A Birthday Bash

It was quite a celebration.Nancy treated me to a hike in a park in Baltimore. Little did I realize it was part of a grander plan. Here's me peeking through a tree on the hike and Nancy drinking some tea at the turning point of the hike (we turned around at a park that had a small stadium allowing us to comfortably sit and sip the tea Nancy had brought).

After the hike Nancy said that she would treat for dinner and since we'd probably have a late one, we'd stay overnight. Well, we got to the hotel and were met by the manager and two of his staff who all wished me a happy birthday and whisked us up to our room (no official check in). Here's the view from our room which overlooked the inner harbor.

We went to the restaurant for dinner and once again I was wished a happy birthday. After being seated, a waitress brought an an an unordered drink, gave me a kiss on the cheek and wished me a happy birthday. I finally looked up to thank her and who should be there but Polly and Sara. It was a simply delightful shock. They informed me that they had me for the weekend and we'd all do whatever I wanted.

The next day we had breakfast, went to the Baltimore Art Museum,

then took in a 200+ tuba concert playing Christmas carols at the Inner Harbor while it was snowing. Here's some pictures.

Me helping the tubas march in.




The 'band.'

Afterward there was another great dinner. Here's a washed out picture outside the restaurant.

Sunday was a leisurely breakfast then everyone headed home. Quite a weekend, all arranged by Polly and Sara with cooperation from Nancy. It was great! Most of the pictures were taken by Polly and Sara so some more will show up here later after we get our copies. A big THANK YOU to Polly and Sara (and Nancy for keeping the secret).

Movie and Visitors

It came and we went. I'm referring to the new James bond movie "Quantum of Solice" (where did they ever get that title?). It was awful. Actually, if you like action and lots of it this is probably your kind of movie. Now I like action as much as most but not a whole movie of nothing much but action and that's what "Quantum of Solice" turned out to be. No clever gadgets, no one line singers (not even a "Bond, James Bond"), no or little plot, etc. I remain a James Bond fan but am hoping for better next time.
We've had our first real freeze and the creek had ice on it this morning. Unfortunately I haven't finished with the leaves but hope to get to the remaining ones this week. I figure about one more relatively light blowing, after I finish this week ought to do it.
Elissa and Toby Christie visited mom Monday and we got to spend some time with them also. Looked like California agrees well with both of them.
We finally did it and ordered a couple of BlackBerrie phones, one for each of us. Don't know how their going to work out but we have a month to try them out to see if we like them.
The moon has been beautiful rising over the cove. The picture doesn't really do it justise but you probalby get the idea.

Michigan Visit

It was Isabella's 8th birthday and we went to Troy to help her celebrate and, of course, to see Polly, Mark, Grace and all the relatives. As always there was much to do. We went to Grace's school then helped Polly and ourselves with some shopping and came back to Grace's school to pick her up. That night was gymnastics for both Isabella and Grace. Here is Isabella several yards in the air on a rope.






Of course Grace had to try it also so here she is on the same rope.

And we all ended up in the 'pit' which consisted of many soft, spong like cubes into which one could dive were one so brave.















The next day was the celebration of Isabella's birthday. It started with making gingerbread men. Here Polly, Nonna, Isabella and Grace are putting final decorations on the gingerbread men.


I think they all enjoyed it but Isabella and Grace probably enjoyed it most. At least the making and eating of the frosting.









After that Isbella and Nonna with some help from Grace built and decorated a gingerbread house. A tradition in the Cuney family.









Finally it was time for the birthday celebration. Here's Isabella beginning to open her gifts.


And then came the special just for Isabella cake.













And the blowing out of candles (actually we were just too excited to capture the blowing out of the candles but here's what the cake looked like just before Isabella successfully blew them all out).

It was a great trip and everyone appears to be doing well in Troy. Three sets of grandparents were on hand to help celebrate along with cousins and nieces and friends. It was certainly a great way to celebrate an eighth birthday.

Upon arriving home we had a couple of guys cleaning up the tree that fell down last August. It takes a while to get some things done on the Eastern Shore - what can I tell you. Besides cleaning up the mess that the fallen tree made on our property we also had them cut a dead tree from in front of our house. The tree was about 60 feet high and we were afraid that a good wind storm would cause it to come crashing down on the house. Because of it's location we asked that they take it down in pieces rather than just cutting it down and letting it fall. Consequently the lead guy strapped on climbers and climbed most of the way up, topped the tree and kept coming down and cutting off relatively short sections and letting them drop to the ground. Not something I'd like to try. Here's a picture of of him part way up the tree.

All ended well with the tree down, neatly cut up and stacked and, most importantly, no injuries.

A Busy Life

Well, it's been awhile. No real excuse, just lazyness I guess. We've had a lot of company mostly because Mom is now located here. And it's all been great. We get to see more of the nieces and nephews than we ever have. A wonderful benefit. Last month Sara and Ella visited. Now I know you don't want to see all the pictures but since I haven't been updating this for awhile I'm going to include several (just couldn't resist).

Here's Ella on the deck



Ella and Nancy in the tent (I think Ella may have enjoyed it more than Nancy)








Here we are trying to hulla hoop












And you didn't think I could do it I'll bet














Nancy is getting some expert instruction







And we don't want to forget Sara
A great visit that we really enjoyed.
It was followed closely by a visit from our friends the Gordons who were passing through on their way to sit with their granddaughter in Virginia.









I will wait till next time to comment on the election (we're on our way to an election night party so I've got to go) and on technology. Things have been good and I'll try and get it together and post more regularly.

Relatives

It's been a couple of busy weeks. First we went to Cape May to be with Nancy's family in a great old house that Jim and Jimmie rent each year for a couple of weeks in August. We only got to stay one night this year but had a great time with everyone that was there. The following week Blythe, Noelle, Paul, TJ, Ellie, and Tommy paid us a visit (they were really down to see Grandma but graced us with a couple of days at Creek's Edge).
Unfortunately, Eric wasn't feeling quite up to par and had to stay home.









In between time Nancy had to write her first letter to the editor (it got published) and I had to start getting to work on my fall courses. It's interesting that I'm co facilitating 'The Seven Deadly Sins' and 'Building Your Own Theology' both on the same days. I wonder if there's a message here.

The Democratic convention starts today. I think Joe Biden was a good choice for Obama's running mate. He has extensive foreign relations experience, is a good debater, and might be able to carry PA for Obama. On the downside, he's not used to being number two and he can certainly make some rather large gaffs. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say at the convention. More interesting, though, is what Obama will say and how he'll say it in his acceptance speach. The expectation is that he'll have around 75,000 in the audience. Could be another blockbuster speach like he gave, was it 8, years ago. I really wish both candidates would get off the trivia stuff. So McCain doesn't know exactly how many houses they own (some of them are rented out). Let's not blow this out of porpotion. And so what if the Obama house has 4 fireplaces. Is that even relevent? I'm waiting to see who McCain picks as his VP. I'm still thinking Romney. Any of you what to hazzard a guess?

For those of you on the Verizon network (like we are and have to be) and would like an iPhone but obviously can't get it, there are 2 new Verizon phones coming out this fall that might fit the bill. The first is the HTC Touch Pro supposidly coming to Verizon in October (no solid date as far as I know). It has iPhone like capabilities (touch screen, bluetooth, WiFi, etc) plus a keyboard. It runs Microsoft Mobile 6.1. The second is the Blackberry Thunder (that's it's code name) due out to Verizon on Oct 13. I appears to be, from leaked rumors, an iPhone knock off with Blackberry capabilities (ie faster email). We'll be following these two phones in particular to see if either is good enough to cause us to upgrade from our 5 year old single cell phone.

Trees and a Visit

Two happenings at Creeksedge this week. First, a storm blew through last Saturday night and a 80 foot, double trunk tulip tree fell across our drive. Luckily one of our neighbors owned the tree and either saw or heard it fall and called us to let us know. We both called someone to come and 'dig' us out as we couldn't get out with the tree blocking the driveway. His person came first and, at 10 PM, started to chain saw and then lift the pieces (with a front loader) out of the way. I thought it would take most of the night but he finished clearing a path before midnight. I contacted a couple of furniture makers that we know but neither wanted the wood so now we have to figure out what to do with the downed tree. Anne, another neighbor, suggested a bench and that may be what we end up with. Of course 80 feet times two will make a lot of benches. Here's what it looked like the next morning.


The other happening this week was much more positive. Jim, Tamara and Will visited us for 3 days. They got to see mom and spend some time with her (Will liked the water fountain out in the hall better than mom's room). They also got to kayak, play some tennis, swim, eat out and sail. As always we had some good conversations and solved many of the world's problems.









Does this look like synchronized paddling?




When there's no wind it's good to have a paddle.



Will loves water, even water from the faucet.










And sitting in the statue's lap.


















Again, it's been relatively quiet on the political front. The revelation about John Edwards certainly puts him out of the VP race and may do even more. I think McCain's comment about Obama being a superstar and therefore can't be qualified to be president will backfire. I don't like Obama's apparent backing off his off shore drilling stance and hope this is not an indication of his future pandering for votes. As we might expect, both candidates seem to be moving some toward the center. The most recent polls average out to Obama with a 3.5 point lead. An interesting observation is the intrade market odds (a real market in futures of the election) which show Obama ahead 59.4 to 37.2, a 22.2 point lead. As I mentioned last week, the poll numbers, and presumably the intrade numbers, don't mean a whole lot this early in the game.

On the technology front, I've noticed more and more friends (all retired people) are acquiring smart cell phones that allow them to get their email and perform PDA functions all on one device. Don't really know what this means but it's an interesting, anecdotal observation.

Dishes and Cabinets

Well it's been awhile. First we finally found, at IKEA, a cabinet that more or less matched our bookcases and would hold our old TV, etc plus the dishes Margot and Jeff so kindly gave us - all seven cartons of them - and which Nancy and Jim somehow lugged up from Atlanta to our home. Anyway, the first challenge was getting all the cabinet pieces into the car and getting them home. It was a struggle and took some creative packing but we managed. Then came a 12 hour stretch of putting it all together (20 person hours over 2 days). Who ever knew assembling something as basic as a couple of cabinets could take so long. Here's a few pictures of the process and the end results.
Just getting started unpacking all the cartons.

Part way done with the TV stand and its surrounding cabinet.






Done but not loaded.








Done (Whew)















And the place settings make it all worth it. We've used the dishes for entertaining and got complements on them. Thanks Margot and Jeff.







The other happening was Mom's hospital stay. Luckily things appear to be stable and improving. She is now in the Heron Point Skilled Nursing facility and doing well.

Not a whole lot going on on the technology front. TV over the internet continues to grow slowly and Verizon finally offered a phone, the LG Dare, that could more or less compete with the iPhone.

Politically it appears to me that Obama pulled off his overseas trip without a major gaff. It gave him a short lived bounce in the polls but more importantly, I think, it will give him a good first hand and recent background in Middle East and European affairs going into the fall campaign and debates. Currently McCain leads in polls of likely voters and Obama leads in polls of all voters. Actually this is probably meaningless at this point.

A Hatteras Vacation

We finally have our internet connection back up. The satellite link was down for more than two weeks. For the middle week it was OK because we were at Hatteras with the girls and their families (see below). Down there we had good (3 Mb/s) internet access. The rest of the time we went to the library to get email and some research. It’s amazing but I really felt unconnected when we didn’t have access. Don’t remember feeling that way in the past. Guess it just shows how far we’ve progressed (or is it regressed?) in the last few years. And now we’re thinking of getting ‘smart’ cell phones so we can get email anytime, anywhere. Whew!

The weather was perfect for me in Hatteras, nice and hot. We swam almost every day, had great dinners, took naps or explored while the littles (Ella and Grace) napped in the afternoon and generally had a great time. We even got to watch the Fourth of July fireworks from our deck. Polly and Sara got some shopping in and Mark and Wes went fishing one day(the rest of us are sure they caught a huge one, maybe two or three but they fess up to only 3” to 4” catches). Wes also got a round of golf in. For those of you who have visited Hatteras, you’ll be glad to know the beaches are still great and the Orange Blossom Café still sells apple uglies (those donut like things that sit in the bottom of your stomach for hours after consuming them). Everyone got home safely including Polly and Mark who had about an 18 hour trip with Bella and Grace. From my perspective it was all well worth it. More pictures can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/rbhawkins/Hatteras2008 (or click the Hatteras link at the bottom of this blog) which is a web album of pictures from Avon on Hatteras Island.

Things back at home moved into high gear with all the catch up work, entertaining and seeing that mom got the medical care she needed. Doesn’t look like it will slow down much in the near future.

The political situation has cooled down some now that each party has a presumed candidate. The major question now is who will be the vice presidential candidates. It probably doesn’t make a significant difference who they pick but it’s fun to speculate. For now I think Obama will pick Sam Nunn or Jim Webb (I’d love to see him pick Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius but I don’t think it will happen). On the Republican side I think McCain will go with Romney or possibly Portman. And so it goes. Probably real excitement won’t be generated until the conventions in August (if then).

On the technical front, Apple introduced its iPhone 3G. People waited in line, sometimes overnight, to get one. There were a few glitches in the rollout, mostly software and network ones. Other than the fact that in the US it runs on a faster AT&T network, the big news appears to be the new software. The phone itself has new software and Apple has opened up a store where third parties can sell or give away iPhone applications and games. I’d really be interested if we had AT&T’s high speed coverage here at Creeksedge. Since we only have Verizon’s broadband coverage, guess we’ll have to wait till Verizon offers a phone with similar capabilities or settle for less. Some of the mobile applications that are being offered by the mobile providers such as automatic calendar and email syncing, mobile banking, GPS enabled applications and phone based social networking look quite interesting. If you’ve got any experience with any of these, please add a comment.