Travels continue, Blacksburg and vacation in Virginia Beach (4/28/2023)

I wonder if some of you have gotten tired of my writings about my “great goodbye tour?” Well, it is almost over. After two days in the Blacksburg area, this week it is a welcome vacation week. So what the heck, I’ll report on Blacksburg and on my vacation. My vacation was spent in a cabin at First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach. Hopefully this combined post will make it a little more interesting; but don’t hold your breath.

The interesting thing that happened this time was that the vacation started of with a phone call and discussion with the social security office, trying to nail down my payments once I retire by the end of May. I had to interrupt my lunch, sit in the car and be submitted to an interview for close to an hour. Where was I born; when did I get married and where (how do you spell Gouda? Oh that’s just like the cheese, duh); what was the birth date of my wife; her maiden name; why did I not show any income between 1983 and 1989; you get the idea. But all good, I will get Medicare and social security. Rejoice, I can afford to retire!

We canceled one of my two classes in Blacksburg, maybe prematurely, but the boss Kevin, who we often call a nervous Nellie, was afraid that we were not getting enough attendants to make the class pay for itself. Oh well, at least I did get a chance to go there and say goodbye to the Virginia Tech campus, and one of my dearest friends, Chuck. Some of my students were pretty darn close to me as well, we had been going back at least 10 or more years (at the end of the class I actually got a hug from one of them).

I always look forward to having dinner with Chuck on one of the nights I am there and this time was not different. The first evening, dinner at Lefties that lasted two hours. The food was good, beer selection decent (I only had one), but the company and conversation exquisite. After dinner I stopped by Starbucks on the way to the Huckleberry trail where I walked a mile and a half with an Americano in my hand. Just a great evening to start my stay in the area.

The Huckleberry is a rails-to-trails park that used to be only 12 miles long, but has been lengthened over the years. I am not sure how long it currently is, but it is a great trail. I used to bike it when visiting the area; however, I am not able to make sure that I can pack my bikes in the State vehicle that will be assigned to me at each trip. I need to disassemble my bike to fit it in the trunk, and that still does not fit in some of them. However, walking parts of the trail is fun too, especially around nightfall.

The next evening, I walked the trail again, with my coffee. I did that after visiting the “Eastern Divide” brewery. This was my first visit, and the beer was good. They had some decent choices. I did not like the commercial building and, to tell you the truth, the restaurant that was built in with it was so, so. I found the food overpriced and not the best. They kind of have you by the you know what, since it is in a commercial/industrial area and there are no restaurants nearby. I, for one, need some food in my tummy when I drink alcohol.

As promised, a mixed bag today. After returning from this relatively short trip to the hinterlands, we celebrated my wife’s birthday, and took off for a few days in a cabin at First Landing State Park. We had walked the trails in the park some 5 years ago, so we thought we knew what to expect. However, I was still taken aback by the cypress swamps, and in particular by the mature loblolly pines and live oaks. One of the pines was recently cut and I took my time to count the tree rings and I came to at least 80 (probably more) which dated the tree to the time that the park was established (1936). The pines gave me an inspiration for the styling of my loblolly pine bonsai trees, which everyone tells me I am insane of even trying to grow as bonsai. What did we do at the park? We hiked, ate, read (NPR’s This I believe), and rested. On Tuesday I logged more that 20,000 steps on my Fitbit, and boy that steak on the BBQ tasted mighty fine! This is another State Park in the long lit of State Parks that I visited that I would recommend. Actually, there isn’t one that I did not like, but maybe Claytor Lake is the least!

Ok, this became another travelblog, again with little substance, life philosophy or teaching (actually maybe a little teaching in the captions of the last photograph below). I promise that I will get back to that eventually in my blogs. That these blogs will become more edgy. As I mentioned it feels like the closer that I get to retirement, the more nostalgic and inwards I am becoming. But this shall wane! I shall rise from the ashes.

Eastern Divide Brewing Company beer selection.  Good beer, so, so food, a very big place.  I usually do not like establishments with a huge beer selection, because it usually means that they have no specialty and do an average job on all beers.  This was an exception.  Their beers were good.

My IPA with a view.

First Landing State Park.  Just a small live oak among the loblollies.  I just enjoyed this evening walk.  

Bald Cypress knees, also known as pneumatophores.  Pneuma is from the word lungs and the original thought was that this is how these trees were able to transport O2 to their roots.  I have read somewhere that this has been proven to be incorrect.

The goodbey tour begins, Virginia Beach (3/6/2023)

As I mentioned in my previous post, in-person teaching and travel season has started in earnest. This past week I was in Virginia Beach for the last time in my long career as an instructor for the State. It wasn’t even time to revisit the old haunts, instead I tried a few new things. One was a disappointment (Harpoon Larry’s) and one was a rousing success (Gringos Taqueria).  The first night I had a beer or two at the Smartmouth Brewery at the beach which makes good beer.  I was also looking forward to the pizza by the Bakehouse located in the brewery; however, this time they disappointed me by burning my pizza.  But overall, I enjoyed being out there again, doing my thing.

I have written a few posts about Virginia Beach in the past, ranging from complaining how folks don’t pay attention to their surroundings and just sit there or walk staring at their phones instead of enjoying the ocean front, to a discussion about the shooting at the municipal building a few years ago. That shooter actually was a colleague of mine 20 some years ago when I worked in the area.

I know Virginia Beach relatively well, so it is always fun to return, and see what is going on. What has changed, what stayed the same. Talk about old friends and colleagues (no murderers please).

Sorry for the short post.  Hope you like the restaurant and brewery reviews.

I know, I usually do not publish selfies on my blog.  However, I was giving my workshop on photography and was illustrating a poing.  so here it is.  Not a great photo, but a neat reminder of my visit.

On the road again (Hotels 3: Virginia Beach) (2/22/22)

One year and eleven months ago after returning from a teaching gig in Lynchburg the then governor and the department I work for decided that we should temporarily shut the office, stop all traveling, and start teleworking. We were completely in la-la land about COVID or the Corona virus, and figured this would be temporary, maybe till June or at worse, September. Ah, little did we know.

So, after teleworking and teaching online we decided that 2022 was going to be the year that we were going back into the classroom. And there came Omicron: We had to cancel January classes. Again, email student the sorry emails and reschedule everything, from hotels to meeting rooms, etc.

One of the things I was looking forward to, was returning to real live teaching. Remarkable as that may be for an introvert like me, it is not a thing about being around people, but more about being able to read their facial expressions and get live feedback. These interactions are invaluable compared to talking to a Webcam.

Finally, live teaching started in February. I became the proverbial “canary in the coal mine,” I was going to try it out for the rest of us. Well, I now have taught four live classes and honestly these classes were exhausting but exhilarating. So maybe I am not an introvert? I really don’t know any more. I enjoyed the one on one so much more than the web-based classes. Maybe it’s just the format; colleagues of mine tell me that since our recent switch to Zoom things have gotten a lot better. Zoom allows you to turn on and view the webcam of your students and makes it more personable. That is of course if the students are willing to share their camera. However, the format that I had been using was not very personable and you have to rely on typed questions in a question box which do not allow for a free- flowing discussion. In addition, you don’t see people’s faces and really cannot have a good follow up discussion. During breaks you cannot have any personal interactions with folks.

Overall though I was good to be able to directly interact with folks. It was just much easier to respond to questions and to enter into fun deep discussions.

Then finally the travel. While somewhat scary to be on the road again; my father-in-law recently survived COVID and I do not need to be afraid of bringing it home. I assume I would survive an infection (knock on wood). Eating out is kind of fun again, although I need to watch out for my waistline again. I have been the main cook at home during these past two years of COVID and I am slowly running out of inspiration. I always told folks that I love to cook, I never thought it would get old, but somehow it does. It is nice to eat something different and sample different flavors to bring home and try them out here. Variety is the spice of life, or so they say.

I watch some different TV, drink a beer and just relax in my motel room. So, what’s not good about it? Maybe sleeping in a strange bed; loneliness, although I don’t mind eating alone; and the drive after teaching a whole day will get old after doing it a few times. Who knows?

My third photograph in the Hopper tradition (little did I know it would take such a long time for the third one).  This was taken in Virginia Beach at the Holiday Inn.  You can see the Atlantic Ocean in the background (Marocco or Portugal over the horizon).

Here we go again, but now too close for comfort (6/3/2019)

Well, it happened again, another mass shooting. I have written about a few of them in the past, <here> and <here>. However, this time, it hit much closer to home. 

The killing did not only occur in the city of Virginia Beach, a town approximately 30 to 40 miles from where I live.  I used to work in that city and interact with the folks in the department in which it happened. If that is not bad enough, after working there I moved to the state and six (6) of the persons that were killed were taught by me, or at least attended workshops that I presented. When I saw their faces in photographs in the newspaper, I recognized them instantly. Then came their names and stories. 

Do you want to know what drove me completely crazy? The killer and I were colleagues at the same company 17 to 15 years ago. He contacted me in 2013 to provide two workshops for his city department, which I gladly did. In other words, it really hit much closer to home than some of the other killings in the past. I remember so well, it rained cats and dogs on one of those days that I did one of those workshops. 

Here I feel selfish for being distraught about what happened in Virginia Beach. I should not be demanding the attention. Those poor 12 victims, the wounded and their families should be getting it! I simply cannot help it, but it is different when it hits so close to home. I am numb, angry, depressed, sad and more. I mourn the event, but I am sure I’ll get over it. It has been a crazy May 2019. This month, two friends died way before their time and another 56-year-old friend was diagnosed with stage 4 inoperable colon cancer that had spread throughout her body. That was before May 31, 2019 a date that will be etched in history. 

I think that we can be angry when things like this happen in Las Vegas, Florida, California, Vermont or elsewhere. We can yell, scream for gun control in many of those cases as I have done in my blogs. However, it seems to me that this is not a case where we automatically need to yell “gun control.” While we do not have a complete reason for the current killing, I have my speculations, which I’ll keep private (absolutely none of them justify the killing and are probably all wrong).

The only thing I will try to tell every one of you who read this short blog post: 

1. Nothing, absolutely nothing is worth killing anyone over and getting yourself killed over,
2. If you have psychological issues, GET HELP! Again, it is not worth being killed over or going to jail for, and 
3. Getting killed or suicide is not even a solution; you are hurting the people you leave behind (my father and a close friend killed themselves, so I speak from experience) 

In the end, lets just be tolerant of and nice to each other.  Live and let live folks, that should be our mantra.

You gotta please yourself ... on Training and Teaching (Part VIII) (10/26/2016)

This morning I had to think about the Ricky Nelson tune entitled Garden Party and the refrain:

But it is all right now, I learned my lesson well

You see, you can't please everyone, so you gotta to please yourself

and no I do not hide any overt sexual message in this quote and I do not think Ricky Nelson did either.

Going through the evaluations of the courses that I teach there is always one or two persons that misunderstand your intentions.  This last time an introduction and update of our program was seen as small talk and stalling until all the students were in.  I find it very important to let people know what is going on.

A few weeks ago we got these answers on course review questions:

3.  What did you like best about the course?  When it ended.

4.  What did you like least about the course?  Too long for value it serves for recerts.  Just another political example of ... <our agency> swinging their small sword with massive force.  Wasted hundreds in tax payer’s money for instructors + thousands in salaries and time of certified professionals.

5.  My comments or suggestions to better improve the course are: Do away with 18 credit nonsense of self-indulgence.

Thank goodness against that are 88 satisfied customers (aka students) so I am not worried, but in those cases Ricky Nelson's tune is very appropriate, and yes, the night before the class I pleased myself with a walk on the boardwalk of Virginia Beach following a pleasant dinner.  As many of you know, I am a "child" of the sea and nothing better than walking along the ocean.

I generally shy away from selfies on my blog, but what the heck.  I should try to laugh more or make crazy faces, but here you have it, wind blown and really having fun.

But I think there is a valuable lesson to be learned here.  No, you can't please everyone, and that is a good thing.  When I was in the public radio business (yes, I dabbled in that too ... <this> was the station we started) we always said that if we did not at least got one complaint per hour, no one was listening.  So having someone complain about the class means that at least that person was paying attention.  Honestly, you can do things to the best of your ability and feel good about it.  You gotta please yourself.  If you are not happy with yourself, you do a shitty job.

Virginia Beach (6/9/2015)

What a difference a decade makes.  I was at this location more than a decade ago to do an environmental inventory, and it was a contaminated site that needed some serious work.  Development was encroaching and there was a tremendous pressure to do something with the site.  I'm so happy to be here now and see what the Chesapeake Bay Foundation has done with it.

A view of the Lynnhaven river from the Education Center.  Interestingly, when I got my sailboat five and a half years ago it came out of the inlet in the back.  The boat could not get out at low tide and we had to pull her over a sand bar.  The problem was it could not go under the bridge any other time; the mast was too tall. 

The site now has the Brock Environmental Center and we are giving a stormwater class in their class room.  The building is LEED certified (platinum), they used good environmental site design, recycled materials,  do not use city water, generate the majority of their own electricity and have composting toilets.   Yes, that in the middle of Virginia Beach!

One of the two windmills that are estimated to produce 40% of the electricity for the Center.  Solar cells on the roof generate the rest.

It is pretty impressive,  the building has been designed to take advantage of the environment while still being protective against the elements, in particular global warming, sea level rise, and just increased flooding events.

Looking outside, you can see that the site is surrounded by tidal wetlands and what looks like a salt marsh community.   I can remember that one would not eat oysters coming from the Lynnhaven; the water they grew in was too polluted.  Currently,  Lynnhaven oysters are a delicacy, prized for it's salty, but delicate taste.  So great to see we are making progress in cleaning up the Bay; albeit very slowly and very localized.

Virginia Beach (5/12/2015)

This week's travel takes me to Virginia Beach.  At least I had a chance to walk along the beach after the "Stormwater Plan Review" class that I taught.  As usual, I was exhausted from a day's worth of teaching, but it was still nice to be out there.

It was warm, with temperatures in the high 80s (30 to 31 degrees Celcius) and there were a fair number of people on the beach for a Tuesday afternoon.

Virginia Beach is a great place for a family vacation; for us it is so close but so far away.  Political leaders in the area are desperately trying to make the Hampton Roads area one community,  but the tunnels actually divides the area into the south side and the peninsula.

What amazed me during my walk on the beach was the number of people on their smartphones.  Darn, it seems that people cannot just enjoy their surroundings and the environment but have to be connected all the time.  How many times do you sit in a restaurant and a couple comes in and after being seated and ordering they ignore each other and just stare at their phone.  While phones are a god sent for us travelers  (we stay in touch with spouses and find the nice restaurants on Yelp), it seems that human relationship seems to suffer.  Even on this beautiful beach, couples were sitting on benches staring at their phones instead of looking at people, the beach and the ocean.  So close, but so far apart.

A nice change of pace was the sushi counter at my favorite sushi restaurant: Kyushu Japanese Restaurant on Newtown road.  I was sitting there with three other people and we had a wonderful discussion.   Kyushu is really my favorite and worth a try for all that like sushi.  The fish is fresh, it tastes great and good conversation.