Just Ducky

Here's an example of the hail damage from all the storms we had. Note that this is a rather large Paulownia leaf.

One evening, AE, GM and I ate at Nosh, which is in the same complex as Chai's and Shade Tree Coffee. I had an egg salad sandwich, which was good, but it was a little over stuffed to eat in any sort of normal way. I also tried an Izze grapefruit soda for the first time. It was very good. They have a pear, too, but I like the grapefruit so much that it might be a while before I get one of those.


I had taken this last quad duck picture that afternoon.


I ordered, received and started using an HP 7410 all-in-one printer, because I'd been wanting a scanner and a printer after not having either for almost two years. The real advantage of this particular model is that it's wireless. My dad bought one about 6 months ago and my parents have been really happy with it, so I thought it was a safe bet.

At the end of that week, I went to JK's farewell party at the Sitar India Palace near South Square. He wanted to work closer to home, but it was sad to see him go. I had a good time and there was a good crowd of people there. I had a lot of fun meeting and talking with DS, who graduated from Duke three years before I did. It's often fun talking to alums about friends and professors that we may or may not have had in common. The food was good, too.

That night, I had dinner with AE and AE's mom at Chai's. I ordered Pad Thai with tofu, but they gave me Yakisoba Noodles with tofu instead. At least they didn't give me beef. I'd never tried that dish before and it was actually pretty good, so I kind of liked the surprise. GM joined us and we all had very interesting conversations and a good time. Afterwards, GM and I went to his apartment and we made cookies while watching a new Doctor Who episode. We made molasses spice cookies from the Baking Illustrated cookbook, which I gave him for Christmas. They were delicious and I now have all the ingredients, so I can make them, too.

Here's one of many hypericum blossoms blooming outside the CIEMAS building.

Catching Up at a Turtle's Pace

Unlike previous instances of blog negligence, I've been jotting down things in a notebook. Unfortunately, this means that I haven't been anxious about forgetting things, which may have decreased my need for posting. It's really no excuse, though and I will try to keep you all updated more regularly.

Almost a month ago, I went to various graduation events and talked to various people. Free food. At the East Campus lawn reception, I mostly ate spanakopita and fruit. The food used to be so good at that reception. While I always enjoy good spanakopita, I still miss the little ham biscuits, decent kool aid based punch and the royal blue petit fours. My parents still reminisce about the bacon wrapped shrimp at my mom's graduation. That Sunday, I also went to the computer science reception and got to talk to several of my old professors. Fares Hanna, owner of Twinnie's and Blue Express, on campus, did the catering and while it was all good, I particularly liked their three bean salad.

We had a lot of storms that weekend, including a tornado warning for Hillsborough. The power was out in our neighborhood for 45 minutes and my new generator kicked in automatically, exactly as planned. We also had hail twice that Sunday, including marble sized chunks. It took several hours for it to all melt. I also made my pasta with shrimp, bacon, garlic and wine dish for my mom, for Mother's Day.

The next week, HC started working at CIT, so that was exciting. I also checked out my first book from the library. That was surprisingly exciting to me. It was Getting to Yes by Fisher and Ury, recommended by my boss for improving my negotiation skills. That night, my parents and I saw the HBR Motorsport team at Casa Ibarra. They are Austrians who do formula BMW racing.

That Tuesday, we celebrated HC's and SA's arrival at the Loop. NC and I both had milkshakes, but I made the mistake of also getting fries. The fries were fine, but it was just a little much.


That evening we had the most important arrival, Hook! Hook is the fourth brother of the three yellow bellied sliders that we released in my parents' pond almost two years ago. We released him as soon as we got back to the pond, unlike his brothers, who spent the night in my garage.
Note that the house pictured in the distance above is the one between my house and my parents'.

Not Exactly Narcissus

This week has had the most consistently nice weather that I can remember. It's been cool during the night and just glorious during the day, with a nice (sometimes very strong) breeze. I've been eating outside at lunchtime at the new teak tables that they've placed on the patio close to the library. It's so peaceful there.

It just hasn't been peaceful at home.

That is because a lunatic woodpecker has been banging his head against my windows for at least five days. Solid. I woke up on Saturday morning and wondered if someone in the neighborhood were doing some heavy construction. BAM! BAM! bambam! I looked around outside, through the windows, and finally saw that Doofus, here, was ramming into the garage window. I'm sure he sees his reflection as a male red bellied woodpecker in the window and sees it as a threat. He did it all weekend long and by Monday I was really happy to go to work. I wake up every morning to the noise of his impacts and he's still at it when I come home at night. He mostly picks on the great room windows in the upper right hand corners. According to what I've read on the web, he would just move to another window if I put something up there (assuming I could reach), but he didn't seem to like my telescoping duster.

Last week was fun. We had out 6th Annual CIT Showcase, for faculty to show off how they incorporated technology into their teaching. We gave away all the doorprizes that I collected and the lunch bags with the CIT logo on them that we ordered. It was all very exciting had we had a record turn out. We hauled stuff to and from the Bryan Center in my van and it was nice to be able to help out in that way. It was pouring rain all day, the day of the Showcase, so I naturally got soaked at one or more points, when I had to go back to the library. Mallard ducks have invaded the campus and I almost had a semi-head on collision with a security guard on a bicycle, because we were both trying to avoid running into the same duck. The photo of the one pictured here was taken a few days earlier.

One very unexpected and cool thing was that SW presented at the Showcase and got to visit my house. We also had dinner with GM at Margaret's Cantina that Friday night. Despite some delicious sounding specials, I found I was craving a shrimp quesadilla with shrimp and guacamole. Afterwards GM and I both had chocolate bread pudding with Mexican chocolate chunk ice cream. It wasn't quite as good as the chocolate whiskey rum sauce that they used to have, but it was good.

Absolutely gorgeous flowers have been blooming on campus. The irises below and above were blooming in the vicinity of Duke Chapel.


Earlier in April, I took this picture of JB and AE while they admired my chicken walnut roll at Chai's. I actually ate there again tonight, with AE, but my udon noodle soup wasn't beautiful enough for the blog or food envy.

In the past month, we've had a lot of thunderstorms. One of them even included some hail. One to two miles away, there were larger than golf ball sized hail stones, which is pretty scary. On my deck, it ranged from pea to marble sized hail. My parents, only 600 feet away, just had pea sized and there was less of it.