Back To The Trip - Manhattan

We were blessed by being invited to stay at the Harvard Club in NY. Elegant location, a half block from 5th Avenue, two blocks from Times Square, and only three doorways from the famed Algonquin Hotel.

Harvard Club's main stairway is elegant, and hardly legal.



The Library is exuberant in its 60-foot ceiling. This is life as it should be!



Cruising around the very noisy parts of lower Manhattan illustrates the total hypocrisy of the signs therein. Oh, well...

Hopeful Sign

Muslims and Christians together work to replace a cross atop a church in Baghdad.



This is a copyrighted photo by Michael Yon. Yon is a free-lance correspondent/photographer who has been working in Iraq for the past 3 or 4 years. His work is entirely supported by the readers of his blog.

Go to: http://www.michaelyon-online.com

Cuisine

Our cross-country trip was marked by various regional cuisines, often tasty.



But always elegant!

Statue Of Liberty

Mieko and Akiko went looking for the Statue of Liberty in New York City.



It took a while. . .






But, they finally found it!

We thank the French for this.

Happy Veterans' Day

It has been said that the only folks who have offered their lives to save yours are the US military and one other. But, this is not a religious blog.

The Wonders Of YouTube

This has to be the best two-minute commercial ever made, and now it's available anytime you want it. That's cool.

Lorelei on the Rhine

This, I guess, is what Germany is all about.



It is beautiful, and sad, at the same time. Hmmm.

Edelweiss

We were discussing Germany at dinner this evening, and this lovely song came up.

Enjoy.

We're Expecting . . .

some visitors from Japan tomorrow.



Wonder if they'll notice.

(No, not the home-grown pumpkin.)

Heading East

We'll be leaving for New York City on Sunday.



I think we'll walk.

I'm Feeling Nostalgic

Remember this?



I thought not.
Further to the point, do you realize that many people under 25 years of age have never rolled down a car window?
Or that most people under 50 years of age have never used a directional hand signal while driving?
(No! Not that hand signal!)

Sheesh!

Mazal Tov!

We got back safely from our weekend attendance at the sister's family wedding in Ft. Lauderdale FL. Lauderdale is warm, warm, warm. Temperature 88, humidity 88. Salt shaker at the sidewalk cafe was 2/3 rice, and 1/3 salt. . .and it didn't work. Hey, that's Florida


(That's the sidewalk cafe, in front of the hotel.)

We stayed at the historic Riverside Hotel, nee 1932 or thereabouts. Contrary to the street appearance, we were on the 11th floor of the new tower, with a stunning view of the New River and the high-rise condos that define both riverbanks.



Our guide took us on a whirlwind tour of Miami, Biscayne Bay, South Beach, etc., etc. Miami is a big place, about 60% Spanish-speaking, and not very friendly to the tourist except along the beach. We prefer Ft. Lauderdale.




Mieko and her sister did, however, visit the very steps where Versace was gunned/knifed or otherwise induced to assume room temperature (which in his case was 88 Fahrenheit) a few years ago.




The wedding went well. Lot's of traditional Jewish elements with appropriate responses. I'm always pleased when the rabbi has a good singing voice. May the young couple have a full and productive life together.

German Vocabulary

This is the word, in context, that I queried Rudy about. I misspelled it on the front page of winnacker.com, but Rudy found a German speaker at work who translated it, and the word means that the luggage carts may be taken on the escalator.

Thanks for that!

Rocks, Rocks, Stones, & More Rocks

Germany is full of rocks. The buildings are made of rocks, the streets are made of rocks, the sidewalks are made of rocks.



German cities have been utterly destroyed by wars about every 400 years or so for about forever. I figure that's where they get all the rocks. They're left over after the war, and you have to gather them up and do something with them.



The walls, turrets, and towers of all the castles and fortresses are made of rocks. They were designed to foil enemy attacks. Sometimes, the builders got pretty creative with their rock designs.



In Dresden, capital of Saxony, formerly in East Germany, the city government has made heroic attempts to rebuild all the rock/stone monuments. It's impressive, of course, but ultimately somewhat depressing.

(Come to think of it, I found Germany somewhat drepressing.)

Factlets (cont'd)

Did you know that Florida is flatter than Washington D.C.? By 64 feet? Flatter being defined as the change in elevation between the highest point and the lowest. Just go to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_elevation#Listed_by_elevation_difference

Who knew?

Vertical Weingut

"Weingut" means a wine estate; the vineyards, cellars, and production facilities of a winery. Along the Rhein river, the wineries plant the vines straight up the slopes on both sides of the river, "to make the vines work harder to get water, thus making richer, sweeter grapes." At places they actually string ropes up the steep hills between the rows of grapes in order to facilitate pruning and picking.

The vineyard workers come mostly from Poland, on short labor contracts, and return home when the work is done. All legally. Hmmmmm.



Many of the vineyards have only a few hectares of hillside planted, but their owners appear to know every square inch of each hill, the type of soil, and the qualities of the rocks that reside therein.



During our visit, the sun was shining brightly, and the vines were soaking up the rays. The locals, quite unused to the bright sun, did likewise.



Upon learning that we were from California, most often they thanked us profusely for bringing our sunshine with us.

Bitte zehr!

Our Guide To Deutschland

This was my tour guide and her textbook for getting us through Germany. The darned book was really very helpful. So was the lovely guide.

Learn from this! :-) (And click to enlarge, as always.)

Our European Sports Adventures

First, we tried our hands at skittles, a hugely-popular pub game in Worcestershire. This photo was taken at the Great 2007 English Cheese Festival and Exposition (or something like that.)




Then we visited the Old Course at St. Andrews, the home of golf. The ghost of Bobby Jones haunted our visit. It was moving.



Not a bit bad experience.

Break Time For A True Classic

Just turn the speakers up, sit back, relax and enjoy.




You're welcome.

PaddleWheeling Down (Up?) The Rhein

Just two weeks ago, we were on the Rhein, sailing down the valley with vertical vineyards on both sides of the River. Beautiful scenery.

Some of us, however, took any, and every, opportunity to recover from early starts and many tastings of German Reisling.

Travels With My Favorite Tuber

Greetings from delightful Bromsgrove in the center of the British Midlands. Note above a depiction of my impression of Germany after a mere two weeks visiting. It was a bit of fun nonetheless.

Lazy Days

Naptime thanks to lucianne.com/

1935 - 2007 R.I.P.

Sometimes, Politics Is Fun

You have to wait for the final 15 seconds of this 1.5-minute clip of John McCain at a New Hampshire high school.

Sometimes, It Just Works!

Well, the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge just reopened, 11 hours ahead of schedule, and in time for the LaborDay vacationers to get home easily. CCMyers, of Rancho Cordova, was the Contractor, and CalTrans was the client. Together they moved a mere 6500-Ton (13000000 lbs) replacement section into the place where they previously demolished the former 65-year-old bridge section.

Curt Myers fashions himself and his company as the Red Adair of freeway works. He did the Northridge rebuild, and won a huge amount for doing it ahead of schedule. He rebuilt the melted Oakland overpass earlier this year, and won the $5 million prize,
Very impressive, (and why, by the way, I have always loved construction)

http://www.ccmyers.com/

I Guess I'm Just A Softy

(Roscoe likes it, too!)

And This One's For Dog Lovers

4 KAT LVRZ ONLY!

I'm kind of late to this party, I guess, but it sure looks like fun.



Just copy and paste:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

It's State Fair Time

Every year, at the end of summer, and the start of school, there occur myriad State Fairs. Ours is in Sacramento, of course.

The picture above, however, is from the Minnesota State Fair. You may have noticed more than a few somewhat-overweight folks in the Upper MidWest. I certainly have. Is that a coincidence?

On the other hand, you might prefer these hand-made delicacies:

A New Neighbor. . .

is moving in/up next door to our patio.




This was expected, so it's no big deal, and the designer has put no windows facing us. That's good.

At the other end of the yard there is going to be one more built in a few months. It will be a big one, but after that, the subdivision will be complete. And, the neighborhood will be a lot more quiet.

Shhhhhhh...

(Click to enlarge)

Australia Has Talent!

You're going to love this:



Many thanks to "dogphobic." Don't ask me how she finds these things.

Boulder? Berkeley?

Seattle? San Francisco?



Just read it carefully, and then figure out which city posted it.

(Okay, maybe that was too easy. But, just think - with the change of just one word, the sign would fit into any one of the cities named above. (And a few more, I suspect.))

Conservation Conversation

Vice President Gore urges us to recycle paper products and conserve energy.

Oooops!

First, they lie on top of my keyboard. Then they go fishing in my aquarium!

Now, the fisher-cat has fallen in. Maybe that will teach him/her/it.

(HT: lucianne.com)

Worth Thinking About

"A ship is safe in harbor. But, a harbor is not what a ship is for."

I like that. HatTip to Mark Steyn

"Sitting On The Pumpkin . . .

Waiting For The Halloween."

756!

Controversy aside, this is a sweet moment.

If You Haven't Blogged For A While. . .

Just say that something crashed on your computer!

(H.T. dogphobic )

Couch Potato(e)s Rejoice!

Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.
Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.

The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.

“The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better.”

(H.T. Times of London)

I'm Hungry!

Ahh, wait. Let me think about that.

Nanh, maybe later; I'll survive.

Nice Summer Picture

Friends and Lovers.

(H.T. ninacamic.blogspot.com/)

This Is A Photograph!

It is not a drawing or a dramatization.


In Malmo, Sweden, designed by Santiago Calatrava.

Simply because the computer permits us to design this, and allows us to construct this, do we welcome it? Is it good?

I think not.

If you really want to rent an apartment here:

http://www.bizzbook.com/map/turningtorsonews.html