The City

The Greatest Place on Earth

The future?

He will not be a douchebag. I promise

Last game

Perfect vista to see the Heisman winner blow through some holes

War Eagle!

The Auburn Football Family

Today we're gonna see Auburn (hopefully) kick some LSU Tiger butt. Because the wife is new faculty and was hired in the spring, we weren't able to get on the faculty ticket list. And, because of other commitments (notably Kentucky Colonel Day at Churchill Downs), this is the last game we'll be able to attend this season. (And yes, both the wife and I are colonels. Don't ask how.)

Because we don't know our situation for next year, this could actually be the last game we see for awhile. And I have to say, while I didn't enjoy football in high school or college, I am surprised by how much of a college football convert I have become.

I didn't get it before. I didn't understand that in places like the rural South, your college team is all you have. You don't have professional sports teams readily nearby (name a top tier professional sports team in Mississippi or Alabama. Go ahead. I'll wait.), so there is nothing of that sort to identify with. In Connecticut, you were either a Yankee fan or a Red Sox fan. College football? I don't think so. Patriots, Jets, or Giants. Or if you lived in upstate NY, the Bills (shudder).

But down here, all you have is your school. The school you may have gone to, or not (from what I understand, the vast majority of 'bama fans never went there. Infer what you will about the level of class)And it's the place you stay loyal to because, despite the vast sums of $ that are available to teams in the BCS system, they, unlike professional sports teams, aren't going to leave your town. They are a part of the community. They are loyal to the alumni, faculty, students, and fans who flock to the campus every Saturday (regardless of where the team is playing. Auburn travels well. Nebraska and Clemson as well), and stake out there spots, and welcome other fans (who support their team or not) in an open, friendly, gregarious nature. The college isn't the Yankees or the Red Sox, able to shell out over $200 million a year in salaries in an openly disgusting manner in the middle of the recession while raping working families for $50/tix to seat in the nosebleeds. (An aside, sometimes the Yankees make it really hard to root for them.) And yes, while some of the tickets aren't cheap, there really isn't anything like being in a stadium with 85,000 other people.

Here at Auburn, the senior level staff and those associated with the school talk about the Auburn family, how everyone is welcome and how we all look out for one another. And despite being the Yankee I am, I have felt welcome from the very moment we crossed the state line 3.5 months ago. In a strange way, those 85,000 people have become my family. And regardless of how long we stay, (or don't) I will always be an Auburn Tiger.

War Eagle

Roundup of interesting facts I've learned so far

In no particular order:

1. Armadillos carry leprosy. Ewww.
2. Deer sausage is really, really, really good.
3. Collard greens are good in a soup, but fricking nasty when they're cooked normally. (Boiled, then simmered with a ham hock for what seems like forever. Verdict? Still gross.)
4. It seems we are the only people in the neighborhood to sleep with their windows open at night. This seems weird to me.
5. I know I will be going hunting for deer this fall / winter.
6. I know that if I actually do kill a deer, I will cry. Maybe not right then and there, but eventually.
7. I am ok with the above two items. I actually think this is healthy. We've been removed from our food sources for too long.
8. The only way to get rid of an armadillo is to either remove its food source, or kill it.
9. The landlord opted for option #1.
10. Armadillos are gross. And they grunt.
11. The redneck version of cow-tipping is armadillo kicking. Because they can't see well, you approach them from behind and commence launching. Be prepared for your foot to hurt due to their hard shells.
12. I have not participated in either cow-tipping or armadillo kicking.
13. 11am kick-offs make a football game family day at the stadium. All the kiddies are there.
14. Booing is very much frowned upon at said stadium. Especially in front of kids. I did not know this.  :-/
15. Additionally, when you say things like, "Hey Ref! Get off your knees, you're blowing the game!" you get frowned at.

So, them's it so far

Pre-game

War Eagle

You stay classy, bammers.

 Hat tip to friends of the program

On open windows and Armadillos

After along stretch of very hot weather (ever since we got here in mid-July it's been in the mid 90's), we've gotten a reprieve and temperatures have plummeted to the low 80's. Here's our forecast for the next five days

Today - high of 82, Sunny

Tomorrow - high of 80, Sunny

Saturday - high of 78, Sunny

Sunday - high of 74, Sunny

Monday - high of 75, Sunny

Not very consistent, sure, but beautiful, nonetheless. Because of this, it's time to open the windows and blow the stink out of this joint.. Also, when the humidity is low, there is no better sleeping weather. So, we've thoroughly enjoyed the brisk evenings. We even pulled out our comforter to keep warm and toasty.

Because of the cooler temperatures and our open windows, we pretty much hear everything that is going on in the neighborhood (the opposite is true, as well, of course). And lately, we've had a visitor to the neighborhood. As this post's title suggests, our neighborhood has served as a buffet table to an armadillo.

Yes, we have them here in Alabama. I was surprised by this, frankly. I had always thought they were basically just in Texas for the sole purpose of providing fodder for cars. (You just hit an armadillo! 10 points!) But no, according to this Wikipedia article, the little buggers are all over the South, reaching as far north as Nebraska!

And they're ugly, too. Look at them. They're creepy looking, a leftover from a distant age. Like alligators or a rhinoceros, they look like they could have been roamed the Earth with the dinosaurs (which they probably did.) Brrrrrr....gives me the shivers.

As some of you also know, we have a Jack Russell terrier who like to do two things: 1) act like he's protecting us, and 2) kill rodent-like animals. So last night at 2:30 am, our visitor makes his appearance in our rose bushes looking for grubs underneath the pine straw (quick aside: instead of mulch, we have pine straw. Same idea (inhibit weeds), different ingredient) and our little guy hears him. And he goes nuts, barking his head off. Me being the man, I get up with the flashlight to go check out what is causing our little guy to freak out and wake up the rest of the neighborhood. I look out our window, and directly under our window, I see the little bastard, grunting away. 

Grunting. They sound like piglets searching for food. And I have to admit, I was little skeeved out. I mean, it was grunting, and it looked like a giant rat, except armored with sharp claws.

Yes, I admit. I was emasculated by a 10 pound rodent. 

But it has claws! And it grunts!

Anyway, now I have to apologize to the neighbors for my dog's barking at 3 am, contact the landlord to see what he wants to do about, and grow a set. Maybe purchase a long broom stick to hit it with? Hmmmm....

Dog and cat (1 @ least)

In harmony.

Ahhhh......

Anniversary in the ATL

Wife and I had our wedding anniversary weekend in Atlanta this past weekend. Shout out to Il Mulino for bringing excellent Italian to the South. Good god that was good. Prior to that, we were hanging out on the roof of the Glenn Hotel downtown, the Sky Lounge as they like to call it. And, truth be told, the wife and I were looking forward to going out to a club that plays hip hop and R&B. And man, good god the DJ that was there was awesome. Old school rap (man, we walked in to the Digital underground's "Humpty Dance" playing) and hip-hop. We were the only white people there. It was sweet.
Trouble is, we had to go to dinner (the aforementioned), and the lounge closes down at 8, switches dj's, and re-opens @ 10. No big deal, right? But it was, because every where else we went we ran into things we didn't want, or were closed, or whatever. In fact, the whole weekend was like that.

We arrived at 1:30 on Saturday afternoon, checked in, and made our way to the High Museum. Great, right?  No, because there was a line a mile long and when we got to the end of it, there was a museum employee with a sign saying that they were no longer taking any more walk-up customers. No mas.

After dinner, we went to another lounge our hotel hostess had told us about. And while the music and such was fine, the drinks were very expensive, the music was loungy (expected, but when we asked for a hip-hop club, she suggests this....grrrr....I want my booty-shaking rap!!!!!), and I get hit on. By a guy. (I was flattered, actually,  but totally didn't realize I was getting picked up. The wife helped me out on that one.) And then when return to the hotel to go back up to the other SkyLounge, its douchebag central listening to bleeps, bits and blops electronica.

Atlanta, you were bit of a disappointment.

Now, maybe this was my fault. Admittedly, I don't like to plan too much when it comes to leisure time. Sure, I get the general outlines sketched out, but my itinerary is rarely fleshed out  in detail. But maybe that's what these quick weekends require. More details. More plans. More pre-investigation. More Hip-hop. Less electronica.

The next day we did salvage a bit of good feeling for the ATL. We spent several hours at the National Historic Site dedicated to MLK, Jr., saw his house, looked at his grave site, and hung out. Then we went to Buckhead, walked through massive malls, and got back in the car, shivering in fright from the sheer amount of marketing that had been thrust in front of our eyes. Ye-gawds. Makes me want to do the Freedom Trail from Selma to Montgomery all the more.

OMG - FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!

First off, a confession. I used to hold it as a source of pride and "better-than-you" esteem that I went to schools that did not have football programs. In fact, my two main criteria for choosing an undergrad program was that:

1. The school did not have a Greek system
2. The school did not have a football team.

See, I wasn't allowed to play football when I was a kid. Nor hockey for that matter. Both are sports I would have loved to have played, and currently love to watch. (Alright, hockey's not my favorite, especially not on television, but I like to see a good fight, just like the next guy.) And it wasn't that I wasn't friends with guys on the football team that made me not want to be around them. It's that I wasn't friends with all of them. Specifically, there was a specific sub-species of football player I did not approve of, did not like, and did care to associate myself with.

The meathead.

You know that guy. The guy who punched out the panels of your garage door because he showed up at your house for a party he wasn't invited to and you didn't let him in. The guy who punched your books out of your hands as he passed you through the halls. The guy who grabbed the ass of the girl you liked. The guy who reveled in belching. You know that guy. We all know that guy.

That guy.

So when in came time to pick schools, it was a no-brainer that I would not willingly put myself in an environment that shared space with them.

What's that? What that, you say? What about Carnegie Mellon's football team? (I went to CMU for grad school) Uhm, well...let me put it to you this way.

Dorks playing football.

Do you have the image? Ok, 'nuff said.

Look at that sea of orange. Isn't it magnificent?

Now, quite possibly one of the coolest things that Auburn has going for it, (that everyone can agree upon), is the football. Holy cow, I was impressed. I mean, wow, that's 83,000 people, for goodness sake. Just look at them all.

And that's only 1/2 half of the stadium, and the upper deck isn't even completely full. 

Here's another shot, from a different angle.

 I think that shows the rest of the stadium fairly well, right?

That's just a lot of people, a lot of orange, and a lot of people who previously spent a lot time hanging out in the parking lots, drinking, eating, and tailgating.

And that was part of the whole experience, too. The tailgating. The hanging out with friends, the throwing around of the football, the subtle barbecue one-up-mans-ship subtly playing itself out between RV's and campers (I've got something cooking here that will really impress you!)

But sometimes, the students take it a little too far. As in, holy cow, I don't think she's going to be able to keep herself up. Ladies and gentlemen, I present exhibit A.

Oh, dear Lord, not good. This one was not a happy camper. Eyes glazed, lolling about, teetering on her 2 guy friends who were clearly trying to keep her from being arrested from public drunkenness. Man, she was about 2 seconds from totally puking her guts out. Fun stuff!

Anyway, the wife and i had a great time, and we can't wait to go to our next game.

In the Country

Another Saturday, another day of adventure and new experiences. This time it was a next door neighbor's piece of land south of Tuskegee where we played with some horses, tried to catch cat fish, and looked at some cows.

The drive through Tuskegee was extremely pleasant. Our next door neighbor and his wife had grown up in the general vicinity and shared a lot of nice tidbits about the area, the way people live, etc. In fact, they pointed out two houses, both opposite one another, that were the exact same. Huh, why's that?, I wondered. Well, it turns out that the homes were both built by the same man. The first home was built for he and his wife to live in, and the second home was built to satisfy a stipulation of his divorce from the same woman that he build her a home that was its exact mirror. Hence, two houses, opposite side of the street, exact mirrors of one another. Spooky.

The first stop of the day was the hay field to check on the bailing process which my friend and his pops had worked on earlier in the week. Not too much progress had been made, but form what I could understand, there were some mechanical issues involving sprockets, and flanges, and hinges, etc.

And here's where my yankee-ness comes into play. We had stopped at a nearby farmer's house who had helped with the cutting and the bailing. This man was my father's age, and had been raising beef cows his entire life. And much like the time I was in Maine and spoke to a Maine fisherman and had a really hard time understanding what he said, I had an equally hard time understanding just wtf this guy was saying. I've noticed that there is bit of a lag time between what people down here say to me, me mentally filtering out the accent, and then me fully comprehending what they've said.

We went over to the barn and took the opportunity to put our neighbor's 5 y/o on a horse and take a spin. I think she had a lot of fun

The horse, maybe not so much.

Just kidding.

After this we took a quick spin over to the lake where the cows were resting, and we did some fishing. MMMMM.....Black Angus

Hey, you in the back. I am going to eat you eventually!

Last, but not least, it was time to take the little one in the tractor. Again, it looks like she had a great time.

BBQ in Alabama

Place: Birmingham, AL. about 2 hrs from Auburn, AL.

Event: Stoking the Fire BBQ Festival

Otherwise known as, Eat the Pig, Stuff your Face, I Love Butt, etc.(I'm just kidding. Those aren't the alternate names) But some teams did have some really funny names. case in point: Butt Rubbers, whose motto was, "Keep it Wet, and Do it Slow" Truer words have never been spoken. And while I didn't try the butt rubbers pork butt, the rest of the butt we did try, was very good indeed.

Interesting note before we move on, the pork "butt" is not actually the butt. The "butt" is the shoulder, while an actual pork butt is called the hock, as in ham hock. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's move on.

The event itself was held at Sloss Furnaces, a national historic landmark. I took a picture of the landmark sign, here: The story goes, from I could gather, was that the furnaces intersected 2 rail lines, making it a pretty logical place to set up and make very heavy things made out of metal so that transporting them long distances wasn't difficult. And while the vast majority of the operation was no longer working, you could tell the furnaces were impressive by their sheer size and scope, as evidenced in the pictures below:

This one doesn't do nearly as much justice to the "largeness" as the one below.





























See what I mean? This photo, from the opposite side of the structure, gives a little bit better idea of how big the place it is.


Anyway, the comp- etition has four categories: chicken, ribs, butt, and people's choice. The others are self explanatory, but people's choice refers to Saturday afternoon when the gates to the festival open up for the vast majority of people to roll in and taste the pork bbq (made out of the butts), that the teams have been smoking for the past few days. You then vote for your favorites. The results, for most of the teams, were delicious.

Post bbq, slightly buzzed stoopid faces

We met up with the college roommate of our next door neighbor here in Auburn, and he treated us to a few ribs, which were fantastic, and a couple of nice cold, high gravity beers. Sipping beer and eating ribs and bbq (by the way, if you are eating shredded, or pulled, or chipped pork with bbq sauce, you are eating bbq specifically. If you are eating ribs, or brisket, or anything else "bbq", you are eating bbq generally. Got it? Yeah, I was confused, too.) Man, it was good, as evidence by our silly faces. -->

We walked around some more, trying bbq, sipping beer, and then headed over to the stage where the organizers announced the winners of the competition. And because part of the furnaces are still working, the prizes were cast in iron right on the site, which I thought was pretty cool

There were also some pretty funny "sculptures" that the teams had set up, as evidenced here (ewwwh), and below

Good times were had by all, and while our friend's friend's team didn't win, these people know how to cook pork. God, I am glad I am not Jewish or Muslim.

Photoshop Disasters, Alabama style

I would say this belongs on photoshop disasters, but the stuff they post is typically very well done and sometimes difficult to spot and notice. This, however, is illustrative of what I've found down here.

People love their football.

And if you can get the coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide to support your candidacy, then you're sure as shit to get in.

Wow. That's truly horrible.

I love the quote from the candidate when presented with the original picture:

"They said we could do it this way," Davidson said.

Props to the Birmingham News for tracking this one down

Dinner @ the President's House (funny story at the end, I promise!)

As new faculty, the wife gets invited to a bunch of "stuff". For example, we went out for dinner last Friday night with a couple of her colleagues, she gets free tickets to the university theatre productions, and she gets invited to the new faculty reception, hosted by the president of the university and his wife. So, as we were invited and never wanting to miss a party (or a free meal and booze), we put on our best and headed over.

The president's house is very nice (Apologies for the poor picture. It was the best I could find. It doesn't really give you a proper feel for the scale of it, nor the inside, which is very nicely decorated.), and is located in the heart of the campus. It has very nice gardens, and an air conditioned "Terrace - reception" area, comprised of a essentially a ballroom and an art gallery like space, half of which was "patio-ed". (God, what a horrible description. Anyway...)

We mingled with a few folks, eventually "settling" with new professors in the communications, history, and psychology departments. The conversation was good, considering all of has had just met and were feeling each other out, essentially. Dinner was a very nice, catered spread comprised of roasted chicken, pork, fried green tomatoes, and grilled asparagus, squash, etc. Dessert was banana pudding and peach cobbler with ice cream. Two words for both of those:

1. Yum -
2. EEE

During dinner, the president came to the table to sit and chat for a few minutes. He sat next to me, and we (as a table) talked bbq (he's partial to the mustard based sauces and the bbq you can find at Price's, although he does like the vinegar based if the meat is really high quality. He also doesn't like Dreamland bbq, which isn't surprising considering its a chain. He said students dig Mike & Ed's, while the locals like Byron's), and the lack of recognition sports other than football, golf and Nascar get in the Birmingham newspaper, (especially on game-days in the fall). A very nice, gracious man, who the wife described as her idea of what a Southern politician would be when we eventually come across one.

The story of the night had to be, though, when I was getting the peach cobbler from the dessert table. As I handed my plate over (already full of banana pudding (she gave me too much!)), I said something to the effect of, "Try to get some on, will ya?" The older, white woman looks at me and asks, "Where you from?"

"Connecticut"

"I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!," she screamed.

"Uh, ok."

"Are you, by chance, I-talian?", she asked.

"Wow. You're good. I am."

"I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!," she screamed again.

I asked, "I'm impressed. How could you tell?"

She replied, "Well, my sister-in-law married a man from up there, and he's I-talian, and you all look the same! You don't know him, do you? Last name is (unintelligible due to the Southern accent).... No?... You don't? Oh well...."

It was the first time I felt Asian or black.

"They all look the same!"

Got my riding group!

Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings, brought to you by the good people of East Alabama Cycling Club!

Wednesday nights start @ 5:30 and are usually around 25-30 miles of beautiful rolling hills around Auburn. We "roll" at about 18-20 mph, so its a nice 2 hr ride that isn't too stressful or hard. Given that I ride to the meeting place, it adds a few more miles, making the total (last night's, at least) to be 35 miles. This is about as much as I can do in one go before I have to eat something, so dinner is always welcome when I get home.

Saturday's ride begins at 7:30 am, breaks up into about 4 different groups (based on riding ability and length), and always ends in breakfast. (Yay!). This ride is much more social and significantly larger than the Wednesday night group, as well as accommodates riders of all abilities.

To be honest, this is my first real riding group. I didn't ride in a group in NYC because if you didn't have a high-end ride and weren't snooty, they didn't want anything to do with you. I didn't group ride in CT because I just didn't get my shit together. But I really like riding in a group. It gives you people to talk to, safety, and most importantly, people to draft. Everyone goes faster when riding in a group.

Also, I get to essentially "tour" my new area by riding around the neighborhoods. I've read before that riding one's bike around a new town is a great way to go sightseeing. And experiencing it for the first time here in Auburn, I can say their right.

I am digging the riding group and the people in it. Hope I can make some friends out of it.

It's my birthday!

And to celebrate, the wife and I went down the Gulf of Mexico and the Redneck Riviera! (Seriously, they themselves call it that, so I can too. So, there.)

Anyway...

Perdidio Key is southwest of Pensacola and a part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. The drive from Auburn took about 4 hours, but that's only because Google maps had us take the Blue Angels Parkway, a one lane road that could have been avoided by going the way we went home (along the 110 into...oh, wait. I just realized I am doing that thing that my adult male relatives do after they've arrived somewhere. That's another post at another time.) We headed straight for a bar that I'd heard of from people both here and in Connecticut. The Flora-bama

The carnival

Good god, what a shithole. It strattles the Florida - Alabama border on the beach, and is an amalgamation of tents, coverings, wood platforms, and other assorted crap glued and screwed together to somehow pass code. It's a classic hole in the wall bar, as evidenced by a shot I took of the inside to the right.


See what I mean?

There are other "areas" that are all sort of cobbled together. You have multiple stages for performers to set up on, so forth and so on, and lots of individual bar stations. One thing I did notice was that there weren't too many TV sets, which was nice. Nothing I hate more when I go to a bar is to have nothing to look at except TV's.

Oh, and did you notice what was hanging from the clotheslines up there? Here's a better picture.

"Oh look, there's mine!"

Lots and lots of bras. Gives the place character and class, doesn't it?

Since we hit this place up right around lunchtime, we weren't expecting it to be crazy. But as evidenced by the underwear, clearly good times had been had here.

As it was lunch time, oysters and fish po-boys had to be eaten.

Yes, please!

After lunch we headed back to the beach and laid out on the beautiful, white sand beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. And they truly were stunning, until you walked up and down the beach and saw the oil response clean-up teams, their equipment, and tar-balls. Lots of little tar-balls.

The following show the tar stained beach and the equipment used by the teams:

Tractors and other "stuff"

Crews getting ready to hit the beach

Used sand sifters. Not small enough to get the majority if the tar balls if you ask me

Oil stained sand

Lovely, right? Sigh.

Pack? check. Beer? check. It's dark. Let's go!

You may also have noticed me with a backpack on my shoulders. That's because the wife and I camped on the beach on Saturday, and we had to hike in about a mile to get to where we were allowed to stay on Perdido Key (the photo was taken Sunday morning on the way out). But here's me gearing up ready to make the trek out at night.

And here we are in the morning after a not so great sleep (due to lack of pillows, a thermarest with a hole in it (grrr.....), hellacious temperature and humidity, and lack of breeze through the floor of the tent (which will be remedied on the next tent purchase.))

Good morning!

Sunday saw us stopping off at the IHOP for breakfast, driving to Pensacola Beach for the, well, beach, and then to the Pensacola Art Museum for a little bit of afternoon culture. Incidentally, the museum has a very nice collection, which we would have seen if they weren't playing a movie about Marc Chagall at the same time we visited.  :-(  Oh well.

We traveled back to Auburn after the museum and drove through a pretty horrendous thunderstorm, one that had a lighting strike right next to our car and which sounded like a shotgun! Fun stuff! It was f'ing terrifying, but, we were alright. Just a little rattled.

All in all: Great trip, glad we went, and we'll certainly go again when it gets a little cooler.

The joys of home working

That is my foot. Under my desk. Being used as a pillow. By my cat.

Late night Mud-riding

I was thinking I really should have pictures for this post, but I don't think they would capture the thrill of barreling down a dirt road in the middle of the night. How do you express the joy of riding a roller coaster to someone through words or pictures? It somehow doesn't do the experience justice, and I certainly want to give the proper props to this.

It's late. It's the middle of the night. You're in Alabama, and there's several acres of woods with a"road" cleared out through them, leading to a pond in the middle. The road is the red clay of the South, not gravel or asphalt. Now, you've gone off-roading before, when you were growing up, living in Connecticut. But it somehow doesn't live up to what you think you are about to do, because, let's face it: You're a stranger in a strange country, and you've placed blind faith in a person you've just met because they told you to get in the truck and not to ask questions. You're going for a ride, and that's about all you know.

You drive down the road, and turn off, facing the "road" that goes straight into the woods. The driver puts the peddle to the metal and away you go, flying torwards trees before the wheel is turned and you're faced with another set, the headlights illuminating just what's directly in front of you and nothing else. You hit the clearing where the pond is, stop, pile out of the truck and look up at the moon, and all the stars, and listen to the silence, something you haven't heard in a long time because of the years you've spent living in New York City, or Bridgeport, CT, the drone of I-95 constantly in the background.

And it's here that you thank yourself for trusting people, for believing that people are inherently good, and that you've missed the woods, the stars, and the silence.

Our new home

I figured since its been about 2 weeks, I should probably do a post on the actual place we live. Stalkers out there take note: we will perform IP searches and report you to the police.

Kidding! Ha!

No, seriously, we will.

Anyways!

We live on the northwest corner of the Shug Jordan Parkway (we call it the Shug Knight. Just sounds more gangsta, doesn't it?) off of Richland Road. It's a relatively new development (2008), with each house on about 1/4 acre. Here's a shot of the street with the other houses. Pretty nice, right?

Yeah, they're a little cookie cutter, but they're new and we didn't have to do anything, which was pretty nice. And all the people we've met so far are super nice. (Incidentally, it took us, like, a year before we met anyone in our old neighborhood in Black Rock, but that's another post) Anywho...

If you haven't guessed by now, that's our house's front porch on the right of the picture there. Those are our chairs we will sit on in the evening before dinner when it isn't hot as Hades outside. And here's a front view of the house

It's a nice color. I like it.

And you see the garage peeking out the back of the house.

Inside is pretty nice, too. It's pretty much a great room with living, dining and kitchen areas in 1. Here's the kitchen and the "dining room", situated in the middle of the house, basically.

And here's the living room if you literally rotate 180 degrees from the position I took the above photo.

The picture is a little dark, but you get the idea. To the right of the picture, is a set of french doors that leads out to a little patio area and the back yard.

Domino's decapitated body make an appearance to provide scale. And that's my grandparent's patio table and benches in the background. They're more than 50 years old and they made the trip all the way! (a little banged up, but nothing a coat of paint and new nails can't fix.)

The rest of the backyard can be seen in the following pictures.

A fenced in back yard makes Domino and his owners very happy.
















And then there are the upstairs bedrooms, 1 for guests and the other for our office. Fufi makes his home above my desk where I spend my time these days.

And that's it, folks. That's our house!

Blueberry picking

I ditched the home office today to go blueberry picking. We scored big
time.

I see blueberry crisp in my near future

First Impressions

We've been here a week. So, I guess that qualifies me to provide first impressions. Here goes.

1. People are super friendly in the South. Everywhere we've gone we've been welcomed to Auburn profusely and continously. As a northeasterner, I find this slightly disturbing because I am expecting the catch. But there may not be one.
2. Auburn itself is a delightful, small college town. As such, all pretty much revolves around the university.
3. The university is gorgeous.
4. The sun is a lot stronger here than what I am used to. I also had a hard time catching my breath while working out. Indoors. Maybe it's because I haven't worked out in 2 weeks and my fitness level has dropped, but still, it's hot.
5. Working from home is a very civilized way to work. Except that I go stir-crazy by 3 pm and have a mini-freakout. I need to resolve this.
6. We are in the rural South. As it was put to me earlier this week, "Drive 20 miles outside of town, and you've traveled back in time 50 years." (Full disclosure, we have yet to do this.)
7. The bbq is "chipped", not shredded or pulled. And so far its been very good.
8. The produce, specifically, fruit, is 20 times better than up North
9. Did I mention it was hot? Yes, I believe I did.
10. Like Lincoln, NE., life revolves around football season.
11. I will not be eating chittlings (or chitterlings as they are referred to in other parts of the world).
12. I don't like my kitchen sink faucet. It's too high up and I splash water all over the place when using it. Very annoying.
13. The summer thunderstorms are really good. They remind me of my childhood.
14. We've found a working farm that runs a fall CSA. We've been there to pick blueberries which were ridiculously good. The lamb steaks were amazing as well. We shall be spending more of our $ there.
15. DSL is not awful. Is it the best? No, but I can upload and download at a reasonably fast speed. So, that's good. (I still prefer cable, though)
16. Satellite TV is a racket and I feel like I am getting raped. I was fine getting basic cable back in CT because I never watched TV.
17. On a related note, tv antenna bunny ears have not progressed well since I was a kid. Or we live in a tv signal vacuum because we tried and failed miserably.
18. Our house is pretty much perfect, kitchen faucet excepted. Side note: I will never not have central air again.

So, them's it. Back to work, and then back to organizing the house and putting away our stuff. Woo-Hoo!

Back to School

Spotted taped up on campus. It feels good to be back in an academic
environment.

Move story, Part 2

We got up pretty early to eat breakfast, clean up the room from the pets, and tried to hit the road before 8 to get through the nightmare traffic that is Atlanta, GA. And it all went reasonably according to plan. Before we hit it, I took Domino out for a walk where I ran into a very spry 83 y/o man walking his bichon frise. We had a nice chat, and he told me great things about the place we were going. Considering I hadn't visited Auburn yet, I was nervous. The man's easy going nature and good words made we feel a lot better about our future home.

We hit the road and enjoyed a nearly traffic free drive all the way to the outskirts of Atlanta where the road widened and traffic volume got heavy. We were never stopped dead in our tracks, nor were we slowed down all that much, but I stuck to 1 lane for the most part. Like most metro areas, Atlanta has highway signs giving up to date traffic info and travel times which was helpful because our original plan was straight down I-85 through the heart of Atlanta. The signs said heavy delays, so the beltway became our route.

On the southern side of Atlanta, we stopped for lunch and got ready for the final push. At lunch, we ended up speaking to another nice stranger who asked if I was a cyclist (I was wearing my Fat Cyclist t-shirt). He then went on to start telling us about the bike trail that goes from Atlanta all the way to Birmingham. In the back of my mind, I started planning a fall weekend cycling/camping getaway.

Back on the road, we cruised over the state line and arrived in our new home state. 30 miles more down the road and we hit Opelika (pronounced Opa-like-uh), Auburn's sister-town. Then we got off at our exit and Tina led the way through the center of town. It was something, let me tell you, driving a 26' truck through the center of town along the edge of the university until we hit Toomer's Corner, the exact center of town where a big orange paw print is painted on the intersection. A couple more turns onto the beltway of Auburn where I sub-division is located, down the access road, and into out new little neighborhood where we pulled up to our new house (pics soon).

The LL was (to my surprise) waiting for us, and in we walked to the place we (our family) would spending the next year of our lives.

Move Story, part 1

We're here, and despite some hiccups (all minor), we're in the house, all of our stuff accounted for. More on that later.

We took off from CT around 7:45 on Thursday morning, and as expected, sat in traffic almost immediately, which was fine given that I hadn't really gotten used to the truck yet. After we got passed Stamford it was pretty much smooth sailing all the way into Pennsylvania.

We stopped to get gas about 50 miles outside of Harrisburg. Filling up the truck for the first time was a humbling experience. It was a truck stop, and I didn't understand the concept of satellite pumps. Are you confused as well? So, when you pull into a truck stop fueling lane, there are 2 pumps, one on either side. One has the controls for paying, etc., and the other is just a pump. You have to engage the paying pump by pulling out the pump and laying it on the ground. You then have to go to the other side to use the satellite pump and fill up. Additionally, the gas tank on the truck was not like a car's, where you just pop in the pump and away you go, waiting until the pump stops automatically. With this, you had to pump until the pump stopped, and then re-angle the pump and continue until you could actually see the gas at the top of the tank, almost coming out. A little freaky to be sure.

We move on down the road and the check engine light comes on in the truck. Great. I get on the phone with the emergency service folks at Penske while I am trucking down the road. They tell me to get off in Carlisle, and we spend 45 minutes while the techs fumble with their computer diagnostic systems and swap out a bum sensor. An hour later, the light comes back on. I ignore it, and continue to plow down the road, never getting more than 70 miles hr. No pull overs for me!

Virginia is a big state. I never realized how big it was. As you're traveling down 81, you just keep on going and going and going. 300 miles, or so. And its extremely pastoral. Talk about idyllic farm settings. Happy cows on those hills.

We made it to Statesville, NC the first day, traveling 660 miles in 12.5 hours. We would have gotten farther if not for the check engine light, but I'm happy to have stopped and gotten it checked then rather than to have gotten stopped on the road in the middle of nowhere.

The animals did ok, for the most part. Domino (the dog) was great. My one cat, pearl, well, she was great too except for the meowing. My other cat, jasper, however, had a real rough first day. Before we even left, he decided to take a d*^p on the office floor of the house, which was fine because then he wouldn't do it in the truck. But I put him in there and the meowing (read yowling) began big time. he then pissed himself. Awesome! Before we got onto the highway, we stopped for coffee, which gave me the opportunity to swap out the paper towels I had put down on the bottom of his crate. Poor guy. He was a mess to clean when we got to the hotel in Statesville.

End of part 1

Last sunset in Black Rock

We leave in the morning