June 11th

On June 11th, we took the day off from work and spent the day remembering Claire and Sarah and spending some fun time together. We spent the morning relaxing at home. In the afternoon it was really hot but we were able to find a shady spot at Aldridge Gardens to lay a blanket out in the grass and rest and play games for a while. The hydrangeas were in full bloom.

It was the perfect way to remember the girls' birthday. Family and friends also sent us messages and flowers and made donations to the bear program at the hospital. It's nice to know that so many people were thinking about the girls on their birthday. We're also happy to report that the bear program is still going strong. We get regular updates from the hospital staff, who continue to be amazed and so thankful with how Claire and Sarah have been able to help so many families these past two years. What a wonderful legacy for the girls to have.

Three Little Birds...

Three more hungry mouths to feed in the back yard!!

They're back!

The first batch of 2010 is in the oven!

A Nice View

Those of you who have seen my old office will recognize how much of an improvement this is... my new office not only has a window, but it comes with a very nice view too! 

That's our Campus Green, with Vulcan up on top of the mountain in the distance.  (Click the image to enlarge it.)

After 6+ years with no natural light, I am very excited to be where I am now. I haven't even turned on my office lights yet!

It's also a good incentive to stop and let my eyes focus on something other than the computer screen, and there is usually some fun activity going on the campus green to distract me whenever I need a break.

Best Bloom Since 2005

Our Saucer Pink Japanese Magnolia tree had a perfect bloom this year!


It's pretty sensitive to the weather and usually blooms early due to the typical January/February heat wave we tend to have down here. This year it stayed cold all winter, and we think the tree likes it that way. Then, once it bloomed, we didn't have any frost to kill the flowers. We haven't have a bloom this good in five years.

Katie has an eye for the artistic photo framing. She snapped this great tree-and-sky shot.

Here we are having fun in the shade.

It's been in the mid-80s, the lawn is growing like crazy, and the lilies and hydrangea have woken up all of a sudden in the past week. The hawk has returned to the back yard and the bluebirds are building nests. The funny fat bees are hovering in search of the ladies by the back deck, lots of leaves emerging on the trees now, and soon we won't be able to see our neighbors across the creek.

Spring has most definitely sprung in north-central Alabama.

End of an Era

This week marks the end of one era and the beginning of another.

Friday was my last day as the IT manager for the Department of Computer and Information Sciences. I spent six and a half very satisfying years at the helm there, truly some of the best years of my career to date.  It's a place full of great people (and now great IT as well! :-) where I had a boss who gave me the resources and the freedom to implement my vision for how IT shops ought to be run.

I had lots of help along the way, including the best professional and student IT staff anyone could ask for.

The 2009-2010 UAB CIS IT Staff

Yesterday, I started as Director of Information Systems for UAB's new College of Arts and Sciences. It's a transition made easier by the fact that I am just across the street from my old department, and they are a member of the new College so I will still be working on their behalf.  I'll be able to visit often - I already made it over there yesterday (free cake!)

I look forward to the challenge of building an integrated IT organization from what was four separate Schools, and my new work environment is full of nice people and even some familiar faces.  Still, I'll always look back on my time in CIS and think of it as one of the best jobs I've worked, and I'm grateful to have had such a fantastic place to be these past few years.

Gotta Go Back in Ti-i-ime!

The other day, Katie was casually flipping through the paper when she froze.  It seems she had just read the news that there was going to be a Back to the Future 25th Anniversary Reunion as part of a film festival - in Florence, AL of all places.  I didn't even stop to read the details - I immediately headed to the computer to buy tickets.

Back to the Future is Katie's all time favorite movie, and the prospects of a reunion, complete with writer and cast members, in our backyard, was too good to be true.  We bought tickets, booked a hotel, and made plans to leave work early that day.

We arrived in time to visit the DeLorean.  A couple has recreated the car down to tiny details to use it as a tool to raise money for Parkinson's Disease research. 

We made a donation and Katie hopped into the time machine.  Oops, I think she's getting close to 88 miles per hour...

After that it was time for the panel discussion with the writer and actors.

On the far left is Bob Gale, the writer and co-producer of Back to the Future (with partner Robert Zemeckis).  Next to him is the moderator, and then Claudia Wells (Jennifer, Marty's girlfriend) and James Tolkan (Principal Strickland).  They spent 90 minutes answering questions and reminiscing about their time filming BTTF.  Lea Thompson (Lorraine McFly, Marty's mom) also participated via pre-recorded video - she was scheduled to appear but got called to film a pilot at the last minute.

The next morning we tracked Bob Gale down at a comic book movie adaptation panel discussion and Katie asked for his autograph afterwards.  He gladly signed her copy of the DVD set, thanking her for buying it and helping pay for his house!

"To Katie:  Best wishes for the FUTURE!  Bob Gale, 3-6-10"

It was lots of fun to take a BTTF-themed trip.  There are still a lot of fans out there!  Clearly one of the classic movies of all time.  

Before heading home we took a detour to Tuscumbia, AL to see Helen Keller's birthplace.  I'd love to blog about how amazing the tour was and how much we learned, but in reality we got a "tour" from a crazy old woman who assumed everyone already knew the whole story of Helen Keller (why would we be at the museum, then?!), so she just would point to random pictures and say "wasn't she pretty"?  Very bizarre.  

We actually had to go home and read Wikipedia to learn about her story.  She was amazing!  Among other things, she was a radical Socialist, helped found the ACLU, introduced the Akita dog breed to the US, and was friends with Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin and Mark Twain - none of which we learned on the tour!  

We then headed back to Birmingham because we had tickets to see the Indigo Girls that night.  So it was a quick trip to Florence, but a nice excuse to go see a part of the state we'd never been to before.

Katie's Birthday

We all know that Katie loves things that are out of scale.  So, this year for Katie's birthday I went big on the cake.

Behold the giant cupcake...

This behemoth was made possible thanks to the giant cupcake baking mold that my mom gave Katie for Christmas.  This guy took almost two full carrot cake box cake mixes to create!  The other cupcakes are regular size, to illustrate scale.  It was, of course, a big hit.  Happy Birthday Katie!

Winter Beach Getaway

Katie and I like to escape to the beach in the middle of winter, when it is still quiet at the Gulf resort towns.  We recently went down to spend a couple of days, centered around a trip to our favorite store, the Eddie Bauer Outlet.  It was chilly but that didn't stop us from hitting the beach.

Our only companions were the birds.  

After doing much damage to the credit card at Eddie Bauer, we took a spin on our bikes.  Here's Katie pausing for a photo in Seaside's town square.

It was a short trip, but a good one.  We also found time to watch movies and re-discovered a fun game from my childhood, Rummikub.

Crafty Katie

Lately I have been working on spending more time being creative. I have finished several projects that have been in the works for a LONG time and have discovered some new crafts that are very fun!

One project I have been working on is reducing the amount of oak wood in our house. We had this awkward little shelf in the kitchen that basically ended up holding junk. I decided to paint it and make it a bit more useful.

Here is the before:

I took out a few of the middle shelves.

And here is the after! Much cuter, I think. We can display all of our cookbooks and we have a place to write notes. The little shelf above the chalkboard (which is my first use of chalkboard paint) is for placing our holiday decorations. I'm all ready for Valentine's Day!

My next project was finishing up sewing the curtains for the dining room. I love the fabric and it makes the room so much cozier. I'm really happy with the final product.

This next one was a quick project that I did on a rainy Sunday morning. I never liked the old napkin holder, but it was still functional. Here is the boring before....

And the fabulous, decoupaged after....

My friend Christy and I have been very crafty lately. We had a craft day a while back where we painted ornaments and made soap. This time we made scarves. We had tons of fabric and yarn. I bought old dresses from the Salvation Army to cut up and turn into scarves.

Here we are, looking like homeless people wearing ALL of the scarves that we made! It's good to have a crafting buddy!

And here was my piece-de-resistance for the holidays. I have lots of bird ornaments, so I decided to make a tree with just birds and nature things. Luckily Fran found the last tree at Kmart (thanks Fran!), so the bird tree dream was realized. Here is Eleanor standing in front of the bird tree...

And you will notice that cardinals (my favorite bird) are DECORATING THE TREE! Amazing! They were quite the workers, as they looked like this for the entire month the tree was up. =)

I still have several more projects in the works, so I will post more as I finish them!

First Bluebird Activity!

Yesterday we saw three bluebirds checking out and entering the bluebird house!!

We can't believe they are already setting up shop. We're not sure why there were three instead of two, maybe Miss Bluebird hasn't chosen her mate yet and is seeing how good each of them is at building a home.

We also wondered if these bluebirds were actually born in the house last year - pretty good chance!

Christmas 2009

Katie's family came to Birmingham for Christmas, so we had Loren, Sally, Ben, Steph, Eleanor and Ada in town for a nice long visit!

Birmingham was in the grips of a record cold spell, so we found lots of indoor activities to do. Aunt Katie helped Eleanor do lots of sewing.


Ben made a great batch of monkey bread. The theme of this trip was definitely eat, eat some more, and when you can't possibly eat another bite, pile into the car and go get some ribs.


Ada also got in on the cooking action, she made us breadsticks to go along with dinner one night (she'd be great at senior centers, everything was extremely well seasoned!)


We scored a great deal at the bowling alley, where we not only had lots of fun, but won back almost all of our money in the raffle!


We celebrated Christmas on New Years Day. We gathered around our live tree for the festivities. Everyone really enjoyed all the great gifts!








Towards the end of the trip it finally warmed up and we ventured out for some geocaching. Steph was "en fuego" as she was the first one to spot both of the caches this time. The girls then swooped in for the find!


And as is customary for Richards family gatherings, we took the requisite group photo, only this time we hammed it up for the camera.


A great way to close out 2009 and welcome in 2010. Happy New Year!

The Mailboxes are Done!

I volunteered to make a new mailbox for my department at work. We had two separate mailboxes for the faculty/staff and the students, and we were out of space in both. I had been looking for an excuse to use the router, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. It would be a big project to try to fit almost 80 mailboxes into one manageable piece of furniture, but I was up for a challenge.

It started with some routing work to make the framework for the individual box shelves. Measuring the spacing accurately was a little difficult, as I didn't have any practice using a router with a guide or fence, but I got the hang of it.


Once that was done, I assembled the frame.



The next steps were to give the frame a stain, polyurethane coat, and a backing board. After that was done, I cut, stained, polyurethaned and installed the larger shelves, and it finally started to look like a mailbox. The larger shelves proved to be more challenging than expected, because it was difficult to fit them into the routed grooves. Lots and lots of sanding and hammering was required!


Now it was time to make the (many) smaller shelves. This was easier than the big shelves, and these are designed to slide freely in and out, so that we can resize some of the boxes if necessary. The smaller shelves are for students and special purpose boxes, whereas the larger, permanent boxes are for faculty and staff.



With all of the shelves installed, it was finally ready for transport. The smaller shelves are made of luan plywood, which was affordable and had a natural color variation that I think adds interest to the piece.



We brought it in to work in a U-Haul. Janet was very happy to have the new mailboxes, because she is our unofficial mailwoman and especially because she got booted out of her old mailbox for lack of space! She immediately started labeling the new boxes.



It will be fun to see that every day on the way to my office, and it will be a good reminder that I learned how to do something new in the summer and fall of 2009.

Fall scenes

Fran, Barb, and I decided to take a nice drive up into the northeastern part of Alabama to enjoy the pretty fall scenery. It was still a little early to get the bright fall colors, but the weather was perfect and we discovered a few new places.

Our first stop was in Gadsden, where we visited Noccalula Falls Park.

We spent a lot of time enjoying the cute ducks. They were quite brave, swimming closer to the edge of the waterfall that I would, if I were a duck.

Our next stop was Lake Guntersville, where they have recently finished a big renovation on the lodge. It was quite impressive and a place that we would like to come back and spend more time. It's only about 1.5 hours away from Birmingham, so it would make a great weekend getaway.

Overall, a fun day! I look forward to the continued perfect fall weather!