Lassen Volcanic National Park

Posted May 5, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: California, Travel
Tags: ,

 

EPSON MFP image

Harold (on right) joining the park service

Time for another dive into the box of old photos stored in Mary’s Storage Locker. We found this gem of Harold signing on to the Park Service.

Back in the early fifties, Paula’s Dad (Harold) started working as a park ranger at Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California. Starting in 1952, on the day that school ended in June, Harold and Mary loaded up the 52 Ford, hooked up the trailer and headed north to Lassen.

They did this every summer until about 1972. Harold lived for the day that they would head north for the summer. He always told us that was what kept him sane. He would work at the park until Labor Day when they would head back to civilization.

Harold worked for twenty years at Lassen. After he retired, he received a small Social Security benefit for his time working for the US Park Service. Mary allowed him to put that fund into a separate bank account that he would use to fund all of his trips with the Shriners.

So where exactly is Lassen? Lassen is in Northern California about 75 miles northwest of Reno. Here’s a map to give you an idea where it’s located.

Lassen Map

In 1986, Paula, the boys and I had the chance to visit Lassen with Harold and Mary. We had rented a motor-home for the trip. By the time we made this trip to California, our boys were old pros at air travel.

We took three days to get to Lassen with stops in Bishop and Lake Tahoe. On our trip we drove north on route US-395 which winds north to the east of the Sierras.

When Harold did the trip he usually did it in two days which is a long haul. He would stop in Bakersfield on Saturday night, then he would drive on to Redding on Sunday. Grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon and then up into the park. He would start work on Monday morning.

This trip was our boys introduction to camping. The following year we bought a pop up trailer and a couple years later a full size travel trailer.

So we spent a few days camped at Manzanita Lake. We met up with our friends the Coils and our friend Andrea. We did some hiking and touring. Then we headed west to Eureka, then south to San Francisco. We actually found a campground in San Francisco. We road the cable cars, then flew home from SFO while Harold and Mary drove south to LA.

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The Storage Locker

Posted April 30, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Aging, Family
Tags:

Today Paula and I took another trip to the storage locker to work on cleaning it out. We try to get down there once a month or so. Sometimes it seems that we are not making progress. Here is what it looked like when we finished today. The picture on the right shows a mostly empty set of shelves. That’s the progress we’ve made.

We managed to fill up the Jeep with stuff. We filled up two trash bags. We went through a lot of saved documents including bank statements and bill from over 10 years ago. We dropped off some stuff at Good Will. We found a bunch of photos including our wedding pictures. We found Paula’s Job’s Daughters installation pictures for her term as Honored Queen.

We have a ton of slides yet to take home. I haven’t quite figured out how I can look at them. Most of them are stored in Kodak Carousels. Harold had a fondness for taking slide pictures rather than prints. I don’t know if there is a slide projector stashed somewhere. Asking Mary doesn’t return useful answers. My end game is to get as much scanned and stored on line.

Over the next few weeks I will be working on scanning the batch of pictures that we took home. I will post the interesting stuff. We continue to struggle with lack of dates and peoples names on the pictures.

We had asked Mary if she would like to come. I think that we finally persuaded her that it wasn’t a good idea. No place to sit. She would have really slowed us down.

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Minor League Baseball

Posted April 28, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Baseball, Uncategorized
Tags: , ,

milbWell, as many of you know I am a huge (or as Donald Trump would say “Yuge”) baseball fan. So last week I learned that the son of one of our friends in OES is a pitcher in minor league baseball. More about this later on in my post.

Forgive me if you already know this. Minor league baseball is divided into classes with Single A at the bottom and triple AAA at the top. As players get better at the sport they move up from one class to the next with AAA players potentially moving to the Majors.

The various minor leagues tend to be somewhat regional in nature probably to keep travel costs and ticket price lower . There are three AAA leagues. The International League is mostly in the Northeast. The Pacific Coast League is mostly in the west. And the Mexican League is in (drum roll please) Mexico.

There is an excellent web site that covers all of the players and teams in Minor League Baseball. MiLB.com covers all you could ever want to know about players, teams, stats, scores and standings. The site is free unless you want to watch games on streaming video.

Going to a minor league baseball game is a lot more affordable than major league games. When I was living in Massachusetts, there were several teams that played close by. We would often go to see the Lowell Spinners (Single A) or the Pawtucket Red Sox (AAA) for a fraction of the cost it take to go to a Major League game. The ball parks tend to be a lot smaller. You are always close to the action. There are no “nose bleed” sections. Even the beer is cheaper.

Alas, here in LA there are no AAA teams within an hours driving time. eg. The LA Dodger’s AAA team is in Oklahoma City.  There are several Single A Advanced league teams in California. Closest is probably the Inland Empire 66ers. But still that’s 2-3 hours on the freeways. The closest AAA team would be either Las Vegas 51’s or Fresno Grizzlies.

Minor league team names always seem to be interesting. The names often have a local flavor to them. Here are the logos for the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs (that’s one nasty looking pig) and the Albuquerque Isotopes:

 

6254_rochester_red_wings-primary-2014So back to my original subject. So our friend’s son is a pitcher in the Minnesota Twins organization. Jason Wheeler was called up to the Twins’ AAA team (Rochester Red Wings) this week. He pitched in his first AAA game yesterday. He pitched seven innings. He gave up a home run and got a “no decision”. You can follow Jason’s progress here.

 

 

 

 

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Date Night

Posted April 24, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Books, Films, Food, Los Angeles, Movies, Reviews
Tags: , , ,

Jungle BookSaturday was date night. We really needed to get out without Mom even if only for a couple of hours.

So, we went to see the movie “The Jungle Book“. I guess we are getting cheap in our old age. Jungle Book was available in iMax 3D, Regular 3D and old plain 2D. 2D was $7 a person for Seniors. iMax was $17. We did the old fashioned 2D. Characters were voiced by Bill Murray, Idris Elba, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Walken and many more fine actors and actresses.

The film is rated PG and rightly so. There are parts that are pretty violent and might be a bit scary for little kids. I wouldn’t take a kid to see it under the  age of 8 or 9.

We loved it. We went to a 4:45 showing and there were a lot of families with kids in the theater. I particularly liked Baloo voiced by Bill Murray where he starts singing the “Bare Necessities”. We also liked the scenes with King Louie.

Here’s the Bill Murray version from Youtube. I will be playing this tune at Lodge in a couple of weeks.

When you compare this version with earlier versions you can readily see how far the animation technology has come. This film was filmed completely in Los Angeles.

I would give the film 8.5 stars out of 10. We loved it.

And by the way, you can download the Kindle version of the Rudyard Kipling Book from Amazon for $.99. What a deal.

Now for dinner part of date night. We had hoped to try the Hopsaint Brewery restaurant in Torrance. Saturday night was not a good time. We couldn’t even find a parking space. We’ll try another time when it might be less busy.

We came up with a plan B. We decided to go to the “San Franciscan” in Torrance. I was itching to have a good steak. We don’t have a barbeque grill at our place (forbidden my HOA). It was busy too, but at least we found a parking space. Had to wait 20 minutes for a table.

I had a 9 oz Filet Mignon. Paula had something called a “Drunken Sam”. The menu descrbes it as

“Filet mignon, pan fried in burgundy wine and brandy. Served atop fried eggplant and topped with an Ortega chile and jack cheese”

I had a taste. It was very good. Paula cleaned her plate. This is not fancy and the decor is rather plain but food is excellent. This is our place to go to when we have a hunger for steak.

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Mary

Posted April 16, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Family, Mary
Tags: ,
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Mike, Jonathan and Mary

Time for an update on Mary. Physically, she is doing just fine. No colds, no infections, no falls, no trips to urgent care or the ER. She’s doing as well as one could hope for 90+ years of age. That doesn’t mean things are getting easier.

Paula and I had a chance to sit and talk without Mary listening. We headed out to our local Starbuck’s and sat outside on a beautiful spring day and talked about everything. Mostly these days we are trying as best we can to improve Mary’s quality of life. It can be frustrating at times, but we give it our best shot.

Last Friday,  we told her that we would be going to the Mariner’s Night at the lodge. This event is held on the first and third Friday of the month. It is a casual get together where a light dinner is served along with drinks among friends. We usually just sit and have a drink and talk with our friends.

We try to encourage Mary to go so that she can socialize with other people (some of who she knows). Last couple of times she told us that she doesn’t like going. We suspect that the reason is that she has trouble holding up her side of the conversation. Her conversation skills have fallen such that all she can do is say hello and how are you. It didn’t help things when she found out that dinner was spaghetti, garlic bread and salad. Mary doesn’t like pasta, especially spaghetti. She doesn’t care much for bread either.

For us, it’s a chance to get out of the house and not cook dinner and not have to clean up. (Which of course, Mary no longer does and hasn’t done for years.) So we tell her that perhaps we can bring some food home for you. She says, oh alright I’ll go.

So Mary has told us on occasion that she would like to get out more. But when we do take her someplace, she complains or just sits and does nothing. There are many days where she gets up in the morning at 9 am eats breakfast and goes back to bed and sleeps all day. Sigh.

For instance, on Friday Paula took Mary to get their hair done. While I took the Toyota to the dealer for service. After they were done at the hair salon, they went clothes shopping at Draper & Damon’s (a local women’s clothing store). Mary went into the store and just sat. Paula couldn’t get her to look at any clothing. Sigh. Not that she needs any clothing. She has two closets full of clothing that she never wears.

A couple of weeks ago, Paula took her to the eye doctor. The doctor did a refractometry exam. (That’s the procedure where the optometrist figures out your eye glass prescription.) Mary has been wearing glasses for a while now, mostly for watching television or driving. Of course, she doesn’t drive anymore, so now it’s just for TV.

We wanted to get her another pair of glasses to keep in her purse. We think that she has another pair of glasses stashed somewhere, but damned if we know where she put them. Primary use would be at church where she can’t see the words on the screen. So the one pair of glasses that she haves usually gets left behind at home. Also, I don’t think that Mary likes being seen wearing eye glasses. Again, sigh.

One more thing, Paula and I have been trying to get her to talk about what she would like for her funeral service after she dies. We have asked many probing questions. Do you want an OES service? Cremated? Favorite hymn?  Favorite Bible verse? We’ve got nothing. She doesn’t like talking about it. I guess she figures that she will live forever.  It’s becoming clear that we will be on our own for deciding on funeral services.

Later,

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Fast Food in LA

Posted April 11, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: California, Food
Tags: , ,

A week ago we all went to a presentation put on by the SP/SB Historical Society on the Fast Food industry in LA. I am just getting around to writing this. So sue me. Anyhow, I had expected the presentation to be about Fast Food in general. What we got was a little bit about Fast Food businesses and a lot about In-n-Out Burger. Here’s the wikipedia entry for In-n-Out.In-N-Out_Burger_sign,_Los_Angeles

Mind you, I’m not complaining. In-n-Out is one of my favorite burger joints. There is one up on the corner and I visit it often.

When we talk about fast food, we are in general talking about franchise businesses that serve the meals in about 2-3 minutes. There usually is a limited menu, typically burgers and fries or fried chicken.

So here are a few factoids that I learned.

  • Carl’s Jr started out in life as a hot dog stand.
  • In-n-Out was started by Carl Snyder (1914-1976) and is still family owned. ie. not franchised.
  • One of In-n-Out’s logos is the crossed palm trees. Based on the crossed Palm trees in the movie “It’s a Mad Mad Mad World”. Adopted in 1972.
  • In-n-Out is the only Fast Food joint that uses fresh potatoes rather than frozen fries.
  • In-n-Out first opened in 1948.
  • McDonald’s first opened by Ray Kroc in San Bernardino in 1951.
  • KFC first opened in Corbin, Kentucky by Harlan Sanders during the Great Depression. The first franchised KFC opened in Salt Lake City, UT in 1952.

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Date Night

Posted March 31, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Family, Films, Movies
Tags: , ,

zootopiaFinally, we had the chance to have another date night last night. Paula and I went to see Zootopia at the Terraces. We went to the 4:30 pm show for  $4 each for seniors. Price for regular folks was $6. Sometimes it’s just fun to go to a kids movie without the kids. Zootopia was no exception. There were many jokes that were clearly aimed at the grown-ups in the audience.

Zootopia is the story of a young rabbit who goes into the big city of Zootopia to become a rookie cop. The rabbit named Judy Hopps doesn’t want to stay on the carrot farm with her parents anymore.

So rookie Officer Hopps joins forces with a cynical con artist fox named Nick Wilde to solve a sinister conspiracy in the great city of Zootopia.

They do a really great scene where the pair goes to the DMV (Department of Mammal Vehicles) to look up a license plate. Of course the clerks at the DMV are all sloths. They work so slowly. What a hoot. Wonder where they got that idea?

Good film, take the kids too. Runs about an hour and a half.

20160331_020800030_iOSSo we were done with the movie by 6:30 pm. Time for dinner. Date night dinners are a chance for us to unwind and talk about how things are going with Mary’s care without her listening.

We decided that it had been a long time since we’ve had Chinese food. So we decided to try the PV Palace on PCH in Lomita. Restaurant was pretty much empty when we arrived. Decent service. We had Mu Shu Pork, Shrimp Fried Rice, and Kung Pao Scallops. All very tasty. The waiter even filled the Mu Shu pancakes for us. We both had a glass of chardonnay. Plenty left over for lunch tomorrow.

Today we are off to the storage locker to clean out a few more boxes of junk (or treasures).

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Easter

Posted March 27, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Family, Food, Recipes
Tags: , , , , ,

He is risen. He is risen indeed! Of course, that was the common phrase going around this morning at Ocean View. So here’s our tale of what we did for Easter. Easter for us is about family.

We usually go to the 10:30 AM church service at Ocean View. The 0900 service is just too early and I’ll certainly not have any of this “Sunrise Service” stuff. The choir is at the top of their form. Pastor Jacques even finished pretty much on time.

The kids are scrubbed clean and dressed up in their Sunday finest. Jonathan had on a white shirt and a tie. Miss Sarah had a pretty nice dress that was bought for her by Aunt Mary in Hingham. Of course, when I took the picture of Jonathan he had a muffin in his mouth.

Normally after church on Sunday’s we go out for brunch at one of several excellent diners in San Pedro. I know that one of the diners was closed today so that the wait-staff could attend church (Pacific Diner). It is my opinion, worker friendly businesses like this should be rewarded with our business.

Our friend Vicky (who works at Pacific diner) asked us what we will be doing for dinner on Tuesday. Our answer was the we need to get done with today before we think about Tuesday.

On Easter and Mother’s Day we have taken to doing brunch at home rather than go out to a fancy restaurant. Those Sundays are just too crowded for our taste. When we do it at home and the kids finish eating, they can be excused from the table and go play. Can’t do that at a restaurant.

So what to have for brunch? We usually do some form of brunch eggs and pancakes or waffles. The waffle part was easy. Get out the waffle iron and pancake mix. The only problem we have is keeping them hot while I cook the rest of them. Each waffle takes about 5 minutes. Fresh strawberries and real maple syrup, too. Believe it or not, but you can buy real maple syrup on the west coast.

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The brunch eggs is a mashup of various recipes I have used in the past. This time we had a package of Pillsbury crescent rolls in the refrigerator, so we used those. Spread a single layer in the bottom of an 9×13″ baking dish. Sometimes we use Pillsbury refrigerator biscuits. Failing that, use Pepperidge Farm white bread toasted.

Then saute 1/2 an onion and 1/2 a green pepper in a frying pan. Add some meat. We had some diced ham on hand (8oz. package).  It got added to the frying pan.

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In a small bowl, scramble 10 eggs with 3/4 c of milk. Add the egg mixture, to the frying pan. Then transfer the egg, pepper & onions to the 9×13 pan. Then sprinkle with a layer of shredded cheddar cheese. Cook in a 350F oven for about 1/2 an hour. Check with tooth pick in the center for doneness.

We also had plenty of candy. We had some peeps, jelly beans, chocolate bunnies.

Here’s a picture someone posted of the Boston Peeps. (Arthur Fiedler is probably rolling over in his grave.)

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Mary

Posted March 23, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Family, Mary
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 Okay, it’s time for an update on Mary. Generally, things have been going good for the past few months. No falls, no trips to the ER, just one trip to see her PCP for annual checkup.

This picture was taken at The “Whale and Ale” in San Pedro. The handsome man sitting next to Mary is our #2 son who was down visiting us from Salt Lake City. Excellent fish and chips plus a pint of Guiness to wash it down.

She has been keeping up with her regular activities. One of us has to be at her side whenever she is walking. We have become much more in tune with handicap accessible buildings. In fact, we try not to take her any place where we have not personally been before. (Eg. Handicap parking, elevators, etc. ) Eliminates surprises. Today was her day at the SP Republican Women’s club. Paula got her to Rose’s to get her hair done. Then down to Ports-o-call for the lunch, then Beth takes her home. I don’t go because I’m not a woman, and Paula doesn’t go because she’s not a republican.

Mary’s memory is fading more and more every day. I have started writing a post-it note for her in the morning with the day and date, plus activities for the day. It helps, but sometimes I have to tell her to look at the note.

Mary reads the daily newspaper front to back about three times during the day. She would probably read yesterday’s newspaper if I didn’t put in the recycle bin. And she watches the local and national news in the evening. Yet, she can’t tell me who is running for president or what happened in Belgium. Even her long term memory is fading. Last night. She asked me if my parents are still alive. SMDH, my father died fifty years ago and my mother about 20. So at one time or another she should have/ would have known this about me. She looks at me like I had never told her this. Sigh.

One final thought. God grant us patience in getting Mary moving. On Wednesday, I was feeling good about getting to Bible study on time. Mary was up by 8 AM and had eaten her oatmeal. But between 8 and 10 am, it’s like she went into slow motion mode. She laid down while waiting for Paula to finish he shower. Then we discover that she put on thick socks, but the shoes she was trying to wear only fit nylons. Next thing we know, the clock is at 9:50 as we (try to) head out the door.

No matter how early we get up, there will always be something to upset the best of plans.

Later,

Joe

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Downton Abbey

Posted March 10, 2016 by joebowker
Categories: Reviews, Television
Tags: ,

 Last night we wrapped up watching the last episode of season six of Downton Abbey. It was a two hour affair. We typically haven’t been able to watch episodes on Sundays when it is broadcast. We depend on our DVR to catch up on our schedule. So we watched the first hour on Tuesday night after the family went home from our Tuesday night dinner.

We turned on the TV after the family left around 8pm. Mary likes to watch the news, so we started with the local and national news. I switched to Downton as soon as the news was done. Mary was sitting on the couch in her usual spot. After about 15 minutes, Mary says “Hey, this isn’t the news?”. With Mary, we could watch the news over and over again and it  would still be new to her. So we gently explained, that this was Downton Abbey. She watched about another 5 minutes and then went to bed.

So last night was spent closing up loose ends. Mr. Carson is allowed to retire and live out his life in comfort of a cottage on the estate. Edith got married off. Mr Barrow takes over as butler. Everyone lives happily ever after. We had none of the season ending downers like the end of season three when heart-throb Matthew dies in a car crash. Or the season three downer when daughter Sybil dies. So as ending episodes go, it was pretty satisfying. There was none of the trying to understand the episode.

So the story starts in the early part of the 20th century with the news of the death of one of the male heirs had died on the Titanic. So what are the Crawleys to do? They are concerned about the lack of a male heir. In season one, we are introduced to the concept called “entail” that relates to how property is transferred after a person’s death.

The story continues through WWI and then on to the post war 1920’s. Times they are a changing.

One of the things that I found very enjoyable was watching Maggie Smith play Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham. Also, excellent performance by Hugh Bonneville (Lord Grantham)

Downton Abbey is often compared to the PBS series “Upstairs/Downstairs”. Although, when that series was airing I had other things to do. I only caught a couple of episodes and we certainly didn’t have the luxury of a DVR. So you haven’t watched Downton Abbey? Well it’s not too late. All 52 episodes are available to stream on Amazon Prime Instant Video or DVD from Amazon. Seems like it’s a good opportunity for some binge watching. You can also get the DVD’s from Netflix.

There is also a documentary film on Highclere Castle where Downton Abbey was filmed.

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