It is insane to me that you’ve now been gone for the same amount of time that you were here.

5.17.98 “Nothing ever so common.”

Soooo it’s been a really eventful last few weeks. I’ve been working on a huge round-up post, but I figured I’d just do the graduation one separate since it’s quick & easy (TWSS). Back in August 2011 (8/15 to be exact; you can guess why I remember the day), I started taking classes at Meredith College in order to get a paralegal degree. 5lbs and many, many, many, many flashcards later, I’ve graduated! Thank you to Jay, Cyndi, Jack, Heather, & Kayla for coming and treating me to hibachi at Kankii afterwards. In the scheme of what has been going on lately with my family, graduation was such a small thing that I considered it no big deal, but I was really touched that they came to support me. I have no idea what I’m going to do now with my new degree except look for a job and hope someone finds me hireable lol. I know that I am fortunate to be in a good job with great co-workers for now, though.

Also BIG THANKS to my good friends Amanda, Julia, & Ali for sending me the GORGEOUS flowers [that are up to the right in this post] for graduation. So unnecessary, but it meant so much.  I have some really fantastic friends.  I miss them.

Anyway, Jay recorded me receiving my diploma since my family couldn’t make it down here from LI due to extenuating circumstances.  Enjoy!

Soooooo John & I will be recording our MetroBuzz reunion show tomorrow (Saturday, May 12) at 4 or 5pm EST.  We’ll be bringing back some of the good ole segments for a big goodbye: Urban Dictionary, WWWTF, Top 5, etc.  (not gonna spoil it all hehe).  We’ve set up the old email and created a brand new phone line.  Since everyone helped donate to bring us back, we’d love to hear from everyone who wants to leave us some feedback.

The email is MetroBuzz@gmail.com and the new phone number is (516) 341-BUZZ (516-341-2899).  You’ve got til tomorrow afternoon, Eastern time.  Thanks!

I got up bright and early this morning to vote in the North Carolina primaries.  I wanted to make sure I was there nice and early, so as not to be late for work.  I voted against Amendment 1, which states, ”marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized.”  Same-sex marriages are not currenly legal in North Carolina and this amendment will do absolutely nothing to change that.  All it does is make the chances of gay marriage ever becoming legal more difficult, as well as limit the rights of any non-married couple in the state.  Supporters say that this amendment will “protect” marriage by allowing it to stay between one man and one woman.  My marriage is strong regardless of who else is allowed to be married and if Jay & I have the privilege of being able to marry, then who am I to deny that opportunity to anyone else?  I don’t need any government stepping in to help “protect” my marriage.

Something that is funny to me is that growing up in NY, I listened to my parents complain about the “liberal media bias” while now as an adult living in North Carolina, I find myself sad that this amendment may not stand a chance against those uneducated about it because of how blantantly bias the local news is in its favor.  Same-sex marriage is already not recognized in the state; why do we need to hammer the point home by making sure it never can be?

If you live in NC and want to vote, click here to help find your polling place.

So quick note – yesterday I said that I got part of Jay’s gift from InstaCanvas.  Totally wrong.  I got it from CanvasPop.  They did fantastic work on my anniverary gift to Jay.  I just got confused because I get 80 gazillion annoying messages from InstaCanvas each week and their marketing worked because they were the first site I thought of, haha.  InstaCanvas looks cool but it also looks way too exclusive and I’m not nearly popular enough to get to be featured on that site, so screw that.  If I ever do get featured on there, then I’ll talk about them again.  But for now, it’s CanvasPop, CanvasPop, CanvasPop!

As of an hour ago, I am officially ALL DONE WITH SCHOOL!  Just finished my take home test for my Tuesday night class.  I have already gotten my grade for my Business Organizations concentration (my Monday/Thursday class) and found out how I did on three out of our four “short courses” (4 electives, so to speak, each that lasted 4 weeks and was every Tuesday).  Graduation is next Wednesday, May 9, and then I will have a paralegal degree from Meredith College.  If I choose to get certified, I’ll have to take the state test in October.  It makes more sense for me to get a national certification, but I don’t know exactly when that test is and I’m sure it’s 100 times harder (that’s what she said) more difficult than the North Carolina state test.  Anyways, that’s neither here nor there right now.  Let me quickly go over some anniversary gift stuff!

You may have seen it on Jay’s Facebook/Twitter/Instagram feed if, but I got Jay a 1968 Disneyland map and some old park tickets from the mid-1970s.  I knew that he was expecting me to go the photobook route, so I deliberately thought outside the box while trying to stay within the “paper” theme of the first anniversary.

I don’t have a picture of the tickets handy but I got both of them after searching and researching on eBay.  I did add a picture themed gift – from CanvasPop, I ordered a 20×20 canvas print of Jay’s favorite picture from my Instagram feed.  I received a Google Offer from the company and just had to do it.  It arrived just a little bit post-anniversary – on Tuesday – but I’m super thrilled with it.  I’m not kidding.  I absolutely adore how it turned out.  I just wish that the service wasn’t so expensive.  Here’s a picture of the picture, resting against our couch.

For those of you wondering what Jay got me – he had the same idea as I did and got me a canvas print of one of our wedding pictures (not from Instagram).  Unfortunately, it was on backorder from the company that he ordered it from and won’t be here until the end of May, but that’s okay It’ll be like anniversary part 2 when it gets here.  Anyway, I can testify to CanvasPop.  I’m really happy with how that came out.  The only problem is finding the space for all of our new pictures and photo-collage frames!

Okay, I am so mentally drained right now from taking that stupid take home test!  It took 3 hours and 12 minutes to do and I actually did it without any distractions.  I signed off Twitter & Facebook and put my phone on mute & turned it over so I wouldn’t see any texts or calls.  I even almost forgot about doing the Photo-a-day for today because of it.  Now, that’s hardcore.

I also didn’t sleep well at all last night thanks to some aforementioned issues going on back with the family at home on LI.  Isn’t it weird how we an seemingly compartmentalize things in order to make it through the day but once the lights are off, not even the loud noise from the A.C. can provide distraction from finally processing what’s going on?

Holy crap, another month has gone by.  There were some days when I didn’t think I’d be able to come up with one, but I made it through all 30 days of April.  I think that over the past four months, I’ve started to look at life differently because of these pictures.  I look for meaning in things in ways that I would not have before and I think that it keeps me even a slight bit saner to look at every day moments from a different perspective.  It goes beyond just wanting to share things for others to see and for attention.  I don’t know if I am making any sense.  Am I?

Anyway, here are my pictures, compiled for posterity.  Click to enlarge.  Hover over the thumbnail to see the full text that accompanied it on Instagr.am.  If you want to play along for May, here’s the list once again.  I’m Colleen84 on Instagr.am if you want to follow me!

Not sure if everyone has seen this by now, but this is Jimmy Fallon’s SNL audition tape from a million years ago. It’s really funny and it’s so endearing how nervous he is. Enjoy!

I cannot believe it’s been one year since Jay and I got married and 5 years to the day that we met!  Today was a fantastic day.  We got up early and went kayaking on the Neuse River.  It was beautiful and the weather was fantastic.  We saw lots of turtles and even a mother duck with a bunch of little baby ducklings following her.  That was actually awesome and I’m sorta sad that the picture didn’t turn out very good.

Kayaking on the Neuse River.

We saw a lot of turtles.

Mama duck with ducklings.

After we went kayaking, we went for a hike.  [Side note: We weren't the only people to have problems with Paddle Creek kayaking; another couple with us were accused of not paying and they refused to pay until they could verify their credit card statements because they swore that they had paid.]  We left for our hike from the starting point of where we started kayaking.  It was super awesome for me to get to see a different part of the Raleigh Greenway System.  This was started 20 miles from home, so I’d never been to this section before.  It was gorgeous and Jay saved a baby turtle’s life!  The poor little guy was crossing the path where bikers, runners, hawks, owls (we’d seen all four of those) could easily end its life.  In fact, right before we found it, we saw an owl fly into a tree carrying a snake in its mouth and then eat it from the tree.  Oh, nature.  We didn’t want the turtle to suffer a similar fate at such a young age, so Jay picked it up and carried it to the water.

The baby turtle Jay saved.

Back to the water you go, little turtle.

After the hike, we headed home to hang out for a little while before dinner.  We went to dinner in Downtown Raleigh at a restaurant called Sullivan’s Steakhouse.  It was absolutely delicious.  I got the “Steak and Cake” special which was NY Strip Steak & Crab Cake.  Freaking amazing.  I’ll be eating leftovers for the next two days.  So full.  The most awesome part was our waitress.  She was really cool to begin with, but at the end of the meal, she brought us over two glasses of champagne and a free dessert (bananas foster) without us even saying anymore more than “It’s our first wedding anniversary!” when she asked us at the start of the meal, “So, what brings you here tonight?”  It was great.  If Jay & I were wealthy in the money sense, we’d totally go there all the time haha.  It was great.

Dinner!

Once more, sitting together like we like each other

We finished off the evening with cigars on the deck at our apartment.  I always like the idea of having a cigar but hate the after taste you get the next morning!  I discovered this on our honeymoon.  I think I solved the problem though tonight because I brushed my teeth twice and only had half of mine.  I’m saving the other half for Tuesday night, when I am officially, 100% done with classes.

Not quite a Cohiba like on our honeymoon, but still pretty good.

On that note, it’s time for bed.  What a fantastic day.  I can’t believe it’s been one year since the wedding and 5 years since the day we met!

As I mentioned yesterday, Jay and I are going to go kayaking on Sunday for our first wedding anniversary.  I used to go kayaking in high school with my dad, uncle, sisters, and cousin; I love it.  We went during our honeymoon and had a blast, even though we didn’t quite master that elusive-rowing in-sync-method.  I didn’t know where we could go around here, but I had seen this local kayaking business show up on my Groupon before and decided to check it out.  There was no Groupon or Living Social deal at the time that I Googled this place.  I actually waited a week from the time I checked the website to when I actually booked our trip just to see if any deals would be coming out.  I ended up booking it Sunday night, April 22, for $68 for a 2 person kayak.

I bet you can guess what happens next.  On Wednesday April 25, I wake up to my daily Groupon emaily and notice that this kayaking business, Paddle Creek, had a Groupon running!  It was a deal for a 2 person kayak for $28.  Jay and I do not live paycheck to paycheck anymore, but we are not rolling in the dough by any means.  $40 is $40.  I decided to call them that morning to see if maybe they would honor the Groupon rate despite my poor timing.  I called them around 9:15am, but got no answer.  I consulted their website and saw that they weren’t open until 10:00am.  I called a few times after 10:00am; someone finally picked up the phone on my 4th attempt of the day.  I spoke to a man who called himself Bob.  I explained that I was a first time customer who had just booked with them and had seen the Groupon from that morning.

My question to this man was this: “If I buy today’s Groupon, would I be able to retroactively apply it to my current booking for this upcoming Sunday?”  He asked me if the offer had any restrictions, such as not being valid on Sundays.  I said that there were no such restrictions listed and reiterated that I was merely inquiring as to whether or not we could do this.  Did I think they’d want to do it?  No, of course not, but it never hurts to ask.  I know I was being nice because I wanted to have the best shot possible to maybe appeal to someone to be kind to me and my bad timing.

Instead, I was told by a very impatient employee of Paddle Creek that it was always very busy on the days that the Groupon/Living Social deals went up and he would have to talk to a manager, also named Bob.  Fair enough.  I have to call people back quite often at work when it comes to approving special pricing requests.  I was hopeful, but the rushed and completely annoyed tone that this man had didn’t give me a great feeling.

I got a phone call back from Manager Bob who asked me some questions about my situation in an irritated tone of voice.  I explained to him that I was a first time customer who ironically only knew about them because of previous Groupons and had the misfortune of making reservations 48 hours too soon.  Would it be possible to honor the Groupon price if I bought one that morning?  He told me that he would call me back.  I missed his phone call when he did call back.  Here is the short voicemail he left me.

I totally get that in any economy, businesses exist to provide a service that they make money from.  I do.  I was a little bit deflated when I heard that voicemail, but I decided to call Bob at Paddle Creek back and make one last appeal.  Bob’s tone was annoyed and smirking.  He absolutely would not honor the reduced rate whatsoever because they would not have been able to make as much money off of us if they did so.  Thanks for sugar coating it, Bob!  I got a little bit desperate at this point and said, “It’s our first wedding anniversary and we chose to spend it with you guys!  There’s absolutely nothing you can do?”  He then did what any good employee who doesn’t give a flying shit about their customer does and blamed it on their owner’s policy – and this owner very conveniently lives in Pennsylvania and could not be reached.

Finally, I merely said, “So, this is all just my bad timing, huh?  If I had waited just two more days, then this wouldn’t be a problem.”  He scoffed, “Yes.”

I then inquired about canceling my reservations altogether.  He told me that we could certainly feel free to cancel, but we would not be eligible for a refund because company policy was that you must give 10 days notice in order to get any money back at all.  At this point, I was feeling completely deflated and very disappointed.  As I said earlier, I understand that businesses exist to make money, but Paddle Creek in Wake Forest, North Carolina will never ever get my business again.  The men I spoke with did not take my inquiry seriously at all nor did they treat me with any sort of respect or even one ounce of tolerance.  It was tone of voice.  They scoffed at me.  That puts us off the entire trip.  I considered disputing the charge on my credit card, but what’s the point?  At this point, we’re only going because we don’t want to lose the money we’ve already paid.

We’re just very disappointed in the lack of customer service.  They could’ve done us a solid and made us customers for life because of how grateful we would’ve been.  Instead, we’ll be looking elsewhere the next time we want to go kayaking.  We certainly will not be giving Paddle Creek kayaking our business ever again.