June 2006 Archives

In case you're an ex-pat and are having trouble orienting yourself, this picture is of Corbettsville, at the intersection of Snake Creek Road (Rt. 29) and Rt. 7. Coming from Pennsylvania, you'd turn right to go to Hallstead (the only McDonald's) or left to Kirkwood and the onramp to Interstate 81. Only you can't turn right anymore because the bridge isn't open and most of Corbettsville is still underwater.

I spend the day trying to figure out how to convey the scale of what's happened, because the news coverage I've seen just scratches the surface. I still haven't figured it out, but a bunch of little one-liners is the best I've been able to come up with.

The owner of the farm pictured here lost 45 head of cattle in the flood. The owner of a tractor trailer parked along the side of Rt. 29 almost lost his truck when the shoulder and embankment eroded away beneath one of his tires. Houses everywhere are leaning strangely because some part of them got displaced by water.

You can't drive between Lawsville and Montrose without going to New Milford first (the Franklin Forks bridge is literally gone, not just closed.) The Red Cross shelter at Blue Ridge High School was moved to Montrose because the septic backed up. They may evacuate Great Bend because they're not going to have water for several weeks (their sewage treatment plant was flooded) and conditions are unsanitary. Some Apalachin residents may not have power for several weeks. Despite not having power, The Lounge in Great Bend is open and a band is playing by generator power. Factory Bridge was open but may be closed soon, as they find out more about the structural damage.

Everywhere you go roads show some sign of washout. On level slopes one to two foot channels are cut into the shoulder of the road, and on steep slopes the shoulder is just gone. Some embankments have eroded underneath the asphalt so that the road just crumbles away. Many places you can see where new rivers ran across the road, leaving behind large piles of rocks, dirt and debris. Fields now have streams running through them, or have become gravel pits.

I'm happy to report we're all still safe and dry here. We had a minor scare yesterday while we thought our storage unit might be underwater, but thankfully the earthen wall behind Wegman's is a solid one. Just across the 201 interchange Toys'R'Us and Gander Mountain were all flooded.

Tonight my dad & I drove down to my grandfather's house to inspect the damage, which fortunately wasn't as bad as he had feared (Agnes in '72 did worse, from his recollection). We took the back way through Laurel and Quaker Lake to get there, and things seemed relatively normal, but the stretch of Snake Creek Road between Standfordsville and Corbetsville was pretty shocking. I wish I had taken some pictures to back up my statement, but believe me that Kirkwood is pretty much all still submerged.

Even where the water has died down and things seem relatively normal, all along the highway the shoulder (including lots of asphalt) and embankments are just eroded away. It's hard to fathom how long it'll take to restore, even after they've tackled the major bridge repairs and washed out highways.

We thought we'd escaped the torrential rain by moving from northern California, but it seems to have caught up with us! Some areas here have gotten up to seven inches of rain over the last two days, causing flash floods, power outages and evacuations (so far 1500 in the city of Binghamton).

Just a few miles away in northeast Pennsylvania they're using snowplows to clear the roads of mud and debris, and more rain is expected through the rest of the week. My cousins' newly refinished basement flooded last night, as did the basement of my grandfather's house. On the local news Brandie saw footage of an entire house floating down the Susquehanna River.

Most of the schools in my dad's district have experienced some sort of flood or leak trouble, so he's been at work from early (6am) til late (11pm). My step-mother's office is getting refugees from the evacuations.

Seen here in his senior prom finery, my tall, dark and handsome step-brother Dan is graduating from high school this week. Some of you may remember him from his excellent play-testing work on visits to California, and others from our wedding. He's off to study Restaurant & Hotel Management at UMass this fall, despite our best efforts to talk him into UNLV. At any rate, way to go Dan; we love you big time!

Saturday we drove to Owego for their annual Strawberry Festival. The forecast called for rain, so we were caught a little off guard when it was sunny and hot instead. We made a lap around the town despite the heat and enjoyed a pulled pork sandwich, strawberry shortcake and a strawberry smoothie.

Afterwards we relaxed in the shade by the river, in the nice little park they have there. Sophie enjoyed kissing the trees (no idea why, I promise!) and watching some ants.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. A big shout out to Jake (aka Daddo!), George (Pop Pop), Denny (Grandpa), Joe (Great Grandpa), Uncle Anthony and Dan (Grandpa Dan). This is a great holiday when you have a colorful family like we do!

Hope you are all grilling, drinking, watching a movie, reading the paper, fishing, camping or sleeping in!

Happy First Birthday to Big Daddy Kane! (Shown here with his Daddy. Happy Father's Day Mike!)
Celebrate big Kane! Wish we were there to watch you open presents.

Sophie is now officially one and a half. This is big stuff (at least we think so).

Turning one and a half means that you have to go to the doctor for a check up and shots. I was really worried about this because this would be the first time that Sophie would be aware of what was going on. She was anxious about the doctor and didn't like getting her head measured. We brought a little bear along and the doctor was good about showing Sophie what was about to happen next by first doing it to the bear. Sophie relaxed a little bit but once the three shots to the upper thigh came it was all over. I felt so bad for her. I had to hold her arms down and she just screamed. She wanted me to pick her up so badly and I couldn't. Of course I started crying but fought the tears back in an attempt to be a good mommy and not let her see that it upset me too. As soon as the shots were done Sophie was ready to book it out of the office. She got an Elmo sticker which sort of helped but she cried on and off the whole way home. We all survived but I am not looking forward to her 2 year appointment.

Here are the results of her 18 month check up. Sophie is 33.5" tall which puts her in the 95th percentile for height and she weighs 25lbs 7oz which puts her in the 75th percentile for weight. The doctor said that her speech was advanced for her age and that we shouldn't worry about her slow growing teeth.

Here are some of Sophie's favorite things at this age:

Food
Broccoli with parmesean cheese on top (actually, just the parmesean cheese), yogurt with cheerios mixed in, raisins, ice cream and cookies.

Words
"Okay", "Papa" (Grandpa), "Naga" (Grandma), "Ooooh", "Color horsie", "cock" (clock), "Pooo" (pool)

Entertainment
Coloring with her dad, coloring her house, finger painting, rolling on the floor, kicking the floor or in the tub, Elmo Show (Sesame Street), throwing the ball for Eulie, looking at Naga's cookbooks, swimming in Papa's pool.

Viewing our photo gallery is pretty simple: at the login prompt, if you're a friend, enter 'friend' for both the username and password. If you're family, enter 'family' for both the username and password. Yep, it's that easy!

If you're looking at a large image, rather than a thumbnail, clicking on it will advance you to the next one. You can also select a time for each image to automatically display in a slideshow using the drop-down menu. Click on 'index' at the top of the page to return to a thumbnail-view.

In the thumbnail view, a list of folders appears on the left side-bar. Click on the folders to expand and view their contents, and jump to that page.

Yesterday we went to Oak Hill Avenue in Endicott for their annual street painting festival hosted by the St. Anthony of Padua school. It was cool and windy, more like April weather than June, and we caught a break from the rain but it unfortunately kept a lot of the artists and crowds away. The works we saw were very well done however, I'll post some pics later.

The food at the festival was excellent as well, we all (except Josie, obviously) shared some pork BBQ, strawberry shortcake and pizzette (frybread) dusted with powdered sugar. Sophie also enjoyed her first ride on a carousel, as seen above and in the video.

Carousel rides are free here in the Carousel Capital of the World.

Our photo album has been temporarily disabled by some Internet bully. We're looking into correcting the problem, thanks for your patience and please keep checking back!

UPDATE 3:02pm

Thanks to Ingar and his wizardry, we are back in business and hopefully a little more secure from bullies. For what it's worth, our security really did suck and we're probably lucky nothing worse happened.

My little sister Tess graduated from High School today. We are so happy for her. We wish we could have been there to celebrate with her but we'll down some Mtn. Dew in her honor!

It's official, Josie smiled at me for the first time today. I thought she did yesterday but it turned out the be a prologue to a large poop. But today, I had already changed her diaper and was singing to her when she peered up, focused and gave me a big grin! This makes me so happy as the first thing Sophie smiled at was her bookshelf! :)

This child will right all the wrongs that Sophie has done. (Please realize I am kidding.)

Enunciation is a difficult thing to master. Try throwing in some sprouting teeth and a binky and it's a miracle anyone can understand you. Sophie is bursting with excitement about her new sister, Juicy.

As luck would have it, the name actually fits due to the fact that Josie has a reflux problem and is constantly spitting up or leaking from the mouth in some way. This along with her sisters name for her has inspired such comments as "The Juice is Loose" , "Oh, Juice" and the nick name "Juicy Juice". Don't worry, the doctor said she should outgrow this reflux problem by 4 months so the nickname won't follow her to the prom.

Yesterday proved to be a good day for video-capture here on The Ranch, as we got some excellent footage of Sophie playing in the driveway here at Papa's. Those with slower connections be forewarned, these are large files (640x480, over 30MB each) so they may take a bit to load!

Throwing the Ball
Sophie demonstrates her throwing arm and running skills. Not seen here are frequent interruptions by Eula, who races in to steal the ball away not realizing Sophie's throwing the ball so she can chase it herself.

Sidewalk Chalk
By request of John, some footage of Sophie the Artist in action. She's saying "color, horsey" as mentioned in a previous post.

Eula, Sophie & Daddo
Anyone who remembers Eula's fear of toddlers (Geoff!) may be surprised or at least pleased to see how she behaves around Sophie now. While the first frame looks like Sophie just high-kicked me in the jaw, my face is actually scrunched up from Eula licking my chin as Sophie shouts, "Lick! Lick!" over and over.

Saturday night I flew to Austin and stayed with Clint, Dawn & Lily before my Monday interview with a company there. Thanks to their fantastic tour-guiding I managed to see a ton of stuff In the very short time I was in town.

Clint met me at the airport and escorted me back to his house so we could drop off the car and visit with Lily before she went to bed. Then we drove to The Oasis, unfortunately too late to see the sunset but it was still packed, live music was playing and everyone seemed to be having a great time. I had a vague sense that the water was far below, but the reality of being on a wooden deck 450 feet above water didn't hit me til the next day. Clint treated me to some excellent fish tacos and introduced me to the local beer, Shiner Bock.

Sunday we all slept in, feasted on a great breakfast (eggs, bacon, toast, fruit) that Dawn whipped up, then drove out to see the view of Lake Travis I had missed the night before. For lunch we toured the Whole Foods megastore located beneath their corporate headquarters in Austin, and ate on the rooftop patio. Sixth Street was next, followed by Zilker Park and Barton Springs. For dinner we drove out to The Salt Lick, reputedly Austin's (and maybe Texas's) best bbq. I had the combo dinner and we all split homemade peach cobbler and pecan pie (both a la mode), yum!

The next morning was my interview, after which I returned the rental car and checked in at the airport. I was happy to find another Salt Lick at the airport, located right next to Amy's Ice Cream. I tried the Mexican Vanilla with crushed ginger snaps, it was excellent.

Thanks again to Clint, Dawn & Lily for allowing me to stay with them, feeding me and showing me a fantastic time in Austin! Regardless of how things go we'll be back down there soon for more touring of Austin, I know Brandie will love it too.

Broome County is celebrating its 200th anniversary this weekend with a big parade and lots of festivals. Rain is in the forecast but we're hoping to get out to the Greek and Vestal Festivals today and tomorrow.

Read about it here!

Pictured here wearing the crayon-studded work apron her Grammy bought her, Sophie is really starting to enjoy coloring. She'll grab a piece of chalk and lay some down on Grandpa's driveway, and color with crayons on her drawing pad or house (all the shingles and walls are of various colors now, it's quite a showpiece!) She also likes the Sesame Street colored bath paints we bought at Target, although the bottles are tricky to use and she mostly just smears it around fingerpaint-style.

She's also got a bit of the old Art Director in her too, and frequently demands "Daddo, Elmo!" or "Daddo, hosey" (sketches of Elmo or a horsey, respectively) whenever I have chalk or a crayon handy. I'm getting good at Elmo and have been working on my Mike Wazowksi (from Monsters, Inc., still her favorite show although Elmo is gaining.) My horse is the same one I've drawn since the third grade though, I need to get a different angle or something.