Vacation and More Changes

OK, I finally am going to talk about my vacation a little bit as well as some more changes you can expect on here.

I visited my uncle in West Virginia to start out the trip, and it was there that many of my family showed up. It used to be a family tradition as a kid to go up there during Thanksgiving with my dad being an avid hunter. BTW, he and my cousins caught five deer before I even made it up there! No, I'm no hunter, but I have been in those mountains behind my uncle's home which he owns a part of. He also owns a pond where you see fishing during the warmer months of the year. I stayed there for five days and visited folks in Maryland, too. Next stop was central PA.

I visited family and friends in York, Harrisburg, Lancaster, and Hanover during the first several days. But there was one goal I had in mind before I even started the trip: Philadelphia.

I had never been to Philly before, and my original thought was to attend the WWE Monday Night Raw event on December 8 that had the Slammys as part of the show. My friend Carl gets lower level seats to the Wachovia Center events, but wasn't able to this time. By the time I got to check on-line, there wasn't any good seats left. Since I was staying in York, it was too much of a drive to go out there for a $20 ticket. So I decided to check the list of events for during the weekend of Dec. 6-7.

I remembered that the Army-Navy football game at Lincoln Financial Field was taking place that weekend, and that was what I looked at. I was able to get a ticket just 21 rows from the field, and was at the same corner of the stadium where President Bush came out of. The troopers came right over top of us as well before descending to the 50-yard line. The flyovers were awesome, too.

Folks, the pregame for this rivalry is worth the price of admission alone. If you're given the opportunity to go to this game, I would suggest you do it. The only regret I have is that my batteries in my camera went dead on me, and I only got limited shots of the troopers.

I was pretty impressed with Lincoln Financial Field after touring the facility when the game was out of reach. There really isn't a bad seat in the house. I toured around Philly before and after the game. Compared to other big cities I've been in, it was fairly easy to get around.

I also went to Hershey for their Christmas event that they have every year. It was cool to see that, and I picked up some candy there. It is indeed the sweetest place on Earth!

Gettysburg was another place I visited during my vacation. Since I'm somewhat of a history buff, it was intriguing to me. I visited the museum, and I liked it. It made it difficult to get good pics because of the reduced lighting, but I liked what I saw. I toured around for almost two hours as well as the town in general, too.

For the most part, I caught up with friends as I checked out their homes and such. It also gave me some ideas to write about in 2009, so that's part of the reason for change, too.

A few of my friends as well as a cousin will be out of work by next year because of economic cutbacks and store closings. One of them named Jeff also went through a divorce not too long ago, and was homeless while living out of hotel, too. It's a long story with him that just got worse. I know what that feels like, and it's just a bad time of the year on top of all that. The store I worked at up there is one of the places closing down for good. These are tough times, and my heart goes out to those of you in that position right now.

The vacation was needed and it was great. But 2009 is coming, and so are the changes on and off here.

As I said in a previous entry, this site is going to change. I'll still post about sports sometimes, but don't expect it to be norm. Also, you can expect a big dropoff in the frequency of the posts as well as a name change to the site, too. Things are changing drastically for me in 2009, so don't panic when you see that I go a long period of time without posting. That's how it's going to be sometimes.

For those who want to see them, here are a few pics from the Army-Navy game.

Pics from Gettysburg.

I had trouble uploading them on here, so I set it to where everyone can view them.

Word Life!

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