November 2011 Archives

We spent Thanksgiving this year with Grandpa Roy and Grandma Sue, down south in Boise town.

Dinner was very traditional -- turkey, dressing, cranberries, and both kinds of potatoes. It was exquisite! And for desert both pumpkin pie and cheesecake.

I forgot my "No, I won't fix your computer" shirt and was duly pressed into tech support. At least the solutions were simple!

Bradleigh and I stayed up late and witnessed the spectacle of Best Buy at midnight first hand. We stood in three lines. The only one that moved faster than 2 feet/hour was the one to get in the store. Once inside it was just ridiculously slow and stupid. We left without opening our wallets.

Colin and I spent a few quality hours at Pojo's, where they had all-you-can-eat bumper cars. He must've gone 25 times!

Back at the ranch, when we weren't playing the Wii, we played blackjack with Grandpa Roy's good poker chips. Maybe next year we'll graduate to five card stud.

Colin took these to school today to celebrate his birthday with his classmates. These are his own invention:

• Chocolate chip cookies
• ...plus butterscotch chips
• ...plus m&m's
• ...with chocolate frosting
• ...and (plenty of) sprinkles

We've contacted our lawyer and expect the patent to be filed soon.

Colin has been keeping up with drum lessons and impressing his teacher. We scored this great drum kit off craigslist!

This weekend we were invited to a birthday parade for two-year-old Mark, which was conceived and executed by his awesome older brother! Some kids rode in the truck and threw candy. Some followed behind as the band played "When the Saints." The first trip around the block was so much fun, we just had to have another. It was so much fun!

I walked to work today and noticed the flags at half-staff in East City Park. This little monument to Moscow's veterans is flanked by some trees, and it doesn't really stand out.

I recently learned (or relearned) that my Dad's oldest brother served during WWII and I believe the next oldest brother served during the Korean war. Other than that, I personally know very few people who served in our military during wartime. At times I think that is a shame, although I wouldn't wish it upon anyone of course.

On my Mom's side, her Uncle Jake also served in WWII, and I happen to have copies of some of his family's old photographs. I wish I knew the story behind this one:

Outside the Yarn Underground, near my office.

I had a three day trip to Vienna and I took lots of pictures. Here are some of my favorites. In order to get a good seat on the long flight to Europe I had to fly on a United Airlines flight. For reasons that I no longer remember, this meant routing though San Francisco. From San Francisco to Frankfurt is 11 hours. Had a nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge coming in.

Saturday and Sunday were working days, but I spent all day Monday wandering around. The restaurant in our hotel had some really great photos on the wall of what seemed to be statues from around Vienna. They sort of inspired me to seek out the statues as well. Fortunately we were right next to "Stadtpark," which had a lot of statues of Vienna's famous composers, such as Franz Schubert and Johann Strauss, which looks to be very new and covered in shiny gold of some sort.

In a different (farther away) park I happened upon a statue of Mozart:

The group below are also all from Stadtpark:

It took me a long time to figure out what exactly was forbidden in the stick figure sign.

Vienna's churches are another popular tourist attraction. The largest is St. Stephen's Cathedral. The cathedral's exterior is currently undergoing an amazing restoration. You can see the old, dark black areas in the center, whereas the left side has already been cleaned. They cleverly cover the scaffolding with a fabric that has a full size picture of the cathedral itself. I suppose this makes it look better in tourist's photos.

The cathedral's roof is covered with lovely painted wooden tiles. The interior is equally impressive, although much of it was not accessible by tourists. I was there on the day before All Hallows Eve with a choir up front getting ready to rehearse for a performance of Mozart's Requiem.

I paid 5 Euro to climb up one of St Stephen's towers. The 340 steps get you about half way up. At the top there is (surprise!) a gift shop and a few small windows overlooking the city. The spiral stairway was pretty narrow, but not too crowded in the morning. Once back on the street I saw this man next to this relief. I think the two of them look a lot alike, minus the beard.

St. Peter's Church is just a couple streets away from St. Stephen's. It was more accessible so I spent more time here looking around and taking pictures. Very ornate inside with a beautiful painting on the huge central dome.

More pictures from walking around: