she assured me that if it did somehow come back to me I was covered since I had waited for her and my 911 call was logged.

All in all, I only need to fix the mirror and hope the young guy is alright. I don’t know his story or why he rode off so quick but I’m calm and okay.

Can’t wait to call my mechanic and see if they can get a mirror for me, or to go hit the junk yards and see if I can easily find one.

So I attended the Daytona 500 last night. Now, I’ve never attended a race before, I’ve sort of watched it on TV before. My two older brothers are both racing fans, my dad is a fan of all sports, and so I knew that if I didn’t enjoy the race I’d enjoy watching the race in person with my dad and my eldest brother.

I enjoyed the race, however my ADD kept tugging at my sleeve as I was in one place for over seven hours without internet access. It’s just… so… long. Thankfully I was wrong in a major way. The race is called the “Daytona 500″ and I thought that meant 500 laps. So with 500 laps, each lap being 2.5 miles, I thought I was settling in to watch someone drive 1250 miles. Thank GOD that I was wrong and that it was 200 laps at 2.5 miles for 500 miles.

I think there are a few big things new racing fans need to know about this race:

1)  The race itself is actually very exciting. Sure driving in a circle sounds boring but when they get three wide going around a turn at 190 miles per hour and you know someone is trying to gain mere feet so that they can nudge ahead of the car next to them.

2) You do get excited from crashes, not necessarily for the explosions and chaos, but because it allows the racers to return to a single clump of cars rather than spread out around the track. So with the yellow flag they recompress and as soon as the green flag waves they hit the gas and the race is on, everyone in the arena rises to their feet to watch them come around.

3) Traffic after the race is absolutely unbelievable. Truly, horribly, disgustingly bad. First, there’s traffic to get back to your car. Second, there’s traffic to get out of the parking lots. Third, there’s traffic on the interstates. It took us 5 hours to get from the race track, back to Orlando.  A trip which should have maybe taken 90 minutes took 3 times longer. Thankfully I slept most of the way.

A side project which I dragged my feet on and which proved endlessly troublesome is finally ready to be sent to the client. It’s not perfect, I know there will be revisions. But the system was supposed to be built to extend Wordpress, however I quickly found WP to be ancillary and ended up basically creating the beginnings of a custom CMS.

The word came that my sloth had finally caught up with me and I either needed to finish the project post haste, or forfeit the fee for it. So, I put other things on the back burner and pulled two late nights. I expected tonight to be a third one but thankfully everything fell rightly into place.

Now for a good night’s sleep.

And thank you K, for pushing me to finish the project and understanding when it consumed our Valentine’s day.

K and I took Mattie to the dog park this weekend, the drive there had us worried because it was raining and we weren’t sure if this would all be for nothing. Driving with Mattie in the car is heart wrenching for me, she whines and whimpers from her kennel and so I hate taking her anywhere without it ending in fun - in hopes one day she’ll be excited about car rides.

We got the park and it was still a very light drizzle, so we decide to hop out and wait it out under the pavilion. While there a man came over with a truly massive English Mastiff. Don’t underestimate my meaning when I say massive, this dog on hind legs may not have been as tall as me, but his head was massive and he could have played the Monster in Disney’s Sandlot movie.

The mastiff’s name, as it turns out was Diesel and he was very sweet. K and I asked his owner about what it takes to own such a big dog and he laughed as he ran us through the evening routine. Simply put, the dog isn’t an apartment dog, it needs a big house and yard. Even though Mastiffs won’t run very much, they do still need the space.

14.1 on the clock. The Magic take a timeout before they inbound the ball. The entire arena, 20,000 people are on their feet cheering for both the Magic and the Celtics, the game is tied 93 each. The Celtics are the best team in the league, with only seven losses so far this season. The Magic and Celtics have both won on their home turf this season putting their record at 1-1.

Hedo inbounds to Arroyo, Arroyo holds the ball the passes it back to Hedo. Hedo is our go to clutch shooter, he is one of our top players and we try to get the ball in his hands in the final seconds as he has a definite ability to sink them when it counts.

So I watch as he holds the ball and holds the ball, obviously making sure the Celtics won’t have a shot if he misses, taking us to overtime. 3 seconds on the clock he moves left, 2 seconds he slips right, 1 second left with a defender in his face he jumps up and takes a three point shot from beyond the arc.

The alarm blows and the backboard goes red as the clock expires, lighting the ball as it falls through the basket and net. The arena explodes, we’re all jumping around and high fiving. Magic win 96-93! It was one of those magical moments, the world falls away and there is only adrenaline

The NBA, where awesome happens.

I have to watch Sports Center tomorrow morning.

I’m far from a numerologist, however I do have a fascination with numbers. My friends laugh when I explain that I remember strings of numbers by graphing them in my head. Or they shake their head as I recite a ten digit number after hearing it just once. When I was a kid, I would race the cashier to add up the items we had bought and then calculate change before they could.

So moving again, I have a fresh number to bring into the fold. 907. From 839 to 406 to 907. And with those three numbers my mind spins off into a thousand equations, looking for patterns. I’d liken it to the film sequence from <em>A Beautiful Mind</em> except I lack the patience for code breaking, but it is something along the same lines where I visualize a tree of numbers and equations in my mind.

907 is our new apartment. The first in the latest chapter of my life.

Yesterday was a long tiring day. I forced K to come to bed at 1am reminding her that us staying up all night packing and then being useless on the move day would be worse than having some stuff unpacked. So we got 5 or 6 hours of sleep before waking up and taking off for the day.

All in all, the world was on our side. It was clear skies, the apartment had no issues and the movers were awesome. Even more awesome though were the friends who showed up to help. With three friends (and one mother) showing up to help carry over the random items we didn’t get boxed in time, and to help clean the old apartment, we actually managed the full move in about 18 hours.

My brother Adam’s advice of beer and pizza did not go forgotten either, except K’s mom one-upped it. She brought over her crock-pot and set us up with pork chops for dinner! Not to mention her fresh baked chocolate-chip cookies and yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting. We used them unashamedly for bribery and appreciation.

Today we’re beginning the process of unpacking, box by box we’re regaining floor space and entertainment (the first thing I unpacked really was our entertainment center, second was my desk and computer setup.)

Tomorrow it will be more of the same.

No, we’re not being evicted after yesterday’s calls. No we could in theory move it later, but we’re not. We are eager to get into a new place and so here is the plan.

1. Use movers. We don’t have to, we’re going to have a large contingent of friends there, but movers just make everything simpler, plus they bring a big truck which would end up being 1/2 to 2/3s the cost anyways. Also, if going up stairwells is involved, movers value goes up drastically.
2. Call in Favors. There is a man law which states if you help someone move, then they help you move. Unless of course you moved within the last two years, in which case you have the option of refusing, however a refusal negates any debt they hold to you. Right? Thankfully I’ve got a few of those chips, unfortunately our moving date is during the week so some of those people will be working most of the day.
3. Never skimp on hands. K and I are getting movers (see above) but we’re also hoping to bring over 4-5 friends. We live in an apartment, not a house, but still the more hands the easier the work and the less grumpy everyone gets. So if someone offers to come help, accept and put them to work.
4. Check the weather. If it is going to rain, you want to know ahead of time. As of now our forecast gives us only a 20% chance of rain.
5. Make a plan and get organized. Lots and lots of lists are your friend. Lists of things to move, things to do, people to call, appointments with utilities, cable etc. Lists lists lists. In fact, make so many lists, have a list of your lists!
6. Stay calm. Sometimes you might feel overwhelmed with packing and such, but just stay calm, remember to breathe, and understand everything will work out.
7. If you have a pet, know what you’re doing with him. In the chaos of preparations, don’t overlook Fido. Are you kenneling them? Is he going to be locked in a room while stuff is moved? Take him to a friend’s? If you’re moving into a house, be tied him up outside?

The bottom line is plan. Plan and pack as much as possible ahead of time. The less you have to do on the moving day the better.