Emerson - Big Kid or Baby?

A little blurry, but what a cutey!


Emerson was just SO cute this weekend and I got some of it on video.

Here he says what Jill claims to be "the cutest thing, ever": "I do, I do, I do" and argues with me about whether he's a big kid or a baby.



When I ask him how old he is he says "ME!" which is what he usually says when you ask what his name is (short for Emmy). Then he figures out the question and answers with a little hesitation: "Two?" and then gives me the secret hand signs for "two".



Here Emmy fills in the words to a favorite song:



Here is a photo I'll have to keep and bring out later in life: Yes, those are Cars underoos.

Best Stir Fry Ever!

Something I've been struggling with since I've been living in Princeton is eating good dinners. I really enjoy cooking, and god knows I love eating, but I enjoy these activities so much more when I share them with other people. So, here I am sharing it with you, dear readers:
I just made the BEST STIR-FRY EVER!
Here's what I did: I heated some oil in a pan, added garlic, ginger and shiitake mushrooms. Let that go for a minute, then added all of the following: baby bok choy, asparagus, green beans, broccoli, carrots, red peppers and just a little bit of salt. I let that go for about 4 minutes, stirring it all around and then I turned off the heat and added some soy sauce and the rice that had just conveniently finished cooking. Once everything was in the pan, I shook just a little bit of dark sesame oil on top. Mmmmm.... It really hit the spot.

Here's a shot of it in the pan before I added the rice:

Vampire Weekend at the Wellmont

Last night I had a fun time going into Montclair, not to see family, but to see a band called Vampire Weekend. It was quite a fun show. I felt like these guys were living out every college band's total rock 'n' roll dream with a huge banner with the band name, the drum kit up on a pedestal, smoke machines, fancy lighting and screaming fans. You really couldn't ask for more than that.


I like this photo for two reasons, 1) I took if from my seat in the balcony! I love the zoom on my camera. And 2) I love that you can see people taking photos at the bottom.

Nathaniel the Yellow Belt

My weekend started out with a trip up to Montclair to see Nathaniel test for his Yellow Belt in Taekwondo. He's only been taking classes for a couple months, but he really likes it. The video is of him breaking a board. I was very impressed.

Happy Birthday, Grammy!

My Grammy is staying with my parents, hopefully through Christmas, and one of the best parts about this is that we get to celebrate her birthday, and she gets to help celebrate some of my nephew's birthdays, too. Today is her 91st birthday! I didn't get to see her today, but we're planning on getting together on Saturday to celebrate Grammy and Emerson's birthdays on one day. I think it's so cool that the oldest and youngest members of our family have birthdays that are only 2 days apart. There is an 89 year gap between them.

Four out of the 6 people in the above photo have birthdays in December. Grammy is Dec. 4th, Emerson is Dec. 6th, Nathaniel is Dec. 9th and Liam is December 20th (Sebastian is in February and John is in May).

Great Losses of 2008

This year the world has lost 3 people who I believe to be American national treasures. The first was Utah Phillips, an amazing songwriter, storyteller and hobo who I wrote about back in May. Seeing him perform live was always a treat.

Then on Halloween, Studs Terkel passed away at the age of 96. I was driving up to John and Jill's when Kim texted me with the news. I have to say, I started crying while I was driving. I knew this was going to happen sooner or later, but I was (am) such a fan of his writing and humor. And I feel like there really isn't anyone stepping into his shoes as far as being a listener to common folks.

I saw him give a reading at Women and Children First in his home-town of Chicago and was just so impressed at his humor, his wit and the sense that he was just a regular guy with a good heart. I've been enjoying going back to some of his writing and look forward to doing more in 2009.

And most recently, of course, the death of Odetta. If you have a chance to watch this video from the NY Times, I highly recommend it. It makes you realize how many songs you know because of her, even if you never realized it was her. I think what made me most sad about this news is that she was hoping to sing at the Obama inauguration. It would have been so cool to have the same woman who sang at the March on Washington sing again in that city to honor our first black president.

All of these are great losses to the story of America. Each of them held a piece of history in their own way, and they will all be missed.

Thanksgiving with Family, and lots of it!

On Thanksgiving day I drove down to my parent's house and had a great little Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and my Grammy. It was just the four of us, but we had everything to make it a traditional Thanksgiving dinner: Turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, cranberry sauce, good bread and I made Winter White Puree. It was a relaxing dinner with good conversation. We somehow got talking about short-lived jobs that we've had and I found out that my Grammy had a job scooping ice cream at the community pool when she was younger, but they only let her do it for one day because she made the scoops too big! After dinner we had pie with generous helpings of whipped cream. It was a great evening.

The next day John, Jill, Nathaniel, Sebastian and Emerson came before lunch and Maureen, John and Liam came shortly after them. Once they were there, the doorbell rang and we weren't expecting anyone else (Dan had to work and couldn't join us). But we opened the door and sure enough - It was DAN! He walked in with his camera and totally surprised everyone, especially my mom. She teared up and was just so happy to have the whole family in one place. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a photo of everyone, but here's one that was taken while Jill and Mo had the cameras. That's John, Mom, Dan, me and Dad in the back, (little) John and Nathaniel standing in front of us, and Sebastian, Grammy, Emerson and Liam on the bench.


Here's a fun photo of me with all of my nephews. It was SO fun to have them all in one place.


It's tough for our family to get together and not start playing some sort of board game. And my parents are great at keeping around their old games. They have a Clue board from the mid-70s, Scrabble from god knows when and this amazing 40-year-old Yahtzee set. This cup is actually felt-lined so that it's not as noisy as the plastic cups they give you now. Pretty amazing.


Everyone has fun playing Yahtzee! Especially me. Here I am demonstrating how you have to hold the cup on both ends because the bottom falls out of the old cup.

Emerson is doing a good job of picking up on the family tradition:


The other game that was played this weekend was Wii! My dad got one for his birthday about a month ago and the older boys really loved it. And by "older boys", I mean my brothers and dad, too. Mom, Jill, Mo and I got to play a little bit, but the guys spent a lot more time on it than we did. John and Nathaniel really got into it, it was hard to tear them away:

It was such a great day and so fun to have everyone in one place. Hopefully it will happen again, sooner rather than later. I certainly have a lot to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving with a Friend

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving I took the train into NYC to see my friend Jay's gig with One Sweet World. I haven't seen him play in a long time and it was fun to be "with the band". When I got there I actually got to cut in front of people waiting outside because I was on the guestlist. It was pretty funny. The show was great and afterward we drove back to Princeton and crashed at my place.


On Thanksgiving morning Jay slept in while I watched the Macy's Day Parade and then we made a wonderful brunch of rosemary garlic home fries (inspired by M. Henry in Chicago), and fried egg sandwiches on rosemary batard from Witherspoon Bread Company, that and some juice and tea made for a wonderful start to a great day. We both wore aprons while we cooked, here is Jay helping with the potatoes:

And here's a shot of our delicious brunch.

It was so fun to have someone at my house and I always enjoy cooking more when I have someone to share it with. After breakfast Jay headed up to Ithaca to enjoy Thanksgiving with his family, and I headed to my parent's to start our family extravaganza. It was a great way to start the holiday.

Asbury Park & Ania!

Well yesterday was an awesome day. I woke up and decided to drive to Asbury Park, NJ to take some photos. This resulted in me having the old standard "At Long Last Love" stuck in my head the entire day (and again as I write this) because of the line "Is it Granada I see, or only Asbury Park?" I had never been there before, but was somehow drawn to it's history, and the Americana/Kitsch factor is pretty high, so that's always a good thing. Oh, and there's a beach, too, so that can't be too bad. Once I got there I parked near the beach, right across from The Stone Pony and walked up to the boardwalk. All the stores were closed, but there were a few people out for a morning jog or walking the dog. I walked out on the beach and took some photos, and then walked down toward the old convention center and then noticed Wonder Bar across the street, which had a great sign, good colors and some nice peeling paint. I took a few shots with my digital, but I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out from the Holga.


So the thing about Asbury Park is that it's in the process of renewing inself. It has a great beach and a boardwalk, so it shouldn't be too hard to lure folks to town. But currently there is a clear line between the old and the new. There are condemned buildings across the street from brand new, ritzy condos. But I have to say, it's way more fun to photograph the condemned buildings.

The sign says "A Bright Future for Asbury Park," but I think the current economy might have something to say about that:

And on my way home I passed this great sign:

In the afternoon I met up for coffee with a woman I met while volunteering for the Obama campaign and we had a great conversation. We seem to have a lot in common and I hope that we'll actually meet up again at some point.

Then I went home to make risotto and wait for ANIA stop by! She is visiting her mom in PA for Thanksgiving and came out to Princeton to meet half-way with a friend who lives in NYC and then to spend the evening with me! It was SO great to see her and so nice to have someone come and visit my house. It made it feel more like a home to me than just some place I'm hanging out for a while. Ania and I were photo students together at SU, so we took a ton of photos in the short time we were together on Sunday, both in my house with my new mirror from IKEA...

and at the Bent Spoon, where we went to get ice cream even though it was freezing out. I ended up getting a mini cupcake instead of ice cream.

A true sign of the inner photo geek. I love hanging out with Ania because I never feel self-conscious about taking photos in the most random places with her, and we always end of laughing about it.

It was a fabulous day and really put me in a good mindset to think about the things that I'm thankful for (including in no particular order): Old friends, new friends, hugs, a warm home, cameras, and good food (among many, many other things).

Most boring blog post ever

Hey there blog readers. Some folks have been asking about what I've been up to and why the lack of blog posts. Well, I haven't been up to too much that's very exciting or blog-worthy (in my opinion). Last night I got a new winter coat. The day before that I met up with a friend-of-a-friend, she teaches in Princeton on Mondays and Tuesdays so we might get coffee again some other week. I made a quiche on Monday. Did a little IKEA shopping with my Mom on Sunday... That's about it, folks. Looking forward to Thanksgiving!

It's official - Princeton is not hip.

In case anyone was under the impression that I'm being dramatic about how un-hip Princeton is for young, single people, now they've published an article about it here.

One of my favorite lines: "'They perceive Princeton as not a great place to be as a single,' Mr. Kehrt said, but rather as a town for families."

The "they" he's referring to is me.

I had breakfast with a woman this morning (about joining her book group full of middle-aged moms of teenagers) and she mentioned this article and was actually surprised that I had decided to move here on my own. She confirmed my suspicion that Princeton really isn't a "college town" in the sense that the students don't really effect the downtown and the businesses, they kind of keep to campus and have all of their fun in NYC or Philly (just like everyone else). They don't live off campus, they can't afford to shop or eat downtown so there isn't really a sense of their having a lot of influence in the area. I guess I was hoping for more of a Northampton or Ithaca feel to the place (I knew it wasn't going to be Cambridge), but really it's a wealthy suburb.

Candlepin Bowling at Sacco's Bowl Haven

This past weekend I went up to the Boston area to hang out with friends. On Saturday night a bunch of us met up for candlepin bowling at Sacco's Bowl Haven in Somerville, MA. Candlepin is a little different than regular bowling, the balls are smaller, the pins are skinnier and you get to roll 3 times per turn instead of 2. It was invented in Worcester, MA, so it's definitely a New England thing. It was one of the things on my list of things to do before I left Boston that I didn't get to before I left Boston, so I was glad to be able to check it off, and I'm sure I'll do it again, it was so much fun.

Here's the whole crew: Amy, me, Matt, Nick, Sylvie, Miriam, Lee, Ulysses and Allison.


Sacco's has been around forever and there is nothing electronic about it. The ball return depends on gravity to keep it going and after each turn you have to push a little button to clear the lane. Scoring is all pencil and paper and math in your head. Here's a funny little video from the evening:

Remembrance Day - 10 years ago

It was 10 years ago today that I had the chance to photograph the Queen Mum in London at a Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey. I was doing a story on the significance of the Red Poppy and through a connection at the Royal British Legion I was given a pass to stand with the Royal photographers. It was quite an honor. The moment I'll never forget is when the Queen Mum looked me in the eye and smiled while I curtsied (like I was told to do if she acknowledged me). Then I lifted my camera and captured one of my favorite images from my time in London.

Unfortunately, the CD with this image, and all of my other London stuff, is being stored at my parent's house right now, so I'll have to post the photo sometime next week. Check back later.

YES WE CAN!!!

I spent the evening at the Princeton Public Library watching CNN with about 100 or so other Princetonians. It was great to have some company while watching the results roll in, but once it was announced that Obama was the winner, I did a little celebrating and then had to head home. I wanted to watch the speeches on my own so I could hear them and react in the comfort of my own home. I have to say, I've never been more happy to hear a concession speech and I'm now waiting to hear Obama's speech. It really is all worth it. January 20th can't come soon enough.

That's not all...

So I got to work and opened my email to see that they still needed volunteers to wave signs at busy intersections during rush hour today. So, I walked into my boss's office and said "I need to leave at 3 to wave signs for Obama." This was more of a statement than a question. She said she had to think about coverage and see if anyone else was able to stay until 5 and that I should have had this approved days ago and why couldn't I go after work, etc, etc... Well, thankfully she let me go (so, yeah, I worked a total of about 2 hours today). So I left work at 3, ran home to put on my Obama gear (t-shirt which is way too big thanks to Move-On sending me an extra large, and a button on my jacket), grabbed a snack, since I didn't eat lunch, grabbed my camera and headed over to the meeting place for sign waving. I got there and there were a bunch of people and 4 of us got assigned to Brunswick Circle on Rt. 206 (it's a pretty busy intersection for those of you who don't know it).

We had fun waving our signs, giving thumbs up to those who honked as they passed by, and yelling "Obama!" when a few brave souls yelled "McCain!" at us. We also got a good response from bus drivers, garbage trucks and Mister Softee even gave us a toot and a wave. It was great to see so many people, we even had one woman stopped at the stop sign lean out her window and yell "I voted for Obama at 6am!". The whole time was really wonderful and we stayed until a cop pulled over and told us that we weren't supposed to be on the inside of the circle and that we were causing traffic issues... Oops. But that's OK, it was getting dark anyway and we were planning on heading out soon. So that was my exciting afternoon and now I'm off to the public library to watch the results come in.

Election day adventures

My adventures in voting:

6:07am - Roll out of bed, throw on some clothes, brush my teeth. Polling places in NJ opened at 6am.

6:13am - Walk to my polling place and get in line. This was the line at my polling place this morning, and it stretched into the building. I heard someone say "There has never been a line here before! This is history right now, folks."

While waiting in line I heard 5 different people say something about not being able to vote. One of them came up to the guy in line behind me and I asked her what happened and she said that they told her she was in the wrong place to vote even though she thought she was in the right place and she said she didn't know because she never got anything in the mail telling her where to go. I told her that if she's not on the list that she can still fight for her right to vote. Another woman was an elderly lady who was walking out with help from a man who might have been her son. She said "Why did I have to write his name in on that piece of paper? I thought I would go into the booth like everyone else." She asked if she had done something wrong and the man said, "No, you just weren't on the list, so that's a different type of ballot, and we're going to make sure that you're on the list next time." So clearly, I'm not the only one with problems today.

I waited in line, even though I knew I wouldn't be on the roll. I was advised by the ACLU voter protection hotline to go to my polling place just to make sure that I didn't magically appear on the rolls. I was also told not to take a provisional ballot. I asked one of the official challengers what my precinct was and explained that I didn't know because I never got anything in the mail, and he said that he had the numbers of lawyers who are working today to get people the right to vote, and to come back and see him if I wasn't on the list.


6:38am - I'm officially not on the roll. So I head back to get the numbers of the lawyers (who are affiliated with the Obama campaign) and head home.

6:46am - Left a message with the Obama lawyer, then hopped in the shower.

7:09am - Spoke to Obama lawyer, who said she was going to make some phone calls and get back to me with a plan.

7:40am - I got dressed, ate breakfast, talked to the lawyer again and now, we have a plan. I need to be at the Trenton courthouse at some point after 8:30am, find the judge I've been assigned to and ask for a specific lawyer who should be in that courtroom.

7:56am - I'm gonna finish getting ready, pack up all the ID I can possibly bring (passport, SS card, license, utility bill to prove that I live in Princeton, work ID, birth certificate), a book (Sarah Vowell's Partly Cloudy Patriot), my camera (that I probably won't be able to use except to take photos of the outside of buildings), some snacks, and a notebook to keep notes on what happens through the day.

9:02am - Arrive at courthouse and get in line. Apparently there are a bunch of people willing to fight for the right to vote in this election. The man in front of me was told he was not on the roll, but he had a voter registration card, and the woman behind me was with her friend who just became a US Citizen and was told that her registration wasn't complete because a birthdate was not filled out on the registration form. All kinds of reasons for people not to be allowed to vote.

9:28am - I meet with Obama lawyer #2. He happy to hear that I filed a complaint last week and we find out that my paperwork is already at the courthouse. This is very helpful in moving my case along. People who just show up have to call the Superintendent of Elections, file a complaint and then wait for that office to fax over an official form saying that they filed a complaint. Depending on the backlog, this could take a while. What they don't really tell you (and thank god there were lawyers there) is that the lawyers representing the state have to argue AGAINST your right to vote. And these state's attorneys will just walk up to you at the courthouse and say "Hi, can I help you?" and if you don't say that you have a lawyer or that you would like a lawyer, they just tell you that they're representing the state and they are not your lawyer and then get all your information and take you before the judge. It can be very intimidating.

10:06am - A state's attorney asks me questions (with my Obama lawyer present) and I tell her what I've told everyone: That I registered at a Voter Registration drive and discovered after the registration deadline that there was no record of my registration.

10:12am - I'm sworn in and we argue the case. The attorney for the state brings up some arguement that I needed to live in the state 30 days before registering (which is false, you have to live in the state 30 days before the election). When the judge went into his chambers, my lawyer told me not to worry, that even if that was the case there was argument that the state needs to inform voters of any mistakes or missteps on their voter registration and that never happened.

10:23am - I am granted the right to vote because I put forth a good faith effort to register on time and due to no fault of my own, that registration was never accounted for!

10:28am - I'm officially handed the piece of paper telling me I can vote at a voting machine and I head out of the courthouse, on my way back to Princeton and my polling place to cast my vote!

After calling the first Obama lawyer from this morning to tell her the good news and then driving back from Trenton, grabbing a quick snack, and calling my mom to reassure her that I am indeed going to vote, I head to my polling place.

11:32am - get in the (shorter than this morning) line.

11:40am - hand my paper to the guy behind the table for District 1. He gets totally confused, reads the whole sheet about 6 times over, apologizes because he doesn't really know what to do, no one told him about these court orders, etc, etc... He finally decides that he does know what to do and gives me my official Voter Authority and I am shown which machine to use.

11:52am - my ballot is cast!! I voted!! On the way out, the guy who gave me the phone numbers for the lawyers is still there and he shakes my hand, congratulates me and quizzes me on how my morning went. I told him everything and that there was a line at the courthouse, so democracy is working at least a little bit.

12:11pm - I'm finally on my way to work. I don't know that I'll be able to concentrate on anything today.

I don't know if I can watch the returns in public tonight or if I just need to stay home. I found myself crying watching the televised Obama rally in Virginia last night. Never have I been so proud of a Presidential Candidate and so inspired to put forth effort to make sure he makes it into office. To say the least, I'm fired up and ready to go!

Halloween with my nephews

I had the chance to hang out with my nephews and John and Jill at their good friend's house in Bloomfield, NJ. It was fun to hand out candy and Nathaniel, who is almost 7, had an awesome time trick-or-treating with his friends from their old neighborhood. I'll try and post some photos soon.

Obama Tables & Voter Registration

For the past few weeks I've been volunteering at what I lovingly refer to as the Obama tables. Before Oct. 14th (NJ's voter registration deadline) these were voter registration tables (more on that later), but after that deadline they've been set up just to sell buttons, lawn signs, canvas bags, window cards, car magnets, t-shirts and baseball hats with some sort of Obama logo or slogan on them. It's amazing how people are so interested in these items because they want to support Obama, but also because they will someday be "collector's items" or "memorabilia". It was fun to put some hours toward the Obama campaign since I don't have too many dollars to throw his way.

I recently learned that NJ has no record of my voter registration, so thanks to the good folks at the ACLU and League of Women Voters I am planning on heading to Trenton and pleading my case before a judge on Election Day in order to get my right to vote. It should be an interesting day, and I'm sure I'll post about it here.

Unbelievable!

Pumpkins!

This has been quite a year for pumpkins. It started out with a pumpkin painting event in my parent's back yard where Emerson, Sebastian and Nathaniel had the chance to paint little pumpkins. Nathaniel finished first and enjoyed the chance to show off his scary Halloween face:

Emerson is quite the artist and was very picky about his color choices. He concentrated very hard on every brush stroke. It was pretty cute:


Last weekend I headed up to John and Jill's to watch the Red Sox game (since I don't get TBS) and I brought some big carving pumpkins with me. I got to carve one before the boys went to bed and I carved a second one during the game. Emerson was pretty interested in the process and wanted to see what I was up to.

Sebastian did a pretty good job of imitating the face on the pumpkin:


On Friday, I had Kim and Alex over to do more pumpkin carving. Alex was not a big fan of scooping out the guts, but we told him that was part of the process and he had to do at least a little bit of the "work":

Once we got to the carving part, he was much happier. He did a really creative lightning bolt pattern and did all the carving himself:

The fruits of our labor on my front porch:

Me, Alex and Kim with our pumpkins:

Thanks for the Meme, Trinity!

Trinity tagged me for a Meme, which means I have to answer a bunch of questions and then pass them on to other bloggers. It's sorta like a blog chain letter.

Here it goes...

Four jobs I've had:

1. Redeemer of Playtex Bra rebates - I kid you not, this was a temp job that I could only stand for 2-3 days, and I would give extra free bras to anyone who made my day interesting by having a cute stamp, cute check, or cute note inside the envelope.
   
2. Camp Counselor - I did this 2 different summers between college while I lived at my parent's house. The best part was that I got to drive a convertible Mazda Miata most days, which made the 45 minute commute somewhat bearable. My "camp name" was Bonanza Jellybean. I hate camp names.
   
3. Portrait photographer - This was my first "real" job after college. I was a portrait photographer for over 5 years when I lived in Chicago. It was a blast, but I felt like I needed to do something else...
   
4. So I went to library school and became an Image Cataloger. This confuses some people, that I say I'm a librarian, but I don't work with books at all. Basically I contribute metadata to records about images of art in order to provide access to patrons who are searching an electronic image database. Since you can't (yet) search images without words attached to them, the words that I add to the record are what is looked for by the search engine. If you'd like a more in depth explanation, feel free to request one via email. :)
   

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. Singin' In the Rain
   
2. When Harry Met Sally
3. Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas
   
4. Amelie (I can blame this movie for sparking my interest in both photobooths and gnomes)
   

Four places I have lived:

1. Chicago, IL
   
2. Cambridge, MA
   
3. Syracuse, NY
   
4. London, England (for my semester abroad).
   

Four TV shows I love:

1. Top Chef - Loved the Chicago edition, looking forward to the next installment
   
2. Amazing Race - My mom watches it, too and we call each other after to say "Can you believe it? or "They deserved to go..."
   
3. Mad Men - I recently got in to watching this on DVD and now I'm too late to pick up on Season 2, so don't tell me anything about what's going on in the current season.
   
4. Flight of the Conchords - Again, I watched the first season on DVD and really enjoyed it.
   

Four places I've vacationed:
Hmm.... This is tricky, I can't say that I really take "vacations" I just go to visit my friends all over the place, but I have enjoyed some traveling, too... So let's see:

1. Minneapolis, MN
   
2. Portland, OR and the surrounding area
   
3. Cross country trip - NJ to CA and back again.
   
4. Paris, Dublin, Bath, Scottish Countryside - These were all little trips I took while living in London.
   

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Stuffed Zucchini - Time-consuming to make, but a great way to enjoy tons of fresh late-summer veggies.
   
2. Winter White Puree - A Thanksgiving tradition over the past few years with a secret ingredient.
   
3. Sauteed Green Beans - I love slightly crisp fresh green beans sauteed with a little garlic and olive oil. I can have this as a side dish to nearly anything.
   
4. Mashed Potatoes - Pure and simple, Potatoes, butter, cream (or milk), salt, pepper and a little nutmeg. Maybe some cheese on top if I'm feeling like dairy overload.
   

Four sites I visit daily:

1. Bitten - Mark Bittman's blog on the NY Times. He always has something interesting to say and often has vegetarian recipes.
2. Weather.com - I usually check the weather for Princeton, but also sometimes for places where I know people or places where I wish I was. So Corny, but I like to know if it's snowing in Chicago or Minneapolis or how my friends in Boston are faring.
   
3. Pandora radio - This is a great way for me to hear hours of music without having to think about it too hard. My old roommate in Cambridge got me hooked.
4. NY Times - The front page. It's one of the first things I check every morning to make sure the world is still (more or less) in one piece.

And I do check my friend's blogs almost every day. You can see the list on the right to get an idea of that.

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Visiting friends - Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, London, Philly, NYC, Portland, Boulder, Savannah, etc... Any of these places would do.
2. London - I have a friend there now and have been meaning to go since he moved there.
3. Out of the Country - It's been way too long since I've traveled out of the country, and while I've seen a lot of the US (43 out of 50 states), it would be nice to see different parts of the world.
4. In the country - I'd love to check off those other states and say that I've seen them all. Left on my list is Alaska, Hawai'i, North Dakota, Montana, Louisianna, Mississippi, and Alabama.
   

Five people I am tagging: (I'm following suit here with Trinity, and Sarah before her and only tagging two people)

1. Ann
2. Jocelyn

Princeton in the fall

There is one thing I can't deny about Princeton: It is beautiful. And it's especially beautiful with the fall colors and gorgeous weather these days. Here are some shots from around campus.

Princeton is known for it's collegiate gothic architecture. This is the chapel on campus (behind the trees):


This is the view from my office window:


This is the view from the courtyard in East Pyne Hall:


This is Nassau Hall, the oldest building on campus:


This is a little walkway along Nassau St. It's a nice place to eat lunch.


These are two matching buildings named Whig and Clio:

I have to take an hour lunch every day, so at this time of the year it's a great excuse to eat quick and take a nice walk in the middle of my day.