Its been 1 month 2 weeks

Right now i haven't posted in a while - there have been endings and new beginnings. The past may be mourned but the future must be minded.

Changes are coming

Healthcare and me

Right now my employer takes out $500 from my pay check in order to cover my wife alone for healthcare. The main problem is my wife is not working and my salary is not sufficient to cover every last expense.

It turns out the government really does give out government cheese! WIC which is a government plan for pregnant women, provides this and more. Growing up - my dad would go visit his friends in long island, do "Body Surfing" with his friends Sal and Billy. At the end of every meeting - my dad would make reference to the fact that Sal was a "Welfare recipient". Over the past year I've found out how hard and easy it is to obtain government assistance!

My brother was laid off from his job, a child on the way and one in school he was able to get help from the government. With no income he qualified for medicaid - which has no co-pays and no cost associated to him. He also got some dental work done - I was 18 when I had my last dental procedure covered removing my 4 wisdom teeth.

We have a heart beat!

My wife has been soooo upset over the whole heart beat issue, they told her that I couldn't come in to watch the last ultrasound because there was no heartbeat. If there was no heartbeat in the 3rd ultrasound then they would " sentence the baby to death ". Sooooo this time she goes in and I'm expecting to be called in but about 20 min later she pops out and sits down next to me and asks me to pick a hospital! I'm like SHIT there must be a problem, so I asked if it went OK, she said it did - so I had to ask was there a heartbeat & she said yes. I smiled so big a smile and cried.

Waiting

Sitting in the dr office waiting for results from the latest ultrasound. My wife is 8.5 weeks pregnant and we are waiting to hear a heart beat

On the 1st bus to Niagara Falls

Rushing to flushing at 615 waiting for family I got on the bus at 650.

Niagara Falls part 1

1240 in the morning, I've got all the electronics charging now. 4 hours & 20 minutes from now, getting up I  the morning niagara falls, its going to be a long night.

Drive in - Chicago style!

My brother is fortunate enough to live only 6 miles away from a drive in theater! I was lucky enough to get to relive my childhood watching the first true huge screen before Imax was even a thought.

Six flags and 103 degree heat

Its 940am and we're going to leave for six flags great America in Chicago in a bit. My aunt and uncle bailed out of the trip due to the heat, my cousin said she didn't want to go and my brother john just searched for reasons why he didn't want to go.

I'm looking forward to spending the day with Maggie at six flags, let's see what happens!

Relaxing with everyone else

John is watching Netflix, Maggie is watching letv and I'm watching all of them

Chicago day 2

Unwinding and relaxing - zofia had to leave, john had to work so we went to an amazing breakfast place. Then a quick stop home to rest and we went to visit Maggie's friend.

She lived down the road from john, it wasn't too bad. We spent about 2 hours talking during the visit and had to leave because zofia was making chicken cutlet - my favorite :-)

We had a good time cooking - breading the chicken and cutting the cheese. It was a lot of fun! Im in love with john's house but its a bit far from the city.

Things here are a bit shakey, I'm happy to spend time here but I wonder if I'm intruding in between a relqtiontionship issue with john and his gf.

6 flags

Last saturday I had a great day at 6 flags great adventure in new jersey. The first problem we had was the gps, it took us to the middle of nowhere! We wound up in the field of grass with a sand paved road. We tried every single ride in the park, and took advantage of a lot of the promotions such as season parking, season photo passes, and to season passes for us with the coupon book.

We relaxed in the over priced log cabin food area. it was really surprising because I saw a turtle in the distance relaxing on a rock - then I looked into the water and saw a Hugh family of turtles enjoying the day! Little turtles swam on big turtles - 2 little turtles were chasing each other, it was really cool!

Nitro made my eyes shut tightly, bizzaro was great and Maggie and I are looking forward to six flags in Chicago!

1st day - chicago

My timing was a bit off, the whole trip was spent with miscalculations and meaningful conversations with my wife. We got in to Chicago around 1230 eastern time which wasnt too bad, but my brother lives 60 minutes west of Chicago! (It would be compare able to where I live in relations to Manhattan)

It was nice to be able to speak with john last night and spend quality time with him. John is my older brother, he's someone I like to have in my life and at times I've shared the best of moments like this trip and the worst of times in my past - but most of the time he is unreachable - which is why this trip and time spent with him is so important to me!

Dinner with family

Spending time with baba and sister eatting dinner! So far the duck has arrived but auntie is no where to be found. Sister is reading the menu looking for food to eat!

Eventually auntie arrives and we can eat! :-)

Surprise Yankee's Game

Mid day maggie's sister rings my phone, I'm thinking she wants my wife for some girl talk - when all of a sudden I hear the words "Yankee's tickets" in broken english!

I thought - okay I had plans for the beach, but Yankee tickets are sooo much better! As I was thinking about how to ask my boss for an early exit from work - thunder, lightning and dark rain clowds poured endlessly. Would we be rained out? As I waited for the end of the workday the clowds parted as I ran out of long island zipping to the train station to meet my wife and family!

Here we are sitting in our Yankee seats enjoying the beginning of what I hope will be a glorious Yankee victory!

Weekend strawberry picking

We went to the church strawberry festival which had glorified store bought berries. Soooo, we went to "garden of Eden" which is an organic farm near river head. ;-)

Weekend at moms

Just got to moms with my cute wife for fathers day. My brother joe is smoking brisket and my step dad is really happy with his fathers day gift of grey goose vodka. Its going to be a good weekend!

A Taste of Shanghai Restaurant : 6/5/2012


My co-worker jason is a part owner of this restaurant in Flushing. Every week my father-in-law decides which restaurant to go visit and this week was my friends. 


The woman next to me is My wife's sister, (Not by blood, but by close family friendship) She treats my wife like family - shopping, spending time together and partaking in family gatherings like this one.


 the man with his head down eating is my father-in-law. He jokes often, smiles frequently and always looks at people with half his eyes closed. 


I call him " BaBa " which means father in Chinese. He loves stinky tofu and it seems fish.


The woman opposite me is my wife's aunt, they are all very sweet to me and accepting that I am a foreigner. (to them, to me THEY are the foreigner :)  ) 


As for the food - the tiny shrimp were good, the string beans were amazing, the noodles were very good and the plate of shrimp was completely unflavored. The cold chcicken was so-so and the shrimp fried rice was also so-so.


Lets see where we end up next week!




-Rich