Summer Travels

If you read my last post about This is Kirtland!, you know I said that the show ending wasn't really a sad event and that I was basically ready to move on with the next stage of life. Well, part of that was due to the travel plans I had!

After we had the cast party on July 22 and then did a cast recording session July 23, I got moving on my first leg of travel beginning July 26 and lasting to August 4. I left for Perrysburg, Ohio, where I visited my good friends Michelle and Julie, and my friend Amanda, who was visiting from Utah. My reason for visiting was that I was scheduled to sing at the Toledo Mud Hens baseball game on the 27th, so it was nice to be able to visit with Michelle, Amanda, and Julie and they were able to be at the game! As is always the case, singing the national anthem never gets old. This was not only my first time singing for Toledo, but my first time ever at a Mud Hens game (they are the AAA affiliate of the Detroit Tigers). Despite a slight delay for rain, the performance went well and the weather ended up being great! Even better was that because of the delay, most of the crowd was in the stands when I sang and it ended up being at or near a sellout of over 11,000. Even better, it was a fireworks night!

Ended up being a beautiful night for baseball after a rain delay before
it even started. It was my first time ever going to a game in Toledo! 

I was very happy with my performance that night, plus a lady sitting in front of us asked me for my autograph for when I "become famous". It definitely made me smile, and yes, I totally signed it. She even asked me to make it out to her personally. I got tons of other very nice compliments from people as I walked around the ballpark (I took a bunch of pictures and got some food too). One guy even told me that his friend was a season ticket holder and I was the best singer he's heard all season. Always great to hear. I'm hopeful to sing for another baseball game somewhere, but nothing is scheduled this point. This season, so far, I've sung for the Columbus Clippers (AAA affiliate of the Cleveland Indians), Akron Aeros (AA affiliate of the Cleveland Indians), the Cleveland Indians, and the Mud Hens. I'd love to sing for some other Major League teams, but so far, only the Indians have responded.

Amazing to think how far we've come and that we've known each
other over 10 years now!

Anyway, I had a great visit with Michelle and Amanda, and we spent several hours talking about everything under the sun and just catching up, staying up for hours and hours longer than we should have (it was totally worth it, by the way). I really enjoyed it, though it was only for 3 days. I left Sunday afternoon and continued west to visit my sister and her family in Indiana, where I stayed for a week.

While in Indiana, I had a great time just hanging out mostly with my sister and nephews and my brother-in-law when he was home from work. We did something every day, as simple as going to the library for a bit to going to Indiana Dunes State Park and spending the afternoon on the shore of Lake Michigan. I also went with Becky and the boys to the mall and the candy factory, and we had an adventurous time eating out one night at a restaurant in Chesterton. All in all, a wonderful week and tons of fun for me getting to spend time with everyone and help Becky out a bit with the boys during the day. It was also the first time for me having both carseats in my car. We have a carseat here in Kent that Becky bought a few years ago since they still lived in Utah and flew here, so bringing a carseat would've been more difficult. I brought that with me and then we took Ryan's carseat out of their car since David needed it for work some days, so that made things a tad easier than having to move both carseats.

"In disguise" thanks to Amanda :)

Being taken out of the park against his will

At the mall while Nate rode the carousel

Indiana Dunes State Park on the shore of Lake Michigan

Getting Nate in this far is somewhat of an accomplishment...
this kid is not a big fan of water

Venturing out...he was promptly knocked over by the
next wave, and yes, I was right there to get him out :)

One thing I did in Indiana was crack Nate's resistance to eating all his food at meals. Seriously, this kid would eat like a bird and hardly ever ate the little bit of food he had been given. Becky went so far as to "offer" $1,000 to anyone who could get Nate to eat an entire meal. Well, let's just say I'm owed $1,000. How? Somehow I figured out that using the timer feature on my iPhone would be a motivation for him. I would give him about 8 minutes, and he'd eat while he watched the phone count down. They were visiting Kent back in July right when I first got the phone and I remember he just stared at the countdown for a good 10 minutes in church when he was playing with it. Well, it worked and he ate every meal except the one we ate out (because he had way too much food on top of a larger-than-normal dinner). It was almost a game to see if he could beat the timer, plus we tried using the stopwatch to see how quick he could do it. I also "bribed" him with Jelly Bellies, but it was great because I could give him a whopping 4 and he thought that was a good amount, so I went with it.

I have to say what I enjoyed most about being in Indiana was hearing Ryan talk. The things he says always make me laugh, plus the way he says them is even better. Just a few complete sentences here and there ("I want chocolate", though he says "chock-it"), but my favorite was when he wanted a drink "mm drink" or when he say candy and he'd say it really fast. What a character.

After I got home from Indiana, I had just under two weeks before the next trip, so I got to work on my main project, which was painting the back part of the house, which we call "the addition". The addition is basically a larger room and a smaller room with a bathroom (which I painted last summer) in between. This job was to paint those two rooms and the ceiling, which was quite the undertaking since we have tons of furniture in there and nowhere to move it. What I ended up doing is basically moving everything together, then moving it all again as I progressed around the different parts of the room. It made for a very cumbersome job, but there really wasn't any other way to do it. Outside of Sunday, I worked on it every day from Saturday until late Wednesday night (early Thursday morning). Not only did I have to paint, but I had to do plaster repair on several places where the drywall tape was coming off or had gotten wet from the roof damage (which was replaced recently). After that, I got some of the big furniture moved around as we decided to switch where the office area had been with where the TV had been. Because Mom and I were leaving for Nashville the morning I finished the painting itself, the room was largely a disaster, but I did manage to get the TV set up by moving the wiring for the U-verse and getting both computers set up while everything else stayed away from the walls. The rooms definitely needed painted not only for regular maintenance, but the paint had faded quite a bit to the point if we moved any of the pictures on the wall, you could tell where they went. Yikes!

Can you see where the pictures used to be?

Visual evidence that I did actually paint...

FINALLY removed the chalkboard that was a holdover from the
office days. You can see the original color of the room too. The white
strip on the side there is where I had to remove and later replace drywall tape
and plaster (see the debris below it).

Where the chalkboard used to be!

After a somewhat trying day where the ceiling had to be scraped in parts
due to earlier water damage that caused the old paint to peel off when
I painted over it. Oh, and my feet hurt like #$%&

After getting back from Tennessee, we've been working more on getting organized. Still not totally there, but making some big progress! It's exciting to see the changes, especially finally getting the chalkboard out of the room (the addition was built to house my grandma's tutoring business in the late 1980s, so it still had the basic setup of an office even though it hasn't been such in 20 years).

So, on to Tennessee. Mom came with me for this one as we went to get out of town for a bit and to celebrate my niece Evelyn's 1st birthday. We were planning on visiting Tennessee at some point in the summer anyway, so I decided it would be fun to come for the 1st. I'm glad we did because it ended up being a really fun week, especially for me!

Evelyn only recently started walking, so it was great to see her moving around. I discovered she's a daddy's girl too (NOT surprised!!). By the time we left, I'm pretty sure I was an acceptable substitute for her dad as she cried a bit when I handed her off to my mom when I had to go out to the car (we were hanging out while Heather got some of the cleaning done). What was funny was when I first got there, she cried since she didn't recognize me, but once she got used to me, hey, we were best buds! The last day I was there I went to the Nashville Zoo with her and my brother, and we had a great time even with the heat and humidity. She was a bit out of it because she was recovering from hand, foot, and mouth disease, which she came down with about the time we arrived (I first noticed her coughing that Sunday).

Mom and me (NOT "Mom and I") traveling to Tennessee. And yes, after
seeing this picture, I fixed that handle in the background!

Evelyn's actual first birthday with her favorite: spaghetti.
No shortage of pictures of this kid!

Cakes Heather made for the birthday. The little lady bug cake was just for Evelyn

Yes, she liked her cake!

SUCH a daddy's girl!

Little E is cool with me too :)

Opening presents on her birthday (we did a larger "party" a few days
later when some of Heather's sisters could be there)

Grandma with the granddaughter

Another thing I enjoyed doing was singing in sacrament meeting in Andy and Heather's ward. I love to sing--no secret there--so I like to sing in different wards (congregations) outside my own whenever I get the chance. Since no one was scheduled for their ward the week I was going to be there, I figured why not? Not only do I get to do something I enjoy, but it's a great way for people to notice who you are and gives them an excuse to come talk to you, which can be tough when someone is visiting like me. I've done it in my sister's ward in Indiana and when I came back during my visit, people remembered me and later asked my sister if we could sing together again :). She likes to sing too, so now she'll get more opportunities too. Anyway, I was very happy how my song went and was most grateful that Heather plays the piano! She did great on short notice!

During my trip to Tennessee, I made a "trip-within-a-trip" down to Louisiana to visit my friend Will, who was a missionary companion of mine in Las Cruces, New Mexico from December 2002-February 2003. We've kept in touch over the years, but hadn't seen each other since 2008 when he was a student at the University of Maryland, College Park and my brother was living in the same area near Washington, DC. Hard to believe that was 5 years ago...it seems much sooner than that. I had intended to visit him last year when I was in Tennessee for Spring Break, but he got called out for work (he's in the Air Force) at the last minute (I was visiting another friend in Texas, so was in the area, but just went back to Tennessee earlier than expected). Will lives 8 hours from my brother's (which is how long it takes me to get there from Ohio), so it was a bit of a drive, but I enjoyed it. It was great to see him and to meet Megan (his significant other) and Brody (their dog) and just relax a bit. I had originally planned to stay just overnight and then head back to Tennessee, but Will convinced me to hang around an extra day, even though he and Megan would be at work on base for most of the day. I didn't mind since it meant I got some sweet solitude and really, as long as I have an Internet connection, I'm OK. Even without it, I'll find something to do. I told him "boring people get bored." But really, it was so good to see him and catch up a bit. He showed me the planes he flies for the Air Force (B-52) and took me around the base. Megan was a good sport with all our mission and Mormon jargon as we talked too. But yeah, it was good to talk.

I've been in the cockpits of retired planes, but never a live one outside this one
time when I was 6 and I got to see the cockpit of a commercial liner. This
is the cockpit of an active B-52 bomber. It was built in the early 1960s.

I guess Will is like a brother to me...we had a great time serving together
in Las Cruces, though hard to believe it's been over 10 years!

Me with Brody!

We stayed in Tennessee 2 days longer than originally planned, but that was because of my trip to Louisiana adding one more day and then after going to the zoo on Friday, I was pretty exhausted and had a headache, so we left Saturday. The only inconvenience was Mom needed to do the bulletin for church that coming Sunday, so we got it set up on my laptop and after much effort, got my Grandpa to send her the Microsoft Word file so she could type it all up. Once we got back to Kent, I set up a Microsoft SkyDrive account for Mom (cloud storage) so she can access all her files from any computer from now on. No more having to talk someone step-by-step through the process!

It's been a great summer and certainly eventful with This is Kirtland! taking so much of my time and energy through July. It was so nice to finally get away and just relax and enjoy some new sights, familiar sights, and being around people that I enjoy being around and enjoy having me around. And hey, those long drives are actually very therapeutic for me, so long as I don't have to deal with traffic problems (thankfully only minimal ones on all legs of the trip!). Still one more trip to come as Mom and I will be heading back to Indiana in about a week to spend time with everyone there, enjoy some local events, and help Becky out a bit. I found out while I was in Louisiana that she'll be having a girl in December, so I'll be getting TWO new nieces by the end of the year! Yes!

So nice I did it...uh, three times!

Back in April when I sang for the Cleveland Indians, I let the guy in charge of coordinating the anthem singers know that I would be available in the event that someone canceled on them and they needed a singer on relatively short notice.  Given that it's a 45-minute drive to downtown Cleveland from Kent, getting there usually isn't much of a problem.  Most of the times I sang for Kent State this past season were all on short notice too.  And by short notice I mean like getting an email or phone call the day of a game and singing that evening.  Well, I figured I might get one more Indians game this season, much like last year when I got to sing for a late September game after it was rescheduled from an earlier rain-out and the previous singer couldn't do the new date.  I also figured, like last year, it would be late in the season.  I never expected to get anything that soon after singing in late April.  Well, turns out I was totally wrong.  I got called on May 16th to sing at the May 22 game against Detroit and then I was even more surprised and excited when I got called June 6th to sing at the June 16th game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

My dad, sister Katie, and her friend Claire came to the game against the Tigers.  Dad came again to the game this past Saturday against the Pirates and my friends Michelle and Julie were able to come again after missing out when I sang in April because of the huge rain delay.  No such rain delay this time!  To make the June 16th game even cooler was the fact that it was part of Marine Week in Cleveland.  Before the game, the Marine Silent Drill Platoon performed and then just before I sang, the Marine Color Guard presented the colors and a HUGE American flag was brought out that covered most of the outfield.  Being the patriot and flag lover that I am, I certainly appreciated that.  To top it off, at the conclusion of my singing, there was a flyover from two Marine helicopters.  The only downside for me, as you can see in the pictures, was that my first name was spelled wrong ("John" instead if "Jon").  When it came up on the scoreboard, all I could do was laugh a little bit before I started singing.  At least they pronounced "Ridinger" correctly!

Waiting to go on before the May 22 game against the Detroit Tigers

On the scoreboard for the May 22 game

The attendance was just over 15,000 for the May 22 game.  Obviously not everyone is there when the anthem is performed

Me with my sister Katie (center) and her good friend Claire.  Claire has come to some other games with us and we've always had fun!

When I was called for the June 16th game, because of the flyover at the end of my singing, they had to know how long it would take me to sing so they could time it. As a result, I had to time myself singing the anthem. I now know it takes me right about 83 seconds (1 minute 23 seconds) to sing the anthem the way I typically do it. As I've performed the anthem through the years, I've found that people really do appreciate it being performed traditionally and at a good tempo. Not too fast, though, but definitely not too slow, which is usually the problem. I know my Grandpa Ridinger, who is now 87 years old and has never been a patient man, has always appreciated that I keep it moving when I sing. Anyway, the helicopters came from right-center field, so from where I was standing behind home plate, I could easily see them coming. As they were getting pretty close and the song was winding down, I was thinking "I need to finish this up before they're on top of me!"  I finished just as they were over the field.  Whew!

Thanks to my friend Michelle for taking the pictures of me singing.  My dad usually takes pictures, but this time he was getting some video to get the flyover, so I told whomever wanted to claim my two extra tickets to the game that they had to meet me at the Will Call window at 3:10 PM and had to take pictures while I sang!  Michelle and Julie did both!  :)  Yeah for friends!

Waiting to go on before the June 16th game against the Pittsburgh Pirates

US Marines Silent Drill Platoon performing before the game on June 16th

Color Guard presenting the colors just before I sang.  They were on the infield between 2nd base and the pitcher's mound.  I was standing  behind home plate on the edge of the grass near the large script "Indians".  After I sang, I rode in the elevator with the Color Guard.  Never felt safer in my life with four Marines and their shotguns!  

Singing while I am photographed (would love to find a copy of the photograph that is apparently being taken of me here...)

Huge American flag in the outfield with my name in the background on one of the scoreboards over right field (and name spelled wrong!).  Bigger crowd for this game too with attendance just over 30,000

On the main scoreboard with the aforementioned misspelling of my first name.  Like I said, all I could do was laugh about it for a second before I started singing

Helicopters flying over just as I finished singing

As I've said before, singing the anthem never gets old for me.  I thoroughly enjoy performing every time just like it's my first.  Having three times already this season to sing for the Tribe has been a wonderful opportunity and hope I can do it again!

Second Verse Same as the First!

I'm back using the laptop again after I had some major problems getting it to start just before I left Utah.  It would turn on, but wouldn't get past the "Welcome" screen.  It also wouldn't shut down (I left it in "shutting down" mode and came back 3 hours later and the "shutting down" screen was still up.  After running the full Checkdisk (CHKDSK), which took like 8 hours, and then startup repair, it finally opened today, though it still has some problems.  I'm hoping the problems are software related and not hardware related.  I already have Windows 7 ready to install, which I hope to do this weekend.  I was thankfully able to get all my important files copied to my desktop (and will eventually copy them again to my external hard drive), so I can start over.  All I need to do now is get the license keys for Microsoft Office programs so I can reinstall them after I add Windows 7.  My laptop is an HP Pavilion tx2000z, a tablet PC, complete with fingerprint reader and touch screen.  I got it in late May or early June 2008, just before I started grad school, so it's coming on 4 years.  My desktop (Dell) is almost 5 years old (got it March 2007) and is definitely showing its age.  All the more reason to get a better job, so I can replace them when that time comes!  While the laptop was out and I wasn't home to use the desktop, I was able to use my iPod Touch to access most of the websites I check the most.  Mobile's great and all, but not all the time, especially for typing!

Another year, another run with This is Kirtland!

My laptop problem is my first major "event" of 2012, which began for me in Utah.  It was the first New Year's for me in Utah since I spent New Year's Eve 2001 in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah.  It was great to be out in Utah with several members of my immediate family, and to have a change in the usual routine for Christmas.  As with any change in the year, I've definitely been reflecting on the past year, as most people do.  2011 overall wasn't a whole lot different than 2010 or 2009 in terms of progress.  That's not to say that nothing good happened in 2011, but it certainly wasn't as eventful in the areas I had hoped for when I looked ahead one year ago.  In many ways I feel stuck in neutral as far as finding that first full-time job and really taking off with life.  I'm still subbing and still at the same house.  There is some hope on the horizon, though, so at this point I'm cautiously optimistic that 2012 will bring some long-awaited progress in my life!  By the end of this year, there will definitely be some changes in any event in terms of employment.  Hopefully those changes will be an improvement over the current circumstances.

Singing the national anthem for the first time at a Major League game
was a total thrill!

The three biggest events of the year for me personally happened almost a month apart and were both unexpected events, or at least somewhat unexpected.  First was my surgery on August 25 to have my gallbladder removed. I had been having abdominal pains every few months and I just attributed it to indigestion.  The days leading up to the surgery, I had very intense abdominal pains that lasted a good 2 days and eliminated my appetite, not to mention made it somewhat painful to take deep breaths.  At first, there was fear of appendicitis, but I wasn't experiencing any of the symptoms.  After seemingly recovering from the stomach pains, I got extreme abdominal pains early in the morning of August 24th, so I had Mom take me to the ER in Ravenna around 5:30 AM.  There it was determined that my gallbladder was in need of removal, so I had surgery scheduled the next day.  It was the first time I've ever checked into a hospital and stayed overnight.  The surgery went well, but the gallbladder was so swollen it was ready to burst, so rather than going laparoscopically, they had to do a traditional incision that is about 7 inches long.  I still have a nice scar from that incision and the staples that were used to close it (and were removed about 2 weeks later).  Paying the whole medical bill is an on-going process, but thankfully I have been able to make steady payments to the myriad of bills!

Pre-surgery picture.  I was in the hospital a total of 4 days and 3 nights

My next biggest surprise was the first of 2011, when the Cleveland Indians called me on March 3 (the day after my birthday) and asked me to sing the national anthem at the game April 5th.  I had been sending audition CDs to the Indians for years, so it was nice to finally hear from them.  Even better was that (in an even bigger surprise), I was asked to sing again at the September 24th game too!  Both performances were great experiences and I hope to be able to sing for the Tribe again in 2012.  I also sang for the Akron Aeros again on Good Friday.  It was fun, but very cold and wet!

 The other somewhat unexpected event of 2011 was that I got a new car.  Actually, I got 2 new cars, well, new to me.  In April, my grandparents bought a brand-new Ford Taurus and subsequently gave me their 2005 Buick LeSabre (the ultimate grandparents car!).  The biggest surprise there was that their new car was red, BRIGHT red, from two people who have owned mostly blue, green, or gray cars the last few decades (the LeSabre is gray).  I knew they had been leaning towards getting a new car, but I didn't even know they were looking until they had already bought the new Taurus.  Well, at that point I tried to sell my existing 1998 Oldsmobile 88 LS (which had a host of problems) and the LeSabre with hopes of using the money to get a newer, smaller car.  Well, I struggled to find anyone willing to buy either car, so I was resigned to just keeping the newer LeSabre and going for a newer (and smaller) car when I finally got a job.  Well, things were going well until my trip to Pennsylvania and New York in August and I ended up having to have the LeSabre shipped back to Ohio after the brake rods rusted through, which happened in New York City on the way back from JFK airport.  All that got the wheels going fast on getting a different car, one that wasn't going to completely bankrupt me by having problem after problem.  With my mom's help, we got the main problems fixed on both cars and tried to sell them on the open market, but that didn't work. The LeSabre was sold to VanDevere Buick in Akron for $7,000 and I traded the Olds in (for a whopping $700) when I got my new car at Park Honda in Akron. I ended up getting a 2008 Honda Civic EX, which so far I have absolutely loved.  It's obviously much smaller than my previous cars (major plus), has great gas mileage, and my most favorite feature is the power moonroof.  I took it on its first major trip in November (to Louisiana and back) and it did pretty well!  

First time in the new car...this was the day AFTER I sang for the Indians
and got horribly sunburned during the game!

My new car right after I brought it home!

I had my share of travels this past year, which I very much enjoyed.  My first trip was to Bowling Green, Ohio, to see Kent State play BG in men's basketball and to visit my friend Michelle.  It's always fun to visit, plus we got to see a great game (and a KSU victory)!  The interesting part of the trip to BG was that I took it during the week (Tuesday) even though I had work the next day at Roosevelt (which also happened to be my 29th birthday).  I got back to Kent around midnight and then went to work ay 7 AM.  Yeah, I was tired, but it was totally worth it.  Other travels included three trips to Nashville (March, August, and November).  The November trip to Nashville was for Thanksgiving and also included a same-day trip to and from Monroe, Louisiana, to visit a friend there.  The most adventurous trip of 2011 was the Ridinger family gathering in the Pocono Mountains of eastern Pennsylvania near the town of Bushkill at the Tree Top Villas. That included three trips into New York City, which was just under 2 hours from where we were staying.  I took a solo trip to Manhattan one day (which included parking in Manhattan for free!), the crazy trip to JFK to drop my sister's friend Natalie off at the airport (the entire trip to and from JFK took like 9 hours or something outrageous because of traffic!), and then a group trip to Manhattan with my dad, sisters, and brother-in-law.  The two sightseeing trips were tons of fun and I enjoyed where we stayed and the time we had with each other.  My other biog trip is what ended 2011: my trip to Utah to visit with my sisters, brother-in-law, and nephew for Christmas and New Years with Mom.  It was a lot of fun, plus I enjoyed being able to see a few of my old friends I don't get to see very much anymore.  Christmas with a 2-year old is rather entertaining as well!

2011 Ridinger family photo

Birthday trip to BG with Michelle!

March 5 game in Kent with Katie!

Christmas morning at Becky & David's

Nate liked the wooden train I got him (Mom found it; I financed it!)

And of course, no year would be complete without another appearance in This is Kirtland! which I did this summer for the 6th year.  2011 was my debut as Lorenzo Snow, a part I thoroughly enjoyed.

After a show, from Brenda Ebie

And lastly, I finally rejoined the Kent Historical Society in October and started putting my love of local history to work. I'm in charge of planning a 90th anniversary of the Davey school building (the original Roosevelt High School), to take place this coming September.  It's been great working with everyone at KHS and having my excitement for local history appreciated! It was enough to get me to start my newest blog, Happenin' History, and share what I'm learning about history even more.  I've learned so much more about Kent's history than I ever imagined (especially the schools).  Joining the Facebook group "You Know you are from Kent if/when...." has been a lot of fun and educational!!  Now, here's to hoping 2012 is a good one!  Oh, and I just noticed that this is my 200th actual post on this blog!  Wow!