You be the judge -

Here's the San Francisco one I mentioned.

These guys rock!

There have been a lot of people who have tried to copy this, some more successfully than others (there's one in San Francisco that's almost equally impressive). I'm not a huge fan of the wreaths in the windows (looks too much like eyes to me) but as for the rest of it - WOW.

You say it's your birthday....it's my birthday too!

Well, actually it's not my birthday yet, but yesterday was my friend Chris' 31st!

Chris and I go waaaay back... I think I have photos of us together at 5 or 6 years old. Our mom's are best friends so we grew up together. Although we grew apart in our teens, we've recently reconnected and I couldn't be more thrilled.

Chris, I am so proud of who you have become and continue to evolve into. I never realized how much I missed you until you came back into my life. Even though our moms are pretty good at keeping us both up to date on each other's important news, it's not the same as getting the info first hand. :o)

I hope you had a fantastic birthday and I wish you continued success in the year to come!

xxoo

Nighty night. Sleep tight...

Boy am I ever behind this year. Thanks in part to a more hectic than usual fall market at work, plans every weekend and a winter beater that was in and out of the shop for more than 3 weeks, I am almost a month late putting the PT away for the winter.

On the bonus side, even though I'm behind, we still haven't had any snow to speak of, so all is good.

Aside from a little waxing and still having to put the car cover on, this is the last I will see it until April.

C'mon spring!!

No, this isn't one of my dogs...but it could be! I could see either one of them (or a blend of both) pulling off this stunt!

Just the "Wright" thing for a Surprise Birthday Weekend Getaway...

This past weekend, I whisked Darryl away on a surprise weekend in Buffalo. It was an early birthday gift for him as he celebrates a milestone birthday in December. Yes, we could have gone in December, but I was concerned about travel that time of year, so we went earlier, and I'm glad we did. What little that we did outdoors was cold enough now. I can't imagine doing the same tour in the chill of December.

Our 3 day weekend, a package tour assembled by Sandy Starkes & Marge Sgroi of Ashton Drye Associates, was packed full of cultural and architectural treats to delight all the senses (with the exception of touch - don't touch ANYTHING!!)

For months I have been emailing back and forth with Sandy & Marge to bring this weekend to fruition. Darryl had no idea what was in store for him until we got to the hotel on Friday and our welcome package with the weekends' itinerary was waiting there in addition to a "Happy Birthday" basket brimming with Frank Lloyd Wright goodies. To say he was excited just might be the understatement of the year.

We arrived in Buffalo and checked into the hotel at about 3:30 Friday afternoon and at 5 we assembled with Sandy, Marge and the other 4 people in our small intimate group for our first outing.

We were taken to the Buffalo Market Arcade for a background talk about Buffalo architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright. After which, we had an amazing dinner at the Bijou Grill in the heart of the theater district and were able to get to know each other a bit better. In our group were Marsha & Charlie (writer & architect, respectively), Toni & Marty (two delightful woman who get together for these little excursions frequently, I understand), Darryl and myself, Sandy & her husband Michael and Marge & her friend George.

After dinner, drinks and delightful conversation, we were taken back to the hotel where we settled in for the night.

Both Darryl and I were up before the alarm on Saturday morning at 5:45am - we were both very excited about the day's coming events!

We had breakfast at the hotel and met up with the rest of the group in the lounge at 9am.

One of the very first things we noticed was the amount of devastation still from the surprise early snow storm three weeks earlier that had dumped up to 2' of heavy wet snow on the area. Because the storm was so early in the season, most trees hadn't yet lost their leaves, so the snow stuck to them even more and as a result, there were trees of every size toppled, bent and broken everywhere you looked.

Our first stop of the day was "Graycliff". Mrs. Martin's home on the shore of Lake Erie. Graycliff is in the midst of major restoration, however, we were able to view most of the main house. We were not able to see the garage.

I'm going to provide a lot of external links here...if I wrote the background on each of the sites we visited this entry would be massive! Trying to tell Frank Lloyd Wright's tale or that of any of his creations can not be abbreviated and still do any of them true justice!

After Graycliff, we had lunch at a quaint seafood restaurant overlooking Lake Erie.

After lunch, we drove through Buffalo on a driving tour of some of the more significant architecture sights.

One of the sights we were scheduled to visit was the Forest Lawn Cemetery and the Blue Sky Mausoleum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, however, due to the storm and the amount of trees down in the cemetery, it was closed to the public while clean up crews tended to the mess, so we were only able to drive by and catch a glimpse of the structure through the fence.

Another site we were scheduled to see, but had been closed to the public for renovations, was the Louis Sullivan Guaranty Building. Thanks to Sandy, we were able to get in and have a brief look around. This was a building Darryl had visited on a previous trip 15 years earlier and had been anxious to show me. I was very happy that we were able to get in as it had been something I'd been looking forward to seeing personally having heard him mention it several times over the years. After seeing it for myself, I can see why it has stuck with him all these years.


At 3:45, we were dropped off at the hotel to get ready for the Gala and Opera. At 4:50, Marge & Sandy picked us up again and it was off to Kleinhan's Music Hall for a gala reception, dinner and opera "Shining Brow" based on the life of Frank Lloyd Wright.

The meal, prepared by Oliver's, was designed around four distinct periods of time in Frank Lloyd Wright's life; the American Heartland (1900-1910), Japan's Sublime Allure (1914-1922), Modern in Form & Function (1950's), and, On The Desert (1938).

Although the premise of the entire weekend was planned around the Opera, the Opera itself was not the highlight of the weekend for most of us, I'm sure.

Saturday was a late night and after such a full day, we were glad to get back to the hotel and fall into bed at 12:30am.

Sunday, again, we were up before the alarm at 5:45am. We dressed for the day, packed up & loaded everything into the truck, had breakfast and met the rest of the group in the lobby at 8:50am. We all drove in our private vehicles for Sunday's events since we would be parting ways after lunch and it would be out of the way to come back to the hotel from our last stop.

Fortunately, also in attendance at the gala Saturday night was one of the head people from Forest Lawn Cemetery. She graciously invited us to come early the next morning and they would let us in to the cemetery. We were able to see, and to WALK ON, the Blue Sky Mausoleum (pictured at right), which Wright designed for the Martin family (it was ultimately not built by them, however).

Our next scheduled stop was at the Darwin Martin Complex. We spent several hours touring this amazing site. This was the primary reason I wanted to bring Darryl on this weekend get away. When he was attending Humber College for architecture in the late 80's, they took a class day trip to Buffalo and toured what was then only the Darwin Martin House in the very early stages of restoration. The rest of the original complex had been torn down (with the exception of the Barton house and the Gardener's Cottage, which had been sold off as private homes) and were replaced with 3 apartment buildings, so the site looked a lot different on this visit.

The apartment buildings are gone, replaced by the original structures rebuilt to the original specifications. The Barton House and the Gardeners Cottage have been acquired and are rejoined with the original complex. Construction of the pergola and carriage house was nearing completion but we were not able to view them as final occupancy permits had not been obtained. We were able to view nearly all of the Martin House itself and the Barton House, including sections that will not be open to the public once the restoration is complete.

Sunday concluded with lunch at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in their restaurant "Muse", after which we bid our new friends goodbye, promised to come back again, and started on our way home.

There was literally no idle time the entire weekend. Sandy & Marge packed the weekend so there was not a moment spent wasted. Kudos & grateful thanks to them for excellent planning!

For more info on Frank Lloyd Wright in Buffalo, please visit the following links:

Frank Lloyd Wright Biography

Wright Now In Buffalo

Barton House

Buffalo Architecture

Buffalo Architecture (different site)

Buffalo Architecture (yet another different site)

The Arts and Crafts movement in Buffalo

Buffalo Nigara Convention & Visitors Bureau

For more photos, please visit my photo gallery on my website (photos will be posted over the next couple of days).

Skidboot the Dog

A heart-warming segment from Texas Country Reporter, with Bob Phillips. For more information visit www.TexasCountryReporter.com or www.skidboot.com

The votes are in...

Another successful Howloween fundraiser is finished for another year! More than $2000US was raised for Elkhound Rescue.

We want to thank everyone for their help - we placed a very respectible 2nd place out of 40 entries.

Here is the winner with 17% of the total votes:

Our second place entry, with 11% of the votes, featured Monty as the mount for the super scary "Headless Norseman"

To see the rest of the entries, please visit www.elkhoundrescue.org and follow the links to the contest pages.

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween, and just a friendly reminder that chocoloate is toxic to your dogs so please be mindful of where you stash your hard-earned treats!