Archive for March, 2006

Mar 26 2006

Aidan’s getting married!

Published by under Family

I don’t usually talk to my six brothers and sisters because they all blew off my 40th birthday, but since one of them is getting married, I relented. They even have a website!

Congrats Eggo and Renia!

I’ve added a blog for Aidan at aidan.declan.net

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Mar 19 2006

Picture Links for Nathan and Declan’s NYC/Philly Trip

Published by under Declan,Family,Nathan

Here are WAY too many pictures from our trip:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7
Yes, I know how to delete pictures, but I just can’t! I’ve been hanging out with librarians too long to destroy cultural value!

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Mar 19 2006

Nathan and Declan in NYC/Philly Day 5

Published by under Declan,Family,Nathan

As you can see if you visit the photos site, we’ve got a new camera and a 1G card, so I’ve been playing with it a lot.  Mark has the same Canon Rebel, but in film format with all kinds of cool lenses that also work on my camera.  We played around with these all morning.  We are dorks.

Nathan woke up at some point and became a photo model.  And dog toy:

Ok, there’s “liking” dogs:

and “LIKING” dogs:

“What?!?  This is how he hugs!”

Never do something like this when I have a camera and a blog.  🙂

I can’t stop!

So, Blogosphere?  Is it wrong for a man to…  😉

Mark’s gonna kick my butt.  Thankfully, we only see each other every 15 years, so I can take Tai Kwan Do or something by then.

We went to take in some of the sights of Philly.  First stop at South Street:

Why don’t they heat the East Coast?  We needed to stop for strength:

MMMMmmmmm!

Gotta love a samwich with neon stuff in it.  Actually, it was great.  We learned that Cheez Wiz is the proper cheese to get on a Philly Cheese Steak.  We went with the provalone.

Apparently Mark is funny, because I think Nathan is laughing.  I’m sure it is at me.

He’s trying hard NOT too, but Mark’s just too darn funny when he’s making fun of me.  Too bad I don’t have incriminating pictures of him with dogs.

Here I think forward in time to when I will blog about my buddy Mark:

Actually, I’m just enthralled by the selection of crepes.

This is Ben Franklin’s house:

Ok, it MIGHT be.  It looks old and stuff.  ACTUALLY finding Ben’s house might have been work.  Ben DID live in Philly, right?

Guy on a horse:

This was at the Rocky I – IV memorial building.  Up there on the steps is where the Rocky statues isn’t anymore.

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Mar 19 2006

Nathan and Declan in NYC/Philly Day 4

Published by under Declan,Family,Nathan

Hi Jacob!

WK buddy Jacob Beach met us for lunch at Penn Station.  Dig the tie!

The plan for the day was to train down to Philly to meet up with my old college buddy Mark Fischer.  After riding the rails, then the light rails, Mark picked us up at Norristown:

ALL the chicks wanted this dude.  Yeah, him.  Wait til you see what he does with dogs…

Mark’s son Lucas and wife Lisa (you figure out which is which):

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Mar 19 2006

Nathan and Declan in NYC Day 3

Published by under Declan,Family,Nathan

We started with a nice breakfast at a place Tad recommended (can’t remember the name):

Which led to the inevitable knife fight:

I won but I STILL had to pay.

Our hotel was right across the street from the Natural History Museum, so that’s where we headed next.

This is the Milky Way.  Or something:

This is the lung from a dinosaur who smoked to much.  They all did, hence the extinction:

There were many dioramas.  Diorami?  Shadowboxes.

This specimen wall was really neat:

I’m proud of this picture.  The room was very dark, simulating being under water.  Which was cool until they removed all the air and everyone suffocated.  Not really.  I had to dink with the exposure settings and make the camera really still on a bannister to make this work.  My 10 yr old could do it with a tripod.

We weren’t sure why there were exhibits from the movie Aliens, but hey, that’s part of Nature too:

Here’s a picture where I did NOT master the art of keeping the camera still.

This is here to make you even more impressed that I got the whale shot above.  Impressed?  So is Nathan!

GAMERA!!!!!

Highlight of the trip for me!

Ok, this one takes some explaining:

When Nathan was little, he was fascinated with dinosaurs, and would often challenge me to a dinosaur fight.  To be a dinosaur, you had to make claws with your fingers.  Since everyone knows that the Alasaurous has three claws, and the Tyrannousaurus has two, one of us would have to have three fingers out, while the other had two if we were to have a proper battle… HEY!  You’re not completely captivated by what I think is a GREAT story!?!  Neither was Nathan.  Or Elaine.  Pfft.  Since I take all the pictures, I get to say what’s interesting.  Buncha…. (Declan wanders off muttering to himself.  Does that a lot lately.)

Meanwhile, Nathan goes back on vacation:

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Mar 19 2006

Nathan and Declan in NYC Day2

Published by under Declan,Family,Nathan

We wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, but didn’t really want to spend the day there, so we took the FREE Staten Island ferry out and back.

We got a good view of the Lady:

Got some nice shots of the city as well:

When we got off the ferry, we passed through Battery Park:

Nathan wants one of these:

We then walked up toward Ground Zero, passing this sculpture that was pulled from the wreckage:

Then we wandered north. I was cold and bought a cool NYC toque:

Stylin’!

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Mar 06 2006

Declan and Nathan on NYC Full Post

Published by under Declan,Family,Nathan

We headed for the airport on Saturday morning:

We will miss the weather that allows little or no coat-age.

We got to Denver then La Guardia, arriving around 11p. Goodness, it was cold. My ears nearly froze off. My west coast blood couldn’t handle the 18F temp, and I got reacquainted with Wind Chill. Thankfully, I still had my Triple Fat Goose winter coat from my midwest days!

Since it was so late, we’d set up a hotel in Queens, by the airport. There was a Caribbean place down the street and we had some shrimp and plantains, then hit the sack.

Next morning, we took a car into the city. I played with my camera on the way in:

We were too early to check in to the Hotel Excelsior (great place to stay in the Upper West Side), so we checked the bags, got the concierge working in finding us Spamalot tickets, and went for a walk. We were right next to Central Park, so we walked next to it and crossed in near the south side:

Nathan found a huge pike of cocaine to help defray the cost of the trip:

What’s a topiary?

Next, we kept travelling south on Central Park West. This made me wish I’d watched The Late Show in the last ten years:

Showed Nathan Times Square. It’s even cooler at night.

Next, we hit The Empire State Building:

I told all these people to move so I could get a better picture. They just honked at me. Lots of honking in NYC. They must ban hand guns out there.
I took a kazillion picture from the top.

Some day I’ve got to read that book that came with the camera:

He’s smiling on the INside. Actually, his face had frozen.

Ah, here he is, doubled over in hilarity:

Neat shadows on the boy:

After this we walked north, passing by the Ghostbusters building:

Imagine how cool this picture would be if I had a tripod:

Ah, HERE’s Times Square at night:

Deep down, he’s impressed. Really.

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