Archives_november 08

Saturday a.m. tailgate
Posted Saturday, November 22, 2008
There was only one winner in the Grandstaff house Saturday morning - the breakfast bowl - a three-layer fantasma of Wisconsin-cheesy hashbrowns, scrambled eggs and cajun-cooked steak, red pepper and onion. Yum.

The brilliance of the breakfast bowl kept Chris and I smiling as both Michigan and North Carolina were humiliated by their arch enemies. I lost a bet on the game with Chris’ dad Rolf and now get to wear this pink NC State shirt on the morning of Matt and Erin’s wedding. Rolf suggested I wear it to the wedding if I so pleased. I think I’ll pass.

The only place this belongs is the toilet bowl.
- tiff

What happened?
Posted Thursday, November 20, 2008

Fallout 3 happened
The grandpease feed is a little out of date because Chris is addicted to his brother’s company’s latest video game - Fallout 3. Apparently this game is pretty cool (congrats Matt). Since nuclear fallout really isn’t my thing, here’s a look at what we’ve been up to outside of our living room.

Chris lost the cat fight. The Panthers defeated the 0-10 Lions 31-22 on Sunday as we drank bloody marys at the Jose’s Bar and Grill. To celebrate the fact that the Lions could even score, we drank some Hefeweizen, grilled some steak and played some foosball. For the first time in a long while, I lived up to my college standards and actually won a couple games.

On Monday, we headed up to Palo Alto to check out the small - but cool - Papua New Guinea sculpture garden. The garden is full of wood and stone carvings created on-site by Papua New Guinea artists in 1994. In the spirit of the old, we grabbed a couple beers at the Old Pro before watching Casablanca at the Stanford Theatre - where you can get $1 popcorn and a live organ performance before and after the film.

In other news, Michigan beat UCLA 55-52 Thursday night in a pretty impressive showing by the Wolverines - woohoo! A-maizingly, it was an ‘A-maizing upset’ according to ESPN. Ha!

- tiff

Patriotism
Posted Friday, November 7, 2008

A look at Tiff’s front page.

Let me just begin by saying that on Tuesday I was both inspired by the man we elected president and by the people who elected him. It’s a great feeling, now let’s keep this thing rolling.

So how do you prepare for “the most historic election of our lifetime?” Canada? You betcha. We decided to be ultra patriotic this past weekend and visit our neighbor to the north. We spent Saturday in Seattle watching college football, eating fresh fish and walking along the water before an early train to Vancouver on Sunday morning. For four hours we cruised along the scenic coastline of the Pacific northwest -- flanked on one side by the Strait of Georgia and by the changing leaves on the other. So of course our train would break down in the Vancouver ghetto between a bridge and junkyard only 20 minutes from our final stop downtown. Because we were traveling internationally we had to sit in our scenic hell for two hours while they fixed the problem. Undeterred, we arrived in Vancouver and marched around some of the city’s historic neighborhoods -- Chinatown, Gastown, Downtown and Granville Island. We ate more fish, tried the local brew, watched the sun set and scurried to GM Place for a game between my Detroit Red Wings and the Vancouver Canucks. Now I love my country, and I stand with pride (a lot more so now) when the national anthem is played, but it’s nothing like what happens in Canada. One-third of the way through the Canadian anthem on Sunday, our ice maestro let his microphone slip to his side and let the 20,000 voices in attendance finish the song. It felt like everyone was singing and frankly it gave me chills -- not thousands of people celebrating Barack Obama in the streets chills, but they were pretty good ones. The Red Wings won the game and we finished our night with ... more fish -- this time beside a fire to warm our bones from another rainy day.

Dinner at the Steelhead Diner just off Pike’s Place market in Seattle.

Vancouver in full color Me and Gassy Jack

Peaceful Gastown

Hanging out at Vancouver’s Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese Garden

Down by the waterfront at sunset

Downtown Vancouver from below...

...and from our room

False Creek at night from Granville Island

The art museum at night

Detroit won 3-2

On Monday we spent the first part of the day at Capilano suspension bridge north of Vancouver. The bridge spans over a gorge and into a rainforest. The coolest parts, however, were the skywalks: Wooden bridges connected tree-to-tree about 150 feet in the air. Think the Ewok village from Jedi.

Gumbi Tiff tried to keep her balance on the bridge (the bridge doesn’t move).

In the trees.

And as usual, we decided to pose ridiculously with everything in sight:

Afterward it was back to the city for a feast of sushi, a trip to Roots (only in Canada) for some new hats and a few more vistas before taking the train back to Seattle for an early Tuesday flight.

We are dorks

To everyone who voted, congratulations.
-cmg

Us and animals
Posted Thursday, November 6, 2008
Running way behind on the blogging, but thought I’d toss up a few photos from our recent trip to the newly renovated California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and subsequent walk through Golden Gate Park.

The Academy gets all of its power from these solar panels on its roof, which is green both figuratively and literally.

Tiff and the albino alligator.

Inside the Academy’s artificial rainforest.

We watched this guy while sitting on a park bench.

Me and the random buffalo roaming the park. Yes, this is still San Francisco.

And the most fearsome animals of all...

-cmg