How to Dunk a Doughnut - book review

Okay, so the book isn't really about "how to dunk a donut". The subtitle of the book "The Science of Everyday Life" just doesn't have the same eye catching appeal as How to Dunk a Doughnut. The author Len Fisher, in addition to being a winner of the Ignobel Prize in Physics has written more than 80 scientific papers and book chapters as well as made more than 200 radio and television appearances discussing the science of everyday life. Many of us think of science as something which affects our life only when a new invention hits the market or a new way of killing our enemy is shown on TV. But Len would have us know that science matters - everyday.

The book has chapters on dunking (cookies actually, not doughnuts); boiling an egg, evaluating, and possibly improving, various tools in our garage; estimating a grocery bill; throwing a boomerang (now there's an everyday act for you); catching a ball; observing foams in your bath or your beer; examining how taste and smell works; and even on the physics of sex. His humor and language is definitely British which sometimes works and sometimes needs to be translated for us Americans.

I liked the anecdote about Viagra. It was apparently being developed to treat angina, heart pains. The dramatic effects it had on the rigidity of the penis was only discovered when someone wondered why all the male participants of the experiment had failed to return leftover pills once the trials had ended. He then goes on to explain that of the 10 most significant medical advances of the twentieth century, 7 arose from research completely unrelated to the eventual application. In other words, targeted research is fine but we often benefit even more from untargeted research.

Electronic banking

The Internet has allowed us to do some marvelous things with our money that we used to have to do (gasp) in person. You know, things like deposit payroll checks, pay utility bills, and transfer funds between accounts. Why just recently I moved money from our savings account into 3 CD accounts whose maturity dates were spaced out 3 months apart. I expect a transaction like that in person would have taken a half hour at least instead of the 2 minutes it actually took.

But there is a danger in being too automated. I pay most of my bills through a program called Microsoft Money which has an arrangement with my bank to pay bills through Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) where feasible and by "bank check" when not. I've been doing this for 7 or 8 years. Although we've lived in Sacramento for almost 6 years, these "bank checks" still had our address from Long Beach. Thus, many of the companies I paid through the bank received checks with an address they couldn't match to their records. And since the whole process was automated neither I nor our bank realized the address was outdated. Of course the bank had changed the address of our account years ago but not the address on the automated bank checks.

Graduation Announcement or ??

We were happy last night when our daughter-in-law Tiffany gave us one of those chocolate bars wrapped with a personalized message wrapper. It appeared that she was getting a good head start on preparing announcements for her upcoming graduation in May. Sure, it seemed a bit early to send out announcements but there's nothing wrong in being prepared ahead of time.

Then I saw the small print on the right side of the graphic:

Accepted to Graduate School for Speech & Language Pathology at CSUS, Fall 2007 Semester!

That was what this was all about. We knew she was going to graduate this spring but it was not a foregone conclusion that she'd be accepted into the Graduate School and especially this fall semester. She was even starting to develop "plan B" for getting in in the spring or having to apply next year. So we were all thrilled and excited at this news.

Congratulations, Tiffany! We're proud of your accomplishments and delighted that your plans can go ahead this fall.

LibraryThing.com

When I began working for Harbor Regional Center in 1985, I discovered that the main Torrance Public Library was on my route to work and was, in fact, only about a mile from the office. That made it a perfect place to visit at lunch hour or on my way home when I wanted some reading material. Up to that point in my life, I had been an avid reader and regular purchaser of books. The bookshelves in our house overflowed with the evidence of my eclectic taste in books. But with the discovery of the Torrance Library I discovered the joy of letting someone else purchase, maintain, and store my books for me. However, not having the physical book on the shelf meant that I had to create and maintain a database of the books I had read in case I wanted to refer back to them.

Now it appears that I may stop keeping this database current. I have just discovered (with the help of the Sacramento Bee) a new web site called LibraryThing.com. This site has all the advantages of my old database in allowing me to enter when I started the book and finished it, my thoughts or review of the book, and call number. In addition, it looks up the book on Amazon and other major book databases and fills in the information I might be too lazy to enter or add the cover image that I didn't even have access to when I start my database.

I can also choose to share my database with others or find other people who also have this book in their library so that we can discuss our thoughts. It's like a gigantic, worldwide literary club. The site is even designed to offer suggestions "If you liked this book, you may also like this one..." sort of like Amazon does with your purchasing habits. Of course unlike the official library database, you don't have to add books to your LibraryThing catalog unless you want to so there is not an issue of privacy. You can even create a "public" catalog to share with others and a "confidential" catalog that no one else can connect to you.

The only problem I see right now is that a free account only allows 200 books to be cataloged. We have more than 2,000 books in our physical library and I have borrowed, read, and cataloged more than 2,000 books from the library. But maybe it will prove valuable enough to pay $25 for a lifetime membership.

Imperial Life in the Emerald City - book review

Reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran created some unusual feelings for me. On one hand I felt disgusted at the waste of money and personnel as well as the bubble of non-reality that was created in the Green Zone. But then I realized just how much the book consists of sour grapes and Monday morning quarterbacking. It's easy to poke fun at the insular life inside the Green Zone but anyone who has lived abroad on a military base knows that is common, maybe universal. The whole concept is to allow the personnel temporarily assigned there feel as much at home as possible. I've know people who have been stationed in Germany who never met any Germans, for example.

Less easy to forgive is the idea that the Coalition Provisional Authority (CAP) could and did act as if they were running a game of Sim Country, setting up the country as if it were a simulation or a classroom exercise. But again this is par for the course in the military and probably for the secret thoughts of the overachieving politician. We know what's best for Iraq. We make the decisions. We get them back on course. Some of the members of the CPA were even delighted that so much looting and destruction took place after the invasion because that left a clean slate to build upon.

I think our education system deserves some of the blame as these well educated men (for the most part men) sought to impose "ideal" American solutions on a ruined economy and a devastated country with wildly different societal norms and historical values. Complete privatization of industry hasn't even been accomplished in the U.S. but the CPA was desperately trying to switch Iraq's economy from heavy government subsidization while at the same time trying to get it kick-started. But, here again, it is easier to point the finger after the fact. Events described in this book make it clear that there just wasn't much prior planning for post-invasion nation building and what little there was wasn't coordinated between U.S. government agencies and certainly not with the Iraqis.

I think the book is an excellent eye-opener for just how difficult it is to rebuild a country that has been so spectacularly damaged, especially if you have a team that is long on ideology and short on expertise. It reminds one of the Communist effort to rebuild post revolution Russia.

Daffodil Hill

About 55 miles ESE of us there is a delightful location called Daffodil Hill. According to the handout we received at the Hill, Arthur and Lizzie McLaughlin bought the Hill in 1887. The former owner Dutchman Pete Denzer had planted all around the ranch daffodils from his native land. These daffodils became Lizzie's most prized possession and she carefully divided and replanted the bulbs until they filled her garden.

Following Lizzie's death in 1935 her children decided to plant more daffodils in her memory. As the numbers of tourist stopping to admire the flowers grew, so did the number of plantings. Soon, instead of hundreds, there were thousands. Each year approximately 7 to 8 thousand new bulbs are planted. There are about 6 acres of daffodils - 300 varieties and 500,000 blooms. Actual new plantings depends on the donations from visitors as there is no admission charge. Community volunteers help with the traffic control and parking.

St. Patty's Primary Pancake Party

Our local church just started a new tradition this year called St. Patty's Primary Pancake Party (for Senior Saints). Of course to a Primary child (ages 3 to 12) anybody older than high school qualifies as a senior so it wasn't too hard to get an invitation. The children participated in the decorating, the cooking, the serving, and even the games and entertainment. It was a delightful event.

The only problem we saw was that it was held at 8:00 on a Saturday morning, a day and time by which we seniors find it really difficult to get out of bed let alone venture out into the world for breakfast. But we made it and wish to thank the Primary children for their thoughtfulness.

Popcorn popping...

... all around our neighborhood. What a dramatic sight to see so many trees in the neighborhood suddenly pop overnight into glorious white blossoms.

A week earlier it seemed all the pink trees in town popped overnight. Just gorgeous. But it won't last long, you can already see the green leaves peering out between the blossoms.

An Inconvenient Truth - movie review

Since the movie An Inconvenient Truth, starring Al Gore received so much positive commentary prior to and during the Academy awards, I was prepared to be disappointed, and I was. But not with the movie.

The movie was everything that I could have hoped for - informative, fact-filled, humorous, entertaining, moving. I couldn't believe someone could take a slide presentation, even a great slide presentation, and make an entertaining movie but director Davis Guggenheim did a masterful jog. The story line - that human activity has pushed the world to the brink of cataclysmic climate change - is depressing but somehow the movie leaves you with the impression that all is not lost, that we're still in charge of our destiny, and that with immediate and appropriate action we can still maintain the earth as we know it. Of course, the movie also makes it perfectly clear that doing nothing will result in major changes in the world's climate, continental shapes, and even ocean currents.

Al Gore takes on the idea so common in the popular press that "we just don't have all the data we need" and properly puts it in it's place. We'll never have all the data we "need" but we have more than enough to justify changing our habits and our lifestyles. And if we don't, they'll be changed for us by Mother Nature in ways we probably won't be happy with.

Not knowing whether I even wanted to spend the $3.85 to rent the movie from Hollywood Video, I borrowed it for free from the local library. But I feel so positive after seeing it, that I'm going to buy it or ask for it for my birthday.

So how was I disappointed? I was made so aware of the fact that we came so close to having an intelligent, knowledgeable, competent President elected in 2000. I feel really cheated and let down by the American electoral process. And although that wasn't the theme of the movie, it is "an inconvenient truth".

John Brown's Body Lies a Mouldering in the Grave...

Just when I had made up my mind to be cremated and was about to pick up the phone to call the Neptune Society for details about how to go about making pre-death arrangements, an article in the Sacramento Bee caught my attention. Officials at UC Davis and Cal State University Chico are seriously looking into developing a "body farm" somewhere in northern California. In case you haven't heard, body farms are large open areas with a variety of vegetation, water features, and soil conditions where dead bodies can be left in various states of exposure to the elements which would also include small animals, bugs, and bacteria of all sorts. The idea is to simulate real situations where people are killed and left to return to the earth without benefit of embalming or cremation or the kind services of an undertaker. Local and state law enforcement is interested in this venture because all the "good" data on decaying bodies now comes from a body farm in Tennessee. Another farm recently opened in North Carolina and there is already a waiting list of 2,000 people hoping to not be buried there.

While I understand the need to have scientific forensic data, running experiments out in mother nature's laboratory seems about as smart as allowing a bunch of high-school seniors to test the safety features of a nuclear power generator. Science is usually done best under conditions that are carefully controlled and monitored. I hope the body farmers understand that.

Google Me, Google You

Ever since Google has been around, it has been a popular sport to "Google" friends, business contacts, potential dates, etc. to get a little "low down" on the person in question. Not exactly like a fighter "sizing up" his opponent but not quite so flagrant as one dog sniffing another either. It certainly surprised me to find a couple of my teachers at American River College knew stuff about me that they could only have discovered by googling me.

Almost as much fun for some people has been the act of googling themselves to find out what others would be able to find out and sometimes to discover their "Google Twin". I was a little shocked to find that I have 274 entries with one form of my name and 114 entries with another. And not a single "twin".

Actually, that's not completely correct. I knew from past experience that there is an Arnold W. Loveridge in Henderson, Nevada but he doesn't come up unless I google my first and last names separate. And when I do that I get all sorts of entries of Arnolds and Loveridges that aren't even connected. I tried to call my "twin" once when we were passing through Las Vegas but got no answer.

Until just a short while ago, the only person in our immediate family who had a Google Image was my son Lee. Now Steven and I show up in the Google Image search.

Daylight saving time

Leave it to the government to mess with a good thing, this time creating a "mini-Y2K crisis". By now you've all suffered through yet another switch to Daylight Saving Time. I use the word "suffer" because losing either an hour of daytime activity or nighttime sleep is a bit of a sacrifice. I won't repeat all the details about Benjamin Franklin's first proposing Daylight Saving Time or the various configurations it has gone through including this latest version as part of the United States Energy Policy Act of 2005. You can find the gruesome details on Snopes.com or Wikipedia if you want to do a report in school. Snopes even includes a description of a cute prank that one newspaper editor pulled on his readers regarding "saving" daylight time.

The "mini-Y2K crisis" I mentioned, occurred because we are so used to computers making life easier for us we want the computers to remember to automatically change all our clocks as well. Indeed, I was pleasantly surprised this year to find out how many of the clocks in our house did change automatically. They did this because they were connected to a phone or TV network, a properly programmed computer, or by radio to a central time stations. But at least according to one systems programmer we know, it didn't go smoothly everywhere. He had to deal with "dueling servers" each of which wanted to control the network time.

Rub a dub dub, 4 kids in a ... dump cart??

When my daughter Jessica saw the picture on this blog of the dump cart we recently purchased at Costco, she suggested that it might make a handy way to transport several of the children in her day care to church or school.

Not wanting to leave anything to chance, Grandma picked up another dump cart the next time we were at Costco and prevailed upon Ed and Tiff to haul the rather large box to Long Beach when they went down there last week for a conference. This picture testifies to the fact that Jessica was able to put the cart together and verify that it does indeed provide good transportation for four little ones. They don't have a lot of room to rattle around and you probably wouldn't want that anyway.

I suspect this is one wagon that will get a lot of good use.

Spring is in the air

If there's one thing I enjoy more than the feel of spring in the air, it's seeing Carolyn out in her garden enjoying the coming of spring. We're expecting temperatures in the 80's this weekend and into next week so this is the perfect time to get out and start those outside projects.

While Carolyn was enjoying digging in the dirt, I managed to do a couple of projects of my own including mowing both front and back lawns, checking the sprinkler system to see that we haven't developed some major problems over the winter, and spread some pre-emergent crabgrass killer and lawn fertilizer on our lawns. There was one break in the sprinklers but it was fortunately just a riser that was easy to remove (with the right tool) and replace.

Content creator

This morning I learned a new computer term to describe myself: Content Creator. The Sacramento Bee carried a short "filler" article which claimed that 57% of American teens "have a web page or blog or have posted pictures on the Web. The referenced source, the Pew Internet & American Life Project, elaborates with additional statistics. The survey report is 3 years old and in Internet terms that means a lot could have changed since then.

According to this report:

A mere 2% of Adult Internet users maintain Web diaries or Web blogs, according to respondents to this phone survey. In other phone surveys prior to this one, and one more recently fielded in early 2004, we have heard that between 2% and 7% of adult Internet users have created diaries or blogs. In this survey we found that 11% of Internet users have read the blogs or diaries of other Internet users. About a third of these blog visitors have posted material to the blog. Most of those who do contribute material are not constantly updating or freshening content. Rather, they occasionally add to the material they have posted, created, or shared.

I guess this confirms, yet again, that I'm an odd duck.

The Last Days of Dead Celebrities - book review

I freely admit that I often judge a book by its cover, or by the title. And you'll have to admit that this one is catchy on both counts. With The Last Days of Dead Celebrities, author Mitchell Fink has brought together about as unlikely a grouping of celebrities as one could imagine. About the only things they have in common is that they were celebrities and they are now dead - hence the title.

Some of them, such as tennis great Arthur Ashe, knew for months that death was imminent. Thus the story becomes a biography of how he handled the delicate process of notifying his fans when he'd rather have kept his AIDS private. (He was infected with HIV through a possibly unnecessary blood transfusion before blood banks knew enough to screen for the virus.)

Others, like John Lennon, died very unexpectedly - in his case at the hands of an assassin. Then the story reads more like a murder mystery where each little action prior to the murder asks the question "what if this hadn't happened this way?"

There's no particular moral or message from the book. If anything it is that each of us will die in our own way on a timetable that we seldom control. Even the suicides (of which celebrities are certainly not exempt) seem to be the result of forces just a little beyond the individual's ability to cope.

This is not a happy book.

$1,000,000

... is still a lot of money. Yes, I know I've been the Chief Financial Officer of various companies whose annual income ranged from $25 million to $200 million and I should be sort of immune to the impressiveness of numbers with six zeros in them. But now that I'm retired I don't see those kinds of numbers or sign that size of check any more. So I was a little breathless when, as treasurer of the Friends of the Sacramento Public Library, I did my part to accept and transfer the funding of our Endowment Investment Account to the tune of $1,000,000. I'll never see the actual funds, of course, even if I wanted to. It is being conservatively invested with a reputable investment manager. The money was a gift from a Mrs. Willoughby Lyons, a former board member of the Friends, who wanted to ensure that the Friends can continue to assist the Sacramento Public Library for many years to come. Thank you, Mrs. Lyons!

Too good to be true!

A friend recently e-mailed me (and several others) an article pointing out all the amazing things that your cell phone can do including:

Contact emergency support even outside your own service network

Unlock your car remotely

Tap reserve battery power in your cell phone

Disable a stolen phone

Access 411 information without incurring charges

Unfortunately, my friend sent out the information without checking the source or the facts. A quick reference to Snopes.com would have informed him that at best a couple of these items are partially true while others are completely erroneous.

Just a reminder - if something seems too good to be true, it probably isn't true.

Some thoughts on the US Postal Service

You know, just when you're about to give up on government agencies one comes along that is a pleasant surprise. This week I've been impressed by the US Postal Service.

The first instance was a news announcement that first class postage rates will likely be going up 2 cents in May. That is neither surprising, nor pleasant. But along with this announcement was the announcement that the Post Office would be selling "forever" stamps with no denomination that would be good for first class postage "forever". This is a brilliant, and long overdue, idea. Since they have the money paid up front, the longer between the stamp purchase and use, the more the Postal Service earns on the money. The "forever" stamp would be a hedge on inflation for both customers and Postal Service. The pessimist in me says they'll mess it up somehow, but for now it looks good.

The second instance came about as the result of my signing up late for a Critical Thinking Seminar with the Renaissance Society. I missed the group purchase of our textbook so I ordered it through Amazon.com. I was prepared to wait 5 to 9 days to receive the book per the Amazon shipping instructions. Not only was I surprised and delighted that it took only 3 days but I received detailed tracking information from the time I placed the order until it landed in our mailbox. They didn't lead the way, but the Postal Service is trying to keep up.

Fart Proudly - book review

Fart Proudly edited by Carl Japikse does indeed contain "writings of Benjamin Franklin You Never Read in School". Many of the pieces are delightful satire or political jabs at the established government or religion of Franklin's time. It is delightful to see that many of them, with minor changes only, would be equally on the mark today.

Franklin was not hesitant to speak frankly or about subjects we would deem too bawdy to discuss in public now. In one of the first pieces he challenges the scientists of his day to develop something we could eat to make our farts enjoyable to others, or at least pleasant. We do that now with deodorant and breath freshener. Why haven't we met Franklin's challenge?

My favorite piece was one Franklin wrote in 1745 "On Choosing a Mistress" which includes this advice to choose an Older Woman for these reasons:

"1. Because they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stored with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreeable.

2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility...

3. Because there is no hazard of Children...

4. Because through more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion...

5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part... so that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old one from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure or corporal Enjjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of improvement.

6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching of a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy.

7. Because the Compunction is less... [you're] making an old Woman happy.

8th and last. [Because] they are so grateful!"

Unfortunately, in my opinion, the book is ruined or at least badly damaged when the editor concludes the book with a piece that he describes as a dream wherein he meets this Benjamin Franklin. Franklin then tells him in no uncertain terms just how far off the track America has gone and in which ways. He suggests that we modern citizens root out the asses in government and meet them stink for stink, farting in their faces, if you will, farting proudly.

Franklin may indeed have seen our world the way the editor claims but we'll never know. And putting words into others' mouths when they cannot refute them, is dangerously close to character assassination. Japikse may have all the libertarian feelings and thoughts that he wants but to have Franklin say them, even in a dream, is a crime.

New supermarket in town

... for us at least.
Because of my going to the Orangevale Community Center each week to pick up the meals to deliver for Meals on Wheels, a store that we probably would never have considered going to on any regular basis, may become one of our favorite choices. WinCo Foods is a huge, employee owned, well lit, well organized, warehouse type grocery store. But unlike other similar "warehouse" stores, you don't have to buy cartons or cases of product.

In fact, because they have a large selection of bulk products for such things as nuts...

and dried fruit, cereals, grains, candy, beans, and pasta, ...

you can literally buy as little or as much of these staples. (Candy is a staple, isn't it?) They have a great produce section, meat section, deli section,... well just everything that a "normal" grocery store has and the prices are 10 to 30% lower. They were even passing out samples of cherry pie today.

I suspect I'll end up shopping here almost every week.

Magazines coming to our house

This is a sample of the magazines that arrive at our house every month. The postman must think we're crazy, especially considering the variety. But these particular ones all have at least one other thing in common - they're free. Sorta. From time to time Carolyn and I have had the opportunity to fly somewhere and it hasn't been available or convenient to fly on the airline that we usually collect our frequent flier miles from. So we end up with some miles on Alaska Airlines or United and then never fly again on that airline or at least not often enough to earn a "reward" by the time the miles start expiring.

But somebody has discovered a way to get some value out of what would otherwise just be thrown away. We've been offered magazine subscriptions to "use up" these frequent flier miles. The offers rarely include magazines that we already subscribe to but some of the offerings really are good magazines. We get a one-year trial subscription, the magazine gets some exposure, and the airline gets to write off the reward miles. Talk about a win-win-win situation. We've already let several subscriptions lapse but it was fun getting the trial subscriptions.

8 Preposterous Propositions - book review

Author Robert Ehrlich, in his book 8 Preposterous Propositions, is not so much trying to convince you of his viewpoint on those propositions as he trying to show the scientific and critical thinking method that we all can (and should) use to evaluate these and similar propositions when we learn about them. In this way, this book is similar to a prior book by Ehrlich titled "Nine Crazy Ideas in Science".

This time around the topics are

homosexuality - heredity or environment

intelligent design

creeping IQ scores

psychokinesis

global warming

extra-terrestrial life - rare or common

the placebo effect; and

cholesterol, health hazard or not

For each topic Ehrlich examines the cases for and against while pointing out the dangers of being too open minded or too closed minded. He attempts to be objective while at the same time warning you in what ways he might not be. He even goes so far as to reveal that in the course of evaluating a particular topic, he has changed his position several times.

The net result is an excellent text in critical thinking and a fairly good book about the scientific method. His scale of "flakiness" (from 0 to 4 flakes) for how preposterous an idea is, is cute but, I think, would tend to indicate that science is rather arbitrary or that scientists somehow "vote" on how acceptable an idea is. I think he could do better describing the real path of scientific progress.

Having my head examined

Getting old is really a pain - literally. Recently I've been suffering from some lower back pain, slight clumsiness in my walk, and some difficulty standing up from a sitting position. My primary physician referred me to a neurologist who ordered several lab tests on my blood and MRI scans of my brain and neck.

One of the things we really like about where we live is our close proximity to the Kaiser Medical Center. It is a full service medical center which means that almost all the diagnostic tests ordered by our doctors can be performed here although we've also used the facility out in Roseville quite a bit. That isn't all that inconvenient but it's maybe 10 miles further.

Tucked behind the local Medical Center are a couple of trailers for doing some of the more esoteric testing. This is the third time I had a chance to visit the MRI trailer. The first two times were to examine my neck for blood flow and nerve compression. This latest time was a brain scan to see if I might have some nerve blockage there.

When I saw the neurologist today to get the results of the tests he said, "I've got bad news and good news. The bad news is that I couldn't find what could be causing your problems. The good news is that I couldn't find anything wrong with your any of your scans and blood work." I wasn't sure what to make of the fact that he appeared much more distressed about the bad news than he was happy about the good news. In the event, he came up with some more exotic lab tests to order and then suggested that unless they turn up something, we wait until my symptoms get better or worse.

30-day trial period begins

Since the Kaiser audiologist agreed with my daughter-in-law Tiffany about my hearing loss and since our coverage includes a significant hearing aid benefit, I went to the Kaiser Hearing Aid Center two weeks ago to be fitted for a hearing aid. The audiologist actually recommended that I start with one aid to see how helpful it is and how well I tolerate the device in my ear.

Today, I returned to pick up the hearing aid and receive instructions about using it. I have 30 days to try it out. If I decide I can't use it, can't stand it, or for whatever reason that I don't want it, I can turn it in for a full refund. It turns out that Kaiser (and almost everyone else) only sells digital hearing aids any more. This one is programmed by the audiologist to fit my hearing profile and can be reprogrammed at any time if I find it not matching my needs. The plastic earpiece isn't supposed to block any sound as there's a small canal that goes through it to let normal sound through. So far about all I can tell is that the hearing aid amplifies sound just enough to make up for the fact that there's a big piece of plastic in my ear. But then I haven't had the opportunity to see how it works in work and social situations.

Pleasant surprise

It's that time of year again when I finally face the file drawer where I have been stuffing all the tax related junk since last year. I grudgingly sort out all the W-2's, 1099's, and assorted other statements and envelopes declaring "Important Tax Information Inside". Turbo Tax isn't perfect, but it does help organize the process and asks the right questions to get most of the proper income and deductions in their proper place.

For a while, it looked like my change in employment status from employee to part-time consultant was going to leave our taxes grossly underpaid and we'd end up with a hefty payment to the Feds, maybe even a penalty for underwithholding.

But coming to the rescue was our purchase last year of the Toyota Highlander Hybrid and the $2,600 tax credit that purchase generated. That's almost like three free car payments! Our tax bill was reduced to something more manageable and I could breathe a sigh of relief as I submitted our return.

Grandma's next project

Sometimes a sale is inspirational. A recent sale at Beverly's craft store netted us several picture albums and the more she thought about it, the more Carolyn decided it would be a good idea to go all the way. She now has two albums for each of the kids - one to put pictures in that we want to keep but don't have enough shelf or wall space to accommodate and one to put pictures in that we want to share with that child and his/her family. The prospect of sorting through all our pictures is daunting enough but at least this way there will be someplace to put the pictures as they're being sorted.

Is it really just around the corner?

I walked out into our backyard today to examine the trees and found this tiny evidence that spring was indeed approaching. It hardly seems possible as we were having freezing temperatures just a couple of weeks ago and some pretty cold winds and rain this past week. They're predicting more storms for the coming weeks. Right now it is cold and gloomy outside.

But spring is in the air. The rosebushes that Carolyn has been tending lately, giving them a little trim, are just bursting out. The leaves are red or bright green, already adding color to our yard. So, yes, there will be a few more days of wet and cold but spring is just around the corner.

And You Know You Should Be Glad - book review

Don't read this book on a cold, rainy evening when your lover is 300 miles away and you're feeling a bit down and lonely. "And You Know You Should Be Glad" by Bob Greene should be read on a hot summer day with friends and family in the backyard talking about the latest antics of the local baseball team or when the next grandchild in the family is due.

The title is, of course, from the third stanza of the Beatles song "She Loves You" but the book is pure sentimentality told in a personal blog style that includes flashbacks, explanatory fill-in, and lots of heart-warming details. It starts when five men (high school class of 1965) who have been friends since grade school get together again when one of them is faced with serious, life-threatening illness. Bob Greene then takes us through the next several months as his friend Jack fights a losing battle with cancer. Bob and other friends try to rally his spirits and relive his old memories while helping him say his good-byes to the town. By the end of the book you feel that you know Jack almost as well as any of the four of his friends and you wish you could have attended the funeral. Great writing that will have many of us reliving our school year memories.

Glenn Gary - musician and caregiver

One of the more frustrating things about my service for Meals on Wheels has been the need to get the food delivered in a timely manner which sort of gets in the way of getting to know some of the men and women I deliver the meals to. But I still manage to squeeze in a couple of minutes' visit with one or two each Thursday which is my delivery day. That's how I've gotten to know a little about this gentleman - Glenn Gary or, as he is also known as, Glenn Tomlinson.

Glenn was something of a utility man for several bands in the 60's and 70's, playing in almost every state and several foreign countries. Although the Hammond B-3 organ was his most versatile instrument, he also played 11 different horns and woodwinds, guitar, and piano. He often sang along with his own accompaniment or had a horn in one hand while he played accompaniment on the organ with the other.

He has shared with me a CD sample of his wide repertoire as well as a flyer and photo of him working. (Click on photo for a larger picture.) The music works for both easy listening as well as background mood music.

He had to make a decision early in his career between medicine and music and it was a difficult choice since he was good at both. But music was his greatest love and won out. Still, he's a doctor at heart. Now, after a great musical career he spends most of his time caring for his bride of 7 months. She tells me she has a musical history as well. I guess I need to have several more interesting discussions with this couple.

New fast food in town - Chick-Fil-A

Recently Carolyn and I were out and about at lunch time. We were about to stop at one of our favorite restaurants for a bite to eat when we spotted one of the newest fast food places in town - Chick-Fil-A. I've actually been to a Chick-Fil-A in the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance but it's been at least 15 years ago. And I think I've seen one in the Long Beach "Edge-of-Town" Center. But this is new to our area so we had to drop in and check it out.

It really had a "McDonald's" feel to it since it had an indoor play area for little ones and the day we were there appeared to be prime time for mothers with their tots. I think I counted 12 mothers, each with at least 1 tot in tow. We managed to get our orders placed just before a huge lunchtime crowd arrived so when we picked up our food the order line was well out the door.

Carolyn noticed that whenever she thanked one of the employees the response was always "my pleasure" not "you're welcome". We had also heard that they were always closed on Sundays. Checking out their web site I noted the following quote:

"Our official statement of corporate purpose says that we exist to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A."

They also indicate they are closed on Sundays so that

"every Chick-fil-A employee and restaurant operator had an opportunity to worship, spend time with family and friends or just plain rest from the work week."

The food (which is pretty much all chicken prepared as sandwiches or nuggets) was good but nothing special. The prices seemed a little higher than most other fast food. It won't be high on our list of places to go.

Why People Believe Weird Things - book review

Michael Shermer, author of Why People Believe Weird Things thinks that a key to humankind's great evolutionary progress is the result of our being able to believe and disbelieve. Without both abilities we would be severely hampered. We must be able to believe enough to plan for the future, expect planted crops to germinate and grow, and rely on each other for support and comfort. But we must be skeptical enough to question why things work the way they do and whether there are improvements that can be made in ourselves, our tools, and our relationships. The problem comes when I am skeptical about something you believe or you are skeptical about something I believe. Two methods or sorting out such disagreements have been developed and used for several hundred, if not several thousand years: Authoritarianism and the Scientific Method.

According to Shermer (founding publisher of "Skeptic" magazine and regular contributor to Scientific American) people believe weird things because they have been taught to believe them (they have accepted the "authority" of the teacher) or they have experienced something that fits a pattern that makes sense to them. Shermer describes the thought process and how it works for both science and pseudoscience or superstition. The "weird things" he uses for examples are UFO's and alien abductions, near death experiences, ESP and other mind tricks, holocaust denial, creationism, and even Ayn Rand's Objectivism. He even shows how scientists can fall prey to superstition if they forget to continually use the scientific method to test their new found knowledge.

Originally published in 1998, Shermer brought out a revised edition in 2002 and included a final chapter "Why SMART people believe in weird things." In this chapter he details statistics that show that intelligence is no guarantee of being able to screen out superstition and pseudoscience. In fact, smart people might be even better at defending the weird beliefs that they picked up for non-smart reasons. In other words, intelligence is on a completely different axis from belief and skepticism.

I found the book very readable with good examples of all the propositions. But don't take my word for it. Be skeptical until you read it yourself.

American Heritage Celebration

What better way to celebrate Presidents Day than take the grandkids to a American Heritage Celebration which was held at a local Memorial Park (cemetery) appropriately named Mount Vernon. In addition to a fife and drum band, horseshoeing demonstrations, and actors portraying George Washington, Betsy Ross, and Abraham Lincoln, there was also

a spinning wheel demonstration;

a New Pierce Indian with ceremonial regalia worth thousands of dollars;

two baby goats to pet and hold;

and even an old fashioned bicycle (whose rider was taking a break right then).

Except for the wind, it was a perfect day for the activities.

The Crocker

That is short for the Crocker Art Museum, one of the premium museums in our town. Today not being quite the spectacularly warm spring day that yesterday was, we decided to conduct our adventure outing indoors. Besides, we wanted to take advantage of the Crocker Museum being free on Sundays.

We were not alone. So many people take advantage of the free day at the Crocker that street parking (which is also free on Sundays) was virtually impossible to come by. Fortunately, we were able to find convenient parking in a nearby city parking lot for only $3.

The spotlight exhibit today was Ansel Adams and his pictures of Yosemite in particular. Apparently he, Georgia O'Keeffe and a couple of friends made an 11 day trip through Yosemite in the fall of 1938 and Adams made up photo albums for each of the members of the camping party for that Christmas. Naturally, being a VERY limited edition, it is priceless. We also visited an exhibit of noteworthy photographs that have appeared in the Sacramento Bee which is currently celebrating its 150th anniversary.

The Sundial Bridge

My Random Event Generator (Carolyn) struck again. It was a beautiful, sunny day today with no other obligations so we were working in the front yard. Flower beds that had suffered through the winter with several days of frost needed cleaning up and the lawn was looking shaggy but starting to turn green. It needed a perfunctory mowing to clean off the leaves and then a treatment of pre-emergent crabgrass killer. With temperatures reaching over 70, it just made sense to work around the house.

However, it also made sense to go adventuring. Sometime last year Carolyn had read about a "sundial bridge" in the local newspaper and she thought it was relatively close to us - Sutter County, maybe. We decided it would make a nice afternoon excursion after we had tired ourselves out on the flower bed and lawn.

Well, it turned out that the Sundial Bridge is in Turtle Bay park, Redding, in Shasta County, about 175 miles and 2.5 to 3 hours away. Still, it was a beautiful day for a drive. By the time we arrived we only had two hours to enjoy the bridge and the nearby gardens and fountains. That turned out to be plenty of time.

The bridge really is a marvel of beauty and utility. It's hard to decide whether it should be classed as a bridge or a sculpture because it's such a good example of both. It's a suspension footbridge across the Sacramento River. It is a graceful structural sculpture with sweeping tower, delicate cables and attractive glass walkway that is lit from underneath at night.

It is also a working sundial. There are markers on the north side of the Sacramento River to indicate what time of day the shadow of the main structure falls on that marker. Click on the reference above to learn more about this beautiful attraction.

Tiger Cub Timothy

The youngest Cub Scout group is the Tiger Cubs, a change in the Scouting program since my kids were in Cub Scouts and one that the Mormon Church still hasn't come to terms with. So when Timothy joined the Cub Scouts this year it was as part of Cub Pack 123 which is sponsored by the Our Lady of Presentation Catholic Church. Timothy's father, being an Eagle Scout himself, volunteered to be the Den Leader.

We grandparents were delighted to be invited to the recent Blue & Gold dinner put on by the Pack. Not only did they have a sumptious dinner of lasagna and salad

but they also had delicious cakes prepared and decorate by the boys and their dads.

After the meal badges, awards, and thanks were handed out and short skits performed. Then we all retired to the "cultural hall" when various games and activities and even a cotton candy machines had been set up.

Of course Grandma had to tried the air slide and


we both tried our hand at being pushed around the hall by Edward. It was a great evening.

Count first, then deliver

As a young boy I delivered the Salt Lake Tribune to about 50 subscribers on one route and then later another 75 subscribers on another route. The Tribune was a morning paper which meant that we were supposed to have the paper on the porch by 6:00 in the morning which we did most of the time. The papers were dropped off in bundles at the back of the city fire station. The bundles were either 50 papers on weekdays or 20 on Sundays and then a bundle that was customized to the number on your route. If I had 55 papers to deliver I would get one standard bundle and another with 5 papers in it.

I always tried to be at the fire station before the bundles arrived so I had the best chance of getting my papers before anyone else had a chance to get them. You see, sometimes the bundles would be short one or two papers. It wasn't often but it happened enough that it was always a good idea to count your papers before you headed out on your route. One of the other routes included papers for the vending machines and restaurants downtown. They could miss one or two papers but I couldn't. Not without a lot of grief from the subscriber.

All this came back to me when I started delivering Meals On Wheels. The people at the central kitchen do a good job of counting the meals to be packed for each route but sometimes there is an error. This past week was one of those. The truck from the central kitchen delivered to me 6 meals to deliver to 13 clients. Fortunately, I counted before the truck left. Through the cooperation of the driver and the site administrator, I got the additional 7 meals I needed. There are a dozen or so people who come to eat at the drop-off site so I could "borrow" from that group and additional meals would come later to replace them. I was sure glad I didn't discover the shortage halfway through my route.