pesciottas

Here's a photo I printed for my mom from a scan. From the back left: her father Stephen, uncle Anthony, uncle August; front left aunt Rose, grandfather Marcello. The year is likely 1942.

iPod nano and ...

Angela got a new iPod nano (8 gb) yesterday. She also got the "I'm an athlete" arm band to carry it around with so that everyone would know she is a jock. Isaiah, not to be outdone, had to get his MacBook Pro upgraded to a 200 gig hard drive, 2 gb RAM, 750 gig external drives, a portable 100 gig external drive, blue tooth headset, etc.. I guess he figures that since he is finished with high school, the money just starts rollin' in. Sweeeeeet ... to quote him, "now all I need is an mp3 player."

angela award

Angela received an Academic Achievement award today for 3.7 (on a 4.0 scale) or higher for 3 consecutive trimesters. we are proud.

hanging out

Well I'm sitting at the Chevy dealer again waiting for the ole oil change/tire rotation.

memorial day

From my visit a few weeks ago to the Normandy American Cemetery.

rowing

We had a great time at a picnic for Angela's rowing club (GMRC). I love how much she loves it. We got to see the kids do a short race and then ate some Richard's pizza and famous steak sandwiches while they gave out some end of the season awards.

red robin

Barb and I ran some errands yesterday while waiting for Angela to finish rowing. We stopped by Red Robin and both enjoyed the Bleu Ribbon Burger - a juicy burger basted with a tangy steak sauce and topped with crumbled Bleu cheese. Served with onion straws,lettuce,tomatoes and zesty Chipotle mayo on an onion bun. Yum yum!!!

We also managed to get over to Jungle Jim's where I found Monin syrup for making some nice Italian Sodas.

rouen

While in Normandy we spent a night in Rouen. This is a nice enough town but not very exciting. The Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen is there containing a tomb of Richad the Lionheart in which his heart is apparently contained ... the rest of him is elsewhere. I didn't see his heart. Oh well ... it's just a lionheart.

Rouen is also the city where Joan of Arc was burned.

I found this candy thing most interesting.

normandy

I got to do some touring of Normandy, France last week so I'll post some snaps over the next few days.

Midwest Junior Rowing Championship

My club participated in MJRC this past weekend and unfortunately didn't place in any of our races but it was still a lot of fun. We were out there Saturday and Sunday racing and watching other races. 15+ hours of practice a week totally paid off and we can't wait to do more!
Here are a few select photos but if you click on"Angela's Picasa" on the side it will take you to the full album. Also, i'll be writing a bit about it on my own blog later this week and will put a link here for that. Enjoy!

Early morning

Going out for our warmup

Relaxing after our first race:

prom

Angela went to prom last night with Scott and Isaiah went with Morgan.

memories

As I went through an old photo album, I found this snap of Isaiah and me messing around ...

rss

A blog I read regularly just posted a step-by-step guide to use a feed reader from Google. I've copied the post here. If you do any amount of blog reading, a feed reader is a must have tool.

If you read even one blog regularly, RSS is for you. It will save you time, I promise.

Some of you may be wondering, "Doesn't everyone use RSS?" The answer is no; less than 6% of internet users take advantage of this extraordinarily helpful technology.

I've read lots of posts on what RSS is and how to use it, but they're limited in their helpfulness. There are just too many options out there to fully explain any one of them in a post that tackles RSS as a whole. So I am going to use the majority of this article to help non-RSS-users get started on Google Reader.

If you follow these instructions, you will be subscribed to your favorite sites and already saving time by the end of this article.

What Is RSS and Why Is It Worthwhile?

The acronym RSS stands for a couple things. The most helpful as far as a clear explanation of what it's for is "Real Simple Syndication."

RSS is a technology that allows you to subscribe to any website that has one of these in the address bar. You can then track every site you're subscribed to without having to go to each individual site.

If you're like me there are a couple websites that you love to read. Without RSS, I would be looking at these sites regularly to see if there were new material. Depending on how often I checked, I wouldn't see anything new most times I visited.

With RSS, I never again have to go to a site that has no new material. I subscribe to the sites I enjoy and am updated every time they post.

(This is especially helpful for keeping track of those bloggers who we want to read but who only post every 3 months.)

Why I'm Focusing on Google Reader

If you're not a current RSS-user and would like to be, my hope is that by the end of this article you'd have everything you need to begin. In order to do that, I need to pick one feedreader to show you how to use. ("Feedreaders" are the programs that people use to collect and manage their RSS subscriptions.)

I've chosen to use Google Reader for 3 reasons:

• It's free and available to everyone no matter what computer or browser you use.
• It is by far the most popular feedreader that's out there right now. On both the blogs I write for, Google subscribers are between 35-40% of the readership. The next most popular feedreader only claims about 5% of readers.
• It's really easy to use, so let's get started.

Setting Up Google Reader

1. Create a Google account.
2. Go to Google Reader and make sure you're signed in.

Adding a Subscription in Google Reader


1. Select "Add Subscription" from the left column.
2. Type in the address of a blog you want to subscribe to and click "Add."



Adding a Subscription from Elsewhere Online

1. When you are visiting a site that you want to subscribe to, click on the orange icon in the address bar or on a link provided on the site.


You will either see a page like this:

Or like this:


2. On either page, select Google as the reader you want to subscribe with.
3. On the first page, you will need to click "Subscribe Now."
4. On either page, choose "Add to Google Reader."

Reading and Managing your Subscriptions

Reading Options


You now have a few of your favorite blogs listed in the left column of your Google reader page. The best way to go through your feeds is up to you. Here are some options.

• Home, at the top of the left column, is where you can see new, unread posts listed with just a few lines of content.
• All Items, just below "Home," is where you can see new, unread posts listed with all their content.
• Selecting an individual feed from the list in the left column allows you to see new posts as well as scroll down through older ones.

Scanning Options

In the upper right corner you will see tabs for "Expanded view" and "List view." These allow you to decide whether you see all content as you scroll through your feeds or just titles and the first few words.


Marking as Read

You will mark a post as read when you click on it. Scrolling through posts will also mark them as read, although you can turn this feature off in settings if you want to. Finally, if you want to mark all your new posts as read at once, you can do so at the top of the "All Items" page.

Unsubscribing

When you change your mind about being subscribed to a blog, you can unsubscribe by going to the settings in the upper right corner.


You're All Set!

Rowing

(I'm the one on the very left)

hola

I got back from Mexico City yesterday (I was there all week). It was ok. Like any other business trip, I get to go to some neat places but mostly I worked. One of the nicer things was eating at La Hacienda De Los Morales. The Hotel Nikko was packed with rednecks because NASCAR held its fourth Nationwide Series race their today. I guess the support crews stayed at the hotel I was at be because the place was full of guys chewing tobacco, speaking with a southern drawl, and wearing firemen or similar shirts.

isaiah college

Isaiah has decided to attend the College-Conservatory of Music here in Cincinnati. The college is part of the University of Cincinnati located about 25 miles from our home. His degree will be Electronic Media (more) - Bachelor of Fine Arts.

angela rowing

In case you didn't know it, Angela has joined the Great Miami Rowing club. Although she just started a few weeks ago, she likes it so much that she has joined the elite team which means she practices six days a week year round ... but she also gets to participate in competitions and qualifies for her High School letter.

new sled

We picked up a third pony to add to our stable. This 2008 Toyota Corolla LE had 1,010 miles on it. It wasn't all that Isaiah wanted but ...

angela candy

It seems candy is a common theme with Angela. Here she scored this giant lollipop from the Cracker Barrel. Yes, we went to the Cracker Barrel because Barb had a hankering for something fried.

istanbul

Although it was not my first trip to Istanbul, I took time for some sightseeing last night.

The Blue Mosque


Hagia Sophia


Grand Bazaar