Dinner with the President

OK, so it wasn't the President of the US, only the President of the University of North Dakota, and we didn't actually have dinner with him, just at his house. Though we did chat briefly with the President and his wife upon arriving, they were too busy with their hosting duties to spend too much time chatting with everyone. They were both extremely gracious hosts and we learned that Marcia Kelly (The UND First Lady) has her degree in Speech and Communication Disorders and occasionally guest lectures at UND. I pointed out to Alycia that it's always beneficial to have someone in your field in such an influential position.

The occasion was a welcome dinner for all new faculty and I was invited to accompany Alycia, provided that I got all gussied up in my finest business casual attire. Most of the new faculty that we chatted with were quite friendly and sociable, immediately dispelling my presuppositions of the nerdy, anti-social professor. Since my name tag only had my name and not my academic department on it, some people asked "what department are you in?" and I happily replied "I'm in the Arm Candy Department". This caused some eye rolling from Alycia, a few chuckles, and a quizzical look or two from the non-native English speakers who didn't get the joke. But that's OK, it was all in good fun.

We ended up dining at a table with members of the Nursing School and the Aerospace School, arguably two of the biggest and most powerful departments at UND, and well regarded nationally. One of our dining companions was Bruce Smith (no not the Hall of Fame Defensive End for the Buffalo Bills), Dean of the Aerospace School, which I'm told is the best program of its kind in the country. He had lots of cool stories, and by far a more dynamic and interesting vocation than mine. Sadly in the world of accounting, very few stories start with you piloting across Colorado on a silvery moonlit night. Oh well....

Long Term New Car Search

Alycia and I are starting to kick around the idea of getting a new(er) car sometime in the near future, though it probably won't be a new car, it'll be new to us. Ideally we'd like something with all wheel drive (for those snowy, icy moments in life), and some decent storage in back, like a RAV-4 or Honda CRV size. The goal would be to have enough room for dog crates, as well as enough space for a Minneapolis Costco or IKEA trip.


In the meantime, we'll see how the Northdakotmobile does this winter and then decide in the Spring/Summer of next year what we're gonna do. More than likely we'll get something before summer since the a/c in the Northdakotamobile is out again, and probably not worth repairing.

Tuesday Two-State Adventure

Today was my first day back home that Alycia had to pack up and go to school, so after some tasty breakfast burritos, we headed off in the North Dakotamobile (which is going to need a new nickname since there are quite a few North Dakotamobiles here) and went to UND. I got to drop Alycia off at school and get a guided tour of her building, office, and lab, all of which were impressive. I also met a couple of her colleagues and can now rest easy that she's in good intellectual hands.

After a few hours of work/Internet browsing, I decided that the best present I could give Alycia when she got home was a tired Shaak Ti, and I got ramped up for a run. It's a beautiful blustery day today with scattered thunderstorms, just a fantastic day for a run. I checked the Doppler Radar to make sure there were no heavy showers coming, and we headed out.

Since our house is only two blocks from an entrance to the Greenway, and we're right across the river from Minnesota, I have the unique ability to say that I completed a two state run, which is kind of cool. It was my first run in a few weeks, and my first with Shaak Ti in North Dakota, so it wasn't the best, but we did it. I forgot how hard it is running with Shaak Ti - The Littlest Sled Dog. She pulls so hard, for most of the run, that you not only have to lean back (making your gate bio-mechanically difficult), but you have to engage your biceps and lats and essentially do a low grade lat pull the entire run. This saps much of the energy that I would otherwise prefer to utilize in my legs, which would hopefully make the run easier to complete. I tried to explain this to Shaak Ti, but she would have none of it.

I got away from running in my years in San Diego, there was just too much heat, too many cars, too many concrete sidewalks to run on, and I lost my running mojo. My San Diego neighborhood was great, but not the most conducive to running, and getting in the car to drive somewhere to run just seems to defeat the purpose of running. Running is supposed to be the simplest, most efficient form of exercise, you put on your shoes and step out your door, and just run. That was hard for me to do in San Diego, but here, with access to a lovely paved path along the Red River it should be easier.

Right now I'm sitting on the front screened in porch listening as the rumbles of thunder get closer and closer, and watching the fat drops of rain smack the windows. Add a sleepy puppy, a window rattling clap of thunder, and my post run endorphin buzz, and it's a pretty good afternoon. I couldn't be a happier camper.

Sprayin' For Skeeters

Grand Forks, like a lot of towns large and small, in North Dakota and throughout the Midwest periodically spray for mosquitoes during the peak summer months. Spraying occurs in the evening, during prime mosquito activity time, and is done with low flying aircraft (freaked me out the first time it happened) and/or trucks that drive slowly through the streets.

They usually give a day or two warning when they're going to spray, typically publishing a small article in the Grand Forks Herald. The most recent article caught my eye though, since it contained some information that was new to me.

It started with - "Mosquito control trucks travel with a flashing yellow light at about 10 miles an hour." OK, cool. Good to know that there will be slow trucks around town and we should avoid them like any other service vehicle, or snow plow.

The next important item was a warning - "Residents should not run, walk or bike directly through the aerosol cloud behind the sprayer." What!?!?! Does this really happen? Seriously? And often enough that people need to be warned not ride their bike or jog behind the toxic death cloud that's spewing out of the truck. Is this a game for local kids? Really?

And the final nugget of information - "Residents may want to stay inside for about a half hour until the cloud dissipates." This seems a bit more reasonable, yet still scary. The thing about a toxic death cloud is that it rarely does as it's told. Just like Baby from Dirty Dancing - you don't put Toxic Death Cloud in a corner.

Almost Done and Just Started

The painters have almost finished up the house, the bottom floor is pretty much done, and the upper floor needs one last coat. They've been terrific and haven't gotten a spot of paint on the woodwork or any goofs thus far. Supposedly they're going to be done tomorrow, but we'll see how it goes, though it does look promising.

In other news, Ms. Professor Cummings took the first step towards enlightening the generation of tomorrow. Classes at UND started on Monday and she taught her first class today. The report from campus was that the fresh faced youth gleefully embraced her and the knowledge that she has to offer. Granted it was only the first day, and the depth of the teaching was describing the nuances of the syllabus, but Ms. Professor Cummings made the family unit proud on her first day of teaching.

Ms. Professor Cummings has also become well acquainted with her new environs, especially the local Student Unions' coffee/snack cart. It's here that she has embraced the university lifestyle and has spent the late mornings sipping coffee and snacking whilst conversating with her new department colleagues. We'll keep you appraised of Professor Cummings' exploits throughout the semester as she strives to inspire and educate the leaders of tomorrow.

The Littlest Supervisor

Alycia has had her hands full over the course of the week, with her first day of work on Monday, taking care of the kids, and tending to the painters. She's done a great job and we're extremely proud of everything that she's been able to do this week.

The painters from Ye Ol Painting are in the house and have almost finished with the wallpaper stripping, and they should be priming/painting as soon as tomorrow. They've been extremely efficient and work from 7:00 until 5:00ish, very impressive thus far. The only snag in the wallpaper has been in the living room where the wallpaper proved troublemsome to remove. The painters resorted to scrapers and a belt sanders and eventually got it off. In every other room the wallpaper came right off, which is nice.

The painters have been very receptive and appreciative of the dogs and both Tito and Shaak Ti got a lot of attention from them. On the first day of wallpaper removal, Shaak Ti decided that the very best spot to supervise the painters was sitting atop the pile of wet, gluey wallpaper on the floor. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, it's a good thing she's so pretty and that we love her.

Hail to the Hail

So it hailed yesterday in Grand Forks. Yup, a big mutha-trucka of a thunderstorm (red and black on the Doppler Radar) blew through town and dropped some quarter sized hail in the area. This isn't much of a big deal for locals, but for newbies and weather nerds like, me it was a big deal. Unfortunately though I was in San Diego, land of the unchanging 82 degrees, bummer right? Not with a super cool girlfriend like Alycia.

As I'm getting ready for work I get a Google-chat (the audio and video feed from Google/G-Mail) request from her. She pointed her webcam outside and I got to see the lightening and hail and listen to the thunder. Combined with the Doppler Radar feed from weather.com, it's like I was right there. She got a ton of super cool girlfriend points for this, that is for certain.

I also got to see the dogs, Shaak Ti and Tito, calmly sitting through each bolt of lightening and crash of thunder, staring outside, wondering why things looked so weird out there. Immunity to thunder is one of the cool side benefits of having deaf dogs. I'd feel bad for them if every thunderstorm caused bouts of "hide under the bed and tremble with fear". It's almost like they're SuperDogs, immune to the thunder. Granted they may not have any other super powers, but I bet in dog world thunder immunity is a highly sought after skill....

San Diego House

So the San Diego version of the Chappell/Cummings homestead remains fairly well unoccupied, with the possible exception of my hanging out in it for most of August whilst I work here in San Diego. It's an odd feeling to be back in the house from whence you moved with none of your belongings, sleeping on an air mattress, and cooking/eating everything with the one spoon you have.

My sister is moving in over the next few weeks and months, though not sure when all five dogs are gonna show up. I've alerted the neighbors that they are going to have five barking voices instead of the normal two, and they're fine with it. They're actually pretty stoked to have a firefighter in close residence, always an asset to have a first responder living close by.

I'm glad that I'm able to rent it out to a relative like my sister, instead of having to go through the process of renting it out to strangers. It would have been helpful to enlist a property management company, like Real Property Management, who'll work with you even if you're only renting one house.