Whale Watching Week

Lincoln City Beach



March 25 - April 1 marks the Spring whale watch week on the coast here in Oregon. Cely and I had not been to the coast for a while so we decided to make a short trip. We drove over to Newport then swung up to Lincoln City. Cely wanted to see what Lincoln City was like. We had driven through but never really stopped. The day was gray and always on the verge of raining. We didn't actually get hit by the rain. It wasn't actually cold but on the whole not a cheery day. Lincoln City was not such a great tourist stop. We parked the car in a public lot and tried to visit some shops but the shops were so spread out and away from the coast we did not persevere too long. We stopped and walked along the beach there for a little bit. The beach was more rocky that others we have visited so far. This was also beach cleanup weekend so there were a lot of people who were doing the good work of picking up litter on the beach. Cely and I did our part by picking up a couple of cool rocks from the beach. I don't think they will miss them. Some of the rocks have holes in them like they were drilled into. We could not figure out how they came about.

Lincoln City Beach

After our short stop we jumped back in the car and headed back in the direction of Depoe Bay. We stopped just north of Depoe Bay at a sighting stop at Boiler Bay . It is a beautiful spot where coast is very rocky. As we walked to the rail to look out for whales, Cely and I were crossing some wet rather muddy grass and all of a sudden Cely's feet swept out from under her. She went down, knocking my feet sideways, and I went down on top of her. She got pretty muddy and wet. Fortunately it wasn't that cold so we did stick around to see if we could any whales. We didn't but I guess others saw about 11 whales that day. The visibility was great even though it was so gray and cloudy out so we could see a vast expanse of ocean.

Boiler Bay














As you can see the coast is just beautiful here. So beautiful that you can even stay out here and look at it even when you are muddy and wet. The only wild life we saw were these gulls that Cely photographed. As we drove back to Corvallis it began to rain so all in all we timed it right.

We are thinking about going to see Inside Man as a matinee today but that is the only movie we have planned for the weekend. Yesterday night and Friday night was devoted to our latest addiction, DVDs of the cancelled television series, Angel. We are into the fourth season and are in between discs now. There is only one more season to watch. It should keep us busy for a couple of weeks but we are already planning to watch the Buffy the Vampire series when we finish this one!

Cely's Birthday

This weekend was Cely's birthday so we had some fun and did some visiting. Our kind of fun isn't really a big deal. It consisted of getting up late and going out to eat and explore a couple of malls. We first went to Salem to see if they had more to offer than the Albany mall. It was pretty disappointing. They do have a Best Buy up there for when we need an electronics fix but that doesn't happen too often. Even the Macy's in the mall looked tired.

We couldn't decide where to eat so we hopped into the car and went up to Portland. There is a pretty upscale mall up there with some fancy stores. There is a good restraurant up there too; Patini Pasteria. We like it because they are a local place and have a lot of vegetarian choices. So we walked around and window shopped. We did pick up something fun; a box of fake moss. It seemed so Oregonian. I think we will be sending them for Christmas presents! I also saw this store called Lexi Dog. Unfortunately I took the picture but didn't go up to the store to see what they sold.

Movies this weekend.

V for Vendetta. Friday night we went out to see V for Vendetta. Cely and I weren't really interested. I thought it would just be one of those action movies without much story. But this was really an excellent movie. It was exciting and the story fun too. Cely and I kept thinking it was an allegory for some of the things going on now with our government. We really enjoyed it and give it a hearty endorsement.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. This was our netflix winner for the weekend. It was a wonderful story of two young men sent to the country be "re-educated". They bring a violin to the village and western music even though they have to tell everyone that the music is really Chinese revolutionary. They tell everyone that one song is "Mozart thinking about Mao". The two boys get their hands on some western novels and begin reading to the seamstress, teaching her to read in the process. In the process the seamstress grows and gets the strength to leave the village and the two boys who both have fallen in love with her.

Junebug. This was our loser for the weekend. This movie got some good reviews but it didn't hit us. We could hardly make it through it. Thumbs down on this one from Cely and I.

To finish off, here is a picture of one of the plants in our back yard. I don't know what it is. Maybe someone could tell me. (I finally looked at some tags on the plant. Evidently it is a camillia, camillia japonica to be exact.)

Snow in Corvallis

This week we had the our first snowfall in Corvallis. It snowed Wednesday night and we woke up to a light covering of snow. It was to heavy and wet to call a dusting. Here are some pictures.
They are out our back door and the front. That's our Miata all covered with snow. I hate it getting snowed on but at least it doesn't get any salt. For a couple of days this week it was probably colder here than back in Iowa.
This was pretty ironic because over last weekend we drove up to the Cascades to look at the snow. They really got hit this week maybe next weekend we can go up again and watch the people ski.

MOVIES

Last weekend we watched 16 Blocks. It was pretty much the usual Bruce Willis fare. Saying that also means it was pretty exciting and entertaining. Cely and I both wondered if Mos Def really talks like that? I guess we need some help on the popular culture thing.

We saw a delightful English movie that we got from Netflix called Greenfingers starring Clive Owens. It is a 2000 film, based on a true story about a group of prisoners in an experimenta British prison and how they get interested in the ultimate English pastime, gardening. They eventually enter a prestigous gardening competition. One of the supporting actors is David Kelly of Waking Ned Devine fame. Seeing him on screen leads to comparisons with that movie. This one isn't quite as good but it does capture some of Ned's charm.

Last night it was Libertine with Johnny Depp. It started up slow but got rolling and was an excellent character study. Johnny Depp created an amazing portrayal of a man who really pays for his indiscretions. (tech note. Another one of the great Firefox extensions. I was spelling indiscretions wrong but couldn't figure out the correct spelling. So I used this dictionary extension you can load in Firefox. I just had to highlight the word and double click. It opens a dictionary. Of course, I had to get the spelling close.)

Today we were on a Kennedy assassination kick. It all started with seeing Joan Mellen on BookTV on CSPAN2. She has a book, Farewell to Justice, which talks about Jim Garrison's investigation of the assassination and the belief that it was a conspiracy hit set up by the CIA, Pentagon, FBI, and others. She draws some connections from the assassination to the situation today. It was interesting enough for us to go to the public library and pick up the book and to swing by Blockbusters to rent Oliver Stone's JFK. I have a hard time believing that something that big could be kept secret for so long but there is a lot there to make you wonder.