Strabismus! What next?

When a person has a chronic condition there is a tendency to think that every little change in one's health is due to that condition. At least that's my excuse for running to the eye doctor today because of problems I've been having seeing double. Let me back up and start again.

A couple of months ago I noticed that when my eyes were really tired, such as when I'd been working at the computer for several hours, my eyesight would drift such that my right and left eyes were seeing things in different places. It was sort of like what you see when you cross your eyes. Except that all I had to do to see double was relax. Bringing the two images back in line was what took effort.

Because it didn't happen all the time and because I could "correct" it with effort, I didn't do anything about it. Then a couple of days ago it seemed to take more effort than normal to bring the images in line. I thought I had read something about people with Parkinson's seeing double so I emailed my neurologist about it. He said nope and recommended that I see an ophthalmologist. I did and he said that instead of Parkinson's it was that chronic condition all of us eventually catch - Old Age. The muscles that normally keep the eyes pointed in the same direction (or at least in the direction the brain interprets as the same) get weaker with age. Mine are usually fine but after too much strain, they can't do it without extra effort.

He then explained that there is an element of the eyeglass prescription that is rarely used but useful in conditions like mine. It is the Prism/Base portion of the prescription, the last two columns in the prescription pictured above (which ISN'T mine, by the way). Eyeglass lenses can be ground so that the eye can be "pointing" out, in, up, down or any combination and yet the person will think the eye is in sync. My doctor actually wrote up two prescriptions for me - one with and one without the prism/base prescription. As you might imagine, fixing tired eyes so they work better makes non-tired eyes have to work a little harder. I have to decide how much I want the one or the other.

By the way, there's a really good explanation of eyeglass prescriptions at OpticsPlanet.com should you want to know even more about eyeglass prescriptions.

B.S. - video review

Several months ago we watched a couple of episodes of Penn & Teller's "Bull Shit!" on Showtime and thought they were interesting and provocative. But recently we got a chance to check out the entire second season's offerings from the Sacramento Public Library.

Penn & Teller are great magicians and not bad as narrators but their B.S.! has just a little too much verbiage and not enough point and counterpoint. One begins to get the feeling that all they know how to do is yell "Bull Shit!" when they could be making more serious points or discussing the other side of an argument. I shouldn't say "they" of course because Penn Jillette does all the talking while Teller is the silent straight man who is always getting the short end of the stick just like on their magic appearances.

Their entire one-sidedness worries me, NOT because the other side of their arguments needs to be defended, but because attacks like these teach people that yelling "Bull Shit!" and showing one or two problems with a position is enough to convince others of your position. Their effectiveness affects the primary audience but there is no possibility for the effect to propagate.

Items on this 3 disk set (of the entire second season) include PETA, miracle anti-aging potions, true love, fountain of youth, 12-step programs, Safety hysteria, Death, Inc, and more. I dare you to watch 3 in a row without getting sick.

Bit by Bit

What the ....?
Somebody once told me that maintaining a house was like being pecked to death by a pack of ducks. There's rarely any big, major disaster but there are always little, niggling problems. The work is never done as there is always one more thing to do. For example, with the winds we've had recently, we've had several shakes on our roof blow loose so that Carolyn has had to get on the roof and nail them back down.

The wind has also been responsible for the damage to our carport gate. It was fine until we started actually wanting the thing to be securely fastened. Then the wood just wouldn't stand up to the pressure on it.

Fortunately, our neighbor gave us several uprights from the fence between us that he replaced last year. To use them for the gate all I have to do is cut about 15 inches off the bottom and nail it to the backing two by fours. I put the hardware back on and it works so much better. Now I've got to find out where the paint is and see if I can make the new boards feel at home.

Thanks, Home Teacher.

A couple of weeks ago we reported that our large, old, on-loan TV had bitten the dust so we were thinking of getting a flat panel TV. I think we've even twisted our youngest Son's arm to actually review our needs and the market o fferings to help us purchase the right TV. But most of all, he's interested in doing the installation! That is wonderful. But we still had to get rid of the old set.



We happened to mention this to our Home Teacher on Sunday and he immediately offered to bring his truck over to haul the TV to the dump. True to his word, he showed up at 1:30 this afternoon. Together we wrestled the TV to his truck bed then drove out to the county dump and left the TV there among all the other discarded TVs and computers. Thanks again, Don.

That leaves a big hole in our bedroom decor, a hole that we're hoping Steven will help us fill.

Preserving the Past

Sometimes I feel like that old joke about the obsessive -compulsive accountant who cleaned out all his files by sending them to be shredded. However, before he did so, he alphabetized them and made copies of each record for the archive and the backup archive.

I'm currently in the process of making CDs out of our old Superscope Storyteller tapes because (1) the tapes are disintegrating, (2) some of our grandkids might enjoy hearing what their parents had for amusement on long road trips, and (3) I hate to see something that was such a part of our family history disappear.

I thought we only had half a dozen tapes still around so I thought the project would be a snap. However, as I was feeding those six tapes into the computer Carolyn found another 30 or so in the case that we had them in for so many years.


If you're interested, I'm using a program called Polterbits in conjunction with my sound card to record the tapes and then do any minor cleanup. I only tried two but found this one so convenient that I didn't look any further. This program works with any input into your sound card. They're stored on the computer as MP3 files which saves 95% of the space they would otherwise occupy.

The biggest problem I've found with the tapes is the little pad that is supposed to gently press the tape against the playback head. You can see a little black pad that is ready to fall out of the cassette on the left. On many of these tapes it is missing or nowhere close enough to the head to do its job. The result is that you lose all your high frequency spectrum and the tape sounds like it's been recorded at the bottom of the ocean.

It appears that a small piece of packing foam wedged under the tape in that crucial area as you see on the right hand picture does the job just fine. It made an incredible difference in the quality of reproduction. I found that I had to make the fix on 90% of the tapes. Of course, there were some tapes which have been played so much that it would take much better equipment to rescue them.

Anyway, I hope you understand what I meant about making two copies of something that we'll subsequently throw out. Of course, doing a little fix like this is better than replacing the tape in a new case.

Now, if the books were just in as good a shape as the tapes.

Standing in the Rainbow - book review

Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg is one of those delightful homespun tales that you almost wish were true if it weren't for all the bad things that happened. The setting is rural Missouri, Elmwood Springs to be exact, in the 1940's. Little Bobby Smith is growing up and we get to grow up with him and experience the decades following WW II and the politics that just might be representative of small town USA. There is love, hate, birth, death, saving and killing. All sort of tied together with Neighbor Dorothy's daily radio program which reaches all of central U.S.A.

I was afraid the book was just a collection of very short character descriptions when it finally began to take shape and tell a real story. Then I could barely wait for the next chapter to see what was going to happen. Fine book with no cuss words or explicit sex or violence.

Miniaturization - Audio books on an iPod

As I sit here in front of my computer loading another CD of ours into iTunes for subsequent downloading into the iPod, I have to shake my head at the amount of miniaturization that has taken place in the media field. I just finished backing up my iTunes catalog which has almost 400 CDs in it. It took a total of 4 DVD-R disks! That's a 100 to 1 compression ratio in terms of physical media size! And of course it wouldn't be much trouble finding a zip drive which could hold the whole backup and take up less space than the 4 DVDs.

The iPod itself is also a marvel. Being only slightly larger than a cassette tape drive, it will hold another 3,600 albums or the total equivalent of 4,000 of those cassettes. And not only can it hold those cassettes or CDs but it can also play them in several orders or just randomly.

In a slightly different vein, something I've been experimenting with lately is importing audio books onto the iPod. For the longest time, I've been frustrated because it seemed that no matter what I did, the book ended up in the "music" section of the iTunes library. Once I got over that hang-up, everything worked great - at least with version 7 of iTunes. What follows is a lengthy explanation of recording audio CDs into an iPod to facilitate temporary listening. If you don't have an iPod you can probably skip the rest of this posting.

First I considered what the differences are between importing a book and a music CD:

1. You don't need the same hi-fidelity unless the book has some necessary music.
2. The tracks on an audio book will generally not relate to anything in the book
3. There will be many more tracks on the audio book than on a music CD.
4. You probably are more likely to want to start a book from where you left off where on a music CD it doesn't matter much.
5. You probably don't want to hear the book while you're importing.
6. There probably won't be audio book track names to look up, especially since they're meaningless for most audio books.
7. Audio books are usually multi-volume sets and the order of the volumes is very important. With music CDs multi-volumes are less common and the order is less important.
8. Along the same vein, shuffling is sometimes nice for a music CD but is always devastating for an audio book. And finally
9. Music CDs frequently have a 2 second gap between tracks for cuing and separation. Two second gaps on an audio book probably won't be noticed but they aren't necessary either.

So let's suppose you want to import an audio book. You have purchased it on CDs and have them ready to feed into the computer. Before that step, though, let's get iTunes ready.

1. Run iTunes. Select Edit from the top menu, then the Preferences line. Select the Advanced Tab and the Importing sub-tab. Remember the changes you make so you'll be able to undo them later to go back to importing music CDs.
   
• In the first box change the option to Show CD. Otherwise you'll be saying no to a dialog box for every disk you insert.
• In the third box change the option to Spoken Podcast. This will speed up the importing and be sufficiently good quality for the spoken word.
• Uncheck the first and second boxes.
• Click OK
2. Insert CD 1 for the audio book
3. iTunes should sense the disk and display all the tracks with creative names like Track 01, Track 02, etc. Now, so you don't have to perpetuate these multiple tracks, highlight them all, then select Advanced from the top menu and click on the Join CD tracks line. The indication that the tracks are now joined is a line from top to bottom and a single check box for all the tracks. If, for some reason the Join CD Tracks option is greyed out, you'll need to sort the tracks in order by clicking on the track or name column heading.
4. With all the tracks highlighted, right click and select Get Info from the menu. This is the crucial area where you make the distinction between a music CD and an audio book. Make the following changes/entries:
• In the Artist line enter the book's author.In the Album line enter the book's title.
• You may wish to use the Album Artist to list the reader
• Enter the disk number and size of the book like disk 2 of 8, for example
• Enter Audiobook in the Genre box
  
• Select yes on the last three boxes on the last line Yes-remember position; yes-skip when shuffling; and Yes- Make it a gapless album.
• Click OK to close the box.
  
5. Now click the Import button at the bottom of the iTunes frame.
6. Repeat steps 2 through 5 for each disk in the audio book.
7. The imported disks (one track per disk) will appear in Music - accept it , get over it. Because you assigned the genre: audio book you can readily find the imported CDs
   
8. iTunes will group these disks all together making it easy to add cover artwork and sort the disks if necessary.
9. Sync your iPod and you're ready to listen to your audio book on your iPod.
10. Remember to reset your iTunes options to be prepared for the next music CD upload.
    

The Internet is Unbelievable!!

I have to relate this story. I hope I can make it understandable. As background you need to know that the Apple iPod which uses iTunes as a PC interface allows a user to associate "cover art" with an album or even a single piece of music. I think it definitely enhances the experience to be able to see the Album cover for a piece of music you're listening to.

Now the track names for many albums have been cataloged and the cover art for somewhat fewer albums can also be obtained from Apple. I've found the next best source of cover art is Image Google.

Over 40 years ago while in Germany I recorded a collection of humorous German songs and readings. When I found that tape recently I uploaded it into iTunes. Naturally, I didn't expect either the track names or the cover art to be in the Apple database. But, wanting to see what was available, I used Image Google with the search words being the name of the German album: "Liebe ist besser als Krieg" (Love is better than war - remember this was the 60's we're talking about).
Not only did I find the cover art for that particular album but I found the track names and background material for the album itself. The only thing better would have been to get the actual lyrics and poems with their English translation! But to find this kind of information about a foreign record 43 years after it was produced - priceless!

Sacrasutterwoodfolusa

I recently logged onto the Sacramento Public Library's web site like I have hundreds of times before. But instead of the Sacramento Public Library's logo and page title, the words "Welcome to Sacrasutterwoodfolusa Catalog" shine back at me. Talk about seeing an odd and amusing title where I was used to seeing the Sacramento Public Library heading and logo.

Just under the title is the explanation that by searching this catalog, I am not just looking at the Sacramento Coounty library's books, I am also searching the catalogs of public libraries in Sutter county, Woodland, Folsom, and Colusa county. This is so typical of our Sacramento Library. They seek connectivity and joint ventures all the time and willingly share the size and diversity of the Sacramento Library System with these other, smaller, systems. Our central library isn't all that big but when you consider the other 27 branch libraries, it is a large system.

I have noticed that books requested from these non-Sacramento libraries tend to have more restrictions on them than books in the Sacramento county itself. Audio/Visual media are sometimes not for loan and even books will have the standard 3 week checkout period but no renewal.

Congratulations, Sacramento Public Library, for thinking of all your potential clientèle, not just Sacramento residents.

Parkinson's Disease for Dummies - book review

I've read many of the "for Dummies" series books and have been impressed with their organization and clarity. This one is no different in that respect. Parkinson's Disease for Dummies by Michele Tagliati, MD, Gary N. Guten, MD, MA, and Jo Horne, MA, like the rest of the series is meant for people with little or no background in the title's topic but it is also informative or at least useful reading for those who have some background.

Parkinson's Disease for Dummies (which I'll abbreviate as PDD for the rest of this review) begins with the diagnosis or the concern for a diagnosis based on physical signs and symptoms which basically signal to the Person with Parkinson's (abbreviated as PWP here, in the book, and in general medical parlance) that "something's not right". It may be a slight tremor of a hand that stops as soon as the PWP moves it or difficulty standing or walking, or rigidity of an arm or leg. PDD explains that Parkinson's manifests uniquely in each individual so that self-diagnosis is risky business indeed.

From obtaining a good working diagnosis to assembling a top-notch healthcare team, to crafting a therapy routine that the PWP can live with (because he/she helped develop it!) PDD has hints and outlines for assistance. PDD pushes the concept that the PWP is a Care Partner and must be actively involved with his/her own care. He must not just sit back and let it happen to him. The book also gets into the later stages of the disease when the PWP becomes too disabled to participate actively in his own care and the other Care Partners become care givers. The various drugs and alternative therapies including brain surgery are discussed and the pros and cons explained. Exercises are even included since many of the symptoms of Parkinson's can be minimized with proper diet and exercise.

The book explains that PWP have a disease but they don't need to let the disease have them. Although Parkinson's is chronic and progressive, it doesn't need to affect the PWP's longevity or even the PWP's productivity and employability.

I take a bit of comfort in those suggestions. I can deal with my current symptoms although it certainly is a bother not knowing when I"ll be able to walk straight and when I won't. The joint stiffness and pain is no worse than arthritis, maybe a little more persistent and resistant to painkillers. And excess saliva is only a bother when I have both hands busy like at the computer or playing the piano, when I can't easily wipe my mouth.

Right now, I can't deal with the probable restrictions and decreasing quality of life in the later stages of the disease. I'm in denial that that will happen to me. But, unless my symptoms suddenly increase overnight, I'll have time to deal with that problem.

PDD is a valuable book for care partners, care givers, and anyone who just has an interest in Parkinson's. And for $20 (new, $9 used) it's a bargain.

Thoughts come drifting back

Funny how the human memory is organized. I was recently uploading some CDs into iTunes and listening to some of the tracks as I was doing so. Suddenly, I was a 4th grader square dancing with my classmates and even calling some of the dances. The tune was Alabama Jubilee, a song I probably haven't heard for years. I had seen the name as one of the tracks but it really meant nothing to me until the music started playing.

My parents were active square dancers for several years including my 5th and 6th grade years. Square dancing styles change throughout the years. At that time, the singing call was popular and, in fact, many square dance records (precursor to CDs) had a dance number on one side with a caller giving the dance moves designed for this number. On the other side would be the music only so a local caller can call the moves.

I was interested enough in the mathematics of square dance moves that my mother made me some square dance shirts and Dad, who called many dances, taught me calls for tunes such as Alabama Jubilee, Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight, I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Ol' Dad, and the Robert E. Lee. It was enough of a novelty that seven kids from my classroom were enlisted to join me in a demonstration square. I recorded the call and then danced with the other kids. They made a big deal of it but except for staying in tune and following the rhythm there was nothing to calling. And the dances were all pre-scripted sos it didn't take much to dance the right moves, especially with someone telling you what to do.

Good memories.

President's Day celebration

We enjoyed last year's event at the Mount Vernon Memorial Park so much that we decided to take it in again this year. Edward was also excited about it as a place to take some of his cub scouts including Tim. I think Jake enjoyed it just as much.

One of the first things we saw was a pair of goats - a nanny goat and her little kid. The ladies taking care of the goats were using the goats' hair to make knitting wool.


Close to this exhibit was the exhibit for the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869. An actor representing California governor Leland Stanford presided over the event but it was the little boys like Tim who drove the representative spikes in.

Next we met an actor representing James Marshall who found gold while building a sawmill for John Sutter. This discovery started the Gold Rush of 1847. Besides showing us some of representative gold nuggets and a gold $20 coin (now worth over $900), he talked about how quickly the placer or surface gold was depleted so that 5 years after the gold rush began it was over.


A fife and drum corps was on the grounds to greet and entertain us. Judging from the uniforms, we had representatives from every war that American's fought in from the Revolutionary War to World War I. But today they all beat the same rhythm and played the same tune. I think there must be a moral in that somewhere.

We were delighted to see this group of a boy and his two sisters dressed in period costume. We asked if they had a presentation and the mother told us they weren't. They just wanted to feel more a part of the whole day. She said she had ordered the outfits. And the boy pointed out that she had also ordered them to wear them today.

The muzzle loading gunmen assembled outside the chapel to display their arms and answer questions that people might have about range, accuracy, and firing speed.

Then they proceeded to fire blank wads causing some smoke and enough noise to startle those who weren't looking.

I'm not sure how this Studebaker fit into the celebration or even why I should be patting it since neither I or my family have ever owned a Studebaker. This was a nice example of the breed.

We were all getting tired by now so it was nice to get in under the shade to watch this Snake Oil Salesman/Magician. He had a couple of acts that were new to me such as a drawing pad upon which he draws a face. As he does so the face becomes animated. He's also a ventriloquist so the animated face starts talking to him and commenting on his drawing skills or choices. His act was perfectly suited for cub scout age kids (7 to 12).

Fortunately, that was about half of his audience. You can see our grandkids in the front rows of this audience shot.
Finally, perhaps to distract us or show us that there was more to see, a cyclist kept riding past us showing off his balancing skill.

The only thing that seemed a little strange was that no food or drink was offered for sale. Several people came better prepared than we were and spread blankets on the lawn and enjoyed their own little picnic. Grandma and I left for Tugboat #7 and a couple of servings of fish & chips.

Neighborhood Phone list

We finally got around to doing what we said we were going to do when we moved into our current house - put together a neighborhood map and get all the names and phone numbers sof all those who live on Max Court. This time Carolyn suggested using an actual aerial photograph of the neighborhood for the map, a job made much easier by Google Earth . We focused in on our neighborhood and copied the screen into a picture. Then we brought that picture into a document and lined up the name, street number, phone number, and email address.
I helped put together the sheet but full credit goes to Carolyn for actually getting the information. She'll have to make a couple of cycles around the neighborhood to collect the information and, of course, even if everyone were home, most of them want her to stop and talk with them. Needless to say this isn't a quick project.

False Spring

We're currently in the middle of a delightfully warm spell of weather. Some call it false Spring, a warming that tells you to get outside, turn over the soil, and get a start on your garden. Carolyn gets out every chance she can get which means about every time it isn't raining or freezing. I'm a little more careful in my choice of outdoor work weather.

I've planted things this early and they just don't grow because the average temperature isn't high enough nor is there enough sunshine. But a couple of things we can do is prune trees and use winter spray for pests. I worked on our little pomegranate tree which gave us over a dozen ripe pomegranates last year. I'd like to train the little guy to be a tree rather than a bush so I cut out all but 5 or 6 ground shoots and trimmed them of any side shoot until over 4 feet.


Carolyn, as I said, took advantage of false spring to prune and dress the rose bushes which hang on our purple arbor.
I couldn't mow the lawn yet even if it did need it because its so squishy in many places.

The Renaissance Society is Out of This World

Although last week was officially the beginning of this semester's Renaissance Society's offerings, it's more of an introduction than a full-fledged schedule. This week, I attended the norming mini-seminar, the afternoon seminar, and the afternoon Forum. It would have been hard to attend more than I did.

I had some doubts about the first session when I first read the title "The Search for Extra-Terrestrials". I thought it might be about Project UFO or some other dubious scheme. But it turned out to be a really good presentation about the SETI project, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence by Dan Werthimer, the chief scientist for the project. He described how people have been trying to contact extra-terrestrial beings almost as long as we've thought there might be some out there. Flashing lights or rings of lit kerosene-filled trenches or even gigantic fields planted in specific crops that could be seen from space have been proposed but usually not funded.

In the 1950's and 1960's there was a lot of popular interest and popular scientists such as Carl Sagan were able to persuade NASA and the Ohio State University to use some of their radio telescope equipment to study radio signals coming from space. Gigantic supercomputers were thought to be needed to process all the data coming in if we were to have any hope of finding some meaningful signals.

Then in 1979 UC Berkeley launched their SETI program. The SEIT@Home project which is described in detail at http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_about.php was proposed in 1995 to make use of all the extra computing power of idle personal computers. According to Dr. Werthimer, more than 5 million participants from almost every country in the world have contributed computer power to this project.

To participate, you are asked to download the software to your computer and configure it to your desire. You can have the analysis program run in the background all the time or run only when you are not using the computer or only as a screen saver (i.e. you have not used the computer for several minutes). You will be allocated a certain amount of data from a radio telescope input signal. When your computer has complete the analysis, the results will be uploaded to the Berkeley computer and you will be allocated another chunk. Your personal data and programs are never touched and you will probably never notice the program running except that it has some fantastically dramatic screen saver graphics.


Dr. Werthimer also explained that the program is branching out and is now under the acronym BOINC which stands for the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. They hope to use this powerful mass of millions of PCs to "cure diseases, study global warming, discover pulsars, and do many other types of scientific research."

Sounds interesting to me. I'm going to try it out and report back about my experience. Have you had any experience with this program you'd like to share?

Artificial Happiness - book review

I was a little disconcerted to realize as I was reading Artificial Happiness, the Dark Side of the New Happy Class by Ronald W. Dworkin, MD, PhD to find an underlying plot that wasn't obvious from reading the book jacket. Yes, the book is primarily about what modern Americans might be doing to themselves by recklessly using prescription drugs to deal with every day stress and conflict. Yes, the book suggests that children may be easier to deal with when taking their "medication" but at a significant cost to their development and coping skills.

But behind this concern of Dr. Dworkin is another concern, one that may even be more important to him - the fact that by using the new drugs, primary physicians have reasserted themselves back into the medical community and taken back patients that were deserting to the specialists in psychiatry, psychology, and anesthesiology (who apparently have a role in dispensing psychoactive drugs that I wasn't aware of). It's hard to tell sometimes which of these two concerns matters the most to doctors, to Americans, and certainly to Dr. Dworkin, an anesthesiologist by the way.

If pushing pills makes the ordinary general medicine, primary care physician as capable of solving medical problems as the specialist then maybe we need to look at why we have specialists. On the other hand, if the result is totally different and there is a quality of care issue here, then some medical researchers should determine that before insurance companies find out what they're paying for and before the legal profession does that for them.

Men don't do subtle

Men (at least this one) don't do subtle. Monday evening while I was sitting at our computer, my wife Carolyn was about 10 feet away looking at the family calendar on our refrigerator door. She said casually, "Cindy says she'll meet me at the Denny's between the two freeways at 8:30 Wednesday morning."

"Okay," I say knowing that Carolyn had planned to be out of town Wednesday through Friday on a work assignment. She goes to a lot of these. Sometimes she drives, sometimes she rides along with someone who drives, and sometimes she flies. But Carolyn's comment didn't say which of these modes of travel she was taking. It s imply said that she and Cindy were getting together early Wednesday morning.

It wasn't until the following day while I was putting out the garbage and green waste cans that I asked myself which of Carolyn's cars should I block with the cans? Then the thought came to me, "Was she trying to tell me more than she said about meeting Cindy?"

Sure enough, when asked Carolyn readily filled me in that her comment was meant to be a request for me to take her to the Denny's between the freeways at 8:30 Wednesday morning so she could jump in Cindy's rental car and ride with her to the Monterey area. It took me a full 24 hours to catch that subtle request. And I might not have caught it then if I hadn't been putting out the garbage. Am I the only man (or woman for that matter) who needs a more direct mode of conversation because subtle is not one of the languages I understand? Can you do subtle? Is it a good idea?

And Perry, too!

A few days ago we spotlighted our granddaughter Libby with her new spring hairdo so when her brother Perry decided to take a chance under the barber's shears, I thought we should share that change as well.

Here's Perry before the cut:

and the same young man after his tonsorial encounter:

What amazes me is how much kids seem to grow up with a new haircut. It certainly looks to me like Perry aged 2 years under this transformation. Or is it just me?

The World Without Us - book review

If there were a prize for books that are tedious I think The World Without Us by Alan Weisman would stand a good chance of winning it. It would certainly stand among the top nominees.

I got this book because Mr. Weisman was interviewed on The Daily Show by Jon Stewart both of whom made the premise of the book sound delightfully interesting - namely, what would the world look like should all humans suddenly leave. The cause of their leaving would be left unknown but it would be assumed that it didn't cause severe damage or any effect for that matter on anything else on this planet including man's structures. I think anyone of us who have ever tried to clean up a yard or a walkway or a road after it's been left untended for a year has entertained the same thought: how long would it take for nature to reclaim that which man has taken over.

This sort of speculation would make for a nice, one chapter book. So, of course, Weisman has to expand his premise and talk about what man has done in some places that can never be restored or that would take an ice age or two to really clean the slate. This lets him write about pollution, global warming, mankind's elimination of thousands of species either directly through over-hunting or indirectly through elimination of habitat. He can write about cultural differences and the mythology of indigenous people not harming the land they have lived on for thousands of years. He can write about how much we know and how we've come to know it. In short, by opening up his scope just a little he has opened the book to anything remotely connected and has allowed in the studies of anthropology, geology, archaeology, chemistry, physics, probability, biology, well just name it, there's a way to connect it to the scope of this book.

But worse than opening up the scope of the book is the tedious manner of writing that somehow seems to blame mankind for doing what mankind has done. The book , in other words, is a real downer. After the fifth or sixth time of hearing how something has been irrevocably altered, the reader thinks there must be something more optimistic and upbeat on the bookshelf. I suppose this is one of those books that needs to be read in spurts like maybe a chapter a week or a month. I really enjoyed the book at first but, like many politicians, the approval rating went down with time.

Back to the Future

Well, we have another party under our belts and by all accounts it was a great party.
The theme was a 50's Sock Hop. The challenge was getting and keeping everyone involved. A DJ (father of the 2nd counselor in the bishopric) who had a great collection of 50's rock and roll dance tunes was the main attraction and center of attention for those who wanted to dance or listen to "old fashioned" music. As Carolyn pointed out to me, most of the rock and roll music of that era is easy to dance to. In fact it almost begs you to dance. So the young people and the younger old people got up on the dance floor. In addition to the 50's music, the DJ also used involvement songs like "Do the Hokey Pokey", "Y-M-C-A", "Hand Jive", "Boot Scootin' Boogey", etc.


But the music and dancing were only part of the fun. On the other end of the cultural hall a soda fountain was set up to serve root beer floats and a popcorn man handed out small bags of popcorn to anyone who dropped by. Tables were set up so that about half the crowd (mostly the older ones and ones with babies) could sit, listen and watch. At each of the tables were old time toys such as a Slinky, a Yo-Yo, an elastic band paddle ball, or a board game like Sorry.


Each table also sported a centerpiece "float" made from fresh flowers.

One of the tables even had my old time pinball machine that is right out of the 50's.




Also in the fountain area was a slide show consisting of several ward members and how they looked in the 50's, some typical 50's models of Fords and Chevys, and even a couple of celebrities of that era.


We had planned it as a contest but it turned out more to be a good conversation piece.


On the periphery of the hall we had backdrops for people to take pictures in front of or behind.








There was also a hopscotch layout for the grandmothers to show they still had it. We wanted to set up a marble ring but the thought of all those marbles on the floor told us that wasn't a really good idea. There were also hula hoops and jump ropes for self entertainment or impromptu contests. Carolyn even conducted a bubble gum blowing contest. The "winners" had bubbles smaller than a volleyball, larger than a softball.



I spent my whole time looking at popcorn, popcorn, and more popcorn. I really didn't mind as my legs were acting up on me so I wasn't up for much walking. And I've had an interest in actually using a popcorn machine like this one where you popped a cup of popcorn in a batch and they recommend doing at least 5 batches in a row. That puts out a lot of popcorn. (By the way, if you want to frustrate someone, use this popcorn picture for their wallpaper or screensaver.)

One of the nice things about the decorations, centerpieces, and even announcement posters can be used by another ward. The DJ and his wife are planning a 50's party in their ward so we won't have to worry about storing everything.

In conclusion, I think this would have been a party I would have enjoyed even if I hadn't be so involved with putting it on.

Young Love

This is second-hand hearsay so it can't be used in a court of law but it's cute anyway. Here are pictures of the two main characters:

First we have Jillian (with chicken)

and her cousin Nathan (with cow),

and finally the two of them together (with little brother Joshua looking on.)

According to Jillian's mom Jessica:

Jillian (5) and her cousin Nathan (4) have been fond of one another for several years now, and often say they are going to marry each other. But sometimes Nathan balks at the idea. He must have have told Jillian that he didn't want to get married this morning. We were out playing/working in the back yard (it's 68 degrees and sunny here), and as I walked by, Jillian told him:

"But you have to get married! Grown-up boys marry grown-up girls. And I love you! You're cute and funny and all that stuff!"

Should I tell her it's a little early for desperation?

Thanks, Jessica, for a cute story.

Suicidal Ants

Lately we've seen a new phenomenon around our house - suicidal ants. The picture above shows a spoon that I had used to put margarine into our popcorn popper and then inadvertantly left the spoon on the counter. The next morning it was covered with ants as shown by this picture. Note that most of the ants are actually immersed in the margarine. They have suffocated or gotten stuck to the point that they're not going anywhere.


Now look at this picture. It was taken a couple of days before the other one. I had been making "nectar" for our hummingbird feeder and had left a couple of large drops of sugar water on the stove top. Sure enough, after several hours there was a group of ants surrounding the drops. But rather than taking the food back to their nest, they appeared to be gorging themselves to death. What you see in this picture are ants surrounding a now-extinct drop of sugar water (make that two drops that had touch and therefore merged into one like a figure eight.)

In both situations we looked for a path back to the nest with ants coming and going, transporting food from the stove area to their nest wherever it is. But there didn't seem to be a significant trail.With ant killer now that lets the ants take the poison back to their nest before they die, maybe we're developing ants that are immune to such tactics.