jimsjournal
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The wedding was wonderful (you can see pictures ).... On Saturday morning of the wedding weekend we stopped at Leah's parents' house. Miriam guided us over to a nearby park where Sean was able to join in a softball game with Adam and many of Adam's and Leah's friends and family who were in town for the wedding, then she showed Bebe Lake to Nancy and Jennifer and me, suggested a scenic walk around the lake and also provided directions to the Cornell art museum. The walk around the lake was lovely, the waterfalls and the gorges were very scenic (a popular bumpersticker in that area is Ithaca is Gorges) and the view from the 5th floor of the art museum was wonderful (so was much of the art). There was a pre-wedding meet-everybody party at Leah's parents' house that afternoon (hosted by Adam's mother and her husband). I got to visit with many people I had not seen in many years and to meet interesting new people as well. It was interesting to see how well Jennifer and Sean fit right in. My brother and his wife arrived at the part later in the afternoon and Nancy and I had the chance to walk around the neighborhood with them and show them some of the sights Miriam had introduced us to that morning.
The wedding, as I keep saying, was wonderful... We had been staying at the Courtyard by the airport on Friday and Saturday nights (three rooms times two nights equals free using Marriott points) and Nancy and I enjoyed working out in the fitness center and also relaxing in the hot tub next to the indoor pool. The Inn where the wedding was held is also a small B&B -- just three rooms -- and on wedding days they are part of the package so Adam and Leah had offered them to us. When it actually came time for the reception to end, however, Jennifer and Sean did not want to stay at this beautiful antique-filled nineteenth century inn, they wanted to go back into Ithaca with Adam and Leah's friends and family... so they went back and hung out until late at night with the late-twenties and early-thirties crowd... and Nancy and I stayed by ourselves, enjoying a romantic walk down to the lake in the moonlight and a beautiful bedroom filled with antiques (but with a modern bathroom and a king-sized bed) leaving the other two equally charming rooms empty. In the morning we were served a hearty breakfast of french toast with maple syrup and sausage and juice and delicious coffee on a rear porch overlooking the sweep of lawn down to the lake. When we stopped at Miriam and Isaac's to pick up the kids we found a mountain of fresh fruit and fresh bagels and juice and coffee and lots of lovely (but sleepy) people. It was a long trip back to Rhode Island -- Nancy drove until we reached the Hudson Valley (but we did stop at the Wegman's Supermarket near Binghamton to buy a couple dozen bottles of Salamida's State Fair Speidie Sauce), I drove maybe thirty or forty miles but I was feeling very tired and drowsy, so Jennifer took over and drove the rest of the way home.
So, anyway, here I am in Pittsburgh... well, last week was a busy week, proofreading and editing the books for the course I'd been working on in June and July... and, of course I only had Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to work on that... Friday I worked from home doing preparations for this week's class... Nancy's sister Karen and her brother Matt (and Matt's girlfriend) were visiting their mother over the weekend... so Nancy and Sean and I had dinner with them on Saturday.... then late Sunday morning they came over (along with Nancy's sister Janet and my mother-in-law) bagels and doughnuts and coffee at our house. And, of course I'm still busy packing my suitcase, etc.... but I'd really rather sit and visit and I was also trying to do email and also.... *sigh* .... there just is not enough time... So I got to the airport much later than I usually like to get there... having swapped cars with Jennifer so she could drive mine to Boston today for the Vans Warped Tour -- but we won't think about all of my parental worries over having my babies (Sean is going with her) at this big rock concert in the big city of Boston, let's just say that I don't expect to rest easy tonight -- My 3:10 flight, of course was changed to 3:25, which they said was "firm" and I think we actually did get into the air before four p.m. Fortunately I was only going to Pittsburgh, but most of the other passengers were trying to catch connecting flights (Pittsburgh is an important USAirways hub) so they were racing to get to their other gates.
I'm staying at the Hilton in downtown Pittsburgh, very close to where I am working this week (teaching a class, of course)... I went for a run after work on Monday, but it was so hot that after two and a half miles (or perhaps a bit longer) I decided to head back to the hotel and I ran a mile on a treadmill in the hotel fitness center, worked out with weights, and then ran another mile on a treadmill. (By the way, they have a really nice fitness center here at the Hilton, half a dozen treadmills, Nautilus machines, stair-climbers, bikes, etc. plus free weights.) Tuesday I went to the fitness center after work and did a mile on a treadmill and then a lot of weight work. Wednesday I did a lot of walking... walked from the hotel over to Station Square, a shopping center complex built in an old railroad building, rode the Monongehela Incline (sort of a cross between a trolley and an elevator), rode back down, wandered around Station Square, but then decided to walk back to the hotel for dinner (because I didn't have a book with me to read... that old solo dining problem)... This morning I got up a bit earlier so I could use the fitness center before going to work. Tomorrow afternoon I get to return home, but I won't actually reach home until early evening, so I think I will start my day at the fitness center before heading off for the final day of the class I'm teaching.here.
But summer is over -- oh, sure, most of the country is sweating through a heat wave -- but I missed most of summer and now it's just about over for me. Yes, I did get to run in Camire's Firecracker Four race on July 1st and I did get to watch the (rain-delayed July 4th) fireworks on July 7th... But having taken July 4th off as a holiday, I then worked that Thursday and Friday... and that Saturday and Sunday... and all of the next week and the next weekend and the next week and that weekend and didn't stop until I took a vacation day on Thursday July 26th to prepare for driving up to Ithaca the next day for the wedding. So this week I am in Pittsburgh -- next week I'm going to be in the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina -- then I'll be in Rhode Island for a week but I'm going to be busy prepping for a class I'll be doing the week after and Nancy is taking a class that week so she'll be busy -- and the last week of August I'll be teaching in Fairfax, Virginia...and then it's Labor Day weekend... It's true that I did go to a beach once this summer... but it was in the evening for the philharmonic-on-the-beach concert... I've not been swimming except for the pool at the Ithaca Courtyard.
I had hoped to take vacation days toward the end of August, so Nancy and I could maybe take the ferry over to Block Island and ride around on our bikes like we did last summer and also maybe I could help her set up her new classroom in her new school... but now I've got to spend the last week of August in Virginia and she's tied up with a class the week before that (what good is a vacation day if I can't spend it with my sweety?). Well, I guess we still have the weekends and maybe we might have one weekday together in between North Carolina and Virginia.
I'm partly complaining and yet I'm also glad to be this busy... at a time when the economy is weak and lots of high tech companies are cutting back, it is a good thing to be somebody who is generating lots of billable hours.... and I'm bringing in good money this summer... that course I did the rewrite for, that was really done for another division of our company and they are paying my division quite nicely for it... and this week's class here in Pittsburgh is for paying customers and next week's class is over-subscribed with customers and the class at the end of the month is for customers (and need I mention that these are not inexpensive classes) and there is already demand for that same class in September and October in Rhode Island and there is another customer asking for a private section just for their employees.... so not only does this make me feel a bit of job security, it should also be helpful next year at salary review time...
My high school reunion is scheduled for September... class of '61... yeah, our 40th... how do the years add up so quickly? I got word this week that the Saturday night dinner-dance has been cancelled... they needed a minimum of 100 people and only had around 50 and didn't want to have to cancel too close to the event when people might have committed to airline tickets, etc., so they decided it would be best to cancel that now... the rest of the weekend's activities are still on, just the fancy affair at the country club where we had held our graduation dance has been cancelled. We had always had larger crowds than that for the other reunions I've attended... I'm disappointed, although I admit that Nancy was not exactly eager to go.... she had come with me to my 20th, 25th and 30th reunions and (since she has only bothered to attend her 10th -- which she did not enjoy) she didn't have much interest in my 40th. I think I will drive over to Kingston -- it's still about six weeks away -- to attend the Friday night party and the Saturday tour of the high school. It will give me the chance to see a few of the people I went to high school with (I had almost typed "to see a few of the kids I went to high school with") and also to spend a little time hanging out with my brother.
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