January 2011

Chateaux du Taureaux
(Castle of the Bull)

Built in the mid 1500’s as a military defensive position within sight of Morlaix

Turned into a prison in mid 1700’s and remained so for 150 years

Political prison in 1800’s

Germans took it over during WWII

Now open for visits and no, I did not take the picture

And we are off!

Well, happy January to you. Another year, another .50c after taxes. Life just doesn’t get much better than this. We had relatively quiet holidays, hanging out with the locals and doing all things French. It’s like, so retro.

Janice is back at her art classes, where she attends 4 hours a day, 3 days a week. The yearly after Christmas sales are in full swing and she is doing her best to single handedly keep the French economy afloat. After all the years of saying no to herself because kids shoes and orthodontics bills had priority, she is out to make up for lost time and buy what she refers to as 'grown up' clothes. Goodbye Wall Mart, hello 'La boutique de Francine'. She makes me look like a cradle snatching old fart.

I have started hanging out at our village blacksmith's again, hand forging some items for a project I have going here ( which I will show you next month) and some items I want to take back to the Island when we return in June. As always, I will have to be careful to keep it under 50 pounds (23 Kilos) so I can get it aboard the aircraft as they are beyond persnickety about that now.

I had a couple of friends drop by the forge recently -to watch a real man work- and had that 'you're out of your ever loving mind' look in their eyes as they watched me beat some metal to death with very little result. Unless you have tried your hand at it, it is hard to wrap your head around just how much work it really is. This is work that is more suited to a young stud with rippling muscles than...hey wait a minute...that's ME!

One of the bonuses is that I get to breathe so much coal dust, I might as well be working a mine. My kids aren't worried though, they figure I will be pushing up daisies before black lung disease sets in. [ To see pics forging, see The Epistle, March 2008]

I can spend days creating something that can be machine made in minutes and would look better in many peoples eyes. Some blacksmiths will purposefully leave some unevenness in their work so that it is evident it was 'hand made'. I need make no such effort. I don't particularly enjoy all the work but I sure do enjoy the result and this is the only way I am going to get it.

This is also the time of the year when we bottle our wine. Just like last year, a friend with connections ordered 1254 liters (a mere 300 + gallons) of premium Bordeaux white and red wine directly from the vintner, who by law is only permitted to sell a limited amount of his wine under his own label. What remains can be sold but not under the house label. We buy it in bulk and bottle it ourselves. [ For pics of the bottling process, see The Epistle, January 2010 in the archives]

This makes almost 1700 standard sized wine bottles which are divied among family and friends who partake in the adventure. Our take? A mere 132 bottles, priced at less than a similar quantity of Coke (Coca-Cola) All that forging makes a guy pretty thirsty...

Otherwise, the news from this side of the pond is that while real estate values on homes in America continue to decline or barely hold their own, home prices here are rising an average of 10% a year and 20% in Paris last year alone. Property in Paris this coming year will run an average of $750. per square foot. How’s them apples? This mind you, in a middle of a recession. How sweet it was to diversify.

So what else is new? Well in our ongoing effort to make it easy to keep in touch we now have—yet another new phone number! [Kids, call your father now!] This one you might be interested in… Over the years we got a local phone number where ever we were, and we got a US based phone number where a message could be left on an answering machine for us to retrieve.

It was handy for US based businesses like our bank or the insurance company to contact us as they could not call Canada or Europe. Short of Skype-ing us or making an expensive call to Europe, friends and family were pretty much out of luck…until now. [Well? Have you called your father yet?]

Now, you can reach us anywhere in the world or in outer space if we can get a signal, and actually call us direct for the cost of a call to California. Sorry, but that is the best we can do. If we are anywhere near where we can hear it ring, even while traveling, we can chat. It is a number available to family and friends alike, so make a note of it: 805-762-4646 Add it to all the other numbers and addresses you have next to our name in your address book. So the only question remaining is... why oh why have you kids not called your father yet?

Callot Island

Callot island in the background
Hurry honey, the tide is coming in!

We recently jumped in the car to explore a new place in our area and came across “Callot” island. It is just a quiet place to take a Sunday walk and it is within spitting distance of the ‘Castle of the Bull’ below (right side of pic) but it has a quite unique feature. We drove across to it but signs warned to be mindful of the tide schedule as the road is ‘submersible’.

Chateaux Du Toreaux
(Castle of the Bull) and yes I did take the picture

Twice a day the area where our car is in the photo would be completely under water when the tides come and go. Brittany has the greatest tidal high’s and low’s in Europe and they are quite impressive. We have another similar submersible road that crosses a bay near the house but you can either cross if the tide is out or not if it is in. The difference is that here you can no-fooling-around get stuck on the island until the next tide if you don't pay attention.

Another one of our favorite beach walks is at the "Port Blanc" [ White Port] This time I shot a 20 second video to let you get a glimpse. Depending on the time of day, 2/3 of the water you see is either in or gone with small boats lying on their sides on the bottom of the bay in the mud until the tide returns. It looks just like a drained bathtub with all the toys lying on the bottom of the tub.

Port Blanc
(If you are not familiar with You Tube,
just click on the right pointing triangle. If you are
familiar just keep your wise cracks to yourself please...)

After many winters of coming here you have to wonder just what the attraction is. No place holds the same emotional tug for everybody but the photos of our neighborhood below either tell the story or it is simply not for you. There is no doubt that the cultural aspects are significantly different at times, in ways that can be taxing. Again, I think it's the kind of thing you either bend and sway with the currents or you can't bring yourself to ever feeling at home with. My limit is several months a year, then I need to get back to the real world.

Just click on any picture to enlarge.

Sometime when we walk these streets
I wonder if we are on a Universal Studios back lot

I am NOT writing about the plane

A couple of months ago, I told you I would not be writing about my plane for another 7 months when we return to the Island. So I won’t.

Sort of.

I won’t say anything about really missing working on it although what I really miss is getting closer to the launch date. The reason I am not even bringing the subject up is because recently I was sent a link to a You Tube video that was shot some time ago. I have, from time to time, given you links to photos and such of the Thousand Islands that I believed were spectacular enough to be worthy of your time in viewing. But now, I am giving you the best link yet.

This is a video of the exact plane I am building, with floats and all, being filmed all over our neighborhood in the Islands. All the footage is shot within a few miles around our island. This is by far the best footage of our area and of the model of airplane I have that I have ever seen. It’s a two for one! It is only 7 minutes long and the last half has the must see footage. l will be checking and if I find you have watched it, your subscription to 'The Epistle' will be automatically renewed for another 12 months, free of charge. If not, then it's "Hasta La Vista, baby".

Go on. Humor me and just click on the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crzDrDL7GDE

December, 2010

Chateau de Costaeres
One of our favorite beach walks is on the top right headland

Well, we are here. We made it without fuss or drama, just the way we like it. We managed to visit Joe (who happens to be our pastor) and Charlotte, Ed and Marilyn and daughter Kami in Los Angeles. Together, we visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential library and had a blast. After wrapping up, we flew to Paris. Thanks to our cleaning lady Mireille the house was impeccable as always and we soon settled back in.

We have started making the rounds visiting friends even though the weather has been colder that we have ever seen it here at this time of the year. I had forgotten just how bone chilling, soul sucking, cold could be. (25 F, -1 C) Note to self: Winter in California, spring in France.

Janice with her mom

Friends Joe and Charlotte

Daughter Kami with us by a piece

of the Berlin wall at Reagan library

Touring the old Air Force one at Reagan library

In fact, we got here to a weeklong snowstorm in November that was a first for the area in the past 30 years. Al Gore, you charlatan, you let me down again. Where is that ‘global warming’ you keep promising us?

Janice immediately reported for her first treatment at our local hospital. In New York the treatments take about 90 minutes. Here the treatment was exactly the same except that it took 5 ½ hours to get around to it. We hope that it was just first time patient blues and that visits from the hospital shrink, esthetician and other assorted hanger’s on won’t be the rule.

Yearly maintenance on entry light

We soon got off to a start on this year’s projects. Nothing major mind you, just little stuff to make living here better, like a counter top for the washer and dryer to allow clothes and linens to be folded. Or, another cabinet in our dressing room for additional storage. Bedroom door trim here, 4 new room radiators there, repainting our entry light (a 5 foot rooster head sculpture), it all adds up. [Old stone homes cannot really be retrofitted for central heating so each room must have its own radiator. We have replaced 6 of them to date with 4 more rooms to go. Depending on the size, two can cost as much as a central heating furnace at home]

Before

During

Not bad for a slacker with a rusty hammer, huh?

Friends on both sides of the pond ask us what kind of odd items we brought over this time. 3 years ago we brought a kitchen sink with a bathroom sink wrapped in it and I have yet to hear the end of it. You would think that was weird or something. Last year we brought a kitchen food disposer for the sink and a reverse osmosis water treatment filtration system (R/O) as the items are either unavailable or exorbitantly expensive here.

The problem was that the R/O was defective and in spite of having a new part shipped to Europe, it simply would not work. So, we brought it back to the US (without the tank), exchanged it for a new one and brought it back with us. It works great and we no longer have to purchase and lug bottled water. We are nothing if not determined.

The only other item of note we brought was Ethel. Every night I put her into one of the rooms and shout “This floor had BETTER be clean by morning, or else”. Janice rolls her eyes and mutters something about my being a “sexist p.. ” Ethel is one of those newfangled robotic floor cleaners and is a testament to our laziness as to how much we love it. The only downside is that it doesn’t have a short skirt. It is the size of a flattened shoebox, weights as much as a toaster and cleans all the tile and hardwood floors in the dining / living room / kitchen / 2 bathrooms and 3 out of the 4 bedrooms (the master is carpeted).

It operates on an indoor GPS system and is meticulous in crawling under every piece of furniture, cabinets and around every chair leg. My job? Keep the battery charged and change the swifter cloths. Oh, and issue the nightly manly commands. Still, it might be best to keep it on the down low, just between us or I won’t hear the end of this either.

Manoir de Limoëlou

(AKA Jacques Cartier's digs)

Ok, ok, I hear you. "Who the heck is that?" Please understand that our family and friends in Canada are all atwitter over the 'discoverer of Canada'. I can remember as a lad in school hearing all about his exploits so it seemed fitting when we went for an outing to Saint Malo that we would visit his home-become-museum.

Far be it for me to steal his thunder but it must have been quite a surprise to the indians to be 'discovered'. They seemed to think they knew who and where they were all along. Christopher Columbus probably held an opinion on the subject also as he seemed to believe that he discovered America some 4o years earlier. Then there were the Vikings.....well enough. Suffice it to say, he was quite an explorer. Well my Canadian friends, this one was for you.

Le Barrage de la Rance

It seemed silly to drive near the worlds first hydro electric plant powered by tidal action alone and not see it. So, after strolling the medieval walled city we stopped to have a peek (also in Saint Malo) and chatted with the technicians. I wonder what we will do for fun tomorrow.

Life in the French lane

Every time we transition from one place to another, we start a choreographed dance of sorts suspending and re-instating everything from satellite TV service to magazine subscriptions, home telephone and internet, car insurance, cell phone contracts and on and on and on. It would be silly to be paying year round for services we would only get to use for part of the year.

Invariably, there are hitches in the giddy-up, like magazines that continue to be sent to where we are not or requests for internet reinstatement that are incredibly slow. At the island, a phone call a few days prior to our arrival guarantees that everything will be up and running when we walk into the house. Here, a ‘show up in person’ visit to the phone company office is mandatory, where you stand in line for 45 minutes waiting to talk to a representative and have him place an order for your internet service.

This, of course, is after you have provided him proof that you are the homeowner (a utility bill) and a signed authorization allowing them to make a direct debit from your bank account to pay your bill. Then he tells you that it could take up to two weeks to get it up and running. After 9 days, we returned to check on another issue (45 minute wait, of course) and incidentally found out that somehow our request for internet had been canceled “…un issue technical, monsieur”. A new order was placed, fast tracking us to service “within two weeks”.

Finally, we got things sorted only to find that the service was intermittent. That is we were on for a minute and off for hours and it was up to us to guess when our minute of service was occurring. Another call to the company (30c a minute to talk to them) and we were given an emergency appointment with the technician to come to our home to fix the glitch…a week later.

One of the things that we find quite interesting here are the differences in TV commercials. Here you have the usual product pitches but you also see ads against human trafficking. Makes you wonder what kind of joint they are running around here anyway? They also frequently run ads for entire countries. For instance, Nigeria runs a spot touting itself as the “Gateway to Africa”. Macedonia plugs its infrastructure, its educated work force and believes that investing there would be “a wise profitable decision providing sustainable growth”. Finally, Uzbekistan would like to remind you that as far as they are concerned, it is a ‘tourist destination’ worthy of your visit.

As novel as these ads may be to us, they reflect the broader view Europeans have of the world. ABC news in the US touts its nightly broadcast as “World news tonight”. It should really say “World news tonight… that happened in the US”. The news coverage here truly covers the world on an order of magnitude from what we see at home. We Americans are embarrassingly, shamelessly insular.

Prince Andrew was recently caught up in the Wikileaks scandal when he was quoted as saying that Americans knew little of geography. I would say “the nerve of him” except that I hate the fact that he was right.

We are bracing ourselves for the onslaught of Christmas events and get togethers and hope your holidays are memorable also. C U next year.

[Editors note]

Last month I wrote about our home town in California having been rated in a new book as the happiest place to live in America. One of the two of you who read this blog sent me a link to a video news story covering this very topic. It’s pretty cool if you are of a mind to watch it. Go on, take a peek. Then you will both have seen it ;) Just click on the link below.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_weekend/20101125/ts_yblog_weekend/welcome-to-the-happiest-place-in-america

November, 2010

California dreaming...
Avila Beach, minutes from our home.

This, that and whatever.

Jessica and Naeem

Well, it’s a done deal and we have moved on. Shortly after a late fall visit by our niece Jessica and her guy Naeem, the cabin, plane, car and boats were tucked in for the winter and this season on the river was over.

Efficient storage. Plane suspended with boat below

Having finished a 7 month stint on the Island, we were anxious to get back to the West Coast and see many of the kids and grand kids as we were unable to last spring when Janice received her diagnosis. They are all growing like weeds, as kids do at those ages, but a year is a long time in their short lives.

Dawn view from Honey Bee

Speaking of my bride, she is now on a 21 day schedule for her infusion treatments until we return to the Island in June. This schedule determined how little time we could see the kids and friends as she is due for her next treatment in France on the 25th of this month. It will also determine our travel plans in Europe this winter as everything we do revolves around those infernal 21 day dates. Still, we have nothing to complain about.

On the road again....

This ‘travel the world’ gig has been absolutely marvelous but I am missing home so much I feel like I am going through D.T.’s. With the last kidlet soon to be launched, we will start to build a financial war chest of sorts for the next 12-18 months, to do extensive maintenance and re-modeling upon our return to our home here. Going forward, that will put us on a 4 month schedule between California, France and the Island in Canada.

End of season river run with Ian

Speaking of the Island, I try to share some of the beauty of the Thousand Islands every month with a photo from our friend Ian Coristine's collection. ©Ian Coristine/1000IslandsPhotoArt.com This month I came across an unauthorized, uncredited collage of some of his pics that are definitely worth a look see if you are at all interested in seeing our neighborhood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C2o75tbIPA&feature=related

Challenger II

The plane? Oh, it's fine. Thank you for asking. This month I finished covering the fuselage and priming it. It's now ready for paint. I am now trying to track down an instructor and will begin lessons upon our return in June.

Fabric gets glued on then 'shrunk' with an iron.

Once shrunk it is tight and with primer the shape takes form.

This is the last time you will hear about this subject for the next 7 months.

Hey, I heard that. ("Thank god!")

The transition

Our first stop was in Seattle Washington, where we rented a car and drove to Rainier Oregon to see daughter Cassie with her little ones Kayla and Marilyn. Along with my customary DTDLOC (Daddy to-do list of chores), I helped Marilyn figure out a magic set she had been given. The last time this happened, my son Wesley was 7 years old and I ended up with a 25 foot trailer, 2 1/2 tons of equipment, a cast and crew of 7 and an evening stage show.

While Janice filled her customary role of cooking and living in the laundry room, we still managed to read stories, play choo-choo and spend a lot of fun time with the family.

After several days, we caravaned up to The San Juan Islands to arrive on daughter Amy and Vance's doorstep. With a family of 7 of their own, what's 5 more of us?

Most of the crew.

Getting them ALL together is like trying to corral cats!

We are currently in sunny California and I can think of no better place to call home. I know I have written before about our lovely state and you might be inclined to think "there he goes again..." It is unarguable that our state finances are a colossal mess and you know about our unenviable political situation. In spite of being surrounded by fruits and nuts --most of them in our state capital-- (think Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Maxine Waters), where else can you be taxed to oblivion to support millions of moochers and looters and be administered by someone known the world over as governor 'Moonbeam'? Still, the place is incredibly special. Like having a dysfunctional family, they maybe weird, but they are yours.

A flash from the past. Patrolling the streets of San Luis Obispo

Now that we have our dirty laundry out of the way, you should know that every year for the past several decades, the Harris poll asks people what state would they would rather live in, if they could uproot and move. For the past 7 years in a row, California ranked # 1 and has never been out of the top 3. Then again, a book written evaluating the top 430 metropolitan areas in the nation ranked San Luis Obispo # 3. Finally, the just released book 'Thrive' ranked the 44,000 residents # 1 in the nation in overall emotional health.

We are not feeling we have made a mistake.