Z&T Engagement!

I feel remiss in not announcing in last months post that Zach and Tiffany are engaged!   Since this is somewhat old news, I guess a old stock photo from this summer will be ok:

The wedding bells will chime in  June 2012 in Rochester.

We got back last week from a 10 day trip to the West.  Lets see if anyone can guess where this photo is from (Abbey is probably the only one who might have a shot at this one):

First stop, San Antonio.  

Helen attended her annual Epilepsy conference:

I did my tele-commute-out-of-the-hotel thing.   After work I toured the river walk:

A couple of miles of river and walkways.   At night, with the xmas lights, is really pretty:

Of course the most famous attraction is The Alamo.   If you look in the upper right of this photo, you can see it labeled as the   Cro Cett Hotel, one h away from being a crochet knitters haven:

I wonder what Davey Crocket and Daniel Boon would say.   They probably didn’t knit much.    Today  the Alamo is under siege by skyscrapers.    This photo is taken from the space needle tower two photos back.  The Alamo is the building in the trees, across the street from the Haunted Adventure and Tomb Rider 3D rides:

This is Helen and a college researching their dinner entrée, something made with animal foreskin.   Judging from their reaction, I think they mostly found porno: 

This a superman (or I guess superwoman) lady bug I found on the 20th floor ledge of our hotel, just before she leaped off into the sunset to save us from super villains:

Next stop, Salt Lake City.   We spent 1.5 days with a nice realtor friend of Bryan and Christy's, looking at potential houses to buy.  We were very tempted by a contemporary house who's back yard abuts the state park north of the city, but another buyer out-bid us.    Probably just as well, as it was more house than we really needed.   We are still looking, but will likely rent for a year, hoping for smaller house that tickles our fancy to come on market.

We wandered downtown a bit.   This is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, without the choir:

And the Temple, with xmas lights:

Our last stop was over to Boulder to visit Noah and Jen:

Here we are trying to lure Noah out on a short hike up the rocky bluffs above Boulder:

It was a challenge, as Noah had a paper to write and music to practice.  But we succeed!

We spent all of last Sunday flying back to Syracuse.  Broken planes, missed connections, and nasty winter storms (this is the day the MetraDome collapsed).   But we made it, just in time for Helen to start her final 2.5 weeks of call duty. 

Our friend Sophia has spent this last week with us.  She is applying to Med School, and is shadowing Helen this week to confirm she really is crazy enough to want to become a Doctor.

I walked them to work one day, so we could enjoy some of our record breaking 70 inches of December snow:

That mystery photo?   Looking up at the entrance to the Salt Lake City convention center.

Happy Holidays!

Bruce

Avocado Band-Aid

We traveled back to the lake a few weeks ago:

To celebrate Boris and Irena’s 50 year anniversary!

The woman folk dressed up in beautiful brightly colored clothing:

And the men folk didn’t get a picture, as they were not so clever and only had bland attire, so instead I took a picture of a nicely dressed frog:

This summer I got my old 8 mm video camera back from Nick, with the intention of converting Boris’s family videos to DVD, but the camera didn’t work.   I glared at it for a month, and just before I was about to order another from the CraigList, I kicked it one more time and is started working!    So I transferred a box full of tapes onto a bunch of dvds and a one thumbdrive.   They were happy to see old videos they didn’t remember taking, like this one of little Aya and Noah playing a concert:

I got a new camera!  Nikon 8100.  It has fun modes, like this one which will mix a flash photo for crisp faces, but mix in natural but blurrier lighting for the background:

On the way back we stopped for a minute at one of those roadside historical signs that you pass 100 times thinking one day you will stop.   That day finally came.  This is an old rock only bridge, no cement or mortar.

Work is interesting.   Lots conference calls to try to keep up with the intricacies of a complex and challenging project.  I sometimes resort to two simultaneous calls with two headsets (not recommended, as a single threaded brain gets scrambled with multi-threaded conversations):

A few more random photos.  We found this on a sidewalk on a walk to the campus a few days ago:

Our best guess, without tasting it, was dog poo.   It smelled about right.   Our next guess was it was this was a college Psyc experiment, testing the value of the dollar.   We declined, waved randomly in all directions for what we expected were the chuckling experimenters, then circled back to take this picture.   Before we got there, a flock of 4 college girls found it, eagerly picked it up, moved it about 4 feet, then eagerly dropped it with a shriek, probably after doing the taste test to determine its origin.    I would have scrapped and bagged it if it were a $5.  Helen says it would take a $50.

Helen’s computer monitor wears a Kipah (one of those Jewish skull caps).   I gave it some drumming lessons: 

And you know the drill on this next photo.    It might be a little longer than usual before the next bag photo, as judging from Helen’s sheepish behavior, I think this one cost more than usual:

And finally, I share what I think is the cure to a prematurely cut Avocado,  the Avocado Band-Aid:

We will find out in a few more days if it actually works.

Bruce

Providence RI

Last weekend Helen attended a child Neurology conference in Providence RI.   Not-so-coincidentally this is where Aya lives!  We had a nice visit with her, was impressed by her tidy apartment:

We split our time between Aya’s place and our friend Olga’s 300 year old ‘saltbox’ house nearby in Somerset:

Built in the 1720s, before George Washington was born (1732), it was just about to be demolished when Olga bought it 2 years ago.  Olga is an architect who specializes in old structures, so it was a perfect match.   We woke up to beautiful views like this:

It was fun an amazing to see how things were built back then.  Olga exposed much of the original structure, including these candle burn marks on the fireplace mantel:

Olga waded into the bay to get some oysters and clams for dinner:

 

Speaking of wading into uncharted waters … it was a year ago that Helen and I started visiting places we were thinking of moving to.    After 8 trips and much deliberation we have decided to move to Salt Lake City in Feb, with Helen starting at the University Hospital there on 3/1. 

I’ve started watching apartment and house rentals on Craig's list and will see if I can pick one sometime in December.  Her Syracuse co-workers were sad to hear we were leaving, but we are excited.   Almost as excited as Nick and George were when they got to play with their new Trailmaster knife:

 http://egreogsplace.blogspot.com/2010/10/knifin-around.html

Bruce

NYC

A mystery photo:

Hint:  NYC.   Answer, end of post. 

Nick and Chloe joined us for our last weekend at the lake on Labor Day:

We had lots of fun, taming wild animals:

Climbing the highest mountain we could find (Lovewell Mountain, towering 1000 feet above the lake at 2500 feet! … that is an satirical ! for those of you familiar with the Rocky Mountains):

And the more crazy ones amongst us wandered did this all barefoot:

And didn’t loose too much blood:

 

Despite the loss of blood, Nick was in great shape.   For fun and exercise, he would often grab Chloe and do one legged squats, or carry her up and down the trails.   Just after I took this photo, a passing car stopped and asked if the everyone was ok:

This was the last picture taken by my 3 year old camera.  It fell off a lakeside table and went for a swim.  Time for an upgrade :)

 

Last weekend we visited NYC with some friends (I borrowed their camera for these pictures):

We saw a big metallic man with a well polished penis:

  

And walked all around midtown, including Times Square:

We are in that webcam display somewhere:

NYC is really is an impressively vibrant and diverse city.  These Turkish Whirling Dervish dancers had Helen mesmerized:   

This is 5th Avenue … mostly yellow cabs:

And Central Park was popular and beautiful:

That mystery photo?  It is looking up the glass stairs at the amazing throng of people lined up at Apple’s flagship store on 5th avenue:

 

A parting mystery photo can be found on this link:

http://lifehacker.com/5645943/exercise-balls-might-not-be-the-best-posture-fixers

The mystery is to name the legs in that photo. 

Hint:  You have seen them earlier in this post

Answer: http://www.flickr.com/photos/etherealdawn/4588301244/

Bruce