Took myself out to dinner for New Year's Eve - just to Applebee's but it was great fun. Then went to a movie. Rented some videos, went home and watched one of them for awhile then Colin came over. We chatted for awhile but he was really tired so after he left, I continued with my movie, watched the ball drop, then back to the movie and to bed around 1:30.

I had taken myself out to dinner to the Barn Tavern here in Dover last night just as the snow was getting started. Because of the storm warnings, they had quite a few dinner reservations cancel out, but a surprising number of folks braved it out anyway and came in stomping their boots off. Had a great meal - highly recommend the Chicken Saute - with a couple of decent glasses of their house Shiraz. Stopped by Cartellie's Bar and Grill on my way home and had another glass of Shiraz and chatted with the bartender Dean. I hadn't been into Cartellie's since Christmas Eve, so Dean and I traded Christmas Day cooking and movie watching stories.

By the time I got home, there was about 2 inches down, the wind was blowing pretty good, and I was glad to settle into the movie The Italian Job. I listened to the wind howl all night.

This was supposed to be the weekend for The Great 2005 St. Patricks Day Backgammon Tournament And Irish Feast, but I decided Friday to postpone it to next weekend because I just knew this was going to be a really tough storm. Good call because by the time it was over we had got probably over a foot! And it was a heavy dangerous snow to boot... Not good to drive in.

I got Marissa in the middle of the storm Saturday afternoon. Roads were pretty clear but filling up; trucks weren't really able to keep up with it. I drove her over to the high school parking lot and let her see how the car handles in broad slides, donuts, power turns, panic stops with wheels straight and hard over. She did pretty good and learned a lot.

Then we drove up to get some videos and pizza. When we got back to the house, I zapped up some popcorn and we watched the movie Marissa insisted on getting: Alien VS Preditor. She just loves that thing. It was just great with the backdrop of the snow storm raging outside.

Colin showed up about 5pm with his friend Isaac so we all watched the end of that and then as we ate pizza we watched Wing Commander. But Colin and Isaac wanted to go out into the storm and use Isaac's truck to do some plowing. Marissa and I finished that movie and then watched Flight of the Phonix - which turned out to be a pretty good flick. Before that started, I lit a fire and that was really nice as the snow just continued to fall.

When that movie was over, Marissa and I had a snack and then she wanted to watch Twister. Hey, I was up for that and the fire was still crackling away nicely. But Marissa only made it for about half the movie. She was pooped and headed off to bed. She finished it when she got up Sunday morning though!

From there, 7 of us went over to the Una Wine Bar & Lounge for an after dinner drink. The place was hoppin' and a great time. Then, Shyam, Aslak, Ramon and I decided to hit the Brian Boru club. I had an hour drive home, so just ordered a Pepsi but knew I was in trouble when the guys lined the Tequila shots up on the bar.

It had been awhile since I had dinner at Cartellie's Bar and Grill here in Dover. It was Friday night, and I was looking forward to a relaxing dinner there. And I was not disappointed. There was a guitar duo playing in the bar and the place was quite busy. I had angel hair pasta with chicken in a pommadoro sauce that was spectacular.

Not that we could have had any of it, though. We were both stuffed from all the pizza we had. And besides the pizza, awhile back Rich had brought me some garlic olive oil and a bottle of 4 different seasonings to mix with it. So, we mixed up 4 small dipping bowles of it and cut up and toasted the loaf of bread JulieAnna had sent me out the door of Trillium Friday night with and we went right to it! Marvelous! What fun!

David Shaw from York had offered to assist in the cooking but turned out doing the whole thing. He had done a lot of the prep work the day before and after only about 45 minutes of heating and stir-frying presented us with a super meal.

The dice were in constant motion from 5:30 until 9:30 with just a brief interlude for dinner. Everyone had a chance to play everyone else - sometimes numerous grudge rematches. I could tell everyone was in the spirit by all the bad talk and yelling going on all night - even as people were going out the door at the end of the evening, they were making threats about "next time" and how the dice were going to crush them. Great fun!

Friday heading home from work: Traffic going South on the Maine Turnpike from work on Friday wasn't as heavy as I expected so I made good time home. Marissa had just arrived home a half hour or so before I got there and so the two of us headed off to Home Depot to get painting supplies for her upstairs bathroom project. From there we stopped at the video store for a couple days supply of DVDs to watch and then to Subway to get Marissa dinner.

Saturday prom picture taking: Saturday I slept in till about 9, and then started doing some paperwork. I took Marissa over to the High School to catch a noon team bus for a Lacrosse outing to Pinkerton Academy in Derry, NH. I had planned on going out to dinner later but the day was so great that I changed up and headed out around 4:30. I actually wanted to meet up with Colin and his date for his graduation prom to take pictures at Hilton Park at 5 anyway. You can see from all the squinting eyes that the sun was pretty bright! What a nice day! There are more pictures at this link.

Saturday around Portsmouth: Anyway, after getting the pictures, I headed off to Portsmouth to see what was up. Memorial Day was in full celebration swing in Portsmouth, that's for sure! I drove down to Prescott Park and wandered around looking at the river activity, and over to Pierce Island by the commercial fishing docks and public boat launches. There were people everywhere. The entire Strawberry Banke area and the South End were just teeming with folks out enjoying the warm sunny day.

And what a great time downtown Portsmouth was! Had to stop off at The Ferry Landing for a kick off beer. Then down Market and Congress Streets to take in all the activity. It's a really rare event that I have time to do this sort of thing, so I just acted like a tourist and went with the flow!

It was getting on in time, so I got back in the car and headed over to Paddy's American Grille at the Pease Tradeport for another beer in their great billiards lounge. The place was filling up and everyone was having a relaxing time. Met some folks and chatted for awhile. I do know enough, however, not to pick up a pool stick offered by a woman as that is a no win situation...

Saturday back to Dover: Well, it was pretty evident that was where the night was headed, so I begged off and headed up into Dover to find some food as it was after 8pm! Had a beer at the bar at the Crescent City Bistro and casually chatted with some folks. But I decided that a steak was in order, so I wandered over to The Chop Shop around 9:30, hung out there in the lounge for quite awhile, had Koz's Special Steak, and watched some tv on the big screen over the bar.

Unfortunately, that steak was pretty poor quality for The Chop Shop; very gristly - not tender at all. I've had better steaks at Applebee's, for cryin' out loud! And for half the price I paid there. I've had better at the Chop Shop too, so I just let it go and will give them another chance at some point down the road. I'm usually pretty uncompromising over less than excellent food when I am out, but why throw a rug over everyone's evening. Life is too short. Press on. Next.

Saturday back at home: It was late when I got home but Marissa was still up working in a frenzy on her painting job. There was no indication of stopping all the racket, so I flopped on the couch and watched one of the movies I had rented - Closer. Gad, what a waste of time that was. But then I was just looking for some mindless thing to do anyway.

After that, I just dimmed down all the lights, and stretched out on the couch listening to "The Blimp" out of Portland, ME. They are playing the top 500 rock songs through the weekend, and were down to the low 200's. It was great fun. It was well after midnight before Marissa finished up and asked me to come up and look at her work. What a terrific job! Would not have been my choice of color, but she really did a great job and the effect is just great. She went to bed, but I stayed up to listen to a live recording of "Forginer" on "The Blimp". Not real sure when that got over but is was pretty late when I tumbled into bed for the night.

Sunday Star Wars III: And though Sunday morning dawned brightly, I stayed in bed until 10. Got up and went to Dunkin Donuts for coffee for us. Marissa had left strict instructions not to wake her under any circumstances and what kind of coffee to get and all that. It was after 1pm before she rolled out of bed! But, hey! We're on va-ca-tion...

Marissa wanted to keep with the routine and get the food shopping done today rather than wait until Monday. We were pretty pressed for time, though, because we didn't get out of the house until just before 3:00pm. I wanted to make the 5pm Star Wars III movie in Newington so we were a blur up and down those aisles! We did pretty good because we finished up shopping, dropped the groceries off at the condo and put what needed refrigeration away, and were buying the movie tickets at 4:40pm! I asked the guy if we could still get into the 4:30 show and as it was still in preview mode, we dashed down the hall and found seats in the back just a few minutes before the show started. Is that great timing or what!

The movie got out around 7pm and we were starved! We came back to Dover and both had an Uno Burger at Uno's Chicago Bar and Grill at the Weeks Circle (by the way, one of the women I work with husband's uncle I think owned all that area at one time; interesting connection...). After that, we dropped off the movies we had rented the night before and got a couple more! We went back to the condo and watched White Noise together. An appropriate night for a thriller like that as it was misty and dark with a whinning wind... It was after 11pm so I headed off to bed, but Marissa stayed up to watch The Anchorman. I started it with her but found it really stupid so left her to it. She didn't care for it either, so switched to Chronicles of Riddick enjoying the Surround Sound until the wee hours of the morning.

Monday Memorial Day movie marathon: We got up around 9:00am and headed over to Dunkin Donuts to start the day off. Marissa worked on finishing up some of the rest of the work on the upstairs bathroom and I did these foolish web page updates. Around 11:30 we headed out to Wal-Mart for some shopping and just as we were leaving, it did a Monsoon on us! Just an unbelievable downpour. I got soaked wedging a couple of chairs and small table I had bought for the deck into the back seat of my car.

When I left the house a year ago, I received something like 60 emails of hope and encouragement. And all of those folks are still communicating with me. Life would be so hollow without the knowledge that there are friends out there with you on their mind. For this, I am grateful. I wish for all of you the same happiness out of life that I have experienced in this last year of readjustment.

Oh, I'm fifty—six and I jus' don't care,
'cause I been round an' about, an' ya: I been there.
So don't be tryin' to tell me I'm an old "F.O.P",
'cause I can still kick the shit out of you an' also thee...

She had me stop off at Dunkin' Donuts to get an iced mocca latte for her and her friend Hanah who was coming over to the condo to play some tennis and hang out. After I dropped them off at the Cote Drive house, I continued on into Portsmouth, NH. I just wandered through the South End and around the beautiful gardens of Prescott Park. I stopped for awhile and just watched the river traffic and enjoyed the bright warm sun - though it was chilly in the on-shore breeze. It was a relaxing segway from my normal full court press.

We had champaign with stuffed mushrooms and shrimp cocktail before David and I started in on each other over the backgammon board as I drank some of his Margaux. As the volumn of yelling increased, Kerra separated the combatants for a great dinner break of Sole Florentine, rice, and mixed greens and vegitable salad. Then back to the boards for more wine and play - and yelling.

I got a great night's sleep and was up around 9 Saturday morning. Hit the computer and got a lot of junk catch up work done. Also did some clean up work around the condo, and even found some time to park my butt in a chair out on the deck. The weather was great, too. Upper 80's for most of the day. Hot even! What a change from just a couple of weeks ago!

Went to 4pm Mass at St. Joseph and learned that both our Associate Pastors have been re-assigned to new parishes - one will become a pastor. They will be replaced at the end of the month by two new priests. Anyway, after Mass I headed up to the video store to pick up a supply of movies. Wandered down to the Portsmouth area just to see what was up but wasn't really up for the Portsmouth crowds. I stopped off around 8pm at Paddy's American Grill at the Pease Tradeport to catch a bite to eat, but they were closing at 8:30! On July 4th weekend!? Amazing... So, I just grabbed a quick bite in the lounge of the Asia for some Chinese food and headed home. Watched parts of two mind numbing stupid movies and finally gave up and went to bed around midnight.

Up around 9am Sunday morning, and headed out to grab coffee and the paper. Hit the computer to work on a book I am writing until around 1pm when I picked Marissa up at the house. On the way, we went by Great Bay Marine to check on Linnet's Wings. Then we thought we see if Neal was around. He had pulled his 32' cateraman Ming out of the water a week ago because he recently hit a shoal and tore up one of his hulls and knocked one of the rudders almost totally off the supporting posts. He's in the midst of fiberglass hell so we didn't linger long...

After that, we stopped off and grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then went food shopping. After dropping the food off at the condo, we went up to the video store to unload the dud movies and pick up new ones. Just loafed around the condo until about 5:00 when I decided it was time for a glass of wine while I chopped vegitables for my dinner - sort of a no frills stir fry deal of which Marissa wanted no part of.

We started the Spiderman 2 movie around 6:30 as Marissa wanted to get home early: she had an early work call in the morning and was tired. I got her home around 8:30 and so it was still early by the time I got back home. Watched one of the other movies I had rented and that was a flop. I fast forwarded through a lot of it hoping it would improve. It didn't. But that was ok as I got to bed around 11.

Had the day off today - Monday the 4th - so slept in until about 8:30am. Went down to the local convience store and treated myself to a big cup of coffee. Came back and worked on my writing all day, taking several pauses to enjoy the great weather out on the deck. But I had the library windows open, so even when I was inside it was almost like being outside. Just a great relaxing day. I could get used to this. In fact, next time there is a holiday like this: I'm taking a couple of extra days off. This is great!

Actually, I had bought stands for my new speakers but had never put them together. My long time student and friend Jim Nancarrow - who was a Radio Shack manager for 27 years - had sold them to me so I just figured who better to set them up! So this was a grand excuse for a party! I'm so easily entertained…

Roger had met Jake Tibbetts up in Booth Bay Harbor, ME several years ago when he was on a trip. The Tibbetts family runs all of the tugboats out of Boston Harbor so he had some interesting things to say. He graciously brought us aboard his boat and showed us around. He and Roger jawed about engines and generators and valves and all sorts of technical things while I amazed myself by watching the busy water traffic going by outside.

Of course, Jake then had to come and crawl around on Roger's boat - and I mean crawl around as the first thing he did was pop the engine room hatch and scramble down the ladder to have a look-see. This could have gone on far longer, except that Roger noticed the fog rolling in. A recent update in the weather was warning of severe thunder storms later in the day.

We slipped the dock lines and shoved off about 4:30. We thought we'd outrace the storm but about 6pm or so we started to get some slight chop and sprinkles. We could see spectacular flashes of lightening off in the far distance to the West followed by deep rolling thunder. Before the rain really started to splatter against the plastic windows on the fly bridge, we caught a brief glimpse of a whale several hundred feet ahead. That's a pretty cool sight.