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.