Exiles in New York

Day 2.342: "Show us yer work"

2009-12-18T22:39:00.005-05:00

It was show-of-work day (and the last day before the winter break) for the girls. The day started with the 'Peace Assembly' in which all the kids were on stage grade-by-grade (ages 3 to 14) to sing and most of them actually sang - no mean achievement.

Here is one ~~peace~~ piece of work from each of the girls.

"I the river" by Exile #3

I the river am gentle
I the river am rapid
I the river am beautiful
I the river flow down to the sea
I the river am packed with boats
I the river am full of bridges
I the river am lucky to be a river

"What peace means to me" by Exile #4

Being very quiet and being helpful to people.

Afterwards, I had a short time at work and then on to our "Holiday party" which comprised a very nice meal followed by mildly inebriated games of pool. Very satisfactory.

Day 2.341: Climate change

2009-12-17T22:44:00.004-05:00

It's amazing how you get accustomed to the changing weather. Back on Day 2.327, we were all starting to get dressed up in our winter clothes to go out to wait for the bus. However, I know that it was above freezing (because the kids splashed around in a puddle) and got much warmer during the day (because E5N1 was disappointed that the puddle had gone later on).

Today has been really cold - with wind-chill-adjusted temperatures around 0 °F (-18 °C), but we were out waiting for the bus dressed pretty much the same as this. Although I may have closed the door a bit faster when I went back inside.

P.S. I just noticed the minor clerical error with the last 12 posts. I've corrected it now - did anyone notice?

Day 2.340: Christmas past...

2009-12-16T23:10:00.005-05:00

1973 to be exact. This is me and my sisters as close as I can get to the age of our three (2, 6 and 9 vs 2, 5 and 7). Thanks to Dad for taking the picture a few ago and for scanning it this year.

After a couple of mild days which melted a fair amount of the snow, winter is back today - it's been cold, dry and windy except for a few flakes of snow blowing around in the middle of the day. Tonight's low is expected to be 10 °F (-12 °C) and tomorrow's high only 19 °F (-7 °C). Brrrr!

Day 2.339: There's no charge for fun

2009-12-15T22:53:00.003-05:00

I took these pictures yesterday when the girls were playing a game I'm calling "Snow Charge!" while waiting for the bus. In fact, yesterday it was more snow-procession, but it definitely turned into a charge today with a jousting-style tag element. They did it further up the driveway where there were another suitable pair of snow piles.

This evening I was at a church meeting, which although it overran, did not go on too late (it would have been my fault if it did) so I got home in time to sit down with Exile #2 and watch part one of the final of So You Think You Can Dance. Tomorrow will be the results show with lots of great dances from the season, but today was the last evening of competitive dances and they were great. Really great actually. This show is so much more than a reality show or a talent competition. It is a showcase for some of the best new dancers and most exciting choreographers in the world. We'll probably eventually succumb to the up-coming season of American Idol when it comes on because we love music too, but if they replaced it with another season of SYTYCD, I'm sure we'd both be more than delighted.

Day 2.338: Dolled up

2009-12-14T23:02:00.006-05:00

A while ago I posted some videos of faces of the family members as recognised by Picasa's new software. Shortly after that, the system finished processing all my pictures. There are still a large number of faces that I have not yet got round to identifying, but the family-member albums have been quite stable for a while, with just the odd new picture cropping up.

All that changed last week when I received a copy of my Dad's scanned slides (he brought them here when they came in the summer, but I managed to lose them when my hard-disk failed) and imported them. So various youthful pictures of me and my sisters have been cropping up, often correctly filed, sometimes misidentified as one of our children. Yesterday, I spent some time going through and confirming or re-filing its suggestions. This was all going smoothly until I clicked on Exile #3's suggestions and found this:

It took me a while to regain my composure. No, that's not her. Really - no.

Day 2.337: Muchas dough (de nada)

2009-12-13T22:19:00.005-05:00

If I'm willing to murder my own language for a corny pun - why not someone else's?

This morning I managed to persuade E5N1 and Exile #4 into attempting some backyard sledding. E5N1 didn't stay out for long, but Exile #4 and I had a really good time. It probably looked something like this (although that was Exile #3 nearly a year ago).

Around lunchtime it started to snow - with promises of sleet (ice pellets) and freezing rain to follow. It was of course, time for me to get on the road - to take Exile #3 and Exile #4 to a Lucia party organised by our Swedish friend - whether the cookie cutting and decorating and pizza are the traditional way to celebrate is not clear - but it was fun. We went straight on from there to our church gathering, which started early with a meal - including many more cookies. By the time we were finished it felt like the girls had been decorating and eating cookies all day. E5N1 managed to put a few away too. The Christmas healthy-eating season is upon us.

Day 2.336: Fire: cracker

2009-12-12T23:59:00.001-05:00

As you can see, the log pile's location has partially protected it from our recent precipitation. Its slight wetness is a reminder that this is not kiln-dried wood like we had been buying in small batches over the last two winters. In fact, it is probably slightly past its best. Apparently, one-year old wood makes the best fires - this is older than that - slightly surprising since the news was full of places selling out last winter as a result of bad weather, power outages and high oil prices.

In any case, the wood burns very well - a bit of axe-wielding to reduce the size of the larger pieces has helped, as has some really dry kindling and fat-wood to get the fire going well. This wood, even when split, needs a really hot fire to get it to burn effectively, rather than just smoking quietly to itself. I remember learning about how to build fires with care to get the heat up to a level that could cope with the larger logs when I was a teenager. The kiln-dried wood really takes all the skill out of it, but now I'm getting back in my stride. We had a really good one this evening - very toasty indeed, I didn't really want to drag myself away from it. Just as well we have given ourself a warm evening, as tonight is set to be the coldest of the season so far.

Day 2.335: Friday Haikus #7

2009-12-11T23:08:00.002-05:00

First snowball fight by the_exile:

Snow: balled in gloved hand
The throw: transfixed, breath bated
Then - nothing. It missed.

Writing haikus is easy by the_exile:

First five syllables
Then the next line has seven
Finish with five. Done!

Day 2.334: Oh Christmas Tree!

2009-12-10T23:13:00.006-05:00

The rest of the family did most of the decorating yesterday while they were unexpectedly home in the middle of the week. They saved the angel for me to put on the top. The photo is a thirty second exposure and I used a torch (a flashlight - not the burning variety) to highlight some of the foreground items during the exposure. It was a fun experiment, although I think I may try again another time.

Today was back-to-school and a normal day at work for me. The roads were clear - quite a change from yesterday. Tonight, the temperature is expected to drop to 18°F (-8°C) - it certainly feels quite cold now. Day-time highs are not expected to get above freezing until Monday at the earliest. Did I mention that winter seems to have arrived?

Day 2.333: Storming!

2009-12-09T23:21:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, it seemed likely that the storm that was approaching rapidly would not be a major event for us. It wasn't until after 5pm that the National Weather Service even issued a 'watch' for our area. They finally issued a Winter Storm Warning at eight this morning - by which time I was getting myself ready to shovel the six inches of snow we had on the driveway. I think our total almost certainly topped seven inches in the end - and it was relatively dense - not the light-fluffy snow we get when it is really cold. Exile #2 snapped this after the storm had passed.

It was late by the time I set off for work, but I still ended up on some unplowed (unploughed) roads. In fact, I was just making a tentative turn from one into another when I realised I was about to come nose-to-nose with a plow. I managed to drive around the block only to arrive at the end of another street just as he came back down the other way and completely blocked my way with a large snow-bank across the end of the road I was on. I backed up. He backed up. I waited. He waited. Finally I noticed that he was waving me on. Seriously? Through the snow bank in my little Jetta? In the end I decided that I wasn't in a position to argue and that at least he was there if I got stuck - so I did some plowing of my own - successfully - much to my relief.

School was closed, so Exile #2 had all three kids all day. She was very tired when I got home, but we managed to watch the last elimination show for SYTYCD. We were sad to see both the fourth-place dancers go out - but they are all great, so it should be a good final next week.

Here's a little time-lapse of my shovelling efforts. I'd already been going for some time when this starts and help arrives...

Day 2.332: Signs: eeled and livered

2009-12-08T23:25:00.003-05:00

Many thanks to all who took part in my little sign-identification game. I don't think anyone really got any of the right, although joxley did the trigonometry and worked out that the first day's title could be simplified to 'sine(s)'.

It turns out that, to everyone's disappointment, the first sign here was not offering a choice between Twister and camp dancing, nor warning of excessive cake decorations (as suggested by FlyingVJenks and A).

The the second one was 'control your pet' rather than 'control your bladder' as Anonymous (joxley again maybe?) suggested, nor was it the rather wonderful, 'If your dog has just bitten someone's leg off, better go this way.' suggested by albaniana.

Number 3 was not really going for the 'evil stalking squirrel' effect that FlyingVJenks detected in the image.

Number 4 was 'dismount' - almost exactly the opposite of what albaniana suggested, 'Vehicles should give way to giants with bicycles.' You're right about the giant part though - it was so obvious they saw no reason to put it in writing.

The third one of this second batch (below) was not maypole dancing nor anything to do with Morecambe and Wise - alas.

A mused on the unaccompanied bike in the fourth of these - the words don't really help.

And, although it warns you to be alert, the last one is not a warning about drunks crossing the path.

Many of you were concerned about the legless folk - N most poetically. We did not knowingly see any amputees, I would have thought if they were taking a walk along the river they would probably need at least one of: crutches, an artificial limb or a wheelchair. I don't think hopping is a very practical long-term solution.

Apologies for the weird text on this one - it was my panorama stitcher's fault not the sign-writing. It's too late to re-stitch it again though - sorry!

Finally, it is pop pun 106 for title watchers, so with the solution to one puzzle (or even two) comes another - ooh baby here I am.

Day 2.331: Little builders

2009-12-07T22:04:00.003-05:00

Another short slideshow of pictures from Sunday.

While Exile #2 and I were hanging the icicle lights, Exile #4 and E5N1 busied themselves filling a cardboard box with the bottom unfolded up with snow. The result was a rather impressively cuboid snow castle. They went on to decorate it extensively - E5N1 taking his little-big-sister's lead and carefully placing leaves in the top of it. Of course, he was keen to demolish it too - but resisted the temptation.

After Exile #4 went inside to join Exile #3, who had been the first to tire of the snow after neither of the others were willing to go on her sled-rides around the yard, E5N1 and I went into the back yard and made a snowman. Our creation looked pretty good, but only lasted a couple of hours before falling over sideways. The snow hasn't gone anywhere however - but for now it looks as though the snow will turn to rain on Wednesday and will maybe clear the ground again for a while.

Day 2.330: Blue and white

2009-12-06T23:36:00.004-05:00

This morning we woke to beautiful blue skies which were setting off the snow-covered trees rather nicely. The sun was also starting to melt the snow at the tops of the tree. I rushed out to take some pictures as soon as I was dressed.

Later in the day, we managed to get the lights up outside, have some traditional and less-traditional snow-fun and set-up our Christmas tree (undecorated) before going to our church gathering. When we got home, we put the lights on the tree - it looks like decorating inside is going to be a progressive affair this week.

Exile #3 decided to measure the depth of the snow - but was unable to find a ruler. She arrived to show us that she had improvised by drawing a line on one pencil with another one to mark-off the depth - two and a half inches - not bad for such a minor weather event. Since the temperature barely crept over freezing this afternoon, almost all the snow is still on the ground. There's a much bigger storm on the way midweek, although how much will fall as rain or snow or freezing rain still seems far from clear - one forecast we saw had given up completely and captioned Wednesday's weather, in place of the usual 'sun', 'snow', 'rain' etc. as '???'.

Day 2.329: Lights? No!

2009-12-05T23:50:00.007-05:00

"Let's put the outside lights up before the snow arrives!"

It sounded like a good idea. There was snow forecast for the evening hours, but it didn't sound like we'd even get a covering. So around 11 am, the girls left with a neighbour for her birthday party and we got the ladder out.

At that point the first flakes fell. We suspected it was just a passing flurry on the leading edge of the storm. It wasn't. It snowed constantly (albeit fairly lightly) until about 10pm.

We managed to run the power cable and get the first few lights up, but then I decided that climbing up and down the ladder while the rungs got coated with snow might not be the smartest choice.

It says something about our surprise at the way things turned out that I rushed to photograph the first few settling flakes in case it was all we got. Here is how the day 'stacked-up' on the deck at 12:40, 15:50 and 23:20.

At tea time, inspired by reading the seasonal specialities on a restaurant menu a week or so ago, we had gluten-free dairy-free egg-nog pancakes (actually it was Silk Nog which is also egg-free although the pancakes were not). They were very nice indeed. Another taste of winter - as if we needed one today!

Day 2.328: Night lights

2009-12-04T23:01:00.004-05:00

I dashed home from work a little earlier than normal so that I could join a family outing to the local holiday parade and tree-lighting. We went two years ago to the 'first annual' running of this parade. We missed it last year, but now in its third year, it has become quite a large event.

We saw fire trucks with and without holiday lights, marching bands, various local groups. Many of them threw candy to the kids - a few threw verging-on-violent handfuls at the kids.

We ran into some friends (looking slightly ghostly perhaps):

You can see a few more pictures here.

On the way, Exile #3 walked and the younger ones rode in the wagon. On the way home, we briefly used this configuration:

...and then Exile #4 decided (probably wisely) that she would prefer to walk the rest of the way.

Day 2.327: Immunity Man and Mud Boy

2009-12-03T22:40:00.004-05:00

As a child I remember pretending to be a superhero - wearing a cape and throwing myself off the back of the sofa. I can't remember the name of my favourite character - but I remember that I came across him in a comic book at a place I had to wait around at for my mum - presumably she was working there. I also remember that he had a crescent shaped cape that enabled him some degree of aerial ability - although I think it was more Batman than Superman.

Anyway, as it turns out I have achieved my ambition. At work, a couple of things have come together over the last couple of weeks. One is a notice on our notice board entitled 'Surviving the Flu Pandemic' and the other is Boy Scout Popcorn. One puts the idea of massive risk of death in your mind and the other causes colleagues to place open containers around the office to tempt everyone's hand in to take a few kernels. Following my early brush with the pig disease, I have, of course, been boldly feasting (on a little) to the apparent envy of one of my colleagues who coined the term 'Immunity Man' for me. He listed this superhero's powers as, "He can eat what he likes, kiss who he likes, ..." I pointed out that H1N1 might not be the only reason to refrain from the latter.

Meanwhile as you can see, E5N1 is working on a super-persona of his own. Fortunately his super-mom/mum had the foresight to put his waterproof suit on before he ventured out into the post-rainstorm mud-zone this morning.

Day 2.326: Do these help?

2009-12-02T23:24:00.000-05:00

Thanks to all who are helping to decipher these extraordinary signs. Maybe some pictures from our walk on the path in question will help?

The pictures include another sign that confused us for a while - sign designers please note that decimal numbers do not work well when written vertically in this fashion. Exile #3 pricking her finger on a teasel (but not, happily, falling asleep for 100 years), E5N1 carrying the path along the path and some rather sad traffic cones which, when we first saw them back in March, were featured over at the wonderful world of funkypancake.

Would anyone like to make some serious suggestions about the signs in amongst the excellent joking around? I have the official answers ready!

Day 2.325: Morse irons

2009-12-01T23:12:00.004-05:00

Seeing as you did such a nice job with the suggestions for the first four - here are four more.

Please feel free to keep your interpretations coming for both sets in the comments. At some point I'll tell you the official meanings, but for now this is much more fun!

It was something of a struggle to get everyone up and the girls ready for the bus after six days off school. Hoping for more success tomorrow - and it needs to start with me getting to bed very soon.

Day 2.324: tan(s) x cos(s)

2009-11-30T19:57:00.006-05:00

On a recent walk at the Corning Trail in Albany, we noticed a very smart new sign with the "Rules of the Path". The pictures accompanying each of the ten rules are quite interesting and I reckon that all but about two of them are fairly incomprehensible or at least open to misinterpretation without the accompanying text.

So, here are the first four. Four more to come another day. Any serious, or non-serious suggestions as to what they signify?

I was back at work today trying to catch up after five days off. The girls are back at school tomorrow and life can get back to normal for a couple of weeks.

Day 2.323: Rivers angle

2009-11-29T22:23:00.006-05:00

My parents celebrated their Golden (50th) Wedding Anniversary today. Their anniversary was yesterday, but today they celebrated with friends and family at my sister's house. We joined the party briefly by Skype video call - although only with limited success due to background noise and camera lighting issues.

After that, we went for a walk at Five Rivers, our semi-regular Sunday morning swimming trip being a bit much for a still slightly off-colour Exile #2.

We took our classic group shot:

E5N1 stole my hat:
and we were excited to see a lot of evidence of beaver activity (more than we have seen in the last couple of years at least) including these:
and this impressive felled tree.
We also enjoyed the new view which has been opened up from this recently-replaced view-point. We used to worry about one of the kids falling between the railings here (admittedly not exactly dangerously) but now it is safe and lovely!

When we got home we talked to friends (also in the UK) on Skype and after lunch we managed a slightly more intelligible conversation with the remnant of the party at my sister's.

So, happy anniversary Mum and Dad! Thanks to the kids craft project for you, our house is sprinkled with gold glitter throughout. I think I'll take a picture of it for you rather than attempting to send it to you - otherwise you might be bemused by a large blank sheet of paper in an envelope full of gold-dust!

Day 2.322: Quiet day at home

2009-11-28T23:11:00.000-05:00

OK - the title doesn't suggest a lot of excitement, and you're not going to get much - but I can give you this view of Exile #3 as a 19th century schoolgirl learning needlework by the window. I actually found her like this - I didn't disturb her at all - I just took two pictures and left her to her sewing.

Also, the weather report. It has been a very windy day after an amazingly windy night. I'm beginning to doubt my confidence about raking being done for the season. Also, I spent some time looking suspiciously at a large branch now hanging from a tree at the corner of the back yard - however, it is further away from the lawn and the swing-set than I initially thought.

And, as if that wasn't enough, a little video of...an empty room - or is it?

My one household achievement was splitting some of our firewood and making a very satisfying fire - the girls had their bedtime story sitting by it when it was at its peak. E5N1 repeatedly asked "What is it doing?" By the end he was answering himself, "Burning wood!". Lesson learned.

Day 2.321: Slightly surreal

2009-11-27T23:46:00.001-05:00

We had a slow start to the day - in contrast to yesterday's rushing about. Mid-morning, Exile #2 went to her skating lesson and the rest of us went to the playground in a local park. We had a good time and managed to leave while that was still the case.

At lunchtime, Exile #3 was teaching us the dance moves to the Macarena and Cotton-Eyed Joe. She had learned them at school in music lessons - one of our friends suggested to Exile #2 at a recent event at school that the new music teacher was 'Glee'ing them up - referring to the current TV program called Glee - which follows a group of high school kids and their glee club teacher and includes a lot of pop song-and-dance numbers. We haven't really been watching it, but have caught the odd episode because it comes on after SYTYCD. The last time we saw it was episode 10 but, although we loved it, we still haven't succumbed to setting the DVR to record it. Anyway, it was Rock Band night tonight and we got another glimpse into Exile #3's pop ambitions as she sang along and did some cute dance moves during the upbeat songs.

Meanwhile, E5N1's new words for the day (he's going through a major language explosion at the moment) were "Iggy Pop" thanks to the LEGO Rock Band playlist. Exile #4 was also having a good time enjoying music, food and company until she finally fell asleep on the floor during a particularly loud song. We called a halt to the evening for her at that point - and for everyone soon after.

Day 2.320: A major operation

2009-11-26T21:29:00.004-05:00

No - not any medical treatment. We decided that this year we should, since we are strangers to this particular holiday, take the opportunity to offer something to our neighbours without any great sacrifice on our part. In the end, we settled on delivering some of the 8500 meals to people in need in the area with the Equinox organisation. We did not really know what to expect, but armed with some good advice and some contingency plans this is how the day went.

At 5.20 am, I got up and headed over to the Empire State Plaza with the kids' red wagon, some breakfast, a book and an iPod.

At 6.00 am, the State Trooper at the parking lot checked my photo ID carefully - as usual, then thanked me for coming out. This was no normal day at the Plaza.

At 6.05 am or so, I arrived in the concourse and found my way to the back of the line. There were well over a hundred people ahead of me - I later found out I was the 74th driver in line.

At 7.00 am, I walked to the back of the line to see how long it was - this was still an hour before anyone was going to move from the front of the line. I estimate that there were probably between 400 and 500 drivers at this stage.

At 8.20 am, we still had not moved (except several line-compression operations). Just then the Governor of New York came down the line greeting the volunteers.

That was as far as he got. The guy behind me in line quipped that he you had to be in the first 70 to meet him. He also told me that his friend who was second in line had arrived at 4.15 am!

The line started moving soon after that, and I took my turn to collect a set of names and addresses with details of how many meals they needed.

Because I had arrived early, I managed to get a set near to our home - which made the next major stage of the operation significantly simpler.

This was the view looking back from about where I started my walk in the time-lapse above. That's quite a line - and no complaining (as far as I heard anyway).

I picked up the food (a total of nine meals to be delivered to five different addresses) from an amazing assembly line in the food court where we had sat on a previous visit - near the sign commemorating a previous mass-feeding event.

At around 9 am, I packed the food into the car and drove home to pick up the rest of the family - other plans had included meeting up in various large parking lots around the outskirts of the city if I ended up with a round in another area.

One of the recipients of the meals was an 89-year-old veteran of the Battle of Guam. He told us a couple of stories while E5N1 played on his mobility aid. We had a great time, only making one mistake - turning up a elderly care-home instead of the assisted living apartments next door - with some resulting confusion.

We were home before 11 am - fairly early, if quite a long time after the day had started. Exile #2 cooked us our own Thanksgiving dinner - not turkey, but we did have sweet potato!

Afterwards, to fight off the desire to collapse and fall asleep, we went to Five Rivers and saw this very relieved-looking turkey wandering around. We also had a nice walk and bumped into Albaniana and family there.

All in all we had a very good day indeed.

Day 2.319: Bowling forsooth

2009-11-25T22:47:00.004-05:00

Since the girls were out of school and most of my team were taking time off to travel to or prepare for family gatherings for Thanksgiving, I decided to take the day off too. Exile #4 opted for a play-date, but the rest of us managed to fit in bowling, lunch, a walk and a visit to a playground before returning to pick her up.

Here is E5N1 concentrating (click or rollover to see how much) on his attempt to reprogram the scores. Check out the cute bowling shoes! You can also see a little film of one of his shots (using the ramp) below. Exile #3 did very well at the start with some actual bowling - but later shifted over to using the ramp too.

Despite using one of two free-game vouchers we had lying around, we ended the day with three similar ones, so it's likely that we'll be back during the long hard-to-get-out winter months.

The title is a pop pun of sorts - not a song lyric or title though. Feel free to show me how clever you are in the comments!

Day 2.318: Great TV, strange TV

2009-11-24T23:22:00.000-05:00

Having completed my working week (day off tomorrow - followed by the Thanksgiving break), we settled down this evening to watch So You Think You Can Dance. It's down to the last six couples and honestly - although I have some favourites - after a great show tonight, they are all so good I don't mind too much who goes on to form the top ten.

After that, the local Fox News comes on - it was more surreal than usual as they tried to find something to say about all the ongoing news stories (politics, trials,...) packing up for the holiday. The weather guy was trying to make a few scattered rain showers out west exciting and then finally we had a news story about holiday shopping which included an interview with a shopkeeper who said (and I only paraphrase slightly) - We are neither up nor down, we're OK - the same people are shopping here as last year, they're spending the same as last year. Hold the front page!

Even the adverts were on surreal form - this was a woman tugging a pair of shopping trolleys up a steep hill - with a house built on the slant behind her - or was it possibly just the camera that was at an angle?!

Maybe that was intentionally rubbish, but what about this political one with an important message for (or from) Senator Kirsten Gillibrand:

No seriously - "Close Donut Hole" - say what?