Randy

Falling Brook – Moving In

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Zemanta Related Posts ThumbnailWow! Last weekend was an insanely hectic few days.� Not only was our daughter Delilah born but we also moved into a new house.� We’re finally settling back into normalcy, well… as normal as it can be with a 1week old baby and a new house.

Even though we had to move the closing date due to little miss Lilah’s early arrival we were fortunate enough to get the sellers to agree to an early possession.� 7am last Saturday I left Rachel and her mother at the hospital so I could get the move underway and so we could be all set by discharge time (which I convinced the nurses to do LATE in the day).

I did the final walk-through at 8am, picked up the 26′ U-Haul truck at 9 (no I’ve never driven something that big before) and we had the move under way by 10am.� At the new house a little after noon with the truck and my father’s snowmobile trailer fully loaded.� Completely unloaded by 1:30pm.� Not too shabby.

Couldn’t have possibly done it without all the help.� Thanks George, Dale, Brian, Ryan, Mike,Cory, Bill, Chris, Eric.

During the whole process I made the following time-lapse.� There are big gaps because well… I was busy.

Delilah Grace

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We had this short & sweet ‘Pushing’ post all ready, but the little lady had other plans so we had to wait until now to let the world know.  Not the first plans she’s disrupted and certainly won’t be the last.  That’s ok though, it all comes with the territory.

It’s been a long few days but she’s here!  Couldn’t be more excited (and scared… but that will pass).

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Delilah Grace was born at 8:26pm May 19th weighing in at a healthy 9lbs 12.5oz & measuring 21.25″.  Because of all the meds Rachel was on she needs to stay in the special care room for at least the night which is a little hard for us but it’s for the best, we can actually get some sleep tonight!  Her name does have some meaning to us but that’s for another time.

We knew everyone would want pictures so we wanted to get these up right away.

Mom & Baby are both healthy & sleeping soundly. Dad is about to head off in that direction as well. Heh, Dad… that’ll take some getting used to.

Love you all!

~The Aldrich Family (all 3 of us)

How I Stole From a Monastery

~ randyaa ~ 8 Comments

Ettal Monastery So, I have a confession to make.

Randy Aldrich is a thief.

I stole from a Monastery back in 1998.  Not much, but it happened.  We stopped at Ettal on our way to Neuschwanstein & I took a little booklet that described the abbey and the monastery.  At the time I thought they were free.  I didn’t know that they weren’t until we got back on the bus and someone else asked me:

You bought one of those!?

To which I responded “bought?”

Anyway… turns out they were 5 Marks (at the time Germany had not yet adopted the Euro).  Herr Stoker told me just to drop a 5 in the donation bin at the next church we went to and I’d be square with the big guy in the sky.  Seemed like a good enough Karma move to me, so that’s what I did.

The picture to the left is a scan of the cover of that book, which I still have and will probably keep forever just as a reminder.  However; even to this day, I don’t believe I’ve ever read it… *sigh*.

That being said, the Monastery is beautiful so if you’re in the area, I highly suggest it.

Space Monkey News

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Ricky Gervais was on The Daily Show Monday night and they showed a short clip from the new HBO show ‘The Ricky Gervais Show.’  It looked hilarious so I took a look around the net and was able to find some of the videos.  The Space Monkey Monkey News video was particularly hilarious.

Rachel and I haven’t laughed this hard in years.  Seriously, there were tears… Watch it!

It may be a little hard to follow unless you’re already familiar with Karl Pilkington or at least know he’s really this dumb.  Then again we didn’t know anything about him until we saw some of the Ricky Gervais videos so you’ll probably do just fine too.

The Legend of The lightning Eagle

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Legend of Lightning EagleI’m a published author, didn’t you know? Apparently in 1991 I wrote some goofy story about an Eagle and they published it into a little bound book.  Just found it in a pile of stuff from my mother.  Kinda funny.  I was 8 so be gentle…

The Legend of the Lightning Eagle
by: Randy A Aldrich
Published in the Marion Elementary Publishing Center 1991

A long time ago, there was an Eagle who lived in a huge nest.  He loved to fly above a big open field.

One day when he was flying he decided to go into town.  When he did, people saw him and tried shooting him.  Then he flew back to the field.

The next week he went back, but during that period he learned to fly very, very fast.

When they tried shooting him, he flew as fast as the wind.

When he went back to his nest during the night, people thought of a name for him.  “It is done then.  His name is Lightning Eagle,” said the counselor.

They told everybody in the town.  The very next day some kids started a club.  It was called the Lightning Eagle Club.

That day he flew into town.  He was very surprised because no one shot at him.  “Why aren’t they shooting?” he thought.

The people in the Town yelled, “We’re not going to shoot you.  We even made a name for you — Lighting Eagle.”

About the author: I am 8 years old.  I like to play baseball during summer vacation.  I like to go for rides on our boat and go to the thousand islands.

It is done then.

A Saturday full of Hockey

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The Labatt Blue Rochester Pond Hockey Regional was this Friday through Sunday. Saturday morning I took it in for an hour or so & It was sweet!  It was great for the town as well.  Lots of people heading in to restaurants, lots of added business for the shops and vendors on an otherwise freezing cold non-inviting snowy February day.

After picking Rachel up at work we headed out to Henrietta and managed to catch about 20 minutes of Liams Hockey game at the ESL complex.  That kid is gonna be a hockey star some day.  He’s been skating since 18 months old and he’s crazy competitive.  I see scholarships & drafts in his future.

1998 Europe Travel Journal

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I found the following Travel Journal in a bag of my old stuff given to me by my mother.  It’s from my from my Trip to Europe with school in 1998.

I’ve provided it below, unedited And awesome. I’ve left it mostly intact and punctuation preserved for your enjoyment.  Go ahead and laugh, I did.

4/16/1998

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn. ~Joseph Addison, Chicago Cultural Center (former library)

I expect Germany will be like country kind of towns with lots of public transportation and then in the big cities more very modern looking buildings and I expect the people will be very friendly.

4/17/1998

The towns here just kind of end.  And then there is nothing for miles.  Walking in Rothenburg was like walking back a few centuries.  Even in the smallest town, which is where we are staying, there is a bus stop.

4/18/1998

Today we went to Dachau.  It was interesting.  There were many more concentration camps than I thought there were.  I guess we only hear of the big ones.  I also learned that Dachau’s gas chambers were never used to kill anyone.  The gas chambers at Dachau were never used and nobody knows why.  It was strange being at one of the Nazi concentration camps where people actually died by the hundreds.

4/19/1998

We had to get up at 5:45 this morning which meant I got about 5hrs of sleep.  That stunk.  We headed out to Neuschwanstein, Ludwig II‘s castle.  When we got there we hiked up the mountain to the castle and toward it.  After touring the castle we went up on the bridge that was a few hundred feet high.

4/20/1998

Today was travel day.  We have to go to Venice which is about an 8hr trip but we stopped a lot along the way.  Our travel plans were sort of changed because of some snow conditions.  Instead of going to Innsbruck on the way to Venice we stopped at Salzburg.  That was just as good because Mr Stoker lived there for a while and showed us around quite a bit.  I bought some spoons there while shopping and a chocolate pretzel which was very good but was so rich I could only eat 1/2 of it. When we got to Venice it was suppertime and we had pasta and then some viel stuff hat I didn’t like at all.  After all that just our group went out and walked around the town we were staying in (not Venice but close).

4/21/1998

Today was the best shopping day so far.  When we got up we ate (the same thing for the 6th time in a row) and then took the bus to a boat.  When we got to the boat we had to wait about 10 minutes before they got started.  Then it was about a 15min ride.  After that we took a 2hr tour around Venice and saw the “sights.”  I imagined Venice to be much better than it was, but it was really a dump.  But I suppose if you build a city on top of water it will tend to do that.  We had freetime for about 6hrs and then went back to the hotel.  The worst part about the day was it rained for most of it.  In Venice it normally is quite whet though, so…  They even have planks a foot off the ground to walk on in case what they call a (double high tide) happens.

4/22/1998

This morning we left from Venice for Verona and then on to Lucerne.  Today for once it’s not raining.  Big surprise!  It’s travel day and it’s not raining because we’re not doing anything.  It took about 10hrs to get from Venice to Lucerne.  I only got about 1hr of sleep on the bus.  When we got to Luzern nothing really happened, we ate then hung out for a while and went to sleep.

That’s it.  Which is really sad, because Lucerne was my favorite part of the trip.  I think Switzerland really spoke to the outdoorsman in me.  This makes me wish I had kept a real journal of everything.

Our First Climb – Crane Mountain

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In 2005 we climbed our first mountain (Crane Mountain) together. I had climbed a few in the past but this was our first together.  We were spending a week in the Lake George area and what better way to explore the region than from above?

ladderWhile not the tallest mountain we’ve climbed, it was pretty intense with several incredibly steep rocky sections.  One of the steepest sections even had a ladder, which was good because being our first mountain together… we didn’t exactly have scaling equipment.

As is always the truth in the Adirondacks, the views from the top were simply amazing.  It was on this climb that we really learned how rewarding such a strenuous hike can be.  On our way back down we passed by a little pond and it was so hot  we were going to take a dip.  However; when we took a closer look we realized it was infested with leaches.  Nice!

It was really a good choice for our first Mountain Climb.  The trail wasn’t that long, but intense, and the views were stunning.

We might go back some day, maybe with the little one.

Crane Mountain will always hold a special place in our memory.

We Came We Saw We Crawled (In Rome)

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Pub CrawlWhen Charles, Rachel and I visited Rome in 2005 the last thing I expected to do was drink until the sun came up.

That’s exactly what happened.

We stayed in the Yellow Hostel in the middle of Rome and, although we didn’t know it until the second night, we were bunking(in the same room not the same bed) with two Australian girls in town for the weekend from their Nanny jobs in Milan. Rachel quickly made friends and what do you know but they both had a thing for partying.  They told us about this pub crawl starting at the Spanish Steps they had heard of:  $25 for a t-shirt, a drink and deals at every bar/club and a night of spending time with people from all over the world drinking till we forget it happened!? Sweet, where do we sign?

We literally drank until the sun came up and we had to catch the bus to the airport to fly back to London. One of the girls didn’t come back with us. No news on how her night went, but since she went home with one of the guys on the crawl with us, you can draw your own conclusions…  Our reward for the night was a shirt that said ‘We came we saw we crawled’ that lasted about 5 washes and a hangover (on the Ryan Air plane) that you wouldn’t believe.

Seriously though, we had an awesome time and have some great stories to share. Getting kicked off city buses in the middle of nowhere, BJ contests  in the bar, drinking beer at the top of the Spanish steps, drunken German speak, drunken French speak. Good times.

That said, if you get a chance to pub crawl in Rome, Do it!

Horseshoe Lake

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Man I love it up here!

There’s three ways into Horseshoe Lake but I can only recommend one of them in good conscience. Riding the railroad tracks is no fun. Not unless they’re groomed. The first few miles from Conifer to Horseshoe were groomed and beautiful. 55mph was nothing. Then the groomer turned around and holy cow, forget it! We toughed it out but I almost wished we’d turned around right there. Washboard the whole way.

If you want to go to Horseshoe I recommend taking 7A right to the front door.

On our way back up 7A (the way we should have come in) we met Wes and Donald. Kinda funny meeting someone you know miles and miles in the middle of nowhere.  We stopped and said hello for a few minutes and then went our separate ways.  Back to Diamond by way of

Not sure what I think about possibly taking the railroad to Tupper Lake to get us to Lake Placid for that trip… we’ll see. might have to wait for a day with some fresh snow and hope for a groomer.

A good day of riding, around 100 miles. Horseshoe is a pretty little lake, but I’d stay off the railroads to get there if I were you.

Miles on the sled this season: 198