New Jersey and New York City

So you are probably wondering who the guy in the picture is...well its Bryan.

Bryan and I met five years ago at Becker College. We've stayed in touch since I've moved out here and after four years I finally got to see him again! Best week ever I must say. Got to go to Asbury Lanes, NY City, MoMA, Risotteria Restaurant, Laugh so hard, and so much more. What else can I say besides, he's amazing and I'm happy.

More pictures are on my flicker page at: New Jersey and little bit of NYC and MoMA

Now if only the next four months would pass by quickly I would be even happier.

Florida

Back in August Sara told me that her and Jed were going to visit my mom in Florida and I thought it would be cool to surprise her by going myself...so I did. Sara and I had this all planned out for two months. She and Jed were going to fly in earlier, then take my mom to Orlando for some fun at Sea World and I was going to fly in when they were there to surprise her and did we ever! I think she cried for about an hour after I walked in the door. I hadn't seen my mom in almost two years. It was a great week with the three of them. We even got to have a mini family reunion with one of my Aunts (Lisa and her family) and my Uncle (Mark and his family) who both live in Florida too.

You can check out photos on my Flickr page. Don't forget to check out Jed's videos!!

Ha Ha Ha

I'm not sure if I wrote about this before but sorry if I have.

On my way back from visiting Sara, Jay and Jed over Christmas, I got suck in Germany for two days. I guess around here there was a crazy storm going on and flights were getting canceled so I called from England to make sure mine was all set, they said it was. I took the bus from Sara and Jays at 4am for a two hour ride to the airport, I asked again and they said yes my flight was still on (they also told me I was allowed two carry ons...a carry on and personal item, they lied, i ended up throwing a bag away, sad sad moment). I FINALLY go threw security and checked AGAIN about my flight, actually I checked twice and a third time at the gate. According to everyone my flight from London to Germany was all set, and my flight from German to San Fran was also all set. They lied again. I landed in Germany only to find out that the night before my flight was canceled from there to San Fran! I ended up getting stuck in Germany for two days, with no luggage.

My flight the next day was canceled again. I ended up getting a later flight. I finally land in San Fran only to find out I still have no luggage. Normally I wouldn't of minded so much but I had brought back from Italy some fresh pressed olive oil, some pasta and dried mushrooms along with some beer from England. I called United every day for a week until they finally caved and gave me some miles and a travel certificate! I ended up getting my luggage about six days later with little damage.

They started with $150 in a travel certificate but that wasn't good enough for me and my 15 phone calls, so I ended up with $400 in travel certificates. I bought my ticket home for Christmas on Friday and only had to pay $129.00 out of pocket...thank you very much United.

New Blog

No, I'm not getting rid of this blog (even though I haven't updated it since April), but I did create a new blog: Creative Cooking with recipes that I have adapted to be gluten free. So if you have a chance check it out. (Right now there is only one recipe on there, but I will be adding more!)

Enjoy

Happy 50th Birthday Dad

Dad,

Happy 50th Birthday! I'm so happy that you didn't have a clue that I was coming for your birthday. I thought for sure my not being sad about missing your birthday was going to give it away. A few weeks ago I was looking at the post I wrote about two years ago for father's day and figured I would take some of those and write 50 memories or things I love about you and our relationship, so here it goes (not in any order):

1. "hola"
2. Fishing (on the Reel Lucky, Fly Fishing, and of course the Cape)
3. Flying to Nantucket for Lunch
4. Our hand shake for scratch tickets
5. My anatomy books
6. Fly tying classes (especially when I won, haha)
7. Tux (sniff sniff)
8. Vermont...our spot, Hogback Mountain, The Spiral Shop, Brattleboro, our sandwich place (which we still don't know the name of, but continue to call it "ours"), the army navy store, the barn with all the license plates
9. My Camera's (All of them)
10. My photography books
11. La Gloria Cubana Wavells
12. Fishing in the rain down at the Cape and almost getting blown in the water, best fishing day we had
13. Learning to fly fish (and all the reminder casting lessons after)
14. Christmas mornings.
15. Wine tastings: Our tour of the vineyard in P-Town..."So can anyone tell me....anyone?"
16. Encouragement in photography and life in general.
17. Doing laundry with the blue haired ladies
18. Getting books from you with notes of encouragement on the inside of them
19. Thursday night dates
20. Taking Photography Class with Ed (and we can't forget Fernando, but his friends call him Fred)
21. When I broke my back and had to wear the back brace (such a dork).
22. Sara laughing so hard she cries...and all we can do is laugh at her
23. Purgatory
24. Hot Dog Annie's, Coney Island, Super China buffet
25. Lobsters and Muscles
26. When you came to visit me in Cali!!
27. Trips to B&N
28. My pocket protector, microscope and dissection kit (man I was an odd child).
29. MONEY....don't give me any of that do goody good bulls*!t
30. Catching my first fish at the club and then my fist one deep sea fishing on the fly rod.
31. Being rocked to sleep in the rocking chair (especially when I had ear infections).
32. Your humor...nuf said
33. Digging for night crawlers in the golf course
34. Ben (Benny, cockroach)
35. Hanging turtles from the swing set and me experimenting with the turtles heart (it was beating in my hand and I thought if it was frozen then defrosted it would beat again...it didn't).
36. When you played Jesus in the Godspell that the Joy Church put on
37. "the box"
38. Birthday calls at 5:00 am
39. The best chocolate pecan pie ever
40. The year you helped me make all of my Christmas presents
41. Our first game at Fenway
42. The voice mail you left me when I moved to Cali saying how proud you were of me for doing what I'm doing(that I had saved up until my phone busted)
43. The look on every one's face the night you said I was adopted and we laughed at it
44. The CHUCKY poster!!! (I still can't look at that thing)
45. Getting flowers from you at my office on my birthday
46. "Benny and Longbow" written for at least the next 30 years on the Cape Cod Boardwalk!
47. Our daily phone calls
48. Loaf of Italian Bread, kalamata olives, Vermont cheese and a glass of wine = one great meal.
49. When you busted out on how old Moses really was when he died and told me I should read my bible more
50. That you love me for me, you encourage me to be me.

This list could go on for a really long time but I figured 50 was appropriate. I love you dad. I'm extremely happy that I could be here with you for your birthday this year. I hope you have a wonderful birthday and you enjoy yourself. Sorry Sara couldn't be here too!

Thanks for all the good memories and even the hard times that have made us who we are and made our relationship what it is today. I wouldn't change anything.

Love,
Benny

Dancing the night away

Last night Victoria and I headed up to the City (aka San Fran) to see Adam Freeland at Mighty

Here are a few pictures from our little adventure!! Sadly we rocked it old school with a disposable film camera (haha) and ran out of pictures by the time we got on stage and got to meet him...


(Adam Freeland)


(best not to ask)


(me having some fun)


(Adam rockin it)


(Victoria waiting for Adam to start)


For a few more picks go to my flickr page

Charity: Water

If you know me well, you know how much I love this organization. Please take a minute to check out this video and also their website at: www.charityis.org

Augustana

I always complain about the lack of music (ok, good live music) in this area. You either have to drive to Santa Cruz, San Jose or San Francisco to hear anyone half way decent. All of which aren't too bad except when the people you really want to see are playing during the middle of the week (which happens ALL the time). So when Heather called me two weeks ago at work and said that some radio station around here was giving a way tickets to see Augustana at some secret show, of course I went right to that website to see how to get these tickets. I sent them an email...about a week later I heard back saying I got two free passes and I'll be on the "guest list", ha. Mind you the place they are doing this secret show is at Doc Rickett's some place down town that I would never step foot in due to the high volume of country music played and very interesting crowds. Just not my type of place. Seeing as Augustana was going to be there, how could I resist?

So come last Wednesday night we go, get in line (oh wait there wasn't a line!!), get my name checked off the guest list with my plus one (heather) go inside and have a seat. The crowd is ummm lets say not what I would of ever expected. Lots of people who didn't know who these guys were, a bit older (no offense to anyone reading this but I'm sure you are all wondering who the heck Augustana is anyway). At one point I really wanted to go up and apologize for the lack of people there. The radio station didn't do the best job with reaching their target audience thats for sure. And Dan and Chris are probably thinking how sucky Monterey is. People are sitting around whispering if the two skinny guys in tight jeans that look like rock stars (oh you know the type I'm talking about), are part of the bad...obviously they are. So I go up, introduce myself and say I'm a photographer, mind if I take some pics during the show, they are all cool about it. The set was a bit short but I'll take what I can ged, and it was ALL acoustic! Ahhhh. And yes they played "Boston"

Here are a few pictures from the night!


Over all awesome set and wicked cool guys.

To hear them check this out:

Scream

This is what I want to do...just scream. Doubt it would change much but seems like it would feel sooo good.

Passing

(Jed his great-great-grandfather at Grampa Cormier's Mass, December 2006)

Marco Ricci, 92, of 7 Lincoln Street and formerly of Leicester, Brookfield and Worcester, died Friday, Feb. 29, in the Meadows of Leicester, surrounded by his loving family, after an illness.

His wife of 54 years Irene P. (Hebert) Ricci died in 1998. He leaves a daughter, Therese M. Sauro with whom he lived; a son, Francis H. Cormier of Leicester; a daughter, Pauline R. Merhib of Leicester; 20 grandchildren, 50 great-grandchildren, 4 great-great-grandchildren and 2 nephews. He is pre-deceased by brothers Guido and Armando Ricci and a son, Raymond A. Cormier.