This post is sort of a West Coast post.  Some people here in the Midwest dismiss this coast.  When I see California and those two other more northern states, I also see the Midwest, in about ten years.  We here in the Midwest will eventually receive both the good and bad gifts from our most forward leaning coast.

The picture with this post is one that my brother Chris took many years ago, when he was going to school in Santa Barbara.  The Hollywood Couple pictured are Barry and Jelinda De Vorzon.  At the time of the picture Barry was a composer for film and TV.  Here is his Wiki page.  His wife Jelinda ran the Santa Barbara Film Festival.  This portrait was part of Chris’ portfolio when he was at Brooks Institute.

This week Chris has been in Phoenix for training.  He was staying downtown and found the place to be pretty dead.  NPR had an article this week explaining that the business foreclosures in Phoenix were about the highest in the country.  My brother’s boots on the ground reporting seems to back that story up.

I booked flights for Dan this week.  He’ll fly into LAX next month.  The purpose for his trip is to check out graduate schools there.  Some of you might recall that we tried this once, two years ago.  Dan was able to checkout the art school that he was interested in, in the Bay Area, but California’s seasonal fires interfered with his planned trip to the LA area school.  Tempting fate and fire again we will send him once more into the breach.

Carl set us a really nice card.  Supposedly, we were to forward the card to one Albert Pujols.  The card was made from birch bark from the Jim Finlayson Trail.  I’m sure that Carl paid a blood tax in order to harvest  the bark.  The thrust of the card was a request of Albert for a signed baseball.  Knowing me, I don’t think that Carl expected anything, but I do have a lead, check out Smiles League.  Whoops!  Me bad!  The raffle ended on Wednesday.  But hey Carl, what did you expect?  I’m only a brother-in-law.

That last paragraph might not have been the best segue to this last item.  I’ve booked flights to Seattle.  I arrive on Monday, the fourteenth and return on the following Friday.  I have work to do, but I would like to catch a ball game.  Let’s discuss the particulars offline.  I am curious to see how Carl handles rooting for his two favorite teams, when they play each other.  At half time does he walk across the field to sit on the other side, like Jay Nixon did on Thursday night?

I just can’t help myself, but to include some of the Saint Louis bike racing scene that will permeate this holiday weekend.  Today’s header shows a glimpse of Friday night’s Lafayette Square bike races.  Highlighted on today’s header is friend and racer, Kubie, who did not finish last!  Whoo Hoo!!