December 11, 2010

I haven't been very consistent with my posting the last few months, I just seem to get busy on the weekends when I should have a lot of time and the week day evenings have all been filling up with odds and ends.  Also, without the garden to report on there just isn't that much news.  The last few weeks have been relatively peaceful as we prepare for the holiday season.  Last weekend's main event was putting up the Christmas tree.  We used a tree from our yard although this required a fair amount of pruning and judicious placement since we don't have those perfectly sculpted trees you can get from Christmas tree farms.  But they look nice after decorating and allows us to feel like we are living off the land a little bit - OK, a real little bit.  We spent the day getting the tree trimmed and decorating the rest of the house with the sounds of Christmas sounds blaring throughout the house. 

Jo was in town for the majority of the week with only one overnight stay in NY this week.  Nothing too special for me at work although we did hold the launch meeting for my new group this week - although we technically formed in May.  Got to know each other and, most importantly, understand the boss better.

This weekend we decided to fire up our kiln and get some of our thrown pots through their first firing.  We haven't fired in a long time but fortunately the kiln still works.  Right in the middle of the firing (kiln is up to 700 degrees F, how cool is that!) as I write this blog.  Pictures of the actual pottery outcomes will have to wait until next week's blog.  Tomorrow we are planning to hit a few stores to finish up some last minute Christmas shopping for each other, family, and friends.  The coming week is looking fairly relaxed at work as everyone begins to gear down for the holiday break.

November 30, 2010

Time to catch up on the events of the last few weeks.  A couple of weeks ago, I attended the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientist meeting in New Orleans (yes there is an association in the country for everything) which was my second visit to New Orleans this year.  I enjoyed the conference but it was nice to catch up with some friends I hadn't seen in a long while and partake of the great New Orleans food.  As you might be able to tell from the picture, one of the vendors rented out the Superdome and we were able to have dinner on the field while participating in some football related events - I did manage to kick a field goal from the 15 yard line (so a 25 yard kick).  This was a lot tougher than I thought it might be and I didn't have 11 screaming guys trying to tackle me at the time.  It was cool being down on the field, but it is amazing how much smaller the stadium seemed from the field rather than the stands.  The other fun thing about New Orleans (although one they probably aren't sharing in their tourist brochures) was seeing someone falling down drunk at 8 in the morning - on two separate days.  And when I say falling down drunk, I mean falling down.  It must take some skill to maintain a buzz all the way through the night.

This trip was followed up with a visit to one of our favorite Midwestern towns, Madison, WI. We spent the week of Thanksgiving with the in-laws (or in Jo's case, the family) for a week of eating, reading,  sleeping (usually rapidly followed the start of reading), and then eating some more.  We put on some serious winter weight to insulate us until March.  We did manage to brave the colder temperatures for a run each morning although as you can see we bundled ourselves up - although no snow this time around.  Jo's sisters and one of her brothers along with several of the nephews during the week so we were able to catch up on all the family news.  I also managed some major gaming time on the computer to keep me happy for another couple of weeks.  Unfortunately, it all came to an end too quickly and before we knew it we were back on the plane heading for home and work again.  One upside, was the great win by the Wisconsin football team which might be sending the old Alma Mater back to the Rose Bowl - if anyone reading this is a sportswriter (or whomever does the ranking for the BCS) be sure to rank the Badger over a Spartan and a Nut (or whatever, the Ohio State mascot is supposed to be, for that matter what exactly is a Spartan?). 

Until next time.

November 13, 2010

What a shocker this week, we woke up on Monday morning to the ground covered with snow.  Certainly didn't expect that the first week in November.  Especially as today we are enjoying balmy weather in the 60's.  Crazy week of weather, but it always nice when the snow melts immediately.

Pretty quiet week otherwise.  Jo was in town the entire week which is always a nice treat.  Other than that, we spent the week working and running together.  Unfortunately, our runs are now in the dark with the time change so have to get used to following your flashlight beam and catching the cracks in the sidewalks before you trip.  For the weekend, the final load of leaves was gathered and added to the garden for 2011 mulch.  This didn't take too long as most of the leaves fell during the previous two weeks.  Also finished trimming off all the dead flowers from the flower beds around the house.  Only remaining pre-winter chore is to gather all the outside furniture up for storage in the garage (such as the bird bath in the picture above).  And in the spirit of Monday's weather, I moved the snow blower to the front of the garage, pumped up the tires and got it ready to begin another season of snow blowing.  Which will probably be the focus of many blogs to come.

November 7, 2010

Nice to get an extra hour today since I woke up at the same time as I always do, but that is an hour earlier.  Gives me some extra time to get my posting up for the week.  The time change always makes me feel like winter is just around the corner especially as now our runs after work are in the dark.  Have to get out our reflective running vests and put batteries in our running flashlights as we look forward to 5 months of running at night.

Quiet week for us with Jo in New York for two days at a conference and my puttering around in CT as usual.  We spent the weekend watching some college football - what a game between Michigan and Illinois and Wisconsin racked up another win - and raking up leaves.  One downside from living in the middle of a forest is that you get a lot of leaves to deal with this time of year.  Probably should take the approach of simply waiting to they have all fallen and then do one massive raking, but that's just not my style.  Figure it is better to only have a few every week to move, but it does mean every week we are out raking and transporting leaves.  We try to collect a bunch for improving the garden soil.  Figure it is free mulch, but does require us to bundle them up in a big tarp and haul them up the hill to the garden.

Last night, we went to Westerly, RI with Sheri and Bruno to enjoy Senor Flacos Mexican food and a play at the Granite Theater.  Production of "In the Flight Path" which the playwright apparently couldn't figure out if it should be a comedy or a drama.  But the acting was well done, so made it was enjoyable to watch.  Only one more play this season and then another year of the Granite is done.  Certainly get our money's worth with the season tickets.

Didn't have any photo moments this week, so I figured that another picture from Jo's world tour would be worthwhile - picture is from when she was in Japan (in case that wasn't obvious).

November 2, 2010

It has been two weeks since I posted last and the truth is I'm a wee bit tired of writing a weekly message.  I have been thinking about taking a long time off since if you count the time this came out as an email message I have been posting weekly for almost 15 years or so.  And I don't live that exciting of a life so it is challenging to figure out what to write sometimes.  I do wonder if I accumulated all of the messages could I publish a book and become a celebrity.

Anyway, Election Day in the US.  I'm interested to see what happens in CT to see if you can buy a Senate seat with enough money.  I feel the best people should win regardless of their personal finances, but I also realize that is incredibly naive and it wouldn't be the first elected position to go to someone with a lot of money.  Jo and I voted this morning so we have completed our civic duty - all that is left until the next election is to pay taxes.  Onto the more personal news.

 Jo completed her circumnavigation of the globe last week.  Jo traveled to Ireland (where she celebrated her birthday at the Guinness Brewery with her team), England, Tunisia (got to see the ruins of Carthage - see photo below), Japan, Shanghai and Beijing China, and India all in two weeks.  She had a great time although came home very tired and completely messed up on time zones.  As she was in a few of the countries only one day it makes it really hard for your circadian clock to catch up.  She did get to enjoy the World Expo (that's the top photo) while in Shanghai visiting the US, China, Belgium, and one other countries pavilions (Belgium and the other one were due to their lines to get in being shorter and I can't remember the missing country's name).  China won for having the best pavilion, but since they were the host country you might expect that.  My week by comparison was pretty tame since it consisted of going to work, exercising, reading, and sleeping in one time zone.  But we can't all be jet-setters.

We spent the weekend with Jo catching up on sleep and hanging around the house since Jo wanted some down time (can't imagine why).  Naturally there were a few chores thrown in - like tackling the leaves in the yard, that will be a theme for another couple of weeks - and other miscellaneous chores.  Saturday night we enjoyed the Ivoryton Pumpkin Festival, with Sheri and Bruno, in which the town showed off the pumpkin carving skills of the local residents. Was just the right level for our energy levels since it only took about 30 minutes to walk around in enjoy the roughly 100 carved pumpkins.  This was after working our way through a beef stew and homemade breads.  It was good to catch up with everyone as it has been a while with everyone on the road lately. 

As a parting thought, I leave you with this sinkhole in Germany.  As you know I have a fascination, and quite honestly some fear, of sinkholes.  Who knows if there is one growing right underneath you today.  The fact that these massive depressions can occur out of the blue is so cool.

October 18, 2010

Short blog this week since I don't have much to report.  Quiet weekend around the house with some fall chores - cutting back the dead flowers, getting the early leaves off the lawn, and cleaning up the garage a bit.  All this made the day go quickly especially with exercising and running out for groceries thrown in.  Spent the evening watching Wisconsin trounce Ohio State with much joyous yelling going on in the house - fortunately the neighbors are far enough away to not be bothered.

Sunday it was time for indoor chores like the bills.  Did manage to sneak in 90 minutes of yoga that left me pretty sore since it has been over 3 weeks since we made it there last.  This led to a wonderful afternoon nap that I really didn't want to get up for, so I laid around reading a book to delay moving.  The evening was filled with ironing shirts to get ready for another exciting week of work.

The photo this week is one from the archives since I didn't get around to snapping anything this week.  Went with a nautical theme to reflect the area and to remind everyone of the summer just past and the one to come (isn't that deep!)

October 10, 2010

An interesting day - 10/10/10 - so definitely wanted to get my blog updated today.  It has been a while since I wrote last, as we took a trip to Nantucket last weekend and I've just generally been lazy about writing anything up.  Instead of the usual chronological order, I'm going to do it in reverse since my memory is better with more recent events.  We celebrated Jo's birthday this weekend - the number to remain undisclosed by it starts with a 5 - with some gift opening and a last visit to Fred's Shanty for fried clams and Dairy Queen for a Heath Bar Blizzard.  Both will be shutting down in the next week or two for the winter and it was nice to squeeze one more visit in.  On Friday, we had dinner with our friends the Pratt's and Bremer's where we got to see a lovely sunset from the Pratt's deck.  Saturday was the usual mix of chores and exercise with a little college football thrown in - Illinois beat Penn State (Yeah) and Wisconsin beat Minnesota (double Yeah) so it was a good weekend for the ole Alma Maters.  Today is a few more chores as we try to get last minute outdoor cleanup chores done before the leaves start falling from the trees.

The week at work was nice since Jo took some extra vacation time and only worked half days, while I only had 3 days in the office.  The coming week though is a full week for both of us, so it's time to buckle down.



Jo touching the Nantucket Sound (it's a theme)


Now to our Nantucket trip which was part of Jo's birthday gift.  We took the ferry over on Friday in the midst of a downpour - which it turns out might have been a clue for the weekend.  We stayed at a bed-and-breakfast right in town and only a couple of block walk from the ferry dock.  That night, we had a lovely dinner in town which included lobster tacos as an appetizer and a hot chocolate chip cookie with ice cream for dessert (who cares what the main course was) then back for a little reading before catching up on much needed rest.  Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny (as it turns out the last time to see the sun on Nantucket) and we strapped on our running shoes to see a little of the neighborhood.  After which, it was off to see the sights of Nantucket town.  We figured out pretty quickly that Nantucket is a expensive place to shop, but a wonderful little town.  We went sight seeing until the afternoon at which point we decided it was time for a nap and reading. 

Sunday we decided to rent bikes and tour the island.  The weather had closed in with heavy clouds and gale force winds (I might be exaggerating a little for effect, but it was really windy).  We biked from one end of the island to the other and top to bottom.  Spent five hours out riding in which we figured we covered about 40 miles.  We did stop for a few hikes along the way, one stop consisted of Jo doing her standard put her hand in the water (the photo above).  She has done this in bodies of water across the globe - don't ask me why it's just something she needs to do - and it usually consists of her getting her shoes soaking wet since many bodies of water have tides (she did manage to stay dry here for once).  We were tired puppies when we got back to the inn.  For dinner we got take out pizza and ate it in the inn's dining room - yum.  That evening we decided, on the spur of the moment, to see out an improv comedy show.  Unfortunately it must have been cancelled since the doors never opened even though there was about 8 people waiting.  It was fun to watch us try to use modern technology to figure out if the show was on - one lady on a cell phone calling while we were on Jo's Iphone checking out their web page (for you info, never did come to a conclusion - but since the doors never opened that answered the question).  Since that didn't work out we thought we would get another of the cookie dessert - again on the spur of the moment - and wouldn't you know it, the restaurant had run out of them.  So much for this spur of the moment stuff, we are going back to planning everything.

Monday was rainy and drizzly so after doing a walking tour of Nantucket town to learn about some of the buildings, we hunkered down in the B&B reading.  Very relaxing.  In the early evening we found the Nantucket movie house to see "The Girl Who Played with Fire" (Stieg Larsson's second book) as it seemed like the perfect thing to do on a rainy, drizzly day.  Then after a nice dinner it was time to pack up to be ready for coming home on Tuesday - which was also rainy.  All in all, a relaxing weekend and Nantucket is a lovely place to visit.  Would definitely recommend it for anyone, although food and shopping is on the high end.

September 27, 2010

Last posting in September, funny how the months just keep flying by.  Jo and I enjoyed a nice quiet week without any major turmoil at work or home.  Jo was in town for the entire week and concentrated on reducing the level of email in her inbox.  I concentrated on continuing to develop what my new role is going to entail.  For the weekend, we started it off by taking advantage of our last week of summer hours at work by using our Friday afternoon to get many of the weekend chores done.  This included the grocery shopping, a stop at Panera Bread, the weekly trek to Home Depot, and spreading the compost pile out on the garden for the winter.  This left us some time on Saturday to make a stop at Clyde's to pick up fresh apple cider and cider donuts for Sunday morning (the donuts) and the week (the cider).  Then after stopping to purchase a few other needs we hopped on our bikes to enjoy lunch at a deli in Waterford - When Pigs Fly.  It was a turkey club for me - finally, I've been trying to have a club sandwich for a month - and a grilled turkey and cheese for Jo.  The afternoon consisted of getting the grass mowed and then enjoying our books and the lovely warm weather until dinner.  Since we had the evening free we decided to splurge on dinner and made a delicious repast of filet mignon, mashed potatoes (using the recently harvested spuds), a green bean casserole (yep, the beans from the garden), home made dinner rolls, and a peach cobbler with ice cream to top it off.  We were stuffed, but pleasantly so.  After it got dark we hauled out the telescope to see Jupiter and its moons.  It was amazing since four of the moons were all in a row.  Although we weren't able to see the red spot on Jupiter, presumably because it is turned the wrong way.  Also, checked out the craters on our moon which was almost full.  All great viewing especially considering we were using a telescope from the 70's sold by Sears. 

Sunday after yoga we enjoyed the donuts from our purchase on Saturday - which is a great way to celebrate after yoga, nothing is better than fresh cider and donuts!  The rest of the day was taken up with pursuing either reading or napping.  Dinner was another extravaganza as Jo wanted to make butternut squash and apple soup - very good - and we added rolls similar to those found at Red Lobster.  Needless to say after all the meals this weekend, we will need to be concentrating on our diets this week.

Then it was off to sleep to prepare for another exciting week of work - yipee??  Notice you get a lot of details on our meals.  Either I'm channeling Lawrence Saunders or I'm always hungry.

September 20, 2010

These posts seem to mostly be written on Monday's lately than over the weekend.  Guess the weekends have just been too busy.  This weekend it was time for our annual trip to Philadelphia to visit friends and participate in the Philadelphia Distance Run.  The Distance Run is a half-marathon that Jo and I have run in for over 20 years and is a key motivator every summer to increase our running mileage.  Hence all the descriptions over the last few weeks of being out for a long run.  All in the name of training.  We had a great run although the weather was slightly warmer than ideal.  We managed to come across the finish line together and upright which is all we usually shoot for.  The training over the summer certainly helped although we were both sore later and through today.  Thought you might want to see the before and after photos, so here they are. In case you can't tell - the after photos is where we have our finisher medals and we look like the only thing holding us up is the fact we are leaning together.

To back up to the beginning of the weekend, we hopped into the car on Friday and enjoyed the usual traffic thrills in navigating I-95 through Connecticut and around New York city to New Jersery.  We spent Friday evening with our friends Holly and Paul.  Holly is recently retired from Merck - not through her choice, but as a result of one of the countless pharmaceutical company restructurings all the rage now - while Paul is over at BMS.  So we had many of the major pharma companies represented.  Holly is enjoying her "retirement" and is working as a fitness trainer which plays to her interest in staying in shape and her outgoing nature.  Her only advice to us was to question why we keep running.  Apparently, running as an aerobic event isn't high on Holly's training list.  We had a wonderful dinner in nearby Flemington, NJ and spent most of the time catching up on each other's lives.  Saturday morning after a short tune up run for us we headed over to Peddler's Village to buy Jo's favorite caramel corn - yes we had to go all the way to Pennsylvania to buy popcorn with heated sugar and nuts.  But it keeps Jo happy and as every husband in the world knows - that is a good thing.

We then headed to downtown Philadelphia to check-in for the race and do some shopping at the running expo.  Unfortunately, besides getting some running socks, none of the clothes really excited us this year.  Dinner was at our favorite pizza restaurant, Pizzacata, in the "Olde Towne" (I might have added the e's to make it sound more colonial) area of Philadelphia.  One of the hard things for both of us to see as we walked around Philly was  that the old Rohm and Haas building now has a big Dow sign on it.  Kind of sad to see your first company disappear that way.  Wonder what Otto Haas thinks of the changes (he's in the big chemistry lab in the sky in case you weren't fluent with the Haas history).  After dinner it was back to the hotel to rest up, watch a movie, read our books, and get our pre-race sleep.

Sunday morning was a beautiful day, if too hot, with a starting race temperature of 63 degrees.  I already filled you in on the race details, so after the race we headed back to our hotel for a quick shower before tackling the cramp inducing 4 hour drive home in the car.  It is really interesting to unfold yourself after running 13 miles and then sitting in a car for 3-4 hours, especially for the driver.  Amazing what parts don't want to bend anymore.

Just so you know we do have some life during the actual week and don't just live for the weekends - which we honestly mostly do - we went to work, ran and lifted after work, and enjoyed one of our last clam strip dinners before the clam shacks close for the winter.  Until next week.

September 13, 2010

I'm a day late since I had difficulties logging into my blog yesterday.  For those that plan their entire Sunday around reading this blog, 1) sorry and 2) get a life.  We had a nice short work week last week although Jo did have to travel to NY for one day.  But fortunately it was an in-and-out trip so we didn't miss any quality snuggling time at night.  We will actually have to work all five days this week which could be a struggle.

For the weekend, I got the emission tested on our Jeep on Friday and then it was home to grass mowing.  We rented a movie for the weekend - Taking of Pelham 123 - which was good to watch.  The bonus material on what they had to do to film in the NY subway was also very interesting, especially how many tracks are underneath NY.  Saturday it was up for a longish run - only 8-9 miles, the gym, the grocery store, and the bank.  All the usual weekend chores.  Then home to catch the WI football game during lunch - they won, YEAH.  After the Wisconsin win we headed out to Clyde's Cider mill to pick up our first gallon of fresh apple cider for the year along with a dozen cider donuts.  Then home to some office chores before making a Mexican extravaganza for dinner along with frozen strawberry margaritas.  The margaritas were delicious although made with a wee bit too much tequila.  We had rented another movie - It's Complicated - which wasn't as good, so maybe it was good that we were too tipsy to care. 

It was up on Sunday morning for a run and yoga.  After which we enjoyed our donuts (not the whole dozen, although I did eat 6 over the course of Sunday - not good for the waist line, but good for the soul) and cider.  Then to work some of that off, we headed out to the garden to harvest our second to last crop for the year - potatoes (the last one is the sweet potatoes).  Had a pretty good yield although we are still not producing the giant Idaho potato variety.  Might be our soil, could be us - we'll go with the soil.  Then we both spent the afternoon with our noses buried in books until dinner and bedtime.  Jo is reading through the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy and I'm just having fun with my usual spy/mystery/WWII novels. 

That's it for the week.

September 6, 2010

Happy Labor Day and in honor of the day we did as little labor as possible.  Although the garden did need harvesting as we collected more beans, cucumbers and tomatoes.  The lima beans also were ready for picking and we enjoyed them for dinner tonight.  The garden is winding down for the year and we will probably only harvest another tomato or two along with the potatoes and sweet potatoes at this point.  This was our most successful year so far and helped us feel the effort we have spent over the last few years was worthwhile.  We are already starting to think about what to plant next year.

Moving backward in time, we decided to extend the holiday weekend and headed off to the Midwest to see family on Wednesday last week.  Each of us went to visit our respective sisters after landing in Chicago.  Jo headed to Madison to see her sister, Kathy, while I trundled off to downtown Chicago for time with my sister, Cheryl.  We both had a great time and fortunately the return flights all worked and we met up in Chicago's Ohare for our return to CT.  The weather was lovely in Chicago with a cool front coming through that made the early morning runs very pleasant - especially as for one of them I completed a 13 mile run.  Unfortunately, I needed to run a lot since I ate way too much - but as you can't get a good deep dish pizza on the East Coast, I dug into a Chicago style stuffed pizza one night.  I got to see my sister in action at her job at Macy's.  It was fun to see her dealing with customers and handling all the technology involved in a large department store; plus she can actually fold clothing without a table in front of her - something I'm unable to accomplish without adding more wrinkles than if I just threw the clothing into a heap.  One of the days, while my sister was at work I caught up with my college roommate, John, and his family.  We spent the entire time just sitting and chatting about our families, work, live, aches and pains (it is what old men do at our age) and naturally, retirement.  As we only get to see each other once every 2 or 3 years it was really nice to have the time to see how well his family is doing.

Jo meanwhile enjoyed catching up with her sister and the fun events in Madison - and since she had the camera the photo montage for the week is all captured there.  The annual "Taste of Madison" was going on during her visit and she particularly felt the all things cheese booth was a fitting commentary on living in WI.  Although you certainly might wonder why you need to fry a cheese curd, but it does seems we fry everything these days.  The rest of the weekend consisted of shopping, catching up, and a watching a couple of movies with her sister.

We were both sad to be heading home but work does call and at least one of us has to have a job to keep paying for the weekend get-aways.  But at least the upcoming week is a short one! 

August 31, 2010

The official end of summer is just around the corner and with September starting tomorrow.  I've been behind in my posting due to sheer laziness and some visitors.  Mom and Dad visited CT, two weeks ago, to enjoy lobster rolls and, given the rainy weather, the casinos.  We had a whirlwind visit trying to pack in as many events as possible.  After some travel difficulties coming into CT we hit Captain Scott's in New London for the first of the tasty lobster rolls.  Saturday dawned crisp and clear, so Jo and I managed to sneak in a long run and then we all played cards until it was time to get ready for dinner.  That evening we were joined by Sheri and Bruno for dinner at Bruna's (note it is with an "a" not an "o" so no Bruno doesn't own the restaurant) for some great Italian cooking.  Then we took in the show at the Granite theater which was done with their usual high energy. 

Sunday we headed to the first of our casino visits to see the Cirque de Soleil (however that is spelled) show that was playing.  Then Mom and Dad needed their slot machine fix so we all headed out with our $20 investment to see if we could break the house.  Unfortunately, except for Mom, everyone else helped Foxwoods pay for their latest expansion.  We were all too tired to want to cook so had the brillant idea of eating out.  First thought was to hit a local diner.  Turns out, Sunday night is not the time to be looking for an open restaurant - it tooks us four different restaurants before we finally found one open and by then we had given up on the diner option - just wanted food.  

The plan for Monday was to head up to Lexington and Concord to get a little American history, but the rain and mist continued so we made a quick change of plans and it was off to Mohegan Sun to see how their slot machines were working.  This time Mom and I were winners - with Jo and Dad continuing to donate our winnings back.  Figured why we were there, might as well pick up some Krispy Kreme donuts to plug the ole' arteries and delight the palate - there are always trade-offs in life.  Tuesday it was back to work but we managed to sneak in one more stop for lobster rolls so we could send Mom and Dad back with plenty of seafood inside.  Also, this helps justify our repeated requests for Mexican dinners when we visit them!

This last weekend was catching up on chores the big one was stripping the front door and then re-staining and sealing.  We certainly do live an exciting life.  As this necessitated having the front door open the whole day we also spent a fair amount of time chasing flies and other winged creatures around the house.  We also managed a 13 mile run which led to some serious napping later that day.  Saturday night we enjoyed "Dinner at the Farm" with Sheri and Bruno.  The idea is to hold a catered dinner at a local farm - White Gate Farm in East Lyme for this event -  with the food prepared at the farm using local produce and seafood.  The food was fantastic, the weather was enjoyable, and except for the noise of 160 people all talking under one tent a really enjoyable evening.  The purpose is to continue to encourage CT farming - which I fully support even if poorly with my little garden.  And as you can see even visitors are enlisted to help deal with our farm produce - they are prepping beans for the freezing process.

That pretty much brings everything up to speed.

August 15, 2010

Everyone loves a parade.  Waterford had its annual town parade today to celebrate Waterford Week - why this week we have never been able to discover, but I'm sure it has historical significance.  After a short bike ride from the house, we got to enjoy watching the Shriners in their miniature cars and Cub Scouts walking with the flag.  That along with the fire trucks makes for a great parade and fortunately the fire trucks decided not to blare their sirens the entire parade route.  We both had flashbacks to parades of our youth in Illinois.

The rest of the weekend was calmer than last week.  We went to the movies on Friday to see Inception - great movie, we would both highly recommend it - but it requires you to pay attention so don't go when you are tired.  Then home to whip up a home made pizza using the tomatoes from the garden.  The garden is now in the heyday of beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes.  We are just staying ahead of the output between eating the produce fresh, canning and freezing - but just barely.  We have now laid in enough frozen beans and bread and butter pickles to easily last through to next year's growing season (or on the pickles part it might be two years worth).  The scary part is that we don't think the garden is done.  Might be time to start handing out vegetables at work or opening a farm stand.

Saturday after a wonderful long run in the morning followed by time at the gym, Jo headed off for a massage while I used the time to catch up on missing sleep - nice way of saying I took a nap to recover from the morning run.  Then is was time to hit some chores which always seem to have a way of building up.  It was time to touch up the paint on the door into the house from the garage which now looks all nice a sparkly white - at least for a month or two.  Nothing particularly noteworthy at work this week, with Jo doing her usual commute to NY one day and here the rest of the week.

August 8, 2010

I seem to writing about the weather a lot.  It could be I just don't like heat and humidity and we have had copious quantities of both this summer, or it could be nothing else exciting is happening in my life.  Let's hope its the former.  After last weekend's great weather, we promptly went back to the humidity during the week which made some of the runs we did this week pretty challenging.  Then come Friday night the humidity plummeted again only - according to the weather reports - to climb again through the coming week.  Weird weather, but I'll take the few days of comfortable temperatures.

After Jo's exciting trip to Argentina she was stuck here all week.  No travel, not even to New York.  While I enjoy having her around for an entire week she does miss the traveling.  I've yet to really understand her love of always being on the road.  But the good result is that we got to work out together this week and as mentioned above, enjoy some really sticky runs - nothing like ending your run completely soaking wet.  As we usually discuss our work day during the run and it was nice to not be talking to myself for once and to have a sounding board on my ideas and frustrations. 

To move rapidly to the fun portion of the week, Friday after getting the grass cut, the garden weeded and harvested (another bumper crop of beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers), we headed to Mystic for Mexican food and ice cream.  This was in partial celebration of my yearly milestone event of another birthday - although technically that isn't until the coming week.  We enjoyed ice cream cones for dessert while we wandered through scenic Mystic and got to enjoy watching the drawbridge go up - very interesting from an engineering standpoint. 

Saturday dawned cool so we hit the road for a 11 mile run then after some light weightlifting we joined our friends, Tiffany and Stuart, for a cruise on their boat.  We motored from Stonington over to Noank to enjoy lobster rolls at Abbot's then saw the sites.  First we headed into Mystic (it's a theme this weekend) and then cruised the Long Island sound seeing the big homes on Fisher Island and one of the Sound lighthouses (this one issues a beeping noise, not sure why, since if you are motoring along or in a big barge, there is no possible way to hear the noise).  It was nice for someone to name their commercial fishing boat after Joann although she didn't get invited to the christening nor do we get any of the freshly caught fish.  Then after docking we enjoyed catching up and solving many of the problems of the world on their new deck.

Since Saturday was mostly play, it meant today was filled with our chores.  After our run and yoga, we canned more jars of bread-and-butter pickles (a great way to use up our cucumbers from Friday's harvest), cleaned the large picture window in the foyer, and then went to work on patching a few small cracks in the plaster.  Nothing too hard or earth shattering but good to get them all out of the way although it did use up most of the day. 

That pretty much sums up the week and we are now getting ourselves psyched up for the another week of work.  At least our stock is moving up after the good announcements on the second quarter results.

August 1, 2010

Bueno Dias and Happy August.  To celebrate Mother Nature finally broke the heat wave hitting CT.  We have had a picture perfect weekend as the humidity and temperatures have both dropped dramatically.  It was also an interesting week for news and events.

Jo started it off by hitting the road for Delaware and Argentina.  As I'm sure most people can picture what Delaware looks like I thought we would include photos of Buenos Aires where Jo spent Thursday through to Saturday.  She had a lovely time, at both work and play, and even found an opportunity to use her favorite Spanish phrase - it involves ordering more butter (ask her for details).  By contrast, I had a more mundane week as I stayed in town enjoying the usual mix of working out and working. 

For the weekend, while Jo toured Buenos Aires, I hit the road for a long run to take advantage of  the cool temperatures followed by finishing up the last of the windows (the ones on the deck for those keeping track of the progress).  In the evening, I headed to Mohegan Sun to see Jeff Dunham perform his ventriloquist act - very funny and very politically incorrect.  Jo and I had planned this with our friends Laura and Mike a while ago, prior to Jo having her trip down south planned.  So I had fun with Laura and Mike to the point of tears since I was laughing so hard.  Amazing number of people at the casino so the economic crisis (or whatever we are calling it today) hasn't hit everyone.  No major plans for today as Jo just got back into town this morning.  Will probably pick some beans from the garden to enjoy for the week's meals and mix in a few household chores to get us ready for another week.  Dinner tonight is barbecued ribs in the crock pot - yum.

The other news that made the week interesting is we heard from our team in Madison that our addition passed another approval hurdle although not completely unscathed.  This time it was the Landmark Commission, whose role it is to preserve the historic character of homes in our neighborhood, who agreed with the addition we wanted to add (Yipee), but didn't like that we wanted to change the roof on the main house.  The current roof is flat and we wanted to add a peak to reduce the chance for water damage.  So it is back to the drawing board to figure out some options there.  Still another 2 or 3 approvals to go - so stay tuned.

July 25, 2010

Another steamy week in CT as the heat and humidity continues to grip the Northeast and from the looks of it most of the rest of the country.  The weather conditions have decreased our energy for doing much so we had a pretty slow weekend.  But have brought in the black-eyed susans which are making the front flower garden pop with color. 

Friday was rainy, which was nice to water the garden during the heat, so Jo headed out to shop while I curled up with a good book to read a little.  Dinner was pizza on the grill which gives the crust a nice crunchy taste, but I still need to work on not giving it a blackened, crusty taste (blackened sole - good, blackened pizza crust - bad).

First thing Saturday morning we headed out for our long run for the week into what were already warm temperatures.  We managed to struggle our way through about 7-8 miles, but this resulted in us being wiped out for most of the day.  After our gym workout it was home to finish the windows on the second floor - in case you were keeping track, that only leaves the windows on the deck to complete.  We also had the chimney folks into fix the chimney on the furnace.  We felt really sorry for them as it was in the high 80's, sunny, and incredibly humid.  Not the time you want to be climbing up and down from the roof or working on top of it.  But we now have a new chimney system and are back up and running.  For dinner we met up with Barbara and Mike at the River Tavern in Chester for a great dinner while we caught up on each other's lives and solved a few of the world's problems along the way.

Today, we hit the garden to do some harvesting and then made some pickles from the freshly picked cucumbers (bread and butter in case you are wondering) and froze some beans (two hours from picking to freezing - let's see Green Giant beat that).  Just need to wait a few days to taste the pickles to decide if we want to do some more.  Also, given yesterday's exhaustion a nap was in the order for the day.  ShHame I can't get naps during the week only on weekends.

One interesting story from the week, Wednesday storms knocked out our power for a couple of hours.  Instead of finding some candles to struggle to read by, we both whipped out our tech gizmos - Blackberry for me, Iphone and Ipad for Jo - and sat in the semi-dark playing games or surfing the net - such as checking on the power companies web site to monitor progress in repairing.  How times have changed.  Given the Ipad has a book reader, we could have even read a book in the dark.  Of course, all this works until the batteries give out, but the power was returned prior to that happening.  Viva new technology.

July 18, 2010

One word for this week - HOT.  Well, I should also add HUMID - so two words for the week.  Along with the rest of the country we enjoyed another week of very hot and humid weather.  This has made our nightly runs an adventure in sweating and is making it hard to get in the long mileage runs that will get us ready for the half-marathon later this year.  This heat spell has also been accompanied by a lack of rain in CT which is not doing great things for our garden.  Although we did manage to harvest some crops this week and as I promised earlier in this blog, the pictures for the week are of our harvest.  The wild raspberries came in this week and we enjoyed a bumper crop - must be the hotter weather.  We picked over 8 cups of them and could have picked more, but felt that was enough for one year and we were tired of getting scratched from the thorns.  Now if we could only get the raspberries in the garden to grow so well.  Jo cranked up her jam making skills again and quickly produced several jars of raspberry jam to accompany our strawberry from earlier this year. 

We also picked our first crop of beans and will be enjoying fresh beans now for about a month.  We had to freeze several bags since there were way too many for us to consume in a week.  Our garden also produced for the first time a cucumber - drum roll here please.  We have planted cucumbers for several years, but have never actually had them grow until this year.  So another check in the plus column for this year's garden.  Lastly, the cherry tomatoes are starting to redden up and we should be able to enjoy eating them for the next several weeks.  So, a good week for the garden although if we don't see some rain soon, future pickings might be limited.

For the rest of the weekend, we enjoyed a couple of rental movies - Up in the Air was particularly noteworthy - and had a great fish dinner along with a Peach Mable (you'll have to ask Sheri for the recipe - just click on the blog to the right) at Sheri and Bruno's last night (compliments to Sheri's culinary skills) before heading to the Granite Theater for a show.  The show was a high energy comedy called "The Perfect Wedding" and was very well performed.  The rest of the weekend chores consisted of working with the above mentioned vegetables/fruits (freezing or canning), cutting the grass, pulling some more weeds, and continuing progress on cleaning the windows.  Still have 24 to go - although we have completed 40.  Told you this house has a lot of windows.

Nothing big to report from work this week.  Jo was in New York during the week with a run over the Queensboro bridge one of the days she was there. 

July 12, 2010

We had an exciting weekend as usual with a mix of chores and relaxation - as any weekend should be.  We started the party early this week by attending the North Stonington Agricultural Fair which is a local fair that we have attended for several years.  We enjoyed a dinner that contained no redeeming values from a health standpoint but tasted great as we enjoyed a lamb gyro, baked potato with broccoli (the only remotely healthy item consumed that evening) and Velveeta cheese (you can't beat Velveeta in my opinion, although Jo takes some exception to that rule), a plate of onion rings, and topped all off with hot fudge sundaes.  Needless to say we needed to run extra long over the rest of the weekend to try and make up for that.  Jo also got to pet some cows which seems to really calm her down and touches some deep part of her younger self.  Personally, I find them a bit intimidating, but then I didn't grow up with them in the backyard - although the thought of my Mom having cows in the backyard certainly brings a chuckle (sorry Mom).  Friday we tackled cleaning the garage - taking everything out of the cabinets and give them a good scrub along with removing a set of spider webs that would have made the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie proud.  We were pleased with our handiwork as it almost glowed once we were done - of course, that could have been heat exhaustion.  Then we enjoyed watching one of the Harry Potter movies and got excited to see the next installment over Thanksgiving.

Saturday morning dawned warm and humid - according to the weather report it was at 90% humidity which made our run an adventure in sweating.  No need to shower afterwards since we were already soaking wet, but we did get some good mileage in which helps in the preparation for our half-marathon later this year.  Then after a quick stop at the gym and grocery store (we did shower before, in case you were concerned) it was home to have our chimney's inspected.  Which did not turn out great, as we discovered some problems with the chimney for the furnace which will require a bit of repair work.  The amazing thing was the chimney guy climbing on to the peak of the house with no safety equipment what-so-ever - which warranted capturing in the blog for the week.  This must have been 40 feet in the air on a steeply pitched roof - did have the thought it would be a lot safer to be a chimney guy in the Midwest with ranch homes or the Southwest with the flat adobe roofs. 

Saturday night we went to see the fireworks that are part of the New London Sailfest event.  This is the big local firework display and it didn't disappoint this year.  Although with the changes at the Pfizer New London site, this might be our last year of really convenient parking.  Sunday after our morning run - yes, still warm and humid - we did some yoga and then got going on cleaning all the windows on the house.  As I've mentioned before, this house has too many windows.  We managed to get the one quarter of them done before we ran out of steam and did some other chores instead.  We'll get to the rest over the next few days/weeks.  The other big happening was the wild raspberries are ready for picking and we got enough to enjoy on our cereal for a couple of days this week with the promise of more to come.  They are smaller and tarter than commercial raspberries, but they came free with the house and with the right cereal are delicious.

This is a big week at work for Jo as she moves into her new office.  Gone is her 5th floor all-wood furniture digs with a view of the Thames river along with her winter seal watching - a seal would perch on a rock just below her window - and watching the submarines coming in and out of the Long Island Sound.  Now her office has a lovely view of the waste water treatment plant and she is back to laminate furniture like the rest of us.  But to help buffer that she is spending a good portion of the week in NY enjoying the heat in the city.

July 4, 2010

Happy 4th of July.  We have a three day weekend, which is always a pleasure, to enjoy and so far absolutely beautiful weather to make it perfect (plus the flowers from the garden).  It was hard going back to work after our nice vacation break, but we both managed to slog our way through the week.  Jo was in town all week which helped her get back on top of her workload and we both spent some part of the week either moving offices (me) or getting our office prepared for a move (Jo).  I moved offices because my new group will be located together in a different building.  So first thing Monday morning I had about 2 hours to pack and then spent the afternoon unpacking and settling into my new digs.  It was a bit strange since I've spent my entire Pfizer career all in one building - but one upside my new office is a shorter walk from the parking lot.  Jo is having to move her office since we sold the office building she is currently in - she'll move to this office for about a year and then will finally land up relocating again to the Groton site, with me, once some building renovations are complete to fit everyone in.  The rest of the week for both of us was just catching up on things that happened while we were relaxing in Europe.

For our weekend, we started off with a nice BBQ with friends, Sheri and Bruno (you've got to check out Bruno's Canadian Maple Leaf from raspberries for Canada day - see the blog link down below).  Then headed to Ocean Beach for some putt-putt golf (Bruno won with a stunning 7 over par) and a great fireworks display.  Saturday morning temperatures were perfect so we headed out for a long run and then decided it was time to get the US economy moving a bit.  After a stop at the bank, we hit Panera Bread, Target, Sears, Macy, and Blockbuster with a purchase at each.  So any uptick this week in retail sales and the stock market, you can say we did our part.  Then after a quick stop at the gym, we went out for lunch to a place we first stopped at during our initial visit to decide if we wanted to join Pfizer - Sunset Ribs.  It overlooks Niantic Bay which was a nice backdrop to our repast.

The rest of the day was spent removing excess plant growth - in other words weeds - from the front flower garden.  It is amazing how if you miss a couple of weekends due to a trip how the weeds take over.   Friday we had done the same to our vegetable garden while also removing the last of the fresh peas.  Besides lettuce, which we have been enjoying in salads now for several weeks, there probably won't be another harvest until the tomatoes start coming in over the next few weeks.  Still having problems with getting carrots and beets to grow but everything else is doing better this year and this is the first year we managed enough peas for multiple meals.  We finished the day up with watching the movie Twilight since we figured we should stay current with the latest craze.  Good movie, we have the sequel for tonight. 

Today after our morning run we are spending it goofing off.  No chores allowed.  I'm planning to spend it reading and I'm thinking of re-reading all 6 Harry Potter books.  No particular reason as I have a whole bunch of new books I haven't tackled, but just feeling like I want to re-immerse myself in Hogwarts again especially with the next movie due later this year.  For the rest of the day, we have to return our one movie and once we are out thought we might as well have ice cream at Michael's as a reward (not sure what we are rewarding, just sounds better than we want to eat high calorie desserts that aren't good for us).  To not feel we are complete slugs, we decided to bike to both places - helps justify the extra large ice cream sundae.  Tomorrow we are going to yoga in the morning and then spending the morning on the beach as the temperatures are predicted to soar into the 90's.  Then comes Tuesday and it's back to reality again. 

This mushroom/fungus is growing from a decaying tree stump in the yard and it is just spectacular.  So thought it was worth a blog photo.  It is roughly the size of a hubcap - just to give the photo some perspective. 

June 30, 2010

And now the Vienna and Bratislava portion of our recent trip.  After arriving from Budapest on the train we managed to figure out the Vienna subway system and then a short walk brought us to our hotel, Pertschy Hotel.  One interesting note that we didn't figure out until much later in the week, you were supposed to buy a full-fare ticket on the subway, not the half-fare (we thought the full fares were for round trips).  Fortunately the Austrian subway police never caught us and we were in full compliance by the back-end of our trip.  Whew.... The room and hotel were lovely although under some construction which meant no sleeping much past 7:30 in the morning when the construction crews needed to move everything around.  After dropping our stuff off, we hit the road to get a feel for Vienna.  What a lovely town from an architectural standpoint.  Absolutely beautiful buildings with all sorts of interesting facades.  We heard about Figmuller's which was apparently famous for their Wienershnitzel - and given the size of it you can see why.  We also discovered that ordering a beer in a wine garden is just not done.  So we quickly changed to some wine and our waiter was happy.

Tuesday was our day to see how the Habsburg dynasty lived as we toured the Hofburg and surrounding museums.  We watched the practice session for the Royal Lipizzaner stallions which we had to settle for since they only do shows on the weekends.  Then an interesting exhibit and the living quarters for Elizabeth ("Sisi") and Franz Joseph (Austrian Kaiser/Emperor in case you don't follow the Austrian dynasty).  We decided that Sisi was a bit off her rocker, but then being the empress of Austria allows you a fair amount of leeway, especially with things the rest of us would just be labeled crazy for.  One item we did decided to disagree with the historical record on is that Sisi was reported (in the museum) to be 5'8" and weigh 90-100 pounds.  Given that Jo is the same height, dear old Empress Sisi would have to be emaciated to have achieved that weight.  And the pictures of her certainly don't depict that - so there is some historical inconsistencies here, we're just pointing out.  It was kind of eerie though seeing the dress she was wearing when she was stabbed - including the hole (just wait there is a theme here).  The exhibit and rooms certainly helped both Jo and I to understand Austrian history better.  We then headed off to see as many of the remaining churches and museums in the area of the Hofsburg as we could before our feet gave out.  On our way back to the hotel we came across the crypt were all the Habsburgs have been buried which is in the Capuchin Church.  Very interesting to have so many generations together in a wide variety of burial regalia.  Be interesting to have one spot my entire family for several hundred years were all located - wonder if that would be a tourist attraction.  After dinner we found a cafe to enjoy some apfel strudel with vanilla cream.  Very good, although I would personally give the nod to apple pie with ice cream (but having grown up on that, I'll admit I might be biased some). 

The next day (Wednesday for the calendar challenged) we braved the public transportation systems again and headed to Bratislava on the train.  After some challenges finding the right entrance to the Sudbahnhof (just to note, Vienna had everyone of their major train stations torn up - why all at once, you'll have to ask them).  Then a 1 hour ride later we were in Slovakia.  Bratislava is bisected by the Danube with a fairy tale like castle up on the hill overlooking the town.  We had a great day touring all the sites especially enjoying the Primate's palace (no vow of poverty for the church leaders back in the old, old days) and the sites over the town from the castle.  However, we did find that Slovakian was beyond our ability to even attempt and technology failed us as Jo's translation app failed since her Iphone didn't get Internet service there.  For dinner where we managed to find a place serving the one dish Jo really wanted to try - bryndzove halusky (see what I mean about pronouncing the language).  This is goat's cheese with potato dumplings and was delicious.  Then we hiked back to the train station and headed back home.

Thursday dawned bright, sunny, and warm so we hit the Vienna Naschmarkt which is an open air market and enjoyed the walk through the stalls with the wide variety of fruits, vegetables, meats, and goods for sale (they eat a much wider palette of foods than us Americans do - especially in the meat department!).  We didn't buy anything but did decide to make it our lunch stop later.  Then it was off to the Shronbrunn palace - boy did those Kaiser's like a big house back then.  Very interesting tour of the palace with a great English audio tour to accompany it providing more info. on the Habsburg dynasty.  If you want to read about a truly amazing woman, check out Maria Theresa of Austria.  Had 16 children - yes 16 -, ruled a major portion of Europe, fought a couple of wars, and still found time to worry about building a couple of palaces.  Made us feel a wee bit lazy.  Well after touring the grounds we headed back to the aforementioned market for a spinach and cheese filled roll.  Then it was off for a hike to the Military History Museum of Vienna (told you I hit them all).  This helped fill in some of the pieces of Austria's history (since the history of most countries are told through wars) and contained the car and clothing that the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, were in when they were shot thereby starting World War 1.  Again pretty strange to see the bullet holes in the car and coat - but after Sisi's dress we were prepared.  We had to rush to find this and didn't really get to study the display as much as we would have like since they were closing the museum around us - we had to escape through the cafeteria to get out.  For dinner we finally enjoyed some Sacher tort, although not at the Sacher hotel.  Very scrumptious and we might give it a try at making one in our kitchen.

For our last day of vacation we took it easy, slept in a little later and took in the Royal Treasury (a little light on crown jewels in my opinion and little too heavy in old regal clothes) and a butterfly museum.  We then enjoyed a leisurely afternoon sitting on a park bench reading in the sun and just people watching.  We decided we needed to find some Wiener Schnitzel to cap off our time in Vienna so that along with some ice cream topped off our day.   Saturday was our last experience on the trains, although we felt pretty experienced by then, as we headed to the airport and the long flights to get home - always sad to end a vacation, but great to sleep in your own bed again.   All in all a great overall vacation seeing 3 of Europe's wonderful capitals.  Would certainly recommend going to any or all three if you have the chance.