A Legend in the Making

My friend, Matt, lives a dual life. His passion in life is playing and performing on his accordian, dressed up as Kielbasia, everyone's favorite Polish Grandma Lunch Lady. Here's the portrait that was painted of Kielbasia:

Kielbasia

Here's Kielbasia's website. Check out her upcoming performances!!

The welcome home committee

I pulled into San Francisco at 3PM Friday August 20th. After doing a quick unpacking of the car, I opened the backyard the was welcomed home by these two....

Amelia (Mimi) and Isabel (Izzy) S.

The first words I heard were, "Ernie's home!!!" Luckily for me it was a "kiss and hug" day. These two girls (my neighbors nearly six year old daughters) are smart to limit the number of "kiss and hug" days so I can never assume that I'm going to get my share of affection. Smart cookies!

We rough housed and then played the math game where each one of us puts out from one to five fingers and then the two girls have to add up the total number of fingers on all three hands.

What a great way to return home!

Friends, Friends, Friends

This one takes a bit of set up. I graduated from The Lakeside School in Seattle. This past year, one of the administrators at Lakeside retired and the person who replaced her is the husband of a (now) former colleague of mine at Head-Royce in Oakland. Jennifer N. (aka The N), sadly, left Head-Royce in July and moved to Seattle with her husband Darryl and son Darius.

Jennifer N. (Darryl was at work and Darius was napping)

Lakeside is housing them in a house across the street from the entrance from the school. Here's a look at their house (these next two pictures are SOLELY for a certain blog reader that would hold me accountable for depriving said reader were I not to include pictures such as these)>

The N. new home

The view out their living room window is the main Lakeside School entrance

Jennifer and I spent an hour rehashing things, gossiping and making sure that she is getting a good lay of the landscape in Seattle. After Darius woke up, we took a stroll on the Lakeside campus and I schmoozed with the administrators, who although not the same ones that were there when I was a student, all know me from when I tutored Lakeside students during my year of recovery in Seattle. Just keeping the lines of communication open in case I ever desire to return to the Pacific Northwest.

I left Seattle Thursday morning August 20th. Before I hit the road for California, I went to visit my friends John and Kari G.. John and I were roommates in McMahon Hall at the University of Washington back in 1988-89 the year I went to the UW. John, like my sister, is an architect. He has been self-employed but is now working for a small firm. Now, John (and Kari) has always amazed me with his ability to design and build things. About five or six years ago, John and Kari purchased some land on Bainbridge Island, in Puget Sound.

The ferry that runs from Seattle to Bainbridge Island with Safeco Field in the background

They build their own house. Amazing!!!

The G. in front of their self-constructed home

John has always had some amazing ideas and there are some really cool design elements that I think are awesome. One is that instead of having one large refrigerator, they have a bank of four waist level college dorm room refrigerators. One for drinks, vegetables, etc. It's a pretty cool idea. I expect nothing less than totally neat things from John.

Kari, John (holding 6 week old Evan), Julia and Duke the dog

Ernie and John (it's been 16 years since Freshman year)

It's always great to catch up with Kari and John and we do it way to infrequently, but I appreciate the couple hours every couple of years nonetheless.

Leaving the Puget Sound region, I drove south along I-5 into Oregon. My best friend from high school, Dean K., is a travelling salesman and in talking with him we discovered that we were going to intersect each other on I-5. I was driving south and he north. We decided to meet at the Seven Feathers Casino at milepost 99 in southern Oregon.

The Seven Feathers Casino

I love playing blackjack, but it's always just much more fun with Dean because I taught him how to play and I love watching him play "correctly". He's learned well, plus he is just so animated and fun at the table he makes the experience more fun for everyone at the table. I put $50 on the table and an hour and a half later I walked away from the table with $225.

Dean and I then partook of the buffet, which was fine, but our server was a kick. Sandi was OUT OF CONTROL. Let's just say, we hit it off and she took home a large tip.

Dean and Ernie with our server Sandi

We arrived at the casino at 6:30PM and left at 9:00PM. What fun it is to have some great friends!!!

Golfing with your parents' friends

On Monday morning, Mom, Dad and I (me totally asleep in the back seat) took a mini-golfing trip to the Northwestern corner or Washington State. My Dad, you see, is an AVID golfer. Rabid might be the more appropriate word. He hits the driving range nearly everyday and plays in what seems like more leagues than I can keep track of. It drives him a bit batty that I can pick up the game three or four times a year, not practice a lick, and still beat him pretty handily. It's been like this since I've been in high school. Things held true to form this week.

My Dad's friends all are turned on to golf and now they organize these excursions to play different courses across the Pacific Northwest. Our course on Monday was called Homestead something or other. Here's a picture of the group of golfers that played...

Golfers before the round starts

After the round, all of us drove across the Canadian border to eat Chinese food in British Columbia because, as EVERYONE knows, the Chinese food in Canada is infinitely better than what we can find here in the United States. You want to see Asian people get a bit rowdy? Here you go...

Imbibing gets things going

The next day, we all went to a different course, this one called the Shuksan Golf Club.

Dad makes the blog

The aforementioned Mt. Shuksan

So Dad and I played to a tie for the first six holes of the back nine. At this point, Dad was getting pretty excited at the prospect of beating me (at least for the back nine). All I knew I had to do was play my game and eventually Dad would choke. And wouldn't you know it, BOOYAH, Dad goes into a tailspin and I take the back nine 44 to 45. I played very well on Tuesday, shooting an 86 to beat all golfers.

Olympics Slothfulness

I will fully admit that I wanted to resist laying on the couch for days at a time watching the Olympics. The desire was there to be active, do my own thing, to resist the magnetic pull of the music, but I have succumbed. AAGGGHHH, I can't HELP but watch. One saving grace, however, is that here in Seattle, with basic cable, we are able to get the Canadian coverage, which is much more complete and obviously less American focused. It is sad, however, to constantly hear the anchor go, "So, how did our Canadian athletes fair in (fill in your favorite sport here)" and have the reply be, "Well Anchor, I am sorry to report that our Canadian athlete in this event failed to make it out of the qualifying rounds, a real disappointment for that athlete". Further down the line, it is even much more tragic to hear "Well, it really looks like our Canadian federation really needs to take some serious evaluation of its training method and the state of athlete development in Canada."

Check out this site.... All I can say is, I LOVE THE INTERNET!!!