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Archives for 2008

Naples Grape Festival 2008

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I’m a little late in posting this but better late than never.

My Mother-in-law entered the Grape Pie Festival in 2007 and did not win any of the awards. Well that just wasn’t a satisfactory conclusion for the family so we prompted her to enter again this year. Well wouldn’t ya know, she won First Prize! That high honor is called “The World’s Greatest Grape Pie” and she got a trophy and everything. How about that. And the best part was we all got to eat the pie afterwards because the festival organizers sell off all the slices when the judging has ended. Talk about getting your cake (or pie) and eating it too!

Congratulations Shirley (and my wife Linda who helped)

Halloween 2008

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All the ghosts and goblins were out in my neighborhood tonight. Here are a few photos of the kids in their great costumes… I think the best costume of the night was my nephew, Logan, who dressed up as Hannah Montanna. What a hoot!

Wall-E

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I just saw the movie Wall-E with two of my nephews and my wife. I’ve honestly got to say that I have never seen an animated movie that worked so well on so many different levels.

The movie has an important message that is gotten across in a delightful and entertaining manner. The premise of the movie is that Earth has been “temporarily” abandoned by its inhabitants because of pollution and disregard for its resources. Earth has gotten so bad that it will no longer sustain life. Wall-E is a robot working on the abandoned Earth. His job is to collect trash, compact it and stack it. The ultimate goal is to restore the Earth to a state that will once again support life. His best buddy is a cockroach. The animation was stunning. The characters became so real and the movie became so engrossing that the “animation” became transparant in that it was as if I was watching “real live characters”. The screenplay ( I guess you still call it that even for animation) was excellent. Overall I’d have to rate this as one of the more enjoyable movies I’ve ever seen…the message was great, the movie was emotionally touching, the animation was spectacular and I was sad when it finally ended. I was so wrapped up in the movie that I just wanted it to go on and on.

The movie has numerous nods to other sci-fi movies, which are fun to pick out. Allusions to “Close Encounters”, “Star Trek”, “Star Wars” and others. Plus there are some interesting sound effects that will amuse the careful listener…such as an Apple Computer Start-up Chime.

Wall-E has a personality trait that is funny…he likes to collect items of interest before collecting and compacting the trash. He carefully places his collectables on a series of movable trays and it’s a riot to see what he’s collected.

To be honest, I had tears streaming down my face on more than one occasion during the movie. It was an animated movie for goodness sake! What’s that all about? Well, it’s about a movie that was so well crafted and seemed so real that it hit all the emotional buttons that a movie with real live actors would hit. It’s truly a family movie but has enough adult content to keep the adults as engaged as the kids. Highly recommended.

And do you -really- think that Wall-E looks “exactly” like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit?
Wall-E and Joynny 5

One day in New York City…

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I had a fun day yesterday. A friend of mine is hosting a Rotary Exchange Student from Spain and the young man had a desire to visit New York City. So we hopped in the car and 4.5 hours later were in Mid-town Manhattan. It was hot and humid in the big apple, but that did not deter us from visiting some of the sights… NBA Store, Times Square, Trump Tower, Battery Park, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Hard Rock Cafe, Stage Deli, Apple Store and of course the beautiful George Washington Bridge.

One unexpected surprise was the viewing of the art project. I had read about this and seen other photos of the project, but had “forgotten” about it until we were at Battery Park and noticed one of the waterfalls. What a thrill to see these. There are actually 4 of these waterfalls and we were lucky enough to see 3 out of the 4. Here are the photos of the waterfalls…
New York City WaterfallsBrooklyn Bridge WaterfallBrooklyn Piers WaterfallPier 35 Waterfall

My first bike race – Race4Hope

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I was excited to be in my first bike race this morning. Officially called the Race4Hope, it was the second annual race to benefit cancer research and is a held in memoriam for Dick Shaffer.

It was a beautiful day for the race; mostly clear skies and just a slight breeze, temperature probably in the mid-50’s. I’m not sure how many participants there were just yet as I have not received the official race results, but I estimate there were in excess of 125 riders. I’ll update my blog with the exact numbers once the results are released.

I was pretty happy with my ride… my time was 1:19:57 for the 23.42mi distance. That translates to an Average Speed of 17.6mph, and a 3:24/mi pace. I even had a small cheering section at the finish line…Linda was there to document the finish and here are the photos she took.


Please…no comments about my big fat butt. Thanks 🙂

It’s for the birds

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This year we started seeing Baltimore Orioles in our backyard. It’s the first time we’ve seen them. They are beautifully colored with a very distinctive song. We soon learned that Orioles like to visit the hummingbird feeder to partake of the same sugar water that Hummingbirds drink. So I bought a feeder that is specifically for Baltimore Orioles. It looks similar to a Hummingbird feeder but is a bit different in how the sugar water is “presented” to the bird. Well, the Oriole just doesn’t get it yet and continues to feed on the Hummingbird feeder. I guess I don’t really care as long as the Orioles stick around. They are so cool.

As for our Hummingbirds, they are totally amazing. It is somewhat of a miracle to me that they return every year on the same day, plus or minus a day or two. Every year! This year was no exception. We try to remember to have the hummingbird feeder outside a week or so before they are “scheduled” to return. This year we put the feeder out on May 2 and within 5 minutes there was a Hummingbird feeding at it. As if he was waiting for us…dumb humans, I’m hungry. What took you so long!