Aaron Ewer

One of the great things about autumn is the bounty of farm harvests and a lot of fall festivals. It must be incredibly satisfying to finally see the results of the tilling, the planting, the fertilizing and the weeding, and watering. and all the care and concern the farmers have spent on their crops.

A lot of farmers in this area grow corn and there has been a relatively new family attraction popping up all over the heartland with picking your own pumpkin, hayrides and now corn mazes.

A family in Virginia has been creating corn mazes since 1999 and each year they get a photo of it from the air so you can see the thought and effort that goes into designing and cutting these complicated mazes. Their farm is called Cows n Corn and if you live within driving distance you might want to mark your calendar for a visit to their working farm in virginia’s Fauquier County and take the kids through their maze - this year’s maze opens on Friday, August 29. If your kids are a little older, have them bring flashlights and go through the maze at night, then stick around for the campfire and hand dipped ice creams.

Last year’s vacation to New Jersey is pulling at my memories this week. It’s been a year ago this month that we were enjoying our family beach vacation at the Jersey shore right before school started. We had a glorious week at the beach and all of us came home tan and happy, with our internal batteries fully recharged.

There’s a lot to be said for quality family time away from home. My own parents felt strongly about taking the entire family on road trips up and down the East Coast as we were growing up in the 70’s and 80’s. we went everywhere from Orlando and Disneyworld, to Virginia Beach, to Gettysburg. But our favorite spot was always the beaches in New Jersey and the Wildwood attractions.

If you’ve never been to the Jersey shore, you are missing out on great family entertainment. Morey’s Piers has all the amusement rides, concessions stands, concerts and water parks that any kid or any age could want. Morey’s Piers offers different weekly specials and has three different amusement parks:

• Surfside Pier
• Mariner’s Landing
• Adventure Pier

Each different park has different rides, including kiddie rides, thrill rides, and a variety of boardwalk fun and food.

The Wildwood area has a variety of lodging options, from cheap hotel rooms to beachfront efficiencies and condos. We used the internet to set up our whole trip, found the perfect hotel for our family’s budget, and it was a great time for all of us.

Forgive me for bragging a little bit, but I have always been so proud of my son for his work as a DJ. Our family has always been involved in the music business. My grandfather was a piano player for the silent movies back in the 1920’s and played the piano for thousands of events, like variety shows, beauty pageants, juke joints, and all kinds of dance jobs from weddings to sweet 16 birthday parties. My father played every instrument out there until he damaged his fingers on his left hand and couldn’t hold down the chords on a guitar anymore. So he played mostly piano and put together an orchestra aka the Ricky Ricardo Orchestra of the 1950′2. Later on, he managed several bands and handled the entertainment for a large pizza chain.

I took piano lessons for years but worked as a DJ for years for extra money. When possible, I would take along my son to help tote the gear into the venue and if it was an event for kids, I would let him choose the music, cue up the tapes, and eventually do some work on the microphone. When he got older, he started his own DJ company and has been thriving ever since. So that makes 4 generations of music in our family so far.

My son pays a lot more attention to the mechanics of music than I do. He actually mixes his own CDs and does editing, voice overs, and other technical things using the computer. He’s a big fan of a new software called MOV that lets him convert video files to MP3 format and lots of other features. It works with video, CDs and DVDs.

The mov converter does other cool things, like video editing, 30+ special effects and color adjustment operations. If you are into these technical things with video and audio, you should probably get this converter or at the very least check out their site. Even with the little bit that I know about this, I was impressed.

If Letterman is on the TV then I’m up too late and the next day is going to be a bear with me tired from not enough sleep. The problem is, I really like the show. I’ve been watching it for years. I think he’s been on the air for almost 30 years by now. Isn’t that amazing?

One of the funniest things he’s done is the Top 10 List. The writers have an incredible imagination to come up with those lists, night after night. They are always topical and at least 3 or 4 from every list will make me laugh out loud.