Growing up!

September 30, 2008 · Filed Under Family · 1 Comment 

They grow up so fast…

Growing up!

Fall-O-Ween Festival

September 28, 2008 · Filed Under Family · Comment 

The first, of what I’m sure will be many Halloween festivals over the coming weeks. This one was at Coney Island, I didn’t even know they did Halloween!

All the kidsGirls

Hot Air Ballooning

September 28, 2008 · Filed Under Family · Comment 

Our balloon, on landing

For a birthday gift, Julie wanted to hot air balloon. We went last Sunday with Gentle Breeze, and it was a pretty good time. Much different than expected, we were kind of expecting to show up, hop in a balloon cruise, around and go home. But not so fast!

It’s quite a bit of work! First we helped blow up the balloon, and that got interesting when 75% of the way through the wind picked up and started dragging us around. We’re tied off to a Suburban, but the knot didn’t hold; just the metal eyelet at the end did. So there’s 6-7 of us hanging onto this balloon doing everything we can to keep it on the ground, hoping this rope doesn’t come free. But we got in (quickly) and got off the ground w/o further incident.

View from the skyThe flight itself was pretty nice, 4 of us passengers plus the pilot. One drawback to being tall, was the searing heat of the gas heaters. I’ve never stuck my head inside a propane grill, but now I’m pretty sure I know how it would feel. Tight quarters as well.

As for direction, it turns out you just go with the wind and then the “chase car” picked us up after an hour or so in the air. We had champagne once we landed, and headed home.

Happy Birthday!

September 28, 2008 · Filed Under Family · Comment 

jb1Julie just had a birthday, and that morning I leave for work and there’s a huge gift bag sitting on the front porch! Turns out, it was a couch cushion from Uncle Woody’s in Clifton (and beer), given to us by Julie’s brother and his wife. Julie and her were frequent Woody’s visitors in their senior year of college, and Woody’s is no more; Julie thought it was pretty cool.

Back to Western Civilization!

September 17, 2008 · Filed Under House · Comment 

Finally, electricity is back on as of this past afternoon! Talk about absurd, 3 days w/o electricity! Who had the bright idea to run electric lines on poles, instead of underground with the phone lines?

And because I just saw one, does anyone understand these Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gate commercials? They make no sense and they’re not even funny?!

Bengals & Birthdays

September 8, 2008 · Filed Under Family · Comment 

On the field!Our neighbor had her daughter’s 30th bday party at PBS yesterday, so we got to watch the Ravens dismantle the Bengals! Fun! They were in Baltimore, so it wasn’t live but still a ton of fun. We were in the Player’s Lounge, and went down down to the field during halftime and practiced our FG kicking.

Pictures on the way, all I had was my phone which is really bad with large areas; we need to get a real digital camera that fits in a pocket.

As for the Bengals, I think they’re in trouble. That offensive line can’t possibly be that bad all year can they? The defense played fairly decent, considering they were on the field for something like 25 minutes of the second half.