Cassandra

Like a RockStar

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

CassandraMy niece sings karaoke every Friday at the VFW in Newark NY.  She’s been doing it for a while now.

Friday night Rachel and I went out to see for ourselves and I’m proud to say she has quite the voice.  She started with some Evanescence, then rocked out to some Sublime and No Doubt and a few others. All of which she nailed with the exception of some song she didn’t know and thus fumbled through with her friend.

The karaoke at the VFW was a much better setup than I expected.  The patrons even more so.  There were a few people that essentially owned the karaoke machine.  Then there were a few others which subjected us all to throaty renditions of Wonderwall and off key versions of Living on a Prayer.

Overall an extremely fun and entertaining evening.

Jeffrey Mullin

~ randyaa ~ 3 Comments

My niece’s brother, Jeffrey Mullin, was recently shot and killed in Rochester NY. It’s always extremely sad when someone so young passes away but when it’s from such a violent act it hits twice as deep. Unfortunately Rochester is one of the most violent cities in America and we live and work right smack dab in the middle of it. People here often dismiss the murders in Rochester to the gangs and somehow believe it doesn’t happen to good citizens. Try telling that to Cassandra, my niece. Somehow I think you will come away with a different opinion.

It’s time to wake up Rochester. We need more police presence and we need better schools. According to the 2006 census there’s roughly 200,000 people living in the city of Rochester. There were 54 Murders here in 2005 and 50 so far in 2007. That’s roughly 1 in every 3700 people. Put another way, thats almost 27 people for every 100,000. That’s almost four times the national average (which is only 7)!

The Democrat and Chronicle has a piece entitled Not Forgotten where they list each of this year’s murders and have short slide shows dedicated to them. I think this is important. I think people forget that these murders are more than just statistics and that every one of the people lost was important to someone.

I copied Jeff’s slide show for my niece and I thought I’d share it with everyone, so they could learn a little bit about Jeff instead of hearing about number 50.

I’ve also uploaded the original in case anyone wanted a copy to share.

I would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no hit game.

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

Frontier Field

We saw the Yankees Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Farm Team play the Rochester Red Wings at Frontier Field tonight. The company my dad works for was having their annual Red Wings outing where everyone gets food, drinks and decent seats at the game. It’s always a good time and this year was no exception. Rachel and I went with my parents and my niece Cassandra. Unfortunately the Red Wings Lost, but don’t worry, we’re going back again tomorrow and they’re sure to win then!

Yankees Farm Team at Rochester Red Wings