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As promised, some photos from this weekend.
My two brothers. John on the left and Tom on the right.
My friend Rob…
…and Jeff.
From left: John, Jeff, and Rob.
Lots of good food and beer to be seen here.
The centerpiece of my backyard. Found at Wantagh park, many, many years ago.
Look, a Blue Angel!
Keeping the sun at bay.
This was a pretty great weekend to be outside. On Saturday, we went to see the Blue Angels fly at Jones Beach. The whole family went including my Mom. We got there relatively early, 9:30am, but way late to get into Field 6. Field 6 is the ideal parking lot since it sits right on the beach. You have to get in before 8am to get a spot there. Still, we had good position in Field 4 and the walk to the boardwalk as about 10 minutes.
The boardwalk was a three-ring circus. All kinds of vendors were there, which was just silly. Geico, for instance, were giving away little Gecko toys to the kids and temporary tattoos. It’s all about getting in their minds young, I suppose.
There were lots of food vendors, too. You could get a nice sausage and pepper sandwich (arguably my favoriote), fried zeppoli, and the standard hot dog and burger fare.
The Blue Angel show was nothing short of fantastic. We go almost every year so it’s something the kids look forward to. There was a big storm cloud at one point and a 4–plane configuration raced skyward in a gigantic graceful arc that sent them into the clouds and then back out again. It was surreal.
On Sunday, I hosted a BBQ for a bunch of friends and my immediate family. John and Jeannie Szinger came down from Mt. Vernon to hang with us and we had a great time. We were supposed to go to them on Sunday, but we asked to reverse the plans since our Honda Pilot was in the shop. We can’t fit all 6 of us into the Honda Civic! Anyway, we were all in the pool (which was heated to a sizzling 87), drinking good Belgium beer, and eating marinated skirt stake on the barbie. Ahhhh…
On Monday, I went out on my brother’s new Yamaha jet boat. On the boat were my oldest son, Giovanni, and my two brothers. Tom was piloting. The water was too choppy for be enjoyable so we turned back and rode up his canal, looking at all of the houses. It’s pretty interesting to see what each family chooses to do with their waterfront property. Some properties are average looking and some look like some paradise out of a novel.
Yeh, glad summer is finally here.
I’ll post some pictures of this weekend to Flickr soon.
So, I took off work today to move a bunch of boxes off my new back porch and some more boxes out of my garage.
We sorted through and parted with many items we will never use again. We donated, we chopped up, and we drove loads of crap to the dumps. I cut worn boxes down and moved lots of stuff into big plastic bins which are much sturdier. I stacked boxes. Lifted boxes downstairs, making dozens and dozens of trips up and down. Before I wrote this, I also went to two classes of Tae Kwon Do. That pretty much squeezed the last bit of moisture out of my body. My muscles are sore. My back is sore. My feet are sore. But I have the glowing feeling of a job well done and all of the activity has left me with a clear mind and peaceful spirit. I’m doing all of this again next week when I open the pool and setup the “fun” part of my backyard. I expect that day to be just as active as this one. The only difference is I’ll get to jump into a pool once it’s all over!
Time to head to bed now and back to my sedentary day job.
UPDATE: 4/7/2008: For some reason, I had insomnia and could not sleep. Go figure!
PS: Oh, and here’s a stupid video just because :
Darwinism at it’s best…