Tag Archives: Kevin

A visit to Hausermann’s Orchids

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One of the hidden treasures in suburban Chicagoland is an unassuming, somewhat rundown set of greenhouses that makes up Orchids by Hausermann. Set in a gritty and unattractive industrial park area in Addison, IL, Orchids by Hausermann is the largest grower of orchids in the Midwest. I’ve been there a few times in the past with my friend Kevin who, as long as I’ve known him, has loved orchids and has successfully grown them for years. I’ve loved them too but somehow they have always been intimidating for me. Plus they generally are quite expensive to buy. Secretly I’ve wanted to own orchids for quite a while but I had held off.

Paph. sukhakulii Michele’s Uncle Tim gave me two of his orchids to grow last summer when he was downsizing after his divorce. I was pretty excited to get them. But I have no idea what kind they are and they haven’t bloomed yet under my care. I’m kind of nervous about whether I’ve treated them correctly or not!

After church today we decided to make the long drive to Addison so that I could show Michele and the kids the Hausermann place. It’s quite a special place to visit, especially on days like today when the wind is cold and there are snow flurries (yikes, when will Spring ever get here?). You walk in to this unassuming complex and immediately you are greeted with gorgeous, exotic blooming plants everywhere. They stretch as far as the eye can see in all directions, row upon row and greenhouse following greenhouse, full of beautiful orchids. I never really knew that orchids could be quite fragrant. Today there were several kinds of fragrant orchids and their heady perfume filled the air. The little kids were sort of in awe and I had to remind them that they needed to be extremely careful not to disturb or touch any of the plants. Phal. Hausermann's Concerto

After wandering around trying hard to focus — which I found hard to do with all of the bright, colorful varieties surrounding me — I decided to purchase two small orchid plants, one a Phalaenopsis and the other a Paphiopedilum. The Phalaenopsis is a variety created by Hausermann called “Hausermann Shorties.” In other words it has been bred to be more compact and small in size. The Paphiopedilum is also quite small when full grown. I’ve included a photo of each to give you an idea of what they look like. Let’s hope little hands and fingers will keep away from them and that my big hands and fingers won’t mess up their care any so that they will continue to grow and bloom for many years to come!

WorldCat Identities

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Like many others I am really intrigued by the recently unveiled WorldCat Identities project (http://orlabs.oclc.org/Identities/). Just for fun I entered a few family members’ names. For example, works by or about my grandfather, Stanley McCallum, are mentioned here and ones by my brother, Kevin, are shown here. Ok, maybe it’s just a librarian-geeky kind of thing, but I think it’s cool.

Dryer boys

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This funny situation occured yesterday. Michele tells about it:

“This morning I was checking my email and the kids were upstairs playing together. No loud noises, no crying, no arguing…all is good. A bit later Brinley came downstairs and said that Tristan and Cohen got in and it went round and round. HUH? I asked her what she was talking about and went upstairs to investigate…”

The funny part is that I used to do this when I was little, too. And my mother often tells the story of one day when my oldest two brothers were little and she heard this funny noise: THUMP THUMP giggle giggle THUMP THUMP giggle giggle. When she went to investigate, she found that my brother, Kevin, had put my other brother, Tim, in the dryer and turned it on! So there must be some weird abberation in the Oberg gene pool.

Some family photos

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My brother, Dan, digitized many family photos a while ago. I’ve chosen a few to show here.

Below is a photo of all of my family members on the afternoon of our wedding in January 2000, including my six brothers and sisters and almost all of my nieces and nephews and one of my cousins. This is the last photo taken that includes all of my siblings and parents. My sister, Becky, is married and lives in New Zealand, so it is very unusual to have her in a recent family photo. And then my father died almost exactly two years after this photo was taken.

First row from left to right: Dan (brother), Ben (nephew), Keegan (son), Pelle (nephew), and Nils (nephew); Second row: Lars (nephew), my mother with Kerstin (niece) in her lap, my father with Bjorn (nephew) in his lap, and Sam (nephew from New Zealand). Third row: Debbie (sister), Bradley (cousin), Linda (sister-in-law), Jeff (brother), Jocelyn (niece), Tim (brother), Petra (sister-in-law), Kevin (brother), Britta (niece), me, Michele, Becky (sister from New Zealand).

Here is a photo of my mother and father on their wedding day in September 1958:

This photo is of Grandma McCallum, my mother’s mother. I was really close to her and miss her even to this day. This is the last photo taken of her not long before her death in October 1982. The baby in the stroller is Nils, my oldest nephew:

Below is a late photo of Grandpa and Grandma McCallum, the only grandparents I ever knew (my paternal grandparents both died before I was old enough to remember them):

I like this photo of all of us kids (except Donny, my parents’ third child, who died of unknown causes at 18 months of age). Left to right: Dan (#6 and twin to Debbie), Kevin (#1), me (#8) in Kevin’s lap, Tim (#2) with Debbie (#7 and twin to Dan) on his lap, Jeff (#4), and Becky (#5). At this point we still lived in Nebraska:

My Kiwi brother-in-law, Martin (top), along with some friends, pretending to do a Maori war dance called the “haka,” on a beautiful beach on the North Island:

Finally, here I am for my third birthday:

Fiji cyclone experience

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One of the highlights of my travel experiences was a trip to Fiji on the way back from New Zealand several years ago. My friend, Kevin, and I stayed in a small hut near the beach on the Coral Coast of Viti Levu, the largest island in the Fijian island group. The place we stayed at was Tambua Sands Resort. It was a beautiful spot. We enjoyed snorkelling in the reef, visiting with local people, and travelling around the island. Our idyllic trip was rudely interrupted, however, by the approach of a major cyclone, what we in the U.S. would call a hurricane. To make matters worse, Fiji’s only working radar system conked out and we were not really sure when the island would be hit. I was pretty scared, I can tell you! It all ended ok for us in that we got on the last flight out of Nadi before the cyclone hit. Below is an article about the devastation caused by the cyclone shortly after we left. I was recently going through some old files and ran across this clipping. Reading it reminds me of how serious our situation was. The takeoff of our flight was real interesting…we were in an Air New Zealand 747, heading out into a cyclone, with no radar telling the pilot where he should go. So he just flew around in low circles for about an hour until he could find a break in the clouds. I have seldom been so nervous.

Article on Cyclone Kina