Mango Margaritas on the West side of Oahu

West Virginia Adventure

We went rafting in West Virginia 2 weekends ago. The trip was awesome. A whole bunch of Players from RPI got together and decided to do something fun. At some point it was decided that white water rafting was the right activity for this. Then a little later it was decided that West Virginia was a place most of us haven'[t been and was "close" to everyone.

We all arrived Friday evening hung out had a fire and caught up for a few hours. Saturday we went hiking, which ended up being a swimming adventure in the river. Then Sunday was the big event. I had been rafting a number of times before and this was on par with my other trips. We had a really great time! It is amazing how well the guides can read a group. Of the 3 boast we filled up we were the most energetic group. Our guide, Charlie, picked up on that made sure we had a blast all day. He started by tricking us into flipping the raft after all of 2 minutes on the river. I have a sneaking suspicion that in every rapid he directed us towards an obstacle trying to get one or 2 of us into the water. That didn't end up happening, but he sure did try. It was a great day.

The other rafts were fairly quiet. We tried pulling a few of them into the water in the flat spots, but they were not having any of that. One of the rafts got a pretty good education on the local area/history from their guide, which they enjoyed.

Once we got back to camp the people from our boat decided the water fun wasn't over so we went swimming in the lake a few miles away. The rest of the group hung out at camp.

I bet you are wondering what this picture has to do with rafting.... well one of the cars stopped for gas on the way down and ended up across the street form a strip club with this sign in front. They couldn't resist the urge to take the picture and I couldn't resist the urge to post it. The person who created this sign is either a fool or an advertising genius. I will let you decide.

Gas station show down

So let me start off by apologizing to the lady who I apparently cut off getting gas yesterday. I am afraid we are going to have to agree to disagree on the specifics of who was wrong, but I am sure we both seemed like a$$holes to each other.

The problem centers around a poor design to the gas stations along the mass pike. M, I and the Fishers spent a wonderful weekend in Boston doing touristy things. On the way home we stopped in Sturbridge to get gas before entering the never ending state of Connecticut. After discharging some personal liquids and restocking for the next 4 hours, we stopped to get some gas and encountered the design flaw. In order to get the maximum number of pumps into the already existing space the designers decided to create a long 2 pump deep gas station that runs parallel to the highway. It sort of looks like a starting gate at a horse race. At the end (entrance) they have a sign pointing all travelers to the left. Of course the problem is each pump has 2 sides and most cars (at least most American cars) have the gas tank opening on the left. So there are huge lines for all of the lefties waiting for gas.

Now the design of the station clearly displays to me that the designers intended people to enter at one end (the Front) and exit at the rear. It doesn't seem as if the designers thought about the gas opening bias and they didn't make the hoses long enough to reach around to the other side of the car. So there are vacancies (or at least no lines) at all of the righty pumps. Impatient lefties see no line for the other pump and start doing crazy things like backing into spaces and going against the flow of traffic. This just messes everything up. All of a sudden you have people facing each other at the pumps and backing up into traffic (some of which is trying to bypass fuel altogether) and general confiscate as to who was where and when.

So I travel past all of these middle pumps and spy an opening at the end I pull up and it turns out that the first pump is out of order. The second pump has someone at it but she is clearly almost done. And I happen to be right behind her. After waiting a few minutes I notice someone sitting out to my left on the phone, and she seems to be waiting for something (her location makes it a bit hard to tell if she is waiting for gas or just for one to exit the plaza so she could lead/follow. Besides her gas opening is on the wrong side to be using this pump (at least facing the right direction).

The person in front of me finishes and I start to pull up and at the same time the other lady starts to pull around as well. It is now obvious that she was waiting to get gas and was trying to use "my" pump in the reverse direction. Now I am pretty much at the pump before she tries to move and there is a car behind me so it would be hard to back up as well.

So she gets out as has some words with me. They were fairly civil (she didn't ever take her phone away from her ear), and she ended by calling me rude. I may admit to secretly knowing that she was waiting for gas and that she was there before me, but I can't feel too bad about it because I still believe this could all be avoided by simply putting in longer gas hoses.

I experience this same problem in NJ on the turnpike, except that their gas hoses are long enough to reach both sides of the car. They have to put signs up letting people know it is okay to use both sides. I'm not quite sure why Sunocco can get longer hoses and Exxon can't. Especially since they are making so much money these days. It couldn't cost more than a few hundred thousand dollars to put longer hoses in. And we would all be much better off for it.

No Power since tuesday

So I think I mentioned Tuesday that I didn't have any power.... Well here it is Saturday and we still don't have power.

Now I know the human race survived a pretty long time with out electricity, so it isn't like a few days with out electricity is going to kill me or anything. But it is interesting how much we rely on electricity.

fortunatly T&C have been great friends this week (not to imply there are weeks when they aren't) and they have fed us and hung out with us, keeping us entertained..... It is great to have friends close by to help out.

Of course we have been sleeping here which hasn't been too bad but man do I miss fans an A/C!

Well the PECO truck is doing another lap around the neighborhood. Hopefully we will have power in and hour or so.... It will be interesting to have electric lights lighting up the living room again.

After Dinner Entertainment

And people say TV causes volence... See what happens when after dinner you have no TV to watch.....

Great Grandmother's House

This is my great grandmother's house! It has been vacant for a number of years now, but it is still in surprisingly good condition for being over 100 years old!

Blackout

Well we had a large storm tonight and lost power. It is amazing how much we rely on electricity for entertainment... And also amazing how less important power right now is.

A great example is this message.... Since I am blogging from my Treo I can compose and send this even in a blackout. Pretty cool!

So I have attached a picture to see if blogger will include it. If not it is the painted buffalo (Bison) which I sent a few seconds ago via picture mail.

The bison are pretty cool. They follow the same idea of the cows in NY. Artists psint them in all sorts of different ways they get displayed in the city amd then they are bid on to raise money for charity. A pretty cool idea and it is fun to look at these different bison in a number of different locations throughout the city.

Well it is late (I think M and I are still on mountain time). Besides since there is no power there is nothing else to do :-)

Great Falls. MT

I should be posting pictures soon. But Mary and I spent the weekend in Great Falls, MT. This is where my mom grew up and where I spent many of my summers as a young child. We had a great time, but it was obviously too short.

The reason for the trip was my grandfathers 80th birthday party. My mom, dad, M and I surprised hime by comming out. It was the the first time we had been out to MT in about 18 years.

It was great to get reaquainted with a few of my cousins, and extended family. This was also the first time M had been to MT and was the first time she had met most of my family. I am sure she was surprised.

On Sunday we just toured aorund. We went to Great Falls giant spring, and the Lewis & Clark interperative center. Both places were very interesting. It is hard to believe that the Great Falls area was "discovered" only 200 years ago!

On our way to dinner we stopped by my great grandmothers old house. It is the place my grandfather was raised and where my family had farmed for years when the first arrived to Great Falls.

The place has been abandoned for a few years now, but it was great to see it. Especially since I'm not sure when we will get out there again.

For dinner we went to one of my mom's cousins place. We ate ribs, corn, and water mellon on the banks of the Sun River. After dinner we went up to the Pishkun (I probably spelled that wrong) Buffalo Jump. Aside from the historical interest it has an amazing view of the misouri and Sun river valleys. We walked around the clifs and ended up catching the sun set. It was an amazing evening.

I'm glad M and I could make it out. It was great to re meet my family, and it was great to introduce them to M.

Finishing up the House.... Sort of.

So I got the front 2 windows in. Not too bad it only took me 1 day per window. Now I could have done it faster, but I have found that working slow and methodical is much better, I tend to loose focus and make mistakes if I start working too fast. Now don't get me wrong, I still have lots of interior work to finish, but I spent my "vacation" finishing the porch, and finishing up the last little bit of siding that needed to be completed. So think are moving along. Mary also repainted the kitchen cabinets, I know paint and cabinets?. But this is what the previous owner left us with and a fresh coat of paint on poorly painted cabinets is better than poorly painted cabinets...... We may do the bathroom too... it could really use a coat of paint and there isn't much to paint. We will see if it gets accomplished soon.

4th of July weekend

Well we have had a whirl wind 4th of July weekend. It started with very quick drive from Philly to Boston.... Door to door was on 5 hours, but that included a 30 minute snack and gas stop. So 4.5 hours of driving for what normally take 5.5 to 6 hours. We were very lucky not to hit any 4th of July traffic.

We spent the night in Needham and got up early the next morning to pick up Paul and Megan and drop the ladies off at Rachel's pre wedding brunch.

The boys had to fend for themselves. It was great to have a few hours to our selves..... This makes 2 weekend in as many months, which is more than we have seen each each other in 10 years.

After picking up the ladies we went our separate ways to get ready for the wedding.

Of course the wedding its self was amazing. Rachel was beautiful and Sudir glowing. It was a perfect day for an outdoor wedding! The reception afterward was great and we all had a great time.

Mary and I headed back to the hotel for the evening and got up early for wedding #2. Slightly different setting. Kevin's wedding was more of a celebration since they were actually married in March. It was great to see some old friends from RPI and meet some of Kevin & Amanda's work friends.

After another wonderful day Mary & I headed back to the Parents house where we have been since. Obviously based on the pictures you can see we caught the Needham fire works... Which was a great show!

We head home early tomorrow morning. Let's hope the traffic god are with us.

Mary & Mom at the 4th of July Fireworks

Mom and Mary @ Needham 4th of July Fireworks

Ohhhh... ahhhhhh... ooooooo

The Fireworks were actuallky pretty good despite my treo's lack of a real camera......

Party!

Well it is unofficially summer! And we have spent the last few weekends at some sort of party or another.

2 weekends ago I was at Paul's Bachelor party. We had an awesome time. It was a great excuse to catch up with old friends. I got to see Neeraj for the first time since my wedding. And a few high school friends I haven't seen since I moved from Boston.

It is great to go "home" and catch up with old friends. The great thisng about this summer is since 2 of my HS friends are getting married we will get a chance to see each othe quite frequently.

Technology is great. I know I wouldn't write lettes (my spelling is bad, and my hand writing is worse!) it amazes me we have all been able to keep in relativly close contact over the past 10 years even though we have been spread out across the country (and at times across the world).

We also had a mango margarita party with some of our philly friends. And finally we just finished up a 3 person family graduation party on Long Island. So the summer parties have begun!

Siding Project

So my wife and I decided to do the siding and windows on our house. The project went along very smoothly.

we started in october and I finsished the major work before thanksgiving. I finished almost all of the siding before christmas. Fortunatly for me PA had a warm early winter.

I had to stop after christmas because it just got too cold to work with the vinyl.

Of course just as it got warm I was working on the sound of music and didn't have time to finish the project. But I made some real good progress this weekend. I only haave one small area of siding to finish then some incedental fnish work. Fortunalty I will have the 4th of july week off so what I don't get finished by then should get completed that week.

Let's hope I get the project done before my "vacation".

You have new Picture Mail!

Finished another phase of the siding

BC Graduation

8:30 AM From the picture I posted yesterday you can see that my little sister graduated from Boston College. She has done an amazing job finishing her degree in 6 years while working a full time job.

I can't say this would be the easiest or most fun way to finish school. But I am amazed she was able to do. I know I wouldn't have been able to keep a job and attend classes as well.

So there has been a lot of press about the graduation speaker (Condolezza Rice). I will have to say she gave one of the best graduation speeches I have listened to. She spoke well, which could be expected, and she did a very good job of challenging the graduates as "educated people".

The controversy came, it seems, mostly from the faculty who were upset with BC bestowing an honorary degree on her. Apparently a few faculty members were so opposed to the degree they resigned from their tenured positions. I can respect those faculty members. Obviously their feelings were strong enough that they felt they couldn't support BC any longer.

11:45 PM I don't agree with the faculty who "protested" by making and handing out signs. Then attending the ceremony and standing with their backs toward the stage. If they felt so strongly about this topic I believe they should have chose not to attend rather than disrupt the ceremony. Now of course they weren't loud or anything, it just didn't seems like the right venue for a political statement. The morning is supposed to be about the students, not politics.

I suppose the only good thing about them attending is perhaps they listened to the speech and learned something. Condoleza gave a very good graduation speech. One of the best I have heard.

You have new Picture Mail!

My little sister is graduating from BC today!

The Show Must Go On?

Well we lost power last night and learned a few things. First the auditorium that we put our show up in has no emergency lighting, which seem like a bad idea and is probably illegal. Second, not matter how many updates you give to people, and not matter how little control you have over events, as the person in charge people assume you know what is going on and people want you to fix it (fortunately I'm not in charge). And Finally, of course the old theater line "The Show Must Go On!" well it doesn't apply when the owners of the building deem it unsafe and kick you out. But rather than put on a show, or go home and sulk, or watch Survivor, a few of us decided a good alternative would be to go out and have a few adult beverages and lament over our troubles. It is always therapeutic to get together as a group and forget about your troubles. Well it is a lovely day today so far. Lets hope is stays that way and lets hope we have power for tonight's performance. We are on our way to setting an attendance record for the show and we don't' want to blow it.

Update Virginia

Well I just got to VA. I have a presentation tomorrow. After the meeting I have to head back to Philly for rehearsal. We have to practice pushing the house around for a few hours. It would be a bad thing to forget what we are doing Thursday night.

So I have posted a few pictures of the set we built, but perhaps I should describe it.

We ended up building an 8'x18' 2 story rolling set. The front half acts as the Von Trapp living room and the rear acts as maria's bed room. The living room looks rather impressive when it is all together. In addition to the 2 story piece we have dubbed "The Monster" (unoriginal I know) there is a rotating 8'x12' platform that acts as the living room and the outside terrace.

Finally there are 2 door platforms that bring the set from one side of the 40' stage to the other. What amazes me is we can get the whole living room set up in under 2 minutes and there is no mechanical assistance being used.

I think I would be blown away if I had shown up at this show without knowing the set design. In college I had a reputation for building large complex stationary sets this is definitely the largest mobile set I have worked on.

Sound of Music Picture

Pictures from tonights performance. Best seats in a theater.