It felt like fall in the Northeast this weekend, especially since we were camping. By the time work had wrapped and we had packed and made it to Harriman State Park in New York it was pitch dark and cold. Saturday was a grey fall day that was never warm, but pretty good for Bear Mountain and West Point, such as it is for a civilian, and a two-apple AT walk. We spent the evening in camp with pizza-ninis and a major haul from the firewood selling man, but before we could break out dessert-ninis Mother Nature rolled in with rain and cold that didn't let up until we were at home in the middle of Sunday afternoon. We'd planned on being at the Norwalk Boat Show but instead found ourselves at B&N looking for travel or basement books.
Time for my annual public broadcasting soapbox. Ken Burns is at it again, presenting the (hi)story of National Parks in mind-altering commercial-free HD. It's better than Top Gear - blasphemous! - and maybe more enriching. I mandate that you watch.
Former President Clinton sat in the chair! Thanks to Knoll's link with the Clinton Global Initiative a bunch of dignitaries actually sat in the chair, though I suppose we're not supposed to talk about it because the CGI Meeting may not be used for commercial benefit. Oh well. It was pretty cool.
General potpourri continues: Bruce Springsteen's sixtieth birthday is today; I wouldn't have cared a few years ago but today it's something more interesting. EHS men's hoops last night was good but I'm ready to be on a winning team. After three weeks I've won a total of five games. Perhaps I could, I don't know, convert a layup? Also, a funny thing happened on the internet the other day when Microsoft paid me to buy something. For serious. I read that Yahoo! is going to spend $100m to boost their share but I sense that MS giving me cash is going to be more effective than any ad of Yahoo!'s.
Lightning in the window. Lightning is bad for PCs.
A long time ago I started visiting the Ivies and yesterday checked off my last one: Princeton. It felt the most old-money 'Ivy' of all of them. The town itself was twee and fancy; Palmer Square and Nassau Inn were the über-upscale, art-gallery-dotted focal point that I'd read about and we found it interesting that at lunch even the lady with the ridiculous barking dog was told about the special specials but we were not. The campus had the requisite (ivy) trimmings but lacked a focal point to the casual Ivy-tourer. No imposing library, no central quad. There was a cool clock tower passageway whose age may have been more impressive than it's architecture and that is my Princeton memory from a perfect blue-sky Saturday:
Another week. Work, sports, work. Brussels sprouts and carrots with pork chops, quinoa salad for lunches, Rita's. Wrapping up Important Home Owner stuff. New water filter, no new shoes. Another week.
posted at 10:25 PM - comments
Sunday, September 13, 2009
It was, ostensibly, the kick off to college football this weekend and I/we celebrated by parking in front of ESPN and taking in the spectacle. Seriously: MSU/CMU :(, UM/ND :), and part of tOSU/USC :|... it was a rainy fall Saturday and I watched football. The week kinda flew, though an unexplained cancellation of Wednesday night volleyball gave me enough break to get some things done. An enormous, eclipse-like double rainbow punctuated Thursday night ultimate, and Friday was flat lazy with a side of Grumpy's BBQ. Today we did stuff around the house and around town, as needed, which was good. Now, though, I think we're focused on lining up some weekends camping, sight-seeing, and day-tripping.
posted at 7:18 PM - comments
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
We spent Labor Day weekend in south Michigan completing our plan to see all of our grandparents this year. Saturday and Sunday we saw Grandma Bruno (and Ray and Jacqueline) and then spent Sunday evening in South Lyon with Grandpa Zammit (and virtually every other relative of Lexi's who could make her 13th birthday party). Spending one-on-one time with grandparents has been an interesting experience; we've learned a fair amount about them and that's unusual because it seems like grandparents are very much focused on grandkids and that cycle is rarely broken.
There's not been much else to report: sports fill evenings, with EPSD adult hoops starting tonight, and work has been very tiring. Jenelle's year with students got off to a busy start at WAHS today. College football fired up and brought joy to our home for the first time in awhile. We were on campus with Justin Saturday night in East Lansing and it seemed like fall in the midwest, something we were missing.
I've reached that lamentable blogging state where I have to re-read the last post to figure out how retroactive to make this one, aka 'when last we spoke...'
We saw The Proposal on Friday night at Emmaus because it was rainy, not First Friday, and everybody loves a Sandra Bullock movie with Knoll furniture and a Chris-Craft Speedster. Saturday we did our best to avoid the rain which never arrived... some back-to-school shopping for Jenelle, a little frisbee, Prairie Home, loft organizing, the usual lazy-Saturday-when-you-think-it-is-going-to-be-raining stuff. Sunday we toasted a great summer with brunch at Bear Creek, an afternoon hike/swim at Beltzville State Park, and Brandies Alexander at home.
Jenelle was back to WAHS today to kick off her fifth(!) year in the classroom; students arrive Tuesday next but she's far enough ahead that this week shouldn't be too painful. There has also been a fair amount of KNL work for me and a Michigan football-related semi-scandal that MGoBrian dubbed Jihad the Second but I imagine to be slightly less serious.
Monday, September 28, 2009