Top Ten Photos of the Year

Here are my top ten favorite photos of the year 2007.

















1. Distance and Scale
View of Red Rocks State Park, Las Vegas NV.

2. Hard to Measure
View of Grand Canyon National Park from the North Rim.








3. Killed by Indians
Grafton Cemetary, Grafton Utah.

4. Family Hike
Over Thanksgiving Holiday
Olney, Maryland.















5. Panic Attack
View of the last trail segment to reach Angel's Landing, Zion National Park, Utah.














6. Last Look Back
Traveling on a dirt road from Grafton, UT to Pipe Spring Monument.


7. Old Geyser
Kodachrome State Park, Escalante, UT.














8. Pretty in Pink
Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, Utah

9. Thistle
Winton Woods, Cincinnati, Ohio.




















10. Snow Squall
Hike in Olney, Maryland.

Home Addition Update

December 18th. Last Friday the framing crew had the roof rafters in place and the roof partially enclosed over the new bedroom addition. The picture at right was taken December 17th in the afternoon showing the roofline of the new bedroom addition and the bay window looking out into the backyard, or at least what is left of the backyard. Over the weekend Jane and I were able to walk around inside and get a sense of space and plan where the bedroom furniture will go. This morning I noticed another large pallette containing the pressure-treated wood that will be used in constructing the screened-in porch, so that may be going up soon. These guys are working really fast and now that the weather looks clear for the next week, there should be a lot of changes before we leave for home on Saturday. When we get back after the holidays we have a few light fixtures, a couple of ceiling fans (one in the bedroom and one on the porch), paint colors, carpet for the bedroom and tile for the bathroom that we need to pick-out. This is the worst part for us, or at least for me, and I wish the Design/Build team would just choose something neutral and install it, paint it, whatever. In addition, since Jane and I thought we could save money by staining/sealing the porch ourselves (probably a bad idea) we also have that chore to plan ahead for.

January 2nd. The project is moving pretty rapidly even though it's getting pretty cold to work outside. The porch and porch roof were completed while we were in Cincinnati over Christmas holiday. You can see the 6x6 posts holding up the roof....I'm anxious to see how this will look when completed. It certainly wasn't the design we had planned initially, but it will be nice. We have the walk-through with the contractor for final approval of the electrical outlets and switches and other details that we need to decide on now before they start insulating the walls and drywalling. One pain was that the water supply to the washer was disconnected last week and we've had to take our laundry to the laundromat to get washed. That didn't make George happy and I spoke with the foreman this moring that it would be nice to get the water and sewage connections in place so that we'll be able to use the washing maching by this weekend. I'm sure that will really help......yes, that was sarcasm.

Holiday Cookies

Tonight we packaged this year's edition of Holiday cookies to give out to the neighbors. Judy and I had been busy the past few weeks baking and decorating and when Jane brought a plate into work was surprized (or scared) how fast they were consumed--a good sign for Judy and I!! We made sugar cookie cutouts, chocolate chip, coconut macaroons with chocolate drizzle, chocolate crisps, chocolate-covered peanut butter balls, cranberry and pistachio biscotti dipped in white chocolate, and Lizzie's.

Elroy the Wrestler

Here are a few pictures of Elroy from a recent wrestling meet. In this series Elroy is seen as one of the team captains greeting the captains of an opposing team. Elroy won by default against that team. There are two other photos of Elroy squaring off against another opponent who he pinned in the first period.

True History of the Kelly Gang

True History of the Kelly Gang is Peter Carey's 2001 Booker Prize winning novel that recontructs the life and times of Ned Kelly, an uneducated Irish immigrant who becomes a infamous bushranger and revolutionary figure in Austrailia. Although this book is fictional the characters in the novel actually existed and many of the events are based on historical fact. Although his legacy is still somewhat controversial, Ned Kelly is revered by many as a national icon and the forerunner of Australian nationalism. Based partly on historical documents and the famous Jerilderie letter written by Kelly, Carey's novel closely follows the known facts of Kelly's opposition of England's unjust colonial rule.

In writing this book, Carey introduces the story from Ned Kelly's point of view. The letter, written in his last days sets about to write his life history so that his infant daughter will know the truth about him. What follows is a glimpse of life during a period of British colonial rule (apporximatley 1840-1880) in Austrailia as the Kelly family struggles to survive in Australia's unyielding bush country. As dirt-poor Irish immigrants they are looked upon by the English settlers (called squatters) as "a notch beneath the cattle" and face continual harassment from the traps (police) and the threat of eviction from their land.

Ned's father dies while Ned is quite young and Ned initially sets about to farm the land and protect his mother and siblings. Kelly's mother is not neccessarily a sympathetic figure in this novel although is much beloved by Ned. At one point, Ned's mother tricks Ned into becoming an apprentice to the famous bushranger Harry Power (in order to bring in money), thus drawing Ned increasingly into a life of crime. When Ned accidently shoots the treacherous Constable Fitzgerald, Ned is forced to flee into the wild back country. In the bush, Ned uses the lessons he learned from Harry Power to avoid capture and survive in the wild. He is joined by his younger brother Dan and two loyal friends; together they comprise the Kelly gang. During this time Ned also falls in love with marries his donah, Mary Hearn, the mother of his daughter. While on the lam, the Kelly gang outsmart the police, elude massive manhunts, and commit daring robberies all the while gaining widespread support from poor oppressed farmers whom they help out by paying off their debts or helping them work the land.

After his capture in 1880, Ned Kelly said, "If my lips teach the public that men are made mad by bad treatment, and if the police are taught that they may exasperate to madness men they persecute and ill treat, my life will not be entirely thrown away." True History of the Kelly Gang is preceded by an epigraph from William Faulkner: "The past is not dead. It is not even past." These quotes illumine Carey's intent to both relate a good story of a revolutionary figure and more importantly convey a warning about the consequences of injustice and perscution that occur in contemporary conflicts today.

Work on the House Progresses

December 10th, 2007. Monday morning and work on the house is moving apace--there was a huge pallette of lumber delivered to the house before 7 am this morning. The block and brick foundation for the new bedroom, the new steps to the basement, and piers for the porch were all completed last week. Since it snowed last Wednesday/Thursday, and has continued to be overcast and wet the past few days, the backyard is now one big quagmire from the workmen tromping round. If the mud only stayed in the backyard I guess that would be okay, but it's gradually moving to the frontyard, being carried on the bottoms of shoes to the driveway and front walk (and a little inside the house) . The side yard near the street is clogged with piles of demolition debris and the varied flotsam of the construction trade. Pictures of the yard do not reveal the extent of the chaos. It's like the folks in New Orleans were saying after Hurricane Katrina...you have to personally witness the devastation to understand it. Well, our backyard isn't that bad, but you get the idea. The firm that we contracted to do the addition/renovation was the same that did our family room/kitchen/exterior about four years ago. The company is called Buildings Old and New, Inc. or simply BONI---which sounds amusing but they are really good and we were glad to be able to use them again. The remodeling industry in the greater Washington DC area is still red-hot, even though the housing market has slowed somewhat. Just getting a design/build firm to talk to is difficult and we were very happy with BONI on our last remodel. The owner and "chief" design/architect has a real flair for design and is frugal both in salvaging materials we can reuse and maintaining costs. And they work fast, something we'll appreciate even more once they've finshed and we've cleaned-up the yard.

Thursday 14, 2007. Hurricane BONI is still blowing. If only the weather had been like it was the past 10 months....dry.....instead of wet. But construction continues unabated and so does the mess. On a brighter note the framing has started. The floor and sides of the bedroom were in place last night when I took this picture from the backyard. The view from the street (the opposite side) will look like that shown in the scale drawing (see below).......eventually. According to our construction foreman, Jason, the framing for the bedroom and porch will be done by next week. There's a big winter storm predicted for tomorrow and I wish the roof were on when I get home tonight.....but it probably won't be in place yet. Work on the inside has also started, remodeling the old small downstairs bedroom into a walk-in closet and creating a new access for the existing bathroom. Removing the old lathe and plaster walls in these rooms has created another problem---dust. No matter the presence of dust containment, some dust still escapes to settle around the house and we spend a little time dusting and vacuuming every night, doing more house-cleaning in the past week than we normally do in a month. I'm not really complaining....we should house clean more regularly anyway.

First Meet of the Wrestling Season

Jane and I attended Elroy's first wrestling meet of the season. It was a tri-meet, so each team wrestled two other teams. Elroy's team matched off against Einstein and Blake. They won against Einstein 60;16, but lost to Blake 17;54. Elroy's team only won three matches against Blake (one was by forfeit). Elroy pinned both of his opponents, one of only three wrestlers to win both matches. Elroy was tired and a little beat-up, but won the day. Kudos to Elroy for a job well-done!

Advance Copy Christmas Letter, 2007

We hope everyone has had a good year and this Christmas greeting finds you in good health and spirits.

The highlight of our past year was our summer vacation to the National Parks of the Desert Southwest. We flew into Las Vegas and toured Zion and Bryce Canyon NPs in UT and the north rim of Grand Canyon in AZ. We had many memorable hikes; one through the Virgin River slot canyon in Zion NP and another to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes in UT. We also enjoyed visiting the ghost town of Grafton in Utah, where the famous "Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head" scene from "Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid" was filmed.

Jane and George are still working for the XXX and YYY, respectively. Jane recently traded her lab job for a supervisory regulatory position. Elroy and Judy are seniors in high school this year and working hard at classes. Both are keeping their grades up and staying on honor roll. Judy ran varsity cross-country this fall and Elroy has just started wrestling. He hurt his knee the first week of practice but is okay now. As in summer's past both mowed lawns over the summer to make spending money and this summer also studied for the SAT which they took in the fall. Besides classes, they've spent countless hours filling out forms and writing essays for the college application process. Next year Elroy and Judy will have their own stories to tell about their college experiences.

Last March, Jane and George ran the Greenway Trail Ultramarathon that one of our friends organizes. Extremely icy and muddy conditions conspired to make this the toughest physical challenge we've ever endured. George also ran the Marine Corps Marathon in October, finishing in 4:27, about 5 minutes faster than he ran the MCM in 2001. However, what we've enjoyed most this year is having Elroy and Judy join us on trail runs and we've even begun running races together. Our first "family outing" was an 8K race called the “Run Through the Grapevine” in which the race course wound through a local vineyard. Afterward, Judy thought the hilly course was brutal, Elroy was too tired to speak, but Jane was blissfully happy having won a bottle of wine.

We have a wonderful new cat named Maximus. We came upon him one evening while out walking, lost and obviously distressed (the cat not us), and he followed us home. So I guess he picked us out. After failing to find his original home we decided we could not give him up. He’s got a wonderful personality and is very tolerant of our older pets that are unsure what to think about this energetic new object of their owner’s affections.

The other news is that we’ve just started to add a little more space to our little home. The groundbreaking was just after the Thanksgiving holiday to add a first floor bedroom addition and screened porch on the back of the house. As always, additional details for these stories and more can be found at http://experiencetk.blogspot.com/. Happy Holidays to everyone.

Is there no end to this conspiracy of irrational prejudice against Red Ryder and his Peacemaker..............HO! HO! HO!