Itsy, bitsy spider climed up a water spout.

And that is usually a good spot for a spider. We don't like them in our house and always carefully escort spiders to the doorway. Our policy is that good spiders, like good dogs and cats, enjoy being outdoors.

That was how we came to have have these two sample spiders - both of them black wider spiders. I"m not really too excited about black widows even when they're minding their own business. They may get the idea that everything they see is theirs.

Edward's kids found a couple of black widow spiders in their yard so they were anxious to "bottle them" up. They didn't even stop to think that the spiders might not be nice to each other. Only minutes after putting them in their new home, one spider was seriously disabled and was beginning to feel "tied up".

Partying along the river

It was one of the worst air quality days in Sacramento to the point where we could almost compete with Los Angeles. The reasons of course were all the wild fires blazing in Northern California. What little delta breeze we had seemed to just be herding the smoke to keep it over us.

Still, with the plans all made and the temperature very comfortably in the 80's, the La Sierra Ward High Priests with consultation from the Activities Committee put on a great party. I'm going to upload most of the pictures I took and you'll notice most of them show people eating. As near as I could tell that's what the adult attendees were doing most of the time. So I'm not apologizing for the pix.

Enjoy!

The Secret Garden

Imagine being an only child, and a fairly spoiled one at that, living a life of luxury in far off India as one of the English occupation families. Now imagine that, seemingly overnight, your entire family is wiped out by cholera, a disease whose symptoms are both swift and horrible. You now have not a friend or advocate in the world except some little-known uncle back in Yorkshire, England who has enough troubles and sorrows of his own to care about you or for you. You are literally dropped off at your uncle's house after being told all the way there that you will not be welcome. And indeed, you aren't.

Now imagine as a playwright trying to portray the sense of loss and abandonment, of betrayal. The attempt at closing a gap in a family without knowing anything about that family. The writer has attempted to show background and flashbacks by using ghosts with white hankies signifying life and red hankies signifying death. It comes off surprisingly well. All the singing is in tune and in time except perhaps young Collin who can be excused if he's been cooped up in his bedroom for 10 years.

The scenery is sparse as DMTC almost always is. But by careful manipulation, the sight of the secret garden bursting into bloom is glorious. Carolyn thought the musical was "dark" but I think that's just the way you have to tell a story as complex and deep as this one. I highly recommend this for all, even kids 8 and over. Our two visiting grandsons ages 8 and 11 seemed to enjoy it.

Random baby post

Now if I could just figure out these ejection seat controls.

Lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer

I don't know that I can really say that we or the days have been lazy but with all the fires surrounding us, they've certainly been hazy. And having two youn boys staying with us full time, I think we could describe our schedule as a little crazier than usual. Both Michael and Ben are doing well here and fitting into our family routine. Well, routine is the wrong word to us. How about our daily "random events".

Like yesterday evening on the recommendation of a fellow ward member we packed up blankets and chairs and headed out to the Fair Oaks Village Square Park for a "Concert in the Park" Fair Oaks style. We stopped long enough at Burger King to pick up some hamburgers that ranged from "they forgot to leave out my cheese" to "this is the best burger I've ever eater...at Burger King".

Like the concerts at Carmichael Park, the best thing for the kids (and maybe the parents, too) is the close proximity of a decent playground. This park even has the added attraction of several beautifully colored chickens to chase around.

The performers "Sister Swing" are ones we've heard at the downtown Jazz Jubilee and always enjoy hearing them. They sing music like the Andrew Sisters of the late 30's and 40's would have sung. Easy to dance swing or jitterbug to their music or just sit back and enjoy the easy swinging jazz.

More family bloggers

It looks like Kristi after being a pioneer in our family for blogging has finally begun to post on a regular basis. Nice look with some fun pictures.

Anybody else out there with a blog that I'd like to know about and link to here?

The war against SPAM

By now I'm sure that you've had it happen to you: you are expecting an email message as a result of ordering something, emailing somebody, or simply answering a question on a website. So you wait for the expected email, and you wait, and you wait, and wait, and.... You get the idea. I'm finding this happening to me more and more. And the reason is the war against SPAM.

To a large extent, users blame their service provider for SPAM just like we blame the post office or the mail carrier for the junk mail stuffed into our mailbox. Especially if the SPAM is rank or offensive, we blame the service provider. After all, can't they see that it's crap? Well, yes and no. And therein lies the problem.

Service providers have to develop or purchase filters to sort out the bad email from the good. Some of the earliest ones used a word filter but those tended to block out valid email that might refer to breast cancer but not stop an offensive missive with s*e*x all over it. Providers developed white lists of senders who are always to be let through and black lists of senders who are never to be let in. I believe my email is actually subject to three levels of black and white lists - service provider wide, user lever, and Microsoft Outlook level. How confusing is that. And now that SPAM senders can forge sending addresses they make their obnoxious messages look like they're coming from your best friends or even from yourself. Your service provider then tries to filter out those messages and suddenly you're cut off from you circle of friends.

Fortunately, I get a chance to see the black lists at the Outlook and user level but I have to periodically scan through the blocked messages. The last time I did I found several messages from family members and some from services I had requested. In their zeal to protect me from obnoxious messages, my provider has censored my mail obnoxiously. What is the answer?

Let's welcome Nancy to the Blogosphere

You'll notice a new entry on the list of family member blogs to the left of this entry. My sister-in-law Nancy has decided to try blogging. I'll warn you, she takes wonderful pictures and puts together awesome scrapbooks so you'll want to add her blog to your favorite places to visit.

And tell her I sent you.

Instant Crown

One thing I can definitely say about our dental group and that is that the group really is trying to stay up with current technology. I've already talked about the initial examination and the 360 degree x-ray machine as well as the computer that the hygienist talks to when he's examining the gum levels. Today I was introduced to the crown maker, a CAD/CAM application that is changing the way dentists fit and install crowns (or caps as the PC term.).

Even as recent as a year ago getting a tooth capped required a couple of hours and at least two visits to the dentist. The reason for this is that the cap was produced in a laboratory that specializes in such caps. Turnaround time would be anywhere from 2 to 14 days.

I was expecting having to have a second appointment when the dentist and his assistant began making preparations for installing the final crown. I glanced to the side to see the dental assistant working on a 3-D representation of my existing tooth and root. This representation was obtained with a special 3-D mouth camera. The crown was also represented in 3-D and was as close to the size, shape, etc. of the old tooth's chewing surfaces.

Then I heard other comments. Or should I say I heard murmurs that I couldn't quite make out. A manufacturer's rep took over the CAD/CAM machine. The next thing I hear is that the computer is acting up today so they'd fit me with a temporary crown and I could return in a week or two for the final fitting. The dental assistance explained that the computer wasn't working. We needed to schedule another appointment. Finally, they had all they needed from me. I was given a temporary crown and told to return in two weeks.

Well, sometimes technology moves ahead in fits and starts. But at least they're trying.

Air Quality Warnings

Imagine if you will that instead of this nice bright white background you have a dirty, smoky brownish background for this blog. That should give you some idea of what the sky was like yesterday and today. On one hand it has kept the temperatures down but on the other hand it has made breathing much more difficult. It's almost enough to make me nostalgic as it is close to what we get in the L.A. smog.

The reason for the poor air quality is the numerous wild fires we have around the northern part of the state. It seems awfully early in the year to be having wild fires.

At the swimming pool where the boys are having their swimming lessons, they've actually had to curb some of their exercises and team practices, the air quality is so poor.

The Pressure Is Off

Every time we have purchased a new car, it seems that we're ultra careful about getting a ding in the door or a crease in the bumper. At first we even go so far as to park away from the crowd although I've never stooped so low as to park on the line between two parking spaces insuring that no one parks too close to me. As time goes on, you get brave enough to park in the mainstream parking areas but you're still pretty careful.

Then comes that first scratch, the first bump. I can remember a couple of "firsts" for our cars. They were traumatic, especially if I was at fault. Less traumatic if Carolyn was responsible. And just downright frustrating if some unknown person was at fault.

Today, as you can see from the above picture, my Toyota Highlander got it's first bump. My daughter-in-law Tiffany was hurrying to take her two oldest boys to swimming lessons leaving me to put together an Ikea set of drawers. Shortly after she left, she came back in sobbing and crying that she had run into my car. It sounded as if she had wrecked my car when, in fact, all she had done was bent the plastic bumper enough to make it obvious something had hit it. It was serious in that the same bump on a side door would have been an expensive thing to repair. But I don't think this will even look odd once it's cleaned up.

Water for Elephants - book review

I'm beginning to think that fiction isn't a total waste of time after all. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen is a wonderful story, or should I say 2 stories, about a man who unintentionally ran away with the circus and at 90 (or is it 93) lives to tell about it. The narrative bounces back and forth giving the reader some comic relief from one story only to have it turn serious and move again to the other story for relief. Along the way we learn about the history of circuses and the rough life for the circus personnel, especially the workers. We learn that there are sharp class divisions between bosses and performers and workers and when the circus falls on hard times the latter categories may not be paid.

And what's to become of an elderly man in a nursing home whose family has divided up the visiting duties so that a different family visit him every Sunday. Only trouble is he doesn't see that family again for weeks, by which time he has forgotten who they are so they see him like an old man who has lost his memory.

Gruen is the kind of author who helps you smell the big top, hear the band, feel the heat from the giraffe, and taste the cotton candy. I listened to the story on the Playaway portable book system. That's definitely a good way to go. Great book, great readers.

Another Adventure Begins

A couple of my most memorable experiences have been times I've spent visiting relatives for extended periods. One summer I spent two months with my father's Uncle Leonard and Aunt Hazel in Salt Lake City while attending some summer courses at the University of Utah and another summer I spent six weeks with my Uncle Merlin & Aunt Gwen in Milton-Freewater, Oregon thinning apples and driving pea harvesting trucks. Both of these experiences happened when I was in high school. Other than these, the only time I was away from home without my family was the one week scout camps that I attended from age 12 on up.



I did not have the experience of extended stays from home as early in my life as our two grandsons Ben and Michael are going to have. They arrived yesterday with their parents and younger sister in what looked like a normal vacation stop. Ed and Tiffany with their three children showed up and we all had a good, rollicking time. Well, everyone except maybe Camran.




Today was pretty wild as Ed and his two older boys came over again to play with their cousins. He actually had an ulterior motive - borrowing our van to pick up a piece of plywood for a self-designed bed he's building.


Then we all piled into two vehicles and hit Costco for lunch. Carolyn and I used the opportunity to replenish the food supply in our freezer and the tools and picture frame that the burglars took from our home a couple weeks ago. It made quite an impressive pile as well as an impressive cost. Since we now use our security alarm system, we're hopeful that they won't repeat their behavior.

The last major event today was a trip to the library where we got library cards for Ben & Michael and had them each check out a book. Every time I interact with the library staff I expect them to know me better than they do.

Start your day with a flat tire...

and the rest of the day has got to be better.

Technically I didn't start the day with a flat tire, I ended yesterday with a flat tire which I pumped up with $0.75 worth of air from a local gas station then drove home. Having lost a negligible (if any) air on the drive home. But I didn't know whether this had been a slow leak over the past couple of weeks or a more serious leak that would give me an overnight flat. It was the latter.

My usual tire shop had been bought by Goodyear and then closed a couple of months later. I ended up having to go to a Goodyear tire store in the Arden Mall. I was worried that I might not get the tire repaired in time to deliver my Meals on Wheels. They were actually done in 30 to 40 minutes. That gave me time to read a little and relax in the sun at the Folsom community center.

My old tire store was in the habit of repairing flat tires at no charge. But this time I was charged
$20 and a promise that the cost of this repair would go against the purchase price of a new set of tires.

Lies My Teacher Told Me - book review

How did you feel about your high school history class? Loved it? Hated it? Well, Lies My Teacher Told Me by Dr. James W. Loewen should make you hate your high school history class all over again. Loewen goes to great lengths in the first few chapters of the book to illustrate how high school text books get American history all wrong. The first colony in America was in Virginia not Massachusetts; Columbus was not the first person to find America; Columbus was not the nice visionary he's made out to be; early English settlers would have starved to death were it not for the assistance they got from the Indians; the English settlers deliberately used infected blankets to give Indians smallpox; and on and on and on. He points out that every president must have at least a paragraph about them even if they don't deserve it. Same goes for every state. Anything controversial is removed and no one is ever held to blame even though a disaster may clearly be man-made. Loewen gives example after example and quotes or footnotes the reference so you can look it up yourself. The result is a textbook that is, as most high school students know, BORING.

For some reason the same history, taught with the facts, in college suddenly becomes very interesting. So why does this happen? Some is due to school board censoring or editor or publisher acting defensively. Parents have been known to keep a subject out of a book and thus depriving an entire state or even region of the country of important information. In fact, there is so much information in this book about shoddy information presented as "history" that one begins to fear that all is lost, that the government controls the agenda, and the result is that our children will be taught total non-questioning loyalty to the administration in Washington.

But in the last two chapters we learn that there is hope after all. We can make a difference the same way other parents have lobbied for content removal. We can lobby for upgrades and a text that puts events into context and challenges the student to connect the dots - make history work like a science experiment to see if later events are absolutely predictable from earlier events.

For example, I could never understand the intense hatred the Soviets had for the USA right from the start of the cold war. Problem was, I wasn't looking back far enough. I was never exposed to the fact that Americans fought in the 1918 Russian Revolution on the side of the White Russians, thus prolonging the revolution and angering the eventual winners - the Soviets. History makes so much more sense when you have all the data.

With all the data that he gives you, you get the feeling that this book is a propaganda piece and there probably is a slant. But the answer is not to continue with deficient history texts but to pressure publishers to create more complete books even put in the controversies and disputed facts then let the students do research, review eventual outcomes, and choose for themselves which "facts" make the most sense.

An excellent, if somewhat emotionally wearing book.

Book collector

Pat Bruno, my bookbinding mentor, is also a collector of old and rare books. After our recent lesson, he took me inside his sanctuary where every wall is covered with books or old manuscripts and posters. He must have at least 100 bibles that all predate the Civil War and probably the American Revolution. It should be interesting getting to know Pat.

Your table (er) wife is ready, sir.

A gadget that has seen some popularity in the restaurant business is the flashing, buzzing, beeper that you are given when you show up at the restaurant and ask for a table. When your table is ready, this little red (usually) plastic disk begins vibrating and flashing so you notice it whether you're using it for a coaster or just stuck it in your pocket. I really like this method because I'm always afraid I'll be just out of earshot when they call "Arnold, your table is ready. Arnold party of 4."

Recently Carolyn had to have a colonoscopy, one of those procedures that they want someone to drive you back home afterwards. I understood the procedure could take as long as 1.5 hours and I didn't want to sit in the waiting room if I could got pick up a hamburger for lunch. So it was with some delight that as I handed off Carolyn to one of the GI nurses, I got a notifier in return. And this one not only beeped, flashed, and vibrated, but it also had a small screen so they could send a message - like "Please call 973-4747", or "Your wife's hungry, bring a large pizza."

I got my hamburger. Carolyn got her procedure. I got the message. I picked up Carolyn and drove her home. The system worked perfectly.

A Man's Home is His Castle

or is it the other way around. Anyway, saw this in my travels this week and just had to post it. I would have gotten closer but there was a moat and an knight in armor blocking the way.

Father's Day #1

Steven and Lisa have gotten quite the reputation for giving Carolyn and me gifts that are appropriate, fun, and often totally random. So much so, that you have to wonder how they find these things in tiny Santa Cruz. Or maybe it's the Internet they are shopping.

In any case, their Father's day gift to me this year is a Cuisipro Ice Cream Scoop & Stack. The concept will be familiar to those who remember the cylindrical shaped ice cream cones at Thrifty Drug Stores.


With the Scoop & Stack, you push and twist the scoop into the ice cream carton, leaving little core-drilling-like holes behind.

And whether you stack them onto a cone on into a dish, you get little pellet-shaped cylinders of ice-cream. Now isn't that a n appropriate, fun, and completely random gift? Stoop by our place sometime and bring a half gallon of your favorite ice cream for a demonstration. (Of course, I'll take a sample for my effort.)

Burglary: Part 3 - what was in that spot?

It's a good enough puzzle to be in Games Magazine. Time and again we've looked at a hole in heavily packed garage shelves and ask ourselves, "What was there last week?"

For example (and we can't figure out what took us so long to compute) we saw right away that the burglars took the ice chest that was sitting next to the freezer. Only today did we think about why they would take an empty ice chest. They wouldn't! We finally opened the freezer to find it half empty when it was previously filled so full we couldn't get more food in. Now there's room for all sorts of things. But what? We know the bottom was filled with hamburger chubs but what about the other shelves?

Our insurance company has begun our file and called asked if we really wanted to submit a claim in this matter. We decided to leave the actual missing items out of our claim for a few more days to give us time to remember more.

The claim just keeps growing and growing.

Burglary - Part 2: The Investigation

After we had recovered a little from the trauma that someone had actually entered our house while we were sleeping and had taken things from our house and garage, we were naturally angry. We called the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office, the policing authority for Carmichael and asked to make a report. The desk clerk took just the barest of information - name, address, telephone number, and date of birth - then said a deputy would be out soon to get a report even after I assured him that it was no longer an emergency.

About a half hour later Deputy Galyean rang our front doorbell and asked me, "What's going on?" When I tried to give some background information he asked a little louder and firmer, "What's going on?" Direct man, this Deputy Galyean. So I answered directly, "Nothing. Now. Last night someone got into our garage and house and took several things." "How'd they get in." "We don't know for sure but we probably left the outside garage door unlocked. And the door between the house and the garage is always unlocked." "Probably got in that way, didn't they?" I said he was direct.

He gave me his card and a blue form to be filled out after we had figured out exactly what had been stolen. His card had the police report number on the back. Then as he walked out the door, he said the CSI unit would be out later in the afternoon.

Sure enough around 5:00 pm Officer Wight of the Crime Scene Investigation unit showed up and asked if he could take a look around. We gave him a brief orientation to where we suspected the theives had gotten in and where things appeared to be missing. By now we had the compiled a large list of things missing and presumed stolen:

Digital Picture Frame, 15",

Case of Diet Coke

Pop-up Shade 10x10ft w/ sidewalls

Ice Chest

VCR.DVD combo

Dome Tent - sleep 6

Dome Tent - sleep 4

Gallon bleach

2 Auto jumper batteries

Officer Wight opened his "crime kit" and started looking for any clues he might be able to gather.

He brushed several surfaces with a little brush that looked like it was made of flat strips of carbon paper. They were light enough not to make a real bad mess but heavy enough with black "ink" to show if there are liftable prints.

Thinking he might actually have one, Officer Wight showed me how he would try to lift it with a wide piece of tape, exactly like they show you on TV. Unfortunately, the surface was too rough to get a decent print.

In addition to notifying the police, we've notified most of our neighbors and our insurance agent. We figure the total loss from the items we know about now is about $1,000 and our deductible is $750 so we're not going to be making anything off this or even coming close to breakeven.

Like Staci, I too thought this might be a gag but it's gone too far for that now. We just hope we can remember all the missing pieces.

What? We've been robbed!!

Shelf where 15" frame used to display family photos (with museum clay still there)

Well, technically the term is burgled but that's hard to say with a straight face. But the facts are that sometime between 10:00 pm last night and 6:00 am this morning someone entered our home and made off with our digital frame (including the memory card with 2,000 family pictures on it) and a case of Diet Coke. Obviously, this is not a crime that we're waiting anxiously for the county sheriff to solve. In fact when making the police report I was surprised they even promised to have a deputy come out and take the report in person. I mean the frame is not free or even inexpensive but it wouldn't qualify a thief for a felony charge even if you add the value of the Diet Coke.

Inches away from the digital picture frame are the plastic sack with operating instructions. Burglar also missed the remote control.)

What it does mean is that Carolyn and I will be on heightened alert? We will make the rounds every night before bed and see that all outside doors and windows are locked. We will arm the alarm system so that it will go off immediately if anyone opens a door or window. We will do the same during the day except that we have a short delay to give us time to turn the alarm off.

A. Loveridge - Bookbinder

I've been struggling over what class to take next semester when a "class-like" opportunity just dropped into my lap. As you may know, I have been a member of the Friends of the Sacramento Public Library for several years and currently serve as their Treasurer. You may also know that our major fund raiser is a "Book Den" where we sell donated books and books the library has retired. Well, some of these books would be a lot more appealing if they were in a little better condition. Of course a book that in pristine condition will only sell for $4 is not worth repairing but one that would bring in $25 to $50 might be worth it. So the other day our Board President Cherril was bemoaning the fact that the board member she had asked to learn book binding hadn't taken any initiative to do so. Hadn't even called the member of Friends who is a professional book binder to ask about learning. Seeing a golden opportunity I told Cherril that I was very interested and would love the chance. Within 3 days I had an appointment with Pat Bruno.

Pat Bruno is a professional book binder who has been in the business almost 25 years. At any one time he has at least a dozen books in progress. His specialty is 16th and 17th century books with sheepskin and goatskin bindings. He likes to take apart a distressed book to see what the binding is made of and then tries to match the repair to the original materials as much as possible.


My first assignment was actually a demonstration by Pat on an LDS Hymnal that I had brought along. The pages were falling out from the covers and back of the book so I figured we couldn't really hurt it. Pat liked the idea but recoiled at my statement that the hymnal was a "throwaway". "No book is a throwaway," he shot back.


Like many jobs such as painting or reupholstering, the first thing you have to do in book repair is the prep work. Pat carefully cut the covers ("boards" he called them) from the spine and the spine from the actual pages. He had me peel away the marbled paper inside the boards.


While I was peeling the boards he gave the book new front and back pages made from simple (but not cheap) drawing paper.

He then put the pages into a wooden press ...

and glued on the header ribbon ...

and mesh backing.

I couldn't believe that we were already 2 hours into the lesson. Since we now had to wait for the glue to dry thoroughly, I suggested this would be a good time to end this lesson. We talked some more however (he's a difficult man to say good-bye to) and agreed to continue these "lessons" every week on Wednesday afternoon. It's not my favorite day but it is his best and he is the teacher.