The party's over...

I can’t believe how quickly this past month has flown by. A month seems like such a long time beforehand. It’s really not. I’m glad I had this time to try to get myself mentally and physically acclimated for the next two years. I have been able to spend a lot of time with Farrell, Nuala, Ceci, and our families, and I’m really grateful for that. I was able to get to the gym 22 out of the last 29 days, so I’m pretty happy about that too. I had really fallen off the gym “wagon” for a while, so it feels good to have accomplished that.

So, tomorrow’s the big day. Orientation takes place for the next four days. I’m very excited, but I’m a little nervous too. In fact, I already have my clothes laid out for tomorrow morning like my mother and I did when I was a kid. I wish you were here to pack my lunch mom! (I used to get little notes from my mother written on my lunch bag! I just got a little teary-eyed thinking about that.)

I really don’t know what to expect for the next two years. I guess tomorrow will shed some light on it. And now begins the real purpose for this blog. I’m not sure how many actual photos will be involved in documenting the next couple of years, but I’ve gotten really into using the digital camera again, so I’m sure I’ll find things to include on the blog from time to time.

Farrell has been such a huge motivation to me this last year, as he has been undertaking law school in addition to working a full time job. I hope to be able to make him as proud over the coming months as he has made me.

Another day with Grandma

We spent the day down at Jones Beach again today. It was just the two of us this time, which was actually a really sentimental experience for me. She and I went to beach together millions of times while I was growing up. It was a routine...she always packed an amazing lunch, and today was no exception. I had a number of really vivid flashbacks and memories throughout the day. We also took a really long walk along the beach, just like we used to. The weather was perfect, too. 80 degrees and cloudless, with a light breeze off the ocean. Really nice. I am a very lucky man to have had her as a grandmother and as a friend all these years.

Siouxsie...

...looking better than ever at an HMV signing this week for her new DVD release. Ceci has decided that she must have those earrings.

Some good news!

This should help save me a few pennies.....

For my mother...

My mother was complaining that the picture I chose of Olivia in my last post misrepresented her, as she is not that young and beautiful anymore. Okay. I'm only too happy to oblige and provide a more recent picture.

Is this one better, Mom? Taken just a few months ago at the Australian Open, and looking as good as ever if you ask me. Murderer. (And by the way, the other picture is probably only a couple of years old at the most.)

Just a thought

Do you think Olivia Newton-John killed her boyfriend? Wouldn't a little more love have made it right?

What a life...

An eleven mile walk

I had to head down to Chambers Street this afternoon to drop something off for Farrell at New York Law School. It was such a nice night, I decided to walk home along the west side. It took about three hours to make it from Chambers up to 125th. I got some nice pictures, which I figured I'd post here. As always, clicking on a picture takes you to a higher resolution version.

The Week in Review

I can't believe it's been a week already since my last post. Farrell's vacation went really quickly. We spent most of it doing family related stuff. We figured that with Farrell starting school today, and me starting next week, who knows when we'll have the time to make these kinds of visits over the next couple of months.

I went out to Garden City last Thursday. My mother and I drove down to the beach, where we met up with my sister Kim and her friends Amy and Kelly. Introducing Kim and Mom:


Kim is extremely shy and really resists posing for pictures:


Kim all cleaned up and ready for her date with Mr. Rooty Tooty Fresh ’N Fruity. (Those who need to will be able to understand this reference to a classic IHOP pancake breakfast dish.)


We had the unfortunate experience of being forcibly exposed to an amorous couple with little in the way of modesty or shame. At one point I thought he was trying to administer CPR.



That's Kim's friend Amy on the top left pointing to the inseparable lovers, both of whom were so white, it looked like this was their first day outside of their bubbles:


We finished the week with a trip up to Milford, CT to spend an afternoon with Farrell's grandmother, Virginia. She is Farrell's mother's mom, and she is really a trip. She had us laughing pretty hard the entire time. She's 87 years old, and sharp as a tack, with an equally sharp sense of humor:



Overall a really nice week. Only one week of freedom left!

A Day at the Beach

With Farrell on vacation this week and Ceci off from work today, we all decided to head out to Long Island and spend a day at the beach with my grandmother. It was not the greatest day in terms of weather, but we had a really nice time. I got attacked by two sea gulls. (No joke. One flew over my head and it me with its legs while his accomplice hit me from the side and swiped a hot dog right out of my hand. Vicious animals!)

We had a chance to stop by my parents for a quick visit after the beach, which was nice. They were headed to a wake, so it was just a quick visit, but I've never seen my mother look better! She should befriend as many dying people as she can.

We ended the day with a nice dinner at a steak place that is a favorite of my grandmother's. I love her to death, and we all had a lot of laughs, but she managed to wear all three of us completely out. Overall, a really nice day. I got a few nice pictures.









We watched this seagull dig into this poor unsuspecting beachgoer's bag. It was incredibly tenacious.


And as far as the following shots are concerned, all I can say is, you just have to know her. We were so proud.

A walk to New Jersey and back

Farrell and I took a walk up to and over the George Washington Bridge today. It probably wasn't the smartest idea we've ever had. It was really too hot. We've done it before, but never in weather like this. It was 99 degrees at 3:00 when we left the house. It only got hottter from there. There's a little park nestled into the Palisades on the New Jersey side of the bridge that affords a great view of Manhattan. It was probably about 11 or 12 miles round trip.

A vew from the Manhattan side. This is the lighthouse made famous in the children's book "The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge".


A view from the New Jersey side. It was so hazy and humid that it came out kind of blurry.

Hazy, Hot and Humid!

I had to go down to Chelsea today for yoga, and ended up walking home. I don't know what possessed me to do this on such an Africa-hot day, but it was actually kind of fun, and I was able to take a few cool pictures. It was only about ten or eleven miles, but I was soaked straight through by the time I got home.


I got a couple of nice shots of the Intrepid and the Concorde.





I have always had a fascination with the abandoned and derelict old piers that are scattered along the west side. These two in the 60s I think are particularly cool. You can almost hear echoes of the past when you are looking at these things up close. They are eery and beautiful to me at the same time.






It was extremely hazy and humid today; so hazy in fact that you can just barely make out the traces of the George Washington Bridge in the background if you look closely enough.



I have no words for this, but just knew I had to take a picture of it.



And for those of you who haven't seen where we live before, (and for my family, since they come visit so rarely, they may forgotten what the place looks like), here is a picture of our home. We are the third floor of the brownstone with the orange-ish door.

Chemistry recap & Cindy Sheehan

My week of Chemistry is done, and it was actually a lot of fun. We did a month's worth of work in 4 nights, so it was a little whirlwhind, but overall was not too bad. I'm really glad I opted to do this, especially when I heard that what we spent 12 hours on this week will be covered in 45 minutes during the first class of Anatomy & Physiology. I can't wait to see that trick.

The other kids seem to play nicely with others. I made a few friends, which should make my mother happy. And now that's it for school until after Labor Day. Farrell is on vacation from work next week, so I think we'll try to take a few day trips out of the city. New York City in August is just gross. And this summer has been particularly brutal. The entire city smells like shit. The south end of the 1,2,3 line at Penn Station literally smells like raw sewage, and has for about a month. And there has been no appreciable rain, so the stench just keeps building on itself and rebaking every day. Getting away from here, even if just for a few hours, would be a very good thing.

So, I'm not typically one to get too involved in political matters, because I always feel that I don't know enough, am not smart enough, and not informed enough to be eligible to have thoughts and feelings on the subject. However, I am really moved by Cindy Sheehan's lack of fear. She is not afraid of Bush. She is not afraid of Hannity and O'Reilly. She is just not afraid at all to say what's on her mind, and this is so refreshing in our current political climate. I promise this site won't become a political forum. (I'll leave that to the capable hands of Farrell. Hillary 2008!, right Farrell?) But I just had an opportunity to overhear an interview with her tonight, and I was really impressed with her confidence, articulate nature, and her bravery. And to think...all he had to do was come out and say hello to her. If he had made that simple (and humble) gesture, none of this ever would have happened. What a cowardly act on his part, but certainly not out of character.

ions and tigers and bonds, oh my!

This is the building in which I'll be spending the next two years. Although classes don't officially start until the beginning of September, tonight started a week long volunteer Chemistry refresher course designed to help us get prepared for Anatomy and Physiology. (By the way, the A & P textbook is 1,300 pages long. Yikes.) Isotopes, atomic numbers, ions, valence shells....wow...It's been nearly 20 years since I've studied this stuff. It felt great to be back in a classroom, and I actully really enjoyed it.

As it was a voluntary session, there were only about 20 students there. Most of the folks looked like they were in their late 20s or early 30s, so I don't feel terribly old. About 40% were male. There are actually a few in their 50s and one that looks like she could be mid 60s. It was a nice cross section of people.

The school facilities are really nice. They just moved into this building a couple of weeks ago, so everything is brand new. Best of all, it was ICE COLD in there. This was a big relief to me.