This is the main reason why I can’t find stuff in my office:

I guess the 3 machines take up a majority of the space followed by action figures, remote controls and other misc. crap.

Jay is in LA this weekend visiting Alex and attending some fancy pants wedding in Bel Air. He called last night and asked if I knew if ‘Crash’ was any good. I told him that Stephen thought it sucked and that he might better off seeing something else. He then mentioned that he should probably start reading Stephen’s blog. “Does he make fun of me in it?”, he asked? “Well, it is located at jaystinks.blogspot.com Jay, I guess he does”, I answered.

Although I badmouthed the trailer, I suggested the sneak preview of Cinderella Man, Madagascar or Star Wars. Jay mentioned that he’d probably take Jillian to Madagascar and was leaning towards Episode III. I asked if Alex had seen the 2 prequels and she replied that she only saw one of them. I told them that she should be fine plotwise if she remembered Episode IV - A New Hope. The online tickets were then bought. Total - $27 bucks.

Then this afternoon I heard my phone vibrate on the kitchen table and saw that Jay had sent me a picture message. The subject line simply said GARDENDUMP and the photo looked like this:

I guess Jay went to a playgroup or something or else he just up and got creative this morning.

In other news today:

We took Lillian out for a walk at a new park called Dorbrook Park. Dorbrook is maybe 5 minutes from Delicious Orchards and was filled with a lot of cool attractions including a basketball court, roller holley rink, a large playground and our favorite, an above ground water park type thing called the Sprayground. The Sprayground looked like a smaller version of the water parks at Wildwood with miniature versions of the filling/dumping buckets, spouts, sprayers and water wheels. The fixtures were above ground so there were no pools of water to worry about if your kid hasn’t learned the art of swimming. This is probably the first place we’ll head to as soon as the kid is old enough. The best part about it is that it’s 100% free.

We went for a walk on the 2.2 mile paved loop around the park, some which Lillian slept for and some which she cried, mainly because the path was too smooth. It’s the bumps that put her to sleep.

The park map also indicated a flag football field and a field where you can fly model airplanes.

I briefly considered taking Lillian to Bengies and the dusk-till-dawn program until i was talked out of it. I think at almost 3 months she’s long overdue for a trip to a drive-in but we’ll get there eventually. I sent Kristin a couple of text messages to see if she wanted to meet us and to see if she would have minded if we stayed at her place:

What are you doing today.

I’m trying to talk debbie into bengies tonight. First two are robots and longest yard.

To which she replied:

I am up for it, but don’t pressure debbie. She may feel better closer to home. You guys should only come if she will have fun and not be stressed!

Oh and i am going to the parents house today but not staying overnight so i could meet at bengies and you guys could sleep here.

We ended up instead taking Lillian out 4 times yesterday. She made her 3rd trip to mass and it went very well with Debbie and I switching on and off with soothing duties. This was the second straight mass where she was good and we’re hoping that church is starting to sooth her enough so she won’t create a ruckus when she gets baptised in 2 weeks.

Then we took her out for lunch at Moby’s and got some very large steamers, chowder and a fish sandwich. The weather was pretty much perfect and the steamers good. According to Debbie you should only eat steamers in a month that doesn’t contain an ‘R’ in it. Only 3 more months until they’re still good.

Next we packed her up for a trip to Kohl’s and Sears and since the weather was so nice, we decided to stop at Strollo’s Lighthouse Italian Ices where I got a cherry/orange and Debbie got a chocolate/vanilla soft serve.

The fourth trip was a dinner trip to The Brother’s Pizza in Red Bank.

I definitely think she’s ready for Bengies, ballgames, hot dogs joints or wherever else we can drag her to.

I recently remembered a funny incident that happened at the Mission Drive-In (Now known as the Mission Tiki Drive-In) in May 2001. That was the year I moved to Los Angeles and my evil movers I had hired kept my stuff until mid-June. Since we needed chairs and radios for the drive-in we first headed to Target and bought some Eddie Bauer reclining camp chairs and a brand new boombox with a digital display. We packed all of these into the car unwrapped and drove an hour down the 10 freeway to the drive-in.

Pulling up into screen 2 (Shrek and Spy Kids) I noticed that the patronage was mostly lower to lower-middle-class out for a night of inexpensive entertainment. The true meaning and sprit of the drive-in I thought happily. Pile your wife and kids into the car and see two-movies for about $12 bucks.

It wasn’t until later I wondered what they must have thought of us as we pulled up to our parking space in a 1 year old Acura TL and proceeded to unpack our brand-new lounge chairs followed by the unboxing of a brand-new radio. We must have looked like the biggest, snottiest yuppies on earth out to see what this “drive-in” business was all about. As a Betz aunt once inferred, the drive-in the defintely low-class.

The photos below depict a night out at the Yuppie Drive-In. Pictures are Ming “Thurston Howell III” Chen, Alex “Muffy” Dominguez, Alan Chen and Ben “Jeeves” Nieporent.

Debbie’s sister had the first of four baby showers today at the Grist Mill on Sycamore ave. It’s the same place where Debbie had her bridal shower. We return time and time again because of their reasonable prices and good food. I hung out with Lillian for about 4 hours while Debbie attended. In the morning she was woken up by a very loud firetruck procession for the Shrewsbury Memorial Day Parade and in the afternoon we took a walk around the neighborhood. She cried the entire time.

Debbie asked that I bring Lillian by at the end of the shower so we wouldn’t intrude on or take away from Patti’s special day. The moment I brought her into the party area she was swarmed by friends and relatives who were meeting her for the first time. These included her great-grandmother and two great grand-aunts.

After the shower I hung around and loaded up my car with gifts.

Shown here is Debbie’s shower outfit (floral print dress by H&M, espadrilles by C Label and watch by Invicta) and 4 generations of Handoga women (Great-Grandmother Mary, Mother Debbie, Daughter Lillian, Aunt Patti and Grandmother Judy)

It’s a good thing anytime David blogs. Some of my most favorite passages of written word were written by David for his blog entries and since more than a few of them involve Debbie and I, it’s a good way to get another perspective on the events in my own life.

Some of my favorite passages:

7/22/1998

So long as I make it up in time to go to the Sea Shell,” I told Jay, “I will consider the vacation complete.” The Sea Shell is an ice cream shop in Wildwood, two blocks back from the boardwalk. They have a large selection of flavors and some very large sundaes. Every year we eat there, filling an entire room with the families of my father and his three sisters. The lost class would place our grades in some danger, but I judged the risk to be well worth the reward.

8/22/1998

Debbie and Ming didn’t arrive for half an hour, so we had plenty of time to put on sun screen and argue over whether or not to wear shirts. I wanted to wear mine, but Stephen, Jay and Robert were in a deadlock, each not wanting to follow the other and each waffling as to their own opinions. As soon as Ming arrived and took off his shirt, the three all took off theirs as well.

I may be crazy, shallow or self-centered here but I’ve noticed a huge increase in David’s blog entries ever since I started my own blog on May 14th. I did a rough count and David would blog on average every 4 days or so before the 16th. That ratio jumps to every 2 days after the 16th. I doubt that has anything to do with me and more with the fact that David has been doing more now that it’s almost summer, but I’m going to take credit for this one. Yeah.

Before May 14th:

* May 4, 2005
* May 5, 2005
* May 7, 2005
* May 11, 2005

After May 14th:

* May 16, 2005
* May 22, 2005
* May 23, 2005
* May 26, 2005
* May 27, 2005
* May 28, 2005
* May 30, 2005

Mom and Patti are in town for the first of Patti’s 4 baby showers. She’s having one here in Jersey for all of the NJ family in friends, two in Columbus and one in Dayton. That should set her and Jason up with more than enough stuff for their as-of-yet genderless kid.

We went out to dinner at Ninette’s and Lillian cried pretty much the entire time. Mom ordered linguini with red clam sauce. Patti got baked ziti and Debbie and I split a Chicken Parm. I had to get a risotto ball and it was great. The last one we got when the Mihalcik’s were down has spinach in it. This one was filled with black olive and cheese and was much more well done than the one we had before.

As you can see Patti is showing and she should be due sometime in August.

Lillian’s Announcement

If you haven’t seen Lillian’s announcemcnt it’s attached below. If you don’t have one of these it’s because:

1) You changed your address and didn’t tell us
2) You haven’t been home long enough to check your mailbox
3) You didn’t send us a Christmas card in the last 3 years - which was pretty much what the list was based off of.

So below I posted the photos of Jay’s In-n-Out burger conquest. David reminded me that that was not the biggest burger Jay had ever ate. That award goes to the 24oz Bill Bateman’s burger that he completed 1 1/2 times (I think David helped him the first time - so the first photo would indicate). The second photo is from Jay’s second time:

I also remembered that Jay polished off an entire Thurman’s burger which consists of:

* 1lb of hamburger meat
* Ham
* Melted cheese (your choice)
* Lettuce
* Onion
* tomato
* pickles
* peppers

Here is the proof:

In terms of red meat weight the Bateman’s burger is the winner but in volume and toppings I think the Thurman’s burger comes out the champ.

By the way, when Jay was up here in December he clogged up the toilet so bad that we had to run out and buy a plunger. The red meat struck back that night.

I’ve been known to run around saying that ‘X’ is the best thing ever invented so I thought I’d keep track of just what these things are in a list.

1) Match Light Charcoal
2) In-Car Navigations Systems
3) Satellite Radio
4) Federal Express
5) Apple Macintosh desktop’s and laptops running OS X
6) Final Cut Pro
7) Adobe Photoshop
Adobe After Effects
9) Zaino Car Polish
10) Ingelsina Zippy baby stroller
11) TiVo
12) Dyson Vacuums

More to come as I remember them…

I’ve been to about 10 to 15 baseball games in my lifetime (San Francisco Giants, Oakland A’s, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels, Detroit Tigers and the Baltimore Orioles) and I’ve never, ever even come close to catching a ball. Jay Mihalcik however has had the pleasure of catching two - one of them tonight. Jay and Robert hit the Orioles vs. Mariners game and Jay managed to grab a foul ball hit by Palmiero in the very first inning - all while holding a bag of peanuts in his left hand. According to Robert it was a great one hand barehanded catch that Jay had to make while reaching across his body. Definitely a Baseball Tonight “Web Gem.” I am very jealous.

On thing’s for sure - if you want to be near a baseball, sit next to Jay and pay attention when Raphael Palmiero is at bat (both of Jay’s balls were former victims to Palmiero’s bat - that sounds really dirty)