Snowy Chateau Guentzel-LaRonde

Sorry for the unplanned hiatus from the blog. Must have been the winter blahs.

I will try to post more soon.

]]> http://www.guentzel.org/2010/03/06/and-now-its-march/feed/ 1 http://www.guentzel.org/2009/12/25/merry-christmas-from-guentzel-org/ http://www.guentzel.org/2009/12/25/merry-christmas-from-guentzel-org/#comments Sat, 26 Dec 2009 03:55:45 +0000 Mike http://www.guentzel.org/?p=779 To you and yours…Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.

This is a picture of my uncle Glen who passed away this Tuesday.  It was taken by a group of cook book authors from Sweden that were lost.  Glen helped them find their way and they thanked him by taking the picture and putting it in the book.  If you knew Glen, you would have said “Of course he helped them….”  The picture is a personal favorite of mine.

There were so many Sundays that our family would meet Glen and Peggy at my grandmother’s house in Coupland and catch up from the time we were apart.  Since he lived in Austin and we lived in Round Rock, he often would stop by Southside Market in Elgin and pick up sausage for lunch.  Rather than heat the house up by using the stove, he’d set the whole butcher paper wrap on the engine block of his car to keep them warm.  In later years (for the cemetery cleanings), he’d dutifully stop by Southside to provide us all with tasty Bar B Que.  He would bring the requisite saltines and hot sauce too.  At last night’s family visitation, I almost wanted to slip a bottle of hot sauce in with him.

My uncle was among the most pleasant, helpful persons I’ve ever known (next to my own father).  He had a delightful Texas drawl that exuded friendship and kindness.  At his funeral today, another one of his nephews gave the eulogy and told of the same types of experiences that I knew so well.  He always was there to greet you when you arrived, he always waved goodbye to you when you left.  It was a touch of Texas hospitality that I feel is fading away.

If I recall correctly, my name would be Christopher instead of Mike if it weren’t for Glen giving my parents gentle guidance on what to name a 10 pound 3 ounce newborn.

Glen, we’ll all miss you terribly – We love you.  But I know if we ever meet again, you will be there to welcome us…and you’ll know where we can go for Bar B Que.

Yesterday was my birthday and thank you again to everyone who wished me well on Facebook. Before the internet, I’m not sure we could ever get that many people in one place to wish me a happy birthday.

I spent #42 at mom and dad’s. I didn’t want to make mom cook, so I insisted on ordering Chinese from one of my favorite places in Round Rock (Sichuan Garden). It was all good.

Now I’m gearing up for Kayla and Erik’s birthday and coast downhill into fall.

I have a print of the original (unaltered) picture in my home office.

It’s now my background picture at my Twitter page.

Book Release Party for The Day-Glo Brothers.
1pm to 2pm
BookPeople – 603 N. Lamar, Austin TX

I can’t wait to go see Chris Barton at BookPeople tomorrow.  Hopefully I’ll have some pictures to show for it.

And by “seriously” I mean I had to be helped from the field and couldn’t play (well) any longer. Apparently, I tore my hamstring on my left leg and walking became a challenge.  I decided not to take pictures of the nasty bruising…I would just want to post it here anyway.  Consider yourselves lucky.

I’m on the mend, but no softball until fall…which is a bummer for me.  I’m in the midst of physical therapy and get beat up a bit every Tuesday and Thursday, but it’s helping.

Kayla and I rented a couple of bikes an rode around the perimeter of Stanley Park (and you thought Lord Stanley only had a Cup).  We had a great time, but we’re beat.

We head home tomorrow.  We had a great time in Vancouver.

The Whistler area will be one of the main venues for the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics.  From what I read on the web, it’s a beautiful, tree covered mountain that is charming in every way.  I would say it lives up to that too.  The only thing that we found when we were driving up is the road construction was crazy (and this is a Central Texas resident talking/typing).  Because of the aforementioned Olympic event, the roads had to be expanded.  This made the (approximately) 120 KM trip take nearly 2 hours.  We stopped in Squamish for a coffee on the way.  For the last half hour, we were stuck behind a long line of cars being held up by 2 motorcycle riders.  We couldn’t pass as construction limited the lanes available.

When we arrived, we found that the only way to get to Whistler Peak was to take the gondola ride.  However, you couldn’t purchase just the gondola ride to Whistler Peak without getting the Peak 2 Peak ride as well (the second “peak” being Blackcomb) .  All told, that would be $42 CDN a person.  My inner bargain hunter winced, but I thought it would be a shame not to go (and we had driven all that way).

We had a light lunch at Earl’s Restaurant and moved the car to longer term parking so we could go buy our tickets.

As we approached the ticket counter, we were approached by a man in shorts and a t-shirt that offered us his tickets at a discounted rate.  My inner bargain hunter fought with my cynical side and the bargain hunter won.  He waited in line with us so we would be assured the tickets were legit.  After about 10 minutes , we were headed up to the peak.

We took a ton of pictures, but suffice it to say that it was an awesome site.  The weather was clear and the temperatures were in the lower 60s.  Perfect for walking around on a mountain.  When we finished looking around on Whistler, we decided to board the Peak 2 Peak gondola to Blackcomb Peak.

Now, I’m not especially afraid of heights, but I have to admit this ride was a little uncomfortable.  The design of the cable system is scientifically sound, I’m sure.  It just looked like a tragedy waiting to happen.  Maybe I tried something similar and on a smaller scale in my childhood that resulted in painful head trauma…I don’t know.

At any rate, the ride turned out fine.  Blackcomb was also beautiful.  Kayla played in the snow and we soon decided to start the ride back to Vancouver.

After all the walking and driving, we decided to be bums on Saturday night.  We walked over to Safeway and got Chinese food from their buffet ($1.29 CDN per 100g) and a container of chocolate chip cookies.  We suffered through some crappy Canadian basic cable and called it a night.

Today is our last full day here.  We’re going to try to eat at “The Keg” and make it to Stanley Park before the day is done.  We’ll also have to clean up the condo and pack.

The long painful adjustment to Central Daylight Time starts tomorrow.

So Kayla and I decided we’d go to Victoria (the British Columbia Capital).  It seemed fairly straight forward enough.  There was a ferry that left Vancouver that took you to Victoria for a reasonable price.  We would walk around Victoria, take some pictures, get some food and come back in the evening.

The first thing learned was that maps that have insets can warp your sense of scale.  When we woke up on Friday, we figured it would take something like 15 minutes to get from our condo to the ferry.  The Thrifty Car Rental map has a decent map of Vancouver with an inset of downtown (where we’re staying).  The 15 minute estimate turned into about 45 minutes.  Oh well…we caught the next scheduled ferry.

A word about the BC Ferries…nice.  The boats we took were very comfortable with a lot of amenities.  We took the Coastal Celebration to Victoria and the Spirit of British Columbia on the way back  (we had to run up the ramp to catch this one).  The ride takes about 95 minutes each way, and you hardly notice it takes that long.  On the way to Victoria we ate breakfast at the cafeteria near the back of the boat.  Not a sandwich or a granola bar either…eggs and bacon.  Each boat had multiple eating establishments, comfortable seats, televisions, a video arcade and a “kid’s zone.”  This is a far cry from the ferries we usually take from Aransas Pass to Port Aransas every year.

The second mistake from yesterday? I incorrectly assumed that all ferries go to the same place.  Several years ago, Susan and I visited her brother and his wife when they lived in the Seattle area.  When we went to Victoria, we took the Port Angeles ferry from Washington.  That ferry landed in the Inner Harbor.  The ferry we took yesterday…landed in Swartz Bay.  That’s about 33 km north of where we wanted to be.  Luckily, we were able to get on a city bus that took us down to the place we wanted to be…for the low low cost of $2.25 CDN each way.

We took in the sites, took a bunch of pictures at the Legislative Buildings, ate some really tasty pizza at Brickyard Pizza (hole in the wall, but very good food), had our customary Blenz Coffee and made our way back to Victoria.

We’re due to hit Whistler today.