An update is even more overdue

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Time—that slippery conduit through which we pass—has eluded me once again; at least where this blog is concerned. I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll simply start to ramble, as usual, I suppose.

Fir

The first thing that is coming to mind is my hair. Yeah, I know, we sort of got over all that hair business way back in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Well, my hair was never really that long in those days. Last summer, my hair was getting a little long, so my wife said, “If you want to have your hair a long, I’m going to take you to my hairdresser for your 60th birthday present.” I have the sort of hair that I can have shortish and longish which allows me to go a few months between haircuts. My wife likes my hair both ways.

So, off we went and had this very nice girl, Brandy, tidy-up my hair. I looked on the floor and said, “Not bad hair for 60.” Then came the reply that just simply caught me, “If you had a foot of it, you could donate it to cancer patients going through chemotherapy.”

What an idea! I could try my hair long and then do something good with it. Great! That was in mid-August and I am getting there slowly—very slowly, it seems. Perhaps it has slowed down a bit. It has been pretty unmanageable. Having long hair for a while is a neat idea, but getting there is not as easy as I thought it would be. Anyway, I am still working on it.

Writing (& book)

In case someone might actually be following my blog and might just be having some remote thoughts about my book, it is still underway. I have discovered, actually I’m sure I sort of knew, that the writing part is far easier and takes less time than editing. Most books are severely under-edited. I’m not ready to employ and professional editor to pour over my work through several versions, so I am recruiting people I know to be reader/editors.

I began by printing each of the three sections of the book and inserting them into three binders. Each reader/editor would get a coloured pen and an instruction/feedback sheet along with other information, such as target audience. The first person got section one. When they finished, I gave them section two and gave section one to the second reader/editor. It worked rather well and I got plenty of great edits and feedback. I have done this a couple of times as well as working through it with my writing coach.

I now have a couple of copies of the entire book out to do the same sort of process. This takes a long time. Busy people are doing this in their spare time and so am I. As the editing moves slowly along, it is difficult to maintain momentum and keep the energy up. It is interesting when I talk to people about my book. I only have to get started and everybody has something to say regarding their own experiences with technology. I remind them that my book is about being human and that we need to focus on that in the midst of the Technojungle that is devouring us.

Music

Here is an area of my life that has suddenly gained tremendous momentum and energy. Music was eluding me for years. I didn’t know what to do, or how to get started. Then an opportunity came up to play some Christmas carols just over a year ago now. Then I got invited to join a small band called The Deep Cove Old Time Jazz Band and play in retirement and care homes. I had done this over 25 years ago and had not played since. It was tough to get going again.

In June we played our last gig. So I asked the fellow learning to play banjo in the band if he would like to get together to play some tunes over the summer. I didn’t want to lose what I was beginning to gain. He said that he would. Then I wondered if the trombone player might like to join us. We had known each other some 35 years prior at the Hot Jazz Club. He said he would. He also said he knew of a couple of other fellows who might like to join in. Thus began an all summer long task of trying to get a group together. Everyone was going away at various times.

By mid to late August we were getting close to beginning to practice. I was amazed at how many tunes I know and can play. Soon another banjo player came who I also knew back in the Hot Jazz days. We practiced weekly until he went to play down under for a couple of months. We took Christmas off and are now having causal practices to get up to speed again.

I have some amazing news about my a cornet. I think it deserves a special entry, so look for a separate article about my cornet dream of a dream cornet.

Photography

Photography is an area that I have not done much with for a long time. I guess I am sort of waiting to see how my life goes. I do have a lot of photos I have just started to do something with and I do have two blogs about photography that I would like to work on. That is enough to keep me busy. I suppose I am concerned a bit about the age of my camera. It would be nice to get to the point where I could get or even need a new camera. I have one in mind, but it is expensive to keep up on technology.

Graphics

It has been a lot of years since I did any graphics work. Actually, I worked in training people around 15 years ago. I never considered myself a designer.

Last year, my friend Glenn, said he wanted to start a newsletter business. I didn’t know what to think, since printed flyers seem to be going the way of the dinosaurs. Nevertheless, I said I would help do a pilot. I found some open source software and struggled along with it.

Suddenly one day, the newsletter gained a companion flyer for a local shopping centre. We completed both on high quality paper and hand delivered them to the community. Since then, we have done three more and two or three are in the works. I have had to switch software a few times and gained some inexpensive yet powerful software. It is amazing what is out there now since Adobe started to rent their software and many users simply don’t want to follow that model. I have had some great compliments, done some photography (getting paid for the first time in over 45 years of holding a camera) and I have been amazed at how much I enjoy the work and even have fun. I have had to do some late nights though.

Baking

I continue to do my regular baking of pizza shells for Friday night pizza night, buns, bread, pasta and a few other things. Usually, I still grind ancient grains into flour in our Vitamix blender. For New Years Eve, we had another party and Glenn and I made the decadent Sin-O-Man (cinnamon) buns. They were amazing again.

Family

Well, my daughter, Michelle, came home from living a year in Australia and jumped right in to training to become a personal trainer. She is now working in this field everyday for long hours. Malcolm did a co-op job working on some helmet technology that can reduce the risk of concussions. It was very timely, since this sort of problems has been in the news a lot. He even made it to the news. He is now back in class studying Mechatronics Engineering. We are all living together in our home and having normal family dynamics.

Enough

That should be enough for now. I have continued to write a bit everyday, not always for an hour as I did to complete my book, but I have managed to amass a plethora of articles that I could put on this blog or my Technojungle blog. I just seem to be a bit short on time and I will be getting busier in the near future. Yet, many people do say that to get something done, one should give it to a busy person. We shall see. I have had doing this writing you are reading and a couple of other related tasks on my todo list for a couple of weeks, I think. We shall see. I still need to edit this and keyword it before I can upload it.

Kauai — From Christmas to New Years

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Whew! We are flying home from our fantastic vacation at the the Marriott Waiohai Beach Club in Poipu, Kauai. My sister made sure we were kept busy experiencing all that we could. I have already mentioned some things we did. I continued to take an enormous number of photos, many of waves and sunrises. My storage for photos has been eaten up by the unexpected videos I shot with the little waterproof camera my sister gave us. I am now down to the onboard storage of both my cameras. I should make it, however, I will have to do some real juggling to find storage space to sort photos and edit all the videos into a short movie.

Back to the activities. Our hosts, my sister and brother-in-law, were truly generous by not only stocking the unit we stayed in with plenty of food, but also, getting us out to eat in the local dining places. For them, it is the experience with the dining rather than the price, however, they always point out that we are the least expensive guests to take out since we do not drink alcohol. So, the food is even more abundant.

One night we went to a semi-outdoor restaurant nearby. We sat right near the live music which included a fellow who surfs by day and plays the electric ukulele and sings by night. He was good too. Besides the fellow playing guitar at the outdoor bar at the Waiohai, we did not hear much more live music. Oh, there was a small jazz combo at the Grand Hyatt bar as we walked through.

One morning, we went for breakfast at the local golf course and had another huge meal. It seems that the World War II canned meat spam, still has a following in Hawaii. There are many dishes incorporating the meat, long forgotten elsewhere. I also had Kalua pulled pork, on other occasions too, even on the airplane a while ago. I tried my sister’s breakfast burrito and had a banana and Macadamia nut pancake with coconut syrup. I simply could not resist.

Another night we went to a Mexican restaurant, yes, Mexican in Hawaii, just to be different, I guess. The unique experience here was the table-side guacamole. Pedro came and made the guacamole, two servings, in a lava bowl right at our table and it was surely the best I have ever had.

We were treated to more surfing lessons. Our instructor, looked like true Hawaiian surfer. No family, just teaching surfing everyday, all day. He was there at sunrise and still around after sunset. Very dedicated. We were learning on reef surf, different from the beach surf at the previous lessons. All I can say is, it is still hard to do. But, we sure had fun. My son really took to stand-up paddle boarding and spent some hours on the last day trying to graduate to catching waves on the board.

The resort has a new contract to have daily scuba lessons available. Our instructor struck me immediately as very confident. There was my sister and three of us from my family. Neal told us that we had to do the academics first, so, he gave a short lecture, but, at a high velocity. One rarely runs across someone who can speak so fast. He assured us by giving his long list of qualifications, including the fact that he is the top person for the Pacific area and does work in movies and trains and qualifies instructors. Next, we had a couple of performance skills to master and demonstrate, such as clearing our mask of water and finding and clearing our regulators, all under water. It turned out to be so simple that, in no time, we were swimming around the pool underwater and having a great time. After, my sister invited Neal for a drink where we talked more about scuba and other interesting stuff. We came away from the experience knowing it had been a real treat. We had been in the company of a true master, just as we were with Mitch and Nelson, our surfing instructors.

As the trip was nearing its end, my sister urged me to do a few more things. One morning they took me to a somewhat remote beach for some photography. The drive was rough, through some private land. The road was the common red dirt with deep potholes, however, the Grand Caravan finally made it. We walked along the beach, along some rocks, I took many photos and then we did some snorkelling.

It was the last day, so when we got back from the early morning trip, my sister still had a few more activities for me to do. I had to keep up, somehow, so I grabbed some food and then we were off to have a swim with my wife and daughter at another beach and then, do some boogie boarding at still another beach on the other side of the resort and past a park. It was a crowded beach that we went to. People were body surfing and boogie boarding. It was difficult to keep from running into each other. On one ride I crossed over and my son ended up riding on top of me all the way into the shore.

I was not finished yet. My sister had some fish food to feed fish while snorkeling, so, off I was again to snorkel. My wife even went too. Not knowing where to put the food while we swam out to the reef, my sister suggested I shove the plastic bag into my bathing suit pocket. At one point, as I was using my small video camera, I realized that there were more fish than normal. A quick check of my pocket and I knew they already got the fish food.

Finally, it was time to get ready for the New Years Eve party on the beach. We started at the bar with some fancy drinks, virgin for most of us, and some dinner. People were already setting off fireworks on the beach and launching fire lanterns (I know there is proper name for them, but, I don’t have it on hand) that would float high into the air and drift away. Then came the big Poipu Beach fireworks display and the party was over before midnight. We went and had some ice cream, watched TV and then got tired, so we went to bed.

I feel as if there is so much I have not written about. We really did pack plenty of memories into this eight days of fun in the sun. We are about to land in Seattle for our connecting flight to Vancouver.

I will post some photos on my PhotoBlog and Feature Photos website once I get them sorted. I may even post some video on YouTube. I may also post links relating to the trip, if I get a chance.

Beginning to move away from summer

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It is Labour Day and that signals the start of the Fall routines. Let me take a moment to wrap up my Summer for you.

Such a busy summer it seems to have been. Michelle and Florian were here for over a week again. It was a nice time. I have sure eaten a lot of food. We had parties and I did a baron of beef on the rotisserie. This was interesting. Patti went to Queensdale Market and checked out the beef. On the day of the BBQ, she sent me to get it. The butcher was one of the umpires from some of Malcolm’s baseball games. I explained that my wife had talked to someone about a baron of beef and that it would cost about $30. He went into the cooler and came out with a huge hunk of meat. I was a bit shocked at the size. As we talked about baseball, he carved away and then handed me the most perfect chunk of beef for $31. Wow, did that cook nice. What a great dinner.

Days before that, my sister had a party for all the August birthdays. I think there was eight of us. That was a pretty good party.

We made a trip to the US and Michelle and Florian wanted to go all the way to Alderwood Mall, almost to Seattle. I vowed never to do that sort of long trip and shopping in one day again, and that was last year. On the way down, we were in a modest lineup and then got hauled over. It turned out that Florian, being German, is required to file an I-96 form every 90 days. So, there we were for the first time held up in the customs office. Once done, we headed to all the usual shopping spots, including Alderwood and the Olive Garden for the Endless Pasta Bowl special. While we waited for the kids to shop, Patti went into Macys and found a $400, 20 piece, bed set for $65. How could we resist such a deal and chance for Patti (and I) to have a wonderful bed set. It even includes curtains.

Yesterday, we ventured back to the US for my Uncle Gordon’s 90th birthday party at Cousin Don’s at Birch Bay. On the way, we shopped more and ended up with a car full of pillows. When we got to the party many relatives I have not seen for years were there. There was so much food and I had a really great time. It was a long tough wait at the border to get back. Everybody was jumping lanes and making new lanes. Not great. Then we found out that Malcolm, who was looking after Paula’s dogs, was not given a ride home when they got home from the party at Don’s. Malcolm had been there for 16 hours and we had to go get him late at night.

I wanted to go to the PNE today, however, we all wanted to sleep in and spend the day with Malcolm, who did not want to go to the PNE. So strange, I always wanted to go to the PNE when I was young So, we went on a tough bike ride up to the Demonstration Forest. Malcolm, of course, was able to out ride us, but, we still managed to get plenty of kilometers in, some of it was up hill too.

When we got home, we had a feast of crab given to us last night at the party. Such a treat. As I write here, Malcolm and Patti are making cookies. Tomorrow, we start getting back to the routines that happen after summer.

I have not been making much bread over the summer, except when Michelle and Florian were here I made a raisin bread with molassas. We were short of raisins, so we substituted some chocolate chips. It is pretty good and I gave the kids one of the loaves.

I have had a curious thought on my mind the last few days. It started with my feelings around the time of the start of Summer. I had a routine and was sort of used to getting up earlier and taking Malcolm to school, then heading to work. I knew that an adjustment to life was coming as school was ending and thoughts of hot days entered my mind. The thing is, I am uncomfortable in hot weather. I feel best when the temperature is in the low 20s C and the nights get cool. As things turned out, the first half of the summer was not hot and August has been my temperature. For many folks, is has been less than Summer like, yet, I have been busy and not too hot. I am used to this routine now and just as I have reached this point, I am faced with changing again. What sort of winter is in store for us this year? Have I really made good attempts to enjoy the Summer days and make the most of them? Part of me is happy with this late Summer routine and part of me is looking forward to getting back to other routines. Curling is starting soon. I may be able to get more blogging done and even photography. May favourite seasons are Spring and Fall. Photography is better then too. I think I am experiencing perfect weather, plenty of interesting things going on, lots of work and it seems hard to leave all that behind or, in some way begin to move away to find a different balance to life. Late Summer has been pretty good and that has brought happiness. Perhaps the months to come may balance out in some way as Summer has. At least I have some good memories and perhaps that is what counts.

NY11

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Here is a quick one to wish you all a Happy New Year. Nothing very spectacular for us here. I cleaned the house today. Patti tried to invite some people over, but, everyone was busy. Malcolm was working up the mountain until around 9:30, Michelle kicked up a fuss about not having a party to go to. I BBQ’d steaks, shrimps and baked potatoes. I enjoyed all the food and munchies we had around and tried to watch movies while the women folk carried on. I picked up Malcolm from the Seymour shuttle bus. Patti took Michelle to a party and is now at Canyon Heights Church. I have been polishing off the eggnog (san rum, of course). Malcolm and I watched them blow-up the Seattle Space Needle on TV. Now, Malcolm is watching the Dick Clark New Years program—no Dick Clark. I have to go pick-up Michelle. Just another quiet New Years—nice.

Editing note: Patti picked up Michelle on her way home. Malcolm has gone to bed and so go I, unless I get stuck watching another ‘Awnowld’ movie (we enjoyed True Lies, now it is Junior). Good night.

Just a note about News Years Day evening. We will be at Grandma Axford’s for pizza. So, that is settled.

Happy New Year!!!