Today is day one of our big trip for the year. Two long-sought objectives:

1. I’ve been wishing for a vacation in Chicago for years to see the sights.
2. We haven’t visited our friends Paul & Biji in Michigan since Nov 2008 for Thanksgiving. That’s two years too long.

Josh keeping himself occupied with his Leapster game system.

The plan for the trip is spend a somewhat leisurely two days driving to Illinois with the entire family, with a stopover in Cleveland, Ohio. There was some debate whether we should try to make it all the way to Illinois in one day, stop over in Pittsburgh, or stop over in mid-Ohio. Ultimately, we decided to stop in mid-Ohio, rest our legs, and not exhaust/stress ourselves out. The plan is to arrive in Illinois on Friday, spend the weekend with Paul & Biji sightseeing in Chicago, then head to Michigan to spend the week with them at their house. Next Friday, we’ll make the trip from Michigan to New Jersey in one day.

The drive today wasn’t too bad. We were originally planning to officially start the trip at 8am, but we didn’t get on the road until 2pm. Blame it on a busy week preventing us from packing during the week. Namita and I took turns driving through Pennsylvania and Ohio, and we took an occasional break for the kids to get out, stretch their legs, and snack. We brought some toys for the kids to play with, but got bored easily, so we did our best to entertain them.

Our route took us along I-80, which I found picturesque in western PA, but there were very few cars/trucks on the roads. The weather was good, and we made pretty good time, until we hit road construction in numerous spots in PA and OH. They would close the right lane, everyone merges, and you drive slowly single-file for a few miles. Mind numbing! I didn’t mind the drive so much, but there was so little to look at. It’s just cornfield after cornfield.

Some of us couldn't keep our eyes open.

Funny story — so for a long period of time, myself and this 3-series BMW driver with the NY license plate “Sam Syed” were driving….. er, fast, through the western half of PA. I won’t say how fast, but……. let’s just agree that it was above the posted speed limit. My motto has always been, “Hey, when you’re trying to make good time, don’t be the idiot driving fast in the left lane. Find the linebacker and follow him instead.” I would drive in the right lane, but keeping up with “Sam Syed” while he drove in the left lane at his speed. We’re both going just as fast, but I figure he’s more noticeable. Nearing the PA-Ohio border, a PA state trooper was sitting in a depression in the median, with only his windows visible. BAM! As we pass him, I’m thankfully going fast behing a truck, and my linebacker “Sam Syed” was in the left lane, but quickly moving to the right lane. Too late. The trooper passes us, and pulls over my fellow NYer. Sam, thanks for taking one for the team.

By the time we reached the Ohio border, it was dark and raining. Furthermore, there were a lot more police officers on the road, so I kept it at the speed limit. We checked into our hotel this evening a little after 10pm, dried off, and ordered some so-so wings and fries from a local place called Rascals that delivers. I didn’t think the wings were all that, but at least they were open. We’re currently staying at the very nice Doubletree Hotel Cleveland South in Independence, Ohio. We’re recharging tonight, and expect to arrive in the Chicago area tomorrow evening. I’m hitting the hay soon, and be on the road to Chicago tomorrow morning.

Getting some rest at the Hilton Doubletree

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Hilarious.

Egads, I’ve been so behind on uploading photos. Without much further adieu….

1. May 2010 photos — these have been available, but no link. How did I miss that?
2. June 2010 photos — Joshua’s graduation to kindergarten (and the kids’ Spring Sing concert), and my sister Julie’s surprise 30th birthday party.
3. July 2010 photos — July 4th BBQ party at our house, and Ashley & Liza’s wedding reception.

Joshua's graduation

This “movie” is less a movie, and more of a series of six animated short films. Each short story is in anime style, which reminded me greatly of 2003′s The Animatrix. Each story is in the same universe as the Christopher Nolan reboot movies, and supposedly take place between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Here’s the synopsis from IMDB:

In this 6-story anthology collection, Batman faces new villains and old ones in a time-line after Batman Begins. In “Have I Got A Story For You”, 3 kids tell wildly different stories about Batman during a fight through Gotham. “Crossfire” focuses on two policemen who end up getting in the middle of a crime battle. “Field Test” has Lucius Fox creating a new technology for Batman, but is it too powerful? “In Darkness Dwells” features Killer Croc and Scarecrow, who have kidnapped a priest. “Working Through Pain” goes through flashbacks of Bruce Wayne’s training while Batman finds his way through the sewers. Finally, “Deadshot” focuses on the titular sniper, who has a new target in Gotham.

I thought overall this was a decent movie to rent. It’s about a little over an hour, so it’s not a huge investment. The individual stories are interesting, and while the anime styles are all different, each Batman costume was nice. My favorite aspect of the movie was that Kevin Conroy, who has voiced the various animated Batman characters since 1992 performed the voice of Batman for each of these stories. That was icing on the cake for me. Kevin Conroy IS Batman to me.

Batman: Gotham Knight (2008)

It’s been two weeks now with the new Panasonic, and we’re well into the 100-hour break-in period. Since this was my dream lusted for so long, it would be prudent to list some thoughts and impressions so far. In no particular order:

• Although we subscribe to the FiOS Extreme HD package (no movie channels though), I’ve noted there are no where near as many HD channels as their are SD channels. Standard def channels are 2-499, and then HD is just 500-599. I’ve also looked for HD versions of Cartoon Network, Nat Geo Wild, the Military Channel, but either they don’t broadcast in HD or Verizon doesn’t offer them. Rats.
• Even though the Verizon FiOS DVR contains an internal 160 Gb hard drive, this will only provide you 16-18 hours of HD recording time. You throw in a few 1 hour shows, a sporting event, kids shows, and whap! you are done. In just two weeks, we’ve been at the 90% mark where previously recorded shows were deleted, and today hit 100% capacity. There’s really not much on there that’s different — we didn’t go and record Bass Masters on the fishing channel in HD. It’s our usual coterie of shows. Interestingly enough, the Motorola DVR that Verizon uses has an eSATA port (that we could use to expand our capacity with an external drive), but Verizon has disabled it. Grrrr.
• HD shows look great vs standard def, so I’d rather live my life never watching standard def again. Sports in HD look cinematic. The scenes from the Tour de France hovering over the French countryside and the Alps are breathtaking. I probably could watch Bass Masters in HD.
• Netflix streams their video in 720p, which looks pretty good. However, Netflix only offers stereo sound for their streaming service. Maybe later this year, if the reports are correct. No 1080p anytime soon though, but I think it’s okay. Surround sound would be nice though.
• Speaking of sound, 5.1 Dolby surround sound for television shows is a nice plus. While I like surround sound, we have one too many remote controls. One for the AV receiver (sound), one for the tv (to change inputs and formats), and one for the FiOS DVR (changing channels and watching recorded shows.) I’ve got my wife seriously contemplating agreeing to move to the Logitech Harmony One universal remote. At least she’s beginning to understand my thought process. I have reasons for why I do the things I do, folks.
• I know Blu-ray is supposedly great and all, but from what I’ve seen, the PS3 is doing a great job upscaling my old DVDs. Nothing has looked choppy or soft yet.

I’m a little behind on my riding time this year, due to some busy weekends. However, let’s be happy for the milestone itself. I rode 26 miles today around central NJ, and hit a nice milestone for the year — 200 road miles. Good, but I don’t have a target for the year before autumn. 500 miles? Hard to say, but let’s try. The most I’ve ridden in a year was 595 in 2004, I think. That would be tough this year, but who knows what the future holds.

200 miles so far for the year 2010

Friday night, the kids were asleep, and we were browsing the Netflix Watch Instantly queue for something good to watch. We settled on Sunshine Cleaning, a 2008 film starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, and Alan Arkin. The film takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Amy Adams plays a single mother who works as a maid to support herself and her son. When her son gets in trouble at school, she needs to find money to send him to private school. She starts a crime scene clean-up company with her slightly-undependable sister, played by Emily Blunt. Alan Arkin plays their father who is always looking for odd ways to make money, be it selling popcorn or frozen shrimp.

This is a small indie black comedy, and it had its moments. It was nice to see a film about regular folks working hard to make it. Too many times, we’re watching movies about well-to-do people with meaningless problems. These characters were just trying to make it, which was more satisfying. I’d give this a 6 or 7 out of ten.

Sunshine Cleaning (2008)

I like mass transit a lot, but mostly trains, not buses. However, one problem can cause delays, and you can be really stuck. Case in point: this evening, there’s been some sort of electrical power failure at NY Penn Station, and there are NO trains coming through to Newark.

I hope I get home in a reasonable hour tonight.

Train delays at Newark Penn Station

Found out about the new WordPress forr BlackBerry app now available on RIM’s Appworld store. Downloaded it last night, and I’m writing this test blog entry from the train this morning. Let’s post this now and see what happens. I’m not into Twitter, so if this works, then it would be cool microblogging option.

Here we go. 3… 2… 1…

Happy July 4th, everybody! It was certainly one of the biggest, busiest weekends for us in a long time. I’m not claiming that our engagment weekend or our wedding weekend were not busy, but this was certainly up there. Let’s recap, shall we?

Friday

My friend Paul (one of two houseguests scheduled this weekend) arrived Friday evening to stay over at our house. We picked up some pizza, ate dinner quickly, and then all walked over to see our town’s fireworks display. Much like last year, it was easy to walk the two blocks to a grassy area with other residents, plop down on picnic blankets and chairs, and watch the show.

Saturday

My friend Paul attended an engagement party for a mutual friend/acquaintance of ours named Reggie. As a matter of fact, a number of Michigan folks were also attending the engagement party @ Royal Albert Palace/Hall in Fords, NJ. Interestingly enough, I met Reggie in December 2006 at Paul’s bachelor party in Cancun.

While he was at the engagement party, we ran busily errands, in preparation for our July 5th houseparty. In the afternoon, Paul brought our 2nd houseguest, Sean, back to our place, as he also would be crashing with us. We chilled out at the house playing Madden 2K10, had another fellow named Robby come by, and Namita cooked us up a fantastic dinner of pork chops, chicken, crispy onion-flavored potatoes, and roasted veggies.

After dinner, the four boys got ready for a night in the East Village. We would be meeting up with the previously mentioned Michigan folks who were in town @ Cloister Cafe. We ultimately ended the night at Gray’s Papaya down near. Home by 5:30am. 

Sunday

This was the day of the big BBQ party at our house. We originally had just one friend, Paul, staying with us, so I planned to grill up lunch this day. Then I heard from friends Leena & Sanjay that would be up north, and wanted to come over. Gradually, more and more people were available to come over until we had a full-fledged party expected.

We don’t normally host many parties or gatherings at our house. For various reasons, we weren’t able to have people over, because we hadn’t done much with the house in the four or five years since we moved in. In the past 12 months, we’ve finally been in a position to really do some work on the place. Since the house is now in a better shape, we’re ready to have folks over.

July 4th BBQ party

One of the tasks still remaining was to finish up cleaning/tidying up the backyard, where I’d be grillin’! I rented a power washer from Home Depot that morning, and Sean & I powerwashed the patio and the front door area. I also did some weeding and put down mulch on the flower beds. Namita took care of some last-minute grocery shopping. Paul helped by, I heard, chopping onions and watching the kids.

By the time I got back from returning the powerwasher, guests had already arrived. Overall, the lunch BBQ party turned into also an afternoon and dinner, which ended around 10pm. I ended up doing no grilling, as Sean did an excellent job with the burgers, hamburgers, and italian sausages. We also offered buffalo chicken wings, shrimp cocktail, chips & guacamole, and a few other things. The alcohol was flowing, and you know, that helped. We kept all the kids busy by providing bubbles, Wall-E, and letting them run amock through a sprinkler.

Monday

A late lunch at a very busy Perkins, then cleaning up post-party junk after Paul took off for the airport. We hosted a BBQ dinner for my in-laws and sister-in-laws’ family, but this time I did the grillin’. And yes, that went well too. Wow, a busy weekend, but it was certainly fun. We are ready to host more parties, so if you want to come hang with the Ipes, just let us know.