Halloween Eve

Or, something like that. Anyone getting dressed up for the occasion? The wife and I are thinking we might, just to give out candy. Gives me an excuse to dress like a pirate basically...

Have you ever noticed that John McCain uses air quotes a lot? My friend Phil uses air quotes a lot too, mostly when he's inebriated, but McCain's use of the air quotes makes Phil look like an amateur...

So I'm watching news/Sportscenter showing all the Phillies fans celebrating after the World Series win, and I had a question. When exactly did it become the thing to do, to run up to any camera you can find and yell "woooooooooooo", or something to that effect? No matter the situation, this is what people do and I have no idea why. Is it because they're not smart enough to think of anything better to say or do? You see a lot of the pinkie and index finger up while the other fingers are in a fist gesture too. Did all these people go to the University of Texas? I think we need to start a new trend. Although I really have no idea what that would be...

And finally.. the perfect excuse to get into law enforcement...

Randomness

• Anyone else out there watch House tonight? Yeah... only my worst fear, right there on tv for me. Woman adopts baby, only to have the birth mother decide that she doesn't want to give it up. Are you kidding me? So now I'm supposed to go home and stare at the completed nursery hoping to get picked again. Riiiiight. Once again, you biologicals have it easy...
• Celtics opened the season up tonight!!! The ring ceremony was very understated, apparently they'd didn't consult the Red Sox on how to overdue it. I can't dive headfirst into the season though. I need to slowly wade in, getting deeper and deeper as the year progresses. For now, I'll flick back and forth from real tv to the games, but soon that'll change and I'll end up watching the entire game with the occasional flip to real tv...
• Caught Good Will Hunting on tv over the weekend. I haven't see that movie in forever, and I almost forgot just how good it is. Although half the fun of the movie is recognizing all the local Boston landmarks...
• So before the internet, how did people function? Every baby related question I have, the answer is there. It's such a wonderful thing. I have a question about a stroller, no problem, super easy to read up on it, etc. I don't need to bug all my friends with these questions, which I'm sure they appreciate...
• All you soccer fans out there will appreciate this. I've played/watched my entire life, and I've never seen anything like it...
• And lastly... if you're not watching Chuck, you need to start doing so. Every episode is funny, with lots of action and a little bit of romance thrown in there. Seriously though, Monday nights, check it out, you won't be disappointed...

Weekend Report

So this weekend we had some friends up! We've had like visitors galore lately, with more coming up in November, it's fantastic! So what did we do you ask? Well I guess I'll tell you..

Our guests, Jimmy, Stacey and their daughter Emma arrived Friday night just as I was coming home with the lobsters. Perfect timing by them I'd say. Dinner was a meal of lobster, steak and some orange mushy substance one year old Emma was eating (which I later tried and found it quite tasty), I think she preferred the mashed potato's and lobster though.

Saturday, we hit Nicky's for breakfast...mmmm diner food... followed by Jimmy and I playing a quick nine holes of golf with my uncle. Here, you can see the proper way to hit a golf ball...

And here, you can see the way I hit a golf ball (which is not the right way to do it)


I'm not going to bother to tell you what I shot, but those of you that know Jimmy and I know that Jim blew my uncle and I out of the water.. (and in case you can't tell, our new camera has a video function on it and i just can't help myself. i'm taking pictures and videos of everything now. i'm in dad preparatory mode)

That afternoon, we hit a local farm, which opens up every fall. They have all the animals out to see and feed and every year they build a maze in their corn field. Last year it was a sheep (you entered in the sheep's mouth and came out it's umm other end, no joke), this year it was a tractor. Mazes are always fun, except for the groups of ten year olds sprinting around trying to get out and get lost at the same time...

This is Jim and Emma feeding the goats... The second the goats heard your quarter enter the food dispenser there, they'd coming running for the fence..

And last night, to top off the weekend, was spent gorging ourselves on Chinese food. Lobsters one night, Chinese the next. That's a pretty darn good weekend if I do say so myself.

Next weekend though, we have no plans at all. Which is sad and fantastic all at the same time. Got lots to catch up on around the house though, and we're planning on starting the nursery one of these days.

Halloween Decorating

So we decided to do a little Halloween decorating outside the house. It's not much, but it's a start. I figure on November 1st, we'll be back at Target buying everything Halloween related at 50%. That way, next year we can really deck the house out..

First, feel free to mock our quick half ass attempt at a scarecrow... It's not very scary, but I'm not really sure what to do to make it more scary..
Here you can see the outside of the house. We have a couple of ghosts hanging from the porch and some lit up fake pumpkins and skulls on the stairs...

Gotta have the two foot spider weaving it's web right?

And here again are the stairs. Bets on whether or not someone trips on the middle light?

This is only a warm up to Christmas by the way... I can't wait for that.

Mmmmmmm Tacos

So because a base was stolen in the World Series game last night, everyone gets a free taco! Taco Bell was running a promotion where if a base was stolen in game one, they'd give a free taco to anyone in America. And who doesn't love free tacos???

Ramblings

• Anyone out there see this story? Every neighborhood had one of these ladies. Ours actually had two. Mrs. Tanny lived in the house next door to us. She was so old, that not only did she bug us when we were kids, she was also around (and old then too) to torment my uncles when they were kids (they grew up in the same house i did). She used to bring a lawn chair out and sit on her lawn, just waiting for a ball to cross the property line. She must have been 103 years old, but when that ball hit her lawn....man...all you heard was the swoosh of air moving; she was so fast we never actually saw her move! (she also had three boston terriers, one would die, she'd buy another, etc, all named Joy. Or as we called them Joy1, Joy2 and Joy3) Then we had the Tellecks. These people sucked. Two old ladies, single, living with their very old mother. I honestly believe that they would sit in the window and wait for us to come play wiffle ball in front of the house. They would never come out and confront us though, but they would call the police on us. Nice huh. I remember one time a motorcycl cop showed up, around eight at night, it was dark, wearing sunglasses...that was weird..
• Big big weekend coming up. We have more visitors coming which is fantastic on two levels. First, it's always great to see friends (and especially they're one year old daughter) and it means the wife will actually allow me to turn the heat on. The other morning, I actually had to drive to work with my windows down cuz they were so frosted I couldn't see out and refused to use my scraper (it was actually 20 degrees when I left the house). Boy oh boy do I love Maine. The weather guys have actually been using the "s" word a lot lately for western Maine...
• How about this article? Ebert has one of the best jobs ever, reviewing movies, and he's too lazy to do that right. It says that in one instance he watched 8 minutes of a movie before writing his review. Are you kidding me? Think about it, if he works a normal eight hour day, he can watch at least four movies no problem. Ok maybe three, with time in there to write the reviews. I think they should fire him and hire me...
• For all of you men out there who have been searching for a code to live by, I give you this. How great is that? I just might have to buy it...
• So we're in an "economic crisis" right? I have a solution on how to balance the budget. It's very simple actually. If everyone gives $10, that's about three trillion dollars, and there you go. Think of it as passing the hat, we'd just need a really big hat. I had a friend once, who while at a party, had his car towed. He didn't have enough money to get the car out of the impound lot, so he passed the hat at the party, and bingo, he had enough cash. Same idea, just on a bigger scale...
• Real? Or fake? (mind out of the gutter please. that would be on my other blog, the morrisseychroniclesafterdark.com)
• Made a very tasty meatloaf dinner last night. Baked potato's, corn and foccacio break to go with it. Of course, I used the secret Morrissey recipe. You see, one of the first times Sarah ate dinner at my parents house, my mom made meatloaf. Now this is a good thing, cuz she makes a darn good meatloaf, but there's something a little different about it. On top, she pours a can of vegetable soup. I usually ate around that part. But on this particular night, my mother was out of regular veggie soup, so she had to use alphabet vegetable soup. The wife loved it, so now I'm not allowed to make a meatloaf without it. I suppose that'll come in handy when we have kids. Kids love alphabet soup right?

Links And Then Some

• A day...sad or not.. is coming soon . The only thing I'll miss is seeing the strippers huddled outside in their trench coats smoking. The sight of that always makes me feel better about my life...
• I've seen these guys a million times driving around Boston, and thought this was a pretty good article about them. I never knew that they moved anything other than piano's though. Although I suppose it's just common sense that they would...
• Did anyone see this video from the weekend of college football? I've never seen anything like this before. The ref actually moves in to make the hit. He makes no effort at all to get out of the way, and in fact it actually looks like he's trying to make the tackle...
• Something amazing has happened. My lactose intolerance-ness seems to have made an exception. I made the mistake of going food shopping the other day while hungry, always a bad idea cuz you end up buying too much junk food. In my case I bought some Little Debbie Swiss Cake rolls. One would think that the cream filling would kill me, but by the grace of god, it hasn't. I haven't been this joyous since the day I first discovered blogging..
• So the Red Sox lost last night, as you all know now. Sure I'm disappointed, but they had an excellent season and they lost to the better team. Tampa Bay had the deeper bench and the better pitching which are two of the main ingredients to winning. The good part is though, that I finally get to go to bed at a normal hour. These 8pm start times were killing me...
• Only eight more days until the Celtics season opener...

It's All Over

Well the Rays just beat the Sox...I gotta say though, this isn't one of those crushing defeats that will stay with you the rest of your life. The Rays were simply a better team, and it showed. Really, all series long the Sox couldn't seem to string together a couple of hits to get an inning going. (offseason need: bench players who hit better than 240 and less white guys) (that last part is sarcasm btw)

Two things though: first, someday, someone is going to get killed in one of those celebratory pigpiles..
second, I hate seeing all these Rays fans cheering and celebrating and taunting the Red Sox players. These people never showed up during the regular season! The team can celebrate, their seven fans can celebrate, but all you other people who jumped on the bangwagon have no right to.

Party and Parenting

Friday night we drove down to Boston for my brother's engagement party. Had a really great time, got to hang out with both my brothers which is one of my favorite past times. It's funny though, I think of myself as a pretty humorous guy, although I know a lot you probably don't. But I'll tell you, my brothers and my father are hilarious. They have a knack for telling a story that'll turn the most mundane thing into something that barely touches reality... great stuff.. My brother got really lucky too, his fiance is just a wonderful girl. Boy better not screw it up...

Saturday we had our adoption parenting class. Wow... Going in, I thought it was going to be about parenting in general, but I was completely wrong. The class was all about what it takes to raise an adopted child. Now on the surface, you might think that it's not all that different from a biological child, right? Well yes and no. Kids are kids are kids; you do your darnedest to raise them the best that you can and hope for the best. But with an adopted child, there's a whole slew of additional issues.

From the beginning, our plan is to be very upfront with future baby. We have no intention of hiding the fact that he is adopted. This is what all the "experts" say is the best thing to do, and both Sarah and I agree. But just because they know that they're adopted doesn't mean it's any easier. As the child gets older and more cognizant of their surroundings and of their place in the world (where they're going, where they've been, etc), the issues of "why didn't my biological mom want me?" and things like that can be very difficult to deal with...and as parents, its obviously our role to help them deal with these issues.

There are a lot of new rules around the verbiage of adoption too. For instance, it used to be that a parent "gave up" their child for adoption. Nope, not anymore. Now it's the parent(s) "had an adoption plan". You might think it's a little too politically correct, but you have to remember how incredibly emotional the whole situation is for everyone involved. Think about it, us getting a baby, happy times to the extreme. The fact that some girl has to deal with an unwanted/planned pregnancy for 9 months, not happy times. The class highlighted many issues like this and we also discussed transracial adoption. Surprisingly enough, the wife and I along with one other couple were the only ones open to it. It'll add more issues as the child gets older (not with us or our family, but with the outside world), but to us, a baby is a baby no matter what color or where they're from or whatever and I think we're pretty well prepared to deal with the potential issues. Sure some people might give you a funny look in the grocery store, but to be honest I couldn't care less. That child is a Morrissey the second he's put into our arms. If anyone has any issues with that eff 'em! :)

I've never understood when someone says that they're "emotional drained". That's not something I've ever felt before I guess. But this class was heavy.. ninety percent of the issues discussed, Sarah and I had already talked about with each other (which helps enormously) but for those other things we hadn't though of, its just one more thing to ponder and to some extent, let it weigh on us. All you biologicals out there have it easy! You just have to worry about feeding, and changing and all that stuff... you don't have half the issues we'll have! So for the first time in my life, I was just emotionally spent after the class. The wife and I talked for the first half hour or so of the ride home (we were in Portsmouth, NH for the class) then rode the rest of the way in virtual silence. We were both just so exhausted from the whole thing that we really couldn't muster up the energy to discuss what we just learned.

Overall, I'm really glad they made us take the class. It just makes everything that much more real, and helped put a lot of things into perspective. I learned that thanks to the insane researching abilities of my lovely wife, she and I are ahead of the curve. We seemed to have more knowledge on the entire process than some of the other people. Going into the class, you all know how excited I was about adopting and the whole process. And thankfully, the class did nothing but raise that excitement up a couple of notches. Realizing that there are so many resources out there to help, and that we have one less major issue to deal with than a lot of other people (family/friend support. you'd be surprised to find out how many people out there still think of it as taboo) makes it a lot easier. So far, the toughest part has been the wait, and that's only going to get harder...

Our next step is to compete a profile for potential birth mothers to view. It's essentially a brochure about the wife and I. The woman running our class had a couple of examples with her (one couple used shutterfly and actually produced a hard cover book. the others were all just on nice paper with color photos and whatnot), and that helped a lot. You guys all know I'm a great talker, I'm just not very good at talking about myself, so this could prove to be a little challenging. Also, finding the perfect 10-15 pictures that really sum up the wife and I might prove to be a little difficult. So at this point, we'll start doing drafts, which will then be ok'd by our social worker and then we'll be "put into circulation" as they say...

post script:
btw, did you notice (which is just did) that i kept referring to future baby as he/him? do you think i want a boy? :)

Doh! Yay!

And no.. I didn’t stay up to watch the end of the Sox game. I went to bed in the 7th after checking out the seven-nuthin score…

And yes.. I will never go to bed early again during a Sox playoff game. I’m sooo kicking
myself for not staying up

Anyone out there make it through to the end?

McCain on Letterman

Anyone catch McCain on Letterman last night? (might be able to find it on Hulu.com) Of course I can’t stay awake that late, so thanks to the wonder of technology, we recorded it and I watched it before work this morning. Funny, awkward, tense, light, all at the same time. Letterman wasn’t afraid to call him out on some stuff, and McCain gave some pretty good responses. Although someone’s gotta get McCain a better joke writers because most of his went over like a lead balloon.. just no reaction from the crowd at all…

So the wife and I have the parenting class for the adoption this weekend. I’m hoping to learn a few things, but we’ll see. I’m hoping that they go over CPR or things of that nature, because that’s always a good thing to know..

If you get the chance, check out the WEEI webpage and listen to the Curt Schilling interview with Dennis and Callahan this morning. HILARIOUS stuff…

Is It The Weekend Yet?

• My day started with spreadsheets and ended with a clogged sink. Which is worse really?
• Anyone else out there going to watch the debate tonight? I'm sure it'll be as boring as the past couple, but I'll still tune in.
• Got a chance to listen to the new Kenny Chesney cd a couple of times. It's got a really laid back sound, very "island" like, meaning it's the type of music you listen to while chillin on the beach with a beer/drink in your hand and a backup close by. One song is done with Dave Matthews, and just by listening you can tell Matthews wrote it. It sounds just like all his other stuff, good song though. I bought the deluxe version which has a couple of extra songs on it, and I'm glad I did. A couple of the live versions are from the concert a bunch of us went to last year at Gillette stadium. If you listen closely, I'm pretty sure you can hear us singing along with the other 65,000 people there. I think my favorite song though is "Ten with a Two", meaning I went to bed with a ten and woke up with a two... "I aint never gone to bed with an ugly woman but I sure have woken up with a few." Seriously, do lyrics get any better? But c'mon who among us hasn't been there? You meet a girl at a bar, it's dark, they turn the lights on for last call, you see her and suddenly sober up and have to leave immediately...
• I'm still getting 20-25 hits a day on the site, so I just wanted to say thank you to everyone out there who still reads my rambling, mumbling, bumbling, sometimes incoherent writings. One would think that after all this time, my writing would be better, but apparently not huh...
• We hit Target last night, so I bought Forgetting Sarah Marshall. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It's a guaranteed laugh..

Wednesday! Or Better Yet Tuesday

So I spent all day today thinking it was Wednesday. It's only Tuesday. There's really nothing worse than that. Those days when you think it's Wednesday and it's really Tuesday, that's a good thing... my way, not so much..

WEEI, the Boston sports talk radio station, has made it's way up here. It's a good thing for me, cuz now I don't have to listen to the local guys all the time talk about high school sports and UMaine...

Everyone run to iTunes! The new Kenny Chesney cd came out today. I downloaded it, but haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. After I get a chance tomorrow, I'll be sure to post a quick review, because I know you're all waiting breathlessly for it...

Anyone out there catch this article? On first glance, it sounds like a great idea, but how the heck would it get paid for? It definitely sounds like one of those ideas straight out of the Jetsons though. Next, your flying car will fold up into a briefcase while your robot maid cooks you dinner...

Ever watch Inside The Actors Studio? I do from time to time, usually when there's nothing else on or someone I think is interesting is on. Yesterday was one of those days... nothing else was on. The guest was Christian Slater, and it was actually pretty entertaining. You forget home many movies he was in, while doing the amounts of drugs he was doing. Kind of impressive actually, in a twisted sort of way...

This does not bode well for we Irish folk...

And no, I'm not going to even comment, talk about, discuss, mention or at this point think about the Red Sox...

What A Weekend

So we had some friends come up this weekend, to say we had a blast would be an understatement...

The weekend started off with Phil and Sue arriving late Friday afternoon. We gave them the customary tour of the house, after which we decided to go out and get a drink (it was happy hour, 5 o'clock) and a couple of appetizers. Normally I'd list all the new beers we tried this weekend, but frankly I forgot to write them down, so I'll leave that to Phil. After drinks and apps, we decided to head home for some dinner and Wii. Before home, we stopped at my favorite beer store and we picked up a nice sample of beers.


Ten minutes into his first Wii go round, it was already decided that Phil and Sue would be picking one up on the way home...I have video of them playing, but in fear of embarrassing retaliation, I won't post it.


Saturday we took our guests on a tour of our lovely city. Soon after those exciting seven minutes were up, our second round of guests arrived. Upon the arrival of Eileen and Erin, we hopped back in the car and went to Acadia for the afternoon. We really got lucky and had the perfect weather for a day of hiking/leaf peeping. Not a cloud in the sky, temps in the low 60's... perfection really...


Here's the gang on top of Cadillac Mountain...
It really has to be one of the most beautiful places around. Looking down the mountain at all the different colors in the trees was really a beautiful sight.
After an afternoon of leaf peeping, it was time for more drinks.. so we hit the Sea Dog Brewery for more beers, more apps, and of course so Big Buck Hunter! (the practice would prove useful later)
The rest of the night was spent hanging out at our house (enjoying some tasty chicken pot pie) and watching the Red Sox lose (well some of us watched, others didn't make it thru the entire game and went to bed after the 10th inning. yes, i'm guilty of this)


But going to bed early would prove to be most beneficial, as I needed to be on my game Sunday morning. You see... Sunday morning we took the city kids shootin'. My uncle was nice enough to take us out for some target practice and all it cost me was $8 in clay pigeons (90 for $8, what a bargain huh)

I gotta say, the friends were all pretty darn good shots. I was quite impressed. Me, I'm a natural of course...
So right before we left, my cousin decided to have some fun. He brought with him a recently purchased watermelon... and well.. lets just say that this watermelon wasn't long for this world.

Before...
During... and after... (please excuse the wife's shakey camera work)

All in all, it was really an amazing weekend. So great to see a bunch of our friends...and even better that we convinced them to come up. We had so much fun, I don't think it'll be all that hard to convince them to come back up sometime.

Ramblings

So I know most of you out there either already know which way I lean, or have no interest in hearing my incoherent semi-educated political ramblings, so I’ll keep this brief…

If I have to hear John McCain say “my friends..” one more time… he sounds like half my residents! Not remembering anyone’s name, so he just calls everyone his friend.

Another one of my favorites.. “I have a track record for reaching across the isle..” Umm, so you want props for doing your job? You want us to give you credit for not being a sheep and voting party lines every single time? I don’t think so guys..

How about this one.. “I know how to fix it, I know how to get the job done” without ever saying how he’ll fix it or how he’ll get the job done! How dumb does he think we are?

On the other side, Obama has a tendency of talking too much and his message gets lots in all the rhetoric, but at least he has a message.

So we saw Anne Hathaway last week, rehearsing for the SNL episode she was hosting. I’ve never been a big fan of hers, as most of her movies are about princesses and things like that really don’t interest me. I gotta say though, I’m a fan now. She was so much prettier in person than I thought she would be…

We’ve got three, maybe as many as five friends visiting this weekend! How fantastic is that?!? Luckily, we’re supposed to have wonderful weather, so we won’t be cooped up in the house the entire time. We’ll have plenty of time to go check out the peak foliage up here! (btw, that was sarcasm, I never understood why looking at leaves was so interesting. Sure, I notice them while out and about, but all it does is remind me that it’s going to continue to get colder. Which is good and bad. Bad because no one likes it to get dark at four o’clock in the afternoon and to pay all those rising heating costs, but good cuz it means I’m that much closer to snow mobile season!)

Has anyone out there heard of Hulu.com ? And if so, why didn’t you tell me about it sooner? I just found it the other day, and it’s got some pretty good stuff on it.

Ok, Red Sox/Rays starts tomorrow night, who you got? I’m going to say Sox in six. The Rays have been playing out of their minds this year, but at some point it all has to catch up with them right? I’m not a huge believer in the “experience” argument, but I think in this case, a cold, loud Fenway Park in October, it might come into play. Unlike most fans, I’ve got faith in Matsusaka, so as long as Beckett isn’t hurt I think we’ll be ok. The Sox won the last series without a lot of their best hitters hitting , so even if one of those guys snaps out of it, they should be fine. The Rays have a very good pitching staff, both the starters and bullpen, so I think the Sox will have to figure out a way to manufacture more runs, as opposed to relying on the three run homer. I really don’t foresee a high scoring series, more likely games of 4-3 or 3-1, scores like that.

Live From New York

Well, it's not exactly live, but we are in New York, and SNL was rehersing right down the hall... We filmed while on the NBC tour in New York. Basically, we were the only people in the tour that spoke english, so we had no choice. Gotta say though, it was pretty cool to do..

Quick Link

I little humor for a Tuesday morning...you'll need sound...

End Of The Homestudy

So we just finished with part three of the home study, where the social worker interviews Sarah and I at the same time. It's funny, I left with a worse feeling than I did when I was interviewed one on one, and the wife left with a better feeling. Not that I'm worried about failing or anything, because that's not going to happen... I just can't seem to put my finger on what bugged me. We were kind of pushed in the direction of changing some of answers from the previous written questionnaire, so maybe that's it, I'm not sure...

But the best part is, it's done! Which means in four to six weeks (hopefully sooner cuz we all know how not good i am at waiting), she'll turn in her written report, it'll get ok'd by us and the agency, we'll submit our profile, and we'll officially be on the waiting list. Drives me crazy how drawn out the process is, but hey, that's just the way these things work. I used to work for a government agency, I should know.

On a lighter note, if you missed the SNL skit the other night (Biden/Palin debate) I highly recommend you check it out here. Very very very funny...

I Stole This Shirt From Frank

So Credit goes to you BeerCrusade!

If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0.00 today.
But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you will have received $214.00.
Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It is called the 401-Keg.
A recent study found that the average American walks about 900 miles a year.
Another study found that Americans drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year.
That means that, on average, Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon! Makes you proud to be an American!

Oh, and the title of the post.. its a line from Billy Madison, one of the best movies ever. Ok not really, but a movie we must have watched 5000 times the summer it came out on video..

Planes Trains and Automobiles

Oh, and we walked EVERYWHERE too...

So this weekend, the wife and I headed down to NYC for her cousins wedding. Since it was in New York, and we hadn't been there in a couple of years, we decided to make a long weekend out of it. Thurs and Fri in NYC, Saturday at the wedding, fly home Sunday..

Beautiful thing about Maine... small airports equal no lines at all. We arrived 15 minutes before our flight was to leave (someone, who isn't me, forgot their cellphone at home, so we had to turn around 20 mins into our drive and go get it), parked, got our tickets, went thru security and made our way to the gate with at least five minutes to spare.. gotta love it.

After an uneventful flight, we took a bus from JFK to Grand Central, and walked to our hotel from there. We stayed at the Millennium U.N., obviously right next to the United Nations. If marble and mirrors are your thing, then this is the place for you. Then entire lobby was marble and everywhere you looked, you'd catch your reflection. It felt so 80's, I kept waiting for Crockett and Tubbs to come walking around the corner. Even the bathroom in our room was mirrored out. All the walls had them, and so did the back of the door. And believe me, when you sit down for a minute to do your thang, and look up and see what I saw... it's not pretty. Not pretty at all...

We dropped our stuff and headed out to explore the big city. After walking around for a bit, we ate a bar, PJ Morans, where they served $9 Sam Adams and $8 Bud Light drafts.. I miss Maine already. The bonus was our waitress was a lovely Irish girl, and who doesn't love listening to that wonderful accent...

This is a picture from our hotel room window (32 floor), pretty nice view huh...
Friday we decided to hit the Statue of Liberty, cuz neither of us had ever been. We took the train most of the way downtown, then got off and walked the last 10 or so blocks. Security was tighter at the ferry terminal than it was at the airport. There's something that feels wrong with taking your belt off in public, not sure what it is, but it just doesn't feel right.. I've got a a million and one pictures of the statue itself, but I'll only bore you with two of them. This first one is from the ferry on the way over...
And this one is from behind the statue on the island itself. It's funny though, we've all seen it a million times on tv, in movies, in pictures, or whatever, but seeing it in person is completely different. It's really an amazing thing... Although I was a little disappointed cuz the wife wouldn't let me buy a mini statue to take home...
My darling wife enjoying the view of the city from the island...
You're favorite blogger enjoying the view of his wife from the island...
We spent the rest of the day walking around the city, everywhere...Up through the Wall St. area, where if you looked carefully, you could actually see some of the banks falling apart...through Greenwich Village...over to Canal St...and back up towards the Empire State building. We were going to go up to the top, but it was $20 each, and I'm not going to pay that much to ride an elevator.

This pic is down Lexington Ave. The street was closed off for some road race, so I got this pretty cool picture..
This is when we felt at home.. the smell of horses and their little presents totally took us back to Maine...
After deciding not to do the Empire thing, we headed over to Rockefeller Center where we eventually decided to go on the NBC studio tour. It was actually really really cool. The tour consisted of the wife and I, two tour guides and 12 Germans, only one of whom actually spoke decent English. At the beginning of the tour, they show a montage of famous NBC shows and the only time they perked up was when they showed Friends and Seinfeld. Otherwise, they sat silently watching. The tour is really all about Saturday Night Live, and these people had never seen it. So as we're standing there, pressed up against the glass watching Amy Pohler and Anne Hathaway rehearse a scene from 50 feet away, the wife and I are soaking it all in, loving it, while our German friends remained totally expressionless. I'm pretty sure they expected Ross Geller and George Costanza to be running the tour...

Towards the end, the two guides asked for two volunteers. One would get to read the news (off the teleprompter) while the other would do the weather (in front of the green screen). Since we were the only ones that actually spoke passable English, we got to play nightly news anchors. I read the news, and my lovely wife did the weather. I actually bought the dvd of us, but my computer doesn't have a dvd player, so I can't upload it for the world to see.. sad huh.. But reading off a teleprompter is actually not that hard. If I had a chance to read my script once or twice beforehand, I'm pretty sure I'm be working on the Today show tomorrow morning..

The rest of the evening was spent at dinner with the brother in law, and more wandering around the city. Lots of fun actually.

Saturday morning we walked over to Central Park (like another 20 blocks while we searched for breakfast too) and walked around there some. Eventually it was time to check out and off we went to meet the brother in law and take the train out to Queens for the wedding. (the wedding was in Queens, the reception on Long Island 45 minutes, which was only like 9 miles, away)

Jamie, the wife's brother, took this picture using the panoramic function on the camera. The picture itself is boring, but the panoramic thing is really cool. It essentially takes three pictures and sews them together as one...I think it's my new favorite thing...

The wedding was a blast to say the least. It was a big Long Island affair(i'm pretty sure half the people there were made), with an open bar and fantastic food. Hanging with the family we don't get to see very often is always great. Although, I do feel a little bad for them, cuz the more I drink (remember, open bar) the more I talk. So they got stuck listen to me babble on about who knows what for a lot of the evening.

The final picture.. the wife and I at the wedding. I wanted to do the standard prom pose, but that idea was shot down..
All in all it was a great weekend. New Yorkers need to smile more (there are sooo many miserable people looking people walking around), but for the most part everyone was friendly and we got really good weather. I don't think I could ever live there, but I really do enjoying visiting..

Phew...

Well, the interview is over. I'd say it went very well too. It only lasted an hour, but it seemed like ten minutes. Tempis fugit right.

Anyway, it was essentially the social worker asking me a series of questions about my upbringing, family life, friends, work, etc. Thankfully, talking is what I do best, so I had no problem at all answering all these questions. She was very nice and chatty with me, which made it easier too. But at the same time, it was a little weird sitting across the table from someone, job interview style, as she asks me all these formal questions, typing the answers on her ancient laptop (i could be mistaken, but i think i saw the same laptop in Apollo 13).

And it was a little awkward when our fifteen pound cat attempted to jump on her lap and didn't really make the leap. Thankfully she loves cats and didn't mind, but sheesh. I think Princess knows that something is up, that she'll no longer be the favorite in the house and was doing what she could to derail the process.

Big Day Tomorrow!

Or as you read this, most likely tomorrow, so it's today for you... but anyway, Thursday morning I have my half of the interview with the social worker. Exciting stuff huh. The wife asked me not to go all "Chandler" (try to make too many jokes, etc) during the interview, but I really can't make any promises. I'm not at all nervous, actually I'm pretty confident. I've been on a million job interviews where I blatantly knew that I wasn't qualified for the job or wasn't going to get the job, so I'd have to do my best to b.s. my way into it. Surprisingly enough, I'm pretty good at that...

But this is different. The one thing I was put on this planet to do, is to be a dad. I know it sounds incredibly cheesy, but it's the one thing I always knew I'd be good at. I figure I learned from the best between my parents and my grandparents, so I know I'll be very good at this. Not to say there won't be a million and one "oh sh*t!" moments, because I'm sure there will be, but overall I'm completely confident in myself when it comes to this...

On a less happy note... every day at lunch I come home, make my sandwich and settle in for an hour or so of tv before heading back to work. The first six or so months up here, we watched Las Vegas (the NBC show), but after seeing every episode at least three times we figured a switch was needed. That's when we found Home Improvement. I don't care what you say, that show was funny! So today I sit down with my sandwich, turn on the tv, and whats on? Everybody Loves Raymond... and I truly despise that show. I really really really do. Not entirely sure why, but I just do. Apparently TBS got the bright idea to juggle their afternoon lineup. Jerks. So now I have nothing to watch..thankfully we have a dvr full of shows, but sooner or later I'll run out, and then what? Will I be stuck watching the news? Or worse yet, secede control of the clicker to the wife only to have her turn on What Not To Wear? Terrifying isn't it?