Inside/Outside Weekend

It's been another weekend where I look forward to the regular week day so I can slow down a bit...

It was also the kind of weekend of crisp, clear, windy, chilly weather where some of our activities were outside. I believe that fall is actually here to stay for a bit.

Some of our outdoor activities:

Showing off the Turrell Skyspace to some of our church friends who had never seen it before.

Embracing the elements, we attended a memorial service at the RSABG for our friend Steve who left us too early at a young 63 years. This is a photo of one of the bowls he had made that was on display for us to enjoy during this lovely tribute to a life well led.

 

Along with many Sunday church activities, we also heard a few concerts which you can read about at my music blog. Yay for indoors activities, too!

City of Scoundrels

Always wanting to know more about Chicago, I ordered this book from the library and finished it in less than a week. Although the events in this book happened in a period of about two weeks in 1919, I kept waiting to find out just exactly how these tragic events helped shape the birth of modern Chicago. Krist never really says.

I did not know much about the devastating race riots of that time, nor Mayor Bill Thompson, and I certainly didn't know about the crashing of the blimp in the Loop, nor the transit strike or missing child. So, if you are a diehard Chicago history fan, this book has some good information. If you want The Devil in the White City, this isn't it.

For the Record

We woke up to a house that was 62 degrees, so we turned on our furnace for the first time this year. It is our brand new energy-efficient furnace, and it's very quiet.

Friday Photos

Through the raindrops and before the heavier rain (first significant moisture of the season, and some chilly weather), the Kindergarteners were busy working with chalk on the sidewalks at school yesterday morning.

Skyfall

It has been four years since the last James Bond movie (Quantum of Solace) came out. I blogged about seeing a private advance screening with the HMC community here. Skyfall, the newest Bond film starring Daniel Craig opens tomorrow, and yet we were able to see it at the Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City last night. A little more detail: Michael Wilson, one of the producers of the Bond franchise, is not only an HMC alum, but also a trustee, and he once again allowed HMC to preview the film. 

I have to say that I am not a Bond aficionado, but I actually really enjoyed this film. When I looked at Rotten Tomatoes this morning, the critics gave it a 93%. If you don't like action and violence at all, don't see it, but I enjoyed the Adele song, the cinematography, the theme, and the characters.

One of the appetizers included a mashed potato bar. Yum.

Walking toward the theater.

The theater

Voting Day

I may not vote often today, but I did vote early. Here is the line at Sycamore around 7:30 this morning. This time it took about 10-15 minutes. Usually we walk right in.

HMC New Building Progress

Last week the giant orange construction crane that has altered our mountain view was dismantled at HMC's new building. You can see an updated photo every five minutes at this site to follow the progress of the building. For more information about the building itself and what it will look like and what it will contain and how green it is, here is the home page for that. It is supposed to be finished this summer for use next year.

Palm Springs Weekend

This year H was fortunate to return to the HMC Trustee retreat in Palm Springs for the weekend. Mostly I was fortunate since I got to accompany him and enjoy the wonderful accommodations of the Smoke Tree Ranch. As I looked at last year's blog post about this weekend, I was reminded about the cool weather that weekend. This weekend was just the opposite, and I was glad I had sandals and short-sleeve shirts as the temps reached up to 90, and the sun was fierce.

This year we enjoyed watching the Oregon / USC football game (with the Duck victory) with the provost of the University of Oregon who is a trustee (and alum) of HMC. Now that we are home, having enjoyed the extra hour of sleeping in this morning, we are shocked (well, not really) at how dark it seems since we changed clocks. At least I will probably be up bright and early tomorrow morning.

View of the mountains from Smoke Tree Ranch

The Round House

Our book club will be discussing Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Round House this month. This book was a finalist for the National Book Award and has garnered a great deal of praise (although so many books get great reviews, it's hard to know which are really worth it).

After reading The Barbarian Nurseries, this one let me down. I so much loved Erdrich's The Master Butchers Singing Club, and I had great hopes for this one. It was fine and had some interesting information about the judicial system on Native American land, but the characters did not give me a strong enough reason to keep turning pages. Knowing that we will discuss it was the impetus that I needed to finish it.

Friday Photo

The highest word score I've ever gotten - 146!