The other day we were going for a sail and we had to go through the bridge and this is a picture of the bridge open to let us through.
Before we left we saw a train going across the bridge and I thought, "Could that be Dante's train?"
And then there was another one that we saw later, an Acela train and maybe that was the one...
Or maybe none of them...I don't really know.
Oh, while we were out sailing that day the wind stopped and while we were waiting for the wind to come back, my friend Don's "little boy"---ha-ha-ha just a joke, decided to go fishing and he caught this little fish called a flake---whoops, it's a fluke, not a flake. Just goes to show what I know about fishes.---. we took his picture and then he put the fish back into the ocean.
The end of this little story about bridges, trains, little boys and fish.

I am not quite certain about what the message is though...a genuine reward or just another item for eBay?
...especially him!!!








I get there and take off gloves, scarfs, coats, and hats and immediately, Michael Anthony decided to give me a little fashion show with my infamous and sort of scruffy hat...
...sort of a posing picture.
And this too...
...but then he decided that we should go play with all of his stuff and we did for a while until he decided to tell me a story...
...yak yak yak , all in some semi intelligable kid talk, along with a gesture or two....
And that's the end of the story without too much of a point except it is an excuse to put up a snapshot or two of the little guy for everyone to see how he is doing these days.

While we were all waiting for a giant bowl of rigatoni and Bolognese sauce the kids asked for permission to each open a present. They got it.... and were pretty much content to wait out the couple of hours or so till we were going to eat and then have our traditional pre-Santa open up some presents and do all the appropriate oooohhhing and aaahhhing.
While they were waiting they studied and played with one of Cass's little presents for Christopher ( I think it was his )...
...and here they are.
A little later, after careful observation...
Dante took a turn playing despite a few extra arms and a hand or two...
Then we finally did get to that big bowl of rigatoni followed by ice cream pizzele and chocolate cream pie. Then our long awaited present openings. After that event, this image was seen outside floating in the woods off our neighbors back deck...
We decided that we better wrap it up and we did. Everyone went home to have that " long winter's nap" and wait for the Jolly Guy...( the other one, not your author who is also known to be that fun loving jolly guy).
The end of our 2006 Christmas Eve Story........




But wait...first things first...the kitchen looks pretty spiffy. With all that stainless though, how are you going to put up all those little snapshots and stuff on the refrigerator?







Once the sailing season got under way it has continued. This is last weekends story.
A Sunday sail with Don...
...yes it was Sunday, and I went for a longish sail with Don, aboard his cruising 36 footer CHIMAERA. Not a bad day at all. Pretty nice wind most of the day, very favorable tides all day, and it was what it was supposed to be.
While we were sailing back to New London, I had a chance to gawk at other boats like I like to do.
.
I saw this pretty looking catboat sailing a parallel course to us but in the opposite direction. And then there were the houses of the Fishers Island kazillionaires to gawk at too, but I am not inclined to do that.
That's more or less it. The wars went on, the RedSox lost, The Yankees won, but this geezer had a good day anyway. Everyone ought to have a friend, especially one with a nice sailboat.
Oh, and not forgetting the other part of the story, After returning to the dock and securing the boat till the next time, we went over to the nearby lobster shack, right next to where the lobster boats berth, and picked up a couple of very classic cold lobster rolls to bring home so that Mrs. could enjoy her favorite part of this geezers sailing day too.







Tranquil and quiet as we sailed by North Dumpling Island home of the famous, enigmatic, eccentric, genius, famous Worcester Polytech dropout, inventor of the device that is planted in Dick Cheny's chest keeping that Darth Vader like character alive, and the creator of the infamous "It" which was supposed to change the world, and still might. ---but I wander--- The person is Dean Kamen, the machine is Segway and this is his island retreat....
So we had a slightyly closer look as we usually do hoping to spot the mystery man....
...and behold, could this be him?
...you decide. Maybe a slightly closer look...
Despite this unusual and spooky "famous enigmatic guy" sighting the day was just fine and normal until on the final leg home up the Thames to our dock this evil machine loomed large...
...followed by dozens of others of similar ilk. They were roaring and racing.

and racing and roaring...
...and
Well, you get the picture. Strange giant speedboats on the Thames, a sight never before seen, after the strange man himself appeared out of the haze in his lighthouse. Not to put too much of a point to this, but I sense that this is NOT the end of this story......
...this...
...and this too...
....stay tuned.




And in the end, congtatulations to all.....

The End......

Since Mike has alwys thought that Mrs. was a little...shall we say eccentric...for her use of an occasional Pink Flamingo or two in her outside decor, we thought this simply couldn't be.
So we took a closer look......

...and as they say ( or at least some say) "O my God..it is a kazillion Pink Flamingos. What is going on????????
I have decided to put a small version of the most interesting one here for all of you to see.

The photograph was made around 1911 to 1912. The small child in the photograph is my father, Frank P. Sr. and he was born in 1909. In this picture he is probably 2-ish. The man to the left in the photograph is Nicola Minutillo, his father, my grandfather and great grandfather to some of you and great great grandfather to Mitchell, Dante and Michael Anthony. The woman to the right in the photo is Josefina Minutillo (nee Vallone) his mother and my grandmother. The older woman is believed to be my granmother's mother or my greatgrandmother. We have not yet determined her name, but it is believed that her maiden name was Piacitelli.
The others in the photograph are Louis Vallone, the younger fellow to the extreme left, Peter Vallone the smiling man with his arm over my young grandmothers shoulder and his other arm resting on Liberato Di Paulo who is the husband of Zia Caterina my grandmothers sister who is seen here standing on the right.
I have obtained a bunch of other photographs from Richard and if anyone is interested, I can send hires copies of the picture here and copies of the others too which include pictures of my father and mother from the late twenties and early thirties.
The End of This Story......for now
Sunday.....
Monday........
Tuesday..........
Wednesday.........
...looking not so good.
Thursday...
...looking much better...
also Thursday...
,...and today, Friday...
The End of This Story.....
(...I hope they have all their technology connected so that they can see this way over there.)
Back to the point. They came over to show us some of Michael Anthony's new skills and new teeth and all that sort of thing. But, the little guy took one look at me and turned to his Dad and said, " Did you see that guy with the whiskers !!!" or words that had that meaning.
Here, see what I mean...
well, after a while he decided that maybe it would be OK...
..but he still had to check with Dad.
He then proceeded to demonstrate a lot of his new skills while playing with Grammy, but he still had that skeptical eye for Grampy,
Once again...
Then, just to show me that he wasn't going to hold any long hard feelings, I did get a little smile.
I think that being held by Mom and hearing Dad say it's time to go...
...had more to do with it though.
...anyway all was well and off they went 
The end, well sort of the end of this story. I used a new camera and as Mrs would say, there were a series of "pilot errors". This whole digital business may make a luddite like person of me yet.I did try again this morning and managed this through my slightly fogged window...
OK, now it is THE END of this story.
...This was all fine and then Nick said to Dante, "Lets go outside and build a little snowman on Grammy's deck. See all the snow out there...
...a proof of the storm's result.
Then everyone got all bundled up and out they went to start the fun. Dante wasn't sure that it was really going to be all that much fun, but trooper that he off he went...
...Looking at Nick's effort Dante becomes skeptical of the result.
But a few seconds later, after a brief study of the final handiwork...
...Dante begins to change his mind and...
...he declares that the result was worth the effort. He declares that it is cold and taking a final look at the snowy scenes...
...like this one he says, "that was fun, now let's go back in"
...and they did.
The End... any resemblance to the actual events is a pure coincidence.

Naturally I offered little Michael Anthony some beans and franks too, but just as naturally, his folks thought better of that idea. So the little guy just had to watch me finish my lunch alone and with some amusement too.
Later in the visit, Michael Anthony asked if he could just sit in Grammy's big chair for a few minutes and of course we agreed. While he was there I took a couple of quick snapshots...
This one first...

...and then this...
And a little later this one...
...When he sort of shouted to me "..Grampy, can't you see that this sitting business is getting old and I am becoming all scrunched and un-amused!!"
I have to say that Michael Anthony never lost his cool, but I did stop with the picture taking.
Later, Nancy, Michael and Michael Anthony all packed up and went shopping. ...THE END of this story





My favorite picture from this set is the one in front of the library with Dante looking pensive.
Anyway, all he wanted to do was sleep and sleep he did.

Later and after some nuisance poking and proding, he did wake up and produced this rather "..what do you want" look.

After a little more coaxing he decided we were OK and did produce a little smile.

After a little while he decided to tell us a few jokes and ran around some, but he still is only seven weeks old and the jokes were lame so to spare him from embarrassment I shut down all recording devices.
The End of This Story















Up close...
with Mike and Nancys hands...
With Mrs...
Hinting that times up...
And with that, we left him to get ready for his lunch. They will all be going home on Friday.
And that's just the beginning of this story...to be continued.
Mike reports that the baby has brown hair, and is very cute. He also reports that Nancy is fine and feels fine and the new baby is fine and feels fine.Mike is fine and feels fine too.
There will be pictures and more information posted here tomorrow.
CONGRATULATIONS MIKE AND NANCY





The kid and the geezer think a little alike!!




We all had fun too!!
....someday I will figure this stuff out.








Here's the pitch...
Ready...
and the swing...
There's a drive...
Way baaack....
Dante runs..
..
..
.
and back again..
And the next pitch..
And the game continued....The End of This Story



Then the game started and it was the Mitchell show. From handling the ball for the first drive of the game like this

...to this pretty good Bob Cousy look

and shooting foul shots with a verve (even if unorthodox) approach

and power moves like this

The little guy ( not to put too much of a brag on it) led his team to a hard fought victory over a much bigger and tougher looking team. He scored 11 points, made countless great defensive plays, had two assists, and scored the final basket in the squeaker with only about 40 seconds left with a great assist from his teams other guard. Here they all are after the victory

They now have to play and win two more games to earn the tourney title.Will this team of little guys succeed?

....to be continued.
...but, enough is enough. This starts month five of this winter.And Why would any geezer pensioner want to live out his golden years here
When there are places like this.....
and this...
and this...
alright, maybe not really like that, but like this...
and this...get my drift
and finally places like this where this geezer pensioner could spend his time worrying about whatever he feels like but not enduring the lousy winter and Bush and the right wing wackos.....

Sighhhhhh, period and end of story

Here they are closer up through the foggy window still.

This pair my be the one often talked about in the bird in the hand being worth two in the bush aphorism, then again maybe not.
And here is a semi-pretty semi-blizzard scene; again as seen through the foggy window. Probably would have been better than "semi" if I hadn't been so lazy.

And that is The End of this story.
Here we have maybe a scant foot of very dry and blowing snow.
















No, shouldn't go there.... this one ought to be a keeper. It is as they used to say, " a spittin' image" I like it!
Bob and Maryann, and Richard and Dorothy reprised their trip to Italy act. Richard is hard at work preparing the photos for another web layout on fabbnet.net, and Maryann will be editing the menus during her upcoming two weeks in Mongolia (which is another story!)
No, we didn't go to the town in the picture; that's a little hill town we admired on our way either to or from Parma, which was the second last of five stops for Richard and Dorothy, seven stops for Bob and Maryann.
I will look for the rest of the story(stories) on fabnet.net.





Making friends...
They hit it off:
Reading the news..
Doing their homework..
Oh,Oh...stuck.. 
Whispered help..
And the story ends with bird and boy bonded and happy.







And here it is...........

...and that's the beginning of this story.
Going....
Going.........
Gone.............
They say that the happiest day and the saddest day in a boaters life is when he sells his boat.They are wrong. It's much more complicated than that!
....sigh..........and the end of this story.







But it does look like it was a spectacular show.









the only picture of Mrs with Dante and Sandy.

Dante gets ready to pick a pretty flower

Here Dante shows Mitchell his stair climbing skills ( no tumbles this time)

...and now for a baseball game

...here he is zooming by Mitchell.

Near the end of the visit now and Dante poses for a portrait or two.
This is a small glimpse of a really nice day.
.......The End of this Story......




...here he is having some lunch.
..and here posing impatiently with me while only wanting to get started on his favorite activity of the weekend.
...ready to go.
...concentrating well sort of...
...no hands, no problem...until
..and 
Other images in this sequence are redacted for the sake of all involved.
After a very brief trip inside to calm Mrs M's and my pulses, here we go again with Mrs looking like she is not sure.
...but Dante is.
And that is the end of part of the story of Dante's weekend with them.
Thanks to Jenny we have a picture of the decisive moment to post here.
Congratulations to Nancy and Mike!!!







A nice suite!
Hi Dante, : a comment by on October 28, 2007
Bye,
Grammy and Grampy......oh, and have fun on Halloween too!!!