picnic time!!

The hot, extremely muggy weather has been making life difficult recently. But last night we had a thunderstorm, and the humidity broke. So today was perfect! Sunny, very warm but low humidity.
Perfect timing, since it was my dad's birthday and he chose a picnic in the park. We went down to Washington Park, which is a huge park (they have the Tulip fest there each year), and beautiful. My dad and Zachary tossed a football around, mom and JJoy threw the frisbee, and Zachary and Joanna even played in the water below the fountain.
A wonderful day for a picnic, and because I had been excused from jury duty yesterday (after sitting on an extremely hard bench for 5 hrs while the jury was selected) I could actually be there for it.

Accident

I'm interrupting my posts on the NYC trip to bring you breaking news on current events here in the village of Hoosick Falls. On Wednesday evening, June 16, I was driving to the grocery store and was distracted by what appeared to be a child running into the street in front of an oncoming car. I turned to look at the same time the vehicle in front of me hit the brakes. By the time I had turned forward and slammed on my brakes it was too late, and I rear-ended her. Both my airbags went off, my arms instinctively went up, leaving me feeling fine except for airbag burns, scratches, and bruises all over my left arm. The other lady was fine, and her car was dented, but not too bad. My car had to be towed. POI appeared to be the radiator, though the front in general was pretty banged up.
Yesterday I started hurting much worse. What had started as a dull headache quickly escalated to not having any range of motion in my neck. There was a lump at the base of my neck I was worried about, since the whole area around it by the spine was extremely swollen by that point, and barely touching it was excruciating. Since I was already down near the hospital (my dad had taken me down to pick up a rental car), he agreed it was best to get it checked out, so I went in to the ER. They did x-rays and the initial diagnosis is that it's moderate to severe whiplash, but to watch carefully for signs of anything worse. He thinks I should see steady improvement over the next few days, but if not I have to go in for an MRI early next week. For now, he put me back on Ibuprofen to bring the swelling down. Painful, but as long as it goes away, manageable so far. It could have been a lot worse, so I'm thankful.

NYC - Aquarium and Coney Island

Thursday was nice enough to go out, so we headed to the aquarium to take a look at the sharks (for Joey), turtles, fish, etc, before going to Coney Island for lunch and rides in the amusement park areas. The aquarium didn't seem very big, but some of the exhibits were really good. Coney Island was interesting. They have a lot of rides, in three areas.
I rode on the Cyclone, the oldest wooden roller coaster. That was a blast, though Joey and I didn't have any room to spare since the cars were so small. Samantha and Michael went on a bunch of the kiddie rides, and Matthew went on some, too. We were able to convince Jeff to go up on the Ferris Wheel. He is terrified of heights, so of course everyone had fun with that. He was a great sport, though, and even did several other rides as well (though he turned white as a sheet each time).

NYC - Zoo

Tuesday we went to the zoo, arriving in the early afternoon, since Marco was an hour and a half later than planned. He 'got lost' driving around the block! Seeing the tigers, bears, peacocks, and other animals was really neat. Mantha had a lot of fun, and even got to go on the 'bug carousel' with Mindy and her brothers. Marco and Mike rode it, too. Jeff turned pasty white on the monorail, but the rest of us loved it all.

NYC - Museum of Natural History, Times Square, and the M&M Store

We visited the museum of natural history on Monday. Jeff, Mindy, and the kids had come in Sunday afternoon. Jeff's mom, Rhonda, came with them. We spent all afternoon looking at exhibits. The dinosaurs were a favorite, as were the animals from all over the world.

We also went down to Times Square, and spent some time in the M&M store. Never seen so many m&m's!

NYC - Steve's Piccolo Bussela

One night a bunch of us went out to Steve's Piccolo Bussela for dinner. Joey had been telling us about this place, and how he's known the owner for 17yrs or so. At the end of our 5 course dinner - which was absolutely fantastic - Steve came over to say hi. His accent was so strong that when he said, "Joe DeCarlo!" it sounded like he said "avacado", and from that moment on, Joey became 'Joey Avacado' or 'Javacado'.

12 of the 18 people hanging out here in NYC this week all had met/known each other through an internet game called World of Warcraft.

Since Jeff was bringing his family from Illinois to visit this week, the other gaming friends decided to come the same time. I joined them down there on June 5th, and am planning to head home tomorrow evening, the 15th.

Jeff, Mindy, Samantha, Michael, Matthew, and Rhonda (Jeff's mom) stayed at the same hotel, which was handy.

We visited the Museum of Natural History (dinosaurs), zoo (lions and tigers and bears, OH NO!), aquarium (sharks), Coney Island (hot dogs and chili fries before a fast, rickety roller coaster isn't the greatest idea), and spent a lot of time at Vic's house barbecuing, swimming in his pool, talking, making cookies for the guys, watching movies, playing Halo 3, running around with the kids, and eating some more.

Yesterday Vinny and Justin took Jeff and the family to Ground Zero, the Empire State Bldg, and to see the Statue of Liberty. We all congregated again at Vic's in the evening, and after Jeff and the kids left we went to see A-Team at the theater. Today is just a relaxing day.

NYC!!!!!

I had my last bit of work this morning on my way to the train station. After arriving at Penn station at 1pm, we picked up some lunch and then I took a nap and relaxed for a couple hours.
Now we are waiting for Mike and Scott to get to the house. They just got to JFK a couple minutes ago. Everyone is going to Vic's house to hang out tonight.
Ah, an entire week of relaxation!