Dryden Is Home

Women Swimmin' Divin' In'

Women Swimmin' Divin' In'
Originally uploaded by dmakar

Saturday morning I arose from my slumber at the awful hour of 4:45 to support a terrific cause. I packed up the car - canoe already on top and scooted down 79 towards Ithaca to pickup my canoe's co-pilot, my friend Dirk at his house at 5:35am.

We arrived at the Ithaca Yacht club around 5:55 and were paddling east to the eastshore of the lake by about 6:10. The first women jumped from the M/V Manhattan to make the 1.2 mile swim at about 6:50 and we were off with our "pod" - pink cap pod number 7 at about 7:10am.

We (and about 5 other boaters - both canoe and kayaks) paddled along side 10 women swimming west in our pod. I think we arrived at the yacht club (this time by boat) at around 8am.

I've included a lot of pictures on my flickr account. Please take a look.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmakar/sets/72157601368454866/

Town Board Meeting

Hi Mom,

Today is an exciting day in Dryden. This morning over breakfast I read an article on the cover of the local section of the Ithaca Journal with the title, "Dryden Town Board to offer insight to local government". The article goes on to mention tonight's July town board meeting at the Varna Volunteer Fire Station. Some details of the article include:

-David Makar, a member of the Dryden Town Board and a resident of Bethel Grove, was concerned his neighbors and other town members did not understand the interworkings of their town government.

-Makar proposed a resolution to the board in April to meet at one of the town's four community centers or four fire stations every other month. Varna, Etna, Freeville and the Village of Dryden have fire stations, while Bethel Grove, Varna, Etna and Ellis Hollow have community centers.

Varna was chosen for the July meeting specifically because of the tensions that exist between the western parts of the town and the rest of the town. Residents of the western hamlets of Varna, Etna, Ellis Hollow and Bethel Grove, among other areas, frequently feel isolated from the town government, Makar said.

-Many residents in that part of town have addresses in the Ithaca ZIP code, Makar said. Their children go to school in the Ithaca City School District, and, by car, they're 14 miles from the Village of Dryden.

If you or dad want to read the full article, you can visit their website and see the article here. The meeting is at 7pm tonight with a tour at 6:30 of the fire station. There has been light rain this afternoon and hopefully that will cool off the building - they don't have air conditioning - so I'll be bringing some water to the meeting. Funny though I guess - - bringing water to a fire station!

In other news, Arjan is having a good time in Turkey - she's been emailing me almost every day. The garden is exploding with peppers, the kitty cat still isn't sleeping through the night (waking me at about 4:30am), and  my trip to see you and dad is still on.

Have a good rest of the week, see you soon!

Dave

Looking West, Being East

This was the view looking west at sunset this evening. I was at the Ellis Hollow Community Center for the monthly meeting of the Dryden Democratic Committee. I was a little late in arriving. I had spent from 6 to 7:25 at the Neptune Hose Fire Company learning about the back-office business of the Dryden Ambulence Company.

I met Mary Ann Sumner (fellow Town Board member of the Emergency Services / Public Safety Committee) there, as well as Ron Flynn, the Neptune Hose Fire Chief, Dan Hill, Doug Cotterill and Bill Ackroyd.

It was a very informative discussion and review including a lot of financial information about how they operate. My goal, if nothing else, is to try to learn as much as I can about all of the different agencies and organizations throughout the town. I feel like I can only truly contribute when I know what I am talking about - instead of going on a gut feeling or on hearsay, I'd like the stakeholders to give the details and the numbers to be presented.

I'd like all of this to be made as open as possible to others understanding how things work. Unclear information leads to suspicion. If I can learn the facts, or at least try to understand to the best of my ability - and then explain those facts then I feel like I'm doing more of my job.

Tomorrow there's a joint Dryden Town Board and Village of Dryden Board meeting at the Dryden Village Hall. The fun starts at 6pm with hearings and continues at 7pm. Join us!

   

Alash at ABC Cafe

Alash at ABC Cafe
Originally uploaded by dmakar.

My cell phone's tiny crappy camera works!

Last night Arjan and I had dessert (Toffee Bar for me, Chocolate Pie for her) and a drink (coffee for me, red wine for her) at the ABC Cafe. We finished up our dessert just a few minutes before Alash performed.

Alash is a throat singing band from Tuva, a republic in the southern reaches of Russian Siberia. It had been mongolian or russian or both. There's a bit of a history on Wikipedia. Throat singing is a method of singing where the singer controls the air from the lungs to the mouth and lips using the throat like an instrument - mostly sounding like a flute. At the same time the singer is singing or humming through the throat . There's a Wikipedia article on overtone singing which is the same thing.

There's a lot of magical harmony and the four performers worked well together making it sound as though there were 8 or 12 people performing.

My friend Steve from Small World Music (and Ithaca Blog) described Tuva as a place where the people are mostly cowboys. These cowboys raise and oversee horses and yaks. When they bed down at camp for the night they sing. They've done this for generations and it is a style learned from a young age. Steve mentioned a movie called "Genghis Blues" about an aging blues singer from San Francisco who stumbles onto Tuvan music and goes to Tuva to learn and sing, "The Story of a Blind Blues Musician's Journey To The Lost Land of Tuva".

I'm sure the Tuvans don't think they are lost. It was amazing to see them sing and to think that they came from so very far away and from a time that was all but forgotten. If noone would have visited Tuva their tradition would have stayed hidden forever perhaps. We are lucky here in Tompkins County to be able to have such visitors in our towns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuva
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throat_singing
http://www.alashensemble.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alash_Ensemble
http://ithaca-blog.blogspot.com
http://www.genghisblues.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loxosceles/460332345/

Darfur Week at Cornell

Last time I talked to Dave (off the air) he mentioned that he checked up on this blog for information about things going on around Ithaca and Dryden. Here's something I hope Dave sees and I think every visitor to the site should be aware of. This is a non-partisan issue that is affecting thousands of lives. Be aware, be very aware.

DARFUR WEEK AT CORNELL (3/26-3/30)

One of the biggest weeks of action at Cornell devoted to raising awareness and activism on the ongoing genocide in Darfur amongst the Cornell community. Tickets for this year's Big Red Relief benefit concert will be available for sale at most of these events.

MONDAY, MARCH 26 - Candlelight vigil for Darfur (7:30 pm, Ho Plaza)

TUESDAY, MARCH 27 - Interfaith prayer service (4:30 pm, Anabel Taylor Hall)

TUESDAY, MARCH 27 - Screening of "Darfur Diaries" and Q&A with the film's director Aisha Bain about the Darfur refugee situation. Food provided! (6:00 pm, Goldwin Smith HEC Auditorium)

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28 - Lecture by John Prendergast, a former Advisor of BILL CLINTON. Food provided! (6:00 pm, Uris Auditorium)

THURSDAY, MARCH 29 - Darfur townhall meeting w/ guest speakers Prof. John Weiss and Prof. Nina Tannenwald. Food provided! (6:00 pm, Goldwin Smith Kaufman Auditorium)

FRIDAY, MARCH 30 - Darfur benefit concert! All proceeds will go towards humanitarian relief for Darfuris in refugee camps. (7:30 pm, RPU Multipurpose Room)

Sponsored by: Americans for Informed Democracy, Amnesty International, Coalition of Pan-African Scholars, Cornell Coalition for Trade Justice, Cornell Democrats, Cornell Hillel Jewish Student Union, Cover Africa, the Islamic Alliance for Justice, Protestant Cooperative Ministry, the Roosevelt Institution, STARS (Students for Tolerance, Awareness, and Remembering Survivors), Tzedek: Jewish Social Justice, and YPIC. Funded in part by the Student Activities Fee.