Sorcinelli.net

… he’d:

1. Demand it for his Halloween costume;
2. Wear it 24/7 until it disintegrated.

Today was my youngest son Drew’s 5th birthday. When it came to the cake for his party, he did NOT want the traditional “frosting-laden” birthday cake. Instead, he wanted a Whoopie Pie. Now normally, you think “Whoopie Pie” and the phrase “single serve” comes to mind, right? Well, not if you order from Wicked Whoopies, a Maine-based company/website. There, you will uncover the “Jumbo Wicked Whoopie”. Just how much whoopie is in a Jumbo Whoopie? Let this video clip I took at the party answer this question for you…

Now THAT’S a Whoopie Pie! Wicked Whoopies has plenty of other Whoopie Pie goodies available too. If you consider yourself a Whoopie Pie connoisseur, check it out.

By the way – the kids devoured this at the party. I couldn’t help but indulge a bit myself, and I’m not a fan of these things. It WAS good, though ;-)

If you haven’t heard of Qik yet, now is as good a time as any. With a camera-equipped mobile phone and a data plan, Qik makes you an instant streaming video wiz. Simply install the application and fire it up. Ideally, you should have either a 3G phone or WiFi.

I decided to try out Qik over the weekend using my BLackjack II with only an EDGE connection. The result – streaming my wife’s first Tae Kwon Do belt test (she decided to join the kids at Tae Kwon Do a few weeks back). While there was a great deal of buffering involved, the final result was not half bad.

I also tried a couple of short videos today using my AT&T Tilt and WiFi. One shortcoming of Qik – only one device can be associated with an account at one time, so changing to another phone involves deactivating the first. I will say that there was almost no buffering involved when using WiFi, making for a true “live stream” from the phone.

I definitely will be looking for more ways to leverage Qik. One example – I could see using Qik to stream our local Windows Mobile user/developer group meetings. I am constantly asked why we can’t broadcast these events for people who can’t attend. Maybe now we can :-)

Not my energy, mind you. It was the boundless energy of six (yes - six) 8 year-old boys. As part of Nicolas' birthday present (he turned 8 this past Tuesday), we promised him that he could have friends over for a sleep-over. Now, when we proposed the idea, we figured that we should should allow him to invite a few more friends than we might normally allow.  With his birthday falling in the heart of summer vacation, we figured the decline rate might be high. Guess what? We were wrong. The result - five invites and five attendees.

I have to say that generally speaking, the boys were *extremely* well behaved. I feared I would have to don referee's stripes and carry a crowbar to pry them apart as the evening progressed, but there were no incidents. That doesn't mean that the evening was perfect, however.

I still cannot figure out how the young human body can produce enough adrenaline to to keep them going... and going... and going. At 11:30 PM, we were still playing "herding cats" to get everyone in their sleeping bags for the night (note to self - patent a sleeping bag for children that zippers up completely and only leaves the head sticking out and a locking mechanism). When the kids *finally* fell asleep, it took Melissa and I a combined total of 23.2 seconds to fall asleep ourselves. Fast forward 6 hours...

Before 6 AM, I awoke to the sounds of 5 young boys waking the sixth. "Now", I thought, "is when the REAL battling starts." Amazingly, know sleep-deprived punches were thrown and calm ensued. Most of the boys were gone by 10 AM. As I write this, only one friend remains. Nicolas and his friend are outside running around like they just ingested as pound of raw cane sugar. Melissa and I, on the other hand, are taping our eyes open to make it through the day. If only I could find a way to bottle up that energy, I would do it in a moment. I have no desire to sell it, mind you. I would horde it all for myself. Go organize your own sleep over. 

I keep saying to myself that I want to use this blog as a way of passing along photos that I tend to snap using my phone's camera when I'm on the road. I do snap the photos; I just never remember to get them on the web site. A few examples -


While in St. Louis, a client I was working with wanted to do interviews with workers a facility that would normally be a 2 hour plus drive. Instead, they decided that we should use their corporate jet (a 20 minute flight). This was a unique experience, considering that the weather was... well, "iffy".


I was in midtown Manhattan in early June with a customer. The hotel I was staying at was about a 15-block walk (mostly down 3rd Avenue). I snapped this photo of the Chrysler Building along the way to send back via e-mail to Nicolas. The building had no relevance to him until I explained that this was the building that got the top blown off of it by the jets in the 2000 Godzilla (you know, the Matthew Broderick Godzilla).


Also last month, I took the family down to NYC for a long weekend. We actually stayed across the Hudson in Jersey City. BTW - this was a phenomenal alternative to staying in Manhattan. I snapped a photo from the Newport Marina across to lower Manhattan.
 

Here's a picture of Drew on the carousel at Central Park. It's so hard to believe that he's now 4.

Nicolas is now 8. This is even harder to believe.

I really have to work harder at getting my photos posted. A picture is really worth a thousand words sometimes.

This week, I was reminded about the only thing worse than being on the road and away from your family; being at home when your family is all away.

For those of you who haven't been introduced (so to speak), I have two young sons. Nicolas is 7 (going on 17), and Drew (who is just a couple of weeks shy of 4 and trying to catch up to his older brother every minute of every day). I am also lucky enough to have been married to my wife of 11 years, Melissa. I won't give out her age; I care to live a bit longer. All three family members left this week for a trip to South Florida to visit my mom, stepdad, family and friends.

While I enjoyed the first couple of days of "temporary bachelorhood" (as I am often reminded by most everyone), the house quickly became a very quiet place. I did not even have the comfort and entertainment of our family dog, Sarah.

You see, even Sarah had a vacation, spending the week with friends at a lovely home with another dog to play with. I was left with the 2 birds, 2 fish (1 in each of the boys' rooms) and 1 cat (NOTE: I am considering a career in zoo management, if anyone is interested). The other animals are a bit on the quiet side, though.

While I did get a fair amount of "spring cleaning" done, it basically only created a minor distraction. I've already started counting the hours until their return on Monday afternoon. The moral of the story - absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

P.S. - I picked up Sarah from our friends last night. At least there is a little comfort, although she too seems to be missing the family.