Sunday, April 13, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Monday, April 07, 2008
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Cabela's, Dundee, Michigan
Driving up and down US 23 between Ann Arbor and Toledo, we have been wondering about Cabela's for years. Usually, we have to get on the road, make time, beat a rush hour somewhere, or get home and see what's been accumulating on the front porch. Today we had a little extra time, so we stopped to see why this is such a famous place.
The parking lot was really crowded, and people were all over, looking at the two-story fake mountains populated with taxidermized game animals from all over, looking in the aquarium tanks full of living game fish, checking out the vast arrays of weapons, and so on. They seemed to have every GPS, every type of binoculars, every fishing rod, and every item of camouflage clothing I could imagine. Not to mention camouflage binoculars and camouflage deer-hunting bows.
Recently, I learned the word "skeuomorph" meaning "a decoration that takes its form from the nature of the material used or the method used to make it." I think these lamps made from various types of antlers are probably good examples, if I correctly understand the word.
We walked around the entire store, and our expectations weren't in the least disappointed.There's just one thing that still worries me. What is the meaning of a Barbie fishing rod? They also had superman fishing rods and lots of others with boy-themes on them. But only Barbie: no Dora, no princesses. I just don't get it.
Lower Ohio
Yesterday we visited Athens, Ohio, and Ohio University.
We noticed lots of picturesque old buildings in town and in the towns on the way there -- consistent with the founding date of the university over 200 years ago. A covered bridge was almost at the parking lot of our hotel not far from the university. Near the restaurant where we ate dinner was this Victorian building.
The modern Italian and continental style restaurant was decorated with murals copying the works of famous artists, and with paper mache sculptures of more modern tendencies.
The sculpture below is the most extreme of them, and quite amusing, I thought. It hangs from the ceiling, so there's no other angle from which it can be photographed except this one:
The food followed American patterns for interpreting imported food. Here are a few examples: the menu listed several items with Oriental touches that I have never seen in Italy, such as an option for salmon with a hoisin-sauce glaze amidst the more Italian pasta items. And the descriptions of the pastas all began with the sauce, such as "Alfredo sauce with linguini" instead of the other way around, as I'm accustomed to. When we asked what the day's vegetable was, the server said "asiago cheese sauce with cauliflower."
The dinner was fair; dessert was good.
This is one of the founders' houses on campus, and very old. All this reminded me of Johnny Appleseed: wide, muddy rivers, rich bottom land, old settlements.
Spring is a little more advanced than in Michigan, though the trees were very bare.
A muddy river runs through the Ohio University campus: the Hocking River. The road to and from Athens is in the Hocking River valley. The valley is several times as wide as the river, with steep hills rising from the sides of the valley.
While driving, we saw many decaying factories, remnants of pottery and glass industries that once enriched this now-poor area. The home of the Anchor-Hocking glass company was Lancaster, Ohio, up further on the river than this decrepit old factory:
We noticed lots of picturesque old buildings in town and in the towns on the way there -- consistent with the founding date of the university over 200 years ago. A covered bridge was almost at the parking lot of our hotel not far from the university. Near the restaurant where we ate dinner was this Victorian building.
The modern Italian and continental style restaurant was decorated with murals copying the works of famous artists, and with paper mache sculptures of more modern tendencies.
The sculpture below is the most extreme of them, and quite amusing, I thought. It hangs from the ceiling, so there's no other angle from which it can be photographed except this one:
The food followed American patterns for interpreting imported food. Here are a few examples: the menu listed several items with Oriental touches that I have never seen in Italy, such as an option for salmon with a hoisin-sauce glaze amidst the more Italian pasta items. And the descriptions of the pastas all began with the sauce, such as "Alfredo sauce with linguini" instead of the other way around, as I'm accustomed to. When we asked what the day's vegetable was, the server said "asiago cheese sauce with cauliflower."
The dinner was fair; dessert was good.
This is one of the founders' houses on campus, and very old. All this reminded me of Johnny Appleseed: wide, muddy rivers, rich bottom land, old settlements.Spring is a little more advanced than in Michigan, though the trees were very bare.
A muddy river runs through the Ohio University campus: the Hocking River. The road to and from Athens is in the Hocking River valley. The valley is several times as wide as the river, with steep hills rising from the sides of the valley.
While driving, we saw many decaying factories, remnants of pottery and glass industries that once enriched this now-poor area. The home of the Anchor-Hocking glass company was Lancaster, Ohio, up further on the river than this decrepit old factory:
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Original or better?
Announcement: I'm going to be an artist! I have something BETTER than the original. Click on the image to see exactly what's going on:
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