Category: Weekend Update!

For me there is one very particular difference between a long and a short flight. It’s more potent then the time in the air, the TV in the back of the seat in front of you, the jet lag or the mediocre dinner options (“and for you sir? Pasta mush or chickenish bits?”)

It’s acknowledgment of the length.

On a 2-4 hour flight, I’m constantly looking at the time. How close are we? How much longer before descent? Why is this coffee so bad? For a 10-15 hour flight, I’ve skipped over the first four stages of grief and started right in at Acceptance. I’m cool with this flight. I know I’m going to be here for what seems like forever so let’s just try and enjoy the ride. Yeah, my seat is absurdly uncomfortable and I’m suffering from dehydration but this was expected. Oh, what? Well would you look at that! Only 6 hours left!

The same can be said about my current home project: Shed Construction.

The patio? the vegetable garden? Both small projects compared to this shed. Each of those small endeavors was a trial of sanity as I struggled with not meeting my personal deadlines and going over budget. But the shed? This is a PROJECT. It’s HUUUUUGE. It feels a lot like a 15 hour flight. This is going to take forever and it’s going to cost way more than I expect. So let’s just go with it!

I started planning the shed maybe 6 weeks ago. It’s been a slow trudge through the planning process: picking designs, buying supplies, and eventually starting construction. I’ve had help the entire way which has made everything much more pleasant. Dad D assisted with the foundation, Jen with the wood prep, and my father in law (Dad G) with the framing. It has been genuinely fun. Admittedly my scheduling has been overambitious but the project keeps heading towards its destination and right now I’ll likely get there before the first snow fall. And even if it goes past that? Totally cool. I recognize that this is the biggest construction project I’ve yet embarked on.

If you’re considering building a shed, I strongly encourage you to proceed. It’s far different from typical home projects and mostly in a good way.

A week ago Jen and I started watching the Netflix original show Peaky Blinders. Huh? You ask? What on Earth is Persnickety Biscuits? Well, good friend, Pesky Blunders is a 1920’s mob story with character depth, excellent music, and a fast moving plot. I am entirely convinced that if this show was named with some title more memorable than Pasty Blithers than the world would be very much aware of its stunning execution.

In full disclosure, not everyone loves Peachy Balloons. Sander was turned off by the parallel plots and the accents, which at times feel like they need subtitles. That said, if you have Netflix and you like dramatic crime, put Party Bingers on your short list. At the time of this post there are 12 episodes online, each about an hour long.

Let me know what you think!

At the recommendation of Dr. Scott, Jen and I took Saturday to head east to New Windsor, NY to visit the sculpture garden Storm King. In addition to a ridiculously awesome estate name, this 550 acre garden located about an hour North of Manhattan sports over a hundred sculptures and stunningly beautiful vistas.

Jen and I got there around 11:30, had a small picnic at their picnic tables and then got to walking. Within the last three years or so the park started renting bicycles to make travel easier, but they are absurdly priced at $40/rental. The park will not allow you to bring your own bikes. I’m sure that this rule is to make sure that no one mars their lawns with thin tires – but to me it mostly seemed overprotective.

While the large pieces were sprinkled across the landscape, most of the smaller sculptures were clustered around the centerpoint of the park: a beautiful little museum that housed a focal exhibit. The museum, being atop a hill, also provided what may have been the best views of the estate.

Perhaps the most exciting sculpture was Andy Goldsworthy’s Storm King Wall (1997-98). It was a five or so foot tall wall that wound its way in, out and around a row of trees then through a lake and up a hill.

To me, the artfulness of the piece was its embrace of surplus. The effort required to build this piece makes my brain hurt.

It took us about three hours to walk the landscape. The grounds were hardly flat, as I think you can tell from the pictures, so we were admittedly pretty tired after tromping around the landscape. They have a tram that anyone can hop on and hop off anytime, but we chose to walk since it was the perfect late summer day.

From central CT, its about 1h45m to Storm king – and well worth the trek. I would imagine that it would be particularly spectacular once the leaves start to change color. Try to get out there, it’s mega-fun. Thanks for the recommendation Dr. Scott!