Sometimes first impressions are right.

When I graduated high school, I piled in a car with three other friends the day after our graduation and we drove to Oregon for a short vacation.  One of our observations about the Beaver State?  There are road signs everywhere!  They told us the speed limit was going to change, told us to turn our lights off after a tunnel and told us that there might be “Congestion.”  That was our favorite. We would always cough when we saw that one.

But walking to work today, I realized the incredible number of signs that were jammed in a two-block stretch.  This one has five, as does the next block.

I’m glad to see that, 20 years on, Oregon signs are still everywhere.

Our Heritage?

Celebrate “Rip City style” by honoring the Trail Blazers 80’s teams. 
Players will wear special Rip City jerseys to honor our heritage.

Now me, I think of “my heritage” as something that happened far in the past, like the fact that my great-grandmother had 15 children, or my grandfather died when my dad was a teenager, or that my other grandfather was born in New Hampshire, but grew up in Greece.  I don’t think of my “heritage” as something that happened less that 35 years ago.  That’s not a heritage, that’s the recent past.

Interestingly, here’s the definition from Dictionary.com

her·it·age

  [her-i-tij]  Show IPA

noun

1.

something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth; an inherited lot or portion: a heritage ofpoverty and suffering; a national heritage of honor, pride, and courage.
2.

something reserved for one: the heritage of the righteous.
3.

Law.

a.

something that has been or may be inherited by legal descent or succession.
b.

any property, especially land, that devolves by right of inheritance.

Can we really say that our pro basketball team came to us by birth?

Three sentence movie reviews: The Master

I think I’ve figured out that watching a Paul Thomas Anderson movie is not like watching a typical verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus-type movie.  I was entranced the entire film because the acting is tremendous and yet I felt like nothing had really happened when the movie was over.  Instead of watching a story, it seemed like I was on a journey with the characters.

Where watched:  Laurlhurst Theater
Cost:  $4.00

Potatoes. Sometimes, they are what’s for dinner.


I remembered that I never finished harvesting the German Butterball potatoes last fall and dug up a pound of them.  They were in great shape, just muddier than if I had pulled them out of the ground last September.  I roasted them up and, man, were they good.  They were so good, I just had a double helping and called that dinner.

Postcards from Japan and the Ukraine

Guess which post card is from which country.

Did you guess that this is from Japan?  I love the red, it’s even more vibrant in real life.  Plus, on the back side, the woman put decorative tape and stickers along with her message.  It was very pretty all around.
 

Isn’t this nice?  The quote on the back was from Nietzsche:  “That which does not kills us makes us stronger.”