Porcellino

This past summer, a good 90% of my time was spent on the road visiting parks that the company that I work for has supplied rides to. One of those parks was The Great Escape up in Queensbury, NY.

I remember my first trip up to the upstate area and absolutely loving it. I was about to go into 8th grade and my best friend Brendan's dad was able to secure a vacation home for a week on lakefront property owned by Wantagh Fire Department.

The drive up there was great, and I remember waking up in the backseat of their Jeep Grand Cherokee to see the bright orange Steamin' Demon roller coaster sitting right there on the roadside. I had never seen anything like it before, and of course I asked if we would go there during the week. "Probably not." Crushing words, but it still was one of the best weeks of my life.

(On a sidenote, I somehow managed to roll down a hill running at full speed with a lit sparkler in hand and not catch fire that week, so bonus points for still being alive.) [Double sitenote: Upon getting up from this roll down the hill with lit sparkler, I kept running and the sparkler was still lit. It's a crazy life sometimes.]

So, after 11 years, I finally was able to make it to The Great Escape (now just called Great Escape) when it was open. I explored almost every nook and cranny of the whole park, and I'm absolutely in love with it.

One of my favorite "unique" things about it though was this random statue of a boar. I of course had to check it out, and it became one of my favorite little things about the park. It's a bronze sculpture and is one of only two replicas in the world.

The plaque reads:

"The original - there are only two other replicas in the world - sits in Florence, Italy, in a spot where most ravelers pass as they leave the city. Legend has it that anyone who drops a coin and rubs Porcellino's nose will have good luck and will be sure to return to Florence. So - drop a coin, rub his nose, have good luck and be sure to return to Storytown: All proceeds donated to the American Cancer Society."

I made a wish and hope to return to that area again soon.

Starting Over

One crazy summer after finishing my undergrad at Villanova University, I took a bunch of classes at Nassau Community College to get myself to the point of feeling "ready" and to learn the skills that I felt I would need to succeed in going after the life, dreams, and career that I wanted to have.

That summer was a wild one. In my second summer session of classes, I took only one class. Of all classes, it was photography, so it left me plenty of free time when I wasn't out and about doing the most difficult homework of my life: taking pictures.

It was one of those wacky introspective summers. I had a horrible time at Villanova University. I can't pinpoint what it was exactly, but it just was never a good fit for me. Nassau felt like a much needed new home. At this point, I was also dangerously close to a much-needed breakup with someone that I should not have been with for over 2 years. With all that said, and a lot of downtime from class, I started digging through the photos and memories of my youth and instantly started uncovering the story of how this (who I am) came to be.

My father is the best person I've ever known. He's the hardest working, smartest, kindest, most generous, and most helpful human being on the planet. I challenge you to find one better, he doesn't exist. Because he owns his own business, vacations were always a rarity. We were always lucky if we could scramble a 3 day weekend somewhere, 5 days somewhere was a miraculous adventure. But, we always made them count. Because one of my Dad's biggest things is "let's do something all together", we always went to amusement parks and theme parks. Always.

So, I started where my memories began: age 3 at Hersheypark. That's as early as I can remember, but I remember a lot of it pretty vividly. Sidenote: My memory is pretty damn good. The previous posts on this blog showed off a lot of memories from those older vacations and trips.

It has been over a year since I've posted here, and I think it's time to start it back up and over again, all at the same time. No longer will it just be pictures from family vacations from long ago, but stories, adventures, thoughts, musings, life goals, life in general, photos of what I've been up to, and more. Also, it won't just be about amusement parks and theme parks anymore, but about the entire entertainment industry as a whole. I'm sure it will gravitate towards the parks.

Stay tuned. I've got some pretty great things up my sleeve that I can't wait to show you.

I'll be talking to you...

-Chris