After 10 months, Patty is rejoining the workforce. She was offered a position with an architect in Charlotte (not as an architect) and she will start on Wednesday. Patty was contacted about the available position after I posted a message about her in Craig's List, with a link to her resume.

Labels: news, Patty, work

Patty and the girls went to the coast this past weekend but I didn't go with them. I have plenty of vacation days remaining but I'm not allowed to use any of them during sweeps, and it would be pointless to spend 4 ½ hours driving to the coast on Saturday, only to have to turn right around and drive back 4 ½ hours the very next day - especially with a baby. So I stayed home so that they could all stay at the beach longer.

They all went with her twin sister and her family to Sunset Beach, NC. The 4 ½ hour trek there ended up taking 9, and Patty and Darah came back yesterday having never actually seen the beach. Maegan stayed behind with her aunt, uncle, and cousins and should be back tomorrow. While she was away she turned 9 years old, which marks the first time that I wasn't with her on her birthday.

Labels: Maegan, Patty, vacation

This afternoon there was a bank robbery in Fort Mill. Police chased the thieves in to Charlotte where the car crashed. One suspect was apprehended quickly but another darted in to a nearby apartment complex. Dozens of police cars were called in to search for the missing bank robber, as were two police search helicopters, and the S.W.A.T. team. The whole area was completely shut down for hours.

Maegan's school was on one side of the standoff and school was about to let out. Patty was at home on the other side of the standoff with the doors locked. I was far away at work watching events unfold live on television. Although there was a period of uncertainty, Maegan's school held her and other students at the school until the standoff ended. Police still have the road closed off but the bus took an alternate route around the area and Maegan got home about an hour late.

News Story

Labels: Charlotte, Maegan, news, Patty

Yesterday was Patty's last day working as Administrative Office Manager for homebuilder Brentwood Homes (formerly Hampton Homes). No, she is not taking an early maternity leave and that's all I can say. Patty gave her notice two weeks ago, after five and a half years of loyal and dedicated service.

Labels: Patty, work

Today is our 10th wedding anniversary. We were married on January 18th, 1997 at the Milleridge Inn on Long Island. The traditional tenth wedding anniversary gift is tin - what's the deal with that? Last month we celebrated our anniversary early with a trip to Tybee Island and Savannah in Georgia.

P.S. Wow look at that photo. I look like a kid. And I had hair!

Labels: Patty

We just returned from our family vacation trip to Washington, DC to see my sister Amy. Amy visits us in Charlotte at least every year but we hadn't traveled to see her in DC in three years. We drove the 420 miles from Charlotte to Washington on Thursday, taking the slightly longer but much more scenic route through the Shenandoah Valley of western Virginia. After seven and a half hours of driving we didn't feel like going out so we rented the 3rd Harry Potter movie (Prisoner of Azkaban). Maegan's been into Harry Potter recently and it was a good thing that we saw it with my sister, since she actually read the book and was able to explain things to us when we became confused.

The next day we went to the National Zoo (including a ride on the Metro for Maegan) and got to see the rare Giant Pandas. Patty didn't want to over-exert herself so in the afternoon Maegan, Amy, and I went to the National Museum of Natural History while Patty rested at the apartment. There we saw full-size dinosaur fossils, as well as the famed Hope Diamond. After another full day we decided to rent the 4th Harry Potter movie (Goblet of Fire), and my sister once again explained all the details that were missing from the book.

So far it had been a nice family vacation. The next day we planned on driving to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Then suddenly at one o'clock in the morning those plans ended as Patty and I were awaken by Maegan "getting sick". Then a few hours later I joined Maegan in "getting sick". Maegan and I continued to "get sick" repeatedly all night long. I soon developed a fever, severe chills, and aching muscles, but thankfully Maegan never showed those symptoms. Poor Patty and Amy stayed up all night with the two of us, as well as the entire next day. In total, I didn't move from that one bedroom apartment for over 40 hours, until it was time to leave to come home on New Years Eve. So we ended up taking several of our vacation days traveling a total of 15 hours and 840 miles by car just to spend 3/4 of a day sightseeing followed by 2 days of feeling like hell and exposing Patty and Amy to whatever Maegan and I had.

Labels: family, Maegan, Patty, vacation, Washington_DC

Patty and I will be celebrating our 10th anniversary in January but we decided to take a trip a month early since we both had several unused vacation days remaining. At the last moment we switched our original destination to Savannah, Georgia. It rained for the 260 mile drive there and it rained for the 260 mile drive back but in between was beautiful weather and we had a great time.

Patty and I never got to take our honeymoon and we realized that this was the first trip we had ever taken together, just the two of us. Patty was looking for a bed and breakfast in historic Savannah and accidentally came across the Savannah Beach Inn, which wasn't actually in Savannah at all. It's 20 miles away on an island we had never heard of called Tybee Island. The bed and breakfast was a historic 19th century home just a block from the ocean beach. We spent two nights there and I have to mention two of the best breakfasts I think I ever had.

Tybee Island, Georgia is a full 8 mile drive off the mainland coast, connected by a single road through marshlands. Except for the tourist season influx, the population of the island is about 3000, and everybody seems to know everybody else. Caribbean-like beach atmosphere (as opposed to typical antebellum southern hospitality). Very relaxed and very friendly. Except for the stores, restaurants, and palm trees, it reminded us somewhat of Patty's hometown of Eatons Neck on Long Island - isolated from the mainland except by a single road isthmus, and sporting a working 18th century lighthouse. I'm sure there's much more to do on the island in the summer months but one thing we did was to visit the famous Tybee Lighthouse, just a few blocks from where we were staying. Patty and I both climbed the 178 steps to the top. Tybee Island is now one of our favorite destinations.

We did spend an afternoon and evening in historic downtown Savannah. Spanish moss hanging from huge oak trees throughout the city. We walked the old cobblestone roads of River Street and even got to see Savannah's annual Christmas parade as we ate dinner (which didn't make for the most romantic anniversary atmosphere).

Great trip and we hope to go back again.

Labels: Patty, Savannah, Tybee_Island

Patty found an old slide of her and Lore with their mother, Sharon, circa 1973 or 1974. Now which one is Patty?

Labels: flashback, Patty

Before driving back to Charlotte we made a stop at Boone Hall Plantation. The drive up had the mile-long row of big, hundred-year-old oak trees just like you expect on a typical plantation in the deep-south. We toured the main house which was very nice and interesting but we were a bit disappointed to find out that although the plantation was over 300 years old, the house was actually built around 1930. After the tour we watched a little play and then walked over to the slave cabins. One of the cabins featured an excellent presentation on Gullah culture. At the end, the woman giving the presentation asked the audience for volunteers for a song called "Ranky Tanky". Patty thought it would be funny to point towards me but the woman said that she always picks the person who does the pointing rather than the person they're pointing to so Patty got dragged up on stage instead.

[Note: This blog entry was post-dated after we returned]

Labels: Charleston, family, Maegan, Patty, vacation

Today was our only full day in Charleston. Almost everything is closed on a Sunday morning in "The Holy City" but luckily we were able to take an early guided tour of the city. We got to see all the historic houses and sites like The Battery, Rainbow Row and more. Kudos to an excellent tour guide at Gray Line Tours.

After lunch we headed to the South Carolina Aquarium. We tried to take Maegan to the aquarium in Charleston a few years ago but were surprised to find a three hour line to get in due to the fact that tickets were only $1 for Community Appreciation Day, an event they failed to publicize ahead of time on their website. After a three and a half hour trip to Charleston we had to turn around and head back home empty handed. This time I called ahead of time to double check that the same thing wasn't going to happen again. The staff told me that although there was a festival that day in the adjacent park, there would be no special discounts that would create a similar situation to the experience we had a few years ago. We got to the aquarium at exactly 2:00pm and got on a line of about 40 people. We then discovered that starting at exactly 2:00pm they were offering tickets to the aquarium for just $1. The aquarium staff totally lied to me! By the time we got to the beginning of the line 10 minutes later, the line was several hundred people long, stretching all the way down the street in a de ja vu of our last attempt to go to the aquarium, but we got lucky by getting there just at the perfect moment to save us from paying an extra $70. Long story short, the aquarium was very nice.

Later that evening we met up with some relatives of mine who live in Charleston. My second cousin, Norman, is a professor at the College of Charleston. Being only three and a half hours away from Charlotte makes him my closest relative (geographically), however I don't think we've ever met before. We had a nice dinner on the waterfront in nearby Mount Pleasant. Norman, my mother, my sister, and I discussed family connections and genealogy research. Maegan spent half of dinner trading making-faces with her one of her new cousins. Until this weekend Maegan only knew of one cousin on my side of the family but she now knows three more. I enjoyed meeting family I didn't know I had and we plan on getting together again in the future.

[Note: This blog entry was post-dated after we returned]

Labels: Charleston, family, Maegan, Patty, vacation

We left early this morning for a mini-vacation to Charleston, South Carolina, a city with well over 300 years of history. My mother flew in from New York City and my sister flew in from Washington, D.C. to join us.

Our first stop was Fort Sumter, sight of the first shots of the Civil War in 1861. We took a ferry over to the island fortress. It was very interesting and although the fort isn't very large, I wish they gave us more than an hour to look around. After the tour we checked in to our hotel and walked just a couple of blocks to Market Street in the historic district.

[Note: This blog entry was post-dated after we returned]

Labels: Charleston, family, Maegan, Patty, vacation

Patty and I each bought inexpensive (downright cheap) mountain bikes this weekend. I doubt either bike will ever see an actual mountain trail but now we can finally go riding around the neighborhood with Maegan.

Labels: biking, Maegan, Patty

Yesterday, Patty, Maegan, and I went to the world premier of Pixar's newest animated film, Cars. We got the tickets from my employer. Nearly 40,000 people attended the world premier held at Lowe's Motor Speedway - the largest movie premier in history - but we also got exclusive access to see the stars walk the red-carpet.

My summary for the event is as follows:

• Event: Absolutely horrible.
• Movie: Excellent.

I'm very grateful that we got tickets from my employer but the event was a planning disaster. Our VIP passes stated very clearly how we absolutely had to be there before 5:00pm. (Keep this in mind when you find out what time the movie began.) While on a slow line to get through security some bad storms moved in, which of couse is not the event planners' fault. It began to downpour heavily with thunder and lightning all around, and the winds really kicked up big time. They decided to move everybody who had already passed through security to safety inside Lowe's Motor Speedway but they kept the hundred or so people who were still in line (including us) outside in the torrential rain, lightning, and winds. To put this weather in perspective, we found out later that there were hail storms nearby and reports of a tornado. Yet the event planners still kept us, children included, outside to fend for ourselves. Total lack of planning. We were one of the lucky few who brought rain gear but we still ended up getting soaked to the bone.

After a full 45 minutes of hoping we weren't struck by lightning, they finally led us inside the speedway for shelter, but kept us corralled in a small area for an additional 45 minutes. By this time it's about 7:00pm and Maegan is hungry but they wouldn't allow us to go to the food stand that was open less than 50 feet away. When the storm finally passed we were allowed to go back to the red carpet area but then it began raining again. Others returned to the shelter but at that point we decided it was better to just sit there in the rain. We did eventually get to see Paul Newman, Richard Petty, George Carlin, John Ratzenberger, and other stars but the red carpet ordeal wasn't really worth all that trouble.

We left the red carpet area and found our seats. They had four giant screens set up around the infield on turn two. They entertained the crowd with a short dozen-lap NASCAR race which was cool, but in Hollywood fashion everybody and their brother had to get their time to perform in the spotlight. Towards the end the crowd was chanting "start the movie!". Despite the fact that this was a kids-oriented movie with several thousand children in attendance, the movie didn't begin until after 10:00pm.

So the event was a disaster, but the movie (when if finally began) was very good. Patty and Maegan loved it and Patty can't wait to buy it on DVD. For the most part I thought it was just as good as any previous Pixar film but I just found the heavy use of animated cameos to be cheesy. I had no problem with a character voiced by Richard Petty to be named "The King" but characters like Bob Cutlas (a sports announcer voiced by sports announcer Bob Costas) and Jay Limo (voiced by Jay Leno) made some moments feel like a bad 1970's Saturday morning cartoon. I felt like somebody was supposed to nudge me with their elbow and chuckle, "Ya get it?". They also had lots of straight cameos of stars playing themselves in car-form, like Mario Andretti and Michael Schumacher. Perhaps I'm alone in this opinon but I just think that when you want people to immerse themselves into a fictional world like that, making connections to celebrities in the real world destroys the illusion. But other than the cheese-factor of those celebrity cameos, the rest of the movie was excellent. And despite the earlier troubles, it was still kind of cool to attend the world premier, outdoors, with 40,000 other people.

Labels: Maegan, movies, Patty

Patty and Dee had been best friends since high school. Although Patty went to college far away from Dee, they remained close through college too. Then for no particular reason they simply lost touch after college.

Years later Patty tracked down Dee by telephone. Since they last saw each other, Patty and Dee had both gotten married. Patty was now living in North Carolina and Dee had moved to Massachusetts. It was just like old times and they stayed in touch by phone, but a visit was well past due.

Now some thirteen years after they had last seen each other, Patty flew to New England this past weekend and finally reunited with Dee! This photo is from the airport in Providence, Rhode Island.

Labels: friends, Patty

Patty, Maegan, and I all went up to New York this Labor Day weekend for the wedding of Patty's sorority sister Janet LaMagra. The wedding was in White Plains / Purchase and we all had a great time. Patty was the Matron of Honor and Maegan was the flower girl.

We also managed to squeeze in a quick trip to Queens to visit my mom, sister, and aunt on Saturday morning.

Labels: friends, Maegan, New_York, Patty

Last Friday was Patty and my fifth anniversary. We went to Morton's for dinner. Incredible service and atmosphere, but we were disappointed by the steaks. They were good, but we expected much better.

Then on Saturday we went to Charleston for the first time with Maegan to see the Aquarium. It happened to be community appreciation day and tickets were only $1, which made all the locals come out and we couldn't get in because of the three hour line that went around the block just to buy tickets. That trip sucked big time, but we'll try to visit again on a more normal day.

Labels: Charleston, Patty

Yesterday was very busy. First thing in the morning, Patty went in for oral surgery to have all four of her wisdom teeth extracted. The surgery took only 20 minutes, but the medication stayed with Patty for most of the day. Everything went fine and Patty is just a bit sore.

In the evening I went to the Charlotte Ad Club awards presentation. I won an Addy Award in the category of Television: Self-Promotion: Campaign. This was the first award for my newest Andy Griffith promos, entitled "Mayberry Mysteries". I promise I will eventually finish the video portion of this website so you can see one of these promos.

Labels: awards, Patty