6.29.2007

15 Miles on the Erie Canal

One of the nice things about being in this area is that we are half a mile from the Erie Canal canalway path. We have been biking on it (though clearly here there are no bikes involved) and we took Daru for a walk as well. The canalway path runs over 300 miles across New York with some parts paved. We rode towards Rochester one day, but didn't make it downtown, and west a couple other days. Our goal is to ride to Doug's grandma's house in Lockport sometime- 60-70 miles away we think.
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6.27.2007

The Female Peloton

The women's race had a photo finish with a large pack up until the last lap or lap and a half when one woman broke away and won by probably 20 seconds. We can't remember who won, but it might be one of these ladies.
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6.26.2007

Rochester Crit

Doug's sister Robin's sister-in-law gave us a book on summer events in Rochester, so we looked at it last Friday night and saw that there was a bike race downtown on Saturday. We went to Sinbad's (sorry Dawn!) for supper and then decided to go check it out. We didn't really know exactly what it was or where it was, but we headed in what I thought was the general direction (not usually a good idea though Doug is somewhat familiar with downtown because of looking for places for us to live and I had looked at a map.) Anyway, we made it there easily, parked, and arrived on the course of the Saturn Rochester Twilight Criterium just in time to see the end of the women's race. Basically a crit is a short, technically difficult, road course that you ride for a certain length of time and then the officials decide when the race is over, i.e. the number of laps remaining, near the end of the race. It is apparently the most common type of bike racing in the US. The men, from all over the world, rode for 2 hours around the 1 mile course at about 30 mph. I thought it would get boring but it really didn't. We walked the whole course and saw the race from all different angles. At some points in the course, if you put your hand out, you could get your arm whacked off as the riders in the peloton rode by. An Australian won it in the end (which was weird because I had looked at the website earlier that day and he was the only rider whom I had read more about- he had the closest birthday to me). It was challenging to take pictures of because we were very close to fast moving objects in the twilight and night hours, but I like this picture that Doug took.
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6.23.2007

Moving: the pets

Moving the animals was perhaps the most challenging part of moving- at least keeping them happy. It started with getting the proper drugs to put them to sleep. Well, it probably starts with losing Kina in an empty house 2xs and her hiding in the fireplace for hours....When we (my mom and I) went to close on the house at the lawyer's office, we had to take them with us. So the plan was for my mom to walk Daru, the fluffy black furred dog, outside in the 90+ degree/100% humidity while I signed papers in the cool, ACed lawyer's office. But the lawyer took pity on the dog (and/or my mom) and let them sit in the waiting area of the office. Kina got to stay in there instead of the car since she was in her carrier. The lawyer said it was common for dogs to come to closings. Who knew!? So, then we got on the road for our 13 hour trip. Which went surprisingly well since they slept most of the way, except Kina didn't use her litter box for the whole trip (just the details you wanted!). We arrived at my parents' house early Sat. AM, and Daru was fine since she had been there before, but Kina was a little unsure, although she loved having multiple floors to explore. Once they had gotten settled, we packed them back in the car again to come to Rochester. I couldn't get the drugs into Kina (not cooperative like dogs- dogs will eat anything coated in peanut butter), so we just left. Kina cried. When I stopped at the end of my parents' street to make sure the truck started okay for my dad and to yell at one of the neighbor's kids for burying his brother's head in the sand pile, Kina jumped out of the car window. Into the road. She ran under a parked car, then my dad stopped the truck to help me and we chased her out and he caught her. We travelled with the windows up from there. She hadn't eaten much in 2-3 days and she started panting now with her tongue rolled and her lips pulled back. I called Doug to tell him Kina was going to die, perhaps a little over dramatic, but it didn't look very pretty. She obviously survived and is now completely embarrassed by her ridiculous behavior. Both of them are settled here I think, though they still are working on their escape plans.
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6.20.2007

Moving Crew II

I did not get a picture of the people helping us out on the SC end: my apologies to those there- Frank, Eric and Kim, Kim R., Luke and Megan, my mom and dad, Isabel, Matt and Gaby. Without Frank and Eric we would never have gotten the piano on the truck.
This is the unloading crew on the NY end- from left to rightish: Uncle George, Christine, David, my Dad, Doug (Daru not so much a helper), my Mom, Doug's Dad, Paul, Robin Matthew and Steve. Unloading was much faster except of course the piano. Hopefully our next move will be our last for awhile!
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6.18.2007

Moving: the junk

It takes a good move to realize how much junk you have- say 12', 16', 22' or 26'? We opted for the 22' of junk truck. Of which we needed say 21.5' of space to contain all of the junk. Some junk did not make the cut to get on the truck to the North. Below you see the truck of the South which came to pick up the junk. I gave him muffins; he took some stuff. My dad took the picture.
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6.06.2007

Good-bye SC!

This is my last post from south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Catch y'all later!
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Where is the love?

Apparently it is in Philly- this is Love Park. You may recognize the love logo from one of the years of love stamps- probably one of those good old days when stamps cost in the 20 cent range...
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6.05.2007

I want you to wish Andrew a happy birthday!

Today our friend Andrew hits a milestone in his life- 30! Doug and I spent Memorial Day weekend in Philly a week and a half ago, but Heather and Andrew were out of town , so we caught up with them (and I caught up with Dave Shaw who was at the conference like Doug) Tuesday morning. We walked around Philly some and then had lunch at a pretty trendy restaurant before I caught the train to the airport. Here we were looking at a fountain somewhere downtown. Surprisingly, Andrew came to town without his camera! It was the first time seriously that I have seen Andrew in the last probably 5 years without a camera. So, I got to take a picture of him for once! You can go to his photoblog to wish him a happy birthday.
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6.04.2007

Adventures with Megan and Luke: The Squirrels

Two weeks before the wedding. M & L came over for dinner. When they arrived at our house, they found us standing under our tree holding a towel between us. We were trying to catch the baby squirrel who was about to fall out of its nest. To make a long LONG story slightly shorter, at 10 PM that night we had rigged up a large pole and Luke and Doug were alternating on the ladder trying to knock down the nest while Megan and I held a sheet. We miraculously caught the nest and found not 1 but 2 baby squirrels: Epil and Spaz. The story has a tragic end with Epil dying the next day and Spaz dying the following Wednesday. Both of their parents and one sibling had died earlier that weekend of unknown causes, so they may have been ill already or they may have been separated from their mom too long before we got them. Baby squirrels are very cute.


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6.03.2007

In honor of Danielle...

When driving to Philly last weekend, we saw this license plate in front of us which of course reminded us of Danielle. Maybe Sloth could be baby girl Hollenbach's middle name?
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6.02.2007

Bubbles.... My Bubbles!

We were blowing the bubbles from Luke and Megan's wedding to see how the animals would react.
Daru liked to eat them and Kina was not quite sure what to do with them but she got upset when one
landed on her and popped.
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6.01.2007

Pseudo-graduation

MUSC graduated on May 18, but Doug is not officially done with his program until August. Nevertheless, since he was in town, he decided to go to his pseudo-graduation-- as did some other people from his class, but not me! It was a very sunny day even though they moved the graduation inside because of rain forecasts; they were given 3 sets of instructions: outdoor graduation at MUSC directions, in case of sudden downpour directions, and indoor at the Citadel instructions. I guess they are used to rain! I think the middle girl is Laura and I quite honestly should know some of the others but I don't. His class started with 11 boys and 49 girls. I am not sure what the final numbers are going to be.
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