I added the photos from our New York City trip to our web site quite a long time ago—but I never made mention of them because I hadn’t quite finished captioning them nor had I figured out how to add the video snippets I’d also taken (our new Canon Digital Elph comes with the ability to shoot video). Well, the wait is over! Captioned photos and videos are here!

I recently installed SlideShowPro Director, the content management system that nicely complements SlideShowPro, which I’ve been using happily for quite some time now. Well, with the recent release of Director and other enhancements to the tool, re-ordering and captioning photos is now a breeze, and I can now easily incorporate videos into my photo slide shows, too. While I’m no Martin Scorcese, my favorite snippets are the Party Shuttle tour guide describing how Wall Street got its name, and the video of a Navy recruitment rock band singing some crazy song by Korn. My Christmas wish will soon include a somewhat more legitimate video camera, so perhaps I’ll be posting more video soon!

Roger just got off the phone with Room & Board, ordering new furniture for our family room. When placing the order for the footstools, he said he’d take two ottomans.

“Wait, wait!” he told the woman on the phone. “That would be ottomen.”

By no means are we on Al Gore’s donor roll, but every once in a while we try our best to be good to the planet. Our local grocery store (Festival Foods) started offering these re-usable cloth bags for purchase. We bought half a dozen (and should have bought more since they quickly sold out), and keep them in the car. They’re good at hauling lots of junk!

Roger and I awoke to a huge clap of thunder early Saturday morning, followed by horizontal rain and incessant lighting. It was all we could do but crawl back under the covers and say a little prayer that our tree wouldn’t fall on our house. I did consider whether or not the dog’s crates, located in the living room, would be sturdy enough to withstand a falling tree and collapsing roof and protect little Kozmo and Newman; I determined they would and promptly fell back asleep to the sound of the whistling wind.

Saturday morning we awoke to no power, the sound of chainsaws and this—devastation throughout our neighborhood. Seeing as though we had no power and didn’t know when it would return, we got ready for the day and headed out for breakfast (along with the rest of Bloomington and Burnsville; the wait at our new favorite breakfast place, Jensen’s, was over 20 minutes). On our way there, we snapped these photos of the damaged trees throughout the neighborhood, some just within two blocks of our house. Fortunately, we were spared: our tree lost only one branch, and it lodged itself nicely between the four trunks.

After cleaning up the deck and yard, I ventured into work Saturday afternoon—to work on a project in an air conditioned office and with a computer that would last longer than the 120 minutes my laptop would give me. When I got back to the house around 6 p.m., there was still no power. So, Roger and I called up the folks and asked to crash at their new home in Savage. After obtaining the security code from my dad (and explicit instructions that included turning off the phone so that if we did trigger the alarm, it wouldn’t send a signal to the security company), we packed up the fridge and freezer and headed south with our thousands of condiments and pork tenderloin. When we arrived at their home, I transferred those explicit instructions to Roger, and on the count of three we entered the house to the sound of a screaming alarm. Assuming that it always did this and that silencing it only required punching in a simple code, we quickly punched in the digits and high-fived each other, proud of our accomplishment. Then, the phone rang, and I finally had my “Oh, shit” moment of the day.

“This is Kim from the security company. Is everything OK?,” a somewhat friendly but stern woman asked over the phone. As she drilled me for details, I couldn’t offer her the password that would end this nightmare (despite his explicit instructions, dad had forgotten one minor yet slightly important detail). She threatened to send out the cops if she couldn’t get a hold of my mom and dad for the code; all I could think of was on top of not having power, losing half the food in my freezer, and wondering if the power could come back in time for the TiVo to tape Glen Close’s Damages on Tuesday night, was that I was going to jail. A jail with no power.

Finally, the alarm was shut off, my mom and dad called to assure me that everything was OK, and Roger and I ventured out in a somewhat unfamiliar suburb (in the pouring rain, once again) to find dinner. We collapsed in an unfamiliar but welcome bed Saturday night. Yesterday morning, Xcel Energy had finished their job and our electricity was restored. We were home again and our fridge has never looked so clean.

Thanks to all our friends near and far for calling, e-mailing, Facebooking, texting and IMing today to see if we were OK (that’s you, Mike, T.J., Heather, Cathy, Ellis, and Chris). We are; neither Roger and I were affected by the I-35 bridge collapse, nor do we know anyone who was affected. It was touching to hear from all of you.

The Red Cross has established a web site to register yourself as “safe and well” for concerned friends and family to search.

Roger and I spent this year’s Memorial Day weekend in New York City. Roger having been there only once for a brief business trip, and I myself having never been there, we were especially excited to tackle the Big Apple and play tourist. Here are a few highlights:

• Dinner at Mesa Grill. Our first night in NYC we made reservations for Bobby Flay’s well-known southwestern restaurant. We started with a fantastic quesadilla stuffed with pork and cojito(?) cheese, topped with barbecue sauce. For the main entree, I enjoyed an adobe chili-rubbed pork tenderloin complemented by a tamale stuffed with sweet potatoes and a maple pecan butter glaze. Roger delighted in a 16-spiced-chicken and a squash-filled tamale. And for dessert we split a cobbler filled with seasonal berries. The best part of the entire evening may not have been the food, however. About half-way through our starter, I looked over to the kitchen and Bobby Flay stood there himself! A brush with Food Network fame!
• New York Party Shuttle. Roger and I boarded a small bus bright and early Saturday morning and enjoyed a six-hour tour of the city, guided by our excellent tour guide, Luke, and very skilled NYC driver, Jahaida. We especially enjoyed this type of tour as it took us throughout the city to all the spots we wanted to see (Wall Street, Ground Zero, Times Square, Central Park, etc.) and gave us a brief introduction to places we wanted to explore further. Highly recommended!
• A walk through Central Park. Prior to our visit, I didn’t quite understand why going to Central Park was a “must” on any NYC visitor’s list (probably because we I grew up with lots of green space). However, we immensely enjoyed the few hours we spent there. We strolled the very walkable paths, stopped to watch the Central Park Dance Skaters (roller skates: they’re coming back in!) and enjoyed an ice cream treat from a cart vendor. The weather was gorgeous, too.
• Grand Central Terminal. Our hotel was located near this city landmark. While there isn’t much to “do” here, we ate a few meals on the run here and also lucked out to see the Celluloid Skyline exhibit, documenting the role the city has played on the big screen. The terminal also has a classic, retro, romantic feeling to it … so you can’t help but want to wander through and spend a little time on the steps overlooking the passengers.
• Ellis Island. Roger and I skipped the Statue of Liberty—it was easy to take photos from the ferry instead—and instead landed on Ellis Island. The 90-minute audio tour was excellent and made the experience much more enjoyable than had we not taken the tour.

Aside from some serious travel issues coming home (canceled plane made for another night of travel), we are both ready to visit again. Photos are on their way.

While the weather we had this past weekend was nothing like the tremendous tornado in Kansas, we did get some high winds gusting as high as 60 mph. Our 50+-year-old tree in the front road took a beating:

Ever since we moved into the house five years ago, we’ve always known the tree in the front yard would have to be significantly trimmed back—or eventually come down all together. Not only is there the risk of the entire thing falling on our roof and leaving a gaping hole in the house, it already yearly causes our main sewer line to back up. But taking care of the tree is not a cost we’re looking forward to. When I asked Roger what the deductible for our home insurance was, I stated that it might be cheaper for us to let nature take its course than pay for preventative medicine!