Another collegue to highlight again. This week it’s Digital QA Tech Kelly Fitzpatrick. Kelly is one of the more recent hires. She put together her real life interpretation of the clothes worn by Japanese Video Game/Anime/Manga Castlevania Protagonist Trevor Belmont.
So, I wrote a huge essay on everything that haunts my memory. I recently read a fellow blogger doing a throw back Thursday prompt about favorite things from their past. I’ve decided to highlight 1978, the 3rd grade version of myself.
It’s truly hard for me to narrow down to one favorite.
Favorite Relative: My Mom, RN (yet mostly housewife), best friend, creative partner. Next to her, my cousin Becky (the same age as my brother, 5 years older) who just exuded cool. Still close to this day. I think back then I wished she was my sister. My Uncle Bob, who was artistic & collected comics.
Favorite Tv Show: Happy Days, Welcome Back Kotter, Eight is Enough, Wonder Woman, Little House on the prairie, The Gong Show, Candid Camera & What’s Happening! to name a few.
Favorite Album/Song: As a kid I was a huge KISS fan. I specifically loved bass player horror nut Gene Simmons (who I would regret meeting later in life), I had a Meego Gene Simmons doll and his KISS solo album. One of my favorite songs off this very disjointed album was the horror tinged opening track Radioactive.
Favorite School Subject: Art & Reading
Favorite Teacher: Mr. Fehr. He was a very cool teacher. I remember when our class learned about how local government ran, we built a city out of painted card board boxes in the classroom and acted out different city wide departments.
Favorite Friend: From Kindergarten to 6th grade my best buddy was a kid named Michael Kotsch. We rode bikes, played with hot wheels cars, created a club called Eye spy on the private eye. Weirdly later in life Mike would Marry my Dad’s cousin Barry’s Daughter. I don’t really have ties at all to my Dad’s side but it is kind of wild that my childhood buddy married into my family.
Favorite Toys: Aside from the Gene Simmons, I also had a Spider-man and a GI Joe doll with a bat mobile but I didn’t have a batman doll to go with it. 🤣 I loved playing with my Star Wars Action Figures & Playsets.
Favorite Vacation: Yup I will have to go with the one and only time we went to the Jersey shore, specifically Wildwood. Mom & Dad grabbing my hands and picking me up when waves came in, chickening out on Dracula’s Castle but walking thru the very cool King Kong ride. My souvenir from that vacation was a pink cat with diamond eyes. Honestly, family vacations growing up our parents took my brother & I to (drum roll) the horse races. Yeah, definitely not a family friendly vacation.
Lastly Favorite Holiday: Thanksgiving. My Mom made the best bread stuffing. I have never been able to replicate it. My wife’s Nana’s recipe came very close. Mom made enough to stuff the bird, enough to put around the bird and additional. It was incredibly addictive. Our family gobbled that bread stuffing more than the turkey itself, in second would be the Good Friday Fish Fry my dad made with scallops, breaded clams & oysters, shrimp & haddock. The reasons for the holidays not so much but the food, mouth waters just thinking about it.
My take on a prompt featuring the letter Z as seen here: https://nopenotpam.com/2022/09/25/a-letter-a-week-z/
GOOD OLD ZEB Zeb the zany zebu from Zimbabwe zigzagged across the plains till he found the perfect place to be zen.
*Lyrics from Scream Bloody Gore by Death, Songwriters: Chuck Schuldiner Copyright 1987
The Self Portrait
Colored Pencil Me
My wife and I had our first date on October 2nd, 2010 we got married on May 4th, 2013. So, by tradition we have celebrated both dates with a vacation in the Fall and in the Spring. Although, plans for our original stay in a B&B near State College closer to Oct 2 fell through, I found a B&B up in Wellsboro, Pa. A short drive from what is known as the PA Grand Canyon. Wellsboro was talked up quite a bit by my Dad’s widow as a place she enjoyed living in. I don’t know, seen one small town you have seen em all. Nothing magical about this quaint town, but nice all the same.
Oh my God, we found this joint on a trip to Rochester New York. They bake their own bread for the sandwiches and they have cream puffs that have dropped from heaven.
I had the Cuban on cibatta with a dill pickle and thousand island for dipping and a side salad, my wife had chicken salad with cranberry & walnut mayo on wheat with a side salad. We both had blue cheese dressing on the salad. We both ate the divine creampuff.
https://www.binghamsrestaurant.com/
Well I have mixed feelings about our B&B in Wellsboro, although the bed is supposed to be Queen sized, it feels smaller than our Queen from home. It’s not possible to control the room temperature…so its a tad bit cool at 44° outside and feels probably 50° inside. It looks like we have a faux fireplace below the tv, after some investigation I discovered it’s a heater. The room is spacious, the bathroom is incredbly spacious with a hot tub and shower, we have a private balcony as well. Our ceiling fan broke, and the bed is too firm for my tastes. The B&B doesn’t have a dining area nor a sitting room because they converted most of it for use as a spa and our breakfasts will be delivered to our room. Also we were greeted by a front desk clerk (a young friendly gay man named Ramon originally from the Netherlands) who kindly carried our luggage up to our room. So the hospitality is there but the owners have been absent. I texted one of the owners about the fan but have yet to meet the husband & wife team of Jesse & Laura. As a romantic add on I got us chocolate covered strawberries.
This joint had a quirky slogan “Best Cock on the block” I just had to get a tee shirt from them. This Pub N Grub is a converted glass factory. To drink I got a bottle of ginger beer, my wife a mug of root beer. We shared some lightly fried cheese curds with ranch dip. My wife got mac & cheese topped with BBQ pulled pork. I got a chicken cheese steak with onions, peppers & mushrooms with a side salad with blue cheese dressing.
Well, aside from no creamers with our room kuerig, when our lukewarm-nearly cold breakfast arrives a few minutes after 8am it comes with a pot of coffee with yup, NO CREAMERS!!!. On our jaunt out today, we would make a point of buying creamer and hell even hand soap, because unfortunately the hand soap dispenser in the bathroom doesn’t work, plus the body wash is less than adequate, pick up some of that too while in town. The poached eggs with hollandaise, diced potatoes and sausage were tasty but should have been hot. No excuses. Also, the propietor texted me back that he would look into the fan issue.
We had every intention of doing some trails, but it was too cold (neither of us packed clothes for 50 degree early morning weather) and my wife has still been nursing a twisted ankle, so instead we took some gorgeous shots along the lookout points path.
My wife and I tend to find bookstores in every new town we visit. This one was very cool because it had resident cats Huck & Finn. Huckleberry is the black cat that my wife got to hold, Finn was black & white. I bought a couple of very cool YA books written by the co-owner of the bookstore, even got him to sign both for me.
https://wellsborobookstore.indielite.org/
After this we picked up some Apple Dumplings and Farm Grown Seeded Grapes from either an Amish or Menonite Farm Stand along Main street
https://g.page/Leister-Farm-Market?share
After hitting a local grocery store for the much needed coffee creamer & hand soap and body wash we found a cafe for lunch.
I decided to try the gourmet tomato muenster & bacon grilled cheese, my wife had a grilled chicken, lettuce, tomato & basil pesto wrap, we both had a side salad (she continued with blue cheese & I tried something different, poppyseed) and unsweetened Iced Tea.
https://m.facebook.com/Becks-Bistro-inc-118023627556778/?_rdr
After lunch we returned to the B&B. We decided to enjoy some time on our private balcony doing some reading, well my wife read. I brought a stack of vintage Creepy to read but have spent most of my free time, writing this post 😆
Jesse, the proprietor texted me that he would get someone to fix the fan. Later in the day after a few rounds of Skip-Bo, Ramon arrived with the guy who basically said he would have to replace the fan but it would be a significant amount of time to do so. We decided we would just deal with it. Again, NOT ONCE did we ever meet either Jesse or Laura in person. Honestly as it stands, the only real redeeming quality of this so called B&B is the Jacuzi. The only room of the three with one.
We decided to try this Italian joint for dinner. We arrived around 3:30 for dinner and when I asked if we were too early, our waitress said:
…”Well if you want mashed potatoes that won’t happen, but if you want pasta, no problem”…(Mashed potaoes is never something I think about in a restaurant that specializes in Italian food 🙄🤭)
Both my wife and I got The Farfelle with Chicken Breast (Farfelle is almost like alfredo but seasoned with sundried tomatoes & spinach tossed in bow tie pasta), bread with red pepper olive oil & butter, the usual side salad with blue cheese dressing and some super bland unsweetened Iced Tea. We then had ice cream a few blocks down, my wife had a scoop of Coffee Toffee and I had Humble Bumble (Chocolate with raspberry chocolate truffle pieces & topped with rainbow sprinkles)
http://timelessdestination.com/
https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057727927160&_rdr
We then took a moment to enjoy the town square park for a moment before calling it a night.
Our hotter than yesterday breakfast consisted of crispy greasy bacon, pepper quiche & a warm strawberry cheesecake.
Oh and what else CREAMERS!!! THAT WE DIDN’T USE. WE USED THE COFFEEMATE WE BOUGHT INSTEAD.
I had originally planned to offer this cat painting to the B&B owners, who were a no show. So i offer it to Ramon and a small monetary tip, because in all honesty I just can’t really recommend this joint. 👎👎
On the drive home we hit up Binghams again. This time around my wife got a turkey Swiss cheese & bourbon BBQ melt with a salad with blue cheese dressing, and I got a medium cooked blue cheese tomato bacon burger with steak fries and a crock of french onion soup. We both had unsweetened Iced tea, and the requisite cream puff for dessert. This joint bakes their own bread, so we got a loaf of cinnamon raisin for ourselves and blueberry bread for our buddy Mark who endured Nigel hissing and swatting at his shoes the last few days.
11,667 steps taken and 1,060 cal burned
So, my job is still highlighting the art of it’s employees. For a company that is all about preserving documents and other things used for the purpose of research at Museums, University Libraries and the Library of Congress with both the dying medium of microfilm and the prosperous digital copy, there sure are a heck of a lot of creative people here.
My buddy Jason Rehm who has worked in digital for about 7 years (he’s in his early 30’s) drew this amazing graphite drawing of Moe Howard of The Three Stooges when he was in High School in 2005. (Back when I was 35, youngin’s. 🤣)
The Art of M. 
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