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Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone!

Have you ever wondered how kids trick or treat in a big city like Manhattan? Well, I am here to give you the answer you so desire.

It turns out most, if not all, of the local businesses allow the kids to trick or treat from them! McDonald’s was giving out cookies, restaurant hostesses had bowls of candy sitting up by their seating booths, I was quite impressed.

And for high rise buildings, at least in ours, a survey was taken that involved all apartments willing to accept trick or treaters to sign up and the apartments were posted in the lobby.

I’ve learned a lot today about Halloween and the big city, I know I had always wondered!

Hope your Halloween was a scary one!

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The Brick Testament

My friend Krista passed along what I think is an interesting link depicting many Biblical stories all in Lego (my brother David should love this!). Check it out here.

The site is put together by an expressed atheist, but is recommended by numerous pastors and Diocese’s as a way to get children engaged in learning about Bible stories. I find it all very interesting from a bunch of different perspectives. He (the artist/evangelist/jokester Brendan Powell Smith) is extremely faithful to the Bible stories, so on its face can be considered a reliable source. But as you read the press on his site (or this article—which is one of the best of the pieces I read about the site) you see that perhaps his motivations weren’t so pure. In one place I read that he started the project to help people see how “ridiculous” some of the Biblical stories were. But other interviews seem to indicate that people who have spoken with him think he has been affected/inspired(/converted?) by his project.

Anyway, no matter the subtext—you can just enjoy the novelty of fully-illustrated Bible stories on The Brick Testament website and not think too hard about it like I’ve evidently been doing…

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The Constitution State - In Full Color

Due to high demand, I have forgone all of the thousands of other things I need to be doing in order to get these pictures online.
We begin our three hour, I mean minute, tour at the street sign across the street from the infamous 17 and 19 Robin Hood Drive houses. My main memory of this sign post was that of Erik Johnson I believe being “attached” to it. I cannot recall exactly how, whether it was tape or a rope.

Moving on, I decided to take a photo of the Angelo’s old mail box because I thought it was very cool that clearly a submariner still lived at that house.

Here are the two houses, the Angelo’s on the left and the Smeigh’s on the right with the GIANT hill in between…

Can you believe all of the fun we had sledding down that HUGE hill? I remember Tara sledding down and straddling one of the trees, I guess I shouldn’t laugh about it because that’s just mean, but, well, it’s funny. And it didn’t leave any permanent damage.

But seriously, how could we have ever thought that was a steep hill worth sledding down? Mom? Dad? Help me out here, is the childhood perspective really so very different? I was amazed!!!

Next we drove on over to Ledyard and checked out the center, past Holdridge’s, Ledyard Center Elementary, which hasn’t changed one bit, the Library and then over to the school. Which as Matt mentioned has more parking where there was a field and what is apparently the new library (aka Media Center) built in front of the entrance where the auditorium is located. The old library is apparently now just additional cafeteria space.

On a very sad note, it appears as though Mr. Rockefeller died in 2000. I tried to see if I could figure out why via an internet search, but to no avail. This makes me very sad as he was great as my teacher for The Colonel, the school magazine. Here’s a little plaque commemorating his death.

Finally, and it appears most eagerly awaited, is 33 Seabury Ave.

Yes, to everyone’s amazement they have cleared out the trees that were in the front yard, even the stone wall that was in the front yard. And have added the Madonna statue.The door is still red, but I think the loss of the forest truly hurts the charm of this house. Although the Hakkinen’s do still live across the street.

Thanks for joining Matt and I down this trip called Memory Lane. I imagine there will be more to come.

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So… We Still Have Gmail Accounts

It sounds like no one cares, and that’s fine, but if anyone wants a Gmail account (or a second Gmail account), please just let one of us know. We’re happy to forward an invitation. They’re just sitting there in our Gmail-boxes waiting to be used…

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The Constitution State

I finally did it! I finally saw where Debra grew up.

Debra and I went to Connecticut this past Sunday so I could see her old stomping grounds now that we’ve moved back to the East Coast. We took a beautiful drive up I-95 from New York City to Ledyard, CT. The fall colors are in full swing and there was one picturesque bridge in particular that we went over and saw a riverbank filled with the most beautiful reds, oranges and yellows.

Ledyard and Gales Ferry were really out there in the middle of nowhere. We decided it was a bit like Eaton Rapids in that regard—right down to the 20-30 minutes you had to drive to get to a decent place to buy clothes.
It was fun driving through her childhood with her. She showed me everything. From her house on Robin Hood Drive (located right off Friar Tuck Lane in Sherwood Forest, of course) where she lived until she was in 2nd or 3rd grade (where she met one of her bridesmaids, Tara, at the ripe old age of 3 on the HUGE hill between their houses) to her high school (which has replaced a big field in the front with a big addition, more parking and several new tennis courts) to her house on Seabury Avenue (which has been denuded of trees by recent residents, though it does have a nice Madonna in the front lawn now). Deb has some pictures she’ll post for her family and friends who knew what those places looked like “back then”…

After we toured her hometowns, we went to Mystic. We drove by the Mystic Pizza of movie fame but didn’t stop. We had much more touristy stuff to do—like check out Old Mistick Village where we did a little bit of shopping. You can never have too many tchotchkes from tourist traps! Probably my favorite part, though, was eating dinner at the restaurant where Debra used to be a busboy, the Seamen’s Inne. We had some of the best Lobster Bisque we’ve ever had.

The trip was a bit ambitious for one day with the drive to and from the area each taking 2 and half hours or more. Mom, if you thought Chicago and San Francisco driving was crazy—just wait to get out here!

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The Ellington—PICTURES!!!

On my lunch I decided to take some pictures of the place and post them for your viewing pleasure. Keep in mind the place is a huge mess and I have lowered the quality of the pictures since I don’t think anyone needs to see a hi-res version of our bathroom or messy kitchen. All of these are thumbnails so click for bigger versions of all photos.

I found it’s amazingly hard to take pictures of this kind of space. I tried to get some hallway shots, to give an idea of layout, but those pictures turned out to be a total waste of time and not helpful.

When you walk into our front door you have the option to go straight into the office or take a right and head towards the bathroom and bedroom. Let’s start our tour there…

The first image is of our bathroom, nothing special here, but all of the mirrors, including one behind the door have storage. Next is a view of our bedroom. Notice how all of our furniture is in the room and there is that big empty space in the middle of the room? That’s rare. Most bedrooms would have given us tight aisles between all of our furniture if we tried to fit all of those pieces in. There’s a walk in closet in the bedroom next to the entry door. We are happy that our bedroom window isn’t on the street, it should help cut down on siren noise.

The hallway leading to the bedroom has two closets and the hallway leading to the office has one closet. They are all big closets with hanging poles and two shelves above.

Next onto the office…

We are going to get a movable screen to close this room off if we want, as my desk has been known to be as messy as it is in this picture! My desk is on the left, Matt’s is on the opposite wall of mine, you can see it on the left hand side of the picture on the right. One wall will be lined with printers/scanners/etc. The other wall has our cabinets which will be full of games and books.

Onto the Kitchen, which is on the other side of the wall from my desk…

The right side has the stove/microwave and the fridge. The left side is the sink/dishwasher and some good counter space. The kitchen table will go under the pass through in the living area. This is the thorn in my side. There isn’t enough room for all of our stuff. The cabinets over the sink side of the kitchen are already full of dishes. Alright, enough of that, that’s a project for the weekend…

Now onto the living area…

The first photo shows the space, it’s basically just a big rectangle. The dining area will be in the lower right hand corner of this picture. The TV with a new entertainment wall to live in will go along the left hand side, closer to the window than the TV is right now. The couch will go along the right side of the room with the chair about where the pappasan is right now.The full size bed and other items are stacked up in the corner so that they are out of the way while we unpack and we have boxes of books to unpack on the other side of the wall, so this room will be pretty unfinished until we actually get the new furniture.

And then finally our view. The theater across the street and the Neil Simon Theater one building over, that sign is how it looks if you look out our window and look directly to the right. Hairspray is playing there right now.

Well, I think two big long posts are enough for one day and my lunch hour is definitely over.

Enjoy!

(ps The Ellington is the name of our building…)

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Oh Where Oh Where

Has my TV gone?

Sorry, I don’t intend to make singing a normal thing when I post, it has just seemed to really be appropriate…

Matt and I are working on getting settled into the apartment. I am avoiding the kitchen area like the plague because I have no idea what I am going to do in there. I really had no idea how much stuff we have. At first I thought I had been able to visually put everything away in the space I had in my mind, but then I realized that some of those cupboards need to have food in them and not just dishes. Never thought it would happen, but the stove has turned into a storage area. For cookie sheets and baking pans of course, I do not want to accidentally bake some tupperware.

The bedroom is actually pretty much done, I have to put some clothes away, we need to fill up the bookshelf and we want to get a rug, but besides putting things up on the walls, which will most likely be the very last thing we do, the bedroom is really feeling like home. Nala and Tundra seem to prefer this room to the living space, probably because it is finished.

The office furniture is all set up in the spots it will live. Now it’s just the unpacking and putting away part to deal with in there.

The living space is sort of a black hole, in a couple ways. There isn’t any overhead lighting out there, so we need to buy lamps, etc. It’s quite comical that the only time we have to do anything in the apartment is at night and if we want to do anything out there that means working in the dark. We don’t expect the couch until the middle of the month, so for right now we are just storing some furniture and odds and ends we have decided don’t work, like the full size bed that was in our guest room in SF.

The dining area is just an extension of the kitchen in my head, so I am avoiding it too…

Now for the good news, after making us jump through some small hoops, Time Warner Cable comes on friday to hook up our cable and internet! I am sad to say that some nice soul out there is allowing me to borrow his/her wireless to work this week. I am forever in their debt for that. The phone people are also coming Friday, which is extremely important because I am already well over my cell phone minutes, and I have a couple conference calls I have to sit in on this week…can’t wait for that bill!

I suspect that since we are around this weekend, no quick trips to Michigan for a wedding like last weekend, we will end the weekend really feeling like this place is home.

Now we just have to get used to the sounds of living so close to other people.

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