Zygotic Fanfaronade Panglosian Balderdash

Salad Is A Cargo

Thriller meets Saturday Night Fever meets tikka masala



I wanna leave this in 2010.

Scranton? What!

The Electric City! No? No Office fans out there. Well now I'm embarrassed.

President's Day. Washington's birthday. Another holiday we're not quite sure how to celebrate. Let's see: Presidents > old guys > mostly dead > dead people's things > powdered wigs > antiques > ANTIQUING! We'd get there someway or another.

Since we weren't in the market for anything at the time and browsing was our major intention we headed out towards Scranton to a place we'd never been called The Carriage Barn. Assured that it was the largest collection of fine antiques in northeast Pennsylvania how could we go wrong?



Cool building and a lot of interesting stuff but ultimately not our kinda place. We're more into the hidden treasures and great finds, diamond in the rough type stuff and things that have price stickers under say $47,000. But it was a nice place!




We headed into Scranton where we found another antique place, Red Barn Collectibles, but this place was a real pile of junk. I mean literally there were piles of junk all over the place and we weren't in the mood for scavenging. I'm sure there was some interesting stuff there but we felt a little creeped out by the whole place. This was a photo I found the urge to snap while there.



We headed over to the Steamtown Mall to see if we could cash in some of these Auntie Anne's freebies I got over the summer but the Steamtown Mall is the one mall in America that doesn't have an Auntie Anne's pretzel stand and the Bavarian Pretzel Bakery didn't seem amused when we tried to use them there. But boy these Scrantonites seem to really embrace the Office characters. They were all over the place, from adds for Office tours that'll set you back $45 (pretty steep for a show that shoots in Van Nuys California) and murals of the actors all over town. We rode in an elevator with Dwight.



He didn't say much.

We walked ourselves down to the courthouse and took a photo with the Electric City sign, probably the one and only landmark type site found within Scranton, so... there it is.




What else could we do to celebrate President's Day? Let's see: George Washington > couldn't tell a lie > cherry tree > the Cherry Hill Gang > the Indian goddess Ganga > Indian food! We did it again. But mainly we stopped because Laura was starving and she saw this...



Notice the "All You Can Eat" portion of the sign. But you couldn't really miss the place. It stuck out a little.



Here's Laura patiently waiting for me to snap a photo of her first plate of food. Moments later this was all gone. The plate too.



And the best thing about this place was the orange/rose ice cream. Holy crap this was so good I opted out of the rice pudding which after Indian food, c'mon. We need to start adding rose extract to everything we eat.



So Scranton was slightly underwhelming, but maybe we were expecting the hijinks from Dunder-Mifflin or maybe we just were there on an off day. Maybe we were off, but I doubt it.

Balloons & Biryani

New York City, Upper West Side

November 21st, 2007

hanging out with cousin Rachel

seeing balloons for Thanksgiving Day Parade

and hijacked to an Indian restaurant

two years ago today

This Here Is The New Year

This New Years promised to be like noneother. The past few we've spent the new year sitting on a couch sipping some wine, champagne if we felt ambitious, watching wannabes talk about how the new year ball is made of the worlds finest Waterford crystal and pearls digested thru a sperm whales belly and have Dick Clark drool off another countdown. But this year, with Mike & Andrea down, we figured we'd go all out, or all out for us anyhow.

Mike & Andrea prepared another delicious dinner, this time curry chicken.



We planned on having taquitos, so this was an upgrade.

We had a few drinks and for a while there feared whether or not we'de make it to the midnight festivities. This is the girls with 3 hours to go. Outlook bleak.



We decided to get the party started early and shoot some fireworks off in the front yard. We hadn't realized how cold it had gotten so shooting the fireworks had to be done in sessions so we didn't freeze. Mike was master of ceremonies.










Took a little time to get them going with the cold wind and all but... they went.







And this... this here, is the new year.



Happy New Year Everyone! We're gonna start stockpiling illegal fireworks now so if you don't know what your doing next New Years Eve... you know where the party'll be.

Off, To Indiana. BUT FIRST.....

We're packing. Scratch that. I'm packed. She's been packing since Tuesday. We're going to Indiana with the folks for the weekend to visit the elder siblings Brad & Erin & their boys Braden (4) & Dylan (9 months). It promises to be an adventure, complete with pontoons, ice cream plants & the like.

So I thought I'd take this moment to kinda catch up with what we've done the past few weeks, as it has been full of it's own adventures, treasure hunts, & rainbows [literally].

So...

I went on tour. Look at me go


Fran joined me at Giants Stadium, Yeah!


We had giant ice cream cones with Mike in NY. We each had two


A barge was on fire in Rhode Island


We saw fireworks


Then we assembled a posse and took to the streets for the 4th of July


Eric Brust picked us up that night and we spent the next day with him, first just driving around Boston...


...and then we rented kayaks and took to the Charles River


We came upon a remote island and discovered a hidden treehouse, in which we decided to stay & start our own civilization


Exploring ensued



We tamed the river. KayaKINGS!!!!!


We topped that day off the only way we know how; with some of the best Indian food in New England...


...and some Ben & Jerry's


We returned home, rather exhausted, to the basement in Georgia just in time for Madison's 3rd birthday party


For fun we took Madison to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens



And then some ice cream (a reoccurring theme)



That pretty much brings us up to date. Click on the pictures to take you right to the photo albums for the full experience.

Wish us luck.