pbrownie

Biscotti---Andrew Carmellini's Mother's

2012-01-27T22:56:00.000-08:00

I bought this new book after Linzi recommended me try the recipe in his American taste book on biscuits. She was amazed at the life he was able to get with regular ingredients. She thought that the recipe that she got on Andrew Carmellini book was a significant improvement over the recipe that she has been using and the techniques that came with the instruction at the knight's flour company lessons she had in Vermont.
I bought the books and while looking for a interesting recipe.. I was looking for a recipe to replace the biscotti I bought at Costco.
This recipe used shelled pistachios. I have a nice bag of them left over from the Christmas party. So it was a win win.

This recipe calls for some interesting ingredients and then he portions some of them out (I made the first with 3 eggs instead of 2. One needed to be reserved for the egg wash before the first bake. ) some of the ingredients he lists in the ingredients pile but really doesn't utilize them in the narrative. I can understand that.. but really in such a nice graphic cookbook this shouldn't happen.

Mom's Biscotti
Preheat oven to 350

Ingredients:

3 eggs... (use 2 for the batter and one for egg wash later on)
1 cup of sugar
Zest of 2 lemons
4 Tablespoons of melted butter
2 Cups of Flour
1 Tablespoon of baking powder
1 Tablespoon of Anise seed
2 Tablespoons of Sambuco (an Italian liquor) that took me an hour and a half to locate in Merced
3/4 cup of shelled pistashios

Use a Kitchen Aid mixer. Whip the eggs and the sugar for 15 minutes on medium with the whipping attachment to the mixer. The color should change to I lighter yellow and the liquid should double.Add the zest of two lemons, and the melted butter in the last two minutes of the beating.

Switch to the paddle on the mixer.

Add the baking powder, flour, anise seed, and the Sambuco.
Mix on slow until all is incorporated.
Add the pictachios and mix for 30 seconds on slow.

Refrigerate for 20 minutes with a piece of plastic wrap over the bowl.

On a baking pan with a piece of parchment or a silicon mat, form 2 logs.
Coat with the egg reserved in a wash on each of the logs.
Bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Reposition pan and bake until overall lightly tan another 10-15 minutes.
Reduce oven temp to 325.
Pull each log off and cut into 3/4 diagonal slices. Put on another backing pan with a piece of parchment or silicon mat. These cross sections will then enter the oven for an additional 15 minutes..as they crisp up.

It really is a lot easier than this description suggests.

These cookies are great for dipping in espresso or hot chocolate.. for vin santo like the real Italians

Give them a try!
: ) Pat

Chicken Fricassie

2012-01-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

It was 8:30 last night and Sue (my wife) decided that she was still hungry. I had a couple of high quality free range, boneless skinless chicken breast pieces in the the fridge. I had watched the Cook Illustrated version of Chicken Fricassie on the http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/detail.php?docid=26295web site and through that the basic principles and concepts would work out for a half portion too. It looked pretty fast.. Sue said her hunger tolerance was a half an hour.. so away I went. It really worked and was really juicy.

Chicken Fricassie Cooks Illustrated ala Pat
2 chicken breasts pieces
1 sprinkle of salt
2 Tbs of olive oil
1 Tbs of butter
1 box of mushrooms.. could cut yourself if you wanted to or use different for the different flavor
1/2 chopped onion (better diced)
1 C of chicken Stock
1/2 C of white wine (I used a whole tiny bottle of chardonay)
1/2 lemon's juice from a fresh lemon
1Tbs of flour
2TBs of sour cream (mine also had chives in it)
1 Tbs of Thyme (whoops I forgot this)

I used my fake french enameled dutch oven for this...
Olive Oil in first.. medium high heat.. ad the butter.. swirl around and coat the bottom of the pan.
brown the chicken breast on each side (4 min each side)
Pull off the heat and tent the chicken
Add the onion and the mushrooms. When completely soft add the chicken stock and the wine
Put the chicken back in and cook for about ten min. coverd
Pull half the mushroom stock out and add the sour cream and the beaten egg to a seperate container.
Re incorporate this in off of heat along with the nutmeg and the Thyme.
You should have a velvety sauce an a couple of chicken breasts that have reached 165 degrees

I added some fresh noodles and some Brussels sprouts to complete a rather quick meal with elegant proportions.
This looks pretty complicated.. but really it wasn't.
Sue and I ended up splitting one breast.. so we have another left over for today.
: ) Pat

Its over! We Send you Back to your Sundays

2012-01-22T22:58:00.000-08:00

The 49ers lost their last game at the National Football League Championship.

It was a great game. It went to 10 minutes in overtime. A single kick between the goal posts sent the New York Giants to the superbowl and the 49ers home for the rest of the year.

It was a cold and rainy afternoon in San Francisco. I thought that I was pretty happy that I wasn't covering the game for the San Joaquin Sporting News. We used to cover games like this. It was nice to sit at home and go the bathroom without waiting in line. It was also great to see closeups of the play and rewinds of the questionable calls.

The 49ers were better this year than anyone had the right to expect. The 5 superbowl victories in the past were from a different era. They were from an era where "parity" was not considered. In this season any NFL team could beat any other team because of this parity. Players had a salary cap. There are "Franchise" players but most can move within 3 years to another team that will use their cap money to get players they need in the positions that they feel they are weak.

It will be interesting to see what will be the result of the latest negotiations of the contract.
So those 49ers fans will not see their team in the superbowl. Next year they all say. I hope so. Its been a good season. Our quarterback and the coaching staff seem pretty darn good.

The Steve Jobs Book

2012-01-22T22:20:00.001-08:00

I bought the book in Hilo, Hawaii, on October 31, 2011.

It was a monster of a book to carry around, Roughly 534 pages, hardbound and bulky.

I just finished reading it. It was worth my time since I grew up in all the phases of Apple. It is pretty interesting to hear the "behind the scenes" battle that raged over the introduction of new products. It was great in documenting how some things progressed and the rationale for the various products and when they were introduced.

The author is a superb biographer. He has published biographies on Albert Einstein and Ben Franklin. They are detailed and interesting from a sociological and historical viewpoint. This book has a different flavor since the people that are described and interviewed are contemporary with the exception of Steve Jobs. It seems that there was nothing held back int his book.

The comments from Bill Gates, founder and CEO of Microsoft are not totally complimentary. The family life and his beginnings are interesting and provide an interesting annotation to his life. I could remember many of the moves that Apple made in the 80's and 90's. This book is pretty square regarding Steve Job's involvement in each of these phases. I thought much of the rivalry that came out of competitors philosophies were hyped at the time. It appears that they weren't. Apple thought that containing the closed system allowed for a better product. The others thought that an open product would lead to more acceptance. In a way both ideas were right. At the end of the book, Steve Jobs admitted as much to Bill Gates.

The personality of Steve Jobs is laid out for all to see. The take over by the board and the leadership under Scully were interesting chapters. I was supporting many Apple computers as a mentor teacher at the time. There seemed to be a myriad of macs that were coming out of Apple at the time. Some models came out with keyboards that completely messed up the memory. So we were all the time rebuilding the desktop so that the computer would not completely self destruct.

There was interesting mention of the "cube" macintosh that I once had. It was interesting how they got to the classic Moons over Miami mac that I bought one of my daughters.

Overall I found that this was a good read. I am willing to give it up to anyone in the family that would like to take it on.

: ) Pat

Starting Out, Four people Under the Tree

2012-01-16T16:22:00.000-08:00

Like my father, I am fascinated by the gigantic banyan tree in Lahaina, Maui Hawaii.

This Banyan Tree was first planted in April, 1873, and marked the 50th Anniversary of Christian missionary work in Lahaina. The tree was imported from India was only 8 feet tall. It now stands over 60 feet high, has 12 major trunks in addition to a huge core. It stretches over a 200-foot area and shades 2/3 of an acre.

In painting this scene,I have poured over the books. I have sketched and resketched. My moleskine is full of variations of the scene. The four people sitting on a park bench provides plenty of study as to painting in negative, some of the clothing on the people were white. Painting in shadow is an interesting challenge since they are every thing in the painting is in shadow. Reduction or simplification of the image is always an issue when working with real people and real settings.

My inital response was to crop in really close to get a since of how people sit on a park bench. The photo has two women sitting next to each other on one side of the tree. The other side of the tree has two men setting on a similar park bench. A banyan tree does not have particularly dark bark. It is rather smooth bark with nicks and bruises on it. Overall the banyan bark is dark silvery grey. As a banyan tree gows out but also sends down runners from its branches that when intersecting with the ground form roots and support the side to sid movement of the tree. The part that I am painting is not the core trunk of the tree put rather a piece of it that started as s "downrigger" that formed from the branches. It is now the size of a medium trunk of a tree. Its one of the 12 major trunks of the tree. What is interesting to me is that sprouts heading off the limbs produce trunks that are out of proportion to the size of the tree. So at first when painting this tree you think that the size of the branches are wrong. Then you have to figure in the fact that this is not the central trunk.

Overall, there are plenty of benches around this tree. It takes up a whole block and it provides at least a 15 degree drop in temperature for all of those that are under its wings. That is pretty welcome in the Tropical weather that is Hawaii.

Snookered by Technology

2012-01-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

Yes I am one of those viewers that they never count in the numbers. Why? Because most of my TV watching is done off of the DVDR HD.

A good one on me happened yesterday.

Sad as it is I missed the most important plays of the game between the 49er and the Saints in their playoff game January.

As I usually do, I set the game to record and ignored watching it until 45 minutes from the start. I turned the TV to the recorded part and watched the game.. zooming past the commercials, and the half time nonsense. In setting up the recording, I always agree to add 30 minutes to the game length so that if the game goes overtime (over 3 hours) which they now do when ever their is a passing team, I would be covered. This time, 30 minutes was not enough.

As I was watching my delay, the thirty minutes had expired at 2 minutes of playing time left on the game clock.

Those of you who watched the game, know that I missed the 2 most important minutes. My time machine had expired and there was no way to watch the last 2 minutes because when I went back to regular on air watching.. it was the post game show.. rats!

I had left the game when Alex Smith had moved the 49ers across the field and scored. What I missed was the Saints came roaring back and took the lead. I also missed the tension piece where a decision had to be made to go for the win or kick for a tie to send it all into overtime,

Where were the Buffulo Wings guys to turn on the sprinklers so that could still see the end? I wasn't at the right place at the right time... So I have to take your word for it... It was another memorable catch in the end zone for the 49ers that snatched the game from the jaws of defeat.

Oh well.

: )Pat

As suggested by my Sister Kelly

2012-01-15T08:05:00.000-08:00

One of my loyal readers and sister, Kelly suggested that I goggle the snack on the next level up from Puppy Chow. It references what might be on the floor of the movie theater that you attend. Not to be confused with ABC gum or recycling in anyway from the floor of the movie theater.... this stuff has to be first class. Its what people pay big bucks to eat at such theater. So.. try this at home and not at the theater..HA HA!

The Movie Theater Floor Snack

4 cups popped popcorn
1/2 (10.5 ounce) bag corn chips (such as Fritos®)
1/2 (14 ounce) package candy corn
1 (10 ounce) can mixed nuts
1 cup jelly beans or other small candies, or as desired
1 (12 ounce) package white chocolate chips

Directions

Mix popcorn, corn chips, candy corn, mixed nuts, and jelly beans together in a large bowl.
In a microwave-safe glass bowl, melt the white chocolate chips on Low setting until barely melted, 1 or 2 minutes. Stir until smooth. Pour the white chocolate over the popcorn mixture, and stir to coat. Allow to cool, and break apart into small pieces.

Enjoy that game! or Movie.. or whatever! : ) Pat

Where Have I been? Puppy Chow mix?

2012-01-11T18:16:00.000-08:00

Recently I have enjoyed the pre made party mix blends as I watch a little football. There are fewer calories than chips in these mixes. The original mix is pretty good I also enjoy the bold variety and lately I have found the cheese ones.

In the last batch I bought at the store the chex mix was in a smaller bag and was a little heavier than the normal big batch.

Tonight I opened them. OMG.. its peanut butter cups flavor combination all over in a chex mix. The label called them Muddy Buddies.

Reading the label, the Chex folks, whom are no longer Ralston Purina, are now part of General Mills could not use the old fashion name for these sweet snack wonders. They admit that many people were making them at home and calling them "Puppy Chow".

With the chocolate in them they are not appropriate for dogs to eat. So if the world is making this snack where could you find the recipe for this wonder?

The ignominious web provides a recipe for Puppy Chow that only people should eat. Here is the one version that I found:

CHEX MIX PUPPY CHOW

Printed from COOKS.COM

9 cup Chex
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Put cereal in large bowl. Melt chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.Pour over Chex cereal, put into a large plastic bag with powdered sugar and shake well to coat.
Spread mixture evenly on wax paper and allow to cool.

This might be kind of fun to try.. The homemade version looks pretty wonderful. It can bring some protein (from the peanut butter) into the world of sweet snacks! You can make them yourself... or just go find them on the grocery shelves as Muddy Budies..

: ) Pat

Live your Life

2012-01-11T07:01:00.000-08:00

My next door neighbor passed away this week.
Its really a shock since he was only 6 years older than we are.

He had been working on some changes in his house with a contractor.
In recent months we had taken on a project to restore some dresser drawers.
He had even planted an apricot tree in front hoping that I would get some benefit out of a pollinator close by. He was one of those guys that did all of his traveling with the Army. His wife found a traveling friend and had been on several cruises and trips.

I always wondered why older people avidly follow the obits.
They always laugh and say they are checking to make sure that their names are not there.
Really they are checking to see if their lives are not there.
When you outlive the life of your kids its pretty sad.

He was a junior high vice principal and an elementary school principal. I think that management in schools takes its toll. You have to be everything to everyone at all times.

There was no mention of an illness in our sporadic conversations.
The family is a pretty private one. I only know of his passing through my daughter who is connected in facebook with his son.

The neighbor across the street noticed that an ambulance had arrived at his house early last week and left with him in it.

When he was younger he was given the nickname of pescau. This means fish in Spanish. He always had a fishing boat in his front yard. Its been a long time since he went fishing.

I am hoping that he has found it again in heaven.

: ) Pat

Within One Generation.. Social Mobility

2012-01-06T08:05:00.000-08:00

Born 86 years ago. Today! Happy Birthday Ken Brown!

Life was certainly different from ours in a number of ways.

His father was a agriculture consultant for rich people's "hobby farms" he was always on the move and never really appreciated a family. The family became itinerant when times got tough. Surviving the depression was not easy for them. My father claims that that he he had attended more high schools than the four years of high school could accommodate. His mother was a magazine saleswoman for a garden magazine that was sold through local garden clubs. When the garden clubs had reached saturation for subscriptions his mother and family had to move on. They traveled from one end of the California gold country to the other. He remembers Sonora, and Mariposa. His last high school years were in Escondido where he worked for a dairy milking cows for his keep.

He signed up out of high school to go to war for our country in the Pacific theater on the USS Montpelier, a light cruiser. He was barely old enough.

In retrospect this decision to use the GI Bill, which was what was provided for his service and to help the infrastructure of the country after war and allowed him to go the college was the single most important economic decision that he took to move out of poverty to the middle class. Many of his ship mates did not do this. His service gave him tuition and a means of support to go to college and become a teacher. He graduated from Western State College, in Gunnison, Colorado. He also had attended Ft, Lewis college in Durango. The navy sent him to school at Iowa State to learn what he needed to know about becoming an electrician on the ship. Education was important to him and his kids.

He has always been fascinated by technology and science. He is an avid photographer. He loves taking photos of people and scenic shots with people in them. It would be pretty hard to do this without the means.

Ken Brown, member of the "greatest generation" helped organize teachers to become a viable profession rather then a "second job" for the family that it was in the 50's. In the 60's teachers were on the forefront of collective bargaining. It allowed teaching to move into the middle class. Ken Brown was a leader in that movement. Again social mobility.

Its a little ironic that we both Ken Brown and his kids have "hobby farms" on our suburban lots. We are now the owners rather than the "help."

: ) Pat

The Christmas Party 2011 Part 3

2012-01-02T08:40:00.000-08:00

NO FOG

The Christmas Day was bight and sunny. That was a god send because sometimes our climate is burdened with Tulley fog. It blankets the ground and causes significant delays in getting students to school and travelers to and from the events they plan. So no ground fog.

Lindsay and I arranged for rooms at the inn.. the Holiday Inn express for the party house guests. I did not want them to come and have to stay at some slease ball spot in Los Banos because the fog had become too dense. The Holiday Inn Express had changed locations since the last time I was in that part of the city. I thought I knew where it was but no.. it had moved further south and built a new hotel right next to the new Hampton. Using Hotwire, and choosing three stars instead of names we saved 30 dollars a room for stays in the new hotel. The family guests were pleased with the accommodations. A couple of them raved about the new pancake machine. They were happy with the service oriented people that were working there especially the breakfast manager with whom they chatted up.

Clean up Help and Post Party

The girls and their husband and friends dropped back home the next morning and we all went out to the Big Bear restaurant to have breakfast, since we didn't have connections with the hotel. They all came home and gave us an hour of clean up time. When multiplied by 5 workers it is amazing what can be accomplished.

Interest Groups An Evaluation

The interest groups beside the lovely lemon throw down were a success too. There were some great audio mixes that were shared by the participants. Dad and I brought photos to share and Cammie brought some photo cards to share for the photography trade out. The cosmetic share was a little more directed to people that they donors thought could sue the product rather than a pool for all of those into it to select what they want.

Kelly led a great stocking stuffer event. All those involved, which I think numbered 7 or eight brought small gift items that were wrapped. All those that wanted to be a part and brought could select at their turn an item from the stocking stuffer pile. The target was to make each item a low cost item. I characterized it as secret santa on steroids. There was a lot of merriment that occurred out of this event. The cookie interest group had a nice assortment of cookies to share. I think that next year the members (or at least I will) remember to bring some containers to take home the collection. I made some nutty jam prints. There were some people that combined the cookie group with their lovely lemon throw down entries. This made for some nice lemon cookies in the mix. The spritz were always a crowd pleaser too if for no other reason then the sentimental value of remembering them as a Christmas signature cookie within our family.

Some people remembered the pets in our families and added to the stockings the pet members. Some people brought take home gifts for the pet members.

There were a few interest groups that sort of died this year. While great in idea and could be revived for next year. People didn't make ity bitties in droves. An ity bitty was defined as a home made item that was less than 3 inches square. I think that there is great potential in this group but the home made portion fell apart as some members were burdened with other areas and focused on what they could do.

The bring a book group did not fall into organized shape. Some people brought books and some people took books so I guess in the long run this one was a success. I thought that there might some moderation for this group allowing people to share what they liked about a certain book they brought. This might be done through social media next year if there is interest. It might morph into a kindle group where people could line up after the review for books to be loaned through this device. There are lots of direction that this one could go.

Summary

The original thought was that these interest groups would move the group from a focus of gift giving on Christmas to taping our collective strengths and common interests which provide a gift of share to all its members. I think that we were highly successful in fulfilling this mission this year. This group is taking off in wild directions, We may even have a moleskine magic group next year. Bring and share your moleskine with others that have them too! Just a thought.

: ) Pat

Christmas Day Party 2011 Part 2 Food at the Party!

2011-12-28T07:05:00.001-08:00

Food Arrives to the 12 foot Kitchen Island

As the guests arrived we had a magnificent array of food on the island.The Food Arrives to the 12 foot IslandWe had appetizers that included marinated asparagus, my personal specialty, French cheeses, including a baked brie, and a firm white cheeze, sweet pickled peppers (say that 5 times quickly), rolled pretzels dipped in white peppermint, a new recipe that I downloaded,refrigerated cauliflower pickles, black olives, several kinds of crackers and salmon dip, and samosas from Reza's mom. I know I have forgotten a few members on the appetizer spread so please forgive me. As always you could pretty much live off the first course. This is a family that loves to cook and bring so we celebrate that too on this day!The dinner menu included corned beef and cabbage, white sauce enchiladas, mac and cheese with tomatoes, and ham by the master ham maker, Robert. Kelly had a couple of requests for her red oriented jello, and mom brought the green salad. Mikie brought a delightful fruit salad and someone brought some beautiful roasted purple potatoes and broccoli. A wonderful chicken and rice casserole showed up on the counter as well as many special Iranian dishes. We had quite a spread. If you couldn't find some that you could eat on that spread, then you just were not into eating that day.

We all found spaces at the tables and we had great conversations. Suzy had a chance to get out her little Christmas dessert plates and people had a chance to visit the food table and the people next to them for a nice period of time.

The Lovely Lemon Throw Down Begins

The cry went out for the lemon throw down competition to begin.The table was cleared and Linzi summoned the four neighbor judges. Each entry was given a number and four portions each of the eight entries were lined up on the table. There was super lemon cake, and lemon ginger cookie sandwiches. There also was lemon bars, and lemon bunt cakes. We had lemon cupcakes with penuche frosting and lemon cornmeal cookies. Someone brought lemon rosemary cookies and lemon marsh mellow whipped cream wedges. The judges had some tough decisions. We watched them as they poured over the entries. They seemed to delight in their task... but it was difficult. One judge asked if the batters had to be homemade. Comments were made on the judging cards and the judges were able and happy to scoop up their portions and take them with them back to their Christmas celebrations next door.
A bit of panic spread among the contestants. Some of them had forgotten the number that was assigned to their masterpieces. A quick run down with the judges provided content to the numbers that they were judging,

Wanda Brown Wins!

A The winner of the contest was my mom. She won with her lemon bar recipe that used Meyer's lemons and was both delicate and textural in its lemon interpretation. Some people were a little disappointed because they were sure that theirs would win. In the end we all won as there was plenty of lemon dessert for Christmas dinner. Some were made in a team effort. Some were a solo concept piece. All of the contestants which represented all of the major families, had a new conversational piece. How was yours made? Compliments were handed out to people that do not usually do any baking in their family but rose to the occasion with an entry.
Kelly felt her entry was vindicated even though it didn't win, because Suzy spent 10 minutes attacking her cake with a spoon and loving every bite. Overall the contest was a great successs!

At the end of the contest there was rumblings about what the contest would be next year. Would it be chocolate or maybe coconut? Or will it change to a general category like side dishes? Some people in our family have nut allergies so that should be figured into planning next year. I really think that there is a next year with this idea.

Love and Peace to your all!: ) Pat

Christmas Party December 25th 2011 Part One

2011-12-27T19:01:00.000-08:00

Chair and Table Placement for the Event

My sister thinks that this tale should be told in about three entries. Optimistically I start with the first.
We remodeled our home a few years ago. We added a new kitchen and this allow for a breakout area with an island between the dinning room area and the kitchen. For most of the year this area is under used. The island itself has a drop down shelf that allows for two chairs to set and eat facing each other. A third chair may be added in the pass through area so that a third person could sit with us and have dinner. Originally it was thought that it would serve as a spot that Sue could sit and help prep veggies for dinner and not have to stand up through the process. It is covered as is all the kitchen counter surfaces with porcelain tile. Hot plates may be set anywhere on the counter with heat immunity.

Site Prep

The first order of business besides planning this event was to clear off the island and put the items that were piled on the island to there natural.
Suzy my wife started out by decorating the dining room table from one end to the other with red plaid table cloths and candles run by tiny batteries. Our new kitten, Oliver, thought that was great fun to rumple up the table cloth and skid from one end to the other, leaving in his wake a wave of place cards and silverware!.
We also started counting the number of spots that would be occupied by the family. The count turned to 15.

Lindsay, the youngest daughter, suggested that we should work to the idea that everyone should have a seat at the table. Last year, she and her husband ate their Christmas dinner on the kitchen couch because there were not enough spots at the table for them. So to remedy that, I bought in the long table that was being used for canning in the summer. It had spent the summer and the fall getting dirty in the backyard. I scrubbed and cleaned off all of the black mold that had accumulated and a dust and dirt that had blown on to the table.

Sue had anticipated using the table so a matching plaid tablecloth was available for its use. We resolved that issue as to whether the table would be positioned at the T formation of parallel. The T formation with complete sides was agreed upon and decorated accordingly. We needed to use the head spot on the table to accommodate our numbers but we did not need them parallel as it would lead to difficulty in accessing the island as a buffet surface.

Invitations were sent to each family. I had some watercolor based cards that I could quickly make a Christmas tree with my watercolors. We figured the time schedule, knowing that it would be adapted for the company that was to come. Our listed target time was 11:30 on Christmas day. Breakfast materials and brunchy stuff would be out there for those arriving early. At noon we were to have enough of the starters so that people could nosh until the main courses could be heated and ready to hit the table at 1-1:30. Then we would start the special interest groups. As it worked out we were only a half an hour behind schedule. Good work family. Most of the participants had to travel 2 hours or more to get to our house.

Our family has a unique gathering activity post dinner. In the past we have tried a number of things. The family is pretty artistic and small craft projects have often been utilized. We have made Santa beards one Christmas. We have made tiny acrylic painting to set on tiny easels in another year. We have played games that were designed by some very creative game masters.

The Lovely Lemon Throw Down

This year we added a new wrinkle to the activities that interacted with the meal. After seeing some of the Bobby Flay throw downs on TV, I though that we should should see if we could put one together for all of the great cooks and bakers in our family.

In the TV throw downs, Bobby Flay goes out to a restaurant and challenges the cook to a contest to see if he could make an item as good or better than the one that the restaurant had built a reputation. Ours would have a different set of parameters. The group would be challenged if they decided to participate, in making one lemon dessert that would be judged against lemon desserts that other people would bring. The main idea was that it had to be a lemon dessert and it had to be made by the participant.

I put up a 50 dollar gift certificate to a fancy cooking store in the Bay Area as the winner's prize.
This year there was great participation. There were 8 diverse entries into this contest. A lot of buzz was generated in the family about "secret" entries. Some people were not keen about sharing their plans until the day of the contest, after the dinner was completed. I had asked one of the neighbors to come over and judge the contest. Lindsay thought that it would be great to have a few more than one judge. She knocked on the other neighbor's house and rounded up three more people to judge the contest. There were a total of 4 judges for this contest.

The judges were asked to put in order the top three entries. Three of the judges left copious notes as to what they were tasting and what they liked.

A winner was determined by the ranking of the top three. The winner did not win by unanimous decision but the winner was easily determined by the relative strength of the rankings. To find out who won.. check in with part two.

: ) Pat

Copper Spray on Dormant Peaches

2011-12-21T16:08:00.000-08:00

Here are the directions for Liqui Cop, a Copper Based spray to prevent leaf curl in Peaches and Apricots
MIXING AND SPRAYING DIRECTIONS
Fill spray tank half full of water. Add recommended amount of LIQUI-COP. Add balance of water.
Using either a hose-end or pressurized hand sprayer, apply at the rate of one gallon mixed
spray solution to 200 sq. ft. of garden area or up to two gallons mixed spray solution to a
large tree. Thoroughly wet foliage to the point of runoff, taking care to cover all plant surfaces.
Agitate the container of mixed spray solution regularly during application to maintain an
adequate suspension.
3-4 Tablespoons per gallon.

In the past I have been negligent in getting the peaches sprayed. It is kind of disheartening to arrive in the Spring when the leaves should come out and many of the leaves are severely distorted and buckled and then they dry out and are useless to the tree.

So.. this year they are getting the copper!
An old nurseryman said that your should spray to prevent leaf curl at every holiday.. it spaces it out about 2 weeks apart and enough spray gets on. I have already missed the Thanksgiving spray. This bottle says 2 sprays should be enough.. We will see.

: ) Pat

Going to Colorado for Christmas

2011-12-19T12:25:00.000-08:00

One year we left the cheery confines of Northern California to venture East to experience Colorado Christmas in Palisade.
Gandma and Grandpa owned and lived on a 40 acre peach orchard farm. Formed from rocky sandy soil of a bench plateau from flooded ancient years of the Colorado River, this farm despite its rocks, was perfect soil for raising peaches.
In the winter the peaches slept in somber hibernated states. Gathering up the required hours of cold to allow for a perfect bloom season.
After school was out in California, our parents gathered us up. The us was a 4 year old sister and myself a post kindergarten 7 year old.
My sister screamed and cried when the giant passenger train released its breaks to slide into position in Oakland.
We had taken the ferry across the bay to board the California Zepher. it was known for its "vista dome." A huge upstairs addition to the cars, allowed the passengers the ability to"sight see" with its huge window and broad chairs. A version of it may be seen as part of the California Adventure entryway in Anaheim.
As a 7 year old this was as close to nirvana as it gets. There were steep steps to climb, there as a slight chance of some unsupervised freedom. There was a water dispenser with paper cone cups and a chance to see the landscape as the train moved along. These seats did not belong to any given passenger, They were"extra" seats.
Mom and dad were mostly staying in the home base seats on the ground level. My sister and I were amazed at the African American porters that serviced the rail cars. They cleaned and tidied up the living area. A conductor had a a little table in the back that he managed the ticket part of the journey. People would get off and on at various stops along the way. He marshaled the almighty hand punch that verified that the ticket was indeed used. He also made sure where the people that had stops along the way were seated. In the commission of job he had time to stop and converse with the passengers. Other passengers in a much more relaxed era than now could also converse with each other. Some people brought bags of snacks on the train.
Dinner reservations were obtained from the porters. A reservation was made for dinning car spots. They were all "make a table" arrangements which meant that you never knew whom you would be sitting with. The reservations for the earlier times, also came with menu choices that were less expensive. A favorite of mine was salsbury steak.
Salsbury steak is a thick hamburger/meatloaf entree that is covered with gravy and served with mashed potatoes and a vegetable.
The dinning car, which was usually in the middle of the train had seats that faced each other in a both arrangement. To get there, all passengers had to move from train car to train car through the noisy transition covers. These were particularly scary to a 7 year old. The transitional plates slid back and forth as you made your way from car to car. I was sure that my legs would be sliced off if I missed the plate as we stepped from car to car in this exciting transition. In the mean time the train was always sliding back and forth and the sound of the train being pulled down the track form the outside was imminently engaging.
The Western Pacific was the train route. It moved through the valley to Sacramento and then headed up the feather river route to cross the Sierras in a pass that was mainly for the train and not a heavily used car route. The Western Pacific railroad would take us all the way to Salt Lake City. At that point the Rio Grande railroad would hitch its locomotives to the Zephyr and head it East through Utah and into Colorado.
I remember the route as being full of pine trees. I was up in the vista dome when somewhere in the foothills we made a huge circle around and could see both ends of the train at once.
We rolled out of the Sierras at Pyramid lake. It is an ancient desolate lake. It connected us with the outskirts of Sparks Nevada where it was clearly dark and we were headed through the dessert into our middle of the night arrival in icy Salt Lake City.
Snow was on the ground most of the way from Sparks to Salt Lake City. Snow is not a regular visitor in South San Francico.. so this was an amazing thing to see for me.
More on the trip to Colorado in later installments: Pat

Dungeness Cab

2011-12-18T19:59:00.000-08:00

Growing up this was a family tradition,

When Grandma and Grandpa came out to spend Christmas with us they arrived about this time in December. They had packed their belongings and a steamer trunk full of apples and scooted on the California Zephyr. The trip took them out of down town Grand Junction in the rail yard. It was often snowy and icy most of the way to California.

They traveled by train because it was considerably less expensive than air travel. Just 24 hours later and a ton of snow upon the tracks they arrived at Jack London Square in Oakland ready to make the journey across the bay by ferry to the station at 4th and Townsend. This is a foggy unpredictable time in Northern California. It is not, however snowy. Which is another reason that the Grandparents would arrive to spend at least two weeks with us.

We were always excited to pick them up because it meant that school as out and our family events could occur. One of these events included a gigantic crab feed. We would go down to fisherman's wharf and Dad and Grandpa Bayard, known to his compatriots as BW, would pick out about 3 of the juiciest crabs they could find. If it wasn't busy, we would ask the man in charge of the pots to crack them up for us. A couple of fast cracks with a little wooden mallet and a quick wrap in butcher paper would have is headed back to the dinner. Mom would have a big pot of minestrone soup warming up on the stove and San Francisco sourdough french bread would be broken and consumed along with the picking through of the meat from the crabs and the steaming soup.

It was winter in the city and it was pretty nice. I think that one of my sister's didn't think that eating crab was proper. Mom and Dad had the perfect answer for this... all the more for the rest of us. The crab from the bay area when it is freshly cooked and right out of the cooking pots is very hard to beat. There as some in my family that prefer it to lobster... nope.. I won't tell you who.

Another memorable crab feed happened one time when we were visiting Kelly, my younger sister. She was living in Sebastopol. Every year the local grocery store has a knock down the doors special on fresh crab that comes from just over the hill in the sea based towns surrounding Jenner by the Sea. As a family we were gathered to support Heather as she was attending Santa Rosa JC nearbay. The call had come out from the grocery store adds that that weekend was the indeed the special dungeness crab special. Kelly got down there and nosed out a couple of people to bring back 4 wonderful crabs. We spread some newspaper on her dinning room table and we went to it. There was crab and crab shell all over everywhere until the last claw was investigated for remaining meat and we had completely had our fill of dungeness crab.

So tonight I bought a couple of fresh crabs (not frozen)from Costo. I was thinking of these events as I was smashing claws and ferreting out joint meat on two specimens. Happy dungeness crab days.. its still a family tradition!
: ) Pat

Kindle Fire

2011-12-17T14:11:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you just have to make a move.

It should be consistent with who you are and what you like.

This household is a book reading outfit.

Linzi, our daughter, has been encouraging mom to get a kindle to do some of her book reading.
For me it is an extension of the tech stuff. So it didn't make sense to buy a Kindle that was out of date with the current technology. We have Wi Fi at home and didn't really want a bunch of advertisements to compete with the "reader" usefulness. I surprised Sue with a Kindle Fire.

General comments about it

1) The color is great on this device

2) Its a little heavier than you would expect for something like this.. but is significantly less cumbersome than a hard cover book or a large paperback book with pages falling out of their binding. It should and must compete in this arena to be of value to the "reader".

3) Its another Facebook reader..it will tap right into your existing account if you have a wifi set up at home with your dsl.

4) It cannot do two things at once.. like Iphones and Ipads. It cannot download 2 magazines in the background while you merrily read your book.

5) It has snappy performance when hooked up to its base wi fi network. If not, its a nice reader for travel. Do not expect it to "Facebook" or do other functions while traveling down the road.

6)It takes a lot more charging than the ordinary kindle.. but significantly less than an IPhone.

7) It will download your subscribed magazines using your subscription codes on the cover of your delivered magazines. We have subscriptions to both Time and People. People with its picture rich content will take about 30 minutes to download to your kindle.. but there it is .. in full color. Its pretty cool. I love the Time app. A subscriber may download as many as 5 previous issues for convenience of reading them anywhere in the house without trying to hunt down the physical magazine. Expect 20 minutes to download it to the Kindle Fire.

8) Amazon seems to always have a good deal in promo books to download to your Kindle. These are done fairly easily with one click on your computer. Then they show up magically on your Kindle ready for you to read.

9) I think that when I read in an article about the Kindle that it took 209 dollars for it to be made and that they were selling it for 199, it seemed like a great buy. We could decide where and when to get new books and products and have them effortlessly downloaded. Its sort of like the old Polaroid business model. Get them to buy the camera for cost or a little less than cost.. then make the money on the media. I have no problem with that since I can choose the media.. books. It was also a great place to add value to our current subscriptions. It is a great place to see photos that we have in Flickr.. like new paintings.
____________
History

I have read one book on it so far. "Little Blog on the Prairie" and it has worked out will for me. Sue is using it for Facebook and Huffington post especially when her Iphone is out of power. I think that she will warm up to the literary possibilities down the road.

I bought it early because I noticed that Best buy and the other chains were starting to run through their supplies for Christmas. They are all being sold for the same price.. so I bought it from Amazon and it arrived within 3 days without any extra shipping surcharges. Linzi happened to be here when it arrived. She was a little baffled with it because it was so different in form from her kindle.

Overall its been a great "shared" Christmas present. Of course she is headed for a few other surprises from me for Christmas.

Tomato Mac n Cheese

2011-12-14T10:05:00.001-08:00

The family gatherings are often about creating taste memories that can be relied upon through the years.

A modern throw back to an earlier year has us scrambling for plebeian food that started off as customary table mates on weeknights.

Growing up we often had mashed potatoes on the table to accompany the vegetable side dish to the meat entree. Often it was from a box, as it was "just easier."

And who could ever forget the ubiquitous blue box with the red stripe that mean Kraft brand mac and cheese?

Well, it ain't your mom's convenience food tastes that are powering the revival of such notables as the cup cake rebellion or the return to a home made version of mashed potatoes and mac n cheese on the celebratory tables around the country.

Here is the recepie from the "Best Country Recipes" (a subdivision of the America's Test Kitchen) that was very successful at the family Thanksgiving. By the way, don't expect to taste a large amount of tomato flavor in this. My daughters thought that I had thrown in red pepper instead of tomatoes. The heat comes from a very tiny amount of cayenne pepper.. and its not overpowering.

1tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon of salt
1 pound of elbow macaronni
1 28 oz or 2 14 oz cans of diced tomatoes
6 tablespoons of unsalted butter
1/2 Cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
4 Cups half and half
1 Cup low sodium chicken stock
4 Cups of mild cheddar cheese (I used Costco's sharp)
2 Cups of shredded sharp cheese (I used a half of a block of Dubliners Irish Cheddar)
1 teaspoon of pepper

(My addition, on the advice of Uncle Bob) 1/2 package of Progresso Panko

1) Adjust the oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Bring 4 quarts of water to boil in a large Dutch oven over high heat. Stir in one tablespoon of salt and cook until just al dente.. about 6 minutes. (I think that it might be good to cook it a little less than serving style al dente). Drain pasta and return to the pot. Pour diced tomatoes and their canned juices over the pasta and stir to cook. Cook over medium high heat, stirring occasionally and until most of the liquid is absorbed in the pasta.
2) Meanwhile, melt butter in a at least a 3 quart sauce pan over medium heat. Heat until frothy. Stir in flour and cayenne and cook until golden, about 1 minute. Slowly whisk in half and half and broth until smooth . Bring to boil, reduce heat to medium, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until mixture is slightly thickened, about 15 minutes. Off the heat, whisk in the cheeses, one teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper until the cheeses melt. Pour sauce over macaroni mixture and stir to combine.
3)Scrape mixture into a 13x9 inch baking sheet. (Sprinkle the top with the panko) and bake until top begins to brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Let sit 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

The last time I made this I added the cayenne to the half and half. This may have allowed to it to survive the cooking over the heat process a little more. I think that it worked out well.
__________________________________

As you can see it is not a 25 minutes and we will have a quick dinner sort of recipe. But it will make a large dish.. the recipe says will feed 8-10. For cooking for 2 this may mean mac and cheese for the rest of your life...::::Laughing:::::.

Closing the Ring- Movie

2011-12-12T06:26:00.000-08:00

My Netflix delivered a great romantic movie last week.

The movie is Closing the Ring. It stars Shirley McLaine and Christopher Plummer. It was produced in 2007. Its a Richard Attenborough movie. Setting splits its time between 15 years ago modern Dublin and Michigan, and pre World War II.

There is love shared by three guys and their girl. Only one gets to marry her. He dies with a promise from the others that will marry her if something should happen to the one that married her. The girl had only one true love and it was the one that was killed even though she married long after the first one's death, the friend.

Shirley McLaine puts on a great performance as the non grieving widow that has to face the discovery of the ring that is discovered by a young boy in war torn modern day Belfast.

The cinematography is great. Despite my description of it above, its pretty easy to follow.

I know that I am such a sucker for a good romantic movie. The recent crop of movies are pretty shallow compared to this one. There are some pieces of this movie that are not well developed and come across as somewhat ironic pieces instead of adding much to the matrix of the movie.
If you have a chance to see this one, it is a pretty good movie.

New Painting Suzy at the Botanical Gardens

2011-12-10T18:24:00.001-08:00

When we visited Hilo on Halloween this year, Sue, my wife and I took the ship excursion to the Hawaiian Botanical Gardens. You may be able to get a little more on this trip by backing this blog up to the Hilo day on the Hawaiian trip.

We took a group of photos that show a nice representation of the gardens.

My sister thought that photo that I took would make an interesting watercolor. The photo has Suzy lifting her arm above her head to get a photo. This is a common move with the small digital cameras that many people take on vacation. Suzy is wearing a big brown sun hat and is shooting from her wheelchair.
I started this painting in earnest about a week ago. Its a vertical which in many landscape circles is less preferred. I am doing it on a watercolor canvas instead of a piece of paper which is also less standard.

This subject is a good solid member of a series that I am making in watercolor canvases of people using their digital cameras to capture the photo. What adds to the interest is that the viewer of the painting also sees what the photographer is shooting.

My first one in the series was a painting I call the Puerto Vallarta Photographer. The painting captures a balding man photographing his wife/girl friend between two Mexican Dancers on the Malacon of Puerto Vallarta. Its a high tone number and just like this one, it has lots of elements to paint and to integrate.

Some of the issues that this painting entails include, is the painting about the photographer or the plants? The reference photo had her shooting a picture of a banana tree. We have banana trees in Merced. So the facts and the background around this photo and a painting coming from the photo would have made this subject not so interesting. I decided to change the subject that she was painting to a group of plants that looked like red spiders.

My art instructor thought that the Puerto Vallarta one would have been stronger if the images over lapped. They are in this one!

Another issue with this painting was the simplification issue. Watercolors by their design simplify the image and allow the viewer to participate in the collection of the "washes" into a more emotional charged design that captures the feeling rather than the detail that a photgraph allows.

Values and contrast manipulate the viewers eyes to move through the watercolor. This is easier to do in watercolors since the elements have been simplified by the artist first.The movement of values and contrasts has specific trends. An "s " shape movement is common as is a cross. High, medium and low horizons need to be considered. Since Suzy's arm rolls the eye up in an "S" shape, as long as the contrasts with the backgroud are appropriate, the eye will roll through the figure to the spider plants. The spider plants being red and contrasting to the green and grey background cements the eyes on to the background. So the painting will be more about the plants than the figure.

If you check out my flickr acount on the left you can see where I am in making this painting, I still have more areas to consider. Sue needs a dress top. I also need to define the wheelchair a little more so that the wheelchair does not look like the bottom part of her dress. More toning needs to be done with the spider plants and a darker green needs to be introduced to give the plants a little more room for contrast and definition.

So far this painting has been fun to do do. In the large scheme of things that what it is all about!
: ) Pat

Hawaiian Cruise in a "Do Over"

2011-11-30T16:18:00.001-08:00

On the next Hawaiian Cruise I think that I would use the knowledge of the last one and apply it to the new cruise. What would a do over be like?

Rent Some Cars

Knowing the lay of the land.. or sort of around each of these ports, its seems like the next cruise would increase the circle some more. While some of the ship's excursions are a neat package and there is a degree of safety with the arranged tours, this is not totally necessary for travel in the states... and Hawaii is certainly one of our states. You can rent a car just like you were getting one in Denver or Seattle. Freeways seem to be only an issue in Honolulu. Most of the rental agencies are hooked up to the airports. The airports are not far away (as in taxi) in every port except Maui. We did not see nay planes flying in or out of any area close to our tender spot in the bay of Lahaina, Maui.

Getting on the road with a rental car would seem to be the next step in the progression of the Hawaii tour. It might also get us up and out of the ship a little earlier with a little more time devoted to sight seeing. Rental cars in Hawaii this time of the year (October November) are very reasonable. Sure gas is more expensive there and time factors enter in. You would not see some of the things you would see if you stayed in one place for a week rather then 9 to 12 hours.

With a wheelchair person, a car rental would allow us to go do something else if the attraction was too crowded at the time... we heard that there were 2 hour waits at the Pearl Harbor memorial. When we talking to the actual passengers from the ship they said that they walked right on without a line. The price differential is substantial for gate vs, escorted excursions. The botanical gardens cost 15 dollars plus 5 for the golf carts. Our excursion which got us the 8 miles our there and picked us up and returned us to the ship was 65 dollars each.. the cheapest excursion at Hilo. The more able members of a cruise could use the public transportation to get to and from the ship with a short walk. I saw no public transportation in Kaui or Maui but the other islands had pubic transportation that is great and could save a bundle. If it looked like you were getting a little close to shove off time on the ship, you could call and use a taxi or one from the street. A rental car could eliminate these fears. The only drawback would be getting to the rental spot. There were vans that picked up passengers and took them to the rental counters from the ship. Noteworthy were the budget and enterprise rentals.

Pick the Season

The Christmas season is high season for the islands. All those people are trying to run and hide from the bitter cold in other parts of the world during this time. Our cruise was certainly in the transition period. It wasn't winter yet in Merced. We did miss some windy cool weather especially the second week we were gone. Our yucky weather is usually after the first of the year. We gave up a week of the best weather of the year in Merced.

Since I have been home, I have talked to others that have gone to Hawaii in February and March. They love to see the whales "dance" across the water when they are in Hawaii. That would have been cool to take a whale watching voyage.

Its really great to visit another part of the country without having to speak or translate to another language like we have to do in the Mexican cruises.

Pack Fewer Clothes

Every time I admonish us for bringing so many clothes. In Hawaii everyone is wearing Hawaii shirts all the time. I will certainly bring rain great next time. Mostly its shorts in islands. Long pants feel great the two days going and the two days coming back.

There is plenty of time to do laundry on the ship. Although the laundry mats are steep in cost.. They keep you from having pack 14 of this and 14 of that.

Do Some of the Hawaiian Immersion Events on the Ship

The passengers that have been on this ship before, know that there is a crowd for the lei making and the ukulele lessons. They got there early and claimed the spots. Some active scheming needs to be done to be a part of this part of the ship's programming.

Less Buffet more formal Dinning Room

My daughters learned this early in their voyages. The difference in the meals in the dining room vs the buffet are large. Using a shared table, you get more involved with others that are traveling which in turn make you travel more interesting. Its tempting to go have a snack at the sandwich bar which takes you out of a good meal just a little later that day. You have to be in control of your appetite budget. There are somethings that truly taste better than others. There is no limit on what you can order in the dinning room. Its pretty amazing seeing what is out there. I love Italian antipasti with its great selection of dried hams and salamis with marinated veggies. These are always in abundance on the buffet and a little harder to choose or be selective in the dinning room. Sue is always after the hard rolls.. and cut fruit. The bakeries on these ships are wonderful. They make the hard rolls three times a day and a couple times in the middle of the night. The danish are always great.

No more Full Contact Massage

I always get Sue a deep tissue message on the ship. She had a great one on the Carnival ship. Everyone since that time has either been not enough or as in this case, too much. It took Sue a full day to recover from the one she got on this ship. We should have listened to our daughter Linzi who has taken some instructions in doing it. Sue is just too fragile with too many fibromyalgia issues to take on a ship board massage.

________________________________

Just some thoughts! :) Pat

Hawaiian Cruise points of interest

2011-11-29T08:11:00.001-08:00

Hawaiian Cruise Wrap up Points of Interest and Observations

1. Princess is the best cruise lines in its category for food and service.
2. 14 days is not too long a cruise.
3. Hawaii is a valid cruise destination even if you do not spend your money on a lot of excursions
4. Each Hawaiian island is very different from the others
5. The Hawaiian people we met were friendly and accomadating
6. People in Hawaii wear Hawaiian shirts and clothing all the time
7. There is more that we need to see, but it was so different than my expectations.
8. Fall may not be the best time to go since we missed the whale migration from Alaska
9. Fall is a great time to go as it seemed we had Hawaii to ourselves and our ship mates
10. The free Walmart express was an quick way to get the lay of the land. It was not reliable for meeting an excursion schedule
11. Expect to pay more for what you get on the mainland. Especially in consumer goods. But its what everyone is paying.
12. People are people everywhere. Most people on the ship were very tolerant of the powerchair. Some were not.
13. The movies under the stars is a great concept in warm climates.
14. Hilo Hatties had the largest collections of Hawaiian goods for sale. Walmart had the best prices. Some of the island produced perfumes and soaps could only be purchased at the ABC store.
15. Always bring a tropical rated umbrella on your journeys away from the ship.
16. Its pretty hot in Hawaii.
17. A tropical rainstorm is nothing to sneeze at.
18. Public transportation is great in Honolulu but realize that everyone there also knows about it.
19. Enjoy the diversity of Hawaii. Its different at every turn.
20. Hawaii is not just for the fit and tan. There are lots of ways to enjoy Hawaii that don't require good swimming skills.
21. Its a great place to buy kuku beads and shell beads
22. Don't expect chocolate buffets or midnight seafood extravaganzas on Princess. It does not happen.
23. There is progress in keeping down the smoke in the casinos. There were several no smoking nights and periods where smoking was not allowed in the casino.
24. LA has made huge strides in customer movement to get in and out of the port.
25. Expect to pay a fare in addition to the two fares it took to get on the ship to get off the ship. This comes from the tips, excursions and the photos and drinks you acquire on the ship.
26. The ports themselves are an interesting place to take photographs. You can shoot an unobstructed shot from 9 stories up.
26. The night entertainment is pretty stock on Princess cruises. All the ships in the fleet have the same stage shows. Still its something we do not do at home.. its great.
27. Liquor is not cheap. A stock American beer is about $8.40 including the 15 percent tip. A bottle of wine starts at $30. This however, these would be the prices in a Hyatt or a Hilton bar.
28. The coffee card is a good deal. It works out to be 2 dollars a cappucino.
29. The soda card is a great deal too. At $67 dollars, the unlimited diet coke was available in the cup that was provided with the sale and at any bar when showing your coke sticker on your cruise card.
30. People were willing to talk to others when they sat down to eat or relax along the trip.
31. Don't expect your TV lineup when you are using the stateroom tv. There were only a couple of news feeds (fox and CNBC) ESPN2 and BBC. In the past we had better TV. The close to first run movies on ship and through the stateroom were really pretty good. Most of them were at the pay per view level.
32. Don't expect to have your DSL level speed with the internet on the ship.
33. Buy the internet supplement minute package early.. like the first day or two. You will have more time to use it and getting the price package will be much cheaper than later on the ship. We were happy to hear that we had 250 minutes since we are platinum passengers. Elite members like mom and dad do not have to watch their minutes. The irony is that they don't usually use the service.
36. Look for unique ways to have fun. After all you are on a vacation. You are doing and going places that you would not do at home. So don't expect to have all the same things that you have at home.
37. Get a good table of people to eat with every night. If the first group doesn't fit with you, talk with the Matre dei arrangement can be made.
38. If you don't know what is offered on the menu, ask the waiter.. he or she will often give you an idea. If you don't like it when it comes... order something else. Or order more than one to start with. Our table had people that ordered three entrees regularly and shared it among its ordering couple.
39. Expect European portions at the table. Except on Lobster night.
40. The utilization of the International Cafe and the Piazza as an entertainment venue was new to me and very pleasent.
41. The scholarship at sea is a great program for Princess. The naturalist, the lei making and the ukelele lessons were super parts of the trip even if they were crowded and under supplied.
42. The ceramics program that Sue has loved on previous trips was totally in adequate and inaccessible. This one needs to be redesigned.
43. Getting on and off of this ship was easy even with a powerchair.
44. A person with limited mobility should consider renting a power chair for mobility and independence on this ship.. both for the barriers and the size of the ship.
45. Elevator use was much better on this ship than on others
46. Time changes on this cruise was unbelievable. We had to lose 3 hours going in time zones. We ended up with 2 hours on the way home because of the end of daylight savings. We had three because Mexico is one time zone different than we are by edict. The minute we crossed back into the US it was just 2 hours that had to be adjusted since Hawaii.
47. This was an "older" cruise similar to the Alaskan cruises we have taken. Very few school aged passengers. Very few newlyweds too.
Overall it was a wonderful trip and we would do it again!

Day 14 Hawaiian Cruise

2011-11-28T17:42:00.001-08:00

_____________________________________

Day 14 Hawaiian Cruise--- Port of Los Angeles
November 9, 2011
_______________________________________

Today's entry is not from the daily journal I wrote while on ship. There was too much to do and the journal was packed as the made preparations for disembarcation... er getting off the ship and heading home. It was written several weeks after the voyage.

We woke up and got ready as requested by 7:30 am.

For those of you who haven't been cruising for a while, there is a new wave of getting many of the people off the ship that do not need to jamming up the exit.

All those people that can leave without using baggage services, can walk off the ship at its earliest time. Most of the people that live close by or did not bring a bag that they could not handle took advantage of this early off. They were off the ship and on the shore around 8:00. This reduces the number of people waiting to get off the ship. On the last cruise, to Mexico, this amounted to almost half of the passengers. The cruise was shorter and most of the passengers were Californians.
There were many people from other countries that need to be checked more carefully than we were as they came into the country to travel on the ship and were headed for more USA adventures or a quick connection to flights at LAX to home. Some of these folks came into to Las Vegas on the way to LA. They all had their own lines to stand in to get back to LA.

Our ship, The Golden Princess, slid into its LA port dock around 6:30. It was interesting to watch the ship recharge its wares and move the passenger luggage in steel cages simultaneously.
Our waiting area was designated by the time and order we were to leave the ship. We were in blue 1. We had no particular need to meet an airline schedule, or make connections with an overnight hotel. Our waiting area was in the plush upscale Italian restaurant on deck 7. This worked out well for us as Sue has a hard time sitting for a period of time and could lounge on the padded seats until our color was called. There were about 35 colors and number categories so that there would not be a bum rush to the gate. Our combination was one of the last.

Our time to leave the ship was announced and we were escorted to the machines that took our cruise card and verified that we were going off the ship.

The Princess port has a two story disembarkation building that our ship utilized. When we left the ship we still had a fairly lengthy wait to get through customs and immigrations and homeland security. We also had to pass the fruit and ag station going into California. Some of the passengers had failed at this spot and a couple of dozen flower leis were on top of the machines. Some ship fruit also was sequested there too.

Some older people that did not need a wheelchair, needed one to wait in the line. Princess employees were right their to get them into the wheel chairs and out of the line. Rightly so, with Sue's power chair, we were not offered this convenience.

When customs forms were filled out and turned in, after all, the ship spent four hours in Mexico, the next job was to find our bags and the extra wheelchair in the barn of the port. The luggage was sorted in the same sequence as the colors and numbers.

Sue had gathered up a porter with a long cart and she had found that most of our bags were near each other. The porter gathered us up and we headed out to the street. He dropped the bags on the curb and we gave him a 20 and I went looking for our expedition. Sue stayed next to our bags with her powerchair.
I found the truck and ran through the parking kiosk with my credit card in hand. $165 for 14 days.
I circled around to the loading area. We opened the back of the truck and threw in the bags. I repositioned the manual wheelchair so that the back of the trunk would go down. when I lowered the lift for the power chair and Sue guided it on.

We were all set to go.

I took the Harbor Blvd freeway to the 110 and since it was about 10:45 we whistled through LA without a slowdown. It was a beautiful day.

We stopped for a burger at Santa Clarita. A lady stopped me because she saw that were both dressed in the Hilo Hatties matching Hawaiian shirts. Together they make quite a statement.

The expedition purred over the grapevine and up interstate 5. We stopped for gas in Los Banos and we were home before dark..

The kitties were very happy to see us! We were happy to see them!.

What a great experience to cruise to Hawaii and back.

Day 13 Hawaiian Cruise

2011-11-27T13:33:00.001-08:00

_________________________________________________
Hawaiian Cruise Day 13- Ensenada Mexico 4pm-7:30pm
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Forecast: Partly cloudy, High 70 F Low 56 F
Sunrise 6:11 Sunset 4:50 pm. Minus one hour from California Time
_______________________________________________________
This morning despite the forecast, the sky is clear and the winds are down. Its not a "shorts and tank top" day but I know that many will be seeking the sunburn bronze today in and around the pools.

The ship seems strangely quiet today. Lots of readers with their books and ribbon lei making going on around the ship.

Most of the readers are into their books. There were only 6 kindles/electronic books noted in the promenade lounges where people often go during the day to read or look for some quite time.

I picked up our DVD collection at the photo booth. 4 DVD's. Two were pro stock like photos taken in Hawaii and our ship. Two other DVDs were produced by the photographic staff for our particular cruise with footage of our crew members . Total cost was $39.00. A bargain and insurance from my perspective.

At lunch, as usual, I went for a shared table. Sitting next to me was a elderly man and his wife. They were not happy with the menu. They grumbled under their breaths about the menu being the worst they had encountered on the ship and almost got up and left. They would have done so if they had not had mobility issues and had paid the physical price to get there. They registered their concerns to the waiter who tried his best to find a choice that would fit their needs. He finally chose a cheese soup with ham . When it came he grumbled that their wasn't much ham in it. His sandwich came, it was a grilled tomato and cheese sandwich. I took one look at it and said that it was too spicy.

I enjoyed the linguini with tomato sauce, broccoli, and fresh peppers. My second entree was the Portuguese stew. It was a thick chippino type soup with smaller pieces of fish related ingredients. I suspect it had as its base the lobster and the shrimp from the night before. It was very tasty but certainly beyond the spice range of the couple next to me. The wife had a "health cup" of sliced fruit for desert. She had a grilled chicken salad for her lunch meal. They were both much more pleasant once they had some food going down. He had 2 scoops of ice cream. The couple from KC had a hamburger and they joined me in ordering peach pie with vanilla ice cream for desert. It also had a dollop of creme fresch to go with the pie.

The Kansas City couple were St. Louis cardinal fans. They were basking in the limelight of their team's World Series victory. They also liked hockey and were fans of the NHL St. Louis Blues as well as their minor league hockey team in KC.. He currently works for Honeywell which has collected and changed and merged a couple of times from the original Bendix. Basically it is a defense industry supplier.
They said that they enjoyed the solitude of the cruise.

I watched the naturalist's power point lecture on the pelicans (brown) and the penipods (sea lions) in the smaller presentation theater. These were animals that could be seen as we headed into the Baja coast.

I first saw land at 1:30 this afternoon. It was a few island off the Baja Coast.

The bay of Ensenada was much larger than I expected. I watched as we picked up the pilot on the south side of the ship and hour away from docking at the port.

Passengers were warned of strange additions being added to alcohol drinks ashore. This changed the idea s of many going ashore fore most of the passengers. Rumors of big weapons etc. also heightened the panic.

A fancy yacht was passing us as we were heading in. It was headed for Fiji.

We did not go ashore, but I had some fun taking photos of the sunset and the shore lights from the top of the ship.

We worked to get all of our stuff back into the bags this night as they needed to be out in the hall before we left for dinner. All that we held back were the items that we needed to get off the ship and check through the customs and immigration.

I got a card and some cash ready for Rosalie who had been so patient in working around our erratic schedule.

Our waiter was teasing us that all they would have for this dinner would be meatloaf. I think that he did that to see the reaction of the passengers.
We had more than that.. but in the fury of getting everything back into the suitcases.. I didn't write it down.

Day 12 Hawaiian Cruise

2011-11-26T17:36:00.001-08:00

_________________________________
Day 12 Hawaiian Cruise, Monday, November 7, 2011 Dress: Formal
Weather Forecast: Mostly Cloudy- High 67F Low 56F
Sunrise: 6:49 Sunset: 5:18
___________________________________

Its easy to work the routine from this room for everything except dinner.

We are 35 feet away from the elevators that go all the way to the 5th floor from the 14th.
The 5th deck from this elevator opens to a Hall that leads into the art gallery. This ship has a large quantity of Art that will be put up for auction at times throughout the cruise. Prior to these auctions, these auctions these works of art are hung or displayed in the gallery.

The morning connections to the Piazza is through this art gallery. In the Piazza, is the International cafe with free 24 hour dinning. The internet cafe, a wine cafe doubles as a wifi station for those passengers that have brought their laptops along. A Godiva chocolate store and a tall central ear that exposes the central core of the ship 3 decks of open area. There is also a bar, and thankfully no smoking allowed. Many "outdoor" activities occur in the center. An activity that some people participated in was a group "sing" of some popular songs. Those interested, met and rehearsed a couple of times at sea and then performed in the piazza with a conductor. The chamber quartet would often perform in this area as did the instrumental jazz group. "Street performers" and piano players were scheduled to use its center stage. It was also used as the location for the champagne tower that is the Princess cruise lines signature captain participation event. This central area is much smaller than those on most of the previous ships we have cruised. However there seemed to be much more programed for it use than other ships. It was too small for that art auction . The wait staff for this area as it relates to the only place where you could order a gourmet coffee such as you might get at Starbucks, was very attentive. Most people, just like at Starbucks back at home, were gathering up the coffee to go. They have big "here" coffee cups here for the cappuccino, donuts (small) are there every morning with croissants,yogurts parfaits and breakfast sandwiches. Its really a nice alternative to the buffet and the formal dinning room.

Going to our dining room was a bit difficult. Usually we took the elevator to the 7th deck (the promenade deck, walked through the smoky casino, a piano bar, the piaza central open area, another smaller nightclub venue, the photographer's hall with their kiosk, and finally to the only elevator that would go down to the 6th floor on this deck. This a power chair, this was not that hard to do. If you wanted to do this with a walker, it could be problematic.

Being on Lido deck (deck 14) with a cabin is pretty special. You are only 35 feet from the outside. This was very quiet, and as close as you can get to the the bar for the diet coke, and the hamburger bar. Its a short walk across the deck to the buffet. There is always a buffet line that is open except for the middle of the night. A trip down to the International buffet has food available. A free room service with sandwiches and minimal food is also available from just a phone call.
The sun deck and the spa facilities were located one floor above us.

10:15 Culinary Demo
Our head chef is Scottish. The matre dei for this cruise is Italian. Where there is usually pasta potatoes become an option.

Demo today Salmon cured 48hours with salt and sugar and vodka.. sliced very thin.
Pesto pasta- chef drops some toasted walnuts into the usual mix
Garlic shrimp- olive oil, garlic with shrimp. tossed as they cook with brandy.. set aflame
Black forest gateau- chocolate sponge cake with whipped cream and cherries

11:30 Ship board Naturalist doing Natural Triva (from her talks)
Bonus round questions:
A. Demonstrate the sound/song of the humpback whale (someone in the crowd did)
B. Demonstrate physically the life cycle of a barnacle (no one did so she did on stage)
1)swimming upward 2) attaching to a site with tentacles 3) Feeding using feet to drag food to the mouth area (demonstrated by lying down on the stage and performing the movements)

Throughout the ship there were other activities going on full bore. The people who were getting uekeulalie lessons were rehearsing for their performance. There were also chances to make "woven leis"

The professional photographers were getting into their last chances to photograph people in the "fancy clothes."
I only counted 6 men with tuxedos on the entire ship for this night. All the women on the ship look forward to these nights as it is a chance to get out their fancy clothes and have a "night on the town" without having to worry about alcohol consumption and where we will eat and what we will see after. "Formal" for most men consists of a dress shirt with a tie and a suit like jacket.

Dinner- Formal Lobster Night!

Pat: Chopped cold crab cake with other chopped sea food ingredients (calamari, squid, mussel meat)
         Asparagrass in tiny bundles (poached in stock)
          Mango cold soup
           Lobster and shrimp (the shrimp were just a little smaller than the medium sized lobster)
            Beef wellington
            Baked Alaska (the waiter parade with lit platters) then divided into individual servings
Sue: Chopped cold crabcake
         Mango soup
         Lobster

Another song and dance revue played at the major theater venue. It was called the "British Invasion" and featured songs of the Beatles and other tunes of that era.
Costumes from the "Mod" era and stage props included an inflatable captain for the Yellow Submarine . A parade sized mini car with a union jack painted on it was driven on stage for another song.

Our dining schedule had us eating at the 8:15pm serving. The most requested time is the 5:30 seating. This made it pretty late to go the late show after dinner for many of the guests that have this seating. This gets complicated for the people that want to see the show twice as they can sit through the show and maintain their seats. This ship's main theater does not hold enough people so that everyone can sit in there at one time.

When I went to see the British invasion show, all the seats left in the entire theater were standing room only. After about half way through, some people had had enough and there was room for us to sit.

Overall this is not that big a deal.

Day 11 Hawaiian Cruise

2011-11-23T16:31:00.001-08:00

_______________________________________
Day 11, Hawaiian Cruise November 6, 2011
Weather: partly cloudy High 72 Low 60
Sunrie 7:20 Sunset 5:30
________________________________________
Today started out and continued to be a pretty dreary day at sea. There is lots of wind outside.

The LasVegas Company Fixer

The 84 year old approached me at coffee this morning. He has been "collecting life stories this trip and mostly relating his own. He has been "working the piazza" in the morning for most of the trip. Today was my turn.
I had watched him approach other and he diffidently had the gift of gab. I overheard that he had connections in Escondido. Escondido was one of the childhood homes of my dad. So when he approached me for some conversation, I asked him, "How is the man from Escondido doing today?"
He was a little taken back that I knew that, but it only changed his patter a little.
He had good mobility but had that long hound dog look that many years in the world of accountancy could give you.
He said that his job was to turn companies around. He claimed to be very successful at it.
He talked through his bushy eye brows. He introduced himself as "Chuck." I had overheard his story before at least three times with various people seated in the piazza. He took the Piazza as a center of the town literally. He agreed that he had lived in Escondido, a town just north of San Diego California for a large part of his life. He only recently, in the last three years had moved to Las Vegas. He moved there because California was taxing him to death. He owned or used to own numerous parcels of land including one that was about 1200 feet above sea level. It had no electricity or water. He brought in a railroad generator and drilled his own well. When they came to "provide" him with electricity, his power bill went up. They would make him pay for the water that he had drilled. He won a lawsuit that showed that he was out of their water district, so he could use his own well without having to pay an entity.

He has always worked hard he claimed. He was sent to rescue a jewelry company based out of Chicago that was losing 800,000 dollars a year. He turned it around by paying the employees much more than then the prevailing rates and firing the ones that were poor employees. He also reduced the market prices sold by them by a third and underbid the competitors. The company turned around to be making $28 million. They refused to give him his bonus on this turn around because they felt that the turn around was a fluke. Two more years later it was still doing that kind of business.

He wanted to pay his secretary a big raise. The company wouldn't do it because she was "union."
He has a bad taste in his mouth regarding unions. He said that he is a "conservative" not a Republican.

He also stated that he was behind the idea for Costco. He knows the president of costco by first name and also the owner of its older competitor, Price Club, He had someone try to sell him a 2 dollar coffee cup that he could sell for 3 dollars. He found out that the company had a warehouse in San Francisco. He called them knowing that they were paying a lot for warehouse space for all of the cups. He said that he would pay 39 cents for all they had. He sold them in his stores for two for a dollar. He had two railroad cars full of these cups that he warehoused in Texas in stead of San Francisco. He took an 18 percent profit from the transaction and shared the idea with the founder of Costco. Costco moved into that kind of sales and the rest is history.

He went on about his connection with Jimmy Carter and Clinton.."Two of the worst " presidents outside of Obama.. yada yada Yada.
He said that when Jerry Brown, the current governor of California, father was governor, he vowed to never build a freeway in San Diego because he disliked the mayor and the politics of the area. The next governor did.
_____________________

Hard Working Mexican

I met a miner on the ship. He was in his early 50's and short.. about 5 feet one inch. He said that he lived in Chico California. His wife was a RN .
He worked with crews that drilled underground to build utility lines and other infrastructures. His maid job was material removal. He ran a small train with rails that took the soil out form where they were digging.
He had done farm labor but realized that to get his kids though schools he needed more money.

Work pretty much stopped for him in 2008. He had to return to the farms. He was making good money but not as much as working the tunnels. He worked planting almond and other trees in orchards around Chico and Stockton and Lodi.

His kids are both gown now. He is proud that his daughter is working up the corporate ladder in CVR pharmacy . They told her that she had to get trained as a pharmacy tech to be a daily manager and eventually a district manager of about 40 stores.

The son had a college education too. He went on to study to become a computer engineer. He is working for a private corporation near China Lake in Southern California.
_________________
He and his wife and her mother had chosen this cruise because all of his current jobs were completed . The last one as a miner took 3 years . He could not take time off during that time.

The was a sea day. The football game (being Sunday) were sparse. The Green Bay Packers fans and the San Diego Fans got their wish of coverage on the big casino tv. The Green Bay Packers caem through which delighted the vocal crowd. I am sure that if there was a rallying song the Green Bay Packers fans would have broken into song.

In the afternoon I watched the movie "Super 8". It would be available on Netflicks about 20 days later. It was shown in the stardust theater.

Dinner: Italian themed
Pat: antipasto seafood mix, mussels, calamari ,
        parma ham and cantaloupe
        veal scallopine
         snow crabs (legs cut in half lengthwise
         Tiramisu
     Zabaglione ice cream

Sue: zippy peach soup
         snow crab legs
          lemon sorbet

I watched the movie "The Help" up in the other big venue stage.. the vista lounge. Its a powerful movie about prejudice in the 60's with the black people that were the "help" to the rich white people of Jackson Mississippi.

Day 10 Hawiaan Cruise

2011-11-20T17:21:00.001-08:00

_______________________________________
Day 10 Hawaiian Cruise Saturday, November 5, 2011
_________________________________________
I Checked the mail-email- messages sent and received. I bought a new coffee card to get me through the cruise. I did laundry on Deck 5. Later I found about three others all around the ship, and some were even closer. $2.00 wash $2.00 dry and $1.00 for soap. I had read that I needed quarters for the laundry from some nice people that blogged their trip on the web. No one was using the two washers or dryers that were in this compartment early in the morning. I watched the "coin" man come and get the money out of the machines and haul it away in a little cart. He was on his last cruise before he was off. He was pretty happy that there would not be any more coin collections on this cruise. The laundry was just down the hall from the art gallery and the piazza center. It still made it easy to get the clothes going and go get a coffee while they whirled and spun. We just needed a little bit of laundry done from this or that to make the one more formal night happen.

I got Sue up and we headed to do ceramics. Its one of the things that Sue liked to do when we were on the Alaskan Princess voyages. On this ship its a closed one table kind of thing. The table was sitting in one floor above us perched out above the indoor pool. Sue accidentally bumped a sun chair with an older lady in it. She got pretty upset . I informed the lady that she was way in to the passage space area with her chair and we couldn't get by without a bump. She said at least you could have said excuse me.
Sue was pretty upset about the lack of access to the event and the whole attempt.

She ate a quick scoop of shrimp slaw from the international cafe and headed back to the room.

I took her back and then had lunch in the dinning room.

I met a family from Madison Wisconsin. In conversation I found out that the mad worked for CUNA- now retired three years. There was also a couple from Nebraska and one from Ohio.

I got to talk health care plans with the insurance man. His office was union covered and he negotiated their contracts. Just as he was retiring, their company pulled their retiree health care package.
He had to go outside to get a $10,000 deductible policy,

He asked me what I thought we should get into at the end of the health care issue. I said a single payer plan.

I watched some college football (we got ESPN2 on the room TVs) Iowa beat Michigan in the last moments of teh game. I heard reported that Stanford had beaten Oregon State.

I did some more painting in the room. Sue did more reading with the books we bought in Kaui and some that people had donated to the pile in the library (paperbacks). We donated a half a dozen too that we had already read.

I completed the rainbow over Lahaina Maui that was scanned and inserted in a previous entry.

Dinner: Sue Hamburger and fries at the outdoor stand
Pat: Hawaiian fruits and macadamia nuts
        Leg of lamb
        Prime Rib
        Chocolate Brandy Cake
Banana brioche bread pudding with caramel sauce

Day 9 Hawaiian Cruise

2011-11-19T16:01:00.001-08:00

_________________________________________
Day 9 Friday, November 4, 2011 - Formal
Weather: Chance of Showers High 80 degrees Low 69
Sunrise 7:20 Sunset 6:14
Added on an hour
___________________________________________

We are headed back today. There is a 30 mile an hour wind we are knifing through with a 190,000 ton vessel. There was considerable dip and roll last night no seems to be sea sick from it.
We are now out of shore days with the getting on land and security checks. I checked the email and Nattalie is handling it well.

Sue is pretty wiped out form yesterday. We needed some time to rejuvenate after all of those shore days. I got some painting in. Oh the joy of good brushes. They accompanied me to the ship with a limited palette of colors. It was fun to wet on wet the landsacpes of the Maui countryside from the ship. I made the first one on the moleskine tablet and made a few cards of the flowers we saw in the Botanical gardens. I also got a chance to paint the wild? chickens of Kaui. A rooster was printed on the tag of one of my shirts . He became the the starting off point to my rooster series. One wet on wet with the spray background, followed up by some pigment pen. The other card started with a dry paper and a very wet brush and pigment pen to define the details.

I am reading the Steve Jobs biography that I picked up in Hilo. Its a hard bound and written by Walter Isaccson . Its pretty clean. He also wrote the biography of Ben Franklin and Albert Einstein. Steve picked him to do the biography and Walter turned him down twice.

Sue was too tired for lunch in the dining room. I had a great one.
Crustinnee with smoked sturgeon and cream cheese and scallons each on their own layer
Ruben sandwich
creme carmel for desert

Great conversation at the table with a couple from Green Bay, Southern New York, and a couple from Florida. The green bay couple had cheeseburgers.

It was formal night and we were invited to the captain's reception. All but the passengers with the their first year were invited.They honored the passengers with the longest cruise record- a mother and daughter tied (they always travel together). They had 1,072 days on Princess. No one else was close. The captain did not shake hands with anyone coming in. due to the Norwalk restrictions. The captain introduced a short movie of the artists representation of the newest princess.. the Royal Princess 4X the size of the Golden. Its due to enter service in 2013.

It was the Chef's special night:

Dinner:
Pat: Goat cheese souffle
        French onion soup
        gnochi, in cream sauce
        strawberry sorbet
        Triology- Veal steak, Lamb chop, and chicken skewer
         Menage le Trois desert--- pana cotta, termousou, strawberry creme
         (2 small tablespoons of each) 2 cookies pistachio and chocolate

Sue: Strawberry soup
         green salad
         seared scallops
          strawberry sorbet

Romantic quote for the day: The best and most wonderful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. Helen Keller

Day 8 Hawaiian Cruise

2011-11-19T08:47:00.001-08:00

________________________________________________
Day 8 Hawaiian Cruise Lahaina, Maui, November 3, 2011
________________________________________________
Morning pastries at the Piazza. The ship is moored in the Bay at Maui around 7:00 am. Some people had to be on shore at 7:30 to go to a snorkeling site. 2 snorkeling sites were going to be explored . 3 of our evening table dinner mates were on the excursion. The owner of the tour was showing some of the people the probable location of a medium sized octopus. As was related to us later that afternoon, by Jill, a 70+ year old man who seemed in good shape took the snorkel and died in the water. His wife who was along on the trip shouted for his rescue, The doctor who happened to be on the excursion jumped on the man and tried to revive him. He was already gone. It happened that a bereavement counselor was also on the excursion. She immediately started helping the wife. The excursion went back to port, the owner apologized profusely and the excursion was refunded to all the participants.

Our trip to the port was largely uneventful. I had taken the tender earlier and was back on the ship at 1:30.

I had texted Lindsay to make sure that I was getting the right products at the ABC store. She was hoping that we could bring back some pikake perfume. It is very subtle and is made only on the islands. Its pretty much only sold in the islands as well according to her. It has a distinctive after taste rather than a bold upfront smell.

At the ABC store Sue thought that she would go for one of her favorite snacks. Snowballs. I asked her to look at the price before she bought them. Not that she couldn't get them... but I had seen that the other hostess products packed a hefty price. She was shocked that they were over 3 dollars. The grocery store in Merced sells them for a dollar. I guess jet fuel is expensive.

I also found a great Hawaiian ice spot just off of front avenue. It was shady and important quality for today. There are no clouds in Lahinia. There was no rain today and it got rather warm in the sun. A gentle breeze from the ocean helped out however. The surfers were out giving it a go of the reef. The surf was bigger than any I had seen in California. It seemed more consistent.

We walked along Front street and enjoyed the art that was visible from the gallery windows.

It was a pleasant time. The huge banyan tree in the city square was much more than I imagined.

As we were leaving by tender Sue saw a beautiful rainbow by fog up on the mountainside above Maui.

Even though it was hot and everyone was sweaty, it was a great time. Sue loved the shopping and the Hawaiian ice. The first one she had was a mango and cherry with a little leeche thrown in. We shared this one.. but it was sooo good Sue needed another small one before we left. The one that I had before her was their coconut lychee condensed milk ice. It was spectacular.

Lahainia was an interesting mix of Carmel by the sea and Sonora. With their art galleries and architectural historic restrictions on city look it was an interesting combination. I really loved the idea of the banyan tree taking up a city block. That was unbelievable.

Diner:

Pat: tomato and fresh mozzarella cheeese
        Crayfish and savory relish
         smoked slices of duck breast
   Potato and Ham soup

          Chateubrieand and Snow Crab legs
          Carmel souffle with sauce
          Peanutbutter Oreo pie with chocolate garnish

Sue: Hamburger with fixings

Maui adventure was energy intensive, Sue didn't go to dinner

Day 7 Hawaiian Cruise

2011-11-18T10:44:00.001-08:00

_________________________________________
Day 7 Nwilliwilli, Kauai, November2, 2011
Today's Forecast: Isolated showers- High 78 Low 73
Sunrise 6:43, Sunset 5:58
__________________________________________
The waters of the Ocean had become on the rough side as we snaked inot the port of Nawilliwilli. The port side was tall mountains and a very small breakwaterarea. The ship landed next to a huge shed that looks as if it were used to load ships with sugar cane or other products. The ship had to move completely to one side in the wind and then straighten out to dock along the tiny port.

I took the free shuttle to Walmart. the crusty female driver had been doing this for years, drove us up the hill. She had a good patter and narrated the sights. She could also let you stop at the museum or the anchor shopping area. But she made it clear that she would not pick you up at the anchor shopping center. It was about a half a mile away from the ship downhill.

The town its self is really small and kind of broken down. Along the top ridge are various helicopter businesses to take people for adventure rides into Wiemea Canyon.

One of the old guys on the shuttle said he was cold and could she turn down the air. We had been waiting outside and the rain had fallen, She said,"No" He asked why. She said that she liked it that temperature. The shuttle was a 25 passenger bus with a tall ceiling and a short step up to get in.

There was also a free shuttle for passengers that wanted to go to Kmart and Hilo Hatties. All the big boxes knew they needed to get the ship passengers up to their businesses.

Later that morning we were waiting transport up to the walmart with Sue. The Hilo Hatties shuttle arrived ahead of the Walmart one. We opted for the Hilo Hatties.

Sue and I had a great time at Hilo Hatties. That girl loves to shop and it seemed like everything Hawaiian was in this store. Most of the goods were made in Hawaii.

The shuttle driver started out by handing out to each rider a shell lei. One of the old ladies up front asked if he was going to kiss each person that got the lei. He said, "They have laws against that Now!" Everyone on the bus laughed.

Hilo Hatties in Nawilliwilli's is a one story about 10,000 square feet of retails space. As you walk in there are coffee cups and a couple of Hawaiian coffees for self serve as well as a couple of fruit juice containers for self serve as well.

The store has most of the square footage stocked with racks of Hawaiian shirts and other other attire. There are some sections with Macadamia nuts and cosmetics.

Sue found the bargain table and we invested in some nice genuine bargains.
We saw the chickens all over everywhere.

At the Walmart I picked up another 12 pack of caffeine diet pepsi. I was stopped by several passengers in line back to ship asking me whether that was permissible to take on the ship. They all made plans to do the same.

The Follies Singer
At breakfast I met an Asian man that needed a table to eat his breakfast. He told me that he was living in a gated community at 1500 feet elevation just outside of Palm Springs. He had retired as San Francisco architect 13 years ago. He said that he loved his life since he could play golf 4 times a week throughout the year. He also liked the fact that his community village had numerous interest groups that met throughout the month. They brought in a big star at least once a month to give them a show, like Bono or Andy Williams.

Every year the village puts on a big follies show. He was a performer. He likes to be an Elvis impersonator. As of 2 years ago his hearing got in the way of his performance so now he does it with lip syncing. He also is a star in the village people YMCA group. He is the C. Sometimes he is able to do a Louis Armstrong without the lip sync. He used a napkin to demonstrate how he could carry on a conversation with Louis Armstrong leading up to his singing one of his songs for me. What a treat.

He said that he had 6 Grand kids but is not as close to them as he should be. Some Grand kids live in Fresno and some in Turlock. He follies singer was a regular character. He asked me to guess his age. I guessed 72. He was amazed. He said that he was 78. It is these encounters that make the cruise for me. I always try to get a conversation going. The only problem that I have now is that these people will see me on the ship and break out in a big smile and they walk by before I can track down the memory of their conversation.

Chickens Domestic ---- Wild
At Walmart there were a huge amount of chickens running around loose in their parking lot. They were looking for a spare piece of a McDonald's bun .

Apparently they started out as domestic chickens in people's backyards. A hurricane in 1992 whipped through the town and lifted the chickens out of their cages and dropped them into the verdant country where they became feral. There were many more roosters than you would usually see in a domestic chicken population. They were also very territorial and had huge spurs.

Our driver mentioned that it was against the law to try to suppress the population. He said though with a little wink that went along with the statement. There homeless don't go hungry. At the Walmart parking lot the flock has become pretty bold, and the cars slow down when they make turns so as not to hit them. The flock was defiantly working the waiting crowd, looking for a a chance to pick up a crumb or a two.

There were downpours again today. Hilo Hatties has a covered outdoor waiting area for the shuttles along the side of the store. Even with this, the rain splashed significantly on one side reducing the sitting area to about half.

In the waiting area, Sue saw a lady show off to her friend a cosmetic bag she had bought on sale in the store. It was bright yellow with orange flowers on its side. She found out that it was only 5 dollars marked down from 27. We marched right back in and bought a stack of them. There was also a matching wallet kind of thing. Sue needed it too.

Sue bought be a T shirt at Hilo Hattie that had the logo from above on a green shirt.. StarClucks Kaui
Dinner:

Pat: Daiquri Soup (watermelon based)
Calamari-flash fried with baby octopus and artichoke
        rack of veal with aspargrass.
        Apple Struedel

Sue: Daiquri Soup
        mixed greens salad
        Tiger Shrip with mango and tomato chutney
        coffee creme bruelee

Day 6 Hawaiian Cruise

2011-11-17T12:26:00.001-08:00

______________________________________
Day 6 Honolulu Oahu, November 1,2011
Today's Forcast: Mostly Sunny High 82 Low 73
Sunrise 6:36 Sunset 5:58
_______________________________________
We pulled into the dock ten minutes late at 7:10 am. I got up on the deck to take photos of the surrounds.

I saw a double beautiful double rainbow off the decks and to the East.

We were ported in the dock closest to the Aloha Towers.
I had my usual cappuccino on deck 5 with the usual pastry assortment. Sue wanted me to to check out the "get off the ship" clearance and report back.
I was off and looking for Diamond Head and maybe Waikiki.

My morning walk took me after 2.5 miles to the county park of Ala Moana. It had a good view of Diamond Head . Many people were jogging the park in the morning. It was not crowded on the beach or on the trails. Three were people swimming in the area before the breakers and several people on very long boards doing paddle surfing on the flats in front of the breakers. The breakers seem to be a quarter of a mile away from the beach. This is not what I imagined.. but good.

I was having a pleasant time when I felt a gentle mist blowing in the wind the had picked up. Then suddenly a tropical downpour occurred. It was huge. I tried to find cover under the Banyon tree. It helped a little but I was drenched. The downpour continued for 25 minutes . It reminded me of heading toward the trees or the car when a rainstorm would hit when we were fishing in the rockies.

This rain was pouring out of the sky. It lacked the coolness of the Rocky Mountain thunderstorm. There was no lightening in this and no thunder.

I rolled into the nearby Starbucks and the cashier noted my condition. I earned my Hawaii badge under the banyon tree. A native Hawaiian also headed for the tree at the same time I was there.
A banyon tree is a ficas relative. There are a million ficus trees in homes across the country but I will never look at the indoor tree in the same way again.

I had lunch at the Ward Farmer's market on the way home. No farmers but a grocery store for the Asian population. It also had a "junk souvenir" stand out in front. Inside they had a section of the store devoted to making sushi. 8 people were working making sushi in an animated way. I bought a bento box for $6.69 that had a thin piece of cold salmon the width of my hand, a shrimp tempura piece and a chicken on a skewer tempura piece. there was rice and three different salads. No wasabe or pickled ginger. also no chopsticks... fingers worked.

Another rainstorm hit and I was glad I was under some cover.

I took the bus back to the ship 2.50. Sue wanted to get out and move along the streets with her power chair. I thought that we might do the upscale mall right along the side of the ship. We did those and bought a few items. Then she wanted to go to the park that I had been. As we made it out along the streets we realized that the power chair was not fully charged. We had a mix up and got separated. She barely made it up the ramp to the elevators and to the room to plug the beast in.

On the way back I noticed that the water in the port had cleaned and the little reef that the port made had dozens of Angel fish and trigger fish swimming around it. No snorkel mask needed.

Dinner: Because we were in Honolulu there was reduced dinning room support. They told us all to use the anytime dinning if we wanted a formal dinner on the ship instead of our usual spot.
Pat:
Bratwurst and fries from the hot dog stand on ship. Copra (a kind of Italian salami) and a couple of chicken skewers from the buffet.
Sue: Hot dog with cheese roll, fries and some brough from home fruit roll ups and a nut bar

During the dinning hours teh captain came on the announcements and stated that there was a higher than normal admission to the Drs for gastro intestinal outbreak Norwalk. He said that we should be vigilant regarding our hand washing and that he was enacting new procedures today in the self serve sections of the food areas.

It was obvious that self serve buffets were no longer self serve. Everyone was "served" in the buffet. No passenger was allowed to "touch" tongs or even in the hot dog bar pump their own mustard.

I sat down at the table and an "older lady" sat across from me at the buffet tables. She said that she was hit by the malady. She was signed up to go with her grown kids to the Polynesian Cultural center all day long excursion. She sent them on in the morning. She tried to send word out that she could not make it on her legs. She slept the entire day. She was hoping that they would cancel the cost of the excursion..$375. There was no one down at the excursion table to collect her request. She had not been to the Dr on the ship. I told her that she needed to do that if she hoped that the excursion would not be billed to her account. She said that she was up all night but slept the morning through to the afternoon before she could get up again. The Polynesian Village excursion was to leave at 8:30 in the morning and get back about 10:30 at night.

The captain reviewed again the Norwalk procedures and did not shake hands with anyone that night at the captain's reception for the Captain's Circle members. At our cabin we responded by wiping everything down again with the disposable sheets we bought at the walmart in Hilo.

Overall there was a large contrast to between the rural sort of run down look of Hilo and the urban Jaguar car feel of Honolulu.

We saw some homeless (a few) camped out corners along the road in Honoulu. None of them were begging like ours. Some people were living out of their cars or vans, living the idealistic surf bum life.

Oddly there were not many tourists in the areas we walked except for ship borne folks all carrying their free blue princess bags.

I also had a chance to visit the Ward center. Its a 3 story "outdoor" mall and a group of parking spots between the two wings. There were empty store fronts and a little food court with a DQ and Orange Julius combined. I had a pumpkin blizzard.. pumpkin pie flavored soft serve with some cookie chucks that had the texture of crust tossed in.. I approved. the McDonald's was advertising their baked pies in Hawaii... bananna.. I didn't try.. got to save something for the next trip!
I took some photos of the sunset across the port.. The lights came on and streaked across the water of the port as the sky turned orange.
Overall a great day.. although it had its moments!

Day 5 Hawaiian Cruise

2011-11-16T20:48:00.001-08:00

__________________________________
Day 5 Hilo Hawaii October 31,2011
Weather: Chance of Showers High 82 Low 65.
Sunrise 6:22 Sunset 5:44
__________________________________
This morning started with storm clouds all around the ship. Not overcast, but genuine black clouds. This storm passed us by. We are going to have a brilliant sunny morning.

I brought Sue her breakfast and choice from the buffet, scrambled eggs, bacon, corned beef hash, a baked pear adn 3 rolls with butter.

I took the elevator down to the 5th floor piazza, walking through the art gallery and had what they called an bengue (sp?) a french donut. Its really a small doughnut square filled with blackberry filling., a chocolate glazed rolled doughnut and a custard filled doughnut. Add these to a broad rimmed cup and saucer cappuccino and its almost a perfect breakfast.
I checked the email. Natalie said that Nigel is in the window all day and is happy to eat the treats.

Today is Mom's birthday!

They have a wild display in the piazza lobby. It had some gruesome carved pumpkins (the cooks with the garnish knives on watermelons could accomplish amazing things with pumpkins). Also in the center was a manikin with green eyes, and bloody shirt. My daily internet use is around 20 minutes per day on a 14 day cruise that works out to be around 300 minutes. I bought a plan that would give me more than the minimum 500. So I guess that spend a little more time in facebook. The connection speed was really good as there were only three others in the internet cafe and people started using their regular cell phones as we rolled into US territory in Hawaii.

I called Wanda (mom) to wish her a happy birthday. Dad was chopping on his peach tree.
I text messaged the Brownie Korbs in Colorado and both girls in the Bay Area.

It was neat to see that breakers as we barreled up the coast to our docking port in Hilo. It was clear enough at this point to see all the way up the mountain to the tiny round knobs that had to be the observatory. It was the only time during the entire day that the mountain was visible. The rest of the time grey and black clouds blocked the view.

I was off the boat about a half and hour after we docked for my 2 mile hike. I thought that it would take longer than that with people being on ship for so long. It was an easy off. So the early exucrsions were off on time. We had arrived about a half an hour late. After that many miles at see its a wonder that we were there so close to our planned arrival,

I walked down toward the town and saw car dealerships and big truck warehouses. After I walked a a mile and a half I decided that the additional mile to the town was not worth it. I had failed to put on my hat, and the sun was making it pretty hot.

I headed back and got Sue up to do the run to Walmart. A shuttle runs form port to Walmart and Hilo Hatties was running the some vans and did not want to waste their space with a wheel chair. (This we found out from another wheelchair couple as they waited to get on. Walmart hired a bus to do the runs and everyone including our two wheelchairs were welcome. The walmart bus held 65 people . It pulled up and we climbed on. It dropped us off at Walmart, and the driver gave us a little local color as we traveled. Hilo has 45,000 people.

Sue and I ate McRibs.. yum. I listened to the post high school students talk in their classic "pidgin" What an interesting linguistic soup.

I bought the Steve Jobs biography. Sue fell in love with the quality and depth of Hawaiian material available in the store. Almost everyone was wearing Hawaiian shirts. Shorts were everywhere.

When we were ready to return, we waited for the bus outside of Walmart. It finally came up but it did not have room for us. We could have waited for the next bus. But....
Our excursion started at 2:20 and I was afraid we were going to miss that one. I flagged down a taxi. It was a mini van. The first question the middle aged female taxi driver asked was,"Are you allergic to dogs?" I said no. Sue said, "find out how much it would cost." She guessed it would be about 14 dollars to the port. It was only 12. by meter. I told her to keep the change of the 20. She almost didn't want to keep the change but she did. She did in honor of her little shitzu dog that was her constant companion. Sue sat up in front with the driver and her little dog that had a tiny gold clip to keep her hair out of her eyes. She rode the transmission hump all day with her master.

Back at the port. I took the Walmart purchases up to the cabin while Sue shopped the merchants set up inside the port building. Some of our family members will be the recipients of the fine shopping environments . There were even some lady selling tropical arrangements for your cabin at 10dollars a throw.

The Botanical Excursion

We were gathered up from the huge indoor port building under the sign. We had the tickets supplied by the ship. We traded them for a big gold sticker for our clothes. 9 of us and the manual wheelchair squeezed into the van and off we went. The driver was equipped with a microphone and a headset so that he could narrate the trip and answer questions that people had before getting to the gardens. Our driver took us sight seeing along the way, showing us some of the public parks beside the sea and some of the flora that makes this place different.

We unloaded at the gardens and Sue went diving into the gift shop. She found the only shirt that had a chance of fitting. We also got some postcards of the place. It had some photos of the beautiful flowers and plants that we would see along the slopes of this vertical garden.

Sue got out her camera and took a large number of photos of the things that impressed her. It is situated on a very steep hillside. They got us down to the area that we had a chance at pushing the wheel chair around and more level walking by moving us down using gas powered golf carts. They were also used to drag the wheelchair and us back up the hill.

Sue sat in the front of the van coming and going. I sat with a newlywed couple from our ship from Oregon. She had long gorgeous red hair.

The driver narrated our journey. He answered the "living"questions. Gas was $4.25 a gallon. Currently in the states its $3.65 a gallon. He pointed out the banyon trees and the umbrella trees.

We were all checked thoroughly for identity four times this day just getting into the area that had the ship. Sue was hurting and wiped out. I was just wiped out from what felt like working in a warm sauna all day long.

It took 6 glasses of water at the buffet for me to feel I had caught up with the water I had lost.

Dinner:
Sue: hot dog with extra mustard with cheese and rolls form the buffet.
Pat: Double hamburger with cheese, handful of fries, a scoop of garlic shrimp form the buffet and a desert sampler (for use to share) small slices of pumpkin pie squares, cheesecake, and choc. layer cake

I watched the last quarter of the Monday night game that pitted the San Diego Chargers and the K.C. Chiefs. It was on the big outdoor screen as we headed out of port in the evening headed to Honolulu.

The kids on the ship, all six of them did some trick or treating through the buffet with the Princess mascot.. the pelican. Its the first and probably the only time that I have ever seen the Princess mascot.

Day 4 Hawaiian Cruise

2011-11-15T09:39:00.001-08:00

_________________________________________
Day 4 October 30, 2011
Forecast High 79 Low 62 Sunrise 6:50 Sunset 6:29
_________________________________________
Checked email: had responses from the girls. Also Natalie. The cleaning ladies were back. Natalie liked them. Connection speed slowed way down.
At breakfast I ate in the formal dinning room and was served a very strange version of Huevos Rancherios. Chopped tomato fresh salsa on the side. Eggs serced over a quesadila filled with green peppers and a large dollop of refried black beans accompanied.
Breakfast dinners included a couple from Pennsylvania. The wife had a white mennonite prayer cap. The husband a trimmed beard. Also there was a couple from Florida interested in horses, with the husband a police attorney. A couple from Rockford Illinois and an insurance salesman from Bakersfield completed the table. He was rather outspoken regarding California politics and its solvency. I let him have his right wing platform. It died without a second.

I met a truck driver from Hemit. He and his wife cashed in their LA home and bought a brand new one from the proceeds in Hemit. Hemit is a high desert city east of LA. He helps cook for the American Legion . He grills hamburgers and hot dogs with fries... price $4.00. Even then some of the members don't want to buy. The American Legion supports itself with bingo but no bar.

Sue and I booked the botanical gardens excursion for the next day when we dock on the big Island of Hawaii at Hilo. It is scheduled to leave the port at 2:30. Its the last one of the day. There were 4 other times. They use a van to transport the people to the location. The excursion office called ahead to see if there would be room for the wheelchair. They said that they could accommodate it.

The ship's naturalist was selling her own book after her lectures in the big theatre. It is all photos she took herself of natural Hawaii. She autographed it for us. She is selling it off to pay for her college loans. She is form Portland. She was a naturalist for the park service in Alaska before doing the princess boats. She was up on the Kenea peninsula. She was also stationed for 2 years in Ketchikan.

Dinner:
Pat: Carbmeat in a martini glass with pieces of orange
Cold coconut soup in a hurricane glass
Surf and Turf- Filet with four large Shrimp -tails on
Cherries Jubulee- Flambe with vanilla ice cream

Sue: Two hamburgers from the terrace via Pat's room service

We set our clocks back again for tomorrow wake up . We are supposed to be dockside at 9am in Hilo.

Day 3 Hawaiian Cruise

2011-11-14T07:33:00.001-08:00

___________________________________
Day 3 Saturday October 29,2011
Forecast: Partly Cloudy, High 78 Low 63
___________________________________
I was up this morning at 5. We lost another hour as we headed West today. Its supposed to be in the high 70's and low 80's maybe. There was very little rock in the boat last night or this morning. The Eastern coast passengers were up very early this morning- their heads have yet to join the game.

There was a swimmer in the Neptune pool this morning at 8:15. I asked about the water temp. She said that is was good. Out of port they have have been repairing this pool. with some plaster patches and some re- lighting projects. Last night it was ready for occupation. Today.. a swimmer.

This morning the internet connection was a little slower but still acceptable. Received an update on the Merced cats and Kelly with a cold.

This morning attended a slide show on Kaui. Lots of insight plus a nice map was provided for his talk in the Princess Theater. Luckily, no Diamonds International. It was genuine and his references were authentic.

I also had a chance to listen to the captain circle talk. I was able to get another Pacific Island stamp. Back in the room the idea to use the stamp as a take point for some watercolor got the paints out.

I bought a couple of moleskine notebooks with watercolor paper inside of them. I made the first variation with the Caran de Arche watercolor pencils then wet them down. The second variation was made with watercolor sticks . The third variation was done with the pilot pigment pen to start and then watercolors, primarily Mayan colors for the rest. Its a little different working with the hot pressed paper that was in the notebook rather than the cold pressed paper that I have mostly used in my painting, Cold pressed is much rougher in texture. I also opened a pack of artist trading cards and made a variation on them from the travel kit.

We met some London Brits at lunch. His job was controlling the air and heat inside of the building.

Sue got ready for her massage

Dinner:
Pat: Escargot
        cold cucumber soup
        duck ala orange
        raspberry creme brulee
Sue: fruit
        green Ceasar salad
        fettuccine

Day 2 Hawaiian Cruise

2011-11-13T17:55:00.001-08:00

______________________________________
Day 2 Friday, October 28, 2011- attire Formal
At Sea: Partly cloudy High 68 Low 55
________________________________________

Sunrise 6:50 Sunset 6:20

Breakfast -Lox and Danish (pear) canned apricots prunes, and figs
Morning broke with a string of clouds headed East- We are headed South west. Ship hours lose another hour tonight.
At 6 am I was in the internet cafe to get the latest update from Natalie, the house overseer. Paul (doing the cat and mail thing) left the front door unlocked but Natalie closed it and locked it within 10 minutes of his leaving. Natalie was headed over to him to remind Paul about it after he arrived home from school.

I sent emails to our daughters this am. As frequent travelers on Princess, (Platinum level) we get 250 minutes of internet time free. I bought another 500 minutes for 67 dollars. This should be enough. Its a one time offer that has to be done the first day that you are on the ship.
I had cappuccino service in the Piazza (the center of the ship on the deck 5. It was nice to have the card so that I didn't have to sign a slip to be added at the end with all of the others documenting our purchases.

2 Retired H.S Secretaries
As I looked for an easy chair to pass some time 2 retired High School secretaries couldn't seem to leave the active life alone. "Just because I am retiring this year doesn't mean that I am going to sluff off my duties," One of them stated.
Then there surfaced Angst expressed over a summer typed "purchased order... "I wasn't the one that typed that purchase order... It wasn't hers."I would have known not to use maintenance funds.
New personnel was taking over their jobs. And a new principal.. only 28. How could he think he could do the job? The counselors are coming back to schedule summer school with no knowledge of what they did in the spring.
"I told them they had the best staff of any High School could have. So he didn't talk to me the first 3 weeks just before school started, I pointed it out." He said that he was sorry, what can I do to make it better, he said. Just ask me when you need help. I will do it she said. Then there was the keys. Many teachers had lost their keys.. and round up.
So much angst so hard to let it go.

Looking out to Sea
See you are in the middle of the sea
No land to see for days
Would you look out the window to see?
Or find pattern in the waves?
If a tree were to fall in the sea
would there be anyone there to see?
Looking for the slightest breeze
To cap the waves and lighten the sea
Push on ship of wonder ship of the sea

Pat's book in hand.
Everyday in Tuscany-Seasons of an Italian life by Frances Mays (author of Under the Tuscan Sun)
Much of it is a quest for viewing paintings by Signorelli. I believe that he was the painter that we saw in Orvieto..an Umbrian hill town in Italy.

Canadian Bakers
At lunch Sue was helped through the buffet line by a Princess employee. She held the tray and Sue pointed out what she wanted. At the end she found a partially occupied table nearby. The Princess employee asked the couple if we could join them. No problem.
He was a retired bakery owner in Winnepeg. His company made thousands of cakes each day to be shipped out to Canadian safeways among other places. He said that they imported the flour for the cakes from the US as well as the fat. He preferred the soya fat over the only one made in Canada, canola. I asked him what he thought of the cake boss on T.V. He said that he likes watching the techniques but felt there was way too much drama in it. He watches it with the volume off.

In the afternoon I sat in the start of a movie in the Princess Theater. I realized that it was the same as the one I had seen the night before up on the Stars outdoor big screen.
In the meantime the workman had fixed the Neptune pool, probably why the workmen were drilling something in our hall the first night. 100 or so passengers were waiting to watch the test screen that said, MLB.
It was the 7th game of the World Series between the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals. Each group had it own cheering section as movies under the stars screen was bright enough to broadcast the game to the cheering audience in their swimming suits and buckets of beer. Nearby was the free hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza.. order up and enjoy. After the fourth inning the crowd slowly disappeared to get ready for the first fancy dress night on the ship for the 6 o'clock seating. A few passengers were enjoying the free soft serve ice cream (served until 11pm each night). Since our dinner was at 8 I was able to see the last of the game from St. Louis.

Dinner:
Sue: Grapefruit and Kiwi slices
   Caesar salad
          Pan flashed Shrimp
           Chocolate Mousse

Pat: Slices of smoked Duck breast with salad greens
        Yogurt Tamarind cold soup
   New York Steak with veggies (asparagus and green beans)
        Pear browned on Puff pastry

Even though we loved our table from yesterday with our Disney Imagineer Exec, Sue felt uncomfortable having everyone move as she passed by to get to our table especially on the way out. Sue always likes to leave a little earlier than most people at the table. We talked to the matre de, and in Italian fashion he tried not to take blame for the original seat. We of course absolved him of intent and he found us an outstanding table.

This table had thee people from Philly and one couple from Santa Monica. The Philly people were involved with the power grid and safety one of them retired form Eslon. The Santa Monica people took care of rich people's money the official title... Financial Advisor. They are a lively conversationalist interested in sports and personal experience. They were mostly sympathetic to a more liberal brand of politics.. good.

Tonight was "formal night". Just a few tuxes were out there. Men mostly wore sport jackets and ties. Women got out their sparkly dresses.

Earlier in the day, the red hat ladies posed for a photo . Two pro photographers were there as they "posed on the curved railings." These were all ladies were over 50 years old. They just met up when they got to the ship. When they were all set and standing sideways (there were about 40) one of them yelled out "Say Sex!"Huge giggles emanated from the assembled crowd.

Also on the Piazza was a "street performer" His last name was Rossi. He came in dressed like a chef with a tall white hat. Then he walked or jumped on one hand across the plaza on one hand (a moving one hand handstand) Then he did the same dribbling a basketball.

There was a demo and a sushi station at lunch. People descended on the sushi but they kept up with the demand. There were even a couple of big trays left over after lunch.
It was a pretty great day even if it didn't turn out exactly like we had planned.

Day 1 Hawaiian Cruise

2011-11-13T06:37:00.001-08:00

Thursday October 27,2011
At Sea: Forecast: High 71 Low 59 Sunrise 6:25 Sunset 5:41

Awake at 5 AM (as usual)
There seems to be quite a bit of programming lined up for today:
•Sue has yet to find the library- if they are ready for her
•Tickets available for the lei classes with fresh orchids (need to buy a kit)
•Sue is scheduled for a deep tissue massage
•Introduction-orientation to the ukulele lessons
•2:30 Jacqueline Kennedy event (Jackie jewlery)
•ceramics at sea

(none of this happened for us as it turned out except finding the library)
Last night we jostled our way along. Nothing big just the slight feeling that your head may not be working the equilibrium task easily. Its a whole lot different from the sharp jolts we felt coming into northern California on our Alaskan cruises.
Overall the ship has a "big" feel about it. The Golden Princess was constructed in 2001 in Italy. It has been reconditioned since its construction in 2009.
In homage to my daughters that always find new friends at breakfast in the dinning room, I had breakfast there. A nice conversation was had.the ladies were u for talk and their husbands kind of softballed it. One of the husbands was a borderline diabetic and the other one was a diabetic. The wife of the borderline said that it didn't keep him from eating sweets. Fare for breakfast was cheese and mushroom omelette with a small piece of Italian sausage and fresh tomatoes.
I had previously used my coffee card (you can buy one to cover the coffee and tip) to get a cappucinno and a creme filled donut.
One couple at breakfast was from Deleware. They were concerned about a company supported by the state called Bloom. They are investing the people's money without the people becoming stockholders. It uses natural gas to make what sounds like fuel cells. The by product is water.
One lady told me about her daughter. After 45, started out as a PE teacher and went back to school to become a HS counselor so she could help out more.
I met a man who did cross country for 33 years outside of the internet cafe/library.
The internet cafe doubles for the library. This makes mobility on issue for the library folks. Early in the morning only 3 out of 40 pcs were being used.
I checked my g-mail and found a note from Natalie, the house overseer. She reported that the house cleaners were there and she was going to see that the trash cans were put out on the curb Thursday night. The cats were giving her the cold shoulder but she recognized that they probably would come around.
Sue had soda and a couple of donuts for breakfast using my coke card. The coke card allows you to get soda at any bar for 67dollars for the trip. A little sticker is issued on your card and a tumbler is issued. She did some prowling in the library and found a couple of books that will keep her entertained. She bought a light orange pair of pants on"trail" at teh gift shop. (They didn't fit too well so she returned them later in the cruise for credit). We also picked up some postcards .. mostly of the ship.

For lunch the set up of stir fry station outside of the buffet looked good.

The cooks stuffed stir fried veggies (that they did on the spot) with shrimp and a little ham and packed rice on top of it into a small ramkin. They flipped the rambkins upside down and on to a plate for serving. Available with a viable hot and sour soup it made a great lunch.
I ate lunch on the pool deck. A couple asked if I could save their place at my table. I said sure. The wife was widowed and so was the husband. They were both lost their spouses within six months of each other. They live in Sierra Vista part of Southern Arizona. She has a job passing out coupons one day a week at the military commissary. He worked 20 yrs each at the same job both military and civilian When pressed he said it was intel. Russian was his specialty. He was a linguist. It came in handy when they cruised to St Petersburg. He could speak to the natives in their own language. That pretty much floored them.
She now does a lot of travel agency work. Not for the money but for the experience. The first shot at ceramics was a bust... no one showed or they didn't have it. Sue was disappointed.
In the afternoon, I watched a pbs special on the sharks of Co Co Costa Rica on the jumbo outdoor movie screen.

Two Worlds Collide
The two servers in the buffet were busying around their preps. Its easier to "organize" than provide service. So far no complaint about service from me. there seems to be enough servers to do the job so these servers were milling around their support station, both of them Philippine natives.
A middle aged platinum blond approaches them, She says,"I would like some lemonade."
The server says, "Your glass is full."
She said,"I want some lemonade . In wild flourish he grabs a pitcher and says,"here"
He pours her cup from the pitcher. She walks away and and says "That is an Arnold Palmer. "
The server says "Arnold Palmer," with his accent.
"Yes," She said. "When I ask for an Arnold Palmer you can get me an ice tea with lemonade in it."
"An Arnold Palmer, "she repeated.
I asked the servers after she left if they knew who Arnold Palmer was. They ignored me, but were laughing because the server had filled up the glass with more ice tea. The servers were laughing at the big joke they had sprung on the passenger.
That was passing as humor from the server station from server to his server buddies. They all thought it was funny that she didn't get he mix.
So for the servers had no problem with me getting a diet coke in or out of the designated cup.

Dinner for Day 1
Sue:
Strawberry soup
Lettuce wedge salad
salmon

Pat:
Pinapple chopped up with other tropical fruits
corn chowder (no cream)
Pork shoulder with chimmichuri sauce
warm brownie with vanilla sauce

Our table mates were from Long Beach. They were celebrating their 25th anniversary. He works for Disney in the an executive function for theme parks and cruise ships. He is currently working on modifying the Hong Kong Disney Park. They have two sons in college. One is studying film like father did and the other is hoping to be a screenwriter. They live up by the Long Beach airport.
I am not sure that we will be able to keep our table. Despite so few eating at the 8 o'clock seating, Sue was concerned about getting her powerchair in and out of the table gridlock to the current spot. She also had to climb up a couple of steps to out table in the back.

One of the interesting tales that our table mates told us was about getting the newest Disney ship out of Germany and sailing with it to the Canary Islands and on to the United States before the public had a chance to get on it. It was in the winter and people lined the banks to see Mickey and Minnie at the head of the ship pass through the bridges in the middle of the night. They also came to see the fireworks that the ship set off as they passed under the low bridges. They had to go at low tide to get under some of the bridges.
It was winter clothing to start the trip and shorts as they hit the Canary Islands. The biggest obstacle was dodging the film crews as the ship made its way. They were filming promo spots all across the ocean.
Sue left early before desert .
I watched the movie Arthur on the Movies at see Stars Screen outside our pool deck. It got chilly at 11:15. There seemed to be a significant reduction in swales in the middle of the night.

The Hawaii Journal

2011-11-12T20:27:00.001-08:00

This is a summary of the blog entries that follow.
The Ship: The Golden Princess, 109,000 tons. Original Cost 405 million dollars 18 passenger decks

Our stateroom: L252 (Lido) or deck 14.
Embarkation:Port of Los Angeles
Disembarkation: Port of Los Angeles

Sailing Date: October 26,2011
Sailing Time: 4 pm
All passengers onboard by 3:00 pm
Arrived Home: November 9th, 2011

Night before cruise: The Westin Long Beach (Hot Wire)
Length of cruise: 14 nights

Itinerary for Cruise:
Wednesday: Los Angeles Pier 93 (October 26,2011)
Day 1 Thursday: At Sea (October 27,2011)
Day 2: Friday: At Sea (October 28,2011)
Day3: Saturday At Sea (October 29,2011)
Day 4: Sunday At Sea (October 30,2011)
Day 5: Monday Hilo, Hawaii, Hawaii (October 31,2011)
Day 6: Tuesday, Honolulu,Oahu, Hawaii (November 1,2011)
Day 7: Wednesday, Naniliwili, Kaui, Hawaii (November2, 2011)
Day8: Thursday, Lanhania, Maui, Hawaii (November3,2011)
Day9: Friday, At Sea (November 4,2011)
Day10: Saturday: At Sea (November5,2011)
Day11: Sunday: At Sea (November 6,2011)
Day 12: Monday: At Sea (November 7,2011)
Day 13: Tuesday: Ensenada, Mx (November8,2011) (4 hours docked)
Day 14: Wednesday: Los Angeles (November 9,2011) disembark.. by 9:30am)

Tues: We left Merced at 3:35. We waited 2 hours to make sure that we could see both cats were inside before we left. Georgie, the white manx cat hid out in the garage for two hours in protest. Nigel was out too, but came right in after waiting on the front patio while I read the newspaper.

At 5:30 we were at the base of the grapevine pass. We had traveled over to Los Banos and whistled down Interstate 5 mostly at 70mph. The cheveron on top of grapevine had a subway sandwich shop. The manager was bemoaning the lack of business.. hoping that it would pick up. We filled up and headed into the basin after dark.
Tuesday night we arrived at the Westin Long Beach for the bed that Sue wanted to take home it was so perfect. The Westin would accommodate her whishes for $4200.
It was almost 10pm when Sue sent me out for "something to eat" Around the corner from the Westin was a crepe house.
The manager said that since it was 10 minutes from closing time, all that I could order was "take out." He offered up the whole menu for take out however. I ordered a scallop and shrimp filled crepe and a vegetarian crepe. 16 for the seafood, 14 for the vegetarian. The seafood one had a delicate lemon sauce. The veggie had potatoes and mushrooms. Both of them were great choices. Sue choose the specialize in the seafood one.. but there was plenty for both of us to share, and we did.

Embarkation Day Wednesday, October 26.
I was up in the morning at 6:30. I tried to capture in digital photos the public art in Long Beach. What was cool was the art deco like mosiac tile art in a couple of blocks around downtown.
The last time we were Long Beach I ran across a restaurant on Atlantic that claimed that it had the best burgers in town, also serving lunch and breakfast. It had a drive through and a blue collar look about it. It looked like a prime spot for a stack of hot cakes, my latest obsession. I was not disappointed. 5 dinner plate sized cakes were delivered to my booth, along with 2 tubs of butter and 2 tubs of syrup. The very thought of syrup would bring Sue a negative reaction.
Back at the hotel room Sue opted for a "naked" coconut/pinapple smoothie and a cinnamon/raisin bagel from the coffee nook across from the hotel.
Sue needed a "hat" for the trip, so after checking out (I checked out for the guy one floor below us first before Sue pointed out my mistake), we fired up the Expedition and hauled over to the nearby Albertson's and then the CVS pharmacy. the hat was found and we made our way across the two bridges from Long Beach to the Port of Los Angeles. Our embarkation was simple and characteristic of Princess form for its preferred customers. It was the easiest of any ship we had traveled upon. Plenty of time to unload the the power chair and the wheelchair and two of the largest suitcases you can buy, a backpack and a carry on. Don't forget the purse too.
On the Ship
We were on the ship and in our cabin by 2:00.
The ubiquitous muster occured at 3:15. What a mess! We have a cabin on the 14th deck-Lido. Our muster station along with everyone else is on the 7th deck. Getting there via the elevator was not difficult. Getting back.. oh my. I climbed the 7 floors to our room but Sue was at the mercy of an elevator that had too many people in it and all of them having to jump or wait for her to get out so they could exit at their floor. I walked/climbed the 7 floors and beat Sue to the room. I did this so that the other people that really needed the elevator could use it.
When I arrived, the 2nd big bag was waiting for me in the hall. They collected them when we got on the ship and delivered them later to each cabin so you didn't have to walk your bags up the floors to your cabin. The wheel chair came soon after.
At 6:30 we still could see the Channel Islands as we moved toward Hawaii. Dad said that the ship travels at 18 miles an hour so still seeing the island 36 miles off the shore is kind of unique. Usually when we leave the port of LA we are headed for Mexico. Its usually a later departure too.
We are on the top deck (our stateroom) with the pools, indoor and outdoor, the horizon buffet, is also on this deck.

Our cabin stewardess is Rosalie. She came in our cabin tonight to drop off a pretty blue Princess bag with our chocolates with a reminder to set our clocks back one hour. Its now a quarter to seven, it is in real time tomorrow a quarter to 6pm.

We are very close to the pizza and hamburger stand. A bar separates them. The pool is between the outdoor pizza stand and the buffet court. No stairs, no elevators, that might not be such a good place to encourage shipboard interaction.

The Golden in the Princess line seems large. Even with its size, this time of the year, yields a very aged group. I did not see any kids at the muster. Sue saw a few preschoolers with their families when we were getting on. We also saw a one couple ahead of us in line that had two fortyish people hauling with them 6 thin oxygen tanks each behind their wheelchairs.
Sue and I choose off the buffet for dinner tonight .. pineapple (fresh) honeydew(fresh) and mixed veggies , about 5 hard rolls each . For me I added the borscht, and the cappra (salami) and Sue ate a slice of pork from the carving station. There was also some really yummy sugarless chocolate cake with fresh stawberries on it for desert.

On Princess, at the buffet, you pick a place to sit down, and the waiter serves you with water, and a cloth napkin and silverware. Sue loves the hard rolls that are from the ship. She also had a slice of cheese pizza.
I let Sue rest in the cabin while I brought her the dinner mentioned above in "take out" form.
Our room is really large. Its one of 25 accessible rooms on the ship. The bathroom is large. I bought two extra cords for the charging of the powerchair, my cpap machine and the recharging of our cameras and phones. There are only two outlets for the room and they are way into the corner of the room. Many of the other ships we have been on only have one outlet.
There is a nice writing table and a small flat screen TV over the mini fridge.

Tonight there already has been some mechanic drilling holes in the panel in our hall. This is not a very good sign.

I went to the "Welcome Aboard Show" in the main theatre.
Dancers and Singers (sampler: we are family)
Cruise Director-Introduced Staff
Filmed "fly over" of various parts of the ship video
Black comedian from San Diego, did part of his show

Cruise Director's "gag":
His wife called him to tell him that she bought curtains that were pink.
He asked,"Where are they going?"
She answered,"they had to be big enough to cover the computer monitor.
Why?
They use "Windows"
Everyone groaned on that one.
The slot machines are now using cruise cards to spend gambling and to collect the winnings. What winnings? No one seemed to be winning.
I bought a mojoito at the piano bar. They were running a "fill the card" scam with the completed cards having a chance at having your complete bar bill paid for at the end of the cruise. You need to have the equivalent of 30 beers (the lowest valued) to get your card into the drawing. This bar has olives with mystery fillings as its draw. Some olives are stuffed with garlic cloves, others with pimentos, others with almond slivers. I was assured that they were the only bar on the ship that had them. Mojito was good. Was a little more on the lime side than the mint side in flavor.
I am looking forward to Lox in the morning. They had a start for that on the deck sandwich bar today. No bagels, however.

On the Sea for Two Weeks and Climate Change

2011-11-11T16:58:00.001-08:00

What is your life worth? Can you give two weeks of your life to travel the seas to a tropical island and back? Why not .. if you can.. and we did.

I know that you can get on a jet and zoom over to the Hawaiian islands in roughly 5 hours experience a ton of fun things to do and the weather, zoom back home and life goes on.

We had never done that.. I am not saying that it is bad. Its a little different when you travel and arrive and return via a 109,000 ton ship with 26000 passengers on it like the Golden Princess.

We have been to Alaska a few times of the ship.. Its a great 10 day trip in the summer. You get into the rhythm of sailing and sailing and getting off at a port and enjoying the port for a day and then clambering on board and sailing off to the next port. At night you gather with your intrepid fellow travelers and there is a chance to share with them the adventures of the day. The choices are made and the food is served. Its really a graceful way to travel and develop a community with strangers.

We decided that we could do the same with a cruise to Hawaii. The price was roughly the same.. about 1200 dollars apiece. The journey would be 14 days round trip out of LA.

With some careful scrutiny of travel arrangements and cabin selection.. we needed one of the 25 accessible cabins on the ship, we made plans to sail the end of October and return after the first week of November.

We had warm days in October in the central valley. When we returned in November the warm days are gone, replaced by the rainy cool Fall weather. When we left the afternoons would get into the high 80's. In November there is no such warm. The high temperature is more likely to be in the 60's. What a change. The shorts weather we had were exchanged for the more winter oriented long khakis and tee shirts under short sleeve shirts.

Cat/house sitters were found and bags were packed to arrange an overnight stay in Long Beach with a short no worries, "walk on the ship embarkation" the next afternoon. The ship, The Golden Princess was there as planed and we rolled and walked on with our usual moves when we take the NCL ship at the same harbor to Mexico for 7 days.

The next set of entries to this blog are from the daily diaries of the log I kept every day of the journey. The accounts are not meant to brag or in anyway insult or complement the people or the events contained in them. If you are not interested in this account it is okay and I will not hold you responsible for a test on its contents at its conclusion.

So.. at the top of each day there is an entry that divides it from the previous day. It has a Day number a date and a weather forecast. I used the Princess Patter.. the daily paper delivered to each cabin the night before to gather and insert this information.

I hope you enjoy "Pat's Patter" which this is all about. : ) Pat

Writing from the Dialog

2011-10-15T06:38:00.001-07:00

After reading A Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate, I have changed my writing style. She writes her novels from a first person perspective of each character. The tricky part in writing this way is getting the context descriptions to fit in. Its quick and easy to write what a character should be saying, its a lot harder to write how they said it or where they said it without breaking the narrative.

If you read her books you will discover an author that seems effortlessly fluent in her writing. She has taken out most of the bumps that change the rhythm. I am studying her writing style to get a handle on the "Aunt Betty" rescue narrative that I am writing.

Taste of Salt is a book about a black girl growing up in Cleveland who is enamored by the sea. She becomes a marine biologist on the East coast. Her family struggles with alcohol addiction. Mom a registered nurse, her dad an auto assembly person that reads the classics after working hours provided the background for her growing up. Her brother who was a trainer for the Cavaliers, a professional basketball team in Cleveland lost his job from using, despite repeated attempts to engage in rehabilitation. Her father becomes estranged due to his alcohol addiction. When that happened his reading after work stopped.

There is little sub cultural dialog in her writing. The reader does not have to "translate" from white to black English. The author is well versed in writing a story from an educated black perspective.

The reader can just roll right along into the narrative dialog as it tells the story. The diad is often the reader and the character in the book rather than the character and another character in the book. This adds to the intimacy of the writing.

As a public figure Martha Southgate was outspoken in objection to the movie and the book The Help. When she was interviewed by the morning talk shows about The Help, she said that it was well written but should have had an authentic black author writing it since it was written from black person's perspective.

I hope you get a chance to enjoy this book.
: ) Pat

Tuesday Morning

2011-10-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

Its Tuesday morning in Merced.
This morning it seemed a little warmer. Looking at the weather forecast it should be warmer today. I collected the sunrise today without any clouds in the sky. Since my walk however, the breeze has picked up and is jangling the wind chimes in the front. This time of the year we have winds that come down off the mountain and warm up from the friction. We seldom get coastal fog but during this time of the year, sometimes the coastal fog is non existent. The friction in the air and no fog was part of the weather conditions the resulted in huge losses in the Oakland fire a few years ago.

Top of the agenda today is to cut the yard with the lawn mower, do some laundry. Maybe I will go after some volunteer berry bushes in the back yard.

What is really nice about this time of the year is that when you have the thermostat set in the high 70's it the air conditioner does not go on. In the evening it is not so cold that you need a jacket on if you are not up in the wee hours.

Today I was up before the sun to get my walk in. They have changed the layout of the furniture in our Starbucks. The walls were painted new colors and new corporate artwork was hung. New furniture was added. We now have a section of tall bar stools and tables in the center. On the outside edge of the turret shaped interior are low tables of 4 instead of more smaller tables of 2. We got back a couple of upholstered chairs and we now have a coffee counter with chairs as we come in. Most veteran customers are not at all amused by the new set up. While I have been going to this one for about 4 years this is the second time this Starbucks has incurred a furniture switch. On the surface it would seem that those that sit down and need to work with the wifi and the lap top computers would be the most pleased of the customers. They have turned out to be the least tolerant. When a group of students came in and sat at the center tables they "hogged" all the electrical outlets that the regular laptop customers use. We will see how all of this washes out. Some customers were so concerned that they have threatened to move their business to another branch of starbucks. Its a mile and half away. I guess if you arrive and leave using your car it wouldn't matter.

Have a happy day! : ) Pat

A New Brush

2011-10-10T11:35:00.001-07:00

I have been playing around with a new brush.
Yes they are dear... I won't go into details about their cost.
But

I got my hands on a couple of

Isabey Kolinsky watercolor brushes.

They are made in France from Russian sable. They are accurate and hold a huge amount of water and paint for their sizes.

My current art work has taken me out of the atmospherics temporarily to some small canvases that can reflect a smaller subject.
The first one was the monarchs that are in my daughter Linzi's possession. My latest number is a very small 4x12 of my Starbucks coffee shop from the outside. My first inclination was to draw an outline with a pencil. The problem became that the lead in the pencil entered into the value structure of the painting. This was not good. I decided to "sketch" this new brush using non staining paints.. and it really helped to keep the painting from going grey. I have never been very good using a brush as a sketching tool. This new brush with its accuracy and its supply made sketching much easier. I am headed for some bigger versions of this brush.

The retail list on a bigger version of this brush is almost 300 dollars. Ebay to the rescue! I am hoping to get a size 12 for around 100. I am keeping my fingers crossed!

: ) Pat

Fall Mix

2011-10-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

Inspiration

One of my nieces, Cammie, published her latest Summer of Happiness Mix. Its really pretty good. There are a number of reggae rhythm songs connected into to a very pleasant listen. Congrats! You are an inspiration!

I got to thinking about a new mix for myself. Using my library from ITunes I started to think of some songs that would be great together.

The criteria for these is an interesting premise. I want a non or at least a non love song dominate mix. I wanted a mix that was pop but not country.. or at least particularly country.

I just could not resist to put one in... its one that could run around in your head for a long time. Norah Jones does a duet with Sasha Dobson. It goes back to the reference of rodeo from Garth Brooks that we included in the 2000 fouth of July. I think that the background support tracks are what make this song special.

These songs all have a special support tracks for the vocals. There is a very unique rhythm and musicality for each.This is a very unusual mix in that these singers are seldom mentioned together since they represent diverse musical backgrounds. It is actually a fusion mix.

How was song order determined?

I arranged them in an order of song energy. Each song was rated on this scale. 1 repsented a whisper song and a 10 was a screamer. There were no songs in this group that bit anywhere near either of these polls. The softer songs at the beginning of the CD are rated as 4s. Near the end of the CD there are some 7s and 8s. Many of these songs are not by the original artists. These tracks were selcted for there sounds not for their origins.

There are 17 tracks in the mix:
_________________________________________

Pat's Fall 2011 Mix

1. Pills Stopped Working- Hem
2. Blue Bayou- Norah Jones, M Ward
3. Innocent Bones-Iron and Wine
4. Its Gonna Be- Norah Jones
5. Bull Rider - Sasha Dobson, Norah Jones
6. Lets Get Lifted- John Legend
7. Huym4 My Soul- Joe Crocker
8. Ride my See Saw- Moody Blues
9. Takin Care of Business- George Throogood
10. Museum- Herman's Hermits
11. Burn this Disco, Michael Jackson
12. Bring it On- Seal
13. Nag- Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
14. Treat me Right- Pat Benatar
15. River Deep, Mountain High- Celine Dion
16. Gear Jammer- George Thorogood
17 Dancing Queen- The Yayhoos
__________________________________
Okay.. So what do you think?

: ) Pat

Transition into Fall

2011-10-07T06:38:00.000-07:00

The first storm of the fall came this week.

In one day in Merced 3/4 of an inch of rain dropped. Its very unusual to have thunder and lightening with it.

This pretty well ends the commercial tomato season... too much mold in the product unless they are harvested immediately.

Highway 99 was replete with tomato trucks driving like made to make their way to the paste factories.

With mold in the air it will not be long until we see the cotton harvesters working their wonders through the fields and in their deposit long white caterpillar mounds upon the field.

I know it is darker now in the morning. Its much easier to collect sunrises on my walk.

Contrails in the sky are now much more visible. They are going North/South

We were in the Bay Area this week and it was Fleet week. This weekend is Columbus Day weekend.

The hills look really dry

The evening temps are down in the 40s where last week the were in the high 50's

The front yard grass loves the rain and the cool weather. Its the best its looked all year.

Baseball is just about over.

There is no sign this year that basketball will ever return to the airways.

Hockey is back.

Its long pants and tee shirt weather. The shorts get put away. It looks like the end of 90 degree weather.

All this happening with one storm. Yep.. That is California Central Valley weather for you.
: ) Pat

Facebook video call

2011-10-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

Facebook Powered Skype.

There is a new feature on Facebook that is pretty interesting.
I pulled one of my sisters out of the chat cue last night and facebook asked if I wanted to video chat instead of IM chat.
I pushed the button. A small program downloaded to my computer and called up my sister who was on Facebook and text chatting with me. We then connected via Dick Tracy.

The Historical Dream

Dick Tracy was the mythical police officer in the daily comics in my youth that had a watch that allowed him to communicate by wrist TV to his headquarters and to his support team. This added a Sci Fi twist to crime solving. Who would know that now that is within the range of all of us through our computers via Facebook.

We also watched a demo of the future in calling with video back in the 1980's Disneyland. We were enthralled as it was to be able to talk in a group booth to a phone somewhere in the US and all contribute to the conversation. As in "Guess where we are? We are all in Disneyland. Do you want to talk to Mom? She is right here!" Video chat was still a far off dream and who would ever guess that the connection would be through the internet.. Internet what was that?

Chatting with Live Video

Last night we rang each other up through Facebook and had a nice conversation using the new technology powered by Skype. Our connections were good and the sound was great. It was mac to mac. We were able to show each other things that we referenced in the conversation. We have both been doing some art work and it was nice to talk artsy talk too.

In the past, my complaint with Skype has been that it didn't keep up with the audio let alone the video. Last night it was all working and the lips synced and the audio didn't echo.

It was interesting that Facebook became the badge of required info for the use of this technology. Social network spin alongs have been using this info to validated members playing all sorts of games and interest categories.

Groups with Facebook

I signed up to an event for our cruise and have seen many helpful posting on the cruise. It is interesting to see the social network stars for the cruise appear in the log-blog. Princess set this up so that passengers would have a chance to network.

I set one up for our class to communicate with a Facebook entity. It is important to set it up in the right category. There are definite differences between a personal page and a group page. If you are setting up a web page to do siimilar things it takes an imbedded engine to sort and sift and allow for moderation. This has become the new interactive source on the web that does not require programer interaction. what you give up in the process is some degree of privacy.

Have a great week : ) Pat

I had this issue before

2011-09-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

When I lean over there is a tendency for the contents of my shirt pocket to fall out.

In the past this movement has cost me dearly. Did I learn nooooooooo.

When I was early in my speech therapy career, there were no computers to keep track of schedules. I was always looking for a way to track my schedule with my students and their projects. I was also adverse to wearing a watch at that time.

I bought a calculator that was really state of the art. I allowed for alpha numberic (keyboarding) and it had a watch built into it. It was the size of a checkbook. It had a cut out on the front that allowed the digital time to be read. I thought that it was really cool stuff. I paid 54 dollars for it.. quite a sum in the late 80's. I used it extensively to do"work" related functions.

One night while I was baking a cake I leaned over to check the cake in the oven. It went surfing out of my pocket and on to the burners at the bottom of the oven. It ignited immediately and sent a foul burning rubber electrical smell throughout the house. Eventually I opened the oven after it cooled and through out the cake, the calculator datebook and replaced the oven burner that had melted plastic all over it. I was pretty sad.. but nothing could be done but try to figure out a better way to tack info.

Fast forward to today.

The toilet in the new bathroom suddenly did not flush. Instead all I heard was the tale tail continuous water running down the drain. Just like most guys that see an issue in their car mechanics, they throw open the hood even if they cannot or have no experience in the area, and peer bent over at the mechanics of hard to understand equipment. I did the same to the this fancy (10 years ago innovative) toilet. It had the idea of pressure charging the bowl contents down the sewage line rather than use gravity to feed the lines. At one time they flushed 8 golf balls down the line at once, with a similar flushmate device.

I leaned over and sure enough, my iphone dropped out of my pocket and down under the pressure chamber unreachable by even adept human hands. All of the water in the tank is contained in the pressure chamber and not in the tank.. so the iphone did not go swimming it was just inaccessible.

I read the owners manual on line and determined that I would have to disassemble the toilet from the base and drag apart seals and still I would have a toilet that needed parts to fix.. via online order only.

I called the local plumber that was listed as the contact for Sloan flushmate. He said that his billing charge was 89 dollars an hour. It would take a couple hours he figured to split the toilet apart and fish out the errant phone. He said that they were recommending moving out of flushmates since there were toilets that accomplished the same thing (water conservation) without such complicated assemblies and backordered parts. He offered a low water 17 inch tall (taller than our current) for 495 installed. He said that if I wanted to go shopping for another that they would install it at the 89 dollar an hour rate. Quick at math.. I decided to have them bring the 17 incher in an hour and have them install it.

I rep arrived within 30 minutes and hauled the old one out and turned in on its side.. easily fishing out my fully functioning iphone and he proceeded to install a 17 inch tall (ADA compliant) 1.2 gallon Gerber toilet. He leveled it out and shimmed it in place. all parts were installed and he calked it and checked for leaks several times.. We were good to go!

So watch out when you lean over with stuff in your pocket!

: ) Pat

Neighbors

2011-09-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

We have lived here for over 30 years. We were the first ones on the block. It was interesting that I finally got to know the neighbor that lives on our corner just within the last year.

I thought they were from New Jersey. I was wrong they are from Rhode Island. The moved on our block two years after we moved here. I found out that she loved nectarines but did not like peaches. Luckily I have a dwarf nectarine in my front yard. I try to pick some nice ones for her every year and put them on her front porch.

She loves to work out in her yard on comfortable days. She thinks that it is funny that she is out their pulling weeds in the front of her perennial flower mound while he is inside punching keys on a computer. She said,"I just cannot trust him to do this, he might be pulling up the plants instead of the weeds."

Her husband is over 85. He is tall lanky man with with a solid gait in his walk. He used to play golf in his retirement every day at the golf and country club. When he turned 85 he decided that he would give up of the sport. Even at 85 he was carrying his own golf clubs throughout the 18 holes and walking the length of the course. His wife attributes his good health to his walking every day an a cosmopolitan every night before dinner. His friends at the golf club could not understand why he would give it up when he was able to walk the walk and stroke the club. He was determined.

His wife told me that he started off working in middle management in RI for a tire manufactoring company, Us rubber.. or something like that. His wife was very close to her sister. They both grew up in Rhode Island. Her sister followed her husband out to Merced to be an Air Force wife. My neighbor was the youngest in the family. They lost their mother when this woman was very young. Her sister served as the mother to this woman. She felt abandoned when her sister came to California. The sister opened and ran successfully two restaurants in Merced after her husband retired from the Air Force. Her sister and her husband are both gone now.

They came out to visit their relatives in Merced for a couple of weeks from RI. When they got back, the younger sister missed her older sister so much that they decided to move to Merced within 3 weeks. The husband said that with his business experience in middle management for the tire company that he did not think that he would have difficulty finding a good job in Merced.

He was right. He found a very good job in Merced with Farmer's Insurance who had regional offices here. He worked there and made a good enough living that they bought a house and then parlayed it to a nicer section of town (our block). He retired when he turned 61. They have always had a comfortable lifestyle in Merced. She said that she would like to visit the East coast sometime but was not interested in doing a plane trip again.

I often cross him in my walks in the early morning. He chides me when I am "late" which is really funny. He is finishing his walk at 8:30 and sometimes I am just starting my walk at that time. Such are the joys of both of our retirements.

Hotwire through the Hoops

2011-09-25T06:36:00.001-07:00

We booked a stay through Hotwire the first day of Semptember this year. We were heading over to San Francisco and decided that with all of the activities we had planned with the daughters it made since to stay over there.

Booking though Hotwire sent us to an overnight at the La Quinta Inn.

The La Quinta Inn in South San Francisco is constructed behind a food processing warehouse. Sounds pretty strange.. but okay. the rest of the story is that the rail road tracks for big businesses on the other side of Bay Shore freeway split the lodging buildings in half. Still that is okay as long as huge train horns do not wake you in the middle of the night... they didn't.

What was strange here was there business practices.

Hotwire found us a room that we pre paid for through Pay Pal. Hotwire lets you shop by area and stars and only reveals where you are going to stay when you have paid.

We had a great night at the hotel. It was not much more than a motel 8 yet was much nice and offered a great breakfast with make your own waffle irons and plenty of batter.

When we were checking out I noticed that a bill had been slipped under our door in the middle of the night. Usually on those occasions the balance is zero since we do not run up tabs in hotel rooms and the bill was pre paid through hotwire and pay pal.

This time it was not zeroed out.

When I brough this to the attention of the desk clerk that we should not owe 74 dollars as billed since we were hotwire customers.. she agreed and tore up the bill told us not to worry.

I had this happen once before in an Emmeryville hotel.

I notified hotwire and they made it right, and so did the hotel. Hotwire refunded my purchase price to Pay Pal and the hotel refunded my overcharge to the credit card company.

The same thing happened here. Hotwire refunded my pay pal account and the hotel will refund their errant charges.

In both cases I had to submit by fax the credit card billing, my hotwire itinerary number and what they would really like is a fax of the bill that didn't have zero on it. In the last case I didn't have this piece since they crumbled it up and threw it away at the desk.

So we stayed essentially free because of their mistake. It pays to keep track of irregularities when you travel and get the docs to the right people in a timely manner.

: ) Pat

Diapers for Low Income Kids

2011-09-12T15:08:00.000-07:00

UC Merced professor leads diaper drive

By YESENIA AMARO
yamaro@mercedsun-star.com

UC Merced professor Patricia "Patti" LiWang began to collect diapers and toilet tissue in the summer of 2009 during her first Summer of Diapers drive.
In the past three summers, she's collected 7,600 diapers and 446 rolls of toilet paper, though donations are down this summer.
The collection isn't to enhance her research but to make a difference in the lives of Merced-area families in need.

MARCI STENBERG

Merced Sun-Star - UC Merced professor Patricia "Patti" LiWang began to collect diapers and bathroom tissue to help poor families.

Diapers aren't cheap, and LiWang said there's no charity that donates diapers to poor families with babies. "There's really no good source of diapers," she said. "We have to do something."

The idea for the diaper collection came to LiWang after she read a news story about how the federally funded Women, Infants and Children Program, or WIC, didn't provide money for diapers. She said that when she read the article, her son, Brandon, was using diapers and she knew it was a hefty expense -- one you notice even when you have a good-paying job, she said. "Imagine if I was poor," she said. "I just couldn't believe it."
LiWang said she couldn't tolerate a baby having to sit in a wet diaper for hours, especially during hot summer days. Some families are forced to potty-train their toddlers when it's too early because they can't afford diapers, she said.
"I wish I could do more," said LiWang, who teaches science. "When you do it, you realize how small it is compared to the big need."
After she collects the diapers and toilet tissue, she drops them off at the Merced County Food Bank, which distributes them to families. LiWang said she's been told that at the end of the month there's an urgent need because most families get paid at the beginning of the month.
The food bank has had to turn away people, she said.
Still, LiWang is happy if she can at least help prevent a few family arguments. Sometimes frustration arises when there's not enough money in the household to buy what's needed, she said.
"You can't change the world, but you can sometimes give people a better day, at least," she said.
LiWang is spearheading the effort, but other staff at UC Merced occasionally help. She plans to continue the drive next summer.
She hopes to get more people involved in the effort and has a vision for the drive to grow. The mother of three wants to be able to place collection boxes outside stores such as Target or Wal-Mart so people can remember to donate while shopping.
LiWang collects diapers of all sizes.
"I hope it's making a difference," she said.
Reporter Yesenia Amaro can be reached at (209)385-2482, or yamaro@mercedsun-star.com.
EDITOR'S NOTE: 'Merced Matters' appears every Monday. In it we will tell the stories of Mercedians -- ordinary people doing extraordinary things, extraordinary people doing ordinary things and a lot in between. We hope you like our effort to let you know more about others in our community, and we welcome your suggestions. Please contact Mike Tharp at mtharp@mercedsun-star.com or (209) 385-2456 with your ideas for 'Merced Matters.'

A comment in the Sun Star Blog mentioned they would prefer that people didn't donate Koch Industries diapers and paper. So what are the Koch Industries products and why are people against them.

A wiki research found that they are Georgia Pacific products. They are Brawny, Angel Soft, Mardi Gras, Quilted Northern, Dixie and Sparkle.

What is concerning about Koch family industries? They are a leading anti climate change supporter company. While they have been cited for improvement in their ecological development of refinery type development, they have been severely chastised by the green community for not informing their neighbors of toxic spills or potential ecological disasters to air and water tables.

So donate some diapers and toliet paper but know what you are buying when it is angel soft. Quilted Northern, or Brawny.

The New Route

2011-09-12T12:17:00.001-07:00

I walk virtually every day.

My Starbucks employees do some really nice things for me. There was a short line in front of me at Starbucks, the first stop along the way. The lady first in line had a penciled list and a handful of dollar bills. The second lady in front of me was figuring out whether or not to get a bagel with her morning coffee.

My barista, saw me in line and handed me my dopio machaiato in a here cup as I waited to pay and the ladies were trying to figure out whether this person or that needed foam on top or whipped cream.

Such service. I do appreciate it.

My new route came about when Linzi visited me in the hospital last Spring. Somehow I hadn't put together that the road that Starbucks is on, Peterson, could lead up and connect to the road in front of the big hospital. I now often use this route as an alternative. It seems to be quieter than my route down Paulson to Donna and all the way back on Donna. I would miss my Himalayan cat monitors on White Wolf by going this way.

I have enjoyed seeing the cottontail bunnies as they skirt around the bushes on this hospital route. Their little white tails are distinctive as the run ahead. I talked to a worker who was taking her "smoking" break away from the hospital along the trail. She said that it is really cool to see all the bunnies come from the bushes and gather on the helicopter pad after a rain to nibble on the fresh green grasses that grow.

I will be looking forward to seeing that as we are approaching the fall season. We might get some rain in September. It looked like we might get some last night. The clouds came over from the mountains and it looked like the monsoon weather pattern was about to form. We felt the heat and the humidity.. but no rain.

It was similar to the feeling we had with out tent trailer in Las Vegas. The storm came in. The lightning struck all around the mountains of Las Vegas but no rain fell. We felt the sticky air. It was hot as the devil but no rain to cool it off. It was not a good night to be camping in the desert.

The next day we had a flat tire on the Flamingo blvd, freeway on ramp. I thought that we were never going to get out of there. The tire had lost their specialized bolt/nut combination and I had to go parts hunting in 120 weather before we could get the tire fixed. It made Sue proclaim that LV was the hell hole of the Western World!

SF Giants to ride the Pine in Playoffs

2011-09-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

Its early September and the Giants are out.. once again.
It was too much to think that they could repeat.
It looked so much better for the Giants before the All Star break.
You cannot blame the pesky snakes.... they are not much better.
Can you blame it on youth or injuries? Yep but it wouldn't do much good.
They just didn't win when it came to playing teams that they should easily beat.

But what a ride this year.
We all learned to appreciate a left handed slider.
And Timmy was all the rage.
Voglesong made a miraculous return as a starter.
Bumgartner the young kid star that comes from Grandma Candy's neck of North Carolina could not have pitched better.
And then there is Zito. The vestiage of the Barry Bonds era.

The park proved its pitcher's chops.
The home runs were few but memorable.
The panda was the star of a few splash downs in Mc Covey Cove.
From two years ago, this team has grown enormously in the defensive side.. but still its not good enough to overcome the lack of runs.

Games are won by the number of runs that are scored.

Too bad.. We all gained a new appreciation for the defensive side of baseball.
As they say in baseball.. there is always next year.

: ) Pat

A Salute to Teachers Labor 2011

2011-09-04T09:01:00.000-07:00

We owe a debt of gratitude to the teacher labor movement in this country. Through it living costs of our teacher workers have produced in the past an economic engine bar none. When money gets in the hands of the teacher workers it is spent. Which moves to better working conditions and more complete employment for everyone. More taxes are paid. Our streets are repaired, our children are educated. Labor is the fuel of the economy, and teacher labor is vital to a vibrant middle class.

When money gets in the hands of entities that are not workers it is invested. It is saved it is pulled out of the economy and the money stops... or worst case scenario, it gets invested in other countries.

A long time ago an economist estimated that every dollar spent in education, resulted in 14 dollars of economic growth.

From humble beginnings, the teacher labor movement has developed the teaching profession from the world of a families "second" income to one where a reasonable working class life can be supported. When my father started in this profession in 1950, custodians were paid more than teachers. Teachers had to find a full time job in the summer to make ends meet. They often "moonlighted" to supplement their income to just above poverty lines. Growing up as a son of a teacher, we rode to school in old cars, wore clothes that were not as expensive as our peers and didn't eat steak, even at home. Our back to school wardrobe had to wait until October, when the teacher got paid for his or her first month of work. When we bought a Ford Falcon in 1960, we were really not sure that we could afford such a vehicle. Agents selling insurance and corporate salesmen could afford a new car every year with ease. Teachers are now not cast in such an economic hole, in part due to the unionization of teachers and the recognition of teachers as a viable group at the table.

Five years ago, before the housing bubble, beginning teachers were able to qualify for 260 thousand dollar homes with just their income. Health care even in my teaching career had become a necessity of contracts. A teacher could easily afford the 20% left on the table after the doctor was paid by the insurance company. Now that is pretty problematic for anyone. Teacher organization and understanding the dynamics of working through life journeys with health care has made worrying about what is covered and what is not an thing of the past for our young teachers and their new families. It was not an easy sell across the table or with our members. But it happened.

These basics were the result of bargaining over the years and a pushing to make teaching an economically viable profession.

As bargaining power of the teaching labor force developed with professionally negotiators, to counter the legal support provided by the bargaining forces from the district, teachers gained a foothold in their economic destiny as school budgets had to be made public and state budgets rather than local school district budgets became the economic engine of the academic enterprise. This would not have happened without the labor movement and the support of many teachers that had to come out of the "professional association model," and head for an advocacy model of "labor representation." It has been hard for many. It is not without its costs, both emotionally and monetarily. The journey has been worth it.

More important than negotiation rights was the inclusion rights of a union shop. Within my teaching career the memberships in both the high school district and the county district were strengthened by almost universal union membership. With everyone on board it is much easier to get what everyone needs, a fair contract, a respectable salary, and appropriate fringe benefits.

I salute the labor movement as it takes starts to realize its actualization in the public schools. With this actualization comes counter push from people who would like to see teachers paid like they were in the 1960's. Teachers need to stay strong. They must be able to teach the next generations so they may make America strong and competitive throughout the world.

: ) Pat

Blow Out on 99

2011-08-31T14:52:00.001-07:00

It started innocently enough. We headed to Fresno (about 45 miles south of us) to do a little shopping. Which in Sue's case means... goody goody goody.. a godwill.

It was going to be 102. It never made that. It is still some outside time. Our first stop was at our Coscto for some gas for the car and a hot dog and soda around for the participants. Misson accomplished and we headed right down the 99 to the Riverpark shoppping center. Sue prefers to travel flat in the back seat so as to save her back for noble upright causes.... like shopping.

We arrived and headed for the Marshall's. Next to Marshall's is a pretty well endowed Michael's with a sale on canvases. I have been going for the canvases for my watercolors that are significantly wider than tall. I a bought a beauty and have an idea that I will try to express using it. The nice part of this outside mall, is that the design has all of these nice outdoor chairs and benches made for waiting for the people that are in the stores shopping. You do not have to wait in the cars with the gigantic heat we have in this valley.

We then headed over to Ross. Sue made it independently with her power chair and I drove the support expedity and waited fora while outside. No chairs or benches are available for this shopping venue. After two bouts with the shops, we headed for something to drink. With Sue it has to be sugar free and caffeine free. This is a rare situation although its getting easier to find with the advent of the the Minute Maid light lemonade that comes at the soda bar with the coke products. The one store that really gets it is Panera. At almost all panera's that we have been to they have Diet Pepsi caffeine free on tap.

There was a Panera in this mall, so along with the drinks we bought a couple of sourdough baggets.

The question then arose.. where was that goodwill that was down here on the last visit we had to Fresno. I pieced together that we were there with the girls to get a part installed in my Mac at the Mac store in the Fashion Mall.. That was on Shaw. Sue insisted that it was close to the River Park mall on Herndon, about 3 miles difference. After running down hwy 41 to Shaw, Sue used the map feature and a support person with directions to snag the location.. it was on Shaw, and Brawley, as I had suggested. It was not an I told you so moment.. but it had here jumping up and down in her seat at the sight of the its sign.

We bought a few treasures and headed back up to reconnect with our major North-South Hwy working itsself up to being an interstate.. 99.

Everything was cool until we were 10 miles out of town and it sounded like we were being bombed by a B25. The front driver's side tire had completely imploded. It dd not seperate, but it was completely ready to split the sidewall from the tread. I slowly pulled over and put on the flashers. I had the AAA app on my iphone and used it to contact the roadside assistance. They said that it might be 45 minutes. A few minutes later the independent franchisee, Turner Towing from Chowchilla was there and pulled the spare from under the car and installed it within 3 feet of the road with trucks passing us at 68 miles an hour. The whole thing was over in 25 minutes. We were back on the road.

This morning I took the tire down to Costco. They said that the other tires although were also not showing wear were vulnerable to the same kind of blowout due to their age. Michielin was no longer making that tire but had replcement tires that were actually warranteed for a given mileage number. Four for 1,000 dollars thank you very much. Oh we only have two. We'll get the other two about Tues of next week... When the next truck comes up from San Bernadino. A half an hour later the two new tires were installed and the spare was placed in the back of the car. The cable holding up the spare under the truck was too shaky (down to under two stands to support the tire. Over to the Ford dealership. The parts guy said that you have to order the strands plus the mounting cup. He didn't have one in stock but would get it tomorrow. Pay up front.. 135 for the part.

So it goes.. cars and safety. You got to pay to keep it safe.

love
Pat

Three conversations after Starbucks

2011-08-31T07:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday on my walk home from Starbucks I ran into three different friends from my past.

My former boss from the county days had just returned from a fishing trip in Montana. He love West Yellowstone and fishing on the Madison. Since fishing with a guide on a float trip, he is now two fly drop fishing. His bigger fly is a Spruce moth. A large (size 12) attractor fly. His drop fly was a green caddis fly emerger. We had a nice conversation regarding fly types and particular water where that would work.

Just as I was leaving, an friend from special ed days was arriving. He grabbed me by the shirt and we headed back into Starbucks. I only do one doppio machaitto a day so I kept him company has he drank his pikes blend and a ate an apple fritter. He had been a camp host up in Yosemite for two years. He has a 30 foot class A motor home that he parked up their for "a season." They loved to have his retired wife up there too. She retired from the police department about 5 years ago. He is a real people kind of guy with always a story to tell. He has been chasing dr. appointments for the last 6 months. The last time he was in Yosemite he had a heart issue and had to be flown out of there to Fresno. He is doing great with a pacemaker. He is not happy with what it does for his endurance. He has a walking range of about 5 blocks. He used to walk up to 7 miles before. He always has a tale or two about his kids. The son married into a Chinese family. Now they are divorced but has had to go to court to maintain a contempt of court warrant on his wife and their finances... my what a mess. He was the kid growing up that had to drive over the lawn of the junior high and burn some rubber. He is now 5 year successful elementary school teacher. The two daughters have had their issues too.

I told him about our great trip to Saddlebag lake this Summer. He asked if we ate at the little store there. Yep. He was amazed at the big breakfasts they served.
Needless to say it was not a minute conversation. Its great to catch up.

My last conversation as I was walking the rest of the way home. I ran into the shop teacher that retired at the same time as me. He had written himself a little "grant" before retirement, that allowed him to come in an "help" with the new person that was going to do woodshop. Last year he kept his finger in the bowl. This year he was been doing some subbing for Weaver, one of the country elementary school. They just cannot get enough of him. His wife is 5 years younger but has been diagnosed for the second time with cancer and is in another round of chemo. I told him all I knew about applying for disabilty. She is a kindergarten teacher. He said that she is pretty good until about 11 o'clock and then she totally runs out of gas. She has been supplying lesson plans for a sub for almost a year.

Its great to have such an interesting diversity of conversation partners along the walk.

Love Pat

Hundred Degree Shopping

2011-08-24T05:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday it was 100 degrees out and we went shopping during the heat of the day.

It requires a little different approach to the problem. How you stay reasonably conformable is to keep butting down the liquid. The stores all are air conditioned here in the valley. The big issue is getting from one to another in the heat.

Yesterday we were looking for a new stand to hold the receivers, the Dvd players and teh game consoles in the bedroom. We needed a piece of furniture that was both tall (about 30inches) and narrow (not more that about 19inches). Our first stop was Target. We left home with a cold drink in hand. We arrived at Target about a mile from our house with the drink can consumed. While in Target, we became thirty again. We stopped at the Target Pizza Hut and bought big lemonades around. The minute maid light by Coke is perfect for such a trip as it has no caffeine and is sweetened by an artificial sweetener. Target had a few student desks that could have worked. Nothing was much under 150 dollars. They were also just a little too wide for what we wanted. We really didn't find what we were shopping for so Sue headed over to Orchard Supply.
I didn't think that we would have much success there but Sue wanted to check it out. She headed over via the light on Olive with here power chair. After a close call at the intersection, nothing uncommon for power chair participants, she arrived just as I was pulling in to the parking lot. We looked at several possibilities in the store and just as we were about to leave we noticed a whole grouping of Sanders furniture, made in the USA. There were several possibilities but none reached out and grabbed us as this was the one to fit the needs. I ran into an friend that I had met at lunch for 15 years. We talked and Sue got bored and headed with her power chair over to do Ross. We were still gabbing in the aisle when she returned.

We decided to go to Turlock and see if the selection might be better and one of those kitchen/linen stores. On the way up Sue suggested that we go on up to Modesto instead and eat at Olive Garden. She was anxious to taste the dressing on their salad again. But please stop along the way for a drink. We found a "hot" drink in the back seat to take care of the liquid part for a while.

In Modesto at the thrift store we found an small oak entertainment center for 20 bucks. Of course Sue needed to run through the clothes while I bought it and loaded it into the car. It is going to need a refinish and a much darker stain and then a shiny finish. For 20 dollars as a starting place it should be great. Since were were there, we felt that we might as well do the other Goodwill cross town. Sue said to me whatever, I need to have you get me another drink. While she was going through the stacks, I walked through the end of the parking lot to the Target and bought two big MM light lemonades, with mostly ice. She met me along the way and drank her large cup immediately.

With all of this liquid it she wasn't interested in dinner until we got to Turlock. I suggested Panera. She said that she knew exactly what she wanted since she had been to one with the BKs earlier this month.

Panera is one of the few places that gets it regarding caffeine free diet coke. So a heavenly roast beef sandwich for her on french roll and an Italian sandwich for me on Chibata. Later, the drink menu had me refilling my large drink for her on the way out. She drank it all before we got to Atwater.

This drink consumption is very different when the weather is cool. No drinks are needed between dinner stops. This is what one hundred degree shopping requires.

: ) Stay hydrated! Pat

Public Display of Education

2011-08-22T11:28:00.000-07:00

Its the principal's daughter.

The principal is not there.

Yet the mom, the school counselor mom is there, so is grandma, and an older (20something) aunt with a canon DSL camera.

It happened at Starbucks. (Where else). This mom was pretty public in Starbucks modeling the massive attention the yuppie moms now give to kids. Always modeling ideal parent interaction detail in public.

There she was. The little girl, starting back to school after the first week. There seemed to be no sign of reluctance to attend. There were general comments such as you love your kindergarten teacher.. yada yada yada. Agreement all around. In the shadow was the son. A nicely tempered kid headed to preschool for the first time. He was a little desperate for some attention but pretty much understood that the focus was headed toward his year older sister.

Mom trots out the book, The Kissing Hand. She read it page by page in the center of the Starbucks. Both kids were in rapt attention. In the end the boy and the girl are offered heart shaped stickers that mom kissed and wrote on with a sharpie. Mom imparts hugs to daughter and then to son. The boy relished his sticker. The girl rejected hers and started to sob.

Grandma tried to console with a juice box. No consultation would work. Logic was out the window and emotions took center stage.

Mom separated from the scene after recommending the book to a couple of friends nearby. Grandma was set to take the girl to school (about 2 blocks away). Boy was scopped up by mom and headed out the door after one big last hug by mom (big mistake) after saying no more hugs or clinging.

Grandma and daughter try to change focus to a decorated soda top lid. Still some pretty hard feelings there. After mom has cleared out for about 5 minutes, Grandma moves the entourage outside and to the chairs and tables and eventually to the school.

Summer Season

2011-08-20T14:02:00.000-07:00

In Merced we are in the throws of Summer.

We are and we should be. Its August 20th and while the students are back to school, it is still summer and it is hot.

The front patio got replanted last weekend. I bought the classic half flats. Two of portulaca, or moss rose, and one each of marigold and sweet asylum. This week despite daily watering, the marigolds are gone as so are the asylum. The portulaca are thriving in the heat.

So we are set for the summer and into the fall.

The sprinklers needed to be readjusted. The standard elberta peach his producing a handful of peaches every other day. Its just right for topping a bowl of cereal but nothing more. Its probably a good thing since my interest in canning is waning.

The San Fransisco Giants are in their natural August swoon. Preseason football which is really riduculus has started again respite rumors to the contrary over constract issues all summer. At least it didn't take a president to jump into the middle of the fray.

The president has his own issues. Leading a country that is pretty polarized cannot be all that fun. Especially without any allowance. I think at this point he will get re elected because the people that would run against him on the Republican side have all signed petitions that they won't raise taxes and that they are by that going after some of the sacred cows of Social Security, Medicare, and the Defense budget. Most people that vote do not want these torqued.

Sadly many people vote with their feelings of security. This is a bad time for that as the stock market as predicted has felt the results of the unemployment/underemployment squeeze. Its hard to vote for a president when you don't have a job.

What will it take? We need some money to build infra structure. We really don't need to infuse our infrastructure money into Afganistan. We as a country need to look at our demographics and see that we have people that can build and consume and perpetuate the American life. It may come from others that we have not even considered now. As a nation we are aging quickly. Japan has just gone through this gap as well as the major countries in Europe.

Working aged people need to work. We need a viable middle class. A strong segment of people that can own their own homes, can buy new vehicles, can save money for their kids to go to college. What income level is that? I am not sure but I suppose that more than 50k per year is needed.

New jobs that make less than that for able forward looking people with education is not going stabilize the economy.

United States will grow. Population cannot shrink. So lets get on with it. Pay a little more in taxes and make us stable.

Pat

Limitless

2011-08-18T07:32:00.000-07:00

An impressive movie is out in DVD.

Limitless is the story of a pill that can allow you to use all of your brain instead of just 20 percent.

Its got a nice love story withing this plot. It has some interesting chase scenes that are not just by car. The cinematography is very good. The actor has some pretty incredible blue eyes.

The scenes can have some pretty violent movements in them.

There are also scenes that show there are disadvantages to what seems to be a good thing. Maybe a cautionary tale about being careful about what you wish for. Also you must be careful within whom you share the secret and how it cannot be used as a form of avoidance or appeasement.

A good summer action movie... Limitless.

: ) Pat

Ode to an August Morning

2011-08-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

Ode to an August Morning

Away from the the heat that fills the August afternoon

The morning in August refreshes and revives

like precious REM sleep it entices the body to stay much longer than it should
Work must be done in the cooling world

The mind says get it done and you wont have to do it in the sweat covered dusty afternoon that August ensures

The heart begs to stay in this cool limbo just a little longer

Its great here. This is why you are alive

The breeze seduces your surrender

But no you must go on

You must face the day and what it brings

Pull up! Pull up!

or face the sweet surrender to the siren call of the cool summer morning

It might be too late.

The mind says so much to do

The heart says its okay enjoy the cool

Patrick Brown August 5,2011 8:10 AM
Merced California

Pure Action Liam!

2011-07-31T06:25:00.000-07:00

Liam Neesom has another action movie available on Netflicks and Redbox.

This one starts with the plot piece that a notable scientist that he plays attends a conference in Germany. He leaves his suitcase at the airport. When attempting to retrieve the suitcase he gets in a severe accident in the cab. He is in a coma for a couple of days. When he awakes he tries to resume his role. He finds that someone else has taken his identity at the conference and when he attends, he is treated like an intruder.

He is helped along the way by the cab driver that rescues him from the river. There is a contingent that is chasing Liam. The audience is not sure why until the end.

It comes across as a big time action movie in the genre with Fast and Furious. There is armed combat, there is a very decent car chase or two and then there is the classic underplayed skill of Liam.

If you are an action movie lover.. this is the one for the summer! They have it for rent now.. how convenient.

: ) Pat

Movie The Adjustment Bureau

2011-07-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

Matt Damon stars in what the promos say is a sci fi movie. Its pretty down to earth for that classification.

Its really a Romantic movie. It should appeal to a wider range of audience than the either genre.

Matt meets his true love in a rather unusual place. Then "runs" into her by accident the next day. Matt meets the man that is in charge of his destiny. This man burns the card with her number on it. He is not supposed to be with her.

Love prevails and through the years they make contact and each time they know they are the ones for each other.

The sci fi part involves doors (just like monster Inc) and a team out to make it work according to plan. There is a lot of Borne Identity chasing through New York City.

Its a good movie for the summer and is available through Net flicks or Red box now.

: ) Pat

The family from Kuwait

2011-07-28T07:22:00.000-07:00

Our LA escape hotel was in the LAX class. We hotwired and got a nice price on an "older" Holiday Inn.

Next to the Holiday Inn and with easy walking distance of many large hotels is the only Mc Donald's in the area. Housed in a tight two level building it had a constant single posted drive through that intersected with the alley on Cieniga Blvd.

Sue wanted a small hamburger and a parfait for dinner. I walked over and encountered the United Nations of LAX. There were Russian families with kids. There were French couples and German couples and a large extended family of people from Kuwait, as I was later to discover.

One of them tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if they should go to San Francisco the next day. The wanted to know the major attractions. They made it clear they were not "museum types." The younger couple had a baby. He was the driver. He was interested in theme parks. The older couple, about my age were interested in shopping and fishing.

The driver was interested in talking about the world. He wanted to know if there was a way to save their receipts from California and trade them in for a refund of the taxes that they had paid. I was not aware of this program. Apparently in Texas there is such a program. I know from experience in Italy there is a way to get the taxes back at the airport.

The driver wanted to know why we paid so much for gas. He claimed that in Kuwait they pay about 1 dollar a gallon for gas.. the older man said that that was for a liter... he thought that gas was cheaper than the oil that it came from. I said that the king was trying to buy them off so that they would not want freedom similar to Saudi Arabia. Oh you know about Saudis? They retorted. Yes. That was the end of that part of the conversation.

They are encouraged to have more children. The government gives bonuses to people that have kids. Some families the Kuwaits said have as many as 20 kids.

When asked why they were here. They said that they were visiting their daughter who was a student in Tempe Arizona. They understood heat and dessert.

The next day we stopped at the gas station at the foot of the hill in Grapevine. The Kuwait family came out of their cars to head in. They all recognized me and came over to shake my hand again. They were headed to San Francisco. Cool.

I need a rebate from the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce!

: ) Pat

Interstate and wannabees

2011-07-28T06:59:00.000-07:00

There is a reason that money from the stimulus had to go to infrastructure. After a 300+ one way trip on two of California's massive North South roads its clear that we are behind in the maintenance and support for our roadway infrastructure.

I did not know that there was such a disparity between the two major roads that connect northern California with southern California.

Going down to LA Sue and I drove over to pick up the girls at the Bart station in Dublin. We whistled down interstate 5 avoiding a couple of crazy drivers but the folks driving the big trucks were predictable and scooting right along. There was a patch near Bakersfield that was under sever repair. With this exception the road was smooth and the drive was clean.

Coming back was a different story. The road over the grapevine was reduced to two lanes for cars. The trucks have effectively claimed the two right side lanes for themselves and those trucks that are loaded vs those that are empty. The empty ones are the ones to be careful about when you drive the 99. They seem to think that they can pass at will and cut in and out of the passenger side doing a clean 74 miles an hour. This does not work. They are restricted to 55 if they are pulling a box behind them. Most of them are.

Linzi is convinced that the best route is I5. It carries a 30 mile penalty for us. In the long run the extra time may well be worth it.

Pat

Hot Footing

2011-07-22T16:32:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago I was canning quarts of apricot halves.

Its an interesting project as syrup is made something less than 2 cups of water to one cup of sugar,boiled down to a simple syrup with a couple of frozen myers lemon juice ice cubes thrown in.

The apricots are picked from the tree and sliced in half, pitted and packed into quart jars. The warm syrup is poured over the paced apricots and bubbles are released by sliding a chop stick down the side of the jar. More syrup is added so that the 1/2 inch of head room is maintained at the top. The jars are loaded into a pot with boiling water where they cook and seal for 30 minutes under roiling boiling water.

This year I was using left over lids from previous years. As one batch of apricots were completed, I noticed that there was a wrinkle in the seal and two jars were less full than when I started.

To do the next batch the water in which the leaky quarts leaked into had to be replaced and the pot washed.

I took the jars out of the hot water and threw the hot water from the pot on the ground, to slow down the growth of the weeds in the back yard. The water did not totally clear my feet and the top of my shoe bore the result of the accident.

I quickly ran inside, stripped off the shoe and the sock and soaked my foot in water for about 45 minutes. It was really painful. I had Sue drive me over to the Urgent care and our family doc. looked it over.

He was happy to see that the second degree burns were not all the way through the meat of my foot. My big toe got the brunt of the injury.

Every day for the last three weeks my right foot has had to be doused with poly and wrapped with gauze and a miracle material called coban.

It is a stretchy rolled bandage material exerts pressure on the wound but does not stick to the wound, It only sticks to itself. It is very common in vet practices too. Every third day I go back to the dr and he looks it over and checks to see how the burn is heeling.

After three weeks the other parts of my foot are okay and new skin has formed. The big toe is still slowly healing but seems to be progressing too.

Coban can be had for about 2 dollars a roll on Ebay if you buy a case. A generic version at our Walgreen store is nearly double that cost.

This issue has not slowed down the canning process. I am a whole lot more cautious arond the hot water now.

Yesterday I canned 7 pints of white peach pie filling.

Today 2 quarts of sliced white peaches were peeled and sliced and bagged for the freezer.

Love to All
Pat

Memories of Past 4th of Julys

2011-07-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up we never bought fireworks and set them off from the family front yard. We had a little experience with sparklers and snake fireworks but no roman candles or whistling petes. Most of the time we were traveling across county and camping along the way.

I think that my parents felt that they were a huge waste of money and likely a danger to the block or the place we happened to be on the 4th.

On the rare occasion that we were home on the 4th we went to gigantic public 4th of july events. One of my earliest memories was the trip to the San Jose State Stadium for fireworks. At that time it was more than just overhead mortors.

The San Jose Cavilers drum and bugle corps were dressed in full regalia and played a couple of songs. The politicians all had a go at the mike. They all had a 10 minute speech in their back pockets. There were extensive stationary fireworks on the field level of the stadium. Niagara falls and spinning tops that lit up American flags in Roman Candles.

As young kids we had fun running through shrubs on the hill. We used to go together with another family. They always had kids our ages so it was a great chance to get out and enjoy the park part of the stadium and marvel at its huge arches on its perimeter.

We always were there early so there was plenty of time to socialize before it got dark and the bombs exploded over our heads. Blankets and coolers full of peanut butter and jam sandwiches were always on hand. The San Jose Mercury sponsored the event.

San Jose was the preferred venue. There was always one sponsored by the San Francisco Chronicle out of Chrissy Field. Often the fog came in and many of the exploding peonies were not visible.

Then there were basically only peony or chrysanthemum shapes in the sky. Now there are rockets the spew flames all the way up into the sky and circles of explosions among others. Shells can be crafted with delayed charges to make many different shapes.

The Disney folks in Disneyland are good at displaying the great variety of overhead fireworks. There nightly displays in the summer are usually more then any local entity can produce for a once in a year celebration. There themes are cool and the music that goes with them are top notch.

Our local celebrations have some memorable moments. The local displays are usually in two places. Atwater CA, about 7 miles north of here has a local display that used the football field bleachers to get people in. They have often had their "Miss Atwater" beauty contest at the same time. There is usually a local garage band that puts out a credible entertainment package while people wait for it to get dark. One year the whole country was celebrating the anniversary of the statue of liberty in New York city. Green foam crowns were for sale and Linzi talked me into getting her one. One year it was "Tall Ships from Around the World" that America celebrated. There is difficulty getting the support for these shows now. So many people find a spot where they can see most of the shots into the sky and cheap skate on some one else's contribution. Local governments do not have the money any more for many firework displays and the local businesses are facing the same budget tightening.

Our home cats are completely upset about the in street shows. They have no instinct to sudden noise like fireworks,

My sister Kelly, living in an unincorporated area of San Jose got pretty freaked out about the number of illegal fireworks being fired in her neighborhood that had serious boom to them. Who do you call? The Santa Clara sheriff?

Its a total night mere for one of my daughters who gets very upset at the sound that comes from a popped balloon, At Disneyland we always try to get her into a store before the fireworks are displayed in the night air.

My wish to you is that if you love to be near fireworks enjoy them but be safe. If you cannot handle them.. hide under the covers.. this wacky season will soon be over.

Merced's estimated temp for the 4th is supposed to be 107. That will cut down on a lot of outdoor picnics and barbeques.

Pat

Eating Outdoors

2011-06-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

Cammie wrote on her facebook updates that she enjoys eating outdoors as one of the best parts of Summer.

This brings up a memory long ago. We often set up the tables on the screened porch in Colorado when my Grandma Nellie and Grandpa BW feed us and the helping hands. They had a "cook house" when the worker population exceeded 10 or so. Some years they would even hire a cook to feed the worker crowd.

Outdoor eating meant that the patio in front with those nasty cottonwood trees had to be swept. They were very tall trees that grew wind blocks very quickly with little water. The cement patio disguised the huge water tank that held the water supply for the house before Orchard Mesa was connected to a water system.

Some evenings we would have the neighbors over and they would barbeque an elk roast and eat watermelon. As the evening progressed we all sat in big round metal pastel chairs and watched as the storm would come up from the West and thunder and lightening would strike the book cliff mountains 20 miles a way.

Grandpa could predict the weather from these strikes and determine which days we would be picking peaches from the 30 acre orchards.

One year the cook had a particularly good recipe that I was able to get her to write down. I was 12 at the time and was totally in love with coconut macaroons. Makes my mouth water just to think about it.

I usually had a birthday back in Colorado. We came every year to help out. I got to choose from the cake mixes which cake was going to be made for me. I usually went for the spice cake. My sister usually went for a little more exotic cake. Penuche. They called it burnt sugar frosting back then.

When the grandparents moved into the city. The outdoor dining continued. There really wasn't room for 7 people to eat at the table unless it was outside.

It was here that dad made the infamous remark. After the mechanical collapse of one of Grandma's horizontal freezers. Don't worry Nellie, some of the chickens we cleaned out the freezer were old enough to go to Kindergarten!

You can imagine that flack he took for that!

Enjoy some al fresco dining soon!

Love
Pat

Latest Painting

2011-06-04T15:53:00.000-07:00

What does graduation day mean to you?

For some people in our family it is a red letter day. One that is full of such mixed emotions that it best avoided. Others, use it as a way to celebrate the person and there academic accomplishments.

My latest painting is working off of a lady stopped in front of me at a light. Here car was bight red. She is alone in the car. Beside her are two balloons. From her side mirror you can tell that she is wearing white tiered earrings. It will be an interesting story for the viewer to piece together. There are plenty of reds in painting so it may become a study in red washes. There are some orange reds and some pink reds, and some value changes in between. I have a 12x24 inch canvas that this should land on.

I also have a couple of squares that will be become a version of the ancient inscriptions on the stones of one of the pyramids in Mexico. These flat depictions are currently displayed at the De Young in San Francisco as part of their Meso Americano exhibit. It will be fun to see what kind of stone like contrast I can generate with the watercolor canvases.

: ) Pat

Irritating Phrases that Have Crept into our Usage

2011-06-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

There are a couple of insidious phrases that have become part of our vernacular. We should blame two people, as far as I can discern for these phrases.

One is the interjection of the word "Look." To my knowledge this interjection did not occur prior to President Obama's run for president. When he is off script, this interjection was used by him to provide some thinking time so that the words that came out would be more elegantly phrased. It is now used by many people when they are stuck explaining something complicated. It is almost mandatory.

The other phrase is "How good is that?" This is wickedly obtuse grammatical construction that really has no business in your parlance. In my own observation this one was started by the food channel host and now talk show host, Rachel Ray. It has become pervasive in all categories of discourse. I heard it from announcers in baseball and have heard it from commentators of news broadcasts. I have heard it modified and used in conversation. Its tell tale grammatical construction is its give away.

These phrases will become emblematic of this era. They will join the likes of the common phrase heard at least one time a reality show, " I am not here to make friends.. I am here to win.

Something to think about

: ) Pat

Watercolor Working from a Concept, Incentive Retirement

2011-06-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

I think that one of the reasons I am enjoying watercolor art so much is that it is very conceptual.

There is the beginning concept that involves that idea of a finished painting. It can be the motivating factor in your thinking as you start to put this painting together.

After this concept is finalized, I enjoy the sketching aspect. This brings down to reality what the painting subject matter could be.

The next conceptual piece is picking up shapes and seeing that there is something that unifies the concept. This is level of painting that I am currently engaged. Shadows tie with objects. Consistent color that moves through the painting. The challenge is to move this into values and contrasts. They can then be unified and the painting can move the viewer's eyes from one part of the painting to another. This is a very sophisticated concept and is a challenge for me in the painting arena.

As washes go on the painting, in watercolor they almost always go from light to mid to dark. There is plenty of negative space painting that occurs as the painting gets to completion.

By any measure, this can really become a passion.

Happy Thursday out there. Its graduation night for many of the high school students in the district.

The high school district (my previous employer) has seen fit to offer nearly the same retirement incentive to the teachers. It looks like many who had regrets that they had not signed on for last year's incentive, are taking the leap and signing on to retire this year. This is the ultimate game changer for school budgets. Their is definitely more harmony among the staff then what most districts are going through with their layoffs and rehires as August approaches.

Last year's incentive retirees saved the district over 2 million. I wonder what this year's will yeild.

: ) Pat

Working from Shadow In.. Mazatlan Window

2011-05-31T21:58:00.000-07:00

The latest watercolor is kind of unique one in that the foreground actually frames a couple of people in the buffet restaurant on the Norwegian cruise ship Star as it made port in Mazatlan, Mexico. The vision through the window is of a jungle oriented big city. You can peer through the window just as the people are doing, and see the big buildings on the ridge as they look out across the ocean. One person is contemplating the port, while the other is cleaning the tables.

A peak into the progress of this painting is available through Flickr posted on the left side of this blog.

The two main thoughts that my watercolor teacher had on the previous painting, the pv photographer is that the painting did not have enough contrast in it. She said that she would have like to see the images overlap to draw in some unity. This painting (the Mazatlan port) certainly is not lacking in visual contrast.

There is a touch or two of what I have been learning from the Don Andrews DVD set. A major idea of his is that the artist does not have to tell the whole story in the painting if it is not the major focus. He also is a major supporter of "granulation" which is mixing of colors wet on wet on the paper.. moving from light values to mid values to just a few dark values to set off the whites in the paper. He dose not use masking but rather the wet/dry content of the paper will allow the colors to run together when they are wet and stop abruptly when the washes hit the dry paper.

He is a painter from Mobile Alabama. He uses nothing but big wash brushes and big round brushes. He draws in the whites first and the other parts of the paintings he brushes "though the lines to get he right value for a glaze that further defines the subject matter. Pretty cool stuff.

: ) Pat

Making a Facebook Page

2011-05-27T06:23:00.000-07:00

Recently I made a Facebook page for our high school class.

We may have another reunion in the offing. Our class was El Camino High School, South San Francisco,1968. When most people get a little info kernal like that, they immediately find in their head where they fit with that class.

Sadly I do this even while waiting for my prescription at the pharmacy. One of their validity measures is to ask you what the birth date is of the person getting the medication. So you add or subtract from yours and you can tell how much older or younger this person is.

After watching the Lynda.com movie on Facebook, it became clear that I needed a"Page" for the class not a "Group." A "Group is non identified gathering of face book members. A page is used for a company or an organization that has structure outside of facebook.

We need to get 150 contacts or the page name could be pirated by someone else.

I think that the way to get that kind of support is through content.

My first content addition is a list of songs that people in my class were aware of as freshmen, in 1964.

1) I Want to Hold your Hand
2) She Loves You
3) Hello Dolly
4) Oh Pretty Woman
5) I Get Around
6) Everybody Loves Somebody
7) My Guy
8) We'll Sing in the Sunshine
9) Last Kiss
10) Where did our Love Go?

It will be interesting to see if anyone responds to the music list. In that era, most of songs were played on AM as FM was for "Good" music. This was the time that FM started broadcasting in stereo. My were were impressed! You could here a different channel in each ear. Consumers paid extra for stereo rather than "Hi Fidelity... or Hi Fi for short.

Hope all of you have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Love
Pat

Scammed! Two Friends

2011-05-25T12:58:00.000-07:00

I am concerned with people that have been hit by a mal ware scam.

Two of my friends were hit very recently with the MacDefender scam.

Here is what I know:

It usually comes in from a google search, although Google has nothing to do with this bute.

It seems to be be most often in the two cases that I have worked with, Safari, the Mac based browser.

Apple has planned to release a new version of its operating system to stop this kind of malicious programming.

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW TO KEEP FROM GETTING THIS AND ITS VARIANTS:

If you use Safari: Go to the preferences and its General tag.. and make sure that the "open safe programs when downloaded" is Not checked!

This is a scam to get your credit card number. If you happen to succum.. cancel the transaction immediately.

: ( Pat

How to avoid or remove Mac Defender malware

Last Modified: May 24, 2011
Article: HT4650

A recent phishing scam has targeted Mac users by redirecting them from legitimate websites to fake websites which tell them that their computer is infected with a virus. The user is then offered Mac Defender "anti-virus" software to solve the issue.

This “anti-virus” software is malware (i.e. malicious software). Its ultimate goal is to get the user's credit card information which may be used for fraudulent purposes.

The most common names for this malware are MacDefender, MacProtector and MacSecurity.

In the coming days, Apple will deliver a Mac OS X software update that will automatically find and remove Mac Defender malware and its known variants. The update will also help protect users by providing an explicit warning if they download this malware.

In the meantime, the Resolution section below provides step-by-step instructions on how to avoid or manually remove this malware.
Products Affected

Mac OS X 10.4, Mac OS X 10.6, Mac OS X 10.5
Resolution

How to avoid installing this malware

If any notifications about viruses or security software appear, quit Safari or any other browser that you are using. If a normal attempt at quitting the browser doesn’t work, then Force Quit the browser.

In some cases, your browser may automatically download and launch the installer for this malicious software. If this happens, cancel the installation process; do not enter your administrator password. Delete the installer immediately using the steps below.

Go into the Downloads folder or your preferred download location.
Drag the installer to the Trash.
Empty the Trash.

How to remove this malware

If the malware has been installed, we recommend the following actions:

Do not provide your credit card information under any circumstances.
Use the Removal Steps below.

Removal steps

Move or close the Scan Window
Go to the Utilities folder in the Applications folder and launch Activity Monitor
Choose All Processes from the pop up menu in the upper right corner of the window
Under the Process Name column, look for the name of the app and click to select it; common app names include: MacDefender, MacSecurity or MacProtector
Click the Quit Process button in the upper left corner of the window and select Quit
Quit Activity Monitor application
Open the Applications folder
Locate the app ex. MacDefender, MacSecurity, MacProtector or other name
Drag to Trash, and empty Trash

Malware also installs a login item in your account in System Preferences. Removal of the login item is not necessary, but you can remove it by following the steps below.

Open System Preferences, select Accounts, then Login Items
Select the name of the app you removed in the steps above ex. MacDefender, MacSecurity, MacProtector
Click the minus button

Use the steps in the “How to avoid installing this malware” section above to remove the installer from the download location.

Note: Apple provides security updates for the Mac exclusively through Software Update and the Apple Support Downloads site. User should exercise caution any time they are asked to enter sensitive personal information online.

Norah Jones, and Crock Pot Ribs

2011-05-24T17:23:00.000-07:00

Norah Jones

I am enjoying a new for me album by Norah Jones entitled "Not too Late." There are some different sounding tracks in this album. While I have no objection to her previous albums which feature her piano and jazz backup,but this album has some diversity.

A fellow artist in my class had a similar comment when she saw my last piece, the Puerto Vallarta Photographer. She said that I have a variety of styles. It may be that I am looking for a voice in my painting or it may be that I have not settled into one style of painting. I love working them all though!

I am working on one now that started as a inconsequential photo but will make what I think is a stunning watercolor. The cruise kitchen worker and a person at the table of the buffet meet in silhouette in front of the backdrop of Port Mazatlan. It certainly doesn't lack contrast. Its another horizontal aspect painting overall smaller than the 23x36 atmosphere oriented paintings that I have been doing. Its pretty cool because skyline with its many colors that allow for a rather "painterly" approach. My teacher said that I should try to get get some other color besides black into the shadows. The shadows will be the challenge in this painting. At least it won't get lost in detail.

Crock Pot Baby Back Ribs

The vegetarians will please excuse this diversion into gluttony.

The best ribs I have every tasted I made last night. The even beat the Chili's.
I bought a two rack pack at Costco and used the Cook's illustrated suggestions to make a crockpot version.

Starting with a dry mix of 3 Tablespoons of paprika, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and One Tablespoon each of salt and pepper I made the dry mix and rubbed down those ribs.
They were coiled into the crockpot, along the sides and 3 cups of barbeque sauce was drizzled over the top. I used one bottle of Bulls eye Texas as it has a kick and a bottle of sweet baby barbeque sauce to equall the 3 cups,

After they cooked on low for 5 hours they came out and were tented on the counter top with foil. The sauce at the bottom came out and was reduced on the stove top to about 2 cups after the fat was skimmed off the top.

20 minutes of tenting and the ribs were cut and tossed in the reduced sauce.

They were sweet and spicy and good. I served them with French green beans and a baked russet potato.

Sue did not like them because they were too sweet... oh my!

You cannot please them all.

: ) Pat

Working in the Outdoor Kitchen

2011-05-20T05:49:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago I bought the three burner big boy stove at Costco. It is made by a Utah company called the Great Outdoors. My model is the Expedition. It has three burners and works off of a portable propane tank. Its the same kind of tank that is used for gas barbeques.

The big issue for this set up is maintaining the burners. It has a nice stand and it will hold my biggest pot.

When you hook it up to get it going it is essential that all the connections be checked with a squirt of windex to make sure that the connections hold and that there will be no safety issues.

I check this out before we started making jam on it this year and all the burners checked out. I took the pipe cleaners to the little holes and the vent and it was great. Sometimes a spider takes up residence in the tubes and the little gas holes do not work that well.

By the time Linzi made it over to see us and to get the strawberry jam going there was a storm. The burners did not get covered. Only one of the three burners pushed the gas out with a blue flame instead of a yellow one. A yellow one means that the air is not adjusted properly. This puts more carbon out and causes the bottom of the pot to get soot all over it. Such was the case for the 17 quart pot. The area around the cooking surface was nice and clean but he pot got sooty.

The best way to clean the soot off the pan is with some comet sink cleaner and a scrub cloth. It did the trick and everything is back to being able to be stored in the kitchen until the next jam session.

Have a great weekend!
: ) Pat

Making Strawberry Jam 2011

2011-05-19T06:16:00.000-07:00

Its become a delightful Spring tradition.

Linzi comes over and we make the first batch of jam for the season. The Hmong fruit stand has beautiful strawberries. There is always a nice selection of other truck farm vegetables along with the strawberries. We bought an overflowing flat and half flat to start. Its been a rainy late spring and the berries have plenty of sugar in them. Some of them are not quite as dark red as they are some years but overall they have magnificent flavor.

I had gathered up all of the old jam jars that I could put my hands on in the house. They were tucked in all of the nooks and crannies of the various dishes. That was enough for the first batch. The next batch we were off to Target to pick up a set of one pint jars. We bought them out.

This year we are trying out a new pectin mix. Its called Pomona's universal pectin. One box uses 16 cups of fruit. The usual Sure Jell low sugar makes a batch with 4 cups of fruit. There is a calcium water component sin Pomona's that activates the citrus based pectin. It could be used for any level of sugar added jam or jelly. The pectin, or jam thickener is usually based on apple or pear starch.

The mountain of strawberries that we bought amounted to two huge batches. We used the outside stove to boil the jars and took the jam making inside this time because the outside gas stove was generating a little yellow on it flame do to water from recent rains in the gas system.

The calcium water was integrated into the strawberries to start. They the berries that were crushed in the food processor were heated to a boil. Sugar with the pectin was stirred in. The whole big pot was allowed to come to a boil again and as it was boiling, butter and my lemon juice ice cubes were added. We only used 4 cups of sugar for each 16 cup batch of strawberries.

It will be interesting to see how this all works out. The box and testimonials of people who have used this method are all very positive.

What makes it easy to make is my partner helping out. It also helps to have a 17 quart magna lite aluminum stock pot.

The chance to spend some time with my daughters is truly priceless. Thanks to Linzi coming down and a chance to meet up with Heather for a full weekend Mother's day we have had a great month of reunion with the family.

Thanks girls for taking some time in your busy lives to spend some time with us!

: ) Pat

The Puerto Vallarta Photographer

2011-05-16T23:04:00.000-07:00

I thought it was in interesting photo.

A guy on the Malacon was shooting a photo of his woman between two authentically dressed indigenous dressed characters by the arches. The man did not take time to put is beer with a couple of limes in it down before he took the photo.

I decided to paint this photo on a canvas prepared with the new "watercolor" grounds offered for purchase from Daniel Smith in Seattle. What this new medium allowed me to do it to take an acrylic canvas and paint watercolors on it. Without a proper treatment the acrylic canvas will shed watercolor like a duck.It is primed with the paint on grounds in a liquid medium and then allowed to dry.

There is a company that makes canvas treated for watercolors, Fredrick's but the canvas sizes are often limited. This painting called for a change in aspect(height to width ratio) so that the painting would be more horizontal than standard painting canvases. The local Michael's ran a special on canvases, half off their gallery supported acrylic canvases. I bought two and treated them with two coats of the watercolor grounds. I had to make sure that they dried between coats.

This is the first painting that I have made with these new grounds. The texture while painting them is great. The feel is similar to paper.Dry paint to dry canvas results a pleasant crusty feel and sound. It is also possible to scruble the texture right down the base if needed. I needed to do that to extend the line of horizon through the feathers for this painting. I also needed to do this to lift the charcoal shadows on the tile surface. My art teacher suggested that I do that since the shadows were reading too darkly and connecting them with the objects that they were to represent was difficult at times in this painting.

The figures were left to be loose as the setting and the photographer are supposed to be the important part of this painting.

Check to see how this painting progressed as shown in the flickr link connected on the the left side of this blog.

Have a great day! Pat

The Office Chairs

2011-05-15T12:46:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago Sue and I were in Modesto pawing through the Goodwill.

Its in interesting avocation. It satisfies Sue's need to shop, yet nets little in terms of cost.

There are two major Goodwill stores in Modesto. One is located on the famous "cruising street", McHenry. The other is out near Vintage fair Mall adjacent to Hwy 99. This store front form has had many children toys that are in really good condition. We have been gathering these up for Heather's child care facility in the city. There seems to be more diversity of items at this store then the other. The McHenry one has piles and piles of blue jeans. I thing that the ebay shoppers have a close eye on this one.

So a couple of weeks ago we were in the Mall Goodwill and there were a couple of office chairs in be back. They seemed to be sturdy and had comfortable bent backs. On closer inspection there were tags that identified them as furniture from an Oregon based insurance company. The tags on the seats indicated that the chairs were Bolin chairs.

Bolin chairs were made in Siler North Carolina. They made carriage struts in the early 1900's and then switched production to chairs and furniture. The chairs from the good will were made in 1969. They continued to make chairs until 1990 in Siler. There are not many of these chairs in the antique market. Someone that did the research on them speculates that people are just keeping them and they are passed down through the generations.

The price on these chairs was 8 dollars each. They were a handful to drag out of the store. They took two trips because of their weight and bulkiness.

Yesterday I started to tackle the refinishing of these chairs. Every time that I do this, I am reminded again that this is a process that requires a good deal of patience and a careful eye to detail. It is good for character building.

The chairs were covered with a gunky faux walnut oil stain. The years of cleaning them with wax oriented cleaners have left their toll too. The arms had some cracking on the surface.

The other part I was thinking about was the number of people that have sat in these chairs waiting for an insurance based decision. Will the company pay? And to what extent will it cover my costs? Insurance chairs may have a story of their own.

Formby's to the rescue. I have used this process to redo several fine pieces of furniture that did not have a poly urethane finish. I went down to my neerby Lowe's and invested in the jugs. This process does not pull out the patina generated by the chair over the years like stripping does. It is still a rubber gloved, steel wool process where the first coat goes on and breaks up the surface crud. The next coat gets into the finish and some of the stain. It has to use steel wool to scape and then be wiped clean with a rag. The cracks and the connections of the pieces of wood as it meets with the legs has to be been more carefully scrubbed and not allowed to maintain the darker stain. The refinish solution has a general smell similar to hair dye.

Once the overall finish has been removed, a couple coats of tung oil gets wiped on and a allowed to dry.

So far one chair has been done. It has cost about 40 dollars in materials to bring the chair up to refinished standards.

Take a look at the difference on the flickr pages and the facebook pages.

Have a great day.... Pat

Movie Song of Sparrows

2011-05-13T15:16:00.000-07:00

A very intriguing movie is out on Netflicks DVD.

The Song of the Sparrows is an Iranian film about a rural man and his family whose job is to manage an Ostrich farm in a rather barren area of Iran.

The man's family,lives a short distance away interacts with the story line.

The man's daughter has a hearing aid that accidentally falls into a surface cistern used to hold excess water. The neighborhood boys, seemingly all under 12 proceed to look for it. The dad arrives and through the gunk they find the hearing aid. It is broken. Their dream is to clean it out and develop a way to propagate goldfish and therefore become millionaires. The hearing aid eventually has to go to Teheran to get repaired but there is no money to fix it.

The man loses his job as an ostrich escapes from the compound and he has no way to retrieve it even on his motorcycle. He finds himself in Teheran and people think that he is a motorcycle taxi driver and hop on the back. Most of the people pay him and some take advantage of him. His wife is worried the motorcycle is going to break down and then what would they do? The interaction with the neighbors and his family and scenes of living room life provide an incite to the rural culture.

This is a rich but understated movie and provides a glimpse of growing Teheran, and the entrepreneurial fiber in many of the people of Iran.

Its well worth the viewing.

: ) Pat

The Rowing Machine Arrived and is a presence

2011-05-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

It currently stands in our living room.

Its resting state is nearly 8 feet long.

It is made of wood and has a large enclosed ball of water.

It can be rolled around the house with built in wheels.

The monitor is pretty impressive.

Most of it came pre assembled

It arrived in two boxes on our porch. The smallest one was about 65 pounds. It had handles carved into its cardboard sides so that it was not that hard to carry in.

The handles came in a extra box.

The pulley set up was already assembled. It dropped easily into the rails.

The instructions were in English and warned of being too illustrative. It took me about an hour to hook it up. The instructions said that it would only take about a half an hour. They said the same thing about assembly in a futon.. and it took twice the time for me. Its a good thing I am not trying to make a living as a mechanic.

So its up and ready to roll.

: ) Pat

The Rowing Saga

2011-04-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

It started innocently enough.

Linzi and I signed up for a class at the community college across the street in circuit weight training. She also through that it might be nice to get some free weight training in as well. One look at the football team training with the free weights outside sent her running back to set up the circut weight training class with me instead. We took the orientation class and learned to do the shuffle from one station to the next and it circulated in and out of a bank of treadmills and stationary bikes. Also on the ground for aerobic use was a rowing machine. It was a wind resistance model and it was pretty cool in getting the heartbeat up and not pounding joints and knees and other fragile bits of the body.

That was about 1999. I have have been doing do diligence and began looking for something like that that I could work out on either in a gym that had better operating hours without a big contract and a sales pitch or to get one for home use and use it to supplement my 2to 2.5 mile daily walking routine.

Everywhere I looked it said that this is the greatest exercise machine around. It won't do much for your lower body but it is great for the abs and the upper body. The action is generated by pulling the handle toward your chest as you push yourself backwards on a tiny sled seat that follows the track.

The gyms either don't want this on their floor or it may be too hard to maintain or who knows. These machines do not seem to be available at any of the commercial gyms.

The cheap ones would not handle my weight. So I was after one that could accommodate by 350+ weight and not break down. Linzi said that she has used them in a gym and they work well. She recommended that I get a commercial gym quality one. That means that I was looking at ones that were around 1200 to 1800 dollars minimum. After a lot of web spec shopping and no local outlets for shopping, I decided to buy one through Amazon. It is made of hardwood and carries for resistance water encased in polycarbonate ball with internal paddles that press against the sides.

Amazon would not require me to pay for shipping. No taxes and they would see to it that delivery was made. They would take my Amx card and Amx would even give me a 1 percent rebate for using it. If I ordered the length of time before delivery looked like about one week. When I actually made the sale,the delivery was set at 10 days. At the end of two weeks I contacted the company that Amazon uses for its equipment asking about when I could expect delivery.

I got an email back saying that each of these were hand made on an individual basis in Rhode Island and they were indeed very high quality and that I would be very happy at the results. But they had not received any indication that mine had been made or even started. They would let me know as they assured me that they made them for all clients and they were going to get to mine in the most expedient manner possible.
They understood my concern and were refunding me 20 dollars since they could not refund the shipping as Amazon had made it free for me. They also wanted an acknowledgement by email that I had received this and understood what was going on. I thanked them for their research and waited.

Two weeks later I got an email from them saying that they had received an invoice on mine and they would forward the shipping info as soon as they got it and I could expect this info my Monday. I got a note from Amazon asking me since I bought this thing on April 4th if I could return a survey on how it all went. I ignored this and sent an email on the next Friday to the company. They responded with, didn't Amazon send you the shipping info? I wrote them back saying they did but it was awfully general and thought that you might have something more specific. The Amazon shipping info had a Fed Ex ground number that I followed up on and it just indicated that shipping info had been sent from them to Rhode Island. No goods had been shipped.

The company sent me a shipping notice again. When I ran this one through it showed that the goods had made it from Rhode Island to Connecticut. It even gave me an arrival date of May 3. So I am in anticipation of 85 pounds of exercise equipment arriving at my doorstep next week.

Then comes the salient question, which room do I set it up in.

My guess right now is the Art room, with its small HD TV and a sound barrier if the sloshing gets too tough.

Wish me luck!

Love
Pat

Results of the Cassoulet Crockpot Style

2011-04-29T11:25:00.000-07:00

Out of every experience there are learning points

1)Overall the adventure was worth it
2) I think that a little smoked product would have helped the overall flavor. It was sort of on the bland side. Sue liked it.
3)It made a ton.. and it was meaty. I can see how it would fit into a restaurant scheme was this batch made almost a gallon and a half to freeze as well as the two bowls we ate.
4)It was a hearty approach to white bean soup.
5)Overall it wasn't on par with the french seafood stew or the Italian seafood soup. It was pretty much in there with the Tuscan white bean soup.. except the quantity of meat in their made it more stew oriented. (There are 2 pounds of chicken thighs, 2 pounds of pork country style ribs with bones and a 1/2 pound of sausage)
6) the next time I think I would chop up the sausage into smaller pieces and pick one that had a little more flavor included in it.. maybe a chorizo?
:) Pat

Cassoulet- slow cooker style,no duck

2011-04-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

The cooks illustrated on line service has four versions of this classic french dish. They missed the slow cooker version that I am making tonight.

First off the onions in the microwave were enough to freak our my dear wife. But.. after a few hours we all seemed to get used to them.

I am sure that anything pork can have a lamb equivalent (for the non pork eaters of the family. As point of fact in one cooks illustrated version the main ingredient was lamb. This one looks good.

The cook must remember to soak the beans overnight the night before. Cook's always soaks them with a ton of salt that gets rinsed off before use.

There is also an interesting practice in this recipe where the chicken thighs are wrapped in aluminum foil and imbedded on top so that the chicken doesn't fall apart in the long (6 to 8 hour) cooking process. We shall see if it does the trick.

2 onions, minced (I sliced them)
2 tablespoons of veg oil
6 garlic cloves (minced)
1 Tablespoon of fresh thyme (this sent me to the grocery store)or one teaspoon of dried
1 Tablespoon of tomato paste
3 1/2 cups of low sodium chicken stock
(All of the above gets microwaved for 5 minutes and stirred in that amount of time a couple of times)

1 pound of dried great Northern beans (2 1/2 cups picked over soaked overnight and rinsed)
8 oz of kielbasa sausage (a little more than half of a hilshire farms selection) I picked the beef version, although there were other choices too,) cut in 1 inch sections)
1 can of diced tomatoes, drained (14.5 oz)
1/2 cup of dry wine (I had a tiny bottle of sutter home pinot grigio that was added in total)

2 bay leaves
2 pounds of country style pork ribs bone in trimmed
2 pounds of bone in chicken thighs (I used boneless skinless) with the skin removed and packaged like a hobo dinner in a packet somewhat sealed.

This a group goes in in on top of the microwaved group and cooked in the slow cooker for 6-8 hours on low until the beans are cooked

The food processor is used to pulse the bread and butter (ingredients to follow)
about 5 pulses. transfer these ingredients to a skillet and toast over medium high heat until golden brown and dry (about 5 minutes) set aside

3 slices high quality white sandwich bread torn into pieces
2 tablespoons of unsalted butter, melted

Transfer foil packet to plate, open it carefully (watch for steam) and transfer chicken to cutting board. Let chicken cool slightly, then shred into bite sized pieces, discarding bone and skin. let braising liquid settle for 5 minutes, (off the heat) then remove fat from surface using large spoon. Discard bay leaves stir in shredded chicken and parsley (2 tablespoons minced fresh) season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with bread crumbs.

So are you up for the challenge. It feeds 5 to 8 so you may need to get the left over contains ready..

Love
Pat

strawberry pie Easter Style

2011-04-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

Strawberry pie only lasts for 2 days.

I made one too far in advance and gave it to the neighbors on good Friday because the strawberry pie was not going to make it to Easter.

So I learned that you had to add more strawberries for the glaze and don't forget the lemon juice. So here is the modified recipe from Cook's that I made for Easter picnic that ended up even better at Auntie's house in SJ.

Makes one 9-inch pie, serving 8 to 10

To account for any imperfect strawberries, the ingredient list calls for several more ounces of berries than will be used in the pie. If possible, seek out ripe, farmers’ market–quality berries. Make certain that you use Sure-Jell engineered for low- or no-sugar recipes (packaged in a pink box) and not regular Sure-Jell (in a yellow box); otherwise, the glaze will not set properly. The pie is at its best after two or three hours of chilling; as it continues to chill, the glaze becomes softer and wetter, though the pie will taste just as good.
Ingredients

Filling
4pints (about 3 pounds) fresh strawberries , gently rinsed and dried, hulled (see note)
3/4cup (5 1/4 ounces) sugar
2tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2teaspoons Sure-Jell for low-sugar recipes (see note)
Generous pinch Table salt
1tablespoon juice from 1 lemon
1 recipe Baked Pie Shell (see related recipe)
Whipped Cream
1cup cold heavy cream
1tablespoon sugar

Instructions

1. FOR THE FILLING: Select one basket of misshapen, underripe, or otherwise unattractive berries, halving those that are large; you should have about 2 cups. In food processor, process berries to smooth puree, 20 to 30 seconds, scraping down bowl as needed. You should have about ¾ cup puree.

2. Whisk sugar, cornstarch, Sure-Jell, and salt in medium saucepan. Stir in berry puree, making sure to scrape corners of pan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly with heatproof rubber spatula, and bring to full boil. Boil, scraping bottom and sides of pan to prevent scorching, for 2 minutes to ensure that cornstarch is fully cooked (mixture will appear frothy when it first reaches boil, then will darken and thicken with further cooking). Transfer to large bowl and stir in lemon juice. Let cool to room temperature.

3. Meanwhile, pick over remaining berries and measure out 2 pounds of most attractive ones; halve only extra-large berries. Add berries to bowl with glaze and fold gently with rubber spatula until berries are evenly coated. Scoop berries into pie shell, piling into mound. If any cut sides face up on top, turn them face down. If necessary, rearrange berries so that holes are filled and mound looks attractive. Refrigerate pie until chilled, about 2 hours. Serve within 5 hours of chilling.?

Rdeally doesn't need the cream.. was going to go with canned stuff but left it on the counter at home in Merced!

4. FOR THE WHIPPED CREAM: Just before serving, beat cream and sugar with electric mixer on low speed until small bubbles form, about 30 seconds. Increase speed to medium; continue beating until beaters leave trail, about 30 additional seconds. Increase speed to high; continue beating until cream is smooth, thick, and nearly doubled in volume and forms soft peaks, 30 to 60 seconds.

5. Cut pie into wedges. Serve with whipped cream.

Eat some fresh berries. We are lucky to have Hmong share crop strawberries from half of April to the the end of June.

: ) Pat

Easter Weekend

2011-04-23T11:54:00.000-07:00

Over the years Easter Weekend has been sort of a mixed bag.

When we were little we often were "farmed out" to other other families for Easter week as it became a short vacation without the kids. Mom and dad would head to Salvang and have a weekend while we were off to spend time with our previous neighbors that had kids roughly the age of my sisters. They lived in Walnut Creek. It was a interesting time as I can remember the library and most of the town was relatively new. The libray had a distinct smell of cedar shingles and it was cloistered in the wooded area near a stream. We played games and went through numerous imaginary scenarios together.

We reciprocated with a valentine weekend stayover for their parents.

Eventually the kids got older and so did we. The couple split up. He was into advertising and she had other ideas as to how the family should be raised. One of the girls I heard went on to be a sports producer for a local San Francisco T.V. station.

Easter for our girls many times meant a trip to Disneyland. We rented a cheap hotel room for a couple of days with a spa that was so choline infested that it made your eyes scream. One of these places sold us their last spot and then we could not get in with the key provided. The morning breakfast bar was guarded by an elderly Asian man that looked over the day old treats with an evil eye. They had converted one of the rooms to a breakfast bar area and the families trooped in to save the 12dollar a head breakfast that awaited them in a genuine restaurant.

We have has some interesting Easters with the crowd form Morgan Hill. We used to do a picnic at Kelly park in San Jose. Its a great place with lots to do for little kids. We got muscled around by some large groups and we lost our appetite for that kind of activity. We had one branch of the extended family that insisted on smoking at our gatherings. This did not work for our asthmatic kids so we stopped going.

We had fun their with craft contests and silly hats. We don't do that anymore since out youngest member is now in her 30s.

Easter is always a tough time for my wife. Since the turn of the century to 2005 we spent Easters going back to be with her parents that passed on in 2002 and 2004. That loss is one that is so tough to endure. As the quote from the recent movie the "Rabbit Hole" in reference to the death by car accident of their young child,"It is always with you. It changes but it sits in your pocket like a brick and at times when you reach into your pocket it comes out."

I know my dear brother-in-law Bob has faced this sort of thing for a number of years. He has lost both of his parents. It is still tough for him. I admire his courage.

So here we are in Easter 2011. We are planning to be at a picnic in Fremont. The girls are going to use BART to get there. They are happy about that. My sister and her daughter are headed to So Cal to help out the other daughter in SD. We are happy that mom and dad are planning to come with Bob to the picnic. Sean's dad is also thinking about coming and maybe Bob's sister and husband can make it too. Its going to be a potluck. I am making some pretty cool spring delights in the form of some slow cooked pulled pork, strawberry pie and and some crustini and cheese sampler. It could be a lot of fun.

Hope you are going to have a great Easter!

: ) Pat

Its Still Spring, Elephant Book Review, Easter Plans

2011-04-07T12:31:00.000-07:00

We awoke this morning to rain again.

Spring preparations have started.

Easter Plans

Sue and I are hoping the family will be interested in going to the Fremont Farm this Easter. We will be setting up picnic spots and hope that everyone can come and have a great time.

We all met their a few Easters ago and it was wonderful. The weather at the time was a bit windy but it didn't dampen our spirits.

We plan to bring all the fixins so if you are wanting to come and don't have a thing to bring.. come anyway. There is always things to do there and its got a great combination of sun and shade.

I hope that Dad, King Easter Bunny will be hiding eggs. Do you think Dom will get the one with the money it this time?

The Merced Farm

The rain has actually helped the garden. The pansies are hanging in there hoping against hope that we have a long cool Spring. At one point their sensibilities were damaged by the quick warm up we have had. Some days were reminiscent of Puerto Vallarta in February.. ha

The peaches on the front yard trees have set heavily. A goal this year is to get them thinned so that energy from the trees will go to the peaches that have the greatest chance of making it. I have already started to pinch off the peaches and nectarines that have set too close.

Congrats are Due!

Congrats go off to the BrownKorbel patriarch for passing his exams and also getting another year older. He is the first of our "born in 1950" crowd of three that get the next year older designation.

Book Review

I just finished water for the Elephants. Its a great book that Dad has read in the recent past. Its headed for a new movie opening this month. It stars the Reese Witherspoon and should be pretty exciting if it doesn't stray too far from the book.

The author presents the story in semi memoir form from the prospective of a nursing home resident in his 90's that retells the story of depression era veterinarian that kicks up on a circus train that acquires an elephant that the previous owner characterized as "dumber than a sack of hammers." It is very well written and a pretty easy read.

A major drawback to this book is the depiction of animal cruelty. While it is not condoned it contributes to the atmosphere of this story. It was a pretty cruel era with many people out of a job. This circus train does not move to a happy ending. In fact it describes a historic circus tragedy of the era.

There is a love story, which of course I enjoy. The characters and their roles are pretty realistic for the era. The author claims to have spent four years researching this content for this book. Much of the content had to come from people that owned permissions to photos and their underground connections. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) had put many of these people underground even for research purposes.

Its Thursday, and for Kelly its Friday.. so everyone looks forward to the weekend.

Love to All

Pat

Kelly is Right, or Rather Wright

2011-04-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

One of the best romantic movies out there is "Just Wright."

Queen Latifa is the runaway star in this movie. Its about a basketball star that falls for the wrong kind of girl then after a rehab understands there is more to life then the glamor girls he has been going out with.

The queen does a great acting job. The story, though pretty predictable, has some great cinematography. The pace of the movie is just right. The basketball scenes are pretty interesting. The post groupy thing with the entourage is pretty intense,(not forgive Tiger). The humor in this movie is in the actors not in the script.

This one is a good one and needs some consideration if you enjoy this kind of movie.

I also enjoyed, "Return to Me." with Minnie Driver and the actor from Californication, David Duchovny. Bonnie Hunt directs this movie and judging from the screen credit, had a few of her relatives also in on the set. Carol O'Connor plays her father, the owner of an Irish Italian restaurant.

Happy Saturday

Pat

Sweet Seductive

2011-04-02T08:54:00.000-07:00

Planted in the middle of last summer.

Its always so humble.

If you plant it from seeds, you can hardly see them.

In my container garden, they have lasted through two other plantings of annuals who have become too tender for the heat, too sensitive to the frost, to exuberant to sustain.

Now they fold over the lids of pots outside and send their sweet perfume to butterflies.

White in blossom, I always know when I am walking that I have passed a bed of them.

A homeowner on my route has given up the front lawn and replaced it with annuals. By perennials. This time of the year the daffodils are adding their scent to the air. But its primarily, the alyssum that command the scent of the spring air.

My sweet alyssum belongs to the mustard family. They have tiny white flowers.

: ) Pat

I know its Just a Small Thing

2011-03-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

My Starbucks has switched to a different "here cup."

Its really cool they offer the option at all.

It used to be a broader wide cup that the cappuccinos were served. It was a generic white cup that if you ordered it at Pete's it would even come with a saucer.. reference to my sis Kelly and my niece who works at a Pete's. But it was okay. The foam I craved would be easily devoured and could be mixed with the espresso in the cup with a gentle swirl.

Now, the new cup is more narrow and taller and has the mermaid in relief on the side. The baristas are not so happy with this development as well as me. They are finding it harder to hit the hole so to speak with the foam without making a mess and it definitely makes them drop their espresso in a two glass shot glasses rather then shot holing it into the foam of the cup like they used to.. which takes up a little more time. My major complaint is that the foam is hard to dig out of the bottom of the new cups without a spoon. Since Starbucks is pitching out a lot of oatmeal these days, spoons are not too hard to come by at the counter.

The quality of my dupio machiatto continues to be good as long as I order it from my particular store. Outside my little world of a coffee along the walk, the order is sketchy. It must not be a very popular drink. Today their was almost a mash up as two vanilla latte drinkers dove to the bar to fetch their particular drinks and one had one name on it and the other had the other and of course they grabbed the wrong one.

Jeff,the redheaded, 6foot 4 manager was full of tales of 6 feet of new powder so dry that it wouldn't make a snowball at Dodge Ridge yesterday. Sounds a whole lot like Crested Butte without the 2500 foot drop.

Its really nice to have a coffee shop nearby to be in the middle of my walk. Today I made the walk without any rain. That has got to be a miracle with all of the rain that came down this week. The weather people claim that we are 160% over normal rainfall this year.. so enough already!

Love
Pat

Nigel Wanted Out

2011-03-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

Nigel is our 14 pound black Main Coon Cat.
His job as he sees it is to 1)patrol the perimeter to keep stray cats that might wander into our yard on check. 2)Maintain his cleanliness, which is no small task when you have all of this long black fur 3)snuggle up to the people if they lie down for an extended period of time 4)keep that white Manx cat under control by asserting his authority and his physical presence when challenged 5)make sure the people are properly exercised by requesting in little kitty mews in and out the front door 6)Make sure the people know that they must feed their cats on occasion.

Some of this duty gets completely out of control when there is something called a rain storm. Then patrolling doesn't work, the in and out gets down to "You got to be kidding me,"and that crazy white Manx brother doesn't know what to do with the extra contact zones required of an in and outdoor cat suddenly becoming an indoor only cat for the duration of the rain storm.

The feeding prerogatives also escalate. Being around the food bowl makes you want to eat more often. Somehow the people don't understand this.

Ah such is the life of the black Main coon cat.

: ) Pat

The old Italian

2011-03-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

It seemed simple enough.

I recognized him as he came through the Starbucks line and so did he.
Five foot 7, bald head with a driving cap on. Piercing blue eyes and a sort of sloppy walk.

Somehow our lives paralleled as we worked through the same district.

He joined the district about 6 years before I did.

We even went to Lamaz training at the same time. We both have daughters the same age.

He was always in management, most of the time at district office.

His wife worked as an independent Studies teacher, he lives within three blocks of us. He is a concept man like me, married to a details wife.

He retired about four years ahead of me. He retired on the golden handshake. He was a little bitter because he was promised it a year a head of when he took it. When he got to the end the district personnel manager pulled it out from under him. The next year he produced the figures and proved that the district would make money with him gone and a golden handshake in place. It went to the board and all five board members voted to provide an incentive for his retirement.

He was always a talker. That kind of hurt him throughout his career. He was able to do good things however because he took the initiative and held on to his principles. At one time the district was hot to have him fired. This resulted in a recension as his supporters crawled out of the woodwork and supported him. As he talked I was able to fill in the names he was missing. We all lose the names of the pincipal players in our work life when we are not longer working. Sometimes even when we are working. Its a fact of getting older in life.

I remember him most as he helped me write my initial mentor proposal way back in the 1980s. Some teachers that did not reach out for help were too far out to get a serious look when their proposals were forwarded. That proposal launched 6 successful mentor projects back in that era.

It was nice to see him again. He was in Starbucks because the house cleaner was on her way and he could not be in the house with her cleaning. As he sat there he got a text message that she was not coming.

Happy Weekend!

Pat

We Knew it was Coming

2011-03-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

The dark skies of yesterday left us feeling like we were in Colorado on warm summer evening as the clouds run across the sky and foretell the imminent arrival of a summer shower.

Nope folks its northern California and its not even opening day for the baseball crowd to start cheering.

The foray into the thrift shops of Modesto had us shaking and wondering about the weather. The weather does not disappoint. We are no longer in spring even through we have set back the clocks.

The rain and the wind has made its appearance once more this season.

My pansies needed to be watered. Not anymore.

We have had enough days for the worker bees to get the fruit trees pollinated. The next step is for these trees to loose their pretty pink petals and get down to the business of producing peaches apricots and nectarines between now and July 10th.

As for me the routine continues. I get my walk in every morning. I paint for an hour. Man I have gotten passionate about that. Eat some breakfast, watch a netflick, do some housework and read a chapter or two in my book.

Life is pretty good.

: ) Pat

Remembering Old Movies that I liked

2011-03-13T20:58:00.000-07:00

Netflicks has a great number of older movies available through their DVD program.

This week I am running back to the old "Taming of the Shrew" film that stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The movie should have one an oscar for art direction. It completely characterizes the mellow raw sienna color scheme that reflects the mood and aura of the Shakespearean play. Richard and Elizabeth certainly have sparks that fly beyond the script in this one.

The counterpoint to Taming of the Shrew is the 1953 Cole Porter classic musical "Kiss me Kate." Its amazing the songs that came out of this musical. It features an on stage treadmill that is used in dance sequences and to move stage sets to signify moving. It introduces a choreographer, then an actor in Bob Fosse. When you look at this movie it is interesting to see the beginnings of the Fosse break style choregraphy that would represent his style in the future. Its a smaltzy musical with the concept of putting on the Taming of the shrew inside the musical format with actors and actresses that off stage are performing that same kind of exchanges that occur in the Shakesperian comedy.

Earlier this week I watched Papillon. Its quite a story and a couple of really solid acting performances.

Don't forget to check out "Flipped."Its a great movie by Bob Reiner. It gets the AARP award for best intergenerational movie. Its a great look at growing up in the 60's.

: ) Pat

Spring in the Valley

2011-03-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

Northern California is in bloom.

On a recent drive in the country around Merced County it is clear that the almond blossom season is just about over.

There were some raindrops during the blossom season. Some almond groves are still covered with white and the ground around them looks like snow. The hives are still set in place and hopefully the bees can do their jobs.

One of my friends who owns bees says they have a great union. They only work when the weather is sunny and the skies are blue.

That was pretty much the story in my yards this year. The pluots were the first to bloom. There was a lot of stormy weather that could effect the pollenization this year. The peaches are still in the middle of their bloom now. They will have a great chance to have a super crop. I witnessed and photographed some bees working my trees. You can look these up in my flicker account. Its just a link to the left of this blog. The pee zee the little tree that is right on the sidewalk had the best bloom this year. The Sugar Lady with the non acid white peaches are a close second. The weather in the valley has continued to be mild. I walked to Starbucks today without a coat and didn't miss one.

Dad has reminded me that with the increase in temps, watering schedules need to start being maintained. Their is a single Iceland poppy that made it through the winter and is contributing a single bright yellow blossom to the front patio.

Get out and enjoy the sunshine, if you can! : ) Pat

How many Movies In A Redbox

2011-03-07T18:26:00.000-08:00

An online search revealed that there are 500 movies in a redbox vending machine.

The news from the film industry reflects some concern over the number of redbox kiosks that seem to be popping up everywhere.

Case in point.

Our Raley's which is my point of sale for the redbox has two rebox kiosks. During any weekend hour it seems that there is always a line in front of both. This means that there are really a lot of people using the redbox or there a a few slowpokes that have to skim through the synopsizes of each movie they are interested in holding up the line. Sometimes this is the case.

I see now that the 24 hour Walgreens in our town also has a redbox kiosk. Each of our sav mart grocery stores have two redboxes too. Walmart has one as well.

Living a in city with two colleges with many people highly literate in computer use this by and large confounds and frustrates the younger generation. They have reserved their choice on line and come in to pick up and pay. There are also people that come in to must return the title.

Once a month the free feed line opens. This amounts to a text message, you do text messages don't you, to a free promo code. This is often sent ready for the first Monday in the month. It s one time code, and you really cannot reserve your movie in advance for this event. I stood in line this morning when life was a lot easier at the redbox and still had some difficulty fingering in the promo code. The touch screen was a little slow and somewhat inaccurate. There is also the bit of gracefulness required in keeping your phone fired up with the code while you touch screen in an obscure formula to get the free rental.

Still this is a better system then the big VHS soft pack cases that we used to wonder through to find the perfect movie at Blockbuster.

So Blockbuster is all but dead and redbox and netflicks are the winners of the consumer movie game. You don't have to have a human interaction with either of these paradigms.

Grocery Tech Meets Older Generation

2011-03-05T10:41:00.000-08:00

A lady with silvery white hair was in font of me in front of my at Raley's this morning had a nice collection of grocery items that she brought up to the clerk ready to check out.

The clerk ran her things across the laser light beam and gave back her coupon for the lunch meat, asked her if she wanted some cash back.

Yes the lady said yes 40 extra and picked up her lanyard that held her debit card miniature and still in had faced it to the cashier. The cashier grabbed it up and dragged the unsuspecting customer close to the face of the face lightbeam until the cashier figured that she had this elderly lady by the neck and was on her way to a choke hold. The lady finally took off the lanyard and the transaction was completed over many apologies.

I won't grab it next time the clerk said.
The lady said I will surely take it off next time.

I couldn't help but chuckle.

As I approached the cashier, I mentioned to the cashier that it looks like there was another Sav Mart customer. (Raley's rival grocery store in Merced)

She laughed and said that I would be laughing about that all day.. Now you can too!

: ) Pat

ADELE 21 on the Walk

2011-02-28T10:57:00.000-08:00

No covers here.

The singer songwriting Brit has a great rhythmic sound. If I were to describe her latest album in wine tasting terms.. substituting singers for aroma characteristics, I would say that she has some Cher, with tinges of Janis Joplin and overtones of Norah Jones. Its a strong album and the songs are largely self written. There is some angst reflected in the production but there is also triumph in light of tough situations too.

Is the world ready for that? I hope so. The latest album out in middle February has much more structure is produced with a stronger support group then her first album, Adele 19.

Its a great listen overall and worthy of an E-music download.

: ) Pat

Starbucks on a Sunday

2011-02-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

My Starbucks is the meeting place for many on a Sunday Afternoon.

Pete checked in. He is a recent retiree like me. His greatest hobby is geo caching and camping. He recently upgraded from his tent camper to a firm sided 16 footer. He was up geo caching (finding small treasures hidden in places guided by gps numbers) and fell and cracked a vertebrae. He has been slowed down for 6 weeks but today was on a mission to pick up good coffee for his wife. He was happy to hear of our cruise and look at the photos that I have up on flickr as seen by my iphone.

Nancy and her husband Ray were back from their week long break in Pismo. Ray showed me some photos of his lobster feed on the beach that he hosted for the family. Nancy the non seafood eater was careful to point out the fillet that she had cooking on the grill. I shared PV photos again and we talked some cooking.

Overall a great time at the Starbucks. :) Pat

Its Raining its Pouring

2011-02-25T09:54:00.000-08:00

Quite a contrast to the sunny skies and warm wind in Puerto Vallarta or Mazatalan. But here we are in Northern California experiencing what we call winter.

I can only imagine our first winter in California. Dad had a new job in South San Francisco. It was the industrial city, quite different than the industrial office city that it is now. It had a major Steel mill operation that made large culverts to take water and rivers under roads and highways. It still had the slaughter houses where the West Coast rail head ended for the hogs of Armour and Hormel. Our nation's business was done by rail freight then.

It was a very wet winter. We lived in a flea bit cement floored house up against the mountain that hold the signature letters of South San Francisco. Mom got pneumonia that first year and had to be hospitalized. The rain came down. A car lost control across the street from us and careened into a barbed wire fence and then into the power pole. The line came crashing down upon the street and power was lost to the residence up and down the street.

I attended kindergarten at Marten school, at the foot of the hill. The district was not ready for our "boomer" generation and we were significantly under housed. I attended "split" sessions of school until I was in the third grade. All grades in that era were split into two halves of a school day. There were no standards that needed to be met in those days. Consequentially I didn't learn to read or write until much later than my younger sisters.. or so the story goes.

That first year it rained and rained. The storm drains filled up. Dad had some chest waders from fishing exploits. He donned them with great admonishments from mom who was always afraid of water and set about clearing the garbage and barriers that clogged the surface street and would not allow the water to get into the drains. At times he was up above his thighs pulling out tree limbs that formed a matrix barrier to the free flow of water. It looked like great fun.

I has content with splashing through the puddles with big rubber rain boots and singing the chant that goes with rain and kids.

Its raining
Its pouring
the old man is snoring
went to bed and bumped his head and
couldn't get up in the morning!

Rain is liquid gold in California.. when it pours it really pours.

:) Pat

Giving Up on a Camera.. Sort of

2011-02-24T21:11:00.000-08:00

Last summer I bought the latest in Canon elph series the very compact Canon SD780is. Its a great little package. Its was even smaller than the last elph I had. Great features, it was always there, just a very nice "pocket camera" with all the great features. 12.1 mega pixels, HD movies, face detection,shake resistant, reasonable tele.AND IT MAPS AT 180DPI! It booked out to be $185 at Costco.

It was ready for our cruise to Alaska. It has been good as a camera source for my current passion, watercolor. It was also great for this last cruise in February. The trip with the kids to Mexico from LA. But despite my thinking that elphs were pretty indestructible..... they are not.. especially in my hands. Ask Heather, she got my last one that was in great shape except it started to exfoliate..it continued to flake all the way to the Ecuador.

This latest Elph died, well precisely, the screen died on the last day of our Mexican cruise. It was set up with all kinds of great cool additions. It even sported a 16 gb SD card. Can you imagine how many photos you can take at even 2mg per? Precisely 5000. Oh my. 2 hours of HD movies. yada yada yada.

So what to do, I really need a camera to do the everyday shots.. and all of the other stuff that goes with the expressive personality.

During this time of year.. February.. post valentines day.. there are not piles of digital cameras in the stores. I think that they are waiting in anticipation for the next change. It could happen any-day.. probably CMOS processors for the masses? There are just not any good cameras out there at Costco.. or Walmart for that matter and I am sure that I could find one that would do at Best Buy.. but there I would be stuck with the last greatest idea when the new ones hit the market in April or May, ready for the summer vacations.

So what to do. When in a quandary.. you go on line. In the world of Ebay I noticed that some folks were selling their cameras that did not work with and interesting description piece. Apparently Canon has a loyalty discount. If you have a Canon out of date and not working, Canon will give you a significant discount on a refurbished model of their cameras. What you need for a "loyalty discount" is an old one that has some serial numbers on it and a willingness to send it in. This is particularly big with the SLR photographers who have foiled and spoiled their camera and are ready to trade up to a fancier model. This is where the people with broken down models have a market for their POS cameras. I was ready to do this myself but discovered that my camera's numbers are nearly all worn off. Clearly I have gotten my money's worth out this little gem.

I found a refurb red one that I bought on ebay for 119. I have extra batteries and SD chips so this one makes since while I wait for the next new advances in Elph technology... predictably within the next month or two.

Life is tough when you are on the bleeding edge! ;) Pat

Observations on a 7 day Mexico Cruise

2011-02-21T12:12:00.000-08:00

1. Got a great deal on an arrival hotel in Long Beach downtown Holiday Inn rather than on of the breach.

2. Great pick up of the two jet blue passengers in and out of Long Beach airport from the bay area Micheal and Heather.

3. Easy on to NCL's Star ship in San Pedro, LA's cruise ship docking area. Temp in LA was low 70's beautiful.

4. Plugged in the two for one martini hour before dinner each night.

5. Food was really pretty good in the main dinning room. No lobster, but Beef Wellington, and Prime Rib. Highlight of my lunch picks was Chicken Melansa, a chicken fried Chicken cutlet. It was always available with Spring Rolls from Viet Nam with chili lime sauce. Service was great. We had a server a couple of times that had been with NCL for over 30 years. He was happy to show off his watch and ring that signified that.

6. No afternoon tea on this ship.

7. Left my Cpap machine on shore in the overnight bag by mistake. Won't do that again. Lack of sleep was not fun for Sue or me. We survived.

8. Lack of programing on the ship due to taking over since the last cruise of public areas such as a movie theater, a card playing room and other meeting places. Replaced by more lux cabins and suites.

9. About 40 preschool age kids on ship. Looked like they were having fun they had their own parts of the ship. Not many school aged kids on ship.

10. At least 3 families from Merced on the ship. One man stopped me in the buffet and asked if I was from Merced. He mentioned that he had seen me walking through his neighborhood daily.

11. Met a nice couple from Idaho, Idaho Falls. Retired from running a produce trucking business from the Central Valley to Montana and Idaho.

12. Had 3 great wine tasting sessions and got to taste wines from areas that I wouldn't normally try.

13. Entertainment by Kerry Stokes, a Vegas style hypnotist that also sold an improvement CD step for self hypnosis. We bought it.

14. Had two great specialty dinners. We treated everyone to the French Bistro. It was a 20 dollar surcharge. I thought it was worth it. Wonderful food. I had the french equivalent to Italian cipino, Bouillabaisse. I also had a delicate lobster/shrimp cream sauced rolled in a footlong puff pastry. Yum. Linzi had the standing lamb chops, Sue had shrimp risotto, and Michael and Heather split a 32 oz boned rack of beef, very tender. The sides were great too.

The second specialty meal was hosted by the kids. It was at the Italian restaurant. The cappacio was paper thin. Great antipasto and a super meal too.

15. Some of us found the ice cream center, where they dipped four kinds of ice cream all afternoon. The desert buffet had a soft serve that dispensed choc and vanilla throughout the lunch and dinner venues.

16.Sue moved out of her "safe" element. She usually is up for shopping only at the portside stores. This time she wanted to see some more of Maztalan. He hired a taxi that threw her wheelchair in the open area area of a chopped VW dune buggy kind of vehicle and were taken to the gold zone for 10 dollars each way. He dropped us off at a gallery where we found some really cool things to buy. We brought back a nice margarita glass set. A few doors away was place selling dresses. Sue got a nice gauze blouse and a gauze dress, both of which had embroidery. Our last call as a place selling serving dishes. I bought a three of which one got broken on the way back to the ship.

17. The next day was Puerto Vallarta. It is a growing bigger every day with more time share structures and tourist facilities. It still has one of the nicest malecons (ocean walks. We bargined for a great price to get all of us to the river walk flea market. We were let off at the swinging bridge. We all nogotiated the swing and headed down the walk.

Its a beautiful walk along the river. We stopped at a very upscale indoor/outdoor cafe and had a round or two of margaritas and a couple of steaks and shrimp from their barbie. We will remember this as gentle mariachi players with harps and guitars strolled the restaurant playing to customers. It was the first time that Sue had been on the walk. She thought it was great. She would love to do it again.

18. Linzi negotiated her parents return on a 8 dollar taxi that took us back to the ship while the kids stayed in town a little longer.

19. We all made it back on the ship and we were headed home. 3 nights and two days later we were make in LA where the weather had changed and the clouds and arrived with the colder weather.

20. We dropped Heather and Micheal off at Long Beach where they picked up a rental car and toured the fabulous Getty museum. Linzi piloted us home over the storm swept grapvine up the 99 and made dinner for us that night.

21 Sue and I are so fortunate to have such sweet daughters that are such a joy to travel. Mexico in February is delightful. the lows were in the upper 60's with highs in the low 80's. Couldn't ask for a better place to be in the winter.

The End of the West Coast Offense

2011-02-08T17:38:00.000-08:00

Its was Bill Walsh of the San Francisco 49ers that became connected with the offense in the NFL called the West Coast offense. It was a gigantic departure in concept from the traditional offenses that used short yardage running plays to grind down the field and an occasional pass that went for many yards in a single down. The West Coast offense used short passes to move the ball consistently 5 to 8 yards down the field usually to an outside receiver or a running back out of the backfield.

The current scheme is decidedly different. Most passing plays are consistently looking at a 20 to 35 yard pass with the receiver starting straight down the middle of the field and slightly curving more toward the middle just before the pass arrives. This is sometimes called a skinny post. The philosophy is no longer a Joe Montana or a Steve Young short pass but passes longer and more convoluted toward the center of the field.

There are artifacts of this style of play. The defense has to be very active in the middle and long portions of a vertical offense. It is very difficult for them to do this as the receiver knows where he is going and the defensive man does not. Defenses are able to stop these plays with good geometry in the gaps and with hands up for the defensive backs. This results in more knocked down plays. With plays taking longer to develop, this puts much more pressure on the quarterback. Blitz schemes are getting harder to identify and many successful defensive plays occur when the quarterback is rushed or his throwing arm is stopped mid throw. Short plays where the running back or the tight end make quick angled patterns are much less regular in the flow of the game. This is because more teams are risking longer passes. A check down pass if the long ball is not available is too late in a slant pattern.

Teams are not fooled by naked bootlegs. The forty niners used to send all their pass receivers one direction and Montana would slip out of the pocket going the opposite way for a big gainer. This is not practical in today's scheme. When it is done there are many quarterbacks on the grown not getting up to play the next play.

The NFL product as it stands is very quick. It is hard to imagine unless you are down on the field how the pace of this game has sped up. Plays last an average of 3 seconds. This makes it really hard to get long plays in. It happens because there is some tremendous work being done on the line to protect the quarterback for an additional 1 to 3 seconds and to allow for the pathways through the line to get enough punch on the pass to get through arms and hands that could intercept or change the direction of the pass.

I was always amazed at the speed and strength Brett Farve as the pass coming off his hands blisters through the air with incredible speed and accuracy. As quarterbacks get older, the speed is still their but the accuracy is often lost. This is why the Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rogers is so good. He is very accurate in his passes. As time moves along he will develop the ability to read defenses like Brady or the Manning Brothers. Then he will be unstoppable.

The 49ers are due for a new quarterback this year. The Stanford quarterback from this year will be a great addition. He must be cultured like all of the others that came before him. Lets hope that they get a great line to protect the quarterback whomever he is.

: ) Pat