My father-in-law George just turned 50 on sunday (August 3rd).  It’s kind of a big deal.  To celebrate the occasion my mother-in-law and the rest of the family had been planning a surprise birthday party for months.  To add to the fun George Jr flew in, unknown to George Sr, from Portland Oregon and stepped out from behind everyone just as dad thought he’d said hello to everyone.  You can just see the rush of emotion in his face as the realization hits him that his son is here.

As plans do, everything to keep George out of the house fell through so Rachel and I made a last minute ditch effort to fix it.  We managed to get him out of the house for a few hours by bribing him with lunch and a movie (Dark Knight).

A few weeks ago I took my Father to lunch at Donnelly’s. We had some great food and beer and shared a few laughs. When we got back out to the parking lot we discovered that someone had hit Rachel’s car and had done a decent amount of damage. Nothing left for us to identify the perpetrator but the scrapes and dents.

A phone call to the police later and we had information on a good lead. Apparently the parking lot for Donnelly’s is monitored by a fancy new $25k security system at Fairport Electric. Sweet. Only problem is nobody working that day had access to the system (or more likely knew how to work it). Good thing is it’s all digital and its kept for an undetermined amount of time. The police officer takes our information and tells us he’ll call when he gets a copy of the video.

A few days ago we got the phone call. Wouldn’t you know it, that fancy new $25k security system? Well the one video camera trained on the parking lot was broken that day. Fantastic.

I just wish people took some responsibility for their actions.

Last week we took a vacation with my parents to the Catskills. When Rachel and I went to Lake George a few years ago we climbed Crane Mountain. We enjoyed it so much we figured we’d climb another one this trip. This time we climbed Hunter Mountain (4,050 ft) & celebrated at the top. It was probably the most strenuous hike I’ve ever done (2,250 ft in 2.2 miles).

If you happen to be going to Disney during the month of June this year you can experience the Star Wars Weekends.  If only a month sooner…

Darth Vader does a better Michael Jackson than those silly prisoners in the Philippines.