ever so gently rambling, rambling at my chamber door
Three years ago yesterday, Amanda and I were married in the walled garden in Allerton Park. To celebrate, I made dinner and dessert (many thanks to Giada De Laurentiis of Food Network’s Everyday Italian for the tastyness):
Those of you who know me should know why I haven’t updated in a long time. Amanda and I had a very long month when we went down to Huntsville for Mike’s wedding. We had our baby Isaac prematurely, and after fighting for three long weeks in the Huntsville NICU, he passed away peacefully in our arms. We’re still having a hard time with it, but I suppose it’s good to talk about it.
But I suppose I should continue to try and work on returning to “normal” life, so I’m going to go ahead and post some photos I took while we were down there.
We took a hike at the state park up on the top of Monte Sano:
We also took a trip to the Hunstville Botanical Gardens:
And on our way home, we stopped by the Jack Daniel’s Distillery which is just across the border in Lynchburg, TN:
Took some pictures of the snow yesterday and put them up on flickr:
We definitely got a fair bit of snow, and some of the drifts were pretty impressive. Unfortunately, the winds and the city plows concentrated and packed the snow on our side of the street (but it did mean our street was plowed a few times as opposed to the more minor streets that maybe saw one pass… benefits of being a city and school bus route). Fortunately, while I was out there starting to shovel when someone driving a pickup with a plow attachment came by to do the neighbor’s driveway. Asked if I’d like ours done as well for a small fee, and I jumped at the chance. Good thing too because it left some impressive snow piles that I don’t like the thought of making with a hand shovel:
There were also some pretty neat patterns in some of the snow drifts that I thought made cool pictures:
Apparently the UofI hasn’t called a snow day since ’79. That’s close to 30 years of no snow days. They had some silly spokesperson on the news last night that tried to claim we were such a hardy campus and liked to walk everywhere so it took an awful lot to shut us down. Apparently they decided that severe blizzard conditions with 45mph gusts and snow falling way faster than the plows could ever hope to keep up with might actually warrant a snow day. Something about it just not being safe to walk around campus… Bloody brilliant!
All Wednesday (Feb. 14) classes at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been cancelled.
Continuing high winds and snow have made it impossible to keep streets and sidewalks clear and safe.
Only personnel providing critical services should continue to report for each work shift until further notice. Employees uncertain about their status should direct any questions to their supervisors.
Classes at the U. of I. Child Development Lab also are cancelled for Wednesday.
This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Chancellor
Ok. So it was unusual enough that they cancelled classes today. But now they’ve pre-emptively canceled class tomorrow too. Granted, it didn’t stop snowing all day (kept looking outside to see if I should start shoveling the driveway/sidewalk or keep waiting), and the winds are pretty fierce. But two days in a row??? Amazing!
All classes have been canceled for Tuesday (Feb. 13) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. More than 5 inches of snow fell overnight, up to another foot of snow is possible by Tuesday night and a blizzard warning is in effect. U. of I. employees who have been designated as essential personnel are expected to report to work.
This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Chancellor
The U of I never cancels class. When the weather’s real bad, they might send out a notice to TAs the day after instructing them not to penalize anyone smart enough not to go to class in a blizzard, but they very very rarely cancel classes outright. I mean, the weather’s horrible and all, but I’m just surprised the powers-that-be actually noticed. Unfortunately, they didn’t send this email notice out till 9am, and there were undoubtably classes at 8am or even start at 9am (hence they’d have to leave long before this announcement went out in order to get there in time). Stupid.
Have some pics up from my trip to the bay area up at Flickr:
So life has been pretty… something recently. Too much going on and not quite enough sanity to go around. Fortunately, I get to head out to San Jose this Sunday to visit with Rich and Carrie… oh yeah and go to ASPLOS (Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems). Looks like it should be an interesting conference and the best part is I don’t have to foot the bill.
Kinda looking forward to getting away from the office for a bit, although I’ll be bringing my work with me (must prelim soon!) and it means I’ll be away from Amanda. 
Perhaps if I can find a nice treat for her while I’m out there, all will be swell.
… to the bikini. Or at least that’s what I saw on the news this morning. Guess it must have been a slow news day with all the terror threats about flights from the UK heading to the US and all. Or maybe that was just one of those silly morning shows I caught and not really the news…
The bikini’s been around for 60 years, although I guess it really made it’s debut back in Paris on July 5, 1946 and was invented in May of that year. Interesting factoid, it was apparently named after the Bikini Atoll which was a nuclear bomb test site. After all, what do men like more than bare skin on the ladies and big explosions.
From WICD15 News:
Champaign Drivers Test Goes Wrong
2 people are rushed to the hospital after a driver crashes through a window at the Department of Motor Vehicles In Champaign.
The 27-year-old man taking his driving test.
One person inside was hit.
And the instructor, riding in that car, was also hurt.
Apparently the guy drove all the way into the waiting area. Like ALL the way. I thought this stuff was reserved for South Floridians… And is it just me, or is that a really strange, terse blurb the news people put on their website? Although, they appear to be the only ones who’ve bothered to put this up on the web so far, so I guess I can’t complain too much.
