it's christmas time, there's no need to be afraid...

I can't believe it's already winter and will be Christmas in a week; and the new year in two weeks! Where did the time go? I had wanted to write and write and write but every time I had an idea I had to work and work and work...oh well, the bills have to be paid somehow as well as the extra $$ for roadside traveling and diner visiting. With the new year fast approaching I hereby resolve to write more and do more of the other things, the "little" things, that I enjoy.
Take care and be well, happy holidays and see you in the new year.

a great pizza bar none

had the best pizza today that I ever had...a five topping pizza from Ronzio

my loved ones

Just a pic of my family.

yikes!

Woke up to what we thought was thunder Monday morning...walking out into my back yard I tripped over slate and bricks, looked up to see a branch on my roof.
Called the fire dept who inspected the front and back, and found a break in the branch which I could not see.
While in the the kitchen we heard sliding on the roof and a crash, thinking "%%%! the chimney just fell!"
No...but thank God we had moved the cars and no one was in the back yard. The branch you see in the picture is about the size of two Corollas...and we had to play taps for the basket ball hoop.
As one of my relatives astutely put it "At least there are less leaves to rake this year" (yeh but I got a hell of a lot of acorns for the squirrels!!)

rookie award

Once in a great while I will find a diner so bad I give it a "Rookie Award"...Rookie's is a diner that Bakelady and I stopped at in Wellfleet during our honeymoon and was so bad we talk about it to this day.
See the first review at this address:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g60754-d1130684-r34415930-Rookie_s_Family_Restaurant-Wellfleet_Cape_Cod_Massachusetts.html

It could have been one I should have written and wish I did.

a great artist

My son is a huge fan of anime, anywhere from Pokemon to Three Delivery (a new one "about three friends trying to save the world from an evil villian named Kan Lee" says my son - a show I enjoy myself). He has collected a few "How to draw..." books. To the left is a recent drawing he did of Pachirisu, from the Pokemon program.

Cool, huh?

Hoppy Easter, Everyone!

google me!

I have finally made the big time (lol)...if you google Thena3, guess who's site comes up first?

Go ahead, guess.

You get three guesses and the first two don't count.

You're right - it's mine!

(yippie)

alternate msn blog is closed

my alternate msn blog is closed. i felt uncomfortable storing pictures on it as well as receiving what amounted to a ton of spam.
pity.

friday 032610

Fathers and sons.

Gotta love it

this and that

Bumper is still cooking and still very talented at it. In the above pic he is preparing an egg-mcbumpy for breakfast. Who needs a diner when my own house is a greasy spoon?

Work on the so-called rec room is continuing, my house is always in total flux...as my brother once said after he left my old apartment and returned to it an hour later with living room totally different from what he left "the only other way you can have it is nailing the furniture to the ceiling!" He was right of course; I have never been one to be satisfied with a redecorating job, altho at 45 I am finally learning to "lighten up" (yeh, right). I am now moving the ham shack from the laundry area to the rec room. More pics to come. You can tell by Yogi's face above that he is totally bemused over the whole situation.

Recently had Fios installed and loving it, even tho it's been only a week. I use the Safari browser which is pretty quick and, coupled with the Fios, is quicker than it has been. Don't get me wrong, Comcast broadband was pretty good, too, but it is a noticeable difference. Mozilla, which Bakelady uses, is also as good while the Internet Explorer stinks, which is par for the course for IE anyway.

I am also loving the channel line-up, even at the basic level; I lost GSN and Bio but gained other channels including WGN America with it's great Jeannie/Bewitched block, WE, Oxygen, and several Nick channels. I am almost tempted to spring for the "extreme" package but we'll see. I would love to have a couple more "family" channels and of course Boomerang! I'll let you know when the bill comes in. And the Fios guy was amazing. Not only did he spend almost 6 hours here, explain everything he did and explain the system, he also cleaned up the wiring mess left by Directv and Comcast before him. You would never expect this from the other two and their quick half-hour contracted installations. I am totally impressed!

And a word about Safari: I love they're "Top Sites" screen (pictured above); it is my home page and I believe this is what Microsoft attempted in their Vista package - but Apple did it better.

Vacation in a month (during the school vacation); planning on a dx day and taking the Bump out to try a diner or two, maybe we can escape to the cape one day.

More pics to come on the home renovation. Be scared. and run.

Talk soon

walpolemadman

There was once a commercial about a guy who finally found the end of the internet.
There is no end. You want a good laugh? I was looking through a binder of old website pages I have found interesting through the years and found a copy of my old blog from 2004.
I checked it out on line...it's still up! And it also mentions the the "Sgt Pepper" discussion as well.

Check out http://walpolemadman.blogspot.com/ for mentions of old tv shows, now-non-existent diners and writings about my then toddler. Rereading this and other old blogs in my binder prove that, altho I may get a little wordy I have certainly grown as a writer (one can only hope!!)

bumper's art number two

Bump did the one on the right free-hand from the tv; the one on the left is again from the internet.

Not bad for an eight-year old!

Chowder is one of my favorite cartoons...it reminds me a little of the old cartoons we grew up with (but a little more modern). It's a little more risque than what we had but it's not as bad as others that are on

(including My Gym Partner's a Monkey which is absolutely forbidden in our house!)

bumpy's art number1

The one on the left is from the internet.

The one on the right was drawn from the tv by Bumper.

Yes I'm proud

your sgt pepper album

Sgt Pepper is known as "the" pop album. Released in 1967 it explored more music innovations than most bands had dared up to that time; music styles ranged from old broadway/stage thru jazz thru early psychedelic thru good-old rock. A kind-of concept album (starting with the title track and ending with a reprise into "A day in the life")

My brother and I put forth an idea of what would we consider our favorite group's (or any group's, I guess) "Sgt Pepper" album. It didn't have to be something that was record breaking or have any firsts (such as the Beatles' use of sitar or reverse-played tape), it just had to be an album we thought was "it". An exmple would be Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours".

Here I post my examples:

Monkees "Headquarters", the first effort on their own with minimal session men

Simon and Garfunkel "Bookends", this is the one with "Mrs Robinson", the psychodelic "Save the life of my child" and "Hazy shade of winter"

Peter Paul and Mary "Late again", PPM gone electric! The end result of what "Album" and "Album 1700" were leading up to

Billie Myers "Growing pains", her first and best, every song great - and that song "Kiss the rain" is one of the best!

kd lang "Ingenue", again every song great with the hit "Constant Craving"; this is the one that made her known

Supertramp "Breakfast in America", almost every song became a hit

I invite your oppinions and comments and would love to know what your "Sgt Pepper" would be

Christmas memories for the new year

I suppose I could sit here and chastise myself for not not blogging in ages. If that is your wish so be it (lol). I can't believe the last blog was Thanksgiving! and here it is almost February, x-number of days into the not-so-new year.
Well, Christmas has come and gone and we're not the worse for it, only the better. The whole family got together and it is a very proud but disconcerting thing to see us all together. My cousins and I are no longer the kids of the group, no longer sitting at the kids' table in the den of our grandparents' house, watching Laurel and Hardy or whatever is on the black and white tv. That spot has been taken by a whole new generation, our children and (gulp) their girlfriends or boyfriends and even spouses (double gulp!) I can remember when our grandfather would dress up in the worlds' worst Santa suit and give out presents - it took a hell of a suspension of disbelief but we kids believed it! Traditions, however, are still with us. The Swedish meat balls, the pickled herring, the midvist, the ham, but most of all the love and admiration for one another and the love of seeing our children opening their presents, the smiles and the screaming, the joy of giving. And my cousin, while never donning that incredibly bad suit, does a good job as Santa. I have the opportunity at least once a year to see this group, which is now more like a mob, and am proud of all we have become or are becoming, continuing the traditions our parents and grandparents taught us. Who knew that little-whats-her-name would be doing "this" or even-littler-whosie would be going to this college? I am very proud of the family I come from.

Christmas is truly the most joyous time of the year, at least for this writer.

While not writing the blog I suddenly got addicted to Facebook; what started out as an effort to find an old friend of my mother took on a life of its own. I have now connected with people I had grown up with and grown away from; a few, unfortunately I have found, for good reason. I have connected with schoolmates who I never ever had anything in common with during those hated High School years but have turned out to be pretty much "okay"; I guess people do mature. I don't check it as much lately as life takes me in other directions. I have been more into chat rooms concerning my hobbies or my interest in nostalgia and, really, how much can one be on the computer - altho I should be one to talk as I used to be addicted to the thing and at one time had about 18 email accounts. It would be funnier if it weren't true...stop laughing!

I have more fun watching my kid grow up...Bumper makes me proud and has taken on more responsibilities and keeps excelling at everything he attempts. This morning he made omelets for breakfast for himself and me...cheese and hot dog omelets with hot chocolate and toast. (another tradition we carry from our grandfather is weird food concoctions (anyone in the family remember his bagels and sill?) Tomorrow we will be having blueberry and strawberry oatmeal (and hot chocolate). I am proud he has so many friends now, something we weren't sure was going to happen given his earlier school years, and I am proud to be a volunteer at his school library and to read to his class. He is planning to be a cook when he "grows up", something I am sure he will succeed in, altho we tell him anything he puts his mind to he can do - and continues to prove it. There will be plenty of time to decide what he wants to do but he certainly has a gift for the stove (gets it from his mother!) and made oatmeal scotchies for the earlier-mentioned Christmas party...and he's not even ten!

I posted a couple pictures of the bump...as he gets older I find the real purpose of having children...

...to mow the lawn and shovel the snow!!

I have attempted to encapsulate almost two months worth of "stuff" into one blog but will probably write more soon, one resolution I truly would like to keep. I would love to hear about any readers' traditions, especially the memories of my family who can picture themselves as whosie or whats-her-name. Always consider this an open invitation to read and I hope to return to the old diner-and-roadside stuff soon.

Fof, Gram, and other parents and grandparents, you are truly missed...always remember your lessons have been learned and continue to be taught.

Take care, all