Neil Diamond June 23, 2012 TD Banknorth Garden, Row 4

Photos of Neil.  At 71, he's as good as ever.  It's hard to do a 2 hr show with mostly 2-3 minute songs in your portfolio, but it was fantastic.

Photos of Farren - Butcher at Tupelo Music Hall, Londonderry, NH Saturday, June 16, 2012

If you recall Farrenheit from the 1980's, the original members were there - Charlie, David Hull on bass and Muzz on drums.  Chris Martin from Jon Butcher Axis joined on bass for while also.

More photos of my other June events coming.

FL Travel

Hah!  Found a draft of my post from Florida, so here it is - a bit incomplete, but it's what I wrote while traveling through FL.


In Florida for a few days.  Flew to Wests Palm Beach and made a few customer calls in the area.  Then up to Melbourne and over to Tampa for visits in both areas.  Then flying home from Tampa.  First time in Florida in over 4 years - it's hot!  Picked a good week to travel - rainy and cold in NH this week.

Got Dish Network hooked back up after running the Roto-Tiller through the wires.  Upgraded the boxes to HD throughout the house.  It was a typical challenge to overcome poor customer service from another TV service provider, but overcame it.

This Saturday is the Rite of Lector, another step in our Diaconate Formation.  I turned in my final paper on Monday night from FL.

June

Whew...where do I start?

I knew June was going to be a challenging month.  Last post was right after my 21st anniversary and Memorial Day weekend.  Went to Florida the next week for work.  Flew to West Palm Beach - really liked that area.  Visited a few customers and then drove to Melbourne and then to Tampa.  Stayed in Tampa and visited a few customers including a day in St Petersburg.  I actually wrote a post while in Florida but PC problems deleted the post.  

That weekend, we had the Rite of Lector to complete our second year of Formation.  Halfway through Formation and next year looks to be an even better year for classes and instructors.  We ended with a fantastic class and instructor and begin next year with Gospel of John, then Liturgy, Letters of Paul and Sacraments.  Next year is an important year in Formation and we will probably receive Parish assignments for the summer.  Certainly, we'll begin to get some practical experience.

The following week, I went to a local Bible Study with a good friend to engage some other Christians in their faith.  

The following weekend I was the facilitor/speaker at our monthly Men of St Joseph meeting, so i spent the week preparing my talk.  I'm feeling much more confident in these settings and really look forward to the challenge of finding a topic and speaking for the Lord.

That night (the 16th) we went to see Charlie Farren and Jon Butcher.  They had the original Farrenheit crew.  I've seen Charlie at least 15 times over the years and he never disappoints.  

Sunday, we (Kathy, Mary and I) left for Montreal for the week.  Our major company trade show was in the middle of the city, so we got a hotel two blocks away on St Catherine Street for the week.  Trade show was good.  Friday we went to see Star Wars Identities at the Montreal Science Center.  We then toured the two Basilicas and the Cathedral in Montreal.  The Cathedral is modeled after St Peter's in Rome.  It was a good prep for our planned vacation to Rome in 2014.  

Got back yesterday.  We spent (uggh!) two hours and twenty minutes in traffic at the border.  As soon as we entered the states, got a text from Toots (my sister in law) and went to see Neil Diamond at the TD Banknorth Garden last night.  Sat 4 rows from the stage.

So that's my June.  Over the next few days, I'll post pictures of Neil, my Formation Weekend and the Rite of Lector with the Bishop and photos from Montreal of the Cathedral, Basilicas and Star Wars Identities.

Whew!

Vacation for me the week of July 4th and then head to the beach for two weeks at the end of July.

Another concert

Went to see ZZ Top last night in Manchester.  A fifth row seat grabbed a week ago.  So, here are some photos.  Opening was Gretchen Wilson.  I knew of her and had seen her perform on TV once, so I expected her to be good and she did not disappoint.  Next was 3 Doors Down.  Good performers, but not my type of music.  Then the headliner, and it seemed that they went chronologically through their music.  A good show.  It was no Van Halen, but being in the 5th row, and jumping into the 4th row for ZZ Top made it quite enjoyable.

Enjoy the photos and don't forget to click on them to enlarge to full size:

Oh, and one last photo of my concert companion, my sis-in-law.  Did I mention it was also my 21st wedding anniversary last night?  I may have overlooked that in scheduling the concert, so will have to make up for that the rest of the weekend.

Frustration

Having a frustrating afternoon with work.  Then I came across this.  The USPS is bleeding cash and here is a company I do business with, explaining why they are switching to FedEx.  And the USPS answer is to cancel Saturday delivery as a solution.  Perhaps this 'business' should listen to their customers:

we tried the US Postal service Priority Mail, but we got too many complaints from our customers about many issues.  The main issues were: it took too long to be delivered (in some cases more than a month!) or NEVER delivered, packages arrived damaged (probably because in many countries, the package is passed on to a third party service) and the biggest issue that customers had was there was no real time tracking, so you never knew where your box was.  Then from our standpoint, when the product is lost, it is almost impossible to collect on the insurance that we purchased. This causes significant problems for us since we make limited edition product and most of items are sold out, so we do not have any “extras.” Also, the cost of items are very expensive when they lose the package. 

Marriage Enrichment

Last weekend, we had our last Formation Weekend of the year before we take the Rite of Lector.  Once again this year, I hope to have my son Chris (who turned 19 yesterday) as the Bishop's server during the Rite.  It takes place June 9 at 11:30 at St Theresa Church in Henniker, NH.  Took some photos with our presenters last weekend to add to my 'clergy collection'  I have a new goal - to photograph all the presenters at our Formation Weekends over the next two years so that I have a photo record of our Formation after Ordination.

Kathy and I with Msgr Paul Bouchard

Pastor, Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Merrimack, NH

Kathy and I with Deacon Jim and Christine Patterson

Deacon Jim is assigned to Our Lady of Mercy Parish 

Christine is Pastoral Associate at Our Lady of Mercy Parish

Christine joins us for many of our Formation Weekends.  Her experience as a Pastoral Associate and Deacon's wife has been a welcome addition to our weekends as we grow and further understand what it will be like once ordained and assigned to a parish.

Kathy was a Lector for our weekend liturgy.  She has never done it before.  She practiced quite a bit and the first time she practiced in front of me, I thought she was perfect.  Good pace and good pronunciation.  She was really REALLY nervous.  As was I my first time, but now I am very comfortable.  In fact I am Lector at St Mark the Evangelist this weekend.  Kathy is not comfortable with public speaking.  I tried to tell her this was public READING and a bit easier, but it did not calm her down.  She did terrific.

We had our third class in Moral Theology.  I wish this class continued for a while - it has been the most enlightening class so far, mostly because of our instructor, Prof Dan Daly from St Anselm's Theology Department.

Tonight I have Nocturnal Adoration at Midnight, then up at 6 AM for Men of St Joseph with my brothers in Litchfield at St Francis.