Author Archives: Paul

A much belated update and some new photos of Kyle

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I guess I haven’t done any real update throughout the year so here is the year in brief.

Photos of Kyle:

  • January – April: 9th birthday party, Liberty Science Center, science fair, Rutgers Day
  • May – December: Beach, Wales, London, apple picking, Halloween, Christmas

We’ve done a bunch of things with Kyle’s Cub Scout pack including the Pinewood Derby in January (didn’t make district this year), an overnight at the Liberty Science Center in February, a campout in Watchung Reservation  in June, and the fall camporee on a cold night in October. Over the summer, Kyle had another good year at Watchung Cub Scout day camp with a few weeks at the YMCA day camp to round out the time.

Kyle and Lucy at our house in FanwoodKyle at the 2015 Coles science fair

Over the summer, Suzanne and I spent a long weekend, flew out Wednesday night and came back Sunday, in England to attend the black tie social event commemorating the 50th anniversary of my organization’s reason for being, the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD50). I then flew back the next Saturday for a week to attend the three day scientific symposium. We also managed to head out to Sandy Hook for a day at the beach in early August.

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Travel picked up for me in mid-August, starting with most of a week in Boston for the American Chemical Society fall meeting followed almost immediately, two nights at home between, with three weeks in the UK. Two weeks were vacation after which Suzanne, Kyle, and my dad flew back while I stuck around for another week in the Cambridge office. The first week was in Snowdownia, Wales while the second was in London. We all had a really nice time. (See the posts below for more.)

Kyle, Suzanne, and Paul hiking along the Aberglaslyn GorgeKyle with Beefeater at the Tower of London

Just after our trip, Kyle started 4th grade, his last year at Coles as he moves to Terrill Middle School for 5th. I ended up doing a bunch of traveling for work later in the fall, doing a workshop at UMass-Dartmouth (near Fall River/New Bedford), doing a workshop and having some meetings in Santa Fe, New Mexico with an add-on to visit our good friend Paul Murphy in Carslbad, and then another week in Cambridge, UK just after Thanksgiving.

Kyle on his first day of 4th gradeKyle and Firetruck Santa at our house in Fanwood

New Mexico

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In Santa FeLast month, I had the pleasure of heading out to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a business trip. I have lots of photos. This was my first trip to NM (well … I was there when I was four with my family but I’m not sure that counts). I spent a couple of nights in Santa Fe, staying at the wonderful and reasonable Old Santa Fe Inn right in town, which was very nice. Given it was the “desert”, it was quite cool as it’s at 7000 feet. (They had had snow the day before.) Fortuitously, our very good friend Paul Murphy now lives “nearby” in Carlsbad. Friday morning, after dropping off a colleague at the Albuquerque airport, I took the four-and-half hour drive down to southeast NM. It was quite the rural drive with not much between the two. (I did drive around Roswell, site of Area 51 of UFO fame.)

In Carlsbad CavernsOf course, being in Carlsbad, I had to visit Carlsbad Caverns. It turns out, the elevator which normally takes visitors from the visitors center down 750 ft to the main cavern was out. We had to walk down from the Natural Entrance. This was an excellent way to head in. The trek down wasn’t too bad, but the trek up was a bit tougher. We did do the King’s Palace tour which was excellent. At one point, the guide turns off the lights and it was dark. After spending several hours down below and trekking back up, we did lunch at the center, did a short walk up above, got locked in (they had locked the gate without realizing someone was still there), and stuck around for sunset. (Luckily, Paul, being a former NPS employee, has friends who work there that we could call.)

El Capitan, Guadalupe Mtns NPOn Sunday, we did the 45 minute drive down to Guadalupe Mountains National Park, with a brief stop on the way at an abandoned potash mine. This was my first time in Texas which was cool. The park itself was very scenic. We spent a good chunk of the day doing the 4.2 mile (roundtrip) Devil’s Hall trail. This was a good walk and the end, Devil’s Hall itself, was definitely worth it. After a brief stop at Frijole Ranch, we headed back to Carlsbad, stopping at Rattlesnake Spring and the BLM Pecos River Recreation Area on the way.

Monday morning, we had breakfast at Denny’s before I headed back to Albuquerque for my noon-ish time flight back home. I got to see Paul M again after several years, saw some great natural scenery, ate some great New Mexican food, and put on a decent workshop (it was a work trip after all). All in all, a great trip.

Oxford and Cambridge Photos

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In OxfordI just posted the last batch of photos from our trip to the UK this past August/September. These are from heading out of JFK, a brief stop at Cadbury World in Birmingham, a day trip to Oxford (Suzanne, Kyle and I) to visit a friend from my Marburg days, and my week alone in Cambridge.

We had planned to head to Cambridge for a day trip during our time in London. However, as Suzanne and I had just been in June and I had been going regularly, and was planning to continue to do so, we were considering Oxford instead, also only an hour by train from London. Over the summer, Armida, who is now in Oxford, and I happened to reconnect so we decided it would be the perfect time to visit with her and her family. We did a lot of walking through town and had a wonderful day. We especially liked the covered market and I had toad-in-the-hole for lunch. My dad decided to stay behind in London and visited Kensington Palace and Hyde Park, both of which we enjoyed.

King's College in CambridgeSuzanne, Kyle, and my dad flew home Sunday morning, leaving the apartment quite early. I headed up to Cambridge, an hour from King’s Cross station which was about a 20 minute tube ride from the apartment. The week was pretty much a typical week in the UK office. I did try to see more of town, venturing north of the river and hitting a number of new pubs. Normally, I tack on a night or two in London after the week in Cambridge, but as I had just been there for a full week, I left Cambridge on Saturday morning direct to Heathrow airport. It’s a bit of a trek, about two hours by train and tube, but you only need to connect once at King’s Cross as the tube from there, the Piccadilly line, goes right to the airport.

London Photos

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Big Ben in LondonI just posted the (way too many) photos from the London part of our trip. We had a very nice week, doing a ton of walking and hitting most of the major sites. Monday it rained a bit, but we were at the Imperial War Museum most of the day, so it didn’t matter so much. In the course of the week, we also walked around Westminster, seeing Big Ben, did the Churchill War Rooms, the Science Museum, a bit of the National Gallery, the Tower of London, Borough Market, St. Paul’s Cathedral, a boat ride to Greenwich, the National Maritime Museum, the British Museum, and the Museum of London. My dad and I also did Westminster Abbey Saturday morning. Suzanne, Kyle and I did a day trip to Oxford to visit a friend from Marburg and her family while my dad visited Kensington Palace and Hyde Park. It was a pretty full trip. We rented a the very nice Cheniston Gardens apartment in right near, less than five minutes walk from, the High Street Kensington Tube stop from Ivy Lettings. This was only a one bedroom as we had booked before my dad decided to join us. He stayed a few minutes walk away at the London Lodge Hotel.
Tower of London while cruising down the Thames in London

Wales Photos

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Caernarfon CastleI just posted (lots of) photos from Wales as the first batch our trip to the UK in August/September. We had a great time and really enjoyed Wales. The weather was even pretty decent aside from one day. This was our first full day there so we were taking it easy and only visiting Caernarfon Castle anyway. We saw quite a bit during the week including Caernarfon, Conwy, Beaumaris, and Harlech castles, did some hiking, and visiting the Llechwald Slate Mine and Sygun Copper Mine. My dad and I also spent a morning at Llechwald doing an underground Outward Bound-ish/ziplining course which was very cool. All told, we (I) did about 700 miles of driving. Driving a stick on the left side of the road wasn’t too bad, but the roads were really narrow so it was pretty stressful until I started getting used to it (maybe Wednesday). The first day, driving several hours from Manchester after our overnight flight, was a bit tough. We rented the great Gilfach-Y-Nant cottage from Dioni in Beddgelert, a small village in southwest Snowdonia and were really happy with the cottage itself and the town.

View of Snowdon Horseshoe

I still have to prune and process London and the others but hope to have at least some up next week.

New additions

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We have two new additions to the family: Katie and Lucy. Kyle got them for his birthday, though we certainly realize they’re family pets. We adopted them from Empty Cages Collective rescue in NYC. (They delivered them as they wanted to do a home check as well.) They’re sisters and just short of four months old. (They were born 17-Oct.) They’re settling in well and are already quite friendly.

Lucy

Katie

Lucy

 

Washington, DC

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National Mall and US Capitol from top of Washington MonumentWe took advantage of “Jersey Week”, when Kyle had a half day on Tuesday for Election Day and Thursday and Friday off for the NJ Teachers’ Convention, to visit Washington, DC. We had wanted to take Kyle to see the museums and monuments of DC for a while. Now that he was old enough to appreciate it, we decided to head down there for a week. It was a great time and we saw a ton including the Air & Space (both the part in DC and the Udvar-Hazy Center out at Dulles Airport), Natural History, and American History museums of the Smithsonian Institution. We also hit (at least) six memorials/monuments, Ford’s Theater, Arlington National Cemetery, the Library of Congress, and, as bonuses, Manassas Battlefield and Fort McHenry.

Of course, there are

Lincoln and WWII Memorials