Just because it was the right decision to stay in Moscow for the Winter doesn’t mean I’ll miss Norway any less. If I had decided to return to work at the resort for a third season, this is about the time I would be shopping for a ticket, packing up and moving back into my old apartment at Kvitfjell. Thanks to temperatures that have been consistently low enough for artificial snow production, the mountain opened its first slopes last weekend, and this week they received an early dose of fresh powder. (Check out the photos of Scott and Marius.) Today, Kvitfjell Hotel is opening their doors for the season, and they have just added to their website a commercial (click on “Video”) that I filmed for them last March and edited over the Summer.
In case that weren’t enough to make me heartsick, last night we invited three high school exchange students to dinner at the Big Haus: Leo from Holland, Yeliz from Turkey, and Adina from Kristiansand, Norway. Adina and Yeliz had walked by the Haus a couple of weeks ago and spotted my flag, which made them curious enough to approach the front door and introduce themselves. They returned last night, where over a bonfire I got to brush up on my Norwegian, and for the first time since moving to Moscow, Adina heard more of her own language than a stereotypical “Uff da!”
In less than two weeks, I will have a new brother-in-law. Until the ceremony, he is in California. I have finished a video of the couple from our one day together in Chicago earlier this Summer. Since I cannot show him in person, everyone gets to see it.
Happy birthday, Josh. I am looking forward to finally having a brother, even if I never imagined he would be so much older than me. Enjoy this small gift, though I may also have to get you one of those “old guys rule” t-shirts. Because you rule.
This year’s Rendezvous In the Park was a great success. Perfect weather and a selection of talented musicians drew the crowds to Moscow’s East City Park in mid-July for the city’s twenty-sixth annual concert series. I was there to hear local singer/songwriter JT Grauke kick things off on Thursday evening and returned each night until another better known Moscow native, Josh Ritter, brought the festival to its climax. I have written several times before of how much I appreciate Ritter’s music, and seeing him perform live in his hometown was a wonderful experience. It was obvious that he felt the same way.
I have also written about JT’s music in the past, particularly because my sister, Heather, has accompanied him on some of his recordings. I have posted earlier videos on YouTube of the two performing together, and I had the camera rolling again at Rendezvous. In case you missed it, JT’s entire set can now be watched on Vimeo. Unfortunately, the flying insects and low lighting were enough to confuse the auto-focus on a few, but the audio turned out better than expected. A handful of photos are also up on Flickr.
Today – just over a year after my sisters spent ten days in Norway – I have uploaded the twelfth and final episode of Twidgets, a documentary of their trip. If this last installment doesn’t seem enough like a grand finale, then I will clue you into the fact that I am not exactly “done” with the project. Last year, I had hoped to have the series finished in time for Christmas. That obviously didn’t happen, but now I have enough time to play with the idea of releasing Twidgets on DVD this coming Christmas, complete with extra bonus material. Keep your fingers crossed. In the meantime, I am looping back around and starting to release the videos for public viewing. Until now, they have private for my contacts on Vimeo, but now you can feel free to pass along the links to anyone who might be interested in what the Hagen troublemakers have been up to. We’ll begin with part one, which can be found using the video widget to the left.
Following our Midwest vacation last month, my sister, Kristen, joined her boyfriend for a few days in Santa Cruz. Before they returned to Moscow, they were engaged to be married, and I couldn’t have been more pleased. Josh Davis is a great guy and an old friend of ours. In my humble opinion, they were meant to be. Last weekend, they gave me the honor of taking their engagement photos using Josh’s fancy Nikon D80. Since this was my first “shot” at legitimate photography, it is needless to say that I was a bit intimidated. Of course, with a couple this good-looking, it would have been a challenge to make them look bad. I have posted their favorites on Flickr and Facebook.
By the way, the latest TWO episodes of Twidgets are also up on Vimeo.
This Summer, I’ve been too busy filming to do much editing. That means I have several video projects in the works, but since this first week of August marks one year since my sisters visited Norway, I figure it’s about time I post another segment of Twidgets. Part five is now up for my Vimeo contacts, along with newly uploaded photos.
That is today, Saturday, June 27. If you are like me and have not had the chance to pitch your tent yet this Summer, today is the excuse you have been waiting for, and you don’t even have to leave home. Yes, it is a nationwide camping celebration right in your own backyard, and the weather here could not be better. It should tide you over until your opportunity for a free camping trip in one of the 100+ national parks that are waiving entrance fees on select weekends this Summer. The first was over Father’s Day – the first official day of Summer – but there are still two left.
Speaking of Father’s Day, my family plus Josh took dad out to Red Lobster in Lewiston last Sunday.
Josh, Kristen, and I followed that up with some shopping at Eddie Bauer, which was holding a bankruptcy sale where Kristen scored a sweet umbrella.
On our way back to Moscow, the three of us took a detour-turned-wild-goose-chase to find a Swedish Summer festival that I had seen advertised downtown. Unlike here, midsummer is a widely celebrated holiday in Scandinavia, where the longest day of the year means it never gets dark. We were unsure what to expect, except that it was being held at the oldest Lutheran church in Idaho and would feature some traditional fiddle playing. Despite the wet and chilly weather, we were glad we decided to stop by, no matter how it may seem from my facial expression in the following video.
More photos of Cordelia Church, as well as recent sunsets, rainbows, and homemade Indian dinners are up on Flickr.
Last week, I received my box set for the new Dave Matthews Band album, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King. Great stuff, and well worth the price for the extra material that includes a picture book of late saxophonist, Leroi Moore. Today, I found the music video for the single, “Funny the Way It Is.” It borrows an interesting cinematic effect from “Eh Hee,” but that video was never officially released, and now I can’t figure out how I got it on my computer in the first place – probably a bonus track from iTunes. Even Bing couldn’t find it for me, which is the debut “decision engine” from Microsoft, my new home page, and bound to give Google a run for their money. The web site’s daily photo trivia is a welcome refreshment from Google’s sterile presentation, which struck simplicity gold when it appeared on the scene with its minimalistic layout. But web design has come a long way since then, and I predict Google will need to make some serious counter-moves to fend off Bing as a major player.
There has been little time for blogging since I returned to Moscow a month ago. When not in the office, I have been spending evenings with family and friends and using weekends to work with my dad on several overdue landscaping projects. On the other hand, since my travels have been reduced to the daily thirteen-mile commute, I find myself with fewer adventures to tell of. Settling back into a familiar daily routine has not only sidelined my artistic creativity, it has robbed me of inspiration.
Of course, that is not quite fair. To everything there is a season, and even if this is not the season for blogging, I have no shortage of things to keep me awed, occupied and entertained. “Entertaining,” for instance, would be a good word to describe a couple of conversations I overheard at work last week. First there was the woman who, when asked if she had Vista, replied “Oh no, we use Clearwire!,” demonstrating that not all Schweitzer Engineering employees are computer geeks, or even computer literate. Then there was the Chinese woman who was told that the hardware for her project would be ready in a month, to which she skeptically retorted, “I’ll see it when I believe it,” (which I have since adopted as my modus operandi).
In family news, Josh has arrived in Moscow for the Summer so that Kristen doesn’t have to keep me up at night while Skyping with a boyfriend in California; and Heather has purchased a new laptop with some help from the in-house expert. I think we were equally excited when it arrived in the mail:
I wish I had thought ahead to take some “before” and “after” shots of the yard work we’ve been getting done around here. Some of these projects have been on hold since I was in college – or even high school – when my dad was too picky and I was too lazy to be any good to each other. A few years have done a lot of good, and now that Summer is here, we are bringing our cursed acres of earth into subjection, shoulder to shoulder. The weather has been cooperating, and the sunsets in Moscow still live up to their reputation, especially when the occasional storm does blow through.
Since I first read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard a couple of years ago, I have always imagined it would be the first book I would assign to my students if I were a biology teacher. Any who failed to be simultaneously mystified and terrified at the natural world by the end of the first chapter could feel free to transfer to economics while the rest of us unpacked the incredible masterpiece Dillard created from simply taking time to watch the small world around her. An excerpt from Publisher’s Weekly printed on the cover of my early copy from 1975 describes “This book of wonder [as] one of the truly beautiful books of this or any other season… which, on any page, offers a passage one can scarcely wait to share with a friend.” This is what I will do as a preface for the remaining photos I have taken around the mosquito haven that has been our backyard for the past couple of weeks. The following is an excerpt from one of the gruesome passages in her chapter titled “The Horns of the Altar,” yet the book contains equally beautiful passages with power to amaze and frighten any brave reader. In discussing parasites, Dillard provides this happy description:
“Parasitic two-winged insects, such as flies and mosquitos, abound. It is these that cause hippos to live in the mud and frenzied caribou to trample their young. Twenty thousand head of domestic livestock died in Europe from a host of black flies that swarmed from the banks of the Danube in 1923. Some parasitic flies live in the stomachs of horses, zebras, and elephants; others live in the nostrils and eyes of frogs. Some feed on earthworms, snails, and slugs; others attack and successfully pierce mosquitos already engorged on stolen blood. Still others live on such delicate fare as the brains of ants, the blood of nestling songbirds, or the fluid in the wings of lacewings and butterflies.”
Instead of using my last day in Ireland for a long and expensive train ride to the west coast (a beautiful trip I will save for next time), I spent Tuesday seeing a few sights in Dublin. My first order of business, however, was to try to find a laundromat. I had been told there was one on Parnell Street a few blocks away from the hostel. After walking up and down, I found only a closed dry cleaners, which meant that I would be flying in three day old socks, among other things. So I wasted no time boarding one of the city’s hop-on/hop-off buses: a guided route through the city with stops every ten minutes at two dozen attractions along the way. I would have been hard-pressed to hit all of them, but I didn’t have much of an idea what I wanted to see. I played it by ear, and decided to check out Trinity College first. Or was it Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? It certainly appeared so with the Trinity graduates walking around in their black robes. Indeed, for most of my time in Ireland, if I didn’t feel like I was just around the corner from the Shire, then I was stepping through the magic world of Harry Potter. I discovered that the Book of Kells is on display at the college library, though I decided to save time and money by heading back to the bus stop.
My next destination was Christ Church. I had already passed by the cathedral a couple of times and knew I would have to explore. As I paid my admission, I was asked if I would like to visit the adjacent museum called Dublinia, which depicted Viking history in the city of Dublin. I suspected it was designed for a younger audience but was obviously interested in the subject matter, so I took a chance. While the displays were certainly built to capture a child’s imagination, the exhibits were equally informative to adults and I enjoyed learning how Vikings (primarily from Norway) were responsible for establishing much of modern Ireland and the city of Dublin. For example, I have always considered many Norwegian words to be influenced by English. In several cases, however, due to their influence on the English language, many of our words actually stem from Viking vocabulary. This museum came after my tour of the cathedral itself, which was highlighted by noon peace prayers.
Following the previous day’s tour through the countryside, my camera battery still read full, so I did not think to charge it. That was a mistake, since by the time I was finished at Christ Church, the power on my PowerShot was shot. I had my video camera along, but since I knew how horrible it is at taking photos, I decided to skip a tour of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral a few blocks away. Instead, I stopped through the gift shop, which allowed me at least a glimpse inside the nave without having to pay admission. (If I ever return to Dublin, a tour of Saint Patrick’s will be at the top of my list.) When I entered Christ Church, the sky was mostly overcast. To make the loss of my camera even more disappointing, when I came out, so did the sun. I managed to get a couple shots of the cathedral under blue skies, which can be found along with pictures from the rest of my day in Dublin starting here. Be warned that all subsequent pictures were taken with my video camera and are probably worse than what you can take with your cell phone.
The next stop on the route was the Guinness Storehouse, and I had no choice. It is an intriguing, seven-story, self-guided tour through the history of the Guinness family, product and brand, which are celebrating two hundred fifty years in 2009. The building and it’s displays were sleek and large-scale, so it was no surprise to learn that it is actually the number one tourist attraction in Ireland. A couple of highlights were getting to pour my own pint of Guinness and a panoramic view of the city from the Gravity Bar on the top floor.
My next and final stop for the day was a tour of the Jameson distillery. I showed up thirty minutes ahead of the next guided tour, so I perused the souvenir shop where collections of whiskey were on sale for up to fifty thousand Euro. Then I sat down at the bar to order a drink that I had been making all season at Kvitfjell but never liked myself. Irish Coffee takes a couple teaspoons of brown sugar stirred together with black coffee and a measure of Irish whiskey, topped with a collar of whipped cream. Lars runs a simple cafe at Koia, so we always used whipped cream from a can. What a difference it made to taste a “real” Irish! Once the tour finally began, our friendly and animated guide started us off with a video telling the story behind the Jameson name. Next was a relatively quick but interesting walk through the various stages of whiskey distillation and maturation. The tour ended with a free sample for everyone and a comparison tasting for a few lucky volunteers. While both the Guinness and Jameson tours were fully worthwhile, the Jameson tour was much more personal and entertaining.
