Our "lakehouse"
Please check out my page for the Ryan Family Flood Relief (click here or see page link at the top or bottom of this page). We had enough flood waters to enter the house such that a LOT of repairs are necessary. If you’d be interested in helping us cover the difference between what money we have and what we need to repair the house please consider a donation. If you have any questions please contact me. THANKS!!!
Anybody remember the Crystal Pepsi cola drink introduced in the early ’90s? No? Well, not too surprising as it was with us only briefly before it departed into the big blue sky of bad ideas, even if it did enjoy some moderate early success upon its initial launch. Said Yum! Brands Chairman David Novak, who is apparently credited with creating the idea of a clear cola beverage, in a 2007 interview:
“People were saying we should stop and address some issues along the way, and they were right. It would have been nice if I’d made sure the product tasted good.”
Uh, yeah. Making sure the product tastes good seems like fairly important criteria for food or beverage items. 
When this Martin Scorsese film was being initially promoted for a fall 2009 release I was really looking forward to its October premiere date. Not only did it look fantastic with the 50′s style noir-like setting, it also boasted an accomplished cast with Leonardo Di Caprio, Ben Kingsley and Mark Ruffalo. When Paramount made the decision to hold off for a February 2010 release I was bummed. But, alas, the holidays have come and gone and even the unusually snowier-than-normal Nashville winter seems to have passed and here we are….Shutter Island finally opening on 2/19/10.
The movie opens somewhat abruptly with Di Caprio and Ruffalo’s characters at sea and steaming ahead towards the prison isle. Seems a prisoner has gone missing rather inexplicably and these two agents are in route to investigate. From there the movie is full of ups and downs. Scorsese fans will recognize several of the filmmaker’s trademark conceits and some of these work well within the film’s context while others are a bit of a misfire.
There’s a lot of tangent back story and detailed narrative being crammed into the proceedings and while I certainly appreciate thoroughness in character study and development it seems that this begins to bog down the pace of the film in its mid-section. Fortunately, however, the movie kicks it back into gear when rounding for home and all of those details that felt weighty and perhaps unnecessary earlier become clearer and serve the storyline better than expected.
Shutter Island isn’t quite the masterpiece I had hoped for but it’s still a very entertaining and well-acted film and made for a fun night at the theater.
One of the movies I most anticipated this fall, The Informant! falls a little short of hitting the mark. It seemed like director Steven Soderbergh wasn’t sure whether to tell this story straight or play it for some light-hearted chuckles. He somewhat goes for the latter and the results are mixed. Matt Damon was fine as the lead character of Mark Whitacre, nicely conveying a corporate whistle-blower as someone who doesn’t seem to be completely upfront about his motives or his own involvement in illegal activities. In the end, though, I left feeling a little like we were mocking a real person (this is loosely based on a true story) who obviously had issues as a compulsive liar and narcissist. And that just didn’t seem that funny.
Not the same old rom-com storyline you might think it would be. This is a humorous, sweet, painful tale about two people falling in love but not in the way you might expect. Gordon-Levitt is well cast here and Deschanel was a pleasant surprise. I haven’t been a fan of some of her previous acting but she fits this role well.
The film does a nice job of portraying the highs and lows of their relationship in a way that each of us can likely identify with on some, if not multiple, levels…which is why I think it succeeds. It moves you with a sincerity and realness that most movies of this genre fail to do. It taps into the dating experience with a sincerity and heart where most others just go for one-dimensional, over-the-top, wacky humor. The narrative is creative and moves along with a nice even pace. I enjoyed the music used throughout the movie. It conveyed the right mood of the characters and settings.
You should see this movie…it will be overlooked by a lot of average movie-goers. Another diamond in the rough of the summer movie season.
This weekend was a wonderful time for my bride and I as we got to have a little getaway to the beautiful Cumberland Plateau region of middle Tennessee. We left Nashville on Friday afternoon and drove to The Garden Inn B&B at Bee Rock in Monterey, TN. This was a very nice bed & breakfast that sits on a bluff of the Cumberland Plateau known, accordingly, as Bee Rock. Only a scant distance off of I-40, you’d never guess how close you really were to the interstate if you arrived there blindfolded. I was amazed how off the beaten path it seemed given that the highway was so close by.
Upon arrival we were greeted by Mike, the inn’s owner. He gave us the rundown on the premises and the “rules” as well as a thorough explanation of what our visit there could expect. Snacks and sodas available anytime in the dining area, afternoon fresh-baked cookies (also available in the dining room at your leisure) and evening dessert set out for you at 6pm. It would be wrapped if we chose not to indulge until later in the evening.
Our room, at the end of the main floor hall, was named Autumn Leaves. Very tastefully decorated yet simple and relaxing. The view out our window was of the valley from the bluff. The inn sits right near the edge of the Bee Rock bluff affording a spectacular view from morning to night.
On Saturday we drove to the historic town of Rugby. It was a perfect time to visit there as they were having their 40th annual pilgrammage, where visitors may tour the historic homes (many of which were built when the town was founded in the 1880s), public library and schoolhouse. Rugby was conceived by Thomas Hughes as a utopian village of sorts but only thrived for little more than a decade. By the 1890s the infertility of the soil, disease and other issues had overcome the ideallic vision of the founding settlers and the area went into decline. However, this notion of the “perfect Victorian settlement” never completely died and thanks to the will and hard work of a few individuals over later eras the area is now wonderfully preserved and, ironically, a testament to its founder’s original notion.
Saturday evening we visited Stonehaus Winery near Crossville and enjoyed some wine tasting. Naturally, this lead to the purchase of a couple wines and even some praline caramel fudge (YUM!). Back home last night we enjoyed some of the fudge with the Raspberry Mist wine. This wine is very much like a dessert wine and tasted delicious with the fudge. The other bottle we purchased was a merlot. From the winery we went to The Brass Lantern for dinner. We had some great steaks and enjoyed the romantic atmosphere of the restaurant before travellng back to the B&B for the night.
Sunday, after another wonderful breakfast at the inn, we checked out and hiked the short distance to another bluff at Bee Rock. The morning was a bit rainy and some lower clouds hung almost below us as we took in the view from the rocks’ edge. Then it was on to Burgess Falls, where we hiked another trail along the river, stopping several times to view the increasingly larger falls until we reached the main falls. There, the water cascades 136 feet and is quite spectacular as it spills over the rock down to the waiting river below. The day was warm without being too hot or humid and made for a wonderful 1-1/2 mile hike through the trees at the riverside.
After Burgess Falls we travelled back to the interstate and continued on our way home. A perfect, relaxing trip together and one which I’m sure we will remember for years to come.
This morning, after dropping my stepson off at his middle school in East Nashville, I located my maternal grandmother’s former residence on Ridgecrest Drive. I was but a very wee lad when she would have lived there nearly 4 decades ago but I do have some memories of the place.
Now, I have been by the place occasionally in the 20+ years I have been a Music City resident, but always when family was visiting and I wasn’t the one behind the wheel. Therefore my clarity on exactly where the house was located was always a little fuzzy. So I e-mailed my dad yesterday and confirmed the address and WA-LAH!….I’ve now permanently etched it’s location into my smallish brain.
It’s funny how the very sharp details of what you remember then merge with things that must have existed at the time but for which there is no memory at all. For instance, the house appears much smaller. No doubt that this has a lot to do with how old I was at the time and as much as your rational thought tells you this before you even arrive at the destination of a journey such as this it still amazes nonetheless.
The most visible item of vivid memory is the concrete garage to the left of the home that also served as a patio/deck of sorts. This could be accessed from an outside door on the second floor that led down to it via a metal stairway. Or….could it? Was that stairway there, as my memory seems to suggest? Or is this yet another example of my mind marrying real past experience with what is presently in my view today? The easy solution, of course, would be to ask my parents. Or my soon-to-be 94-year-young grandmother herself.
I’ll have to remember to ask one of them. If my memory will hold out that long…
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