Category: Family
Happy Birthday, Mom
My Mom’s birthday is today. We were in Belchertown over the weekend celebrating hers and Jordan’s birthdays. This shot is from her opening a gift from Kristen and Joseph.
Catching Up
Lots of stuff on the burner. Finishing a big project at work, so I’ve been quiet on this space for a bit longer than I anticipated.
Evan brought me along to see the Kings/Rangers game last week, which proves what a great guy he is – burning one of his season-ticket shares on a last-place west-coast team is a lot to ask, and going into the game I hoped that the Kings would just do me a solid and at least make things interesting. Somehow they managed to sneak away with a 4-2 win, with Frolov playing a whale of a game against the surprisingly sluggish Rangers. Sean Avery was running around early in the game, perhaps trying to show up the Kings for trading him exactly a year ago. It was great to see the kids like Kopitar and Boyle score. Given how horribly the Kings’ season has gone this year, at least there’s plenty of young talent to look forward to.
Visited Mom in fair Belchertown, MA a few weekends ago. My (newly-engaged) brother and his fiancée Kristen made the trip out from Boston and joined me for a weekend of skating on the backyard rink. Check the recent flickr stuff for a few shots of us out on the ice. Dad expanded things to 60 by 40 feet this year, and it was nice to fly around and build up speed out there. However, all that work didn’t save me from getting laid out multiple times in the Sled Dogs’ last game, a 5-3 loss to the Hotshots.
Other recent distractions: a new Pioneer flat panel. After five years, my trusty Samsung CRT HDTV will be getting a new home with Joseph and Kristen. I will say that the Samsung is no slouch compared to the new panel, proving once again that it’s hard to beat CRTs for picture quality. That said, having the extra screen real estate is nice. Bluray discs and upscaled DVDs from the PS3 look fantastic – I have a feeling I’ll be loading up the Netflix queue again. The Pioneer also came just in time for new episodes of LOST. I’m not listening to the haters – last year’s finale got me back on the Oceanic 815 bandwagon and so far things haven’t disappointed.
I’m also playing Uncharted, and I’ve switched over to Nullriver’s MediaLink software to pipe my music, photos, and videos from my Mac to the PS3.
Somewhere in there I also upgraded to Leopard, which I’ll pay a compliment by saying that it hasn’t gotten in my way at all.
Anniversary Weekend
Jordan and I reached our two-year wedding anniversary today, but since the day fell on a Monday we ended up celebrating this past weekend. Friday we saw The Farnsworth Invention, the new play from Aaron Sorkin starring Hank Azaria. Sorkin’s Farnsworth mania stretches back a while I remember the story popping up in an episode of Sports Night.
Saturday we had dinner at Perilla in the West Village, which tv nerds will recognize as the restaurant opened by Harold Dieterle, winner of Top Chef season one. The food was very good, and unpretentious. I have four words for you: Pancetta-wrapped Pork Loin.
Maine Weekend
Update 2007-09-10: Photos are here. I had particular fun trying out kayaking for the first time, Mike was great getting Jamie, Jordan, and I sorted out on the water the first day.
Just got back from a weekend up in Harpswell, Maine with the bulk of the Farmer clan – celebrating Mike’s and Jamie’s birthdays. We missed Sarah and Pete, who are holding it down in Colorado. A big happy birthday to Pete, who celebrates his birthday tomorrow. More photos to follow, once I get them sorted, but for now here’s the obligatory pretty sunset, taken from the deck at the house where we were staying.