Hurricane Sandy From NE Philadelphia

Well, it came and it provided a lot of fanfare for the network news channels. They were all over the place filing up the television with unneeded information. Not that some of the info wasn't needed but the majority of it was unnecessary. The family, mine that is, were at the house playing games and watching movies that we rented earlier in the day. Not a bad time to catch up on some of the movies I am too cheap to go see at the theater. So, my son, my wife and I watched The Avengers. It was pretty decent and only cost us one dollar to rent. My daughter chose to watch Katie Perry's movie from her room. She just doesn't like the super hero stuff. The food of choice for us was grilled cheese sandwiches and soup, yummy. There was a lot of snacking also, but when isn't there. There were board games and just fun watching the storm from the window. Then around 6:00 p.m. my neighbor's fence out back started to give. I went out to try and hold it back with some bungies but eventually, Sandy took them and the fence with it. Just as I was done with the fence I turned my attention to my neighbor's house out front whose roof had just folded over onto his car, which was parked in the driveway. So, I go over and knock on the door. He tells me he had just come home only 15 minutes prior from the shop where his car was just repaired. He looked upset, but I kept thinking how lucky he was that he was not standing out there when this happened. The car roof was caved in and he wanted to get the pieces to a safe location before they flew around and hit other things. I just wanted him to go in the house. Then it happened, the neighbor's roof next door started to buckle. The roof folded over right before our eyes. It was so scary. We just ran to the street to avoid getting hit. And that was it for us. I insisted that the first neighbor go in the house and I made my way towards my house. The rest of the night we spent listening to the gusts outside and hoping that nothing else got damaged and no one else got hurt. There were some other moments of sidding being torn from nearby houses. An awning next door flew right off into the lawn. After it was all said and done, the storm made it's presense known and reminded us how fragile our existence is. After watching some of the news reports from the shore towns and New York I am very happy to the extent that we got hit. Many people are suffering from severe damage. I saw one report of a tree that was three hundred years old and was planted by William Penn. The family seemed so upset that the tree had made it all those years and finally fell under their watch. I think that is a bit odd to think that their presense had anything to do with it. But, we are humans with big egos. So, what can I say? Sandy packed a punch but we are all okay. Hopefully everyone makes a full recovery from the damages and life as we know it can resume as the little ones get ready for the fun tomorrow of going door to door for candy. Happy Halloween everyone!

1st Camping Trip

Believe it or not, I am 41 years old and have never gone camping in my life. Not that I haven't been asked or given the opportunity. Heck there have been times where I have slept in my car when I couldn't get a motel room. I've slept on a plane across country, and anyone can relate to the difficulty in sleeping in a coach class environment. I have even spent an entire night in Wallmart on Black Friday in the milk isle with my wife, who might I add, has never let me live that one down. So, this year my boy joined the cub scouts for the first time. He is a Tiger and without any knowledge of the whole pack thing, I was really excited about him broadening his horizons. What I didn't know was that at the same time, my horizons were going to get a jolt themselves. I learned of this camping trip about a month or so ago and since then have been coping with the idea. Friends have told me it will be great and I actually got into it along the way. I bought a sleeping bag and some other supplies that we would need and with the help of the wife, I gathered together a pack of things that would complete our camping preparations. Saturday night was the big day. The wife and I packed the truck and kissed goodbye for what could have been the last time. There were tears and some hesitation, but she was able to pry me off of her. Haha! The camping trip was a one nighter at Fort Washington State Park. I had never been there but drove by it just about everyday when my wife and I were dating. It's a beautiful park right off of Rt. 73. We arrived at 5:00 and chose a tent site in the spot designated for our troop. Bubba and I started to unpack our things and before long the two of us were setting up our tent out there in the great wilderness. Don't burst my bubble now. We finished in about twenty minutes and I was impressed. Everything went smoothly and neither of us got hurt. I snapped some photos and man it felt good knowing that our quarters were set up and secure. The evening went so scoutingly. Is that a word? We had hot dogs and chips, hot chocolate and after all of that we made smores by the camp fire. Yeah that's what I said. Smores by the fire. Tyler earned his first badge last night, the Bobcat Badge. It was very cool seeing him all proud of himself and the best part of it all was watching him make friendships that may be there for the rest of his life. His one little friend, Sean hung out with us for most of the night and seemed to really like my Bubba. When we went back to the tent for the night we had a ball playing games on my phone. We played Stupid Zombies which has been our latest. We also watched a Spongebob cartoon and then I listened to Bubba complain. He was cold, he was hungry, he was not comfortable, then he was asleep. Not too long after that I was asleep myself. The worst thing about camping on a cold night is having to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. A cold walk in pitch black is not exactly the easiest thing to get back to sleep from. However, with all the lumpyness of the ground, the cold in the air and the prospect of being eaten alive by Sasquatch, it was a great night of father and son bonding. And now, as I commemorate the experience in this post he will be able to see it through my eyes one day. For those of you who took a moment to read this, thank you very much, and hopefully you will take one thing with you from it. One day your children will hear stories of things you did with them when they were young. You can pull out all the photos you like, but when they read something like this they will realize what it meant to you. That you took the time to sit down and write down your feelings on the event. A picture may speak a thousand words, but the actual words themselves speak volumes. G-d Bless.