Back to the Motherland

Back to the homeland, New Jersey, for a visit. It's time to see old friends, get our teeth cleaned and to drink lots of alcohol. It is also a time to pick up some of the wonderful dietary delights, to bring back to Maine. Like good bologna,Taylor Ham,kielbasa and porgies. And lets not forget Tasty Cakes, peanut butter and chocolate Tandy Takes as they were called when I was a kid, and butterscotch. All low fat and low calorie treats.

So it's TTFN.

I Love the Smell of Sweat in the Morning........ Smells Like Victory

Yesterday I ran my usual spin class and it was a great one if I do say so myself, and I do. The music was great and the workout was killer, killer I tells ya. Oh I was in my glory listening to everyone moan and groan, huff and puff. Oh it does the heart good to see everyone suffering so.

Two of the songs that I used are from a new group to me, " The Arcada Fire". I was turned on to this group by a fellow blogger, Spencer over at "Everything in the Medicine Cabinet has Expired". You should give them a listen, I know you will like them. And also visit Spencer's blog as well, I think you will lke it.

This Friday my wife and I are off to the motherland, New Jersey, to visit my brother and party with our friends and family in Hoboken on the fourth. The kids of our friends have a condo that looks out over the Hudson River so we can watch the firework on the fourth.

I am bringing my computer so you will not be deprived of the wonderful crap you read here at Willie's World. And I will probaly stick a couple of best of's as well. Have a good holiday everyone.

Dinner with the Family and Crumb

While in New Jersey I got together with my brother and his family. I love being with my brother, we have this great connection. We both have the same sense of humor, we both have heart problems, we both have the same mother and father, but what really connects us our love for baloney sandwiches.

Well any way my wife and I were going to go to the dentist ( A little side note, our dentist is the dentist for Jon Bon Jovi. I have actually held a mold of his teeth in my hands.) to have our teeth cleaned, and after meet my brother, his wife and my two nieces, for a nice dinner at a good Italian restaurant.

So we all meet up at the restaurant and we are seated and everyone is given a menu. Our server then said that he would be right back and give us the specials. We had brought a couple bottles of wine, because it was a bring your own joint. There were 6 people, so we had six bottles of wine, one for each person. We like wine.

Our waiter returned to give us the specials. Now this took about 15 minutes because there were over 20 specials. He just kept going on and on and on. By the time he got to the end I had forgotten the first one. Well any way while he was giving us the specials he wasn't giving us the prices for them. So after the first one I stopped him and asked him how much that one was. Well you would have thought that I was telling him his pecker was hanging out. He paused for a couple of seconds and said " I don't know I will have to check in the back for the price". I just wanted to know if I was going to pay 12 dollars for a half dozen oyster or I was going to be paying 50 dollars. Give me a clue babe.

After we all consumed a couple bottles of wine, we were all talking about movies that we had seen. I suggested to my niece that she should see the movie called Crumb. It was about the underground comic artist Robert Crumb and his family. It is a very strange documentary about his strange family, but very interesting. So here I am trying to explain to my nice why she should see this film. I'm telling her about Crumbs brother who hadn't been out of the house in years. And about the other brother who would swallowed and pass this 20 foot piece of cloth every couple of days. And the more I talked about the strange quirk's in this guys family and I am thinking, my niece thinks this movie is the weirdest thing I have ever heard. So I stopped talking and had another glass of wine. I hope she sees it, but who knows after my rambling explanation of the movie.

It was a good dinner and it is always a good feeling to get together with people that you really care about. Oh and rent the movie Crumb.

The Prison Hotel

After Hoboken my wife and I head over to Avenel New Jersey to check into one of the luxurious hotels along route one. It is the Fairfield Inn and Suites/ Marriott or as my wife and I call it, the prison motel. It is a great spot for us, in that we can be at any of my relatives or friends in minutes . It is centrally located and is very handy for us to get around.

And the reason that we call it the prison hotel, is that from some of the rooms you can see Rahway Prison. This prison looks like it is right out of Shawshank Redemption, it has been there since 1896. Some of the celebrity inmates have been 3 great fighters, Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, James Scott and Dwight Muhammad Qawi.

Growing up around the prison with the way it looked and the stories that were told of what goes on in prison, kind of kept me on the straight and narrow as a kid.

Back to the hotel, it is a very nice place to stay. The rooms are alway spotless and they provide you with a very nice breakfast in the morning. And with the views that you can get from your windows, it is something to behold. If your room is on the left, well it can't get any better then gazing out of your room window at the hotel next door. And if you are lucky to be in a room on the right well you are in for one hell of a time. You look out on one of the many junk yards in the area. Nothing will take my breath away like waking up in the morning and seeing the sun rise on a classic 1978 Buick Lesabre that was in a roll over. It is so emotional I just stand there wiping the tears of joy from my eye. It can't get any more lucsurous then this.

Tune in tomorrow and find out what happens next in this exciting trip to New Jersey.

A Heart Stopping Burger

Back in Maine after a trip to the old country, New Jersey. The first thing we had to do was drop our friend off in Hoboken at her daughters apartment. She had come down with us from Maine and was staying there for a couple of days.

Hoboken is a very nice town, it is packed with young people and they are all over the place. It's a good living alternative for New York, as the rents are a lot more reasonable. And it's only a short path ride to the city, so there are loads of people who work in the city, living in Hoboken.

The one thing that I felt walking around town was I was not use to that many people being in one space. It was kind of a people over load. I am a people watcher and this was just a bit too much for me. I just did not know were to look. Living in Maine for the last 8 years you forget that there are crowed places. And there are all kinds of different people walking around the streets. Living in Maine you very rarely see people of color and there, in Hoboken, there were many shades of people all over the place.

Well any who while we were there we decided to get some lunch and my friend Kate suggested that we try 5 Guys Burgers. I have heard a lot about the burgers and I wanted to give them a try. And the hamburger, would be the one food that I could probably eat every day. Well any way, we stop in and ordered our burgers. The choices were hamburger and little hamburger . So I was hungry and ordered the regular burger. Well let me tell you, the little burger is a regular size burger, and the regular burger is a double patty with fried onions and it is as big as your head.

Out comes the burger and I start to chow down, and the onions are falling out, the ketchup is oozing onto my lap, and the grease is running down my arm. And now I am thinking this is a great burger, but probably not the healthiest meal I could have ordered. I think that they should give you, in stead of fries, a one shot defibrillator with every big burger.

So I wolfed down the burger and a diet coke, checked my pulse and got into our car for the next leg of the trip. Check in at the prison hotel.

This were I come from

These little interviews were held down the shore, that's what we call the Jersey ocean side. This is a example of a small percentage of young people there. It does not reflect the people of New Jersey as a whole. So if you do think that "Forgeta about it." And if you don't want to end up buried between the 30 and 50 yard line at Giant Stadium you better not think that. Nuff said.

Report from New Jersey

The ride down to Jersey was just a joy. Instead of taking my usual route I decided to take a short cut someone told me about. It was a real time saver instead of taking 8 hr it was a 10 1/2 hour nightmare. I forgot how much I loved to drive in stop and go traffic for 3 hours. And to make things just a little more fun, my wife kept saying every 3 minutes "Why in the world would you go this way". Blood pressure up another notch.

We finally arrive at our friends home and start the cool down. My friend asked me do you want a beer? OK. Do you want another? OK. The husband comes home from work. How about a shot of Tequila? OK, Want another? O Tay. I am starting to feel this. Then it's off to the restaurant for some food. "Can I get you something to drink" the waitress says. "Sure bring me a beer" I say. One more beer and our dinner and we are out and on our way to our friends home. Into bed for a good nights sleep. But nooooooooooooooooooo. How about a little acid reflux , thank you very much. But eventually I did fall asleep.

The next day we head out for our first affair, a confirmation. It is my wife's cousins kid. There was a get together after at this great Italian restaurant. Great food, great conversations with people I had not seen in a while. And lots of screaming kids running around for 4 hours. I thought I was going to go nuts. They were so loud and boisterous I could not think. And what were the parents doing while these wild crazy kids were terrorizing the adults. Nothing, as long as the kids weren't killing another child or killing themselves they were just oblivious. I just wanted to find a rope, find a nice sturdy beam and hang myself. But we got thur it and we only have 3 more affairs to go. I hope I make it.

We're Number One

Today I was looking through a book of lists and I came across a interesting fact about the state that I have spent most of my life in, New Jersey. New Jersey is number one in the nation for hazardous waste sites, with more than 1,000. "Yea we're number one, we're number one". This facts explains a lot. New Jersey is also first in three headed people. Also New Jersey is first in the country with people who glow at night. Number one in the country with people who have more than one rear end. And this goes hand and hand with the last fact: Tops in the country with people who have 5 penises. The one upside to this is their pants fit like a glove. (Old joke)

I love New Jersey and the time I have spent there. I have great friends and relatives who live there, who I love . And my wife best friends are in New Jersey , Macy's, Lord and Taylor, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale's.

If your from New Jersey you know..............

Some one sent this to me and I am passing it on to you all.


New Jersey is a peninsula.
Highlands, New Jersey has the highest elevation along the entire eastern seaboard, from Maine to Florida.
New Jersey is the only state where all of its counties are classified as metropolitan areas.
New Jersey has more race horses than Kentucky.
New Jersey has more Cubans in Union City (1 sq mi.) than Havana, Cuba.
New Jersey has the densest system of highways and railroads in the US.
New Jersey has the highest cost of living.
New Jersey has the highest cost of auto insurance.
New Jersey has the highest property taxes in the nation.
New Jersey has the most diners in the world and is sometimes referred to as the "Diner Capital of the World."
New Jersey is home to the original Mystery Pork Parts Club
(no, not Spam): Taylor Ham or Pork Roll.
Home to the less mysterious but the best Italian hot dogs and Italian sausage w/peppers and onions.
North Jersey has the most shopping malls in one area in the world, with seven major shopping malls in a 25 square mile radius.
New Jersey is home to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
The Passaic River was the site of the first submarine ride by inventor John P. Holland .
New Jersey has 50+ resort cities & towns; some of the nation's most famous: Asbury Park, Wildwood, Atlantic City, Seaside Heights, Long Branch, Cape May.
New Jersey has the most stringent testing along our coastline for water quality control than any other seaboard state in the entire country.
New Jersey is a leading technology & industrial state and is the largest chemical producing state in the nation when you include pharmaceuticals.
Jersey tomatoes are known the world over as being the best you can buy.
New Jersey is the world leader in blueberry and cranberry production (and here you thought Massachusetts?)
Here's to New Jersey - the toast of the country! In 1642, the first
brewery in America, opened in Hoboken.
New Jersey rocks! The famous Les Paul invented the first solid body electric guitar in Mahwah, in 1940.
New Jersey is a major seaport state with the largest seaport in the US, located in Elizabeth. Nearly 80 percent of what our nation imports comes through Elizabeth Seaport first.
New Jersey is home to one of the nation's busiest airports
(in Newark), Liberty International.
George Washington slept here. Several important Revolutionary War battles were fought on New Jersey soil, led by General George Washington.
The light bulb, phonograph (record player), and motion picture
projector, were invented by Thomas Edison in his Menlo Park, NJ, laboratory.
We also boast the first town ever lit by incandescent bulbs.
The first seaplane was built in Keyport , NJ.
The first airmail (to Chicago) was started from Keyport, NJ.
The first phonograph records were made in Camden, NJ
New Jersey was home to the Miss America Pageant held in
Atlantic City.
The game Monopoly, played all over the world, named the streets on its playing board after the actual streets in
Atlantic City.
And, Atlantic City has the longest boardwalk in the world,
not to mention salt water taffy.
New Jersey has the largest petroleum containment area outside of the Middle East countries.
The first Indian reservation was in New Jersey, in the
Watchung Mountains.
New Jersey has the tallest water-tower in the world. (Union, NJ!!!)
New Jersey had the first medical center, in Jersey City
The Pulaski SkyWay, from Jersey City to Newark, was the first skyway highway.
NJ built the first tunnel under a river, the Hudson
(Holland Tunnel).
The first baseball game was played in Hoboken, NJ, which is also the birthplace of Frank Sinatra.
The first intercollegiate football game was played in New Brunswick in 1889 (Rutgers College played Princeton).
The first drive-in movie theater was opened in Camden, NJ,
(but they're all gone now!).
New Jersey is home to both of "NEW YORK'S" pro football teams!
The first radio station and broadcast was in Paterson, NJ.
The first FM radio broadcast was made from Alpine, NJ, by Maj. Thomas Armstrong.
All New Jersey natives: Sal Martorano, Jack Nicholson, Bruce
Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Jason Alexander, Queen Latifah, Susan Sarandon, Connie Francis, Shaq, Judy Blume, Aaron Burr, Joan Robertson, Ken Kross, Dionne Warwick, Sarah Vaughn, Budd Abbott, Lou Costello, Alan Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Marilynn McCoo, Flip Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, Whitney Houston, Eddie Money, Linda
McElroy, Eileen Donnelly, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Walt Whitman, Jerry Lewis, Tom Cruise, Joyce Kilmer, Bruce Willis, Caesar Romero, Lauryn Hill, Ice-T, Nick Adams, Nathan Lane, Sandra Dee, Danny DeVito, Richard Conti, Joe Pesci, Joe Piscopo, Joe DePasquale, Robert Blake, John Forsythe, Meryl Streep, Loretta Swit, Norman Lloyd, Paul Simon, Jerry Herman, Gorden McCrae, Kevin Spacey, John Travolta, Phyllis Newman, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Eva Marie Saint, Elisabeth Shue, Zebulon Pike, James Fennimore Cooper, Admiral Wm.Halsey, Jr., Dave Thomas (Wendy's),
William Carlos Williams, Ray Liotta, Robert Wuhl, Bob Reyers, Paul Robeson, Ernie Kovacs, Joseph Macchia, Kelly Ripa, and, of course, Francis Albert Sinatra and "Uncle Floyd" Vivino and Martha Stewart.

The Great Falls in Paterson, on the Passaic River, is the 2nd highest waterfall on the East Coast of the US.
You know you're from Jersey when . . .
You don't think of fruit when people mention "The Oranges."
You know that it's called Great Adventure, not Six Flags.
A good, quick breakfast is a hard roll with butter.
You've known the way to Seaside Heights since you were seven.
You've eaten at a diner, when you were stoned or drunk,
at 3 A.M.
You know that the state isn't one big oil refinery.
At least three people in your family still love Bruce Springsteen, and
you know the town Jon Bon Jovi is from.
You know what a "jug handle" is.
You know that WaWa is a convenience store.
You know that the state isn't all farmland.
You know that there are no "beaches" in New Jersey--there's the shore--and you don't go "to the shore," you go "down the shore." And when you are there, you're not "at the shore"; you are "down the shore."
You know how to properly negotiate a circle.
You knew that the last sentence had to do with driving.
You know that this is the only "New" state that doesn't require "New" to identify it (try . . . Mexico . . . York ..! . . Hampshire-- doesn't work, does it?).
You know that a "White Castle" is the name of BOTH a fast food chain AND a fast food sandwich.
You consider putting mayo on a corned beef sandwich a sacrilege.
You don't think "What exit?" is very funny.
You know that people from the 609 area code are "a little different." Yes they are!
You know that no respectable New Jerseyan goes to Princeton--that's for out-of-staters.
The Jets-Giants game has started fights at your school or local bar.
You live within 20 minutes of at least three different malls.
You refer to all highways and interstates by their numbers.
Every year you have at least one kid in your class named Tony.
You know the location of every clip shown in the
Sopranos opening credits.
You've gotten on the wrong highway trying to get out of the mall.
You know that people from North Jersey go to Seaside Heights, and people from Central Jersey go to Belmar, and people from South Jersey go to Wildwood.
It can be no other way.
You weren't raised in New Jersey--you were raised in either North
Jersey, Central Jersey or South Jersey.
You don't consider Newark or Camden to actually be part of the state.
You remember the stores S. Kleins, Haines, Korvette's, Two Guys, Rickel's, Channel, Bamberger's and Orbach's.
You also remember Palisades Amusement Park and Olympic Park.
You've had a boardwalk cheese steak and vinegar fries.
You start planning for Memorial Day weekend in February.
And finally . . .
You've NEVER, NEVER NEVER, EVER
pumped your own gas