Reid-Rogers Files

Last days of the Big Blue House, and more

2008-08-01T09:41:35-04:00

Final Days of the Big Blue House

Well, it's a little after-the-fact, but here's the report from the final days at the Big Blue House. Sounds like a History Channel special, doesn't it?

The second week at the BBH was pretty much like the first.

Trips to the beach, breakfast at Bill's Pancake House, a return trip to the boardwalk, a miniature golf game that seemed to never end. Now when you see the pretty pictures of the kids navel-deep in surf, keep in mind that the highest reported water temperature that week was fifty-nine degrees, as reported by the sign at the bait shop. Youbetcha, I kept track. Needless to say, the grownups went about knee-deep to watch the kids, and that's as far as we went. Yikes.

The highlight of my week was upgrading my little Mac Mini. When I bought him, I had no idea that it was so hard to upgrade the memory. The techs at the Apple Store told me they weren't allowed to upgrade memory, even though they had to crack him open last year for a problem with the optical drive. If you insist on upgrading memory, Apple's officially recommended tool is a putty knife. And a sedative. Cause it's nerve-wracking.The official tech-support video I watched 80x to learn how to remove the old RAM opened the case and said: "If you have bluetooth and airport, you may have some additional parts to unplug and remove." Right. Thanks for the tip, guys. I'll just deal with the unidentified spaghetti when I get to it. I enlisted Mike to "help" replace the RAM, and brave soul that he is, he did the actual cracking open of the case, and I "supervised," adding an extra hand in the procedure where needed. Luckily, we were able to just move the bluetooth and airport antennas to the side and just hold the chassis out of the way to get at the old RAM chip, so there wasn't any additional disconnecting/reconnecting involved. And it worked! I am so happy.

The only odd event that week was a mystery leak, water coming down from the ceiling in a downstairs bedroom, nowhere near any water pipes. Luckily, it stopped the next day, and it's still uncertain whether it was water somehow blown in from a serious overnight storm and carried along ductwork, or an air conditioning fluke, but the guys got the chance to play with drywall and spackle, so it was an enriching experience, I suppose.

Keith continued to kick butt at Scrabble.

Then, on Saturday, it was time to pack up and leave. As the only family in the house to have a cooler, we were saddled with a whole lotta food, plus the stuff we had packed plus the embarrassingly large beverage stash. For the first time in 13 years, we weren't able to fit it all in the Civic, and we had to send some stuff back with the Bucher-Dials, who had extra room in their van. Thank you!

Since we've been back, we've still been pretty busy. Cliff reported for jury duty, and was selected as a juror, luckily for a 2-day case. Woo hoo! Thank goodness we don't have to mess with that for a while. Hannah had two weeks of swimming lessons, taught by a nice blonde 20-year-old named John, whom Hannah liked a whole lot. I busied myself with upgrading my other computer, a 50-pound eMac. This procedure was relatively straightforward, the eMac has a trapdoor and easy access to the RAM chip. But it weighs 50 pounds. So to swap out the RAM, I had to turn the beast over, unplug it (yes, Apple insists that you wait until then to unplug it, for static electricity purposes) open the trap door, and pop in the new RAM chip next to the original one. I did so, reattached the trap door, turned it over, plugged it in, attached the keyboard and mouse, restarted it,... and only one RAM chip showed up. So I disconnected the keyboard and mouse, turned it over,... etc. until I got to the RAM, and removed and reseated both RAM chips, then performed the whole re-connection thing again. This time.... it wouldn't start. Black screen, ominous beep beep beep alarm, which turned out to be the Triple Beeps of No RAM Whatsoever Alert. Not a good thing. Disconnected, unplugged,... yadda. Then I removed both chips, reseated them and pressed really, really hard (I've still got groove-marks on my thumbs), and voila! I've now got the maximum (it's an old machine) 1GB of RAM in my other computer. Go, me.

So, believe it or not, Cliff's classes start in a couple of weeks, and Hannah's school starts not too long after that. Yeah! There are still some fun things to do. Hannah likes going to the pool, and just last week we went to Yorktown to see Jay and the Americans, bringing along Hannah's friend Zoe. When asked what part of the show they liked best, Zoe replied: "The break." Oh well, we tried. We had a good time.

Enjoy your summer, guys.

Still here.

2008-07-08T14:04:42-04:00

We had a nice weekend, here at the Big Blue House. On Friday we attempted to watch the fireworks at Stone Harbor, at the other side of the Island. We headed off in a caravan of cars, intending to watch the fireworks from the deck of the house on 85th Street. However, there were a few snags in the plan. First of all, the fireworks were scheduled to begin at 9:00, and not at 9:30 as Cliff had thought. So we were racing madly—well, as madly as one can race when one is driving at 25 mph, which is the strictly-enforced speed limit down here—trying to reach 85th in time for the fireworks to start. Second, about one- and-a-half minutes before the fireworks began, it started to rain. Third, someone had parked their car blocking the driveway to the house on 85th, so we couldn't park the cars anywhere near the house. So we rolled up the car windows and parked on the street, enjoying the fireworks as best we could through the rain. Then we joined the long, long line of cars attempting to get back to Avalon, stopping for bedraggled pedestrians as much as possible. I think the drive back lasted about three-times as long as the actual fireworks display.

On Saturday the Teutsches packed up and headed north to New York, stopping at Ikea on the way. Mike, Tom, Christiane and Baby Erik drove up to spend the second week here. As some space opened up at 85th, they opted to stay there; Tommy maintains that the baby accessories take up enough

space to fill up the place, and this way we'll have a little extra room when the Bucher-Dials arrive tomorrow. Avalon had scheduled a "Family Fun Day" at the beach, so we headed over and enjoyed steel-band music, face painting, a juggler, a magician, and balloon animals. We had much better luck with the weather this time, and the fireworks were very nice. Cliff and Kai coordinated an "ooohhh" and "aaaahh" call-and-response for the fireworks, which seemed to work well. The musical accompaniment, provided by the local radio station, was a John Philip Sousa medley, which sounded very patriotic right up until the point where it broke into the theme from Monty Python, which, unfortunately due to lifelong association, doesn't remind us much of our American patriotism. But that's pretty darned minor. We had a good time.

The rest of the time we've spent going to the beach, hanging out at the playground or around the house, and cooking/washing many, many dishes. I've devoted most of my time here to knitting, working on a shawl. However, I've gotten to about one-quarter of the way through it (which represents a good many hours' work, especially considering I've started over twice already), and I think I'm going to have to start over with smaller needles to get the look of stitches that I want. But it's a pasttime, so I'm just happy to be able to sit around knitting. On Friday I hope to perform surgery on my Mac Mini, which desperately needs more RAM, but which even Apple-certified technicians at the Apple store refuse to attempt. Really. I figure I'll have lots of moral support if I try it here. So if there's suddenly a deafening silence from me online, you'll know what's happened.

Harumi, who has a nicer camera and more patience, has graciously offered her pictures from the past week and a half as well.

Update from the Big Blue House

2008-07-04T11:51:43-04:00

Well, at least no one can call me a wimp. Yesterday at low tide the water around the dock withdrew to a point several feet away from the bulkhead, leaving a large expanse of gooey, slimey mucky muck. The guys were eyeing the mud and speculating whether the holes they saw in the mud were clam airholes. However, just like a Life Cereal commercial, there was a whole long conversation of "I'm not going down there to find out, you go down there." "Well, I'm not going down there." I figured a little mud couldn't hurt me, so I put on my cheap foam shoes and climbed down into the mud. My primary mission was to retrieve a few plastic cups that were lying about, do my part for keeping the bay clean. But I did dig around the holes, and while they didn't appear to be good indicators of exactly where clams were, I did manage, probably by accident, to find five clams. Which, I imagine, will be an appetizer for someone's dinner tonight. It was an adventure--the mud was really really gooey and it kept stealing my foam shoes, making it kinda hard to walk. But it definitely was an adventure.

It's been a nice, laid-back week so far at the Big Blue House. We're here a little later in the season than in years past, and it's paying off, in that there are more town-sponsored activities to partake of. Monday night we saw a magician in Stone Harbor, Tuesday we saw the movie Surf's Up on the beach, appropriately enough. Wednesday we went to Kids' Day at the Victorian-era Physick Family estate, where the kids were able to have their faces painted, create homemade bubble wands, and learn a little about everyday life in Victorian times in this part of the US. We toured the family house, which was lovely except for the Victorian penchant for painfully garish wallpaper and clashing patterns. I was excited because I got to see a couple of new household tools I'd never seen before, a bun cutter for slicing dough and a chain-mail (yes, real metal chain mail) pot scrubbing pad.

Some days just make you really, really glad to be living with the modern conveniences. They also had another magician at Kids' Day, and we were mildly amused to find that the two magicians had not only several magic tricks in common, but also many of their jokes. On Thursday we went to the Wildwood boardwalk and watched the kids giggle hysterically through a series of amusement rides.

There have been hidden adventures even in the ordinary things. When the grown-ups took the kids to the beach playground, they managed to get a toy airplane stuck in a tree, which led to several entertaining attempts to rescue it.

The grown-ups have been having fun as well. Cliff mopped the floor with the rest of us at Scrabble, and when he bowed out to read a book, the next game resulted in, well, heated words, to the point that we were contesting the choice of online dictionary to handle challenges. Later in the week we resorted to poker, which was an interesting fusion of two styles. In our house, we play nickel-ante, play-until-you're tired poker games, whereas in the Teutsch household they hold Texas Hold-em tournaments, which are played until there's no one left standing (which the tournament rules ensure isn't too long into the night).

When we explained how we played poker, Christian kept asking "but how do you know who's won?" So we played a little Hold-em, a little High-low, Follow the Lady, and even Anaconda. A good time was had by all, and no one was out their rent money at the end of the night.

For those who are wondering whether I've found any yarn stores yet: no, I haven't , but there is an alpaca farm in Cape May, which is sorely tempting. Because what I really, really need is a pound of alpaca roving.

As always, pretty pictures in the galleries.

Hangin' Out

2008-07-01T08:21:11-04:00

Hey y'all--

Greetings from the Big Blue House! Keith, Harumi, Kai and Mana are staying in one half,

and we are in the other half, with our friends Christian and Lydia Teutsch, with their lovely daughters Savannah and Abby. If you're counting; yes, that is, indeed, five children between the ages of four and eight. Those of you who followed along Cliff's adventures in the battlefields of France will remember Christian in the role of Other Responsible Adult—and medieval scholar—on the trip.* If you haven't checked out the blog, by the way, I highly recommend it. There's fun pictures, stories of cadet adventures, and a very entertaining video, which brings us the immortal quote: "yes, it's really an electric fence, but it's not like it's a dangerous electric fence."

It's been gorgeous weather, and, knock on wood, there haven't been any major disasters yet, except that I managed to destroy my cell phone before we even left the house. Apparently, phones don't like being submerged in water. Really, they ought to print a warning on the package or something. Actually, the phone dried out—mostly—and it works—mostly—but when I try to turn it off, it develops the Purple Screen of Doom and I have to remove the battery to do anything with it. I think I'm buying a new phone.

As with any vacation at the Big Blue house, we've devoted nearly all of our time here to Hanging Out, the most popular activity by far here on the island. Hannah and Savannah have spent most of their house time in their bedroom closet, which is apparently a really cool hangout if you're an 8-year-old girl. Abby's been making artistic creations. Kai has devoted his energies to reporting on all of the goings-on in the house and attempts at rallying the other kids for major campaigns, earning him the nickname "Kaiser." He's also assembling a navy, but we'll warn you if, on our trip to the bookstore this week, he starts eyeing maps of Eastern Europe. Mana is all over the place. The biggest attraction each day is the Running of the Crabs, when Keith walks to the end of our dock, hauls out the crab

traps, transfers any eligible crabs to a pot, and releases the rest of the crabs onto the dock to scuttle off into the bay. Kai and Mana run upstairs, announce "it's time to check the crabs!" and barefoot they all run down the many stairs to the dock, to dodge the snapping pincers which might try to pinch their tiny toes. There's often squealing involved. The grownups are all doing those things they love to do best, which often involves reclining with a novel or sleeping. I'm knitting a shawl; while the pattern made absolutely no sense whatsoever to me at first, some wonderful friends from Yorktown Stitch n Bitch helped me sort it out, and I'm happiest when I can sit for hours working on that. And, after years of sharing Cliff's laptop, which meant not having access when he was working, I have my computer with me this year, which means I can obsessively check my email, forums and boards, as well as update the blog in something resembling real time. Happy me!

The pretty pictures are in the picture gallery, and also check out our snaps from last week's Clearwater Music Festival, which was also blessed by wonderfully moderate weather.

*Truth be told, Christian sweated through the nuts-and-bolts of organization and planning, and Cliff was the Other Responsible Adult and Senior Scholar.

....And, we're back.

2008-02-28T12:58:07-05:00

Nope, no particular excuse for the long dry spell. I continue to entertain hopes of revamping the ol' pages, but haven't quite mustered the time and mental alertness.

It's been mostly a fun year. We enjoyed a great weekend at the Clearwater Hudson River Revival Festival in Croton. Aside from having fantastic music, Clearwater is the most feel-good festival around. Anyone wants to attend this year, we have a sofa bed and an extra trundle. Our fave new music discovery from last year? Entrain, who will be coming back this summer. Fun band outta Boston. At the end of the summer we made the trek to

Bethlehem, PA, for what seems like the biggest Celtic music festival ever, the Celtic Classic. There were six stages, a piping field and a stadium for highland game competitions. We stayed mostly close to the Grand Pavilion, which was probably the biggest honkin' tent we have ever been in in our lives. Cliff got to see one of his most favorite bands in the world, Old Blind Dogs. Twice. We saw a couple other bands, saw them later in encore performances, and had a generally good time. This is a clip of Hannah dancing to them here (Your playback experience may vary--I found that double-clicking the image began the video). Even Wales was represented--we met a fellow from Neath (now living in Ohio) and his wife, with a very nice collection of Welsh love spoons. And did I mention the festival is free! We're definitely going back next September.

It's Not That Easy, Being Green
In February of this year, we started looking into having solar panels installed on our roof. The good folks at The Solar Center (www.thesolarcenter.com--tell them we referred you and we get a bonus!) performed a site survey, and it turned out that we weren't eligible for tax incentives for solar electrical power because of a very large tree across the street, but that guidelines for solar hot water were slightly less stringent, which motivated us to order solar panels for our hot water system. Essentially, 2 1/2 seasons out of the year these panels accumulate enough heat energy to preheat our water before it enters our boiler, thus saving energy to bring it to full temperature, and in the summer the accumulated sunlight should heat our water almost entirely. A team of very nice guys came over and installed the panels, pipes and tank. Then the Town of Cortlandt (official motto, dating back to our Revolutionary War days: "No permit without a fight") requested an official plot survey of our property. The panels in question are four inches deep, installed flush with the roof, and the connecting pipes run under the eaves and down the side of the house. For this they need to know our property lines and offsets? This takes a week. Then the permit board asked for an engineer's report stating that our rafters would hold the weight. Each panel weighs less than any one of the workmen installing our roof last summer, so if it held their weight, I imagine it wasn't in any danger, but hey, bureaucrats have to be doing something. At this point, we were working our way into April. We waited. I received a letter--the permit was rejected due to "insufficient paperwork." Okay.... the permit office didn't bother telling the solar people the how and why, so our friend Jim at the Solar Center called to find out what exactly was their problem this time. Apparently the engineer wrote that our rafters met "international standards" for the task we were asking them to perform. The report did not say that the rafters met "New York standards" (which, coincidentally, are identical to international standards). So the engineer filed a new report. Which I believe the permit office promptly lost. They waited a few weeks, and after follow-up calls, claimed that they never received it. Now we're talking June, people. He re-submitted the report, and again they claimed to have never received it. Finally, they did get the third report, sent with UPS tracking,... and the system was installed in early August. It seems to be working great--we'll know more this summer, when we actually get to run it at full power and compare oil bills.

Another welcome development in the past year is that I've found a knitting group, the Northern Westchester Stitch n Bitch, which meets every Thursday evening at Panera Bread in Yorktown. It's a chance to get out among friends, and share the knitting knowledge. And this year the knitting enthusiasm was enough to drive me

up to Rhinebeck, NY, for the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival, which you have to experience to believe. It's like the State Fair on steroids, with real-live sheep, goats, llamas, bunnies, and the occasional other animal, workshops, and row upon row of dealers selling fiber, yarn, spinning wheels and related paraphernalia, and finished knitted items. It's a little overwhelming--next year I'm going to adequately prepare myself for the journey before venturing forth. I've also tried my hand recently at hand-spinning yarn, which is another way to spend hundreds of dollars to create with manual labor something you can get at the store. Cliff laughs at me because my two big-ticket dream purchases at the moment are a spinning wheel and the new iMac 22-inch computer with a maxed-out hard drive and 4GB of RAM. Of course, I'm still really, really horrible at spinning (done presently on an inexpensive drop spindle, just like the pioneers used to use), so only time will tell if I become good enough to not die of frustration and want to continue spinning on a more committed level. I'm also continuing to freelance for the National Maritime Historical Society, editing materials and occasionally writing for them. As always, if you know someone who is looking for a commercial editor or writer, by all means, please mention my name ; ).

Hannah is doing great. She's reached the point where she no longer loves

school; but she's doing fine, getting most-excellent report cards, and has several good friends. In her spare time she reads like a fiend (yeah--I wonder where she got that from?). She's been reading the Maybird series, the Lemony Snickets series, and a bunch of abridged classics for kids: The Invisible Man, The Swiss Family Robinson, Voyage to the Center of the Earth, etc. Her "treat" now on weekends is that she's allowed to read for an additional half-hour before going to bed. Hannah's other activities include Brownie scouts, an afterschool scrapbooking program, an informal dance class, and a Saturday-morning "Mad Science" class that teaches the kids scientific principles using fun props. She and Cliff still go to the coffee shop every Sunday for the music, as well as most Saturdays.

Cliff is, as always, dedicated, hard-working, and up to his ears in stuff to do. He continues to make our Saturday pizza each week, although he hasn't taught a master class in pizzology in a while. He's still working on the Encyclopedia, and articles, and many more projects. In June, he and a colleague will be taking a group of cadets on a study trip to Hundred Years War battlefields in France. Yeah, it's a hardship post, but somebody's got to do it.

Many of you have met Kosh, the smaller of our two cats. Last fall she escaped out the basement door. We scoured the neighborhood for days, passed out flyers... neighbors would call and say they'd seen her, but no luck. We even set out a small-animal trap, caught another neighborhood cat--twice--and the worlds' largest raccoon, but no Kosh. Three weeks later I'd nearly given up, when one night I heard meowing outside our back door (which is fairly enclosed). When I opened the door, the idiot ran away. We set out the trap next to the door the next night, and sure enough, it was our prodigal kitty. She was down to maybe 6 pounds, all skin and bones, but otherwise mostly okay. Now she looks exactly like she did before the great escape, so we're grateful to have her back. And she's let us know just how lucky we are to have her companionship once more.

Beauty and the Beast
Okay, most of you know we drank the TiVo Kool-Aid long ago. Once you go TiVo, life is just.... better. Which is one of the many reasons we've been hesitant to sign up for FiOS (for those outside the reach of Verizon's endless adverts: FiOS is fiber-optic networking, which supplies wonderfully fast broadband and also tv service, in competition with satellite and cable). We weren't at all sure whether FiOS would play nice with our TiVo, long a beloved member of the family. But we finally succumbed to the sales pitches of Verizon and got hooked up, now that they are offering discounted bundled services. The phone and internet are okay (and sometimes the internet is awesome--depends on what you're trying to do). But they hand you a Motorola DVR that is The Worst Product Ever Made. Really. I've heard people tell me anecdotes about a friend of a sister's neighbor, who had TiVo and then got the FiOS DVR and liked it better. No freakin' way is this true, and there's a reason you never talk to a real person who says they like it better. It never happened. Some amazing things this beast does:

--Let's say you recorded an episode of Stargate. You turn on the tv, start watching your recorded episode of Stargate. Then, 15 minutes later, it's 8:30 and your DVR is scheduled to record an episode of Spongebob for your child. The DVR not only begins to record Spongebob---it exits the episode of Stargate you were watching, and begins to play the episode of Spongebob, because apparently you weren't recording it to watch later, you must really, really want to see it live, as it's taping. So you have to go back to your "recorded episodes" menu, select Stargate, then select the right episode, and select "resume play" and then select "OK." You have to repeat this procedure every half hour, because you can't record just one Spongebob, you're recording four half-hour episodes. Are we having fun yet?
--The settings for recording and saving season passes is a one-size-fits-all for all of the shows you record. If you want to save a maximum of 5 Spongebobs, you're also stuck with a limit of 5 Stargates, and 5 Chucks, and 5 of everything else. Customizing recording settings? Forget it. SciFi channel has this nasty habit of offsetting their schedule so that their shows begin and end five minutes after the hour. TiVo allowed you to pad the recording time to end later. Not this monster.
--The button-response time on the remote is so slow that if you fast-forward through the commercials, you have to start hitting the "play" button in the middle of the 4th commercial and hope that after the 8th or 9th time you hit the "play" button it will eventually take the hint, stop fast-forwarding and actually return to playback mode. If it doesn't, you can fast-forward through the rest of the show, ending up somewhere in the end credits. The remote also doesn't appear to have a button that sends you directly to the beginning or end of a recording, so you have to either exit and re-start the recording (three more menu selections) or endlessly fast-reverse. Now I may be wrong about this--this remote has more buttons than a Victorian wedding dress, and I haven't deciphered more than half of them.

So we've hung on to our beloved TiVo, and suffer the indignity of the Beast only because we have to, making our poor baby coexist with it only until the eventual, inevitable switch to HD--when we can get an HD TiVo, which can get a card installed from FiOS and eliminate all other Verizon hardware whatsoever.

Oh, well, we all soldier on. I know some of you are only holding out for the pretty pictures, so you'll find those here, here and here.

The Big Four-Oh

2007-10-19T13:44:01-04:00

Well, guys we did it--we survived Operation Surprise Birthday Party.

I had gotten the idea in my head way back in June, that the best way to celebrate my husband's 40th birthday was with a surprise party. The scheming began early in September, when I started laying the foundation for the party, lining up a hall on post at West Point, and looking for a believable beard--someone in the History Dept. who could be my cover story for a party at the Class of 49 Lodge at West Point.

I needed co-conspirators in the History Department at West Point. Good friend Greta Bucher had warned me that a lot of Cliff's colleagues had computer screens facing their office doors, so that if an email happened to be open, someone could walk into their office and notice (not snooping, but just in the general process of walking in and looking for people) what was on the screen. So my initial emails to the department were camouflaged with a page or two of irrelevant stuff, which the poor victim had to scroll through to get to the actual message. Okay, so after a while it did seem like overkill, but, hey. I was just trying to be fun. My favorite decoy piece: a detailed analysis of the survival rate of red-shirt crew members on Star Trek, as related to alien contact, fights breaking out, and Capt. Kirk hooking up with a local babe. Check it out for yourself; statistics were never this fun in school.

So anyway, these poor souls in the History Dept. were inundated by an avalanche of messages from me, looking for volunteers, advice, general conspiracy assistance. It was a little unnerving, really--people were enthusiastic about Cliff's birthday, and the general concept of having a party, but they were really, really into the deception. "I'd like to help with the sneaky part." "I'd be glad to help with the lying.""The more twisted, the better." Remind me not to turn my back on these guys.

As the party drew nearer, my panic level rose. Poor Cliff--he came home one evening to find me ready to explode. I'd been dealing with a party-related setback, which made me cranky, and then my external hard drive died. By the time he got home, I basically did my best Incredible Hulk impression. "Don't make me angry--you wouldn't like me when I'm angry." He backed slowly out of the kitchen... . There were so many little details, like finding a dj, ordering the drinks and goodies, making sure everyone was there in time to yell "surprise." Yikes!

So finally the Big Day arrived. I got up that morning, ready to go to the gym,

planning on grocery shopping, cooking, and sneaking party stuff into my car while Cliff took Hannah to ballet. This is when I noticed that my darling husband had let his car inspection sticker expire a month earlier. Which meant he couldn't drive his car that morning, and I'd be trapped at home. So I zipped through the grocery store on the way home from the gym, and while Cliff and Hannah were at ballet and her Mad Science class, I cleaned and cooked like a crazy person. In the afternoon we dropped his car off for a new inspection sticker, he took her to the coffee shop downtown, and I cleaned some more, and tucked a few things in my car. Okay, maybe this was gonna work. The babysitter arrived, and I sneaked out of the house to hide more party stuff in my car. Then my husband says to me: "I figure we should take my car, 'cause it's got a West Point sticker." Okay, Shel, think fast:... "No, I should drive, because I generally don't drink as much at these things." And.... breathe.

We arrived promptly at 8:00, and there were signs of life in the lodge. Sure enough, when we walked in, the guests sang Happy Birthday, and Cliff was... gobsmacked. Fantastic deer-in-the-headlights astonishment on his face. He was surprised! Woo Hoo! The rest, as they say, is history. A great time was had by all. We coaxed a brave, happy few onto the dance floor, and had a great time dancing until what passes for us as the wee hours, getting down to the greatest dance hits of the 70s and 80s and no, not feeling at all like old fogies. Check out the pictures in the photo gallery.

So once again, thank you one and all for your patience and help, for making the trip and taking the time. I really do appreciate it. And if you feel like planning a surprise party sometime, call me. I'd like to help with the sneaky part.

So Long, Farewell, auf wiedersehen, good-bye....

2007-06-21T16:34:45-04:00

Yes, today was Hannah's last day of school. For our friends outside the American school system: yes, you read correctly. School ended today, and doesn't take up again until the first week in September. That's a lotta weeks of summer break. Van Cortlandtville school has a time-honored tradition called The Wave. Every school bus lines up, circles back around, and drives a victory lap past the school's front door, where the school's teachers and staff wave and cheer, while the kids hang out the bus windows like eager golden retrievers and wave back.

Speaking of school, we had great fortune last week. Hannah's class had read the book Flat Stanley, which is all about a little boy who is flattened by a bookcase. Remarkably unfazed by the accident, he goes about doing good deeds and saves on airfare by mailing himself to relatives for a vacation. Classes reading Flat Stanley often make little paper flat Stanleys and mail them to faraway places for their own vacations. Hannah sent hers to visit her friend and former classmate Esma in Swansea. Esma took Stanley to school at Brynmill Primary and he got to meet some of Hannah's Welsh chums, and he took at turn on the playground at Brynmill Park. To our amazement, Stanley's return trip via the Royal Mail took about three days, so he arrived in time for Hannah to share Stanley's adventures with her class. Thanks Esma!

Just last week we attended the Clearwater Hudson River Revival, now in its 29th year. It's the feel-good event of the season. People wear whatever makes them happy, dance without fear of people finding them silly-looking, and have a general good time. In addition to a

ridiculous number of performance stages and entertainers, Clearwater offers visitors a chance to try out kayaking, peruse the craft booths, see demonstrations on everything from spinning fibers to converting automobiles to run on biofuels, or cruise the Green Living tent and learn how to live more gently on the planet. And of course if it all gets to be overwhelming, you can just sit on the banks of the Hudson and enjoy the view. Hannah spent many, many hours climbing trees, and came home both days wearing a significant portion of dirt. She had a very good time. The summer is shaping up for her already; just three weeks ago, she and Cliff went down to the beach to stay with her Uncle Keith, Aunt Harumi, and cousins Kai and Mana. And this weekend we're heading back to the beach to meet up with more family and friends. Watch this space for more pictures.

Gardening. My Faith-Based Initiative.

2007-05-12T03:50:03-04:00

Our yard has grubs. I don't know what kind. In fact, until last week, I didn't even know what they looked like. But the day we took pictures of our poor, besieged lawn to the Agricultural Extension booth at the farmer's market, they said, "Yep. Looks like you've got grubs, alright." We put some beneficial nematodes on the grass in the fall; they recommend ("they" here being garden experts, and not the actual nematodes) that you put on a second application the next spring to catch any stragglers. And since I found actual grub-looking things in the garden, that seems wise.

So when you purchase nematodes, the postman brings a smallish box marked: Live Insects, Please Rush! to your door. If you're not ready to apply them right away, you're supposed to put them in the refrigerator until conditions are just right. Nothing makes your guests feel right at home like a package marked "live insects" in the fridge.

You then spend the next two weeks hoping for rain, which of course guarantees you sunny weather for weeks at a stretch. The little critters are supposed to be applied when the ground is wet, and then washed into the soil, so ideally you should apply them in the rain, after it has already rained for an hour, and when it should rain another hour or so afterward. After two weeks of sunshine we had some showers in the morning and afternoon. That evening (nematodes dry up in the sunshine, so it has to be after sundown if it's not really, really cloudy or, you know, raining) I prepared my magic mixture. You take a little blue sponge, which looks for all the world like just a little blue sponge but is allegedly jam-packed with a million microscopic critters (really--the package says "one million nematodes"), and rinse it out in a gallon of water. The water then looks completely unchanged. You fill up the reservoir of a hose applicator with this water, attach it to a hose, and spray. Since the nematode mixture is clear, there's no way of knowing when the reservoir of the sprayer has used up the mixture and is now drawing just normal water. You just spray a lot, and hope there's something in there. I feel like clapping my hands and saying "yes, I do believe in nematodes." Cross your fingers, everyone. If this works, then we can go after the dandelions, crabgrass, ground ivy and the half-windshield's worth of glass still in front from the magnificent car crash in our yard during our absence.

Neener, Neener, Neener

2006-12-19T19:33:35-05:00

Just came across this statistic: Capricorns are the safest drivers on the road. Check it out!

Some Funnies to Cheer You Up

2006-12-16T13:00:52-05:00

First of all, there's a nice little tour of Hannah's room on the movies page. Her walls still look a little bare; we're looking for frames for some artwork, and having a difficult time finding appropriate magnet boards for her own creations. If any of you out there see anything like the Big Dot Board in the "large" size in pink, (or anything similar in size and girliness) please let us know. The co. has discontinued the pink, and didn't tell their retailers.

One of the silly things we've acquired over the last month or so was a little 1GB mp3 player, purchased because, among other things, it only cost $10. Well, this little critter has the most impossible-to-comprehend user's manual I have ever seen, and I've seen a few. I'm guessing they fed the original Chinese into an electronic translator set to "Greek" (with possibly a hop through "Inuit" and "Klingon") before they ran the result through again for "English." A sample:

The point recommends!Encrypt the dish function.General MP3 customer will suffer “the data divulges a secret” of harassment, don’t wish to let own personal data seen by other people, be afraid using hour only have to delete first. Result in very the hemp is vexed.From today, the encrypted the dish function will resolve this problem thoroughly.The customer can divided USB dish with the supplementary tool in the player (the customer can see two designs on the computer, Windowes 2000 wants the gearing SP4, otherwise can see only one, to see the other must under the system enactment / conjunction-machine mode” choose the single common dish” or the “single encrypt dish” ) And encrypt the function to the dish for encrypting (can also don’t encrypt, like this dichotomous the dish to use), contents concealing, having no password can’t seeing data, this is very liking using.

Cliff's favorite line is "Result in very the hemp is vexed." Needless to say, I haven't been able to make it work yet. (Maybe I vexed the hemp). But I shall. We like technology.

While looking for magnet boards for Hannah's room we came across this. Maybe I was just giddy from all the shopping, but something about "wheels for smooth gliding action" had me giggling for about 15 minutes.

For fans of Old Time Radio (American, at least) I offer the following link. I've been listening to Fibber McGee and Molly lately; it's great fun. Although should I admit that perhaps my favorite part of the show are the commercial plugs; those old radio shows were sponsored by a product, and I get a kick out of listening to the male announcer extolling the virtues of Johnson's floor wax. Even better is Don Wilson on the Jack Benny program, getting very enthusiastic about Jello each week, even sharing some truly horrific-sounding Jello recipes (Jello cabbage salad, anyone?).

Just a Keystroke Away
Finally, a plug to keep in touch. We're still encouraging them as have webcams to drop us a line and we'll set up a chat. We're also now a Skype household, so anyone with Skype can dial us up for free. Just drop me an email and I'll give you our username.

Happy Holidays, folks!

Just some various stuff

2006-11-26T20:33:03-05:00

First, a note to any of our friends abroad: last week was Thanksgiving. Cliff had long-ago committed to a conference in France and was still working on the paper to present, so we stayed close to home and had a very, very quiet Thanksgiving dinner.

The day after Thanksgiving here has developed into a shopping frenzy that was dubbed "Black Friday." [We're not sure why--even the mighty Wikipedia is a little murky on its origins, but the smart money is on the theory that poor souls who worked in retail created the name, because really, who here wouldn't want to get to work by 4:45 a.m. the day after a major family-oriented holiday and face New-Years-Eve-in-Times-Square-style crowds, all cranky because they had to show up at 4:45 a.m., only to stand in line for an hour in an overheated store in their winter coats?] Retail stores throw open their doors early, offering insanely low prices on a few select items in very limited quantities, and the bleary-eyed shoppers line up before dawn in hopes of catching the elusive bargains. Best Buy actually promised to have an employee outside the store at 4 a.m. to hand out numbered tickets to customers waiting patiently for the store to open at 5. We didn't test that out ourselves, what with our not being, you know, masochists. What's kind of funny is the fact that the stores get so jam-packed with customers after the super-cheap stuff, that I can't imagine that many people buy much of the regularly-priced stuff--it's impossible to take the time to actually look around, and the wall-to-wall press of bodies must also inhibit shopping--so the stores pay for extra staffing hours and sell stuff at below-cost, and I wonder if they make it up in sales at all. But it's become a tradition.

We've spent many Thanksgivings in the wilds of southern New Jersey, far, far away from the big stores. But this year we were going to be home, convenient to the heavy hitters. So my husband actually created an Excel spreadsheet listing the stores and the items we might be interested in, to figure out which stores would be worth trying and which ones to pass on. Hee! Since there's no way we'd subject Hannah to this circus, Cliff volunteered to go out exploring around 6:30 a.m. (the slacker!). He first tried Circuit City, whose parking lot was completely full and overflowed into the neighboring two lots. After about 5 minutes actually in the store, he bailed. On to Home Depot and Office Max, which were reasonably sane. He bought a few things which we actually wanted and have already put into use. Then he braved Kohl's department store and, armed with my additional coupon for %15 off, purchased enough work trousers to last him the next 5 years at a scandalously low price, as well as some goodies for the rest of us.

Another UFO conquered!
In the wild-and-crazy world of knitting, a UFO is an UnFinished Object--you set something down, either because something else demands your time, or you hit a difficulty, or you just plain get sick of it. And the longer it lies there, ignored, the smaller the likelihood it will ever be completed. Well, while we were in Wales, Cliff picked up at the thrift shop (charity shop) a couple of balls of mysterious purple and gold wool, all for about 1£ (that's about 2 bucks, guys). I decided to knit a bag.... to carry my knitting about in. Since it was self-contained and only one piece, I carried it everywhere--to the park, the theatre, and of course Wednesday's Stitch-n-Bitch--and it was done in a couple of weeks. I dubbed it my Monster Bag. Once done, it needed to be lined with fabric. But, knowing that my trusty sewing machine and ginormous stash of fabric were waiting for me back in the States, I put off lining it until this fall, where it had to wait in line behind several other projects. But the bag, she is done! Photos in the gallery.

Just when you think you've seen it all

2006-10-30T04:50:14-05:00

Did you tell all your friends about Serenity? Send Universal the bill.

Once upon a time, there was a tv show called Firefly. It was really good, and the people who actually watched it liked it a lot, but it was cancelled quickly by the Fox network, who found it to be cheaper to run shows like Joe Millionaire. Fans of the show wrote e-mails, postcards, and petitions, even taking out full-page ads in Variety, to demonstrate to the other networks that if they picked up the show, they would have an enthusiastic, loyal fan base and the show would find an audience. They adopted the name Browncoats, the brave souls who fought a war against the all-engulfing bureaucratic Alliance, but were eventually defeated by the better-funded Big Brother types in the Firefly mythology. The other networks didn't bite, but Universal Studios knew that Firefly creator Joss Whedon was a hot commodity, so they asked him to make a movie based on the series. [For those of you who aren't familiar with the Whedonverse: this part of the story scores high on the irony-meter, as Joss's most famous project, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was a tv show based on the movie that didn't do well at the box office.]

Looking to cash in on the built-in fan base, Universal created a web site and courted the participation of the Browncoats, appealing to their loyalty to the franchise and asking the fans to stir up word of mouth about the movie, to be called Serenity, as it was being produced. Fans were encouraged to create fan art to use on posters, decals, and flyers and then urged to display and distribute these materials to anyone not actively running away from them. "Go!" said Universal. "Promote our movie!" So the happy Browncoats recruited a membership of 75,000, talked up the movie to anyone who would listen, spent hours creating images promoting the movie, and generally acting as Universal's foot soldiers. This technique isn't new, by the way, it's called "viral marketing." Universal was just seeing how far they could ride the free-advertising train.

While all this was going on, the Browncoats were clamoring for merchandise related to the film. Where are the official t-shirts, decals, action figures and breakfast cereals? This was a youngish fan base, bursting with disposable income and accustomed to buying tv-show collectibles. The studio responded by making a few items available as premiums, rewards for accumulated points earned by participating in the marketing campaign. They weren't terribly great t-shirts, and you couldn't buy them. The fans responded by creating their own artwork, t-shirt designs, decals etc. A few enterprising souls created storefronts and sold them to other fans. Since the official franchise showed no interest in merchandising their own show, the fans bought the stuff.

Well, the movie came and went. Serenity wasn't a huge success... but it wasn't a huge failure, either. Amazingly, renewed interest in the franchise sent dvd sales of the three-years-gone Firefly series at Amazon.com through the roof. Subsequent special screenings of Serenity are still being shown as fundraisers for charity events, and have raised some respectable cash. But also amazingly, the corporate beasts involved with Firefly and Serenity are flexing their corporate legal muscles. Fox, which gave up on Firefly four years ago, has suddenly sent its legal team to shut down sales of Firefly-related goodies because they directly compete with... what? Their non-existent product lines? Then Universal hauled out its legal big guns and proceeded to send shut-down orders to everyone selling fan goodies, and went so far as to bill them for lost licensing fees. This is the same studio that spent nearly three years asking fans to take fandom into their own hands and donate their time and enthusiasm to the studio, gratis. This year's Christmas wishlist: somebody please send the folks at Universal a dictionary, so they can look up the definition of class.

Hannah Has a Purple Room

2006-10-23T15:19:05-04:00

Well, we did it! Hannah's bedroom has always been kind of generic--the same old peach color it was when we bought the house, a dresser we bought back at a moving sale in Stamford ten years ago,... she's been dying to have a room that felt like it was hers. Which means, of course, that we had to paint it purple. If she had gotten her way entirely we would have painted the whole room, including the ceiling, dark purple, but we compromised. The ceiling got a fresh coat of ceiling white, two opposing walls would be lilac, and the other two opposing walls would be a slightly darker shade of purple.So Cliff's mom Jacqueline came up for a weekend visit and kept Hannah company while Cliff and I painted. Now some of you may recall that our house was built by monkeys, and I suspect they weren't particularly well-trained monkeys. This theme carried through our painting project: it took us nearly an hour just to shut off the power to the outlets in her room so we could wash the walls and remove the switchplates. I fully expect, someday, to find the original wiring certificate for this house, signed by Alf and Ralph, the Monroe Brothers. The overhead light was on the same circuit with our bedroom and one wall fixture in my downstairs office. Two of the three electrical outlets shared a circuit with Cliff's upstairs office and the downstairs bathroom, and the third outlet was somehow on a circuit with one of the rooms in the basement. So it took about 12 trips up and down the stairs to isolate the three switches on the breaker box, shutting off the power to room after room, hoping that that last holdout outlet would somehow be included. (Yes, next time we'll use the walkie-talkies, but of course this occurred to me halfway through the project, and thus too late to bother.) And my apologies to that family in Canarsie whose television kept blinking on and off--really, it won't happen again. At least until we have to paint another room.

The next step in Operation Purple Blast was a lot of brush-painting. The walls in our upstairs rooms are all done in a proto-drywall, where the seams between drywall sheets are covered with a strip of wood trim. So each strip of wood trim had to be brush-painted, as well as the drywall surrounding the trim ("cutting in"). Now consider that we had to go through this process with white (ceiling) and two different shades of purple, so there was taping and brush-cleaning at every turn. It took us two full days to get the job done. But it's done! Yeah!

Now, with freshly-painted walls, our task was to assemble the new furniture as it arrived. We chose the Mission line of bedroom furniture from Target. And lest those of you who know me well would mock me for this, we had looked around a bit and the Target stuff got excellent customer reviews and looked really nice, and simply turned out to be the best match for our needs/tastes out of what we looked at. So she's got all kinds of new furniture, and we're on our way to a finished room. And, hey, the Mission stuff went on sale this week, so we got an additional $80 back in price adjustments. I'm just sayin'. The stencil pattern we'd chosen is only sold by a co. in the UK(!), so we're patiently waiting for that to arrive so we can stencil a border on the walls. Yet to come are white blinds on the windows, magnetic bulletin boards for her artwork, and select pictures.

The family taking a break--relaxing in front of the first fire of the season.

Various interesting things I've come across online:

What to get this holiday season for the gal who has everything. But does it fit in your pocket?

Wondering what day today would be if we were citizens of the Revolutionary French Republic? Here's a program to tell you that.

My favorite music video ever. You've probably seen this already, but...this is just too fun to watch.

Behold, the Poundy Drums!

2006-10-02T06:39:57-04:00

This weekend we headed up to Hartford, Connecticut for the Pipes in the Valley concert. One day of Celtic music and festival food on the banks of the Connecticut River.

Mother Nature was kind to all that day--the previous day had been drizzly, the day after was actually heavy thunderstorms, but Saturday was fairly sunny, and a great time was had by all. There was a band with bagpipes and steel-drum-effect keyboards ("Celtlypso"!), a band with bagpipes and didgeridoo, and more traditional types in between. Hands-down fave with our family was Albannach, playing big honkin' drums and bagpipes. And hey guys, this is cool--if you click on that link and go to their web site, you can listen to their music streaming online. Not just samples, but pretty much anything they've recorded. It's traditional going-into-battle music, which got the crowd very riled up, and I think if they had asked us to, we would have willingly banded together and invaded Massachusetts. Or at least nearby Bristol---we coulda taken 'em. Anyways, there's footage on the videos page, including a moment where I'm talking to Hannah and she gives me her patented "you can't be serious" look. One note about the video--I think all of us, at one time or another, have given in to instinct and turned the video camera sideways, trying to get a taller shot. Hey, you can rotate photos, right? But rotating footage in iMovie requires purchasing third-party apps, and on the whole, I'd rather not bother. But this is the footage we have of Hannah dancing. So if you're not prone to vertigo, just tilt your head to one side when prompted (or turn your screen sideways, you laptop folk), and I promise to try to stay upright in the future.

Just Call Her Jack...

2006-09-16T22:02:29-04:00

O'Lantern, that is. Front Tooth Number One finally

gave up its hold, and Front Tooth Number Two is hanging on be sheer determination. We think it's rather seasonal.

Hannah's had a pretty good summer. We kicked off the summer at the Big Blue House in Avalon, New Jersey, which combined the allure of the Jersey Shore with a chance to see long-distance family, as well as play with her friend Rebecca Dial. The Shore was followed by four weeks at summer camp at the town pool, which didn't look promising at first but turned out to be a big hit by the end of the sessions. We rounded out camp with extra visits to the pool and Sprout Brook Pond, and finished the summer with half-day Art Camp at the Cortlandt/Croton Center for the Arts, where Hannah made masterpieces in ink, paint, watercolor, clay and tye-dye. Not too shabby.

School is back in session, and we're all looking forward to more of a routine, along with afterschool activities like Girl Scouts. art class and dance class. I imagine I'll be a glorified chauffeur most of the semester.

For those who are following the saga of our destroyed landscaping, the mysterious voices I heard last week out my window turned out to be a work crew, building a new stone wall to replace the one originally supporting the (apparently ineffective) guardrail lining our yard. It looks quite nice, really. Of course, this picture is of the stretch in front of our neighbor's yard--ours is still scary looking, as we have to repair the damage done by a 2-ton convertible to the vegetation. Amazing what it takes to flatten a 60-year-old bush. Our street was once a sleepy one--our neighbors, now 80, tell us that they can remember a time when you could sit out front all day without seeing a car. Now it 's a major artery, taken by endless school buses, heavy trucks, and passenger cars moving much too fast from point A to point B.

I'm Mister Lonely....
Here's a photo of my poor, lonely

iSight camera. Installed over a month ago, he hasn't seen any action since. We (I) bought this camera, thinking we'd take the first step in long-distance communication. Once you buy the camera, web chatting is free, right? Since long-distance phone calls are expensive and can be less-than-ideal connection-wise, what a great way to talk to friends oh-so far away. So, please--let us know if you want to talk. I don't think any of us is online enough to just "call" via web chat service, but we can certainly arrange calls by e-mailing ahead of time. We've got the AOL Instant Messenger (It's Free!) ID of shelincm, but I am more than willing to use a site like iVisit.com, just to see familiar faces and say hello. If nothing else, it's a chance to see our kitchen.

An actual finished knitting project.

I haven't had much opportunity to knit this summer, but I did make up the poncho. I bought the yarn at the Get Knitted warehouse Saturday in Bristol, a last-hurrah field trip with the girls of Stitch-n-Bitch. Now on the needles: a purple cotton sweater.

Summer Update

2006-08-08T06:50:41-04:00

Hi y'all!

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer.

Books, Everywhere
Our summer here has been dominated by Cliff's book. It has to be finished this summer--even if there weren't publishers breathing down

his neck, classes begin at USMA next week and he's back at school--and he's been up and working on it by 6 am every day since we got back. The NY heat has driven him into our front room to work, leaving us with this picture.

Hannah has been going to the town summer camp, which consists of lots of swimming, crafts, and the opportunity to play games like dodgeball, which she generally ignores. She'll be going to half-day art camp for the final two weeks of August, as well as going to the pool with me and generally hanging out, then school will be back in session. Yeah! It's been a rough summer for her, not knowing many kids in town, and we're looking forward to getting her into a stable setting where she can make some friends. The setup here in NY definitely suffers by comparison to what we had in Swansea--everyone is so spread out, and if she does meet children at school, there's no central place like the park to meet up for playdates.

Vehicular Herbicide

I've been working a bit every morning on the yard to try to tame the wilderness. Last October, after we had already left the country, a woman driving a convertible down our street on a Sunday morning rode up onto the guardrail, flipped over into our neighbor's yard, plowed through his picket fence and into our yard, destroying much of our front yard, including a juniper bush that probably predates the Truman administration. The Town of Cortlandt (Motto: "Saving you money through inaction since 1992") ripped out the compromised guardrail, replacing it with... sawhorses and yellow caution tape. And they left it there, making our front lawns look like one big crime scene, for eight months. Finally, in late June some workmen came and installed a new guardrail, but my neighbor tells me they bent the supports in doing so, thus making them structurally about as useful as the aforementioned sawhorses in deflecting wayward vehicles from our property. Meanwhile, they have left the stone retaining wall underneath the guardrail in a huge mess, with chunks of cement and very large stones scattered about. Occasionally the town engineer stops by, sometimes bringing contractors to provide an estimate on repairs to the wall. Secretly, they're holding out for the guy who says "Can I do it for free? I've never built anything like this but I'd like the practice." They move stealthily and leave before we can run out of the house and talk to them, maybe ask what's going on.

Speaking of stealth and our yard, we have two regular guests, Lucy and Ethel. They are two large white-tailed dear who consider our bushes extra-yummy. Of course, they haven't appeared since I got it into my head to photograph them, but watch this space for photos. It won't be difficult; you have to get within 6 feet of them to chase them off, and even then they only bound off into the scratchier branches, where they know I won't venture.

In other news, we have a webcam! It's a beautiful Apple iSight. We've tested it, the picture is wonderful, the sound works... and it's lonely. We are just eager to try it out. Please! Naturally, it would be helpful to schedule video chats ahead of time, which is less spontaneous than the phone, but please, let us know. I miss talking to everyone, and I know Hannah would love to chat with friends and family in faraway places.

Cats
Here are our two beautiful cats, Ozzie and Kosh. Oz's full name is Ozymandias, from the poem by Shelley. I thought it would be a great name for a cat, since the poem

is about delusions of grandeur. Oz, however, is not only afraid of her own shadow, she jumps at every snap, crackle and pop she hears. Kosh is the one who exudes entitlement. But that works, too, as she is named for a character on Babylon 5 who is very powerful and generally acts superior. Anyway, many have heard of them, few have seen them, so here are pictures. They usually don't look so displeased; I think it's the flash on the camera.

Just for Fun
Just one fun link this time, found online on the way to looking for something else.

Build your own Skype headset.

Well, here we are

2006-06-09T17:01:04-04:00

Hmmm.... when we last reported, we were getting ready to move. Our Big Yard Sale was scheduled for Saturday, 27 May. We spent about 8 hours between us sorting, pricing, and setting out the books, clothes, toys, bike, scooter and miscellaneous stuff we'd accumulated over the year. And it rained. And rained. And rained. Exactly four parties showed up. And one of those groups, Hannah's classmate Alex and his mom, Helen, had only stopped by to say goodbye. My husband, the eager salesman, made sure she left with two bags full of stuff. So needless to say, once the sale was done, Irene drove Cliff down to the charity shop (thrift shop) for two carloads of dropoffs, and then another carload or two went to the church youth program. We spent the rest of the afternoon in pack/recovery mode, and that evening some friends stopped by for a farewell dinnner, and we had visitors and callers to say goodbye as well. We were a bit zombified by that point, for which I apologize to everyone involved.

Sunday was pretty typical for the last day of a big move. Everything seemed under control until around noon, when it was clear we had another 2 hours' worth of packing and straightening to do, and a little less than an hour to do it. We went intto zoom-mode, throwing things into trash bags and suitcases in a mad dash to get out of the house. Cliff's extra-large suitcase, which had broken one handle on the journey from the States, popped a rivet. Cliff used duct tape and a butchered jump-rope to secure the handle as best he could. We were ready and waiting by the front door with ten minutes to spare. Goodbye, Knoll Ave.! We'll miss you.

We took the train to London. It's a very nice journey, passing mostly countryside and farms. Trains are such a civilized way to travel. The seats are roomy, you can get up and wander around, and the view out the windows is generally quite nice.I like trains.

Once in London, we checked in at the Ascot Hotel, the least-expensive hotel within walking distance of the train station. It was surreal. I had been expecting a tiny room and ancient infrastructure; I was grateful the place had a lift. But I have never before seen a hotel room without a rubbish bin! When you imagine having to take all of the tissues and other stuff you generally toss in the bin and piling it on the counter somewhere, it's really rather unpleasant. Can't imagine Housekeeping enjoys it, either. In addition, the phone didn't work, the hair dryer didn't work, and there was no cup for niceties like brushing teeth. But it was a place to stay, and it was minutes from the train station, so it was okay. Once we'd eaten dinner, Cliff set out to buy a new large suitcase, because this large suitcase had ripped all along the handle, and the plastic frame had snapped.

The next day we were tourists in London. We rode The Big Bus tour, which is essentially a shuttle between various tourist attractions in town. Cliff and Hannah rode the London Eye, the world's largest ferris wheel. We met up with the Brimbles, family friends of the Rogers's, and had a nice lunch. Then on to a boat ride on the Thames and an early dinner, and early to bed--the only option in a tiny room with a 5-year-old who needs her sleep.

Tuesday was filled with travel: express shuttle to Heathrow, flight to Boston, connecting flight to LaGuardia, USMA van to the Thayer Hotel, a posh old hotel on the grounds of West Point, overlooking the Hudson River. Our housesitter was still living in our house, we were carless, and Cliff had to teach all day on Wednesday, so a place close to work was the logical place to stay. What a difference from the surreal Ascot in London! And for the benefit of our British friends, I took a photo of the bathroom: not only is there an electrical outlet next to the sink, there's a hair dryer and a coffee maker plugged in! This, to me, is America. [Note to Americans: Uk building codes prohibit electrical outlets in bathrooms. This baffles us.]

Thursday afternoon we came home. My car wouldn't start (dead battery and flat tire), so we called our garage to tow it and fix it. Cliff took Hannah for a walk into town, and I assembled my paperwork to walk down to the DMV to get license plates for my car. I got halfway into town, when I realized I was missing my insurance docs, so I walked home, fetched them, and headed back into town. Typically, the DMV had a long, long line. The Peekskill office has a "system," whereby everyone has to wait in one line to get a number, which they take to the main waiting room and wait to be called to a service window. But meanwhile, all requests for drivers licenses are handled by the person handing out numbers, so everyone in line has to wait while the applicant for a drivers license reads the eye chart, fills out their forms, and has their picture taken. It took 40 minutes in line just to get a number. Then, when I got a number, and it was called, I was told I had the incorrect form for my insurance, and I had to find a phone, call the insurance co., and request a different proof of insurance. My insurance co. faxed the new insurance card... but faxed the proof of insurance for Cliff's car, not mine. With the office due to close five minutes later, I gave up and walked home. It had started to rain. I stopped at the corner store, and ran into Cliff and Hannah. By the time we left the store, it was raining the kind of pouring-down rain that makes umbrellas useless--and a passing car made sure we were drenched. So were were tired, soaked, and still carless.

We've spent the last week digging out. We got Hannah registered in school, and thankfully they are allowing her to attend for the last two weeks of this term. She seems to be enjoying it, and it's something to keep her entertained during the day. Our basement was filled with stuff: closet contents, excess kitchen stuff, miscellaneous belongings. We've been slowly bringing stuff up to repopulate the house. The yard is going to be a big challenge; we've been fighting a holding action for years just to keep the weeds and overgrown bushes at bay; last summer we had to neglect the yard to accomplish other things, and our housesitter wasn't in a position to do a lot of yard work (and we certainly didn't expect him to). To add some magic to our landscaping, last winter a driver (in a convertible, no less) flew up over the guardrail in front of our house and flipped over onto our yard, mashing quite a bit of the bushes in our front yard. So all in all, it looks a bit of a mess.

Cliff's main priority right now is finishing a book by the end of the month. I'm juggling unpacking, shopping (cell phones, computer monitor, clothes for Hannah), admin (car registration, school registration, sorting out accounts here etc.). and actual paid work. It keeps a body busy. So far, the only thing that's gone missing over the move is a CD wallet with DVDs, computer games, and software discs. Grrrr.

Thanks to everyone for all their help! We hope you will keep in touch, and we will make every effort to do so as well. If anyone already has a webcam, let me know. I hope to acquire one soon, most likely using a third-party web site like iVisit, so that we can communicate with our PC friends.

New pictures in the photo galleries.

Down to the Wire

2006-05-26T18:23:01+01:00

First, let me be the first to announce to the world that Cliff has been approved for a promotion (a year early--yeah!) and later this summer he will be a Full Professor. Congratulations, Cliff!

We are in the throes of packing and getting ready to leave. This week has been a series of farewells, to Hannah's play group at Pantygwdr Baptist, to my Stitch-N-Bitch, to friends, neighbors and colleagues. We are so very grateful to have made so many friends here, and will miss them all. Today the UPS driver picked up 9 (yes, 9) boxes to be shipped back to NY, so whatever else we want to bring back will have to ride in a suitcase. For those of you who are keeping track, that trip will be thus:

1) Sunday train to London.
2) Monday in London.
3) Tuesday 8:00 check-in at Heathrow, 11:00 flight. To Boston. Where we will spend 2 hours wandering around, then board another flight to New York. Where we will gather up our worldly belongings and be whisked away in the West Point van (thank you, West Point!) to the Thayer Hotel, not far from Cliff's office.
4) Wednesday Cliff has to teach nearly all day. Hannah and I get to wander around post. Another night in Thayer Hotel.
5) Thursday (still with us?) we hope a kindly friend will ferry us home, where we will cross our fingers and toes and hope that at least one of our cars will start. We get to walk to the local DMV and re-register our cars, thus using up most of the rest of the day. Okay, that last bit was hyperbole. I hope. Hopefully Cliff will have time to take Hannah to the coffee shop in Peekskill. Mmmmm, bagels. If the cars start, then we will re-acquaint ourselves with driving on the right side of the road, and maybe go to the grocery store and buy flank steak, real peanut butter, Life cereal, cartons of American Diet Pepsi and Coke (it's formulated different here, not to mention way more expensive).

And then we'll be back in business.

Some new pictures up in the Photo Gallery, the Stitch-N-Bitch gang in action.

See y'all on the other side!

Geoffrey Chaucer has a Blog!

2006-05-21T17:19:42+01:00

http://houseoffame.blogspot.com/

Lists

2006-05-14T19:52:45+01:00

Things I'll miss:

1) Brynmill Park. It's at the end of our street--so close you can see it from our back garden. Any day when it's not raining and wet, you'll find us sitting in a row on the park benches, while the kids run out their excess energy.

2) Taking Hannah to school every morning. It's a 7-minute walk to school; while not all the parents are good friends, it makes you feel part of the world, just greeting everyone in the morning and chatting until the bell rings.

3) The Taliesin Centre for the Arts. Located on the University campus, a 10-minute walk from our house, the Taliesin has music, theater, and movies all season long.

4) Cliff's 10-minute walk to school. No traffic, no parking hassle, no waiting.

5) Chips!

6) Welsh accents.

7) The Indian grocer's on St. Helens. Wonderful produce at decent prices.

8) The Swansea market.

9) Cliff not having to become a hermit every 3 1/2 weeks to grade exams/papers/finals.

Things I won't miss:

1) Living in a rented house. We were very, very fortunate to find the house we did, which is quite nice, in this location, which is ideal. But, living in someone else's house means living with choices which are not your own. Our kitchen is really a multipurpose room, serving also as Hannah's crafts room and my office, which means we have piles of stuff and a rat's nest of computer cords. How I long to get back to having a place to put everything away.

2) Bathroom sinks--public and in homes--with a separate cold- and hot-water taps. Public restrooms here almost always post a warning sign that the hot water is scalding hot, and it is. You would think someone would figure out a way to lower the temperature.

3) TV commercials.

4) Not having a car. While we absolutely love the fact that we can walk to school, the uni, and downtown, we've missed out on some things because they're just really inconvenient, or even impossible, by bus.

Things I look forward to in NY:

1) Washer/Dryer, dishwasher, vacuum cleaner, sewing machines. An American-sized, self-cleaning oven. Woo hoo!

2) TiVo. Double woo hoo!

3) Cheap diet soda. Pancake syrup. Life Cereal.

4) Our family doctors.

More photos

2006-05-13T20:34:10+01:00

I've added new photos to the photo gallery.

It's down to the last two weeks, and we're trying to tie up loose ends and pack. It's around £75 (that's around $135) to ship the average box, so I think we're going to leave a lot of things behind. Yikes.

Several movies to recommend:
1) Kinky Boots. The owner of a shoe factory in Northampton wants to save his family business, turns to manufacturing boots for transvestites. Really. It's heartwarming. Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, of Serenity.
2) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I'm probably late to jump on the train, but laughed so very hard in the first half of this movie. The second half gets a little heavy and gory.
3) Mrs. Henderson Presents. Widowed shortly before WWII, Mrs. Henderson (Dame Judi Dench) decides to buy a theatre. Nekkid girls. Bob Hoskins.

A Trip to Cardiff, and Other Stuff

2006-05-04T18:42:18+01:00

Parents all over Swansea are heaving a huge sigh of relief, as the nearly 3-week-long spring break has come to an end. We got to do some fun things, like our little trip to Fareham/Portsmouth, a tour of the local chocolate factory, an afternoon at the theater watching The Princess and the Hunter (where Hannah lost her second tooth!) and lots of quality time in Brynmill Park.

Last Friday Cliff and Hannah went to Cardiff for the day. They toured Cardiff Castle and then returned to Techniquest, a children's museum on Cardiff Bay. There's video footage up, over in the Movies page.

Holiday!

2006-04-18T19:52:06+01:00

We took a little getaway over Easter break, taking the train (about 4 hours) to Fareham for the Gosport and Fareham Easter Festival. The Festival is a 5-day folk music blowout, with four-hour concerts in the afternoon, concerts in the evening, post-concert concerts in local pubs, ongoing workshops and jam sessions, and basically wall-to-wall traditional music. We were fairly conservative and bought tickets to three concerts: one Friday afternoon, one Saturday afternoon, and one Saturday evening, for a total of 11 hours of music and 9 bands (two of the bands played afternoon and evening). To those of you who are already wondering: did Hannah manage not to explode, sitting still for 11 hours of music? We reply with a resounding Yes! She was a little trooper. Hannah loves music, and quickly learned to yell out Woohoo! after each song... although she also loves to laugh raucously when the rest of the audience laughs, which caused some embarrassment when someone onstage made a joke that, shall we say, was of an adult nature, and my little one was laughing it up like she thought it the funniest thing ever. Anyway, we were prepared parents and also brought snackies and coloring supplies for those moments when her attention waned, and fun was had by all. So some of the groups we saw, and recommend, were Last Night's Fun, Steve Tilston (great guitar player), Isambarde and Kerfuffle. Kerfuffle is an amazingly talented band, and have been touring for a few years. Now consider the liner notes, which mention that vocalist Hannah James attended a particular concert in 1992, when she was four years old. And she wrote a trio of songs for fellow band member Sam Sweeney's 16th birthday, last year. Makes a body feel old. But man, they are good. And cute as a button.

Fareham also hosted a "Day of Dance" on Saturday, so we had the opportunity to see Morris dancers, a traditional folk-dance thing. It was... interesting. I do so love a culture that insists on the men wearing hats piled high with fresh flowers... and then there's the bit with everyone skipping about in a circle, waving a scarf. Although most of the dances involved holding a stick whilst another dancer whacked your stick with theirs, and vice-versa. Check out the footage on the video page.

Sunday we moved camp to Portsmouth's Southsea district. We toured HMS Warrior and HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship. Both are very, very big and basically you walk on board and can only say "Wow." Monday we took a nice walk along the seashore, visited Southsea Castle and the Blue Reef Aquarium.

Of course, vacations aren't just about sightseeing and tours. We ate yummy dinners at Spanish, French, Indian and Chinese restaurants. Hannah had her first snails, and decided she liked them a lot. Cliff and Hannah also took in the "traditional English breakfast"--an artery-clogging plate full of eggs, bacon, sausages, hash browns, mushrooms and tomato, along with a serving of toast. Naturally, even after all that, Hannah was ready for a snack by mid-morning.

We also have video of Hannah and Bethan Long leading the Brynmill Primary School Easter Bonnet parade last Wednesday. Enjoy!

New movies

2006-03-24T14:48:14+00:00

I've added three new video clips to the Movies folder. You'll probably need QuickTime to view them; it's a free application. Forgive the somewhat dark and grainy quality of the footage from the Valentine's Day Disco--the room was very, very dark and it is a testament to the technology at our disposal that we were able to lighten it to the extent that we did.

Terrafolk! Check it out

2006-03-19T22:31:46+00:00

We just got back from a concert at the Taliesin Centre for the Arts here on the University campus. We took Hannah along (a big leap of faith, past her 8:00 bedtime by far) to see Terrafolk, a Slovenian band. They are fantastic! We had front-row seats, and Hannah, being Hannah, danced in her seat to most of the tunes. We got lots of nice comments from audience members, as well as members of the band, after the show. Everyone likes an enthusiastic audience.

It's been an arts-filled weekend; last night Cliff and I went to see The Small World of Don Camillo, based on Giovanni Guareschi's collection of stories about a little Italian village in the years following WWII. In the stories, there's an uneasy peace between Catholic Priest Don Camillo and the Communist mayor of the town, Peppone. The material was adapted to screen in the 1950s. The production we saw was a monologue storyteller adaptation, with accompaniment by trumpet and accordion. Cliff likens it to an evening with an Italian Garrison Keillor. Except this particular storyteller was Scottish. Long story. But it was a very nice play.

A new picture

2006-03-17T10:14:29+00:00

Just wanted to share a picture of Hannah and Cliff reading a Narnia book.

Some thoughts

2006-03-13T13:40:57+00:00

There's a company here that markets celebrity "personalities" for your GPS device, and by far the most popular is the Ozzy Osbourne. It will mumble to you: "After 400 yards, you'll have reached your $#@$!-ing destination."

Among the oddities I've found online are the Whedonverse podcasts from GeekiNntertainment. These two twenty-something guys basically sit around discussing the Buffy series and the Angel series, episode by episode, reliving their fave moments and evaluating the episodes. The funniest thing is that they're not exactly überFans, so they seem to know less about the show than someone who's seen the series a few times, so they're pretty shaky on guest characters' names and minor plot points. After listening to one of their podcasts (it's fun background for doing dishes) I generally get the urge to stay up all night eating Doritos and boosting the RAM on my computer.

For those of you who haven't discovered it yet, a wonderful weekly source of fun is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!, also available in podcast form. This weekly news-quiz show mines the news for things to laugh at, including stupid-criminal stories (like the guy who broke into the convenience store only to find it hadn't closed yet) and great quotes that celebrities really wish they hadn't said. It's where I first learned about the Ozzy Osbourne GPS.

Numfar, Do the Dance of Joy!

2006-02-11T19:46:54+00:00

For we are back online! In case anyone was wondering, cable companies are, indeed, the most inept, useless and aggravating entities known to mankind, and unfortunately we recently learned that this is the case around the world. Last week Cliff had a Wednesday deadline to turn in a large bundle of information for the book he was working on. He was at work, preparing files, and I was at home, preparing files for the project as well. Shortly after I had spent a chunk of time getting one file to send off to Cliff, and he had sent me two more files to work on... the internet disappeared. I was out of the picture; Cliff worked into the evening at the office, and went in early the next day to do the whole thing himself. After 45 minutes spent alternately on hold and "troubleshooting" with various NTL (our phone/cable/internet service provider) folk, someone finally told me that the service had been cancelled. Our landlord has recently moved to a new residence, and his phone hasn't been installed yet, so we wrote him a letter explaining our plight and asking for help. He gave us additional account information, and we were back on the phone Saturday. Which, it turns out, was a waste of time, because NTL's computer systems were down the entire day. [What is really revealing about our experience on Saturday is that each time we called on Saturday a representative would answer the phone and ask for our full phone/account number, and then tell us that the computers were down and they weren't actually able to do anything useful, as if this were a sudden discovery.] Computers were still down all of Monday morning. When Cliff finally got assistance from yet another NTL person, she assured him we would be up and running in 24 hours. Well, you guessed it--Tuesday afternoon we called back and the latest representative told us that he needed to speak to the landlord personally to sort out the account. We mailed another letter. Our landlord, bless him, came over this morning as soon as he heard, got back on the line, and we have internet! Yahoo!

Otherwise we have been pretty boring. Wales--and the UK in general--is undergoing a massive surge in cold and flu viruses, and in our continuing effort to assimilate, we (Hannah and I) have been fairly ill. Hannah caught a "rubella-like virus" which gave her a head-to-toe rash and an earache that lingered for twelve days. She missed a week and a half of school, and when Hannah is sick, she snuggles up to me and the two of us sit through endless hours of cartoons. Once she recovered and was back at school, I remained moderately sick for another week or two. Our friends now make apologies for their country's spate of ill-health, lest we think it's some plot to make us unwelcome.

Last Wednesday was March 1st--St. David's Day, when all the little girls dress up in a "Welsh Lady Costume." It's an elaborate affair, layers of a white blouse, a skirt, a jacket, an apron, a shawl, and a hat. The boys miss out on all the fun, as there is no agreement on what a traditional Welsh costume is for men, so they generally wear red rugby shirts. The kids have assemblies, sing Welsh songs, and eat Welsh cakes (a bit like flattened scones). It's good fun.

In general other news, my knitting group, the Swansea chapter of Stitch-N-Bitch, has been meeting steadily at the Starbucks at Fforestfach Shopping Center every Wednesday, and we're expanding our horizons next Monday by meeting at the Uplands Tavern, which has the dual advantages of being walking-distance from out house and having Guinness on tap. They may never get us out of there.

Finally, we'd like to pass on a discovery: www.radioparadise.com. Good music, folks!

Hannah's lost a tooth!

2006-01-26T13:44:55+00:00

Yes, Hannah has lost her first tooth. We weren't able to recover the actual tooth--I suspect it went the way of the pizza she had been eating, no harm done. Being the cautious, investigative sort, she knew that her father had also had to resort to a note to the Tooth Fairy attesting to the existence of a missing tooth, and asked to see that note so that she could build upon the family precedent. We assured her that the Tooth Fairy would accept a note of her own, and sure enough, she was greeted by a pound under her pillow the next day, which she used to buy a super slinky.

Another milestone this last week was our first pantomime, a British Christmas tradition with roots that go way, way back. The pantomime is a play, often a musical, with lavish costumes, a man dressed up as a woman, really silly jokes--often about the audience's home town--and audience participation. When the villain appears, the audience is supposed to boo, when the baddies chase the heroes, the audience is supposed to warn the heroes--"he's behind you!!" It was great fun, and we'll have to find one of the few theater companies that perform them in the States next year.

In other news, apparently Heathrow airport isn't as accommodating as the FAA in relaxing restrictions on carry-on luggage. While American air carriers will now allow small knives, scissors and knitting needles on board, Heathrow still prohibits passengers from carrying the following in their hand luggage:

Scissors
Razor blades
Knives with blades of any length
Household cutlery
Tweezers
Hypodermic needles (unless required for medical reasons)
Tools Toy/replica guns (metal or plastic)
Catapults
Knitting needles
Sporting bats
Billiard, snooker or pool cues
Darts

Now we're all on board, as it were, with prohibiting toy guns, but we'd like to see the carry-on bag that can hold a catapult.

The most ridiculous computer bug, ever

2006-01-10T13:06:20+00:00

Last year we bought Adobe Illustrator CS and installed it on my computer at home. It was for a future project, and while I opened it a few times, I didn't have much time--what with the hospital stay, the pre-Wales chaos, etc.--to use it much. It was pretty much automatically included in the migration of all the stuff from my old computer to my new computer, which we brought with us.

Recently Cliff tried opening Illustrator and found that it was impossible. The Illustrator icon would appear on my computer, bounce up and down a few dozen times, and then disappear in a discouraged poof. I started scouring Mac and Adobe discussion boards for people who had had similar problems. I learned that many had experienced the same type of problem, no one had managed to solve it. I tried repairing permissions, clearing preferences, using different user accounts, nothing worked. Then, on some random discussion board, I happened upon someone with similar problem, who mentioned that their computer had been accidentally set to "Cardiff" time on its Time Zone identifier. When they switched to London time, suddenly all the Adobe products were happy again. My machine is set to "Cardiff" intentionally, as Cardiff is indeed the closest major city, and we share its time zone. I switched to "London", and Illustrator launched and happily asked me what I wanted to do.

So while I am thrilled at the fact that my software now works, I want to know why Adobe cares which time zone I'm in, and what have they got against Cardiff?????

Happy New Year!

2006-01-09T13:23:17+00:00

Hope everyone is well and had a safe and happy holiday. We celebrated by attending the New Year's Day concert at Brangwyn Hall, where the Chamber Orchestra of Wales played a selection of waltzes, light opera fare, and some fun polkas, including the Cuckoo Polka and the Anvil Polka, made all the more interesting when the percussionist's mallet self-destructed towards the end. At one point the master of ceremonies asked a few children onstage, and of course Hannah was asked to come up as well. When she told everyone she was from New York, she blew the wind out of the sails of the next little boy, who was visiting all the way from Plymouth. As a thank-you gift, the girls were given sticker books connected with the new Narnia movie, sparking a fascination with the Narnia story. She has been writing/illustrating stories about witches and princesses in Narnia, using the stickers.

On Jan. 2nd (my birthday), Cliff pulled off an amazing feat and threw me a surprise birthday party, inviting friends from Hannah's school, the neighborhood and my knitting group. We enjoyed pizza and champagne and birthday cake, and fun was had by all. They sang Happy Birthday in Welsh!

For those of you who are curious about differences in culture, I have two items. The first is the local custom of greeting people by asking "Are you all right?", which always makes me wonder if I look particularly ill, but it seems it's just a way of inquiring "How are you?" The second is the interesting British custom of offering tea to workmen. Apparently you're supposed to offer tea (and, I guess, biscuits) to workmen who come to your door. This can get extreme--our neighbor Sarah had her bathroom remodeled just before Christmas, and the crew seemed to be out on the patio or front garden having tea breaks more often than they were indoors actually working. I'm just not used to this; when GDC Plumbing sent out Kevin, the plumber, to work on our boiler in November, I realized with a shock once he had left that I had quite forgotten to offer him tea--I called the office to apologize. They got a good laugh out of that.

We remain impressed with the law enforcement community post-break-in. About a week after the Crime Scene Investigator dusted for fingerprints we were visited by a pair of officers who were just checking in to see whether we had "heard anything" and to generally follow up. All very polite and professional. And just this week we received a five-page customer satisfaction questionnaire in English and Welsh on our general experience with the police. If anyone has reported a break-in in the US, I'd love to compare notes.

Our Angel

2005-12-23T12:16:52+00:00

Last week was Hannah's first dip into the waters of that fine seasonal tradition, the Christmas program (or concert, as they are called at her school). The week began with her role as Angel No. 1 in the Pantygwydr Baptist Church Sunday school classes' program, where she and the other angels happen upon the Bethelehem Tourist Information Centre in their search for a rehearsal space. Hannah's lines: "We have to find somewhere" and "Aaaaaghhh! ... um, I mean, fear not!"

The Brynmill Primary School Christmas concert followed on Wednesday, where Hannah was one of the narrators in the story of Humph the Camel's Christmas. Narrators were allowed to choose their own costume and, hey, we picked Angel again. This time her lines were: "Shepherds were looking after their sheep on the hillside" and "They [the camels] ate and ate and ate and drank and drank and drank until their humps were nice and big." Photos are in the gallery, check it out. Now with video footage--it's a QuickTime movie. Just a few seconds "backstage" and Hannah's lines.

Many thanks to Jo Long for lending me a sewing machine and a length of curtain to make the angel costume. I'm quite proud of it.

We're staying close to home over the holidays, mostly due to an amazing amount of illness in the family. I've had a cold (well, probably a series of colds) since the end of November, Cliff's caught a mild cold, and Hannah has had a couple severe colds which have kicked her asthma into high gear. Just this week she fell victim to a stomach bug, and is just now recovering from that.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, y'all!

I'm dreaming of a White Elephant

2005-12-05T12:15:56+00:00

Christmas is coming, and the distance isn't too painful this time of year. Just like home, we are inundated with commercials for toys, perfume and electronic gadgets. The stores are more frenzied, and everyone has that glazed look of someone planning one event while wondering how to shoehorn attendance at two more events into their schedule. We get to learn all about Boxing Day, and I am going to pass on the British Christmas dinner tradition of brussels sprouts.

One nice difference here is the absence of Christmas music blasting from every store you step into; a few of the bigger stores play it, but not too loudly, and you don't hear enough to get thoroughly sick of it by December 10. Although someone let the Spice Girls record a cover version of the Waittresses' classic "Christmas Wrapping." I've got nothing against the Spice Girls, but trying to remake this, one of my favorite songs ever, is just plain wrong.

But the one thing that I will miss terribly this Christmas season is Cliff's departmental White Elephant party. Veterans of a few White Elephant parties spend the entire year looking for the perfect item to bring, unless they were the unfortunate recipients of the Epilady or some hideous "decorative" item, in which case they have waited all year to rewrap it and foist it on some unwitting party. Sometimes they even forget they have those little treasures tucked away... I think we had a bottle of watermelon Thunderbird for about 3 years before I found it in our basement and threw it back into play. But it truly becomes fun when people bring something genuinely desirable, 'cause that's when the claws come out and the real "negotiations" begin. So enjoy, MilDiv, we're with you in spirit!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2005-11-26T15:46:58+00:00

Hi all!

First of all, welcome to the new site. Hope it works out for everyone.

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. And for all you Detroit Lions fans out there, there's always next year.

Our Thanksgiving was a wonderful day. We were joined by Sarah and her daughter Tabitha, and Irene and her sons Lawrence and Stefan. We're thankful to have both families as neighbors and friends. Ironically, Sarah is having her boiler replaced, and Irene's boiler is rebelling, so neither family had heat in their houses. Meanwhile our heating system has been diagnosed with faulty mechanical switches, and the electrician managed to force one into functioning but warned us not to let the boiler stop heating for any reason, lest it freeze shut and not come on again, so we are in a mini tropical zone until next week when the plumber can replace the switches and restore a more normal heating cycle. We had a fully traditional Thanksgiving meal, including turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole (the crispy onion thingies are onion salad crispies here) , and sweet potatoes. I even managed to find the last two pumpkins huddled together on an empty table in the Swansea Market, I slaughtered one and made three pumpkin pies. Yeah!

It was a little surreal, however, to get a mailbox full of e-mails from my local retailers in NY trying to entice me to shop early Friday morning for doorbuster deals. I sure do miss JoAnn's craft and sewing shop (and don't get me started about Kohl's!). There is a yarn shop/cafe in Mumbles (hee!), one of Swansea's neighborhoods, called Mrs. Mac's. She's got just about every kind of wool imaginable, her name is invoked with reverence at our meetings of the Swansea Stitch-n-Bitch. I went there a few weeks ago and spent a full half-hour just staring at it all before buying some beautiful blue stuff.

Friday was a teacher planning day at Hannah's school, so she had the day off. And Mother Nature chipped in to make it a snow day as well. We got about 2 inches of the gorgeous fluffy stuff, which, this being coastal Wales, began melting promptly at 9:30. But it was beautiful, and Hannah and the other kids had a great time doing first-snowfall things like building snowmen.

We're also thankful for our friends and family back home, and you're in our thoughts this season.

... and some things are not

2005-11-16T14:00:18+00:00

However. I am beginning to believe that you can’t outrun your luck. The first sign that things weren’t all going to go our way began a week ago, when we woke up in the morning to find we’d lost the heat and hot water. Tried all the usual fixes, including shutting and restarting all of the components, checking for pilot light, etc. Just as in the States, plumbers are difficult to get hold of, particularly when the weather is changing and everyone’s heating system is deciding whether or not to act up after having the summer off. We finally managed to get one in, and he reported that we need a new control box, now we are awaiting its arrival, hopefully by the end of this week. Nearly the same time, I discovered that water was somehow making its way into Hannah’s room (or failing to escape it), and the wallpaper on one wall was moist and beginning to mold. Our landlord is trying to line up someone to fix up Hannah’s room; we have moved her temporarily into the office until it is cleared up. Then, on our aforementioned trip to Cardiff, we managed to lose our debit card, the one piece of plastic we’ve managed to acquire in the UK. (It’s amazingly difficult to do much banking in the UK unless you’re a permanent resident. The only reason we even have a bank account at all is that Cliff still has the one he set up when he was a Fulbright student in London; otherwise we literally just could not have opened a new account.) Cliff has been battling an ear infection, and Hannah is trying to kick a nasty cough. And on a general things-can’t possibly-be-this complicated note, we had been having trouble playing rental dvds on the dvd player here, so we’d ordered an inexpensive one from Amazon, which had gotten great reviews in the “plays anything” category. Tried setting it up by unplugging the leads from the old dvd player and hooking them up to the new dvd player—and it doesn’t work properly.

So it is in this spirit of “my goodness, things have been cropping up lately,” Cliff and I put Hannah to bed and (having re-set up the old player) sat down to watch a movie-- “Shaun of the Dead,” a rather black comedy about a handful of British slackers who end up in a mess when London turns into a city of zombies. When the film was done, Cliff went into the kitchen and noticed the back door was open. This was a little annoying, as we have little heat as it is. But then he saw that the sliding glass doors were open as well… and we never ever use them, we were told that they’re broken and difficult to close. We have a walled patio in back, and the door to that, which was unlocked because we hadn’t been able to get what we thought was the key for it to work, had also been opened. We immediately grabbed household implements of self-defense, turned on every light in the house and checked every closet. Then we spent a fun-filled half-hour trying to get the glass doors shut, and called the police. Who came, and were very nice. The Crime Scene Unit was equally friendly, and it was actually kind of interesting to watch that whole procedure. Don’t think anything was taken—a wallet full of CDs was carried outside, but it looks like they just dropped it when they saw the CDs were childrens’ software. The lights in most of the house were out to save energy, and we think the burglar(s) broke in thinking no one was home, but then immediately left as soon as they heard the TV. Our digital camera and Shel’s computer were right there on the kitchen counters, but not taken, which was lucky. But the police told us that crooks often return later once they’ve checked a place out, so now we are, to say the least, a little unsettled. Well, no, I am a lot unsettled. Bah.

So, even more than usual, we would welcome e-mails, hellos and general words of encouragement.

On a happier note, Thanksgiving is nigh and we would like to wish everyone a safe, healthy holiday with their loved ones, as we hope to do here. (I think I may have even managed to find a substitute for those french-fried onion thingies that go in green bean casserole—yeah! What exactly are they used for the other 364 days a year?).

So some things are going really well...

2005-11-16T13:59:30+00:00

We last saw our heroes scrambling, figuratively speaking, up onto the beckoning shores of the Old World, having braved the hurdles thrown before them by an uncaring bureaucracy, the mysterious workings of international express delivery, and Mother Nature herself. Now, two months later, let’s see what’s going on…

Mostly, things are going pretty well. Cliff is quite settled in at the University, teaching and enjoying a life of relative leisure, as he doesn’t find himself grading an endless series of exams and papers. He is making progress on his research and editing projects, co-teaching a course on Revolutions in Military Affairs, and giving lectures for a variety of seminars and courses, in Swansea and elsewhere. He is also beginning to work on several proposals to revise and strengthen the curricula for Swansea’s interdisciplinary BA and proposed MA in War and Society. He loves being a 10-minute walk from work (through one park, through another park, past an abbey, et voilà!), and also having the opportunity to do lots of reading. Whole books, even, not just chapters or articles relevant to the next day’s teaching. Hannah is absolutely at home in Mrs. Roach’s class at Brynmill Primary School, and every dry afternoon is spent in Brynmill Park, just down the street. She is also enjoying Sunday School and “Springers” [sort of a play group] at the local Baptist church, and will probably start Rainbows [British version of Daisies or some such] this week. I am even experiencing a modest social life; Wednesday evenings I go to the Borders book store in Fforestfach for meetings of the Swansea Stitch-n- Bitch, where we knit, gab and eat cake. Our family has little entertainments and adventures; just last weekend we took the train to Cardiff and saw Circus Oz at the Millennium Centre theater; playdates and coffee shop visits and library visits round out our time. We even had a mini-reason to rejoice when the last two boxes of winter clothes we had shipped from home—in August—finally arrived on our doorstep in November. What’s a twelve-week wait, in the grand scheme of things.

I love it when a plan comes together

2005-09-26T13:56:43+01:00

It started out according to plan. The package was ready at 7:54 (according to their online tracking system). Cliff ditched his car, zipped down to NYC… and our cell phone gave up the ghost. Since I hadn’t heard from him, I assumed we were a go and packed our bags. He went to the consulate and got in line, in time that we just might, though probably wouldn't, it seemed, get the visa in time to make it all work… only to have them announce that their computers were down and it would be an hour’s delay to process anyone. He called his mom’s cell phone and left a message to cancel our flight.

Meanwhile, in DC, I was still packing and Cliff’s mom arrived to take us to the airport. She had forgotten her cell phone and borrowed one from a student. (Thanks, student!) So we never got the call to cancel our flight. We loaded up the car. Cliff called from the consulate to check in, and when I said we hadn’t cancelled, asked us to find out just how late we could be in getting on the plane. They told us if we got there by 2, they would get us on the plane. Cliff could make it on the 1:00 shuttle from LaGuardia, which was due to arrive at 2:04; maybe they would bend a bit and let us go. We all headed to the airport, grabbed a skycap, Sam (thanks, Sam!), and set up camp in the airport. Meanwhile, the best news all day greeted us: our flight was delayed at least a half-hour. Cliff managed to get on the shuttle; they made good time, landed early… and spent 20 minutes on the runway because there were no available gates. He finally got off the plane at 2:00, ran across the airport to meet us, and we checked in successfully. Yeah, us!

Now the funny (well, it’s funny now) part here is that it had rained the entire day in Boston, and all of American’s flights were backed up for miles because of it. Our flight got later and later, and by the time we took off at 7:00 we had missed our 7:00 connection, and ended up nearly running through JFK to the international terminal to catch the 9:30, which involved scurrying around the airport like rats looking for cheese, because there were no actual signs indicating the way to the international terminal, and the route to get there involved nearly leaving the airport entirely, passing the baggage pickup, and ended up funneling the passengers into two lines against a wall with no chairs or tables, asking us to juggle all of our luggage while removing our laptops from our bags and taking off shoes. Thanks, JFK—not. Of course, the 9:30 to Heathrow had by this time also been delayed, and sat on the runway until an 11:00 actual takeoff. Then, when we landed in Heathrow in the morning, the gates were (again) completely full and we had another hour to wait as they shuttled all 400+ passengers to the terminal in one 30-passenger bus going back and forth. But by golly we were on British soil and what the heck, we’re here now.

And on the bottom of the credit-card receipt Cliff got from the British Consulate after paying the final round of $500 in visa application fees-- a cheery "Thank you, Please come again!"

Can you believe it? Still trying...

2005-09-26T13:55:16+01:00

Now remember where I said that we applied for our visas electronically? Well, apparently this is a major exception and the Information Revolution has completely passed by the UK. The work permit, issued by a government office in London, had to be express-mailed to the personnel office in Swansea, who in turn had to express-mail the paper document to Cliff. Forget fax, forget e-mail, forget the possibility of simply accepting the number of the permit. One branch of the British government wouldn’t accept any kind of document transmission from another branch of the British government, Cliff had to have the actual piece of paper in his hands when he re-applied in person in the consulate in New York. (And he couldn't apply for a visa at the Embassy in DC- they don't do visas.) We missed the call from Swansea Friday morning on our cell phone, asking for a mailing address to mail our work permit, so we didn’t get through to them in time, and mailing our work permit had to wait until Monday. The plan on Monday was to mail the work permit to his office at West Point, where Cliff would drive back Wednesday (there being no actual overnight service available), pick it up, leave his car at our house, take the train into NYC, obtain his visa, and take the train back to DC in time to fly the next day.

As you can probably guess by now, that wasn’t gonna happen. First, the consulate called to inform us that they only deal with the public before 11:30 a.m., impossible for Cliff, because there was no way an express package would make it in time for him to pick it up and still get into the city. So Cliff arranged an appointment at the Consulate for Thursday morning- the day we were due to fly. American Airlines wouldn't let him join the flight in NYC (remember, it was supposed to go from DC to NYC to London), so that meant he'd have to add another flight from NYC to DC, where he would meet us and join us for the flight back to NYC, where we'd then catch the connection to Heathrow. That added expense and cut down on the margin of error, but it seemed like it ought to work. But while driving up to New York on Wednesday to pick up the work permit, Cliff got a cell phone call from Swansea, where the personnel office had heard from DHL (i.e. Airborne Express) that there had been a “delay,” and the permit couldn’t be delivered until Thursday noon. The day we were supposed to fly, too late to get a visa in time. I got on the phone trying to track the package; they told me it had departed JFK but they had no information after that. I was bewildered; it takes less than 2 hours to drive from JFK to the DHL depot in Newburgh NY, how could they not have located it after 5 hours? What no one had explained was that DHL lands its packages in JFK and then ships them to Ohio, from whence they are sent back to NY for delivery. After a few more phone calls we got them to assure us that it should arrive at Newburgh that evening, and that Cliff could pick it up at the distribution center then. They'd call as soon as it was sorted. Well, that evening they called all right-- to say that the last of the new shipment had been sorted and it wasn't there. More calls, with different answers from DHL each time. Finally, we were told might arrive in Newburgh the next morning, and Cliff might be able to pick it up at Newburgh at 8:00.

So the new plan called for more planning, luck and timing than any bank heist in the movies. Cliff was to pick up the package in Newburgh at 8:00, drive across the Beacon bridge, park at the Beacon train station and travel down into NYC, run to the consulate, speed through the visa application process, take a cab to LaGuardia airport, catch the 12:00 shuttle to DC, meet us at National Airport in DC with our travel documents, catch our 3:00 flight and the three of us would fly back to New York and proceed on to London. (Our friend John Stapleton kindly agreed to pick up the car at the station for us. Thanks, John!)

The Reid-Rogers family continues trying to leave the country

2005-09-26T13:53:28+01:00

Well, Cliff had made a back-up appointment to go in to the Consulate, just in case something went wrong. He had made it for the earliest possible date-- around three weeks from when it was made, which was just a day before we were supposed to fly. So he went in, armed with all of our documents, new ID photos, and copies of his correspondence with the work permits office, instructing him that we had to apply for an Academic Visitor visa. The Consulate representatives were sympathetic, but told him that it just wasn’t their fault that the work-permits office had given us the wrong advice, doggone it, and we did indeed have to get a work permit and re-apply.

Thus began the first scramble. Our tenant very kindly offered to let us stay in the house a few more days, our future landlords were notified, and we set about packing up the house while the University of Swansea set the wheels in motion for a work permit. While this might seem at first glance to be a gift of a few extra days to prepare, we were in fact a week behind because Cliff had spent whole days preparing his appeal on the visa issue, then lost hours on the phone arranging a cancellation of our plane tickets and figuring out what we would do next. And instead of just packing for the trip to Swansea, we also had to pack for the indefinite stay in the US waiting for the visas, which involved lots of warm-weather things we had no intention of bringing over with us. So we endeavored to get the house in order, pack, and nudge along the visa/work permit process.

We finally headed out on Sunday night, and drove down to Stone Harbor (New Jersey). Cliff’s mom had offered to put us up, and when she found that her houses were full, she found us a condo to stay in for that week. Thanks, Jacqueline! So we had a mini-vacation in Stone Harbor, figuring a little beach time wouldn’t hurt while we waited for the wheels to turn. Then on Thursday we headed down to Washington, DC, for the wedding of good friends of ours, Tom and Christiane Rosenborg. They kindly welcomed us last-minute guests, and we had a wonderful time, now as houseguests of Tom (Sr.) and Nancy Rosenborg, where Hannah had a wonderful week being spoiled. We followed the work-permit process as best we could via e-mail and cell phone. When it looked like we would have the work permit the following Tuesday, we booked airplane tickets for Thursday Sept. 15th. Since we were now in Washington, DC, the direct flight out of JFK would have been problematic, so we booked Washington – JFK – Heathrow, with (luckily) an eventual return flight straight into JFK.

The Reid-Rogers family tries to leave the country

2005-09-26T13:51:25+01:00

So here begins our story…

Back in April, when we learned we would be staying in Swansea, Wales, in the fall, Cliff began researching British visas. He checked out the UK immigration web pages, which turned out to be utterly confusing and sometimes self-contradictory—the regulations sometimes having been changed without corresponding updates on the information being given out, neither to the affected offices or their webmasters. We could call the consulate, but the only number they provide is that of an outsourced customer-service company, and they were charging $2.10 a minute for inquiries. Cliff tried e-mailing the consulate, using the address from their web site; it bounced back: “no such address exists,” further reinforcing our faith in the British bureaucracy. Cliff e-mailed the only office he could find contact info for: the Work Permits Office. They told him he had to apply for an "Academic Visitor” visa, which didn’t require a work permit. So Cliff felt pretty confident the whole visa thing would be pretty easy to manage. We had the whole summer to apply.

Later that spring we applied for Hannah’s passport, and got one exactly two weeks after mailing it in. After talking to some friends, I decided I should renew mine also, since it would expire next summer, and a two-week turnaround seemed very encouraging. I mailed the application to the specified address in Connecticut. They, in turn, immediately tossed it back in the mail to an office in New Hampshire, a step which took nearly a week. They then proceeded to sit on it through the entire month of July. When I phoned for updates, all they could tell me was that it could be processed tomorrow, it could be processed in mid-August. For a simple matter of $85 I could have it in three business days. We waited, because passports and visas were already pretty pricey, and we figured how long could it take to submit my name to a database? Of course, weeks passed and their answer never changed: “We have utterly no idea what the status of your passport is.” Finally we caved and paid the $85, I got my passport, and we could apply for a visa. Cliff assembled the small mound of supporting documents, and we filed electronically for our visas (this becomes significant later.) Meanwhile, Cliff booked our flight tickets for Thursday, Sept. 1, since ticket costs skyrocket if you book too close to departure, and we didn’t want to risk not getting a flight out. Our new tenant was scheduled to move in on Friday, and we were expected by our landlords. Everything was set.

Now consider that we had included telephone number and e-mail address on all three visa applications for our family. When a week passed without a phone call or e-mail notification of any problems, we were fairly confident we would be on a plane that Thursday. Monday morning we greeted the FedEx truck, eagerly opened up our visa documents… and the consulate, saying we had applied for the wrong category of visa and indeed did need a work permit, had rejected our applications. AND kept our six ID photos, which would cost another $15 and half-hour to have re-taken. We were out $500 in application fees plus postage plus photos, and now, as rejected visa applicants, we were forbidden to enter the UK.