Happy New Year!

With only a few more hours to go til midnite, I just wanted to wish our friends the Happiest and Healthiest of New Years!

Christmas 2008

Well, Christmas was here and now gone. It was a nice time (and I actually didn't have to go to work). Deb's parents and sister arrived on Christmas Eve and we all had a good time. They were especially happy to see Peter once again, and his antics kept them laughing.
Santa made his visit and Peter was very happy. Santa delivered nearly everything that was on his list. Of course his list grew as every toy commercial aired on TV, but he understood at some point Santa and the elves stop building and start wrapping the presents to get ready to put on the sleigh. ;-) He got his Bionicles and Legos and Wall*e and Eve figures. The Lego was interesting. It was a Star Wars ship with 800+ pieces. Too much for Peter and it took deb only 7 hours to finish!! Mr. Tom and Miss Phillis (as Peter calls our calif. friends) also sent Peter an R/C Tarantula and he spent quite a while running it around the floor trying to scare everyone. My sis Law and Bob, and Pops also sent very nice gifts. Thank you all!

I find it a little sad that we go thru months of a buildup - and *poof* in 24 hours it's all over.

John Costelloe, RIP

I just heard that a friend from a few years back passed away. I worked with John Costelloe at my firehouse in Bklyn. for a few years before he retired to persue acting full time. He did a number of movies and TV, but the one where you'll definitely know him from the Soprano's. The sad part was due to the nature of the death, things were kept quiet and many of us didn't even know until the day he was buried.

RIP, John!

New House for work

I never seem to remember to post news as it happens. I transferred to a new firehouse over the Fall. Almost 19 years at the old place was long enuff and a move was overdo. My new place is on SI and while not technically closer to home, there is a $$ savings by not having to cross the bridge anymore. The new company is L-76 - good house and good guys.

St. Peter

Peters school is not celebrating Haloween so the kids can come in their costumes (he'll be Capt. Rex from the Clones Wars).
Instead they are celebrating All Saints Day and wanted the kids to come in dressed as their favorite saint. Natually we picked St. Peter.

It's amazing the costumes you can get online. There was a whole site with nothing but religious costumes. We also got him some keys as the keys to the kingdome of heaven. I also got him a little stick-on beard, but Deb made me draw the line when I wanted to get a wig. ;-)

So here's our little guy as St. Peter -

Kitchen Orchid

The Dendrobium in my kitchen window is finally doing it's thing. I forget what hybrid it is - the label wording has long since faded. But it's defintely one of the fall blooming hybrids. ;-)
(Click image for a closer look)

Another first.

A week or so ago, Pete mentioned that his front tooth was loose. Being an active kid we wanted to make sure that he didn't bump his face or worse. So when he said no, we knew that it was time for the baby teeth to start dropping. A few nights later it was really bothering him and when I offered to pull it out he said okay . So I knew it really hurt. But by the time I grabbed hold of it - he changed his mind. Later in the evening he came running that it fell out by itself. He was so relieved that it didn't bleed! So of course I had to grab my camera (poor kid).
Needless to say the tooth fairy was very generous when she came. He's already planning how to spend the cash when his next few fall out!

First Day of school

I just love that back to school Staples commercial. The announcer says "They're going baccck!" Followed by the father dancing up and down the aisle of staples to the Christmas song "Most Wonderful Time of the Year." hehehe


Summer is over and Peter started first grade last week. So as dutiful parents we just had to take a pic of him in first school uniform! ;-) And so far so good - he likes it.

Cape May '08

Picking up from the last post, we headed from Virginia Beach to Cape May. Looking at a map the plan was to run up the DelMarVa penninsula across the Cape May Ferry (pic) and to the beachfront hotel - The Marquis De Lafayette. That was the plan.

What actually happened was the trip was a smooth across the Cheasepeake Bay Bridge and up the DelMarVa. The trouble started when I had to exit to another local hi-way tp get to the Ferry. Since getting a GPS a while ago I have a real bad habit of sort of following the GPS and sort of following the signs along the road. Yep, you guessed it - I got lost... bigtime - for almost an hour. Finally I get to the entrance of the Ferry by 3:30pm (the time I thought I would be in Cape May) and was asked by the attendant "Do you have a reservation?" I've taken this ferry a few times and didn't know you could make a reservation never mind needing one. So I had to say "No." The attendant then tells me the next ferry for cars with no reservation is 7:00pm. OMG!! No way was I going to wait that long, so back on the hi-way we went. But first, so I wouldn't get lost again, I stopped at a gas station for directions. He gave me straight forward directions to the Del. Memorial Bridge, but once over I had two choices - get oin the Atlantic City expressway to the GS Parkway and then south. Or get on Rte. 47 and then Rte. 49 into Cape May. Looking at the map the two Routes looked shorter so that was the way I went. Wrong!! The routes were only one lane in each direction and takes you through a number of towns where the speed limits went down to 25 mph. Long story short it took nearly 4 hours to get from the Ferry on the Delaware side to Cape May going the way I went. For those keeping track it was also nearly an hour longer than if I had decided to just drive home. So we got into Cape May at 7:30pm - coincedently the same time it would have been if we waited for the Ferry! SHEESH!!

But anyway we were here, and it was very nice. We checked into our suite and made a beeline for something to eat. Henry's on the Beach is a place on the promenade thats pretty casual, but the food is good. The promendae also has an arcade. Peter discovered skeeball two years ago and loves it. So after dinner we spent an hour or so there.
The next morning after our complimentry hotel breakfast (very good and getting better each year) we stopped by the craft show. Each year they have a Craft Show on the Beach. They have the usual fare except in one booth I saw this guy had little painted Victorian houses. Even tho we don't live in a Victorian, but a Foursquare, we have a number of these from our visits to the Cape. But as I looked closer he wasn't selling any. What this guy was doing is taking orders. He would be painting your house to make it look like one of these wooden houses - Cool! The name of the crafter is Dee's Craft Houses. I think I'll be ordering one.

Soon after the storm clouds moved in, lightning was seen and there was an automated announcement warning bathers off the beach. So much for our day on the beach. The T-storm came with hail and all. But by afternoon the rain was gone, replaced by wind. The wind also made being on the beach very hard. we lasted only about 30 minutes as Peter was adamant about going into the ocean. I was a nervouse wreck about the rip tides but he never got that deep intothe water. The surf was so rough that he stayed running around near the edge. eventually we talked him into going to the hotel's pool, which was nicely heated and not crowded. For our last night, a woman at the pool recommended Cabanas restaurant to Debby. So that where we went. It was a bar and grill, but they had a decent menu and good food.

VB Nats and Cape May

Hello all. As many of you may remember I starting up with the scale modeling again to pass the time after Peter was born. As you may know I'm also a joiner. I either get into things 100% or 0%. So being into modeling 100% I joined a national modeling organization. This past half week their National Convention was held in Virginia Beach, VA. We had a nice drive down the DelMarVa and over the Cheasepeake Bay Bridge and into Virginia Beach. We stayed in the Double Tree Hotel which was next door to the convention hall. Only a slight inconvenience was that the hotel was about 8 looong blocks from the beach ... just out of walking distance. But driving the 2 minutes down there was like driving into a cross between Greenwich Village and the old (pre-casino) Atlantic City.

There was street musicians, and lots of people walking up and down the boardwalk as well as Atlantic Ave. Very interesting and very entertaining. There was also a lot of delicious places to eat including the Abbey Road Pub, and Fishbones restaurant. It was at Fishbones where we met up The Schorry's, our friends from Cincinnati. Rob Schorry, a fellow space modeler, (space geeks to Betty) ;-) from the Yahoo Group and we met up a number of times for the seminars. The Group even had it's own seminar to discuss what we've been doing and also as a reunion. I also had the pleasure of meeting Mat Irvine. Mat was the special effects guy for the BBC for such shows at Dr. Who, Red Dwarf and a number of others. He also worked on a little biut of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Anyway, after dinner, we ended the night with a nice walk along the promenade. Of course Peter gets tired and who has to carry him the rest of the way back to the car?? ;-)

We also hit a couple of attraction in between the modeling seminars and trips to the contest room and vendor room.

BTW, to see more about the convention check out the IPMS/USA site. I was also on the photography cmte., so some of the images you see were taken by me. I told you I was a joiner! ;-)

But anyway we made it to Motor World, which was a go cart racing track. We thought there was only 2 tracks that Peter was tall enough to drive on (it all goes by height) but in fact there were a number more. We started off on the kiddie ride, which was quite slow and he finished the ride looking as bored as can be. But then progressed to a ride that went quite fast in a figure 8 shape. Peter and another kid must have raced each other 5 or 6 times.

Here he is in the pits hooping the attendant will start his car before the other kid come around the track.

The other nearby attractiuon was the Virginia Beach Aquarium. Even though parts of it were under cdonstruction, the place is extensive. Besides the local aquarium fare, they also had a swamp that you could walk thru (on a boardwalk) to see the various plants, birds and oh yes alligators. A very cool time was had by all.

All too soon the Convention was over and it was time to pack up. Normally what we do is take a couple of extra days in the convention city to make it a little vacation for all of us. But originally I had forgotten to add these days in, and when I went to add then later it was too late; the hotel was all booked up. So we decided that since Cape May was on the way home we would spend a few days there. Thius is where the nightmare started and thats another post.

Myrtle Beach '08

We just returned from an extended weekend to Myrtle Beach, SC. It was a very nice time with good (sunny & warm) weather the whole time except for a few thunderstorms on the afternoon of the second to last day. We stayed at the Sea Mist which is a complex of about 5 or 6 hotels all under one banner. It was an okay place. The one we stayed in was backed right up to the beach, so it was less than a minute walk to the surf. The first day Peter saw a number of kids with boogie boards so of course he wanted one as well. As with every beach resort area there was no lack of places to pick up beach gadgets. So it was no time at all that Peter was surfing (well okay not really).

The place also had a small workout our area. Being that even tho I like the beach, I'm the type to burn to a crisp in less than a 20 minutes w/o sunscreen, I made use of that place, while Deb and Peter hit the waves every day.The complex also had a number of pools, but they seemed oddly way over chlorinated. Maybe Deb and I are too suspicious, so we went to the pool only once.

But there was more than enough to do. Another place we were alerted to was Broadway on the Beach. This place was phenomenal! This is a complete entertainment center filled with places to eat, hundreds of shops, and other features like an IMAX theater, a 16 screen regular movie theater, A Ripley's Aquarium, a medieval mini golf course, and a place called Magic Quest. But thinking Magic Quest was for older kids, we didn't take a look at the place.

But we did go to the aquarium and Peter was in sting ray heaven. Who knows why, but he's fascinated by them. They were part of the sculpture out front as well as numerous tanks of them inside including a "touch pool." We spent quite a while there! ;-) There was also a special exhibits on pirates. So we have a pic of Deb and Peter getting kidnapped by pirates!

A few of the restaurants were really big names including The Hard

Rock Cafe, Jimmy Buffets Margaritaville, Planet Hollywood, Joe's Crab Shack and Senior Frogs.There was so many restaurants that we didn't get to them all. Planet Hollywood was one of them that we didn't get to.

The Hard Rock was cool with an Egyptian pyramid scheme. It was really crowded so we (okay I) didn't really get to look at all the rock memorabilia. But there was a few cool things I managed to see. Oh yeah, the food was great too! ;-) Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville was set up, well, as in his songs - a Caribbean hideaway; with a number of boats on the floor, and a sea plane and a hurricane on the ceiling. The hurricane was the major prop that "stormed" up every 45 minutes or creating a hurricane party atmosphere in the restaurant. At the peak of the storm a huge bottle of tequila comes out of the storm to fill up a blender for making margaritas! PAR-TAY!!! ;-).

The biggest surprise for me was stumbling across the KISS Coffeehouse! Yep, the Gods of Thunder are now also in the coffee business. It's a regular coffee place with the Kiss theme, including some of the costumes the guys wore for different tours and a few of the other Kiss merchandise on display all the while while listening to Kiss songs on the PA and watching prolly every video ever made on two big flat panel screens. While coffee and cake is not just good enuff there was also a section of the store where you could buy souvenirs Needless to say as I'm a big Kiss fan from the 70's, I stopped by nearly every day we were there for my "Rockuccino."

As quickly as it started the vacation was over and we headed for the airport. Only to count down to time til our trip to the IPMS/USA Nats in Virginia Beach. ;-)

Peter and I outside Margaritaville. You can almost see the lighthouse. ;-)

The Margaritaville Hurricane

The Kiss Ccoffeehouse

Peter digging Gene's big boot

Inside the store

Peter Graduates

It was a nice sunny day a few weeks ago (I know, I know I should be a little more timely with these) that Peter completed his studies and graduated from kindergarten. The two kindergarten classes had a few songs to sing and did little skits for the audience. Deb's dad Vic, was able to join us, and it was a very nice day. we're all proud of Peter.





Peter with his teacher, Mrs. Pane.

Welcome to our home

In an effort to simplify things, I've created this new blog to separate my hobby stuff from the family life stuff. You're still more than welcome to check out http://www.kevtk.blogspot.com/ to see what I do in my spare time.