security
Posted: October 17, 2012 Filed under: Spirituality 1 CommentA while back I mentioned the Buddhist Web site Tricycle. My friend Peggy investigated found this quote by Pema Chödrön there.
So accurate. Thank you, Peggy!
What is it like to realize we can never completely and finally get it all together? What a predicament! We seem doomed to suffer simply because we have a deep-seated fear of how things really are. Our attempts to find lasting pleasure, lasting security, are at odds with the fact that we’re part of a dynamic system in which everything and everyone is in process.
oh, yeah
Posted: October 16, 2012 Filed under: Things domestic 1 CommentWe have one of those cordless phone sets where there is a base and then multiple cordless units. We’ve had it for a very long time. The one in the bedroom hasn’t been holding a charge for a while now. I kept mulling over whether it was time to replace the whole set or at least get a new cordless unit. Finally after a call was disconnected after about fifteen seconds I went online to see what I could find. No replacement handsets, but eBay listed a sponsored ad for replacement batteries.
Replace just the battery? Wow! What a concept. Duh.
Radio Shack. Done.
reduced lunch options
Posted: October 15, 2012 Filed under: Local matters 3 CommentsI wrote a while back about the closing of our local Thai restaurant. We’ve now lost two more local lunch spots.
Our Fresh Choice closed a couple of weeks ago. The signs in the window said it was only temporary and due to needed repairs, but an article in the local paper quoted a company spokesperson as saying it was related to a bankruptcy filing and was permanent. Indeed, in checking the Fresh Choice Web site, no location for Gilroy is to be found. If you’re not familiar with it, Fresh Choice is a salad bar restaurant that also offers soup, pasta, baked potato, pizza slices, and such, along with dessert. It made for a good, healthy lunch.
The other place that has disappeared is Juicy Burger. Now admittedly, that was not on the top of our list of lunch choices. And business was slow enough that they cut corners in places. After being closed for a while, they reopened as Super Juicy Burger and added a lot of menu items, like a Philly sandwich, for example. But they didn’t serve the Philly on a proper sourdough roll. Once I got it on a hot dog bun and once on a hamburger bun. Please! But for a plain old hamburger they were not bad at all. It was quality meat cooked to order with all the veggies and condiments out to put on as you preferred. Not necessarily the most healthy and nutritious, perhaps, but a great alternative to McDonald’s or Burger King if you had a few minutes to wait for your order.
These closings are not a major catastrophe by any stretch of the imagination, but they do scale back our lunch time options.
Sacred Music Friday: Ubi Caritas
Posted: October 12, 2012 Filed under: Music Leave a commentsung by the Cambridge Singers
measuring time
Posted: October 11, 2012 Filed under: Random thoughts 1 CommentI measure time by the milestones in my life. When someone mentions a year or when I hear it in an NPR story or see it in a book or magazine I reference where I was in my life.
The year that:
- I graduated from high school
- I graduated from college
- I moved to Laredo, TX
- I moved to Oklahoma City
- I moved to the SF Bay Area
- My first wife died
- Terry and I got together
- Terry and I got married
- Terry and I bought our house in Gilroy
and then
- 2001 – you know what that’s about
Years that I see referenced I calibrate to the nearest year in the list above. What I’m wondering is whether others do that as well.
that’s not nice
Posted: October 10, 2012 Filed under: Local matters | Tags: sourdough, Sumano's Bakery, Watsonville Leave a commentTerry and I discovered a local bakery called Sumano’s. It’s just on the other side of the coastal range Santa Cruz Mountains (hills to most Californians) in Watsonville. I went to our regional grocery chain, Nob Hill, to buy a loaf to take with us to Ragged Point. I didn’t see that brand, but I saw a another 
brand with the label micro bakery. I turned the package over to see where it came from, and what did I find?
Sara Lee.
That’s not nice. But not unusual. Remember Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers? (“Thank you for your support.”) How many people who wouldn’t have otherwise bought a wine cooler went to the grocery store with the thought, “I think I’ll help those two old guys out.” The two old guys were actors, and Bartles and James was a Gallo product.
I went to Safeway and bought a loaf of Sumano’s Garlic & Rosemary bread.
local radio
Posted: October 9, 2012 Filed under: Media, Travel | Tags: Cambria, KMGQ, KTEA-FM, Magic 103 1 CommentWhile we were at Ragged Point we listened to the local Cambria radio station, Magic 103. In addition to finally getting the correct pronunciation of Cambria, we heard an amazing mix of music, and without commercial interruption in the evenings. In the course of one afternoon and evening, we heard:
- the theme from Exodus
- Midnight at the Oasis
- modern, upbeat renderings of classical works
- Day is Done by Peter, Paul and Mary
- Amazing Grace
- the Ella Fitzgerald original of A Tisket a Tasket
- Sinatra’s Here’s to the Winners
- the theme from Chariots of Fire
- The Carpenters (ARGH!)
- big band music
- a jazz cover of Mr. Bojangles
- Nat King Cole, Tenderly
- a marvelous rendition of As Time Goes By (Our song!)
and a lot more
That’s my kind of radio. (Sadly, we haven’t experienced that kind of eclectic mix listening online after coming home.)
cause and effect (or not)
Posted: October 8, 2012 Filed under: Random thoughts 3 CommentsAfter both the Giants and the Athletics made it into the playoffs, people immediately started talking about the possibility of a repeat of the 1989 Bay Bridge World Series. (Never mind that they’re both 0-2 at this point in their respective division series.) My immediate thought was that would not be a good idea at all. After all, the Loma Prieta earthquake happened just as the first game of that series to be played at Candlestick Park was about to begin. As if there was a relationship.
But my mind does work like that sometimes.
Our adventure into solar began when we saw a booth at the Gilroy Garlic festival for the solar company that one of the Giants broadcasters endorses. We stopped and talked and set things in motion to move ahead. The Giants lost that day. My thought: “Maybe we shouldn’t have done that.”
In the middle of our Alaska cruise we learned of Buster Posey’s season-ending collision at home plate. I thought, “Maybe we shouldn’t have taken this cruise.” As if that had any effect.
But it’s not just limited to baseball. Several years ago I doing a few quick things on the laptop using the side table in the bedroom. Right then the wireless router went out, and I had to go buy a new one. (This was before your Internet provider supplied routers.) My reaction was that I shouldn’t work on the laptop at the side table.
Of course I’m perfectly well aware that there is no cause and effect in any of these situations. But I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has thoughts like this.
Am I?
Sacred Music Friday: All creatures of our God and King
Posted: October 5, 2012 Filed under: Music 1 CommentLiverpool Cathedral Choir
getting it right
Posted: October 4, 2012 Filed under: Language, Travel | Tags: Cambria 1 CommentWe’ve been going to Cambria for many years. We’ve always pronounced it came-bria, with the accent on the first syllable. While listening to the local Cambria radio station during our stay at Ragged Point I realized that I’ve been saying it wrong all this time. It’s kăm-bria, with the accent on the first syllable.
You know, I think I knew that. But I’m determined to make it stick this time. And my apologies to the good folks of Cambria.
my point being 