A rock fish in Newport

I LOVE watching fish under water, and I'm learning to take pictures of them. Here's a nice rock fish of some kind at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, March 11, 2006. Taking pictures is much easier when you're out of the water and the fish is behind glass, but someday I want to learn how to take pictures while snorkeling. I think I finally figured it out as far as the aquarium pictures go. Hopefully next underwater viewing, more of the images will be in focus.

Lee and I drove down from Astoria on an incredibly beautiful windblown day. The sea was high, the waves were crashing and foaming. The photos don't do justice to the day, but I'll try to post some soon anyway. The Oregon coast is stunning.

The Flavel House Museum, Astoria, Oregon

This is one corner of the Flavel House, one of Astoria's most prominent and most attractive landmarks. One of the things I find most interesting about it is that it was built about a year before my grandmother's house in Corona, but about "that much" more ostentatiously.

If a moulding was 8 inches tall in her house, it was 10 inches tall in the Flavel house. I haven't measured, I'm just saying the Flavel House, although in about the same style, was a little more showy. I think by square footage, Grandma's house was a lot bigger, but I don't know for sure. Looks can be deceiving and I'm not used to measuring property. Her house, built by her grandfather, George Lewis Joy, was considered "the finest house in Corona." It also had a lot of land with it, and fruit trees. The Flavel house was certainly that to Astoria. Well, what happened to Grandma's house will take a lot longer to tell than I want to write tonight, and it's best left for other posts, but its destruction is one of the reasons I wanted to tour this house in Astoria - in some way, it must give a similar impression to the one given by her place in its heyday, which was over before I was born. I always wondered what the house had looked like, felt like, and been like to live in. And I've always regretted what happened to it.

It's hard to get a picture of the whole Flavel house without getting the power lines. Today I opted for a partial view and no wires. I've posted more pictures of the Flavel House in one of my web albums.

Dad's resting place in Prescott, Arizona

This is where Dad's ashes are interred in the memorial garden next to the Methodist Church in Prescott, Arizona. His marker is on the far left.

Charlie Musselwhite in Portland - great concert, lousy photos

It's too bad. This was with the old camera, but the concert was memorable. Charlie Musselwhite played the Portland Waterfront Blues Festival by the Willamette River on July 1, 2005. You can see how crowded it wasn't, and how close we were standing. I only hope to hear him again, and maybe this time with a better camera. I would have linked to someone else's photos from that concert, but I didn't find any. The music was incredible. We were spellbound. Scroll down and click on an image. The pix get slightly better and you can kinda see Charlie if you blow up the image.

He appeared to be enjoying himself - playing for the love of playing - and that is always the key that makes a concert for me.

The Queen of the West at sunset

The River Walk in Astoria is wonderful at sunset. Here you can see the riverboat Queen of the West, the Astoria-Megler Bridge, and a corner of the Maritime Museum. I love the way the river shimmers between the old pilings.