You'll notice a link in my profile and also on my website for the local children's museum in Columbia, SC. Well, we had some visitors this past week and I was finally able to get over to the museum last night with my 3 year old daughter, and my buddy and his 3 year old daughter. Once a month, on the 2nd Tuesday evening of every month they offer a family night at the museum. I highly suggest that you pencil it in on your calendar, because it only costs $1 per family member to get in from 5-8pm. There is so much to see and do, both for the kids and the kids at heart. I wanted to check it out, because they also offer a discounted yearly membership rate for families, so it was nice to be able to get a sneek peak and then decide if we wanted to shell out the money for the yearly membership. We've really found that to be the way to go with the zoo, because the kids love to go there and see the animals and my wife prefers to go there and walk around for exercise, because it also keeps the kids busy. The rate the zoo offers is phenomenal. They give you free guest passes that are worth more than they charge for the entire yearly membership, besides the fact that we members can go as often as we want.

My family is one of my highest priorities in life, so I try to look for any opportunities that I can to give us neat places to go on a reasonable budget. I share what I've found with you, and please let me know if you find any great places to go with your family without breaking the bank. Thanks.

I mentioned to my wife today that I really need to write down the things that happen to me on a daily basis. The string of bad events just doesn't seem possible. My dad has always focused on how bad things seem to happen to him, and it seems like I'm definitely a chip off the old block. Mind you, I'm not trying to be negative, I'm just relating the events of the past few days.

It seemed to start Saturday. I had an open house in the afternoon, so I set out for that. I had everything I needed, and was prepared for some traffic on a beautiful day. NADA. Nobody. Oh well.

Sunday. Take care of the morning activities and head to the office for Office Duty. I was pretty sure this was going to be pretty uneventful. You don't seem to get much real estate activity when the rain is coming down horizontal. Nasty day. The Patriots did win though, so it wasn't that bad. However, I got ready after dinner to go meet some friends for bowling. I leaned over to give my wife a kiss goodbye, and OOOWWWWW, something happened with my neck. It felt like I got stabbed. I did manage to make it to bowling, and had my best week so far. Strange. No sleep that night.

Monday. Write it off. I felt like I had whiplash. I spent some of the day working on the website and researching on the computer, but only made it out of the house in the late afternoon. Managed to get a few business cards out in circulation, but I just didn't feel good driving, so home I went. Not much sleep that night.

Tuesday. Still in pain. Had an office meeting in the morning, a listing to work on, and orientation in the afternoon. I thought that the orientation was just a few minutes from my house, so I'd have a careful drive there, and then home to rest my neck. Didn't happen. Another agent in the office informed me that the meeting was actually at a campus about 1/2 hour away. I really didn't feel up to driving that far so I asked if I could ride with her. No problem, but her sister needed to follow us to the meeting because they needed to finalize a contract and head separate ways after the meeting. Good deal. No driving. Well, we got in an accident. The sister who was following, didn't see us slow down. Now the other side of my neck hurts.

Wednesday. This is the real doozie. I get up early to take care of some errands before another morning meeting. We had visitors last night, so that didn't happen. I did get to the meeting, but low and behold, someone had left the A/C on all night, so the office was about 40 degrees. Keep the coat on. The meeting took about an hour longer than expected, and since I had a full day of activities, that didn't help. Rush out of the meeting to get some stuff off my computer. Network is down. No internet, no copier, no scanner. NOT GOOD. I needed to take some pictures anyway, but I forgot my camera. No problems, I'll just borrow one. Its batteries are dead, but I'll just pick some up on the way. I leave the office on the way to the property. I have to return 3 calls that I got during the meeting and manage to make a wrong turn on my way to the property. Usually not a big deal, but the borrowed camera needs to be returned in a couple hours and every minute counts. I make it to the listing, a lot on the lake. I load new batteries in and make my way through the brush to the lake. Turn on the camera, focus, it DIES. Not good, but I bought a 4 pack. Trudge back to the car. More new batteries. Run back through the woods, focus, NOTHING. You have got to be kidding me. Well I have to go just around the corner to city hall, so I'll just come back out tomorrow and take pictures, plus I need to get back soon. Guess what, city hall isn't just around the corner, it's another 20 minutes away ( I am new to the area ). I walk into city hall, go into the assessors office. "Sir, could you please go back out that door, and go to the counter" I look like an idiot, but it did say 'Assessor' right on the door. Anyway, the folks there are nice and helpful, so I race back to the office to return the camera, eventhough it is way too late. I get back to the office and the computers are supposedly back up and running. I just need to scan a couple things, but of course, the scanner is the only thing that isn't working right. Another 1/2 hour of fooling around with it, and we finally get it to work. Nice.  I hop in the car to head home. I have one more errand to run on the other side of town, but I can't drive anymore, so my wife is going to give me a ride. On the way home I pass the sisters who were in the car accident the day before. They also loaned me the camera, so I apologize for being late. They were returning from getting a listing, 5 MINUTES from my house. Beautiful, just what I needed. At least my farming efforts are working for someone in the office.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better...

My family and I moved to South Carolina this past summer from New England, and there are certain things that I just can't find around here. I'm just wondering what everyone else misses from their previous homes. I'm not talking about family and friends, that should be a given, but I'm talking about stores, sports, food, etc. I definitely miss a good sub (sandwich). We used to go for lunch at a place where the subs would be made on a whole loaf of fresh bread. They had to be about a foot and a half long. We called them the "bat", because they seemed to be about the size of a baseball bat. And if it wasn't subs for lunch then sometimes we would get roast beef sandwiches. Again, I'm not talking about a nice neat deli sandwich, I mean what seemed like 2-3 pounds of meat, with a toasted sesame seed roll, cheese, and dripping with barbeque sauce. I can taste it now.

Besides just food though, I'm a huge basketball fan, and that just doesn't seem to exist in South Carolina. Everyone is absorbed in college football here, but I can't even seem to find a decent basketball court. The local high schools have multiple football fields, baseball fields, tennis courts, volleyball, track, but not a single basketball hoop outside. I don't understand it. I dream of driving the hour and a half to Charlotte just to see my Celtics play, but every matchup has been on a bad day according to my planner.

Well that's some of the stuff I miss. What did you leave behind, that you just can't find a replacement for in your new home?