Urban Mountaineering

Year Two of life in a small New England city is underway, with some significant changes:
1. I am noticeably better at teaching than I was last year. Though I still resort to my methamphetamine-paced jabber when I run out of coherent things to say, and sometimes make veiled references to things I shouldn't make veiled references to in front of youth.
2. Julie has moved from lots of part-time jobs to one for-real job: she's running after school programs with an environmental focus in two different housing projects in New Haven. This being Connecticut, there are hiking trails within walking distance of housing projects. In other words, she's doing the way more hardcore version of my job.
3. Jeff Woodward '06 just started at Yale Forestry, so we don't feel like the lone DMCers of the Elm City anymore. Woo hoo!

But, I gotta keep you all entertained. Sometimes, shit just gets real out on the sharp end. Sometimes, the mountains of the Nutmeg State unleash with the fullness of nature's fury. (Seriously, read this: one of the firefighters got injured by a barrage of falling choss.)

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2011/10/07/news/doc4e8f5260f2f15432754852.txt

Lily Says Hello

I will start this blog post by saying I hope we get some amazing updates in return given this may be the most boring post this blog has seen. Also, since I haven’t written more than 5 sentences together since graduating, I think I will stick to something much easier: lists.

Things I Have Learned Since Graduating

+ Despite having a Netflix account of my own now, I still walk the one block to the blue Blockbuster Express machine to rent movies

+ Keeping your beer monies fund stocked up is still important – some would argue more important

+ I have become worse at pong…and I suck at Beirut

+ You do not put periods at the end of bullets because they are technically not complete sentences. Although this bullet may be…

+ People “appreciate” my love of leonbergers just as much (“You talk about that dog that’s not even yours so much that you need to be sedated”)

+ “Dinner parties” held by Dartmouth alums actually end up looking like feeds except with fancier silverware and wine

+ All climbing gyms have that amazing-old-and-wise-guy-who-knows-all-the-beta-but-smells-a-little-funky

+ “That kid” from school still exists

Things I Have Done Since Graduating/My Last Blog Post

To Do with the Office:

+ Played pong in my office on the ping pong tournament table with my VP and two summer interns

+ Beat a particularly unfit Managing Director in the ping pong tournament by running him from one side of the table to the other. But doesn’t matter, I lost in the next (second) round. People took the ping pong tournament very seriously, and it was supposed to start with an exhibition match between the two heads of our group. No, that is not his real hair

+ Tried to set up liquor-treating in the office but failed (maybe this year!)

+ Successfully got the following nicknames to stick for interns at work: Scooter, Nickelback, Ice Tea. Please feel free to suggest new ones for the new first years

+ Hid post it notes with penises drawn on them around another VP’s office. Locations included: in a drawer, in a notebook, under his dry board eraser, under his hand sanitizer, in his coat jacket. He found the last one (it had two on it) 4 months later. Sometimes when my associate and I are trapped in this VPs office, we draw on the white board (why yes, that is a sea cucumber)

+ Explained to the morning cleaning crew guy what kind of dog Enzo/Teo are (he asked very politely)

To Do with Getting Out of NYC / Forgetting I’m in NYC:

+ Went to Texas for the first time in my life - spent mostly in modes of transportation

+ Drove a Black Lincoln Town Car from NYC à Hanover à Rumney because the car rental agency ran out of all other cars. Elar refused to sit in the middle seat up front

+ Watched Lizzy crush at the EMS UBC Bouldering comp in Central Park!

+ Cooked for a bunch of friends once – one lasagna (homemade noodles with my pasta maker!) with 3-meat sauce, another butternut squash and pesto one

To Do with Experiencing NYC:

+ Survived a hurriquake

+ Survived a zombie mob (no joke, a HUGE crowd of people dressed up as zombies were walking through the street, jumping on cars, etc. We were a little tipsy so it didn’t seem so weird at the time but the pictures the next day were funny)

+ Not seen any celebrities

+ Become obsessed with noodles (if you want to come to NYC and eat noodles let me know! These are from Momofuku)

+ Watched the Rangers play the Capitals in the NHL playoffs

+ Met a man asking to smell farts. He was a proponent of the Fart Smeller Movement (so his sign said)

+ Trying to find water at 10 PM before the hurricane hit – and running into a guy in a full Spiderman costume on an empty street with a supersoaker. At least I think we had enough water in our apartment to be trapped for a solid week. Too bad Irene punted.

New Things that I am Obsessed with Besides Noodles

+ This Modernist Cuisine cookbook. It took them an absurd number of years to complete. Their kitchen is more of a lab than a kitchen, to do all these cutaway shots they actually cut all their pots and pans in half…so I guess you could say they have two half kitchens. The book has around 2,400 pages and is beyond steep at $475 on sale. But it just looks so cool! Modernistcuisine.com