Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace

Unless you are living next to this house....

Eau Claire Gothic

I made it to Eau Claire this weekend for a bit and got to relive some old memories and create some new, great memories. I saw this off of Water Street and was struck by the view.

More north

It was a different day today, with low hanging clouds and a dark and at times a dramatic sky. The lake reflected the sky's mood, though when the sun popped out for a few moments, it made a floating patch of ice almost glow. There are Tetzloff Christmas trees from Birch Tree Farms, too.

Up North...

Just a few photos from "up north." While the weather was less than ideal last night, today it was stellar, and perfect for a walk along the Amicon River. The dark sky was from a squall that was heading inland from the lake.

Identity

The other day a funny thing happened to me. I was leaving my office suite for a meeting and was, as usual, a moment or two late. As I was steaming down the hallway towards the meeting, I heard someone behind me bellow, "Dean! Dean! Dean!" After about the fifth time, I realized that the person wasn't looking to stop someone named Dean but rather was trying to call the Dean. In this case, the dean was not Dean but the dean was me.

I laughed out loud while waiting for the student, who just wanted the dean's signature on a form. But in the the past few days it has made me think of identity and name calling. My name is Jason, and seldom do I ever mention an honorific or earned title like dean or doctor or professor or even "mister." So it did surprise me to hear me called like a cow for dinner as "dean."

It did me think about titles and identity. Do I need to be called dean to be a dean, or professor instead of Jason to be a professor? I am not sure. Titles do define the relationship though I do feel that is for the better and for the worse. Maybe lines do need to be tightly drawn, and you do need to be the dean or doctor or pastor or mister or Ms or whatever just so that relationship is clear, defined, and that it becomes harder to cross that line. Maybe I would be more sure of myself or more certain of my role and of boundaries if if I kept that title in front of my name and in front of relationships, however defined.

I have rationalized my stance, correctly or not, in this way. If I need to wear a suit or for that matter, use a title to have people recognize that I am the dean and that I need and deserve the respect and those lines of deference or distance, than I might be in trouble already. It seems a ready escape to say, not unlike many of our parents, it is so/do this because I am the Mom/Dad/teacher/dean.

So I answer my phone with "this is Jason," and while I might list my title on my email tag, I think that I remain "Jason" for the most part. I will continue to be a bit surprised when people chase me down the hall trying to get "Dean" to stop. And I think that this is largely a good thing.

morning sky

I know that these photos are late and out of sequence but it was a magnificent morning sky a few weeks ago. These were taken with a $100 Nikon point and shoot, which just further confirms how great the sky was on that morning.

Leica photos

In 1977, I was in New York City for a UN study trip with my church. I was way too young to appreciate all that the city had to offer, but I was a big enough photo geek to appreciate that at that time, the city probably had more camera stores than any other city in the world. When I was there, I tried to go to as many as possible with the goal of buying a Leica. That I didn't know how to use one and did not have any real idea of all there was to the Leica line didn't stop me on this quest.

I kind of think its like your first car, and how you remember all the details, and the memory of that camera has stayed with me. It was a Leica IIIa with a serial number of about 175,000, and it came with an Elmar 50 mm lens. It was $225, which was a problem since I only had $200 to spend. After I came back the third or fourth time to moon or pine over the camera, the guy said OK, I'll sell it for $200--I think mostly to keep me from coming back and bugging him.

In the years since then, I guess I have owned 50 different Leicas, but they come and go, you know. I have looked for a Leica similar to that first one, but never found one that had the right serial number or they were too much money for a camera that would mostly sit on a shelf. Then, one showed up for pretty much the same amount that I paid 30+ years ago and I snapped it up.

How fun, and on a recent snowy morning, I took it out for a test drive and shot my first roll of 35mm film in years. These photos are not high art by any means, but it is pretty cool to even get photos from a 75 year old camera and lens. The process involved to actually focus a camera, correctly set the shutter speed and lens opening, and hold it still enough to get a sharp photo was fun. Who needs that auto exposure, auto focus, image stabilization stuff? If nothing else, it confirms that all these years later, I am still basically a camera geek.

More fall

I was in "resort country" this past week for a conference, and was able to find a few photos.  The walleye is just, well, it's just Minnesota.  Or Wisconsin, I guess, though there you would find a muskie.  

The leaves are the remnants of fall.  After a week of rain and 50-60 mile an hour winds, leaves still on the trees are scarce.  I avoided taking pictures of some of the snow we experienced, but it was a warning that snow is coming soon enough.

Fall

You know, one of the things that I worried about while I was gone was that I would miss all the fall colors--it really is my favorite time of the year, and one of the things that made me glad to be back in the Midwest.  The PNW has color, but it doesn't have the knife edge of the seasons, the sometimes rapid progression from green to gold to gone.

So I was pleased to see a few bright colors hanging on well into October.  I suppose the lack of rain for the past three weeks has contributed to the longevity of some of the color, but no matter why, fall colors always make the day a bit brighter.

The end of the trip

The trip is winding down, and I will be heading home, I hope, tomorrow. I say "I hope" because Delta isn't making the return trip easy on me. Two flight changes so far, and they have a few more hours to play around with me. The problem is that they have shrunk the number of flights so much that if one is canceled, it is no longer the case that you can hop on one a few hours later. But I am sure that I will get there sometime, though later than I had hoped.

It has been a good trip, though a bit overlong. Not too much, but by just a few days. That was a judgement call on my part--I have been saying that I have never taken a two week vacation, but I just recalled that I was in England for three weeks in 1998, so I guess I have done this before. Still, I told someone today that the relaxation of the trip is fading as I realize and remember all that I need to do once I get back. I guess vacations are always like that.

Italy has been surprising. It is very accessible as a country, even without any Italian. Actually, Latin and Spanish blunted my illiteracy a bit, and I find I can read signs and menus enough to know that I am not ordering the tripe or going in a woman's bathroom. No small feat, that, and worth celebrating a bit. Yep, two of my triumphs of two weeks in Italy were that I didn't eat cow stomach or head into the woman's loo. I am sure that they are going to do a travel story on me--the semi-incompetent American.

The big surprise is that if you are careful, Italy is very affordable. Public transportation is cheap, and I am staying in an above average place for about $65, no $66, no $67, no $68 American Pesos a night. I joke because the dollar has lost 17 cents (and counting) to the Euro since I booked my room three weeks ago. I offered to pay my tab in dollars, and my inn keeper basically laughed. But still. A Diet Coke is $1.38, a pretty good chocolate bar is about the same, and if you are willing to eat on the street and from the market, you can easily eat all day on 20 Euro a day, and eat very very well. Today, for example, I had a chocolate croissant and an Americano with milk for breakfast, and then bought some yogurt from the market for something healthy. I had bite of chocolate and part of a soda for lunch on the run, and then went to a deli at a nearby market and bought some Tuscan prosciutto, some lasagna, and a corn, onion, and cheese thingy, and splurged on a bottle, not a box of wine. Total for the day for food was a little over 16 Euro. If I would have "settled" for a great, ham, cheese, sun dried tomato and balsamic vinegar panini and a bottle of beer or Coke, I could have made it in just over 10 Euro, and felt that I ate very well today.

That leads me to my student consumer price index for bread, cheese, meat and beer/wine. Two people could eat all they wanted and pretty much drink all they wanted from a market for about 8 Euro, and eat a very good meal, with above average ingredients and probably even get a bit of buzz going if they drank all the wine. I know that you can't have a picnic in the US for that, not unless it was with Wonder Bread and PB&J. It was fun figuring out and comparing the prices, for they didn't make a lot of sense. Olive oil is more expensive here than in the US--go figure out that one! Milk is more expensive but you can get a 1.5 liter bottle of water for about 35 cents. Orange juice is always much less expensive than soda, but pasta is more expensive than in the US. Up is down, war is peace, etc.

The real test of whether I would come back here is not whether or not olive oil is expensive or whether I can find cheap Soppressata. I found that for the most part Italy was and Italians were warm and friendly--much more so than France and the French. Not much of a surprise there, I suppose, but I like it here. There is a tendency to become overwhelmed by the sheer amount and number of masterpieces and churches and ruins and towers and views. I think that would be mitigated if I was traveling with people and you could say, "Yes, I saw this and that and such, now let's go eat and drink wine." There might be more of a balance--when you travel by yourself, it is easy to forget that and go from one church to another to the museum to the scenic view to the...

I explored Florence, but I only touched Tuscany. While public transportation got me into the countryside a little, I do think that to really explore (and to find that villa to buy) you probably need to have a car. That has it's own set of challenges such as parking and the anarchy and chaos of Italian roads and drivers. If you could rent outside of the city, and could avoid all that, I suppose you could manage, and it would be worth it to be able to get lost in the countryside. I know I mostly saw the tourist side of things, though I did wander pretty far afield in the city.

But it was a good trip. I pushed myself a bit by trying a new country/place instead England for the umpteenth time or Prague for the eighth time or whatever. I saw many things that I have taught about and art that I have only imagined or seen in books. In some ways it is almost cultural literacy 101. Yes, I taught Western Civ, but to see where Savranola burned those books or to see the REAL David, you don't really feel the impact or the weight or the realness of all that history. That part was fun--I should done this when I was teaching Western Civ--I think I could have made it more real for those students who were no doubt bored to tears in that class.

My last pictures are a hodgepodge. I was in Fiesole, the Florence suburb that commands the highest ground in the area. It is a vertical town with stunning views of the area. No less so is the simple "chapel" of the Church of San Francesco. It did seem more "holy" to me than the elaborately carved and shining alters of the basilica and the Duomos. And lastly, a sunset, by request. I will probably have a wrap up post once I edit the 1500+ photos that I took but that will happen when I get home. Until then, this is it from Italy.

Hmmmm...

I am not really sure why I am doing this. Aside from my normal insecurities that no one really reads this or cares, my inn keeper really put all this in perspective. He has noticed that I always come and go with cameras and had asked what I was trying to accomplish while I was here. I had mentioned this blog, but tonight, he pointed out the obvious. "You don't have to be a good photographer at all, " he pointed out. "It is so beautiful here that any one could get a good picture." How true. You are just viewing the work of an overeducated monkey with a camera. Enjoy!

I was up early today, and tried the train AND the bus system. And succeeded at both, though with different results. I went to Pisa this morning, a city that has little to offer other than a builder's mistake. For the first time, I felt like that monkey mentioned above, or certainly a tourist. I refuse to even post a photo. The train thing went well once I figured out that while you buy a ticket in one place, it doesn't mean that the train that you need is actually in the station where you bought the ticket. Ooops. It convinces me that the US needs more light rail.

The second trip of the the day was to San Gimignano, a true gem of a walled medieval city with commanding views of Tuscany. The city one once had 73 tours, but only about dozen remain. It is walkable, laid back and charming. Each turn brought another picture worthy view and this trained monkey had an easy time finding a few photos.

Lost

Today was a lost day. I was lost, and never really accomplished anything. It was even a slow day for photos. I suppose that I was up for such a day, but it just wasn't a fantastic day in Florence.

I did walk and get time to reflect on a few things. For example, I did think about photos. Florence is, of course, a veritable Kodak moment, or I guess, a Nikon or Canon moment, or a SanDisk moment. I guess I found one camera store that even sold film, but it is a digital world, and I noticed a few things. I can't believe how many people are trusting their phone to "remember" all that they saw in Florence. Really. People who have traveled from Japan and Australia and the US are simply pointing their I-phones and Droids at sights that they probably will never see again. Hmmm--not so sure I would trust my phone for that. But then again, I saw one guy taking photos with his Canon 5D, an exceptional camera worth about $3,500 while holding a gelato the size of his head. Who knows who photos will be better, the gelato head or the careful phone photographer.

I usually address fashion on one of my foreign correspondence moments. Italy, after all, is supposed to be one of the fashion capitals of the world. And it is pretty fashionable. Here is what you need to do--imagine me. Then imagine the total opposite, and you have an idea of Italian male fashion. Lots of black or tight white shirts whether they should or not, and dark jeans. The tight part of that is what is hard--I can't imagine wearing clothes as tight as they do here. But I have it easy, as compared to women. Hear the trend here first! Short, and I mean short skirts or shorts with leggings. And tight. American women of most ages would have a difficult time imagining how tight or how short. I am guessing that this won't hit St. Cloud anytime soon, if for no other reason than people would freeze to death. Actually, the more conservative dress for women is pretty classy. A white shirt, pressed and tailored, with dark slacks. Or a skirt and boots--I have seen lots and lots of boots, some for sale and many on feet. Hard to tell on the heels--this is tough terrain for high heels.

I have been starting to gather "prizes" for the home, though I am pretty careful on the shopping. I suspect that most prizes will be edible, which might not be so bad. I had to buy myself a prize today. I had bought a 10 euro smaller bag so I didn't have to carry my big camera bag, and I got what I paid for. The bag strap/buckle broke and just came apart today, tripping its owner. It wasn't like I was carrying cobblestones but the strap broke and and as it fell, I got tangled up in the strap. There were only about 300 people nearby witnessing my grace. I fell, which is a trick with a few cameras hanging from you. No visible damage to the cameras or me, though I am sore. So, I bought a new camera bag that I had been eying. Can't have too many bags.

Actually, if I could bring back prizes, I would bring back food. I love the grocery stores, and everything from pasta to chocolate to cake mixes looks like fun--I want to bring it all back. I mentioned cake mixes because I picked one up and tried to read the directions. I am kind of familiar with making a cake, but I had no clue. I think that it would be fun just to buy a few mixes of different sorts and try and make them once I was home. I wonder if I can bring them back...

I am winding down for the night. I ate from the market tonight, and had my new favorite salami, salami Tuscan, an aged cheese of some unpronounceable sort, bread (yum!) olive oil, and my new favorite condiment, balsamic vinegar. It is very different here, especially the aged balsamics and the older bottles are pricey! Say, if it is 50 years old, it costs about $150.00 for about two ounces. But even the four year stuff is pretty good, and much better than I have ever had before. On cheese, on bread, on the salty salami, or, if you are really good and don't mind a bit of a mess, all three at once with a bit of olive oil.

Tomorrow I hope to less lost, but I guess there are worse things...maybe the next movie will be "LOST under the Tuscan Sun."

Just a few photos today, and most should be self explanatory. A different shot of David, and one of his neighboring statue. Didn't they think of telephoto lenses? A great little fruit market and another cool bike.