Dryden Is Home

Don't shake the bridge

Crossing the bridge
Originally uploaded by dmakar.

A few people took the time to guess the picture from the "Obligatory Waterfall Visitor Picture" post last week. I shouldn't have mentioned that we went to Taughannock in the post - that might have made the guessing a little harder.

Here's another picture from the day we toured Ithaca. This should be an easy one to guess. My dad and I were walking across this bridge and my mom was holding on to my dad - this bridge sways in the wind and when people walk across it. The swaying and rocking is actually a good thing. I'm sure you've seen the structural failure film of the First Tacoma Narrows Bridge. This foot bridge is very safe and has a great view up and down the gorge.

For 32 exciting pictures of me, my parents and some rock piles at Ithaca Falls - check on this photo set - "Three Makars Tour of Ithaca" :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmakar/sets/72157594314319664/

Obligatory Waterfall Visitor Picture

My parents are here in town this week. Monday we toured around Ithaca starting at Six Mile Creek gorge (pictured here). We continued on with a visit to the Ithaca Commons, T-Shirt Express, Ithaca Falls, Ithaca Bakery, Cass Park, and Taughannock Falls.

It was a full day and at the end of the day I went out and talked to 1 neighbor and she agreed to put a sign in her yard.

Tuesday I worked from home all day, my parents did some yard work for me - how is that for a vacation! They did a bunch of projects that I've been putting off for various reasons (working, campaigning, trainings, meetings, blogging, etc.). Tuesday night I toured election district 9 (around Yellow Barn Road) and then came home to find a home cooked meal of spaghetti and meatballs. Yum!

Today I went to an early, early (6:45am) meeting at the Dryden Hotel (which is a restaurant), then to my printer, then home to work. My dad continued with yard work (mowing, weed wacking, digging, moving rocks) and my mom worked on cleaning the house some more (she also made a jaunt to the quilting store in Community Corners - on her own!). I departed around 5 to campaign, meet some Dryden Democrats at Mary Ann's house, stop in at the Varna Fire Company and listen, learn and talk with my friends from NWAEG.

Tomorrow is Thursday - starts with BNI and ends with fire company training. Sleep is calling and I answer.

I leave you with a picture of three Makars on a bridge in Tompkins County. Can you name the bridge?

Kristin and Will Visit Ithaca

10 years after will left Ithaca (a graduate of IC) he returned this weekend for Bouley's reunion. More details later.

Heather and Mark visit Ithaca

Around 11:30 this morning I got a phone call while I was sitting in the food court at the Pyramid Mall. I was building a webpage to allow for one of my customers to add and remove events from an online calendar. I was doing this at the mall because I was waiting for my cars tires to finish getting rotated by the staff at Sears. The phone call I got was from my friend Heather who lives in Boston. She was calling from Juna's Cafe in the Ithaca Commons.  She was visiting Ithaca with her boyfriend Mark who was here to interview for the MBA program at Cornell.

I drove from the mall to the commons and wandered to Juna's. I let Mark use my computer to do some pre-interview research (on the Ithaca wireless network - Lightlink). Heather and I went for a walk around the commons, but not before briefly talking to Jofish (who was researching LiveJournal stats and their collapse since last March) and then said hi to Meagan who was getting some studying done. Heather and I dropped by T-Shirt Expressions to see Kamran and then made our way to Autumn Leaves to find Carl and then onward to CognoscenTea to see Geri. After all that walking we returned to Juna's to meet Mark and bring him to campus for his interview. Once we got there I saw Tom and his wife Holly (the photographer and dance instructor respectively) and briefly talked to them.

We dropped off Mark's car in the Seneca garage, dropped off Mark at CU and then dropped by my house out in the country. I gave Heather the quick tour, we played with the cats who were basking in the sun and then headed back downtown for half-price sushi at Little Tokyo on the commons. Halfway through lunch, Wil entered the restaurant with his daughter. After we ate we went back to CognoscenTea for tea (I bought a ChocolaTea and Heather bought a tin of tea). We drove to the Winli grocery by Home Depot for egg roll wrappers, stopped by Ithaca Beverage for local beer (for Heather to deliver to her parents) and then headed back up to campus to get Mark.

I drove us back to the Seneca Street garage and after some kind words and well wishes for travel we split up. I headed back home (dropping off the egg roll wrappers at Stewart Little - details soon), checked my email and took a little nap before evening activities.

It was a cold and windy day in Ithaca. This picture is Mark and Heather just before they departed Itahca for Syracuse.

Twenty-Four Hour Tour

Well, it wasn't even twenty-four hours that Arthur and Kristen visited. Counting the time they were awake and in Ithaca they spent just as much time getting here as staying here. They arrived on my doorstep with wet shoes and a snow covered F-250 around 1:30 yesterday afternoon. We paused for a minute in the house with a brief tour, "see that, that's a closet; this here, its a bathroom (you can tell by the toilet); this here, it is the kitchen." My house tours always make me wonder why I even need to say anything at all ("Here's yet another bedroom.").

We drove to the Ithaca Farmer's Market. I bought some soup. We drove up to Ithaca Falls. We walked right up to the base of the falls (which I had never done before - sorry Matt, Mike, Justin, Wendy and Paul). This upclose walk was inspired by my sister (and tim) who showed me pictures Thanksgiving night of them right at the base of the falls on my sister's birthday, when she visited in August.

We drove up by the Ithaca Gun Company's two acre site on Lake Street (across from Gun Hill Apartments) and Arthur told me he owned a gun that was partially made by Ithaca Gun Company back in 1912.

We stopped in at the apartment building on Stewart Avenue and while I shoveled off the walkways, A & K walked out over the Stewart Avenue bridge to look down on Fall Creek and Ithaca Falls (btw, furnished apartments are available for next year, check out the web site for details).

Our next stop was the small parking lot near the Fall Creek footbridge - the bridge that spans between the Johnson Museum and the upper fall creek historic district.

Then we coasted through Cornell campus, down through college town and managed to find a parking spot near the commons on Albany Street. We visited T-Shirt Expressions, Center Ithaca and CognoscenTea. Our next stop was the Ithaca Beer Company, then we drove the back way (spencer street) to green to 79 to 366 to college ave to have dinner at the Nines.

After dinner, it was only 6:30 by then, we headed back to my place to play some cards, talk, play pass the pigs, talk, play horse, talk and have a couple of drinks. We all called it a day around 11pm.

This morning we had omelettes, bacon and toast and then before I could convince them to see more of the town they were off for the easterly road to Massachusetts. They were here just about 21 hours. They both promised to make a return trip sometime in the summer. I promised them sailing, boating, dragon boating, hiking, fishing and of course lots of gorges.

It was good to entertain more company. When are you coming to visit Ithaca?

Visitors IRL

Tomorrow I am expecting two visitors from Massachusetts! That will bring the total number of non-family visitors to Ithaca 1/1000 of the number of virtual visitors to this blog. Stay tuned for a full report.

Taughannock and the gang (Obligatory Water Falls Picture)

Taughannock and the gang
Originally uploaded by dmakar.

Rumor has it...I've had visitors to my great new hometown in the past few day. Last Thursday evening, three of my good buddies from Boston appeared on my doorstep after a lengthy drive from my former homecity.

Justin, Wendy, Paul and I spent the rest of the weekend touring Ithaca, meeting my new friends, taking pictures and seeing all sorts of things in Ithaca that even I hadn't seen before. I should give a complete update of what and who and when and where, but instead I'll just direct you to the pictures from the weekend.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/bostonvisitors/

MakarFest 11 - A House Warming Party

From evite:

Host: David Makar
Location:  My House in Ithaca, 1960 Slaterville Road, Ithaca, NY
When: Saturday, November 12, 8:00pm
Phone:  607-342-3009

When I moved to Ithaca I wanted to continue my annual tradition of an autumn party called MakarFest. The only problem is that a year ago I didn't know any of you! So, now that I've been in Ithaca a year I figured now would be a good time to have a house warming party (no gifts required). Here are some details:

• Four of my Boston based friends will be coming to visit for the weekend to see the town of Ithaca
• The party will begin with a dessert party at 8pm. Bring your childen, your favorite dessert, your home brewed beer and a smile. I want to include all of my crazy friends who have decided to already started to have kids!
• Sometime later stop by for a glass of wine, a glass of beer, a glass of vodka, a glass of water or a glass of anything else you might want to bring and share
• And then around the same time I'll light up the camp fire in the backyard (weather permitting) and we can stay warm by perhaps the last good open fire of the season.
• Sometime later the tradition of destroying a television will continue with 1 tv and 1 sledge hammer, come check out a MakarFest tradition since 1999!

So come on over next Saturday night and meet some of the other great Ithacans that I've met in the first 12 months here!

Sorry if the evite didn't get to you, send me an email, or give me a call and I'll evite you!

Now I'm off to clear some brush and build a fire!

Andrea!

I had a visitor from Massachusetts! Actually it was back about 12 days ago on Monday, October 17th when Andrea arrived from Boston via Syracuse.

Andrea showed up on my doorstep for a quick 2 hour visit to the 1960 house. We walked around the yard, looked at the garden, sat in the rocking chairs, sat in the kitchen, drank some tea, but mostly we just talked.

It was good to catch up, but even more it was good to have some time to talk to someone about things that I usually don't get to talk about too much.

Last night when I was driving home from a late night "Batman Begins" screening and poker game I saw a couple of people standing on the Stewart Avenue / Fall Creek bridge. At first I thought it was a couple looking down over town kissing. Then as I passed them I saw it was two gentlemen standing a few feet apart from each other gesturing and talking. I don't know exactly what they were talking about - I actually have no idea what they were talking about, but they were indeed talking. It seems like in the past year I've seldom had the chance to just wander around town with one other person and just talk. To bounce ideas off of each other, to challenge thoughts, to gossip, to brainstorm, to ponder the ways of the world. Ideas from conversations that I had for a decade in Boston with Paulg, Justin, Joe and Joe, Ives, Mei, Sophia, Kat, Avery, Phil, Jenn, Kristin, Andrea, BJ, Chris, James and Arthur. I'm sure there are others too, but my point is that the long walks and hikes and coffee hours and after work kibitzes have been almost completely lacking in my life here in Ithaca.

There are definitely people I talk with, but I guess just not enough to totally trust with everything I can think of. I meet with my customers, but our brainstorming is limited to making their businesses better (and sometimes how to make mine better). I have met many great people and in the coming weeks, months and years I hope to get to know people better - to have shared experiences with them - to raise our level of trust.

So all of that - it what made having Andrea stop by - even for just a couple of hours, such a great thing. And just a few days ago I got the confirmation that four more of my Boston friends will be coming to visit Ithaca on Veteran's Day weekend! Woo Hoo! I can't wait to show them my town and to just sit and talk and talk and talk.

Sister Sister

My sister and her husband have arrived in Ithaca.

Woot!

They actually arrived Saturday night and went directly to their campsite at Taughannock State Park. Today I drove up there and then they followed me down on their Harley (picture above taken from my sun roof) to the Farmer's Market. I ran into a couple of CU - CRP people, a few Alternatives bank networking group folks, Jess L., and one of my customer's and his wife. It was a beautiful day, warm, sunny, not too humid.

Julie (sister) and Tim (brother-in-law) and I left the farmer's market and I took them on a tour of town up to the local bait and fishing license shop, then up State Street, to Green Street, to Stewart Avenue up to Cornell right up to the old president's house (near the big red barn). Then we headed over to Fall Creek to see Ithaca Falls. That's when the rain started. At first there was just a light sprinkle. Then it came. We raced all the way back to Taughannock so they could find someplace dry but before we made it to Cass Park the rain was coming down in huge globs and was pelting them on the bike like stones. About two miles from the fall and state park the rain stopped and did not return for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow they head down to Cayuta, New York to visit the Harley dealership closest to Ithaca. One of their things to do whenever they travel someplace new is to visit the nearest Harley shop and buy a t-shirt. Some people collect shot glasses or those tiny spoons, they collect black T-shirts.

As they followed me around town today I started to realize the brotherhood (and sisterhood) of the Harley riders (And any motorcycle riders in general). Total strangers giving head nods, thumbs up, smiles, waves and beeps. Perhaps I should start a Jetta brotherhood!