Halloween on Islamare

Horror and fun at the end of Islamare with the Bethkes and Jonathon providing most of the terror (although my outfit might scare more than a few)!!

Weekend Pictures

After a welcome conversation with my daughter this morning, I thought I'd post two more of my favorite pictures from our trip to visit Ashley and Bryce this past December.

St. Andrews Cathedral Cemetery

St. Andrews Cathedral Cemetery

Create a Caption

Does this picture disturb you as much as it does me?

I challenge you all to leave an appropriate caption.

Fall Weekend

This last weekend was a nice Fall weekend. We started off in the morning cleaning up the yard of fallen leaves, etc. to quickly change from sweatshirts to t-shirts after about 15 minutes as the day warmed up just enough to take the chill off. It was nice to see the trees beginning to change color a little after the change in temps with our two or three days of rain (a good start for the rainy season).

A few other chores and some college football took up the rest of the afternoon and then we took a "Halloween Cruise" with the Bethkes whose boat was decorated with pumpkins, witches and small skeleton lights.

Church service was dedicated to missionary work and emphasized the dramatic increase in Christianity with the last 40 years, primarily in China and South Korea. The swath of countries from Indo-China through the Middle East to northern Africa remains the most difficult and least evangelized area in the world.

Sunday lunch was nachos with cheese, black beans, salsa and guacamole with brewskis as we watched some pro football. We ate enough that we didn't even have dinner! After some computer/financial work, I then caught the second game of the World Series and watched Boston go up 2 to 0.

Obviously, not an over-taxing weekend, but just fun to relax and enjoy our home and neighborhood. Hope you had a good weekend as well.

October Poker

Poker is more fun when you win
Like roulette balls that spin
And to your number slot don't fall
Losing is no fun at all

Six or seven is better than four
Players only wishing for more
To share the betting or deal
Or fixing a snack or meal

Where were the cards for me to make
Four of a kind,a flush or a straight
No, this week my fate just to lose
Next month, perhaps I'll have better news

Sunday's Sermon

Do you sometimes think about skipping church when your senior pastor isn't preaching and the church will be having a guest preacher? In the past, I sometimes have felt that way, but not at Pacific Coast Church as every "substitute" I've heard has been excellent.

Dr. Richard Mayhue who is the Dean of Masters Seminary (www.tms.edu) preached this last Sunday. The first thing that caught my attention was when he stated that he is invited to numerous churches to preach and in some cases he refuses as they wouldn't be open to his preaching faithfully from the Word. That I considered a strong rebuke.

He spoke on Revelation 1:9-17 and its description of Christ. Nowhere else in the Bible do we get any information about Jesus' physicality - his height, musculature, eye color, or prominent features. But in these verses we see Christ in his glory as our high priest and John doesn't sit down and talk with him, but falls at his feet overcome by his righteousness, his glory, his magnificence. A position that we will all find ourselves in some day, hopefully in thankfulness and adoration, rather than in submission and despair.

Friday's Pics

Two of my favorites from our trip to London and Scotland in December 2003 where we had a great time with Ashley and Bryce.

London Park

Stirling Castle

Don't Try This After Drinking

Click on the this for a look at an optical illusion that will test your sobriety.

Pleasant Evening

Got home Monday night fairly quickly as Columbus Day kept some of the public servants and students off the freeway. The day had been partially overcast with high clouds as a quick moving front passed through the area - a promise of "cooler" days to come.

I pulled in the trash cans and refilled the recycle bin about 3/4 full with more cardboard left over from the new appliances and boxes from our kitchen. (Wanda had come over on Saturday to help Carolyn start to put things back in the kitchen as most of the cabinets were now available even though plumbing and electrical items remain to be completed.) Carolyn was baking a Trader Joe's lasagna in our new oven and learning how to use the new controls and we ate at our new marble countertop and imagined how it will be to have running water, a dishwasher (no garage sink), a garbage disposal, and how good it will look with a new copper hood and painted!

We checked e-mail and blogs, did a little financial work and watched a smattering of national news. Then we watched American Dreams from last Sunday night (a DVR is a nice new addition to cable) which was focused on the Vietnam war, and then headed down to the jacuzzi for a hot soak under a dark sky. We enjoyed it but could only handle it for about 10 minutes and we were still so warm we sat out on our bedroom deck and talked while wrapped in our beach towels. Not something you could comfortably do in Edinburgh, I suspect. Then it was off to a warm bed at 9:30 or so. Quite pleasant!

Throughout the night, we had flashes of lightning and distant rolling thunder and even a little rain as the front raced through Southern California. A little bit of nature's drama for our typically weather challenged area.

Kitchen Update

The marble is down and Carolyn is beginning to put some things away! We have electrical outlets and lights to finish along with the installation of plumbing, dishwasher and the copper hood and painting, but the kitchen is usable and looks fantastic!

Friday Pictures (a little late)

Here are some pictures from Yellowstone National Park on a road trip when Ashley was 13 and we drove about 3000 miles in 11 days to Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Oregon. Ashley had her head in a book a lot of the time, so she may not remember the scenery!

Yellowstone Meadow

Yellowstone Falls

Liquid and Electronics

Just a word to my fellow bloggers - wine and keyboards don't mix! A made a clumsy mistake the other day by spilling a nice glass of wine which basically fried my keyboard. I tried typing in a username on one of my websites and Hutchins sort of came out like HutCJkEwgSS. Needless to say, I couldn't access that site or my blog and Carolyn couldn't get her email from our desktop computer. Today I picked up a new keyboard and we are online again. Hurrah!!

Musical Interlude

If you have high-speed access, you might enjoy the singing talents of 'George Bush' and 'John Kerry' at this site. Just click the title "Musical Interlude" which is linked to www.jibjab.com and then on This Land is My Land.

Weekend Pictures

A few pictures from our fun weekend

Steve, Carolyn and Debbie

Artist Capturing the Street Scene

Art on Display

Outside a Winery

Justin Winery - Dave's Domain

Justin Winery

Fun Weekend

We had a great weekend with Steve and Debbie Kanda as we drove up to San Luis Obispo for a three day experience of art and vineyards.

Starting off an hour late on Friday at 11:30, we motored up to SLO in the back seat of Steph's Solara (Steve and she had traded cars for a couple of weeks) and made it up to the Apple Farm Inn and checked in only to find our rooms rather small and disappointing to Debbie who had stayed there a number of other times in the much larger rooms. After Debbie and Carolyn talked with the front desk, we moved into the main inn for Friday night only at the same rate as the smaller room. This room had a bigger sitting area, a bed you could easily get around, a closet (not just an armoire), a bathroom with a tub, and luxurious robes! Much nicer.

We headed into SLO for dinner at Firestones for burgers and beers while watching the college crowd begin to assemble for a later night than we four were up for. Then back to the Inn for a good night's sleep.

We met for breakfast at 9:30 at the Apple Farm restaurant for a big breakfast and then we headed off to the quick draw competition that was being held at the mission. The artists including Robin Cloud (Carolyn's art teacher) had 1 1/2 hours in which to sketch, paint and frame a piece for the competition. It was fun to see how good they all were and their various "takes" on the same general area. At noon, they began an outdoor auction and while we tried to acquire a couple of them, they often went for several hundred dollars more than we were willing to pay. Most went from $600 to $1500.

After watching about 2/3's of the auction, we headed into the foothills for wine tasting. We sampled a few whites, but mostly reds from several wineries as we enjoyed the rolling hill vistas and warm temperatures modified later in the day by a slight sea breeze. We bought a few bottles for our new wine refrig and some argon gas to "seal" those occasional unfinished bottles. Then back to the Inn (and our new smaller, original rooms) to change and head to the evening art auction and buffet.

Skewered chicken, sausage and beef with asparagus, salads and wine from Edna Vineyards (where we had visited earlier in the day) provided us with our evening sustenance as we viewed three pieces from each of the 50 or so artists that were available for silent auction beginning with a reserve price. Most of the reserve prices were $900 and above with only a few less than that so we just enjoyed mingling and viewing with no buying.

We finished up the evening having desert at ColdStone and visiting bubble gum alley where tens of thousands of pieces of gum have been deposited along 100' of a very narrow alley as 'tributes' from students over three of four decades. No one wanted to touch the wall!

Sunday morning we had breakfast in bed and checked out at noon and headed up to Templeton to meet Dave and Tim, friends of Steph and Manny from Cal Poly, to visit Dave's workplace - Justin Vineyards. A long drive through two lane, rolling hills following these former offensive lineman led us to a spectacular winery and small inn. Dave had arranged for lunch which was excellent and then led us through the winery and the cellars which are carved out of the hillside.

Dave is the Cellar Master in charge of the thousands of barrels of wine stacked five or more high and which in December had cascaded down after a 6.5 earthquake ruining about 200 barrels of wine and leading to their Orphan bottles which were delicious mixes of a wide variety of reds. Back in the tasting room, we joined the wine club and found a former SMCHS 2000 grad pouring behind the counter. Small world.

Steve continued his driving duties which I thoroughly enjoyed as we left late and headed home with a quick stop at Peabody's in Montecito for dinner and then onto to Torrance, where we traded out cars with Steph at around 11 and made it home at midnight. The only problem was the 5:30 start to this Monday morning.

We laughed a lot and just enjoyed each other's company and heard tales from the SLO days about Manny and his 20x20 at In N Out and licking chocolate pudding out of the serving bowl at Hometown Buffet with the football squad. Those images kept Carolyn and Debbie laughing so much on the return trip that I think their ribs hurt this morning.

Pictures will follow.

Friday Pictures

From our trip to Bali about 6 years ago.