The Writer Bee

So this weekend proved to be as busy as I had anticipated.

Crisp & cold, Saturday was thankfully sunny and lacking in precipitation. Took me about 2 hours to reach Kim’s hotel, and we then headed over to Intercourse (I feel dirty just typing that) for lunch.

Intercourse, PA.  So the Amish are not as pure & wholesome as they’d like us to think.  And can I just say that the town itself totally capitalizes on the whole inappropriateness of its name.  Slogans like the one from the pretzel factory where you can get ‘em “Soft or Hard” litter the billboards. It’s like a dirty marketer’s dream. I felt like I needed a shower upon leaving.

Anyhow, we met up with Beck (my friend, not the band) at Kitchen Kettle Village for lunch at the Kling House Restaurant (not to be confused with a Klingon restaurant). Afterwards, I took Kim back to the hotel for the wedding while Beck & I headed to Lititz where we grabbed Len, et. al and b-lined it for Hershey.

After much traffic, we arrived, parked, and were ready to enter when much to our dismay, discovered that the previously admission-free Candylane was charging nearly $10 per person! Apparently Hershey wasn’t satisfied with just making the money you’d spend once you entered. Right on, Hershey Corporate Decision-Makers. Way to increase people’s expenses in an already struggling economy! Good call. Really. (Can you see the sarcasm oozing off my words?)

Anyway, the fee included children, which meant to walk through Candylane in what we could stand of the freezing cold would have cost us nearly $70. Um…PASS!

So the kids were disappointed…heck, I was disappointed…but for that much money, we really had no choice. Boo Hershey.

Regardless, it was a fun few hours of driving around, and I’m glad I got to hang out with my friends who I haven’t seen in far too long.

I did manage to capture a few pics from the outside of the park and Hershey’s Chocolate World before we left, so here they are. I apologize that there aren’t more, but I’m giving you what I’ve got and so you’ll just have to make do:

That, in a nutshell, was my weekend. Oh, I guess there was just one more little thing…

I GOT A Wii!!

Yes, that’s right… After much deliberation and a full consultation with my Budget Committee, it was decided that I should get myself a Wii for Christmas. Partially for the gym membership dollars it will save me, and partially because I calculated out that by the end of 2008, I will have paid off just over $40K in debt this year!!

Now anyone who has gotten (or has tried to get) a Wii during Christmas shopping season might be wondering how I managed to obtain said Wii. Well, I had to get God involved. So I prayed. I told God I knew it was a silly thing, but that I really wanted a Wii for Christmas. I told Him I wanted the Wii Fit too, but would be happy with just a Wii.

I looked online. Everyone was sold out. I combed the stores (including while I was out in Lancaster) to no avail. Every place informed me that any time they got Wii’s in their stock shipments, they’d be sold out almost instantly. People would be waiting outside the stores before they opened in the mornings just hoping for a Wii. They said it was no different for the Wii Fit.

One store told me that the only way to get one would be to call during the week when their shipment comes in to see if any have arrived and then to come over immediately to get it. Since I work and have no one else to run my errands, this was not a valid option.

The odds of getting one by Christmas were looking increasingly unlikely. Then came Sunday night.

I was online flipping through Amazon (which I had done a thousand times before) and I decided to go check the Wii page (which I had done at least a hundred times before) when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer!  Wait…that’s not right.  Let me back up…

The Amazon page must have JUST refreshed its inventory because to my wondering eyes appeared AVAILABLE Wiis!! So I snagged one. They were sold out again within an hour or so and I haven’t seen the page restocked since. Ha ha!

Then Monday morning I had a similar tale where I managed to grab a Wii Fit off Best Buy online. They restocked, I got it. They were sold out within about 15 minutes and haven’t restocked since. Another ha ha!

So I got my Wii AND my Wii Fit. But wait, there’s more! They’ll both be arriving BEFORE Christmas!! Merry Christmas indeed!

Yay! Or should I say, Wii!