Manila, Madrid, and Sichuan?

Check out my latest 20 cities:
1) April 6, 2007 8:15 pm: Dallas, Texas
2) April 5, 2007 7:13 am: Quezon City, Manila
3) April 5, 2007 7:06 am: Madison, Maine
4) April 4, 2007 8:23 pm: Boca Raton, Florida
5) April 4, 2007 5:20 pm: Albuquerque, New Mexico
6) April 4, 2007 5:18 pm: Portland, Maine
7) April 4, 2007 9:32 am: Brooklyn, New York
8) April 3, 2007 7:46 pm: Dallas, Texas
9) April 3, 2007 5:40 pm: Orono, Maine
10) April 3, 2007 10:22 am: Saco, Maine
11) April 3, 2007 8:01 am: Orono, Maine
12) April 3, 2007 7:25 am: Orono, Maine
13) April 2, 2007 3:47 pm: Orono, Maine
14) April 2, 2007 2:12 pm: New York, New York
15) April 2, 2007 11:33 am: Orono, Maine
16) April 2, 2007 10:12 am: Sichuan, Sichuan
17) April 1, 2007 4:22 pm: Dallas, Texas
18) April 1, 2007 2:58 pm: Denton, Texas
19) April 1, 2007 11:44 am: Madrid, Madrid
20) March 31, 2007 10:13 pm: Houston, Texas

Who are these people?? How fun is it to know they're reading my blog!

It's cape.

Here's another expression I've heard. The first two times I heard it, I had no idea what anyone was talking about. By the third time, I just asked. Each time someone said, "It's cape," we were talking about houses. One time someone was talking about different houses that were for sale and they described one as cape. Another time, someone was telling where an acquaintance lived and the directions were, "You go down the hill, past the red house that's cape, and it's at the top of the next hill."

Give up?

Cape Cod. They take the perfectly good descriptor, "It's a Cape Cod style house" and shorten it to "It's cape." I guess it should be with a capital "C" ?

April 6, 2007: Is it tar?

I'm spending Easter weekend at Old Orchard Beach with my team teaching colleague. We're putting together a proposal and decided that it was better to just give up one whole day than to try and pound it out one hour a week every week for many weeks. Last weekend was gorgeous spring weather here at Old Orchard Beach but this weekend, there's snow on the beach and we're wearing long coats. But it's still fun and since we're spending most of the time working inside on computers with the wireless internet access, it really doesn't matter.

So Friday night we're driving the 2 hour trip from Farmington to Old Orchard Beach (which is south of Portland) and my colleague is telling me about the choices she's making and why on our route. Outside of Jay, she says, "If possible, we're going to take Crash Road. If it's tar, we'll take it."

If it's tar? Is that like steak tar tar? No, that means if you can see the tar (i.e., the asphalt), then the coast is clear to take it because it's been plowed. Apparently Crash Road is actually the name of the road but it's also what everyone calls that road.

BTW, the road was tar and we did take it and arrived safely in Old Orchard Beach before sunset.