Van Gogh Cafe

Posted on by Thor

While I was jumping between Air B&B‘s in Orlando, I decided to go to the Van Goghblin Café (805 W Central Blvd. Orlando, FL).   I ordered a Van Gogh themed coffee and settled in to sketch. This café is near the Orlando City Soccer Stadium in Orlando. Being on the west side of I-4, the neighborhood isn’t the best. I walked there from downtown, so I am not sure what the parking situation is like near the café.

Rather than being a stand-alone café, this seems like a coffee shop for the design firms that occupies the rest of the building. I got there late in the day and the staff was getting ready to leave. I had to rush the sketch since the staff wanted to leave.

In the café ordering area there was a faux window that looked out on a Van Gogh painted scene. Thee menu and Ordering counter were painted Van Gogh blue. Starry night sliced across a bright yellow walk in the communal area. Some chairs were in the style of the night café painting by Van Gogh while others were modern plush leather seats. The leather seating was more popular.

The coffee was decent, but the location makes going here less than appealing unless you are heading to an Orlando City Soccer game.

Waiting for Dr. Rachel Apoo

Posted on by Thor

After having my prostate sliced out by a doctor using a laser shoved up my flagpole, I then developed a bilateral hernia while sketching in Europe. I noticed the hernia when I woke up one morning in Herdecke Germany. I thought I had it because I had decided to try the coffee in the historic Air B&B. It had developed so fast that I feared I might have to cut the trip short as it expanded. I spent the morning reading online articles about hernias and became convinced that it wasn’t dangerous at the time. I am sure a laser beam had ripped the lining of my lower abdomen from the inside during the prostate operation. I figured lots of hiking around Europe would help the healing process. Perhaps I was wrong.

The doctor arranged a follow-up after the prostate removal operation with his assistant Rachel Apoo. I had consulted with one doctor about correcting the hernia, but his consultation was less than informative or reassuring. He planned to sew plastic mesh on the inside of my abdomen. My sister had a hernia, and she had the exact same operation he described twice and it failed both times with different doctors. She later went to Dr. Jonathan Yunis who used pig’s bladder to correct the hernia. It was this trusted doctor I eventually used to do the operation. It cost $11,000 out of pocket and Ambetter Insurance refused to help with the costs in any way since he was out of network. Health insurance is a scam.

I asked Apoo about the hernia correction surgery. She told me the operation had nothing to do with the hernia that developed shortly after leaving the operating table. That protected the doctor from any possible lawsuits. She also prescribed me a drug which would lengthen the amount of time between bathroom breaks. The whole reason I had the swollen prostate removed was so that I could sit for several hours and finish a sketch or painting before having to run off to a bathroom. In Germany I was peeing everywhere I sketched. I marked trees all along the route of the 75th Infantry Division as they liberated the Ruhr Pocket during WWII. The pills Apoo prescribed were turned down by my health insurance. On a second office visit she prescribed another pill which did the trick. It is called Oxybutynin ER. I ran out of the drug last week and now I have to pee every few hours or so. I get up several times at night as well. I am calling in a refill today. I tried calling in a refill yesterday, but the Walgreens robots put me on hold for an extremely long time and then a human hung up on me. I hope to have better luck today.

April 6, 1945: Mengede Germany

Posted on by Thor

Mengede Is a storybook old German town. I was staying in an Air B&B that was identical to the center building in the sketch. I found a perfect little restaurant that served a traditional German breakfast with a hard-boiled egg and assorted meats and cheeses. On this morning unfortunately it was raining. I hiked out anyway, to find a spot to sketch. This location has a nice overhang on the building I was sitting in front of.

The Pfarrkirche St. Remigius in Mengede, Dortmund, is a historic Catholic parish church, part of the larger Dortmund parish, known for its prominent Gothic tower and significant local history, serving the Mengede district within the Ruhr Pocket of Germany. It is the oldest building in the city. It was built in built in 1875-76, and expanded in 1901. The church sustained no significant damage during World War II.

Mengede is just a 25-minute ride to the north west of Dortmund Germany. Mengede was occupied by the 75th Infantry division as they were making their way south towards Dortmund.

On April 6, 1945. My father’s 1st Battalion and the 2nd Battalion jumped off at dawn encountering light resistance initially. My father’s 1st Battalion was delayed by numerous well organized defensive positions which had to be neutralized before the attack could move forward.

Mengede is now part of Dortmund Germany, suffered heavily in WWII as a key Ruhr industrial area, with massive bombing raids destroying its city center, especially in March 1945, leaving much of it in rubble. It’s industrial importance meant widespread infrastructure damage rather than just residential loss, with unexploded bombs still found today

Even after heavy artillery had been dropped on Dortmund, it became apparent that the city was determined to fight on. The 2nd Battalion of the 291st Infantry Division was pinned down by enemy fire which preceded a counter attack by German paratroopers. Allied artillery broke up the dual. On a flank, the 290th Infantry Division with my father’s C-Company cleared several towns (likely including Mengede), then encountered heavy resistance and was forced to dig in for the night.

The German 2nd Parachute Division which had caused so much trouble ever since Normandy France, fought back hard, but the 75th Infantry Division beat off every thrust.

Key West: The Strand

Posted on by Thor

My friend wanted to entertain her niece so we took a trip down to Key West. Ironically I spent much of the time teaching virtual classes from the Air B&B we rented while they explored the island. I have been to key West before so I know many of the typical sites. I did get out in the evenings and they wanted to hit up a posh restaurant on Duval Street which thankfully had outdoor seating.

The main drag of shops were constantly crowded. It was like navigating busy Manhattan sidewalks. My friend and her niece have both had COVID and they are over it. They dropped all basic mitigations. At first I tried regulating my breathing but then I put on my N-95 mask and forgot about it. I might be the only person on the island in a mask, but that is fine with me.

The Strand Theater is gorgeous, but unfortunately it has been turned into a Walgreens. Entertainment venues might come and go, but people always need drugs.

Next to the Strand is a bar with tons of dollar bills hanging from the ceiling. Stickers covered every other surface. I didn’t try and sketch all that detail.

We ate at La Tratoria, a posh Italian Restaurant. They have flavored martinis, zuppa, antipasti, insalate, and of course lotsa pasta.

After diner, we walked to the west site of the island to watch the sunset with the rest of the crowd. Once the sun set, a bell was rung.

South Carolina

Posted on by Thor

We took an extended weekend road trip to South Carolina to visit one of my sisters who lives there. As soon as my virtual 3pm class ended on Friday, we were out the door and into the already packed car. I brought along my laptop and iPad since I would be teaching from the Air B&B in South Carolina. Pan drove straight through and we were settled in before midnight. Torrential rain and fog made the last leg of the trip an adventure.

The Air B&B unfortunately was downwind of a paper mill which gave off an acrid stench. Indoors the small was less overwhelming. The place was pet friendly, so Donkey and Sprout were along for the ride. The living room had the largest TV I have ever seen on top pf a home made crate made from two by fours and plywood. We never once turned it on.

The next day Pam and out house guest explored Charleston, South Carolina while I taught virtually all day. For most students this was their last class, so they finished up paintings and drawing that had been in the works for some time. With the animation student I executed a walk which is a more complex assignment and I was pleased that he caught every nuance of what I was explaining through my sketches.

After my classes were over, I was picked up and we went to downtown Charleston for some ice cream and a ghost tour. The ice cream parlor was packed and we were the only people wearing masks. The streets as well were jam packed with people from wedding parties and pub crawls. As the evening wore on, belligerent drunks became the norm. I was almost attacked as a “Biden lover” for daring to wear a mask.

The painting above was done on our last day in Charleston. Before we left, we went on a Geo-cache outing. Geo-caches are tiny canisters hidden at geo-coordinates. Apparently inside are little trinkets and a note pad. I helped search for the first one at a busy interaction but we never found it. After that I decided to settle in under a tree and just sketch the park entrance to a development. It was getting hot and sketching seemed preferable to the search.

Time was limited so I sketched quickly. They found about three Geo-caches while I worked on this. Charleston is a gorgeous city to sketch with all it’s historic architecture but we were in and out for this quick weekend trip. My sister has sketches I had done on a previous Charleston trip hug in her living room. They were decent sketches and they made me yearn to do more. It is probably better to sketch in the fall and or winter when it isn’t over 90 degrees every day.

My visit with my sister was amazing. We discussed family history and she has so much research which verifies and expands on the research I have been doing. I am certain we only scratched the surface, but we are in contact all the time via Facebook and messenger. The important thing is we can now view my research on line so she can see info I might have that she hasn’t seen yet. I was going to contact a church in NYC to try and locate some baptism and marriage records for a family. The churches web site said that it cost $50 for them to try and find a record. I knew there would be records found so I was considering the option. It turns out my sister had done all this research years ago, she had a folder full of the exact records I was hoping to find. I counted 23 records. Multiply that by $50 each, and she had $1,150 worth of records which they gave away back in the day. Figuring out the branches with thousands of names became a bit overwhelming, but now we can narrow conversations down to one question at a time.