The Fabulous B@ker Blog

A sad goodbye yesterday to Apple's founder and innovative genius, Steve Jobs, who lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. If you know anything about me you know how much I love technology, and specifically, how much I love my iPhone, iPad and MacBook. But the loss of Steve Jobs is not just about technological devices, it's about his creative, imaginative, innovative mind, and his understanding that technology can also be about relationships, creating devices that are fun to use and can bring people closer together. I think we are all a little nervous that really cool and fun technology has died with Jobs. Let's hope not. He's among a handful of figures that we can say changed the world when he put technology into the hands of non-techies. In other words, he made computers for the rest of us. RIP, Steve. You will be missed.

First  Birthday Okay. How did it happen that my beautiful-little-rosebud-lips baby is 16 today? Seriously!! STOP, TIME, STOP! I might as well get used to the idea as Annalisse has been waiting for this day FOR A LONG TIME. Over the last year, whenever I told her she was too young to do something her response was, "You won't be able to say that to me when I turn 16." HUH, right!  All kidding aside, I am so proud of her! She is a confident, beautiful, funny, loving and loyal daughter. Of course, along with all that comes the sassy mouth and cranky moods, but they just add to the charm!  So Happy Sweet 16, 'Lisse! You are loved! Sassy Sweet 16

Well, people, it's here. OCTOBER! After another busy week that included a quick overnight trip to Philadelphia to host a reception on behalf of NAGAP (and a great dinner with my old friend Derb), it's been a lazy, cold, dark and rainy Saturday. After a bit of catch-up and a short panel presentation at the University of Rochester (where I was able to peer through a window across from the program to slyly watch Cam at the table of his debate team), I rewarded myself with a much needed (and well-earned) nap! The libra birthday odyssey gets underway this week with the celebration of Nic's birthday on Tuesday night with dinner at P.F. Chang's (her choice), followed by Annalisse's birthday on Wednesday, which will be pretty low key because she has to work, followed by the birthday celebration weekend when both our mothers, My sister Carol, Mom Shaio and Dave come to help us celebrate Mark and Annalisse's milestone birthdays. (Oh, yeah, and a happy birthday to my f...

Another weekend come and gone. And what a weekend it was, weather wise. it's a real gift as we drift into the fall. The good news is we've entered the sign of Libra and, unfortunately we've also officially entered the fall season. Ready for the Harvest Dance!  Annalisse continues to enjoy her job at Otto Tomottos, and they enjoy her. She worked Friday night, but took Saturday night off to go to the Harvest Dance with her girlfriends. We took a quick trip to the outlet mall on Saturday morning in a last ditch effort to find a dress as she had searched at the mall last week with no success (panic is rising!). We found a really cute black number that was reasonably priced (it's all relative...) and looked super sweet on her. On Friday night while she was working Mark and I went to Label 7 for our official 24th anniversary celebration. They have great food there, and a nice atmosphere - I would highly recommend it. On Sunday Mark and I were helping out at Fairport C...

...there's a lot to blog about but no time. Here are just couple of quick updates from "the road" - I'm on my North Country grad fair tour and enjoying a light day as I head to Utica later today for tomorrow's fair. Since last Thursday I've driven over 1,000 miles with more to go until I reach home on Thursday. Let's just say I don't think I could drive for a living. Girls Weekend, 2011: Last Thursday around noon I headed down to Gettysburg for my girls weekend with Sue, Lorie, Gina and Heather. Sue and I decided to meet on Thursday night since it's such a long trip, and the other girls decided to do that, too. It made for a great Friday since, after a good night's sleep, we could start seeing all the historic sites right away. I arrived at the historic Cashtown Inn around 6pm, checked in, and went into the quaint tavern for a glass of wine before Sue arrived. I must say, I felt myself melt away into relaxation with the low lights, beautiful se...

I'm sure you're all wondering how Cam is doing at RIT...probably losing sleep wondering! Wondering! Wondering! Wondering! As far as I can tell, he's doing well so far. I've seen him twice: once when he wanted to come home to pick up some gaming stuff (and sign his athletic paperwork for crew), and last Sunday when we picked him and his roommate, Michael, up for dinner at Zebb's. Both boys are VERY quiet, so it's a little tough to get information without dragging it out of them. Truly, I couldn't tell you how his schoolwork is going because every answer, when asked, is "good" (although I don't believe he's actually gotten any grades back yet), but his social life seems to be on track. In addition to his plan to join crew (the interest meetings are this Thursday and Friday), he informed me last night (at 10pm) that he joined the debate team and will be traveling to Binghamton this weekend for his first debate (I wonder how the floodwaters ar...

September 11, 2011 Today marks the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on NYC and Washington. It's a solemn day of reflection and remembrance for all of us, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who could not tell you where they were when the world changed. It was an incredibily beautiful, blue-sky day, and I was taking our cat Prudence, who was in the throws of treatment for feline diabetes, back home from a trip to the vet for a check up. As with most mornings, I was listening to WHAM1180, Rochester's most- listened-to AM station, when the coverage began. Listening closely, I tried to piece together what was going on. By the time I reached work, my coworkers were huddled around the computer and we were all in shock, trying to make sense of the events as they unfolded. The 10 years following the attacks have been so bad for many aspects of American life: lives lost to war, a plunging economy, high levels of joblessness, increased (and many times, in my opinion, ab...