Christophe Mac in the House

My godson Christophe MacIntosh came to visit us in St. Andrews this week. He is currently a freshman at the University of Edinburgh. It was great to see him, and we had a lot of fun when he was here. We played the Jubilee golf course on Friday and the New Course on Saturday with Barbara. He is a pretty good golfer for someone who only plays a few times a year, but hopefully he will get to play a lot more now that he in in Scoland. We also had a great dinner at the Tails End, our favorite fish and chip shop in town and a few beers at the Central Bar.

Hopefully we'll get to see a lot more of him while he is at Uni.

Scotscraig Golf Club

I have a goal to play a new course every time I come to Scotland, and this time it was the Scotscraig Golf Club in Tayport, about 20 minutes outside of St. Andrews.

Scotscraig was founded in 1817 and is the 13th oldest golf club in Scotland. In 1888 the "new" course was opened extending the course to nine holes. In the 1890's Tom Morris advised the club on the extension to 18 holes and in 1923 the course was redesigned by five time Open champion James Braid. It has remained largely unchanged since then with the exception of making it longer.

Unfortunately there has been a lot of rain this year and the course was very wet. Several of the bunkers were underwater, but the grounds crew was doing a good job of getting the course back in shape. Scotsgraig is a good challenge. It has been an Open qualifier for the last 20 years. It is a tight, parkland style course with some trees and a lot of gorse. You need to drive the ball straight here or you will be in a lot of trouble. The fourth hole is the most challenging with a near impossible elevated green that slopes off in every direction.

Overall this is a very fun course and I would highly recommend it. It costs 56 pounds ($90) for a midweek round and 72 pounds ($119) for a round on the weekend. They also have some deals that pair a round of golf with lunch or dinner. You'll also find a fully stocked pro shop to go along with a nice restaurant and bar.

Dad's 70th Birthday

My sister has been working on a plan for over a year now to get a plaque on a bench on the Kingsbarns Golf Course to commemorate my Dad's 70th birthday. Yesterday it finally came to fruition. After dozens of e-mails back and forth across the Atlantic, we got the plaque installed.

 

The best news of all was that it was a complete surprise to my Dad. We had just finished playing golf on a near by golf course, when I asked him to swing by the Kingsbarns course to get some merch for a friend. He fell for it. When we got there my Mom was waiting with a bottle of champagne.

 

The young man in the first picture drove us out to the 15th tee and installed it as we popped the cork on champagne. it was a wet and windy day, but it was still a lot of fun.

This course is very special to my Dad as he grew up in Kingsbarns and is a member of the Kingsbarns Golf Club. My Grandfather was also the last person the win the Scottish two ball championship (with my Great Uncle) on the land that is now Kingsbarns Golf Links. It was a nine hole course before WW II, but was never opened again after the war.

Marathon Woman

Last New Year's eve Barbabra registered for the Portland Marathon as part of the celebration of her 50th year and yesterday she completed the mission. Months of training, getting up at 5:30 a.m on Saturdays, blisters, sore feet, paid off as she looked fresh and confident when I met her at the 22 mile mark. From there she cruised in to set a new personal best.

Congratulations! You are amazing.

Philip Johnson's Glass House

On my trip to New Canaan I was able to visit a local landmark, Philip Johnson's Glass House.

The house was built in 1949 on a dozen acres and over the years Johnson expanded the property to 50 acres and added several buildings, about one a decade, until his death in 2005 at 98.

The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997. Johnson passed on ownership of the Glass House to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which opened it to visitors in April 2007. The trust expanded the size of the property, buying adjacent lots which extended it to 200 acres. You can now take a two hour tour for $45.

 

The tour begins in downtown New Canaan, where they have a gift shop and an interesting video wall that gives an overview of Johnson's life and the development of the Glass House property, with some fun pictures and videos of the great parties they had over the years. Then you board a bus and drive out to the property. The first thing you see is this interesting gate.It's an aluminum bar that raises up to let you in.

As you start down the path to the Glass House, it is obscured by trees and slowly reveals itself. The house is a lot smaller than you would think. It is a glass rectangle containing a round brick space for the fireplace and the bathroom. This pattern of rectangle and circle is repeated many times on the property. There are hardly any lights, no AC, and few drapes in the house, so you can see in from almost everywhere. Luckily he owed most of the property around him, so there were not a lot of people looking in on Johnson, he was mostly looking out on a beautiful vista.

 

Below the back of the house Johnson added a lake with a Pavilion and a spectacular water feature.  Behind the lake you can see the sculpture, the ladder to nowhere.

Across from the Glass House is the Brick House. We were not able to go inside it, due to sever flood damage and mold, but the pictures were saw revealed a very interesting space. There was a living room and two bedrooms inside and it was air conditioned so Johnson often slept there in the summer.

Because the Glass House has nowhere to hang art, Johnson built an art gallery on the property to display his partner David Whitney's amazing collection. While they were alive they owned 100's of their friend Andy Warhol's pieces as well as the work of other important modern artists.

The tour ends with a trip to the sculpture gallery. Again the building is as interesting as the art. We were luck enough to come a day with great sunshine so we could see the amazing shadows cast by the slats in the ceiling.

Sadly many of the buildings on the property are badly in need of repair. The Brick House is inaccessible and will take millions to renovate (a lot for a 1700 square foot space), the sculpture gallery roof is rusting, and the Glass House itself has a lot of roof issues too. That said, it is still an amazing place that you should visit if you are in the area, make sure you book in advance, tours fill up quickly.

New Canaan Visit

I took a business  trip to NY this week and amazingly I was able to parley it into a opportunity to see almost all my family members. My sister and her family recently moved to New Canaan, CT and Mom and Dad were there visiting for the weekend, so I flew to JFK on Saturday and took the train up to see them. Then on Tuesday night I came back into the city and had dinner with my brother who was there on a business trip.

This is the great new house they have moved into in New Canaan. It's on about three acres, has a pool, and most importantly lots of room for Winston the dog to run around on. New Canaan is a great town, with plenty of shops, a few restaurants and an easy commute to NYC.

 

While we were there we made a trip to Shake Shack, for some great burgers, and in my case a very good strawberry shake. You should also try the "concrete," it's frozen yogurt with dozens of options you can mix in.

I also had the opportunity to introduce my sports loving nephews to The NFL Red Zone, I don't think they will ever watch a full NFL game on Sunday again.

Shoes - Shoes Best

On the way to work today I was listening to a podcast of Fresh Air and pop music critic Ken Tucker was giving a review of the new Shoes record Ignition. First of all I was amazed to hear the band Shoes were still around, never mind releasing a new record.  In 1979, Shoes Present Tense was one of my favorite records. It's strange now to think that this power pop bad (think Big Star) somehow snuck into my record collection amongst the punk and new wave records that were more popular at the time.

The band was formed in 1974 in Illinois by two brothers and a couple of friends.  There are three bands they are often compared to, but I would say they were way cooler than Cheap Trick, not as formulaic as The Knack and not as "new wave" showy as The Cars. They released three great records in a row: Black Vinyl Shoes in 1977, 1979's Present Tense and Tongue Twister in 1980, then I never heard from them again. Turns out they released three more records in the 1980's and another two in the 1990's. I am sad that I missed out on them, but it was not for lack of effort. I have looked them up a few times on the music guides and checked the used record shops to no avail. Now that they have a new record out, there suddenly seems to be a lot of info on the band.

If you want to check them out there are a few options on iTunes. You can buy Present Tense and Tongue Twister as a combined record for $9.99 or better yet buy SHOES Best, 22 "greatest hits" for the same price. If you like what you hear you can fast forward 20 years and buy the new record Ignition. It's interesting to see where a group of middle aged guys goes when your way too old to sing about teenage angst.

Boke Bowl

Boke Bowl started as a pop up ramen noodle place in Portland and recently opened a permanent location on the east-side next to Bunk Bar, and Clarklewis restaurant. It is best known for it's ramen noodles which come in several flavors: pork, seafood, caramelized fennel dashi - Japanese eggplant, and miso black cod. I have tried the pork and seafood bowls and both were good, however I found the pork to be a little greasy. Be warned, they are very big, so you may want to consider splitting one if you want to try the other stuff. And I strongly suggest you try the other stuff, so if possible, go with a big group of people so you can share.  Also, it's family style seating, so if like me you don't like sitting by people you don't know, a larger group will insulate you.

The steam buns are like little sandwiches, with three to an order for $7. You can get fried chicken (by far the best of the group), miso mushroom (vegetarian), pork belly (again a little greasy/fatty - I wish they would switch this to pulled pork), grilled zucchini (vegan), ham w/tarragon mustard and pickles, and peanut butter and jelly ($6). The snap peas, pea tendrils, pickled radish, avocado, napa cabbage salad with a tahini miso vinaigrette is a great option as are the pickles for an appetizer.  If you are still in need of something sweet to close it out, the Twinkies are a fun choice.

On the website I saw that they host a weekly Koren fried chicken night. If this fried chicken is the same as the stuff they put in the steamed buns, then I will definitely be putting that on the calendar.

Boke Bowl
1028 SE Water Ave.
Portland, OR 97214
503  719  5698

Monday to Wednesday
10:30am to 3pm

Thursday to Saturday
10:30am to 9:30pm

ParaNorman at the Drive-In

 

In the spirit of doing new things we went to see a movie this weekend at the drive-in theater in Newberg. The theater has survived since the 1950's and is still in pretty good working order. It takes about 45 minutes to get there from our house but it was worth the drive. 

They were showing a double bill of ParaNorman and The Campaign starring Will Farrell and Zach Galifianakis. The picture quality is not as good as a indoor movie theater, but it is nice to be able to sit back in your car and watch a movie. 

The main source of income for the theater is concessions, so don't bring your own food, unless you want to eat healthy. The food at the concession stand would all be featured in a what not to eat advice column from your doctor. That said, the nachos are fine if you eat them fast enough (don't let the cheese cool) and the hot dogs were OK.

In between movies, they play a lot of old commercials and other funny clips. They had a trailer from H R Puff and Stuff that was pretty funny.

If you decide to check out the drive-in you should go early, the box office opens at 6:30 and it sells out pretty fast, and be prepared to wait. There is a long line to get in and once you are in, you have to wait until it gets dark enough to project the movie. It is a good idea to bring something else to help you kill a little time.

Car Update

I haven't seen the car since June, so I thought I would go take a look. There has definitely been some progress. It is now prepped and ready to paint. All the dings I got on the hood in a 1984 hail storm have been popped out and sanded, as well as most of the other bad spots. Hopefully it will hit the paint shop this month and I'll be driving it before we run out of good weather.

36 Holes in Chicago

I played more golf on Friday than I have played in the last couple of months.

The day started with a round at Old Elm Golf Club in Highland Park, a suburb north of Chicago. This is a very old school place. It is a men only club with a couple hundred members, most are 70+, so it doesn't get a lot of play. It's a pretty short course measuring 6,465 yards from the longest tees for a par of 73 . The course rating is 70.7 and it has a slope rating of 123 on Bent grass.  Designed by one of the great American designers, Donald J. Ross, the Old Elm course opened in 1913. There are no golf carts or trollies here, you have to take a caddy.

There had been a torrential downpour the night before we played so the greens were playing slow, which is a shame as the small, fast greens are really this courses only defense. There are plenty of bunkers, but they were all casual water hazards due to the rain. Old Elm is a great walking course and fun to play. It would be great to play it again when the greens are in shape.

The second round of the day was on the tougher Onwentsia Golf Club course, in Lake Forest. Onwentsia celebrated its centennial in 1995, and is one of the oldest golf clubs in the country. The course was designed by one of America's most outstanding golf course architects, Charles Blair MacDonald in 1895, and was renovated in 1997 based on the design plan of Tom Doak. It was the home of the 1906 US Open and has hosted many prestigious events over the years. The course is 6,645 yards from the longest tees for a par of 72. The course rating is 71.9 and the slope rating is 127 on Bent grass.

Once again we were treated to caddies only and a guest locker with my name on it. The course had drained well and the greens were a lot faster than the morning round. It is a beautiful layout with an internal nine and a second nine running on the outside. It reminded me a lot of my home club CECC, with a much nicer clubhouse.

The Dark Knight Rises

I am sorry for the cliche, but The Dark Knight Rises is why movie theaters still exist. In a world of 60" TVs and surround sound, this is the kind of movie that is worth getting off the couch for.

Rises is the last in the trilogy of Batman films written and directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Christian Bale as Batman, Michael Caine as Alfred, Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon, Morgan Freeman as Lucias Fox and in the only misstep in this film, Anne Hathaway as a cat burglar.

The star of this film is the aptly named Bane, the scariest of Batman badmen so far. This is a guy you really believe could wipe out the world, never mind Batman.

The story is pretty simple, but it is well told and there is plenty of amazing action to keep you glued to your seat. Thank you summer blockbuster.

Fun Birthday

Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes. It was a great day filled with a lot of eating. I had a great lunch with the work folks at Corazon (1205 SW Washington St., Portland). The food is great, they have several different kinds of tacos as well as great guacamole, corn on the cob and spicy peppers. The location has not been successful in the past so I am a little worried for them, but hopefully they will survive.

 

Then it was home for a great dinner and my favorite cake, German chocolate from Helen Bernhard Bakery with some vanilla ice cream. It doesn't get any better.

Serious Yard Work

It's Monday and I am still really sore from the yard work I did on Saturday. 

Here in Portland we are responsible for maintaining the sidewalks around our house, so every few years I have to remove all the erosion and plant life that has covered it up and cut it down to one lane.

Hopefully you can see in these pictures a little of the before and after. My neighbor who doesn't do much to maintain his yard actually cleared up his area, I suspect he got a warning from the city, so that started the chain reaction of everyone else needing to clean up.

I went the extra mile and edged the grass around the curb too. It's the little things that make a difference.

Kauai Vacation

For Barbara's 50th birthday we spent 10 days on the beautiful Garden Island of Kauai. This was our third trip to the Island, and the first time we were there in the summer. We were expecting a lot of sun and surf, but we did have to put up with a little rain as they are having a pretty wet summer.

The other two times we were in Kauai, we stayed in Princeville. This time we rented a great little cottage between Hanalei and Ke'e Beach. The Hale Makai Cottages are three one bedroom and two two bedroom cottages on a beautiful, secluded area only a few steps from the beach. They are a little expensive, but worth it.

The beach was great, it had a reef that made for great swimming and snorkeling. There was also a trade wind breeze that made the hot sun very bearable. We saw a kite boarder and some fisherman out there as well as the folks staying around us, but it was never crowded.

 

After a few days we decided to challenge oursleves a little and hike the Kalalau Trail from Ke'e Beach to the first waterfall along the Nā Pali Coast. The trail is 11 miles; we did the first two miles then broke off and hiked two more miles to the waterfall. The larger trial is ranked one of the 10 most dangerous in the US by Backpacker Magazine and the first two miles are pretty challenging. The beach at the two mile mark is also very dangerous, with a terrible undertow, so don't think about cooling off in the water. Speaking of water, we should have packed a lot more and a few energy bars. We were pretty tired when we got to waterfall, but the water was freezing and very invigorating. It gave us some energy to head back but we ran out of gas and limped in the last of the eight miles.

The highlight of the trip was the helicopter trip we took over the Island. The helicopter did not have doors so we had a great view, but it was pretty scary when it banked to the side I was sitting on. The helicopter ride is pretty expensive, but it is well worth it. It is a great way to get an overview of the Island and see stuff you can't see by car as the road only goes half way around the Island.

I highly recommend visiting Kauai if you are thinking about going to Hawaii. It is still a very laid back place that is not was built up as the other Islands. There are a few big resorts if you are into that, but there are many more great small places and all the beaches are state parks. There are also lots of great restaurants and plenty of amazing activities.

If you want to see more pictures check out my flickr page.

The Parish - Pearl District

Why Don't Cajuns Work at NASA? Because when they say launch, they go out to eat.

And now the transition, I had a great lunch at a Cajun/Creole place in the Pearl by my office today. They have all your New Orleans favorites on the menu: seafood gumbo, turtle soup, jambalaya, BBQ shrimp, oysters, ettouffee, and several choices of po'boy. I had the Debris Po'Boy, which was amazing roast beef, with a rimoulad sauce (or comeback sauce as they call it) fully dressed with fries, which were a little soggy. My colleague also enjoyed his oyster po'boy.

The service was great and the prices were very reasonable, so I will be coming back for dinner.

The Parish

231 NW 11th Ave
Portland, OR 97209  
(503) 227-2421


Mon-Thurs: 11:00am - 10:00pm 
Fri: 11:00am - 12:00am 
Sat: 2:00pm - 12:00am 
Sun: 2:00pm - 10:00pm 
Sat-Sun Brunch: 9:00am - 2:00pm

The Woodsman Tavern

We got back to the tradition of trying new places this weekend and did not have to travel too far from home to get to the Woodsman Tavern on upper SE Division. Opened in the fall of 2011, this is one of several neighborhood taverns that are offering non-typical bar food. In fact these places are competing with any of the best restaurants in town on cuisine, while offering a friendly, casual atmosphere to eat or just meet for drinks.

We started with a couple of cocktails from an impressive, somewhat expensive list. I can highly recommend the Gold Rush, a great mix of bourbon and lemon juice. This was coupled with an order of deviled eggs, which was small, but delicious and the Country Ham plate, which had three different hams to taste with pickled green and bread. It was much like a charcuterie plate, very flavorful and thoroughly enjoyable. As an entree we decided to go with two small dishes and on large dish to share. The small dishes we choose were the smoked trout with lentils and the rock shrimp with avocado and radish. Of the two the smoked trout was the one that really shined here. The large dish was a roasted boar shank, which was tender in the middle with a nice crispy outside, accompanied with white beans.

By this time we were both nearing capacity, but could not resist looking at the desert menu. Because we are weak we had to try the key line pie and a berry trifle. I thought the trifle was amazing, and the key lime pie too sweet, but they came with a great after dinner drink pairing that put them over the top.

The Huntsman Tavern is not going to be a cheap night out if you want to take advantage of the menu, but it is rewarding. I want to come back and try a few more of the small dishes and get the whole roasted trout as an entree. The waitstaff is also very helpful and timely which adds to a fun dining experience.

The Woodsman Tavern
4537 SE Division St. 
Portland, OR 97206

(971) 373-8264 Mon-Sun  5–10 PM

Ted

A movie about a talking teddy bear that lives with Mark Walhberg and does nothing but party and talk sass, who wouldn't love this?  Add to the mix that it's written by Seth Macfarlane of Family Guy fame and that he is the voice-over for the bear, and now we are getting into possible Borat funny range.

Unfortunately I over-hyped it in my mind and watched too many of the trailers and extras, so I had seen most of the good stuff before the movie even began. That said, it's still a funny movie, that is well played by Whalberg and Mila Kunis.

The fun twist is that the bear is real, not treated like an imaginary character, so outsiders interact with him and he becomes a celebrity, with an appearance on Johnny Carson. When we get to the meat of the film he is more like a former child star than an animated child's toy. This is what makes the film work, because everything else about the film is cliche: best friend vs. girlfriend, dumb guy with hot girl, loveable slacker wins in the end, etc.

Bottom line: this would be a excellent rental or DVD purchase as it is funny and the kind of thing you could watch a few times, but not necessarily a must for in-theater viewing.

A Little Deck Work

When we first bought our house, there was only one small deck off the living room and master bedroom and it had a gross awning that was more mold than awning. When we replaced the awning it brightened the deck up a lot, but it was still a little scary as it is cantilevered out from the house, with a three story drop to the ground.

After a few years of living in the house we added a lot more deck space, with a larger deck below the existing one and another running the entire length of the ground floor of the house. This spring I was cleaning up those decks when I decided it was finally time to give the upper deck a facelift.

I measured everything and went over to the local lumberyard to order the wood, under the delusion I would be able to take on this project myself. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I soon realized I was in over my head and called my friend Mark, who is a contractor, to take over.

I knew I had some rot on the face boards that are exposed to the weather, but I didn't expect to find problems on the joists. Mark was able to cut away all the rot and shore up all the joists with pressure treated wood, so we won't have any more problems.

The end result looks great, and it is so much sturdier I think we could have a dance party out there now. Can't wait to get the new awning up.