This is one of my dearest friends in the world, Ned....

Ned (short for Nenad,) is originally from Croatia, but I met him when he and his partner, Michael, were living in NYC where Michael was on the partner track with a consulting firm across the street from my job at Booz Allen & Hamilton and Ned was doing his PhD in Paralinguistics. They moved back to europe about 8 years ago alrady...and now that Michael is a partner and Ned is a house husband, they spend most of the year in London while Ned visits his elderly Mother in Croatia often. This past february, Ned beat me to the big 40 and as a grand way to celebrate, he and michael bought a house on Fire Island in the Pines....what a great gift idea if anyone has a million + dollars to get rid of !!!!I am one of the single most fortunate people I'll ever meet though because due to my friendship with first Ned and then Michael, they have always got a bed reserved for me in their house at 631 Fire Island Boulevard. Granted, they rent the house 1/2 of the season to pay all the expenses, but they're here for atleast 4 weeks or longer in the summer and so far, I've spent nearly 4 months of 2008 at their beach house, usually alone, and when i'm lucky, with Ned, just enjoying the wild life and the beach....I took Ned exploring, he'd never sat in the giant chair on the other side of the island from where they bought their house (the "poor people side" of the island....) Ned looks just like a little kid all the time, but the chair really was a great prop for the photo opp! Thanks to Ned, he found the 22 point buck I'd been trying to photograph the entire month of october while out there, but i seemed to only run into him after dark without my real camera and my telephone camera and video equipment just didn't capture him so he was visible. Great call on this one Nedella!