Blogsy palsy

This is the first of many posts I'm planning on uploading using a new software package for the iPad called Blogsy. Its a little more intense than the real basic Blogger app but it has a ton more features. Well here goes.

 

Help Me Help Kids In Need

Hello,

This July I will be boarding a bus to Staunton, VA in the beautiful Shendandoah Valley to participate in “The Anchor House Ride for Runaways”, the primary fundraising vehicle of Anchor House, a halfway house and shelter for runaway and abused children here in Trenton, NJ.

Anchor House was founded in 1978 to provide emergency housing, food, clothing and hope for runaway and homeless youth, ages 10 to 16. The shelter provides for the immediate needs of runaway and homeless youth, while seeking to reunite youth with their families, strengthen family relationships and help youth decide on a constructive course of action. Services are available 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. The mission of Anchor House has grown since it was founded and now also includes the Angels Wings Program for infants and young children and the Anchorage program for older teens. Taken together, the facilities and programs under the Anchor House banner provide a continuum of care for homeless, abused and at-risk children from birth to 18 years of age. For more information, please visit the Anchor House Shelter’s website at.www.anchorhousenj.org.

At the same time those dedicated volunteers founded the shelter in 1978, a small group of equally dedicated bicyclists started the “Ride for Runaways”. Now in its 34th year, the number of participants has grown to average 200 bicyclists; many are multi-year veterans who get together annually to raise the funds needed to keep the doors of Anchor House open. The story of the Ride and its importance to the mission of the Anchor House Foundation is available here at www.anchorhouseride.org.

For 2012, we’re starting in Staunton VA (the birthplace of US President Woodrow Wilson) and will ride for 7 consecutive days for a total of 500 grueling miles all the way back to Trenton, New Jersey. Here is our 2012 route http://www.anchorhouseride.org/Ride.aspx and I’ve attached the 2012 Ride flyer detailing our route and the towns we’ll be visiting this year

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Please consider supporting the kids of Anchor House (and me as a rider) with your donation. Now, more than ever the kids need us. I will be bicycling for 7 days in the sun, heat, rain, wind, whatever the weather offers. I’ll be climbing mountains, swilling Gatorade and riding 70 plus miles per day all to help kids in crisis. While it will be a challenging week for me, it is a very challenging daily existence for the kids of Anchor House. Help us keep the doors of Anchor House open to these kids.

Your donations are tax deductible and you may make them online securely by clicking here: http://www.anchorhouseride.org/Donate.aspx?poolId=1099 or by filling out the attached “direct mailing form” and sending it to the address listed at the bottom.

On behalf of the kids that depend on Anchor House, Thank You!

Brian

Kitty vacation

Well, let's say you have two cats and a dog. And let's say one of your cats has been diagnosed with diabetes and is on insulin. You want to go on vacation, and you're having a tough time arranging for someone to housesit your house and take car of your animals (including your special needs cat).

What do you do?

In our case, you arrange to have your diabetic cat boarded at a veterinary hospital where she can be monitored 24/7 while you are away. 36 dollars a day will provide a ton of piece of mind next month when wife and I are on the Anchor House Ride for Runaways. Our cat will be receiving the best of care at Columbus Veterinary Hospital in Columbus, NJ (a sister hospital to our local vet, West Trenton Animal Hospital) but our dog will be spending time with his aunt at our house, rather than being boarded out. The budget can only afford one pet on vacation at a time!

Our cat will be examined by the vets at Columbus this Saturday, and we'll arrange to drop her off the night before the Anchor House ride. She'll stay there until we arrive home the following Saturday; well fed and well rested. The staff there will keep an eye on her, feed and medicate her and monitor her blood sugar levels. She'll get better care than if she was at home.

Such is the life of a pet parent with a special needs cat.

Bittersweet

It's been over a week since we said goodbye to our nine year old cat, Sandy. And I still miss her. Sandy was a little stray cat we adopted in 2004, small, malnourished and starving. She went from a completely wild animal to a wonderful, loving little pet while living with us. She developed asthma early in her life, and although we treated her attacks with prednilisone, the last one was fatal.We let her go home last Thursday, and we miss her so. Love you, girl.

Remember The Titans

I was checking Twitter on my phone this afternoon when I read a tweet from Brian Compton, a writer at NHL.com and a former sports reporter at the Trentonian. His post stated that the Trenton Devils, the ECHL affiliate of the NHL's New Jersey Devils, had announced their intention to cease operations for 2011-2012. Though the news wasn't unexpected given the team's declining attendance in recent years, it still tore at us Trenton hockey fans.

Back in 1999, a friend and I were in the River View Plaza offices of the T-Devils' predecessor the Trenton Titans as season ticket holders # 144. We were able to pick out our seats from a huge seating diagram of the still-under-construction Sovereign Bank Arena. I still remember the seat numbers; Section 114, Row GG, seats 1-4. 7 rows off the ice in the end the home team attacked twice. Great seats. Opening night 1999 found 8,000 screaming fans watching the home boys beating the Johnstown Chiefs; the building ROCKED. The first season was great fun; a bunch of scrappy kids with a young coach taking an expansion team to within two wins of the Kelly Cup finals. Every night was packed, every night the crowd cheered and booed lustily, and it seemed like it would be like that every game.

The first 5 years of the team's existence were good times. Good teams, good coaches, some future NHL'ers on the roster (Fedoruk, Fedotenko, Smithson, Valliquette), two appearances in the finals and one championship. Passionate fans like Puckhead, the gang in Section 113, and the Trenton Signman made every night entertaining even if sometimes the on-ice product wasn't! My wife and I looked forward to the 36 nights each season we got to go to SBA. We met lots of great people there; seatmates, seat neighbors in our section, ushers, arena staff and executives, NHL scouts and front office personnel in town to see what their kids were doing "down on the farm". When the Titans were on the road, the voice of their first radio play by play Joe Zydlo called the games on 1680 AM (Wham Bam Boom! The Titans score!) Like I said: good times.

After the 2004-2005 season of magic that ended with a parade down Broad Street with the Kelly Cup, things started changing. You heard the whispers regarding the team's financial problems, and that the local owners were interested in sellling the team when it was at its highest value. When the New Jersey Devils completed their purchase of the team in 2006, at first it was seen by the fan base as a positive move. At last, the team would have an ownership group that had the wherewithal to properly market and advertise the team. Truth be told - by 2006-7, the attendance had slipped into the high 4000's and nobody in management seemed to be advertising the team with any degree of aggressiveness. We all thought the deep pockets of an NHL owner would stop the slow downward attendance trend.

Instead of improving, things got worse. The Devils decided after one year of ownership to rebrand the organization to the Trenton Devils with logos and colors consistent with the parent club. Bad move for a hockey team located in Flyers territory. The attendance nosedived and couldn't be corrected with marketing the team in the Monmouth, Ocean and Somerset county areas. It was as if your little town was invaded and occupied by a polite but alien power and they wanted to teach your children a foreign culture and language. Little kids from Hamilton and Bucks county were asking their parents for Martin Brodeur bobblehead dolls for sale at the gift shop, and NJ Devils jerseys started to be seen walking the concourse during intermissions. The season ticketholder base dropped from over five thousand in 1999 to less than a thousand last year. It was pathetic the few times I went down there in the 09-10 season. One night in February that season, I counted about 1100 people in the arena; the building was quiet and had zero life or energy.

Sorry to say, last season we didn't attend one game. Every time we thought about going down there and catching a game it was too easy to do something else. We no longer felt that we HAD to attend and support the team; we had no emotional attachment to the T-Devils as we had to the Titans.

And now, there will be no more games. The Devils own the ECHL franchise that the T-Devils played under. They will probably move the AA team to another city and become the Podunk Devils or the Smalltown Devils and continue play in the league. Hockey in Trenton, though, appears to be finished after 12 years in the league. So sad.

A nice day on the bike.

After more than a week off my bicycle, I got out for a long ride today. I joined friends Tim Quinn, John Murray, Bob Lawyer and the young gun Dave Kimmel on a leisurely tour of some of Hunterdon County's finest hills.  Now, come June I'm usually out on the road several times during the week but I was laid low by a summer cold Tuesday and I've been rough since then.

Today was an exercise in hanging on. The legs had nothing, the breathing was hard, and the coughing was "productive" to put it politely. Thanks to my riding buds who waited for me on several occasions!

Now its time for a well-earned nap!

Help me help the kids of Anchor House

Hello friends and family,

This July I will be boarding a bus to Jamestown, NY near the shores of Lake Erie to participate in “The Anchor House Ride for Runaways”.

Anchor House was founded in 1978 to provide emergency housing, food, clothing and hope for runaway and homeless youth, ages 10 to 17. The shelter provides for the immediate needs of runaway and homeless youth, while seeking to reunite youth with their families, strengthen family relationships and help youth decide on a constructive course of action. Services are available 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. The mission of Anchor House has grown since it was founded and now also includes the Angels Wings Program for infants and young children and the Anchorage for older teens. For more information, visit:http://www.anchorhousenj.org/ .

At the same time those dedicated volunteers founded the shelter in 1978, a small group of equally dedicated bicyclists started the “Ride for Runaways”. Now in it's 33rd year, the ride has now grown to over 200 bicyclists who get together annually to raise the funds needed to keep the doors of Anchor House open.

As I said, we will begin in Jamestown, NY and pedal for 7 consecutive days for a total of 500 grueling miles all the way back to Trenton, New Jersey.

Please consider supporting the kids of Anchor House (and me as a rider) with your donation. Now, more than ever the kids need us. I will be bicycling for 7 days in the sun, heat, rain, wind, whatever the weather offers. We will be climbing mountains and peddling 70 plus miles per day. While it will be a challenging week for me, it is a very challenging daily existence for the kids of Anchor House. Help us keep the doors of Anchor House open to these kids.

Your donations are tax deductible and you may make them online securely by clicking here: http://www.anchorhouseride.org/Donate.aspx?participantId=898

Thank you! I'll keep you updated on my progress as I train for my ride.

Brian