An Out of Church Experience

Yesterday, 7/12/2009, I played my first "real" (i.e. non-church) gig. It was part of the Come Together Concert Series in Clinton, NJ. This is a summer series that has musicians on the streets of town on every Friday and select Sundays. Yesterday was also the annual Ducky Race so it got to be one of the Sunday events. I played with Jeanne Resua (vocals) and Wayne Dubansky (guitar). They have been playing together for about a year. They both are in the church choir I play in and asked me to play with them to add a little depth. As my faithful readers will know, I started playing drums at church about 18 months ago, first on djembe then on set. I never figured to play anywhere but Mass, but figured Why Not?

For yesterday's gig, we were told we would be playing at the corner of Leigh and Center Street, Nate and I went down on Friday night to scope out the location and it seemed pretty nice. When I arrived on Sunday, after parking in the Community Center about a 1/2 mile away (thank you Ducky Race!), another band was setting up. They said they were playing at that location. We straighten things out with Annie at Rock The World Cafe, who runs the event and ended up in a great location - across the street from Hallmark, right on Main Street. They provided a tent and extension cords and we got setup in time to start at 2:30.

I don't think I realized how nervous I was - it took me a while to relax and get comfortable. Once I relaxed, I had a great time - I just played. It's certainly different than playing at church - rarely have I not been able to hear the choir due to a motorcycle passing by. The crowd was pretty good, especially early, right after the Ducky Race. We did about 40 minutes and then let the kids from Don't Fret and Take to the Sky do a set. By the time they finished, the crowd was pretty thin. We played until 4:30 and at times we were playing to the cars on Main Street. It was a great day weather-wise and, as I told Nate when I got home, "Nobody died". All in all, I had a great time and would love to do it again.

Sissy's Song

My sister Steph posted this over on Facebook because she said it reminded her of Mom. She's right - so here it is for the non-FB part of my family and those of you who aren't Steph's friends on Facebook.

This is for Mom and all those who left us too soon.




If the embedded video doesn't play - here is the original YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8sWwFIFlK8

Car Emergency Bag

I just cleaned out and refreshed the Emergency Bag I keep in the Element for the first time in well over a year. It got me thinking that a) I should do it more often, b) whether anyone else keeps a bag in their car and c) what they have in theirs. So here's what's in mine:

• 2 bottles of water
• toothbrush
• toothpaste
• sweat socks and dress socks
• underwear
• t-shirt
• collared shirt
• sweat pants
• fleece sweat jacket
• fleece blanket

I also have the following items which some might consider non-essential:

• shorts (you never know when you might get asked to golf)
• baseball glove
• baseball hat (for golf or softball)
• knee brace (obvious in my case)
• rag to dry off ice skates

I should probably put some food in there, but need something that can take the heat/cold.

If you don't have a bag like this, you should - especially in the winter for those of us in the NorthEast. If you have one, I'm curious if I'm missing anything.

Ken Shilay, Sr. - R.I.P.

Ken Shilay, Sr. passed away today after a two year fight with lung cancer. Senior, as he was known, was my former landlord's (Ken Shilay, Jr.) dad. I got to know Senior at family parties and working with him on Junior's dream house, aka Shilay's Tara, aka The Property. Senior and I didn't see eye-to-eye on politics or some of his ideas, but he was one of the hardest working people I've ever met. He has probably been described as cranky or irascible or worse, but underneath that gruff exterior, he had a soft soft both for Monica and his grand-daughter Amanda. Until Senior got sick, he gave up almost every weekend to help Junior with the new house. It was almost comical to watch Senior and Junior argue about the house - they both wanted it to be right and, of course, both believed they alone were right.

I think the two things I will remember most about Senior are his hard work and desire for things to be done the right way. For any of his other faults, the world could use more people with those two. Here are a couple pictures of him working at the Property.

Element Sticker Update

(I know, I know - it's about time I posted)

In keeping with the tradition of posting a picture of the back the Element whenever there is a major update, here you go. Some fell off, some got removed, others that I collected over the winter were added. Big thanks to Alex P. for the RC sticker. That's about all the shade I get at the new apartment, btw.

A New Apartment

I wasn't really looking for a new apartment but I seem to have found one. I knew Kenny & Monica would be moving to their new house sometime this year and figured I would probably move at that point. Even though I love my current apartment, I always thought it would be nice to be closer to Nate and to Church and cut down on my commute, if possible. I found the add for the new apartment at Clinton Bagel - it was in my price range, was near Clinton and the picture showed a big, renovated kitchen. I looked at it last Saturday and signed the Lease yesterday. I am the only tenant which was a big selling point. Here is a picture of the outside (yes, my phone has a camera so I should have taken inside pics, too, but I'll post them when I get them).


Leaving my current place in Bethlehem Township will be sad since Kenny & Monica are good friends. I'll miss the stream, too, but I think this is the right move. I'll be moving at the end of March - I have both places for about 10 days. More details as I get them.

Computer Cabling

Earlier this week, we had a maintenance window at work which included re-running about 9 cables in a computer rack. As often happens with cleanups, once I looked at the rack, I decided to cleanup all the cables - network, fiber (disk) and power. This was once of the worst racks, but we have many more to do. I'm going to be beating in to my guys to keep it neat so we don't get this bad again, but we'll see. In theory, the cables are bound together by type, but still loose enough that new cables can be run without taking it all apart. Ahh, the joys of Velcro.

Below are before and after pictures. In the spirit of full disclosure, the before picture is actually another rack - I didn't think of taking pictures until I was done. The pictures were taking with my new Blackberry Storm (which I have promised to blog about soon) - I'm still getting used to the camera, so that explains the lack of focus.

Before	After

Most & Least Affordable Cities to Live In

From Lifehacker.....

http://lifehacker.com/5157266/the-10-most-and-least-affordable-cities-in-the-us

Amazingly, neither Boston or San Diego is on the least affordable. If they did it by county, I suspect Hunterdon County, NJ, where Nate & I live, would be on the least affordable :( Interesting that Ocean City, NJ is on the least affordable with less than 500,000. Guess everyone wants to live at "America's Greatest Family Resort".

Birthday Dinner 45

Last night Nate & I went out to dinner for my birthday. Nate didn't really know what to get me so when I suggested he take me to dinner he jumped at the chance. We went to the Warrenside Tavern, out favorite local restaurant. It's an old (like 1700's old) tavern with a simple, tasty menu. It lives up to it's Tavern name in that the beer is plentiful and inexpensive. As I said to Nate, it's good it is not closer to my apartment or I'd be there way to often. Oddly, they don't have a website nor could I find pictures online. I'll try to get some and update this post.

Wednesday is Prime Rib night at the Warrenside, another reason I chose it for my birthday dinner. Every Wednesday, Prime Rib dinner is $12.97 - not 12.99 or 12.95, 12.97. We both got it medium (which was more like medium rare), french fries and bleu cheese dressing on our salads. We split an appetizer of fried calamari. I, of course, had a Sam Adams to start and then a glass of Cabernet with my steak - Nate stuck with the Coke. Not sure what got into me but I cleaned my plate, including sopping up the juices with a couple pieces of bread. We both had dessert - me, Kentucky Bourbon Pecan Pie and Nate, Confused Chocolate Cake.

I should work for the Warrenside - I recommend it to everyone I know. If you come visit, I'll take you there.

Einstein is Trademarked!

I was cleaning up some Little Einsteins videos I had downloaded for my neighbor Monica from her Tivo, when I noticed this image at the end of the video. Apparently, the commercial use of "Einstein" or "Albert Einstein" is trademarked. The trademark is held by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. According to various sources, "Einstein’s Last Will and Testament of 1950 stipulated that the Hebrew University would eventually become the final repository of his personal papers and the heir of all of his intellectual property." This included his "personality rights", including his image and name.

Christmas Lights 2008 - Update

It's been a while since my last post and there are reasons (work, a cold since Jan 4th, etc.) but no excuses. The blame may lay with Facebook, which is great for quick little posts. I only got an account since Nate did and that was the agreement, but it is an interesting, if odd, community.

Anyway, Nate and I finally took the Christmas Lights, that I posted so much about, down yesterday. Valentines Day is a long time to leave the lights up, but January was cold and/or rainy. For much of the month the decorations were buried in snow. As an aside, my Dad on occasion left the Christmas lights on until my birthday (Feb. 19th) as a birthday present.

As for the Nativity scene that was the focus of my photo lighting experiment - it did not fare so well. While Nate and I were in San Diego, there was a bad wind storm and Joseph's legs broke and baby Jesus almost ended in the stream. I was able to rebuild Joseph's legs but the ground was frozen so I couldn't get him back in the scene. I took the whole thing down in early January but many of the stakes broke so more repair will be needed before it goes back up.

The rest of the decorations survived fairly well. The luminaries got a little beat up in a wind storm, which is what motivated me to take all the decorations down. All in all, it was a fun year for lights. I can't wait until next year - whether it be here or somewhere new.

Happy New Year!

Greetings from San Diego, where Nate and I and visiting Nancy and Vince on our annual New Year's trip. A Happy, Safe and Blessed New Year to all! I think this will be a year of change, hopefully for the good.

Christmas Lights Photography

As I talked about in my Christmas Lights 2008 post, I did a bit of Christmas lights this year. After I got them all done back on Dec. 18, I took a bunch of pictures of me and Nate's handiwork (would you expect anything else?). I was completely dissatisfied with the pictures, so of course I went right to Google to find out how to take pictures of Christmas lights. Some suggestions were obvious (no flash, use a tripod), others were arcane with f-stops, apertures and manual white balance, but almost all said 2 things: shoot the pictures at dusk and set the white balance to tungsten (aka incandescent bulbs). Shooting at dusk means you get both the lights and the background. The trick is to bracket your shots over time and then pick the best ones. (Much easier now that it's just pixels instead of film). The white balance setting accounts for the fact that all those bulbs (or at least all of mine) have little tungsten filaments in them which glow yellow. Using the tungsten setting gives everything, like the snow, a cool blue glow and makes the sky look awesome. If I remember my physics correctly that makes sense since blue and yellow combined make white.

I headed out at about 4:15 PM on Christmas and after choosing some prime spots, I started shooting at about 4:25 PM. I knew this was too early since I was still able to hold the camera and shoot without a tripod. As it get darker, I kept shooting every few minutes. It was cold enough that I had to wear gloves and the driveway refroze, but luckily neither me nor the camera ended up on the ground. I managed, too, not to get run over when I shot from the street. I even got a compliment on the lights from a driver who missed me. The one element of the lights that I seemed to get a good bracketing on was the inflatable Nativity, which I talk about in my Christmas Lights 2008 post. Below are the shots over time with the time stamps. I think I like the 5:01 PM picture the best, but the one before that is OK, too. You can see that by 5:10 PM, I was just getting the lights.


For those of you who don't celebrate Christmas, I suppose these techniques would work just as well on a Menorah or whatever holiday decorations you put up.

Christmas Lights 2008

This year, I put up more Christmas lights and decorations outside than I ever have in my 7 years here in Bethlehem. Some of it certainly was the fact that we had a warm weekend when Nate was here and a warm day that I took as vacation. (OK - warm meaning in the 40's for those of you not in the Northeast) I think too that since last year I didn't get to do any lights because the weather was cold and wet and, with a torn ACL, I really wasn't up for climbing on the roof. Maybe subconsciously this year I wanted to spruce the place up since all we hear is bad news about economy and since Kenny hasn't done as much here since he has been focused on his new house. Whatever the reason, Nate and I had a blast doing the lights and decorations. Here is the finished display. (My Christmas Lights Photography talks all about how I took the pictures, so I won't repeat here.)


Nate did all of the lights on the porch and the shed and most of the work on the inflatable Nativity. I did the net lights on the shrubs, the lights on the stairs, the toy soldiers (which NatesMom and I got many years ago), the luminary bags and the electrical, as well as helping Nate with the Nativity. Kenny got the luminary bags in an after Christmas sale a couple years ago for $1 for a box of five. They are all electric and you can string up to 30 bags together. I spent a lot of time working on them but they came out looking pretty nice. I used a combination of timers and light sensors so all I had to do every night was the Nativity. For an added fun touch, I replaced the regular bulbs in the driveway lamps with red bulbs.




The most fun part of the display is the inflatable Nativity. I've been kind of anti-inflatables in the past. They usually are snowmen or Santas and always seemed to be deflated or blown around when I saw them. But when I went to Lowes (see Is the Christmas Season Over?), they had the inflatable Nativity with life size Mary and Joseph for 50% off. I've looked for a life sized Nativity in the past, so I decide that if it was still there a week later when I had Nate to help me carry it, I'd buy it. It was, so I bought it and Nate got a trip to Longhorn Steakhouse out of the deal. Nate's take on the set was a little different - he wondered what it meant that the only inflatables left were the religious themed ones. The set consists of the inflatable manger, Mary and Joseph who are heads with clothes, attached to metal pipes. Baby Jesus is attached to his "bed". Everything gets screwed in the ground and has held up pretty well despite snow storms and wind. Nate and I had a slight physics failure by not attaching the guy wires at 45 degrees which caused the manger to fall over backwards, but that was remedied by attaching a bungee cord from the manger to Joseph.

I've gotten some nice compliments on the display and even though I spent a bit to get it all right this year, everything from the decorations, to the lights to the electrical should last for many more years.

Christmas 2008 Pictures

Every year, for a long time now, Nate and I have gone to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. We have appetizers in the afternoon, a big, pseudo-fancy dinner around 7 and then get ready for Mass. We try to take a picture before we head out to Mass, especially now that we are both in suits. The tripod and remote for the camera make the whole process much easier. Here are this year's pictures from dinner and before Mass:

Merry Christmas!

From me and Nate, we hope you have blessed, peaceful and joyous Christmas! From our house to yours, a Bread Wreath that was part of Christmas Eve dinner:


May Christ's blessings remain with you long after the presents are opened and the decorations put way.

Bethlehem became the link between heaven and earth; God and man met there and looked each other in the face. - Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Easiest Sausage Stuffing

I like turkey. I like stuffing. I like sausage. On holidays, when I cook I try to combine these by making sausage stuffing and cooking it in the bird. (Yes, Food Police, I check my temperatures so I don't kill myself or Nate). I have found easy and complicated, tasty and not so tasty recipes over the years. This year, Google coughed up what has to be the easiest recipe EVER.

1. Cook 1 lb sausage
2. Reserve 1/2 c. of the drippings
3. Mix drippings, 1 1/2 c. hot water, sausage and stuffing
   
4. Stuff in turkey & cook

I can hear the food purists out there gagging since not only is it prepared food, the recipe is from the Kraft website. I understand, but I'd rather hang out with Nate and rest up for Midnight Mass, than spend all day cooking on Christmas Eve. Besides, there will, as always be fresh bread.

A Christmas (Bread) Story

Yesterday, as often happens, I decided to make bread. I figured since Christmas was less than a week away, I'd see if I could find a recipe for a Christmas Bread. Most of what came up was recipes for Stollen, which is like fruit cake, or Panettone, which is kind of cake like and has to be cooked in a special pan or paper liner. After exhaustive searching (and by that I mean I actually went to page 5 of my Google search :)), I found a recipe for what was essentially a Christmas Challah. I like making braided bread and this recipe had brown sugar, butter and cinnamon rolled up in the braids.

My first mistake of the day was starting at about 1 PM when I had to be at Youth Group at 5:30 PM. Bread cannot be rushed (trust me I have tried and it never turns out well). Then the recipe called for vegetable shortening (aka Crisco) which I had read as vegetable oil. Luckily my neighbor Monica had Crisco so I could get the dough started and put up to rise. I knew I needed to go to ShopRite for more butter, brown sugar and confectioners sugar for the icing. ShopRite was a zoo - by the time I got back it was after 3 PM and I knew no way was this bread was getting made before I left for Yourh Group. So I let it rise (which was slow due to the eggs and shortening) and then punched it down a put it near a cold window before I left at 5 PM.

When I got back at almost 10 PM (we ran a little late since it was a Christmas party), I walked in to the house and thought "Monica must be baking". But no, what I smelled was dough and, as you can see in the picture, it was thinking of taking over the kitchen! I punched it down and divided it in 6 to make the braids. It was a bit tough to roll out - a little over rising will do that. The recipe said to make a rectangle, smear it with butter and add brown sugar and cinnamon. It was big on detail or quantities so I just guessed. I got everything rolled and braided and in the oven by about 10:45.

I guess my guessing about the filling wasn't quite right because at about 11 PM the smoke detector went off and the kitchen smelled of burned sugar and butter. I got the exhaust fan going and opened a window but about five minutes later Kenny was knocking on my door to see if everything was OK! I assured him it was fine, just me in the kitchen.

The bread survived fine and I iced it and topped it with crushed peppermint candy this morning. Monica got one of the loaves for the Crisco and the late night fire alarm. The bread tasted good too - maybe the crust was a little over done, but I can adjust that next time - which hopefully will be during daylight hours!

Happy Immaculate Conception!

I'll admit, I saw this post on the Ironic Catholic Blog, but I figured it was so good I'd share it too. In honor of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, here is Bobby McFerrin singing Ave Maria with the crowd at a concert.

Is the Christmas Season Over?

Today is the second Sunday of Advent. Thanksgiving was only 11 days ago. The only Christmas decoration I have up is the wreath Dad sent me. I just got my first Christmas card (Yea - N&V!). Despite all that, when I went to Lowe's this weekend, ALL of their Christmas decorations on sale for 50% off! At first I thought maybe it was just a one day sale, but no, everything was marked as clearance. (For honesty's sake, I will point out that I did check the prices - I am my Mother's son after all). I guess when you start selling Christmas stuff just after Halloween, maybe it's time to put it on sale.

I've long ago given up trying to convince people that the Twelve Days of Christmas starts on Christmas day. But could we at least sell Christmas decorations and gifts until December 25th? Sigh......