ABOVE: William Hendricks, 4, of Stamford, drops his milk-crate-mobile into fifth gear during a 50th birthday celebration for the Mini Cooper, a benefit for the Boys & Girls Club of Stamford, sponsored by MINI of Fairfield County at the Hotel Chesterfield in Shippan.

08/09/2009

When I was a little kid my favorite toy was a cardboard box with a Frisbee bolted to the inside of it for a steering wheel. That thing was fast, even if it didn’t go anywhere. So I was excited to see a kid at this Mini event, proving that even in an era of helicopter parenting and ridiculously expensive and complicated toys, all it takes is an old steering wheel, a milk crate and your imagination to have some fun.

-CP

]]> http://preovolos.com/blog/archives/710/feed http://preovolos.com/blog/archives/707 http://preovolos.com/blog/archives/707#comments Sat, 22 Aug 2009 22:01:10 +0000 cpreovol http://preovolos.com/blog/?p=707

ABOVE: Tourists sit in beach chairs in one of the new pedestrian zones on Broadway near Times Square.

6/27/2009

I made this photograph while on a freelance assignment last week at NASDAQ for Marine Money. It was the first time I was in Times Square since portions of Broadway were shut down to vehicular traffic.

There was an interesting profile of Janette Sadik-Khan, the city’s Transportation commissioner, in New York Magazine recently, which explains the project in greater detail. It’s worth a look.

–CP

6/21/2009

NOTE: This is the first in a series of audio slideshows we are calling “In Their Own Words” featuring people in our community with interesting stories and lives. Look for Kate King’s story in Monday’s Advocate and check back for more profiles in the future.

Father George Poulos retired today after serving 53 years as a Greek Orthodox priest at Church of the Archangels in Stamford, one of two Greek churches in this city.

Standing on the altar with Archbishop Demetrios, Poulos first cracked a joke about the Archbishop’s long-windedness, then paraphrased Gen. Douglas MacArthur, saying “old priests never die, they just fade away.”

–CP

ABOVE: Car guys discuss the authenticity of paint schemes on a 1970 Dodge Dart in the Stop & Shop parking lot on West Main St.

6/17/2009

SEEN IN STAMFORD: I was heading over to Stop & Shop to pick up a couple of things I forgot to get at Shoprite on the way home from work and saw a few classic American cars lined up in the parking lot.

The Stamford ‘Vette and Classic car club meets Wednesdays at 6 in the grocery stores parking lot, with up to 50 members from NY and CT showing their classic rides.

This particular Dart is not your grandma’s grocery getter, with a Mopar 400 under the hood.

FOR THE RECORD: That’s 248 cubic inches more than my Subaru.

–CP

ABOVE: Gaquawn Henderson, Benjamin Jordan and Jeff Karbonic line up before the J.M. Wright Technical High School commencement.

6/16/2009

It remains to be seen if this will be the last commencement ceremony at Wright Tech as we know it, but today the kids are the story.

As they lined up in the cafeteria for the procession, one girl asked me “are you excited for us?”

“Um. Yes. I’m stoked for you.”

The deja-vu-all-over-again factor makes it hard to get excited about covering high school graduations. Then you realize what it means to the students and their families.

It’s all about perspective.

–CP

BELOW: Xiomara Angel, 18, of Stamford, and Jeff Karbonic, 18, of Stamford, celebrate after the J.M. Wright Technical High School commencement exercises on on Bobby Darling Field in Cubeta Stadium in Scalzi Park in Stamford.

SEEN: A 55 Merc coupe. Dropped and chopped.

5/31/2009

Nice.

–CP

READ: Devon Lash’s story on the Wright Tech car show, and local reaction to Gov. Rell’s proposal to close the school.

ABOVE: The Board Lords at Meera in Stamford.

MEERA: TASTE OF INDIA, 227 SUMMER ST., STAMFORD

The warm air of late spring, thick with cigarette smoke, wafted in and mingled with the residual aroma of curry at the Indian restaurant, Meera Friday night. But the heavy guitar riffs of the skate rock band, the Board Lords, could be heard from across the street. And down the block.

As we – a trio of Advocate staffers – exited the freshly-minted Barcelona Wine and Tapas Bar looking for a quick nightcap, it became readily apparent that we needed to figure out what, exactly, was going on inside the small Indian restaurant.

At the makeshift bar, owner Bharat Patel was serving up $5 bottles of Corona, Heineken and Kingfisher, an Indian lager beer, while the Port Chester-based band cranked out one original song after another, punctuated with the occasional Clash, Specials or Dead Kennedys classic.

“It’s really loud, isn’t it?” said Patel, shortly after a brief conference with a couple city fire marshals, “I like them, but it’s really loud.” Patel then proceeded to tell me that his favorite band is Deep Purple, pioneers of heavy metal.

But the show continued and between songs, lead singer Steve “MC-Rice” Moy told the crowd that two fire marshals “just came in and said you guys are all right. Compared to Hula Hanks, you are all right.”

Around one o’clock the crowd began to thin out and with the band’s set over, only the sound of a piped-in Bollywood soundtrack remained.

–CP

ABOVE: Fairfield Ludlowe’s Jonathan Servilla watches Westhill’s Stanley Paul’s home run sail over the right field fence at Westhill Tuesday.

5/26/2009

FCIAC tourney action. Yep, it’s that time of year already.

Ludelowe’s Servilla made a decent attempt at scaling the right field fence, but it was a fruitless effort as Paul’s towering home run ended up in the center field…the softball field’s center field.

–CP

ABOVE: Senior Nicole Memale, hugs a teammate after scoring following her triple in the fifth against Wilton.

5/21/2009

Not once in the five years, eleven months and seventeen days of my employment at the Advocate have I covered a softball game at Westhill High School. Until today.

Sure, I’ve shot the team countless times, but never a home game.

Photographer Kathleen O’Rourke assured me the field was great for photography because of decent sight-lines but I found myself sitting in the dirt atop a couple of boxes of game balls and way too close to the on deck ‘circle’ for comfort. The last thing I need right now is to be nursing a fractured skull.

But this did provide for an up close experience of the game. Not only was I getting inside info from the shortstop – who at one point was reading signs for me – but I also could overhear the coaches and players.

When Nicole Memale was on deck in the fifth, coach Tom Pia stepped over and said “you are gonna put this in the outfield. Just wait for a pitch that’s a little outside and swing through.”

And she did.

Memale stroked an RBI triple into deep center and scored on the next at bat. She was elated. After the obligatory home plate congratulations, she settled into the dugout and said to nobody in particular, “that was exhilarating.”

As former Giants manager Roger Craig would say, “Humm baby!”

–CP

ABOVE: Waiters from the Capital Grille take a break to watch the start of the Annual RFR Realty 5K Corporate Run/Walk in Stamford.

5/21/2009

This year I had a pretty good vantage point from the top of a Bartlett Tree Experts truck to shoot the start of this annual 5K race. From the roof of the truck,I saw a couple of waiters from the Capital Grille excited about the start of the race.

Later, I did try to track them down to get IDs but a manager-type assured me, there was no possible way that any waiter could possibly have been out there to watch the race because, you know, the are working.

Maybe I look like I just fell off a turnip truck.

–CP

BELOW: The start of the race.