cast-n-flies

Cowboy Life Wisdom

2011-12-31T21:10:00.000-08:00

I know that it's been said that friends don't let friends listen to country music. Whether or not that's funny certainly depends upon who's reading it. Though I don't listen to a lot of country, I have been listening to it a bit more than usual for a couple of weeks.

The links that I've provided on this particular post go to Youtube videos and I'm hoping that you'll not only take a look at each of the videos but come back and read the rest of the post. Better yet, just read through the post and then come back and watch the videos. (If you have little kids, make sure you watch the Rodney Atkins song.)

I don't know that the post is particularly life changing but the thoughts are important to me and I hope you'll share them with me this time at least. I appreciate you all and thanks for taking a few moments to reflect with me.
Here it is the last day of the year. Wow! That's almost hard to believe. The passing of time is a remarkable phenomenom. A life seems like a long time. A year does too and even a month. Strangely enough though, a month is just a collection of a few days which is another collection of a few hours. We are often pretty cavelier with seconds, minutes, and hours but in what seems like no time at all a complete year of our life is over. It might be a good idea to start to take some account of the time God has granted us. Just sayin'.

For instance there is a song by a group called Alabama. I think it's called "I'm in a Hurry (And Don't Know Why). Tell me if these lyrics don't ring a little true.

I'm in a hurry to get things done
Oh I rush and rush until life's no fun
All I really gotta do is live and die
But I'm in a hurry and don't know why.

Thankfully, God has been gracious and given health to me and the people close to me. However, a prudent person might want to take the opportunity of a new year and evaluate the way that they live their life.

I love the lyrics to Tim McGraw's song Live Like You Were Dying .

"I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing,
"I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu.
"And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter,
"And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying."
An' he said: "Some day, I hope you get the chance,
"To live like you were dyin'."

Perhaps it's a bit late for me but anyone reading these words with young moldable minds might want to take note of Rodney Atkin's song "Watching You" .

He said, "I’ve been watching you, dad ain’t that cool?
I’m your buckaroo, I want to be like you.
And eat all my food and grow as tall as you are.
We like fixin’ things and holding momma’s hand
Yeah, we’re just alike, hey, ain’t we dad?
I want to do everything you do; so I’ve been watching you"

With tears in my eyes I wrapped him in a hug.
Said, “My little bear is growin’ up.”
And he said, “But when I’m big I’ll still know what to do.”

I have to say, those are some pretty powerful words.

Another song along those lines is Love Without End, Amen from George Strait.

And he said, "Let me tell you a secret about a father's love,
A secret that my daddy said was just between us."
He said, "Daddies don't just love their children every now and then.
It's a love without end, amen, it's a love without end, amen."

You know it is the end of a year and the start of a new one but every moment is a good time to re-evaluate one's life. I hope that you'll take the time to take a look at your life and perhaps make a few valuable changes going forward.

Monticello Antique Marketplace Old Fashioned Christmas Show 2011

2011-12-01T20:38:00.000-08:00

Wow! As always the days immediately preceding the show are grueling. However, I think that once again, the rewards will be worth the effort. Tomorrow is the show opening so if you're interested, you'll want to be around at 8:00am. That is when the doors will be opening.

I've had an opportunity to look through the various displays created by the different vendors and I am confident that those who find themselves here tomorrow will not be disappointed. Let me just tease you with some images from our space at the show.

Now it's time to hibernate for a while.

Will There Be Pizza In Heaven?

2011-11-20T19:56:00.000-08:00

Do you know the song The Devil Went Down To Georgiaby the Charlie Daniels Band? Click on the link to listen to the song or let me tell you the abridged version. As the story goes the Devil is a little short on souls so he ventures down to Georgia and comes up on a fiddler named Johnny. The Devil decides to wager his own skill as a fiddler against Johnny's ability. The bet is a golden fiddle against Johnny's soul. As the story goes, the Devil puts forth an outstanding performance but Johnny comes back with a rebuttal that is beyond outstanding and the Devil admits defeat and relinquishes his golden fiddle.

Let's just pretend that the wager is not playing the fiddle but instead has to do with the construction of a wonderfully palatable pizza. Now that is a contest almost but probably not quite worth someones soul.

Anyway, I have been working on constructing an outstanding pizza that can be built at home without any influence of the local pizza parlor. That has been a challenge that traditionally, the Devil might have had an easy victory.
Recently, however, I have come upon a significant breakthrough that could even up the playing fields as it were. I give the credit to two major break throughs in my culinary discovery. As it turns out, I have no knowledge regarding a palatable pizza crust. I mean that is the foundation of the pizza. In my book, no crust, no pizza. Simple, sad, but true.

Ok. Enter the pizza crust offered by Grand Central Bakery or even New Seasons Market. I've used both and had outstanding results. The next most important ingredient is the sauce. As it turns out, that isn't that difficult. I just take any can of tomato sauce and add appoximately a tablespoon of dried parsley, a tablespoon of basil, and perhaps a tablespoon or so of oregeno. The secret ingredient is umami. Google that word. I'll make it easy for you. One ingredient that is pregnant with umami (don't forget to google the word; it's important) is anchovie paste. I add some anchovie paste to the tomato sauce. A tablespoon or so to a can of tomato sauce is sufficient to blow your tastebud's minds. After the crust and sauce, the rest of the pizza is completly subject to your own imagination. I have made a number of remarkably outstanding homemade pizzas and am convinced that the secret to pizza is number 1, the crust, number 2, the sauce, (look up the importance of umami) and number 3, your imagination.

Dude! Tonight included two more blow your mind pizzas.

Oh yeah, the simple answer to the original question? Heck yes!!! There's going to be pizza in heaven and like it or not, there is going to be anchovie paste in the sauce. Just sayin'.

A Three Stranded Cord Is Not Easily Broken

2011-11-03T21:27:00.000-07:00

Let me just bluntly state that though I am wholeheartedly in favor of marriage, I am not necessarily all that keen on being in attendance when they happen. I appreciate the stamp of approval that God and the State puts on the relationship but having to hang out during the ritual is kind of a bother to me. I go when I need to in order to encourage the new couple. I believe with all of my heart and mind that the vows are sacred and meant for a life time. You know, till death do us part. Anyway, I've been to two weddings this year, both of which were performed at Applegate Christian Fellowship in Ruch, Oregon. They were each involving family members. Unlike so many other weddings that I have witnessed, these were kind of interesting. The first one happened in July.

The cool thing about this wedding was that it was done in about 15 minutes. I don't know if the preacher just forgot or if he knew it would be a quickie, but he never even had us sit down after we rose for the bride coming down the aisle. You know what? I was cool with that. In fact, I appreciated it. Now the second wedding was just this last week. This one took just a little bit longer but it was still short as some weddings go.

I wanted to share some thoughts from this last wedding. I always describe this family as being a bit like geese. You know, we mate for life. My father remained married to my mother until death parted them. My wife's parents have remained married and faithful to each other from their wedding day until now.

The official at this last wedding referred to the ancient text from Ecclesiastes 4:12 "A chord of three strands is not easily broken."

The inference is that a relationship of two people with the active involvement of (the third strand) the Holy Spirit, is a relationship that can withstand any of the stresses that life can throw at it. He also profoundly spoke of the idea that once a person chooses to marry the person they love, it is time for them to forget all of that and choose to love the person they married. That is an ideal that I agree with wholeheartedly. I plan to choose that path for myself.

I was brokenhearted this week when I heard of a relationship that I had believed was scribed in stone had been shattered by selfish indulgence. Somehow the two strands of that marital bond and carelessly begun to ignore the third strand and the bond was allowed to break. It is a tragedy for which I grieve this evening.

Let me just implore you to not forsake the importance of that third strand. It will make or break the bond between you.

Life and All of its Ups and Downs

2011-09-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

The month started out with a great couple of days off down in Southern Oregon. I even got a chance to get some fishing line wet on the Rogue River. It would have been fun to actually catch a fish but alas, that wasn't to be. It was a beautiful day on one of the finest rivers in the country.

I did see a lot of evidence that the kings were in the water and even saw some other guy catch one. What I got was memories, (Brother-in-law Terry and nephew Wyatt)

poison oak,

and pictures!

Life was about to change significantly.

We got home and had to start setting up our space at Monticello for the Fall Show. For no apparent reason Debbie was experiencing significant pain in her neck. She saw the doctor who prescribed a mild narcotic but that had virtually no effect. The next day a significant pain killer was prescribed and again almost no effect on the pain. Suddenly, I found myself with her in ER.

That doctor prescribed a opiate called Dilaudid that probably would put most people under the table. It apparently did take the edge off and Debbie was finally able to sleep but she must have some serious resistance to pain relievers. She must have a serious resistance to pain as well because she quit taking the pill pretty quickly.

We still don't know what the origin of the pain is but fortunately, it has subsided significantly.

Anyway, we were able to get the space at Monticello set up and it has been a sucessful show so far. Let me leave you with a few images of our portion of the show. Check out the Monticello links that I've provided earlier in this post or come by in person for a more complete view of what's going on over there.

This is kind of an adendum but I have to mention that today would have been my mother's birthday. She is still survived by her husband, four adoring children and more grandchildren than I care to count this late at night. You need to know that we still love and miss her and want those of you who knew her to remember as well.

Are You Telling Me Those Hands Are Mine?

2011-08-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

Today I'm in a restaurant and my dining companion asks to borrow my phone for a picture. Well, she took the picture that I expected but when I downloaded the pics, I discovered this one that I didn't know had been taken. I have to say, these hands are starting to look a little aged. Yikes! I have a rather physical day job and my hobby income job also takes a toll on my body but this image is still just a little shocking.

Here's another image that was downloaded from my phone today.

Oh my goodness! I'm finding that I can barely see anything without cheaters anymore. Oh well! Clearly, I really am getting older and though the evidence was there, I couldn't see it without additional lenses.

Ok. I can age gracefully. Today is the first day of a vacation for me. I mean I don't have to show up at my day job for at least a week. I think I will try to find a peaceful spot on a river somewhere and enjoy the fact that though I am showing some wear, I still have the ability to enjoy the finest blessings life has to offer.

What Happened To July?

2011-07-31T22:53:00.000-07:00

Man! I can't believe how sometimes time just gets away. I just noticed that it had been nearly a month since my last post and that I haven't had a single post in the month of July. Remarkably, this has been one of the more "happening months" this year. I actually had a week off from work. We had a significant family member get married another had a baby. I spent a week at one of my favorite places on earth. I needed to do a post.

The first day of my vacation was kind of tough. We needed to get down to Medford for the wedding on the following day but Jon had a job and wasn't able to leave till 8:30pm Needless to say, we didn't get out of Portland till late and finally arrived in Medford at 2:30am on the day of the wedding. We checked into our room and crashed for a few hours. We woke mid-morning and headed to Jacksonville which is near where the wedding was going to take place. We were able to grab a bagel and some coffee and and estate sale as our normal Saturday would allow. From there it was a quick drive to the location of the wedding reception where we had a lot of work to do.

We spent another quick night at the motel and then it was back to Portland to pack for our annual campout at Detroit Lake. I'll just let you in on a little secret. I never got my camera out of its little pouch this year. Thankfully, My sister and her family joined us this year and her husband Marvy took a ton of pics which I was able to pirate. Whew! That was a relief! Here is a quick preview of this years events.

In addition to my sister and her family, we were pleased to have Kurt who is my brother's kid down here from Alaska. In the normally chaotic life we live, we are always blessed when family members unexpectedly show up to experience life along side us. Thanks Kurt for being present this year. You enhanced our lives for a few days and we hope that we made an impact on you. Well, this post has been a whirlwind but I think I made it before the month of August showed up. At least there will be a record in future years of the events of July 2011.

On This Day In History

2011-06-27T19:40:00.001-07:00

On June 27, in the year 1950 the US government decided to deploy troops to the Korean war. Some years earlier, a child had been born who would some day be a part of this confict. This child survived this war and married my mother. His name is John Bartlett. He is my father and the father to each of my two brothers and my sister. For some reason, I don't have many good pictures of him so I borrowed one from my sister. (sorry for not asking Sis, hope you don't mind)

Anyway, today,of course, is his birthday. I'll call him in a few minutes and he'll probably tell me how old he is. (Ok, he's 79 years old today.) After I post it to this blog, I'll hopefully be able to remember from here on out. For now, however, I will shout in my loudest blogger voice, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD. I LOVE YOU! I HOPE YOU HAVE MANY MORE BIRTHDAYS TO CELEBRATE!

The Fifth Flavor?

2011-06-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of the four elements of life? I'm not sure which basic philosophy these come from but Google it and you'll discover that some one thinks that there are four basic elements and that they are air or wind, fire, earth, and water. It has also been generally excepted until recently that there are four basic flavors. These, of course, were sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. In 1985 a fifth basic flavor was recognised. It was called Umami. The word is borrowed from the Japanese language and it means "pleasant savory taste".

Now there are some basic food ingredients that contain the "flavor" umami. Some of these are fish, shellfish, cured meats, and certain vegetables like mushrooms, ripe tomatoes, and spinach. Also incuded in the foods containing umami is aged cheese and soy sauce.

Tonight for dinner I prepared what might be considered artisan pizza.

There were two different pizzas. They each had the same dough from Grand Central Bakery and the same sauce from allrecipes.com. The difference between them was the first had only salami, pepperoni, and sausage. The second had those three ingredients and also mushrooms, shallots, and fresh tomatoes. They were both very good but the second was really outstanding. Notice that it contained two umami ingredients that the first did not.

What I didn't tell my other dining companions was that there was a third important umami ingredient that they wouldn't have appreciated if they'd have known. That ingredient was in the sauce. Make sure you get some and hide it in your refrigerator. It adds remarkable flavor but most Americans don't want anything to do with it. That secret ingredient is anchovie paste. Who would have thought? It might not taste that great by itself but it adds a world of flavor to other foods if used in moderation.

2011-06-07T07:40:00.000-07:00

Happy Anniversary Debbie! It's been 26 years and I still do!

Looks Like I'm In The Vintage Lighting Business

2011-06-05T21:45:00.000-07:00

This was a big weekend in the junkin' business. There were sooo many sales and fortunately, a lot of the competition was out of town sellin' junk at an event called Farm Chics in Spokane. That, however, was a perfect opportunity for us. Debbie is off work for the summer so she bribed Jonathan to hit the circuit with her on Friday and they happened upon a jackpot of chandeliers. The only catch was that we had to return to the sale at the end and take them down.

Not a problem! Generally, this kind of lighting is very dificult to find and when one does, it is expensive. I mean, for example, I saw a chandelier at an estate sale this weekend for $325.00 and another for $575.00. I mean, get real! I can't buy that and expect to resell it for a profit. The sale that Debbie happened upon, however, had a number of chandeliers at prices that we were able to buy and expect to be able to resell them. I think she got a very nice variety. They all need to be cleaned up and tweeked a bit. (We usually rewire them enough to be able to plug them in so that they can be shown lit up.)She got eight in all

and in addition, there was a really cool lamp.

It, too, needed a bit of work but I already have it up and running.

I have to admit that I think that a lot of this green, recycling stuff is a lot of bunk. However, I truly love being able to take an item that is fully 70 or 80 years old and turn it back into a useful and even desirable product.

Portland Weird? Seattle's Weird Too!

2011-06-02T21:19:00.000-07:00

My last post about our getaway to Seattle got a little long so I decided to return to the subject for a second post. We really didn't get too far away from Pikes Place Market but the place is completely pregnant with ideas and things to blog about. First of all there are many different musicians and other kinds of performers ready to do their thing for nothing more than a few coins in a cup. I mean look at that guy in the first picture. Who would paint themselves up in silver and pretend to be a manequin? That's weird. Then there was the guy who had trained his parrot to play dead and was throwing it up in the air like it was some kind of toy. How about the dude balancing his guitar on his chin? Probably one of the least wierd people was this guy.

I mean he's only dressed in orange stripes and tying balloons into animals. Ok here's something that was really weird. We wandered up the street to the H & M store. (It's not my kind of store but the trip wasn't all about me.) I decided to take a picture of Debbie as she is contentedly shopping for whatever women shop for and some little man comes up to me and says I can't take pictures in the store. Store policy! What? Ok I was ready to leave after that but again the trip wasn't all about me. Grrrrr! Finally we did leave after I couldn't convince Debbie not to buy something. Anyway, we walk down an alley

and saw this.

Do you know what this is? I mean it has Ewwww! Yuck! All over it! Let me give you a closer look.

That's right. It's used gum. Some weird group in Seattle probably thinks this is art. What is that about?

Let me change the subject and talk about something that doesn't upset my stomach. Don't you love cheese? It so often just adds that little bit of extra to a meal. We discovered a certain white chedder at New Seasons Market that is just soooo good. It is hand crafted by a company called Beecher's. They call the particular cheese that we like Flagship. So we're walking down the street at Pikes Market and Voila!

There it is!

I love knowing where my food comes from. All the while Debbie is smelling the delightful aroma of baked pastries. It turns out it is coming from a place called Piroshky Piroshky. There was a line

(You're going to have to click on the picture above if you're going to see Debbie way at the end of the line waving back at me). Anyway, this shop is the brain child and spawn of a Russian immigrant. They bake up and serve both savory and sweet patries.

Debbie chose a sweet chocolate hazelnut pastry and I took a more savory Potato Onion Cheese. I didn't get to taste hers but she reports that it was wonderful. Mine was very good as well and I'm confident that the next time we're in Pikes we will be standing in that line again.

Well, once again I have bloviated far longer than most attention spans. So with that I will say that the trip was a delight and though it was short, I felt refreshed and ready to assume normal life once we returned home. Thanks for stopping by and I hope that this drivel hasn't put you to sleep but instead inspired you to visit the weird city of Seattle.

Yes it was Extravagant

2011-06-01T22:14:00.000-07:00

This weekend we had some reason to walk into the local Verizon Wireless store. While there we started talking about the new smart phones that have come out recently and suddenly I owned one. It is the new Droid Charge by Samsung. OK I am a little embarrassed but this is a really cool phone with some really amazing features. To begin with the processor is one gigahertz which is blazingly fast. I've been streaming music via Pandora radio for two days and the phone hasn't even coughed. My old Motorola Droid used to stall and sputter regularly. I also recently tried to view a video on the old Droid and the stream was so choppy and intermittent that I quit and went and found something else to do. As soon as I got this new phone home I watched the same video and it was just as smooth as warm butter. It comes loaded with apps some of which I probably won't use but many of them are very cool and useful and I am looking forward to utilizing all of that potential. The fact is, I do not have the geek gene and sometimes technology is a little beyond the reach of my cognitive ability but this phone is pretty easy to figure out and has a lot of useful features.

The first image you saw on this post is the front view of my phone. This is a more professional image of the anterior and posterior view.

I'm not sure if you can see from the images but there is an 8 mega pixel camera on the back and a 1.3 mega pixel camera on the front. I sure could have used that feature this weekend in Seattle.

I'm told that the 4G LTE network will be complete later in 2011 and the speed of the device will be more fully utilized at that time. But just as I have stated earlier, I have already noticed some of the advantages this phone has over my earlier device.

Weekend Getaway!

2011-05-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

We have been so busy between jobs, shopping for and maintaining our mall space, and the theater production Tom Sawyer that Jonathan just completed that we have almost forgotten to take a little time together for ourselves. Jon got invited to go camping at the beach so Debbie and I decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to run off together for a couple of days. We jumped on line and shopped around for a place to stay and finally Debbie chose this place.

We decided not to stay in "Downtown" Seattle because for some reason they are able to command a premium for the rooms. We drove a couple of miles into Bellevue and had a very nice room for much less. Perhaps with enough advanced notice one might aquire lodging near the city center for a lot less but this was a spur of the moment decision. Here's what we got for the money.

After getting settled in this afternoon, we headed over to Pike street and wandered among the the masses of humanity. It was kind of fun. Perhaps tomorrow we'll go back and make some purchases. The fish looks wonderful

Wait! Don't look at me! You have to look behind me.

How about those wonderfully colorful vegetables and fruits.

And mushrooms! Hey Rowleys! Look at the price on those morels! Dude!

Well, all of a sudden it was dinner time and I saw this sign.

Who knows? It could be fun! And it was. There were even healthy choices. We had a nice tomato and vinegrette bruchetta for an appetizer and we each had a salad. Debbie took a cobb with a bit of ranch dressing and I took something called the anti-cobb. It was similar to a cobb salad but with more fruit. It was served with a basalmic tangerine vinegrette. Not bad. I took some pics but they were a little blurry. Oh well, here they are anyway.

Oh yeah! When you go to the Hard Rock Cafe, you have to buy a souvenir. Here's mine.

Wow! This post is going long. Let me conclude for now and add more tomorrow or at least soon. I mean there are some weird things here that you've got to see! Talk to you then!

The Circle of Life

2011-05-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

Isn't it funny how certain events mark specific memories in our brains? Where were you when Ronald Reagon was shot? How about when the first space shuttle disaster happened in 1986. Do you remember exacty what was going on in your life when those events happened? I do remember what was happening to me on those days and I also remember what was going on on the second day of May five years ago. Interestingly enough, it was a birthday anniversary for two different nieces of mine. On Debbie's side of the family, it was Ashley. She is the oldest daughter of Brenda, Debbie's sister. On my side of the family, it was Sarah, the youngest daughter of my sister, Kathleen.

Five years ago today, I rode a bicycle to work. That is not very normal for me but I remember because of some other things that happened that day. Perhaps a half hour after I arrived my cell phone rang and I answered it as I am unaccustomed to doing. After all, it was from Debbie. How bad could it be? Well, it wasn't all that bad. I mean I had been expecting this particular bit of news. After all, my mother had been very sick for a number of weeks and each day I expected to hear that she had finally expired.

I remember entering my supervisor's office, sitting down and trying to tell him that I needed to go home. I remember saying that I thought I was completely prepared for that particular event but it was obvious that even though I thought I had prepared myself, I was not completedly ready for the finality of death when it actually occurred.

Oh my goodness. Here it is, five yrs later, and I am struggling to see through blurry vision so I can complete this post. What is going on? Hopefully, my difficulty in completing this post is normal and by tomorrow, I will be back calculating life events with the logical, non emotional evaluation with which I am accustomed.

Dealer Night @ Monticello

2011-04-21T22:41:00.000-07:00

Wow! After a full days labor at the day job, I came home to having to load the van with inventory with which to replentish our space at Monticello Antique Marketplace. It has been two weeks since the opening of the Spring and Garden Show and though we still own some things that we expected to be sold by now, we are very pleased with how things have been going. For some reason, there never has been much of an economic crisis at Monticello. Perhaps it is similar to certain vises being unaffected by recession. It seems that people still make purchases that they perceive will make them feel better about their condition.

On a side note, I had the opportunity to kind of revamp my own little display case. For the most part, it features the sorts of items which interest me. Here are some images of some of the sheves after I restocked and rearranged the case.

What can I say? We do this for fun in our spare time and and on the tenth of each month, they give us money. How satisfying is that?

Order Out Of Chaos

2011-04-05T20:37:00.000-07:00

I would probably be in dire need of domestic legal counsel if I were to post pictures of our living space a few days ago. I'm talking chaos in its purest form. We had trails leading to trails to the bathroom and all other important rooms in the house.

Beginning Sunday afternoon and all day Monday, we started moving much of the chaotic debris from our living space to our designated area at the Monticello Antique Marketplace annual Home and Garden Show. Without having lived through it, one might not be able to imagine the relief I am currently feeling to be able to navigate to my bed without fear of tripping or stubbing my toes. Ok, to be perfectly frank, I do derive a significant amount of satisfaction when the check gets cashed at the end of the show but sometimes during the period of time leading up to the opening of the show the chaotic living space diminishes any positive anticipation of the end. Remarkably, something looking like this

and this

turns into something looking like this

and this.

The artist and project manager, Debbie, has remarkable talent for turning chaos into order. Don't you agree? She's not even done. I'll probably be posting more images later in the week. The show starts on Friday, April 8 and will be running for almost two months. Interestingly, the space will continue to look differently over the course of the next several weeks but the balance of order over chaos will continue to be maintained.

I'm Breaking My Silence!

2011-03-24T07:59:00.000-07:00

Wow! I look at the date of my last post and am amazed that it was nearly two months ago. Time is so fleeting. I get up, go to work, come home, go to bed and then notice suddenly that the first quarter of the year is nearly past. They say you only live once so it kind of chagrins me that I can't remember any notable events during the last 90 days.

Here is something notable, at least to me. Last Friday at work I hear a friend of mine tell someone that he is helping some friends of his sell some cars. My ears perked up at this because one of ours is starting to make some strange noises and a trip to the mechanic seems to always cost somewhere between six and fifteen hundred dollars. Two of the vehicles which he described in no way fit my needs or wants. The third, however, though not really fitting our wants, had potential to fit our needs. It was a 2001 Dodge Caravan.

Debbie had clued me in early that she was not at all ready to be seen driving a minivan but the fact that the vehicle only had 104,000 miles made me want to at least get the VIN so I could check and see if the vehicle had any secrets that I wasn't being told. I had my brother Dave check the Chrysler data base for any recalls of which there were two minor occurances which had been timely repaired. Even Kelly Blue Book screamed "Go buy that car!" I told Debbie that I needed to take her by to see the car because all of my senses were telling me that this was an opportunity that doesn't come around very often. I said all we would do was look at it, drive it, and if she wasn't sold then we'd walk and I was ok with that. We did a quick walk around and a casual inspection of the interior. The car was really clean and nice. Apparently, it was well taken care of by its owner. My friend handed me the keys so we could take it for a spin. We get a half dozen blocks away and she says "We can go back now. This is nothing like I'd imagined. I really want it!"

Isn't it interesting that something which is old and tiresome to one person, can be so new and exciting to someone else.

I'm Back! Thanks for Waiting!

2011-01-10T20:53:00.000-08:00

I just completed the first day of my second week back to work. It has been a pretty smooth transition back into the normal work week. I've felt great and have had no discomfort or difficulty during my return. I am so thankful to The Creator for His blessing me with continued health and the ability to do a physical job.

The other day Debbie and I went to a short class at the doctor's office regarding our diet. Well it wasn't our diet specifically, it was more a healthy diet in general. Did you realize that a certain amount of fat in one's diet is healthy. Of course you did. But I was interested and a bit pleased to find that at least two tablespoons of olive oil per day is recommended. That is just soo exciting to me. I have only recently learned to enjoy a vinegrette dressing on a salad and to find that I can have at least two tablespoons of dressing is just amazing. Here is a simple recipe for a vinegrette. You can tweek it in so many ways so be creative and healthy.

Start with 3 parts olive oil and one part acid. (Choose a red or white wine vinegar or a basalmic or white basalmic vinegar) Add a teaspoon or so of dijon mustard, a bit of salt, a bit of pepper, and perhaps a pinch or so of brown sugar. Give it a good shake for a minute or so and taste. If it is too oily still, add a bit more vinegar, too sour perhaps a touch more oil or sugar.

I read a couple of novels over the last couple of weeks. I hadn't read a novel in many, many years and wasn't sure what to expect. I chose my novels differently than perhaps some people might. I suppose it would be prudent to see what most people are reading and choose from that list. I, however, don't always do things the same way other folks do them. I love talk radio and since it was Christmas time suggested to the people around me that I was interested in reading a couple of novels by popular talk show hosts. The hints were heeded and the books arrived at my door step from Amazon. The first book I read was Glenn Beck's "The Overton Window".

This was his first attempt at a thriller I believe and it was ok. The overton window concept is facinating. I hope you'll look it up as I don't have the time to adequately explain it. The story itself was interesting but it seemed to end too abruptly as if the author all of a sudden discovered that there were too many pages. I appreciated that the language and content was not particularly "adult" in nature and because of the PG rating, I don't mind suggesting that you read the story. I might even enjoy hearing how you liked the book.

This post is going a bit long as I am often prone to do so I'll stop for the evening and post on my second novel in a day or two. Thanks for wading through this drivel. Each of you brings a bit of light to my existance and I am grateful for it.

A Blessing in Disguise

2010-12-27T22:41:00.000-08:00

My hernia surgery has definitly been a blessing for us this year. Afterall, without the surgery, we would have never had the opportunity to spend time with family to the extent that we did this year. We were blessed to spend time with family down state during the Thanksgiving holiday and again for an amazing six days during Christmas. I have never, in my whole adult life, had this many days free to spend quality time with family.

Let me share a few highlights of the last couple of days.

Hans, Shirley, Jonathan, Debbie, and I drove down to Jacksonville, Oregon on Wednesday the 22nd of December. On the 24th we gathered with a few thousand other believers for an outstanding Christmas eve celebration of the birth of Jesus in the outdoor ampitheater of Applegate Christian Fellowship. There was some inspirational music and an uplifting message from Ben Courson.

It really was an enjoyable event. I even think I saw an angel.

Well, maybe not but it looked like an angel to me!

What a great place to live. There is enough humanity to support all of the comforts that we tend to be accustomed to but in addition to that, there are some common sights that are a bit unusual in populated areas. There were a couple of mornings where we were treated to events like this.

I'll let you in on a secret, we came home with some venison in a jar which I am totally looking forward to adding to my diet but I still haven't gotten tired of seeing them on the hoof.

Monticello Antique Marketplace Christmas Show 2010

2010-12-04T19:01:00.000-08:00

I just have to tell you. In case you don't automatically follow Debbie's blog, the Christmas show at Monticello Antique Marketplace started yesterday and once again she is doing fantastically. Ok, there are many other dealers down there doing extremely well also but I just had to brag a bit. After all, there is a small amount of credit in this for me as well.

Come on down tomorrow or in the near future anyway and enjoy a few moments browsing through the show.

The Chronicles Continue

2010-11-20T20:24:00.000-08:00

Here it is the next day and in the words of Gus McCrae of Lonesome Dove, "I'm all stove up".

When I first woke up in the hospital I was feeling pretty good. In fact I think I even impressed the staff. I just kept drinking all of the water that they brought till the urge hit me. As soon as I was able to purge my bladder, they were ready to let me leave the hospital. Jonathan made a call to the In-Laws and when they arrived, we were down the road. As it turned out, Debbie wasn't nauseated from nerves, it was actually the flu. She still was pretty sick when I got home. However, as I mentioned earlier, I was feeling pretty good so I sent her to bed and I went to work putting leftovers in the microwave because I hadn't eaten more than a few crackers for nearly twenty hours. Fortunately, we had some chicken, some veggies, and a can of soup and I threw it all together. That might sound pretty crummy but yesterday it tasted great!

This morning I woke up and discovered that the honeymoon was over and I needed some of the high end narcotics I received just to get in and out of my chair.

I've been appreciating the fact that there is a lot of content that can be streamed directly to my computer from Netflix. The only reason to leave my chair is to go the water closet. Debbie is feeling significantly better and is making up for the fact that she was unable to assist yesterday. She's quite a girl you know.

I do want to mention a great big thank you to all of our friends who were lifting us up in prayer yesterday. You need to know that we truly appreciated it. I'll keep you posted as things progess around here.

The Chronicles of Hernia

2010-11-18T22:16:00.000-08:00

After much waiting, the final hours approach. I will be arriving at the hospital tomorrow at 9:00am to be placed in the surgery holding pattern. The tentative schedule would have me on the table at noon and out for observation in an hour or so. This is apparently one of most commonly performed surgeries in the world and has a very low risk factor. I am completly cool with the whole thing.

If you'd care to stand with us before the Creator, we'd appreciate it. You might especially pray for Debbie as she is nervous to the point of nausea. What a girl!

Anyway, I'm told that I'll be relatively useless tomorrow evening and will probably just be sleeping it off. Maybe the following day or so I'll have enough cognative ability to give a general account of how everything went. Thanks for your support and I'll try to keep in touch. Afterall, for the next three or four weeks I'll have very little else to do.

I Branched Out On My Own!

2010-11-13T20:57:00.000-08:00

Well, I suppose that is a bit of an exageration. Actually, I got a chance to fill up a case at the mall with "guy stuff". It is fun, and I have a chance to clean up my bed room a bit. Here are some of the kinds of things one might see in my case.

Fishing Reels

Old Lures

Game Calls

Shoot Man! I even have old gopher traps and a vintage revolver cleaning kit. You know guy stuff!

I wonder why Debbie wanted it all out of my bedroom?

I Love Crossing The Finish Line

2010-10-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

BEFORE

I can't believe that it's been nearly a month since my last post. Time has an eerie way of slipping by unnoticed. I suppose that is why a wise person would suggest that it is paramount to live each day as if it were our last. One must realize that sooner or later a day will be realized which truly will be our last at least here on earth as we presently know it. Whoops! I have stumbled way off of the path. Let me see if I can find my way back.

The other day Debbie and I were out "junking" together when a phone call came through from Monticello Antique Marketplace. That is actually pretty normal but this time the news was that the place had been burglerized and that the vender realizing the most loss had decided to pull up stakes and move out of the mall. Debbie had had her eye on that space for a long time and the call was to ask if, in fact, we were still interested in upgrading from our present booth to that particular space. We spent about three minutes weighing the pros and cons and decided to accept the opportunity.

The following week was spent planning, building props, and moving in. We finally completed the task today.

AFTER

If you'd like to see a little different perspective, take a look at Debbie's post this week.

I Now Confidently Believe In The Pretrib Rupture

2010-09-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

Wait just a minute! Before I get into the main content of this post I must take a moment to bring you up to date on an important anniversary. Jonathan turned 18 years old on Sunday and we took the opportunity to visit McGrath's Fish House. In attendance with him were his grandparents on his mother's side and his mother and myself. I, of course was behind the camera. The party was a bit of a bust as the unlimited shrimp that most of us ordered was pretty lousy. I think they were underdone. It was an "all you can eat" selection and believe me, one plate was all you could eat. It was probably a bit of an anomalie as I believe that McGrath's is a reputable restaurant but not that particular day I am sorry to say. However, the time spent with family, and Jonathan in particular, was memorable we will all remember it with favor.

With that important preamble, I must spill my guts with this important update.

Up until recently, I thought that it would never happen to me. However, a couple of weeks ago I had to go to a doctor and renew my medical card, which is a requirement for my commercial driver's license. After the familiar "cough" test, I was informed that I have a double hernia and that the left side is far worse than the right. Time and experience has rendered me a skeptic so I responded that no doctor, including the one to whom I was presently speaking, had ever told me that I had a hernia let alone two. He was unabashed, allowed me the full two year medical card, but reaffirmed that, in fact I had a couple of hernias.

Ok. Whatever! I decided to take that bit of information to my primary doctor and low and behold, he confirmed an obvious left inguinal hernia and a suggested hernia on the right. Oh great! Now what?

My next stop was a general surgeon who seemed to delight in the fact that in fact there was a couple of hernias and I was going under the knife. The date is still tentative but I will apparently be off work for at least two weeks and up to 6 weeks. What the (insert your favorite interjection)!

Ok. Deep breaths! I am not going to be off work for 6 weeks. I mean, who can afford that? I searched the internet and assuming that at least some of what one finds there is accurate, I will be off some where between one and four weeks. I am suspecting between two and four weeks. We can easily sustain a hiatus of three weeks and with some minor discomfort, can go a little over four weeks. I am kind of looking forward to a few weeks off work but am also ready to take on a challenge of being back to normal, with full recovery, in about three weeks. We'll see. The surgery is not scheduled yet. We are waiting to see which agency, worker's comp or my health insurance, is going to choose to take the financial responsibility.

I've been watching some of these surgeries on youtube. Here is a link to one similar to what I will enjoy that is fairly benign. Enjoy!

Do You Remember?

2010-09-11T22:59:00.000-07:00

It is interesting how certain songs on the radio remind me of something. Everytime I hear "Keep On Rockin' Me Baby" by the Steve Miller Band I think of sitting in my high school cafeteria eating lunch. Each time I hear the Eagles singing "Witchy Woman" I am back in that dingy roller skating rink in Brookings, Oregon in the early seventies.

Whenever the date September 11 rolls around I recall that I was out in the woods somewhere between Pendleton and John Day chasing elk with a stick and a string and wasn't aware until late evening that this tragedy had even taken place. I was enjoying the freedoms that living in this country affords me and had no idea that somewhere in the "Land of the Free" there were men and women coming to grips with the idea that this is also the "Home of the Brave".

When we got back to camp, we heard from one of our companions who had chosen to refrain from the evening hunt and had decided to turn on the radio in one of the vehicles that our country had been attacked by a yet unknown enemy. Boy! That took the wind out of our sails. It was interesting to me that to a man, we each decided to pull up stakes and head home the next day. Somehow, fun wasn't that important anymore and we each needed to get home to our families.

Ok. Time has rubbed the edges off the the wound a bit but I hope that we never forget how the country came together against a common enemy for a time. Let's rekindle that kind of passion again. Though the injury was grievious, that was a remarkable period in our history and I miss the singlemindedness that grew from it.

I Wonder If It'll Be Worth It

2010-09-08T22:22:00.000-07:00

Wow! Last week was kind of rough. Did you know? I was on vacation but there was more than a few times that I wished I was back at work. We were getting ready for another show at Monticello Antique Marketplace which starts this Friday. It has been said that there is no more difficult boss than the guy who works for himself. That seemed true to me last week. Hopefully, the next two or three weeks will bring the rewards that will somehow make the sacrifices of the previous weeks worth it.

Let me give you a preview of what you might see should you venture out to the show.

I'll admit that I was a little bent about having to build this hut but now I have to admit that it is kind of cute!

Here a couple of close up views of little vignettes that Debbie put together.

Ok! I am a little partial to our space but to be perfectly honest, there are a number of spaces in the show that will really grab your attention. I heard many comments from people stating that this show is turning out to be a really outstanding one. Perhaps you'd like to come by and see for yourself.

A Bold, Fresh Piece of Humanity

2010-08-17T20:47:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid I loved to read and I put in many hours immersed in some goofy novel. I'm afraid that I didn't tend to consume important, inspirational prose. It was reading, however, and there is at least some value in that. Now reading is something that I do in tiny incremental moments. Magazines are my usual choice because articles can often be digested in the time that it takes to accomplish certain unmentionable functions in the privacy of the bathroom.

A couple of weeks ago we took a family camping vacation. If you are a regular reader of this blog you are already aware of this. During one of our excursions into a nearby town I visited a thrift store. Realizing that this camping vacation was providing significant slots of time in which there was no urgent need for any of my skills or attention, I wandered through the book selection. It was here that I discovered the first book that I have read in perhaps ten years or more. (I've started several but I don't think that I've completed any, front to back, in at least that many years.) It seems remarkable, even to me.

Ok, here is a secret glimpse into the private thoughts of this blogger. I love talk radio and my all time favorite, though no longer on the air, was Bill O'Reilly. In my opinion, he was the fairest of all radio talk show hosts. He would generally present each side of an issue and give the listener the freedom to choose which position to take. I was a complete fan of his style and thoroughly enjoyed his show. When he quit radio and decided to focus on his television show, I was bummed out to say the least. When I saw a book which credited him as the author, I immediately was interested.

As it turns out, the book is an autobiographical account about Bill in his formative years. You know, how he came to be the person that he is from average, perhaps even lower middle class to the multi-million dollar national figure who rubs shoulders with the important people, even U.S. presidents. As Commander Spock might have said, facinating!

Let me say it now, it was facinating! I found myself completely entertained. He was such a Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn type of rascal growing up that I found myself frequently laughing hilariously throughout the covers of this book.

Now, I am a slow reader because I focus on each word and thought, and it took me a number of hours to read this book but I suspect that most folks could knock this one out in a significantly shorter period of time. I have to recommend it though because in addition to the entertainment value, there was significant emphasis on what I believe are the kinds of traditional values that made this great country, The United States of America. Just as Bill would tell you, if you work hard to be the best at whatever you do, this country affords you the opportunity to be sucessful.

Lake Billy Chinook

2010-07-25T18:33:00.000-07:00

You know, even though I personally prefer Detroit Lake, Lake Billy Chinook is a beautiful reservoir here in Oregon. It features 72 miles of shoreline and covers a surface area of 4000 acres. This year I stayed around the camp site or at the day use area where I enjoyed the company of friends and family, the arid climate, the beauty of the rock formations, and of course, the water.

Some of the family ties are either a little distant or too complicated to explain exactly but for this piece, my relationship to Ty will be cousin. He is a hit every year because he has the best toys for playing at the lake.

He generously gives nearly countless hours of skiing, tubing, and/or just plain cruising to all of the kids in this fruitful family. No one gets left out. And do you want to know something? He does it just for smiles. Well let's see his payoff.

Hmmm! Not bad!

Now it just wouldn't be right not to show some action shots of the fun we had on the tubes. (I'm afraid I don't have any images of skiers.) I do need to mention that we had a couple of our group who were able to get up on skis for the first time this year. Congratulations to each of you!

Take a look at some of these!

Now you see him.

Now you don't.

Before I forget. It would be completely improper to not mention that this year we had an octogenarian involved in this year's friviolity. In fact, we had special members of the family who traveled all the way from Germany to attend this campout due to the fact that one of the patriarchs of this clan turned 80 years old on July 21, 2010 right in the middle of the campout. If you remember, wish Hans Winofsky a Happy Birthday. He is the proud husband of one wife and the father of two beautiful girls. He has six grandchildren and even two great grandchildren. Each of them was there this year to help him celebrate the anniversary of the day of his birth. It certainly is an accomplishment to be admired!

It truly was a great year with a lot of great memories. I think that I can say for everyone that this year was a delight and we were sorry to see it come to an end. For me? I can hardly wait till next year! What a family !

Family Campout 2010

2010-07-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

Somehow our wires got crossed this year and our family campout had to change venues from Detroit Lake State Park to Cove Palisades State Park at Lake Billy Chinook. I was a little disappointed I’ll have to admit. Traditionally, I have loved to sneak away and venture off up the Breitenbush River to tease the native and hatchery trout that can be found beneath the surface of that stream.

I went ahead and brought some gear with me but it is beginning to look like I might not get to fish much this year due to some details which are too complicated to outline here.

REMEMBER TO CLICK ON THE IMAGES FOR MORE DETAIL!

One of the amazing features of the State of Oregon is the diverse content of landscapes. We have ocean beaches, Alp-like mountains, rain forests and high desert. Cove Palisades is located in the high desert of Central Oregon. One cannot visit this area and not be awed by the remarkable rock formations along the high plateaus above the reservoir.

I wonder what kind of cataclysmic activity caused the basalt columns to twist and turn into what we see today. Was it volcanic or perhaps the flood from the days of Noah or a massive release of water after the ice age? What ever the causal forces were, I’m glad I wasn’t there to witness it.

Here is something else that is amazing. We have here what appears to be a harsh, arid climate but amongst the dried grass and dust one can still find some apparently delicate flora appearing to flourish.

The scenery here is just lovely. In spite of my first feelings of disappointment, this is starting out to be a great week!

Did You Know?

2010-07-04T23:15:00.000-07:00

That is the question I have for you. We started a new blog and we are pretty pleased with it. It is the story of an adventure which we are taking together. We called it Dining in the Dark. Check it out at www.dininginthedark.blogspot.com. I hope you'll put it in your favorites or follow it on Blogger. Thanks

I Chose a Peaceful Settlement

2010-07-04T21:26:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago Debbie decides that her bedroom is just too cluttered. She thinks that she should simplify and make her room look a little more minimalist. So I come home from work one day and its like when some guy comes home and finds all of his stuff out in the yard except that mine is just dumped willy nilly out in the living room and where ever else it happened to fall. In quick order she's having me separate the stuff that truly defines me from the stuff that I could sell if push came to shove. The next subtle suggestion is that between Monticello, Ebay and Goodwill there should be some place to put all of my things. Realizing early on that the battle was unwinnable and that attempting to retake the "hill" would only lead to insurmountable pain and legal debt I suggested that we talk to Joyce at Monticello and see if there was availability for a temporary booth. Perhaps it was planetary alignment, but we think God intervened because whoever had booked the front window for July backed out at the last moment and guess who acquired the rights for the next 31 days.

I had some really cool collections and finally they are being displayed properly.

I realize that it means that I will have to permanently part with some of it.

Right now it just my aim to see that it all goes to a good home.

You know, the kind of place where they will take care of it and love it like I do.

I'm thinking that those are the kind of guys that go to a place like Monticello.

So for now I've bid all of these treasures farewell. We had a good run and the time we spent together was a joy.

Final Chapter

2010-06-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, I realize it has been two weeks since we returned from Seattle but I still have pictures that I haven't shared with you and I have stories to tell. Yeah, Yeah, I know they aren't really good stories, but they are enough to keep me entertained and that is enough for me.

After we woke up from a great nights rest at the Quality Inn and Suites Seattle Center we headed out to find a place to park near the Pikes Place Market. Did I already mention how expensive it is to park in Seattle? I wonder if they secretly wish we'd all stay home? Anyway, we found a place, gave them $10.00 for a couple of hours, and walked towards the market.

Debbie's favorite was all of the cut flower bouquets. Take a look at this kaleidescope of color. (Here's where I remind you to click on the picture for more vivid detail. Well, at least it gets bigger!)

I kind of think when people think about Pikes Place Market, they are thinking about fish. No wonder! Look at these shots!

I, however, am kicking myself now for not purchasing some of the beautiful produce that we saw.

I thought it would have been great to bring some of these wonderful vegetables home and make a fantastic dish with them and post a blog about it. I'm so sorry that I didn't do it be cause in my heart I know "I coulda been a contenda". Oh well, maybe next time.

Here is another sight one sees quite often while at Pikes.

Well good for them. At least they aren't standing down in the unemployment line looking for handouts for nothing.

After leaving Seattle, we pointed ourselves toward Tacoma. We found a place for lunch and after having replentished our energy banks turned the wheel for home and in short order, we were pulling into the driveway.

I know it wasn't as spectacular as it might have been but it was memorable and that is really all we needed. Maybe in another 25 years we'll do some thing really wild!

Seattle Chapter Two

2010-06-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

Are you ready for part 2 of our anniversary adventure? I'll try to be a bit more brief but once my fingers get to tapping, it is hard to stop till the whole story is told.

We left the museum and punched the motel address into Zoe,(that's the name Debbie gave her GPS), and it turned out to be only a couple of blocks away. Too bad we didn't go there first since parking in Seattle is really expensive and parking at the motel was included in the price. Once we got up in the room and looked out the window this is the view that greeted us.

We had toyed with the idea of trying to make a reservation for dinner at the space needle but had not actually made the call. I used Debbie's netbook to aquire the phone number and found that there were a couple of time slots open. We reserved an 8:30pm opening as we weren't completely comfortable going to a special dinner dressed like we were. The restaurant accepts casual attire but we didn't want to be the most casual patrons of the evening. It turned out to be an ideal time slot because we got to view the city in daylight

and also at night.

Dinner was beautiful and tasty and our server was informative and helpful. Here are a few images of some our our choices.

Debbie was done after this pile of food but Jonathan saw how they served ice cream and was eager to sample some.

After dinner, we went out onto the observation deck to look around. You know it's funny. I was ok all evening until going out there and suddenly I got all creeped out about being 600 feet up in the air. It must be old age. We only spent a couple of minutes out there and then we were ready to get back down to sea level. I resisted the urge to kiss the ground but don't think the thought didn't occur to me.

Oh man! In the words of contemperary philospher, Brittany Spears, "Oops I Did It Again!" Well, I'll close this post for now and resume again with the final chapter of this special adventure.

I Said I Would, And I Have

2010-06-07T20:56:00.000-07:00

I have said it before and perhaps, by the grace of God, I'll say it again one day, that we are like geese and we mate for life. For those of you who don't know, this is the 25th anniversary of our wedding. That's right, we've made 25 complete orbits around the sun together and have continued to share common goals and have remained as attracted to each other as a couple of oppositely charged atoms. Of course, at this point my metaphore must end as it would be illadvised to describe one member of this union as positive and the other negative. Thank you for understanding.

Anyway, I know that some of you were privileged to see a short post on Facebook yesterday. For those of you who didn't, we took the opportunity of this occasion, to take a short trip up to Seattle. Though to some it might be considered unusual, we chose to invite our seventeen year old, Jonathan, along for company.

It has been a number of years since we've been to Seattle because my impression the last time I was up there was "Why in the world does this place need three more people?" Well, nothing about Seattle has changed that I could tell. It still doesn't need three more people. We were elbow to elbow with folks everywhere we went. Perhaps I have gotten a bit more tolerant of crowds through the years as I didn't feel as nervous as I remember feeling last time we were there which had to be 13 or 14 years ago.

Let me share some of our adventures from this latest trip. Our first stop in Seattle was EMP/SFM. That is the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum.

Firstly, the building itself looks like some kind of modern art exhibit. In the words of Commander Spock the architecture was "facinating".

The museum itself is equally as interesting. Though I don't know to what degree exactly, let's say it has been significantly sponsored by Trailblazer owner and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen. Let me share some of the highlights of the tour through the museum. I hope you can forgive the photography as it is dimly lit inside and our cameras are not low lux models.

Some of the exhibits are reproductions but many are actual models and costumes worn in Hollywood productions. Additionally, there are communicators and weapons and spaceships and robots.

Now we originally came to this museum to see the sci-fi stuff but the music side of the museum is probably equally worthy of one's attention. It just happens that our family unit has a very shallow interest in the history and developement of American music so though we wandered through, we neglected to take very many pictures. However, let me show you a few of the attactions one will encounter in that side of the museum.

This piece of artwork was too large to get an adequate image. It is made of over 700 musical instruments.

These are costumes in a collection that will be displayed for the next few months that were worn by the Supremes on stage. There are a lot of video exhibits with interviews of performing artists. Interestly, there were a bunch of broken guitars and other musical intruments that had been smashed at the close of certain band acts. I guess it is no wonder why it costs so much for tickets to a concert if the band is going to have to go out and buy new guitars after every show.

There are also a lot of interactive displays. There were tiny sound rooms where one can play a guitar or drum and then replay it back to yourself. I suppose that would be a lot of fun for someone with some musical inclination. This part of the museum seemed to be quite popular with the patrons and I am quite sure that the museum is very proud of this feature as well.

Ok. This post has gone on a little long so I'll save some of our other adventures for a little later. Don't worry, I'll be back!

Important Or Fun--Which Is Worth More?

2010-05-25T21:16:00.000-07:00

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

This particular poem by Robert Frost has had a lot of scholarly attention and certainly it deserves the thought that has been spent trying to discover the subtle as well as the obvious thoughts that the author had intended for his readers. I wonder, however, if it deserves any more time than something that was purely intended for fun. Try this bit of verse on the other hand. It is one of my personal favorites!

Seein' Things

I ain't afeard uv snakes, or toads, or bugs, or worms, or mice,
An' things 'at girls are skeered uv I think are awful nice!
I'm pretty brave, I guess; an' yet I hate to go to bed,
For, when I'm tucked up warm an' snug an' when my prayers are said,
Mother tells me "Happy dreams!" and takes away the light,
An' leaves me lyin' all alone an' seein' things at night!

Sometimes they're in the corner, sometimes they're by the door,
Sometimes they're all a-standin' in the middle uv the floor;
Sometimes they are a-sittin' down, sometimes they're walkin' round
So softly an' so creepylike they never make a sound!
Sometimes they are as black as ink, an' other times they're white -
But the color ain't no difference when you see things at night!

Once, when I licked a feller 'at had just moved on our street,
An' father sent me up to bed without a bite to eat,
I woke up in the dark an' saw things standin' in a row,
A-lookin' at me cross-eyed an' p'intin' at me - so!
Oh, my! I wuz so skeered that time I never slep' a mite -
It's almost alluz when I'm bad I see things at night!

Lucky thing I ain't a girl, or I'd be skeered to death!
Bein' I'm a boy, I duck my head an' hold my breath;
An' I am, oh! so sorry I'm a naughty boy, an' then
I promise to be better an' I say my prayers again!
Gran'ma tells me that's the only way to make it right
When a feller has been wicked an' sees things at night!

An' so, when other naughty boys would coax me into sin,
I try to skwush the Tempter's voice 'at urges me within;
An' when they's pie for supper, or cakes 'at 's big an' nice,
I want to - but I do not pass my plate f'r them things twice!
No, ruther let Starvation wipe me slowly out o' sight
Than I should keep a-livin' on an' seein' things at night!

Eugene Field

I Wonder What I Do With All Of My Time

2010-05-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

Well I'm sorry that I've been so intermittant as to posting to this blog but sometimes between burnout, other priorities, and life in general, things just get in the way. This week,though filled with most of the normal distractions, I, thankfully, found time to blog.

This weekend was move in to the venue for Jonathan's play "Seussical the Musical". Fortunately for me, Debbie has taken nearly all of the responsibility for our contribution to the "parent's participation" in this show. It is going to be a great show, but thankfully, I will have very little responsibility in the production.

If you are in the area, I am confident that you will want to see the show so be sure to go to this link and purchase your tickets. From what I understand, tickets are selling fast so in order to get the best seating, you'd better order now. The show opens Friday, May 21 and the final show will be Sunday, May 30th.

Saturday, while Jon was at practice, we had a chance to enjoy some cuisine that he doesn't appreciate like we do. I bought a nice slab of farmed salmon and threw it on the grill after having allowed it to marinate for 30 or 40 minutes in a solution consisting of olive oil, lemon juice, chopped garlic, and basalmic vinegar. I pulled it from the grill a bit prematurely so I gave it a couple of minutes in the oven on broil.

To accompany this course, I baked some asparagus on a cookie sheet for a few minutes and when tender, added a buttery sauce enhanced with a just a hint of basalmic vinegar.

To round out the dinner, I put together a tossed salad consisting of romaine lettuce, baby spinach, a bit of tomato, and a spinkle of fetta cheese.

We topped the salad with ranch dressing. I'd say that overall, this dinner was pleasing to the eye, the nostrils, and above all, the palate.

Ah yes! That was a treat!

Mother's Day 2010

2010-05-10T20:24:00.000-07:00

We had a delightful day yesterday! The weather was perfect for a party and we were fortunate enough to have a large group here to celebrate Mother's Day. Debbie had suggested a couple of days ago that we invite my sister and her family up for the day. I didn't jump on the idea right away as procrastination is in my nature but fortunately for all involved, I did make the call in time for her and her family to be able to attend. In addition to the Colby Clan, my dad, his wife, and Debbie's parents were able to make it here as well. We had a casual though robust dinner consisting of Jonathan's stuffed mushroom hors-d'oeuvre, spaghetti with sausage and meatballs, garlic bread, green beans with red bell peppers, and a lovely tossed green salad. Jon and I each felt like heros as the dinner was praised profusely throughout the party.

Now be careful with your mouse because I am going to share a link with you.

The Best Spaghetti Sauce and Garlic Bread

If you click on it and try the recipe for the spaghetti sauce and for the garlic bread, you will be forever spoiled and your appreciation for other spaghetti sauces and garlic breads will be surely ruined. I just felt that you should be warned!

Fortunately for me, my mother taught me to type by touch because my vision got increasingly blurred as I tried to tap out this post. You see, she was called home on May 2, 2006 and wasn't able to attend our event yesterday. I had actually forgotten the actual date and had to go back and read the newspaper article. For some reason I discovered that these +1.25 lenses that I sometimes use weren't able to correct all of the blurring that seemed to be happening. Somehow, I suspect that my vision will have corrected itself by tomorrow. It is interesting how time is sometimes the best medication.

Is My Life Really That Boring?

2010-05-04T20:22:00.000-07:00

Oh Man! I let another four weeks go by before I tapped out a post. I am so sorry!

A friend of this blog asked recently how our special event at Monticello Antique Marketplace went. I can honestly report that it was absolutely a success! I'd have to agree with a comment made by the owner of the store. There doesn't seem to be an economic crisis going on at Monticello!

I don't know if the rest of this will be thought provoking or not but it is at least interesting to me and hopefully stimulate something in you!

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
Abraham Lincoln

I never realized that this quote is actually atributed to the man who is perhaps the most revered president that this country has ever had. Interesting!

Now it probably would be prudent to end this post and allow Lincoln's words to sink in. I, however, am going to charge forward like a lemming bent on self destruction. What is the matter with me?

I don't know why the piece of journalism to which I'm about to refer rated any space in the Oregonian but somehow it did. I wish I knew if it was printed in the news section of the paper or only in the opinion pages. I read it on line as there just isn't enough value in the printed sheets to make it worth my while to purchase this rag.

Anglican parish splits from Episcopal congregation in Northeast Portland

I don't know why this piece was newsworthy but it did generate a bit of interest. At the time of this post, there were 66 comments. I was interested to note that only one in my opinion seemed to have a well reasoned thought on this event. Why is it that there are so many ignorant individuals who are willing to attempt to wax eloquent on a subject on which they know so little about.

Look! I doubt, with all of my tiny brain, that The Holy Creator of Life categorizes sins like His human creation is so prone to do. Anything that is contrary to His Holy charactor is sin and I am confident that He regards it as such. When humanity chooses to disregard the fact that it is this sin which will ultimately separate it from its creator, all hope is lost. It is critical to note that the Creator's love for humanity, in spite of its weaknesses, is so great that He developed a way to escape the judgement that a holy God must pass on to an unrepentent soul.

I believe that the reason a number of individuals chose to leave this local body to form their own congregation was due to the fact that the Episcopalian hierarchy who apparently had financial control over the building itself chose to disregard Biblical authority in favor of their own personal views of how things ought to be. It reminds me of how it was in the days of the Judges of Israel where "Every man did what was right in his own eyes".

It is time that the creation, mankind, begins to recognize its rightful place before an almighty God. If, in fact, pastor Humphrey and his flock have chosen to leave so that they may better understand the charactor of God as literally described in the scriptures and serve Him to the best of their understanding, then my support is with them.

Has It Really Been That Long?

2010-04-04T21:37:00.000-07:00

Man I can't believe that it has been a month since my last post. No I haven't been hiding. I guess that there hasn't been any outstanding events going on in my life. Sometimes life is like that. One gets up and goes off to work and then comes home mostly spent with just enough energy to spend a couple of conscious hours with the family before heading off to bed or what is even worse, waking up in the wee hours of the morning and discovering that you've spent the evening asleep in your chair. I hate it when that happens and wish that I could say it never happens to me.

Let's talk about today! We like to call it Resurection Sunday though it is more commonly referred to as Easter. This was an unusual Easter. We went to the church as we are accustomed to doing but instead of expressing our worship like we might normally do, we served breakfast to any one who happened to walk through the doors. I'd have to say that it was not unpleasant. It might even be described as fun. Anyway, after that we spent the balance of the day preparing and setting up our feature space for the Monticello Spring and Garden show which starts on Friday.

Even with all of the planning and time budgeting, we still spent the balance of the day loading up the pickup and delivering furniture and ornimental concrete to the show. Needless to say, we are all pretty spent this evening. We wanted to get the heavy stuff over so that tomorrow we can concentrate on the smaller inventory as well as the final display and fluff.

Yeah, I know. The booth looks like a mess but somehow Debbie will employ her magical talents and by Thursday evening, the space will look organized and inviting. Just you wait and see!

Let me change the subject. For those of you who don't know me that well I can assure you that I am not and really never have been much of an athlete. On top of that I come from a family that had very little interest in what is generally considered organized team sports. It is interesting to me that with my background, I have two movies to recommend that might be considered sports movies. You might be interested to note that each is based upon actual events. Most recently, we finally watched "The Blind Side".

It is a movie about a wealthy Memphis white family that took a homeless black kid from the projects into their home and how it change each of their lives for the better. The story is heartwarming and inspirational. The language is acceptable for most viewers I would think and the adult situations are pretty tame and not a huge distraction. The second movie is called "The Greatest Game Ever Played".

This show is a story based up the life of Francis Ouimet. He was an amateur in the 1913 US Open golf tournament. You don't have to enjoy golf to appreciate the story. It is also about crossing boundaries between the societal classes and about the relationship between a boy and his working class father. Again the show is nearly void of strong and objectionable language and I don't recall any adult situations of which to be wary. I enjoyed these stories not for the sports surrounding the plot but instead for the relationships developed amongst the charactors.

Whoa! I have to get to bed. I took tomorrow off from my "Day Job" but I'll be assisting Debbie at Monticello and trust me, that will be a taxing day requiring a full nights rest. Hey! I'll try to not let as many days go by before my next post as there was this time. Thanks for stopping by!

I'm Coming Out of the Closet!

2010-03-04T21:39:00.000-08:00

Yeah! That's right! Get away from the door. I'm coming out! Now wait just a minute! It's not what you're thinking. It's just this blog that I have been reading periodically for the last year or so. I know that is primarily targeted at chicks but somehow, I often find something rather endearing about it.

Let me back up a bit. This afternoon when I got home from work, I noticed a package from Amazon.com outside the door, I hadn't purchased anything recently so I was fairly confident that Debbie had ordered a book. I was even pretty sure that I knew which book she'd ordered. I was wrong. Apparently, she had secretly ordered a cookbook for me.

Have you ever heard of Ree Drummond? She's this woman who started out life as a city girl and somehow her destiny took an unexpected turn when she met and married a cowboy rancher and instead of settling in Chicago or some other big city, ended up on some remote ranch in Oklahoma. The part that I find so endearing is that after at least four kids and a number of years of marriage, she is still so romantically infatuated with her husband. It is so refreshing and encouraging to see a relationship that remains strong and vibrant even after a number of years of marriage. The blog, if you'd care to check it out, is called Confessions of a Pioneer Woman.

I am particularly drawn to the posts which she writes about her brother Mike who apparently has certain mental challenges, and also I love the posts that pertain to the animals around the ranch, as well as her kids and even her "Cowboy" who she affectionately calls Marlboro Man.

The book itself is beautifully decorated with Ms. Drummonds original photography and contains a fine collection of some of her favorite recipes. I'm secretly giddy to now own this book and above all, I am sooo fortunate to have my own woman who is infatuated enough with me to purchase it on the sly as a gift for me.

It's Still Kind of Fun!

2010-03-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

This weekend was about junking again. We visited a number of estate sales but were not rewarded with any spectacular treasures. There was one interesting find, however. On Friday, Debbie visited a sale and purchased a dresser that she was confident would sell for significantly more than she paid for it. She was unable to get it into the car so we went back on Saturday to pick it up. When we got it home, I pulled out all of the drawers as is my custom, and low and behold, there it was!

A 1921 Silver Dollar

Now they aren't particularly rare and thus not that valuable but it is still kind of fun to find buried treasure!

Oh What a Beautiful Day! And More!

2010-02-21T22:00:00.000-08:00

I needed to drive out beyond Sandy, OR today and I wish that I had had a better opportunity to take a picture of Mt. Hood. She was ostentatiously showing her beauty to the world. What an outstanding view! Unfortunately, the only image that I currently have of her is in the middle of summer.

She was beautiful that day too, don't you think?

Have you been watching the Olympics? I know that I recently posted that sports isn't a big deal around here but somehow the Olympics falls into a different category. I'm not so interested in the subjectively judged events but I truly love to watch the timed events and I think that my overall favorite is short track speed skating.

Although it is usually over in a flash, the drama, strategy, and suspense of the race is truly captivating. During the winter games, I have to be extra cognizant of the passage of time so that I get to bed early enough to be useful at work the following day.

Today, after our little jaunt to Sandy, Debbie wanted to check out all of the Goodwill stores that we passed along the way home. She's been eyeing this serving set for a number of weeks and today it was half price. We brought it home and after giving it a swim in the sink, we tried it out. I chopped up some salad items and we each enjoyed a lovely tossed salad. The main bowl contained romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and baby spinach.

The items that I kept separate so we could each build a unique dish were boiled eggs, red bell peppers, avacados, ham, dried cranberries, and crushed cashews.

Here's what mine looked like when I'd finished building it.

Yeah! You're probably right. It would have been a lot healthier if I hadn't enhanced it with all of that lovely Gregg's ranch dressing. Oh well, we only get to live this life once and after all, each breath is really determined by the Creator anyway.

Let me just finish with a thought from the words of the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah 40:26 NKJV (He's talking about the stars.)

Lift up your eyes on high,
And see who has created these things,
Who brings out their host by number;
He calls them all by name,
By the greatness of His might
And the strength of His power;
Not one is missing.

Love? Work? Maybe It's All The Same!

2010-02-15T20:42:00.000-08:00

I was just reading up on the Valentine's Day traditions. I thought that I had read somewhere that the traditions were based, at least loosely, on some actual historic person. Today, I'm reading that the "historic person" is a little ambiguous. I guess that there are a few different people with the name Valentine who might be the person referred to as St. Valentine. Apparently, the romantic association may have been invented by the poet philosopher Geoffrey Chaucer. Is this history being rewritten or is new truth being revealed? Whatever! I am not going to research all of the ancient documents to discover the truth on my own. It just isn't that important to me.

Ok, let me admit this much! In the final hour, I drove to Albertsons and purchased a couple of boxes of candy/cookies with French (the love language) writing on them. I don't know if it made any difference but it did suffice as insurance in case my beloved had secretly purchased a confection or floral gift for me.

Let me tell you how my love was revealed in action. Perhaps you are aware that we, Debbie and I, supplement our income with a hobby enterprise which I shall heretofore refer to as junking. Junking is the act of buying someone elses junk and turning it into treasure for a third party. Well, this weekend there was an estate sale which started on Friday. The address was to be made available on Thursday evening and so I found myself in the general neighborhood with my beloved partner refreshing my mobile at the approximate time when the address was to be revealed. When we got the address, we hurriedly drove to the destination to get our names on a list to gain early access to the contents of said estate the following day. I was unable to attend so my "second", son Jonathan, stood in for me as a second is bound to do. Together, Debbie and Jonathan worked feverishly for ten or fifteen minutes to accumulate a pile of booty which in this case consisted of nearly a half ton of ornimental concrete.

Oh my goodness! Did I have my work cut out for me on Saturday and, yes, it even ran into Sunday afternoon. Don't get me wrong! If she can make money buying junk, (and she can) even if it is old concrete, then I am fully ready to sacrifice my body for the cause. You have to remember that in todays economy, if you have the ability to make money, then you had better do it because it just isn't coming as easy as it may have in the past.

I love my Valentine! She has been endowed with talents which not only generate money but enhance this loving relationship to the nth degree! What could be better than that?

A Collection of My Thoughts

2010-02-09T21:39:00.000-08:00

Now sports is not a big priority in this family and that seems to be kind of a tradition with us. I don't see any interest in sports in my wife's parents and there was very little interest in my own family as I was growing up. In fact, I had never watched a football game till I moved here to Oregon when I was a sophmore in highschool. The first Superbowl that I can recall viewing on the television was when I was a freshman in college in about 1979. As it turns out, I do enjoy watching the game once in a while and although I don't think this year was my favorite Superbowl, it was a good one and held my attention to a fairly decent degree. I generally root for the underdog and was pleased to see New Orleans come out on top this year. It is always a good reminder to see someone or in this case, a group of someones, overcome all of the challenges ahead of them and find themselves at the top of the mountain.

I told you a couple of posts ago about this new phone that I purchased. It has been an interesting few weeks as I have continued to become more familiar with it and its features. I now feel fairly confident with the device but let me share with you a fun little experience that I had with it tonight. We need to purchase a headset with a microphone so Jonathan can keep in touch with his teachers. Perhaps you already know that he does his schooling at home on line. The school has had a couple of very low end headset/mic combinations delivered here but the quality has matched the price and they haven't worked very well. We decided to check out the availability of better sets this evening and went to BestBuy. They had options ranging from $19.99 to $127.99. Oh my goodness! What makes one set that much better than the other? There was a set marked down to $49.99 but I couldn't tell what the original price was. It occurred to me that I had recently downloaded a free application to my phone that utilized the camera as a barcode reader. I chose to scan the barcode from the item and discovered, to my complete surprise, that this particular headset was available online at any number of websites for nearly half of the price that BestBuy listed as "on sale". Well, needless to say, we left the store and will be purchasing a headset from one of the popular online stores.

Ok I've been thinking. I know that you're tempted to warn me not to hurt myself by putting all of that extra pressure on my brain. Well, its too late! The thoughts have already escaped the gray matter and are now leaking through my fingers into the blogosphere.

I was thinking about synthetic sweeteners. You know man-made replacements like saccharin, nutrasweet, aspartame, artificial sweeteners. They make things taste sweet but they always seem to leave a bitter aftertaste in the mouth. I'm told that if one uses it long enough, one will begin to prefer it over real sugar. I suppose that may be true. I hope that I never get to the place where I prefer a man-made supplement to the real thing!

NKJV Psalm 119:103
How sweet are Your words to my taste,
Sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Who Stole My Church?

2010-02-02T18:58:00.000-08:00

Did you see the obvious trap? Don't get caught! It's not my church. It's not your church! The true owner, who paid a dear price for it, will continue to take care of it. All through out time since the formation of the church as we know it, a righteous remnent has been preserved. We can be confident that the true head of the church will continue to protect its legacy in spite of the present culture within which we live.

Who Stole My Church!

2010-01-31T21:26:00.000-08:00

Have you asked yourself this question? There is a book by a guy named Gordon Mcdonald titled "Who Stole My Church". Now let me be clear, I have not read this book nor do I know what it is about but I have, in fact, asked myself this question. I asked it today, if you can believe it, before I entered the doors of the church which I am currently calling home. Interestingly, they chose today to suggest this book as suggested reading. I read the online exerpts and got a general gist of what the book is probably about. To tell you the truth, I am not completely satisfied with the idea that I should be ok with the church experience with which I am currently familiar.

John the Baptizer, a biblical character with whom we should all be famailiar with, was not a person who found reason to be particularly concerned with the "feelings" of persons outside the circle of current believers. He believed his role was to speak the truth in blunt vernacular and allow the Spirit of God to do Its work in the hearts of the listening audience. He was able to use blunt language and the Word Of God and people still heard God's voice speaking when if, in fact, they were receptive to the words in the first place.

I am personally concerned that if we as a local church don't bluntly preach the Word of God in a clear manner as in examples like John the Baptizer, we are doing the
currently unreached a disservice and they will have to find the truth some other way.

I have personally sat in the audience of a preacher who consistently preached the Bible chapter by chapter and verse by verse and found that the scriptures themselves spoke far more intensly to my soul than some poor individual trying to determine what might be an appropriate series of subjects to talk about and support with appropriate scriptural texts.

Don't you think that the Creator allowed the current scriptural text for a reason? Isn't it all there for our benefit? Why then does the clergy apparently completely ignore the "difficult" text and tend to only talk about the easy stuff? If the status quo was to teach verse by verse, there would not be freedom to ignore the more difficult passages.

This is my belief, take it or leave it. The scriptures will always talk about whatever is going on or can go on in one's life and if God's prophet, whomever he may be, is willing to proclaim His Word, in the literal manner in which it was intended, it will not return void. It is not his job nor should it even be his concern whether or not the message is milky enough for the present audience.

Clam Chowder Extraordinaire

2010-01-26T21:41:00.000-08:00

Oh Yeah! I just had to add a quick post. We had a fairly simple and yet wonderfully tasty dinner tonight! I had one of those ginormous Costco cans of chopped clams and was convinced by my life time sweetheart to make a batch of clam chowder. We just got back from Winco where she found some fun sourdough loaves called "sourdough bowls". We have always threatened, since experiencing something like this at Disneyland, to serve some great clam chowder in loaves of bread. It was fantastic!!!

I used the recipe for chowder on the can of clams although I added a lot more flour to get the thick viscosity that this family prefers. Here is an image of the final outcome.

Today Is The Day The Teddy Bears Have Their Picnic

2010-01-24T18:23:00.000-08:00

Please be sure to click on any of the links that I've included. Don't forget to come back and finish the post though. I love your visits and the comments you leave. As insignificant as you might believe they are, they lift the spirits of this "Old Man" to heights you couldn't imagine.

Now for those concerned readers of this blog, it seems that I am finally getting used to this new hand held wireless device. I actually posted a couple of comments to facebook today and there were at least two images taken and posted via this device. I was also able to remember the path to silence the phone during church and no one got their head bitten off due to my frustration. Ahh! Life is truly good!Don't expect, however, for me to make posts such as this one with just one or two thumbs. Efficiency calls for the use of all ten fingers. Besides, the skill of touch typing is one of the important skills which my mother left me and it is good for me to exercise that skill as frequently as time permits.

Ok, some of my visitors through Facebook asked for more info regarding the restaurant that we visited today. That restaurant would be the Black Bear Diner. Now Debbie and I have actually been to the Beaverton, Or location three times and have been pleased during each of these visits. We don't drive to Beaverton to visit the restaurant but if we happen to be in the neighborhood when the "urge" to replentish our stores of calories, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals, (as in we're hungry) then we stop by. Interestingly, there does often require a wait though today it was only 10 or 15 minutes. The menu is on recycled paper and looks somewhat like a newspaper but the items listed on it, at least the ones that I have experienced, are tastey and filling. In fact, today I had to laugh because as we were waiting, a waitress delivered a dish to a relativly small women that could have easily fed three people like myself. I think she split it with her companion but one needs to know that one will not go away from this establishment hungry.

All of the decorations are bear related to some form or other. There are bear carvings, paintings, and usually somebody wandering around the place dressed as, yeah, you guessed it, a bear. Oh well, that is part of the charm of the place.

Go ahead and check it out on my recommendation. I'm confident that you will come away having received good service, a good meal, and a good time.

Dude! What Happened?

2010-01-18T21:38:00.000-08:00

Isn't all of our modern technology supposed to make life so much easier? I mean, isn't that why the technology was invented? We should be able to apply modern gadgetry to our every day situations and relieve the stresses that confronted the people of the last decades.

Ok, this is what I'm really talking about. This weekend we were allowed to upgrade our wireless phones. We decided that it would be helpful in our little weekend junking business to have at least one phone that could do a few more tricks than just make calls. I looked around and kind of decided which phones we wanted and so we went in and made the purchases. We determined that Debbie's phone only needed to make calls and text messages and that my phone should have the ability to do data exchange and have internet access. Well, suddenly the stress level around here has gone through the roof! Yesterday while sitting in church, I tried to silence the phone and was so engaged in trying to remember the path to that feature that I nearly bit Jonathan's head off as he tried to hand me something. That was just the beginning. Without going too deeply into the details, I lost some important contacts from my previous phone and again, there was some loud exchanges between certain family members and myself. This whole thing was going downhill at a steady rate and recovery was looking pretty grim. This morning the darn thing thinks it is an alarm clock at 5:30 am and that would have been ok if I had had just the slightest clue as to how to turn it off. Oh my goodness!! I had to get out of bed and run into the bathroom so I could just figure out how in the world to silence this devil machine that I now own. Have you heard of the rule of unintended consequences? Basically it is like this. No matter how hard one tries to anticipate the affects a certain decision will have on one's situation, there will always be effects that are completely unintended. I have certainly experienced this law over the last couple of days. So far during this process I have not uttered any language that is not part of my normal vocabulary but there have been times when certain unacceptable words have been bouncing around in my cranial cavity looking for an exit.
Hopefully, there is a learning curve and I will soon acheive some level of competence.

Ok, let me tell you about the phone. In spite of my current frustration, it is a cool device that, in time, will be a valuable addition to our current assortment of technology. This device is called the Motorola Droid and falls into the smart phone category and is one of the hottest items in the current Verizon Wireless line up. You need to know, however, that currently it does have what might be considered a fatal flaw by many people. It cannot make a phone call using only a bluetooth headset. To make a call one must actually hold the phone in one's hand and make a couple of different strokes with one's hand. That obviously makes it a problem here in Oregon as well as many other states with the current hands free rules. I have been assured that Motorola is currently working feverishly on a fix that will be "pushed" to the phone in the next couple of months. I don't know how the designers could have overlooked such an obvious problem. Other than that, it is very cool.

It has a Google based operating system called Android. Google is a proponant of open sourced programing which makes a huge number of the applications available for the phone for free. Oh Man! You wouldn't believe the number of fun and useful apps that you can download for no additional cost.

It also comes with a 5.0 megapixal camera with a flash and a full qwerty keyboard.

Dude! That is so amazing!

This post is getting way too long but hopefully soon I can post some pics which I've taken with this phone. I have to go to bed but hopefully the dreams will be sweet before that obnoxious phone wakes me up again. (I'm not sure if I remember how I finally turned the thing off this morning.) Uggh!

We Went Shopping And We Weren't Alone

2010-01-09T22:44:00.000-08:00

Today Debbie and I were on the "other" side of town. We decided to stop for a sinful bite to eat at The Cheesecake Factory.Have you ever been there? Man, that is an experience! I've been there three or four times and at least twice we waited for over two hours. Today it was only about an hour. Now I realize that somewhere around here there is a recession but not today. At least not at The Cheesecake Factory, Nordstrom's

or any other place that we strolled through at Washington Square.

That place was hopping and it appeared that people were spending money. Now this, of course, was just a microcosmic look from my little world but it sure looked as if people were easing up their grips on their liquid assets.

Ok, let's get back to the restaurant.

Look at this crowd waiting to be seated.

And this lot is already enjoying their dining experience.

The menu is the largest of any menu that I've ever read. If you'd care to preview it in pdf format, you may click here.

Our meals were each outstanding. Debbie enjoyed the same thing she always has when we're there. (She believes that when one finds a good thing, one should stick with it.) Each of our dinners can be found on page 12 of the menu in the pasta section. She had the Bistro Shrimp Pasta and I had the Cajun Jambalaya Pasta. We were each served portions large enough to bring some home. In additon to our dinners, we each added (this is the sinful part) a lovely piece of cheesecake. Her's was called The Chocolate Tuxedo Cream Cheesecake and mine was called Stefanie's Ultimate Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake. These can be found on page 18 of their remarkably long menu. Just to "wet your whistle" as it were, let me leave you an image of my choice for dessert.

Whew! That reminds me. I better go take my cholesterol pill and an asperin!

Oh Wow! Are You Sure It's Fifty?

2010-01-03T19:53:00.000-08:00

I remember a time when only old people had 50 candles on their cake. Today, as many of you know, was my birthday. Fifty years ago I was the newest cheechako in the State of Alaska. Perhaps you've heard the line that if you say you can remember the sixties then you weren't really there. Well, I don't remember everything that happened politically or socially in the sixties but I do remember a lot of things that happened to me during that time. I was there for the whole decade except for the first two days. Now don't get all excited. I'm not going to talk about the sixties or the last 50 years. Today I'll be relating just about this weekend and today in particular.

Yesterday Debbie and I went back to the Grand Central Bakery and we each enjoyed a pastry and a cup of coffee. We also had purchased two loaves of their bread. One being the one they call Campagnolo and the other was their Sour Rye. I haven't been disappointed with any of loaves which we've purchased in the past and am anticipating these to be no different.

I chose to prepare my own birthday meal so later in the day I drove to the grocery store and purchased what would be our meal today. I decided to get some of my inspiration from Jamie Oliver again. I picked two recipes from one of his books which we picked up from the library. The first was a dish called Sticky Sausepan Carrots.

The second was called Rosemary Roasted Cubed Potatoes.

You know? You're right. That looks a lot more like boneless rib roast. That's because it is. It was the main course and I forgot to take a picture of the potatoes. I really enjoyed each of these. I think nearly everybody else liked them as well but there are a lot of left overs so perhaps I'll be enjoying them for the next few days. Probably I just made too much. I forgot to say that we stopped at Trader Joes to purchase some fancy cheeses and crackers

to serve just prior to the meal. The first course was a creamed broccoli and cheese soup.

I probably shouldn't have prefilled my guests. Now I will need to discover some sort of soup or stew to which I can add these delightful ingredients.

In the mean time, I guess I'll just get up and head off to work tomorrow and I'm pretty sure that I'll feel the same as I did yesterday. You know, fifty really isn't all that bad.

A Delightful Christmas Morning

2009-12-25T13:43:00.000-08:00

It is a beautiful Christmas Morning in Ruch, OR 2009. We are spending the holiday with Debbie's sister and her family. I got up a little late today. It was sometime around 8:00 am. I've already forgiven myself though because yesterday I was up at 4:00 am so that I could get my eight hours of work in by 1:30pm. I ended up having to work a little late but was home by 20 minutes after 2:00 and on the road to Grants Pass by 2:30.

Unfortunately, the traffic combined with poorly timed road construction, added at least an hour to the trip. I was fading a bit by Albany, so Debbie took over and drove all the way to Grants Pass. I then re-took the wheel and drove the final leg into Ruch.

I'm sure that I was far worse company last night than normal. Today, however, after a full nights rest, I feel far better.

They have a beautiful noble fir which they harvested up in the woods. The needles are a bit longer than the nobles we normally find in the woods near our place in Portland. It has a little nicer color as well. I love the look of a wild noble fir. Here, enjoy it with me.

We have been fortunate enough to be part of this family which continues to grow and in which each of the members loves each of the other members, hence the mountain of gifts at the base of the tree. It is refreshing to watch and listen as they each interact with each other about the gifts and the thoughts that went with them.

Let me share some pictoral highlights.

Oh my goodness! I wish I'd taken a picture of the huge pile of crinkled wrapping paper and empty boxes. You should have seen it!

There is something else that I wish you could have experienced with me. There was a lot of gratitude going around. Many "Thank you" responses and sounds of appreciation. Often, in todays society, there is too little thanks. It is great to be in the same room with a number of people who don't just do this one day a year.

Sometimes Its Just Good Enough To Be Alive

2009-12-20T21:57:00.000-08:00

Ok. Sometimes life just doesn't offer nerve tingling sensations. Sometimes it is just a new day with the kind of events that one normally expects. This week has been full of those kinds of days. I think it is good, however, to go ahead and report even when life seems to go ahead normally.

It is the Christmas season and though I'm not really feeling particularly consumeristic, I did visit a couple of malls this week. I found nothing that really pushed any of my buttons and left without making any purchases. My condolences to all of the vendors out there competing for the few dollars in my pocket. We visited Clackamas Towncenter earlier in the week and discovered it to be noticeably lacking of patronage. If I had actually been in the mood to buy, it would have been the perfect opportunity to get some shopping done. We finally left the mall with a couple of cups of coffee and virtually no inspiration.

I needed to visit the DMV and discovered that they have an office at Lloyd Center that is open on the weekends. Yesterday, we decided to head down there so I could take care of my business. Our experience at this mall was completely different. To begin with, there was extremely limited parking availability. We finally found a spot on a nearby street that was available on a pay by the quarter hour basis. Boy, was this experience different than it had been earlier in the week. The mall was packed with barely enough spare oxygen for me to remain calm.

On top of that, this particular DMV office didn't offer the service that I needed. What a downer! We visted Starbucks

then wandered around for a short while, dodging the myriads of bodies and finally, to my relief, headed back to the vehicle for the trip back home and the welcome lack of nameless faces. Oh my goodness, how good it feels to be in my own quarters with only familiar people around me. Whew!

Today it was a pleasant church service with a bit of a twist. The service was a bit different in that there was a Christmas pagent in lieu of a sermon. Our seventeen year old, Jonathan, had a part and we were proudly watching during his performance this morning. I think at the last minute someone had dropped out and he was able, with very little prep time, to stand in with some significant speaking parts. You've got to love that!

Our church offers two services and between services this morning we offered a free breakfasts of all you can eat pancakes, sausage, yogurt with granola, and peaches. Jonathan's mother, Debbie, and I, helped serve up the breakfast. Debbie's father, Hans, was kind of ramrodding the outfit and we happened to be volunteers by association. It wasn't that bad. In fact, it was kind of fun but don't tell him. We'll just kind of keep that our little secret.

Who? Me? Sick? Never! Well, Maybe

2009-12-08T21:47:00.000-08:00

Did I ever tell you that I never get sick? Well never is kind of extreme. I actually have recently been influenced by some sort of virus. You know, a cold. It has been a couple of years since I have had any trouble breathing through my nostrils. Tonight, however, I have chosen to take a couple of DayQuil capsules. You know, just something to keep my sinus passages clear enough to breath through. I think I'm feeling better already. I love anti-decongestants.

I suspect that the busyness of my life in recent weeks has played significantly in my current condition. Normally, I cook with a lot of garlic and other healthy ingredients, and can expect perfect health. Last week I endured a number of "fast food" episodes, and am considering consulting an attorney regarding the health effects of Burger King. Ok, that was a joke! Please don't tell the King.

I think I told you previously about a piece of furniture that was spending significant time in my driveway awaiting my attention. Well, a couple of nights ago, Debbie and I huffed and grunted it into our kitchen (our cold weather work area) and I started to give it some much needed attention. Tonight, I put some final touches on it and tomorrow evening, you will probably have an opportunity to purchase it for yourself at Monticello Antique Marketplace. I suppose that its next owner will have to have the same love for Shabby Chic that we have, but I am very pleased with the final outcome. Let me show you a few images before we take it to the shop.

Originally, we acquired this piece with no top or drawer pulls. We had a collection of drawer pulls to contribute to this project and went to the Rebuilding Center for some tongue in groove flooring to add to the top.

I hand rubbed some linseed oil to get this delightful effect.

These were some really great drawer pull that significantly enhanced this cabinet.

I believe that this was a very old display piece from some sort of store. Oh my goodness! Is that a ghost? I hope that the new owners don't experience any unwanted apparitions.

Food, Fun, and Frolic

2009-12-02T21:37:00.000-08:00

Tonight we had a kind of special event at Monticello. We combined a dealer work night with a potluck dinner party. There was far too much food to be able to try it all. It all looked wonderful and the items that I tasted were delightful. I made a batch of sour cream enchiladas which was a favorite from my mother's repertoire. Jonathan contributed chocolate truffles, and Debbie added some lemon pound cake. I probably should have taken pictures of our contributions but unfortunately, I didn't.

Debbie was at the space all afternoon and had it in pretty fine order but due to another new feature this year, she'll probably be back tomorrow to spruce it up again. This is the first year that I can remember that Monticello allowed dealers to make purchases among ourselves prior to the actual opening of the sale. I'm not quite sure how sales were this evening but I am confident that there were some sales and there really is no greater compliment than to have ones competition choose to spend their hard earned money on items from your inventory. Very cool indeed.

Here is a glimpse of our space.

Here's a peek at my sister's space. Debbie appears to be exchanging ideas with her. Her business name is Colby Cottage.

The show opens on Friday the 4th. We hope to see you all there!

Everything's a Blurr!

2009-11-24T22:34:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard of CYT? That is an acronym for Christian Youth Theater. As it turns out, our son Jonathan has been involved with that organization for a couple of years and currently has a role in the performance of "The Legend of Pocohantas". Opening night is November 27, the day after Thanksgiving and there will be at least seven performances. Please click on the link to obtain tickets to one of the performances. The venue is Mt. Hood Community College. They have a lovely theater with excellent accustics. The shows should be a lot of fun. It is especially appropriate right around Thanksgiving. We hope to see you there!

Ok, now that the commercial is over, let me tell you how things are for us. This group, in order to keep costs to a minimum, requires parents to have an active role in each of the productions that their kids are involved in. We have previously been involved in the Green Room and make-up. This time out has been a most stretching experience for us. Somehow, we ended up on the tech committee. I don't even understand the language let alone the equipment. Normally, tech sets up and mans the lighting, sound, and special effects. When I look at one of those sound boards with its 500 to a thousand or more buttons, switches and dials, I get nauseous. This time was no exception. I am so out of my comfort zone that I can't adequately describe it to you. It might not have been that bad, but somehow in all of the confusion, it turned out that only one person on our crew had ever had even limited experience with this stuff. This is a definate recipe for disaster. Fortunately for the kids and the show, they re-assigned the sound board to someone who had at least some limited knowledge. Try to imagine how thankful I am for that! My next anxiety attack came when they asked us to rig the kids with wireless mics. Oh my Goodness! What a fiasco! Somehow we have survived the last two nights but I wouldn't want suggest that it was anything close to smooth.

Fast forward two days.

Here it is Thanksgiving day and among the things that I am most thankful for is that the last three days is over! I am thankful that we all got canned from working the sound board as I mentioned previously. Ok. That may be a little tongue in cheek. I am sorry that I am not nor will probably ever be functional with modern sound equipment. Whatever. Let's move on to the present and the future.

Today instead of resting up for what could turn out to be another scarey day tomorrow, I started to approach some of the smaller projects that Debbie has lined up for me for our own show at Monticello next week. I rewired a cool wall clock

and also a chandelier.

I don't know how we're going to get all of this stuff done. We move in on Monday. There are still mountains of projects to attend to. (Wow, I think I'm loosing my grip. I have hung at least two prepositons out at the end of a sentence in this post alone.)

Let me get to dinner today. I started sometime around 11:00am and we ate sometime around 3:00 or so. There was a lovely turkey, mashed potatoes (thanks Jon), and gravy, asparagus with hollandaise, baked yams,

and a delightful cherry pie with a whipped cream chaser created by my lovely bride.

And now my friends, I've got to get some rest!!

What is the Weirdest Thing You Ever Ate?

2009-11-17T21:55:00.000-08:00

The other night I was at a social function related to my wife's job as a teacher's aide. They played a little game where we were supposed to answer a number of questions about ourselves. At the time I was afraid that I would have to address the whole room with my answers so I held back a little. As it turned out I only had to share with those at my table. Oh well.

Anyway, I have eaten a few items that are not likely to be on just everybody's list. I've had moose tongue, deer testicles, and snails. I've eaten rabbits and squirrels, even a camprobber jaybird once and maybe even the odd bug that made it down my throat before I gagged.

What's weirder than that you ask? Well, let me tell you about what I think is actually the weirdest thing that I ever ate on purpose.

Sometime back in the early 1980's I spent a little time in Europe. Sometime during that period I met a couple of kids from Sweden and they invited me to come visit their home. They happened to live in Lulea, Sweden which is very near the top of the Baltic Sea. I hopped a train from Paris to Lulea. It was a long trip but after a couple of days I arrived and enjoyed a few memorable days with my new friends. They chose to offer me the opportunity to experience a traditional Swedish dish. It is called Surströmming in Swedish but in English it would be called Sour Herring. You may read about it at Wikipedia or here ,a rather entertaining web page which I discovered as I was preparing this piece. I borrowed the picture from that last web page.

The brand that I ate may not have been the same but the can was bulging to a similar degree as I recall. In fact, they told me to take the can down to the lake and open it under water so that the contents wouldn't squirt out and taint everything within three or four yards with the foul odor of the fish. Let me just tell you right now that most people I know would never even consider putting anything that smelled like this stuff in their mouth. They wouldn't have even remained in the same room! Normally, one would believe, with good cause, that anything looking and smelling like this stuff was certainly poisonous. I mean it came in a can that was bulging! Doesn't that just scream toxic? It totally smelled worse that any road killed dog that you ever had the misfortune of walking past. Let me tell you right now, without exageration, that I still tasted it in my mouth two days later. I don't know how it ever would have possibly become a tradional delicacy anywhere. Who was the first person to ever put it in their mouth? That is a question far beyond my limited ability to reason.

There you are. That is absolutely the weirdest thing I ever ate. How about you?

Go And Do The Right Thing!

2009-11-08T20:08:00.000-08:00

Ok, I just finished watching the Scott Boxell memorial service online. You know something? I really didn't know that kid but I know his dad and I would recognize his mother and also his older brother. I am not really that close to any of them other than I work with his father. Now for those of you who don't know, Scott fatally injured himself two Thursdays ago. It is so hard to understand what kind of internal pain could bring one to that end especially when by all accounts, he was a believer in the Giver Of Life and had accepted the free offer of eternal life with the Creator through the sacrifice offered by Jesus the only truly innocent man who, in fact, also was God incarnate.

I know that there was some sort of physical ailment that had bewildered his physicians and had apparently affected his sleep patterns and he had apparently come to the end of his ability to bare the physical/emotional/mental pain. Those of us who weren't walking in his shoes can't really imagine what he was going through so there is no point in pretending or second guessing his situation.

Here is what I know and it is upon this which I wish to comment. There were approximately 700 people attending the memorial service. Let's admit that a certain number of them were there to support the family who remained. There still had to be a large number of people there just because of the effect Scott Boxell had on their life.

Always take the time to tell the people around you that you love them and that they make a difference in your life. Don't let an opportunity go by to make someone feel loved and appreciated.

Have you seen the bumper sticker that says something to the affect that you should practice random acts of kindness? WELL DO IT! It will probably make a difference in someone's life and will certainly make a difference in yours. It will never hurt in the long run to make someone else's life better.

Just think. How would you feel if you found out that just by offering a friendly word to a friend or stranger you kept them from mistakenly ending their life prematurely? Think about it and as Dr. Laura would say, "Go and Do The Right Thing!"

Here's a Riddle For You!

2009-11-02T19:17:00.000-08:00

How can a pair of blood siblings who share the exact same mother and father, be the same number of years old and not be twins? Hmm. Think about that while you read this post.

Man! This has been a very busy period in our lives and there is no reason to believe there is relief coming any time soon! We have sooo many projects in various stages of completion. The goal is to have everything done for the Christmas Show at Monticello Antique Marketplace which starts December 4. Here is one that is finally just about completed.

The first couple of weeks here it was in our drive way. It is now in the dining room. That seems to be the system around here. First the driveway, next the dining room. We really need more room in this house. Fortunately, Debbie and I are on basically the same page and we have discovered that we can live amongst the projects. This cabinet was a total mess when we first brought it home. Over the course of time that I've spent with this one I've learned to hate it. Now that it is nearly complete, my feelings have tempered to a mild dislike.

It will be great when it is out of here and for sale at the store. Oh My Goodness! The stress is starting to set in with force! We bought another kind of cool cabinet at The Rebuilding Center. It required a certain amount of my kind of attention and tonight I made a critical mistake while attending to its needs. Aieee! I need to just take a deep breath and not expect more than my best from myself. That is soooo hard. After my little error, I decided to knock off for the night and come inside and make dinner.

Yesterday, Jonathan requested Chicken Cordon Bleu. No worries I thought. I can do that! You know what? I was right. I did it and it was great. Again, as oft is the case with me, it took a little longer than I anticipated but in the end, it worked out just fine. Here is what we had for dinner.

Yummm!

Ok, let's get back to the riddle. This situation actually happened in my own family growing up. I was the oldest of four siblings. My younger brother, Mark, was born a year and a half later. The next to arrive was Dave a little over a year later. My sister was born 11 months and about three weeks later. So what happens each year is that she and my brother Dave are the same age for one week. Interesting eh? Tomorrow is her birthday and once again,for a week, she and Dave will be the same age.

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Hot Dogs! Chili Dogs! Cold Pop! Have Some Nachos!

2009-10-25T20:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the harvest festival at the church and for three hours I was hawking hotdogs, chili, and various other tasty treats that are extremely bad for one's health. I, however, resisted and waited to treat myself till after the festival was over. This event is held at Gateway each year around this time. There are various games and prizes to keep little kids busy, excited, and perhaps a little overfed for the day. It is a community outreach event and all the kids and their families from the Gateway School are targeted as well as anyone else who might have some exposure to the church.

Today after church, we had planned to stop by the Grand Central Bakery for a couple of treats and a couple of loaves of artisan baked bread. The two loaves of bread that we chose were the Calamata Olive and Peasant Levain. I can report that each of them is excellent and will complement a variety of meals and will certainly make outstanding sandwiches.

Our treats were wonderful as well. I have only rarely strayed from the pastry that was my original choice back when we first discovered this bakery. Once again, it was the Chocolate Croissant for me. Debbie, on the other hand, has ventured out a couple of times (though she too loves the chocolate croissant) and today thoroughly enjoyed a lovely Cinnamon Roll. They probably are very tasty as I noticed at least three others were purchased by fellow patrons to this notable establishment just as I waited in line. To complete our purchase and cleanse our palate, we each add coffee to the order. I haven't been disappointed yet. If you plan to eat the pastry in the car as we normally do, expect to be wearing a few crumbs of puff pastry on your lap and shirt.

What Can I Say?

2009-10-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

I know you probably haven't missed me much but it has been two weeks since my last post and I just couldn't stay away any longer. Wow! This was looking like a tough week-end for us. The estate sale circuit was pregnant with treasure but my partner and inspiration in this whole thing had a CPR class that she needed to take for work and that put "the dirt in the soup" as it were. She sent me out with strict instructions to carry out my normal duties and hers as well. Oh man! I was soo out of my league. Usually, I'll grab a few items and let her cull the ones that she doesn't want to use. Yesterday, I was on my own. I felt completely naked. I was totally unprepared for the task before me. Have you ever felt that way? Over all, I did poorly. The only good thing was that I didn't spend much money. I got a couple of items which received two thumbs up,

at least one which received two thumbs down, and one which was one up and one down. Oh well, it was probably just too much responsibility for someone who is normally just a grunt.

Today after church, we were back in the game and Jehovah Jireh (Our Provider) smiled on us. We went to a sale that we didn't check out yesterday and lo and behold, we found some items for which we had actually been searching long and hard as well as a few smaller items which will fit nicely in our space at Monticello and we got it all at half price. Now that's the thrill of victory!

Let me show you some images which show how I best contribute to this partnership.

In the words of the great philosopher, Dirty Harry, "A man has got to know his limitations". Fortunately, I know mine and am contented with the responsibility of carrying heavy items, tying them down, and safely transporting them.

Hopefully, something fun and/or interesting will happen during this week so I can employ my other talents and post an interesting blog for you to peruse.

Let me close with the words of another great orator, The Terminator, and just say "I'll be back".

Now That Was Really Good!

2009-10-04T20:44:00.000-07:00

Anytime my readers post a comment, I receive an endorphine injection. I like endorphine injections. If you like me, please comment and allow me the pleasure! Ahhh!

Let me just say that a comment, no matter how trivial in your eyes, is a valued event to me.

Have you ever heard of Jamie Oliver? He is sometimes referred to as the "Naked Chef". Apparently, that title has nothing to do with nudity but instead refers to the simplicity of Jamie's recipes. Whatever! Let's get beyond the word "naked" and get to the crux of this post. I recently read a post on another blog which peaked my interest in Jamie Oliver. Apparently, it also peaked the interest of my dear life partner, friend, and wife, Debbie as she checked out a video dvd from the library called "Oliver Happy Days Tour Live!" She also checked out a book called "Jamie At Home" by Jamie Oliver. To get to the point, we watched the video and enjoyed a wonderfully enchanting evening with Jamie. The dvd was enjoyable, funny, and remarkably clean and void of any kind of bathroom humor or any content which might be considered questionable, at least in my opinion. I would recommend it highly, especially to anyone who enjoys cooking and food preparation.

The book is very nice as well and includes a fine collection of pictures as well as personal commentary from Jamie.

Tonite I am featuring a recipe from this book.

I chose "Steak, Guinness and Cheese Pie with a Puff Pastry Lid". This recipe can be found on page 342 of the book. I am not a friend of Guinness, in particular, so I chose a stout which I do enjoy from the Deschutes Brewery. They have called their stout "Obsidian" and it pleases my pallet to a far greater degree than Guinness ever has.

Ok. Now to get down to the important and perhaps more subtle and distinguishing component of this post. The time required to achieve the end was significant and the folks upon whose opinion I heavily rely were getting ancy towards the end. However, when the alarm finally sounded and I was free to announce the completion of the dish, everybody had a positive commentary.

In fact, I too was impressed. It was both beautiful and tasty. I even had it again for lunch and it was still good. I will certainly revisit this recipe but next time I'll either start much earlier in the day or prepare the filling the day before I intend to eat it.

Well That's Weird!

2009-09-28T19:14:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the bumper sticker that says "Keep Portland Weird". I don't know what that means exactly but let me tell you about what happened to me on Friday, September 25, 2009.

I showed up to work as normal and the day went just as expected till break time. That would have been about 10:00 am or perhaps a bit after that. Anyway,I had just decided to go on break and had let my helper go for a bit and all of a sudden the fire alarm went off. I thought, "Great timing!", but decided to follow normal procedure and head out into the parking lot and find the place where I am supposed to show up in a fire drill. Suddenly, something happened which was totally unexpected. (You might say it was weird!) The supervisors who would normally have been out in the parking lot with us came to the doors of the building and indicated that it was imperative that we immediately re-enter the building and go to the break room which is located in the center of the building. Hmmm, interesting! Apparently, someone was breaking the windows at the front of the building and the safe place to be was somewhere in the middle of the building away from all exits and windows. Whatever! I complied with their wishes and went to the break room. After what seemed like an eternity, the alarm quit sounding and we were allowed to exit the break room. I, along with a couple of other curious parties, decided to investigate. We had heard that someone had broken a bunch of windows via a baseball bat or throwing rocks. To tell you the truth, I still haven't heard what he actually used but nevertheless, the windows were broken, people were frightened, and work was halted for perhaps a half hour or maybe even more.

When the "all clear" was sounded, I went to the front of the building to get a first hand view of what had actually gone on. What I saw was approximately, eight broken panes of 1/4 inch plate glass, a police cruiser with an aledged perpretrator inside, and cops and Providence security officers, and various other Providence employees milling around and checking out the damage.

Aparently, the perp was someone with whom the authorities were familiar. Astonishingly, he chose to hang around and wait for the cops to show up and arrest him. That sounds pretty weird to me. You know what? I don't like the idea of keeping Portland weird. Let's just put all of the weirdos in jail or dispatch them some other way and let Portland remain normal. I don't think I like weird. I heard that the quote to replace the glass was several thousand dollars. Some knucklehead like I saw in the squad car is not likely to have anywhere near that kind of money.

Once again, the victim is the one who will bear the brunt of the cost of the crime that was perpretrated against them. No matter how one reviews this event, the victim is the party carrying the greater liability.

I don't know if Providence Health Systems is rich or not. I doesn't really matter. The victim should never be the recipient of the greater portion of penalty. A perpretator who can not pay for his crime should be required to pay in sweat. Let him work it off!

Ok, let me cool down a bit. Society is never going to require retribution. I guess that is why this society is failing. Perhaps when the last victim falls and all that is left is perpretrators, we will finally get the picture. Unfortunely, by that time, it will be too late to get the appropriate measures accomplished.

Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life or Maybe the Last

2009-09-19T21:27:00.000-07:00

It is funny how the mind works. This week I've been tuned in a little to my own mortality. Last week a young relative of mine nearly choked on a piece of chicken. Earlier this week, a man who I didn't really know but I had had contact with him and his family, was killed by a hit and run driver up in Vancouver, WA. I am fairly confident that he died a child of God because of some of the things that I know about him and his family. It is interesting to ponder why the Lord sometimes calls his own home at an earlier date than we might wish or expect. There are some, as in my first example, whom He allows to remain alive and vibrant, and there are others who might have been equally as alive today but for some reason beyond our ability to comprehend, He has chosen to remove from life as we know it here. It probably makes no sense to wonder why because after all, who can know the mind of God.

On the other hand it always makes sense to continually consider the fact that we are each fragily mortal and need to live our lives aware that our last breath is not in our hands but in His alone. There may be those of you out there who read this blog regularly and may have forgotten or chosen to ignore what I believe is a fact, that each breath is a gift from the creator and your time here on earth is your only opportunity to choose to spend eternity in His presence. If you choose to live your life separated from Him, He will not require that you spend eternity with Him. It is now, while He allows you breath, that you must choose. In the words of the noted philosopher and author of many classic books C. S. Lewis, "There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way."

Along a similar note, tomorrow is a date that for the greater portion of my life and I guess even today was, and is, a celebrated anniversary.

It was my mother's birthday. We lost her a few years ago and I don't want to let her memory fade just yet. She contributed countless hours and prayers to what I have become today. Much of what I think was molded from her instruction and example. She left a fine legacy in both children and grandchildren. I, for one, will always remember September 20 as a special day full memories and respect for a woman who helped mold me into the person that I am today. The good stuff was from her, the bad stuff is mine. Happy Birthday, Mom!

And though perhaps she wouldn't have found it appropriate, today I raise a glass in her honor!

2009-09-15T18:30:00.000-07:00

I was sooo disapointed with Ebay yesterday! I know they are a big company and feel that they need to be politically correct in their policies but when their policies aren't even logically consistant it is hard to not be angry with them.

I had this auction that was doing really well for me and Ebay allowed it to go all week and then about two hours before it was scheduled to end, they cancelled it and said it violated Ebay's listing rules.
Ok, they've done that to me before with other types of items and I have been able to live with it but in this case, all of the auctions that I am current running have one thing in common. They are all steel leg-hold animal traps. They are designed to catch and hold animals so that they can be harvested for their fur and/or any other parts that may have a commercial value. They didn't cancel any of the others. They only chose to cancel the one that was making a lot of money. Nobody is going to spend the amount of money that had been bid, and I suspect someone was going to bid a lot more, perhaps two or three times as much, to put this item out in the woods to catch an animal. This was a collector piece, something for decoration or to appreciate for its own intrensic value. Can you guess why it was cancelled? Because it was bigger than 5 1/2 inches and had teeth. I think the teeth thing is irrelevent because teeth or not, the trap will hold its intended prey. The 5 1/2 inch thing is completely void of sound reasoning. Does this kind of logic mean that is ok to catch small animals in a leg hold trap but not larger animals? This kind of thinking is not only wrong, but it is illogical. Why would it be ok to catch small animals but not large animals? Do large animals have more rights or do they feel sensations differently than smaller animals? What kind of moron thinks like this?

Now I need to rethink how to sell it. I generally like Ebay because it is a venue that reaches a wide domestic and even international audience. I may still use them but I need to figure out how I can do it without their knowing what I am doing. I have done that before with items that I knew had special collector value, were legal and moral, but fell into a politically incorrect category. I think I will spend a little time thinking about how to beat them at their own game.

Oh Dude! Can I change the subject? Of course I can! This is my blog! This is about me and what I think! Read it, like it, or ignore it but this is about me! I hope you'll enjoy it but I'm not asking for your permission! Hope you don't mind but this part of this post is about food again. I think everyone should be interested in food. Ok maybe not, but if they tried even a little, there should be some particle of interest in food in everybody. I mean, everyone needs to eat don't they? Whatever! Look at what I made the other day! The menu came from Martha Stewart's web site. (Let me let you in on a little secret. I don't care what anyone thinks about Martha Stewart, I like her and I respect her opinion on food, decorating, and business. I read "The Martha Stewart Rules" and I believe with all of my heart that if a person wants to be an entrenpreneur, they should read that book. Believe whatever you want about her, she understands business and what it takes to be successful in the business world).

The menu came from Martha Stewart. Click Mediterranean Chicken Menu

It was kind of exotic, tasty, and worth of another visit, perhaps with guests. The menu included Mediterranean Chicken, Herb-Feta Salad, and Rice Pilaf. I totally enjoyed it. Granted, I am not always friends with olives but these were called Kalamata and had been marinated in red wine and were not bad to say the least. Anyway, the menu was delightful and each of the three courses was both sensational and worth another visit.

What A Whirlwind of a Day!

2009-09-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

Oh wow! It has been over a week since I've posted. Well, I'm busy! I'm busy at work, I'm busy at home, and... oh man, I need to take a day off. No good! Today was a day off and I was busy!

First of all I posted an auction on Ebay. Next we had to take Jonathan's friend to meet his mother. He'd been spending the weekend here and it was time to go home. After that we went over to Monticello and fix up our space a bit. There is a special event going on over there and so we are continually replacing items that have been sold or just straightening the place up. Every day it looks like we've been sacked.

Somewhere in here I got the oil changed in the car because the "idiot light" came on because, well, I'm an idiot! We also delivered Jonathan to Clackamas to meet up with some of his friends. Whew! The next thing we had to do was run back to an estate sale that we visited this weekend to pick up some animal traps that we decided to purchase.The goal is to get them listed on Ebay as soon as possible. That leads me to my next project of the day.

I sorted through three wooden crates full of various styles, sizes, and shapes.

As it turned out, there were over a hundred of them. It looks like I bought some guy's whole darn trapline. Anyway, it was fun and I enjoyed playing with them. I set and snapped a number of them and didn't get caught a single time.

I always wanted to be a mountain man. Oh well, born a hundred and fifty years too late!

I got four auctions listed and the one that I thought was particularly special is already paying the bills. Hurray! In the words of Hannibal Smith of the A-Team "I love it when a plan comes together!"

Oh my goodness! Look at the clock! I have to go to bed. Tomorrow I have to go back to work. Maybe I can get some rest there!

The Beginning of a Lifetime Together

2009-08-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

This was a lovely country wedding. It was perhaps reminiscent of the kind of wedding that might have happened a hundred or so years ago.

We seated ourselves and then in no time at all the groom and the preacher were standing up front and just as quickly the bridesmaids and groomsmen were arriving to stand with them. I don't recall if there was a traditional wedding march because I was somewhat surprised when we all stood up and there was the bride being escorted down the aisle.

There was then a short welcome from the parson, a passionate exchange of vows, and then we were introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Pratt.

The dinner was immediately ready and we got in line for what turned out to be a great meal.

Congratulations Tyler and Julie! It was a wonderful ceremony and party. I am glad we were a part of it. I don't want this to be the end of it, however. Let us continue to be a part of your lives. You are welcome to come by any time.

My Tastebuds Were Singing Like Angels!

2009-08-23T20:58:00.000-07:00

Jonathan has gone to visit with his friend Taylor this evening through Tuesday so that is our signal to go ahead and open the valves and allow the freeflow of cullinary possibilities to pass through our imaginations, past our lips, over our taste buds, and settle in our stomachs for a satisfying series of sensatational snacks.

Oh my goodness! Tonight was almost beyond belief. Even before the meal was cooked I was wondering if I was going to make it. Out of all of the ethnic possibilities, Italy has easily maintained the prominant positition in my list of favorites. Tonight I was working from a book titled "Italian Favorites" The Best of Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Library. I chose three recipes. The first was: RED BELL PEPPERS WITH POLENTA.

My second choice was: ASPARAGUS WITH PROSCIUTTO.

My third and final choice for this evening was: SAUTE'ED FISH WITH GARLIC, ROSEMARY, AND RED PEPPER FLAKES.

Now to be perfectly candid, and especially because this particular dish didn't turn out exactly as I might have hoped, I had to use flounder instead of the monk fish that was suggested in the recipe. I also would have had to make a run to the store for fresh rosemary instead of the dried herb which I had on hand. The selection of fish needs to be one which will stay together during the cooking process. The flavor of the fish was consistant with what one might expect, however, the fish didn't maintain its original form as well as I might have hoped.

The other two recipes pleasantly met or exceeded expectations.

Over all, this evenings epicurean encounter was a delight and there will be another attempt in the near future to meet or beat tonights experience.

The PDGA? What?

2009-08-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

We took a quick trip to Eugene on Sunday afternoon to visit with my sister, her family, my dad, and his wife. We enjoyed a grand time together including a barbequed meal featuring Chef Marv, stimulating conversation, and a sneak preview of what will soon be the newest antique/High Tea establisment in Eugene, Colby Cottage. Check it out, please!

We were so into the whole event that when I finally checked my watch and discovered it was already 9:00pm and we still had at least a two hour drive to Portland, I shouted marching orders and everybody jumped in the car (after the obligatory hugs and all) and we were off towards home.

Somewhere along the way, I discovered that we had picked up an additonal passenger. (Just kidding!) Aaron, my nephew, is only slightly older than Jonathan and is always good company and we were pleased to have him along. During the following day while I was at work, they enjoyed sleeping in, video games, and a few hours swimming at the SE Portland Community Center.

When I got off work I got a call from the "woman of the house" asking if I would pick them up at the mall as she was out with a friend browsing the local thrift store circuit.

After dinner we discussed what to do with the next few hours. Knowing that Aaron is a disc golf enthusiast and knowing that there is a course close by, we decided to purchase a few discs and try our hands at the game. Jonathan and I have only limited experience with the sport. However, we found it to be a pleasant expenditure of a few hours of time which came with a gentle bit of exercise as a side benefit. Debbie refused to participate but contributed to the event as the resident photographer. I hope you can enjoy our time together vicariously.

By the way, the PDGA is the Professional Disc Golf Association. Did you know there even was such a thing? Who would have thought?

2009-08-15T20:34:00.000-07:00

I don't know if we felt like we'd been working too much lately but on Thursday we took the opportunity to explore another of the McMenamins locations. Have you heard of McMenamins before?

Their business is comprised of taking old and interesting establishments which are in danger of condemnation and or destruction and restoring them into fun and interesting eating and sleeping establishments. Our favorite thus far is the Kennedy School located in northeast Portland. We have enjoyed a number of evenings in their theater watching a three dollar movie and eating pizza. We've also been to the Edgefield in Troutdale and wandered in their gardens, listened to concerts in the yard, and watched a three dollar movie.

On Thursday, we drove to Forest Grove to experience the Grand Lodge. It once was a masonic retirement home and orphanage. They have a beautiful garden with a frisbee golf course.

We didn't try the course. We were waiting to see Night at the Museum:Battle of the Smithsonian.

You know something? That must have got us in the mood because you'll never guess what we did the next night.

I have been suggesting that I'd like to see the new movie called Julie and Julia. Well, I came home from work yesterday and Debbie is on the net watching the trailer. We had some free tickets that I got from work two or three months ago (that's how often we go see first run movies). I suppose it could be categorized as a romantic comedy. It is based on the life of Julia Childs played by Meryl Streep and Julie Powell played by Amy Adams. Apparently, Julie Powell was kind of a Julia Childs groupie and started a blog relating her attempts to cook through Julia's cookbook titled "Mastering the Art of French Cooking".

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Both Streep and Adams played their parts marvelously. It was particularly enjoyable due to the fact that I had something in common with each of the characters. It was fun watching Julia Childs learn to cook and it was fun watching Julie Powell's frustrations and excitement around the blog.

The movie was rated PG-13. If you could bleep all of the foul language you'd only have missed about 2.5 seconds of the whole movie. In other words it was mostly free of objectionable material. The directors didn't put us through any intimate sexuality or nudity.

I was interested to note that the other people in the theater were nearly all female and at least my age or older. I suppose it might be considered a "chick flick" but again, I truly enjoyed the show as did both Debbie and Jonathan.

Rhymes That Make Me Smile

2009-08-10T21:01:00.000-07:00

I probably have indicated in past posts that I enjoy old poetry. I am not refering to Beowolf or even the Psalms. Don't get me wrong, I dearly appreciate the writings of David, but for this post, I am referring to poems from American poets written at least a hundred or so years ago. One of the treasured items that I have that was given to me by my mother is a book called "Poems Teachers Ask For--Book I". It has been in the family for as long as I can remember and probably belonged to my grandmother. She was a school teacher in a one room school house somewhere in Minnesota.

As you can see the condition of my copy of this book is poor to say the least. But guess what? Last week while I was toiling away at my day job schlepping oxygen tanks, my dear wife Debbie was out perusing estate sales for hidden treasure and came across volumes I and II of "Poems Teachers Ask For". Both editions are in significantly better condition than my volume I.

Let me share a couple of my favorites from these volumes.

The title of this first one sounds a bit morbid but I like it because in it I can see the tender feelings of a child towards an abused animal. By the way, it is also written in a kind of dialect so please don't hesitate to read it just because it isn't in a form that you're used to.

The Dead Pussy Cat

You's as stiff an' as cold as a stone,
Little cat!
Dey's done frowed you out an' left you
alone
Little cat!
I's a-strokin' you's fur,
But you don't never purr
Nor hump up anywhere,
Little cat.
W'y is dat?
Is you's purrin' an' humpin'-up done?

An' w'y fer is you's little foot tied,
Little cat?
Did dey pisen you's tummick inside,
Little cat?
Did dey pound you wif bricks,
Or wif big nasty sticks,
Or abuse you wif kicks,
Little cat?
Tell me dat,
Did dey holler at all when you cwied?

Did it hurt werry bad w'en you died,
Little cat?
I is wet in my eyes,
'Cause I most always cwies
W'en a pussy cat dies,
Little cat,
Tink of dat,
An' I's awfully solly besides!

Dest lay still dere in de sof' gwown',
Little cat,
W'ile I tucks de gween gwass all
awoun',
Little cat.
Dey can't hurt you no more
W'en you's tired an' so sore,
Dest sleep twiet, you pore
Little cat,
Wif a pat,
An' fordet all de kicks of de town.

Marion Short

Ok, this one is a lot lighter. I hope you enjoy it as much at I have over the years.

Seein' Things

I ain't afeard uv snakes, or toads, or
bugs, or worms, or mice,
An' things 'at girls are skeered uv I
think are awful nice!
I'm pretty brave, I guess; an' yet I
hate to go to bed.
For, when I'm tucked up warm an'
snug an' when my prayers are said,
Mother tells me "Happy Dreams!" and
takes away the light,
An' leaves me lying all alone an' seein'
things at night!

Sometimes they're in the corner, some-
times they're by the door,
Sometimes they're all a-standing in the
middle uv the floor;
Sometimes they are sittin' down,
sometimes they're walkin' round
So softly and so creepy like they never
make a sound!
Sometimes they are black as ink an'
other they're white--
But the color ain't no difference when
you see things at night!

Once, when I licked a fellar 'at had just
moved on our street,
An' father sent me up to bed with out a
bite to eat,
I woke up in the dark an' saw things
standing in a row,
A-lookin' at me cross-eyed an' p'intin'
at me--so!
Oh, my! I was so skeered that time I
never slep' a mite--
It's almost alluz when I'm bad I see
things at night!

Lucky thing I ain't a girl, or I'd be
skeered to death!
Bein' I'm a boy, I duck my head an'
hold my breath;
An' I am, oh! so sorry I'm a naughty
boy, an' then
I promise to be better an' I say my
prayers again!
Gran'ma tells me that's the only way to
make it right
When a feller has been wicked an' sees
things at night!

An' so, when other naughty boys would
coax me into sin,
I try to skwush the Tempter's voice 'at
urges me within;
An' when they's pie for supper, or cakes
'at's big an' nice,
I want to--but I do not pass my plate
f'r them things twice!
No, ruther let Starvation wipe me slow-
ly out o' sight
Than I should keep a-livin' on an' seenin'
things at night!

Eugene Field

Thanks for bearing with me. I like this stuff and just wanted to share it with you. I'll catch you again later,

Amen and Amen

2009-08-06T18:37:00.000-07:00

Tonight was a rather unusual evening for me. Jonathan was invited out somewhere and Debbie had plans to eat with friends that she doesn't see all that often. That left me to figure out what does one eat when they are all alone. I thought to myself what do I like that no one else around here likes. It didn't come to me in a still small voice. It was like the heavens opened and there was a shout like thunder. BARBEQUE! Suddenly there was whooping and hollering, clapping and dancing. It was like an old time tent revival meeting. Suddenly, I remembered sheepishly that I was here all alone so I said to myself "Self" shut up, sit down and grab the phone and call Campbells for take out. So that is what I did. I ordered a jumbo order of beef ribs. I had to pick two sides so I got baked beans and a garden salad. I also had to choose between a dinner roll and cornbread and I chose the cornbread, of course. The last decision to make was which sauce to get and I chose the hot bbq sauce. They said it would be ready in seven minutes so I hustled down there and picked it up. Back at the house I sat down and started pounding down some of the best barbeque in Portland. It was great sauce too. I was sweating and both eyes were watering but I think I'll do it again next time!.

What An Awesome Week!

2009-08-03T19:04:00.000-07:00

Is the word awesome a little over used? Sometimes I wonder if the word loses some of its meaning and power when it is used too flippantly. Who cares? We just completed an awesome week! The weather was beautiful and even though it was over 100 degrees, we had the lake and river to keep ourselves cool.

What more could you ask for? The kids were swimming, water skiing, and tubing and I was fishing. No stress, no worries, no problems. I could get used to all of that.

The fishing wasn't all that great but it was still better than working.

Most days the average size of the fish was 6-9 inches and the number I caught was between three and six. The fish were predominantly natives in that their dorsal fins and adipose fins were intact. Each displayed remarkable colors as you can imagine. I let them all go and am confident that none of the fish I handled this year we're injured in any way.

Even though fishing is high on my priority list each year, it is not always about fishing 100% of the time. There is always swimming, water skiing,tubing and all of the other water sports. I, however, find that those other sports are far less attractive. Maybe it really is all about fishing!I need to tell my wife so she's not always on my case about staying around and spending time with the family.

I just love the look and sounds of the deep, cascading pools of mountain streams.

I always prefer to slip away and envelope myself in the natural solitude that is constantly calling out to me. I know that my family can't hear the call and they think that I'm rejecting them each time I get out on my own but the intoxicating effects that I feel from the sensual bombardment via my ears with cascading streams,

wind in the trees, bugs, birds, and the visual stimulation of the colors of the water,

trees, flowers,

and fish is too great a burden to resist. They are fortunate that I'm ever able to find my way home at all.

I love this Freeeedom out here!

2009-07-28T14:39:00.000-07:00

Arielle has been applying her talents to any blank spaces.

I thought that it would be a full week before you heard from me but there was an event this week that afforded me the opportunity to post a short update on what is going on with us. Today is the day that we decided to celibrate Cullen's birthday. He picked Red Robin as his preferred party place and his dad wanted to allow him a chance to catch another nice 27" brown trout so they left at 5:00 am to head for La Pine.

Here is a picture of the dinner party.

This is Cullen, the birthday boy, on the left with his younger brother Wyatt. Hmm, nice smiles guys!

The girls were all going to go to Bend for the day and shop. Debbie wanted me to go along and intently whined till I gave in. She didn't care if I stayed around and watched them shop so I went hunting for a free wi-fi signal and here we are.

This is what we looked like after hooking the Winofsky tent trailer to our overloaded truck. Looked like something out of the hills of Kentucky!

The lake is beautiful and the temperature has only been around 90 degrees. We have not experienced the 102 plus degree heat of Portland. Just between me and you, I'm glad it's you!

I've been sneeking out nearly every afternoon to fish along the Breitenbush river. The trout are small and a little rare but the solitude is such a joy and I have caught enough to keep me anticipating more.

Debbie keeps asking when I'll be home. She remembers when I dislocated my shoulder in a fall along the banks of the breitenbush a couple of years ago. Anyway, yesterday I told here 6:00pm. Apparently, fish and people start eating at about the same time. I was just getting into a little action having had a couple of really nice strikes when I noticed it was 5:42 pm and I was going to have to really hussle to get back to the truck and to camp by the proposed deadline. It was soooo hard to leave right then but I did get back to camp within the alotted timeframe. I probably won't get a chance to get on the water tonight since I am sitting in Bend right now and we haven't been to Red Robin yet. Oh well, I expect that I'll be able to focus on fishing tomorrow and for the rest of the week. We have to get back to Portland as soon as we can on Sunday as we have the Window space at Monticello next month and need to get it loaded and decorated as quickly as possible. I guess this will have to be it for now. I might update this post next week or when I get my next wifi conection. Thanks for coming by to keep up on what is going on with me.

On Vacation!

2009-07-24T21:50:00.000-07:00

This is last year!

We're on our way to Detroit Lake for the annual family reunion. Sorry that you'll have to wait for a week but I promise that on my return there will be some new and hopefully spectacular photos of the trip and I will try to punch it up with some commentary that'll make you smile.

These are a sample from last year. I think we can anticipate at least similar if not even greater memories this year. Look forward to a great collection of photos so you can vicariously experience our time with us!
I'll catch up with you in a week!

When I Look Down From Lofty Mountain Grandeur!

2009-07-19T15:53:00.000-07:00

Before I start out today, I just want to be sure to thank all of you who take the time to read this blog. Granted, I get a lot of enjoyment just from writing this stuff, but to actually discover that there are those of you out there who enjoy keeping up on what goes on in my life is very encouraging. Thank you!

Be sure to click on any pictures for a closer look.

Wow, the other day I heard a voice on the answering machine that I hadn't heard in many years. I called right back and he answered the phone. It was Konrad F. He was a missionary who I met while on a summer mission trip to France in 1980. He had since come back stateside and is living in Chicago and works for Moody Bible Institute. He called to see if we could get together to catch up on each others lives. During the conversation, he indicated that he planned to hike to McNeil Point on Mt. Hood. Since I often have an inflated idea of my physical abilities I asked to tag along. I am sooo glad I decided to follow along as the scenery was just amazing! Let me share some of them with you.

Take a look at the wildflowers.

Look at the lupine!

And the beargrass.

There was lots of indian paintbrush.

There were many that I can't identify by name but they deserve a place here.

This was the strangest of all.

I had to take its picture!

This little hut is at the 6000 foot mark. Can you imagine having to build it.

We ate our lunch here and then headed back to the car.

Let me leave you with a few more images of our trip.

Please read these words by Swedish author Carl Gustav Boberg. In english we call this hymn:

How Great Thou Art

O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed:

(Chorus:)
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art! How great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

When through the woods and forest glades I wander
and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze:

(Chorus)

And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin:

(Chorus)

When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!
Then I shall bow in humble adoration,
And there proclaim, my God, how great Thou art!

Happy Birthday Debbie!

2009-07-15T20:56:00.000-07:00

Tonight we had a simple little dinner at home with Debbie's parents as our guests. Dinner consisted of Beef Tenderloin with a creamy garlic mustard sauce. We also had mashed pototoes and gravy, asparagus, and Shirley brought a tossed salad and some desert.

Here's Mrs. July. Pleased to be in front of the camera as always.

And of course, the rest of the dinner party.

Thanks for coming by and remember to wish her Happy Birthday!

What A Week! Phew! Great Week-End Though!

2009-07-12T21:42:00.000-07:00

Man! I can't believe it has already been a week since my last post. I have been having to keep up at work all by myself. That is a real chore! They told me when I was hired that the job was considered a 1.3 FTE (Full Time Employee) position. Well, between summer vacations and injuries, I have been having to handle the full 1.3 all by myself. I come home dragging and Friday is the most welcome day of the week.

Anyway, this weekend was like most except for the fact that a lot of the estate sale competition was at the expo antique fair and we were fortunate enough to not have too much trouble with the people who pick up the same kinds of items we usually look for. Here is a shot of some of the items we purchased.

They're in my work area waiting my attention. Most just need a little oil or cleaned up a bit. It is part of the fun.

We haven't been selling on Ebaycast-n-flies for more than a year but last week Debbie decided that she'd be willing to list a number of items on my account. If you want to watch or bid on our auctions, click on the above link to enter cast-n-flies @ ebay. (Cool name eh?) Note to Terry R, there are a bunch of lead sinker casting molds. You might want to take a look.

You know something? No matter how well publicized our bad economy is, people will still spend money. I can't believe how much they are spending for some of our items. And so far we are getting paid immediately. The internet is so amazing! I also love how Debbie is doing all of the work and I'm getting all of the credit. Life is sweet!

Hey I made dinner last night just like every night. (It's therapy.) I tried a stir fry recipe. I was encouraged by Debbie after she saw a picture posted by my friend Joel M. on Facebook.It was another hit! I love to cook Italian but Asian is also pretty good! Take a look!

Finally, do you remember how good the fireworks were before the liability lawyers got involved and the people who love "Big Government" decided that we needed to be protected from ourselves? I bought a box of the old time sparklers this weekend.

Now they are pretty old and time and probably a little humidity have affected their performance but this video will help you remember the good old days. Disclaimer--the video isn't that great because of the lighting and it took a long time to get it lit but you can giggle while you wait as you imagine my fingers getting cooked medium-well by the lighter as we tried to get it started.

Sorry everyone! For some reason the video wouldn't load. It wasn't that great anyway!

Thanks for coming by,

It Looks Like a Fish, Only Smaller!

2009-07-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

Between injuries and regularly scheduled time off, we are extremely short handed at work. Usually, I can expect a certain amount of help but this week I was almost completely on my own. My normal helper is away and will be gone for at least three or four weeks and will probably be on light duty for another couple of weeks after that. All that to say that I really had to pick up the pace this week just to stay in the game.

Yesterday we were closed due to the holiday and boy! Did I need the extra time off or what! We lounged around the house for a few hours and then I loaded the pick up with essentials and then we headed for the river.

I have been suppressing my need to get out in the woods so that I can hold down a regular job, spend Saturdays with my wife combing through other people's junk for treasure, church on Sunday and probably some more junking and maybe a trip to Monticello to restock our space with some of the finer ~~junk~~ treasure.

Okay! Let me get back to yesterday. After that trip to the Deschutes last week, I've had a need for the river burning somewhere down deep and it lept to the surface and I found myself driving along the Clackamas river looking for a place we used to fish a number of years ago. When we arrived, both Jonathan and Debbie expressed chagrin regarding the steep decent down to the river's edge. I told them it was nothing and that I used to do it without thought and I was going to do it again on this day. They sucked it up and followed me down into the dark depths of the forest towards the sound of the river far below. Oh come on you guys; it's not that far! Anyway, we reached the edge of the river without injury and I prepared my gear for what I'd come for.

I can't tell you how many times I got a strike and lost the fish before actually getting a picture. I was a little disappointed also at the size of these fish as well. Apparently, the ODFW is no longer supplying hatchery trout to this water like they used to do.

Click the play button on this short video clip.

I never saw a single damaged dorsal fin or clipped adipose fin which is the most obvious indication of a hatchery fish. Finally after catching and releasing a number of eager but small natives, I got a strike that started to take line. Hmm, interesting. I played with this fish for a little while and then landed him, measured him, and released him, apparently unharmed. I always am happy when I don't see any post traumatic stress displayed in the fish I release. I let them go and dream of catching them again someday. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. He went 14 inches and probably 3 to 3.5 inches deep. It was probably the best trout I've ever seen on the Clackamas. He was beautiful but there is no picture since my camera crew was reading magazines and throwing rocks a few hundred yards downstream.

This was a really fun couple of hours for me and I think my companions had a good day as well.

We Struck Fish! Too Bad Jon and I Have to Go Home!

2009-06-24T20:29:00.000-07:00

Rember to click on the pictures that you want to see better!

Don't forget to read the next post as well. After all, it came before this one and is the first part of the same trip!

I was a bit disappointed about not getting in a second float but I can roll with the punches and decided to adapt to the conditions. Terry, the guy other fishermen want to be, suggested we go to some place he affectionately calls The Burn. Not having too many viable options, and having never been there, and having a learned respect for his opinion of what is a good spot, I decided to go along and try my hand at The Burn. Holy Cow! I sure am glad I came along. Look at this view. This alone is worth the trip!
I chose to wander down into the marshy area to the right in the previous image. As I meandered down there I took the time to take pictures of some wild columbine and roses.

You know something? I need a better camera man! Mine is never there when I need him. Sometimes you just have to make do!Once I'd made my way down to the water, it was only a few casts and I had hooked a small but legal trout. I let him go unharmed. Hopefully, he'll be there next year with a little more length and girth.Everybody was using Rapalas, a lure that is supposed to resemble a fish and is extremely effective on browns by the way, and though they offered to let me borrow one, I stubbornly chose to use my own gear. I have had a certain amount of experience with spoons and spinners, albeit with other species of fish, but I refused the accept the notion that brown trout will not strike out at them. The first fish I caught was on a steelie. Yeah, it was smaller but it was a fish and a brown trout just the same. I then switched to a red and white Mepps. This is a spinner that I have had a lot of success with as a kid catching grayling in Alaska. Perhaps it was a fluke but I had only made a couple of casts and BANG. I think this is a decent fish! This is the fish for which I've been looking! Thankfully, it stayed on the line and I was able to land it.
Often, I let fish go but there was enough length and girth to this fish for me to decide to add it to the food chain. I didn't eat it myself but I gave it to someone who will appreciate it. They had at least two others and by the end of the week, will probably have more.

Oh my goodness! You guys are a long way from home! This is Levi and his cousin Dennis. They decided to come up for the day on Levi's bike and surprise us. Here are some more pics of the people who shared this adventure.

Finally, I found someone to take my picture! Whew!Just to keep my pride in check, the Lord provided another fish just a bit bigger.

Well, that is it for now. Jon and I headed home to our regular lives. Today, I got up like normal and went to work. Sometime during the day, my phone gave me the signal that a text message had been received. I checked it out and it looks like Terry has passed the baton to his son Cullen. Apparently, this is one of the largest browns that they have ever pulled out of this stretch of water.Way to go Cullen! That is a beautiful fish!

If Only There Were More Days Like These! Day 1 & 2

2009-06-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

Remember to click on any picture you want to see more clearly.

On Sunday Jonathan and I packed the truck and headed out to La Pine where we joined a group of guys for a great couple of days of fishing and comaraderie. It was great fun but not everything went as smoothly as we would have liked.

Let me first show you some pics of the place where we were staying. It is not huge but was adequate for our needs and had a wonderful western cabin ambience.

The first thing we did, once every one had arrived, was to find something to eat. The tentative agenda had said we'd all go over to Gordy's Truck Stop for dinner. My brother-in-law, Terry, suggested we all go to Taco Bell. All of the under 18 crowd chimed in and voted unanimously with one voice that Taco Bell was their all time favorite eating place in La Pine. I donated my truck to Terry for their transportation since Terry had hitched a ride from Jacksonville to LaPine with his friend Terry Toner.

I chose to eat with the over 18 crowd at Gordy's. After dinner, we all agreed that the meal was great and headed back to the cabin. This is where our first difficulty showed up. Josh's truck refused to start. Somehow one of the battery posts had fallen off the battery. How often does that happen? No worries! They grabbed another rig and headed to Walmart and arrived 10 minutes from closing but were successful in acquiring a battery for the truck. Unfortunately, the truck still didn't start and they were forced to leave it over night where it was parked.

The next morning, they arced across the solenoid to get it started and at least got it to the cabin. Because we all were concerned about Josh's misfortune, we got a really late start on the days fishing float. To make matters worse, a number of members of the group didn't even have fishing licenses yet and needed to rectify that issue before we could get started. Then, in the confusion, we apparently didn't coordinate well where we were putting our tubes in the river so the guys who got an even later start, put in at different spots which wouldn't have been all that bad if it weren't for the fact that some of them were parked on opposite sides of the river. This may not seem such a bad thing until one realizes that in the natural course of a float trip ones floats away and often some distance away from their vehicle, in our case over 7 miles, and it needs to be arranged with another party to pick him up and ferry him back to his rig. These are the things from which memories are made. We had hoped for a second, perhaps shorter, evening float which never came to pass due to the difficulty and time it took to get everyone back to the cabin for dinner. Oh well, at least everyone had a good safe,time.

The two Terrys, their boys, Jonathan, and I put in at a place called Tenino boat launch. I GPSed the spot so I could get an idea how far we would travel that day. We got out at Wyeth Campground which turned out to be 7.13 miles.

Ok, let me tell you about the float. We had a great time! The weather was beautiful! My arms and neck got a little burned but that was a small price for the fun. The fishing on the other hand was not as productive as I expected based on prior trips to this beautiful spot. There were a lot of fish because I saw a number of very fine ones as I floated over the top of them. I think we just hit the river at the worst time of day due to the issues that have already been mentioned. Both of the Terrys each caught a brown and later we learned that Ron caught a nice eighteen incher. There were some other smaller fish caught as well by other members of the group. Even I caught a fish finally but as I landed it was disappointed to note that it was a whitefish or some kind of chub. It was a decent 11 or 12 inches and fought me with the heart of a trout so I let him go grateful that he'd sacrificed his dignity and allow me to not go completely skunked. Here are a few shots of the lauch, the float, and the landing.

I had to add this pic to remind how and where one lives when they have money. Pretty Sweet!

Here are some more shots of the float.

Oh boy! I'll bet Seth wished he'd known how his shoulders and back were going to feel the next day!
Joe looks like he's well protected from the sun. Here's how we looked after pulling the tubes and pontoon boats out at Wyeth.
Mostly tired and happy though a couple are wet and cold.

Oh my goodness! This is turning out to be a long blog and its only the first day. Tell you what. I'll post this so the followers of this blog can get started and I'll continue day two in a little bit!