Friday, January 25, 2013

Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh

For your Friday funny, meet TERII , Honda's new electronic anti-theft negotiator.


Saturday, January 12, 2013

Lat Day of Fun, For A While

Mom and I spent the whole day Friday playing around. The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento was having a special display of Norman Rockwell's work. They had a cool place set up where you could sit down and take your picture, recreating the triple self-portrait that Rockwell did. We had fun pretending.



In a similar use of irony, the painting below always catches my eye too. The artist who painted it is himself the one in the painting, and the model is portrayed as the painter. The angel in the background is supposed to represent divine influence directing the work.



In the office of the old Crocker home was this beautiful desk, and the safe that is set into the wall. I thought it was cool that the manufacturer was Hall's Safe & Lock Co. The office is where Crocker and the other three of the Big Four (Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins) made their deals to build railroads, and railroaded others to go along with their plans.


We really enjoyed walking around the old part of the museum. I've always liked the ballroom downstairs. With Kim's engagement, I wonder if maybe we could rent it for a reception.  ;- )

Below is my attempt at showing the expanse of the room with a three panel montage.


One of the cool things about the ballroom is the overlook from the upstairs gallery.

 

After a full morning in the art museum, Mom and I walked over to Old Sacramento and had a light lunch at a cafe, then took advantage of our passes to the train museum. I love looking around all the huge locomotives.


After having our fill, we bought the best item of food we had all day. At Mr. Spud's we bought an order of Irish style fries topped with cheese and bacon. WOW! Hot and delicious. Then we drove home and took it easy. We watched some shows in front of our fireplace. It was a great day. Mom always has great ideas for fun.

The Best Ginger Drink EVER!

This is not Ginger Ale, it's not Ginger Beer, it's something totally different. I saw it in the store and the bottle intrigued me, but it was way more than I wanted to spend, without knowing how it tasted, so I let it go.


But my sweet daughter Kim bought it for me for Christmas. The hype is that it doesn't have lots of sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, but "natural agave." It also has cardamom, orange peel and other flavors that make it a complex drink. Of course, it's loaded with ginger! Thanks Kim.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Have a Nice Trip? See you Next Fall!

We left for Utah Wednesday morning. It was a beautiful, bright, sunshiny day. We saw snow on the ground from Grass Valley all along the way to Kaysville. I figured it was pretty cold outside the car, but was surprised when I looked down at the thermometer to see that it was 14 degrees as we passed through Truckee. I kept an eye on it and when it got down below 10 deg, I started taking photos. It dropped a degree every two to three seconds until it reached what you see at the bottom.




Mom couldn't believe it was that cold because the sun was shining so bright. All it took was a second or two with the window rolled down and her hand sticking out to convince her the thermometer was correct. It was funny though, to see the bright sunshine (below) and feel warm in the car. . . knowing that in fact it was colder weather outside than I had been in since leaving Sweden.



And actually, it won't be next Fall when we see these folks (and others) again here in Utah because. . .

Kim and Nate Have Set the Date

They will be married in the Salt Lake Temple at 11:00 am on Tuesday, April 2nd. We are so excited for them both. Nate is an outstanding young man, who makes Kim happy. I think she does the same for him.