Phun Photo Phriday

Rules for Carnies.

I have an issue with #10…particularly the fact that it’s #10.

Elvis Lives!

I know this because I saw him standing on the off ramp at the Sylvan overpass with a sign that read…’will play oldies 4 food’.  I’d recognize that white jumpsuit and those moves anywhere. Yep!

NYC Theatre Line-up

The New York trip is less than two weeks away and last night I was able to get tickets to Regrets Only which begins previews just 2 days before we fly home. We really wanted tickets to this show for two reasons: 1) it was written by Paul Rudnick who penned Jeffrey; 2) it stars the brilliant Christine Baranski. (God, we love this woman! ) We’re really looking forward to this even if we do have to be out of bed at 5:00 am the next morning to make our flight.

We now have a pretty full schedule which starts with Idomeneo at the Met. A trip to NYC just isn’t complete without the opera and it I’m looking forward to hearing if Ms. Roschmann lives up the hype. It opens this Thursday so I’ll be watching for reviews and hope they’re good. Then again…just listening to James Levine conduct is worth the ticket price!

Wicked, which you may recall we were recently given free tickets to attend in Portland. This will be the second time we see this in a month but we’re not complaining…it’s a fun show.

Naked Boys Singing comes highly recommended by a couple of friends and Rita insisted on purchasing tickets in the second row. Something tells me we’re going to have a really good time!

Spamalot. I haven’t heard a bad word about this show yet, and though it’s been around a while I’m told it’s still as funny as ever. Of course I grew up on Monty Python and can never tire of the humor.

Avenue Q, the ‘gay puppet musical’ as many folks refer to it, is not your usual Broadway musical but I love the Sesame Street approach…and I know a few gay puppets myself!

Heartbreak House. Unfortunately this is the only other straight play we have tickets to attend. It’s the beginning of the season so most are in previews but you can hardly go wrong with George Bernard Shaw…and what a cast!

There are a few others that we’re watching. With so many shows opening or beginning previews while we’re there, the option to catch another show or two is still open. Of course it’s not like we’ll be lacking things to do.

Aaarrgh!

There was a Pirate Fest in Cathedral Park on Saturday. I was able to capture this Schooner just after it passed the park and exchanged cannon fire with the Park Pirates, of which there were many. You’ll notice a lack of pictures of said Park Pirates. That’s because I couldn’t bring myself to pay $12 dollars to join 500 screaming kids and their Pirents inside a cyclone fenced Pirison. So, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Phun Photo Phriday

Leek blossom.

Autumn

The autumn weather is just so exhilarating with the cumulus clouds building against the clear blue sky, the sunbreaks and the occasional downpour. The air is cool, the sun appears and warms you just enough to lull you into removing your sweatshirt, then just as quickly it’s cool again and you slip the sweatshirt back on.

The vistas are spectacular and all the volcanoes are ‘out’ as they say in the Northwest. You can see them all clearly and they falsely appear to be close enough to touch. You can even see Mt. Rainier in all it’s 14,000+ feet of grandeur. It’s nearly 175 miles away yet it sits there snuggled up close to Mt. St. Helens from this point of view. It makes one feel so small.

And…Mt. St Helens.

I pass no fewer than three viewpoints on my way to work and can find numerous places in our labs and offices where it is clearly visible. I still get a thrill everytime I see an ash plume rising from it’s crater. It is thrilling to live so close to an erupting volcano and yet far enough away that it doesn’t pose a serious threat.

It is this time of year that I find myself being motivated. I want to get out and enjoy the last of the pleasant weather. The air is fresh and clean and the earth seems to be settling into it’s winter slumber. The leaves start to change, the lawn begins to turn green and everything looks clean and refreshed. Sure, some plants are dying back but others are just coming into their own, their death delayed until winter, and although spring is the season of rebirth, it all starts here, now, with the cleansing rains and cool temperatures of autumn.

I’ve Got it Bad!

I’ve posted before about being a sports addict but it’s worse than I thought. To make matters worse…I’ve become a tivo addict too! Yep, I’ve got it bad!

Thursday we had a thunderstorm that took our power down for a brief time. When the power returned, the satellite dish didn’t. We tried all the tricks but the darn thing wouldn’t come back on and we were reduced to the 5 channels we can pick up here in the woods; three network channels with sketchy reception, the FOX/BUSH Administration propaganda channel and the local Christian channel.

A call to DirecTV resulted in the shipment of new equipment but it would take 3 business days. That meant no TV until Tuesday night at the earliest. To make matters worse we lost the programs we’d tivo’d and hadn’t yet seen like Project Runway. So, here I am trying to avoid blogs that mention the show because I want to watch it for myself on one of the numerous reruns but everywhere I go…there it is! I hit the back button and head somewhere else but very few people didn’t blog about it this week. It must have been good!

What really killed me was trying to watch football. I couldn’t tivo any games and the one I could watch had really poor reception. Then I kept wanting to back up and see that perfect ass play again only to remember the tivo was out of commission. Tonight though it really hit me. I jumped on the treadmill and hit the TV button to watch Monday Night Football and was reminded that it was moved to ESPN. Okay…I’ll run a quick couple miles and then go watch the game on the satellite…which…is…not…working. DAMN! I’ve been thinking about watching the game all afternoon and now I’m reduced to searching for scores on the internet. Like I said…I’ve got it bad and I haven’t even mentioned baseball. Oh..you don’t even want me to go there!

So, I guess I’ll catch up on some blogs…as long as they haven’t posted about PR and then I’ll settle in for a night of…er…um…maybe I’ll just go read a book!

Winding Down

The weekend was nice enough even though we didn’t do a whole lot. We did trek down to Salsa, Salsa, a salsa tasting event, that was less event than promised. It used to be a heritage fesitival and is where we found the recipe that we ultimately altered to become our famous salsa verde. Okay, it’s only famous within our family, friends, co-workers, their family, friends and co-workers and their….you get the picture…it’s pretty well known around these parts. But I digress. Sauvie Island Farms took the event over and renamed it Salsa, Salsa which offered a salsa tasting, a veggie stand and a couple tables offering information on sustainable farming.

The salsa tasting consisted of about 15 different restaurant salsa recipes. There was a small panel of judges none of whom we recognized and then the public was allowed to taste and vote on the salsas as well. We were rather disappointed with the selections and most were just plain boring. They were also auctioning off the signed recipes and a couple cups of the salsa for a minimum donation of $25. Sorry folks, I can find better salsa recipes here and I don’t have to pay a penny.

We were there a whole 30 minutes so we decided to find something else to do and headed over to the St. John’s Bridge celebration. It too was small and uneventful having had a full on bash when the bridge was reopened this spring after a full restoration. So it was home to the yard and garden.

The garden is on it’s last legs and we’re just picking the last of the tomatoes and enjoying the sunflowers.

Some of the smaller ones have found their way into the house since the rain started today in full force. This is my favorite, the Teddy Bear Sunflower.

These are twelve feet high and about 2 feet across. I’d have to get a ladder out to give you any perspective so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

It won’t be long before we take the fence down and let the deer have their way with whats left. We will be sure to pull the pepper plants first and hang them in the garage. The habanero and fatalli peppers will last well into December and with their bright orange and yellow skin we will probably string them up and hang them in the kitchen. A nice reminder of the summer and useful all winter.
With the season winding down we had to get some dirt moved and borrowed a friend’s tractor but that will have to wait for another post. I do have to say that as much as I miss the long summers of California, I love the change of seasons and fall is probably my favorite. I’m now ready for the rain to return.

Trenches

I read this today and it made me think about Kabul. Kabul is proving to be the only stronghold of Democracy in Afghanistan but only because of the large US/Allied Forces presence. You step outside of Kabul and find the rest of the country is once again being controlled by the warlords. The opium trade is in full swing and is again financing the Taliban. How do I know this? Besides the news reports I have friends in the military who are doing their second year-long duty in Afghanistan…that’s how?

I read this bit about Baghdad and Dubya’s speech on Monday night made perfect sense. In his mind, if we control Baghdad we control Iraq just like Kabul/Afghanistan. Another port in the storm of terrorism and just in time for the elections. Wow…we’re winning!

How long will it be before Bush builds a mote around the White House and finally comes out of his closet and declares his place as dictator? You know he wants to! Building a mote around Baghdad isn’t going to help win the war in Iraq, it’s simply going to prove what many folks have been saying for a long, long time. He’s out of his fucking mind!

God help America!!

Phun Photo Phriday

In honor of this weekend’s 75th anniversary celebration of the St. Johns Bridge, the most beautiful bridge in Portland if not all the Pacific Northwest, I offer this…