Northeast International Auto Show

We went to visit the Avo and Avo this weekend. I didn't get a chance to speak with the folks over the last couple of weeks because of travelling. It was nice to catch up. After lunch Tony, Marie, Susan, the kids and I went to Northeast Car Show

Here is an example of how small RI is. I ran into some old high school friends that I hadn't see in a long time. Sue and Freddy Gomes. Everytime I see old friends I am reminded of past fun times and how fast time keeps flying by. Most of my long time friends fall into 2 camps. Those that went on to a four year college and married later in life and those that didn't or went to a 2 year technical school and married very early. Freddy and Sue were one of the first couples to get married amongst my friends. It was nice to see them.

The car show was pretty good. The only thing that prevented it from being great is that Porsche, BMW and Audi didn't attend the show. This was Susan's first car show and she enjoyed it. Every year Tony and I walk through the domestic car companies floor space and say the samething. When will the American car companies finally figure out how to make cars like the Toyota, Nissan or Volkswagon. Here is a tip GM take the interior and exterior styling from any one of the German car companies and combine it with the quality and ride of any of the Japanese Cars and you will have a winner! Instead they just keeping creating more and more cars with cheap plastic interiors with doors that rattle instead of thump when they close. And with performance that simply can't compete with Japanese car companies. It is pretty depressing to see GM on the verge of bankruptcy.

My father's first car and my first car was a brand new Chevrolet Camaro. My first family car was a Dodge Caravan. However my last 2 cars have been foreign made because the family cars and commuting cars that Detroit has to offer simply can't compete with the price and performance foreign car companies offer.

Car show favoriates:
Coolest New SUV - Toyota RAV4
Coolest Most Affordable Car - Scion Tc
My wishfull most likely next commuting car - Volvo S40 T5 All Wheel Drive
My most likely next commuting car - Nissan Altima

Foki.com and Crane Beach

I discovered another pretty good web site for storing photos called Fotki.com . The best thing about the site is that it is free and it has alot of cool features. I just started to use the web site. Here are some photos from a few weeks ago when we went to Crane Beach. My camera has officially died. So these are the last photos that I have taken. I hope that I can buy a new camera when they are announced at the PMA show in February. Here are some my favoriate shots below. To see all of them go to the site.

Sunset

Going for a walk

Beach path

More Conferences.

Was in Orlando at a conference for work. There were some long work hours but we made time to check out some of the sites at Downtown Disney and Pleasure Island. Tomorrow there is an event at Sea World. I have met some really nice people here are the conference. Take care!

I just updated the post with some pictures that a friend took while at the Lego Story in Disneyworld. All these statues were built with normal sized legos.

Conferences :-(

I just got back from a week in Las Vegas at a Conference. I lost $70 gambling. It is a crazy place! Certainly not a place to bring a family with kids. But it was interesting to see again. This was actually my third time out there. Each time I stayed at the MGM. I like Boston better! Seeya!

Discovering New Music

Learning in college happens many ways. Unlike what I initially thought it wasn't just from my professors. I learned perhaps just as much from the other students outside the classroom. Each student with different backgrounds, from different states and in some cases other countries brought their own unique fashion, food, music, interests, knowledge and habits. It really opened my eyes to what else life had to offer beyond what I had learned or was exposed to in a small town in RI. I of course made my own little cultural contribution to the small community of college friends. They all discovered what it meant to be "Portuguese-American".

I discovered new bands and music from the other students. The bands included: Elvis Costello, The Smiths, psychedelic Furs, The Ramones, Squeeze, Violent femmes. These were all bands that I had never heard played on the radio in my home town. I couldn't and still don't know how all of these students discovered these bands. It is easier to discovery new bands now with the web. One pretty effective way is to search for an artist that you already know and like on www.dogpile.com. The site provides searches several search engines and can search on audio files. Often the search results are to a blog that lists out similar genera of music from other artists. The songs are usually listed on someone's personal blog. Usually you discover one song and artist that you hadn't heard of before that is pretty good. I also have discovered some new bands on VH1.com. I recently discovered a couple of new bands this way. The first one is an Indie Band. Hope you enjoy them. Let me know if you know of any other Indie Band.

Band - Song
Guided by Voices - The Best of Jill Hives
Guided by Voices - Everywhere With Helicopter
Fountains of Wayne - Radition Vibe

Dressed Up for School Pictures

I realize it has been a while since I posted a family value posting. So here it goes. For those that don't like them you can stop reading here. For the others read on.

A picture is worth more than a 1000 words. It reloads lost memories and reminds you of some things you might have forgotten or that you don't have time recall or ponder. My friend John emailed me a school class picture from 1974. I honestly can't remember if it was my first or second attempt at first grade. This was a consequense of having only been in the US for a short time and not knowing how to speak english.

I wouldn't be able to tell you when we have to get the kids dressed for school pictures. It seems work and the other things we do with our kids keeps me very busy. Thankfully my wife is great at keeping up with what needs to be done for school and by when it needs to be completed. With my mom working the first shift and my dad working the third shift, I was suprised to find that I was dressed for the school picture. The fact that we couldn't afford to buy the school picture is irrelevant. I was also the best dressed guy in the picture. Well, maybe I was the second best dressed after the guy standing to left of me at the end of the row. You have to like that plaid suit and those glasses.



I have a tremendous respect and regard for what my parents have accomplished in their lives and their upbringing of me and my brother. My writing could never do justice to this. This picture provided me yet another example of this. My parents didn't know how to speak or read english but some how figured out that I needed to be dressed up for school pictures. So guess what, "Being well dressed is a family value!"
After this school year, we moved out of this town. Oddly enough, 18 of the 24 kids continued on to middleschool and highschool. Five years later my family returned to the same town. I ended up going to highschool with many of these boys and girls. One of them named John ended up going to college with me. He was also in my wedding party. Makes you wonder what my response would be if I was asked "Do you think you will be friends with some of your classmates when you get older?" Yes!

There is a great documentary called "7 & Up" that actually did something like this. A film company in England picked a first grade class of 7 year olds. They interviewed the students every 7 years. Each time they asked them the same sets of questions to see how their answers would change over time and if the future brought them what they expected. I saw the first 7 Up at the Theatre off of Thayer Street in Providence . Most recently I saw 35 Up (The fifth documentary). The lastest version of the documentary is 42 & up. This documentary shows how life can be both cruel and rewarding to everyone. I highly recommend that you check out the documentary. Let me know what you think of the documentary and this post. Post a comment!

Bon Fire!

One of the traditions here in town is to have a big bon fire to celebrate the new year. Everyone brings their Christmas trees to the town green after Christmas. The huge pile gets lit on fire while everyone sings the New Years Song. They gave out hot chocolate to all the folks. The kids got to play with their friends. It was alot of fun. I took some pictures. Let me know what you think. I have a pretty weak digital camera for taking evening shots but I think you get some sense of how huge this fire was.

New England Patriots

We got to go to see the New England Patriots with Tony, Anthony and my father. Big Thanks to Tony for scoring the tickets! It was alot of fun. A great way to literally kick off the New Year. We got to meet and get the autographs of the New England Patriots from the 1985 SuperBowl. My dad and the rest of us were pretty excited to get to meet Steve Grogan and the rest of the team. Each of us got signed pictures and footballs. The funny thing was that we almost missed out when we arrived at the club house they had closed down the line just as we arrived. I convinced the guy to let us in line by letting him know that it was my dad's first New England Patriots football game. The game turned out to be pretty exciting even though the Patriots had already clinched a playoff spot. They came back in the 4th quarter to almost tie the game. Doug Flutie actually drop kicked a field goal. We all think that Vinatari was already in the lock room taking a shower so there was no one available to kick the ball. Take a look at the pictures and captions from the game. (click on "the game" to see the pictures.) The shots below were some my favoriate.

The Score Board
Tony and Dad with the 1985 Patriots
Father and Sons
Father and Son
World Super Bowl Champion Banners

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! I am thankful for this past year and am hopeful for this upcoming year. I hope all of you have a healthy, happy and prosperous new year. Our New Year's Eve celebration was pretty low key which is the usual for us. The family hung out at home. We ate some appetizers and celebrated the end and start of a year. For some reason Chinese take out is the big thing to do on New Years Eve on the North Shore. I discovered that taking out Chinese food on New Years eve is a tradition only after moving here. I don't know if this is a tradition else where. Although we didn't get take out this year in past years I remember waiting in long lines to get take out on New Year's eve.

Tony had a New Years Eve party at his house but we weren't able to make it because we didn't want to have to make 2 long trips back and forth to his house on back to back days. The reason for the 1st trip is in my next blog entry!

Let me know how you spent your New Years hope you had a good time!