Happy Birthday John! You've been missed. Hope to hear about a wonderful birthday meal you had.

Di

HAPPY BIRTHDAY John!!

Maybe a Vintage Bicycle under the birthday tree?

Happy Birthday John. Hope SWMBO spoils you today.

~Ann

Yes, the kids and SWMBO must spoil you today. Happy Birthday, John!

Are you going on a birthday ride?

Sally

A happy birthday to you, John! Maybe the family can cook dinner for you tonight?

Teresa

Have a great day!

Lars

Wishing you a fabulous birthday with all the trimmings!

Eileen

Happy birthday!

Hi John. Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday John!

Adding my wishes for the bestest best birthday so far!
Smiles,
Sooz

Wishing you a happy birthday and wonderful days the whole year through.

Happy Birthday, John, I do hope you are celebrating and not worrying about calories or nutrition at all.

Birthday cake and beer, perhaps, and your daughter to cook for you!

Annie

Dashing in to wish you a very happy birthday and many more!!

Happy birthday!

Hey, Birthday Boy...hope you had a fantastic day! Birthday Pizza complete with candles and a case of Birthday Beer to rinse it down! I was thinking of you the other day - saw a terrific biking photograph at our local photography club's showing at the library. It was taken in b/w with an antique bike colored bright neon lime green. Cool photograph.

/tricia

Happy Birthday, John! I hope it was a fun and happy one.

Cj

Happy birthday! Hope it involved amazing food cooked by you or someone else.

Hope it was a good one. Looking forward to your next imaginative cooking project.

Jim

Thanks, everyone!

We've been in Chicago, New York, now Providence, and next Boston during this Spring Break week. As you might guess, visiting colleges for dear daughter. Northwestern, U Chicago, NYU, Columbia, Barnard, Brown, etc. It has been an interesting week so far, she has been gathering impressions, developing her likes and dislikes, learning why we've been pushing to keep her grades up . . . and coming to terms with the results of not completely doing so.

The rest of the time, we've been bopping around Manhattan doing tourist stuff. The Museum of Natural History was the most crowded I have ever seen it, and I've been going there my whole life. MOMA's design floor, my favorite part, was being re-arranged, which made me sad. We saw two excellent Broadway shows, and do you know Sigourney Weaver has clearly sold her soul to the devil, to look that way at 64 y/o. Or maybe not, i saw my grandmother, she looks good for 103 y/o, and she seems in possession of her soul. Speaking of selling out, my favorite cheap ramen joint in mid-town has closed, its name and menu taken over by the former sushi place next door. The waitress said they just moved everything over and "combined", but the cooks, servers, gyoza, and bone broth were all different. I'm still in mourning. We stayed in this self-described "edgy cheap chic" hotel at Columbus Circle, and I can attest that one of those adjectives is undeserved. Ouch.

With my fresh new demi-centurarian badge as extra motivation, I've desperately trying to lose weight, which this week means not gaining weight, so we've been doing roadwork in the hotel fitness center every night, or running in Central Park. "We" refers to me and daughter. A bird pooped right on her head around the Central Park Zoo, so she's decided her running will be indoors from now on. I'll still try to drag her out to Boston Common for a poop-dodging jog tomorrow.

No interesting food to speak of. Just tear-soaked fake gyoza. But I might cook dinner at a friend's in Boston, if she wants and if I can remember how.

Wow, so busy! Buy your daughter a cap for running.

Sigourney Weaver has stated on the record that she is against plastic surgery. I think she is aging fabulously, as is Meryl Steep. What helps is that she doesn't have "the 11s" - the vertical frown lines that drive most actresses to Botox or the surgeon while in their 30s. She has horizontal lines instead, which are easily hidden with bangs should you feel like it. Um, yes, I wear bangs - what of it? Heh, heh. I thought Sigourney looked sensational in The Ice Storm.

Welcome to the 50s - it's the new 30s dontcha know?

So what shows did you see?

Judging by the schools you're visiting, your daughter's grades must be pretty good.

I'm another bangs-wearer here..

We saw "Vasha and Sonia and Masha and Spike" with Sigourney Weaver and David Hyde Pierce, who were excellent, but just pipped by their co-star Kristine Nielsen. NYT review here: http://theater.nytimes.com/show/70434/Vanya-and-Sonia-and-Masha-and-Spike/overview

Later SWMBO and DD saw a preview performance of "Orphans", which they liked a lot as well.
DD is a bit of an enigma where college is concerned. Her grades are pretty good, not great. She is working for the International Baccalaureate degree and taking really hard classes - e.g. physics, biology and integral calculus in her junior year - which I gather colleges don't really account for. Her SAT scores came today, they were very good - but she wanted better so there were some tears. She is a photographer, writer, artist - but also interested in biology. So there's some thought of a double major. Or maybe not. She's likely to enter as "undecided".

Some of the schools we saw will be mid-range for her - meaning, she'd be quite likely to get in - but the Ivies will be a real reach to get into, not to mention to afford. I'm not convinced they make sense, frankly. I'd like to be able to help her through a graduate degree, rather than blowing all my money on a gold-plated college. In my life and careers so far, no one has cared where anyone went to college; to the extent the school has mattered, it has always been where the graduate or professional degree came from.

We're also planning to see UC Santa Cruz and McGill University. We've seen U Washington. Local schools we've seen or will see are U Oregon, Reed and Lewis & Clark.

It sounds like a wonderful, whirlwind, trip jammed full of interesting and happy times. Visiting those selective marvelous schools for your daughter makes for deep down smiles. Terrific parenting moments.

Both Northwestern and the U of C get lots of respect from Chicagoland.... As do all the schools on your list.

John, I agree about the school not really mattering too much at work. I had no idea where anyone went to school. My niece went to Duke and she said most of the people she went to scholl with went to state universities. Could have saved her dad a lot of money!

So when are you coming to look at Penn, Haverford, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr and Harcum Junior College?

My goal for her college education is for her to take lots of interesting classes, have a fun time, make friends, do her art and photography, learn about asserting herself, sort out what she'd like to do or at least to try out first, and come out with a degree that is somewhat useful.

The last bit is subjective, my college degree was pretty useless except as a minimal qualification for graduate school.

Of course, once you get into it, it is easy to get sucked up into the competitive, one-upmanship aspect of college selection.

Happy belated! Hope you had a great birthday!

Glad you enjoyed the day. belated Happy Birthday wishes!!

Just to include some food content, stuff we ate tonight.

This is chicken in a ginger garlic cilantro scallion mushroom cream sauce, it is served with plenty of lime zest.

This is risotto with portabello mushrooms and candied almonds.

John, your goals for your daughter's education are so reasonable.

Your food looks so good, it makes me want to take another trip to Portland!

Sally

Don't forget about Whitman and Willamette! Both were very generous to my son!

Reed? Very self selecting.

I know a place where she can get four years free tuition -

"An out-of-state first-time freshman student who meets the December 1st scholarship priority deadline, has a 32-36 ACT or 1400-1600 SAT score [critical reading and math scores only] and at least a 3.5 cumulative GPA will be selected as a Presidential Scholar and will receive the value of out-of-state tuition for four years"

(Roll Tide!)

Start a college thread on conversations, I bet lots of us will jump in (Deb, Denise, come on out and play!)

Cooper Union in NYC.

You get in, you get full scholarship for the entire college education.

I believe it's the only school in the country which is all free, and privately funded.

dcarch

John, be careful when you read about awards. 'Tuition' and 'Cost of attendance' and even 'scholarships' are different. For example, at 'Bama and Cooper Union you still have room, board, other fees - bringing the cost to about $15 to $20k/year. 'Scholarships' can be eroded by increasing tuition/fee costs. X% of tuition usually increases with price bumps so there is protection.

Deep Springs is free.....$2,800/year COA....heh heh EJ strikes again...

Of course the best thing she can do - if she is a National Merit Finalist - is get a full ride (tuition, room, board, fees, transportation, EVERYTHING) with a good number of schools looking to increase their prestige.

Happy hunting.

As I understand it, Cooper Union gives free tuition:

"Undergraduate Tuition The Cooper Union tuition charge for undergraduate students for 2012-2013 is $19,275 per semester. Each registered undergraduate student receives a full tuition scholarship. "

And as I understand it, most student live outside of the school residence with friends or families, Plenty of apartments for rent in that area. Finding roommates is not difficult.

dcarch

Oh my LOL no surprise there.....

John, check your email, best to take this discussion off line.