Hot ..Humid....Hazy

Well, I went sight seeing yesterday and the weather was crazy. It's as if it was the middle of summer. I believe it reached 88 degrees with a humidity of 95 and visibility .5 miles. It was really hard getting any good pictures. Not to mention that we were in downtown during the middle of the day. I did take some pictures and if you look through them, you will notice that I have added my comments. The pictures aren't the greatest, but I think their worth checking out. So what are you waiting for.....scroll down!







We stopped by Gray's Papaya and had a couple hot dogs for lunch. Nothing really special about them. They're OK but I still like the Chicago hot dogs more. Probably had to have grown up here to appreciate them.







This is just a random picture taken at a random intersection just to let you see the mass of humanity walking through the streets.




A bridge walkway in Central park





A squirrels eye view of Central Park. Really nice park. Kudos to whoever decided to put a park in the middle of Manhattan.






A Lilly patch in Central Park









Looking down the street with large buildings on both sides.





There were street vendors all over.




This fire truck was trying to get through traffic. It had its lights and horn going full blast. Good luck, there was traffic and people everywhere.






This poster was actually right above Gray's Papaya restaurant. Really funny show.




In Rockefeller square, there are flags all around it from different countries. There are 200 flags displayed and they get rotated periodically. I looked all around for the Lithuanian flag and lo and behold, it was next to the American flag(the yellow, green, red colored flag is the Lithuanian flag). Wow, that was kind of wild seeing it next to Old Glory.





This is a corner of a bottom side of a bridge going through Central park. I loved the coloring and the ceiling was gorgeous. It appeared to be made out of tile, mosaic looking. These pictures really don't do it justice. How do they manage to keep graffiti off of it?





Had to post a picture of what it looks like in New York on garbage day.








This is one entrance to Central Park near 59Th street. Again, a lot of haze which makes the picture look washed out.











Here is that bridge that I mentioned in my previous picture which had the mosaic pictures

Helloooooooo New York!!!!

Well, I made it to New York, the Big Apple. My plane ride was uneventful, which is good, smooth with hardly any turbulence. Looking outside, it was very hazy & muggy, couldn't see more than a half mile ahead and warm, actually very warm for this time of the year. According to the weather forecast, The temperature will be in the mid 80's during the week. So, pretty much any chance of getting fall colors is not going to happen. So I will look address different avenues of photo opportunities.



This morning, I am sitting in a Starbucks drinking my coffee and watching the garbage men pick up garbage. It's so strange walking through the streets and seeing bags and bags of garbage, piled up near the curbs.



Let me tell you about my taxi ride to my daughters apartment. It may be a little hard to describe in words, but bear with me. The best way that I can describe it is actually letting you in my thought process during the ride. Here we go...After about a 20minute wait ,a young Jamaican picks me up and we're off. Again, this is my thought process. Nice cab, clean and not smelly. Has a nice ride feel to it, oops, there goes my head, jerking to the back, I guess we're picking speed. Looks like theirs a car up ahead that wants to get into our lane. Well, there goes my head again, I guess we're not going to let that car into our lane. Looks like we're coming up to an intersection and light has turned red, there goes my head, I guess there must be a 2 or 3 second grace period where drivers are permitted to enter through a red. OK, now we're out of the airport and on the expressway. It's 5:30 in the afternoon and there's a lot of traffic on the road, looks like we're going to be stuck in traffic, oops there goes my head, and my body goes sideways as we take a quick right to get off the expressway. The rest of the ride was pretty much as I described it. I also heard a lot of horn honking and and some yelling out of other cars, but my driver never honked or uttered a word. He maintained focus on the road and got me to my destination.



Today, I should go out and check out some of the sights. If I do, I will post pictures

Fun Time at Marine World

My company, Casto Travel, had their company picnic at Marine World last Sunday. What a great time. Everyone that I spoke to said nothing but positive remarks. My daughter Shimaine, Tasha, Irelan and myself went. My wife was sick and couldn't go. I was the designated baby-sitter for our group which is a job that I relish.

There was plenty of food, animals, people and rides for everyone. It was cloudy and overcast when we got to the park but by noon the sun broke rhrough and it was great.

Below are pictures of Irelan, her mom and a few of the animals that we saw there. One funny note, Irelan loves to look at birds, especially when they are flying. So naturally we made sure that we would see the bird show. But, unbeknownst to us, Irelan was on her own time table. When we reached the bird show location, Irelan decided that it was nap time and she went directly to sleep, so we left. Oh well, maybe next time we are here, we'll make a point to see the show early.

I will be in New York in about 3 weeks, stay tuned.

Exit Baby - Enter Little Girl

My little Irelan is no longer a baby. She is now a full fledged little girl. She has her own unique mannerisms and traits. That little baby face that I totally looked forward to seeing is now changed to a precious little girl that I look forward to seeing. Either way, she's still my precious Irelan.

My niece Bailey's 2nd birthday

A couple weeks ago we celebrated my niece, Bailey, her second birthday. There were plenty of people there and lots of food. My brother-in-law hired a Taco wagon which was a great idea. Don't have to worry about the food, keeping it warm or what will people eat. The Taco wagon took care of that. I took a few photos, not many.


My niece Bailey ready to hit the pinata




My homies, Olivia, Dan, and Vince







Little Irelan taking aim at the basket.

Bath Time

Miss Irelan is spending some quality time with us while her house is being worked on. She took a bath yesterday and I recorded some pre, during and post bath pictures. So, here they are:


Pre- Bath



During - Bath



Post - Bath

A Royal Party

For Irelan's 1st birthday, I created a photo time line of her 1st year. I first created a spreadsheet which listed the day she was born to her 1st birthday. In between those 2 days I dived it by 52 weeks. 1 week each from her birth date to her 1st birthday. In between those 52 weeks I put in the dates that created the week. I then created 52 directories in my computer and started putting her pictures in each of the directory weeks. It makes it really easy when you can sort pictures by camera create date. I then did some photoshop work and created a template, 8x10 inches 300dpi which is what a Frontier printer at Longs prints and then started adding pictures to each template and labeling it for the work week being worked on. I'm sorry if I can't express it correctly but the picture below is one of the birthday pages. I basically had 52 pages with a cover and bound together. Everyone at the party seemed to like it.




The Party!

The party was a great time. One of Irelan's old friend ,Maddie ,stopped by and the both of them caught up on old times. There were quite a few people there and plenty, and I do mean plenty, of food to eat. Below are some pictures of my favorite 2 princesses.