Thanks for visiting. This is the homepage of the Santoro family in Basking Ridge New Jersey, USA.

I have signed up for Google Email Hosting for my immediate family members. If you know someone that recently changed to an @santoro.com email address, they are a family member of mine but not necessarily directly related to this site.

If you are a family member and want an @santoro.com address delivered via GMail, give me a call and we will set it up.

If you are not a family member but do have the same last name, keep an eye out here, I may be selling addresses for a reasonable price shortly.

Dave

Life is hectic with work, college hunting, and other personal items. As soon as it slows down I intend on updating the site and Photo Gallery.  I have about a year of digital pictures to name, tag, and post to the Gallery.

Instead of boring the family with updates on my arcade machine construction I set up dedicated site to document the progress end-to-end.

The URL is http://sites.santoro.com/arcadereplay/

OK, I was finally able to fix the photo gallery. 

I have also added a lot of new digitized scans from our 1988-1999 family photos. Next chore: renaming and categorizing our photos for 2007 and 2008 to date.  We have a bunch going back to last summer.

Previously the Photo Gallery was ‘hosted’ on a PC in my basement, but that had caused some reliability issues. In February I began working on moving it to the Santoro.com server but ran into some difficulties. It may be a few months before I can spend a day or so working on it.

The Gallery will be back though, and when it is it will be faster and more secure.

It’s been four years since I built my “Mamenation” arcade machine, and we have enjoyed it thoroughly .

The technology has come along way in those four years and Mamenation is HUGE, protruding rudely into our den. With the recent LCD price reductions it is now possible to build a slimmer arcade cabinet than was previously possible with large, deep CRT tube-style monitors. All these facts, combined with the fact that I haven’t built anything cool in a few years, made me decide to build a new, slim arcade machine. I will be selling Mamenation to fund the new project.

Last time around I did paper sketches and it wasn’t conducive to quality work. This time around I used the opportunity to learn “Sketchup,” a free 3D modeling program from Google. It has a rather steep learning curve. I have spent about 15 hours with it so far and am now just starting to not be spastic with it. In the end it was worth it because it gives you the ability to look at your creation from any angle before it ever exists.

Here is the design I am leaning toward:

(click for larger picture..)

I have ordered all the parts that I need and should start construction soon if work doesn’t keep me working late too much.

Stumbled across this.  Make your own Shrinky-dinks, couldn’t be much simpler.  Cool. 

http://www.curbly.com/Chrisjob/posts/2252-DIY-Shrinky-Dinks-

If we try it I’ll report back here how it worked.

So, I have been on a mission to see as many of the great 1980s bands as I can as they go on reunion tours. In the last few years I have seen:

• U2′s ‘Vertigo’ Tour (twice, Madison Square Garden, and Continental Airlines Arena)
• Peter Gabriel’s ‘Growing Up’ tour at the Continental Airlines Arena
• Billy Joel at the Hartford Civic Center

I got an email a few weeks ago saying that there were tickets available for The Police at Giants Stadium, and was able to jump on the opportunity. We scored floor seats about thirty rows back from the stage.

Read the rest of this entry »

I got the inspiration for this from a recipe I saw in a magazine, but I didn’t get the recipe at the time so I had to recreate it from the ‘picture’ in my mind. It turned out great. Read the rest of this entry »