In an endless quest to track down a logo, I was sent to the Leonardo Grade School today to see if they had a copy of a logo used on a shirt from “Chasing Amy.” I didn’t want to look like some kind of asian pedophile armed with a camera wandering around a grade school so I had to approach this just right. First I printed a screen capture of the scene featuring the shirt and Ben Affleck - everyone loves Ben. Then I drove down to the school today hoping that there would be someone there. Luckily I was able to enter the school through a side door and found my way to the office. I was helped out by the school secretary - a very nice lady named Cathy - who lead me down to the computer lab and ended up giving me a folder and a t-shirt with the school logos.

Sadly the logo had been updated long ago and any record of the one used in the 1997 Chasing Amy were long gone. I did my best.

On another note I think these sidewalk chalk drawings are awesome.

This is a photo of Kevin’s life-size Illusive Concepts Han Solo in carbonite. As you can see it’s a bit damaged due to a couple of dogs named Mulder and Scully. Apparently they were better at destroying Han Solo than Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt were as they were the ones who crewed that huge hold at the bottom and chewed the fingers off Han’s right hand off. I guess fiberglass and paint is really tasty to dogs.

This Han is number 1049/2500

I had to take photos of this because we’re trying to have him repaired and back in top Carbon Freeze form and I need photos so they can give us an estimate.

I finally sold the Powerbook 1400cs/166 that has been sitting around for the last 3 years on eBay for a fairly decent price. It was given to me by Janet Pierson awhile back and worked great. The problem was with all the other Mac’s I had around at home and work it fell by the wayside and was just taking up space. I wanted to sell it someone who would actually use it because it’s a fairly decent machine with a great keyboard.

After packing up the Powerbook expertly I headed off to the FedEx shipping station in Eatontown. Before I got there I had to get some gas so I stopped at the Shell station on the corner of Newman Springs Road and Shrewsbury Ave. When the fillup was done I waited for the service station guy for about 5 minutes before I got fed up and decided to close my gas cap myself and leave. As I was doing so he finally hustled over and then started talking to me in a very, very Indian accent. I couldn’t understand a word he said but I think I made out these three words, “pussy,” “bra,” “panties.” If I understood him correctly I think the chick in the car that was filling up behind me was either flashing him or really, really dressed for the 90 degree weather. I only wish I knew what he was really saying because I could really, really be off.

Kevin IM-ed me today and asked me to do a favor. In a weird reversal of technology he was without cell phone reception but he DID have an Internet connection. He was trying to reach Jen but couldn’t get out via phone so he had me do it from Jersey and relay the messages to him through iChat. It was weird timing that he asked this because I was just thinking about Internet telephony the day before and how I had made a few calls from dialpad.com back when it was free. Sadly it appears most of those sites are pay services now.

After trying for about 20 minutes I was able to reach Jen and relayed the messages to Kevin. It turns out that she was stuck in a roach motel in some town in Vancouver called Squamish and Kevin wanted to make sure all was ok. I imagines the motel to be like the one from Twin Peaks or the one from The Mothman Prophecies - dark dirty shag carpet with crappy wood paneling, a rotary dial phone and a 12″ inch tv with a dial channel switcher.

Debbie and I took Lillian to see her Great-Grandmother Mary today. Debbie had planned this trip about a week ago and used it as a good excuse to finally make the free turkey that had been sitting in our freezer since last Thanksgiving maybe? The plan was to make the turkey Friday or Saturday and then take up a whole dinner for her on Sunday.

The turkey was all cooked and ready at about 6pm yesterday along with all that went with it - stuffing, potatoes, etc. After that was all squared away Debbie made the call to Grandma and told her the great news. The call was met with little enthusiasm however as Grandma told us not to come up: she was worried that our car would break down in the 90 degree heat and then we’d me stuck on the Parkway somewhere thus endangering Lillian. You have to love old people and their super-worst case scenarios.

Of course we headed up anyway - 90-degree heat and all and decided not to tell her we were coming until 15 minutes before we got there. The plan worked and she ended up being very glad to see the three of us. She hadn’t eaten yet so she sent me out for soem takeout Chinese food. When we asked her what she wanted she said she wanted some “chicken charmaine.” What the heck is that I Debbie? Debbie replied that she thought Grandma meant chicken lo-mein. Ok - no problem.

It turned out that she really wanted chicken CHOW MEIN, but she ate the lo-mein anyway.

Of course we had to stop at the world’s famous Rutt’s Hut for a couple of the best hot dogs in the world. Debbie got a ripper and I got a creamator and then we split another ripper afterwards. I wish I could have all my hot dogs deep fried.

Because we had eaten at the same time that all old people eat dinner (4:00pm) and because I had just flipped on a documentary about ice cream, we packed up Lillian again and took her to the Cold Stone Creamery. I learned that yellow cake and french vanilla ice cream mixed together is a very good idea.

I’ve always hated running. It all started back in elementary school as we were forced to run laps upon laps around a gymnasium that was way too hot or cold while the evil gym teacher yelled at us if we were going too slow or had to stop and walk. I never liked feeling like my lungs were on fire while I was breathing like every breath was my last and I hated how my legs would ache. One time when I was on the baseball team in high school we were sent on an impromptu 2-mile run down a long street. There were only two coaches there that day and they both stayed at the starting line while we all raced down to the end of the street and then ran back up. Somewhere along the path down however someone wised up and cut across to the other side of the street before reaching the end effectively cutting the 2-mile run into a 1-mile run. I noticed some of the guys taking this shortcut and since I hated running I decided to screw it and followed along. We thought no one would notice our little shortcut. However when the coach noticed that the fastest guy on the team (who was too good to cheat) finished 10 minutes after us usual slowpokes he knew something was up and we got busted.

My race photo from last year’s 5K

So no one is surprised as I am that I ran a 5k today. The race was organized by the Ryan Andrew Kaiser Memorial Foundation (http://www.ryansrun.org) and was held at the Mountain Hill School in Middletown. I’ve been running about 2-3miles about 4-5 times a week for the last 3-4 weeks so I decided to see if I could hang with some real runners and get an official time. Debbie, Lillian and I left the house at about 8:15am to get there early for the 9am race. I didn’t pre-register so I had to leave a bit of extra time to fill out the form, write a check and get my free t-shirt. Halfway through Red Bank however we were thwarted by what appeared to be a broken train signal which had come down to block traffic and stayed there for over 10 minutes with no train in sight. Seeing that time was ticking by Debbie deftly got out of the traffic line and made a detour. I ended up getting to the registration table at about 8:55am and the race started at about 9:10am.

The race lane at the beginning was only about 10 feet wide so it was packed full of people. They asked that only the fast runners get up in front. Not feeling that confident I hung out in the middle only to pass many of them when the race started. I also later found out that people in the front get in all the good race photos - so next time I’ll edge my way up front.

The race trail started off going out of the school’s driveway and down a blocked off street lined with horse farms, houses and woods. About a mile and a half in it suddenly and unexpectedly turned left into the woods and I was running down what is normally a hiking trail, jumping logs Donkey Kong style and running through a path cut through some grass. The trailer then rejoined the road and went back to the start. I was doing fine up until the 2 mile mark and then I had to tough out the other 1.1 miles running at a slower pace.

My official time was 24:05:43 minutes. It was 1:10 minutes off my pace from the 5K I ran last year but to be fair, that one was on flat streets and the race lane was way wider meaning I didn’t have to dodge people at the beginning. I also think I was in better shape last year so being a minute off wasn’t so bad.

After the race I loaded up on all the free food they had there. One thing I learned is that these races are filled with tons of free food for racers and non-racers alike. I downed a Red Bull, Evian, Gatorade, a bagel a banana and an orange slice going back to snag a couple more sugar-free Red Bulls and stashing them in Lillian’s diaper bag. They also had one of those Italian sausage food stands you usually see at county fairs dishing out free sausage and pepper sandwiches so of course I grabbed one.

Margaret comes to visit:

Margaret is in town for a pipe band competition at the PNC bank Arts Center tomorrow and we decided to meet for dinner tonight. I had a heck of a time trying to decide where to eat for some reason. When I’m eating somewhere else I usually have a huge list of places I want to go but for some reason I was coming up blank in my own backyard. The thing with choose restaurants these days is that they have to be good (always criteria #1) a they have to be somehat kid friendly. I decided to check the New Jersey section of the eGullet forums which features user written reviews for everything from Medieval Times to Restaurant Nicholas.

I happened upon several very positive reviews for a place in Ocean called Piccola Italia which was only about 10 minutes away so we decided to head there after Margaret arrived. At about 7:15pm, after a slight isunderstanding and a very well placed roundabout turn Margaret arrived and we were off.

When we arrived at the restaurant it was packed and sadly the place was booked until 9:pm at least. I guess I wasn’t the only one who read the good reviews. We settled for the japanese place in the same strip mall instead. Settled isn’t really the right word I should be using - this place was pretty fantastic. I was a bit wary at first when Margaret pointed out that their spider roll only had crab and not soft-shell crab but they had a pretty good selection of rolls. We decided to order the ‘Sushi Party A’ which consisted of about 30 pieces of assorted rolls (tuna, salmon, california, cucumber) and we each picked a roll (shrimp tempura, spicy salmon and something called a Pink Lady which featured pink seaweed instead of black).

Shortly after we ordered we received 4(!) complimentary appetizers courtesy of the restaurant. First was a small salad which had one of the best dressngs I’ve ever tasted. I detected flavors of peanuts, maybe ginger and some of the stuff they use on kimchee. Also they gave us a small dish of pickled vegetables and a small dish of noodles and shitake mushrooms. Then they brought us a heated skilled with mushrooms and onions sauteed in some kind of asian spice and told us it was one of their specialties. The onions were particularly good because they were cooked enough not to be raw, but not overdone enough to be mushy. They had the perfect texture and spice.

Our miso soups and then our rolls came next. Halfway through the rolls we discovered that we had ordered way too much - especially with the free stuff they kept giving us. It was at this point another free dish came over - 3 bowls of seasoned buckwheat soba noodles which were very good.

I tried the best I could do but there were still over 15 pieces left. At this point 2 MORE free dishes came over. One featured cooked tuna and salmon alongside crushed fried tempura batter covered with a spicy sauce. Also there was a dish with 3 fried fish balls on it. This brought the total of free dishes up to 7. Amazing.

The restaurant is called Fune by the way and is located at 821 West Park Ave in Ocean if you ever want to get really, really full.

Debbie and I took Lillian to the St. Mary’s Fair after I got back from work today. The fair is technically called the St. Mary’s GREAT Fair and is held every summer in June. We got there in about 10 minutes, unpacked her and took a stoll around the fairm stopping at the large food tent to see what they had. We hadn’t eaten yet so it was the first stop. I was trying to decide between a turkey leg and a italian sausage sandwich and Debbie inquired as to whether she could get a cheesesteak without peppers. I finally settled on the sausage sandwich and Debbie got a cheesesteak with the peppers on the side.

Afterwards we took a spin around the fairgrounds and noticed a couple of attractions which were new. One was the soak the dope dunk tank and the other was a small pool filled with bumper boats.

Next it was time for dessert. Debbie wanted a cupcake from the J&M Italian bakery so we headed over and saw cupcakes with different faces on them. One had Dora the Explorer, another had Spider-Man and another had a face which neither of us recognized on there. I suggested that maybe it was the Hamburglar.

Who the heck is this?

I got some Dippin Dots in the Neopolitan flavor. The sign listing the flavors had it listed as Napoleon with a markered attempt to correct the spelling.

Going to the Orioles game with the Mihalcik’s this past weekend reminded me of a couple of incidents that happened the very first time the Mihalcik’s invited me to a Orioles game. I believe it was 1998, and I think it was sometime in July. I can’t remember for the life of me who the Orioles played or who won (blogging would have worked out great for me then). We all rode to the Inner Harbor in the Mihalcik’s huge Suburban (I guess we must have all been picked up at Kristin’s old condo?) and got there well before the game. There was some kind of street fair going on in the spot which later became Power Plant Live and Jay and Stephen decided to split a very large order of fried plantains that they shared with everyone. We then decided to have dinner at Fuddrucker’s.

Robert - just a kid back then at age 11 - had just sat down after getting his order of a burger and fries and I think we went up to go put some toppings on his burger. While this was going on, Jay, still a jokester even back then switched his french fry plate with the fried plantains. Robert then sat down and bit into what he though was a delicious Fuddruckers french fry. Sensing that something was amiss, he dipped the plantain into a huge dollop of ketchup to make sure his taste buds weren’t playing tricks on him. Then he finally looked down and realized what had happened. By this time he had been quite vocal about what Jay had just pulled and we all burst out laughing.

After the game we passed by the large fountain at the Inner Harbor and watched some kids jumping their bikes into the water for a few minutes. We then headed back to the Surburban afterwards. Robert was lagging behind and when we looked back at him we noticed that something was wrong. He was soaking wet. He claimed to have “accidentally” fallen in while walking forward and watching the kids jumping their bikes, not noticing that the sidewalk he was on ended in a big pool of water. Debbie to this day still thinks he jumped in.

The worst part about all this was that he didn’t want Mr. and Mrs. Mihalcik to find out so we kept quiet - which was not easy to do because he was sitting between Debbie and I causing us to get soaked as well during the ride back.

After yesterday’s little calculation about how long it would take me to buy an Acura NSX if I saved X dollars per day, I decided to count out all of the change I’ve been saving. We have this large ceramic turtle my mom gave me with that’s hollowed out with a lift up shell and a smaller turtle for a handle. Every since January or so I’ve been tossing all my spare change into it.

After making small piles out of the quarters, dimes and nickles (pennies don’t really count do they?) the grand total came out like this:

6 sacagewa dollar coins
208 quarters
120 dimes
60 nickels

Grand total was about $72 bucks. I’m so almost there.

that or I could use the change to finally realize my dream of becoming a Dance Dance Revolution King and impress some people at Wildwood.

That is if it isn’t time to head off to dinner first.

After getting home from Bengies at 2:24am and getting to bed at 3:00am I awoke at 8:00am to an unfamiliar ringing sound. It turned out to be the alarm I set on my cellphone reminding me that I had a 9am 75,000 mile service appointment at Acura of Ocean. Crap. I dressed, showered and left.

The 75,000 mile service takes about 4-5 hours so they usually give you a loaner car for the day. I received a white TSX with about 15,000 miles on it. This TSX is XM-radioless so I tried to switch on Stern. For the life of me however I could not remember which station KROCK was on so I ended up using the search function until it rolled to 92.3. I’ve been so dependent on XM lately that I had forgotten that FM radio existed.

The TSX is a great car by the way. Great handling and acceleration - a bit too small for me now however. I can definitely see why Jay has gotten a few tickets however.

I got to keep the car overnight because they never called to tell me that my car was done already. After picking it up this morning I went to the showroom to check out the NSX and struck up a conversation with a gentleman looking to buy an RSX. He asked me if I liked my TL, how long I had had it and if I liked the service from the dealer. I told him yes on all counts and he seemed very happy. If he ends up buying one I think i should get at least a free oil change or something.

By the way if I can save about $50 a day for the next 5 years I can finally afford that $89,765 NSX.

The best part about my day:

Kristin called me at 4:30pm yesterday. I thought maybe she had found something we had left behind at the house or that she had stumbled across a dirty diaper we forgot to throw away. She was actually calling to inform me that Don and Mike were finally broadcasting on the Internet and that the inagural broadcast was running at 5pm! Awesome! I tuned in right at 5pm and there they were. It was like I never left Maryland what with the Orioles games, Trader Joe’s runs, movies at Bengies and now Don and Mike.

My father’s Day Card:

Debbie drew this for me on Sunday: