It Happened One Life

Katie X

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:07:15 -0500

Today's my Katie-bug's 10th birthday! When she awoke, the balloon fairy had ravaged her room yet again, but sadly it will be for the last time. Just as candy doesn't taste as good when you're 10, so does the balloon fairy cease to come to spread inflated-rubber joy. Right now, Katie, Kim and Ellen are trekking off to get the birthday present that means most to her...Gerbils. Yes, we acquiesced to her continued badgering for a pet and in the last week she's obtained a new tree frog (Lyra!) and now a pair of gerbils. She is bouncing off the walls in anticipation. Picture of the little guys to come soon.

They Grow Up So...Odd

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 10:48:18 -0500

We flew down to North Carolina (via Norfolk, VA) for a vacation with both "families" for the first time. So Ellen, Katie and I are in the airport, and the topic of a Simpson's episode came up. In this episode, Homer is waiting to buy a gun (long story) and everything he sees looks like targets, including some little ducklings walking across the street in a neat row. Ellen said "I'd shoot the ducklings first!" with such vehemence that I had to ask why she would shoot the little ducks. She replies "Because they grow up and become geese!" Katie and I just started laughing, and then Ellen did too realizing what she said (although Katie didn't miss an opportunity to say "Uh, Ellen, they GOSLINGS grow up to become GEESE. Duh."

I gotz style

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:03:18 -0500

I write like
Isaac Asimov

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Could be worse. I could write like Alan Paton. Or Sue Grafton. *shudder*

Angel Food Cake with Strawberries

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:27:59 -0500

At the request of Nathalie, I am posting a very simple recipe for what to do with nice, fresh strawberries this summer: 1 angel food cake (bake it if you want -- I just bought one. Much easier). 2 lbs strawberries 2-3 tbs sugar, depending on how sweet you like it. 2 tsp lemon juice Wash strawberries. Cut ends off, and quarter or cut up smaller if you like. Put into large bowl and cover with sugar and lemon juice, stir well. Cover and let stand in fridge for 2-3 hours, stirring every so often. This lets the syrup form (it's called "Masceration"). For the whipped cream: 2 cups heavy cream 4-5 tbs powdered sugar 2 tsb vanilla Mix all ingredients in bowl and using either standup mixer or hand mixer beat on high until stiff peaks form in the cream (figure about 3-4 minutes). When the berries have formed juice and you're ready to eat, cut slices of cake, ladle over some strawberries and syrup and put a nice big blob of whipped cream on the side. If you want to get fancy, lightly toast the slices of cake in a toaster oven.

The Doctor is In

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:37:19 -0500

After watching the last episode of season 4 of Doctor Who, I was reminded how much I liked this show and decided it would be a good show for Ellen. We watched the first episode of season 1 ("Rose") today at lunch and she loved it. It's so up her alley--clever, sci-fi'y, and funny. I got a big thumbs up when it was done. Maybe we'll watch another episode later. When the episode started, it was a little creepy and she didn't know what to expect, so all of a sudden I feel a hand reach out looking for mine. Too cute.

Practice, Practice...uh, no.

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:32:56 -0500

Katie's having a guitar lesson. Her teacher is saying "you need to practice this after I leave." Katie: Can't i do it after I go out and play? Teacher: No, you really should do it now. Katie: Come on... Me: Katie, stop whining. Katie: I'm not whining, I'm trying to find a loophole. Me (literally out loud): Oh, Jesus... Do I really need this? Come on...

Dim Sum through a 9 year old lens

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:30:53 -0500

Katie and I are driving home tonight from Tae Kwan Do, when we pass the place near us that used to do a nice Dim Sum brunch. They've been closed more than a year now, so Katie was reminiscing. K: You know what I liked that they had? There was this one thing that had sort of wet meat in soft bread. D: Um...wet meat? K: Yeah. It was sweet and the outside was white sort of? D: a roast pork bun? K: Yeah! That was it. D: Wet meat....ew. Bet that description would NOT do well on a menu...

Birthday Cake

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 09:41:40 -0500

Seems like every year for the past few years, I've made Ellen a crazy birthday cake layered over this snowman mold we bought around 8 years ago. Going through my iPhoto, I was actually surprised to find that i've now made 8 varieties of snowman cakes. It's odd that the only vaguely artistic mediums i seem to work in are food related (Pumpkins and cakes...). Perhaps, knowing me, it's not that odd. Anyway, in what I believe is chronological order, here are the past 8 years cakes, with small descriptors: Orignal Frosty cake, for her 5th Birthday. Just followed the cake-pan instructions to frost this one: First full body snowman: Second full body snowman: After this last one, I decided to try fondant, which is a soft, rollable sheet of frosting that can be molded much more than icing. It's like sweet play doh. The rest of the cakes are fondant cakes.: At this point, I started getting bored with snowmen, per se, so I started putting personalities on the snowmen cake molds. This one is a knight from Ellen's game Runescape: Next, we have a Harry Potter version of the snowman: This one is Ang, from Avatar (the TV show, not the movie): And, finally, this year I decided to hit up the video game world for Mario. I liked this one the best: If I do another one next year, I think i'll have to make it hover or something... Happy 12th Birthday, kiddo.

Generous Bug

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:42:25 -0500

Recently, I had to take a piece from Katie's computer to fix a client's machine that was down completely. When I got home, I had to explain to katie that it could be a week or so before her computer was working again. She said it was OK, and proceeded to use a laptop, and Kim's computer, and pester Ellen a bit who barely let her touch her computer. However...at no point did she complain, or whine, or get angry. She was very appreciative when I hooked her computer back up and thanked me for doing it. This is a message to my little katie-bug. Thank you, sweetie, for being so generous and so understanding. I think you get a special treat this week, and you deserve it. I'm proud of how you behaved.

Report Card

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:37:45 -0500

Ellen's first report card for the new, big, scary 6th grade school. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Macsupport.com

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:28:08 -0500

I haven't blogged about this yet, but thought it was about time. About 6 months ago, Tony and I decided to take the "macsupport.com" domain name he owned and form a new company, creatively titled "MacSupport.com". He says it was my idea, although I don't remember specifically. I'll take credit if it's offered because, even if we fail, I think it's a good idea. With a loan from his dad (thank you Tony Ricciardi, Sr.!), we founded the company as 50-50 partnership. We lucked into finding a brilliant web developer, Francis, to create our site and ecommerce system, and, after finding a nice space on 7th avenue right near Penn Station hired a terrific young, eager first employee, Liam. I've never been a "boss." I've been an employee and a consultant, but i've never had "staff." I realize that one of the things that I didn't expect to feel with "staff" is proud. Proud that i'm paying them to work for me. I think that feeling goes across the board for Macsupport.com, actually. I look around our small office and can say "this place is mine." That's a GOOD feeling. It's a SCARY feeling, but it's a good one. Knowing that if I (or Tony) don't do the work, it simply won't get done has kept me on edge for months now, and much more so since we went live, November 6th, 2009. It turns out that all of the complexity of getting a company up and running is nothing compared to getting people to come give us money. Although I KNOW we offer a great service, at what I think is a pretty good value, advertising is not something i knew, or really know, anything about. However, hiring a firm, or even a person, to do the advertising for us is really out of the question financially. It's us or nothing. We've made some spending mistakes, to be sure, but I think we're making some progress. The questions seems to be: Can we survive long enough for people to know we're available? I hope so, because even though it's a lot of work, I'm really enjoying being an integral part of the team that makes it grow. So, without further ado, tell everyone you know that uses a Macintosh to head over to www.macsupport.com and buy an incident and use our service. We'll help you. It's what we do.

Pumpkin Time, 2009.

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:26:34 -0500

Welcome back, loyal readers, to this year's Halloween edition of It Happened One Life. This year, we have a bit of a reversal. Usually, MY pumpkin is the most complex and the kids do simpler pumpkins. This year, with how busy we've all been, we literally didn't decide on pumpkin patterns until yesterday, and we carved them today, ON Halloween. The nice part of this was that everything was very fresh when put outside. That's the bonus of Halloween on a Saturday. Also, this year, the kids did the pumpkins completely on their own, even when they had some trouble. Both of their pumpkins came out very impressive, especially when you consider that the transfer of the patterns to their pumpkins mostly didn't work and they both had to freehand the majority of their pumpkins. They did a great job! First, my pumpkin, appropriate to the game 3 of the Yankees/Phillies World Series: Next, Katie's terrific puppy dog: Finally, Ellen decided to do Edgar Allen Poe, and when we looked at it after she was done, it looked...well, terrible. But, as is the wont of pumpkin carvings, the proof is in the lighting, and I think it came out really well: All in all, another successful year of pumkining!

Uncertain math teacher

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:50:31 -0500

Ellen just told me that, for some reason, she brought up Schrödinger's cat in "math enrichment" class today. Her teacher, Miss Corrino, had never heard of it so Ellen, fairly accurately, explained the experiment, and the point of it. So, my 11 year old is explaining quantum mechanics to her math teacher. Perfect. She's so done there.

Use your imagination

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:37:56 -0500

Imagine sitting in a theatre, watching your favorite movie again. Now, imagine that theatre is Radio City Music Hall, and there are 6000 other people, all HUGE fans of that movie sitting around you, clapping and cheering. Now imagine further that not only are you getting to watch your favorite movie at this incredible venue, but there's a full live orchestra and chorus performing the entire Oscar-winning soundtrack right there on the stage in front of the film as it's playing. Further imagine that that movie is The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and after the movie, and after the lead vocalist sings "May It Be", the Oscar-winning song done in the film by Anya, that Howard Shore (the composer of the soundtrack), Billy Boyd (Pippin) and Elijah Wood (Frodo) come out to wave to the audience and take a bow, as if the characters were just walking off the screen. Lastly, but definitely not least, imagine that you get to do all of these wonderful things sitting next to your geeky, wonderful 11 year old daughter who is seeing this movie for the first time ever in this way, next to her dad, and absolutely loving every minute of it. If you can imagine all that, you have a pretty clear idea of what my evening was like. Magical, wonderful, and full of imagination. Sometimes, life just gives you lemonaide right off the bat.

The End of an Era

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:20:25 -0500

Tonight marks the end of a long time era. My parents are moving away from the east coast, a place that has been their home for their entire lives (apart from when they were at school). Never before have they taken residence outside of the NYC area, and I know they're nervous about what they'll find and how they make out. Despite the smart-assed comments i've made about their returning within a few weeks, I think they can make a go of it anywhere, so long as they have family (they're moving near Rachel, Jon, Sarah and Henry), a Starbucks and a Barnes and Noble. In Columbus, they'll have all this, but they'll have something much more valuable that they need to make their lives work--each other. Good luck, Mom and Dad. We love you and will miss you, but we'll see you often, I'm sure.