Last weekend I drove 1700 miles to spend 48 hours getting rained on in Wisconsin with my pal Doug and some other buds from Back in the Day. My pregnant wife encouraged me to make this Man Journey even though I was a little apprehensive.
We had a great time. More copy pending!
Before: setting up camp in the rain.
After: regrouping at Todd's house for a sandwich in the dry.
Well, you can't see much on the pictures from our stone-age (ca. 2003) camera phone, but this is Grey in the swimming hole at Buttermilk Falls right here in Mendham. It's a hike of about 2 miles right from our house, way out in the woods. There used to be an iron foundry nearby in the 18th century but there's no trace anymore except for a couple stones.
We walked up there with Joe and Jill, G's parents. You can see Joe in the blue shirt on the right. A couple kids were there too and after seeing the pregnant lady paddling around they worked up the courage to get in too. It was beautiful but very cold!
Didn't see any wildlife other than a couple of toads. Good looking ones though.
Here's an even better picture of Jack and the Bear.
And also from New Jersey, there's the bear in a hammock incident.
Yesterday we went walking at Willowood Arboretum and I saw a northern ringneck snake.
(These are someone else's fingers and someone else's snake. I was good and I didn't pick him up.)
Well, it looks like I've got a job! I've accepted a position at Pequannock Township High School and though I haven't signed any papers yet it looks like the rest is going to be easy.
In my job search I sent out more than 40 applications (many unsolicited) and interviewed at about 10 schools. I had a total of six job offers by the end. The vast majority of the people I met were great.
The process was really pretty miserable. It felt kind of like going to the shelter to adopt a pet. How can you pick??
But, in the end, I think it has turned out really well. I'm really impressed with the administration and faculty at Pequannock. They are really interested in doing the best for the students, they were serious about good teaching, and they were willing to put their money where their mouths were. Big time.
For the time being we imagine staying in Mendham while I commute to Pequannock. It's only about 35 minutes away, and most of the time the commute will be pretty easy by Northern New Jersey standards. So I guess I will hang onto my commuting barge despite the drawbacks so that I can enjoy the peaceful woodgrain atmosphere with an audiobook when I am not worrying about lessons or tests.
Grey is doing very well. Her folks are here for a few days and we are having a nice visit. Today we went to Fosterfields, a local farm run by the county as it was in 1880. They have piglets and cows and sheep and horses and chickens and more pigs. It's big fun for grownups and of course we are scoping out places to take children. You should come visit us with your children and we'll all go look at piglets.
A black bear picked the wrong New Jersey yard for a jaunt earlier this week, running into a territorial tabby who ran the furry beast up a tree - twice.
Jack, a 15-pound orange-and-white cat, keeps a close vigil on his property, chasing small animals when he can, but his owners and neighbors say his latest escapade was surprising.
"We used to joke, 'Jack's on duty,' never knowing he'd go after a bear," cat owner Donna Dickey told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Friday's newspapers.
Neighbor Suzanne Giovanetti first spotted Jack's accomplishment after her husband saw a bear climb a tree on the edge of their northern New Jersey home's back yard on Sunday. Giovanetti thought Jack was simply looking up at the bear, but soon realized the much larger animal was afraid of the hissing cat.
After about 15 minutes peering down at the cat from the tree, the bear descended and tried to run away, only to have Jack chase it up another tree.
At this point Dickey, who feared for her cat, called Jack back home and the bear scurried back to the woods.
"He doesn't want anybody in his yard," Dickey said.
I dunno if anyone cares about this sort of thing, but since the blog is experimental anyway, let me tell you about what I made for dinner, with which I was well pleased:
Transcript of the Rutgers Graduate School of Education Commencement 2006 if I was in charge:
"Welcome everyone. Now you are officially unemployed. In conclusion, there is free beer and chicken on the quad."
The real graduation was 120 minutes longer and there was no beer or chicken. Men talked at us for ages. Some old guy presented his brave vision for revolutionizing K-3 education which must have been really interesting to someone somewhere.
Still, it was a beautiful day. My loving wife and parents sat through the whole ordeal with every sign of good cheer, and we all went for Ethiopian lunch afterwards.
We had a great time in Ocean City, which is like our own familiar Point Pleasant raised to the power of Blackpool. The birthday girl started her day with yoga on the beach and did a headstand at 20 weeks of pregnancy.
We went off with Kim while Michael studied for his paramedic degree. At the boardwalk the birthday girl strengthened herself with a wholesome calcium snack and then we rode on the great big Ferris wheel.
Then, for something completely different, we went to Assateague Island to see if we could find some of the wild ponies alleged to live out there. Turns out we didn't have to find them, they found us. In fact the whole island was infested with wildlife. We saw a red winged blackbird. And a ton of horses that looked like little-girl pony-porn come to life.
Gretchen drove out from DC and we all had a festive birthday dinner. Michael grillled steaks and I went around the corner for a sack of hot and spicy Callinectes sapidus. While waiting for the nice man to slaughter twelve invertebrates for our dinner I got to watch a crab moult. It was amazing, the shell popped up at the back and then, really slowly, a bigger crab came out. Not, like, a slightly bigger crab but a BIGGER crab. It was like a David Blaine trick.
If anybody needs to know a better way to field-strip a crab, get Michael to show you his method.
Then we had an epic birthday cake and went to bed. Maybe Grey will make a post about what happens if you are pregnant and eat too much crab and birthday cake. She's fine now though!
Update: I have learned that the latin name of the blue crab means "beautiful swimmer that is savory."
Tomorrow is Grey's 40th birthday. As I write she is off to ShopRite to get ingredients for her own birthday cake. She has her heart set on pink icing with a ballerina on top, and there was a certain amount of deliberation this morning about frosting and filling recipes. And cake tins. And choice of flour. The only thing not uncertain is the fact that some form of Chocolate will feature prominently.
We had been planning a camping weekend in Delaware but the timing turned out to be unfortunate for most of our friends, and now it's supposed to rain all weekend. So that's officially off, but we are looking forward to a visit with Michael and Kim at their shore house in Ocean City, Maryland.
Well, we went for another ultrasound yesterday and spent 40 minutes looking at the baby. As medical procedures go this is pretty low-impact. The scariest part was when the tech squeezed blue goo on the maternal belly. It looked cold. But it turns out I was worried for no reason, the goo sits in a warming device in between customers. Would be good for shaving cream too I bet.
Short version: everything looks normal except the baby is a little big for his age. Still looking at a due date of about October 4. Oh yeah, and he's definitely a boy.
What they can do with the technology is kind of amazing. There was a lot of looking at the heart. You could see all four chambers pumping and the valves opening and closing. There was a doppler-shift function where all the blood coming at you was colored blue and moving away was red. Pretty amazing combination of physics and biology. (I think a lot in terms of lesson plans these days.)
It was an emotional experience but maybe not as acute as last time. I think we are starting to get used to having him around. That's intense in a different way.
I think this is my favorite book ever.We were enduring our family cruise to Alaska. As you can see from the picture, Alaska is a terrible place. We had to put up with a helicopter ride and hike several miles just to get to this location, and once we got there we could not even find a Dunkin Donuts. Just some porcupine quills and an answer to that old question about the bear.
No, seriously, it was a wonderful trip with Joe's company, on the sister ship to this one. We went with both D'Amato and Valenti parents and Mark and Lauren and the kids. We gotta get more pictures up one of these days.
The contrast between wild Alaska and the shockingly indulgent shipboard treatment really did show both lifestyles to their best advantage. Or at least on high contrast. I never expected to see wild bear poop and a four foot eagle carved out of butter on the same day.
Here's an oldie but a goodie. In exchange for cat food, the beasts must endure occasional indignities for the benefit of the humans. In this case, their person is conducting a team-building exercise.
The cat on the left is usually known as "the big one" and nicknamed Stretch. Her real name is still unknown. The one on the right is the small one, nicknamed Stumpy, known to the vet as Blueberry.
I wonder if anyone else has ever posted a cat picture on their blog?
