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My wife Kim and I love to travel.  My years of getting dragged around the world by my mother, Millie, started this trend.  In my youth I lived in Venezuela, Los Angeles, Upstate New York, Wisconsin, Maine, Costa Rica, Rome and all around New York City.  We also traveled all over as Millie did her great work.  As an adult, my work took me to almost every corner of the earth from Latin America, Europe, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe.  The only continent I've not seen is Antarctica.

As much as we love Staten Island, we also love to travel throughout the year. So far this year we have spent time in the Utah Canyons, in the Normandy Region of France, are just back from Iceland and the Baltics (Sweden, Finland, Russia, Eastonia, Poland, Germany, Denmark and Norway), and are planning a trip later in the year to Istanbul and Greece (a motorcycle ride through the Peloponnesos and Corfu).  We work hard to keep our travel agenda full.

Millie would be proud that her son has grown into a world traveler, just like her.  I'm not sure I have the streak for adventure that she had, but I try to make up for on my motorcycle. 

I have lived on Staten Island for over two years.  When my wife and I moved here, people assumed that we kept our condo in Manhattan, but we told them we were “All in” on Staten Island.  Now both my sons live and work here in St. George, building out the Winter Wonderland SI attraction that will open in November. My daughter lives with her husband and two daughters in Brooklyn on the Columbia Waterfront.  In other words, we are now locals by any definition.

People ask me all the time what it’s like to live on Staten Island.  My joke is that to be on the “A” list in Manhattan you must have $5 billion, but to be on the “A” list on Staten Island all you must do is build a 630-foot observation wheel.  My wife and I have been New Yorkers for a long time, but we have never belonged to a local community.  We now belong to the Staten Island community and could not be happier about it.

Kim is on the board of the St. George Theater and since she is a cabaret singer, that’s a perfect fit for her.  She has sung there and at the National Lighthouse Museum on several occasions.  She is regularly asked to sing the National Anthem at the ballfield, but she hates singing that song (she says it is musically challenging) so she hasn’t yet done that.

I am on the boards of the SIEDC and the CSI Foundation.  I am inspired by the good work that both do.  The SIEDC tirelessly advances the cause of economic development on Staten Island and CSI is an amazing institution that does such a great job of shifting people up the socioeconomic spectrum.  We need more of what both have to offer in the world and Staten Island is lucky to have them.

Another passion of mine is the movies.  I grew up going to a local movie theater in Rome (the Pasquino in Trastevere).  This was in the days when Italian TV consisted of two national stations that played news and sports only.  So, an avowed storyteller needs stories and the movies were the best I had available. For the price of 500 Lire (80 cents in the day) the Pasquino changed billing every day and showed second-run American movies.  

I carried this love of movies into my adult life and while I watch plenty of movies on television, one of my favorite nights out is to go to the movies.  Unfortunately, Staten Island doesn’t have any theaters on the North Shore and only really one and a half movie theaters at all.  Luckily, the surrounding boroughs have plenty of movie choices, so if the Staten Island 16-plex doesn’t have it, a quick drive into the City will solve the problem.