Saturday Night Out on the Town

Saturday night before Christmas we had a grand old time out with family and friends. Below are some pics with brief descriptions, some of them may have been funnier in person. It was good to be together again, and I can't remember when the last time was that I laughed so hard.

The evening started out with us trying to decide what to do (this took quite some time of sitting around the living room staring at each other, checking movie times, and arguing about bowling). We finally agreed on bowling, while making a quick stop at Mark's apartment, Joe mentioned how much he hated the hanging season flags, especially Santa. This was brought on by the one Mark's neighbour has flying, so Erika proceeded to dare him to get out and punch Santa...

We made it to bowling without further ado.

Erika not too happy with her score.

Jeff & Sara

Erika gave up and started doing the reverse granny roll...and got a strike!

Then we moved on to the arcade. It was initially Mark and Joe who were in there, but on the way out we passed "The King of the Hammer". Mark pushed in two quarters and made Andrew give it a try (since he'd been calling him Thor all day). On the first try Andrew got the highest score, and tried for a second time and beat his own score. Grand Total: 867, a guy tried after him and only got 600 and something.

Thor's subjects bow before his great strength.

Mark on his motorcycle.

Chimney Bluffs State Park

We (Deb, Andrew, and I) went to Chimney Bluffs last weekend. It's a state park about 40 minutes from our house, on Lake Ontario. We had hoped to do some hiking, but unfortunately the trail from one side is straight up a hill and was covered in ice. The alternate route starts through the woods, but less than a 1/4 of a mile in we found there was a "lake" across the trail. So we took what pictures we could from the beach. We have plans to head back there in the late spring-early summer when things have thawed out.

These are glacial moraines that have been eroded into fingers, it's the only place like it on Lake Ontario. Moraines are what glaciers leave behind, it's the debris that they have picked up during their slow movements and then (I'm assuming) these ones broke off into Lake Ontario and Chimney Bluffs is what they left behind.


I was having fun playing with my camera, these rocks were so cool!

An Education in Piercing

I have no piercings, I sort of wanted a nose ring or eyebrow ring in high school, pierced ears were too "normal" at the time. I've thought about getting my ears pierced, and the biggest thing that holds me back...pain! Those that have them, don't try to tell me that it's just a pinch and it's over, your lobes are sore for days as they get used to the foreign objects now sticking through them.
Over the years I have had clients with piercings and most of them are quite excited to share their knowledge, attempt to gross me out or attempt to convince me to get something pierced, especially if they find out I have none. I've been taken through the steps of stretching, I still think it's gross but now I understand how it's done, as well as some of the dangers. And I have learned that cartilage piercing is quite dangerous due to the risk of infection. And once it is infected it is difficult to treat, often leading to deformities, such as cauliflower ear.I've also seen my first nape piercing a few weeks ago. Just like it sounds, it's at the rear base of the neck. That creeped me out a bit cause she kept playing with it and sliding the curved bar back and forth. But she was very excited that I noticed it and asked her about it.Now for the worst piercing that has just come to my attention. Corset piercing. Once again, EXACTLY what it sounds like. But it's more for looks than waist reduction. I still get the shivers thinking about it.
And what gives me even worst shivers, nipple piercing, every time I think about it I want cover my breasts with my hands. I went to school with a girl that had it done, as she was getting older she was getting worried about the damage that it might have done. Basically the doctors have said when she gets pregnant she'll need to be monitored and may need to have her mammary ducts, at best, reopened with a needle to remove the scar tissue, and at worst, surgery to reconstruct the mammary ducts/glands that have been damaged.
(sorry no pictures for that one)

Foggy Dawn

Christmas Lights

Some of you may have already seen this. Mr.Carson designed this for his houes a couple years ago, after the high levels of publicity, a car accident in his neighbourhood caused by his lights, and the increased neighbourhood traffic, he is now putting on his display in a park.

World AIDS Day

These next two are humourous, but they get the point across, I think:

American Thanksgiving

We spent the holiday doing projects around the house :) Thanks to the hard work of my parents and sister the kitchen and living room are looking MUCH better. We also did some other projects too, more pictures on that another time. But here are the amazing before and after pics.

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

Living Room Before

Living Room After

High School Reunion

I got harassed into attending, despite having hated high school (at least the part at good ol'AA). My apprehension proved unnecessary, to my surprise I had a very agreeable time. Much to the credit of the friends that roped me into going (Heidi & Corey, the first with giving me a guilt trip that SHE was coming from France just for this, the later has been hounding me for over a year to attend) and also to the friends that I had not expected to see (too many to list). It also ment limited amounts of sleep (as you will be able to tell from the pictures that follow), having left for Michigan Friday after work and returning to NY Sunday, and when you've travelled that far for a weekend, who wants to waste it on sleep? One of the big traditions of Alumni weekend is the alumni vs. school flag football games. The alumni guys won, the alumni women, well...we were slaughtered. But we had fun, through the cold drizzle, my mom even stayed for the whole game!

My Parents

Aren't we cute?

Me, Dad, Erika

I could not get a pre-game serious face, Erika kept making me laugh.

Pre-Game Team Picture

Pre-Game Prayer

Danielle, Erika, Me, Heidi

Remembrance Day

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.
- John McCrae

Pluie de crottes sur Toulouse

Pluie de crottes sur Toulouse
Uploaded by tolosato

This is too funny! The French love their dogs, unfortunatly they don't usually pick up after them and it is becoming a big problem in some of the larger cities.

Here's the Transcript and Translation.

Chaque jour 5 tonnes de déjections canines s’abattent sur Toulouse. Arrêtons le déluge.
Demandez vos sacs jetables au Capitole et dans le Mairie de quartier.
Toulouse plus propre, à nous tous de le décider.

Every day 5 tons of dog excrement fall on Toulouse. Let’s stop the flood.
Ask for your disposable bags at the city hall and in your town hall.
A cleaner Toulouse, it’s up to us to decide.

Hemp & Pot

I hate pot, not just for the typical it's an illegal drug and I meet with families who's kids are using and screwing up their life or at times the parent is using and screwing up every bodies life.
I specifically hate the smell of it. A few people know that I am sensitive to the scent and will make fun of me when we are out and about and I start gagging uncontrollably or make cross-eyed faces as we pass someone on the street. I even smelled it in a close friends apartment once and started questioning her, after thinking about it she remembered someone had given her some rope soap, that she had been using as a closet air freshener, sure enough that was it.
Today I met with a new family and someone must have used the extra strength hemp shampoo. I was nauseous by the time the 1 hour session was up. Luckily I had a two hour meeting after that, and then went out to lunch with co-workers. I came back 3 HOURS LATER, and my office still smelled. So I pulled out my emergency lavender air freshener (typically used post session for adolescent boys who haven't heard of Degree or Old Spice yet) and opened the window. With half an hour of airing out it was mostly dispersed.

Snow

The past two weeks "they" keep saying that it's going to snow. "They" even said 1-3 inches twice, all it did was rain. I was so excited one night, it was coming down hard, I even made celebratory phone calls, but by the time I got home it was raining. And now it is supposed to rain the rest of the week. I hate rain, I want snow.

Haunted House

I came home Halloween night to a dark, empty house, I unlocked the door, stepped into the mudroom, felt around for the light switch, and heard the water pump running. It continued to run as I hung up my keys, and then I noticed that it sounded funny, like it was sucking air, not water. I have no idea how it works, I couldn't find any on/off buttons, so I unplugged it and plugged it back in, hoping that it would reset itself, it didn't work, so I unplugged it and made my way upstairs. I turned the front light on outside so trick or treaters would know I was home. I noticed that the stove light was flashing, the power must have gone out...again. Then I heard voices, Hurray the first trick or treaters were here! But no one came up the steps, and there was no car in the driveway and I could see no one outside. So I listened closer, it was coming from the bedroom, for a moment my heart skipped a beat, but I quickly realized when the music started that it was just Andrews clock radio. "It must have turned on in the power surge, I've never noticed it do that before". I made my way to the bedroom, thinking, "this is what happens in horror movies, people come home to dark houses, there's a clue (running pump), then they get lured somewhere, and their logic shuts off, and as they reach for the clock radio someone reaches from under the bed, and slits their Achilles tendon so they can't run away". I hit the off button with one hand, clutching my cell phone in the other.

Back Road Musings

For those of you that know where Union Springs is, and thought that it was somewhat remote, we've moved into even deeper remote and redneck. One of the keys to getting from place to place in upstate NY is knowing the backroads (it is probably key everywhere, but here there just aren't lots of main roads, so if you take those, you are usually going WAY out of the way, on the other hand, taking unknown backroads could very easily dump you on a cowpath road that will eventually send you in the opposite direction you want to be going in). I knew most of the backroads and short cuts from Union Springs, I don't know them in Conquest. So I have been talking with locals and using a combination of Google, Expedia & Yahoo Maps with occasional help from Mapquest. By combining all four I can usually figure out the best/fastest way to get somewhere new.
The difficulty I have come acrossed is that many of the roads up here in the north end of the county don't have signs. Really, no road name signs. So far there appears to be a pattern, the road that you are on will not have a road sign, but the crossroads will. So just remember what road you turned on, right? Wrong. The roads often change names when you change townships and/or villages. The crossroad signs are for roads that cross at 90 degree angles, not for Y's or forks or merges or vears or splits. So it can get quite complicated and you end up driving on intuition with some basic orienteering thrown in when necessary. Although this all gets thrown out the window if you happen onto one of the cowpath roads. In that situation, you're screwed, you either have to turn around and go back to the last road you were on, or follow it to the end, figure out where you are, figure out where you were initally trying to go, and then figure out how to get there base on where you are that you never planned to be.

John Berendt

John Berendt was in Skaneateles this past Sunday, I stumbled upon a local bookstores website and they were announcing that he was doing a book signing. So I grabbed my copy of City of Falling Angels and headed across the rolling roads of Central New York.
Upon my arrival I learned that not only was he doing a book signing but a presentation as well. He was an entertaining speaker, at times he did appear a little rehearsed, but then I assume when you talk to hundreds of people you might begin feeling a little dull.
What everyone wonders is how he gets people to tell him the things that they do. He said in Savannah everyone is odd and wants to be more eccentric than their neighbour, so to have someone talk to them and tell them they're writing a book, the stories started flowing in. In Venice, most knew about Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, because the movie plays on TV there all the time. They were skeptical that he would do a book about Venice, and when it took so long to write they felt he would never publish and so had no fears about talking. He says he carries things on as a conversation, not a typical interview, and jots notes down in a small notebook, in Italy he would often tape record the interviews as he is not fluent in Italian.
He talked about how he is a slow writer, that he makes sure a paragraph is as close to perfect as possible before moving on to the next. He is very critical of his work, even sharing a sentence that he dislikes in Midnight and what he would have changed just in that one sentence, but he is proud of his books and his writing. It was interesting to hear writers that have inspired him (Cormac & Wharton) and reasons why he enjoys their writing (use of words & creative , detailed, descriptions of people).
It was thrilling to hear an author and see them in person that I really admire. I highly suggest learning where authors you like will be speaking and trying to get to meet them. It's awesome to learn what they were thinking when they wrote a specific paragraph or their reactions when they met someone for the first time.

Jeff & Sara's Wedding

Jeff & Sara with Howard & Roberta performing ceremony.

Loren, Rob & Andrew

Deb, Erika & Kim

Robson

Rob & Laurie

Risa & Brandon

Au Revoir, Allo Cancun

Chicago

I was in Chicago last weekend for a wedding and did some site seeing too.

Erika, Deb & I reflecting in Cloudgate.

Fountain in Millenium Park

Grant Park

Buckingham Fountain

Shedd Aquarium

Guy Painting in front of Art Institute