After an exhausting week last week, and a very fun filled weekend, I’m finally back to posting as usual. There’s both good and bad news (not bad for the blog though). Below I talk about what went on during the course of this past week/weekend to an extent.
As for why I didn’t post last week (not including the weekend), we had a MAJOR plumbing problem in my home. The main water line broke. So, as a result, we do not have a shower to use and two of our three toilets are not useable at this time. The one remaining is in the basement and it’s in the coldest part of the house, BRRRR. Seriously, it’s like 50° in there because it doesn’t get heat.
Associated with that, we had a company come in an give us a quote for fixing it all. $10,000…OUCH. Now as many of you know, I’ve been unemployed for some time now. While my wife works, we are starting to slide a little behind in bills and simply can’t afford this 10K plumbing problem. What makes it worse is that my wife make just barely over the maximum for any kind of assistance. BTW, on that note, I do NOT receive any gov’t assistance. It’s JUST her paycheck that gets us by…
So we are really in need here. As for bathing, we’re having to ‘sponge bath’ which really SUCKS. How we do that is something you all really don’t need to know, but I’ll tell you it’s NOT fun.
As a result of this, and again as many of you know, I suffer from both depression and anxiety (clinically diagnosed, not just saying that), I became very depressed by the situation and had an anxiety attack over the financial issue this puts us in. Suffice to say, my mind was not on blogging.
I apologize to you good folks who come here every day looking for the latest in Halo news.
As for the good news, this weekend was New York Toy Fair. Our plans to attend this had already been taken care of before the plumbing issue. Hotel was paid for. Gas was actually free as locally we have a regional grocery store that has a fuel perks program that awards ‘money’ off on gas as you purchase from their food stores and gas stations. We had saved up the ‘money’ off on gas so that we had 30 gallons worth of gas for free. It’s a bit of an explanation how that all works, so I’ll save you the boredom of that explanation.
So anyway… We set off for New York. On Sunday we went to the convention early for a press only preview with Mattel/Mega Bloks. I got tons of pics there and throughout the day which I’ll be posting along the way today. (They are loading onto the computer as I write this. I have more than 500 to sort through, clean up. crop and place into articles on the blog) I don’t want to go into detail here about that as I’m going to have a full Toy Fair review later. So stay tuned for that.
Not that I want to end this article on a downer, but I want to keep things in chronological order. When we got home late last night (having traveled through a blizzard and treacherous roads the last 150 miles), we saw that not only did we lose power during the weekend, but that some of our electronics were fried.
We lost:
• My XB1 and Halo 4 edition of X360
• My TV (that I used solely for gaming)
• Wife’s X360
• Wife’s gaming TV
So that’s another $1500 or so in losses. Ugh….
I did call my brother-in-law and he’ll lend me his X360 since he barely uses is anymore. So…I’ll be able to play Reach and Halo 4 on that. Better than nothing, but damn!
So again, sincere apologies for last week/this weekend. You know it’s not like me to not post for that long. I rarely miss a day as it is. You know this had to be super important for me to not post for a week. Suffice to say, I won’t be able to make any fun trips like this weekend for a LONG time to come…
Stay tuned all day today for LOTS and LOTS and LOADS of pics, articles, etc.!! I’ve got catching up to do and it starts now!!!
If you do want to get a small preview of things to come today on HFFL, check out my twitter feed: https://twitter.com/HaloFanForLife
-Sal
Glad to see that you’re back and had fun at the toy fair! Sucks about the plumbing at electrical stuff though… :/
Dang, sorry about the plumbing issues, glad to have you back though
Thanks.
Don’t worry about being a little late, crap happens even to the best of us.. Just take your time and have faith that things will get better. On the bright side it’s good to see you had a nice time at the Toy Fair, and equally nice that you got all those pictures. I
can hardly wait to see them! 🙂
Thanks Russell. I’ll be pumping out articles all night with all the pics fit to post that I got from Toy Fair.
I was wondering at the lack of posts on your blog Sal. But dang, this really sucks! I’m sorry about your losses, and after your plumbing problems, it REALLY stinks that your gaming systems (and tvs) got fried. I mean, of all the rotten luck!
But on a side note, I really hoped that you had fun at the toyfair! And I am definitely looking forward to your later post! 😀
I had a great time at Toy Fair. It was a great escape from our issues at home for a couple of days. Of course when we got home, well, that other stuff was just a kick in the arse.
Sounds like the Toy Fair was a blast! Glad you were able to go.
I am sorry to hear about the plumbing and electrical problems. That just sucks. I am
Pulling for you guys and hope your luck turns around soon.
Thank you fellow Sal. Bro, all I really want is a JOB. After having applied to over 1,000 companies in the 4 years I’ve been unemployed, well, it just wears on you. And then when something like the plumbing and then the XBOXs and TVs happen, it’s just a huge kick in the t-bag…
Like everybody else said already, it’s good to have you back. I was starting to think that something bad must have happened but wow. I wasn’t expecting this. I’m sorry to hear of your current situation and I hope things get better. There is no need to apologize. Thank you for continuing to maintain this blog.
Thanks Wilson.