The last time we went to Pittsburgh, Ness’ brother’s ex-wife ended up getting a hold of us and asking if we wanted to go to the Hanson concert in Pittsburgh with her. Ness doesn’t turn down Hanson concerts, let alone when someone else is buying the tickets. We made plans to take a quick two day vacation to Pittsburgh to see the concert and spend some time with the family.

We finally get there, now where’s the concert?

We were running late to the concert because we went out to eat when we really should have left. We quickly looked up directions to what we thought was the venue but it turns out, we were wrong and ended up being even more late to the concert. We ended up in Homestead at the Carnegie Mellon Library Music Hall or something like that. The acoustics of the show sucked, but whatever, it was still a good concert until these stupid girls decided to stand in the aisle right next to me and scream and dance. They seemed like they were drunk, which was odd because there wasn’t any alcohol being served at the venue. Maybe they were just dumb in the first place? Not sure. Anyway…

Halo 3 kicks serious ass

Ness’ nephew has Halo 3. The second day we were there, I got sucked into the game and we were playing on Xbox Live. Basically, we just killed each other more than anything and I got to trash talk to some of his 13 year old friends. I kept it PG for the kids. I surprised myself because I didn’t think I could keep trash talk PG.

I now want an Xbox 360 just so I can get Halo 3.

I’m now Uncle Josh

Ness’ niece and nephew decided to start calling me Uncle Josh. I thought that was pretty cool and was pretty stoked when I heard them say it. I’ve never been an Uncle before and I happen to think that I’m a pretty cool Uncle at that.

We had to stay late to meet everyone…

We hadn’t planned on staying too late with her brother’s ex-wife, but she wanted us to meet her new husband and wanted to introduce me to her brother and his wife. We ended up staying three extra hours. That kind of sucked because we wanted to stop by and see her brother on the way back home. We hadn’t planned on staying with her brother because Ness had to work on Saturday. By the time we left, it was already 11PM and we were tired.

Mapquest made us take the back way…

We had to travel from one side of Pittsburgh to another side. When we got directions on Mapquest, we found out we had to take 60 North. No big deal, we had been on it before, or so we thought. We hadn’t been on this part of 60 North. It was scary. It was like a country road, half in the ghetto, half in the country. I like to call it the ghettry. Ness was convinced that I was telling her the wrong directions and I can finally admit that I thought I was giving her the wrong directions as well, but hey, I was following the signs and what Mapquest told me to do.

After about an hour of going through the ghettry and being scared the whole time, we finally realized that we had been going the right way. We stopped and got some beer before we stopped off at her brothers.

Guess we aren’t going anywhere tonight, we’re drunk

We sailed through the twelve pack and ended up having a little extra fun with some other stuff…stuff that should be legal but it isn’t. At least not in the US. Needless to say, we couldn’t drive after drinking and that so we decided to wake up early the next day and head back to Cleveland.

When we woke up, Ness and I were both sick again, super sick, and couldn’t drive anywhere. Ness had a fever and kept passing out. I couldn’t pay attention for the life of me. If we had driven home, we surely would have crashed or something like that. We ended up staying Saturday anyway and got to watch Gabs, Ness’ other neice, play in her soccer game. We then came home, took long naps, and woke up to a phone call from her brother saying he was going to the Pirates game, had two extra tickets, and wanted us to come.

There’s no better cure than beer

Well, not really, but it helps sometimes. We met the family at her brothers’ sister-in-laws house and drank some beer and tailgated in the drive way before the game. We call this pre-gaming. For anyone that doesn’t know, beer is ridiculously expensive at ball games, so drinking before the game is helping your wallet out.

The whole point of going to the game wasn’t because of the Pirates. The Pirates suck. Everyone was going to see the band that was going to play after the show, The Clarks. They were amazing by the way and you should check them out. Think REM, but the Pittsburgh version.

On Saturday, we found out that Ness’ brother and his brother-in-law are literally obsessed with Justin Timberlake. They have his Madison Square Garden concert saved on DVR and kept watching it the whole day. When we got back to her brother’s place, him and I sat down, drank some more beer, did some more stuff, and watched it. I was a bit skeptical, but holy mother of Bob. After watching that show, I know why they are obsessed, even though I wasn’t converted. Not completely anyway.

Strep…um…ok…

Turns out, Ness has strep throat. Not good. Sunday, Ness was too tired to travel, I was feeling a bit better, but since Ness couldn’t work anyway, we decided to stay the rest of the day, let Ness rest a bit since she had a huge fever, and watch the Steelers game.

Ness slept most of the day, I stayed sober and prepared to drive home later that night. After watching Sunday Night Football, we headed out and finally arrived back home.

My Thoughts

The more time I spend in Pittsburgh, the more I grow to love it. The last time I was there, before I met Ness, Pittsburgh sucked major balls, but it’s a growing city and the more time I spend, the more I learn about the city. It’s now become one of the cities we’re thinking of moving too, although it’s not quite at the top.

This trip was huge for Ness and I. We both got to know Chris, her brother, better and Ness felt comfortable enough to tell him our plans for the future. He was really stoked about it and basically gave us his blessing, which was awesome.

I got to learn more about Ness, which is always a great thing. Like how amazing she is with kids. I mean, amazing. I’ve never seen kids drawn to someone so much, but Ness has a way of captivating them. Every kid we had the chance of spending time with was literally attached to Ness at the hip and wouldn’t let her go. I also got to learn more about Ness’ childhood and realized how strong Ness really is and how amazing it is that she went through so much and turned out to be the amazing person that she is today. I respected her before, but now I respect her even more.

You can’t really go wrong with getting to know your girlfriend better, and even though us being sick put a damper on things, spending that time with her made up for it.