From Bocelli to Baseball

My lovely wife and I have been to a lot of shows over the years.  From the Grateful Dead to Glen Campbell, Allman Brothers to Shirley MacLaine, Paul McCartney to Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan to Cher.  From rock to pop to country to jazz, small town venues to sold out arena rock.  We could probably fill a suitcase with all the ticket stubs, if we still had them.  We've been to a lot of shows. 

But one type of live venue had eluded us until now...opera.

I'm not sure I could do a complete opera, you know, where they sing the entire story line.  In a foreign language.  That would be weird and I probably wouldn't understand.  Unless I was on mushrooms.

But in lieu of that happening anytime soon, my lovely wife and I just saw Andrea Bocelli at the Golden One Center in Sacramento.  It was a bucket list sort of thing, and came about rather serendipitously as bucket list things seem to do for us.

When we heard he was coming to a town near us, I immediately looked for tickets.  At this stage of our game we're not nose bleed section folks anymore.  We never really were, but now if we're gonna do a show we want pretty good seats.  Which for Bocelli cost a small fortune.  So it was, like, well, maybe not.

And about that same time on a Sunday afternoon in January a Bocelli special appeared on our local PBS station.  And in-between Bocelli tunes they proceeded to offer a special price for floor seats for the upcoming Sacramento show.  Sacr'e Bleu!

Apparently in every city he appears he donates some tickets to the local PBS affiliate.  They get to make some money and we got to pay less than we would have.  Plus we get to write off a portion of the cost.  Whoopee!

I also booked us a room at the Sterling Hotel, a Victorian B&B nine blocks from the venue.  At this stage of our game I'm not fond of driving an hour after a show to get home.  Plus venue traffic.  Plus parking.  I'd rather walk.  Or shoot myself.

At $200 per night the Sterling was the least expensive nice hotel in the area.  There's a Hyatt and Sheraton also very close by, but their rooms were running twice what we paid.

The Sterling did not disappoint, it was old and antique-y.  Our room had a nice king bed, a double jacuzzi tub and a bright, effervescent green arm chair that belonged in a St. Patrick's Day parade rather than a Victorian bedroom.  My lovely wife thought the decorator might have been decorating like she had spent the entire day celebrating at a St. Patrick's Day parade.  Too.

The serve yourself continental breakfast Sunday morning left a bit to be desired, I've seen better at a Comfort Inn.  But the location for the price could simply not be beat.

We checked in around 3:00 PM and then went on a recon mission stroll to the Golden One, just in case we had to walk to or from later.  We did our stroll, also checking for potential eatery's.

I actually started the dinner hunt the previous Wednesday, but that was apparently too late for this country bumpkin to make a connection ANYWHERE within a few light years of the Golden One.  We could eat at 4:30 or 8:00 PM.  Everything in-between was booked.  Gee, I wonder why?

We found a couple potentials, then proceeded to get an iced coffee and stroll the California state capitol grounds, which were only a couple blocks away.  It had been a while since we'd been to downtown Sacramento, we're usually blazing through on our way anywhere but Sacramento.

The expansive grounds wrap the capital building and are several blocks long and wide.  They are quite lovely and have an extensive collection of large, heritage trees dotting the lawn.  There's also a pretty decent rose garden at the east end, which, of course, we had to stroll.  We just made it too, one of about a half dozen weddings happening that afternoon was just amping up as we strolled in.

Our appointed 5:00 dinner time came, and rather than back track about six blocks to the BBQ joint we had been considering, we slipped into the Sheraton and each had a salad.  How healthy could we be?  Then we went back to our room for a brief rest and then to get dressed.

Now I know some folks won't even get dressed up to die, that's screamingly apparent to me now.  I've bitched about this before.  You're dining in a formal restaurant and some tool is in there wearing cargo shorts and a Tshirt.

I am fortunate.  My lovely wife is always appropriately dressed.  It's going to say so on her head stone.  And because she is I have also become.  And half the time she buys the clothes, which makes it really easy for my.  Plus she has really great taste.  I don't ever have to worry about wearing something with sequins and pastel unicorns on it.

ZZ Top called it way back when , "Women go crazy about a Sharp Dressed Man."  I mean, who's more likely to get lucky-A guy dressed up in a suit or some tool wearing cargo shorts, long socks and orthotics?  

Even the cheap seats weren't very cheap for this show, nevertheless there were a number of guys in shorts.  Fortunately, most folks got it and the majority were trying their finery.  And there were many couples dressed like we were, sport coat and slacks for the gents and dresses, gowns and some bling bling for the ladies.

I mean, the artist and entire orchestra were preforming in tuxedos.  It wasn't a summertime Jimmy Buffet show.

We took a Lyft to the show, arriving about 7:30, which was the exact same time that everyone else arrived.  It was a complete and utter cluster fuck to say the least to get through the security.  Which apparently is the case at the Golden One no matter the event we later discovered.  (Make a note of that!)

And there we were, smack dab in the middle of a wild horde of several thousand opera buffs.  Everyone attired in all their finery, except for, well, you know, as we patiently and silently clamored to get in the gate. No one can ever say opera buffs aren't civilized.  The show started thirty minutes late because of the civilized crush.

After we got in, I ordered a $6.00 bottle of water for me and a $38.00 Ketel One for my lovely wife.  Vodka was a hell of a lot cheaper when we used to smuggle it in to concerts inside a watermelon.  But once again, this wasn't an outdoor summertime Jimmy Buffet show.  The folks at Golden One might have been a bit suspicious if we tried to bring a watermelon in to an opera show.

While not dressed in shorts.

Once drinks were in tow, we ambled down to our floor seats, towards the rear but near the middle of the room.  The acoustics were phenomenal.

About five minutes before showtime the orchestra and chorus entered the stage.  We were originally thinking Andrea had about a five bus massive entourage, but then we discovered it was the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera. Some of them probably ride bikes to work.

I'm not tremendously knowledgeable about orchestras and what not, but these guys sure seemed pretty darn good to me.  I'd let them back me up anyday.  They warmed up with a tune, and then the conductor escorted the blind tenor from the stage stairs to the microphone.

Bocelli sang two tunes, then took a break while a female opera singer, Larisa Martinez took the stage and belted out a tune.  Then she escorted him back onstage for a couple of duets.  Then he took another one song break and so on.   He only sang six tunes the first half of the show, but it was still pretty amazing.  Apparently he has to treat his vocal chords very carefully.  And considering some of the impossible notes he hits, I understand.

All the songs of his first set were sung in a foreign tongue, probably Italian, because that's the opera language.  Or so I'm told.  I didn't understand the any of the lyrics because the only Italian words I know are food.  Spaghetti.  Lasagna.  Ravioli.  I think he was singing about love, or loss, and probably not dinner.

Never did I hear him utter the word, "Gelato".

I know why venues only serve drinks in plastic for sporting events and rowdy rock shows.  It's totally so the besotted or otherwise can't lob weapons of inebriation towards the entertainer or other patrons.  Not so with this civilized crowd.  No one present, no matter how sloshed, would ever consider something as gauche as tossing a bottle or glass, even if it was going into the garbage.  The reason they don't serve refreshments in glass at a Bocelli concert is that they would shatter when he hits those long, impossibly sustained high notes.  My goose bumps had goose bumps.

Kevin Costner once said that Whitney Houston was a "still" singer.  He said her voice was so powerful that she didn't need to do anything other than just stand there and sing.  I've seen that with many of the great guitarists; Clapton, Garcia, Betts, Harrison.  They just stood there and played.

Bocelli didn't even move his arms.

He took a thirty minute break, and then the second set had a few more recognizable tunes.  One was even in English.  He also had a few more guest artists.  He brought out a guest fiddler, Caroline Campbell, and wow.  Besides being quite a looker, that girl can play some violin.

There was also another blond singer, Pia Toscana, who, besides being another looker had an astounding voice.  Apparently she was a finalist on American Idol in 2011.  The guy that won that year is some country singer named Scott McCreery.  I'll bet he's never going to be asked to sing a duet with Bocelli.

There was also a male and female dance duet, and they spun Flamenco style to a couple tunes.  One in particular led many in the audience, at least my lovely wife and I, to believe that the female had to have had a really good recent wax job in her princess region, if you know what I mean.  Her very tight fitting, almost not there leotard underneath her flashy dress left little to the imagination.

We have experienced quite a few transcendent moments at shows over the years.  You know, when the artist plays that one song you really love and completely nails it.  Opens up the heart chakra and the energy just explodes?

One for me that has withstood the test of time was Clapton's screaming guitar solo right after Bobby Whitlock's inspired piano fusillade on "Let it Rain".   When Eric hit those notes I think half the audience in the Cow Palace (in San Francisco-circa 1975) was ten feet off the ground.  Could have been the acid, but I don't think so.

Bocelli did it again for me the other night.  And I know it wasn't acid this time.  This is also one of his most well known tunes and he appropriately closed the show with it, "Time To Say Good-Bye".

It was a mess getting out of there for most folks.  There were lines twenty deep just to get cars out of any of the many parking garages that were close by.  We strolled the nine blocks home.

Good thing I wasn't in shorts and a T-shirt.  The delta breeze came in after the sun set and made the outdoor atmosphere rather windy and chilly.  My sport coat ended up on my lovely wife's shoulders, right where it should have been.  Brrr.

The next day, Father's Day, after a very leisurely morning and cheap continental breakfast, we went to Old Town Sacramento.  It had probably been a couple decades (or more) since we last strolled them streets.  There's over a hundred shops and eateries there and it's right on the riverfront, a pretty decent tourist destination.  So we played tourist for a couple hours.

At noon we drove the quarter mile over the bridge spanning the Sacramento River and met our son and fiancé at Raley's Field for a River Cat AAA baseball game.  He bought us some great seats behind home plate, but without the benefit of any breeze whatsoever it was probably over a hundred degrees.

We'd sit for a couple innings, then run up to the concourse where there was a breeze and shade.  And food and drink.  Then we'd go back down, sit, bake, retreat, repeat.  We did that a couple times, then just stayed up in the shade.  It was an easy fifteen degrees cooler.

We left at the top of the ninth, behind 1-0.  The Alamar Marina Restaurant and Bar on the Sacramento River was calling us for an early dinner and cool down.

It was a weekend that ranks right up there with the all time best.  World class entertainment followed by time spent with world class family.  Can't get much better that that.

Conquering the Wild Hillsborough

When we go visit family we don't just sit around and visit.  Plus, I mean, we were visiting our favorite European traveling companions, you had to know we were up for some adventure.

And since the last time we were in Florida we never saw an alligator we were becoming suspicious.  Sure, we have heard that Florida has gators, but come on. The world is full of picture books that aren't necessarily true.

So just to prove it's true our lovely sister-in-law booked us on an adventure called "Canoe Escapes",
where you can rent a two person canoe and cruise from two to eight hours downstream.  Since we're old poops we just went on the first leg of the overall journey, from Sargent Park to Morris Bridge Park.

It's a good thing too.  The website states each leg is about two hours, and that the river is from twenty to sixty feet wide.  I got news for them.  Some canoeable spots we went through were only four feet wide at best.  I have a feeling the river was running at low tide.  It made for a much longer and no doubt interesting journey.

We embarked from the park headquarters after a brief instructional by one of the guys, who reminded me of Gunga Din.  You know, if Gunga looked like a 20 year old single surfer dude living in Florida.

He went over basics; like if you paddle on the left side you go right, paddle right you go left.  Up is down and down is up.  And then if you do a swift, deft and shallow swat you can splash your partner with water.  Which isn't necessarily something you should do if you want to get lucky later.

Just sayin.  However, if you're going downstream with an old army buddy then swift swat away.  Unless, of course, Brokeback Mountain.  Then who knows?

Gunga told us to head out from our launch point a few hundred yards and then head right at about a three o'clock angle when the water opened up.  Paddle in another couple hundred yards and it becomes like a nature preserve.  When we were satiated with serene, wildlife viewing, we were to paddle back and sort of hit the river at about an eleven o'clock angle so that we would be headed downstream.

If we made a really hard right at about four o'clock we'd be headed up stream, and if we made an acute hard left, say about eight o'clock, at that point we'd return to base.  So it was important that we make the correct choice.  He said there'd orange flags to light the way and ensure we were heading in the right direction.

"Great," thought I.  "Not only do we have to know left from right and right from left and where the hands are on a clock when everything now is digital, but we also need to know geometry.  I barely passed high school geometry, and that was almost fifty years ago.  Like I'd remember anything from that long ago let alone an isosceles triangle.  I can't even pronounce isosceles let alone spell it.  All I wanted to do was see a gator.  Don't they have a zoo around here?"

"Speaking of gators and the potential of getting lost in a jungle forever," I began to think again, "Maybe we should be bringing along a bazooka and a flugelhorn.  Where's my safari hat?"

I know.  I have no idea where this stuff come from.  I, like you, am just along for the ride most of the time.  

Instead of wearing proper safari attire, I embarked in sandals, shorts, shirt, shades and baseball hat and hoped for the best should we actually encounter one of the big guys. Gunga shoved us off and then said he'd be seeing us at the pick up spot at Morris Bridge in a couple hours.

Both us gentlemen took the rear where most of the work was going to be done, and we were off in search of adventure.  A few hundred yards out sure enough a right was available at three o'clock and we paddled into a wide open lake-ish affair where wildlife galore was popping.  Exotic birds, happy sunning turtles and yes, gators.  Plenty of brazen gators!

Them gators, they're crafty buggers.  They hang out around logs and trees, blending in really well.  Sometimes all you can see is the top of their big round eye lids popping out of the water.  Sometimes they're just hanging out in the flora and fauna, waiting for a delicate human hand lightly tickling the water as a canoe passes by...

Where the hell is my bazooka?

After we thoroughly enjoyed our little nature preserve detour we returned to the point of departure, got out our slide rule, geometric calculus and kitchen wall clock and determined the correct juncture to take.  At least we hoped we did.

As I mentioned, the river was not quite as wide as portrayed in their literature.  Plus, the current was very slight.  We began to constantly wonder if we had made the right angle.  Or the correct hour.

"Anybody see an orange flag yet?"

As I also mentioned, the river got quite narrow in some spots.  Both our canoes hit and got stuck on partially submerged trees.  And since left was right and starboard was keel both canoes ended up backwards and in circles a couple times.  It turned out to be quite an exercise in tandem synchronization for both canoes.  Or lack thereof.

I think we needed one of those guys on the rowing team.  The one with the bull horn.

"Left.  Right.  Left.  Right.  No, not you.  You.  Left!  You, right!  No.  What?  Left you idiot!  Not you!  Right. "

And so on.

But wildlife and nature were at every turn, it was a fiesta for our eyes, even if they were looking backwards sometimes.  We probably saw about forty-five gators, ranging from one to eight feet in length.  Many were out sunning themselves, many were pretending to be logs because they were hungry.

That of course was paramount on my mind when it was our turn to get stuck on a log.  I couldn't just pop out of the canoe and sashay it off the timber.  No, we had to push, jockey and shove with our paddles til we got free.

"Anybody see an orange flag yet?"

I mean, we were pretty sure we were on the right track.  There was a slight, teeny weeny little current, and we were heading down stream, albeit quite slowly. Doubt persisted, yet we pressed on.  The thought of turning around and regurgitating submerged logs did not seem too appealing.

So we leisurely pressed on.  And then finally, about two hours down river, we espied our first orange flag.  Halleluiah brother, we weren't going to have to worry about being gator bait at dusk anymore.  Or hiking through the mosquito and snake infested jungle while wailing on the flugelhorn.  Or hillbilly redneck rape, neither.

After the first flag, we saw several more until we finally hit our portage spot at Morris Bridge.  It's possible we missed a couple flags, I suppose it's possible nature took care of a few.  I spose it's also possible some hillbilly moved them to one of the several tributaries that were off the main river...

I hadn't used a few of those upper torso arm muscles for a decade or two and ended up just a bit stiff for a couple weeks thereafter.  Might have had something to do with my lack of long bicep tendon in said arms as well.  Gettin old is not for sissies.

As all good things do our Florida visit and vacation came to an end.  We had a great time (as always)and are buoyed about the fact we'll be rejoining our companions again fairly soon on another European adventure.

Arrivederci.  Baby.

I Hate Flying Too

OK.  So I guess there are two things I hate.  I hate to wait and I hate to fly.

If God had intended for me to fly he would have given me feathers.  And probably wings.

But to get any place far away in any sort of time frame that makes any sort of sense one has to fly.  And then besides the fact we are herded onto a heavy metal tomb that somehow gets way up into the air for an extended period of time, I usually have to wait somewhere along the line too.  Double hate whammy.

I used to do airport bars, really well as a matter of fact.  But since I haven't had a drink in a couple decades I have had to alter my get on an airplane substance subsistence.  Now I usually travel with baked goods that are infused with a wonderful little calming ingredient.  And my lovely wife always has Xanax as a back up.

And since I hate to be herded (I guess there's three things I hate) and can't yet afford my own private plane, I have added an extra service onto our flight itinerary that limits our exposure a bit to herding and waiting.

Rather than driving down ourselves and parking in long term parking 800 miles from the terminal, and then waiting for the airport's shuttle service where we then get to be herded on board (with our big fat luggage) and drive around the parking lot like a Pac Man chewing up other travelers until we finally get to go in slow motion towards the terminal, we now do "The Foxen Shuttle" right here at our front door step.

It's a little different than "The Foxen Shuffle", which I'm not even sure is a real thing.  Though it probably could be.

Deb Foxen drives us down and picks us up.  Ninety bucks each way.  I figure we're really only out of pocket for one way, depending on the length of our travel because gas and long term parking easily eats up a hundred if we're gone for a week.  If gone for longer we're making money by utilizing her service.  She drops us off at the curb and picks us up at the curb.  With a smile no less.

If you're local and want a great airport shuttle, call Deb Foxen at 530-263-9669.  She's licensed and insured and good people too!  She's also on time, spot on, which is sort of important when flying.

I'm also a fan of using a transfer service at the other end of a trip, unless you have family or a friend picking you up.  If you've read any of my Europe travel blogs, you'll know I'm a HUGE fan of ihatetaxis.com.  Besides having very useful information on every airport in the galaxy, you can also safely and securely book a transfer from your destination airport to wherever you want to go.

All that said we just went to Florida to see our favorite Europe travel companion in-laws, with a quick change plane stop over in St. Louis .  We saw the fabled arch from the air and saw a few mid-western old men in shorts and white tennis shoes.  Going somewhere.  Probably Branson.  I'm sure there's more to Missouri and St. Louis, but we only had fifty minutes.  Not sure we'll be back.  We've only got so much travel time left and that state is not high on the bucket list.

Upon landing in Tampa we immediately discovered  Florida is a lot more comfortable climate wise in April than it is in June.  Just saying.  The last time we were there it was ridiculously hot, and moronically humid.  And yuck sweaty.  This time, in April, the air was sultry and silky smooth, lightly caressing your skin better that any Oil of Olay commercial ever could.

We went to Florida primarily to visit family, but we also threw in a day road trip 180 miles or south to Naples to visit some old friends.  It's always great to catch up, even if it was only for a few hours.  And we discovered a couple things on this road trip.

One, most Floridians drive fast on the freeways.  And if you're in the far left (fast) lane, 80 MPH is the average speed.  You have to move over for now and then for a 90.  None of this 65 in the fast lane so that cars that want to go faster have to start passing in the center and slow lanes.  Nope, they're serious in Florida.  If you get in that left lane you better be prepared to giddy-up.

The other thing we discovered is that when it rains there it does not mess around.  The skies can bust loose with a deluge sometimes, simply drenching the surroundings.  They can get more rain in forty-five seconds than we do in a week.

Since we were visiting our favorite Europe travel companions the subject of another trip had to come up.  And it did.  We have tentatively set a date for next year, or maybe 2021, to go to Italy with them.
Why Italy?  Well, there was some culinary TV show on in the background one afternoon, and they were talking about Florentine Steak.  Which of course hails from Florence.  Which is in Italy.  It is supposedly the best steak in the universe.  According to them.  Special cows, special sauce.

We figured, "Hey!  If there ever was a reason we needed to go to Italy it might as well be to have a Florentine Steak."

There's also probably a few historic artifacts and priceless art we can view too, but if there ever was a reason to get us off our duffs it might as well be food.

Plus, I will  get an opportunity to say "Arrivederci" in the actual country where the language is spoken.   See: "Bon Jour, Arrivederci, Por Favor, Where the Hell Am I?"

Before we take off for Italy, which (especially for me) will require a shit ton of pre-planning, we decided to go to the Morse Museum in Winter Park, which only took a few minutes to plan.

The Morse Museum?  Why what?  What's that?  Some place filled with dots and dashes?

Actually, it's not full of codes.  The Morse Museum houses the largest collection of Tiffany objects in the world.  That's why.  What.

On the way to Winter Park we passed through Orlando, where, apparently, every amusement park in the world exists.  According to Travel Advisor there's forty-five water and amusement parks in and around Orlando, including but certainly not limited to Universal Studios, Sea World, Disney World, Epcot, Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, a Harry Potter Park and the Holy Land Experience.

The Holy who what?

Yes.  Someone has apparently turned the bible into an amusement park.

The amount of construction going on is insane.  Buildings, roads, hotels, warehouses.  And not small jobs either.  I counted thirty-two active high rise cranes in and around Orlando.

According to my lovely sister in law a thousand people a day are moving to Florida.  I can believe it.  Every single commercial building is a hundred percent occupied.  Four lane highways are becoming six lane.  And the roads are quite lovely by the way, lacking the potholes, cracked pavement and rough surfaces that are everywhere here in California.

And there are vacant commercial properties for rent everywhere here in California, from our small little country town to the state capital and beyond.  Maybe all that tax money is moving from here to Florida.

The Morse Museum is a smallish museum has a number of galleries featuring American art, but their primary exhibit is the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany.  Every Antiques Roadshow fan will recognize that name.

From expensive, dazzling and classy diamond jewelry to an amazing array of glass work, the Tiffany name is synonymous with style, elegance and excellence.  The museum has a small collection of jewelry, but it does have an extensive collection of glasswork, including lamps and stained glass windows.  There's also an incredible "chapel interior" mosaic and glass exhibition that was featured at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

Intricately and ornately resplendent, there are thousands upon thousands of small bits and pieces of tile and glass that are interwoven in complex patterns and designs I could only hope to imagine with a decent hit of LSD.  The scope and scale are almost beyond comprehension.

If you're ever in Winter Park, possibly for a little baseball (Winter Park is spring training home to many east coast MLB Teams) take a break and check out a little culture.  You can see the entire museum in a couple hours and just the Tiffany collection in an hour or so, unless you get lost in a flashback at the chapel interior.

If you're prone to such occurrences you might consider bringing a sandwich, because you might be there all day.

GOT

You know you're getting old when you start doing the math as to how many times you've shampooed your hair.  If it's roughly once a day since the ago of 20 then let's see...I've shampooed my hair somewhere over 16,000 times.  Sigh.

Well, my lovely wife and I have inadvertently got ourselves all wrapped up in HBO's Game of Thrones.  Yeah, we've heard about it, even seen a few episodes at a friend's house here and there over the last few years.  But totally wrapped up?  No.  We don't subscribe to HBO.  $14.99 a month for a half dozen movie channels when there's so much great TV out there now almost for free?  Not in our budget conscious world.

We were noodling around last month looking for a new series to binge on.  We usually go for comedy or murder, and then my lovely wife mentioned (again) what ever happened to "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency"?  We saw the premier episode a few years back (probably when we had a free weekend of HBO) and then kind of forgot about it.

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency is a charming detective series based in Africa and based upon a series of books written by Alexander McCall Smith.   My lovely wife read the books somewhere along the line and wanted to see the series.

We discovered there were seven episodes and only one season, which is unfortunate because it was an enjoyable show.  We discovered we could catch them all if we tried HBO for free for seven days.  We figured, easy.  And then we'd cancel right after.  We'd done something like this with Showtime I believe and it went quite successfully.  As I recall.

We jammed through the episodes within the allotted seven days, with days to spare.  It was my job to cancel HBO, I had done the previous cancellation work with Showtime.  I was a pro by this time.  I even marked the cancel by date on the calendar.

When I went to my lovely wife's Amazon site, I had a heck of a time trying to find the place to cancel subscriptions.  I was pretty darn sure I was there, only I probably wouldn't make a bet on it-especially now-and it totally and completely didn't look like there were any existing HBO subscriptions. At all.

Really.

So I figured, "Hey.  Looks like HBO forgot all about us.  They had a little slip in the gitch.  Hahaha."

Ha.  The next decision we had to make was what to do with a month of HBO.

We had heard rave reviews about GOT, and thought, "What the hell, let's give it a shot."

Annnnd away we went.

We started out fairly rapid fire, at a strong, consistent pace.  I mean, each episode is at least an hour long, and there are ten episodes a season through Season 6.  Then season 7 only has seven episodes, with the last one clocking in at an hour and a half.

We initially did forty 1-hour episodes in fourteen days.  Which is a lot, I think, by anybody's standards.  Especially us.  We've never done anything like this. We're gonna get our $14.99 worth even if it turns us into video zombies!

We did slow a bit, but finished the last twenty-seven episodes in the following two weeks.  It helped having two rainy day weekends in there during each assault.

Much to my chagrin, we had to re-up HBO for another month.  We ended up half way through season seven when the bell rang.  Almost, but not quite.  They got us again.  Which is fine.  The final season started April 14th and we're all in until this thing is over.

We have discovered we have viewed this epic in probably the best way possible.  I mean, everyone that's a fan of the show has had to wait EVERY year for months until the next season began.  We blasted through 7 seasons in a  little over a month and only had to wait about two weeks for the final season to begin.

It's a fabulous story about kings and queens, swords and hammers, honor and deceit.  Lots of deceit.  There's also three dragons, which is OK if you like dragons.  There are no unicorns, which is fine, because unicorns aren't real and their existence would only take away from the story.

Season 1 starts a little slow, but as it all gets rolling a number of intertwining tales develop, all well acted and well paced.

There's a pretty fair amount of gore, and a couple of rather sadistic SOB's.  Every appendage known to man, and I mean EVERY appendage, gets lopped off or avulsed somewhere along the line.  Endless beheadings and lots of blood.  I had to look away several times from the abhorrent gore, but I didn't look away when modest nudity was presented.

What can I say?  I'd much rather gaze upon the eternal beauty of the feminine mystique than a headless neck spurting blood.  And there's plenty of modest nudity for women as well, there's no naked discrimination.  Lot's of butts for everyone!

There are heroes and there are villains.  And treachery.  Lots of treachery.  And incest.  Which was apparently semi in vogue back then.  At least in make believe worlds.

A lot of characters you root for end up dying, shockingly so.  And many of the villains do to.  Believe me, you simply can't wait for one of the bad guys to get it, they are that bad.  And when they finally do go, most in spectacular fashion, you can't help but to cheer.

We're not gonna go out and buy any GOT merchandise, like a play sword, coffee mug or underwear.  But we are going to keep HBO for probably another month or two until we see this journey through.

On an extremely positive note, my lovely wife and I are heading to Florida in a few days to visit family and see the sun.  And I will have exciting travel to blog about.  Stay tuned!

One of The Most Exciting Things EVER!

My lovely wife and I have been on this planet for sixty-four years and we have experienced many varied peak moments of excitement.  Physical.  Emotional.  Cerebral.

Enough so that our combined bucket list(s) are short.  They could probably fit on a post-it note.

But we have recently experienced something quite unexpectedly, courtesy of our nine-year-old grand daughter, that we had no idea how exciting it could be.

I marveled about it with another spectator at the last event and we both exclaimed, almost simultaneously, "Who knew?"

What could possibly be as exciting as a Le Mans car race?  A SF Giants pennant winning game?  Paris at Midnight?  Conquering Mt. Lassen?  The Grateful Dead on acid?

While all of those experiences were quite dandy, this one ranks right up there with 'em all.  So what am I raving about?  What is so dang exciting?  Are you ready for this?  

Co-Ed 3rd/4th Grade Youth Basketball.

It is simply one of the wildest and exciting events we have ever witnessed.

Think about it.  Most players are under four feet.  The basket is the same height it is for the seven foot pros.

The dribbles.  The shots.  The double dribbles.  The shots.  Triple dribble.  Pass.  Travel.  Shot.  Rebound.  Shot.  Rebound.  Shot.  Rebound.  Tussle.  Shot.  Rebound.

Dannng.  The other team got the ball.  Time for defense.

Whatever that is.

Dribble.  Pass.  Shot.  Rebound.  Travel.  Shot.  Rebound.  Shot.  Rebound.  Tussle.

Yay!  We got the ball back.

Rinse.  Repeat.  When a basket does occur, and they are rare, the entire crowd erupts, from both sides of the aisle.  Those baskets are very hard earned in this sport.  Most forty minute games end up with scores in the low teens.

What is fantastic about this experience is it is happening all over America as we speak.  And it's free!  Even if you don't have a vested interest in one of the players you need to check it out.

And if it's not on your bucket list put it on.  It's a heck of a lot cheaper than jumping out of an airplane.  Safer too.

I just turned in a bucket of change to one of them Coin Star machines.  About twenty pounds and four years worth of change.  Came out to a bit over $230, even after their 12% fee.  But the fee of 12% is well worth it considering the amount of time it would have taken to roll up all them coins.

But the point of all this is the machine kept kicking out a dime.  About the fourth time I checked it out.  Turns out it was a very bright and shiny 1964 Roosevelt silver dime.  Worth about $1.21 at today's silver prices.  And the machine kicked it out.  The only coin worth a damn and the machine didn't recognize it.  Sometimes I get amazed.

Another up scale fee I recently paid was for a lamp switch.  One of my lovely wife's antique lamps kept fitzing so I had a look see.  All things considered I figured out it was the on/off switch where the wires also connected.

I took it out and went to the local lamp store.  When the sole proprietor got up to the counter I took the switch out of my pocket and said, "I need one of these."

He took it to the back room and was back in about forty-three seconds with a $7.00 replacement.

I'm pretty certain I could have found that switch somewhere for around $2.00.  But where is somewhere?  That could be anywhere.  And do you know how long it would take to search anywhere for an older lamp switch when there are probably a thousand different ones out there?

My answer is a long time.  And since I won't have a spare ten seconds for another decade I don't have a long time.  I will happily pay the guy a few dollar surcharge just so I can mosey in and say, "I need one of these."

Anytime.

Brrrrr.  Been a cold winter so far.  Colder than the last several.  We've been dusted with snow several times now.  Though we used to get a couple feet every year when we first moved here in 1979, it's been a couple years since we've just been dusted.  Something's going on.  Whether it's global warming, climate change OR the magnetic poles shifting...which could be the reason all this big weather is going on.

Apparently The Earths magnetic poles reverse every 200,000 to 300,000 years, and a complete reversal usually takes thousands of years to complete. Although it has been twice that long since the poles have last reversed, scientists now say that the poles are shifting at a rate of forty miles per year.

Google it.  It's a thing.  And I'm not too sure we humans can do much about it other than go along for the ride.  I spose it's better than going along for the ride with a super volcano.  That would reduce our species to living like bugs in the earth much quicker.

Cheers!