No snow this year.

So far this winter, we've had no snow to shovel. Yes, there has been the odd dusting, but judicious use of "presalting" kept the sidewalks clear and prevented "black ice". What little snow there was usually melted away by mid-day. Right now, as I type this, we've had a local shower, but the sun is  shining through the clouds with a nice rainbow visible right through our front window:

Usually, when snow is more plentiful, shoveling is required. On those occasions, I wish the snow would stay in the local mountains, where it belongs. Well, this year that's what seems to have happened. There is a lot of snow in the mountains; the local ski hills have been open since November and are going strong.

There have been few clear nights for astronomy. None-the-less, I have been involved in a couple of related activities. At Telus Science World, the RASC (Royal Astronomical Society of Canada) Vancouver Centre sets up displays once a month for scheduled high school classes from various local and province-wide schools. We have videos, telescopes, handouts, and answer inquiries from teachers and students alike, which may result in setting up in-school astronomy events for those schools. We also give talks to a groups of girl scouts and boy scouts, again with telescope displays. If the weather permits, we use either one or more solar telescope or, after dark, regular telescopes to look at planets, the Moon, star clusters and nebulae.

Last Friday (unfortunately it rained again), I had made arrangements with Professor Trottier to show our two granddaughters the new Trottier Observatory at Simon Fraser University.  Howard Trottier is professor of physics at SFU, and the Trottier foundation donated the funds for the observatory and the Trottier Studio for innovative science education at SFU. Professor Trottier is also a past president of the RASC Vancouver Centre (as I am) and originated Starry Nights at SFU, in which the RASC participates with its support. Here are some pictures:

 As you can see, no snow (but plenty of rain).

A generation passing

 In October of last year (http://www.penmachinedad.blogspot.ca/2015/10/back-to-reality.htm) I posted some comments about our trip to Germany. At the beginning I mentioned our visit to my mother's younger sister, 102 years old at the time, the only one of six siblings still alive.

She died a week ago of congestive heart failure (the same disease caused my mother's death fourteen years ago). Apparently, she contracted a severe case of pneumonia and developed a painful circulation blockage in her right arm. She also refused food and drink and died four days after admission to hospital.

From the odd comments my mother made over the years, we know that this sister and my mother were no wallflowers. In the early 1930s the two of them would often visit Berlin's cabarets, pubs and other entertainment venues and had a pretty active social life. They probably made Berlin unsafe for the men of their generation (my mother only chuckled when I once mentioned my thinking in that regard). It was likely the best time of their lives; this was all counterbalanced when they suffered great adversities during and after the second world war.

Both my mother and her sister had a full life. Most of their generation are now gone; it is a natural progression of life, but still sad.

Update: Just this morning, I received an email from my Austrian cousin that her mother (my father's sister) has also died (age 94) after having dealt with dementia for several years. We last saw her in 1983, when she came here for a visit. She was the last one of her generation in our family.

A sad start for this year...

Busy time

I just realized that it's been more than 2 months since I last posted anything. In the meantime, I've been busy with a number of meetings as a trustee of the Vancouver Centre of the RASC, participated in several public astronomy nights (both at SFU and the HRMacMillan space centre), attended a TEDx session, and reworked the computer network in our house. Since we are a close family, we also had get-togethers (dinners, mainly).

Christmas has crept up again, the tree is now up, and our granddaughters set up the "village" again. As always, we'll miss our son Derek at our family Christmas celebration. This will be the 5th Christmas since he died.

Since I probably won't blog again until next year, we wish everyone a "Very Merry Christmas" and a Happy, Healthy, and Successful New Year.

Back to reality.

This past month, we traveled to Germany for a reunion of cousins and a visit to one of my two living aunts, my mother's younger sister, who is now 102 years old. She is living in a care home, still sharp of mind, uses a walker to get around, but has been totally deaf for over 40 years. Nonetheless, she speaks normally, but we "talk" to her by writing down whatever we want to say to her. Fortunately, one of her two daughters lives nearby and visits her every couple of days. We had a great time together.

The cousins' get-together was arranged as a boat trip in an area southeast of Berlin, called the "Spreewald". This is a marshy area, drained by channels and canals amounting to a total of a couple of thousand kilometers. These channels are very shallow, if you fall out of the boat, you can walk out (waist-deep). The boat trips are a major income source for the people who live there. Our boat was equipped with tables and shelves which held a variety of alcoholic beverages - food can be purchased at "roadside" establishments.

Cousins in the boat

After the boat trip, we all gathered at a local restaurant and spent a couple of hours there, talking about things which you talk about at a family reunion, the good things, the sad things, possible future visits, etc.

We spent almost a week in Berlin - it is one of the most dynamic cities in the world. Museums, exhibitions, art and science venues, world class shopping, unique local and international food... one can spend many weeks there and still not see all. My sister and her husband (who also live in the Vancouver area) also came to the reunion separately from us, and we met and stayed at the same hotel in the centre of Berlin. It was great fun for my sister and me (our spouses tagged along) to visit our childhood haunts, schools, and other places we were once at home in, and which we left 60 years ago. We also enjoyed going out to local restaurants for some fine, local food and beer. We don't often do that here in Vancouver, usually we get together in our homes.

Our travel to Germany involved a hitch. We had booked the flight including a day-long layover in Toronto. The new Airport rail line to downtown Toronto recently opened there, a la Vancouver's airport line, but the fare is more than $40 per trip per person - outrageous! Therefore, we decided to stay at our hotel, and had a pleasant evening, with a very good dinner and drinks at the bar.

Next morning, we checked our flight time from Toronto to Frankfurt, and, much to our dismay, found it cancelled. The Lufthansa pilots were on a one-day strike (long distance flights only)!

Naturally, we made efforts to get information regarding alternatives. Lufthansa phone lines were not answered, and our hotel desk had no information either. We took the shuttle from the hotel to the airport to try our luck there. At the airport, the Lufthansa counters were eventually served by one lonely lady, whose job it was to re-book and re-arrange the flights for the affected passengers. After a one-hour wait in line we finally got to that lady (for whom we felt immensely sorry), and found out that we had already been re-booked on Air Canada to Zurich, and from there on Swiss Air to Berlin. I guess that, having booked the whole trip on business class, we had received preferential treatment.

The Air Canada flight to Zurich was the best flight experiences we've ever had. The passenger pods were roomy and comfortable, the service was excellent, and the plane was brand-new (it was on its 5th flight, we were told). We had 40 minutes in Zurich to get through customs and onto the Swiss Air flight. It all worked smoothly, and, surprise, we (and our luggage!) arrived in Berlin 3 hours ahead of the original schedule. The unseen airline people who work in the background deserve great credit for how all this was handled.

After our family reunion, we spent a couple more weeks in other parts of Germany, visiting friends, who had planned something for us on every one of those days. We get together quite often in other parts of the world, so we had much to talk about and, of course, lubricated these occasions with the appropriate amount of food and drinks. These get-togethers have become more sedate over the last few years - we're all getting older, and several of our friends have died. None-the-less, a great time was had by all.

Our trip back went without a hitch. We arrived on time - tried out skytrain to get home. It works quite well, but we arrived at rush hour, so the trains were crowded. Traveling with luggage on skytrain is a bit of a hassle; there is no provision to store luggage.

It was a great vacation. We are now getting over our jet lag; back to reality!

Happy Travellers

This month, we spent three weeks in California, driving to see friends in various parts of the state. The main reason we went down was to celebrate our close friend Henry's eighty-fifth birthday in La Jolla. Over the years we have visited him and his wife, we've gotten to know many of their friends, and most of the family. We were one of four "international" couples; the others were from Sweden and Germany. There were about forty of us present. A great time was had by all - the festivity included a catered Mexican Lunch and a wonderful nine-person Mariachi band, which played for at least two hours.

Our fiftieth wedding anniversary occurred a week later. Seeing that so many of our friends had assembled, we arranged to celebrate that occasion after Henry's "big one". We had not announced this ahead of time, so it was a surprise to all. These anniversary celebrations took place in smaller groups at "Piatti's" Restaurant in La Jolla Shores, and at several "happy hours" at local friends' homes. Needless to say that the drinks flowed liberally, and food was equally plentiful (we have proof: our waistlines tell us so).

After about a week of this, we decided to wend our way home. We stayed with friends in Los Angeles and Chico and continued our anniversary entertainment in that fashion.

This car trip included (in chronological order) Medford, Oregon, and in Calfornia we stpped at Santa Nella, Solvang, La Jolla, Long Beach, Santa Nella again, Chico, Roseburg, Oregon, and Portland. We love travelling by car; you can be very flexible about your route. None of these stops were arranged in advance, we decided where to go while we were on the road.

It was a great trip.

Into the New Year

My wife and I hope that all of you had a great holiday season. We enjoyed our usual Christmas family get-together.  For once, the two of us had a "stay-at-home" New Year all by ourselves. After watching the New York time ball at 9pm, we raised a toast or two, reminisced about past riotous New Years' parties here at home, in California and Mexico, and family members and friends who have died, and went to bed around 10pm - getting old, I guess.

A number of astronomical events (including a relatively rare triple shadow transit on Jupiter) were rained/fogged out during this month. A clear sky break during last week made it possible for me to have a look at comet Lovejoy, though. This is a relatively bright comet, easily seen through binoculars. It's bright enough to be seen with the naked eye as a faint, fuzzy star, but not in the light-polluted Metro area.

The days are getting longer; we're looking forward to more sun.

Christmas again

This year seems to have passed more quickly than ever - I think that's a sign of aging: every second, minute, hour, day represents a larger percentage of the rest of life, and somehow, our mind builds that into our perceptions.

My wife and I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, an a Happy, Healthy, and Successful New Year.

This is the fourth Christmas since our son died - we live with the memories and are
thankful for having his wife and children live next door.

As time goes by...

Things have been busy lately. The RASC has been doing things astronomical - observing nights for the public and council and membership meetings, which always feature some interesting speakers. As usual, the weather ruled the success of the observing sessions; some had to be called off. The latest one of these was scheduled for the youngest group in the Boy Scouts (Beavers) in New Westminster today - but the weather gods do not agree, as you can see if you live in our area. If you are interested in astronomy, as I am, you get used to this.

Aside from my external activities, my wife and I have had some doctors' appointments - at our age, some issue or other always comes up. Well, "body and soul maintenance" is important at any age, it just becomes more necessary as time goes on.

Our daughter-in-law organized a very successful family get-together (17 people). We always have a great time and enjoy each others' company; there are none of the family frictions which seem to be the norm if you judge by the numerous TV shows which exploit that theme. We're lucky to be able to appreciate our individual traits.

Christmas is just around the corner - the year is quickly approaching its end. Something is tinkering with the speed at which time goes by, it seems to me.

A nice summer

Last week, a good friend from California on a visit at our house and we spent a wonderful time with our friends in their spectacular home on Saltspring Island, as we did last year around this time: (http://penmachinedad.blogspot.ca/2013/07/a-close-paradise.html). We had a wonderful evening as a part of the "Puerto Vallarta" contingent, and had more than our accustomed number of glasses of wine (we calculated one-and-half bottles for each of us over the course of the afternoon and evening). The "P.V contingent" is a group of people who got to know each other over the years at our (now deceased) friends Ernie and Al's B&B there.

Later in the week, we had a fabulous evening dinner with about twenty of our hosts' friends and neighbours on the terrace which surrounds our friends' home. These people are an intelligent and fun group - it was a real pleasure to interact with them.

Just before our trip we got word that our very close family friend Erlyne had died quite suddenly. She fell when she missed the bottom step on some stairs, broke her hip, and never recovered. Erlyne was my wife's friend for fifty-seven years; they got to know each other when both of them worked as time and script controllers for CBC television in the days when every broadcast was live. Erlyne was also a bridesmaid at our wedding more than forty-nine years ago. We are saddened by her death.

It is obvious that we have reached the age at which one loses more and more family members and friends...

A trip south, happy and sad

For the last month, Hilkka and I have been in Southern California, visiting friends and many of the places we particularly like. This was a car trip, so, on the way, we stopped in Oregon, both coming and going. On the way back, we stayed for a day at Oregon's Crater Lake Lodge.

We have visited Crater Lake about a half dozen times over the various decades, several times with our son Derek. The lake is a water-filled caldera which is what is left from a huge explosion of a volcano now named Mt. Mazama. This time, we stayed at Crater Lake Lodge, as we have on several occasions in the past. It's a fairly expensive stay, with somewhat spartan "luxury" rooms, no TV, which is a good thing; you should get outside and take in the view from the various view points. There is internet access. The restaurant has improved considerably over the years; the food and service is first class. Scenery from the lakeside rooms is impressive.

In his blog of July 2007, Derek wrote about some of the places on Earth which he had visited, and which had a special connection to family and friends for him (http://www.penmachine.com/2007/07/my-favourite-places-and-when-to-take-me). This blog entry was written just before his first operation for the colon cancer to which he would succumb four years later.

This time, our visit to Crater Lake was sombre and sad. In the evening, we dispersed some of Derek's ashes from a promontory close to the Lodge (see pictures). The wind blew them down towards the lake, and we wept, thought of his wife Airdrie and his daughters Marina and Meredith, but felt a certain comfort in having fulfilled one part of the wishes Derek had expressed in his blog.

Next morning, the sun rose above the lake in what became a beautiful day; we take this as a sign about the bright future Derek wished for his own family. 

Here are the series of pictures taken at Crater Lake - an expanded set of the ones we posted on Facebook a few days ago: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mimiandpapa/sets/72157645217732272/ . Click on any of the pictures for a closer view and a related description. 

From now on, any trips we take to this beautiful area will be in memory of our son. Crater Lake is situated in southern Oregon, about two hours' drive east of interstate highway five, so we will likely stop there, even if it is for just a day visit. We quite often fly to California; Crater Lake is located on the flight path from Vancouver or Seattle. We'll have a moment of silence when we pass overhead.

Family is everything

Yesterday, it was the third anniversary of our son Derek's death. We miss him - we light a candle in his memory every day. This void in our family will never go away.

We maintain a perpetual memorial on-line here: http://www.legacy.com/guestbooks/vancouversun/derek-miller-condolences/150846264?#sthash.xPQfXgEU.dpbs . You may leave a comment there at any time.

A couple of weeks ago, Hilkka and I celebrated our 49th anniversary. We are both as much in love with each other as when we got married. Our daughter-in-law, Airdrie, invited us to an Easter dinner a couple of days later and we had a wonderful time with her, her parents, and our granddaughters.

Hilkka and I made an impromptu decision last night to invite Airdrie, and our granddaughters Marina and Meredith to breakfast at our place this morning (they live in the other half of our duplex home, so that's easy). We always enjoy their company; Derek would be so proud of the beautiful young ladies his daughters have become.

Family is everything.

Progress and memories

For those of you who may be curious about the situation regarding my damaged right hip joint socket, I can report that real progress is evident to me. I can use the walker to walk quite well, and a cane to walk more slowly. I still have to be careful about putting too much weight on my right leg. I've even made my way upstairs (and back) to the first landing on our interior steps, halfway to the upper living area. I think I may soon make it all the way, which would expand my currently limited confines. Since the right leg's range of motion is now almost the same as that of my left leg, and since  the strength of my muscles is back to near normal, I expect to be able to drive our cars pretty soon. I'll wait until after my next x-rays scheduled for Friday of this week, which will truly tell about the degree of healing that has taken place.

Today is the third anniversary of the "living wake" (http://www.penmachine.com/2011/03/my-living-wake) which our daughter-in-law, Airdrie, arranged for our son, Derek - who died two years and ten months ago. It's always a bittersweet time for us when the various anniversaries relating to our son's life come up. We are lucky to have his two daughters (Marina and Meredith [Lolo]) and Airdrie living next to us. For us, Derek lives on in them.

Snow continues

Taken with a wide-angle lens

The view from my wheelchair

Here's the view from our basement window yesterday. As most of you know, I'm confined to the lower floor in our house because of my broken hip joint socket; climbing stairs is not possible for me at this time (see previous post). Thank goodness for the large rec (for me: wreck) room window.

The joint is healing nicely, I can stand up without support. That's how I took the top picture.

In general, things are progressing well. Using the walker to steady myself, I can use the right leg in a limping walk by putting only a little weight on it. That's quite a bit of progress from even a few days ago. At that time I could not use the right leg at all.

It's been snowing continuously here for the last three days. Since Hilkka had a cyst removed from her thyroid gland last Friday, she is not allowed to do anything that requires a lot of physical effort. Therefore, both she and I can't shovel snow; all that snow is building up in the driveway. It blocks our way out of the house. Our two granddaughters do clear the sidewalks and driveways once a day, but that can only happen after school.

I have postponed the x-ray test and evaluation by the orthopaedic surgeon for one week. By that time, I expect the snow to be gone. Why take chances?

Starting with a thud

I started out my retirement with a thud, literally. A week ago, I slipped on ice up on Mt. Seymour, and broke the socket in my right hip joint. A whole new experience; I'm reliant on a wheelchair for the next couple of months, until the bones heal. Things one takes for granted have to be thought out in detail, since I can't put any weight on my right leg. Getting into and out of bed, bathroom, washing, dressing, all the basic things have to be planned - all with a view of "no strain" on the right leg. I have a much better insight now regarding what people permanently subject to these kinds of limitations need to do.

Fortunately, the lower level in our house has a continuously laid hard floor (no door sills)  which makes getting around much easier. The upper floor is unreachable for me at this time, so the lower level is now our "headquarters". One of the rooms is our rec room - I guess it should now be spelled "wreck" room - and the lower level is even with the carport and the street. When we get warmer weather, I'll be able to get out. My wife sure has to do a lot more work now; things would be a lot harder for me if it weren't for her taking care of all the details related to the house. We have access to a couple of internet services here. We've always done banking on line anyway, so paying bills and depositing cheques is no problem.

We had a very competent moving company (Top Movers) swap our two electric beds upstairs with the beds in the downstairs guest room, which has now become our bedroom. The electric bed is a real help for me; I can adjust it so that my right leg is comfortable. I sleep well, even though turning around in bed is very limited and have no pain worth speaking about. If necessary, a couple of extra-strength Tylenols do the trick.

Our trip to Europe in April is off, naturally. I'll miss seeing my 100 year old aunt - she is sharp as a nail, but totally deaf - and my cousins there, but hope to be able to do that later in the year. The best laid plans...

An end and a beginning

Today is the last day of 2013. Let me wish everyone a Happy New Year, and all success for the future.

In addition to being the last day of the year, it is also my last "working" day. I decided at the beginning of this year that I'd shut down my business and retire at the end of the year. From now on, my business is a passive entity and exists only for so long as it takes to clean up the "loose ends", i.e. close GST and PST accounts, and collect outstanding accounts receivable, and a few other things. I will no longer actively provide the services which were the base of my business. After all these things are done, my business will no longer exist.

My wife and I are looking forward to more travels, I look forward to the pursuit of my various hobbies (astronomy, photography, electronics) and generally not having the time constraints imposed by operating a business. A big thank-you to all my loyal suppliers and customers - we've had a great business relationship.

Again, the Best to all.

The end of a house

We've lived in our house for 42 years, and in all this time or neighbours' house has stood there. I estimate that it was built around 1930. The same people have lived in there during all the time we were in our house, Paul and Celina.

Paul died a few months ago, and Celina decided that she would sell the house. She did that about three months ago.

The house stood empty until last week. Then, a demolition crew finally arrived and started its work.  The people who handled the backhoe were experts. They even felled two big trees which we had seen grow from saplings, but had grown so big that we had concerns about them hitting our house, if a strong storm ever blew them down.

Here are some pictures:

taken by Marina Miller

taken by Marina Miller

taken by Marina Miller

taken by Marina Miller

taken by Marina Miller

totally flattened

the blue spruce, the peach and apple trees, and the big camellia bush are gone

The big cedar at the front... gone

some of tree leftovers

some of tree leftovers.

We temporarily have more open sky in the south than we've ever had. I think that the new house will be a duplex as big as is currently the norm. It'll likely fill up what used to be Celina's garden, and which we enjoyed from our back porch (see top picture). 

Can't stop progress.

Fall is back

The rapidly shortening days in the last month were, as usual, an indication of the year approaching its end. The weather also changed rapidly - cloudy, rainy, and the first serious storm showed up right away. This was quite a change from the beautiful summer days which preceded the fall equinox - the day when fall begins.

I also became busier in my business, because it involves the universities and colleges. This is normal; the semester starts at the beginning of September.

At the beginning of this year, I decided to retire at the end of it (December 31). That means I'll close my business, and it will no longer exist. Most people with whom I deal have already been notified. Both my wife and I are looking forward to this, and hope to be able to do some more travel, and follow our other interests.

In 2002, our family arranged for a memorial bench for my mother, who had died a year earlier. The period for the dedicated bench lasts ten years, and can be renewed every ten years after that. So, we renewed the dedication, and had the memorial plaque on it redone to reflect the death of our son over two years ago. For the two of us, this is bittersweet. Here are a couple of pictures:

Our son Derek at my mother's bench in 2002

The new plaque, commemorating Derek

Thinking of Derek

Life goes on. We are glad to have Derek's and Airdrie's two daughters next door; he lives on in them.

A summer day

Today would have been Derek's 44th birthday. This is always a somewhat sad day for us. But we've also had some good experiences in the last couple of weeks.

Our older granddaughter won an award for being the top English student in her grade level. She now moves up one grade and, in three years, will be graduating from high school. Our younger granddaughter graduated from elementary school. She also won a general service award, and, in addition, a once-a year school award for exceptional volunteering and helping teachers and students. Her sister received the same special award two years ago. Starting in the fall, both will be attending the same school again.

Yesterday, we spent a lovely afternoon at my wife's sister's friend's house (how about three apostrophes in a row?), enjoying the warm, sunny afternoon on a very nice and secluded sun deck. I was the only man among five attractive and intelligent ladies; what more can a guy ask for? Clarification: the fifth lady was my imaginary mistress who looks just like my wife.

Today, we've been sitting in our back yard all afternoon, had a few glasses of wine, and raised a couple of toasts in our son's memory. It's now 8:40pm, we're still sitting here, and it's 30 degrees C (86F). A beautiful day, the rather warm temperature is rare for our area, though.

A vacation

We went to San Diego a couple of weeks ago to visit good friends, and returned last Tuesday. There was a bit of jealousy on our part regarding the weather here. While we were going through the normal for this time of year cloudy-sunny-cloudy-and even rainy regimen for San Diego's shorelines, the weather here was summer. On top of that, we both contracted some nasty cough (I even had a bout with fever). We're still battling that now, on the long weekend. Sometimes you wonder whether our aging bodies are telling us to stay at home and deal with germs they know, rather than fight new "enemies".

Well, we'll resist that notion.

A life together

Yesterday, my wife and I celebrated our 48th wedding anniversary. Through all those years, we've never lost our love for each other, through joys, adversities, and family tragedies. Our relationship is built on trust, mutual respect, and love. 

We were in the company of our daughter-in-law and our two granddaughters, the three people in our family who are closest to us. The five of us had a very nice dinner at the Cactus Club at Metrotown. It was a "gentle" celebration.