The Mullenium Observer

Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Mills

2012-02-08T20:59:00.008-05:00

Per an announcement earlier in this blog, Patrick Mills (my fourth cousin) and Lisa Gerrard were married in Cuba on January 3rd. Below is an email from Patrick and Lisa to the entire family:

Dear all,

Apologies for the delay in sending this out: it took us quite a while to recover from the return journey. Jetlag, colds, and a general sense of disbelief that we were no longer on a Caribbean island, but were in fact back in Colchester, all delayed our ability to 'get on with everything' again!

First of all, thank you so much for all your best wishes, lovely cards and general support. We attach one photo as a teaser, and if you'd like to see more (be warned, there are quite a few!), click this link.

Just to make sense of the photos: as you may know we got married in Havana, Cuba, on 3rd January. All the important things went well, and many unimportant things did not go so well - which was amusing - at least we can laugh about them now!

Eg a mini hurricane on the big day meant we couldn't marry on the roof terrace of the hotel as planned, so the ceremony took place in a rather small room inside the hotel. And although we asked for a band with the style of the Buena Vista Social Club, we in fact ended up with the Mala Vista Social Club...The music was more suited to a sombre memorial service, and the band was rather visually challenged, as is hinted at in the album photos. But we can laugh now....

Everything else was brilliant! Havana has got to be the cooolest city on earth, without even trying. The people are fantastic and whatever you may read in the media - their brand of socialism has produced a better standard of living compared with most of Latin America. The latino jazz bands in the bars were sublime, the ex-mafia hotels were straight out of the Godfather II, and haven't changed since 1959. Neither had the cars, which we both drooled over. Witness, for example, the photo of the 1959 pink cadillac taxi that we casually hailed in the street, for around £7, including a prolonged photo session.

Needless to say, the cocktails were refreshing, and lethal - while the cigars were just lethal - naturally, we had to include some shots of all of us with them to make this 'Our Big Fat Cuban Cigar Wedding'.

We're desperate to return to Cuba - a truly fascinating, funky, romantic country with a big heart!

Best wishes
Lisa & Patrick

Congratulations Patrick and Lisa, and best of luck to both of you from the entire extended Mullen Family!

Thomas Ruane: January 16, 2012

2012-02-03T20:38:00.007-05:00

Tom with his sister, Evelyn: 2005

It is with sadness that I report the passing of Thomas Ruane, who died peacefully in the Mayo General Hospital on January 16, 2012. I had the good fortune to meet and talk with Tom on my visits to Ireland in the last decade. When I last saw Tom in 2008, he was too ill to attend the Mullen Family Reunion in Ballina. Marilynn and I visited him in the hospital, though, and he was in great spirits and eager to be released. We had an excellent visit with him and his sons. He will be missed by all who knew him.

Click on the image below to read his obituary:

Below are a few additional photographs of Tom surrounded by various members of his extended family:

Standing: Martin Ruane, Gerald Ruane, Daniel Ruane, Patrick Ruane
Seated: Mary Coleman, Thomas Ruane, John Ruane, Evelyn Moyles

Standing: Tom Ruane, Gerald Ruane, Dimi Catechis, Martin Ruane;

Seated: Patricia Ruane, Mary Coleman, Mary Ruane Catechis, Evelyn Moyles

1992: Tom Ruane, Joe Mullen,
Tom Ruane (son), Bridie Ruane (wife)

Welcome to the Family, Laura Davies!

2012-02-03T18:41:00.010-05:00

I received this good news in an email from Máire and John Davies on December 24, 2011:

"Just to let you know the latest twig on the family tree: our new granddaughter, Laura, was born on December 21st, to our son Tom, and his partner Jenny [Lennox]. She weighed 7 lb 13 oz and is lovely. I'll send you a picture via text message, as I haven't got one handy on the computer yet."

In case you forgot, babies grow incredibly fast! Here's another photo of Laura about a month later, already destined to be a fan of the O's.

Congratulations Tom and Jenny! Looking forward to the day when I meet my new fifth cousin in person!

Tom & Laura

Some Great News from Patrick Mills!

2011-12-13T21:58:00.005-05:00

Lisa Gerrard and Patrick Mills

What follows is an email that I received this morning from Patrick Mills or, as he's known in Wikipedia, Pat Mills. Either way, he's my fourth cousin!

At any rate, on to Patrick's email:

Hello, everyone,

Please forgive the general e-mail, but the problem with us freelances is we never seem to have enough time. It's to let you know Lisa and I are getting married - in Cuba! We're there from December 21 to mid January and getting married on Jan 3.

Why Cuba? Well, it's partly the leftie in us, partly curiosity, partly the sunshine, but mainly the Romance! Plus I've got to put to good use all those salsa lessons I've been having to sort out my two left feet. Plus Lisa has lived in South America, so she's into Latin culture. But it's not for the cigars - although I've been taking orders from my friends who are aficionados. So let me know if you are and I'll get you some.

Gosh, it's only taken me two decades to find someone! And all is going according to plan, thanks to Lisa's brilliant organisational skills. So thought I should let everyone in the family know. (I don't want to say anything on Facebook because that's really for my work) Hope you're all well, life's treating you good, and you have a super Christmas and a brilliant New Year! Right - I'd better get back to my salsa practise.

All the very best,
Patrick

Congratulations Patrick and Lisa! Is there a Comic-Con convention coming to the New York area in the near future, Patrick? That might be the perfect time to hook up again with some of your American cousins and introduce us to Lisa at the same time!

Sara Sankowich ... TV Star!

2011-12-12T22:27:00.008-05:00

For whatever reason, I have a tough time describing exactly what my three kids do for a living. Dave has a semi-secret government defense job, Andy's job as a computer engineer at AMD is virtually impossible to discuss unless you know the value of

π

to the 35th digit, and Sara works as a System Arborist at Unitil, an energy company in New Hampshire.

Well, as luck would have it, a television program called "The New Hampshire Chronicle" (broadcast weeknights on WMUR out of Manchester, NH) recently featured Sara and the job she performs in one of their segments. Click here (or on the TV screen above) to view that segment. It will give you a good idea of the importance of Sara's job in safeguarding the New Hampshire power grid. Lord knows how long this link will remain available, so don't delay!!

"The Tree Whisperer"

Andy & Rebecca's Wedding

2011-10-23T22:17:00.118-04:00

Photo courtesy of Gary and Aneta Photography

I don't know about you, but I have a hell of a time remembering much about anyone's wedding, including my own. Unless something extraordinary, unusual, or calamitous takes place, weddings have very little chance of finding their way into my brain. Up until this summer, here were the top 3 weddings that managed a cerebral foothold:

Joanne & Kevin Murphy: The sight of the head table collapsing and sending silverware, place-settings and food all over the dance floor is permanently seared into my brain. The fact that my Uncle Joe managed to parlay that disaster into a free glass of champagne for everyone vaulted this wedding into legendary status.
Donna & Danny Sears: Just because this wedding took place outdoors under a tent during a downpour was not enough to ensure that I'd remember it. However, watching Doug Peikin, Danny's brother-in-law, heroically battle the rivers of water that flowed through the dance floor put this wedding on my brain's threshold. What caused it to move into my brain and take permanent residence was the Keystone Kops impersonation that Linda McKain and I performed while assisting Aunt Mary from the tent in the backyard to an indoor bathroom, less than 30 feet away. All three of us got drenched and Aunt Mary lost a shoe!
Janet & Steve Sutton: Very few men can dance well and my friend, Marty, is no exception to that rule. The 4 or 5 Miller Draft's that he consumed didn't help either. Midway through a swing dance maneuver with my wife, Marilynn, Marty lost his grip on her hand, went pirouetting across the room and leveled the gift table. Time stood still for me at that moment and I can clearly remember the entire scene over 30 years later.

With that lengthy backdrop, let me announce that my son, Andrew Mullen, married Rebecca Slovak on Sunday, August 28, 2011, in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. How will I ever remember this wedding? Easy.

Five days prior to the wedding, a "once in a century" earthquake hit the east coast of the United States. Measuring 5.8 on the Richter Scale, it was felt as far north as Canada and actually damaged the Washington Monument!

Washington Monument Damage

Around the same day, Hurricane Irene was wreaking havoc on the Dominican Republic with a projected path that pointed it straight through Philadelphia!

Path of Hurricane Irene

If all of that wasn't enough, a tornado warning was issued for the general Cranbury, NJ area on August 27th -- the day before the wedding!

Tornado Warning!

With this incredible trifecta of natural disaster swirling all around the upcoming wedding, what was the prudent thing to do? The answer: celebrate Andy and Rebecca's wedding with 5 different parties!!!!

Party #1: Gathering at Leanne & John Clancy's house in Philadelphia, Friday evening, August 26

For a few of us, this was three parties in one. The festivities began at around 2pm with a "rehearsal luncheon" of sorts at the Uno Chicago Grill in the Neshaminy Mall. Was the food any good? I think so, but I honestly can't remember. What I do remember is that they had Guinness, Chimay Triple Ale, and Rogue Dead Guy Ale on tap. It was also during this luncheon that we learned that my daughter, Sara (one of the bridesmaids), was going to be able to make it to the wedding after all. Her employer, Unitil, had previously canceled all vacations in order to prepare for the onslaught of Hurricane Irene. However, after a slight change in the projected path of the storm and effective preparatory work by Sara, her management relented and allowed her to attend. Tremendous news!

From there, we headed to Barbara & Marc Slovak's house to relax a bit prior to the party at the Clancy's. Since Brian Saghy (one of the groomsmen) had some time on his hands, he decided to dabble in one of his favorite pastimes: inventing new mixed drinks. In honor of the wedding that would join Irish Catholic and Jewish families, Brian decided to create a drink called "The Celtic Rabbi". After experimenting on all of us for more than an hour, Brian finally came up with a drinkable mixture that consisted of a shot of Jameson Irish Whiskey, a lot of Manischewitz, a dash of bitters and a splash of vermouth. I can't remember the exact ratios that Brian used, but I clearly recall that it was a damned potent drink that put everyone in the perfect mood for the Clancy party!

I had met John Clancy prior to the party, but when I arrived to his house that evening it was clear that I was going to get along great with him. He was dressed in work clothes and had just gotten off the roof where he had been checking out a potential leak or something. I shook his hand and accompanied him into the basement to drag up a few chairs for the party. I felt like a member of the family immediately. John and Leanne were perfect hosts, the food and drink were fantastic, and the conversation even better. My son, Dave, tried his hand at making a Celtic Rabbi for anyone willing to try one or, in my case, two. Why not? Marilynn was driving!

Party #2: Outdoor Barbecue in Cranbury, Saturday afternoon, August 27

When we awoke the next morning it was warm and sunny with no indication whatsoever that a Category 1 hurricane was dumping sheets of rain slightly south of Washington DC. A 30' x 30' tent that we rented to protect the party from rain had been set up the day before, but was it hurricane proof? In order to avoid finding out, we moved the start of the party from 3pm to 1pm and began serious party preparations. That basically meant picking up the ½ keg of Rogue American Amber Ale that I had ordered at the Cranbury Buy-Rite Liquor store (a truly fine establishment). Next, in true Mullen fashion, Dave and I used duct tape and clothes pins to attach an awning to the tent, creating a makeshift "beer alcove". That alcove would be put to heavy use later on.

Duct tape and clothes pins

We then set up a table under another tent to hold two speakers, a receiver, and an iPod while Marilynn put the finishing touches on our key party decoration: a bride and groom scarecrow in the raspberry garden.

Note the total lack of birds

The party was all set. But how many people would actually brave a hurricane to attend an outdoor barbecue? As it turns out, a lot! Almost 100 people showed up! Diana Shulman won the prize as the first guest to arrive, showing up an hour earlier than everyone else so that she could explore Cranbury a little. The rain actually held off until after 3pm. When it did start, it was a warm rain which the kids seemed to love running around in. There were no heavy winds so the adults, for the most part, stayed dry. Here are a few representative pictures of the event:

Mike and his "Frosty Bird" in action on the left

Jonathan mastering the fine art ...

Two kids having fun

The food (catered by Famous Dave's) arrived at 4pm, just as the rain began to intensify. Rather than have them set up their own tent, we had them serve the food from our screened-in porch. And there was a ton of food! A lot of it was gone by 6pm, but Marilynn and I were still eating barbecued chicken and pulled pork a couple of months later. As for the beer, the keg was floating when the party finally ended at around 7pm when a guy from Central Jersey Tent called and politely asked us if he could please come and save their brand new tent from the approaching hurricane. I was out lounging under the tent conversating and drinking a beer when I got the word that Marilynn had actually closed down the party! Smart move.

Party #3: Gathering at the hotel bar Saturday night, August 27

By around 8pm, almost everyone was either at the Hampton Inn in Bensalem or on their way there from Cranbury. The rain from Irene was fairly heavy by that time, but driving conditions were relatively good. After checking in at the hotel, though, it was clear that the night wasn't over by a long shot. All of the designated drivers were looking to party! Ironically, Mary and Tom Kinslow's room was designated as the party room, so a bunch of us hung out there for a while. My brother, Mike, put away his Frosty Bird and began pouring Bacardi Hurricanes for anyone who wanted one. I augmented that with a couple of growlers that I had filled with beer from the keg prior to leaving Cranbury, so it took us a while before we joined up with everyone else at the hotel bar. Once we got down there, though, it was tough to leave. The wedding wasn't until 2pm the next day, so nobody was in a hurry to get to bed.

Party #4: The wedding on Sunday afternoon, August 28!!!!

Everyone awoke (a little groggy from the previous night) to discover that the worst of the hurricane had passed over us during the night. Plenty of rain had fallen, trees and branches were down, and there were reports of flooding in various areas around Philadelphia. A light rain was still falling but, all in all, things looked pretty good. Then, Rebecca got a call from the manager of the Belle Voir, where the wedding was scheduled to be held. Due to storm damage, the road leading to the facility had been closed by the local police. The wedding would have to be rescheduled. One would think that 11th hour news of this nature would result in panic, stress, tears and/or anger from the bride and groom. Instead, well, here's how Marc describes what happened:

"For me the defining feature through all of this was the way that Rebecca and Andy dealt with all of the stress and problems, both real and anticipated. Except for that single moment that it looked like Sara might not be able to attend (and they both almost lost it) they focused on the issue at hand and figured out the best way to see this through. When the wedding was cancelled at 9:00 AM, although it was probably the hardest thing they ever had to do, they both readily agreed that - "then we'll just have the ceremony at the hotel and have the party some other time". At that moment I knew there was no way I was going to let this not happen and I took off to see for myself what the situation was. It would have been so easy for them to complain and break down over what was being thrown at them but they never gave in to that and kept their faith intact. It was truly a remarkable performance and if they approach life in general that way then they will be monstrously successful."

What Marc failed to make clear was that he, personally, saved the day. He jumped into his car and headed out to the Belle Voir to survey the situation personally. As advertised, the road leading into the facility had been blocked off by a police car. When Marc asked an officer what happened, the officer pointed down the road and said that a utility pole was down. An authentic recreation of the scene is provided below:

Marc then asked the officer why the entrance to Belle Voir was closed when the downed utility pole was at least two blocks further down State Road. The officer replied (and I'm paraphrasing here), "Sir, would you want to put all of your wedding guests at risk?" To which Marc replied, "Yes I would!" Amazingly, the cop said "OK" and allowed Marc to proceed to the Belle Voir and talk to the manager. Since the police had no objection and since all of the wedding staff had either slept at the Belle Voir the night before or had already arrived, the manager agreed to let the wedding proceed. Hooray for Marc! Hooray for Andy & Rebecca!

A flawless wedding and reception then ensued. It would take hundreds of photos and a blog twice this length to do the wedding justice, so I'll only attempt to document a few personal highlights.

The ketubah: Who knew that the bride and groom at a Jewish ceremony were already married prior to the actual public wedding ceremony? Being present in the room where the wedding contract was signed was truly an honor and something that I'll always remember.

The chuppah: The chuppah is a canopy, of sorts, that the bride and groom stand under during the wedding ceremony. It consists of a sheet supported by four poles, symbolizing the home that the couple will build. If that's the case, then Andy & Rebecca's home is going to be fantastic! Marilynn's quilt, in the center of the canopy, will be something that they will be able to frame and display in that home as a reminder of their wedding. The photo below was provided by Marilynn's brother, Carl Goedecke:

The chuppah, wih Marilynn's artwork

The wedding toasts: I've never been very good at toasts, so I listened in awe as Marc, Lila, and Dave all delivered polished and heartfelt speeches in a confident, natural manner. All of them (even Marc!) managed to hold it together during what were very emotional moments for them as well as us. Well done!

The First Dance: I don't cry for anything; not funerals or weddings or even when my kids were born. I didn't even cry when DeSean Jackson of the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New York Giants last year with a 65 yard punt return as time expired! For some reason, though, when I saw Andy and Rebecca dancing their first dance as husband and wife, I got a lump in my throat and a tad misty-eyed. I couldn't take my eyes off of them. The picture below (also taken by Carl Goedecke) caught the moment perfectly.

Their first dance as husband and wife

The Hora: There are two things that are totally awesome about the Hora. First, the way that it kick-starts a wedding reception is something that simply cannot be beat. Instantaneously, every wedding guest is up on the dance floor clapping or dancing or yelling. It's total madness! Second, and even more important, are the chairs! I had seen it in the movies, but never in person. Truth be told, I was a little nervous about being hoisted up in one of those chairs, not because of fear of being dropped, but because I had no idea if it was OK for a non-Jewish Irishman to take part. I asked Marc if it was OK and he said, "Go for it!", so I did! I'm here to tell you that it was the single most entertaining thing that I've ever experienced at a wedding! I'm planning on incorporating it somehow into my 50th wedding anniversary in 2027 when Marilynn and I renew our vows. I'll be, like, 72 years old, so please don't drop me!

Another fantastic Gary & Aneta photo!

The Band: I'm sure there are better wedding bands in the world than The Heartbeats, but I've never heard them. These guys were just too good to be believed. There were 10 performers in the band and at least 4 of them could sing extremely well. At one point, the guy playing the trombone picked up a microphone and belted out a spot-on version of "Under the Boardwalk". Later, one of the women stepped out and did an excellent version of "Poker Face". It was so good, in fact, that it almost erased my mental block against Lady GaGa! Did I mention that they had a horn section? They did. And a damned good one. At one point, all of the horn players came down off the stage onto the dance floor and played among the crowd. Very cool. During one of their sets, though, the sun came out. It was so beautiful outside that many people went out onto the terrace, virtually emptying the dance floor. While I couldn't blame anyone for going outside, I eventually went out and dragged a bunch of them back inside, just in time for the band's rousing rendition of "YMCA". The photo below, by Tom Kinslow, does a great job of capturing the fun we were having:

You know, it IS fun to stay at the YMCA!

The Photographers: It might seem unusual to single out the photographers at a wedding. After all, they're not members of either family and their job is to operate in the background, out of sight as much as possible. But Gary and Aneta Segler deserve a mention in this blog. The effort that they put forth under such adverse conditions was incredible. (I think Gary went through 4 shirts!) They were everywhere with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy. When the wedding was over I said, "Great job, Gary!" He replied, "Don't say that!! You haven't even seen the pictures!" But I've known Gary and Aneta for over a decade, working with them in the IT Department of Bristol-Myers Squibb. I know the quality of the work that they produce. There was no doubt in my mind that their photos would reflect that same level of quality. I've now seen all the photos that they took and I was absolutely right. They are magnificent! I've included a couple of them in this blog, but you'll have to wait until the next family gathering to see all of them. Truly a fantastic job by an incredibly talented couple. The photo below (taken by me and my iPhone) demonstrates the lengths that Gary will go to in order to get the perfect shot. Keep in mind that it had just been raining!

Party #5: Post wedding parties at the hotel bar and at Marc and Barbara's house, August 28

Following the wedding, the party didn't end for many of us. While some had to leave immediately, a group went back to Marc and Barbara's house to have a nightcap or two and open the presents that the wedding couple had received. Those staying at the Hampton Inn, however, picked up right where the wedding ended. Once again, Mary & Tom Kinslow's room was the focal point for an energetic and boisterous group, led by none other than Uncle Joe. You couldn't get near that room without being dragged into a discussion of golf or an Irish song or two. I stayed there for about an hour before heading down to the hotel bar. Like the night before, guests from both sides of the family were hanging out there. The most notable personality of the evening has to go to Lacee Mullen, wife of my nephew, Jonathan. She had obviously enjoyed herself thoroughly at the wedding and at the bar and was in no condition to operate heavy machinery (if you get my drift). Most of us figured that she was an early candidate for dismissal, but we were wrong! She switched to drinking nothing but water and stayed up laughing and talking with the entire group until almost midnight! I've never seen such a comeback performance in my entire bar experience. Truly remarkable.

It was a great evening. It was relatively warm outside so, as time went by, everyone gravitated to a patio just outside the hotel bar. We sat on a nearby stone wall and rehashed the events of the weekend. It was a great moment and a lot of fun was had by all. It also gave us the perfect opportunity to properly introduce Mary (Tommy Kinslow's girlfriend) to the combined Kinslow/Mullen families. I'm thinking we'll be seeing her again soon.

Epilog:

On Monday morning, everyone was faced with the task of returning home. For some (like Marilynn and me) it was fairly easy. While there had been substantial flooding in Cranbury over the weekend with plenty of downed trees, the water had receded by the time we arrived home. We were, however, left with a graphic reminder in our backyard that a hurricane had, indeed, passed through:

Note: It would not have hit the party tent!

Others (like my sister, Annie, who lives in Woodstock, NY, or anyone that came from New England) had to endure many, many hours of detours and bumper to bumper traffic before they got home safely. And almost everyone arrived to find wet basements, roads washed out, trees down, power out, or sections of their town flooded. As such, I want to sincerely thank all of you for the tremendous effort that you made and the time that you spent to make Andy and Rebecca's wedding a truly memorable event, one that I promise you I'll remember years from now.

Post-Wedding Comments
Barbara Slovak (mother of the bride):

"An additional feature which made the weekend and the wedding so spectacularly incredible is how our families came together. Certainly eating and drinking together on Saturday was a wonderful way for our extended families to begin to get to know each other, beginning at your house and continuing into the night at the hotel. And then at the wedding – wow! So much joy and so much energy expressed in celebrating Rebecca’s and Andy’s marriage."

"In addition, for Marc and me, it was truly wonderful to have you, Marilynn, Sara, and Dave all participate so fully in the wedding ceremony, and to then hear from so many members of your family that they enjoyed the wedding ceremony and found it meaningful. And, of course, who will ever forget seeing you and Marilynn held up on chairs as the music played! The differences between our families could have caused some difficulties, but, instead the commonalities brought everyone together. We feel so good about how our families came together as one."

Dennis Slovak (uncle of the bride) listed the following memorable events:

"Jonah's dancing on the floor in front of the stage while Marc was having his dance with Rebecca. He was hilarious."
"The fact that Marc cut his hair for the first time in over 35 years."
"The amazing job Marilynn did on the chuppah."

Charles Wills (a longtime friend of mine):

"I was overwhelmed how friendly everyone is. Each and everyone went out of their way to make me feel welcome and to spend time talking to me. Tom [Kinslow] made sure I had a seat at their table in the reception. Karen [McGarvey] talked to me to make sure that the only reason I wasn’t dancing was because of my ankles and not because no one had asked. Annie [Patrick] made sure I had enough to eat at the breakfast at the hotel and that I finished everything I took. Sean [Mullen] took about twenty minutes to talk to me about the Jets and Giants. Uncle Joe wanted to sing with me (one song was all I could muster – “When Irish Eyes are Smiling”). I really felt sad as I was leaving and can’t wait to see everyone again."

"Rebecca’s Dad also took the time to talk to me to make sure I enjoyed everything even though I’m sure he had no idea who I was. I felt he just wanted to share his happiness with everyone."

Clara Elser (a bridesmaid):

"I am neither a Mullen nor a Slovak but sharing the experience with everybody has made me feel connected to both clans."

Pat Sears (my aunt):
"I loved so much I don't know where to start. Talking to all of you is always very special to me. I especially enjoyed talking with Barbara [Slovak]; she was so grateful so many of us were able to be there. Both mothers were radiant and the bride was so beautiful in her gorgeous dress."

Katie Ferguson (my niece):

"We had a great time! The food at your house was wonderful and we (especially the girls) loved the band! "

Carl Goedecke (Marilynn's brother):
"WHAT A WEDDING! Irene [Carl's wife] has a memorable quote. Andy responded to her just after she said "I had a hard time not to cry because Rebecca was so beautiful"; Andy responded, "I felt the same!"

Mary Kinslow (my sister):
"We had a terrific time! It is really amazing that so many people were able to make it to all the festivities given the hurricane. Will a hurricane stop a Mullen gathering?? Heck no!! We really had a ton of fun every step of the way - from your pre-wedding party to the hotel party (in the bar area and in our room) to the wedding and then again the post wedding parties!! Tons of fun! I absolutely loved the wedding ceremony itself - it was so personal which made it so special!

Annie Patrick (my sister):
"What sticks out in my mind is Dave's speech, the vows, and the Hora Dance. My dances with Carl [Marilynn's brother] and Marc were very memorable and fun too!!

Unbelievably, there was still cold beer in the keg when I returned to Cranbury on Monday, August 29. So, before returning the keg, I did what had to be done: I poured one last "Winston Long" beer and toasted the bride and groom.

Mazel Tov Andy and Rebecca! Todah Rabbah Marc and Barbara!

58 in a row!

2011-10-22T19:51:00.003-04:00

Sometime back in the mid-80's, I made 42 foul shots in a row. At least I think I did. It was a number in the 40's, that much I'm sure of. I clearly remember where I did it, though: at the Hun School in Princeton. A group of us used to play pick-up ball there a couple of times a week. Whenever my team lost and had to sit a game, I used to shoot foul shots on one of the side baskets. One night, everything clicked and I made 42 in a row. Since I never wrote anything down, though, the details have faded. I'm not making that mistake this time.

On Tuesday, September 27, 2011, I tore a muscle in my upper right calf playing morning basketball at the Princeton YMCA. It was probably the worst muscle tear/pull in my life. I could barely put any weight on my right leg for about 4 days. It was so bad that I actually had to get a substitute to teach my Spinning classes for two weeks!

On the morning of Saturday, October 15, 2011, the calf had healed enough to allow me to shoot on the sidelines while a group of guys I currently play with played pickup basketball at the Princeton Theological Seminary. While I still couldn't shoot a jump shot, I was able to shoot foul shots. Over the course of about 90 minutes, I talked with the guys, watched them play, trash-talked from the sidelines, and shot well over 200 foul shots. My shot was OK -- I had a few streaks of 20+ in a row -- but nothing fantastic. At the end of the morning, though, after all the games had ended and everyone was cooling down or packing to leave, I got into a groove. In the span of about 15 minutes, I made 58 foul shots in a row! The 59th shot felt perfect as well but was just a little long, hitting the back of the iron and bouncing straight back to me.

When the streak ended I looked around. Only one guy was left in the gym. Sadly, I couldn't use him as a witness. He had been watching me shoot but wasn't really paying attention. He had no idea that I had made 58 in a row. That's OK. I didn't have a witness 20+ years ago when I made 42!

Mary Notarfrancesco: 1921 - 2011

2011-09-09T20:54:00.019-04:00

On September 8, 2011, shortly before 9pm EDT, Mary Notarfrancesco, the matriarch of the "Philadelphia Mullens", died peacefully at Holy Redeemer Hospital in Meadowbrook, PA. She was two months shy of her 90th birthday.

Mary was the oldest daughter of Patrick Mullen (born in Ballina, County Mayo) and Bridget McHugh (born in Glangevlin, County Cavan). She lived her entire life in the Philadelphia area and is predeceased by her husband, Dominic Notarfrancesco.

Although her health had been failing in recent years, she had hoped to be well enough to attend my son, Andy's, wedding to Rebecca on August 28th. Unfortunately, Mary's health took a severe turn for the worse a couple of weeks prior to the wedding. Her wish was that no extraordinary means be taken to extend her life, and that wish was granted.

Below is her official obituary, along with a few photos of her throughout the years.

Notarfrancesco - Mary A. (nee Mullen) , age 89 on Thursday Sept. 8. 2011 formerly of Rockledge, and Olney. Beloved Wife of the late Dominic Notarfrancesco ‘Notar’. Loving Mother of Peter M. (Marie), Anthony C. (Cathey), and the late Michael C. Notarfrancesco (Kathleen). Devoted grandmother of 5, great-grandmother of 8, and Sister of Nancy Oswald, Joseph Mullen (Winnie), Patricia Sears, and the late John, Thomas, and James Mullen. Family & friends are invited to Mary’s Life Celebration Sat. Sept. 17th, after 10AM and to participate in her Funeral Mass at 11AM Church of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton 1200 Park Avenue Bensalem, Pa. 19020. Int. Our Lady of Grace Cem. In lieu of flowers, a donation in Mary’s name to American Macular Degeneration Foundation, P.O. Box 515, Northampton, Ma. 01061-0515 (www.macular.org) would be appreciated. To share your fondest of Mary please visit www.lifecelebration.com. Family Service by Dean-Geitner-Givnish of Fox Chase.

With her Dad, Patrick Mullen

1926

1936

1942

Mullen Christmas, 2006

Raising a glass to the Extended Mullen Family, 2010

Tour de Cure 2011

2011-06-12T18:19:00.017-04:00

The Tour de Cure is a fund-raising bicycle event to benefit the American Diabetes Association. An extremely worthy cause, to be sure, but a ton of fun as well. This year was no exception. On Sunday, June 12th, Marilynn and I, along with Mary and Tom Kinslow, were part of Team BMS, riding 62.3 miles (a metric century!) in the Princeton Tour de Cure.

I've been riding in this event since the mid-90's, and, in order of importance, here are my keys to a successful ride:

No one falls and no one gets hurt (other than sore muscles).
No flats, broken spokes or other mechanical problems with the bikes.
Good riding weather ... not brutally hot and no rain!
No one "bonks" (look it up if you don't know what that means).
No one gets lost.

I'm here to tell you that, for Tour de Cure 2011, we were five for five!

Earlier in the week, the weather forecast was bleak, calling for rain all Sunday morning. By race day, though, the situation had changed completely, and we ended up with biking weather that couldn't be beat. It was slightly cool with no wind and total cloud cover. How total was that cloud cover? Well, my Irish skin was outside for over 4 hours without sunscreen and didn't get burnt!

Although labeled the Princeton Tour de Cure, the ride never even entered Princeton. It started at the Grover Middle School in Princeton Junction and stayed completely east of Route 1. As such, we didn't get to experience the "Hills of Hopewell" or the Sourlands Mountains which were marquee attractions for Tours of the past. I must confess to missing the old route, but I'm sure that I'm in the minority.

Three rest stops were nicely spaced out in intervals of approximately 15 miles and were staffed by friendly and enthusiastic volunteers. Needless to say, all of the riders appreciated the usual rest-stop fare of PB&J's, orange wedges, and Cliff Bars, washed down with Gatorade or an antioxidant low-calorie drink called Bai (which was pretty tasty!)

Just as important, though, were the port-o-johns, even if the lines were long!

For such a well-run and organized Tour, there were a number of gaffes on the cue sheets and road markings. At one point in time, even the Ride Marshalls were baffled! Despite the confusion, we only made one wrong turn (costing us about a quarter of a mile); but there were a number of anxious moments along the ride as we frantically sought out road markings.

After a little over four hours (averaging about 16 mph) we returned to Grover School to an enthusiastic reception, live music, free massages, and as much food as we could eat. More importantly, Team BMS had raised over $18,000 for the American Diabetes Association. Thanks to everyone who supported the cause, and we'll see you next year!

Anna Naughton

2011-03-09T22:01:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to Oliver and Eva Naughton on the birth of their daughter, Anna. I'm not exactly sure when Anna was born but, based on Eva's Facebook page, it had to be between February 10th and February 11th.

Eva sent me the above photo on February 28th with the note, "I hope this photo of Anna is ok, we haven't organised ourselves yet with regard to photos but will get to that job soon enough hopefully. This photo was taken the day Anna came home from hospital, she's three days old in it - she is a whole two weeks now and growing all of the time!!! Give our best wishes to the family."

Best wishes to you, Oliver and Eva!

Relationship Finder 2.0!

2011-03-06T22:59:00.025-05:00

Those of you that attended the Mullen Family Reunion in Ballina way back in 2008 might remember -- in addition to the huge Family Tree displays -- an Excel application that I put together called Relationship Finder. It looked like this:

It was pretty simple. It allowed you to enter two names on the Mullen Family Tree and then displayed the relationship between the two people (e.g., "Hannah Davies is the fourth cousin once removed from Paul Mullen"). Neat, huh? Well, not really. For one thing, it was trapped in Excel and required a desktop or laptop to run. For another, I couldn't distribute it to the Family without constantly sending out updates whenever the underlying database of family names changed. Well, all of that is a thing of the past with Relationship Finder 2.0!

I often toyed with the idea of turning Relationship Finder into a web application, but I never got serious about it until I had a conversation with Marc Slovak, the future father-in-law of my son, Andy. (Andy and Rebecca are getting married in August!) Marc and I were waxing poetic over the wonders of the iPad when, at one point, I mentioned something about some day writing an application for it. Marc (who knows a thing or two about web programming) told me about a book called "Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript". Since I happen to be married to the Director of the Cranbury Library, it wasn't long before I had that book in my grasp. Now, I've never held a true programming job in my life, but I've always liked to program. I can honestly say that I've written functioning programs in Assembler, Fortran, Cobol, PL/1, Basic, Pascal, APL, Lisp, Perl, AWK, C, and C++. With Relationship Finder 2.0, I can now add Javascript to that list. And with the use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), it should format itself to whatever device you're using, be it a mobile phone, a tablet, or a full-size monitor. Below is a screen shot of what it looks like on my iPhone:

And here's a shot of what it looks like on my iPad:

It's not rocket science but, hey, it allows me to bring the Family Tree around with me wherever I go. But more important, it allows me to distribute it to the entire Mullen Family! There are over a thousand names on the Mullen Family Tree and I just know that there are a ton of errors waiting to be found and corrected.

So, click on this link and check it out. It's easy to use and should be impossible to break. It doesn't have a whole hell of a lot of bells and whistles, so just click away to your hearts content and explore the Mullen Family Tree. But, when you find an error or omission (and you will), you must report it by sending an email to me at mullenpj@gmail.com.

Tada gan iarracht ...
Paul

Declan Ryker Sankowich!

2011-01-01T08:08:00.004-05:00

I'm a Grandpop! I'm a Grandpop! I'm a Grandpop!

Sorry ... what I meant to say is "Congratulations Sara and Pete!!!" Declan Ryker Sankowich was born at 3:40am on New Year's Day. He weighed in at 7 pounds 6 ounces (I think my guess last weekend was 7 pounds 5 ounces, so I didn't quite win the game). That's all the information I have at this time -- Marilynn and I are packing up and heading north to Providence, RI, in a couple of hours. Sara has to be totally exhausted though. She started experiencing notable labor pain at about 5:30pm on Thursday, December 30th! Yep. that means her labor lasted over 34 hours!!

It was certainly a New Year's Eve that I'll never forget. At one point early in the evening, Sara called to give us the latest status and we timed a contraction over the phone! So, Happy New Year's everyone! If you're showing up at Mullen Christmas next weekend, I'll try not to wear you out with a thousand photos of Declan, but there will be a few. And more than a few toasts!

Happy Birthday, Aunt Pat!

2010-11-15T22:34:00.002-05:00

Harry & Pat Sears

I'm one day late, but "Happy 75th birthday Aunt Pat!" I hope you had a great day. The photo is courtesy of your son, Danny.

Reflections on the Rally to Restore Sanity

2010-10-31T20:34:00.023-04:00

So ... why, exactly, did I go to the Rally to Restore Sanity? The only answer I have is, “Because Jon Stewart asked me to!” For at least the last 6 or 7 years I’ve relied on Jon Stewart and The Daily Show to be the voice of reason and to restore my faith in the general United States population whenever it wavered. When Glenn Beck called President Obama a racist, there was Jon Stewart making it laughable. When Keith Olbermann called Republican Scott Brown "an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model”, there was Jon Stewart the next night with a parody. When everyone was pointing fingers during the financial meltdown, there was Jon Stewart hammering Jim Cramer of Mad Money who openly encouraged short-selling by hedge funds as a means to generate profits. And when President Obama inexplicably stated that the Cambridge police acted “stupidly” when they arrested Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates as he tried to break in to his own home, Jon Stewart commented, “I also don't have all the facts, but I think it's fair to say that Obama handled that question -- oh, what's the word I'm looking for -- stupidly?"

That’s the truly refreshing thing about Jon Stewart: he plays no favorites. To be sure, he’s a liberal Democrat, but he will skewer anybody or anything that is idiotic, illogical, or just plain stupid, whether it’s the NYC mosque hysteria, the ponderous speaking of John Kerry, Rick Sanchez having himself tased on CNN, John McCain’s willingness to backtrack on any issue in order to stay elected, or NPR’s firing of Juan Williams. After watching an episode of The Daily Show I usually find myself thinking, “Yes! People do get it, they do recognize the insanity! Things aren’t so bad …”

So when Jon Stewart suggested a rally at the National Mall for anyone who was frustrated and/or disgusted by the insanity of our national discourse, I knew I had to be there. And I’m damn glad that I went! While it couldn’t possibly compare to the historic Inauguration of Barack Obama almost two years ago, it had the same underlying vibe. The Metro was packed, there were crowds of people marching in the streets, everyone was happy and smiling, and a good time was had by all.

Surprisingly (and noteworthy!), the Rally did not target any specific personalities of the far left or far right. Not Glenn Beck, not Sarah Palin, not Keith Olbermann, not Rush Limbaugh, not Nancy Pelosi, not Christine O'Donnell, not George Bush … not even Joe the Plumber! Instead, ideas were attacked, intolerance was attacked, and inciting baseless fear was attacked, using comedy sketches, video montages and, in one case, a “poem”. Like The Daily Show, it was both funny and deadly serious.

Jon Stewart ended with a short speech that did a great job of summarizing why over 200,000 people traveled to the National Mall on a Saturday afternoon in October. If you haven’t seen it, click here and view it on the Comedy Central website. It's the clip labeled "Jon Stewart - Moment of Sincerity" and it’s worth hearing.

On the way to the Rally

2010-10-30T11:55:00.000-04:00

Some clever signs!

Welcome to the family, Rachael Gilmartin!

2010-10-29T11:20:00.007-04:00

Congratulations to Ashling Gilmartin and Tomas Munnelly on the birth of their daughter, Rachael. Rachael was born at 5am on September 14, 2010, and is my newest third cousin once removed. Test your skills and see if you can locate her on the Family Tree. (Hint: start at the dead center.) She looks like this:

Unfortunately, that doesn't give you the slightest clue as to how cute Rachael is in real life!

Welcome, Rachael ... hope to see you in person some day soon!

Rally To Restore Sanity!

2010-10-29T10:21:00.007-04:00

I know that you all wish you could be at this event, but rest assured that the Extended Mullen Family will be well-represented at the Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington, DC. tomorrow. Tom and Mary Kinslow, Marilynn and I will be crashing at Chris Kreamer's house in DC for the weekend and checking out the Rally from noon until 3pm. For those of you who may not know what this Rally is all about, click here for the official web page and here for a fairly short but accurate analysis of what it's all about.

To tell you the truth, though, I'm not sure what to expect. Sure, there will be Tea-Party bashing and a stream of jokes at the expense of Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell, but how could there not be? But I'm also expecting the ineptitude and political cowardice of the Democratic Party to be skewered as well. That's the genius of Jon Stewart and what sets him apart from other pundits. Like The Daily Show, I'm expecting the Rally to be funny, silly, occasionally vulgar, but, at its heart, thought provoking and deadly serious in its attempt to point out the truly asinine actions and statements that dominate the U.S. political process. In short, this should be both fun and a catharsis.

I'll do my best to post a couple of blog entries tomorrow to give you a little flavor of the event. Or, even better, just turn on Comedy Central tomorrow at noon at watch it yourself!

Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood!

2010-10-25T20:57:00.016-04:00

Cara Mullen and Christopher Kirkwood were married on Saturday evening, October 23, in Syracuse, NY. My iPhone, incredibly handy for so many things, came up woefully short in the picture department. As such, the only wedding photo I have (above) is courtesy of my sister, Karen McGarvey. Rest assured that additional photos will eventually make their way to the Mullenium website.

I think it's safe to say that everyone at the wedding had a tremendous time, and not just because it was an open bar (although that certainly didn't hurt). The food was excellent, the company was outstanding, and, other than one glaring exception, the dance floor was packed. That one exception? When Cara and Chris were blindfolded and swinging a stick in a vain attempt to break a piñata! I may be wrong, but I'm betting that's the first time that a piñata has made an appearance at a Mullen wedding!! Other highlights:

Cara with a picture of her late father and my brother, Tom, in her wedding bouquet.
Aunt Mary, at 89, being helped out to the dance floor (at her request) for one dance.
Aunt Nancy, at 82, coming off a marathon session on the dance floor and saying to me, "I used to be able to dance five fast ones in a row; now, I can only do three!"
The DJ playing the entire 7 minute album version of "Light My Fire" by The Doors. In honor of my brother, Tom, every one of my brothers and sisters were out on the dance floor.
An impromptu Rockettes-style leg kick dance to Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" by a bunch of New York Mullens who should have known better. No, our kicks were not "eye-high".
A heartfelt toast to the mother of the bride, Janet Mullen, by my sister Chris Kreamer.

Following the reception, a large contingent of the family -- including the bride and groom! -- made their way to the hotel bar and continued the party. A bunch of pizzas were ordered and we conversated, laughed, and played pool until about 2:30 in the morning when the bartender (who had mistakenly thought that he would have an early night) finally kicked everyone out.

But the wedding festivities weren't over yet! At 10am the next morning Janet hosted a brunch in a private room in the hotel. Over 60 people -- including the bride and groom! -- showed up. Everyone laughed and ate and conversated for another 2 hours until we all finally packed up and began heading back home.

For those of you in the family who need a little orientation on how Chris and Cara fit on the Mullen Family Tree, click on the excerpt below of the NY branch of the Philadelphia Mullens:

Congratulations Andy and Rebecca!

2010-09-12T21:51:00.005-04:00

Every other year, the "New York Mullens" (as we have come to be known), have a family get-together called a Mullenium where we eat, drink, recreate and conversate for almost a full week. A Mullenium is officially defined as "a time of great happiness and human perfection." Well, this year my son, Andy, took that definition to a new level. Right in the middle of Mullenium X, he hiked to the top of Mt. Chocorua in New Hampshire and proposed to his girlfriend, Rebecca Slovak, under the stars. With the karma of the Mullenium swirling around them, how could Rebecca refuse? They're in the process of planning a late 2011 wedding.

Congratulations Andy & Rebecca!

Pop Pop or Grandpa?

2010-09-12T21:19:00.008-04:00

That's the decision that I'll have to make sometime around January 10, 2011, the date that my daughter, Sara Sankowich, is expected to give birth. Yep, Sara is pregnant!! My sister, Karen, already knows what it feels like to be a grandparent, but this will be a brand new experience for me. Here's a recent sonogram of the latest bud on the Mullen Family Tree:

Sara is in her 5th month and doing very well. At this point, she has no idea whether it's a boy or a girl, and isn't going to go out of her way to find out. Stay tuned ....

You Otta Go To Ottawa!

2010-07-17T19:28:00.065-04:00

I have been waiting almost three years to see a Canadian band called Arcade Fire. Don't ask why I love them. I just do. So, a few weeks ago I was thrilled to find out that they were touring in the northeastern U.S., playing in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and NYC (in Madison Square Garden no less!) Surely, I’d be able to attend one of those concerts. Not so. Sadly, the concert dates corresponded exactly with this year’s Mullenium gathering in New Hampshire. I had resigned myself to missing out on the entire northeast tour until Marilynn saved the day and bought me tickets to see them at the Ottawa BluesFest on July 13.

Ottawa is about 460 miles from Cranbury and the concert was on a Tuesday, so Marilynn and I had to take 3 days off from work. But we hardly ever go to Canada and know almost nothing about Ottawa (it's the capital of Canada?), so this sounded like a different and potentially fun vacation. That turned out to be an understatement. Marilynn and I spent four tremendous days in Ottawa. It felt like a mini-European vacation without needing an airplane or a power adapter. What follows may appear lengthy, but it's actually a very brief synopsis of why you really otta go to Ottawa.

Bed & Breakfast

We stayed at a B&B called the Alexander House, about a mile from the center of town, where all the action was. It was a small B&B -- only 5 total guests -- but talking to the proprietors and with your fellow guests is a great way to get a feel of a place (in my opinion). On top of that, the breakfasts were fantastic and we didn't have to clean up or leave a tip.

The ByWard Market

Named after John By (who supervised the construction of the Rideau Canal), the ByWard Market's claim to fame is that it's the oldest continuously operating farmers market in Canada. But it has become much more than that. There are bars and shops and restaurants of all types and varieties. And because of BluesFest, the entire market area was packed with people of all ages and nationalities. As such, it was the perfect place to watch the World Cup final between Spain and The Netherlands. The photo below is of an outdoor bar called "The Grand" where we watched the end of the game. If you look closely, you can just see Arjen Robben blowing by a Spanish defender (Sergio Busquets??)

After the game, Spanish supporters were riding around ByWard Market all evening, honking their horns and waving their flags. It was great to see!

Rideau Canal and Locks

I'm a lockaholic. I freely admit that. I love looking at canal locks! Luckily, I'm married to another lockaholic. As a result, Marilynn and I spent parts of three days looking at the locks of the Rideau Canal from every possible angle. We strolled along the side of them, we walked on top of them, we looked at them from above, and we kayaked up right to the edge of one and peered over. Hell, we even walked across the Ontario River and looked at them from Quebec! We just couldn't get enough! And since they're the oldest continuously operated canal system in North America, they're also famous. Go see them.

Marilynn, showing off her back muscles during our three-and-a-half hour kayak ride on the Rideau Canal. What am I doing while she's paddling? Well, someone has to take the photos!

Parliament / Parliament Library

Marilynn has the uncanny ability to transform any conversation into a library story. Those of you who know her will agree that I'm not making this up. Well, in the case of Canada's capital city, the story of their Parliament turns into a library story! As you can see in the photo above, the Parliament building itself is extremely beautiful. (Unfortunately, in my desire to keep Marilynn in the photo, I cut off the top of the Peace Tower, requiring me to add a cheesy insert.) But, back in 1916, most of the Parliament was destroyed by a huge fire. Due to the ingenuity of the Parliament Librarian, however, the library was saved. Read all about the fire here. Below are photos of both the outside and the inside of the Library. Both are much more spectacular in person, believe me.

The free tour of Parliament was excellent and, in contrast to similar tours in the U.S., visitors were encouraged to take pictures and, believe it or not "touch the walls"!

Mosaika

I'm a little torn here. On one hand, I want to tell you everything I possibly can about Mosaika. On the other hand, it's best if you know as little about it as possible before you see it. I'll tell you this much, though: it's basically a sound and light show which tells the story of Canada using the Parliament building as its "canvas". But the technology they use and the effects that they are able to achieve are like nothing I've seen before. For those of you who can't stand the suspense, click on the Mosaika web page to get a taste. But be warned ... it's nothing like the live experience.

Balanced Rock Sculptures

On Monday afternoon, after three and a half hours of kayaking, Marilynn and I were looking for some down time. We decided to take a scenic drive along the Ottawa River Parkway and find a place to rest, read, and watch birds. Instead, we stumbled upon the scene above. It turns out that the National Capital Commission (NCC) has been sponsoring an artist by the name of John Ceprano to create "balanced rock sculptures" for over two decades. We ended up spending a couple of hours walking around the beach, checking out the sculptures, and talking to the artist. A few additional photos are below, but you might want to check out his website here for some truly stunning creations.

The artist himself (shown above in red shorts and white tank top) was a pretty colorful character as well. He was born in the U.S. but headed to Ottawa during the Vietnam war to avoid the draft. AfterI joked with him about the SDS, he claimed to know Jerry Rubin personally. He might have been blowing smoke, but he appeared to be the real deal: an ex-hippie who has found his niche in Ottawa and is living life on his own terms.

BluesFest
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Bluesfest! The actual reason that we decided to go to Ottawa in the first place! I had never heard of the Ottawa Bluesfest before this summer, but it has apparently been going on for over 15 years. This year, it began on July 6th and ended today, July 18th. Now, I like to think that I'm fairly up-to-date regarding music, but I have to admit that I recognized less than 10% of the artists that performed. That being said, here were some of the major groups that were there over the 12-day event: Iron Maiden, the B52's, Santana, Taj Mahal, Joan Jett, The Flaming Lipps, Rush, Crowded House, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Weezer, The Moody Blues, Hole, Steve Winwood, Kevin Costner, Jimmy Cliff, Passion Pit, The Cat Empire, Derek Trucks, Renaissance, and, of course, Arcade Fire. Marilynn and I only went for one day, July 13th, but managed to see two other groups besides Arcade Fire: "The Aggrolites" (a ska band) and "Steve Dawson’s Mississippi Sheiks Project" which was just superb. If I ever go back (and I might!) it will be for multiple days!

"Mississipi Sheiks Tribute", "The Aggrolites", and "Arcade Fire"

One last thing: Arcade Fire is appearing live on the Jon Stewart show on August 12. Click here to see their performance on Letterman a few years ago. Man, I love these guys!!

Lake Ontario

OK, technically Lake Ontario is not in Ottawa. But it is partly in Canada and you skim right by it on Route 81 in New York just before crossing into Canada. So, for the purposes of this blog, it counts. If you've never seen a Great Lake, find an excuse to do so. They're mind-blowing. As you can see from the above photo, it's like looking out into the ocean. Keep in mind that Lake Ontario is one of the smallest of the 5 Great Lakes!

Wrap Up
Yeah, this ended up being longer than I intended, but I was truly impressed by Canada in general and with Ottawa in particular. Not only was it a very clean and safe city, but you got the impression that everyone was extremely proud to be Canadian. And well they should be. If it wasn't for the extremely cold weather ("Portage and Main 50 below") and Reynaud's Disease, I could easily imagine living there.

Further Reading:

Discovering Canada's Cool Capital
Arcade Fire Concert Review
Arcade Fire and Charity Work for Haiti

Audrey Ryan Ferguson Has Arrived!

2010-07-17T18:59:00.010-04:00

I'm a Grand Uncle again!

Audrey Ryan Ferguson was born at 4:13pm on July 15 to Katie and Ryan Ferguson. Audrey weighed in at 6 pounds 7 ounces. Both mother and daughter are doing fine. Below is a photo of the happy Ferguson family:

Audrey, Katie, Chelsey, and Ryan Ferguson

But this blog entry would be woefully incomplete without a photo of the proud Grandma, my sister, Karen McGarvey:

Congratulations! Now to update the Mullen Family Tree ...

Charlotte Leary: My Newest Third Cousin Once Removed

2010-07-17T18:31:00.014-04:00

Congratulations to Avril and Tony Leary on the birth of their first child, Charlotte. The Mullen Family Tree grows ever larger! Below is an excerpt from an email written by Avril a few days after Charlotte's arrival:

Hi all,

Just a very quick note to let you know that our beautiful baby girl, Charlotte Mary Leary, arrived safely into the world on Friday, 25th June at 8.20am, weighing in at 6lbs 13oz. It was a bit of a traumatic entrance for her after 28 hours, but she made it eventually and is a happy and content little girl, who sleeps a lot so far anyhow!! She is so perfect and we are absolutely in awe of her! Thanks to you all for all the good wishes.

- Avril, Tony and Charlotte Leary

In the event that you need a refresher as to what "third cousin once removed" means, click on the diagram below.

And here's a shot of the happy Leary family:

Tony, Charlotte, and Avril Leary

Can't wait to see you guys again!!

Memorial Day Mystery ... Solved!

2010-05-31T21:41:00.023-04:00

Memorial Day Greetings to the extended Mullen Family! I hope that everyone had an enjoyable day while remembering those who sacrificed their lives in the defense of freedom throughout the world.

Marilynn and I spent the day relaxing in Cranbury. For some reason, it's always fun to simply set up a couple of lawn chairs and watch the Cranbury Memorial Day parade pass by our house. In many ways, it's an old-timey-time parade -- no lavish floats, a couple of marching bands, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Brownies, Twirlers, local politicians, antique cars, lots of fire engines and, if we're lucky, a 5 or 6 gun salute by the Civil War reenactment group.

Once again this year, Marilynn marched in the parade as part of the Cranbury Library. I thought I had caught Marilynn in the photo below, but she was lagging far behind the front banner, handing out bookmarks, shaking hands, and tirelessly campaigning for Library funding by the state.

I applauded everyone that went by. Anyone who was dedicated enough to march in 90 degree heat deserved at least that much!

Last year, my son, Dave, was in Cranbury for Memorial Day Weekend. After watching the parade together, we partook (?) in another Memorial Day tradition -- watching the NCAA Division I Lacrosse Championship game on ESPN. Last year's game was a nail-biter, with Syracuse beating Cornell on an incredible last-second goal. I remember the entire Syracuse team erupting into a frenzy and piling on top of one another on the field. And I remember looking at Dave (a former lacrosse player at Princeton High School). I knew what he was thinking: "Man, that looks like fun. I wish I had that experience."

Fast forward to this weekend. I repeatedly tried to contact Dave to see if he wanted to watch the parade and lacrosse game with me again. At first, I got nothing. Dave was totally incommunicado. Then, finally, I got the briefest of text messages with a lame and somewhat suspect excuse. What was really going on here? I attempted to contact my other two kids, Andy and Sara, who were up in Lake Winnipesaukee enjoying the weekend. While I was unable to actually talk with them, Sara posted the photo below on Facebook. It shows Andy, his girlfriend, Rebecca, a bonfire, and No-Dave.

Clearly, if Dave was at the lake he would have been all over that bonfire . So where the hell was he? I soon found out.

Daveless but undaunted, I sat down and watched the entire 2010 NCAA Division I Lacrosse Championship game on ESPN by myself, sans beer. At the end of regulation, the game between Notre Dame and Duke was tied at 5-5. I settled down to watch the overtime, but it ended in a flash. Some long pole from Duke won the face-off, streaked downfield and scored the winning goal in about 6 seconds. The entire Duke team rushed onto the field. Pandemonium ensued. And then, I saw him. Unbelievably, it was Dave!!!! Right in the middle of the pandemonium!! How he managed to convince the Duke coaching staff to let him dress up in a Duke lacrosse uniform and stand on the sidelines, we'll never know. Great job, Dave! Congratulations! I hope it was everything you thought it would be.

Bluegrass Brunch!

2010-04-11T22:08:00.017-04:00

[Left to Right: Tom Clifton, Marilynn Mullen, Hannah Davies, Rory Macqueen, Scarlet Shore, Eli Davies]

Eli Davies and Rory Macqueen came to New York City for a week to visit Hannah (while she's still a New Yorker) and to take in the sights. Since Rory has recently taken up the banjo, Eli sent me an email and suggested that Marilynn and I meet them on Sunday for "Bluegrass Brunch" at the Nolita House Restaurant on Houston Street. Also joining us for brunch were Tom Clifton (Rory's friend from King's College of Music in London), and Tom's girlfriend, Scarlet Shore.

It was a damn good thing we had reservations, because the Nolita House was fairly small. But that was actually a good thing: even though the band was at one end of the bar and we were at the other, we could still here the music. Rory probably didn't get a chance to learn any new finger-picking though.

The food was pretty good but the conversation was even better. As expected when dealing with the anyone from the Davies family (and, apparently, any of their friends as well), the conversation was all over the map. In about 3 hours we covered the political landscape (English and US), music (The Smiths, karaoke), geography ("You don't know the capitol of Sudan?"), religion ("What's up with the Pope?", lapsed Catholicism vs. lapsed Lutheranism) and books ("You wouldn't believe the crazy stack of books next to Hannah's bed!") Tons of fun that went by in a flash.

After brunch, we all went our separate ways. The Davies Sisters, incongruously, went for a pedicure. I'm not sure where Rory, Tom and Scarlet ended up, but Marilynn and I took the opportunity to stroll around NYU, Washington Square, and Greenwich Village for an hour or two. Washington Square was jammed with people enjoying the afternoon sun and listening to the buskers. Below is a photo of a group called "The Baby Soda Jazz Band" that had a large number of people crowded around them:

It turns out that these guys aren't just buskers ... they're appearing every Sunday in April at a place called Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn. If you're ever in the area, these guys would be well worth your entertainment dollar. Oh yes, accompanying the music were three swing-dancing couples, at least two of whom were professional dance teachers as well. They were as much fun to watch as the Jazz Band!

In the southwest corner of the park, a number of chess boards had been set up and virtually all of them were in use. Marilynn and I stopped for a while to watch a little girl compete against a guy who we think was a member of the NY Chess Club:

I'm guessing he was taking it easy on her, but who knows? She was holding her own against him when we left.

All in all a beautiful day --- New York City at its best!!

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig!

2010-03-16T20:16:00.011-04:00

And to all of you who don't speak Irish, "Happy St. Patrick's Day!"

To commemorate the day, here's a brief and undoubtedly incomplete summary of some of the more noteworthy events in the extended Mullen Family since last St. Patty's day.

First and foremost (at least from my vantage point), Marilynn and I were extremely fortunate to be able to spend over a week in England last August, allowing us to become better acquainted with the following UK-based relatives:

- Brian Fowler
- Dympna [Messenger] LeRasle
- Peter LeRasle
- Máire Davies
- John Davies
- Huw Davies
- Hannah Davies
- Tom Davies
- Elinore Davies
- Patrick Mills
- Kathleen Duffy
- Susan [Fowler] Harrison
- John Harrison
- Betty Cahalin
- Avril [Gilmartin] Leary
- Tony Leary
- Madge Messenger
- Sheila [Messenger] Dore
- Martin Dore
- Rosalind Dore
- Joseph Dore,
- Imelda Messenger
- Anne [Naughton]Lillis
- Ashling Lillis
- Cliona [Lillis] Beadle

It was a whirlwind vacation, to be sure, but one of our first thoughts upon returning to the U.S. was, "When can we go back??"

Births:

Herbie Hucklebury Timothy Peter Frankel was born on September 7, 2009 to Madeleine LeRasle and Tim Frankel.
Edward (Ted) Beadle was born to Cliona [Lillis] Beadle and Mike Beadle.
Matthew Beeney was born to Grainne [Lillis] Beeney and Rob Beeney.

Deaths:

Harry Sears (husband of Patricia [Mullen] Sears passed away on February 20, 2010.
Mary Josephine (Josie) Mullen, mother of Noel Mullen, passed away on January 25, 2010.

Marriages / Engagements:

Mike McGarvey married Sarah Rector on August 28, 2009
Avril Gilmartin married Tony Leary on September 26, 2009
Janet Mullen announced the engagement of her daughter, Cara, to Christopher Kirkwood

Miscellaneous:

John and Máire Davies' celebrated their 40th Wedding Anniversary on October 4, 2009.
Avril [Gilmartin] Leary and Tony Leary are expecting their first child.
Katie [McGarvey] Ferguson and Ryan Ferguson are expecting their second child.
Eli Davies and Rory MacQueen visited the U.S. in late October.
The Sears family took Harry Sears, a longtime fan of the Fighting Irish, to his first Notre Dame football game on October 31, 2009.
John and Máire Davies came to the U.S. in December to visit their daughter, Hannah, during the Christmas holidays.
Sheila and Martin Dore came visited New York City for 5 days to celebrate Sheila's 60th birthday.

It's been a busy year .. and the Family Tree continues to grow! I'll be raising a glass of Mullen's Irish Cream to the entire extended family this evening. Best of luck to all of you in the year ahead.

Sláinte!
Paul

Harry Sears: September 14, 1928 - February 20, 2010

2010-02-25T15:22:00.017-05:00

Annie Mullen Patrick, Harry Sears, Mary Mullen Kinslow

Harry Sears, my uncle, and the husband of Patricia Mullen Sears, died last weekend as a result of complications caused by cancer. His viewing was held last evening and, to no one's surprise, the line of mourners who came to pay their respects stretched outside the funeral home for hours. A wonderful obituary, crafted with love and care by his family, is attached below. About the only thing that I can add to it is my own recollection of his sense of humor and devotion to family. Uncle Harry rarely missed a Mullen Christmas party, from the time that these gatherings were held at my Uncle Nick's house up to the parties that are held each year at my house. Uncle Harry and Aunt Pat were fixtures at these parties. As to his sense of humor, well, let's just say that I was never quite sure when he was pulling my leg. On two occasions, Uncle Harry became the star of my "Mullen Christmas Recaps". Click here and here and make your own decision.

Uncle Harry lived a good, long life and was loved by everyone he touched. He will be missed and remembered by all of us and, at the end of the day, what more can you ask from life?

-----------------------------------------------------

By: Doylestown Intelligencer

The Intelligencer

Harry C. Sears, father of six, passed away Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010, after several months of battling cancer. He persevered for more than a decade with Parkinson's disease as well. He was 81.

He was the beloved husband of Patricia Mullen Sears. He was the best father to Timothy Sears (Lisa), Colleen Kada (Steve), Sharon Slusarski (Mark), Patrick Sears, Shawn Peikin (Doug), and Daniel Sears (Donna). He was the awesome Pop Pop of Taralyn, Kerriann, Shaun, Brendan, Dennis, Riley, Cassidy, Jade, Madelyn, Zachary, Christopher and Jake. He is also survived by his sister, Frances Lorraine Cerritelli. He was preceded in death by his grandson, Dennis, and his sister, Anne Curry.

Harry C. Sears was born on Sept. 14, 1928, to Francis J. and Florence Sears of Philadelphia. Because of Harry's Christening, his father switched work days with a co-worker. Francis was employed by the federal government as a U.S. Treasury agent during the prohibition years. On October 28, the day that Francis worked for his co-worker, he was killed in one of Philadelphia's most publicized fires at Publicker's Alcohol Plant.

Harry attended LaSalle College High School on scholarship and graduated in 1946. He was a lettered member of their legendary crew team which rowed out of Vesper Club on Boathouse Row.

Harry was a devoted son to Florence Sears who died in 1983. He lived with Florence until he met and married Patricia Mullen, "the most beautiful woman he ever saw," in 1956. They moved to Willow Grove in 1961 and immediately registered at St. John of the Cross Parish, where they and their six children were active members.

After college he began his construction career with a small survey company. On his first day, his co-workers had a good laugh when he showed up at the muddy job site meticulously dressed in a suit and tie. In less than two years he progressed to the position of lead surveyor. During the post-war construction boom he worked in the development and expansion of the Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs infrastructure.

Harry's intellect and affinity for mathematics made him an ideal construction estimator. On July 3, 1961, he began his career at James D. Morrisey, Inc. Harry secured for JDM some of the largest private contracts in the Delaware and Lehigh Valleys. Some of his clients were PECO, United Parcel Service (at the Philadelphia airport), Bethlehem Steel, and Mack Truck. His work also at times included public road contracts including major highways throughout the Philadelphia area. While in his 50's Harry taught himself computer programming to automate much of the estimating process. He led and trained many newly minted engineers from local universities while at JDM.

During the mid 1960s, he became a member of Willow Manor Players, a local theater group. He began as a member of the chorus and progressed to lead comedy roles. His all time favorite was the part of "Moonface Martin" in Anything Goes. All who remember seeing him recall his rendition of "Be Like the Bluebird" which he would perform on command for years to come for the delight of his family and friends. He also served as business manager and president for the theater group.

Harry was involved in the cultural phase of CYO at St. John of the Cross Parish in the 1960s, working with high school students while his own children were still in grade school. Using his expertise with the theater group he directed One Act Plays with the teenagers, winning first place in the Philadelphia area in his second year of directing. He also directed several variety shows so all interested teenagers could participate. In the 90s he and Pat filled in as bit players in shows on Ocean City's Music Pier where their granddaughter, Kerriann Kada, had leading roles.

In the 70s, Harry and his wife, Pat, were in leadership in Marriage Encounter in the Eastern Montgomery County area. They were Team Members on many Marriage Encounter Weekends, sharing their relationship with other couples.

Harry and Pat also became involved with the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church. They led the "Life in the Spirit Seminars" for several years and Harry taught many times. Many remember his teaching on True Humility which Harry's life exemplified.

Harry had numerous talents and interests. He loved to dance and especially loved the Mummer's Strut, line dances, and the jitterbug. Whether it was sketching, cooking, concrete work, playing the guitar and piano, acting, photography, carpentry (he built most of the family home), upholstery or comedy, Harry pursued his interests with a patient, persistent, and relaxed style.

Whether performing his Mummer's Strut or sitting at Sunny Willow Swim Club or the beach in Ocean City, N.J., or at a restaurant, Harry was always very close to his immediate family as well as his and Pat's extended families. Harry was much more concerned with others than himself. His family never wanted for anything and lived a very comfortable existence.

Despite his very busy life, Saturday afternoons in autumn belonged to Notre Dame. He usually sat on the floor watching TV, mesmerized by the game, oblivious to the confusion that surrounded him especially while the children were little. In October of 2009 his children took him to Notre Dame to watch the "Fighting Irish." Harry could never put into words his appreciation for this trip especially since he was on the field with the players as a guest of the coach.

Harry's family and friends will remember him by his countless stories which embody his warmth, kindness, intellect, love, caring and probably most of all his sense of humor. Many will never forget his "Martha, the Wide Mouthed Frog" story. To know Harry was to love and admire him. He commanded the respect of all who knew him. In the words of his wife, Pat, "He is truly the finest person I have ever known. I am truly blessed to have been loved by him for 56 years."

His funeral Mass will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, at St. John of the Cross Church, 2741 Woodland Road (at Thomson Road), Roslyn, PA 19001. Interment will be in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery. Relatives and friends are invited to his viewing at William R. May Funeral Home, 354 N. Easton Road (at Keswick Ave.), Glenside, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday and to his viewing at the church at 10 a.m. Thursday.

Donations to LaSalle College High School Fatherless Son Fund, 9605 Cheltenham Ave., Wyndmoor, PA 19038, or St. John of the Cross Church would be appreciated.

Happy 60th Birthday Sheila!

2010-02-18T21:50:00.011-05:00

Marilynn and I had the pleasure of getting together with Sheila Dore (my fourth cousin!) and her husband, Martin, for dinner in New York City this past Tuesday. To properly celebrate her 60th birthday, Martin gave Sheila a 5-day trip to NYC. Nice present, Martin! Much better than giving her a new vacuum like some insensitive, unromantic husband might have done. The Dores arrived from the UK on Sunday, February 14, just in time to experience our latest (last?) snowstorm of the season. Sheila's niece, Hannah Davies, (who lives and works in NYC) made an "executive decision" and reserved a table for us at a great Mediterranean restaurant called The Barbounia on Park Avenue. The food was fantastic and the conversation even better. Below is an unfortunately grainy iPhone photograph of the group (minus Marilynn, who took the photo):

Happy Birthday, Sheila, with many more to come!

The Curious Case of the Salamander Safe

2010-02-13T16:26:00.092-05:00

Pull up a chair. Crack open a beer or pour yourself a glass of wine. This particular blog entry will be a tad longer than usual. Stick with it, though ... it has an interesting finish.

The story starts almost 24 years ago, in April of 1986, when Marilynn and I purchased our house in Cranbury, NJ. Included with the purchase (by default) was a huge, virtually immovable, cast iron safe in the basement. This safe (shown below) is enormous, measuring 37"x35"x24" (HxWxD) and weighing somewhere around 800 pounds:

Here's the shot of the interior of the safe:

While the safe itself was open, the door was in the locked position. Iron bolts protruding from the bottom and sides of the door (which fit into corresponding holes on the inside frame of the safe) prevented the safe door from being closed. The knob attached to the front of the safe (presumably for manipulating the bolts) would not budge. Here's a close-up of the inside of the door with an arrow pointing to one of the troublesome bolts.

The safe had a funky lock on the center of the door with a thin slit in it to insert a key. Miraculously, we actually had that key! It was with a pile of other old keys that the previous owner had left us.

Inserting the key into the lock caused a small metal button on the lock itself to pop out, but it didn't unlock the door. The knob on the safe still refused to turn and the rounded bolts protruding from the door could not be retracted for love nor money. That left us with a safe that could not be closed, i.e., a worthless safe.

In truth, it wasn't an entirely worthless safe. It had a purpose, albeit one that its 19th century makers could not have envisioned. For about 15 years, it functioned as an incredibly sturdy TV stand for a black and white television hooked up to a Nintendo console. It also doubled as a storage chest for all of our kids' Warhammer armies. Sadly, it had lost most of it's glamour over the years, but don't we all?

A few years ago, in order to make room for some additional exercise equipment in the basement, Dave and I managed to roll it under the basement stairs. It wasn't easy to maneuver that beast, let me tell you, but we did it. And I had no intention of ever moving it again. But fate intervened.

Last month, following Mullen Christmas in Cranbury, my daughter, Sara, and her husband, Pete, returned to Rhode Island and discovered that their house had been burglarized. The thieves ransacked the place and managed to find all of their most expensive possessions wherever they were hidden. The very next day, Marilynn and I rolled the safe out from under the basement stairs and gave it one more look. My plan was to learn as much as I could about it and enlist the aid of a locksmith to fix it.

I started by examining the identifying plate affixed to the front of the safe. Below is an image of a plate on eBay which is identical to the one on my safe:

This told me that it was an "Improved Defiance Salamander Safe" manufactured by a company in New York called "R.M. Patrick". Painstaking examination of the lock (see the close up image earlier in this post) yielded the following bits of text: "Goffin", "Patent", "MAR. 54", and "1251". Armed with this information, I spent the better part of a Saturday exploring the web. Here's what I discovered:

The lock on the safe was patented by a man name F.C. Goffin in March of 1854. Unfortunately, the patent number was not 1251 and the U.S. Patent Office search engine was abysmal. I literally had to inspect every single patent issued in the United States in March of 1854. It was as painstaking as it sounded, but, just before I was about to give up, I hit paydirt. Patent number 10660 provided me with a perfect description of the lock on my safe and how it worked. (Aside: I later learned that Google has a much better Patent search engine!)
A "Salamander Safe" refers to a fireproof safe, so named because the salamander, according to myth, is supposed to be able to endure fire without harm.
R.M. Patrick was a manufacturer of Defiance Salamander Safes at 192 Pearl Street in New York City.

While all of this was great information, I was amazed and frustrated by my inability to find any information at all about my particular safe. Having details about the lock was fantastic, but it would have been nice to know how that lock had been integrated into the safe. This lack of information would come back to haunt me later.

My next order of business was to contact a competent locksmith who specialized in antique safes. After a few searches on the web I found a site called AllExperts that looked promising. I entered my problem on the website and, within a few hours, received a response from a safe expert in California. After exchanging a number of emails, the California expert -- after expressing his regret at not being able to work on my safe personally -- gave me the name of an individual in New Jersey that might be able to help me, a guy by the name of Jeff Sitar.

I searched the web and found Jeff's email address and phone number. I sent him detailed information about my safe but received no reply. So I gave him a call and left a message on his answering machine. Still nothing. I was just about ready to give up on Jeff when he returned my call at 8pm one night. (It turns out that Jeff is a pretty busy guy!) I described the Salamander safe problem to him and he was immediately interested. He then pointed me to his website which described him as a championship safecracker, and I was immediately interested! After a number of abortive attempts to meet, I finally got Jeff and my safe together last Saturday. The results were truly astounding.

Jeff showed up and got to work immediately. He began by taking off the inner plate of the safe door and exposing the interior of the door. As he expected, it was completely encased in concrete:

Jeff then carefully chipped away about 50 pounds of concrete to expose the locking mechanisms.

In the photo above, the Goffin lock is in the center. To the right of that lock is a horizontal bar which controls the movement of all of the iron bolts. That horizontal bar is free to move only after two things happen: the Goffin lock must be opened and the second metal bar fitting into the horizontal bar must be raised. See the close-up below:

I went upstairs at this point to do some work in the kitchen while Jeff tried to figure out how to raise that second metal bar. I was upstairs for no more than 2 minutes when I heard him yell, "Paul, come down here and look at this. You will not believe it!!!"

I ran downstairs thinking that Jeff had discovered a second lock requiring a second key, but it was much, much better than that. When he pulled up on the metal bar that was restraining the horizontal bar, a small piece of metal on the front of the safe moved. Go to the top of this blog and click on the very first safe picture. Notice a tiny bit of gold-colored molding on the upper left portion of the safe? A close up of that bit of molding is shown below:

As it turns out, that's a tiny bit of brass that is attached to a lever that raises the restraining bar. When the Goffin lock is open, pressing down on this brass switch raises the restraining bar and allows the doorknob to turn and extend or retract all of the iron bolts. The locking mechanism of the safe was in perfect working order all these years ... we just didn't know its secret!

Jeff was both exhilarated and humbled: exhilarated because, after 30 years in the trade, he had just learned something brand new, but humbled because he had to take the door of the safe apart to figure it out. Me, I was just happy to have a fully working, almost impenetrable, antique fireproof safe in absolutely perfect working order!

As long as this story was, it may actually have a postscript. Stay tuned ...

The Blizzard of 2010!!

2010-02-10T19:19:00.017-05:00

I'm no stranger to snow. I've lived in the northeast my entire life. I was a kid when winters really were winters, when it snowed before Thanksgiving and snow covered the ground all winter long. I was in Syracuse, NY, in March of 1993 when the Storm of the Century dropped 43 inches of snow on that city in 48 hours. So why did today's "Nor'easter in NJ" shock me as much as it did?

When I woke up, there were only a few inches of snow on the ground. By noon, it actually stopped snowing and it looked as though the sky was beginning to clear. Then -- Boom! -- it started coming down fast and thick. And it didn't stop. It's about 9pm as I type this blog and it's still snowing!

Here's a shot of what it looked like at around 3pm when Marilynn and I went outside to do a preliminary shovel:

There were absolutely no cars (or plows) on the road and the snow showed no sign of letting up. Here's a shot of Marilynn, all wired up by the snow and ready to shovel:

After about 40 minutes of shoveling, we managed to clear the entire driveway. At this point, I volunteered to shovel the front walks and the porch while Marilynn did a little cross-country skiing at Village Park.

By the time Marilynn returned, I had just finished clearing the porch and all of the front walks. Then I looked at the driveway ... it was covered with a brand new 4-inch layer of snow! I had to shovel it again!

Before we called it a day, though, there was one more crucial job that had to be done. For the first time in about two years, this snow was perfect snowman-making snow. The air temperature was just right and the snow was soft and easily clumped (if that's a word). It didn't take us long to throw together a snowman (complete with pith helmet and pipe) and his snowkid. We probably should have decorated them a little better, but Marilynn and I were pretty frozen at this point.

So that's about it. Marilynn is stoking the fire downstairs. We're going to pop in a DVD and ride out the remainder of this storm inside. And I'm not going to even look at that driveway again until the morning!

Mary Poppins!

2010-01-17T18:31:00.000-05:00

Waiting for the curtain to rise! Sure, I'm missing the second half
of the Jets-Chargers game, but what are the chances that the Jets will
stage a miracle comeback???

Watching the J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets! In an Irish bar in NYC

2010-01-17T17:01:00.002-05:00

Then we're heading to see "Mary Poppins" at the New Amsterdam
Theater. The yin and the yang of NYC culture!!!

Happy Mullen Christmas!!

2010-01-11T21:15:00.054-05:00

Raising a glass to the Extended Mullen Family!
[Left to right: Paul Mullen, Mike McGarvey (top of head just visible), Sarah McGarvey, Sean Mullen, Lacee Mullen, Karen McGarvey (in green in the way back), Jonathan Mullen, Brendan Kinslow, Julie Mullen, Chris Kirkwood, Cara Mullen, and the raised arms of Annie Mullen Patrick and Mary Mullen Kinslow]

The 2009 Mullen Christmas Festivities officially kicked off on Friday, January 8th at approximately 5pm and didn’t end until 48 hours later on Sunday afternoon, January 10th. In-between that time, well, let’s just say that we generated a lot of recyclables!!

As always, Mullen Christmas consists of two … two … two parties in one! The Friday evening party consisted of my brothers and sisters and their children, or – as we have become collectively known – the "New York Mullens". While we’re still very close mentally and emotionally, we’re no longer quite so close geographically. This year, family members came from such far-flung locations as Providence RI, Syracuse NY, Washington DC, Waltham MA, and Woodstock NY. The weather cooperated … sort of. We only got a dusting of snow but it was brutally cold. Temperatures of 20°F were in stark contrast to the legendary 2006 Mullen Christmas where we basked outside in sunny 72°F weather.

To combat this year's cold, there was a constant fire in the fireplace and attendees had to resort to the temporary but comforting warming effects provided by alcohol. In particular, this year’s Christmas party introduced the group to Mullen’s Irish Cream, a drink that owes its creation to a suggestion made by Betty Cahalin (first cousin once removed) from the UK. The photo above shows a portion of the Friday evening crowd saluting the extended Mullen Family with a glass of the homemade concoction.

Besides the surprising amount and variety of beer consumed, Friday’s party was also notable for the opportunity to see one of our own, Brendan Kinslow, on national TV. Brendan is a cheerleader at Villanova University and, a few weeks earlier, I managed to DVR a football game between Villanova and William & Mary. As is the usual case, the ESPN camera lingered on the cheerleaders during one of the commercial breaks. Brendan seized that opportunity to follow his Dad’s advice and insert himself into the tableau. As a result, a national television audience was treated to the following sight:

Not exactly what the ESPN camera crew had in mind, I'm sure, but we certainly had a lot of fun replaying Brendan's 5 seconds of fame over and over and over again in slow motion.

All told, 31 New York Mullens attended the Friday party. For some, what started as a Friday Evening party morphed into a Saturday Morning party. When I went to bed slightly before 4am, Mike McGarvey, Sarah McGarvey, Kevin Mullen, and Pete Sankowich were still going strong. I understand that they finally crashed a little after 5am.

Saturday morning arrived way to soon for most party-goers. But after a fortifying breakfast of eggs, English muffins, strong coffee and Karen's ham, the exercise portion of the day was launched. Some Mullen Members ran or walked outside, others lifted weights in the basement, and still others jumped on the Spinning bikes. The photo below captured Dave and Marilynn in what appears to be a seated climb. Their anguish-free faces indicate that perhaps they should have turned the tension knob a notch or two in the clockwise direction. Other spinners that morning included Sara Sankowich, Rebecca Slovak, Ryan Mullen and myself.

At around 2pm, the "Philadelphia Mullens" began to arrive. Fittingly, the first to arrive was Aunt Mary, accompanied by Peter and Marie. With the aid of a small brace on one leg, Aunt Mary was able to easily navigate to wherever the focus of the party was. She started out in the living room but quickly moved to the kitchen when the snacks came out. When dinner was served, she was perfectly situated at the center of the dining room table. At mid-party, I discovered her sitting in the back of the kitchen in front of the Family Tree talking to her son, Tony, and providing me with a photo opportunity that couldn't be beat.

With the addition of 29 Philadelphia Mullens, the total attendance at the Mullen Christmas Weekend Extravaganza reached a grand total of 60, just a tad less than the record attendance of 2005 when the "Connecticut Mullens" showed up. Attendance would have been even higher if the party hadn’t been competing with the Eagles-Cowboys playoff game that evening at 8pm. Apparently, rabid Eagle fans like Doug Peikin and Mark Slusarski were petrified at the thought of stepping foot into a NY Giants stronghold (i.e., my house) on game-day and causing bad karma to descend upon their team. Kudos to relatives like Linda McKain, Steve Kada and Tony Notarfrancesco who ignored these silly superstitions, boldly entered my house, and caused their team to be totally demolished and dismembered by the Cowboys. I tell you, though, I’ve never seen a fan as rabid as Tony! He could barely sit still hours before the start of the game! And once the game started, he was all over the house! Fortunately, his Blackberry Support Group was able to talk him off the ledge when the wheels fell off the Eagles playoff bus. In all seriousness, though, Tony and Cathey jointly share the Star of the Party award for hanging out and watching the entire game with us and then staying the night at the local Cranbury Marriott.

Here are a few candid shots of party-goers starting off 2010 the right way. Additional photos will eventually be added to the Mullenium website. If you have any web-worthy photos, email them to me and I'll put them up.

Emily McKain and Bridget Mullen: Caught snacking!

L. to R.: Marilynn Mullen, Kristin Mullen, Annie Mullen Patrick, Kerry Mullen

L. to R.: Dave Mullen, Yuengling, Stacey Erskine

Joe Benco and Mike Mullen: Reliving past parties ...

Danny and Donna Sears: One last Rice Krispie Treat for the road

Tom Kinslow: All set to watch the J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets!!!!

L. to R.: Sara Mullen Sankowich and Pete Sankowich vainly attempting to explain the Droid to Chris Mullen Kreamer and Ross G. Kreamer

Kevin Mullen and Karen Mullen McGarvey: Twins forever ...

Mike Mullen and Mary Mullen Kinslow: Another set of twins that just happened to be strolling by

Four sisters: Chris Mullen Kreamer, Mary Mullen Kinslow, Karen Mullen McGarvey, and Annie Mullen Patrick

Happy Mullen Christmas to all and to all a good night!
Mark your calendar for next year: January 8, 2011

New Year's in Vermont

2010-01-02T12:09:00.049-05:00

[Clockwise from left: Andy Mullen, Rebecca Slovak, Dave Mullen, Carl Goedecke,Marilynn Mullen, Irene Goedecke, Pete Sankowich, Sara Mullen Sankowich]

The Cranbury Mullens rang in the New Year at Marilynn's brother's (Carl Goedecke) house in Fayston, Vermont, in the shadow of the Mad River Glen ski resort. The photo above (click on it for a larger version) shows the group in mid-New Year's Eve festivities. Everyone arrived at Carl and Irene's beautiful house at various times on Wednesday evening, December 30th. After a drink or two and some snacks, everyone went to bed to prepare for the next day.

Irene Goedecke and Sara Sankowich, relaxing and conversating

On Thursday, the downhill skiers (Andy, Rebecca, Dave, Sara, Pete and Marilynn) got out the door fairly early and were sliding up and down Mad River Glen on slats of carbon fiber by 10:30am. The rest of us (Carl, Irene, Paul) got a more civilized start (noon) and snowshoed for about 2 hours. The high point of the day, for me, was getting through Day #1 without a repeat of last year's brutal snowshoeing blisters on both heels. The skiers thoroughly enjoyed their day, staying until last run and returning to the house at around 4:30pm. By all reports, everyone did amazingly well. Rebecca and Andy -- the most experienced skiers -- spent most of their time on the black diamonds. Marilynn -- who used to ski all the time until she married me -- shook off the rust and was able to ski Quacky, a blue but almost black diamond trail. Dave and Sara -- who hadn't skied since the Super Mullenium of 1999 -- skied almost the entire day without falling. Pete, who had never skied downhill before in his life, took a lesson with Sara, strapped on the skies, and attacked the mountain with his usual gusto. That evening, we rang in the New Year with a roaring fire in the fireplace, a fantastic dinner, some Mullen's Irish Cream, and excellent champagne provided by our hosts, Carl & Irene.

Andy & Rebecca enjoying "a roaring fire and red meat off the bone"

On Friday morning, Rebecca and Andy bolted out for the slopes of Mad River Glen once again while the rest of us went on a typical Carl & Irene snowshoeing trek.

Everyone smiling despite the "steep grade" warning sign!

The trek started off pleasant enough, but by the time we staggered back to the house it felt like we had just completed the Bataan Death March! Sara and I, in particular, were toast. Sara's calves (sore from the prior day of skiing) were locking up on her and my knees (aching from basketball on Wednesday and snowshoeing on Thursday) were in dire need of an injection of WD40. In stark contrast, Carl, who would turn 68 the next day, could have gone on for 2 more hours!

Dave doing the "Brush Limbo"

On Saturday morning, Sara and Pete headed for home in a vain attempt to arrive in time to see the NHL Legends hockey game at Fenway Park at 2pm. Andy, Rebecca, Dave and Marilynn headed back to the ski slopes. Carl (Happy Birthday, Carl!!) and Irene went for yet another snowshoeing excursion. I rested my knees, composed this blog, and nervously eyed weather.com and its prediction of 10 inches of snow in the next 24 hours. The Prius is tremendous for a lot of reasons, but not for driving on the snowy, mountainous roads of Vermont!!

Happy 2010 to all!!

Gracie saying "Hello!"

Mullen's Irish Cream!

2009-12-29T21:27:00.003-05:00

[Click on photo above for a printable version]

Here you are, just in time for New Year's Eve!! Inspired by a telephone conversation with Betty Cahalin (first cousin once removed from England), I decided to try my hand at making my own version of Bailey's Irish Cream. I started out with Betty's recipe but – as you may have guessed if you know Betty – it was a tad strong. Plus, Betty's recipe included coffee, a flavor which isn't a favorite of Marilynn's. I continued tinkering around with the recipe over the Christmas holidays, unscrupulously using my kids as guinea pigs. I'm pretty happy with the above combination. To further entice people to show up, I plan on making up a big batch of it for the Mullen Christmas Party on January 9th. Don't miss it!

Christmas Party at Hannah's

2009-12-29T13:23:00.003-05:00

[John Davies, Hannah Davies, Máire Davies, Marilynn Mullen]

Marilynn and I had the privilege of being invited to a Christmas Party at Hannah Davies’ apartment in New York City on Sunday, December 27th. It was mostly a party for Hannah’s friends and co-workers at the United Nations, but Hannah’s parents (John and Máire) were also in town that weekend, so it gave us the perfect opportunity to meet with them as well.

For a variety of reasons, Sunday was an extremely hectic day for Marilynn and I. As a result, we didn’t even get out of the house until 5pm, the official start of Hannah's party. Five minutes into our journey – just as we were getting on the New Jersey Turnpike – I realized (to my horror ) that this was the end of the Christmas weekend and that millions of New Yorkers were probably trying to get back into the city! I snapped on WCBS 880AM for “traffic and weather together” and heard the unspeakable: there were 1½ hour backups at both the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and a 2 hour backup at the George Washington Bridge! We were already going to be one hour late – being three hours late was intolerable! What could we possibly do??? Luckily, I had the wisdom to marry an intelligent, resourceful woman. Marilynn suggested that we head to the closest train station in NJ and take a train into New York City. Brilliant!!! We headed to MetroPark in Woodbridge, NJ and arrived just in time to catch the 5:43pm train. Sure it was a slow NJ Transit train and, yes, it was a local, but we still got to Penn Station in NYC by 6:30pm. Having been warned by Hannah that there was no easy route to her apartment building by subway, we hurried to the nearest taxi stand only to find it mobbed. Rather than wait 20 minutes or more, we decided to view this as an exercise opportunity and walked the 2 miles to Hannah’s. And so it was that at 7:04pm Marilynn and I arrived fashionably late and mildly sweaty at Hannah's Christmas party.

Even though I was late, I was honored by being presented with the last “Christmas cracker”. For those of you on the left side of the Atlantic, Christmas crackers are a staple of Christmas festivities in the UK and Ireland. They consist of a cardboard tube (i.e., a toilet paper tube) wrapped to look like a big piece of candy. Two people pull on the ends of the cracker and it’s supposed to make a popping (or “cracking”) noise when it splits. Usually, the cracker is filled with candy or a small gift of some kind. Mine contained a prize (a small tailor’s measuring tape), a paper crown (which I wore during the party), a riddle (“What has a bed but does not sleep and a mouth but does not speak?”), and a piece of candy of some kind that flew underneath Hannah’s couch.

Despite the fact that most of the people at the party were connected with the U.N., the conversation was not dominated by politics and world events. To be sure, those topics did come up, but we also talked about sports, music, movies, books, exercise, travel, family, food, and basically everything under the sun. With so many different nationalities represented, there was never a dull moment. The food and drink was excellent and, before we knew it, it was after 10:45pm and Marilynn and I were out the door, saying goodbye to Raphael the elevator guy (who was retiring that evening!) and heading to Penn Station to catch the 11:15PM train back to MetroPark.

Answer to the Mullen Christmas Card Crossword Puzzle!

2009-12-26T12:24:00.016-05:00

Sorry! I know that everyone has been waiting with bated breath to see the official answer key for the first ever Mullen Christmas Card Crossword Puzzle. I planned on adding it to the blog on Christmas Day but got totally sidetracked opening presents, eating, drinking, giving presents, eating, drinking, cleaning up after presents, and eating and drinking. And then we all went to an IMAX theatre and saw Avatar in 3D which:

Totally blew me away; and
Took up the rest of Christmas Day

I didn't expect to get too many completed puzzles since many of you either don't have or are not comfortable with the technology necessary to electronically submit your entry. All told there were 8 entries. Everyone did fairly well and, although there can only be one true winner, the judges have handed out multiple awards.

Mary and Tom Kinslow jointly share the Most Persistant award. Their entry was emailed to the judges on December 22 with the modest title of "Victory is Ours!". They followed that up with a phone call the same day demanding to know exactly how well they had fared. When informed that they had, in fact, made a couple of unspecified errors, their Christmas cheer began to evaporate. But since it wasn't December 25 yet, the judges were forbidden to tell them the exact errors they had made. This escalated the tension and resulted in a final comment of "This puzzle is bulls**t!" followed by a click. But Mary and Tom weren't done yet. Mary followed up with a second puzzle entry on December 23 and yet one more email on December 24 entitled "We are waiting for recognition of our crossword 'mavenness'." Well, sad to say, Mary and Tom are not the Mullen Mavens. But they are damned persistant!!

The second award for Most Originality goes to Annie Mullen Patrick. Truthfully, I expected Annie to completely ignore this crossword puzzle competition. Though highly educated, Annie is not at all keen on games like crossword puzzles. As a matter of fact, her game-playing days pretty much plateaued with "Steal the Pile" back in the 60's. On top of that, Annie is unquestioningly the least technologically savvy of the entire Mullen Family, and that includes Chelsea. So there was no way I expected her to complete this puzzle, take a photo of it, and email me the photo. But Annie surprised me by coming up with a totally unexpected and original way to submit her entry. On Christmas Day -- right in the middle of the festivities -- she called me on the phone and proceeded to verbally relay every single one of her answers! I kid you not. And for the many clues for which she had no answer, Annie tried her best to wheedle and/or extort the answers out of me. After about 40 minutes of this browbeating, I finally convinced her to wish me a Merry Christmas and hang up the phone.

Inexplicably, the actual winner of the coveted Mullen Maven award goes to Beth Anne Kafasis, a co-worker of Marilynn's at the Cranbury Library. Somehow, Beth Anne was able to figure out the answers to uniquely Mullen clues like "Dave's Employer" (CACI) and "Bad magazine to give Annie" (TVGUIDE). Ironically, the only answer that Beth Anne got wrong (indeed, everyone got this answer wrong), was to the clue "CO2 fighter". The answer was, of course PRIUS, the car I've been driving since 2006! Almost everyone guessed TREES which, of course, is wrong since the clue is singular ("fighter") not plural ("fighters"). The great irony lies in the fact that Beth Anne drives a Prius herself!

Great job Beth Anne! Thanks to all of you for playing, even if you just played at home and never emailed, texted, or telephoned your answers to me. Merry Christmas and have a great 2010!

Avatar on IMAX on Christmas Day

2009-12-25T19:40:00.001-05:00

Sara, Andy and Marilynn waiting in a humungous line to watch Avatar at an IMAX theater on the evening of Christmas Day. We bought the tickets ahead of time, got to the theater 40 minutes early, and we were still behind a couple hundred people. This movie better be fantastic!!!

At the Jets game with the Siena Boys!

2009-11-15T11:23:00.003-05:00

From left to right: John Latino ('77), Mike Kelley ('76), John O'Grady ('76), Tasos Papagiannopoulos (friend of John O'Grady), and Mike Nestor ('77). Rich Kokel ('77) was also at the game but, as usual, was running late and missed the photo-op.

As always, it was excellent getting together with the boys. Sadly, the Jets went down to a crushing last-second defeat at the hands of the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars.

Meet Herbert Frankel: My Fourth Cousin Twice Removed!

2009-11-10T22:27:00.004-05:00

This just in from Dympna (Messenger) Le Rasle: "Hi Paul; Just writing to let you know that we have another member of the family to add to the family tree. My daughter Madeleine gave birth to Herbie Hucklebury Timothy Peter Frankel on 7th September 2009. I would have told you earlier but hadn’t got round to getting the photos up, I am attaching a photo of him at 3 days old for the blog."

The photo above shows Dympna, the proud grandmom, holding Herbie. Herbie may be little but, as far as I can tell, he is the holder of what may well be the heftiest name on the Family Tree. I'm going to need a double-wide box on the Tree to accommodate it! Welcome to the Family, Herbie!

Harry at "The Holy War" - by Daniel Sears

2009-11-02T21:23:00.019-05:00

"Growing up in North Philadelphia's Frankford section, who knows why my Dad fell in love with Notre Dame Football. Could it have been being one of the few Catholics in his neighborhood and seeing the team rise to national fame on their merits alone despite their religion (remember there was a time when Catholics were not held in the highest regard)? Possibly. Could it have been the association with the 'Fighting Irish' and his Irish heritage? Possibly. But regardless of why, one thing we always knew growing up in Mom and Dad's house was that Saturday afternoons were made for Notre Dame. Any chores or work that had to be done could be put on hold for a few hours. From my Dad's one knee stance in front of the television with left elbow on left knee and right hand on the TV set (even though we only had one, it was always called a set), and a delightful scream of 'Hot damn!! There he goes!', there was no question what Dad's favorite football team is, was, and forever shall be world without end. Amen."

"We always knew how much he loved the games, and we did attend a few locally. A couple of ND vs. Navy games at the Meadowlands and an Army vs. ND at Veterans Stadium were also part of the history. The ultimate goal was always a game in South Bend. Dad has battled Parkinson's for years, and we felt that now could be the time to go. Time to see 'Touchdown Jesus', time to see 'The Golden Dome', time to sit in those stands and cheer on the Fighting Irish."

"We left on Thursday October 22 at 10pm from the Peikin residence in North Wales, PA. Our vehicle of choice was a Ford Econoline 15 Passenger Van. We did the most cliché thing we could think of: we watched the move "Rudy" on the way. The goal was to be in South Bend by early Friday morning and bypass all traffic by driving through the night."

Danny and Harry in the EconoLine

"When we arrived in South Bend at approximately 9:45am we had only moments to prepare for the first event. Thanks to our eldest brother, Timothy, we had lunch at the behest of Coach Charlie Weis and his wife, with a number of Notre Dame VIP's, coaches, players, all stars and other die hard fans. While waiting for the food to be served we were able to check out all of the history that is Notre Dame: the Heisman's, the National Titles, the gas cap from the plane Knute Rockne was killed in, and the countless other relics of a team etched into the hearts and minds of her faithful fans. Lunch was pretty cool -- there was a local ND Football talk show which took place on stage. They had a number of guests interviewed including safety Sergio Brown and running game coordinator Frank Verducci. (Jersey Guy, Seton Hall Prep grad). It was quite a memorable event."

"Fast forward to the hotel, where we all crashed for a several hours to get our clocks back on track. The next event was the Pep Rally. In typical and predictable Sears Family fashion, we were so late we missed it!! Who would have thought??"

"Saturday, the 24th: Game Day. Anyone who knows college football recognizes the rivalry between Boston College and Notre Dame (The Holy War) which was one of the reasons this game was so sweet. Despite the rainy weather we were all looking forward to the game. Stocked with blankets, ponchos, smuggle-able snacks, umbrellas, and much more, we looked more suitable for a homeless shelter's soup kitchen meal than a D1-A football game!!"

Harry in Poncho doing his "Frankenstein"

"Prior to the game, Dad watched from the balcony of the mezzanine as the ND Marching Band strutted in. He mentioned 'It doesn't get any better than this!' Exactly then, Timothy unveiled another surprise for Dad: Pre-Game Field Passes. Yes, that's right! Harry C. Sears who watched ND Football games for so long that 'watching' the game meant staring at the Zenith radio, was now going on that sacred field. Dad and Tim made it down to the field, seeing the band, the ND leprechaun, the cheerleaders and the field that has become hallowed ground. The pinnacle of the Pre-Game was seeing those golden helmets rush through the tunnel and take the field. Making their way back to the stands, Tim and Dad settled in with the rest of us: Mom, Colleen, Sharon, Patrick, Shawn, me, Kerrianne, and her guy Igino (pronounced Gino)."

Harry and Tim on the Notre Dame sidelines

"Much to our surprise the rain let up, and we were all blessed with one of the most exciting games to date. Every ritual we've seen time and time again on television seemed larger than life in person. Notre Dame 20 Boston College 16. This game apparently marked the end of “The Holy War” series: 34 years of competition between the only two Catholic Universities in the US to compete at the Division 1-A level. Imagine Harry in 1975 watching the first “Holy War,” sitting in his sansa-belt slacks, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon or perhaps even a Genesee Cream Ale, maybe complaining about Gerald Ford a bit. At the age of 47 he had no grand kids, his sixth child not even born yet. Time can change just about everything."

"Anyone who's made it to a game in South Bend knows a post game mass is in order. We rushed to the Basilica but it had filled up too fast. Instead we were lucky enough to find standing room at Sorin Hall, where a more intimate mass was on the menu. The return trip back to PA seemed longer than the ride there. The van seemed more crowded even though we had one less person (we left Tim at a rest stop because he was cranky. Just kidding! Kerri flew back to LA from Chicago). It was my first road trip with all of my siblings and parents (I’m 32) and one that none of us will forget. Life will always be busy. Life will always have very long to-do lists. But no matter how we busy we are, we'll all always treasure this trip to Notre Dame with our quarterback, Harry C. Sears. Getting to see Dad, the golden helmets, Touchdown Jesus, and more -- all in one eyeful -- was the gift of a lifetime for us."

"Taking Dad to Notre Dame" - by Sharon Sears Slusarski

2009-10-31T23:19:00.008-04:00

(On October 24, 2009, the Sears family traveled to South Bend, Indiana, to watch the Notre Dame Fighting Irish take on Boston College in a football game.)

"We finally made it -- we left at 9:30 Thursday night and arrived at the hotel at 10AM. We had less than half an hour to brush our teeth and change and we had to pick up tix to the Football Luncheon at The Joyce Center. Dad looks like it was one hell-of-a car ride!!"

(In the photo above: Kerriann Kada, Pat Mullen Sears, Daniel Sears, Harry Sears, Pat Sears, Sharon Sears Slusarski , Tim Sears, Shawn Sears Peikin, Collen Sears Kada.)

"After the parade - Tim rushed Dad down to the sidelines. Tim got a special pass for Dad to stand on the sidelines until the coin toss. What a treat!"

(In the photo above, Harry and Tim can be seen on the Notre Dame sideline just prior to kickoff. They're standing right behind a security guard with a yellow vest and a guy with a red jacket and a grey hood.)

Happy Halloween!!

2009-10-31T17:14:00.005-04:00

Tonight is not the night for hordes of Chaos, the rat-creatures of Skaven, the race of Elves, or the Empire of Bretonnia. No, tonight belongs to the Legions of the Undead: Nagash, his Skeleton Army, the Screaming Skull Catapult, and the Giant Spider spreading fear and terror. There's no way to beat them. The best you can hope to do is run away. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlFjNVTiI1c

Marilynn Mullen in the New York Times!

2009-10-30T20:02:00.005-04:00

It's not every day that a Mullen gets quoted in the New York Times. Alright, it wasn't exactly a quote -- it was a paraphrase. But still, Marilynn's name and references to the Cranbury Library appeared in the October 29th edition of the N.Y. Times! Check it out here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/nyregion/29midpoint.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

I've always said that Marilynn can take any subject in the world and turn it into a Library story. The irony of this N.Y. Times article is that they started with the Library and turned it into a story about baseball!

In case you're wondering (I was!) this story appeared in both the online and the print versions of the newspaper! Congratulations Marilynn!

Elinore and Rory Come to Cranbury!

2009-10-29T23:03:00.002-04:00

Elinore Davies and Rory Macqueen were in the States from London this week visiting with Eli's sister, Hannah. On Wednesday evening, though, they took a break from the glitter of New York City to check out the slightly quieter and much more bucolic setting of Cranbury, NJ. Marilynn and I decided to mark their visit by combining two quintessentially American holidays -- Halloween and Thanksgiving -- into one. While Marilynn prepared a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, I introduced Eli and Rory to the art of jack-o-lantern carving. The photo above shows them getting acquainted with the tools of the trade. The photo below shows our finished products.

Rory is convinced that his pumpkin carving job is the best of the three. To see if he's right, though, send me an email (mullenpj@gmail.com) with your vote as to which jack-o-lantern is the best: the skull, the cat, or the ghost. And a Happy Halloween to everyone!!

Two More Members of the Family Tree!

2009-10-22T20:57:00.003-04:00

The Lillis branch of the Mullen Family Tree has had a major expansion. As reported by Brian Lillis, the proud grandfather, "We have our own shock to the system with 2 new grandsons in a week - one each to Grainne and Cliona. We are both thrilled to bits and are spending a lot of time in London with both of them. They are fine babies, both weighing in at 8 ½ pounds."

In the photo above, from left to right are: Grainne (Lillis) Beeney holding Matthew Beeney; Anne Lillis with arms around Callum Beeney and Liam Beadle; and Cliona (Lillis) Beadle holding Edward "Ted" Beadle.

Congratulations to the Lillis clan!

What a long strange trip it's been ...

2009-10-18T12:45:00.020-04:00

Last Monday (October 12th) started off innocently enough. I had a great breakfast, went to work, had a little snack, and headed down to the BMS gym for a light lunchtime workout. I did my usual abdominal workout, a couple sets of pushups and started using one of the leg machines. I finished one set, stood up to say something to a guy lifting with me, and BOOM! I passed out for the first time in my life.

The BMS EMT group was all over me in minutes. Their initial diagnosis was low blood-sugar level (my count was 50) and they rushed me to University Hospital in Princeton. Once there, I was hooked up to a portable heart monitor (see below) and put through a battery of tests and examinations.

I maxed out the stress test, my EKG was perfect, my blood pressure was consistently excellent, and my echocardiogram (i.e., sonogram for the heart) showed a strong and steady beat. Everything looked perfect. On Wednesday morning, though, I was sitting up in my hospital bed eating breakfast when I felt what I thought was an accelerated heartbeat for a few seconds. I noted the time (8:47am) and informed the Student Nurse about it when he stopped by a few minutes later. He dutifully inspected the heart monitor log back at the nurse's station. He didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, but he reported the incident to the nurses. Five minutes later, my cardiologist was in my room telling me that my heart had stopped for 3.7 seconds! More than likely, my heart had stopped for an even longer period of time on Monday when I had fainted. His diagnosis was immediate: I needed a pacemaker. After getting a second opinion from another cardiologist in the hospital, I was scheduled for the operation. So, at 11am the next day, I became the proud owner of a Medtronics dual-chamber pacemaker. The model I have is shown below:

And here's how it looks inside me.

It was a relatively non-invasive procedure. I was given a local anesthesia and some kind of IV drip to make me semi-conscious. To tell you the truth, I remember very little about the operation. I lost very little blood and, as you can see, have only a 2" scar. I'll always have that circular bulge a couple of inches below my left collar bone, but I plan on using that as a conversation-starter at the bars.

According to my doctors and everything that I've read, here's a partial (yet representative) list of things that I can no longer do:

Have an MRI (damn! ... I'll really miss that terrifying claustrophobic feeling!)
Play sports like football, hockey, boxing, judo, karate, rugby, Hurling, Australian Rules Football ... I think you get the idea.
Use a gas-powered chain saw, though an electric one is fine.
Walk through an airport security system. It won't bother me, but the pacemaker will definitely sound an alarm, so why waste anyone's time?

Here are things that I can continue to do without fear:

Run a 4-minute mile (but I'll start with an 8-minute mile).
Spinning. If you don't know what that is, click here I teach it at BMS, so it was a relief to know that I'd be able to continue.
Basketball! Yes, I can continue to play basketball! Of course, my knees, calves, ankles and back may have to be consulted for a second opinion. Still, it's heartening to know that I can still give it a try again if I so desire (and I do!)
Use microwaves, wireless phones, computers, appliances, electric blankets, power tools, lawn mowers, and (sad to say) vacuum cleaners.
Have an X-ray, a CAT scan, or an ultrasound.

I won't lie. The actual experience of fainting and being revived was pretty scary. As a matter of fact, I thought that I had died. After those first 2 minutes, though, it wasn't all that bad. I was never in any pain and the care I received at the University Hospital at Princeton was excellent. Marilynn is actually a little relieved that I have a pacemaker! She believes that she has felt my heart briefly stop a couple of times over the past few years. This should prevent that from happening. And it won't interfere with my exercise. I can continue immediately to exercise as vigorously as I like.

So, while it has been a little bump in my road, things could have been much, much worse. It's all good now. Thank you for all of your prayers and good wishes.

Congratulations John & Máire!

2009-10-15T09:15:00.006-04:00

John & Máire Davis (fourth cousin!) celebrated their 40th Wedding Anniversary on October 4th with a family gathering in London. In "Máire's words, "We had a lovely weekend - it was really perfect. We had been planning to go away somewhere exotic, and then we thought - why do that? Why not just go to our little place in London and see the family, so we did - also lots of theatre and music and walking about and a lovely meal in Dympna's son-in-law's family restaurant, the Poule au Pot, in Pimlico - much recommended."

Pictured above, clockwise from the front: John Davies, Máire Davis, Elinore Davies, Rory Macqueen, Hannah Davies, Huw Davies, and Tom Davies. Not physically present but there in spirit was Máire's mom, Madge Messenger, whom Máire met with the next day.

John and Máire are also planning on hosting a "big reunion type party" on October 31st in London. If anyone from the extended Family is planning on being anywhere near London during that time, you are more than welcome to attend. Below is the official invitation.

Wedding of Avril Gilmartin and Tony Leary

2009-09-28T22:43:00.027-04:00

There's a new name on the Mullen Family Tree! On Saturday, September 26, Avril Gilmartin married Tony Leary. A few of you may have had the opportunity to talk with Avril and Tony at last year's Mullen Family Reunion in Ballina. They were unable to attend the Saturday banquet but made a brief appearance at the Frogs Piano Bar on Friday night. Luckily, Marilynn and I had the good fortune to spend an evening with them this summer during our vacation in London. Knowing how much we enjoyed just having dinner with them, I can only imagine how much fun their wedding was. Below are a few pictures that I was able to snag off of Facebook, followed by a first-hand account of the wedding as reported by Ashling Gilmartin, Avril's sister. Ashling can be seen in the photo below on the left-hand side of Tony, her new brother-in-law.

From Ashling:

"Avril Gilmartin and Tony Leary were married on September 26, 2009 at Ballintubber Abbey (where Pierce Brosnan got married), followed by a reception at Knockranny House Hotel in Westport, County Mayo. The wedding was at one o'clock and Avril arrived at about ten past, which was the first time she was actually on time for something! The guests had to be ushered into the church in a hurry as Avril was held back at the end of the road until everyone was inside. Enda Lavin played the bagpipes from the end of the road up to church. The vintage car that brought Avril to the church is owned by our Uncle, Andrew Treacy. Avril had a special candle to light in memory of Dad, David and our Aunt Mary Foy (Dad's sister). The Mullen family was represented by Auntie Kay Lynn, Uncle Stan Lynn, Charlie & Patricia Foy, Raymond & Eilish O Boyle, Noelie & Vicky Foy, and Jackie & Richard Myres. Enda played the bagpipes again as the car came to the hotel and he played her to the door and again into the meal, which was lovely. Avril and Tony had a champagne and strawberry reception when the guests landed and then once that was over we went in for the seven-course meal. Everything went off well on the day. The meal was lovely and the band and DJ were brilliant. The wedding ended around three o'clock in the morning and the guests remained on until four and more until five. It was a fabulous day weather-wise and a great day was had by all."

If you're not exactly sure how you are related to Avril and Ashling, consult the Mullen Family Tree. From a "Philadelphia Mullen" perspective, though, she's our third cousin, as shown below:

Happy Birthday Sara!

2009-09-27T22:24:00.002-04:00

You might be 30 years old, but you'll always be 22!

LYT!! BYOD!!!

Dad

Cranstock 2009!

2009-09-27T19:45:00.009-04:00

Village Park in Cranbury was hopping on Saturday, September 26, when the inaugural celebration of Cranstock, a free music festival, kicked off. Marilynn and I invited Hannah Davies, a not-so-distant cousin from NYC, to the event. The entire musical line-up for the day is shown below, on the back of a truly collector's-item T-shirt being modeled by yours truly:

The Testostertones, an a capella men's choral group from Princeton High School were great, but their set was way too short. Here's a YouTube video which gives you some idea of their talent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ReiIRKITU0.

Exit 8A (referring to the Cranbury Exit off of the NJ Turnpike) is a garage band composed of 15 and 16 year old Cranbury kids. What they lacked in polish they more than made up for with enthusiasm and budding musical skill. Their best moment was probably their cover of "Scar Tissue" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The next performer, Stephen Szczepanik, was described as a "classical acoustic guitarist". His talent was obvious but his overall performance was, perhaps, a tad laid back for the general Cranstock crowd that had come to hoot and holler.

Selkow, a band containing 2 former Cranbury residents (Matt Foster and Mike Golisano), came on next. Their performance was excellent showing plenty of polish and skill. For the most part, they played original material, but they did an excellent job with three cover songs as well: "Who'll Stop the Rain" by Credence Clearwater Revival, "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash and "Time" by Pink Floyd.

The last local group to perform was, without a doubt, the hit of the show: The Crandaddies, a cover group composed of local Cranbury fathers. Although I knew just about everyone in the band, I had no inkling of the skill level that they possessed. They started off with a bang, performing a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" that was surprisingly good, from the opening harmonica to the closing saxophone solo. The musical abilities of everyone in the group was quite impressive, as were the vocals and overall stage presence of their lead singer. The only people enjoying The Crandaddies more than the crowd was The Crandaddies themselves. They were having a lot of fun, and it showed.

The last band of the night -- and the feature band of the festival -- was a band from northern NJ called The Robert Murdock Band. They were billed as a British Invasion tribute band but, after 5 hours of Cranstock, Marilynn, Hannah and I had had enough. And since The Crandaddies had just closed their set with a great rendition of "Sympathy for the Devil" by The Rolling Stones, we had already seen our British Invasion tribute band for the evening.

All in all, it was an excellent event. Here's hoping that there's a Cranstock 2010!

WaterFire in Providence, RI

2009-09-20T09:03:00.002-04:00

Here's a short iPhone video of WaterFire in Providence, RI, on September 19, 2009. The video is a little bit dark but, hey, it was at 10 o'clock at night! I expected a huge crowd (because my theory is that if I do something then most likely there are hundreds of thousands of people who want to do the same thing), but the crowd was manageable. Marilynn, Sara and I were actually able to find places to sit on the banks of the river. We strolled around for about an hour or so, had a beer (well, I had a beer), shared a DoughBoy (i.e., a funnel cake), and took in this award-winning environmental art sculpture. Lots of fun ...

Biking at Narragansett Bay

2009-09-19T13:43:00.002-04:00

What a great day for a bike!!! Sara, Marilynn and I went for a 42 mile bike ride today to celebrate Sara's "Birthday Month" (she turns the big "3-0" on September 27th!!). There was hardly a cloud in the sky and the temperature was in the low to mid-70's. There was some kind of surfing seminar going on at Narragansett Bay so, as you can see by the photo, there were plenty of people at the shore today enjoying the water. After a shower and Happy Hour at Sara's, we're heading out to a Birthday Month dinner and then on to WaterFire. What, you've never heard of the world-famous Waterfire? Check it out here: http://www.waterfire.org/

I'll try to add a photo of the event later on tonight.

The Lasting Importance of Obama's "School Speech"

2009-09-09T23:26:00.003-04:00

The real importance of Obama's speech to school children yesterday had nothing to do with what the President actually said. Not that his speech wasn't full of worthy ideas (click here for the full text). No, the true value of the speech lies in the events that preceded it.

Obviously, not everyone in America is an Obama supporter. There are plenty of Americans with real (and sometimes valid) differences with Obama’s ideas and the direction that the Democratic Party wants to take America. Unfortunately, too many “voices” associated with the Republican Party are clearly in the lunatic fringe. The challenge that the public has is to differentiate the rational pundit from the lunatic. Well, thanks to the President’s innocuous act of addressing the nation's school children, we now have a clear litmus test.

Lunatic: Rush Limbaugh

Even after the speech, Rush Limbaugh was still foaming at the mouth, saying that the "original intent of the speech was a dear leader kind of thing," that was "right out of the pages of Kim Jong Il." An audio of his comments can be found here.

Lunatic: Glenn Beck:

While he now says that there was nothing wrong with the speech, listen to this audio of Beck’s comments leading up to the speech. For some inexplicable reason, he also trashes teachers as well!

Rational: George Will

The Internet carried the following assessment of Will’s position, saying that he was “the rare pundit who faulted the White House in this furor. He said it's not the federal government's job to raise children and blasted the administration's approach to public relations. The president is ubiquitous in the media, Will said, and has become like elevator music.” While I don’t necessarily agree with Will on this, at least he presents a rational and reasoned critique.

Lunatic: Sean Hannity

Discussing the upcoming speech with guest, Michelle Malkin, Hannity says of the speech, “Now we’re getting into an area where it seems very close to indoctrination or at least has the potential.”

Lunatic: Fox News Commentator Monica Crowley

Monica Crowley has a syndicated radio show and is a regular commentator on The McLaughlin Group and Fox News. She also holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Columbia University. Her analysis: "Just when you think this administration can't get any more surreal and Orwellian, here they come to indoctrinate our kids."

Rational: Newt Gingrich former Speaker of the House

“Just read President Obamas speech to students. ... It is a good speech and will be good for students to hear."

Lunatic: Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota

Regarding Obama’s school speech, the potential presidential contender in 2012 told reporters at the Minnesota state fair, “At a minimum it's disruptive, number two, it's uninvited and number three, if people would like to hear his message they can, on a voluntary basis, go to YouTube or some other source and get it. I don't think he needs to force it upon the nation's school children.”

Lunatic: Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer

Greer stated that Obama’s real motive was to indoctrinate students with his “socialist ideology.” He issued a press release saying that he is “absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.” Once he actually read the text and realized that he was now on the wrong side of public sentiment, he reversed himself completely, saying, “My kids will be watching the president's speech, as I hope all kids will.”

Rational: Laura Bush, Former First Lady

Statements by Laura Bush to CNN the day before the President’s speech: “I think that there is a place for the President of the United States to talk to school children and encourage school children, and I think there are a lot of people that should do the same … and that is encourage their own children to stay in school and to study hard and to try to achieve the dream that they have.”

Lunatic: Oklahoma State Senator Steve Russell

A few days before the speech, Senator Russell was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, "As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality … This is something you'd expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein's Iraq."

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. So, the next time that you're discussing politics with someone, bring up Obama's School Speech and get their opinion. You might as well do this right off the bat and determine whether a rational discussion is even possible.

Labor Day With Aunt Mary

2009-09-07T16:00:00.012-04:00

Marilynn and I just got back from a Labor Day visit with Aunt Mary at Lafayette-Redeemer Hospital in Philadelphia. Marilynn put together a picnic lunch that couldn't be beat. We went out onto the third floor veranda and had seafood salad sandwiches on rolls, cherry tomatoes, potato chips (Pringles!) and -- for dessert -- home-grown Cranbury raspberries on tapioca pudding!!! Here's a photo of Aunt Mary digging into the raspberries:

After eating, we went outside for a little tour of the Holy Redeemer grounds. There is a great little water fountain (two children, one holding an umbrella), some beautiful flowers and quite a few unusual trees (Tulip Tree?). Afterwards, we sat outside on the front porch and talked a little bit about the Notarfrancesco family. I learned (for the first time), that Uncle Nick's father (named Joseph) grew up in an orphanage in Italy before coming to America. Per Aunt Mary, the orphanage was run by the Franciscans, which had something to do with the ultimate creation of the family name, Notarfrancesco. I'm not exactly sure how the surname was derived and Aunt Mary did have a slight twinkle in her eye, so she might have been pulling my leg. Like a good reporter, though, I just relate what I'm told!

At one point, I tried to take a quick iPhone video of Aunt Mary relating a family story or two. As shown in the brief video below, though, I didn't get very far. I had just gotten her rolling on a story when she heard Marilynn knocking at the veranda door. Marilynn had gotten a little chilly out on the veranda and was fetching a sweater of Aunt Mary's to wear.

[Note #1: The sweater was exactly where Aunt Mary had told Marilynn it would be, it fit Marilynn perfectly, and Aunt Mary gave it to her as a present!]

[Note #2: I didn't hear Marilynn knocking it all -- that gives you an idea just how good Aunt Mary's hearing still is!]

Unfortunately, I had to stop the video to let Marilynn back out onto the veranda, which disrupted the story. The video only lasts about 10 seconds, but here it is anyway:

Not that great a video, I know, but it gives you some idea of what our conversations were like. I tried to record some other videos a couple of times after that, but the audio quality was very poor, especially when we went outside.

After about 3 hours, it was time to go. Aunt Mary was getting tired. I was getting tired too, come to think of it! We helped her out of her wheelchair (which caused an alarm to go off and brought an aide to her room) and instructed her to always call for an aide before trying to stand up. She humored us by saying she would. We all know better. :-)

More About Mike & Sarah's Wedding ...

2009-08-31T19:24:00.001-04:00

Mike and Sarah McGarvey’s wedding was held at Traditions at the Links in East Syracuse, NY, at 5:30pm on August 28, 2009. Most of the out-of-town guests stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Hotel in East Syracuse with complimentary limousine service between the two locations provided by Mike and Sarah. While an outdoor wedding overlooking a small pond had been planned, the threat of rain caused the wedding ceremony to be moved indoors. But that did not put a damper on the enthusiasm of the wedding party or any of the guests.

After the ceremony itself and the obligatory wedding photos, Kevin McGarvey, father of the groom and the Best Man, got things started off with a beautiful and heartfelt toast to the bride and groom. Click here to see a video of the toast.

Kevin’s daughter, Katie (McGarvey) Ferguson – and also the Matron of Honor – had the unenviable task of following Kevin with her toast to the bride and groom. Katie proved herself equal to the task, though, delivering a beautiful toast to Mike and Sarah. Click here to see a video of Katie’s toast.

All of the food and drink provided by the facility was excellent. The DJ kept the crowd on the dance floor with a good mix of music. The most memorable section of music, in this reporter’s opinion, was an extended medley of Irish music, highlighted by a song called “Golden Keyboard” by The Bofield Ceili Band, a group that played at the Mullen Family Reunion in Ballina, Ireland in 2008. While Mike and Sarah were unable to attend that reunion, playing this song at their wedding reception brought the two events together.

While the wedding reception formally ended at around 11pm, the party certainly did not. A large contingent headed over to the bar at the Hilton Garden Inn and picked up where they left off. The bar was packed! Mike and Sarah joined the party after an hour or so to a loud ovation. The party finally ended at approximately 2:30am with 5 people left standing: the Mullen Brothers (Paul, Kevin & Mike) and the bride and groom! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bride and groom close out a wedding party! Great job Sarah and Mike!

Wedding of Mike McGarvey and Sarah Rector

2009-08-28T19:53:00.000-04:00

The Mullen Family Tree has grown by one!! My nephew, Mike McGarvey, has just married Sarah Rector. In the photo below, from left to right, are Kevin Mullen (Godfather), Sarah, Mike, and Mary (Mullen) Kinslow (Godmother). Welcome to the family, Sarah!

Day 9: Drinks with Anne Lillis & Daughters

2009-08-22T18:38:00.000-04:00

One last set of relatives to visit with before we collapsed at our hotel for the night! On the way back from visiting Madge, Marilynn and I stopped at Liverpool Street and met up with Anne Lillis and her daughters Ashling and Cliona. I had a copy of the huge Family Tree with me, so we rolled it out onto the bar table and traced out our family relationship. After proving to Ashling that we were, indeed, 3rd cousins, I made her figure out for herself what her relationship was to Avril Gilmartin. She correctly determined that they were 2nd cousins!

I told Cliona that she almost certainly won the award for being the most pregnant woman at a London bar at 11pm. She looked about 8.99 months pregnant! The baby is officially due in 5 weeks, I think. I made her promise to send me an update to the Family Tree after the big event.

It's a pretty poor photo, but it's the best the iPhone could do with the dim light of the bar. Left to Right: me, Anne, Ashling, Cliona

Day 9: Dinner at Sheila and Martin's

2009-08-22T18:36:00.001-04:00

After visiting with Madge, Marilynn and I travelled to Sheila and Martin's house in Highams Park for drinks and dinner. As always, the conversation was lively, filled with politics (Obama, Cheney, Bush, Health Care) sports (relative merits of baseball vs. cricket), music (Rosalind gave me high marks for knowing the "Kings of Leon" while Sheila confessed to being a Bob Dylan groupie), film (Joseph discussed the socio-economic significance of the movie "Encino Man"). All in all, another great day! Left to right above: me, Rosalind Dore, Imelda Messenger, Sheila (Messenger) Dore, Joseph Dore, Martin Dore.

Day 9: Madge Messenger

2009-08-22T18:34:00.001-04:00

A great shot of Madge discussing her early life in Ballina and her later career as a History teacher. Vascular dementia has robbed Madge of some of her mental capabilities, but she showed sparks of her brilliance today during our visit. I understand that she recorded an oral history of the Family a number of years ago. I'll do my best to get a copy and share it with the entire Family.

Day 9: Sheila and Madge

2009-08-22T18:32:00.001-04:00

I finally got the opportunity to meet Madge Messenger in the flesh! That's her daughter, Sheila (Messenger) Dore holding her hand. As I told Madge today, it's because of her dedication to the family and her amazing genealogical work on the Family Tree that last year's Family Reunion in Ireland happened. Thank you for everything, Madge!!!

Day 9: Last Breakfast at the Muffin Man

2009-08-22T18:31:00.000-04:00

We ate breakfast at this place almost every single day that we were in London. The food was good, the prices were reasonable, it was 200 yards from our hotel and it had free Wi-Fi!! That's what I call a good dog deal!!!!

Day 8: Dinner with Avril and Tony

2009-08-22T05:50:00.001-04:00

Day 8: Tower Bridge: A Better Look

2009-08-22T05:48:00.000-04:00

Day 8: Tower Bridge— a better look

Day 8: Tower Bridge in action!

2009-08-22T05:11:00.000-04:00

Damn! If I had been a few minutes earlier I would have gotten an excellent video of the Tower Bridge drawbridge opening and closing. All I got was about the last 4 seconds of it. You'll have to look very closely.

Day 8: Tower of London

2009-08-22T05:09:00.001-04:00

Unbelievably, we didn't go inside the Tower of London during our entire 9 day stay in England. In our defense, though, we did "The Tower" the first time we visited London back in 1986. Also, we were running massively short of time. Finally, (and I really believe this), walking around the outside of the Tower of London is more impressive than touring the rooms and structures within it.

Day 8: Treetop Walkway at Kew Gardens

2009-08-21T10:56:00.000-04:00

I'm sure no one has ever died here, but there were a couple of spots where the metal flooring gave way slightly. It made you remember exactly where your heart was located inside your chest. The ever so slight swaying motion added to the overall effect nicely.

Kew Gardens was a lot better than I thought it would be. Without a doubt, though, Marilynn got more out of it than I did.

Day 8: Marilynn eating Muesli at Thr Muffin Man

2009-08-21T05:55:00.000-04:00

I took this video just to make sure that I didn't blow the iPhone's microphone last night at the Magnetic Zeros concert. Once I took it, though, I just couldn't get rid of it. Too cute.

Day 7: Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros

2009-08-21T05:46:00.000-04:00

I'm sure this video will look like trash, but it shows that we were literally right on the stage for this incredible performance. Highly highly recommended!! I'll write more later when I get more time.

OK, now I have a little more time! Marilynn, Tommy Kinslow and I went to see this band knowing next to nothing about them. I had heard one or two of their songs on a Philadelphia college radio station, but I couldn't quite remember their sound. However, they were listed as "Editors Pick" for Thursday in London's "Time Out" magazine, and tickets were only 6 pounds, and there were two other bands playing, and it was a cool bar anyway, so ... we decided to go.

It is almost impossible to describe these guys. I don't know a hell of a lot about them, but they seem to fashion themselves as modern day hippies. Their leader, Edward Sharpe, is more like a cult leader than a band leader. The entire band -- and the whole crowd for that matter -- gets caught up in his energy. Sharpe wasn't on the stage for more than 5 seconds when his shoes came off. A minute later, his shirt was off. He often jumped into the crowd and sang from the floor. He grabbed Tommy a couple of times and, at one point, gave him a palm to the forehead "healing gesture" of some sort. On another song, he jumped down and started dancing with Marilynn! Quite the showman. The band was great as well, playing a variety of instruments: piano, accordian, trumpet, bongos, and a variety of other drums, guitars and percussion instruments.

Check out this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hehPEoAk8eE. It will give you a good idea what the group sounds like, but it won't give you any idea whatsoever as to what one of their concerts feels like. To do that you have to be there, in person, as close to the stage as possible. And, if you have them, bring your love beads.

Day 7: Watching Cricket in the Lord Clyde Pub

2009-08-21T05:38:00.001-04:00

This pub was voted by Hannah Davies as one of the best pubs in London. Had a drink there with Tommy Kinslow and soaked in the atmosphere. Nice. Unfortunately, the "best pub in London" had no chef that day, so we were forced to go elsewhere for food.

Day 7: Globe Theater

2009-08-21T05:33:00.001-04:00

A view of a section of The Globe from the groundling's point of view. You were only allowed to take photographs prior to the beginning of the play.

Day 7: Globe Theater — Our view

2009-08-21T05:31:00.000-04:00

This is the view that we had of the Shakespearean play "Troilus and Cressida". It actually was a pretty good vantage point. We were right on top of the actors and could hear everything they were saying. Of course, the groundlings had a better view but I'm guessing that, by the third act, all they were thinking about was their aching back.

Day 7: On the Millennium Bridge

2009-08-21T05:28:00.001-04:00

Beautiful shot of St. Paul's in the background. Actually, a beautiful foreground shot as well!!!

Day 7: Marilynn on the steps of St. Paul

2009-08-21T05:26:00.001-04:00

"Feed the birds, tuppence a bag ..."

Day 7: Roman Wall in the heart of London

2009-08-21T05:24:00.001-04:00

Day 6: Drinking Irish Coffee with Betty

2009-08-20T04:33:00.000-04:00

"Paul and Betty toast with an Irish Coffee. I got directions on making the perfect cup as well as 2 glasses to serve it in." -Marilynn

Although Betty has been in England for decades, she remains Irish through and through. I wasn't in her house for more than 2 minutes before she had a beer in front of me and a cranberry and gin in front of Marilynn. Cheese and crackers and cakes and pate were also put out for us. Before we left for dinner, I was also "forced" to have a shot of poteen that was brewed in Ireland and which she saves for occasions just like this. I even got to drink it out of the ceremonial Mullen Family Reunion shot glass!! After a great dinner at a restaurant on the Thames, we returned to her house for -- you guessed it -- more snacks and two glasses of Irish Coffee. Let me just say that Betty doesn't make a weak Irish Coffee!!

Day 6: Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace

2009-08-20T04:27:00.001-04:00

"Beautiful flowers at the palace where Princess Di lived." - Marilynn

Unfortunately, I saw none of this. Marilynn walked all around Kensington Park this morning while I got my excercise fix at the gym attached to our hotel. Yes, walking is excellent exercise, but it doesn't get my pulse up high enough to count as a truly aerobic exercise.

Day 6: 221B Baker Street

2009-08-19T18:35:00.001-04:00

I'm sure you know who lived there, but only in fiction. Actually, even though the black door on the left has the address of "221b Baker Street", it's located closer to around 240 Baker Street. I guess they get away with it because it's not a real address. It might have been interesting to go inside the museum, but it was almost 8:30pm at the time and it was all closed up. Still, we weren't the only tourists taking photos at this time!

Day 6: Abbey Road Recording Studios

2009-08-19T18:33:00.000-04:00

Hallowed ground. You talk only in whispers ... I'm taking this photo through the bars of an iron fence that's on top of a 3 foot high concrete wall that's about 50 feet long. That wall is absolutely covered in color graffiti praising the Beatles.

Day 6: Crossing Abbey Road

2009-08-19T18:32:00.001-04:00

Yeah. It's lame. I know. But you'd do it too. There were a bunch of people of all ages hanging around waiting to do the same thing. Apparently, quite a few people have been injured or killed emulating that famous album cover.

Day 6: Marilynn and Betty Cahalin

2009-08-19T11:35:00.000-04:00

Marilynn and I visited with Betty Cahalin for most of the day today. This photo was taken in a nice waterfront restaurant on the Thames right opposite the Millennium Dome. I was thinking of adding a picture of the Dome, but it has to be the ugliest structure in all of London.

Day 5: Gold Mask of the god Minerva at the Roman Baths

2009-08-18T16:42:00.000-04:00

I'm absolutely stunned that my iPhone could capture this object with any degree of accuracy! This is one of the prize relics -- recently discovered -- that's on display in the museum attached to the Roman Baths.

Day 5: Roman Baths in Bath, England

2009-08-18T16:40:00.000-04:00

If I rememberer what I read correctly, this particular bath was in honor of the Roman gods. Humans weren't allowed to swim in it. That all changed, though, when the British reconstructed it in the 1800's. You're allowed to put your hand in the water (about 120 degrees) but they strongly advise against drinking it!

Day 5: Gold Mimes in Bath

2009-08-18T16:39:00.001-04:00

I'm thinking, "If I had to earn money as a street performer, what could I possibly do?" The answer is this. Paint myself and Marilynn gold, sit out at a street corner, and move slowly and in perfect unison. That's what these two did and had quite a crowd around them. I even dropped a few pence on them!!

Day 5: Bath Abbey

2009-08-18T16:38:00.000-04:00

Pretty good shot of the impressive front of the Bath Abbey. I wasn't expecting much out of Bath, but I was wrong. We could have easily spent a few more hours there, but the tour bus waited for no one ....

Day 5: Stonehenge!

2009-08-18T16:36:00.000-04:00

What else needs to be said??? Marilynn got some much better pictures with a real camera, but I was pretty proud of this one. Note the guy in the dead center of the picture behind the stone arch way in the back. Am I artistic or what??? (Pure luck, actually...)

Day 5: Salisbury Cathedral Spire

2009-08-18T16:35:00.000-04:00

This cathedral must have been magnificent in its day. Today, though, it's in need of massive reconstruction due to the damage being caused by acid rain. Still, though, this portion of it is stunning.

Day 5: Medieval Clock in Salisbury Cathedral

2009-08-18T16:34:00.000-04:00

Other than to see one of 4 remaining copies of the Magna Carta (which I wasn't allowed to photograph), one of the main reasons I wanted to come to Salisbury Cathedral was to see this clock. It was made in 1386 and still works! In fact, it's the oldest working clock in existence. Listen to the ticking — and Marilynn's faint narration — in the background.

Day 4: Kathleen Duffy at her laptop

2009-08-17T15:53:00.001-04:00

Think of Kathleen in this pose whenever you receive an email from her. Look closely ... she's even got an optical mouse!

Day 4: At Kathleen Duffy's in Hassocks

2009-08-17T15:51:00.001-04:00

Standing, Left to Right: John Harrison, Patrick Mills, Brian Fowler. Seated, Left to Right: Me, Kathleen Duffy, Susan Harrison (Brian's daughter). Notice that in the background is a framed copy of the Mullen Family Tree. We had an excellent day at Kathleen's. We talked for an hour, then went out to a restaurant and ate and drank for at least 3 hours before returning back to Kathleen's. Then, we talked for another couple of hours, looked at some classic old photos, had tea and cakes, and then finally dashed to the train station just in time to catch the 7:08pm train back to Kensington. Total fun, the entire day.

Day 3: Thames Riverfront at Night

2009-08-16T16:27:00.000-04:00

It was a beautiful evening and the Thames riverfront was bustling! Marilynn and I tried to get there and catch the sunset from Waterloo Bridge but just missed. Actually, it was cloudy by then anyway, so we didn't miss much.

We ended up strolling up and down the southern side of the Thames, taking in the nightlife. It was packed with kids and street performers of all kinds. The Millennium Eye, inexplicably, was still packed. The photo above is from the opposite side of the river, giving you an idea of what it looked like.

Day 3: Admiral Nelson's Column at Trafalgar Square

2009-08-16T12:42:00.000-04:00

"Danger Mouse, Powerhouse!!" If you don't know what that means or why it has anything to do with this photo, email one of my kids and ask them.

We spent a lot of time walking around London today. I have to admit to being dead tired by the time we got back to the hotel.

Day 3: The Millennium Eye from the Thames

2009-08-16T12:39:00.000-04:00

The Millennium Eye is an incredibly huge ferris wheel of sorts that dominates the skyline around the historic Westminster area of London. It's horribly out of place and most Londoners profess to hate it. Still, many of them admit that they've been on it. And, as the photo above proves, it's hard to resist taking a photo of it. It takes about 40 minutes to go completely around on the wheel. I can't think of anything less that I'd rather do.

Day 3: The Tower Bridge from our River Cruise

2009-08-16T12:34:00.000-04:00

What a beautiful day for a cruise down the Thames! We boarded at Greenwich and floated down towards Westminster. We had tremendous views of the many bridges that span the Thames, the Tower Bridge being the most spectacular.

Day 3: Straddling the Prime Meridian

2009-08-16T07:39:00.001-04:00

So, what you're looking at are my feet (on the left) and Marilynn's feet (on the right) as we straddle the Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. I know you have no idea what the Prime Meridian is, so I'll wait while you go look it up.

Day 3: The Royal Observatory in Greenwich

2009-08-16T07:37:00.000-04:00

I included this photo to answer that nagging question: Just how big is the British yard???

Day 3: The Bus Experience ...

2009-08-16T07:35:00.001-04:00

On the way to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, Marilynn and I had to take a bus for the last few miles due to construction on the railways. It gave us a good introduction to the London bus experience. It got us there, but it wasn't pleasant. Hot, slow, packed ....

Day 2: The Messenger Clan at Dympna's

2009-08-15T17:06:00.001-04:00

A fantastic day of eating, drinking and conversating at Dympna and Peter LeRasle's house in Woodford. From left to right: Peter, Dympna, me, Maire Davies, John Davies, Huw Davies. Present (but not shown because I forgot to take a photo before they left) were Hannah Davies, Tom Davies (and his girlfriend), and Elinore Davies.

We were there for over 6 hours talking politics, religion, music, books, and everything else under the sun. Highlights:

Getting the UK slant on Health Care. They are truly mystified on why the political right in the US is so violently opposed to it. They love their Health Care!!
Talking religion, life, and death with Dympna and Maire
Discussing the Northern Ireland situation with John and Maire
Showing off the Family Tree to those who hadn't seen it yet.

Amazingly, Marilynn was able to work in a Library Story or two!! Marilynn was also introduced to Pimms, a fruity gin-based drink that is extremely popular in England during the summer months. Marilynn would end up ordering this drink at every bar we went to.

Day 2: Dympna and her Amazing Bathroom!

2009-08-15T17:05:00.001-04:00

This is a small powder-room / bathroom in Dympna and Peter LeRasle's house that has to be seen to be believed. It's chock full of all kinds of tacky artifacts that Dympna has collected over the years. Every item has a story. Marilynn and I know of at least one item we have that simply must be displayed in this bathroom! It will be on it's way to Woodford later this week ...

Day 2: At the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms

2009-08-15T17:03:00.001-04:00

Left to Right: Tom Kinslow, Tommy Kinslow, Marilynn Mullen (barely visible ... nice job, Tommy), Mary Kinslow, Brendan Kinslow, Brian Kinslow. Excellent museum ... highly recommended. We spent about 2 hours there and we could have stayed longer.