Happy 50th Curtis

While my health issues prevented me from going into the office last week, it did not stop me from honoring Curtis' 50th birthday.  He arrived at his office last Thursday to find it filled with 50 gold balloons.  It was fun to do.  Additionally, I arranged for Trophy Cupcakes for the whole office.  He has been amazing these past several days in helping get things to me from home, helping with the move from ICU to my private room and being a very good friend.  Thank you Curtis and glad you had a great celebration!

Pride In Seattle

Boy, how far things have come in 40 years!  This weekend is Pride weekend in Seattle, San Francisco and New York City among others, but those are the big 3 celebrations.  It is the 40th Pride Parade here in Seattle.  The various legal rulings this past year will undoubtedly add energy and excitement to the various celebrations. 

I was involved in the Pride celebrations back in New York and to this day defend any one's right to be involved.  But, I do not go any more.  Not out of any sort of emotion, but rather I just do not do well in crowds any more.  Over the past 5 years or so I have noticed that the large events just do not do it for me.  I much prefer smaller gatherings.  10 people is good.  To all who are getting involved this year, enjoy and have fun!

A Moment Of Humor

A friend is over in Gorge, WA for a music festival and this is a receipt from yesterday.  Innocent mistake or intentional?  Either way, made me laugh!

Life Interrupted

So last Thursday was my first return to the office, and it did not go well.  I was exhausted.  So headed home and rested over the weekend, thinking it was residual recovery from the summer cold/diarrhea.  By Monday, it was bad enough to call the doctor and arrange a visit.  He could see me yesterday, the 26th.  Went in and got checked out.  He decided I needed a CT SCAN.  Headed for the hospital and had it done.  Well, next thing I am told is that I have to head to the emergency room.  Not a good thing.  Appears I have a type B aortic dissection  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aortic_dissection 

 

Dissection of the descending part of the aorta (3), which starts from the left subclavian artery and extends to the abdominal aorta (4). The ascending aorta (1) and aortic arch (2) are not involved.

 

Thus, my world has been turned upside down.  I am in the ICU at Swedish Cherry Hill.  Likely here through the weekend.  We shall see.  Damon arrives this Thursday, the 3rd!  Will be working from home for the foreseeable future.  And so it goes/

Oh My! And The Countdown Begins

Mind you, I love Christmas as much as the next guy, but seriously, isn't this just a tad pushing the envelope.  My sister sent this yesterday and last night I saw it for myself and so decided that it was meant to be shared.  You have to say that all the hype will likely get people in the mood, but really, it is not even the 4th of July yet.

Congratulations Lisa!

I have a good friend, Lisa Morrison, who lives in Portland and is known as the Beer Goddess.  We have known each other for years.  She and her husband, Mark, have a passion for beer.  Each week she hosts a radio show called Beer O'clock that is focused on beer and has been a judge at numerous beerfests.  A couple of years ago, she was able to invest in a retail establishment in Portland.  It has been doing great.

Now, it has been listed as one of the 33 best in the country.  Half bottle shop and half beer bar, walking into Belmont Station is like walking into a museum, or a temple to the God of Hops (Hopseclese?):  With 1,200 bottles crammed into a shop the size of your average convenience store, you can spend hours staring at beers from throughout the world. And you can consume anything on site, whether it’s a bottle of a rare lambic or a bomber of a seasonal from local brewers like Breakside and Hair of the Dog.  There's also an adjoining biercafe (and huge patio) serving up one-offs from local brewers and hard-to-find imports, in case you prefer your rare beers in a pint rather than a bottle.

An Amazing Journey

My brother, Steve, and his wife, Karen, just wrapped up an amazing journey to Africa.  Along the way they shared photos and I have picked some of my favorites to share here without commentary.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

This Is How I Feel Today!

Grocery Discoveries

Yesterday I had a grocery delivery from Amazon fresh.  It is a delight to be able to logon and order your grocery needs and have them delivered.  I order from them a couple of times a month and it is so much nicer than dealing with the crowds at the grocery store and then all the schlepping up from the car.  Seriously, the order delivered yesterday would have taken three or four trips to the car alone.  Whenever you have the paper towels or toilet paper, etc. it proves it weight in gold!  One item I ordered was a watermelon.  Look what greeted me as I cut it open:

The swirls in the meat of the melon reminds me of seashells.  It is not often that I feel the need to take a picture, but in this case I did.  It amuses me that it is considered a seedless watermelon when you can see the seeds, but they are not the big black ones and so there you go.  Watermelon is a sure sign of summer and I also saw a recipe I decided to try.

Watermelon Gazpacho
          - recipe courtesy of Tyler Florence

Prep time is about 15 minutes and yields 4 - 1 cup servings

Ingredients:

• 1 large tomato, pureed
• 1/2 serrano chile (opted for a red bell pepper)
• 2 cups cubed fresh watermelon
• 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar (substituted white balsamic vinegar)
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons minced red onion
• 1/2 cucumber, seeded and minced
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh dill, plus more for garnish (surprise I skipped this!)
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

Directions:

 

In a blender, puree the tomatoes, chile, and 1/2 of the watermelon. Pour in the red wine vinegar and olive oil and pulse. Add the onion, cucumber and dill and season with salt and pepper. Puree until smooth. Pour into chilled bowls and sprinkle with dill, feta, and remaining watermelon. Serve.

The one modification I made was that I opted to not puree the cucumber to add a little texture to the soup.  I liked it better.  Additionally, added a few small cubes of watermelon to add texture as well.
________________________________________

As I was putting the groceries away, I noticed a small box that seemed out of place.  I was not sure what it was and when I opened it up I was quite pleasantly surprised.  They had sent along a piece of key lime pie for me to try.  Amazon fresh has a series of vendors that supplies extra special items you can also order.  In this case, pies.  Well, looking at the website, this pie would run $27.00 for a whole pie, a bit rich for my taste.  But it included a message mentioning to take time and look at the various specialty items they have available and thanking me for being a loyal customer.  Nice touch.

Well, first up, the pie is going to be a treat later on this day.  I am looking forward to it.  Have always like key lime pie.  I went and looked at the site and as mentioned a tad rich for my tastes, but on a special occasion it might be worth it.  They offer all sorts of berry pies and there was one that I found quite interesting, but likely not one I would order - Bourbon Butterscotch Cream Pie.  Their description = This New Orleans-inspired delight starts with a delicate crust of vanilla wafers, brown sugar and toasted pecans. We then pour in sweet, smooth homemade pudding infused with caramelized sugar, vanilla, butter and a splash of bourbon whiskey - all topped with freshly whipped cream and toasted pecan pieces.  I can feel the cavity already growing just thinking about it. 

3:51 AM Pacific Time It Happened

Yes indeed it arrived - summer.  I have to say that it is not my favorite season and I do look at this as now a time of countdown to autumn which is 93 days away, not that I am counting.  I do seem to make it through each year, but it is not fun for me.  As so many people get excited about the warmer - dare I say hot - weather, I hide out in my air conditioned atmosphere at home and work.  While many head for the beach which I have to say I love most of the year, I would tend to make a trip to the mountains to cool off.  But, life goes on and so let those lazy, hazy days of summer begin.  Enjoy.

IKEA Humor

When You Just Have To Laugh

On Tuesday night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart noted that one of the suggested "therapies" to stop someone from being gay is "ordering someone to bottle their feces and sniff it" whenever they are attracted to a man. "Being gay is not a choice. But being a texas Republican is. So my advice is the next time you feel the urge to be a Texas Republican - to replace science textbooks with pictures of humans riding dinosaurs or ban same sex marriage, or put on [a stuffed elephant] hat, sh...-t in a jar and sniff it! It won't cure you but do it anyway. Hopefully it will remind you of what a**holes you're being."

Yet another reason I make it a point to watch his show along with Colbert...it gives me a chance to laugh at how insane things can get from time to time.

Sign Of The Times

Comcast, the out-of-towner wants to plant its name atop one of the city’s signature skyscrapers.

Comcast, which last year bought General Electric’s remaining 49 percent stake in NBCUniversal, applied for a “certificate of appropriateness” from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission to replace G.E.’s 24-foot-high initials on 30 Rockefeller Plaza. G.E., now based in Fairfield, Conn., has long had a presence in New York.

Whether another name change will be embraced by the public is arguable. It’s been a quarter-century since the two glowing red letters were installed, yet many New Yorkers still refer to it as the RCA Building, after the company that founded the NBC network. The RCA name had capped the 70-story Manhattan landmark, which at 850 feet amounts to the city’s tallest billboard (the MetLife Building is considered second), for more than 50 years. When the original letters were first illuminated in 1937, they were hailed as the loftiest neon sign on the planet.

 

“The idea of changing it now to the Comcast Building,” said Carol H. Krinsky, a New York University art history professor and the author of “Rockefeller Center,” “strikes me the same way that the change to the G.E. Building name did: ‘I’m the new guy on the block and you are nothing anymore.’ ” 

As proposed, more modest 12-foot-high light-emitting diode signs that spell Comcast in white uppercase letters would be installed on the broader north and south limestone exteriors, crowned by 10-foot-high NBC peacock logos. A 17-foot-high peacock would appear by itself on the western façade more or less facing Philadelphia. Measured in overall square feet, the new signs would be slightly more compact than the existing G.E. signs.

“Nothing has been finalized yet,” Cameron Blanchard, a spokeswoman for NBCUniversal, said of the proposed renovations.

The new sign and marquee were approved on Thursday by the local community board. The preservation commission scheduled a hearing for Tuesday on Comcast’s request.

 

My thanks to the NYTimes for information in this posting.

One Million Miles

My friend, Mark Souder, Uncle Markie to most has this thing about traveling.  It is not so much abut the destination as the journey itself.  Here is an example of his upcoming adventures:

He makes these bound books for each trip and having been on a few adventures with him, they do prove to be quite helpful.  He is currently on the above left trip.  He flew from Seattle to San Francisco and then on to New Orleans.  Now this was an especially important flight for him in that he has been edging closer and closer to the million mile mark on United.  I cannot even think of flying that far in my lifetime.  Well, here is a bit of his posting marking the occasion...

After I was done my snack, at 12:45am on June 16^th, 2014 I hit my Million Mile mark 373 miles into the flight. GOLD FOR LIFE. I had the flight attendant ask the captain for the moment – she rewarded me with a fist bump – was sorta hoping balloons would fall from the ceiling and the confetti guns would blow – alas, not in an airplane.

And now the adventure begins in New Orleans.

The funny thing is, that I bet he really was hoping for some sort of celebration, but he did reach his milestone on a redeye and so most of the plane was likely asleep.  That my friends is where the factors in his being thrifty won over being celebrated by a round of applause from the jet full of passengers.

The other thing about Markie is that he does love those selfies.  And here is one to mark the special occasion as he was getting ready to board the train in New Orleans bound for Chicago.

Jeff Koons Sculpture At 30 Rock

This past weekend I was watching the Today Show and noticed something unusual.  In the background where the Christmas Tree is usually placed there was something big on display, but not a clue what it could be.  Decided to do some search work on the internet and found the following:

There is the giant retrospective that opens at the Whitney Museum of American Art on June 27. Timed to that will be the appearance of “Split-Rocker,” his monumental, flowering, toy like sculpture. It is beginning to take shape at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, on the spot where the Christmas tree stands every year.

“We couldn’t do any topiary at the Whitney, because there wasn’t any space,” Mr. Koons said.

It’s not his first appearance at Rockefeller Center. Fourteen years ago, his 43-foot-tall “Puppy,” festooned with 70,000 flowering plants, stood in the same place and was one of the most popular artworks ever shown there, according to Nicholas Baume, director of the nonprofit Public Art Fund. The fund presents art around the city, in this case in collaboration with Tishman Speyer.

Weighing 150 tons and soaring over 37 feet high, “Split-Rocker” is composed of two halves: one based on a toy pony of one of Mr. Koons’s sons, the other based on a toy dinosaur. Together, they form the head of a giant child’s rocker. Like “Puppy,” it will be covered with over 50,000 live flowers, in this case petunias, begonias, impatiens, geraniums and marigolds, to name a few.

Mr. Koons produced just two editions of the sculpture. He owns the one being installed in Rockefeller Center; the other is in the collection of Glenstone, the private museum in Potomac, Md., owned by Mitchell P. Rales, the industrialist, and his wife, Emily. “Split-Rocker” has been on view there for nearly a year.

Larry Gagosian, the New York dealer who represents Mr. Koons and is paying for the Rockefeller Center installation, said “Split-Rocker” is “very Duchampian,” adding, “It’s really a ready-made.” Conceived in 2000, the sculpture has been shown three times before, but only in Europe.  It was first exhibited at Palais des Papes, Avignon in 2000; and subsequently at Château de Versailles (2008) and Fondation Beyeler (2012). It is also in the collection, as noted above, of the Glenstone private museum in Potomac, Maryland, where it has been on view since June of 2013.  “Split-Rocker” will be at Rockefeller Center through Sept. 12.  Below is a photo taken when it was on display in Switzerland. 

Consistent with Koons's persistent fascination with dichotomy and the in-between, the inspiration for Split-Rocker came when he decided to split and combine two similar but different toy rockers, a pony belonging to his son and a dinosaur (“Dino”). The slippage or "split" between the different halves of the heads gives an almost Cubist aspect to the composition. As the model was enlarged to the scale of a small house, the split became an opening, a profile, and a light shaft. In contrast to his legendary Puppy of 1992, which was presented by Public Art Fund at Rockefeller Center in the summer of 2000, Split-Rocker suggests the idea of a fantasy shelter. Whereas the singular form of Puppy is closed and sculptural, the combined form of Split-Rocker is architectural and hollow.

 

My thanks to the NYTimes and the 30 Rockefeller website for this information.

Blooming Sunday

Janet, my sister, sent me this close up of the flowers I sent earlier in the week for her birthday.  Stunning colors and textures that were just too lovely not to share.  So, today is Father's Day and each yea when it comes around there are mixed feelings.  It will be 15 years next month that Dad died and this day suddenly took on a different feeling.  Not so much one of sadness, but rather one of reflection.  Looking back on all the adventures we had and how Dad was always there for each of us kids in a different way. 

Whether it was working the annual carnival at Sherm's Thunderbird or putting up the outdoor Christmas decorations at 697 Indiana, I still see his cheery face.  He took his sports viewing a little too seriously, and yet whenever I watch a sporting event I think of him sitting there in his chair - sometimes yelling at the TV...it always made me laugh.  The golf tournaments and the smelt feasts we shared at Grandma's house.  One of my favorite memories that I still have is the year I put a lump of coal in his stocking and he just could not stop laughing.  Somewhere I know I still have a photo of that moment.  It was the year that he and Mom opened their house to Anne, my friend from France.

The mornings he would come out when it began to rain and I was delivering papers, to being at the head of the table for all the major holidays.  The trips to Brookings during the summer to getaway or venturing up to the cabin for a weekend.  There are numerous times when I pause and look back.  Funny at how the challenging times fade and yet the joyous times seem to shine brighter.  Yup, I still miss him.

The World Cup Begins

It has begun - the month long competition being held throughout Brazil.  Are they ready?  Many say no, but you can not stop a ball rolling once it gets going and oh has this tournament gotten going.  In so many different ways.  Below are parts of a news story on CBS News' website.  Let the challenges begin.  USA plays its' first match Monday.

SAO PAULO -- "Tudo bem" - all good - as the Brazilians like to say.

Well, almost.

With a nationwide wave of excitement but also wafts of tear gas, the country that sees itself as the artful soul of soccer but is deeply conflicted about spending billions of dollars on hosting its showcase tournament kicked off one of the most troubled World Cups ever. It started Thursday with the home team in an opening match in a stadium that was barely ready on time.

Even the football-loving Pope Francis got a touch of World Cup fever. He sent a video message on Brazilian television before the match, saying that the world's most popular sport can promote peace and solidarity by teaching the importance of working hard to reach goals, fair play and teamwork, and respect and honor for opponents.

But the party wasn't all fun-loving samba. In Sao Paulo, police fired canisters of tear gas and stun grenades to push back more than 300 demonstrators who gathered along a main highway leading to the stadium.

The demonstrations in recent months have paled in comparison those last year, when a million people took to the streets on a single night airing laments including the sorry state of Brazil's public services despite the heavy tax burden its citizens endure. Those protests were largely spontaneous and no single group organized them.

That's now changed, said David Fleischer, a political scientist at the University of Brasilia. He said the recent protests have shrunk, because they are "very specific in their aims, so they are quite easy for the police to control."

Not Another Until 2049

Yes, I Found It On Amazon.

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Happy Birthday Janet (MSMF)

Today is a major milestone for her and so decided to send her some festive flowers which she let me know arrived at her school.  I have fond memories of the beach trip to Arch Cape for her 50th and being in Dallas for her 30th where she experienced her first all-nighter complete with Pictionary & breakfast at Denny's to cap off the night.

Below is something she sent to me in 2010 and I have looked at it many times. 

STRESS

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience,
raised a glass of water and asked, 'How heavy is this glass of water?'

Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.

The lecturer replied, 'The absolute weight doesn't matter.
It depends on how long you try to hold it.
If I hold it for a minute, it's not a problem..
If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm.
If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance.
In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.'

He continued,
'And that's the way it is with stress management.
If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later,
the burden will become increasingly heavy:
and we won't be able to carry on. '

'As with the glass of water,
you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again..
When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden.
So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down: don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow.
Whatever burdens you're carrying now,
let them down for a moment if you can.'

So, my friends, put down anything that may be a burden to you right now. Don't pick it up again until after you've rested a while.