Here’s Kim, Misha, Bonnie, and Mandy. I joked about how my arms were long enough they could stretch out and reach my two outermost cousins at the same time!

Here’s aunt Brenda, uncle Ralph, my dad Ron, and my mom Darleen:

This was one of my favorite days! Thank you family!

Earlier today, my wife, my parents, and I attended our relatives’ annual 4th of July get together in Blandford, MA, just one town over from Russell, where we used to live in the ’70s. Since we were early, we stopped at the ski area that I grew up on, Springfield Ski Club aka Blandford Ski Area.

Here’s the North Chair which is installed over Blandford’s most expert terrain. It looks to be their most recent lift addition.

And finally, the trail map painted on the wall of the most recent lodge:

I really hope to get out this way this coming winter and ski Blandford!

Miro for video podcasts like Tekzilla, Chikara, HD Nation, AppJudgement, Pod Surf TV, CommandN, and others

AlbumPlayer for streaming my FLAC music library from my Windows Home Server box
Minilyrics embeds into the interface.

Boxee for playing movie and other video downloads
It does a nice job with multi-channel audio and subtitles for my wife.

MAME for classic arcade games controlled with wireless X Box 360 gamepads

If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to talk more about the HTPC setup.

I haven’t taken the time to write too many thoughts about my wedding from last September, 2009. Today, I called my sister Teresa and it got me thinking how much I appreciate her. My wedding day was also her wedding anniversary and she came all the way from Georgia to Massachusetts to be with me on her special day. The morning of the wedding, my co-best man, George Wong and I left the hotel together and met with my parents and my sister for a low key breakfast. We didn’t have to rush. It was perfect. George got to meet Teresa and the two of them got to know each other. Thanks to George for taking this photo and for coming all the way from California to be the *best* best man I could ask for. After breakfast, George and I took a different route than my parents took to the wedding site and we got a little lost. GPS wasn’t working too well so we arrived a little later than I would have liked. My wife and her family, who had arrived much earlier and had already done a lot of decorating, were worried! George and I formed a plan and immediately put our energy into setting up the sound system, then changing.

I hope to write more thoughts about the wedding at some point.

Friday night, April 30th, we went to the Teen Challenge graduation at their New England headquarters in Brockton. I’d never been to anything to musically rocking while spiritually uplifting. If you see these people’s faces, you can see that they are honestly changed and amazed people. Great things happen in this organization. My parents and members of the Attleboro Advent Christian Church (and the pastor that married us) were there. After, Misha, my folks and I, ate at the Texas Roadhouse near the Westgate Mall in Brockton. Waitress was great. She gave us extra rolls and peanuts in the shell to take home.

Yesterday, I paid for a subscription to Microsoft Technet. I don’t know what I haven’t done this earlier. This is the article that got me interested in Technet.

Today, Misha and I are going to check out an amateur baseball game in Maynard–part of the MetroWest Adult Baseball League.

Finally, here’s a shot of our cat Thai, as she’s in a great, half lounging position in our old window. She’s got such a beautiful coat. She seems obsessive about grooming it, but since it’s so beautiful and clean, we just shrug our shoulders, smile, and tell her what a beautiful job she does keeping it that way. By the way, we signed on for 10 new vinyl replacement windows! They’ll be taking final measurements tomorrow!

My NAS, D-Link DNS-321, is one of the least expensive on the market, but rated pretty highly. When I bought it, I didn’t think about using it to download torrents and it wasn’t a feature. With the recent firmware update, it can now do so by adding a P2P client via the NAS’s control panel. The torrent client is bare bones, but it’s downloading a few torrents as I type this post. The NAS sits and runs in the basement and it’s a low power device.

If by chance, the Jamaican Jerk Center in Cape Neddick had started early for the season, I wanted to be there and eat jerk chicken for lunch. There were people there, but no cooking to be found. They were just cleaning up and getting their facility ready for the season.

York Beach
First, we split a bagel at the Daily Grind Cafe, right next to York Wild Kingdom which will open later this summer. Then we stopped in to the Kettle Boys Popcorn Co. and sampled a few amazing flavored kettle corn selections. We stayed basic and bought a medium bag of kettle corn, then strolled to the beach, sat on a bench, and watched the waves, surfers, and other people.

Kennebunk & Kennebunkport
We made Blowing Cave our first stop since it was about an hour before high tide. I told Misha, I think I’ve been going to this spot for 30 years! We took a lot of time enjoying the mist and the sound of the cave. I just love this natural wonder. As you can see from the video, I climbed around and got footage from different vantage points. That’s Misha at the very end.

We drove to the beach and took a stroll, along with a lot of other people. It was just a bit too windy for frisbee, but we gave it a try.

We headed back to Kennebunkport for more strolling and thoughts of food. The Clam Shack wasn’t opened yet for the season, so we walked around, weighing our options.

The Flaming Gourmet is a cool spot for browsing grilling sauces, salsas, and this huge wall of hot sauces. I ended up buying a bottle of Busha Browne’s Spicy Jerk Sauce and a staff recommended Hula Girl Chipotle Habanero sauce.

I asked the same person inside of Flaming Gourmet where we could eat fried clams and he suggested Alisson’s Restaurant. I checked the reviews on Yelp and they were overwhelmingly positive. I got fried clams and Misha got clam strips. My clams were tender and easy. Very little chewing required. A good spot with reasonable prices.

For desert, we had gelato at Roly’s English Fudge and Gelato. Misha’s chocolate gelato tasted like fudge–incredible. We no longer had the urge for fudge after that. I got a flavor called English Fudge in which the baker had mixed in her homemade fudge. I had to step back inside to compliment her after we finished.

Wells
As we left Kennebunkport, we pulled into Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge and walked the one mile trail around a couple marshes. We needed the exercise!

We continued our beach tour with a short stop at Wells and the arcade I once visited while with my old high school friend Mark Borenstein. As with most businesses, it wasn’t open yet. I’d love to check it out sometime when it’s open and see what they have and how well the machines are maintained.

Back to Massachusetts and a stop at Salem Willows
I’m so grateful to the owners of Salem Willows for investing in so many pinball machines and keeping up their maintenance as best they can. I played a game of NASCAR pin, then Misha and I played Cirqus Voltaire pin, the Getaway pin, some Skee Ball, Galaga, and Dance Dance Revolution. Here’s a shot of the awesome Scared Stiff pin featuring Elivra:

Hope you enjoyed this little day trip report. If you’d like to comment on any of these places, please do!