Oh, by his cockle hat and staff, And by his sandal shoon

Blogging will be paused for a while, because tomorrow, Charlene and I are off and away for our first overseas venture since 2001. Leaving our children home to run the circus. (Well, they really can't be called children any more—young adults—and considering all the pets one night call this a zoo.)

Where are we going? You will be amazed. Saturday night we will shall sleep by the shores of the Sea of Galilee, in Tiberius! We are off to the Holy Land with a group from our parish. I'm not bringing a computer, nor planning to blog along the way. But I shall bring back pictures, and tales of derring-do.... See you in about 10 days.

Jerusalem du cote du Nord, by DAVID ROBERTS, Scottish, 1796-1864

We know these guys...

I think my dear wife just captured Mr Obama's essence perfectly. She said, "He's a white liberal elitist."

Another day, another ducat....

Charlene was working—lawyering, you know—in a Hispanic neighborhood today, and saw a car with a couple of bumper stickers...

JESUS SALVE

and

Drugs: NO
Drink: NO
Burritos: YES!

(She spent a tedious day inspecting apartments in a matter of lawsuits over habitability. She said her one good moment was when she saw a stuffed dog hanging from a ceiling, and said, "Perro piñata!")

The last WWI vet...

Bush thanks WWI veteran for 'love for America'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush met the last known surviving veteran of the first world war on Thursday, thanking the 107-year-old for his service and his "love for America."

Bush called Frank Buckles "the last living doughboy from World War I" and said the centenarian still has a crisp memory.

"Mr. Buckles has a vivid recollection of historic times, and one way for me to honor the service of those who wear the uniform in the past and those who wear it today is to herald you, sir, and to thank you very much for your patriotism and your love for America," the president said, seated with Buckles in the Oval Office.

"We're glad you're here."

Buckles, who turned 107 last month, lied about his age to join the U.S. Army at the age of 16...

This seems so poignant and strange to me. When I was young, the gray-haired distinguished men who ran things were of the WWI Generation. Harry Truman, Ike, the presidents of big corporations. And the handsome young men who were just starting to get on in the world were the WWII generation. Now the men of the AEF are all gone. nd the men and women of WWII are pretty much out of public life. (Except one guy, named Josef Ratzinger!)

There was an old-timer who worked for my dad who fought in WWI. Well, actually, he told me that on his first day in France he got in a knife fight with another southern boy, and that was the end of his war! He chewed tobacco--that was a fascinating thing to a boy. And not snuff; he bit pieces off a chaw. And chewed, and then spit. A bit of history I'm glad to have seen, but don't miss....

Sleeping Hippo....

I've been a teensy bit busy. But seeing this guy only a pane of glass away was a treat to share..

Hippopotamus, at the San Diego Zoo...

Death can strike at any moment....

The explosion at Scaled Composites is a big deal for our family, because my brother-in-law works there. Fortunately, he was not there at the time it happened, but if he'd been at work, he would likely have been close to the blast. Pray for the dead and injured!

Here's my post on the time we were there to watch SpaceShipOne win the X-Prize...

A moment of concern...

We recently had an ecumenical service at the parish, and a very splendid thing it was...

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO: Peace, reconciliation, unity are themes of June 28 event at St. Dominic Church
An evening of sacred music and sacred readings featuring themes of peace and reconciliation June 28 St. Dominic Parish was capped by exhortations from leaders of San Francisco's Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox communities for their traditions to continue pursuit of mutual understanding and unity.

Following their remarks to a nearly full church, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Gerasimos and Archbishop George H. Niederauer lit in unison the final candle of a candelabra which had served as symbol of growing unity during the evening. Between choral offerings, pairs of youngsters — one Greek Orthodox, one Catholic — would walk to the altar area and each light a candle on either side of the candelabra.
Titled "Litany for Peace: An Ecumenical Evening of Sacred Readings and Music," the program featured three choral ensembles — the Solemn Choir of St. Dominic Church and the choirs of San Francisco's Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral and Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church...

Photo by Arne Folkedal
©2007 ArneFolkedal@gmail.com, used by permission. [Thanks!]

The little awkwardness for me was that I built that platform they are standing on. And all I had been told was that it was for the children, to help them reach the candles! Of course I had made it very sturdy, I know how to do this stuff. But still I felt a bit queasy when I realized that these two important guys were about to stand on it together... "The early 21st Century seemed to be experiencing a new dawn of ecumenism, until the catastrophic incident in San Francisco..."

War-dances, and similar...

One of my children asked: What's with "renewing marriage vows?" Don't people know how to keep a contract? I don't renew my library card unless it's expired...

I replied:

You are not using the right tools to analyze this stuff. The analogy is not to renewing a library card. The analogy is to Injuns war-dancing around the campfire before going into battle.

Why do such an illogical thing? Because on some deep level humans respond to ceremonies and rituals. And to a thousand other non-rational clues. For instance, young people often respond to the ceremonial of a high school graduation by taking on a new level of maturity. And their families respond by looking at them somewhat differently, and expecting more from them. None of this can be quantified or "proven," but it seems to be true.

The trouble for conservatives like me is that our belief that things like old ceremonies are valuable can't be demonstrated, so it is hard to defend such things in the "culture wars." For instance, people are forever inventing new ways to get married, such as underwater with scuba gear, or by fudging up a hippie "new age" marriage ceremony. I think these are REALLY bad ideas, that harm all of us, but I can't easily point to any specific harm done.

Actually it is very easy to forget marriage vows in the rush of events, like raising children, and so reminders are a good thing for anyone. You and I would both tend to avoid hokey ceremonies, but it might be better to endure them if it would do us or our spouses good.

(Being a Catholic is VERY good discipline for people in this regard, by the way, because it gives one daily practice in remembering what's really important in the midst of life's distractions. Often by means of ceremonies, ancient texts, smells, sights, postures, beads, music, etc. Crazy, like a war-dance, but it works. And doing it repeatedly works--we are our habits.)

My theory, by the way, is that a lot of the deconstruction of traditional ways that we see is, mostly unconsciously, socialism. That is, people want to destroy the old ties of families, clubs, churches, private schools, because what they really want is to atomize people, and have everyone dependent ONLY on the state.

I should explain again, though I'm probably wasting electrons, that I value things like ancient ceremonies NOT because I'm someone who wants to "turn back the clock," but because I think we are all being hurled at hideous speed into change and into the future, and we need these things as tools in our toolboxes precisely for coping with the new and the unexpected.

Imagine that someone grabs you and stuffs you into a time machine, and sends you 100 years into the future. There is no way to prepare for the specific things you will encounter. (And it is certain that they will be bewildering and frightening.) But you can be philosophically prepared by being grounded in universal truths and in authoritative traditions...

He's back...

The family problem that's been keeping the Weidners from things like blogging is solved, at least the biggest part of it. I may tell you all about it someday...it's been.......interesting.

Now I'm back, but I can't think of a single thing to say...maybe tomorrow.

I'm back...

Long day, on airplanes. It's good to be home with the rest of my family.

Here's a train yard in Grand Forks. We walked up an overpass, but I was too cold to compose the picture, just aimed in the general direction and shot...I love train yards; all those horizontal lines converging in the distance are just too bewitching. And in the snow, even better.

.

Pipsqueeks

We've arrived in Grand Forks, but I'm too fizzled-out to write anything. Rob recommends this YouTube: Planets and Stars To Scale. Just to put things in perspective.

Jogging along...

My camera's working again. Here's a shot looking back at the Rocky Mountains as we head out onto the plains. A poor picture, but it gives some idea of the amazing contrast, because of the way the Rockies rise very abruptly from the plains. The terrain in the foreground is what we drove through today for hundreds of miles. In the background is a wall of mountains.

Today's journey across the plains did not make for exciting pictures, because you just can't capture in a small rectangle the experience of being able to look around and see for hundreds of miles in any direction. But I think it moves my spirit more than do dramatic snowy peaks.

OH, and there's something else that never fails to thrill me...

We are stopped for the night at Medora, ND. (Where trains pass through frequently) A very strange experience. Medora is a tourist trap, a "wild west" town that is set up to cater to thousands of people. In the summer. Nobody's here now! Spooky. It's a kind of imitation-ghost-town ghost town. We got some chow in the only eatery open, a ramshackle cowboy saloon that is obviously ready to feed burgers and beer to large rollicking crowds. But Rob and I were the only customers. And the two fellows running it were glued to the TV over the bar, watching imitation hillbillies on the Dukes of Hazzard. Too funny. But the food was OK.

But I already "know" Medora, from reading biographies of Teddy Roosevelt. So it was interesting to poke around the ruins left by the Marquis de Mores, and ponder the changes that have occurred since the 1880's.

Pictures, not so hotso...

Today we drove a little farther across Nevada (I love it) and then headed up US 93 to Twin Falls in Idaho. Then across Southern Idaho (boring) and north, past the NW corner of Yellowstone (gorgeous country) to Bozeman, Montana. (Stunning place. But it's been "discovered.") My camera failed me, however. Battery won't hold a charge more than one day. Here's a pic from yesterday, and then some cell-phone pix.

That's me driving in Nevada, and the blur in the middle is a big dust-devil—we saw lots of them. (Not much of a picture, I know)

Here are some wagon-ruts that still exist from the early pioneers. They are from where they would climb a bluff up from the Humboldt River Valley. The Humboldt crosses most of Nevada, and it's so obviously the only way across the state for the old wagons. There's not much water anywhere else. The last part, after the Humboldt dies, must have been a grim trek.

We are not looking for history by the way, just driving. But there's a lot of it lying around. In Idaho we followed the course of the Snake River. You've heard of it.

I love rivers in the desert. Intensely. But they are hard to photograph. Even with the real camera the pictures just come out grayish and drab.

I really shouldn't post this, but it will remind me of the real scene, which was intense. I walked through a forest of tall white brush—crackly-dry, but just starting to bud out. The river (the Little Salmon) was fast and cold and green. There were still patches of snow on the ground, but the black cliff-faces were starting to bake in the early sun.

Here are some of the the cliffs...

Happy birthday, Rob!

December 7th is actually a happy day for the Weidners. Our oldest son was born on this day, 21 years ago. (After a drive across town through a howling rainstorm at 2 in the morning!)

Music

Peter Burnett:

...Want to have some fun? The next time you and your fellow conservatives are gathered together and having a merry old time discussing the WOT, the decline of the family, welfare reform, etc, wait for a pause and then launch into a tirade against the execrable quality and corrupting influence of modern music. Before your very eyes you will see everyone start to squirm and strategize how to shut you up until after the next election. Their body language will scream: “Why can’t this wingnut just stick with The Rapture?” Alan Bloom succeeded in belling the cat and living to tell the tale, but almost everyone else who dares to say what we all know perfectly well is marked as a spent force who would be well and compassionately advised to just go on home quietly and die.

Nothing captures the sheer horror of the modern decline more than trying to introduce your iPod-addicted twelve year old to the classics, only to have him snap back that his taste is every bit as good as yours while his glaring mother stands by clasping the telephone number of the child protection authorities....

I'm very lucky to have children with some musical taste. (And far more musical abilities than their father. It comes from Charlene's side.) We drive them to school in the morning, and while they do not, at that time of the day, talk, they do like to listen to our local classical station.

Betsy recommends:

Home again...

....From a pleasant weekend at Sunset State Beach, near Santa Cruz. It's not a great place to take pictures; like much of coastal California it's rather desert-like and colorless. But the poppies were going crazy...

You can see our blue van, and blue and gray tent in the middle background...

Emigrant Wilderness, some more pictures

Just in case there's someone else out there who likes granite as much as I do...

For a person like me who loves to walk, the cool thing about the high Sierra is that you can walk in almost any direction you choose. There are almost no thickets or tangles or bogs to impede you. And the rough crystalline surface of the rock gives such good traction that you can walk up some very steep slopes in perfect safety...

These trees below made me think of those walking trees that the Ents herded in the (book) Lord of the Rings...

Our vacation...

The trip we've just come back from was another horse-packing adventure into the Emigrant Wilderness, with the help of the good folks at Aspen Meadow Pack Station. It was, like last year, awesome! Unbelievably beautiful. Especially if, like me, you like rocks! Weathered and rounded, sculpted and glacier-carved rocks--the whole place is rock, with a thin layer of soil and trees in crevices and hollows.

I've got hundreds of pictures like this. I'll post some more soon...

And now we are home again...

Too short a get-away to even feel rested, but we went to Big Sur, and the sights sure were nice. This Acorn Woodpecker can catch peanuts in mid-air...

I give up...

This morning our faithful old Maytag washer failed. It would wash, but not go into the spin cycle and drain.

Whenever I have a broke machine, I always at least poke around and see if there are any loose wires. But there never are, so this time I didn't bother. (I did check that the belt wasn't broken, or the pump seized up.)

I called a repairman. He investigated, and seemed mystified. Suddenly it started to spin. He said, "That's funny. I just touched that wire, and it started. Must have been loose."

Good day

Yesterday, after weeks and months of wet and dreary weather, we had a day of surpassing clarity and sweetness. So there isn't much to say, except that we enjoyed it thoroughly. As did all the neighbors.

This is a (poor) picture of a Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum "Shin Deshojo") that has brilliant red new leaves in Spring...In a few weeks the leaves will turn green. And in front of it some Maidenhair ferns that also have reddish new growth.

I did say one funny thing. Due to stupidity. On the way to church we drive past another church, and I said. "It's sad how that church never looks like it has much going on."

Charlene replied, "It's Seventh Day Adventist!"

Oops...

Snapshot

This doesn't have any significance, it's just a picture I snapped hastily, and liked. That's St Ignatius Church in the middle The mountain in the background is Mt Tamalpais, across the Golden Gate in Marin County. On my right is the aptly named Buena Vista Park. (Long ago, when I was young, and new to SF, I happened to cut through that park, and thought it peculiar that everyone I saw was male. It eventually dawned on me that it was a gay rendezvous. I have no idea if it still is.)

t

This will seem boring to much of the planet...

But we had snow last night in San Francisco. This is the first time I've seen it like this....

I'm not sure snow is the right word. It was more like soft mushy hail. No flakes, little clumps... But it was a wild storm we had last night, with lots of nearby lightning strikes, and people out with their kids on the streets throwing snowballs, and cars skidding, and Hwy 1 closed north of the GG Bridge due to ice that caused a 30-car pile-up...

I blame Bush! If he had said nice things about the Kyoto Treaty, and done a few Goddess Rosaries, the earth gods would not have been restive.

Construction zone...

My son Will (the singer) and I went on a "hard-hat tour" of what will be the new home of the SF Conservatory of Music at 50 Oak St. I was fascinated--I Iove seeing what's happening "backstage" of almost anything. Will seemed pretty interested too, though he's too cool to show it.

They've taken a historic 6-story 1907 building, and just kept two facades and a ballroom. Everything else is new, including digging an extra below-ground level and creating completely new foundations. There will be many new classrooms and practice rooms, with double walls and enough other insulation that sound from one won't impinge on the adjacent one. And three performance halls so well sound-proofed that the fire trucks on the next block can't be heard at all.

This is the largest of the three performance halls. What you see is the old ballroom, which forms the audience end of the hall. (Not my photo; this space was mostly stuffed with scaffolding today, and we had to guess at what it would look like.)

They've done a lot of really neat things. On the three top floors, where most of the classrooms and practice rooms are, the main corridor on each floor has curved walls, convex, so the corridor is narrower in the middle. This is visually exciting, creates wide areas where people can gather, makes it easier to roll pianos around the corner, and gives all the adjoining rooms a curved wall,which is much better acoustically!

They also scattered practice rooms and studios throughout the building, tucking them into odd corners. They don't want there to be any "enclaves." Everyone will have to move around and mix. The only enclave is the administrative offices, grouped around a "workroom" with all the printers and copiers...

We were on a balcony up near the ceiling of one performance hall, and could see drywall being applied 5 layers thick! And a floating ceiling being built, that hung from things like the shock-absorbers in your car. Also, the ceiling was not square to the room, but lower in one corner.

You can see more pictures here.

Marching

Charlene went marching today, on the Walk For Life. She had a great time, but was disappointed that the counter-protesters were a pretty puny bunch, so she doesn't have much exciting to report. No violence, only one giant puppet, and the twisted-demented-and-repulsive component was pretty mild by SF standards...

She thought the marchers numbered several thousands, and the anti's only a hundred or so....

She took pix that show more marchers, but I liked this one, with the Balclutha in the background, and the steam ferryboat Eureka next to it. [You're letting yourself wander off-topic --ed. Ooops.] Charlene regrets not getting a picture of the Gay/Lesbian Pro-Life group!

She said the anti's kept running ahead and posing themselves as a backdrop to the march, so they would look more impressive on TV.

Update: More links and details here. Apparently there were 15,000 people on the march!

Notice the same sign in different places...

You know, maybe some people should be in burqas...

AND, in the Giant Puppet category, the WINNER, and only entrant...

A day by the sea...

Charlene, Rob, Betsy and I joined our friends Dave Trowbridge, Deborah Ross and their daughter Rose, for an excursion to Año Nuevo State Reserve, to see the Elephant Seals. They are one of nature's extravagances, and this little spit and offshore island called Año Nuevo is the only place in the world you can get a good look at them. They only come on land once a year, for mating and calving.

There's no easy way to convey their scale in a picture--you do NOT want to go stand next to them--but the big male lifting his head in the middle of the picture is probably 15" long, and weighs about 5,000 lb. (4.57 meter, 2267 kg). The slug-like blobs on the left are his harem of females.

That guy could be dangerous if he thought you were another male, or if you got between him and a male he wanted to drive away. Though they move on land by sort of galumpfing along with their blubbery bodies they can hit up to 35 mph for a short run, before overheating. They look absurd on land, but at sea they are superb predators, diving as deep as 5,000 feet (1524 meters) twice as deep as our subs go, to gorge on squid. They spend perhaps 8 minutes on the surface breathing and the rest of an hour underwater. They also sleep underwater, and we saw one in a shallow pond, happily snoozing with his head under water.

It was a very misty and rainy day, and a few hours hiking on the dunes made us very glad to get back to our van for some of Charlene's awesome Red Bell Pepper soup.

Here's a closer look at one...We were cold and wet, but he spends most of his life in freezing water, and finds the land too warm for comfort...

Thanksgiving pies...

Charlene, the only "morning person" in the family, was up betimes, working her usual magic in the kitchen. Here are our pies...

Widdershins, from the front: pear tart, shaker lemon, pecan, pumpkin, cranberry-apple, and in the middle, pumpkin with maple.

In trial every day...

Beldar has a great post, with fascinating anecdotes, on the question of trial experience in the Miers nomination...

...Thus, I can tell you this with great confidence, even without knowing whether Ms. Miers would or would not meet my highly subjective standards for being a "real trial lawyer": JPod's [John Podhoretz's] assumption — "If Miers has spent her career helping people and corporations avoid courtrooms, that doesn't suggest she has any judicial legal skills whatsoever" — is badly wrong. His insistence that settled cases are "beside the point" means that he's never understood how litigation actually works, and that's why all those "billions" of lawyers are emailing him! It's the sort of thing that only someone very inexperienced in the American civil justice system could say....

...The only way that lawyers who handle litigation can "help people and corporations avoid courtrooms" is by being fully prepared to go into courtrooms, and projecting to the other side their readiness and capability to do so...

This is something I can confirm. As you know, Mrs Random Jottings is a lawer. She's a skilled litigator, and takes cases to trial...and wins. However the great majority of her cases never get to trial; they are settled out-of-court.

But I can tell you, since I'm often her sounding-board, that actually she tries all of them! Every move is made with an eye on an eventual trial, and on how the other side is going to think about their chances in that trial. And as the pre-trial maneuverings go on, sometimes for years, the amount each party is willing to settle for keeps changing. If a witness looks good in deposition, or if a motion to exclude some morsel of evidence wins, then everyones calculations change...

Nine minutes....

My daughter would be pleased if you would be so good as to go here, where you can see the first nine minutes of Serenity. Then she feels you will surely feel compelled to see the film.

It's important, you see, that the movie be popular. There MUST be a sequel....She wants MORE!

Horse-packing into the Emigrant Wilderness...

We've just returned from a splendid adventure. The Weidners horse-packed into the Emigrant Wilderness, and camped for four days.

It wasn't easy! Let me tell you, five or six hours in the saddle on steep rocky trails is about an hour too many. But I feel very proud of me, and my family, and our friend Pam--we did it! (Scotty couldn't make it, but...next time!) The trails were unbelievable. In many of the steep places they are built with steps made of slabs of stone--in some places hundreds of steps twisting and winding up the slopes and ravines. And in other places the trails cross great sloping sheets of bare stone, with the path marked only with cairns. Horses and mules clattered and clambered up rocky hills, or picked their way downhill with many a jolting drop.

I couldn't get any pictures of the most dramatic parts, I had to concentrate on riding! But this might give you a bit of the flavor of it..

That's my son Will, who was right in front of me, and further down you see Betsy and Charlene. Everything you see is rock, scoured by the glaciers of the last Ice Age. Those trees grow out of crevices, or little pockets of soil.

This is the horse I rode, named Robert. This was the first time in my life that I encountered a horse and felt instantly that he was just my style. And I was right. How I enjoyed him. He's big fellow, at least 17 hands. He responded to the smallest signals, and seemed to take the wildest and steepest--and sometimes downright terrifying--paths with aplomb. What a treat.

The trip was a mix of good and bad things. But for Charlene and I, the good far out-weighed the bad. We are avid for this sort of extreme natural beauty, and are willing to suffer for it.

Good: patches of snow remained on the slopes above our campground, feeding little streams and rivulets of fresh water. Superb.
Bad: The mosquitos had just hatched--we were tormented by them, and spent a lot of time sitting near smoky fires..

Good: We were in the high country, over 9,000 feet, with views of intense clarity and brilliance and drama.
Bad: When we were trapped for a while on a hot steep narrow trail due to pack-mule mishaps, I fainted from altitude-sickness and fell off my horse! Clunk. I was OK as soon as I got to moving and breathing deeply, but my poor family was terrified!

Here's me. Down below you see Deer Lake, where we camped. Close by here was a snow field, where I'm about to dig a load of snow to re-fill our ice-chest. (If you wonder why one would prefer horse-packing to back-packing, well, we had beer, wine, and a bottle of Laphroaig! And none of this "freeze-dried" food. Charlene cooked treats like blueberry cobbler in her Dutch Oven.)

Good: Wildflowers and alpine plants were exploding into their brief growing season.
Bad: Worst hay-fever I've ever had.

We're baaaack....

The Weidners have returned from a big adventure...pictures will be posted soon, I hope

Camping on Angel Island...

An awesome 36 hours...

Charlene and I and a couple of good friends just came back from one of the coolest camping trips ever. Angel Island, in San Francisco Bay, has a handful of campsites you can walk in to. We spent Friday night at one, and except for some park rangers we had the island to ourselves...

We hiked about 2 miles from the cove where the ferry lands (backpacking lite, with wine). On weekends the campsites are much in demand, but there were no other campers yesterday. We had the usual ingredients for a good time...friends, food, good weather and a beautiful spot.

BUT, what we hadn't anticipated, having only hiked and picnicked there before, was the surreal and oneiric experience of sitting in our campsite on a quiet and rustic slope and simultaneously seeing the intense urban vista of the Bay Area spread before us. Especially at night. There we were, cooking our s'mores over the campfire as we looked down on a parade of lighted ferries and tugboats and tankers, while beyond them the gazillion city lights of Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco blazed. And yet it was dark enough for us that the stars shone quite brightly. This poor picture does NOT do it any justice...

If someone asked, "What did you do on your trip?" I'd have to reply, "We mostly just stood there and stared in awe." I can't imagine there are very many places in the world where one could do something like this.

Day on the water...

Charlene and I had a great day today. We were out sailing on the Bay with friends. Beautiful weather, a total treat.

Here's Charlene taking a turn at the helm. The boat is a Sabre 36, and that's the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

Born too early!

Charlene and I used to enjoy backpacking very much. She just noticed this item, which is pricey, but could eliminate some of the discomforts of life on the trail:

...In designing the Raku, Nunatak added sleeves and a drawstring-closure ankle hem to a standard mummy sleeping bag. To get in, loosen the drawcord at the bottom and slide the bag over your head; or enter via the main zipper, which runs down your sternum like in a jacket.

The extra-long sleeves keep your arms mobile but always insulated, and the bottom opening enables anyone to be a sleep walker. The benefits are numerous. No more cramped, cross-armed sleeping like the guest of honor at an open-casket funeral. No more twisting up in your sleeping bag every time you roll over. No more freezing your hands and arms when you want to read. No more enduring an uncomfortably full bladder while working up the nerve to answer nature's call on a chilly night...
[link]

California mess...

Here's one of the rock-slides that temporarily trapped Charlene and Betsy in Ojai two weeks ago. This is Highway 33, about 11 miles north of the town.

This is the sort of thing that can happen in many places of coastal California. The mountains and hills of our Coastal Range tend to resemble heaps of rubble. Majestic granite peaks they are not. With heavy rains hillsides often dissolve into catastrophic soups of rock and mud, which sometimes rush down canyons scouring away anything in their path.

Visiting the City...

My daughter converses with a young girl visiting from Australia...

So how do you like San Francisco so far?
It's wonderful. I especially liked the street with the rainbow flags. It's so decorative.
Uh, you know what that's all about, don't you?
No, what?
That's the Castro District where all the gay people live and work.
You keep them secluded ????
No no no, they like it there....

Stuck in the mud...

You've doubtless heard about the floods and mudslides in Southern California. My poor wife and daughter were visiting in Ojai, and are now stuck in a motel there because mudslides have closed the road out.

But they haven't suffered any real difficulties, except for brief power outages. They are only a few miles from La Conchita, where mudslides have left 2 dead and 12 people missing

Update: They are heading home...but from LA! after many hours of trying they escaped from Ojai, but could only go south. They will be coming home via US 5

Amaryllis-Blogging continues...

Our friend Frank wins the prize for "Best Star Amayllis."

Charlene wins the prize...

harlene wins the prize for perfect timing of her Christmas bulbs...

...at least for this Amaryllis, in full bloom on Christmas Eve:

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Liveblogging a pleasant morning...

It's a rainy morning, the children have gone away to their various schools, and Charlene is lingering a while before going downtown to her office to do justice.

And I just remembered that we have some nice Stilton and some Bosc pears that we've been meaning to eat all week, but keep forgetting about! So we are having Stilton and pears for our lazy breakfast—totally self-indulgent, except for the lack of sherry...

Countdown

The Weidners will will be leaving tomorrow morning, and won't be back 'till Monday night. Hopefully after having witnessed the winning of the X-Prize! But technical problems or too much wind could mean nothing happens at all.

"warm rain" sounds so bizarre...

My son writes about North Dakota weather...

...I had to weather my stage 15 flight today, (I'll take it on Wednesday) because of thunderstorms, as well as a tornado warning, and possible winds gusting to 69 knots until 9 this evening. My flight instructor and I will fly in the evenings to get two lessons done per flight to get me caught up...

....In San Francisco, rain means cold. Unfortunately here in Grand Forks, ND, right now rain means 73 degrees F. and 85% humidity. It was very odd watching people walk down the street holding both an umbrella to keep the rain off, and wearing shorts because of the heat.

Another thing that seemed strange to us San Franciscans when we were in ND, is that it's all white people! The maids cleaning our hotel rooms were blondes. I felt kind of at home when I went into a WalMart, because the clerks were Filipino. Oooops, wrong. Besides white folks, there's Injuns! Plenty. Rob also wrote:

... At dinner this evening, I was surrounded by Native Americans, there were A LOT! It was some kind of summer camp program I think. It took a lot of my energy NOT to look the right, and then to the left, and then to inform the person sitting in front of me "We're in deep trouble, Tonto") I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing...

Some pix from our vacation...

The high point of our vacation was spending a few days on a ranch in North Dakota. Knife River Ranch is no dude ranch, it's a working cattle ranch that also has cabins for a few guests. Ron and Lois Wanner and their sons are the best sort of hosts; we felt right at home. Entertainment is just loafing by the river, or watching the ranch work, or taking horseback rides—usually just riding along as the Wanners check up on cattle or horses in distant fields. Betsy got to to help chase cattle that had broken through a fence.

Here we rode out in the evening to take a look at a herd of younger horses, not yet ready to be trained.

and here's our daughter Betsy feeding a week-old colt whose mother doesn't have enough milk...

Travels...

I jut talked with Charlene, who is in Salt Lake City, traveling Eastwith our oldest son Rob, who's off to college at UND. (The other kids and I will fly to Grand Forks when their schools are out, and we will drive back with various sightseeings and diversions.) anyway, Charlene says in Nevada you see big initials painted in white on various mountains. They are the initials of local towns. There's one town called "Battle Mountain," with a giant BM painted on the mountain.

Steps on the road...

The thoughts of parents when the oldest kid graduates from High School are many and varied, and beyond my poor powers as a writer to do justice to. For me, proud and sad and wondering if one is about to be "kicked upstairs" as a new generation emerges and elbows its way to the center of the stage. Astonishing how we sent our young boy to a boy's high school and now suddenly there are all these men. Big competent confident brutes.

Now our guy is headed off to college in the heartlands. North Dakota. To a school where his blond hair and Northern European extraction won't put him in an odd minority. Where Bondoc and Lacayanga and Huypungco are not ordinary last names. A place where I bet high school graduates are not draped with leis! You can see some in the background of the picture...

Code of the Woosters...

It's not my style to have a tip-jar, but if you like this blog, you might donate a few shekels to Dean Esmay. He's in a bind, and he very generously helped me (as he's helped many others) to move my weblog from the sloughs of Blogger to Movable Type.

Elves, are they cool, are they hot?

I find my daughter's fascination with all things Tolkien, both books and movies, entirely admirable. Still, I had to wonder when I noticed her going to a site called hot-elf.com!
(It's actually a very nice site, if you are a Legolas Greenleaf fan. It even has recipes for Lembas.)

Dating...

I've tended to assume that "on-line dating services" were somehow flaky and peripheral. But Dean Esmay, who met his wife Rosemary that way, has written a very interesting post on the subject....

....People joke about online dating, but you know what? It's a fabulous way to meet people, as long as you have the right attitude: you will meet people you don't click with at all, and you might wind up with a few funny stories about weird dates and weird people. But you also just might meet the person you've always been looking for. It's very hard in this modern world to meet people, especially if you don't date people you work with, and this sort of thing is a perfectly sensible solution. It's not "desperate," it's sensible as hell. My brother met his wife that way. My brother-in-law met his wife that way, and they just had their first baby. Another buddy of mine recently proposed to a woman he met through eHarmony. Not a single one of these people is or was stupid, desperate, or psychotic.

Online dating has one wonderful feature that normal dating doesn't usually have, by the way: you both know, up front, what you're looking for. You bypass that entire embarassing and uncomfortable dance: "Are you marriage-minded, do you want kids, are you just looking for a good time, are you just looking for a friend, will I look desperate if I reveal my true desires?"....

Back

Andrea Harris, restless creature that she is, has moved, and is blogging Here now. Mus' be the gypsy in her soul.

(The obscure link she left on the last blog didn't work for me at first, and I thought maybe she'd really decamped or even died—gone, as the Dean put it, where savage indignation can no longer ruffle her feathers...)

Boxing Day surprise...

I was scrolling down-down-down at Boing Boing and was astonished to discover an old friend of ours—Allie Barden, (who used to babysit for our kids, and remains a special friend.) She was reporting from McMurdo, in Antartica, where she is working in a mess hall.

We knew she was there, but didn't know about her web-site, a sort of blog with penguins...

....we were going on a us air force plane c141 which is a big, massive, loud piece of metal that travels through stupid conditions at amazing speeds. it was the auschwitz train of moving bodies to the ice. earplugs are mandatory (if anyone wants to purchase my used ones, they can do a search on ebay.) but you can't really hold conversations on the craft anyway since its as loud as a train engine compartment inside the plane. there were 137 people on my flight, of them, 32 were female. we were gender segregated on the flight, our seats, basically cargo netting with seat belts and oxy masks...

there were 2 long paralell rows that ran down the center of the plane. your knees met the knees of the person across from you, your back against the back of the person behind you, your shoulders against the shoulders of the person next to you. moving is not really an option with huge boots and 20 pounds of cold wether gear. my knees hurt so much. if you could maneuver it, you could stand on your seat, but something on your lap ended up falling on the lap of the person next to you. comfortable, it was not. exciting ..... i enjoyed every minute of that flight. except the part when it felt like my eardums were bein sucked out of my head. i didn't like that feeling. there were no windows on the craft except one porthole in the middle which i was lucky enough to be in the vicity of, but could not see out of,due to the whole not being able to move thing.

bathroom travel was not prohibited, but the latrine was nasty. howver, when you gotta go..... so i went. and i am so glad. the latrine was next to the flight deck, and the usaf crew wre hanging out by the door. i talked my way into the cockpit an hour before landing. we had just started to fly over the continent and that's where i saw my first glimpse of antarctica. i can't explain it. the trans-antarctic range peaked below us, and i had a driver side view. i sat in the co-pilot's seat, and was like a little girl in a candy store, fogging the window. there were deep cracks in the otherwise flawless ice floes which denotes glacier movement like when you stick a spoon in chowder that has cooled and formed a skin over the top. i saw ranges that rose to 14,000 (our altitude was 35,000) that were all prefect white with hints of blue. they looked like what clouds would look like if they wre sharp and pointy. i saw places completely untouched, where man has never walked. some of it was like the moon, but sanded over smooth like fiberlass and freshly painted....

SWEDISH GLÖGG

This was my Grandmother's recipe. Julglögg (Christmas Glögg) is a spiced wine to serve at holiday parties...