august sunday

This morning we met at AMC Hamilton and saw ‘World Trade Center’. It was pretty good. It was different than what Sara usually would go to see. As a matter of fact it was her first ‘PG 13′ movie of this nature (I think the only other one she has seen was ‘King Kong’). So it was a turning point for us. She actually enjoyed it and stayed interested for the whole movie (over two hours). There was a few spots with bad language and some bloody scenes but she seemed fine with that. We had to tell her about the language and she knew the words were ‘bad’. She had some comments and questions during the movie, she is a smart girl.

We came home after that and then went to home depot (got a fuse, some molding and priced nail gun rentals for the molding). Then we got Chinese food and watched the Abba documentary ‘The Winner Takes It All’ together. Again, Sara kept interested in it. It was nice to watch it with her. Later she was watching Puffy AmiYumi and she was also watching it earlier in the day when we went to home depot. We had the macbook in the cart at home depot (the big racing car shaped cart that Sara sat in and watched dvd.. funny).

We took a walk and we went to the dollar store and Sara got a Hello Kitty balloon. We were taking pictures during our walk also and I took some nice ones of Sara. We got ice cream cones at the DD. Sara got vanilla, I got coconut with nuts.

We had a nice day, and then we listened to the wav files of Sara’s phone messages that I just made. It was a great day. Just enjoying being together. That is the whole deal, just enjoying each other.

Listening to the new ‘Some Girls’ album ‘Crushing Love’ in the car. Very good album. And we listened to a bit of Shonen Knife also. Sara was playing guitar and she likes it when we play together. She took my Yamaha acoustic out of the case and we jammed a bit together. She likes to just bang and note really play so I was trying to really get her to pick out some notes. I have to work with her more. We were playing some Puffy songs like ‘Friends Forever’.

not much going on

I have been listening to a ‘learn Japanese’ cd in the car. It is not bad to start with. Let me catch up with movies. I watched ‘Munich’. Not good at all, typical Hollywood nothingness. I watched ‘The Constant Gardner’. Good, not great.. and some great filmwork of Africa. I also watched ‘When We Were Kings – A documentary of the Ali/Foreman fight in Zaire in 1974. Great. I loved it.

Saw Sara Friday night after she went to Sesame Place. We had some Chinese food and watched The Simpsons. We did not have much time for anything else. Yesterday was Saturday and Sara came over around 2pm. We got a Pizza and she rented two ‘Puffy AmiYumi’ dvds (the cartoons). They are hard to watch, for me.. Sara likes them however and we picked out the songs that are on the cd we listen to. We were surfing YouTube.com for Puffy stuff and there is a lot on there. We were watching clips of them playing live and videos. I like some of the music they do, it’s pure pop. We were also watching WTC – Sept 11 2001 clips on YouTube. I was giving Sara a history lesson of what happened. I think she is of the age to really understand the tragedy. Today we will see ‘World Trade Center’ together. I did not want to see it alone. Genie is not sure if Sara is ready for the movie. But I explained to Sara about it and I think she wants to see it.

We played some guitars last night. Sara was playing my old guitar that I had when I was just starting (the D’Agustino). We took a walk to Dunkin Doughnuts. Sara got french vanilla in the cone. When walking around the neiborhood we noticed that the coffee shop ‘Big J’s’ had been evicted. Well, that makes sense. I never thought they would survive across from a Dunkin Dougnuts. What were they thinking? Earlier in the day we washed my car, Sara helped me. It needed a good washing.

I am currently working on the molding in my kitchen. I am listening to old ‘Yes’. It is taking me back to the old days. I bought ‘Tales From Topographic Oceans’ the LP, on a field trip to NYC or maybe it was a trip with my parents to NYC. Anyway, it was back in the day for sure. I think Mike remembers that day, I think he was there.

We are approaching the 5th anniversary of the WTC. Wow, time is flying. It feels like yesterday. I sure remember that day. I will never forget it.

brian, moz and new rules

Today I am not very happy. I should not complain but there are things about my current job which I can’t put into writing which are really getting me down. I can’t write about it but let’s just say that I am trying to reach my goal of working there for one solid year and it’s not easy. For one thing, I hate the drive to and from work. And also, I am just not really into the corporation lifestyle. I am trying to look on the bright side. It’s not easy at the moment

I watched ‘Bill Maher – New Rules’ tonight. Very funny. Bill is great. I went to Home Depot and got more molding for the house. After that I went to Shop Rite to get bananas and when I was at the banana section I saw a girl with a ‘The Smiths’ t-shirt. It made me happy to see the shirt. I said to her ‘Nice shirt, I love The Smiths and Morrisey’. She smiled and said ‘Yeah, me too . . I have a bunch of shirts like this’. Then I walked away and I started to feel very happy and I was getting ‘happy chills’.. I think it was because I felt like ‘There is hope, someone else understands’.. That girl made me happy with her shirt. It is hard to explain but it really gave me a blast of sunshine. It is important for great music to live on and be heard. It is great to know that people do understand and appreciate good things.

Then Sara called me a while later. She went to play miniature golf with her mom and Auntie Lucy (she also went last night to a place in Pennington, NJ.. tonight she went somewhere in Morrisville PA which was better than the Pennington one). She told me about playing golf and said that in one spot you had to hit the ball into the water and at the end of the course you had to get it into the mouth of a Hippo (she tried to say Hippopotamus, but she couldn’t say it.. cute). Genie said that they also hit balls on the golf range. It was hot today and Sara said she was sweating.

Sara said she had fun and I started singing ‘Fun Fun Fun’ into the phone. Sara recognized it as a Beach Boys song and she said ‘I have a new favorite Beach Boys song that my friend Megana likes also . .Kokomo’. I got Sara into a lot of Beach Boys (we used to listen to ‘Al Jardine – Family and Friends in the car a lot.. the live one.. as well as Beach Boys albums). I never played her Kokomo though, she got into that on her own. So we started singing Kokomo together on the phone. She knew it better than me so I just listened to her singing it. This was the another happy moment in my day today. I am thankful for these happy moments because my life is just in a strange place right now and I  must focus on the good things as much as possible.

I am going to try to get some computer and house work done tonight. Last night when I was walking in the neighborhood I ran into Ray the painter. He will do some painting for me in the upstairs apartment next week.

hello chinatown

It was a good weekend.

Friday after work I met Sara at the tennis courts in Robbinsville and we played for the first time. It was hard to get started. We are both beginners. She is using the Prince Air Freak 26 which I ordered online for her. I am using the Prince Pro that I got from Ebay.

We also played with her soccer ball, kicking it around. And we played on the kids playground. I drove her back home and that was it. It was hard to do much more than that after working all day.

Saturday I watched some of ‘Ikuru’ in the morning and did some stuff around the house. I went to Russo’s and got some electric strings for my Les Paul. I then went to Panera and met Sara and Genie. We then went back to the Robbinsville tennis court. We played some more tennis and we played baseball on the diamond. We played with wiffle balls and tennis balls and we ran around the bases a lot. It was a good workout. We went to Walmart to get some small stuff. (I tend to avoid Walmart, but sometimes it’s ok for a few small items)(If you want to know why I try to avoid Walmart watch ‘The High Cost Of Low Prices’) Sara got a ‘Hello Kitty’ bubble bath which had a plastic Kitty on top.

We then went to Panera and sat outside (free Wi-Fi) and we looked up Hello Kitty sites on the net. Sara wanted to know the ‘history’ of Hello Kitty. It seems it started around 1974. I like Hello Kitty also, I admit it. Most of the stuff that ‘Sanrio’ makes is pretty cool to look at. They make some junk but mostly they make good stuff.

Sunday we went back to Chinatown Philadelphia. Sara wanted to re-visit the Hello Kitty Store (Asia Arts on 10th street). We met at my house at around 11:30 and we took the 11:58 train. It was a really nice day. I took my camera this time. We arrived and we were hungry so we stopped briefly at the Asia Arts store and then we went to the Vietnamese vegetarian place on 9th street and ordered two spring rolls and vegetarian wonton soup. We then went to a Chinese bakery on the corner of 9th and Race st. We got ‘raisin roll, coconut cream roll and butter roll’ Sara got an orange soda. We ate some of the rolls in front of the store (we were all pretty hungry). We then went back to the restaurant and got our hot food and brought it to a picnic area which is at the Temple University school for foot and ankle type stuff. It is a nice spot to eat in Chinatown. It is just off of 8th street (8th between Race and Cherry). Less than a block from Chinatown if you cut through the parking lot on the Cherry street. We ate our spring rolls and soup there on a shaded bench. It really was great weather. After we ate we returned to the China Arts store and Sara shopped for Hello Kitty for about an hour. She must have looked at every item in the store (not really, because the store is jam-packed with Sanrio merchandise).

Sara ended up getting a Hello Kitty hanging mobile and a ‘Charmmy Kitty’ plush/pillow and a smaller Hello Kitty with a purple hood on as a gift for her ‘Auntie Lucy’. That was nice of her to want to give a gift. It is nice to see that she thinks of others. After we left the store we went a few doors down to a (very small) Chinese shop which sold traditional Chinese dresses and small Chinese items like pendants, fans, generally junk. Sara wanted to buy a fan but I talked her out of it.
We spent a little while in the shop and then we headed back to the train station. The train ride back was nice we sat in an almost empty car and we each had our own seats (facing each other and one seat to the side at the end of the car). We were snapping pictures in the train on the way there and on the way home. When we got back to West Trenton we went right to the Chinese restaurant (Tan May) and got food to bring home. We watched Charlotte’s Web 2 while eating and then we went for a walk with our tennis racquets. We played tennis at the Ewing High School courts and then we went into the back of Ewing High to the track and Sara and I ran around the track. We stopped at Dunkin Doughnuts on the way home and got ice cream (Sara – french vanilla) and coffee. We returned home and we watched one episode of the Simpsons (Season 3 – The Micheal Jackson episode). It was a great episode to watch to really put the finishing touch on a great day. I love that episode. And Sara and I were singing ‘Lisa, it’s your birthday.. Happy birthday Lisa..’.
Man, I love the Simpsons. After they left I finished watching ‘Ikuru’. I love it. Ikuru is a great movie and it really shows some differences (as well as similarities) in the Japanese culture (set in post-war era) and ours.

Monday – After work I went to ‘Bordens Amusements’ in Morrisville, PA to check out pinball machines. I had to ring the buzzer and I was let in by the owner. He only sells high priced, reconditioned machines. It may not be a bad idea to buy from him, depending on what I use the machine for. It is probably not the kind of machine to put in the field because of the high value of the machine. I am also looking into several vintage machines at this time. I cut the grass and I went for a good walk in the neighborhood. I got a good workout in. I was tired and I slept pretty early.

Tuesday – Watched the Oliver Stone movie ‘JFK’ which I thought was really good. Some great acting and a good script. It was a long movie and I took a nap during it.. then I went back and watched it from where I left off.. After it was over I was working on the molding in the kitchen and I was listening to the commentary track by Oliver Stone. I liked it a lot.

changes

It was a nice day today. Not as hot as it has been. I went in to work late today because I noticed last night as I was cutting the grass that my (right front) tire was a little low on air and had a slice in the rubber. I turned out that the tire was splitting open from dry-rotting. All the tires have some dry-rotting around the tread but this tire needed replacement. So I spent about 2 1/2 hours this morning getting prices, and then ended up getting one used tire put on the front just to save money. It probably will cost me more in the long run because I need to replace them all. It has been about four years with those (original) tires.

Anyway, I was watching a Chrissie Hynde – Pretenders documentary during dinner tonight (two bowls of cheerios) and now I am surfing the web a bit. I need to go out and put air in the other tires and maybe get a tire gauge. Nothing special is happening. I still feel the same way which I have been feeling. This is not the best time for me. I am not happy with my job so it is just not a good time for me. I am not sure what to do. Every day I go through many ideas in my head about what the best plan might be. Today I was looking at various franchise things to get into. I have my goal which is to stay at this job until at least March of 2007. But it is very hard to stay with this goal. Very hard. I might even cancel Netflix for a while. I am just not in the mood to watch much. I hope I can figure out what to do. It is hard when I have so much responsibility. Life is not very simple right now. It seems like every year is very different than the last one. But it seems like this year is not going to change. It will just be the same everyday until I can make it to the point of leaving this job. Then my life will finally change. I would leave the job tomorrow if I could afford to. It is very tempting, but I already set the goal to stay for one year. I really want to keep the goal if I can. I want to get laid off so I can collect unemployment and also get the severance package. This would give me time to set myself up for the next thing. I am trying very hard to decide what the next thing is. I have some options, but I am not sure what is best. I don’t really want a tenant living here either, but property tax is high. All of these things are occupying my thoughts most of the time. Plus, I miss Sara every day. So I am ready for some major changes in my life.

shootin’ hoops

Saturday I met with my friend Akiko in Philadelphia. She is really nice. We talked about all kinds of things while having bubble tea in Chinatown, Philadelphia. She can help me with some Japanese questions I may have.I was playing her some of my favorite Japanese bands on my macbook. She would like to me talk to her friends which are coming from Japan so they will have some English conversation. I took the 2:40 train home after getting some spring rolls at the Thai vegetarian restaurant on 9th street. I slept on the train home, so the ride seemed very fast. On the train ride home I was reading in Citypaper about a councilman in Philadelphia who is going to jail because he used taxpayer money and bribes to pay off his 30,000 credit card debt.

After returning to the West Trenton train station I went to Panera on Rt. 130 and met Sara and Genie. We went to get Sara a soccer ball and basketball at Walmart (I also got a frame at Michael’s for my Shonen Knife poster).
We got some food and went to Veterans Park in Hamilton. Sara and I rode on swings and played on the big plastic slides. Then we took her basketball across the street to Steinert high school and shot hoops in the parking lot.
We did this for a while and Sara was making a lot of baskets. We got a good workout in. Sara wanted to get five baskets in a row so she kept trying until we had to leave (after dark). I was happy that she had a goal that she was very determined to stick to. She seems to really enjoy shooting baskets. She has got the basketball jones! We worked on her dribbling and passing also.

(Monday) – very uneventful. After work I went food shopping and then came home and watched ‘Outer Limits’ on DVD. It is from 1964. It’s similar to the ‘Twilight Zone’ in that is a science fiction program. I watched ‘Soldier’ and ‘Behold Eck’ episodes. ‘Soldier’ was ok, ‘Eck’ was pretty dumb.

I received ‘Akiko Yano – Love Life’ CD in the mail. Also, I recieved ‘Nippon Pop’ book (Which I used to own, but I lent it out and never got it back). Also ‘Speed Tribes’ which is a book of Tokyo fiction short stories.

(Tuesday – today) I brought my 1976 Gibson Les Paul into work to have a fret job done by a guy named Jeff. He is recommended by several people who have had work done by him. I will get it back in a few weeks and I look forward to playing it. I came home from work and I have been doing stuff on the computer for a few hours. Mainly just organizing files and emptying all my junk mail from Eudora.

st. elmo’s fire

Thursday was a strange day. I could not concentrate on work at all. I was just thinking about the future. What will I do when I am done with this job? I guess some people don’t have to worry about these things. Some people are content with their life and know what they want to do forever. I am thinking of several ideas but I am not confident yet about any of them. I need to try something and if it doesn’t work out then I will just have to go back to working for someone else. Is school the answer? Probably not. Starting my own business seems to be the only way to go. It is very frightening to think about trying it and failing. But will that fear keep me from trying? I hope not. I was at work Thursday and I realized that I needed a day off, and Genie was off Friday so I scheduled a day off. After work I met Genie and Sara at Staples so we could get her school supplies. I wrote about that already yesterday.

I am now at Panera and I put too much lemon in my tea (!). Ginger peach tea with lemon is a bad idea! Anyway, yesterday we went to Sesame Place (the land of Elmo). Sara had a great time. We packed a good cooler of fruit and we left in the late afternoon. It was really great to be back at Sesame with Sara (despite the heat and crowd.. which actually were not that bad at all).

We went on a bunch of dry rides and wet rides and we got to go down bunch of slides. We went down the ‘rubber duckie’ water slide twice and Sara was just loving it. At the end of the day she wanted to buy a souvenir and then she got bummed out because she did not have the time to pick something out. She said ‘But I was born to shop’. She was ok with it though. I reminded her that she got her ‘Puffy AmiYumi music from the TV show’ cd earlier that day and also we stopped at Target and I got her some hello kitty stuff (skirt and top). I told her that when she got in the car to look at that stuff and she would be happy. Then she did, and when we were driving she said ‘Yeah, you’re right I do feel a little better.’ We got home late and we still needed to eat so we got Chinese food but we don’t like to get food that late so we weren’t real happy about that. Sara and Genie were tired and so we ate and watched a few minutes of ‘The Grinch’ while we were eating. It was an awesome day at Sesame and I got a season pass for this year and next year so there will be much more to come. I did not take any pictures or video this time. I gave it a rest. I usually carry a camera but for once I went cam-free.

When I am flying down the ‘rubber-duckie’ ride with my Sara and we are laughing and joking I am as happy as I ever have been in life. I guess that’s what it’s all about.

Saturday I shopped for a tennis racquet for Sara. I did not find the best one. I met Sara at Panera Rt. 1 and we went to the Quakerbridge mall. She wanted some more ‘Hello Kitty’ stuff so we went to ‘Claires’. She picked out a backpack and a carry pouch.

strange coincidence

Tuesday night I walked past Kevin’s moms house. I wrote about it here when I got home. When I walked by I looked in the backyard at ‘The Shack’. I thought Kevin was in Colorado, where he lives. Well, when I got home from work on Wednesday there was a Todd Rundgren book in my door and a few magazines. They were not mailed in anything, they were just placed there. For a moment I thought Amazon.com messed up my order and sent me a Todd book or something. Then I saw a note written by Kevin saying that he had stopped by a few times but I wasn’t home. Uhm, ok.. strange. I had just walked by his house and written about him here the night before. Anyway, he left me a magazine which is pretty cool with an article about Genesis making ‘The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway’. I think it is an English magazine called ‘Classic Rock’. There are some neat things in it. Also he left me a copy of ‘Gameroom’ which is his trade now, he runs a classic pinball room in Colorado. It has a cool article on him and there are pictures of Carole and him. I dated Carole from around 1981 until around 1986. I grew up with Kevin since the 5th grade and we spent our entire growing up together. He was a brother to me. Anyway, he gave me some really good ideas about getting some pinball and arcade machines. I was researching it today. He started with a Bally ‘Kiss’ pinball machine (they were made in 1978) and they are collectible. If I can get one in good shape it may be a good investment for me. I was looking online at a new ‘Simpsons’ pinball machine which is very expensive but I think it will have good resale value if kept in good shape.

I called some banks today about getting a home equity line of credit. This is not a loan, it is just a line of credit. I think I will open one up.

Mike E. came over last night to make some copies of the cd we worked on together. We talked about day trading and he got me interested. He is offering to show me the ropes. There is a way to try it without much risk by using ‘play money’ before actually using any real money. He gave me a few tips on how to start and I can call a few brokers and ask some questions. I was on the web today looking at info on day trading. Mike is a cool guy, we get along well. He is a very positive attitude type guy.

Today I met Sara and Genie after work at Staples and we got her school supplies for fourth grade. She starts school in about a month but it is best to get the stuff while we can and before all the good stuff sells out. She got some nice stuff for school and I gave her the watch that I bought her yesterday. It is a blue watch made by ‘Columbia’. We got some food after that and then we were bouncing a tennis ball off of the wall on the side of Home Depot. We played with the tennis ball for a while, she was having fun. She is good with the ball. We both worked up a good sweat because it is still very humid outside. I took the day off tomorrow and we will probably go to Sesame Place. I have a lot to do around here but I want to enjoy Sesame Place with Sara while she is still in the age to really enjoy it. I am looking forward to it.

I got my ‘Prince Pro’ tennis racquet in the mail today and also a ‘Puffy AmiYumi’ cd in the mail (for Sara). I received some Japanese books and a Shonen Knife VHS tape this week. The VHS contains early videos (lip-sync and live) from the ‘Pretty Little Baka Guy’ LP. I haven’t watched it yet.

This week has been strange. I am really starting to think about life after my current job. I am so unhappy in my current job that it seems like I need to do something that I enjoy now, more than ever. I did not realize this as clearly as I do now. So I am really looking into all kinds of possibilities to start my own thing. I must be careful and research things well. I don’t want to fail. It seems that I will need to stay at my job for at least another six months while I save and plan for the next thing.

So, I was thinking about Kevin today for the first time in a while. Then I was thinking of Tom Valatka and how my life would have probably been much different if I was not friends with those guys. All of our lives were intertwined with the band and music and other things. It’s funny how you can look back and see that. Maybe it was less clear at the time.

I will write more about Tom V. sometime soon.

keep on doing – flashback

(Here I will flashback and reminisce about The Roches . . )

There is a group called the Roches. They consist of three sisters, Maggie, Terre and Suze Roche.
They come from ‘Deepest New Jersey’. Here I will try to recall and write about them and how they were part of my life.

It was 1983 and I was playing in the band. We were into prog-rock and we loved King Crimson. Tom and Mike heard about this show at Trenton State College with these girls that ‘Robert Fripp produced’. So they went. I did not go for some reason, maybe lack of interest. I remember they told me that is was great and that after the show they offered to carry the girls’ guitars back to the car for them (a station wagon I think) and the girls politely said ‘No thanks’ with that jaded, New York-wise tone. I think Mike bought the album ‘Keep On Doing’ which had just come out. I heard it, and loved it. The more I listened, the more I was drawn in by the songs, singing and songwriting. Plus the fact that they were sisters and from New Jersey. It all made sense to me with my love of ‘Simon and Garfunkel’ and ‘Yes’ harmonies. I did not even know at the time that Paul Simon was a part of their history.

to be continued….

purpose of the blog

I want to just tell the whole purpose of this blog. I am writing this blog for two reasons.

1.) This is for Sara to look back on when she gets older and she can understand me and have a document of what we did together when she was young.

2.) So I can look back on it and see what has happened.

If anyone else reads it, fine. But this is not the purpose of the blog.
I would like to start another blog which just has cool stuff like music links and youtube links and not all the boring personal day to day stuff. I assume this stuff is boring for anyone but me and Sara when she gets older.
When I start the cool ‘music, video, and cool stuff’ blog I will link many more people to it.
This blog is just my daily life for me and mine.
But time goes by and we forget all the little things that have happened to us. Even though they seem trivial at the time. They are nice to look back on and remember.  Dig? Cool.