By Guus , 30 July 2009

The Grapes of Wrath

Sasha recommended Steinbeck to me and we had this book in our collection. What a great read! The language is so beautiful. I loved the short chapter on how the turtle walks through the field and crosses the highway.

The Joad family takes highway 64 in the book, starting from Salisaw to Gore. I looked it up on Google maps, and parallel to that old 64 is now... I-40, the highway I take to work everyday and which goes from North Carolina to California.

The speed on the highway seemed to be fairly similar to what it is today with a maximum speed of 65 miles per hour. Of course, the 'jalopies' did not make that speed.

Very cool that there is even a reference to the city we live in, or to be more specific to the tobacco that was produced here. Tom at one point says: "I wish I had some Durham".

By Guus , 29 July 2009

Two hour drive home

Two hour drive home.It took me two hours to get home from the office today while usually it only takes 30 minutes. There were 2 big pile-ups of cars on I-40 very near each other; blocking the highway completely for 30 minutes followed by a few hours of 1 lane traffic (1 instead of 4).

Still, glad I wasn't in the pile-up. When I finally drove past it I saw 28 damaged cars, some in really bad shape.

Two hour drive home.

Topic
driving
By Guus , 28 July 2009

Hot Tuesday run

I started around 7.30 pm when the sun was not as bright anymore, but it was quite warm. 87 degrees, 50% humidity. Had to wait 2 minutes for the first big traffic light. Saw a train passing in front on me; I didn't have to slow down though (last week, I think also on Tuesday around the same time I had to wait a little).

By Guus , 28 July 2009

samovar

A samovar (Russian: самовар, pronounced [səmɐˈvar] ( listen); literally "self-boiler") is a heated metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water in and around Russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samovar

By Guus , 26 July 2009

Two big snakes

Black rat snake. Picture source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/furryscalyman/578071810.We went for a long hike yesterday in Umstead Park. We walked in the middle of the day, and it was humid and hot, around 90 degrees.

We walked the Company Mill trail, a beautiful 6 mile walk through the woods. It took us about 2 hours and 20 minutes.

We saw two large snakes, larger than I've ever seen in the wild before. Both of them were around 3 feet long (90 centimeters).

The first one we heard before we saw it, a couple of feet away from the trail in the bushes when we were near a creek. It was brown and patterned. We're no snake experts but after looking at pictures later it might have been a hognose, northern water snake or a copperhead. We respectfully kept our distance.

Just a few minutes later we saw a similar sized snake, but completely black. That was almost certainly a black rat snake. It quickly moved away and crossed the trail behind us.

Topic
northcarolina
By Guus , 25 July 2009

jalopy

Jalopy is an old, decrepit, unreliable and often nonfunctional car which has limited mechanical abilities and is often in an unmaintained and often in a rusty or dented shape. A jalopy is not a well kept antique car, but a car which is mostly rundown or beaten up.

By Guus , 24 July 2009

Friday evening run

Went for a run tonight, Whole Foods and back. 84 degrees, 50% humidity. Tired when I started but the run went well. Very tired after wards.

By Guus , 23 July 2009

A raccoon at the Eno

A raccoon.We went for a walk at the Eno River today. We were there around 7.00 pm when the sun wasn't shining very bright anymore and we saw a lot of deer.

On the road near the park someone had put home-made signs: "slow, baby deer", and in their garden were at least 8 deer, including young ones.

There's a large park around the Eno river and on our walk through the woods near the river we saw a beautiful animal that we had seen only once or twice before. I thought it was called a possum, but tonight I looked it up and the animal we saw is a raccoon.

The raccoon was about to climb in to a tree when it saw us. It stared at us for a while, hid behind the tree trunk and then walked away. It reminded me of a cat in the way it seemed to pretend "Oh, I wasn't never planning to climb in that tree, you silly human".

Topic
dailylife
By Guus , 22 July 2009

Judith Leyster

I just discovered through a review in the WSJ that the National Gallery has again a great exhibition of a Dutch 17th century artist, this time about Judith Leyster.

I don't know Judith Leyster's work, but she worked with Frans Hals and was one of the two only women accepted to the Guild of St. Luke in 17th century Haarlem.

The exhibition will run through November 29 and Sasha and will definitely go check it out, probably in September. According to the WSJ: "She deserves attention".

I'm also very excited about "The Complete Rembrandt, Life Size", an show with life-size reprints of all known works by Rembrandt. It's on display in Amsterdam, which I'll visit in about two weeks.

Topic
art