Just Sunday

JWise Moments

Just finished watching Long Way Round with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman; this was a really inspiring, wonderful documentary about the two guys motorcycling around the world. Caroline and I had caught part of an episode on Bravo during our Thanksgiving trip and had been looking forward to seeing the rest of the episodes, which we thought to be six. Well, the English broadcast was shown with seven episodes, and eMule helped us find and download them. Even at seven episodes, the wish for the show to go on and on couldn’t be more hoped for. It was even nicer watching the English broadcast as the rest of the world market must be considered a more mature audience because the raw language, the killing of a bear, and some parts with naked butts were all left in compared to the American bit we saw that has been sanitized. This is a show to watch again and again.

We visited Lee Lee’s Asian Market early in the day to pick up a lot of mint and cilantro for making Pani Puri tonight. Rinku, Krupesh, Ashok, Srujana, Harish, Savita, Raenu, Caroline, and I squeezed into our tiny living room with our makeshift blanket-on-floor-dining-room table and ate nearly 250 puri’s before going to P.F. Chang’s for dessert. We are planning to go bowling on Wednesday.

New Years Day

JWise Photo of the Day

Sharing a banana split at Denny's on New Year's Day in Phoenix, Arizona

A stop at Denny’s to share a banana split.

Update: It’s September 28, 2018, and I have now published 1,930 blog entries since this banana split. This entry on January 1, 2005, represents my very first blog entry when I decided that instead of just doing a “POTD – Photo Of The Day” blog, I’d force myself to write a little something or other about what I was photographing. That didn’t always work out. At one point over the years, we even had a server crash that necessitated our pulling as many blog entries back from the mysterious world of various caches and archive services where we could find them; it was imperfect.

During this time, I found a passion for writing and only wish someone had somehow forced me to start blogging because, as Caroline and I have looked back over the years, we have discovered little treasures of memories that would have otherwise been easily lost to time. By the way, that very short sentence of 9 words about sharing the banana split was the best I could muster back on my first entry.

Update: All blog entries that show up here that are dated prior to this day were all added after 2005, such as the entry dated in 1963, shortly after my birth, which should raise a red flag considering the Internet didn’t send its first data until October 1969.

Santa Barbara, California – Going Home

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

288 Placer Drive in Goleta, California

I thought nothing would ever change in this house Tata and Woody have lived in since they left Buffalo, New York, back in the late 1960s, but they redid the floor and had the walls painted.

288 Placer Drive in Goleta, California

Nothing else changed, not the stove, not the dishwasher, the countertops, or these old chairs my family played pinochle in while smoking up a storm. I think they all smoked back then.

288 Placer Drive in Goleta, California

In the 1970s, it was pretty frequent that family would all come up to Santa Barbara for weekends with the Burns. Tata and Woody would buy up a bunch of Tri-tips before anyone else really knew what that was, marinate it, and then grill it out back across from the jacuzzi. Back then, a jacuzzi was a luxury and seriously uncommon.

288 Placer Drive in Goleta, California

We, kids, could take their bikes out or head down to the nearby school that had public tennis courts or sit in the living room and watch their fancy TV that had a remote control.

Woody Burns and Sophie at 288 Placer Drive in Goleta, California

Time for us to say goodbye as we pulled away with a car full of toilet paper, juice, soda, paper towels, dish soap, pens, and other stuff Tata pilfered from her job, and probably some cash she threw at us to cover gas. This was our first time spending Christmas with them, but it won’t be our last.

Beach at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in California

It’s been foggy/cloudy all day, so we didn’t spend too much time here at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

North Woods Inn in Covina, California

We did spend a good amount of time in Covina, stopping for dinner at my old favorite, Clearman’s North Woods Inn; I’ll never tire of their amazing salads. It was late before we ever pulled into our parking spot at home, but it was a great weekend and well worth the effort.

Santa Barbara, California – Christmas Day

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

First up was church services on this early Christmas morning as the Burns are Catholic and still practice on occasion. Not only did Uncle Woody wear Christmas colors for the day, but Sophie went to church with us, kind of. She waited for us in the car.

Nope, we’re not at Jack-in-the-Box or at Cajun Kitchen; we’ve driven over to Santa Barbara proper, and if we are over the water, we’re not eating at the last remaining Sambo’s Restaurant either.

The pelican seems to mean business by glaring at us as if we could just pull a fish out of our pocket or something.

Breakfast was a special affair as we’d never eaten out here. We’re at Moby Dick Restaurant on Stearns Wharf. Not sure how many photos I have of Tata and me as she’s so reluctant to have her picture taken. I’d wager this is the one and only photo of her and me on Christmas day ever.

This giant fig tree in Santa Barbara has been here forever, or at least as long as I can remember, and in my memories as a child, it’s always been just this big. See human for scale.

Sophie, the German Shepherd; Caroline, the German Wife; and Uncle Woody – the invader of Germany on the beach in Santa Barbara.

A beautiful and memorable Christmas day in sunny California, in love and with family.

Santa Barbara, California – Christmas Eve

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Goleta, California

We know the routine well: wake up and get out the door as it’s time for coffee and breakfast at Cajun Kitchen, just around the corner from here.

Woody Burns in Goleta, California

At the dog park on the bench is Uncle Woody; our Aunt Ann (Tata) is sitting behind him as Chester comes over to not only bask in the sun but in the affectionate petting from our uncle.

Old Mission Santa Ines in Solvang, California

After those formalities are out of the way, we convince our aunt and uncle to head up to Solvang with us. As they’ve grown older, and now with my father having passed away, they don’t get out much. When my father was still alive, they’d drive out the 140 miles to his house to deliver a ton of stuff they felt he needed that they’d collected either at Costco or from various sales at the local grocery shops Tata frequents. At other times, my father would meet them about halfway between his home and theirs in Calabasas at an IHOP.

Old Mission Santa Ines in Solvang, California

Our first stop was at the Old Mission Santa Ines, which we’d not visited before. We’ve been working on trying to see all of the California missions.

Old Mission Santa Ines in Solvang, California

Inside Old Mission Santa Ines.

Solvang, California

We passed through Solvang for some window shopping but already had plans for lunch, so this old Smorgasbord will have to wait for a future visit.

Caroline Wise and Woody Burns at Pea Soup Andersen's in Buellton, California

This was the payoff for Tata and Woody traveling with us; it turns out that it had been years since they last ate at Pea Soup Andersen’s in Buellton. They love this place in part because I think it reminds them of life some 35 years ago when the place looked the exact same as it does now.

Beach on the Santa Barbara Coast in California

Our drive back to Goleta.

View from Cathedral Oaks Road in Goleta, California

The hills north of Cathedral Oaks Road on the way to Place Drive.

288 Placer Drive in Goleta, California

Christmas Eve with the Burns at 288 Placer Drive, an address forever seared into my memory.