October 17th

Today is my Birthday.
It's going to be a nice and quiet day. It's my night to get Ellie from school and J has a late class. It works out great since I'm not feeling 100%. I'm a little under the weather. It gives me an opportunity to have an extra day as my B-Day.

J's family celebrated mine and my Brother-in-laws Birthday last weekend. That's where I scored my gadget... The NEW ipod touch. It's so sweet! I'm loving it. I have tons of my music on it. Pix of Ellie and about a half a dozen feature films. It's my first ipod. I have stock in Apple and you'd think I'd have more product. Well, this was a great investment for all of us!

I also picked up the new Transformers Movie on DVD. I can't wait to sit down and enjoy that.

The Sox are down 3 games to 1. If they don't win tomorrow night I just earned a few more movies nights.

Caricature

I got a great surprise this morning!
Dean Macadam is someone I got to really know when I was working at Gamewright. I think I've worked with him more than anyone... Poor bastard. We really got to know each other very well and have a lot in common.

I had been so busy that I wasn't able to reply back to an e-mail from him until this morning. Just as I sent it I received one from him. In it was a caricature he had done of me. He really captured my pig nose. Thanks Bro!

I love it and I have it in my cube here and people are loving it. It's like having a hideous mirror in my cube.

His work is great. Not only is his style fun but he has a great sense of color and palette. I want to load his palette into my head.

Thanks Dino!

Grape Harvesting

J, Elle and I returned from a nice long weekend spent with my folks in Mashpee, MA (Cape Cod). We had excellent weather and really enjoyed spending their wedding anniversary with them.

We found ourselves at the annual Harvest Festival in Falmouth on Sunday. They had lots of entertainment, games, food and craft vendors. Elle wasn't feeling 100% so she was kind of clingy and grumpy. She would occasionally get into different things. The Toe Jam Puppet Band was her favorite! She went into the kids tent and danced and played while the band also played.
We've always wanted to see this band play so we were psyched.

Later that day Dad & I stayed up watching the Green Bay game and the Yankee's pull out a win. I enjoy relaxing and watching a game with him. Saturday night we watched the Bruins win. We used to watch hockey all the time together it brought back some great memories as a kid.

We got home around noon today. The rain had stopped and the sun tempted us with sunshine. I planned to harvest the grapes today. I DID! Took most of the day to do it all. Picking the fruit is easy. I filled a large wooden bucket and a cardboard box (case of wine) up with bunches of grapes. That took about an hour and a half.

From there I have to separate the grapes.... BY HAND!
I remove them from the stem (crush at the same time). Throw away the moldy, green, rotted and dead grapes from the bunch. I wore latex gloves this year. In past years this process has made my hands itch. I think it's from the grapes skins. I didn't weigh the grapes this year but there was a lot. I'm going to guess around 20 lbs.

I'm tossing the good grapes skins and all into a bucket that I've lined with a nylon bag. I don't want any thing in the bucket... everything goes in the bag. All this sorting is taking a long time. I had a few good speeds but then I'll come across a decent size spider that emerges from a bunch of grapes and I get all skived out and slow down. Spiders seem to like fruit for some reason. I like fruit not spiders.

I've completed filled the bucket up with grapes. Now I have to continue crushing and making the juice. To that I tie a knot in the bag to close it off so that none of the content falls out into the bucket. I want all my "pulp' to stay in the bag and the juice pure juice in my bucket. To crush I grab handfuls of grapes and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze.... you get the picture.

FYI. I DIDN'T NOT USE MY FEET. To that point I used latex gloves all day. If Elle was feeling better we would have let her stomp but she's still a little fussy.

To further make juice I squeeze and twist the bag of pulp. Ideally I'm trying to get about 8-10 gallons of juice. I'd be happy with that. This process takes awhile since I'm always finding uncrushed grapes as I squeeze. As I squeeze I can see that the neighborhood folk walking by the house are searching for grapes on the vine to pick and eat... BUZZ OFF! I've been tempted in past weeks to make a sign that they should be careful when eating the grapes not to eat any spiders. I doubt that would scare them off.

The juice is so red that the bag of pulp looks like it's soaked with blood and I've just lopped some one's head off and put it in the bucket. HA! Better of Red.

Now that I think I've finished squeezing I leave the bag of pulp in the bucket and seal the bucket with it's lid. I'll leave the bag in there for a few days and each night ring it out to try and squeeze more juice. The color is rich and red.

Before I seal it up I scoop out some juice for us to drink. It's amazing. Nothing has been added to it and it's the sweetest juice. It needs preservatives but a few sips won't hurt.

This is just the beginning of the process. I have preservatives to add to it and of course when it gets into it's secondary container I'll add the yeast! And that's where Mr. Wizard gets all worked up!

I'll be updating with more pictures and possible wine making labels. J created some artwork with Elle while I was harvesting that might be the wine label.

Night.

Shoe Gazing

I guess I'm a shoe gazer. I don't have a foot fetish or a shoe fetish but I dig cool shoes. I think it started back in college when Dr. Martens got big. It seemed like I was in college so I should wear shoes instead of sneakers. Since then I've had plenty of "Doc's" and felt like I had decent taste in footwear.

Shoe gazing isn't about how many shoes you own or wear it's something I define differently. It's not envy but I can appreciate cool shoes. The thing about shoes are... anybody can wear them. We don't all have the same bodies or faces but we all pretty much can handle a shoe. All you need is feet and you have 2 just in case you loose one.

I might see a jacket or a shirt or jeans and think those look cool but I couldn't pull it off. But a shoe.... I can handle that!

Maybe that's why women tend to have so many shoes. They feel they can get the essence of an outfit, look or style with the right shoe and maybe not the right body... I dunno. I ain't into ladies footwear.


I wore a pair of black & White Dr. Martens with my black suit to my Ceaco interview. I got the job and my friend Charlie (VP of Sales at the time) later told me he told the art department "Some guy with shoes is here for the job." They dug them and maybe they helped edge me the gig. I dunno. But Charlie noticed... maybe Charlie is a shoe gazer too.

The Eve of Elle

There aren't many times that I can recall what I was doing in past years on a particular day. But... tomorrow is Ellorie's third birthday and three years ago I was by J's side trying to help her get through a long and difficult labor. Doesn't seem that long ago. It's also an anniversary for J as a mother. Happy Mother's Day JJ!

To celebrate we had Ellie's party this past Sunday at the Roger Williams Carousel. J planned a great party. We invited lots of kids from the neighborhood and Elle's school.... 14 kidlets in total. They got to ride the carousel as many times as they wanted and eat pizza. Oh yea! and Nana's famous sugar cookies! The carousel was a lot of fun and a great venue. It was moving fast!

After pizza, cake, cookies and the carousel J had a surprise for all of them. Ellie loves Cinderella and it's October. Well, J had a wonderful idea to ask all the kids to help Cinderella's Fairy Godmother to find pumpkin's in the park so she can make a magical carriage. While the kids were eating cake, George, Brian and Steve hide small gourds in the park across the street. We had them line up and Johanna told them the story. At the count of three they bolted! Hunter our neighbor tried to get an early start... hehehe The kids shot off and searched to collected as many pumpkins as they could. There were 3 special white gourds hidden as well. If you were lucky enough to find such a pumpkin you got a special prize!

From there we headed back to the house for more sweets and some close friend/family time without the 14 kidlets. Our family's gave Ellie presents to open on the deck. She was so good about thanking everyone. It made J and I very proud! She got so many awesome presents J had to stay home the next day to help her sort them!!!

We're very lucky to have a great kid and for her to be surrounded by a wonderful family and great friends! Thanks for making Elle's third celebration a great one!