The Quad Cities and the Blue Collar Band

Last weekend Cely and I decided it was time to go pick up Cupcake (Cupcake's Facebook page) and bring her to her new home. We had taken her to June's house in order to help sell our home in Corvallis. I think it worked because the house sold in 3 days.

On Friday, before we left, I got an e-mail from Carol Anne Chouteau saying that the Blue Collar Band had cut a CD and wanted to send me one. She also mentioned that they were having a release party on Saturday night. So Cely and I called some friends, Tony, Maria and Jim, and Rick and we all went to the gig. Carol Anne was in top form as usual and they had a big crowd. The Blue Collar Band has a big following in the Quad Cities and are a lot of fun to hear. Check them out if you ever get a chance. This is us at Martinis on the Rock having a couple of beers and listening to the music. I had a great time because I got to hear Carol Anne and see some friends from the St. Ambrose University Library

Still No Home Internet

I am sitting with a bunch of kids at the Eau Claire Public Library. Still no internet at home and I don't want to use my office machine to do this personal stuff. So I talked Cely into coming to the library so I could put in a quick note. She is looking at the Cottage and Bungalow magazines to find decorating ideas for the house. Tomorrow the cable guy comes and sets up our cable and high speed internet. More to follow when that is all good.

Sunday night Adrienne drove up from Milwaukee to visit. She just left after dinner tonight. It really brought home the reason why we moved back here. She and Alexis can pop up for a weekend and we can do the same pretty easily. It is a 4 hour drive but that is not so bad. It was really nice to have Adrienne around to help out with some of the unpacking. Still tons of stuff to do in that area. We hung our first painting today though. It is one of Emil's; a great one of two conchas. Adrienne brought it up.It looks great in the dining room.

Driving To Wisconsin

It took us all day today just to go through most of Montana, NOT all of it. Tonight we are staying in Miles City MT. They first day after we left Corvallis we drove to Missoula, MT then today we drove another 500 miles to Miles City, MT. Here is the view outside our hotel window.

But here are some other pictures from the move. The movers came on Tuesday afternoon to inventory our house then started loading the truck (the truck was really pretty) on Wednesday morning. They were fast! By 2:30 they were loaded and gone. We stayed the night in the empty house and cleaned up. By 8 the next morning we were on the road too. We had our walky - talkies with us so we had a real convoy. Her is one more picture from our trip. It was a butte that looked cool at the time. I tried to take a picture of Cely and Alexis in the car behind me but it didn't work out right. I almost lost the camera in the wind. Tomorrow I have a new plan, using the strap.
Tomorrow we finish off Montana, drive throw North Dakota and get into Minnesota. The weather has been particularly hot but speeding across Montana at a legal 75 has been fun.

The Turkey Buzzard

Last night Cely and I saw the strangest thing, a turkey vulture walking along the road by Hoover School. I didn't have the camera but here is a picture of one from a photo sharing site, Stock.XCHNG.
It was still there and eating squirrel road kill when we came back from our errands. Before this I had only seen them out in the country and high in the air.

Today I got some pictures from Adrienne's friend Xavier. He took these when he visited Chicago in the winter and last month when he visited before Cely and I went to ALA. The first is in Millennium Park in Chicago and the other is at a lake near Hoodoo Ski area off of Rt. 20 heading towards Sisters, Oregon.

The Palamino

The Palamino, at the corner of Superior and East Russell is just what you would expect from a neighborhood tavern in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; hardwood bar with regulars perched on cabin-rustic stools, cigarette machine in back by the pool table, and an eight point buck mounted on a knotty pine wall. But as you look around at the tattooed arms of your waitress and the bartender’s spiked hair and dangling earrings that purposely don’t match, there’s something else that doesn’t match your first impression. Hipsters have taken over the corner bar. The beer list features microbrews from around the world, but you can still get Blatz in a bottle and Old Style in a can for a buck fifty. On the flat-screen wall television they were playing a modern Godzilla movie. But the best part was that half the menu was dedicated to vegetarian fare. They served Southern fried tofu, tempeh lettuce and tomato sandwiches along with hushpuppies and mountains of thin-sliced onion rings. We finished it all off with fresh homemade blueberry pie. I can’t wait to go back again.

Dinner at ALA

One more thing about ALA. One of the fun things about it is that you get to see friends in the business. This one was especially good because I was able to meet up with Daniel Mattes who I only get to see at ALA. Last year in New Orleans Steve Ostrem and I had dinner with him and now we all, along with Cely and some others met up again. This time for Thai food. Daniel is the library director at the Universidad Anáhuac in Mexico City. We met up with some other friends from Iowa, Maine and Florida. I guess we covered North America pretty well. Have to make friends with someone from Canada. That's (clockwise from bottom left, Jonathan Miller, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida; Jim Elmborg, Director ot the University of Iowa Library School; me; Cely; Steve, University of Iowa Libraries; Daniel; Jim's wife Ann; and Sue O'Dell from Bowdoin College. By the way, Sue's husband, Tim has a second CD out, Ancient Pines , its very good. Tim plays saxophone and does so very well.

Back in Corvallis

Making it back to Corvallis was pretty easy once we lit on a new plan. We made it to the Quad Cities Friday night just fine then I went out Saturday morning. Cely decided to stay since I was coming back on Wednesday for Anitra Cross's wedding on July 7. I flew from Moline to Denver then made a connection there to Portland. It was better that I went by myself because Denver was pretty busy also. I was on the left side of the plane so was able to get a great view of Mt. Hood as we descended to Portland.

Today I am spending the day packing books.

Tryin' to leave Chi

Today has been one of the more challenging for a standby passenger. It is 7:35 pm and we are in the midst of plan B.2. We are now planning to fly to Moline tonight and get to Portland tomorrow via Denver instead to Chicago. There are 3 seats open on the flight tomorrow morning at 6:00 am to Denver. Denver to Portland looks a little more dicey but much better than Chicago. Here's the scene in Chicago. This is much calmer than the flights to Portland. An hour ago a folksinger like guy was pounding on the door to the jetway demanding a seat on the plane. They had assigned two people to the same seat and he didn't get to it in time. We went off to have a slice of Pizza at Wolfgang Puck. By the way, Wolfgang Puck has the best pizza and best breakfast in O'Hare. We know because we had breakfast there this morning and had pizza there for dinner. They are starting to call us by our first names there now.

We Found a House in Eau Claire

Yesterday we had our offer accepted for a great house in Eau Claire. It only took us two days to make the deal. The house is in great shape and includes all the appliances. That's pretty good since we are leaving ours in Corvallis. The house is located in the 3rd Ward area of Eau Claire which is right next to the University. I will be able to walk to work. We are already planning where to put our furniture.

Today Cely and I are stuck in O'Hare trying to catch a flight to Portland. Everyone in Chicago wants to go there it seems. So far we have missed two flights and have 3 more chances. The last flight leaves about 10pm. If we don't get one of those we will have to go through the same thing again tomorrow. The nice thing was that we were able to visit Nancy and Jim and our niece and nephews. I will have some pictures when I can upload them at home. I haven't seen them for quite awhile. We got to see little Richie and the newest, Nicholas. All were very cute. Pictures to follow.

House Hunting in Eau Claire

Today we spent the day looking at houses in Eau Claire's 3rd Ward area. This is going to be a difficult decision for us. We have 4 houses plus the one we look at tomorrow that all have their own negatives and positives. We are committed to living in the 3rd Ward as all the houses are unique and it is an area where walking to campus will be easy. We are leaning to a house that has a studio above the garage. I guess Cely and I will have to take up painting or something. Tomorrow we look at a bungalow that looks great on the Web. That has been the interesting thing about looking for a house in Eau Claire. Everything actually is better in person than it appears to be on the Web. I haven't taken any pictures of the house.

We were going to take in a movie tonight but the whole choosing a home thing drained us.

More to follow.

We Sold the House

It only took three days to sell our house! We listed it on Tuesday afternoon and by Friday evening we had accepted the first offer. It was for exactly what we asked. Cely and I had worked really hard last weekend to get it looking good. We painted the walls. This is what the girls' room and the living room looked like after painting.











We have to wait for the house inspection before it is a sure thing but everything should be cool and it sounds like the woman who bought our house has already been approved for a loan to buy it. She will be teaching at OSU in the Fall so it should work out just great. Now we have to look for a place to buy in Eau Claire. I don't think the sale has really sunk in yet. I guess it will soon. Here are some more pictures of the house. We took some while the house was "staged" it looked so nice and clutter free.

The house doesn't look like much from the outside but I think the backyard and the high ceilinged living room make it a very cozy place.

To celebrate the sale of the house we drove up to Portland to see a movie. It was one of the best movies we have seen this year. Once is a new form of musical. It was a true delight. The story is about a Dublin street musician trying to record the songs he has written and a Czech woman who helps him do it. It is sort of a love story but more a story about love and relationships. The ending is surprising and very romantic. The music fills the plot and tells the story of the Guy (Glen Hansard) and the Girl (Markéta Irglová). (They don't get names in the movie.) Hansard had a part in The Commitments and is lead singer for the Frames. The reviews have been stellar so don't take my word for it. If you get a chance go and see this very special movie.

Leaving Oregon

Things are moving rather quickly now. Tuesday afternoon we placed our house on the market with Sara Cyrus from Town and Country Realtors. By that evening we had two realtors show our house. Then yesterday someone else brought people through. I sure hope this is a good sign. We still have to find a house in Eau Claire. There are some great houses there. We are hoping to find something in the 3rd Ward area. It is just south of campus with a great selection of houses where none really look the same. I could walk to the library every day.

We spent this weekend painting the "girls" bedroom white; it had been pink, and the salmon colored wall in the living room a pumpkin brown. Both look a lot better. We are trying to stage our house by getting all the clutter out. Its amazing how nice the place looks without magazines and photocopies of half-read articles all over the place. We ended up taking 4 PT Cruiser loads of boxes and junk to a storage shed.

Here's a before picture of our living room wall. I'll have to take an after picture.

Our Next Move

Cely and I are getting ready to pull up roots again. Actually we are going back to where are roots are deeper, I guess. I think I'm stretching the metaphor pretty thin here.

We are getting ready to move to Eau Claire Wisconsin. I have accepted the position of Library Director at McIntyre Library at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire. Both Cely and I are really excited about moving there. The job seems as close to perfect as one could hope for and the community is wonderful. Cely and I went to visit over Memorial Day. We felt a little foolish making a visit there when I still didn't know if they would offer me the position but we couldn't help ourselves. We figured if I didn't get the job we would at least have had a nice little trip over the Memorial Day weekend. This is another reason that we are so happy that Adrienne works for United.

I wanted Cely to see what everything looked like in case they did offer me the job. She gave it a big thumbs up. It is in a beautiful confluence of the Chippewa and the Eau Claire rivers. The University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire is in a beautiful location in the city and on the banks of the Chippawa. Everyone I met there was very nice and welcoming.

So now it looks like we are going to have to build a new blog or rename this one to John and Cely in Wisconsin. More to come.

A Dead Gray Whale

Last night, after work, Cely and I decided to drive out to the coast to see a 41 foot gray whale that died at sea and washed ashore at Seal Rock beach. We have never seen a whale up close so we decided to take advantage of the situation even though it did feel a bit gruesome. It doesn't show up well in the picture but someone had placed a bouquet of flowers near the whales jaw. There were others who were gawkers like us viewing the whale. Then there were those like this guy in the red sweatshirt who was cutting a piece of baleen from the whale's jaw, which since whales are a protected animal is a federal offense. When I alerted this person to that fact (which had been very well publicized) he really wasn't interested.

Later, we drove up the road to a high point above the ocean in the city of Newport. We had packed a small picnic dinner since we wanted to get out to the coast before sundown. A really great thing happened there. While we were eating our sandwiches we kept seeing some water spouts about a thousand feet off shore. I told Cely that it must be some rocks out there that were kicking up waves. Cely didn't really believe it and when the spouts started moving around and I eventually realized that we were watching a pod of whales feeding off shore. It was really shocking to us since is a little out of season. Whenever we go to the beach during the seasonal whale watching days we never see whales. We would see about four different spouts and an occasional fin or back break the surface. It was terrific, especially after seeing the beached whale. Cely and I marveled at how easy it was to just drive out to the coast and back in the evening after work. I wish we would take advantage of this more often.

Mapstats

I just read in my friend, Jonathan Miller's blog, The Director's Blog about this Mapstats utility which tracks visits to your blog and then maps the last 25 visitors. It looked pretty interesting so I tried it out. I suspect that I will be a little disappointed since I write in this blog so infrequently. Maybe my sisters will visit and I will get some hits.

Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens

Last night we continued our obsession with all things Edie. We made it to the play by the skin of our teeth. We weren’t in our seats but 5 minutes when the curtain opened. Well, not exactly a curtain but the side wall of the shake shingled house opened up. Our seats were right up by the stage, about three rows back but on the left side. Being close was great but some of the action was directed towards the other side of the theater. This was only the second time seeing a play on Broadway but both times I was surprised at how intimate the theaters are. We had particularly close seats but the back of the main floor was not far from the stage.

The play was based on the 1974 documentary by Albert and David Maysles and turned into a musical. I was struck by the quality of the acting and singing. So often at the local plays we have gone to the actors don’t get beyond the idea that they are acting. Christine Ebersole starred as Big Edie in the first act set during 1941 and then as young Edie in the second act, which was pretty much a retelling of the documentary. The first act was interesting because it provided the set up for we saw in the documentary. The first act has the Beauvier-Beals preparing for the engagement party of little Edie and Joseph Kennedy Jr. In things that I read about them I don’t remember a relationship between them. I think that maybe this was added for the play. I’ll have to check.

Even though I found the play thoroughly enjoyable it made me value the documentary even more. The play vividly portrayed the tension between the two women in some moving songs and strong interplay but it was very out front about the tension whereas the documentary allowed the tension to very subtly creep into the story. The true relationship between Big Edie and Little Edie almost sneaks up on you. In the musical it is much more obvious. I suppose that they needed to make it more striking in the play. One thing that really struck me towards the end of the play was when Little Edie is trying to leave once again and her mother is calling her back, they allow Ebersole a long moment of complete silence to try to get away, waver, and finally cave in to the pull of responsibility and her mother’s needs. It really worked and was an impressive bit of “acting”.

Grey Gardens

Cely and I finally have decided to take a purely fun trip with our travel benefits and went to New York, NY this weekend to see the play Grey Gardens. I am writing from the Hotel Wellington as we are chilling out before going to bed. More on the play tomorrow but I had to write about the trip was a trip.t The plan was to take the reliable redeye out of Portland get to La Guardia in the morning, spend a relaxing day in the city and then go to the play. That didn't quite happen. For the first time we didn't get on the plane. Every other time, even when they seemed overbooked we got out. Not last night. We ended up staying in the La Quinta and trying again in the morning. The 6:30 plane looked more overbooked than the plane Friday night. I was getting worried but we got on right away. Everything looked good until we came to a halt on the taxi way and the pilot came on to say that they lost brakes and steering. We had to be towed back to the gate where they took 2 hours to work on the plane we finally got out but it wasn't looking good for getting into New York on time. At O'Hare we easily got on the plane but it was scheduled to get into La Guardia at 7 and the play started at 8. The plane landed at 7 on the dot. It looked impossible to make the play but we got a great cab driver. He weaved and bobbed across the bridge and through traffic crammed side streets. He even took two guys to school when they tried to cut him off. I always kid the girls about taking stupid drivers to school. He got us to the hotel at 7:48. We checked our bags with the bellhop and ran back to the street and grabbed a cab to the theater. The cabby dropped us off at the end of the street because it was a one way going the wrong way and we could walk it faster than the cab could get around the block. We ran to the theater and got in at 8:01. After all the delays and setbacks we both couldn't believe we made it. It was a pretty exciting trip. I will give my review next.

Our Trip to Chicago

This weekend Cely and I went to Chicago to visit the Girls and to meet Adrienne's friend Zavier. Zavier is from Paris. Adrienne met him on her first trip to Paris with United. He didn't speak much English but he definitely did better in English than we could do in French. We arrived in the early morning, as usual, although this time we flew in through LAX because I thought the flights through there were less crowded than the one from Portland to O'Hare. I don't know if it worked out any better since we didn't get to sit together from LA to Chicago. This time Cely got to be in 1st class and I was in economy. We were able to get into our hotel room early in the morning and meet up with the girls. Zavier was a very friendly guy and we enjoyed meeting him. Besides he brought chocolates. With Adrienne as translator and his ability to say a few things in English we actually had some conversations.

Right away we drove downtown to go to breakfast. We decided to go eat breakfast at Lou Mitchell's on 565 W. Jackson. The food was just what you would want from a crowded morning spot in the loop. The girls and Zavier wanted to ice skate at Millenium Park so we went over there after eating. Cely had never seen the Cloud so we walked around while the others skated then we went across the street to the Cafe Baci to watch them from inside. It was freezing! Later we went to the Shedd Aquarium and had to stand outside for 1/2 an hour to get tickets. Did I say it was freezing?

We finished off the day by going to Rosebud on Taylor for an Italian dinner at one of the great Chicago restaurants. Then it was up early the next morning so that we could catch the 8:15 flight back to Oregon. The best thing was that right after Cely and I got through security we ran into her brother John. He was flying to a conference in San Diego. I always wonder if we will bump into him in one of these airports since he is always flying somewhere. This time he saw us and surprised us.

A Powerful Movie

This week I am going to go to the BCR Board of Trustees meeting so I took Cely back to visit her Mom this weekend. Cely was going to stay here but I had already booked a flight to the Quad Cities next weekend. People must not be travelling much this weekend. We had great luck getting to the Quad Cities even though there was a big snowstorm and cancelled flights on Thursday. It was just like flying normally in each direction.

The biggest thing was the movie we saw this weekend. Cely heard about this musical that is playing on Broadway called Grey Gardens. It seemed really odd because it is based on these two eccentric women called "Big Edie" and "Little Edie" they were Jackie Kennedy's aunt and cousin respectively. The musical is based on a documentary done in 1975 by Albert and David Maysles
titled Grey Gardens. IMDB does a better job at providing a description of the movie than I can. This documentary was so funny yet deeply disturbing all because of the two women, Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale. The Maysles brothers put together a film that shows truth can be stranger, and sometimes more powerful, than fiction.
The women live on their slowly disintagrating mansion in the Hamptons along with a spectacularly overgrown garden, racoons in the attic, cats aplenty, a mother daughter relationhip that takes disfunctional to new levels of madness. Cely, June and I watched it together at June's and we could not stop talking about it. It had as much drama and depth as a Tennessee Williams play. In fact, aspects of the relationship between the two women reminded me of the Glass Menagerie. This gets my recommendation as a must see movie. There will be plenty of opportunities to see the women's story as there is now the Broadway musical, the 1975 movie, a recent release of outtakes from the documentary, The Beales of Grey Gardens and a fictional version now in production staring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore.

Last Trips to the Midwest

Over the past month it seems like I have been in the Midwest for about 3 of the last 4 weekends. Cely has just been back in Corvallis for the last two weeks. We spent a really nice and quiet Thanksgiving.

Before that, though, we spent some time in the QC with everyone together and one weekend with Alexis in Milwaukee. Here are some pictures.

This picture of Alexis is after she streaked her hair. When we arrived in Milwaukee at her apartment I thought it was one of her roommates answering the door. I really experienced doing a double take. We were in Milwaukee it was November 19, Alexis' birthday. We took her out for a brunch at a great restaurant on Water Street, the Trocadero. The food was just yummy and French. Cely and I shared a Bloody Mary that had something going on flavorish that I couldn't place but it was good. I recommend this place to anyone who travels to Milwaukee. It is another on our list of great places to visit there.