I was at Disney too! I met Buzz and Woody, and Seargent Soldier from Toy Story!
Hey everybody! Good to see you again! I've been really excited lately. I have been working out more and more. Read my little blog for more. theparkscene.blogspot.com
I am currently preparing to run in the Broad Street 10 Mile Run! It is the 2nd largest 10 mile in the country and the fastest 10 mile in the country!! Check the web site for more info! http://www.broadstreetrun.com
Tune in after May 4th for the results!!
"This is your Life!"
So thanks for stopping by my page. As you have heard I have been in touch with my friends Jim Nelson and Rene Agredano. But in my spare time I have been looking up other old friends! And I have had some success! One of the tools I have been using is simply Classmates.com. Also Google, and Reunion.com, and just a whitepages.com. I know, to a lot of you it seems stupid, but I lost touch with a lot of people over the years, and I wonder where they are, and this is a way to find the ones I went to school with. So one of the people I was able to find was my old friend Sean Clark! I went to high school with him, and spent a lot of time with him after high school in Junior College. We were pretty close for a couple of years until I went off to San Diego State. I later was in his wedding when he married Wendy, but lost touch with him soon after. It hasn't helped being 3 thousand miles away from everybody.
Other friends I have recently dug up: Karl Folk! Most of you don't know him, but my family does. He was my best friend in elementry School and Junior HIgh and High School, until he got kicked out. We were great friends, however, he was less fortunate than I, and had a lot of troubles growing up, and we got seperated, and our lives took different paths. We lost touch after 10th grade. Well, I always wondered what happened to him, and I found him by using Google searches and other free internet tools He is living in Oregon with his family. He has four kids. He is a general contractor. He finished his education and made something of himself. He was really glad to hear from me. And I am happy to have somebody who also remembers a lot of the fun stuff I did as a kid! We have pretty much been able topick up our friendship, dust it off,and keep going. I think that's pretty cool.
It is really great geting in touch with old friends. I have found my Fraternity Little Sister Laria Pippen (Parenti)( she lives in Alameda and (this part is for my sister Julia): she has submitted for The Sun Shines Everywhere! pictures!!), a couple of my fraternity brothers and college room mates (Dave Banas, Matt Maisel and he married another friend Traci Dalton), a few high school friends (Tracy Katzoff, Dina Patochi, Byron Smith, Teresa Catalini, and others.) I have also found female friends Lauren Roth (Koch) and Tina Toscano. Both good friends from college. Lauren and I have been talking for a few years now, since Brendan was born, and she has shared her kids with me, and I visited her when I was in California. Tina I have been in touch with off and on for years, but still good to connect once in a while. Oh, and I have also been speaking with Kristen Calegari! She was on my Cross Country team in High School too!
Oddly enough, one of the friends I really wanted to stay in contact with, or reconect with, Randy Davenport, has chosen to not to connect with me. I thought we were really close, but after Deans death, we drifted, and I guess he didn't feel the need to stay in touch. Oh well. So it goes. Anyway, it has been a lot of fun. You should try it!
Wait ! Wait!! There's a new addition to the "This is your Life" section!! I just made contact with A favorite person from my childhood: Mr. Don Yates!! For those of you who don't know who he is; he was my third grade teacher. But he was bigger than that:
When I was in third grade, we were setting up to play a game in the cafeteria. We were picking teams, and I was leaning against the wall where the fold up tables were stored. Well one of those table came out and fell right on me! It knocked me out, and most of the kids thought I was dead! I was squished under this 500 lb table! They took me to the hospital where i stayed for a week, and then I was out of school (on Home rest0 for 7 more weeks! Well, the school thought it best to send a teacher out to tutor me, and who bette than my own teacher. So Mr. Yates (Don) and I became very close. Over the years, I would always go back and visit him, either in his classroom, or at his house. Karl Folk and I used to go by there in the summer and either help him, or just hang out, eat lunch, whatever. Well, the visits came further and fuuther apart, but he was always happy to see me, and helped me with a few projcts over the years. We stayed in touch until I left for the east coast, and then I lost touch with him.
Well, I found him in Texas, where he lives with his two sons, who are grown now of course. I couldn't get an email address on him, but I got his address, and apparently made his day when he got my letter. So he called me right away, and as soon as I got the message, I called back, and I am sure we will stay in touch for good now.
I challenge everyone, to reach out and write or call an old friend. One that you haven't spoken to in a while. One that you remeber from grammar school. Sure they remember you, and they will be tickled that you took the time to look them up. Who can't use a few more friends? After all, you were friends once, what changed? You can still be friends! Call today. There are plenty of free sources on the internet! GIve it a try!
Web Page Development:
Before I go any further, I have to say that I have come to realize that accuracy with this site is going to be a problem. First, there is no spellchecker, and I am a terrible speller, and sometimes my computer skips a letter if I don't hit the key hard enough, so I may not even notice it. So I am sorry if there are mistakes, but please feel free to let me know in the guest book section on the first page, and I will corect them as I go. Thanks for your understanding. But most of you who know me, well, you KNOW me. Here is my email for direct contact if you feel the need to let me know immediately brianppark@verizon.net
Just added: My Personal Blog!! http://theparkscene.blogspot.com/
Ok, so this is the part where I have to talk about myself. Well, things are going pretty good. I am curently working for a commercial construction management company called Penntex Construction. The job I am on is building eleven mixed use buildings as an add-on to a shopping mall. Some of the buildings will have one floor of retail, and then three floors of apartments above. Other buildings will have one floor of parking garage below grade, then three floors of apartments, or condo's.
Wow that's big isn't it? BUt at least you can see some of the detail!
It's very interesting, and I am really enjoying it. It should be a three year project. Thank god I am doing this now and not dealing with the downturn in the residential housing market!! I would probably be out on the street!
I am training hard for the MS 150 bike ride. I have never trained on a bicycle before, so it is a little different. But I like the low impact workout, and I get to see a lot of the area I don't normally notice while driving around. I can't run right now because I have a heel injury called Plantar Faciitis. So the bike is giving me the workout I need, while also getting me in shape for the big ride at the same time. And who are we kidding, I really need to lose about 15 lbs anyway, so it's all good. In fact, Amanda and I just joined a gym and tried spinning! AUGHH!! It was hard. But I could feel it working my legs, so I will keep it up, I guess.
Otherwise, I work on my yard in my spare time. I have a small pond with fish in it. Amanda says I waste a lot of time on them, but I like it. It's like a hobby- sort of. Plus I try to be an amature gardener. I am trying to create a compost pile in the back of my shed. I am only having limited succes with that. Oh, and I just bought a used lawn tractor for $100. Yeah it's cheap, and not new at all, but it works, and satisfies my desire for serious lawn equipment! I will have to do a serious tune up on it over winter, I think (another waste of money!)
The long story on how I got here (NJ)
Well, I grew up in California (duh), went to Petaluma High School, and graduated in 1984. I attended Santa Rosa Junior College for two years (at my mothers request) and transfered to San Diego State University. PARTY SCHOOL!! Wow was that fun!! I lived in the dorms, joined a fraternity, you know, all that good college stuff. I majored in Business because I thought I wanted to be in marketing and advertising. Well, the school was very impacted; it was overcrowded and the teachers were less that enthusiastic. Did I leave to find a better school?? NOOOOO. I changed majors to Public Administration so I could get out sooner. What in the hell do you do with that?? (Work for the Gubmint) Well I thought maybe I could go into city planning, or development or something. I had a plan to get out, go to Sacramento (where my sister lived), get a job with a developer and work my way up the ladder.
Well, I graduated in 1990, and I went to Sacramento, and I lived with my sister Nancy. She was working for a bank then and she was friendly with a lot of home builders, so she said she could get me some interviews. Unfortunately, the day I stepped into Sacramento, the big real estate bust of 1990 happened, and nobody was hiring, and the housing market went kaput! The motto of the day for developers was "stay alive 'till '95!"
I was finally hired by a property management company, then later I worked for a couple of general contractors, as well as some side work on my own. Around this time I met Lisa. We dated and after a while, got married. We had two children. Justine was born in July of 1993, and Austin was born in April of 1996. We didn't get alongtoo well, and we faught a lot. In September of '97, the company she was working for was sold to a publisher in Philadelphia. She was invited to come along, all expenses paid. We decided that maybe it would be a good thing, and she left. Three months later in December, I came with the kids.
It was no good. By Valentine's Day we were fighting again, and by April it was over. We lived under the same roof for a few more months, but I eventually moved out.
About this time I met Amanda! We got along great. She was a high school social studies teacher. We laughed and talked and liked a lot of the same things. She was a little nervous about the kids, but accepted them. Eventually we became a regular item, and before long we were living together. My ex-wife remarried, and kept custody of the kids, but I see them regularly.
Amanda and I got married on October 8, 2000. We were pregnant by March, and we bought our house in June of 2001. Then Abby was born on October 2, about 4 weeks earlier than expected. She was a preemie, but developed fine and today has no issues. I was working for a home builder then and Amanda was teaching at Germantown HIgh School in Philadelphia.
Life was good. Amanda's family treated me (and the kids) like one of their own The Kelly's are the best!! No annoying crazy in-laws here.
Well about three years later, in September of 2004, Brendan was born. Our lives are complete. There can be no more children because Amanda got snipped (before I had to! Whew!!).
So that's about it. We have Justine and Austin almost every other weekend. We have the regular circus of Abby and Brendan, Amanda is now only working part time, and I am still working in construction management. It may not be glamorous, we may not be wealthy, but we are rich in family and I wouldn't trade it for the world. So stay tuned and see what happens in our wacky world. I will try to keep you all up to date. See ya!