We made it back to Dryden late in the day Wednesday. After a quick hour at home I headed to the village of Dryden for the February town board meeting. I spent the last two days working and meeting with clients. Here are a few select pictures of the Florida wildlife we spotted on our trip.
A complete set of photos including birds in flight are available in my flickr set here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmakar/sets/72157603914981814/
Arjan and I decided we hadn't seen the sun quite enough for the past few weeks, so we left Dryden for a visit in Florida with my parents. We got up at 4am Thursday, left for the airport at 4:50am, departed from the ground at Ithaca airport at about 6:25 (after some de-icing), landing in NYC after flying over Manhattan, then to DC (where I spotted a dour Fred Thompson), then to Sarasota.
My parents met us at the airport and we hit Snook Haven for lunch. Snook Haven is an interesting story. There was private land on the miyaka river that the owner's (who had had it as a campground) could no longer afford. The state (or county) wanted to preserve the land as open space, so they bought the land, retain the campground, and leased part of the property for the restaurant. This keeps the land from being developed into housing or condos (very prevalent on the Gulf Coast), while creating restaurant jobs, collecting tax revenue, and providing an entertainment spot away from the multitude of sprawl and plazas that cover most of the state.
After lunch (Arjan had the fish and chips, I had the fried snook I think), we headed to my parents house. A little later we went for a river boat ride on my dad's pontoon boat. In the picture above, my dad is adding bait to his crab trap.
We had a turkey dinner and watched LOST together, before turning in for the evening. It was a very long day.
We are now* at Jitter's Coffee House (in a big blue pagoda flower shop) in Englewood, Arjan's doing a crossword puzzle and I'm going through the 71 new emails since Wednesday night (and blogging too!). The sun is poking through the clouds, so we're going to hit the beach.
*We are now at my parents house. I saved the post at Jitter's, but didn't publish it until just now. Off to dinner! Busy, busy, busy trip!
Early last Friday afternoon Arjan and I departed our home in Dryden for a mini-vacation on Cape Cod. It was my third (and probably final) trip of the season to "The Cape". My good friend Joe was getting married on Saturday and my parent's invited us to stay at their place in Eastham.
I first met ML when Joe and I were working for the host committee for the 2004 convention. Sometime after the convention ended Joe and ML got together. They lived in Charlestown and worked on Boston and Massachusetts campaigns. They got jobs and got engaged. They started planning a wedding and on Saturday they invited us to share in their day.
I met Joe in 1994 and we became better friends when he started his freshman year at Northeastern in 1996. I was starting my "middler" year and for three years a friend from my high school era (and camp era) was just a few blocks away.
Arjan and I were able to make a weekend out of the trip - eating with my college roommate Joe and his wife Sandy Friday night for dinner in Providence, visiting with my travel buddy Arthur (who is recovering from cancer) Monday afternoon at his house in Charlton, and introducing Arjan to Danny, Kathy and Matt - friends from camp that I wish lived closer.
We also spent a lot of time with my buddy Phil and his girlfriend Amy including a clamming and quahogging expedition. More on that soon.
Pictures from the wedding here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmakar/sets/72157601729510972/
When you are 5 and you go on a trip to New Hampshire the world seems huge. You remember just enough to be able to say you remember. Maybe a sign or a tree or a person, but probably not a conversation in detail.
When you are 9 and you return to the place you remember it for the week away from home. A week at camp in a tent. A hike in a lightning storm and singing songs with your best friend.
When you are 14 and you show up to work at camp a crazy man with a condiment name glares and listens and teaches. You meet some people that will be the bridge to friends that you will keep for the rest of you life. You make mistakes, you learn, you have fun.
When you are 18 and you are in charge of a small camp department you answer a lot of questions. You teach a little and learn more about yourself than the subjects you are teaching. You find your strengths and your weaknesses. You hide and search. You get up early and swim. You get to know a few people better.
When you are 22 and return as a staff member of another camp you battle on the ballfield and you find that the home team is the one you are on. The people that have replaced you are different. The people who have stayed behind are stronger and have learned to delegate.
When you are 30 and return as a guest you find that the people that were campers are now in charge. The people that taught you almost everything are long gone. The few in between, John and Dan, bridge a gap between generations. You wonder if there is a way to do it all - and then you drive home realizing that the world is still a huge place and there are a lot of things to do.
A couple days ago I showed up on the doorstep of Camp Wanocksett and relived a few moments of my camp days - tonight I will be attending the Dryden Democratic Caucus where I will be nominated for a four year term on the Dryden Town Board. Everything I've learned so far prepares me for what I will do next.
(The guy floating above is now in charge)
From 11:50am on Friday until 10:55pm on Sunday I drove just over 1100 miles. When I left my house in Dryden on Friday my odometer was a magical 148841 and when I shut the car off Sunday night the odometer returned the next magical palindrome of 149941. Why magical? I suppose it’s the little stopping points in the car's ever growing life where it doesn't know if we are going forward or backward. It doesn't know if we are counting up or down. Until the next mile clicks everything backwards is forwards and instead of being granted more time we are told how much time is left. Life isn't the same thing before or after the palindrome. Life is hardly ever the same. Sure there are times when things seem similar to you in a particularly small case, but when you look at the details and factors and people involved and events and the weather - especially the wildcard of the weather, you are indeed in a different place as is everyone else involved. I suppose I could use those nice round numbers - 150,000 is coming soon - to make the exact number of miles since I drove the car off the lot - 149,925. I guess I could recount backwards all the long road trips and short jaunts to the market over the last 149,915 miles. I'd rather take the palindrome as a time to look forward and look at where I am today. I first started noting the palindromes somewhere in the 90,000's - perhaps 94,549 or so - somewhere in Texas in 2003. I've come a long way since then and I look forward to the backwards is forwards of the palindrome out of some deep rooted 10 math classes in college reflex. There's something there. Something that will never ever be the same again. Something about the time we mark that will soon be gone. Not an incentive to do different, but a reminder of the magic of life.
This past weekend was one of those weekends filled with happy solitary in the car for 8 hours and low level conversations for another 11 hours. In roughly 60 hours I was sleeping for one fifth the time, driving one third of the time, watching movies and DVD extras one tenth of the time and otherwise socializing the remaining eleven sixtieths of the time. The one thirtieth of the time I want to talk about here was the couple hours I spent watching a one man show in the small town of Buckfield, Maine (I just remembered that I should add the 90 minutes of driving to get from my sleeping location Saturday night to Buckfield and back).
The one man show was the brainchild of Mike Miclon, an actor, magician, juggler, ventriloquist and all around fun guy. In the show he plays a hunchback, a hyper extroverted introvert and himself. The picture above is a picture of the three roles. The show had audience participation, baloon animals, juggling, violin playing, dancing, singing (the hunchback did a rendition of Van Morrison's Moondance - which I then heard as I was driving down the Maine turnpike the next day and I started laughing to myself), card tricks, short films, crazy inventions and numerous costume changes.
It was the kind of funny entertainment that I never thought I would see in the middle of western Maine. The theatre was a converted Oddfellow Hall, now called "The Oddfellow Theatre" - which I'm sure younger people, who never knew of the Oddfellow organization, just think that the theatre name comes from Mike's head. Mike owns the building, lives with his family on the upper floor and performs a few times a month just downstairs from his apartment.
I only heard about this theatre - which is about 15 miles from the middle of nowhere - because my friend's friend worked at the theatre part time. If they never met, then we'd never have met and this golden nugget of fun in western Maine would have gone on without you ever knowing about it. If you are ever in Buckfield, or Bethel, or Lewiston, or even Portland - check out the schedule. The shows are usually only on Friday and Saturday nights and perhaps you can get lucky and find a show playing when you are in town. It is definitely one of the best $12 you can spend on a Saturday night.
All the driving over the weekend reminded me of other marathon driving spurts all around the country (4400 miles in 17 days in 1997, A trip from Ithaca to Boston to Philly to DC to NYC to Boston to Ithaca over Thanksgiving of 2004, A day last spring from Dryden to Newburyport to Boston to Eastham on Cape Cod) and about all of the small 10 minute adventures that can be wrapped up in those long journies. Ask me about a foggy breakfast in Utah in 1999 sometime where time moved forward 50 years and then back. I think the odometer was close to a palindrome.
My cousin Deanna (sitting in the middle), with her son James on her lap and James' cousin Max (my cousin Sandra's son) standing at left.
I went to New England this past weekend to spend Easter Sunday with my dad's side of the family. Fifteen members of the Makar family gathered at my grandmother's Sunday afternoon for Easter. My two cousins with children were there, as well as two other cousins and my sister, my aunt and uncle and their spouses and my grandmother. It was probably the coldest Easter I can remember. It was good to see everyone. I missed Christmas with the family this year - I went to Buffalo to spend the holiday with Arjan's family. I caught up on what my cousins were doing (shopping for antiques on Craig's List, hanging out at the new cafe in town, creating custom made invitations and greeting cards, learning about raising a baby) and on how my grandmother (now 87) was doing.
I carpooled to New England and back with a group of Cornell students. I posted an ad on Tuesday night at about 6:30pm on Cornell's "Student Ride Board" website (http://www.cuinfo.cornell.edu/Student/RideBoard/). By 7:30pm I had recieved two phone calls and two emails requesting seats in the car. Felix, my Jetta, only comfortably holds four total people. The two emailers were looking for roundtrip rides and the two callers were looking for one-way rides. It all worked out and by 7:30 the plan was set.
For the next two and a half days I received calls and emails requesting information on availability of seats. I had to say no to everyone else, but at one point, I thought about renting a 10 person van and taking everyone with me. I don't know if all of those other people ever made it to Boston this past weekend.
The Pros and Cons for the Ride Board:
Finally, the Student Ride Board group is its own community. I drove east with three people. One of them had been a rider with each of the other two - so they already knew a little bit about each other. It seems likely if you are going on a common ride (Boston, NYC, Philly or DC) you will probably get riders who know each other.
I didn't profit from the trip, but the gas and tolls were paid for. I told my friend Joe about the Ride Board and since he has an alternative fuel car he might be able to make a small profit on his longer distance trips from Ithaca.
Cornell's Ride Board: http://www.cuinfo.cornell.edu/Student/RideBoard/
Ithaca Craig's List Ride Board: http://ithaca.craigslist.org/rid/
My Flickr pictures of Easter Sunday: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmakar/sets/72157600062105141/
My cousin Deanna's son James (my second cousin) looking serious and me smiling:
Cross-posted at Ithaca-Blog
I just spent the first half of this week in New York City. I was attending classes and seminars at the 2007 New York Association of Towns annual meeting. I learned a lot and hopefully I'll be able to use a lot of the information to help Dryden. I'll try to put together a full report of what I learned and how it will help.
While in New York I spent time with my college roommate Gerard (pictured above), my friends Sophia and Christine, and my cousin Debbie. It was my first visit to "the city" since July of 2005. How quickly the time passes.
Now its back to work. Still working on catching up from that trip to Florida.
Nine days ago I was running around the serengetti!
Well, actually I was geocaching with my mom, dad and Arjan in Florida. Here are some pictures from our adventure.
We searched for four different geo-caches (when I tried to explain the hunting someone asked me about the cash and when I would find it!). We found two of the caches, traded some shells for lizards and lizards for a pinwheel. The last two caches outsmarted us, though they are both within about 5 miles of my parents and I think they will return to search again.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmakar/sets/72157594534897673/
Got GPS?
I just got back from Florida. Arjan and I were visiting my parents for about a week. Here's a picture of my mom, dad and Arjan after they opened a GeoCache in Gulf Cove. The weather wasn't all that great, but yesterday, our final day we did get to the beach.
I will be writing more on the blog about January and about things coming up. It's been a real busy time for me.
Stay Tuned.
Dave
Sablogatical - When I left the blog for 10 days and did some other things. Here is a quick recap:
May 3rd: Ginger's going away party at the Chapter House (with Dragon Boat Club friends)
May 4th: View of the Sagamore Bridge (which connects Cape Cod to the mainland)
May 5th: The first of three great nights of sunsets
May 6th: Walking around Provincetown with kirsten, jenn, and phil
May 7th: The world famous Welfleet Drive-In Theater Flea Market
May 8th: Phil's dog Keva (Chieva?) chilling at the cottage
May 8th: Mini-golf at Pirate Cove in Hyannis
May 8th: Crappy picture at Skull Island Mini-Golf
May 9th: A stop in (final final time!) at my parent's house in Berlin which will no longer be in the family on May 24th! (This picture is actually from my April 12th visit - note the lack of green leaves)
May 10th: NWAEG Theatre at the byway in Ithaca
As for yesterday and today - - I worked! I can't be on vacation all the time! More details of these adventures may or may not come soon.
