6.05.2011

Afternoon at the Mall

Yesterday Emma requested that we go to Mall of America. As usual, she wanted to ride some of the rides at Nickelodeon Universe. I have been trying to get her to try more rides than just the Rugrats Reptarmobiles bumper cars and the carousel. She contemplated going on Blue's Skidoo, but would only do so if I rode with her. As Maximus was also with us, I couldn't leave him so she could go on the ride. Therefore, Emma opted not to try the ride. She did go in the Pineapple Poppers bounce house, which she had not done before. She enjoyed that and wanted to do it again. Unfortunately, our ticket was out of points. I still have not broken down to buy an unlimited daily wristband for her. I just don't think she will get our money's worth out of one yet.


After playing at the theme park, Max, Emma, and I met back up with Mel who had been doing some clothes shopping. We then had dinner at Cadillac Ranch, a bar and grill restaurant on the third floor of the mall. Dinner was very good—I had the A-1 Mushroom Burger—and reasonably priced.

Movie Night

Friday night, Mel and I went to a movie in a theater for the first time in over a year. The last movie we saw in the theater being Robin Hood starring Russell Crowe. My sister came over to babysit her niece and nephew, so Mel and I started our evening by having dinner at Olive Garden. I had a new dish from their Four Cheese Pastachetti with Grilled Chicken. Lately when I have tried different dishes from my typical choices at restaurants, I have been a little disappointed. This dish however, did not disappoint. I enjoyed it.

After dinner we went to the theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I enjoyed the movie. It was not as good as the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but it was still good. And while it is difficult for us to get out to movies as much as we would like, I hope Mel and I can make it to another movie or two this summer.

6.01.2011

Shoe Shopping

This weekend I realized I was in need of a new pair of shoes for everyday wear. I was shopping at a mall Monday with my wife and kids and decided to look for a new pair of shoes. After getting my foot measured and discovering that my shoe size is 13.5 or 14, not 13 as I have been wearing for as long as I can remember, I looked through their selection for a pair of shoes I liked. After finding one, the salesperson went in the back to see if they had it in my size. Unfortunately they did not. I was not really too surprised by that as 14 is not a very popular shoe size.

That evening when we got home, I downloaded the Zappos app from the Android Marketplace. This allowed me to look through the vast selection of shoes that Zappos.com carries, filtering for the type of shoe I was looking for and for my size. After narrowing my choice down to about ten or so different pairs of shoes, I made my selection and placed my order, all from my smartphone. It is really amazing what one can do with technology these days. After placing my order, Zappos.com upgraded my shipping because of a tweet I wrote about them. And because of that, my new shoes arrived already today.

After this wonderful experience ordering shoes online, I do not know if I will ever feel the need to actually go to a shoe store to order shoes again. By ordering shoes for my gargantuan feet online, I have found that I have a much larger selection to choose from. And with free shipping both ways from Zappos, I do not even have to worry about the added expense of returning a pair of shoes in the event that they do not fit.