random old photo

Someone at work just sent me this photo from a few years ago.  It was the opening of my first park design, the 369th Infantry Memorial in Harlem. 

Nico was in the stroller, and would later sit down to play in the middle of 5th Ave, part of which had been closed off for the occasion.

Sorry we haven't posted much lately.  We've been doing reconstruction work on the entire upstairs floor, and our lives have been rather chaotic as a result.  Hopefully more posts are coming soon.

Deep Thoughts by Nico

Nico came up to me yesterday and very thoughtfully asked, "If you take a picture of a mirage, is it there?" 

more.

They said it would be very windy with some rain, but instead it was very snowy with some wind.

The train home last night took four and a half hours, and I consider myself  lucky - they shut down the whole system right after my train left the station, but let us go through to the end, eventually.  I had to go to a different station, where my fam generously came to pick me up.  Ellie and Nico used the waiting time productively.

The main thing is we still have power!  Never take your electricity for granted!

post-aftermath

Hello again!  I'm borderline-ecstatic to report that our power is back on, and we are back to mostly normal.  The little hard hats have done their work well.

My work building has been partially de-flooded and they are asking us to come in tomorrow.  My actual office happens to be in the highest part of the building, so maybe my stuff is safe?  Probably not.  But I'll find out tomorrow.  Ellie and Nico are still out of school, since many on LI still don't have power.

Overall we are so happy and relieved that the damage wasn't any worse for us.  (It should be noted that Ellie and Nico were never all that worried.  As several of us remember from our own childhoods, it's kind of a fun adventure for them.)  Ami and I were well prepared for an extended outage, but it clearly would have become more difficult over several days.  Plus we would have had to buy all the condiments in the fridge all over again.  /r/firstworldproblems

From what we hear, there were some major impacts throughout the region.  Still, it could have been far worse without some of the preparations that local leaders and individuals made.  I think some credit has to go to leaders like Mayor Bloomberg and Govs Christie and Cuomo, whose teams planned well for this kind of event long ago.  The storm could have hit even harder than it did, and they still would have had the ability to deal with it without anarchy setting in.  Pretty impressive.

We also got lucky where we were, compared to the rest of Long Island and elsewhere.  We are feeling pretty proud of ourselves for intentionally choosing a house on higher ground, but as jwad correctly points out, we also have to thank Fire Island for taking a big part of the hit for us.

I took a few pictures, but there really wasn't much of interest to see.  Trees blowing hard in the wind.  More trees blowing hard in the wind.  Etc.  Maybe if you're as interweb-savvy as James you've found some good pics, or you can check these out from the main Long Island paper.  You can see just how fortunate we were to have little of interest to post.  http://www.newsday.com/news/weather/long-island-destruction-from-sandy-1.4156975#1

Thanks to all for thinking of us...

aftermath

Hello to any who are interested - we rode out Sandy last night with no serious problems, and all is well for the time being.  We have no power, but it seems nobody on Long Island does right now.  Roads are shut down, my office is under 3' of water, and schools are closed until further notice, so we'll be hanging out here for the foreseeable future!

hurricane halloween

First of all, yes, Sandy is on her (his?) way.  This is the latest from Weather Underground:

I love how the hurricane is politely stepping out of the way of Patchogue.

We're making our usual hurricane preparations, but at this point it looks manageable.  We're concerned for our fellow-citizens to the south, of course.

In other news, it was pumpkin picking time last weekend.  After several years of trying different farms on eastern Long Island, we think we've found the best one.

Grandma was good enough to watch the Small Fry while we went, making the experience much more pleasant for all, including the Small Fry.

It was so great having her here, as always.  We went on a couple of outings, but mostly it was just living normal life, with her around.  Very pleasant indeed.

And in closing, I have to share one of the many remarkable sunsets we get here.  The skies are one of my very favorite aspects of life on Long Island.

This one stopped me in my tracks as I got off the train.  I had to stop by the harbor to take a few pictures, which as you can probably guess don't do it any justice.

Stay tuned for more updates on the hurricane, if there's anything to report.  Or maybe there will be lots to report, but no power to do it with.  We shall see!  All our best wishes to our compatriots in the storm's path.

phoeniz arixona

Hey, I just got back from Phoenix!  I was there for the annual ASLA conference, the Big Thing for landscape architects.

I stayed with Ami's sister Becki -- great to hang out a bit with my old pals the Specks.  I had loads of fun playing Labyrinth with Ben and Eli.

Hertz gave me a free upgrade to a brand new Mustang convertible.  So I had a good time blasting down those desert highways.  What a beautiful machine.

The conference was pretty good, although there wasn't much to take pictures of.  Fortunately I had a little extra time for some side trips.  First up was Sedona, with stunning red rocks and canyons.  I hear they also have some sort of Mystical Power Vortices there, but I didn't feel any different beyond being impressed by the landscape and realllly enjoying the Mustang on those canyon roads.  

Have to put this one in for Jane and any other hip hop fans out there.

On my other extra day I went south to Tucson.  I had long been interested in visiting Davis AFB after seeing the aircraft storage area known as the Boneyard on Google Earth.  Many (most?) of the military aircraft being taken out of service come here for storage, sometimes for decades.  You can take a bus tour through the Boneyard.  It was fascinating.  They also have a great museum nearby with other old and interesting aircraft.

I love the form of the B-52s.

I finished off the trip by visiting a mission established by the Spanish in the 17th century.  It's still in active service.  This was a nice contrast from the beauty of the aircraft, still remarkable.

 A great trip overall.  Many thanks to the Specks for their great hospitality.  And to my Mustang for the companionship on those long desert drives.

 

Next year the ASLA conference is in Boston -- it'll be quite a bit different!