All posts tagged: Random DJB Thoughts

It was twenty years ago today

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On a bright, clear, and wintery Sunday morning — December 20, 1992 — two infants, each barely over 5 pounds in size, entered and forever changed our world. Of course, we didn’t know it at the time, because we wouldn’t learn of their birth from the adoption agency until the next morning. But when I heard that they were born around 11:50 a.m. (and Claire will know who came out first and how much older that twin is than Andrew), I recalled that at the  very moment of their birth I was singing the ancient carol There Is No Rose of Such Virtue on the last Sunday of Advent. Knowing that their birth mother could deliver at any time, we were certainly – in that Advent season — looking forward to those births. And we’ve been singing ever since. Claire and Andrew came home with us on January 14, 1993. They received a royal welcome from friends and family, who decorated the house with balloons, left strollers and diapers on the front porch, and brought …

Vote Early…or Late…Just Vote

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Maryland’s early voting opened today, and I just returned from casting my vote at the Silver Spring Civic Center – along with hundreds of my neighbors. The line stretched back to the Whole Foods store, but moved briskly.  There was a festive feel in the air. Of course, when I got inside the Civic Center and saw the tabulation for votes at 1 p.m. – over 500 registered Democrats and less than 30 registered Republicans – I realized that most of the people in this line were going to vote the same general ticket. No wonder they were festive! Our presidential contest is assumed to be no contest, but we do have a few national/local issues on our ballot – the most important being the state’s Marriage Equality initiative.  Maryland, along with two other states, is attempting to become the first state to support marriage equality by popular vote. Waiting for 90 minutes also means you have a lot of time to talk with others in the line. I was in a typically diverse segment, …

Sunday Brunch…A Lifesaver

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Last October, Candice and I inadvertently started a tradition of eating brunch out every Sunday.  What a lifesaver…in more ways than one. It began as a way to get Candice out of the house after her fall.  Since she wasn’t able to drive at the time, I was concerned that being home was making her stir crazy. Church was one of the initial places we ventured and that first Sunday I suggested that we add on brunch. My motives were probably less than pure.  Sure, Candice would get out of the house.  But I’d also get to eat great food…without having to cook! (I was doing a number of chores I don’t normally assume last fall.) Our pattern became pretty consistent. We’d begin to talk about our choices mid-week.  In the process we’d check out the “best brunches” in the restaurant lists for the DC area.  By Saturday, we go on Open Table and make our reservation.  Candice would often study the menu and go to the restaurant knowing what she wanted. I’m not that …

Begin the New Year

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  For many Americans, the Labor Day weekend — not January 1st — is really the beginning of the new year. School years begin in late August and early September. Some parents — like us — have just dropped off one or more children at college this weekend. (In Claire’s case, she flew off to California on her own, but we did physically deposit Andrew in his dorm room for his sophomore year.) The somewhat slower rhythms of July and August at work, coupled with vacations, seem to be a bigger break in anticipation of starting over than the December break provides before January 1st. And this year, many Americans are just beginning to focus on the presidential race and the choice facing our country. So while Candice, the twins and I took a two-week family trip in mid-August to visit with our parents and siblings, we took the advice of those who said family trips don’t equal vacations and decided to tack on four days around the college drop-off to make sure our batteries …

Baseball Pilgrimages

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Say Hey!  Check another ballpark off the list!! About five years ago I made it a life goal to take in a game at all the Major League Baseball stadiums across America.  I wanted to achieve this goal by 2015 – when I reach the big 6-0.  It may be tough to meet that timetable, but what are goals for and I have hit a bit of a jackpot in the past six weeks. It is time for an update. I do have some rules for this quest. First of all, I have to actually see a game.  I can’t just drive by, or I could put the Ballpark in Arlington, among others, in my checked off category. I use to buy a hat of the local team to prove I’d been there, but Candice thinks I have enough caps – and she’s probably right.  So that’s no longer necessary.  Finally, demolitions have wrecked havoc with these plans. I decided – in a totally arbitrary way, since I am the umpire – that if I’ve …

Eating Local

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With a great deal of travel on my schedule for June – November, I’m trying to focus on what’s wonderful about leaving home. So this will not be a post about the state of the airline industry in the U.S. Instead, I am thinking about food. Local food to be exact. Regular readers will know that I like to avoid chains and hotel restaurants when I travel, seeking instead the local landmark. I’m only two days into this week’s trip to the west coast and I’ve already hit my “go local” stride. Lunch on Tuesday came from a wonderful cheese and sandwich shop named Cheese Plus which features tasty sandwiches with locally themed names such as the Willie Brown Duck (named for former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown), Crissy Field, and Castro’s Cubano.  I had the Happy Thanksgiving, which – along with the brisk city breeze and temperatures in the 60s – made me wish for the fall. After a drive to Sonoma County to view a site where we’re working, and especially after a …

G.A.S. continued: Or how I ended up with another guitar

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I hadn’t planned to buy another guitar.  Seriously. But sometimes good things happen when you least expect it. I HAD planned to try to meet the maker of my Running Dog guitar on my next trip to Seattle. Since I bought it used from a guitar shop in Amherst, Massachusetts, I didn’t know Rick Davis, the builder who made my parlor style instrument back in 2001. But after playing it for a couple of years, I wanted to meet the guy who built such wonderful small guitars with the beautiful tone. A recent trip to the west coast gave me the opportunity to stop by Rick’s shop in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle (aka, The Center of the Universe). Rick shares his shop with his partner, Cat Fox, and they couldn’t have been more welcoming. Rick told me the provenance of my 2001 Parlor guitar.  I learned he was the subject of Tim Brooke’s 2005 book Guitar: An American Life.  And I played a beautiful 2011 Ought-3 model. (I also noodled on a baritone guitar, …

Shark attack in downtown Silver Spring!

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As I walked to the gym this morning I saw cranes around the Discovery Building. My hopes were confirmed on the way home: SHARK WEEK! Three times since Discovery Communications moved around the corner from us in downtown Silver Spring, a giant, inflatable shark has shown up swimming through their landmark building to celebrate Shark Week.  A friend who works for Discovery told me that they call him “Chompie.” Throughout the day I wandered over to Discovery to check on the progress of Chompie’s arrival in our fair city and I’ve posted photos below of everything but the dorsal fin. (I don’t have access to the top floor of the NOAA building, which is about the only place short of an airplane where one can appreciate the entire ensemble.)  A job foremen told me today that each element has two tubes that continuously pump in cold air to keep it inflated.  They didn’t bite on my suggestion that they put a Nats cap on Chompie this year to recognize the good season that Roger “The …

Cleaned garage

The satisfaction of a well-cleaned garage

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I’ll admit it right up front:  it is weird but few things satisfy me like my twice-yearly garage cleaning ritual. There is a joy in realizing that you don’t really need all the junk you’ve stuck in every nook and cranny over the past six months. I like clearing the cobwebs metaphorically and physically. So I was looking forward to digging in the mounds of trash today (i.e., Andrew’s boxes crammed with junk he’d “packed” before coming home from college for the summer). Normally I do this project all by myself. I plug in the earphones, turn to the Americana playlist, get in the zone with The SteelDrivers or Tedeschi Trucks Band, and wrap it all up three or four hours later. But this year Candice said she wanted to help. Hmmm. That could be great. Or not. Candice and I had been married for 2-3 years when we began working on the first historic house we renovated together. Not knowing that much about the other partner, we decided to “share” the work. Bad idea. …