Seybold's Place

December cold and dark!

2011-12-05T20:23:00.000-08:00

The axis of the earth shifts, the sun rays are further from the north, the cold sets in, fog, some rain and then darkness....winter is almost here, and December has arrived!

And then the seagulls arrive for the feasting on leftovers @ the campuses in Madera!

But always there to protect me....WEINETT!

butterflies

2011-08-21T16:53:00.000-07:00

Shopping in Italy!

2011-08-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

Well there is SO much to buy and then pack and then lug through airports, it's so hard to know where to start! Well, from many trips, I have learned that SMALL and CHEAP is best! So if you have ever gotten anything from me that was purchased in Italy, YOURS was the expensive gift ;)

Here is the usual location tourists buy their gifts, and I do as well. Enjoy the vendors and their wares!

From local neighborhoods and the needs of everyday goods,

to Tourists Traps!

to permanent stands:

To the more common cart and cover.

To fine leather goods!

to hand painted original art!

And the 5 Euro is about 8 USD.

Florence, The Day Trip

2011-08-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

We took one day trip to Florence. We wanted to go to Assisi, but there were train issues and delays, so we didn't. Next time!

So off to Florence, where in 1979 I had the best meal I have ever had. Every year that I have been to Florence I go back to this place to eat, and have NEVER been disappointed. Well, okay, a few times, but not due to the food, but that they were not open. In 2001, we all ate here, but alas, 32 years after my first visit, they were closed and would not be open until after our train left. If you get to Florence, this place is a MUST!

Gold is one of two things you buy in Florence (the other being leather products). On the Ponte Vecchio there are some amazing gold shops, and amongst them was the BEAUTIFUL weiner dog bracelet. No we did not buy it, but we did find some nice gold earings at another location that I know.

The City Center (Piazza de Republica) is a great time to sit and watch the tourist run by and the locals sit and relax. Not the cheapest spot to sit and enjoy a coffee or a beer or wine, but so much to see!

If you arrive by train, you arrive at the rear of this famous church known as Santa Maria Novona. This is the church where Leonardo did his dissections. Well not in the church, but the Hospital that is attached to it and is still in operation today.

Of course there is food..always food, I mean I started this entry with a Trattoria! And fresh is the key to Italian cooking. The ingredients need to be as fresh as possible, and are brought in from the farms everyday.

Not only fresh, but delivered to the homes or business. And cars are not allowed on all streets, so bikes are important, as well as the right biker to handle the rough roads and take on the cars and scooters on the streets where they are merge and fight for the first spot! This was the best biker I ever saw!

And we are not limited in our choices for food or bikes!

And speaking of roads and traffic, dehydrated tourists are the biggest pain for the locals. This emergency center was right by the Duomo (Cathedral) of Florence. And they took a tourist about every 15-20 minutes who could not handle heat and not drinking water....ALWAYS stay hydrated!

However art is what Florence is known for. And art there is in so many places, even on the streets! These are art students who draw these pastel paintings on the street for whatever coins people toss in the basket. The works are AMAZING! Art is alive, not in the United States and our schools, but some societies still prize the vocation/skill of the artists....

Well of COURSE there's MORE!

2011-07-31T16:50:00.000-07:00

More of these past few days of the vacation to Rome!

This is the Bronze Door, the official entrance to the Vatican. Most dignitaries enter from the inside of the city, this is where you and I would "try" to gain access to the Vatican!

Redesigning my parking area!

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER, Rome is built upon seven HILLS!

more of the same here =]

And there are a lot of Fountains!

More from Rome

2011-07-30T13:19:00.000-07:00

I find this fun and very romantic in the silly way. Young adults (teenagers to early 20's) become couples and promise their love to each other all over the world. In Italy, there is a custom/tradition that when young people want to share that love, they buy a lock, attach it to a bridge and then both toss the key into the river as a sign that their love cannot be broken. A nice symbol and tradition and harmless to society. Notice either names or initials and also remember that most of the world writes their dates as day/month/year.

This is a nice and different view of the Colosseum. I like how it rises up from below street level.

This is a great shot of a waining moon in the morning sky. The angel is one of many decorating the bridge to Castel San Angelo (Castle of the Angel).

and walking at night is an essential in Rome, as dinner isn't served in many places until after 7:30 or 8PM. In fact we saw many people coming in to order dinner at 10PM. This was taken on the way back from dinner.

Rome 2011

2011-07-29T18:58:00.001-07:00

We just got back to Madera today...but it was a fun 10 days in Rome. More pics coming, but these are the first I have chosen to share. Hope you like them as well!

Fresh fruit at an outdoor cafe seat overlooking the Colosseum....tasty and great views!

And St. Peter's...I love taking pictures there!

Odds and Ends from Wednesday and Thursday

2011-06-24T14:11:00.000-07:00

Just things I like....

I am surprised at how little traffic there is in the Tower District during the day.

I truly love some forms of "graffiti"...

So, was I inside looking out or outside looking in?

Am looking for a new decor for the driveway...I hope the neighbors like it!

22 June 2011

2011-06-22T15:06:00.000-07:00

So I am stepping "outside of my comfort zone" and doing some urban shots today. Well if you can call Fresno urban, I guess that's what I did. In any event here are a few "B&W" and scenes from around town. Oh yeah, I did find a flower to shoot too!

This I like as the "Urban Jungle"......

And just what does a 106° day in the Central Valley LOOK like?

Oh, yes....the flower. It is from a Trumpet Vine:

15 June 2011

2011-06-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

I would love to say that I have been busy...but why lie...just real lazy. However I have been taking pictures and and soon going to remove this blog and open a new one. There is/are good reason(s) behind such a move, and I will have the new blog open BEFORE I close this one down. Besides that, you are not here to read but to look! and so for your pleasure.....

Seems to be a lot of dragonflies this year. I believe it is due to the standing water from the great rainfall we had this winter and spring.

With the exception of the flower below, which I took on the wine trail weekend in May, all the flowers are from the backyard.

Speaking of the backyard, I did manage to get the BBQ resurfaced. I have a great TILE MAN if you need him, he did the tile work on the counter and the backsplash, and Bob Fire, Cathy and myself did the stone work around the base.

And all this leads to one thing...food, outdoor seating and a view!

May 03, 2011

2011-05-03T09:57:00.000-07:00

Why do I do all that gardening? Well it all pays off here...
from the tiniest flower in the flower pot,

to the tallest flowers in the flower bed,

to the shaded patio and yard,

To dinner served in an private outdoor setting,

This is why the yard is so special to me!

May 01, 2011

2011-05-01T15:59:00.001-07:00

What a long weekend working in the yards this has been! But it all pays off in the end! Hope you enjoy them all....

ALL of us were beat and need a quick refreshing drink!

Problem was...it was MY DRINK!

Calla Lilies

2011-04-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

A good, wet winter produces the best calla lilies. This past winter was no exception. Some of the stalks are over three (3) feet [one (1) meter] in height this year! What a beautiful shape and the texture of the flower is so delicate, yet durable. I hope you enjoy them.

Paso Robles in Spring

2011-04-10T17:48:00.000-07:00

These are just shots I like. Some I will explain, others, you're on your own!

The first two are of a wine glass. The Winery is Oso Libre and a good friend of mine works at the tasting room. The first glass is focused on the label of the glass, while the second looks through the glass at the tree in the background. I have yet to decide which I like better, thus both of them here.

The blue sky, red umbrella and green grass, such primary colors and so BRIGHT!

Gotta love large pottery pieces!

When I first started learning about wild flowers, the Shooting Star was one of my favorites. It still is, that's why there are three pictures of them here!

Wisteria, always so pretty!

and lastly a view of terraced vineyard.

April Showers...

2011-04-07T11:18:00.000-07:00

The Irises have started to blossom...YEAH!!!!!!!

and one more of these, I love the way this one is coming out of the baby tears!

Morning Sun

2011-04-05T09:38:00.000-07:00

Been waiting patiently for these!

Drive to the "toe-hills" of California

2011-04-02T12:37:00.000-07:00

One of my professors at college said that what we refer to as the foothills, really are just the "toe-hills", and that they are referred to as the foothills is a result of the Transcontinental Railroad. As soon as the rails hit the "foothills" or a grade increase of 10%, they received twice as much land. Well, since Sacramento, the starting point of the rail line, is only 3 feet above sea level, it doesn't take much to get to a 10% incline! Thus the foothills of California start in the Central Valley.

This morning found us in the Foothills by Friant Dam and thus Millerton Lake. Here are a few of the flowers. Tomorrow will be animals!

Late afternoon sun

2011-04-01T16:58:00.000-07:00

The impressionists would paint the same scene over and over again at different times of the day to show the effects of light. It is a wonderful thing to look at the Monet series of Cypress Trees or his famous garden bridge in the Japanese style, so popular at that time in France. So taking a page from 19th century thought, here are some of the same flowers as seen with different light angles.

HOOTERS!!!!!!!!

2011-04-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

YES! HOOTERS!!!!!!! WHOOO HOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Stalking a Garden near you

2011-03-31T15:38:00.000-07:00

So I was visiting the Svanda's today, and had to crawl about in their garden for this shot. If there is a man in your flower bed with a camera, pleas ask before you call the cops, it could be me!

March 31, 2011, In the Ajuga with the bees

2011-03-31T14:19:00.000-07:00

I have shot these before, however when I went outside today, you could hear the buzzing of the bees. It is a wonderful sound and you would not believe how camera shy these little creatures are! They move from stalk to stalk and are not willing to pose quietly for too long. This means I am really crawling on the ground amongst the Ajuga and the bees. They are gentle little things and if you're not disturbing them, they really do leave you alone. It is so much fun to get up close and personal with them though! Enjoy them, I did!

Wednesday March 30

2011-03-30T18:02:00.000-07:00

Well...here are more! Enjoy...

And some yard art as well!

Looking at shape and color

2011-03-29T11:08:00.000-07:00

The shapes and textures and colors of flowers have always captured my mind. I guess that is why I loved O'Keefe's flower paintings over her landscapes and object paintings. So here are some shapes and colors to look at.

Saturday the 26th of March

2011-03-26T16:48:00.000-07:00

Not a lot to say, but hope you enjoy the texture of the Calla Lily and the clear and pristine lines of the flowers.

Break between rainstorms

2011-03-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

Well, it isn't raining today, and this weird "BLUE" stuff kept popping out around the clouds...no idea what it is called....

But I was able to wade across the lawn and get some pictures, so here we go around the yard....

Raindrops

2011-03-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

Water is such an amazing compound. Either as a solid (ice), gas (steam) or liquid (water), it presents such beauty in its clarity and freshness. I am amazed at what a hot shower can do for me, yet alone a steam room followed by the plunge into the cool tub. As much as we talk about the weather, we seldom focus on how much we need the water, stored in our bodies, our wells and our snow covered mountains. Yet alone what it makes flowers look like!

They say it will rain more too, so enjoy it, and hold it tight, because when the 105F summer arrives, we will miss these days!

Beyond the Yard in Spring

2011-03-21T16:25:00.000-07:00

Wild Turkey, and not the kind you drink (at least since my college days!) are fast becoming a common site in California. This rafter (also known as a gang) of turkeys were in the Roseville area of California. Being very skittish, they move quickly and blend in very well with their surroundings.

Also this time of year are the early wild flowers, in this case a bulb called Dichelostemma capitatum (ok...common name.....) Blue Dicks.

They are very common in the foothills this time of year.

March 14 2011

2011-03-14T13:19:00.000-07:00

I hope to think this is the last of the Bradford Pear pictures, but I make no promises. The flowers are so delicate on them and the sound of the bees in the trees sounds like a factory in full swing. The buzz of hundreds of bees flying from flower cluster to flower cluster...it is an amazing and alluring sound to me that draws me back multiple times. Worse yet the damn bees won't stay in one place and cooperate with me for pictures, so I have to be up close and personal with them!
I hope you enjoy, and no, I was not stung once.

I like to call this one "Soft Landing":

Time for this one to go back to the hive and unload!

Nice shot!

Just the flowers..

and more of them....

new life

2011-03-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

So, here I am. Surprised by many things. What a strange and weird life this is...so enjoy:

without flash:

with flash:

If you are a prude, please stop here, the Peach Tree is in the process of being fertilized by a foreign species. What you will see is artificial insemination of the peach pollen to the stamen...sorry if the sex offends you...but this is happening all over the world now days......

March 06, 2011

2011-03-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

The daffodils are almost gone...except for the big pot that JUST now is coming in bloom. The Plum trees are in FULL blooom and the Bradfords in the backyard are starting to show flowers too. The bees are here, but HIGH up in the tree, maybe tomorrow or Tuesday I will get some pictures of them doing their thing. Hope you enjoy!

February 2011..almost gone.......

2011-02-27T12:29:00.000-08:00

The Bradford on the side of the house is in bloom now, waiting for the backyard ones to burst out in bloom!

Security is sleeping!

More Spring....

2011-02-26T17:30:00.000-08:00

Monday February 21, 2011

2011-02-21T14:16:00.000-08:00

Spring has SPRUNG in the back yard..so beware.....here is the current set:

hope you all enjoy!

Early Spring 2011

2011-02-13T16:47:00.000-08:00

Well, these past two days have been focused on the yard. All the sprinklers are working, AGAIN. The trees are all set and ready to bloom (too late to trim em now if you wanted to anyway) and the spring flowers are already in bloom. Here are three from the Spring 2011 back yard edition.

Maybe I will be able to take more later in the year!

The mind of the Blind

2010-12-20T06:25:00.000-08:00

"Blind fools"....I love that line from Jesus Christ Superstar...OK, that dates me, but what you have in the above image is a fools circle. If you have faith, you don't need a "Bible" and just having a "Bible" does not create faith. IF "god" is all powerful, all knowing and all loving, why does this "god" need a published document? Why does this "god" demand from inferiors such worship and groveling in fear and awe? Why does this "god" worry about sexual acts amongst it's created beings? Why would this "god" send its own creation to an eternal fiery place of pain and suffering because they don't believe? Substitute the word Koran for Bible in the above diagram and you are a Muslim Fundamentalist, aka terrorist. Are they going to the fiery place of pain and suffering because they follow their word of "god"?

Do you start to see the silliness in this yet? If you believe, and I do believe, in a "god", then what type of "god" is it? What all powerful being, who controls all life in its mind, NEEDS to be worshiped and praised? Does not this "god" know itself to be what it is? Is not self knowledge the first step in real knowledge? Why does "god" have to create creatures to bow before itself? Does an ALL POWERFUL "god" have to have minions (and in some cases millions of dollars) to tell others about itself and its power and might? What "god" do you believe in?

I am sorry if I offend you. If I offend you...move on..it's my blog, my ideas.

Oh, why do I use the word "god" in quotes and lower case, because I am using it as a noun, not as a proper name, so that it is applicable to any god you may believe, even if it is the god of absence. For anything that you place belief in, that becomes your god. Your life starts to center around the belief system and your behavior becomes your worship and ritual. By the way, I am writing a book, it is infallible because I say so, and well...you get the idea..I hope.

August 6-7, 2010

2010-08-08T18:54:00.000-07:00

We left Friday Morning and were home Sunday afternoon. It was a nice break from the summer and made for a good photo event as well. So Let's get on with the photos!
This is where we stayed on Moonlight Drive in Cambria.

Our walk to the beech included some time for me to take some pictures of waves..yea..real creative! :)

Then on to art studios,

then off to Morro Bay,

Over to Paso Robles for....what are they??? OH yeah...WINERIES! A good friend of mine works here, and they do have some good wines too!

and of course some flowers!

August in the yard

2010-08-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

Well August has arrived, even though I wished it to stay away...it means school (work) is starting soon! ANYWAY, here are a few pics of what is happening in the yard. To begin with, the peaches are ripening nicely this year. Due to the mellow summer, they are taking their time and getting some very pretty color to them!

As usual the smaller flowers are doing well, from Verbena to Zenias:

And my favorites, the Naked Ladies...yeap that is what they are called... really...

I love the back lighting on these, it was so pretty to see in the garden and I am glad that it showed through in the final photo as well. Well let it begin, only 6 more years left after this year...unless the Lottery helps me out REAL SOON!

Film!! YES FILM!!!!

2010-06-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

OK. So I am old school (skool for those in that generation) and I LOVE using film over digital. Somehow to me the colors are a bit deeper and the whole concept of photography (the writing of light, photography photo-light, graph-to write)of light marring and engraving itself of various solutions of chemicals and then manipulated to reproduce an image is so much more magical to me than digital. I know, the idea that an image can be created from a series of Zeros and Ones is just as magical,the idea of the physical is lost to me. But I do like digital music over vinyl! lol

ONTO THE PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!!
I actually stole the idea of this picture. I have no idea of where I saw this, but I loved it, and the the opportunity arose with the wind blowing and the flags flying...SNAP!

Do you realize that the White House was the LARGEST HOUSE in the USA until the Golden Age in the 1880's! It is impressive!

The view is from the World War II Memorial, looking west across the reflecting pool...and yes it does reflect!

Closer.....

CLOSEST!

And these words speak for themselves! I an honored to have known some of these brave men and women. My father is one of them.

Washington DC

2010-06-27T20:53:00.001-07:00

I was in Washington this past week to lobby for the Education Jobs Bill. This year over 200,000 teachers were laid off nation wide. Over 17,000 in California alone. While there, I brought both the film camera and the digital. Here are some pics from the Digital. The film I should have by the end of this week.

The Supreme Court Building. Being a Con Law Major, this was an awesome event for me!

Me pressing the case at the Court! OK, so I was just standing there...

Looking from the WWII War Memorial towards the Lincoln Memorial:

Mr. Lincoln himself, with Morning light shining into the memorial.

Inside the Library of Congress:

The Washington Monument with the early sun rising behind it. I like this one! :)

And looking back at the Washington Monument from the Lincoln Memorial:

And a view from the street of the US Capitol Building. (detail shot)

St. Paul's Outside the Walls

2010-06-19T19:36:00.000-07:00

Though looking old, it is very new. the church burnt to the ground in the late 1800's and was rebuilt. The mosaics were picked from the rubble (mind you that is one tiny chip of stone) and reset anew in the Sanctuary of the Church, as well as all the portraits of the popes that surround the Nave of the structure. The outside is beautiful and the monastery attached to the rear of the church survived the fire and does date back to the middle ages. It is often refereed to as the "Forest of Columns" due to the number of columns in the nave. The windows are actually alabaster, sliced very thinly to allow the passage of light and give an aura of wonderful earth tones to the inside. Let the show begin!
Walking up to the Front of the Church:

The Statue of St. Paul that sets in the center of the court yard. In Rome you can tell statues by the symbols they carry. St. Peter has keys, St. Andrew the X cross and St. Paul by the Sword. Tradition has Paul be decapitated outside the city walls (thus this church at the supposed spot of his death being located outside the city walls) since he was a Roman Citizen, he could not be crucified.

the facade of the Church in the next two shots:

the entry doors to the Church:

the Nave:

the main Sanctuary Moasic

Detail:

and the wonderful windows!

Hope you enjoy these!

Been a LONG time

2010-06-19T08:20:00.001-07:00

Yeap, almost a full year since I last updated. Thankfully nothing has happened. Yeah...right...anyway..I am getting used to digital cameras. I hate them, I love film! But I guess that is what they felt like when they went from glass plates to film too! Gotta go with the flow. I also have been using my Droid hand held platform to take pictures too. So here are some Droid pictures for you to enjoy, or not!

This was the view from my room in LA at the last CTA State Council meeting:

And now the Sunday Morning Car Accident from 29 stories up!

with zoom

with cops

Now to downtown Fresno...I know what a joke...but there is an old county build in Fresno that was built during the Art Deco period. IT IS AMAZING. I was there with Cathy and saw this drinking fountain. When I got closer I saw that it was SOLID MARBLE! Yes, one solid block of marble...it is beautiful and so Art Deco!

Like I said nothing has happened all year! Well nothing you want to know about! I will be heading off to Washington DC on Tuesday. Who knows if I will get a picture or two from there!

2009-07-08T17:01:00.001-07:00

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Origin stirs my mind in many directions

2009-07-08T13:52:00.000-07:00

What I find most interesting about Origin is that he was untainted by the philosophy that followed him. He was more concerned about what he read in "scripture" led him. I put scripture in quotes as the Bible as we know it was not around. Origin went where his mind led him, he was castigated, not by contemporaries, but by those who came after him. They judged his work by their standards, not the standards he worked with in his time and place. It is like making an ex post facto law, then persecuting the dead for not following the law. I do not think that Origin, in his life, ever said anything that he did not first think, reflect or pray over. His students had a great love for his wisdom and his teaching skills and methods. His compilation of the scriptures and translation of the the scriptures allowed the Jerome to do his work and claim stake to the greatest single edition to history. Alas, with out the writing and work of Origin, Jerome would still be in his room, trying to gather the information needed to complete what would become, the Vulgate Edition of the Bible.

However, what intrigues me more than the exegetical work of Origin, is his thinking on souls and what becomes of them. He basic idea , and if thought of correctly, makes a lot of sense. Four things are necessary to accept if you are to follow my thinking:

1) What is in the mind of God is real, not potential. If God thinks it, it is real from the moment of the thought.

2) All creation (no matter how it came to be) is from this "mind" of God, and as such, contains that "image and likeness" of that God.

3) Creatures, with rational souls, make free choices, with real consequences.

4) Time, as we use it in common everyday usage is not the realm of God, who exists beyond time, or better yet is time itself, constant and always in the now.

If you can accept these four principles, you may be able to follow me a bit better as I use these ideas to express my understanding of Origin and "life after life".

All rational souls originate in God's mind, weather at the moment of conception (an absurdity if you think that God is dependent upon a carnal act to create a rational soul each and every time) or that they have pre-existed in his mind from all time. Being Free creatures, created and immortal, souls have consciousness from the very moment of their creation. For they would be alive in the mind of God. This is Origin's idea, and he says that at some point souls waver, fall, separate from God, not just by sin, but by degree of participation in the Divine Life. These souls, through the mercy of God are given life in human form to try and realize that there is a way back to Him. In a sense, each soul is predestined to return to the mind of God as perfected in their love for him (I will use the male pronoun as that is what is most common and easy for people to understand, but we must also remember that gender is not a trait of a spiritual being, but only of physical beings.).

If we accept this idea of the "falling away from the divine" as a reason for souls being here on earth, it makes sense then that the "original sin" was not a sin committed by an individual, which is transmitted to all humans by birth, but is the "common sin" that all souls have by their own free will, are present here on earth, for their failure to stay within the Divine Plan of being in the presence of their God. Origin refers to this as a "cooling of desire". Thus the need for "redemption" and the Felix Culpa of Aquinas. The happy fault is that we have all failed in the first level, now we have another chance to redeem ourselves (as redemption is a choice).

How we live our lives, how we try to make life better for ourselves and others. How we love and endear ourselves to others and how we seek the good in people, not the evil. How we try to emulate others in their good deeds and life styles, and above all, our desire to be back with the God from whom we have fallen from, will in the end, bring us back to that God. Now I understand that I have left out a lot of things, and many will have issues with the fact I did not mention the Church or sacraments or Bible Study or prayer or Sunday worship, but are not all of those things included in what I said we must do? You see, the road is much more clear and simple less cluttered and less road signs to distract. Simple, as Aquinas says God is simple and not complex. If those are the roads you choose, then that is the route you take. If those are not roads you choose, then you go a different way. However, all roads that seek perfection and goodness, lead to the same end. Some are more convoluted than others, some are more comfortable than others (in a personal way, not a touchy-feely way) and some, if chosen poorly do not work at all. "My father's house has many rooms."

Where all this is still confusing to me and I am still thinking and working is that, as free willed beings, souls can lose their way even after achieving the goal, and Origin does not discount the fact that all of creation can be repeated in a new age. Why would a soul, with so many life experiences not wander in thought and direction. Some may not, they stay in that eternal now forever, in fact have never left. Others, like me, wander about and lose direction often, but always come back. Why not multiple ages of man, why not multiple physical existences? Why would one deter from God the constant love he has to bring us all back. Origin goes so far as to say the devil himself (again keeping the male pronoun for linguistic comfort) could come back to God, but is there a desire to return on his (the devil's) part?

What then is this all about? Predestination. We are predestined, but not in our actions or our free will, we are just all predestined to return to whence we came, the mind of God. This is my response to predestination, my account of how it can be that all our actions lead us in one direction. "How many times must we forgive our brothers? 70 times 70". Why would God only give us one life, one chance one age to reach and regain what we lost of our own free will?

2009-07-01T19:31:00.001-07:00

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Rome, The Eternal City

2009-06-27T06:41:00.000-07:00

Rome is eternal on many levels. Holding the Holy See in its center, it proclaims eternal life, life beyond this mortal shell. The antiquities proclaim the eternal desire of the human spirit to build and be better than we are and were. The people of Rome itself proclaim an eternal spirit of endurance, no matter the weather or the government. For me it is eternal in that this was the 30th anniversary of my first visit to Italy, and so many of the landmarks that I remember from that first visit are still present.

I took a left turn instead of a right when I exited the Metro at the Batitstini stop (Okay, 30 years ago the Metro did not go this far out!) when I went to Via Boccea to visit Fr. Brian. I knew (from looking at the Metro map prior to leaving the station) that either route would get me to the General House, but one was a lot shorter than the other, so off I went. It was up hill, and when I got to Via Boccea, I knew where I was, it was at the place where I used to catch the bus to go to the Vatican (the 49/, yes the slash belongs there!). So I made a quick right onto Via Boccea and started walking down hill. YES, I walked UP hill to walk DOWN hill, I told you I made a wrong choice. As I wandered down the street I saw the grammer school that was there my first visit, then I saw this Trattoria, with a green patio covering and I knew I was very close. Imagine that, 30 years after my first visit, and this place still has the same look. Better yet, think of a restaurant that you know of that has been in the same location for 30 years! Within minutes I was at the General House. Rome, the eternal city.

There was the morning I took 4 of the group shopping on the Via Borgo Pio, then took the short walk over for a cappuccino at what I (and some good friends) refer to as Guido's. And YES, Guido was still making coffee and yes Guido remembered me and the last few visits I made to his negozio (place of business). (Just to let you know, this man makes the BEST cappuccino in the city of Rome.) Rome the eternal city.

Then there are the usual landmarks that bring the tourists. That too is part of My Eternal Attraction To The City of Rome. So from the mundane memories of an old man, to the spectacular views of the Eternal City, view on.

The Piazza di Pantheon, a view from the front of the Pantheon looking outwards towards the Piazza

Trevi, always a pleasure to see, and do you know that they feed the hungry with the money they collect from this fountain. Over a 1,000 €uro a day (1400USD) is removed from here and it supports a soup kitchen for the poor in the local area! Here is one of the poor of the area.....

And here is the "Fountain"

A view from the TOP of the Spanish Steps. I thought I would let you see the City of Rome!

The Campo di Fiori, where the cattle market used to be MANY years ago. Now it is a daily market, which closes and disappears about 5PM everyday to open up the area for dinner, socializing and night life.

And for that random shot of IDK WTF this is, but it is old and there is a statue of St. Paul on top..here for your viewing pleasure.........

And, lastly, the true picture of how stupid an old man I am, how dangerously I live, this shot is from the middle of the street looking west down the Via della Consiliazione towards St. Peters...and if you know how they drive in Rome, you would know just how dangerous this can be!

There are some more pictures of Rome to come. I am working on trying to recover the pictures I lost, there is a small glimmer of hope...or it is the bullet coming at me..I am not sure..but more of Rome will be here soon. Enjoy!

Too long of a wait!

2009-05-25T13:46:00.000-07:00

Well yes, I am alive and doing well, and so is Cathy and the rest of the families. It has been a busy few months between school and "other" things. We have been busy with a lot and the end of the school year is upon me. I have only 8 school days left and then after that 4 days and I am off to Italy. But those pictures are yet to be taken! Below are some that have been taken since I last posted for Seattle. SO, lets start with Sacramento and Cathy and I in the Capital Park:

Then wishing we had the cash to enjoy buying one of these!

This was taken in the koi pond at the State Capital Park:

Then there was another "home improvement project" with Bob. We don't need no stinking directions!

And the proof of our work is the finished project!

Then April came and it was our 15th anniversary. We went back to Monterey and had the BEST weather you could ask for! Here is one from the ride over:

Here on 17 mile drive:

And the same place we took our honeymoon picture. I need to scan that and get it in here as well:

and of course MULTIPLE dinners with Friends and Family, but here is a shot of a center piece from the yard and the bar tender for the events!

Sorry about the long wait, but what can I say besides I don't get paid to do this. At least not yet! Enjoy and I will have more to post when I return from Italy! Ciao!

3 days in Seattle WA

2009-02-16T14:48:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I am a "buckhead". I live with my 'venti 2 equal latte' a day from Starbucks. So here was my chance to actually get to Seattle and see the ORIGINAL Starbucks store. While we were walking about the public market on Pike Street, we purchased a nice piece of "art" for our travel wall. The gentleman was very kind and told me about the Starbucks, down the street, was the original one. Well, sort of the original one. Seems the first Starbucks store had an issue with fire, and burnt away, the second had a fate similar, but not with fire but with being removed by public domain. So what is left on the Market Front is the ORIGINAL store that was sold and became the major corporation known as Starbucks today. So here for your view is the "Original Starbucks"!

and with entertainment as well!

And yes we saw more that JUST the original starbucks, we had to see the famous Space Needle. It has been there almost 50 years now! (48 actually)

As well as the famous Public Market with the Pikes Fish Market, known world wide for its throwing of fish about the counter:

there is really much more there besides fish.....

And what would a blog be without a picture of Cathy and I by some strange piece of art on the waterfront.

AND YES..I went to every session of the NEA Conference I was in Seattle for as well seeing all this and more!

Joey, the zookalator

2009-02-08T11:26:00.000-08:00

I received a message from Classmates.com, to get on Facebook.com from an old friend from seminary. (Thanks Paul!) When I got on Facebook, he mentioned that another friend from Seminary had posted some pictures from his stay with the Oblates. So off I went to make sure there were NO pictures of me with derogatory statements or participating in illegal activities! (NOT that I would ever have done any!) Thank god I was behind the camera a lot (I was the historian and photo taker for most events, really). Thanks David for NOT having any pictures of me posted.

David had a picture there (which without permission I downloaded and have now up loaded here) of Joey. Joey was a mutt of a mutt dog. You could not have asked for a more faithful and loving dog. He was great. Whenever you took off down the Mount in Loomis, Joey was with you. Every day Br. Vincent Paletta (see my March 21, 2007 post on Brother Vince) would take a walk down the "hill" and walk down to the stop sign and back. Br. Vince swore that it was Joey who saved every tree on that hill in the drought we had in the late 70's. Joey would stop at almost every tree and leave his "mark". When we were in chapel, Joey was right outside the door on the mat, waiting for us. He never came into the chapel, even if the door was open. At nights when we would watch Saturday Night Live (the first cast!) he would lay in the TV room under the coffee table and sleep. When it was time to go to bed, he would lead us out and take his place on a bench outside where he would sleep. I remember Fr. John Keehan, when it was really cold, would allow him to sleep in the front office of his room. But 90% of the time, Joey was outside and "free" to go and come as he please.

In the spring, when the time was right, Joey would be gone for 2-3 days. Seems he had a girl friend he would visit annually. Bro Vince would say he was, "Down at the pool hall with the boys.", and sure enough, he would be back for the rest of the year in a few days time. It was after one of these "nights out with the guys" actually it was a bit more than a few nights, it was almost a week, Joey came back. I saw him walking up the stairs onto the front walk and he looked skinny and beat. From the other side, which I could not see, he was covered in mud and blood. He had been hit by a shotgun and had laid in mud for a few days before making it home. We took him to the vet, and being a "country" vet, he said very quickly, "I will take care of him this time, but the next time I will put him down." What it was, is simple. Joey was chasing either livestock or chickens and a local "farmer" had tried to spare his herd or flock. The vet would not or could not allow a dog to be running about doing that.

It wasn't Joey's first visit to the vet either, he had been there before after his first encounter with a porcupine. Having never seen one, he went up to it, sniffed and then tried to bite. Needless to say it was painful. They put him out and pulled all the quills from inside and outside of his mouth. It was the LAST time he ever did that. There was also the time we were down at the canal working around the pump house or gathering blackberries (my memory fails me why we were there) and Joey took off in the blackberry bushes only to come RUNNING out faster than he had gone into them. A few seconds later we knew what he had seen as the scent of skunk waifed in our direction. Good thing Joey was fast, the skunk missed him and he only had a "slight" oder attached to him for a week or so.

After the shooting however, Joey stayed close to home. He would go with us for walks, but not on his own. A year or so passed and Joey wasn't there one morning. The old, "He's off to the pool hall" lines were said, and we waited. Joey didn't come back. We never saw him again, and this is the only photograph of him that I have now. Thanks for posting this David. It brought back a lot of happy memories and the people who surrounded me at that time.

Oh..the name "Zukalator" was one of a few nick names that Brother Vincent gave to Joey. There was Zuk, Zukey, Zukalator and "The Zuk". I believe he took the name from zucchini, of which thanks to Brother Baldi we had a LOT. Again, the picture is from David (and it is scanned) but here is Joey.

Civics 102

2009-02-07T21:03:00.000-08:00

Ok...it isn't the best, but you must admit, at least it is funny!

The Day after Christmas 2008

2009-01-01T13:53:00.000-08:00

On the day after Christmas, Cathy, David Hernandez and I took off for a four night stay in Las Vegas! We were a bit worried about the weather, as fog was bad on Christmas as well as rain and snow in the southern part of the valley and in the passes. But The morning was clear and bright, but C-O-L-D! Well at least in California terms it was cold, it was 32-35°F. The road was mostly clear, wet and with a bit of ice as we went over the snow capped Transverse Range in the Tehachapi Pass. As the following show, it has snowed a bit in that region, more so than normal and had even spread to the eastern desert side!

Having used Lasvegas.com in the past, I again resorted to them for the room. We stayed at the Sahara four and a half years ago for my 50th, and we were pleased with the rooms. Alas, this was NOT the case this time. I had reserved "Deluxe" rooms with a king bed, we got 2 double beds and if this was the "Deluxe", I would HATE to see their "Standard" room. To witness our displeasure, behold the following:
I think this is from a murder victim:

This is the dressing area, note the dressing tabletop:

The entrance to the room was a thrill, you could see it in many of the rooms as you walked down the hallway, tuffs of carpet sticking out from under the doors!

But we did have a nice view from the window:

and at night it was nice as well:

While there, I did some giving of money to the casinos, no betting allowed, I just handed it over and saved them the trouble of even spinning the wheel..just take my money.....

We did see the Cirque du Soleil's rendition of LOVE with all the music being the Beatles. It was a GREAT show and I recommend if you do go and see it, pay the cheaper price for the balcony seats, you will see a lot more than the those who paid more!

We also hit the outlets in Las Vegas as well as in Primm, as well as The Cloud and at the Venitian and Palazio. The sales were great and some of the bargains were super.

And what would be a trip to Las Vegas without the "Tourist Picture" shots?
Cathy and I in the middle of Las Vegas Blvd, better known as "The Strip":

A picture Cathy took from the truck:

And I cannot forget another reason why we go to Las Vegas. My favorite (or as I told her this time, my ONLY) Aunt Helen. She has had a rough few years with surgery and hip and back issues, but she was standing and walking on her own this year and I am so very grateful to see that!

She was in great spirits and I also saw my cousins John and his wife Judy, Charles and Rosemary. We took Aunt Helen out to dinner Monday nigt to Bautista's Hole in the Wall for Italian food. And the obligatory nephew and aunt picture as well:

So on Tuesday we headed back home, most of the snow was melted, the skies were again clear and there was no ice on the roads over the pass. The fog in the valley did not start until Fresno, and was not bad at all coming down the stretch to home. Las Vegas in December is cold, but it is sunny and bright! I hope you all enjoyed!

Post Thanksgiving Day Travels

2008-11-30T12:42:00.000-08:00

So I have NOT posted in a while, I must admit, school does that to me. I become less attracted to writing, yet more attracted to reading, usually student work but on occasions a book or two. But that has NOTHING to do with this post.

Yes, for all of you who wait patiently for picture posts, you have what you want! It was the day after Thanksgiving (some call it "Black Friday") and four men set off from Madera in search of wine tasting and ended up in Paso Robles! So what you will see is the progression of tired to happy and from thirsty to sated. I will not post a lot of words, as what can you say, they had wine, we tasted some, some was good, bought a case here, bought a bottle there...how many times can I say that, once for each winery. I mean we stopped at....well you count!

We left Madera at 8AM and arrived outside of Paso Robles about 10AM. Can you tell these two are related?

Our first stop was Meridian, a nice winery with great grounds and wonderful gardens. Oh and they also have wine there.

Then we went to Martin Wyrich and there I bought a case, and no, I did not pose with the case, but let David pose with his find!

Then it was off to lunch, sorry no pictures were allowed during the dining experience. The drive through was crowded. From Lunch we went to Fratelli Pratti where we saw some great color in the fields and yes, they taste wine there!

Then off to Summerwood Winery. Remember we were wine tasting, that was the purpose of this trip, thus the many pictures of us at wineries.

and one with me in the picture!

From Summerwood it is a short drive to Eagles Crest, A neat winery built like a castle, not the best wines but a must see as a winery!

David made his GRAND ENTRANCE to the tasting room!

From here to Donata Winery...the others became impatient with me and just left me there to take a picture of the door.....like it was the last winery in Paso Robles or something!

By now it was time to head home, so off we went to Hwy 46 and found this new winery, Vina Robles.

Our last call was at Robert Hall. A very nice location and easy access to the freeway.

Yes, I was driving so I was the designated driver. I did very well too!
from here to home by 5PM!

Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I did!

In case you did not know, the people pictured are my Father, Robert V. Seybold, our good friend David Hernandez (you have seen him in other posts here and our traveling partner!) and Brother Duain O'Mara, OSJ, and myself making a few appearances.

Random Photos

2008-07-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

As I go through and write this blog, I really try to find pictures that show what the location was about and a bit of the historical, cultural events. I also shoot a lot of different things as well. Last year I did a lot with door knockers, and I have one here this year as well. I also love windows and flowers. I so wish I had the ability to do this at home, but I know it won't happen as our construction style in California does not lend itself to hanging real objects on the outside walls. Stucco looks nice, but it is just a bit of sand and cement spread over chicken wire with no ability to hold up an object with weight. Also there are the pictures that didn't turn out. I had one I wish really could have, but it just didn't. (No I did not waste cyber space by showing it here!)

As for the shots in this series, they are from throughout the trip. I will try and show their city/county of origin, but I may be wrong. I mean a rock in the dirt looks the same in Greece as it does in Italy or Turkey! So for my pleasure I present random photos of our trip of 2008. I hope you enjoy them.

A lot of our trip consisted of having a meal off ship. Tasting the local fare is one of my favorite things to do. Here is Cathy and David at our table in Florence. I bought a large messenger bag for me to carry my camera and things with before we left on this trip. Cathy called it my Man Purse and we stuffed a TON of things in it. Besides both our cameras, there were water bottles and the souvenirs we bought along the way. It was very handy and I look forward to using it in the future when traveling. In case you are wondering, that large canvas bag is my messenger bag.

I believe this is the only door knocker I shot this year. I was so good!

If there is anything that makes traveling in a tour bad, it is the number of people you are traveling with. Our ship had over 2000 people and there were TWO cruise ships at Ephesus on the day we were there, plus others. Yes, there were a lot of people!

I don't know why I find this amusing, but I do. After all I enjoy all types of foods and expect to find different cuisine in major cities as I travel, but to find a Sushi Bar in Bari, Italy was a bit beyond what I was expecting. But it is a port city and where better to get tuna but from the Mediterranean Sea. Yes they fish tuna there.

This is one of four wall murals on a building in Montecatini. They all dealt with urns and and I gathered that they used the urns for oil. the building is now a series of stores, but the murals remain.

The windows. I think it is the shutters, closed and painted, with the bright color of the flowers that attract me to them. The randomness of the placement and the utter disregard for shape, and letting the plants naturally to grow versus the Disneyland pruning that we do in the United States were everything needs to be cut, trimmed and tidy. Wow that sentence says a lot about me!

The heat. It was warm this summer. In all the cities and towns we were in, it was hot. I sweltered and sweat my days away. This is what I felt like after a few of the day trips:

Shade was at a premium, as is shown here in Croatia. This street is not more than 10 feet wide, yet the umbrellas are in full use.

Even this weary tourist in Pisa shows his sweat and tired stance for this picture.

Even the lizards in Greece tried to get cool and not warm. You know it is bad when the Lizards are looking for shade!

This is what was known as the Golden Horn in ancient Constantinople. It contained the home of the emperor and Haggai Sophia. It later was the home of the Sultan and now also contains the Blue Mosque. This is a view of the Golden Horn from where we had lunch.

So there ends my random pictures. I really tried to stay to my rule of one roll of film a day, that works out to 24 pictures a day. Sometimes the roll lasted two days, and sometimes I did use two rolls. But if I were to upload every picture I took, what would I bore you with when you come to visit me? Actually you are seeing here pictures that are cropped a bit, and they are the better shots of the roll. Anyway, I hope you enjoy and comments are welcome, even the ones about me removing you from my emailing notifications.

The day in Venice

2008-07-11T18:29:00.000-07:00

Venice. It is an amazing city. This is the second time I have been to Venice, the first time was in 2001. That was the first time Cathy had been to Italy and we were there for September 11th. We spent an extra few days there, and the memories are not the best. This time was different and we had a good time. But first lets start with the last day of the trip.

Since we were disembarking from the ship in Venice, we had to have all our luggage and ourselves out of our cabins by 8AM. We had breakfast then waited in the theater to disembark. Upon disembarking, we had to find our luggage then walk to our bus. There we stored our luggage and took a short drive to board a boat with our tour guide. It was very hot in Venice and we really wanted a short walk, some lunch and sight seeing on our own. And we did just that. Dominic and Carol went with us and we had a wonderful lunch in Venice. It only cost $200.00, yes, only 50€ each. We thought we had been robbed, until we found out that some paid $125 for a not so great "frozen" pizza, ice cream and soda in San Marco Square, PER PERSON! At least we had a full meal and it was good.

So now for some pictures. The main church in Venice (though NOT the only one) is found in St. Mark's Square (Piazza di San Marco). The syymbol of the city, the lion with the book is the Christian symbol for St. Mark.

The city's symbol.

Of course the main symbol that everyone thinks of when they think of Venice, is the gondola. The rides are 80€ or $150 a ride. So here are pictures of OTHERS taking gondola rides.

This is what I called Gondola Central.

This is the tower that Galileo used to look at the skies with his telescope from. Why this tower? Well this is where the merchants would go to look for the incoming ships from the Middle East. When they saw which ship was coming in, they would then start bidding for the merchandise that was on that ship. Thus the need for a telescope, to see the ships before the others could and get the early bids in on the goods!

Street scenes.

And of course, illegal vendors. It is not only illegal to sell these goods (better known as knock offs) it is also illegal to buy and to be in possession of them. The reason from the white sheets on the ground is that the edges can be quickly picked up and bundled up into a sack as the police come walking past. After all, out of sight is out of mind, is the first stage of critical thinking!

From here, Venice, we boarded our bus for a short ride to the airport where we boarded our flight to Dublin. We arrived in Dublin at 2AM our time (1AM Dublin Time) cleared customs, got our luggage again, boarded a bus to the hotel, got our room and went quickly to bed as we needed to be at the airport no later than 8AM the next morning. Cathy and I took an early bus (the 7AM) to the airport, cleared all the hoops early and sat and waited for our flight patiently. Like we had a choice about waiting. We did clear US Immigration in Dublin. YES, we went through US Immigration in Dublin, so when we arrived in LAX, we did not have to do that, but we did have to wait for our luggage and then go through Customs (what a joke) and then onto a bus for a 5 hour drive home from LAX to Fresno. Bed never felt so good as it did that night! If you count, we handled our luggage 7 times in less than 24 hours, cleared 3 sets of customs officials, and two sets of Immigration officials. What a day!

So, what to expect next? Random shots that I liked from the trip and then on for some more boring writing of mine. It will take some time to pay this trip off and before we go again! Thanks for following along and I will answer any questions you may have....maybe not correctly, but I will answer them.

Croatia

2008-07-10T19:41:00.000-07:00

Dubrovnik. Ok, I copy and pasted the name, and I will now refer to this city by the nation's name of Croatia. For a poor speller like myself, Croatia I can deal with!
Dubrovnik is a BEAUTIFUL city. We enjoyed the first part of the tour, and then slipped away from the crowd to see some things on our own. We had a great lunch (those pictures of lunch are Cathy's) and a great walk through the town. So, onto the pictures, that is really the only reason you are all here. This is taken from above the town, looking towards the north.

The main street is wide and clean. It is wonderful to see and when the sun is out, people cluster to the shaded side of the street. Great shops and lots of people.

The side streets are narrow and have a LOT of steps. It is a real workout getting around this town, but well worth the walking!

This is Cathy at the old entrance gate to town. It is actually a draw bridge, and the wall surrounding the city is really pretty. St Blaze is on the city wall. He is the patron of the town.

This is from the Dominican Monastery. It was the first stop on the tour. The picture I have is from the Courtyard.

This Dominic and I looking over our choices in the restaurant.
(Cathy's Photo)

This Cathy and I after a GREAT meal. You must ask me about this meal...it was..well GREAT! Notice we got the name of the place in the picture!
(photo done with Cathy's Camera)

Soon was time to head back to the ship, moored in the bay.

And sometimes I just can't help myself. I try not to do this, I really do try not to notice, but I have been collecting and owning this stuff for years, I think it is part of my blood now....

OK...there it is...next stop..and the last one, Venice.

Istanbul part two

2008-07-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

No one ever said I was bright, I left my CD home instead of bringing it to Costco today. So, all of today's pictures are brought to you by Cathy! These are her pictures that she took. I will try and crop them to fit, but am not all that skilled with photobucket. I will do my best, but her pictures really don't need a lot of cropping. She has a great eye for people and framing a shot. And she doesn't take pictures of flowers instead of people!

Haggai Sophia, easily translates as Holy Wisdom. It was the Emperor's Church and the foundations of the church predate Constantine. It was here that the Eastern Roman Empire found its center. It was here and at St. Peter's in Rome, that the split between the Latin and the Greek Churches was played out. It was here that one of my favorites fathers of the Church was Bishop, John Chrysostom, and from where he was exiled. His bones were brought to Haggai Sophia after his death and burial elsewhere, and there they remained until the last Crusade, when they were brought to St. Peter's where they rest today. What a great gift it would be to return them to Haggai Sophia, where he so loved to preach. Also what a sign of unity between East and West, Latin and Greek, Orthodox and Catholic that return would be.
Here is the entrance to Haggai Sophia, it is the gift of the city (on the right) and the Church itself (on the left) being presented to Jesus and his Mother.

During the time of the Sultans, Haggai Sophia was turned into a Mosque. In the Islamic tradition, no images are allowed in a mosque. All the mosaics were covered in plaster and painted over. They were NOT destroyed. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1919 and the foundation of Turkey as a "secular" state under Ataturk, Haggai Sophia was turned into a museum, where both Islamic traditions and Christian traditions are still visible. These large disks (made of camel leather) bear the names of the sons of Mohamed.

These are the lights, they are suspended from the ceiling by a series of iron rods. They used to be oil lamps, but are today electric.

To light all the lamps vast amounts of oil was needed, and it was kept in these large urns. When the church became a mosque, they turned them into ablution basins for Muslims to wash before prayer. They have served well all these centuries!

From Haggai Sophia, we went to the Grand Bazaar. There was a lot there to see, and nothing really to buy. Of course if you were into hookahs, you would be overwhelmed.

From the Grand Bazaar we went to the Spice Market.

Well, other than a fine lunch on the waterfront, we were back onboard and off to a day at sea. A well deserved break after three days of on the go touring. Our next stop was in Croatia. And once I learn how to spell the name of the town, I'll let you know! Hope you enjoy these pictures and let Cathy know you liked them too!

Istanbul

2008-07-08T19:46:00.000-07:00

Of all the surprises of this trip, Istanbul was maybe the most surprising of them all. Ephesus is in modern day Turkey. It is located near the port city of Izmir, and is nice, but upon entering the Bosporus Strait and docking in Istanbul, I was amazed, First at the activity of the water way and the way the city rises up from the coast. Istanbul, the city built by the Emperor Constantine (thus its first name, Constantinople) to the rise of the Byzantine Empire (its second name Byzantium) and then the rule of Islam and the Sultans (and its modern name, Istanbul) in the Ottoman Empire. Today, Istanbul is the second most important city in Turkey after the capital Ankara, built by the founder of the secular state of Turkey, Ataturk. The city is vast and modern. I do not have all my pictures yet, as Costco missed a CD and I need to get it burnt tomorrow. But what you will see today is the Blue Mosque and a quick glance at the port and one shot of Haggai Sophia. Enjoy these and I hope to have more for you tomorrow. Also Cathy has uploaded her pictures to photobucket too and I will be snagging a few of her pics soon in my recap of the vacation. We really do take different pictures of the same event.
WELCOME TO TURKEY! They are a proud people who fly their flag a lot about the city.

This is the port from the ship. Notice the amount of movement.

The entrance to the Blue Mosque.

The Blue Mosque as seen from Haggai Sophia. I did not crop much of this picture.

One of the five minarets that surround the Blue Mosque.

Inside the Blue Mosque.

And lastly, Haggai Sophia as seen from the exit of the Blue Mosque.

House of Mary & Ephesus

2008-07-06T16:05:00.000-07:00

Well, let me start with my doubting remarks and go from there. It is "tradition" in the early Christian Church that John the Apostle took Mary (the mother of Jesus) under his patronage and looked after her until her death. It is known that John did go to Ephesus and later was exiled to Patmos but was returned to Ephesus before he died of old age. John is the only Apostle to die a natural death and his age is give by tradition to be close to one hundred years. So, is this really the house that John built for Mary? Is it in the right or correct location? It could be. It could be a nice and pious location that early Christians referred to as the "house of Mary". It could be a lot of things, but there is no "proof" other than what you choose to believe. If it helps you in your road to awareness, keep it and treasure it, if not, enjoy the tour, enjoy the location and be happy that you are there.
here is what the signs say:

And for those who constantly have nothing good to say about Islam, you should know that Mary is honored in the Koran, and is known as Miriam and that she gave a virginal birth to the prophet Jesus. A lot of respect is paid to her, more than to the mother of Mohamed! So for the Muslims who come to honor Mary here, they too have this:

Here is the building, built upon the foundation that was laid by John the Apostle, and is a small chapel of prayer.

From here we went back down to the valley area and into the heat of the day to visit Ephesus. Ephesus is one of the more important cities in early Christianity. It is here that John the Apostle, Peter, Paul and Barnabas all preached at one time or another. It is from here that the doctrine of Theotokos was proclaimed in the Council of Ephesus as well as where John Chrysostom was born, raised, and ordained a priest before his being called to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) to be the Bishop of Haggai Sophia. It is here that one of the great libraries of the ancient world once stood, but today is only a facade raised from the ruins.

It is a city built upon a hill that looked down on the sea coast. Today, the sea is far from the port and the city itself left to be dried in the sun. It was a burning hot day that we were there and we walked the length of most of the ancient city. As you can see, we did not walk it alone!

By the way, who is this man? Does ANYONE KNOW?*

As I said it was a VERY hot day. Cathy and I each finished a liter of water during the walk. Shade was at a premium, so much so that they were selling umbrellas on the ship. Cathy got one, and she found shade!

This is an ancient temple, followed by a detail of the inside of it.

On our way to the Library we passed the ancient public toilets.....OF COURSE I TOOK PICTURES!

It must have been a beautiful city in its zenith, as here is a mosaic walkway.

After a long HOT walk we reached the Library of Ephesus. I must say this for the tour, they started at the TOP of the hill and we walked our way DOWN the hill and out of the area.

Cathy and I at the Library steps:

And here are two shots of the theater of Ephesus. It is here that Paul preached and recently Luciano Pavarotti sang, well not too recently.

The road that is leading towards or away from the theater used to lead to the sea.
At least ONE creature was comfortable during the heat of the day!

*The gentleman in the picture was the father of the young man from Fresno Pacific who put this trip together. His name is Bob Bacci. This was his favorite thing to do, was to walk up when people were taking pictures and lean in. I have a few of him in my stack of prints as well as with Cathy.

Olympia home of the Olympics

2008-07-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

Well, this is where it all started, almost 3000 years ago. Here on these grounds, the Olympic Games, dedicated to Zeus, began. Of all the tours we took, this one was our least favorite. I have seen ruins before, and I know what to expect when going to see ruins as well, but it may have been just the guide, this was boring. AND I LOVE HISTORY! And I do mean BORING! It was a hot day, really hot, and what I found really sad was the poor condition of the ruins. Little concern for cleaning, replacing or showing off the style of construction that you see in Rome, for example, in the Roman Forum. All in all, we saw the remains of the temple of Zeus (one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world) and the training rooms and dorms of the athletes. We were given the opportunity (about four minutes worth) to run out and see the actual field where the games took place, but we really wanted to find shade and water, so we missed that. Here are the remains of the Temple of Zeus:

A new column was cut and placed on one corner of the old temple to show the height and size, and that is the ONLY reconstruction I saw.

If I am correct, and some one tell me if I am wrong, this is the exact location where they light the fire for the Olympic torch.

Many people do not know that the lighting of the Olympic Torch is not an original Greek or even original modern games, tradition. It was started in the Berlin Games of 1938 by Adolf Hitler. The Nazis had a fascination with fire (I am sure there is a psychological thing here about fire and behaviors) and torches and night time marches. Since then, the lighting of the torch and the flame has become a major symbol of the Winter and Summer Olympics.

Then it was a quick trip back to the ship, for we were off to Izmir and the House of the Virgin Mary and Ephesus. So until the next post, bon voyage!

Venice to Bari

2008-07-05T09:16:00.000-07:00

As we sailed out of the port of Venice we went to dinner and then a relaxing night resting for our first port of call, Bari, Italy. Bari is almost due east of Naples in the south of Italy. It is Italy's second most active sea port after Naples and the home of Santa Clause. Ok, actually Saint Nicolas. If you say the name in Italian, Santa Nicolas, and hear it with a western ear, you can almost hear how we got the name Santa Clause. He was a bishop in Bari and as seen in the photo below well respected by both the Western Church (the Latin inscription on the base) and the Eastern Church (the Cyric inscription on the base)

Oh and here is a shot of our ship from port!

Though a bit rusted, it was a great sail! Actaully, as if I have to say this, that is NOT our ship. It was moored at the port right next to our ship though. I named it the Costa Serena II.

The streets of Bari were well decorated. Italy was in the semi-finals for the Eurocup (Soccer for those who don't have a life) and they were supporting their national team.

Banking, or getting money from the ATMs, can be a multi person task in Italy. Seems that some ATMs accept some cards and not others. We gathered at this ATM for a short time, enough time for me to get bored and take a picture of us all...yes I am in the picture too.

One of my most favorite things about Italy is the food. It is so fresh and varied and here is a street scene of where the locals buy their fresh veggies.

And of course what is a day on the coast without a picture of my wife against the backdrop of the Adriatic Sea from the Bari Promenade!

Next installment will be Olympia and Ephesus...I hope.

Off to Pisa and our ship

2008-07-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

If you have never been to Pisa, well I will show you here EVERYTHING that you need to see. The day began with all our luggage packed and put on the bus, then off to Pisa for a short 1-2 hour tour. I found out that tour guides, the ones that travel with you on your bus are not allowed to do city tours in Italy. There are local guides that you must use. These guides are trained and schooled and tested then they serve an apprenticeship and ONLY THEN they are allowed to guide groups. The tour guide we had in Pisa was, how shall I say this, overly proud of his city. There is only one thing people come to Pisa for, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He spent over an hour with us looking at the baptistery (which you will notice I don't have a picture posted here showing it, though I do have ONE, I mean standing in front of it for 30 minutes I had to do SOMETHING!) Well a few of us ditched him as we left the Church to get our pictures and find a place to sit and have something to drink. It was very hot in Italy this year...VERY HOT! So as not to bore you with words like our tour guide here is PISA!

This is from the gate into the church area of Pisa, the only reason people come to Pisa...see...the TOWER!

As you enter the inner courtyard you see the church and the tower. This past year it was officially declared that all the work done to stop the tower from leaning has worked. They have stopped the leaning and it is holding at the 17º that it currently leans.

This is from the back of the church. A good view the tower and you will see that they are still doing renovation on the tower.

From Pisa we got back on the bus and went off to Venice to board our ship. We did not stop in Venice, though we did stop at a diner to eat. they used to be called "Pevese's" but have been bought out by another company. Besides being overly crowed with minimal offerings, it was ok. We then arrived at our ship and boarded. Within a few hours (2 at most) we set sail. the ship leaves Venice by going right past San Marco Square. This is an unusual site to be on top deck and seeing Venice pass you by BELOW! It was GREAT!

And this one I couldn't crop...or I should say WOULDN'T crop. It is so fantastic as you can see the whole island as well as some of the smaller ones in the background.

From here we set sail for Bari, Italy. But that will be another post. Hope you enjoy!

The Vacation of 2008

2008-07-03T19:07:00.000-07:00

Where to start? Well it was a great trip and a fun time by all who went. We started when we gathered at Fresno Pacific University parking lot at 7AM and then went on a 4.5 hour bus ride to LAX. After getting our E tickets and then standing in line for about an hour to turn in our luggage (Homeland Security was operating only 2 x-ray machines in that part of the terminal so all flights had to be cleared by one of two machines), we wanted a lunch. So here we are at lunch all 8 of us that would be traveling as a sub-group of the larger group

(notice the photographer in the mirror!)
We then flew to Dublin, ran through security, immigration and jumped on a plane to Bolonga where we did the same, but jumped on a bus to Montecatini, our staying point for 3 days:

It was and IS a pretty town. It is an old spa town. In past centuries "taking the waters" was a very refined thing to do in Europe. Royalty and famous people would flock to these spas to drink the waters and take the cure. The cure being a great laxative from the minerals in the waters! They were cleaned from the inside out! The waters would be consumed in the morning and by noon, all would have passed. they then would walk the gardens have light foods and have great music to listen to and enjoy, then off to bed and early to rise for another session of the waters. Today we just go to Mexico and get the same treatment.

From Montecatini we visited Florence for a 1/2 day. Since Cathy and I had seen the tourist sites we wondered off from the group and did our our walking of the city. Great shopping day for us!

We also spent a day exploring Montecatini and I found this GREAT vintage Vespa! Notice the spare wheel in the rear of the bike!

And pretty fountains too!

We also spent a 1/2 day in Lucca. A place I had heard of all my life as many of the Italians in the neighborhood were from there. It is a WONDERFUL city! This is what remains of the Roman Circus. The Luccasi turned the area into a market area.

We then packed our bags and left for Venice, via Pisa. But that is another entry I hope to get to by Friday or Saturday...keep looking as I will be updating!

2008-06-15T19:57:00.001-07:00

It is simple...click the star. Every person who signs up will help with clean water for those without! Hey. I did it, you can too!

May is GONE and it is JUNE already!

2008-06-11T20:39:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe how quickly this year has passed. We are already half way through 2008 and I will be starting my 30th year teaching come this August when school starts up. 30 years in the classroom teaching, I never thought I would get this old! May went by and things were fun and enriching! I turned 54 and we had a small gathering in the back yard, can you believe it, NO PICTURES of the event. Fr. Brian was in town from Rome and stopped by for the hamburgers and the birthday celebration. It was good to see him, and he looks so much better than he did in Rome in 2006 when I was there.

It has been a windy spring in Madera, and we lost one half of one of our trees, as shown here.
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It took a big chunk of the tree down, and the worse part was it was one of the major shade trees blocking the setting sun. Here is the break:
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I also found these amazing petunias at Home Depo, they are called lemon petunias. I think they are so neat!
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Our yard art continues to increase with these two frogs. I think they look very worried that the large pot behind them will fall on them!
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The walkway is getting ready to be finished this summer. I will be placing slabs of stone in the path then filling the space with a mixture of sand and cement or small pebbles. I think the pebbles will look better, so see the walkway as it is now for maybe the last time!
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After all that work, I will need a glass of wine.....looks like I will have to wait for that as the wine is still on the vine, and it is NO WHERE near being ready!
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Well Cathy and I are off to Europe this Wednesday the 18th of June. We will be in Italy for 4 days then off on our cruise of the Mediterranean Sea. It will be a great 12 days! And you have lots of pictures to look forward to as well. So until we return, I wish all of you a safe and fun June!

California Poppies!

2008-04-16T19:40:00.001-07:00

Well last weekend Cathy and I went to the California Poppy Reservation. I thought it was some sort of place where we forced poppies to live and they had built a casino...but I was wrong. In the high mountain desert of California, near Lancaster is a large area of the state where the California Poppy is preserved in its natural state. IT IS AWESOME!

It all starts with ONE poppy.....

Who grows up to be a BIG poppy plant.......

Who then joins a whole community of poppies......

Who form a WORLD OF POPPIES!!!!!!!!

all under the protection of the USA and California!

But we still get to enjoy them!

In case you don't get the idea of Desert..this might help:

I hope you enjoyed this as much as we did!

Daffodil Hill part II

2008-04-10T20:32:00.000-07:00

There is so much to see at Daffodil Hill...like FLOWERS! So as not to waste a lot of film, I tried to compose shots as I took them. I seem to be getting better at this as I only shot 2 rolls of film! Oh, yes, I still use film. I don't have a digital camera. I like the resolution I can get, and the fact that it really is photography (photo=light, graph=writing, the writing of the light on the film and the chemicals!).

SO...here are more photographs from Daffodil Hill and I'll let the pictures do the explaining for me.

Our new retirement home we bought in Dry Town! A fixer-upper, but we think we are up to the challenge. Bring it on!

and one more from our gardens at home!

Seybold's Place in Spring, 2008

2008-04-08T18:58:00.000-07:00

Ah..yes this is the season to walk the yard and look at what beauty is held in the small wonders of nature. I am always amazed at the ability to be wonderfilled by flowers and their colours. Oh well. Here are the first flowers of the year from the back yard. There is a new flower I call olde blue, and you will see it at the end. Enjoy!

This angel was a gift to Cathy over ten years ago. It has been a part of our gardens ever since!

Though the daffodils in the picture are from the American Cancer Society's Daffodil Days, they do add a touch of colour to the garden table!

Snapdragons in full colour!

I really like these flowers. I always have pictures of them!

POPPIES...oh just wait! There will, I hope, be TONS of poppy pictures soon!

the mixing of colours in the flower pots is great!

here is Olde Blue!

and a detail of the flower....

more pictures soon I hope! Enjoy your yard and your flowers, they are gifts given freely to us, and as such should be shared freely! ENJOY!

Spring has SPRUNG!

2008-04-08T18:27:00.001-07:00

We, Cathy and I and friends of ours, went to Daffodil Hill this year. Years ago, and I do mean YEARS ago, my Grandmother and I took off to find Daffodil Hill. We never found it, but had a lot of fun driving about the area. I believe she and I ended up at Fiddle Town. This must have been when I was in 7th grade,(about 1967) because she died in July of 1968. In any event, we found it this time and here are some pictures from Daffodil Hill!

I know this sign wasn't there in 1967! We would have seen this!

Here is the entrance. What I found UNBELIEVABLE, there was NO admission fee. IT IS FREE!

And free it is! This is a shot of one side of the hill. they open up when 25% of the flowers are in bloom (which in this picture is that weekend!) and close when only 25% remain in bloom.

My beautiful wife against a pretty backdrop!

And one I really like that is alongside the entry barn!

There are more, but I also have a LOAD of pictures from the back yard, so if you wait a few hours, those too will be uploaded! Enjoy!

Soon to be SPRING 2008

2008-03-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

I await for the longer days and the sunlight that warms the ground and makes all the flowers bloom. It has been a nice winter. A good amount of rain in the Valley and the flowers are JUST as excited about Spring as I am!

So, OFF to the backyard and shoot some early pictures! More to follw as the days get warmer and the season opens up for beauty in the summer!

I love the movement of light across the branches and sifting through the leaves, and the bright illumination of the center in this picture!

Singled out by sight alone, yet so alike!

And what can we say about the interaction of plants and insects? BEAUTY AND GRACE!

Been reading again!

2008-03-09T11:54:00.001-07:00

Ok, It is back to words again. I swear I think I am onto something then it it back to words. Well lets start with the issue of Origin. Yes he does say that all things come back to full circle where they started, that being God. The issues raised by him are, from what I can see two separate parts:

Pt. 1 The pre-existence of souls
Pt. 2 How Free will plays into this
Pt. 3 All creation returns to God

Pt. 1 The pre-existence of souls

As for the pre-existence of souls, Origin says we “drift from the Divine” and slip to lower levels. The futher from the Divine you fall, the lower your ranking, with the lowest ranking being Satan. It follows then that our souls come to us (in our bodies) because we have fallen, or drifted away from contemplation of the Divine, and the only way to return is to return to contemplating the Divine.

If all things exist in the mind of God, and we remember that potency and efficacy are the same in God, then souls can exist prior to their physical (and I use that word “physical” lightly) creation, though only in the mind of God. They do not exist as an ephemeral event, but in their full potency as that alone is how God operates. The moment of creation and the moment of thought in God’s mind are one and the same event. We make the distinction between the two for we live in time, but God does not. It all exist in the now. So, if I exist from all eternity in the mind of God, do I not “pre-exist” in the reality of God, for nothing in God is potential (Aquinas Summa).

If permitted to read into the mind of Origin, that souls do pre-exist in God, all that we are and will be are clear to Him, even our free will choices are known unto Him prior to our entry into time, thus from the moment when God thought of us, we have lived, died and been judged. Yes, we did pre-exist as Origin says, even using scholastic philosophy, we could come to the same conclusion. Now the question arises are we then predestined to live as God has seen us. No, God never made our choices for us, we live as we live making good choices and bad, all God has done in the simplest terms is think of us as we would be, but for Him that is a reality. So, we have lived our whole lives prior to physical birth, but only in the mind of God.

Origin never stated in De Principi that we as individuals pre-existed, only the soul pre-existed, separate from the body. In that sense, we are only in the mind of God as spirit, as matter would not be necessary, for God knows in the immediate what will be in the future. There is no need for us as body/soul to be pre-existant, for it is our soul that makes us unique from other animals, and the uniqueness that makes us who we are as individuals. Choice, an action of the will/spirit would be existent in the soul, thus no need for a body prior to existence. As for the choices we make, those are already known from the moment we were in the mind of God. He chose to love us despite our failings. God’s love is an overpowering event and to limit that love would be to limit the mercy of God as well. Mercy and justice are but one act in God, for God can only act in one way. He allows the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. All contrary actions to the will of God will be punished, but to say that God would create to only destroy is also contrary to God’s nature.

Pt. 2 How Free will plays into this

Origin spends some time in De Principi (book 3) going over the idea of free will. His understanding of free will is different from our understanding today, but well within the range of being the same in the basics. That we, as individuals are responsible for our actions, both good and bad, and that we bear responsibility for these actions is a common thread.

He spends time on the concept of the “hardening of the heart”, that is spoken of as one without the grace or presence of God in them. The most used example in the Greek Text is that of Moses and Pharaoh. In the story we all know Pharaoh’s heart is “hardened” by God against Moses and letting the Hebrew People go. It is important to remember two things in this story from Genesis. One, that it was written many years after the fact as a faith response to an historical event of great importance to the Hebrew People. Two, the “hardened” heart of Pharaoh allowed for God to show his power and greatness to the Hebrew People through the guise of Moses. Most importantly, Pharaoh relents to the power of God (shown through Moses) and lets the Hebrew People go. No matter the fact that he regrets this and tries to get them back, he, Pharaoh, fails in that attempt and dies in one of the greatest shows of the power of God through Moses in the parting of the Red Sea. So even the “hardened heart” brings glory to God and in the end fulfills the plan of God set forth for his people, the Jews and later the Christians.

Origin also stresses on the workings of grace to help make choices, this would be the opposite of the “hardening of the heart”. I would prefer to look at it in this light, either you have the grace or not, that would be the influence on the will. Mind you Origin talks about grace as knowledge and instruction. He believes that grace is acquired though action, a sort of Letter of James idea. It is an interesting concept, but grace is also freely given. I do agree with Origin that one who learns their faith, deepens their understanding of their faith, will by that act, gain grace as well as knowledge. Knowledge does set us free, on so many levels in this life, thus making the use of free will an easier act. For informed minds can make informed choices. It has long been held by the Catholic Church that an informed conscience can make decisions that are contray to Church Law and not sin. The key being the informed conscience. The idea is that no one can make one violate their conscience, as that is wrong.

Part 3..sorry I am still working that one out. I am reading right a book on the composition of the soul in the thought of Origin....so give me some more time. I am getting there!

Pt. 3 All creation returns to God

Origin has a valid belief when he says that God will bring all back to Him, as all cannot ever leave Him. What Origin is expressing in his apokistanse is that God by His creative nature, also nurtures. A good nurturer chides and corrects but always loves and brings back.

End of the Year Recap...in Pictures!

2007-12-26T18:44:00.000-08:00

So where to start with pictures?
January was so long ago, I can't remember what I did, and then there was February and March, then April and May. June followed closely by July and August. I remember some of September and November. December I remember Christmas and something about a cruise. ANYWAY..here is a recap of some of the events of 2007 in pictures. If I messed on some of the dates, oh well, it is my blog and I can do as I wish! ENJOY!
Spring finds me in the back yard taking pictures..so, here is the glass wind chime:

the yard all set up for a gathering of friends:

Me looking for friends in Italy:

Me lost in Italy!

Ahhh July in Philly and looking at the Liberty Bell!

July also means FRESH BACKYARD PEACHES!!

A new member of the family...SweetTea

(Photo by Cathy)

and a jealous onlooker, Weinette

September was Cathy's Surprise Birthday Party!

(Photo by Cathy)

November was Thanksgiving and the gathering of the Grey Head Drinkers:

(Photo by Cathy)

December found the end of an era!

and the beginning of a new Era!

And to end the year...our Cruise

Many things to give thanks for and many things to be grateful for. I hope you have enjoyed the pictures this year and I look forward to more pictures and writing in 2008!

Almost Christmas

2007-12-23T19:54:00.000-08:00

Well it is close enough to say Merry Christmas, as I am sure I will be busy enough tomorrow and may not be able to post. So, from our house to yours, we wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year as well!

For those who do not know, that is Sweet Tea that Cathy is holding. She, Sweet Tea, is celebrating her first Christmas with us. Weinett has taken to her quite well and they are a loving pair who enjoy playing and running about like weenie dogs.

Cruising in Mexican Waters

2007-12-23T15:45:00.000-08:00

We got back Saturday from our Mexican cruise. It was a LOT of fun and we all enjoyed the trip. Here are some shots to show what we all saw! Where to start? Ok, Cathy in Puerto Vallarta:

Of course me doing the "Captain Morgan Stance"!

All of on the catamaran in Cabo,

Sunrise in Mazatlan:

Sunset at sea. (in case you can't read the picture!)

and what trip would be complete without a FLOWER picture!

December already!

2007-12-02T15:50:00.001-08:00

So, it is already the 2nd of December and here we are getting ready for the end of the year and the beginning of 2008! My how time flies when you are alive! I bet if I was dead, I wouldn't even know or CARE what year or month it was. ANYWAY...a bit more serious here, November passed and with it Thanksgiving. Below are pictures from the backyard from Thanks giving as well as from inside the house.

The winter flowers are doing well and the bees are still about. These are snapdragons and the bees are really busy here!

I really do not know the name of this, but when in college we referred to them as "wild camellias", in that they are like wild roses with few petals and full of pollen. In any event, here is our rendition of the flower.

But inside the house there were also flowers! Cathy bought two bouquets from Costco (where else to shop you may ask?)and David arranged them in this styrofoam "pumpkin" we bought. They were a GREAT center piece for the serving table!

Also, after Thanks giving I had to return Duain to Santa Cruz. What a beautiful day it was and there for my picture snapping enjoyment was:

Lastly, not all are pretty pictures of flowers. This year we erected a flagpole in the front yard. Cathy and I thought it would be nice to fly our American Flag and honor our fathers, who both served in the US Armed Forces. I had a nice piece of granite and called a friend, Mark. His children had attended Howard School where I taught previously, and they, the family, make memorial stones. After a few proofs and ideas, we had he and his wife execute a memorial for our fathers. So to both of our fathers, we dedicated our flag pole and our flags that we fly.

Autumn

2007-11-17T09:01:00.000-08:00

I enjoy the change of the seasons, well as close to a change as you can get here in the Central Valley of California. It isn't so much of a change, as the heat lets up and the cold starts. I enjoy the colors and the feel of the chill in the morning. Maybe not the COLD of the morning, but the brisk chill is nice. Winter has a feel and a smell all its own in the valley. The strong scent of leaves as they lay upon the ground and the change from BBQ smells to fireplace smells.

I do miss summer, and the longer days. I miss sitting outside and looking at flowers in bright full bloom. The winter flowers just don't shine with the green of summer. So as a last look at summer, before winter really sets in in, here is a last look at some unpublished pictures from this summer.

Though they are small, they are colorful. The sad part is they just weren't too sweet!

These will do so much better this coming year! I expect a LOT of pictures of them in 2008!

These did a lot better this year. I hope to plant more and get a full set of color from them!

Apokatastasis

2007-11-12T17:15:00.000-08:00

Apokatastasis. What a wonderful language Greek is. I wish I spoke it or at least was able to read it. I am left with just a smattering of words and their meanings, and then only in the Latin alphabet at that. Yet, from what I can see, Greek is a language of defined and specific words. Words that can only be taken in one meaning and carry a significance with just the use of the word.

It takes me back to Umberto Eco's work "The Search for the Perfect Language". Yet according to Eco and his research, the perfect language of the Western World was to have been Hebrew. For it was in Hebrew that God spoke to Adam, Jacob and Moses. Or so the scriptures say. An interesting idea, especially since I have been engaged in a book on St. Jerome and his work in translating from "Hebrew" to Latin the books of the bible. (I use quotes, because it seems a lot of the translations he has used are from Origen, though the commentaries on the scriptures are mostly the work of Jerome)

I also find that the idea or understanding that Jerome has of the scriptures is strongly based in the teaching and the skills of Origen. Yet to actually know what Origen taught is almost impossible. To borrow liberally from another source "One of the main difficulties in studying Origen [is] the necessity of examining all the works that we possess before asserting anything at all about him."[Crouzel, Henri. Origen. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, Ltd., 1985 (French), 1989 (Authorised English Translation by Worrall, A.S.)] This as you can see would be a major task, as few of the works of Origen are in English. When I left Christian Brothers High School in 1970, I had just completed Latin II, when I arrived at Marello Prep, they did not offer Latin, so I took Spanish. Alas, I lack the current skill.

What I have read about Origen has led me to think about him differently. Also the two books I have completed on how books were written in the early 3oo-400AD time period has also led me to see what is "written" is not always what was. Origen wrote ideas, not necessarily exactly what he believed. The fear of being called a heretic, or worse being excommunicated, was a real and major concern for many. From Augustine in his writings asserting that he is anything but a Manachian, to Jerome swearing he was not part of the Origenist Heresy are two examples.

I need to say that I have not abandoned my attempt to understand predestination, this is all part of the journey that I am on. You see, Origen had some ideas about God that would make all the ideas of predestination moot. I see some errors in his understanding of the pre-existence of souls, but if they pre-existed in the mind of God, does not mean they existed as individual realities. I know Aquinas says that "thoughts" in the mind of God are realities, but he also says that we can project onto the creator from the created, and we think, and we have ideas, but they are not realities. God may also have ideas that he does not intend to be created at a given moment in time.

Once I get past this hurdle I may be on to the next. I am glad this is not a sprint, but a long and arduous walk. I see how easily error and pitfalls could become one in this game of thinking. I do how ever have a soft spot in my heart for the idea of apokatastasis. This word, which I started with, means a coming to full circle in the end of time. God brings back all his creation to Himself. You see, predestination would be moot, but first again I need to see what Origen meant by this pre-existence of souls.

So, to whom do I turn, yet another man who was run from his Episcopate and was a follower of Origen and used his ideas in his sermons, St. John Chrysostom. Alas I must await for that book to arrive and be read, then I must mull those ideas and see how they all fit into this puzzle. I read some of the sermons of John years ago, but I want to know how he formed his ideas, then I can see how he looked at Origen and how he got around most of the Origenist Heresy. (If there was a heresy at all with Origen! I am beginning to question that. I mean, maybe "what we have here is a failure to communicate" to borrow from the line in Cool Hand Luke.)

The 11th hour of the 11 day of the 11 month

2007-11-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

Harry Patch, 109, is the last survivor of the trenches in WWI. He fought in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, which is now part of The Rifles. members of the current regiment meet Harry the day before Remembrance Sunday.

Words fail me....

Animal Man vs. Animal Human

2007-09-09T14:08:00.000-07:00

One of the first issues I need to clarify before I can address predestination head on, is creation itself. This may be an absurd idea to discuss, since most who read this already accept the fact that the story of Creation, as presented in Genesis, is a retelling of a theological truth, not of a physical, scientific creation. Allow me to explain that in more detail below.

"In the beginning there was God." A simple sentence that is potent in power and image. It states, through language what is a difficult idea to grasp, that God was present "In the beginning" of all things. God pre-exist time. I know we all know that, that God is eternal, but that is unique in the world in which Genesis was written. You see, at that time, about 4500 years ago (2500BC), most societies believed that the world was eternal and the gods arose from the earth.

In most creation stories of the time, the god creates from the earth, using elements already present. In Genesis we are presented with two forms of creation, one where God creates by word (in Greek, logos) and in another where he forms man from the clay of the earth BUT breaths into him the "breath of life, thus man became a living being". In both aspect of Genesis, God is the one who creates.

The second account is to me the most divinely inspired of the two. I do believe that Scripture is inspired, definitely not in the same way as a fundamentalist does, but I do believe that what was written expresses a divine truth. I believe that scripture is allegoric in many respects and as especially applied to the Old Testament, written as a religious history after the fact. Origin also believed in this allegoric approach to scripture. He saw the Old Testament solely as allegorical to what would come in the New Testament. As to why there are two accounts of creation in Genesis I will say but this, there are many ways to express a truth and when the Hebrew people were writing their history, they had two traditions with which to deal. In order not to offend or to say that one tradition was better than another, and since they both proclaim the same truth (God creates) what difference does it matter how you tell the story? Both were thus included in the written history from the oral histories.

Returning to my understanding of the second account of creation, if we look at the idea of man rising from the clay of the earth as evolution, then we have the animal man. At some point in that event, God intervened in the process and gave that animal man a "living breath", a rational soul, that made that animal man a human person. That "living breath", to me is the allegory of the infusion of the rational soul into the animal, that made the animal human.

It is not part of the "earthly" or "material" world but a thing from the divine that makes us different from the animals about us. Our ability to think, reason and to choose is what makes us different, and in a way more responsible than other animals. The animal man preexists the animal human. As such, the animal man which had preexisted lived and died as all animals do still today. The living breath did not change the nature of the animal man, for all animals have a soul, it changed the dynamics of the soul. That soul now could reason, and could tell the difference between right and wrong behavior. That is something a irrational soul cannot do.

So, my fist step is made, man as animal man, predates man as animal human. Animal man with an irrational soul is different from the animal human with a rational soul. The "living breath" of the book of Genesis is more than soul, it is a rational soul, in the image of the Giver, who too is rational and chooses. This gift of rational knowledge was not given to all animals, but to a special animal called man, now known as human.

Where my mind leads me....

2007-08-13T18:58:00.000-07:00

So with all the trips and events that make my life, you may think that I have ignored the question I started on a few months ago, “Predestination”. I have not. I mull ideas over and then I mull some more. I am always thinking, even when it seems I am just wasting time doing laundry or cleaning the house, which reminds me, I need to do real soon.

I have narrowed the question down and have developed and idea, though very nascent and far from clear even to me. Let me put it this way:

Origen, the great master of scriptures has some ideas about predestination that are not considered to be “kosher” (if I may borrow a term). He also is not a master in the theological understanding as the Catholic Church regards eternity. It is not so much his ideas, but what others have done with his ideas.

Augustine of Hippo has his ideas of predestination as well. His ideas however are a bit twisted as he gets around to this topic towards the end of his life. He is very concerned about his image and his standing as a great leader in the early church and as such defends his orthodox beliefs a bit too far, in a “I am more ‘Catholic’ in my teaching than you are” type of mode. He tends to go overboard in his teaching as a way of showing that he really isn’t a Manichæan Heretic.

Then there is my beloved Aquinas. Here he is trying to master and teach an idea that he has from Augustine, that is flawed, and unable to look at Origen’s ideas because he is “out of favor” at the time. He expounds upon the ideas of Augustine and sets what is an “opinion” of a major early father of the church, who is trying to defend his own “Catholic Credentials from assault, into stone.

This is NOT to say that others have not spoken to the idea since then, but all have referred back to Aquinas and/or Augustine. So what about Origin? For another post there, more research yet to be done before I step out and speak about his ideas. But the conundrum that has me is a simple one if I can get to the root.

The whole problem of Predestination rests on the “Original Sin” of Eve and Adam. The fact that the sin is generative, in that it passes from parent to child and is found in all humans, with the exception of the Virgin Mary, who was conceived without sin (the Immaculate Conception dogma of the late 19th century), is the sticking point. What is the Original Sin? What is “it”? Is it a flaw in the soul, in the creation of humanity? I would say no, because God does not create imperfection. So what is the sin, that a human could have committed, that is passed from mother to child? Is the “sin” a defect in the human soul or body?

If we accept the idea that God is an active participant in creation, meaning that he is not just a great baker who throws ingredients together and lets them mix and bake without another look, but a caring God who participates at points of History, then the idea of original sin takes on an even more different color.

I assume that most of us accept a modified understanding of evolution. Let me explain, I do not believe that this universe is a “by chance” happening. It is too vast to have just happened by accident. There is, and I use this phrase carefully, and intelligent being who is behind it all. (I am not calling for the teaching of Intelligent Design, as that is creationism and I do not believe in that) What I am saying is that their is a God, who has created laws of nature and physics and has allowed those laws to work. I also believe that the God does, at times unknown to us, interacts in those laws, but usually within those laws. I do not believe that a spiritual essence can evolve from a physical essence, thus at some point in the evolution of the human species, God has intervened and infused a spiritual essence into the human creature, which we commonly call a soul.

This blending of the the two essences is to me where we have what many call the original sin. INCOMPATIBILITY. As I would call it, a secondary cause. Without the infusion of a soul, the human animal cannot sin, as any irrational animal cannot sin.

Thus I am here at this point. I need to find a good translation of Origin’s works in English, as I am not able to handle it in any other language!

Philadelphia 2007

2007-07-22T17:29:00.000-07:00

I was very lucky this year and was elected to attend the NEA convention in Philadelphia during the July 4th holiday. I spend long days at the Convention..YES I REALLY DID!...and some time with my wife doing tourist stuff! I would not bother you with pics from the NEA Convention, but I will with my tourist stuff!
This is Independence Hall all set up for a concert on July 4th.

Here it is again a day before the 4th. That must have been the 3rd..mmmmmm

Then of COURSE Betsy Ross' house and Ben. Franklin's Post Office!

Cathy at Penn's Landing. That is the Delaware River in the back and the opposite shore is New Jersey. A bit down river on the Jersey side is the decommissioned battleship New Jersey.

The Liberty Bell...from the outside looking in!

The side trips and side shows

2007-07-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

We stopped at places between cities. I know from Assisi to Florence we stopped at a Castle that is owned by a gentleman who rents out rooms/suites for about 200 Euro a night. If there are four of you traveling, that works out to 50 Euro or about 63USD a night. Not bad considering the accommodations and that he ran a series of 5star restaurants in LA and Vail and other fine places. Here is view of the pool, and the tower in the back is a suite that is rented! Also a pic of me there!

And the young lady with the red flower was our tour guide, Barbara. This is she and a few of the students from another group walking away from the above mentioned castle through the main gate.

We stopped in Sienna, where of a lot of the door knockers that I posted earlier were shot. There is the street scene and one of me by a pillar that is used to mark off the race track for the "palio", a famous race that s held in Sienna every year.

Pompeii is always fun, here is a picture of me getting red again under the sun looking like I could blow my top before Mt. Vesuvius will! Also a road picture of the fine street building abilities of the Ancient Romans. I still believe that modern street construction could learn a lot from the Romans, such as FOUR FEET of sub structure instead of 2 feet which we use for far heavier vehicles and usage!

and some RANDOM SHOTS OF SILLINESS!

my lunch one day...anchovy stuffed peppers!

The view from my room in Serrento!

Sunrise over the new city of Assisi,

A nice place to sit and watch the world go by..a home patio in Assisi!

Capri

2007-07-19T22:09:00.000-07:00

No, not the pants, the island of Capri. I had never been there before this trip. We left Rome and went to Pompeii and then spent the night in Sorrento. I had a private room that night, but the morning came early and we were off before 7AM to the Isle of Capri. We walked down this never ending set of stairs and then off to the ferry that would take us on the 45 minute ride from Sorrento to Capri. It was a wonderful day, sunny and bright, but a bit of haze in the air. Upon arrival, we left one ship and boarded a boat. I know the difference between a ship and a BOAT! The latter was a boat. In any event we sailed 3/4 the way around the Island and then back to harbor. From there we stood in line for about 45 minutes to take a tram to the top of the island where I could only WISH to own a residence or afford a hotel room. It was amazing! Here are some shots from the town at the top of the Island.....for those fine covered sidewalks, we have this:

For the shopper of the ULTRA fine goods we have this!

For the best in hotels and views, this!

For the city center, this.....

for the nature and scenic beauty lover...well, this is too much!

For the yachting readers, wait, does anyone I know own a yacht?..ANYWAY...

then leaving the fine island behind.....

I really enjoyed this day, I only wish I had prepared myself and covered myself in sunscreen...yes, the sun did its best to me the last day in Italy...I was scorched and hot and sweaty and ready for a LONG shower...but there was still an hour and a half sea voyage to Naples! And I choose to be topside and outside on the deck!
Oh well...at least the scenery was good and if the ship sank, I would be a steaming beacon of water to the rescue ship!

Rome

2007-07-19T12:30:00.001-07:00

I love Rome. What more can I say. I didn't take a lot of pictures in Rome, I mean really, how many pictures of the Colosseum does one need to show they have been there? I do have some from the Vatican Museum and a few from inside of St. Peters and some of the shops and streets. The usual shots are missing. I was on this trip for 10 days and only shot 9 rolls of film. That is about 24 pictures a day. Actually a lot are of others, and I really don't like posting others (beside the group pictures) faces here. I am proud of some of these, especially the one of the remains of Pope John XXIII. If you go back to last year's trip, you will see that I used a picture by Debbie, because mine did not turn out well. This year I made a concerted effort to clear the area of tourist and take my time and I got a great shot! So, let's start with that picture!

Italy without Garibaldi, is like The United States without Martin Van Buren! (You know the 8th president of the United States, the FIRST president actually BORN in the United States AFTER the ratification of the Constitution in 1787.....you know...ANYWAY) Garibaldi is the man who unified Italy (as well as Italy can ever be unified) in the last half of the 19th century. This Statue, shown in silhouette as the sun was setting, is of him. It looks like he is sad or depressed, but actually it isn't like that at all. There is a saying on the side of the base that says "Roma o Morta" Rome or Death (sort of like Oregon or Bust in the age of expansion). When I first saw the statue years ago, one of the guys next to me said it should say "Roma e' Morta" Rome IS dead! He was joking of course, well not really, he was from Southern Italy! I told you Garibaldi unified Italy, as best he could!

Trevi by night....well, it isn't that easy without a full tripod and better angles and a LOT LESS PEOPLE. But here is my attempt!

The Pantheon! It was amazing. When we showed up, there was a male choir singing in the church. Yes, the Pantheon is now a Church under the direct control of the Vatican. This allows for the building to be open all the time and also lets everyone in for FREE! This is of course the outside of the building.

Onto the Vatican now and St. Peter's! Here is just the face of one of the cherubs from the Holy Water Fountain by Bernini. It is huge!

Inside the Vatican Museum is a courtyard. At one end is the large bronze pine cone that dates back to the time of the ancient Romans.

Also, if you are observant like me, there are papal seals on the flower pots. Yes, I am sure there is one with Benedict's seal, but this is the one I found of John Paul II. I just love terracotta as it ages!

Now a walk down one of my favorite side streets in Rome, Borgo Pia. It has some nice places to eat, some nice little bars for ice cream or coffee and lots of souvenir stores. Most of them are a LOT less expensive than shopping from the street vendors and some are really inexpensive. Here is a street view and the the outside of a typical souvenir store. I and do mean typical, they all look alike with what they are selling. Some do have unique things, but most sell the same "stuff" as the guy next door.

Without doubt, this was one of the hottest Junes I have experienced in Italy. The humidity wasn't bad, but the heat was awful. In every picture I have of me I look like I have been baked or roasted. This is no exception. It was taken while I waited for everyone to meet me in St. Peter's Square. I was making "points" as Debbie calls it by taking pictures of couples who had no one there to take their picture. I would see people taking pictures of each other, then I would offer to take their picture together. I made a lot of points in those 50 minutes I was there! I had one couple offer to take my picture and I took them up on the offer...below is the result of one white boy under the hot Roman sun! (With the ever present camera bag!)

Florence

2007-07-15T21:08:00.001-07:00

Florence used to hold a special place in my heart. It still does, but not the same manner as Rome. When I first went to Florence in 1979, I do not remember the vast crowds and hoards of people. The city is too crowded for me today. I enjoy the sights, especially the region around the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio. I enjoy shopping in Florence, as the fashion and jewelery are not found anywhere in the world like they are in Florence. My pictures focus on what I like to look at and what draws me back to this city. I would like to go back by myself some day and spend 2 days walking to places I want to see. This trip did not allow me to get to some of the locations I love to see, but I did see the heart of Florence!
You cannot understand the Italians nor the city of Florence if you have not read the Divine Comedy by Dante Allighieri. Being the first major work in Italian, it is comparable to Beowulf in English. It is the story of who is who in Italy and in the late middle ages and what the Florentines thought of them. It is a road map to the history of what will become modern Italy. Many of the images painted by the artist of Italy go back to the Divine Comedy, so to Dante!

This is where it all starts, the Palacio Vecchio, The Old Palace. It is here that the Medici start their empire. The stones that built the Old Palace are the stones taken from the other towers in Florence that the Medici had destroyed and then used the stone to build this one and ONLY tower in the new city they built.

The Ponte Vecchio, Old Bridge, is famous for the gold shops that line either side of the bridge. It was the only bridge crossing the Arno River that was not destroyed, be design, by the Americans as they liberated Italy from the German occupation in World War II. I include two shots of the bridge, one up close the other from a park near the region of the New Palace or the Pitti Palace of the Medici.

And of course we MUST remember it is ME that is traveling and I am NOT the most safe person about. I can slice my hand with a dull butter knife, so when I see help near by I try and make friends because you never know when I may need a bit of first aid!

Thus was Florence seen, and remembered by me in this trip...

Assisi

2007-07-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

(The town crest taken from outside the dinning room of the hotel where we stayed.)
Many people know of St. Francis of Assisi, many do not know his name was John Francis. Yes, just like me, he had two names, but he chose to go by his middle name, and not his first name. Assisi is actually 2 cities. There is the city in the valley which is where most modern life takes place, and then there is the ancient city where Francis lived his early life. It has, by some strange power of the Saint himself, maintained a lot of the old world charm. Most of the old part of the town is not open to motorized traffic, though they do get in and about, but it is a real walking town. I was first in Assisi in 1979. It was a beautiful town that was to remain in my mind as just that a small town. Going back this time, 28 years later, I was afraid it would have become like Florence, an over crowded tourist destination. It had not. It is still a quiet and peace filled place to see and walk about.

This is a typical side street (sidewalk) in town. It went up to another level of the town were the locals actually live. Very few people who work in the old town of Assisi
actually live there, they live in the valley below and commute to work here.

This is a typical shop in the town. I love the chianti bottles hanging and the straw brooms. It is such an "old world" experience.

Not all the churches are big. This is a small chapel in a residential area of the town. It was so quiet and the setting of the olive trees made such a nice transition to the stone tower and old bells.
Earlier I showed you a shot of the bell tower of St. Clair's Church from outside the walls. This is inside the walls walking towards the church itself. You can see the city really does set on a hill!

This last shot is special to me in many ways. I was, as mentioned earlier, here in Assisi in 1979. At that time I was with a group of people, many whom have passed on to the next life. Among them were Fr. Siro DalDegan and his mother, Congressman Gene Chappie as well as his wife. We all stopped here to take a group picture with the modern city of Assisi in the background. As I looked out over this spot, I remembered these fine people and "stood" with them again for this picture. I can still see them with me, and if you look close, I am sure you can too. :)

Thus ended my day in Assisi. From Assisi, we got onto the buss and headed for Florence.

so far......

2007-07-13T12:42:00.000-07:00

So far I have 3 pictures that I really like that I took this summer in Italy. The first is from the Isle of Capri. Though I have more from there that I like, I have not cropped them for here yet. This first one, from the Isle of Capri is outside of the oldest perfume factory on the island. It was so perfect, that all I did was remove a bit of the edges to get it here. I actually could have posted the picture "as is" but preferred to trim it a bit. So, here it is:

The next two pictures are from Assisi. I have another from Assisi that I will post later that I also like, but I need to crop it down a bit, maybe 2 more from Assisi now that I think about it. The first is the bell tower of the Church of St. Clair from outside of the city walls. The second is a residence. It is supposed to be the actual residence of the family of St. Francis, but as many things, it may not be. IN ANY CASE, it makes a grand view and a beautiful statement to the simplicity of stone and flowers! Enjoy them!

The Group of us!

2007-07-12T13:08:00.000-07:00

Here we are on the start of our trip in Assisi. As you can tell it was a beautiful day!

Here is the WHOLE bus load we traveled with, or actually, they traveled with US! I must say the students, teachers and grandparent that were with me, were the BEST group on the bus. We were NEVER late and always attentive!

Here we are waiting to get our tickets to the museum. It was crowded that day, but we saw a lot.

NO, we are not rushing the boarder crossing. But we are in ROME and the Swiss Guard are in the Vatican City. An amazing line of demarcation that is!

Last group shot was here in Pompeii. It was a HOT day and we were quite exhausted from our tromp through the ruins. The tour guide was great and explained a lot to all of us about the history of the Ancient City Life of Pompeii. From here we went to lunch at a small cafe and rested and bought more "stuff" to bring home. Then off to our last 2 days , one in Sorrento, and then a full day on the Isle of Capri.

Guido's

2007-07-11T18:51:00.001-07:00

Last year, when we were in Rome, we went to this small snack bar for coffee every morning. We became, in the few days, "regulars". I thought I had posted pictures of that event, but I guess I didn't. At Christmas 2006, we sent a card to the "barista" of the snack bar with pictures we had take with him on our last day in the city.
This year, I went back, but it was later in the day and he was not there, so I took this picture of the front of the place to remember it by.

The next day I went to visit Fr. Brian at the Oblate General House. He and I went for a walk and went back to what we from last year called "Guido's". We in fact did not know his name, and he was there!

He remembered me and thanked us all for the pictures we had sent him at Christmas. He also made Fr. Brian and myself a cappuccino (on the house!) which he is holding in the above picture. He did tell me his name, but I am not a great one for remembering names.

Below is a picture of Fr. Brian that I took later in that day in front of St. Peter's. I am truly amazed with that church. The line to get in through security was too long, so I didn't go in on that day, but I never fail to see something new every time I go in!

OK, here is a picture from last year, June of 2006 when we stayed in Rome.

Knockers!

2007-07-11T12:17:00.000-07:00

You all have dirty minds! DIRTY. I thought of titling this "Knock knock knocking on Rome's Door", but I went with the best line I knew, short and to the point...knockers. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Many are from Sienna, a beautiful ancient walled city. More pictures of people places and me later! Enjoy!

If you look close, you can see me taking the picture!

Life Moves Forward

2007-06-10T16:18:00.000-07:00

It has been a packed May, 2007. Yes, I aged another year and we added a new puppy to our household. We found her listed in the paper and went to see if she was to come and live with us. What can I say, you see a puppy and all you say is "WHAT A CUTE PUPPY!". So home she came. Cathy and I both agree we "rescued" her from her birth home. When we entered the house where she was at, it smelled of animal urine to the point of making us nauseous. The poor thing had fleas (which we noted on the drive home!) and needed a bath. Mind you she was 4 months old. So, cleaned, deflea-ed, and living in a "clean" house is our new member, Sweet Tea. If you say the name quickly, you get Sweetie. Weinette has taken to her, after 2 days of NOT enjoying a new puppy, and the two of them run and play and enjoy each other like they have known each other for ever! Here she is!

School is out, and I am off to Italy this coming Saturday. I leave San Francisco @ 6AM. AGHHHH...that means I must be at the airport by 4AM!! Oh the sacrifices we make!

The back yard has matured now with the late spring temperatures and the early and late sun makes for some wonderful shadows and images:

and my favorite calla lillies in the front yard are blooming!

Well I will post new pictures when I return from Rome, but be patient. Two days after my return from Rome, Cathy and I are off to Philadelphia for the week of the 4th of July! I will have pictures of from there too to post!

Saddness, yet hope

2007-05-03T16:00:00.000-07:00

Aquinas says that all things seek their perfection, and all things find their perfection in God.
The word animal is derived from the Latin word anima,
which we translate as soul or animated spirit.

I know that we, humans, have a rational soul.
Not that we are rational, but that we can choose
between good and evil.

Other animals have an irrational soul, one that
does not choose. Yet a soul it is.
That soul seeks, like all other created things,
its perfection.

It finds that perfection in God.

Today, Stubby was sedated. He passed from this life to the next. He, had sought his
perfection and now he has found that perfection in God. I will miss him, Cathy more than I,
and I have no idea how much Weinette will miss him, but she will in a way that I will never
know until I too have met my perfection. He is happy, he is pain free and he lives in our hearts.

He will be missed, but only for a time.

Why wait???

2007-04-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

Here are three more for the day. All of these are from the back yard and are representative of the colour that has bloomed this year. We are most pleased with how the yard and the colours have come back after the trauma it went through when we had the block fence constructed two summers ago. We had to have the sprinklers replaced, the lawn replaced and almost lost four of our trees. That loss alone, of the trees would have been devastating to our yard. Our gardener came in and in one day replaced all the broken lines and had water to the trees. To see the yard today, one would not know the horror of it just 2 years ago. We are most pleased with the results of our labours!

These roses grow over the fence that separates the dog area from the rest of the yard.

The gerber daisies have been with us for a few years now. I keep them in pots and move them about the yard. They make a nice touch of summer colour!

lastly, I love this plant. I put it in a pot about 4-5 years ago. It has come back every year with more and more blooms. Last year and this year have been the best ever. The location it is in fits it well and it has at least six to eight blooms this year!

Sunday 29 April 2007

2007-04-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

Well yesterday was a camera in the garden day. Here are some of my favorites of the set, others will be posted later in the week, so keep looking, you too may find one that YOU like!

This is a Flamingo that was given to me by the staff @ Berenda School when I left to work @ MSHS. He (I am not sure it is a "HE" flamingo as I don't look too closely, but let us assume!) is hiding behind the bleeding heart plant looking into the setting sun. Thus the reason for him wearing those FINE sunglasses!

This is our latest art addition to the yard. I call her the Lady of the Garden. A very minimalist piece that we bought in Rosarito in during Spring Break.

I liked the motion of the frog jumping at the flower, sort like he was claiming it as his own!

This is an abstract for me. It is a glass wind chime in the Bradford Pear trees with the sun shining through and illuminating the glass from behind. I like the colours!

So that was Yesterday in the garden....more to come!

Predestination

2007-04-28T18:41:00.000-07:00

I have been busy reading for this, but I have yet to finish all I need. I have a book by Reginald Garrigou-lagrange on predestination. I have a book on Aquinas and his ideas of aesthetics. I just got a book on the ideas of Freedom and Grace as understood by Augustine. The more I read the more I can see that predestination is based on a few ideas. The first of these is the power of the creator not being "all powerful". The second being the idea of "original sin" and its effects on the human condition. And thirdly, the one I see as most important, is that the whole teaching of Predestination is a negative teaching. All of it is based on refuting a particular heresy at different times in history. There is no positive teaching, separate from rebuttal teaching. This leads me to a very nebulous idea, that maybe what has been taught is not as sound as it could be. A person in an argument, especially in a religious dispute, will tend to pull ideas and proofs to fit their argument. It is also known that heretical teachings in the early years of Christianity were destroyed so it becomes more difficult to understand the other side of the story. What we know, of a lot of the heresies, are found in the rebuttals where they are quoted or in what the reformed are asked to proclaim. You can discern what the ideas they, the heretics, proclaimed, by what they were ask to profess (usually the opposite of what they were teaching).

So, where to now? I need to find Origin's ideas on predestination and then the Pelagian Heresy. They seemed to have hit on an idea that was quite along the ideas of the Eastern Fathers, and that Augustine ( a Western Father) laid a major fight on them and refused to accept their profession of faith on separate grounds from their reformed teaching on predestination. Seems like he was really taking a lot of the argument "personal" and not as a disagreement. Also Augustine threw in the idea of infant baptism, which added an even more diverse twist to predestination that has haunted the "loving God" image since.

Just an update of where I am, and that I have not forgotten the topic of the year. I know it is the center of conversation at every meal, every coffee house, donut shop and taco stand in the whole world. Okay, so I am alone in this conversation!

another find on the Internet

2007-04-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

Towards the beginning of the Month of April, I was going through pictures on the Vatican web site of the funeral of Pope John Paul II. I was clipping through the pictures pretty quick as I have seen them before. I hit on this picture:

The gentleman on the right, rather "plump" and distinguished. I met him last year when I went to the Papal Audience of Benedict XVI. He was standing across from us, smoking and I was intrigued by his insignia that he was wearing. I called him over and asked him some questions. Here is the proof!

He is the Outside Door Chamberlain of the Pope. He is the gentleman leading the procession of the remains of Pope John Paul II in the first photo. To say that I was amazed at his position is to be calm about the event. It was a fun discussion that we had, and I am glad that I called him over and met him. I only wish I had asked his name as well. Next time I will!

Three posts in ONE day!

2007-04-09T20:36:00.000-07:00

Well here are the pictures from Mexico. Okay, so they aren't scenic and they show none of the region we were in, but I always get comments that I never take pictures of people. Well here we are, people, pictures and well be happy, there are NONE of me! I had the camera!
This is my Father and Sue in Ensenada walking the streets looking like tourist with lots of cash to be taken from their pockets. I looked, I didn't see any cash...damn!

Here are Cathy, Sue and my Father on the balcony in front of the condo.

Try and be nice. Try and take pictures of people instead of flowers and what kind of cooperation do I get? No respect I tell you! NONE!

I wonder what they were looking at? I guess I could call them all smart asses, or am I the butt of the joke? OK, I'll stop!!!!!!

Spring 2007

2007-04-09T20:03:00.000-07:00

Let's hear it for Costco! They came through and the pics were ready Today by 4PM! SO, on with the flowers from this year's early spring in the Seybolds' Gardens.
This is the bleeding heart plant. It is potted and has returned every year now for four years. It really took off in its new location in the flower bed this year, and is very visible from the patio dining area.

The peach tree was in bloom, now there are small peaches forming. This tree was grown from a pit by my father and made two moves to two houses in 4 years. It took up residence here 4 years ago and has produced fruit every year since being planted. This is the tree that produces my peaches for canning, you know the "booze" flavoured peaches!

I was just amazed at the detail of this picture. This is a detail shot from the above photograph.

The people you find on the internet!

2007-04-09T14:57:00.000-07:00

So, my father was here last week and was saying that no one had a picture of the ships he was on while serving in the US Navy. I drug him to my library and introduced him to GOOGLE. Sure enough the ships came up, as I typed in the names. As we looked at the pages, I noticed that there were pictures that members of the crew had posted. Sure enough, after about 15 minutes of looking at unknown sailors we found two of my father from his time on the USS Surfbird. I downloaded them and then burnt them to disc for him to take home. It is amazing what you can find on the internet if you look long and diligently enough. So, to let all of you see, this is my father when he was younger than I am now. Typing that made me feel old! My father is the sailor on the far right in each of the below two pictures.

I have no idea of who the others were/are, and neither did my father. I only hope that their families will find the pictures and enjoy them as much as my dad and the rest of us have!

I am still waiting on Costco for the vacation pictures. And this summer will see me in Italy again, so more pictures from Bella Roma and other locales as soon as I return!

Spring Vacation 2007

2007-04-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

A week of vacation. Somehow that never quite turns out to be a week of rest. I find that to be an elusive venture any longer. I enjoy the rituals of vacations, from either the driving, the packing, the tourist thing of walking and buying as well as the stints of boredom from not being close to that what makes me comfortable.

I find that the older I become (isn’t that a silly phrase, as if I could become younger) I really relax when I can stay home and have time to wander about the web reading divergent texts and ideas. I like the mental stimulation that it causes and the ideas that it forces me to think or to rethink my previous concepts.

Books have become a major vacation staple. I remember when I was in my early 20’s that I would take a week at Soda Springs in the OSJ Cabin. I would drag up my stereo system (Thank God for iPods, boom boxes and CDs today) as well as a set of vinyl records. I would set up the system in the front room, open the cabin up, put on the obligatory gym shorts and lay about on the porch and sun myself while reading books for a week. To this day when I hear Al Stewart’s Time Passages, I associate it with The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. I was a lazy record changer, and the album (remember I am talking vinyl here) would play over and over as I read through the 3 volumes of the Gulag. Usually during that week, friends would stop by and we would talk about things, have dinner and the drink a bit too much as college students tend to do, and we solved all life’s problems. Then I grew up.

I still bring books on vacation. I finished two that I had started earlier this year. One, The President, The Pope and The Prime Minister, Three Who Changed the World by John O’Sullivan, was very interesting. It discussed the role of Ronald Reagan, John Paul II and Margaret Thatcher in the end of the Cold War and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and the former USSR. A very one sided view of the Reagan Administration, as well as the Thatcher period. His approach to John Paul is even handed. Overall a very good read, but that may be that I agree with his premiss that the three above mentioned are the pushers and shakers that helped the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and with out their strong and steady wills, with lesser people in command, never would it have happened. Over all I would rate this one well up on a list of easy reads too. Not complicated and broken down so as to easily be interrupted and still pick it up and carry on as if no time has passed.

The second book, Christianity and the Transformation of the book, Origen, Eusibius and the Library of Caesarea by Anthony Grafton & Megan Williams, was amazing. The skills that these two authors, Origen and Eusebius, in the way they wrote and critically studied early Christian writings as well as pagan and late antiquity writings is amazing. In fact the very format of the book, as we know it today, is a direct descendant of these two men. I remember Fr. Gus talking about how St. Jerome had in his hands a copy of a book with the Hebrew, Greek books of the Bible. I now know what he had was the Hexapla.

The Hexapla was a book “written” by Origin that had a Greek equivalent for every Hebrew word. It contained not just the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, but two other Hebrew versions of the Old testament as well. What makes this such an amazing thing is that they were laid out in columns on a page so you could read across from the Hebrew word to the Greek equivalent to the text of each of the versions side by side. Where they differed in content Origin made diacritical marks and noted the difference for the reader. The reason for the quotation marks about written is that Origin’s hand may not have written the book, as copyist or scribes would have and he really isn’t writing a book as much as laying it out to be seen and read. He did write comments, and critical comments of origins of words and how they were used, but he is really not “writing” a book as much as presenting a book.

This last book was a good read and I have been trying to finish it while still reading on the ideas of Predestination and Free Will. It was a nice break to have some light reading to relax. I have one more I wanted to get done before Tuesday and my return to work, but that will have to wait until summer. Looks like I am back to the scholastic study of Predestination again and the lighter books will be put off for a few more weeks.

I had hoped to have pictures from vacation to post today, but Costco (at least the one I went to) was having difficulties with its processing machines and may not have my hour developed film ready until Tuesday! Oh well, I am sure we can all wait for that.

Brother Vincent F. Paletta, O.S.J.

2007-03-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

Brother Vince Paletta was buried today. He was a wonder filled man. When the world would get dark when I was in College, he could shine a light on the darkness and make it go away. He was a happy man, yet he had a most unhappy life. He suffered from many pains in life, both physical and emotional. He was a devoted son, who loved and cared for his mother until her death. He suffered effects from a car crash he had been in from the late 50’s. He developed a liquid brain tumor that went undiagnosed for many years until it solidified. During the time while the tumor was undetected, he suffer extreme headaches and lost peripheral vision. He would have outburts that scared many, and an anger that would rage. Many thought he was going insane. When the tumor was at last found and removed, he suffered still from extreme headaches on occasions and his vision never returned to normal. Yet in all the time I knew Vince, he never complained about his ailments. He would laugh and say he had the vision of a hawk! (To which I would reply a dead hawk.) He laughed at his disabilities and learned to live with them.

Vince would go for a walk everyday down the hill at Mt. St. Joseph, a walk that lasted for 45 minutes to an hour. Everyday upon his return he would talk about all he saw, he did and what the dog did when he was walking. The walk seemed like a journey to a foreign country, when in actuality it was Vince being Vince. He enjoyed the simple pleasures of life. He would watch which flowers were blooming, which branch of a tree was falling, what tree the dog “watered” claiming at the end of a bad drought that all the trees on the Mount were “saved by the Zookalator watering each one”. (The Zookalator was a mutt named Joey who followed Vince everywhere.)

Vince named all of us with nicknames. One of us was Corazon, because he was hispanic and all hispanic songs have the word corazon in them. I was called Heinrich because of my always reading about the NAZIs and World War II. There was Chuck, stick, ganzo,Stevaroo and Chester. He found one unique aspect of us all and would give us names that we used to call each other by. It was an honor to be “named” by Vince. You had arrived and been called once he had a name for you.

As I said in the beginning, Vince was buried today. His body was ravaged by age and cancer and was laid to rest. I looked at him lying in his casket with his eyes closed and giggled. When we would walk in and find Vince sleeping in his chair in his “office” he would declare loudly that he was wide awake, he was “looking for holes in his eyelids!”. I smiled as I walked away from his grave today and wondered to myself, what nickname he is giving to God today?

A new toy

2007-03-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

I have often heard the expression that men are just boys with newer bigger and more expensive toys. I guess that is true in my case. I just got a new scanner that will allow me to take my old slides from my previous trips to Europe and digitize them for computer viewing. I will also be able to burn them onto a CD and use them in my classroom. You would not believe how difficult it is to find a slide projector! In fact digital projectors cost less than slide projectors ever did cost! You can get a digital projector for about 150 USD and slid projectors of a good quality always started at about 250+ USD!

SO........ To share some of the slides I have converted. These pictures are from the Vatican Museum. The angles are an old fresco from a church that was destroyed. They saved the fragments that you see. Some seem distorted, but you must remember that they are on a curved surface, as they were on the inside of a dome. They are among my favorite frescos I have ever seen!