Walk back in time

In Colonial Williamsburg there is a bridge to the historic district with these placards installed. They help to orient your thinking to how things were in 1776.












Colonial Williamsburg is a very cool and interesting place to visit. http://visitwilliamsburg.com/index.aspx

Relax! Read a book!!!

A Day at the Beach

Cami and I drove to the beach yesterday. It still amazes me that I can get in the car, drive two hours, and walk on a sandy beach by the Atlantic Ocean! We went to Bethany Beach, Rehobeth Beach, and the Seaside State Park between the two. Here are some photos I took.

I who was once the wanderer

I who was once the wanderer

am now the still point in a turning world

Who was once the heart of chaos

saying “let God sort it out”

now stand with a camera on the front porch

while the car pulls out of the driveway

two girls waving saying “I’ll call

when I get there” and “Bye!”

I who was once the wanderer, who

wrote wistfully “All who wander are not lost”

am now standing in the sun setting

am now the still point in a turning world.

Robert Seward

7/5/08

Another Irony and lines from 30 Rock

My mom pointed out today that she takes eye vitamins, even though she is legally blind.

Isn't that ironic?

Favorite lines from 30 Rock last week:

"San Francisco? I asked you to find an actor from middle America. A real person. You're not going to find him in the Peoples' Gay Public of Drugafornia." (Jack)

"I'm not going to be pushed aside and forgotten, like that time at my sisters' funeral." (Jenna)

"Kenneth, you're from Georgia, aren't you?"
"Stone Mountain, sir. Although when the Parcells first came to America, they lived in a town called 'Sexcriminalboat'. Do you think that's Cherokee?"

(Tracy) I gotta go somewhere where nothing will happen to me. Can you get me on Charlie Rose?"

I think 30 Rock really rocks...

I love irony

One of my favorite ironies happened today. Cami and I were going to a yoga class at the YMCA and we saw a parking spot near the front door so I started to pull in. A woman in a mini van had seen the spot before I did and wanted to park in it, so I let her pull in.

We both wanted to park near the front door so we wouldn't have far to walk to go work out.

That's irony!

Church v3.2

We are seeking a new church home. Driving by the First Methodist Church I decided that I didn't want to attend there. We are now looking for the Last Methodist Church, hoping that in the later versions they have the kinks worked out...

Restorative Practices Conference

Cami and I spent three days last week attending a conference presented by the International Institute for Restorative Practices http://www.iirp.org/ in Bethlehem Pennsylvania. I had wanted to attend this conference for many years, but it is usually held overseas, last time in Hungary. This is the Hotel Bethlehem where it was held.

One conference presenter made the point that "If a young person has not gotten into and out of trouble three times by the time they are 18, their education has not been complete."

Here I am in front of a monument on Main Street in Bethlehem. This is a very old (1745) town founded by Moravians, among others. I like the saying: "Drink Pilgrim here, and if thy heart be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh thy spirit."

Our spirits were definitely refreshed here.

Empty Chairs

Could it be we have taken Hallowe'en too far?

Your youngster can be a pimp for Hallowe'en!

Do you need a bag of skulls?

How about a partially decomposed corpse skull? Only $7.99!!!

And who doesn't need a bloody severed foot?

Time to rethink how we act on All Hallow's Eve.

Our old house in Wilmington Delaware

2401 Marleton Dr.

Here is the house on the corner. (It looks smaller than I remembered it...)

Here is the park down the street where we used to play. (I broke my arm falling out of one of those trees!)

It was cool to go back to see the places I remember so vividly from 1966...

So much happened there, and none of it of any consequence whatsoever.

Rob

Dad's chair

Newark, Delaware - White Clay Creek State Park

First comes the gift, then the reminder.

"It Rained All Week the Day I Left..."



Today is Sunday morning and it has rained steadily since Monday, with only a break for a day or two of showers. This after a banner summer of sunny days.



The movers came Thursday and Friday, Anthony and Angel. Friday was the only day this week that there were only occaisional showers.


Here they are on Friday loading the first of the crates in the van.


They return tomorrow for the rest...

Bumper sticker

Another poem by Mary Oliver

Here is a link to a poem by Mary Oliver that I liked. She is destined to be remembered as a great American poet.
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/08/11

What are you reading this summer?

This summer I have read several compelling books.

First I read A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation (.) by David W. Blight Ph. D. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_0_7?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=a+slave+no+more&sprefix=a+slave

This is an excellent commentary on two slave narratives and then includes the actual narratives. Slavery is the American holocaust. The U.S. should offer reparation to families of enslaved people. If you don't agree, just read a few slave narratives. I will read Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington this fall. I am enthralled with slavery and the Jim Crow era, though I am not sure why.

Next I read Broken Music by Sting. http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Music-Sting/dp/0440241154/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250087037&sr=8-1

This is a memoir by the pop star Gordon Sumner known as Sting, the bass player and front man for The Police.
It was a little hard to get into, but once in what a great story he has to tell. It covers his life from boyhood up until his first American tour with the Police, after which he became famous and filthy rich. The story is well told and compelling.

Now I am just finishing Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana by Anne Rice http://www.amazon.com/Christ-Lord-Road-Anne-Rice/dp/1400078946/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250087207&sr=1-1

This is a novel told in first person by Jesus of Nazareth. I heard about this somewhere on the web and had been wanting to read Anne Rice to see if she was any good. Turns out she is a good novelist and something of a Christian scholar. If you ever wondered what it was like to be a major Jewish prophet and Saviour of all mankind, this is a good book for you. Interesting read.

So what are you reading this summer?

:)

Sunset in Alaska

The sunsets on the west coast are usually different than those in the east. Right now, though, there is smoke in the air from forest fires in the Yukon, just over the mountains to the east, which have been causing beautiful sunsets similar to those I have seen back east.

Here is a sun set over Tee Harbor near Juneau.

Shade Seekers

The Grid at Aurora Harbor, Juneau Alaska

One of the coolest things about Juneau Alaska is the extreme tides. On average tides here change 16-18 feet per day. Compare that to 4 foot tides on the Chesapeake Bay, for example.

I love when people use natural forces to accomplish things. The grid at the harbor in Juneau is one of those devices that do this. The first photo shows a large working boat, looks like about 50 feet long, lifted out of the water.

In this photo you can see the bow and the timbers, just at the water line, that it is resting on. This is the grid.

Here is another shot of the grid a few minutes later. Notice the tide has gone out more and the boat is now out of the water more.

Here is a view back down the grid showing the boat now fully out of the water. Captains tie up their vessels above the grid at high tide, and within a few hours the tide lowers the boat onto the timbers of the grid, exposing the underside of the boat. There is a window of 6-8 hours during which the hull can be inspected, scraped, cleaned and even painted, and the props can be worked on.

Isn't this ingenious?

Glacier Falls

Bruce and I walked out to the glacier and the falls nearby tonight. As we get closer to moving away, my appreciation for the beauty of the world here is renewed. The falls are about 150 feet high, and are a half mile from the glacier.

As we got closer, the sound grew louder and louder. It is probably a half a city block wide at the base of the falls. It throws off a fine mist, but you can walk right up to the falls.

Bruce got excited as we came to the falls, (he thinks waves are alive and need to be hunted down and subdued). I got kinda going too...

Looking back over the lake which flows from the glacier, you can see icebergs floating, having calved in the past few days from the glacier.

There were only two people on the trail. There had probably been hundreds during the day, but they are all back on their cruise ships by sundown.

I will miss the ease of getting out into the wild and being alone with the splendors of creation.

Turns out life IS just a bowl of cherries!

Garrison Keillor - American Master

Garrison Keillor, the author, humorist and creator of "A Prairie Home Companion" radio show was featured on American Masters this week. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/garrison-keillor/the-man-on-the-radio-in-the-red-shoes/1159/

This is a great man doing great work.

Here are a couple of quotations I noted:

"Our impact on the world is slight
so take life as a comedy,
play it for laughs.
You die, there is a sort of decent grief
a few people really do suffer from your absence
but the impact on the greater world is not that big.
You do not leave a big hole.
They dig a hole and they put you in it."


and

"Now that I am the age that I am
I find myself less interested in the adult world.
I feel myself going back to the ravine
and going back to the sort of loose, dreamy feeling
that you had when you were twelve and thirteen.
We see the world clearly when we are children,
and we spend the rest of our lives
trying to remember what is was we saw."

Whose hands are these before me?

Whose hands are these before me
wrinkled, dry and cracked
where for the longest time
there were another two, fair
young and supple?

Yet the same spirit inhabits both,
drives both sets to write
different songs
from the same heart.

Rob Seward
December 2008

Letterman WILL be voting for Sarah Palin

You gotta love David Letterman, he really knows how to sell stuff.

Here he is explaining a tiff with Sarah Palin.

Why would a governor get into a flame with a comedian, except that she is a marketing genius too: there is no such thing as bad press!

http://lateshow.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/video_player/index/php/988845.phtml

Summer Cottage

by Anne Porter

This is a house
That smells of melons and roses
Sea-wind pours through it
The airy curtains float
And the wiry sprays
Of the sea-lavender
Tremble on the table

The hushed roar
Of the massive ocean
Covers us night and day
It shelters usLike a tree shadow
We live in it
As in a forest.

"Summer Cottage" by Anne Porter, from Living Things Collected Poems. © Zoland Books, 2006.

Glorious sunshine

We went to the local high school to watch the boys play softball night before last. Here is the ball field. Can you see the glacier there in the background?















Here is another view. That is Thunder Mountain in the background.
















Every night for a week an eagle has roosted in this tree behind our house. I was watering the garden last night and took these pictures, from the garden and the front of the house respectively.

Can you tell I love living in Alaska?