The bed arrived yesterday to complete our bedroom ensemble. It's a king-sized Hudson bed in dark mahogany. Corey ordered it on-line from the Pottery Barn a couple of weeks ago. We finally have a headboard so that I no longer have to stuff a pillow between the mattress and wall to prevent the pillow I sleep on from falling into that gap. The night tables arrived a few weeks earlier, which is why we went shopping a couple of days ago for the lamps (and clock radio).
This afternoon after some yardwork (I fixed the leaf vacuum and then vacuumed up leaves that Corey raked up) we dragged the canoe out across the beaver dam into what we call the tree channel. One end of the tree channel goes under Davis Creek Road while the other normally empties out into the lake. When there's water, that is. The pic above is a view from the canoe in the tree channel towards the lake.
When the lake's full we could canoe from our dock, into the tree channel, and then out onto the lake. Right now, however, the only reason there's water in the tree channel is because of our resident beaver. Previously when we took our cats out on a forest walk over the beaver dam we could see and hear the top of the dam, but we could never really gauge its height. So today, we canoed over to the top of the dam, beached the canoe, and then walked past the dam to get a shot of what it looked like from the other side. In this video clip we're canoeing at the top of the dam. The pic above is a shot from the other side.
Above is a shot looking out towards the lake on the other side of the beaver dam. You can see boat docks stranded on dry land and a meadow growing where the lake usually is. At full pond we can usually canoe out here and beyond. Meanwhile, it was back through the fallen trees back to the canoe and then back up the tree channel, heading back past the beaver lodge.
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And after all that hard paddling, it was time to break out the lawn chairs on our dock and watch the sunset. We saw a family of deer playing out in the spit between the tree and boat channels—they made their way there jumping over the beaver dam, the same way we go when we take the cats out for a long forest walk.
Yesterday we went shopping. Not really Christmas shopping per se, I think we just needed to get some stuff. Mainly lamps for our new night tables. I also took the opportunity to upgrade my alarm clock as well. I can now wake up to a CD instead of static. My first selection is Pink Floyd's Time although that may be a touch corny. We also bought a new torche lamp, some DVDs, clothes, and a laptop fan. The fan is like a little table that sits under the laptop and plugs in to the laptop's USB port to drive the fan. This is just to cool the laptop as it tends to heat up. We also bought a new phone since our old one isn't working very well. Later today we're off to continue our shopping spree. Corey wants her own laptop fan—she says she's going to be using her laptop a bit more frequently in the evenings as she's doing more in her new job. So we're both going to be couch computing. What a couple of geeks!
Overcoat, that is! I've been wanting a nice 3/4 coat (a.k.a. stadium coat, car coat) for some time now. I had been thinking about purchasing a leather jacket like this for several months (or most of 2007 maybe). I even had one picked out from Remy Leather (model #8057 for spring/fall and #8257 with the fleece lining for the winter), but it costs $1,000 so I've been humming and hawing about it, without ever ordering the thing. I'm a little reluctant to order something like this over the net just in case it didn't fit quite right. And they're a little hard to find locally; not every store carries Remy leathers. I came close in San Jose earlier in April this year when I did find a store that had them. I even tried on a similar waistcoat, but they didn't have the black 3/4 coat in stock. The salesman was kind enough to inquire with the company and phoned me the next day but he said they wouldn't be able to get the coat shipped in overnight. I would have bought it if they could have. So for the time being I've been wearing that cheapo leather thing that I had on in New York. It only cost me $80 and it was ok to wear for a while, but I always considered it a temporary stop-gap measure. My brother suggested that if I wanted a nice jacket I should look for one in Europe since they have a better sense of style. I have to agree; I like the look of the clothes I see when I visit European cities. (Mind you, my basis for comparison is severly limited as I don't live in a big city, so it may be the case that New Yorkers are equally well dressed but it seems like I've been touring European cities more often than American ones lately.)
So while in Helsinki, on my only day off for sightseeing/shopping, I went around to different men's shops in three malls. Eventually I found a coat I liked at Stockmann's, the one you see me wearing. It looks and feels a bit like suede, but it isn't. I thought it was some magical new fabric, but the label says it's plain old polyester. Yet it feels like suede, go figure. It's also fairly warm, kept me warm in Helsinki, so should certainly be good here over the winter months. It's long such that I can wear my blazers underneath (which was the whole point), as you see in the pic—I've just returned from graduation where I hooded my PhD student. It has a double collar that I've always liked, and best of all, it has seven pockets. Six seems to be a minimum for me: I need four outside pockets and at least two inside. The coat is from Oratop, a Finnish company, which makes this coat something of a nice and hopefully long-lasting souvenir of my trip to Finland. Kiitos! (Thank you in Finnish.)
The flight from Helsinki to Amsterdam arrived at gate C18, which is on the other side of passport control, where I've never been before this trip (but it seems I must have walked the rest of Schiphol several times already now). This is where the Starbucks is. It's all decked out for Christmas as well—see the biplane in Christmas lights in the pic? I bypassed Starbucks (long queue) to get to the more familiar side of Schiphol.
So what do I find when I get past passport control? That my flight's been delayed. So far by only 25 minutes, but who knows if that gets extended. It wouldn't surprise me. Look, it's the only delayed flight on this departure board! I hope I don't miss my connection home in Detroit. I think I might have to run the length of that tunnel at DTW...we'll see...right now I have about three more hours to wait before heading to the gate. Then the silly interviews. I think those are really pointless and just serve to delay the boarding process. I wonder what they'll ask this time...
