Occasionally Daffy

Elfed, again....

2009-12-17T07:01:00.001-05:00

Elfed...

2009-12-16T20:59:00.001-05:00

Almost 1 year....

2009-12-07T11:24:00.002-05:00

...since I last posted an entry on this blog. I'm taking procrastination to a whole 'nother level!

We had our first snowfall at the new house over the weekend and we thought we'd take advantage of the situation and try to take a picture of the kids for use in our "seasons greetings" card.

We took about 20 shots hoping to get a good one. Nicholas was not too happy to be taking the picture. Thomas was enjoying himself making funny faces. And Alexis was so-so about the situation. There are numerous other takes of this shot in our Flickr album here. The kids' school pictures are also there as well.

I've also set up a new blog to chronicle the work we're doing on our new house. Check it out here. I've been bad at posting with any kind of frequency there as well, but I'll get more posts up there by the end of the year for sure. We've done a lot of work on the house since the September 13th posting.

Elf....

2008-12-13T16:03:00.001-05:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Camp Yaw Paw....

2008-06-29T09:23:00.008-04:00

Nicholas joined the cub scouts in December of 2007 and has gone to the den meetings and several of the trips. The most recent was this weekend at Camp Yaw Paw located in Mahwah, NJ. (Pictures from the weekend here)

We arrived Friday night around 6:30 and set up our tent for the weekend. As the rest of the boys arrived and the dads set up tents, the boys enjoyed themselves reacquainting themselves with each other and played with a soccer ball, wiffle ball & bat, and frisbee. After a dinner of macaroni & cheese and chili, there was a campfire with roasted marshmallows. With all the excitement of the trip, the boys stayed up fairly late. Nicky finally fell asleep a little after midnight.

After a late night, Nicky woke up at 8:15. (*note to self - must purchase an air mattress or cot for the next trip - took about 20 minutes before my back pain eased up enough for me to get up) After a leisurely breakfast most of the group went on a quick hike, approximately 1 mile.

There was some fishing after lunch and most of the boys who fished caught fish. Nicky was not one of them. This did not make for a very happy camper :-(

Several of the boy scouts' mothers came to camp for dinner and the moving up ceremony. The cub scouts moved up in rank. Nicky went from a tiger scout to a wolf scout. It was an impromptu ceremony which was very nice.

After the ceremony a group of scouts tried some night fishing. After 30 minutes, the orginal group of 15 people was down to 4 - Nicky, me, a boy scout and one of the dads. As luck would have it, I was about to tell Nicky that we were going to reel our bait in and head back to the campsite when we got a hit on the line. And wouldn't you know it - Nicky caught the largest fish of the weekend!

Nicky chose to sleep with the bigger boys and left the tent all to myself for the night. I was very thankful for the extra room. (*another note to self - get a bigger tent for the next camping trip, or a separate tent for Nicky)

This morning I packed up our things and headed for home. As I sit here typing, Nicky is laying on the couch recuperating from the weekend. Looking forward to the next camping trip....

World's Worst Blogger....

2008-06-29T09:18:00.002-04:00

There's no excuse to have let 9 months and and 5 days lapse between posts. Instead of trying to catch everyone up on what's transpired during that time, I'll just start with this past weekend's activities and try to post more regularly.

I've Been Bad....

2007-09-24T08:53:00.000-04:00

I've been extremely bad at blogging. My last entry was almost a full 2 months ago. Let me try to catch everyone up on what has happened since then.

August was fairly uneventful. The boys were in a daycamp that was only 3 blocks from the house. They enjoyed it a lot and it gave Jennie a nice little break for a couple of hours. We took our semi-annual trip to Jennie's sister's house in Lake George for Labor Day weekend. And it turned out to be our last. Jen's sister has been trying to sell that house for a little over two years and they finally got an offer on it. As a matter of fact, they signed the offe

r sheet while we were there. Closing on the house is in 3 weeks so there might be one more trip up on Columbus Day weekend to help out with the big garage sale they're going to have. It looks like we'll have to figure out something new to do now on Memorial and Labor Day weekends.

Nicholas started 1st grade on the Wednesday after Labor Day.

That was the start of a rough few days for Nicky. His first day of school was fine. His second day was a whole nother story. Jennie got the phone call 45 minutes after dropping him off. He had thrown up 4 times. He had gotten some kind of bug and was puking and had diahrea for the next few days. In addition to having to get picked up early on Thursday, he had to stay home the entire day on Friday. By Sunday he was feeling better and went to the park with Thomas, Joseph, Veronica and Freddie (Joey's mom and dad). While on the swing, Nicky attempted to jump off while the swing was in full motion. The jumping off went perfectly. The landing did not. He landed awkwardly on his arm and fractured is radius in his right arm. He was very good about it and suprisingly had to pain after the initial fall. While at the hospital he was laughing and having a good time playing Candyland. The nurse even commented that she would have never known that he had a broken bone unless she had seen the xray. All in all, Nicky has adjusted very nicely to living with a cast on most of his right arm. He's figured out how to do everything with his left hand, even writing. While his penmenship is not perfect with his left, it's still more legible than some adults I know.

This past Friday we hopped in the van and picked up Joey and Veronica and headed south to Lawton Virginia to get on the Amtrak Autotrain for our trip to Florida and Disney World. It's Monday and we're about to leave the house to go to the Magic Kingdom. I'll post later on about the Floriday trip. For now, enjoy some of the photos we've taken so far here.

It Still Works....

2007-07-28T13:09:00.000-04:00

The computer which can be seen in the photo sitting in the water is the same computer I'm using right now to type this post. It had been sitting untouched for almost 3.5 months now since the flood and I thought I'd take a shot and see what would happen if I plugged it in. And to my amazement, it worked.

I still haven't finished fixing up the basement yet, but that's a whole nother story....

Thomas At It Again....

2007-07-22T20:15:00.000-04:00

We were at Jen's sister Ellie's apartment and Thomas was riding on his cousin's little tricycle around the house. I was sitting at the dining room table with Jen and her sister when Thomas made a trip around the table. I said to him: "See you around kid." His response: "See you around butthead."

Weekend At Hershey Park....

2007-07-05T15:05:00.001-04:00

Saturday, June 30, 2007

We started off our day just as I do my usual week day. Alarm went off at 5:00 am. Got up and showered. Nicholas walked into the bathroom while I was drying off from the shower and asked if I was excited, because he was “really excited because we were going on vacation to Hershey Park.” He’s so cute. We got the car packed and were out of the driveway by 6:30. The first stop was at the bagel store for breakfast. We stopped by Jen’s parents’ house to say goodbye and eat breakfast. We said our goodbyes and started our journey to Pennsylvania with Grandpa Eddie, Grandma Janice, and Great Grandma Flo in the other vehicle.

We stopped in Easton, PA, to see the Crayola factory museum. It was really quite enjoyable for the kids. There were plenty of hands-on creative activities for them to do. I, on the other hand, was pretty disappointed with the demonstration they had on how they make crayons. I guess I’ll have to stick to watching “How It’s Made” on TLC.

After a quick lunch we hit the Crayola store and the kids made out like bandits. Grandpa Eddie just couldn’t say “no” to whatever the kids threw in the basket. We continued our trek to Hershey after cleaning out the store. The kids and I were in the pool within 10 minutes of checking in.

The visitor friendly policy of allowing guests free access to the park 2 ½ prior to closing if tickets are bought for the following day, we decided to go to Hershey park for a quick visit and to check out the weekly firework show. The kids went on a couple of rides and played a bunch of the games. As it got closer to closing time (and to the fireworks) we headed for the exit, and the parking lot. We sat on the grass and watched the 10 minute fireworks show. Afterwards we piled in the cars and tried to leave the parking lot. 30 minutes later, we succeeded.

On a purely logistical review, the park sucked. The whole layout of the park and the parking lot is terrible. Unless you’ve got handicap plates, you have a very long walk to the entrance. Once in the park, a lot more walking is in store. I’m not against walking, but I am against a poorly laid out amusement park. It’s basically a long and narrow park with one path from one end to the other. I’d much prefer a lay out similar to the Bronx Zoo where the park is more similar to a squareish shape with a path around the perimeter with various paths throughout the middle of the park connecting all areas of the park. It’s much more convenient and you’re never that far from your exit. But I digress….

Sunday July 1, 2007

After a very full day and a late night for the kids yesterday, they all slept until about 8:00. We took advantage of the continental breakfast offered here at the hotel and the leftover bagels and we ate in our room. Jennie and I took the kids and got to the park for opening time. We headed straight to the “Boardwalk” section and tried out all the water rides the kids were big enough for and were brave enough to try. I took each of the boys on a pretty simple tube ride where we sat in a small raft and went down a straight tube with a little bit of splash involved. Next Nicky and I tried out the flume ride and we got totally soaked. Next up was the little kiddie section where Thomas and Nicky ran around and went down a bunch of tiny water slides. After a while of this, I took Nicky on a big tube ride called the “Vortex.” It’s a two person blow up tube in the shape of a number 8 that goes down a winding water tube and shoots you out into a funnel shaped section that you go around a few times before going down the drain in the middle. As big as Nicky is, he’s still too young/small to do some things. Our tube flipped over just as we got to the funnel section and had to finish the ride sliding down on our butts. One could argue that it wasn’t Nicky’s smallness but rather my largeness that caused the unbalanced tube causing us to turnover, but that’s another discussion.

After a few hours in the water, grandmas and grandpa arrived at the park and we met up for lunch. The boys and I changed out of our wet bathing suits and put on some dry clothes. We found a bunch more rides for the kids to go on and a slew of money-taking games for the kids to play. All of the kids “won” a bunch of stuffed animals at the various games and they all left happy. We stopped by the chocolate factory on the way to the cars for a pretty cool tour/ride and of course, the Hershey store.

Once back at the hotel, it was back in the pool for the kids and I. Grandpa Eddie even put on his bathing suit and joined us at the pool. Joining us at the pool was as far as he got. He never made it into the water. After an hour in the water, we ate dinner at the picnic table near the pool. Up next was a bath for the kids and then movie night in our room as the grandmas joined us to watch “Bedknobs and Broomsticks.”

Hopefully all this activity today will knock the kids out and they’ll sleep til 8:00 again tomorrow!

Monday July 2, 2007

No luck on the kids sleeping in two days in a row. Oh well.

After breakfast at Friendly’s the group of us drove to the outlets at Hershey for some shopping. 5 hours later and lots of dollars later, we finally broke down and went to a late lunch/early dinner at a local restaurant. Back to the hotel for more pool time and some naps then it was off to Dairy Queen for ice cream for dinner.

Tuesday July 3, 2007

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO NICHOLAS!!!

Nicky turns 6 today. Growing up and hearing the older people in my life say “time flies” never really meant anything to me, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize truer words have never been mentioned. I can still remember it like it was yesterday the day I picked up Jennie and Nicky from the hospital and brought them home. And here it is 6 years later.

This morning Nicky wanted eggs and pancakes for breakfast so it was back to Friendly’s. Afterwards we drove to Lancaster to check out an Amish farm museum. I didn’t pay too much attention to the details but it was either a recreation of a farm or an old farm turned into a museum. There was a horse and buggy ride that Nicky loved so much that he went on three times. They had a couple of cows, some sheep, pygmy goats, turkeys, and a few other animals. Everything was very hands-on and the kids really enjoyed feeding the goats.

It just so happened that there were some outlet stores across the street from the Amish farm so we stopped there quickly in a couple of stores then headed back to the hotel. On the way back we stopped at a Rite Aid to pick up some children’s Tylenol for Alexis who woke up with a stuffy nose and came down with a fever. Apparently they’re really strict about selling over the counter drugs in PA – Jennie was asked to show ID to prove she was over 18! The boys and I spent an hour or so in the pool while the grandparents and Alexis took naps. Pizza again for dinner and an ice cream birthday cake for Nicky afterwards. Cleaned up and put pajamas on the kids and now were half way through “Lion King 1½.”

All in all, it’s been a very good vacation and the kids have had a lot of fun. Tomorrow we’re heading back home which none of the kids are happy about. They all want to spend more time on vacation. Definitely not a bad thing….

Our First Graduate....

2007-06-05T21:31:00.000-04:00

Nicky graduated kindergarten today. It was a very cute ceremony which lasted about an hour. A slew of pix can be found in our flickr album and a couple of videos on youtube.

Weekend In Lake George....

2007-05-28T18:51:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was spent at my sister-in-law's house in Lake George. Jennie and the kids drove up Friday morning and since I unfortunately had to work late Friday night, I drove up by myself early Saturday morning. I missed out on the big Thomas The Train ride, but I got to hear about it from the kids and saw pictures. Sunday we took the kids to the Magic Forest amusement park. As you can see from the website, it's a non-hightech park made up of a collection of random rides, displays, sculptures, and animals. The kids had a blast and Nicky and TJ found their new favorite ride: the Tilt-A-Whirl. Neither of them wanted to get off. They must have gone on 4 or 5 times each.

After the amusement park we headed over to the outlets, which is always a big hit. The rest of the time was spent hanging out at the house playing, both indoors and outdoors. The kids really enjoyed hanging out at the house and playing with their cousins.
Here's a typical video of the kids playing together:

More pix can be found here and a video of the kids feeding the reindeer at the Magic Forest can be found here.

Punk Kid...

2007-05-04T07:00:00.000-04:00

Last night after getting ready for bed, Thomas was in our bedroom talking to Jennie and I. I told him it was time for bed and turned off the lights (light switch next to the door). In the ensuing darkness we bumped into each other. Thomas' response:

"Hey. Watch where you're walking buttmunch!"

The Aftermath....

2007-04-15T16:44:00.000-04:00

....of letting the kids ice their own cupcakes:

Kids....

2007-04-02T11:30:00.000-04:00

...are a lot smarter than we (adults) give them credit for, but are still very naive. They can be little adults one minute and little kids the next. A few notes from this past weekend:

Nicky (5.5 years old) asked me why I don't go to church every Sunday with Jennie. I told him because I just don't. He then told me that I would be going down there - to hell.

Alexis learned a new trick and has been trying it out the past few days. If she does something bad, like make a mess by throwing a handful of crayons on the floor and when I tell her to stop it and to pick it up, she realizes she's in trouble. She then will walk over to me and tell me "I love you daddy" and try to hug me. It's extremely cute, but disturbing at the same time. I wonder where she learned this from. Her brothers never did anything like that.

Jennie's last remaining married sister is seperating from her husband. About a month ago she got her own place. This past Saturday we went to check out the new place with the kids. Our two nephews were not there and Nicky asked where they were. We told him that they were with their dad for the weekend. No problem there. Nicky's cousin Joey (who is 6 months older and goes to the same school as Nicky) has been on the same schedule since he's been born. His parents seperated while his mom was pregnant. The problem we had was answering his next line of questioning:
Nicky: "Why does Geralyn have her own house now?"
Us: "Because she and Jeff are seperated."
Nicky: "Why are they seperated?"
Us: "Because people get seperated sometimes."
Nicky: "When I get big, I'm not going to get seperated."

Nicky asked again later on if it was because they don't love each other.

Yes. I realize we skirted around the issue and gave him that answer, but how do you explain divorce to a 5 year old? Is there a right answer to give him?

Rocking Horse Ranch....

2007-03-12T13:40:00.000-04:00

This past weekend we went to the 2nd annual Roccisano family reunion at the Rocking Horse Ranch located in Highland, NY. It's a year-round resort that offers a ton of activities for the entire family.

We arrived Friday late afternoon and had about an hour to kill before dinner, so I took the kids in to the pool. After dinner, Nicky, Thomas, Alexis, Vinny, Jeff, and Danny hung out in our room until they all fell asleep. Saturday morning breakfast then pooltime with Thomas and Alexis. Nicky had the beginnings of a cold and was quite grumpy in the morning. Alexis eventually left us in the pool to go see the horses with Jennie and Nicky. Thomas stayed with me in the pool, then we changed into some dry clothes and explored a little more of the building we were in and found the arcade room! Alexis, Nicky, and Jennie found the playground and the pony rides.

After lunch the boys and I headed back to the pool for a couple of hours. Afterwards was a big game of scattergories in the lounge then a quick poker tournament before dinner. After another dip in the pool with all three kids, we caught the 9:30pm magic show which was very entertaining. It was right up to the room after the show and the kids passed out. It was a late start Sunday morning as the kids all slept until 8:00. After a quick breakfast, we packed up the room, loaded the car and checked out. We headed over to the playground and pony rides for the boys.

After playing on the playground and checking out the horses and camel in the stables we headed over to the main building for the group photo.

After a quick bite to eat for lunch we headed home against the kids' wishes. They all wanted to go back in the pool one more time.

Awwww....Ouch....

2007-03-05T11:04:00.000-05:00

A few nights ago, Nicky walked into our bedroom after his movie was over in his room. He still doesn't like being in his room by himself. Even though Thomas was in his bed sleeping, in Nicky's eyes, Thomas wasn't "there". So Nicky climbed onto our bed and made himself comfortable laying in between Jennie and I. He got excited to see that we were watching "Dirty Jobs" on the discovery channel and extended his arms out to the side and hugged our heads. Then he said "I love you guys." (awwww) Then he said "Mommy, can I tell you a secret?". Jennie says "Sure." Nicky then leaned over and tried to whisper in her ear "Mommy. I love you and daddy, but I love you more." (ouch)

An Anniversary To Remember....

2007-02-21T07:00:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was our 7th wedding anniversary. This is how we celebrated....

Jennie had been feeling sick since the previous weekend and had had some back pain for the previous couple of weeks. She thought it was an ulcer acting up and a pulled muscle in her back. Lots of mylanta and icy/hot ointment on her back. The pain was getting worse each day, so I took the day off from work on Thursday to give her a break from the kids so she could relax and try to heal up. I had given her a list of doctors in my health plan and she had made an appointment to see one of them this week. The appointment would never come to fruition. The pain had gotten so bad that she went to the emergency room. After picking up Nicky and Joey from kindergarten, Jennie's parents came over to watch the kids as I joined Jennie in the emergency room. They had already done the blood work and a sonogram by the time I got there and her diagnosis was in: Gall stones.

The doctor that she had made the appointment with eventually showed up to discuss the situation and the remedies. He was going to go in with an endoscopic instrument to search for the gall stones and remove any that were stuck. Then another doctor would perform surgery to remove the gall bladder. The doctor who was to perform the removal surgery stopped by the emergency room to discuss the procedure with us and said he'd try to squeeze it in on the next day, Friday. Otherwise, we'd have to wait until after the weekend :-( A room finally opened up and they moved Jennie into the room in the new children/women wing in the hospital. A lovely little room by herself.

Jennie had the endscopic procedure done around 10:00 Friday morning and then the removal surgery around 1:00pm. She was released from the hospital early evening on Saturday. She's got 4 incisions with 3-4 stitches from the surgery. She'll have to take it easy for the next week or two while she heals up from the surgery, but after that she'll be back to normal, albeit with one less (nonessential) organ :-)

Contest....

2007-02-13T17:08:00.000-05:00

My friend Joe got me hooked on a blog called 20 Second Timeout. It's a very good read if you're into the nba. It's worth checking it out.

Today's blog entry was a bit of a contest. I submitted my guess and I'm pretty confident it's correct. Even though it's only for a dvd, I've got my fingers crossed that I win.

Things A Man Should Know About Fatherhood....

2007-01-11T17:01:00.000-05:00

A list of 72 items from this article on msn.com for all of those guys out there who are thinking about having kids in the future or those who recently joined to ranks of fatherhood. It's a mostly humorous list with a few serious items included. Some of my favorites:

20. Teach by example.
34. At a certain point, your child will appear to survive exclusively on peanut butter, french fries, Cheerios, and hot dogs. (I can personally attest that this one is true)
36. The single most important thing a father can possess: Wet-Naps. (Very true. They can clean just about anything.)
66. The harder they play, the earlier they sleep. (Very, very true)
72. If you're thinking that fatherhood means the end of life as you've known it, you, sir, are, of course, absolutely correct.

After reading over the items I just picked to display, I'm surprised that at myself. I picked serious items, not the funny ones.

I guess fatherhood does change you....

VHS vs Beta....

2007-01-10T16:34:00.000-05:00

Way back in the day there was a bit of a technological war between two versions of tape. Beta and VHS. Obviously VHS won and was and is still being used to this day. Now there is a war developing between Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Two newer formats of DVDs that display movies in high definition. This one doesn't look one format will win over the other because some very large companies have sided with each and there's no way those companies will concede defeat and switch over everything to the other side. Why did I bring this up?

Because I don't think it's going to matter in a few years anyway. Flash drives seem to be increasing in size at a pretty quick rate and will probably catch up in capacity to dvds. This is just my common sense speaking out here. Flash drives are smaller than dvds - a big positive if you have a large library of movies and need to find room to store it. There are also no moving parts in a machine that reads flash drives. So wouldn't a machine used to play movies from a flash drive be less prone to breaking than a dvd player? Along that same line of thinking - no skipping if you're watching a movie in the car and you hit a bump.

Of course, since this is not based on anything except for some random thoughts I had on my way home from work yesterday, I could be way off and wind up laughing at my prediction 5 years from now when I'm reading this.

Answer This....

2006-12-26T09:01:00.000-05:00

Which is worse?

Having your kids catch you in "the act" with your significant other or having your kids (who still believe in Santa) catch you wrapping their gifts the night before christmas?

Happy Holidays....

2006-12-19T08:55:00.000-05:00

Birds And Bees....

2006-12-14T11:55:00.000-05:00

I thought for sure I had a few more years before I had to answer that question. Nope. Two nights ago, the kids were in the bathtub and Jennie and I were in the bathroom helping out. Nicky is playing in the water and says to Jennie: "Mommy look. Look at this ball. What's it for?" Without going into detail, I'm sure you can imagine what he was doing. I say: "Well...." and I immediately get a dirty look from Jennie who then says to me in a low voice "If you tell him, I'll kill you." So I say "When you get as old as your cousin Vinny I'll tell you all about it." Nicky's response "No. Tell me now." Me: "No." Nicky: "Yes." Me: "Ok. When you get older your body will start to change and you'll start growing hair on your face, your chest, and your penis - just like me. When that happens, those little balls will be able to help you make a baby." Nicky, laughing: "No. You're lying." Me: "No I'm not, it's true." Nicky: "No. You're lying to me. I'm going to ask mommy." By this time Jennie had taken Alexis into her room to put her pajamas on and was no longer in the bathroom. She got off the hook because by the time Nicky had gotten out of the bath, dried off and brushed his teeth, he had forgotten all about it.

New Blog Title....

2006-12-14T11:53:00.000-05:00

I think I'm going to have to change the name of my blog. "Daily" doesn't apply any more. With the new job schedule, I rarely have time to use the computer for personal reasons. And if I do get a few minutes, it's usually checking email and fantasy basketball stats.

I'm looking for suggestions on a new name. Any thoughts out there?

So Young?!?!....

2006-09-26T07:38:00.000-04:00

A little background information for the soon to be recounted conversation:

Nicholas has been attending kindergarden at a Catholic school in Bergenfield. His class has 20 children in it. 10 boys and 10 girls. The class is set up with 5 tables with 2 boys and 2 girls at each table. Now, the conversation Nicky and I had last night at the dinner table:

Jennie: "Nicky. Tell daddy what happened in school today."
Nicky: "Daddy. I have to tell you in my 'inside voice'."
Nicky gets down from his chair and walks over to me to whisper in my ear.
Me: "Oh. It's a secret? You have to whisper to me?"
Nicky: "Yeah."
Me: "OK. What is it?"
Nicky: "Today. In school. Lizabeth and Sara. At my table. Lizabeth told me that Sara fell in love with me. You can tell everyone else now."

Apple Picking....

2006-09-24T09:24:00.000-04:00

A couple of pictures from our apple picking trip yesterday:

More pictures can be seen here.

Where Have I Been....

2006-09-06T15:07:00.000-04:00

It's been a couple of weeks since I lost blogged. I'd like to time this time to apologize to my loyal readers out there. Yes, all 6 of you.

I started my new job last week and it's been going well so far. The hours are a lot longer than at my previous job and it's been kind of slow so far. I didn't really expect to start out immediately in the flow of work, but at times I've felt useless and not much of an asset. But I'm sure that'll change once I get into the swing of things and they get me more involved with things around here. In addition to just starting here, the job I will be put on is still in the early phases of construction. Lot's of meetings and not enough action yet for my liking. We're supposed to be seing some action on the jobsite starting late next week, so I'll be happier once that happens.

On the homefront side of things:

Everyone is doing fine. Same as always. Nothing new except for Nicky. Today was Nicky's first day at kindergarden. I went with Jennie to drop him off for his big day. We were running a little late and didn't have time to drop off the two little ones beforehand, so we took them with us to Nicky's new school. Thomas didn't want to get out of the car so Jennie took Nicky inside while I waited outside. There was a brief orientation thing for all the new students and their parents so I took the little guys to their daycare while Jennie was inside with Nicky. I can't wait to hear from Nicky about his new school tonight.

Like Owner, Like Dog....

2006-08-23T19:09:00.000-04:00

Neither Koby or I will be able to sire any offspring. Today was Koby's procedure. I picked him up from the vet's office about 2 hours ago and he's still a little groggy. He's a very sad little puppy.

Cape Cod Pictures....

2006-08-22T13:38:00.000-04:00

Pictures from our trip can be found here.

Video of Nicky can be found here (note that the sound is pretty bad due to the wind, so either turn down your speakers or mute it)

The Long Ride Home....

2006-08-20T21:12:00.000-04:00

I’m writing this while in the car. We are on our way to a brunch date with friends of the family who live in Rhode Island and are a very short detour from our course home. It’ll also help break up the long ride home, so I think this will help the kids a bit. This afternoon we’ll be driving straight to Jen’s parents’ house in Teaneck for dinner and to pick up Koby. We haven’t seen him in almost two weeks and we all miss him – especially the boys. They’ve asked about him every day. They’re also going to see their cousin Joey whom they haven’t seen in over two weeks since he was on vacation with his dad the week prior to our week on the cape.

We won’t be coming back to the cape next year since we’re planning on going to Disneyworld, but I think we’ll be coming back the following year. I think Jennie is warming up to life on the cape. The first year I took her was a lot different. It was the summer after we got married so it was just the two of us. The cottage we were staying in had a 3rd guest that stayed with us – a mouse. She wasn’t too fond of taking a shower and seeing him run past her along the top of the stall. The next time we went was 2 years later when Nicky turned 1. We stayed at a hotel that time since Jennie didn’t want to deal with the wildlife of the cape. We then went back 2 years after that when Nicky was 3 and Thomas was 1½ and stayed at the same hotel, but in one of their beachside efficiency units. The back door led to a deck that was right on the beach. It was pretty convenient in that we didn’t have to lug all the beach stuff down to the beach and we could just leave it right out on the deck. This year we were back at Topside Cottages. The walk to the beach is a little bit longer, but we didn’t have to carry our beach stuff back and forth each time. Jim and April’s cottage is right at eh head of the stairs that lead down to the beach and they let us keep our stuff under their deck. Jim and April were great to us this past week. We had a very enjoyable week on the cape and I think Jennie is starting to like it also.

Some random notes. I need to get a new cell phone. I’m going to have to stop by the cingular store some day this week and pick one up. The one I have is just busted. About 2 weeks ago the screen got all weird and got those horizontal lines on the lower ¾ of the screen. Then on the first or second day on the cape it stopped working almost completely. The screen and keypad would light up when I plugged in the charger but I couldn’t turn on the phone or see anything on the screen. One of the kids that we (Ev, Max and I) got to know during our earlier years on the cape was staying in the one of the cottages right across from ours. I got to talking to his dad and found out that he grew up right around the corner from where we live now in Bergenfield. Small world. Our kids are pretty great. I’m not one to brag about myself, but Jennie and I must be doing something right with them. They were such a pleasure to be with all week and I’m going to miss them when we get back into our usual routines of work and school.

Ok. We’re almost at Danny and Vivian’s house so I’ve to do some navigating to do. More later….

.... It's later.

Brunch and Danny and Vivian's was very nice. The kids were very happy to see that there was a dog there and Thomas and Alexis were not their usual shy selves. We hung out and caught up with each other until about noon then got back in the car to head back to NJ. I wish someone could figure out why traffic on route 95 in Connecticut really sucks. There was stop and go traffic 2 miles into CT. We eventually got sick of it and hopped over to the Merritt Parkway and took that all the way to the GWB and into NJ. Our first stop was at Jen's parents house to have dinner and pick up Koby. Geralyn and her family drove out to drop him off and stay for dinner. The kids were very happy to see him and ran to find him before saying hi to anyone else. We finally got home and unpacked and got ready for Monday and were in bed at 9:00. Everyone passed out right away. A very enjoyable week for everyone. Now back to the "real" world....

Brian And Meaghan's Big Day....

2006-08-19T23:11:00.000-04:00

This morning we ate breakfast, packed up the rest of the stuff in the cottage and left for the lower cape by 8:30. Knowing that check-in at the hotel was not until 2:00, we planned on stopping somewhere to keep the kids occupied. We decided to stop by the glass museum in Sandwich. The big draw to the place is the fact that they have live demonstrations on glass blowing. I was very interested to see that first-hand and I knew the boys would like it also, especially Nicky. Much to my disappointment, there was a sign next to the register where you walk in “No Glassblowing Today”. We were already there and the price was pretty decent ($4.75 – although they should offer a discount when there’s no glassblowing – that’s the whole point of going anyway) we decided to stay and check out the museum. Anything ever made from glass was at the museum. Lots of colors and shapes. It was pretty neat. They even had a little treasure hunt game for the kids which was good. It was a sheet of paper with pictures of different objects that could be found somewhere in the museum. It definitely did the trick for keeping Nicky interested in seeing all the different glassware in the museum. He would have been pretty bored otherwise.

After the museum we figured we would stop by the hotel and take a chance that our room would be ready earlier that normal. No such luck. So we went out to lunch at a local diner and went back to the hotel. 1:00pm. Still not ready, but I filled out all the info for the room anyway and did all the check in processes short of getting the room keys. Even though we didn’t have the room yet, we were still allowed to use the pool. So Jennie took Alexis for a walk into town while I took the boys into the pool. The pool was not as advertised and was not heated. It was quite freezing, but it still hot a nice chill to it, which of course did not stop Nicky from jumping in. We hung out in the pool until a few minutes after 2:00 and we dried off and stopped by the front desk to get our room keys. The room was still not ready. What happened to the 2:00 check-in time? No big deal. They gave us a room that had been cleaned and was ready. It was only a few doors down from our original room and it made no difference anyway. We finally got settled in and Jenna finally arrived.

Brian and Meaghan’s wedding was at 2:30 (which we knew we couldn’t make it to) and the reception was at 4:00. Jennie and I got prepped and ready for the reception and then we drove Jenna and the kids to a playground and dropped them off. Then we hopped on the bus and rode over to the reception. The Guineys rented out an old historic farm out for the 3 day weekend and the reception was held under a big tent out behind the big barn. It was a very lovely setting with a large pond. It must have made for some great wedding photos. There was lots of drinking. Lots of food. Lots of dancing (no so much by me). Lots of fun. By 11:00 we were ready for bed and hopped on the bus and headed back to the hotel.

Last Full Day At The Cottage....

2006-08-18T20:18:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow we’re leaving the cottage and heading into Falmouth for Brian and Meaghan’s wedding. So we’re in the mode of using up all the perishables so there’s very little that has to be thrown out. The fridge is just about empty save for some milk, yogurt, an apple or two and some soda. We’re in pretty good shape for tomorrow.

Some time during the night Nicky climbed into bed with Jennie and I and soon after that Alexis woke up screaming for Jennie. So Jennie left us and slept with Alexis. Nicky and I were woken up by Alexis and Thomas laughing hysterically playing some kind of game together in their beds. This next part might surprise you a bit. After breakfast we went down to the beach for some fun in the sand. We hung out there until Jim, Evan, and Ziad returned from their big fishing trip. One striped bass. That was their haul. They caught a bunch of small ones that were under the legal size so they had to be tossed back. While Nicky and Thomas watched Jim filet the fish, we cleaned off all the beach toys and packed up the stuff on the beach.

After lunch we packed all the beach stuff into the van and started to get things gathered up in the cottage for the trip home. Then it was off to one of the local stores to do some souvenir shopping. Then back to the cottage for dinner and more packing. The big crisis of the trip then happened. Thomas got a very bad splinter in his foot while playing outside on the deck. He came running inside and hopped on a chair and said something about hurting his foot. He’s a pretty tough kid (except when it comes to his brother hitting him), so for him to say something bothered him, we knew something was wrong. He had gotten the splinter on the bottom of his foot near his pinkie toe. It had broken off and there was a nice sized chunk left deep under his skin. It wasn’t a simple “pull it out” splinter. It was eerily reminiscent of a splinter I got as a child that eventually needed a doctor’s visit to get taken out since it had gotten extremely infected. I took him outside in the sunlight to get a better view and tried to take it out. He screamed bloody murder when I attempted to use the tweezers on him and I needed Jennie’s help to keep him still. We decided to stop torturing him so I sat him inside with his foot soaking in a bucket of water hoping to soften up his skin for later extraction. After we ate dinner, I got some sharper tweezers we held him down until I got it out. That had to be the longest 60 seconds of my life. The screams and tears were unbearable. I hated to hurt him like that, but it was for his own good. After I was all done and had the bandaid and medicine on his foot, he told me that he didn’t like me anymore because I hurt him so bad. But after a minute of calming down, he came back to me and as far as we could tell, his foot wasn’t bothering him any more. He was back to running around in no time, with no problems stepping on his foot like before. To make it up to him, I took him to the store (where I had to go anyway) to buy him some candy or a toy.

At the store, he picked out a Frisbee with stars and stripes on it for him and Nicky to play with. We got back to the cottage and met Jennie, Nicky and Alexis on the beach. Nicky was playing with the Frisbee and it rolled into the water and the waves sucked it out to sea. We looked for a few minutes but were unable to find it and it didn’t come floating back. On our way back to the cottage we stopped by Jim and April’s cottage so the kids could say goodbye to everyone there and we wound up hanging out there for almost an hour. As we walked into our cottage, Nicky apologized to me for losing the Frisbee. I told him that of course I wasn’t mad at him since it was an accident, but it’s really striking how big he’s getting. His concepts of various aspects of life are maturing so rapidly. It’s very bittersweet. He’s no longer our little baby and he’s growing up so fast. His first day of kindergarten in 2 weeks is going to be tough. For both Jennie and me.

Before I start crying, I’m going to end this post and go do some packing for tomorrow. It’s 8:49 now and Alexis is in bed sleeping and Thomas is on his way out. Nicky is watching “An American Tail” and looks like he could fall asleep any minute. But knowing him, he’ll be up ‘til 10:00 or so.

Let's Fish....

2006-08-17T20:30:00.000-04:00

Today was the big day for Nicky. After breakfast we headed down to the beach for some fun and to kill some time until our 10:30 launch time for fishing. Jim swam out to his boat and pulled the poat up to the shore where Evan, Nicky and I boarded. We headed out into the bay and fished for fluke. 4 lines in the water for the 4 fishermen on board. And the first line to catch a fish was…..Nicky! He tried to reel it in, but it was a little too tough for him so I had to finish it off for him. The fish was too small to be a keeper but he was excited anyway. We went on to catch a bunch more, but only two keepers. Next up on the hit list was bluefish. We switched rods and trolled for blues. Totals from the trolling: 3 lost lures, 1 fish that got off the hook about 20 feet from the boat, 1 fish that was beside the boat and jumped out of the water and spit out the hook, and 2 fish that we got in the boat. After netting the second blue, we headed back to the cottage.

After some more beach time, the boys watched Jim cut up the fish to prep them for cooking. They couldn’t take their eyes off of him cutting the fish up and asked a ton of questions. We’re not going to eat the head, are we? What do the eyes taste like? What is that pink thing? What is that green stuff? Why is there blood in the fish? What are scales? Etc, etc, etc. After showers and clean clothes we went over to Jim and April’s place for dinner. We brought over chicken nuggets and french fries for our kids since we knew they wouldn’t be eating fish with the rest of us. But much to our surprise, Nicky followed through on his promise earlier in the day and tried some bluefish. And he enjoyed it and had a few more forkfuls.

Thomas fell asleep while we were outside on the deck checking out the stars in the sky while the other two were wide awake when we eventually left. There were a few shooting stars out tonight which Nicky got to witness and was very excited about seeing. After a few more questions from Nicky about stars and what/where they were, we took the kids back to our cottage to get some sleep. Alexis was changed and given a bottle and was out in 2 minutes. Nicky took a little bit longer and fell asleep a few minutes ago (9:50pm). With hardly any nap for Alexis and no naps for the boys, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they sleep in past 6:15 for the first time this week. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.

Tubing, Basketball, And Dancing....

2006-08-16T21:24:00.000-04:00

We got our wish. The kids slept until 6:45 this morning. So after a late breakfast we went down to the beach for some play time. I took the two boys out to the raft and we hung out there for a while. While standing there at the raft I saw a jelly fish and caught it. I put it on the raft and went back to shore to get a bucket to put it in. But on my return I found the jellyfish was gone. Nicky had been scooping up water with his hand and keeping it wet so it wouldn’t die and inadvertently washed it off and into the water. So I walked around for a bit looking for more jellyfish and found a large shell on the seafloor. I picked it up and we found a tiny baby crab holding on. After hanging out there for a bit longer and almost catching two more jellyfish we headed back to shore to show Jennie our catch.

While sitting there at our spot on the beach, George came over to say hello to us and offered to take the boys out on the water. He owns his own boat and has it anchored right off of shore here at the cottages. He’s also got one of those large tubes that you can tow behind the boat and ride on. First up was Nicky. He sat in the middle and I held on to a couple of the handles and got dragged along while floating in the water. After a little bit (30 seconds or so) Nicky got mad at me for holding on and staying with him. Since he considers himself a big boy now that he’s 5, he felt like he should be able to go on solo. So I let go and he rode by himself for a little while. Next up was Thomas. He is definitely still too little to go by himself, so this time I sat in the tube and he sat on top for the ride. He wasn’t too impressed with the ride. He was excited for the first 10-15 seconds but then all he wanted to do was stop it and ride in the big boat. So the boys and I sat in the back of the boat while George’s grandsons got on the tube for their ride. Matthew, 13, and Daniel, 11, were very funny. Due to the fact that the tube is 25 feet behind the boat and the roar of the engine makes it difficult to hear anyway, we had to rely on hand signals from whoever is on the tube to let the driver of the boat know what to do. There were 3 signals. Arm extended forward with the palm up and moving the arm in an up and down movement meant to speed up. Arm closer in with the palm down and making the movement as if you were pushing something down meant to slow down. The third signal was to extend your arm out and bend at the elbow 90 degrees so your forearm is parallel to your chest. Then you make a wavelike motion with your arm to signify that you wanted the boat to make some turns so that the tube would go over waves and make for a bumpier ride. So we pulled the boys out to deeper water traveling at a slow speed then sped up when it got deeper. There was Matthew on the back giving the “speed up” and “wave” signals, while Daniel was giving the “slow down” signal. Although we couldn’t hear him, we could see that Daniel was screaming at Matthew that he didn’t want to speed up. Maybe the whole scene was so amusing to me because I can see that scene playing out between Nicky and Thomas in 8 years. So after pulling Matthew and Daniel around for a few minutes, George dropped off Nicky, Thomas and I at the shore and we went up to the cottage for some lunch.

After lunch was play time. We drove to the basketball court in Provincetown where I met up with Max, Jim and Evan for some ball and the kids played in the playground adjacent to the courts. Today was also the annual parade through down which took place down Commercial Street which was only one block from where we were. There was no problem hearing all the music that was blasting and the boys would stop wherever they were and danced along to the music every time a different float drove past. Basketball was good. No one got hurt and we all got in some good exercise. Then we went back to the cottage for some more beach time. After a short time on the beach, we went up to the cottage for dinner and a movie. With only one nap for Alexis and a very short one for Thomas, along with a pretty busy day, all 3 kids were asleep by 8:30.

Rained Out....

2006-08-15T22:13:00.000-04:00

So much for Nicky’s big day. We woke up this morning to cloudy skies and rough water. We decided to wait until after lunch for the weather to clear up to see if we’d take Nicky out in the boat. So, instead of going out in the boat, we went down to the beach to take a walk. We all headed down to the beach toward the little convenience store about ½ mile away. About halfway there, Jennie took Thomas back to the cottage to get the car. Nicky, Alexis and I continued on our way to the store and wound up getting there at the same time. We picked up a couple of new beach toys and a kite to play with. The kite was a big hit with all three kids as they all got turns to hold the string.

It rained for a couple of hours around lunch time. Even after the rain stopped and the skies cleared up, the water was still too choppy for us to even think about venturing out. After all, we didn’t want a repeat of what happened to that other guy yesterday. We took the kids into town again to refill their candy supplies, buy some nice shells for Nicky, and get some dinner. Before leaving for our vacation, Nicky talked about finding pretty shells on the beach, drilling holes in them, and making a necklace from them. Shell finding has been pretty bleak on the beach here, so we figured the shell store in Provincetown was a good place to take him to get his supplies. With that huge selection in the store, all he bought was a tiny shell smaller in size than a dime.

Thomas fell asleep on the ride back to the cottage and we plopped him right into bed where he stayed for the night. With Nicky, Alexis, and Jennie very tired, we put on The Incredibles and shut the lights. With the two kids half asleep, I headed over to Jim and April’s cottage to hang out and see Max and Lisa who arrived late this afternoon. This other guy we know who’s been coming up to Topside Cottages the same week every year joined us for some poker. After poker, Max shared some cigars he brought up with him for a celebratory smoke in honor of me landing the new job.

After smoking only about half of the cigars we decided to call it and night and save the rest for another night.

We're Taking On Water Captain....

2006-08-14T23:45:00.000-04:00

After a nice leisurely breakfast of cereal we took the kids to the zooquarium. We had taken them the previous two times we were here on the cape and it was a big hit each time. Why mess with success? When we got there we saw some bad news posted on the outside bulletin board. The two sealions that performed had both died within a week of each other a couple of weeks ago. The performance was always exciting for Nicky and Thomas. The zooquarium is on the smaller side so you can get pretty close to the action. It was a lot of fun seeing them do tricks in the water and jumping out of the water as well. We didn’t mention the fact that they died to Nicky and luckily he didn’t ask about seeing them perform. We had fun anyway. There were all the other animals there for them to see and feed. We also got to watch a short presentation done by one of the workers there about pythons. She had a ball python with here that she used for demonstration purposes and at the end of the presentation everyone was invited up to touch the snake. Both boys were brave enough, but not Alexis. I got her to stand there while I showed her how to pet it, but no way was she about to extend her arm out and try to touch it.

After the zooquarium we headed back to the cottage for some lunch. After lunch we walked down to the beach for some fun in the sun. The water has been getting warmer each day and today it wasn’t that bad. Nicky and I took a swim out to the raft to meet Evan. It took a minute to get used to the water for me, but Nicky is such a water rat. He would spend all day there if we let him. The bay was a little choppy today with waves around 2 feet, but Nicky did pretty good for himself in the water.

After some time spent in the water we were hanging out the beach and a guy in a boat drove up to shore in front of the neighboring cottages to let off one of the guys onboard. It was quite an adventure for the man getting off due to the boat rocking up and down so much but he eventually made it off without killing himself. With all the rocking of the boat and the waves crashing into the back of the boat, he started taking on water. The guy tried some evasive maneuvers and tried getting the boat pointed in the right direction but it was too little, too late. He took on so much water his boat died and he was in very near danger of capsizing. Everyone on shore saw what was happening and a whole bunch of guys ran into the water to help turn the boat around and bring it in to shore. The rest of the people on shore ran for their cameras. After much deliberation and more water taken on board they finally got an anchor rope tied from the boat to a truck on shore. Since the boat’s future looked pretty bleak, the owner of the boat cleared out everything of value to him and waited for help to arrive. A front end loader arrived and they hooked up a chain to the boat and pulled it on to shore. Then it lifted it up at a high angle to drain as much water as possible from the boat. After that, it picked up the boat from the side and placed it on a waiting trailer to be taken away to get dried out and fixed.

After dinner we took the kids to go see Barnyard at the local drive-in theater. It was the first time for any of us at a drive-in, so it was a pretty neat experience. Alexis and Thomas fell asleep pretty early on in the film, but Nicky stayed awake for the entire thing. He also stayed awake for the whole car ride back to the cottage. Within 5 minutes of arriving back at the cottage he passed out on the coach.

Tomorrow’s a big day for Nicky. He is going to get to go out on the boat with me, Jim and Evan to do some fishing. Tune in tomorrow for a recap of the fishing trip.

Innocence Is Bliss....

2006-08-13T21:01:00.000-04:00

The kids slept in this morning. Nicky didn’t wakeup until 6:30. Thomas and Alexis waited until 6:50 to wake. The first thing Nicky and Thomas asked to do? Go play on the beach. After a breakfast of mini eggos, we all headed down to the beach for some fun in the sun. It was still relatively early and there was quite a breeze, so it was a little chilly for some. We also got there around the same time as low tide so there was lots of sand for the kids to play in and the water was less than waist deep for me (chest high for Nicky) for several hundred feet out from shore. Nicky and I headed out for the raft and hung out there for a little while. We headed back to shore and got Thomas and brought him out there with us for a little while also. Due to the less than warm weather I mentioned earlier, some of us wanted to go back to the cottage.

Once back, I found a church for Jennie to go to so she wouldn’t miss Sunday mass while she was here on vacation. So we all changed and headed out to drop off Jen while I took the kids to a playground. After 45 minutes or so on the playground we picked up Jen and stopped at a little grill type place for lunch. It was your basic no frills place that offered burgers, pizza, etc. Much to our surprise, when we ordered pizza for the boys, we were told that they hadn’t made any pizzas yet so we couldn’t order them. What? So we ordered the other type of food they eat – chicken and french fries.

After lunch was more playtime at the playground then we headed back to the cottage for some more beach time. (side note: Alexis and Nicky just fell asleep 9:10pm) After a couple of hours on the beach, and a very brief dip in the bay by Nicky and me, we showered, changed and headed out to Provincetown with Evan to get some pizza finally. Oh yeah. Almost forgot. Jennie took a dip in the bay also. Although, it wasn’t by choice.

None of the kids had had any naps yet, so we were hesitant to put them in the car for the ride to town. Having them take a nap that late in the day would be a near disaster. They’d be up extremely late if they napped after 3pm. (side note: Thomas just passed out 9:15pm – YEAH!!!) Thomas fell asleep about 2 minutes before we got to the parking lot and I woke him up when we got there without much fuss. We stopped by George’s for some pizza (finally!) and then walked around town for a bit. We took a walk down the pier hoping to see the replica merchant’s ship, but were saddened to see it wasn’t there. We stopped by the candy store for dessert and headed back to the cottage.

We took the scenic, longer, route back to the cottage hoping that the longer car ride would finally put one or more of them to sleep. Nope. All were wide awake and talking to each other. As you might have notice with my little side notes earlier, all three kids are finally asleep. All it took was some liquid (juice and milk) and an Elmo dvd.

One good thing about Nicky still being too young to grasp many things is his reaction to many things in Provincetown. He and Thomas were very excited to see so many rainbow flags hanging everywhere. They were also amused by the many “women” with strange colored hair. I know there’ll be a time when he figures out that those “women” are really men dressed in drag. I guess now is a good time as any to start thinking of answers to those types of questions when they start to come.

Off We Go....

2006-08-12T20:15:00.000-04:00

I set the alarm last night to go off this morning at 4:30am in order for us to be on the road by 5:00am. After hitting the snooze button numerous times, I finally crawled out of bed at 4:58. So much for the plan! We were on the road and crossing the GWB around 6:00am. The ride was pretty uneventful and the only traffic we hit was getting on to the bridge to cross over the Cape Cod Canal. We arrived at our cottage a few minutes before noon.

We unpacked the van and got everything put away in the cottage then took the kids down to the beach to play. Nicky “the fearless” immediately wanted to go swimming in the near 50 degree water. It was quite chilly. Unfortunately for me, Jennie still does not own a swimming suit and I was on watch duty. (note to self: Jen’s not really self conscience about her legs, she just doesn’t want to step foot in the cold water). I almost had Nicky talked into swimming out to the raft about 100 feet from shore, but once we both got our whole bodies wet by going under the water, he wised up and we went back to shore to play in the sand.

After playing in the sand we showered off and got dressed to head to the supermarket to do some food shopping. All 3 kids fell asleep on the 10 minute trip to the store. Once back at the cottage we made dinner and headed back to the beach. The plan was to take the kids on a nice long walk and tire them out so that they’d be ready to pass out once we got back to the cottage. Like I said – that was the plan. So after walking about ½ mile down the beach searching for shells and pretty rocks, we turned around and headed back. About half way back, Nicky and Thomas decided to run all the way back. I figured they’d tire out rather quickly and just lay down on the sand and wait for us to catch up to them, but that was not the case. I wound up running after them trying to catch up. Didn’t happen. They beat me to the staircase and stopped by Jim and April’s cottage to say hello. Nicky, Thomas and I hung out with Jim, April, Evan and Erin while we waited for Jennie and Alexis to make it back. When Jennie finally got there we hung out for a few minutes then headed back to our cottage for dessert, movies and bed. Dessert has been eaten. Pajamas have been put on. Teeth have been brushed. The movie is about to start and there’s no sign of tired kids.

So much for the plan.

Random Notes....

2006-08-10T08:44:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was Brian's bachelor party. Some things to remember from that night:

I met up with everyone who went to the Mets game at the Boat Basin Cafe which is located directly under the entrance/exit of the west side highway at 79th street. It is one of those "hidden gems" in the city that you'd never know was there unless someone told you about it. It was a pretty cool place.
I had a really good time just chilling with Max and Jerry at the boat basin just talking.
I beat Max at foozball 5-4, then Andy proceeded to kick my ass and beat me 7-2.
We went to a bar where they had a beer pong table all set up. I teamed up with Andy (who had never played before) and we only lost by 1. I think Andy actually made one or two shots but completely missed the table on numberous attempts. Good times.
When hiring strippers to perform at someone's apartment, it is best not to pay their "manager" in cash, in full, before ever seeing the strippers or having the strippers step foot in to the apartment.

Two nights ago, Nicky did his usual routine of climbing into bed with Jennie and I some time during the night. While that is not unusual and would normally not warrant mention here on my blog, what happened later on does. Kids (and adults) will often talk in their sleep, maybe even cry if they're having a nightmare. That particular night was different. Jennie and I were awoken by hysterical laughter. Nicky was laughing non-stop in his sleep. There was no one tickling him. No one telling him funny jokes. No funny movies on. Just Nicky. Asleep. Laughing uncontrollably. Jennie and I went back to sleep and left him laughing in his sleep.

Yesterday I went on my follow-up interview at Signature Construction. The first interview was last week and went really well and the owner suggested I come in and spend a full day with him to see what I was getting myself into before accepting his job offer. Yesterday was pretty uneventful and along the lines of what I expected. The only thing that stood out was that he took me to a fancy shmancy french restaraunt for lunch. We met up with an acquantience of his (whose birthday was yesterday) and went to the restaraunt. Almost the entire menu was in French except for a few items that had english translations. "Le Cheese Burger" and "Le Burger" were pretty easy to translate by myself, but I had no clue on the rest of the items. I ended up having the grilled sirloin and fries.

This morning I handed in my letter of resignation to my immediate boss. I called him at home last night to tell him what was going on and we talked about it. He was very understanding of my position and the reasons for taking the new job and said that if it were up to him, he'd match all the money I will be getting at the new place to keep me around. It feels really good to know that he appreciates the work I do and I will miss working for him. It's been a really good experience working at R&L and I really enjoyed working with everyone here. I'm going to miss everyone, but at the end of the day, it's all about what is best for my family.

White Trash....

2006-07-31T08:05:00.000-04:00

.... probably. But did the kids have a blast? Definitely.

This weekend was very hot here in Bergenfield, NJ. Saturday afternoon Jennie's sister came over with her two kids, Daniel (2yo) and John (2mo). John stayed inside with Jennie and her sister and I was outside with Daniel and our three kiddies. With no air pump on hand, I opted for the sprinkler in the back yard. It sooned turned into pool time when we got the big blue tubs out of the garage and filled them with water.

The blue tarp you see in some of the pictures was my attempt at a home-made slip-n-slide. It worked pretty well considering the yard is sloped that much. After a couple of demonstration slides by me, the kids got the hang of it pretty quickly.

Sunday was much of the same story. In the upper 90's and more pool time.

Video here.

She's Just Like Her Brother....

2006-07-27T21:49:00.000-04:00

A few months back, Thomas got recognized for his unique sleeping position seen here:

Just the other day we found Alexis sleeping on the couch in the playroom. It seems that sleeping in weird positions runs in the family:

Our guess is that she was lying down on the couch and decided to get down. So she swung her feet around and down to get off but then decided she was too tired to follow through and just stayed there.

Searching For Uranus....

2006-07-26T14:56:00.000-04:00

from People Magazine:

Lance Bass: I'm Gay
WEDNESDAY JULY 26, 2006 08:30AM EST

Lance Bass, the former 'N Sync heartthrob, reveals that he is gay,
in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE. "I knew that I was in this popular band
and I had four other guys' careers in my hand, and I knew that if I ever acted
on it or even said (that I was gay), it would overpower everything," says Bass,
referring to bandmates Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez and Justin
Timberlake. "I didn’t know: Could that be the end of ’N Sync? So I had that
weight on me of like, ‘Wow, if I ever let anyone know, it's bad.' So I just
never did," he says speaking about his sexual orientation for the first time
with PEOPLE. Now, after years of keeping his personal life private, the
Mississippi-bred, Southern Baptist-reared Bass, 27, is publicly revealing what
he first shared with his friends, then his shocked family.
"He took years to
really think about how he was going to tell everyone," says his close buddy
Fatone, 29, who was the first 'N Sync bandmate to find out Bass is gay. "I back
him up 100 percent." Adds Bass’s longtime pal, actress Christina Applegate:
"I've always accepted him as who he is. It's about his own serenity at this
point." Having pursued acting, producing and – most memorably – space flight
after ’N Sync went on hiatus in 2002, Bass now is looking ahead to new
beginnings. He is in a "very stable" relationship with model-actor-Amazing Race
winner Reichen Lehmkuhl, 32, and is developing an Odd Couple-inspired sitcom
pilot with Fatone in which his character will be gay. Mostly, though, he’s just
enjoying the relief that comes with the culmination of a long, at times
emotionally fraught journey. "The thing is, I’m not ashamed – that’s the one
thing I want to say," he explains of his decision to come out. "I don't think
it's wrong, I'm not devastated going through this. I'm more liberated and happy
than I’ve been my whole life. I'm just happy."
As for why he's talking about this now Bass says, "The main reason I wanted to
speak my mind was that (the rumors) really were starting to affect my daily
life. Now it feels like it's on my terms. I'm at peace with my family, my
friends, myself and God so there's really nothing else that I worry about."

Yes. Lance Bass is gay. He's the guy who wanted to be an asstronaut. From the group that sang the songs Space Cowboy, Giddy Up, I Thought She Knew, The Game Is Over, See Right Through You, Just Don't Tell Me That, Do Your Thing. I'm not surprised at all. The signs were all there.

All joking aside. I feel bad for the guy. Growing up and being in that band must have been extremely difficult for him. He must have been under a ton of pressure to keep his true self under wraps. It would have absolutely killed the group's image and record sales had he come out of the closet earlier.

Weekend Recap (In picture form)....

2006-07-11T20:33:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, Jennie, myself, the kids, and my parents all went down to Williamsburg Virigina for my friend Matt's wedding.

Pictures from our day to historical Jamestown.

Pictures from the wedding.

Pictures from Busch Gardens.

When I have more time, I'll do a written recap of the events. For now, enjoy the pictures....

YouTube....

2006-07-05T09:22:00.000-04:00

I decided it was about time to start uploading and sharing videos of the kids. I've created an account on YouTube and here is the first video I uploaded.

This is just the first video I tried. From now on the videos will be a little more entertaining (hopefully).

Now all I have to do is go through all of the tapes from the camcorder and copy them on to the computer and figure out which clips to upload.

I'm hoping this will allow us to all stay in touch a little better. I figure it's a lot easier to send a link to a video than it is to send the actual child cross country!

Yahoo! Sucks...

2006-06-19T19:49:00.000-04:00

I recently opened up an account on flickr.com ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjdabney/sets/ ). It is an online photo album site which is pretty good. It allows users to upload photos and organize them quite well. There are user groups that you can join and share pictures. Viewers of your pictures can leave comments and tags. All in all, it's a convenient tool. I much prefer viewing and sharing digital photos with people via an online album rather than having dozens of attachments in an email. A link is so much easier to click on.

Here's my problem with Yahoo!. I started the online album at Yahoo! (http://photos.yahoo.com/mjdabney) about 5 years ago and recently started the flickr album. Flickr is run by Yahoo! but there is no method to transfer all of my pictures from the Yahoo! album to the flickr album. The only way to do it is to re-upload all of the pictures from my computer to the flickr site. Normally I wouldn't have a problem with it since flickr provides a pretty handy uploading tool, but I've noticed a couple of pictures that are on the Yahoo! album that I no longer have on my computer. Yahoo! only allows me to download a scaled down version of the pictures even though they store the full sized files on their server. They do that because they want you to order prints and other merchandise through Yahoo! and it's partners. I'm sure it's all perfectly legal and all. There's probably something in their user's policy that I didn't bother reading, but I still think it stinks.

The good news is that I did some searching and found a website with a program that some guy created that allows you to access the full sized files and download them.
http://bithive.net/page/yahoo_photo_ripper
It's a pretty easy process. All you have to do is enter the url for the album and it gives you a page with the thumbnails to all of the full sized files.

I don't really dislike Yahoo! all that much, after all I use their email services for most of my emailing. But I'm pretty dissappointed with their online picture album policy.

She's different....

2006-06-19T08:36:00.000-04:00

Sunday morning while I was home alone with the kids while Jennie was out at church, Nicky and Alexis went upstairs while I was in the dining room. Nicky was looking for his flip-flops and, of course, needed someone else to go with him upstairs. Going into any room alone, especially on a different level or the bathroom, is out of the question for him. He's such a chicken. But I digress... Nicky comes back down and tells me that Alexis didn't want to come back down with him. No problem, she's very good at climbing down stairs on her own. She does it all the time. I have Nicky sign the father's day cards for my dad and Jen's dad and we wrap the gift and put the cards in the envelopes for later that day. About 15 minutes have passed since Nicky left Alexis upstairs. No crying. No yelling. No sounds at all in that time. I tell Nicky to go upstairs and find out what she's doing. He goes up by himself (surprisingly) and comes back downstairs and tells me he can't find her. So I go up there and this is where I found her:

While you might not think that's strange, here's a little more perspective:

That's Nicky's bed she's in.

Now, had that been one or both of the boys out of sight for 15 minutes with no noise, you can bet they would have been up to no good. Playing with bath toys in the toilet. Dumping all their clothes out of their dresser drawers. Drawing on the walls with a pen, crayon, etc. Anything, anything at all. Anything, but what Alexis was doing.

Most Immature Post To Date....

2006-06-15T15:18:00.000-04:00

My new favorite euphemism for having a bowel movement:

"Dropping the kids off at the pool."

It has replaced "leaving a deposit" on the top of the list of favorites.

Any one else out there have a funny way of saying it other than the old boring "#2", "dump" etc.?

New Addition To The Family....

2006-05-26T10:31:00.000-04:00

Meet Koby.

He's a 12 week old soft haired wheaten terrier. We picked him up 4 weeks ago from the pet store at the Paramus Park Mall. We had been on the lookout for quite some time for a puppy for the family. Our previous attempt at ownership of a dog didn't work out so well.

While in the pet store looking at the puppies, a couple of them looked promising. Thomas, of course, took a liking to the baby cocker spaniel that resembled Lady from Lady and the Tramp. But she was too expensive and not hypoallergenic. We saw the terrier pup and asked how much. Reasonable price, so we asked the girl if we could visit with him in one of the little cubicles there. So I took the boys and we got into the cubicle and waited for the girl to bring the puppy over to us. The cubicle was roughly 6 foot by 6 foot with a bench along the back wall. The door to the cubicle was half the height of a normal door and had a large plexiglass window.

I was sitting on the floor when the girl handed me the puppy. The boys were up on the bench and refused to get down. Not a good start! After a couple of minutes Thomas got down and let the puppy run over his feet. Eventually he sat on my lap and played with the puppy. Nicky needed a lot more convincing but he eventually joined us and played with the puppy. Alexis was a whole nother story story. She screamed bloody murder when Jennie tried to hand her to me. At home - she's a whole different person (more on that later). The rest of the process of buying the pup was pretty boring so I'll spare everyone the details.

It's been 4 weeks now and he's grown quite a bit. He was only about 5 pounds when we got him and he's probably double that now. He's got a check-up tomorrow so we'll find out exactly how big he is then. His house training is coming along slowly. He pees or poops almost every time he goes outside, so that's good. Inside, he's getting better at holding it in. He'll get the hang of it eventually.

The kids have been absolutely wonderful with him, especially Alexis. The two of them are almost inseparable. Nicky still gets scared of him from time to time, but we expected that out of our little chicken of a son, so that's alright. Since Koby is still a puppy, he nips from time to time. But the kids have learned that if they tell him "No" that he'll stop.

More on Alexis and Koby....
Alexis is definitely Koby's favorite kid. She can do just about anything to him and he'll let her. And she returns the favor. She'll lay down on the floor on her stomach then call for him to come over to jump and climb all over her. They get along great.

So that's our new addition to the family.

Extreme Home Makeover....

2006-05-10T13:05:00.000-04:00

This past weekend a family in Bergenfield got an extreme home makeover courtesy of ABC. For a little over a week leading up to the day, there were "Emergency No Parking" signs lining a span of New Bridge Road (only a few blocks from our house) and two big signs saying that begining on May 4th, that section of road would be closed to traffic. Jennie and I wondered what was going on and on Thursday a guy I used to work with (who lives in Bergenfield also) send me an IM telling me about the extreme home makeover going on. He send me the link for the site of the company in charge of the build and suggested we both sign up for volunteer work. Which I did. I then got an email the following day letting me know that my work shift would be on Sunday morning from 12:00am to 6:00am. Hit the sack at 5:30pm Saturday and set the alarm for 11:15pm.

10:00pm, Saturday: Woke up and couldn't get back to sleep.

11:20pm: Got dressed and walked down to the job site and headed for the volunteer sign in tent.

My first impression was not a good one. For a show that's been on the air for three seasons, I would have thought that they would have every aspect nailed down and running smoothly. I came to learn later on that ABC really doesn't have much to do with the build at all. Their role is to select the deserving family and work with designers to design a house to fit their needs. After that, they hire a local contractor in the area of the family and that contractor takes over from there. Without doing projects like this very often, it's very understandable (now) why things weren't as smooth running as I had anticipated. But I digress....

After signing a consent form, we volunteers were sent to hang out in/near the food tent to await instructions. A few volunteers cleaned up the tent and surrounding areas while myself and one other guy volunteered to haul all the garbage bags down the road to the dumpsters. After that work was done, there was more standing around. There were mostly residents of Bergenfield in the volunteer workforce, but a few others from out of town. There was a husband and wife groupie pair. This was their second extreme home makeover volunteer gig. They had been down in Irvington the week before to help out there.

Every now and then, they'd ask for one or two volunteers to tackle a task, but overall we just had to stand around and wait. Around 2:00, we were all told to get ready to head up the block to the house because they were going to start framing and would need all of our help. We were all given hardhats and tshirts and were led up to the house. There was a crew of about 20 carpenters there who were doing the framing. They had a great system and plan of attack of building the house and we volunteers were just there to help out whichever way they asked. We didn't get to hammer a nail or use a saw, but helped out in other aspects. They would bring over pieces to the house in bundles and we'd carry the joists, 2x4's, etc... to where ever they asked us to. We also helped out by keeping the work area free of debris so the workers could work smoothly without having to worry about tripping over scraps of wood and other stuff.

6:00. Our volunteer shift ended and we headed back to the volunteer tent to return our hardhats and I headed for home. When I left, they had gotten the basement complete framed and the first floor exterior and interior walls completely done. They were getting prepared to bring over the floor joists for the second floor.

It was a pretty neat experience. I would have, of course, loved to have helped out a little more and done some actual framing, but they had the right plan of action and their crew was well prepared and worked extremely quickly and efficiently. Giving volunteers hammers and nailguns would have only slowed things down. So while I might not have accomplished anything tangible, I like to think I helped out a little anyway and made the carpenters' jobs a little easier. And - I've got a cool little story to tell my kids and grandkids down the road of life....

Contractor's website here.

Photos the contractor has taken and put on line here. (Click to view all images)

Picture with me in it here. Try to guess which one is me.

TJ Is Famous....

2006-04-30T09:03:00.000-04:00

...sort of.

In this day and age, storing digital photos online is pretty common. Ever since we got our first digital camera 5 years ago (thanks grandpa Eddie!), I've been storing them online in my Yahoo online album. About 9-12 months ago, I started added photos to another online account at Flickr. It's an online photo community that's run by Yahoo and you can share, view, comment on, etc. photos with other people. One of the websites that I try to read regularly (Blogging Baby) has a group set up on Flickr where you can join and submit your own photos to share with others in the group. I've submitted a couple of pictures every now and then of our cute kids and yesterday the most recent photo I added was selected as their "Picture of the day". Very exciting. Check it out here.

I'm Not A Believer.....Yet....

2006-04-01T17:30:00.000-05:00

Even though the Nets are on an 11 game win streak, I can't seem to get excited about it. Is it because after all these years of letdowns? It seems like every time something good starts to happen with them, they manage to screw it up and play like oafs. Yes, they made it to the finals two years in a row, but they got killed by the Lakers and when they had the chance to go up 3-2 against the Spurs, they folded like chumps. Is it the "curse of the swamp"? The players? The coaches?

I just can't seem to pull the trigger and get 100% emotionally behind them. I have this deep down feeling that just as you thought they were over the hump and playing great ball and could be just about anyone - POOF! They're back to playing matador D and running a stand-still offense through Carter.

Go Nets!

Not Yet....

2006-03-29T07:10:00.000-05:00

We've been on the lookout for a puppy for our kids for some time now and we thought we ran into some good fortune recently. A coworker of my dad's had to give up his 18 month old (a little mix-up - we were told 6 month old and after checking out his papers, realized that he was born in Nov of '04 and was 18 months) jack russell terrier and it needed a new home. We thought he'd be great for us. With a little research into the breed to find out his tendencies, needs, etc., we decided to adopt him into our family. My dad brought the dog from the office over to our house yesterday after I got home from work.

We brought all of his stuff into the house and were waiting for Jen and the kids to get home. We met them outside when they got home. Right away the boys were excited to see him, but didn't care for it when he tried to jump up and kiss them to say hello. Alexis cried as soon as he touched her. After a few minutes the boys took a liking to him and ran around the yard playing with him (while I still had him on the leash). My dad went back to his house and the rest of us went inside. As soon as I took the leash off, he went straight for the kids wanting to play and to say hello with kisses/licks. Nicky wound up on the dining room table in his attempts to get away, Alexis up in mommy's arms and TJ with me. Not a good start.

I grabbed his leash and the boys and I took him outside for a walk. We were out for 10-15 minutes and he did what he had to do so we went back to the house and inside. Again, too much affection and jumping from the dog and the kids were not happy with him inside. Back on the leash and I put him in the backyard to run off some energy. Jen's sister and her son Joey came over for dinner and I brought the dog inside to meet them. It was as if the dog was on a pogo stick and couldn't stop jumping. At first Joey was amused and laughed while the dog jumped up and licked him, but after 20 seconds he got annoyed, and after the dog scratched him accidentally, he cried. Back outside for the dog to let off some steam.

After a few minutes of outside time, I brought the dog back in and attached his leash to the dining room chair that I was sitting in for dinner. It was probably a combination of tiredness and knowing that he was leashed to the chair, but he quieted down and laid at my feet during dinner. After dinner I took off his leash and he got up and walked around the house. As soon as he stepped foot in the playroom where the 3 boys were watching tv, Nicky shot up and was standing on the back of the couch screaming for us to get the dog out of there. I took the dog out of the room and closed the door for them.

I put the dog's little bed (a big cushion that came with him) next to my chair in the living room and sat down to watch some tv. The dog came over and laid down in his bed and closed his eyes. Veronica brought Alexis over to me and she sat in my lap to read a book. She noticed the dog sitting next to me and wouldn't get down for a few minutes. She eventually did get down, but wouldn't go more than arm's length away. She kept peeking over my leg to look down at the dog and after 10-15 minutes she figured he wasn't going to get up and move so she walked past him.

Thomas was a little bolder than Nicky and came out of the playroom a few times to come within 10 feet of the dog to squat down and check to make sure his eyes were still open. He went inside to the playroom the first time and told Nicky that the dog was dead. Nicky peeked his head around the corner to check and noticed that he was only sleeping and went straight back in to the playroom.

After dessert I took the dog and all his stuff back to my dad's house for him to bring back to work today. It was obvious that although the kids (well, TJ and Alexis) had warmed up a little to him, it wasn't going to work out. The dog, in his sleeping/tired state, was OK with the kids but in his wide awake, active state, the kids didn't want to be near him unless he was outside and I had him on a leash. I feel bad for the dog because he was a good dog and didn't do anything wrong. It was just a wrong fit for my kids at this time. I still think a dog will be good for them but we'll have to find a puppy who is small and won't be as intimidating as a full grown dog and can grow with them and also a breed that is not quite as frisky as this one. We'll have to figure out plan "B" now....

Hammer....Nail....

2006-03-21T09:49:00.000-05:00

I found this test on Jerry's site and here are my results:

You Have A Type B Personality

B

You're as laid back as they come...
Your baseline mood is calm and level headed
Creativity and philosophy tend to be your forte

Like a natural sedative, you have a soothing effect on people
Friends and family often turn to you first with their problems
You have the personality to be a spiritual or psychological guru

Do You Have a Type A Personality?

Not Really Sure....

2006-03-06T15:42:00.000-05:00

It's been two weeks since my grandmother passed away and I wasn't really sure how to get back into blogging. Not that I blogged so frequently beforehand, but I couldn't decide what would be an appropriate subject to blog about next. So I'll touch on a few subjects here....

I've only been to one other Jewish funeral before and it was my grandfathers. I don't remember much of it because it was nearly 20 years ago so I can't really compare the two. My parents, sister, wife, and I arrived at the funeral home around 10:30. We met up with my uncle and cousins who were there already. My parents and uncle worked out a few details with the rabbi and friends and family started arriving. We got there early so that we could place a few items in the casket with grandma. We gave pictures of our kids and a New York state quarter to the rabbi to put in the coffin. The ceremony took place around 11:00. It was relatively quick. The rabbi said a few words about grandma and let a couple of traditional prayers then we all headed out to our cars to head to the cemetery. The funeral ceremony was again relatively short and simple. A few prayers led by the rabbi and then folks were allowed to either throw a ceremonial flower or shovelful of dirt into the grave. Afterwards most of the people headed back to grandma's apartment for a little gathering. My parents had been out to her apartment in the preceding days to get it ready for the day and had put out a bunch of found treasures they had come across while cleaning out the apartment. There were dozens and dozens of old photos dating back generations. As much as it was a sad day, I think everyone enjoyed getting to go through the pictures and reminiscing about old times. One good thing to come from the day is that I exchanged email addresses with my cousin Mark who I hadn't seen in years (not counting grandma's 90th birthday party a month ago) and we agreed that we (including my other cousin - his brother - Warren) should keep in touch more often. Back when we were living in Brooklyn and he lived on Long Island we got to see each other quite often. We all lost touch many years ago and having grandma pass away made us realize that we shouldn't let physical distance keep family apart, especially now when technology (i.e. email, IM, etc..) makes it so much easier to stay in touch.

This past weekend I took Nicky, Thomas, Joey, and my sister to the Nets/Raptors game. This was Nicky's second game of the season and once again, the only thing he was concerned about watching were the Nets dancers. Thomas fell asleep a few minutes before halftime and Joey was just about out when Nicky stood up, put his hat and coat on, and said "Let's go home." Seeing as how we had 1.5 boys sleeping and the other didn't want to stay, we agreed it was best to go to my parents' house and watch the end of the game while the boys had their naps.

I've never mentioned this on my blog before, but I'm pretty sure the 4 people reading this will know about it anyway. For those who don't, you can email me and I'll fill in details if you want. My brother, Adam, has cut himself off from the family over the past year or so. It first with a situation between my dad and Adam and his girlfriend and then it mushroomed to the whole family. So Adam has had no contact with anyone except for our mother (and only because she has been the one to initiate contact) and our grandmother (my mom's mom who lives in Kansas - and again, only because grandma initiates contact). Our grandma Elsa who just passed, did not like what Adam was doing to the family and stayed away from the whole situation as best she could. She invited Adam and his fiance to her 90th birthday party. He declined the invitation - not because he had prior engagements, but because the rest of us would be there. He also showed up to the funeral but went straight home afterwards and did not go back to grandma's apartment with the rest of the people because we (his immediate family) were there. He also did not show up the my parents' house while they sat shiva the three days following the funeral. I've done a lot of thinking about the situation with Adam over the past year or so and it has torn at me a lot. He is my brother and always will be, but it hurts to not have a relationship with him any more. I could go through everything that was said and done last year and list reasons why things have deteriorated, but there really is only one major theme that sums it up for me and that was made very clear recently. It's his "me first" attitude, where he thinks everything should be about him. Grandma's 90th birthday bash was a huge success and was probably the happiest day of her life in the past few years. Every single relative who could physically be there made it to the party. The only one who didn't show was her nephew who lives in California. Grandma had a smile on her face that you couldn't wipe off the whole day. That day would have been almost perfect had Adam shown up. Watching a casket being buried was only a small part of the funeral/grieving process. The gathering at the apartment afterwards and sitting shiva is the most important part. Getting together with long lost relatives and family friends where you're not reminded about sadness by having to look at a wooden coffin, instead relaxing, looking at old photos, retelling of old and new stories - that is what it's all about. A petty quarrel mushrooming into what it had become can get fixed. Adam choose to put his interests in front of grandma's in both occasions and for that, he has a lot to make up for. It's one thing to take something out on us because of what he sees as him being wronged by us, but it's another to ruin something special for my grandmother (in both life and death) that really hurts.

That reminds me, I've got an email to write to my cousin...

A Tribute....

2006-02-20T11:20:00.000-05:00

In Loving Memory

Elsa Dabney
January 22 1916 - February 20 2006

Superbowl XL....

2006-02-08T08:53:00.000-05:00

My friend Jerry hosted a small gathering at his place on Sunday for the super bowl. We got together a few hours before kickoff to play some cards. As far as I could tell, no one there was excited about the superbowl, myself included. The game was so riveting that a few of us missed large portions to play NBA Live '03 on the playstation2 in the other room. We also played poker throughout the whole game. I wonder if our disinterest in the game was the same for everyone not living in the Seattle or Pittsburgh areas? There was just something about the game that made me think "blah."

On to the point of this post. Since I didn't pay close attention to the tv, I didn't catch many of the commercials and I came across this one on break.com:

That has to rank up there in my all-time favorite commercials. Maybe it's because I'm a father now and can relate. Or maybe I'm more in touch with my feminine/sensitive side now.

(if the video doesn't work - it's my first attempt at embedding a video clip in my blog, go here: http://www.break.com/superbowl/budweiser4.html to view the video)

Professional Players' Salaries....

2006-02-06T09:59:00.000-05:00

Whenever a pro player's salary is mentioned, it is always X amount per year over Z years.

Does anyone know if the pro gets a paycheck every week? every two weeks? bi-monthly?

And does she/he get that check throughout the year or only during the season?

Why My New Job Is Killing My Blogging Life...

2006-02-03T06:56:00.000-05:00

...and it's not a bad thing.

I made a new year's resolution to post more often, especially about my kids and that funny, interesting quirks. I've been so busy at work that I just don't have the time to post anything. I might have an idea in the morning of what I'd like to blog about, but by the time I get to work and get immersed in what I'm doing, I've forgotten all about it.

Last night I came upstairs to bed at around 9:45 and was surprised to find Nicky still awake and watching tv in my room. So when his show was over I flipped the channel to watch the end of the Cavs/Heat game. Nicky protested so I flipped the channel over to the Discovery Channel and put on Mega Machines. Nicky saw the huge trucks and got excited: "Yeah Daddy. That's what I want to watch." I wasn't a bit upset that I couldn't watch the NBA game because it was a blow-out by that point and I like watching the Mega series on Discovery anyway.

With Nicky staying up way too late (I know - bad parenting), he surprised the heck out of us this morning and was up when I got out of the shower at 6:00am. Usually we have to fight with him to get up and he hides under the pillows when we flip the light switch. Alexis was also up early this morning to my surprise. As soon as I put the water on for the shower, she was standing up in her crib laughing at me. She asked for a bottle, so I got her one and put her down on our bed to watch some cartoons while I was in the shower.

I've rambled on way too long and fear I've lost interest in anyone reading this. Sorry.

Have a nice weekend! :0)

If You Can't Beat 'Em....

2006-01-25T09:29:00.000-05:00

From the WBIR website:

"
Tennessee "Crack Tax" brings in nearly $2 million in first year
Amanda Dill, Producer
Last Updated: 1/24/2006 4:55:27 PM
During its first year, Tennessee's "Crack Tax" has brought in nearly $2 million dollars in state revenue.
The illegal substances tax went into effect last January.
Basically, drug dealers are supposed to pay taxes on illegal drugs and alcohol.
They pay confidentially, and when they do, they get a stamp.
If they're caught without the stamp, they'll be prosecuted for not only selling drugs, but for not paying their taxes too.
All money made from the stamps goes to fighting drugs.
"

So Harry and Suzy Lawmaker in Tennessee finally admitted that they can't win the war on drugs. In addition to that, they had some relatives looking for work. So they're thinking went something like this:

Well, we can't stop the drug traffic, so let's try to profit from it and extort money from the dealers. We also need to find jobs for our friends and relatives, so let's set up a bogus drug task force and put them on it. And let's make it all seem legit and create some laws ands statutes on it. Hey! Let's create a tax on illegal drugs! We'll allow the dealers to keep dealing and won't harrass them as long as they give us a piece of their profit. Then we'll use that money to pay our "task force". Great idea!

How could something so stupid and counterproductive ever get enacted into law?

Things You Don't Read About In Those "What To Expect..." Book Series....

2006-01-13T12:44:00.000-05:00

Last night the boys were in the beds watching "Cinderella" and Jennie and I were in our bedroom watching "Will & Grace" live on NBC. Will, Grace, and Jack had all just had a childish fight where they were in a dressing room and had wound up squirting lotion, squirting hairspray, throwing powder, and throwing various other itmes at each other. The three of them were just standing there getting grilled by Karen. For those of you who don't watch the show, then what I just wrote means nothing to you, oh well.

The boys walked into our room to tell us that the movie was "broken". Nicky took a seat on the recliner and TJ laid down on the floor. On the show, the three of them were a big mess and Karen said to Grace: "Grace honey, you've got a tampon in your hair." It took about 30 seconds then Nicky said: "Tampon? Mommy, what's a tampon?" Stunned silence with muffled laughter ensued. "Tampon. Tampon. Tamp. On. Tampon. What's a tampon mommy?" said Nicky.

Jen's response: "Ask daddy."
Nick: "Daddy, what's a tampon?"
Me: "It's something mommies use."
Jen: "Not all mommies."
Me: "Let's go fix your movie."

I then got up and took the boys back into their room.

Where's the book for how to answer awkward questions?

New Job vs. Old Job....

2006-01-06T11:24:00.000-05:00

Today's events sum up exactly how this new job compares to my old one. Thomas had a bit of a fever (102) and wasn't acting like himself so the daycare called to have him picked up. I was disappointed that I had to leave work to get him and insisted on bringing work home with me so I could get it done. Had I still been at my previous place of employment, I would have jumped at the opportunity to leave work early to pick up a sick child and not have worried at all about the workload I was leaving.

New Year's Resolutions....

2006-01-04T08:53:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year to anyone reading this.

I've made a couple of resolutions this year. Nothing specific, but general things that I want to change about myself this coming year:

Eat better.
Exercise more. I got this stationary bike for my birthday last year and I could probably count on two hands the number of times I've used it. No more excuses.
Be a better father. Set a better example for my kids. They're at the age where they mimic things that my wife and I do. If I want them to grow up to be the best they can be, then it's got to start with us parents. (This kind of relates to #'s 1, 2, & 4)
Be a better husband. I'm not a terrible husband, but I know I can do better.
Write more entries in my blog about the kids and their funny little quirks. Memories fade over time, but at least we'll have this blog to look back on in years to come to help us remember the funny little people we had running around the house before they turned into teenagers, adults, parents, etc...

Christmas 2005 Recap....

2005-12-27T09:58:00.000-05:00

I would have bet large sums of money that the boys, especially Nicky, would have gotten up bright and early Christmas morning and dragged Jennie and I downstairs to see what Santa had left for them. That was about as far from the truth as you can get. They slept until 7:00 am. To give you some perspective, the kids never sleep past 6 on a non-school day. 6:15, once in a blue moon. We all headed downstairs to open presents. The boys had a blast tearing into everything and seeing all of the new toys that they got. Alexis is still too young to have gotten into the spirit of ripping open the wrapping paper to see what's inside, so she spent most of her time observing. She was also woken up and brought downstairs, so she wasn't totally awake yet either.

Jennie did an amazing job (again) this year. She bought me a bunch of little things for under the tree and in the stocking. Which just goes to show how much of a schmuck I am compared to her. I only got her a few things (one of which she bought herself and let me put my name on it).

We got dressed and headed over to my parents' house for breakfast and more presents. The kids got a ton of stuff. The big hit was the Thomas The Train train set that Thomas got. As soon as he unwrapped it, he opened it and started putting the tracks together and played with the trains. He couldn't be pulled away from his new toy so Nicky was more than happy to help him out and unwrapped the rest of Thomas' presents for him.

We packed up the minivan with all of the presents and I made my first trip back to our house to unload while Jennie and the kids headed next door to her parents. Once all of Jen's sisters arrived at the house more presents were opened. Once again, the kids made out like bandits. The big hit for the boys were the Power Ranger guns that they had asked Santa for.

The day after....
Monday was spent purchasing a new bookcase for the playroom and putting it together. I also bought a tote to help in the reorganization of the toy room. All of the toys that are still in good shape but the kids don't play with any more will be heading into the tote and into the attic. There is still a pile of unopened boxes in the living room that Jen and I haven't gotten around to yet. Maybe tonight....

Final Thoughts
*Alexis will be the best dressed little girl for the next 6 months. She got so many cute outfits for Christmas.

*If I have off from work the day after Christmas next year, I am going to refuse to leave the house. The whole day will be devoted to opening and organizing all of the new toys. Half a day is no where near enough time to get it done.

*I will have to do something extraordinary for Jen for our anniversary coming up in 1.5 months to make up for my lack of Christmas spirit. She deserves better.

Things Overheard At TJ's Birthday Party....

2005-12-19T08:12:00.000-05:00

While opening presents (both Thomas & Nicholas):

"Wow!"
"Cool!"

"What the hell is this?" Said by Nicholas (4.5 years old).

Milk Shower....

2005-12-13T08:24:00.000-05:00

Playtex has these wonderful bottles available in their VentAire line.

With its unique bubble free bottom vent disc, the 2001 AMBY Award* winning
PlaytexÂ® VentAireÂ® Bubble Free Bottle System offers virtually bubble free
feeding for baby. Less air means less gas and spitting up for baby, keeping baby
more comfortable.

For those of you not familiar with bottle feeding a baby, if a baby sucks in too much air it will usually give them gas and often causes them to spit up. The VentAire bottle prevents that from happening by preventing the baby from sucking in air. If you take a look at the picture, you'll see a green ring at top where the nipple is attached. There is also a green portion at the bottom. That bottom piece has small holes in it and has a piece of rubber in it. As the baby sucks on the nipple, air is drawn in through the bottom holes to replace the volume of liquid that is drawn out of the bottle. The piece of rubber then returns to it's position to prevent the liquid escaping when the baby stops sucking. A neat piece of baby paraphanelia. Now on to the meat of the story...

As I mentioned earlier, the bottom piece is removable so you can clean it. I have never taken the bottom off when putting the bottle in the dishwasher to be washed. My wife takes it off often because one of our other VentAire bottles had gotten some water trapped in the bottom piece and mold had formed. Yuck. But like I said, I have never taken the bottom off.

Sunday night, I was getting the kids' stuff ready for daycare the next day. Filling up their cups with milk and filling up Alexis' bottles with milk. So I take a bottle out of the dishwasher and fill it with milk then put in on the counter. I pick up the next bottle from the top rack and fill it with milk then place it on the counter next to the other one. All the while, Alexis is standing beside me watching what I'm doing. The next bottle I pick up is the VentAire bottle. Unbeknownst to me the bottom was removed prior to being put in the dishwasher. I take the bottle out and hold it about waist level as I pour the milk in from the gallon jug. As you can see from the picture, the bottle has a small bend in it. So as I was holding it so that the top portion was straight up and down, the bottom portion was angled slightly. Alexis is standing next to me looking up at what I was doing with the bottom of the bottle pointed straight at her. Yup - you guessed it. I poured the milk into the bottom and it went into the opening at the top of the bottle, straight down the tube and right in to Alexis' face, covering her in milk. She stood there stunned for 3 seconds before starting to cry.

Weekend Recap With Lots Of Pics....

2005-12-12T07:50:00.000-05:00

Friday morning we got hit with our first snowstorm of the season. Saturday morning the boys helped me clear our driveway and sidewalk of all the snow.

We also built a couple of snowmen, but they're pretty pathetic and didn't get any pictures taken of them. Nicky got tired and went inside to watch tv while my little shadow TJ stuck around and I had to drag him back inside when we were finished.

After playing in the snow we got cleaned up and dressed for my nephew's birthday party. While we had all three kids dressed and looking nice we decided to try to take a picture of the three of them for our holiday card this year. Here are some of the pictures that didn't make the cut:

Joey's birthday party sported a pinata for the kids to bust open for candy - always a favorite of the kids!
Here are a few of them sitting in the basement waiting for the fun to start:

After the party my sister and I went to the Nets/Sixers game. The Nets lost to the hot shooting Sixers. Iverson went off for 42 points and 12 assists. A couple of memories from the game which I won't be forgetting soon:

Iverson going against Jacques Vaughn, crossing over, stutter step at Vaughn, stepping back, Vaughn tripping over his own feet and falling on his ass, then Iverson pulling up for the jump shot and swishing it home.
Kids wearing jerseys backwards. When did this become a trend?

Sunday we went into the city and stopped by Jennie's parents' apartment. Jennie, her mom, and her sister Veronica did some shopping on Canal Street while the rest of us hung out in the apartment. When they got back we all caught a train and headed off to see the big tree at Rockefeller Center.

We decided to walk back to the apartment and stopped by the Disney Store.

You Will Never See A Guy Do This....

2005-12-07T15:18:00.000-05:00

Go out to a restaurant with 3 of his buddies and order 3 appetizers to split between the 4 of them as their main meal. An order for an entree, sandwhich, etc. will always be placed in addition to the appetizer.

Weekend Visitor....

2005-12-06T07:36:00.000-05:00

This past weekend my buddy Joe came to visit. My parents moved us to teaneck in the beginning of my 6th grade school year and Joe was my first friend I made in school. That was in 1987 and we've been friends ever since. He now lives in Arlington, VA and has been living in that area for the past 6-7 years. It's rare that we get to see each other anymore. We got to hang out and catch up on things and had a good time. We also introduced him to playing poker in person. He had played online a bunch of times but never sitting at a table with other people. Saturday night Max, Evan, Joe, and I played a game of hold 'em and then on Sunday we went over to Brian's place for some poker and the Giants game. Joe was the first knocked out in the first game we played but placed 2nd in the next game. Not too shabby for a first timer. I think Joe is hooked now on playing poker. Maybe he'll move up north to NJ or NYC just so he can get in on our monthly games.

In addition to playing poker, here's what else Joe could be found doing at my house:

That's Joe and Nicky playing Lego Star Wars on our Play Station 2.

And here's Joe holding Alexis (who took a liking to him right away - surprising because she never likes strangers) playing with the the boys. Joe is a "monster" and is scaring Nicky and TJ. TJ also took a quick liking to him and TJ is the shyest of the bunch. Although when Joe first got to our house, it was just TJ and myself at home and TJ was napping. About 5 minutes after waking up and meeting Joe, I took TJ downstairs to get something and TJ asked me "Daddy. Did your friend leave yet?"

And here's a picture of Alexis for no other reason than that she's a little cutie.

Texas Hold 'em....

2005-12-02T14:07:00.000-05:00

I recently played in my first serious tournament last weekend. There were 24 people who bought in for $50 + $5. Everything was well organized and the tournament went smoothly. We started at 8:00pm and it ended around 12:30am with the winner being ME!!!

Enough about me.

It's been almost a week for me to reflect back on my play and I'm pretty pleased with how I played (obviously). I went into the tournament with a plan to only play premium hands pre-flop and play pretty tight. The plan worked pretty well and only once did I have my entire chip stack at risk with an "all in" call. But with that hand, I had a very strong hand and I didn't get any calls so my chips weren't at risk.

While on the subject of premium hands, I read an article today which had some striking statistics which really surprised me. How great does it feel to be dealt two cards, take a peek at them and see two cards of the same suit? I have to admit, I always like to see that happen and I've played a lot of suited cards pre-flop hoping to hit the flush right away. But check these stats out:

Odds of being dealt suited cards: 24%

Which means if you're playing in an 8-man game, it's very likely that there's someone else at the table with suited cards. You're not the only one.

Let's say you stayed in the pot with your suited cards. What are the odds of flopping a flush draw? Meaning two cards on the table will be the same suit as the two in your hand.

10.9% Or 1 out of 11 times.

Then you're only going to get the flush by the river 35% of the time after that. Not good odds. Unless you paired up, it's a bad idea to stay in the hand.

Now how about flopping a flush right away? 5%? 4%? 3%? Nope

0.84%

I don't think I'll be playing suited hole cards as often anymore....

"Captain Underpants" And His Siblings....

2005-11-29T07:16:00.000-05:00

That is Captain Underpants (a.k.a. TJ) on the left.

Why does he call himself "Captain Underpants"? Because as soon as he steps foot in the house he strips off all his clothes except for his underwear and sometimes his undershirt (only if it's his white tank-top Batman undershirt, does he leave it on). Then he tucks the red cape from his Superman pajamas into the back of his underwear and runs around the house.

Turkey Day....

2005-11-23T07:36:00.000-05:00

To anyone who is reading this;

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

NBA Top 50 Players....

2005-11-21T11:10:00.000-05:00

From a Sporting News article ranking the NBA's top 50 players:

"
No. 1 is easy. Any way you rank the NBA's top 50 players, Tim Duncan comes out on top. Winning. He's the best player on the best team. Because "winning championships is the reason we're doing this," as one executive put it, you now know what our top consideration was when choosing players for the list. Individual honors. Finals MVP. All-NBA first team (in each of his eight seasons), All-Defensive first team. Stats. Duncan ranked No. 1 in the ratings deemed most important by the statistically inclined website 82games.com. If his
plus-16.6 rating (based on the Spurs' point discrepancy when he's on vs. off the court) doesn't impress you, his 2004-05 numbers should: 20.3 points, 11.1 rebounds, 49.6 percent shooting, 2.6 blocks. Polls. In the league's general managers' preseason survey, Duncan was an overwhelming pick to win his third MVP award and lead the Spurs to their second consecutive title. Of the six G.M.s and scouts who helped pick our top 50, five chose Duncan as their No. 1. So there. A slam dunk for Duncan. But ranking Nos. 2-50 wasn't so easy.
Prepare to disagree.
2. Shaquille O'Neal, Heat. At
33, the Greatest Center Ever is the oldest player in the top 50 and has begun to show his age. Still, he was the only player to average more than 20 points and shoot 60 percent from the floor last season, and he remains the player most difficult to prepare for. For all Dwyane Wade does, Shaq is the main reason G.M.s picked the Heat to win the East.
3. Steve Nash, Suns. How can a guy who never dunks be way up here? Easy. He's the absolute best at making his teammates better. And being the reigning MVP and the catalyst for the only team that won at least 60
games (the Suns won 62) last season doesn't hurt.
4. Kevin Garnett, Timberwolves. You know you're special when you check in with 22.2 points, a league-best 13.5 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 50.2 percent shooting and it's considered an off year. But to have a shot at
reclaiming the No. 1 spot in our rankings, K.G. needs to lead the T-wolves deep into the playoffs again.
5. Amare Stoudemire, Suns. He's worth the wait.
6. LeBron James, Cavaliers. When he hit three 3-pointers in 55 seconds in the season opener, cold sweats
broke out across the league. If the guy's going to shoot like that, forget about stopping him. He's considered by most G.M.s to be the league's most athletic player. Oh yeah -- he's only 20.
7. Dwyane Wade, Heat. One scout on our panel ranked Wade behind only Duncan, but we're not quite ready to go that far. Once he shows the same Jordanesque intensity on defense that he does on offense, we'll reconsider.
8. Kobe Bryant, Lakers. Based on early returns, Phil-Kobe Act II is going to be good for Kobe. His talent and
drive are unsurpassed, but to return to our top five, Kobe has to take the Lakers into late May.
9. Tracy McGrady, Rockets. He showed how good he can be when he averaged 30.7 points in the playoffs and his defense frustrated Dirk Nowitzki for long stretches. But we'd like to see T-Mac's dominant stretches last for weeks instead of days.
10. Dirk Nowitzki, Mavericks. Seven-footers who can shoot 3s and lead fast breaks don't come along very often. If Nowitzki could provide even half the defensive presence of another versatile 7-footer (see No. 4), there would be no concerns about placing him higher.
11. Manu Ginobili, Spurs. Talk about a winner. NBA championship in '03, Olympic gold in '04, NBA championship in '05. There were many times last spring when Gi-NO-ba-lee! (we love hearing Charles
Barkley say it) carried the Spurs with his breakneck style on both ends.
12. Gilbert Arenas, Wizards. The league's most talented point guard, Arenas is only 23 and still has some growing up to do. Once his maturity catches up to his skills, he'll be a fixture in our top 10.
13. Jermaine O'Neal, Pacers. An inside force on both ends, he still has not broken through with a career-defining season -- or playoff series. Until he does, this is as high as 24.3 points and 8.8 rebounds will get him.
14. Allen Iverson, 76ers. He has enough left to take over a game on any night. But he's a long way from returning the Sixers to the East's elite. And though he's the toughest player around pound for pound, we
wonder how much more punishment he can absorb before his game begins to crack.
15. Ben Wallace, Pistons. His interior defense, blue-collar rebounding and relentless hustle make him the most irreplaceable Piston. He'd be ranked higher if not for his paltry 9.7 scoring average last season.
16. Shawn Marion, Suns. This guy can fly -- down the court and to the rim. He doesn't have a pretty shot, but
he hits 47.6 percent of his attempts and is among the best one-on-one defenders at forward. He's a perfect fit for Phoenix's style.
17. Elton Brand, Clippers. He's good for 20 and 10 any time he slips on the sneakers, plus he shoots 50 percent and tries on defense. He might be unfairly docked here because he plays for the Clippers, but when you're on a team that has been a joke, it's tough to get your props.
18. Ron Artest, Pacers. If he's not the best one-on-one defender on the wing, he's the scariest. He's also a 20-point scorer with an obsession for winning that borders on unhealthy. That kind of fury is a good thing ... most of the time.
19. Ray Allen, SuperSonics. Owner of the league's prettiest jumper, Allen has proved he's more than a shooter. That said, we'd still like to see more than 3.7 assists, 4.4 rebounds and so-so defense.
20. Jason Kidd, Nets. His best likely is behind him, considering he is 32 (second oldest in the top 50) and a
year removed from microfracture surgery. What we're seeing now, however, remains pretty sweet. Kidd still runs the break as well as anybody, is a smart defender and has triple double potential.
21. Yao Ming, Rockets. He'll never be Shaq, but he's still 7-5 and puts up the second-best numbers among
centers -- 18.3 points, 55.2 percent shooting, 8.4 rebounds, 2.0 blocks. To reach the next level, he first needs to get his minutes up to the high 30s.
22. Vince Carter, Nets. Give him a dose of Wade's competitiveness and Carter would be in the Wade-Bryant-McGrady neighborhood. But since his move to Jersey, Carter has proved there's a lot left in his high-flying game.
23. Andrei Kirilenko, Jazz. He ranked No. 9 last year but missed 41 games, so now he has to work his way back
up. That shouldn't be a problem given his ability to fill up a box score.
24. Pau Gasol, Grizzlies. The 7-footer has earned a reputation for being soft, but that hasn't prevented him from becoming one of the league's best post scorers. He has a nice touch out to 20 feet and is able to put the ball on the floor and finish with either hand.
25. Carmelo Anthony, Nuggets. George Karl seems to have gotten through to his high-scoring forward, who is more fit and more motivated after a disappointing second season. He has a strong midrange game but needs
work in most other areas.
26. Chauncey Billups, Pistons. Ask five coaches who'd be the toughest Piston to replace and you'd likely get five different answers. But Billups' big-shot history and overpowering strength as a point guard put him ahead of all the Pistons except Wallace.
27. Baron Davis, Warriors. After he was traded to the Warriors, the injuries and attitude problems suddenly vanished. Though his ability to run a team is unquestioned, he'll have to be on good behavior for an entire season before he moves up in our rankings.
28. Paul Pierce, Celtics. He's a dependable scorer but hasn't quite stepped up and become the true leader his
young teammates need. Whether he does this season will go a long way to determining his place as a
superstar.
29. Mike Bibby, Kings. He's the point guard who best combines scoring and running the offense. Like Billups,
Bibby has a way of making big shots. Unlike Billups, Bibby is not so big on defense.
30. (tie) Richard Hamilton, Pistons; Tayshaun Prince, Pistons. OK, we give up on trying to decide who's better. Each brings something different to the Pistons. "Rip" Hamilton is a tireless player whose movement without the ball and shooting are keys to the team's halfcourt offense. With his gangly body, Prince defends every
position except the point and is an effective scorer who can shoot the 3 and drive to the basket.
32. Richard Jefferson, Nets. He excels in all areas and seems to be picking up where he left off before last
season's broken wrist.
33. Tony Parker, Spurs. This lightning-quick point guard is only 23 and already has started for two title teams. He continues to improve his outside shot but still lacks the overall consistency of the true elites.
34. Joe Johnson, Hawks. He needs another season like the last one to convince us, but there's no denying his impact on the Suns last season. He made 47.8 percent of his 3s, averaged a career-best 17.1 points and was more than capable backing up the point.
35. Michael Redd, Bucks. 82games.com has numbers that show Redd is the league's worst defensive shooting
guard -- by a lot. So what? Anyone who can score like Redd belongs in the top 50. Last season, he was one of 21 players who averaged 20 points or more, and they all made the list.
36. Stephon Marbury, Knicks. He's as talented as any point guard, but this is his 10th season and he's still
trying to prove he can lead a winning team.
37. Antawn Jamison, Wizards. He lacks the forceful personality -- on or off the court -- to be the No. 1 guy on
a good team, but he's a great No. 2.
38. Rashard Lewis, SuperSonics. Few 6-10 players match his ability to shoot and attack the rim, but if you're
this tall and play 38 minutes a night, you need to grab more than 5.5 rebounds per game.
39. Lamar Odom, Lakers. Odom was overshadowed and overwhelmed by Bryant last season. Let's see whether Phil Jackson can help restore Odom to the level he was at two seasons ago.
40. Corey Maggette, Clippers. He's a stronger but not quite as talented version of Bryant. Maggette suffers from the same plight as Brand -- graded down for being a Clipper.
41. Peja Stojakovic, Kings. He doesn't do much besides score, but oh, can he shoot. After a couple of off games to start the season, Stojakovic tourched the Suns for 23 points (on 9-of-10 shooting) in one quarter last week. Before the season's over, he will have a lot of nights like that.
42. Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Cavaliers. Sure, he's clumsy-looking, but if you're 7-3 and average 16.9 points, you're virtually guaranteed a spot in the top 50.
43. Kenyon Martin, Nuggets. He isn't as good as he thinks he is, but you've got to like the athleticism and effort.
44. Steve Francis, Magic. The supertalented guard is holding himself back with his immaturity (just ask his ex-coaches).
45. Jason Richardson, Warriors. The game's best dunker quietly has become an upper-level, all-around player. He averaged career bests in scoring (21.7) and shooting (44.6 percent) in '04-05 and should be even
better this season.
46. Larry Hughes, Cavaliers. He's a creative scorer and defender who should be a worthy sidekick for LeBron.
47. Rasheed Wallace, Pistons. Is he too unselfish or is it that he doesn't want the responsibility of a leader? Whatever, he has the talent to rank much higher than this.
48. Chris Webber, 76ers. His days of being the man are over, but he has developed enough savvy to remain
productive.
49. Kirk Hinrich, Bulls. If you like young and gritty -- and we do -- then you will appreciate the Bulls' up-and-coming floor leader.
50. Shane Battier, Grizzlies. There may be 50 players more talented. Heck, there may be 100. But are there 50 we'd rather have on our team? No way.
"

As big of a Shaq fan that I am, I think #2 is too high to rank him. Is he the most unstoppable player in the league? Yes. But is he the second best overall player in the league? No.

Ben Wallace at #15? No way is he a top 15 player in the NBA.

Amare #5? Not yet.

Kenyon Martin top 50? Nope.

Dwyane Wade ahead of Kobe? No way. Maybe in 3 years.

Tayshaun Prince at #30? Ahead of Rasheed Wallace #47? What? How is Prince so high and how is Wallace so low?

Joe Johnson at #34? Not withouth Nash feeding him for open shots.

Shane Battier at #50? He's a nice guy and all, but not a top 50 talent guy. Grant Hill is just as nice and is more talented.

Life's Been A Little Busy Lately....

2005-11-16T12:57:00.000-05:00

My last entry was on November 2nd. I haven't had access to a computer at work yet and haven't had time at home to post anything to my blog so I'll try to catch everyone up on what's been going on since then.

Work

I've been here for 11 days so far, and out of those 11, I've been in to NYC to job sites 9 days. Most of the time I've been tagging along with the guy I've been working with - Paul. He's got a company truck with commercial plates so it's not difficult to find a parking space. For the 3 times that I've had to drive in by myself it's been impossible to find a parking space in the vicinity of the job site, so I've had to park in parking garages. The money isn't an issue since I get reimbursed, but it's when it's time to get the car and there are 10 people ahead of me all waiting to get their cars first.... and the place is understaffed.... and it's a multilevel garage.... and I've got class in an hour.... and it takes almost two hours to get out of Manhattan and down to New Brunswick....

School

The estimating class that I take on Thursday nights is going well. The teacher is pretty good and makes the class interesting. We're always working on some kind of estimating problem either in groups or together as a class - which keeps everyone involved. The tuesday night class about Consturction Procedures, Materials and Costs is a whole nother story. Anyone who can read the English language could do what this teacher does. It's a ten week program and he's got ten powerpoint presentation slide shows that he shows. He's got each week's slides printed out with notes on them that he reads from as he shows the slides. He rarely adds anything not covered by the slides to the class. It also doesn't help that he needs reading glasses to read the notes. He'll go from reading the projector screen, then putting on his glasses, finding his spot on the paper notes, read a note, then take the glasses off, then repeating something from the projector screen, then back to the notes. It's just painful to have to sit there and go through.

Home Life

Last Wednesday my little girl turned 1. We had the NJ relatives come over after dinner for some birthday cake. Nicholas and Jennie made her a small personal cake just for her and Nicholas did the icing job. Like any kid, she just ate the icing. Saturday was her birthday party with more relatives and some friends. Thomas was his usual shy self and spent most of the time in the basement with either Jenna or his brother and cousins playing basketball. Alexis got some really cute clothes and some toys. Her brothers have gotten a better kick out of seeing and playing with her toys than she has so far. She's also reaaallllyyy close to walking full time now. She stands up without holding to anything and she'll take 3 or 4 steps between objects/furniture. She'll also take longer walks (8-10 steps) if we trick her and she doesn't notice what she's doing. (The old trick - mom and dad sit on the floor a few feet away from each other and have Alexis walk between us. Then when she starts walking to one of us, that parent will slide back as she's getting closer, thus causing her to take more steps to reach us.)

Thomas will be turning 3 in about 1 month and has now been in underwear for 3 weeks. He's had a handful of pee-pee accidents and 2 poo-poo accidents, but that's to be expected when potty-training. He hasn't had any accidents of any kind in the past 1-2 weeks so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he's finally crossed that final hurdle....

Nicholas is doing great as a big brother. He loves his baby sister so much and is always trying to hug her, kiss her, help her. Thomas loves her too, but often smothers her when he's doing nice to her. He'll learn one of these days (I hope). Nicholas is pretty good with Thomas also. They rarely fight unless they're playing "power rangers" or one of them is cranky. No sibling rivalry developing yet, so we'll have to wait and see how things progress over time....

Sports

The Jets have got to be the most heart-wrenching team to root for. There is never a definite identity to the team. They're never "great" or "horrible". Just when you think they're done for the season, or even the game, they'll come up with some kind of performance that makes you believe that they can pull it out. Then they'll do something stupid and smash all hope. But the very next drive/week they'll get your hopes up again, only to drop them again. It's like a rollercoaster ride of emotions with that team.

The Nets look like they'll win the Atlantic Division this season. With Kidd, Carter, Jefferson, and Kristic - they've got what it'll take to win easily. That's not really saying much because their opponents in the Atlantic suck. But at least they'll get homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

Sherryl Swoopes came out of the closet a few weeks ago and I still haven't decided if the lack of hoopla over the statement is good or bad. Is it good that nobody cares? Do they not care because alternate lifestyles have become so well accepted that a lesbian coming out isn't earth-shattering news anymore? Or is it because it's just because no one really cares? Mainly I think it's because she's a woman coming out and not a man. It's definitely more accepted to be a lesbian than a gay male in this society, which shouldn't be the way it is, but it is. But I just can't put my finger on why Swoopes' coming out causes such little commotion.

I'm in a football pool run by my uncle who lives in Portland, OR and out of the first 10 weeks, I came in second 8 times. I finally broke through and won this past weekend by succesfully guessing the most correct winning teams. Each week's winner wins and then at the end of the season the total wins leader wins some extra. You'd think that by coming in second almost every week would have me at or near the total leader position, but you'd be wrong. My Aunt has won 5 weeks so far and is leading the pack by a wide margin. I'd cry "Fix!" or "Conspiracy Theory!", but they're family and it's all in fun. I'm hoping now that she was the one who used her run of good luck and took a ride down the California to buy that $315 million dollar Mega Millions lottery ticket.

Upcoming Events

Once I get settled down in my permanent desk with my own computer here at work, I should have more time available to post entries in the blog, but I'm not counting on it. So for those of you who looked forward to me posting my silly thoughts every day or two like I did in the past, you'll have to settle for maybe a weekly post or two.

I've got a bunch of pictures that I have to download from the camera to the computer at home so I can post them online, but first I've got to find a block of time at home to get that done. Hopefully I'll have some time this coming weekend to do that.

The Teaneck Jewish Center winter league starts this coming Sunday. I'm no where near as good as I used to be so I'm not expecting to see my name on any of the leader boards. I'm one of those veterans who are past their prime and are still clinging to home of winning one last chamipionship before retiring for good. I feel like Clifford Robinson. Coming in off the bench for short stretches and just trying to do a few of the little things to help the team. Not relied on to carry the team, but to come in and hold things down for the starters when they need a breather.

New Job....

2005-11-02T19:45:00.000-05:00

Friday was my last day at Burgess Steel. After 4 years there, it was time to move on. I felt like I was trapped in the drafting position with no way out. It had been over a year since I first broached the with the powers that be at Burgess and I was still in drafting. I was approached about a job opportunity and would have been an idiot not to listen. So after a couple of interviews and an enticing offer, I accepted the position at R & L and started yesterday.

I jumped right into things and got right to work. Yesterday I detailed a job and put it in the shop. I also checked a job for errors and corrected the problems I found. Today I got to go to a job site and go over a few issues that we had. It was my first time ever being on an actual job site while work was going on. It was great! There is no more second guessing my decision to leave Burgess. This was definitely the right move for me.

(Side note: This is my second draft of this entry. The first one was much longer and more descriptive but when I hit the "publish" button, I found out that one of my boys had inadvertantly turned the cable modem off and I didn't have a connection. I also lost everything I had just typed. I'm too tired to type it all in again, so you're stuck reading the condensed version.)

How I Get My Kids To Sleep When I'm On The Computer And They're Cranky...

2005-10-30T10:06:00.000-05:00

For Thomas when he was a baby, I would put on "Tale As Old As Time" from Disney's Beauty and the Beast on Window's Media Player with the Ambience/Water visual. And now for Alexis, this was the first time and I tried that - didn't work. Put on "Beauty & the Beast" by Celine Dion and the Musical Colors/Colors In Motion and she was out before the song ended.

Not sure if that helps anyone right now, but something to keep in mind for the future....

A Weekend Of "Firsts"....

2005-10-30T09:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we hosted our first halloween party at our house. All of the usual crew showed up: grandmas and grandpas from Teaneck, all of Jen's sisters and their respective families and my sister. We also had Jen's cousin from her mom's side, Martin and his family attend. He's got three kids very close in age to my own three kids. Everyone got along great and had a good time.

Yesterday was a first for Thomas. All week we had been sending him to school in underwear instead of pull-ups. He had a few accidents (which was expected) and yesterday he pooped in the toilet for the first time!

This morning was Alexis' first time helping me make pancakes. Granted, she didn't do much, she sat on the counter and tried to eat the batter and chewed on the spatula.

That's it so far, but there's still some time left in the weekend. I may win the football pool for the first time this season. I've come in second 6 out of 7 weeks so far. Keeping my fingers crossed....

Googlism....

2005-10-27T14:43:00.000-04:00

"Googlism.com will find out what Google.com thinks of you, your friends or anything! Search for your name here or for a good laugh check out some of the popular Googlisms below."

Some of the results when I looked up "who" for "Dabney"

dabney is notorious for being hard on his equipment
dabney is keeping his truck really secret until completion
dabney is an associate in the intellectual property department
dabney is the 4
dabney is the vice president of the 2
dabney is interested
dabney is not much impressed
dabney is not pleased with the idea
dabney is a qualitative researcher
dabney is charged as an accessory to the murder
dabney is in great spirits and i will have to try and have the same optimistic attitude

Can A Basketball Team Go 8 Games In A Row.....

2005-10-26T13:04:00.000-04:00

....without calling one single timeout?

Yes, according to Jackie MacMullan at the Boston Globe:
(In reference to Russ Granik's recent resignation)

Granik's shining moments included his role in the formation of the Dream Team, a
collection of future Hall of Famers (Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson,
and Charles Barkley, to name four) that stormed through the 1992 Olympics
without losing a game -- and without coach Chuck Daly ever having to call a
timeout.

There's gotta be a site somewhere to cerify that statement. If true, that's pretty amazing. I checked the homesite of USA Basketball and all I could find was a summary of the olympics. Some fo the final stats for the team are very interesting. A team made up of Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin, Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, Scottie Pippen, David Robinson, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, John Stockton, and Christian Laettner had these intriguing stats...

Barkley shot 71.1% and was 7-8 from the 3 point line.
Everyone on the team shot better than 50% except for Laettner (45%) and Jordan (45.1%).
The highest rebounding average was 5.3 shared by Malone and Ewing.
Jordan averaged 4.6 steals per game.
Pippen (47) and Jordan (38) led the team in assists.

My New Favorite TV Show Is....

2005-10-26T10:10:00.000-04:00

The Adam Carolla Project on TLC.

The premise of the show is that Adam Carolla bought a house and is going to totally renovate it in an allotted amount of time and try to sell it for a nice profit. Everything is paid for with his own money and he's got a bunch of his buddies to work on the house. He hired an Architect/Engineer to design the addition/renovations but the rest of the work is done by himself and his cronies. Make for very entertaining televesion. Much better than Monster House because on Monster House, those guys are all professionals and "know" what they're doing.

Check it out if you get the chance. Tuesday nights @ 10pm on TLC.

Lessons I Learned Over The Weekend....

2005-10-24T07:49:00.000-04:00

Lesson #1: Fixing a dryer is not that difficult. (Once you figure out what you're doing.)

A little more than a month ago our gas laundry dryer stopped drying. Everything else worked. The lights would go on, the drum would spin, the clothes would tumble. But there was no heat. Meaning that either the gas was shut off (not the case) or something inside wasn't feeding the gas or burning it to create heat. A pretty common problem but one I had never tackled before so I called one of the manufacturer's authorized service dealers. I told them the problem over the phone and the servicemen showed up at 9:30 the day they were supposed to. That's where it all went wrong....

I brought the guys downstairs to the basement where the laundry room is. The first thing the main guy did was turn on the washing machine. It took only 2 or 3 seconds to realize his mistake but in my amazed stupor it felt like 2 or 3 minutes. Granted the two machines look alike, but there is a door on the top of the laundry machine that covers the inlets for the soap, softener, bleach - and this is a guy who works on these brands all the time. WTF?

So after turning on the dryer and letting it run for ten minutes, he confirmed that it wasn't working and that the ignitor and/or gas valve had to be replaced (all of which I told the woman on the phone when I made the appointment). He then told me he would have to go back to the shop and order the parts then come back the following week to replace them. I asked him how much it was going to cost and he said he wouldn't know until he got back and actually placed the order. He figured it would take an hour to replace the parts and put the machine back to together. I asked him to give me a call before he placed the order so I'd know how much I'd have to spend beforehand. "No problem." he said.

Fast forward 3 weeks and numerous unanswered phone calls.....

I called several other places to get a price quote on replacing the two parts. I told each place I called the model number and exact parts I wanted replaced. Not one single person would give me a quote until they came to our house to look at the dryer. And I thought politics was corrupt... Not only did they not give me quotes but two of the people I called would call me at 8:30 in the morning, while I'm at work, and ask if I'd be home between 9:00 and 11:00 that same morning. This happened three times by two different people. I finally got sick of them and we ordered the parts directly from the manufacturer. The company policy is to only sell to authorized servicemen but after we had called to complain about the lack of service from one of their own, they relented and sold us the parts. The parts arrived as scheduled and we were ready to tackle the job Saturday afternoon.

Once we realized that you didn't have to take the back panel off and only had to remove the front face it was smooth sailing. There aren't very many parts inside the machine so finding and replacing the necessary parts was pretty simple. We just wasted time trying to remove the back panel then putting all the screws back in. All in all, it took about 2 hours to fix.

Lesson #2: The door to my basement steps does not close all the way unless you pull it shut and Alexis can open it by herself if it's closed completely.

I had gone down into the basement Sunday morning to check on the progress of something on the computer and Alexis had seen me. So she decided to follow me downstairs. I had pulled the door behind me when I went downstairs, but obviously (obvious now) not hard enough since Alexis got the door open and tried to crawl downstairs. All I heard was a couple of thumps and then crying. I immediately realized what happened and ran over to the stairs. There was Alexis sitting on her butt facing the stairs. I scooped her up and checked for any breaks and after a few minutes she had calmed down and was laughing. She was shakened up a little and had a couple of red marks from her fall, but otherwise she was alright. Next time I'll be sure to either take her with me or make sure the door is closed fully.

Lessons learned.

Toy Recall....

2005-10-19T14:28:00.000-04:00

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) wants a Taiwanese toy company to stop selling their newest toy in Australia. Why? Because it causes blindness.

Family Vacation 2005, Pictures....

2005-10-11T14:06:00.000-04:00

Since it was a lot quicker to upload 100+ photos to Yahoo! Photos, I put them there. You can check them out here. If that doesn't work, go to http://photos.yahoo.com/mjdabney and click on "Disney Vacation" album. The pictures are in chronological order, starting at the car ride to the train station to the last night at the house.

Family Vacation 2005, Final Thoughts....

2005-10-10T09:50:00.000-04:00

I could not live in Florida. The weather is way too humid for my liking. It was in the 70's and 80's the week we were there, I can only imagine how much it must suck in the dead of summer when it's in the 90's and that humid.

Thank goodness that Disney has a deal with Coke and not Pepsi. I couldn't drink Diet Pepsi for a whole week straight. On the bright side, if it had been Pepsi and not Coke, I would have drunk a lot more water than soda - that would have been a lot healthier.

The Disney theme parks were great. Everything about them was so well done. Any time you were supposed to be in a different part of the country, world, time, they did a great job of creating the illusion of being in a different place. From the buildings, costumes, plant life, light fixtures, doorknobs, etc. Everything was done just right.

I didn't come across one single employee that had a sour puss on their face or was unhappy (except for those playing a role). Whether it's the employee training or something, every employee looked like they enjoyed doing what they were doing and made it a very pleasant experience.

Taking Nicky on roller coasters might have been a bad mistake. Now every time we're in the car driving up or down a hill, he'll have his two arms up in the air and screaming "Wheeeee!!!"

Spending 24 hours a day for a whole week with my wife and kids was awesome. I got a better appreciation for how great they all are. I'm going to miss seeing them that often. My favorite memories will be seeing my boys' faces as they watched the parades and saw all of the things that really excited them.

(From the left: Veronica, Grandma, Jennie, Alexis (in back), Jeff, Vincent, Mickey, Joseph, Nicholas, Grandpa, Geralyn, Jeff (in front), Ellen, Thomas, Daniel, Matt (me))

Family Vacation 2005, Day 9....

2005-10-08T23:39:00.000-04:00

We got to the DC area around 11:00 am and by the time our car was off-loaded and we got on our way, it was around 12:00. There was continuous rain on our ride back to NJ and we passed by a bunch of accidents on the way. We got home around 6ish and unpacked the car (mostly). Grabbed some Chinese food for dinner and then unwound a little. Put the little ones to sleep and hit the sack. Our vacation was over....

Family Vacation 2005, Day 8....

2005-10-07T23:21:00.000-04:00

Last day in Florida.

Grandma, Grandpa, Veronica, Joey, Geralyn, Jeff, Vinny, and Jeff all packed up their cars and headed to breakfast early. Grandma, Grandpa, Veronica, and Joey were driving the whole way back and not taking the train so they needed to get moving fast. There was nothing but rain in the forecast for the drive home. Ellie, Jennie, and myself finished clearing out the house of all the stuff we had left over and packed up our cars and checked out around 10:30. We stopped by Universal on our way to the train station and got lunch at the NBA City Restaurant (per my request of course). It was pretty cool. You walked thru "the tunnel" on your way into the dining area. There were two large screens and a bunch of tv's all over the place. The walls were covered in photos of players and coaches from the league from all different eras. There was an upper dining section which was on a balcony that circled around the lower section. The food was pretty good and reasonably priced (not as high as I would have thought). The theme of the restaurant even continued into the bathrooms. Over the waste baskets there was a rim w/net. The boys had fun slam dunking their used paper towels. After lunch we played a couple of the games they had. Jennie and I faced off in a one-on-one shooting game. One of those games with three balls and you have 30 seconds to make as many shots as you can. They had a scaled down version for little kids which Nicky and TJ played a few times. Since we had to get moving and didn't want to be late for the train, we didn't spend any time looking around the place or stopping in the gift shop. We got to the train station only to find out that the incoming train was late (again) and we couldn't check our car in yet because they were busy unloading the train that had just arrived. So all of us who were in line to get in parked our cars and headed in to the terminal. We finally got our car checked in and boarded the train about 3 hours later than scheduled. The train was less crowded than on the ride down to Florida and in our half of the train car there was a family of 7 and our group of travelers. Plenty of room to spread out. And this time we were smart and brought along a power strip and an extension cord so that all of the boys could watch their dvd players and not have the batteries run out. On the trip down to Florida we found out that the information online was a little misleading and instead of there being an electrical outlet for every seat, there was one outlet for the entire car. The good thing is that if you know about that, then you can request the outlet seat - which we did. Nothing else too exciting happened on the train, and thankfully there was no screaming baby on this train ride.

Family Vacation 2005, Day 7....

2005-10-06T22:07:00.000-04:00

Today was supposed to be a "relaxing" day before heading back home. After breakfast, Geralyn and her crew of 4 headed over to the Kennedy Space Center to check out the museum and stuff. The rest of us hopped in the pool and played until a little before lunch. Then we got dressed and headed out to do some shopping. We hit the $0.99 store right down the block from our house and made out really well there. Then we took a ride to Downtown Disney and parked at the opposite end than we had parked the previous time we went. We got to walk by and stop in a few different stores that we hadn't seen yet. Spent the afternoon walking around and had a good time. I went on the little horse carousel ride they had there with Thomas, Nicky and Joey. Nicky and Joey sat in one of those little teacup type things with the round disk in the middle that you can use to spin the cup around. They had a blast spinning around as fast as their little arms could make it go. Got some cute pictures of the kids, so keep a look out for when I post all of the pictures on line.

Family Vacation 2005, Day 6....

2005-10-05T23:26:00.000-04:00

Today's 2 stops were Epcot and then back to the Magic Kingdom. There weren't that many *rides* at Epcot, but there was plenty to see and do. There were a bunch of slow moving informational type rides that had no height restrictions, so everyone went on. After checking out stuff at The Spaceship Earth , The Land, and getting a bite to eat we headed over to the different nations section of the park. There were about a dozen different countries represented and in each section the buildings, streets, and vendors were all replicates of actual things in those countries. It was pretty cool. We were hanging out in Italy and caught a street performance of "Romeo and Edna". A very loose interpretation of "Romeo and Juliet". There was a lot of crowd involvement which made for a fun experience. We didn't have the time to check out every nation and we actually ran past a couple of the areas. It had been drizzling on and off all morning and in one instance the skies just opened up and poured. We had to run to find shelter. Didn't help. Jennie and I had to buy new t-shirts at the gift shop to replace the drenched ones we had on. Not a bad deal so far. I've gotten a whole new outfit so far on the trip. On our trip to Animal Kingdom on Monday I got new shorts and socks, and today was a shirt.

Around 6 we headed over to the monorail to head over to the Magic Kingdom. We were there yesterday and arrived too late to Main Street to check out the parade. There was no room for us to watch so we decided to head over early today to make sure we got a good spot. We claimed our 15' section of the curb around 6:30. Laid down ponchos (served two purposed - held our spots and kept our butts dry) and parked the strollers. We all took turns walking around Main Street checking out different shops and getting dinner. The parade started at 8. The lights on Main Street were mostly turned off and the floats and characters started down the street. The main theme to the parade was lights. Every float, car, and character was draped in different colored lights. A lot of characters were present in the parade and the boys had a blast seeing everything. The only dissapointed thing was that there wasn't as much character-fan interaction as the parade at MGM Studios.

After the parade we got back on the monorail to head back to Epcot where our cars were parked. Most of the kids passed out in the cars on the way back to the house. A nice quiet evening at the house......

.....until they all wake up and start running around the place tomorrow morning :-)

Family Vacation 2005, Day 5....

2005-10-04T22:04:00.000-04:00

It was finally time for the main event - Disney's Magic Kingdom. There were a bunch more rides this time for the kids as compared to MGM Studios. But once again, Thomas was too short for a lot of them, although we found plenty for him to do. We all went on the Haunted Mansion ride which had no height restrictions. That ruined the rest of the day for Nicky and Thomas. From then on, any ride that got dark at any point, they got scared.

We also got to see more characters and got to take more pictures with them (once again, when I get back to NJ I'll upload a ton of pix). TJ got to take a picture with his favorite character - Ariel.

Unfortunately I'm too tired right now to remember all of the names of the rides that the kids went on, so I'll have to refresh my memory by looking at the camera pix and writing them down.

After a long day at the park, we're going to bed now. More to come tomorrow....

Family Vacation 2005, Day 4....

2005-10-03T23:20:00.000-04:00

Today we spent the morning/early afternoon at Disney's Animal Kingdom. The animal kingdom is basically a large zoo with some rides and attractions thrown in. The first thing we did was head over to the Kilimanjaro Safari. They used these big old beat-up safari jeeps to drive folks around the safari. We got to drive through a bunch of areas where the animals and jeep shared the same space. Obviously the dangerous animals (lions, cheetahs, etc.) were safely caged in by the moats (well hidden and disguised). It was very cool to see some of the animals that close up. It's definitely the closest we'll ever get to going on a real safari.

After the safari we headed over to the Kali River Rapids. It's a big circular raft that seats 12 along the perimeter and it travels along a man-made river. There's one steep incline that creates a large splash at the bottom. It also soaks the (un)lucky person(s) situated at the bottom of the raft where it impacts the water first. That lucky person was me. Thomas was on one side and grandpa and grandma were on the other side of me. We all got pretty wet. Not one dry spot on us. So bad that as we were leaving the park we had to buy a new pair of shorts for me and Thomas to change into.

After the rapids we hit a couple of other attractions. The Dinosaur ride was pretty cool. It was very dark, loud, and had lots of mechanical dinosaurs moving around. Definitely not a ride for the little guys (we learned the hard way).

After lunch we left the park and headed over to Disney-MGM Studios. We got there about 1/2 hour before the daily parade was scheduled to start so we grabbed a spot on the curb and waited. The parade was nice. They had a lot of characters drive by in cars and a bunch that danced in the street that came over to the kids sitting on the side and gave hi-fives.

The underlying theme to the day was that Thomas was 2" too short for most of the rides. Nicholas and Joseph (who are both the same height) got to go on a lot more stuff than TJ. We took Nicky and Joey on the Star Tours ride which was a flight simulator and we got to blow up the Death Star. After that we headed over to see the Playhouse Disney performance but were dissapointed to find out we missed the last showing. Instead we went next door and caught the last showing of The Little Mermaid. (Note to anyone planning on going to see that - you get wet sitting in the front row) We were told by Jennie's friend Vanessa (who had gone to Disney about 3 weeks ago) to make sure we went to see Fantasmic and to arrive early to make sure we got seats. So we headed over to the ampitheatre at 7 for the 8pm show. The performance was good but we missed about 1/2 of it. The stage is set in the middle of a large circular lake with seats spanning about 120 degrees. During the performance there are large walls of water sprayed straight up and moving images are shown on the walls of water with a movie projector. There are three such projections shown during the show - one for the middle section, and one on each of the sides. We happened to get the side with the broken projector. The basic premise of the show was that Mickey fell asleep and had a nightmare that all of the evil characters were trying to kill him. Then he fought back and defeated them. Most of the story was portrayed via the projected movies which we missed. It was difficult for the little kids to follow along because all they experienced was noise.

So far, that was the only dissapointed experience on the trip. The kids (and adults) have been having a blast and just watching the kids smile, laugh and get so excited is so worth it.

Family Vacation 2005, Day 3....

2005-10-02T23:48:00.000-04:00

Today I got my first taste of Disney World. Most of the crew, except for Thomas, little Jeff and myself, went to Sunday mass. Ellie cooked up some pancakes, sausage, and bacon for breakfast when the returned. Good stuff. After breakfast, Geralyn and Jeff took their kids over to a water park for the day. The rest of us hopped in the pool for a couple of hours. Grandma and grandpa even joined in on the fun! After a couple of hours in the pool we got dressed and headed over to Downtown Disney to the market place. Since I've never been there or did much research about the place, I had no idea that Disney World took up so much space. It's basically a city all by itself.

We walked around a little bit of Downtown Disney and hit a couple of the shops. The Lego store was pretty cool. Well, not really the store, but the huge sculptures made of legos that were on display, both inside and out. (Unfortunately since there's only dial-up service, pictures won't be uploaded online until we get back to NJ). Next up was a huge Disney store. There was room after room after room of different themed merchandise. After that we got some pretzels and ice cream. Thomas, myself, Jennie, Joseph and Veronica all got temporary tattoos. Then we headed back to the house for some more pool time.

Thomas got his first vacation boo-boo in the pool. Nicholas pushed him into the pool and while falling in TJ tried to catch himself on the edge, but instead wound up turning himself around, scraping his chest on the edge, hitting his chin and in turn, smashing his teeth together. Lots of blood. But a tough little guy. He was back in the pool within 5 minutes.

Tomorrow we're off to Animal Kingdom and MGM Studios....

Family Vacation 2005, Day 2....

2005-10-01T17:24:00.000-04:00

Today we arrived around 10:30 at the Florida terminal for the Amtrak Auto Train. We were out of there by 11:00. We got lucky that out of the 208 cars on the train, our 3 cars were in the first 15 taken off. It took about an hour to get to the rental agency office and get the keys and directions to the rental house. The house is located in a gated community in Kissimmee. It's a gorgeous 7 bedroom house. We unpacked the cars and Ellen and Geralyn went to the supermarket to pick up lunch and food for the week. After lunch, everyone went into the pool for a couple of hours. Everyone took a bath or shower after the pool and now we're relaxing waiting for Veronica (Jen's sister), Joseph (Veronica's son), Helen and Vinny (Jen's parents) to arrive. The Amtrak train is not pet friendly and since Helen wanted to the bring their dog with them, they were forced to drive down. They left Teaneck around 7 am yesterday and stopped overnight at a motel.

Enough for now. More to come later (or probably tomorrow)....

Family Vacation 2005, Day 1....

2005-10-01T17:12:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, a group of us boarded the Amtrak Auto Train in Virginia. It was me, Jennie, Nicholas, Thomas, Alexis, Ellen (Jennie's sister), Daniel (Ellen's son), Geralyn (Jennie's sister), Vinny and Jeff (Geralyn's boys). The train was scheduled to leave at 5:30, however the train was delayed coming into the station so we had a very long wait in the terminal. Oh well...

About 90% of the passengers on the train were snowbirds. A bunch of old retired folk heading down to Floriday for the winter. There were only a handful of folks with children and we all got thrown into the same car. Not a bad deal until it came time to sleep and some kid wouldn't stop crying and woke up a couple of the kids from our group a number of times.

Dinner was in the dining car, about 4 cars away from ours. The food was better than I expected. The women had roasted chicken and I had baked cod. All of the kids got the "Choo Choo Chewie" meal: chicken tenders, macaroni & cheese, and veggies. Vanilla ice cream all around for dessert (except for the women who had cheesecake).

The seating arrangements were nice and roomy, however, sleeping was a whole nother matter. There was a large padded footrest that folder up from the bottom of the front of the seats and actually rotate up above the height of the seat to form a nice barrier. It worked great to lay one of the kids sideways across the two seats. The footrest prevented them from rolling off. The train car wasn't full so we were able to spread out. We didn't want to leave Alexis all by herself so I took her for the night. I'm a pretty big guy, and trying to find a comfortable position to sleep must have been amusing to watch. The seats only reclined back a little, but definitely not enough for my liking. I'm not looking forward to the trip back home in a week.

The Real Reason Help Was Late For Hurricane Katrina Victims....

2005-09-27T09:34:00.000-04:00

Cablevision Customer Service....

2005-09-20T15:15:00.000-04:00

A little over a month ago, my wife and I had cable tv installed for my grandmother in Brooklyn. She would always complain about the reception she got (or didn't get) and after replacing all the connections to the roof-top antenna without getting better reception, she caved in to the pressure and agreed to have Cablevision come in and install cable tv. All she wanted was to get the channels that were readily available (although very grainy and snowy) via a set-top antenna, but to save roughly 30 bucks on the installation charge we opted to go with their promotional package they offered at the time. The catch was that I had to wait 1 full month before downgrading to the "broadcast basic" package otherwise I would have been charged the full amount for the installation. Today I called Cablevision to downgrade to the "broadcas package". (Note: From my previous phone call to Cablevision inquiring about service in the area, I learned that in Brooklyn the cable signal is scrambled and you need a box for each tv)

after being transferred around....
Customer Service Rep: "Thank you for calling Cablevision, this is XXXXXX. How may I help you?"
Me: "Hi. I want to downgrade my programming package."
Rep: "OK. Can I have the home telephone number including the area code?"
Me: "718-XXX-XXXX."
Rep: "OK. How can I help?"
Me: "I'd like to downgrade to 'Broadcast Basic'."
Rep: "OK. Do you want to keep the cable boxes or turn them in?"
Me: "Don't you need those to receive a picture?"
Rep: "Oh yeah."
Me: "Then I guess I'll keep the boxes."

Trip To The Bronx Zoo....

2005-09-19T10:24:00.000-04:00

So as not to bore those of you who read this and don't want to see pictures, I put all of the pictures from our trip to the zoo here. If you're interested, click the link.

Create Your Own Lego Set....

2005-09-16T15:24:00.000-04:00

For those of you who used to (or maybe still do) love to play with Legos as a kid, Lego has now come up with Lego Factory. With the free downloadable design tool, you can create a 3D model of anything you can think of using the available standard Lego bricks. Then you can buy the pieces necessary and have it shipped to your house for you to build. Some examples:

If only I had the time, patience, and imagination necessary to think of a model to create....

Why Drinking Too Much Alcohol In College Is Bad For You....

2005-09-15T12:26:00.000-04:00

Click here to see more.

Why Are People So Dumb?....

2005-09-09T07:09:00.000-04:00

It has gotten to the point now where the police and national guard can use physical force to remove someone from their home in New Orleans. 80% of the city is under water, and that water is infested with toxic chemicals, dead bodies, and disease. Yet there are still folks who are still in their houses and have not left. Some are too sick or elderly to trudge through the water to safer grounds, and others have stayed behind to help those too weak to make the journey. But what about those who are physically capable, but choose not to? Like Austin O'Dwyer.
(From cnn.com)

....there could be problems if they try to remove Austin O'Dwyer, who says he will not leave his home. He's been holed-up for 10 days without help, doesn't want any and isn't scared of lethal germs.
"Why do they think that I am more susceptible to disease than the soldiers that are coming to evict us?" he asked.
"If they come to my property and they attempt to evict me from my independent state ... there will be gunfire," O'Dwyer said. "There will be gunfire, so let them be warned."

I know being in a situation must take a toll mentally. I can't imagine the horrors or being in such a decrepit situation for 10 days straight, but if the cops are coming with a boat to take me to safety, I'm the first one hopping in the boat.

Weekend @ Lake George - At Ellie's House....

2005-09-07T09:46:00.000-04:00

Some various pictures from around the house and a couple from in the village of Lake George....