Five years later...

Today is kind of a depressing day. If you watch the news, all you’re going to hear about is the anniversary of September 11th and the funeral for Trooper Joseph Longobardo.

There seems to be an enormous amount of attention paid to the anniversary of the attacks this year. Over the weekend, every time I flipped through the channels I would stumble across a special of some sort about the attacks—and I kept on flipping. Not because I didn’t care, but because it was just too depressing.

That got me thinking about our fascination with numbers. Is the fifth anniversary any more important or significant than the fourth was or the sixth will be? Yet there is something about the numbers divisible by 5 that makes them seem extra special. Why is that?

I had the Today show on this morning and I heard Matt Lauer remark about how there would be a moment of silence at Ground Zero at 8:46 a.m., when the first plane hit. He said he was sure there would be a similar moment of silence in every town and city in the country.

But at about that time, I was getting ready to leave for work. I kissed my wife goodbye. I noted the painters hard at work on my neighbor’s house. On the radio Mike & Mike were recapping Sunday s football games. People were walking up and down the street and in and out of the nearby grocery store. Life was moving on.

And maybe that’s the greatest tribute on 9/11. Americans are still going about their daily lives in the face of a world threatened by terrorism.

Double-Oh-Awesome!

I am psyched for “Casino Royale!” A lot of people have had reservations about Daniel Craig and the new direction of the James Bond films. To them I say: check out the new trailer! This movie looks very cool.

I read Ian Flemming’s “Casino Royale,” the first Bond novel, last year. Looking at this trailer it looks like parts of the movie are going to be pretty faithful to the book.

Obviously, there are also plenty of parts that are completely original. But then, the book did come out in 1953. It’s in pretty serious need of an updating. Besides, it didn’t have a ton of action in it.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the Pierce Brosnan films a lot. But it looks like this more serious approach to Agent 007 is going to succeed in getting him back to his Ian Flemming, “Dr. No” roots.

Starting school

It sounds like the first day of pre-school was a resounding success.

When Chester and I came back from our early-morning walk a little before 7 a.m. we found Thomas already dressed and ready for the day. Of course, his school doesn’t start until 9:15.

Nolan’s bus picks him up at about 7:30. When he was getting ready to leave, Thomas ran to the closet and put on his shoes. He then got his backpack and proceeded to fill it with every one of his Thomas the Tank Engine trains. He couldn’t understand why Nolan was getting leave while he had to wait longer.

But wait he did and when the time came Kris and I both took him to his school. It was an odd feeling. He’s going to the same pre-school Nolan went to. So we had been there plenty of time before, but of course this was different.

When it came time to enter his classroom he was a little apprehensive. But he soon found a cool table filled with macaroni and toy dump trucks to play with, and that was all he needed. I don’t think he even realized we left.

When Kris picked him up he couldn’t wait to tell her about every detail of everything that happened! With Nolan the conversation would go like, “How was school?” “Good.” “What did you do?” “Stuff.”

If the first day is any indication, it seems like pre-school is going to be a great experience for Thomas.

Back to school

The alarm clock went off at 6:45 a.m. this morning. I went downstairs to feed the dog and start making the coffee.

Soon after came Nolan, all dressed and ready for the first day of school.

After breakfast he was ready to gear-up and head out for the bus. He had his backpack and another bag full of back-to-school supplies he needed to bring in on the first day.

His backpack looks pretty cool. When we went camping over the summer, he completed a book full of puzzles and quizzes about the environment. That earned him a “junior naturalist” patch, which Kris sewed onto his backpack. It looks really good.

He didn’t want a big fuss at the bus stop. I insisted on one picture, but I promised not to take one of him getting on the bus.

He’ll be getting home in a couple of hours and I can’t wait to hear from him—especially about his first experience with lunch in the cafeteria!

Tomorrow it will be Thomas’ turn…

The digital frontier

Last night I got my first glimpse of the “new and improved” version of the original “Star Trek.”

As you may have heard, the classic “Trek” series is going back into broadcast syndication this year with updated modern CG effects.

You can get an idea what the shows will look like at STAR TREK: Enhanced. The site is from one of the guys behind the new effects. It features some clips, including a side-by-side comparison of his “proof of concept” video playing next to the original footage. It shows the first few minutes of the episode “The Doomsday Machine.”

I’m not sure what to make of it. Yeah, it looks good—certainly better than it used to. The changes are not as drastic as the changes George Lucas made to the “Star Wars” movies.

But was it necessary? I don’t think so. With all good sci-fi, the story matters more than the effects. And in 2006, the cheesy effects are part of the original show’s charm.

Who Wants to Live Forever

Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, would have turned 60 years old today. Wow.

Sadly, Mercury died of pneumonia complicated by AIDS in 1991.

Mercury was a great performer and Queen was truly one of the best bands around in the 1970s and 80s.

Freddie died much too soon. I’d love to know what Queen would have done throughout the 90s and into today.

Meanwhile, Mercury’s birthday is causing controversy in Zanzibar. He was born there when the country was still a British protectorate. A huge beach party is planned for this weekend there to celebrate the occasion. But a Muslim leader in Zanzibar wants the party banned because Mercury’s gay lifestyle conflicts with Muslim teachings.

Summer wrap-up

Well, summer is basically over. Labor Day has come and gone and tomorrow Nolan goes back to school.

For having no plans, we kept pretty busy over the weekend.

On Saturday we took the kids to the main the branch of the Schenectady County Library to kill the morning. We picked up a ton of books and some DVDs: “Bionicle: Mask of Light” for Nolan, a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD for Thomas and “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” for mom and dad.

After the library, we stopped by mom’s for lunch. Later in the afternoon, the Rooney boys all got haircuts (we have a great barber—Kris!).

That night we flattened out the futon in the basement and we all watched Nolan’s Bionicle movie together. I’m not that familiar with the Bionicle toys, but apparently they’re some kind of spin-off of Legos. The movie was kind of like “Lord of the Rings” with robots. We all thought it was pretty cool.

On Sunday Nolan’s friend Danny came over to play. Meanwhile, Thomas and I spent some time hanging out at Barnes & Noble where he played with the train table there. Then we walked over to PetSmart to check out the animals.

We had dinner with mom that night. Then after the kids went to bed we popped in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” and quickly proceeded to both fall asleep. We’re both fans of Kevin Spacey and John Cusack, but this movie just couldn’t hold us.

On Monday we headed over to the Sportsplex of Halfmoon. It’s a large indoor soccer facility. They have an area in there they call Tippy’s Play Zone. It’s a space filled with three bouncy bounces and plenty of soccer balls, kick balls, footballs and all sorts of other fun sports equipment for kids to play with. We met our friends, the Price family, there and had a great time.

So those are the highlights of our final summer weekend. It seems like it wasn’t that long ago I was blogging about the start of summer. We’ll have updates on the start of school and preschool soon.

Sad death downunder

Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin killed
(AP): "AP - Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the 'Crocodile Hunter,' was killed Monday by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44."

This is truly sad news. Steve Irwin was very entertaining and had a very likable TV personality. I remember when Nolan was about 3 years old, we used to wake up on Saturday mornings and watch "Croc Files," the Discovery Kids version of his show "The Crocodile Hunter."

He wil surely be missed by many.

Belated camping shots

As I mentioned before, I pulled out our camera while camping in New Hampshire last weekend only to discover the batteries dead and I didn’t have nay back-ups with me.

We were camping with our friends, Mike & Sharon Reed, and fortunately their camera was working just fine. Sharon e-mailed us a bunch of photos and a couple of videos yesterday.

Pictured here are Nolan and Thomas with Simon and Ava Reed. This was taken during a nature hike at the campground we were staying at.

I’ve youtubed the videos she sent. The first is of Nolan and Simon on the swings…



The second clip shows a Rooneys vs. Reeds volleyball match…

An Inspirational Enterprise

You’ve all seen those “Successories” posters before. You know, the ones that have some sort of nature picture or an athlete making an amazing play and it will say something like “DETERMINATION” with some sort of inspirational quote or message under it.

Well, a “Star Trek” fan with too much free time has created a series of Star Trek inspirational posters.

A co-worker found this site. He uses the one pictured here as his desktop wallpaper.

Some other good ones include:

“EXPENDABILITY: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Ensign Ricky are beaming down to the planet. Guess who's not coming back.

“INGENUITY: Yes, it is perfectly reasonable that Kirk had the know-how to make the gunpowder and put together the bazooka to defeat the Gorn. That's why he's the goddamn Captain.”

“KOBAYASHI MARU: It's okay to cheat, if you just really don't like to lose.”

If you’re a Trek fan then you'll find them pretty funny. Check it out.

Crash course

I was already running late to get home from work last night. I wound up being even later after getting rear-ended.

I was on Route 7 near Lisha Kill Road when the car in front of me braked suddenly. I quickly hit my brakes and avoided hitting the car. Then I remembered to check for that minivan that was tailgating me. I glanced in the rearview mirror and instantly knew what was going to happen next…CRASH!

No body was hurt. I had a little headache last night. That’s about it.

The car has a couple of gashes in the back bumper. That will have to be replaced. Near as I can tell, everything else seems fine.

This is the third time in less than a year my car has been involved in some sort of collision. In December someone backed into it when it was parked on the side of the road. In February a woman stepped out in front of me during a snowstorm, causing me to swerve and hit a guardrail. Now this. Needless to say, I’m on a first name basis with the guy at the body shop.

Just to add insult to injury, when I got home I was a little flustered getting out of the car and wound up locking the keys in it. We only have one key for my car. It’s one of those keys with a microchip in it and it costs about $60 to get a copy. We’ve never got around to doing that. Anyway, we wound up having to call AAA to get to get the car open.

Tigers vs. Yankees

The Tigers are playing the Yankees in a day-night double header today. That has Nolan excited.

At some point earlier in the season I told him that the Tigers were really good this year. Not long after that he decided he was a Tigers fan in addition to being a Yankee fan.

So who is he rooting for today? He insists he's rooting for both teams.

Meanwhile, the cable is out here in Menands. So I guess I'll have to actually do some work.

Blame Canada

"South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, while speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival in Scotland, said they have it on good authority the Marines guarding Saddam Hussein have been making him watch their movie "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut."

In a subplot to the hysterical 1999 movie, Saddam dies and goes to Hell where he engages in a homosexual relationship with Satan.

Fender-bender, shmender-bender

How does a big league ball player smash his brand new Porche into a county-owned garbage truck without anyone finding out about it?!?

Nature vs Nurture

So I had a dentist appointment today and my good friend Marlene watched the kids so I could go. I was having a busy day with lots of work at home in the morning (still recuperating from camping) and rushing to this appointment. I get back to her house and her daughter Stephanie was crying like she had been hurt. Thomas had just finished wacking her with a metal pole. Poor Marlene blames herself for having the pole out! Of course, Thomas is tired and he gets himself in trouble when that happens. What's a mom to do? We apologized and decided we won't do that next time (how many times have I heard that one?). I can't tell you how many times I have said no hitting, please listen to me, be nice to your friends, ... And I'm as nonviolent and noncompetitive as they come. But I tell you, Thomas definately pushes the envelope with me. He teaches me constantly what it is to be patient and non-impulsive, things he still has yet to grasp. And Chris is laid back and calm, while Thomas is all about the drama. Thomas impresses me with his ability to laugh when being yelled at and defying for the fun of it; these ideas never occurred to me when I was little, Miss Goody-goody. So are we as parents at fault? Is the nurture part of the arguement to blame? Or is it his nature and personality, things we can't really control? As a matter of fact, the more I do try to be strict and control him, the worse it is. Having a "home-grown" child and an adopted one does make me think a lot more about the nature vs. nurture debate, especially because they are so different. Of course, Thomas is only 3 and I just keep hoping these challenging traits will serve him well as an adult. In the end, he is an adorable, intelligent, little imp that I love to pieces. Even when I do yell at him and have bad parent moments at times, I hope he always knows that.

New widget

You may have noticed the box on the right side of this blog labeled “Things That Caught My Eye.” Here’s where that came from…

I had been using Pluck as my RSS reader. However, I recently switched to Google Reader.

Both readers have their pros and cons. But one of the nice things about Google Reader is that it can generate a little customizable piece of code I can drop into my blog. Now with a single click I can send headlines from Google Reader to this space.

Sometimes I stumble across interesting articles, but I don’t have the time to write something up to provide a link with. This will make it easier to share some of the items I find interesting with all of my loyal readers.

Back from the woods

We returned from our final camping trip of summer 2006 yesterday afternoon.

Unfortunately, the batteries in our camera died. So I wasn't able to get any good pictures.

But, as always, the kids had a good time in the great outdoors. They really love camping. At home they love their TV and video games like any kid. But once we get to the campground it's as if they forget about all that stuff. They don't even ask for it. All they care about is playing baseball, going on hikes and roasting marshmallows. It's a nice change of pace.

This will likely serve as our farewell to summer. School starts in about a week and a half.

Back to the woods

We're heading off on camping trip number three tomorrow. We'll be in New Hampshire with our friends the Reeds. Cross your fingers and hope we don't get rained on too much.

Picture and recap to follow...

Klingon karaoke

When Worf and General Martok talked about doing deeds worth of song, I don't think this is what they had in mind.

This is a video from little lost robot that I thought was just goofy enough to share. Qapla!

Don't try this at home

Summer is winding down and the fall TV season is right around the corner.  But one of the best things about summer TV is discovering some cool shows on cable that I might otherwise miss the rest of the year.

This summer I’ve really gotten hooked on MythBusters on Discovery Channel.  It’s a bunch of special effects whizzes and science geeks who take various myths and urban legends and put them to the test.

One really good episode tested out the legend that the Confederate Army built a rocket powered-missile during the Civil War.  Could that be true?  Using only materials that would have been available in that era they managed to build and launch a rocket, but it couldn’t go as far as the legend suggested.

This show is a lot fun.  They tackle everything from historical myths to modern day issues, like will your cell phone really interfere with the instruments on an airplane?

The best part is that a lot of the experiments usually involve blowing something up or some other form of destruction.  It really makes me wish I paid more attention in science class!

Snakes on a popcorn bucket

You had to know this was going happen. Some pranksters in Phoenix released two live, venomous rattlesnakes in a movie theater during a showing of "Snakes on a Plane."

Boston Massacre 2006

Wow! Going into this series, I was just hoping the Yankees would take three out of the five games against the Red Sox. A sweep just seemed like too much to ask for. But the Yanks just finished winning five at Fenway. Unbelievable! The last ime that happened was 1943.

Not even the big bat of Big Papi could save the day!

You know this is a series that no one will forget for a while in New York or Boston. What a way to add to the rivalry!

This puts the Yankees 6 ½ games in front of the Red Sox in the AL East. The Sox now also find themselves 4 ½ back in the Wild Card race behind the White Sox and the Twins.

There is still a significant amount of baseball left to be played, including four more games between the Yanks and the Red Sox. Anything can happen. But the Red Sox sure have dug themselves into a hole. BWAHAHA!

RELATED NEWS: Zimmer recalls 1978 Yankees sweep over Boston

ALSO: Celizic: Yankees are best team in baseball now
Mike Celizic's commentary on MSNBC.com this evening begins like this...

“We still have a chance.”

That's what Theo Epstein, architect of the Boston Red Sox 2004 World Series championship team, told reporters Sunday — one day before the Yankees completed a five-game sweep at Fenway Park and ballooned their lead in the American League East to 6 1/2 games.

It's probably the same thing Custer said at Little Big Horn.

Trying to remain patient

In case anyone is wondering, I'm withholding comment on the awesome weekend Yankee fans had until after today's game. I just don't want to jinx anything. It's kind of like not talking about a perfect game too early on.

Gotcha Day 2006

We celebrated Gotcha Day on Saturday. Aug. 19 marked the third anniversary of the day we picked Thomas up at the airport and brought him home.

The crazy thing about Gotcha Day this year is that Thomas is now the same age Nolan was three years ago.

We commemorated the occasion by taking the boys and my mom to Hoffman’s Playland. As you might imagine Thomas was most excited about riding on their miniature train.

Unfortunately, we had to dodge the raindrops. We thought it wasn’t supposed to start raining until later in the day, but just as we were walking out the door the sprinkles started falling. For a while they weren’t running all of the rides at Hoffman’s because of the rain (including the train), but eventually the rain let up and all of the rides started.

To top the day off we ordered a pizza for dinner and ate it at mom’s house.

One of the things I like to do on Gotcha Day is take a picture of the boys together so we can compare the then and now. But since it was raining I left the camera in the car, and then I kept forgetting to take a picture later on. So here I’m using another recent picture of Nolan and Thomas.

Baseball Fever

It was all baseball all the time on Friday.

First I had game 1 of the Yankees-Red Sox double header on at work (the first of a five-game series). Then Nolan and I went to a Tri-City Valley Cats game that night. After that I came home and was still able to watch most of the marathon second game in Fenway (it went for a record-setting four hours and 45 minutes).

We went to the Valley Cats game with Ray and Danny. For Nolan and me, it was our first trip to Joe Bruno Stadium. I was pretty impressed with the place, but then my only frame of reference for minor league baseball is Heritage Park.

Snakes on the Top of My Head

Ok, I’m ready to jump on the “Snakes on a Plane” bandwagon. For months now I’ve been completely willing to let myself get sucked in by the Internet hype.

It really is crazy how this movie with perhaps the dumbest title since “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” has generated so much buzz with so little actual studio promotion. All people needed to know was that movie had some snakes…on a plane…and that it stars the great Samuel L. Jackson.

Before you know it, before any footage was released to the public, fans (can they be fans if they haven’t even seen the movie yet?) took to the Net, having all sorts of fun with the premise. Just check out sites like Snakes on a Blog and Snakes on Stuff.

And I’ve got to get one of those cool fan-made T-shirts:


The online buzz was so huge that the studio actually went back re-shot a scene so they could add in a line of fan-created dialogue that everyone seemed to want to hear Samuel L. Jackson say, even though it meant probably pushing the movie from a PG-13 to an R rating (if you’ve ever seen “Pulp Fiction” you can imagine what particular curse word was added in).

Then when the studio did finally start cranking out their official promotions, they came up with the very cool customizable Samuel L. Jackson phone calls you can send to your friends.

Is this movie going to be dumb? Probably. But does it look like a ton of fun? Hell yeah!

Land of Tall Corn

While reading the Upstream blog I stumbled across a link to a blog called York Staters, which has an interesting post on the meaning of the name Niskayuna.

Growing up, I remember being told it meant “Land of Tall Corn.” I’ve also heard that it’s an old Indian word for “High Taxes.”

Breaking ground in the Bronx

Mark your calendars for April 2009. That’s when the new Yankee Stadium is scheduled to open.

Ground was broken a short time ago on the new ballpark in the Bronx. Ironically, we were just talking about the new stadium at dinner last night. My mom and Kris didn’t realize a new stadium was being built and we were saying that we’ll want to make sure we go one more time before the old ballpark closes. At the time I didn’t realize the ground breaking would be this morning.

I’m slowly warming up to the idea of a New Yankee Stadium. Don’t get me wrong…the House That Ruth Built is one of my favorite places on Earth. Once your sitting in your seat and taking in the view of that field you can feel the history and the magic. However, that said, the rest of the stadium on the outside is a tad on the ugly side.

So while a new stadium will be very nice, the really sad part will be seeing the old ballpark destroyed. I had always hoped that somehow, even though the team would be playing in a new stadium across the street, the original baseball cathedral could somehow be preserved. But now I’ve read that the plan is to demolish the old stadium that was first built in 1923.

Apparently the plan is to place three baseball fields in the space occupied by the current stadium. Hopefully one of those fields will actually be the original field that’s there now. Maybe they can tear down the building around it, but leave the grass, the pitcher’s mound and the base path where so many legends have played the game.

Who's new

I’m trying to get back into the swing of things here on the blog with a long overdue dose of geek news…

Good news on two fronts for “Doctor Who” fans. First, the BBC and the Sci-Fi Channel have announced that season (series) two of the show will be coming to Sci-Fi in September. The run will include David Tennant’s introduction as the Doctor in last December’s special episode “The Christmas Invasion” and then continue season two’s first regular episode, “New Earth.”

Meanwhile, filming on this year’s Christmas special, “The Runaway Bride,” is complete. Filming began this week on the rest of the third season, which will debut next spring.

The new season will introduce a new companion to the show. An actress named Freema Agyeman will be introduced as medical student Martha Jones. This week they released the first publicity photos of the Doctor and Martha.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Wow…this may be the longest I’ve ever gone without blogging here. Sorry for the unexpected absence everyone. I guess life has been pretty busy lately.

I’d like to send out a big thanks to Kris’ sister Kim and her husband John for hosting us this past weekend. We stayed with them in their camper at an RV park in Cooperstown.

While we were there John and I took Nolan on his first pilgrimage to baseball Mecca—the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. I was a little nervous that he might get bored, but he really loved it. He toured through every inch of the place.

He most liked any exhibits that were Yankee related. He was really excited to see some Derek Jeter memorabilia. But he also got a kick out of seeing the bat Babe Ruth used to hit his legendary “called shot.”

On our way out I bought him his first pack of baseball cards (Thomas got some Yankee stickers). You’d think I had given him pure gold.

Party City

So we had an eventful weekend. On Friday, my mom and dad came to visit. The kids were really excited and we went to Applebee's for supper. They have a cool program where if you read 10 books you get a free kid's meal. So that's what Nolan did and he ate every bit. Thomas didn't and left the restaurant screaming because he wanted dessert. So he got ice cream at Gaba's (other grandma) on the way home.

On Saturday we had some errands to do, but in the afternoon my Aunt Helen, Uncle Rush and family came to visit on their way to Silver Lake from New Jersey. Then that night Gaba came over and we had a barbecue in the backyard thanks to steaks from Dad again.

My parents saw the Giants practicing Sunday morning and stopped by on their way home. We went grocery shopping to get ready for another barbecue that night with friends and their kids. That was fun. But we are partied out. We were lucky the weather was beautiful.

In other news, I'm not at all looking forward to fall and school starting. It's been so nice doing fun things and no schedule. As soon as school starts the rat race begins again.

Also, I might be changing my tune with switching from running to walking. I still love walking and don't want to give it up, but I miss running too and the friends I was running with. I think I may find a way to fit in both.

So this weekend we are going to Cooperstown to stay with my sister in her RV. We've never camped that way and I'm anxious to see what it will be like.

Photo flashback

I forgot that a long time ago I entered a picture of Nolan in a photo contest. It didn't win anything.

But then today, five years later, I got a piece of spam trying to sell me a copy of the photo printed on canvas and made to look like an oil painting. Of course, I'm not interested. But it was bizarre to see that picture being sent back after all these years.

Anyway, here is the picture.

The bear basics

When we went camping we experienced something new. We were told that Limekiln Lake was a "Class A campground" for bears. Therefore, every site came equipped with a "bear locker" to store all of our food in.

Normally we keep food and anything else we don't want animals getting into locked up in our car. But this time we had specific instructions to use this locker and not our car.

As a result, Kris was a little nervous about running into a bear during the trip--particularly during a late night run to the bathroom. We never saw a bear in our campground, but one did cross the road in front of us during our drive home.

Anyway, maybe it's just as well we didn't spot this story before our trip:

DEC officers shoot, kill agressive black bear

SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. (AP) - A team of state environmental conservation officers and wildlife experts shot and killed a black bear that had shown aggressive behavior toward people hiking in Adirondack High Peaks region.

The Department of Environmental Conservation say the bear killed early Monday morning was a male who was more than 20 years old and weighed about 350 pounds.

DEC officials say the officers shot the bear when it entered a camp site looking for food. The agency says it was the same bear that had entered lean-tos where people were staying on three different occasions last month.

In one incident, a man lured the bear away from his son after the animal had cornered his son in a lean-to. In another incident, campers had to hit the bear with their hiking sticks when it became aggressive.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Summer snowball fight

Last winter Nolan and I were making snowballs when I told him it would be a great idea to save a couple in the freezer so he and his friend Danny could have a snowball fight in the summer.

Yesterday was the perfect day to break them out. It was easily the hottest day of the year. In our town the temperature topped out at 99 degrees with a heat index well over 100.

So Nolan and Danny threw snowballs around in the backyard for as long as they could. Chester got a hold of one and ate it. The other, I’m sure, quickly melted.

The only problem—today is supposed to be as hot or hotter…and we’re now out of snowballs!

The family that swims together...

My niece Meghan, the eldest of the Rooney grandchildren, came to visit this weekend.

Meghan is the daughter of my brother Tim, who lives near Chicago. She flew in by herself on Friday (after a weather delay kept her on the ground Thursday night) and stayed with my mom.

We all spent the day today lounging in and around my sister Annie’s pool. It was great to have six of the nine grandkids together.

Pictured here are Annie’s kids—Olivia, Helen and Louis—along with Nolan and Meghan (Thomas was over in the shallow end).

Change of Pace

I recently switched from running to walking. It has been a great transition for me but different. I have run for 5 years and even did a marathon 2 years ago. But I stopped getting as much satisfaction from running and it felt like a chore whenever I went out. After all this time running. my body changed a lot in the beginning but over the past couple years it's remained about the same. I figure I just keep exercising the same muscles with running and maybe I should try something new. Lastly, I never really felt like I fit in with the running group I was a part of and wanted more time for myself. So my slow paced running converted to walking and it has been great. I mainly go alone and I like the peace of that. I tend to have a lot of thoughts and I get to clear my head that way. The rhythm of walking is very relaxing. I still do the same miles so it just takes me longer now. I even go 5 days a week instead of 4 now. There are a few friends that I walk with sometimes. Marlene and I walk on Wednesdays and it's great to have time to talk without our kids around. The only bad thing is some friends that I used to run with I don't really get to see much anymore. And I notice I have to watch what I eat a little more because I don't think walking keeps the pounds away as well as running. But ultimately, I think we have to be healthy and happy with ourselves and what we do. Don't you agree?

100 minutes of free iced coffee

If you love free stuff like me, then mark your calendar. To commemorate the opening of the 100th Dunkin’ Donuts store in the Capital Region all of the local stores will be offering free iced coffee for 100 minutes on Tuesday, Aug. 1. You can stop in and get for your free small iced coffee at any Dunkin’ Donuts from 1 p.m. to 2:40 p.m.

Mmm...test footage

UPDATE #2: WooHoo! You can find one of the clips here!

UPDATE: D'oh! Fox ordered YouTube to take the clips down. Bummer. Trust me, it was good stuff.

The big San Diego Comic-Con was held last week. This is the major geek event of the year. Had I not been camping in the woods last week, I would have been posting about lots of things, like news about "Spider-Man 3" and "Star Trek."

Now there just seems to be too much to catch up on, but when time permits I'll get to a few items for the two or three of you who care, but haven't already read about them.

But these clips need to go on right away! These are animatics (early test animation) for the upcoming "Simpsons" movie. Enjoy!

Mutant mayhem

I finally saw “X-Men: The Last Stand” tonight. Yeah, I know, the movie came out in May. I don’t get out as often as I used to.

Anyway, it was great. Never has a movie with so much negative advance buzz been so satisfying. I thought it captured the spirit of the comic books very well and it certainly left me wanting more.

Granted, I did think Juggernaut was pretty silly. He was the low point of the film. And the whole scene with the Golden Gate Bridge seemed a little excessive. But beyond that, it was great.

Also, I was pretty concerned that they were going to butcher the Dark Phoenix storyline—one of the greatest stories ever told in the pages of “The Uncanny X-Men” or any other comic book. But they took a pretty far-reaching and far out story and brought it “down to earth” in a very effective way for the movie.

So this one was clearly better than the first film. I think I’ll need to see it again before I can decide if it’s better than “X2: X-Men United.”

I’ll add this one to the must-own DVD list.

Back in Time

We haven’t been to a SPAC concert in ages, but we went last night to see Huey Lewis & the News and Chicago.

Chicago was alright. They’re solid musicians who put on a good show. Although I think there are only two original band members left. Most of the music, especially the horns, were fantastic, but the vocals were lacking on a few songs (Peter Cetera, where are you now?).

The truth is, I probably wouldn’t have gone to see Chicago if they were playing by themselves. Huey Lewis on the other hand was a fantastic blast from the past! This was actually the fourth time I saw the News at SPAC. Back in 1987, they were actually the first concert I ever went to. I saw them again in ’89 and ’91.

What’s not to like about Huey? They’re music is just plain All-American fun.

They came out and played a tight show that lasted a little more than an hour and packed in many of their hits and only one or two songs I wasn’t familiar with. There was a cool medley of “I Want a New Drug” and “Small World”—two songs with very different styles that you would never imagine going together, but they made it work quite well.

Then they came back for an encore that started with “Back in Time,” after that some members of Chicago came out to join them for a fantastically bluesy rendition “Bad Is Bad,” and then they closed it out with “Working for a Living.”

Huey turned up again later on to lend vocals to a couple of Chicago songs—once by himself and once with the rest of the News.

It was so great seeing Huey Lewis & the News again. Twenty-some years later, they’ve still got it. They may not be cool anymore, but it sure is hip to be square.

Java Joe

After jumping through some hoops, I finally got some vacation pictures to show up on Blogger. So please revisit my earlier post.

Here’s one more I just had to share. This is Thomas enjoying his first cup of coffee.

Every morning when I’m making the coffee at home he sits at the kitchen counter and says, “Mmm, I like coffee!” We always tell him he wouldn’t like it.

But on our trip, we figured what the heck, we’re camping. So one morning we let him have half a cup along with his pancakes and bacon—like a real rugged outdoorsman! Of course he loved it.

Don’t worry. It was decaf. The last thing we needed was him all wired up!

One final camping note...this year's goatee didn't last long. I shaved it off before church Sunday morning.

Happy campers

Blogger might not be letting me upload pictures, but fortunately YouTube is working fine...

Adirondack Rocky Mountain High

The intrepid Rooney family has returned from the Adirondack wilderness. We spent several days camping at the Limekiln Lake state campground in the town of Inlet, just outside of Old Forge.

Here’s the recap:
Day 1: We arrived Monday afternoon and spent most of the day setting up camp. Actually, Kris did most of the work while I took the kids to the beach to keep them out of her hair.

Day 2: We went to Enchanted Forest Water Safari. We were there pretty much the whole day, now that we don’t worry so much about rushing Thomas back for a nap anymore. I think it was the longest family outing we ever went on.

I was pretty impressed with the park. It’s been around for more than 50 years and was bigger than I expected. We started off on their “lazy river” ride, which was very relaxing. Nolan had a blast on a kid-sized water slide. And we all took a raft ride down the Cascade Falls. Kris, Nolan and I loved that. Thomas wasn’t so sure.

But I wasn’t going to leave until I tackled a water slide. I told Kris and the kids they could pick any slide in the place for me. Naturally they chose the tallest one they had—the Killermajaro slide. According to the Water Safari website, it’s a 280-foot drop and you reach speeds up to 30 mph. That was a lot of fun, but it was a little bumpier than I expected and I was a little sore when it was over.

Day 3: It was mountain climbing day, and Thomas hiked up his first mountain. He’s been to the top of couple of mountains before, but with us carrying him all or part of the way. This was the first time he hiked all the way up under his own power—and he loved it! He was so proud of himself!

We climbed Rocky Mountain. It’s only about a half mile to the top. So it’s very easy for kids. Once at the summit, there is a beautiful view of Fourth Lake in the Fulton Chain Lakes (see picture above).

Later in the afternoon we took a ride with the Old Forge Lake Cruise Line. Our two-hour cruise started on Old Forge Pond made its way up the chain to Fourth Lake, the largest in the chain, and then back.

During the cruise, the captain invited both of the boys to come into the wheel house and take turns piloting the boat. They each left with a “junior captain certificate” that they thought was great.

Day 4: We took a ride on the Adirondack Scenic Railroad, which Thomas thought was terrific. Actually, as much as he loves trains, he was a little nervous about it at first. But he warmed up to it after a while.

After the train ride we had lunch and wandered around Old Forge doing a little shopping.

Day 5: It seems like on many of our vacations we feel like we stayed one day too many. We seriously considered leaving Thursday instead of Friday, but decided to tough it out.

On Thursday night we packed up as much as we could and went to bed.

We had beautiful weather for the whole trip. Then sometime around midnight it started raining. Kris and I woke up early and laid there awake. That’s when we noticed it changing from raining to pouring and water was coming in through the seams of the tent where the floor meets the walls.

So we backed the van right up to the tent. We put the kids in the van and had them eat their breakfast while Kris and I packed up the tent and whatever else was left. Then we hit the road. We were home by lunchtime.

It was a pretty successful trip. We all had a great time and I think everyone has returned with some great family memories.

In addition, like our trip to Silver Lake last year, I’ve also returned with facial hair—which I’ll keep as long as my wife continues to humor me.

Vacation time

We're heading out for our vacation this morning. For the next several days we'll be camping in the Adirondacks with no TV, no e-mail, no computer!

Don't worry. We'll survive just fine.

You'll get the full recap when we return.

Baseball banter

Time for another rant against Fox and their coverage of Major League Baseball (all of the birthday business kept me from blogging about this yesterday).

While watching the All-Star Game Tuesday night, Fox played one of their “Sounds of the Game,” which I think was supposed to be Bronson Arroyo saying something to Brad Penny in the dugout. Maybe it’s just me, but it sounded like complete inaudible gibberish and a total waste of my time. Not to mention, you couldn’t tell exactly where the two talking players were in the shot shown on the screen. The whole thing made no sense!

At that point I decided to see how bad the delay was with the radio. Sure, the radio was a few seconds ahead of the TV, but not so much that I couldn’t enjoy the game this way. So with the exception of the tribute to Roberto Clemente, I watched the rest of the game on “mute” while listening to the coverage on ESPN Radio.

Why does Fox insist on tormenting baseball fans with all of their needless gimmicks?

I’ll step down from my soapbox now.

Birthday extravaganza

The birthday party was a huge success, despite the weather.

The forecast called for rain, heavy at times, starting right around the time our party was supposed to start. So at the last minute we called everyone involved and made arrangements to start the party at 11 a.m. instead of 1:30 p.m.

Even still, about an hour before the party it was drizzling enough to start making us nervous. So as we’ve had to do in past years, we strung the huge tarp we use for camping over the patio and a section of the backyard. At least the nine kids we had (counting our own two) would be dry while eating. We decided we just wouldn’t care if they got a little wet in the bouncy-bounce we had set up.

Sure enough, about 10 minutes after the party ended, the heavens opened up and it’s been pouring on and off ever since. I’m so glad we changed the time.

As Kris mentioned before, the party had a “Star Wars” theme. Besides the bouncy-bounce, every kid who came was outfitted with a Jedi robe and got an inflatable sword that stood in for a lightsaber. Yeah, nothing beats inviting a bunch of 5- and 6-year-old boys over and giving them weapons!

The kids were also given squirt guns. At some point one of the kids started squirting me. Before you know it, a battle cry of “Get Mr. Rooney!” was being called out by all the kids. So what else could I do? I grabbed at sword and a squirt gun and took the crowd of kids on! We all wound up soaking wet and laughing hard.

After lunch was served, we had a surprise guest—Kris arranged for Mr. Ding-A-Ling to pull right into our driveway and serve ice cream to the kids. That was a big hit.

As the dust from the party settled we had time to start cracking into some of Nolan’s presents. Nearly everything he got at his party was “Star Wars” related. He got several action figures, some new lightsabers and a couple of “Star Wars” Transformers. We gave him a SpongeBob SquarePants skateboard along with a new helmet and a set of elbow, knee and wrist pads.

At the end of the day, Nolan was exhausted, but he went to bed a very happy 6-year-old boy.

Summer is great-

There are so many great things to do in the summer that just aren't there other times of the year. On Friday we had out friends Lori and Max come visit from the Catskills. It's so hard to see them during the school year because of the trip. The kids had a blast just playing with a sprinkler for over an hour in the back yard.

On Saturday, my friend Marlene and I left the world behind and went for a hike. It was the greatest day. We decided to hike Hunter Mountain in the Catskills which is really a ski mountain. We took the gondola to the top and then hiked 2 miles up and over to the peak where there was a fire tower. There was really no view without climbing the fire tower because of all the trees. But once we climbed the tower, it was a beautiful panoramic view. Lots of flies though which we couldn't figure out. So we hiked down to a lookout point to eat our lunch. We were rewarded with a hawk that glided around near us. Then we hiked down and rode the chair lift down. It was terrific.

Nolan has been in baseball camp this week and loving it. His friend Danny is a year under him and usually can't be in things together but this camp combines 5 and 6 year olds. I think he loves doing it with him. Thomas is jealous because he wants to go do something like his big brother. So I'm signing him up at a place called Kids Care Fitness Center this week.

And today Nolan turns 6. He had ice cream and chocolate milk for breakfast. Chris and I decorated until late last night turning our back yard into space for Star Wars. Another great thing about summer is having party in the middle of the week like this. We'll fill you in on how it goes. We're praying for the rain to hold off!

It's a bird! It's a plane!

I haven’t seen “Superman Returns” yet. I don’t know when I’ll get to, but I’m really looking forward to it.

I just got done watching on A&E the excellent documentary “Look, Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman.” It traces the nearly 70-year history of the Man of Steel, from Action Comics #1 in 1938 to the new film that just came out in 2006.

I was a diehard comic book collector for about 10 years. But I was mainly a Marvel Comics guy. My comic book tastes leaned more towards the likes of Spider-Man and the X-Men.

Maybe I didn’t follow the Superman comic books, but that’s not to say I wasn’t a fan. Although I was never a Superman reader, there is still something about the character. He transcends comic books, having appeared in just about every form of media you can think of.

I’m not sure where I got my first exposure to Superman, but it was probably on either the Saturday morning “Super Friends” cartoon or reruns of the classic George Reeves TV show. They were both favorites of mine. And of course there was Christopher Reeve.

Like millions of kids, I can remember tying a blanket around my neck and jumping off the couch as if I too could leap tall buildings in a single bound. I even dressed up as Superman for Halloween in the second grade.

The documentary on A&E covers nearly every incarnation of the character. Besides George Reeves’ “The Adventures of Superman” and the movies, it also discusses everything from the Max Fleischer cartoons of the 1940s to TV’s “Lois & Clark” in the 1990s and “Smallville” today. It also looks at how the character related to events of the day, from World War II to the JFK assassination to September 11th.

I highly recommend “Look, Up in the Sky.” I think A&E will probably rerun it a few more times. It’s also available on DVD.

Superman has a universal appeal. And on this July 4th I challenge you to name another fictional character that better embodies the best of American values—you know…truth, justice and all that stuff.

We hold these truths to be self-evident...

Happy Independence Day one and all.

You can read a copy of the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives site. Seems very appropriate today.

May the Force be with you

I was playing around in Photoshop, trying to figure out how to make Nolan's lightsaber "glow." Here are my first attempts...

'We love our Mu Ji Gae'

Today was the day for Camp Mu Ji Gae—a Korean culture camp that’s held in Albany each summer primarily for kids adopted from Korea.

This is the 20th year for Camp Mu Ji Gae (which means “rainbow” in English). It’s one of the largest camps of its kind in the Northeast and attracts kids from all over the state. The kids who come to the camp range in age from toddlers to high school students.

For the older kids, it’s more of a conventional camp where they go and stay for the week. But at age 3, Thomas is in the second level, which means he only spent a few hours there this morning accompanied by me.

The kids get to learn a little about Korean culture by checking out some Korean musical instruments, working on a craft project and other activities. But most importantly, it’s a chance for them to spend some time with other kids like themselves. When they get older, it will be a great opportunity to share experiences with other kids who know what it’s like to be adopted.

After camp, Kris and Nolan joined us for lunch. Then we stuck around for “Family Day.” As I mentioned, when the kids are older camp lasts longer and might not involve their parents. So the camp usually ends with Family Day, when moms and dads, brothers and sisters all gather together for fun activities.

Camp Mu Ji Gae isn’t strictly for adopted kids. Nolan has attended the camp in the past. Last year he was at the level where for a couple of days I would drop him off in the morning and Kris would pick him up at lunchtime. We thought the camp would be a great way for him to learn more about where his brother came from. It also gives him an idea what everyday life is like for Thomas, when for a change Nolan’s the only white kid and the rest of the faces around him are Korean.

Most importantly, it’s fun. Nolan opted not to go to camp this year and we didn’t press it. But when he showed up for Family Day, I think he kind of missed it and he told us that he wants to go again next year.

For the rest of the day we wandered around the house humming the catchy camp songs that we sang today.

It also put us in the mood to break out Thomas’ hanbok and try it on him. A hanbok is a traditional Korean ceremonial outfit worn only on very special occasions. When we got Thomas as a baby, packed in his bag was hanbok given as a gift from his foster family that took care of him for his first few months.

In accordance with Korean tradition, we had him wear it on his 1st birthday. He was swimming in it then, but it fits him much better now.

'Lifeforms detected...'

“That’s not Cybermen.”
“Oh my God.”

Holy crap! I just got done watching “Army of Ghosts,” part one of the two-part “Doctor Who” season finale. I can honestly tell you the cliffhanger ending brought me to the edge of my seat.

I’ve been a “Doctor Who” fan for more than 25 years. The show has been around more than 40 years. In all that time, this is the episode “Doctor Who” fans have been dreaming of!

The Doctor and Rose return to Earth only to discover that for the past two months what appear to be ghosts have been popping up all over the world. People aren’t freaked out by this. For the most part, their happy to reconnect to lost loved ones.

But is that what these specters really are? The Doctor is not so sure, and his search for answers leads him to the Torchwood Institute. There he learns the ghosts started appearing soon after a mysterious sphere arrived.

Some answers are uncovered when the deadly Cybermen show up. However, the question remains—what’s inside that sphere? The answer will delight “Who” fans everywhere.

I think I’m going to really enjoy next week’s finale, “Doomsday.” If you’re a “Who” fan, don’t wait for this one on the Sci Fi Channel. You’re going to want to BitTorrent this one ASAP (although it would kind of help to catch the earlier two-parter “Rise of the Cybermen”/“The Age of Steel”)!

Who am I?

So Kris wonders what SNL character I am.

I’d like to be somebody cool like Elwood Blues or Wayne Campbell (although I’m probably closer to Garth).

I actually found an online quiz that said I was Beldar Conehead. But if we’re going for forehead humor, let’s not forget about Phil Hartman’s Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.

In keeping with the Kris’ whole “opposites attract” theme, I was tempted to throw in a “Point-Counterpoint” reference, but I’ve thought better of it.

Meanwhile, while searching for an SNL quiz, I stumbled across two others that I couldn’t resist. I know I was just comparing myself to Homer Simpson last week, but then I came up with this:



Then there’s this one. Some of you out there knew me in high school. Is this accurate?

'All rise...'

Many people in our neck of the woods are fascinated by the Porco murder trial that's going on right now. But I stumbled across this article about a trial in Oklahoma that could be a little more interesting...if not amusing.

Opposites attract

It's so funny when I look at Chris' blog and the light-hearted quips he includes. Whenever I think of something I'd like to contribute, it's always a deeper issue, like non-violence, thoughts on church, the toddler brain and I hesitate to even tell you the many ideas that pass through my head! Definately not Homer Simpson or what cool gadgets are in the movies. But that's my hubby, always lightening any deep thoughts I have. I'm Jack Handy and he's, I don't even know! I'm trying to think of a quirky Sat Night Live character to assign to him and that's his job! Maybe he can come up with one.

Move over Bono

I just saw this on "The Most" on MSNBC. I'm sure there's a politcal statement in here somewhere. I don't really care about that. I just applaud the great editing job by someone with far too much free time (the best things come from those with too much free time!)...

Summer sickness

It’s summer time now. So naturally it’s the perfect time to catch a cold.

I swear I’ve gone through half a box of Kleenex since I got to work today. Ugh.

Colds usually linger a couple of weeks with me. I hope this one doesn’t last that long.

'Spider-Man 3' trailer arrives!

Heads up, true believers. Here’s some more geek news…

All right, I had my reservations. But I am now more pumped than ever for “Spider-Man 3.”

The teaser trailer was released today. You’ll be able to see it in theaters starting tomorrow with “Superman Returns.”

I’m still a little hesitant about Topher Grace as Venom.

But everything else in this trailer looks fantastic. Sandman looked great. Bryce Dallas Howard looked perfect as Gwen Stacey—right down to the black band in her hair. And even if it’s not the same black costume from the comics, it still looked pretty cool seeing the black goo covering up Spidey.

I have faith Sam Raimi will pull together a great movie.

Mark your calendar for May 4, 2007.

Countdown to Potter 7

We probably have about a year to go until the seventh and final installment of the Harry Potter book series. No official release date has been announced, but if author J.K. Rowling and the publishers stick to the pattern the book will probably hit store shelves during summer 2007.

In the meantime, here’s a little bit of Potter news to hold you over. In a recent interview, Rowling admitted that two more characters will be killed off.

Supposedly, she wrote the final chapter of Book 7 years ago—around the time she wrote her first story and decided it would be a seven-book series.

"The final chapter is hidden away, although it's now changed very slightly," she said in an interview broadcast on Monday on Britain's Channel 4. "One character got a reprieve, but I have to say two die that I didn't intend to die."

Although she gives no hints as to which characters will meet their demise, she does discuss what makes killing off the main character of a popular book series appealing for an author.

Farewell 'Eddie'

Hollywood has lost one if its greats. Moose, who played Eddie the dog on "Frasier," has died at the ripe old age of 16.

Moose played Eddie for 10 years. The show ran for 11 seasons. Moose was fazed out near the end of the series and eventually replaced by his son Enzo.

Coffee Table Talk

We picked up a new coffee table at the Round Lake Antiques Festival on Sunday.

This table was actually a rustic dining room or kitchen table. We brought it home and I cut the legs shorter so we could use it in our living room.

We’re pretty pleased with it, although I wish it was a little shorter. I purposely left it an inch or two taller than we wanted just in case I screwed something up. It turns out I didn’t screw anything up. So we’ll live with it like this for a while. If it really bothers us after a while, then I’ll take it out the garage and hack another couple of inches off.

But like I said, we’re pretty happy with it.