U of A Homecoming

Here’s something fun: Kerry showed up in Arizona for the first time in several months. Last we saw her (back in June), she had just purchased a hot black Honda Civic, loaded it up, and headed off on a cross-country tour to her new job location in Virginia (all this while overcoming a mysterious ankle injury). We’re still waiting to see photos from that adventure, but I hear Graceland was a major highlight. (She also left behind lots of stuff in our house, most of which now has been rearranged or properly disposed of.)

Anyway, she made it to Arizona for U of A’s homecoming weekend in Tucson. We didn’t attend this year, but reports are that she spent quality time with (1) Patrick, and (2) many of her U of A pals. There was a shocking development that evening in Tucson: U of A’s traditionally lousy football team beat a Top 10 team – heretofore undefeated UCLA – by the score of 52 to 14. Everyone thought the score was a misprint. If you’re interested, there’s a story at http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=253090012&confId=null.

We did see Kerry on Sunday (November 5) for a couple hours before taking her to the airport. That was fun. And it’s good that it’s just a short time until she returns for Thanksgiving. From Kelly's response, we are convinced that the dog actually remembers her.

Disclaimer: U of A photo is from last year’s U of A Homecoming, which we did attend.

Lockett's Meadow 2005

We were later than usual, but we did get up to Lockett’s Meadow again this year. And it was well worth the trip. The hike into the “Inner Basin” was beautiful as always. Because we were a couple weeks later in the season, most of the aspen leaves had already dropped. Which made the trees look more stark than usual. We were lucky with the weather. Snow had fallen earlier in the week, but temps were warm by the time we got up there. Plenty of snow on Mt. Agassiz, per photo.

Lockett’s Meadow is about 15 miles north of Flagstaff, Arizona. I don’t remember exactly the first year that we went up there to hike. I know that EPG and PJr either couldn’t or wouldn’t hike the whole way, and PJ and I had to carry them out. So it probably was 1990 or thereabouts. We’ve been going up there a long time.

This year’s hiking crew included PJ, PJr, EPG, Luke Stenger, Kelly and me. Kelly was a last-minute addition. She did well for an older pooch but we did carry her for portions of the trip up. Everyone else made it unaided. Dinner at Outback; long service delays did yield free (and massive) desserts.

Info about Lockett’s Meadow and the hike is at http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/coconino/recreation/peaks/inner-basin-tr.shtml. Topping out at about 10,000 feet is neat. PJ did a good job with the photos.

Schicksalslied and Nanie: the big night is almost here!!

The post of September 9, 2005 below discusses that PJr, CPG and I have joined the Choral Union at Arizona State University. After weeks of diligently practicing, our first big performance is scheduled for 7:30p on Friday, October 21.

There are two pieces that involve the chorus; each was composed by Johannes Brahms, and each is accompanied by a full orchestra. Schicksalslied (the Song of Fate) lasts about 17 minutes. You can (and I think you will) enjoy the entire song by clicking here: http://www.classiccat.net/brahms_j/54.htm. (Instruction: when this page loads, click the Uni Witten-Herdecke chor link; that will lead to a page of free music links; scroll down the page to Sommerkonzert 2001; click on Schicksalslied and wait for the file to load, it doesn't take long. The beginning of the song is quite quiet so make sure you have enough volume on your speakers.) Notwithstanding my ethnic heritage, learning the German pronunciations did not come easily. The song extols the beautiful, points out everybody eventually dies, and laments that nobody mourns the un-beautiful. Cheery 19-century German stuff. But very nice music.

As far as Nanie, the text is by Friedrich Schiller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schiller). This fella also wrote the “Ode to Joy” that was so famously set to music by Beethoven. Schiller is all about aesthetics, meaning I don’t really know what Schiller is all about. Nanie includes a bunch of classical and mythological references. Again: 19th-century German stuff, but very nice music.

You can read about Brahms at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahms.

Anyway, I've never been in a performance with this kind of music. It's a great experience.

Time for a change . . .

I graduated from ND law school in 1982 and have worked in large law firms ever since (except for about four years working for corporations in-house). So it’s been all large organizations, all the time. 23+ years. Which starts to sound like a long time.

On Friday, September 30, 2005, I cleaned out my desk and left Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, where I’ve been a partner for the last 5+ years. SSD has been a good place to work; a large international law firm with 800 attorneys and offices around the world (www.ssd.com); about 75 attorneys in the Phoenix office.

My new firm has about 792 attorneys less than SSD. I’ll be the eighth partner at a small firm in northeast Scottsdale (Feldman, Brown, Wall, Hall & Agena PLC, www.phoenixlawgroup.com). My bio is at http://www.phoenixlawgroup.com/pgales.htm (but no photo until I get a chance to get together with the photographer this week).

My practice areas won’t change, though I will be able to focus more effectively on smaller companies (which is the right market to target in Phoenix). But work life will be quite different with far greater flexibility and far fewer resources. I’m looking forward to it.

It happens that we had a bottle of 1993 Dom Perignon sitting around the house that was a closing gift from a client on a $200 million refinancing transaction from 2002. When I got home from cleaning up the office, Patricia and the kids had the idea to break out the bubbly and toast my last day. Nicole and Patrick were visiting here in Phoenix along with the usual suspects, and Mary Beth Stern also showed up. So that was a nice idea and I appreciated it.

Then we watched a home movie from 1995-96; we probably haven’t watched this one since it was recorded. The scene of Kelly chasing racecars around a slot car track is quite hilarious. PJr also had some trouble finishing street hockey breakaway chances. Among other good scenes. I need to get back on my project of converting tape to DVDs.

The only down moment was realizing that Nicole forgot to bring a coupon for Kelly's ProPlan food with her from Chicago (see posts of September 23 and September 21, below). Uh oh.

Flights - of pancakes(?)

I wanted, but have kept forgetting, to mention a neat breakfast idea that we encountered on our trip to Chicago in August. Many restaurants or brewpubs are now offering “flights” of wine or beer – where you receive small servings of three (or more) different types of wine or beer. It’s a neat way to experience multiple tastes.

When we stayed at Nicole’s apartment in August, she took us to breakfast at a restaurant in her Wrigleyville neighborhood, I think it was named “Orange.” Anyway, this place does flights of pancakes (of all things), with a different flight offered each week. The theme offered during our visit was mangoes. I can report that this was a great idea, very unusual. No one would admit it, but I am pretty sure that my co-diners (Patricia, Nicole, Patrick, Paul) were secretly wishing they had ordered what I did.

Photos show the coffee-stained “flight plan” plus Nicole’s apartment building (she + roommates occupy the upper floors); the folks in the foreground are engaged in some sort of discussion over the finer points of our bocce ball game.

CPG's new wheels

CPG has been stringing along a badly behaving 1995 Ford Explorer for quite some time now. It has been an underperformer relative to its mileage and most other standards of car behavior. In the Phoenix market, at least, the new car deals have been pretty compelling recently. He found a deal on a 2005 Kia Sorento and moved on it (especially because for some reason the dealership seemed willing to give good value for the expiring Explorer). I think he did get a good deal. It helped that the dealers are anxious to clear out the 2005 models (though for this model there is no difference between the 2005 and 2006 versions). A review of the 2005 Sorento from a “leading publication” is at http://www.edmunds.com/new/2005/kia/sorento/100477310/review.html. Those Koreans have figured out how to make good vehicles (finally). But their problems from the 1990s keep the prices lower and the warranties longer than the competition, by a meaningful margin.

You might wonder why Patricia and I went along to the dealer? Well, sometimes we’re looking for something to do. And we thought we had fun. We got in on the first trip!

BTW, note the Cardinals’ logo on the rear window of the Explorer. Another reason to jettison the vehicle quickly.

Use of initials

I use initials for immediate family members mentioned in this blog. Most initials are easily interpreted but some have common letters, so FYI:

PSr = Paul Sr. (aka me)
PJ = Patricia (Joann)
NMG = Nicole (Marie Gales)
CPG = Chris(topher Paul Gales)
KHG = Kerry (Helen Gales)
EPG = (Ernest) Patrick (Gales)
PJr = Paul Michael Gales Jr.

Kelly receives full spelling in all instances, as she doesn’t understand initials.

Cutting it close

We have fallen into an embarrassingly cheap habit of not paying for Kelly’s dog food. The habit developed because we have “connections” in the pet food business, i.e. our own Nicole, marketing whiz for Nestle’s Purina business in the Chicagoland territory. Our primary (actually only) interface with Nicole’s work is to badger her every now and again for coupons for a free 20-pound bag of Purina’s premium ProPlan dog food (specially formulated for older small dogs) (product info at: http://www.proplan.com/product_detail.aspx?pid=138.)

Kelly is nearing 14 years of age (that’s of course 91 by standard dog-year math), and she looked pretty well used up just a few months ago. But now she seems to have adapted to life with PJ and me, and actually is pretty frisky again.

The problem is that we also fell into the habit of estimating Kelly’s anticipated remaining lifespan in terms of bags of food, instead of years. It once seemed that the current bag would be more than enough, and we didn’t make plans for a replacement bag (in this context, “plans” = hassling Nicole for another coupon). Kelly’s current bag of food is perilously low now, and she shows every sign of outlasting the bag. And Nicole hasn’t yet come through with another coupon.

We’re going to see Nicole for the ASU-USC game the weekend of October 1. Here’s hoping she brings along a coupon. Kelly could be pretty hungry by then.

The photos: one shows Kelly in her current dire circumstances, the other shows her in happier days surrounded by Purina bounty.

Something I did at work

When the kids were little, I never felt like I was able to do a very good job of explaining what it is that I do all day at work. They were convinced that I just played on a computer and talked on the phone. (They were pretty much right, actually.) At Squire, Sanders & Dempsey (www.ssd.com), where I’ve worked for the past 5+ years, a significant part of my practice has been corporate and governance matters. In case you’re interested, I’m briefly discussing here an example of things we do. (If you’re not interested, well . . . ) Anyway, we just put into place an updated “poison pill” for one of our clients. Basically, the pill makes it easier for our client to defend against certain types of unsolicited takeover attempts – it forces a so-called raider to negotiate with the company rather than just buy up a controlling stock position in the market. In theory, that permits the board to negotiate a better deal for all of the stockholders. (Cynics would say that the pill mostly permits the board and management to stop buyouts and hang onto their high-paying jobs.) Pills have been around since the days of the (in)famous corporate raiders of the 1980s. Most institutional shareholders profess to hate pills, but they do make sense for many companies. Here’s a link to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing disclosing the pill we prepared: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/906326/000119312505176426/d8k.htm. And here’s a link to the pill document itself (trust me, it’s pretty much boilerplate with very little original drafting involved): http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/906326/000119312505176421/dex41.htm.

Speaking of work, I’m on the threshold of a change. Will discuss details in a future post.

We thought we were finished with Chaparral HS

But we aren’t. PJr graduated from CHS in May 2005, the last of our five to do so. Kelly already received a diploma in obedience from a Petsmart instructor. (However, if you’ve been around Kelly, you know her graduation must have resulted from extreme grade inflation.) Anyway, Kelly had no need of CHS.

So we thought we were all through with CHS. But now PJ is back at CHS one day per week for six weeks as part of the ASU Nursing school’s community rotation. Rumor has it that school nursing isn’t necessarily the most time consuming field within the profession (absent the occasional school cafeteria problem), and PJ reports that killing time might be the biggest challenge. But it is unusual, and kind of neat, that she can fulfill this requirement at such a familiar spot.

ASU Choral Union has three new members

Here’s something new: CPG, PJr and I have joined a choir! It’s named the Choral Union, and is one of the choirs offered at Arizona State University. (Sorry, all I have for now is the stock photo as shown.) Here’s the (unedited) website description: ”Founded in the 1950s, the Arizona State University Choral Union has an outstanding reputation, both nationally and internationally. Members are auditioned volunteer singers from the ASU community, including students, faculty and staff, and residents of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Most of the members are professionally trained and have had extensive choral experience. Intensive weekly rehearsals are held from August through May. International tours take place every second or third summer, with approximately 80 to 100 singers from the ensemble joining with outstanding orchestras from the touring area. Recent tours include Australia in 2000 and Italy in 2002. Choral Union’s repertoire includes works by Poulenc, Orff, Haydn, Brahms, Verdi, Beethoven, Mahler and Vaughan Williams. The 2004-2005 season includes Fauré’s Requiem, Bruckner’s Te Deum, and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky.” (Editor’s note: we think this overstates the qualifications of many (at least three) of the choir members.)

More info on ASU choral music is at http://music.asu.edu/performance/ensembles.html.
In the future, I’ll post something about the music we’re doing for the fall concert. The conductor (David Schildkret) seems like he will be good to work with. He claims to know David Clarke Isele (ND Glee Club conductor back in the late 70s). We almost convinced PJ to try out since she does read music well and can carry a tune. Unfortunately, it’s too much of a commute for our other children to join with us at the moment. The group probably has similarities with the group that my sister Therese performed with in St. Paul; I think that group was associated with Macalester College and by happenstance I was in St. Paul for a fine performance in spring 2000 (featuring music by the aforementioned Orff). I haven't performed with a chorus since June 1978 so this is quite fun. If anyone happens to be in the Phoenix area on Friday, October 21, 2005, please feel welcome to drop by Gammage Auditorium at ASU for our inaugural performance.

Muller loses one on his own

In the interest of journalistic integrity, it must be reported that Gilles Muller got his butt kicked in the very next match following his incredible coup (see post of August 31, below). Straight set defeat against a pedestrian opponent: 1, 1 and 4. But in my opinion this does not reflect on Luxemburg as a country, it was just an individual shortcoming. I think he just needs to eat more, since he's 1.96 metres tall and only weighs 75 kilos -- how can he expect to compete at the highest level? More data on our ex-hero is at http://www.usopen.org/en_US/bios/profile/ms/atpma30.html.

ND Class of '78 grad makes good

At least for one game. Unranked Notre Dame handily defeated #23 Pitt on Saturday night in its opener.

PJ and I graduated from ND in 1978. Now there’s another famous(?) ’78 grad: Charlie Weis, ND’s new football head coach. He lived in Flanner Hall, though we aren’t holding that against him now that he’s become a big shot. You can enlarge the photo to get a peek at CW’s graduation photo (he's at bottom right), courtesy of our senior yearbook. I'm not sure because I've heard that TV makes you look heavier, but I do think he's gained some weight since the North Dining Hall chefs were in charge of his nutrition. And no, neither of us remembers seeing the guy around campus. But then again, he probably doesn’t remember us, either.

A game story appears at http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=wojciechowski_gene&id=2151291.

BTW, Nicole’s roommate’s father attended ND long ago (we recently met he + spouse in AZ per post of August 21 below). They live in Pittsburgh, so Nicole + roommate drove to Pittsburgh from Chicago for the game. I heard they had fun. No word on gas prices they encountered along the way.

BTW#2 (since I'm thinking of gas prices), I bought a new desktop computer for PJ’s use on Sunday. It is a basic Compaq but “nicely equipped:” 160g hard drive, 512m ram, DVD player, CD burner, etc. The pricing on this thing was ridiculously cheap. IF we get paid back for the various rebates (and that is a big IF), the computer + HP printer + 17” flat-screen monitor will cost the same as 5.2 tanks of gas in my vehicle at current prices. Weird.

Muller wins one for Luxemburg

A rare occurrence: somebody from Luxemburg made headlines in the sports world. Some guy named Muller pulled a big upset in the US Open tennis tournament. So there, to all who underestimate the Grand Duchy. The match received lots of attention because the victim of the upset (a fella named Andy Roddick) is the most-hyped U.S. player, and much of the tournament marketing was centered on him. The entire exciting story can be found at http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/usopen05/columns/story?id=2147513.

Scottsdale Princess

PJ and I spent the weekend at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess Resort (it’s in north Scottsdale, about 15 minutes from our house). We were talking about taking a longer trip sometime during the summer (after all, we did celebrate our 25th anniversary this year), but work schedules and other stuff intervened. The Princess is a gorgeous resort and we had a wonderful, relaxing weekend. (On a less esoteric note, we also had a pretty unbelievable discount on the room resulting from a Phoenix chamber of commerce relationship.) Nice views of the McDowell Mountains from our room. Among other highlights, we had dinner at La Hacienda on Friday evening – it’s right on the property, and bills itself as the only AAA “Four Diamond” Mexican restaurant in North America – how do you beat that? The prickly pear margaritas are really nice (as a point of reference, they were easily competitive with the Z Tejas variety (which several blog invitees have sampled)). I had the Filete al Cilantro, and PJ had the Costillas de Cordero. Check out the descriptions: http://www.fairmont.com/FA/en/CDA/Home/Hotels/Facilities/CDRestaurantDetail/0,1130,facility%25255Fcode%253DREST%252B%2526property%25255Fcd%253DSCP%2526property%25255Fseq%253D100129%2526facility%25255Fseq%253D1005333,00.html. Ridiculously good.

To top off a fine weekend, PJr and EPG both came home for a visit today. Both will head back to their campuses tomorrow morning. Kelly was pretty much alone over the weekend except for some visits by the Helstons. They report that Kelly was very relaxed and playful in the backyard (they couldn't find our house key and Kelly didn't let them inside). Unlike her usual behavior after we’re away (see August 21 entry below), the dog was in fine spirits on our return. I think I write about the dog too much, but I do find her lifestyle interesting.

First day of school! (PJ)

Taking photos of kids on their first day of school is a ritual in many families. I remember Grandma lining us up. Being forced to pose isn't really a serious insult, but it never felt like much fun given the depressing circumstance of facing another full school year. PJ required our kids to pose for the traditional photo each year. (I should line up those photos, it would make a neat gallery.) Our kids weren't always happy about posing; I would say their happiness decreased proportionately as their age increased.

Anyway, this is PJ's last year at ASU. Last chance to take a photo of her under these trying circumstances. Here she is, looking sharp with nifty backpack. She made me promise not to blog the photo, and I did promise (but my fingers were crossed). One unusual aspect of her first school day was dropping off laundry -- done the preceding night -- for fellow student PJr. I'm guessing no other ASU student started off their first day quite that way.

As far as the 1966 photo - this was Charlie's first day of school. With that bookbag, I'm guessing he was probably beaten up pretty badly (he looks like he might be expecting this). It looks like Steve and I were trying to be mildly uncooperative in terms of providing smiles. Cecilia and Dolores come across as old pros at this sort of thing.

U of A move-in (EPG)

We moved EPG into his Tucson apartment on Saturday; he starts classes on Monday. Car-loading process went smoothly on Saturday (after EPG stayed up until at least 3:30a organizing his stuff). Mary Beth and Meghan Stern stopped by to say good bye. But they weren’t particularly helpful to the loading process; just couldn’t live up to the standards set during move-out from EPG’s dorm last May. At least they brought some candy. The trip down was easy. We had to take two vehicles.

The apartment actually is quite nice (http://www.entradareal.com/live/site/trlm.rz) and well situated just west of U of A. We unloaded, and then had a surprisingly good lunch at the Marriott (order the chicken wrap next time you’re there). We did some shopping at big boxes like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Office Max, grocery store, said goodbyes and hit the road. We always enjoy visiting Tucson, though Kerry's absence (after four years) was noted. Fortunately EPG likely will be up in Phoenix next weekend for some conference.

Nice trip back as the sun was setting; the desert is awfully pretty that time of evening. Listened to Neil Young’s “Decade” most of the way (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000002KCS/102-0714212-4656164?v=glance). I recommend it, even though I can’t figure out what he’s singing about. Chatted with PJ (using hands-free, Nicole) about evening plans. We eventually got together with the parents of one of Nicole’s Chicago roommates at Z Tejas; their youngest son is a freshman at ASU. Very nice evening; various ND connections (including Tom & Kim Lordan, who also stopped by).

(Oh, by the way. Our house was empty when we got back to Phoenix. We don’t have a child living with us for the first time since bringing Nicole from the hospital to our studio apartment in South Bend on ~May 8, 1981. Apparently we need to practice for this, since we left the house completely dark for the poor dog. So Kelly was pretty much freaked out by the time we returned.)

Outwitting an old dog (after just 4 months)

OK, so it took awhile. For the first time in her long-ish life, Kelly started barking a few months ago. She sat at the top of the staircase where she had a view out the round window . . . and yapped (incredibly loudly) at anything walking by as soon as daylight hit. With no daylight savings time here, this was pretty early. Ask Chris, who heard the pooch even with his usual complement of fans running in his BR. Maybe that's why he moved out to an apartment? Anyway, note the dark-colored sheet appended to the stair rail by paper clips. No more barking. Kelly still sits up there, possibly waiting for the sheet to disintegrate.

Move-in day for Paul Jr. at ASU

He's residing in Palo Verde Main. We had an incredibly easy time going through the paces (retrieving keys at Wells Fargo Arena, buying season football tickets, moving refrigerator into dorm, picking up student ID at Memorial Union (see separate photo), picking up ASU t-shirt, picking up books, etc.) The process seemed better organized than prior years, or maybe we're just used to it after doing this five times (starting with Nicole in fall 1999). PJ even showed us to a fine lunch at the College Deli. In a few days: moving Patrick into U of A for sophomore year!

Mug shot - take one (rejected).

The traditional student ID photo. For some reason, PJr thought it would be a good idea to take it (i.e., the photo) on the chin. This photo shows take one being shot. He failed to fool the photographer however; the little lady to the right ordered up a second photo.