RobMontanez.com

Wedding in Punta Cana

2010-08-24T13:45:00.001-04:00

One of the highlights of my two weeks in the Dominican Republic while on vacation this August was attending a beautiful wedding on the beach at Punta Cana. My nephew Vladimir and his college sweetheart Angie decided to hold their wedding in Punta Cana. The wedding ceremony was held on the beach at a resort and the wedding reception on the resort's rooftop suite. The entire affair was beautiful and we had a wonderful time. Congratulations to Angie and Vlad on their marriage!

Stay tuned for more photos from our Dominican vacation as we spent a week trekking through the countryside. We visited the north, south, and eastern regions of the Dominican Republic, including the the cities of Bani, Azua, Haina, San Cristobal, Samana, Barahona, Punta Cana, and the capitol, Santo Domingo. We saw valleys, mountains, beaches, cities. It's a beautiful country. Coming soon.

Click To View Photo Slideshows:

Edgar's Retirement Party

2010-07-18T14:15:00.000-04:00

Spent part of my Saturday visiting with family and friends in Vineland, NJ celebrating Edgar Calderon's surprise retirement party. Edgar has been a school teacher for 27 years and retired from the New Jersey school system but will now be going to the United Arab Emirates on a 2-year teaching assignment. We had a very nice time, and as usual I took quite a few photos to share with everyone. Best wishes and congratulations to Edgar. We will miss you!

Click To View Photo Slideshow:

One More Stadium Panorama Photo

2010-07-07T17:08:00.000-04:00

As an update to my previous post, I took another nice set of wide-angle photos during a recent visit to Citi Field and put together yet one more merged panorama image of the stadium. I really like this one. See below:

Click Thumbnail To View:

Baseball Stadium Panoramas

2010-06-06T17:36:00.000-04:00

I've been lucky enough to be able visit several of the baseball stadiums here in the northeast as they are all within reasonable driving distance. When I do I always take along my trusty camera and lenses and take wide angle photos of the entire stadium and then later merge the shots together using software to create one large panoramic photograph. I then use other software to allow zooming and panning through the large final photo. I've done it with New York's Citi Field (home of the NY Mets) Yankee Stadium (home of the NY Yankees), and with Philadelphia's Citizen's Bank Park (home of the Phillies) and Baltimore's' Camden Yards (home of the Orioles).

In the past, because of business travel, I've visited about another 10 or so other stadiums across the country, but I either did not have the camera gear or the inclination to take the photos. My hope is to someday go back to those parks and take panoramas of the stadiums I missed and any new ones I visit as well. But in the meantime here's a link to the four stadiums I've done so far:

Click to View

Adrian's Graduation

2010-05-17T13:44:00.000-04:00

My nephew Adrian Tejeda and his girlfriend Kristen Bissonette graduated from State University of NY - Plattsburgh this past Saturday, May 15th. We drove the 6 hours to upstate Plattsburgh, N.Y. on Friday and stayed the weekend. We watched the commencement exercises and spent some time celebrating at a pretty lakeside cabin on the shores of Lake Champlain rented by the Tejedas. Very pretty area and lotsa fun had by all. I put up some photos from the event.

Photos From Weekend at Adrian's Graduation:

My 50th Birthday

2010-05-09T09:35:00.000-04:00

The 50th birthday can be pivotal in a person’s life. It is not just a milestone that means you’re approaching midlife. Something about hitting the 50 mark also makes us feel reflective, appreciative, and more generous. If you have a good family and caring friends it can be joyous. I'm blessed to have all these things, so I thoroughly enjoyed celebrating my 50th birthday.

My birthday was a special time. We decided to have a catered affair at a local senior center with a DJ. I was concerned as I tend to not like having larger parties and also don't like being the center of attention. But it all turned out well. The party was fun and we danced up a storm. Here are some photos from the event.

50th Birthday Photos

Just got the iPad

2010-04-30T13:59:00.001-04:00

The great thing about an iPad is the ability to type on a much larger screen or with a bluetooth keyboard. It really does make a difference for writing longer form like a blog.

-- Posted using an iPad

Location:New Jersey, United States

Yankees Roster for Opening Day

2010-04-03T19:15:00.000-04:00

C - Jorge Posada
C - Francisco Cervelli
1B - Mark Teixeira
1B - Nick Johnson
2B - Robinson Cano
3B - Alex Rodriguez
SS - Derek Jeter
IF - Ramiro Pena
OF - Nick Swisher
OF - Curtis Granderson
OF - Brett Gardner
OF - Randy Winn
OF - Marcus Thames

LHP - CC Sabathia
RHP - A.J. Burnett
LHP - Andy Pettitte
RHP - Javier Vazquez
RHP - Phil Hughes
RHP - Sergio Mitre
RHP - Chan Ho Park
RHP - Alfredo Aceves
RHP - David Robertson
LHP - Damaso Marte
RHP - Joba Chamberlain
RHP - Mariano Rivera

-- Posted From My iPhone

Opening Day 2010 Coming Soon

2010-03-26T08:22:00.000-04:00

The beginning of the 2010 Major League Baseball season will finally be upon us in about 10 days and this season promises to be an exciting one.

For those of us that live in the northeastern Unites States, there are some amazing rivalries that will resume their fervor. I plan on attending a few live games in New York and Philadelphia, and will be watching quite a few on television. The New York Yankees are coming off a championship season in their new stadium while the New York Mets are trying to recover from an injury-riddled, disastrous year at their new stadium.

As usual, the Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies are both recent World Series champions that hope to obliterate the two New York teams and return to the Fall Classic. In addition, strong southeastern teams like the Tampa Bay Rays, Florida Marlins, and Atlanta Braves hope to spoil the northerners' party plans. It all makes for exciting, dramatic baseball throughout the summer. So hold on to your hats! Baseball's Opening Day is almost here!

Baby Showers and Valentines

2010-02-14T13:33:00.000-05:00

Spent part of my Saturday visiting with family and friends in Moorestown, NJ participating in a baby shower for Jessica and Manny Noguera who are expecting their first child, a baby girl in March. You may recall that I attended their wedding back in June of 2007. We had a very nice time, and as usual I took quite a few photos to share with everyone. Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. It will be 23 years for Dalquis and I in October.

Jess and Manny's Baby Shower

Update: Jessica and Manny had a beautiful baby girl. Rose Emma Noguera arrived into the world on the first day of spring and came in at a healthy 8 pounds, 9 ounces, and 20.5 inches long. Congratulations!

Click Photo To Zoom

May The Best Quarterback Win

2010-02-07T16:13:00.000-05:00

More than in any year that I can remember, this year's Super Bowl will be decided by the play of the two respective quarterbacks. Although both teams have great offensive and defensive lines and special teams, we are talking about two very special play callers leading very high-powered offenses.

On the one side you have Indianapolis’ Peyton Manning, who is is not just the N.F.L.’s most valuable player for the fourth time, but perhaps the dominant player of his generation. In his 12th season, he's passed for more than 50,000 yards and ranks among the top five all-time in that category, as well as for career touchdown passes and wins.

On the other side you have New Orleans' Drew Brees, who has been an elite regular-season passer that makes the Saints a legitimate threat to win any game they play. But guess who's had better numbers than Manning the past four years? Brees, who has an NFL-best 18,298 yards and 30 300-yard games the last 4 seasons. His numbers compare well to those of Peyton Manning, and he will finally get a chance to win a championship.

I'm not sure who will win this battle, but I do have one prediction, one of these two great quarterbacks, if not both, will throw for 400 yards. May the best QB win!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T00:01:00.000-05:00

Christmas 2009 Photos

2009-12-25T10:25:00.000-05:00

(Click To View)

Happy Holidays 2009

2009-12-21T17:10:00.000-05:00

Photos from Thanksgiving 2009

2009-12-02T11:30:00.000-05:00

Click To View

Happy Thanksgiving 2009

2009-11-25T16:49:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to wish everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful for, so I hope you take the time to say thank you and hug the special someone(s) in your life. I'll be giving thanks for my family -- for all the wisdom, support, and love they have brought into my life.

YANKEES 7, PHILLIES 3

2009-11-05T07:25:00.000-05:00

The New York Yankees captured their first title since 2000, defeating the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies in Game 6 of the baseball World Series at Yankee Stadium. As a former New Yorker now living in New Jersey on the outskirts of what is considered a Philadelphia suburb and where I'm surrounded by neighbors who are almost all Phillies fans, I'm very, very pleased.
Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera Celebrate!

I visited the new Yankee Stadium a few times this year and took quite a lot of photos. What a way for the core homegrown four - Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, and Jorge Posada, players that have been here for all of the five most recent World Series championships to christen the new $1.5 billion ballpark. People will complain about the money, that this is a $208-million baseball team this year. But all the money in the world can't buy you a championship. You still need talent, smarts, chemistry, leadership and dedication and this team had lots of it. Congratulations to the New York Yankees!

Obama Dances at Fiesta Latina

2009-10-18T09:56:00.000-04:00

Watching our president dance to a latin tune was quite amusing to say the least. I'm just pleased that this occurred, as I'm certain that there is no way that this type of cultural event and celebration would have been held during the long, tough eight years with the prior administration.

Obama Dances at Fiesta Latina
(Click To View)

Rob's LifeStream

2009-09-03T17:10:00.000-04:00

As I haven't been blogging much lately, and have been instead spending more of my online time participating in and sending smaller status updates (also referred to as "micro-blogging") to various social networks like FriendFeed, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube, I've decided to set up a page where I can aggregate this external online activity. This type of aggregation has been dubbed "Lifestreaming." Lifestreaming can serve as a sort of pseudo record of a person's daily online activities, either via direct feed or aggregating one's online content such as blog posts and social network updates.

So I've set up this page through the magical use of web feed formats or RSS (Really Simple Syndication). I've actually found that it's kind of fascinating to look at the feeds in one place over time. It's just basically my streams of random thought, links to webpages I find of use and/or interesting, and also my interactions with other folks on the networks over the course of a day or days. Click the image below for a link to the page.

Rob's LifeStream Page
(Click To View)

Vacation in Panama

2009-08-20T07:33:00.000-04:00

It has been over a month since I've posted a blog article. The honest truth is that I've been at different times very busy, lazy, or disinterested. During this time I did take a vacation. We visited Panama City, Panama for a week of vacation. The city is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Panama. We stayed at a resort about an hour outside the city, but did get to spend some time visiting both the city and the Panama Canal and came away quite impressed.

We found Panama City to be a city of interesting juxtapositions of old and new and many contrasting images. The city has spectacular views as it sits on the Pacific end of Panama Bay. It has the great man-made, wonder of the world Panama Canal on one side and nature's mountains rising behind it on the other side.

To the east sit the suburbs and the Spanish Catholic church ruins of the old Panama City, which was the first European city founded on the Pacific coast of the Americas. On the southwest end of the bay stands the old city center of San Felipe, which is a collection of old colonial churches and nineteenth-century mansions, while to the northeast rise the many modern skyscrapers of the banking and commercial district called El Cangrejo.

We thoroughly enjoyed the trip. So much so, that I put together a nice web page to share with you. It features descriptions, panoramic photos, slideshows, and videos. Enjoy!

The Miraflores Locks is probably the most visited tourist site in all of Panama.
It has a splendid visitor center.
(Click To View 'Vacation in Panama')

Citizen's Bank Park Panorama

2009-07-12T10:00:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I wrote an article that compared both of the newly built New York City baseball stadiums, the NY Mets' Citi Field and the NY Yankees' Yankee Stadium. The piece featured many great photos. Despite being a former New York resident and a fan of its sports teams, for the past 5 years I've actually lived in Southern New Jersey near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Because of this I'm only about a half-hour's drive from the Philadelphia Phillies' home stadium, Citizen's Bank Park. I attend quite few games there during the season, mainly whenever the Mets are in town to play the Phillies.

Below is a panorama shot taken from the third base line from a recent game game I attended. Despite the fact that I dislike that too many of Philadelphia fans are unruly and that the stadium is a bandbox where home runs come too easily, the stadium can still be a pleasant place to watch a game. I've taken quite a few photos there.

Panorama of Citizen's Bank Park from the 3rd base line
(Click To View)

Independence Day BBQ 2009

2009-07-07T17:00:00.000-04:00

When my mom passed away after a long battle with colon cancer back in December 2007, I vowed that I would build a garden in my backyard and dedicate it to my mom. She used to have a small pretty garden at her home in Queens, New York. Gardening was her passion and the garden served as her refuge. It was where she was happiest.

This past May I came up with an initial simple landscape design and met with 3 designers before choosing one to do the work. The designer did a very good job of taking my vision, making suggestions and following through with a plan. The project began in late May and was finally completed in late June after some delays due to rain. I documented the work with before, during and after photos on Facebook.
Before, during and after photos
of landscaping done in a corner of the backyard.
(Click To View Photos)

This past Saturday, July 4th, we had a BBQ party to celebrate 3 things: the completion of the landscape work, my daughter Livia's 20th birthday, and also Independence Day. A great time was had by family and friends. We enjoyed the great company. Thanks for coming! Here are the photos:
The BBQ Party.
(Click To View Photos)

Happy Birthday, America

2009-07-04T07:05:00.000-04:00

Independence Day is the only holiday that celebrates the United States. It is a national holiday marked by patriotic displays like fireworks and parades. It's an opportunity to praise the nation's heritage, society, and people. More importantly, for me personally, it's a chance to celebrate the freedoms and liberties afforded to me and my family. We are pretty lucky to live here in happiness and safety, while so many other places in the world are wrought with danger, fear and uncertainty. Let's not forget how lucky we are and give thanks.

Celebrate Independence!

Earth, Wind and Fire with Chicago

2009-06-14T07:00:00.000-04:00

Went to see two of my favorite classic bands this past Friday evening at the Borgata Event Center in Atlantic City. Earth, Wind and Fire (EWF) and Chicago each performed a full set individually and then both groups took the stage together for a final set (the two bands (complete with horn sections) set the stage on fire with renditions of "September," "25 or 6 to 4," "Shining Star."). Both bands have been around for almost 40 years, and while EWF has only 3 of the remaining band members still in place, and Chicago has perhaps 5 (Chicago bassist-singer Peter Cetera and EWF founder Maurice White are long gone, and missed), it doesn't really matter though, as the show was fantastic. The music and remaining musicians have aged like a fine red wine.

Chicago and Earth Wind and Fire Light up The Stage
(Click To View Short Video Clip)

These are still two of the most talented bands in the world and they showed it. They played many of their well-known and numerous #1 and top 10 chart hits from the 70s and 80s. The crowd (including yours truly) was up dancing and singing and grooving to the sounds. The two groups have become good friends after touring together back in 2004 and they recorded three singles together that are available for download via charity donation in a bid to raise cash for World Hunger Year. They played those three songs at the concert and they sounded great. The tracks include Chicago's cover of EWF's "I Can't Let You Go" and EWF's rendition of Chicago's "Wishing You Were Here" (this one in particular sounded awesome). The two bands also collaborated on a new song, called "You". They're also planning a whole album of new material as well.

Timber Creek Indoor Percussion

2009-06-05T11:57:00.000-04:00

Although my 2 children have now both graduated high school and are currently attending college, one of them, my son Daniel, continues to work part-time with his old high school's indoor percussion ensemble and marching band. The school, Timber Creek, has had several home show competitions and also attended the 2009 Tournament Indoor Association's 49th annual Weekend in Wildwood, NJ. Over 220 indoor percussion and color guard units from across several states compete every year at this 4-day event at the Wildwood Convention Center.
Home Show on 4-26-2009
(Click To View Video)

The indoor season ended last month for the school's ensemble and since I've been busy, I never got around to putting up some video footage that my wife and I took of some of the competitions. I finally put up the videos of the school's band performing at the 2009 events. All the young people, band members, instructors and band parents all work very hard. They do a great job and we congratulate them!

Weekend in Wildwood 2009
(Click To View Video)