Right after the One Mile Race the annual Ithaca Festival Parade marched right past our balcony. Being used to German carnevals and London's Lord Mayor show, I have to say, I was a little disappointed by what was shown. Here is a cross-section through some of the participants who we managed to get a non-blurry photo of.  This one did, of course, catch my eye immediately - these guys have tensegrities on their heads!!! This is the first time I heard of Familymath.org, a group of people here in Ithaca who run an annual Math Faire and a weekly Math club, apprently mostly for kids. I'd be interested to know how well this is received, particularly since the weekly meetings happen all the way out at Ithaca College.  Of a completely different variety was this contribution to the parade. While they have to get credit for getting a horse carriage out (the other groups resorted to getting the gas guzzling pickup out of the garage) their presentation of the Wegmans scholarship winners (who were clearly enjoying the exposure) seemed a little strange to me. For those from far afield: Wegmans is the local grocery store.  Our view onto the oncoming people was blocked by the tree in front of our balcony so we could only see everyone from the back (unless they turned around, that is). Since many participants were only identifyable through a sign carried in front of them, we often had no idea what some of the displays were about. This is the case with this one. The white thing might be a dove though.  This fire spitting/juggling display was one of the more exciting displays on show I am afraid to say.
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Today we are giving you four pictures at once, how cool is that? So last night (Thursday) we had the start of Ithaca Festival (an annual four day thing where Ithaca celebrates being different). The first thing was the one mile run. We shot plenty of pictures of all many runners. Send your runners number our way and we will check if we have a picture of you. Below are some of the best ones.  This is from the kids run. The adult did take part in the men's race, then raced back to the start and raced again together with who presumably is his son.  Another three of them in a tight race for the finish (about 200 yards to go from where this picture is taken).  And finally one of the faster ones who (as I happened to notice) runs in a Livestrong shirt. Note that this weekend the Giro will finish and we will see how Armstrong, Levistrong and Co are doing in their race...  Of course there were not only kids but also adults and as you can see they had bags of fun! Watch out for more picture of Ithaca festival coming over the weekend and the following week.
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 First of all we should point out that swimming in the gorge is dangerous and generally prohibited. Second, we are wondering what these two guys are doing up there. Staging a Shakespeare play maybe?
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 Ithaca is gorges (and not George's).
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 This slightly disgusting looking layer can be found on most basins in most gorges around here. It's not as bad as it looks, it's just a bunch of failed pollen that are unlikely to ever turn into a flower.
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Amazing how many fish they caught! The small pond next to their hunting grounds was full of playing kids though. Good that they didn't try their luck over there.
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Georges view of the Gorge time 2.
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Beautiful day. But guess what this is, an ancient castle maybe, in Ithaca? What do you think?
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 Last picture in our "Torrential Downpour Series" - thumb sized hailstones. Actually the weather here is pretty awesome these days, temperatures around 25C and a lot of sunshine - really nothing to complain about. But sun is boring. That's why we showed you the rain pictures.
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 We thought we'd let you know that your gutter is overflowing. I know a robot that might be able to help you.
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 Unrelated to the picture but related to this post about sharrows (and this post which is also indirectly about sharrows): This dangerous website (which according to Google Chrome is a security risk to surf to) knows all about the Ithaca sharrows. And we are listed on Wikipedia as one of the few select cities that are allowed to officially paint funny sharrows onto their roads. As a matter of fact: Driving down to Home Depot (who had some applaudable customer service - thanks guys) I noticed sharrows all over the place.
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 This picture is part of our torrential downpour series but also here to educate you about Sharrows. "Sharrow" is a terrible word for a questionable traffic improvement measure. Here's an email exchange I had with the City of Ithaca folks: Dear Department of Public Works Superintendent,
I am a resident of North Cayuga Street which was recently refurbished under the supervision of you department. First of all thank you to whoever was in charge of making this decision, this was a badly needed repair! However, one of latest improvements confuses me.
Last night a symbol showing a bicycle and two arrow shapes has been painted onto the new road surface in various locations including right in front of my house. In discussions with friends and neighbors I was not able to figure out, what the meaning of this symbol is. Clearly the road is also open to cars, so why paint a bicycle only and no car? And why the arrows?
I would be grateful if you could enlighten me and the people who share my ignorance about the meaning of this new street decor.
Sincerely,
Jonas Neubert
And the reply:
Hi Jonas,
Thanks for your email. The markings are an experimental "sharrow." Attached is a frequently asked questions sheet with (hopefully) some answers to your questions. We are looking for feedback about this marking over the summer. If you would be willing to write us back in a month or two or so with your observations, it would be useful to us.
Glad to hear the repaving is well received.
Sincerely,
Tim
Here is the attached FAQ. So far I resort to calling this "interesting". One funny thing is that the first thing I saw in the morning was a woman cycling down the street on the wrong side -despite all the "sharrows" showing her how to do it right.
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 People who know us have seen this picture a while ago. Since the talk about the mouse comes up again and again we decided to post it here. Note: The mouse is not back. So what is it? Well, we noticed one night that a huge M&M fiasko took place in our kitchen over night. We had left them out on the counter in the evening and they were all over the place in the morning. So over the course of the next days we left out some (colorful) bait and took a picture of the kitchen floor every few seconds. This is the result.
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 This is part one of our "Torrential Downpour Series".
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 Imagine this: You just went to bed, it's 1 am and suddenly it's bright as day in your room, flashing lights and terrible noise outside. Sounds like a UFO landing. But you look out of the window and see a big monstrum of a machine out there and four men carrying spray cans and a big board around. Sounds like a prank in the making. But in the morning you wake up and see strange signs on the road. Here's the question for you: What are these?
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 Taken next to Sage Hall on Cornell Campus.
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 Eine Ente in Ithaca (a duck in Ithaca).
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 Walking around on the hot tarmac.
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 It's picture number 200! As you can see we are still obsessed with finally having a smooth road in front of our house. Nevertheless, the next "Bump" sign is not far away...
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 The parking prices in Ithaca are shown above. This is also the solution to #195.
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 These are the same trees as in this picture. This time in white. It's not snow though.
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 Does anyone know how the numbering system on utility poles works?
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 Yesterday they put the tarmak back on the road in front of our house and we expect the traffic to be back soon. Not that having the builders start at 7am was a lot of fun either...
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 We're starting to enjoy our little riddles. So here is #4: What is shown in the above picture?
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So white, so innocent!
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Red and yellow tulips are everywhere in Cornell. So excited to see what they plant in summer!
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Who would have guessed!? It's a left running shoe.
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Sigh! Slightly melancholic today.
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Because the world is flat, as we all know, there needs to be an edge somewhere. Turns out, this very edge runs past Ithaca. These two brave ladies walked all the way up to it and stare into the nothing out there.
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...I am sailing, stormy waters, to be near you, to be free.
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