Omnivorous

In a typical month, I eat a lot of variety. I eat birds. I eat mammals. I eat fish. I eat arthropods, and even bivalves. I eat their flesh, their eggs, organs, and even milk. I eat a variety of plants and plant parts, too: I eat leaves, I eat flowers, I eat stalks, I eat fruits, I eat roots, I eat seeds. I eat parts from grasses, leafy annuals, perennials, shrubs, and even trees. It's all good. But everything is better in combination. Much of it is processed, a little of it isn't. But it's all good. Omni. Omnivores. Recently, I've been consuming other stuff, too, but that's about to end. I figure I'm getting enough variety already without all those extra chemicals from a chemical factory. With exercise, I should be good for about another forty years or so.

Bear !

These pictures were taken about 500 yards from our house. It's common to see dead deer by the road. But it's fairly rare to see a black bear, especially one this big. This baby was huge, several hundred pounds at least. Compare his size with the wheel of my car. Whoever hit him is gonna have a nice insurance claim to get their car or truck fixed. There's glass and metal and fiberglass body parts all over the side of the road!

Goodbye to a Fine Fellow...

It's always a shame when a really good person passes away. Especially when you considered him a good friend. A kind, gentle, upstanding soul, he fell out of the canoe while fishing with his adult son ... possibly a heart attack. He had lived a long and hearty life, and as Garrison Keillor says, the death of an old man is never a tragedy; but he will be greatly mourned by those of us who knew and admired him.

Chateau de Vincennes

There was earlier some confusion on Bopnopper's blog and commentary about "Sainte Chapelle". Someone said it was in the Chateau de Vincennes. Um,.... no. The most famous Sainte Chapelle is on the Ile de la Cite in the heart of old Paris, two blocks northwest of Notre Dame Cathedral and 1 block west of the Paris Hotel du Ville (city hall). Sainte Chapelle is famous for its unbelievable stained glass windows, two-thirds of which actually date from the original Louis IX construction in the early 1200's. (Louis IX is the fellow for whom St. Louis, Missouri is named.) In contrast, the Chateau de Vincennes is a fortress in the town of Vincennes some 8 miles east of downtown Paris. If you take the Paris Metro line to Saint-Mande (where we stayed each time we were in Paris), and then didn't get off at St.-Mande but rode two stops later (at the end of the line) the Metro stops in the town of Vincennes. The Chateau is right at the west exit of the Metro station. The original Chateau de Vincennes was built sometime around 1100, but all that's really left of that time period is the water cistern, a few steps and some foundations. Most of what is there today was built between the 1330's and 1400, well before Christopher Columbus' great-grandparents were even born. As with most castles and fortresses in France, there is a very nice chapel in the courtyard of the Chateau at Vincennes. This chapel is technically a "saint chapelle" (which simply means, holy church). But no one really refers to this one as "the Sainte-Chapelle". That term is used only for the more famous one in Paris. I've been to Vincennes with the Bry, and with Lint Monkey, Dubby, and Bopnopper. I believe Bopnopper has been twice. I can't remember whether PFC-A has been there or not, but if so, I can't find any pictures of his visit at the moment. Here is Lintmonkey at the entrance. Notice the dry moat to the right. Here's Lintmonkey, Bopnopper, and Dubby on the drawbridge over the moat. (Yes, a lot of castles we went to still have moats and drawbridges -- Bouillon, Lembeck, Leiden, Ghent, Tongeren, Horst, Arenberg... to name a few.) And here is the chapel, in the far background, located deep inside the courtyard of the Chateau de Vincennes. Click on the picture and notice the statues in the alcoves of the wall in the near background. Those statues are of the stereotype nude male "roman gods", which at one time had been well-endowed, but over the centuries have been subjected to vandalism of certain essential anatomical parts. These statues prompted Lintmonkey to comment on her preference for American statues, most of whom wear clothes.

The keep of the castle was being renovated on this particular trip. I believe the renovations were completed by the time Bry and I were there a year or two later.

One of the more memorable events that I'll associate with Vincennes is the conversation (in French, of course) that Dubby had with this nice French lady about the interesting cat carrier. (Yes, we actually did find a "nice" French lady (... although the only nice French man we encountered turned out to be from Wisconsin).

Op Zoek Naar Maria: Antwerpen Centraal

Op Zoek naar maria gaat van start op VTM, en dat zullen ze in Antwerpen geweten hebben. Ruim 200 dansers hebben de hal van het station op z'n kop gezet. Assuming my Dutch isn't too rusty, a rough English translation of this would be: "Take a look at Maria, starting from the beginning, on VTM (the local TV station), and see what spirit they have in Antwerp. More than 200 dancers have the main hall of the railway station on its head." Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq6b9bMBXpg The video is four minutes long. Those of us who've been in that train station know how staid and impersonal the main hall can be. That explains the surprised look on the bystander's faces... they're all locals and not used to seeing this kind of thing. Thanks to Newell for providing the link.