VOTE FOR GIULIANI!

Now that I've got your attention. Don't vote for Rudy. He'd be horrible. Have to say, same would go for Kucinich...

Anyway... (now that I've got everyone's attention).. figured it was about time for an update as it's been almost a year since this blog started (seems like 10).

We're gearing up for Thanksgiving in the city - a Naylor/Condes/Smith-Naylor/Mandaville production. Complete with a kid's table! I guess it's official - I'm an adult.

Jessica and Jackson William Luis Jerry Lewis Stevie Wonder Condes stopped by today. Here's a video of the two new cousins getting acquainted:



In other news, Rex is standing! Well, he's able to pull himself up and hang out. He's not Dancing With the Stars-ready yet (although neither was Jane Seymour, yet she managed to hang on for a while. Hey-oh!). Here is pictorial evidence (not of Jane Seymour you dirty birdies - although that's a hell of a bod for a 57-year old):



Ok. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "you know Jay, you're smart and good looking and make a mean martini. Wait, what was I saying, oh yeah, clearly that photo is staged". Well do you like apples? Here's a video. How do you like them apples?:



That's right beeyotches! No, Rex is not about just sitting around and hanging out. Nope, it's all standing and all climbing all the time. Especially on dad. Especially when dad's trying to chill. Seriously, though, way cool. One might almost say "rad" (I wouldn't, but I fight to the death to preserve others' right to).

Yes, he's so grown up that he's started drinking.



He made that face so then I needed to give him the second one...

What else. Going to St. John the week after Thanksgiving. That should be fun. Which reminds me, Dr. John - medical advice needed. How long should it take me to lose say 15 pounds? More than 2 weeks? Damn.

That's it from this end (heh. "end"). Come on and POST SOMETHING. Especially you Molly - we all are dying to know who this beau of yours is that we have heard so much about. Are you "going steady"? Do the kids still say that?

And if anyone is interested in my thoughts on the Red Sox, Bills or Taxes, here is my other blog.

Smell ya later...

THE NEWEST OF THE ALLAN CLAN!!!

Hello everyone. Sorry this has taken so long. Things have been very busy for us lately. Here are some pics of littled Jackson William Luis Condes. Born 9-21-07 @ 1:22am by C-section at Lennox Hill. Boy what a ride that was...I am still numb in the abdomen! Quite a scar too!

We are chillin right now at Judi's, relaxing, (sort of) eating, sleeping, pooping, playing dressup and playing with Ruth and Addie. Luis is back in Queens working his tail off until I get back on Halloween. Today is his 23rd birthday! (Yeah I know, 23...That makes him younger than Em and just a little older than Tyler. Hahaha...) Inside he's really 50 something.

So hopefully we will all be together either near Thanksgiving of X-mas so you can all view my wonderous creation...with quite a big set of nuts!!!

Love

Jessica and Jack

Yes, yes... I'm finally learning how to use this thing too. But hey, this blog is kickin' with multimedia.

Just thought I'd add a bit of nautical fun. Yes, that's Adoree on Judi's lap. She took a 1 hour nap on the boat. Oh yeah. Another victim (Ruthie) destined to be an indentured crew member. Ah ha ha ha.

Here's a pic of Missy and one of Judi. Stay tuned for postings covering any mishaps, triumphs, or Coast Guard rescues.

http://www.dubtunes.com/effects/default.asp?cat=nautical

Hey, it was the best I could do. If you're ever in Olcott in the summer stop on by for a sail.

Catching up....

Hey guys - Glad to see this blog has become such a hotbed of action - wait... that came out totally wrong. Thought I'd add to the madness.

Well. Shit.. come on in!!!

Great to see the updates from Molly and Em. Figured I'd throw up an update with some pics, although I think Molly's blogging acumen is already better than mine (BTW, I have another at www.thetaxman.blogspot.com)

So Summer went by so quickly that it doesn't even seem like it was here, but we have the pics to show that some of us did age over the summer.

Here is Rex in late May/early June:



And here he is this week:



O.k.. One more...



So yeah. He's gotten bigger. We're trying to decide on which sport and musical instrument he should start (o.k., I'm trying decide. Daphne is holding a knife to my neck). If this blog had poll functionality (damn webmaster), I'd include a poll on this topic as well as on the topic of whether Molly is too young to be "seeing someone" as she so innocently stated in her comment earlier.

So.... that's the Rex update. He likes peaches, yogurt, cottage cheese, plums, and baked whitefish with pecorino cheese and herbs d'provence. Don't blame me. Blame the one with French blood in her veins.

Everything else is going well. Hopefully we'll get to see some or all of you soon as the inevitable pilgrimage to the next member of the Allan Clan (i.e., Jessica's kid ) arrives front and center (or, perhaps, slightly off-center... they don't just shoot straight out, you know....)

word.

Molly's post (just for fun?)

Hey Fam
Following up on Emily's recent post...I've decided that since I've done quite a few exciting things lately that I would share them with you.
First of all there is, of course, the New York Film Academy that I went to during most of July and some of August. (We call it NYFA as in knife-uh) At NYFA I met TONS and tons and tons and tons and tons of interesting/amazing people and did lots of fun stuff. I guess you could say my experience was something like college...not like I would know. But we generally woke up, went to classes, ate lunch, went to more classes, went back to our dorm, and was free to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the night. My roommates name was Katie Squires and we were like SOUL SISTERS or something because we clicked with each other almost right off the bat. She is a senior this year and lives in Ottawa, Canada (I would always tease her when she would say things like 'eh?' at the end of sentences or SOARry or toMOREow or pAHHsta as in 'hat') She was fluent in french, and I told her how the only thing I knew what what my mother taught me, and that was 'Would you like a chocolate? Yes I would like a chocolate!" Anyway, we became such great friends and did almost everything together.

us together at our finest


Here are a few pictures of our dorm room before and after we decorated it










Haha as you can see, we had lots of fun transforming our boring ol ordinary dorm room into a beautiful artistic masterpiece. Now back to those interesting people we met at NYFA...


There was Randy, our Director's Craft teacher. He was THE man. He was all gangsta fab and said stuff like "Thats whats up!" and "I'm buggin I'm buggin". He also was really helpful with much of our film ideas.


This is Ahmet, the Turkish Camera teacher. He was REALLY inspiring and, although it was hard to understand him through his thick accent, was funny and clear in explaining things. Ahmet is the one all the way to the right, with a few fellow filmers showing off their cameraing skills to the left.


And here is Kate Kurtz...the craziest writing teacher ever in life. Her attitude and stuff reminded me a bunch of Lorilie from Gilmore Girls. She was CRAZYY and almost inspiring but some of her lectures were really pointless.

Ok enough of the teachers...here are some of the interesting people I was telling you about.


This is Ben and Katie. Ben is from California (hello emily!) and became one of my close friends.

This is a picture of Katie, Eli and Me. Eli was also a really nice guy that me and Katie got to know really well. He seems like a promising movie maker.

This is a picture of (from left to right) Connor, Nick in the Front, Shlomi in the back, Gabe, Andre, then George. I didn't really get to know any of them too well, except that Shlomi came all the way from Israel.

This last picture is of David and Ari. They both were in the 6 week program, but they lived in our residence and on our floor so we got to chill with them a lot. They both were really impressive film makers.

So anyway we went to class all through the weeks and had days off on the weekend which we spent working on our movies most of the time. SPEAKING of movies, I cant wait to show all of you guys my movie!!! Soon I will definitely show it.
Well this blog has gone on way too long so I will stop here and leave everything else a mystery. Feel free to e-mail me with any questions to mkwgo@comcast.net

Love, Molly

HELLO FAMILY!

Here's a long-overdue post about recent events. As it is the first once since April, there is obviously many months worth of material left out. These pics are from the month of August. I want to post some tasty pics of fourth of July, but that would take a long while since there are very many to go through. At least here you can get a small sampling of the life and times of Em Hansen (Trent!).



James and Tris brushing tooths like every night.


Where I went on my 25-Alive birthday. My great friend Djiana picked me up and we spent a bunch of hours at Blacks Beach in La Jolla, and then went out to lunch!


A few recent art pieces by me in an art&music show put on by a friend named Kate. A good learning experience... I got some perspective on the conditions under which I would do another show of this type, i.e. room setup, other showcasing artists, door price, etc. I also got a good perspective on my actual work that I am doing as a straight up "Artist" and what I like about what I am doing and what I want to change or focus on with future projects.

Tris in the morning time with our cat Captain Ashface. (Some of you may not know that our first cat, Dorothy Snogboggler, passed away while we were on vacation for July 4. We miss her.) Captain is rad, and she is FRICKIN crazy. She's a cuddler, but also a fierce attacker and meower for food.




These are all pics of the war protest James and I rode our bikes to in downtown San Diego. It was my first one! It was a good time. Lots of good minds around to talk to and people holding up signs and talking about real things. At the start there were about 200 people there, and it dwindled as time went on to me and James and about 15 others including a homeless chap who had had a few whiskys named Breeze who got ahold of a sign and was yelling up a storm: "Bring our homeboys home!" and he was a very excellent addition to our group of young and old. I'd say the best part of the protest was literally standing on the curb, with my flip-flopped toes scooching into the road, one of my hands holding up a peace sign and the other holding up a sign that said BELIEVE. I stood there for three hours like that, and cars of all kinds, rich folks, poor folks, folks of all colors, cab drivers, teenagers, old ones, little tikes, tons of people drove by and "honked for peace". Of course there was the occasional Bush supporter (this is a navy town, after all) who yelled obscenities and flicked us the bird, but we laughed and peaced on. Busses would drive by and I could see our reflection in the windows, and that felt great: ME amidst a mass of people with our human beliefs broadcasted out to the mass public. After the protest James and I got a delicious meal at Rock Bottom. Mine was the bourbonzola burger: a veggie burger on a bun with fried onions and gorgonzola cheese and some kind of drug-like teryaki sauce which now visits me in my daydreams. After dinner we headed to the Onyx Room where there is free live jazz by the city's best trumpeter, Gilbert Castellanos. This was a very good night.


James' mom Mary came over for her birthday on the 30th. I made an experimental dish: onions sauteed with olive oil and brown sugar, then mushrooms and good-chicken chunks added, and then some pear. YUM with couscous. Mary had a great time, and won $8 on lottery tickets!

This is a breakfast I made for James and me to celebrate the first of September. The drink was fresh juice made of mango, grapefruit, pear and champaigne!

Also, I made another extremely tasty snack this afternoon which I think all of you should know about because it is very simple and delicious. Ok: put a pita in the toaster oven for a couple minutes. Take it out, put a little bit of sour cream on it, and then smear it with a bunch of hummus. Then put sliced fresh tomatoes and avocado on it. DUDES...

This month is shaping up to be a good one. I actually am going to be showing those same pieces in another friend's art show, which I am and am not looking forward to. I'm going up to see Jean Shearer at the farm she is working at during the weekend of the 22. I am also applying to a four-course copy-editing program through UCSD as to be employable as a master of grammar and punctuation. From then on, the world is mine and I will douse it with em-dashes! No just kidding, I'm hoping to get a part-time gig and magazine/newspaper/publishing company, or even better yet as freelance, and dwindle my days of coffee-making down to the barebones.

I hope everything is great with everyone and I would like to hear all about it!
Um, are there any additions yet? If not, Jess, can you stand up?
Let me know.

Ok, love you all,
em

EM'S FIRST POST

Greetings from the Golden State, all you sweater wearers!

It is Thursday morning, and the birds are chirping outside. Sun is shining through the used-car-style flags we have hung up outside our apartment, which I snickeringly thought of to celebrate James' 29th birthday last month. Some traffic passes by every now and then, but I think for the most part, people are at work, as it is 10:23. Yes, I shall be attending the old coffee-sling routine in just an hour; today is one of my short days: 1130-330, on other days I work 7-3.

So, what should I start with... well, I have been spending a lot of time recently coordinating a food drive, which I titled FARE FOR CRONIES. I was going to call it FOOD FOR FRIENDS, but that was just a little too cheesy, so I checked the thesaurus for synonyms and laughed as I made some arrangements: Fodder for Fellows, Cheer for Peers, Cuisine for Cousins, Bites for Buddies, Chews for Chums. Hey, no reason why a little do-gooding can't be a very fun time! I went around to all the businesses with a letter explaining what I wanted to do (have them host a drop-box for a full week starting this Sunday) and got 19 businesses to participate, all within three blocks of the Business District of Park Boulevard in University Heights, which is where Twiggs is located. Twiggs Coffeehouse is where I work. I have been taping up big bright orange posters at local grocery stores and this weekend I will be passing out flyers at the Earth Day Fair, and possibly the Adams Avenue Roots Festival, which, annoyingly, both occur on the same weekend every year. Wish me luck in gathering tasty healthy treats for the less-fortunate. I have already gotten three shopping bags full and it hasn't even started yet!



Besides the food drive, I have been excitedly tending my container garden outside our apartment! I have some decorative flowers, some cactus, some plants I don't know the names of that came from James' old apartment, HUMONGO broccoli, onions, carrots, dill, peppermint, butternut squash, bell pepper, and a poinsettia which I snagged from a line of almost-dead ones at one of our favorite bars, brought it home and back to life, only to have all the leaves be eaten by one Dorothy Snogboggler, who sniffs a piece of grilled chicken with a snooty nose, but would devour all of the leaves of my plants if she had her way. So, again, I am trying to bring that one back to life, and be tender to the broccoli and pepper plants, which she has graciously munched on quite a few times.



Note: none of my plants have produced edibles yet, although there is a very tiny broccoli baby hiding in the leaves!!!



The insatiable Dorothy Snogboggler, or El Gato Dorotea Snogboglier (the g's are silent).

Other snaps from recent times:
(Sorry these are kind of hap-hazard... James has a lot of the pics on his computer, so next time I will try to be more prepared with better pictures!!)








So, James's band the Hi-Lites just released their first full-length album titled Hi-Altitude. It is very good indeed and they have been selling copies at shows. They just signed on with Megalith Records, which is owned by a guy named Bucket, who is the singer of the band The Toasters, a second-wave Ska band from England. The Hi-Lites are planning a ten-day tour of the South-West for the beginning of June! James just finished his latest song which is a voal piece called Golden Paved Road. SO AMAZINGLY GREAT, and I have only heard it played by computer interpretations of musical notes... just wait til the band plays it live!

Also, we bought our tickets for our east-coast appearance, coinciding with the ever-comical 4th of July. J&B/M&D have been giving me updates about the person count and bedroom assignments. IT IS GOING TO THE BEST, I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE ALL OF YOU!

Besides that I have been making up recipes for sweet snacks and hearty dinners, also finishing Ayn rand's Atlas Shrugged, which I have been reading for 1.5 years and have about 75 pages left!! Also, riding bikes, walking, sniffing the air, going to the beach, trying to save some money, anticipating Marveller #3, new RI! products, and thinking about the world.

Well, it is time for me to go to work and make slurpy warm caffeine concoctions for the public.

More to come on the blog soon, as there are many shows, events, fun times and deep thoughts going on out here.

I hope all of you are feelin real good.

Love you!

-em

Ps. how do you make the text-size smaller?