Happy Halloween

Top - Nicole, Kerry and Chris in the "Native American" outfits that they were stuck with pretty much every year. This was taken in 1986. CPG tried to add a little variety by blending a Bugs Bunny mask.

Middle - Paul, Patrick and Kerry sort out the loot in 1991. All seem quite pleased with the haul. This probably involved a trading session.

Bottom - Patrick and Kerry work on cleaning out a pumpkin in 1992. Patrick seems to enjoy this even more than admiring the loot in 1991. Click to enlarge and you can see the tracing of the jack-0-lantern's face, plus a ghostly image of a young-ish pooch through the glass door . . .

Choral Union concert (10/24/08)

ASU Choral Union performed with the ASU orchestra at Gammage on Friday, October 24. This primarily was an orchestra concert. We did two songs: "The Song of Democracy" (Howard Hanson setting of a Walt Whitman poem), and Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

The entire theme of the concert was American and/or patriotic music. I was a bit of a skeptic as to the program, but was wrong again (as happens regularly on programming matters).

I think the inexhaustible, interminable braying by the media and the candidates during this presidential campaign - compounded by the economic goings-on - contributed to the success of the program. Folks seem to recognize that democracy is inherently messy; that insiders and the wealthy can buy their way to favors; that decision making is fragmented; but that no matter what it ultimately remains the best form of government (or maybe it's more accurate to say that all the other forms are much worse). It was a pleasant respite to listen to patriotic music, something of a feeling like performances in the 19th century bandstand in the town square.

The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" has to be at the very top of the list of this type of music. The tune is effective. The lyrics reflect the abolitionist movement and the Civil War, but have aged remarkably well. As I understand it, the abolitionist movement had a heavily religious strain - looking at slavery as a national sin for which a great sacrifice - war deaths, as it turned out - had to be paid in atonement (resonating with the Christian notion of Christ dying to atone for sin). (I hadn't realized how much Lincoln hit on this very theme in his second inaugural address; tried to catch some of this sentiment in a photo posted here.)

Whether or not folks would think of it in those terms these days, it makes the lyrics pretty powerful . . . "as He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free . . . " Biblical phraseology such as "grapes of wrath," "terrible swift sword;" "I have seen him the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps" (the lyrics were written after a visit to a Union camp).

Anyway, click the photo above to enlarge Julia Ward Howe's original wording. The story of her writing the verses is here; she supposedly woke up in the middle of the night with the words in near-final form, and hurriedly jotted them down before they disappeared . . . she was paid five bucks for the song.

I can report that singing this arrangement was a great pleasure. It was nice that the crowd rose to its feet after that song, and again at the conclusion of the concert. Something fun with the arrangement was that the verse starting "in the beauty of the lilies" - which is a fine verse, by the way - was set a capella for four-part men's voices, with the baritone section (including Chris, Paul, me) having a melody line for once. Here is the performance:



By the way, the "Song of Democracy" also was pretty effective - based on a Walt Whitman poem focused on public education and its foundational relationship to effective democracy.

So that was all very nice. Thanks to Patricia for doing the video on this one. Now, back to ignoring the media cynics.

We had our house painted

It has always been white. Now it is more of a brownish color. We like the change.

Here are a few photos. (The new palo verde trees out front seem to like their spots.) (Note my new office window on bottom photo, upstairs on left side.) (You can also see the new living room window (squared off (and double-pane).)

Whistler-Vancouver (2 of 2)

A few notes on the balance of our trip.

Part one was a visit to Whistler, BC, summarized here.

We drove down to Vancouver from Whistler on Monday 9/22, after hiking in the snow. Returned via the only route (Sea to Sky Highway, great views, e.g. top photo). Quite a bit warmer as we progressed. Checked into the Pacific Palisades Hotel (same place as we had stayed in 2002; beautiful views out over English Bay (second photo). We were there until returning to Phoenix on Thursday, September 25.

I think we will return regularly to this area, for reasons mentioned in prior post.

We also considered a day trip to Victoria - which is an entirely separate adventure - but decided to wait with this until we can spend at least one overnight on that island.

Here in Vancouver, we devoted lots of time to walking the city, eating and drinking. (Those activities are completely complementary: it takes lots of walking to build up the appetite for large lunch and dinner everyday. I can't believe how much ground we covered, PJ is a great sport for this kind of thing.

Highlights were:

1. Chambar (awesome Belgian restaurant from our last evening in town. Six entrees and 39 Belgian beers (including Chimay Blue). Huge crowd on a rainy Wednesday night. Fun seating right inside the door.

2. Banana Leaf (Malaysian; I had some kind of beef dish prepared in a curry/coconut milk preparation; Okanagan Spring pale ale)

3. Kirin (highly recommended Chinese food and it was great despite a cold, corporate-style room. PJ's kung pao scallops ruled)

4. Raincity Grill (emphasis on local ingredients, beers, wines; right by English Bay; right across the street from Banana Leaf)

5. Steamworks (we had a fun time walking to, around and through Gastown - touristy but nice; shops; the steam clock (per photo)) - this restaurant was a converted something or other old building with great views out over the water, microbrewery in the basement, interesting seating nooks upstairs, etc

Also rented bicycles (with helmets, mandated by local law) and toured the sea wall around Stanley Park; delightful weather that day, great views throughout (bottom two photos).

Whistler-Vancouver (1 of 2)

In 2008, we pretty much have not reached our goal to be less busy. In fact, it's been a pretty consistently too-hectic year. Anyway, we did manage to get away for a few days. After having enjoyed a visit to Whistler and Vancouver (British Columbia) in 2002, we decided to try it again.

BC is just right for our preferred travel - not too hectic or crowded; outdoor access; interesting food and hotels. In fact, it's pretty much ideal. This applies to both Whistler and Vancouver, though in very different ways.

Whistler was unknown to us back in 2002. It's a ski village just north of Vancouver. accessed via something named the "Sea to Sky Highway." Gorgeous area; the village itself is entirely an artificial construct built around skiing, with increasing summer activities. Nothing wrong with that, it's a great setting. Things are a bit in flux as they prepare (with Vancouver) to host the 2010 Winter Olympics. (This affected the road more than anything else we encountered. But the sea-to-sky is a rare road where delays are enjoyable.)

We traveled on Saturday, September 20 (ride to airport courtesy of MB). Due to making arrangements late, we had to connect through Denver. So a good chunk of the day was devoted to travel. On Sunday, we had planned to take the ski gondola up the mountain and do some hiking. But we decided to wait until Monday as the forecast was better. Turns out forecasts are just that. Anyway, Sunday ended up being a fun day - we walked the village (various areas), watched some NFL, found a restaurant (Ric's Mix) we liked (usual criteria: great patio, interesting food, nice beer and wine list (featuring local), and not a ripoff), etc. Shopped a bit in the various stores. Pretty much a perfect day of hanging around.

I include two photos above showing views from our room. It was entertaining watching the bikers ride down the course (click on photos to enlarge) - there were lots of them in town. The hotels are delightful properties, beautifully designed; you feel like you are in Europe or whatever.

On Monday we decided to take the gondola up the mountain notwithstanding snow showers and temps below freezing. Fortunately we had enough layers where comfort wasn't a big issue. Except when the wind was strong. It was quite an experience hiking from 6000 to 7000 feet in intermittent snow storms. Much colder and snowier at the top. Which is where the "Harmony Hut Tea House" is located - sounded like a great resting place, except it was closed for the season. Note the clocks showing time at previous Winter Olympics venues.

Back down for lunch followed by a drive to Vancouver.

Which I'll discuss a bit in the next post.

Visit to DC (2 of 2)

So here are some notes on the last two days of our DC trip . . .

Saturday, August 16

Kerry and Luis had the idea of going on a tour of Virginia wineries - which was a good idea, a bit of a change of pace from the DC mainstream tourist adventures. Our group met Ricky and Natasha at the Rossello house, and started out on the "Grape Adventure" van.

I'm pretty sure that the drivers for these tours aren't supposed to be drinking, but we were wondering about that. About 20 minutes into our trip there was an unannounced u-turn; sure enough, about 20 minutes later we were driving past the street where we had started. At which point the tour folks 'fessed up to a "minor problem." Oh well, it was only 40 minutes or so out of our lives.

Anyway, we visited three wineries. Some of us were probably more interested in touring, others in tasting, still others in collecting souvenir wine glasses - but everyone had a fun time. The first winery (Pearmund Cellars, website here) featured a pretty knowledgeable taste-master (I think I made up that term); the setting was nice but not quite as nice as what was to come; our crew manages to make all sorts of funny comments throughout the tasting (at least we think they're funny).

The second winery (Three Fox Vineyards (website here) had a great setting; dicey taste-master; but a very fun place. This is where we had lunch. Our supposedly sober tour leaders had kept the food on ice; a good idea which would have been even better if they had kept the food separated from the melting ice. So the sandwiches, brownies, etc. were served in a kind of melted ice broth (or water), you might say. We were pretty hungry, but even so . . . at least we were distracted by entertainments such as Patrick and Ricky rolling down the hill.

Onto winery #3 (Barrel Oak Winery, website here). The taste-master here (photo below) may have had aspirations about running a classroom or boot camp or something, because he was firmly under the illusion that we were supposed to pay attention to his every word. Thankfully he couldn't enforce that standard, or we would have had several folks in permanent detention. Nice wines, nice outdoor seating area, nice views; a good way to finish the tour.

Then back to the Rossello's; picked up groceries and Patricia (with assist from Natasha) put together a v. good dinner for everyone. (And she thought she was on vacation.) A very fun evening.

After which - despite the lateness of the hour - Kerry and Luis were kind enough to take a group of us on the night walk of the monuments. We dropped off Patricia and Nicole and the rest of us drove down to the Capitol mall area (Chris, Kerry, Luis, Patrick, Paul Jr., Nedda, me). I haven't been around DC all that much, but this is my favorite thing. Here's what we saw:

1. Lincoln Memorial - this is not beatable. The setting on the end of the mall is superb. Whatever feeling the architect was trying to inspire as everyone walks toward the memorial and up all those stairs - it works. How awesome was Lincoln? And how about standing in there and reading the Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural address, chiseled into the walls? Also something to stand at top and look out over the Mall.

2. Korean War memorial - probably my favorite of all; there is something about these ghostly (at least for nighttime visitors) figures that appear to come up out of a small stand of trees, moving out on some thankless patrol in a forgotten war (or whatever they're doing). This can get your imagination going.

3. World War II memorial - first time I had seen this, and it is quite impressive. But I would like to go back and see it again, I didn't really connect with this as much the first time around. For one thing, it seems like they tried to cover all the bases (50 states, territories, women in service, theaters, all service branches, etc.) - which I suppose was necessary given the scope of the war, but the memorial seemed to lack some of the punch of the others.

4. Vietnam War memorial - did I mention there was a bright full moon? This made the memorial look quite a bit different to me than it looked at night in 2003. I hadn't noticed how it lines up with the Washington Monument. Whoever designed this was beyond successful.

This adventure took awhile, we got back by 1:30a or so. I was grateful folks were interested in going. The monuments are wonderful, as was the company.

Forgot to mention, the weather was ridiculously nice throughout our visit. I think of August in DC as difficult-to-bear heat and humidity, which I guess does happen quite often. But not to us.

Sunday, August 17

End o' trip, so we checked out of the hotel. Kerry took Patricia and me with Chris, Paul and Nedda on a tour of the West Wing of the White House. One of her former bosses was our tour guide. I had kind of low expectations for this as it had the feel of a stock DC experience, but that was wrong. I very much enjoyed it. The tour guide was knowledgeable and nice. Just getting through security was kind of entertaining. I liked gawking at the Oval Office, one of the large conference rooms (where supposedly they do important stuff), the Cabinet room, all the 18th and 19th century American artwork hanging around, and of course a bunch of Bush photos (including current stuff from Beijing Olympics). Took photos in the Rose Garden and the press area. Nice experience.

Then we met the rest of the group down on the Potomac waterfront for lunch; the place was named Sequoia. It ended up being kind of comical. It was a large factory-type restaurant with a view, so expectations as to food were very low to start with. But still not met. All of the salads featured bugs. The manager's solution - in a situation where our diners pretty clearly were so done with eating salad - was to assure us that the lettuce was being washed twice, and replacement salads would be right out. That led to a short discussion, and the salads were swapped for mega-sodium soup of some kind. After that came steaks (ordered medium rare but served well done) with a side of potato buds (but those didn't have a chance against the garlic flavoring). After that, a dessert that Sara Lee would be ashamed to sell (or maybe does).

Anyway, it was nice to see the area and it was a good idea to go there given the limited amount of time remaining before our flight. And the experience actually underscored how great all the arrangements had been every step of the way on this trip.

Thereafter got organized, made our way to Baltimore airport, enjoyed smooth flight back to Phoenix.

Everyone was convinced that they had a great time throughout the trip. I certainly did. And I'm increasingly confident that Kerry does have a real job out there.

One more storm photo . . .

. . . this shot (taken the morning after the storm discussed here, or Aug 29 (happy birthday to Charlie and to Michael Jackson)) is three blocks west of our house.

The view is south along 40th street (in the background you can see the trail we take straight south up into the mountains from the aptly named 40th street trail head). This row of felled power poles is maybe 200 feet from MB's front door?

I read they had power outages in this area. And that there were 100 mph gusts, very odd for this area.

Visit to DC (1 of 2)

All seven of us had a delightful visit to the DC area a couple weeks ago (Wednesday August 13 through Sunday August 17). The trip actually was dreamed up among the five kids, who wanted to celebrate Paul Jr. hitting #21 in an interesting way; unlike the others, he hadn't had a chance to get to DC yet. So that became the destination. Patricia and I decided to tag along, partly because we were very long overdue to visit Kerry. Plus it sounded like fun.

So anyway . . . we (meaning Patricia, me, our three sons, Nedda) had a smooth flight into the Baltimore airport, departing very early on Wednesday. (Nicole arrived later into Dulles.) Made our way to our rental minivan, which was quite the utilitarian vehicle, very blue. Checked into our Embassy Suites in Chevy Chase. But this was just for Patricia and me . . . the rest of the group enjoyed the fine hospitality of one Luis Rosello, just a few minutes walk away. Other than getting a quick bite and saying hello to KHG, we mostly got organized to drive out to dinner at the home of Luis's parents (Pedro and Maga Rosello).

Maybe a half hour drive, it was somewhere in the Virginia portion of the DC area. Also got to meet Ricky and Natasha there. These folks were extremely easy to get to know (maybe in part because we had heard so much from Kerry) and we had a most pleasant evening. It was fun to talk through some of the Puerto Rico info, chit-chat about political and other stuff; wonderful appetizers and dinner, even a birthday cake for Paul Jr. Couldn't have been nicer, very thoughtful. (But I'm still trying to figure out what Kerry is up to in the top photo; thinking about trying out for the Spanish Olympic team?)

Thursday, August 14

Back on the evening of our first visit to DC (N,C,K and me in 2003, per old photo), our hotel was very close to "Old Ebbitt's Grill" - which is a pretty well-known local restaurant near the Mall (we're told patronized by locals and tourists alike). Anyway, we enjoyed it a bunch. So Kerry had made lunch reservations. It was fun to be back there. And they bought Paul Jr. a birthday cake (#2 for the trip, though we had been in town only about 20 hours at this point.)

Patricia had expressed interest in the Holocaust Museum, and Kerry had tickets for us (you'll notice a theme: being well taken care of by KHG). Got our first looks at Capital Mall stuff on the walk over. The museum is really well done, and I liked it. Naturally enough the subject matter is pretty heavy, and perhaps just a bit out of synch with the rest of the Mall. But very much worth the visit. I especially liked an area where they displayed a bunch of pre-war photos of folks later taken up with the camps.

We then wandered the Mall for a minute or three before going back, killing some time, changing clothes, then heading back into town (courtesy of a cab driver who definitely preferred the scenic route) to a restaurant named "Zenga" (I think). This was a place that Kerry and Luis thought would work well for the group, and they were right. I'm pretty sure I ordered the best meal of the group, but it was all good. We then stepped across the street to some Spanish(?) themed place to try their Sangria. I didn't expect to care for the taste, but that stuff actually was tasty. Foolishness and photos ensued. Patricia, Nedda and I left the rest of the group to their devices (which included foolishness and dancing, I believe) and came back to hotel. Turns out the finals of the all around competition for the women's gymnastics were on "live from Beijing". So it was kind of fun to keep an eye on that.

Friday, August 15

More good stuff lined up! Started the day with a tour of Kerry's workplace; this included Patricia, Nicole, Paul Jr. and me. You might imagine this is an interesting tour. Hurried from there to the Washington Monument - this is one that Nicole has been adamant about taking the trip up to the top. So Kerry arranged tix for all of us. The park service guy seemed a little (I mean a lot) hyper but that was kind of fun. The views from the top are interesting, but almost moreso looking up inside the structure even than looking out over the city. Being up to the top makes the monument look more interesting from the outside.

Then got some coffee for folks in our group who were sagging a bit for whatever reason. Walked the mall just a bit; then Patricia, Nicole, Kerry headed back to Luis's place to buy food and make dinner. The rest of us went through the Museum of Natural History. Yes, I really like all the museum stuff. I might have been in the Field Museum in Chicago at some point, but all this seemed new to me. Got a big kick out of the dinosaur bones - as overdone as that topic is, it still amazes to stand beside these things. The pterodactyl was like an image of the devil. Patrick saw a "dingo." There were lots of skeletons, and lots of other stuff. Even bugs.

Good museums are an excellent thing, and this was a good group to tour with. We walked the Mall a bit, then took the Metro back. Luis was a patient guide for this group of tourists. Especially on the Metro, where even things like buying tickets became mildly adventurous, and it always seemed like we were on the brink of some kind of incident.

Anyway, kudos to Patricia and her staff of cooks, who put together a really fine meal at Luis's apartment. It made for a really nice evening.

As fun as this all was, I was getting a little nervous; the days were slipping by and the one thing I really wanted to do - walk my favorite monuments at night - was looking unlikely.

More to come in a separate post . . .