Why do I agree to do thiese things? So one of the ladies from one of the Medicare seminars I gave called me today and wanted me to find which Medicare plan would be best for her since she currently has Medicaid and will be forced into a plan. Ok first of all, people with Medicaid have the least to worry about b/c they can changel plans each month and secondly al lthe plans are reasonably the same for them. But anywho I did say at these meetings that we would be able to help people do this (nevermind you that was the crap eckerd was feeding me at the time, we now realize it is way too much work) So instead of saying no we can't relaly do that of course I agree to do it. Of course it is at minimum an hour long project and of course I have no time at work to do it. So i do it at home. ANd my computer is about 1kb/hour internet speed. So Frnakly i have been doing this for the past two hours or so for this one lady. She better freakin write a letter of thanks. I hope she doesn't have any friends. This way they don't call and ask for help too!

So today is my last day in good old Beantown. They say there are supposed to be major storms between here and NYC tomorrow but not until 12 o'clock I should almost be back in Buffalo by then so hopefully there will be no plane disruptions for me. We went to the NEw England Aquarium today and it was really cool. The entire center of the buliding for like six floors is a coral reef aquarium wiht like 600 fish and turtles and the such. The one turtle whose name is Myrtle has been in the aquarium since it opened 65 years ago and now weighs over 600 lbs. It was so cool to see all the really huge fish. There was also a special jelly fish exhibit which was pretty neat. I never knew anything about jellyfish and would now consider myself an expert.

It snowed here today for the first time since I have been here and everything looks really cool in the snow. Especially Boston Commons with all the lights and the ice skating rink and stuff. Hopefully once (e:maureen) uploads the thousands of pictures we took this weekend, a few will find their way to this website. Trying to find a church to go to today I foudn one that happened to be the home of the Boston BOys Choir so it was a cool mass. There was a lot of theatrics and good singing which was fun. I also felt like the people really meant the peace be with you. I don't know but that is one of the reasons I switched to my nonna's church becuase I felt the people there really meant it unlike at St. Paul's in Kenmore and so did these people which I enjoyed.

We ate dinner at Longfellows which was very tasty. I guess their new england clam chowder has been served at the last 7 presidential inaugurations. Frankly the soup was not that amazing. It tasted basiclaly like Campbells to me. I don't know what i was expecting from it but defientley something better. THe food in general though was really good.

The one dissapointment from this trip is the store around the corner from Maureen sells strawberry chewies which are my favorite candies in the world and are no longer sold anywhere in the Buffalo area that I know of. I have eaten a bunch while I am here but was going to buy some to take home but the store was closed tonight when we went. Considering I have to get on the subway at like 6 am to catch my flikght tomorrow, I don't think the store will be open yet then, but we'll see tomorrow.

Ok thats all for now, if all goes acording to plan I should be back in the b-lo tomorrow ...see ya soon

So in the last two days I have walked every inch of this city. Seriously I think they are going to give me the key to the city because I probably know more information than anyone else in the world about this city. WE have taken every tour and the such. I would say my favorite part was the Maparium. IT is this globe that is really 608 stained glass panels that illuminated and you walk on this bridge in the middle that is at the equator. And the weirdest part is that the globe is the world as it was in 1935 because that was when it was built. They try to play it off liek there is a meaningful reason why they never updated it and that it is about become one with the world in all its forms or something. But that is a load of bull hooey because there is an article in their museum about when it was built and it said the reason they did it in so many panels was so that they could update it as the world changed. Me and (e:maureen) cut a tour gropu and so got to go in it alone. THere is like a video presetnation inside.

I almost forgot the coolest part. THe acoustics were amazing. IF you stood in the center under the north star and talked you could hear yourself in surround sound. The only weird part was that the whole Maparium was started by a Christian Science Foudner and is in their museum thing which made it feel a little bit like a recruiting ground. I kinda felt like they wanted me to become one of them. But it was still cool... I"ll update more about this crazy city later...

So I flew to Boston to visit (e:maureen) all by myself today. On the way from Buffalo to NY I got kinda sick but prevented myself from throwing up because there were two seriuos businessmen next to em that I felt like woulodn't be ok with me throwing up next to them. It was so gross though cuz i was getting that about to throw up feeling and like sweated through all my clothes. The flight from NY to Boston was much nicer. I actually must have fell asleep because I dind't realize we had even taken off and the pilot announced we would be landing in Boston in 15 minutes. The flight was seriuosly like only a half hour long. I followed the buses and subway directions maureen gave me perfectly and got to her apt. with no problems. How crazy is that? The only slight fiasco was when I walked through security at the Buffalo airport without stopping. I didn't relaize that that part was security and it didn't seem like any of the workers were paying attention. Needless to say it was a small yelling fiasco from the workers for that. THey don't appreciate people running through the security in the post 9/11 world I suppose.

Saw a lot of Harvard and the Harvard Square/Cambridge area today. Tomorrow much more stuff to pack in. We are hitting up everything I could think of. Or at least that is what we wrote down. IN truth we will probably sleep and then forget to do anything...ok this is mike signing off from beantown for now

Oh yeah and the most exciting thing is coming tomorow....the Maparium....I'll let you google that if you want to find out more...I'll tell you what it was like in person tomorow

First of all I want to say Happy Belated Thanksgiving to everyone. I hope everyone else ate as much food and had as much fun as I did. I really think this was the first year in memory that my family was relatively calm and stress free for the whole day. My parents let me sleep in til like 1130 and dind't really make me do much to set up excpet go pick up my brother. And even when he wasn't ready for like another hour they still were ok with that. Just everything was calm and cool, which if you know my family I belive the last time we went more than ten minutes without yelling was circa 1992, maybe earlier. Eh, we're Italian, yelling is what we do! We tried to play family feud and it didn't' go so well, (e:terry) is a terrible game leader and it was much more complicated than you would think. Later we moved on to password which was fun and we found out my mom knew all about blunts. WHo woulda thought?

Wednesday night was a lot of fun. Everyone was back in town, except (e:mk). We went to Frizzy's and were gonna see where we were going to go from there but ended up staying there the whole night. It was lots of fun seeing everyone again all together and having fun. It was nice to catch up with everyone. Ok i pretty much knew everything about eveyrone but it was nice to hear them tell each other. Guest appearances were made by (e:amanda) and her b/f and Laura and other fun peeps. erock perhaps? Thanks to Jill for being my DD...

Well the weekend has arrived, let the fun continue

Oh and I almost forgot, i got to see my cousin's new baby Sylvia who was so freakin cute!!! Babies are nice, i want one...now.

First of all I want to say thanks to all the people who commented on my last journal. ALas, I think i was overreacting to a situation, as those of you who know me, know I often do. I still don't know how the situation will turn out but really it wasn't nearly as drastic as I made it out to be.

I SERIOUSLY CANNOT WAIT UNTIL 6:20 pm tomorow night when my favoritest (e:beast) TERES COMES BACK TO THE B-LO!! I NEED HER PRESENCE MAJORLY!!!

On that note, Wednesday night we are going out (as is everyoen else in the world right cuz it is the night before thanksgiving?) but we are going out to celebrate Teres coming back. A welcome back party of sotrs with the other thousands of poeple out wednesday. Everyone should join in the festivities. When i know where we are going , I will post it there. So stay tuned...

Ooops how did I let myself forget for the last few days that I am completely undesirable. How many times will I make the same stupid mistakes?

So after a crazy beginning of the week with more 14 hour work days and lots of craziness and my car breaking and nothing fun the week greatly improved on Wednesday. Me and (e:amanda) who I haven't seen in waaay too long b/c she is always studying and working went out for coffee and caught up on everything going on in our lives. And it snowed that night so we went on our first snow walk which was fun. Well it as fun while we walked in one direction and the wind was to our back but once we turned around it got a little bit crazy cold and icy in our face, especially since we were wearing like spring jackets and no kind of cold weather protection but it was still fun. The first snow is always so fun. Then (e:lilho) and (e:paul) called and we decided to go to a going away party for France (a German exchange student who is living in Robin's apt while Robin is in Germany , not France the country embroiled in riots).

I was not going to go cuz it was snowy and I had my mom's car and was afraid of crashing it but I decided eh I should. I'm so glad I decided to go. After me and (e:lilho) doing our normal stay in a corner and alienate ourselves from everyone there by clinging to each other and ignoring other people (why do I always cause that effect on who I am with?) I actually ended up talking to some people and having fun. One fun person in particular who I saw again on Thursday. So I'm glad I went.

Then on Friday (e:jill) and my other friend Jen both got jobs so that means they will have money again soon and we can start going out and doing more things again. And to top it all off (e:mk) decided to come up from Fredonia for the weekend and so we hung out last night after what has been way too long of not hanging out (ok maybe like a few weeks) but it felt like foreva! So hopefully this great weekend continues for the next few days.

AND THEN MY LOVELY TERES COMES BACK FROM 6 MONTHS IN SCOTTLAND ON TUESDAY and everyone else comes back from school too and we are gonna party like we are 16 again (well we didn't party that much at 16 haha but it will be fun)

basically every one of my friends being back + the night before thanksgiving + copious amounts of alcohol = amazingness!!! I can't wait!

So two people asked me for my autograph today! So as many of you know I have been doing presentations all over Western New York at senior centers, senior apts, church groups, bingo games, you name it, anywhere seniors hang out I have been talking about the new Medicare Prescription Coverage and trying to answer people's questions. Well today at the one apartment building the people really loved me and all told me how great I was afterwards and that all I loved me and two of the old ladies, I belive one said she was 95 asked me for my autograph. One said "i really think you are going to be someone someday, and I want to have your autograph" or something like that. Alzheimers? maybe...but it still felt good

Ok by a while I mean it has prolly been a few days, but for me that is a long time not to post. I am becoming an old man. I honestly read in bed and go to bed by like midnight every weeknight. Well this week I did. I am trying to get myslef into a routine so I am not so tired all the time. Like sleep more during the week and then just enjoy the weekends extra more instead of just haphazardly staying up all the time and then being exhausted all the time. I am also trying to wake up even earlier before work so I can eat breakfeast and exercise. I've gotten upo early enough to eat a quickb reakfeast or at least grab something to go but haven't mastered waking up early enough to exercise in the morning yet. Hmm how weird that I found time to eat more but not to work out. Other than that life has been pretty good....too much work though....last night we watched Wizard of Oz and The WEdding Singer. THose are some great movies I haven't seen in a really long time. It was at a poker game night but me, jill and jeff decided not to play poker and watch tv/movies instead. It was fun....tonight lilho graduation celebration and maybe Beatlemania though I wish beatlemania was not out in east jehungaville and so I could do both the party and the beatlemania more easily!