Oh the places you'll go (or where you've been!)

Update: Laryssa provided her entry. Waiting on John still... Also my Dad got me the addres of the two apartments before Bridgeport.

Playing around with Google Maps I got the idea of mapping all the different places I've lived. Starting from the hospital in the bronx to the current city I am living in now (no, I'm not going to give any more details about where we live)

Misericordia Hospital , Bronx see here.

Update:
First apartment was on Riverdale Ave Bronks NY

Second apartment was on Bronx River Road Bronksville NY

Burnsford Avenue, Bridgeport CT - Age 1 to 2

Easton Court, West Lafayette, Indiana Age 2 to 3

10 or 11 Strawberry Hill Road, Danbury CT, Age 3 to 21

My Mom's parent's house (didn't live there, but spent a lot of time there)

My Dad's parent's apartment (didn't live there either) Want to see something interesting? Use the 'street view' here.

Dickinson Dorm, UMASS, Freshman, Sophmore and part of Junior year

Cliffside Apartments, Amherst, MA, Half of Junior and Half of Senior year

Meadow Street, Amherst MA, last part of senior year

1003 Harbor Point Parkway, Atlanta, GA 7/1990 to 4/1991

406 Harbor Point Parkway Atlanta, GA 4/1991 to 3/1994

1776 May Glen Drive, Acworth, GA 3/1994 to 7/1997

Acworth, 7/1997 to current

So, as a good blogger, I now 'tag' two people to do the same thing. My brother John (who I lived with until college) and my friend Laryssa, who lived in the dorms and the Cliffside apartment with me.

John and Ris, yes you can google maps Europe and other places.

A separate, but fun post will be where you lived for more than a month while on business or vacation! I'll think about that one ...

UMASS beat Syracuse twice!

Once again UMASS meets Syracuse in basketball and beats them. Each time SU was the favorite.

On Sunday we knew that UMASS was going to play SU in the NIT on Tuesday, so I asked Joe (Christopher's god father, who went to SU) if he wanted to go to a bar and watch the game. No kids, no wives. Just beer and wings.

Courtney had a softball game (they won and she got a good hit), so it was after 7:30 before I could pick him up so I missed almost all of the first half. Joe did point out SU was killing UMASS as we waited for our food. Start of the second half and we watched SU slowly choke. 22 point lead in 14 minutes. Then lose by 4.

Have I mention my brother John went to SU also? Or that both he and Joe have given me sh!t about basketball, lacrosse and anything else they could?

Some facts:
- SU is 0-4 vs UMASS under Boehm
- UMASS is the ONLY team to ever beat SU twice in the Carrier Dome in the same season

So what if it is the NIT. They still beat them!

No, I don't want to talk about Lacrosse (SU is 3rd, UMASS dropped out of the top 20 last week)

Hiding from Tornadoes all weekend

Not a good weekend in Atlanta.

Friday night the tornadoes went south of us, but hammered downtown. A good friend and his daughter were coming back from the Hawks game and saw a car get picked up and spun around a couple of times. Luckily they weren't hurt.

All day Saturday was spent with the news on, watching warning after warning go through. Luckily the storms split around us, again hammering downtown and then hitting up into Canton and a couple of towns north of us. We got a lot of rain and some downed tree limbs, but nothing major. Didn't lose power at all.

Sunday was spent cleaning up, including cleaning out the gutters. Not fun, climbing a ladder 2 stories a dozen or so times. Christopher loved being outside on his swing. We also rearranged furniture, which is never fun.

Finally, none of the Curtin family's basketball teams made it to the NCAA tournament. Syracuse and UMASS blew it in the league playoffs. I don't think Drexel or Manhattan had a chance either way. I was watching the post-bracket show and they were talking about how UMASS got robbed.

Oh, and UMASS is doing really badly in Lacrosse this spring. Syracuse and Drexel are doing really well. So I have to listen to Joe. I don't know if Manhattan even has a lacrosse team . Dad, do they?

At least St. Patrick's day is supposed to be warm and sunny tomorrow. Courtney has a softball practice so that's where I'll be 'partying' ;)

Okay, now I feel old ...

First some background.

When we bought our house, the model home, which the Realtors worked out of, was at a 90 degree angle to our backyard. Through a huge 6 foot by 6 foot window, you could look into our backyard. And our swing set.

Meghan had been asking for a swing set since before we moved into this house, so right after we moved in, and before her birthday, we got a big, wooden swing set installed. Meghan was 3 at the time.

So, one day Meghan and I are in the back and she is swinging. A man walks over and asks if his daughter can swing with us. They were signing a contract on their house and the daughter kept looking out the window at us. I agreed to let her swing with us. (This is also how we met about 80% of the neighbors as they bought houses. Even the main realtor would tell the parents they could let their kids swing with us!)

Fast forward to Monday night. I'm driving Courtney to softball and the SUV in front of me is being driven by that little girl (who is now 16) and I can see her dad in the passenger seat. They never left the right lane so I couldn't give the dad a hard time ;-)

Now, I feel old.

Chris

Mommy and Batman!

No, not Deb and Christopher, yet. But I had to share this after seeing it last week.

I'm sure everyone has seen a little boy or girl in the grocery store, Target or the mall dressed as a princess or Superman. For girls, it has always been 'cute', but most people laugh at the little boys.

Christopher's god parents, Maile and Joe have 3 boys and a girl. The boys were famous for their Batman costumes. They wore them everywhere.

When we found out we were having a boy, one of the comments from Maile and the others who had boys were 'wait for the costumes'. (I think Deb gave the mom's of boys a hard time about their costumes, because they keep telling her about them...)

So seeing Victoria Beckham walking around with a 4 year-old Batman was perfect. I have been kidding Deb that since Victoria has a matching outfit on, she'll need to match whatever Christopher wears.

Math book for middle school girls

I've been meaning to do this post for a long time, but Deb's reunion last weekend reminded me I needed to.

One of the challenges of having a middle school aged daughter is the changes in perception about what should (and is) easy for a girl to do. Meghan has always loved Math and has been pretty good at it. Unfortunately, Math "isn't something girls do". As an computer scientist by training, I've noticed the lack of women in math, engineering and science classes as well as in industry. I've read about how girls aren't encouraged to go into these areas but didn't know who/how it was being communicated until Meghan got to middle school.

Almost overnight she seemed to think it was okay if she wasn't good at math. That is bullshit so I kept on her, but being her dad, I think she wanted to argue with me more than get my help (sound familiar anyone?)

I don't know where I first cam across this book, but I heard great things about it and ordered it for Meghan. She really likes it and now when she has an issue that she can't figure out on her own, she gets the book out.

For those who recognize the face, that is 'Winney' from the 'Wonder Years'. Yes, she is a PhD in mathematics.

The reason I thought to write this post is that at Deb's reunion one of the common comments from people we talked to with Daughters in middle school was how much they are struggling/hate math, after loving it in elementary school. I told them about this book.

I've probably recommended it to a dozen or so people, including several at work who have bought it and saw an improvement in their daughters as well.

The web site is here.

You can buy it at any bookstore or online.

61 hours and 30 minutes

For the first time in almost 6 years, Deb and I went away for the weekend without the kids.

At 8:45 on Friday Maile picked up Christopher leaving us alone in house for the first time in a long time. By 9:30 we were on the way to the airport heading to Connecticut.

The flight was fine and we landed in White Plains around 3 pm. Being Catholic, and Friday during lent, we were starving! So went and got an early dinner. We met Pat and Kerry for a late dinner and drinks. Then returned to the hotel in the snow. Yup, it snowed about 4 inches overnight.



Here I am cleaning off the car. The 'ugly car' as Deb called it.



Saturday morning we went to my Dad's where I finally met my niece Anna and got to see John and Katharine in 'parent mode'. Kind of cool to watch them in action. I did tell John we bought another huge stuffed animal and he genuinely seemed upset! I was kidding. For now.

We the split up, I went to see my mom and Deb went with her sister and mom. We met up again around 4:30 to get ready. At 5:59 I finally started getting ready. We left at 6:02.

Here is a picture of us. We clean up good don't we?



We had a lot of fun at the reunion, seeing several friends and getting caught up. We then went out with several of Deb's friends from high school to a bar and didn't get to the hotel until around 2:30. That has to be the latest we've been out together that didn't involve a kid in the emergency room in a really long time.

More pictures here.

Sunday morning we got up, had a nice breakfast at the Windmill Diner and headed for the airport. After we checkin, we find out that flight is delayed 4 hours. Equipment failure. Okay, so we'll just hang out and spend some quality time together. Then they move it back another 2 hours.

Now White plains isn't a big airport so we didn't have many options. I went to talk to the agent to see what we could do and our only choice was to drive to LaGuardia. Yup. Change airports. She gave us tickets on the 5:55 flight at 4:00 pm. She did give us first class upgrades, but I suspect she didn't think we'd make it.

I rented a car and drove from White plains to LaGuardia in 40 minutes. Yes, I have the check out time and check in time from the Avis receipt. We got checked in , through security and to the gate by 5:40. Sat on the plane and shotgunned a beer.

The flight was uneventful and we got home around 10:15. 61 hours and 30 minutes after we left.

All kids were intact, Maile seemed sane and exhausted.

Meeting Anna

I was finally able to get to CT this past weekend and meet Anna, my niece.

She is very cute and has excellent taste in people she associates with. I held her with no fuss or crying. I can't say the same for someone traveling with me ...