Dear First Energy,

I was talking with a friend, who recently told me about your genius idea on how to reduce electricity. Let’s force “FREE” fluorescent bulbs on our customers and then increase their bills. Sounds like a wonderful scam… but hey, maybe you assume your customers are mathematically challenged.

Although your number weenies liked the idea of the scam, our governor apparently can do the math too and is calling for a suspension of your “light bulb program”.

I’ve been using fluorescent bulbs for awhile, and I’ll continue to… but I’ll buy them on my own. I don’t want your “FREE” ones, especially when they aren’t free. Why should I pay for something I’m not going to accept?

I hope PUCO opens up their eyes and tells you guys to eat the costs of these “FREE” bulbs rather than passing them onto the customer. This just screams SCAM.

Sincerely,
A granddaughter of a former CEI worker who knows her grandfather would be turning in his grave if he heard about this

So this blog post is reaching out to my fellow Ohioans who fall under the First Energy electric regime… contact your reps and have them continue to support the governor in suspending this program. Why should First Energy be allowed to pull this kind of scam on their customers?

When I woke up on October 2nd, 2004, I was full of energy and excitement.  The giggles were in full effect.  I was super excited about the day ahead.  Nothing – not even the drizzling rain – could kill the excitement.  After 7 years of officially being a couple, Kev and I were finally getting married!

I knew when I first saw him that morning that we were both ready for this.

Since it was still drizzling when the limo arrived at my parents’ house, we ended up heading down to the courthouse for some indoor pictures.  As we were leaving the courthouse, the rain let up, so we headed over to Coulby Park for our outdoor pictures.

We had plenty of time between our pictures and our ceremony, so our limo driver took us on a scenic ride through the North Chagrin metroparks.  Seeing the trees in fall colors was amazing!

Since the bridal party was hungry and we still had a couple hours before the ceremony, we ended up making a stop.  (And yes, we took pics to prove it…)

(And as requested by Matt)

After the run for the border, we hopped back in the limo and went downtown.  Our family and friends joined Kev and me on a 3 hour tour aboard the Goodtime III.

As a tribute to my Irish roots, I had a family friend pipe me in.

Our ceremony was short – 15 minutes or so.  We were married by my dad’s work partner – a Catholic priest named Fr. Dave.  We wrote our own vows, and we kept them short and sweet. After our ceremony, we walked to the back of the boat to line up for the reception.

The reception was a lot of fun!  The crew aboard the Goodtime III, as well as photographer Ken Cavanaugh of Cavanaugh Photography, the DJ Crew (our DJs), and our friends and family really made it an enjoyable night.

We got our cake from Rito’s Bakery, and it was delicious!

We had so many guests from all over.  Our LAN party friends came in from MI, MA, and NH.  My uncle came up from VA.  It was great to see so many of our family and friends in!  One of my favorite pics is of all of my cousins on my mom’s side.  I’m the oldest of all of us, and I know my grandparents would’ve been happy to see us all together if they had been alive.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 5 years since we had our fateful 3 hour tour!  As I look back on our wedding day, I have nothing but fond memories.

It’s been a long road…

Happy Anniversary, Kev!

After work on Thursday, I stopped by my parents’ house to drop off their carpet cleaner. My cousin Saundra was over as well, so we chatted for a bit. Then, my parents suggested going to dinner if we didn’t have plans… and we were talking of either going to 5 Guys or to Swensons.

Now I’ve heard quite a bit about Swensons – my friend Jeff raves about it, and some of my other friends had mentioned it. For as much as they raved about it, none of them ever said “Hey, Sarah! We should go check out Swensons!” But my parents… they told Saundra and me how these guys run like this *picture funny gestures of guys running really fast* whenever your car lights are turned on. Now we were hysterical at my parents’ impressions – imagine how we were once we actually got there!

So I pulled into Swensons and made sure to turn my car lights off, so that we had time to look at the menu that Dad had brought with us. While we looked at the menu, my cousin and I were watching the poor guys, who seemed paranoid, waiting to see car lights. As soon as they spotted a car with its lights on, they took off! I was laughing so hard that I ended up crying! It was just funny to watch! (Why didn’t my friends warn me about this part?)

Now the food… our carload ended up with 3 Galley Boys, 1 Double Cheeseburg, 2 orders of fries, 1 order of fried mushrooms, 1 order of fried zucchini, and drinks. I had one of the Galley Boys – a Double Cheeseburg with “two special sauces” that really caught my curiosity – and the fried zucchini. The two special sauces, guessing on taste alone, seem to be barbecue sauce and tartar sauce. I know… there’s a huge “what the heck?!?” factor with that combination. It sounds horrible, but boy was it delicious! I was significantly stuffed, so the Xango (cheesecake wrapped in a tortilla) will have to wait until my next trip.

So if you have one of these – Swensons Drive In – by you, I highly recommend you check it out!

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I was too sick to drive to Columbus this weekend. All throughout last week, I had been experiencing a pain on my side. At first, I thought I slept on it funny and figured it’d settle itself down in a couple days. But by Wednesday, the pain was still there, so I continued relying on the Tylenol until I could get into the doctor. On Thursday afternoon, I got into the doctor, where they took some blood to be tested and sent me home with two prescriptions – one to treat what they suspect it is and one to relieve the pain. As many of you know, I’m allergic to a laundry list of drugs, with sensitivities to another list, so I have a small window to work with. Now to add the pain killer to the sensitivity list – argh! So this weekend is back to Tylenol until I see the doctor on Monday, which means minor pain relief at best. (Did I mention that this pain is worse than the fractured rib that I dealt with last summer?)

So I missed my conference and 2 talks this weekend, all due to some mysterious pain. I just hope that whatever this is clears itself up soon – I have a trip next month that I do not want to miss.

I’m tired of being sick… can my body please just quit being a pain and let me enjoy life?

This weekend, Kevin, Khyle, and Ray ran in the Winking Lizard’s Shot in the Dark race.

Before the race:

After the race:

I was too sick to drive to Columbus this weekend, but I didn’t have to drive for the race. Kev has done a good job of taking care of me, and I was quite determined to go down there and cheer them on.

It was great to be down there and see it happen!

They’ve gone through so much together over the years, and I wish them many happy years ahead.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Over the past few weeks, Kev and I have been enjoying time together, checking out Columbus Zoo and COSI while down in Columbus for the 4th of July. We spent some time with friends at my friend Jeff’s 4th of July party. We also met up with some of our BG friends from college (who’ve relocated to Columbus) for brunch at Schmidt’s Sausage Haus. It was a great, much needed getaway weekend.

For my birthday, Kev cooked dinner at home and then we went out to Legacy Village to walk around and enjoy gelato. It was a wonderful day.

I also got the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award, as they apparently think I’m awesome or something. I guess that’s what I get for speaking about their technology at conferences and events, blogging about their technology, and just running with some Microsoft people and other MVPs. For more about the award and what it is, check out their site.

So what’s with my blog post title? This weekend, I’m going to camp in Columbus. But it isn’t a camping event in the traditional sense. This weekend, I’ll be spending time with other programmers and designers, donating my time and technical talents to a charity project. We call these camps “GiveCamps“, and I’ll specifically be at Columbus GiveCamp. (Last year, I went to Ann Arbor, but this year, since Columbus is having a full camp and is a little closer, I’m headed there.)

I got my charity assignment in my email this morning. This year, the charity I’m working with is TECH CORPS Ohio. They need help with their website, amongst a few other things. I got a basic layout of what they’re looking for. Tomorrow night, I’ll meet my other teammates and work with them to get an awesome project out for TECH CORPS Ohio. I’m excited because I know a handful of my teammates – including some people I know from the technical community here in Cleveland, my friend Gayle from the Columbus area, and a few people that I haven’t met yet. So I’m excited about this weekend.

Next weekend will be my last weeked in Columbus for awhile, giving 2 talks to a bunch of programmers. What I like about these talks is that my audience may have some people who run Windows, but there’s a good chance that I’ll have Mac and Linux people in my audience as well. So I get to show them the cool stuff Microsoft has out that they can run on their machines. Yes, I know that sounds weird – running Microsoft stuff on something other than Windows doesn’t sound right. But that’s where my wide technical background comes into play and when I can say “Yes, you don’t need Windows.”

So my community involvement is starting back up again.

Kev is getting ready for the Shot in the Dark race, which’ll unfortunately happen while I’m out of town. Apparently he’s running in it with my sister, his sister, and his sister’s husband – it’s a family affair!

So if you haven’t heard from us in awhile, just know that we’re still around – just our schedules picking back up.

While resting a little this afternoon, Kev had me look up the date for Worms 2: Armageddon getting released for the XBox. July 1st can’t come soon enough!

Yes, that’s right – Worms 2 Armageddon is coming to the XBox Live Arcade. There were many LAN parties in college where this game would be the star of the show. Sometimes Quake 3 or Starcraft would be the game of choice, but Worms 2: Armageddon was definitely a favorite. From the sheep to the banana bomb… the ninja rope (damn those ninjas!)… to the holy hand grenade… killing worms has never been so fun!

We’ll definitely be getting this – and we hope some of our friends join in on the fun!

In all this craziness of staying busy, did you really think I would forget?

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Here’s to another year wiser, another year of shenanigans! I love you with all of my heart!