Right Brain Feed

 We recently took a much needed trip to the West coast. Trip was fairly family focused, as we have family in Portland, Seattle, and San Diego. Had a blast in Portland, loved the food truck culture. Amazing mole (3 kinds!), really nice Peruvian smoked chicken with yummy jalapeño cilantro cream sauce, amazing Pizza crust (Kens Artisan Pizza), and it was fun to try Burmese food (a salad with green tea dressing and 4-5 different types of nuts/seeds).  Enjoyed relaxing afternoon beer at a pub, enjoyed tranquil Japanese gardens, saw Sarahs nephew, hung out at Powells, and played some games of Tempest in a retro arcade. Portland definitely suits us, we will be back.   Seattle was a quick visit, checking in on my parents and sister, and seeing Sarah's sister.  San Diego was visiting Sarah's other sister, and seeing Sarah's almost 1 year old grand nephew (wow, that feels old!). He's very photogenic, a bouncy sweet baby. I melted. I even managed to capture his first steps on v...

 Sarah and I recently got back from a great beach trip to Ocracoke, and a great stopover in surprising Durham. May is a great time to visit the Outer Banks, before the throngs of summer visitors. Ocracoke tends to be quiet, because it's so hard to get to (9+ hours of driving including a ferry ride).  We ate great seafood every day, hung out on a deserted beach, met some fun folks, and really chilled out. Our room had an awesome view of the little Ocracoke harbor, and we spent the week with no agenda. I spent hours just watching the world go by from the widows walk on the top of the B&B. A slower pace of travel for sure. We also stopped by Durham, which is a cool little spot, visiting a friend we hadn't seen in years. Durham has really decent food, from Peruvian charcoal grilled chicken to Shakshuka in a new African restaurant, and a full on Ina Garten inspired feast at our friends awesome house. Also highly recommended is the Sarah Duke Gardens, especially the Asian sectio...

 We just got back from a family-foodie-fun trip to Seattle.  It was a blast: We feasted on wonderful sushi, soup dumplings, Vietnamese vermicelli salad, Japanese udon, Japanese ramen, grilled salmon, crab cakes, and divine clam chowder. I’ve gained new respect for well prepared ramen. We went to a prohibition style speakeasy: the bartender interviewed us on taste/alcohol preferences, then made a custom drink for each of us. Mine had Leningrad gin, Punt e mes Italian bittersweet vermouth, lime juice, ginger, and sage. Yum. Sarah had a chocolate brandy grapefruit concoction. We had a few nights on a houseboat on lake union. It had a rooftop deck with a really nice view.  We visited the Chihuly glass museum, wooden boat center, and spent a very zen afternoon wandering in a Japanese garden We caught up with family and friends.  I took a half day fused glass class. I really want to try this in my pottery kiln at home! Here’s the link to some photos of the trip:  http...

 In May, I escaped for a quick trip to the outer banks to Ocracoke, and loved it! Wonderful beaches, cute town built around a harbor, and lots of grilled fish for dinner. Just what I needed. A few more photos:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/SgbuND9V5cvsaXmr6

I met a really nice couple in Ocracoke, and wanted to make sure I captured what they learned the hard way. The day before they were planning to leave their beach bag was stolen on the beach, and it had their car keys in it. Their Prius has a keyless fob.  The remoteness of the outer banks left them in a real lurch. Locksmiths can't/won't create a new fob, if a new fob isn't accepted by the keyless system, it locks all fobs out, adding $2k to the cost of fixing the car. They didn't have a spare one at home in a drawer that could be fedexed to them. Dealers can't make a new fob without the car being physically present. The "solution" (a pretty ugly one on a remote island) is to get the car towed to a dealership, and to have the dealer program a new keyless fob. From Ocracoke, they had to find a tow truck that will take the hour ferry to come get their car, and then tow them 4 hours to the nearest dealership. When they arrived at the dealer, it took the deale...

 Thirty years ago Sarah and I took our first vacation together. On that trip we visited her grandmother at the family cabin in Vermont. It's a really special place chock full of Sarah's family tales and memories. Sarah's grandmother was really sweet, and an excellent host.... Huge breakfasts, fierce Chinese checkers games, and stories about tipsy neighbors driving off the culvert into the beaver pond, a snake in the ice chest at happy hour, etc.  After we returned, Sarah got a nice letter from her grandmother...and in the envelope was a honey dipper. It's followed us from house to house, always patiently waiting in a drawer. The honey dipper has never been used....until now! I made a honey pot for it, and now have a nice reminder of that first vacation sitting out where I'll see it.

 This winter we tried our first 3D puzzle, it was definitely different than last years intricate wood puzzle . Basically you put together a bunch of small panels from normal looking pieces that have a flexible-ish foam backing, then assemble the panels into the final form. With the amount of repetition of identical windows, and the flexibility of the foam backing, it tended to be pretty easy to get the wrong piece wedged in here and there.  It was pretty cool to assemble the final shape though. Probably much easier than the job of rebuilding the real deal, which I can’t wait to see! We used to frequent the little park behind Notre Dame for a lunch ham and cheese crepe, best eaten while sitting on a park bench while the cherry trees are in bloom.

 For the past 12 years, we've traveled with our two cats on multi day car trips. I've added it up, they've logged almost 15,000 miles with us. I thought I'd write up a few hints and tips about how to travel with furballs.  We did a few short test drives with them as kittens to see how they did.  You really need two people if you plan to let the cats out of their carriers. One to drive, one to manage the cats. Our cats wear harnesses during the drive, that makes it easier to grab them when we need to. Block access to things like under the drivers seat, or anywhere an exploring cat can get wedged in between luggage  bits. Also, use the driver side window locks so the cat can't step on the power window button. We have a small litter box, and it does get used. We offer them water, but wait to feed them til we get to the hotel.  We use different cat carriers than the dreaded 'going  to the vet' carriers. I'd like to think this lessens their stress. Stay in pe...

 We recently realized that spending all summer squirreled away at home was giving us a nasty taste of cabin fever, and a long winter is just around the corner. Yikes!  We went in search of a cabin fever cure, and found it.... in a cabin. We snagged a few days in a sweet pet friendly AirBnB at Lake Lure, packed up the fur balls for a trip, and enjoyed a few days of much needed scenery change.  I prepped and packed up all our meals, so we could just hang out and enjoy the cabin. The cats pretty much dozed in their bed in the sun all day. We did venture out on a few easy hikes, and packed our lunch to eat with a nice lake view.  We also did the Lake Lure Flower bridge, which had surprisingly decent flowers for mid September.  Didn't take many pictures, but here's a few more:  Lake Lure Photo Album

  From 2005-2007 we lived in Paris, it was the time of our lives.  I blogged during that time, and wanted to make sure to preserve the memories and photos from that wild ride. With the Coronavirus goop clamping down on anything new Travel related, I thought it would be good to republish and re-live them here. It also matches well with me reworking all my photo albums, since most of the original photo links on my original blog from 2005-7 are now dead as I've shuffled photos around.  I've created some links on the left side (or in the page menu on mobile)  to help folks navigate around.  Enjoy! Paris Fun  I tried to focus blogging on things about living in Paris that were off the beaten tourist path. Many weekends we'd start without a plan, and just head off to walk in a random direction from the apartment. We'd always find something interesting.  All the Paris Fun posts Two year Travel Frenzy We went wild with traveling. I was given the choice to keep ...

We arrived in Austin at 2am Saturday morning, after a lovely delay in Chicago. Is it mandatory that all flights out of Chicago be delayed? We're easing our re-entry shock with chips, salsa, and nice margaritas. We're also trying to save the American economy by buying 2 cars and a new dishwasher. This afternoon we make a trip to look at carpet. I am shopped out! We're sleeping on the floor, and cursing our hazy memories (I thought we left some cooking stuff in Austin...). We're still a bit grumpy from the trip, and facing a parade of workers ( A/C service, garage door fixer, dishwasher installer....).  I want my wonderful simple life in Paris back. No cars to fuss with, no weekend house projects.  Living in Paris main page

We're in the final stretch, as I write this I am surrounded by fragrant French movers packing up the apartment. They've been packing since 8am (it's now 3pm), and haven't gotten to the rather large amount of glasspacks that need to happen in the kitchen. There is something very unsettling about 4 strange men handling your stuff. We've definitely got the 'B' team, since everyone (including regular movers) is on vacation. It took two of the movers over 90 minutes to pack the futon. Is packing a futon really 3 person hours of work for people who are professional movers? Hmmmmm...... One of our weekend activities was rather nerve wracking. We have been unable to find someone to take the kitchen cabinets. So at 5am on Sunday morning, we snuck downstairs, and ..... left them in a discrete place around the corner on the sidewalk. We actually see this happen a lot in Paris, and we couldn't figure out another solution. Everyone is gone in August, including people...

We are trying to solve the dependency puzzle here as best we can. We have to take the blinds down before the ladder disappears into the sea container. We have to backup the computer before the air shipment goes. We have to before event X happens. Which brings me to another piece of the dependency puzzle: Suzy has to post her "Mission Accomplished" photo summary before the computer with Picasa on it gets packed. So here they are. 80 pics from our two years here. A few of them only hold value for Sarah and I (for example, the scrappy little dog that lives next door). I have quite a few nice memories wrapped up in these. My brain now has a moveable feast to feed on for the rest of my life.  Luckily, digital photography helps with preserving so many wonderful memories. Here's the cheatsheet for my brain:  Mission Accomplished album Living in Paris main page

Paris has done it again. As if 293 Metro stations weren't enough. Paris has started a bicycle rental system called Velib. For a Euro or two, you can rent a nice shiny new bike and toodle around for a bit. There are 20,000 bikes scattered around the city, and 750 check out stations like the one in the picture. They are *everywhere*. For a yearly subscription of 29 euros, you can grab a bike whenever you want, the first 30 minutes are free. It has noticeably increased the amount of bicycle traffic on the street. They have trucks that run around and re-distribute bicycles, so that you should always be able to find a bicycle (or an empty slot to check one in). Score one more for Paris in the "We mock you with all our public transportation" catagory. Living in Paris main page

We are giving our orchid to a friend. I had to have a picture of it before it went, it's positively overflowing in blooms right now. Byebye orchid. We escaped for a few hours this weekend and went to the expats picnic in Parc Monceau. It was nice to take a break from all the moving goop.  Living in Paris main page

Today I finally got around to doing pics for selling our Fridge and Stove. I'm a bit worried about a buyer getting the fridge out of the building. They are about to start work on the lift, and it might not be finished by when we depart. Did I mention we are on the 5th floor? Dragging a fridge down 5 flights of a circular staircase doesn't sound like fun. Living in Paris main page

I realized that I had forgotten to blog my Bastille Day flyover pic. These guys with the blue-white-red exhaust came over first, followed by group after group of every type of plane the French army has. It thunders right over our apartment, this pic was taken from the quai right by Pont Sully. Living in Paris main page

I'm facing reality, and I'm not so sure I like it. For 6 months, there has been a little nagging voice whispering " You have to return to the US". For 6 months I've done a pretty good job of ignoring the Voice, and focusing on enjoying our time here. I'm now having to face up to reality. Next week movers are coming to do estimates, we're been selling off appliances, getting letters together to break the lease and utilities, futzing with US Customs inventory, dividing belongings between air shipment /sea shipment / hand carry, ....etc,etc,etc. The extra fun thing about moving out of a Paris apartment is that you have to make a *huge* deposit to get an apartment, and now we have the big showdown inspection to try and get it back. Expat after expat tells me their horror story about suddenly missing $3000 from their deposit, getting retroactive rent increases after they leave the country and having $$ wired out of their French account, getting charged $1000 f...

I've been having trouble getting my photos together from our last big trip. I tend to put off blogging about a trip until the photos are organized and posted to picasaweb. We took an amazing trip in June for *two* weeks to northern Italy and southeastern France. The trip was also Sarah's birthday present. She said she wanted to be hiking on her birthday. So I planned and planned, and optimized the plan, reworked the plan, added to the plan, and finally we were able to go. The best pics on this trip are Cinque Terre and Chamonix. We started in Milan, not because we were dying to see Milan, but because that's where I could get decently priced Easyjet tickets. We had a low key day there, we toured the cathedral, walked around the city, and not much else. A few Milan pics at: Milan Album Then we took the train down to Cinque Terre. It's a National park on the Italian seashore consisting of 5 tiny villages built on cliffs over the water, with the area crisscrossed by hiki...

I'm not a big sports fan. But I decided that with the French Open happening in my own back yard, I should go see it. Some Austin friends were in town visiting, so the four of us spent the day at Roland Garros. Sarah can give you the long story about the painful long wait to get tickets a few weeks ago. I can't portray her suffering adequately. We arrived to an unruly mob outside the gates, but it moved quickly. We had great seats on court 1. Court 1 is smaller than the two big courts, but still has assigned seating. I've never seen a live tennis match, and I usually have trouble staying interested in matches on TV, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It was a blast. You really get a sense of the two players going after each other when you are there live, and it's much easier to get into the game. We watched one game that was especially good, Monfils vs Rochus. Monfils just had a blistering serve. One of his serves was 215kph (135mph). I also had a lot of fun watchin...