Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Thanksgiving triplog #8
Manassas, VA · Mon, 24 Nov 2025. 3:30pm.

We're back at the hotel now, between episodes of eating our way through friends and family. Earlier today we met old friends for lunch in Arlington; this evening we'll meet one of my cousins and his wife for dinner in South Riding. South Riding is a place-name I never knew existed, and I grew up not far from here! But more on that later.

My sister said something yesterday that bothers me. It's about her kids. During our pleasant day together full of verbal repartee I teased her gently about how difficult it was for us to buy graduation gifts for her older two kids.

One of them we'd asked several times what he wanted for a graduation gift without getting a response. We could've just bought him something but didn't want to risk (a) duplicating a gift from someone else or (b) buying him something expensive he didn't actually like or want. And (c) we didn't want to give a gift as impersonal as "Here's a wad of cash".

Ultimately, 9 months later, he responded to us and asked for a new phone. It was clear from his asking that his mother had put him up to it. That's what I was teasing C. about— "When P. asked us for that phone, it's because he complained to you that his phone broke and you told him to soak his rich uncle and aunt for a new one, right?"

This wasn't just teasing C. about her kids, though. The topic of graduation gfits is topical because one of P's younger brothers, J., will be graduating in 6-7 months. And given how long it took to get an answer from P., we figured we'd better start asking J. now. Including asking his mom what he needs. 🤨

"My kids are reluctant to ask for things," she explained. She hypothesized that it comes from when the family was struggling harder and material goods were in short supply. Oh, the kids always had a roof over their head, and adequate food, and two pairs of shoes without holes, she assured me. But they learned the answer to "Can we have?" other things was No. So the kids stopped asking.

I recognize part of the dynamic. I was raised in similar conditions. Money was tight, and while we always had a roof over our heads— though at least once my parents came close to not being able to pay the mortgage—and food on the table, other things were luxuries. Including shoes. While C is happy her kids always had two good pairs of shoes, one sneakers and one dress-up for going to church, I usually only had one pair. And half the time they had holes.

Where it gets worse (sadder) with C's kids, though, is that they've internalized guilt over wanting better things. While I never accepted that holey sneakers are all I deserved in life, or that it was wrong to want sneakers without holes, that's what C's kids are seeming to do. She gave the example of how one of them said he didn't want braces because they'd be too expensive for Mom and Dad to afford. It's great that young kids are learning about making tradeoffs in life, but accepting crooked teeth because you think braces— like every other kid in school gets— is too much to ask for is sad.

Again, I recognize part of the dynamic here. I recognize it because I lived it. And because I lived it I'm pretty sure those kids came up with this internalized guilt all on their own.

My father tried to instill guilt in me by telling me I was greedy. I was greedy for wanting nice gifts for my birthday. I was greedy for wanting a second pair of shoes— without holes. I was greedy for wanting a bigger slice of pizza at dinner. I was greedy even for asking that we get pizza when Dad asked the family, "Where should we go out for dinner tonight?" The proper thing to do, according to my dad, would've been to keep quiet until everyone else stated an opinion, and only then ask for what I want.

The difference was, that bullshit guilt trip only half worked on me. I mean, I never did stop believing I should ask for what I want. I did internalize some guilt around it, though. Even into my 40s there were times I felt bad about saying, "I would like XYZ for dinner" because I feared— through internalized guilt— that expressing my want was wrong because other people want things, too, and somehow when multiple people want things my wants are wrong. 🙄

Well, we didn't come to an answer for what J. might like for his graduation next year.

Or maybe it'll be paying his parents back for his braces. 🙁

Our kitchen pantry has been out of service for the past several weeks waiting on plumbing repairs for the toilet. Until just recently we've been limping along with the pantry contents stacked up on one end of our dining room table. We never intended that to be a long-term solution... but we also never expected it to take the plumbers nearly eight weeks to come back around and start the repairs. So late last week we shopped online and ordered a couple of inexpensive shelves to put in the dining room as a temporary measure.



The shelves arrived Sunday night. We started putting them together almost right away.

Yes, like most furniture today— most affordable furniture, anyway— these shelves arrived in a flat-pack box and we had to assemble them ourselves. In the photo above and the first one below you can see us bolting things together with the help of hex wrenches (included).



What do I mean by affordable furniture? Well, as we were looking at various comes-in-a-flat-box, assembly-required shelves on Amazon Hawk asked, "Why don't we just go to Hoot Judkins and get another bookshelf like that nice one we have upstairs?"

The reason we don't is that two-shelf bookshelf— which, BTW, is solid wood— cost $300... 10 years ago. The same item probably costs $500 today. These shelves are $50 apiece.

And these are on the pricier end for what they are. The vertical frames are metal, not particle board, and the shelf planks are real wood, also not particle board. If we'd wanted particle-board shelves we could've paid as little as $30 apiece.



Once we got the two shelves assembled on Sunday night and loaded up, moving most of the pantry contents off our dining room table, we decided we'd like a third shelf! Yes, these are really sturdy, and the fit and finish nice. Plus, they do fit neatly under the kitchen counter overhang (no accident; I measured) and the black-and-dark-wood colors match our dining table. We ordered a third shelf Sunday night, and it arrived less than 24 hours later, on Monday around dinnertime. We assembled it promptly, and— after posing it for the photo above— filled it up with pantry contents

It's a bit ironic that we left our pantry stacked up atop our dining table for 8 weeks before buying these shelves, and now after we've had them just a day or two the plumbers are here, working on the bathroom, today! It kinda seems like a waste of $150 for these shelves. But I knew the timing would be a risk when I bought them, which is why I carefully selected these shelves for their size, looks, and quality. Once we get the pantry back in order— which hopefully we can do in just a few days, now— we'll redeploy two of these shelves to hold some of the overflowing materials in Hawk's crafting space. The third shelf we'll probably keep here in the dining room, tucked under the kitchen bar, to hold overflow that would otherwise clutter the dining room.

Phoenix Getaway travelog #6
Scottsdale · Sun, 21 Sep 2025. 10:30am

Last night we sat out on the patio of our casita until it was time for dinner. We enjoyed watching the hummingbirds come out as the sun began setting. At first it was one or two. Soon we saw at least 5 different hummers.

For dinner we decided to get food from the grocery store instead of visit a restaurant. We were still partly full from the surprisingly great taco-truck lunch we ate so we figured it'd be easier to eat lightly with stuff from the store. Plus, since this is the hotel I stayed at on a business trip a few months ago— though not in a room anywhere as nice as this— I remember a nice, high-end grocery nearby that sells plenty of ready-to-eat food.



My dinner was a couple dishes of sushi— albacore sashimi and a salmon-avocado roll— plus a few cans out of a six-pack of good beer to wash it down. (Alaskan Amber Ale is one of my top picks in the beer tasting I've done over the past few years.)

After dinner we considered going back out to the pool, perhaps even the hot tub, but we were both feeling kind of tired. So instead we holed up in our living room.



This is one of the areas where having a casita, or even a genuine suite, shines. There's all this space to sit. Or stretch out... not on the bed.

Sunday morning I began down here again. But then it occurred to me, "Hey, it's probably nice outside right now!" Indeed, at 8 in the morning it's only in the low 80s in Phoenix this time of year. 😅 So I went back outside to the patio to enjoy my breakfast.



Sorry, no breakfast picture here. My breakfast was just a protein bar, a few pieces of dried sausage, and a Coke Zero anyway.

After we both had a bite to eat this morning we walked out our gate over to the hot tub. Like the pool, it's just steps away.

Last night I saw other people using the hot tub searching around for the switch to turn on the jets. They were poking around all over the walls of that stucco cabana and couldn't find anything. That made me concerned the hot tub is broken and has no control. Well, this morning I looked around and saw a sign behind the hot tub "HOT TUB CONTROL" with a pointing arrow. Yay, being able to read. Though boo, the jets in the tub weren't very strong.

After a good soak in the hot tub (sorry, no pictures) we went over to the pool. The air was getting warmer but it was still a bit too cool to really enjoy the pool. So we sat on chaise lounges and enjoyed the warm air. It felt better stretching out on the lounge chairs than sitting up on the chairs on our patio.

Now the hour's winding on toward 11am, checkout time. Yeah, we could ask for a late checkout here, to enjoy this upgraded casita longer and have a dip in the pool, but we've got other plans for today. Bigger plans. Today we're moving over to the Hilton resort with a lazy river. An hour spent here in this bougie casita is an hour not spent floating around on inflatable inner tubes!

If there's one word that describes this week it's "Busy, busy!" Okay, that kinda two words... but also just one. 😅

It has been a busy-buy week starting with heading to Phoenix on Sunday for an important business meeting on Monday. It wasn't just "travel to Phoenix, attend one meeting, then go home" though. The flip side of remote work is that the modern business traveler is expected to stay plugged in all day, including attending remote meetings, even when traveling for a high profile meeting. Thus I was busy all day with meetings, including taking them from my hotel room in the morning and an airport food court seating area in the afternoon.

Tuesday the busy-busy at work continued with a face-to-face meeting with a client near home and then lots more remote meetings. Basically I was running flat out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I had hoped that Friday would be my take-it-easy day, but instead I ended up with 5.5 hours of work.

Amid all that busy-ness this week we had a few days of hot weather here in Silicon Valley. Wednesday and Thursday were the hottest, with highs near 90 in Sunnyvale. Yeah, that's not hot compared to some parts of the country in August, and it's not even a real heat wave by local standards. Often we get a week or two of highs near 100 each summer. With a cooler-than-average weather pattern still holding after 4 months, though, I don't think we'll see that this year. But 90° was plenty warm for us to want to cool off in the pool in the afternoon!



Hawk and I celebrated the hot weather by enjoying some #PoolLife both Wednesday and Thursday. Yes, I did say above I was working flat-out all week. The thing is, I was basically fried by 2 or 3pm those days and needed a break. I carved out 90 minute or so each day... and returned to work afterwards. Enjoying the pool in the warm weather is a small luxury that makes the week feel nicer. And with a busy-busy week like this I definitely needed to seek small luxuries.

Recently we passed the 4th anniversary of buying "Ocean", one of our cars. It's a BMW 230 convertible.

We bought the car used from a dealership in San Diego county. Yeah, that's not exactly right next door. The first thing we did after signing for the car was drive nearly 500 miles home.

Here's a pic from when we picked it up:



We bought the car, a 2018 model, with 24,xxx miles on the odometer. Today it's at 57,xxx. So we've driven it about 33,000 miles in 4 years. That averages out to 8,250 miles/year, well below the US average of 12-15k per year.

How do we like it? We still like it a lot! The car looks great, and a convertible is awesome in this part of California. Mild winters and mild summers mean we can drop the top to enjoy al fresco driving much of the year.

This car has a less powerful drivetrain than the BMW convertible it replaced. It's certainly no slouch with a 0-60 time under 6 seconds, but our previous car was even faster. We almost never miss the extra oomph. The car has all the creature comforts we want, which is way more important than winning stoplight races.

Oregon Cascades Travelog #7
Bend, OR - Wed, 2 Jul 2025, 10:30am

We got a bit of a late start leaving our hotel room in Bend today. As a result we put off a hike in the desert-y terrain west of here because we'd want to start early to beat the heat until later in the week. Instead we came here, to the Oregon Cascades where there's shade on most trails, and hoped we weren't starting too late for the popular Tumalo Falls trail. We weren't; we arrived in good time. And it would be the first of at least six (depending on how you count them) waterfalls we'd see today.

Fair warning: In this blog I'm going to talk tech(nique) about photography. If that makes your eyes glaze over, you're more than welcome to employ the Playboy magazine approach of just looking at the pictures and not reading the article. 🤣



If waterfalls were scored on a scale of views divided by distance or effort to get to them, Tumalo Falls would score very highly. The first viewpoint, where I make the photo above, is just steps from the trailhead. There's also an upper viewpoint that you can see above the falls to the left in the pic above. I'll get back to that in a moment.

On this trip I carried two cameras, as I often do— though less now than before. The two cameras are 1) my cell phone's built-in camera, which I virtually always have with me, and 2) my Fujifilm interchangeable lens camera that I opt to carry with me when I think the views are going to be really great... or require one of the things that camera, and the special lenses I own, are really good for. I'm selective about bringing the latter camera because it's comparatively heavy and bulky.

So, what's this heavy, bulky (comparatively) camera really good for? Let's start with the same basic picture:



One thing you can see straight away by comparing these first two photos is that, in good light, the Fuji captures way richer colors than my iPhone. "Oh, but can't you punch up the colors in Photoshop?" you might ask. I already did! The first picture is the result after fiddling a bit with saturation and contrast. The Fuji kicks the iPhone's iAss when there's good light.

BTW, why do I specify "good light"? Take look at the deep shadow to the right of the falls. The iPhone pulls out more detail in the shadow. Again, yes, I can try to fix that in Photoshop, and again, yes I've already done that in the Fuji's picture. The difference is that modern iPhone are actually doing exposure stacking, automatically combining multiple images capture immediate after each other at different exposure values to show more detail in areas of deep shadow. Doing this with a conventional camera involves a technique called HDR— high dynamic range— that requires some manual steps in addition to special software. The iPhone just does it automatically and gives you the result without you even having to think about it.

Okay, so rich colors in good light are nice, but what else can the heavy, bulky camera do? Well, I like to bring it whenever I know I'll be seeing waterfalls, because it can capture motion-blurred water.



Here's a photo from the same vantage point again but with the camera set to make an exposure lasting 0.25 sec. Relative to that speed the water is moving very fast, so it blurs into an appearance like silk sheets, while the trees' leaves move only slightly and the rocks move not at all.

Achieving this blur effect requires a few pieces of equipment and a degree of control over the camera. The key piece of equipment is a neutral density (ND) filter, a lens attachment that blocks out most of the light. This allows the camera to be set with a very slow shutter speed and not capture an image that's all washed-out white from so much light hitting the sensor. Remember, photography is the art and science of captured light. Capture too little, the picture's all black. Capture too much, the picture's all white. I'm using an ND filter that blocks 98.5% of the light. (Why 98.5%? That's an approximation. It's actually passing through 1/64, or 1/2⁶, of the light. This is called a 6 stop ND filter. Every "stop" is a factor of 1/2.)

While this extra gear is fun to use effectively it's also a minor nuisance to use. Or, more specifically, switching in and out of the gear is a nuisance. The filters screw on and off the front of my lenses, and I have a little pouch to keep them in when they're not screwed on a lens. Going back and forth between "filter is screwed on" and "filter is off, and stowed" is time consuming. And on the trail it's also a bit dangerous. What if I drop a filter? The big ones aren't cheap. And when they get dirty I have to clean them— which while hiking is also a nuisance.

Thus I decided after doing the screw-it-on/screw-it-off thing at the viewpoint near the trailhead I would just leave the ND filters on the lenses on my Fujifilm camera. I'd use my iPhone for standard snaps and my Fuji for the specialized blur shots. BTW, that's how pro photographers roll. When you see them juggling multiple cameras at an event, it's because the camera are set up to do different things really well, and it's easier to swap cameras between shots than to reconfigure the gear. So, for the rest of the hike I rolled like a pro. 😅

Italy Travelog #24
Chia, Sardinia - Friday, 30 May 2025, 8:30am

Breakfast at the hotel in Sardinia this week has been enjoyable. Ordinarily I would tout that getting it for free is a perk of elite status. In fact being able to enjoy such a perk is one of the reasons I signed up for an expensive credit card without a big signup bonus recently. But apparently breakfast here was negotiated as part of our group rate— a group rate that also entirely forbids elite perks, depending on which front desk person I talk to.

Anyway, breakfast has been good. Good, but not great. Every day for the past few days I've eaten a mix of a few salamis, a couple pieces of sausage, and an order of French toast the cook consistently manages to burn to the point of being tough and chewy on the outside yet nearly liquid in the middle.

Then, today at breakfast, an oopsie happened. Buttoh! My chair collapsed under me. One leg snapped.  I rolled to the floor and quickly got to my feet, uninjured. But my roll must have been impressive because lots of people rushed over, including everyone in the family at the table next to us.

Before we left a man came over an introduced himself as the hotel's F&B manager. He offered to comp our dinner in the restaurant tonight as a gesture. That was way more than I was going to ask. I mean, I wasn't even going to ask anything, as I wasn't injured or even shaken. But I don't believe in arguing when someone offers me something genuinely nice, so I thanked him for his generosity. We were considering doing another picnic dinner on our patio tonight... now dinner's on the house!

Italy Travelog #21
Chia, Sardinia - Thursday, 29 May 2025, 2pm

We decided to enjoy a take-it-easy day at the resort today. That's a choice with consequence, though. What we've chosen to say No to is a catamaran and snorkeling trip! Alas, as much fun as being out on a boat on azure waters can be, and as much as I've wanted to snorkel since I was a boy, I've found out the hard way, by two failed attempts, that I'm not able to snorkel. Maybe I could with some careful instruction, maybe not. But I definitely can't with just, "Here's a mask and some fins, now jump in!" Plus, Hawk is reluctant even to try because swimming poses to much of a threat to her injured back. But hey, just because we're not going snorkeling doesn't mean we sit around our room swallowing our tears, there's a pool to enjoy!

Update, 6pm Thursday: The whole snorkeling trip was a fail. Due to high winds and problems with the boat, nobody got to snorkel. Now I'm so glad we stayed home and enjoyed the resort!



Ha ha, the joke was on us. That pool is cold. Like, seriously, the only people going in the water are the couple from Minnesota and the couple from Germany. All the rest of us dipped a toe in and said OH HELL NO! 😱

But again, there are more options here than go back to our rooms and swallow tears. There are comfy lounge chairs with beautiful views across the pool and to the ocean beyond.




Some lounge chairs, like the pair we got (photo above) are even in the shade and pair to form a day-bed for two.

Plus, a few minutes later we got drink service, so imagine that picture above with us in it plus a piña colada and a margarita. (Yes, we're drinking like we're in Latin America while being in Italy, but frankly all the Italian drinks on the menu look disgusting.)

We chillaxed on the pool deck for almost 2 hours, until we decided it was time for lunch. We placed an order at the little cafe over to the side. The host came to fetch us when our food was ready.



Apparently they don't serve food at the lounge chairs. I guess that makes sense because otherwise people'd generally make a mess of them. So we sat up straight and enjoyed our lunch at a little pool-side cafe table. Hawk ordered a bowl of spaghetti while I played the Ugly American card and ordered the hamburger. BTW these were two of literally only four entree choices on the menu, so it's like we skipped over all the cibo tipico to pick these dishes. Plus, we've recently been unimpressed with the island's cibo tipico.

After lunch we stretched out in our shaded day-bed for a bit longer before heading back down to our room. Hawk has now gone upstairs to the spa for a deep tissue massage— a mea culpa comped for yesterday's fuckup with cibo tipico. I'll join her up there after her massage for us to use the hot tubs together.

Italy Travelog #4
Rome Cavalieri hotel - Saturday, 24 May 2025, 4pm

Around 3pm today we arrived at the Rome Cavalieri. It's a Waldorf Astoria hotel, so we had reasonably high expectations. Recall that our other W-A experience was the Waldorf Astoria Pedregal in Los Cabos, MX— where we had an amazing arrival experience, a very bougie lunch, and later, a touching "Happy Retirement Ms. Hawk" card.



Compared to the Pedregal hotel, which was an over-the-top, 5-star experience, the Rome Cavalieri is merely a solid 4.5 star hotel. Everything is appropriately swank— including the prices in the restaurants 😱— but, for example, we had to *gasp* wait in line at the front desk to check in. (At the 5 star hotel, staff opened the car door for us, greeted us by name, and escorted us to a private table with cocktails where the concierge came to us to deliver our keys.)



Our room is suitably luxurious, and spacious, though again without the over-the-top-ness of the W-A Pedregal. Here the balcony with a private pool and a beach vidw is replaced by a balcony with... -out a private pool or a beach view. 😅

Not that there's even a beach, anyway. We're in Rome. Though this hotel is right up the hill from Vatican City. If we were on a higher floor we'd be able to see it from our balcony.

As we explored the hotel grounds a bit this afternoon we found a hawk.



Yup, there's a hawk sitting on a railing on the terrace overlooking the pool area. As you can see from the jess to the left of the bird's feet, though, it's not a random hawk; it's kept by a falconer. The falconer wasn't around this afternoon so we spent some time admiring the bird by ourselves without knowing what species of hawk or falcon it is. Hawk noted that our iPhones will identify what we're taking a picture of, if they can. Her iPhone told her, "bird". Thanks, Apple, we were confused for a moment there that it might be a flower. Apparently that AI feature was implemented by the same team that created the original icon for Apple Maps showing a route of jumping off a bridge into busy interstate highway 280 traffic.

A few days ago I blogged about "Fun with Stuffed Animals": amusing myself— and sometimes my spouse— by posing our stuffed animals and making up stories about what they're doing. The inspirations for that blog were a Treant giving people the finger and a meal for our hawks. When Hawk read that blog she was amused all over again, including some of the links she clicked through which went back many years, such as finding rocks in a Tylenol bottle and "*In this picture the role of my wife is played by one of our stuffed animals, 'Sassy''.

Playing around with stuffed animals is a daily thing. I mean, every day is another opportunity for stuffed animal soap opera. That snake we bought as a treat for Winter? He's already shared it around to curry favor with other hawks in the house. Currently Phoenix has it.



Phoenix is a Folkmanis hand puppet. She's a "clone" of the first hawk we had. Originally these hawks came with a snake. There's a bit of velcro in their beaks to hold onto it. Phoenix came second-hand without a snake. So part of our thinking was to get her another snake. This one's bigger than the original snake, though, so it doesn't stick well in her beak.

Why do I share this? Well, aside from it being amusing, it's also prodded us to buy another hawk. Hawk was so inspired that she went on eBay to see if there's another Folkmanis red-tail listed. She found two and bought one. So soon we'll have another clone. Shh, don't tell Phoenix, she'll think she's being replaced!