... Begins with a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Good Kwanzaa, and otherwise all-around happy Friday to everyone. I am not a man who discriminates based upon the beliefs of another. I try to accommodate every faith. I make no secret of my Mormon faith. It's no secret that I was a pretty lousy Mormon for a long, long period of time, either. My decision to become a Mormon was based on a personal quest to find which religion was right for me, and I've looked into as many Christian based faiths as I have non-Christian. I've read translations of enough of the Koran to know that "true Islam" is a quest for peace, I've learned to respect the faith of others, and I would hope to be treated in kind.
That being said...
The verdict on 2015 is in... it sucked. It was on it's way to being "Ho-Hum," and almost got there, until the transfer case on my 2002 RAV4 goes out on me on I-80, coming home from a Stake Temple Assignment. Fortunately, I was able to navigate my way onto the shoulder of the road, and no accidents or near-misses occurred. We were safe, it was cold, and we really weren't dressed for it. We weren't far from home, and by the time the tow truck driver had the RAV safely secured, daughter Tyffany showed up to take us home. I did the fastest "Temple-dress-to-working-clothes" change ever recorded, was out the door, and on my way to Toyota. As I drove up, a security guard was approaching a locked gate, at which our driver was sitting. He said he called me, but my phone was still in the RAV (one of the things I was intending to retrieve), so it was lucky that I got there when I did.
Long story short, need new transfer case. No such thing in USA, however there were two available in Japan. Part should be here on, or before December 24, and depending upon when it arrives, the work should be done by December 26 at the latest. Estimated cost: $5700 parts/labor/taxes/etc.
No one, however, can explain HOW my transfer case came to be, as Ray (at Toyota Service) told me, "dry as a bone." The way I understand it is that there is a front seal, and a rear seal, neither of which showed any signs of leaking, and yet a mostly closed system of 90W gear oil is suddenly dry? I asked. Ray started sputtering, trying to go on about the people maintaining my car (Firestone), but I had had this conversation with Firestone a few minutes earlier, and noted that Toyota was the only one's even near the transfer case, particularly when they did a transmission system flush two years ago. I have a idea of how it might have happened.
Scenario One:
During the transmission system flush, oil was drained from the transfer case, either mistakenly, or intentionally. Not totally, the vehicle wouldn't last very long with no oil. Taking a portion sufficient enough to allow heat to build, over a period of time, it took time to manifest, but the oil eventually burned out on the inside of the transfer case.
Scenario Two"
During the transmission system flush, something was, either mistakenly, or intentionally, introduced into the transfer case an agent that might have adversely impacted the viscosity of the oil in the case, burning it off over time.
I'm actually leaning towards the second scenario. Particularly if a de-greasing agent is introduced during the transmission flush. I am going to stand fast on this one, because I didn't F anything up. I'm going to ask them who worked on the transmission in 2013, if he/she is still employed, how long had they been on the job in 2013, any other complaints about this persons work?
Until last Tuesday, 2015 was just another year to forget, too.
Saturday, December 19, 2015
Monday, December 7, 2015
December 7, 2015
Today is the 74th Anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. More than 2,000 people were killed, thousands more wounded, and a crippling blow on the US Navy was delivered in a short period of time. Americans came together, rebuilt the fleet, and masterfully conducted war on a global scale, proving to the world that, "You don't *&$# with America."
September 11, 2001, Islamist terrorists hijack four commercial aircraft, slam two of them into the towers of the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon, and lost the fourth to a courageous group of passengers who forced the plane into the ground, killing everyone aboard. All totaled, more than 3,000 people lose their lives in the attack, thousands more wounded, and thousands more with ongoing medical problems from the dust from the falling towers, or injuries related to the attack. Americans came together, rebuilt the tower, toppled a sadistic dictator and a tyrannical leadership bringing freedom to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Fast Forward another fourteen years, to 2015. Islamist terrorists publicly behead anyone in Syria and Iraq that isn't affiliated with ISIS. They carry out attacks in Germany, German warplanes fly 1,100 sorties in a week. The terrorists kill 130 some people in Paris, French warplanes fly another 1,200 sorties in a week. In California, 14 people are killed by a couple who have pledged allegiance to the "Islamic State," the President cites the need for more gun control, our Governor flies to San Bernadino to get a few photo's taken before he goes to Paris to show the world what a Paradise he has created in California, and it takes Presidential speech writers 4 days to come up with a spin on the attack that meets with Obama's approval. Meanwhile, US military aircraft continue to run less than 50 sorties per week. Is it me? Or is there something wrong?
First of all, the Right to own weapons is guaranteed by our Constitution, more correctly by the Second Amendment to the Constitution, such Amendments being known as The Bill of Rights. It would take a Constitutional Amendment to change that, and that just cannot happen. The sole purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect the citizenry from a Government that seeks to ignore the Constitution for the purpose of oppressing We The People. While many are distracted by gun control, many others are assailing our Right to Free Speech under the guise of Political Correctness. All the while, the President, by his own words, "has a phone and a pen," and no intention of living up to his oath of office to, "protect and defend" the Constitution, not "object and suspend".
I'm 64, and have 30 - 35 years, tops, left on this planet, and yet I may still live to see this Country suffer some horrendous injury. That thought saddens me in ways I cannot describe. I pray, every day, that Americans put aside their petty arguments, and start working together one more time.
In the 20th Century, American history was a continuing story of overcoming any disaster, Natural or man-made. So far, the 21st Century is a story of vanity, over-sensitivity, and entitlement. It's not a great start, but together we can overcome anything. We're AMERICAN'S damn it! It's time to go back to acting like it.
Friday, November 20, 2015
I've Gotten Hung-up...
... in the heat of the moment, and may have said some things that I regret regarding the settlement of Syrian refugees in the US. I am not against granting political asylum to people who are being bombed out of their own homes by people who have perverted a religion to their own vision of settling the Crusades once and for all. If we were a Nation where no citizens were homeless, or hungry, or lacking in any of the necessities of life, I'd be the first person in line to welcome them to my country. If we didn't have thousands of my brother and sister veterans being denied the medical care that was promised them in their enlistment contracts, I would help lay down the red carpet. The fact is, that neither of these things have been done, and have gotten worse under an administration that views it's military with disdain, and would rather give tax money to people who cross the border illegally (yeah, I said it) than make good on it's promises to those who sacrificed to serve the Nation.
Charity Begins at Home. I once saw these words, embroidered and framed, in the hallway of a friend's home, many years ago. We could, probably, argue for hours over what that means, but it's certainly apt for America today. We pay taxpayer dollars, millions of them, to people and organizations that hate us. Why? We make critical deals with a theocracy that despises the West and says, straight out, that they have no intention of honoring any deal with the infidels, and then we release hundreds of millions of dollars in seized assets so they can further their goal of developing a nuclear weapon. Is it just me, or is there a major league-sized idiocy going on?
The "good" news is that the illegal's from Mexico are going home (anchor babies and all) faster than they are coming into the country, according to the Associated Press. According to their story, more than a million people crossed back into Mexico from 2009 - 2014, while some 870,000 illegals came in over the same period. Net flow back to Mexico was 140,000, citing the poor economy, tightening of border enforcement, and a desire to reunite families as the primary reasons. Personally, I think it may have been, at least partially, caused by a change in the National consensus, more people seeing illegals as "a problem," rather than as a people.
The "bad" news is we still have an extremely porous Southern border. There will be a number of jihadists among the Syrian refugees trying to come to the US, and the Government might actually screw up and catch a couple of them, even a blind squirrel... I fear the ones that would come across the Southern border more. If the screening process for the Syrians is any good, a person might get through, but a jihadist could come across the Southern border along with some chemical/biological agents that could kill millions.
No, I am not against immigrants. I have them in my family, people who came from Ireland and Scotland to try to make a living in America. They came through Ellis Island, and withstood all of the degradation associated with that, and came in legally. If the screening process of Syrians is anything like that, I'd probably feel a lot better about them. I oppose no one based upon their religious beliefs. I have known and associated with people from around the globe, and somehow that subject just doesn't come up that often.
I was lucky, and had my first "foreign" experience before I was 21. I was out on my own, for the first time, really, in countries who's only restriction on drinking was an ability to put money on the counter. NOT being a member of any church, at the time, I gave in to the idea of drinking "to make up for the times we couldn't" (supposedly while we were out at sea). To be honest, more than one bunk had a small bar in it, a couple of bottles, or so. We had a guy take the guts out of a photo processing machine, and turn it into a source of heat and security for a home wine making kit. The new processors were installed several months prior to our deployment during an overhaul, and the Photographer's Mate in charge recognized it's potential right away. The result was that we left Norfolk with 10 gallons of homemade wine, fermented with a little heat, that was very, very strong. Those who were "in" on the scam could get half of one coffee cup full each day, when their shift was over, and not before. The reason for that was, it was so strong, you were better off waiting until you got into your bunk before drinking it. A "shot" is one ounce. Half of a coffee cup is four ounces. Drinkers, imagine what effect four ounces of "Jack," or some other such liquor. It was the same with four ounces of the "Photo Finish," as we came to name it. Drink it within a few minutes, and your BAC would go to .2 or better. Night-night!
My second cruise was much better. PACE (Program for Afloat College Education) had a teacher on board for the entire six months who was a linguist, and spoke more than a dozen different languages. He was treated as an "officer," and given a private stateroom to hang out in when he wasn't teaching (or hiding out during drills). Whenever we would go into a new port, I would ask him to give me a phonetic breakdown of three basic things: "Hello, my name is Steven." "I do not speak [language]." "Could you take me to someone who speaks English." Funny, even the guy who, ten seconds before "spoke no Englee," suddenly develops an amazing capacity for the language. It seemed as though, if I took the time to learn some phrases, and speak them in a polished manner, the people appreciated the time I put in to learn them, and be most helpful. It was a much better deployment during which I met a bunch of really nice people, including a group of Russian Sailors we met on a trip to the Black Sea side of Turkey. I have the utmost respect for all people, their customs, and their traditions.
Hate is the result of Fear. Fear is the result of ignorance. We fear what we do not know. As I got to know people abroad, I became less afraid, and strangers (for the moment) became good friends. A cab driver we met on our first trip into Athens, came and looked for us at the landing whenever INDY was in the bay (Piraeus Bay in Athens). He took us everywhere, and we'd pay him $20 apiece for the whole day, as there were three of us, he fared quite well in 1973 dollars and drachmas, and invited us into his home to meet his family. The three of us spent our next two paychecks getting stuff from the Exchange for his wife and kids for Christmas. On our last free night before leaving the Eastern Mediterranean, they brought us over for dinner, and hugged us, thanking us for our generosities, we took pictures with them (rather they took pictures of us), and we all had a good cry before we left. I never saw them again, but they are etched in my heart forever.
Now you know why I call this a "Ramble".
Charity Begins at Home. I once saw these words, embroidered and framed, in the hallway of a friend's home, many years ago. We could, probably, argue for hours over what that means, but it's certainly apt for America today. We pay taxpayer dollars, millions of them, to people and organizations that hate us. Why? We make critical deals with a theocracy that despises the West and says, straight out, that they have no intention of honoring any deal with the infidels, and then we release hundreds of millions of dollars in seized assets so they can further their goal of developing a nuclear weapon. Is it just me, or is there a major league-sized idiocy going on?
The "good" news is that the illegal's from Mexico are going home (anchor babies and all) faster than they are coming into the country, according to the Associated Press. According to their story, more than a million people crossed back into Mexico from 2009 - 2014, while some 870,000 illegals came in over the same period. Net flow back to Mexico was 140,000, citing the poor economy, tightening of border enforcement, and a desire to reunite families as the primary reasons. Personally, I think it may have been, at least partially, caused by a change in the National consensus, more people seeing illegals as "a problem," rather than as a people.
The "bad" news is we still have an extremely porous Southern border. There will be a number of jihadists among the Syrian refugees trying to come to the US, and the Government might actually screw up and catch a couple of them, even a blind squirrel... I fear the ones that would come across the Southern border more. If the screening process for the Syrians is any good, a person might get through, but a jihadist could come across the Southern border along with some chemical/biological agents that could kill millions.
No, I am not against immigrants. I have them in my family, people who came from Ireland and Scotland to try to make a living in America. They came through Ellis Island, and withstood all of the degradation associated with that, and came in legally. If the screening process of Syrians is anything like that, I'd probably feel a lot better about them. I oppose no one based upon their religious beliefs. I have known and associated with people from around the globe, and somehow that subject just doesn't come up that often.
I was lucky, and had my first "foreign" experience before I was 21. I was out on my own, for the first time, really, in countries who's only restriction on drinking was an ability to put money on the counter. NOT being a member of any church, at the time, I gave in to the idea of drinking "to make up for the times we couldn't" (supposedly while we were out at sea). To be honest, more than one bunk had a small bar in it, a couple of bottles, or so. We had a guy take the guts out of a photo processing machine, and turn it into a source of heat and security for a home wine making kit. The new processors were installed several months prior to our deployment during an overhaul, and the Photographer's Mate in charge recognized it's potential right away. The result was that we left Norfolk with 10 gallons of homemade wine, fermented with a little heat, that was very, very strong. Those who were "in" on the scam could get half of one coffee cup full each day, when their shift was over, and not before. The reason for that was, it was so strong, you were better off waiting until you got into your bunk before drinking it. A "shot" is one ounce. Half of a coffee cup is four ounces. Drinkers, imagine what effect four ounces of "Jack," or some other such liquor. It was the same with four ounces of the "Photo Finish," as we came to name it. Drink it within a few minutes, and your BAC would go to .2 or better. Night-night!
My second cruise was much better. PACE (Program for Afloat College Education) had a teacher on board for the entire six months who was a linguist, and spoke more than a dozen different languages. He was treated as an "officer," and given a private stateroom to hang out in when he wasn't teaching (or hiding out during drills). Whenever we would go into a new port, I would ask him to give me a phonetic breakdown of three basic things: "Hello, my name is Steven." "I do not speak [language]." "Could you take me to someone who speaks English." Funny, even the guy who, ten seconds before "spoke no Englee," suddenly develops an amazing capacity for the language. It seemed as though, if I took the time to learn some phrases, and speak them in a polished manner, the people appreciated the time I put in to learn them, and be most helpful. It was a much better deployment during which I met a bunch of really nice people, including a group of Russian Sailors we met on a trip to the Black Sea side of Turkey. I have the utmost respect for all people, their customs, and their traditions.
Hate is the result of Fear. Fear is the result of ignorance. We fear what we do not know. As I got to know people abroad, I became less afraid, and strangers (for the moment) became good friends. A cab driver we met on our first trip into Athens, came and looked for us at the landing whenever INDY was in the bay (Piraeus Bay in Athens). He took us everywhere, and we'd pay him $20 apiece for the whole day, as there were three of us, he fared quite well in 1973 dollars and drachmas, and invited us into his home to meet his family. The three of us spent our next two paychecks getting stuff from the Exchange for his wife and kids for Christmas. On our last free night before leaving the Eastern Mediterranean, they brought us over for dinner, and hugged us, thanking us for our generosities, we took pictures with them (rather they took pictures of us), and we all had a good cry before we left. I never saw them again, but they are etched in my heart forever.
Now you know why I call this a "Ramble".
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Brian Gardner Posted a Study on Facebook...
... concerning a resurgence in the use of LSD, and how that might trigger a renewed interest in Progressive Rock, an often overlooked, but very interesting variation on more traditional Rock themes.
Sorry, Brian, but I wanted to explain my comment, and didn't want to do it on Facebook.
I totally admit, and really haven't ever tried to deny the fact that I used drugs, fairly frequently, from the time I turned 16. Believe me, I regret it, but not like anyone would accept. I regret the fact that my self-esteem was so low that I had to hang out with some of the people I hung out with, although a lot of that had to do with the fact that I started smoking at 10, and, even in the early '60's, smokers were somewhat ostracized by the more "popular" kids, tending to hang out in groups of kids that smoked. We weren't the Popular crowd, but I found out later that quite a few of them smoked, and were just being A-holes to people they just didn't like. I didn't figure it out until much later, but smoking was a symptom of a much bigger problem.
Your dad can tell you, that teachers used the terms "stupid," "dumb," and "idiot" back in the '50's and '60's pretty freely. Classes then weren't the "touchy-feely, every one's a winner" things they've evolved into. You stepped out of line, somebody smacked you, and you didn't go home and tell Mommy and Daddy about it, because they'd probably beat your ass for being a problem in the first place. I didn't know until I was 19 that I had a 135 IQ, so I went through 13 years of public school thinking I was stupid, dumb, and an idiot. Re-enforced by my parents, who weren't equipped to deal with me, and who deferred to what the teachers said.
And that's only part of it, too. I could give you a whole lot of psychological/sociological/behavioral reasons why I did it, but to be honest, I mostly did it because I had a whole lot of fun. Particularly LSD.
Understand, my drug use was purely recreational. I never got "hooked" on anything, nor did I ever consider using cocaine, heroin, or anything like that, although I did do opium a couple of times, and could see how that could be a problem. Shrooms? Acid? A handful of Bennies? That was a pretty good Friday night, and sometimes Saturday, too. We hung out in the park like "Hippies," only we lacked the commitment to a lifestyle that included infrequent bathing.
Occasionally, we'd wait until Saturday morning to "drop" (take) the LSD tablet, and do an all-day trip (pun not intended, but it did work pretty well). During the Winter, we'd go to Tahoe, or one of the ski resorts, and just play in the snow like kids. Sure, kids never got "trails" off a snow ball, or any of the thousand things that caused one of us to say, "Oh Wow!" We had gone up in the daytime, and it was pretty cold in the back of the pick-up we rode up in, but after dark... towards the end, we were in a pile in the back of the truck, as close to the cab as everyone could get. In hindsight, probably not the best planned trip to the snow, but those of us who went had the time of their lives, playing in the snow (I know I've never seen snow the same way since).
Every once in a while, after we got married, I would get an offer to do a tab of Acid, and I turned it down, almost every time. There was this one time, in Louisiana, after we had lost our daughter Amy, I said, "OK."
We went water skiing on the Pearl River, right on the Mississippi/Louisiana border. I've tried to sit down and write this experience out many, many times, and just can't do it justice. There were no hallucinations (although I thought I saw an alligator), but everything was funny. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G! A bird lands on a bush. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA. I do a face-plant in the middle of the river. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA. The alligator. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA.
I woke up, the next morning, and my sides hurt. I started to think about the previous day, and start to chuckle again, OW! That was the last time, though. It's odd, because all of the other ones had great colors, and more than a few hallucinations, but there was always music involved in the others, just a boat motor, and the sound of three idiots laughing themselves silly.
The interest in Progressive Rock goes back to when most people had turntables, and PRock songs are usually pretty long, so you didn't have to change the record as often (which was BS, anyway, because vinyl could only take so much). If you had a reel-to-reel tape player/recorder, you could make tapes that were 6 hours long, and PRock albums could play uninterrupted.
Back before headphones became popular, I used to listen to music with my head between the stereo speakers, when I came back with a real good buzz going. It's A Beautiful Day, by a band of the same name, was particularly moving for me, once you get past "White Bird," which was the groups only hit, the album really gets good, particularly for someone on Acid.
I will say the same thing I always do, when this subject comes up, and that is, "Don't do it." Yeah, I did, and I survived, but that was 50 years ago, and people aren't the same. We used to get our Acid from Chemistry students at UC Davis, Sac State, and Berkley. They were pretty conscientious about what they used as fillers, often using Tylenol or Aspirin. Now, people really only care about the money. Who says you'd even have the same experiences I did, even if I could set up the same circumstances (one really good one was at a BB King show at the Filmore West. After BB played his set, and did some post show "jamming" with the likes of Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Miles, Al Cooper, and Dave Brown, the bassist for Santana, Johnny Winter came in, and they played until daybreak).
Would I do it again? Probably not, but then I would risk having an entirely different view of life.
Sorry, Brian, but I wanted to explain my comment, and didn't want to do it on Facebook.
I totally admit, and really haven't ever tried to deny the fact that I used drugs, fairly frequently, from the time I turned 16. Believe me, I regret it, but not like anyone would accept. I regret the fact that my self-esteem was so low that I had to hang out with some of the people I hung out with, although a lot of that had to do with the fact that I started smoking at 10, and, even in the early '60's, smokers were somewhat ostracized by the more "popular" kids, tending to hang out in groups of kids that smoked. We weren't the Popular crowd, but I found out later that quite a few of them smoked, and were just being A-holes to people they just didn't like. I didn't figure it out until much later, but smoking was a symptom of a much bigger problem.
Your dad can tell you, that teachers used the terms "stupid," "dumb," and "idiot" back in the '50's and '60's pretty freely. Classes then weren't the "touchy-feely, every one's a winner" things they've evolved into. You stepped out of line, somebody smacked you, and you didn't go home and tell Mommy and Daddy about it, because they'd probably beat your ass for being a problem in the first place. I didn't know until I was 19 that I had a 135 IQ, so I went through 13 years of public school thinking I was stupid, dumb, and an idiot. Re-enforced by my parents, who weren't equipped to deal with me, and who deferred to what the teachers said.
And that's only part of it, too. I could give you a whole lot of psychological/sociological/behavioral reasons why I did it, but to be honest, I mostly did it because I had a whole lot of fun. Particularly LSD.
Understand, my drug use was purely recreational. I never got "hooked" on anything, nor did I ever consider using cocaine, heroin, or anything like that, although I did do opium a couple of times, and could see how that could be a problem. Shrooms? Acid? A handful of Bennies? That was a pretty good Friday night, and sometimes Saturday, too. We hung out in the park like "Hippies," only we lacked the commitment to a lifestyle that included infrequent bathing.
Occasionally, we'd wait until Saturday morning to "drop" (take) the LSD tablet, and do an all-day trip (pun not intended, but it did work pretty well). During the Winter, we'd go to Tahoe, or one of the ski resorts, and just play in the snow like kids. Sure, kids never got "trails" off a snow ball, or any of the thousand things that caused one of us to say, "Oh Wow!" We had gone up in the daytime, and it was pretty cold in the back of the pick-up we rode up in, but after dark... towards the end, we were in a pile in the back of the truck, as close to the cab as everyone could get. In hindsight, probably not the best planned trip to the snow, but those of us who went had the time of their lives, playing in the snow (I know I've never seen snow the same way since).
Every once in a while, after we got married, I would get an offer to do a tab of Acid, and I turned it down, almost every time. There was this one time, in Louisiana, after we had lost our daughter Amy, I said, "OK."
We went water skiing on the Pearl River, right on the Mississippi/Louisiana border. I've tried to sit down and write this experience out many, many times, and just can't do it justice. There were no hallucinations (although I thought I saw an alligator), but everything was funny. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G! A bird lands on a bush. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA. I do a face-plant in the middle of the river. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA. The alligator. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA.
I woke up, the next morning, and my sides hurt. I started to think about the previous day, and start to chuckle again, OW! That was the last time, though. It's odd, because all of the other ones had great colors, and more than a few hallucinations, but there was always music involved in the others, just a boat motor, and the sound of three idiots laughing themselves silly.
The interest in Progressive Rock goes back to when most people had turntables, and PRock songs are usually pretty long, so you didn't have to change the record as often (which was BS, anyway, because vinyl could only take so much). If you had a reel-to-reel tape player/recorder, you could make tapes that were 6 hours long, and PRock albums could play uninterrupted.
Back before headphones became popular, I used to listen to music with my head between the stereo speakers, when I came back with a real good buzz going. It's A Beautiful Day, by a band of the same name, was particularly moving for me, once you get past "White Bird," which was the groups only hit, the album really gets good, particularly for someone on Acid.
I will say the same thing I always do, when this subject comes up, and that is, "Don't do it." Yeah, I did, and I survived, but that was 50 years ago, and people aren't the same. We used to get our Acid from Chemistry students at UC Davis, Sac State, and Berkley. They were pretty conscientious about what they used as fillers, often using Tylenol or Aspirin. Now, people really only care about the money. Who says you'd even have the same experiences I did, even if I could set up the same circumstances (one really good one was at a BB King show at the Filmore West. After BB played his set, and did some post show "jamming" with the likes of Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Miles, Al Cooper, and Dave Brown, the bassist for Santana, Johnny Winter came in, and they played until daybreak).
Would I do it again? Probably not, but then I would risk having an entirely different view of life.
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
My Appologies...
... it's been a while since I posted anything. My usual modus operendi is to turn on some music, and write my little heart out. On September 22 last, I opened up iTunes, and was alerted to a "new and improved" update to iTunes, and all I had to do was click on the "Download" icon to get it. I've had my disagreements with iTunes, but since Mary bought me an iPod, back when they were 2.5 inches square, and could hold a whopping 4 gigabytes, I've put up with it. Since I got the thing, there have been several updates, and Apple improved the product, making it a little easier to do things in iTunes. I thought, "Okay, lets update." It proved to be a bad choice.
I'm not exactly an idiot when it comes to computers, and after a career in the Navy I've learned how to follow simple instructions, which I did to the letter. iTunes asked for and executed a Restart on my computer, in order to effect the changes. After the restart, I clicked on the iTunes icon, and came up with an error saying that a certain file was not installed, and iTunes could not run. Naturally, I figured something got lost in the download, so I tried it again, and again, and... well, you get the idea.
I decided to call Apple, and see what they could tell me. It was a great idea, but it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I went to every page of Apple's website, looking for a da**ed phone number, and couldn't find one. I don't type very fast, not nearly as fast as I used to, because of the arthritis in my fingers, so I was reluctant to try doing an on-line chat with a technician, but it was the only choice I had. I clicked on the link, and got to a very nice lady who asked if I'd feel more comfortable talking on the phone. I, of course, answered "Yes," and a couple of minutes later she called me, and we talked about my efforts, and the error message I kept getting. I wish I'd have written her name down, because she was very helpful, to the extent of her knowledge, and when she realized that she was in over her head, she passed me on to one of the senior programmers.
That name I remember, because as the time wore on, she said it was her time to clock out, and that she would send me an e-mail that day, and a progress update the following day (a Friday). Nothing came. I waited a week, and sent an e-mail to her asking if I was being pushy in asking what progress was being made. Nothing came. Two weeks later, I send another e-mail, a little more terse than the first, suggesting that my next e-mail may be considerably less friendly. Nothing came. I wait two more weeks, and send an e-mail, "Are you doing anything, or are you just going to keep jerking me around?" Nothing came for two more weeks.
Finally, I get a response from her, telling me that she had some problems, and was out of the office until the previous day (a Wednesday), and she would be more than happy to call me, at a time of my choice, on the following day (a Friday). I told her 10am my time (noon where she worked) figuring the least I could, do after having to wait for a month and a half of waiting, would be to screw up her lunch on Friday. It didn't work. At 11am, I send her a note, reminding her of my phone number ("in case she lost it"). At 11:30, she calls, claiming she was on another call, and actually being rather "huffy" about it, in spite of the fact that the whole thing could have been avoided if she hadn't ignored me the first time.
Long story short... I have my iTunes back, and consequently I am spending more time with my computer, and getting back into writing.
I've got a lot to write about, I've discovered recently. Maybe after just getting back to it, I needed an opportunity to get my thoughts organized.
I'm not exactly an idiot when it comes to computers, and after a career in the Navy I've learned how to follow simple instructions, which I did to the letter. iTunes asked for and executed a Restart on my computer, in order to effect the changes. After the restart, I clicked on the iTunes icon, and came up with an error saying that a certain file was not installed, and iTunes could not run. Naturally, I figured something got lost in the download, so I tried it again, and again, and... well, you get the idea.
I decided to call Apple, and see what they could tell me. It was a great idea, but it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I went to every page of Apple's website, looking for a da**ed phone number, and couldn't find one. I don't type very fast, not nearly as fast as I used to, because of the arthritis in my fingers, so I was reluctant to try doing an on-line chat with a technician, but it was the only choice I had. I clicked on the link, and got to a very nice lady who asked if I'd feel more comfortable talking on the phone. I, of course, answered "Yes," and a couple of minutes later she called me, and we talked about my efforts, and the error message I kept getting. I wish I'd have written her name down, because she was very helpful, to the extent of her knowledge, and when she realized that she was in over her head, she passed me on to one of the senior programmers.
That name I remember, because as the time wore on, she said it was her time to clock out, and that she would send me an e-mail that day, and a progress update the following day (a Friday). Nothing came. I waited a week, and sent an e-mail to her asking if I was being pushy in asking what progress was being made. Nothing came. Two weeks later, I send another e-mail, a little more terse than the first, suggesting that my next e-mail may be considerably less friendly. Nothing came. I wait two more weeks, and send an e-mail, "Are you doing anything, or are you just going to keep jerking me around?" Nothing came for two more weeks.
Finally, I get a response from her, telling me that she had some problems, and was out of the office until the previous day (a Wednesday), and she would be more than happy to call me, at a time of my choice, on the following day (a Friday). I told her 10am my time (noon where she worked) figuring the least I could, do after having to wait for a month and a half of waiting, would be to screw up her lunch on Friday. It didn't work. At 11am, I send her a note, reminding her of my phone number ("in case she lost it"). At 11:30, she calls, claiming she was on another call, and actually being rather "huffy" about it, in spite of the fact that the whole thing could have been avoided if she hadn't ignored me the first time.
Long story short... I have my iTunes back, and consequently I am spending more time with my computer, and getting back into writing.
I've got a lot to write about, I've discovered recently. Maybe after just getting back to it, I needed an opportunity to get my thoughts organized.
Friday, September 18, 2015
A Friday Ramble...
... begins with the statement, "A lot has happened this week." Mostly because a lot has happened this week. I was invited to a Giant's/Dodger game at AT&T, on October first, by my eldest child. No grandbabies, no members of her "entourage," just Tyff and me. I like it. I am really looking forward to going. I got to play my standard two rounds of golf this week with Mr. Bill. This week we moved forward a set of tees, and played from the Gold Markers. We're back to the White markers next week, and probably won't have the lower scores (92 and 93) that we had this week. We'll be fighting to "make the cut," as Mr. Bill calls breaking 100, at 64, having had a stroke, and losing half a lung to cancer, breaking 100 from the former "Intermediate" tees is a real battle.
I used to be able to hit drives of 275 yards, prior to the lung surgery, but since then, I'm lucky to get 200 yards from my driver. It was the stroke, however, that has created all of my problems. I mean, I was a pretty fair golfer. I didn't break 80 very often, but I was always around 80 to 85 strokes per round. I was, when I decided that I no longer wanted to pay $80 a year to have someone figure my handicap, somewhere between 10 - 14 handicap (back before SLOPE). I just couldn't break 80 often enough to bring it down to a 9 (for those of you who don't play, a single digit handicap is like being in the top 20% of golfers world-wide). I was pretty good, rarely gambled, and just enjoyed being out in the sunlight.
The stroke, in 2002, put an end to that. Since then, I have had to learn to play again, from pretty much scratch. I guess, all things considered, I'm not doing too bad. It's finding out how far I can depend on each club. I said I'm lucky to get 200 yards from a driver, 175 from my 3-metal, and 150 (or so) from my 5-metal. My hybrids cover the 175 - 145 yard range, but it's getting the range of my irons down that seems to be killing me. Wedge play is pretty awesome, get me to the 100 yard marker, and I can get the ball close. I'm learning a lot about clearing my mind before I start my swing, I'm relaxing a little, and hitting pretty cleanly, most often, but I still have a tendency to look up just before impact. I'm doing it a lot less, but I can still do it if I don't control my breathing, and clear my mind before. I'm trying to focus on a spot (blade of grass, piece of sand/dirt) immediately behind the ball, and maintain that focus until the club comes through. That focus keeps me from bobbing up and down (like Tiger Woods is doing so often), and usually results in a square contact, and good shots. I am also working on attitude...
There isn't a golfer on any course, any where, that doesn't secretly harbor a dream of becoming the next great pro golfer. When I retired from the Navy, I was 40. I'd tell everyone that it gave me 10 years to get ready for the Senior Tour (now Champions Tour). Guess what? I didn't make it. Sometimes your dreams are overcome by other dreams that are actually in your ability make happen. Golf gave way to studies, as I pursued a degree and a teaching credential. We didn't have a lot of money, I didn't have a lot of time, and I didn't play much from 1992 to 1999. By the time I became eligible to play, I was way out of practice, but starting to get better from playing more often. I became somewhat of a jerk, when I couldn't hit a ball exactly where I was aiming, or when I'd miss a 25-foot putt, or some other such nonsense. Then the stroke.
In the aftermath, I had a lot of rehab, but the game was gone. In the 13 years since, my age and health have had a play in my deteriorating golf game, but there's one MAJOR consolation... at least I still get to play. There was a time, fairly recently, when I thought about giving the game up. It has fortunately passed, as I have found that I may not be hitting the ball as far, but I'm not getting in as much trouble, either. Besides, who doesn't like a day out in the open?
Made a follow-up call on my referral for my hip, checking to see if the request for and additional procedure had been sent. That was done, and re-done, as the insurer claimed he didn't receive the first one.
I also managed to get an appointment with my Primary Care Manager (PCM), Dr. Vogel, to talk about my blood pressure, etc.
It's been a busy week.
I used to be able to hit drives of 275 yards, prior to the lung surgery, but since then, I'm lucky to get 200 yards from my driver. It was the stroke, however, that has created all of my problems. I mean, I was a pretty fair golfer. I didn't break 80 very often, but I was always around 80 to 85 strokes per round. I was, when I decided that I no longer wanted to pay $80 a year to have someone figure my handicap, somewhere between 10 - 14 handicap (back before SLOPE). I just couldn't break 80 often enough to bring it down to a 9 (for those of you who don't play, a single digit handicap is like being in the top 20% of golfers world-wide). I was pretty good, rarely gambled, and just enjoyed being out in the sunlight.
The stroke, in 2002, put an end to that. Since then, I have had to learn to play again, from pretty much scratch. I guess, all things considered, I'm not doing too bad. It's finding out how far I can depend on each club. I said I'm lucky to get 200 yards from a driver, 175 from my 3-metal, and 150 (or so) from my 5-metal. My hybrids cover the 175 - 145 yard range, but it's getting the range of my irons down that seems to be killing me. Wedge play is pretty awesome, get me to the 100 yard marker, and I can get the ball close. I'm learning a lot about clearing my mind before I start my swing, I'm relaxing a little, and hitting pretty cleanly, most often, but I still have a tendency to look up just before impact. I'm doing it a lot less, but I can still do it if I don't control my breathing, and clear my mind before. I'm trying to focus on a spot (blade of grass, piece of sand/dirt) immediately behind the ball, and maintain that focus until the club comes through. That focus keeps me from bobbing up and down (like Tiger Woods is doing so often), and usually results in a square contact, and good shots. I am also working on attitude...
There isn't a golfer on any course, any where, that doesn't secretly harbor a dream of becoming the next great pro golfer. When I retired from the Navy, I was 40. I'd tell everyone that it gave me 10 years to get ready for the Senior Tour (now Champions Tour). Guess what? I didn't make it. Sometimes your dreams are overcome by other dreams that are actually in your ability make happen. Golf gave way to studies, as I pursued a degree and a teaching credential. We didn't have a lot of money, I didn't have a lot of time, and I didn't play much from 1992 to 1999. By the time I became eligible to play, I was way out of practice, but starting to get better from playing more often. I became somewhat of a jerk, when I couldn't hit a ball exactly where I was aiming, or when I'd miss a 25-foot putt, or some other such nonsense. Then the stroke.
In the aftermath, I had a lot of rehab, but the game was gone. In the 13 years since, my age and health have had a play in my deteriorating golf game, but there's one MAJOR consolation... at least I still get to play. There was a time, fairly recently, when I thought about giving the game up. It has fortunately passed, as I have found that I may not be hitting the ball as far, but I'm not getting in as much trouble, either. Besides, who doesn't like a day out in the open?
Made a follow-up call on my referral for my hip, checking to see if the request for and additional procedure had been sent. That was done, and re-done, as the insurer claimed he didn't receive the first one.
I also managed to get an appointment with my Primary Care Manager (PCM), Dr. Vogel, to talk about my blood pressure, etc.
It's been a busy week.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Just a Random Thought...
I was driving onto Travis Air Force Base the other day, going to get a CT scan for one of my follow-ups on my lung cancer surgery almost two years ago. There's a lot of construction, for those of you who haven't been in Cowtown for a while, the biggest is the building of a Amtrak station off Peabody Rd. and Vanden/Cement Hill roads. The plan calls for an overcrossing to be built on Peabody to take traffic over the train crossing. To that end, Peabody has been closed at the intersection of Vanden/Cement Hill roads, and the detour takes you all the way back, around the jail, and back onto Air Base Parkway. Most people in Vacaville/Dixon/Rio Vista areas use the back gate, so it's not uncommon to see traffic backed up in the mornings.
The person in front of me had a rental car, and the current readiness level (Bravo) requires the gate sentries to look in the trunk of rental cars. There was some junk in the trunk, not hers, the car's, but it was otherwise OK. It got me to remembering an old car my dad fixed up, and let my sister Sherry use...
It was a brown, 1947 Plymouth coupe, six-cylinder engine, and a 3-speed manual transmission with the shifter on the steering column. Pop brought it home, and the girls (sisters Sherry and Pat) responded with the 1950's version of, "Ewww!" It was a total P.O.S., and it broke down in our driveway a couple of weeks after Pops bought it. I don't remember how long it took him to do it, but he totally rebuilt the engine, and actually had the car running pretty well. It would be a great car to have today, except for one small thing...
Pops was kind of a lazy guy, and only wanted to travel out to the dump when he had to. Our garbage service in Vallejo didn't take yard clippings, so we had to store them up, and take them out to the dump ourselves. Being lazy, Pops just tossed them into the trunk of the Plymouth. Ever smell dead grass after it has baked for several days in the trunk of the car? I can tell you, without a shred of doubt, it stinks like Hell, but this was the car my sister Sherry got to drive. I think my parent's attempt at preventing teen-aged pregnancies was pretty effective, but there were still holes in that plan, as would later be discovered.
One afternoon, my sister had to go out to Mare Island (when it was still a Naval Base), and a robbery suspect had evaded Vallejo Police, getting onto the Base somehow. They had chased him around some of the Shipyard warehouses, and had asked for the Marines on the gate, now armed with M14's, to search every vehicle for a white male suspect. Cars would pull up, stop, the Marines would ask to open the trunk (they didn't have interior switches in '47). For the safety of the driver, they would take the keys, and open the trunk with cover from the other Marine. Imagine the look on my sister's face when they opened the trunk to find two weeks of grass clippings. The Marines smiled, closed the trunk, gave my sister the keys with a, "Have a nice day, ma'am."
I don't know why, but something about that incident flashed when I saw the Airman checking the trunk of a rental car.
The person in front of me had a rental car, and the current readiness level (Bravo) requires the gate sentries to look in the trunk of rental cars. There was some junk in the trunk, not hers, the car's, but it was otherwise OK. It got me to remembering an old car my dad fixed up, and let my sister Sherry use...
It was a brown, 1947 Plymouth coupe, six-cylinder engine, and a 3-speed manual transmission with the shifter on the steering column. Pop brought it home, and the girls (sisters Sherry and Pat) responded with the 1950's version of, "Ewww!" It was a total P.O.S., and it broke down in our driveway a couple of weeks after Pops bought it. I don't remember how long it took him to do it, but he totally rebuilt the engine, and actually had the car running pretty well. It would be a great car to have today, except for one small thing...
Pops was kind of a lazy guy, and only wanted to travel out to the dump when he had to. Our garbage service in Vallejo didn't take yard clippings, so we had to store them up, and take them out to the dump ourselves. Being lazy, Pops just tossed them into the trunk of the Plymouth. Ever smell dead grass after it has baked for several days in the trunk of the car? I can tell you, without a shred of doubt, it stinks like Hell, but this was the car my sister Sherry got to drive. I think my parent's attempt at preventing teen-aged pregnancies was pretty effective, but there were still holes in that plan, as would later be discovered.
One afternoon, my sister had to go out to Mare Island (when it was still a Naval Base), and a robbery suspect had evaded Vallejo Police, getting onto the Base somehow. They had chased him around some of the Shipyard warehouses, and had asked for the Marines on the gate, now armed with M14's, to search every vehicle for a white male suspect. Cars would pull up, stop, the Marines would ask to open the trunk (they didn't have interior switches in '47). For the safety of the driver, they would take the keys, and open the trunk with cover from the other Marine. Imagine the look on my sister's face when they opened the trunk to find two weeks of grass clippings. The Marines smiled, closed the trunk, gave my sister the keys with a, "Have a nice day, ma'am."
I don't know why, but something about that incident flashed when I saw the Airman checking the trunk of a rental car.
Friday, August 21, 2015
There's Hope at Last!
I have been fighting a problem with my hips (AVN), and the left one in particular. On an MRI of my left hip, a cyst and a tear in the labrum was revealed. Since then, I have been playing the bureaucracy to get an arthroscopic procedure to remove the cyst, and repair the torn labrum. I thought it would be easy enough, an orthopedic surgeon could take care of that, right? Sort of... maybe... What do you mean you're not a hip guy? I don't give a rat's rump if you can boogie the night away, or speak in the current vernacular, I want you to get a f-ing cyst out of my hip. Oh, you mean you're not that kind of hip doctor? Elbows, knees, ankle guys. Yeah, I get it, hip work isn't hip work, mostly for old people. If you work knees and elbows, you can get on with a MLB, or NFL, or NBA team as a consultant. Swell...
Finally found an actual hip guy up in Carmichael, a suburb of Sacramento, a drive of 50 miles, or so. Met with him, got to scheduling, and United Healthcare/Military/Veterans decided that I didn't need something in the Dr.'s request, and "partially" approved the procedure. Dr. Greene wasn't going to do what was approved, so everything (including a $51 co-pay), just stopped. This was in early May 2015.
I spent the month of June trying to re-establish the fact that, of the three options I was given (do nothing, get hip injections (steroids), or arthroscopic surgery), the only viable choice was surgery.
I asked my Primary Care Manager, Dr. Vogel, to see if he could get the hip injections coordinated with my back injections, scheduled for July 13, 2015. Meanwhile, in a series of e-mails through Relay Health (it's meant to computerize appointments, prescription renewals, etc.) but I sent him a plaintive request for help with my referrals, stating firmly that the "do nothing" option was not.
This whole thing began because I was no longer able to walk even nine holes of golf. I'm fortunate, in that I have access to the military course at Travis, where I pay for my golf annually, and I can get a "cart card" that drops the regular price of renting a cart from $18 to $13 for a full 18 holes. The fact is, I miss walking the course. Cypress Lakes (the Travis AFB course) is flat, although there are raised greens and tees, and some small knolls throughout the layout, so it's easy to walk. Eventually, I'd like to get one of those self-propelled carts, to walk alongside, but I could do with one that is easy to push. That is still in the future, however.
In July, I met my appointment for my back injections, and was asked if I was ever told that steroid injections in my hip were no longer allowed because of my AVN. I told him that I was, but that I wanted that little fact brought up again, due to my current problem. Finally, I got a phone call about the "partially approved" referral, and an appointment to see Dr. Vogel to see WTF was going on with United Healthcare. Six days later, I get a new referral for Dr. Greene authorizing the arthroscopy.
I called the Dr.'s office today (Friday, August 20, 2015, and got through to his surgical scheduler, who said she didn't have a copy of the referral (she does now). I'm waiting for her to call me back, sometime today. There's hope.
Finally found an actual hip guy up in Carmichael, a suburb of Sacramento, a drive of 50 miles, or so. Met with him, got to scheduling, and United Healthcare/Military/Veterans decided that I didn't need something in the Dr.'s request, and "partially" approved the procedure. Dr. Greene wasn't going to do what was approved, so everything (including a $51 co-pay), just stopped. This was in early May 2015.
I spent the month of June trying to re-establish the fact that, of the three options I was given (do nothing, get hip injections (steroids), or arthroscopic surgery), the only viable choice was surgery.
I asked my Primary Care Manager, Dr. Vogel, to see if he could get the hip injections coordinated with my back injections, scheduled for July 13, 2015. Meanwhile, in a series of e-mails through Relay Health (it's meant to computerize appointments, prescription renewals, etc.) but I sent him a plaintive request for help with my referrals, stating firmly that the "do nothing" option was not.
This whole thing began because I was no longer able to walk even nine holes of golf. I'm fortunate, in that I have access to the military course at Travis, where I pay for my golf annually, and I can get a "cart card" that drops the regular price of renting a cart from $18 to $13 for a full 18 holes. The fact is, I miss walking the course. Cypress Lakes (the Travis AFB course) is flat, although there are raised greens and tees, and some small knolls throughout the layout, so it's easy to walk. Eventually, I'd like to get one of those self-propelled carts, to walk alongside, but I could do with one that is easy to push. That is still in the future, however.
In July, I met my appointment for my back injections, and was asked if I was ever told that steroid injections in my hip were no longer allowed because of my AVN. I told him that I was, but that I wanted that little fact brought up again, due to my current problem. Finally, I got a phone call about the "partially approved" referral, and an appointment to see Dr. Vogel to see WTF was going on with United Healthcare. Six days later, I get a new referral for Dr. Greene authorizing the arthroscopy.
I called the Dr.'s office today (Friday, August 20, 2015, and got through to his surgical scheduler, who said she didn't have a copy of the referral (she does now). I'm waiting for her to call me back, sometime today. There's hope.
Monday, August 17, 2015
Some Explanations
For that one, or two of you who actually read my blog, I need to talk about things that can fill you're time (when you're really bored). I started this thing after my dad passed away in 2009, as a way of letting off some steam as I took on the job of caring for a mother who's cheese was slipping off her cracker, so to speak. I took it on because I was close. My parent's house was less than two miles from mine. The idea of having her live with us, or our living with her was not in question. She didn't want to move, and she didn't want anyone moving in, end of story.
I've talked about the experiences, on occasion, but there's a whole lot more that I didn't post, probably more than I ever published. Some of it is hypercritical, some of it is a bit whiney, and some of it is just inane ramblings that have little use, other than I wrote them down, so I don't have to carry it around with me. If I want to go back over that time (trust me, that is not happening), it's all there, and I can look at it whenever I want.
I'd like to think that the stuff that "made the cut" was better writing, the reason I published them. I wrote a lot, at first, and published most of them, but then things got to the point that all I was doing with my blog was putting down a lot of bullshit, and never publishing any of it (thank goodness).
When Mom passed, I got writer's block, and couldn't get anything going. I work on crosswords every day, and I'm looking up words, as I'm reading, that I didn't know "for sure" what they meant. I'm finding that I was mostly correct in my assumptions regarding meanings, but I'm learning a lot of alternate usages, word origins, and entomology, things I used to enjoy as a boy. Mom was my link to literacy. Not that my dad wasn't, but he read, mostly, pulp fiction novels, and Louis Lamoure westerns. That wasn't my cup 'o tea.
I'm struggling right now, in fact, almost three years after she passed. I don't know what's happening, but I just can't seem to shake it. Please, bear with me as I work this out. Read some of my earlier posts, but let me know you've been here. Maybe that's what I really need, someone to tell my stories to. What do you say?
I've talked about the experiences, on occasion, but there's a whole lot more that I didn't post, probably more than I ever published. Some of it is hypercritical, some of it is a bit whiney, and some of it is just inane ramblings that have little use, other than I wrote them down, so I don't have to carry it around with me. If I want to go back over that time (trust me, that is not happening), it's all there, and I can look at it whenever I want.
I'd like to think that the stuff that "made the cut" was better writing, the reason I published them. I wrote a lot, at first, and published most of them, but then things got to the point that all I was doing with my blog was putting down a lot of bullshit, and never publishing any of it (thank goodness).
When Mom passed, I got writer's block, and couldn't get anything going. I work on crosswords every day, and I'm looking up words, as I'm reading, that I didn't know "for sure" what they meant. I'm finding that I was mostly correct in my assumptions regarding meanings, but I'm learning a lot of alternate usages, word origins, and entomology, things I used to enjoy as a boy. Mom was my link to literacy. Not that my dad wasn't, but he read, mostly, pulp fiction novels, and Louis Lamoure westerns. That wasn't my cup 'o tea.
I'm struggling right now, in fact, almost three years after she passed. I don't know what's happening, but I just can't seem to shake it. Please, bear with me as I work this out. Read some of my earlier posts, but let me know you've been here. Maybe that's what I really need, someone to tell my stories to. What do you say?
Friday, July 31, 2015
After a Busy Week...
Grandson Victor with LouSeal
I guess one of the coolest things to have happened in a long time has been the rise of the Giants in the West. San Francisco waited for a long time to get a World Series victory, but three in five years is almost dynastic. I've been a Giants fan for a long time, but I used to watch the ballgames alone. Now, courtesy of Comcast Sports Net - Bay Area, we get every game, not just the occasional odd game on ESPN, Fox, or NBC, and they are always on one of our TV's. Tyffany always liked baseball, and kept score for her brother's games. She learned the rules, and I always hoped she would marry someone who knew only a little about the game; Peter seems to be perfect.
See, if she'd have married some guy who "thought" he knew baseball, the marriage would have lasted one season. He would divorce her because she would always be right. I've always thought she could be an umpire, but she'd have to work on her temper, or guys would be leaving the game in groups. I could see her going into the stands to eject hecklers...
Anyway... Since the Giants started winning, even Mary is becoming a die-hard fan. Having the game on, every game, is kind of her thing. For me, I can be satisfied with listening to the game on radio, Mary is more visually oriented, so in our two TV living room, one has the game on.
And then, there's the grandsons... Victor (above) once told a group of Dodger fans, in Chavez Ravine, "NO! Let's go GI-ANTS". He gets away with it because he's cute, and only six. Even little Ryan knows, "Go, go Giants!" and he's only 16 months old.
We're a Giants Family. Three generations worth. What more can an old geezer want, eh?
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Some Things of Late...
Rowe's Royals - circa 1964
Vallejo Babe Ruth League (Ages 13 - 15)
I'm in there, somewhere. -- Me.
Somewhere, lost in all of the turmoil that life tends to inherit once you get into your mid-60's, is my complete love of baseball/softball/OTL or other forms of the "American Pastime". I'll even watch Cricket, if it's on, although I really don't understand it yet, it's roughly the same -- a man throws a ball, a man tries to hit the thrown ball -- whether it can hit the ground, or not, is irrelevant. That interest in the British game comes only late in life, and is immeasurably better than watching NBA Summer League Basketball (Yes, I will be relentless on this waste of airtime. No one shows the MLB Winter Leagues, or televises off-season scrimmages between NFL teams. The NBA has the longest season anyway, and then this?)
My apologies to my nephew Brian Gardner for a Facebook rant about flag burning. You've heard of "Push-button" issues? That's one of mine. People desecrate the Flag of the USA because they can't burn freedom. The group that took the US to court over the First Amendment Rights of people to do so, and did it with straight faces, mind you, never seeing the irony. Only in a truly free country can you have a right to desecrate the acknowledged world-wide symbol of Freedom (the ideal). Even when the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, no one got the joke. Of course, I didn't laugh, either... I commend you for your choice of venues for your social commentary, but wonder how many Facebook users are capable of getting the humor... "Keep on Trucking," is what we'd say "back in the day."
Baseball... I guess one of the things that makes the game so important to me is the fact that it is a True American Sport; bred, born, and nurtured in the USA, and adopted by many countries in the Western Hemisphere, and a number of island nations in the Pacific, predominately Japan. I've actually gone to a Japanese-league game in Tokyo. I don't know why the Japanese-language channels don't broadcast the games from home on US cable, compared to MLB coverage here, it's pretty funny. I know, and I don't mean any disrespect to the people of Japan, for one who neither speaks, nor understands the Japanese Language, the broadcast is a series of Japanese sentences, punctuated by totally American terms such as "Ball-o one," "Strike-e two," and "Hombrun," which of course is "Home Run," but I am trying to show that un-similarities aside, such as the dirt infield, and rooting sections that actually root for their teams, and even local pronunciations of American English, Baseball lives on. To be honest, my first reaction to the game on Japanese TV in Misawa, I laughed. I'd never heard baseball broadcast in anything but English, and occasional trips to the SAP for Spanish Language Broadcasts. Those I didn't find as humorous, probably because I know a little about the language, and the fact that the SLB took the time to translate-out the American phraseology.
This is me before my first Babe Ruth League game.
1964 - Age 13
Cute, huh? Sometimes I wish I could go back and tell him a few things, but then it wouldn't be fair. The house behind me belonged to our neighbor, a Miss Mina McKnight, who worked as a Nurse in the local schools. Notice, in the upper left corner, the top of the fence that went across the back of her yard. She had a small flat spot for a teeny yard, and an uphill slope worthy of the talents of a mountain goat. I mention that, because going to the left from there, that fence would have been atop a ridge that decreased in height, flattening out on the left corner of a 1/2 acre of open land that was sold to my dad when he bought the house next door to Mina's. I always thought it was big enough to put a Little League-sized baseball diamond on, and it would have, but for one small problem... the field sloped up the side of the hill that was topped by the fence in the upper left corner. If I'd have had access to a backhoe, or skip loader, or some such thing, there might have actually been a small baseball diamond behind our house. We moved in when I was six, and I got the big idea that it could be dug out by hand. That was doomed from the start.
To be honest, I wasn't ever that good. I played, usually in places that I couldn't do much damage in, mostly because of the fact that I could usually get a hit, occasionally a double, rarely a triple, and two, over the fence, home runs, one in Little League, and one in Babe Ruth League. Both were "Big Boy" homers, as the Giant's announcers would call them, both deep, and both with bases loaded. In that regard, my timing was pretty good. The one in Little League was a fastball, meant to impress me, and the other was a curve that hung out there like a piñata... both were hit with the "meat" of the bat, and both were absolutely crushed. I wrote about it at Chico State once, and I don't know what happened to it. I tried to write it from the perspective of a 10 year-old, and the professor thought that I pretty much nailed it. I don't know if I've tried to do it for a blog, but that's an idea.
I have been a baseball fan for most of my life. I once liked the Dodgers of Walter Alston, guys like Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, John Roseborough, Maury Wills, and Duke Snyder. We were in San Diego, then, and only got Dodger games on the radio, unless the games in San Francisco ran late, and we could pick them up due to a thing called "the Skip". At certain times of the evening, some radio stations would reduce their output, leaving some stations more space for their broadcasts to travel. The Skip had a weather element to it, and I can't remember how that supposedly worked, but the fact that after about 8pm, I could get stations from Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, and a host of places that were normally way beyond the range of AM radio. As FM is a line-of-sight medium that doesn't "bounce" well, most people have given up on trying to get reception from distant places.
In 1961, my dad took me to a Giants game at Candlestick Park, the stadium's second year of operation. I was pretty much a Giants fan by then, mostly because of my dad's rants about "the n-----s in Frisco." I knew then that damning a person because of his/her race was wrong back before the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. King, and the whole deal. I'm not trying to brag, or cover for any racist tendencies; my dad had enough to go around, but he didn't pass them to his only son. I became a kind of "closet" Giants fan, afraid of how my dad would react if I told him how much I admired the abilities of Willie Mays and Willie McCovey. Looking back, he might have had his first heart attack at age 38. That night, in 1961, for some reason, my dad bought me a Pittsburgh Pirates pennant and cap. I decided that I would become a Giants fan, just to spite him. To get to be the Champs three times in the last five years is best expressed by lyrics in two songs. The first by SF natives Grateful Dead in the song Truckin', "What a long strange trip it's been." And a Frank Zappa song of the same name as the lyric, The Torture Never Stops.
I am blessed, however, to a woman who has learned (sometimes the hard way) to understand and appreciate some of the complexities of the game. Blessed... OK, to be truthful, I've created a monster. We have two TV's in our living room, ostensibly because of our differing tastes in programming, but mostly so she can watch (keep track of the score of) the games. She hasn't gotten to the point of knowing batting averages, or even how they compute batting averages, or how to answer questions like "Who played Short Stop for Cleveland in 1946?" (the correct answer is, "Who gives a %$#@?"). I love baseball, but I look like some kind of piker next to my Mary.
As always, thanks for letting me ramble.
Thursday, July 2, 2015
A Last Shot for Friday July 3
For the Fourth of July weekend, we will be in a house in South Lake Tahoe that has a view of the fireworks. An odd assortment of family, my daughter, son-in-law, and grandsons Victor and Ryan will be there, as will Peter's aunt and her husband, Peter's parents, and Mary and I. Mary tells me I've met this aunt before, and if it's the one I'm thinking of, this could be a great weekend. I'm not so hot on going out for a weekend, particularly the Fourth. My daughter dug up an article that dubbed Tahoe's fireworks show the 5th most popular destination in the Country. I expect people to be "wall-to-wall," and traffic to be of nightmarish proportions, so we take our calm and smiling faces, as well as a good classical music CD, and we take what we get on Friday.
Most people will leave today (Thursday), to get as much weekend as they can. We don't have such conflicts, so we will start out tomorrow (Friday), and hope that we won't have a lot of traffic going up US-50. It's mostly two lane blacktop, with a few passing zones, getting out of Placerville, all the way to SLT. If the big trucks are out, it can be a long day. Worse are the gawkers who don't realize that the purpose of the extra left lane was to allow for PASSING!!! [OK, must get calm. I'm starting to project again, and I need to stop.] I don't think I've ever had road rage, I've seen some guys really get into it, but I'm not a violent person, per se. I found it much easier, driving in city traffic (both in Sacramento and San Francisco) if I'm listening to classical concertos, or something of that nature. Particularly Mozart. Of all of the classical Masters, he is my favorite.
I have a friend coming over to take care of Taz. He'll have slightly non-traditional feeding for two days, so I don't think he'll starve to death. I'm going to take my little Venue, and its remote keyboard, so I should be able to take plenty of notes, and have all of the gossip next week.
Most people will leave today (Thursday), to get as much weekend as they can. We don't have such conflicts, so we will start out tomorrow (Friday), and hope that we won't have a lot of traffic going up US-50. It's mostly two lane blacktop, with a few passing zones, getting out of Placerville, all the way to SLT. If the big trucks are out, it can be a long day. Worse are the gawkers who don't realize that the purpose of the extra left lane was to allow for PASSING!!! [OK, must get calm. I'm starting to project again, and I need to stop.] I don't think I've ever had road rage, I've seen some guys really get into it, but I'm not a violent person, per se. I found it much easier, driving in city traffic (both in Sacramento and San Francisco) if I'm listening to classical concertos, or something of that nature. Particularly Mozart. Of all of the classical Masters, he is my favorite.
I have a friend coming over to take care of Taz. He'll have slightly non-traditional feeding for two days, so I don't think he'll starve to death. I'm going to take my little Venue, and its remote keyboard, so I should be able to take plenty of notes, and have all of the gossip next week.
Friday, June 26, 2015
About Pain
For much of the past ten years, I have been in pain. It started out as pain that could be medicated with OTC remedies, or a hot Jacuzzi bath. In 2005/06, I reinjured the disks in my back. I tried to work through it, but it became agonizing to get through a day's work, and I quit a physically demanding job to go back to teaching. I won't suggest that teaching is a physically demanding job, although good teachers try to entertain, as well as teach, so big gestures can get tiring. I was beginning to look like a 90 year-old, all bent over and such. One day, at Church, a guy named Dave Gover came up and asked what was wrong with my back. I told him that I had bulging disks at L5-S1, and was having some of the worst sciatic pain I had ever experienced.
The question caught me unprepared, I knew a little about Dave, like that he was a doctor, and worked at David Grant, but I had no idea what his specialty was, so it came out of right field. "How would you like to be pain-free for up to 90 days?" The look on my face should have told him that I was beyond shocked. I said something to the effect of kissing something in public, and allowing him a half hour to draw a crowd...
From that point on, Dr. Gover helped guide me to get the referrals I needed to get into the Interventional Radiology Clinic, and I was introduced to a procedure known as an Epidural Steroid Injection, or ESI. Using fluoroscopic imaging, the doctor inserts a small needle up next to the spine near the bulging disk, and bathes it in a solution that contains a steroid that actually shrinks the disk, taking pressure off the sciatic nerve. In my case, they do it bilaterally, meaning they do both sides of the spine.
The first time, despite the fact that the doctor who did it (not Gover) stuck the needle into my sciatic nerve, causing me to levitate for a second or two, I felt better as soon as the lidocane shots were administered. Lidocane takes some getting used to, after several ESI's, I no longer feel like screaming when the doctors numb the area, but it still burns. The effect lasts as long as the lidocane does, and as it wears off, the pain level goes back up. That scared the heck out of me, at first, because the original doctor, they called him EZ, told me that someday, these shots would no longer work. Now days, I don't panic, because within a few days, the pain level will go way down. After seven and a half years, I know the routine. Using the hospital's pain scale of 1 to 10, with 1 the least pain, and 10 the worst, it goes something like this:
On the morning of the ESI, my back pain is somewhere between 8 and 10, depending upon how well I slept. After the lidocane, it goes to 1, until the lidocane wears off, and the pain level goes back up to 6, or 7, or sometimes even 8/9. Over the next two or three days, the steroid will begin to shrink the disk, and the pain goes down to 5. Since I have arthritis in the same area, a 5 is about as good as it gets, even though I take Norco 325/5 every 4 to 6 hours, as needed. I stay there, for the most part, so I have learned a little about pain management.
I'm the only person I know who can hurt himself sleeping. Seriously, we've tried everything from Air to Waterbeds, and things that would never occur to Normal people. We finally settled on a memory foam over coils hybrid we got at Matthew's over on Orange Dr. Mattresses, pillows, mattress coverings of foam, memory foam, and egg crate foam, we have tried everything. Mary, from necessity, has learned to sleep on her right side, so she can hear. Up until the cancer surgery, I snored, pretty badly, most nights. I don't know what happened, or even if there is any proven relationship between the removal of part of a lung and a reduction in snoring, but over the past 18 months, Mary stays in bed with me on most nights, so I know it has abated quite a bit. No matter what we've tried, even the major makers of air and foam bedding who claim that their air/foam will reduce back pain, but give you a bunch of crap when you inform them that it didn't.
Right now, I am 2 1/2 weeks from my next procedure (ESI), and the sciatica is beginning to return to my left side, so the right can't be far behind. My pain level has risen to about six, so this is the beginning. By the time of my procedure, it will be at 9. This is not a particularly good time to be me.
I don't claim to know very much about the origin of pain, but I could probably write a book about the effects of pain on the body, and the mind. Most of the time I try to joke about it, particularly when I go to Church, and people ask how I am doing. I could be honest: "Just f-ing great. I didn't have to worry about having died in my sleep, 'cause I woke up in pain. If I ever woke up without it, I'd have a heart attack." But I take the easy way out and say, "I'm getting on as best I can." Which usually gets a, "We'll keep you in our prayers."
What a great sentiment, "We'll keep you in our prayers," particularly if you happen to believe in the power possessed by a single, earnest prayer. Sometimes I wonder, though, if they're praying for me to get worse; but that's just me, getting in the way of my own redemption. I do, by the way, believe in the power of prayer, and in the existence of a power far superior to our own, whom I choose to call God, that can intervene on our behalves, even to the point of miracles. I have seen too many, heard (on good authority) of many more. I have had a couple happen in my own life. Little ones, to be sure, but I have been married for more than 41 years to a woman I still love deeply, and that is a miracle.
The question caught me unprepared, I knew a little about Dave, like that he was a doctor, and worked at David Grant, but I had no idea what his specialty was, so it came out of right field. "How would you like to be pain-free for up to 90 days?" The look on my face should have told him that I was beyond shocked. I said something to the effect of kissing something in public, and allowing him a half hour to draw a crowd...
From that point on, Dr. Gover helped guide me to get the referrals I needed to get into the Interventional Radiology Clinic, and I was introduced to a procedure known as an Epidural Steroid Injection, or ESI. Using fluoroscopic imaging, the doctor inserts a small needle up next to the spine near the bulging disk, and bathes it in a solution that contains a steroid that actually shrinks the disk, taking pressure off the sciatic nerve. In my case, they do it bilaterally, meaning they do both sides of the spine.
The first time, despite the fact that the doctor who did it (not Gover) stuck the needle into my sciatic nerve, causing me to levitate for a second or two, I felt better as soon as the lidocane shots were administered. Lidocane takes some getting used to, after several ESI's, I no longer feel like screaming when the doctors numb the area, but it still burns. The effect lasts as long as the lidocane does, and as it wears off, the pain level goes back up. That scared the heck out of me, at first, because the original doctor, they called him EZ, told me that someday, these shots would no longer work. Now days, I don't panic, because within a few days, the pain level will go way down. After seven and a half years, I know the routine. Using the hospital's pain scale of 1 to 10, with 1 the least pain, and 10 the worst, it goes something like this:
On the morning of the ESI, my back pain is somewhere between 8 and 10, depending upon how well I slept. After the lidocane, it goes to 1, until the lidocane wears off, and the pain level goes back up to 6, or 7, or sometimes even 8/9. Over the next two or three days, the steroid will begin to shrink the disk, and the pain goes down to 5. Since I have arthritis in the same area, a 5 is about as good as it gets, even though I take Norco 325/5 every 4 to 6 hours, as needed. I stay there, for the most part, so I have learned a little about pain management.
I'm the only person I know who can hurt himself sleeping. Seriously, we've tried everything from Air to Waterbeds, and things that would never occur to Normal people. We finally settled on a memory foam over coils hybrid we got at Matthew's over on Orange Dr. Mattresses, pillows, mattress coverings of foam, memory foam, and egg crate foam, we have tried everything. Mary, from necessity, has learned to sleep on her right side, so she can hear. Up until the cancer surgery, I snored, pretty badly, most nights. I don't know what happened, or even if there is any proven relationship between the removal of part of a lung and a reduction in snoring, but over the past 18 months, Mary stays in bed with me on most nights, so I know it has abated quite a bit. No matter what we've tried, even the major makers of air and foam bedding who claim that their air/foam will reduce back pain, but give you a bunch of crap when you inform them that it didn't.
Right now, I am 2 1/2 weeks from my next procedure (ESI), and the sciatica is beginning to return to my left side, so the right can't be far behind. My pain level has risen to about six, so this is the beginning. By the time of my procedure, it will be at 9. This is not a particularly good time to be me.
I don't claim to know very much about the origin of pain, but I could probably write a book about the effects of pain on the body, and the mind. Most of the time I try to joke about it, particularly when I go to Church, and people ask how I am doing. I could be honest: "Just f-ing great. I didn't have to worry about having died in my sleep, 'cause I woke up in pain. If I ever woke up without it, I'd have a heart attack." But I take the easy way out and say, "I'm getting on as best I can." Which usually gets a, "We'll keep you in our prayers."
What a great sentiment, "We'll keep you in our prayers," particularly if you happen to believe in the power possessed by a single, earnest prayer. Sometimes I wonder, though, if they're praying for me to get worse; but that's just me, getting in the way of my own redemption. I do, by the way, believe in the power of prayer, and in the existence of a power far superior to our own, whom I choose to call God, that can intervene on our behalves, even to the point of miracles. I have seen too many, heard (on good authority) of many more. I have had a couple happen in my own life. Little ones, to be sure, but I have been married for more than 41 years to a woman I still love deeply, and that is a miracle.
Friday, June 19, 2015
A 1959 Triumph TR3
After my sister Pat left home, and we moved into the house on Berryessa Drive, my dad got a "wild hair," and decided that he wanted a British-made sports car. The summer weather, in Vacaville, was great for an open top roadster, and I knew that this would be "my car" one day, so I encouraged that part of him. One evening, we took a trip to Sacramento, to visit car dealerships, and see what was available up there.
He didn't want a "new" sports car, he wanted a good, used car. We went to the MG dealer, and looked in the used car section, but nothing popped out at my dad. We wandered a little further, and came upon an "iron lot," where Dad found a 1959 Triumph TR3. It was painted white, had black leather interior, and had all of the great lines of an English roadster. For example, the rear view mirrors were mounted on the side of the fenders, a total of close to five feet in front of the driver. Dad started to drool, but managed to ask to look at the engine, and the various tops for the car. The salesman told me the hood key was in the glove box, and asked me to get it. It was the only thing in the compartment, so it wasn't hard to find, a chrome-plated "T" that tapered to a shape that fit the two bolts in the hood. Remember, this was 1966, and I was all of 14 years old, so the fact that the T-wrench looked as though it had never been used didn't set off any alarms, but it felt funny.
The salesman, let's call him "Dave," popped the hood, and what greeted us was an immaculate Triumph in-line four cylinder engine, that looked like it just rolled off the assembly line. The car had about 45,000 miles on it, but for a seven year-old car, that was pretty low. We were still oohing and ahhing over the engine, and I noticed that there was a paint line, showing that the car's original color had been a lavender shade of purple. Again, to a fourteen year old, it seemed weird, but it didn't set off any alarms. Dave showed us the twin SU-carburetors, and told us that it took some time to learn how to keep them in sync. My dad was now drooling openly, and his hand kept reaching back for his wallet.
Dave told my dad that they were asking $1,200 for the car, but he'd do him a "solid," and drop it to $999. Dad had a thousand dollars, in cash, on him, ten $100 bills. Dad was quiet for a minute, appearing to "mull it over," then he looked Dave right in the eye and said, "Make it an even $900, and you've got a deal." That's how we got the little sports car from Hell. I call it that, because those things I didn't think much about at the time, were about to make themselves understood.
Mom drove off in the '63 Galaxy we had, and left right after Dad made his deal. This is mid-1960's, there were no cell phones, I-80 was four lanes, and we got as far as the Milk Farm before the engine seized up. Those of you familiar with the I-80 corridor through Vacaville, Dixon, and Davis know that although it gets into triple digits in the summer afternoons, it can drop into the '60's at night. Couple that with the Delta Breezes coming from the Southwest at 10 - 20 mph, and it can get quite cold after a day of 100 degree heat. I was freezing. Dad walked back to the Milk Farm, and used a payphone to call a tow truck, and to let my mom know what was going on. We got home around 11:00 pm, the tow driver helped us push the car up the driveway, into the garage, and it stayed in that spot for almost a year.
Work on the car went fairly slowly. We didn't have lifts, or any pneumatic tools, so everything had to be broken down by hand. Dad had set up boxes to hold the various systems associated with the engine, ignition, carburetion, heating/cooling, etc. As we pulled the assemblies from the block, we would put them into their box, to soak in solvent until we got back to them. It wasn't until we had the entire engine broken down that we would find out how hard it was to get parts for. A lot of things had to be ordered by mail, and new parts could take forever to arrive. As we "cracked the block," my dad started giving me more responsibility with the reassembly. He would double, triple, quadruple check my work, and I learned how cars ran. I was also learning to take care of a car I had a lot invested in.
I have no idea what all of the parts cost, and I had some help with the car's appearance, repainting, reupholstering, and an electrical problem that was probably created by my dad, but fixed by the Chief of Police, who was the father of a friend, and enjoyed puzzling problems like the one that developed. All I know is, that almost a year to the day, I put the key in the ignition, turned it on, and hovered over the starter switch while I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and pushed...
VRRRROOOOOOMMMMM. Pop, pop, and then an uneven purr. I was so excited, I practically wet myself. We tweaked for a few minutes, checked the adjustments of the carburetors, and adjusted the idle, and stood back in awe of this sleek purring roadster that we had given a new life.
Extra credit for anyone who can identify the location.
He didn't want a "new" sports car, he wanted a good, used car. We went to the MG dealer, and looked in the used car section, but nothing popped out at my dad. We wandered a little further, and came upon an "iron lot," where Dad found a 1959 Triumph TR3. It was painted white, had black leather interior, and had all of the great lines of an English roadster. For example, the rear view mirrors were mounted on the side of the fenders, a total of close to five feet in front of the driver. Dad started to drool, but managed to ask to look at the engine, and the various tops for the car. The salesman told me the hood key was in the glove box, and asked me to get it. It was the only thing in the compartment, so it wasn't hard to find, a chrome-plated "T" that tapered to a shape that fit the two bolts in the hood. Remember, this was 1966, and I was all of 14 years old, so the fact that the T-wrench looked as though it had never been used didn't set off any alarms, but it felt funny.
The salesman, let's call him "Dave," popped the hood, and what greeted us was an immaculate Triumph in-line four cylinder engine, that looked like it just rolled off the assembly line. The car had about 45,000 miles on it, but for a seven year-old car, that was pretty low. We were still oohing and ahhing over the engine, and I noticed that there was a paint line, showing that the car's original color had been a lavender shade of purple. Again, to a fourteen year old, it seemed weird, but it didn't set off any alarms. Dave showed us the twin SU-carburetors, and told us that it took some time to learn how to keep them in sync. My dad was now drooling openly, and his hand kept reaching back for his wallet.
Dave told my dad that they were asking $1,200 for the car, but he'd do him a "solid," and drop it to $999. Dad had a thousand dollars, in cash, on him, ten $100 bills. Dad was quiet for a minute, appearing to "mull it over," then he looked Dave right in the eye and said, "Make it an even $900, and you've got a deal." That's how we got the little sports car from Hell. I call it that, because those things I didn't think much about at the time, were about to make themselves understood.
Mom drove off in the '63 Galaxy we had, and left right after Dad made his deal. This is mid-1960's, there were no cell phones, I-80 was four lanes, and we got as far as the Milk Farm before the engine seized up. Those of you familiar with the I-80 corridor through Vacaville, Dixon, and Davis know that although it gets into triple digits in the summer afternoons, it can drop into the '60's at night. Couple that with the Delta Breezes coming from the Southwest at 10 - 20 mph, and it can get quite cold after a day of 100 degree heat. I was freezing. Dad walked back to the Milk Farm, and used a payphone to call a tow truck, and to let my mom know what was going on. We got home around 11:00 pm, the tow driver helped us push the car up the driveway, into the garage, and it stayed in that spot for almost a year.
Work on the car went fairly slowly. We didn't have lifts, or any pneumatic tools, so everything had to be broken down by hand. Dad had set up boxes to hold the various systems associated with the engine, ignition, carburetion, heating/cooling, etc. As we pulled the assemblies from the block, we would put them into their box, to soak in solvent until we got back to them. It wasn't until we had the entire engine broken down that we would find out how hard it was to get parts for. A lot of things had to be ordered by mail, and new parts could take forever to arrive. As we "cracked the block," my dad started giving me more responsibility with the reassembly. He would double, triple, quadruple check my work, and I learned how cars ran. I was also learning to take care of a car I had a lot invested in.
I have no idea what all of the parts cost, and I had some help with the car's appearance, repainting, reupholstering, and an electrical problem that was probably created by my dad, but fixed by the Chief of Police, who was the father of a friend, and enjoyed puzzling problems like the one that developed. All I know is, that almost a year to the day, I put the key in the ignition, turned it on, and hovered over the starter switch while I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and pushed...
VRRRROOOOOOMMMMM. Pop, pop, and then an uneven purr. I was so excited, I practically wet myself. We tweaked for a few minutes, checked the adjustments of the carburetors, and adjusted the idle, and stood back in awe of this sleek purring roadster that we had given a new life.
Friday, June 12, 2015
Some Things Come To Mind...
Facebook friends know how much I use the ellipsis (...) in my Comments and Posts. For those of you who do not understand the uses for the device, the ellipsis indicates that the thought/quote/idea continues beyond the last word given. ...also stand for something before the ellipsis when the beginning of the thought/quote/idea is understood, or irrelevant (see, I took out the "An ellipsis can..."). As a freelance writer, I can use the ellipsis to make a quote say what I want it to say, and claim literary license. News reporters, on the other hand, do not have that liberty, and are required by their own code of ethics not to do such things. Personally, any news writer who uses the ellipsis freely is fairly suspect. I use it because some of my comments could actually be longer, but...
Thus endeth the lesson on the ellipsis.
I don't know that anyone ever reads these, there are only three people who follow my blogs, and I have no idea if they get a notification whenever I post something. If not, my readership is me, and me alone. I could foul this up with profanity (apparently as a former sailor, I am stereotyped as a drunken, foul-mouthed lout), but I have been working on "PG13" language, particularly at home. And besides, as a former sailor, I was a polite drunk. I just think there is too much profanity in the world today.
Seriously. When I was a teenager, being male, I used profanities to prove how tough and grown up I was. Girls, in the company of boys, almost never swore. Now, young ladies are hanging out windows, giving the finger, and dropping F-bombs like B-27's over Germany in 1945 (look it up, I guessed on the year, but sometime in there, the allies bombed the living doggie doo out of the German industrial cities, so it's an apt analogy). I used to tell the girls in my English classes that if I could get one of them to stop swearing, or even to become more aware of their swearing and slow down, I would be the happiest English teacher in the school.
The way girls dress, now days, can be a problem for a male teacher. I once, during a Summer School assignment, had a young lady come into my classroom and plop down in the front row. Normally, it's a behavior I've seen in my own kids, and it's a challenge to the teacher, "Entertain me!" Except this particular young lady was very attractive, and dressed in a top and miniskirt that highlighted her... well... her cleavage. Here she was, in the front row, dressed somewhat provocatively, sitting in a rather un-ladylike position. Did I mention the miniskirt? I quickly wrote a note, telling her to please move to the back of the class. She straightened up and looked at me defiantly, and said, "Why? I like sitting in the front row." I gave her my best fatherly look and said, "Frankly, it's because of the way you are dressed. If you come to class dressed a little more conservatively, you can sit wherever you want." She got up and moved to the back of the row. The next day, she was in shorts and a blouse that buttoned up, and sat in the front row. She stayed there for the next six weeks, and in the end, she thanked me for making her think about how she appeared to people. There's a long story, but she would wear that particular outfit to drive her dad crazy (I could see why). I told her she wouldn't leave my house in that outfit were she my daughter, but of course if she were my daughter, she would only leave the house under guard. It was something, at 49, I was the oldest person she knew, her grandparents passing before her birth. Never saw her again after that summer semester was over.
I've had a chance to look back on a horrible time in my life, the loss of my daughter Amy in 1979. The old adage goes, "A parent should never see his children die." I don't know who said it, under what circumstance, but I agree wholeheartedly. I watched our second child die in my hands at Slidell Memorial Hospital in Louisiana. She was born several months prematurely, and was not equipped to handle oxygen straight from the air. She fought hard, but it was futile, her little lungs just couldn't do it, and then she went limp. It was a feeling I never want to experience again, ever. I haven't talked about this, ever, and I don't really want to get into this now. I went to see her, the nurses were all in tears, and I asked if I could see her. She was in an incubator, a plastic box with glove holes in the side. They said there was nothing they could do but make her comfortable, and it was OK for me to hold her in the box. They watched as I picked her up, and felt how little she was. Amy was kicking, like she was fighting to stay, and then she went limp...
End of story...
Except it didn't end right there. We tried, had a son 355 days later, except there was still a hole at the table where Amy should have been. For a long time, she went without a permanent marker, and there was something that remained undone, and was keeping us from reaching some closure. Mary sent me Polaroid pictures of the permanent marker, I was on deployment to Misawa, Japan in 1989, and I think I scared some folks in the barracks because of the loud weeping. Some folks worried that I was losing it, but it was the relief of having done the last thing we could do on earth for my daughter. Prior to doing that, came the second most horrible time in my life, my separation from Mary in 1981.
We said we weren't doing it, but each of us ourselves for Amy. Me because of the drugs I took in the 1960's and early '70's. Mary had her own reasons, but we started putting up barriers to communications, and soon we weren't talking to each other. I always likened it to fencing ourselves off from each other. Each thing we couldn't talk about was like a board in the fence. Pretty soon we got to the point where we couldn't talk to each other at all without starting a argument, and our relationship deteriorated fully. We were legally separated, waiting for the divorce to become final, and I had a bit of an epiphany, and we put our marriage back together, and things have been great ever since. There is another adage about marriages that make it past the first seven years will make it forever. We were married in '74, separated in '81. We almost didn't make it past seven years. This past year was 41 years together. Believe me, miracles happen, I've seen it.
Thus endeth the lesson on the ellipsis.
I don't know that anyone ever reads these, there are only three people who follow my blogs, and I have no idea if they get a notification whenever I post something. If not, my readership is me, and me alone. I could foul this up with profanity (apparently as a former sailor, I am stereotyped as a drunken, foul-mouthed lout), but I have been working on "PG13" language, particularly at home. And besides, as a former sailor, I was a polite drunk. I just think there is too much profanity in the world today.
Seriously. When I was a teenager, being male, I used profanities to prove how tough and grown up I was. Girls, in the company of boys, almost never swore. Now, young ladies are hanging out windows, giving the finger, and dropping F-bombs like B-27's over Germany in 1945 (look it up, I guessed on the year, but sometime in there, the allies bombed the living doggie doo out of the German industrial cities, so it's an apt analogy). I used to tell the girls in my English classes that if I could get one of them to stop swearing, or even to become more aware of their swearing and slow down, I would be the happiest English teacher in the school.
The way girls dress, now days, can be a problem for a male teacher. I once, during a Summer School assignment, had a young lady come into my classroom and plop down in the front row. Normally, it's a behavior I've seen in my own kids, and it's a challenge to the teacher, "Entertain me!" Except this particular young lady was very attractive, and dressed in a top and miniskirt that highlighted her... well... her cleavage. Here she was, in the front row, dressed somewhat provocatively, sitting in a rather un-ladylike position. Did I mention the miniskirt? I quickly wrote a note, telling her to please move to the back of the class. She straightened up and looked at me defiantly, and said, "Why? I like sitting in the front row." I gave her my best fatherly look and said, "Frankly, it's because of the way you are dressed. If you come to class dressed a little more conservatively, you can sit wherever you want." She got up and moved to the back of the row. The next day, she was in shorts and a blouse that buttoned up, and sat in the front row. She stayed there for the next six weeks, and in the end, she thanked me for making her think about how she appeared to people. There's a long story, but she would wear that particular outfit to drive her dad crazy (I could see why). I told her she wouldn't leave my house in that outfit were she my daughter, but of course if she were my daughter, she would only leave the house under guard. It was something, at 49, I was the oldest person she knew, her grandparents passing before her birth. Never saw her again after that summer semester was over.
I've had a chance to look back on a horrible time in my life, the loss of my daughter Amy in 1979. The old adage goes, "A parent should never see his children die." I don't know who said it, under what circumstance, but I agree wholeheartedly. I watched our second child die in my hands at Slidell Memorial Hospital in Louisiana. She was born several months prematurely, and was not equipped to handle oxygen straight from the air. She fought hard, but it was futile, her little lungs just couldn't do it, and then she went limp. It was a feeling I never want to experience again, ever. I haven't talked about this, ever, and I don't really want to get into this now. I went to see her, the nurses were all in tears, and I asked if I could see her. She was in an incubator, a plastic box with glove holes in the side. They said there was nothing they could do but make her comfortable, and it was OK for me to hold her in the box. They watched as I picked her up, and felt how little she was. Amy was kicking, like she was fighting to stay, and then she went limp...
End of story...
Except it didn't end right there. We tried, had a son 355 days later, except there was still a hole at the table where Amy should have been. For a long time, she went without a permanent marker, and there was something that remained undone, and was keeping us from reaching some closure. Mary sent me Polaroid pictures of the permanent marker, I was on deployment to Misawa, Japan in 1989, and I think I scared some folks in the barracks because of the loud weeping. Some folks worried that I was losing it, but it was the relief of having done the last thing we could do on earth for my daughter. Prior to doing that, came the second most horrible time in my life, my separation from Mary in 1981.
We said we weren't doing it, but each of us ourselves for Amy. Me because of the drugs I took in the 1960's and early '70's. Mary had her own reasons, but we started putting up barriers to communications, and soon we weren't talking to each other. I always likened it to fencing ourselves off from each other. Each thing we couldn't talk about was like a board in the fence. Pretty soon we got to the point where we couldn't talk to each other at all without starting a argument, and our relationship deteriorated fully. We were legally separated, waiting for the divorce to become final, and I had a bit of an epiphany, and we put our marriage back together, and things have been great ever since. There is another adage about marriages that make it past the first seven years will make it forever. We were married in '74, separated in '81. We almost didn't make it past seven years. This past year was 41 years together. Believe me, miracles happen, I've seen it.
Friday, February 13, 2015
Memories From Pebble Beach
I was stationed at the Fleet Numerical Oceanographic Center, in Monterey, CA from 1987 to 1989. My parents were in their 60's, and Dad still drove a 30' motor home (plus the tow bar and car they took with them, in all about 40 feet). When he found out that there was a, pretty much, unused Family Campground at Ft. Ord, not far from our housing unit, he started calling around and got us tickets for the '88 AT&T at Pebble Beach (formerly the Bing Crosby National Pro/Am). I took a week off, and Dad and I wandered around the different venues watching practice rounds. We met all kinds of folks, like Jack Lemmon, Hewey Lewis, Willie McCovey, and Producer/Director George Stephens Jr. We even had the chance to meet players like Fuzzy Zoeller and Payne Stewart, both of whom we had held very pleasant conversations.
Perhaps the coolest of all was meeting Jack Lemmon, and his son Chris. I got a chance to tell Jack that he was, perhaps, an "old salt's" favorite Ensign, due to his role as "Ensign Pulver" in the movie version of "Mr. Roberts," starring Henry Fonda and Jimmy Cagney. Jack actually seemed touched by that, or he is a great enough actor to improvise a scene where he can summon such emotions. He shook my hand. It wasn't one of those political three-pump handshakes, either. It was a warm, friendly handshake, like between friends who hadn't seen one another in a long time. We locked eyes, and I saw a man who really enjoyed my comment, and was glad to know that he had become such a memorable character to someone "so young" (remember, I was 36 when this happened).
Over the two tournaments that Dad and I met a bunch of other folks, Dwight Clark, Dr. J, even the toughest autograph to get, Clint Eastwood, stopped to talk for a couple of moments, but my favorite memory of all, was running into Jack Lemmon in '89.
We had gone out for the practice rounds, and found out that Jack Lemmon was playing Cypress Country Club. A very exclusive club that has one of the most memorable holes in golf, a Par 3 that goes across a tiny bay that is home to a number of sea-otter families. We found out that he had teed-off about a half an hour before, so we beat a path to the third tee, hoping to catch him there. It was a great guess, because just as we came out of the woods, Jack's group was stepping up to the tee. Dad and I were, perhaps, 50 - 60 yards down the tee-box from the tees the celebrities would play from, right up on the ropes, watching as Jack teed his ball and prepared to hit. Suddenly, he stops, and looks right at my dad and I, and says, "Look, it's Charlie and Steve." and then strides down the tee-box to shake hands, and greet one another. He goes up to hit his ball, and apparently hits the best tee shot of the three he'd played. "Stick around, fellas, you might be good luck."
I don't remember a lot about my dad any more, but I cannot ever forget the look on his face when he was recognized by Jack Lemmon.
Perhaps the coolest of all was meeting Jack Lemmon, and his son Chris. I got a chance to tell Jack that he was, perhaps, an "old salt's" favorite Ensign, due to his role as "Ensign Pulver" in the movie version of "Mr. Roberts," starring Henry Fonda and Jimmy Cagney. Jack actually seemed touched by that, or he is a great enough actor to improvise a scene where he can summon such emotions. He shook my hand. It wasn't one of those political three-pump handshakes, either. It was a warm, friendly handshake, like between friends who hadn't seen one another in a long time. We locked eyes, and I saw a man who really enjoyed my comment, and was glad to know that he had become such a memorable character to someone "so young" (remember, I was 36 when this happened).
Over the two tournaments that Dad and I met a bunch of other folks, Dwight Clark, Dr. J, even the toughest autograph to get, Clint Eastwood, stopped to talk for a couple of moments, but my favorite memory of all, was running into Jack Lemmon in '89.
We had gone out for the practice rounds, and found out that Jack Lemmon was playing Cypress Country Club. A very exclusive club that has one of the most memorable holes in golf, a Par 3 that goes across a tiny bay that is home to a number of sea-otter families. We found out that he had teed-off about a half an hour before, so we beat a path to the third tee, hoping to catch him there. It was a great guess, because just as we came out of the woods, Jack's group was stepping up to the tee. Dad and I were, perhaps, 50 - 60 yards down the tee-box from the tees the celebrities would play from, right up on the ropes, watching as Jack teed his ball and prepared to hit. Suddenly, he stops, and looks right at my dad and I, and says, "Look, it's Charlie and Steve." and then strides down the tee-box to shake hands, and greet one another. He goes up to hit his ball, and apparently hits the best tee shot of the three he'd played. "Stick around, fellas, you might be good luck."
I don't remember a lot about my dad any more, but I cannot ever forget the look on his face when he was recognized by Jack Lemmon.
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