3RP Musings

New, New, New!

2006-09-29T11:19:00.000-04:00

Hi! Thanks for stopping by!

My blog has a new home: http://www.3rp.net/.

PLEASE! Go, and check it out.

Thanks a bunch!

Rich Blatt

What's So Funny....

2006-09-14T16:28:00.000-04:00

...about Elvis Costello and Alan Toussaint?

Well...actually...that they don't make great music together. Which may not be all that shocking of a revelation, given that EC is famous for angry brit-punk flavored tunes from the 70s, and Alan Toussaint is known for New Orleans flavored jazz music.

Elvis Costello opened up the set with his trademark "(What's So Funny 'bout) Peace Love and Understanding" and was then joined by Alan and a horn section.

While I appreciate what Elvis was trying to do with his collaboration (Alan Toussaint is a New Orleans musician displaced by hurricane Katrina, whom EC felt was and is underappreciated), I didn't find the resulting music to be compelling.

I actually ended up leaving the mainstage area about halfway through their set (in truth, partly due to "festival fatigue")...only to hear Elvis blast off into his own material as I was leaving the field. The good news is that it was loud enough (and I was camped close enough) that I could enjoy it just fine from my tent!

(Apologies for the overexposures in this set. Even Photoshop can't help you when you eff up taking the photo on the front end...)

On deck, what everyone has been clamoring for!

Radiohead!!

Legends

2006-09-08T18:11:00.000-04:00

More from Buddy Guy's set. Lookit that smile...! Gotta admit, the man has charisma...

Corporations talk about team. Blue in the face from all the talk of team. Well, I got news. Check out this teamwork. No comparison, mano....

Buddy Guy's set was all about the "o" face. Check it out:

Even the keyboard player was hornin' in on the action...

You don't even wanna know what he was sayin' here....

Needless to say, this set got me in the mood. (Alright. What are YOU thinking...?!)

So, then it was time to go to the main stage and see Elvis Costello, whom I fully expected to continue my euphoria...

Elvis and Alan are on deck!

Sweet Home Chicago, 70 times over

2006-08-26T14:51:00.000-04:00

On Saturday morning, I went to see Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. While she was a charismatic performer with a great Janice Joplin-esque voice, the songs didn't grab me the way I had hoped. And sometimes it seemed like she was working a little hard on the stage presence thing. I guess my lukewarm response to their performance was...well...either due to the fact that the coffee hadn't taken effect yet...or reflected in the fact that I only took about 5 photos of their set. And they were all blurry. Argh.

This is the best of the pack:

After this, shuffled over one of the main stages for Buddy Guy's show. Waited for what seemed like hours in the 90+ degree sun...but the wait (and the cooking) were well worth it. Needless to say, the contrasts (between the first two acts) could not be more stark.

Here is the legend himself, stepping onto the stage for the first time:

This man has earned every last ounce of his status as a legend. An absolutely arresting performer, charismatic...lecherous...and a guitar player to make the most accomplished weep in despair.

So...there's a word in that previous sentence which probably needs a little explanation. You see, most of the lyrical material that comprises The Blues is...well...blue. That is to say, the subject matter is often of an erotic nature. Buddy Guy takes an almost obscene glee in his interpretations of that subject matter.

Owns a famous blues bar in Chicago, appropriately titled Buddy Guy's Legends. Turned 70 years of age just about a month after his performance at Bonnaroo. Happy birthday, Buddy, and many happy returns!

What a joy the man was to watch. If you ever get a chance to see him perform live, do it. Travel, buy plane tickets, whatever you have to do, make it happen. He's not going to live forever, and you will have missed out in a huge way if you don't.

Is There A Rock Star in the House??

2006-08-16T19:19:00.000-04:00

Taking a break from our regularly scheduled Bonnaroo programming, I wanted to take a post here and let you in on a little secret.

Survivor (yes, *that* Survivor) is alive and well, rocking out festival crowds all over the country this summer. Because I am a lucky bastard and was in the right place at the right time, I got to relive some of my middle school fandom for a few hours a couple of Friday nights ago.

Here's the scoop: I do some freelance work for a webdesign company called Artsite Design. One of their clients is Survivor. Because I take kick ass rockstar photographs, and they needed new content for the website's redesign, I got tapped to toddle off to Sterlingfest in the Detroit suburbs.

Press pass in hand (well ok, not really in hand...it was a "virtual" press pass) I was able to get backstage, watch the meet and greet with the local bigwigs and snap some great photos.

Oh, and did I mention that these guys still rock?

It was remarkable that I still knew all the words to so many of their songs.

As with all scenes where artists of any stripe are involved, there has been some drama in the history of Survivor. They now have a new singer, Robin McAuley. He's a fantastic frontman.

Frankie Sullivan is the founding guitarist and driving force behind Survivor these days. Here is a shot of him and Robin rocking Sterlingfest:

A few more to come...

TPHB Last Post, Promise!

2006-07-31T16:17:00.000-04:00

One more brief post on the subject of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Did I mention that there were a lot of guitar changes? Seems like between each song Tom was switching out his guitar. Somehow it was ok though, they managed to do it pretty quick. I've been on stage a fair amount in my life, and switching instruments always seems to take an eternity.

Did I mention that Tom is showing his age a little bit?

(I mean c'mon, the man has been a rockstar pretty much full on for 30 years. Not to mention a partaker of a certain sticky, pointy-leafed herb. More than just a little I think. Let's cut the man some slack shall we?!)

Anyways. I was close enough to get some pretty clear photographic evidence that he is no Lance Bass anymore.

Love the lens flare on this one:

TPHB's Special Guest

2006-07-20T20:55:00.000-04:00

Imagine my surprise at hearing Tom Petty tell a story about the "little sister" they found hanging out at their shows in the early days of the Heartbreakers back in the 70s...the days of the heyday of Fleetwood Mac...the insanity in record sales that was "Rumours"...

And then to hear him say, "please welcome Stevie Nicks!"

And further imagine my surprise at my own reaction...I was really excited! (Truly...I can't believe I'm writing this...) Now let me clarify...I have never been much of a Stevie Nicks fan...and only peripherally a Fleetwood Mac fan.

Here she is as she approaches the mic for the first time that night:

I'm telling myself that my reaction was due to Tom's skillful setup of her introduction with that cute story.

My skepticism notwithstanding, I found myself really looking forward to hearing her sing the songs they did together (Stop Draggin' My Heart Around, et al.)

Bah. Maybe I'm a closet Stevie Nicks fan. (Huh?!)

Well anyways. It was a great show. A good time was had by all, including me.

Heartbreaking Guitar

2006-07-16T19:07:00.000-04:00

Most underrated guitarist in rock? Perhaps Mike Campbell...?

I mean, who has ever heard of this guy? Not me before Friday night's show at Bonnaroo. But after watching him do his rhythm and lead support gig for a couple of hours, I'm a believer.

Tasteful, tasty and rock-solid guitar playing. Great tones. Great collection of lovely vintage guitars, too. Check out this closeup of his white Gretsch!

TP and the Heartbreakers had a special guest for this show. Next time around you'll get to meet her!

Don't Have to Live Like...

2006-07-13T12:00:00.000-04:00

...a refugee!

Kudos to my cousin Jeff in Washington DC, who correctly identified the mystery rockstar as (not Neil Young with a bad dye job, not Courtney Love goes acoustic, but...) Tom Petty, his own bad self.

Something that must be noted. Tom has never been the prettiest of ladies in the best of times, but now that he has been doing this gig for 30 years...well...he is really rivaling The Igster (Iggy Pop), Keith Richards and Jeff Tweedy for "Ugliest Man in Rock".

(I can hear you now...C'mon, since when do you have to be pretty to be a rockstar? Look at Gene Simmons for heaven's sake...)

So now having busted on TP for a little bit for things completely out of his control, let me say that as far as the things that he can control, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers put on a fabulous show. No joke at all...it was amazing.

It was well played, a consistent string of hits, a few new songs, the sound and lighting were also fabulous, and they all look great for a buncha guys traipsing around the world on tour for their 30th year!

He did an awful lot of striking the rockstar pose, this being a prime example:

There were a LOT of guitar changes. There were a LOT of LONG breaks between songs.

I guess when you've been doing this gig for 30 years and you've had as many hits as they have, you figure out how it's done...and you take your adoration where you can get it.

Great show guys...thanks for rocking us out!

....parts two and three of this concert to come....

"I want to take off all my clothes...

2006-07-06T10:35:00.000-04:00

...and run naked among you!"

You just gotta love Stuart Copeland. One of the greatest rock drummers of all time, and, well...who knows what he was thinking. Yes, he really did say that at the end of the Oysterhead set.

And that, above, is a picture of him whilst spouting that quote. I know, you can't hear it, but I did. It happened, honest!

The Oysterhead show was amazing. Truth is that I couldn't hum a single melody of any of the songs they played, nor could I repeat any of the lyrics. But, in this case, it doesn't matter at all.

Between Trey (formerly of Phish)...

...and the inimitable, unflappably cool and outrageously talented Les Claypool (Primus)...

...and of course, the legendary Stuart Copeland...

...this show was a tour de force (gawd do I sound like an 80s rock journalist or what...?) of raw jamming talent. The story is that Oysterhead had not played together since 2001. There were a few end-of-song trainwrecks that were nicely and musically covered up, but for the most part the smooth interplay of their musicianship was something remarkable to witness.

There was some truly weird sh*t...

...like Trey playing his antler sound effects guitar...

(Did I just write that? "Antler Sound Effects Guitar"? Wow.......)

...and Les breaking out his modern take on a washtub bass...

...not to mention the Elvis mask...

...(what was he thinking....?!)...

But overall, weird sh*t and all, it was great fun to watch. Certainly part of that was the fact that these three world-class talents were themselves clearly having more fun than should be allowed in this life.

I'll leave you with my favorite picture of Stuart:

Don't be a stranger....

Copious Use of the Eff Word

2006-07-03T13:35:00.000-04:00

OK, this post is not for the feint [sic] of heart. Wait, you're not supposed to "sic" your own words, are you? And anyway, even if you are, I'm not sure that first sentence means anything except that I'm trying to be cute.

Geez.

So, what I mean to say is that you really should navigate away from this page if you are easily offended.

Ben Folds was the next act I saw after DeVotchKa. And no, I didn't end up going to KZoo to see them (DeVotchKa) on Thursday. Too much going on that day. Way too much actually. But that's another story entirely. (Been saying that a lot lately, yes I have...)

So all y'all know that they typically play music through the PA before a concert starts that may or may not be related to anything, right? Well, the last thing we the fans heard before Ben walked out on stage was this. When the song first came on, everyone was kinda looking around at each other like...wtf is going on?? Weird... But then, the chorus hit. And everyone started giggling guiltily. Giggles turned to guffaws, and soon we were all laughing merrily.

Remarkable how using the eff word and God in the same sentence makes peoples' skin crawl, I think. You should really click that link if you haven't already. You'll be glad you did. Because you will be laughing so hard you'll be crying. Truly. Unless you have a stick up your butt. In which case, you probably navigated away from this page already, like my above warning asked you to. Right? So no flame-o-grams? K, thanks.

Right, so this post is actually about Ben Folds...well, I guess the "Ben Folds Bonnaroo experience". Suffice it to say that I'm now a Ben Folds fan. He put on a fantastic show. He was funny, engaging and his songs are great. Great melodies, clever lyrics, blistering satire and all that. He's actually a little too clever for his own good at times, but it was a whole ton of fun to watch. First thing out of his mouth when he got to his mic was, "Wow, you are a sh*tload of people!" Well, we were, actually.

He started off his set with a song he wrote in a Waffle House. It's called "All U Can Eat" and just about perfectly sums up my angst with our great country. And yes, it IS a great country. Just a little sick sometimes. :-)

I was close enough to get some great action shots:

There were a couple different times he had us sing along with him on harmony parts. I know it sounds cheesy, but it was actually great fun.

Especially when he was conducting us:

BF and Dr. Dre wrote a song together. Hilarious, actually. Even more use of the eff word. I think I probably laughed the most at this show out of all of them. Many of the other folks performing were taking themselves rockstar seriously. You'll understand that with the next coupla posts.

So then at the very end, he told us that he was going to take a picture to submit to the Bonnaroo photo contest. He got up on top of his Baldwin baby grand, waved at us, flipped us off, and here's the result:

I also think that between the "explicit content" of his lyrics and the opening song, the BF show was the highest density use of the eff word of the whole weekend. Which is saying something, given that it's a favorite of rock stars everywhere.

So, check back soon...more to come!

A little off topic, but...

2006-06-30T18:55:00.000-04:00

Hi all,

I'm selling a beater. It's reliable in all weather and runs great.

Check out the ad here: http://annarbor.craigslist.org/car/177237425.html.

PLEASE forward this on to anyone you think might be interested...I gotta unload this thing and FAST.

Thanks -

Rich

Eastern Europe, meet Denver, Colorado...

2006-06-27T18:09:00.000-04:00

The first thing I saw at Bonnaroo was among the strangest acts I've ever seen. Which is saying something, given that I've had the dubious pleasure of seeing a band called Anal Pudding at the Blind Pig here in Ann Arbor. But that's a whole 'nother subject.

DeVotchKa (in stark contrast to Anal Pudding) was not only at Bonnaroo, but it was an absolute pleasure to make their acquaintance.

From the unusual instrumentation...

electric mandolin played as electric guitar...string bass...

tuba... ( ! ) ...

Julio Iglesias-style soaring vocals...

...fiddle...

...not to mention trumpet, accordion, drum kit, and guitar...

...and to the subject matter, to the wardrobe choices, all I can tell you is that these folks are worth your time and your ears and your dollars.

The story is that I heard during their introduction is that they are from somewhere in Eastern Europe, but it's certainly possible that I misunderstood. The review of their stuff I just read (see link above) says they are from Denver CO, with eastern European influences. Any and all of which I can believe. Go, click the link, check them out.

If anyone is interested, they will be playing at the Kraftbrau Brewery in Kalamazoo this coming Thursday night (June 29). If you can, you should go check them out...you won't regret it.

I have an audition tonight...wish me luck...(and steady fingers)...!

Bonna-Fckn'-Roo ! !

2006-06-20T22:15:00.000-04:00

Can't tell you how many times I heard some alcohol- or cannabis-charged young sun worshipper shout the title to this post in the last coupla days. Four days actually. I recently decided to treat myself to something I've never done before: a multi-day music festival. So, from mid-day last Thursday through late Sunday, I was in Manchester Tennessee drinking in the sights and sounds of the Bonnaroo music festival.

It was a blast. An unmitigated, adrenaline charged, inspiring and humbling blast. I am SO glad I did it, and I don't regret a penny that I spent.

The good news for all my blogosphere friends is that I have a LOT of new visual material to post, along with some amusing stories and anecdotes. (Geez do I sound like a geek or what...?!)

Here is one to get you started. Tell me if you can guess the identity of this artist:

Lots and lots and lots more to come. During one particular show I took over 100 shots...I'll spare you most of those...but you should see, you should see!

Not to mention hear..................................

Stay tuned...

But Seriously...

2006-06-11T15:44:00.000-04:00

...tell me how you really feel.

Thorp has Tracks...

2006-05-29T20:15:00.000-04:00

...but not those kind of tracks.

These kind of tracks:

I actually rested the camera on the track to capture this image. And then I messed with the colors and saturation in Photoshop. True confessions.

If you click on the image in the body of the blog, you will get a larger version.

Just a reminder. :-)

One More Reason...

2006-05-21T21:28:00.000-04:00

...to love Seattle.

I mean, come on now. What more needs to be said?

Tugging at Vancouver

2006-05-18T22:30:00.000-04:00

There are docks all over Vancouver, what with it being a port city and all. There is even what they call a "SeaBus" to get commuters from one side of the north bay to the other.

In keeping with my "cities are more interesting at night" theme, here is a shot of a ferry docked in North Vancouver ("North Van" to the locals). You can see the Vancouver city skyline clearly in the background.

Victoria is Lucky

2006-05-02T17:35:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite pics from Victoria, British Columbia:

I am of the opinion that cities are at least as fascinating by night as they are by day...so I always try to make it a point to take my camera out for a walk late at night when I'm new to a city.

Fountain & London

2006-04-25T12:55:00.000-04:00

I have a friend who suggested to me with a tongue-in-cheek wink and nudge that perhaps the reason I'm posting non-current stuff in my blog (aside from the fact that I have not been all that active with my camera of late) is that I'm kind of subconsciously evaluating some of my past experiences in light of my current situation. Hmm, I said. I suppose that could be.

Fun pop psychology question, that.

And so, what is my current situation, you might ask? Good question. Make a comment or send me an email if you want to know and I'll either address it in a later post or deal with it on a one-off basis. :-)

Now, on to the question that I'm really interested in today. Look at this picture below before you look at any of the others. Try and figure out what it is. And then look at the next picture (which answers the question) and tell me if the two fit together. Here's what I mean. When I took this closeup, I thought it could be a very cool picture...and it is...at least in my mind. But standing alone, I think it's a little abstract. That is, the casual viewer would be like, "what the hell is that" rather than, "oh, that's a cool picture of a 'x'". Well anyways. What do you think?

Here is the source picture. It's a fountain/sculpture thingy that stands (or stood) in the center of the Salisbury Cathedral:

Shoot! I almost forgot one of the primary reasons we went to Salisbury Cathedral!! They have a copy of the Magna Carta there...which if you are a student of history at all, you know that it is an ancestor document to our own US Constitution and Bill of Rights. It was quite a remarkable experience to look at this ancient piece of paper...just a piece of glass and some inert gas between me and history. Wow.

The last day of my 10 day trip was spent in London. I walked and bussed all over that city in one day...it was a bit of a whirlwind, but SO worth it. Totally fell in love with the place. If you walk out the front door of the hotel in which I was staying and make a couple of lefts, you end up walking out onto Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, which were just lovely in May. These two greenspaces seemed to me somewhat analagous to Central Park in Manhattan in that they are smack dab in the middle of city-ness. The below photo was taken on one of the city streets immediately to the east of Hyde Park. I noticed a traffic jam as I was walking toward my hotel, and then lo and behold what should appear:

Pretty cool, huh?

Decider...?

2006-04-22T13:05:00.000-04:00

"I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense."

—George W. Bush, Washington, D.C. April 18, 2006

...

God help us.

Stonehenge

2006-04-18T13:24:00.000-04:00

I was just looking back through these pictures I'm about to post today & realized that really none of them are all that compelling...

I really like this one because of the moody sky:

The above picture is the scene you see across the street from Stonehenge.

Seriously though, how many of these have we seen? Bah. I'm posting it anyways. See what you can do about it!

On that same day we went to the "city" of Salisbury (no relation to the crappy cafeteria dish of the same name). Did you know that in the UK the designation of "city" is determined not by whether or not the area has a certain population density, but by virtue of the fact that it has a cathedral? Well, it's true.

So, here's my best Bono impression outside a pub in the city of Salisbury:

Which, in case you hadn't guessed, is the place from which the next batch of pictures is coming.

Corfe Castle Part II

2006-04-09T13:27:00.000-04:00

So I was surfing some friends' blogs this morning, and ran across a new word. My "virtual" friend Erik referenced the word "defenestration" as he wrote about some music that made him particularly happy. Thankfully he provided a link to a definition for those of us intellectual midgets who find themselves regarding his tower of intellectual mastery...and I ended up laughing out loud when I saw the definition. My roomate said "what?" and I explained to him what I just explained to you. And he said "ah yes, as in the Defenestration of Prague!" And he proceeded to give me an etymological breakdown of the word just right off the top of his head.

I swear I am not making this up.

So, now, thoroughly humbled, I will take you back to our regularly scheduled programming of things I can actually do reasonably well...in this case taking pretty pictures of inanimate objects.

The very green spring of the English countryside from Corfe Castle:

A view of Corfe Village from the castle:

On the way back down to where we had parked our car, I came across this, which looks to me like it ought to be a postcard:

And here is a hint of things to come. Can anyone identify where these birds are perched?

Have fun & stay safe until next time....

Corfe Castle Part I

2006-04-02T19:28:00.000-04:00

When I was in the UK a couple of years ago, I had a religious experience in a pub. A friend (new friend, but friend none the less) was playing with his blues band at a lovely little pub called The Greyhound Inn. At some point during the evening, after having had a couple pints, I went to use the loo (restroom). On my way back to the main room of the pub, I made a wrong turn and ended up on the back patio of the Greyhound. Looming behind the pub in the indigo darkness, was a monstrous shape...and I felt the pull in my gut that happens when there is something magical about to happen.

Here is a shot of the same silhouette I saw that night...during the daytime when we went back a few days later:

The place is called Corfe Castle. If you have any interest in its history you can find it here. The short story is that it was a royal residence that was destroyed by Parliamentary engineers in a fit of democratic zeal. I took three rolls of film there. It was a blast. My friends were *very* patient with me!

Check out how thick the walls are! You can see Corfe Village and the town church in the distance here:

Not only was it a phenomenally picturesque area...but it was also one of the most lovely days we had during the 10 days we were in the UK.

More pictures of the surrounding areas to come!

Spelling Lesson

2006-03-26T22:37:00.000-05:00

So I was in China a couple of years ago. A week in Shanghai (pics to come) and a week in Beijing. While I was there, you would not believe the things I learned about the English language. It's true that no one in the country speaks the language (despite the fact that the next summer olympics are due to be held in Beijing aka Peking), but they do (for whatever reason) make the attempt to have even the most remote areas signed in our lovely western langua franca.

Here is a shot (I still cannot believe I took this picture) from the most accessable part of the Great Wall of China:

Now begins the English lesson. This, and others like it were no small source of mirth for me and my travelling companions:

At least they are trying to let us know it's dangerous. Not like you're going to get anywhere if you fall off the Wall and break your glasses...I somehow don't think the government in Beijing is going to have much sympathy for your lawsuit.

Ashes and Snow

2006-03-17T13:14:00.000-05:00

It's not often that I just post a link...however I will make an exception for this collection of photography.

I am completely humbled. If you are reading this, you should click on this link right now. I promise, you will be blown away.

Ashes and Snow

Corfe Castle Picture

2006-03-08T01:40:00.000-05:00

Here is one of my favorite pictures ever. That I've taken that is. It was taken on the south coast of England in a village called Corfe with an "old fashioned" 35mm camera. In 2003 I think. The subject is a tiny pink flower with a busted up old castle as a backdrop. I've cropped it and messed with the exposure a little bit in Photoshop, but other than that, it's as is. Here, I'll let it speak for itself:

Ragbirds at Trinity Theatre

2006-02-19T21:12:00.000-05:00

There is a theatre in Plymouth (6 mile and 275) that is one of the most intimate and lovely places to play we've seen. Their literature says it's like a big living room, and the truth is that's not too far off the mark. Not only does the room sound great, but it's comfortably lit and every seat is fantastic. The place is called Trinity Theatre, and it's a venue that all kinds of "folky types" love to play.

The Ragbirds opened for Paul's Big Radio, and they knocked it out of the park. It was a fantastic show to an over-capacity crowd. What a great night!

Since the theatre has its own sound guy, I was able to roam free and do my photo thing after getting all our gear loaded in and set up.

The Ragbirds opened with "Believe It", which is one of my favorites. It features a great accordion riff (believe it or not...):

Erin playing her mandolin:

Adam singing "Better":

Not sure quite what Randy and Erin are up to in the costume room....but I bet that's not Banana Juice in that flask...!

Ragbirds Live Recording

2006-02-09T11:12:00.000-05:00

Here are some more pictures from the Ragbirds show at TCs Speakeasy that we recorded for a live CD. We've been in the studio working hard on mixing it...and it's getting down to the wire, since it will be released (come hell or high water) at the Blind Pig show on February 25th. If you haven't seen the Ragbirds live, (and you still consider yourself my friend [wink]...and you live within any kind of reasonable driving distance...) you should DEFINITELY come out for that show. It's gonna be a riot.

But anyways, back to the TCs show. This is Rachel from the Hummingbirds, who opened the show:

And the Ragbirds songstress, Erin Zindle, fiddling up a storm:

The multi-talented, multi-instrumentalist Adam Labeaux...playing the shaker...even though he's most often seen with the six string axe:

Percussionist, drum instructor, sometime Deadhead and all-round very cool guy, Tim Dziekan (how do you pronounce that, Tim...?):

On the drum kit and djembe, the manic show promoter, booking agent and manager of the Ragbirds (got enough hats there, buddy...?) Randall Moore:

On the fretless bass, layin' down a groove that's way funkier than his shirt, it's The Secretary of Weird (and trust me, that's not an idle nickname either...) Jeff Stinson:

Consider the introductions accomplished. Now all you need to do is come to a show!

In the meantime, if you're interested, you can go to our myspace link where there are a few (kinda low-res) samples of our stuff.

And here's the link to the Ragbirds' official site.

Good Noise, Ragbirds, and News of the World

2006-02-07T12:38:00.000-05:00

I'm back. I've been busy.

Like, crazy-ass busy. Back in December, I started hanging out with Dan Worley at his very cool recording studio, Good Noise. We bonded right away on our love for Wilco, Son Volt, good bourbon and hand rolled cigarettes. ( ! ) So, after hanging out during some of his sessions, I started learning my way around the studio...and now I work there! Funny how that happens.

This is Dan on the night of our live recording gig at TC's Speakeasy a few weeks ago:

Interesting connection: when I was running my own studio, my last client was Erin Zindle of the Ragbirds. At that time, the band had not yet come into existence, but she was intent on recording the songs that had been bubbling to the surface for her. And what a great bunch of songs they are, too. You can hear some samples here. The first and ninth tracks on the final Ragbirds record (Yes, Nearby) were done in my studio. Primarily because of my corporate gig I was not as available as Erin needed me to be...so they ended up connecting with Dan and finishing the record at Good Noise.

Here's a photo of the bar and a bunch of the "regulars" at TCs on the night of the Ragbirds live recording:

A country/folk band called The Hummingbirds opened the show. They were a pleasure to work with, and a pleasure to watch.

Here's Erin singing the Ragbirds' anthem "Believe It":

Adam (foreground), Erin and Randy (on the drum kit):

Oh! Did I mention that I'm a member of the Ragbirds now? They just hired me to run sound for them...

Did I mention that there have been developments?

Whew.....

Stern words from Bono to George II

2006-02-03T14:21:00.000-05:00

Hi there. I know I've been quiet for nearly a month, and I do apologize for that. I have new pictures to share & more news to share about "developments" and such. But until then, here are some words to ponder:

Bono's best sermon yet: Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast

[RUSH TRANSCRIPT: CHECK AGAINST DELIVERED REMARKS]

If you're wondering what I'm doing here, at a prayer breakfast, well, so am I. I'm certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is leather. It's certainly not because I'm a rock star. Which leaves one possible explanation: I'm here because I've got a messianic complex.

Yes, it's true. And for anyone who knows me, it's hardly a revelation.

Well, I'm the first to admit that there's something unnatural...something unseemly...about rock stars mounting the pulpit and preaching at presidents, and then disappearing to their villas in the south of France. Talk about a fish out of water. It was weird enough when Jesse Helms showed up at a U2 concert...but this is really weird, isn't it?

You know, one of the things I love about this country is its separation of church and state. Although I have to say: in inviting me here, both church and state have been separated from something else completely: their mind.

Mr. President, are you sure about this?

It's very humbling and I will try to keep my homily brief. But be warned - I'm Irish.

I'd like to talk about the laws of man, here in this city where those laws are written. And I'd like to talk about higher laws. It would be great to assume that the one serves the other; that the laws of man serve these higher laws...but of course, they don't always. And I presume that, in a sense, is why you're here.

I presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us here - Muslims, Jews, Christians - all are searching our souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our nation, our God.

I know I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led me here, too.

Yes, it's odd, having a rock star here - but maybe it's odder for me than for you. You see, I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was...well, a little blurry, and hard to see.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays... and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God.

For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land...and in this country, seeing God's second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash...in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment...

I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.

Even though I was a believer.

Perhaps because I was a believer.

I was cynical...not about God, but about God's politics. (There you are, Jim.)

Then, in 1997, a couple of eccentric, septuagenarian British Christians went and ruined my shtick - my reproachfulness. They did it by describing the millennium, the year 2000, as a Jubilee year, as an opportunity to cancel the chronic debts of the world's poorest people. They had the audacity to renew the Lord's call - and were joined by Pope John Paul II, who, from an Irish half-Catholic's point of view, may have had a more direct line to the Almighty.

'Jubilee' - why 'Jubilee'?

What was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lord's favor?

I'd always read the scriptures, even the obscure stuff. There it was in Leviticus (25:35)...

'If your brother becomes poor,' the scriptures say, 'and cannot maintain himself...you shall maintain him.... You shall not lend him your money at interest, not give him your food for profit.'

It is such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his ministry with this. Jesus is a young man, he's met with the rabbis, impressed everyone, people are talking. The elders say, he's a clever guy, this Jesus, but he hasn't done much...yet. He hasn't spoken in public before...

When he does, is first words are from Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,' he says, 'because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.' And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord's favour, the year of Jubilee (Luke 4:18).

What he was really talking about was an era of grace - and we're still in it.

So fast-forward 2,000 years. That same thought, grace, was made incarnate - in a movement of all kinds of people. It wasn't a bless-me club... it wasn't a holy huddle. These religious guys were willing to get out in the streets, get their boots dirty, wave the placards, follow their convictions with actions...making it really hard for people like me to keep their distance. It was amazing. I almost started to like these church people.

But then my cynicism got another helping hand.

It was what Colin Powell, a five-star general, called the greatest W.M.D. of them all: a tiny little virus called AIDS. And the religious community, in large part, missed it. The ones that didn't miss it could only see it as divine retribution for bad behaviour. Even on children...even [though the] fastest growing group of HIV infections were married, faithful women.

Aha, there they go again! I thought to myself judgmentalism is back!

But in truth, I was wrong again. The church was slow but the church got busy on this the leprosy of our age.

Love was on the move.

Mercy was on the move.

God was on the move.

Moving people of all kinds to work with others they had never met, never would have cared to meet...conservative church groups hanging out with spokesmen for the gay community, all singing off the same hymn sheet on AIDS...soccer moms and quarterbacks...hip-hop stars and country stars. This is what happens when God gets on the move: crazy stuff happens!

Popes were seen wearing sunglasses!

Jesse Helms was seen with a ghetto blaster!

Crazy stuff. Evidence of the spirit.

It was breathtaking. Literally. It stopped the world in its tracks.

When churches started demonstrating on debt, governments listened - and acted. When churches starting organising, petitioning, and even - that most unholy of acts today, God forbid, lobbying...on AIDS and global health, governments listened - and acted.

I'm here today in all humility to say: you changed minds; you changed policy; you changed the world.

Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.

Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.

I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill. I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff. Maybe, maybe not. But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. "If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places."

It's not a coincidence that in the scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It's not an accident. That's a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. (You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.) 'As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me' (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.

Here's some good news for the president. After 9/11 we were told America would have no time for the world's poor. America would be taken up with its own problems of safety. And it's true these are dangerous times, but America has not drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors.

In fact, you have doubled aid to Africa. You have tripled funding for global health. Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief and support for the Global Fund - you and Congress - have put 700,000 people onto life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and provided 8 million bed nets to protect children from malaria.

Outstanding human achievements. Counterintuitive. Historic. Be very, very proud.

But here's the bad news. From charity to justice, the good news is yet to come. There is much more to do. There's a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.

And finally, it's not about charity after all, is it? It's about justice.

Let me repeat that: It's not about charity, it's about justice.

And that's too bad.

Because you're good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can't afford it.

But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.

Sixty-five hundred Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about justice and equality.

Because there's no way we can look at what's happening in Africa and, if we're honest, conclude that deep down, we really accept that Africans are equal to us. Anywhere else in the world, we wouldn't accept it. Look at what happened in South East Asia with the tsunami. 150,000 lives lost to that misnomer of all misnomers, "mother nature." In Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And it's a completely avoidable catastrophe.

It's annoying but justice and equality are mates. Aren't they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.

You know, think of those Jewish sheep-herders going to meet the Pharaoh, mud on their shoes, and the Pharaoh says, "Equal?" A preposterous idea: rich and poor are equal? And they say, "Yeah, 'equal,' that's what it says here in this book. We're all made in the image of God."

And eventually the Pharaoh says, "OK, I can accept that. I can accept the Jews - but not the blacks."

"Not the women. Not the gays. Not the Irish. No way, man."

So on we go with our journey of equality.

On we go in the pursuit of justice.

We hear that call in the ONE Campaign, a growing movement of more than 2 million Americans...Left and Right together... united in the belief that where you live should no longer determine whether you live.

We hear that call even more powerfully today, as we mourn the loss of Coretta Scott King - mother of a movement for equality, one that changed the world but is only just getting started. These issues are as alive as they ever were; they just change shape and cross the seas.

Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market...that's a justice issue. Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents...that's a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents...that's a justice issue.

And while the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the subject.

That's why I say there's the law of the land¿. And then there is a higher standard. There's the law of the land, and we can hire experts to write them so they benefit us, so the laws say it's OK to protect our agriculture but it's not OK for African farmers to do the same, to earn a living?

As the laws of man are written, that's what they say.

God will not accept that.

Mine won't, at least. Will yours?

[ pause]

I close this morning on...very...thin...ice.

This is a dangerous idea I've put on the table: my God vs. your God, their God vs. our God...vs. no God. It is very easy, in these times, to see religion as a force for division rather than unity.

And this is a town - Washington - that knows something of division.

But the reason I am here, and the reason I keep coming back to Washington, is because this is a town that is proving it can come together on behalf of what the scriptures call the least of these.

This is not a Republican idea. It is not a Democratic idea. It is not even, with all due respect, an American idea. Nor it is unique to any one faith.

'Do to others as you would have them do to you' (Luke 6:30). Jesus says that.

'Righteousness is this: that one should...give away wealth out of love for him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for the emancipation of the captives.' The Koran says that (2.177).

Thus sayeth the Lord: 'Bring the homeless poor into the house, when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring fourth, then your Lord will be your rear guard.' The Jewish scripture says that. Isaiah 58 again.

That is a powerful incentive: 'The Lord will watch your back.' Sounds like a good deal to me, right now.

A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord's blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it¿. I have a family, please look after them¿. I have this crazy idea...

And this wise man said: stop.

He said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing.

Get involved in what God is doing - because it's already blessed.

Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing.

And that is what he's calling us to do.

I was amazed when I first got to this country and I learned how much some churchgoers tithe. Up to 10% of the family budget. Well, how does that compare with the federal budget, the budget for the entire American family? How much of that goes to the poorest people in the world? Less than 1%.

Mr. President, Congress, people of faith, people of America:

I want to suggest to you today that you see the flow of effective foreign assistance as tithing.... Which, to be truly meaningful, will mean an additional 1% of the federal budget tithed to the poor.

What is 1%?

1% is not merely a number on a balance sheet.

1% is the girl in Africa who gets to go to school, thanks to you. 1% is the AIDS patient who gets her medicine, thanks to you. 1% is the African entrepreneur who can start a small family business thanks to you. 1% is not redecorating presidential palaces or money flowing down a rat hole. This 1% is digging waterholes to provide clean water.

1% is a new partnership with Africa, not paternalism toward Africa, where increased assistance flows toward improved governance and initiatives with proven track records and away from boondoggles and white elephants of every description.

America gives less than 1% now. We're asking for an extra 1% to change the world. to transform millions of lives - but not just that and I say this to the military men now - to transform the way that they see us.

1% is national security, enlightened economic self-interest, and a better, safer world rolled into one. Sounds to me that in this town of deals and compromises, 1% is the best bargain around.

These goals - clean water for all; school for every child; medicine for the afflicted, an end to extreme and senseless poverty - these are not just any goals; they are the Millennium Development goals, which this country supports. And they are more than that. They are the Beatitudes for a globalised world.

Now, I'm very lucky. I don't have to sit on any budget committees. And I certainly don't have to sit where you do, Mr. President. I don't have to make the tough choices.

But I can tell you this:

To give 1% more is right. It's smart. And it's blessed.

There is a continent - Africa - being consumed by flames.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did - or did not to - to put the fire out in Africa.

History, like God, is watching what we do.

Thank you. Thank you, America, and God bless you all.

Tortuguerro Part Six: Last Day

2006-01-07T16:06:00.000-05:00

We stayed at Hotel Los Volcanes, which was a very nice B&B that we found by accident as we were driving through Alajeula looking for a hotel that the guidebook recommended. It's funny how things seem to work like that in Costa Rica. You start off looking for one thing and end up finding something cooler "by accident".

The setting of the hotel was lovely, given that it was in a Costa Rican city...which as I may have mentioned before tend to be dirty, smelly and not that safe. These flower pictures were taken in the courtyard where we had our breakfast on our last day:

Since we're on the subject of flowers, I thought it would be interesting to insert this comment. Here's a picture of my sister's hand with a hydrangea flower cluster that we found by the side of the road. Her hand is in the picture for a sense of scale. In Costa Rica, houseplants that we struggle to keep alive up here in North America are casually flourishing in spontaneous exuberance just "by the side of the road". It's really something to see.

Here's the view from the airport in San Jose of the volcano that defeated us. We had attempted to visit Volcan Poas, but the persistent rain and fog made it impractical from a visibility standpoint. Even down at (more or less) sea level by the airport you can see there's plenty of fog and cloud. Up on the volcano, it was impenatrable.

All in all though, it was a good trip, and I think we'll end up with a good final product for Johnny's business.

Rose Bowl

2006-01-05T00:56:00.000-05:00

Don't worry, this is not in danger of becoming a sports blog. Not by a long shot.

However:

I am in absolute, dumbstruck awe of Vince Young. He's part running back, part quarterback, and he's unstoppable in the clutch. Man did they screw up the Heisman award this year.

I never thought I would root for anything from Texas...like, ever. HOWEVER. I hate USC with an irrational exuberance...thus, there was never really a choice in the matter.

What a fun game to watch!

And what a lousy loser Matt Leinart is. "We couldn't stop him, but I still think we're a better team!" Pouty bastard. You just LOST to them. Doesn't that typically mean they're a better team? Isn't that usually the way such questions are decided?

Coach Carroll showed real class, though. Both teams can be more than proud of their performances.

Did I mention I'm in awe of Vince Young?

Whew.

Tortuguerro Part Five: Waterfalls

2005-12-31T17:35:00.000-05:00

Once we got back from our tour of the Tortuguerro nature preserve, we had another day of perfect weather and enjoyed the little town quite a lot. As it turns out, we were in Costa Rica at the very end of the rainy season, actually during the transition from rainy season to dry season. The upshot of this is that we were incredibly fortunate to have two perfect days in a row at Tortuguerro, given that there had been no sunny days for months previous.

Our last night in Tortuguerro saw the clouds roll in and the skies open up again. We got on the early water ferry back to our car and watched boatloads of miserably wet touristas going on their early morning nature tours....breathing a quiet prayer of thanks for our good fortune.

The renewed vigor of the rains made for wildly running rivers and waterfalls. Here is a series of pictures of waterfalls. The first picture is the first waterfall we saw, then the last several are all different aspects of the same waterfall.

Driving down a twisty turny Costa Rican road and came around a bend to see this dead ahead:

Quite a sight actually. It was really loud, running very fast....it was pouring rain when we took these pictures. Costa Rican civil engineers must operate on a different set of values than what we're accustomed to here in the states. I don't know if you can make it out, but the bridge in this photo was constructed right over the previous bridge that washed out.

Here's a shot from behind the waterfall:

And another, from the other side, almost directly behind it:

I think there are a few more Costa Rica picture posts to go....stay tuned....

Tortuguerro Part Four: Conclusion of our Nature Tour

2005-12-22T15:05:00.000-05:00

On our way back out of the canal system, we heard them before we saw them....three Macaws on the wing. I was barely able to get my camera on them in time. Darryl said that it is very rare to see that many Macaws, not to mention that they were together. It is interesting that they were flying in a group of three...I'm not sure what to make of that since they pair mate for life.

Again, heard him before we saw him...here is a little kingfisher. It was so odd to hear his call, because the last time I had heard one of these birds was at my parents' home in Mendham NJ. You can imagine the cognitive dissonance, until I realized that they migrate south during the winter.

This picture is out of sequence, but I thought to throw it in now anyway. The moon was still up while we were on our way out into the canal system:

Upon our return to Casa Marbella, we saw a Tico giving us the "stranger" look:

If you walk out the back of Casa Marbella (which is on the canal side of the tiny island that is the town of Tortuguerro), turn left onto "Main Street" (an overstatement of grandeur if ever there was one) and walk past the little "soda" (small food stand) and then make a right onto the dirt path that you find there, you come to the Carribean beach after about 200 meters:

We saw this green iguana sunbathing while we were enjoying a cold Imperial beer on Darryl's deck. She was "only" four feet long. Apparently the males get quite a bit larger.

Tortuguerro Part Three: Monkeys!

2005-12-16T23:29:00.000-05:00

On our way into another section of the preserve now. Here is a shot of Johnny and Tracy paddling ahead of us into the canal:

And here are the guys who were our most cooperative subjects to date. We heard some crashing about in the underbrush, and saw some trees shaking, and then here comes a little primate friend to say hi:

These are Spider Monkeys, specifically Ateles geoffroyi. As I mentioned, we saw all three indigenous species of monkey whilst we were on this morning tour. The three or so of the spider monkeys you see here were not even remotely bothered to have sweaty tourists goggling at them. Acted just like we weren't there. Here's one swinging from branch to branch, making great use of that prehensile tail:

Making sure his personal hygiene is properly administered:

Peeking! Now if that's not cute, I dunno what is.

We were fortunate indeed on that day. Picture perfect weather, not too much gawker traffic, and lots of friendly photo subjects.

Tortuguerro Part Two

2005-12-10T15:23:00.000-05:00

After we saw the caiman, we turned around from that small canal and headed deeper into the Tortuguerro preserve. There is an unbelievable variety of birds to see there. We were priveleged to see a number of really rare things: a trio of Macaws on the wing, another bird that looked like a lump on a tree to me (Darryl said that any bird watcher would be green with envy to have seen it, but the name is escaping me), and all three indigenous species of monkeys (Howler, Spider and White Faced). It was a very good day.

We saw this little blue heron along the way - he was one of twenty or so that we saw as we went. You can tell by the fact that he's got his beak open that even this early in the day (probably 7am), he's HOT.

Looks like we spooked him:

They are so beautiful as they fly:

Here is a little cluster of birds that we were unable to identify. Some kind of plover I think, but I'm no ornithologist.

Slightly closer view of the same crew. Anyone know what they are?

More installments to come.........

Tortuguerro Part One

2005-12-05T21:57:00.000-05:00

After getting lost in the banana plantation, we finally made the 1:30 boat to Tortuguerro. What you see here is the basic idea:

This was the launch to Tortuguerro that most Ticos take. ("Tico" is Costa Ricans' nickname for themselves.) It cost us $10USD to take the 90 minute boat ride, plus $20 to "watch" our car for three days. Same trip charge for a Tico? Less than $2. Ah well. There is a place where the Touristas can catch a 3 hour boat ride that costs them $50 a head. I guess I can't complain.

Here is Casa Marbella, the place that we stayed in the town of Tortuguerro:

The owner, a guy named Darryl (Asian Canadian, married to a Tico, ran a Canadian ranger station down in CR for many years before "retiring" to run his BnB) was absolutely great. Laid back, knowledgeable and fun. Casa Marbella (named after Darryl's too cute for words little girl) is clean and your room charge includes a great home cooked Tico meal for breakfast.

For $10 each, Darryl took us on a tour of the nature preserve. It was easily the best thing we did while there. We got up at 5:30 am, which is easier than it sounds, since the sun is already up by that time down there, and were in the boat and on our way by 6. After we paid our admission to the park:

...we saw another boat full of touristas staring and pointing. Turns out that's a great way to find the activity of the wildlife...look where others are looking (is that a life lesson? ;-) )

The subject of the staring and pointing were several howler monkeys shaking the trees:

I know, I know, it's a crappy, backlit photo. There are better photo ops later.

We saw this guy fishing on our way up the canal:

Our first cool sighting was this little guy. He is a Caiman, which is an alligator relative. We're not sure how big he was, but what you see here was maybe 18" long. So maybe he was three or four feet long total. Hard to tell. Anyways, good eye Darryl!

More (lots more) Tortuguerro nature preserve pictures to come....stay tuned.

San Jose to Tortuguerro

2005-11-29T23:25:00.000-05:00

Sunday morning we got up early (6am), ate a hearty breakfast of egg omelette, fresh fruit, pastries and Costa Rican coffee (YUM), settled our bill and loaded up the car for our trip to the boat launch that would get us to Tortuguerro.

Tortuguerro is a remote nature preserve in the north part of the Carribean side of the country. The only way to get there is by boat or by plane.

On the way to catch our boat, we got lost. Very very lost. There comes a point where you can make a left onto pavement or continue straight on gravel. We went straight. Bad idea. After an hour of rattling our kidneys near to death over steadily deteriorating gravel roads, we finally figured out from the locals that we were in the middle of a gargantuan banana plantation.

Them there are baby banana plants:

Our banana plantation "adventure" might not have been an all bad thing if we didn't have a boat to catch. We had to go all the way back to our missed turn, make the *correct* choice, and then go the rest of the way. Yeesh.

It did make for interesting picture taking though. As you drive through a banana plantation, you see all these pole-arch thingies snaking through the fields of banana trees.

And you realize, after a while, that this is how they get bananas from point A to point B. Wow.

They even have contraptions to get the bananas across the road. (See above and below.)

Here's a cute cow we saw on the road...interesting that most of their livestock is...well...less rotund than ours here in the states. Hmm.

Tell me these aren't a coupla the cutest kids you've ever seen! They were playing by the side of the road at the exact point where we finally figured out that the road was going to continue to deteriorate...and we needed to turn around.

I don't think they held our foolishness against us! :-)

More Costa Rican adventures to come.......................

First Days in San Jose

2005-11-28T11:05:00.000-05:00

After flying into San Jose on the afternoon of Thursday November 19th, we set out for the Hotel Aranjuez near downtown San Jose. For $13 USD, we caught a cab for the 25 minute ride from the airport, and were gratified to find we'd done well with our internet research. The hotel is a sprawling, brightly painted, clean, comfortable and remarkably affordable oasis...in a really rotten part of town. The place costs $25/night USD for a small room with a double bed and a shared bathroom...and a phenomenal breakfast spread that really must be experienced to be believed.

The first lesson we learned in Costa Rica is that you don't go there for the city life. The cities we experienced are dirty, smelly and not tremendously safe. If you make good choices, you're fine, but it's very easy to make choices that are not so good (more on that later).

After spending an uneventful first night at Hotel Aranjuez, we got up the next morning and went on a tour of the Cafe Britt coffee plantation, which was easily one of the best things we did. As a matter of fact, I'm drinking Cafe Britt Dark Roast coffee as I write this!

For $34USD per person, Cafe Britt sends a driver to come pick you up in a van full of other touristas, drives you through the lovely countryside between San Jose and Heredia; then they take you on a very educational (not to mention hilarious) tour of their coffee plantation and their factory; then they feed you a fantastic gourmet meal.

These are ripe coffee cherries from the first harvest of the season at Cafe Britt:

Saturday morning, we set off for the Jade Museum in San Jose. On our way walking through the city, a "helpful cabbie" stopped and told us to put our cameras away. After quite some work in our broken Spanish (he did not speak any English), we understood him to say that we were in danger of having our cameras stolen. After quite a lot more work, we learned that the museum we were interested in was closed, but that he would be happy to take us to the zoo, a butterfly preserve, and the bank instead. When I asked him how much it would cost to have him do all this, he said "don't worry about it". (Danger, Will Robinson....)

So, off we go with him to the bank. After a bit of a struggle in broken Spanish, I manage to convert some USD to Colones (Costa Rican money), and then we looked at a map to see if we wanted to go all the way to the zoo. Oddly enough, when you look at maps of San Jose, it is almost always deceiving how close things are. The maps somehow make things appear a lot farther away than they actually are.

Helpful taxi driver says it will be less than a 15 minute drive. So, we start driving, and after a little bit more conversation, we decide that we'd rather go to the butterfly sanctuary, which appears to be near-ish to the zoo. So, once we communicate this to him, he pulls over, stops the car with a grumpy grimace, points, and lo and behold, there's the sign for the place he was describing. It seemed odd that we happened upon the very place we wanted to go right as we made the decision.

Anyways, he said he wanted 18000 colones for his services...which sounded like a hell of a lot to me...which is where the meter should have come in...but I then noticed that it was not even attached to anything so that he could have turned it on. ( ! ) The wires for the meter were hanging down on the floor of the car. So now I'm in a bit of a pickle. 18000 colones converts over to about $32USD, but I had only changed over $20, or about 10000 colones. We ended up settling the matter for all the colones I had, but I still felt like I'd been taken, based on our previous experiences with "official" cab services in the city. So...second lesson learned...make the cabbie turns on his meter, or walk away.

Here are a couple of the butterflies we saw:

While we were walking around, enjoying the butterflies and gardens, it became clear that the zoo was right behind the butterfly farm. Ah, the strange, small world of San Jose. :-)

Being a little gun-shy now, we consulted our map and decided to hoof it back to our hotel. It was only about a 20 minute walk, and while it was not at all a good part of town, we at least felt a bit more in control of our own destiny.

More adventures to come...

Back from Costa Rica!

2005-11-26T23:38:00.000-05:00

Costa Rica is an incredible place. If you ever get the chance, you should go. Rather..............it would be worth making the chance to go.

We're back, with stories to tell. My brother in law is going to have a great promo video out of this. Here he is:

Stay tuned for more pics. There are a LOT of good ones.

Pura Vida!

Costa Rica

2005-11-16T11:09:00.000-05:00

Things are probably going to be quiet around here for a couple of weeks. I have a pretty cool opportunity to go and shoot a promotional video for a wilderness adventure guide in Costa Rica starting tomorrow. You may know of that nation as the only stable "banana republic". Apparently there are internet cafes everywhere, but I don't know if I will be able to do anything about posting pictures. We will see how things play out.

This is a pretty big opportunity for our business, so it will be interesting to see what we come up with. Here's another site with info about Costa Rica if you're interested.

Fall in Ann Arbor Part Three + Sad News

2005-11-14T14:05:00.000-05:00

Few more Ann Arbor Fall pictures -

Squirrel!

This one is dark, but look carefully, I think you'll find it interesting...both theatres in view at Liberty and State, and a Stop sign too. Such a deal.

It's been a weird day. My grandma West (that's my stepdad's mom) passed away yesterday morning. It was a long, slow, unpleasant way to die, I'm sad to report. The only comfort I feel I can take in it is that the doctors were able to keep her comfortable for the three weeks (three weeks!!) that she was without food and water at the very end. I'm glad she's finally free of the tough times that were her last couple years of life - she did nothing to deserve the troubles she suffered through.

Strange, it seems that it doesn't really matter how long you know it's coming...doesn't seem to change the way it feels when it finally arrives. I'm kinda in a fog...which I hope to come out of sooner rather than later, but I know better than to put a timer on these things.

Her name was Grace. She was a good and kind grandmother to me. If you have a moment to spend, send some thoughts & prayers out to our family.

Thanks for listening.

Fall in Ann Arbor Part Two

2005-11-11T19:36:00.000-05:00

Here are some more views around Ann Arbor.

The great Dawn Treader book shop:

The finest "unsanitary sheik" drinking establishment in Michigan:

Part of the skyline at sunset. Admittedly not the most published view in the history of the city, but I think it's interesting.

Note the Stadium and Crisler arena at the horizon:

Speaking of the Stadium, time for Michigan to start acting like a football team and beat Indiana.

Go Blue!

Fall in Ann Arbor Part One

2005-11-08T15:06:00.000-05:00

I was in Ann Arbor a couple of days ago. Saw some really lovely stuff. I'd forgotten how pretty Ann Arbor in the fall can be.

Here's an angel keeping watch over the entrance to the cemetery on Observatory:

More cemetery:

Old headstones are so interesting:

Sunset over the city:

And, just for fun, a parting thought from the Daily Dig:

Afraid of the Light?
-- Plato

One can easily understand a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when grown men and women are afraid of the light.

Cloud Nine 2005 Recovery

2005-11-05T17:11:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, we had a gig at Michindoh Camp, near Hillsdale MI (which is also near OH and IN, thus...MICH - IND - OH...get it? *rolls eyes*). For all that the name is a little corny, the camp itself is absolutely lovely, and a first rate venue for a retreat of any description.

Here's a view of the lake from the back of the main building. Check it out:

My friend Donnell had invited us to do the "video recap" for the Cloud Nine retreat. Cloud Nine is an annual retreat that has served Vineyard's youth groups of the Great Lakes region for the past nine years. The video recap is something that the leaders used to stay up all night on the second night of the retreat piecing together...and then present it in finished form on Sunday morning to 500 highly sugared, caffeinated and sleep deprived teens. Yikes.

Needless to say, the leaders "aren't getting any younger", so they needed an alternative to staying up all night. This is where we came in. And, the reason for the title of the post: Cloud Nine 2005 RECOVERY. We needed it. Recovery, that is. Ten total hours of sleep over 48 hours...but the great news is, we delivered a top notch professional result that was well received. Whew!

Here is Donnell speaking to the youth leaders on the first day of the three day retreat:

The retreat uses the following ingredients:
Stir
500 teenagers with
50 youth leaders
lots of loud music
some *slightly* too deep for the room teaching
and a dash of humor

Bake for 48 hours.

The result should be 500 edified teens, hopefully no pregnancies, not too much vandalism, and 50 seriously frazzled adults.

Crowd shot:

Here's a cool collage I put together - on the first night, there was a girl dancing off to one side of the stage:

Remember, click the smaller picture for a larger version. More to come! :-)

Fall 2005

2005-10-26T23:00:00.000-04:00

To be frank, I've never been that big a fan of Fall. I think it's largely because I always associated it with colder weather and the onset of Winter...who is definitely my least favorite Old Man.

I've been getting out a lot more this fall though, and turning my photographer's eye on the unique visuals of the season. There certainly are some lovely things to see.

I'm trying something new: the images in the main body of the blog are now a little smaller, but remember, if you click on the image you'll get a larger version.

These were all taken along with the pictures from my previous post at Proud Lake state recreation area. I highly recommend it to you (my blog AND the park. Har.).

Pow. That one just pops, doesn't it? Those are not grapes...don't know what they are...but I don't suggest eating them. Leave that to the birds. :-)

The Pines of...Milford?!

2005-10-23T11:57:00.000-04:00

In the early 20th century, Ottorino Respighi composed a symphonic poem called "The Pines of Rome" which is to this day one of my favorite pieces of music. If you don't know it, you should go buy it - it's one of those things that can only be experienced. If you read up on the story of what was in the composer's mind as you listen, amazing pictures spring up in your mind. Well, they do for me anyways. Heh.

Fall is a wonderful time. We went out to the Proud Lake state recreation area a few days ago and came away with these pictures. For some reason, pine forests are inspiring to me. I love the majesty of the arrow straight trees, the way the deep carpet of needles underneath your feet scrunches quietly...the sound of the tree branches clanking together as the trees sway in the breeze...

Mystery:

Life is a journey, and I keep seeing paths everywhere:

Coniferous trees are amazing. They look cool, they smell good and they are made up of different stuff than deciduous trees:

You see some interesting things when you walk through the pine forest. Everything is covered in a blanket of needles...even the emergent trees trying to grow up under the shadow of their brothers:

Well, they may not be redwoods, (I think my fave in the whole world...well, the whole world I've seen so far...) but they'll do in a pinch. More than do, actually.

Mady Kouyate

2005-10-19T12:12:00.000-04:00

Let me introduce you to a new friend of mine.

This is Mady Kouyate:

He was the person who provided processional and recessional music for Grace Balmer's wedding, which I photographed several weeks ago. I wrote a blog about it here. At that time, I didn't know his name, but because of the absolutely magical nature of his playing, I wanted to know more.

I first saw Mady play at the open mic night at TC's Speakeasy in Ypsilanti several months ago. When he got up on stage, I turned to my friend Randall from the Ragbirds and said, "what is this?" In a venue where the instrument of choice is the ubiquitous acoustic guitar, Mady's Kora stuck out like a very large sore thumb. Randall explained that Mady is a Senegal-born player of the African Kora, which is a 21 stringed harp. I was transfixed, riveted to my seat by his playing. It's a flurry of notes in an unusual scale (unusual to my Western ears anyway) with a wonderful undercurrent of traditional west African rhythms. If you'd like to hear a sample for yourself, Mady recently recorded a CD at the Good Noise Studio in Ypsilanti, where he now lives, and graciously consented to allow Good Noise to post one of their recordings here.

You can find more information on Mady at this link, (which seems to work intermittently), or you can also try here, a performance review in "Ann Arbor Paper" with a bio included.

He apparently plays around town and does at least one show annually at the Ark on Main Street in Ann Arbor. Anyone finds out he's playing a show, email me and let's go get our senses dazzled.

Oh, and BY THE WAY. If you haven't checked out the Ragbirds in concert, you should make a point of it. They are playing out all the time in the metro Detroit area, and put on a fantastic show. Two of the tracks on their album "Yes Nearby" were recorded in my studio, while Erin was in the process of recruiting Randall, Adam, Jeff and Greg to form the band. Their schedule lives here.

More WCT Faves

2005-10-10T22:34:00.000-04:00

Not all the pictures we took from our west coast trip (WCT...get it?) made it into the blog first time 'round. Here are some more faves.

Graffiti (as you can tell from my other posts) has always fascinated me. The more obscure the better. This one I found outside the "Experience Music Project" in Seattle (yellow highlight was added by me for the visually challenged... :-) ):

Here is a view off the back side of Alcatraz:

This sign is in the BART terminal at the San Francisco airport. I thought the picture was delicious for a variety of reasons...there is so much fun you can have with industrial signage...:

As always, if you click on the image, you'll get a larger version.

If you were confused by my comments about the yellow sign, go here, and you may find your questions answered. Then again...you may not. ;-)

Mowing the lawn with an ATV?!

2005-10-04T14:30:00.000-04:00

Just driving through our neighborhood a few minutes ago, coming home from an appointment. Witnessed something that I could not even believe. A guy had attached his expensive self-propelled, walk-behind lawn mower (you know the kind with three blades and a wide path used by professional services) to the front of his four wheeler. Not a lawn tractor, a four wheel, so-called "All Terrain Vehicle". The kind Ozzy nearly decapitated himself with a coupla years ago. So this guy could sit down while mowing his 1/2 acre of lawn around his million dollar home.

I swear I am not making this up.

Honestly now, what are we coming to?

Tufted Titmouse

2005-10-03T22:51:00.000-04:00

Here is one of my favorite photo series I've ever taken. (I think that's rotten grammar, but I can't figure out the right way to say it at the moment. Hopefully you get the "picture", so to speak.)

This "triptych" takes place at Kensington Metropark in Milford Michigan.

These pictures are separated by a matter of milliseconds. I think that probably all three photos can be fit into 1.5 seconds total. Karen later said that she could barely feel the little Tufted Titmouse, he was so light. She felt his little "talons" gripping one of her fingers...but almost as if there was no weight, just the feeling of his grip. Wow.

Oh, yeah, one other thing: there is birdseed in Karen's cupped hands. You probably figured that out, but just wanted to make sure you understood that birds don't just alight on Karen because she's some kind of latter day Snow White or something. :-)

Traffic Details

2005-10-03T22:45:00.000-04:00

I sent out an email to a whole bunch of people yesterday to let them know I'd been busy blogging. Wouldn't you know, traffic (page views, hits, unique visitors, all that) went through the roof. Maybe my biggest single day ever.

Thing is, I sent that email to mostly work email accounts. On a Sunday.

Which means: you people work too much.

Seriously. Take Sunday OFF. Radical concept I know, but a good idea IMHO.

:-)

The Old Lion

2005-10-02T12:01:00.000-04:00

Woke up this morning to the sounds of our cat gettin' his brawl on...we went looking for him, cueing to the yowls...by the time we found him out in the midst of the "savannah" (read: the old overgrown orchard in our back yard), he was slinking away from the scene of the crime. Not too many minutes later, he appeared on the back doorstep...in the worst state I've ever seen him.

(FYI the following pictures were NOT taken this morning...just wanted to let you have a look at the big fella himself. This is a 17 pound animal we're talking about here. Loves his hunting.)

Nasty gash on the back of his left ear, bleeding from a hole in his right ear, bleeding from a gash in his nose (right in the middle of that white stripe) bleeding from his left rear paw...came onto the back porch, shook his head like a boxer trying to clear his vision and splattered blood all over the tile floor...tufts of fur pulled out from various places on his left side...

He did let us compress his ear, and wipe off some of the blood...ate a few scoops of his favorite kibbles, and then went and curled up under a bed to sleep it off. We're trying to find a bottle of Clavamox to stave off the near certain imminent infection(s).

Reminds me of one of the saddest IMAX presentations I've ever seen. When we were in Victoria BC earlier in the year, we went to see "ROAR: Lions of the Kalahari" (which, my comments here notwithstanding, is a very worthy film to see). The story line revolves around an older lion and his harem who has fought for squatting rights at a water hole in the desert. Over the course of the film, a young lion comes and challenges the old lion for rights to his water and his women. In the beginning, the old lion emerges from their scrapes victorious...but eventually, the young lion perseveres and drives him away, out into the desert to die.

I know it's the way nature works, and I know that Monty is doing what God made him to do, but I do worry about him. He's a good cat, even if he is an attitude with fur most of the time.

The vet says that if his wounds are on his face, ears or front (as opposed to his butt), that means that he was the winner. And I do wonder what condition the other cat is in.

But I still wish that our old lion would learn the ways of peace...somehow.

Say it isn't so...!

2005-09-24T12:03:00.000-04:00

Occasionally you run across something interesting and well-said online.

Click here, read it, and tell me what you think. Comment, discuss, that is.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Favorites

2005-09-20T14:18:00.000-04:00

So, I've been going back through some of the pictures taken earlier in the year. Finding myself pleasantly surprised by how good some of them are (pats self on back), especially given that I was learning a brand new camera.

In Vancouver, there is a steamclock. For all I know, the only one of its kind. It does the "Westminster Chimes" (you've heard this if you've ever heard a grandfather clock chime the hour and quarter hour), but instead of bell tones, it uses a steam whistle, like an old fashioned coal-fired locomotive. At night, it's a pretty cool sight:

I also ran across a few of my "potty humor" shots.

Somebody (same somebody?) in both Vancouver and San Francisco had a similar sense of things regarding their graffiti vibe:

The image below was taken right at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. There was a bunch of construction going on, and these big signs were used for "educational" purposes, as well as to keep the unwashed masses out of the waterfront construction sites. You may have to click on this image to get a bigger one in order to read it properly:

No, it wasn't me, don't even think it.

Weddings

2005-09-16T12:40:00.000-04:00

Man I've been busy.

This past weekend Karen and I were out in California for 5 days on an interview. (5 days ! ) Went well, waiting to hear. Caught a cold either on one of the many flights of the weekend or from that highly sanitized eatery, Jerusalem Garden. So yesterday I was a little sneezy and I could tell my nose was "off"...today it's full blown. >:-( Makes for a grumpy Rich. I don't do sick all that well.

Saturday on the weekend before last, Grace Balmer got married, and I went along with Christine Jones to take photos and learn. Some of them actually came out OK, as you can see below. Nice couple, non-traditional wedding. The wedding music was done by a couple of African guys, one of whom I had seen play at TC's Speakeasy in Ypsilanti. They were phenomenal. Hand drums and something like an African harp. When Grace was "processing" down the aisle, they were singing in their native tongue, and adding her name along with the playing. It was absolutely magical.

Sunday of that same weekend, I shot another wedding, but that will have to wait for another post.

And, THIS weekend, I'm shooting yet another wedding (Karen's cousin) and doing the videography as well. Ought to be an interesting test of our multitasking skills (or lack thereof...)

Here is Grace and her freshly minted groom "recessing":

Groomsmen were all in bare feet. Heh.

Holding hands during their vows:

The "ring shot":

Lovely bridesmaids, lovely dresses, lovely flowers...:

I thought they way they had done the dresses and flowers was phenomenal, striking, pretty, all that. I like this shot:

More to come.........stay tuned.

ee cummings

2005-08-29T15:21:00.000-04:00

Another celebration of summer poem, this one by ee cummings:

Untitled

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of allnothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings, from Xaipe, 1950

Yeats

2005-08-24T12:19:00.000-04:00

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

Go, and get your own "Daily Dig":

http://dailydig.bruderhof.org/

Flora and Fauna around the grounds

2005-08-20T14:45:00.000-04:00

Perhaps my subtitle to this post should be "Rich discovers the macro feature on his long lens". Life is in the details, so here are some things that perhaps you wouldn't ordinarily see...or find interesting.

Let me state for the record: I hate yellow jackets. I know that God made them to have purpose in the world (read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_jacket if you don't believe me), but that doesn't change my general loathing of their hard little yellow and black bodies, not to mention their unfailing, terminally ornery dispositions. Ergh.

However. Look at this and tell me it's not beautiful:

My little sister once made the mistake of taking pity on a wet bumble bee. "Poor bumble! . . . . . . OW! Momeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" She was younger then than she is now, but I'm sure she remembers that Ms. Bumble did not take kindly to being picked up.

This one caught my eye because of the contrast in colors. I have no idea what he/she is, but interesting looking anyways:

OK, maybe I could have left this one out.... Man, thing looks like an alien. I wonder what it will be when it grows up? Anyone know? Suzie my bug-ologist cousin?

We managed to abscond with most of the Asian lillies we had planted in Ann Arbor. Man are these awesome flowers! Powerful visually, powerful olfactorily (is that a word?)

And here endeth the lesson on macro photography. Heheh.

One of the views from the Arbor...see the hummingbird?

Ah, just kidding. There's no hummingbird there. How long did you spend looking? :-)

And here are our Deer Friends. Just like Bambi...or something.

They sure are cute, though.

Hummingbird Wars!

2005-08-18T15:50:00.000-04:00

There is something about hummingbirds.

I can honestly say that until recently I had a couple of "was that a hummingbird?!" experiences under my belt in all the time I have spent out of doors these 35 years.

Well.

My parents sent a hummingbird feeder (probably last Christmas?) which we recently hung out in the arbor on the north side of the house. Actually, we hung it about a month ago, but I think it has taken the hummingbird community that long to come to terms with the bright blue bauble. Not that I can blame them...it doesn't look much like a flower to me either. Well, now they've found it, and it takes them collectively no more than 3 days to drain it. We have become a veritable sugar water factory! Look out Coca Cola...

The arbor at is an idyllic space. It has half a dozen very happily flowering hanging plants, a border of lush, dark green, waist-high Boxwoods, two folding chairs, a small table, a stone bench, a floor of brick and crushed stone, and....a hoary old air conditioning unit sticking up out of the ground. Well, nothing's perfect.

We hung the hummingbird feeder in the arbor and watched for quite some time. Finally, I spent a whole morning in the arbor with my camera and was rewarded for my patience with the delightful company of three of these diminutive creatures. Two males doing battle for this very valuable new territory (thus the title of this post) and a female. My favorite thing that I've discovered in these new companions: the anticipation of their arrival is as much the fun as the enjoyment of their company.

Something about these little birds lifts the spirit (even when they are batting at each other with their wings) and I'll be confounded if I can explain just exactly why.

Here comes the first one to check out the scene. He makes a bee-line for the arbor from a quarter mile away, and your eye is drawn by the flash of speed. At the very end of his approach, as he slows to assess the situation, his wings make a "brrrrrr-rup" sound that you almost feel as much as hear.

As he hovers, he makes hardly any sound at all. Flits around, checks things out from several different angles. Tiny little vocalizations: "chitchit..........chit........chit..........chitchit"

Then, blissful contact:

Once he'd had his first drink, he zoomed off to the neighboring crab apple tree to make sure that all was still safe:

Sorry it's so blurry, but this is using my long lens and magnifying the results quite a bit. I was not using a tripod, and as good as my hands are (ahem) you still get some lens shake at that distance.

These next three images needed some adjustment and also a great deal of magnification. They were originally quite backlit...but I liked the effect so I included them.

Approach...

A little closer...

Contact!

And then, just as soon as they'd come, "brrrrrrrrrrrrroooooo" and they were gone, like little green and brown bullets, dwindling to nothing in the distance.

I hope you enjoyed these as much as I enjoyed taking them.

There's something about hummingbirds...

Smalltown Pennsylvania

2005-08-16T16:15:00.000-04:00

June is always a big month for my family. My little sister was born on June 10th, my grandmother was born on June 9th, she and her husband were married back in 1947 (? I think?) on June 11th. Not to mention that my great-grandmother (my mother's mother's mother) was also born in June. Well, whether or not I have all the dates exactly right, the fact remains that many of my important people have and have had many important events during June.

This particular June, June 2005, my dear grandma Danielson turned 80. Betty June Danielson. Yeah, no kidding. :-) Given that her husband just passed away in February of 2004, that her mother passed away during the fall of 2003 ( ! ) at the age of 106, it seemed fitting that the family have a great big bash to celebrate her landmark birthday. As my mother said to her cousins, "we've only seen each other at funerals lately. Why don't you all come over for Mom's birthday?"

Thus, the third week of June found Karen and myself in our trusty Honda CRV, tooling along the long road that is Interstate 80 to make 600 miles between Milford and Mendham go away. This time, however, we decided that we'd make a few forays into rural Pennsylvania along the way. As a matter of fact, most of PA both going and coming back was on little two lane highways. Having done my stint at college here at The University of Michigan Ann Arbor, I got well acquainted with doing the back and forth commute along Route 80. So well acquainted, in fact, that I would be just as happy to never drive its wide bitumen again.

Sadly, our overwhelming impression of PA during this time was of grand cities and lovely little well appointed towns whose industry had left them gathering dust, rust and the grime of history.

Grand old rail stations, steel mills, hotels, oil fields........and vacant main streets. I found myself not envying the governor of Pennsylvania. In the beginning, we were intrigued by the images and quaint feeling of the towns. For my part, one of my favorite photographic subjects is industrial decay of just about any description. By the end, however, it seemed that all the small towns were blurring together. Not to mention the highly suspicious townsfolk giving us the "stranger" look at every opportunity.

Didn't anybody tell the guy(s) who planned the roads in the Allegheny Mountains that 666 is the number of the beast? Gee whiz........

Logging is an industry that is very much alive along Route 666.

I don't know if you can make out the sign in front of this trailer...slightly left of center in this photo...it says "Ma and Pa's Hid-a-way". Out in the middle of nowhere on Route 666.

We actually spent a fair amount of time in this "slightly larger" small town. There was lots of rail related decay to photograph, and a large municipal/school-like building that looked like it had been blown up. It wasn't until last week's Newsweek came out with the article about Methamphetamine that I finally put the puzzle pieces together: we were driving through "Meth Valley" at this point. No wonder everyone looks jobless, homeless and desperate!

The good news is that often you'll find yourself coming around a curve in the road to find a fantastic pastoral vista like this one. I know the resolution isn't that great, but can you make out the sunlight dappling the land near the farm buildings? Pretty cool.

Right, so Pennsylvania has its own Grand Canyon. Somewhat different effect than the better known and more visited version in the US southwest, but there you have it. We actually camped for the first time as a couple at the national park here, and it was quite nice. Next time you see Karen, ask her about sleeping with the Black Bears!

This is sunset at the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon.

Same vantage point, but early in the morning, after camping.

On the path down to the river at the floor of the canyon...same sunrise.

Coming back up the path. It's a bit dark, but you can see the path we were on at the bottom of the above picture.

I love this - it's like the heavens parted and displayed The Answer for us. Ah, if only.

And I'll leave you with this thought. Yes, Virginia, they do have tornados in Pennsylvania! Do they ever. This used to be an old trestle bridge for a leg of rail that is no longer in use. Well, obviously, now, after this....but it was a National Park before the twister came through and took out hundreds of acres of forest, along with this lovely old bridge.

Stay tuned, there is more to come!

Published!

2005-07-29T23:25:00.000-04:00

I am excited to report that my first articles and photographs are being published by one of the local newspapers!!

Hooray! I am now a "professional journalist"!

Now, if I could only figure out a way to make a living at it.............

Apology to Ann Arbor

2005-07-29T23:15:00.000-04:00

I suppose perhaps I've become an Ann Arbor liberal. Which admission may, in some circles, be akin to coming out of the closet if you're gay. This evening, after a lovely walk in Nichols Arboretum, Karen and I went to eat our supper at Noodles & Co. on State Street. We decided in a moment of sheer folly to tempt the weather by eating our noodle dishes out on the available streetside dining. This was a nice idea for all of about 30 seconds.

The Baptists with Bullhorns had set up camp *directly* across the street and started gettin' their collective freak on. Which is really something to see for a bunch of overweight, overdressed, mostly past middle age pasty white guys.

The Baptists with Bullhorns began gettin' their freak on with a nice set of lovely hymns, which to their great credit, were very nicely sung.

While they sang, they had some clearly bewildered, sure to be scarred for life pre-teen boy anchoring a giant sign with various and sundry accusations plastered thereon. Once the hymns were done, there were a few moments of relative silence, punctuated by various forms of traffic and other street noise, during which I allowed myself the fantasy that perhaps that would be the end of things, and they would kindly pack up their freak and get the freak out of Ann Arbor.

However, such was not to be our lot this night.

I had allowed myself to become so absorbed in my fantasy that the squeal of a poorly handled bullhorn shocked me out of my reverie, which had been for a few precious moments, delight in my Thai Noodle Soup and the visage of my lovely wife.

As it happens, Daddy (or one of Daddy's friends) had climbed up onto a planter and begun to ready himself for really gettin' down with his freak.

Please don't get me wrong. I actually think that there is probably a time and a place and a proper attitude for street preaching. Call me crazy, that's ok. These fellers, however, had missed the mark on all counts.

Humility? Absent.
Kindness? Absent.
Evidence of love and care? Absent.
All manner of unjust Accusations? Present. Oh boy, were they ever present.

Now wait a moment. Don't we already have an accuser in the enemy of our souls? Isn't the point of preaching to try and reach out to those who need the love of God? It seemed to me that these men were more about being able to boast to their religious friends how they were "really livin' the gospel, brother", 'cuz they were out in the trenches, preachin' on the street in that haven for sinners, Ann Arbor. You know, that town full of filthy liberals, licentious behavior and sodomites!

For heaven's sake, the man said that the people down in the cancer ward in the UM hospital were there because of the sin of smoking. (!) Gee whiz man!

He really got whipped up into a frenzy when a couple of gay guys started making out in front of him. He bellowed in his anger and self-righteous apoplectic rage, "God does NOT accept you as YOU are!" Now he's really got some stories to tell about being down in the trenches, fightin' the good fight, dontcha know.

It's a wonder I was able to keep my supper down, I was so upset. I wanted to go up to the man, rip off his bullhorn and throw it onto the roof of Michigan Book and Supply. I wanted to whisper in his ear, "do you have ANY IDEA how much damage you and your little friends are doing to the image of Christ and Christians in this town? Do you know how long we've worked here, tilled this earth, forged complex relationships, done practical acts of kindness in love here? And you want to come in here, preaching your peculiar brand of unBiblical hate so you can have stories to tell your friends? Because, buddy, you are winning no converts here tonight." But I did not do that. Or any of the other multitude of aggressions that came into my head during that time. Perhaps that's cowardice on my part. Perhaps, if I am gracious with myself, it was turning the other cheek, as Jesus would have wanted.

So.

From those of us in Christ who are of like mind, to you in Ann Arbor who have been subjected to this, I apologize. Perhaps by some miracle of God's love you will be able to see beyond the hate and anger to the real Jesus, who is always there to love and accept you just as you are.

Our Father in heaven, holy is your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread,
And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us,
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,
For yours is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Sproing !

2005-04-29T12:26:00.000-04:00

Right, so remember on my last post I was telling my inner pessimist to shut up? About it snowing again? After that lovely string of 70 & 80 degree days we had? Frickin' Michigan. I swear. Doggone it if he wasn't right!

So, before the 8 inches of snow we got last weekend, I went out into Kensington Metropark and shot some photos of what is easily my favorite time of year. When the trees just start to green up......you look into a stand of trees, and there's a lovely green haze...you can't really see the leaves, but the buds are giving the forest world a light, bright green twinge. Very very nice.

Oh, and I'm making the images a bit smaller now. Hope you can still make them out enough to be interesting. Please do let me know what you think.

My favorite bird:

Love these tiny white flowers:

Check 'im out - talk about sticking out like a sore thumb on the forest floor in spring - it's a wonder he didn't get eaten already....

Now this is better camouflage. Little bitty garter snake, playing hide and seek:

I love Kensington. I should make a bumper sticker. Then, on second thought....perhaps that's an impulse best resisted. Heh.

Check it out: God's own artwork:

My second favorite bird, the Redwing Blackbird. What a beautiful little creature! (Jeff Corwin, you ain't got *nothin* on me!) There is a boardwalk in Kensington right on Wildwing Lake where you can watch a whole bunch of these guys building nests and doing "spring bird things" if you catch my meaning.

Lovely.

The missus, sitting:

Clinging:

Preening:

On that same body of water, swans are everywhere. Here's one getting his ungainly weight airborne:

Two for the price of one:

Mrs. Swan, nesting! How cool! (Geez I'm such a geek....)

Back at "the ranch", enjoying that day's sunset over our front field:

Life is good. We are very, very, blessed.

City of Angels Pictures

2005-04-13T13:50:00.000-04:00

Hey yo -

Well, so finally I'm getting around to the very last leg of our west coast trip. Oh, and just to reiterate, for those who have not been paying attention, we're back home now. No longer out west. Yep, just makin' sure ya got it, we're back in MI. Back here, in the lovely, spring-ifying Mid West. (Hope "springs" eternal....there is a black pessimist inside that says "hey man, this is MI......it could definitely still snow again....")

I'm telling him to shut the hell up and get sweet. The pessimist that is.

So, here we are, back in LA. There is a museum in LA that was built using money from the will of J. Paul Getty. It's called The Getty. Imagine that. Eponymous. Hee. the museum is an absolute must-see if you end up in LA for more than one or two days. It is an astounding edifice. Karen, Bill and me went there one evening, and spent the first hour or so just checking out the landscape and surroundings. Wow.

Here's a view of LA from the hill on which the Getty is built.

Just north of LA is a pretty town called Malibu. One day, we took a drive-around, and found this little gull posing for us:

Right to my right as I was looking at Mr. Gull was this great rock in the surf. After a few less than successful shots, I got it!

One of our first nights in LA, our friend Bill took us around to a well-known mall called "The Grove". Cuz it never rains in LA (or hardly ever), they had made this an outdoor mall. Guess what it was doing the night we were there? :-/

That fountain was really pretty cool. They were playing Frank Sinatra and other Ratpack tunes and it would make its patterns to the music. No kidding. :-)

Karen, imitating Jackie O at the Grove:

Later in our week there, we went driving down south of LA proper to Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and other "________ Beach" places whose names I cannot remember at the moment. Whilst we were down there, we found another waterfowl who wanted to pose for us:

We stopped for lunch at an indoor market in a very, very snooty part of Palos Verdes. Being the end of the trip, I was getting concerned about how much money we were going to drop at this joint, but not to fear. It was remarkably affordable. And, the service was nice! How cool. Anyways, out front, there was a fountain depicting the ancient god Neptune:

And his, er, consorts...

Nice choice for fountain placement, that...

Here's Palos Verdes. Man, what a lovely day that was, and what a fantastic place to be rich and shameless!

There were opportunities to make like a billy goat and climb down the sheer face of the cliff to the ocean below. I went a little ways until the path petered out...man, talk about adrenaline rush. I thought I was goin' over for sure. On the way back up, Bill found me pulling a "Governator":

Bill's camera was pretty cool. It has this feature that allows you to take multiple pictures of a panorama, line them up, and "voila", instant panorama:

And he paid way less for his than I did for mine... :-(

Another panorama here, this time of Redondo Beach on our way back up the coast to LA proper:

There ya have it, the completion of our trip...from Vancouver BC by car up to Whistler and back to Vancouver, then by bus and ferry to Victoria, by ferry to Seattle, by ferry to Vashon Island, by car to Thorp WA, by car back to Seattle, by car down to San Francisco, by car down to LA, some 1400 odd miles.

Along the way we met some great people. Friends new and old, family, even complete strangers took care of us in many ways. We are so fortunate...a friendly film maker by "accident" in Vancouver, Andy Park in Langley BC, Bill and Katie Burr, Melissa Burr and her fiance Nate, Terry Butler, the most encouraging-est guy on the planet, Bill Ranta, Richard and Shelley and their cute kids, Ron Burr, Brad Bailey, Dan Davis Jr., and on the list goes.

You know, finally, after all this time, my brain is just starting to clear. The trip was a good first step away from "life as usual" and the move also had to happen of course...but it has been a long strange trip for the past six years, in many of the different senses in which you can take that phrase.

I think it's possible that things are finally coming together. Let's hope so anyway.

May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
And rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

Obituary

2005-04-04T13:52:00.000-04:00

Here is a great article on Pope John Paul II:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0504030319apr03,1,3411133.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Requires annoying registration, but worth it.

Hope you enjoy it.

Wilco plays Austin City Limits

2005-04-02T20:24:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been getting into Wilco. It started out innocently enough with me reading the story of how they "got screwed by 'the man'" when their record label (at that time) dropped them when they turned in their second to most recent album, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot". That story (recounted in the book "Learning How To Die") set off a flurry of used-and-new record buying on my part. (Being There, Summerteeth, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and even a record by a former bandmate: Son Volt's debut, called Trace.) Last night I got a chance to see them play live at Austin City Limits, which is a club in Austin TX. Unfortunately they were opening for a much less interesting group of songwriters, so they only played four or five songs. Very interesting performers. Talented, musical, tight, and not a one of them a plastic-pop manufactured star.

These guys are probably not for everyone, but if you're into checking out music that's a little off the beaten path, and you don't mind old-school country-style musical influences...

(but thankfully not the pathetic "my wife left me for another man and shot the dog on her way out past the fourteen dead cars in our front lawn" kind of country)

...you ought to check them out.

Oh, and their lead singer, Jeff Tweedy, gives both Keith Richards and Iggy Pop a run for their money for the "ugliest man in rock and roll" title. :-) No offense, Jeff. You rock, man!

Big Sur

2005-04-02T17:45:00.000-05:00

So, where were we?

Oh yeah - we left San Francisco (an eternity ago) on February 8th. We poked our way down the Pacific Coast Highway for a couple of days in a rental convertible (wah hoo!) and stopped for the night about one third of the way to LA in Monterey. Had we known then what we know now, we probably would have spent more time there than we did in SF. The Monterey area is absolutely stunning. Not to mention that just south of there is Carmel by the Sea, which is home to an old Catholic mission and also, oddly enough, the place where Clint Eastwood was mayor for a time. No joke.

Here's a picture of our convertible parked on a cliff near Big Sur.

Big Sur is an area along the CA coast that has some of the most georgeous scenery I've ever seen. And, thankfully, a National Park. We loved it. It was one twisty turney, hair-raising hairpin turn after another. (Which Karen with her vertigo issues just loved...)

I found this next area by accident. We were driving by one more amazing vista, when I noticed this huge rock sticking up out of the ocean. I stopped the car, got out and started picking my way down the cliff to the sand below. I'm so glad that I did. This first picture is pretty much my vantage point from the road I think:

Here's one of that Big Rock from sea level:

This is more or less what the whole coast is like. I don't want to sound jaded, because it's fantastic...it's just that you get a little overwhelmed by it after a while. I musta said "wow" more times than a valley girl from the 80s during this part of the trip...

There was this one time (this ranks as one of the coolest things that happened on our trip) while we were driving along that we saw (what we believe to be) a red-tailed hawk coasting along a thermal right over our heads. He was so close that we might have missed him altogether had we not had the convertible top down. Since I was driving, I did not get any still photos, but thankfully Karen was able to get some digital video of this amazing creature. It followed us (or we followed it) about 15 feet above our heads for probably 10 or 15 minutes of driving. We almost crashed about 10 or 15 times because I was more interested in the hawk than the road...c'est la vie.

This bridge is famous for some reason we read about in our guide book. I cannot remember why at the moment...

So, we're driving along, and we come upon a bay with some sacked out seals. We stopped to have a look because we didn't know that we would find a "seal refuge" a little bit further on. So, I'm wrestling with my long lens, and I can't get anything to look right. Pouting, we drive on a little ways, and then we see signs for a scenic area of some description. Getting out of the car, this little guy greets us, almost like...may I park your car for you? Oh, no, wait, that was LA. Actually what he was after was a handout I think:

Right in front of our car, there were a couple of these great big slickly furry shapes lying prostrate in the sand. None of them were moving, and Karen and I thought for sure that meant they were dead. Made us very sad for a moment, but then we kept on a little further. Turns out these guys were just sunning themselves, and just pretty much...look dead when they are sleeping. This next scene is pretty rough to take if you think that the sleeping are actually dead:

Turns out they are Elephant Seals. And while they are cute "in their own way" (especially the babies), they sure are funny looking:

I think this is a little further back up the PCH, but check out this sunset!

And, finally, I thought this was a cool shot too:

Next stop, LA!

Karol Wojtyla

2005-04-02T17:27:00.000-05:00

For those of you who have been sleeping, the father of the Catholic church passed away today. This makes me sad, because even though I am not a Catholic, I have great respect for this Pope. He was an international traveller, a peacemaker, passionate about young people of all races and creeds, and from all accounts, he was truly a kind and Christ-like man. Things you might be forgiven for hoping to find in the character of a Pope.

May his soul rest in peace.

For more on this most interesting of modern men, please have a look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II

Also - if you like to get smart in a hurry, you should bookmark wikipedia. It's a very cool resource. :-)

San Francisco

2005-03-26T11:57:00.000-05:00

On or about February 8th, Karen and I left San Francisco feeling slightly had. As I mentioned before, we had scheduled nearly a full week of our trip there, but we found it to be so expensive and angry that we cut our stay short in favor of taking off down the coast for Big Sur, Monterey and LA.

However, in fairness to SF, I need to observe that we did enjoy some things about our time there...

(there is a little Italian restaurant called L'Osteria del Forno that is absolutely fantastic, affordable, great service...truly a highlight)...

(our hotel, The Hotel San Remo, was extremely affordable, friendly and helpful service, beautifully appointed shared bathrooms, lots of European travelers...truly we cannot recommend this lovely place highly enough)...

(the Maritime Museum was a fantastic buy and allowed admission to restored antique sailing vessels)...

(Alcatraz was expensive but ultimately worth the price for the experience)...

...and there were others. Driving was not as bad as we were warned about. Perhaps having grown up within 40 minutes of Manhattan has seasoned me to compare all traffic "problems" with the Tri-State area. No matter how bad people say a given city's driving is, nothing ever does compare to the snarls of traffic I cut my teeth on.

The crookedest street in the world was definitely worth seeing:

I mean, honestly. What. Is. The. Point?!

The weather we had while we were there was unusually mild, and as you can see from our pictures, we were fortunate (especially for the winter) to have had lots of blue skies.

We saw lots of evidence that people were quite aggravated....nay, right pissed off about the re-election of Dubya.

While at the Maritime Museum, this sign caught my eye...thought it was quite a hilarious commentary on the differences between centuries ago America and today:

The docents at the Maritime Musuem were great. I talked to this guy for probably 45 minutes about this little turn of the last century marine motor - I want to say it was 5 horsepower, extremely slow revolutions, and surprisingly quiet - this particular specimen was employed up until the last few years in a large fishing trawler. Hit or miss engines are pretty much the first generation of internal combustion engines, and in my childhood I had the pleasure of restoring an old hit or miss washing machine motor. I still have it, believe it or not. Made for a fun conversation with this guy. He actually did this little dance when he would start the motor up. It was quite cute. :-)

We found San Francisco to be quite dirty and home to much more graffiti than the other cities we'd seen to date on this trip. However, some of the graffiti in the city revealed that there was still a sense of humor (at least among the graffiti "artists")...read this carefully:

There is a Sea Lion gathering place at Fisherman's Wharf. It's quite a tourist attraction as you might imagine...

They are a stitch to watch. Most of the sea lions here are males, and they spend their time trying to out-bark each other and push each other around to establish their dominance in the pecking order for the few females that are, er, "available":

We did end up taking the San Francisco Trolley from the waterfront partway to its final destination. When it broke down, we got off and started walking. Turns out we were able to at least keep abreast of its progress, and I think that we ended up beating it to its final destination.

Anyways, one of the good things about taking our aborted trolley ride was that we found these guys on our way to Chinatown.

By the way, if you go there, I think both Karen and I would agree: don't bother with the "famous" San Fran trolleys. They are overpriced, especially when compared with other modes of public transit readily available. They are slow. They are rickety. They go only from one place to one other place. And, you can get better pictures of them if you are NOT riding them. All great arguments for taking a pass on this "most San Franciscan" of San Francisco tourist traps.

Near the crookedest street, we found some interesting murals...

So, here endeth our tour of San Francisco. :-)

The Rock

2005-03-22T15:10:00.000-05:00

And no, I'm not referring to a certain pro-wrestler-turned-movie-star by the name of Dwayne who plays a gay Samoan bodyguard in his latest outing in a poor sequel to one of the most brilliantly funny movies of the 1990s.

No, I'm talking about the first super prison built by our federal government. The site of one of the (mostly forgotten) Native American protests of the 1970s. The prison that was built to contain the worst of the worst: that is, if you pissed off the feds bad enough to land in a maximum security federal pen, and THEN you further dignified yourself by exasperating your warden there, Alcatraz is the place to which you would be sent.

After winding our way down from Seattle through Oregon and down the coast of northern California on the PCH, we ended up in San Francisco. Now, I've already expressed my displeasure with the denizens of that fine city in some of my earlier posts....but the fact is that there were definitely some good experiences to be had there.

One of those good experiences was at this fine example of our National Park system.

Here is a view of The Rock from Coit Tower (Coit Tower is on mainland SF):

You'll notice that Alcatraz is surrounded by the water of the San Francisco Bay. This sea water maintains a year round chilly 50 degrees F. We learned from our park ranger about the 50/50/50 rule: there is a 50 percent chance that you will survive for 50 minutes in 50 degree water. Thus the nearly perfect escape record of this prison.

This fact, oddly enough, does not stop otherwise perfectly normal San Franciscans from swimming in the Bay on a daily basis...brrrrrr.

On the ferry out to the island, you're treated to some great approach views:

Upon your arrival, you're greeted by this sign, and graffiti thankfully retained by the park service:

Then, you walk up the hill to the entrance:

When you reach the cell block area, there is a large patio area. When you walk to the city side of the island, you see why the Golden Gate Bridge (the superstructure of which is painted red, for the record) is so named:

Then, if you look to the left of the Golden Gate Bridge, you see one of the reasons people fall in love with San Francisco:

Then, as we made our way into the self-guided tour of the cell block, we were made aware of a whole host of reasons to steer clear of entanglements with the law:

Yep. I'm standing inside one of the solitary confinement cells. Creepy.

Here's a shot of some of the other buildings of the compound:

So there ya have it, my tour of Alcatraz.

Redwoods, at long last

2005-03-18T19:13:00.000-05:00

OK, so here we go with the story of northern California's redwood forests. Remember that Karen and I are home now...these were taken back at the beginning of February... :-)

When you first drive through these hoary old forests, you start to understand where the imagery for JRR Tolkein's Mirkwood forest comes from. Even though, as far as I know, the man never set foot in northern CA, this place or one like it surely served as the inspiration for those stories. There is an ancient-ness here that defies description. Taking a step off the paved road of civilization, silence descends...sunlight streams through gaps in the dense cover of needles, and a sense of awe comes over me just as profound as standing at the summit of a Wasatch Mountain, or the Pacific coast.

You should know that even though I plan to show you some pictures, they truly cannot capture the majesty and scale of these wonderful forests. Anyways. Have a look:

I took this one standing *inside* the trunk of one of these monsters:

Here it is from the outside:

And a somewhat blurry shot of Karen standing inside this old man's trunk - for the sake of attempting to describe scale:

And here, look! It's the performance art of the litterati!

More to come...

Los Angeles

2005-03-12T19:54:00.000-05:00

There has been some curiousity expressed regarding the job opportunity I was pursuing in Los Angeles. For a variety of reasons which I won't bore you with, they have elected not to move forward with hiring me for that position.

I keep telling myself that my dear higher power is saving me from potentially difficult situations for something better. I do continue to hope that this is the case.

In the meanwhile, if you're "the praying kind" please send out a prayer for us. We want to take advantage of our blessed break from the rat race...but also be mindful of opportunities to move into whatever is next on the agenda for us.

Peace -

Homeless

2005-03-12T18:13:00.000-05:00

Well, the truth is that we have a better deal than any homeless person I've ever met (and yes, there have been several). While we no longer own our own house, there are a number of upsides. We have our wits yet (most of them anyway), neither of us has any degenerative disease, family and friends love us (most of the time) and we're currently squatting (we're calling it "house-sitting") in a house that is larger than ours was. It's half an hour north of Ann Arbor in a little town called Milford. Karen grew up in this house. Which is weird for her in its own right.

There is a hot tub.

There is a (real woodburning) fireplace.

We have essentially no expenses.

We got a big check at the end of the selling ordeal. Well, in truth, the check was normal "check-size". But there were more letters and numbers strung together on the "amount" line than I'm accustomed to.

This is what we call "counting our blessings". :-)

I'll be back soon with more pictures. I will be resuming our travelogue when I can get to a place that allows me to access broadband. :-)

Best Laid Plans

2005-02-25T22:54:00.000-05:00

Right, so I planned to continue my blog two days ago? Argh. I promised redwoods, and I will deliver...just not tonight. Wanted to let you know that I'm jetting off to LA for a second round of interviews this weekend. Back on the Tuesday night redeye that gets in butt-frickin' early on Wednesday morning...I think it's like 5:48am or some craziness.

So, if you're interested in this place I'll be interviewing, it's called Vineyard Christian Fellowship Westside. You can find their website here:

http://www.vcfwestside.org/

The position is a bit of a departure from what I've been looking at lately. They are in need of a business manager to run the office, coffee shop and take care of their campus of three buildings.

We felt that the first interviews went really well, and they are in a pretty big hurry to get "the right person" in place. Finding that person has been a pretty serious headache for them - so they're looking at me (and I'm looking at them) very carefully.

Will let y'all know how it goes.

Wow it's late...

2005-02-22T00:32:00.000-05:00

allofasudden it's a new day.

And, it's my birthday. Happy birthday to me! :-)

The Pacific Coast Highway...

2005-02-21T23:50:00.000-05:00

...and Oregon...and stuff.

OK, so yesterday we were leaving Seattle (Sheryl Crow's Leaving Las Vegas has been going through my head for like a week. Pray for me...)...and now today, we've finally left. We drove part of the night down I 5, through Portland until we reached Eugene Oregon. Most of this through pea-soup fog. We stopped for the night at a Motel 6 (don't laugh, they're cheap and clean...) just outside of Eugene. Get this: that night, trying to find what the weather's gonna do to us the next day, come to find out that nobody knows. I mean, these people get The Weather Channel (I mean, look at that name. Aren't they supposed to KNOW?), but there is no actual weather. Right, what I mean is that all you get is an extremely general forcast for the entire west coast up there. Completely not helpful. At all.

So anyways, next morning we get up and it's still foggy. You can't see your hand in front of your face. So we get in our gas guzzler anyway, and poke off toward Grant's Pass. This is where we'll pick up I 199 toward the coast of California. The fog stays with us for much of the way, up mountains, down mountains and so on. Finally, a bit before Grant's Pass the fog lifts, and the drive actually gets interesting.

Twisty turn-ey two lane road through the mountains, we see pine trees, smell the fresh air, and darn. Life is good.

Finally in early afternoon, we have a sighting: "Pacific HO!!"

I'm so excited I can hardly stand it.

So, we're blasting along these twisty turneys and on occasion we come accross little establishments. Out in the middle of nowhere:

It was time for a late lunch, and wouldn't know know it - closed on Tuesdays during the off season. Argh.

But, behind the lodge, there was something that almost made up for it. Georgeous clear, cold creek:

POW. Really brings out the conservationist in me.

Karen by the creek:

Me, looking serious:

It's just an act. I'm not really that tough. :-)

A little path beyond this, down along the creek, and some interesting trees...their bark was like velvet. Very cool:

Not too much further down the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) and we get to see some of our old friends up close and personal this time. Maybe you remember that Uncle Bill showed us some wild elk while we were visiting them in Thorp, WA? Where we were like half a mile a way and they looked like little elk dots even with my long lens?

Well these guys were hanging out just off the PCH...there was a sign just before the turnoff saying something like "Elk Viewing Area". No fence, no long distance...just...elk. Hee.

Nice Rack!

Awwwwww, babies...

Tomorrow...on to the redwoods. Now THAT, my friends, is something worth waiting for.

Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

2005-02-20T21:51:00.000-05:00

Ok, ok, ok. I'm sorry it's been so long. I'm going back now and putting in pictures for the days that I missed, starting with Seattle.

So, day one in Seattle...we had spend the night with Nate and Melissa on Vashon Island in the Puget Sound, and here's a picture of them at the Pike Street Market.

The Pike Street Market is a cute, but overpriced indoor market whose merchants are famous for throwing fish around during busy times. We did not get to see any airborne fish, but we did think it was interesting that most (4 floors) of the market are underground. Thankfully, all the fish were above ground...(whew)...

That afternoon we went to lunch at the Owl and Thistle, which is a very nice little Irish Pub in downtown Seattle. Karen found this in the ladies' room:

You see, Kurt didn't actually blow his brains out with a shotgun. He's alive and well, and plays poker at high stakes Texas Holdem games with Elvis and Jim Morrison on Vashon Island, and in his spare time, he scrawls graffiti in women's restrooms. Elvis and Jim are gettin' kinda old and saggy by now, but they can kick the crap outta ol' Kurt at poker. The good news for Kurt is that Vashon Island is the west coast's premier supplier of ganja, so he can get a pretty serious bake on when he loses.

And you thought I was gonna supply a picture to prove it. Heh.

Well, you may recall that Karen and I spent some time with her uncle Bill out in Thorp (http://3rp.blogspot.com/2005/01/thorp.html). Well, on the way back to Seattle from Thorp, we stopped off in a little town called Snoqualmie. There are two cool things about Snoqualmie: they have a really cool waterfall and one of the more sad things I've seen on this trip: a steam locomotive graveyard.

So, here are some pics of the falls:

Now, that may not look like much, but let me give you a little flavor for the scale of this thing. Here's the bottom of the falls:

And, here, check it out - a coupla guys fishin' off to the right there:

Ok, so it's not Niagara, but it's still pretty cool.

Now, on to the boneyard. I know it probably makes me a sentimental fool, but I found this to be profoundly sad. Maybe it's just that we're in the age of fast food, corporate whores and other prostitutes, I don't know. I guess I kind of mourn for the days of slow food and enjoying life...and somehow steam trains are evocative of that for me. Well, here's the scene:

It's like the engineers just drove 'em up here, stepped off and walked away. Just kinda weird.

I thought this was interesting:

Hooray for Michigan. Or something like that... :-)

I like this picture of Bill and Andrew walking down the tracks:

Right after this, we went to a local fast food (*sigh*) place called Taco Time to meet an old college buddy of mine who works at Microsoft in Redmond. We had a nice chat - turns out he's on his way to a vacation in New Zealand, and yes, he's going to do the Lord of the Rings tour - and he takes me for a ride in his Porsche 911 Carrera. Nice. White. (I gave him crap for driving around a large kitchen appliance...) Fast. And sticky.

Later that afternoon, Uncle Bill and Cousins Andrew and Melissa went with us on a tour of "underground Seattle", or what's left of it. Apparently, Seattle was originally built on tidal flats, and what's now street level was originally floor two of the older buildings. It was pretty interesting, actually.

Here's a shot of one of the skylights they built in the current sidewalk so that you could still see underground:

And here's a look at it from above ground:

That night, Karen and I spent the night with Nate and Melissa on Vashon again, and the next morning we went off to collect our rental car for the next leg of our journey. First thing we did was come back into Seattle from the airport and check out the Seattle Space Needle, and the Experience Music Project.

The Space Needle affords beautiful vistas of the city and surroundings:

And the EMP (Experience Music Project) was like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, but with studios that allowed you to play various instruments along with tracks. It was kinda cool. They also had Bob Dylan and Jimmy Hendrix exhibits, but didn't allow any pics. :-(

Well, children, I think that may be all for tonight. Stay tuned...

City of Angels

2005-02-11T13:57:00.000-05:00

Sorry, still no pics... :-(

Maybe I'll be able to do something about that soon. I have SO many cool ones to show you from our trip down the CA coast. By the way - if you ever get the chance to do that drive down the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to LA, DO IT. The scenery rivals anything I've seen in Hawaii - it's reminiscent of the "Road to Hana" on Maui. Big Sur is fantastic. Carmel By the Sea is a georgeous little town of which Clint Eastwood used to be mayor.

So, now we're in LA, which I'm enjoying and Karen is not. Heh. Weather's been the best we've had the whole trip. High 60s, low 70s and sunny...hooray! :-) We're staying at our friend Bill Ranta's little efficiency apartment, which is two blocks from the church where he's working. Rents out here are insane...he's paying $600/mo for this place (which he claims is a great deal) and it's tiny, tiny, tiny. It's about the size of the front room in our house in Ann Arbor, with a bathroom attached. There is no kitchen. ( ! ) I've got an interview for a job here at this church at 3pm this afternoon...that will be interesting...more on that later.

Allright, gotta go grab some lunch...I'll type at y'all soon...

City of Anger

2005-02-05T21:21:00.000-05:00

Today, I'm sorry to report that I fell out of love with San Francisco. There is an angry vibe in this town that rivals Manhattan of the pre-Giuliani years. We came here expecting and hoping to enjoy ourselves - we have both heard enough good things about SF to start believing that it's a veritable Shangri-la. Perhaps our expectations were too high? Perhaps we haven't given it enough of a chance? Hard to tell.

Things started off well - we drove in, had a good time driving around the city - the hotel we reserved far exceeded our expectations (it's sweet, quaint, staffed by kind and helpful people, fastidiously clean, perfectly located and wonder of wonders: affordable) - so it's not the bad accomodations. Our dining experiences have been fantastic when we've elected to actually spend money - so it's not bad food. The city is picturesque in its own way, but not nearly the paradise that the promo literature would have you believe.

Sadly, I think it comes down to the people.

It's not uncommon to be walking down the street and hear a cel conversation that goes something like this: "How dare you speak to me like that?!"

The children that you do see are atrociously behaved.

Drivers in this city are worse, if anything, than advertised. And that's saying something. The Lonely Planet we bought says that we should take the time to do some Zen preparations before venturing out to drive in SF (this is not a joke). That doesn't help you when you go out to walk, though - you really have to watch yourself to not get run over. And then you're just as likely to get flipped off and cussed out for being in the right in a crosswalk...

There is a level of anger boiling here that defies simple description. Perhaps it has something to do with GWB getting a second term. Perhaps it has something to do with the gay marriage amendments getting soundly trounced. I've been trying to get my arms around this since I've been here, and I wonder if it has something to do with privelege.

Karen and I were walking around in a farmers' market this morning in a well-traveled part of the city. The way people look at you and treat you is remarkable - several times I thought that I had become doggie doo that someone had stepped into - other times I've been run into by pedestrians - not even so much as a rueful or apologetic look - nothing even approaching an apology. When I thank someone for service in a restaurant, or just for answering a question, they pretty much haven't a clue what to do with my courtesy.

What's happening here?

As I was walking around this market this morning, I remember seeing perfectly coifed men and women, wearing beautiful clothes - the men are perfectly moisturized, the women are perfectly made-up........and I remember thinking that there is probably more money walking around on the faces of these people in this market than some third-world countries have for their entire monthly GDP.

There is a curious impotence that comes to rich liberals. It's a combination of being able to see the problems (of which there are admittedly many) of the world we live in, but not having anything approaching a coherent strategy or set of answers to answer the rampaging Republicans. So, there is no plan, and there is no willingness to lift a finger to address the issues. I want more social programs from the government, but I don't want to pay more taxes. I want better environmental responsibility, but I'm not willing to get rid of my Lexus SUV for something more efficient....

This was my primary critique of the John Kerry run for the Presidency. It's not enough to proclaim "anyone but Bush". While we may agree with the sentiment, there needs to be an alternative that captures the hearts and minds of voting men and women in America. It's "the vision thing". Sadly, oddly, GWB has it (as Bill Clinton did before him) and John F Kerry did/does not.

But back to SF. We took the "F Line" up to the "Castro district" today. The "F Line" is the line of restored trolley cars that runs from the Fisherman's Wharf up Market Street. "Castro" is the gay district here in SF. It's no exaggeration to say that it's the epicenter of gay activism in America. Both Karen and I expected an experience kind of like South Beach in Miami FL - that is, happy gay folk celebrating their gay-ness. What we actually saw was a great deal of commentary on gay porn (in shops, magazines, news rags, cinemas, etc.), and gay folk holding hands. We did NOT feel safe, I'm sad to report.

I know, by now you're probably pissed at me, saying that I haven't given the place enough time to grow on me. Maybe you're right. But I can tell you this: I've been to a lot of cities in my life, both here in the states and in Europe and Asia. I've not felt this unsafe in a place since my early teen trips to Manhattan in the early to mid 1980s.

We've still got a couple of days here. Perhaps things will change.

Never thought I'd say...

2005-02-05T00:36:00.000-05:00

Grrr...San Francisco.

This city is truly a great place in many many ways. However, in terms of internet cafes, Vancouver has it beat hands down. I'm currently paying $7 USD for an hour of internet time and can't even upload pictures. It's this way all over the city as far as I can tell...whereas in Vancouver, I could pay $2 CAD for an hour. And then, in Victoria (capital of BC...still in Canada...on Vancouver Island...) it was like $6 CAD per hour, but I could still use the USB ports on their PCs for uploading pictures. *sigh* Well, so I get more and more incentive to buy a laptop for my next trip. :-) Heh.

So, you gets to reads my ramblings instead of checks out me pics. Sorry. :-)

I'm in this ice cream/crepe store that also has a coupla internet terminals. And the guy who runs the place (great big swarthy fella of "meditteranean descent" I think) seems to really like Elvis. Which isn't the end of the world, except for the fact that he insists on singing along at top volume. Oy. Vey.

BTW, this is at LEAST the third time in the last 40 minutes that I've heard "It's a Matter of Time" by The King................................

Argh. OK...now that that's out of my system...

So, last time I posted pics, Karen and I were in Seattle, Thorp and Vashon Island. Turns out that Vashon Island is one of the major growers of pot on the west coast. A very mellow, age-ing hippie vibe on that island. Fun enough for what it is, but you can only take so much... :-)

We left the Seattle area on Tuesday the 2nd, and drove our Alamo rent-a-SUV down the coast. For a long while it was pea-soup-foggy, but then we left Eugene after spending the night there, and things started to clear up. Just an interesting aside (well, it's interesting to me anyways)....we stayed in a Motel 6 just outside of Eugene, and tuned in to The Weather Channel to see if the fog was going to continue. You know how TWC does "local weather on the 8's"? Well, they didn't have a local weather forcast for Eugene. I kid you not. Totally blew my mind.

Holy smokes. Jackass just put "It's a Matter of Time" on again. I think I'm gonna be sick.

The good news is that the people watching is kinda fun. Maybe things heat up after 10PM. Lots of couples of every variety you can imagine. I'm constantly feeling underdressed here. Right now there is a group of 8 Koreans with sportcoats and cigarettes out front. Hehe. And here I sit in my weatherproof Eddie Bauer coat, REI convertible pants, Birks and SmartWool socks. Definitely more Vancouver than SF... :-)

Anyways.......back to my narrative......

Which I know you were just waiting for with baited breath... :-)

So, we're driving down the coast, and we end up in Redwood National Forest. And all I have to say is "wow". Even as I was taking pictures of that amazing place, I knew there was no way I could do it any justice at all. So green, so dense, so quiet, peaceful...I could have walked off into that woods and never come back. Oh...and that place really is "the Forest Moon of Endor". That's where they shot the film.

I have lots of cool pics to share....I just gotta figure out how to upload them.

Be back soon....

Off to LA this coming Tuesday...

Back in MI the Tuesday after that...

Thorp

2005-01-31T00:19:00.000-05:00

Karen's aunt and uncle have been knocking themselves out to show us around their hometown area, which is a couple hours east of Seattle. This is kind of a bedroom community for Microsoft...there's a lot of money combined with an "old west" sensibility out here.

Elk, for huntin':

I think they heard us...or smelled us...so they ran away:

Rivers, for fishin':

Lots of canyons & tracks:

Geez...who's Dan?

Tomorrow, it's back to Seattle, reconnect with an old college buddy, check out the city that lives underneath Seattle...and figure out what we're doing with our next leg...

Nuclear Free Zone

2005-01-31T00:09:00.000-05:00

OK, so everyone knows that Canada is more liberal than America, right? Well, try this on for size:

Now c'mon, that's a pretty darn cool picture. You gotta admit. :-)

I found a couple other pics that I thought you might like from our time in Vancouver...

A lighthouse off one of the points in Stanley Park:

And a couple more from our time in Victoria...

Guerilla filmmaking in Gastown:

Dual self-portrait:

One of the two fountains outside of the Parliament building in Victoria...notice how you can see every individual drop of water...that's because I took this photo with a very fast shutter speed. Heh. Cool.

Proud

2005-01-31T00:03:00.000-05:00

Today, I'm feeling proud to be American.

Really.

I know that sounds a little trite, but I'm really happy that after all the horrible things that have happened over the last several years, the mixed motives, the lies, deceptions and various other vagaries of our government...that finally the Iraqis had a democratic election today.

I was watching the news coverage this morning, and was surprised at myself at how good it felt to see things going well over there, if only for a moment. I know we're far from out of the woods....but it sure was nice to have a break in the bad news.

And now, back to our regular programming...

:-)

Lucky, and Seattle

2005-01-28T04:24:00.000-05:00

So, another travel day today. On to Seattle. Actually, Vashon Island to stay for a couple days with Melissa Burr, Karen's cousin.

But before we get there, a picture from my last night in Victoria:

And, here's one of the Seattle skyline taken from the ferry to Vashon Island.

And, one more for good measure. Spike!

OK, now it's time for bed. See y'all soon...OH, and if you want to comment, I've turned the sign-in thingy off. This means that you can leave a comment without any trouble at all. If that's what you want to do. [You must do what you feel is right, of course...]

OH, this is important: there are some new pictures inserted into the stories below which I think you'll like. :-)

Steamworks

2005-01-27T00:01:00.000-05:00

One of the cool things about this trip is realizing that mass transit can actually be a good thing. We've had to take the bus, the train, ferrys and of course, "shank's mare". A lot. Mass transit here in Canada is relatively cheap, and it's easy. You see a lot of stuff that you miss when driving around...then when you get in a car, you see all the stuff from a different perspective. Like all the one way streets that don't matter when you are on foot. Hee.

So, we got in to Victoria yesterday afternoon. Bummed around a bit, took some of the pics you see below, and then sacked out for the evening. This morning, we got up and made our breakfast (a banana and half a humongous muffin for me). Karen wanted a shower, so I went off to Starbucks (one of our running jokes is "gee, look at that, a Starbucks!" "Yeah, hon, I didn't know they had those up here..." Seriously guys, they are everywhere. There were more then one intersection in Vancouver that had kittycorner Starbucks. I kid you not...) to get my morning coffee.

On my way back, I went down the street that runs parallel to our hostel's street. And, there was this funky little alleyway with a tattoo shop at the end. Tattoo shop in plain view...ok. But there was this sign for an establishment called "Steamworks" on the wall facing me.

And the hours...that was the weird part. 7pm to 9am. I mean, what would that be? So, curious me goes down the alleyway to this grimy little door next to the tattoo shop...

And it's ajar.

So, curious me looks up the staircase, and starts up the stairs. At the top, there's a giant condom behind a plate glass window, and pictures of very buff and nearly naked men. And I'm starting to get the picture, but the coffee has not quite taken hold. And there's this slightly built guy that comes into view as I come up the stairs...slightly built, slightly greying hair...looks damn tired. Big bags under his eyes.

Me: "Hi there. What kind of establishment is 'Steamworks'?"

Him: "It's a bath house....but we're just closing." [swish]

Oh.

That kind of steam.

I see.

Me: "Thank you!"

[Turns around and saunters casually back down the stairs...wondering how after all these 34 years he could still be so naive...]

Vancouver to Victoria

2005-01-26T23:40:00.000-05:00

Hey there. Have gotten a bunch of feedback saying that folks are checking the blog on a regular basis. Now that's cool. :-)

So we wrapped up our time in Vancouver Monday, and got up Tuesday to head out to Victoria.

This was taken on the ferry from a little town south of Vancouver to a little town north of Victoria:

Check out one of the streets near our hostel:

And, the historic Parliament building in downtown Victoria:

The Falls

2005-01-26T23:37:00.000-05:00

At the moment, I cannot remember the name of this place, and I don't have my Lonely Planet book along to rescue me from my forgetfulness. When we got there, it was raining (imagine that!!) and when I got out of the car to put money in the parking thingy, I could hear a thunderous roar not far away. We got our gear together, got outta the car and took off for the noise. As good a photog as I am (ahem) these pics unfortunately do not do the place justice. The volume of water coming down off this mountain was absolutely astonishing.

Many times while we've been seeing the stuff we've been seeing I've wished that I could convey the sounds as well as the images. But that, my friends, costs "real" money.

When we first rounded the corner, I saw thundering rapids. Even my brother in law wouldn't dare take a kayak down this! There was a stairway to guide you along the way, and one of the first things we saw was this...

...and I still didn't even register how enormous this waterfall was...thinking it was just a bunch of rapids...(dummy me)...

...until we got up to the "viewing platform". Then I looked up, and up, and up......and way, way up there, Niagara Falls was cascading off the mountain. No kidding. It was like the Falls of Rauros in LOTR TT. (Lord of the Rings Two Towers...the second of three movies made about the famous trilogy.)

And, even yet more proof that Karen is here:

Hee. Enjoy!

Whistler

2005-01-26T23:34:00.000-05:00

Argh.

The one time in my life (so far) that I get to Whistler, and it's doing the "Hawaiian Punch" thing. That's the phrase that the locals are using to describe the incessant and overwhelming deluge they've been dealing with this winter. (Same basic idea is what we were calling "El Nino" couple years back...) While we've been in Vancouver, we've had two of seven days of intermittent drizzle. The rest has been unremitting downpour. Wow.

Back to the Whistler thing. We actually rented a car for a day because that was cheaper (by far) than most of the other transportation options. Go figure. It was a 2 hour drive if you didn't stop, but we stopped. There were two things that we wanted to see along the way that taking a bus would not have allowed. One was a spectacular waterfall, and the other was an eagle habitat. Apparently eagles congregate somewhere just north of Squamish (which is a small town that's halfway between Vancouver and Whistler on the "Sea to Sky Highway" or BC 99) to pick off dead salmon from the river as they wash back out to sea. For those who don't know about salmon spawning, it's a huge deal around here (British Columbia), and the annual ordeal kills millions of salmon. Anyways, the upshot is that there are some 3500 bald eagles that make their home just north of Squamish for a few months during the winter to take advantage of this scavengers' banquet. It was so cool that we stopped on the way up and on the way back.

Here's what the place looked like:

Here's an eagle (apologies for the resolution...my whole kingdom and my right arm for Photoshop...):

In flight:

Oncoming!

When we actually made it to Whistler, it was kind of a letdown after seeing a bunch of beautiful bald eagles and the waterfall I mentioned before. The drive to Whistler has the potential to be awe-inspiring. Unfortunately in this case, because it was pouring rain and foggy, we were unable to see any of the terrain. I didn't even bother seriously considering skiing because the conditions were/are so bad. The place was still pretty busy though. And the one redeeming thing was that they had this rockin' Irish pub, and they served me a couple pints of the "other" beer that is owned by the Guiness company: Kilkenny. For whatever reason, this beer is not available in the states. Go figure. Word is they don't think there's a market for it. Morons. Now for those of you who are Guiness fans, imagine a pint of beer that acts a lot like Guiness (great big frothy head, looks real cool right after it's been poured) and tastes like a "bitter" version of Guiness. Now, I don't mean that the beer tastes bitter, but that it's like a "bitter" (name for a kind of ale) that you would find in an English (or Irish) pub. Anyways, bottom line is, it's great, and it's a good thing my wife was there, or I'd still be there drinking it. Heh.

So, midafternoon rolled around after our lunch at Whistler (you couldn't even see up the slopes...the lift lines vanished into the fog after about 50 meters) and we got on our way back down to Vancouver. Wouldn't you know, we got on the road and it pretty much stopped raining. Argh. The good news is, it was still light out and now on the way back we were able to check stuff out that we were unable to see on the way up due to fog. That night, we got back to our hostel in Vancouver, packed up our gear and got ready for another travel day (Vancouver to Victoria, which is the capital of British Columbia, on the georgeous Vancouver Island).

Proof

2005-01-22T16:26:00.000-05:00

Karen has said a couple of times that she wanted proof that we're both on this trip. Heh. So, here are a couple items that should settle that score. :-)

You can actually buy Cuban cigars here in Canada. Legally. And for those who care about such things, yes, it really, really does make a difference. Wow.

Karen with her hand in the cookie...er...bag:

There is a neighborhood in Vancouver called "Gastown". I know, I know, it wouldn't have been my first choice either, but it was named for a guy they called "Gassy Jack". Hehehe. Yeah, it gets better. He was called "Gassy" for the other reason men might be called such a thing: he had a habit of talking a lot. He was the first alcohol salesman in Vancouver. This picture is an experiment with me doing a handheld time-lapse exposure in Gastown. My kingdom for a tripod...

This cool item is called a Steam Clock. It runs on steam, and insead of chiming with bells as most old fashioned clocks might be expected to do, it "chimes" using steam whistles, kind of like you might expect to hear on a coal-fired steam locomotive.

Coincidence? You decide...

2005-01-22T02:05:00.000-05:00

OK, so our first lunch here?

Best. Sushi. Ever.

The fish here is SO fresh...and the tuna they use for sushi is the white kind not the red kind. It literally melts in your mouth. No stringiness, lovely, delicate flavor... *sigh* ... we should all be so lucky to eat like this ONCE in our lives. And, it was cheep. SO cool.

So, I'm actually telling this story for a different reason. As Karen and I were sitting at the sushi counter (place was packed even in midafternoon...with Japanese folk...definitely a good sign...) this guy sidles up and sits in the chair next to us, and before you know it we are yakking away. (We've found Vancouverites to be quite friendly...) Guess what? He's an independent film maker. He's making a DVD for the now defunct band Jesus Lizard, and so off we go to the races. He's a little down on the local scene for being competitive but it's an interesting conversation. He even uses the same editing program (Final Cut Pro) as Karen. Go God...gotta love those "coincidences"...

[UPDATE] So today (Sunday January 23) we decided to go back to Samurai Sushi for lunch once again to get another helping of that wonderful white tuna. We had no sooner sat down (in a booth this time) and ordered our sashimi when who should show up but Kemal (the film/video guy from the above story...)?! He didn't notice us at first, so I leaned over and said "what, are you following us or something?" We had a good laugh at that...and then chatted for a little while until his food came. Kemal is probably about the coolest person we've met here in Vancouver. Thanks for being friendly Kemal! :-)

Hit by a bus...

2005-01-22T01:57:00.000-05:00

Wednesday night Karen and I ate at a restaurant called "The Boathouse", which overlooks the English Bay. We split an order of their fish and chips. My comment to Karen was: if I walk out of here tonight and get hit by a bus I can die a happy man.

Best. Fish. And. Chips. Ever.

Wow.

Something about rainy weather makes you crave English food. Funny how that works, huh?

So, as we were walking down Denman Street after getting lost in Stanley Park (which is awesome, and yes I have pics, and yes I will post them...but not tonight...) [edit: new pics posted below! 1/22/05] on our way to said fish and chips dinner, we passed AT LEAST a dozen restaurants that I want to try. I guess that seals it. We HAVE to move here now.

Stanley park pics (resembles the forest moon of Endor for a very good reason...they shot Return of the Jedi in a similar kind of forest in N. Cal):

And now the fun part. The restaurant at which we experienced this transcendant English cuisine? Recommended to us by an Air Canada pilot on a shuttle bus from plane to plane in Toronto Airport. (Frickin' 4 degrees F in Toronto...blech...) Way to go Air Canada, eh? Heh. :-)

...and the rain stopped

2005-01-22T01:55:00.000-05:00

Wednesday was spent at the Vancouver Aquarium. I have some pics, and yes I will post them...but not tonight. [edit: here they are! 1/22/05]

Thursday morning, thinking that it would be raining (again), we went off to a museum called "Historyeum", which is a multimedia presentation of Vancouver's history. It didn't rain. All. Day. Which was cool, cuz we got some more cool pics of the area in Vancouver called "Gastown" and had a chance to ride mass transit here on our way to meet with Andy Park. More on that later...

We met this guy at the aquarium. His name is Tag. For some reason, as I was thinking of him, I was registering his name as the first part of that famous watch maker, Tag Heuer...not as the kid's game. Go figger! What a personality on this guy! Karen and I both enjoyed the animal shows very much. AND we got a discount for being Hostel members. How cool. :-)

Here's a closeup of Tag's head. I got the sense that he really liked posing for pics...:

Cutest little sea otters you'd ever wanna meet:

Now THIS is cool. Check it out: Jellyfish in action!

And, another angle on the Vancouver skyline for good measure. :)

"North Van"

2005-01-20T13:48:00.000-05:00

Here's a shot of what the locals call "North Van". This picture was taken from the north shore of Vancouver City.

I think I got it...

2005-01-20T13:36:00.000-05:00

Take a lookee here...

Rain, rain and more rain...

2005-01-20T13:05:00.000-05:00

Still no luck with uploading pictures. I have a place to host them (my website) but cannot figure out how to get them from my card reader to my site using the internet cafe machines that are available. If I could just find an internet cafe that had XP machines I'd be all set.... :-) Anybody got any advice? Please send on to me if so. :-)

Yesterday we walked around Vancouver city in on and off pouring rain. This is a very cool, cosmopolitan city that is quite diverse, artsy...and very new feeling. Vancouver was founded after our hometown of Ann Arbor, and they have not done much to preserve original buildings (raze and make new stuff seems to be the theme). 2010 Olympics will be here. Today we're off to walk the seawall and go up to Stanley Park. Lots of great subjects for pictures....hopefully someday soon I'll get some pics posted here! :-)

First full day in Vancouver

2005-01-19T13:50:00.000-05:00

Arrived in Vancouver last night at 7pm local time...felt like 10pm to us, and then we waited in vain for our checked luggage to come through. We'd had a stopover in Toronto (damn cold, but pretty airport...) and only a little less than an hour between flights. So...got into our hostel in Vancouver with no more than our carryons. Heh. Canada customs were very nice though. I half expected to get a thrashing for re-electing GWB...well not really, but you never know. :-)

What a difference between Toronto/Detroit area and Vancouver. When we got over this side of the continent, there were impenatrable rain clouds...on the ground it was 50F and pouring rain. Got to bed at 1:30 EST, and woke this morning to glowering grey clouds...breakfast at the hostel was remarkably good for a "continental" breakfast. It was a good spread, with lots and lots of carbs (*sigh*) and fresh fruit. Atrocious coffee, but I guess you can't have everything. Checked with the desk and Air Canada had delivered our luggage in the night. Hooray!

Some things are as you might expect, others are strange. Vancouver airport is absolutely georgeous. More European than American for sure. Dairy products are rediculously expensive. Internet time, by contrast is dirt cheap. I'm at an internet cafe no more than 40 paces from the hostel's front door, and it's 1.50 CAD for an hour. ( ! )

After getting over my crankiness at Air Canada's baggage handling, I'm really feeling quite excited about this new stage.

Will keep you "posted" so to speak...