Clean feels sooooo good

Even before Carolyn & I took my SUV to Southern California I was getting embarrassed about how dirty it was getting. And after we got back it had gotten so bad I was even considering washing it myself. The reason I haven't washed it is that in this area a lot of organizations stage free car washes and ask for voluntary contributions for their efforts. But I hadn't seen any of these car washes this season. Surely, they weren't going to wait until summer.


Then today between running errands I spotted a car wash that appeared to be a group of junior girl scouts, girls somewhere between 10 and 13 with a couple of adult leaders or parents. Turns out it was a junior high cheer leading team.


I thought they'd complain about the size or dirtiness of my car but they did neither. The method they used was also amazing. There might have been as many as 10 or 12 k ids working on the car at any one time. The littlest girls were assigned the "undercarriage" while the larger ones had the sides and front of the vehicle. The adults covered the roof and hood. The group used brushes and heavy duty scrubbing sponges to really get the vehicle clean. And with so many kids working on it at one time, they didn't appear to miss any areas. When it was all over, the Highlander shone like new.

Another surprise visitor

Two weeks ago when we were in Long Beach we casually invited an old friend to come and stay with us and darned if she didn't take us up on the offer. This morning at 10:30 am, I picked up Ida May Bell at the Jet Blue terminal of the Sacramento Metropolitan Airport. Except for the time that she will be spending with a family wedding tomorrow, we'll have her to visit and entertain until Monday evening.

Ida May tells me that she has fond memories of Sacramento and would have spent more time here herself except that a couple of the job interviews she had made it very clear they weren't looking for a woman for the job. Discrimination on the basis of sex seems so old fashioned and downright illegal that it's hard for me to wrap my brain around the idea. This was 30 or 40 years ago. And yet from conversations I've had lately, that discrimination has by far NOT disappeared. Will we ever believe that we should hire the best PERSON for the job? Is anti-discrimination taught in our schools? Should it be?

A Child Called "It" - Book review

The autobiographical book A Child Called "It" by David Pelzer is one of those books that you can't stand to continue reading but you can't put down, either. Pelzer details his life as a virtual slave to his mother who, for some reason - alcoholism, mental illness, or whatever - singles him out from his other siblings and torments him as much as occurs in prison for war prisoners. He was continually beaten, starved, poisoned as well as subjected continually to psychological tormented. I find it singularly unusual that the rest of the family including the father assist in this cruel torture. The abuses continue getting worse with each chapter, almost like the mother is in some sort of competition to see if she can top her worst. Or is this just in the boy's recollection?

I think the subtitle, "One Child's Courage to Survive", is a bit misleading since during most of the book we are reading not about courage but about determination and fortitude, downright willfulness "not to let the bitch get me". And I can't help but think that he embellished his story, maybe from accounts of prisoners or books and magazines that were popular in that era.

The book starts with the description of the the boy's eventual release, his freedom . I found that to be a useful literary device to minimize the concern that the abuse never ends.

Not for the weak of stomach, the book supposedly has a morale but the only one I could see was we need to have mandated reports do their job and we should back them up.

When is a stimulus not a stimulus?

Like millions of other Americans, we received a check in the mail recently from the U. S. Treasury Department. It was our economic stimulus check, part of a planned effort by President Bush to jump start our economy. The thinking, of course, is that if millions of Americans spend $600 each, the economy will take a huge leap forward. Of course no thought of political advantage has gone into this plan - it was done purely to help all Americans.

I'm no economist, haven't even taken an economy class - WAIT, yes I did. Must have had a major influence on me. The teacher was from Kenya. That much I remember. But what was I saying? Oh, yes, I don't feel competent to argue the effectiveness of the stimulus payments except to say I think they're dwarfed by the daily sums of money we are literally blowing up in Iraq. In fact the cost of this package is about the same cost as one year of the Iraq war. Wars are supposed to be good for a country's economy, as long as they're fought on foreign soil. So why hasn't the Iraq war been good for this country's economy? - outside of certain corporations, that is.

But I have been fascinated by the various polls and surveys taken regarding what people are going to do with their stimulus check. Here's one at ItemLive.com. According to a survey by H & R Block of 1,001 taxpayers:
45% will use the rebate to pay bills;
21% will use the rebate to buy a necessity, such as groceries or car repairs;
18% will invest the money; and
16% will splurge on luxury items, jewelry, electronics or a vacation.

Now from what little I do know about economics and finance, if you use the money to pay bills, you now have the money you would have used to pay the bills. You haven't really disposed of the stimulus funds. Likewise, buying a necessity just postpones eventual use of the stimulus check. Only the investing which is a long-term postponement of spending the funds and "splurging" on items that wouldn't normally have been purchased are really valid answers to the question. That means that only a third of those surveyed had any idea what they were going to do with the money. Of those about half would invest and half would splurge. We're going to stash ours away in a savings account but we'll know it's there just waiting to be spent. Most likely scenario is that we'll "spend it" two or three times before we convince ourselves that we've actually spent the whole check.

How about you? Will you be saving or splurging?

Why do volunteers do it?

Don and Jane Reinmuth

The Jazz Jubilee is over and we had a wonderful time. If we'd had a little more pep & vinegar we might have tried to see a few more bands in some of the other venues but we got a good sample just be staying at the Sheraton Grand.

During one of our lunch breaks we sat at the back of the Convention Center main Ballroom/Exhibit Hall where they had swing dancing almost non-stop. We pulled up a chair at a table that was already occupied by one lovely lady and asked if we could join her. She enthusiastically said, Yes! Turns out that the lady's name is Jane Reinmuth. She has been with the Jubilee almost from the beginning, has been inducted into the Jubilee's "Hall of Fame" and is a major player in the organization. She was the perfect person to talk witih about some of the internal decisions and conflicts that exist in the Jubilee bureaucracy.

She talked about some of the financial struggles the Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society has had because of declining attendance and increased costs. Some volunteers have complained that we get t-shirts instead of pocket polos. When I suggested that they charge for the t-shirts so that everyone can order what they want. Jane responded with a disappointed humph "We tried to do that before and you should have seen the uproar.

I volunteer for the sake of doing something useful that extends the reach and effectiveness of the paid staff. I rarely get or expect to get anything in return for my work. In the case of the jubiliee, I'd like to see no out of pocket expense but I would buy a heavy t-shirt or sweat shirt. I would prefer free parking but could understand if they decided they couldn't afford it. Actually, considering my other volunteer positions, I don't get anything material from any of them. A recognition lunch or dinner once in a while would make the thanks a little more impressive but if we spend too much questions will be raised.

Anyone else think that volunteers should be glad for what they said, not demand mileaage, food or other perks?

Memorial Day

For some reason (probably because I'm such a grouch) I haven't gotten the usual email with dozens of patriotic pictures, pictures of old veterans, and pictures of flags waving. The email with pirated snippets of patriotic songs, melodies and lyrics. For all of you out there who haven't sent me such email, and you know who you are, THANK YOU.

I've always thought that on Memorial Day when we decorate the graves of our dead, we should be celebrating PEACE. Yes, some of our wars have been fought to secure peace but it seems to me singularly inappropriate to display or parade weapons of war in a Memorial Day parade. Many of the people whose graves we're decorating died from such weapons of war. Wouldn't it be wonderful, if instead of tanks, bombers, and artillery, we paraded those efforts to gain peace which have not involved killing people.

We used to point at pictures of Russian or Chinese soldiers marching off to wage war thinking or saying that the soldiers must believe in their cause. That meant they had to be duped or had fallen for the propaganda and lies their government had told them. They were to be killed of course, since our country is always right, but still it was such a shame that they had believed it. Now we know from our recent past that our government lies to us about the reasons for going to way, about the state of our preparedness, and about the progress being made by our fighting troops. The difference, of course, is that we are fighting for freedom, or to eliminate a despot, or to ensure access to oil, or to avenge an old grudge, or to keep a grudge going, or... ad infinitum.

But should we be fighting at all?

What do you think? Do we need a second day to honor veterans, or would a Peace Day be more appropriate, more needed.

More Camdan

I guess you could say he's just enjoying his day of fame:

Surprise Treat

A couple of days ago we received an unexpected phone call from Rachel Loveridge asking if we could host someone who was singing with her in a program as part of the Mormon History Association's Annual Meeting in Sacramento. When pressed, she admitted that she didn't have any arrangements for herself either so we suggested that the two of them stay here which would make travel arrangements easier all around.

So Saturday afternoon, John Huntington and Rachel arrived to stay at our house for the night. Fortunately, we are equipped for such things. We had a delightful visit with them although we all had to turn in early so we could be bright and alert after an hour's drive to Coloma this morning. The Devotional was held in the Coloma Emmanuel Church in the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park. The church was completed in 1856 as an Episcopal Church. Both John and Rachel sang a solo as well as a duet as part of the program. Very nicely done.

Sacramento Jazz Jubilee 2008 - pt 2

Shellie McCall & Jim Wilkinson

One of the best parts about volunteering to work on the Jazz Jubilee is, of course, getting to know the people you work with. Sometimes, in past years we have been stuck in one assignment and haven't really had the chance to get to know everyone. This year being shift supervisors, we do a lot more wandering about, "supervising" the various assignments to make sure that things are going the way we expect.

Pam Dominguez & Ginger Wilkinson

The assignments vary. We need 4 to 6 people monitoring the doors (which means checking everyone coming in to make sure they have the appropriate badge or wrist strap for admittance into the performance rooms). Another 1 or 2 people to review the bands and the audience's response to the bands' performances. Another 1 or 2 to "count the house" and get some idea about how many have attended each concert for each band. Another 1 or 2 to order and deliver drinks to the band members and the volunteers. One to hold up the 10 minute "warning" sign so the band doesn't go too far overtime.

Bill & Nan Fellers

We're allowed a half hour lunch break sometime during our shift and usually a 15 minute break as well. Of course, in previous years we have just taken our break when told but this year we had to schedule everyone else and hope that we could get a small break sometime during the shift.

Jimmy Crumpley & Shirley Svoboda

The real excitement came at the last band to take the stage during our shift this afternoon.
We had a little warning as the people attending for the previous bank weren't leaving their chairs. And sure enough, Very few people left the room while dozens flocked in during the break. The site manager finally had to ask all the volunteers to vacate their seats for the paying customers. That wasn't enough so people had to start lining the walls. When we got so many people in the room that the site manager began to get nervous , he ordered the doors closed, letting in only small groups at a time making sure that everyone standing could be accommodated without blocking a door or exit. We had to stay for the performance just to see what all the excitement was about. The band "Tom Rigney and Flambeau" was good!

Sacramento Jazz Jubilee 2008 - pt 1

(Photos taken from Jazz Jubilee web site.)

Once again we are taking part in the celebration of music that takes over Sacramento for the 4 day Memorial Day holiday every year. Once again we will one of the 3,000 volunteers who volunteer 16 hours of our time in order to ensure that the Jubilee can remain as cost effective as possible. In return, we can, for free, attend the Jubilee sessions that are outside our work times - approximately 30 hours available to us.

One of the major differences this year is that, because Bobby Loveridge has been having back problems and will be preparing for or recovering from back surgery this weekend, we will be the team leaders for Shift 2 and they won't even have to change the name of the team. We've volunteered enough times that we think we know how everything needs to be done. However, the site leaders and assistant leaders are not familiar to us so we don't know how much of a learning curve they will be experiencing and how much frustration and confusion will be passed along to us during their learning curve.

We began Friday at noon by setting up the signs in the room and outside directing traffic through the hotel lobby and toward the ballroom. And by being the team that opens the venue, it means we'll be off for Monday to either sleep in or by going to all the performances we want. We're seriously thinking of giving Ed and Tiff our badges and shirts and letting them make the most of the Monday concerts.
Up until Wednesday afternoon, only one person had called asking about the volunteer buttons and t-shirts. I was beginning to wonder if we even had a team. Then Wednesday afternoon I got calls from all members of the team who still needed to pick up their stuff and an hour later, I had passed out all but one packet to our team members.

How to mess with their minds

Conversation at the entrance to Sam's Club:

She: I'm sorry, sir. Is that your book?

Me: No. It's ...

She (interrupting): Are you returning it?

Me: No. It's ...

She (interrupting again): Well, we'll have to put a sticker on it.

Me: But it already has a permanent sticker on it.

She: A permanent sticker? Let me see.

Me: See. It belongs to the Sacramento Public Library. I thought I'd read some while eating pizza from your gourmet food court.

She (not catching sarcasm): Oh. I guess you're right. You don't need a sticker.

.
.
.

Conversation at the Exit from Sam's Club:

He (just a bit officiously): Just a minute, sir. Can I see that book?

Me: Sure.

He (pulling out the slip of paper in the book and visually scanning it): This isn't the sales slip. Can I see the sales slip?

Me: I don't have it. It isn't my book.

He (trying to look older and wiser than me): Well, you can't just take any book out of here, you know. Whose book is it?

Me: The label here says it belongs to the Sacramento Public Library.

He (finally connecting the dots): Oh. I just pulled out your bookmark, didn't I? Have a nice day and come back soon.

Me: You have a good day, too.

Camdan and his brothers

Sorry, this is just a blatant display of my three Sacramento grandsons. Of course we couldn't get Jake to play it straight. He can come up with a thousand faces but none of them "just Jake".



Tim had a similar problem when we asked him to pose like he was just going to kiss his baby brother. He stuck his lips out enough to kiss Camdan into the next county.


Ah, but we love them all.

Playaway Books at our Library!

I llike to think I keep a pretty good watch on recent innovations at our local branch library. The item that caught my eye today was a display advertising "Playaway - now available for 3 week loan." The outside box has the look and feel of a VHS tape and inside is a special purpose MP3 player. As you can see from the picture above, the cover artwork is repeated on the outside case and inside cupboard.

The MP3 player is a special purpose unit that is preloaded with the audio book described on the cover. In my case it is "Lies My Teacher Told Me". The player has no opening for inserting or removing a memory card. In fact, except for the buttons and the opening for changing the battery (standard size AAA) there are no movable parts on this unit.

The actual player is about 2" by 3.4" by 0.5", small enough to fit into a shirt pocket or small purse but large enough that it shouldn't be that easy to lose. It appears to cost between $30 and $40 which is more than the hardcover edition of these books but probably not that different from the audio version. In addition to the standard stop, start, fast forward, reverse, and on/off there is a button for selecting preset amplification setups and a button for speeding up or slowing down the narrative. It doesn't change the pitch, just the speed.

Besides looking for them at your local library, you can also purchase theme from major bookstores such as Borders and Barnes & Noble. You can turn them back in at anytime for a 50% discount on your next Playaway book. So far I'm very impressed with this new gadget.

Good Business Practices - Sprint!

I think it's either the Daily Show or the Colbert Report that has a segment called "Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger" to honor or shame someone because of extraordinarily good or poor service or effort. I'd like to give a great big Tip of the Hat for Sprint mobile phone services, specifically the store in the Country Club Mall next to See's Candies.

Somewhere in my travels this past week (and I think I know exactly where) I managed to lose the battery charger for my cell phone. I figure I probably had 30 minutes of conversation or 5 days of standby, but that meant that I was going to be without a cell phone by the end of this week unless I found or replaced the missing charger.

We got my phone about 2.5 years ago from this dealership and it's convenient so I dropped in there first. It was 10 minutes before closing time so I really expected to be told to come by tomorrow or have them try to tell me my phone was so old they couldn't help me. The salesman asked if he could borrow my phone for a couple of minutes then disappeared with it into his back room work area. About five minutes later he reappeared with my phone in one hand and a charger that looked identical to my old one in the other hand. Handing them both to me he said, "Here, this is on us."

Thinking I may have heard wrong, I asked, "You mean it's free? No charge?" He said, "Your phone is out of date so you're going to have a rough time finding a charger. But we have a couple dozen in the back that we won't need soon."

I left with a hearty, "Thanks, again!" and thinking that there is one store that knows how to increase brand and store loyalty.

Tip of the Hat to you, Sprint!

Southern California Visit – Note 7

I've noted before that 3 days seems to be about the longest time I can be away from home without starting to get anxious about what is happening back home. With electronic communications being what they are now, that number may be slightly larger. After all, I can call our phone message machine and listen to the messages, deleting those that are unimportant or self resolving, and responding to others. Same goes for email. Every place we've stayed during this work/vacation trip has had either wireless or hardwired network access to the Internet which has allowed both Carolyn and me to check our email and it has allowed me to post to the blog.

But at some point I'm still anxious to get home and get back into the routine that feels comfortable. Not that the next few days will be either routine or necessarily comfortable. I will be taking my German class final, making last minute adjustments as necessary for our Jazz Jubilee volunteer shift team, and seeing how the home and yard fared without occupancy. And, of course, visiting our youngest grandson Camdan.

After saying goodbye to the kids and grandkids, Carolyn and I drove to Visalia, almost exactly half way between Long Beach and Sacramento. We stayed overnight making sure that I got enough sleep to drive the rest of the way home by myself. Carolyn rented a car and began a "normal" work week for her by visiting a couple of pre-school sites in the area.

Oh, its great to be home again!!

Southern California Visit – Note 6

It's taken a while but hotels and inns are starting to catch up with the travelers' needs. In Kernville, the B&B had a wireless network that guests could access for free. For some reason my laptop didn't communicate well with that network so I would get transmission speeds that were below dial up lines.

The Residence Inn, on the other hand, has begun removing the kitchen serving counter and have replaced it with the unit shown above. Not only are there two ports for two separate laptops to hook into their free Web access but there is a bank of surge protected outlets. Gone are the days when we would have to search all around the room for an available outlet only to find out at times that it would entail moving the fridge.

Interestingly when I tried using the second RJ45 outlet located next to the one the Residence Inn was advertising, I found that some gremlins had disabled my network hardware. Enabling them let me access the Marriott's web portal with no problem and both Carolyn and I can now use the complete network including the the web portals.

Southern California Visit - Note 5

Not having anything specifically planned has its good points and its bad but at least it allows us to "go with the flow". We had received an invitation to Gavin's 1st birthday party and I think we may have even RSVP'd it. So that was pretty much a given. Then we heard that Dick Hart had died and that his funeral would be on Saturday morning. We decided that would be an even better time to visit with friends in the area that Sunday morning meetings would be. Besides, we're getting of an age when we need to start considering how we want our funerals to look. We even had enough time to do some laundry at the Hotel while we ate breakfast there.

Both the funeral and the birthday party went well. Philip was worried about the party because so many people were planning to come. He kept the menu simple - hot dogs and veggie trays - so that worked well. The other secret was to have the pool as a ready means of entertaining the kids. I even managed to jump into the pool and have some fun with some of my grandkids. We also enjoyed seeing old friends like Eric, Gail, and Scott and Jenny's folks.

Carolyn had arranged for a summer hair cut from her usual stylist at 5:30 but it took until 6:30 because of a backup in the salon. By then we hadn't gotten any other invitations, so Carolyn took me out to dinner at Polly's Pies followed by pie and ice cream at our Residence Inn room. It was a good day with a chance to visit with lots of family and friends.

Pictures of Camdan Miles Loveridge

Here's Camdan, born May 15, 2008. For those of you on the family email list, this will be a duplication of pictures that Ed sent out yesterday.

This one really reminds me of Jake when he gives a performance of "No, I don't want to!"

Proud Papa, of course.

Doesn't he just look precious?

Proud Mommy showing off all Camdan's fingers.

Southern California Visit – Note 4

I must say that I am extremely impressed with the honest citizens of Kernville. In one of my geocaching forays I took off my denim jacket because the cool of themorning hadturned to the heat of the day. When we found the cache, I laid my jacket over a railing so that I could sign the log. After everything was put back in its place, we departed on to the next cache without even thinking about my jacket. Two hours later and back at the B&B I realized I didn’t come back with my jacket. I couldn’t recall carrying it beyond the cache where I had laid it on the railing. Now the jacket has some sentimental value and about a $5 purchase value but the iPod in the pocket has a market value of $350.

Needless to say, I hurriedly drove back to the first cache and there on the railing, in the exact position I laid it there, was my jacket. As I picked it up, I could feel the iPod. Anyone else who might have picked up the stray jacket would have felt the same. So, thank you, Kernville! You restore my faith in humanity.

Goodbye B&B, Hello Residence Inn

One of the most interesting things about a Bed and Breakfast is the intimacy (albeit temporary) between guests. I mean with 5 bedrooms the maximum number of guests in the Kern River Inn B &B is 10 adults but we never had more than six. Since we meet coming and going from the parking area, on the staircase, and we all eat breakfast at the same time, one gets to know everyone else rather quickly.

Carolyn, of course, is especially helpful in this regard she draws people out of their shell and gets them talking about their jobs or other interests. This morning we were listening to all the other guests talk about what they did - two of them were on the same evaluation team as Carolyn and the third was an anthropologist employed by the state. Apparently the hydroelectric dams and their respective co-constructions are old enough to be considered of interest to anthropologists and fall under the laws designed to protect old human artifacts. After the women had each talked about their particular job responsibilities which brought them to the Kernville area, one of them asked what I had been doing with my time.

I said that I had been having a great time geocaching in the area. Suddenly, I had a captivated if not a captive audience of the 3 fellow guests, the assistant innkeeper, and the cook. Everyone moved a little closer to hear what I had to say. I described the way the whole system of logging in and printing out cache locations worked. Laura, one of the guests, brought in her laptop computer so that we could all see where all the caches in the Kernville area were. Then we used her home zip code. That almost always impresses. The cook could see the economic advantage to businesses to allow caches in areas around town that need more exposure.

After a leisurely drive to Long Beach, we hooked up with family members and got to watch Sage, Brooke, Libby, and Jillian play pee-wee soccer sponsored by the Long Beach Parks and Recreation until everyone decided that it was much too hot to play and they'd rather have ice cream anyway.

This evening's entertainment was at Frisco's, a new family fun restaurant in Long Beach.

Southern California Visit – Note 3

We are currently saying in Kernville, in a lovely bed and breakfast called the Kern River Inn. I think Carolyn decided she wasn’t interested in making the drive up and down the mountain more than once. So while the rest of her team is staying in Bakersfield, a xx mile, 2 hour drive away, we are staying in Kernville, a 12 mile, ½ hour drive away from the pre-school they’ll be visiting.

And while she’s busy working, I’m reading, studying for my German final next Monday, or doing a little geocaching. Fortunately, I have printed out caches in the neighborhood of Carolyn’s visiting site as well as those in the area around the B&B.

This morning we got to talking with another couple that is staying here. When we got on the topic of geocaching she was all ears. And the more we talked and explained the more interested he became. Finally, we went out and actually hunted for the first three caches I had printed out as closest to this B&B. The first one was a no show but our new friends took it well. The next one was a picture perfect find – a magnetic metal box on the bottom of an old ore cart. Our friends were delighted. Even though the third one was 3 or 4 blocks away, I couldn’t hold them back. This one was a good find as well. After that we came back to the B&B, fired up the computers and recorded our successes. We also looked at how many caches there were in the Mesquite area, their current home town. There were dozens! I think we may have some new geocachers.

Welcome Camdan Miles Loveridge

Born 2:18 pm Thursday, May 15, 2008, at Sacramento, California
Weight: 6 pounds 12 ounces Length: 18.5 inches

Southern California Visit – Note 2

You’re probably asking yourself by now, “If they took the scenic route, didn’t they see anything?” Well, first of all, if you know me you should know that “scenic route” doesn’t mean one with lots of scenery. It means a route that takes twice as long as any other route, has nothing but curves, hairpin turns, steep hills, and cars in front of you that are going 25 miles below the speed limit. Oh, and there MIGHT be beautiful scenery but you’re too scared to look at it because there’s nothing, not even a guard rail, between you and the 6,000 foot canyon on this side of the beautiful scenery. Or, you’re so car sick from all the turns that the only thing that you’re interested in seeing is your destination.

Since our scenic route took us into Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, we did see some magnificent trees, trees that we couldn’t take adequate pictures of even with a wide-angle lens. We tried but the resultant pictures just don’t do the trees justice. We traveled through areas where the snow is still on the ground even though the temperature is above freezing 24hours a day. It’s really impressive where snowplows have piled up 6 or 7 feet high snow banks. They look like could last until the Fourth of July.

But probably the most fun things we saw on our scenic route was a momma black bear with her 3 cubs and a little brown bear eating grass and roots by the side of the road. There weren’t any other cars around when we saw momma black bear about 100 feet in front of us crossing the road like she didn’t have a care in the world. I thought it looked almost comical because she had on a collar like you’d see on a dog. We pulled to a stop on the side of the road about 50 feet from her just as she reached the other side of the road. As we rushed to get our camera, from our side of the road and 50 feet in front of the car out tumbled 3 little black bear cubs. They were hurrying to catch up with momma who, by this time, was ambling off into the forest. Not more than an hour later we came upon three cars stopped in the road. As we pulled to a stop behind them we saw the reason for the stop. A young brown bear was standing on the other side of the road casually eating grass and ignoring the cars or their passengers. Every once in a while he would stand on his hind legs and scrape the soil away from some of the small trees growing on top of the dirt bank there.

Southern California Visit - Note 1

You may notice the blog entries for the next few days being posted somewhat erratically. The reason is that we’re on the road – or more specifically, Carolyn is on the road as usual and this time I’m accompanying her. The last time we tried this was last year with her visit to a site in San Luis Obispo. It was so successful that we thought we’d try another one. Only trouble is, I’m so reluctant to ask for a vacation from my volunteer assignments. But taking a week off once or twice a year should be understandable, shouldn’t it.

Being on the road isn’t necessarily a reason for not posting but not being able to reliably find a connection to the Internet is. Like right now, I’m sitting in our room in the Kern River Inn/Bed and Breakfast comfortably typing this entry. And the Inn has a wireless Internet connection available. But we got in so late, we don’t feel comfortable bothering the owner/manager of the Inn for the key necessary to get into their network. We’ll wait until morning.

And why did we get in late? you ask. We didn’t get away late at all. In fact we left very close to our projected departure time of 9:00 am. And the Highlander ran well. And we didn’t get lost even once or take the wrong turn more than a couple of times, neither of which caused appreciable delay. BUT, we did take the scenic route from home to here in Kernville. That turned a 5.5 hour trip into an 11 hour trip. Add a half hour stop for lunch in Fresno and you can imagine that we arrived at our destination close to 8:30 which is apparently closing time for all the restaurants in this town. Our innkeeper took one look at us, asked whether or not we had had anything to eat then shooshed us out the door to get something to eat before it was too late.

Class Action Connect

Several months ago I wrote a blog entry which was meant to describe an interesting form of auction. But it also described a rather heavy-handed charging system where owners of cells phones would be charged for being notified of auction results even when they didn't sign up for such. That entry was picked up by another blog and has resulted in a lot of people reading this blog to see if they're story is similar to mine. Many times they're almost identical, the difference being that I got my bill credited so that I lost nothing while many others were not able to get the charges reversed.

Now I notice that referrals to this blog are coming from the web site http://classactionconnect.com/
a site which facilitates people getting together over a common problem. According to ClassActionConnect:

If you believe you have been wronged by a company and think you may qualify to participate in a class action lawsuit, contact our class action attorneys today. [through this site]

Although I personally believe there are hundreds if not thousands of frivolous class action suits every year, I also believe that there are situations where people have no idea that others have suffered from businesses in the same way they have and a class action suit may be the only method of redress and correction. This web site appears to be a legitimate effort to connect such people with each other and with attorneys who can mount the proper legal effort.

Celebration of life

Carolyn and I were fortunate to be invited to the Celebration of Life that was held in honor of Lois Marie Cox McAleer. And even more fortunate to actually be able to fit it into a rather crowded schedule (Carolyn's, not mine) And after the services, Carolyn and I both agreed this was the sort of funeral we'd like to have for ourselves. Everything was so upbeat and life affirming. There was no "speechifying" or preaching of any sort. The participants listed on the program gave short descriptions of Lois's life, her exuberance, or her daring life to take away her fun.

The motorcycle and side car pictured above on the cover of the program was just one aspect of Lois's life - she lived it to the fullest and right down to the very end. Lois is the mother of a good friend of ours Shannah McAleer who formerly worked with me at the Regional Center.
A competent organist and a vocal soloist set the tone which was a little faster than elevator music and much faster than what I'm used to hearing in funerals. We had the following picture of the last time we went out to dinner with Lois, her sisters, Shannah and her partner Kathy. That's Lois in the white headdress. We printed and framed a copy and gave it to Shannah.



Now Carolyn and I are giving some thinking to what we want to do have done for our "Celebration of Life". Depending on who's in charge of the Mormon church and our individual ward at that time we may or may not be able to hold the celebration in a Mormon building. But I think the details of the celebration are more important than the building.

And as the Reverend Moran said, we won't say farewell to you, Lois, but rather Godspeed!

Library overflow

The Carmichael branch library is probably the largest branch library in the Sacramento Public Library system. And it reopened less than 2 years ago following major renovation. And it is beautiful and very functional. However, on the outside walls are six slots for returning books, magazine, CD's, audio book DVD's, etc. And on Tuesday morning when we first come into the building this and the picture above is what we see:
A couple of the bins still have some space but two of the six are already overflowing. The bins are ingenious things with a spring loaded false bottom so that the first book only drops five or six inches. As the weight of each incoming book presses against the false bottom, the bottom of the bin moves down, always keeping the distance the books travel between 6 and 10 inches. Of course once the bin is full the books begin to back up and clock the intake chute.

I'm sort of glad that I'm not a voluntary aide with responsibility for putting all these books back on he shelf but we often have 4 or 5 reshelvers this day which helps so much,

But the full and overflowing book bins tell us that the library is far exceeding the planned expected volume of consumer support.

Talk about the volume for Carmichael exceeding anything they had projected as shown by the return book bins.

Baking for the future

I've finally made a start at the assembly line cooking or "baking for the future" that was taught at the women's group I attended several weeks ago. Of course, I didn't come up with main courses or even side dishes. I worked on cookies. There are 2 dozen cookies in each of the large bags and 1 dozen in the smaller bag. All three bags went into the freeze for later use.


We'll get to the recipe in a m inute but first I wanted to say something about Andes Mint Bits and Pieces. We had tried using them in another recipe, substituting a cup of these for a cup of chocolate chips. They were so overpowering that you could hardly taste the rest of the cookie. So this time we substituted only 1/3 of the regular chips with these mint chips.










Of course I didn't put all the cookies in the freezer. Our "Emergency Cookie Storage" jar was totally empty except for some crumbs at the bottom. Since we always like being prepared, I put the first two dozen cookies in this jar.

And the recipe:

1 cup butter or margarine
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
Cream all these together then set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix the following:
2 cups flour
2 1/2 cups oatmeal (quick or original)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup chocolat chips
1/2 cup Andes Mint chips
1 1/2 cup chopped nuts

Add the butter/sugar mixture to the dry ingredients and stir thoroughly. Place on ungreased cookie sheet using 1 1/2 inch food scoop. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 11 minutes. Do not overcook. Even if they look a bit uncooked, they will set. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Explosive USB Hub

This blog entry could get slightly technical but only slightly. I'm going to be writing about USB devices and USB ports. USB, which stands for Universal Serial Bus, was chosen as a standard in the PC world in 1995 to allow PC's peripherals to be more "plug and play" a characteristic of Mac computers which was then outshining PC's. The idea was that every peripheral (disk drive, printer, scanner, etc.) would have a common plug going to the computer. There would be sufficient information inside the peripheral so that when it is attached to a computer, that computer can figure out what was just attached and, if necessary, ask the human for appropriate sotware.

In 1995 there weren't many devices with USB cables. Not in 1996, 1997, or even 1998. But by 2000 it was difficult to find peripheral devices with any other kind. Suddenly, computers that had 2 or 3outlets, or ports, were swamped with 5 or 6 peripherals all with USB plugs. The result was a rush on hubs which could make 1 outlet service 4 peripherals. Although our computer has 6 USB ports, we had 3 4-outlet hubs so that instead of 6 devices, our computer can connect to 15 devices and we have need for 11.

Complication: engineers quickly found a way to make cost effective USB ports that ran at 40 times the speed of the original USB ports. Computer manufacturers adopted the new design rapidly but USB hub manufacturers, especially those of cheap, foreign-made ones did not. Two of our hubs were low rate hubs which meant that half our devices could only run at the slower rate. For keyboard, mice, and sound equipment, the slow rate was acceptable but it wasn't acceptable for mass storage or data transfer devices. Every time I would plug in my Apple iPod into a low speed port to synchronize it, the computer warned me that a faster port was available.

A new 3.0 standard will be out later this year but until I buy a new computer, it won't make any sense to upgrade our hubs.

Now, to the real story...

I wanted to upgrade our two 1.0 hubs to 2.0 so it wouldn't matter which hub I used. We found some relatively cheap ones at Fry's and I finally found time to swap the others out. While I was at it, I tried cleaning up a little all the cables that seem to grow like weeds under the computer desk. Then I started putting things back together. I had the computer power off but the two new hubs were live. They light up as bright as Christmas trees giving me a lot more light under the desk. Everything went so good in the first hub that I decided to go to the second hub before turning the computer back on. I went to plug in the first USB device for the second hub when Kawoosh! That was the sound I heard as the air pressure under the desk suddenly increased then dropped. I think I knocked about five years off my life expectancy. I was sure I had blown the computer or the peripheral device. But it appeared I hadn't even blown a fuse. That second hub was wasted and its power supply was running really hot.

I decided it was time to see what damage might have been done by all my fiddling around especially my moving all the equipment to new hubs. The computer came on but stopped with an error stating: "your hard drive is "dirty'. A program called CHKDSK was then activated to see that the data hadn't been corrupted. It had to run a three pass check of my files and indices. And my mouse wouldn't work because I had changed ports. I couldn't control anything. I sat back and waited for the world to crash around me.

But it didn't!!!! After checking the disk and other potential security problems and finding no problems, the computer continued to boot up and then look for all the peripherals. As it found the keyboard, and my mouse I felt more in control. As it continued to recognize and enumerate our USB devices, I could finally breathe out. Switching hubs had been more exciting than I had imagined it would be.