North Again

     As the turmoil of settling into the new house ebbed, I took the opportunity to head north to handle a couple of business related issues.  There are no direct flights from Durham to Albany.  I usually take a flight that stops in D.C. and then on to Albany.  This time I wound up going to Charlotte first, then boarded a plane to Albany.  It always seems a little strange to go south to get north, but it was a beautiful day, had no seat mates, and managed to get the picture below of West Sand Lake.

    You can see Crystal Lake just above the engine, Reichards Lake on the left edge in front of the engine, and the village of West Sand Lake.  The brownish-white area below Reichards Lake is the Bonded Concrete operation.  From the air you can get a pretty good idea of the extent of their gravel mining operation and the scar it has left on the land.
    After taking care of business, David and I got a chance to play a round of golf over at Skyline Country Club in Lanesboro, Ma.  I hadn't played the course in probably 30 years, and it has grown up(well the saplings that lined the fairways back then are now mature trees anyway).  It still has great views of Pontoosuc Lake in Pittsfield and the Berkshires in the distance.

      David and I also got a chance to go to a Tri-City Valley Cats play-off baseball game.  Although they lost the game, they went on to win the NY-Penn League Championship.  Sitting behind us was Pat Valiquette and his son.  Pat and I served together on the  All-Tournament Team Selection Committee when RPI used to host a holiday hockey tournament.  It was good to see him and chat about our lives.  His son just completed law school and is waiting for the results of the bar exam to be released.  You take the bar exam in July and don't get the results until December.  It's tough to be in limbo that long.  David bought a Valley-Cats hat and coordinated his golfing outfit around it.

     The trip north ended on a high note as I attended the Actors Equity Association 100th anniversary celebration at Cap Rep in Albany.  It was great to see a number of people I've worked with over the years and share a drink, food, and some good conversation.  The party also featured the best decorated cake I've ever seen.

 
     Yes, that is a cake.  Amazing isn't it.

Settling Back In

     There are always issues surrounding getting back in the swing of things as we go from our summer home up north to Nan's working down here.  As indicated in my previous post, having a new place to live presented some stressful challenges which I won't discuss here.  The house is very large and allows us each to have our own work space.  In addition to the new dwelling, Nan is teaching a new course.  It's a service-learning course in which the students are required to provide a certain number of community service hours in addition to their regular scholarly efforts.  Since we both volunteer at the Durham Animal Shelter, Nan decided to pair her course with APS(Animal Protective Society) of Durham.  Duke also has a canine cognition center, and she has been able to get their cooperation as well.  It's been a lot of work, as getting the students to and from the shelter has been a problem.  I take a carload over and back twice a week and have met some pretty neat kids(oops excuse me, young adults) 
      Anyway,  one of the first APS events we were involved in was the annual dog wash fund raiser.  It was held at the Durham Car Wash.  Before you get a picture of dogs being put through an actual car wash, let me say just say it was all hands-on.

    We always try and do something out-of-doors for Nan's birthday at the end of August.  This year we went to Jordan Lake recreation area, which is just south of Durham.  We found a nice six mile hike through the woods and along the shore of the lake and Nan went swimming.

      As far as cultural events were concerned, we went down to Chapel Hill to the Forest Theater and saw a presentation entitled Invisible Earth performed by the Paperhand Puppet Intervention. Dylan Alexzander Turner is a member of the troupe.  Dylan played my son several years ago at Oldcastle and I've know him since he was born.  I did at least five show with his mom, who is a special lady.  Dylan sat with us during the performance(he had stepped on a nail and was recovering) and explained the mechanics of some of the huge puppets.

     If you're interested in seeing more of this group's great work, you can visit their website at paperhand.org.
     Our first month back wouldn't have been complete without a trip to see the Durham Bulls in action.  They made the International league playoffs and we went to see them with our friends Jeff and Jane.  They won this series and went on to win the AAA World Series.

It's Been Awhile

   First, let me apologize to my legion of readers(that's Krista and Nan, sometimes I think) for not entering a post since July.  We had a busy last few weeks of summer, with a trip to Rhodes Island for a visit with Karen, Jack and Lena.

In addition to seeing them, we were able to reach the highest point in Rhodes Island.

Then a trip to Maine to visit Tom and Dag. On the way, we undertook a slightly more arduous climb up Mt. Ascutney in Vermont.

    Managed to get up to my sister and brother-in-law's camp for an overnight.

     We also met them for Shakespeare in the Park in Saratoga (a production which featured our friends Brenny, Yvonne, and David)

     We came back to Durham early because we were moving into a new house.  The apartment had gotten small and we wanted something larger with a fenced back yard, as taking the dogs up and down 3 flights first thing in the morning and last thing at night was getting old.  We had quite a stressful time with the move and getting the house livable.  Anyway, that was the rest of our summer.  We're back and I'll continue to get everyone(both of you) caught up in subsequent posts.