My Favorite Place To Be Where I Live

Hi Guys!! Whew! It has been a while huh? What has it been? Better than 2 years?? Man, long time to be away! Anyways, I am back now and will try to stick around a bit more so everyone can stay better informed on how awesome life can be for me! Since my last post quite a few things have changed but I will save those for another post, be prepared to catch up! This post, yea this one right here, is going to be about My favorite place to go in South Carolina, yea, the place I love to go the most. That place for me would have to be Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston has so much history hidden beneath it and so many things to do that it is impossible to do it all before something new comes up. It is the heart of where the Civil War Started that changed America, Where flooding and earthquakes have crippled people over the years, yet, they still strive on and make the best out of everything, they use their trials and tribulations to enlighten everyone else into the history of the city. Some of the historical points of interest that I enjoy the most in Charleston would be the tour of Fort Sumter, The ghost tours through the streets of historical downtown, Touring The Yorktown, and visiting the old State building with the dungeons beneath them. Now, if you are going to Charleston for a bit of relaxing and do not want to stuff your brain with historical sites then there are some things to do in that aspect also. I enjoy the fishing off of Folly Beach Pier, there are always friendly people there that are willing to help you out if you are more inexperienced, The beach at The Isle of Palms is beautiful and very relaxing, and there are shops in the Tanger Outlets that you can go shopping at and find great discounts on name brands items! (Who doesn't love that! =D) With all of that being said, I am sure that the people in Charleston take it for granted just like those of us who live in Columbia so the same. The State House in the heart of Columbia also has many Historical sites around it from Cannons used in the Civil War, to Spots marked on the walls where the cannon balls actually hit, then there is the River Walk where you can see the bridges that were burned down to keep the armies from invading, to the one that was constructed by the armies so they could cross anyway. I see those things daily so it is more standardized to me and I am sure that others that come may find that part of Columbia amazing and that is exactly how I feel about Charleston. Doesn't hurt also that from time to time the company I work for sends me to Charleston to "live" there during the week while I work from time to time. But, it never gets old to me, I love it there and enjoys my time near the coast.   

Wow, that was a bit of rambling in that post, but, who would have expected anything different? After all, I am RANDOM Rabon!! Hope you all enjoyed reading about my favorite place in South Carolina to go to and I look forward to keeping my updates consistent now! Enjoy the remainder of your weekend folks and have a great day!!

Day Number Two!!!

Heather's second day at daycare went pretty good also, She was more unsure today than she was yesterday, but she still went into the TV room and sat on one of the teachers lap and let Candice tell her bye... The Update at the end of the day was that she got upset twice on the playground when she noticed we weren't there but after a few minutes she was fine and back playing... She did end up getting scratched on her face, under her eye when her and another child was playing with sticks,but they told Candice immediately, so I thought that was pretty cool... At the end of today she actually wanted to come home and told all of the teachers bye... That is a big thing because yesterday she wouldn't even talk to them as we were leaving...I am still disappointed that I couldn't be there today, or tomorrow but  am glad she is doing so wonderful with it and I will get to pick her up on Thursday, and on Friday this week, so that makes me feel a little better... This will probably be the last update about daycare that I post, unless something out of the ordinary happens, because I think she is doing just fine with it... Until next time, I'm out!!

New Job Yet Again...

Well, it's the first day at another new job site for me, and this one is out of town... I am heading to Florence today to be the first face this new contracting company sees... We are starting the eighth floor of a hospital today and this company that we are contracting the work from and multi-million dollars worth of work coming up so depending on how this job goes depends on how much of the other work we get... Should I feel privileged that I got chosen to go to this job and make the first impression?? I think so, but that doesn't mean I have to like it, I really don't want to go out of town to work and it is up to the foreman whether or not we stay in a hotel or not... He said we are going to try and make the drive but, it is almost two hundred miles for him to drive one way, so I'm not sure how long he will want to keep it up... Maybe, it won't be too bad on him, good news is he is going to pick me up and let me ride with him out there so I will be able to save my gas and everything, and it is that pretty cool and laid back foreman that I got the chance to work with last Thursday, so it won't be too bad... I am really hoping that I get back into town soon enough to go and pick Heather up from school again, but I really don't think that will happen, at least I got to pick her up her first day... And I know she will do great again today, yet, I'm still kinda worried... Well, I am gonna start trying to post the time on each update since the time on the Blog is so far off, which I don't know why that is... But, it is currently about four thirty, and my coffee is ready, so I am going to get in there and fix me a cup or six... See y'all on the next update!!

The Big Day Update

Ok, so it is a quarter after ten on a night when I have to get up and head to Florence in the morning and be there by seven, and I just got finished cutting my hair and taking a shower... But anyway, on with the update... Like I said in the last post I was unable to go this morning to drop her off and I truly did feel bad for it, but Candice called me and let me know that everything went ok, Heather's teacher wasn't there yet this morning so she got to go sit in like a community TV room or something and watch TV until she arrived, she was unsure about everything at first but with some of the teachers help she slowly worked her way in with the crowd... So, Candice was able to tell her bye without any fuss, again she was very unsure of what was going on... The owner of the daycare came over and talked to Candice about everything and gave her a hug and ensured her that everything would be ok, which I thought was fabulous... That lady is truly great, and just as a side note, her name is Heather also... The day went on as usually as it could, even though Candice told me everything went ok I still worried all day... I thought Heather would clam up and not talk to anybody because she is so shy around strangers... So when the end of my day FINALLY came I was ready to go see how everything went after Candice left, Candice ended up calling me about a quarter after five to let me know she was off work and didn't have to work overtime this week which is a good thing, since I will be in Florence now... She met me up at the daycare and we went inside together... It made me feel absolutely wonderful to open the door and see my little girl playing in a tunnel and enjoying herself without a care in the world... First thing she said to us was "I'm Stuck" which clearly she wasn't, after she got "unstuck" out of the tunnel, she took her dinosaur over to a little play sink to wash it, as she was doing that I asked her if she was ready to go home to which she replied "Not now, I'm in school"... It was great, I don't think I could have been happier to know that she liked it... After she got finished washing her dinosaur she went over and put him in the toy box back where he goes and put her little back pack on and was ready to head out the door... So I am very please to let everyone know that she really enjoyed herself at school today and I think she is looking forward to going back and playing with her new friends...

Today's The Big Day!!

Today's the big day, the one that I have not been looking forward to, my Baby Girl is starting daycare and turning into a Big Girl... I hope everything goes ok, I hate that I can't be there with my wife to drop her off but naturally my job won't allow it... I am starting another job with a different foreman, this time on HVAC Start Up... I am not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing that I keeping going to work with somebody different every week, either they all like working with me and want me to help or they all hate working with me and want to ship me off...  Hopefully it is the first choice, the last foreman was great to work for but the guy I am going to work with today I already know is a stickler to say the least... But anyway, back to my daughter and her big day... She starts a daycare called Lollipop Lane today and we went out and got her everything she should need yesterday... We got her a sleeping bag, a big girl book bag, some new snack cups, and plenty of tissues and diapers... I am really not looking forward to today even though I am not the one having to take her, I feel real bad for Candice and I don't know how she is going to handle it if my baby starts crying and doesn't want her to leave... I am sure she is strong enough to leave anyway and we both agree that sneaking out isn't the answer because Heather might start looking for her later and that would just be Bad... But, hopefully Heather will love playing with the other kids and not mind staying there, she has been looking forward to starting "School" with other kids to play with for about three months now...  So maybe it will be a good thing, I know in the long run it will be... I will keep you all posted as to how it goes with the day care and naturally since the week started how it goes at work... As for now, I am signing off to go drink some coffee once again!!

Frankie's Fun Park

  Ok, as promised here is the update of my Friday with Heather... It turned out to be a fabulous day and I really enjoyed it, we started off getting Candice's car fixed and now it actually runs like it's suppose to... then we took off to Target to do a little shopping before we took off for Frankie's... It was more waiting on it to warm up some than shopping but anyway... While we were there I came to a realization that I think women truly believe (not all but definitely some) that if they can SQUEEZE into a pair of six or eight jeans then they are a six or eight... WRONG!!! if you have enough side fat hanging over that people can't tell if you are wearing a belt or not then that is not your size... Jeez... Sorry, just had to get that out... After target and my Starbucks coffee we headed to Frankie's, On the way there naturally my little girl fell asleep in the car...

So, while she was sleeping I took the time to play Texas Hold Em and Checkers on the Zune, and listen to 107.5 The Game... At least I had something to help keep me occupied... After she woke up, turned out that hour and a half nap done her a lot of good and she was in a wonderful mood for me and turned into kind of a camera ham...



So we slowly made our way into Frankie's after we had to go and look at the water falls, on the back of the miniature golf course... First thing we had to do was ride the Go-Carts, they are six dollars to ride, I have to say she absolutely loves riding in them... Thanks guy that takes the tokens for taking these wonderful pictures for me...

After the Go-Carts and talking her out of the Super Slide we went inside to play some games and win her some tickets, and let it be known that she gets to pick all of the games and she plays them all by herself... She really enjoys it and absolutely loves getting the tickets and feeding them to the ticket eater... First game we played was a drop ball game... The object is to drop six rubber balls into six red spots on the wheel, the more you hit the more tickets you get, and it is a dollar a play...

After that game she wanted to play a game where you pick a color and the ball rolls around like a roulette table and if it lands on you color you win, the colors are different sizes and the smaller color you pick the more tickets you win, red and green are the same size for fifteen tickets, the blue is smaller for twenty-five tickets, the yellow is smaller than the blue for forty-five tickets, and the white is smallest for seventy-five tickets, and it is twenty-five cents per play... Her first color she picked was yellow, and it hit, I got so excited for her because it was forty-five tickets... The only problem was the machine didn't give us any tickets, so I had to call someone for help, and she did not understand the waiting, but the guy came and gave us our tickets and refilled the machine... By this time she was ready to move on to bigger and better things... So we went up a couple of steps and she played a wheel of fortune game where you spin a wheel, it is three dollars a play and you have the opportunity to win two thousand tickets... She wasn't that lucky, but she did hit it for seventy-five tickets... She would have like it a lot more but after she had pulled the handle she tried to do it again and it hit her in the head, do to no resistance, so she was ready to move on after that... Next she wanted to play the Red Hot Sevens game it is just like the first game but bigger and with seven balls and you get more tickets... She loves watching the balls fall and bounce... I think it's her favorite game, and she racks up on it... She even made two older girls envy her, because of how many tickets she was winning, I loved it...

After she got done with that game we went back to the color picking game and she chose blue this time and hit it right on and wouldn't you know it, it didn't give us tickets again... So, we had to wait again, this time everyone was on lunch but one guy and he came to help us as soon as he could... When it first happened I thought I picked the wrong side of the machine but I was almost certain it was the side the guy refilled the first time... So, when the guy came to open it up and refill it, I saw I was on the right side and the guy from earlier forgot to take it off of manual when he made it spit out our tickets earlier, so this guy flipped a switch and it started giving us our twenty-five tickets, while it was dispensing, he tore his bundle he was going to refill it with about in half and handed it to us for us having to wait, I told him he didn't have to that it was dispensing our tickets now but he said good you can have those too... Well, the machine didn't stop at twenty-five, it gave us the twenty-five plus our forty-five from earlier... So with those seventy, plus what the really nice guy gave us we hit up that game for almost six hundred tickets, so I thought it was time to move on... We went on to play Deal or No Deal, she really enjoyed that game too, she picked her case and went on playing, first offer was fifty-eight tickets, but she didn't want to take the deal she wanted to keep playing, second offer was forty-two tickets, still no deal, next offer was eighteen tickets but she wanted to keep her case and ended up with four tickets... I was disappointed for her but she didn't mind at all, because she doesn't fully understand the whole concept of tickets she just likes getting whatever she gets... After that we went and I play a grab machine, because she wanted a spiked rubber bounce ball... I made sure she understood the fact that she wouldn't get any tickets and she might not even get a ball... She said ok so I played it... I actually won her a purple ball and it was pretty simple, so I played again and won her a pink one as well... After that she wanted to play Red Hot Sevens again, so we headed over that way...

There she is with her favorite game a her two balls, that I won, YAY!! After that we went and fed our tickets to the ticket eater and loaded them onto our card...

You might not see it but it says 1,506 tickets

Tell me how great that is, I got out of there with only spending a total of forty dollars and she got two balls that stores want ten dollars for and she got one thousand five hundred and six tickets... So all in all I think that was a wonderful trip... After Frankie's we headed over to Columbiana Centre, to walk around the mall a bit and to grab some lunch... At the mall we ate baked ziti from Sbarro's and then went on about our shopping... The only thing I ended up buying were four t-shirts from Champs and they were bright high visibility colors for work... But we still ended up spending about two hours inside the mall just looking around, and waiting on Candice to get off work... We left the mall and headed back to our side of town to meet Candice, on the way back over to mom's house my little one fell asleep again...

I must have really worn her out because she doesn't ever take two naps in one day... That's a good thing I think, I just hope she had as much fun as I did... After Candice met up with us we took in the paperwork for daycare, which she will start on Monday... Not looking forward to it but I think she will love playing with the other kids and she keeps saying she is ready for school... So we will see, it is the next step in our lives and we will take it one day at a time... I will keep everyone posted on how it is going...

Until next time, stay safe and Go Gamecocks!!!

Car Troubles

As promised this is the post explaining what is going on with my cars, well my wife's car started sputtering about two and a half weeks ago... I took it everywhere to get it checked out, I mentioned to one guy that I thought it was the coil packs, which are on top of each spark plug... He said it was too new to be coil packs since it is a 2007, he suggested maybe cleaning the fuel injectors and changing the spark plugs... I did this and thirty dollars later still had the same problem, only it seemed like it got worse, now my check engine light has come on... I think this is great, now they can read a code off of it and tell me exactly what's wrong... Well, I was right they did read a code off of it, actually FIVE and they just simply let me know that cylinders one, two, and three were misfiring, I had a random cylinder misfiring, and the MAF sensor was bad... This time the guy suggested trying to clean the MAF sensor with what I think is a bogus cleaner that I have never heard of before and try to take each coil pack off and unplug it thinking that maybe that will reset something since the only cylinder that wasn't misfiring was four and that is the one I had to unplug to get out so I could change that spark plug, the rest just swung out of the way so I did it, still no change... Being the kind of person I am, I turned to the Internet and Google, found a forum  with some guys that had the same problem around the same mileage, and they changed the coil packs and guess what, no more sputter... So I call Autozone to see how much one coil pack is... One hundred and eighty-seven dollars!! That's crazy, and I need three of them?? Well one guy on the forum said to try BernardiParts.com, so I did and I got them for sixty-seven dollars instead, That's three for the price of one locally, so I went ahead and got a visor clip that she has been wanting to replace too, from when she broke it, and now her visor won't clip and stay in one spot anymore... Well, now that my parts have finally come in two weeks later, I am going to fix the car before I start my day... Got to get an early start, and get this thing done... I hope this post might help someone out with there car troubles, who knows, maybe there is another sputtering Fit out there!