Doug and Carol's First Trip to Paris

Carol and I went to Europe for a week in 2005 - it was the first time we have been there. This picture shows one of the things that we liked to do best: wander around in the back streets to see how the people that live there really live. We would find great little restaurants where the locals go - better prices and probably better food than the touristy places.

A picture of the stain glass in the Notre Dame Cathedral - there is so much of this beautiful work over in Europe that you get overwhelmed trying to appreciate it in a short time.

One of the rivers, one of the bridges in this interesting city.

Carol posing in front of the Tower.

Doug is soaked - it was a rainy day. You can see him aligned with the street light, I am playing Mary Poppins with the umbrella. Note the Mercedes Smart car right behind me. (This is long before it was imported to America - I really wanted to drive one but never got the chance.)

A view of the city from a high spot near a cathedral. Right after this touring this church we wandered through beautiful streets of residences. It was fun to get a glimpse of where people are actually living.

How could anyone visit Paris without visiting the Moulin Rouge. We did, we spent the whole day walking the back streets and finally ended up here in the evening.

The Cathedral of Notre Dame - we went to Mass at 10:30 am as I recall. One of the things that amazed me was that there were so many priests, bishops, popes at every one of the masses that we went to in Europe. No priest shortage in Italy, Paris or London.

Doug and Carol's First Trip to London

A view from the Wheel. Carol is kind of shy of being of up high so I was proud of her for taking the trip with me. The wheel was put up by British Airways for just a short period, ie a year, but it proved so popular that it is now a permanent attraction. It is quite a marvelous attraction.
This is the postcard shot that I took of one of the museums. People were drawing in the foreground, the flowers add such a nice touch to the photo. It is a postcard!!

We really enjoyed the double decker buses. We stayed just two blocks from a major bus stop - the buses we liked to take up and down the tour route were empty as we got on at that stop.

The concrete newborn baby - have you seen it? If so, I would be surprised. It is on public display outside a very popular tourist venue but not too many people know where to look.

Carol in front of a fountain in front of a famous building.

This is my kind of sight seeing. I had to climb all the way to the top of the church on curvy little steps that are barely wide enough for one person. The trip up is rather strenuous but you are rewarded with a wonderful view, seen by a relative few people compared to the number of people that view the cathedral. The top of most of the churches in Europe built hundreds of years ago were just not designed with easy access to the top.

Another cathedral, someone else in the world probably has the same picture. Tell me the name and I will send you some church grace. (I remember bringing back some from here.)

Doug's Trip to San Diego/Torrey Pines to See Steve

I took a trip to San Diego to see a grade school/high school/college friend: Steve. He and I grew up in the same small town in South Dakota and have kept up with each other over the years. Since we are both retired - we decided it was time to use some of our free time to visit. We did a lot of things: above you can see that we went to a Mariner baseball game.
Steve and his house mate Patty have a great back yard - yes those are oranges on the tree. We spent a lot of time on the patio or in the evening, the hot tub. Great place in a nice quiet part of town. They have a great view as well as their property is "higher" than the houses behind them.

Steve and Patty at the community airport nearby where we went to eat/drink a bit of Mexican fare.

Steve and I started our visit by going to the beach for lunch, brunch actually, I think we both had omelletes. It was fun sitting in the sun and watching people go by - all types using all sorts of modes of transport.

Nice corner table in the sunshine...

We went to Torrey Pines several times to watch the hangliding and paragliding activities.

We went to an aircraft carrier museum that is docked right there at San Diego. Steve and I are hamming it up a bit. I did not realize it before but Steve is quite taken with the aviation business as I am. He is going to come out and help me do some hangliding at Lookout this Spring.

Steve let me fly the plane and then resisted all my efforts to land in a safe, conservative manner. As a Navy veteran he is obviously taking "Top Gun" to heart

Another Family Winter Vacation Trip To Puerto Vallarta

Winter time - Carol and Doug living in Portland, Erica and Michael living in Tennessee - we all decided to meet in Puerto Vallarta. (Megan and Eric were not able to get the time off.) We found a good deal for a week in northern PV on "Skyauction" and away we went. Not far from where we stayed, we found this overgrown area of flowers so we took advantage of it with pictures. Erica and Michael - a rather handsome couple.

The gang outside of one of the restaraunts that we ate at one of the evenings.

A group portrait overlooking the beach.

Michael and Erica leaving for cold weather back home.

A promenade on the way to the "el centro" where we would walk almost every day.

The Making of a Nashville Country Western Demo

My brother Pat and his wife Sandy surprised their daughter with an opportunity to make a country music demo in a real studio with real studio musicians. While visiting us in Nashville, my daughter Megan's boyfriend Eric set it up for them. (Eric is a Nashville songwriter and knows all or many of the studio musicians in town.) I probably enjoyed the experience more than Alexa as I went from room to room taking pictures of musicians during their session. It is really amazing as they all sit almost in separate rooms connected only to the other musicians by their earphones through the editing table. It was a neat experience at the end of the evening (started at 3 pm, two-song professionally produced demo done by 10 pm) to actually put her CD into the car stereo and hear it after seeing how it was made. Pretty cool stuff...

Alexa getting ready to do her thing. She has a wonderful voice and is quite adaptable - the musicians all worked together to change the arrangments slightly to handle her specific tone. (She may have also changed key, not sure about that.) It was pretty incredible to see how complex, yet straightforward all of the editing is. I am going to try to post more pictures later of the musicians actually playing each of their instruments.

Megan and Eric - the arranger.

Pat, Sandy, Alexa and Andrew.

Alexa is posing with all of the musicians and arrangers (and Eric). The only one missing from the picture was the young lady that came a little later to sing back-up to Alexa. They had already done much of the editing of the songs by the time she arrived. She listened to the songs and discussed with Eric and Alexa what they wanted her to do - she sang beautifully and really added to the songs.

I did learn one thing that stands out. These musicians would all rather be a studio musician, working with country artists on their albums than out on the road with the band. It seems that the traveling tour, even with benefits given to major artists and their band members, gets old quickly. I guess Willy is the only one that wants to be "On the Road Again."

Doug's Business Trip to China

The "After" Chinese haircut picture - see story at the end of the blog.

"Before" Chinese haircut picture - see story at the end of the blog.

With my employer, before I retired, I was able to go to China to work with the engineers that were constructing a pipe mill to be built in Portland, Oregon. The only unfortunate part of the week long trip was the fact that very little time was allotted to sight seeing. Therefore, we saw and experienced what we could after the normal day work hours. We had a driver/van take us from the very nice hotel to the engineering offices every day. The traffic that you see in the picture above and below was typical. Motorcycles, cars, trucks, scooters, bicycles and pedestrians filled the streets and sidewalks. It was interesting to watch how all peoples coordinated their movements in a seamless dance - I did not see any accidents.

This picture was taken in one of the manufacturing facilities that we visited. Yes, this porcelain fixture serves both a number 1 and a number 2 function. A visitor with a number 2 work order would enter the fixture stall and would close the stall enclosure prior to any manufacturing activity. They would then presumably prepare their clothing for a number 2 evacuation, being sure to properly straddle the porcelain with each foot carefully placed on the appropriate grooved placement area. One then would think that a deep backward bend at the hips with the buttocks in a porcelain approach mode would make for a successful work order fulfillment. I am not sure about the work order number 2 clean-up activity - since my work order was for only a number 1 product.

One of my co-workers by the name of Mike posing with the host of the company that we visited. She arranged for all of our daily meals and took special considerations of our needs at the office. The very nice hotel (World Trade Hotel) that we stayed at is in the background. Mike took me quite a few places to shop for souvenir's, etc. He is fluent in Chinese and was able to facilitate some really good bargaining sessions. I do not recall many specifics, but knock-offs were everywhere at very cheap prices - especially if you would haggle for a lower price. The latest movie CD's were $1 each, obviously counterfeit if you spent any time at all looking at the merchandise. (Words would be misspelled for example.) In addition, many of the CD's would not actually play after you bought it. I should not have, but I did buy a few CD's and a fake purse - it was hard to be there and not buy some things as novelty gifts.

More traffic pictures - notice the guard in the middle of the street - he has the most dangerous job in the world, I believe. He directs traffic carefully, the only problem is that about 20% of the traffickers ignore his directions. Makes for some entertaining and exciting Chinese reality videos.

The day is absolutely smog free!! There was only 1 day of 7 that did not have a medium to heavy layer of smog over the city. This particular city sat surrounded by hills and mountains and the bad air just builds up until a strong front comes through and cleans it out. (Then the smog cycle starts over again.) On a typical day, none of the high rise buildings that are shown in the above picture would be visible. We could actually see the top of our hotel on this day - it is one of the tallest buildings on the horizon.

The Chinese take great pleasure in naming many of their restaurants after American things. For example, the "Get More Glorious" restaurant that we ate at for our farewell luncheon, may have been the Chinese translation of an American "All You Can Eat Chinese Buffet." It was fun to look at all of the business names and expressions and try to figure out where they came from.

I am enjoying a very good meal at the "Get More Glorious" restaurant on the day before departing China. This particular place specialized in having "boiling pot" cuisine. You would help yourself to the raw meats and vegetables, put them into your pot and let them cook. After the item was cooked to your satisfaction, you would fork it out of your pot and indulge. Toward the end of the meal, it was custom to eat the remaining ingredients in your pot. It tasted like a soup, obviously flavored immensely by the food that you have cooked prior to your eating it.

I almost forgot to mention that I made a point of getting a haircut near the office where we worked. I am sort of a cheapskate and thrive on telling people how little I paid for something - I love finding a bargain. At any rate, I found out through questioning our Chinese engineers that I could get a hair cut for $1.00 US. So one day, after lunch I made my way about two blocks to the barbershop. One of the engineers had written on the back of a business card that I was an American visitor that would be honored to get a haircut from a Chinese barber. To make a long story short, the haircut took two hours. The head barber took great pleasure in allowing/directing each of his junior barbers to cut a portion of my hair. This was only after he apprised the situation by cutting the majority of my head himself. All of this junior-barber- standing-in-line behind my head took some time - plus the barber took special care to show them the portion of my scalp that they would be graded on. In addition, there was a directive to each of the hair shampoo ladies to do my hair, before and after the cut. As I recall, my head was scrubbed a total of 4-times. Twice before the cut and twice after. It was fun and I enjoy telling this story. I gave the barber $3.00 for the cut and pointed to all of the people in the room that helped with my haircut. There was plenty of bowing once they realized that I was asking him to spread the tips around. At any rate, the engineers gave me a hard time when I got back to work. (I think they were jealous.)