2011 Rose Family Events Archives...
      For current events, go to the Rose family website page.

01/01/10: Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! Saturday morning, Sue fixed up a great breakfast and then we watched the Rose Parade on HGTV. After that ended at 1:00pm, HGTV had their special on the free house they give away each year. This one was in Stowe, VT so we had to watch that, of course! Movie of the night was 2001: A Space Odyssey.

01/08/11: To Boston For Cirque Du Soleil Dralion
Sue got us tickets to see the Saturday 3:30pm Cirque Du Soleil Dralion at Boston University's Agganis Arena. We headed out of Dover around noon in slight snow showers, which got progressively more involved the further south we got. It had been predicted that the area could get significant snow, so our backup plan had been to take the C&J Trailways bus. But, current weather just had possible 1" to 2", so I opted to drive down as that was just over an hour trip vs. a two hour bus trip.

I parked the car at Government Center and we wandered around looking for somewhere to grab a quick lunch. We stumbled on Paddy O's on Union Street, which ended up being a great choice as we both had the best corned beef and cabbage sandwiches ever.

After lunch, we dashed through the snow to the Haymarket T stop and hopped onto the Green Line to Park where we got the Green Line B train out to the Plesant Street stop. We were running pretty late because we had unknowingly wasted a lot of time at the Haymarket station waiting for a B train until someone got some info and told us it wasn't running and we had to go to Park. Anyway, we made the show just as it was starting.

I had never seen Cirque before and was just blown away; so good, in fact, that Sunday we went to Best Buy and used the gift certificate that Colin had given me for Christmas to buy the CD.

After the show, it was snowing pretty good as we walked to the train stop. Sue had mentioned that someday she'd like to check out one of the Tradder Joe's markets. Before we left, I had scoped this out and there was one in Saugus on the road home, so we stopped there to check it out. We had intended to grab dinner at the Border Cafe nearby, but Trader Joe's had a special on precooked vegetarian lasagna, so I bought that and we headed back to the condo.

Though the roads were snow covered most of the way, we made pretty good time and were home by 8:00pm. I popped a bottle of Cabernet and we took our glasses and dinner into the living room and watched The Terminator, one of the few remaining infantile movies Sue needs to be introduced to - she got the first of the Resident Evil series Friday night in preparation for next week's backgammon party where the movie of the night will be the fourth in that series.

01/14/11: Portsmouth For Dinner and Play A Street Car Named Desire
To start the long weekend off, Sue and I went into Portsmouth for an early dinner at The Chef's Table and then walked over to The Player's Ring for their production of A Street Car Named Desire

01/15/11: The Great 2011 One Year Hip Replacement Ordeal Memorial Backgammon Tournament And Easy Pizza Walk
Started day with helping Sue pack for her move and rearranging the studio after having it and bathroom painted this past week by Sue's nephew Derek. Around 5:30 folks started arriving for The Great 2011 One Year Hip Replacement Ordeal Memorial Backgammon Tournament And Easy Pizza Walk which was to celebrate the Jan 6 one year anniversary of my hip replacement. Since we sent out for pizza, I didn't have to cook and was able to play quite a few games before we watched the movie of the night, the moronic but entertaining 4th in the Resident Evil series, Resident Evil: After Life. Unfortunately, I was so busy playing backgammon and eating pizza, I didn't take any pictures!

01/28/11:
Weekend began Friday night when my disciple Rick Downs came over for dinner with us and then we watched the great movie The Kingdom of Heaven. Saturday afternoon, Sue and I rambled all over the place looking for wicker storage baskets for the newly decorated upstairs bathroom as well as bookcases for the studio. After that, we met my disciple Jim Nancarrow and his wife Chris for dinner at Dover's Cartelli's Bar and Grill for a great Italian meal. Sunday, I went over and took a seminar at Unity in Rollinsford and then fixed a dinner of rosemary pork chops with steamed kale, and we finished of the night with the movie The Hurt Locker, which, though high drama and was good that way, was just not our kind of movie.

02/02/11: Huge Snow Storm Wednesday
We got hammered pretty good with about 6" of snow over the weekend, but today a huge secondary storm rocked not only us here, but all over the east coast.

It was pretty evident to me Tuesday that travel would be really bad Wednesday, with whiteout conditions predicted. I told my PM at work that was all I needed to hear and that I'd be staying out of it.

So, I just stayed home in bed until 8:30 and had a lovely day sitting in the living room watching some of the Treasure Quest dvds that Marissa had dropped off earlier in the week, sipping coffee, and reading.

The storm ended up dumping about 14" here, and at times it seemed like it would never stop. It fell so thick and heavy that you almost couldn't see the trees across the field behind my condo. I've only seen such heavy fall a few times before. It was beautiful.

The two pictures that I took out the front door really don't do the storm justice. At the time, the snow was falling really heavily, and I thought that would show in the picture. But then, I've only got a small 3 mega pixel camera so I don't get those sort of details. Suffice it to say that the snow was really coming down. At least you can see how stacked up the snow has gotten over the last few storms, coupled with this storm so far, about 11:30am with another several inches to fall.

02/08/11: Seminar on Release
Sue and I went to an excellent seminar in comparative religious thought on the concept of release.

It was presented by Revs Phil and Mary Ann Boynton at Unity in Rollinsford. They ended the class guiding us through a long meditation set with Mary Ann playing her crystal singing bowls highlighted by Phil's Tibetan bronze singing bowl.

They hold some very nice and informative meetings. I think in their next one, Phil - a musician in his own right - will be playing some American Indian long flutes.

02/12/11: Excellent Weekend
Friday night after work, I drove up to Rochester, NH and met my disciple 4th degree black belt Russ Jones at the Governor's Inn for dinner. It was a nice relaxing three hours discussing a range of topics and work that he is doing as part of his study to move to the Master level.

Saturday night, Sue and I went for an early Valentine's dinner in Portsmouth, NH to Mombo. It was not only one of the nicest dining experiences I've ever had, but the food was as good as I have had anywhere, and I've been to a lot of nice restaurants.

Sunday morning, Sue and I went over to Unity in Rollinsford and then had a relaxing afternoon reading in the living room and listening to music until we went shopping. I fixed an Italian beef stew and we watched the movie, My Best Friend's Wedding to wind things up.

02/26/11: Movie Night At The Garrison: Red Cliff
It was a great excuse to have a party! It was Saturday Night, fer gosh sake! Movie Night At The Garrison featuring Sue's great chili feast and the less than well received movie, Red Cliff - an otherwise from male viewpoint, engaging martial arts extravaganza. Not so with the women. But as you can see from the pictures: a good time was had by all!

03/01/11: Posted New Tech Article: 'Simple Struts Example'
After snatching 20 minutes here and 30 minutes there between all the other stuff that I am doing, I finally finished a new technical document Simple Struts Example.

I began writing this back in November when I started writing a personal business application that I wanted to do to better understand the Java Struts web framework that I have been using since 2005 at almost every job I have had. As I state in the article: "The problem was that I always entered a company with a pre-built infrastructure that I wrote my code on top of; I never really looked under the hood to see what all those tags meant that I was using. I just used them, things worked, and all was good."

I have to say that I just marvel at other folks who write articles like this in their spare time. Well, maybe their jobs allow them the flexibility to do this type of thing - flexibility that I simply don't have. I come home dragging my sorry self in the door and sometimes it's a real effort to write something like this.

So, mostly it's catching a few minutes on weekends, though on this one I did spend pretty much a whole weekend awhile back on the mid part of it because I was on a real rush actually learning new stuff and then turning it around and appling it directly into the application that I was (and still am) building.

It's a lot of fun, but at this point I just want to focus on the application and foget writing about it!

03/04/11: Portland Museum of Art
Friday after work, Sue and I drove up to Portland, ME for an early dinner at Emilitsa Rustic Greek Fare restaurant before heading over to the Portland Museum of Art as she had wanted to see the exhibit of Edward Weston's Leaves of Grass photography series.

We had actually planned to go last weekend, but the storm was so intense either we wouldn't have made it there or we would still be up there digging out of a snow bank somewhere along I95.

But the weather was just super; smooth drive up. And the food at Emilitsa's was surpurb. Very nicely decorated with a friendly warm feeling. I had a wonderful chat with one of the owners, John, who I had spoken with earlier in the day to make reservations.

03/05/11: Spur of the Moment Saturday Dinner Out
I spent the day working on projects and "stuff", and by the end of the afternoon, I was chomping at the bit to get outta Dodge! So, we drove over to Newmarket, NH and had a nice, leisurely dinner in the tavern at The Riverworks restaurant. We came back and watched Working Girl for the movie of the night.

Sunday, we spent the afternoon reading in the living room and then watched two of the segments of a dvd of the 1988 Bill Moyers interview with Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth.

Then we headed out to the Market Basket food store in Epping, NH to try that for the weeks shopping. I fixed a marvelously great chicken and broccoli garlic stir fry that we had with a nice bottle of Cabernet, finishing off the night with the movie The Bucket List.

03/07/11: Soup Cooking Class
Sue had bought tickets for us to attend Maria Induisi-Richardson's soup cooking class Monday evening at the Spring Hill Conference Center in South Berwick, ME where she is the banquette chef. It started at 6:00pm and lasted until almost 9:00pm. We chose to do a white bean chili that was more a soup than a 'real' chili, but it came out great. Having completed that early, Sue opted to also learn how to fix a honey corn bread that was just out of this world.

03/11/11: Seminar in Exeter, NH
Friday after work, I took Sue over to Exeter, NH to the Blue Moon Yoga Studio for a lecture by one of their instructors and one of my brown belt level students, Brian Serven, about his recent 6 week trip to India to study at the Yoga Institute in Mumbai. It was quite an enlightening presentation, not only about the yoga studies that he did, but also of the culture that he experienced. After that, we came home and Sue fixed spaghetti in a great garlic, basil, lemon, and arugula sauce that we had with a bottle of Sutter Home Merlot.

Saturday I pretty much spent working on programming projects and helping Sue move some furniture around in the studio before we broke for the third in the Moyers interview series with Campbell. We just ate dinner in from stock and then watched the movie Patriot Games.

Oh! But Sunday dinner was a bust. A total bust. My first bust in quite awhile, actually. I attempted... attempted to fix a spiced a Moroccan bean and spinach main course with mushroom and spicy sausage couscous but it was all horrible. I admit it. Out went the couscous for sure; though the main course was not so bad it couldn't be eaten. But it was not very tasty and will not be attempted again. The only saving grace to the night was Sue's movie pick: Phantom of the Opera with the Andrew Lloyd Webber's score, which is just so spectacular; I even ordered the CD of it.

03/18/11: Dinner With Henderson
After Sue and I finished up at Dr. Shulde's (Hampton Family Chiropractic), we met my friend Henderson Holman at The Galley Hatch restaurant. It had been awhile since I had seen him, and we all had a nice time.

03/19/11: The Great 2011 St. Patricks Day Backgammon Tournament And Deep Pot Irish Stew Surprise!
Time for a backgammon party and what better excuse than St. Patrick's Day! So, on Saturday 03/19/11 I held The Great 2011 St. Patricks Day Backgammon Tournament And Deep Pot Irish Stew Surprise.

There were 10 of us, most getting in quite a few games through the evening. Not much trash-talking though. What's up with that?

And the Irish stew came out super! Unfortunately, for some, the same can't be said for the movie of the night which none of the girls like at all.

03/26/11: An Evening With Aoife Clancy
I had heard that Irish folk singer Aoife Clancy, daughter of Bob Clancy, was holding a concert at the Nottingham Community Unitarian Universalist Church in.... well, Nottingham, NH Saturday evening at 7:00pm, so I got tickets for Sue and I.

I got out of work early so we could grab a bite to eat at Zampa in Epping, NH. Very interesting place, Zampa. I got the 'beet' strogonof and it was unbelievable! We'll be going back there for sure!

The concert was terrific. Aoife is a compelling performer, and really shines in the depth of emotion that she puts into her craft. I also saw and heard for the first time a bodhram drum. Now, that is an interesting instrument; very indigenous to Ireland.

04/08/11: Out For Colin's Birthday Dinner
Spent most of Friday at work trying to tie up loose ends in the event the threatened government shutdown occured this weekend. Met up with Sue at Barnes and Noble bookstore at the mall where I got Jared Diamond's new book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed . From there, we drove down to Hampton for a 5:00pm much needed chiropractor's appointment with Dr. Shulde.

We got back to the condo just as Ren was arriving at Colin's, so we had a few minutes before they arrived here. Sue and I took them out to The Riverworks Restaurant and Tavern in Newmarket, NH to celebrate Colin's upcoming 23rd birthday. He couldn't pass up the prime rib special! Great night, but both Sue and I were pretty beat from a busy week, so we turned in pretty early after that.

04/10/11: Robin and Eric Over For Lunch
We had Rev. Robin Clark, spiritual leader of Unity of the Seacoast in Rollinsford, NH, and her husband Eric over for a nice lunch Sunday afternoon the 10th.

We had some great discussions, particularly surrounding a seminar which Sue has been attending Thursday evenings that Robin is assiting with on The Hero's Journey, a philosophical inquiry into some of Joseph Campbell's works.

We got to talking so much, that we didn't get to have lunch until after 2:00. I had made a potato and leak cream soup, and Sue made a terrific mixed greens salad, so that took the edge off.

04/14/11: Trip to Towson, MD
Thursday the 14th, Sue and I flew down to Towson, MD to see my brother Alan and his wife Abbie. We got in early enough that we were able to have a late lunch and relax on the porch to practice some of my brother's Southern Porch Sitting techniques.

While porch sitting, we all agreed on a dinner menu from a book on Greek food, and then Alan, Sue, and I headed off food shopping.

Friday, we took Alan and Abbie down to Baltimore to see Cirque du Soleil's performance of Totem. After the show, Alan took us to dinner at The Helmand, an Afgan restaurant in Baltimore. Saturday was almost a tornado with downpours of rain. But, it was a great day to tour the Baltimore Museum of Art.

During the day, we had selected a Spanish beef stew recipe that looked marvelous. We ended off the evening, after a couple of mis-starts, with the movie My Cousin Vinnie. And Sunday afternoon, we flew back getting home about 4:00pm, both beat.

04/22/11: To Community Theater One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Sue sent me a note the other day that The Player's Ring, a local community theater, was performing One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, so I got tickets for Friday night's performance. We left early to grab a quick bite to eat and then I had a tux/suit fitting for Marissa's wedding before we headed over to the theater.

04/23/11: Easter Weekend

Saturday I worked through until early afternoon on a programming project. Around 4:30, we headed off food shopping for both tonight and for Easter Sunday. Tonight, just a bottle of wine and simple spaghetti alfrado, and ended up with the movie of the night: Barry Lyndon.

Easter Sunday after service went to Wentworth Gardens to look at ideas for deck. When we got home, Sue fixed Eggs Benedict. That afternoon we went out on the deck and did some reading until it clouded over, got cool, and started sprinkling. So, we just pulled up stakes and finished our reading inside in the living room, and then cooked a James Haller inspired ham with cranberry and sherry sauce with bottle Louis Martini 2008 Cabernet. The movie of the night was the okay Burlusque.

05/15/11: Sunday Trip Up To Tamworth
Sue and I drove up to Tamworth, NH to take her mom out to Jake's for a late Mother's Day lunch. From there we drove over to her brother Alan's to see them and Ashley and Tim's new baby daughter.

I was glad that while Sue was working all day Saturday that I did the shopping so that when we got home from Tamworth we had a few minutes to relax before I started cooking.

Well, actually as soon as we hit the door I put together the Moroccan marinade and let the shrimp absorb that for a couple of hours while we played a set of backgammon. And damn, if Sue isn't getting better at this. And other than me falling onto the floor and knocking myself out, I was barely able to throw the dice it went so badly for me. For the weekend, I'm 2 down with her.

Movie of the night was the touching, but not really my kind of Sunday relaxing entertainment: "First Do No Harm". I'm writing this on Tuesday, and it hasn't stopped raining since Saturday. Great....

05/21/11: The Great 2011 Mr Rogers Cinco De Mayo Memorial Backgammon Tournament And Lose The Sweater Fiesta!
We lucked out Saturday eveing the 21st as the rain and cold weather we had been experiencing ceased for about 6 hours so we could all sit outside on the deck for the first part of The Great 2011 Mr Rogers Cinco De Mayo Memorial Backgammon Tournament And Lose The Sweater Fiesta.

As last year, this party was a combination of celebrating both Mr Rogers and Cinco De Mayo, complete with my Santa Fe Rice And Beans: a tradition now. The Corona was flowing and Sue had a pitcher of Margaritas going, though I didn't dare mix the two of those! We topped it all of with the really fun movie RED.

05/28/11: Memorial Day Weekend
Even though I got out of work early Friday, we didn't really do much of anything except just relax. We had a bottle of wine and sat out on the deck playing backgammon until around 7:00pm, grabed dinner out of stock, and watched some mindless tv.

Saturday morning and afternoon was wrapped up with preparations for next weekend's Garrison Summer Garage Sale. If I had to cart one more box of stuff out to the garage I think I would have expired right there on the hot top.

Enough! A quick shower resolved all that, and then Sue and I popped a bottle of wine and went out on the deck to play some backgammon until Jim and Chris Nancarrow arrived for a casual Chinese food delivery dinner and movie RED. Now, that's a great way to live! Good friends, good wine, good food, and an entertaining movie!

But Sunday was back to garage sale prep and so much other stuff that neither of us got a chance to even catch our breath from about 9:00am until dinner time. We just dropped everything and went out on the deck to relax.

05/30/11: Memorial Day Explore to Gloucester, MA
So, neither Sue or I have been to Gloucester, MA area and we both have always wanted to go. So, we decided that Sunday June 30th we'd do a Memorial Day Winnie-The-Pooh type of Explore down to Gloucester, MA for the day.

We got up early and hit the road, stopping briefly for coffee and breakfast sandwiches. Because Sue wanted to hit the mid morning sun in Rockport, we went there first, taking the 127A shore road up and winding back down on 127 around noon.

It was well after noon that we got back to Gloucester because we decided that we should also investigate every little cove and side street along the way, and then made a trip into Annisquam on the way.

We spent some time exploring Glocester, had lunch, and then walked up and down both sides of main street, popping in and out of several of the shops that were open. We headed back home via Rt. 133 and made a long stop in Essex, MA at the Essex Shipbuilding Museum. From there, we drove through and took some side roads around the Ipswich, MA area before connecting back onto I95 in Newburyport, MA and heading home.