2014 Tommy Keane Invitational At Dartmouth College's Hanover Country Club

Later today, my July entry for the Cephalopod Coffeehouse will go live.  Right now, I am teeing off at the Tommy Keane Invitational in Hanover, NH.  Past posts about the TKI can be found HERE.

I am a late comer to the sport but thoroughly enjoy playing.  Once again, this year, my brother and I are joined by our cousins Marc and Lars.  We will be matched up on day one!  I am looking forward to this incredible weekend!

Last year we finished 4th in our flight, a single hole behind Marc and Lars.

You can check in on our progress HERE or HERE!

You can also click HERE for a previous post about golf and why I play in the TKI...

Happy Birthday...To Me!

Our blogs are all about us, right?  Sure we want to make connections and make someone chuckle or what have you, but when push comes to shove they are about US!  After all, the topic we most enjoy discussing is usually ourselves.

What a great birthday weekend I just had!  I stayed late for the last two weeks at school to have Parent Teacher Conferences and to get Friday off!  Friday is my wife's birthday!  Saturday we were the same age for the day.  Today is my birthday!

Thursday night saw some Doctor Who and a Red Sox victory!  I even wrote a lesson plan for my Master's Class!

Friday was a lazy day...but Friday night we had a nearly a dozen friends over for drinks and appetizers.  It was such a pleasant affair.  Everyone seemed to laugh and have fun.  The Armchair Squid brought gifts (I'll review mine on Friday!)  My teaching partner brought my wife a HUMONGOUS pumpkin, hoping she could use it for her recent spate of pumpkin themed recipes.  Alas, it was a carving pumpkin, not a cooking pumpkin

We had a Broomball game and we won!  It was quite an effort but we prevailed.  After the game most folks came back to the house for some more drinks and some carving of the pumpkin

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Saturday we went to visit my brother and his wife in Worcester.  Nan and the kids hadn't met the baby yet.  My folks came down.  We had a great dinner and a fun visit.  My folks got us all hotel rooms to save a long drive home.

My beloved Red Sox won a return to the World Series, just after midnight, officially on my birthday!

We went to a Panera near our hotel for breakfast.  I entered announcing it was my birthday.  Our cashier, Amy, said it was hers as well and she bought my breakfast after I told her if I was a girl, my parents wanted to name me Amy!

Our ride home was filled with a backlog  NPR's Sunday Puzzle...we had an impressive success rate!  We went to one Target and used our birthday gift cards!

I'm just feeling happy and babbly!  

Happy Sunday to all!

R is for Raiders of the Lost Ark

Raiders of the Lost Ark is currently # 8 on my flickchart list.

I remember being at "Lums" in Rutland with my brother, Justin, and probably my dad having lunch with Nana and Grandpa in 1981 after "Raiders of The Lost Ark" (the correct, true title) had come out.

Gramps had recently seen this with my cousins Marc and Lars. I clearly remember him telling us about the Swordsman scene, reenacting it and laughing, deeply and honestly, at the scene and his own retelling.

To this day, I try to buy all the toys based on the scene...

And, Dean at Springfield Punx made both of these. He had the Indy done and I asked if he would ever consider creating the Cairo Swordsman...and he did!  I need to ask Lee sometime if Gramps had any real "Simpsons" knowledge.

 

And the fan made posters....

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I am using my flickchart list and blogging about the highest ranked movie for each letter of the alphabet.  

Click HERE and become my flickchart friend!

Why not jump around the Blogging from A to Z Challenge and find some new blogs to read!

Wild Card Wednesday: July 25, 2012

This is my last "live" blog of the week.  The next three days are already "in the can" and ready to go.  The reason for this is that tomorrow morning, we head out to the 2012 Tommy Keane Invitational Golf Tournament.

I am a late comer to the sport but thoroughly enjoy playing.  This year, my brother and I are joined by our cousins Marc and Lars.  We will be matched up on day one!  I am looking forward to this incredible weekend!

You can check in on our progress HERE or HERE!

You can also click HERE for a previous post about golf and why I play in the TKI...

What To Do Next Weekend....

The school year is rapidly approaching its (welcome) end.  More so than any other year I have taught, I am absolutely ready for summer to begin.

In an effort to kick-start things, I was mulling over trying to figure out something to do next Saturday and/or Sunday.  Friday night is already claimed for Underclassmen Award Night at my daughter's high school....where she is up for an award or two.

My son received his placement for next year and is not in the same class as his best friend.  Her mother is worried about the kids drifting apart, so I proposed to Nan we do a day trip across the lake to Target on Saturday...ride the ferry, get lunch and so on, and invite the girl.

However.....I start to feel selfish.  I was thinking of calling my brother and asking him to meet me somewhere in New Hampshire to play golf on Saturday.  His birthday is fast approaching and I thought it would be a nice birthday gift.

Things get a little crazy from there....I find out that this Sunday is the Granite State Comicon.  I start planning things out.  Maybe meet my brother and then I could go camping and go to the con on Sunday.  While I am not really looking for anything, it has been SO long since I attended a show.  I could do a day trip on Sunday? Maybe Logan and I could go....I start working out all the permutations.

When I think I have FINALLY landed on what I want to do, I get an e-mail announcing that this Sunday is also the Montreal ToyCon.  I decide to click the link and check it out....and I see this banner...

I'm not terribly tempted but....wait a second....what's that!?!?  

What's the big deal, you may ask...(especially if we have never met in person nor are friends on Facebook)...

Well, the three people at the head of the line....it is me, my wife and my son!!!  We attended one of the first Montreal ToyCons 5 or 6 years ago!!!!   We rented a hotel near by with an indoor pool....had our first trip to La Cage Aux Sports.  It was such fun but I never checked back in, as subsequent events were held on weekends we could not attend.  I wonder if we have been the banner for all these years?!?!

So, to make a long story short ("Too late!"), I have NO idea what I am doing next weekend.....

Blogging From A To Z: G is for...

...golf....a sport I just picked up last year after my father died.  My great-grandfather was the first golf pro at Dartmouth College.  When he retired, they started a yearly tournament in his name.  My grandfather and father played in it for as long as I could remember.  When Gramps died in 2000, my father invited my brother to play with him.  When Dad died last year, my brother asked me to play with him, despite the fact I had NEVER picked up a club, much less played before.  I got clubs and played through out last summer to get ready and played in the tournament in August.  I LOVE IT.  I have played more with these three guys pictured than anyone else.  And the best part is....my daughter already loves it.  I think she will become my number one partner before this summer is up....

What I missed while attending Justin's Bachelor Party!

Haircut? I'm skeptical...

The lollipop guild

(comments by Nan)

Post Number 100: The Boston Trip

Here is a brief rundown of our recent trip to Boston. It was such a blast.

On Friday, after stopping at BlueCanoe in Grantham, NH for some make-it-yourself some milkshakes and a quick (especially for us!) Target stop near Concord, NH, we made it to Worcester, MA

to visit my brother Justin and my sister-in-law to be Jennifer (who was right...there is a Blue Canoe in Springfield, VT!!).

We had a great time eating some Papa John's and catching up. We got two bachelor parties planned and I got a tour of the devastation from the recent ice storm.

We made good time from Worcester to Boston for the first ¾ of the trip but then got stuck in a MONSTER traffic snarl at some god forsaken tollbooth for an hour. The kids and Nan did great and I eventually calmed down and we made it to our hotel.

One of my highlights was our T ride the next morning. Both Logan and Haley were giddy about the subway.

We spent Saturday at the New England Aquarium. While we had a good time, it seems like they would benefit from spending a little bit of money on upgrading/expanding the eating area. Beyond that, we enjoyed the jellyfish, giant fish tank, and the hands on starfish and sea urchin display.

We had dinner at someplace called California Pizza Kitchen that night before Nan and the kids went back to the pool.

Sunday was spent at the Boston Museum of Science. The highlights here were the new Butterfly Garden (reminiscent of the larger display in Montreal), the electricity expirements and the dinosaur exhibits.

So those are my thoughts as we watch the Amazing Race (the season we should have been on!) and I begin to prepare to go back to school tomorrow. Check out Nan's blog for her thoughts. We'll also get the kids to comment on their sites.

We'll figure out how to host the rest of the pictures somewhere for those who want to see them.

Big time thanks to Kathy for the passes to the Aquarium and the MOS.

This will always make me think of my grandfather...

I remember being at "Lums" in Rutland with Justin and probably my dad having lunch with Nana and Grandpa in 1981 after "Raiders of The Lost Ark" (the correct, true title) had come out.

Gramps had recently seen this with my cousins Marc and Lars. I clearly remember him telling us about this scene, reenacting it and laughing, deeply and honestly, at the scene and his own retelling.

I've been recently buying the toys based on this scene and found these two on clearance at WalMart in Plattsburgh yesterday:

They join these guys I got for Christmas:

And these I got at Disney two years ago:

Game One Thoughts

Wow! That was fun. I don't think I was able to relax at all. Dice-K was impressive, to say the least.

Watching the game with my brother, Justin, was fun. He is a funny guy and I like talking baseball with him. He seems to have put this Yankee season in perspective. And in the 8th inning, he dozed off and his snoring was funny.