Our high school is just no longer acceptable. It needs to go and we have a golden opportunity to get it replaced with 2/3 of the cost coming from the government. Our need is that great. However, we (the town) still need to pay for the other 1/3 and we have two votes coming up that will let the deal go through.

Not everybody in our town thinks it is a good idea, I think mostly because their taxes will go up. Even though the new high school would pretty much ensure that they recouped what these taxes would be just in the increased property values of their homes, not to mention the myriad other benefits a new facility would bring and the overall strengthening of the community as a whole, they are still against it. I am at a loss as to how best to explain the benefits so I had a friend of mine comment on his blog about what it really means to a community (economically) to get a new school, please check it out;

Shade Tree Economist

It is easy to forget all of the ripples that occur and how many people are affected when a loved one is gone. Not just gone, but gone to a place that is far from safe. And to know that they volunteered to go there when they joined our armed services so that we can continue to live in the comfort and safety that is a product of our amazing country. I am humbled by their sacrifice. Thank you for that.

Also, anyone who tries to tell you that animals can't feel need to watch this and these other videos. Go get yourself a rescue dog. You'll never regret it.

Cheers

Here is a short video starring Maeve and Ella that was shot by Maeve. As you can see, she went to the Blair Witch Project School of Filmmaking.

Cheers

Originally uploaded by jlmoyni at 18 Feb '09, 8.31pm EST PST.

I can remember when I was a kid I had a pen pal. Well, more of a pen acquaintance really. In truth, it was really just this kid I wrote a letter to once. I think it might have been a school thing or something but somehow I got a name and address of this kid and was asked to write a letter to him. I think he was from Ottowa or Ohio or some other place I didn't care about and I can remember wracking my brains trying to come up with questions to ask him;

"I heard you have lots of corn where you are. What's that like? I like corn"
"I live near the ocean. Do you know what an ocean is? It's like a lake only way bigger and better. It must really stink not living near the ocean."

I think it was probably three months later that I came home from school and there was a letter waiting for me. This kid had responded to all of my in depth questions. The problem was that I had written the letter 3 months before and I couldn't remember what the hell I had asked . It was like I had received a letter from a deranged mental patient;

"Our lakes are fine thanks, besides I don't like seafood and I can have corn anytime I want."

Huh? I had no idea what he was talking about. Needless to say I did not write back to this crackpot thus ending my first and last foray into the world of pen palsmanship (marksmanship, stewardship ... shut up it's a word).

For some reason I thought about this after I had just been hanging out with my kids. They were home in Massachusetts and I was in a hotel room an entire continent away in San Diego and we were talking through a high definition video conferencing system that I had set up in my room. With this I was able to see them everyday and say goodnight. They could call me on it anytime as well if they wanted to talk with Dad. It just struck me how much things have changed just in the short time from when I was a kid. Our kids are living in a world completely different from the one I grew up in. It used to be if you had a friend who went away for the summer that was it, you didn't get to see them or talk with them for three months. These days, kids are in constant contact with their friends no matter where in the world they are. We now have the ability to provide as much information about our lives to as many people as we want. For example,I just got back from a vacation where I was sending updates and pictures from Disney World as they were happening in real time for friends and family to follow on the web. I email, text, video, and phone people all over the country on a daily basis. Hell, I even send out Twitter updates so that complete strangers can know what I am doing or thinking whenever I choose to update them, and I'm not even sure why I do it (by the way feel free to follow me at http://twitter.com/jmoynihan ).

Granted, I am an IT guy so it makes sense that I do all of these things but now everyone is doing it and not just the geeks. I'm lucky in that I have access to high end video conferencing equipment because of my job but anybody with a computer can use Skype or OoVoo or iChat and I know some extremely technophobic people who routinely text and send pictures using their phones.

I know what you are all thinking and I agree that there are downsides to all of this information being available but in my opinion they do not come close to offsetting the advantages. The botom line is that I just spent a week 2500 miles, two mountain ranges, and countless rivers and other obstacles away from my family and yet every day I sat and talked with them as if we were in the same room with each other, and that, to me, is priceless.

It's a wonderful time to be living in. I can only imagine what my kids will be thinking in thirty years with their children;

"Do you remember when all we could do was talk via high def video? How did we live like that?

Cheers

We saw this guy in Animal Kingdom and I gave him some quick info about Jen while she wasn't looking and he then came and sang this song to her (I didn't get the beginning of it but you get the idea).

Originally uploaded by jlmoyni at 27 Dec '08, 6.21pm EST PST.

Here is my nine year old. I was going to post the picture she took of herself with oodles of makeup applied but it is just to painful for me. Where did my little girl go?

Originally uploaded by jlmoyni at 27 Dec '08, 6.30pm EST PST.

Here is my four year old. Time goes by so fast. I can't believe how big he is getting.

Chapter 1:
In which I embarrass myself and torture my kids so that I can sing a goofy song for my Dad. It's one of his favorites.

Maeve, Conor, and Shea had a very special day last week with their Auntie Kathy, Uncle Scott, and cousins, Kelli, Joe, and Jack. They all went in to town and saw How The Grinch Stole Christmas, The Musical. They took the Whoville Express in and all the Who's in Whoville had a great time. Thanks!

I would like to thank the talented film maker, Noelle, and the Lastditch Players for taking time out of their busy schedules to make this very important public service announcement (I heard Shea actually cancelled an appearance in Caanes to help out).

My niece Tara has written an article for the fNewsMagazine, which is the main student publication at her school, SAIC.

Check it out;
Tara's article.

Originally uploaded by jlmoyni at 11 Oct '08, 6.18pm EDT PST.

Happiness with fur
Shining black and smiling tail
We’ll miss you, Bailey

Our Bailey Boy passed away at his home this past Friday. He was a loving member of our family and he will be sorely missed. We had twelve and a half wonderful years with him and he was the best dog we could ever hope for.

Bailey was our first child and we doted on him when he was younger. When we had children he became the older brother to our kids and we could not have asked for a more gentle and caring playmate for them. Our children have known Bailey since birth and their lives have been enriched because of this. Dogs are one of this world’s true miracles. For the simple cost of food, shelter and affection you get a creature who will love you, unconditionally, for its entire life. A soul who is always happy to see you and will never get mad at you, a soul who wants nothing more than to be around you and make you happy. Bailey did all that for us and more, right until the very end.
Friday was Conor’s birthday and started like any other day. Bailey followed Jen around as usual and laid down on Conor’s new Pokemon card game because he wanted to join the game. He went in and out a bunch of times and ate and drank like usual. He was fine until just before 5PM. Jen called me then to let me know that Bailey was suddenly not doing very well. He had just gotten sick from eating grass and we think this caused the mass on his spleen to start bleeding. We have known that our time with Bailey was limited ever since we found out about the tumor last November. We considered surgery for him at the time but because of his age we did not think that surgery was worth it for him since he was still happy and eating and there was a good chance he would not have recovered from it.

Jen called me a second time to let me know that she thought Bailey was really sick and wanted to know if she should tell Maeve. We decided that Maeve needed to say goodbye. By the time I got home Bailey was laying down and Maeve was with him. Jen was trying to handle all of this as well as trying to wrap up an abbreviated 6 year old’s birthday party. She brought Bailey’s soft bed down to the garage and I carried him in and put him on it. Maeve and I sat with him for a while but he was agitated. He struggled to stand up and acted like he wanted to go out. I thought he might be perking up so we let him out and he walked into his back yard and laid down in one of his favorite spots on the grass. He loved his yard and that was where he wanted to be. He did not get up again.
We were getting ready to bring him to the vet when he made his move to the back yard. As soon as he lay down I knew that it was almost time. Jen brought down Conor and Shea and we all sat around him on the lawn. He was barely breathing at this point but when his family sat around him he wagged his tail. It wasn’t much, just two small wags but they were there. He took maybe two or three more breathes and then he was gone. We sat around him then as a family and cried. We also prayed and sang while we petted him for the last time. Jen went and got some paint and paper and we took a paw print from him and a clipping of his fur and then she took the kids inside so that I could take Bailey for his last car ride.

Bailey was a good boy and he went the way we had hoped he would. He played up until the day he died and when he did take a turn for the worse he did not last much more than a couple of hours before going to sleep for the last time. In the end, we did not have to make any hard decisions. He saved us from that.
The one regret we have is that he died on Conor’s birthday. It is a hard thing for a parent to hear their child crying, saying that Bailey died on his birthday, but we can’t change what happened, so this is what we told him;

"Since he was first sick last November every extra day we have had with Bailey has been a gift. We got to watch him open his Christmas presents one more time and that was a gift. We celebrated his birthday in March one more time and that was a gift. Every kiss, lick and snuggle with him have been gifts and the very last gift he gave was to you, Conor, because we got to spend one more day with him on your birthday. So, please don’t be sad, because Bailey would not want his boy to be sad. Bailey would want his boy to wag his tail and be happy on his birthday because he loved you."
We miss you, Bailey, and we will love you always.

Click here for a video of Bailey Boy

Hi everyone. It has now been a week since we participated in the 50 mile MS Challenge Walk and everyone is nicely recovered. I did have some blisters this year but I believe this was because the percentage of combed cotton in the socks I wore was only 82% when what I really needed was 85% combed cotton ...

What?

It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I weigh 260 lbs ...

Shut up ...

It was the socks!

Anyway, both Mom and I had trouble the 2nd day, me because I had some kind of bug and my Mom because she had a sugar issue but we finished stong on Sunday. (click more to continue)

Read more »

Well,tomorrow starts the 50 mile MS Challenge on Cape Cod. I will be down there with my Mom who will be walking and my Dad and Brother who will be crewing for the walk. I am hoping that the rain will hold off until after we finish on Sunday but we shall see. I will be heading down tonight (as usual I am still at work) as soon as I go home and pack.
For anyone who is interested I will try to update this blog during the weekend. If I don't, I will at least be sending twitter updates from the walk. So if you twitter, feel free to follow me, or you can come to Last Ditch to see my twitter updates in the first right hand side bar.
Thanks everone!

Regretably, my grandmother, Irene Murphy, passed away last week at the age of 97.

While this was a sad event for us as a family there was a very pleasant side effect. We were all able to recconect with family that a lot of us haven't seen in 20 years as Irene's children, grandchildren, and greatchildren all came from across the country, including Washington, Texas, Florida, Virginia, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. It was wonderful seeing all of them and hopefully it won't be another 20 years before we get a chance to be together again. Please check out these pictures; http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlmoyni/sets/72157606703630770/
(click the slide show icon near the upper right)

Originally uploaded by jlmoyni at 24 Jun '08, 7.02pm EDT PST.

So getting to the Ben and Jerry's Factory was the easy part. It was leaving that was difficult. I am pretty sure Jen was looking to see if they were renting apartments on the premises, or a room, or a closet, or maybe just an unused corner somewhere that she could stand in and monitor for any spare icecream. Click the Read More below

Read more »

Hi All, we are having fun up here. We will see you soon. Check out the short video.

Cheers

Hi everyone. It's our first day here on vacation at lovely Smuggler's Notch in Vermont (Psst! For those of you new to this whole interweb thingy, click on the "Read more" link just below this to read the rest of this post).

Read more »

Welcome to the debut episode of our new show, The Moynihan Movie Review.

This is our first episode so there are still some kinks to work out. For example, after this episode I had to wash my 3 year old's mouth out with soap.
Enjoy

Originally uploaded by jlmoyni at 16 Jun '08, 11.57am EDT PST.

I hope everyone had a great Father's Day. Mine was fantastic. Jen was working so the kids decided they would let me sleep in and make me breakfast. Around 8AM they made me a breakfast of cinnamon toast (Maeve had some troubles with the toaster oven and didn't want to burn anything so let's just say the toast was rare). There was also a side of garlic and herb wheat thins and a big glass of milk. They then didn't get me up for it until around 10:30AM at which time the "toast" was a little cold and the milk was a little warm and the garlic wheat thins were a little garlicy.

It didn't matter. Breakfast was delicious and I ate every bite (well, Bailey might have gotten a few of the wheat thins). We just hung out for most of the day and then we went to the movies. It was a good day and I am a lucky man because I have great kids.

I also have a great Dad so I am twice as lucky.

Happy Father's Day

By the way, the picture of my kids is from Bailey's 12th birthday party back in March.