my kind of town

the bean. the big shiny thing. officially titled 'Kapoor's sculpture', this 110 ton stainless steel structure has taken the windy city by storm making it the new face of chicago. sears tower? the hancock building? wrigley? chicago's skyscrapers got nothing on this shiny new marvel of metal as people flock to it in awe inspiring amazement - as laurie and i did when we arrived into chicago last weekend. move in closer, and your image disappears, move away, and you get a spectacluar reflection of the entire city. and a special to my college buddy shawn wang for taking us around the city that night.

but we didn't come to chi-town just to see a silly ole bean. we came to my cousin grachelle's wedding. she married mark linton who was the starting small forward for marquette (well he wasn't, but was tall enough to be). their wedding was held at st. patrick's church, a unique church with a great view of a forrest behind the altar. during the ceremony some coyotes wandered in the distance catching the attention of the audience.

(from left, excluding me and laurie) my uncle jr, uncle joe, tita jenny, sister, tita letty, justin, mom and dad came out to party as well. after the requisite picture taking was done, we headed to the reception...

and got a picture with the happy couple, there's my other cousin ryan, grachelle's brother on my left. lucky for us, there were three other wedding receptions going on at the same time. so me laurie, pat justin and tricia decided to congratulate the other happy couples. i think it was the first time any of us crashed other weddings. i must give it up to my cousin's wedding, their party was definitely the one to be at.

and we partied all through out the night.

happy st. patrick's day lassie

march 17th. t'is a grand time for us irishmen. as you all know lads, t'is the day is more than just green shirts, shamrocks corn beef and guinness. t'is the day of our patron saint, ol'e st. patrick. ya see lads, he brought to the ol' home land catholicism. and to celebrate, what else is there to do but dress up in green, have a pint of gunniess, celebrate with the rest of the locals then head to the local irish pub - patty o'shea's.

out here in ny, we irish are great in number, and strong in spirit. here is me fellow irishmen in the annual st. patrick's day parade. here we proudly display our culture and heritage with a grand march up fifth avenue.

everybody's irish today, here's our sr. senator, chuck schumer joining in the festivities.

and of course the fdny. proudly displaying the flags representing the fallen on 9/11.

and folks, we apologize that we haven't had any new posts for a while, but we'll be updating it regularly from now on. and one more thing, new to the blog, we've allowed comments, so from now on, comment soon and often, and ask all the questions you want that you've been wondering about, also include quesitons about, religion, politics, culture, the hills, the lakers, james joyce, adobo, everything's fair game. happy st. patty's day lads