Mission Accomplished

Visiting With Grandmother Long 

It is done.  We are home again.  I took my children to visit their grandmother in Virginia Beach yesterday morning.  We stayed one night in an 11-story hotel, which had a fine ocean front view.  Sunday evening was cold and windy, but we took a fairly long walk on the beach anyway.  Here is a deluxe linker to a video of a quotidian Long Yang Family conversation in our hotel room (8th Feb 2016).    

Below are some photos from our time with Grandma in the Memory Center, a retirement home for people with dementia.  She has been there four years and is now 86 years old.  She has had Alzheimer's for about two decades.

$33 on Sandwiches:We also spent some time with Uncle Jim (my brother) in the local Subway Sandwich Shop.  We dropped thirty-three smackers in that shop, but it was OK because we got six foot-long deals.  Anything in the shop was on sale for six smackers. We got chicken Teriyaki and an Italian super meat combo delight.  David, age 7, got a meatball sub, his regular preference.  Any time we go to visit Grandma, we go to Subway.  It is now our tradition.

$33 on Shells:We spent 13 dollars on shells at a shop on the pier.  We talked a good bit with the shop manager, Matt.  He told us that the shells are sourced from all over the world, nearly always being a by-product of food.  People eat the contents of the shells, and leave the shells, selling them in bulk to Western tourists at spots such as Virginia Beach.  

Matt also told us of some good street performing opportunities at the Virginia Beach Street Scene.  He said the city of Virginia Beach pays performers to perform there every day all summer from June through September.

If we were to do this, I guess we could live in First Landing State Park Campground (27 dollars a day without electricity, 38 with electricity).  We could do this if they are willing to take the time off from other pursuits.  We would need to devise a better way to keep the rain off and keep up our studies.  I guess if we just did it for one month, we could afford the cost of a site with electricity.

We would need an extra tent for Nathaniel so he could relax and sleep during the day.  On the other hand, it would probably be better to wait until we can get an RV and let him sleep in that during the day while we hang out in the large tent right on the same campsite.  These campsites are fully shaded and quite large so we could live alright there together.  The experience of blessing others through daily street performing would be good for Nathaniel in particular, but again, good for each of us.  

I wonder whether it would be cheaper to rent a home for one month, back off the beach front.  Today we drove back there and saw many homes which appeared to be quite simple and inexpensive.  Perhaps some would be for rent.   I think our best, most interesting show would be juggling and unicycle backed up by flute and piano, with some parables and moral lessons made educational in a most entertaining way.

Future Virginia Beach Baduk Tournament:
I sense it would be a blessing to put on a baduk tournament in Virginia Beach similar to the chess tournament they have in October.  Jordan could organize it and direct it well.  The first year would by necessity have a very small number of competitors in the tournament, while we would teach people to play in groups, hopefully under a tent to have shade and in case of rain.

     I surmise that if they were to have five to seven locals keen to learn from us intensively in person for a few days in a row, and then to continue learning online from Jordan, Ashley, and Nathaniel (by e-mail and online with the go servers, using the messaging system during games), that core group could meet regularly with children and other beginners, perhaps once a week, to teach them, and build a decent, broad base of beginning players as rapidly as possible.   

$59 Hotel Costs: Our hotel room set us back only 59 dollars, which was good, considering that we got a kitchenette, a sofa fold-out double bed, and a private room with two double beds.  David and Christopher loved the jacuzzi.  They put on swim goggles and put their faces up against the jets, said they got a nice face and ear massage.  

They also both got soaked in the water

s of the nearby ocean.  I went wading with them, but lacked the stamina they exuded with glee.  They are naturals, take to water like fish.  It was good for  me, too, as otherwise, were I vacationing alone, I would have read books and taken long walks, but never considered taking off my shoes and socks and running into the shallow surf.  Those two keep me a tad younger than I would otherwise be.    

Granville County Beekeeping Operation: Speaking of bees, my oldest, Nathaniel (17), has me back into beekeeping. He needs a hobby which will be better than raising cockroaches, horned beetles and praying mantises.

My wife, Mamma, loves three things about Nathaniel's epiphany which led him to sell all his cockroach colonies:
  A. They must be fed; whereas, bees get their own food much of the time.  
  B. Cockroaches do not produce honey, either.  
  C. And bees live outside, fail to impair the quality of our indoor air.

Mamma is the canary in the gold mine in our home, being the most sensitive of our number, to any breathing difficulties in the quality of the air we have indoors. 
 
Kitten
David is now free to get a kitten.  He badly wants to get a kitten, prefers that to a cat because "It can grow up and get used to us."  We have been promising him that after we made our visit to see Grandma he could get a kitten.  We moved to the Long Yang Family Homestead Acres this past July.  It has been a long row to hoe getting acclimated to life in the countryside.  We are still in the process of improving the place here, making adjustments to the home, wood shop, barn, auxiliary shed, and land.

I have been planting trees.  I have redwoods, Bristlecone Pines, and some Western Hemlocks, all fine trees.  I look forward to planting the three Bristlecone Pines in one location along our walking trail, and make a small rock garden between and around those three pines.  A couple of benches would be positively divine, I surmise.