indian summer

Friday I met Genie and Sara at the Lawrence library. Sara got ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown’. We came home and ate Chinese and Watched it. Sara played some pinball and I turned her on to Utada (Keep Tryin’ on youtube. The video and the live version). It was a short night, Genie had to get home early to wake up early again the next day). A nice warm day.

Saturday I met them at the house at around 4:30pm. Before that I was at Mercer County Park. Another nice day, very warm. I took some pictures in the park. We went to the dollar store in Hamilton and then to the Hallmark store next door. We got a pizza at Vito’s and then we went back to Sara’s house and we watched ‘The Polar Express’. It was nice, we had hot chocolate and homemade apple pie. We had a nice warm vibe. I got to snuggle with Sara a little bit. I get sad to think that the day will come when I can no longer snuggle with her. She does not like it as much as when she was a toddler but she likes it a little bit. She jumped from the steps inside into my arms. Time is going by. I can feel it. She is bigger. I am starting to see gray in my hair. More lines in my face. Sara is acting older. But she still has the little girl quality to her. She is so cute. She says ‘Hi Daddy’ on the phone in her cutest voice. Sara gave me her Christmas list to mail to the North Pole. How great is that. I treasure it more than words could say.

Sunday Dave Brown came over. We hung out and had a cool jam upstairs. Dave played my drums, I played my Les Paul. I took some pictures with the tripod in the backyard with my Les Paul and my Guild acoustic. Another warm, perfect day. Very warm indeed. Indian summer. I went Christmas shopping later. Did a lot of errands. Did a lot of computer work and work on Marie’s songs. Worked on my Japanese pages on my website.

Warm, late November days.

winter comes in

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. It was good. I don’t get enough time with Sara and that bothers me. I picked them up at around 2pm and went to my Uncle Lou’s. I have mixed feelings about family get-togethers but I try to remain positive. I love them all very much. I am just feeling isolated because of losing my parents. I have no family. Sara and Genie are my only family. My uncles have their own children and my cousins have their own parents, etc. It was nice to see my cousin Marlena yesterday because I don’t see her much. Her boyfriend was there. I remember when she got hit by a car about a year ago and I just lost it. I cried for days. I have a connection to my family. I remember her when she was just a small child and I was in my teen years. She turned out well, she seems level headed. She is working for a Vet, in the surgery room.

We went back to Genie’s and played some of the Cars Xbox game. I did not eat with Genie’s family. I did not speak to them either. I just stayed in the other room. I was not in the mood to be false. I did not have the energy. I feel no connection to them at all. I love Sara more than anything. But I am in pain sometimes because I don’t get to see her. I am dealing with Genie’s family and I don’t want to. I only ever wanted to deal with my family. I am not concerned with what another family thinks of me (I am not talking about Genie and Sara, I am talking about her mom and brothers and sisters, etc. .)

Sara was all excited to watch ‘Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends’ movie ‘Good Wilt Hunting’. We watched some E.T. movie before that but the Spanish music was blasting in the kitchen for hours and it was the least relaxing atmosphere in the world. I read some of the Rollins book Solopitus. I took some pictures of Sara while she was doing her ‘Welcome to AMS theatres’ thing but I just did not feel comfortable because it was not my house.

The leaves are gone on the trees and it’s getting cold. It’s not freezing yet. But man, it’s coming. You can feel it.

keep tryin’

The drive to Freehold on Sunday was nice. It is easy to get to and it goes quickly. I think it took less than 45 minutes and the traffic was very light.
There is a Ritz Camera there and ‘Freehold Music’ (near Freehold raceway) but I did not visit any stores. I did go inside Barnes and Noble which was nice and big.
I came back to the area and had a cheesesteak at Sal’s pizza on Rt. 130. It was still pretty early so I came home and played guitar for a couple of hours. I watched The Sopranos season 6 episode 2 and 3. They were good. I was playing guitar the whole time (My takamine acoustic).
I was downloading tons of stuff also. I worked on my Adobe photoshop project for class and some other photoshop photo editing. I talked to Sara on the phone after she got done with girl scouts. She was happy.
I missed her a lot on Sunday. Genie worked all day and then they had girl scouts. I drank a grolsh beer at night and stayed up past midnight doing computer stuff. It’s a rock and roll life.

Monday I grabbed some food on the way home from work and I was eating and watching The Old Grey Whistle Test volume 3 (with commentary). I watched about half and then I crashed on the couch. I woke up about 2 1/2 hours later and it was around 8pm. I worked on the computer after that (photoshop, downloads, organizing files). Genie called around 8:30pm and said she was working very late. I never got a chance to talk to Sara because Genie worked until closing and did not get home until after 10pm.
I drank a big grolsh around 11pm and was rocking out to The Electrifying Conclusion in the background. Sometimes I just listen to it like an audio cd. I think I should dub it as an audio without the extended raps in between songs. I made it through most of the DVD while doing stuff around the house/computer and playing guitar. I was playing guitar along with a radio station on ‘live365.com’ internet radio. The station plays all Japanese indie rock. It’s cool. I have recordings by a lot of the bands they play.
I was surfing youtube (as usual) and I decided to check out some Utada Hikari (Hikki). I found ‘the making of Keep Tryin”. It was cool to watch and song grew on me. Then I watched to video and became a fan. I ordered ‘Ultra Blue’ today through Amazon. I was up late until close to 2am so I am a bit tired today.

Tuesday I shipped my macbook for repair. I went to class and it was good. I printed out my project 4 (childrens book cover).

Wednesday I had my first Japanese lesson with Waka. She is cool. I gave her a printed copy of the Japanese/English lyrics to keep tryin’. Marie and Mike came over later to work on her music (putting .wav files in the computer and changing the pitch of the songs). They are good people. They have the Italian vibe. Atsa my people, hehe.

Hikki power! She’s awesome.

soccer games and happy feet

Yesterday (Saturday) was a good day. It began with some computer work and watching more of the Shonen Knife VHS tape that I just got. Then I met Sara at the soccer field for her last day of soccer for this season. She had two games today. The first game was at noon and they won. Sara played offense in the first quarter and defense in the third. I took pictures and video. It was cold, there was no sun, it was cloudy and it felt like it was in the 40’s. I had to wear a heavy jacket and my hands were cold. After the game we went to get lunch. On the way to lunch we passed a major flock of birds who were migrating south. They were in a corn field and I guess they were eating the scraps of dried out corn cobs on the ground. This was on the back road of Robbinsville (Gordon Rd?) heading toward Rt. 130. I pulled over the car and I was taking picutres of the birds. I have not seen them yet, I think they are cool pictures. I waited until the birds settled and then ran down the road so they would fly in a pack and then took pictures. I was joking with Sara when we drove through them ‘You pooped on me, now I will get revenge!’ and then I would speed up toward the birds. She was laughing at that.

As we were driving to lunch Sara was talking about E.T (the movie) and I told her that my initials were E.T.J. She knew my middle name was Tommy and we told her that Tommy was Thomas. She said ‘I know’. Just then I got a phone call and it was Tommy Valatka. That was funny. To get a call from Tom right in the middle of our ‘Tommy’ conversation. Anyway, Tom was going to see Dylan at the spectrum and wanted to see if I wanted to go. I did, of course and I considered it earlier but I just don’t have the time or money to spend. The timing is just off. I really wish I could see Bob and I have my reasons for not going. I will not regret missing him (I don’t deal with regret). But at the same time I really wish the energy and timing was right to see Bob. I am passing up many shows that I want to see. It is just a re-charge phase that I am in. Plus I want to pay off my camera that I just bought on my credit card. And with Christmas coming, etc, I want the money for Sara and the holiday. I recently passed on Pollard at the World Cafe Live, Cheap Trick at the TLA, Dylan, and tonight Brian Wilson is at the Keswick. That one is really tempting. The Keswick is not hard to get to. I am wondering if it’s sold out.

Tom and I talked about family, music, etc. It was nice to hear from him. Tom will always be a soul brother of mine. We went through amazing times together. We went on our own paths and did not always have parallel lifestyles but that’s all in the past and I am glad to have a friendship with him now. I hope we can get together with our daughters (his daughter Angela is two months younger than Sara). Wow, time is moving on, no doubt.

We returned to Sara’s second soccer game and it was even colder. They lost this game. Sara played the same offense then defense (1st and 3rd). She is so much fun to watch. She is so full of life. She bounces up and down and plays on the sidelines. She is awesome. She plays with her friends on the sidelines. I videotaped her on the sidelines playing around. She dances around on the field like none of the other kids. She has her own style. It is great to see her originality. She is an only child and with me as a parent (who is also an only child, I developed my own style) I can really see how she has her own thing going. After the game they all gathered around and handed out trophys and the coach congratulated everyone. It was nice. When Sara got her trophy she made a speech, ‘This is my first sports tropy, but actually I got another medal from cheerleading’ or something similar. She was laughing and very talkative. Not shy at all and very cute and happy and friendly with the other girls and the coach. Outgoing, cute, friendly, talkative. That’s my girl.

After the game we went to see ‘Happy Feet’. It was great and Sara had a great time. I could see her laughing a lot during the movie and repeating certain lines. We had a blast. After the movie we were dancing (mostly me) in the front of the theatre to the closing credits. That movie makes you want to dance. It was cool. The theatre was crowded so of course there were a few people who were loud and talked throughout. I had to glare at the dude behind me to shut up. He didn’t so I blocked him out, luckily it worked and I still enjoyed the movie immensly. People amaze me. He was the only guy talking through the entire movie. He spoke some Indian language and he just was non-stop without even trying to whisper at all. Did he realize that if everyone did that it would ruin the movie for the entire theatre? No, he felt that he was the priviledged one, the one who could talk. After the flick I stared him down, he got the message. If we weren’t with our families there would have been an issue to settle. I rose above him, and he did not get to me. The flick was great and we goofed around in the parking lot for a while then we left. Later when I called Sara she was watching ‘E.T.’. My happy little duck.

In the car, Sara was asking for Annie. She likes the  ‘Annie In Wonderland’ album very much. She liked ‘If I Loved You’ and when I played ‘Going Home’ I asked her if she liked it. From the backseat I heard ‘Yes’ very matter-of-factly. When we get in the car she says ‘Music!’ and I was talking to her and she cut me off ‘yeah, ok, music!’. hehe.

I gave Sara ‘Annie In Wonderland’. She is happy, she digs it. She can sing along to ‘If I Were Made Of Music’ very well.

Today I will drive to Freehold to visit a friend. I grabbed some CD’s for the drive. Today’s listening will be:

Thin Lizzy – The Peel Sessions
Public Enemy – Fear Of A Black Planet
Buzz Zeemer – Delusions Of Grandeur
Bill Hicks – Relentless and Flying Saucer Tour
Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates
Loudon Wainwright – Social Studies
Yukari Fresh – Twelve Plus Twelve
Tom Waits – Foreign Affairs
Lewis Black – Rules Of Enragement

my little blueberry muffin

Wednesday I went to Allens camera after work and got my D70 back from repair. It was a free repair. I only paid for shipping. I checked out a close up ring (cannon, but fits all lenses) and a lens extender tube which allows you to focus closer to an object (allows macro type shots).
After the store I got some food and then went to Sara’s soccer game but when we showed up there was only a few other cars and the field was dark. The game was cancelled but we did not get the email in time. So we hung out in the parking lot for a few minutes and then we went to Dunkin Donuts and Sara got a blueberry muffin.
I talked to Sara today and said ‘How’s my little blueberry muffin?’ She said ‘If you call me that or anything cute again, I will hang up on you’. Sara went to the ear doctor yesterday. She has another ear infection. She has a problem with her ears and eyes. I am upset about this. I never had problems like these and I feel bad for her and I worry about them getting worse. Even if they continue like this it is bad.
Last night I came home from work and I did not feel like going to school but I forced myself to go and it was worth it. The class was good. We got into using the ‘filter gallery’ in CS2. I have used filters before, but the filter gallery is really great. It is an improvement in CS2 over CS. You can see thumbnails of each filter effect. Adobe is amazing. I talked to Sara and she was happy. I told her that we would see ‘Happy Feet’ this weekend. I called her and she was angry because I disturbed what she was doing. After I told her that I was at Hollywood Video to get E.T. she said ‘Well, my anger is turning to happiness now’.

Last night (Friday) I worked on my website after work. Then at around 7:30 I went to Sara’s to get her for the ’special friend’ dance. It is a father-daughter dance that they have every year. It is always good. The theme was ’safari’. Sara was dressed in safari clothes (Hello Kitty safari skirt, safari vest) she looked cute. I was dressed normal in jeans and a ‘blasters’ t-shirt. She asked me in the car if I was dressed as safari. I said ‘Dad doesn’t do themes’. We arrived and Genie stayed in the car to take a nap. We were in the hallway goofing around and then they let us in the room. We started dancing right away. I danced with Sara on the slow songs and on ‘The Twist’ and a few others. For all the ‘Chicken Dance’ and ‘YMCA’ stuff she danced with her friends. They played the usual bad music, with the hip hop stuff thrown in. The kids knew the words to some of the lame ‘Missy Elliot’ type stuff. They also played two songs from ‘High School Musical’, ‘Together’ and the piano-pop song which is pretty good. They also played the ‘You’re The One That I Want/Greased Lightning’ song that is always played. The DJ has a decent gig. He is probably way over-paid to spin that predictable nonsene. Anyway, I danced with Sara in the non-traditional way and it was apparent that we had a great vibe and communication with each other that was lacking (big time in some cases) between most of the other fathers and daughters. We goof around with each other and come up with new things in the dance and talk to each other. Some of the other dads are the typical ‘Lockheed Engineer’ type. They are the walking dead. They have no communication with their daughter and it shows. They just go through the motions. They don’t even talk to their daughters. This goes for a lot of them, but not all of them. But even the ones who are somewhat alive and have some communication with their daughters still go through the same dance motions, like trained dogs. I can’t dance in the traditional sense, so we make up cool stuff to do. We tossed her stuffed tigers back and forth and goofed around and I spun her a lot and she swings under my legs on the ground, etc. Sara did some air guitar, which she picked up from me. I don’t do as much air guitar these days, but I used to do it a lot around Sara. They played ‘Hot, Hot, Hot’ and Sara remembered when I used to play that at home and run around and bounce around with her on my shoulders. I took some short video last night, not much. Sara was dancing, smiling, singing. She was having a great time. When we slow danced and she hugged me tight I was in heaven. The best feeling in the world. I have felt many feelings in my life, but nothing comes close to slow dancing with your daughter and having her hug you tightly like she means it. Time stands still and it’s heaven on earth. There is nothing greater. Period.

During the last dance a fire alarm went off and the dance just kind of cleared out of the exit doors during mid song. At first we didn’t hear the alarm so it looked strange. It was like everyone just danced out the doors simultaneously. Then we heard the alarm and we got out. I still don’t know if there was a problem or if someone set the alarm accidentaly or intentionally or what. We had to clear the building and we went home. I was dancing punk rock style on Sara’s lawn as she watched from inside before I drove off. She said ‘Encore!’ through the door glass and so I danced more. Like hyper punk-ska. It was fun. It was a very great night. I would not trade these times for anything. I am living the life that I want to. If I can get back into creative mode and start doing music again that would just add to my happiness.

This morning (Saturday). I hooked up my VCR to watch a Shonen Knife VHS tape that I got in the mail from a guy in CA. I found him online and we have been trading emails about J-rock. He has some good J-rock pages on his site. He hooked me up with ‘Shonen Knife – Blast Off’ plus lots of videos and news clips / documentary clips on this tape. It’s really cool. I am digging it big time.

Last night I was waiting in the car for Sara and playing ‘Clammbon – The Lover Album’. I have been listening a lot to that over the last month and it really keeps growing on me. There is so much subtlety to the music, so many small nuances. It really moves me. It is really pure, great music in the truest sense. Just straight up honest talent and a love of music is what comes through for me. I love that album. I love Clammbon. When Sara got in the car we grooved to Yukari Fresh.

november rolls along

 Yesterday (Sunday) was a quiet, relaxing day. It was raining a little in the morning and I spent most of the morning and early afternoon on the computer. Did a lot of ‘youtube’ watching. Youtube rules.
Sara and Genie came over around 3pm and we went to the library briefly and then to get some Chinese food and Sara wanted to rent ‘Home Alone 3′ because she had seen it (at school?) and she kept telling me ‘You gotta see it, it’s so funny’.
We rented it and came home and watched it during dinner. As usual, Sara played some pinball and we played blackjack again. It was a nice day. After Sara left I drank a big Grolsh beer and rocked out to some GBV while working on the computer. I was working with Adobe Illustrator. I have been downloading a bunch of audio from ’soulseek’ P2P file sharing. It works out good. Between that and newsgroups I got a lot of new stuff this weekend. Sara asked for ‘Annie In Wonderland’ and Kay Hanley for her car listening.

Today (Monday) after work I got my haircut, then I was watching ‘The Manchurian Candidate (the original with Sinatra) during dinner. Cool movie. It has a nice little Sinatra interview on the features also. I was watching it with the commentary on. I have seen it before. I did not get all the way through, I decided to take a nap on the couch. I took a nap while listening to ‘Tales From Topographic Oceans’. The remaster sounds good. I know it’s bloated and pretentious (actually, only part of it is) but it is a blast from my past. It is a fun listen for me. Long live ‘Tales’. I remember I originally got it when I was in grade school and we took a bus trip to NYC and I had some spending money and I came home with ‘Tales’. I also received ‘Clammbon – Surround (single)’ and ‘Yukari Fresh – Twelve by Twelve’ which is a Korean greatest hits compilation. The Yukari has a cool sleeve and insert, plus lyrics which is cool because It’s hard to understand her words on the recordings (even though they are in English). Later on I was painting the kitchen molding and working on the computer. It was raining all day and the weather was kind of warm.

(Wednesday) Last night I did not go to class. By the time I got home and got something to eat I did not feel like going anywhere. My job has succeeded in zapping my energy for anything that I love once again.
I got episodes 2 and 3 of ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ DVD yesterday so I watched episode 2 with the commentary on last night. I will go back and watch some of the songs without commentary sometime.
There was some good stuff on there for sure and some interesting stuff too. It had a lot of appearances. It is interesting to flash back to some of those bands and times. I worked on Adobe Illustrator for a while. I came up with some decent designs. I don’t regret taking this class because it forces me to use the software and even though I am not an expert at it I can get around with some basics and I am experimenting with the tools.
I came up with some things which could even be used for cd artwork. It is cool stuff, Adobe rules. I talked to Sara on the phone. She was trying to rent ‘E.T’ because she apparently told some classmates that she was going to watch it. She was so cute on the phone she told me that she wanted to rent ‘E.T.’ because she wanted to ‘deal with my fear’ and ‘I don’t mind when he is green, but when he is blue he freaks me out . . he just freaks me out’. (meaning the E.T. dude) It was really cute.
I talked to her later and she had no luck renting it (it was out of the store) so I will get it for her. Fell asleep on the couch and had some vivid dreams. Every night I have very vivid dreams. I dream like wild.

falling leaves and perfect days

Saturday (yesterday) was great. It started with me going to Sara’s soccer game. Sara played defense in the second quarter and goalie in the fourth quarter. I took some nice pictures. The weather was perfect. I was high 60’s and clear. A lot of foliage is still on the trees but some trees are bare. It could not have been a better day. After the game I drove Sara home to change out of her soccer uniform and then we all went to Mastori’s to grab some food. It was great as usual. Sara had pancakes, Genie had French Toast and I had a chicken sandwich which was huge. I could only eat half. We came back to Ewing after stopping off to get the ‘Cars’ DVD which just came out. We came back and watched ‘Cars’ and played pinball. We were having a great day. Nice and relaxed. Around 4pm we went out for a walk in the neighborhood and it was just perfect. I was taking pictures. Sara was in a great mood. We passed the (Japanese Maple?) tree which is on the corner of Sutherland and Pingree and it has no leaves left. It was full of red leaves on Thursday night because we were there taking pictures of it. So it is amazing how in a few days the leaves can go from full to bare. Some of the trees still have a lot of leaves. As I type this (Sunday 11-12) the leaves are literally pouring non-stop from the tree in my neighboors yard (just above the red barn).

We got a balloon (soccer ball) from the dollar store and we got a deck of cards from another dollar store then we returned home and ate leftovers. I taught Sara how to play blackjack. We got some change and we were betting. It was fun. We also played ‘mother may I’ because Sara wanted to play. I was taking video all day. At the end of the day we were surfing youtube for Puffy and we also checked out some Shiina Ringo (I told Sara the story about Shiina getting her name from the apple incedent where the classmates yelled ‘Ringo’ at her after she turned red). It was just a great, great day. I drove Sara home later and we were listening to music as usual (Kay Hanley, Clammbon, TMBG Flood). I asked Sara if she had a great day. And she said ‘Yes!’ as if she really meant it. I am so glad that we can just enjoy each other so much I feel very blessed and very happy and content inside. Life is really pretty great.

Friday night I picked up Genie and Sara from their house after work and took them to get the SUV from the shop. We ate a pizza and watched some DVD of the spongebob movie. It was cool. Sara wanted to get home early because there was a brand new spongebob episode playing at 7:30. So we played pinball and surfed youtube and goofed around until she left. I drank some beer and stayed up really late blasting Guided By Voices and doing stuff on the computer.

Thursday night I picked up Genie and Sara at the car dealership (Genie dropped off the SUV) and we came back here for a while before I had to go to class. We ate Chinese and watched some DVD. Then I took them home before I went to class. At class we are now into Photoshop so that’s cool.

life at the movies

Today is Thursday. Yesterday after work Genie and Sara called and said that they were leaving the dentist and going to the movies to see ‘The Santa Clause 3, The Escape Clause’. Sara needs to have a consultation with an orthodontist because her teeth are coming in a little imperfectly. I will put her on my dental plan next week. Currently she is on Genie’s plan. At first I said I would not be meeting them there. Sara said ‘You’re not coming? I’m sorry to hear that’. I was tired and I did not feel like sitting through a G-rated Disney romp. After hanging up the phone however, I thought about it and I decided to go so I got it together and left, then called them to tell them to go in without me if I did not get there in time. When I got there they were inside already but it was easy to find them. Sara wanted to see this movie so she was happy. The movie was what you would expect, but Martin Short as Jack Frost was great so it was fun to watch with Sara. I got some nice hugs from Sara during the movie and at the end we went to the top seats and danced around to the closing music. I was joking around a lot after the movie and we played around outside in the parking lot for a while. I had a blast. Sara was really happy and joking and just perfect. It was raining all day and it drizzled in the parking lot. I am glad that I changed my mind and went. Later I was watching some DVD of Neil Peart – A Work In Progress. It was interesting.

vacation has ended, back to the land of the living dead

I took the septa R3 yesterday to Temple University to meet my pal Lauren and take photos of her. It was a nice day. I had never been to Temple before but I always go past the stop on my way to Center City.
It was cool to see the campus and the area. I walked through the campus several times. The septa platform is at Berks St. and 10th which is a couple blocks from the campus. Lauren is fun to hang out with. She is artistic, she writes and is into acting.

I took a lot of nature pictures around the area also. I took the train back at 2:45pm and I went directly to Sara’s soccer game. I missed a lot of the game but I did see her playing goalie. She was very excited to be playing goalie. When she saw me after the game she demanded “Where’s my hot chocolate?”. She told me to bring it and “Don’t come to the game without it”.

We went to Panera to get her hot chocolate and her favorite ‘very chocolatly brownie’. I did not think she needed the brownie because of all the chocolate and sugar in the hot chocolate. But she won out and got the brownie. It was turning colder by then and night was approaching so we went across the lot to Barnes and Noble and we read books. I was reading a Henry Rollins book ‘Broken ?’ where he was talking a lot about the tour he did revisiting Black Flag songs.
He had some cool things to say, as usual. We went to the ‘comfy chairs’ and we were reading together (Sara and I). I was hungry by then and Sara had to eat also so we said goodbye at Panera and went home. By the time I got home it had been a full day. I left at 9:30am and now it was after 7pm. I watched more of the Kissology DVD vol 1. I was watched most of the Tokyo 1977 show. It was really cool. I like Peter and Ace’s playing a lot. They were not technical but they had just the right feel and sound to their playing which complimented the band. Kiss was really one of those classic line-up bands where you could not replace any member easily. The sound was comprised of the styles of those particular four original members. Anyone else but Peter and Ace would overplay and would not have the same groove or sound. Watching the Kiss DVD’s really takes me back in a great way. They had the rock and roll spirit. Gene and Paul are so much fun to watch. And they got the Tokyo crowd rocking hard. You can see how the Japanese are totally tuned in to American rock and culture. By the 70’s, Japan was already a parallel universe to the USA.
I pretty much went to sleep early (before 10pm). I wanted to get a good night sleep before returning to the dreaded work week. This morning I uploaded the Temple pictures to the computer and they looked good. After work today I watched some of the ‘Tsunami Bomb’ DVD that I got from netflix. They are a young band and they rock pretty good. They have good songs. The singer is wearing a ‘Smiths’ shirt during the show. Bonus points right there.

I received ‘Akiko Yano – Piano Nightly’ and ‘Bufallo Daughter – I’ in the mail today. I just got done working on some Illustrator homework. My project 3 is overdue. I am done working with Illustrator for the time being but I must finish this project. I will keep updating the project slowly in the course hard drive.

It was hard going back to work today. Oh well, I am paying the bills. Yesterday the weather was perfect during the day and a bit cool during the evening. Today was similar,  great during the sunlight hours (light jacket or sweater)  . . cold after dark . . very cold 9pm to 11am.

vacation winding down

It is Saturday night and my vacation is almost over. I feel recharged so it was great to take a whole week off. Thursday night I went to class and we finally started working in photoshop using the mask tool to cut out a photo (we used a head from a photo and cut it out and pasted it in a new document, then added text with Illustrator). Thursday after I wrote the last blog entry (in the morning) I went to get lunch and Genie called and said she was bringing her SUV for an oil change. It is near my house so I went and picked up her and Sara and we came back here for a while. We hung out and ate some food together and then we went for a walk in the neighborhood. We had to cut it short because Genie wanted to get her SUV back from the shop. But I got some nice nature pictures. There is a red (Japanese maple?) tree in my block which I always shoot (corner of Pingree and Sutherland Ave). That was my bus-stop when I was a kid. I keep telling Sara that I am searching for the ‘magic colors’. When she doesn’t want to go picture taking with me she says ‘No magic colors, No!’. We went and got the SUV, then we came back here for a little while before they went home and I went to class.

Friday Sara and Genie had off so they came over. We were going to possibly go to the Statue Of Liberty but I checked the website Friday morning and it turns out that you need to reserve the tickets 48 hours in advance. I don’t think you can go as high as the crown in the statue anymore. We will do it someday soon I hope. The Empire State Building is also on our list of things to do. I would like to do Central Park someday soon also but the season is quickly coming to an end. So, Genie and Sara came over and we got a pizza. I took some nature pictures with Sara in the car at the municipal building in Ewing and also at the Ewing library parking lot. We watched some ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ and then we went to see ‘Flushed Away’. It was ok, nothing special but Sara liked it. I ate too much popcorn (the free refill is a killer). Then we went to the mall (Quakerbridge). Sara wanted to get some ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ stuff at Claire’s. She ended up getting a Jack Skelington wallet and she kept the change from the $20 I gave her in the wallet. We also went looking at Disney store. They have a cool ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ centerpiece which would be nice to get for the holiday seasons. It’s not cheap ($90) but it is tempting to get it because it’s made really well and looks great. We left the mall and came back to Ewing and Sara and Genie left right away (Genie had to get up very early the next day). I talked to Sara on the phone later. She was very happy. I asked her if she had a great time today. She said ‘Yes, a great time!’. She really had a great time as usual. She is so great, so happy. We really try to make her the happiest child and it really seems like she is. We were getting into the new Kay Hanley album which I just got. It is really good. I played a few songs and asked Sara if she liked it. She said ‘Yes, I love it!’. Sara is a big fan of the Letters To Cleo album ‘Go!’. This sounds a bit like it because of Kay’s voice and a similar style. Sara said ‘It sounds like ‘Go!’ but with different songs’.

Today I did some stuff here at the house in the daytime and then I went to the mall area. I ended up at Barnes and Noble and I was reading a bunch of photoshop magazines and music books. I was reading a Neil Peart book that chronicled all the music that he listened to while making his journeys. Kind of a cool idea for a book. He was raving about a certain Sinatra album which I now want to hear. I bought a book called ‘The Digital Photography Book’. It is concise and to the point. It seems like a good guide. When I was at Barnes and Noble my friend Marie from NYC called me. It was nice to hear from her. She is a really nice person. I wish I could hang out with her more often but I have had a hard time getting to NYC recently. It seems like I have been extra busy.

After the bookstore I took some pictures of trees (magic colors) in the market fair parking lot. I was thinking back to when I worked in the office park right there. That was a great place to work, location-wise. I would much rather work in that area than all the way in south Jersey like I am right now. It brings back good memories to be in that area. I am looking forward to life beyond my current job, big time. Anyway, after the photos in the parking lot area I went to get Sara and Genie. We did not have any plan so we just drove around the back roads of Robbinsville (around Sharon Rd. and some farm roads back there). It was sunset so we drove and watched the sun go down. It’s a nice thing to do in the fall season. We listened to the Kay Hanley album and Sara was reading the lyric sheet. Then we listened to some of the ‘Clammbon – The Love Album’ as the sun was setting and we were driving. It sounded great during a nice fall sunset on a country road. We then ended up back on Rt. 130 so I decided to go to Mastori’s diner for dinner. Sara did not want to go. She doesn’t like the Crystal diner so I had to convince her that this diner was different. I had not been there in a long time, since Sara was really young. Sara said ok and we went. When we were in the parking lot Sara pretended to be sleeping and so we pretended to leave the car and go off without her. Then we hid behind an adjacent truck and watched her. It was funny. She popped her head up and had a surprised look on her face to see that we had left her. Then we re-appeared and we all had a good laugh. Mastori’s serves really large portions and we had tons of food. We only ate half of what they served us. Sara had a great time and I asked her if she liked it and she said ‘Yes!’. We were laughing a lot at the table and on the way home we were cracking up. Sara and I were tickling each other and getting into our ‘poop’ jokes and by the time we said goodnight we were laughing non-stop. It was great. I came home and I have been at the computer now for about two hours.

Tomorrow is my last vacation day. That’s ok. The time off really did me good. Vacations are important. I will take another in the spring unless the work slows down and I get laid off.