August 9, 2010 by kim.

The San Rocco Festival took place this weekend (and a couple of days before) in Fort Lee, NJ, (as it has for the last 82 years here), and in many different cities around the country. It’s a festival celebrating Saint Rocco, the patron saint of pestilence, where he was said to have prayed for and cured many of a disease that had struck Italy.

There’s your history lesson for the day.

The festival consisted of food, music, and games in a 3 block area of the town. Yesterday was the day of the procession of Saint Rocco.

A statue is carried around the town, and money is pinned to it to raise funds for the Italian American Mutual Aid Society. Here are a couple of videos of the procession:

Pretty cool, no?

Other than that, it was a pretty small affair. We didn’t go on any rides (too expensive) or play any games (you know how fair those games are), but we walked around and did get plenty to eat:

Italian Sausage with onions and peppers

Deep Fried Oreo

Corn

Cannoli (we shared this)

Dippin’ Dots (ice cream that tasted like Nerds candy – we tried a little, but didn’t eat much of it)

Popcorn (we shared this)

Sno-kone (blue-raspberry flavor – shared it)

Cotton Candy (blue-whatever flavor – again, we shared it)

Surprisingly, we weren’t sick after eating all that junk food. We really did like the deep-fried Oreos, although we initially weren’t too sure about it. Deep-fried? Oreo? It’s not something I’d eat every day, but it was tasty.

Next month – Feast of San Gennaro in NYC!

Posted in Fun, Entertainment, Celebrate, Food, Happy | No Comments »

August 6, 2010 by kim.

I’m so awesome, I have a hotel named after me:

If only it were true …

Posted in Fun, Observation | No Comments »

July 18, 2010 by kim.

This is one of the amazing things you can see in New York City:

These two creatures are one of four in a group called the Xylopholks. According to their website, all are well-schooled in music and play different venues around the city to entertain us human folk.

The clip I provided doesn’t really do them justice (I was only using my camera video recorder), so check out their website (www.xylopholks.com) and see how wonderful they really are!

Posted in Video, Fun, Entertainment, Animals | No Comments »

July 11, 2010 by kim.

Chris and I were visiting his family in Fredrick, MD over the 4th of July, and we decided to take a side trip to Gettysburg, PA. I had never been to Gettysburg before and this was a fantastic time to go, since the battle took place from July 1-3 in 1863 and how neat to be in such a historic spot right around the time it happened all those years ago and it was RIGHT THERE, so we went.

We opted to do an audio tour instead of walking around to different battle sites, only because it was in the upper 90s and we thought it would be a shame to see one monument and get heatstroke, thus putting a damper on the whole vacation. We ended up buying a CD from what we thought was the official visitors center, only to find out at the end of the tour that we had entered Gettysburg from a back way and missed the MAIN visitors center which probably had an audio tour CD that didn’t sound like it was from the early 50s. It almost sounded like one of those filmstrips from grade school minus the beep to tell you to change to the next slide. Instead we would hear, “drive left past the stop sign and continue on to the next monument. You should be driving at 15 miles per hour so that what I say matches up with what you see. If you haven’t gotten there yet, turn me off, and turn me on again when you arrive. Then, pull over to the side, and I will tell you more about this monument.”

Weird.

We stopped at many monuments and took many pictures, but we moved quickly so we wouldn’t melt. Then, we came upon Longstreet Tower, named after General James Longstreet. Naturally, we wanted to climb this behemoth, so we tore ourselves from the air conditioned car and began our ascent.

After the first set of stairs, I was already winded. I couldn’t believe it! All the walking I do and one set of stairs almost does me in? Well, I wasn’t going to let that happen. I was determined to get to the top, and get to the top, I did. All 120 steps. Then I sat down for a while to catch my breath. When I finally recovered, I took a couple of pictures.

This is the East View:

Isn’t it pretty?

This is the South View:

Well, the South View sign, anyway, and the parking lot, of course.

Here is a view looking down:

Both interesting and a bit freaky, no?

Finally, the tower itself:

Tall, isn’t it?

What – did you really think I was going to show you monuments and things of that sort? I’m showing you things that people don’t get to see much of. Parking lots, signs, large towers …

Okay, okay. You win. Here’s a monument that I found rather interesting:

No political statements here – I just like the statue.

Isn’t history fun?

Posted in Fun, Holiday, Vacation | No Comments »

May 15, 2010 by kim.

Even Matilda:

See?

Posted in Fun, Entertainment, Animals, Happy | No Comments »

May 1, 2010 by kim.

That’s what we are. Were. That’s what we WERE when we bought this remote controlled helicopter from a kiosk in the Paramus (Jersey) mall:

Of course, someone was demonstrating it so of course it looked like it flew perfectly, and OF COURSE we bought it.

Silly us.

Chris had been wanting one for over a year, but this past Christmas when I was going to buy him one from the Sharper Image, I saw that it had been recalled due to the following hazard:

Hazard: The rechargeable lithium ion battery inside the helicopters can overheat, catch fire, and ignite nearby combustibles, posing fire and burn hazards to consumers.

Well, that was for some other helicopters, not this one. This one is just fine. Fine meaning, it flies normally 20% of the time when the pieces aren’t falling off and it isn’t trying to bury itself into the carpet.

Let me show you what I mean.

Here is a video of the rare moment when Chris was able to control it:

Wasn’t that a smooth landing?

Here is the video of this quality piece of machinery going totally haywire:

That beeping you heard at the end was the carbon monoxide detector being set off by the frequency of the remote control. How a piece of plastic that runs on six batteries (not included) is able to do that, I don’t know. Must be some high-tech kind of gadget.

On one of the many kamikaze fights it took, this is where it landed:

Fitting. We shelled out a whopping thirty bucks for five minutes of fun and it ends up right in the crapper. Was it worth it?

Well, I got a post out of it, didn’t I?

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April 16, 2010 by kim.

No, not the stand-up kind. I’m talking about comic strips. Sunday funnies. The Green Sheet for those of you who remember the old Milwaukee Journal.

I love reading the comics in the Sunday paper. I don’t often buy a paper myself, but my mom will save up the comics from the paper she gets and will mail them to me. That may seem a bit silly to you, but it makes me happy to no end.

So, I was catching up on the comics the other day, and I actually had to look up some of the words I saw. I wasn’t even reading anything heavy like Doonesbury or solving a math riddle given by Jason in Fox Trot. The comics that I got hung up on were Baldo, Get Fuzzy, and Sally Forth (archives).

Let me show you.

First up is Baldo. I wasn’t familiar with this comic, as it must have come from another paper (not my usual Fond du Lac Reporter):

Cascarones was the word that threw me. Initially, I thought that they were throwing hard-boiled colored eggs at each other. After looking it up, I see that they were throwing confetti eggs. Eggs that were hollowed out, rinsed, dried, and filled with confetti. Fun!

Next up – Get Fuzzy:

Being familiar with the characters, I knew that Robert was probably talking about the sport of Rugby. Didn’t mean I knew what he was talking about, though. Here are the definitions:

Scrum
-noun
1. a Rugby play in which, typically, three members of each team line up opposite one another with a group of two and a group of three players behind them, making an eight-person, three-two-three formation on each side; the ball is then rolled between the opposing front lines, the players of which stand with arms around a teammate’s waist, meeting the opponent shoulder to shoulder, and attempt to kick the ball backward to a teammate.

Ruck
-noun
A play in Rugby in which a mass of players gathers around a ball dropped by a tackled ball carrier, with each player attempting to gain possession of the ball by kicking it to a teammate.

Maul
-noun
A play in Rugby in which a mass of players gathers around a ball carrier being tackled and attempts to gain possession of the ball when it is released.

Finally, we have Sally Forth:

DSM-IV? Never heard of it. Is that some sort of texting shorthand? No. It means Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition.

Really? Who would have gotten that? A psychiatrist, I suppose …

Point is, you can always learn something new. Even from something as seemingly simple as the funny pages.

Posted in Fun, Entertainment, Happy | 1 Comment »

April 7, 2010 by kim.

Chris finished work on a rap video for the book How to Ruin Your Boyfriend’s Reputation by Simone Elkeles about two months ago, and I’m finally getting around to posting this now. This book is the third in the How to Ruin … series. I assisted by taking pictures, documenting the process with Chris’s video camera, and running playback for filming. Meaning, I pressed PLAY on the iPhone and played the music back for the singing and dancing.

Here are some pics!

Recording the soundtrack

Framing a shot

Watching the action

Directing

Cast and Chris

Cast and Simone

Here is the video!

CAST
Amy played by Allynn Simons

with:
John Alix
Erin Krom
Samantha Schechter
Samantha Shafer
Tim Winski

CREATIVE TEAM
Written by:
Simone Elkeles
www.simoneelkeles.net

Directed, Edited, and Music by:
Chris LoDuca
LoDuca Creative and Production
www.loducacreative.com

Choreographed by:
Kristen Gurbach Jacobson

Director’s Assistant:
Kimberly LoDuca

Shot and recorded at American Movie Company:
www.americanmovieco.com

Woo woo!

Posted in Video, Fun, Happy | 1 Comment »

March 14, 2010 by kim.

You know things are getting better when I’m able to make the mile trek to the Original Pancake House:

Nothing says incentive like hearty bacon and pancakes that taste like beer. Yummy!

Maybe it’s the yeast or something that makes them taste that way. Whatever it is – I like it. I found this PDF that explains everything you ever wanted to know about their pancakes – Pancake info

After breakfast, we wandered over to Borders to pick up a couple of books:

Chris has been reading the Dark Tower series by Stephen King (my FAVORITE author). I own the whole series (as well as every other book he wrote), but books six and seven are so heavy that we decided to pick up the paperback versions so Chris didn’t break his back carting them around the city. So much easier to read on the train this way.

Then, on a whim, we picked up these:

Remember Little Golden Books? How fun!

After shopping, we went to Starbucks for coffee and just relaxed before our walk back home.

Oh, what a beautiful morning … !

Posted in Fun, Shopping, Food | No Comments »

December 25, 2009 by kim.

Seasons Greetings from us!

Here is a stop motion video that Chris created using our Christmas Village and his 76-year-old Nativity scene that belonged to his grandparents when they first got married:

And here is a video that Chris put together (in about an hour) of a festive fire truck that drove up and down the streets of Fort Lee, NJ on Christmas Eve:

Happy Holidays!

Posted in Fun, Holiday, Happy | No Comments »