More than 40 family members from around the country came to Ventura to gather and help the family matriarch, Emma Brennan, celebrate her 85 years of life. We were just one of the group of folks taking photos of an event that saw folks from all over California, Oregon, Wyoming, Massachusetts, and Arizona. We’ve put together our photo collection for you to see, download or print. We haven’t labeled the pics yet, but are planning to do go through and label them with names so everyone will know who they are looking at. Meanwhile you can see the photos here: Emma’s 85th Birthday Photos. Our other albums contain some entertaining pics, everything from dogs to zoo animals to architectural wonders. Enjoy!!
For many years, technophile author Kevin Kelly has traded gadget and gizmo recommendations with friends.
But unlike many in the tech world, Kelly isn’t obsessed with the latest, slickest gadgets. A best-selling technology writer and a former editor at Wired magazine, he is more concerned with objects he or his friends have used, sometimes for many years, and found to be the best of their kind.
Earlier this year, Kelly gathered his recommendations, and those he received, into a weekly mailing list, Recomendo. Kelly then added them to his Cool Tools website, which is steadily building an enthusiastic audience.
Cool Tools is a refreshing antidote to the hype that surrounds the latest hot gadgets. Unimpressed by newness for newness’ sake, Kelly is attracted to objects that have withstood the test of time — and is passing those ideas on to others. It’s a habit he learned while editing and publishing the Whole Earth Catalog, the bible of counterculture do-it-yourselfers who wanted in “tools and ideas for the 21st century.”
Kelly’s eclectic interests — he’s a former photojournalist and a cycling nut — ensure the site’s material is always delightfully unpredictable. There’s quite a lot of tech, of course, but Kelly is as likely to highlight a book about raising chickens as an FM transmitter for the iPod.
So, alongside recommendations for a great inkjet printer, is a rave for an overlooked book about Japanese hot springs, or a paean for cheap gel pens. And because many of the recommendations come from Kelly’s friends and list subscribers, they are passionate, personal and touching. Kelly has just self-published some of the contributions in a book, Cool Tools.
Invitations went out more than a month ago for an annual event at Kevin and Karen Bulger’s home on August 26, 2006. Having missed last years event, I wasn’t about to let this one get away. I’ve been to one of their get-togethers before, and these folks can really put on a feed. Kevin’s been in the food industry for longer than the 10 years Polly and I’ve been married, and the family is set to open a new Fifty’s style restaurant in Simi Valley near Tapo Canyon Rd and Cochran Av. Those experienced hands prepared a feast for about 40 close relatives and friends, dishing up a scrumptious seafood variety dinner also known as a Clam Bake. Evidently this is a well known East Coast tradition, though being a 4th generation native Californian I’d only heard the term (never been back east in the entire time I’ve been with Polly, yet her entire family is from Connecticut - go figure!). The group dined on big pots of New England clam chowder, 40 lbs. of steamer clams, 35 Maine lobsters, countless jumbo shrimp, corn on the cob, beer, wine, water and soda, and assorted ice cream deserts. Definitely tasty!!
We got a chance to visit with lots of family, some whom we hadn’t seen for a while. Kevin and Karen Bulger, Jennifer Bulger, Patrick Bulger, John and Terry(Bulger) Kraljic, Emma(Bulger) Brennan, Dick and Mary(Bulger) Van Nest, Jeff and PJ Van Nest, Mike and Patricia(Brennan) Dumont, Tony and Terry(Van Nest) Martinez, and so many more.
Jennifer Ferris flew out all the way from New York to partake of the feast, and is one of the family members who has an album in the Two Hearts Gallery and also has clambake photos in her personal gallery.
The other day, someone at a store in our town read that a methamphetamine lab had been found in an old farm house in the adjoining county and he asked me a rhetorical question, ‘’Why didn’t we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?'’
I replied: ‘’But I did have a drug problem when I wuz a kid growing up on the farm.'’ I had a drug problem when I was young: I was drug to church on Sunday morning. I was drug to church for weddings and funerals. I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter the weather.
I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults. I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher. Or if I didn’t put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me. I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profane four letter word. I was drug out to pull weeds in mom’s garden and flower beds and cockleburs
out of dad’s fields.
I was drug to the homes of family, friends, and neighbors to help out some poor soul who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline or chop some fire wood. And if my mother had ever known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to the wood shed.
Those drugs are still in my veins; and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, and think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin, and if today’s children had this kind of drug problem, America might be a better place today.
-Courtesy Country Whispers
