Like many of you, Dawn and I will be enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with family. But this year, with our house still under renovation and with the size of our family, we collectively decided that, this year, we should let someone else cook the turkey - and do the dishes! So we’ll be among the thousands of families that, for one reason or another, will be enjoying Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant.

Oh, I know, it’s not the same as sitting around your own dinner table and saying, “Pass the gravy.” But, except for Dawn and I, none of our family have a table that can accommodate all thirteen of us. And this year, we’ll have three additional guests! So we’ve picked a nice restaurant we know will do a first rate job and, when we’ve all eaten our fill, we’ll just push away from the table… and leave the cleanup to someone else.

Of course, the best part of the holiday for us, besides the magnificent dinner table, is having my family together. We’ll miss James this year - he’ll be celebrating with Liz and her family - but there’s always something wonderful about having family come together, give thanks and share a fine meal. I love the family part the most.

Lori introduced a new family tradition a couple years ago where we all wrote down the things we were thankful for during the year to be read aloud at the dinner table the following year. I doubt the setting this year will be conducive, but I hope we do it next year. It’s a great tradition! Dawn and I have so much to be thankful for and making “Thanks” part of our Thanksgiving is what it’s all about. And a great way to begin is to remember how it all began.

The first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, starred the Pilgrims, Squanto and the friendly Wampanoag tribe led by Massasoit, who celebrated a bountiful harvest and the promise of making it through the harsh New England winter. Here are some lesser-known facts about that first Thanksgiving in 1621:

Squanto was a Patuxet Indian who almost single-handedly saved the first Pilgrims from starving to death. He taught them how to catch eels and trap fish during their spring run, plant corn and pumpkins and trap beavers. He helped the Pilgrims despite having been captured and sold into slavery by an English sea captain. According to Peter Marshall and David Manuel in The Light and the Glory, Squanto was shipped to Malaga, Spain, where he was rescued by local friars, and eventually returned to Plymouth, where he discovered not one member of his tribe was left alive.

During that first Thanksgiving celebration, the Wampanoags brought to the feast fat wild turkeys and introduced the Pilgrims to a local delicacy called popcorn. Next time you enjoy some at the movies, thank the Wampanoags, not Orville Reddenbacher.

They celebrated that first Thanksgiving in October, not November. In 1941, Congress issued a national proclamation setting our observance of Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November.

During the winter of 1621-22, an influx of new settlers eventually forced the pilgrims to live on a daily ration of five kernels of corn a piece. At the next Thanksgiving, Marshall and Manuel noted, “the first course that was served ‘…on an empty plate in front of each person were five kernels of corn… lest anyone should forget.’”

We have a lot to be thankful for, as those first pilgrims did. And for all its faults, we live in a country where we can write, speak and worship freely, and where we can attempt to right wrongs without being thrown in jail or exiled. Solomon wrote, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Well, where there is no thankfulness, people sour, slowly, like leftover cranberry sauce. We need Thanksgiving, if for no other reason than to remember that while there may be only five kernels of corn on our plate, there are still five, and that the promise of harvest is only a season or two away.

Well, sort of… Not really…

For all the blessings bestowed upon us, Thanksgiving should serve as a day of thanks and praise. But I’m afraid some of us have lost sight of the holiday’s intended purpose.

Sure, most of us will gather tomorrow and share in the “bountiful harvest” with friends and family. But too many of us will see it as what sadly has become a day dedicated to sports and retail pursuits. We’ll settle in front of the television to watch football or strategically plan Friday’s trip to the mall for the big “Day After” sales.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that not all my Thanksgivings have resembled a Norman Rockwell painting. But I’d like to think that, as I get older, my thoughts will focus on what’s really important. So with that in mind, here are a few things I’m thankful for this year.

I have a wonderful family. I’ve been blessed with caring, honest, hard working parents, great brothers, a beautiful and loving wife, four wonderful children, four terrific grandchildren and a wonderful extended family, all of whom love me unconditionally. Yet I am mindful that there are many less fortunate.

I’m thankful for my career. Building my business has been a source of enjoyment and pride over the years and I’m thankful that I’ve been able to influence and provide a livelihood for many fine people over the last 36 years.

I’m glad I live in California. We enjoy a relatively mild climate, magnificent parks, countless pristine lakes, majestic mountains and the Pacific Ocean with some of the most beautiful coastline anywhere.

I’m thankful for the roof over my head. The recent fires in southern California were a reminder that there are people who have no permanent place to rest theirs. No one who stays warm and dry night after night should complain when there are others who have no place to sleep.

I have more than enough to eat. It’s sad to think that, while so many of us are worried about our growing waistlines, there are many who are dying of starvation or are uncertain when they’ll see their next meal.

I’m glad - and proud - I’m an American.

I’m thankful that there are men and women who have and will defend my rights as an American. You don’t have to agree with the war in Iraq, or any conflict in which the United States has ever been engaged, to know that our military will always be there to protect us. Supporting our troops is critical if we are to continue enjoying the freedoms we too often take for granted.

And I’m thankful for a lifetime of good friends. I’ve had many over the years, some who have passed on but are still with me in spirit, some with many miles between us but with whom I still enjoy a connection, and a dear few who are like family, as close as friends can be. For those I am especially thankful.

Yes, I’m indeed fortunate. Sure, I’ve been given my share of mountains, but the climb has always been worth the effort. Life is good. I’m a very thankful man.

Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Along with Saturday’s Japanese tea ceremony for Dawn’s birthday, we visited San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum and checked another item off our lengthy list of things to do or see. But it was so much larger than we’d anticipated that we failed to allow enough time to see it all. No worries, though, we’ll return another day. If you appreciate art and antiquities, the museum is definitely worth a visit. Just be sure to allow ample time to see all three floors! And be aware that, while photography is permitted on the 2nd and 3rd floors, flash is not!

Not knowing what to expect and not wanting to lug the heavy gear unnecessarily, I’d left my Nikon at home. So we relied on our little pocket Canon and Dawn’s iPhone, both handheld and without flash (not allowed!.) Still, we got some decent images which I’ve posted in an album. Feel free to browse. And let me know what you think of the new viewing module.

We were delayed getting home Monday night by a movie production crew that was filming on our street and at our neighbors home a couple doors down. Seems they’ve been shooting around the county all month.

Setting up for a movie scene is a pretty involved and elaborate procedure, and the one being filmed at the time required a gigantic “cherry picker” with a huge light that lit up the house and yard, a firetruck and firemen to hose down the street, a team of paramedics in case someone got hurt, several “movie” police and other cars, and the usual trucks filled with assorted cameras and movie making equipment that spilled onto the adjoining street. Various hoses and cables crisscrossed the road, and movie and security personnel with walkie talkies were everywhere. While waiting for the scene to wrap, we chatted with movie people about the film.

The title, we learned, is “Chain Letter,” a film “similar” (that’s movie double-speak for, “I can’t tell you”) to 2003’s “Thirteen” that starred Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed and Holly Hunter who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. The film, which won numerous awards, is about a teen who befriends the “popular” girl at school and becomes involved in drugs, petty theft and piercings. Sounds like a shallow plot, but it was apparently a good movie about teens coming of age, at least those on the more extreme end of the scale. And apparently at least one of the female stars of “Thirteen” is in “Chain Letter” (which may be, as is sometimes the case, a “working” title.)

I’ll be interested to see how much of our street and neighbor’s home show up in the film when it’s released, I’d guess sometime in late 2008 or early 2009.

Or week? We’ve all had them, some worse than others. But it’s how we handle them that separates the ass-kissers from the “I’m not going to take it anymore” ass-kickers who would apparently prefer unemployment and maybe a little hard time to putting up with… Well, give this compilation a watch. You’ve probably seen some of the clips, but together, they’re a work of art.

There. Feel better?

We’ve been enjoying beautiful autumn weather and I’m certainly not complaining. But winter is right around the corner and there are already signs here and there.

I grabbed this image the other day on Sutter Street in Folsom with our pocket camera. As we left the parking lot, we noticed that the clouds had turned ominous and several gulls had landed on the old train turntable, seemingly as surprised by the sudden change as we were…

For her birthday, I had arranged for Dawn (and I) to participate in an authentic Japanese tea ceremony, something she has wanted to experience for many years. As a special honor, ours was overseen by Sekino-sensei, the 93-year-old teacher at Nichi Bei Kai in San Francisco, and hosted by her daughter-in-law, a master of tea ceremony. John, a senior practitioner, acted as her assistant as well as our interpreter and teacher.

Tea ceremony (茶道, chadō - “the way of tea”) is a traditional ritual based on Taoism (Daoism) and influenced by Zen Buddhism in which powdered green tea is ceremonially prepared by a skilled practitioner and served to a small group of guests in a tranquil setting, in our case a traditional tea room. Since a tea practitioner must be familiar with the production and types of tea, with kimono, calligraphy, flower arranging, ceramics, incense and a wide range of other disciplines and traditional arts in addition to his or her school’s tea practices, the study of the tea ceremony takes many years and often lasts a lifetime. Even to participate as a guest in a formal tea ceremony requires knowledge of the prescribed gestures and phrases, the proper way to take tea and sweets, and general deportment in the tea room. Although Dawn and I had done some research on the subject of tea ceremony, each of the three major schools conduct their various ceremonies differently, so we relied heavily on John for instruction and guidance.

A significant part of the experience is becoming acquainted with the tools (道具, dōgu) and components used in the ceremony. There are many, but briefly they include a large iron pot which, in winter, is set into a recessed hearth and used to heat the water; a long bamboo ladle (hishaku 柄杓) with a nodule in the approximate center of the handle, used to transfer water to and from the iron pot; the tea caddy (natsume 棗) containing powdered green tea (matcha (抹茶); the tea scoop (chashaku 茶杓), usually carved from a single piece of bamboo or ivory and used to scoop tea from the tea caddy into the tea bowl; the whisk (chasen 茶筅), carved from a single piece of bamboo and used to mix the powered tea and water; and, of course, the tea bowl (chawan 茶碗). The best bowls are thrown by hand and some are extremely valuable, even priceless. Frequently named by their creators or owners, or by a tea master, bowls over four hundred years old, like the 16th century Black Raku chawan pictured below, are in use today but are used only on unusually special occasions. We were honored to use such a bowl in our ceremony.

Integral to the Japanese tea ceremony, and by far the most difficult part for me, is seiza, the basic position from which everything begins and ends. Both the host and guests sit seiza style, basically kneeling and sitting back on one’s feet, and maintain the position during the entire ceremony. All the bows performed during tea ceremony originate in the seiza position. If one isn’t used to sitting in this position for long periods of time, it can be quite uncomfortable, even painful. It certainly was for me, although Dawn had little difficulty.

Because ours was a somewhat formal ceremony, both our host and her assistant wore kimonos and we, had we owned them, would have been expected to wear kimonos as well. Dawn was the honored guest and so sat in the first position, with me to her left. She was served first and was the one to whom fell the honor of requesting permission for us to inspect the utensils before they were put away.

Our experience was memorable, enlightening and educational, a treasured glimpse into an ancient custom and culture. We were welcomed into another world and treated as honored guests. It was a wonderful and humbling experience!

Following the ceremony, we watched a student learning the intricacies of serving “thick tea.” I took the opening photo before we departed - left to right are John, our host’s assistant and our guide; Sekino-sensei, the school’s 93-year-old teacher; Dawn, the birthday girl and guest of honor; our host, Sekino-sensei’s daughter-in-law; and a student observer.

Today is my wonderful wife’s birthday and I want it to be as special for her as she is to me. So we’ll be spending her day in San Francisco doing things that she wants to do. We’ll visit the Asian Art Museum, spend time in Golden Gate Park, and experience an authentic, private Japanese tea ceremony conducted by a teacher of the ancient art of tea. And we’ll have lunch in the City and dinner somewhere special when we return. Happy birthday, Sweetheart!

Many of you may not know Dawn, so here are a few photos (click to enlarge). World, meet Dawn. Dawn, world.

Dawn had lunch Wednesday with Pete, our company’s insurance broker, at a midtown restaurant frequented by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. She’d hoped to get a photo of him and, sure enough, there was a “sighting” just as Pete had all but promised.

Now, it probably goes without saying that Arnold doesn’t enter through the restaurant’s front door. No, the restaurant owners built a special room at the rear of the restaurant for the Governor’s private use and he enters through the rear entrance. But not before his security detail — the guys with the telltale earphones and whispering into their sleeves — walked the room checking, I suppose, for suspicious and unsavory diners.

But try as she did, Dawn was unprepared for Arnold’s brisk post-lunch exit and her big photo op. First, she’d forgotten her camera. But, quick thinker that she is, she grabbed her iPhone, fired it up, and got a shot of Arnold as he was leaving the restaurant. He walked right by her!

Unfortunately, by the time she got the iPhone cranked up, he was nearly out the door. Determined to get a better photo, she ran outside and grabbed this shot of Arnold’s SUV… speeding away.

She, of course, didn’t want me to post the photos. I, of course, couldn’t resist. But she’s been a good sport about all the teasing - “Are you sure that’s Arnold?” - I’ve heaped upon her. “Next time,” I assured her.

Who knew being an underpaid (but much loved and appreciated) paparazzi would be so difficult?

Dakota, my second grandson, is in Oregon this week visiting his other grandparents. John is a fireman there and, some years ago, revived this beautiful old fire truck. He’s taken Dakota for rides on it many times over the years but, this week, look who’s driving!

Thanks Lori!

Stanley alerted me (thanks!) to the fact that the results graphic from the Nerd Test I took a couple months ago to determine my relative nerdiness was no longer visible. Turns out the problem is a bi-product of the test being “updated.” I took that as a personal challenge and took the new test with the following results:

The questions seemed familiar in the new version so taking the quiz was a little faster. About the only new thing I noticed was the option to include a photo with the results. So I did. (I’m a handsome nerd, aren’t I?)

Go ahead, click on the image above to take the new test and discover your new inner nerd!” Be sure to add your photo, then send me your results graphics and I’ll post them! Might make an interesting collage, don’t you think?

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Just had to share this cute photo from Shannon of my youngest grandson, Connor, helping pick out this year’s Halloween pumpkins…

Another oldie, this one from Michael…

A guy goes to the dental surgeon to have a tooth pulled. The dentist pulls out a freezing needle to mask the pain.

“No way! No needles! I hate needles!” the patient insists.

So the dentist starts to hook up the laughing gas and again the patient objects. “I can’t do the gas thing. The thought of having the gas mask on is suffocating to me!”

Frustrated, the dentist asks if the man has any objection to taking a pill. “No,” the patient replies, “I’m fine with pills.”

The dentist hands the patient a little cup containing a blue pill and says, “Here, swallow this. It’s a Viagra tablet.”

The patient says, “Gee, I didn’t know Viagra works as a pain pill!”

“It doesn’t,” replies the dentist, “but it’ll give you something to hold onto when I pull your tooth…”