July 9, 2008

Awoke this morning having gotten some much needed rest. We had breakfast of bagels and butter with coffee. Bagels are just better in the east coast. I know it may offend some but the truth is the truth. I am not sure whether it is the flour they use or the sounds of city life that make it’s way through the walls. Maybe both. Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob are both good hosts and we are grateful to call them family. We will go to the USMMA today via a trip to Karl Rasmussen’s house for lunch.

We left Aunt Linda’s after programming the GPS with the address o Karl’s house and optimistically took off to our destination. Turns out our girl from down under must have wanted us to visit her as she routed us to Karl’s house through PA!! We were happily following her directions when T.J. advanced the steps a bit to see where the next turn was. Much to our surprise we were heading into another state and the wrong way. The route we were on would not get us to Karl’s’ house for another 7 hours. His place was just an hour and a half away. We got turned around (again, this time the right way) and made it to Karl’s house 2 hours late. Karl Rasmussen is a school teacher I met at an aquaponics conference a couple years ago and is doing an exceptional job with his students. He has a passion for teaching and a genuine interest in the next generation. He built a Barrel-Ponics system patterned after the one I brought to the aquaponics conference I met him at and placed it in his school. He brought it home for the summer and I had a chance to see it and take some photo’s. If replication is the highest form of flattery I am honored and I must say he did an outstanding job. Karl was not alone in the venture as his neighbor Carol was also instrumental with the system (thanks Carol for washing Allie’s blouse). We also met a young man named Tyler who cooked the chicken for our lunch. All in all we had a great time and wish we could have spent more.

After lunch we were off to the USMMA to get T.J.’s bank account opened and attend a Bar-B-Que at the waterfront. We arrived at the Academy and went straight to the Credit Union to get T.J.’s account opened. Things went smoothly. It was kind of funny when the counter lady asked how T.J. was doing he said “great!” She said there was a young man that morning who was in tears. I guess I never really knew how stressful opening a bank account was. The young man must have been scared out of his wits with all the changes in life about to take him over. We then made our way to the Bar-B-Que and met the staff at the waterfront. They seem like great people and I know T.J. will totally enjoy his time there. He was a bit nervous at first because the only people he had contact with were the sailing types. He quickly found out there are a bunch of power boaters there so he felt much more at home. In fact the feeling around there was very much like the marina’s he had been around working with me since he was 7yrs. old. It was very familiar territory and he found some fellows he could really relate to. I saw a couple of the parents from South Carolina there as well. We left and made our way through NYC traffic. Allie was so amazed by everything and was totally excited shooting pictures and taking it all in with the busy streets, big buildings and the assortment of people. T.J. (being the healthy teenager he is) was a bit taken aback by the young ladies though. He said they were nice looking but did not seem to have any life in them. Everyone was totally in their own world and the whole thing looked more like a bunch of zombies. I’m not trying to offend anyone from NYC but from an outsiders point of view it looks like city life can suck the juice right out of ya. Ya’ll need to come to the country once in a while to get juiced back up.