Oregon trip - Astoria (side trip to Cannon Falls) (September 22-24) (1 of 3)

Hotel is farthest building out on the Columbia River.  Looking across to WA.  Taken on one of our walks.  

(Click on any photo to enlarge all, per usual)

PJ and I had pretty high expectations for our trip up to Oregon, and they were consistently exceeded.  We didn't know much about Oregon, beyond recommendations via news articles and Mayo co-workers.

View from hotel room.  Astoria, OR.

We wanted to spend part of the trip on Oregon's Pacific coast.  I'm sure most of the beach towns are quite nice; but we settled on a bit larger town situated right at the mouth of the Columbia River - Astoria.  Some things we'll remember:

Clemente's - delightful lunch and dinner.

Walking about in Astoria.

1.  Fantastic hotel - about five years old, built out on the Columbia on a pier, intentionally evocative of the canneries built out onto the river on piers a century ago.  The river slips by quietly right outside the room on its way to the Pacific; the bridge crossing north to Washington State shelters us on the east; steady traffic of all kinds of boats (including two cruise ships docking a quarter mile to the west); fireplace; very nice happy hour and breakfast; views that won't quit; delightful.  We didn't get tired of watching the shipping, perhaps because it's such a novelty for us.

Walking about in Astoria (#2)

2.  Named after John Jacob Astor - part of early 19th century fur trade efforts - first US city settled west of the Mississippi - historical neighborhoods.

Tasting at Ft. George Brewery - Vortex IPA was a good find.  OR beers were every bit as good as advertised.

3.   Great walks throughout the town - with quite a bit of climbing - fine views down toward the water at pretty much every turn.

Our hotel room.  On the mighty Columbia.

4.  Ft. George Brewery - our first Oregon tasting session.

Ship traffic viewed from hotel room.

5.  Farmer's market was in session - I'm always looking for peaches.  Success.

Maritime Museum.  

6.  Traditional downtown.  Nice restaurants.  Loved Clemente's.

We had no idea how dangerous this area was for shipping . . . 

7.  And how about the maritime museum.  I didn't know this area was so dangerous for shipping - the "Bar" - something to do with the huge Pacific beating up into the immense Columbia discharge - very interesting.

Lunch in Cannon Falls . . . nice view of Pacific Ocean and the "Haystack."  Yup, that's a Vortex IPA.

We were sorry to leave.  Had great weather throughout.

Haystack . . . 

But onto our next stop - the Mt. Hood area.  Drove down the coast a bit before heading east toward Mt. Hood - stopped for lunch at Cannon Falls.  Saw the famous "Haystack".  (POC reminded us that something named "Goonies" was filmed there.)

Our trip was off to a great start.

Showing Astoria, mouth of Columbia River, Pacific Ocean, "The Bar"

The power of marketing

ASU's Schola Cantorum - a fine group to which CPG 'n me don't even belong - must be gunning for attendance records at its upcoming concert.

Just look at the eye candy they're using to lure in a crowd.  I hope there isn't some kind of riot when the attendees discover the brazen bait-and-switch.

Observing the start of another NFL season . . .

Not that its loss would have been a tragic setback for our culture - but I did want to preserve the below video.  DVRs do have a shelf life (as we've seen several times), and this clip has been sitting on our DVR way too long.

The murmurings of the replay ref and announcers at the beginning of the clip are mundane.  This is all about a Philly fan who is either very passionate, or lacks any sense of proportion given the utter insignificance of the official ruling, or - most likely - both.  (As a result of the coach's challenge, the Eagles are faced with second and goal from the six-inch line - instead of first and goal from the six-inch line.  Sheesh.)

I like how the fan appears to come to grips with the non-disaster - then loses it one more time.

Anyway, the NFL is back.  It's become a bit of a time-dominator, but RedZone does help.

Ubi caritas (or, a great way to spend two and a half minutes)

I ran across this version of "Ubi Caritas" while looking for something else on youtube.  I flagged it because it strikes me as being so precisely what sacred music should be - Scripture-based, centuries of tradition behind the text, mysterious, vaguely wistful, inspiring, perhaps gently putting us in our place.

This initially seemed like a thoroughly unpromising recording. A whatever small-college American choir on tour in UK, in a whatever rehearsal session, picked up by somebody at distance with a hand-held camera (maybe just a cellphone).  (Though it is pretty cool that this is CS Lewis's boyhood church.)

But the version really works.

And it's not just Durufle's musical setting - it's very much the traditional old words with which he worked.  I very much like (and don't think I can too strongly recommend) following along with the text while listening.

(And how about the musical phrases starting at 0:53 (with accompanying text)? This is the only section in which the sopranos sing, otherwise female is all alto.)
_______________________________

"Ubi Caritas is taken from the antiphons sung during the ceremony of the Washing of the Feet at the Mass of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday. As is the entire Mass of the Last Supper, this hymn is intimately connected with the Eucharist, and is thus often used during the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Recent tradition has the first line as "Ubi caritas et amor" (where charity and love are), but certain very early manuscripts show "Ubi caritas est vera" (where charity is true). The current Roman Missal favors this later version, while the 1962 Roman Missal and classical music favors the former."

Latin:

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.

Exultemus, et in ipso iucundemur.

Timeamus, et amemus Deum vivum.

Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero.

English: 

Where charity and love are, God is there.

Christ's love has gathered us into one.

Let us rejoice and be pleased in Him.

Let us fear, and let us love the living God.

And may we love each other with a sincere heart.

Even HBR can see it

I'm glad HBR posted this - even if it seems so obvious as to not require posting; full post is here.

Seems odd, but this strategy should result in victory . . .

. . . because Romney doesn't seem capable of being a strong enough candidate.  And even moreso because what - 57% now? - of Americans receive a government check.

Year eight starts tomorrow

This online diary, or whatever it is, commenced August 12, 2005 with this test-post about my favorite birds.

PJr birthday

PJr's birthday today (though Nedda and he aren't in the US to celebrate).   So in honor of the occasion, here's a birthday photo from 2003 (same year as this birthday photo).

Not sure what was up in summer 2003 - this photo was taken August 3 - missed the actual birth date for both EPG and PJr for whatever reason.

In any event, all clearly was made well at this celebration due to (1) two birthday cakes; and (2) Pat H's lusty singing of the birthday tune.

Happy birthday.

Laguna Beach, Santa Monica (August 2-6, 2012)

My delightful traveling companion.  Friday evening.

PJ and I first did a hotel stay-over in Laguna Beach in July 2010, and liked it well enough to make a return trip in 2011 (this latter trip coupled with a visit to EPG in Santa Monica).  This was a repeat of the 2011 trip.

Friday evening sunset from our hotel room's balcony.

Taken while wandering around Laguna Beach on Friday morning.

Similar/delightful experiences in Laguna Beach.  Mostly stuck with the same restaurants that we had enjoyed so much on prior trips; also had a fine lunch at Watermarc on Saturday.  Did a very long walking tour of some of the Laguna Beach neighborhoods on Friday morning; long beach walks (heading south) both evenings; Starbucks breakfast sitting on the bench overlooking the ocean at the main park; couldn't be nicer. We started getting reports from PJr/Nedda who were arriving in Paris.

Our regular breakfast spot - hard to beat.

EPG's homage' to Kerry.

Then onto Santa Monica.  EPG had identified a restaurant named "Ink" for Saturday night - this was a delight - we had five sharing dishes, seated at a corner of the bar (no reservations to be had), easy to see why the place is thriving.

Delightful breakfast at the local farmers' market on Sunday morning - I had a real peach for the first time in quite awhile, burrito and coffee = awesome.  Wandered around Rodeo Drive area; then to LA County Museum of Art - which was much enjoyable.  I'll probably post some of what we looked at over on the "review" website.  I think the most interesting area was the 1920s/30s German expressionism - after reading a bunch about this era over the last couple years, it had a whole new interest for me.  (UPDATE: LACMA information is now posted here.)

Late lunch at Umami burgers; a Racer5 IPA at some SF-themed bar (because Umami didn't have a liquor license); a bold attempt to visit the Griffith Observatory which was a fun ride but too crowded to really take advantage of; late dinner at Mercado something-or-other, another very wonderful sharing concept, this one with Italian food.

Madonna and child, times two.  LA County Museum of Art.

An unnerving lamppost forest at LACMA.

Monday arrived way too fast; breakfast at Starbucks and EPG off to work; we drive back after shopping some at the outlet mall (where I love to shop) and having a bite at Strand in downtown Phoenix.  PJ a delightful traveling companion, EPG a great host.

Nice.

EPG birthday

Continuing a practice noted here, here's a photo for the July 30 birthday boy:  EPG.

This was taken on July 27, 2003 - EPG was a mere 17.  (Or nearly so - I don't recall why the celebration was held a few days early.)

I rather liked this photo grouping.  PJ no doubt taking a straight-on picture with a camera using conventional film.  Mark S. prep'ing for graduation, it appears.

Happy birthday!

MN-IA trip (wedding in Mason City)

Nick Gales - Maeve Ryan wedding gave us a fine excuse to make the Minnesota-Iowa circuit last weekend.  

After lunch at Aster Cafe (Friday).  Mighty Mississippi in background.  Smiling people in foreground.

We didn't take photos of our own so are at the mercy of others for copies of theirs.  The few photos in this post were stolen without attribution sourced from a couple social media posts (meaning posts by Lancaster Gales plus a couple from EPG (if I recall correctly)), and are actually quite good.  (EPG will be my main source once he stops gallivanting to weddings and starts sharing his photos.  At this point we are missing photos of most of the important folks in attendance.)

Here's how it came down:

Thursday, July 19
PJ and I flew to MSP, ran into Jim & Carol at rental car counter, fit in lunch, then picked up CPG at airport.  Up to House house where Cecilia & Steve hosted us, and Charlie & Beth supplied the Yuengling and pork patties.  Beautiful late afternoon on the patio, then we moved inside.  Made another airport run in the evening and collected Kerry and Patrick.  Back to House house for euchre (six-handed).  Then to hotel (Charlie family there also).  Some played late-night euchre.

Thursday evening in New Brighton, MN.

Friday, July 20
Morning somewhat disjointed - got our group of five through the morning paces, then had to do some shopping - mostly because EPG suitcase zippers suffered a fail at MSP airport.  After shopping, ended up down by the river in Minneapolis for lunch at Aster Cafe - this turned out delightfully - good food and drinks, hosted by our three children.  Photos by the river.  Road trip to Mason City where we checked in.  Pretty quick turn-around to head to the rehearsal dinner - very nicely put together indeed.  Lots of chatting, good food and drink, nice toasts - very fine evening.  Late (very late, by my standards) euchre at the hotel, which was very fun.  Great turn-out of family members - eight of the nine of the siblings were here, lots of next-gen, Grandpa & Grandma, etc.  Fun to get acquainted with Ryan family - nice folks indeed.

Pretty sure this group could still clean out a corncrib (if we could just find one).  At rehearsal dinner.

Saturday, July 21
Early part of day flew by - partly because we slept in (again).  2p wedding at the church near Steve & Liz house - beautiful ceremony, including very good music (thanks in large part to Cullen performers).  Photos.  Back to hotel for a couple hours - this was a nice interlude.  I much enjoyed sitting 'round a big table with Chris and Bill Capesius, Romie & Joy, Kathy & Daryl, Mary Lou, my dad, Charlie, and others rotating in such as Art C and Steve H.  Fine to hear those so-familiar voices again, sometimes in that type of situation I don't even focus on the words at all.  On to the wedding reception at Mason City Country Club - nice setting, they did a great job with everything.  We sat with the Houses and the Haags - fun.  The dance went late into the evening.  PJ and I eventually back to room and to bed; our traveling companions arrived a bit later.  Then they went off for more euchre, and re-arrived, a bit later still.

Stars of the weekend.  At rehearsal dinner.

Sunday, July 22
We had planned to stay this extra day based on experience with POC/N and PJr/N weddings - the extra day gives a good chance to recap and catch up with everyone, without the time demands of scheduled events (fun as they are).  Main focus of the day was a gathering at Steve & Liz house - started around 11a (we arrived at noon), big crowd, pretty much everyone was able to stop by (even those that needed to peel off for home as the day wore on).  Took a nice walk across the bridge to the newly-restored Frank Lloyd Wright hotel in downtown Mason City with a small group including Barb, Emily, Dolores, Clare, Kieran, Carol, Jim, Therese (who knows, I might have the list wrong).  This was fun.

Lots of euchre (and Yuengling, for that matter)in party room.  Photo taken Friday night (or Saturday morning).

Then back to house, and focused on sitting in back yard with beers, snacks and nonstop chatter.  Which all went very nicely considering it was 97, somewhat humid, mostly shady under the trees, occasional breeze - really very pleasant July afternoon in the upper midwest.  Steve & Liz home and yard very well set up for this kind of thing.  This ended up being a full day there, very nice, they eventually arranged pizza for dinner, we sat around talking (or playing "apples to apples") until 8p or so.  Grandma and Grandpa stuck around 'til the end, which was nice.

At this point, all were gone except Jim & Carol, Haags, us - we all returned to hotel - ended up hanging around at the pool.  Chris and Patrick eventually jumped in, which led to the shenanigans shown in this video.



I halfway thought Allison, Emily, or both were going to be washed over the side of the pool, in the way that wreckage gets tossed up onshore from a stormy ocean.  But that didn't happen (fortunately).  It was a fun evening.

Monday, July 23
Mostly a travel day - nice chats with the few folks still at the hotel (same group as preceding evening) over breakfast, got organized, drove to airport, back to Phoenix, PJr picked us up.

Overall
1.  The wedding planning was excellent.  I'm starting to get a better feel for how much detail is involved.  They did a great job.  Steve & Liz were v. fine host/hostess.

2.  Nick & Maeve = very nice couple.

3.  Very, very fun to travel with PJ, K, CPG, EPG.  Aster lunch, "turntable" music on car ride, five folks in a room, endless series of fine moments.  (Too bad! that POC and N were at a different wedding, and PJr and Nedda were dealing with final throes of bar exam prep.  But our sub-group was excellent.)

Grandpa should have worn his wedding suit.  But this is still a nice photo.

4.  I'm the one who's lucky when it comes to family.  What a fine thing - two healthy 80-something parents; seven of eight siblings (with spouses) able to attend this one; a bunch of fine nieces and nephews, some now married to (or dating) interesting folks (and another generating starting with two young representatives), all full of life and personality, good conversationalists, respectful to we older folks and even show interest in our conversations; not to mention my own wife and kids, who are pretty much to brag on already.  Wow.  (A bonus at this wedding - as mentioned above, got to see some of my aunts, uncles, cousins who I see all too seldom.) 


Next wedding on the schedule:  May 2013.  Pennsylvania.  Looking forward to it.  


Info about other family weddings:  can be found here, here, and here.  (Or just click the "wedding" label in the box at right.)

Haboob'd (or something)

Just back from a most pleasant Midwest visit (will post separately on that shortly).  The locals had advised us of a storm moving through Phoenix while we were away.  It had a pretty big (and negative) effect on our back yard - now two of our "new" (circa 2009, as shown here) mesquites are toppled.

OK, it wasn't a surprise - we could see that these things had grown unsupportably top-heavy, and we had actually obtained price quotes on their removal last week.  But still, it's a significant loss.  Will take several years to re-create the shade.  Oh well.

Haboobs seem to be increasingly frequent, for example this excellent stop-action from last year.

Luche Libre

We worked with POC to arrange one last Dbacks game prior to All-Star break - PJ, CPG, PJr and I went Saturday evening, 7/7.  Big crowd - almost 37,000.  Dodgers are in first place, but they're not very good - especially right now, when their key guys are hurt.  Dbacks won handily.  Fun night - crowd was more alive than usual (perhaps because there was a goodly number of Dodgers fans keeping things stirred up).

And the give-away promo was original, and fun - "luche libre" - a form of pro wrestling - apparently they love to wear masks, as described here.  It was quite entertaining to see a big chunk of the crowd actually wearing these things.  POC stopped by with a couple masks for us (which was nice, since the "free to the first 15000 batch" was long gone by the time we arrived).  PJr seemed to like wearing the mask.  Prompting a grandmotherly-type in the row behind us to lace it up properly.

PJ even modeled the goods, as shown here.

It was a fun night. 

Birthday girl

We have lots of fine birthday photos of the kids.  So I think I'll start posting some at random on their birthdays.

Here's Kerry in 1988.  In addition to cake frosting appropriate to a birthday so near Independence Day, note the extra decorations she designed herself - Teddy Ruxpin characters.

Happy birthday!

U-S-A (4th of July post)

Here's something for the 4th of July - a video (at bottom of this post) that has to be one of the very finest renditions of our national anthem that we've ever seen (or heard, for that matter).

All finished.  A look of pride.  Or relief.

It was a Sunday afternoon game for the Diamondbacks during the interleague portion of the summer 2011 schedule - Chicago White Sox in town.  Sunday is kids day at the ballpark.  Meaning the team lets kids do various tasks, such as some of the in-game announcing, introducing the lineups and - best of all on this particular Sunday - singing the national anthem.

Yes, we've heard the anthem more times than we can count.  But there's something about this performance . . .

We were quite worried that this singer wouldn't make it all the way through.  I think the whole stadium felt that way.

But she seemed to pick up confidence as she went along.  And how about the (tenuous, then triumphant) moment when she goes for the high note (1:55 of the video).  You can feel the crowd responding at this point . . . almost exhaling collectively in relief, then quickly breaking into cheers and applause for our young performer.

I never get tired of this video.

home brew

CPG and POC recently got around to working with a home brew kit (gift from Nicole to POC).  Our two trainee brewers did quite a bit of work a couple weeks ago getting the process started.  (Fortunately, they kept us all fully informed into the wee hours of the morning via "groupme".) 

POC being on a road trip, CPG was left to do the actual bottling single-handed.

This step looked pretty simple - fill the bottle, drop in some kind of carbonation pill, seal it up.

Now we wait two weeks.   

yes it was a good weekend for baseball

As previewed here, PJ and I tried something different - a weekend in downtown Phoenix (June 8-10).  We've had good luck with various Kimpton hotels, and a new one opened in Phoenix on June 5.  The Diamondbacks were in town for a weekend series with Oakland (a really bad team), and POC worked his ticket thing.

Walking back to hotel (it's in background) along Jefferson after Sunday's game.

 It all turned out very nicely.  Tried out various downtown restaurants.  We thought the new Cityscape development (encompassing the new hotel and a number of the restaurants) is shaping up nicely.  Hotel was quite good, and the hotel restaurant (Blue Hound) is very well done.

Duggan to the rescue - part of the disastrous start to Friday's game (which turned out well).

As far as the baseball - Friday night's game was the best of the year - Dbacks went down 6-0, eventually won 9-8 on a three-run walk-off home run courtesy of Tatman.  So that was fun, even if we had left after 2+ hours to eat dinner (and follow the game on TV at least).    Dbacks also won the games on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday's game - "Star Wars night" - imperial storm troopers - it was amusing . . .

We walked around downtown a bunch.  Ran into Jeff Ward, who invited us to soft opening at his new restaurant (Fuego Cityscape) - so that was nice as a pre-game activity on Saturday.

I predict we'll do something like this again.

. . . including Star Wars riffs on player introductions.

Just prior to Sunday afternoon game.  Roof closed for the first time all weekend.

pomegranate

Still obsessing about development of our hardy little pomegranate plant.

Quite a bit of development since this photo was taken a couple months ago.

good weekend for some baseball?

POC is on the case for PJ and me.

yes, it's us

I rather enjoy thinking about politics, policy, etc., even if doing so is often quite discouraging on several levels.  But this is important stuff; it matters even if folks (no doubt including me, more often than I'd like to think) prefer to be in denial, fatalistic or ignorant. 

I copied below a few paragraphs recently written by a pretty well-known doom-monger.  The concepts aren't that original - plenty of folks offer up similar thoughts (in fact, more everyday as more of those who have been in denial are finally waking up).  But I think this explanation is more effectively worded than most.

Politicians will always be hopeless panderers.  And perhaps voters will always be hopeless takers.

But, fortunately or unfortunately, simple math will now overwhelm the widespread grabbing that has dominated our politics for so long.

------------------------- 

" . . . the unsustainable "bubble" is not student debt or subprime mortgages or anything else. The bubble is us, and the assumptions of entitlement. Too many citizens of advanced Western democracies live a life they have not earned, and are not willing to earn. Indeed, much of our present fiscal woe derives from two phases of human existence that are entirely the invention of the modern world. Once upon a time, you were a kid till you were 13 or so; then you worked; then you died. That bit between childhood and death has been chewed away at both ends. We invented something called "adolescence" that now extends not merely through the teenage years but through a desultory half-decade of Whatever Studies at Complacency U up till you're 26 and no longer eligible for coverage on your parents' health insurance policy. At the other end of the spectrum, we introduced something called "retirement" that, in the space of two generations, has led to the presumption that able-bodied citizens are entitled to spend the last couple of decades, or one third of their adult lives, as a long holiday weekend.

The bit in between adolescence and retirement is your working life, and it's been getting shorter and shorter. Which is unfortunate, as it has to pay for everything else. This structural deformity in the life cycle of Western man is at the root of most of our problems. Staying ever longer in "school" (I use the term loosely) leads to ever later workplace entry, and ever later (if at all) family formation. Which means that our generation is running up debt that will have to be repaid by our shrunken progeny. One hundred Greek grandparents have 42 Greek grandchildren. Is it likely that 42 Greeks can repay the debts run up by 100 Greeks? No wonder they'd rather stick it to the Germans. But the thriftier Germans have the same deathbed demographics. If 100 Germans resent having to pick up the check for an entire continent, is it likely 42 Germans will be able to do it?

Look around you. The late 20th century Western lifestyle isn't going to be around much longer. In a few years' time, our children will look at old TV commercials showing retirees dancing, golfing, cruising away their sixties and seventies, and wonder what alternative universe that came from. In turn, their children will be amazed to discover that in the early 21st century the Western world thought it entirely normal that vast swathes of the citizenry should while away their youth enjoying what, a mere hundred years earlier, would have been the leisurely varsity of the younger son of a Mitteleuropean Grand Duke.

. . . Any functioning society is like an orchestra. When the parts don't fit together, it's always the other fellow who's out of tune. So the Greeks will blame the Germans, and vice-versa. But the developed world is all playing the same recessional. In the world after Western prosperity, we will work till we're older, and we will start younger – and we will despise those who thought they could defy not just the rules of economic gravity but the basic human life cycle."