Month of the Turkeys

But wait, you say, Thanksgiving is in November, not October. Yes, but we're talking about WILD turkeys. And not the kind from a bottle, either.

We first saw them on September 30. 8 wild turkeys, wandering through our fields looking for food. We saw them off and on for the next 3.5 weeks, then they disappeared. I guess they just moved on to greener pastures.


Wild turkeys, walking single-file down our driveway. We saw 8 total - and there was clearly a leader, though we couldn't tell if it was a tom.




The neighbors cat, Anna, deciding if she could take one down. In the end, she decided against it. I think that was a wise choice.

We hope they come back and visit us again next year!

- Mike (& Corinne)

Bad Movie Night

Bad Movie (n): A movie that is bad. This isn't bad in the sense of a Hollywood cookie-cutter script with beautiful people speaking trite lines; what we're talking about here is a movie that is truly bad. A bad movie can have high production values or be done on a shoe-string; it can have big name actors or no acting at all. Sometimes the movie knows that it is going to be bad, while other times it is trying to be good (but failing). A bad movie is a movie you watch and think: "I can't believe they made this."

Bad Movie Night (n): On the second Friday of every month, a group convenes to enjoy a meal and watch an aforementioned "Bad Movie". One of the attendees is chosen as the "sponsor", and this person is responsible for bringing a bad movie that they love. The movie can't be just a movie that they think is bad; it has to be a movie that they really enjoy, and that the majority of the planet thinks is bad.

Bad is a subjective thing; and a bad movie can definitely be enjoyed as such when viewed from the right frame of mind. If you think that a movie is going to be bad before watching it, you are rarely disappointed.

Some of the selections so far:

Some Like It Hot

Godzilla 2000

Condorman

Shaolin Soccer

Zorro, the Gay Blade

Short Circuit 2

(This Is) Spinal Tap

They Call Me Trinity

The Princess Bride

N.B. There is currently some debate over what the rules should be regarding "cult" films, as several of the above (Tap, Bride) could definitely fall into that category. The difference between a "bad" movie and a "cult" movie is hard to quantify. One suggestion has been that "a cult movie is a bad movie that a majority of people (or close to it) now enjoy." However, even given such a definition there is no rule in place to prohibit cult films from the experience.

It's great fun, and a good excuse to get together with friends on a regular basis.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Bushdorfs in Seattle

Corinne's Aunt Patsy and Uncle Jim were in Seattle (from Columbus, OH) for a brief trip, so we decided to take the train up to spend a day with them. We don't get to see them very often!


Patsy, Andrea, Shane and Jim enjoying breakfast with us in West Seattle.


We found a 'dahlia show' listed in the local paper, so we decided to check it out.


Andrea, Corinne and Patsy in the dahlia fields.


I had some fun taking closeup shots of the flowers. Here's one of several butterflies we encountered.


We encountered a plethora of bees in the fields as well, as you can imagine.


Corinne seems to be pretty excited about this particular flower...


After a brief trip to the Glass Museum in Tacoma, Jim gives Leif a hand down the steps.


Sisters, enjoying each others company at dinner.

A fun weekend!

- Mike (& Corinne)

Yakima Valley Wine Trip

Historically, we haven't been "wine people." But now that we're living in the midst of wine country, it's hard to resist: the winery across the street; the monthly Husum wine social; the numerous local vineyards, vintners and appelations. So we've finally given in. :)

A group of about 10 Insitu folks made a trip east to the Benton City / Prosser area for a whirlwind tasting tour of some of the East Yakina valley wineries. Kestral, Kiona, Seth Ryan, Hedges - in all, I think we stopped at ~8-9 wineries, sampling a wide variety at each. We even stopped in to a brewery in Prosser which is operated by an old coworker of my mom.

We still tend to gravitate toward the milder or sweeter wines (Reislings and such), but I find I'm discovering an affinity for Merlots. By the end of the trip, my palate was so tired that I couldn't tell a merlot from a grape nehi, but it was quite a lot of fun.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Fred in West Seattle

Our friend Fred Diprizito is moving back to the East Coast, so we wanted to spend one more weekend with him before he left. (Plus it gave us a good opportunity to get a tour of the company he worked for.) He's heading back to his family, fiance, and old job, and we wish him the best.





- Mike (& Corinne)

Guys Weekend

In mid-August, Loren decided to take a trip from Tulsa to Seattle to spend some time with family. At the last minute, Loren and Reidar unexpectedly decided to drive down to visit us. ("Hey Mike, we're hopping in the truck now to head your way - can we stay at your place?") Unfortunately for Corinne, she was in San Francisco for an AIAA conference, so it ended up being a "guys only" weekend - me, Leif, Loren, Reidar. Joined by Jeremie and Casey, friends of Leif & Loren who just happened to be in town at the same time, we spent a beautiful, hot summer weekend playing ultimate frisbee, doing some trestle jumping into the Hood River, and relaxing at Leif's BBQ. A good time.


Loren doing his best Greg Louganis impression. Keep trying, Loren.


The weekend crew (minus Reidar, the photographer)

Corinne had her own great time in San Francisco, getting plenty of family time with Doris, George, Shani and George's family in between her AIAA commitments.

- Mike (& Corinne)

A Week on the Gulf Coast

Since summer in the Gorge is so perfect, we thought we'd take a week of it and go someplace else. ;)

Every year, we have planned some sort of get together with a group of friends from our MIT days. And now that the entire group isn't as concentrated in the Northeast as we once were, we've starting planning a trip together. This year's just happened to end up on the gulf coast of Florida, in August. (Yes, we're crazy.)

The house was right on the beach in Destin, FL, and as it turned out, the weather the week we were there was much less oppressive that we had feared. And for a week (or part thereof), the 12 of us just did whatever we felt like: rented jet skis, walked on the beach, played lots of games, golfed, bowled, cooked, or just talked and relaxed in each others company. A perfect vacation.


Jet skis in the bay.


View of the beach at sunset.


Malinda and Jean, preparing a gourmet meal. Each day for the week, a different couple was responsible for breakfast and dinner. That way, you only had to 'work' on one day, and on the other days, food was just prepared for you. Worked great, and the food was wonderful!


Corinne, pool shark. There was a pool room in the house. Can't get much better than that.


Corinne and Judy, relaxing on the screen porch, now just a porch. Hurricane Dennis arrived several weeks before us, knocking out all of the screens and destroying the walkway to the beach.


Remnants of the walkway from the house to the beach. (Thank you very much Hurricane Dennis.) As a result, we had to walk a block down the street for beach access.


Brian, Judy and Corinne (and me taking the picture), wading in the surf. Brian got some saltwater in his eye, so he decided to cry. We had to watchout for jellyfish in the water. Several of us were stung, but Brian got stung on his back the worst.


Golf lessons from Brian at the driving range.


Becky & Gordon, enjoying the fruit of their dinner labors.



Looking forward to the next trip together!

- Mike (& Corinne)

Summer Fun! Parties, Poker, and Ultimate frisbee

Everyone in the Gorge says basically the same thing: There's no place they'd rather be in the summer than here. The summer weather is predictable and perfect for Jul/Aug/Sep: 80s, not too dry, and not a cloud in the sky. So anyone who is planning a party or event just picks a weekend day, knowing that there will inevitably be another event scheduled for the same day. There are only so many weekends, after all.

And that's just the weekends. On Wednesdays (or sometimes Thursdays), we play ultimate frisbee, often followed by a BBQ at brother Leif's. Many Thursdays, it's poker with Mark, Andrew, and a host of others. There seemed to be a get together of some sort several times a week. If only we didn't have to go to work...

- Mike (& Corinne)

Woodinville & Pickles

Well, now that summer's almost over, I can finally begin to catch up here...

When we last heard from our intrepid ruralites, they were enjoying beautiful weather and lots of company in the Gorge. At the end of June, Corinne spent a weekend with Malinda at Willows Lodge in Woodinville, WA. Several times a year the lodge hosts a "Girlfriends' Weekend" full of wine, food, tours and lectures. Several of the wine-makers were on hand to showcase their wines, most of which come from the Yakima Valley, about 2 hours north east of the gorge.


Corinne & Malinda at Willows Lodge in Woodinville


The following weekend, Donna came down to visit us to celebrate the 4th. What else could we do but make pickles?

For years Corinne has talked of the "watermelon rind pickles" from her youth, a sweet, sometimes cinnamon-y concoction that I had never even heard of, let alone actually tried. Hermiston, Oregon, about 200 miles east of us, has the hot dry summers that make it prime watermelon country. So after some keen Internet scouring by Donna, she uncovered what she thought was a reasonable facsimile of the famed recipe. And to balance out the sweetness of the rind pickes, we also chose a spicy dilled green bean recipe, to take advantage of another in-season vegetable. (We were a few weeks early for the traditional "pickling cucumbers".)


Spicy dilled green beans in-progress. The beans took only a few hours, at most, to complete; the watermelon, on the other hand, was a multiple day affair.


The Picklemakers and the finished beans.


Unfortunately, it would be many weeks before we could validate our efforts; such is the conundrum of pickling. But while we couldn't partake of our newly-created delicacies, we did enjoy a lovely evening sitting along the Columbia River watching the fireworks (from a distance) over Hood River.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Sheila, Chris, and the Rodeo

In the middle of June, our friends Sheila and Chris came to visit us from San Francisco. As luck would have it, it happened to be the weekend of the Ketchum Kalf Rodeo in Glenwood.


Here we are at the rodeo in Glenwood, about 30 miles north of our house. (Chris missed the rodeo, as he didn't arrive until that evening.)


This was a "real" rodeo, complete with calf roping, bronco riding and bull riding, as well as the more commonly seen barrel racing. We even saw a cowboy from Sheila's hometown of Coupeville, WA, 300 miles away!


Glenwood is a small town of only a few hundred people, but it is beautiful country, full of farms and ranches. Here you can see Mt Adams beyond the rodeo grounds.


Since I didn't get any shots of Chris while he was here, I figured I'd toss in this one of the two of them, from their wedding last August. (We had a great time there, too!)

It was a short, yet relaxing and enjoyable visit. Come back again (and stay longer!)

- Mike (& Corinne)

Spelunking with Fred

In early June, Fred DiPrizito came down to visit from Seattle. He moved from Boston shortly before we did, but this was the first time our schedules coincided.


To start, we did a "waterfall tour," from which there are many to choose in the Gorge. We chose Horsetail Falls (above), and Multnomah Falls.


That evening, we took Fred on the ever-popular hike on Condit Dam.


The following day, Leif joined us for a trip to the Guler Ice Caves. There are caves just north of us where it stays cold all year round, and winter causes interesting ice formations. April/May is apparently the best time to visit, with the most formations, but it was still fun in June.


One of the ice formations, with back-lighting via a flashlight. The caves are not only cold, but dark. Very dark. So we came pretty well equiped with warm clothes, gloves, and plenty of headlamps and flashlights.


Portrait of the wanna-be spelunkers.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Do they eat sausage in Denver?

For Memorial Day weekend, Corinne took a trip to Denver to visit her aunt, uncle, cousins, but primarily her grandmother, who was recovering from a stroke. Her mom was also there, visiting from Seattle.


The Denver branch of the Massman clan.

While Corinne was in Denver visiting family, I stayed home to finally make sausage! As it turned out, I should have made twice as much as I did; the 4 pounds of Italian sausage I did make was gone within the week, including half that very same night at a BBQ at Andrew and Amy's, friends of ours from work.


Boy, doesn't that look appetizing? In case you were wondering, I bought the sausage casings from Whole Foods in Portland; I ground the meat (beef+pork) myself using the meat grinder attachment for our KitchenAid mixer; this particular sausage spice mix came from Penzey's; then stuffed the sausage using the sausage stuffer attachment.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Becky & Gordon's wedding

On our long trip East to Amsterdam, we went by way of our old homestead, Boston. And coincidentally, it happened to be the weekend of Becky's bridal shower! So Corinne spent the weekend partying with Becky (while I spent the weekend visiting Stef and Serg and their new baby, Diego! Photo to come later.)

Here's the motley crew that was up all hours of the day and night.


...and 3 weeks later, it was time for the wedding! Here are the lovely bride and her matron of honor, "relaxing" before the ceremony. Lots more photos from both the shower weekend and the wedding can be found in the "MasterWong" albums on Flickr.com.


Bride, groom, and matron of honor

- Mike (& Corinne)

Hike on Mitchell Point

In between the various May trips (Boston, Amsterdam, Boston, Boston), we did manage to sneak in one weekend where we were both home. To take advantage of the opportunity, we went for a short hike on Mitchell Point, a hiking trail just west of Hood River which follows part of the old Columbia River Historic Highway. It was a nice spring day, and the viewpoint gives both eastward and westward facing views of the gorge. We didn't hike for more than about an hour and a half, and given that we didn't get started until 3pm on Sunday, that was just fine.

On this hike, we learned several things:


Sometimes none of the photos you take turn out well (this was the best one)...


... and this is what poison oak looks like. In large quantities. It's all over the Gorge, but this trail was the worst so far. Thank goodness for Tecnu.

- Mike (& Corinne)

Boston (again), and Husum scenery

So things are getting a bit out of chronological order here, but I'll try to keep things straight.

We were in Boston on our way to Amsterdam, the last weekend in April; then we spent a week in Amsterdam. (See previous postings). The very next weekend after we returned to the states, Corinne was back in Boston again for Amory & Brian's wedding reception. (She didn't take any photos - so now I don't feel so bad about not taking any photos of Diego!)

While she was gone, I took some artsy photos of the scenery around our house.


The roadsides are full of poppies; they add such bright colors, you sometimes forget they grow wild.


Now I know what people are referring to when they talk about "western skies".


The windmill in front of our house. Apparently, it used to pump water; but there's nothing attached to it now.

- Mike (& Corinne)

We Are Not Dead

I have no excuse. (Actually, I have several excuses, but I'll spare you.) It's been 3 months since my last post, and quite a lot has happened in that time. And I need to go all the way back to January to catch up! As such, I'll keep the summaries short.

Donna and Vivian - early January

A week after returning from the holidays, we decided we needed to see family again. So we had a relaxing long weekend in Husum with 3 generations of Massman's. There was much knitting. And I learned how to tailor my own shirts!

Visitors from New Jersey - mid January

Drew, Michelle, Beverly and Jorge visited all the way from "Back East", staying for a week in early January. Unfortunately, the winter weather was pretty bad... at least for a group who were expecting to ski and snowboard all week! Snowfall was at a record low on Mt Hood (only 30" of snowpack). They did manage to get one good day in on the mountain, and had lots of fun exploring the area. Come back soon!

Malinda and Jean - late January

Due to Microsoft overworking their employees, Malinda and Jean were only able to stay for about 24 hours before they had to head back to Redmond. But at least a 24 hour trip is possible now that we're only 4 hours away!

Sometime in January, we managed to go to work, too. But unfortunately, due to weather and scheduling, we weren't able to use any of our new snowboarding gear.


- Mike (& Corinne)