Stay tuned loyal readers. Today will be the first trip to the (New) Yankee Stadium for the ladies and me. It's also BAT DAY!! Even Debbie is being a good sport and tagging along for the entire show. Megan is insisting on bringing both her T-ball glove and her pink batters helmet- she promises to share both with Devon. We may need a ruling from the Commissioner to settle that one. More details after the game.

Greatest Movie Ever

One of the greatest moves we ever made was upgrading our cable service to get a DVR, (patents be damned, everyone calls it a TIVO). The DVR lets us record much easier than the old VCR's, you can set it to record by keyword- Syracuse of course being the most key of words-, or by Series name etc. I like to check out the next few days and record obscure stuff that Debbie and I (OK usually just I) can watch after the kids go to bed. Turner Classic Movies has been rerunning classic silent films for the last week or two and I ran across "Speedy". Speedy was made in 1928 and stars Harold Lloyd and BABE RUTH!! How could I not watch that?


I expected to fast forward through most of it for a glimpse of the Babe, but last night I put it on as the girls were getting ready for bed. Lo and behold they were instantly captivated and watched the first half of the movie before bedtime. As soon as they woke up this morning, they wanted to watch the rest. We read the title cards to Devon, Megan followed on her own.


The hero, Speedy (Harold Lloyd) is a baseball obsessed underemployed everyman who is trying to convince his girlfriend, Jane to marry him. Jane's father, Pops, runs a small streetcar. Some bigshots need to close down Pops streetcar so they can run a central subway through the neighborhood. Speedy battles the thugs hired by the bigshot to win Pops a big buyout and, of course Jane's hand in marriage.











Along the way you get to see Coney Island in its heyday, Babe Ruth handing out baseball to orphans, car chases, a street brawl with septuagenarian Civil War veterans- who are of course on Harold Lloyd's side, and a dog that saves the day. Funny how little has changed in 100 years of filmmaking. I particularly enjoyed the subway scene, it seems that subway "etiquette" hasn't changed much since 1928 either.


Still it was enormous fun, Harold Lloyd was an amazing comedian, sometimes I forget that Charlie Chaplin wasn't the only brilliant artist making silent films. After the movie ended, the girls asked me to record some more Laurel and Hardy who they also love. I think I'll sneak in some Chaplin and Keaton too.

The Perfect Fish

I’m a bit tardy with this, but better late than never. A couple of weeks back I took Devon and Megan on their first real fishing trips. Since the girls are still young I decided to take them separately; the fact that this let me go fishing twice in one week HAD NO BEARING ON THIS BRILLIANT PARENTING DECISION.

Since the girls are four and five (shortly to be six), I thought a half day trip was about all they could handle- good call there. I decided to take them on the Sea Queen VII which leaves from Sheepshead Bay. Forest Hills is only a 20 minute drive from Sheepshead Bay , so making the 8AM departure didn’t mean we had to get up at some ungodly hour. I could have done the afternoon trip but like most superstitious fishermen I always think that earlier is better. Now the rational part of my brain knows that tide and weather are important, but rational takes a holiday when it comes to fishing.

I took Devon on the first trip- since she is the younger child she is usually the second one to get to do things- going on the first boat trip was a huge treat. We caught a small fluke on the first drift. One of the things I was worried about was that the girls would be disappointed if they only caught small fish- no problem there. Devon was as happy with sea robins and skates as she was with the fluke- not having a fish in the cooler wasn’t a problem either. I think her favorite fish was the second one we reeled in- it was a sea robin that has narrowly escaped a bluefish and was missing a tail. It must have happened a while ago the would was completely healed.

Kyle the mate on the boat, was fantastic. He went out of his way to be friendly to Devon, he brought over all kinds of fish to show her and checked with us all day to make sure things were going well. Some boats think young kids are a pain, but these guys were absolutely fantastic.

Megan made the second trip of the week. Now getting Megan out of bed can be an adventure, but as soon as I told her it was time to get up, she popped out of bed raised her arms in the air and was ready to go- gotta love the enthusiasm.

For this trip I decided to take a shot with something new. I bought a package of Berkeley Gulp squid. I tried to get sand eels, but there were none at the Sports Authority.
Since Megan is a bit older I let her hold my rod (with a little help) and dead sticked a rental with the Gulp squid. Megan landed a fluke on the first drift, and I was shocked to find one had swallowed the entire squid even on my dead stick. That stuff really works. After about an hour Megan decided it was more fun to have Dad hold the rod until a fish bit- then she would take over the reeling duty, so we fished the power bait for the rest of the day and had steady action. Once again Kyle and his fellow mates worked their tails off and went out of their way to be friendly to Megan. We didn’t land any keepers, but the crew gave us the fillets from a keeper fluke that they caught along with a couple of cocktail blues. The fluke made great fish and chips.

We sandwiched in a visit to Yankee Stadium in between the two fishing trips. All in all a classic week.