I posted some photos of our weekend at a friend’s cabin on the New River near Galax, Virginia. We invited a couple of friends, Heather and Andrew, and their dog Ellie. It was pretty awesome. We did some hiking at Grayson Highlands State Park on part of the Appalachian Trail. See the photos.

We’re back from our East Coast trip. Brandi went to the Medical Library Association Conference in Philadelphia this May and I joined her for a quick vacation in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. We’re both completely enamored with Boston, though I’m sure it’s ridiculously expensive. The heat in New York was painful, as was the smell, but it was a nice trip. We were actually celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary. Life has been very good of late. See some photos.

As a bonus, I took a video from The Cyclone, the ancient wooden roller coaster at Coney Island. See the roller coaster video.

We took a three-day weekend and attended the annual meeting of the North Carolina Chapter of the Sierra Club. We stayed at the Eastern North Carolina 4H Center on Albemarle Sound. We kayaked in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and in the Scuppernong River Preserve. We think it’s time to buy a couple of flatwater kayaks. Have a look at the photos.

Wishing I was there now…

Brandi posted some pictures of our kitchen on her site. The photos show the vinyl flooring we had installed by Lowe’s. If I recall correctly the floor cost $335 including the flooring, installation, and new shoe moulding. We like it, but I wanted black and white squares in true 50’s fashion. Maybe next time.

Last Christmas I bought Brandi Sirius Satellite Radio from Crutchfield. I bought the Starmate Replay ST2 receiver. It was the cheapest one I could find and it’s been fine. I also bought the home kit and a Terk 50 ft extension kit. We’ve got excellent reception at home now. I ran the cable through the floor to the crawl space, out a vent in the foundation, up a downspout, and up to the roof peak.

We also determined that the FM transmission capability of the receiver was shoddy. We bought a Sony car stereo with an auxiliary input on the front. While there, we had Circuit City hide the cords for the Sirius antenna , power cable, and auxiliary input cable, as well as an iPod power cable behind the dash. It looks pretty clean, but it wasn’t cheap.

The final outlay came out something like this:

• Starmate Replay ST2: $70.00 (after $30 mail-in rebate)
• Sirius STH2 home kit: $39.99
• 50 ft extension: $30.00
• Sony CDXGT510: $104.99
• Installation and wiring: $80 including wired power port, wiring harness, Sirius power cable, iPod power cable
• Monthly Sirius Subscription: $12.95

Pretty expensive. Don’t buy a satellite radio thinking that’s all you’ll need. After the initial investment for a car receiver it start to make sense that you’ll want the home kit. If you get the home kit you’ll probably need the extension to mount the antenna somewhere you can get a clean signal. Then you realize that you really need to plug the receiver in because the FM transmitter is weak. Then you’ll have all these crazy wires everywhere. The next thing you know you’ll have sunk a couple of hundred dollars into it.

All in all, we really like it. We almost never listen to local radio anymore. I do listen to WUNC, our local NPR station when I’m alone. We usually have one of the jazz or 80’s mix stations on when we’re home. In the car, it seems the iPod is more popular than satellite radio, except on long trips. Satellite radio really shines on the road. After spending a little time with radio without commercials, it’s pretty annoying to listen to regular radio. Really annoying. The selection is good, too. I especially like the BBC World News and other talk stations. Brandi seems pleased with the electronica selection.  I understand she uses it as background sound at work, too, via access to the online stream.

It’s especially nice to have the auxiliary input on the front of the stereo. When I drive to work I usually park about a half mile from campus and listen to This American Life or Science Friday on my Zen Nano Plus while I walk. Then, when I get to the car, I just plug the Zen in and continue listening in the car while I drive back to Durham. I recently asked Brandi if she wanted to continue our Sirius subscription and she did so I assume she thinks it’s worth the $13/month.

Brandi and I spent the weekend in Charleston, South Carolina, with her father recently. It’s a lovely city with an obviosly long history. Rainbow Row made us wish we could afford a home there. Well, except for the inevitable hurricanes.

We also visited Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. I’ve never been to a real Southern plantation before and wasn’t disappointed. It had the requisite lovely gardens, impressively large house, and it even had a swamp replete with alligators. The most interesting part, however, was the ’slave talk’. It was really educational. Now I understand why some Southerners aren’t ashamed of the Civil War. It seems the prerogative of the Plantation is that slaves were damned lucky to be so well provisioned and looked after. Slavery was, according to them, a fine lifestyle choice that many white Southerners were jealous of. If only the whites could live as well as slaves, they said! Indeed!

I wanted to smack the orator in the face. I wanted to jump up and scream. Really, I wanted a refund so as not to support that revisionist, racist monstrosity with a single penny of my money. I was left wondering, though, if they feel funny talking that crap in front of black people. Simply amazing! Of course, they also kindly pointed out that Harriet Beecher Stow picked the worst possible example and that she was a Yankee just trying to cause trouble. (!) They also trotted out the tired old refrain about the North instigating a war for economic reasons and abolition being a real burden to blacks. Thanks for the education, racists!

All in all, we really liked Charleston. After my rage turned to nausea, we all had a really nice time. I’d like to pretend that I believe South Carolina hasn’t institutionalized racist propaganda, but it’s hard in light of the evidence. In fact, they were flying the flag over the statehouse as late as 2000. Or, perhaps the confederate flag really is a noble symbol of blah blah blah. Treasonous, seditious, and racist. Whoa. Angry again!

We spent last evening on the screen porch. It was blissful. The weather is marvelous right now. I installed the ceiling fan and light yesterday so the porch is near completion. I have a few trim pieces to paint and put up as well as stapling screen to the bottom of the floor joists. I’ve been wondering how people deal with managing mosquitoes that come from under the house. I’m told most people lay down indoor-outdoor carpeting. I like the wood decking so I’ll try the screen for now.

In other house-related news, our air conditioner doesn’t work again. We’ve submitted a work request with American Home Shield. We’ll see if they can redeem themselves from last season. Also, we need to paint our kitchen cabinets before we get new vinyl for the kitchen floor, which we’ll be doing soon. I’ll try to upload pictures soon. On my to-do list is to reglaze all the windows; scrape, prime, and paint all the trim; plant some vegetables and herbs; and, I’m sure, stuff I’ve put out of my mind to keep from freaking out. I wish we had a landlord to call.

I just migrated some posts from my first blog into this one.  I see they date back to March of 2003.  I had a blog prior to that as an undergraduate but I can’t find the archive now.  Brandi will be pleased.  Otherwise, they aren’t much to look at.  I’m sure many of the links are broken.  Well, that’s life.

This week Brandi and I went to Sarah Duke Gardens after work to feed the ducks and geese. It was just dusk and we were there alone. I didn’t expect to see the catfish that we’d seen the previous summer since it’s still pretty cool. I was watching the bats overflying the still lit sky and almost didn’t notice a Great Blue Heron hunting the shallows.

For a few minutes I thought he might have been interested in the bread floating in the water, but then I noticed that catfish were starting to hit the bread. We laughed quietly about how neat it would be to see him pluck a catfish from the dark lake, but didn’t think it possible. It was the coolest thing. The catfish must have been over 6 inches long and was struggling mightily as the heron carried it to the opposite shore. Bad night to be a catfish, good night to be a heron.

Brandi has trained Zuzu to get into the shower with us. It started off oddly. Zuzu loves running water and often drinks from the faucet. Then it moved into Zuzu drinking water running down the showerer arm. Finally Brandi brought cat treats into the shower and progressively offered the treats closer and closer to the water.

Now Zuzu preemptively jumps into the shower and will sit at the feet of the person in the shower waiting for a treat. She comes out completely drenched and tracks little, wet paw prints around the house. It’s pretty amazing.

Brandi has also trained Zuzu to jump up and wrap her tiny arms around Brandi’s wrist and hang there eating treats from Brandi’s hand. Zuzu’s strength is pretty impressive. So is her willingness to do anything that results in eating.