The plan: Surprise Dan
The reason: He’s sixty
The ruse: Ask him to help me work at my house while his party gets prepped.
The sketchy part: Get him back to his house by 4:30 PM where the assembled throng awaits.

Dan and Adam arrive at my house around eleven, and after coffee and talk we begin installing replacement windows in my living room. We work through the lunch hour, after all they didn’t show up until nearly noon, and by 2 PM the windows are in with just a few trim details remaining. We break for lunch, and by 2:45 Dan is grumbling about how he’s done for the day. Nay, nay, I say, there is much more to be done.

The problem is, when Dan’s decided he’s done enough work, he always then leaves. Like a launched cruise missile, you can’t deter him. I know because we have a long history of working together. I call Linda to make sure our timing is right and she says keep him until 4 PM. I say I might have to break his legs and she says ok.

We go back to work, Dan finishes the last window around four, and I think we’re in the clear. Except that I head for the bathroom and when I return I find Dan stretched out with his eyes closed in Diane’s new reclining back chair.

“Dan, I’m going to take a shower,” I say.

“Fine,” he says.

“All I’m saying is I won’t be around in case you LEAVE,” I say.

“Fine,” he says, and proceeds to ask Matt for and then play with Matt’s new iPhone.

“Matt, where are your contacts”? Dan ask as he taps on the touch screen.

Oh nooooo, I think to myself.

Fifteen minutes go by (I imagine the assembled crowd back at the party site is getting restless) and I call Linda. “Linda, he hasn’t left yet but he tells me he’s going to in ten minutes. That gets him back to your house in twenty-five minutes.”

Sure enough, Dan finally leaves and Diane and I rush to change into our party clothes so we too may have some of those tasty appetizers catered by La Provence. We’re showered and dressed in ten minutes, and as we skate through the kitchen to exit our house in comes…. DAN.

“What are you doing here?” I try not to shout.

“I forgot my cell phone,” Dan replies.

“I would have brought it to you,” I say, almost letting the cat out.

“To my house? “ Dan asks.

“Yeah, we’re going to Bob and Mary’s for dinner.” Bob and Mary live near Dan, and I feel quite proud to come up with a reason to return the phone and to explain our pressed shirts and polished shoes.

Dan leaves the house, takes forever to get back into his car and out of the driveway, and I call Linda with a final update before we hit the road.

Was Dan surprised to see his street lined with cars? Damn right, he was.

Thanks to many, but first to his son Jim who initiated the event.

Photo Gallery

I hadn’t meant to stay. Actually, I had meant to miss this by hours — Michael hinted that Hil B would be in appropriate garb at the one-minute-after-midnight Sudbury Paperstore long-awaited sale of the last in the Harry Potter series, so Tricia and I swung by about 7:30. Kinda forlorn actually, and after a nice chat with the completely normally dressed Miss B, we left. Not even a picture.

But as I crawled into bed about 11:00, I couldn’t live with the yawning void of incompleteness, and back I went. This time there was rather more life, and the Divine Miss B was in more appropriate regalia.

I hadn’t meant to stay. But the crowds built, the excitement mounted, and we spectator types, both empathetic voyeurs as well as wry connoisseurs of irony, lingered. And at the stroke of 12:01, a velvet drape was whisked off the waiting cases of tomes, and the first happy customer headed off for some long-awaited closure.

It was pretty calm. Some folks in costume, most not, the first customer but a putative adult in street clothes, and yet many a witch or specific character impersonator — even one Death Eater in a Scream mask — surged down the rapidly flowing line to claim their own reward. I shot a few images but was too shy to capture the most salient result — big smiles on young and not-so-young alike. The sense of disbelieving rejoicing was widespread. So I leave you with this image of two happy campers with their freshly-minted magic carpet ride, me sidling in on their dad capturing their moment before joining the flow outta there.

More Photos 

Matt claims he didn’t ask for an iPhone for his birthday and given that he has the youthful Velcro-like mind, I won’t argue. I thought he had, or maybe I translated his enthusiasm into a a birthday wish.

His phone, ordered online, came the morning of his birthday, but we lied, and said it had not. Goose and I spent half the day switching calling plans and getting a temporary phone number so Matt would have a working phone and not just pretty piece of metal and plastic. There are lots of reasons why it took so long, most of which have to do with my stolen identity which I won’t bore you all with.

Now, how to give him gift? Wrapped in a box next to his cake? I think not. Goose said, “Give me the phone, call me, he’ll hear it ring, I’ll pull it out of my pocket and answer it, and then I’ll say, ‘Matt, it’s for you.’ “ A lover of double entendres I thought how perfect. The call is for him and so is the phone.

Diane and I phoned from the kitchen. Matt’s back was turned to us so we could watch the action, and then sing happy birthday.

The ring tone is that irritating cranking noise.

The Video

Matt claims he didn’t ask for an iPhone for his birthday and given that he has the youthful Velcro-like mind, I won’t argue. I thought he had, or maybe I translated his enthusiasm into a a birthday wish.

His phone, ordered online, came the morning of his birthday, but we lied, and said it had not. Goose and I spent half the day switching calling plans and getting a temporary phone number so Matt would have a working phone and not just pretty piece of metal and plastic. There are lots of reasons why it took so long, most of which have to do with my stolen identity which I won’t bore you all with.

Now, how to give him gift? Wrapped in a box next to his cake? I think not. Goose said, “Give me the phone, call me, he’ll hear it ring, I’ll pull it out of my pocket and answer it, and then I’ll say, ‘Matt, it’s for you.’ “ A lover of double entendres I thought how perfect. The call is for him and so is the phone.

Diane and I phoned from the kitchen. Matt’s back was turned to us so we could watch the action, and then sing happy birthday.

The ring tone is that irritating cranking noise.

The Video

A birthday present for smiling Dan.

Goose

If you have ever been to a foreign country you know that there are difficulties with communication, adventures with food and transportation. Chile was no different for me. I was in the country of Chile for seven days doing what i love most and that is snowboarding. I have snowboarded for about seven years now, but i have always been confined by the lack of snow in the summer. Not any more……this past winter my mother Birdbrain told me that she thought i should do sometime wholesome this summer……now i have no idea what she thought i would pick, but i thought to myself….heck ill go snowboarding in the summer. So i talked to my cousin tim and was like hey ask your mom if you can go to chile with me for a week…..he did. Just like that we got the ok and we were off.

This time around there was nothing exciting in the airport to tell….so ill skip to the good stuff. We arrived at Portillo Chile about noon on Saturday the 7th, after 27 hours of travel. I go up to the front desk greeted by a nice hola, i say hello hoping that by some miracle he speaks english. He greets me back by saying hello…..thank god….He does the check-in and starts to ask if we are from the states and whereabouts. I tell him that i am from Massachusetts. He was like nice i grew up in mass, what town? I say Acton and he nearly falls over in disbelief. I grew up in Harvard he tell me. So here i am like 5000 plus miles away from home and standing next to a guy that grew up no less then ten miles from where i live. Strange.

I won’t bore you with my snowboarding stories i’ll let the pictures do the talking on that front. But let me put it to you this way, people have always said that a picture was worth a 1000 words……well i am going to tell you an experience is worth 10,000,000.

Every night there was live music in one of the bars in the hotel and every night my cousin and i would go there and grab a table and then meet up with some of the people that we met. We would talk about things like the iraq war and politics and what we want to do when we get out of college. But the best conversation we had was about the toilet. Yes i said it, THE TOILET….i am sure that you have all heard the phrase that the toilets flush the other way in the southern hemisphere. We got into this very large debate about what way they go in the United states because none of us could remember, and then we all went to the bathroom and flushed a toilet to watch the way it spins. If you can, imagine 4 guys busting in to a bathroom all just to watch what way the water went…..it was quite comical. We could never finish the debate because none of us knew what way the water spins in the states. So we went back to bar and enjoyed the music.

My whole week in Portillo was the most amazing experience of my…..i would go back any day in a heart beat. I feel like i could write for days but its so hard to put in words the friendships i acquired the rides i had and fulfillment i gained…..i can put it in words i………………….wow…..just wow.

Photo Gallery

Yesterday Matt turned twenty, and thanks to Joe, Robby and Drew, dozens of Matt’s friends came by to wish him the best. The party started early, most of his buddies arrived late, and we gave him his present, an iPhone, while the sun was still out. How else could we (Birdbrain) take pictures and a movie (again, BirdBrain). The movie needs editing, but here’s the gallery.

Btw, the iPhone is one mind-boggling, magical piece of technology.

So, I’m walking in Central Park with my friend Michelle when we hear in the distance loud disco dance music. We wend our way through the crowd to see what’s going on and I could not believe my eyes. There were 30 or so people roller skating. Not just roller skating, but – I am at a loss for words here. I can’t quite describe it. It seems they were really into it. I mean like, you know when you are in your car and no one can hear you so you turn the music up really loud and sing your heart out, but you would never do that in public for fear of the public stoning you would rightfully deserve for the noise pollution? THAT is what they were doing with their bodies, wardrobes and music. It was like looking through someone’s bedroom window at a scene that you accidentally happened upon. You want to flee because you are intruding and yet you can’t tear yourself away. In this case they were asking for the public scrutiny. It was a real live freak show.

One guy was just doing laps of this area and dancing. He was shirtless and very lean, (quite attractive if you met him in ANY other situation) yet he had fashioned pants out of orange stripe terrycloth towels with matching wrist bands. If that weren’t strange enough, he did his laps with a bottle of water on his head to show his dexterity and deftness.

One of the other more interesting folks was a guy in too short shorts, sleeveless T, headband, pot belly, no socks and roller skates not tied. It was just hysterical. He didn’t do laps, but more stood in one place trying not to fall over as he rocked to “We are family.” His craft was a work in progress, but one he wanted to share none the less. I just know this guy is going to walk into work on Monday morning and trade stocks with foreign entities at a level that will impact our gross national product.

What was most fascinating to me was the crowd watching this train wreck. They were spread out on blankets picnicking and clapping encouragement to these folks, mostly I suppose to ensure they would not stop. They had their arms in the air and did seat dancing with their friends. Kinda like when you play along with a little one when they do something goofy and it’s entertaining to you, but really serious to them. Those of us who happened unawares onto this scene had more of a deer in the headlights look about us. We couldn’t sit down and we couldn’t walk away. We were frozen.

God, I love NY.

Jennifer Koeller

In the spirit of rakkity’s panos, here are two from the roof of our house. The first emphasizes the view from our bedroom and the second is about a 360. I’ll add that the wider photo about did me in.

First, I was standing on the top of the chimney, maybe a two and half foot square. Plenty of secure surface area unless you have your eyes epoxied to the camera, which is a must if you’re going to imitate a tripod and rotate so all the overlapping images are on the same plane. Without overlaps you can’t stitch your images together.

There are two ways to rotate. Either you move your feet Geisha-girl like in a tiny circle or you do the human corkscrew. I can’t dance without stepping on Diane’s feet so I sure as hell wasn’t going to take the chance of rotating myself right off the edge. I chose the technically more difficult, but safer option, the corkscrew. Why more difficult? Unless you’re Elastic Man you can only shoot half the circle before you have to unwind, remember where you left off, and then finish.

Photo Gallery

Before the beach.

If you walk out the back door and straight across the pond and then over the road you’ll end up on the beach. Or you can use the front door and take the more traditional route by walking down the street. The owner claims it’s an eight minute walk, but we’ll call it fifteen.

Hi Mike,

Beth & I are taking advantage of my current 2-week respite from doctors to visit the SF Bay area for 3 days. The pano is shot from the Space Science Lab atop Grizzly Peak on the UCB campus (where I’m working). I’m trying to get a good sunset picture from this great vantage point. Yesterday the weather was mostly cloudy, but today is as clear as a typical Colorado day, cerulean skies and all.

On Saturday, Beth and I will drive down the coast to Simi Valley, where we’ll visit my dad for a week. We’ll try to send more pics, perhaps of nice vineyards full of Pinot Noir grapes.

rakkity