Too Old to Know Better

They don't make 'em like that anymore!

2012-02-08T08:53:00.000-08:00

I enjoy fixing things. So much so that my wife thinks I enjoy TRYING to fix things. For me, not being able to complete the process is extremely annoying. But I'm already ahead of myself.

It started a couple weeks ago but I didn't hear about it until a week ago when Carolyn mentioned that our stove-top griddle wasn't working, hadn't worked for a number of weeks. It's usually not a crucial part of our cooking equipment so it wasn't high priority. Still, it seemed a shame to have a perfectly good griddle sit idle while we fry pancakes in an electric frying pan.

When I got a little time last week, I took the switch assembly off and easily found the culprit. One of the Line-In wires had broken off. However, as I tried to remove the broken lug so we could add a new end-connector, the switch literally fell apart in my hands. Suddenly the job got more serious. Now I would have to replace a part. Heat had made the connector block on the switch so fragile that pulling the old line and heating element wires off pulled half the switch out as well.

I went to the Internet to order that part. The two largest supply dealers described the part. However one supplier said No Longer Available. They only "believed in" parts manufactured in the U.S.A. The other one said they didn't have the part and didn't know anyone who did. However, if they did have it, it would cost $60. Discouraged, I closed up the stove top and began looking for a new stove top. It seemed such a shame to spend $2,000 because you couldn't find a $60 part.

Turns out there is an appliance sales and service company in Sacramento that everyone here should know about. Zajic's Appliance Sales & Service at 2459 Fruitridge Rd, Sacramento, CA 95822, (916) 452-6748. http://www.zajicappliance.com/

Their website isn't much to look at but the Yelp entry for the Zajic's has one 5-star review after another. Carolyn described the situation and the part over the phone and was assured they had it. They offered to come out and install it or help us through the install on the phone. As it turned out the instructions were clear. The part well made. We're back up and running having spent $34 instead of $2,000 or even $60.

Sleep Number

2012-02-06T11:32:00.000-08:00

What costs more than a small car, has four remote controls and 6 motors, and wants you to spend a third of your life with it?

Answer: The latest in Sleep Number beds.

We're getting of an age when we will start having and more "last time" experiences such as "this is the last time I'll need to reroof the house" or "This refrigerator has a 15 year warranty, that should run until I die" or "I think I better skip that bunch of green bananas". So I wasn't too surprised when Carolyn suggested we buy a Sleep Number bed. This is the one that has 20 different firmness settings for the mattress from "about like sleeping on the ground" to "firm as an overstuffed pillow". We needed a new bed because ours was getting old and saggy (like me). And if we were going to get a "last bed" we could really go all out and buy the best.

We spent two sessions with Kelly at the store in the Arden Fair Mall. She was polite, professional, and an excellent salesperson. She had all the answers and most of the questions. It wasn't difficult to decide to buy from her. Quite frankly, after shopping there, other stores and other mattresses just didn't seem as interesting.

Jump forward two weeks. Although we had asked for a Saturday delivery, the company called with a Wednesday delivery date. I was ticked but Carolyn thinks they were just giving us a choice of an earlier delivery date and that hadn't affect our Saturday delivery at all.

As promised the delivery staff arrived to take our old bed and leave this beautiful new one in its place. Hauling box after box from their truck, it looked like a regular moving van. Then began the fun of putting it all together.

When they were done, Carolyn started putting together all the pieces (sheets, covers, pillows, etc.) she'd been getting for the past two weeks. Lastly we bolted the headboard to the wall, pushed everything together and got ready for bed.

How was it? The first night I didn't think I slept that good. Carolyn says I slept like a log. I had tried the lowest sleep number (5) and it felt like sleeping on the floor with a 2 inch foam mat. The next night I started at the highest number (100) then moved down to (75) in the middle of the night. That's been the best so far. Of course, at the same time I'm trying the various settings for watching TV, raising my feet higher than my head, lounging, and just plain level. I'll have to report back in a couple of weeks to see if I've found MY Sleep Number.

Money, money, money, money....

2012-01-20T21:21:00.000-08:00

Once again I find myself with the title "Treasurer" after my name. I'd probably complain more except that it is something I feel comfortable doing and, this is important for me, each treasurer position I have held has been a very different experience. This time I have been asked to be the treasurer for the Carmichael Branch of the Friends of the Sacramento Public Library. Our annual budget amounts to somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000 considerably smaller than previous money management positions have been.

But probably the most unique aspect of this position is my involvement with cash, coins. Now, don't get excited, anyone, the money is gone from our house as fast as it gets there, if it even gets there at all. I just get it, count it, and see that it gets to the bank. But there are more coins than I've ever had to deal with. I feel like an amusement arcade operator.

The Friends display books in the library lobby, books that are used but in excellent condition. For $2 or less you can buy books that would have cost $20 to $40 new.

On the honor system people drop the money into this lockbox

which I periodically empty. A recent emptying operations left a pile like this. It looks like a whole lot of money, doesn't it? Until you notice how many pennies are in the pile.

A major part of my job is to then sort and count all these coins using a cheap but effective coin sorter.

All the funds raised from these lobby sales goes back to the library to assist in purchasing equipment, furniture, books, materials, and sometimes even entertainment for the younger patrons. Its a win-win situation all around. And I get to be "the King ... in his counting house, counting out the money".

The height of laziness or hygiene

2012-01-08T18:10:00.000-08:00

When I was a teen my father developed an anal fistula, or as he described it, a second asshole. And while it was painful enough to deal with, I think he complained more about the humiliation of having to have someone else wipe his bum. "It's the ultimate in dependency!" he crowed.

Well, I hope never to get an anal fistula but I am sold on having someone, scratch that, someTHING wipe my bum. This Christmas we upgraded from a handheld bidet to an Intelliseat bidet. It is about the same difference between a bicycle and a Lexus.

The first thing you notice when you sit down on the Intelliseat is a friendly digital greeting beep. Without skin contact on a particular place on the seat, nothing happens. Next you notice the seat is heated, warmed to about 86 degrees F. Not a deal breaker but certainly is nice on a cold morning. When you've done your business you no longer have paperwork to finish, just a couple of buttons to push. There is a button for Her Front, for Her Back, and for His Back. Each button directs a small tube to emerge from underneath the back of the seat and direct a spray of warm to very warm water at the intended location. After a minute it will shut off automatically unless you want to stop it sooner. Then yet another button turns on the blower and your private area is swept with a warm, gentle breeze.

I thought it would take a while to get used to the change. It took maybe five minutes. You can still finish off with toilet paper but you'll soon find that is a waste of time. It's that good. And think about it the next time you get some dog doodoo on your shoe. Would you rather wipe it off with a small piece of toilet paper or would you rather spray it off with a warm stream of water? I'm sold.

Installation was a challenge but only because we have a 3" seat riser installed. Otherwise the parts all fit, the instructions were complete, and the thing worked correctly out of the block. I highly recommend this ultimate indulgence.

A little bit means a lot

2012-01-05T15:11:00.000-08:00

Lately, because I can't use my walker I've been using the power wheelchair to get around the house much as I have used it to get around outside. This has taught me to be a much safer driver and has also taught me the value of just a small distance.

Probably the largest problem negotiating my way around the house has been getting through doorways. My chair is 25.5 inches wide whereas our doorways are 29, 31, and 32 inches wide. That should mean I have from 2.5 to 6.5 inches clearance room. This picture shows the doorway with the door swung open. The 28 inches has lost .5 inches on one side because of molding and 2 inches on the other side because the door is still blocking the way. So now my clearances are 0 to 4 inches.

All I need to do, you say, is widen all the doorways. That's true and I'm in the process of doing that unintentionally with my chair.

Invention to the rescue! Turns out that one of the major door hinge makers also make an offset hinge that recovers all of the space taken by the door. As part of their Christmas gift to us Jessica and Jon installed three sets of hinges this week. They're marvelous!

Look below at how the offset hinge moves the fulcrum back and to the side, effectively moving the door from the doorway. There are, of course, situations where these won't work but for the majority of cases, they're marvelous.

	Old Hinge	New Hinge
Space taken up by door
Inside view
Outside view

Everyone talks about the weather

2012-01-01T21:22:00.000-08:00

but I can now record it in real time.

This arbor may look like a standard backyard rose trellis but it is really a weather station in disguise,
There high in the structure is a solar powered wind vane and wind speed detector
and a short distance away is a automated rain gauge.
This unit mounted on the house is designed to measure temperature and humidity as well as relay the wind and rain information to the master unit in the house.
The master unit acts as an attractive weather display but behind it's lovely display is a relay unit that communicates with

our PC where all this data is stored as frequently as once a minute. Of course the data in the computer can be used to plot graphs of the wind speed vs temperature vs time of day. So much data to manipulate, graph, and impress myself with.

What a step up from my old weather rock.

Serious review:
I'm impressed with the overall quality and connectedness of the system. The outside units are definitely not military grade but look like they'll stand up to the weather for several years. I am disappointed in the documentation - there isn't any. They do reference a website with appropriate downloadable manuals in PDF format but even these are sparce sources of information. The graphic capability of the program is barebones so it is a good thing that data can be exported for use in Excel.

I'm part of the banking system!

2011-12-20T17:40:00.000-08:00

I don't like banks. I don't like their rules, the stifling atmosphere, the feeling that my every move is being watched and recorded. Call it paranoia but it is the way I feel. And it is probably the reason I've been in our bank less than a dozen times in the past 40 years. I do as much by mail as possible and at drive-through tellers otherwise.

This week I took one more step to take fewer steps into a bank. Instead of depositing a check through the mail or drive-through atm I "phoned it in"!

Golden One Credit Union has the ability to accept deposited checks that have been photographed with a smart phone or scanned on a regular scanner. It was simple enough:

1. Endorse the check as you normally would
2. Run the check deposit app
3. Enter the amount of the check
4. Take a picture of the front and back sides of the check (the program reminds you to have good lighting and hold the camera steady)
5. Press "Transmit". The check cleared over night.

When the Automated Clearing House changed the rules to eliminate returning all canceled checks they made it possible to use a photocopy as proof of the check and thus made it possible for me to be part of the bank. And I love not visiting my bank.

Pride goeth before the fallI

2011-12-18T12:19:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling pretty good lately although the bursitis in my left elbow has again flared up. In fact it hurt enough that I went to the doctor to get a shot of cortisone like I did almost exactly one year ago. But the shot hasn't seemed to do anything this time. I've needed to be more protective of the left arm because of the elbow pain.

Well, yesterday evening we were scheduled to host a choir party. Carolyn had spent many hours straightening, cleaning, and decluttering the house. Edward, Tiffany, and their boys had come over to help and had left after lunch. We were down to the little things. I was in the living room putting away non-Christmas music and straightening the Christmas music around the piano. Of course I wasn't using my walker since there's so little room to operate behind the piano bench. And of course my feet would at that moment decide not to cooperate with a step I wanted to take. Thrown off balance, I reached out with my left arm to steady myself. The left arm gave notice through a tremendous jolt of pain that it wasn't about to be used that way. Encouraged by the pain, my elbow buckled. And down I went. I felt my knees go about the same time and thinking that was smart of them. Now I wouldn't have so far to tip over. My side hit the soft padding of the piano bench pushing it out of the way and apparently causing enough noise that Carolyn could hear me from the kitchen.

Carolyn was showing our youngest son Steven and his wife Lisa how we made a hot, spiced drink from apple juice, cranberry juice, and orange juice. I heard her say, "Uh-oh, Dad just fell." I didn't yet know what shape I was in but I still relaxed a little, knowing that help was on the way. While the three of them came into the living room, I assessed the damage. Nothing hurt enough as to signal a broken bone. I hadn't lost consciousness. The piano and music cabinet appeared unhurt. Carolyn suggested that she and Steven help me up but after a brief attempt, I suggested we wait a couple of minutes while I got a damage assessment from my body parts. I quickly determined that lifting me by my arms was not going to work. But an underarm lift first to a sitting position, then to my knees, and finally to my feet worked quite well. I have no idea what we would have done if Carolyn and I had been alone.

Carolyn slid my walker to me but even before I took a first step I knew that I couldn't use a walker just then. The pain in my arm from any pressure was just too great. I asked Steven to retrieve my power chair while Carolyn moved away the walker. This was only about the second time we've had the power chair in the house and it felt weird. I discovered that I could negotiate every door I needed to as long as I kept my left arm securely inside the chair arms.

We continued with our plans for a choir party (about 22 people) at our house that evening. I wasn't much help but at least I could participate. I don't think I'll be using my walker for the next few days.

Christmas is a Season for Taking

2011-12-01T16:00:00.000-08:00

Being by nature a contrarian, I often find myself trying to find another viewpoint, another way of looking at things. And since we hear so much at this time of year that Christmas is a time of giving, I'd like to propose that Christmas is a Season for Taking.

We should take the time to celebrate warmly and openly with friends, neighbors, family, and even strangers. Christmas is a time of good cheer. It lends itself to going out of our way to meeting and greeting people whose life we can enrich and who, in turn, will enlarge our circle of friends.
Take note of the beauties of nature. Take walks and bicycle rides. Take along your kids and grandkids. Take some pictures or videos of your adventures.

We can take the opportunity to dust off our musical talent, such as they are, and join the choir or the congregation in singing some of the happiest songs in the hymnal or the choir library. Take this opportunity whether or not your second grade teacher told you to be quiet when the others sing. Even the psalmist admonished us to "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord (Psalms 95:1)."

Let us take stock of where we are and how much we have been blessed in the past 12 months. We'll soon be making those irksome New Year's resolutions which can make us feel negative about our accomplishments. Take the chance this month to focus on the positives.

Take a look around your home, your neighborhood, your work area. How can you make a difference? Take a chance in asking someone to work with you on a clean-up or beautification project.

Finally, let us take time to really appreciate God's gift to humanity. We can recognize the symbolism in the gifts we give each other which represent God's gift to us as well as the gifts brought by the three wise men from the east.

Making progress

2011-11-14T11:36:00.000-08:00

I decided from some of the comments I was getting that NOT seeing my leg wound was making it sound worse than seeing it. Besides, it seems to me that it is so much better this week that I'm quite optimistic about the outcome. Here are the photos. I tried to edit them so they were as close as possible to the same orientation and size.

Nov 9

The size of each picture is approximately 6" square, about 6" below the knee. Although far from healed, the wound has lost virtually all the hypergranulation and is actually starting to grow healthy replacement tissue on the outer edges.

Nov 14

This morning I was seen by a wound specialist who changed the compression dressing and with silver nitrate cauterized a couple of the edges that looked like they would have trouble healing. She was reluctant to say how long the healing process would take but it would be several weeks.

She explained my diagnosis (stasis dermatitis associated with venous insufficiency) requires that I wear compression stockings - probably the rest of my life or I can expect further breakouts like this to occur. This one was complicated by bacterial infection. Fortunately, I have good arterial supply to my legs.

Thank you all for you concern, prayers, and well wishes.

You don't want to see it

2011-11-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

My leg, that is. When they removed the dressing this afternoon to check the status of the wound, I took a couple of pictures but I've decided they might be a little too graphic. If you imagine what a leg would look like if a pit bull bit into it and pulled off a piece of leg 2 inches in diameter and 1/4 inch thick, you'd be pretty close. It's not that regular looking but it's just as ugly.

I've been referred to Kaiser's "wound care specialist" who's supposed to call me within the next 7 days. I think that is both positive and negative - positive in that if they thought it was flesh eating bacteria I'd be in the hospital right now and negative because they're needing to escalate the care already.

As you're probably aware, nurses don't tell you anything without clearing it with the doctor and mine wasn't available today. But I had three of the office nurses look at my leg with great concern written on their faces. And one of them muttered the word "hypergranulation". Granulation is a good thing. It promotes skin growth over large wounds. Hypergranulation (sometimes called proud flesh), on the other hand, retards skin growth. So you have to "wound the wound" until the hypergranulation is eliminated and the normal healing process can begin. I'm guessing that's what the wound specialist does.

In the meantime, it's back with the tightly wound dressing on my leg and showering with my leg in a garbage bag to keep it dry.

From bad to worse - my left leg

2011-11-05T22:12:00.000-07:00

I have been nursing two problems with my left leg for several months: swelling from the knee to the toe; and an open sore about 3/4 in in diameter. Neither problem seemed that serious when I discussed each with my doctor. The support hose and lasix didn't help the swelling and the anti-fungal salve was only slowly helping the open sore.

Then last Saturday I put a different band-aid over the sore after rubbing it with the prescribed salve. It was one of those band-aids that is like rubber in that it deforms easily and sticks well even to wet skin. The next evening my skin was all red around one end of the band-aid. It felt like a bad sunburn or chemical burn. When we removed the band-aid the skin came off as well. The new wound was bigger and uglier looking than the original. So we placed the salve on both sores and placed a band-aid over the new sore. Yes, we're smarter than the average bear so we place the band-aid at 90 degrees from the previous one and (I can't believe this) we used the same flexible, sticky band-aids. The next morning (you guessed it!) removing the band-aid tore a 3/4 inch piece of skin. The other end had generated a blister 3/4 inch in diameter and a 1/4 inch high. The blistered had punctured and was leaking it fluid.

I got an appointment with the doctor Monday morning. He said to stop using the salve and the band-aid that had caused the trouble (duh!) and had his male nurse dress the wound with 4 x 4 gauze sponges. The doctor prescribed an antibiotic, prepared a specimen from the weeping blister, and told me to come back two days later to see how the wound was going.

Two days later, the wound isn't growing but it is uglier. The culture indicated that another antibiotic was called for. The nurse decided that it would heal better if the leg were not swollen. After dressing the wound, he proceeded to wrap my leg with four layers of gauze, foamy stuff, ace bandage type cloth, and netted tubing. I complained that I wouldn't be able to see the wound healing and he sympathized by saying he wouldn't be able to either.

I can still get my leg into my pants and my foot will fit into my sports shoe even with socks on. (It won't fit into my dress shoes with or without socks).. And I will wait until next Wednesday to look at the wound again.

Takin' it easy

2011-11-05T21:27:00.000-07:00

Edward came over with his family today. This isn't unusual for a Saturday as he and the boys have been so good about keeping our lawns mowed and edged. But this time he let Tim and Jake do all the work while he rested and talked. Although it doesn't appear that the stroke he last Wednesday left him with any lasting deficits, it still is a life changing event. His sense of humor is still evident. He said that whenever he can't remember something, he'll clasp his head and say, "That darn stroke! Wiped out that memory!"

A stroke of luck

2011-11-04T11:38:00.000-07:00

I was going to blog about my sore leg (or leg sore) but thought I'd better get the word out about Ed's situation. It's really his story to tell so if you get the chance, call him and get the straight scoop. But I'll try to give a summary as much as I know.

Wednesday, late afternoon, Ed was picking up Camdan from the day care center when he discovered he couldn't control the muscles in his left hand. He's left handed and couldn't sign Camdan out. Later, as the family was getting ready to sit down to dinner, Tiffany was on the phone with the "Emergency Call" nurse for Kaiser who encouraged Tiffany to take Ed into the emergency room. By now he was slurring his speech. If there's anyone who would recognize speech changes, it is Tiffany.

Tiffany called Carolyn to ask her to come watch over the kids while she and Ed went to the ER. Carolyn instead suggested she take the whole family to the ER where she'd pack the kids up in our van and take them home. That would shorten the time for Ed.

Because Tiffany had been talking to the nurse, he was quickly admitted to the ER where his symptoms were quickly validated. However, initial reports were mixed. To be on the safe side he was admitted for at least an overnight stay. Thursday, Kaiser ran several tests and verified that he had indeed had a stroke but it appears not to have permanently affected his abilities. Conversations that I've had with him on the phone indicate he can talk as well as ever and he certainly hasn't lost his sense of humor. For those who remember Ed's phobia of needless and all things hospital, you know that is significant.

Ed is due to be discharged today (Friday) noon about the time I am writing this. He ate a good breakfast and is just anxious to get out. If you have the time, I'm sure he would be tickled to hear from you. We certainly aren't happy he had a stroke but are grateful about the outcome.

Thanksgiving - the Ideal Holiday

2011-10-30T20:15:00.000-07:00

I ran the following essay in our Ward Newsletter for November:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanksgiving -the Ideal Holiday

That's saying a lot, I know, but just give me a chance to explain. Of course, you might already agree with me and wonder what all the fuss is about. In that case, just turn the page and continue enjoying this newsletter.

As I said, Thanksgiving is the ideal holiday. For one thing it hasn't been commercialized like Christmas or Mother's Day. Most years go by without my getting a single Thanksgivings Day card. And I don't think I've ever gotten a present from Saint Turkey. Not having to worry and worry and worry about what to get my wife for Thanksgiving goes a long way to making this the ideal holiday.

Don't get me wrong. Thanksgiving CAN be stressful, if we let it. If we know that cousin Jimmy always causes an argument with Uncle Tim, we just arrange to have one or both of them NOT invited. And if Aunt Millie can't stand the sight of the carved turkey, she can preside at the young folks' table. For Thanksgiving, you can make your own rules.

Speaking of rules, who says that you have to have a big roast turkey dinner and invite everyone you know and a few you don't? You just might want to spend the day alone reflecting on all the thing s you're thankful for - including some time alone. Be warned, though, about eating out for Thanksgiving. We tried that once. The food was delicious but the restaurant took a dim view of us when we went to snack on the leftovers.

Thanksgiving is for everyone. We can have a big Thanksgiving dinner and invite the Silversteins down the street or my co-worker Abrahim Akbar without worrying if we'll offend someone. Thanksgiving means to give thanks whether it is to God or Allah. Or to treasure within your heart. Thanksgiving is a time to be grateful, to be thankful, without worrying about your neighbor's beliefs or what he thinks about yours. Thank your friends for being your friends, your family for being your family; and your dog for helping to clean up the dropped turkey bits.

QR Codes

2011-10-20T18:57:00.000-07:00

Like me, you've probably seen designs like this in the newspaper and in various advertisements. Now that I finally have a phone/camera with the capability of decoding these things, I looked them up in Wikipedia. They're called QR codes and depending on the size and complexity of the pattern they can represent from 10 numbers to 5,000 alphanumeric characters. They have error correction capabilities ranging from 7% to 40%. Think of that - almost half of the pattern could be obliterated, covered with mud, or simply missing, and you could still recreate the content.

There are a couple of apps for the iPhone (I'm using QRReader) and a dozen or so websites that allow you to create your own QR code pattern. The one I used is QR Code Generator by Delivr located at http://delivr.com/qr-code-generator The pattern can contain website addresses, e-mailing addresses, or plain old text that may or may not be computer commands.

Scan the code here and see what you get.

The iPhone comes to our house

2011-10-16T17:25:00.000-07:00

I know it will sound like justification but it really is true. Carolyn's phone has been acting up on here for the past two to three years. It was one of the first of its kind but essentially the last smart phone that Palm Pilot made. She has not been able to connect to our computers for the past 2 years so she has not backed up her contact list and calendar for that long. Some days the phone will keep it's charge all day long and other days it is dead by the time she gets home. And because she and I have different make and model of phone we get frustrated trying to use each other's phone. We had a family plan with Sprint and Sprint wasn't selling or servicing the iPhone. And finally, we expected our monthly rate to more than double and for that we wanted a reliable, powerful system.

So when the iPhone 4s was announced and Sprint was going to be on board, we took the last two years savings and bought us a pair.

We pre-ordered by Internet so we could get a black one for me and a white one for Carolyn. About the same time stores were running out of stock, ours were delivered to our home.

Carolyn got a pretty blue gel case and screen protector.

I got an Otterbox Defender which totally encases the phone in hard plastic and rubber and has a tough belt clip as well.

Friday evening we activated the phones on line. Saturday we visited Sams Club and the Sprint Store to get protective cases and to transfer our contact databases and calendars. Today we tried to figure out how to place and answer calls. So far we're impressed.

A couple of changes in our service may impact the way you call or contact us: We have unlimited data so texting is free on our end. We have unlimited mobile to mobile calls regardless of the network. At least with the later models of iPhone we can now easily make actual face to face video calls like we've been promised in science fiction for over 50 years.

Random questionable ideas -2

2011-10-10T16:21:00.000-07:00

I have learned to question anything that is said with authority but without substantial reason to think the speaker knows what he's talking about. A current Republican presidential candidate was shown on a talk show recently saying, "I don't have the facts to back me up on this but ..." and he continued with his speculation about something. It didn't really matter because he had already chopped the legs off his own argument. Scientists generally rate pretty high on my list of people who know what they are talking about but the class I'm taking this semester may be undermining that. On the other hand, the strange things I'm hearing may be a result of my hearing loss rather than his statements. In any case, here are the questionable statements I heard in the latest classes:

Writing by hand (especially cursive) involves the fine motor skills and is therefore an emotional exercise Keyboarding with a typewriter or computer keyboard is not emotionally engaging.
The brain does not learn better by making exercises "fun". The brain learns solely through repetition.
Neanderthals actually had larger brains than early humans but lost out in the evolutionary struggle because they were unable to form the social groups that early humans did.
Human brains have shrunk in the past 500 years indicating a possible evolutionary trend.
The pointedness of dogs' ears correlates with their wildness. The more pointy, the less they are domesticated.
The incidence of Down syndrome children correlates with the age of the father more than with the age of the mother.

What about it? Anyone out there feel like taking one or more of these statements and find "facts" to either back up or refute the statement?

First Class doesn't always mean most expensive

2011-10-09T12:47:00.000-07:00

This is one of those "I'll bet everyone else in the whole world knows this and I'm just finding it out" type of blog posts. I grew up in the era of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th class postage which were generally reserved for packages, books, magazines, and all other stuff that didn't "deserve" first class status which was always fastest and most expensive. At least that is what I thought.

Well, recently I needed to mail a small package to Texas so before going to the Post Office I visited their web site to get an idea of what this would cost me.

After finding the "Get Prices" page on the USPS web site I filled out the bare basics of this package.
The next page warned me that I would have to use 1st class "package" rather than just first class if it met certain criterium.
I was then offered the rates beginning with the enticing words Express and Priority. Note the prices are from $26 down to $17. I'm beginning to think UPS might be better. The small package flat rate Priority is only $4.95. Maybe that's the way to go?
When I finally open the First Class section, it is more out of curiosity than anything else. I can't imagine how expensive a package going first class must be. But no! Surprise! First Class package rate is only two bucks. Best bargain in town. At this price I'll be back.

Saturday mornings

2011-10-08T12:11:00.000-07:00

Every other Saturday morning around our house has become so routine that we're in danger of taking it for granted. Edward brings Tim and Jacob (and sometimes Camdan) over to our house to mow and edge the lawns or some seasonal job such as clean out the gutters or sweep down the spider webs.

Timothy helps with the lawns unless he's needed to vacuum the carpet. Jake helps with the lawns unless he takes care of Camdan.

And everyone gets to enjoy Carolyn's great waffle, pancake, or French toast breakfast if they get here early enough.

I can't say enough about how much we appreciate our Saturday morning workers!

interesterified

2011-10-07T18:43:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered about those phone numbers on consumer products like milk or margarine that say "If you have any questions about our product call 800-555-1234"? I certainly have but until today I hadn't called. I called today after reading the ingredients on a Marie Calendar frozen chicken pie box. There on the fifth line down, second word over was this word I had never in my life seen: interesterified.
What the ??? I thought. I tried breaking it down interest-terrified, no; in-terestial-fried, no; in-te-rester-i-fied, no again. So I called.

I don't know what I was thinking. Yes, I do. I expected some happy Nebraska farmer to be spending a day off in the office just waiting for a call from me so that he could carefully and cheerfully explain what this mysterious word meant. But I should have expected an automated, impersonal answer such as, "Good morning from Con Agra, the smallest name for the largest food supply company in the world. You may select a menu item at any time by saying that item. Are you calling about Marie Calendar Chicken Pies or Another Product?"

I carefully said "Marie Calendar Chicken Pies".

The machine said, "I'm sorry I didn't understand your answer. You may select ...

After three unsuccessful attempts to understand me, the machine began tagging button punching to my menu: "If you are calling about Marie Calendar Chicken Pies say 'Chicken Pies' or press 1; otherwise press 2." It understood my button even if it didn't see which finger I was using to press it.

The next level followed with choices about caloric and other health facts, allergic reactions, menus, ingredients, and so on. We played our little game until the machine finally gave me button choices and I was able to give her the finger again. I chose ingredients. The machine read the ingredients, noting that they were in decreasing order of weight in the actual product and that the actual weights were a trade secret... But no explanation of interesterified. I pressed the button to talk with an actual customer representative and "surprise" I was told that "all our customer representatives are assisting other customers" so I should wait or call back. Five minutes later I was still getting the same message with no hint as to when my name might come up on their board.

I decided to Google. Wiki Encyclopedia quickly responded with the following:

Interesterified fat is a type of oil where the fatty acids have been moved from one triglyceride molecule to another. Interesterification does not alter the fatty acids. This is generally done to modify the melting point, slow rancidificationand create an oil more suitable for deep frying or making margarine with good taste and low content of saturated fatty acids. This is unlike partial hydrogenation which produces trans fatty acids.

Aha!! They've found a way around the ban on transfat oil! Other Google responses indicated that although the jury is still out on interestereified oil we should be cautious. We've been deceived before. But that's another story.

My walker gets an upgrade. My cell phone is jealous.

2011-10-02T15:24:00.000-07:00

At the side of this paragraph is a picture of my walker, the walker we bought last spring on our way home from a Parkinson's seminar in Palm Springs. It's been a good machine. In fact the only serious breakage hs been the little red reflectors at the near end of the arm rest. I'd point them out in the picture but they're not there.

I've been looking for something to replace them and finally saw something on Amazon. To show you, I decided to try the video capabilities of blogspot.

Is that impressive or what? It's an LED with four settings Off, On, Fast Blink, Slow blink. Now that I know this works, you may actually see some videos on this blog.

Shrek comes to Sacramento

2011-10-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

Last night I had two "firsts". It was the first time I had been in the Sacramento Community Center Theater, which sounds like a cozy little facility but is, in fact, a 2,422 seat facility located between the Capitol and the Convention Center. Also this is the first time I had seen a musical derived from a cartoon. In this case it was Shrek.

Sad to say, overall I wasn't really impressed. The theater is designed to be "portrait" rather than "landscape" which means that even seats on the edge get a fairly straight-on view of the stage but the seats are so far away from the stage that it really doesn't matter. Bathroom, food concessions, and souvenir shops all appear to be undersized. And getting around with a power wheelchair wasn't easy.

I have a mixed review of the play. The actors, dancers, puppeteers all make a tremendous effort and the play sparkled with energy. But we were so far away from the stage that I felt like I was watching the show on my iPod instead of on stage. We weren't familiar with the songs or most of the dialogue. So we ended up many times wondering what the people around us were laughing about.

Prior to the show we ate dinner at Spataro, just a block away from the theater. The service and food were excellent. The only item less than great was the warm chocolate hazlenut cake which was small, dry, and disappointing. at least the presentation was beautiful. And we so seldom order dessert that it can hardly be a significant factor in this review.

Refurbishing our Laptop - pt 2

2011-09-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

As I was saying in my previous post, I thought I was really fortunate to find System Mechanic. Not only could is clean up the registry but it also had at least a dozen other utilities necessary to "tune up" a computer. Many other companies have these programs also but they want to change you another fee for them. On the other hand, having so many tools meant that I could now use them to continue improving the status of the laptop.

However, as I began using all these tools I found that many of them seem to be more smoke and mirrors or simply duplicates of what is in Windows.

An example of the latter: disk inspection and fix. Not only does this procedure take a horribly long time but the report results looks a little familiar. After running it several times, it hit me. It was the old DOS program CHKDSK. This is the program we used to use in DOS when it looked like the hard drive was beginning to act flaky. It could be run in a test only mode or a test and automatically fix mode. And it has been included in Windows Vista under Computer>C:>Properties>General Tools. Defragmentation is there also. Of course one of the advantages of a program like System Mechanic is that it gives you another way to access these programs since Windows can be a bit obscure.

Speaking of dis defragmentation, I think this is an example of smoke and mirrors.

When you begin the defrag process you see a display of both the "entropy" (bar chart on the left) and the fragmentation (stadium chart on the right) of the disk. I've never seen such pretty defrag charts although I'm not sure what they really represent and whether they are meaningful or not.

I do know that after six hours there was a significant change in both charts. And according to the legend, the changes indicated progress.

After another six hours there was still more evidence of change but it seemed like we were getting increasing less progress per unit of time. And what was worse was that when I restarted the process, the entropy graph reverted back to almost the first graph in this series. The entropy, however, they've defined it, does not appear stable.

Of course, the computer itself may not be stable. One day it goes into so many infinite loops that we're ready to trash it and the next day it works perfectly - still slow but not dead.

Refurbishing our Laptop - pt 1

2011-09-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

This week and part of last I probably spent close to 30 hours trying to make our laptop computer perform the way it used to, the way it did when we brought it home from the store. Of course I'm scared to do what Friend of the family Eric Bushman would do: rebuild the system from scratch. Come to think of it, our two youngest kids would probably do that as well, and it wouldn't take 30 hours to do it.

No, I picked the approach that someone out there has faced (and solved) the same problem and would love to share their solution with the world. What I have found is more like the old adage of "garbage in, garbage out".

A thorough survey of the internet using Google to search for "speed up your computer", "fix that slow computer", "tired of waiting for your computer to start". etc. gave me a list of approximately 50 programs, almost all of which can be loosely classified as "registry cleaners". (A survey of late evening TV advertisements came up with a half dozen of the same solutions.)

Quick lesson on the registry: This is a super-humongous file that Windows uses to store indices, parameters, default values, keys, file names, passwords, ... that Windows will ever need to interact with other programs and various parts of Windows.

Now since Windows created the registry one might think they would feel some responsibility for keeping it cleaned up and updated. "Not our problem," says Windows as the registry grow and grows, getting bloated and unruly while your computer does indeed slow down. And cleaning your registry can indeed speed things up.

The problem is that registry bloat is just one of many problems that can cause your computer to slow down. In our case it actually had more to do with a faulty disk drive. But it could have been poor memory allocation, badly fragmented disk files, or outdated hardware drivers. Or a dozen other conditions. In which case a registry cleaner is just a waste of time and money.

Fortunately, I happened upon System Mechanic, a truly wonderful collection of utilities put together in a package that helps you to use them and understand what you're doing in the process. If I had gotten this tool at the beginning of the 30 hours perhaps I would have only spent 15 hours. System Mechanic doesn't eliminate the need for lengthy disk testing and repairing but it does help you know what to do.

(to be continued)

Random questionable ideas

2011-09-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

This semester I'm attending a seminar on "Our Amazing Brain". So far I've been less than impressed by some of the ideas put forth by our class coordinator. I hope I just misheard or misunderstood what he was trying to say.

1. There is a facial recognition portion of our brain. It is located close to the area responsible for recognizing color. This has the effect of making it more difficult for white people to differentiate and recognize people of of color . The reverse is also true.

2. People who write left-handed have more difficulty writing continuous, coherent sentences because their writing hand obscures what has just been written. This prevents the brain from coordinating the new thoughts being written down with what is already on the page. Of course, this is all now meaningless since no one writes with pen or pencil anymore.

3. Several important civilizations chose to write from left to right because it was easier to read what was written as it was being written. Among these forward thinking civilizations was ancient Greece who made the change in two steps.

Comments, anyone? I haven't been able to find a shred of evidence for such ideas.

Little Things

2011-09-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes its the little things that make a great difference. In this case it was a couple of piece of hardware that have made a big difference in my negotiating our back door.

The door leading from our house to our garage has spring-loaded hinges which usually ensures that the door is closed and we don't get the hot air, cold air, or bugs from the outside into our house. However, when someone has one or both hands full, such as carrying in groceries or pushing a walker, the spring hinge really gets in the way. Ever since we've lived here we've had a door prop. (It worked better before we got ceramic tile.) It kept the door 90% open. That's good enough for carrying in pages but got in the way of my walker.

Ta Daa! If the floor was causing the problem, avoid the floor. A magnetic door catch with a spring damper has replaced the prop. The door opens wide and stays open without sliding on the tile.

Another small improvement was the aluminum ramp. Not only do I no longer need to lift my walker into the house, but I can also easily bring my power chair into the house.

Taylor's sweet corn days

2011-09-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

There's really something special about Small Town, USA, especially if they have an active chamber of commerce, interfaith committee, or some other mechanism for people to get together and have fun.

The 50th Wedding Anniversary we attended recently happened to occur on the same weekend as the town's "Sweet Corn Festival". For those who haven't ever thought abaout the term, sweet corn is the kind that we eat on the cob and from a can. Field corn, on the other hand, is the kind that you feed to cattle or use for making fuel alcohol. And Taylor, Arizona is one of those small towns that can get together and have fun. In fact they're known for their July 4th Rodeo.

The Sweet Corn Festival started with a half marathon which we somehow couldn't get up early enough to enjoy. Next came the parade - a collection of 20 floats, "royalty" cars, and a band. I think this is the first time I've seen a float with live sheep, pigs, and hens aboard.

o what a t-shirt can do!

a horse with pink polka-dots

the livestock float

High School band

50th Anniversary couple & SOME of their descendents

The action then shifted to the rodeo grounds where a craft fair was underway. They also had barbecue, Hawaiian barbecue, Navajo fry bread, and, of course, sweet corn. .

The festivities continues through the afternoon with a farm rodeo and into the evening with a dance and, in our case, the 50th wedding celebration.

Forty Four Years and Still in Love

2011-09-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

What more can I say? I'm blessed with the most amazing wife in the world.

Music Circus: Miss Saigon

2011-09-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

If it were phrased as a qquestion "Miss Saigon?" I would have to answer "Yes, thank God. I did!" or "No, I really don't." You see, I missed going to Vietnam courtesy of Uncle Sam by the very skin of my teeth. So I did, in fact, miss Saigon. But I don't regret missing out.

Watching the Music Center's performance of Miss Saigon didn't bring back any false pleasant memories, or any memories for that matter. More of an opereta than a musical, the libretto of Miss Saigon was difficult for me to understand even though I had read the plot summary. None of the songs were "hummable" and the ending is just plain tragic.

Technically, the play was over-the-top from the opening dirty disco routine to the helecopter flying the last American't to safety. It wasn't so easy to pick out the good and bad guys so the political side of the war didn't play prominently in the production. Pretty, listenable music, just not singable or memorable.

A Special Needs Traveler

2011-09-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

I didn't know if retirement would bring more or less travel opportunities. I suspected that the 1 to 2 times a month that I used to fly for work would be more than made up by trips related to our family. Then when Carolyn retired, we would even travel more as seeing the world is on her bucket list.

Developing a disability that affects your walking is a life changing event. But that isn't the same as a life ending event. I really thought that my Parkinsons Disease would permanently prevent my traveling - at least by airplane. Well, Carolyn has convinced me otherwise. In fact, I can enjoy traveling more now than ever before. The secret is time and assistants.

With my disability, it takes longer for me to do things, from dressing to eating to packing. By planning in this extra time, I find that I'm actually less stressed about getting to the airport on time. Carolyn has been really good about building in this extra time.

Carolyn is the number 1, best assistant I could ever have while traveling. It makes more sense for her to handle everything from the tickets to the boarding passes to the tips to the ground transportation. I am put in a wheelchair as soon as we enter the airport terminal and, except for a short walk through security, stay in the wheelchair until I board the airplane. When we land I'm put in a wheelchair as soon as I walk off the plane. I don't have to know where I'm going or how to get there. Carolyn and the wheelchair attendant take care of all that. I don't worry about my luggage. Carolyn and the wheelchair attendant take care of that. I don't worry about tipping the attendants. Carolyn takes care of that. I don't worry about getting an early boarding time. My disability takes care of that.

I do still have to worry about what's in my pockets. At the Phoenix airport I was certain that I had emptied all my pockets. But the walk through machine thought otherwise. So I was intimately patted down. The officer asked me to empty a pocket that I thought was already empty. It contained a pop-up Frisbee I had completely forgotten about. The world is safer now that I revealed my Frisbee to the inspector.

(12 inch diameter Frisbee unfolded and folded in a little pocket)

50th Anniversary Celebration

2011-09-05T20:25:00.000-07:00

Married for 50 years and still have a vibrant marriage! What a wonderful reason to celebrate. For some people celebrating a 50th Wedding anniversary is best done with a small family party and with the couple repeating the vows that they spoke 50 years ago at the beginning of the marriage.

But in our family recently the conditions were just perfect for a celebration that could involve the close family, the extended family, and even the town where they spent most of their 50 years of married life. Specifically, my wife's second to oldest brother Norris and his wife Fawnette shared their joy and good fortune with anyone who cared to join them.

Following is a sort of picture story of this celebration. Please click on the picture if you'd like to see a larger version.

	The celebration day started with a parade, not for Norris and Fawnette but to celebrate Taylor Town's Sweet Corn Festival. It was an opportunity for Norris and Fawnette to honor the town at the same time the town cheered for them.
	There wasn't a trailer big enough for the whole family but there were representatives from most branches.

	Guests coming to the party were greeted by the bride and groom - Fawnette and Norris who tried to spend time with each person attending. They are shown here with Fawnette's wedding dress and Norris's Army uniform - the attire they wore when they were married.
	Almost all of Norris's siblings and spouses were able to attend. His older brother and sister-in-law had mission obligations.
	Most of the children were also able to attend. You may notice the poodle skirts worn by the women. They set both the theme of the party - late 50's - and the color worn by their family. The latter was especially helpful in figuring out which little child was looking for his mother.
	Each of the children with help from their family perform something for the program. Here, Fawne's family (note the purple theme) sang a beautiful love song in lovely harmony and a capella!

Michelle's husband John played his guitar and led his family in another love song.

The color coding ever showed up when a family was waiting their turn to perform.

Before and after the program, the young men and women of the family manned the ice cream and cookie bar, providing both refreshments and reinforcement of the 50's theme.

I think they enjoyed their assignment.

Two quilts were made by the children and their families. One shows various activities and interests while the other is photo oriented. Be sure to click on the quilts to see how lovely they are.

Norris broke into the middle of the program with a surprise solo of his own which concluded with his giving Fawnette a beautiful diamond Mother's ring.

A good time was had by all.

Thank you Norris & Fawnette for your lives of service, for your wonderful family, and you example for us all.

Another dumb business practice

2011-09-01T20:57:00.000-07:00

Maybe its time I made a category for this topic.

My example for today came from a headline in our local newspaper which stated that home loans could not be restructured when the payments had been regularly paid. Implied, of course, was that loans for which payments had not been regularly paid could and would be restructured! Talk about an incentive to do the wrong thing. Certainly the timeliness and reliability of your payments is one measure of your financial standing but it is only one measure and a poor one at that. Can you imagine a loan officer saying to an applicant, "You've skipped on 3 loans and are behind on your car payment with a total delinquency ratio of 50%. So we have approved a $100,000 loan for you of which we expect you to pay back $50,000 when you feel like it. Here's your check. Have a good day."

Let's reward those who pay on time not those who don't.

Singing for Fun

2011-08-31T13:02:00.000-07:00

A new semester. A new class. A new TYPE of class. This won't be the first time I have tried an off-campus class through the Renaissance Society as last semester I had the frauds and schemes class. But this is a singing class that I'm trying out this time. Actually, I'm looking at it as much for therapy as
for fun. My voice continues to less dependable. Some days I don't notice a problem and other times I can barely get out a word.

My Observations & possible meanings:
"Singing for Fun" is the name of the class. It intrigues me. I have dropped out of choirs before because they took themselves too seriously. In those choirs, choir members criticized each other and the director and the director was just as direct with his criticism. So "Singing for Fun" was a good start.

About 1/6 new members
To me this indicated a relatively stable group that was still growing.

Lots of talking prior to the class start.
Although many people sat down, a goodly number continued walking around visiting. I this is probably a good place to make friends.

"Music" was handed out..
1. Either Marilyn or Donna is organized, but 2. The music consists only of lyrics. This indicates to me that the ability to read music will not be necessary nor will there be a serious effort to teach or sing harmony.

The song selections are really golden oldies dating back to the 30s an d 40's
This reinforces the previous assumptions.

The first session seemed very disorganized.
We sang each song through in order giving Donnq an idea of how well we knew each tune and what key seemed best. We'll have to see what future sessions look like.

Music Circus - I Do! I Do!

2011-08-30T15:14:00.000-07:00

When we moved to Sacramento almost 10 years ago, one of the first things we did was subscribe to a full season of plays at the Music Circus. We quickly found out that seeing a Broadway quality production every week for 6 or 7 weeks is too much. It's costly to the pocketbook and the body. We much prefer the costs of the Davis Musical Theater Center where 6 shows of a season are spread throughout the year.

But still we will take in a Music Circus show from time to time. Recently we saw their production of "I Do! I Do!" It has a two person cast and portrays in song and dance the joys and trials of marriage from almost the beginning to almost the end. With actors in their 50s I found it stretching credibility at the beginning. And since she has aged faster than him, for most of the play, I found myself thinking it was a mom and her son rather than man and wife. The story line has aged, also. When they sang the lovely duet "A Man and a Woman were meant for each other, were meant for each other as husband and wife" it sounded like a low key advertisement for Prop 8 or the Defense of Marriage Act. There were no such overtones when we we saw the play 40 years ago in Utah. It's been a favorite of ours. I have the piano music. "My Cup Runneth Over" popularize by Ed Ames in the early 60's has always ben a favorite love song of ours.

I was impressed with something the Music Circus does for people with walkers and wheelchairs. Volunteers follow you to your seats then politely request that they "store" your equipment. They tag it with what must be the oldest tags in the business world then whisk them away. They show up again at intermission and again at the end of the show. It didn't look like they were expecting a tip of any kind.

Business practices

2011-08-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

This isn't the blog I had intended to write but events of the weekend have changed my mind. What I witnessed convinced me that many businesses are lucky they make any money or even that they stay in business at all. I'm thinking that I could write a book on running a business without ever having run one. Apparently I have experience that many business person's don't have - being a customer.

For example, I was shopping around for a ramp to go from our garage into our house through the door there which has a 2 inch threshold. Even though I was obviously interested and had even taken out my wallet, I was hesitating because I did know how it would fit. The salesperson suggested that I either (1) think about it, (2) go home and remeasure it, or (3) have her come out and measure it. All three options would have me leaving without a purchase and with a good chance I wouldn't be back. In addition, 3 could set up the salesperson for a costly non-productive house call. When I suggested I could buy the ramp and return it for exchange if it didn't fit as hoped for, the salesperson quickly discouraged that idea as I would be charged a 20% "restocking fee"! What a stupid idea! Most retail stores allow returns because it encourages purchases even if there is some risk of dissatisfaction. There is usually a much higher chance that the sale will stick. A restocking fee is a wholesaler concept and has no place in the retail business.

My second example concerns a piece of equipment called a SwingAway which allows me to carry my power wheel chair on the back of my Toyota Highlander and still have access to the rear door. Short story is that the original SwingAway malfunctioned and the manufacturer agreed to replace it under warranty. Should be a clear case of keeping the customer happy, right? Dealer stands to get lots of return business; isn't his fault the SwingAway malfunctioned; keep customer happy, right? This dealer must have it in his head that the manufacturer is the customer and the manufacturer should be kept happy. Since when?

This dealer acted like the malfunction must be the customer's fault. Live with it. Then when the manufacturer agreed to furnish a replacement, the dealer continued to act put out. Finally, when there was no other course of action, the dealer replaced the bad SwingAway with the good one, the dealer made a big deal about not charging for labor although he could because the warranty didn't cover labor. This dealer will be lucky if the customer every comes back.

In both these cases we're talking small business not informal bigbox business. Who is going to teach these business persons business?

Another Deadline, Another Issue

2011-08-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

As assignments go, our current assignment as editors of the ward newsletter has been one of the best. We've had a core of people who get their monthly information to us in a timely fashion and without needing significant editing. If there is a party or activity to attend so we can get pictures that is good also. We rarely get any feedback at all so we're either doing a fair job or people just won't complain for fear of getting the job themselves.

I had an interesting experience this month. In the "BYU" magazine, I had seen a cartoon of Pickles where Grandpa Earl explains to his grandson Nelson that Heck is where those people go who don't believe in Gosh. Of course the cartoon is copyrighted so I queried the website to see on what terms we could publish the cartoon in our ward newsletter. The published guidelines stated a $120 price but also suggested writing for a quote. I did and got the final quote of $35. Still too much. So no cartoon.

By the way, if you're interested in checking out our newsletter you can click on this link: http://thelasierralink.blogspot.com/2011/08/september-2011.html

the Root of all evil

2011-08-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

I have a congenital orthopedic flaw. I walk with my right foot about 30 degrees out from the proper alignment. The flaw is in my genes and therefore has been passed on to my children and grandchildren. It can be corrected by leg braces but, of course, this does not pass on to later generations.

This flaw caused me to wear out the heel of my right shoe faster than normal and this frustrated my mother no end. As a solution, when I started junior high she had steel taps nailed onto my shoes. It was too bad I didn't have any rhythm because you could hear me walking a block away. The taps reduced the wear on my heels and they also reduced my traction. This led to an embarrassing accident which has had long range effects on my life. Walking down the junior high school steps, I slipped and tumbled head over heels, finally coming to rest with my face firmly planted on the polished cement floor of the basement level of our junior high building. I was able to pick myself up and check to see that all systems were go. It seemed that my front teeth were a half inch further back than they should be but a quick prying motion with my thumb solved that. Other than being shook up a little, it seemed that no harm had been done.

Was I ever wrong! Not only had I chipped one tooth but I had also killed the roots on that one and two others. And those three teeth would cause me problems the rest of my life. The latest incident was just yesterday.

For the past week I had felt a pressure irritation in my front gums, a feeling that I was familiar with. In the past it has meant an infected abscess, a pocket of dead cells and pus. My dentist concurred and referred me to a specialist, an endodontist. Luckily, I was able to get an appointment for a consultation even if it was 8:45 Friday morning. I knew by experience that this doesn't go away so the quicker I could handle it, the better. The consultation went well, almost exactly what I would have predicted. Of course there were some unknowns because you can see only so much with an x-ray. Only when you actually operate can you see what needs to be done. But it looked like a "simple" operation taking less than an hour.

As I was negotiating an appointment next week for the operation, word came that an afternoon appointment had been canceled. Would I like to come back Friday afternoon? Well, yes and no. I wanted it taken care of but I was still trying to used to the whole operation thing.

At 3:00 I came back. At 5:30 I was standing somewhat unsteadily at the front desk to pay our portion of the $1,500 bill. This was not the Friday I had planned for. And of course the worst was yet to come as the anesthesia started to wear off and I could start feeling the incisions, sutures, and blunt trauma done to my gums. I can tell I won't be doing much this weekend.

Renaissance summer session ends

2011-08-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

Now that the fall semester is almost ready to begin, I guess I should say something about the summer session. I think I attended more summer classes than I usually do. It helped to have someone to sit with on a regular basis and discus the classes with. This companion was Beth Bennett, a delightful older lady who has ha the mixed fortune of outliving so many of her friends that she is kept busy trying to make new ones.

Seeing more classes I had a better chance to evaluate and analyze. It appeared that they strongly encouraged each of the class coordinators for the Fall and Spring Semesters to volunteer for a summer class. They would either teach one themselves or ask one of their class members to present what he/she presented during the regular session. Since I had so much fun presenting Judy Small, I was actually hoping our coordinator would ask me to redo it for Summer. He chose instead to use the same format I did but present 6 or 7 different singers.

He ran out of time which turned out okay since many of his song picks wouldn't play.

Time and relativity

2011-08-25T15:14:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to think that the speed of light is slowing down near me which is having the effect of speeding up all the clocks that measure my day. Things that used to take 10 minutes take half an hour. Things that I used to do in an hour now take three. It's frustrating.

My library volunteering has been directly affected. I was assigned as one of the workers with the "pick list", the list of books that people have requested to be set aside. This reservation system continues to grow because it is so popular with the patrons. Well, I could see my productivity tanking and the 2 to 3 hours of walking among the bookshelves wearing me out more and more. So I asked for alternatives.

My main assignment now is to add RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) tags to as many books as possible and register those tags with the main library database.

The RFID tags we're using look to all the world like harmless address labels affixed to the back cover of each library book. However, if you could see inside, it looks like this:

You can read more about RFID devices and systems at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rfid

Apparently three branches of the 28 branches in the Sacramento County library system already have all their books tagged To check books out of these libraries you no longer have to scan individual books. Just setting the whole pile on an RFID reader does the trick. Although that might reduce bottlenecks, I suspect the library has not put out money just for this purpose. The same system would certainly speed up checking books in which is a little more cost effective

Second shoe drops ...the right way!!!

2011-07-05T17:32:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a fast, fun-filled, fruitful, fireworks-friendly family vacation in Southern California. That may explain all the calls and e-mails not answered. We did have computer access but little time or energy to do the right thing. We'll try to catch up before the next wild trip the end of this month.

As you can probably deduce from that last paragraph, Carolyn is feeling well and doing more than she probably should as she recovers from her surgery. The wound is healing as good as can be expected and all the indicators are pointing the right direction. Two weeks ago I said we were waiting for the other shoe to fall so that we'd have a better idea of what the next step will be. Well, we got word just as we were leaving last week so the word didn't get out. But... the good news is that it's GOOD NEWS!!

Based on the OncotypeDX testing, the recurrence risk of the cancer is low. In addition, there is no evidence that chemotherapy will improve the prognosis.

That means Good News and Good News. Low risk and no chemo!

Carolyn will need to proceed with hormonal medication which has some side effects similar to menopause.

Thanks again to all of you who kept us in your thoughts and prayers. We love you.

Another dumb business practice

2011-07-01T20:57:00.000-07:00

Carolyn's hanging in there

2011-06-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

Seeing Carolyn start to get restless and knowing that soon she'll be itching to work the garden, I was happy to see her doctor release her from confinement and bedrest. It seemed to me that Carolyn actually did much better at work. She's been back a week now and looks healthier. However, she says that she's much more tired than she used to be at the end of the day. I think she should just plan to come home when she starts feeling beat.

No word from the laboratory regarding her need for or the effectiveness of chemotherapy.

A Tale of Two Remotes

2011-06-18T14:50:00.000-07:00

Remember the Dr. Seuss book "Old Hat, New Hat? I don't want to be a spoiler but I probably should have named this entry Old Remote, New Remote.

Champagne Clicker

There have been so many times when I've been working outside and both the side door and front door were locked. The cars were all safely locked in the garage. And I needed to get in. So when we saw the display at we thought this might be a good Fathers Day gift.

I was concerned about compatibility but it clearly named the brand of garage opener we have as one of the brands this switch was compatible with.

It wasn't! Even a trip to the Internet yielded only disappointing news. Several people had responded to this product and the overall scoring was high except for a couple having to do with our brand. They were not happy campers, indeed.

LiftMaster control unit

When I tried to install the new remote it refused to take the new codes. Nothing we saw on the Internet comforted or enlightened us. Carolyn thought we should try the old unit that has been sitting on the side of the garage since we bought the house. I had thought it was broken. And we had no clue how to program it;

The battery was certainly dead and it was one of those kind that is carried no where but Radio Shack. And we had no idea how we would program it. Fortunately I was able quickly to identify the unit and find instructions for it on the Web. So we ended up with the remote control we wanted.

Net result, we have a remote unit that does what we need and we got it for the price of a battery, not the price of a new unit. Old Hat, New Hat, New Remote, Old Remote.

Waiting for the second shoe....

2011-06-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

We just got back from the oncologist's office. Our hope was to know everything about what is going to happen but we really didn't think we'd be that lucky. We do know a little more, however.

First the doctor told us about hormone therapy which is quite popular with fighting breast cancer. Having studied up on all this, Carolyn asked Dr.Duong if all the side effects he was describing weren't very similar to the symptoms of Menopause. He agreed. Then Carolyn asked if the medication didn't actually increase the occurrence of certain types of cancer. In other words, this could be a classical win-lose situation She could win the battle against one cancer only to fall victim yet again to another. No, Dr. Duong, countered, a new drug on the market has the same efficiency in killing cancer cells without causing additional cancer. The side effects really are just like going through menopause. That was good news.

Carolyn steeled herself for the second shoe to drop as Dr. Duong said, "Now about chemo. . ." Carolyn let her breath out slowly. "We're not at all sure it would be worth it," Dr. Duong continued. Apparently there is a test they can run on the cancerous tissue which will give a better idea about just how effective chemo will be. They hadn't run that test yet, since they wanted to know first if Carolyn needed those test results to make up her mind about accepting chemotherapy. The decision really is in her hands but she can ask for a test to help her make that decision. She opted to wait for the test results which we can expect in about 2 weeks.

We wait some more.

She's a believer

2011-06-08T19:05:00.000-07:00

Carolyn says that if she wasn't a believer before, she is one now - a believer, that is, in having annual mammograms if you are in a moderate to high risk group. Catching cancer early can make all the difference in the world.

The surgeon just called with the pathology report on the tissue taken during Carolyn's surgery last week. As you will recall, the surgeon not only removed both breasts in a bilateral mastectomy, she also removed a tumor that had been identified as cancerous. The tumor was 1.7 cm in length with "activity beginning in the surrounding tissues." As previously noted the tumor had characteristics of lobular (branches that lead to the milk ducts) and ductal carcinoma. The surgeon removed 8 lymph nodes - none of which showed evidence of cancer.

Official diagnosis: Breast Cancer, stage 1-B

What is next? Carolyn will meet with the medical oncologist to discuss whether hormone therapy (the tumor is estrogen sensitive), chemo therapy or something else is most appropriate.

Oh, the unknown.

All is well, all is well

2011-06-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

Of all the operations that Carolyn has endured in the past 10 years, I think she's bounced back from this one the quickest. She has several restrictions from her doctor about things that she shouldn't do and she's staying pretty much within guidelines. She isn't outside washing the windows or trying to do heavy housework. I couldn't stop her from making our bed this morning. She moves much faster than me.

To all those who have asked or are going to ask: Yes, Carolyn is accepting visitors, phone calls, and email. She has enjoyed your comments and well-wishes but she'll need visits and phone calls to keep her sitting down.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

It's good to be back home

2011-06-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

We just got back home from the hospital. Carolyn was discharged this morning with the usual warnings to not do much of anything until her wounds heal. Her first words on looking over our rain-soaked back yard were, "Looks like the sweet peas sure need picking." Wanna bet how long it takes for her to convince herself that she needs to take care of the blooming flowers?

I asked Carolyn if she'd like to post an entry this morning. Here she is:

Well, I thought I was quite coherent until I listened to a message I left on the telephone and ......
I'm pleased to report that I am home and feel fine. It is amazing what a good pain pill can do for you ;o). Actually, I haven't really needed the pain meds for more than a headache.
Depending on who I listen to I am to lounge around and do nothing much for two to six weeks. I'm planning on two weeks. It sounds like it is time to read the books and watch all those movies I've been saving up.
Thank you each for your good wishes, prayers and kind thoughts. They are very helpful.
Now I just have to learn how to handle the after surgery drains.
It is good to be alive.
Carolyn

I think she summed it all up very well.

On the Road (to recovery) Again

2011-06-03T17:53:00.000-07:00

The News

It was a much happier, brighter, and more alert Carolyn who answered my phone call this morning than the one I visited with last night. She admitted that she couldn't recall a bit of conversation with Ed, Tiffany, or me last night, just a vague recollection of someone being in her room. I was calling this morning to ask what, if anything, she wanted me to bring to her. I was also interested in what her day was shaping up to be.

By the time I arrived shortly after10 she had begun taking walks the length of the nursing station. But she also welcomed the reading book I brought. She informed me that "we" would be instructed at 1:00 this afternoon on the care and cleaning of her drainage tubes coming from her chest cavity. The doctor had said that after the instruction, Carolyn could go home at any time.

However, as the day wore on and Carolyn continued to feel a little queasy, she decided she would rather stay an extra day; that a couple of extra meals in her stomach might help. So the plan now is for her to be all packed and ready to go about 9:00 tomorrow morning.

News behind the news

The discharge timing question boiled down to "where would be easiest to get good rest" and which would be the best place for care and comfort if Carolyn were to become more nauseous. I didn't think there would be any question given the usual hospital environment. Carolyn's roommate, a woman in her 80's who had fallen and broken her ankle, was quiet enough but when her children and grandchildren came it became a noisy room indeed. One of the hospital staff finally reminded the family that visitors must be 12 and older and that only 2 at a time could visit in the patient's room. Whereupon the patient's daughter roughly pulled the 2 year-old girl out of the room while saying loudly, "THEY don't want you to visit Grandma!" Good theater but hardly a peaceful environment.

Finally, in a perverse twist of incentives, by staying an extra night Carolyn becomes an inpatient, loses her outpatient status, and qualifies for a $15 refund of her co-payment. What a world! She gets paid for extending her stay!

Under the knife and out again

2011-06-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

News bulletin:
Carolyn had a bilateral simple mastectomy this afternoon. The doctor also removed 5 lymph node specimens closest to the identified tumor in her right breast. Two tissue samples were frozen and sent to the lab. The results were negative for cancer. The doctor wants to see the complete pathology lab report for all submitted tissue before giving a conclusive prognosis but she seemed positive about this afternoon's surgery.

Carolyn is resting as comfortably as can be expected given the assault to her body. She is sore and slightly nauseous but dozing off from time to time as the anesthesia slowly works out of her system. She looked a bit like Smurf Grandma when she came out of surgery due to the blue dye used to identify the optimal surgery target but already by 9:00 this evening, her normal color was returning.

The doctor was optimistic about discharging Carolyn Friday afternoon if she continues to improve at her current pace and if the doctor is convinced she can get adequate care for her wounds and fluid drainage.

News behind the news:
Since Carolyn has now had 4 major surgeries in the past 10 years, all at Kaiser, we feel we're becoming somewhat expert at evaluating their systems. This time it appeared to me that they were continuing to find ways to improve and continuing to fail. For example, there were 4 separate times Carolyn was interviewed as part of the "admitting" process, 5 if you count the pre-op surgical consultation. There was an interview in the Peri-Operating Medical clinic by a hospital based internist, a billing and fiscal responsibility interview by an admitting clerk, a workup by an RN in the Pre-Op staging area, and a mini-workup by an RN on the nursing floor where Carolyn was placed to begin her healing process. Each person collected some unique information but they also collected duplicate and redundant information making us wonder if any of the information is really coordinated between departments.

Another example. As Carolyn left the Pre-Op staging area to be wheeled into the Operating Room, we were given a card indicating what we could expect to see in the OR waiting room. Similar to the flight monitors in airports, a patient monitor in the waiting room indicates by a code each person scheduled for surgery today. A color code and legend then indicates where the patient is in the system: pre-op, surgery, recovery, discharged, etc. Only problem is that Carolyn's coded listing still showed her in the pre-op area 2 hours after we had seen her enter surgery. And there was no indication why. We didn't know whether is was a delay with Carolyn or some other patient, or even the whole OR system. And no one offered to tell us how long the delay might be. In this case trying harder just didn't help.

Sacramento Jazz Jubilee 2011

2011-05-31T10:15:00.000-07:00

The Sacramento Jazz Jubilee is now history for another year. We volunteered, as usual, and we enjoyed it, as usual. But this year we did something a little unusual and lots of fun. We invited our oldest (almost 14 now!) grandsons Ben and Perry to come stay with us for the four day festival and enjoy it with us. It didn't hurt that they are both serious music students and had expressed some interest in the Jubilee. They're also both well-behaved and easy to get along with.

As a shift manager for our site, Carolyn was responsible for supervising a team of approximately 15 people to do various things: from announcing the bands to getting drinks for the bands and volunteers, to evaluating the bands and counting the crowds to verifying that everyone entering the Sheraton ballroom had a valid ticket or pass. Although our team was mostly new to us, they were all reliable and a joy to work with.

Although I was listed as Carolyn's assistant, I wasn't much help. But that didn't stop me from enjoying the assignment. For example, the group Sister Swing (one of our favorite groups) needed a handsome old man to pose with. I was more than happy to volunteer because that's what my badge says I do.

Surgery scheduled

2011-05-30T08:57:00.000-07:00

As we had expected, Carolyn's breast cancer surgery has been scheduled for this week, specifically Thursday, June 2. She has already completed her lab work and will go in Tuesday morning to complete all the paperwork. Thursday morning she has an appointment in Nuclear Medicine to have dye injected in her lymph nodes to determine the extent of their involvement with the cancer and thus how extensive the surgery will be. She will also get the final word as to when the actual surgery will take place. She is expecting to have a bilateral mastectomy. The surgeon expects no complications and also expects that Carolyn will be able to go home on Friday following an over night stay to make sure that the healing process has begun normally.

We appreciate your expressions of love and concern as well as the many prayers that have been offered in Carolyn's behalf. We'll keep you posted here on her progress.

Good news, bad news, no news

2011-05-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that dealing with a diagnosis like cancer is a lot like peeling a banana: you never know what you'll find just by peeling the skin back a little further. The fruit might be solid and white or mushy and brown or anywhere in between.

Good news is that there is no evidence of cancer in the left breast. Bad news is that the tumor in the right breast does not seem as well defined as at first thought. There is still no news about any spreading to the lymph nodes or anywhere else in the body. Apparently we'll have to wait until surgery for more word about that.

Surgery has not been scheduled yet but will definitely be after Memorial Day and the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee for which we already had a commitment to volunteer about 16 hours as well as chaperon a couple of our grandsons around to some exciting concerts. We're guessing the surgery will be the first week of June. Although Carolyn has chosen to have a bilateral mastectomy, the doctor thinks it will only involve an overnight stay in the hospital. She hasn't said how quickly Carolyn can expect to resume her normal activities.

We did have a consultation appointment with the plastic surgeon. Because of all the radiation therapy that Carolyn has had in her breast and stomach area, he was not enthusiastic about using her skin or fatty tissue in those areas for reconstruction surgery (boob job). That, plus the potential problems such as leakage or asymmetry, led him to recommend prosthetics instead. Carolyn took the news rather well.

We went over to our home teacher's home yesterday. They are going on an Alaskan cruise and Carolyn has volunteered to look after their garden. Don and I gave Carolyn a blessing she had requested.

That's probably all the news we'll get until we hear when the surgery is scheduled. Thanks for all the kind wishes and prayers and thoughts. We really feel your love and friendship.

Sprinkler system rehab

2011-05-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

One great thing about having pre-teen grandsons living close to us is that they have been willing and able to mow our lawns. And they do a fair job of it although Jake's method of mowing is akin to a Kreepy Krawler pool sweep or a Roomba vacuum cleaner: totally random pathways. Unfortunately, they haven't yet learned to recognize a sprinkler head or distinguish it from a blade of grass. So, we have had to do more sprinkler maintenance as a cost of having our lawns mowed.

The other day I volunteered to help Carolyn repair the system. I would turn the sprinklers on and off and she could fix the heads we determined had a problem. She directed me to the manifold where one can manually turn a knob to turn a particular branch on or off. I explained that I could do it even easier and stay drier with the sprinkler system timer but then we'd have to yell louder or use our phones because the timer is in the back of the garage.

The next day, I wanted to check out the system and set the sprinkler times so I had to use the timer.Turns out, I couldn't use the timer. I pressed the manual override so the first branch should go on. Nothing. Well, not nothing, the LCD display said "No power". Now how, I asked myself, did a timer with electronic display have the nerve to say "No power"? Carolyn had said something about turning our fountain off but that doesn't turn off the timer. I thought. It didn't take me long to determine the outlet was dead and the timer display runs off a battery.

Two other outlets in the garage were dead including one for our microwave oven and the circuit for our driveway lantern. The light went on (so to speak). A GFI (ground fault interrupt) had tripped a safety switch and cut the circuit. Resetting the GFI switch turned on our lantern, the microwave, and the sprinkler timer. I tested out the sprinklers without getting wet and all is happy again. Except we still don't know what caused the GFI in the first place. And, of course, we've had rain almost every day since repairing the sprinkler system so it really doesn't matter if it works or not.

Slowing down or speeding up

2011-05-18T19:18:00.000-07:00

Giving up a driving license is always a traumatic experience for people who have grown up with the freedom and flexibility to drive wherever we want without having to bother someone else. (Most of us don't have a chauffeur at hand.) And it is something that most of us have to deal with sometime. Those of us with a progressively disabling disease like Parkinson's just have to deal with it a little sooner.

A couple of people in my Parkinson's Support Group have shared with the group that they voluntarily gave up driving rather than push their luck. I'm not at that point yet but I can feel that I'm creeping up on it. Late in the evening, at night, or in rainy weather I feel much more uncomfortable driving than I used to. Enough so that I have voluntarily cut back as much of that driving as I can. Fortunately, Carolyn and I are usually going somewhere together during those difficult to drive times so it's usually not a problem.

At the same time I've requested additional physical therapy so that I can walk better and faster once I do get close to where I want to go. I don't want to be stranded.

More information will be forthcoming, we hope

2011-05-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

Carolyn and I met with her surgeon today to discuss the most likely direction the treatment of her breast cancer will take. We've learned that some surgeons talk like that because you can't really know what's inside the body until you open it up and sometimes a surgeon will make a quick decision based on what he or she finds in the operating room or what the path lab report says. Carolyn had an MRI last Friday but the results had not been interpreted and reported to her surgeon by this morning's appointment.

Carolyn has two types of cancer cells in a small tumor in her right breast. Because one of those types tends to spread in the body and because Carolyn has already had a significant exposure to radiation in that area, the surgeon is recommending a mastectomy probably followed by chemotherapy. She (the surgeon) wanted to leave the chemotherapy recommendation to the medical oncologist.

The surgeon said the mastectomy usually calls for an overnight stay in the hospital and for a fairly quick recovery time. Even so, Carolyn has suggested that the operation be scheduled for early June to allow her to get through the Jazz Jubilee as planned. The surgeon is okay with that.

We'll keep you posted as we get more information.

Morrocan restaurant review

2011-05-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, Carolyn and I wanted to eat out and hadn't decided where we'd go. Thumbing through our Entertainment Book, Carolyn suggested the Casablanca, a Moroccan restaurant at Fair Oaks and Watt. She called to see if (1) they were still in business and (2) still accepting the Entertainment Book discount. She also asked if a reservation was necessary. The answers were yes to all three questions.

The locale is anything but impressive. They share a tiny strip mall with a liquor store on one side and a Goodwill Industry collection storefront on the other. When we arrived at 7:00 pm there was only one other couple in the place. We began to feel bad about asking for a discount if they only have 4 customers for the evening. It's a small restaurant anyway with seating for 40 at most. All the tables are a foot off the ground with a large 3 to 4 foot brass platter serving as the table top. There were 2 or 3 seating pillows at each table as well as some seating around the periphery of the room. So people could sit close to the floor (and the food) or at a more normal height but away from the food.

There were basically two choices on the menu - limited selection 5 course meal and no selection 6 course meal. With the latter, it was really chef's choice. We chose that because we wouldn't have any idea what to choose anyway. By the time we had made our choice, the room was almost half full so Carolyn relaxed a little about using our Entertainment Book discount.

Before we could get our food, we had to wash our hands. To assist us, the Master of the House (MOTH) brought over a portable tin sink and poured lukewarm water over our hands. Really classy in an old world sort of way. Next came soup that was not too hot but just right. After that it was a plate of spicy peas and tomatoes with pita bread then a pastry confection that looked like we had reached dessert. Our MOTH assured us we had not.

The restaurant was now almost completely full, a third of the people belonging to what looked like a birthday party for a 5 or 6 year old girl. All her girl friends and a couple of relatives were there. The MOTH changed the lighting and background music. We all looked around puzzled until a brightly dressed woman glided on center stage and began belly dancing. The little girls were entranced, the men in the room seemed slightly embarrassed, and the woman amused. Soon either the moms or the dads were pressing a $1 into the young girls hands and urging them to slip the tip inside the belly dancer's costume. It must have been harder than it looks, mainly because she was such a moving target.

Finally we got our main course which was lamb with rice and trimmings and chicken with a sweet sauce. Our last course was a dense, very sweet pastry. By the time were we ready to leave, the dancer was ready for her second set. The MOTH computer our bill, discounted it appropriately for the Entertainment Book discount then told us that he wasn't going to void the coupon. We could use it again and again.

During the evening several guests had brought in their own alcohol in a bottle since the Casablanca doesn't serve any. Now outside we chuckled at the convenience of the liquor store.

All in all we would say it was a very good evening. With tax and tip it amounted to $72 before the discount. A little pricey for going there regularly.

The DMV comes through

2011-05-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

It seems to be the fashion now to trash talk government employees. One agency that particularly seems to get more of its share of griping is the DMV. I beg to differ. My experiences with the DMV have, in general, been positive. Recently, this was reconfirmed.

Because my Parkinson's severely affects my balance and walking, I applied for and received in the mail this hanger to be placed on the dashboard or hung from he mirror. The hanger was to expire on June 30, 2011. Since that is about 7 weeks away, I was concerned whether the DMV would send a reminder. Would I need another statement from my doctor?

Then just a couple days ago, a replacement placard with an expiration date of June 30, 2013 arrived. No notice, not another examination or doctor's statement. Thanks, DMV

How to Succeed in Business... Davis Musical Theater Center

2011-05-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday evening Carolyn and I spent a delightful evening at the Davis Musical Theater production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." The play was inspired by a paperback book of the same name which was published in 1952. The book by Shepherd Mead was close to biographical, describing Mead's meteoric rise in a corporation, so the play is biographical as well. Both the book and the play are also grossly satirical -- poking fun at corporate culture such as sending a memo to attempt to rein in excess memos. But it (they) is also dated. In the 50's corporations were largely male dominated, sexual harassment was not a problem, and a chairman of a board apparently has more power in daily decisions. Thus, the play comes off as an old relic.

But for doing such an old looking play, the cast did a marvelous job. Casting was, as usual, right on the money. The principals all sang in tune and with a suitable accent when required. Choreography involved more than just dancing and was carried out with precision and energy. I was exhausted just watching them.

The music was fun rather than memorable. You won't go away humming a tune or even remembering one from the show unless it's "I Believe in You" or "The Brotherhood of Man."

I would recommend the DMTC's production of "How to Succeed" as a great example of what a community group can do with a dated production.

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

It is with some trepidation that I post today about Mothers Day. After all, there are good moms and there are lousy ones. There are faithful ones and unfaithful ones. There are mothers who would compete favorably with God and ones that will rank with Lucifer. Because it's Mothers Day, do we honor all mothers? motherhood? potential motherhood?

I believe we honor the ideal and the idea of motherhood. Without mothers, our race would die. Without mothers who strive to be ideal, who teach and train their children how to live an ethical life, our race would probably deserve to die. Mormons teach that "the natural man is an enemy to God". It takes the influence of mothers, fathers, and even a whole village to raise a child. I think Mothers Day is a good time to reflect on mothers' positive role in this process.

As our society changes we have also seen that "mother's role" also changes. Even who the "mother" is can change from day to day and hour to hour. And not just for same sex unions. Such unions usually have significant experience defining then redefining "mother's role".

And finally, Mothers Day is a day to inspire us to help mothers come closer to the ideal and for non-mothers to be inspired by those who have shown that spark of god-like motherhood.

You're giving me a .... what?

2011-05-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

Having more and more difficulty bending down to reach my feet, I can just barely clip my toenails, let alone clip them nicely. So, the other day Carolyn told me to get in the car as we had an appointment in 15 minutes. Where? I asked nonchalantly. (Sometime I'm going to have to try asking chalantly.) To the KB Salon was her answer. For ... For a pedicure, she replied as it that was the end of the discussion.

I knew a pedicure is for feet what a manicure is for hands and that was the limit of my knowledge. I strongly suspected that men seldom, if ever, frequented "salons". Thus, I was NOT surprised to find that I was the only male customer. I was not the only man in the place, however. There were a couple of other men who looked like they were on the staff. In any case no fuss at all was made about my getting a pedicure.

My first impression of the salon was how clean it was, and orderly. I would compare it to a good dental office. Some of the staff were wearing face makes and all who worked with the customers wore sterile gloves. The chairs all faced the same way and were just close enough that you could converse with your neighbor but far enough away that you didn't have to. Between each pair of chairs was a utility table for magazines, drinks, and whatever else a customer might need during her stay.

The same time I was sitting down, one of the staff begin filling a small basin in front of me with warm water. Into the water he squirted some blue liquid which didn't foam so I assumed it was either a disinfectant or something to soften toe nails. The attendant showed me the chair controller. Turns out there is a powerful massage engine built into the chair so while you're getting your nails done you can have a nice back massage.

The attendant took each of my feet in turn, placed it on a foot rest and began to clip my toenails. This was only a start. Taking out a little tool that looked like a wire cutter, the attendant carefully sculpted my nails and surrounding tissue. It was the about the "surrounding tissue" that I was concerned. While she was cutting and scraping and sculpting it didn't hurt but I could picture some problems later. After the toenails, she scraped and sanded my sole and heel then rubbed lotion into the whole foot and calf area. She finished by wiping off the excess lotion and helping me put my shoes on. She didn't offer to paint my nails with the bright red polish all the women were getting.

I let Carolyn take care of the payment and tips since she had a better idea what to do in that department. The whole process took almost an hour.

My feet were sore every once in a while during the following week but less each day. In general, they look better and feel better so I might even have my toenails done on a weekly basis. Thank you, Carolyn. Once more you have surprised me with a "random event".

The next chapter in the history of Carolyn's Health

2011-05-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

I suppose it really is time to officially open this next chapter because there is no longer any doubt that Carolyn is back in the ring against the formidable opponent Cancer. Here is the announcement that Carolyn sent out to our children and I forwarded to our Facebook friends. I apologize for the duplication:

I decided that during my birthday month each year I would have a yearly physical, a mammogram, pap smear, blood tests et.al. In the process of doing this year's series a lump was found in my right breast. While the lump is on the small side (1.5 cm) the biopsy came back today as cancerous. It appears to be a combination Ductal and Lobular Carcinoma. At this time we do not know if it is non-invasive or if it has spread. I specifically asked to have it checked and verify that it is not lymphoma (and there is no indication that it is).

The next steps are an MRI of my breasts - they will inject a dye into my veins and then do a scan. After the MRI results are back I will have surgery. The results of the MRI will influence whether or not it is a lumpectomy or a mastectomy. I anticipate another round of chemotherapy. I told the doctor I wanted a boob job out of this game -- just as well be some benefit.

While another kind of cancer doesn't seem fair, I have been expecting something. I was raised in Northern Arizona during the time of the above ground Atomic Testing in Nevada. People in all the counties in Nevada, and in the southern counties of Utah and the northern counties of Arizona are all in an at-risk cohort. A statistically large number of people who were young during the 50s and 60s when they were doing the testing have had unexpected cancers. Two of my first cousins died in their early 30s from weird cancers - I feel like I have been very fortunate to have had a full and interesting life. However, this one isn't my swan song. I will survive this one to have another one in about three years.

If I can influence the scheduling of testing and surgery I will try to have the MRI this Friday, the surgery the next Friday and be ready to enjoy the Jazz Jubilee with Ben and Perry two weeks after that. When they go home, I will try and schedule the chemo and be ready for the Family Reunion in Utah the first part of August. Dad says that sounds like pure Carolyn. Since none of this has been discussed with medical personnel, we will see if they go along with my plan.

I would appreciate your faith and prayers.

Carolyn

We were aware of a potential problem when we traveled to Utah for a family funeral but since we didn't know at the time if the lump was even cancerous, we decided not to speak about it. Besides there was enough tragedy in the family with Brian's passing.

Carolyn is beginning to be superstitioius about something happening every three years. First there was her myasthenia and removal of a baseball-sized tumor in her chest. Then it was the removal of her thyroid. Three years ago they discovered lymphoma in her stomach which resulted in major stomach surgery followed by months of chemo- and radiation therapy. She's an amazing lady to take it all so bravely.

She has several things going for her this time: (1) She knows the drill better this time; (2) the tumor is much smaller this time; (3) Northern California Kaiser has been named the best agency in this area for integrated medical records; and (4) she appears to have a well-qualified team of doctors and medical personnel who have worked together on hundreds of similar cases.

We both appreciate the outpouring of love, concern, and kindness we have felt this past week. It really is wonderful to have so many friends to stand by us when we're once again called to stand up to that monster Cancer.

Brian's memorial & Writer's overload

2011-04-29T17:37:00.000-07:00

Several people have mentioned to me lately that they miss my blog and wonder what had happened to me. Can I still use a keyboard? Do I still have an Internet connection? What's up?

Well, the simple answer is that I am now responsible for so many publications that this one (Too Old to Know Better) gets short shrift. Let's see...

I coordinate and maintain the blog for the company I retired from and still consult

www.altaregional.org

I co-produce the newsletter for our local Mormon ward

http://thelasierralink.blogspot.com/

and, most recently I volunteered to put together a Memorial Website for my nephew Brian Russell who dies April 12. I really like the idea of having a single place, accessible 24-7 from anywhere in the world where people can write their condolences or memories of the deceased. I first learned of such Memorials when a friend of mine from my mission died. Brian's memorial is located at

http://brian-russell.last-memories.com/

I felt honored that Brian's parents have allowed me to do this and grateful that Last Memories has the tools and templates to make my product look good. I've had to learn or relearn a lot of small things such as cropping photos and uploading video files. This hosting site encourages the usse of YouTube so I've uploaded files to YouTube now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bnCpsz1DkQ

So if you don't see as much happening on this blog as usual, it may be because I have too many blogs on the fire.

Beautiful Surroundings, Ugly Memories

2011-04-05T17:23:00.000-07:00

This was the second Parkinson's Support Group Facilitator's Conference I have attended. As was the first, this one was held in the beautiful facilities of the Sierra Health Foundation's office building on Garden Highway. What's not to love about this place? The large meeting room easily accommodates 50 or 60 people seated around tables but doesn't feel overly large for the group of 25 that we had today.
Buffet facilities are just outside the meeting room so you can get your food and come back in or, on beautiful days like today, move out onto the patio to enjoy the sunshine, river breeze, and the lush spring riparian foliage like we did today.
Looks good enough to be computer wallpaper, doesn't it? This is the view from the patio.
Another view from the patio shows how wide the river is at this point and also shows how high the water level is. The usual riverside walkway is covered by several inches of water along much of the trail. If you want to take a walk today, you'll need to wear waders.

Besides the beautiful setting, the conference was well planned and carried out. So what's wrong? It was at this facility that my career took a decidedly unexpected turn when my boss was fired by the board of directors and I was asked to take over as acting CEO. With a board that trusted me only slightly more than my boss, my tenure as CEO was luckily short-lived. But the memories linger on and it may still be some time before I can fully enjoy the Sierra Health Foundation campus.

Good Idea Recognized

2011-03-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I see something that makes me want to say, "Good job!!" and hope that someone got a bonus in his or her paycheck. Today it is the new McCormick spice packs. Of course, spice packs are not a new thing but until these little jewels came along all the spices were mixed together and the whole pack labeled "Sloppy Joe Mix" or "Meatloaf Spices". Now you can see and read what spices are included. This lets a cook increase, decrease, or even eliminate a spice that is not wanted. And the next time the recipe is used, the cook can use spices from the larger sized containers for a significant savings.

Way to go McCormick!

Lost technology

2011-03-23T19:39:00.000-07:00

Quite often when I'm using our computer I think about computers in my past that were so expensive and powerful that people had to queue up to use them and special lower priority jobs were loaded so the computers wouldn't be idle for even a second. I think how many hours of the day our computer is totally idle or showing screen savers to an empty room. Even when I'm using the computer it is seldom more than 2% busy. I think also about the programs such as Word or Excel that have so many features that I guessing I use about 10% on a complicated job and much less on routine work.

So it was especially gratifying this evening when I was able to productively use some technology that had been sitting idle on our desk for at least 6 years. I'm talking about the ICE (Image Correction and Enhancement) technology in the slide scanner that we have never used before. Slides and 35mm negatives are prone to getting dusty and scratched, at least if they're handled much. So most of the pictures I have from scanning slides look like they could use some cleaning. But ICE technology uses 3 dimensional scanning to eliminate dust and scratches. I think an example is called for:

Routine Scan

Here is the original scan as I would normally scan a slide. Pretty gruesome, isn't it? And I'm not talking about Mr. Smiley Face.

Here's the same slide with ICE technology.

With ICE Technology

And finally, the same slide with ICE technology and some color adjusting. It almost looks like we're real people.

With ICE and Retouching

By the way, according to the envelope the slide was in, this picture was taken 35 years ago at Chrismas 1976.

(Apple) iPads for sale!!

2011-03-11T15:55:00.000-08:00

What an appropriate day to post about Apple (note to PC users: the iPad 2 goes on sale today!). However, it's strictly coincidence. This morning the Sac State Renaissance Society had a mini-seminar that was billed as "iPad 101, how to maneuver one of the latest Mac products". Boy, was this ever the most mis-labeled class I've ever attended.

Has anyone else ever noticed that Apple owners can't just explain how their equipment works? They have to "sell" the equipment first, as in "Apple is the only manufacturer which builds both the hardware and the software so there's complete compatibility;" and "it's impossible to write a virus for a Mac;" and "people are converting to Apple all the time but you never hear of people moving the other direction." Instead of hearing how to actually get productive work done on an iPad, we were treated to one and a half hours of the magical world of iPad. And although there are purportedly thousands of "apps" (short for applications) for sale for the iPad, only two were demonstrated iBooks and Garageband. iBooks on the iPad is better looking than the Kindle counterpart but with no serious improvement in functionality. Garageband makes the iPad into a piano, organ, guitar, drum set, and who knows what else. A wonderful, even magical toy but still a toy.

When questioned about external storage or USB connectivity, two items glaringly missing from the iPad, the answer is the usual "Apple decided to use a safer technology. Large amounts of data shouldn't be on the iPad, too easy to lose (especially with iPad's one-level file hierarchy) and USB devices can introduce bad data and viruses into the system." What about a program like Adobe PhotoShop? Shouldn't a machine with 64 gigabytes of memory be able to do some fantastic photo editing? Answer: Do your editing on a Mac and leave the iPad for slide presentations and photo albums.

Actually, the only thing I heard in the class today that I can almost believe is that the iPad may become the input device of the future, replacing many of the functions now done by the mouse, track pad, and even the keyboard. I have some issues with the keyboard but the rest is almost believable.

Virus attack - a wolf in sheep's clothing

2011-03-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

I've felt myself very lucky. Over the years I've listened to friends and associates stories of having their computers brought down by this virus or that worm. And I haven't had a single infection, at least not one that actually got through my defenses. And I do employ the basic common sense defenses such as local physical security, back-up software, and a good virus protection program. So when I mistakenly answered yes to a request to update system security, I wasn't overly worried. I expected McAfee to kick in any moment and arrest the intruder.

The virus writers had done a good job, making it look like their software was actually going to do a better job of catching viruses and other meanies better than my current software. But McAfee never kicked in and the fake security program showed obviously fake data. When I tried to invoke McAfee manually, it blinked off the screen instantly. There was no place in the fake software to minimize their window so not only could you not see the screen behind but you could also not shift program focus to any program save the fake one. Trying to run Task Manager yielded the same results. I restarted the computer only to find the virus program taking over at a crucial point. I felt sick.

I made one last attempt using restart. Before even getting to Windows, this HP computer prompts for a recovery option. Before Windows had a chance to take over the machine, I was given a chance to restore our computer to a past checkpoint. This checkpoint was only 2 days old - old enough to avoid the the virus but new enough to be current. Holding my fingers and crossing my breath, I clicked on system recovery. After about ten minutes, I was advised to restart the computer. It ran perfectly with no sign of my "friendly virus". I was ready to whoop and dance around the room except that I don't whoop or dance much nowadays.

Renaissance Presentation - Judy Small

2011-03-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

A major premise of the Renaissance Society at Sac State is that students teach each other. A class coordinator makes sure that each week of the semester, one or two class members present a portion of the semester's material. However, there are many classes where the class coordinator prefers to conduct many, if not all, of the sessions. For all the years that I've been attending the Renaissance classes, I have managed to take mostly such classes and therefore have not given a presentation. Until now.

This semester I decided to take the class "Protest Songs and the Singers Who Sang Them". Having come of age during the folk song era of the 60's and contemporary with, if not involved in, the Vietnam war protests, the title of the class intrigued me. It was difficult to get into the class as the original 50 slots were filled shortly after registration began and there were a dozen or so on the waiting list.

During the first session, I realized that I could make a significant contribution to the class by talking about the global protest singers, making the point that protest songs are not uniquely American. Specifically, I volunteered to present an hour of the Australian folk singer Judy Small. I began that day by inventorying my Judy Small collection. It amounted to 4 albums. A fifth was a poor cassette recording of another album. I logged onto iTunes to download a good copy of that album.

With Microsoft Powerpoint, Wikipedia, and the collection of Judy Small songs I had available, it was no trouble putting together an hour's presentation. The presentation outline looked like this:

Introduction
Judy Small biography
The IPD - Singalong
No Tears for the Widow
Montreal - December '89
Much Too Much Trouble
Golden Arches - Singalong
Silo
Home Front
You Don't Speak for Me
Life Begins at Forty - Singalong

I originally intended to pass out a sheet of lyrics for the three songs I wanted the class to singalong with Judy but my wife Carolyn convinced me to distribute the lyrics to all the songs to help people better understand the songs. We couldn't find the lyrics anywhere on the Internet. That was a bit of a task since neither of us speaks Australian. We finally got something that we hope is 95% correct.

In spite of some technical difficulties we finally got the computer and projector and software all working together. At the beginning of the class only one other person had heard of Judy. By the end of the class most people were visibly moved and several wanted to know how to get her music. The class coordinator said it was too bad we couldn't play each song and then discuss it for a half hour, the messages are so potent.

I felt that Judy and I put on a successful performance that not only set a standard for subsequent classes but also got a lot of people thinking again. Thank you, Judy.

My heart skips a beat

2011-02-27T18:03:00.000-08:00

Two times in one day is two times too many!

A couple of days ago a friend asked if he could borrow $20 from me until payday. I said sure knowing that I had the money and he was good for it. I reached into my pocket to find ... NOTHING. My mind starting thinking in all directions at once: Did it fall out as I was getting out of the car? When did I last have it? "If it's really missing, who do I start calling? But I was calmly saying, "My wallet's in my car. Let me go get it".

It was in my car, on the passenger seat. I had filled my tank with gas and just hadn't put the wallet back in my pocket. Giving my friend a $20 bill, I noticed that I was getting low on cash so I decided to stop at my bank on the way home.

I pulled up to the drive-up ATM, pulled out my wallet, and ... no ATM card! Now what? Again I begin thinking of all the horrible things that might have happened or was happening now. When did I last use the card? When did I last use any of my credit cards? Should I call and cancel the missing ATM card?

Then I wondered if the last time I used the card was in this same drive-up ATM to make a deposit. With no cast to put in my wallet, I might have left the card on the seat. But I would have seen it, wouldn't I? Not if it slid down between the seat and back cushions. There's a little pocket there in my car; things don't automatically fall to the floor in back. Sure enough, after reaching through the crack and retrieving oneo penny, two pretzels, and a half dozen sales receipts, I also found the missing ATM card. Whew! another close call.

We the People...

2011-02-26T18:03:00.000-08:00

We'll be hearing a lot about "We the People...." in the next 20 months leading up to the November 2012 elections. It is a catchy phrase designed to imply that all the people are behind the words that follow. And why shouldn't we be since the words that follow in the discussions we will hear about constitute the Constitution of the most powerful country in the history of the world. It is a constitution that has weathered almost 225 years of attacks from the inside and the outside, both brutal and subtle. One of the greatest features of the Constitution is that it provided for its own modification and was passed with 10 modifications, the Bill of Rights, as immediate examples. It also left a lot unsaid. Like the Ten Commandments, shorter is sometimes better.

But we have among us today people who want to "take back the country", "take back the government" according to their speeches. But they really mean they want to "take the country back", "take the government back", back, that is, to an earlier time, a simpler time, when the country was smaller, the government was smaller, and the budget was smaller. It reminds me of people who still think of the 50's as the "golden years".

Yes, the government and the budget were smaller in 1787 but a lot of other things were different as well. Slavery was alive and well and even many of the Founding Fathers owned slaves. Slaves didn't vote, nor did women. In fact voting was mainly by white, property-owning males. And the Constitution was all right with that. Some states had religious tests for public office-holders or discriminated against people who did not worship according to the state religion. And the Constitution was all right with that. There were no "economic safety nets", national educational standards, environmental protection statutes or agencies, federal transportation support, national safety standards, minimum wages, child labor laws. I could go and on, of course. The list is long and the Constitution was all right with all of it. And so are the people who would take our country back!

America is great because America is good. When we stop being good, we will stop being great. In the past 225 years we have found areas where people on their own don't act for the common good. They lie, cheat, steal, monopolize, oppress, persecute, kill, etc. And if they don't do these things they ignore or encourage those that do. We have learned through sad experience a host of evils that men do and we have empowered the government to minimize those evils and their effects. It hasn't always worked but for the most part it has.

Now, do we want to forget what we've learned, forget what we've had to do to correct problems? The government is too big, they say, but how big is too big? Should we go back to 1970? 1950? 1929? 1787? What standard of living are we prepared to accept? And remember, we don't get to choose where on the ladder of success we will stand when it all comes down. Natural or man-made disasters can wipe out the worldly assets of the richest and there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent it. How would you like to be transported back to 1930 with nothing in your pockets or bank account except "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"?

We the People... better watch out who is pretending to speak for us during the next 20 months.

Hard drives in copiers

2011-02-22T10:34:00.000-08:00

Carolyn recently got one of those "The sky's falling; the sly's falling" sort of email claiming that copiers now have hard drives in them and those hard dries are j ust full of images of all that has been copied on that machine. Since peple don't know about the hard drive, sensitive and private information is being unnecessarily spread and left open to misuse. The plea, as usual, was to forward the message to everyone you know and love.

Like every good rumor there was a grain of truth in the message. Yes, many copiers have hard drives in them, a warning that was made on a major TV network almost a year ago. (so much for a timely warning). But almost 8 years ago Xerox put out a pamphlet entitled "Hard Disk Security for Printers, MFPs, and Copiers that Resellers need to know to advise their customers."

I don't know how widely the pamphlet was distributed or how much resellers used it to warn customers but it's all in there. Using the normal machine controls there isi no way to access hard drive information. And the better machine effectively wipe out each hard drive after each job and when the power is shut off.

Should you worry about your copier's haard drive and security being compromised? Yes. Should you panic? No. Call your copier supplier and request the particular status of your copier's hard drive. Then remind him that his company is also responsible for security.

Magic Mushroom popcorm

2011-02-21T10:34:00.000-08:00

If you look carefully at the popcorn in this picture you'll notice that it looks more like little popcorn colored marbles. There are no "ears" or flaps to be knocked off when the popcorn is stirred or shaken. What could you do with popcorn that tastes exactly like your favorite popcorn but is less prone to break into pieces? Right! Kettle corn, candied corn, caramel corn, etc.!!

The wonderful people at ConAgra, the huge agricultural company that does so much research on improving crops has come up with a popcorn you can work with. Our piano tuner, of all people, had seen from the popper on our stove that we were popcorn loving people and had suggested we look into "Mushroom" popcorn - so called because the popped kernel looks a lot like a mushroom head. Others call it "brain" or "cerebral" popcorn for the same reason - similarity in looks.

A search of the Internet indicated that you can buy smaller packages of popcorn than the 50 pound bag we bought but the mark-up was significant. So I braved the rainstorm to buy the large bag and split it into smaller containers. Fortunately, we had several 8 pound plastic bottles that were just what I needed.

Click to enlarge

One curious note was the use restriction that I had never seen before. The label at the left was printed twice on the bag. It made it quite clear that we can't repackage the stuff and call it a different name. That makes some sense. But to prohibit research?!?

A weekend project

2011-02-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

The instructions said expect to spend 4 hours on the project and they were pretty close to the mark. But we had had such beautiful weather and the basketball standard that Carolyn had got for the grandsons was still sitting waiting for someone to put it all together. So we packed up a bunch of tools and headed over to our oldest son's house.

After laying the tools out, opening and sorting
some of the parts, and going through most of the directions I could certainly understand why a person wouldn't want to tackle this alone. I was also glad that I would be the one reading the instructions while everyone else would be helping put the pieces together.

With the exception of two missteps and having to undo a couple of steps to follow the directions properly, we put it all together correctly.

Last we saw, Tiffany was showing the older boys how to dribble and shoot.

Judy Small - a real (great) person

2011-02-13T14:41:00.000-08:00

Background 1: Judy Small, folk singer from Australia had a brief period of popularity in America during the mid to late 80's. As folk singing was losing popularity a about that time she never "made it big" in America.

Background 2: I'm involved for my 6th year in the Sac State based Renaissance Society, a mini-school on campus where seniors and retired people conduct seminars and teach each other everything from ancient Roman history to current trends in knitting. One of the seminars I'm taking is about Protest Singers and the Songs They Sing.

It appeared to me that my Protest Singers class was likely going to focus on the more well-known singers of protest songs such as Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seeger. There are enough people in he class that I could just sit tight and listen to others present but for once in my life I thought I had something unique to share. I began to develop a 1 hour presentation about Judy Small and I volunteered to make that presentation.

In the course of my research I found that Judy had at one time sold a 54-apge book of her songs and I even found that book on eBay listed at $40. It was a poor listing, however, with no description of which songs, how many songs, or whether it was accompaniment or with words.

Thinking outside the box, my wife Carolyn emailed Judy Small asking if she had a music book she could share with us. Well, darned if she didn't geet a very nice response from Judy and a computer readable copy of that music book. Judy admitted that she didn't read nor write music so the book has the lyrics, the melody, and the appropriate guitar chords. It will make a perfect piano fake book. I can't wait to introduce some of the songs to our grandkids.

Thank you Judy Small.

p.s. My presentation is set for March 4. I"ll let you know how it goes.

Memeo backup software

2011-02-07T20:14:00.000-08:00

Backing up the files you can't replace just seems to be common sense. But many of us don't do it because of the inconvenience or cost or we just don't remember to do it. Besides, we've never lost anything really important so we've been all right so far. I've discovered a program that makes it almost too easy to backup. You forget it's there for you.

Let's say you're only willing to back up your files daily. Most backup software gives you 3 choices: full backup, incremental backup; and differential backup. The full backup is obvious - a complete copy of all your important files is made to a separate, usually external drive. So every day you copy all your important file. Lots of time and storage required. But to find and restore a file requires looking at only one file.

The differential backup copies those files that have changed since the last full backup. You back up all your files on Sunday then on Monday just those saved or changed on Monday. On Tuesday all those changed on Monday and Tuesday. And so on. To find and restore a file takes at most looking at the original complete backup plus the most recent differential backup.

Finally, the incremental backup copies those files changed since the last backup of any kind. Thus, on Sunday you do a complete backup. On Monday copy all those files changed on Monday. On Tuesday all those files changed on Tuesday, etc. To find and restore a file takes looking through as many backup files as seven.

The product I settled on is called Premium Backup from Memeo.com. Memeo thinks outside the box. It produces what might be termed a "mirror" backup. Every time a file is saved to disk, another copy of that file is saved to a back-up disk drive. The system administrator can select how many copies are saved, something that is not easy to do with the other backup plans . Memeo does this in the background so the user is seldom bothered. Only if your program needs exclusive access to a file being backed-up will there be a conflict but even then Memeo usually just queues the request for later filing.

A good program.

Fences

2011-02-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while a program comes along that is simple, well written, and does exactly what it purports to do. The software I am reviewing today has the added virtue of being free. The software is Fences from Stardock.

Ever since Windows 95 came out, I have been a Desktop junkie. Dropping things on the desktop just makes them so much more accessible to other programs. That's one reason my computer screen is as cluttered as my real desktop. But I also like to be able to see what is on my desktop and where it is. So I'm forever cleaning up and straightening out my desktop icons. I find myself longing for the orderliness of the Windows 3.1 desktop and its separate program groups.

Well, I found the answer - Fences. This program allows you to draw several "fenced" rectangles on your wallpaper or it will draw several for you. Then, inside these fences you can drag and drop programs, files, shortcuts, basically anything that can go on the desktop. If you put too many icons in the box it automatically sprouts a scroll bar. The fenced rectangles can be moved and resized and even, once you get them how you like them, locked.

Files or shortcuts sent to the desktop after installing fences are placed in unfenced areas and are thus much easier to see and work with. There is even a provision for making all the screen icons disappear although I can't think why that would be helpful.

All that for no cost. What a deal!

Takeover

2011-02-02T21:32:00.000-08:00

When I was on the board of directors for a credit union it was common to have only a small fraction of the credit union's membership attend the annual meeting. It was rather amazing that 5 or 10% or less of the membership would vote on and approve (or not) important things such as bylaws, board members, board officers, and annual budgets. I wondered (but not worried) what would happen if a large number of members with their own agenda showed up.

Well, I saw just that happen this past Sunday. It wasn't a credit union but the Friends of the Sacramento Public Library (FSPL). There are about 2,300 members of the Friends in a library system with 630,000 library card holders. But those 2,300 account for between $200,000 and $300,000 in annual gifts to the library system. Not too shabby! It's a little more complicated because under the umbrella organization of FSPL (System Friends) there are 28 branches - one for each branch library. There is also a Library Foundation which raises considerably more than that through major fundraisers and capital campaigns. Because of the potential and actual overlap of activities, a committee has been working for the past two years to assign duties and responsibilities to the various entities. It has not been an easy task and there has been some differences of opinion. We just had no idea how strong those differences were.

Sunday afternoon, at our usual annual meeting where attendance is usually 40 or 50, we were surprised that it was more like 100 to 120. We were also surprised that when nominations from the floor were called for instead of a moment of silence, people rose to nominate 4 board members and an alternate candidate for President. It was all perfectly legal but totally unexpected by at least half the crowd. Printed ballots appeared on cue followed by the main speaker while the votes were counted. Following the meeting, three of us board members resigned because either (1) we felt we could not work with the new president, (2) we could not work with a coalition which seized power by stealth, or (3) were committed to the slate proposed by the nominating committee.

It was over with almost before it began. I had planned to serve another year but now find myself with several free hours each month that I hadn't planned on.

Moral of the story: read your bylaws carefully.

Idiot trick

2011-01-25T10:16:00.000-08:00

t-Mobile wants to charge $4.99 to help you not answer your phone!!

I think there are two kinds of people in this world - those who think that every ringing phone must be answered and those that don't. And neither side understands the other. I happen to be in the latter group. If a phone rings and (1) I am responsible for answering calls coming to that phone, and (2) I am not busy with someone else, and (3) I am not busy with something else that should not be interrupted, and (4) caller ID indicates the caller to be someone I am interested in talking with or at least not someone I'm NOT interested in talking with, and (5) I am not physically in a location where my phone conversation will disturb those around me, and (6) I am not driving a vehicle then I MAY answer the phone. I don't feel I HAVE to answer that phone call unless my job or health requires it. I do make sure the call can go to phone mail and I do try to respond to calls as soon as I can so I don't consider my actions irresponsible.

But apparently there are people who can't stop themselves from answering a phone, especially when they're driving. So t-Mobile is offering their technology to help people NOT answer their phone. Why can't I come up with a service like that?

Point of View

2011-01-24T10:14:00.000-08:00

Every good picture taker knows how important location is. Taking a picture from 20 feet away is not the same as taking a picture of the same subject from 40 feet away with a 2X lens. And sometimes moving just a couple of inches left or right changes the whole picture. So why do we have so much trouble understanding that our point of view is not and cannot be the same as someone else's? No one is exactly in the same place as we are.

I was appalled by a little sketch by Rush Limbaugh recently making fun of a speech by Chinese President Hu. After making a series of jibberish syllables, Rush admitted that he couldn't imagine how how anyone could understand such sounds. Unthinkingly, he has stated one of the most perplexing problems of this world. He can't understand Hu and can't imagine anyone can. He can't understand Obama and can't imagine anyone can. He can't understand liberals and can't imagine anyone can.

Of course there is something called education. If Rush learned Chinese maybe he could imagine how someone could understand what Hu was saying.

If we have been close to someone's viewpoint, we might be more able to imagine something close to what he is seeing.

And introducing . . . Spice, the walker with a little Dash

2011-01-23T21:12:00.000-08:00

Carolyn and I recently attended a Conference in Palm Springs (about which I really do intend to blog one of these days). Besides the information and network connections we made there, we purchased yet another walker to help me stay on my feet as long as possible.

The walker is made and sold by the Dashaway Company headquartered in the San Fernando Valley. I've decided to name her Spice (Dashaway => Mrs. Dash => Spice, get it). Spice sort of looks like a walker rearing up on its hind legs and it's height is one of its best features. The moment I tried it out, I felt transformed. Instead of arching my back over my walker and being in danger of the walker rolling out from under me, I stood tall and walked almost as easily as I used to pre-Parkinson's. In fact, in the open spaces of the Renaissance Hotel where the conference was being held, it felt like I was 50 pounds lighter. I could (and did) walk and walk and walk. What a difference! The braking system is "reversed" - they're on by default. You have to squeeze the brake controls to go. That, by the way, makes it a handy device for supporting in place exercise while allowing movement around the exercise facility.

With this walker and a handy bin (not available from Dashaway) sitting on the seat, I was able to walk around the Library for 2.5 hours last Tuesday, picking up books that had been requested. It's been a while since I walked that much and I was really tired afterward but I proved I could do it.

Spice isn't perfect. Because of the added height she tends to tip over easier when rounding corners. Her wheels are too small, making mountains out of the smallest of molehills. And because of her no-tread rear wheels, her brakes are less effective than they might be. I can easily slide on our entry and kitchen floors. Finally, she is overpriced, probably because it has been targeted to the institutional market rather than the consumer market.

Obamacare or whatdoicare

2011-01-22T14:42:00.000-08:00

Writing legislation must be one of the most frustrating things in this world. In order to do a good job for the public, the voting legislators must have enough specifics to evaluate the program but the legislation must have enough "wiggle room" to allow for changes and fixes. Projections must be made and the projections must be close enough to be reliable. But how is that possible when, for example, Obama's people were predicting that as many as 375,000 people would have signed up for high-risk insurance by the end of 2010 when in-fact by the end of November only 8,000 people have. That's only slightly more than 2%. What does that say about the rest of the bill.

Poems my father taught me

2011-01-21T20:40:00.000-08:00

I am not good at memorizing things. I've been telling myself that for 60 years and have come to believe it completely. But there are exceptions: I know the Lord's Prayer. I know the first line of the chorus of BYU's fight song "Rise and Shout" just in case I find myself at a BYU sports event. I can play on the piano or organ "We Thank Thee, O God, For a Prophet" just in case I'm playing the prelude for some meeting and the Prophet walks in. But that's about it.

Oh, and I know the words to a delightful Valentine's Day poem that my father taught me half a century ago:

Hearts and Love

Hearts and love, love and hearts,

'Twas an unknown poet started it

And ever since in songs of love

The rest have always "hearted" it.

Why should the heart be chosen

As the place for love to dwell,

When any other organ

I think would do as well?

"My floating rib is broken."

"My stomach aches for you."

These two simple phrases

Are realistic, maybe true.

"Come ease my throbbing left lung

By saying you'll be mine."

Is a charming little couplet

Good on any Valentine.

And it really would be nice to hear

Some bright young medic say:

"Sweetspleen, my epiglottis

Shall be yours forever and a day."

When I decided I wanted to include it in the February ward newsletter, I was really surprised I could come up with the complete poem since it has been several years since I last read it or wrote it down. I remembered it slightly different but made a couple of changes I thought improved the poem.

Then I began wondering where my Dad might have gotten the poem. After all there was no Internet 50 years ago. But there is now. Googling various phrases in the poem I was getting millions of hits or none. Finally, using "sweetspleen" as one word, similar to sweetheart, I hit pay dirt. Although I can't be sure where my Dad picked it up, the poem was published in the 1928 issue of the Banyan, the Brigham Young University yearbook! And it was exactly as I had remembered the poem. The only clue to the author was a set of initials under the poem: E. C. J. Too bad it wasn't Elwood's initials E.C.L.

Find the Fallacy #2

2011-01-20T14:09:00.000-08:00

A nameless, but certainly entertaining, news commentator recently began his show by stating, while eating a giant bowl of ice cream, that he couldn't believe the experts about inflation but he could believe his gut. He loves ice cream and a year ago he could purchase this ice cream for $2.19 and now it is selling for $3.69. This is a 68% increase. Our country is being hit by double digit inflation!

Fallacy or not? If so, what is it?

My answer is yes; improper definition or calculation of inflation rate.
Many of us have our own method of determining the rate of inflation. The government has several, of which the CPI is probably the best known. All the methods are at best only partially correct and some are just downright misleading.

I learned about the complexity of the CPI when I needed to write a lease with an "inflation adjusted" rate. I thought it would be a simple matter of going to the library and looking up what the inflation was for the current year and adjust the rate. (Yes, we're talking pre-Internet here.) I found there were many different definition based on "market baskets" whose composition might vary by time and location. But surely they'd all agree in the long run, I thought. Wrong again. See Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_price_index for a more complete explanation.

As for our news commentator, I think he should stick to reviewing flavors, not prices.

My pants are in suspense

2011-01-19T12:33:00.000-08:00

I may have a waist that is a couple inches larger than I'd like but my almost non-existent hips make up for it. The result, of course, is pants that just don't want to stay up. Like putting pants on a beet, the tighter you cinch it up the more pressure for heading south.

The solution is a pair of suspenders. This has now become my fashion statement. This solution would be great if it didn't feel like an eternal wedgie.

Toolbox help

2011-01-15T21:37:00.000-08:00

As part of the walker repair, Carolyn brought me the tool tray of the toolbox we have had since we first got married. Then while I was working on the walker, she started emptying the tray, setting out the wrenches and sockets neatly, like a OR nurse. When I asked, she said the tool box still stinks of the time when Edward as a baby spit up into it. Oh, well. Not my problem.

As I was clearing up, she brought the tray back to the garage to put into the tool box. Notice anything interesting about the newly cleaned up tool tray? Hint: look at the sockets.

Memories

2011-01-13T12:38:00.000-08:00

Memories are such fickle things. I can't remember from day to day what I'm supposed to be doing and I use a checklist system at work to make sure that he reports I produce are valid. Sometimes, I really think I am losing my memory.

Then, out of the blue, my memory surprises me.

Last week a colleague was telling our lunch group that he had played something for New Year's Eve that was a lot of fun. He'd never heard of it before. Played on a wooden board about 4' by 4' with netted holes on the side almost like pool or billiards but you used your fingers to snap the cue ring rather than a pool cue.

I thought immediately of Carom which we had for years and played once or twice a year on average. But something stuck in my mind that as a kid I played the same game with a different name.

Four hours later I had it. Can you remember Crokinole? Actually, the two games are different. Conveniently there are two sides to the board. Crokinole is sort of like shuffleboard or horseshoes in that you take turns trying to occupy the center spot or knocking your opponent out of that spot. Carom, like pool, has the objective or sinking your pieces in the corner pockets. They both were fun games.

Long Shot

2011-01-12T12:34:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of me wearing a special contraption that allows the doctor and technician to measure the electric and magnetic potentials of my facial muscles as I open my jaw, bite down, clench my teeth, relax, etc. The idea seems to be that as I move my jaw from a working position to relaxing, I am dislocating it in ways that cause me stress and unbalance the body. In a couple of weeks I will get a rubber/plastic mold that will allow me to place my jaw where it should be. With any luck, that will also have a positive effect on my posture and gait.

Apologies are in order

2011-01-11T14:04:00.000-08:00

Several days ago I wrote about our "no instruction world" and included as an example Carolyn's iPad which seemed to be a prime example of something which looked powerful but that unlocking that power was troublesome.

Well, it turns out that Apple has written and included with the iPad some very good instructions. As one might imagine, they are buried inside the iPad making them easy to update and difficult to lose. They are also difficult to find.

I think Apple should lhave written the following on a big label and posted that label right in the middle of the screen:

Instructions are available in a location called the iPad User Guide. Expect to visit this Guide many times while you are learning to use the iPad.

To display this user guide tap the Safari App (the square icon on the Home Page which looks like a compas overlaid on a blue world map).

If the Safari App is not visible on the screen press the Home button once. (This button is located next to the screen just above the recharge/sychronize cable socket. It has a empty square printed on it.)

After you tap the Safari app, notice the five icons in the upper left hand corner of the screen. The fourth one over that resembles an open book will display your Bookmarks. Tap it.

"Bookmarks" should appear at the top of a drop down box or in the left upper corner of such a box. If it appears in the corner, tap it so it appears in the center top.

At the bottom of this list is the bookmark for the iPad User Guide. Tap that title and you will open the User Guide. You also had some valuable experience in using some of the iPad's features. We could have made it easier but that would have taken some of the fun out.

It would be nice to also put this on the label.

To make it easier to find the next time do the following:

With the User Guide on the screen tap the 5th icon in the upper left, the one that looks like an arrow jumping out of a rectangle. Tap on Add to Home Screen. Click on the blue Add button.

Please save this label so that you can show it to someone new to the iPad to give them a running start.

That's my suggestion. It would have saved us hours of frustration.

Find the Fallacy #1

2011-01-10T13:47:00.000-08:00

A news commentator (who shall remain nameless so I don't get into a political fight here) started off his show recently by putting down newspapers as sources of information you can rely on. His complaint was that you can't trust a newspaper when one article on the front page stated that the economy was definitely on its way up while the headline on a second article on the same front page indicated that the economic recovery had stalled. He allowed that over time conditions change so that articles from papers a week apart could reasonably differ. But how can you trust a paper which contradicts itself on one page?!

Is there a fallacy here? Is the commentator correct?

If you answered yes; no, at least you agree with me. Perhaps because he is a news commentator, this man is confusing fact with opinion. This is a somewhat non-intuitive example where facts actually appear to be at odds with each other. That is because the fact of each article is based on incomplete data, not uncommon in the real world. If the newspaper in this case were peddling opinions, they likely would have altered the conclusion of one or both articles so that they would be more or less in agreement. Then you could trust this newspaper. Myself, I like both facts and opinions and I prefer knowing which is which. It doesn't bother me to see facts contradict other facts if there is a reasonable explanation. And agreement of opinion between two people may or may not mean their position is any stronger.

Oh say what is truth?

2011-01-09T12:25:00.000-08:00

The CBO, congressional budget office has long been valued for it's nonpartisan analyses of various government proposals. But recently Speaker of the House John Boehner dismissed their standing with a flippant "the CBO has a right to their opinion". It isn't their opinion that makes the CBO a valuable resource.

A local Sacramento opinion shaper and father of an autistic child refuted a recent science news article by saying, in essence, we know that our child's autism was caused by vaccines no matter what research shows otherwise. In other words, my mind's made up, don't bother me with the facts.

In both these examples we see people confusing fact with opinion. In the preface to Thomas Sowell's "Economic Facts and Fallacies" we read "Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true. but many other things are believed because they are consistent with a widely held vision of the world -- and this vision is accepted as a substitute for facts.

Is science equal to truth? When is science equal to truth? Why do respected leaders talk about scientific results as if they were just another "opinion" to be debated in the world of opinions?

Pedal to the metal

2011-01-08T12:20:00.000-08:00

This week I took the wheel from my Walker Matilda in to be replaced. The clerk, a pleasant fellow, carefully examined the wheel and asked, "Looks like a case of high speed and abnormal wheel vibrations. Let's see what we can do."

After he and his fellow workers combed their inventory he returned with a heavy duty plastic and rubber wheel that should last forever. I had to go to Home Depot for a couple of longer bolts because these wheels are about 1/4 inch wider than the old ones.

So I'm back again experiencing high speed and abnormal wheel vibrations.

Civilized religion

2011-01-07T12:31:00.000-08:00

Two recent newspaper articles struck me today and had me wondering just how far we have to go to be a civilized society. The first was the assassination of the Pakistani governor of Punjab who, according to his killer, was guilty of heresy because he promoted tolerance of heresy. The second was the report of infanticide in Ethiopia. Children were being killed because they were either bastards, conceived without the village elder's notification, or had their upper teeth emerging before their lower teeth.

Surely God is powerful enough that he doesn't need his followers to defend his honor or fight his battles. Or does he? Are we respecting God by fighting his battles for him or are we really treating him like we would a little sister and protecting him from the "big bullies"? Apparently a significant number of Pakistanis know the answer to that.

As for infanticide - is it any worse than abortion? Are we any more civilized if our society decides an "early infanticide" is justified if the fetus resulted from fornication or adultery or if the baby will be downright inconvenient? Do our "good" reasons for abortion sound any better than the Ethiopians' reasons for killing babies?

Church web site matures - Part 2

2011-01-06T20:39:00.000-08:00

In rolling out the new website, the Church has done an excellent job of including information about how and why of the change. In some cases it is almost too much information. For example in the instructions about implementing the new calendar we are given 7 steps. The 7th is

Step 7: Instruct Ward and Stake Leaders to Begin Creating Events on Their Respective Calendars

The new calendar poses a cultural shift for most members. The old calendar required everyone to submit events through a single ward website administrator to publish events. With the new calendar, everyone is a calendar editor. You may need to let them know that.
Start using the calendar regularly in meetings. As you hold your meetings, such as Ward Council or Bishopric, review events from the calendar. If you need Internet in your meetinghouse, implement Meetinghouse Internet.

Meetinghouse Internet is then defined as

Implementing Internet in your meetinghouse involves three general steps:

Order Internet access from a local Internet Service Provider (ISP) in your area.
Install the Church firewall for Internet filtering and security.
Establish a wired or wireless network to provide access throughout your building.

I like the statement "cultural shift for most members". Talk about an understatement! From mandating certain callings as "standard" and marginalizing others, from allowing certain people to generate calendars while ignoring others, we will see major changes to unit functioning. The other major change, of course is the mandate that Internet services be available throughout the meetinghouse so that the church web services will also be available throughout the building. Talk about a change in function and culture! This will be an exciting time for the church techies!

Little toys for little boys

2011-01-05T11:46:00.000-08:00

This Christmas there was one toy that we found irresistible and so did our grandchildren. It was a 1/2 scale model of some Black & Decker power tools. It was done in plastic but with the well known black and orange color scheme. It just begged the kids to use it when their dads got out the big tools. Sure enough, it was a big hit.

Unfortunately, it wasn't immediately obvious to the kids what the tools were for. Or at least not what they thought them to be for. Camdan set about using the power drill to (pretend, thank goodness) drill holes in his head, his leg, and even to carve out another belly button. Make me glad there were no sharp edges or real ability to carve or drill out anything with the tools.

Church web site matures

2011-01-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

Like almost every company in the world, computers were used for fiscal and statistical applications. When the internrnet came along, it was also used primarily for fiscal and statistical purposes.

Somewhere along the line, most companies also change their direction (often with a change in IT director) and move the focus to a more mission-oriented direction. This sometimes has two undesirable effects:

It demoralizes the fiscal and statistical people who see incorrect major assumptions made about the way they do things and
It tries to provide other program services in the same way as financial and statistical.

The LDS Church has now introduced the next version of their web offering. You can visit it at lds.org. It is beautiful. It is functional. It is heavenly. For some functions it may be a nightmare. Stay tuned.