Billing itself as a breath of fresh air on historic Monterey Bay, the Clement is an addition to Monterey’s Cannery Row that was twenty years in the making.  Its last few years of construction, it greatly constricted vehicle and pedestrian traffic and caused neighboring businesses some economic heart-ache. It certainly is a beautiful hotel though and is located next to the Monterey Aquarium. My brother, Chris sent along these great photographs of the place. My other brother, Frank and I once had lunch on one of its balconies that overlooked the sea, nice food with a great view. I spoke with my father and he said that they were “suffering” this week with unseasonably warm, 80 °F weather.

Ahoy Maties! I was going to post pictures of his latest art, but instead Dan has set up his own professional website, DanielAxe.com. This site is dedicated to showcasing his sculpture and installation artworks. Look for the perma-link in my link list to the right. Also, checkout his latest work, called Sea Shanty. He built this work upon a fairly large plastic model of a WW II German U-boat. His art work entails the modeling of a series of temporary shelters that sit either on or astride the deck of this submarine. When the Klaxons sound and the captain calls out, Dive, Dive, Dive, you could expect this shantytown to become panic city. He is a teacher-assistant to a visiting professor, whose theme is temporary structures. This piece must have tickled his heart. The ad hoc community’s structures range from apparently scavenged wood built structures to shipping cargos retrofitted as dwellings. I especially like the fact that he has built an outhouse on the U-boat’s fantail. It naturally begs a question; now wait for it, because here it comes, what happens when the shit hits the fantail?

Earlier this week we became friends on Facebook with Annie’s mom, Susan. Word of this eventually made it out to the left coast and something like the following conversation is purported to have occurred: Annie, “Our parents are Facebook friends. You know what this means?” Dan, “Yeah, this is bad.”

Meanwhile back here in the land of ice and snow, we are expecting a low temperature of -3 °F and I’m not including any wind chill. Anne will enjoy her third straight snow day this week, while I trudge off to work. She and I did dig out our cars and shovel the walks together, a good bonding exercise. She was originally scheduled to teach math all week. So far, she only has one day of work this week. I too had a snow day this week, only mine was a paid snow day. I didn’t have to work from home, take a vacation day, or feign an illness; no I later filled in my timecard with Facility Closed, call it Snowzilla pay. 😉

Ah, ah,
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
Hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new land,
To fight the horde, sing and cry: Valhalla, I am coming!
On we sweep with threshing oar,
Our only goal will be the western shore.
Immigrant Song, Led Zeppelin