Monday, June 16th 2008

Posted on June 16, 2008 by Joel

This past weekend, we made a family trip to Ocean City, Maryland for a little well-deserved (and impromptu) 3-day family vacation. We stayed at the fantastic Hilton Suites Ocean City Oceanfront right on the beach, with a great room — bedroom, full-size kitchen, living room, 2 sets of HDTV plasma TVs and upscaling DVD players, and balcony overlooking the beach. Multiple pools, and did I mention right on the beach? I didn’t particularly find the cuisine in Ocean City all that great, but it’s a resort town with lots of seafood buffets. Not quite my cup of crabcakes.  See the June 2008 photos for pictures of all the fun we had, suckers.

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Wednesday, June 11th 2008

Posted on June 11, 2008 by Joel

Yea, they’re here. The dishwasher and range hood are here and installed. The kitchen is about complete, except for the gas range/oven. We’ve selected a plumber, and we’re ready to get the work done. Hopefully we’ll be cooking with gas in early July. Then, I will fire up the gas range, and proclaim, “Now we’re cookin’ with gas, baby!”

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Sunday, June 8th 2008

Posted on June 8, 2008 by Joel

We finally finished watching Good Night, and Good Luck starring an all-star cast — David Strathairn, George Clooney, Jeff Daniels, Robert Downey Jr, etc. It was a little slow, but a decent movie.

Did I mention that our gas stove arrived early? Yeah, it did, but the dilemma is that we don’t have a gas line in the kitchen, so we’re in the process of having plumbers come to the house to price out the work effort. We also need to submit work permits to the township to get approved for the work. From my discussions with the township, we’re looking at a couple of weeks until the permits are reviewed and potentially approved. For the moment, the new gas range is sitting ingloriously in our dining room for the forseeable future. Sigh.

Thankfully, the new dishwasher and range hood have no prerequisites, and will be installed next week.

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Saturday, June 7th 2008

Posted on June 7, 2008 by Joel

Today we made a field trip out to Bucks County, Pennsylvania for a little BBQ. Specifically, Shady Brook Farm was running their annual Festival on the Farm. First time attendance, but I’ve been pushing for more exploration of Pennsylvania as we live so close. It was three days, but we braved the heat on only Saturday. The festival involves a strawberry festival, kiddie carnival, backyard bbq competition, but it was the BBQ that piqued my interest. It was a hot day, and we ended up camping out under a tent. Still, it was nice to get out for a while.

Now that the heat has arrived, Josh and I have been hitting the community pools in our neighborhood to keep cool. One thing that I like about our community are the facilities in close proximity — 4 pools, multiple playgrounds, two elementary schools, shops, etc. Definitely a plus.

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Sunday, June 1st 2008

Posted on June 1, 2008 by Joel

So tired. This past weekend was busy, to say the least. First off, it was “the Mancation.” My friends Doug, Paul, and Sean, and I traveled to NYC for a weekend in the city to hang out with each other again. We stayed at The New Yorker hotel down on 8th Ave and 34th St. Friday night after work, I drove out to meet them in the city.

Saturday morning, Nums and I (and the kids) drove to south Jersey for my sister Julie and Robbie’s housewarming. Later Saturday evening, I drove back to the city to meet up with the guys again. We had steaks at Gallagher’s on West 52nd st. After dinner, we proceed to Greenwich Village for a traditional pub crawl. Around 4am, we called it night, and I stayed over at the hotel.

Sunday at noon, we checked out and headed up to midtown to have lunch at the Carnegie Deli, and try to take Sean to see Grand Central Terminal for the first time. There was a “Israel at 60” parade, so the streets were packed, and I couldn’t get parking. I was about to park in a garage on 54th when I got rear-ended by someone in a Jeep Cherokee. My bumper got all messed up, and I was depressed. We exchanged information, I parked in the garage, and met up with these guys for lunch. We couldn’t make it into Carnegie Deli because of the wait, so we ate at the Stage Deli. Uh, I like pastrami as much as the next guy, but $15 pastrami sandwiches? Are they out of their minds?

In the afternoon, we dropped Doug at Penn Station, and I drove Paul and Sean back to our house to see Josh and Lily. In the evening, I drove them to Newark Airport to catch their flight back to Michigan.

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