No Pictures

Tonight is Leneè's first night at Adobe Photoshop class. I have all three kids here with me. James is "doing his homework" which really means sitting in his room playing with everything he gets his hands on. Jaynie is watching Pocohontas, and Julia is on www.cartoonnetwork.com.

It is surprisingly peaceful, knock wood.

Tonite marks Leneè's first class at a local High School which will be every Tuesday and Thursday from 6:30 till 9:30. Basically, after 2 months of Leneè being uncharacteristically pushy and warning me daily of the impending day when class would start, tonite's the night. My plans have been effectively canceled so that Leneè would be able to "finally do something for herself." Leneè makes beautiful things, does very well with photos, and this will help her take her creativity to the next level.

As it turns out, my plans weren't that important anyway... Mainly these plans included playing in a regular hockey game on Tuesday nites, wrapping up business in the city, and finishing up the day's work on my laptop, these types of things. Don't get me wrong, I'm not self-centered or anything. You know, I'm not going to continue on this subject anymore, although I desperately want to...

Its a good thing:

Getting close on closing some large deals at work. Baseball season is here. We start our over 40 league practice this weekend. The over 40 team is the Ridgewood Giants (defending champions). James'13u travel team has already had a few practices, and we look pretty good. James' rec team will be fun. Julia is starting soccer again with the Torpedoes.

Skiing on St. Pats Day

James, taking a lunch break in the bar at Mountain Creek. He ordered a Bass Ale, but the waitress was smarter than that.

Julia and Cousin Cole. Both first-time snowboarders. Julia could have used a head band.

March 17th (st. Pats Day) found us at Mountain Creek. Here we have an underutilized season pass. James is actually getting very good at snowboarding... I'm not as good at photographing him... Although, this is my little camera on the continuous photo setting. I never seem to get him at the height of the jumps... Here, he was probably 2 1/2 feet off the ground at the height of the jump, but I got it right as he was taking off.

Notice the wacky arm positions.

Thinks he's so cool.

We were supposed to get some pictures of me jumping also, but James was more interested in doing the jumping, and not really interested in taking pictures. We are going again tomorrow. I will get my picture taken then. As I have mentioned, this blog is MY opus.

Early Jump on St. Pats

As always, Mac and Nancy have their world famous St.Pats Day Party the Saturday before St. Pats... So, I started off there and rolled with some of the young ganstas... Then some of the old ganstas, bitter as they subtly give me the finger while posing for the picture...

And, hanging with Uncle Ernie, and the baby... No doubt, this is a bit worrysome...

Then, over to Lighty's for a little Texas Holdem, where goof re-established his rep as dominant by taking down a second place finish and a first place finish, capturing all of the bounties in the second game. (Goof's large stack pictured front center.)

Today was James' last roller hokey game of the season. They won two playoff games to make it to the finals, then lost two games in the finals to Mahwah 6-4 and 4-0. 2nd Place out of 12 teams. James was between the pipes. Great Team, and Great Season.

Blogs are funny

Above is my cousin, Michael and me after a successful fishing trip. This is around 1979. My father, Michael, and I used to go fishing every weekend on Greenwood Lake, NJ in our 18' Starcraft boat. The largemouth bass that Michael is holding was caught on a cranberry colored plastic worm. It was the largest bass any of us have seen from Greenwood Lake. This picture doesn't do it justice. The funny thing, my father owned the scale, and to this day he swears the bass was only 3 lbs. 9 ounces. I don't think he can bear the thought that Micheal's fish may have eclipsed the bass from the Lunker Club plaque that my father caught in 1973. To this day, the bass lunker club plaque hangs proudly in Gene's den next to his sanctioned 300 game plaque... And to this day, Michael's fish weighed 3-9.

This is me on the set of David Letterman (actually at Dave's desk) in 1998. My friend and ex-CBS producer, Sean Herbert, hooked me and my sales group up with a visit to the show and we took over the stage for a short while.


This is me skiing Vail in 2000. Company paid sales trip, and my ski partner was Ben Woo.


This is me in in a Beechcraft Bonanza at Teterboro Airport. Probably around 1972. My dad used to fly this plane.

Anyway regarding this blog:

Blogs sound like a good idea when you are in the creation stage, but when you are in the mode of updating and maintaining, not so good. Especially since this is a "stream of consciousness" blog. Most importantly, I'm not sure that writing every thought in my head would be the best move I could make, not knowing who is reading. This is not easy. I find myself writing for an audience, imagining what specific people will think as they read.

One of my writing professors, Dr. Kloss, told us that the best writers dance with their audience; moving in close for tender moments and separating at other times to the point of ignoring them. I'm pretty sure as a writer, I can ignore the audience, but can the audience ignore me? I promise, we will find out.

Social Scene and Town Sports

Well, yesterday was a big day in town sports. Travel Baseball practice kicked off at 12 noon, then on to the semi-final hockey playoff game. We beat Oakland 3-2 in OT! Next weekend is the finals, best 2 out of 3.

On the social scene, Saturday night found us at Tiffany's in Pine Brook then on to Milan in Pine Brook, then on to "the bar" or as friends affectionately refer to it...The Rat Hole. AKA Labs' basement. I would have to say of the three venues, the rat hole was the most fun. Notice the "old school" Clash poster which Labs has had since I met him in 6th grade. Milan was a marathon! We had live jazz, a one hour delay in seating us for our 8pm reservation, 40 minute delay on appetizers, 40 minute delay on dinner. If the company wasn't so good, having some great yuks, Milan could have sent me into a fit of rage, and no one wants that...

This morning, back to work. Today, business lunch at Trap Rock Brewery in Berkeley Heights then sales call...

Hello, I'm Blogging!!

I don't know what you heard about me...

I am pretty fired up. Even having been in the technology business for a long time, this is my first foray into blogs. On top of that, I just picked up a dangerous little camera which I plan on using for all kinds of things. Now obviously, I am a family man, and this blog will contain bits and pieces of family life. However, all of the content here is written solely as a release for me. And the content will more often than not be INAPPROPRIATE for families. Hopefully the by-product will be that you, the reader, will be granted an unfiltered look inside my thoughts about life, business, sex, gambling, sports, travel, music and any other topic I feel like talking about. Why you would desire that, I will leave to you to figure out.

If you would would like a more traditional look into our family life, Leneè has a blog. Ask her for the URL.

Did I mention, this is about me? This is my Opus.

Nite out with Co-workers

The Apani Crew: Grant, Paul, and I at Nations Bar (45th between 5th and 6th). This is a favorite spot of mine located between my office (245 Park) and Port Authority where I have to catch my bus. Interesting Monday night where there was live music...

And there was Michelle from Alabama, the firey redheaded Irish bartender.

She turned out to be a fan favorite... flexible and daring blowing fire with Bacardi 151, and showing us some of her "stretching exercises".