Stavros Reservation

We went out to another Trustees of the Reservations property today. There was an Epic Battle between the Dark Side and The Good Force. Just kidding but I did put in a fun picture of father and son having a light saber battle. Stavros Reservation was donated in 1986. It has spectacular views of Hog Island and Crane Beach. Let me know what you think about the photos! Like any good news agency I need to give photo credits where they are due. The wife took the pictures of the wall, the path and the Epic Battles.

Trustees of The Reservation

The Trustees of the Reservation is an non-profit organization that is manages and preserves open space. Thanks to lots of donations from wealthy and not so wealthy folks the Trustee's has collected and preserved many properties in Massachusetts. One of the more famous properties owned and managed by the Trustees is Cranes Beach. Crane's Castle and beach were formerly the vacation property of the Crane. Crane was a wealthy business man from Chicago who's wife donated the property to the Trustees. The Trustee's sell memberships and collect fees for accessing some of the properties. This money is then used to purchase new properties for conserve open space. We often go for walks on some of these reservation. I have started capturing some pictures of these peacefull spots to share with you. The one I went to today is Julia Bird Reservation. The pictures from Appleton Farm are from another reservation of the Trustees. Let me know what you think about the pictures.

Appleton Farms Photo Shoot

I went out shooting some photographs today of Appleton Farm. It is one of the largest meadows in New England. Let me know what you think about the photo's. These were taken with a 5 year old 2 meg pixel Sony Cybershot.

Here is my favoriate shot in the set.

Merry Chistmas Feliz Natal!

Merry Christmas, Feliz Natal! Christmas Eve is my favorite holiday. This year like almost all the previous years we went to my parents house to exchange gifts with my parents and Tony's family. After exchanging gifts, we went to Tia Gloria and Tio Agusto's house to visit with the rest of the family. In the past we have gone to the Our Lady of Fatima church for Christmas Eve's mass before going over to Tia Gloria's. We tried to make it this year but just didn't have enough time before dinner started. My parents, Tio Telmo, Tia Celia, Marta, Marco and his wife, Tina and Jack, Avo Dos Anjos, Suzy and Paul, Tony and Maria and their kids were all there. We missed all the other aunts, uncles and cousins! I hope all of you had a peaceful and healthy Christmas where ever you celebrated the day. The Christmas eve meal was a traditional Portuguese meal, consisting of bacalhao com batatas e couves com azeite e vinhagre. Salted dried Cod fish boiled with potatoes and Kale with Olive Oil and Vinegar. It's the one time of year I get to taste this delicious dish.

After the meal, we played some trivia games and the kids opened up gifts and we did a secret santa gifts. The kids were so excited with all the generous gifts the family gives them. Of course the best thing about this is daddy gets to play with the kids and their gifts :-) on the day after Christmas. This year though the kids are getting old enough that they don't want me to play with them any more!

Tina is going to send me some pictures of the Christmas eve celebration, since my camera was out of batteries. I'll post them once I get them. Feel free to send me some pictures of your Christmas eve celebration!

On Christmas day, we hung out with the kids in the morning and then went to Grand Ma Joan's house for lunch. She made one of my favoriate holiday meals, baked ham, wild rice, broccoli casserole and Susan't stiky buns. We got to see Suan's aunts, her sister's family and her brother's family. The kids got some wonderfull gifts at Grand Ma's.

Making a Christmas Gift.

With new software, digital cameras, scanners and writable DVD's there are some pretty cool things you can do with all this technology. One of them is making a photograph story DVD. Occasionally you see these displayed at weddings. For some reason photos always seem less accessible when they are stored away in a photo album or on a computer. I decided this past weekend to put together a photo story DVD as a gift to my parents, while Susan went into Boston with her Mom. I had tried to make one of these in the past with a another Microsoft product called Microsoft Movie Maker but I was disappointed with the picture quality of the final result.

By coincidence I found a product called Microsoft Photo Story 3 which makes it fairly easy to create these Photo DVD's. So I thought I would give the new software a try. The software was fairly easy to use. Although the software is free to make the Photo Story, you actually have to pay $20 for another plugin software for Sonic to actually burn the Photo Story too a DVD. This I thought was pretty cheese on the part of Microsoft. Wait until they spend 4 hours making something they can't do anything with and them tell them the have to pay to really get something usefull. Unlike the Mac OS which comes with this type of software as part of the operating systems. After having invested 1/2 day making the photo story and being some what satisfied with the results I decided to buy the software so that I could actually burn the DVD. What good is a photo story gift for my mom and dad if the only way they could view it is on my computer.


The software allows you to import pictures, set the starting and finishing animation frames. This animation really brings your pictures to life. You can also overlay music, photo transitions and effects to really allow you to create a complete story or photo essay. The software also includes the ability to auto correct the color and contrast which in some cases can really sharpen your photos. I was really impressed with the visual resolution and sound of the final DVD.

The DVD I created was really focused on my immediate family. I would love to create one of the broader family that we could play at our Christmas Eve dinner at Tia Gloria's. It is too late for this year but maybe next year. I think all of us would find it very entertaining to see each others photos from 10, 20 or even 30 years ago in a DVD photo story. I am glad to do the leg work, but I need everyone to contribute their photos. If you don't have a scanner, just let me borrow your photo album for a couple of weeks. If you do scan the pictures and upload them to a website like flickr and then send me the web address to the pictures you would like to include.

Lets talk more about it at Christmas Eve. I will bring Avo's Photo Story DVD. It is her gift but hopefully she won't mind showing it to everyone else. See you at Christmas Eve.

Travelling For Work and Getting Ready For Christmas

There isn't much going on the home front. Everyone is getting ready for Christmas. We bought our Christmas tree this past weekend. While I was travelling on business to New York, Susan dragged the Christmas tree into the house. I got lost on the almost 4 hour car drive to New York. Susan helped me realize the exit numbers provided by maps.google.com directions don't show the state numbering system. So rather than taking exit 6 in Connecticut, I should have taken exit 6 in New York. On the way back home I stopped in Southington, Connecticut to visit my college buddy Mike. I missed him because je and his family were over Mrs Riccio's house decorating their Christmas Tree! I heard from Avo that Tony and his family helped Avo setup her Christmas Tree this week too. Catarina said that Avo's Christmas tree was the nicest Christmas tree she has seen. Hope all of you are doing well and getting ready for Christmas too!

Sports Weekends!

The kids are doing sports now. Here are some action shots of the kids playing basketball and doing gymnastics. The kids also just started playing basketball. He is on the "Generals". The team moto is the "Generals" is because General Patton was originally from our town. There is a park in town named after General Patton. There is even a Patton Tank that the kids can play on. The kids are doing awesome at Gymnastics!

Second Snow!

We had our second snow this winter. I thought I would share some pictures of the house (1/2 painted). We weren't able to finish painting before it got too cold. We will end up having to finish up in the spring. It took almost 2 hours to snow blow the drive. The snow thrower from Sears was dependable it made it through the 6 inches of heavy wet snow!


I also snapped another picture of the Miles river which cuts through town. The river is just down the street from our house. Every morning on the way to work I always say what a beautiful picture that would make. Well today I finally stopped the car and took one. Let me know what you think. Hope everyone is well. Take care!

Someone Portuguese When You Least Expect It.

There have been several times in my life when I really never expected to find someone that was from Portugal or who spoke Portuguese. I was surprised each time when I did. This evening we went to one of the kid's first Art show. Her class and other students from schools on the North Shore were exhibiting their art work at a local Art College studio. After looking at her fantastic CD cover art work, we decided to look at some of the other pieces of art the children made. One school made a totem pole and sure enough at the top of one of the totem pole was the Portuguese flag! This particular artwork was created by an elementary school in Peabody. My interpretation of the art was that their design should reflect the character of their community. Peabody has a small Portuguese American community. Like most of the Portuguese people out there, they are very proud of their heritage. So proud that the son or daughter of one of them decided to include the Portuguese flag on one of the heads of the Totem Pole.


For such a small country like Portugal, it is amazing to see how many Portuguese immigrants there are around the world. I remember being at my mother's house for Christmas Eve last year and having the RTP 1 the Satellite Portuguese Channel on TV. They were presenting peace and Christmas wishes from Portuguese immigrant families living throughout the world. It seemed like they had live video feeds from several different countries on each continent. Argentina, Norway, France, Germany, United States, Canada. What I found amazing was the common bond all these people had about who they are and where they came from. Their desire to achieve a better life through hard work and a love for their family and friends was obvious. My hope is that each visitor to the Blog adds themselves to the Frappr Ferreira map so that we can get a sense for where everyone is!

Professionally I thought I would never have to speak Portuguese for any job position I would ever have. The first job I had was when I was 13 or so working for $2 an hour as a deli clerk in a Portuguese American Butchery. I thought that it would be the first and only job that required I speak Portuguese. Oddly enough though, a recent job I had involved supporting a team in Brasil which required me to speak Portuguese. It was the oddest thing speaking Portuguese at work. It was actually useful in helping me improve my speaking skills since the only chance I get to speak Portuguese is when I am with the Family.

I have also had some experiences running into people who are Portuguese when I have been shopping where they were complaining about something in Portuguese thinking that no one nearby understood what they were saying. When I told them they should be more careful about what they say in Portuguese they were shocked. There is a lesson there and perhaps my mom should be the first to understand this lesson because she once made the same mistake when she was at a store trying to buy something. She started criticizing the store service in Portuguese and then the clerk responded in Portuguese.

So keep your eyes on the look out for someone Portuguese when you lease expect it. If you find them say hello and introduce yourself!

Happy Birthday Avo

Today we are celebrated Avo's birthday. She is celebrating her birthday. We are had the family over for a nice dinner and birthday cake.