The Madeiran Feast

The Feast is this weekend. We plan on attending some to see a couple of tribute bands (Aerosmith & the Doors), eat some "carne de espeto" and mallassadas, and maybe a little Madeiran wine.

More about the AC trip

So, we're on the boardwalk and I'm trying out this little Coby camcorder that we got for free from Foxwoods. (It's like a flip video but cheaper). I took a bunch of lousy videos, then, while filming people on the beach I realized that the noise that I could hear above was Donald Trump's helicopter coming in for a landing. Maybe the Donald was on board!!! Exciting moments in a whaling city wanderer's travels!!!
Watch the video here.

We also saw two shows - Rodney Carrington - a country music style comedian who likes to sing a lot about body parts etc, but also does some serious touching stuff.

We also saw the acapella group "Straight - No Chaser". Their show was outstanding. We highly recommend seeing them when they start a national tour in the fall.
Listen here for yourself. Remember - there are NO musical instruments!
Straight No Chaser


More to come.

Another AC trip (with air conditioning)

We're in Atlantic city. On the way down the temp being registered on the car outside was 97*. HOT -- well it is July. While in line for the buffet (a must when we come to AC) a couple told us that the Trump Plaza casino was closed because they lost their air conditioning. The slots might malfunction in the heat & give everyone jackpots!!! It's cool here at Resorts.

Pittsford NY pics

I finally have a few of the pictures from last weeks trip.
I love the benches that have been painted for charity
Karen and Marlene and I sat on a few.

This link briefly describes the project.
http://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/41727
A few years back they had a similar project with painted horses.

I think these are great community pride activities.

Anyway we had a great relaxed trip. Karen & Mark always make our stays memorable.

Back in Pittsford NY

We came up to visit Karen & Mark. One torrential 15 minute rainstorm outside of Syracuse on the drive up, but the weather has been fine since. A little cool. I took some pictures but the camera's in the car. They probably won't be posted till the weekend. We had a nice meal at a Wegmans restaurant called "Next Door", though it's actually "Across the Street". Think I might talk to them about that. We also shopped at Wegmans and cooked a meal on the grill another night. Can't miss Wegmans when we come up here. It's really a different level of grocery shopping. As one example, they have a tea room in the center of the store with some 65+ types of tea. Enough for now. More to come soon.

Rochester New York & the Lilac Festival

We're in Rochester New York visiting Karen & Mark. Rochester is known as the Flower City and the annual Lilac Festival started this weekend. We watched some of the opening parade and of course wandered among the lilacs.

They reminded Marlene of her grandmother's yard.

The warm weather of a few weeks ago threatened to sabotage the festival (mother nature messing with man's best laid plans) and some of the bushes had past their peak, but there were lots of lovely blooms.

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Rochester is also the home of Kodak, so we were able to smile and take pictures on some Kodak sponsored benches.

There were arts & crafts, food and music. The weather was in the 60s with a breeze, and of course mostly clouds. (Rochester is one of the cloudiest cities in the USA).

All in all a very enjoyable day.

Sometimes the best laid plans..... turn into something else. My idea when I started this blog was to record the various travels that Marlene and I might take. But now I find myself discussing music more. We saw another concert this weekend. Jeffrey Osborne is a native of Providence RI and is most well known for his hit "On the Wings of Love". We saw his performance at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods. The show was very good. He still has a pleasant voice, and he can work an audience. He really got the crowd going with his hit that I had forgotten about - "You should be Mine - (the WooWoo song)".
One unusual aspect of the show was that it started with two comedians - the first of whom was not on the billing and I never did catch his name. The second comedian was Rick Smiley. He had the crowd in stitches with what he describes as "racial humor". He's black, and he talks about the differences in how people of different races act. His description of people singing in church was hilarious. His entire show was very funny, and he doesn't resort to swearing every other line. Actually Marlene and I couldn't recall any swearing - we've seen a lot of comedians in Atlantic City and believe me, they usually love to swear.