It's Alwase Nice To Remember The Good Ol' Days

My sister Di told me about this, which she re-discovered recently:

She wrote it in her "Babysitters' Club Little Sister Diary" when she was about 8 and I was about 11. It's pretty funny!

Pont Aven - Tues 7th, 2pm (new start time)

We have a short walk at the pretty artists' town of Pont Aven on Tuesday 7th, starting at 2pm (NOTE NEW START TIME). This is an easy stroll on leafy lanes and woodland tracks. The meeting point is at the wooden passerelle over the river in the rue du Port, near the restaurant Le Moulin du Grand Poulguin (about 300m south of road bridge in town centre). Please note that this is market day, and parking in the area very near the meeting point may be difficult in the morning. After the walk some of us will be visiting the town art gallery, which has many examples of the famous Pont Aven school of painting, a style developed in the late 19th century by a group including Gauguin, Bernard and S�rusier.

Pictures of the Day: August 25 - September 2, 2010

Hi Everyone! Here are the Pictures of the Day from the last few days. Hopefully there's something interesting for you in there:

August 25: "We're all equal in our big, happy world... except you, Pablo. We hate your scarf. You're out."
This was in a classroom where I teach in the evening. It's a grade school during the day.

August 26: I've seen this sign quite a few times on the way out of San Jose, but it's always been too dark (and possibly unsafe) to take a picture, so I made it a point to go a bit early and get this picture before my class on Thursday.
In any case, that seems like a very appropriate visual image for a rehabilitation school.

August 27: Some cheflera (schefflera, in English, I believe) that Angela was planting in our yard. Looks good photographed. I still think it's incredible you can just put a little stick of this in the ground and you'll have a bush within a year!

August 28: When we got back home from work, the power was out again, and it was getting dark. Plus, it had been raining all day and the condensation from the morning's showers was still on the windows.
Basically, a good time to take a nap.

August 29: Some flowers at Lucy's house. She invited us over to play Scrabble and drink coffee. Good times!

August 30: A pair of earrings that my grandma gave to Angela.

August 31: If you went to Timnath Elementary School in the late 80s and early 90s, this may look familiar to you. Or it may not. I remember being taught how to multiply this way. I was trying to explain it to some coworkers, so I went back into the past, drew up the grid, and multiplied some numbers. This is 312 times 725 which, as we all know, is 226,200. I can't believe three things:
1. That this technique for multiplying numbers actually exits and works
2. That I remembered the technique
3. That they actually TAUGHT this technique to us in 5th or 6th grade

September 1: The faucets in my hotel in Guanacaste. I started teaching an English class on Wednesday nights in a resort up there (Guanacaste is the northwest province in Costa Rica, where the most tourists go, but where I had only passed through previously). It was very nice, and I'm looking forward to continuing the class for the next seven weeks!

September 2: A windmill on the side of the road in Guanacaste. It was the first time I'd really spent any significant time or driven around much in that province, and I can see why it's the big tourist place in the country. It was pretty nice, and quite a bit different from where I live.

So, that's it for now. Thanks for reading!

Waiting For The Storm

Recollections of my September visits to Block Island are mostly rose-colored, but in 2008 I spent several days there fearing the force and path of Hurricane Kyle.  I am not in Block Island presently, but I have been thinking about that  trip quite a bit today.

Much like this week, there were several days of spectacular, late summer weather. In the forecasts however, were the rumblings of a storm one thousand miles to the south. The weather remained golden, but by the fourth day, the forecast grew dimmer and there were slight signs of the approaching storm.

Walking around in Old Harbor, the roar of the surf  could be heard smashing ashore. There was still sunshine and mild breezes, but the seas were building. I walked out on the breakwater admiring the surf, but in typical Soundbounder fashion, I went too far. Somewhere beyond the halfway point, I was hit hard by the spray and drenched  thoroughly. Is it any wonder my camera has condensation issues?

By evening, the winds arrived and  blew for two straight days, reaching a high of 62 mph at 4 AM on the second night. Kyle passed Block Island several hundred miles to the east, eventually reaching landfall in Nova Scotia. Funny, I still regard that vacation as one of my best ever.

I've been thinking about that trip today as Hurricane Earl approaches, and this time it doesn't seem so fun. I have removed Carina's dodger, along with her mainsail to reduce windage. I also added some chafing protection to her mooring lines. Hurricanes can obviously change direction, but at this moment, the path appears to be further east. That means the strongest winds will be from the east and north, which gives Carina better  protection in her mooring field. I am off the boat, and will not return until Saturday. Still, I can't help but worry and wonder what else I should have done.

Yes, I  look back at Hurricane Kyle with rose-colored glasses, but Hurricane Earle remains an open book. 

Open House At Faulkner's Island

The Faulkner's Island Light Brigade in cooperation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the US Coast Guard, will hold their annual open house on the weekend of September 11th & 12th. Located about 3 miles from the Guilford shoreline, Faulkner's is part of the Stewart McKinney National Wildlife Refuge. The open house provides visitors a once-a-year opportunity to visit the island along with the 1802 lighthouse.

Ferry service is provided from the Guilford Town Marina, but visitors can also arrive by private boat and anchor, or paddle the 3 mile passage by kayak. Space is limited aboard the ferry and reservations are required.

I attended this for the first time last year, and I highly recommend it. The open house is well organized, and the staff does an excellent job of providing an informative and entertaining visit. This is Connecticut's second oldest lighthouse, and the remote location provides a perspective of Long Island Sound that you otherwise won't get to see.

Faulkner's Island Light Brigade

Soundbounder: Faulkner's Island

New York Times: The "U" In Falkner

Combes Gate Beach

Yesterday I found a new beach! That's not to say that I was the first to discover it, but it was new to me. My friend comes here a lot and she took my kids out with hers, two of the three anyway, and I met them at lunch with a picnic. We stayed til gone 5 o'clock which is the longest I've spent on a beach in years.

Combes Gate is a tiny little cove at the end of Woolacombe as you head along the coast towards Mortehoe. Parking is difficult unless you get there early in the morning and nab a free place on the road. I had to park in Woolacombe car park and walk to get there, this cost me �6. That's an all day fee, your only option in that car park, and its pay on exit by feeding coins into the lever-arm machine.

The beach is lovely, with not many people on it at all. When the tide goes out there are lots of rock pools to explore. The kids caught a few shrimp and fish and a massive crab. They also went in the sea lots. Down by the waters edge there was quite a breeze today, but further up into the cove it was quite sheltered and warm. Why couldn't it have been like this through August? And why do summer holidays have to end. I'm off to work now. Doom!

Musicians Sealed In The Castel Of Salerno

Oh yes, it's a terrible story about the destiny of some persons that lived in the castel of Salerno. I'll show it to you, all in the photos I've made just some days ago, on August 27. :-)))

The castel of Salerno was created to control the territory from the highest place over the town and it was used mostly for the defence. All the plan of the fortress that included the understanding town is so efficient that it was not necessary to live in the castel. The princes went only when it was necessary there, I think.

Some years ago the castel was repaired and now it's a splendid place where to go for a walk -with typical plants of the zone, some species of animals, normally living in the wild places here, and views that literally make you forget everything.

On the photo is the port of Salerno with a cruise ship in it and the Amalfi coast in the background.

The castel gave hospitality to a Festival of the classic music this year, and they decided to close musicians in the rooms of it. One artist told a love story of a princess Liutpranda to the guests and they were guided through the rooms, accompained by the classic and medieval music. There were many journalists, TV and many persons that wanted to partecipate on this event. Many of the guests, we too, thought, it will be a guided visit of the castel, but they wanted to present the musicians in this special way.

We wanted to see the castel before the show began and understood the idea of the presentation after we saw these strange cloistered artists:







They like to close the artists, the responsables for the tourism in the municipality of Salerno, you know. Some years ago they closed painters in a Cistersian monastery for a month. The painters had to create their artworks and than they could go out from the cloister.
You had to see those opuses! I think, they did not give them to eat too. Or maybe invented other kind of torture. At least it was the impression after I've seen what the painters created in that month.