Adventures of Clay and Pam
This is a journal of our travel, our thoughts, our life. Life is good. Life is very, very good. We have each other. We have healthy, happy kids. We have good people as friends. Here is to love, laughter and family!Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Jeff Graduates! Ithaca College, Ithaca NY 2008
On May 17th-19th, 2008, we traveled to Ithaca, New York, and Ithaca College to attend our son Jeff’s graduation. He finished his coursework in December and has been working as an assistant technical director at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin since January of this year. He wanted to go through commencement with his class in the spring (when Ithaca is truly beautiful) and so we all flew to Syracuse and drove to Ithaca.
Ithaca College is a 6500 student, liberal arts college founded in 1896 as a music conservatory. It still has a very strong music department and excels in theater arts, communications and, oddly, physical therapy.
Jeff received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in theater production arts, with a specialty in lighting and sound. At Ithaca he did both the technical aspects of same as well as design.
The weather there was quite cool and was constantly threatening rain. There’s a reason it’s so lush and green. On Saturday, we braved the weather and went to Robert Treman state park which contains one of the many spectacular gorges and attendant waterfalls that dot the Ithaca area. These were formed during the most recent Ice Ages by the glaciers that created the Finger Lakes (which is the region of central New York—globally called Upstate New York by the city folk down south in NYC—where Ithaca is located).
The falls there is Lucifer and is really impressive, especially as one walks down the slate rock staircase that follows the flow of the water. We couldn’t that day as storms of the winter had destroyed part of the trail. The photos are taken from atop the side of the gorge.
Jeff’s commencement was at 9:15 am on Sunday at the football field. The temperature at that time was a toasty 45 degrees and spitting rain. We had known it was likely to be cold so we all coats. Pam and I had played golf the Thursday before in Austin when it was 95 degrees and 44% relative humidity. It was quite a difference—hats, coats, gloves, rain gear and all were needed.
We all had a great time, even if we didn’t get home until 1:00 am on Monday morning.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
The Game Room Renovation 2008
Update: Pool Table in. Still need more junk out.
Well, as you may or may not be able to tell (remember you can click any picture to enlarge it), we have a view from the upstairs - if you can imagine out the windows there in the fourth picture it ranges from a 5-10 mile view to a 25-30 mile view depending on the direction you choose to look. Simply beautiful. - but you have all seen it. Well, you kids have seen it. You can even get a glimpse of Lake Travis. Up until now, the gameroom has been declared "Clay's Office" and he does have a beautiful teak desk and a gorgeous view from it. However, he mostly works at the kitchen table using his laptop. As time has gone by, the room just started collecting junk. I hated to take company out to the balcony deck because it was through this junk room. And we just didn't need another tv room or office - there are both downstairs! So, we put our heads together and decided on a pool table/gameroom. The pool table arrives on Friday.
I put up the light, which I found on craigslist.com - it reminded me of Bill's. As you can see, I have a little more work to do on it....stupid light. Why does it hang crooked???? There is no cover at the ceiling because after about a bazillion wiring/unwiring's I was finally ready to screw everything together and ....oh, great... I left off the cover.... I couldn't hold my arms in the air another moment, so there it stands...and may always....If I were an electrician I would charge by the hour. This job has taken me at least 6 hours and if I hadn't done and redone so many times, I am sure it could have been done in 30 minutes. I also took down the ceiling fan. I want credit for that. Without being electrocuted!
The picture of the red stools and table...another story. I put together the table!!! All 800 million pieces! Except the feet, which would have made it 5 inches taller. Cuter, but too tall. I already had the round glass and put coasters from our travels under the glass top. The stools are new and although I could have gotten the taller ones and made the table taller, well, maybe I will go back and get taller stools. They were available. The table and chairs won't live in that corner, but, as I said, the pool table arrives on Friday, so I am getting done all I can this week. Tomorrow I have to take the desk apart. Whew.
Any ideas on how to make the stupid light hang straight are welcome. I was out of energy. Clay does not do ladders, so I did all of this while he played golf today. I really love building.....
I also bought a Wii today and lots of games to play up there, but I think I am going to take that all back and save it for another day. The pool table and a simple dart board should hold our attention for a long while.
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