Last Quarter-Game of Life

Beachy Day

2010-09-17T11:16:00.000-04:00

A gang of us from Vi at Lakeside Village took our bus out to a famous (deservedly) restaurant on the beach for breakfast yesterday. After eating too much, we were free to go frolic on the beach. Who am I kidding? The last time I tried to frolic in the surf, it took my wife and two surfers to get me back on dry land! No, Sally and I stayed dry and went out on the fishing pier. There weren’t many fisher-people, probably due to a snappy wind. It was determined to blow hats and anything else under twenty pounds into the surf. Hurricane Igor is a ways off Florida stirring things up right now. Makes for a beautiful day, high winds, hazardous surf, and a glad to be alive mood. Anyone with left-over vacation ought to “come on down”.

If my Penn State is in “Happy Valley”, we are now living in “Happy Sea Coast”.

Attention! Hand! Salute!

2010-09-09T23:02:00.000-04:00

Quite a while ago I read that the rules had been changed and Veterans were now allowed to use a standard hand salute when in civies instead of the old hand over the heart business. I'm a bashful sort of fellow and didn't want to be the first to do that. Finally, tonight during the National Anthem belore the Saints-Vikings game they showed a quick shot of two Vikings and one coach standing at full attention in their game clothing and giving perfect hand salutes. I gave me goose bumps and chills up my spine. Now I can't wait to show my respect in that fashion. I hope to soon see all veterans: Army, Navy, Marines. Wasps, Waves, etc., start identifying themselves in this way.

That ought to scare the begeebers out of those ragtag terrorists that think the USA is getting soft!

Viva! Scotch Tape!

2010-09-08T23:17:00.000-04:00

I usually wear my wristwatch almost 24/7. I don’t believe that it is waterproof so it comes off for showers, shaving, swimming, etc. This morning I showered and then flopped on my comfy chair in the living room. I fell asleep while reading the paper and woke up with no idea what time it was - no watch. So I promptly had the million dollar idea. Why doesn’t Samsung put a little clock on their TV remotes. I would pay an extra dollar or two for that feature. The idea is about as clever as putting a clock on a church steeple so I doubt there would be any patent problems.

Reminds me. Yesterday’s Newsweek had a highlighted sentence within an article about Apple. It said approximately the following; Apple today may be the most incredibly inventive lab in the recent history of Silicon Valley. That must automatically be translatable to: in the country, because I can’t think of a true invention from American industry outside of Silicon Valley since I retired 30 years ago. (Not that I claim there is a connection.) Being of a simple minded sort, I still credit 3M as displaying the most group creativity of any lab I ever knew of. The basic invention that got them started involved putting a sticky surface on one side of a strip of cellophane in such a way that it wouldn’t stick to the other side. Thereby the tape could be rolled up and when unrolled, one side only had stickum on it. From there, a relatively small group of people created a myriad of innovations, modifications, line extensions and cleverness. They were a bee hive where the question, “What’s new?” always got an answer.

All that on the basis of a one day visit to the lab, probably forty years ago.

PS I still haven’t got my quotation marks to behave consistently. You may have noticed. Sorry.

Where were I ??

2010-08-29T15:25:00.000-04:00

Folks may wonder what I have been doing that has kept me from the business of keeping up with blogging for the last three months. Well, my 85th birthday sort of got me thinking that I didn’t have a lot of time left and I should be using what time there was in “doing” instead of writing about things I had done. I love to read and I hadn’t done much of that recently and the “NOOK” was sitting right there ready to help me do it. So below is a list of books (not literature) that I have read since May 18, 2010.

“The Promise” by Jonathan Alter
“Point of Origin” by Patricia Cornwell
“The Cove” by Catherine Coulter
"A Dangerous Fortune” by Ken Follett
“The Surgeon” by Tess Gerritsen
"The Apprentice” by Tess Gerritsen
“K is for Killer” by Sue Graftin
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson
“The Girl who Played with Fire” by Stieg Larsson
“The Naked Viscount” by Sally MacKenzie
“Think of a Number” by John Verdon
“Loitering with Intent” by Stuart Woods

In addition, I have nibbled at, but not completely read:

“The Federalist” by Alexander Hamilton and friends
The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson
Poems by Vachel Lindsay
The King James Version Holy Bible Edited by God
Essential Tales and Poems by Edgar Allen Poe by Same

Barnes and Noble say they have well over a million ebooks available so I think I can stay with reading as long as need be.

Scattered Thoughts for August

2010-08-10T22:29:00.000-04:00

I love the story of the flight attendant that blew his stack at the passenger who thought the rules didn’t apply to him/her. When I was very young, I got furious at my boss. I went to the locker room, got my coat, and went home – at 2 in the afternoon. Next day I came to work wondering if I still had a job. My boss did the most hurtful thing he could have done to me. He never said a word about my disappearing act that I thought of as a big grandstand play, It made me mad at him all over again.

[Can anyone tell me why my computer will not print an apostrophe? I get a [ instead. Also, I cannot put quotation marks in front of the letter O. When I try, I get Ö. It sort of reminds me of the Geico TV commercial. The two little eyes peeking over the O. ]

Sally has recovered from the nasty cat bite she got a couple of weeks ago. She now needs to recover from two trips to the ER, Two potent antibiotics, one hefty shot of one antibiotic, and multiple OTC pills of antihistamine.

Florida Politics

2010-07-23T21:23:00.000-04:00

After a brief (?) pause, I hope I am back for some more blogging. While I have been off, I've had the misfortune of having to watch a lot of commercials for the various candidates for governor and US Senator. This year there was no fooling around. They jumped right in with the negative ads and just kept getting more negative. What disturbs me the most is the use of the phrase "career politician" as a pejorative, suggesting that politicians that have devoted their lives to public service are somehow dishonest or, at least, tainted in some way. I know that may sometimes be true, but I believe that, in general, public service is an honorable pursuit. By the same token, I do not believe that an "outsider" is by definition more qualified or more honest than a career politician to participate in government.

We have a fellow running for governor who readily confesses that while he was collecting multi-millions of dollars from the company he was CEO of, the company received record sized fines from the the US Government for defrauding Medicare. Now he says he has learned his lesson and that is probably true, but should he be disparaging politicians just because they have spent their careers as a part of government?

We have another fellow who also makes his claim to fame as a successful businessman with lots and lots of money. Turns out his wealth was made bigger by his use of credit swaps (what ever they are) to bet against the economy when the recent recession was getting started. The more the economy suffered, the more money he made. And this guy also makes the career politician his whipping boy. No thanks. He'll not get my vote.

2010-06-25T11:40:00.003-04:00

I was already to write a rave review of the Barnes and Noble Nook e-reader when Monday, B&N dropped the price from $253 to $199. Guess which price we paid. I’ve cooled off a little and decided that if I was happy before the price came down, I shouldn’t be bitter about someone else’s good fortune.

The Nook is quite fabulous and I love it. I have read four books since we got it. Also, I have downloaded the “Poems of Vachael Lindsay” and a collection of Edgar Allan Poe poems and stories.( I have a confession: I enjoy reading poems out-loud – to myself alone and late at night.) Someone asked me Sunday why I liked the Nook. I answered that that was the question I had been asking myself. Not having an answer ready was what had delayed my writing a blog about it. Today, I will try. First I can enlarge the font and I do not have to fool around with a magnifying glass. People with decent vision would discount that. A feature I like so much that I may never go back to a book–book is that it always knows where I stopped reading. With a book, I never got used to using a bookmark and always had to read several pages to find my place. Books to read are easy to find and download. I search through B&N’s website on my Mac until I find a book I am interested in. Then I go to “Shop”on the Nook and search by author and buy the book. It is downloaded to my Nook in seconds. (The gal at telephone “help” walked me through configuring the Nook to use my own router.)

I suppose I should mention the lower price for books plus there are a bunch of “Free” books available. Whatever the reason, I am addicted.

2010-06-13T13:46:00.002-04:00

The corporation that includes the CCRC (Continuing Care Retirement Community) in which we live, and over a dozen others, was named “Classic Residence by Hyatt” until last week.. Last week they took a bold step and renamed themselves. The new name, announced with champagne parties across the country in every one of their communities, is Vi (pronounced vee). It landed among current residents like a lead balloon.

Reportedly, two years of market research and name development went into the decision to change and the search for an appropriate name. The results indicated that the baby boomers coming along want a more active lifestyle in their retirement years than currently offered by retirement facilities. But one analysis of the results suggests that while current residents traditionally have moved in at ages averaging in the mid-eighties, the new strategy would target a younger entrance into retirement community living. One can visualize an advertising campaign aimed at sixty year olds that stresses the advantages of using a CCRC as a base for the lifestyle of travel and sports they desire. Current residents may not like some of the change in emphasis needed to make the new positioning a reality, but if done right it should make life more interesting for every generation.

In my personal experience, I resisted moving into this place when I was in my early seventies. I thought I was too young. I thought that moving here was some sort of surrender. Like many others, I soon realized I was wrong and that I retained the freedom to do pretty much what I wanted. I even wished I had made the move sooner.

The name ”Vi” is more than a little bizarre but demonstrates that management is willing to take chances with big change. I think the new positioning will succeed and lead to a shift in the whole industry.

Calling All Inventors!!!

2010-06-11T11:16:00.003-04:00

Do you have any idea how many old folks are standing back on the boardwalk wishing they could walk down to the water and out a few yards?

Can't some clever fellow develop a "sand cane" based along the lines of a ski pole which could assist walking in soft sand. A regular cane is no use at all. It sinks in the sand down to china and is a devil to pull out for the next step The right design and you could make billions --- or many just cover your costs and make a lot of people happy. Simply find a good lawyer to write a waiver for buyers to sign agreeing it is the buyers fault if he falls down and drowns.

Beach Day

2010-06-11T10:00:00.008-04:00

While talking food and all the current emphasis on eating healthy the other day with a friend, he said that he had no objection to eating “healthy” at home; but by golly, when he went out to eat, he wanted to eat "UNhealthy" and enjoy it! The picture above is just to show that I think he has a useful and valid philosophy. A group of us went over to the beach yesterday for breakfast at John G’s. For Sally and I, it was a reward for a rotten week of hospital tests, tension, and fatigue, Believe me I finished every morsel on that plate.
After breakfast, Sally and I went out to the end of the long fishing pier located right there. It was hot, but beautiful. The ocean was calm and sparklingly clear, contrary to the fears of many. No sign of the Gulf coast’s tar. We both got mild sunburns and Vitamin D to last a week. I slept all afternoon.

One Tiny Corner of the Immigration Flap

2010-05-28T11:32:00.001-04:00

There, of late, has been a lot of negative noise made about immigration, immigrants, and illegal immigrants. I’ve had a spell of less that sparkling health lately and I got thinking about the team of doctors that have pulled me through. My cardiologist is from Israel. My oncologist has two unpronounceable names that I have never explored the origin of. My rheumatologist came from the United Kingdom. His wife is from Iran and he makes frequent visits to Iran to give medical assistance to the poor. My vascular surgeon was born and raised in Cuba. It is amazing to hear him switch from English to Spanish without a pause as he changes patients. My urologist is plain old All-American Jewish. Finally, I suspect that our family doctor and the heart surgeon who fixed me up are both preceded my enough generations in this country to have dropped any racial or nationality hypens from just American.

Where would I be without immigration? (Buried back in jolly old England).

The Golden Years

2010-05-24T21:31:00.001-04:00

GOLDEN YEARS, my A**! Ooops! Sorry, every once in a while that thought just bubbles up and out. We just went to the super market and it hurt going, there, and back. The driver that takes us is very nice. He lets everyone else out at the entrance, then drives me the 75 feet to the exit where the electric carts with the big baskets are parked. We get there at twenty to the hour and the bus is back for us at fifteen after the hour. That is less than forty five minutes to get a week’s worth of shopping done. Rush, rush. I admit we can stay for two or even three runs of the bus, but our choice seems to be to do the one-run rush.

We had a lot of fun over the last couple of weeks. It doesn’t seem to hurt as much when pure pleasure is the objective. We went out to dinner innumerable times with all kinds of excuses and several times with a real purpose, ie., birthdays, Mothers’Day, graduation celebrations, and a bunch of times just because we felt like it. Last Saturday, Sally rode up to Orlando with daughter Mary to attend Ann’s graduation ceremony (two more Masters’ degrees). For the last week we rented a car and did the accumulated chores and errands. You know, important stuff like replacing some dead fish and getting fresh batteries in wrist watches. You can’t do that sort of thing on scheduled transportation.

O. K. now we return to our normal social life – doctor visits and physical therapy sessions. The GoldenYears.

2010-05-08T09:43:00.005-04:00

For those of you that don't recognize this fellow, he is a purple gallinule. This particular one had quite a sense of humor. He used to jump (fly) up on to the dock when I rode my bicycle out onto it. Believe it or not, in this picture he is on his way to untie my shoe laces. (He may have thought they were food, but I like the sense of humor premise.)

I seldom get down to the dock any more, but I doubt that the gallinules are still around, there has been a lot of development since this picture. But I am sure that they are still building nests somewhere in the wetlands of Florida. I just wanted to post the picture to remind us how many beautiful creatures we will lose if the Oil Spill gets caught in the Gulf stream and makes its way onto the coast of Florida and seeps a little further in-land. Man shouldn't really have the right to destroy such peace loving beauty.

OUTRAGEOUS !

2010-04-27T09:58:00.001-04:00

$106,000! That’s one hundred and six thousand dollars!! That’s how much the hospital charged for the simple little angioplasty I had last month. That doesn’t include the surgeon who did it nor the anesthesiologists that put me to sleep. Needless to say, Medicare sliced that down by orders of magnitude.. After Medicare and my insurance paid their share of a much smaller number, I have only to pay $211, which isn’t bad. But consider the poor guy that has no insurance. He simply couldn’t have the procedure. Now I understand the why of Obama’s Healthcare bill. Let’s get it cranked up in a hurry.

These hospitals say they have to overcharge to pay for all the charity work they do. I know my hospital has handled a bunch of patients from the Haiti earthquake, but don’t put the onus of paying for them on poor Americans. This is just plain ridiculous!

$106,000! Cheez!!

I Did a Bad Thing

2010-04-23T22:39:00.006-04:00

My conscience never kicked in. It was overpowered by laughter. I flat-out stole the following from Kenju's blog IMAGINE...(Always a source of Joy.)

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you
realize you're wrong.
3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was
younger.
4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.
5. How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
6. Was learning cursive really necessary?
7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5. I'm pretty
sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the
Person died.
9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
10. Bad decisions make good stories.
11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work
when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for
the rest of the day.
12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I
don't want to have to restart my collection...again.
13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me
if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper that I swear
I did not make any changes to.
14. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash
this - ever.
15. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello?), but
when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voice
mail . What did you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run
way?
16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not
seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
17. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to
answer when they call.
19. I disagree with Kay Jewelers . I would bet on any given Friday or
Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.
20. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option
21. Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and
suddenly realize I had no idea what the heck was going on when I first
saw it.
22. I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand
than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
24. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and
hunger.
25. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod
and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?
26. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up
to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers
and sisters!
27. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get
dirty, and you can wear them forever.
28. Is it just me or do high school kids get dumber & dumber every year?
29. There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are
going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.
30. As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers,
but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.
31. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still
not know what time it is.
32. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car
keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the
Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from
3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!

When Approaching Old Age

2010-04-21T10:39:00.004-04:00

The other day I was reading an article, I think it was on ThirdAge.com, about how to age gracefully and happily. It made several points, but the one that struck me was about being foregiving. It quoted the old saw that holding a grudge is like drinking a glass of poison and hoping the other guy will die.

I thought that over and decided that I really no longer hold any grudges. I do remember a few I held for quite a while, but I have long since decided that they were silly. I guess that is sort of the equivalent of forgiving. There was the company clerk in the Army that fixed the books so that he got to return home a month before I did – even though we should have gone home at the same time. But he was just getting even. I had caught him stealing a pair of gloves from the supply room. Are you listening, Lester? I forgive you.

That high school English teacher who gave me a “C” and kept me off the honor roll my last semester makes the list. Really, it was my mother that stayed angry about that. If the teacher hadn’t got mad at me, I would have been on the honor roll every semester in high school. I heard she wept when she found out what she had done. Heck, all I did was stand up and walk out of her class without permission. Did any of this change the course of my life? Naw!

Speaking of grades – There were two of us in our freshman year of college with the same first and last names. His middle initial was G and mine was S. At the end of the first semester, he got my grades and I got his. I didn’t realize what happened , but I appealed those I was given and got them corrected. They let him keep mine, but I never knew if he appreciated that my hard work saved his butt. Just a memory, not a grudge.

I think the article was right. You will have a happier time as you age if you forgive the insults and dislikes of your life and concentrate on the good people and events that have enriched your travels through life.

2010-04-15T21:47:00.011-04:00

OK, I know it is foolish, but I was reading last night about how the big fad now is to photograph everything one eats , so I decided to try it. -- for one day
.
I missed picturing my appetizer for dinner. It was a saucerful of about a dozen mussels sauteed in a bunch of exotic sounding stuff which I forget. Good.
In case my unexcellent photograph disguises the identity of my menu-- breakfast was an english muffin with whipped cream cheese, grapes, a banana, orange juice and 14 pills. Lunch was pickle and pimento loaf on white, yogurt, two sugar wafers, one left-over Easter chocolate and a diet Coke. Dinner consisted of the aforementioned mussels, roast chicken with cranberry sauce, creamed spinach, beets, cranberry juice and dessert of soft-serve swirl (vanilla and chocolate)

Now if anyone gives an old clay tinker's dam about my nutrition I'll be mighty surprised. About the only thing I learned is that my wife was shocked when I whipped out my camera at the dinner table and that the camera time-stamp is still set on EST.

2010-04-11T20:57:00.003-04:00

I hear that next month the U S Postal Service will honor with a stamp the greatest cartoonist of the great generation. Hooray for him and for those who honor Bill Mauldin. I was a combat infantryman many moons ago. I remember laughing at his cartoons even as I was feeling like his characters looked.

From the time the war was over until this day, every time I have seen Willie and Joe, I have felt a moment of pride that I carried a rifle into combat with those two. There were times that we will never forget. But as years has gone by. the awful parts of the memories have faded somewhat and the comic moments have become more distinct. Bill Mauldin had the talent to collapse that transition time and make us see the humor while the ugliness was still with us. He amused the world while he represented all riflemen in the Army.

Thoughts of the Day

2010-03-31T13:32:00.004-04:00

Oh Gosh! We elect a guy from Chicago and what should we expect? He opens the whole Atlantic coast line for oil drilling! Those mid-westerners have no appreciation or love of beaches!

There is something that puzzles me. We catch law-breakers, put them in jail, and it costs the tax-payers a fortune to keep them there. So what is wrong with the tax-payers making a few dollars from the wrong-doers? People write into the local newspapers and say, “You are not installing red light cameras for safety, you are doing it to raise money!” OK, I am the guy that said the state could solve their budget problems by sending troops of state police down to Route I 95 and give tickets to every speeder on the road. The state would make a bundle every day until the word got out.

The “helical” (spiral), long life bulb in my desk lamp burned out the other day. It was practically new. So much for trying to be a “green” citizen. It cost twice as much as the incandescent bulb it replaced and lasted half as long. I’m back to nice, round incandescent. I like the light from the old-fashioned bulbs better anyway.

I wonder how long it will be before all buildings will be made cell phone friendly and the line phones will join the dinosaurs. Then, if someone would please invent a way to send electricity wirelessly, we could get rid of all those ugly telephone poles and their ugly wires.

Apple Magic Mouse

2010-03-28T11:00:00.002-04:00

This is just a brief product endorsement. Several weeks ago I indulged myself and purchased an Apple Magic Mouse. I love it! You can find a list of the great features of this product at the Apple Store online. Believe what you read. I had tried it several times in their local retail store and was somewhat afraid it might be too small for my hand. Quite the contrary my hand, without thought, found a natural fit. My arthritic fingers are delighted. Scrolling is a breeze. Wireless and slim, I can always find a space to use it on my messy, crowded desk. It shuts itself down when not in use, so it is easy on batteries. Try it, youll like it.

Solutions for D.C.

2010-03-24T21:17:00.003-04:00

Here I am, back from a short hospital and nursing home visit. This morning I had my post-op visit to the surgeon that did the carving. He is very happy about the outcome of this latest procedure. If he is happy, I guess I am too.

A visit to the nursing home is always a chance to watch too much (to the saturation point) television. But the problem was that TV was non-stop chatter about the Obama Healthcare bill. I am a Republican. Always have been, but getting antsy lately. As a frequent consumer of health care I am well aware that something needs fixing in a hurry or we are going to see a crisis. All the members of Congress must know that too. So why the obstructionist approach by my party? I also know that the bill put forth by the democrats isn’t perfect, but it is not nearly the disaster that the hysterical naysayers would have the public believe. Just a little calm negotiating on the part of the Republicans could have turned it into a piece of legislature that everyone could have been proud of. And turning those pathetic rabble-rousers loose in the Capitol streets was not a good way to strengthen the Republican Party for the future.

Now Mr. President, let’s get busy creating JOBS.

Second Chance

2010-03-07T22:15:00.004-05:00

One of the good things about being old is that you can reread old mystery books knowing full well that you have read them before but without the faintest clue as to who-done-it. A corollary to that is that you can stay up all night finishing the book and sleep in the next morning no matter what day of the week it happens to be. Old age and retirement have their good points.

I went back in time the other day to 1982 when Sue Grafton published her first of her alphabet series, “A is for Alibi”. Her powers of description and ability to create a mental image were astonishing even then. As I got deeper into the book, I had little flashes of memory, but never complete enough to prevent the ending from blowing me away. ( That’s a joke in case you haven’t read “A” in decades.) Now I have to get the latest. My first question will be, “Has Kinsey got herself a cell phone yet?”

I have read most of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories several times and most of Tony Hillerman more than once. I think that Hillerman was the best craftsman, but he allowed himself the largest palette. I plan to continue reading mysteries over and over as long as I can. They seem to, like so many things, get better with age.

2010-02-20T12:32:00.002-05:00

Tiger Woods’ little speech yesterday was certainly way down the list of the most important events of the week, but it sure got a lot of talk-talk. What annoys me about him is his whine about the photographers bothering his wife and kids. Sure, that is not nice, but whose fault is it? I don’t sense that Tiger realizes that the intrusive photographers wouldn’t be anywhere in sight if he, Tiger, hadn’t been such a jerk. (Can you tell that I can’t spell the word that means intrusive photographers? And it isn’t in my dictionary.)
Tiger owes his billion dollars to the attention the press paid him. Don’t blame them for his fourteen overnight pals.

Enough about him. I read that the big banks are very unhappy that the proposed new regulations (that they may have to live by) may cost them 221 billion dollars in profits. Do I care? No, not when I wonder how much they cost the little Joes and Janes that have lost their jobs and savings as a result of the banks gambling and losing, but then getting bailed out like us folks weren’t.

Bayh probably cooked his own goose as far as his presidential hopes went. But I would have been ashamed to be in the current do-nothing Congress too. Those folks get a nifty salaries to participate in the governing of the United States. They don’t do that. They live high off the hog and do nothing but tend to their own party business. Let’s unelect the whole bunch in November.

This has been National Cardiac Rehabilitation Week. Did you do right by your heart?

Feb Madness

2010-02-13T16:51:00.007-05:00

Well, the Air Force is again shuffling injured Hatians to hospitals in the States despite the Florida governor. The poor governor is trying to win the Republican nomination to run for senator. However, the choice of the Tea Party crowd has gotten the edge over him. He doesn’t know which way to turn to satisfy voters.

More than politics have gone sour in Florida. Sympathy goes out to tourists who made reservations in response to the commercial cries of, “Come on down” to sunny Florida. It is COLD down here. And for the dry season, we are getting a lot of rain. Of course, the merchants enjoy bad weather. The tourists come off the beach and go to the malls. Bring extra cash!

On the personal side, I nosed around Google Buzz, but decided I didn’t want them (Google) deciding who my friends should be. Who needs another social network, anyway?

I have returned to Aqua Therapy to try to get myself out of the wheel chair. Where we live has a heated pool so the water is warm. It is a pleasant way to spend an hour and the aching legs only come later. Gosh, I am in poor condition!

Haiti

2010-01-30T11:34:00.003-05:00

This morning’s news headline is that medical evacuations of the severely injured ƒrom Haiti have been halted because the governor of Florida wants to know who is going to pay for all these hospitalizations. My question is, “Who is it that insists on making money off this catastrophe ?” Usually this windsock we call governor goes with the flow, but I suspect that this time he’s listening to the wrong people.

Synopis 0f 2009

2010-01-09T15:58:00.003-05:00

Despite all the bad-mouthing of the year 2009 in the press and on TV, it was a reasonably good year for me. Aside from a few weeks in late January and early February, I was out of hospitals and nursing homes for an entire year. That’s pretty good compared to recent years. A nice, quiet year at home with Sally was pleasant and just what I needed. Even an uneventful year has its ups and downs. We gave up the car, but still got to the Fort Lauderdale performance of the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Show with the Rockettes. The staging, the lighting, the music, and the precision made it an evening of surprise and delight. We had bought a folding wheelchair that fits in the back of Mary’s car. She pushed me right from the parking lot to one of the best seats in the house (the same arena where we went to a skating show several years ago).

The computer took up a lot of my time the past year. I dabbled with both Facebook and Twitter, but by the end of the year I found I was partaking of neither to any extent. I installed Chrome as my browser when I found out that Google had introduced a version for Mac. However, by the end of the year I was so disappointed in it that I uninstalled it. There were no substantial advantages and several down sides, so I just dropped it.

I received a new and beautiful camera for Christmas. But I haven’t figured out a graphic way to take a picture of the cold weather Florida is experiencing right now. The thermometer on my computer shows that it is 40 degrees now (2PM) outside. But there are no snowdrifts nor icicles to photograph. 40 degrees in the afternoon in South Florida should be documentable. I suppose I could get a close up of my goose bumps!

I would put Obama’s performance as not what I hoped for in the past year. Of course, the Republicans have not contributed heroically. “Obstructionism” is the word for them.

I should talk! Early in the year I got out boxes of what I generously call memorabilia with the intention of sorting it, disposing of most of the “stuff” and thereby saving lots of space in our closets. Currently the boxes are still on the floor, new folders are stacked by my desk and the desk is hidden by pictures, cards, unanswered letters. There is barely space to maneuver the mouse. Of course, the last thing I really want to do is to run out of things to do.

I shall return. The day I don’t, will be the day I realize our cat is smarter than I am. (A valid concern.)

'Tis the Season

2009-12-23T09:51:00.004-05:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL !
In the midst of all the parties, toys, and goodies - may the world take the time to teach its children the real "why" of this celebration.

American Hero Insulted

2009-12-03T21:57:00.002-05:00

The citizens of Henrico, Virginia have insulted a true American Hero and holder of the Medal of Honor. This 90 year old WWII vet (plus Vietnam and Korea) has been ordered to take down the flagpole in his front yard on which he daily displays the American flag. These fools that don't appreciate how honored they should be to have Col. Van Barfoot living in their town. They should be erecting a monument for him in the center of their town and put up a flagpole in every front yard. I don't suppose anyone from Henrico is scheduled to go to Afganistan soon.

Kids!

2009-11-29T10:24:00.002-05:00

After Thanksgiving Dinner most of us remained at the table just chatting. One grandson was telling us all about how painful a recent football injury was. He got a little carried away and we all wondered how to lighten the mood.

Quietly , a younger grandson spoke out, “Would you care for cheese with that whine?” It broke me up.
.

TV Commentary

2009-11-28T13:00:00.003-05:00

Breaking News: It has dawned on me that we are about to suffer the end of the (TV) world as we know it. Not that that’s all bad. I’m not referring to bad shows that were doomed to fail from the get-go. Successful shows have a natural lifetime either in our individual minds or in the minds of the folks that schedule the networks. This has applied to all but news, sports, “Meet the Press” and perhaps, “Law and Order”.

If Oprah isn’t going to end, at least she will be changing her format it a few years. Personally, I (and I suspect most men) had had it fifteen minutes into the first showing. Too mushy. But she certainly has been an enormous success.

Another program that is quitting at what may be its peak is “Monk”. There certainly is a limit to how long you can make obsessive compulsive behavior seem funny.

The writers of “House” have struggled to maintain interest in a drug addict. However, as they have taken away the chief character’s dependence, his excuse for mean and nasty behavior has disappeared. He has become just plain nasty, mean and unlikeable. I’ve quit watching already.

“NCIS” worries me. They act like the original may disappear, replaced by “NCIS - LA”. The latter belongs in the category of “didn’t survive the first year”. I have been sort of hoping I would go off the air before the original.

News broadcasts have already shown new faces. The old time network news attempted to appear non-partisan. Now this approach is giving way to Fox News (O’Reilly), MSNBC (Olberman), and Comedy Central (Stewart and Colbert). Blatant partisanship has shown more opportunity for entertainment and higher rantings than “just the facts, M’am”.

The Wall Street Journal the other day had a wonderful column about the end of sportsmanship and how that is causing a slow death of TV sports. I regret that the newspaper went out in the trash with the kitty litter so I cannot cite the author, but he clearly made his point. Players have turned over all responsibility for fair play to officials. What we used to call dirty play or cheating is now OK if the perpetrator doesn’t get caught. Incidentally, I hope you saw the punter the other night. He executed a graceful somersault immediately after kicking the ball. I don’t think he was really trying to feign he’d been fouled, bur rather he was probably spoofing all the punters who routinely fake a knock down on every kick. The Ref ignored his act.

I doubt that “Meet the Press” will survive the grouch that replaced Tim Russert. He has lost me already.

I do expect that “Law and Order” will be commissioned to turn off the cameras when TV itself is finished.

Someone Should Speak Up

2009-11-21T10:55:00.005-05:00

November is two thirds over and our area looks like it will survive this year without a hurricane. I hope I am not setting up a jinx by saying that. While the temptation is to publicly proclaim joy at being spared, the knowledge that the Carolinas and the Northeastern coast took a licking creates a sort of emotional conflict. I suppose one way to avoid that is to have property in New Jersey and Florida. OR just be quiet.

No matter where the folks live who think the environment is of no consequence -- between tornados, earthquakes. Noreasters, hurricanes, wild fires, floods, blizzards -- there is always something which should remind us that there are gigantic forces that we have no control over. Yet the world’s population continues to diddle with the atmosphere and the known limits on natural resources. There is a general oblivion of the consequences of this careless manipulation of nature.

It is a little like we all live in sunny Florida and the next generation is in New Jersey.

November 13, 2009

2009-11-13T10:50:00.003-05:00

Random Observatons From a Sitting Position

• Don’t you just love it when some pompous policy makers say their policy is “zero tolerance”… and then have to back down? Remember when the little boy proudly brought his Cub Scout all-in-one eating utensil to school and was expelled for carrying a weapon (a knife)?
• Recession ? On our last drive we went along the ocean front road in Palm Beach, FL. We noticed six (6) new MANSIONS, big, BIG ones being built and one old one being torn down preparatory to building another.
• Sign of the times. Penn State has reported that due to the prevalence of cell phones, all landline phones will be removed from dormitory rooms. This will save $700,000 or $800,000 depending on the report you read. Oh, the joys of those days with a sore ear from all evening on the phone!

Fort Hood Irony

2009-11-10T10:38:00.004-05:00

Think how it must rankle the old-Army generals: With 43,000 soldiers under their command, hundreds of them armed Military Police, a mad man’s rampage is stopped dead by a short, little lady nicknamed “Mighty Mouse.” Worse – she is a civilian police-person. While the unarmed military wisely scattered and took cover, “Mighty Mouse” flung open the door of her squad car and charged straight at the mad man with guns blazing. Hit three times she kept firing until the maniac fell. She is a true heroine.

But will the grizzled old generals ever forgive this “FEMALE”?

I doubt it’s in their genes.

Suntan Proof Swimsuits

2009-11-03T21:23:00.007-05:00

I love technology, but today’s WSJ suggest that the new high tech swimsuits may be “dirty pool”. The article goes on to tell of the controversy between users of traditional swimsuits, Speedos, and wearers of the polyurethane or neoprene bodysuits being favored by racers, young and old,. Michael Phelps, the win-all hero of the recent Olympics, was soundly beaten by a supposedly lesser competitor who availed himself of a “high tech” bodysuit. Phelps wore his usual Speedo. The new suits are expensive, provide extra flotation, smooth out the wrinkles and bumps on the human body, have less affinity for water, and make technology an important factor in a swimmer’s top speed. I think that the use of new technology is fair in sailboat racing, but I question its place in a contest intended to measure human strength and skill

Think what has happened to the pole vault. In 1942 (when I was making some feeble attempts at vaulting) we used a straight stiff pole with no bending capability to it. The World Record that year was held by Cornelius Warmardam at 4.77meters (15.65 feet). By 1994 the great Sergey Bubka had made a record vault of 6.14 meters (20.14 feet). But was Sergey really any better than Cornelius? Sergey used an elastic pole that bends almost in half then propels the jumper upward like a sling shot. How high would Warmarham have vaulted with the elastic pole to provide an extra shove?

I like competitive sports. Technology that improves the safety of the competitors is great, but not if it artificially improves performance.

ps. You can't get a good tan with the new suits.

Big Business

2009-10-29T09:45:00.005-04:00

Quite a bit of stirring in the old folk’s homestead these days. The bank which had a branch on campus went belly up the other day. We had FDIC and bank people here in droves. They tried to reassure people that the bank had been sold and it would be business as usual. But there is much unrest and I fear the new owners will find little left at this branch to justify it continuing. We were leery from the beginning and are hardly involved.

On the other hand, we have a gasoline credit card that is actually issued by one of the giant bailout recipients. They recently sent us a notice announcing an interest rate hike to 29.95 percent. As soon as we can find the little-used card, we intend to “opt-out” as they term canceling. Should I remind them that Shylock would have been hung for a charging such a rate? Since we are getting rid of the car it really doesn’t matter to us. (Nor them)

We continually hear the phrase “too big to be allowed to fail”. I’m not sure why that is true. If I were president, I suspect I’d let a few of these big fellows go under and find out how much worse that left us than the nation’s current circumstances.

Another Retirement

2009-10-27T11:23:00.005-04:00

Despite the fact that I am without doubt one of the best drivers on the road, that big day has come. We are turning in our leased car and giving up driving (sort of). I would like to say that I remember that day almost 70 years ago when I first got a driver’s license. Truth is – I can’t. Maybe that is part of my reason for this big step. Other, and more valid, reasons include macular degeneration, no wish to finish my career with an accident, and financial thoughts. Lakeside Village where we live provides transportation for most routine local errands and appointments. To prevent acute trauma to our systems, we are reserving the right to take an Enterprise rental car for big trips or leisurely Christmas shopping. We’ve worked it out and that’s lots less expensive than having our own car. Next week we have the lift for my “electric chair” taken off the back of the car. And the following week GMAC gets the car back. ‘Twill be a sad day in Lantana.

Chem Lab

2009-09-19T08:09:00.004-04:00

In all the nostalgia I’ve printed here over the years, I don’t think I really covered college life much. As as chemistry student I was blessed with the dreaded Saturday morning (8:00 AM to 12:00 Noon) lab – every semester. It meant standing for four hours and if there had been a good frat party or big dance the night before it could be torture. My lab bench and Harry’s were such that we worked facing each other. Harry was a nice fellow most of the time, but one Saturday he had obviously been partying on Friday night. He was really hung-over.

His lab project required that he pick up a full, heavy bottle if concentrated NH4OH (Ammonia). His shaking hands betrayed him and it fell to the floor and broke. A painful cloud of ammonia gas spread through the lab. Harry more or less paniced. He was jumping around repeating, “ Oh my God! What should I do?” I said, never dreaming how befuddled he was, “Pour a bottle of HCl on it.” For non-chemists, these two chemicals react fiercely and create an old style smoke screen that irritates the eyes and nose. I didn’t think he would do it, but he sure did it.

A liter of each of those could hide a battleship. Without a battleship to defend, the whole top floor of the laboratory building had to be evacuated. To add to the excitement, someone saw all the smoke and pulled a fire alarm. We had a very angry professor. I didn’t confess for several weeks.

Miami vs FSU

2009-09-08T12:09:00.005-04:00

When I sat down to watch the Florida State/Miami game, I was torn. Back in Miami’s “bad boy “ days a lot of bad blood built up between my school. Penn State, and Miami. Lately I have mellowed as I have watched Miami’s new coach struggle to curb excessive exuberance in public by his young team. Plus, we haven’t played them in a while and I’m getting older.

On the other hand, JoePa used to be good buddies with FSU”s Bobby Bowden. But that has diminished as Bobby has sharpened his rivalry with JoePa to be the coach with the most lifetime wins. Bobby is appealing the NCAA decision to deduct 14 victories from his list and I don’t approve. Beside which, I don’t think Bobby is doing much coaching. His successor has been chosen and seems to be doing almost all the talking.

At midnight, it came down to someone up in the booth to judge who had won. He awarded victory to Miami and I think I am glad. He judged it on the result of the last play. He was correct . But if a single judge (and it were me) were asked to judge on the entirety of the 60 minutes of play --- I might have picked FSU. But I didn’t and he didn’t , so be it.

The Latest

2009-09-07T10:52:00.003-04:00

Yesterday we installed the new Mac OS X Snow Leopard on our computers. I hope everyone is just bedazzled by the brilliance of our clarity and the new sharpness of our thought. From this end I have noticed a somewhat quicker pace to the computers' responses. Beyond that I haven’t explored any new features, so I can’t comment.

We also invested $5.00 per month in the “Big Ten Network” addition to our TV selections. Saturday we got to watch the Penn State vs Akron football game. Although the score (31-7 for PS) doesn’t reflect it. I was really more impressed by Akron than by Penn State. Penn State played a sloppy game without the crispness one expects from a top ten team. State obviously has the talent and the depth, so we can expect that JoePa will shape them up before the big games begin.

Sunday Brunch

2009-07-12T16:38:00.002-04:00

Sally and I went out for breakfast at John G’s this morning. Floridians will understand, but for those not familiar with John G’s --- It is a waterfront restaurant in Lake Worth famous for its generous and delicious breakfasts and lunches. They serve very high-end diner food, more gourmand than gourmet. A long line to get in always winds around the building. (Part of the panache of the place. There is a sense of accomplishment when you make it to the door.) Sally stood in the hot Florida sun while I went and sat in a chair near the entrance. My cell phone had not been charged lately and went dead after our first check-up with each other. But we got in before lots of other folks because we were just a couple.

Anyone who has been to the Crazy Horse in Paris will recognize the seating arrangement. (A not always welcome intimacy.) You must be very careful not to eat the omelet of the fellow at the next table. It is techniquely waterfront, but far to noisy to hear the ocean and too crowded to see it. But going there is a Florida thing to do, so every year or so we reacquaint ourselves with "must see tourist-land". Despite my complaints, there is a vibrancy and an excitement to the place that makes a meal memorable.

Inflation

2009-06-27T12:27:00.009-04:00

I admit to being a pack-rat. People scorn my fear of throwing anything away. But, Gosh, I might need my 1949 Income Tax Return sometime. The same with the pictured ticket stub from the 1946 Army Navy Football Game. But look at all we can learn from that stub. That is a 50 yard line seat. Ergo, I had pull. (My uncle was a full professor at West Point.) Some things never change. The way to get good tickets to a good game is, and was, to know someone.

And the price!!! A 10th row seat on the fifty yard line for $4.80! Some things do change. $4.80 would not buy you a hotdog at a major game today. Not that the Army-Navy game is what it was 63 years ago.

I remember very little about the game, except that President Truman was there. And I remember less about the President than his Secret Service men who stood up all game and most faced back to the game looking at the crowd.

Scott

2009-06-23T10:04:00.001-04:00

Happy Birthday, Scott. Hope all is well. Dad

84

2009-06-19T08:58:00.002-04:00

It is morning and I am a year older. Imagine if you can – Eighty-four! It seem more when you spell it out. Actually, I know that this feeling will not last. By tomorrow I will be back feeling that inside I am only slightly out of my teens. I still get nervous when I talk to a girl or an audience of more than three. I still don’t like to get up in the morning or go to bed at night.

Of course, I realize that I have an appointment with the podiatrist in an hour and that suggests I have passed beyond the youthful state, but I also read the comics first when the Sunday paper arrives. Moreover, I am skipping my hyperbarics treatment this afternoon and I hope that indicates a spark of independence still moves me.

Thanks for all the greetings. I must leave now. I have not the independence to go out without a shave and a shower.

Ps. Isn’t technology wonderful?! I notice that Blogger automatically changed my age in my profile this morning.

Update on Me and S-

2009-06-07T09:58:00.002-04:00

I haven't been very good about keeping up with status reports, so this is a guilt laden attempt to update. Back around May 1st or maybe a week or so earlier, the site where I lost the last toe decided to spontaneously split open. In the best medical terminology, the circulation in that right leg and foot was, and is, "lousy". The surgeon decided that drastic measures (hyperbarics) were called for. You may have heard about this in an earlier blog. Since walking and standing are difficult, it takes me the better part of the morning to get shaved and showered. At noon it is time for a hurried lunch, and departure for the hospital. Then it is four or four thirty when I get out of the chamber. For reasons described in the next paragraph it is a hustle to get to dinner. It is about a forty minute drive from the hospital. After dinner, both S- and I are near collapse.

Meanwhile , Hyatt is undertaking a huge renovation of the dining rooms, lobby. beauty parlor, etc., etc. They have converted the auditorium into a pleasant , but crowded, temporary dining area. If you miss your assigned sitting time -- too bad. You have to wait until someone else breaks a leg or otherwise misses their time.

Add to all this and it started pouring rain on May 18th and hasn't stopped since. This has prevented our taking my electric scooter to the hospital and generally made life complicated.

This is a short lists of the events that have kept me from the computer. I'll try hard to catch up soon.

Prior to these busy days, we had a joyous visit from the kids and grandkids from New Zealand. They brought their 8 week old baby and we practiced our baby talk. Its been a while.

A Fish Story

2009-05-20T10:21:00.003-04:00

Two Christmases ago, S- gave me an aquarium. I may have mentioned before that the deal was that she would give it to me, but I had to take care of it. It didn’t turn out that way, but that is another story.

Last year we had built the fish colony up to an interesting mix – only to suffer a monumental fish kill in the fall.We cleaned the tank, put in new water, treated the water and bought kits to check for noxious materials. We left the aquarium fish-less for several months with the filter going full force. Finally, nervously we bought just two little red wag tailed platys. They were pretty, but inexpensive and ideal for “testing the waters”.

The fish thrived and we were about to add more “When what to our wondering eyes did appear…” tiny, wee, bitty, micro things with two eyes bigger than the rest of their bodies. Now, just a few months later, we have a tank full of at least twenty red wag tailed platys!

I suspect we have reached the peak of the population curve. There is no place left for the fry to hide.

Anyone want a dozen or more fish?

Big Falling Out

2009-05-17T12:18:00.003-04:00

Today is a sad day. I finally broke off my passion for "Meet the Press". I feel sorry of David Gregory. He just doesn't get it. He continues to act like his interviews must be tough gotcha games. His programs sound like bitter arguments. Tim Russert knew how to challenge a person with a smile. He and George Stephanopoulos could and can make their "...but you said this three years ago...?" come across as a friendly request for clarification. I'm just an old fashioned guy who thinks civility has a place in debate. (Except in the "frat" house where you can say anything you want just to get your opponents goat.)

Life in a Torpedo Tube AKA Hyperbaric Chamber

2009-05-15T22:27:00.002-04:00

This was my seventh afternoon in a clear plastic tube. It could go on for as long as three months. I think I have already gone through the “getting used to it” stage and am getting bored with it. They roll you into this tube exactly the way they do in submarine movies when the bridge gives the order “Load tubes One and Two”. For hours the first “dive” I worried that someone would say “Fire One, Fire Two”!

Actually, the nurses do use dive jargon. For instance, they refer to a treatment session as a dive. The pressure you are subjected to is expressed in the equivalent number of feet under water. For example, I am under the pressure you would feel at 33 feet below water. When you are snuggly locked in the tube and can’t hear anything outside, they signal that they are starting to raise the pressure by signaling with the hands that you are going down. When, at the end of a dive, they signal with an upward motion, it means the pressure is starting down toward normal.

These times of changing pressure are the only times when there is a physical reaction to the dive. You are busy popping your ears by swallowing or taking a sip of water and swallowing or whatever works for you. If you have flown, you know about pressure changes. In my case, it takes about fifteen minutes for the pressure to get up to the treatment level and about the same time to reverse the process. I am taken to a pressure equivalent to 33 feet under water and held there for 110 minutes. Other folks go deeper for longer times. Doctor’s choice.

I guess everyone’s concern is claustrophobia. The concern intensifies when you ask, “Can I get out any time I want to?” The answer is, “Sure, but remember it takes fifteen minutes to return the pressure to normal and we can’t open the hatch until then.” But don’t worry. Everything to alleviate you concern has been thought of. The transparent tube is a big help. They promise that someone is always in the room with you. Then there are very large curved mirrors that allow you to see the whole room and everyone in it. If you rap on the tube, a nurse will pick up a phone and you can chat with her. She will reassure you all is well. Also large, school room clocks are visible so you know how long you have to go. A separate TV with DVD and tape player is clearly visible for each chamber with sound piped in to you.

There is no way to make a fashion statement in a hyperbaric session. On arrival you must be free of any antiperspirant, lotions, after shave, any jewelry, false teeth, and most important for women – no perfume nor make-up of any type.. As the nurses insist, you must be as God made you. You must change clothes, wearing nothing of your own, but just special hospital scrubs. No books, newspapers, watches, iPods, no cellphones, no nothing can go in with you

During your time in a chamber (tube) everyday air is replaced by 100% oxygen. This presents a very real fire danger and explains the restrictions on what can be on your skin or what can go in the chamber with you (nothing). To emphasize the point, a chamber blew up at a clinic recently with loss of life. Don’t cheat!

So what have I been doing for two and a half hours everyday? Well, I watch DVDs and television, I sleep a little, and I think a lot. You know in normal life we seldom have the freedom to think. Previously, cross-country trains were my favorite think places.

All this for a little bitty wound that does not want to heal.

Good Gracious Sakes Alive!

2009-02-25T22:05:00.003-05:00

We went to the mall this noon for lunch. There is a door right next to the restaurant we enjoy, so we parked near by and ducked in without really glimpsing the mall proper. After lunch (we commented that it was unusually lacking in people eating) we made our plan for attacking the mall, my wife to the department stores and I to the Apple store and the like.

Now by way of background, The Mall at Wellington Green is quite classy, in keeping with its name. First class merchants all have stores there. The second thing to remember is that I have not been out of home, nursing home, or hospital for several months.

Well, I got on my little electric go-cart and headed off to see the sights. I wasn’t gone a minute when it struck me – My God! Where are the stores? I have been hearing lots about the recession on TV, but this was the first I had seen it up front and personal. My first impression was that every other store was empty. It wasn’t quite that bad, but pretty desolate. The only store that showed any bustle was the Apple store. I went in Dillards Department store to buy three pair of socks and there I saw the other side of the phenomenon . In the Men’s Dept. it was 40% off on everything and 70% off a wonderful array of racks of long sleeve sports shirts. The few men that were in the store were hovering over the racks looking for more shirts than the ones they had clutched in their arms. In retrospect, I should have bought six pairs of socks.

I had a question for someone in the Verizon telephone store. I am used to standing in line there. Today there were four idle clerks and me. They all wanted to “help me” and they didn’t even back off when I said I just had a question.

I was too young during the Great Depression to realize things were different than normal then. This time I was shockingly aware that change may be coming that could be irreversible.

Wow!

AWOL

2009-02-20T20:23:00.003-05:00

I forgot to record on this blog that I would be absent for a month or so. Sorry bout that. I probably have mentioned that my years of heavy smoking (even though I had quit 35 years ago) have been catching up with me. This hospital trip was for the removal of another toe which was infected in rhe bone. It hurt like the dickens and it is a relief to have it gone. Poor circulation, don't you know. Had to go to Rehab for two weeks to get my balance under control.

When I was in the army, our Supply Sergeant didn't want to go to the Far East after we got back from Europe. He took a forty-five and carefully shot off his big toe with a bit of "collateral damage". It was an effective way to get out of our company, but not the army. I never saw or heard from him again. I cringe when I think of him trying to put on an army boot and walk after he healed up. That must have hurt!

Small Notes

2009-01-05T11:21:00.001-05:00

While attacking the mess in my office recently, I came across one of the notebooks my wife had provided me to make notes while in the hospital. I had added a bunch of ideas from the past (and some the present) which might make blog subjects. That ended my efforts at cleaning up. I sat down to read.

My first thought came not from anything I wrote, but from what I didn’t write. Why the blankity blank can’t I date things? I write notes like, “Dr. Garcia, Friday, 1:45PM” No month! I have gazillion menus with no dates. I don’t know why I care, but it would help me figure out how many times I had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in any given week.

I remembered that my Dad could not hear high frequency sounds. He wired a light into the phone so he didn’t have to yell “Is THAT the phone?” His hobby was building HiFi phonos, He had meters to see if something that he built really worked. Nothing got him down.

Dad never told me (or anyone I knew) that he couldn’t tell me what he was working on at work. He simply didn’t tell. Once I twitted him about that and he told that on that day he and coworkers took a radar up on to the roof of the building he worked in. They shot at pigeons with a radar gun and killed several. Since I had no idea at that time what a radar gun was, I didn’t know if I was being teased or not.

Wish I had dated the note that read: “Today, I had the nurse from Hell. Bad Breathe, Chewing gum, and Body Odor.”

This and That

2008-12-17T23:20:00.001-05:00

I was perhaps too optimistic. The doctor sent me back to the hospital last week. They pumped me full of blood again and when the tank was full I came home. Hospitals allow for a lot of thinking, but these largely consist of random, scattered thoughts. For instance:

Boy! Am I out of step with most of the political talk I see on TV and read in the papers! I watch congress people, Senators and Representatives, tell the CEOs of three giant American corporations that they have mismanaged their companies for years. I watch these congress people and I have my doubts that the majority of them could profitably and honestly run a simple, local automobile agency. These are experts in corporate management??

I like a large car. I have a large car. Why shouldn’t the companies have made it, and continue to make cars that I prefer? Note that the sales of foreign made cars tanked at the same time that domestic manufacturer took a dive. Don’t you think that the failure of the financial institutions (regulated by the government) may have sparked the collapse of the auto market.

Perhaps I am crazy, but I swear there are fewer out of state license plates to be seen on the streets and in the parking lots of Palm Beach County. It’s winter. The snow birds should be here. My bet is that they flew down and rented Florida cars.

Our faithful old (17 years) TV was beginning to hiccup at all the wrong times. This made us nervous, particularly since the date of the switch-over to all digital is fast approaching. Even with cable, our old friend was going to need its own special box to convert. A quick glimpse in any electronics store (or doctor’s waiting room) was all it took to show we weren’t getting the best picture. So in a clever bit of scheduling, I managed to be in the hospital when our choice of flat screens was delivered and installed. Dear wife did a wonderful job and I arrived home to an all-set-up beautiful new TV. Science and my wife are amazing.

I have a lot of little yellow stickies floating around the desk that contain more brilliance which I will delve into as time passes. Just one more thought before I go to bed—

When will some courageous gas company accept another 1/10th a cent for gas and stop the silly pricing that ends in 9/10 of a cent? Eliminating all the extra fuss and arithmetic involved could save the economy, maybe?

Good night!

Long Ago - But Memorable

2008-11-28T10:28:00.003-05:00

December, 1945, and the war had been officially over since September: Christmas was a-coming. Company A was still sending patrols out to try to convince the Japanese hiding in the mountains behind Manila that the war was over. These forays could get dangerous when they weren’t believed that Japan had surrendered. But as Supply Sergeant, I happily didn’t have to go.

When it was announced that Episcopal services for the holidays would be held at another regiment several miles away, I decided to go to the Christmas Eve celebration. I used my job to get a spiffy new uniform and I found a native woman from the near-by village to iron the proper creases into it. I shined my shoes as they hadn’t been shined before. I even found some Vitalis in Manila to use on my wavy locks that evening. (Don’t laugh. That was pre-shiny scalp.) Oh, I was going to be the sharpest guy in the chapel.

We awoke on the day of Christmas Eve to pouring rain and it continued all day. But this did not deter my plan to be “Dapper Dan” of the 342nd. The transport truck backed up to each tent where someone had signed up to go. A quick dash and each of us was aboard. However, this extra maneuvering took time and we arrived late. The service had already started. The chapel was actually a large tent with open sides. The truck backed up to the tent where vanity was soon to take its revenge. As I jumped from our transportation, my heel caught on the tailgate and I went plop! – into a very deep mud puddle. My reflex reaction was to utter words spoken in infantry talk at the top of my lungs. Quite inappropriate for the time and place.

After the service, the priest laughed mightily as he looked at this mud encrusted GI. He forgave my language with a brief reprimand . (He, too, had been in the infantry for several rough years.)

Happy Holidays!

Hillary Clinton

2008-11-21T11:01:00.002-05:00

Someone on TV just said that there is a lot of support for Hillary Clinton as Sec. of State on the internet. I would like to go on record as being on the internet and NOT supporting Hillary. I feel that appointing her will give Bill credibility that he does not deserve. We do not need Wild Bill traipsing around the world preaching the word according to Bill .

A Sunday Morning Thought

2008-11-16T08:53:00.002-05:00

I love eggs. But for the biggest part of my life they were a forbidden food. Now -- They are practically a health food. The rehab I've been in served eggs in a different form almost every day. On Monday - poached, Tuesday we had scrambled , and so on.

I spoke to the nutritionist and she said that eggs are now considered a good protein source. Fine, but do I have enough years left to make up for all those decades of egg deprivation?

Oh Boy! Home Cooked Food

2008-11-14T08:03:00.002-05:00

That was a long stay! Well, it really wasn't a "stay". I commuted between the hospital (lousy food) and the rehab place (good food, but institutional) innumerable times. I sure missed this computer, but I had lots of time to watch TV. I admit I did get quite tired of the political nit-picking. It was a historical event, however. No, not that one, the self-destruction of the Republican Party!

And what a ride watching the stock market the last month! Between the politics all the time, the market on week days and football on week ends TV actually was fun recently. I had my computer set to receive Aol Stock Alerts to report when our stock moved up (HA!) or down. They practically filled my inbox. I deleted them all when I got home yesterday. Ugly.

So all you smokers, make this the day you quit. Quitting is not as hard as waking up each morning with IVs in your arm and oxygen in your nose.

TLC

2008-07-25T10:03:00.001-04:00

Let me tell you a little story that illustrates why I think of nurses as angels on earth.

I was chatting with my nurse one afternoon at our “Care Center”, aka Skilled Nursing Care or SNC. I was bemoaning that the next day was my wife’s birthday and there was no way I could get her even a card. Linda, the nurse, volunteered that she would get me one. I said something about that being too much and I thought that was the end of it. BUT, next morning there was a bag hanging on my room door-handle. In it there were two cards, one comic and one lovey-dovey, and a cute stuffed animal, a black and white lion. The cards were perfect and the lion thrilled my wife too.

In the Army, medals are awarded for going above and beyond duty. Nurses simply earn a few more love points to cash in at St. Peter's door.

Day 3

2008-07-14T08:34:00.002-04:00

Sorry I missed a day (yesterday). There is just so much to catch up on. We have arranged for a nurse to come in once a day to re-dress my "wound". And today I am expecting to have someone come in and arrange for more physical therapy. I have trouble with phys and occupational therapy. The exercises are so boring that I listen to all the conversations going on in the room and I lose count of how many silly exercises I have done. I simplified the process of trying to remember where I was and always start over at nine. I figure that there must be some statistical proof that nine is a valid average and it all evens out in the end.

Right now I have to go wrap plastic bags around my leg to water-proof the incision site so I can take a shower before before the nurse comes. Somewhere in there there is a logic to that sentence, but who cares? Also in ten minutes I have to take twelve pills and huff and puff on an inhaler to cure my wasted lungs.

I have cleared out the over one thousand e-mails and several hundred g-mails. Blogs remain a different story. I want to read all that I have missed instead of the heartless deleting I practiced on the daily mail from Penn State, the New York Times, etc. More later.

Home Sweet Home

2008-07-12T07:54:00.002-04:00

Well, we beat the operations and nursing home one more time. We arrived back home on Thursday and are happily catching up on things. I saw some highlights of the decorations for the Beijing Olympic Games this morning and had the thought that the Olympic Games are replacing the World Fairs as "Show-Off " events for countries. Wish we could go, but I'll be lucky to get to DisneyWorld this year.

Just before I left for the hospital the 14th or 15th of April I upgraded to Mac's Leopard operating system. I've almost totally forgotten how to use it. If anyone sent an E-mail my way and had it returned, please try again. I exceeded the limit (1000) of messages received and the rest were bounced. Sorry about that.

More as the days go by. Incidentally, I had a birthday while I was gone, so I have to edit my template prose to read 83 years old. I don't have the faintest idea how to do that at the moment.

Ugly Day

2008-04-11T08:28:00.002-04:00

Wednesday is usually our “errands day” This week was scheduled to be pretty routine, but it didn’t turn out that way. Our first stop was the “labs” over near the medical center to have a blood sample drawn for the tummy doctor. No problem. The next stop was the vascular surgeon’s office for a routine follow-up. Not routine. S- said later that she could sense trouble on the surgeon's face while he was checking the pulse in my left leg. He sent me downstairs to the Vascular Institute for long, high tech tests on both legs. I actually fell asleep. Instead of the nice lunch we had planned at Too Jays, we grabbed a bite at Burger King. Then we hustled back to the surgeon’s place for the results.

Big trouble! We go into the hospital Tuesday where after an angiogram and angioplasty, he will decide whether a complete redo of the bypass in the leg is necessary. Bah!

It was around 4PM by the time we got to the CPA’s office way out in Wellington to pick up our completed tax return. That was not good news either and we had to hurry to the bank (thank goodness they stay open late) to free up some cash to give the IRS. We never did get our planned browse through the mall!. Bah again!

Then yesterday, we had to spend half the day at the hospital for pre-op tests. Three times Bah!

Who are these people that fear having nothing to do in retirement?

Ageing

2008-04-07T08:06:00.001-04:00

There seems to be another form of discrimination that gets little publicity. I have observed that as I have aged, lids and caps are placed on products with additional torque. Cokes have their twist type caps welded to the bottle and this morning I had a terrible fight getting the lid off a new jar of prunes.

Frustration Day

2008-04-05T09:51:00.003-04:00

I have a new cause. I have become an advocate for the establishment of an annual Federal Holiday for each individual in the country. The individual would be allowed a free day from his employment and other responsibilities. His holiday would fall on the day after his purchase of a new piece of electronic equipment and would be called “Frustration Day”.

He would spend the day trying to decipher the instructions and manual that came with the electronic equipment. (Note: Thirteen year old children would not be eligible for the day off as they, strangely, have an innate understanding of the arcane language used in these instructions. This skill fades away upon their discovery of the opposite sex.)

OK, I was just blowing off steam. We bought (?) new cell phones Wednesday. All right, I’m caught again. We got them free for our years of dedication to Verizon Wireless.

First, I tried to set up an account online so that I could replace the awful ringtones that came with the phones. I got as far as establishing a user name. They said that they would send me a temporary password via a text message to the new phone. Picture the scene, we live in a big concrete and steel building, my office and desktop computer are located deep into the protective building where no cell phone signal can penetrate. So I have to run back and forth with the cell phone, out to the porch to get a cell message. No problem except the phone light fades after 7 seconds.The temporary password is 27 or 32 or something long and I can’t memorize it before the light goes out.

Solving that difficulty only led to the problem of how to find the ringtone I wanted and getting it onto the phone. I was following three different verisions of “how to”: those on the internet, those in the manual, and those on the phone. Frustration piled on frustration and the phone almost got thrown through the monitor screen.

But finally, my phone rings a snappy rendition of Feist’s “1 2 3 4”. I'm a happy camper. Now if I could figure out the DVD player.

If the Choice is Death or Taxes, I'll Take a Good CPA

2008-03-23T19:09:00.004-04:00

Two or three years ago, I tore from the newspaper a column by Dale Dauten. It was a short column, but chuck full of witty advice and observations. I filed the column away and found it again only this week. Such is my filing system. He started out quoting Bertie Wooster in P.G. Woodhouse’s The Mating Season.

“A great weight had been lifted from my mind. Well, I don’t know what your experience has been, but mine is that there’s very little percentage in having a weight lifted off your mind because the first thing you know, another, and probably a damn sight heavier, is immediately shoved on.”

While doubtlessly a clever and true thought, it more or less, ruined my day. You see, on Tuesday, S and I will take such data as we (98% of the we is S) have collected concerning our coming income tax return to the CPA. He has the problem on doing all the right arithmetic and putting the numbers on the correct pages to satisfy the computers of the IRS. At that point, a great weight will be lifted from my mind. But then I will have “What’s next” to worry about.

Incidentally, does any one else have the same warm memories of Jeeves and Bertie that I have. I think it was back in high school when I got “hooked” on P. G. Woodhouse and read everything I could find. Age has erased the specifics but the feeling lives on.

Missing in Action

2008-03-19T14:32:00.001-04:00

I got to be a Train Commander” by virtue of being the only one dumb enough to wear a shirt (or, at least the only one to wear a shirt with stripes on it) on a scalding hot California day. The bulletin board had listed those scheduled to leave the following day on a troop train from Camp Edwards bound for Camp Kilmer NJ where we would be discharged from the US Army. A casual formation was held in a company yard for the purpose of providing instruction for our train ride.. After we were told what to wear, what to carry and how to carry it, and how to dispose of the leftovers, my visible stripes got me appointed “Train Commander”. This mostly meant I couldn’t drink and play poker. The only real duty was to inform the Conductor of any serious sickness that required a special stop by the train for medical help. Nonetheless, I was impressed by the fancy title and stood tall.

When we reached Phoenix, Arizona, nothing important had happened to disturb my calm. Every few hours the train would stop in some desolate place so the troops could get off and exercise. After announcing that it was time to reboard the train, it was my responsibility to confirm to the Conductor that I could not see any soldiers that were not back on board and that it was all right to start the train. But at the Phoenix RR Station the train stopped for purposes of the railroad and I ran up and down the length of the train telling everyone to stay aboard. There were a few brave ones I saw dashing into the station to buy beer; but, knowing they were on the way home, most people were not going to take chances.

However, one fellow came to me and asked permission to go to the station post office and mail something home. He volunteered that he was afraid it would be confiscated if he took it into our destination, Camp Kilmer. Dumb once again, I asked what it was he wanted to mail. His answer repulsed and disgusted me. I had experienced a lot of quite horrible moments in the past years in combat, but the thought of shipping a Japanese skull home did me in. Stunned, I told him I didn’t want to hear about it. He was on his own. He opted to run for the station. I opted not to tell the Conductor that anyone was off the train.

Moments after the skull bearer went in the station, the train started. Last I ever saw of him he was standing in the doorway of the station, still holding the boxed skull, and looking a little stunned himself. What happened next? Did he sell the skull and buy civilian clothes and live happily ever after? Did the MP’s get him and put him in the pokey for thirty years? Or did he mail the box, sneak onto the next troop train, and blame it all on Army inefficiency?

A Loss

2008-03-14T08:09:00.001-04:00

I have recently suffered a demi-disaster. I leaned back in my favorite chair and something in the framework of the chair gave way. My favorite chair no longer supports me in the manner to which I have become accustomed. This chair has seen me through pain and joy, good moods and bad. For years it has been my retreat, my nest, my comfy spot. Memory tells me I have had three favorite chairs, maybe four, in my life. Two were “easy” chairs and two were office chairs. Each parting was cause for grief. Only once has it been anger provoking. At work, I started out with an all-wood, factory veteran, painted a quite awful green. There was no cushion to protect my then-skinny butt, but it and the chair grew to know each other. As I changed offices, I always took my green chair with me. Always, until we built a snazzy new R&D Building. I thought I outranked the office manager, but she won that day. She wheeled away my friend and short of physical force or an unbecoming temper tantrum, I could not stop her. The replacement was pretty, but it never replaced solid oak.

While I’ll bet that most everyone has a favorite, I recall no blogger confessing his/her affection for a simple piece of furniture. I don’t what I will do next. You can’t really go to the store and ask to look at future favorite chairs, can you? That would strike me as the same as going to e-harmony to find a favorite spouse. Although it is possible to go to a pet store or a kennel and immediately know the puppy that licks your face will be a life long friend. Maybe I'll go for a puppy.

Oh woe is me!

Surviving Our Youth

2008-03-06T21:25:00.003-05:00

When you get to the age of 82, pushing 83, you occasionally wonder how you made it this far. I mean, how did I survive those stupid things I did? For instance, riding our bicycles down South Mountain (OK, folks from Colorado and the like would laugh at calling this overgrown hill a mountain, but in NJ it stands out) as fast as we and gravity could move a “racing” bicycle. It was a concrete road with tar strips every thirty feet or so to allow for expansion during the summer. These required that you hang on to the handle bar with all your strength to avoid a flying exit into the trees on the side of the road. Also, no helmets, no gloves, no knee guards, etc.

Why, for heavens sake, did we invent surfing while crossing the North Atlantic in January? We were in a troopship which, despite the time of year, got very hot below decks. The waves were sweeping over the bow of the ship and down the length of the deck. Ropes were strung along the decks for those whose duties took them on deck. We used them to take a fast action bath and cool off. Damn, that water was cold! Hanging on with hands, our feet were straight out behind us. It was difficult to hang on, but the consequences of letting go were all too obvious. Somehow we survived.

We got no more cautious as time went by. In Germany, our company occupied the Ford factory close to Cologne on the east bank of the Rhine River. A buddy and I had to go out and up the river to repair phone wires that had been broken by shell fire. Like most American workers, when the job was done, we took a little time for ourselves before going back to headquarters. In the dark of night, we sat up on the river levee and watched the tracer fire from the German side of the river. It was pretty, but it never seemed to occur to us that if those machine gunners lowered their sights a few feet we would have been mincemeat.

And, most foolish of all, we smoked for thirty years,

Traveling Down Memory Lane

2008-03-04T08:48:00.003-05:00

It’s true, when real travel becomes difficult, almost anywhere you start on the internet can lead to old memories and new interests. Last night I was pursuing a course I sometimes take when I’m too tired to do anything useful and it is too early to go to bed. I was sampling all those URL’s you find in the ads at the back of travel magazines. I had “Yankee” magazine on my desk . As you might imagine, this led to
New England.com . There was a feature on a toboggan chute which claimed to be the only remaining such chute in New England. My mind was already tingling with memories of youthful thrills on a toboggan chute at Lake Hopatcong in New Jersey. I wondered if that chute was still in existence. So I “advance Googled” toboggan chute and Lake Hopatcong. That led nowhere. I simple “googled” toboggan chutes and that established that New England may have only one, but the rest of the country has many.

I day dreamed awhile about plunging down (it felt like straight down) a hill and being shot out onto frozen Lake Hopatcong. The ride down was thrilling, but the slide across the ice was the tense part. There were four on the toboggan and if anyone even twitched we would turn over or go into a scary spin. I still remember one spill when a guy was thrown on top of a girl and they slid across the rough ice with him pressing her face into the ice. Ouch! She recovered well and I still remember her name. If you are here, Jane, drop me a note.

I once more Googled Hopatcong and went on reading, learning much I never knew or had forgotten about its history. I’ll bet you didn’t know that iron ore was brought by horse wagon to the shores of the lake where it was loaded on barges. These were towed across the lake by steam boats to the Morris canal, a canal that crossed northern New Jersey. Mules dragged the barges down the canal to the Hudson River.

There were lots more fascinating facts about the history of the area, but I left the iron ore unclaimed at the Hudson and went to bed. And you wondered what old folks do in the evening while you are out at discos having fun.

Obesity

2008-02-29T09:35:00.004-05:00

The other day I was back in the hospital for a bunch of tests to see if the last angioplasty was working. I must admit to being increasingly blase about this business. I fell asleep during a large part of the testing.

But there also was a bunch of sitting around in waiting rooms without a stash of magazines. So I stepped up the people watching. After a while the thought struck me. "All the female staff members are obese." Obviously, that is an overstatement. but it is almost true. The doctors of the world are preaching the hazards of being overweight and the folks that work closely with the MDs are the worst offenders. As I adsorbed this observation, I noticed the the male employees are also porky, in general. Mind you, I was watching administrative employees, not the nurses and medical technicians. They seem normal.

Disclosure: I am no fly-weight myself, but it takes one to know one.

Tackless

2008-02-16T06:30:00.004-05:00

Back in the early 70's we bought a Sunfish sailboat for the kids (?). Despite my size (I was perhaps the heaviest Sunfish sailor in the Club), I enjoyed the boat more than the kids. We debated naming it "Mirthful Girthful" but settled on "Tackless", no sailboat has ever been sailed more poorly. At the end of the season, at the awarding of the cups for most Sunday morning races won, I was given the "Mighty Mo", an award for trying but never succeeding. I was honored and considered changing the name to "Prowless", but didn't.

Every Sunday after the race, I would take the rudder home. I would lightly sand it and add another coat of some sort of shellac which was supposed to glide through the water with no resistance. I devised pulleys and slings so that off-season we could store Tackless up near the ceiling of the garage over the ping pong table. There was no room for a car. I installed a compass and a little feathery thing to go on top of the mast and tell me which way the wind was blowing.

My most excitement was the time I got caught in the middle of the bay in a heavy, heavy fog. With my trusty compass I knew which was east and which way was west. I knew I wanted to sail east because if I missed the inlet, I would hit solid ground, whereas west would just lead to the dreaded marshes. Of course, after thinking that through, it dawned on me that in the fog, there was no wind. So I just sat there for several hours until a breeze chased the fog away and I could make some headway. Sitting in nothingness with a 14 foot slab of fiber glass as your only connection to reality gets tiresome soon (and works on the nerves).

But it was fun!!!

I apologize if the picture above is covered by a copyright. I couldn't find a picture of the real "Tackless". I never took a passenger on my voyages at sea.

Limericks

2008-02-11T15:03:00.000-05:00

I wrote some limericks this week-end for the local newsletter. They weren't wanted so I thought I would inflict them on the readers of this blog. Names of folks and places are all taken from the people and locales we know here at the "old folks home".

There was a real beauty named Lisa,
Her friend was a gal called Theresa.
They went to the fair,
Ate more than their share.
That comes with a yen for real pizza.

There was a young lad from City Place,
Who hungered to soar into outer space.
When NASA said, "No".
He built a rocket to go.
Now, of him they've found ne'er a trace.

There was an old lady from Lantana,
Who planned for a trip to Savannah.
She longed to look nice,
No matter the price.
So from Hermes she bought a bandana.

There was an old gent from Lakeside,
Who looked at the world from the bleak side.
But he spied a young Miss,
That he longed for to kiss.
She ended the day on her backside.

If the last one was offensive to you, I apologize - You just don't know the single guys here at Lakeside. And I know that "Hermes" should have a thingy over the last "e", but I don't know how to do that on a computer.

Double Duty

2008-02-10T19:38:00.000-05:00

Those of you who have experience with hospital stays know that it is helpful to figure out some "coping" tricks. No, I don't mean holding your nose while eating hospital food, although that might qualify as helpful. A better example was one stunt I learned. When the technician comes in the room, switching on the bright lights at 4:30 in the morning, the temptation is to put your head under a pillow and pretend you are still asleep. It is a little difficult to act alert and happy when you know that she (or he) is going to stick a needle in your arm and draw blood. But believe me, rather than gritting your teeth and staying silent, you'll feel better if you smile and start a conversation. An easy question in the situation is, "What kind of shift do you work?" There are so many different shifts in a hospital that some times I was surprised by the answer.

One of my surprises was a young girl that told me she worked at the hospital drawing blood from 4:00 AM to 12:30PM. She was good at it, too. But then, after a little house work, she went to work as a cashier at the local super market from 5:00 PM until 11:00 PM. She was obviously from the islands and whether legal or an illegal, my thought was that this country could use a lot more young people like her.

Southwest Airlines, Where Are You When I Need You?

2008-02-06T16:24:00.001-05:00

Over on the other blog, I was talking about a minor embarrassing moment I had today. It reminded me of a biggie I had years ago. The picture is of a quite remarkable vehicle our Company put on the road a long time ago. It contained four washing machines, two electric dryers, a lab bench with radio tracer facilities. It had one of the first mobile telephones in commercial use. It had tanks for 1800 gallons of cold water, heaters and tanks for 900 gallons of hot water, and waste water tanks that could hold the 1800 gallons when it became waste water. There was a fancy little bathroom where our hard-surface cleaaning products could be demonstrated. Not in the picture is a generator which could supply seven homes, but instead provided electricity to the lab vehicle.

The vehicle and its crew traveled the North east and the South east . It got the attention of a TV station and as the young hot-shot (I wish) in charge of it, I was invited along with my boss to appear on the talk show which would also provide a tour of the "bus". The lady conducting the show asked me a question and I launched into my pre-written answer. Right in the middle of it, I went stone cold blank. By the time I got myself together, the show had gone on without me. I was horribly embarrassed, but my friends watching said it was barely noticeable . The hostess, of course, knew what I was going to say and picked right up - I'm told, but talk about wanting the earth to open up and swallow myself---

Pets Don't Like Me

2008-02-06T08:32:00.001-05:00

Fish don't like me. Notice that the fish turn their backs when I try to photograph them. I also have trouble with the cat. She closes her eyes when I aim a camera at her. I've deleted those pictures so I leave to your imagination the image of a siamese cat with no eyes.

Just a Small Corner

2008-02-03T13:39:00.000-05:00

Recently I wrote of our house at the shore. The purchase of it was a drama in itself. The original owner started out with a double lot, side by side lots. When his sons got older, he split the lots in two and gave the original house and lot to his sons. He built a ultramodern place on the extra lot. Unfortunately the sons' wives did not get along and sharing the house led to more fights than sun tans. They stuck with it until they could not stand the bickering any more. They put the house on the market.

We came along, and said we would buy it. All went well and the closing date arrived. We sat happily at the closing with the bank's lawyer and the sons. When the paper signing was over, the lawyer asked if the sons wanted to give us the keys. They did so along with the obligatory hopes that we would have many happy years, etc.

Then followed a long, awkward pause. I didn't know what was going on until one of the sons asked if they didn't get the money then. Calmly, the lawyer folded up his files and casually said, "No, not until you can give the L-s a clear title". It seemed that when the old man gave the kids the house, the garage was one foot by 6 inches over on the father's retained lot. The father was so angry that the sons were selling his gift to them that he refused to sign over the little corner to them so they could sign it over to us.

Stalemate ensued. We got to stay in the house weekends, but we dared not touch or move a thing. The boys had been given 60 days to clear the title and it was soon apparent they couldn't do it. As the deadline approached one Saturday afternoon, the original builder of our(?) house arrived with a crew. In no time they had sawed one side of the garage free. They moved it over six inches, nailed it back, and sawed off the overlap on the adjoining wall.

Like magic, a surveyor appeared and found that our house was no longer on the wrong lot. The sons got their money, we got the house. And the lawyer patted himself on the back.

My Theatrical Successes

2008-02-03T13:27:00.000-05:00

In my very young, youth, I fancied myself something of an actor.
Starting in high school, I played the father of Emily in the "Nine Lives of Emily". Emily was played by a beautiful girl named Nan Bowes. She went on to be a successful model and actress. I went on.
Later I played in:
Arsenic and Old Lace
Over 21
The Man who Came to Dinner
and many others I have forgotten - such was my success.

Amateur theater was to suburban life then what soccer is today.

False Alarm

2008-02-03T09:09:00.000-05:00

Years ago, late on a winter Friday, I was at work in New York when I received a panicky call from my wife. She in turn had received a call from the police on Long Beach Island. They told her that a pipe must have broken in our summer house. They could see from the outside that the living room ceiling had fallen and that water was running out under the front door. I, too, panicked and hurriedly called our real estate agent on the Island. I asked that he call a plumber, give him a key to the house and send him out to turn off the water.

On the train going home I started to think straight and remembered that I had brought one of those long socket wrenches. I thought I remembered turning the water off out at the street. It was dark by the time I got home. If the ceiling had fallen, I reasoned that the electricity would be off. So after a restless night, our son and I set out at 4:00AM for the shore. By then I was imaging that a rogue wave had hit the house (the front steps had been washed away in a storm in '57).

We arrived at the island just at dawn. Thinking to save time, I drove the back way to our house (a mistake). There it sat, pretty and perfect. We went in and found no sign of damage. The faucet wouldn't deliver a drop of water. We relaxed for awhile and decided to go the local diner for a big breakfast. As we drove a different road to the main drag. we saw it! A house on a corner in the same relative position as ours. It had the same house number as ours, Its ceiling was hanging, and water was pouring out the front door. The cops hadn't known their streets and had reported the wrong address. Those were pre-cellphone days, so we drove to the police station. How do you tell a big police sergeant, "Hey, you guys screwed up?" But we did and as the adrenaline subsided we ate that big breakfast and grieved for the people whose house was really largely destroyed.

We went back to the house, got out our gear and went surf fishing for the rest of the day. That is called a happy ending.

2008-01-30T20:14:00.000-05:00

We went to the South Florida Fair yesterday and had a ball. To remember it by, I ate a large Italian sausage with onions and peppers and a soft ice cream cone dipped in chocolate. I took two Tums at 2AM.

Despite the fact that Florida and Palm Beach County are among the largest farming and cattle areas in the country, each year we see a reduction in the farm animals exhibits and awards for pickled beets and the like. I guess people are more attracted by the evermore complex fright-rides and the carny-type games of chance (Ha!) But we enjoyed the exotic chickens and rabbits. There were some enormous bulls and beautiful horses. They still have the racing pigs, but we weren't there at the "They're Off!" call.( Missed that)

We went at noon when the old folks go, so the rides were largely quiet awaiting the young after school and evening crowds.

Oh yes, I also shared a funnel cake with Sally. It was a "forget the calories" day. Can't wait for next year.

Gotcha !

2008-01-28T20:12:00.000-05:00

According to Blogger this is the 224th blog I have written. Combine that with my age and the harsh year I have just experienced and I will make no excuses if this is a repeat. I have no intention of going through 223 blogs to see if I've told the story of Steve Allen and Sol Levy. The name, Steve Allen, is real; but I fear I have forgotten the name of the character I am calling Sol Levy.

Sol was a traveling salesman for our company. One night he found himself in Seattle without a business dinner. He was alone in a strange city and as in other similar circumstances, he decided to see the sights and have a grand dinner up on the Seattle Tower.Now Sol was often teased and accused of being a dead ringer for Steve Allen. (For those too young to remember, Steve ran the Tonight Show on NBC for a long time before Johnny Carson took over. If you don't remember Johnny Carson, you shouldn't be up this late) Sol noticed that Steve Allen was present sitting with a large group on a tier higher that his. As his dinner progressed, he saw members of Steve's party point at Sol, nudge Steve and smile. Sol soon realized that the curse of looking like Steve had caught up with him again.

After finishing his dinner and paying the tab, instead of leaving, he went up to Steve Allen. Before a word could be spoken, He said, "Sir, do you realize that you look just like Sol Levy?" Reports were that Steve went into a laughing jag such as he was known for on his show. He was still laughing when Sol got on the elevator to earth.

Here we go again!

2008-01-25T20:57:00.000-05:00

Just when I was beginning to feel comfortable with my iMac, Apple decides to come out with a new version. I have Tiger and now there is Leopard. Now from what I read, Leopard is a wonderful OS with many advantages and improvements over my now-old Tiger. Half of me says "Stay with what you know and like." BUT the other half keeps reading magazine stories about the new system and not wanting to be old fashioned. This is one of the reasons I left Windows, except their new versions didn't get such good reviews. What to do? What to do? Of course, after all those medical expenses, the objective side of me says I'm not going to do anything in the immediate future. I stopped in the Apple Store the other day and heard the price. $129.00. That would fill the gas tank a couple times.

A few notes about my Pop

2008-01-21T20:36:00.000-05:00

My father was a quiet man. But his mind was always working. He was a electrical engineer and worked for Bell Laboratories from the time he graduated from college until he retired. His interest was electronics and he spent long nights in the basement putting together radios and phonographs from scratch. Pop never could hear high frequencies. When his interest turned to HiFi he had meters all over his bench which told him if he was successful or not. During the war (II), he didn't anyone what he was working on. He couldn't tell, so he just didn't. Years later I learned that it was the miniaturization of radar so it could be installed on airplanes and such uses.

Although Pop didn't show much emotion, he knew how to have a good time. He was active in the Boy Scouts and enjoyed the hikes. (I have written about the time the snake wrapped itself around his ankle on a hike on the Appalachian Trail.) He would sit on the committees that gave the oral tests for advancement or for merit badges. He was on all sorts of committees and quietly got a lot done for the town.

Nothing discouraged Pop. There is good evidence that he was part American Indian. I used to tease him that I was proud he got his picture on the 5 cent nickel. He would just turn and show his profile. I think that nickel has been out of circulation for years.

Ooops!

2008-01-18T19:15:00.000-05:00

I don't think I have told the story of my biggest goof ( also called my greatest embarrassment). I was in high school and I was invited to West Point by my Army uncle to see a football game. It was Army versus a team that I have forgotten. I do remember that it was a rough game and fought out to the very end. This was Saturday, of course, and the next day was church . I was very much in awe of the preacher - and more than a little afraid of him. When he approached a group of high schoolers, I was forced to speak to him. He was a rugged guy, so I thought football might be a good topic. Unfortunately, in telling what a rough game it was, I said (that other team) played dirtier than any team I had ever seen. The Reverend looked at me for what seemed like ages, then dropped his front teeth down with his tongue and said, "I lost these teeth playing football for (that forgotten named team"). It didn't help that all my friends laughed at me

Fire Whistles

2008-01-15T08:38:00.000-05:00

I'll tell you something that is missing these days - fire whistles. Back in the days when communications were simpler (but after the days of the Indians waving a blanket over a smoky bonfire), there were loud whistles mounted on a telegraph pole outside every fire house. The town was divided into many areas and each area had a unique signal. For instance, ours was 3-pause-3-pause-3. They would toot the "area code" several times so all the volunteers were sure to hear it. This saved them going to the fire house to find out where the fire was. Every year the would publish a list of all the "codes" and areas. Thus, chasing a fire was a much easier and bigger recreation than it is now. Besides, going to a fire didn't interrupt any TV show since there were none of them to interrupt. Now, if ten or fifteen minutes went by and you heard the same signal repeated, it meant "Hey!, this is a big one. All you volunteers who haven't responded, get your butts out here"

At that point, my mother, always the sport, would throw on some clothes and hop in the car and head for the excitement. She would take me if I got to the car in time, but she wouldn't wait for a laggard. I was always embarrassed when my pajama pants showed below my trouser legs. Those were the days!

The Thrill Of Snow

2008-01-14T11:23:00.000-05:00

The football game in Green Bay on Saturday was exciting to watch as the snow built up during the course of the game. I have loved snow. I love the memory of a childhood "belly wopping" down the street I lived on and down Bunker Hill back in the woods. (Bunker Hill was the only hill which had a name that we had heard off so we decided to name our hill that. It was an enormous pile that the developer had built up and never disposed of. It made for great sledding.) I long for the days at Penn State in the cold country of Pennsylvania. The snow would grow to unbelievable depth. But if we could make it to campus the college had steam pipes under all the main paths. They melted the snow as it fell. But driving the five miles to the campus was a course in: Hazardous Driving 101.

Alas, I have aged. Now my memory reverts to the feel of a wet foot and shoe after stepping into a puddle on the way to work. Heading for my office (where I always stashed dry socks), trying to look the dignified executive while every step taken yielded an audible "squish".

I think that snow in the North probably contributed to the designation "Greatest Generation". We were the last generation that cleared driveways and sidewalks using the basic snow shovel. We had no snow blower or gas plows. We all knew of someone who had dropped dead clearing snow.

The advent of the snow tire has changed our world. Not many of today's generation know the lack of fun connected with putting on or off snow chains. Then there was the sound made when a cross link of the chain broke and slapped against the fender on every revolution. Believe me, you doubted the car could survive such a beating.

But lastly. there are the mental pictures of a winter vacation and a spring vacation in Zermatt, Switzerland. I have nothing but pleasure remembering those snowy days.

Stray Thoughts Without Thinking

2008-01-12T10:07:00.000-05:00

I don't have a lot of faith in economists. In my experience they tend to pay no attention to themselves. So often they say something one month and then the next month they say something entirely different - without explaining why what they forecast the previous month never happened. Have you noticed in the paper that we are supposedly facing a recession? The prescribed way to avert this is for the consumer to spend more. But how long ago were the economists criticizing the consumer for not saving more? Fortunately, in my case my pension and social security payments are such that I can neither save more nor spend more. Sorry economists, you will just have to work around me.

Ever notice that women don't mind saying they have dry skin, but are far less likely to admit to "oily skin"? We put out a product once that came in three versions: for dry skin, for normal skin, and for oily skin. The dry skin version was a big hit while the oily was a total disappointment. Of course, like an economist I must contradict myself by telling the story of the little old lady we interviewed while doing door-to-door market research. This lady stated that she had oily skin, but didn't like our oily skin product because it was too drying. One look at this lady established she was living in the past. Her skin was so dry it was flaking off as we talked. The oily skin version she had used only made it worse.

Hospital food is worse than airline food.

If It Ain't.....

2008-01-07T21:40:00.000-05:00

Well, If it ain't one thing it is another. After I had been home a few days, my computer went on the fritz. I could read, but not write. That's even worse than having a sore throat and not wanting to talk. It finally got fixed so all is right with my world. In the interim, I read many blogs and really began to feel back in civilization.

For the first time in ages, I went swimming this morning. Tiring, but it felt grand. After the pool, I entertained the visiting nurse who has little to do but "take my vitals". As usual, they were normal so we conversed a while and she went her merry way. Then the In-home physical therapist arrived to completely exhaust me. I think I am beginning to feel my age.

Over at the nursing home they have an aquarium with a variety of brightly colored tropical fish. I found them really more interesting to watch that continuing reruns of Law and Order that were the main offering on the restricted TV menu we had. I mentioned that to Tom, who came all the way from Singapore for a short visit. He passed the word to his mother. So for Christmas I received a large (12 gallon) aquarium. We have it decorated with greenery and a quaint old mill for the fishies to hide in. But so far the fish store wont sell us any fish because the water is not yet "properly balanced". Pretty fussy for a little thing that does nothing all day but swim back and forth. One book suggests just buying some guppies and letting them die. It says that will provide the bacteria we need to fix the water. But somehow the thought of having a beautiful aquarium with dead guppies floating around in the currents does not appeal. I'll wait.

Best wishes to all those shoveling themselves out of the snow. Now you know why we chose to move to Florida. Come on down!

Joyfully Home

2007-12-19T20:37:00.000-05:00

I am happy to report that after breakfast this morning at the nursing home, I hopped on my noble electric scooter and rode it home. After many delays and false starts the surgeons finally under took the open heart surgery they had decided I needed. Quite an adventure!
Once I get settled in I hope to be back in the blog world on a sort of steady basis.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR to all!

One Mean Man

2007-10-10T21:38:00.000-04:00

By way of background info for this tale of character flaw, you need to know that among the indignities I suffered in recent months was the loss of the right "great" toe. While this probably ends any chance I ever had to be a place kicker, it otherwise is a "so what".

I was lying in bed in a hospital watching TV. Into my room ( a single) came a cleaning lady carrying a very long pole with a duster at one end. She proceeded to dust the corner between the wall and the ceiling where spider webs can appear. When she came to the TV she dusted the screen. In the process, the end of the pole hit my foot, startling me. I made some sort of sound and she realized what she had done. Her hands covered her face and in her broken English, she repeated over and over, "I sorry, I sorry." I told her it was all right, that she didn't know what she had really done. I brought my foot out from under the covers. She saw the gap once occupied by a toe as I said,"You knocked off my toe". She shrieked again until she saw me laughing. Finally, she joined me in laughing, but she left the room and I never saw her again. The spiders had free rein from then on.

I know, no need to tell me how mean that was. But It was a good laugh, even if it came with guilt feelings.

Prayers Worked - Thank You All

2007-10-06T19:46:00.000-04:00

My gracious, that was a long stretch of hospital beds plus rehab beds. I was in and out of those twice since I last wrote. Got home yesterday, weak as a kitten, but happy to watch today's football on our reasonably large TV as compared to the tiny thing at Rehab. As strength returns I plan to show up here again on a steady basis.

As I told one nurse before coming home - With all the artificial parts, donor parts, contributed blood, and pills and medicines, I just don't feel like myself. But the mechanisms seem to be working better so I guess the substitutes are working and may be an improvement.

Sally was heroic and came to sit with me three times a day, every day. She kept my morale high and I will never be able to express my full appreciation to her. Hers was a tougher time than mine.

On your mark... get set... pray

2007-08-15T22:04:00.000-04:00

We have a race that has gotten underway here in Sunny Florida. We'll know more about winners on Tuesday. Much as signing up for it is not my idea of fun, it is between me and Hurricane Dean. Dean is scheduled to touch down about then and I am supposed to arrive back at the hospital that morning. The operation on my left leg apparently didn't do what it was supposed. (It was a flop.) . First try will be to attempt a repair. From there on --- We will let the surgeon choose a path. Meanwhile, I don't feel much likewriting a warm story based on nostagia.

I wish you well and plan to be back in a couple of weeks hunting and peeking again.

Even Tiger Woods Could be Beaten, If We Tried This Hard.

2007-08-13T19:58:00.000-04:00

I feel like the fellow in the song my father used to sing about when he was feeling frisky. It was something about, “ Of course you can go swimming. Hang your clothes on the hickory tree, but don’t go near the water.” I don’t remember the tune nor the words, but the revised lyrics would have to do with taking a bath without getting wet. There is an old Army term for that maneuver which involves a steel helmet cover.

Anyhoo, my orders are to take a shower --- without getting legs or arms wet. The standard instruction is to encase the exempted extremities within a plastic garbage bag and bind tightly with paper tape and rubber bands. There are some flaws. a) A good definition of slippery is the instability associated with a wet shower floor in contact with a wet plastic bag . b) Strong plastic bags are expensive and rare. The plastic bags, which arrive around the Sunday Paper, fit nicely, but can be almost too rigid for tight wrapping. c) The wounds we are treating stem almost exclusively from poor circulation. Cutting off blood flow to all four extremities seems illogical.

After struggling for months to have a shower and keep the wounds dry, Sally and I worked out a system. We simply don’t try. We figured out that the medical objection to the wounds getting wet is the length of time they sit around with wet and bacteria- laden bandages covering the wounds before they are re-dressed. (Six days a week a nurse comes into the apartment and “does” the wounds and once a week I go upstairs to the doctor’s office to give the doctor a look-see”) Sally stands guard outside the shower and listens for sounds of a rotund body crashing to the shower floor. I have a very satisfactory shampoo and shower. I then let Sally help me out of the shower; tear the, now wet, bandages off. I wave at the “hurts” with a dry, folded up newspaper until they are reasonably dry. With months of experience we can pretty well tell what time to expect the different nurses to show up. We time the shower to minimize the dry-wait . Everyone is happy. It is a win-win situation. FORE!

If It Ain't one Da-- Thing, It is Another

2007-08-01T21:08:00.000-04:00

Bah, Humbug! I hope that those few that note that I am having problems posting here will think it is the computer, not me. I have made an effort to fix both possibilities, with equally poor results. The Apple store is about 15 miles away. I have been rejected as well enough to drive that far and Sally has declared herself uninterested in facing down Florida traffic. So here we sit. My self-esteem sinks, while Sally is sympathetic, but continues to insist that transportation is not her thing. We have to get a grandson to get over here, as stat as possible.

It's Not Manly, But What the Heck!

2007-07-30T21:13:00.000-04:00

At the Beauty Salon/Barber shop over at the Skilled Nursing Facility they provide manicures. I spent some ridiculous time lately watching perfectly macho guys “getting their nails done”. I must say that I have never had a professional manicure in my whole life. Oh, I think that when I was very young, my mother would occasionally clip my nails. I think her motive was to keep me from chewing my nails. Chewing seemed to do a satisfactory job in my opinion – and hurt less. . In later years after I started carrying a penknife, it did a fine job. It did annoy many of my teachers when I would spend the last half the test time just filing away.

The irony of the situation is that now we are in the post-operative stage of my leg problems, I have been instructed to have a podiatrist subject my feet to a pedicure (without polish). It isn’t too bad, but I may never change my socks in a locker room
again.

Next time I get a haircut, I may sample a manicure. That would be one less thing I haven’t tried yet. At least, I can have the excuse of having it done in a semi-medical environment.

Slowly.....

2007-07-06T20:39:00.000-04:00

In my stocking last Christmas I received a small hour glass. It is almost six inches tall and if I recall, I have timed it at about five minutes. The passage of the sand is all but invisible. Since I arrived home from the skilled nursing home, I have flipped it over several times and just stared at it as it did its thing. It is quite encouraging when compared to all those hours in the healing process. Progress is hard to recognize if you concentrate, but turn away and then back - progress is appararent even if you can't see it happening. Healing will happen and there is always reason for optomism.

Another measure of the world turning is the fact that while you are confined to bed, physical possesions can easily dissappear. Having had the experience of losing nice pens during past trips to doctorland, I now arrange to take to the hospital one of those super cheap bags of Bics or the like. My accounting shows that of the dozen cheapies I took this trip, I came home with only six.

My roommate was as nice a guy as you could hope to meet - while awake. He insisted on a sleeping pill however. Asleep, he would search out the remote control for his bed and raise himself as high as the bed would go. Darn near to the ceiling! The bed was noisy, so this usually woke me. I pressed the call button for an aide. One would come and see the altitude he was at (with bare naked legs hanging over the side of the bed). She , being afraid he would fall if awakened, would call for reinforcements. I would watch during the whispered crisis and panic sounds until he was back at ground level. I suggested they give him a parachute, but night nurses display little humor.

Home is nice and I am glad to be here.

The Good God willin'

2007-07-04T10:09:00.000-04:00

I am going home this after noon and I am told that there will be parades, fireworks, and barbacues to celebrate the occasion. In fact, there is a forecast for rain that could screw up the whole business. (Which leads to the "and the crik don't rise" part.) This whole adventure and the medications involved puts a lag on my memory. Hence I may have as much trouble switching back to Apple as I did re-taming Windows. Give me a day or so and I'll master it again. Happy Fourth!!

Heros are Born

2007-06-29T18:33:00.000-04:00

Wednesday noon we had a little excitement (Rest Home Style}. We were peaceably eating lunch in the Main Dining Room. My seat is perhaps closest to the door. Suddenly, there was a loud, explosive-like noise from the kitchen. There are multiple chandeliers throughout the dining room. Each has eight or more mini light bulbs shaped like candle flames. The bulbs all popped like a Chinese fire cracker display with flashes of super bright light. Old folks in wheelchairs like me peddled for the door in a mad panic. What caught my eye were the high school kids that act as waitstaff leading the rush - except for one who stayed calm. She moved to the bank of light switches and turned all of them off. She then went back in to help the residents escape.

She (Tamber is her name) probably did not do the right things from the point of view of her personal safety. There was no time for much thought, but something made Tamber take the selfless path to help others.

A rational review later showed there was never any acute danger, but in those few nano-seconds, Tamber and those few of us that observed her actions knew that she was of the stuff of heroines.

2007-06-26T19:18:00.000-04:00

It is an isolated feeling being in a rest home like this.I do know that Lake Tahoe is in bad trouble with a fire and that Paris Hilton got out of the "slammer" today or yesterday. There is only one TV for my roomie and I. Sharing is difficult because he is very deaf and actually dislikes TV. He is a nice guy though, and I don't want to annoy him. He gets tucked in about 7:30 PM so I turn the volume down to the point that I doubt that he can hear and I watch away. Outside of CNN and Fox there is little news on then - and besides, I do enjoy a bunch of the "adventure" series like Law and Order. Between that and the fact that a majority of the staff speaks Spanish makes me feel like I am in a foreign country.

Tomorrow they stuff me into one of those "Non-emergency Ambulances" aad transport me to my surgeon's office. There, the stitches in my tum-tum are scheduled (I don't know if that is spelled correctly but I can't find a dictionary in this library) to be removed and tests run to see if all is working as it should. That should be a pleasant change of pace.

I had a conversation today with a nurse about getting off pain pills that fog me up like a windshield in the early morning. She told me to relax, that they could tell when was the right time to quit. Unbelieving and curious me decided to run an experiment of my own and avoided the pills from 9AM until about 5PM. At that time the routine blood pressure testsing lady came along. My pressure was through the roof and the pain was at high pitch. They gave me BP pills and pain pills and I lay down until dinner was served. I feels fine now, but will leave drug research to the pros in the future.

How Nice To See so Many Comments

2007-06-25T14:42:00.000-04:00

Sally has pushed my wheelchair up from my room to the library where this computer is and I was pleased to see so many welcomes. There is a piano concert going on right next door. It is my kind of '40's music (Blue Moon right now) so if my typing sort of jumps, it is just what the music does to me. I am feeling a little devilish right now. I know that liver and onions are not on my diet, but I couldn't resist at lunch - they really know how to cook it!

My roommate by contrast is having a down day. He is eighty nine and suffering a broken leg which he got while trying to make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. They have a steel rod in there to prop him up, but real healing hasn't started yet. He is told that healing just takes longer at this age, but he gets discouraged. Old age can suck.

Despite my roaring incision infection, the powers that be decided that I should pursue physical therapy this AM. Seems like I should be mad at someome, but I do really sense that progress is coming along. {Damn, that pianist is GOOD!}

Have I mentioned that that there is a cat named Petunia, that hangs out here in the library? He knows that the doors open to the outside when he get close to the detector. So the whole outdoors is his litter box and he can mootch food from every or any room in the place. He's a fat cutie.

I plan to be back tomorrow.

Hi Folks, I Am Still Clicking

2007-06-24T14:05:00.000-04:00

Boy, this spring has been a bad-un. The computer at the "Skilled Nursing Home" is up and working, sort of. So here is a brief update. Since February, I have been in the hospital, at the skilled nursing home, and home again, and then started the cycle over again. I hope that I will be completing this round in a few weeks and can get back to the comforts of home again. A large part of the difficulty I have had in writing about the Last Quarter, has been the considerable amount of pain involved and the subsequent pain killers administered. The latter can fog up the thinking apparatus to a good extent.

There are occasional bright spots. The cardiologists report that my heart survived the biggest operations in good shape after lots of worry about the possible need for more valve work. On a different scale, but a bright spot nonetheless -- one of my favorite foods is smoked salmon. This morning a salmon platter was served up as the breakfast entre' and I was able to con the waitress into serving me two breakfasts.

Well, I hope that is enough to establish that I am still around and of good morale. I shall try to conquer the distance to this computer via wheelchair and the fussiness of the thought process and scribble more in the near future.

A NEWLY REALIZED ANNOYANCE

2007-05-09T11:23:00.000-04:00

To be put on prescriptions for coumarin, plavix, and other blood thinners and then realize it is time to shave. You carry a razor in the right hand and a new roll of toilet tissue in the left.

Restarting the Brain Cells (?)

2007-05-06T12:48:00.000-04:00

After almost three months in hospital and rehab beds, I am going to have a rough time weaning my brain off thoughts of scheduled meds; hospital gowns, transfusions, blood drawing and food that was nothing like home cooking. I do suspect that my sense of humor disappeared in a hazardous waste container. Even though, with one exception, I know I was fortunate to be in excellent facilities and even though I recognize my life and most limbs were saved – I can’t claim any day of it was as joyous as arriving home to family and friends.

Honey, the youngest of our cats, did spoil the mood by being a little too cat-curious the first night home by nipping and tugging at the bandage intended to protect the site of my missing toe. Of course, my YELP and kick sent her (and my startled wife) to the moon.

Obviously, I have not had time to read all my favorite blogs yet, or the e-mail, but I am finding it fun to nudge away at it. More later.

Home again, home again, Jiggitty jog

2007-05-02T15:47:00.000-04:00

Just a quick notice that after being in two hospitals and and a rehib - skilled nursing home since the 16th of February, I arrived home this afternoon. I haven't read all the familiar blogs yet by a long shot. That should take several days. Forgive me, but it is too soon for me to want to recount all my adventures. Not very intereesti9ng anyway. Weak as the proverbial kitten now and will pick up tomorrow.