Callifornia Academy of Science

The day after Thanksgiving, 15 of our family members loaded into 3 vans/suvs and headed to San Francisco to enjoy the newly rebuilt California Academy of Science building. Located in Golden Gate Park, it has opened to capacity crowds. In fact, according to one of the docents, they are getting 30% more visitors than they had expected. As you can see, the roof design is most unusual, almost like something from Toontown. According to their web site the architect explains this design:

“I try to get at the fundamental emotion of a site,” says the architect. The roof design “is like lifting up a piece of the park and putting a building under it.”

"This museum has always worked on three levels - displaying the collection, educating the public, researching the science. The spirit of this new building is to announce and enforce this complexity of function."

The thing that struck me was the scarcity of interactive displays. They did have some but most of the exhibits were zoo-like such as the delightful penguin exhibit where the animals were very alive and fun to watch or the African landscape exhibit which included stuffed animals or simply paintings.


For those lucky enough to get close there were demonstrations and mini-lectures about the animals or the habitat. But because of the crowds we didn't see many. We did manage to get passes to one of the later planetarium shows. The planetarium is built more like an IMAX theater and uses the latest digital imagery making it very versatile.


By the time our group got around to visiting the 4 story rain forest habitat, I couldn't walk so I just sat and watched. One of the other visitors voiced a common complaint about that exhibit, "Wherever you stand in the rain forest habitat, you can see all the other visitors including those above and below you. I would like it to be arranged so that you see the rain forest without all the human sightseers."

This visitor (Barbara from San Francisco) gave us several good hints such as eating at the nearby De Young art museum where the crowds are smaller and the menu is large. She also suggested we come back in 6 months by which time the novelty will have worn off.

Thanksgiving traditions

Lisa decorating the Christmas tree

One of our Thanksgiving traditions (for the day or two after Thanksgiving) has been taking down the fall decorations and putting up the Christmas decorations. If there are more people around the house than required for putting up the decorations, the extras end up with assignments like cleaning out the rain gutters, mowing or edging the lawn, or tending the young 'uns so the rest of us can work.

Natalie destroying spider webs while Grandma holds Camdan

There's less pressure around our house to be putting up the Christmas decor since we haven't a single party planned here yet. Still, it would be nice have a little holiday spirit to remind us. Actually, once the ward party is over next week, we won't have any parties to go to so we'll really need the extra reminders.

Richard mucks out rain gutters

Thanksgiving thoughts

When your Thanksgiving vacation involves traveling 1,000 miles by air or 500 miles by automobile, involves sleeping on couch-beds or in sleeping bags thrown on the floor, involves trying to negotiate your way to the serving table with 10 kids and 9 other adults competing for space, or involves waiting 20 minutes for your turn in the shower only to find there is little hot water left, when your Thanksgiving, in other words, ends up an overcrowded, noisy, inconvenient get together, it's hard to remember what this day is for. One thing that helped us remember was the prayer over the morning's breakfast when little Jillian prayed, "and please bless Grandma that her hair will grow in beautiful again."

We are indeed thankful for our health, our family, our friends, our home, jobs, and some security for the future. We're thankful we live in a country where power can pass from one president to the next without tanks rollings in the streets.

We're thankful for friends and family that think enough of us at this time to make a special effort to get here and the friends and family who wish they could be here. Things could be better but they could be a lot worse. We're thankful they aren't.

May your Thanksgiving be a time for great thanksgiving whatever your condition.

From Fence to Retaining Wall - Part 1

I'll have to look to see if I can find an old picture of the fence but looking north from our driveway once used to see a three-foot high fence delineating the northern side of our property and also kept people from driving off that side of our driveway - a drop of 10 to 18 inches.



When I came home the other day, the fence was gone. Carolyn had been talking with our neighbor about the possibility of his replacing that fence. He had had some time that day to demolish and haul away the fence.

Once it was down, Carolyn and I rethought the idea of replacing the fence. Maybe what we wanted was just a retaining wall.


This is a view of the dropoff. Obviously we can't do nothing as it is too dangerous now. The red square is where we are planning to put the lamp post.


This is the lamp post. We've wanted to lighten up that area for a long time and hopefully this will do the trick.

Another reason for doing something is that the neighbor's watering has washed away a great amount of dirt and gravel beneath the driveway. This void goes back several feet.



Another view of the gap.
The missing soil has left the driveway to stand on its own, something it really can't do. So we're seeing cracks like this.

This is the first installment of our Fence Replacement. Stay tuned for more.

Sharp Idea

Tip of the hat for great service to: Raleys & Bel Air grocery stores for this customer service.

The hardest part for the customer is walking past all the delicious smells coming from the deli section. You then hand the gentleman at the butcher's counter up to 3 knives tucked in cardboard sleeves like you see here. Next day you return to pick up the knives, carefully sharpened and ready to cut your holiday turkey or whatever.

Enlarged printing

Just try to enlarge something you've developed such as a flyer (shown above) or banner. Depending on your printer and word processing software, you may be in for a surprise. We checked online with Kinkos and Office Depot and were told that would be an easy task for them. It would take only minutes and would cost only$25 for a 17 x 22 full-color poster.

Before we shelled out $50 for the two posters we needed, we looked to see what capabilities we had. I never found anything in Word that indicated that capability. However, before I gave up and headed towards Kinkos I converted the document to PDF format with Adobe Acrobar. I had seen somewhere that Adobe can print huge pages.

I couldln't find what I was looking for so I actually clicked on Acrobat Help. The answer was right there under scaling: Tile All Pages. Only problem was, when I clicked the Print button I was given four choices and none of them was Tile All Pages. I went about checking all setting combinations and then started changing the printer. I could get the first quarter of a large poster but not the full sheet. At one point I even got the first 16th of a HUGE poster (32 x 44). Then I saw it, the elusive Tile All Pages. I scaled to 200% and the preview screen showed 9 tiles. I scaled back to 190% and the preview screen showed four pages. Just what I wanted!

I changed the printer so that I could do a test black & white. The preview screen showed only one page and the Tile All Pages disappeared. I changed back to the color printer. But the Tile All Pages DIDN'T come back. I almost pulled out whatever hair I still have on my head trying to figure this out. Finally, I discovered that after I changed the printer back to the color printer
I had to select the Advanced options button even if I never wanted anything on that page. But that brought back the Tile All Pages.

Now the color printer was able to print a four part blow-up of our flyer which we could tape together and get the results below.

Pay library fees online

You know I'm a great fan of the Sacramento Public Library. I can't really say that it is much, much better than other libraries around the state or even those in our neighborhood. I don't have enough information to make those comparisons. But it seems like a constant stream of ideas and innovations is coming from the library to solve problems we didn't even know that we had.

The latest in this long line of innovations is the ability to pay off book fines online. For some time we've been able to reserve books and renew books online with only your library card number and a PIN of your own choosing. Now, if you have any outstanding fines, that number will be underlined. When you select that link a new window appears listing the components of that fine (book title, how long overdue, etc.) and you are given a choice to pay any or all components. You CAN'T pay a part of a fine on one book but you can exclude the entire fine on one or more books.

Currently the library accepts only Master Card and Visa. Enter your address and credit card information and click, your card is charged by the fee amount that you agreed to pay. If you entered an email address a receipt is mailed to you. Otherwise, print the window showing your payment was excepted.

Great service, Library. Keep it up.

Bread lines

With all this talk of economic failure and unemployment, I knew it wouldn't be long before we saw bread lines and soup kitchens in our neighborhood. Thus, we were not surprised to see a line of grocery carts at Sam's Club the other day. I asked Carolyn to record it for posterity while I patiently got in line for our allotment.


The line looks better from the front.



Here are the three friendly volunteers who are keeping up the spirits of those in line. I'm finally at the head of the line.



And here is what we've all been waiting for. Not quite bread - but there's cheesecake, apple crisp with vanilla bean ice cream, and rich chocolate cake. No wonder there was such a line!

When machines surprise & delight

Today, I'd like to tip my hat to Hewlett-Packard for making a machine that has truly surprised and delighted me. We have been using our HP 2605 dn color printer for the better part of a year and have had no problems with it. I've come to expect that from HP so that wasn't such a surprise even if it was a delight.

But a couple of days ago, I needed to print out a booklet of Christmas Songs which would require duplex (two-sided) printing. I was steeling myself for the ordeal of figuring out how to refeed the paper for the second pass through the printer. As I reached up to pull out the first printed page, the printer sucked it back in. When it came out the next time both sides were printed. That was a surprise and a delight. Imagine effortless duplex printing. Now I know why there are two sides to every piece of paper.
Tell about color printer doing duplex printing totally surprising us.

A Christmas Carol Booklet

Our ward is having its Christmas party this year on December 6 which is so early the Activities Committee decided to make the theme Winter Wonderland and de-emphasize Christmas just a little. However, we're still going to have carols and Santa, nativity scenes and a mini-Christmas play.

As part of the preparations one of the Committee members compiled a book with the lyrics from 40-45 Christmas carols or hymns. We decided to print it in booklet form, small enough (about as big as a small stack of 3 x 5 cards) that it could easily go into a purse or pocket. So it kind of serves as a favor to the adults. The kids get candy canes from Santa.

(click on pictures to enlarge pictures)

After going to so much work putting the booklet together I thought it would be a shame if we couldn't share the result with others. Click on one of the two links here depending on whether you want the Microsoft Word document or the PDF document .


The pdf file is ready to print duplex (two-sided) with the flip edge the 11 inch edge. The Word document must be printed 4 pages to a side, 2 sides to a sheet. In other words 8 pages per sheet of paper. The only way I could figure out how to do that was to print 2 to a page to Adobe Acrobat, then print 2 to a page from Acrobat. If you can't print to an Acrobat file you're probably in for some cutting and pasting. Depending on which printer you have, this might be simple or it might be very difficult. It looks pretty in color and not bad in black & white.


Once you have the six pages printed, assemble them as follows:
1. Arrange the packet with the front page (Santa and the title) in the upper right hand corner.
2. Trim 3/4 inch off the left and right sides. This leaves a set of paper 7 x 11 inch.
3. Turn the pages 90 degrees either direction.
4. Cut the packet in half leaving two 5.5 X 7 inch stacks of paper
5. Place the stack with Santa showing on top of the other stack without turning either stack.
6. Fold the stack in half downwatd
7. Staple two staples on the folded spine with the ends of the staple inside and on the fold.
8. Enjoy

Let me know if you enjoy things like this.

Man does not live by bread alone.

Several weeks ago, I was talking with Florence, one of the clients on my Meals on Wheels route. She remarked about how beautiful it was outside and how she wished she could walk outside. I asked why she couldn't and was told that she was afraid she might fall and not be able to get back up. "Don't you have friends or a caregiver who could walk with you?" She shook her head no. It occurred to me that with my shortened route there was no reason I couldn't be that friend.

I told Florence that I'd be back right after I finished delivering all my meals. She was so excited. After I finished my route, I would go back to Florence's house, help her put on her shoes, make sure she was modestly dressed for going out, then open the doors and gates so she could go for a walk. While she walked, she could usually go at least as fast as I could. Each week she worked up to a little farther until she was going in front of 5 houses. We've been doing that for several weeks now and she is always so grateful. But her body continues to suffer the ravages of time. A couple weeks ago she stopped making progress and, in fact, went a shorter distance each week.



Last week Florence couldn't even get off the porch. Instead we both sat on the porch and talked of everything and nothing. I convinced her to let me take the above picture of her on the porch. Today, she couldn't get out of her chair even to move to the porch. She looked even more frail than usual.

She grabbed my hand and told me to sit down by her so we could talk. She is so worried they'll put her in the nursing home. She thanked me for coming back and told me how much she depends on my coming back and talking with her. I didn't know that was in my job description. Then she asked if I could come next week and help her pay her bills. For about half an hour she just wanted to talk and kept telling me that I was the only one who really came back when I said I would. I wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't make it to the new year.

C-day plus 51

Carolyn handled the first two chemotherapy infusions with such strength and vigor that both of us got a little too optimistic about the whole regimen, the fact that the Carolyn getting the third infusion isn't the same woman who got the first one. Not only does she look considerably different but her body has already been twice treated to strong toxins introduced directly her bloodstream. It's sort of like fighting off two bullies just to then see two of their larger friends heading toward you. There's only so much a person can take. Fortunately, there is more that Carolyn can do (or NOT do) to regain her strength like she needs to. She can get (and now is getting) more rest and sleep.

We both appreciate the thoughtful letters, cards, e-mails, and phone calls that come our way and let us know that your thoughts and prayers are with us.

...... in Death - book review

Nora Roberts, well known for her romance novels, also writes under the pen name of J. D. Robb. All the books written by J. D. Robb are titled "[something] in Death", such as Innocence in Death, or Stranger in Death.

Carolyn and I have been reading the "...... in Death" series by Nora Roberts after we chanced upon the series by checking out one of her novels pretty much at random then checking out a couple others in the series. At this point it was clear that Roberts was actually developing her characters from book to book which would make it advisable to read the series in order. Fortunately, there is a complete list of Robb's work (her 29th book in the series is expected Feb 2009) in series order at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Death In addition to the names of the novels there is a table indicating for each book the victim(s), cause(s) of death, weapon(s), and perpetrator(s). Don't look at the table until after you read the book. That's a lot of spoiler information there.

The gist of the series is centered on the main heroine, a "tough bitch cop" by the name of Lieutenant Eve Dallas, a detective in the homicide division of the New York Security and Police Department in mid-century 2000's. By having the setting a bit in the future, Robb can use technology such as stunners instead of guns and "links" instead of phones, and off-planet prisons.

For each book in the series Dallas has at least one and sometimes 2 or 3 murders to solve. She has to use all her mental and much of her physical abilities to track down the murderers. In the way, of course, are dirty politicians, lying spouses, cops on the take, meddlesome reporters - in short all the things that today hinder police investigations. To spice up the books with just a tiny bit of sex is Eve's relationship with Roarke, the richest man in the known universe - a man so rich he doesn't need a second name. This not only adds a love interest but also gives Dallas a powerful, if slightly illegal, access to information and physical property than she is tempted to use from time to time, though she always goes back and gets the information legally.

There are just enough characters to make the books exciting without having to write down a cheat sheet to keep track of the good guys and the bad. And, I mentioned earlier, the characters develop through the series so that a bright young uniformed cop named Peabody assists Dallas in one of the earlier book and advances to Detective before you get to the later books. The murders seem plausible enough and the solutions reasonable. Dallas has more of an "attitude" than I feel comfortable with but it is balanced with some others on the NYSPD.

I wouldn't recommend a diet consisting solely of J.D. Robb novels but they're good enough reads that one or two a month would be okay.

Infusion #3

After what seemed like an eternity. but was actually only a week's delay, Carolyn's doctor finally approved the third infusion for Carolyn. Carolyn is anxious, of course, to be finished with the chemotherapy and delays such as this one are just major frustrations. As you can see from the graph above, a week's delay allowed Carolyn's white blood cell count to increase almost 500%. It certainly seems to have been the right thing to delay this infusion.

We're getting to be old hands at the routine although it does change a little each time. The whole process is down to about 3 hours. However, the wait to get a chair this time was longer than we've had before so we didn't save much time.

The last time I blogged about the infusion nursing station, several people commented on the starkness of the room and scarcity of resources. Actually, as I look around the room I see almost all the patients have "visitors", one has several family members and friends, one is using a laptop computer while her companion reads, and one is watching a movie with her husband on a portable DVD player. It appears that Kaiser is accommodating the patients without making the place look like an airport terminal.

If the next two cycles act like the first two Carolyn will be pretty tired this coming week, much more "with-it" next week, and the third week she will be almost the usual "letss-take-on-the-world" Carolyn. Since with the delay Thanksgiving will now be in her second week of the cycle. With company all over the place, she'll need all the energy she can get. We are looking forward to seeing so many of our kids and their families as well as my sister RevaBeth.

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Just saw the sad note from Jenny and Philip about her impending miscarriage. The baby according to ultrasound images measures 6 weeks old with no heartbeat. Jenny's uterus on the other hand measures large enough for a 12 week old baby. She will need to have a D & C to preserve her health and future maternity possibilities. Our thoughts and prayers are with Jenny and Philip.

Wonderful Invention

Every once in a while a gadget will come along that is so simple and yet so profound that you wonder why everyone doesn't use one. I discovered just such a gadget this week.

As I've reported here earlier, my left leg is swollen from the calf to my toes. At first my doctor thought this was a plugged vein that could give way to a serioius stroke. When the x-rays didn't show any oclusion, he decided it was just weak veins in that leg that can no longer pump the blood back to the heart efficiently. He prescribed support hose.

Now I've used support hose before although for comfort not health. (My current swelling is painless.) But it would take me several minutes to put on the darn things. Also, my previous support hose were only slightly more expensive than regular socks. My prescription hose purchased at a local pharmacy were $65 a pair! I went online to see if I could do better. I could but they still cost $37 a pair. But, I found the "Donner".


A simple contraption of coated wire, the Donner has no moving parts, nothing to fall apart.



You begin by setting the Donner in front of you, the semi-circular tower pointing toward the back and orienting the heel of the stocking also toward the back.


Then you simply pull the stocking down and over the central, semi-circular tower and continue pulling until you've almost turned the stocking inside out.


When the inside of the heel appears at the top of the semi-circle, you're ready to put the stocking on your foot.


Insert your foot into the stocking while holding the stocking on the Donner's frame until your heel passes into the stocking at the semi-circle.


Release the stocking and pull back on the handles as you push your foot forward.



The stocking goes on as slick as can be. You might need to adjust slightly but all the hard work is done. No bending over for minutes at a time. No rolling up your stocking until your foot can't get through.

For more information about this clever device check for the application Donner at For Your Legs, it's been a real time saver for me. I didn't mean to make an advertisement but I have really felt it worth my $25. I'll even use it for regular stockings if they're tight.

C-day plus 47

When people ask me, "how's Carolyn doing?" I usually say she's a bundle of energy when she's up but she usually has to have a nap or two during the day to keep that energy up. For example, yesterday she decided to buy groceries at two of our local drug stores and a 99 cent store. Mind you, our pantry is full enough that we can't get everything on the shelves. But these were good bargains and I think Carolyn got a kick out of buying groceries at a drugstsore.

Some of the items she bought are in preparation for Christms. For the past several years we've given beef jerky and jelly. We didn't have much of a pomegranate crop but she was able to make one batch of pomegranate jelly today, Also, she picked up a package of jalapeno peppers at the 99 Cent stire so she nade 2 batches of jalapeno jelly. That's a total of 20 8-ounce bottles of jelly. I think this is her first time making jalapeno jelly. Looks like it's time for me to get working on my jerky.

Seeing a package of jalapeno peppers at the 99 cent store started the whole thing.



But of course she also had to find and buy several packages of jelly-making kits (mainly pectin).

Tso dozen bottles with decorative caps appeared to be just the thing for giving away that much jelly.


Carolyn added color to the mix by using not only green peppers but yellow and red bell peppers in addition.

Mix, heat, mix some more and you have really tasty homemade jelly!

Internet for Seniors

Now I'll admit that our Renaissance Society is not your usual average bunch of retired people. We wouldn't be taking the time and effort to attend classes at Sac State if we didn't have a little more interest than the average senior citizen in continuing education. But it was still fun to see the responses of the class today which was titled "The Internet - the Good, the Bad, the Ugly". The first question the instructor asked was, "How many of you have access to the Internet in your home?" I didn't see a single person without a hand up.

The first topic we covered was "The Good" which our instructor interpreted as Useful and Interesting. He distributed a handout with the following websites listed and then proceeded to access and show off each of the sites.

INTERNET WEB SITES

WWW. Google.com - Search Site
http://books.google.com Research site with access to thousands of books, both copyrighted and public domain titles.
WWW.Amazon.com - Generally a book buying site, but also sells many other items.
http://www.ebay.com/ - Online auction site that sells just about anything you could imagine.
http://sacramento.craigslist.org Local site to buy or sell most anything.
WWW.Mapquest.com - Mapping site to get excellent directions to anywhere
WWW.intellicast.com - The best weather site around. To get our radar,

1. Type in www.intellicast.com
2. Click on the RADAR link on the upper middle area of thescreen. When you click on it, a menu will drop down. Click on CURRENT.
3. Scroll down, and you will see a radar map of the United States.
4. Mouse the pointer over to the Sacramento area.
5. Reno NV will pop up. Click on that.
6. Scroll down an you will see the radar screen for Northern California and Nevada.

http://www.saclibrary.org/- Sacramento's public library site where you can check out or renew books, find out hours branches are open, check book availability, request books, and get audio books.
www.hulu.com - A free movie site that allows you to stream old movies or television shows on a high speed link.
http://directorv.etalkinghead.corn/ - An index of "blogs" -Web Logs both conservative and liberal.
www.snopes.com - A site where uses can check out rumors and find the real story.

With what little time we had left, the instructor talked about scams and phishing on the net which was his definition of the Bad. Then we briefly talked about how easy it is to find porn which represented the Ugly.

All in all a good seminar. I consider myself a capable user but I still found a few new places to bookmark.

God, the Failed Hypothesis - book review

Does "God, the Failed Hypothesis" by Victor J. Stenger really illustrate "How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist"? I find the claim of this book rather intriguing because so many atheists stay far away from such a claim. Trying to prove that God does NOT exist, they say, is equivalent to proving a negative such as "there are no invisible pink unicorns living in this universe." Even if we were able to scan the whole universe with invisible pink unicorn detectors, unless we scanned the entire universe at the same time, a claim may be made that our unicorn had moved around to escape detection.

Stenger tries a more sophisticated approach by specifying a particular God, namely the God of the three monotheistic religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He is not saying that science proves there is no god (generalized & unspecific) but that it can prove there is no GOD (specifically the god of Abraham). By specifying a specific God who says that he is involved with the human race, Stenger can test hypotheses about what the world scene would look like with and without a God.

To set up the testing, Stenger must first explain what science is and how science uses testable hypotheses to rule out things that are not true. For example, if prayer is truly effective then it must make a difference in people's lives. Such differences would be measurable with a properly set up experiment.

For the rest of the book Stenger refers to experiment after experiment, none of which confirm the hypothesis that God exists or interferes in the lives of humans. There may be a God who ONCE created everything and set things in motion but that is an untestable hypothesis so science can neither confirm nor rule out such a God.

This book is not for the faint of heart theist. Such a reader is liable to come away with a questioning belief in God or in science. On the other hand it might be excellent reading for preparing for debating an atheist.

Time to raise the training wheels

It was Veteran's Day yesterday which meant that Ed, Tiffany, and their boys were all home from school or work so they chose this time to come over to our house for a bicycle afternoon. The boys' bikes have been here for some time awaiting just such an opportunity. Still, the first thing that needed to be done was for Edward to check out the mechanical soundness of each of the bikes and, while he was at it, raise the training wheels on Jake's bike about an inch which is as far as they go.


Jake tried out the bicycle before the wheels were raised. As you can see he felt really confident.

Meanwhile Tiffany tried getting Timmy going without training wheels. He made some good runs before running onto the lawn or the fence in front of our property.


When Tiffany got tired, she stopped and just watched the action while tending Camdan.



This also gave Grandma Carolyn a chance to help out.

Ten thousand pictures

Ten thousand may be an exaggeration but at least it gives you an idea of the scoope of work that Carolyn has undertaken. It is currently her MAJOR project. As you know she always has several projects going at any one time.


Throughout the years when our kids were growing up we would take pictures, look at them with oohs and ahs, and then file them away. My idea of filing was to stick them onto a shelf in the family room. Fortunately, Carolyn had a better way - manila envelopes. This kept the pictures in rough categories but made it a little difficult to see them.



For this project, Carolyn is making photo albums of 3-ring binders for each of the kids, our vacations, organizations she's been involved with such as AEYC (state, regional, and local). She's also making her own album pages using cardstock and plastic sleeves. There's nothing fancy. She just wants them sorted and available for viewing.


It is indeed a daunting project when she looks to see how many more manila envelopes she has to organize. On the other hand, it is very satisfying to see the completed albums and visualize the prospect of sending them home with the kids after Thanksgiving.