Hello family. Its been a little over a year since I posted on mom's blog, but since I've got some time tonight I thought I'd give it a go.

Just last weekend I went out to Denver, Colorado to visit my very good friend Jeremy Kruger. He was my freshmen year roommate and my best friend though college.

While I was there we were joined by some of our other friends from college. I'll go from left to right. Becky Larkin, Tony Clarke, Eric Sheer, Jeremy Kruger, Heather Johnson, and Jarrett Kazmarsksi (pretty sure I just butchered Jarrett's last name). I lived with Becky and Tony my last year of college. They are both happily engaged to be married in July. They now live in Utah with their dog Kirby Puckett (its a female dog - the name was Tony's idea), and Eric Sheer. Eric is an engineer we went to college with. He has worked in Utah for the last 3 years and is the utmost expert on the Mormon religion and polygamy, he has only read 1 book on the subject, however that is one more than all of us combined so that makes him an expert. Heather and Jarrett are very good friends of mine. They are the couple that I usually stay with while I am passing through Buffalo. They have a dog called Armand and a snake. I don't know the snakes name, but who gives a crap what the its name is, it's a freaking snake...right?

The picture is taken at a place called Red Rocks. It is naturally made amphitheater. I would explain it to you if their wasn't a website I could send you to. Click here to learn more. http://www.redrocksonline.com/pages/visiting/hist_geo.html

You can actually see the City of Denver in this picture. I'll zoom in for you.

After we visited Red Rocks we immediately headed into the city.

Pictures from the city were destroyed to protect the integrity of everybody involved. I will say that we did have a good time at some micro brewery's.

The next day we reluctantly woke up to go skiiing and snowboarding respectively. It was a beautiful day in the mountains. We started the day at the base of Copper Mountain which is 9,721 ft above sea level. At the top of the mountain I took a few pictures. The view was figuratively breath taking I wish the camera could do it justice. The elevation at the top of the mountain (12,313 ft) on the other hand was literally breath taking. I was out of breath almost the entire trip. I couldn't even put my shoes on without being out of breath.

We had a great day skiing and after about 6 hours of snowboarding I was exhausted. We left the mountain and headed back to Jeremy's for our final night.

Overall I really enjoyed myself. I think the city and the area is just about the best place I have visited yet. There could not have been a sky more blue or air more clean in any other city. I am already looking forward to my next visit.

Love you all.

Brian

NYS NOW Convention

I joined Lori for a day at the NYS NOW Convention in Seneca Falls on November 8th. This was the 160th anniversary of the 1st Women's Rights Convention and the adoption of the Declaration of Sentiments. We attended some interesting workshops and presentations at the Holiday Inn, and had a fabulous lunch. Lori decided not to run again for VP, but I was very proud as she was thanked and mentioned several times for all her contributions to NOW. She is truly valued by her sisters throughout the organization, statewide as well as nationally. These pictures show her introducing one of the speakers and leading a panel discussion.

In the final picture, we are joined by a featured guest, straight from Mt. Hope Cemetary in Rochester, Susan B. Anthony.

New Digs

Dan and Brian have both moved to new homes in the last four months since anyone's posted anything to this fabulous communication tool. Anyway, I figured I'd try again.

Dan moved to a townhouse in the Corn Hill neighborhood in Rochester with Chris Iverson. There's a small deck off the living room where they have their grill. There's a nice little bar in the corner that you can't see from this picture.

Dan and Chris bought a cafe style table and chairs along with a bookcase and a couple of bar stools for the dining area. All the wood is black and looks really good together. The passthrough is to the kitchen and I think Dan is enjoying cooking in an area that is easier to keep clean with newer appliances. There's a small bathroom and the cellar are through the kitchen. The cellar has been turned into his laundry area, where he has the ironing board set up as well as a folding table. He also has an E-Z chair and TV so he can wait for and do his laundry in comfort!

The upstairs has two bedrooms and a full bath. They flipped for the bigger bedroom and Dan won. There's a great vaulted ceiling and spacious walk in closet.

Brian's new apartment is in a small community called Blue Ash. It's slightly northeast of Cincinnati, which is I believe, "closer to the action". He has a Wegmans' like store right off the parking lot to the complex. There's a pool and hot tub in the complex, that I didn't see while I was there, but might check into if I'm there before October next year.

Brian's apartment is on the third floor and has a good sized balcony off his living room as well. He's thinking a nice rope hammock would fit perfectly. The alcove off the living room is where he has a couple of bookcases and his computer. You walk through the kitchen from the alcove to the hall leading to the bathroom and his bedroom, which also has a huge walk-in closet. His laundry room is off the hall as well, making his whole apartment quite efficient. Needless to say, I'm very happy for the both of them and hope they are as well.

If these pictures are out of order, I apologize, but this took a long time to post. It's actually a redo from an attempt last night. So give me credit for the effort.

Like Christmas in August

I don't know how the junk I put up here can possibly compare to Brian's or Lori's. I don't travel to foreign countries to hit on married women and I don't get my e-mails forwarded to national organizations (I do believe I once wrote a letter to Tony the Tiger, though.) Anyway, since I haven't done anything worth mentioning lately, I guess I'll mention what I plan to do this weekend, which is have a great freakin' time.

Once a year, an arts and crafts festival called Park Ave Fest comes to my neighborhood. Now, the arts and crafts are neither here nor there, I don't know why people go shopping in case they see something they like but didn't know they wanted, its expensive enough to buy the things you already knew you wanted. But I digress. The main reason for Park Ave Fest is for jerks like us to throw huge parties, exceed the maximum occupancy set by the fire department for driveways and cook out some great food.

Last year, I woke up a little late (around 6am). I anxiously awaited anyone else to wake up, then finally resorted to playing music at my computer loud enough to wake people on both sides of the house. They weren't happy at first, and they didn't get any happier. But I did. Now I had people to hang out with. Here's a picture of me from exactly 9:49 am that day.

I realize that's a little early to be cracking my first beer, but this really is a special occasion. I'm like a little kid that day, bouncing my knees and running around like an idiot waiting for the good times to start. And if you look closely at the profile in this image, you can see what I used to look like when I was thin.

As you can see, more people started to show up after that, and I wasn't the only once excited. Here's a few more people getting started with a little drinking game around 11:42... still not noon but close enough. We call this game 'Baseball'. It's a combination of flip cup and beer pong. Leave it to Wikipedia to make just about anything worthy of a page in an online encyclopedia.

It's still early at this party, though, as you can tell from this picture of Jason Groat. His eyes are still open, and it looks like he could still probably form some kind of sentence. Plus, it's really not living up to much more than a barbecue at this point (although I didn't take any pictures of food either).

At around 12:47 the party hits a major milestone. Jaimie Beecher, the world class bartender at the Sports Page officially becomes the first woman at the party (at least as well as I can remember). It should be easy to tell from this picture why I spend so much time at the Sports Page.

The party really gets going around then, and random people who are walking around the neighborhood during the festival realize they just spent $42 for a blanket, or $19 for a birdhouse, or $4 for an ashtray made by someone's child. They see the party and remember that having a free beer can make up for the stupid mistake they just made, and more people show up when they see so many people having a good time. Works every year.

By 2:27 there's a good amount of people hanging out, enjoying the food, fun, and drinks. The kid in the center (Jason George) holding his arm in the air isn't legally retarded, but I am appealing the court's decision. And on the right you'll see me at 2:29 still going strong. For some reason, I don't have any pictures between 2:29 and 8:47... and nobody wants to see the pictures from 8:47, especially not me.

I'm already forgetting the point of this whole article, which may or may not have something to do with parties like this. This year I'll try to take more pictures... because I'm told we had around 100 people at the house at one point, and I don't have pictures of that here.

This is going to be the last year that I'll be living near Park Ave, which means I have to say goodbye to these parties. In a way, it's like I don't believe in Santa anymore. At least it wasn't Mom that spoiled this one for me.

Rocking the House

I went to the National NOW convention in Bethesda from 7/18-7/20.
While we hoped we'd get a chance to wander around the mall or the Smithsonian, never did! It was really hot and muggy! My travel log may not be as amusing as Brian's (after all I am sober), but I thought I would share it anyhow.
I had been annoyed with the leaderships lack of willingness to discuss the sexism in the Presdential Primary and how women would respond to it. They blocked our resolution (that would have brought this discussion to floor on Sunday's Plenary). In the wee hours of Sunday morning, I came up with a new plan. I rose early and wrote out a statement.
My plan was to make a motion to reorder the resolutions and place those resolutions that are not germaine to women's rights at the end. Marcia seconded for me. That afforded me the opportunity to read my statement.
It went over great. Marcia received several comments from other State Presidents who wanted a copy of my statement. Marj--who Cindy and I met in Ohio on the Hillary trail--- sent my statement on to her Virginia people with this email that she titled: "Polar Bear in the White House".

Hello, All -The national NOW conference last weekend was interesting and lively as usual. At the concluding plenary Sunday afternoon, where two and half hours were allotted for about 11 resolutions, there was a discussion about whether we wanted to consider resolutions on animal rights and global warming when there was so little time (the other resolutions dealt with health care, reproductive rights, pay equity, etc). Lori Gardner, President of Tompkins County NOW in NY and Executive VP of NOW New York State, rocked the house with her remarks. I thought you'd enjoy them (see below).

Women Must Put Women's Rights First I think that NOW needs to be more focused on sexism and actual women's issues.Personally I am a staunch environmentalist. I belong to several environmental organizations. I hang my wash out on the line, I recycle, reuse, and compost to the extent that I bring my used egg cartons back to farmers for reuse. I save the whales, seals, wolves, polar bears, (and numerous more mammalian and non mammalian species.)But I strongly believe that we should not be diverting NOW's focus. NOW should be saving women! Sexism is the last truly acceptable ism.Did you hear the boys at Sierra Club speaking up against the sexism in the primary?Did you hear the boys at PETA speaking up against the sexism in the primary?Did you hear the boys at the National Wildlife Federation speaking up against the sexism in the primary?NO-- they stick to their message.While the Democratic Party should encompass all these issues and women's rights-Did you hear the Democratic Party speaking up against the sexism in the primary?Did you hear its presumptive male nominee speaking up against the sexism in the primary?Did you hear its Chair speaking up against the sexism in the primary (I mean before women stopped sending in money and the woman candidate had suspended her campaign)?The final straw though is when the National Organization for Women (the one organization who has this mission) can't discuss the sexism in the primary and how we should respond to it, because we need more time to discuss global warming and animal rights.If women don't learn to put themselves first-we will forever be last!It is OK for us to say that everyone and everything doesn't always come before women. Women need to focus and make our rights a priority for us-no one else will.If we can't focus we'll have a male polar bear in the White House before we have a woman.
I have this and numerous other commentaries on the TCNOW blog--so far I am the sole author. Marcia also used my He must Come Bearing Gifts article as a press release.
Lori

Japan

Hi everybody!!! I just thought that I would post some pictures from Japan on this really cool blog Mom created.

Last night Sunstar Japan had a welcome party for Richard and myself. It came with a lot of beer some Saki and even a nice Japanese girl...I know what you are thinking and no there was not a happy ending. Don't think I didn't ask.

We went to a bar in Kusatsu and I'll be damned if I could pronounce the name let alone remember what it was called. That is neither here nor there.

The first picture is of Me and Richard Ohigashi, he is my boss at Sunnex and is very drunk in this picture...and so am I.

The next picture is of Kenji Akiyama (R&D for Sunnex & chick magnet), Shinsuki Otaka (Sales Engineer for Sunstar and alcohol consumption champion), and me. Anytime Otaka san took a picture with me he gave a thumbs up. Otaka san made me feel very welcome. He would cheers my glass and say things like "Welcome to Sunstar, Cheers, Kumpai and Salute" After the 25th time of doing this I realized that he was trying to get me drunk. Mission accomplished

The next picture is of Richard and Bie Fukui (Sunstar Engineer) she is filling up Richards Saki for the umpteenth time. It came as a surprise to me that she is 32 years old, I would have guessed she was 25. Then it came as a disappointment that she was married. She had a very good sense of humor being the only girl and having 4 Japanese men and 1 American hit on her all night...of course we hit on her she's married not dead.

This last picture is of Richard and Yoshinobu san. Yoshinobu san was the previous General Manager of Sunnex. He was also the previous owner of my green furniture.
I caught him sleeping like 10 times during our meeting with Harley. To be fair he wasn't the only Japanese person sleeping during the meeting, they all sleep in meetings. They try to pass it off as meditation, but I know what they're up to.

I didn't take pictures of the food so I will try to describe it to you. It was raw and slimy with a side of soy sauce. I'm gonna pat myself on the back for that vivid description. I'm sure you can almost see the food right in front of you...I'm gonna have to take pictures of the food next time.

Well that has been the highlight of my trip so far. Stay tuned for tales of Tokyo.

Your shamelessly hung over family member,
Brian

Somphane's visit

Most of you know the 1st student I had as a Literacy Volunteer tutor, Somphane, was coming to visit last week. She came to me at age 20 from Laos, staying with her aunt and uncle in Canandaigua. She was always so appreciative and open it was very easy to bond with her. When she moved to Boston about a year and a half ago to stay with another aunt and uncle, she was devastated. She really loved her Uncle Suki and she said, me. It was very hard for her, but she got a job in a factory, continued with her ESL classes, got a driving permit and helped pay her way. She has stayed in touch with me and her Uncle Suki, and now he is relocating to Mobile, Alabama for business reasons and she is going with him. So this visit is "on her way" to Alabama.

I've been able to spend some time with her this past week, we went down to the lake for a walk, did some local shopping and grilled some chicken at my house, went to Eastview where she bought some "Alabama" clothes, and went to the fireworks on the lake. I'm not sure when she'll be off, but she's a very sweet and unassuming person who I have really enjoyed seeing again.

I've got a few pictures, she's much more photogenic than I, but she was really impressed with my tomato plant!