So cute. And just perfect for the First Family and the Gates family. While the rest of the country recovers from the election, Washington is swimming in a sea of Obamamania. It's not surprising considering that Barack, Michelle, Malia, and Sasha will be moving in just down the road. For us all politics is local. You see, while I live just outside the Beltway, I often connect with the Politicos of DC in more intimate ways --sometimes directly and sometimes in an off-the-cuff chit chat moment. They're locals, just like us. Many of my neighbors work directly with political higher ups....
Replica of Stonehenge and the Columbia Gorge, Maryhill, Washington (View larger.) As we stood on the bluffs overlooking the Columbia Gorge I wondered how I would convey this landscape to you. My eyes took it all in as I scanned the river canyon and the surrounding hills. Mt. Hood was barely visible through the atmospheric perspective. I smelled the dry brush and felt the wind on my face. I noticed a fire had started in the distance, back where we came from. It was silent except for that wind. I was standing next to a replica of Stonehenge, built by Sam Hill...
Children practice a dragon dance at Yangchun Family Reunion (Click here for larger photo). We belong to an interesting family. Our girls were both adopted from the Yangchun Social Welfare Institute in China. And it was time for our quadrennial family reunion. This was the impetus for our Pacific Northwest sojourn. Yangchun, a "town" of just over a million people is about a five hour drive from Guangzhou. Every four years families who've adopted children from the orphanage there gather to celebrate our children, discuss issues associated with adoption and transracial families, and to just have a good time. This year we...
Portland's Museum of Velvet Art: The Velveteria (click for larger image). There are two types of families: the Communist Party Central Committee variety --those that plan their family vacations and the Jack Kerouac variety --those that don't. Planning a family vacation takes time and forethought. Like a Soviet five-year plan. But some families are simply not wired that way. They like to wake up in a strange motel and decide at breakfast what direction to head. We are not that kind of people. But we're not apparatchiki, slaves to the Plan, either. We like a little "fuzzy room." We're open to...
The Gates/Krasnican clan has just returned from another triumphant family road trip --this time to the Pacific Northwest. I'll be collating our collective memories in the next few weeks and reporting on how things went. But for now let me wet your appetite with this digital morsel. Ever the photo raconteur and all-around Peeping Tom, I spied this couple who just couldn't wait for their private berth on the thirty-five minute ferry voyage from Seattle to Bainbridge Island. Get a room people! All ferries on the Puget Sound have been rated PG for years. Ok, I was daydreaming. There's not much...
Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 13.07.2008
Spain: The Post-Flight Recap
Globalization: The Tennessee Bar in Aranjuez, Spain Estoy en España, mis amigos. And so far, my detailed packing technique has yielded no forgotten essentials. My one suitcase weighed 21 kilos, just under the 50 pound limit and my supersized backpack was filled to the brim with computer and camera cables (and power bars) of every kind. The flight over was uneventful for the most part. I actually slept (the first time I've slept on a plane in steerage class). The young woman I was sitting next to kept coughing on me but was kind enough to assure me that...
Fairly Odd Parents-Present, Professional Auteurism / 06.07.2008
Traveling Abroad: A Pre- Pre-Flight Checklist
Boat house with concrete lighthouse for sale. A photo from my last trip to a Spanish-speaking land: Puerto Rico. Ok, true confession: I am a neurotic traveler. Well, to be more specific: I am a neurotic pre-traveler. With one week to go before heading off to Aranjuez, Spain to give my first international talk (El uso de los blogs dentro de los museos de corte tradicional/New World Blogging in a Traditional Museum Setting), I'd sleep much better if I was entirely packed and ready to go. I'm always afraid I'll forget something. A MacGyver I'm not. Spanish translated PowerPoint: check...
Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 31.05.2008
Say It With Crystal
Him: Are those flowers real? Me: When's the last time you brought flowers to your wife? Him: I'm not married. Him 2: Did he say those flowers were real? Her: They're real. I can smell 'em. Subway Conversation, Thursday Afternoon When it all began. I'd been lamenting over what to get my wife for our 15th anniversary. Fifteen is crystal. But we're not crystal types. Being the good gift giver that I am the bar is always set high. And, as good gift givers know, it's not the money; it's the thought that goes with it that really counts. Now, I could go crystal but it would...
Women have a right to expect that showers and locker rooms are not occupied by persons who retain their equipment. From the Good Folks at NotMyShower.com Dinnertime at our house is a family affair. And evening meal is the time when we talk about our day. As father of the brood I am eager to hear the news. When I ask my daughters "How was your day?" they uniformly answer in the typical "youngspeak" of the early twenty-first century: "Goood." (Think slight Swedish intonation with the end of the word rising a bit in pitch.) How's school? "Goood." How's your teacher?...
Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 09.02.2008
A Bathroom Apparition
Get a better look at our bathroom vision! Six months ago we renovated our bathrooms. That fifty year old retro look we loved when we bought the house was really getting old. Our green tub, along with its matching sink and toilet had lost their luster. And a complete bathroom redo was in order. Suddenly, this weekend, when I opened our beautiful new wood veneer medicine cabinet I spied an apparition --a vision-- but from who or what? A controversy is brewing as to who is trying to contact us. Who was trying to contact us? What do you think? Click each...