Pirates Plank

Archive for January, 2010

Garron asked me to help clear out his old storage unit on 5th and Priest, he wanted to get rid of most of the stuff he had in the storage unit. It was old and rusting in the corners. The company had finally folded and so had most of the stuff people owned. The company had sent out notices to people to move their stuff out but when they did not, huge hippo of a truck belching large puffs of black smog from long pipes came in. Men in overalls and cigarettes and a James Dean smirk loaded the leftover parts and pieces of people into the truck. I only know about the men and the truck because I was there when the routine was going on. It had been a routine for about three months and probably longer because there was a lot of stuff to trash. Of course, the whole of the long lot was a large landfill. Changing spots of a landfill made no sense to me.

Garron wanted to keep some books. He had a rewritten book about old fairy tales redone with modern appendages, such as the seven dwarfs who made their mining business grow through team building programs, Snow White being the CEO and the Evil Queen a competitor. It was quite a clever reinscription of the tale that I got caught up in it and not the trash I was supposed to helping Garron lift out of his storage unit and into his truck. He just let me read though until I was finished.

There was another story similar to the seven dwarfs tale. This was about Sleeping Beauty. It was in an old literary journal from the seventies that was counterculture and fun. Sleeping Beauty was actually in negotiations for a new way of making the clothing industry revolutionary through her loom and the improvements she had made upon it. But the Evil Queen, there seem to be a lot of them in these stories, was having none of it. Tyrannical and cruel was her leadership. Training her minions in the innovative changes that Sleeping Beauty had made was out of the question to her. I wasted about two hours on the stories. Short, but filled with detailed pictures of the modern incarnations of old characters I had known and my father before me and his father too, it was too good to pass up a fresh vision that would still suit children today. Garron let me read this story too. I found out later he had written them both.

Since we’ve arrived here in Seattle, the weather’s been absolutely fabulous! Every day so far, the mornings start out cool, then warms up to 70 degrees in the afternoon. It’s our third day here and we went downtown to Pike Place Market to have lunch at Elliott’s, a restaurant we’ve heard so much about, and we weren’t disappointed. The food was delicious, colourful and very fresh. the bread was nice a crunchy. I had the Salmon sandwich with a salad and Ron had the taco’s.
 
We explored around the area of what we think is one of the better luxury hotels of Seattle, where we are staying and went in side a nearby grocery store. The grocery stores are different here, they all sell wine and have free Internet access; same as the laundromats and naturally all the coffee shops. We then noticed just how healthy all the local people are, they ride bikes and run, plus they drive either Japanese Hybrid or European cars. This is in stark contrast to the middle of the United States, where we mostly saw people driving gas guzzling pickup trucks or huge SUV’s.
 
Seattle is also very ecologically conscious, they recycle every singe scrap, cans, bottles, paper, plastic, food scraps, metal and their leaves and grass clippings. They are also the friendliest people, we’ve never had to worry about striking up a conversation with anyone where ever we went, they all took up a conversation with us instead, wondering where were from and what’s it like where we live, etc.
 
We’ve seen Mount Rainier, which is an amazing site and we’ve been to the Blue C Sushi bar, where sushi is served on a conveyor belt. We have taken full advantage of this great weather while here, because we see that there’s a huge front coming in tomorrow. Oh well, at least we got in some of that rarely seen sunshine.

What’s the connection between Knoxville, Tennessee, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.?  It’s the marble.  The National Gallery is built from marble taken the Marble City, taken from quarries used primarily in the early 20th Century.  But, of course, as in any museum, what the building is made of is not nearly as important as what’s contained inside — in this case, the art of a nation.

The museum has a number of recent acquisitions, including Byron Kim’s Synecdoche, 1991-Present, which is an art piece composed of oil and wax on wood.  The word synedoche is a linguistic term that refers to a figure of speech in which a partial reference to an object represents the whole object.  The idea behind the ongoing work, composed of four hundred ten by eight panels of a single color is meant to represent the skin tones of Byron Kim’s portrait sitters, including strangers, friends, neighbors, family, and even other artists.  It’s a work that explores a number of themes at once, including race, vision, color, and so on.  Other new work includes an 1890 sculpture of Nathan Hale, an 1848 carved sculpture of David of David and Goliath fame, the boy David standing on Goliath’s severed head, an authorized reproduction of Marcel Duchamp’s 1920 experiment in Cubism titled Fresh Widow, Andrew Wyeth’s 1947 painting, Wind from the Sea, Dutch artist Hendrick ter Brugghen’s Bagpipe Player, painted in 1624, and Alfred Thompson Bricher’s A Quiet Day Near Manchester in 1873.  A more recent painting from the post Jasper Johns/Robert Rauschenberg era joins the museum: Terry Winter’s 1986 Bitumen, a work that explores natural processes.  Finally, the museum has also added White Bread, a painting by James Rosenquist, a leader in the 1960s of the pop art movement, one of Rosenquist’s better known works.

The nation’s capitol is a terrific place to visit for art, but also for any number of fine museums.  Most of the time, all you need to do for an excellent time is to check into a DC hotel, whether it be a hostel or a luxury offering, and spend days on the Mall: exploring not only the National Gallery, but the Lincoln Monument, the Vietnam Wall memorial, and the Smithsonian’s many offerings, from Natural History to Air & Space.  If time permits, take a look of appreciation at the Knoxville Marble in the fountains at the National Gallery of Art.

One of the geographical elements that Cape May is famous for is also one of the reasons many scientists and professional and amateur bird watchers occupy the hotels Cape May every year. It is also home to many of these individuals as well as authors who choose migratory birds as their subjects. One of the highlights on the island for scientists and writers, as well as others including many of the tourists, is the Cape May Bird Observatory. The observatory’s current director Pete Dunne, is also one of the island’s most well known and respected birding and natural history writers.

Some of Dunne’s more famous books include Tales of Low-Rent Birder, Hawk Watch, A Guide for Beginners and The Wind Masters: Lives of North American Birds of Prey. In addition to book writing, Dunne has an impressive list of credits and an extremely busy career. He founded the World Series of Birding, which is currently accepted as being the most famous birding competition in the world. He is also the New Jersey Audubon’s Society’s Vice President of Natural History as well as the publisher of the New Jersey Audubon Magazine. He is well known to bird observers across the globe and his articles have been published in most major United States birding publications as well as the New York Times.

The World Series of Birding takes place annually in Mid May. It occurs over a 24 hour period of time on a given Saturday. The competition features participants who attempt to identify the largest possible number of bird species and covers the entire state. This major event is structured as a fund raiser for bird conservation efforts. It works much like a fund raising walk or run where participants collect pledges that are paid for each mile completed. In the World Series of Birding the pledges are collected and payable according to each correctly identified species.

Some of the hotels in port city Duluth have been built in perfect areas to reach all sorts of activities. First of all, they are not far from the Duluth International Airport so getting to your hotel is a breeze. They are also walking distance from the waters edge of Lake Superior. Here you can a walk or bike ride along the 5 mile lake walk that has become rather famous. Every year, usually in June, people come from all over the world to take part in the famous Grandma’s marathon. It is a summer weekend filled with live entertainment, great food, family activities and of course the greatest activity of all, running.

Also found right along the water is the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center. Yes, this a great place to book the next big conference but it also has many ways to entertain you and your family. It is the home of the OMNIMAX Theatre. There is always a changing feature so make sure you check and see what is playing on that massive screen. There are also many concerts that come to the Arena ranging from comedians to Symphonies and from Ballet performances to rock concerts the arena provides it all through out the year. If you like ice skating or hockey then you can spend some time at the ice rink.

Another main attraction you can get tickets for is the S.S. William A Irvin. She is the proud flagship of the US Steel’s Great Lakes Fleet. She has carried coal an iron ore to the ports of the Great Lakes and had a knack for barrelling through great storms to get to where she needed to go. Now visitors can come aboard and see what it was like live and work on this amazing ship.

I stopped drinking coffee at Starbucks when I found this great locally owned cafe on-the Internet called Cafe International. This is a small coffee shop owned by real people with real lives. When ever I stay in San Francisco to visit with friends, we like to stroll down there for coffee and breakfast. I am a creature of habit, so I do tend to order the same thing every time I’m there, but that’s because it’s so good. I love the coffee too; it’s freshly brewed, which is a plus in my book. The meal I always order is the Lox and Bagel. The cream cheese is awesome, it tastes home-made and not from a big Costco tub. It’s very creamy, fresh and the smoked salmon is always tasty. One of my friends always orders the mocha coffee with whipped cream on top and a generous bowl of cream of corn soup, which comes with a side of bread. He says it’s the best he’s ever had, so he too has to order it every time he come in.

The woman who owns the cafe is one of the most friendliest people I’ve ever met. She’s always making sure to say hello to everyone who enters her establishment, and I’ve noticed that many of the customers know her by name and talk with her about family, or work. She just calls me sweety or honey, but I don’t mind, I find it very endearing. I really think you’ll like the place just as must as my friends and I do.

International cafe is spacious, there are plenty of tables and comfy sofas. The staff is friendly and there is a good selection of food and drink. There’s no problem with just hanging out and reading a book or busy on your laptop.

I’ll never miss a chance to come here, I just wish there was an International Cafe where I live. Here’s the link where I found out about this treasured restaurant of San Francisco: http://www.sanfranciscorestaurant.com. Check it out, it’s a great site.

After several delays at the airport due to the weather in San Francisco, we finally arrived and began to celebrate our first year anniversary. Being on a budge, we were thinking about taking BART from the airport to our San Francisco cheap hotel. But, then my husband thought that maybe we could walk to our hotel, that way we could really get the feel for the streets of San Francisco. I gave him the vision of him carrying all our heavy bags on his shoulders as we blindly made our way through a city we’ve never been in before. He laughed and began to walk!

We made it to our hotel and the weather was on our side. By the time we checked in, it began to rain. Our hotel is located near Japantown and we ended up spending our first day there. We started with some very tasty Japanese food for lunch. We then walked around a bit and found a small mall that was filled with tons of wonderful items. Unfortunately, most of the items were very expensive, so we left empty handed. The mall had the same amount of restaurants as it did shops, which made it difficult to figure out which place to hit for dinner. We ended up at a small European/Japanese style pizza place that played Miyazaki films while we ate.

My husband ordered the curry pizza with tuna and asked if the cook could make the curry as hot as possible. The waitress began to be distressed and told him that he really wouldn’t want to do that. She begged him to try their regular hot curry first, but my husband insisted. He was right, it wasn’t all that hot and he thoroughly enjoyed his pizza. Before we made it back to our hotel room, we picked up a bottle of Sake‘ so we could celebrate our first year anniversary and our first time in San Francisco. What was even better, the store were we purchased our Sake’, also had Japanese Kit-Kats, my favorite! I could tell that this was a good sign that our 2nd year of marriage will go just as well as our first.

Well the planning of the city of Irvine California started with he Irvine Company in the 60s and was Incorporated at the end of 1971. From first sight, honestly, Irvine looks like just another southern California urban sprawl. It was however recently voted a top place to live because of the good jobs, schools, housing and low crime rate. There are many corporations in the city many of which are in the technology field. Some of the well known companies are Epicor Software Corp., ATEN Technology Inc., LA Fitness, Taco Bell, Quicksilver Software and Claim Jumper. I could fill this whole article with major businesses that have their headquarters based in Irvine California.

Another growing industry for Irvine is the movie business. Yes in recent years there have been some major movies completely or partially filmed in Irvine. The list starts with the beginning of the Planet of the Apes movie in 1968. It also was the repeat host for the Conquest of the Planet of the Apes in 1972. Remember the scary hills on the set of Poltergeist in 1982? You got it, Irvine hills. There were a few other projects that were created here in the 80s and 90s but it seems that the decade of 2000 gave this city some real hits. Some of the filming for  Iron Man 2008 was done here as well as Ocean’s Eleven 2001, Reign Over Me 2007 and You, Me and Dupree 2006.

Of course if your going to have great weather, golf courses and movie projects than your going to attract some famous people. There are famous politicians, sports stars, actors and musicians who are either from Irvine or have moved here. Would you recognize names like Dick Ackerman a California State Senator, Joey Allen guitarist of Warrant, Zack de la Rocha singer for Rage Against the Machine, actor Will Ferrell, many baseball players, a few football players and of course some volleyball players. So get a room at one of the hotels Irvine has available and see if you run into someone you would drool over.