Christmas Pics

Not exactly the happiest of Christmases, but we all did the best we could.

Little ones are great at bringing a smile to your face, no matter the situation.

Click on the photo to go the Christmas 2006 photoset.

A long time ago, we used to be friends...

It's been over a month, and I wasn't sure I was going to write anything about this seeing as I'm not a blogger. Star's the blogger...

Star died last month. Mom called and asked if I was sitting down. I could tell by her voice that something was wrong. I was right, I was just wrong about whom. I thought she was going to tell me that my grandfather was sick again or had died, but no. Star was dead, she didn’t have any details, but she died at the hospital and her boyfriend was there. I had no words.

I didn’t know Star had a boyfriend.

I had just been emailing Star the prior week and we did the normal back and forth “how are you doing…” with the normal “tired, work is work, keeping myself busy” replies. No mention of a boyfriend. I guess she wasn’t ready to share that information. I should have asked about the dancing… I should have asked… I should have asked a lot of things.

I wish we had been better friends. We were cousins and I love Star, but we weren’t close. I knew some of what was going on in her life because I read her blog, and occasionally she would invite me when she was having a party. But I never really reached out to her, not like I should have. I'm sad that I feel I only knew her as well as someone who read her blog and never met her in person.

And all I keep thinking is what does Star’s death mean for me, and I don’t want to think that way. I want to be thinking about what this means to Robin and Debbie, who have lost their sister, and Uncle Glenn and Aunt Star, who lost a daughter. I want to be able to reach out to them and connect, and I don’t know how.

I want to paint a picture of pirates and zombies battling in Rittenhouse Square.

Bad Blogger...

Okay, I'm a really bad at this blogging thing considering I haven't updated this thing in months.

If you really want to know what I've been up to you need to go over to my Flickr page. I got a new camera this summer, and it's been pretty much fused to my hand since then.

Recent adventures include FREEZING at the Army-Navy Game (Go NAVY!), a trip to Boston, and trying my hand at volleyball action shots.

A 3 hour tour...

Jungle Cruise
Originally uploaded by cvf1979.

Went kyaking down in OBX last week, it was a blast even taking into account that there were alligators in the water.

Photos

All of the half decent photos I took are up here. They are organized into a few different sets, but I still need to go through most of them for titles and tags.

I kept a journal while I was away so at some point I will be posting more about what we saw beyond the photographs I took.

Italy Pictures

Along the Amalfi Coast
Originally uploaded by cvf1979.

I've started uploading a few pictures from my trip up a flickr

It's Christmas Time (Oh Yeah)...

Barenaked Ladies rocked at the Beacon Theater in NYC last night! There isn't much that can beat 2 and 1/2 hours of BNL in my book. Steve was amazing and full of energy throughout... Tyler was awesome during Feliz Navidad, as was Ed's drumming. The crowd was a bit obnoxious (umm... drunk) though. Yelling for "Brian Wilson" is not really going to make them play it any faster (especially when you know it's going to be on the set list).

Can I just say "Enid! A! Life in a Nutshell! What a Good Boy!"

Thanks to Gordon for coming with me.