Getting Old

One of the more frustrating things about getting old is not being able to think of a name or word that you know you once knew.  For example, Sherry and I had breakfast this morning at Mimi's Cafe.  Mimi's tries very hard to be cool.  They demolished a perfectly good building on Dale Mabry Highway in order to build a new one in their corporate style.  They have New Orleans themed design with a lot of kitschy decor.  Pretty much the very model of a modern midscale restaurant chain.  I thought that I had read somewhere that they were owned by the same company that has a large chain of rather unpretentious restaurants that appeal primarily to the over 65 set.  But I couldn't think of the name.

This chain has restaurants all around our area.  We used to take my father to the one in Bradenton on Sunday mornings when we stayed overnight with him on weekends.  It's a name as common as Home Depot or Lowe's.  But I couldn't think of it.  I associated it somehow with Ohio, but that didn't help.  Farmland.  No help.  I knew the name of the restaurant was a man's name.  Ted Williams?  No, but something similar.  The name just wouldn't come.

I knew that I could drive directly to the restaurant in Bradenton where we used to take my father (assuming that it is still there.)  So the obvious solution was Google Maps.  Go to Bradenton in street view, drive to the restaurant, and look at the sign.

As soon as I sat down at the computer, I thought of the name:  Bob Evans.

I googled Bob Evans, and Wikipedia confirmed my recollection.  "The company he founded also owns Mimi's Cafe and Owens Country Sausage."  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Evans_(restaurateur)

Just curious, I decided to check Google Maps and see if I would have found the name that way.  I would have.  I went directly to the location in Bradenton where I remembered the restaurant being, and sure enough it is still there.

New York City

In order to have a full day to show Cian the sights of New York city, we made reservations there for two nights.  The plan was that Chris would drop the rest of us off at our hotel and continue to Connecticut in the car. He could get some work done and maybe visit with Shanna or Terry, and we could avoid the cost of parking in New York City.

Sherry and I had stayed previously at a Marriott Courtyard on 40th Street in midtown Manhattan and liked it.  So I went to the Marriott web site and made reservations for August 15 and 16.  Chris dropped us off at the hotel and continued to Connecticut.  But then the hotel clerk couldn't find our reservation.  Visions of a night on the street in midtown Manhattan start to dance through my head. Fortunately I had printed the reservation conformation.  Sherry showed them the printed confirmation. Turns out it was for a different Marriott Courtyard on 40th Street.  It had never occurred to me, when making the reservation, that there could be more than one Marriott Courtyard on 40th Street.  I just looked at the street name and made the reservation.

The hotel where we had a reservation was only eight blocks away, an easy walk even with luggage.  And this Marriott Courtyard turned out to be more or less interchangeable with the other one.  Sigh of relief!

I had asked for a "high" floor when making the reservation.  They gave us a room on the 29th floor, with this fantastic view:

Thursday morning, our major objective was the Empire State Building.  But the observation deck doesn't open for visitors until 10:00 AM.  So we took some time to walk around the area.  Our hotel was just east of 5th Avenue on 40th Street.  The New York Public Library is on 5th Avenue right around the corner.  The Library lions are one of my favorite New York City landmarks.

On up 5th Avenue for a quick look at Central Park, then back down 5th Avenue to 34th Street and the Empire State Building.

As I was taking this picture, someone on the sidewalk beside me asked me "Is that the Empire State Building?"  I felt like a real expert to be able to answer confidently, "Yes."

It took us about an hour to get to the 86th floor observation deck.  But the view is well worth the wait. Here are Cian and his dad on the north side of the observation deck.

View to the north.  The green patch near the center of the photo is Central Park.

Next objective: the Staten Island Ferry.  Far and away the best deal in New York City, at a cost of zero.  We took the subway from midtown to downtown and came up at Battery Park, a short walk from the ferry terminal.

A ferry leaves every half hour during the day (more often during rush hour), and a lot of people ride it. The crowd at the gate is not as oppressive as it looks.

We rode on the Spirit of America, which holds 4,427 passengers.  Despite the crowd at the gate, the boat was not at all crowded.  We were able to stand at the railing and get a good view of the downtown Manhattan as the boat left for Staten Island.

The ferry sails past the Statue of Liberty, affording a good view to any passengers who are interested.

The trip to Staten Island takes about 25 minutes.  He we are at the Staten Island port, looking toward the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

BTW, this bridge does not cross the Verrazano Narrows.  In fact, there is no such place as the Verrazano Narrows.  The body of water, between New York's Upper Bay and Lower Bay,  is known as simple "The Narrows".  When the bridge was being built there was a controversy over whether to call it the Narrows Bridge, or the Verrazano Bridge, in honor of Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano, who was the first European to sail into the bay.  They settled the controversy by naming it the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.


Docks at Staten Island.

I was drawn by the visual rhythm in this scene.

We took the next ferry back to Manhattan, and started toward our next objective, the World Trade Center.  We happened to pass the famous Wall Street Bull.  Unfortunately so surrounded by tourists that I couldn't get a good picture of it.

One World Trade Center, the building previously called Freedom Tower, under construction.  Although unfinished, it is now the tallest building in New York City.

Nice dinner at Church & Drey, in the Millenium Hotel beside the World Trade Center site.  Followed by a subway ride back to midtown.

Friday morning we walked a few blocks to Grand Central Terminal and boarded a train to Connecticut.

Cian Goes to Washington

Daughter, Terry, summoned the family to spend the week of her birthday together in a cabin on Little Sebago Lake in southern Maine.   On Monday, August 13, all of the Florida Turners piled into a rented minivan and headed north.

Why drive for such a long trip?  Well, for five of us, that's Sherry and myself, our sons Chris and Michael, and grandson Cian,  it was probably less expensive than flying. Not to mention that flying has become such a hassle. But mainly I wanted Cian, age nine, to see Washington and New York City.

Going away for two weeks in late August raises the possibility of a hurricane.  Even though there was none in the offing, we decided to be cautious and make preparations in case one struck before we got back.  We brought the patio furniture inside, along with tools, trash cans, and everything else that might blow around.

Even in normal summer thunderstorms water had come in under the French doors from the patio.  Not a big problem when we are here to mop it up, but a worry when were going to be away for two weeks.  So we went to Lowe's and bought sandbags, which we piled in front of the doors and beside the patio.

Fortunately there was no hurricane while we were away.  Tropical Storm Isaac passed by Tampa the day after we got back, and didn't amount to much here.  The back yard lake in these photos, by our next door neighbor, Cait, is from a normal summer thunderstorm.  It appears that the patio was under water earlier, but the sandbags did their job.  There was no evidence of water inside the house.

We arrived in Washington, DC, in the afternoon of Tuesday, August 12, and checked in to the Marriott Courtyard at 1600 Rhode Island Avenue NW, just a few blocks from the White House and the National Mall.  Chris had work to do, but the rest of us walked around the area. Here is Cian in front of the White House.   (We didn't take the tour.)

A nice dinner on the sidewalk at ICI Urban Bistro.

On to the mall after dinner.  It was after 10:00 PM by the time we reached Lincoln Memorial.

It was inspiring to read the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, two of the most eloquent statements in the English language, cast in stone inside the monument.

The next morning we walked across the mall to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, passing the Washington Monument.

There is an overwhelming array of exhibits in the museum.  The coolest in my opinion is the Gossamer Condor, the first aircraft to achieve sustained, maneuverable human-powered flight.

There is so much to see in Washington.  We could have easily spent a week there, but we had allowed ourselves only one day.  By noon we were under way to New York City.

Coffee Research

I love my Senseo single cup coffee maker.  For one or two cups, it is more convenient than making a pot of coffee, and the coffee tastes better.

This machine uses coffee "pods", similar to tea bags.  At about 35 cents each, they are a bit pricey but a lot cheaper than the popular Keurig K-cups.  

It seemed to me that I should be able to construct my own pods using ground coffee and coffee filter paper.  My attempts to do this were spectacularly unsuccessful.  It appears that this machine is more complicated than it looks. Rather than just dripping hot water through the coffee like a Mr. Coffee machine, it forces the water through the coffee under high pressure. With a less than perfect pod, this can lead to serious unintended consequences.

My next thought was to buy a refillable pod.  An Internet search came up with a product called a Coffee Duck.  This is a device that replaces the pod holder in the Senseo machine.  But rather than holding a pod, it needs to be filled with ground coffee.  I bought one from Amazon.

The Coffee Duck worked fairly well,  confining most of the coffee to the machine and the cup.  But I was not too happy with the taste of coffee made from grocery store ground coffee.  It was not as good as what I used to get from the pods, and certainly not as good as Starbucks. 

I bought a pound of beans from Starbucks and a burr grinder from Target, and experimented with grinding my own coffee for the Coffee Duck.  After some trial and error with the degree of fineness, I got reasonably good results, at least as good as coffee from the pods.

That raised the question of how the cost of  Starbucks beans compares to the cost of pods.  So I kept a record of how many cups we got from the first bag of beans.  (Note:  This is research, not OCD.)

We bought the first bag of Starbucks beans for $11.95 on May 4, exactly one month ago, and got 69 cups of coffee from it.  That comes to about 17 cents per cup, or about half the cost of pods.

Conclusion:  Go with the Starbucks beans.

.

Apropos Dogs

Tampa Bay Dragon Boat Races

Our 1989-1990 foreign exchange student, Christiane Schoeller, is visiting from Germany along with her mother, Margret, and her four year old daughter, Isabella. Yesterday we all went downtown to see the dragon boat races.  Michael's friend Dahlia was the drummer for one of the boats.

I had no idea what a big deal this was going to be.  It was nice to see hoards of people in downtown Tampa on a weekend.  The races took place in Garrison Channel between the two bridges connecting Harbour Island to Channelside.

Tampa's Riverwalk passes through here.  There is a great aerial view at 00:20 in the video on the Riverwalk web site:

Christiane, on the Riverwalk just past the Convention Center.  Michael is standing by the fence behind her.  Margret and Isabella are sitting.

Sherry,  Margret,  Christiane, and Isabella, on the Riverwalk.

A dragon boat race!  We are looking across the channel from the Marriott.  Harbour Island condos in the background.

There was a lot going on besides the races.  Here is a karate demonstration.

 Spectators at the karate demonstration.

Dragon boat crews:

 Pink Dragon Ladies

Canadian Red Heat

 Team Blue

 I had to cover my eyes here.

Invasive Species

More photos in a local News Story.  But it's "Garrison Channel", not "Harrison Channel" as cited in the caption under the video.  (Makes you wonder about our local newspaper.)

Lettuce Lake Park

Our 1989-1990 foreign exchange student, Christiane Schoeller, is visiting from Germany along with her mother, Margret,  and her four year old daughter, Isabella. On Thursday of last week I took the three of them to Tampa's  Lettuce Lake Park for a small taste of the real Florida.

The Hillsborough River runs through Lettuce Lake Park, and widens slightly to form Lettuce Lake.

We rented a canoe and paddled around the area shown in the map above.

Cypress tree beside the river at the canoe launch area.

Isabella with her grandmother at the launch area.

A friendly park ranger helped us launch the canoe.

"Tini" in the canoe. Margret is in front of her.

Isabella

The observation tower, seen here, is reachable on foot by a boardwalk.

We saw a lot of wildlife on the river.

After an hour or so of canoeing, we walked the boardwalk.

"Tini" on the boardwalk

Isabella

At the base of the observation tower.

An interesting story about a rare case of an invasive species benefiting a native species.

Note the apple-size snail shell at the center of this picture.  The ground below the boardwalk is littered with shells like this.

At the top level of the observation tower.

Another visitor snapped this picture of the three of us.