Dreaming and being a dreamer

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A few weeks ago I was told I was a dreamer and that that was a bad thing.  Why is it a bad thing.  The comment came out because I always say that I want to win the lottery so I can fix my problems and then do fun stuff in the future.  I first thought was who doesn’t say they want to win the lottery, and then why is dreaming a bad thing?  A lot of people dream, because without dreamers this country; hell the world stage wouldn’t have succeeded and we wouldn’t be the people we are today.

Dreams help people make a better life for themselves and people who don’t dream of better things will never make their lot in life a better one.  Dreamers are inventors, innovators, people who make things happen in this world! So why can’t I be one or you or the person sitting next to you be the dreamer of the next big thing, but it doesn’t have to be a thing for the masses it could be dreaming of buying their first car or house, or that special toy they want or meeting the love of their lives or their first kiss.

I think people who think dreaming is stupid need to sit back and take stock in their lives and they will see that they are dreamers too.  Yea dreaming about winning the lottery could be a BIG pie in the sky dream, but it could also happen.  I dream about a lot of things, sure some of them are never going to happen before I die, but without dreams you never grow you never have something to look forward to in your life.  Dreams bring around change for the good and the bad, but either way they make you change.  Dreams will always be a good thing in my life and I hope they are a good thing in yours.

Sit back and think about this and then of the things that you have done in your life and you will realize that before they happened you dreamed just a little that they would happen and you made them happen because you had a dream.

Dream big, dream small, but just keep dreaming, because someday those dreams may just come true.

In closing I leave you with the words of Mr. Martin Luther King Jr. :

“I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Louis G Bilancio and his oldest grandson’s life after 1983

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When I was in my freshman year of high school at Notre Dame, a person who was the anchor and a guiding force in my young life. This person was always around when I needed to be put back in my place. He was my grandfather and I miss him. He died in June 1983 and I still miss him. I have written a lot about him in the past few years either on my site or for my family’s newspaper.

Lou G. BilancioI was around him a lot when I was going to certain schools, because the school bus would drop me off at my grandparent’s house. When I first started going there after school I would get my homework done and my grand mom would cook dinner and I would kneel on the couch and look out the window watching Eggert Crossing Road for his yellow Datsun B-210. Because I knew that when I saw it, that in a few minutes I would get to hear how his day was and hear about what ever he was going to be doing that night. He would ask me what I learned in school and of course as the years went on my answers didn’t make him happy with me. He always pushed his grandkids to be the best at school. I never did that and I know that irritated him and we talked less and less as I got closer to and in high school. He knew I was smart and that I wasn’t doing the best that I could do.

In the past few months I have been thinking a lot about how in certain parts of my life he would be so proud of me for what I have accomplished, and in others he would be shaking his head thinking what am I doing with my life. I know that I have disappointed him and the rest of my family. My life hasn’t gone the way I thought it would when I was a kid and playing and talking with him. I know that I can’t live in the past and I have to take responsibility for my actions and the decisions I have made and move on.

When you are a teenager and you are around parents, aunts, uncles and grand parents you always think they will be around to be there to help you navigate this thing called life. Since the fall of 1983 I have been on my own when it came to my life decisions that my parents didn’t have control of.   I screwed up in school big time. You are reading the blog of the Summer School KING. College for me was a joke and I failed out faster then the first lap of a stock car race. My radio career crashed and burned because I got full of myself and took things for granted. I have made a career in Information Technology, but things are getting long in the tooth in that field. One of the greatest things that have happened in my life is my daughter Avery. My grandfather would be so proud of her, she is smart and doing great in school and has a good head on her shoulders.

My world right now is in a big flux, I am “newly” divorced, living by myself and working. I have a house that I need to fix or sell, trying to make up with a friend and my family has been quiet. The biggest thing I miss about my grand father is having him to talk to, as a kid before I was screwing up in school he and I talked a lot about the future. Of course being 13 my future was kind of more fun and games then serious life as it is now.

I know this post was a ramble but when I get thinking of my grandfather a lot comes out. So even though June is Aquarium Month, Candy Month, Dairy Month, Fight the Filthy Fly Month, Gay Pride Month, National Accordion Awareness Month, National Adopt a Cat Month, National Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month, Rose Month, Turkey Lovers Month to me it’s Louis G. Bilancio month.

 

Trenton Farmers’ Market – a great place to go fresh & local

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Farmer’s Market (credit: William Bilancio)

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The Trenton Farmers Market is located on the Trenton – Lawrence Township border at 960 Spruce Street. There has been a Trenton Farmers Market in existence since the early 1900’s when farmers came to Trenton to sell their goods in the area of what is now Route 29. In 1939 those industrious farmers started The Trenton Market Growers Co-op Associations, Inc. and purchased the land on Spruce Street in Lawrence Township. The existing location opened in June 1948 with outside stalls and when the roof was added it became a year round market and started selling bread, meat, and of course, Jersey farm fresh produce.

 

The Market today has over 38 vendors selling everything from vegetables, bread, meat and specialty goods. Depending on the time of year (and the growing season) there will be a different variety of fresh vegetables and fruit. It also sports a food court with delicious deli and bakery food which is also open year round.

I have been going to the Trenton Farmers Market for most of my life. It’s been my go-to market for seafood, bread, and produce. On a Saturday morning I always try to get up and head over to the market.  I wander the crowded busy aisles and look at all the fresh in-season produce and the best price for the things I need, depending on the recipes I have worked out for the coming week. What was intended as a quick run to the Market always turns into an hour long trip. I tend to get into conversations with the vendors and Market regulars.

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Burgers on the Grill…mmmmmmm

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The smell of grilling meat permeates the air during the summer (which will be here soon) throughout many of the neighborhoods of Central Jersey and one of those things being grilled are hamburgers. This smell of meat being kissed by hot flames makes an aroma that will make your mouth water and make you think back to the best hamburger you ever had right off the grill.

So what meat to use?

Picking the type of meat is the most important thing in making a good burger. When I am reading articles about making burgers they always recommend grinding your own beef so you know you are getting good quality and fresh ground meat. I never seem to have the time to do that, so I go to the local supermarket where I know they grind the beef daily.

From A Hamburgers Today’s Burger Lab’s Top Ten Tips for Making Better Burgers

Grind your own beef, and not only do you control everything from the meat blend, to the grind size, to the fat content, but even better, you get to tell people that you grind your own beef.

Instant street cred

There are three cuts of meat that ground beef comes from: chuck, round and sirloin. Chuck is my favorite because it’s a little fattier than the others, but will produce a burger with a great flavor. Ground beef from the round or sirloin tends to be leaner, which is a good thing if you’re counting calories but a bad thing if you want the juiciest, most delectable burger possible. My favorite is 85 percent lean ground chuck.

Making the burger patties

Now that you have the beef, you need to make the burger patties. Get your hands into the meat and pull out a small mound, about 6oz. If you have a food scale weigh the meat. Now gently work the meat into thin patties. If you really pack the meat into patties you will get burgers that have a texture with the consistency of meat loaf. The thinner you make the patties the more evenly the burgers will cook and less they will shrink. After you have the patties made, dust them with some salt, pepper and a little garlic powder.

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Looking for a relaxing RPG game

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dice1I use to play D&D a few years ago with a bunch of friends, but the group got to intense and I stopped playing do to time constraints and just got a bit tired of the group.  Lately I have been talking to a co-worker who has been playing with some friends and was telling me about Pathfinder Role-playing Game.

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game (abbreviated as PFRPG) is a fantasy role-playing game (RPG) first published in 2009 by Paizo Publishing. It extends and modifies the Revised 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons‘ game rules published by Wizards of the Coast under the Open Game License, and was designed over the course of a year with the help of gamers who could download the playtest versions of the game, try the system and post their feedback on Paizo’s website. Announced in March 2008, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game was released in August 2009. The PFRPG is intended to be backward-compatible with D&D 3.5, while addressing some of its issues.

This seems like a good alternative to D&D these days.  I am looking to put a group together that would be interested in playing either Pathfinder or straight D&D.  I don’t want to be the game master but just a player.  So if you are local to Lawrenceville, NJ drop me a line and if we get enough people we can get a campaign going.

Does Hollywood take the idea of best friends and make it a bigger thing than it is?

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Does Hollywood take the idea of bes1063773_67808420t friends and make it a bigger thing than it is? I watched the movie “Last Vegas” and it got me thinking. It’s a movie about four friends that have been friends since they were kids. One of them is getting married and calls his buddies; they make it seem they have kept in touch for 60 years on a regular basis. Is this a real thing, do people today have best friends from when they were kids? I know I don’t.

 

What is the definition of best friend? Websters says:

best friend
noun
noun: best friend; plural noun: best friends
a person’s closest friend.

Even before I had watched the movie I had been thinking about friendship and how I really have no one I can call my best friend: someone I can turn to and have be there for me or vice versa. Is it because I have trouble making friends? No, I make friends very easily and, don’t get me wrong, I have friends, but none that I can call best friends. A lot of people I have talked to about this say they found their best friends in high school or college. I don’t live near where I went to high school and never see the few friends I made there, so I don’t consider them best friends either.

In February ‘14 I lost a friend who when growing up we were inseparable, we did everything together with a crew of about 5 or 6 others from the neighborhood. When I left Fallsington for Bath that was the end of our friendship and we both went our separate ways; but if I had stayed in the Fallsington area through high school, he would have fit the mold of best friend. I left Fallsington after the funeral thinking about how my friends from childhood were lost because of a change in my life and how much I don’t have any real friends now as an adult.

It seems that adult friends fall into categories and these are just a few of the ones I can think of and in no particular order:

  1. Friends from work: Your friends from work seem to change at every job. You always say you will keep in touch when you leave a job, and you might the first few months to a year after you move on, but by then you have made new friends at the new job and they have taken the places of your old friends.
  2. Friends from Church: If you go to church you have friends there that you really only see at church or at church functions, but you can’t really call them when you need bail or are having problems, because they really don’t know you out of the church setting. These are the type of friends that I really call acquaintances.
  3. Friends from groups, clubs, and organizations: In this is the catatagory I have a lot of friends. I have made many friends from organizations I belong to. You never really talk with them except at the meetings or on email lists if you have a question pertaining to the topic of the group or if you need help with that topic. I have many friends like this and I like talking with them, but would you ask them to be your best man at your wedding or help you move? Probably not, because you really only know them in one kind of setting. I have one friend from this group that I call on and he calls on me, but only when we have issues that we need a second body for. We are a lot alike so I think that’s why we gravitate towards each other. No he isn’t my best friend or there to bail me out; but he is there when my basement floods or I need a pick up at the garage.
  4. Family friends: These are those friends that have been around your family while you were growing up and they are always there at family functions. Don’t get me wrong these are the type of friends that will always help you because your family has always been there for them and they are always there for you. But they aren’t the friends that you call for emergency help or to talk about your troubles with your wife or husband.
  5. Neighborhood friends: Are of course people who are your friends from your neighborhood. You invite them to the back yard parties and holiday open houses you have, talk to them when you see them on the street and at the local store; but do you talk about your problems with them? Some problems you do, like dry rot in the house or other neighborhood goings on, but that’s about it. And when you or they move you really never see them again; and, when you do, it’s a quick “Hey how are you” and get or give the latest gossip of the neighborhood.

In the research that I have done on this topic I have found that a lot of the people pointed out that their significant other is their best friend and they don’t need any other close friends. I am not sure that is true either, who do you talk to about your SO or how your life is going?

Family was also brought up and how the family members who were my own age and that I grew up with should be my best friends. When I returned to New Jersey my cousins were my go-to friends when I had problems and they turned to me when they had issues, but now it’s harder, because we have our own families and lives.

In conclusion I have come to the understanding that Hollywood sensationalizes the friends for life/best friend image. After talking with people about this I found that most people don’t have a best friend and that most friends fall into a certain category and don’t overlap in their lives. They don’t have one best friend, they have many depending on what’s going on in different parts of their lives.

A funeral for a friend

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I returned to Fallsington on Saturday February 1, 2014 for a memorial service for one of my best friends growing up, Rick Chiviott, at the Fallsington Methodist Church.  When I got to the church I sat in the back and as I was sitting there I noticed three women looking my way and I knew immediately they were trying to figure out who I was. I recognized Linda and Colleen from their pictures on Facebook.  I figured the third was Colleen’s sister Cathy.  They were older than me when I lived in Fallsington and one of my other best friends was Linda’s brother Mike.  Colleen and Cathy were our neighbors behind the house and they used to babysit me once in a while.  We were there to celebrate the life of our friend, Rick Chiviott.

I joined them in their pew and we got to talking about things going on around Fallsington.  They were proud that they were still living in town and being part of the community.  I think about all the good times I had in town and the friends I had and lost there and it made me sad that I couldn’t say I still live there.  After the service we continued the conversation and caught up with each other’s lives. We told stories of some of the things we did back in the day; chicken stealing off a grill, Linda’s Red Chevelle, sneaking into the neighbors pool when they weren’t home or asleep, and riding our bikes on the dirt trails where Nottingham is now down on Lower Morrisville Road.  As we were leaving the church we had a picture taken of the four of us.  We have all aged and maybe grown wiser, but still can call Fallsington home or the place we grew up in.

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Colleen, Linda, William, Cathy

After I said my goodbyes I walked down to take a look at the old house.  My old neighbor Kevin was working on his son’s car in his garage and it made me think of the times he and I would work on bikes and cars in there.

We got talking about our lives and things going on and after a while he asked me if I missed living in Fallsington.  I looked him right in the eye and admitted to him that I did.  I missed the quiet and the friends I had in this town.  I missed being able to play football in the street without the fear of being hit by a car.  We reminisced about people we knew and those that had passed away and those that have gone missing from our worlds.  We got caught up on our families and parents and sisters.

I then took the time to drive through town and reflect about my friend Rick and all the fun we had as kids in this great town.  In the next few days I plan on writing more about Rick and my growing up in Fallsington and how he and the town made me….me.

The Collector’s Corner-Double Play of Burlington, NJ is a bust for this Comic Book Guy

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A few months ago I ended up at the Burlington Center Mall in Burlington NJ in my travels. It was a little depressing walking around the mall; I stopped counting empty stores at 10. I have been to this mall a few years ago and I remembered there was a comic book store in the mall, so I went looking to see if it was still in business. The Collector’s Corner-Double Play was still open and I really wish it hadn’t been.

I have never been a fan of comic book stores in malls. They are usually too small, cramped and it seems they don’t have much storage space for surplus inventory, things not being used or old merchandise not for sale anymore. I can’t count the times I have been to a comic book store in a mall and the owner of the store has the vacuum cleaner stored in the corner because there is no closet or storage room. So stuff is usually piled up in the corners or behind the counter. The other issue is that when the owner realizes that comic books aren’t really selling they start adding other products such as sports memorabilia, sports trading cards, gaming and other non-comic book merchandise.

So I ended it up in the Collector’s Corner-Double Play in the Burlington Center Mall and right away I realized that this store really needs to change or close. There were boxes piled up all over the place. The aisles were hard to get through and that made it hard to look at any of the back issues and other merchandise in the store. It seemed very cluttered and not well-organized or clean.

When I walk into a comic book store I like to be greeted and made to feel welcome to the store. This didn’t happen when I walked in; the gentleman behind the counter (who I am guessing was the owner) was on the phone the whole time I was in the store and seemed more concerned with his fantasy sports team then making a sale or making prospective customers feel welcome.
Collector's Corner-Double Play
There was another “customer” in the store who seemed to want to ask the sales person a question about a comic book and was totally ignored and left without making a purchase. As I stated it was hard to get to the back issues boxes. I will say that the new comic books were laid out nicely and he had a good choice of titles. The one thing about the way the new comics are displayed is that he did it on shelves that had the comics lying flat; I am a person who thinks that displaying them upright is a better way, but that is a personal bias.

I have been in comic book stores all over the NJ/NY/PA area and the Collector’s Corner-Double Play made the top 10 list of stores I would not go back to; its at about a 5 on that list. I would go back if I am at the mall but I will not be going back to Burlington just to go to the Collector’s Corner-Double Play.

Wise Words..well almost all of them, but they really do hit the nail on the head

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This post was written in April, 2012 and has sat in the draft folder ever since.  So enjoy.

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I saw this posted on Google+ and thought Penn Jillette hit the nail right on the head (well except for the Grateful Dead Part).  You can’t look or listen or read something for five minutes and dismiss it as crap or something you don’t understand.  You have to take the time to learn about it and maybe you will like it.  I never said no to my daughter when she wanted to try something new.  Sure I gave her a hard time about the music she listens to, but that was because she doesn’t take the time to sit down and listen to the music that came before it. Of course I have heard some of my music leaking out of her room so maybe she is starting to listen to the roots of music.   So for any of you “NEW” parents out there don’t shut down your children’s likes, try to get them to learn and take in as much new things they can as well as the old things that the new things were built on.

As I write this I realize that my parents really did let me pick up things and run with them and didn’t say no to what I was into and wanted to do.

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I like to cook BBQ and I need a team name!

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I like to take it low and slow. I love to cook BBQ.  I am looking to fire up the smoker and start the BBQ cooking again and I need to come up with a name for my BBQ “team”, because I would like to compete in the future at BBQ competitions after I get the cobwebs off my smoking skills and every team has a cool name.

The name should be something cool, have the phrase “BBQ” in it and must be something that will stick in peoples minds. So if you can think of something cool leave it in the comments bellow.

In other William BBQ news:

I am also going to be taking a BBQ judging class in July, so I can start judging local competitions.  I have always felt that all BBQ competitors should take the judging classes so you know what the judges are looking for and how the judging process works.