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adventures

Enjoying our time at the Christmas cottage

It’s always such a treat to be able to open our winter home on the Gold Coast. Though we learned that one of the neighbors is considering moving away. That would really be a shame.

Even on a cloudy day like yesterday, the Saugatuck and the Sound never fail to inspire.

We went out for a four-mile run, but I pulled the rip cord just a bit early when I slammed my heel into the road. Remember, it wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t my shoe’s fault, it was the asphalt.

I didn’t move quickly enough to catch the Canada geese, but I did get the heron from a distant, if only with my iPhone.

And of course, we ran by the old cemetery. You’ll love this marker.

1681- 1771

Families represented: Burns, Church, Gray, Hendricks, Shaw, in whose memory this tablet is dedicated by Compo Hill Chapter DAR and the Morris Park Association 1933.

In the American context of history the cemetery is getting up there in years — in the American context that plaque is aging nicely, too — one across the state is just a few decades older, and it is considered one of the oldest in New England. And if you start googling those names you begin to find the earliest English settlers in the region.

I believe there are just a handful of known graves in this cemetery, but I could be wrong. It sits beside a modern road, and in between is a walking path, and throughout you can enjoy some lovely birding and, just beyond, some decent fishing. Beyond that, you’re in a large city park that’s pretty quiet this time of year.

This evening, after she hanged her stockings by the chimney with care, I put the star on my in-laws’ Christmas tree.

It’s the little big things like that that make you understand you’re really a part of the family.

And how are your holiday festivities coming along? We’re opening a few presents this evening. And tomorrow I have to take on an entirely new role. It could be a hit! Or a miss!

adventures / friends / memories / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
22
Dec 21

The memories park

This is the park where my lovely bride played as a child. She’d dangle in the trees off to the left of the frame. And she would swing on the ropes and the monkey bars that used to stand through those woods in the background. These days we walk on the paths and run on the track.

It’s also where, 13 years ago yesterday, we took our engagement photos. We just happened to find ourselves there again yesterday, but without the snow. Because, you see, we took our photos in 19.7 degree weather.

We tried to recreate a few of the photos. Only our faithful photographer — who shot our engagement in a Nor’easter and our wedding in the hottest heat wave of the summer — wasn’t there.

Here we are today.

And 13 years ago.

Once more, today.

And, again, in 2008.

For the record, that bench was still cold, this week.

Here’s a low stone wall and the woods of Connecticut. It couldn’t be any more authentic if you put a Joe Lieberman sign out there.

And last night we picked up a pizza and had dinner with The Yankee’s college diving coach. Dan is a lovely guy. Wonderful conversation, and the best tomato pie around, from Pepe’s Pizzeria.

And, perhaps the best part, we had plenty for leftovers.

adventures / family / Monday / photo / running — Comments Off
20
Dec 21

Our journey continues

We were at a one-year-old’s birthday party on Saturday evening. A small family event and with Zoom for those that couldn’t be there. The birthday girl’s aunt made the cake and, at one point in the evening, surrounded by screaming children, we found ourselves talking about colors and aesthetics. There were too many artistically-minded people in that house is what I’m getting at. But look at this beautiful cake.

That’s homemade. The snowflakes are edible. The tablecloth was seen as both a conflicting and a complimenting color, depending on your shot composition. At some point, to keep the cake away from impulsive three-year-olds and adults, it was moved to a secret location. (The back deck.) This gave us some different, softer, lighting options.

And that’s what you talk about when grandparents are watching 3- and 7- year olds run through sugar highs.

It was a delicious cake. The cupcake was for the birthday girl, who is the calm in the storm. Even her smashed cupcake was dainty, dignified and not especially messy.

She’s wearing a hat The Yankee made. Her parents call her Hazelnut, and so now she has a hat made to look like a hazelnut. There are leaves on top, and everything, as you’ll soon see.

Yesterday, we went for a run before holiday festivities. It was an easy, and awfully chilly, four-miler. Here are The Yankee and my godsisters-in-law (just go with it) at the sign marking the highest point in Delaware.

And I also ran from Delaware into Pennsylvania. That’s at least the fourth state line I’ve run across, but it seems like there’s one or two more I am forgetting in that list.

And last night we had New Jersey Christmas. This is usually the last of our family Christmas parties, but this year it came first, because everything is upside down. We had a delightful evening, from the scrumptious appetizers to the hearty homemade lasagna, to the lovely company. Our hosts and my in-laws are lifelong friends. My mother-in-law and the hostess were in nursing school together. My father-in-law and our host have known one another since elementary school. Our hosts met at my in-laws’ wedding. They are each godparents for the other. And they more-or-less raised their kids together, too.

They open presents there by age. Meaning I’m closer to the end of the line than the beginning. I distract myself from that thought by paying close attention to the kids enjoying their new toys. I got a shirt and a nice jacket in a big box that was decorated with a classically whimsical Santa.

We also received a few neat ornaments, because you can never go wrong with thoughtful ornaments.

Oh, and here’s another shot of Hazel, wearing her Hazelnut hat, at her grandparents’ home. Note the leaves on top. Handmade with love, by her god-aunt.

This one is a little blurry, but look at the smile on that kid’s face.

Also, now that she’s one, she has quickly moved into self-taking mode.

At the end of the night we said our goodbyes and climbed into my in-laws car and continued our trip. Here we are on the Cuomo Bridge, crossing the Hudson River, and having just entered New York.

But that’s only a quick cut across the corner for us. Tonight, and for the next several days, we are in Connecticut — our sixth state since Thursday.

adventures / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
16
Dec 21

‘Like a band of gypsies’

Sometimes images give us their message loud and clear. There’s no mistaking it because of the power of the visual or the gifts of the photographer or the structured nature of the composition. Or sometimes because of chance. Other pieces are less straightforward and much more given to suggestion. It’s the malleability of the image, the impressionable nature of the viewer.

For instance, this looks like bad inside liner art for a record, doesn’t it? I’m thinking upper midwestern band who can’t help but write about the cold and barren land a little too often. You think it’s the diminutive sun. I say it’s the water collected in the rumble strips.

Slow day, until it wasn’t. I slept in. Caught up on the world. Had an early lunch, tidied up a bit, and started packing a suitcase with — it isn’t a useful phrase, but I’ll use it — studied helplessness.

“Studied,” meaning something like “carefully considered or prepared,” or “marked by conscious design or premeditation,” or, my favorite, “achieved by careful and deliberate effort.”

For me, it was about not having a solid deadline for packing. And being completely befuddled by the forecasts for the places in my immediate future. Everything is 120 to 880 miles away from the next place, and there’s nothing requiring being outdoors, except for all of the things that require me to be outdoors in highly variable weather conditions.

Oh, it’s possible I’ve forgotten how to pack. It’s equally likely that I nailed it, or forgot something, or packed far too much. I’ll know before the end of the year.

So that’s the road. And you’ll notice that, in this one, I was careful to time it so that the tree is blocking the sun.

That changes the whole shot. Less desperate; same amount of loneliness. It was both chance and composition, the sun looks like the sun rather than a bad watercolor accident, but otherwise, there’s a lot of chance here, because I was watching the road more than the camera.

There’s a fun community oriented radio station in southern Indiana. I’ve happened upon them running incredibly specific fishing reports: who caught what in which lake, with what lure, and what the fish weighed. It’s terrific.

There was also a promo today about hunters donating deer for hungry neighbors. Bring your whole deer over to this particular place and they’ll process the animal and send the meat off to the community’s food banks. And you’ll be registered to win a new gun, sponsored by … a dentist, I think it was. (One deer, by the way, yields between 40 to 50 pounds of meat, and about 200 meals.)

The afternoon DJ has been there for 30 years. He sounds like he should be there, and that’s not meant to be reductive. He’s got a pitch perfect presentation.

But it was funny to hear that syrupy local accent backselling Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” and Neil Diamond’s “You Make It Feel Like Christmas” before leaning into the Tom Petty/Stevie Nicks duet, “Stop Dragging’ My Heart.”

All of which came right after the comprehensive farm reports. (Wanna know how November soy futures did after the bell?)

It’s a local station — they’ve been owned by the same people since the 1940s — and locally-owned radio is wonderful, is the point.

We also listened to the campus station for the University of Southern Indiana, 95.7 The Spin.

The DJ wasn’t backselling songs, he did frontsell one new song. He did hardly any station branding. He (or they, it’s difficult to tell with campus radio) programmed great music. And he was a GREAT story teller. Over the course of three talk segments, I got a slice of life. It was so charming because there’s not much better than someone earnestly doing good campus radio. It’s one part confessional, one part aspirational, a bit vulnerable, not-at-all pretentious and completely amateurish. The young DJs may be really smart. They’re all clever.

At some point we started losing The Spin’s the signal, and two other stations bled in and out. It felt like every bad representation of schizophrenia you’ve seen in movies.

Here’s Twista! And Stone Temple Pilots! And Twista! And STP! And Twista! And … Brooks and Dunn?

By this time it was well into the evening, and The Yankee suggested we play my favorite car radio game. (She secretly likes it, too.) So we DXed stations and listened to …

650 WSM Nashville
660 WFAN New York
670 WSCR Chicago
700 WLW Cincinnati
710 WOR New York
720 WGN Chicago
730 WFMW Madisonville, KY
740 KRMG Tulsa
750 WSB Atlanta
760 WJR Detroit
780 WBBM Chicago
850 KOA Denver
870 WWL New Orleans
890 WLS Chicago
950 WAKM Franklin, TN
1000 KTOK Oklahoma City
1040 WHO Des Moines
1060 KYW Philadelphia
1100 WTAM Cleveland
1120 KMOX Kansas City
1200 WOAI San Antonio
1230 WHOP Hopkinsville, KY
1670 WMGE Macon, GA

Fourteen states, makes for a pretty good hour! Two lifetimes ago, I reported on a dozen or more of those stations for ABC. Lots of tornados and murders and corrupt judges and the like.

Anyway, we’re near here, until we aren’t. Which will be before you read this.

Things move improbably fast this time of year.

adventures / Friday / IU / memories / photo / television / video — Comments Off
10
Dec 21

Some things to get you to the weekend

More Savannah stuff! The last of the Savannah stuff! It’d be bad form to try to make you jealous for more than a few days, I’ve decided. And since we got back on Tuesday, I’m sure I’ve worked through those days, and your patience! At the same time, I took a lot of pictures.

This is from Byrd’s Cookies.

And not far away, this is where people buy all of that shade they keep throwing on people.

And, if you need to upgrade your floors while you’re at it, then it’s one-stop shopping.

To me, Savannah will always be about the beautiful buildings — among other things. And, one of those things are the trees! Look at this beautiful nature-is-amazing moment!

And this one is in Chippewa Square.

If all of those old oaks could talk … they’d probably ask, “Where does this Spanish moss come from, anyway?”

(Wind and birds, mostly.)

Back here in the regular world, I spent almost the full day in the studio. First there was the morning show, which will be online next Monday. And then there was a big game design video program. All of the students that work on video games pitch their projects to industry professionals. It’s a four camera, two location, three Zoom shoot. (It just grows and grows, each year, this thing.)

For whatever reason, it has been decided to just put programs like this on Zoom, which means you’d need the link, which means you’d a.) need to know about it beforehand, and b.) have the ability to watch it live. So I can’t show you the live show we produced this afternoon, but it was a good one.

All of the students presenting did a nice job. Some of the games were simply incredible, even in their current form. One of them, it looked like the experts wanted to buy right there during the presentation. And you could see why. It was different, had a pleasing, soothing pace and was absolutely gorgeous.

I had two students playing the role of Ryan Seacrest and Carson Daly. We were doing entrance and exit standups as the design teams went into the studio. I didn’t get any photos of this because I was working, but take my word for it, they did a really fine job. Everyone was complimentary of their efforts, and we were all quite proud of how they kept the program moving along.

So that was about seven hours of my day, studio stuff. And here are some other studio things I haven’t yet shared here.

A sports show! This one is a little different, it has a different feel and a bit of spunk. I like where they are going with this.

We talked, on Wednesday, about the last show of two of our graduating seniors. Here is that show.

And one more sports show, another talker, where they are unpacking the Major League Baseball lockout. The short version seems to be: If it can be messed up, baseball will mess it up.