Vacation's End

Our week in New Harbor flew by just as you would guess it would. We spent time with Stu, Bogusia, Robert and Konrad during the first part of the week, fit in a dinner with Meg's family friends Vic and Midge Hart, and then enjoyed a visit from Rod and Val during the last part of the week. We fit in visits to Pemaquid Beach, day trip to Monhegan Island as well, and a wonderful emotional return to the Bradley Inn for dinner.

All that said, my favorite part of the week was the quiet time that Meg and I had together. It took some time to slow down and get used to just 'doing nothing', especially given the modern amenities of our 'getaway cottage' including broadband wireless and cable television. But we did get used to it. We spent more time reading than we have in a long time. We watched a couple old movies late into the night. We biked around McFarland Shore, New Harbor and Pemaquid Point and of course we sampled the Shaw's raw bar together.

The need to get away - to break from the daily routine and to get new perspectives on your own life and the rest of the world - is so easy to underestimate. We've taken alot of wonderful "busy" vacations - the marathon trip to Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic comes to mind - but I think these get away vacations are equally important in a different way. We're already working on booking a cottage for next year - and thinking of an off season visit as well.

The picture was taken one morning from the deck at Sail Away. The mornings would start with the bright sunlight streaming in from the ocean and the sound of lobster boats moving through the sea of traps. The picture below is also from the front deck.

New Harbor Maine

We are blessed with being on vacation this week in New Harbor Maine. We arrived Saturday evening to find our rental house - which we had taken sight unseen - to be even more than we had hoped for. Since then we've been delighted to awake to gulls and the occasional lobster boat in the morning with a beautiful oceanfront view the rest of the time. Truly a delight. The week is already speeding by... perhaps two weeks next time...

Another K-Man

Meg got this shot of Konrad at the door of Louise's screened in porch this past weekend. He's a cruel combination of cute that reminds me of another young K-Man.

A Work of Art

We found this wonder of nature on one of our potted plants this morning. One of billions of such wonders that get created and destroyed every day.

Tuned In.

This fellow showed up at the house the other day. Meg noticed him on the front porch as she was watering the plants. He agreed to stick around for a photo op.

Congratulations to Sean and Jess!!

Jessica and Sean have a new baby girl!! Mia arrived this afternoon weighing 7.11 lbs and by all reports looking great!! Mom and baby are both doing well I hear. I can't wait to hear more news tomorrow! Rest well all of you.

Tropical

Boy it's been steamy the last several days. And there is not alot of hope in sight as it appears it will continue through the week.

It has made for some beautiful evenings. Meg took this shot last night of the setting sun - truly a big red ball in the sky.

Fawn 2005!

We were fortunate this morning to have a deer wander quietly up the treeline on the NorthEast side of the house while we were having morning coffee. She kept coming nearer and it was a real delight to see her up close. Meg was going through some magazines and held up an issue of Vermont Life with a beautiful deer and fawn on the cover. Not two minutes later, I realized that the deer we were watching *had* a fawn with her, previously obscured by the tall grass!

This fawn was new! It was nursing much of the time and Momma was licking the little shaver every chance she got. Long story short, they wandered up closer to the house, actually coming out on the lawn and we took about a billion pictures. Here are a couple.

Champs!!

[AKA Marty's victory dousing!]

Marty and the boys went to Burlington and delivered big time again, beating Northfield 3-2 in a tense but strangely familiar South Royalton victory to become Division III Vermont State Champions!!

Though Northfield scored first, there was a feeling of inevitability about the ability of the Royals to come back and do what they needed to do. They did just that when Justin Densmore slapped a ball through the right side of the infield, scoring SoRo's third run. That was all Nevin Fulcher needed as he, and the SoRo defense (led by catcher David Manning's pitiless putouts at second base the only times Northfield was foolish enough to attempt stealing) held Northfield scoreless over the last six innings. Nevin worked hard all day, but owned Northfield in the seventh; once he threw the first pitch of the inning, we knew the game was over. And indeed it was as shortstop Paul Manning gunned down the last Northfield batter to give the Royals the State Championship.

These kids have had an amazing year, ending the year 19-0, going to and fro on a luxurious bus paid for by the royal fans of South Royalton who bought hamburgers at the SoRo "Cook Shack" run by Marty's Mom, buying 50-50 tickets all summer, giving TV interviews, dousing their coach after the game, and many of them graduating tomorrow. Tonight South Royalton was to celebrate with fire engines carrying the young heroes threw town. Now that's support.

It's been such great fun to watch these kids - a reminder of the intensity of high school emotions, as well as a poignant illustration of the greatest and most beautiful of sports. I thank my friend Marty for leading these champions and allowing me to vicariously participate in a very special slice of life that I might have missed had I stuck to delighting our customers with world class software solutions.

Northfield's futile waving at Nevin's pitches.

It was a beautiful day for baseball at Centennial Field at UVM.

South Royalton goes to the State Championship!

The boys from South Royalton did it!

They beat BFA-Fairfax (the team that bounced them from the playoffs last year) 3-2 in a wonderful pitchers duel in South Royalton this afternoon. As usual, Marty's boys put a couple runs on the board early, but unlike previous games they were unable to extend their lead. The good news was that Paul Manning, ostensibly their #2 pitcher had his game of the year, striking out 12 and walking nobody, taking a three run lead into the seventh inning. Despite BFA-Fairfax pushing 2 runs across that inning, Paul struck out the last batter of the game (above) to preserve the 3-2 victory and catapult the Royals into the Division III State Championship game at Centennial Field at the University of Vermont, either Friday or Saturday afternoon.

It was a great game and a great way to go to 18-0. One more little item to take care of...

Royals Prevail

Marty's South Royalton gang worked a tough win yesterday in the second round of the 16 team playoffs, beating Green Mountain 7-5. It was the best high school baseball game I've see to date and was only over when the Royals first baseman made a diving over the shoulder catch of a foul pop-up with the bases loaded in the top of the seventh, after Green Mountain had already brought a run across to draw within two.

The Division III playoffs are down to four teams and SoRo will play Tuesday afternoon at home against - I think - BFA Fairfax, to whom they lost in the playoffs last year.

It was a gorgeous but HOT day for baseball - several of the players were visibly worn down by the heat.

Go SoRo!

Marty's South Royalton Royals took an easy win against their first round Playoff opponents 10-4. The game was not nearly as close as that as Marty put in the subs in the third inning after gaining a nine run advantage, starting his second string pitcher.

It's interesting to watch all this. Marty's team is from a town not any bigger than the SAD 74 Carrabec Cobras for whom I gave my all twenty five years ago. He has a bunch of very talented farm boys who, when in the right frame of mind, are almost unbeatable. Much remains to be seen, but Marty's team is very definitely a contender for the state title. The apex of my high school career was pitching in the Carrabec's losing effort against Jay in the first round of the state championships in 1980. I felt for Williamston today as they really played quite valiantly.

The South Royalton Royals go again Saturday at 4:30PM again at home and against an undoubtedly tougher opponent (not yet clear who it is). They will throw their ace Nevin Fulcher, who while passable doesn't have my fastball (ha!) and I feel for the competition as Nevin is a pitcher with stuff like location and selection. Hmmm. Interesting notion.

Anyway, I got this nice shot of a beautiful June afternoon in Vermont with Marty overseeing the whuppin'. Fenway has absolutely nothing on a beautiful afternoon in South Royalton!

Ballooning

I don't see as many balloons here as I used to on Barker Road. That was after all, just up the road from the Post Mills Airport, home of ballooners and gliders (soarers?) alike. However, the other evening Meg and I noticed this colorful balloon up North of us. I pulled out the camera and started shooting. It was the best example I've had yet of experiencing a total disregard for snapping way too many pictures - ah the joys of a big blank SD card!

After a bit I realized the balloon was coming almost directly towards me. This shot came just before he passed into the trees and landed two houses over from us. Though the descent didn't look planned, it apparently was as someone was waiting for him on the ground. In no time, they had the balloon packed up and were on their way.

I do miss the gliders I used to see at Barker Road. The planes would come almost directly over the house from the North, laboring to pull the glider up. Then some time later, if you scanned the sky, you'd see them silently soaring. Must be great fun.

Me and a Rockette!

Yes, this is no Photoshop trick, that's me and a real Radio City Music Hall Rockette! We took a tour of the Music Hall on our trip to NYC this past weekend, culminating in meeting a real Rockette! I don't look shell shocked do I?

We had a great weekend visiting New York, seeing many of the Kremzner cousins, and attending Meg's cousin Elizabeth's daughter Melissa's wedding.

Evening in Vermont.

A beautiful end to the day here in the Green Mountain State. On the way home, I saw the most amazing end of a rainbow I've ever seen; it was so intensely orange/red at the base but faded very quickly to nothing. Unfortunately, I got home too late to photograph it, but I was rewarded with this beauty later in the evening...

The Nubian Princess.

A rare picture of Nina where there is enough light on her dark little face. The beast from the pound had developed a big personality - and a soft side - as she's learned what it's like to be loved.

Happy Birthday Kevin!

Today is my nephew Kevin's birthday and I wish him a great one!

I dug out a shot from April two years ago when Kevin visited Barker Road for the second of two memorable bonfires. With Marty, we burned not only the huge pile of debris that I'd collected over the previous months, but went foraging into the woods for anything on the ground or anything standing that could be knocked over without power tools and dragged back to the blaze. I distinctly remember Kevin coming up over the bank shouldering a log the size of an ancient coastal redwood. Marty and I looked at each other and relunctantly headed over the bank to try, in vain, to show up the youngster. Nobody got hurt anyway.

We had a great time that day Kevin and I hope you have even more fun today!

My Nana.

Yesterday, May 2nd, was my Nana's birthday. I believe it would have been her one hundreth birthday- though I need to check this - were she still alive. [Mom and Dad confirmed that it would have been her 101st birthday as she was born in 1904]

My memories of Nana begin when I was very young and we took a trip (or several?) on the airline from Chevy Chase to Colorado. Mostly, I remember flying on a plane and of hearing the sound of Nana and Grandad's various clocks calling out the time through the day and night. Later, I remember a trip to Escondido California to visit them. Avacados and a (nearly?) adopted cat dominate that memory. I also remember when they visited Chevy Chase - I thinkit was late summer - and I had a toy lawn mower that my Grandad helped me "start" and "run". Not too long after that Grandad passed away. It was the first time I'd experienced death in any personal way.

In the years after that, Nana would occasionally come to Maine, though I think it took some getting used to for her - she always was one more for Sun than for Cold! I distinctly remember her coming off an Air New England plane in Waterville on one of her early visits; she emerged very happy to be back on the ground and wondering what she had got herself into I think! Her visits were swaths of penuche, homemade pasta, and wondrous sticky buns all painted over a canvas of cribbage! Man, did we play cribbage! She taught me as best she could, and took no prisoners: if there were unclaimed points in my hand, she took them. I learned to take my time scanning my hand!

Lots of other memories including the surprise trip we all took to Fort Collins for her 90th birthday when we convened at the Holiday Inn. That was a very fun time which I think truly delighted Nana. My fondest memory of that trip was seeing Nana watch Rod play her piano in Nana's apartment.

Nana had a determination about her at all times. She always seemed clear on the right thing to do. She seemed always to press on through life to find or make better times; a reflection on her reaction to the various challenges that life dealt her along the way I would imagine. A reaction I always found fascinating and inspirational.

Nana always said she had no regrets in life. I have to say that I have at least one regret already which is that Nana and Meg never met. Their is a similar steel that runs through them, an appreciateion for cats and beauty, a sense of independence (stubborness?) that I think they both would have appreciated in the other. Alas, I did not make that happen and while Meg and I were in California, my Nana passed away. Rod, Kathy and I joined Mom and Dad in Fort Collins to say goodbye to her. We played some cribbage, we did not poke holes through Virginia Slims cigerettes, and we watched a beautiful butterfly fly over Nana's casket the day of the funeral.

Happy Birthday Nana! I think of you often.

Spring Morning in Vermont

A shot I took this morning on a quick walk around the field. The fog is laying in the Connecticut River Valley this morning and it looks like a bright sunny day. The forecast however speaks otherwise. Hopefully the day will hold together long enough for Marty's South Royalton boys to put a hurtin' on Thetford Academy at 4PM!

Ah Friday...

Ah Friday, sweet relief.

As my friend Mark says sometimes it feels like you're "falling into the weekend". This was one of those weekends. Though Meg is feeling a bit better from her Indian excursion, she is still not quite right and the change of seasons has my allergies complaining bitterly. Despite that...

It was a GORGEOUS afternoon here in Vermont, which we were not supposed to have (rain is forecast for most of the weekend). Both Meg and I left work a bit early and it was fantastic to spend the first part of the evening on the deck watching the Maxfield Parrish sunset. Lucky indeed!!

Music for Spring

What music pops into your head when Spring rolls around?

The joy of watching sprouts come out of the ground and the unexplainable feeling you get after the long New England winter never fails to stir my musical soul. In recent years, I’ve found the Grateful Dead popping up a lot more than they used to; which was never. When I was younger, I could never understand what people saw in that outdated bunch of pot smoking oldsters. The didn’t rock at all; they didn’t even look like rock stars, and occasionally their music sounded like, gasp, folk music! I remember when I was in college and they came to UMO. I looked out my Dunn Hall (“Corbett Sucks!!”) window at the Alfond Arena, packed with whirling dervishes feeling some connection to this band that just didn’t friggin’ rock at all! I didn’t get it.

Years went by. My friend Mark and I learned (he better than I) to play music on real instruments and thus to turn what we had been listening to into some sort of reality (certainly in some cases, mercy would have been served had this not been so). Mark, flexing his musical muscle, suggested at one point that the band play some Grateful Dead songs. I reluctantly agreed, figuring I could put up with anything for a while and we played “Don’t Fade Away” - and perhaps others that have vanished from my memory of that time. It had a groove, I’d give it that. At times, I enjoyed playing that funky drum part, but like the Cat that Walks by Himself, I told no one.

More years pass. I buy my first house ever in the wonderful township of Post Mills, Vermont. Shortly after I move in, I throw a little party and Mark comes up for the weekend. Saturday morning, we do our Thetford, Vermont duty and run down to the recycling center during the three hours a week that it’s open. Well lo and behold, over by the junk shed is a big pile of records… I check them out. There are some good ones and they seem in decent shape. Faster than you can say “Jack Robinson” they are hoisted into the back of the Jeep and home they go. That same weekend, I stopped at a typical Vermont yard sale as I think I see some records. I do. They are in good shape. I pay and hoist.

Later on – and I mean it: I still haven’t got through all these records – I discover a bunch of Grateful Dead records – and I mean all the classics – amongst this pile ‘o vinyl. I check them out, but quietly and in the privacy of my own home. One fine Spring day when Meg is visiting and we’re doing some yard work outside, she suggests some Dead on the stereo (it might have been “Europe ’72”). It proves to be highly effective.

Over time, the Grateful Dead have grown and grown and grown and grown on me. I appreciate the honest delivery. The non-picture perfect presentation. The earnestness. In short, I appreciate the involvement with the music: I could play with these guys and it would sound good! Well OK, not good but, OK. They felt the music, took the risks, and every once and a while would just blow your mind.

So for me the Spring makes me pull those records out – to toss on the “Hundred Year Hall” that my brother (a repeat offender at the RFK court of the Dead) bought for me in Santa Cruz, to fire up the “Scarlet Begonias / Fire on the Mountain” Ithica medley that emerged from the Napster years, and to just sit down and grooooove to “Terrapin Station”, the first song Meg brought to play on my new Aerial 10T’s so many years ago. It just feels right to me.

Ah Spring!

Apple Trees

After a long tough winter, including abuse from the local deer population, our new apple trees are beginning to sprout some new buds!

Electricity

So last night about 8:15 as the Red Sox and Curt Shilling were preparing to throw away yet another game they should have in the bag, the power suddenly goes out. This is a touch ironic as Meg was only a few days ago explaining to her collegues in Noida, India that we rarely lose power here in the U.S. and that when we do, it's for a short time (that work day Meg said they lost power about 20 [twenty!] times! This is a real problem in India right now).

Anyway, we do the standard stuff, lighting candles, re-arming flashlights, and setting new world records for opening and shutting the refridgerator door, and then we wait. And wait. And finally go to bed 'cause the entire valley in front of us is dark except for car lights. The power finally returned around 4:30 or 5:00 this morning and all is back to normal.

It again reminds me how dependent we are on electric power for pumping water from the well, heating the house, cooling our food, and lighting the night. Jeez, when I was growing up this was no big deal at all! Lights, heat, refrigeration etc. were all taken care of by a more "storable" energy source: propane. Pumping water etc. was still a job for an electric pump but of course this was powered by our twin Onan generators - again running off propane.

Now of course the interesting thing is what happened when the generators wouldn't generate for one reason or another. The answer was simple: Dad went up and fixed them! The problem we have not is that is a) we don't have any generators and b) if we did, I couldn't maintain and repair them. My vocation makes it more likely - though by no means a sure thing - that I can fix the computer system if suddenly we are unable to print from the iBook. How useless is that?

Vince Guaraldi and ... Frank Zappa?

One of the challenges of the CD age is of course keeping track of all those darn CDs. I have a stack of CD cases who've lost their CDs. Some of them I have a vague idea of their fate - most I do not.

Several years ago as Christmas approached and the Christmas music came out, we opened Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts Christmas CD case to discover nothing inside. Panic ensued for several minutes and when things settled down I jumped in the car and drove to our local CD store ("Music Matters" - wonderful place) and remedied the situation. Since then, the Vince Guaraldi CD case has sat with other lost souls in the aforementioned stack glumly listening to it's replacement at Christmas time.

Flash forward to the present. Tyler's gone and, believing this will make him more hip, got an iPod and is busily transferring CDs onto the computer and then to the iPod. Yesterday I decide I need some classic Zappa on the iPod (you know where this is going right?). After the first disc of Live in New York has been ripped and I'm struggling to open the other side of the double CD case, it finally comes free and who should stroll out but Vince Guaraldi complaining "Hey, about time you let me outta that madhouse! That Zappa guy is NUTS!!"

Leave it to the iPod to bring Vince and Frank together. I wonder what they jammed on?

Meg's Home!

The travel home was lloonngg and ssmmaallll (they have apparently continued to put the squeeze on passengers on these long distance flights) but relatively uneventful. I was so glad to see the big Dartmouth Coach pull into Lebanon tonight! We caught up on a lot but have much more to do. This trip has made clear things we've only considered in the the abstract previously. So much different seeing it all in person.

Meg is coming home!

Meg's trip to India is coming to an end. As I post this, she is packing up her things at the Radisson in Noida and preparing for dinner with their host Kapil. After that it's off to the Indira Ghandi International Airport for the beginning of a long ride home during which she'll chase the sun through Amsterdam to Detroit and then backtrack to Boston for the bus ride to Lebanon. Whew!

Her last 'picture of the day' comes from their return trip from Agra to Noida when they stopped to get tea at the Sarpanch Hotel. The trip to Agra and back certainly exposed the less developed side of India and illustrates some of the revolutionary change going on in that country. I read an article in the New York Times yesterday about the advent of prepared food in India and how, as workers have more money and less time, this is becoming more common.

I can't wait to see her.

Delhi to Agra

Today's picture from Meg's trip to India taken in a rural area along the road from Delhi to Agra.

My Dad.

Dad and the "new" Piper PA11 at the Sun and Fun Fly-In in Lakeland Florida.

Fatehpur Sikri

Meg's picture of the day is the Sufi burial place at Fatehpur Sikri (the Abandoned City) near Agra.

The Taj Mahal

Meg is back in Noida after spending the weekend exploring in and around Agra. I got this picture from her this morning. I'm astonished to notice that there are people in the foreground near the bottom of the picture. The structure must be much bigger than I had imagined. I can't wait to hear more about this part of the trip.

Noida, India

Meg snapped this picture in Noida, on her way back to hotel on Friday (her Friday which happened before out Friday) after work.

Since then she and her co-worker Amy have traveled South to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. It's apparently a fairly popular tourist destination but has proven to be a very different world compared to Noida and the area around New Delhi. Meg said that that poverty and rubbish she saw along the way to Agra was almost overwhelming. I'm so glad that she and Amy were traveling with a driver for this trip. Also apparently the customs and day to day details of life are less Western (I'm paraphrasing Meg now) than around Noida - Meg said it was difficult to figure out how to dial another room in the hotel.

Meg said the Taj Mahal is incredible - but also that it was incredibly crowded. Apparently they were told they were there on a 'quiet' day because of the heat (looks like it was over 100 degrees!) but Meg said the place was just packed! In one hundred degree heat, I can only imagine. Meg's statement resonated with me as I heard a very nice 'public access' type commentary on a local radio station last Thursday where the fellow was describing how as a young man living in Washington DC, he regularly took in the city and the monuments in relative solitude - even relating the fact that he stood on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial with nobody else in the entire memorial. He was remarking on this because he had just been back to DC for the cherry blossoms and couldn't get over the hordes of people.

Meg said 12,000 people a day visit the Taj Mahal. Holy smoke.

I'm anxious to hear more of what they experienced sightseeing Sunday. Meg and Amy will be getting up shortly and traveling back to Noida to resume work there through Thursday. Then my sweetie starts the long journey home.

Not in Kansas anymore...

Meg's trip to India has already proven interesting. She's visited the Baha’I House of Worship (aka, the Lotus temple, the Iskane Temple (a Hare Krishna temple) as well as the National Museum. Along the way she has seen a boy with a cage full of parrots, monkeys on a leash, an elephant, and (see above) a camel and rider crossing three lanes of traffic and then the median!

Frogs in the Road.

Meg and I were coming home from work and shopping last night and as we made our way up Asa Burton Road, I noticed something in the road that didn't quite look like a leaf. As I was driving at a crawl - didI mentioned it's mud season in Vermont? - I realized it was a medium sized frog. The first of the year and quite large!

Armed with this new way of deciphering what I was seeing I realized there was another several feet beyond the first and yet another a few feet to the right of him. All told we saw about 10 frogs on the road over the course of less than a quarter of a mile coming to the house. Neither Meg nor I remember seeing such a Spring phenomenon ever before in Vermont.

The Pope.

I woke up thinking about the Pope and of our trip to Poland in 1999 for Meg's brother Stu's wedding to Bogusia. After the wedding, we traveled a bit in Poland with Bogusia's friend Ewa who was a wonderful tour guide. Ewa described how important the Polish Pope was to the people of Poland, both in a spiritual sense and in a political one as they emerged from the long period under Soviet domination. During this tough period, it was understandably a matter of great pride that this Polish Pope was the first non-Italian one in over four hundred years.

With Ewa's help, Meg and I traveled to the mountains of Southern Poland (the Tatras) where Karole Wojtyla skied and hiked in his younger days. This was a picture that I tooke from our hotel room in Zakopane of this beautiful area of snowy mountains and smoked cheese.

Baseball is Here!

Despite a somewhat lackluster performance by David Wells and the rest of the Red Sox last night, it's certainly a relief to have baseball back!

Over the course of the winter, I read a couple of great baseball books including Moneyball, A Day in the Bleachers, and of course Faithful. It got me by but it's good to have the real thing finally!

The Apple Plunge!

So this past Friday we took the plunge and bought a 14" Apple iBook! I've been curious about whether Apple products really delivered the superior user experience that many claim. I've toyed with the idea for quite some time, but the kicker for me was asking my friend Barry - a long time PC user which PC laptop we should buy and having him recommend the iBook! I also realized that many very clever and artistic friends of mine are dedicated Apple users. Finally, our recent experience with our new iPod has certainly been a positive one.

So Friday was the day. I came home (late) Friday night and unpacked it. In no time I had it setup to retrieve e-mail from our existing accounts. By Noon the next day it was on our in house wireless network, streaming audio from the PC upstairs and delivering it to the Apple AirTunes unit hooked to our stereo downstairs. So far - and there is alot more to explore - I'm very impressed with it. As was pointed out by Walter Mossberg in a very good article in the WSJ about 'switching', some of the UI paradigms are different from the PC, but it certainly seems managable. Will it be worth it to have a hybrid house? We'll see.

The Robins are here!

I heard on our local "Eye on the Sky" weather report the other day that someone in Post Mills reported seeing a robin. Well this morning, the first day of April, I see a number of robins on our front lawn, which incidentally is showing larger and larger patches of grass through the snow.

Maybe this spring thing is really going to happen!

Dad's "new" plane is finished! Targetting a test flight today if the weather is good.

Easter!

We had a nice Easter morning. We made a Whiskey Spice cake, which was delicious, dyed eggs and listened to some Bollywood soundtracks in preparation for Meg's trip to India!

Zachary at rest...

Zach enjoying the sunny office window this afternoon.

Spooky...

The moon through the trees tonight...