April 2024

There is not much new to report this month, but here are the rest of the  pictures and videos, and below are a few notes.

Earthquakes and Eclipse

Rob: On the morning of April 5, I was sitting quietly at my desk working and felt what seemed like a large truck driving by, except that it continued for several seconds in a weird way. Becky felt it too, and so I checked Twitter, and sure enough, lots of other people in NY or NJ did too. It was an earthquake that was a 4.8. This would be nothing in California, but in NY/NJ it was the biggest quake in a long time. A few days later, New York was also in the path of totality for a solar eclipse. We don't live in that path, but it was about 93% totality here. I stepped outside to check it out using a colander to project the shadow of it. I know people that made the trip to see the full thing, which is pretty cool I hear, even a life-changing religious experience, some say. In any case, it was fun to enjoy these things in a collective way.

Adventures and Outings

Rob: April seemed fairly cool and wet, with only one day toward the end of the month that made me wish I had put the AC units in the windows. Since jacket weather is the best hiking weather in my book, we did spend a lot of time outdoors. In the photos there are some trips to the county park just down the road from us, where we wandered the usual trails looking for newts and frogs; our usual hike to the waterfall at Minnewaska state park; and a trip to our local arboretum where all the tulips were in bloom. We had other outings to many of the usual places that Alex likes, but I don't thing we explored anything new.

Patio Gardening

Rob: Santa brought us a "VegTrug" for Christmas, which I put together and set up on the patio to start growing some herbs this month. I'm not sure how this will go, but in the 8 little compartments, I planted basil, mint, rosemary, cilantro, dill, strawberries, arugula, and lettuce. Some were planted as seeds, others were small plants from the nursery. And we'll see what happens.

What Else Is New

Rob: Last month I mentioned that I may have a new job with much higher pay at NYU on the horizon. I went through the whole interview process very quickly right after the closing date for applications. Enjoyable and lengthy chats with 3 people in one week followed by another brief chat with an HR person. It seemed I was the first and possibly only one being interviewed, and I expected them to respond with an offer after I submitted my references. But that did not happen. Silence. And eventually an email from HR saying I did not get the position. A while later I got another email from the person who would have been my supervisor, who complimented me and explained what happened and why they decided to go with another candidate. It kind of made sense, and I really appreciated the gesture.

Alex: We got Alex a new backpack, which he seems to really like. Previously, he would only wear his backpack at school. But this one he is happy to wear outside on little hikes too. And that's great because I hope he will go some adventurous hikes with us this year. Lately a few things he has been into that you'll see in the photo album are: climbing in boxes, walking on logs, and playing with miniature animals.

Becky: We invited a couple families over to eat some food and play a board game with us. The kids mostly played together with our toys, but the adults played a game called Bang, which was new to us but not our guests. It'kind of an RPG-type game with a lot rules, so we'd have to play it more to get the hang of it. It was good times, and we should do game nights more often.