Halloween in the Big Apple

Rachel had a one day conference at the SUNY (State University of New York) Graduate Center in Manhattan on Halloween, so I hopped on a train that afternoon and headed down to New York to explore a bit before meeting up with Rachel and her friends for dinner and then catching a train back home.

Grand Central Station upon my arrival.

I had several hours to kill in New York, so I decided to start out by wandering up to Central Park. Walking in NYC is an interesting experience--you don't really set your own pace, you just get carried along with the crowd. And traffic lights are more of a suggestion to the pedestrians; there were numerous occasions when the only reason the traffic got to go when they had a green light was because the lead car started driving through the throng of pedestrians still crossing the street in front of them. I've gotten a little used to not necessarily paying any attention to traffic lights when walking in New Haven, but New Yorkers appear to take that concept to the extreme. Arriving in Central Park gave me a brief respite from being carried along by that flow.

Central Park is not mostly open grassy areas, despite what you might have seen on TV. It's filled with outcrops of these long-ago glacially smoothed rocks. Time and erosion have eliminated the "smooth" factor from afar, but when seen up close, the indicators of glacial action are all there.

The picture's a little blurry, but Central Park's pond is famous, so I couldn't leave this out.

The waterfall is pretty and in focus, so I had to include it.

Just over a rise from the waterfall, there were people ice skating. This rink is artificial, but apparently people have been ice skating on this end of the pond during the winter months for over 100 years. (It was not cold when I was there, just so you know. I think the temperature was in the upper 50's, but the sun made it feel warmer.)

From atop another outcropping of rock, you can almost tell that the ice rink is, in fact, triangular. The picture of people skating was taken from behind and to the left of the yellow tree on the other side of the rink in this picture.

Proof that it was autumn. These two trees were the most colorful I saw.

Leaving Central Park, I headed south towards Times Square. I ate a small lunch in at a place called "Brooklyn Diner". It was neither Brooklyn nor a Diner in the classic sense. It was much more upscale than your typical diner, despite the fact that the building was designed to look like the classic diner. I didn't realize this until I got inside and by then I was starving, so I had a salad and managed to get out of there only spending about $15.

Shortly after lunch, I passed the Ed Sullivan Theater. There's some TV show that's filmed there, but I couln't remember what it was. I think it's on late at night, though. ;-)

Arriving in Times Square, I had to take a picture of the Coke sign.

Facing the other direction (away from the Coke sign) in Times Square.

After marveling at Times Square for a while (the traffic, the signs, the way the pedestrians were even more bold there than elsewhere in the city), I decided it was time for me to make a pilgrimage that any self-respecting hockey fan would in that situation. I had to walk down to Madison Square Garden.

A block or so from Madison Square Garden, I looked to my left and there was this interesting-looking building. Seems like there should be a giant ape or something hanging from it, though.

I finally made it to Madison Square Garden. The is actually the back entrance, but the front entrance is through the high-rise building you can see a little of a the top left corner of this picture, so it looks a lot less like a sports arena from there. The blue sign on the building is advertising New York Rangers tickets.

Having seen the Empire State Building (sans ape), I had to head over that direction to check it out. I didn't have time to wait in line to buy tickets to the observation deck (and I wouldn't dare have gone up there without Rachel, anyway), but I did go inside for a bit.

This is the floor as you are on your way to get in line to buy tickets for the observation deck.

The SUNY Graduate Center is kitty-corner across the street from the Empire State Building and it was getting close to time for Rachel to be done, so I headed over there. I didn't think to take pictures as we boarded a crowded subway car (I couldn't get more than a foot inside the door) and headed down to a spot that one of Rachel's friends knew about. We ate dinner there, then Rachel and I were tired, so we took the subway back up to Grand Central Station to head home. (We also stopped off in Times Square so Rachel could experience it, but we were tired and didn't take any pictures.)

Grand Central Station again; later at night and less crowded.

One amusing thing occurred while we were waiting for our train home. It was very warm in the station, so we stepped outside to cool off a bit. While we were standing there (and I was thinking to myself how the train station was barely recognizable as such from that angle), a man walked up to us and asked if we knew where the train station was. We told him, "That's it, right there." He said "Oh," stood there for a moment looking, then walked away--not towards the station. Minutes later, we boarded a train and headed home.

Autumn in New England and an Afternoon with the Sleeping Giant

(NOTE: Please excuse the quality of the pictures in this post. They were all taken using my cell phone and when there wasn't a smudge on the lense, it seemed to focus on anything but the subject of the picture. I have fixed them up as best I can with the Gimp.)

Fall arrived in New Haven this past week. It suddenly was much cooler and the trees started changing. The week ended with a big wind and rain storm on Saturday, so most of the pretty leaves are gone now. My camera is spending a few days in Puerto Rico with my wife right now, so I've done the best I could to capture some images with the cell phone camera (see the note at the beginning of this post).

First, a couple of pictures from around New Haven. The first couple are trees I passed while walking to work on Friday (10/24).

I also walked home from work that day. (It was a nice day and I hadn't gone for a run that morning, so could use the exercise.)

If you squint really hard, you can see West Rock in the distance on this one.

The West River looking north into Memorial Park in West Haven.

The cemetery was looking really nice.
Pictures from my phone (above and below) do it no justice whatsoever.

Another neighborhood tree in New Haven.

The Sleeping Giant

A few miles north of New Haven, there is a series of ridges that, especially when viewed from the south, looks a lot like a giant man lying on his back. This series of ridges make up Sleeping Giant State Park. In an attempt to get some better pictures of fall color and for something to do while my wife was sitting on a beach in Puerto Rico, I took a hike in the wind and threatening rain. Luckily, the heavy rain held off until well after I got home.

I didn't take this picture. It's on the Sleeping Giant Park Association's web site.

The trail I chose to start out on was wide and well-maintained. Notice how there is little-to-no undergrowth in the forest. That's typical of forests around here.

This escarpment is the giant's chin. I intended to get up onto that chin before the day was over, but I got a little lost and didn't make it up there this time. That just gives me more motivation to head back up there someday soon, maybe even with my wife in tow. :-)


This tower sits on one of the giant's hips. The well-maintained wide trail ended here. I elected to take a different trail back since that other trail was supposed to take me up onto the giant's head before heading back down to the parking area. First, however, I climbed up in the tower to get some views of the surrounding countryside.




If you look very closely at the horizon in the third picture, you can see some tall buildings. That is New Haven. To the left of New Haven is another ridge. That's East Rock. East Rock and West Rock (mentioned way above) are both basalt ridges like those that make up the Sleeping Giant, but they lie right around New Haven itself. (East Rock is much closer to downtown New Haven than it looks in this picture.) I don't know who came up with those amazingly creative names.


The entire point of this picture is to show just how windy it was. Notice, please, that all of the leaves are blowing to the right. (I know, it's hard to tell, but humor me.)


The paint spot on this tree tells me that I am following one of the trails. There are places in the park where the only way you can tell you're on a trail is by following the marks on the trees or, if you're climbing practically straight up and can't see the trees, they are often kind enough to paint the marks on the rocks. The lack of undergrowth in the forest makes it very easy to wander off of the trail without even realizing it. The mark on this tree is blue even though it looks white in the picture. It tells me I'm on the blue trail. Somewhere along the line, however, the marks really did become white so I obviously missed a turn on the blue trail. The blue trail is the one that takes you up onto the giant's head. The white trail, on the other hand, goes up onto the giant's chest.


You do get a good view of the chin from the giant's chest, but this view told me for sure I had gone the wrong way. After staring at the map for a long time, I figured out where I had gone wrong, but I decided to continue along the white trail anyway.


Quinnipiac University is literally right across the street from the giant. It's not even a particularly wide street--just a two lane rural road lies between the campus and the park. This view is from the giant's shoulder as I prepared to begin the descent.


Just after taking the picture of the university campus, I found all the autumn colors you could possibly want in each leaf of this tree. I gazed upon this glorious delight in wonderment for many hours (or maybe it was only a minute or two), then began the descent.


And a steep descent it was. This portion of the trail (note the white mark on the tree--this is the trail) was almost literally straight down. This was not a hike for the faint of heart.


And the leaves covered the rocks like a carpet, so you couldn't always trust your footing. This part of the hike was not all that enjoyable, to be honest. (But at least the ground was pretty while it was trying to kill you.)

After consulting the trail map a couple more times and once taking 5 or 6 steps down a stream bed instead of along a trail (they looked the same and I'd been watching my footing when the marks on a nearby tree indicated a turn), I found a safe route back to the car, and was able to make the drive back home.


(Don't worry, I stopped the car to take the picture, and there was no one behind me on the road--I checked.)

Rachel's Going to Puerto Rico!

It's been a few weeks since I posted. For those who are looking for hockey updates, I have only played one game in the past few weeks due to not feeling well in one way or another. In that game, I scored one goal as we outscored our opponents 8-7 in regulation, then lost in the ensuing shootout. How does that happen? When the referee calls a goal he didn't see because the opponents celebrated. We know he didn't see the goal for two reasons: (1) it didn't go in so there wasn't anything to see, and (2) when we argued the goal, he said the goalie had swiped her stick behind her as if to sweep the puck out of the net, so she must have done so. (She hadn't known that the puck was under her, so she swiped behind her just in case.) He also called an offside later in the game because the opponents yelled for it. It wasn't offside because they had brought the puck into the zone, not us. The referee also missed a bunch of penalties on both sides and called an icing on them after their guy had hustled down and played the puck just before it crossed the line. It was not a good night for the referee.

On to the subject that the title of this post is about; Rachel is, in fact, going to Puerto Rico! Here's how that came about: one of Rachel's professors announced that there would be no class on Thursday, October 23, because he was going to do some research at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The observatory at Arecibo has a very sensitive radio telescope and this professor is a radio astronomer. (In case you're wondering why the professor would do this research during classes, astronomers must apply for telescope time and take what they can get. That's an oversimplification, but it's the general idea.) You may have seen the dish of this telescope if you've ever seen the movie "Contact" with Jodie Foster; she is working at Arecibo at the very beginning of the movie.

This picture of the dish at Arecibo is from Wikimedia Commons.

Anyway, one of the students in the class asked (tongue-in-cheek) if they (the class of 5 or 6) could go. The professor said he would ask if they could get the funding. The next time he saw them, he told them they had the funding and the class was going to Arecibo as a field trip! Apparently, he had asked the department chair and the response had been something like, "Sure, we've got the money for that." So now Rachel's preparing to leave in the wee hours of the morning on Thursday the 23rd and return in the evening on Monday the 27th. She's even talking about joining some of the other students on a snorkeling expedition, which is pretty impressive given her fear of water. (She might not do it in the end, but she's planning on trying.)

That's the only real news around here, but it's pretty big and exciting news.

The Last Couple of Weeks--and the Hockey Game(s)

I've realized that I never posted an update after last week's game. There was a reason for that, but I'll get to that in a little bit.

First of all, Sarah left as planned on Friday the 19th, then returned on the 21st for a few more days. Her plans for Boston had fallen through and we told her we'd love to see her again for a few days. Unfortunately, she had to leave early on Thursday morning, so even with her visiting twice and us not having work/school on Fridays, we were only able to have one full day with her when we didn't have to go to work/school. Oh, well. It was good to see her anyway. She is now 2 or 3 days into a 10 day meditation retreat where she doesn't get to talk or communicate with anyone. That might be good for her relationship with the friend who was originally in charge of the Boston plans (and who is also at this retreat). :-)

Gizmo got his stitches out two weeks ago and got rid of his funnel a little over a week ago. He still looks a little funny as his fur grows back, but he's back to his little evil self again; which is something of a relief after 9 months but it's also a bit aggravating sometimes.

School is going well for both me and Rachel. Last week, I took a "big quiz" (not really a test, but we had 2 hours to work on it) in my Computer Structures class. As I mentioned parenthetically, we had 2 hours to work on it. When I finished in 25 minutes, I was a little nervous, so I spent about 10 minutes double-checking my work, then turned it in. I was the second to finish, but as I walked out I could see that some of the other students had barely gotten started (and I assume they probably needed all two hours). It was a bit of a surreal experience.

My boss really likes my work and has gotten to the point of embarrassing me, she's so enthusiastic about it. That's nice on the one hand, but she keeps going on about me working through next summer and maybe for the whole time I'm at UNH. I don't know about that--I'd rather find an internship or something for the summer that is related to my degree, but I guess we'll see. She does want to pay me $20 an hour for the work when school is not in session, so the pay is hard to turn down...

Now to the hockey update: The reason I didn't post anything about last week's game was twofold; first, I wasn't feeling like writing a whole lot that night after we received a 12-3 drubbing. Second, I wasn't sure the 12-3 was going to hold up because the guy who scored 7 of their goals (yes, seven) had played a couple of years of high school hockey, which makes him ineligible for our tier. In the end, they forfeited and we got our first win of the season (kind of cheap way to get the win, but there's no saying we wouldn't have won anyway if that guy hadn't been playing). That means that any stats from that game (including my one assist) don't count.

The weird thing is that the other game played that night also ended up as a forfeit since the winning team had an ineligible player. That's part of why I wasn't sure what was going on with that game; I didn't expect to see two forfeits listed on the web site, so I thought there had been a mistake. Our captain confirmed tonight, however, that both games were indeed forfeits.

Another weird thing that happened after the game last week was that we found out it was now legal to take slap shots in our tier. The league had simply removed the rule that banned slapshots from the web site and didn't bother to inform anyone. God, I miss the GSHL's organization (even if the schedule was a bit slow to come out every season).

This week's game was a bit more normal. We played the same team we did in the very first game (which we led 6-3 going into the third period but lost 7-6 in a shootout). For the third time in the four games we've played, I scored the first goal of the game, this one on my team's first shot of the game. The goalie just left me about a foot and a half of space on the short side and dropped to his knees, so I just shot it in. I also picked up a goal in the second period on a technicality (I was screening the goalie and the shot hit me before it went in). I don't know for sure if I'll get official credit for that goal or not, but it was technically mine. I don't mind if Josh (the actual shooter) gets credit, though. He earned it.

So we led 5-2 heading into the third period, and all the chat on the bench during the break was how we had led them by 3 going into the third last time and managed to lose it. We didn't this time; we hung on for a 6-3 win. Now we have a win in the usual way, which makes us all feel better. The team is starting to gel as we get to know each other better, which gives us more confidence on the ice.

Some readers who know I don't score very often normally might note that I now have 5 goals in 4 games (3 games if you don't count the forfeit) and might be wondering if I might be playing in too low a tier. I've been thinking about that, too, pondering whether I should try moving up to Tier 3 in January. At this point, I'm thinking no--frankly, I'm not out there skating around a lot of people (a few, but only the people who obviously have only been playing for a year or two). I think the goaltending in this tier just isn't what I was used to in the GSHL--my team has scored 6 goals twice in four games, after all. Besides, a little time being able to score a few might boost my confidence before I take on a higher level of play again.

Sarah and the Hockey Game

Rachel's Australian half-sister Sarah is in town for a few days. She arrived last night on a train from D.C. and is staying with us until early Friday morning, when she and a friend take off in a rental car for a (fiddle) gig in Vermont. While we were all eating dinner last night I mentioned that I had a hockey game tonight, fully intending to say that I didn't have to play if she wanted to do something else. Before I got that out, however, she said that yes, she would like to come see the game. She had never seen a hockey game before and was quite excited to come watch me play. She also told us as we were walking to the car before the game that she has a friend in Australia who has become quite the hockey fan recently and "knows everything" about hockey, but he hasn't yet gotten to actually go to a game, so she'll have to let him know that she's been to one now.

The game itself wasn't bad. I played center for the whole game this time, winning about 3/4 of my faceoffs. I again scored the first goal of the game, this time when I pounced on a rebound and flipped a backhand shot into the upper corner. Unfortunately, our opponents scored the next 4 goals, including 2 shorthanded goals on really bad plays by the defense. We answered in the third on a 2 on 1 where I made a nice backhand pass right onto the tape of the other player's stick and he slid it just inside the far post. That was it, though, and we ended with a 4-2 loss. We were lacking a couple of our better players from last week, though, and are still in the process of gelling, so I think we're okay. For myself, I felt I played a pretty good game, keeping my head in it and making smart plays pretty much throughout.

I did find out that it's pretty typical of the Connecticut Hockey League that there is just one referee who acts not only as referee, but also as scorekeeper. I really got spoiled by the GSHL. This league is really Mickey Mouse in comparison. Still, the games are clean and fun and the players on all three teams I've met so far seem like good people, so I won't complain too much. Not yet, anyway. ;-)

Scott's First Week of School

My first week of school seemed a lot longer than the 4 days it actually was. This was probably because I'm not used to working half-time while going to school full-time. I'll get used to the schedule. Tuesdays will be the toughest, though, since I have an evening class on Tuesdays that doesn't finish until 9:05. Since I have to be at work at 9:30am Mon-Thurs, that translates into more than 11 1/2 hours on campus.

Unlike Rachel, I have no idea how many new grad students there are in my program, but I'm sure I'm not the only one. Two (Computer Organization and Intro to Databases) of my three classes are double-listed as undergraduate courses and the enrollment seems to be about half undergrad and half grad students. The other class (Introduction to Programming/C) has 10 students in it. We had our first homework assignment due on Wednesday, and 4 of us (myself included) turned it in. The professor was not very happy about that.

In short, my courses look interesting and I'm looking forward to the rest of this term, but it's going to be a lot of work. Having Fridays off is nice, though. ;-)

Hanna and the Hockey Game

Tropical Storm Hanna frankly was something of a disappointment. Sure, there was a lot of rain and some winds gusting up to 30 mph or so, but I've seen that kind of stuff before. It does sound a little strange even to me to be saying that it was a disappointment, but I got all excited over basically nothing, it turns out.

Less disappointing was my first game with the Connecticut Hockey League. I played my first shift at center, winning the one faceoff I took quite handily. When I got to the bench, however, someone else had shown up and the lines were reshuffled, leaving me at right wing for the rest of the game. The two women who were playing center were pretty good at faceoffs and quicker skaters than I, so I had no problem with that change.

On the ice, I drew a penalty about 23 minutes into the first period. (Yes, 23 minutes. We play three 25 minute running-time periods, it turns out.) I then proceeded to redirect a beautiful pass into the net about 9 seconds into the power play for my first goal outside the Puget Sound region. I scored a second goal in the second period on a nice screened shot that hit the goalie and trickled through into the net. I also had an opportunity in the third when their defense fed me the puck while I was standing all alone in front of the goalie. As always happens in that situation, I got briefly confused and wound up shooting it at the 5-hole that he had closed up half a second before. Needless to say, I didn't score. (In hindsight, I know I should have stepped back and roofed it, but that's always easy to decide later.)

The team did okay considering that half the players (including the goalie) were new. We went into the third period with a 6-3 lead, but the two centers and three defensemen were getting worn out and the third period ended with a 6-6 tie. The CHL rules dictate that we go straight to a 3-shooter shootout: we scored once, they scored twice, so we lost it in the shootout. Still, I think we did well and once we start getting used to playing together we should start winning games like that.

They didn't have the new jerseys ready for the first game, but I was able to request number 17 and he told me I'd get it next week. We wore solid white jerseys, so I pulled out my old Road Hazard roller hockey jersey for tonight's game.

In all, it was a little disappointing to lose after leading for virtually the entire game, but it was a fun, clean game. As for level-of-play, it's mostly equivalent to GSHL division 6A or B, with a few weaker players whom I'd put in division 7. I saw no players of division 8 caliber, either in my game or in the game before mine (which was between the only other two teams in Tier 4). I felt pretty comfortable with the level. (I always did feel a little overwhelmed in division 5, to be honest.)

Rachel's First Week of School

"Week" is really an exaggeration, since school started on Wednesday, but whatever.

Rachel learned last week that she is the entire incoming class of Astronomy graduate students. This has its good points and bad points: good that the department is not overworked in trying to orient loads of new people all at once but bad in that she is the center of attention; which is something Rachel doesn't really like.

One quirk of her department is that they don't tend to post meeting times for the graduate-level classes in the class schedule. In the last few days before the term, they post a first-meeting time then discuss when the class will meet. That makes planning a schedule for the semester a bit annoying, but leaves the schedule flexible, I guess. She now has a schedule that has classes Monday through Thursday with Fridays off. My schedule will also be that way, so we can plan on running some errands on Friday occasionally, though we'll probably plan for it to be a (home)work day for each of us.

None of Rachel's classes are large. The biggest one had 9 people, but several of those people probably won't be returning. (The classes are listed for both graduate and undergraduate students, and Yale has a "shopping week" for the undergraduates where they attend many classes during the first week or so to determine if they want to take the class or not. 5 of the 9 are undergraduates, so it is likely that at least 2 or 3 of them will not return.) One class consists of just 2 people. (Personally, I'd rather have 9-11 students in the class if I was a student; that's a small enough number to allow for individual attention as needed, but a large enough number to create some aspect of anonymity for the students. I like that number as an instructor, too, but for slightly different reasons.)

Once surprise for Rachel was when a professor she had never met told her that since she was interested in solar physics, she should stop by for a chat next week. She doesn't know for sure how that professor knew she was into solar physics, but since she's the entire incoming class it seems possible that everyone knows her interests.

In all, Rachel had a good first week of classes and expects to fit in well here.

Side note: As I write this, we are anticipating the arrival of Tropical Storm Hanna sometime tonight. The latest predictions show the center of the storm passing right over us sometime between 10:00pm and midnight with sustained winds of 50 mph and rainfall of 4-6 inches. This is not a common occurrence here, as most tropical storms miss New England completely, but it does happen occasionally and people in general do not seem overly concerned, so I'm trying to take a lead from the natives. If I can work in time between my orientation session for UNH and my hockey game tomorrow, I'll post a post-storm update.

Gizmo Returns from Surgery

Gizmo's surgery went well and he was recovering so well they let us take him home after a couple of days. He gets to wear a cone for a couple of weeks so he doesn't tear the stitches out, but the prognosis is excellent. He is already more active than he's been for months.

"Baboon Butt" goes exploring just after getting home.
(The shaved fur will grow back, of course,
but he looks funny at both ends for now.)

I'm playing hockey this fall

I have been placed on Blizzard, a team in Tier 4 of the Connecticut Hockey League's Northford division. Tier 4 seems to be basically GSHL Divisions 6, 7, and 8 kind of lumped together. The session is 12 weeks plus playoffs, so will be done by the time I'm out of school for winter break. If Tier 4 turns out to be too low for me, then I can try Tier 3 for the winter session.

My first game is this coming Sunday (September 7) at 8:00. I have met no one on my team and don't have a jersey yet (these are provided by the league, apparently), but this should be interesting. Hopefully, they'll be forgiving of a guy who hasn't skated since June 23...

Connecticut Tax Free Week and Other Stories

It's officially been a month now since we left the west coast, which is weird to think, but we're adjusting. Since I spent the last few weeks not really feeling like posting much, I have a few things to bring people up to date with.

Connecticut Tax Free Week

This is apparently not as off-the-wall unique as I thought it was when I discovered it, but once a year, the state of Connecticut suspends sales tax on clothing and shoes for less than $300. This year, that was August 17-23. Luckily, we found this out in time for me to get some pants, a shirt, and some shoes that I could wear to work. (The shoes are really for general use--my old ones were pretty well worn out.) Rachel got a couple of things to wear to school as well. It's a nice back-to-school thing, especially for parents with several children who need whole new wardrobes before school starts each fall.

I (Scott) Started Working

Monday, August 18, late morning: Rachel and I were walking up to Yale so she could check in with her department, get a key to her office, etc, when my cell phone rang. It was my new boss asking if I could start before the term began. She had gotten permission to pay me $20/hr (which she came up with by taking the hourly wage I'll make during the term and adding in the tuition waiver that comes with an assistantship) and she was desperate for help ASAP. I started the next day, and have worked two 20 hour weeks.

Working for the office of Institutional Research is interesting sometimes, but for the last week, it is been mostly cursing the previous director of I.R. for not naming his files in any meaningful and recognizable pattern and being frustrated because I do not have access to the files I need to get the data I'm supposed to be using. (This was especially an issue for me this past Friday, when Elizabeth (my boss) was gone for the day and Human Resources doesn't know who I am, so wouldn't give me any data--it wasn't even anything that shouldn't be public records anyway, but I didn't know how else to find it. Hopefully, she can deal with this for me pretty quickly on Monday and I can finish off this rather simple study and get on to something else.)

The Daisy Cutters Won the Championship

This is technically a west coast story since the Cutters are the hockey team that I've been captain of for the past 4 years. The "official" team picture has an homage to me by putting my retired jersey in the top left corner:


It's really touching to have been honored in that way. I really miss all those guys and they've made me proud. (Side story: they saved me a trophy and my dad sent it to me via FedEx, but FedEx now claims that they delivered the trophy but I don't have it. FEDEX OWES ME A TROPHY!!! "Left it outside our front door" my ass. I don't believe that for a second, especially since Rachel was home the whole day that day. Update, 9/2/08: The trophy was delivered to the rental office (which is not at the same address) over the long weekend. FedEx did NOT deliver it to our front door on Thursday, as they have claimed, and they have offered me no explanation. Still, the important thing is that I now have the trophy.)

Slightly related; I initiated contact with the Connecticut Hockey League today. Assuming I am able to get on a team this late (their fall season starts later this week, I believe) I'll be playing this fall. Otherwise, I guess I'll have to wait a while. If I do play, it would be in the Northford league, probably Tier 3 or Tier 4. (I think I belong in Tier 3, but we'll see what happens.)

Gizmo's Ongoing Issues Finally Diagnosed

Gizmo's medications ran out shortly after we got here, so we made an appointment with a new vet to get an examination and a continuation of his prescriptions. She said she wanted to see an X-ray and have a radiologist check it out. She didn't see anything in Gizmo's bladder, but the radiologist spotted small stones embedded in Gizmo's urethra, causing a partial blockage. (Both the surgeon and the doctor have said that they have never seen it this bad without complete blockage.) Gizmo goes in tonight for surgery tomorrow morning. He'll be fine in a few days, but it will cost $3000, about $1700 of which will be reimbursed by the insurance we have on the cats, but it's still a big unexpected expense. :-(

Funny Road Name

It seems apropos that on this day when I determined that I would finally post a blog entry we went out driving and found one of the best road names I've seen so far: Roast Meat Hill Rd.

Also out on this drive, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch and when we came out, the car parked next to ours also had Washington license plates. That was a huge surprise, to say the least. (We have our CT driver's licenses, but we need to get the car tested before we can get the CT plates, and that's happening later in the week. We're well within the 90 days allowed by law for getting the registration transfered over.)

That's it for now, but I'll probably be posting a bit more as school gets started for both me and Rachel in the next couple of weeks.

Our stuff arrived

And boy do we have way too much of it. It's rather difficult to move around in the apartment right now. At least it didn't rain all day like the forecast said it was supposed to.

The Apartment

We've been in New Haven for 4 days now. No one has asked, but I'm sure people would like to know about the apartment, so I've taken some pictures. The apartments has 2 bedrooms and 1 bath and is arranged in a "townhouse" style with the bedrooms and bathroom upstairs and the kitchen and living room downstairs. Here's a floor plan:

For reference, north is diagonally down and to the right.

The rectangle at the bottom left of the kitchen in the floor plan is a breakfast bar, and "downstairs" is actually on the second floor of the building. On the top floor, the bedroom on the left is the one we'll be using as our bedroom and the other will be the study area/computer room.

Now for some pictures taken of the apartment itself. These pictures were taken on the day we arrived in the apartment and the pathetically small pile of belongings you see on the living room floor is everything we have until the truck arrives (possibly tomorrow).

Downstairs:

The view looking in the front door.
The door at left leads to the terrace, while
the counter in the foreground is the breakfast bar.

The kitchen is rather long and narrow.

Part of the living/dining room area.
Especially sharp-eyed readers will note that the
cats are in the cage in the far corner: this is because
when we moved in it was extremely hot in the apartment,
but there were no screens in the window. We called management
and they installed the screens about half an hour after this picture was taken.

The cage remains in the apartment as a "safe haven" for the cats.
They go in there less each day.

A bit more of the living/dining room.

The view back from where the cats' cage was in the above pictures.
Note the sad pile of belongings. ;-)

Upstairs:

It's extremely difficult to take useful pictures of bedrooms and bathrooms, but here's what I have.

Our bedroom as seen from the doorway.

Our bedroom looking back towards the door from the window. (Like I said, it's really hard to get useful pictures of empty rooms like this.)

The study/computer room.
The window faces roughly northeast.

The bathroom. The cupboard door is open
because we had the cats locked in here while we
unloaded the car and Gizmo hid in the cupboard.
It took a few seconds to find him when Rachel went
in to visit the cats at one point.

The view from the terrace:

We have a corner apartment with a view of two rather busy one way streets; George and Howe.

Looking to the left as you step out onto the terrace, you see
George St., which runs northwest-to-southeast.

The intersection of George and Howe is basically due east.
Note the lovely view of the dumpster at the bottom of the picture.
The white thing in the bushes is a seat cushion. It looks like somebody
tried to hit the dumpster from their terrace and missed by a lot.

Howe St. is straight out the back of the apartment.

Looking pretty much due south. Howe St.
is to the left. Below is the driveway used by
those residents lucky enough to have a garage
for their car. (We're on a waiting list; right now
we have to park on George St.)

Unfortunately, Howe and George are both pretty busy roads and the intersection is controlled by a traffic light. That wouldn't bother us, but it's late in the season to buy air conditioners so we're having trouble finding any so we have our windows open 24 hours a day right now. In addition, there are two hospitals within a few blocks, so a lot of ambulances go by with sirens wailing.

This isn't exactly heaven, but we'll only be here for a short while (possibly 2 years) so we'll make do. Once it gets cold, the windows will be closed and they actually block the sound pretty well. If we don't find an air conditioner this summer, we will definitely get one or two as soon as they hit the market next spring so we don't have to listen to the traffic all summer again.

A couple of cat pictures to finish up:

Gizmo quickly established "his" spot on the stairs.

This picture shows where Gizmo likes to lie.
He's the dark spot up at the corner.

A closeup. Gizmo's spending less time there as he adjusts
to the new place, but it's actually a good out-of-the-way
place for him where he can see both upstairs and down, so
he returns to that spot any time he gets spooked.

Phoenix, on the other hand, seems to think that he's a computer. He certainly fits in the bag really well.

Looks like we could just zip him in and go for a trip.