The Indian Quarter

Rich suggested lunch at one of the Indian restaurants on Lexington in the 20's. I didn't know that there was a span of 5 blocks or so from 30th St south on Lex that is home to many Indian restaurants. We had lunch at the Curry Leaf on 27th St and the food was good. I'd like to go back and explore.

Lucas Foss

Kevie's choral group The Greenwich Village Singers pulled off a coup last night when they sang at Lincoln Center's Rose Hall. Before the choir took the stage there was a performance of Foss' Renaissance Concerto for Flute and Orchestra. He wrote the concerto for Carol Wincenc who performed the flute piece. K and I both really enjoyed her performance.

Later the chorus came on and did some Aaron Copland songs and Foss' The Prairie. They were in fine form and I know some part of Kevie wanted to be up there with them.

Bell tolls for Rich T

After considerable unhappiness Rich received word that his contract with pfe will end on 7/12. I hope he'll be happier at the next gig and I wish him good luck.

The Orthodontist

Chris came home from the Orthodontist yesterday with braces on his upper teeth and a plethora of brushes, floss, and pamphlets on how to care for his new appliance. From the beginning he's seemed excited about this. I think he's seen some of his classmates with braces and feels that there's some status involved.

I'm told that the strategy is to correct his overbite first and then proceed to straightening the bottom teeth.

Rocko also got a new doo yesterday. We let the hair mats get pretty thick during the cold weather and then have him shaved in the summer. Kevie told me on the phone that he was a much smaller dog and that is what I noticed first. It's like somebody hit him with a shrink ray.

Delsea Drive-in

Last night we went to the drive-in and saw a double bill of Surf's Up and The Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I liked Surf's Up. It was sweet without being cornball. But the thing here is the drive-in experience. The last movie I saw at a drive in was Capricorn One in 1978. I remember because I was on my honeymoon. There's just something about watching a movie in your car. Of course they don't have the speakers on the pole that you bring in and set on the window anymore.

This morning C and I went into town for breakfast at The Looking Glass cafe and then stopped at the barber on High St. and got hair cuts.

The District

It seems that we've won the latest round with the Jersey City school district. We have a settlement in which they've agreed to cover the bulk of the cost of sending Chris to Winston Prep. Our success is due to Kevie's tireless activism and very professional assistance from Hillary D. Freeman, Esq. of G. Emerson Dickman's Office.

As negotiations with the school board came to a close it was clear that we won't get to send Chris to a Summer Camp that offers academic remediation so, he'll be going back to BJCC for another summer. According to the schedule he'll be on the road a lot this summer. Does that mean the "I'm bored" complaints will diminish?

Left a little early on 6/8 and had dinner at Daddy O's (used to be Wida's) Friday night. It was a nice early celebration of K's birthday. The food was good and the atmosphere was fun. There was even live entertainment.

Went to Atlantic City on Sunday to explore the mall at The Tropicana and take in the sights. I've been there a couple times in the last year but K hadn't seen the "New" AC. She bought some funky earings at The Zephyr Gallery. Had dinner at The Trinity Pub on the top floor of the Mall at Caesars. The food was fine but the highlight of the evening was the light show at the fountain. Wow! It was spectacular. "You give me fever all through the night."

Thought that I would never see the contract from Watersports for the Jet Ski slip. I had called Rick Quelch a couple of times over the winter to ask him for same but never got one. It actually showed up in the mail on Friday after I had handed over the season's payment.

I started feeling sick right before the birthday weekend with runny nose and sore throat. I was determined to let it pass without recognition but it got me down and I spent Monday in bed.

Fathers Day was fun. Kevie and Chris spent the day at the beach. Later Nadeem & Eddie came by and we walked on the beach for while. Eddie loves the surf.

Pfizer Gig

As the project at Pfizer changes from new development to maintenance I've been casually looking at the job boards thinking about the next big thing. I also looked at the calendar and noticed I have an anniversary coming up.

So, I contacted the broker I'm working for and started rate negotiations to get some kind of recognition that I'm worth more now than I was a year ago. It was easy enough to wrangle a couple bux more and it puts me in the mood to stay longer. These guys at Sunrise Systems have been very straight up. I recommend them.

Seadoo Unveiling

Called Surf City on Thursday and she said that my "ski" was scheduled to be done on Saturday so I rode off into the wild blue Saturday morning. I tried to convince Chris to come by making the deal that we'd spend half the time going his speed and the other half going mine. He bought it initially but when it came time to commit he rode back with mom. Had a great time jumping wakes, making high speed sharp turns and generally getting wet. But...

After riding for some 20 minutes it lost power and a "check engine" alert came up on the console. I called Surf City and they asked me ride it back so they could hook it up to their analyzer. I put it on one of the pads outside the shop and they tossed out a cable that attached to the wiring harness somewhere. After a few minutes the tech came out, tightened the wire on the coil and told me it was good to go.

Nadeem and I went to Atlantic City on Sunday 6/3 and had lunch at Hooters. The plan was to walk the boardwalk and smoke a cigar but it was raining heavily so we stood under an overhang and smoked and talked.

Memorial Day Weekend

On Wednesday C played his first concert as a member of JW Wakeman's concert band. There were 2 songs and we couldn't see him because of his position on stage but I did hear the trumpets.

Chris has had stomach problems the whole week; nausea & constipation. He seems better now.

He went for evaluation at The Winston School on Friday. Among other things he sat in on a math class and was given a page of exercises that he drew a blank on. K says it was material he had last year. When you want your kid to strut to strut his stuff it seldom works out. I hope they got the idea that he was motivated and well behaved. We'll see.

I got a call from Ken T on Wednesday saying that they needed a pin out for the DB-9 connector on the heading sensor so I called Nobeltec and they recommended that I use their serial to USB adapter. With that being shipped I asked Ken to just leave the heading sensor disconnected as the radar should work fine without it.

When K rented the car from Budget they told her that the right rear tire had a "slow leak" and that if she saw it getting flat to just add some air. So, on the way to LBI, she passes a woman who is anxiously pointing to her tire. She pulls over to find it very flat, drives to the next rest area and inflates it. Later when I met her at the marina it is flat again.

Thought we would spend the night on the boat but first stop by the Millville house to get the air compressor for dealing with the flat. By the time we had dragged stuff in and repacked the car we decided that it would be too much to try and load the boat that night.

We got up at 4:00 on Saturday to hit Spring Garden around day break. When we got to the marina the first thing I tried to do was connect the laptop to the radar but I couldn't get any of the inverters to work. Turns out that the cigarette lighter just doesn't provide a sufficient connection anymore. We had a new inverter in the car that had a supply cord with alligator clips. So I clipped it into the electrical block above fridge and that solved the problem.

As soon as the laptop was fired up it was evident that nothing had been tested. I turned on the radar and the antenna didn't rotate :( I told Ken that it didn't seem like anything had been tested and he said that they just stopped when they couldn't hook up the heading sensor. Great. By this time I'd determined that I'd need a software upgrade before I could get the interface working so decided to leave it alone until I could test the interface.

Because of goofing with the radar, etc. we left Spring Garden at 9:30 for a completely uneventful ride up to LBI. We hit Morrison's around 2:30 and were surprised to find gas $.04 cheaper there than at Spring Garden. I think a lot of operators are cutting margins on fuel in order to support boating.

Talked to Rick Quelch at Watersports and he told me to put the ski on a pad and call him to let him know where it was. In return I left a check for $900 at the desk.

Went to Surf City Marina Sunday morning half expecting to ride the Seadoo away but the woman there sold us a Spring prep job and said that it would be ready the next weekend.

Went back to Millville on Monday to collect bird, etc. K had tried to start the lawn mower with no success so I checked the oil and put gas in it. We had left a little gas in it over the winter and could have collected some water. I've read that's common with the ethanol mix we're using in NJ. I shot some starter fluid into the cylinder and it fired up. Finished both the front and back yard before the sun went down.