2011 – a very fine year!
OK, please bear with me while I take a look back. I don’t do this very often; I like to live in the moment and look ahead. However, I might be doing myself a disservice if I don’t reflect a bit on this past year, because it has been fruitful in so many ways. Sometimes my memory of the past is blurred at best, nonexistent at worst, and it’s because I haven’t recorded enough of it so that I can recall it.
Using stream of consciousness — i.e., in no particular order – here are my most memorable events of 2011:
- I completed training and began serving as a volunteer for Hospice of the East Bay. One of my patients, “Bud”, passed away, but on the bright side I had the honor to meet him and another veteran who served with distinction in WWII.
- Made some cool new friends.
- Oh, gosh, I began this blog!
- I met my goal of cycling 10 miles per day on average.
- I began running again and completed several 5Ks.
- My siblings and I managed to sell our childhood home in Columbus, Ohio.
- Karen, the kids and I took two great vacations: to the Grand Canyon in April and to the Pacific Northwest in August (as covered in detail on this blog :-))
- I temporarily lost my mind and registered for the crazy GoRuck Challenge next June. This is not really an accomplishment, obviously, and may be a sign of another mid-life crisis…
- I cancelled our cable TV subscription with Astound. Some would call this another bit of craziness, but I’m rather proud of it.
- Saw Beach Blanket Babylon again. Funniest show ever!!!
- Enjoyed several awesome dining experiences at Walnut Creek Yacht Club, Sasa, and other fine restaurants.
- Finally got around to some landscaping in our backyard – looks good so far; more to do in 2012.
That’s all I can think of right now; I may add more if and when the mood strikes me.
Now I can just get ready for 2012, which ought to be another great year!
father-daughter night out!
Can’t wait! The Walnut Creek Yacht Club has the best seafood in town, bar none — maybe in the whole east bay. I have been wanting to take Lara for some time and am finally getting around to it. She is my eater, my chip off the old block. She likes seafood, which we never have at home except for baked white fish, so this should be a real treat! I don’t think she is ready for raw oysters, but she can try anything on the menu she wants. We’re going to dress up nicely and maybe walk around downtown afterward. What a super way to close out the year!
finding worthy charities
Karen and I are trying to decide on some charitable organzations to which we can give, and I was doing a little research today. I found one one rather cool website called GiveWell.org: https://givewell.org/
GiveWell seems to be objective and on the level; I can’t say for sure that they do not have an agenda favoring the charities they recommend; everyone should read up on this stuff and decide for themselves. Nevertheless, GiveWell ranks these two organizations most highly:
1. Against Malaria Foundation: https://news.againstmalaria.com/page/About-the-Against-Malaria-Foundation.aspx
2. Schistosomiasis Control Initiative: https://www3.imperial.ac.uk/schisto
Please note: both of the orgs listed above are apparently based in the UK. That may or may not be a problem for you if you are inclined to act more locally than globally.
Another website that seems to be highly touted with respect to rating charitable organizations is Charity Navigator: https://www.charitynavigator.org/
Charity Navigator seems to cover a lot more ground than other similar websites, so that is an upside. One downside for me is that their website is a bit cumbersome and confusing to navigate (no pun intended), at least for me. Perhaps I will like it better after I study it more.
I hope you find this interesting. Happy giving!
Easy Rider
Tonight I watched Easy Rider with Erik. I’m amazed that I had never seen it before. Wow, what I trip! Literally. It’s a great movie — seems like it really captures the 60s. If you haven’t seen it, I do recommend it, and I won’t give anything away about the plot. You just have to roll with it, ha ha…
As I sat there with my 17-year-old, it occurred to me that an impressionable sort of kid might take the movie as a sort of instructional video for a young rebel. But Erik is pretty cool; I don’t think he will get any warped ideas.
I was surprised to learn that Dennis Hopper directed the film in addition to playing one of the two main characters. I always heard about Peter Fonda making a splash, but Hopper was excellent and stole most of the scenes, at least until Jack Nicholson showed up, and even then he held his own.
If you want to relive the counterculture days, this is your flick!
Ohhmmmmm
One cool gift I received from my sister-in-law is a little statue of a buddha, a “Meditating Hotei” by Designer Stone. I love it!
In my yoga practice I find it helpful during balancing poses, like “tree” pose, to focus on something that’s not moving. For yoga on a budget I usually pick a spot on the floor, a wall, etc. Now I have an actual focal point to which I can relate! I think I will take it to class and set it in front of me. I don’t really want the attention that may bring, but it’s a small enough statue that many people won’t even notice, if I set it somewhere inconspicuous.
Geocaching
The day after Christmas, David, John and I went for a hike along the Shell Ridge trails from Indian Valley to Borges Ranch and back. Along the way we found some geocaches, which was fun! They have been getting into it, but it was a new experience for me. The one we found as pictured in the photo was a canister hidden in a tree, and in the can were some random items, like little toys, and a log of who had been there. The weather was brisk and beautiful. For the last couple of miles on the return, we were running at a pretty good clip and got a nice workout.
What were your favorites gifts — to give?
This year I was excited about some fun gifts I was giving. It sounds silly, but one of my favorite was a “My Little Pony” toy for Lara. She loves the show and watches episodes on YouTube. Apparently the show (seemingly intended for little kids) has a huge cult following among high-schoolers, including Lara and some of her friends. Weird, huh? Anyway, just for fun I bought her a My Little Pony figure that came with a min-DVD containing one episode — I had to go to the toddler isle in the toy section of Target (a fact I made clear to my daughter). I used it as a stocking stuffer, and she loved it! In the ultimate expression of fatherly love, I actually sat and watched the DVD with her. Erik thought I was crazy, but watching the smile on Lara’s face was worth it.
For Erik I picked some Warhammer figures — a box of Howling Banshees he wanted plus a really expensive Avatar figure. Another big hit! He started putting them together and painting them right away.
Karen had a very short wish-list, but luckily I thought of something she would like that she didn’t think to put on her list — the first season of Glee on DVD. I also got her a box of See’s candies, which she loves.
For my mother-in-law, who loves puzzles and quilts, I found some puzzles about quilts. Brilliant! I also gave some See’s dark chocolate-covered marshmallows with caramel to her and Jenn, and they loved ’em. I gave Jenn a great book she really wanted, too.
For my father-in-law, I was not terribly imaginative, but I felt good about the gift certificate to the model train store, Just Trains. He is planning on remodeling his train table after he moves it down to Carmel. Jenn got him some books about scenery and landscaping, so I figured he can buy a lot of modeling materials with the gift certificate.
I hope everybody liked their loot!
It's Tradition
Every year on the morning of Christmas Eve I get up early and drive over to Lunardi’s on the other side of town to do my grocery shopping for Christmas dinner. I love lamb, and the whole family loves it too. Lunardi’s has the best butcher shop around, so even though I rarely go there during the year, I make sure and go there to buy the Christmas lamb. You have to get there really early to avoid the long lines — 7:30am usually does the trick.
I also love to make a fruit salad with out-of-season berries like raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries, plus honeydew for the green color.
This year was no different, and I had all the shopping done (including a side-trip to Safeway for a few items) and was home by 8:30am.
I had time in the afternoon for a bike ride to the junction on Mt. Diablo. It was a beautiful day!
Another tradition is that we eat Christmas Eve dinner at Karen’s parents’ house. My father-in-law makes superb minestrone soup, and my mother-in-law makes pretzel pie a la mode. We all ate to our heart’s content and had a nice time.
Erik and I stayed up past midnight playing 51st State, which I wrote about the other day.
All ready for Christmas!
Thankful it’s Friday
Naturally I did not want to be in the office today, but it would have been too blatant to call in sick. I kept busy enough in the morning, but by mid-afternoon I was itching to get out of there. Mark left early, around 2pm or so, so I had hopes, but Tony kept working, ignoring hints by Cecilia and me that he should start the holiday weekend. He’s a bit of a Scrooge anyway. The office gods finally smiled upon us at 4pm, when Tony told us we could go. Sweet! That gave me time to swing by and see my patients on the way home. I took them some re-gifted brownies that our company received and nobody really wanted. My patients really liked them, and I felt good about seeing them before Christmas.
As is our tradition on Christmas Eve Eve, we watched A Christmas Story — a classic, always good for laughs.
Very excited about Christmas this year! Should be fun.
