Future sometimes looks scary

I came home from work on Thursday at noon. I figured the flu was coming on: weak, blinding headache, bloated feeling in the gut. I staggered to the bus stop, plopped into a seat and thought "I will not puke, I will not puke, please, god, don't let me puke." Drove home from the park & ride -- cursing when the idiot in front of me lets a car in line in front of him, which allows that car and the guy in front to make the light and me to miss it. Lights at that intersection cause 3 minute wait, 3 minutes I wasn't sure I had.

But, I made it and dragged myself into bed. I moaned and groaned for a few minutes then fell asleep. I was glad Wife wasn't home. I just wanted to be left alone to die. I slept away the next four hours waking up three or four times to sip some water. Weirdest part was that I kept feeling like I had to stretch, like the blood wasn't getting pumped round my body. Water, moan, stretch, groan, sleep. Pretty soon it was dark.

Then my low back started aching. I lay on one side then the other then on my back then on my stomach. I lay with knees up, straight. What ever I tried, the pain would go away but be back in a couple minutes. I thought I should take aspirin or something, but stomach still wanted to roll over so I just tossed and turned and turned and tossed in bed.

I took my temperature later: normal. Well, that was something. I never actually had any stomach upset going either way. I was just miserable: weak, general muscle and joint aches, no appetite, and a back that wouldn't let me sleep which was all I really wanted to do.

Then it occurred to me: I'm old enough now that feeling this bad could be how I would feel for the rest of my life. No energy, constant low level pain, no appetite. Great -- so now, not only was I sick, I was depressed too.

I woke up on Friday feeling better, not good but better ... the depression gone ... the fear still there.

More and more critters ...

I didn't realize how much I missed being closer to nature while I was living in the UK. Nature for those six years consisted mostly of seeing bunches of bunnies and a few foxes and once in a while a deer out on the golf course. Even though we're living in a relatively heavily populated area here in Texas, we have wooded empty lots on both sides, woods behind us on the other side the golf course across a drainage canal and more woods a block away out our front door. We get to see lots of animals. I love it. I wrote in my last post about 'big guy' that crawled across our backyard a couple weeks ago. The snake made one return visit to our yard a couple days later, then last week my neighbor told me he'd killed the snake. The snake had curled up under a bush in his front yard near the driveway. He has three dogs and all of them were overly interested in seeing what this big hissing thing was in their yard ... dogs not being overly bright. So, neighbor killed the snake. I was sad, but could understand. Neighbor also relayed how, just after he'd moved in, a delivery guy was coming up his drive and a snake laying under the same bush had snapped out and bitten the man's pant leg ... fortunately only the pant and not the real leg. I guess that would've made me a bit snake-averse also.

Then a couple days ago a wide-eyed Wife comes to me at the breakfast table breathlessly saying, "Snake. Snake on the porch. Right by front door. Snake, Bobby. Snake by the front door. Snake." I quickly deduced we had another snake to deal with.

I peek out the front door and happily coiled up in the corner of our front porch is a miniature version of 'big guy' ... OK, not miniature, but at least smaller. It's relatively warmer on the bricks that were heated by the setting sun the night before. I can't tell if it is a cottonmouth water moccasin like the big one we saw. The coloring is similar but the pattern is much more clear and his head is not as arrowhead shaped. I can't see any pits under his eyes, sign of a pit viper, but no matter; I'm treating him like he's the world's most deadly.

Shoes on, jeans on, two garden rakes in hand, I gingerly open the front door. "Lil' guy" takes no notice. I give him a poke with the rake and he glares at me. I give him a push and he reluctantly crawls along the wall to the opposite corner and curls up again. I push him toward the front step with the rake. He starts to go then doubles back toward his original place. I'm not having it. I push him onto the drive. He decides OK, I'll curl up under the azaleas in front. He damn near disappears in the shadows. I'm not having it. I poke and prod from a rake's length away. He crawls next to the house and he's getting pissed. Whap. He bites the rake in a flash. Whap. Bites it a second time. Then coils back up against the house and glares at me again. I poke him a couple more times and try to lift him with one rake onto the other. Whap again, but he crawls into the grass on the side of the house and again hunkers down -- tongue whipping in and out. I can tell he's thinking, "Put the rakes down you chicken-sh--, mudder-lover. I'll show you who can poke who." He just refuses to move, but after five minutes of increasingly brave pushes and prods he crawls off into the vacant lot next to the house. It was a bit more excitement than I'd really bargained for on a Friday morning, but still ... I found it pretty cool. And, yes, I check out the window before I open the front door now.

Even neater was a tale from snake-killing neighbor that we have a red fox that visits regularly. He comes at dusk most nights, walking along the cart path that runs behind our house. Of course, Wife is all gung ho about this. We have bbq chicken that night and puts the unused chicken skin out near the path. Then she returns and perches vulture-like on our breakfast nook chair waiting for Bre'r Fox. Darned if right at sunset, the fox comes trotting over the mounds across the fairway and then along the cart path. He stops like a statue and sniffs at our house then makes a bee-line for the chicken. He grabs the biggest piece and runs back across the fairway. We'd like to think that he's got a litter of pups back in the woods somewhere who are now munching on their first chicken skin. In five minutes he's back. He grabs the remaining skin and this time isn't sharing. He takes it to the other side of the fairway and gulps it down. Then he trots back along the path and into the vacant lot next to the house -- heading we think for the bigger woods across the road. Wife gets good pics of the whole thing.

We also are starting to see squirrels in our yard. They are not the world's brightest. If I break the corn off the cob and toss it in the grass they'll eat it, but haven't yet figured out that the whole ear is laying on the ground and they can serve themselves. Four blue jays on the other hand, have got it sussed out and will peck the kernels off the cob, take them to a branch and spend the next 90 seconds or so bashing it with their beaks to get to the good bits.

We've seen the red tailed hawk glide by a couple times. Once in a while he'll sit on a pole across the fairway. You can almost hear him say, "Here, mousy, mousy, mousy." We've not heard the great horned owl at night for quite a while. We have white egrets in the lake nearest to us. I also saw the blue heron fly by last night. Mocking birds are pretty regular visitors as are suicide prone doves. We've discovered that they're the ones that confuse reflections with the real thing. One committed suicide against our patio window -- much to Wife's teary consternation.

Now I know this can't match my cousin Dianne's wildlife stories from Anchorage ... moose in the backyard or maybe even Daughter's tales of the racoon army ... but for Houston, I'm likin' it. You can see a more complete pictorial essay on my FaceBook account by (hopefully) following this link: Houston Wildlife.

News and more news

More than two weeks since my last post and not because of anything bad, which is good. My life's just been full.

Most exciting thing was arrival of "The Big Guy". Last Friday in February ... mid-morning ... I hear, "BOBBY. Bobby. Bobby." That's always bad. In the backyard we see "The Big Guy": 3-foot long, cottonmouth, water moccasin snake. He was the biggest snake I've ever seen in the wild. I ran out with the camera. I've included one picture here. You can find others at this link on FaceBook. I just let him crawl away back into the vacant lot from which he came. We've seen him once more since then. I'm fairly certain that god made him crawl across our lawn to convince Wife that snakes really DO live in Texas and that she shouldn't go looking for errant golf balls in the tall grass.

I flew to Columbus the last weekend in February to see my daughter be Lady Macbeth. My sister flew in from Chicago-land to join me. It was my first chance to see my daughter's and her husband's house. It's just great even if it was 18F outside. The new abode has even calmed down their dingo cat.

The Scottish Play was interesting. The director made some ambitious choices, which didn't always come off well, but naturally I enjoyed seeing Daughter on stage again. It had been many months since I had that pleasure. The play was, somewhat strangely, set in the swamps of Louisiana -- or at least somewhere south. When my girl came on stage for her first lines and she filled the theater with the most beautiful southern accent, my sister and I just looked at each other. We couldn't believe how lovely and fitting that accent was for she-who-would-be-queen -- refined, genteel, commanding. Daughter was so good she made me uncomfortable when later in the play she goes insane. She played it too well for me; I didn't like seeing her even acting like that. Yes, I'm extraordinarily proud of her. Check out her blog that I reference out to the right of this post somewhere. Acting is far from her only talent.

The following weekend was equally full. On Friday we drove into Houston and had dinner at my favorite restaurant - Tony Mandola's. Wife got her first taste of soft-shell crab. My past experience with them critters is that you have a 50/50 chance of them being edible. Well, these were the best I ever et ... Wife kindly shared one with me. And topped with crawfish and shrimp. Well, what can I say?

From there we drove to the theater district and saw the Houston Ballet Company perform "Marie". It was excellent -- easily in the top 10 ballets I've seen. The music was by Dimitri Shostakovitch -- wonderful -- abstract at times, lyical at others. Amy Fote danced the title role beautifully. She's light as a feather. The choreography didn't show off the male dancers' athleticism as much as I'd've liked, but the total presentation with as many as two-dozen dancers on stage at once was terrific.

The next day Wife dragged me for shopping. I have to say I view shopping with her only one step better than a root canal without anesthetic. We drove to a furniture store we've visited often: Gallery Furniture. Object of search: oriental rug for the family room. With the down turn in the economy we'd scaled back the amount we were willing to spend. We'd looked at rugs there before, but hadn't found any that met our price and style requirements. We figured we'd give it another shot since they might have something on sale. We looked through the stack of machine-made rugs and then through the hand-made. Then the salesperson showed us one he had hanging. Beautiful, sort of tannish-greenish. Not what we'd really been thinking about, but both Wife and I really liked it. And, it was almost 58% off, which put it just inside our price range.
Then a bad thing happened, Wife looks further along the rack and finds a dark blue background with traditional Persian pattern. They haul this down and lay it out next to the first. It's on sale too. We like them both. Independently, Wife and I think the same thing: one for the family room and one for the dining room ... and they're interchangeable ... when we get tired of one look we can swap them and get a completely different look. Oh, dear. After much hemming and hawing, we pull the trigger. They load them into the back of Wife's Merc and home we go. I drag 150 pounds of carpet into the house and we lay them out. They look better than we hoped. What do you think? And, busted heck out of the budget, but never mind; my flat screen TV can wait.

Last bit of good news comes a couple days ago. We have been battling Louis Shanks furniture store about the sofa and chairs we purchased. The chairs were floor models and we hadn't bargained for that. Seams were ripped. Ticking was hanging out. LS took them back for repair. They finally arrived this week. Suitably repaired and they look great with the new carpet as you see above.

Life is good.

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz ...

Having a house is better than having an apartment. Weather was just beautiful today: clear, cool, dry, sunny. We'd gone to Home Depot yesterday and began planning our landscaping. Sum total of purchases was hoe, rake, yard broom, clippers and a watering can. We laid plans for a return visit for pots, tomato plants, herb seeds, soil, fertilizer, and flowers flowers flowers. Petunias, maybe marigolds (but Wife hates them) and lots of others that I don't know the names for. Top of wife's list is a pot and soil for her "yoelka" -- the live pine tree we received for Christmas. It's growing like crazy in its little pot. She wants to get it into something bigger before it turns into a bonsai.

So when I got up this morning the bug hit to go dig in the dirt. It's been more than a decade since I've had any dirt to dig in. Sounds like a chore to a lot of people I'm sure but I was happy to be outside raking up the pine needles from the flower beds, hoeing up the dirt around the flowers, raking things smooth. I trimmed our dead palm branches. Before I could remember past efforts, it was too late. Give me clippers or a watering hose and I sort of lose control. I trimmed lots of stuff ... names of which I don't know ... that had been frost damaged or fungused or that I thought just didn't look quite right. Several plants are now at ground level or lower. But ... the three flower beds I attacked all look better than when I started. And did I tell you the azaleas are blooming. Spring in February; I love Houston.

I'm a happy camper.

Plus we played nine holes of golf today.

And yesterday I stopped at a bike shop and got two new tires and two new tubes for my bike. Well, not my bike actually. It's my daughter's bike, but I sort of appropriated it when she moved to college or something and I've never given it back. Today before golf I got the tires changed, found my bike shoes and helmet after considerable looking and when we got back took it out for a spin. It'll only hit about 1/2 the gears, but the brakes worked, the wheels were only moderately out of round, I could get in and out of the clips on the pedals. It was nice to get out for a ride after probably seven years of never touching it while I was in the UK.

All in all, having a house is much better than having an apartment.

I hate this game; I love this game

Wife vowed some weeks ago that she'd never play golf again. Those of us addicted to the game, of course, completely understand the feeling and, in fact, have made the same vow at least two or three times per season ... sometimes even two or three times per round.

She does like to drive the cart though. So three weeks or so ago on a nice Sunday I coaxed her out with the offer to let her drive. I played my way up to the green on the first hole and then suggested she just bring her putter along and hit putts on the green with me. She did, and she's a pretty good putter, so that worked fine. We followed that pattern for three or four holes then I suggested she just bring her pitching wedge and hit from where I was close to the green. She did and not badly and then hit a putt or two and things went well.

The following Sunday she hit a few from the fairway and by the end of nine holes was hitting driver off the tee. She managed a par on one of the par threes after hitting it in the sand on her first shot. (For you non-golfers that's good in anyone's book -- not the sand, dummy, the three.)

This past Sunday saw us back out there. I think I've got her convinced "Golf is not a game of perfect" as they say. Of course, for a card-carrying perfectionist, that's a pretty big leap of faith. But ... She hit one ball, I kid you not at least 180-yards off the tee on one hole and right down the middle. She hit two shots with a sand wedge out of two separate fairway bunkers that must have flown 70-yards. That's a pretty stout wallop with a sand wedge. And then on the same par three that she had parred the previous week -- this tee shot: Of course, then she also three putted from there proving that she is, indeed, human. On our final hole she blasted a 7 wood from 100 yards right on to an elevated green and even left a pitch mark (hole) in the green she hit it so high. I think I've got her hooked.

Splat -- parts two and three

Must be Spring ... at least here in Texas -- sorry, Northerners. We have a few azaleas blooming in front. We're having a warm, warm rain here tonight. A better tip off though: aggressive birds in the neighborhood.

I reported in my last post (among other things) that we'd had a bird strike our tinted window in back. Well, he didn't learn the first time. Wife heard another crash and again claimed that something must have fallen or that someone had set off a bomb outside. Later that night I look out the kitchen window and ...



... dusty birdy imprint on the window. Now we know why we saw feathers outside the window in the grass. We thought maybe the hawk or the owl had dined near the house. Now it looks like it's just feathers jettisoned in the crash.

And today ... bird boom again. Couldn't get a picture of that tonight, but you've probably got the image in mind now anyway.

Related topic: we've had a couple hawks floating around the house -- a mating pair maybe? I love 'em even if it means we don't have a lot of squirrels to watch.

And did you know that woodpeckers eat seeds? I thought they just ate bugs out of the bark. But, no. We've got a red-headed woodpecker (I think) that has become partial to the seed in the bird feeder we hung on a branch of a near-by pine quite close to the trunk. We laughed and laughed at him hanging on to the tree and leaning over backwards to the point of having his head upside-down in order to pluck food from the feeder. Where there's a will there's a way.

Random thoughts on a Sunday morning

Off color jokes (those of you with weak stomachs, look away): I recorded the "Blue Collar Comedy Tour 2" last night and watched it this morning. Follow the link to see some of it on YouTube. I laughed until I choked. Ron White: "I got fired from my last job. It was at the pickle factory. I got fired for putting my finger in the pickle slicer. .... She got fired too; we both got fired." Larry the Cable Guy: "I like to use the handicapped toilets in public restrooms. They keep 'em cleaner. And they got them rails in case you need a power squeeze." Jeff Foxworthy: "Show me a three-year-old in nothing but underwear walking around in a flea market sucking on a baby-bottle full of cola and I'll show you a future NASCAR fan."

Bird-strikes: Wife heard a crash some days back. At first thought that something had fallen in the garage ... like, say, a rack full of sailboards hanging from the ceiling? Nope. Golfer hitting a window with a golfball? Nope, windows in tact. Branch falling off the trees and hitting the roof? Well maybe. Nothing else seemed to be out of place, fallen over, fallen off, fallen in. A couple nights later, I see on the window looking out on the patio the following image caught in the reflection. Case closed: a bird had done a full on face-plant into the window. A pretty big bird. He probably thought some other bird of his species was encroaching on his territory and flew to the attack, not realizing our tinted windows are pretty good mirrors from the outside. Imagine his surprise when the encroacher fails to back away. Gotta give the guy an "A" for perseverance, he just kept on coming. No dead bird on the patio, so he must've gotten over the concussion and flow off later.

More off color jokes: Wife came in this morning holding two eggs about the size of golfballs -- maybe a little smaller. She says, "Can you believe it? They call these Large Eggs." I say, "Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you that they measure eggs like penises. No one's EVER gonna buy a Small condom. They start at Large."

Valentines' Day: Worked up a sweat last night. We went to The Club with a couple friends of ours who live down the road. All four of us worked in Kazakhstan in mid-90s. We had a nice buffet dinner and took a couple turns on the dance floor to golden oldies. Wife forced me to practice our cha-cha moves before we left. I actually got through the whole routine once without a mistake at the club. DJ was smart enough to play "Smooth" by Santana with Rob Thomas -- one of our favorites. Also got in a couple salsas. A good time was had by all.




Times past: I recorded Bette Midler in "The Rose" a couple days ago and watched it this morning. I forgot how really good the movie is and how really hard it is to watch. They should make Amy Winehouse watch it until she pukes, ala 'Clockwork Orange". [I read this morning she's back in a hospital in St. Lucia. Something about running out of her drug substitute.]Years and years ago I saw Bette Midler in concert at the Concord Pavilion. She is just fabulous. What was her back up group? The Harlettes? She did one number in electric wheel chairs while wearing mermaid tails, I remember. I had season tickets for the Pavilion that year. I saw Donna Summer (far better than expected), Barry Manillo (which should have been awful and wasn't), and Chicago. It was a good summer. Wife-at-the-time had bugged out with a friend for a tour of Europe. Daughter had one week of my cooking and informed me she was going to Grandma and Grandpa's. All I remember is the concerts.

Sometimes I Just Don't Write

My normal MO is to not post anything when everything's gone to sh-t. Fortunately that's not the case over the few days of no writing. Just no time or energy to write.

Here's a stream of consciousness summary:

Good news: Love our new car. Bad news: it was due for its 15,000 maintenance. Wife took it to Mercedes dealership today -- $500 for service and $200 more for a new key since guy we bought it from only had one to give us. Not wholly unexpected, but still ... grrrr.

Good news: I found in a box in our garage a hometown newspaper from May 1968. In it was an article that my dad wrote about my track exploits at a decathlon in high school. Those of you that have known me long, know that I wrote a short story about that meet and in that story I allude to the article. I thought it was long gone, and yet this week here it is ... in newsprint that's 40+ years old and still readable. Bad news: I scanned it, but can't figure out how to get it into the blog to make it readable.

Good news: I booked tickets to fly to Columbus to see my darlin' daughter be Lady M in MacBeth. It'll be my first chance to see their new house. Bad news: Ohio in February -- nuff sed.

Good news: Job's going good. Lots to do. Interesting stuff. Bad news: I'm spending all I'm making and a lot more besides.

Good news: Good news. Bad news: Less than good news.

If it seems too good to be true ... or ... Impulse buying can be fun

We're a two car family ... at last. Wife's had her little heart set on a Mercedes Benz. Her first car: a Mercedes Benz. Nothing like starting at the top. I was, shall we say, less than enthusiastic. She is, shall we say, very persistent.

We saw a Merc C230 some weeks ago. Actually, I liked it. Asking price (at the Toyota dealership where we bought our Camry) was something like $24,000, maybe a little bit more. More than I paid for the Camry, but then she hadn't started her "show no mercy; if they're not bleeding, keep negotiating" negotiations. We walked away.

The search continued on and off. We got moved to the new house. We spent tons on furniture and stuff. Things started to settle down. There's a fly-by-night car dealership down the road. On a drive-by we notice a couple Mercedes there. We stop on a Sunday, and kick the tires on a couple C230s. The cars don't even have asking prices on them, but we decide to give it a second try.

We go back the next Friday. Both C230s are gone. In their place is a 2007 C280 4Matic, white, loaded, clean. We talk with Roger. He's asking $25,000 or something like that. We laugh and say, "adios". He says, "Well, maybe $24,550." We say, "We'll come test drive tomorrow."

Saturday: Roger is busy trying to sell a Dodge Viper, so Lenny helps us. We take a test drive in the Mercedes. I, personally, love the damn car. It only has 15,000 miles. It was a lease car originally. It's got everything: four-wheel drive, automatic transmission, electrically adjustable front seats with memory, sun roof, satellite radio enabled, iPod enabled, side airbags, heated seats (OK, stupid for Houston, but the car originally was sold in Colorado), 3-liter V-6 fuel injected engine. Very, very nice. About six times, maybe seven times better than the Camry, I'm afraid.

I turn the process over to Ms. Cut-throat. I walk away and talk to a guy and his girl-friend who just got back from test driving the red Dodge Viper. He says that he's a Corvette man, but thinks the Viper is cooler. He has to cover his jeans with Vaseline in order to squeeze into the driver's capsule. You don't drive this car; you wear it. He's taking pictures with his phone. I say his girl should be laying on the hood to get the full effect. He says that she just posed for Playboy last week. I say that completely changes the image I had of her laying on the hood. I quickly walk back to see if there's anything left of Wife's salesman.

The price is now thousands lower plus tax, title, and license. Wife says, "We're going home." Relieved, I say, "Great."

We get in the car and she says, "I want that car."

I say, "Me too."

We do a minimal sort of online research and find that Wife's price looks really, really good. Really, really too good. Why do they want to sell that car for that price? Well, Landmark Chevrolet, the largest Chevrolet dealership in the world (according to their billboard) is out of business in Houston. Times are tough. We go back and make Lenny show us a clean CarFax sheet: no reported accidents, no flood damage repaired, no problems ... that anyone's publicly reported. We decide Wife will beat on them again on Monday and we'll see what happens.

She beats on them on Monday. Price is the price. She walks away, hopefully, again. She calls on Tuesday, asking "Are you sure that's the price?"

Answer: "Yes."

Rebuttal: "I'll take it." Monday night I show Wife how to write her first check.

Tuesday, I call insurance company and find that the insurance is $20 per year more than the Camry. Very acceptable. Wife hits dealership again and gets them to confirm that factory warranty is still in effect for another 35,000 miles. She also finds out that the car's due for it's 15,000 mile maintenance,which will cost about $300. That's acceptable. She pulls the trigger on the deal and almost writes a check for $1,000 as earnest money, but her hand is shaking so hard that she has to tear up the first check and start over. Second time's a charm. She calls insurance company and gets that process initiated. She can make final payment the next day and the dealership will help get her home with both cars.

Cut to today: deed is done. Final check written on the first try. Dealership only has one key for car so that's probably another $100 well have to spend to get me a key. She picks me up at Park-and-Ride and I don't recognize her in the new car.

She drives us home after filling the tank for the first time ... $25.00. Not bad.

It's a very, very cool car. Now -- is it too good to be true? Time will tell.

Tales of woe and sundry disasters

Yes, again it's been some days since my last post, so you know disaster has struck.

Well, not really. On Wednesday last week while at work, I thought I had the beginnings of a toothache. It had been coming on for a few days, but diligent flossing and brushing seemed to have kept it at bay. Wednesday afternoon though, it cranked up the intensity. I begged a couple Aleve from a co-worker. In 15 minutes the shooting pain was down to a mere feeling of pressure. An hour after that, it seemed as though some gremlin was pounding a ten-penny nail up through my back molar and into my left eye socket. In a word: maxpainful. Strong hearted lad that I am, I toughed it out until about 3:30pm at which point even the mighty were felled. I bailed on work and staggered to the bus stop. On the way home it hurt badly enough that my left eye wanted to wink closed and stay that way.

At home the flossing and brushing and swirling with Scope began. Russian folk-medicine-wise Wife prescripted a scalding hot saltwater mouth rinse with salt scavenged, er, harvested from a special salt lake in deepest Siberia or somewhere. Amazingly, to those of us not given to holistic crap, er, leanings, it helped. It didn't cure the miserable cold that I had on top of it, but I definitely felt better.

And not good. I got some sleep on Wednesday night, but not much, even with a handful of antihistamines to battle the clogged sinuses. The alarm on Thursday morning was a non-starter, except to leave a voicemail with my boss saying, "Fuggit it. I'm close to dead." Up again at 9am I online-researched dentists in the area that also were covered by our insurance. A call to the closest one landed an appointment at 10am the next day. In truth, the Pain had subsided quite a bit. More flossing and rinsing occurred. I got through the day laying on our (lovely, comfortable, red leather) couch and watching reruns of House. Another dose of antihistamines and some aspirin on Thursday night led me to a good night's sleep.

Up and going on Friday I make it to the dentist just down the road. Pain is back but only at 5 of 10. Head cold is back on the order of 7 or 8 of 10. After filling out multiple forms covering the doctor's ass for everything including a direct nuclear strike on his office, I get a 45 minute wait in the reception room reading six month old People magazines.

Taken to the operating theater by a really pleasant lady whose name appeared to be Amanda, I settle into the chair. "Amanda, how long have you worked here?" I ask.

She replies, "I'm not Amanda. I'm Tracy." (or something).

I say, "Your uniform says 'Amanda'."

Tracy-Amanda says, "Oh, I stole it because she's not here today and mine's not as nice as hers."

OK.

X-rays happen using a machine that looks like someone's beat on it with a hammer.

Doctor arrives in scrubs and tennis shoes. Nice enough looking old coot, meaning he's about an hour older than I am. "What's the problem?" "A toothache in the back upper left and a cold -- in that order." "Open wide. Hmmmm."

He takes a small ballpeen hammer and raps the four teeth on the upper left side of my jaw. Except for making me slightly deaf in that ear, there's no pain. He takes an implement that seems like a cross between a bent safety pin and a dagger and jabs each tooth and wiggles. Still no pain. A glove-clad finger presses gums inside and out. No pain. He jabs a hopefully unused chopstick in my mouth and says, "Bite please." I'm pleased to bite. "Open." No pain. Chopstick gets inserted and released from all four top left teeth. No pain.

"You don't have a toothache."

I smile wanly and say, "So why do I feel like I have a toothache?"

"Your sinuses are so swollen they're impinging on the nerves running through your upper jaw. Haven't you noticed how swollen your left cheek and eye socket are?"

Well, no. I just thought it was my usual bags and wrinkles.

"Double up on your antihistamines. Use salt water rinse because that sometimes helps relieve the pain. If you still have pain in a couple days, go see your doctor for antibiotics."

Thankfully he didn't say Siberian salt rinses or I would've had to kill him.

I go home, double up on the antihistamines and throw in three aspirin for good measure. I'm feeling better. Friday night is peaceful.

Saturday morning, all's good and I manage to get out for 18 holes of golf ... suitably medicated which leads me to a 54 on the front nine. The zombie like antihistamine state wears off on the back nine, encouraged by a sandwich and a couple of beers at my house as I troll by. I shoot 46 for 100 total which isn't bad on this course.

Sunday dawns bright and clear. Beginning-golfer Wife and I play nine holes. She gets a par on number 8, a par three. A good drive into the green-side bunker, a chip out to within 10-feet using a pitching wedge, then a well stroked slippery downhill putt into the dead center of the cup.

Life is good ... with a suitable supply of medication. I'm back in the blog-saddle again.

US Memories

In my last post I wrote about some of the places I've visited outside the US and commented about how lucky I've been to have seen and done so much. My daughter pointed out in a comment to that post that I'd left out some pretty wonderful places in the US too. And she's right. I've been lucky on that account also.

I'll leave out the scenic beauty of Illinois where I grew up. But after all this blog is named after some of my best childhood memories from there. It was a much simpler time back then. We'd be gone all day and our parents had no clue where we were. We'd ride all over town, which admittedly probably wasn't five miles across. We'd go to "the creek" and mess about as boys do. In the winter we'd drag our sleds to the creek and slide down the hill and out onto the frozen creek. Sounds dangerous, but no one I recall ever got hurt ... badly ... enough to go to the hospital ... for more than a stitch ... or two.

We'd also go to my grandmother's house for a couple weeks in the summer. Basically there were no rules for those weeks. We didn't have to take a bath if we didn't want to. She'd give us wooden orange crates. We'd break them up, take our pocket knives and carve them into swords and play fight with them. Or we'd walk out the railroad tracks and use them to cut the head-high or higher weeds into forts and mazes -- or just cut them to see whose sword was sharpest.

Our family would go to Tennessee for vacations. Freedom. We always went to the same resort: Pete Smith's Watts Bar Dam Resort. Nothing but swimming in the pool and hanging out with the other vacationing kids there. It was a big deal to be able to order off the menu at the pool and then sign the receipt ourselves.

Knox College holds great memories. It was the first time in my life I didn't feel out of place. Lots of people there were at least as weird as I was. I fit right in. I made most of the friends there that I have to this day. And I got married there. And my daughter was born there. I remember glorious spring days running track.

And who can not like New Orleans? I moved there after grad school and
still work for the same company today. Playing volleyball at the lake front. Water skiing in the rivers and bayous -- in the same water with sharks and stingrays. I learned to sail there from two really good sailors and the passion for sailing has never left me.

Pensacola, FL beaches are some of the best anywhere. Lazy days with my family there just playing in the water ... minding our own business ... then along comes a wave (sorry, inside joke).

Where I fit the best was Northern California though. It's my kind of place. Perfect weather most of the time. More to do outside than you can accomplish in a life time. Everyone needs to see Yosemite Valley once before they die. And I'll never forget my one foray into backpacking. From the rim of Yosemite at Tuolome Meadows up to 11,000-feet at Young Lakes ... still frozen even in July. Altitude sickness for 24 hours like you wouldn't believe. Sailing in San Francisco Bay and learning what it is like to sail in real wind. And freezing while you do it. On big boats. Sausalito. Salt Point State Park for tide pooling and walking in the hills -- Pygmy Forrest. Seeing a wild mountain lion up close ... too close I now realize. Snow skiing at Lake Tahoe -- North Star, Squaw Valley, Kirkwood, Sugarbowl. Getting up before dawn to drive the four (or was it six) hours up there and being on the first ski lift ride up the mountain. And feeling like the day was not a success unless you also rode the last chair of the day to the top. Racing downhill for my company's ski team -- helmet and all. Running San Franciso Marathon and finishing. Monterrey Peninsula with Pebble Beach, Pacific Grove. Going to the aquarium in Monterrey itself -- fabulous. Learning to play beach volleyball from a real star and his wife. Santa Cruz on the weekends and playing all day. Watching my daughter grow up and seeing her learn that tarantulas are not to be feared and that being the best at cheer leading doesn't always mean you win the competition.

Business trips to Anchorage (correctly described as scenic over kill). Certainly one of the most beautiful places in the world ... but too darn cold and dark for me in the winter. Bakersfield, Ventura, El Segundo all in California. Ventura on the coast is fabulous. Bakersfield is not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. I don't think I'll ever be a fan of LA. But a week long trip there looking at colleges with my daughter -- Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, San Diego. Oh, did I say colleges? Sorry, we mixed in a little bit of volleyball too.

Las Vegas -- I've been all over the world and there is no where else on the planet like Las Vegas. It's much more fun when you're winning. Reno is OK, but it's not Las Vegas

Tulsa, Oklahoma -- not a place where I'd choose to go, yet lots of good things happened there. I owned my first house. My daughter found her life's work and she grew up straight and strong there with a good sense of herself. I learned to windsurf and to play golf (again). I scared the crap out of a guy foolish enough to let me captain his sailboat in a regatta. ("I've never seen anyone pull the sails that tight." "It's windy. Don't worry." We finished second.) Playing indoor volleyball four nights a week because there wasn't a whole heck of a lot else to do in the winter.

Wonderful trip to Taos, NM for more skiing.

And New York, Boston, Orlando, Chicago, San Antonio, El Paso, Flagstaff -- good things about all these places -- although I'm not really much of an East Coast fan. Charlotte, Charleston, Atlanta. I guess I like the South second after San Franciso.

And now Houston ... it's all good. And I've rambled on long enough

Old enough to know better; too young to resist.

Today I am 59. What a useless birthday. I'm actually looking forward to next year already. That's a milestone deserving big celebrations, fancy expensive gifts (just setting expectations here), a trip abroad to commemorate the occasion (can you spell Mauritius, boys and girls?), a birthday blowout with all my rowdy friends in Las Vegas similar to one we had for my 55th birthday. Next year won't be bad at all.

So what's 59 besides a prime number? Nothing. Well, except that gaining a year is better than not being around to have one, I suppose. And as a friend of mine just wrote, 59 in most cases is better than 95. Plus I'm not in bad health, I've got a new house, I'm living on a golf course, my mom's still alive and still putts better than I do, my daughter's doing well. My wife looks like she's 47 -- oooh, if she reads this, I really meant 39, sweetie. That is both good news and bad, by the way. I like that she looks so young; why can't I be that lucky?

One thing I have noticed over the last few birthdays: I used to say that I had no regrets -- now I have lots. I wish I had treated some people better; you know who you are. I wish I'd gone to work for a different company right from the start, but my company has done extremely all right by me, I have to admit. I wish I'd paid more attention to my daughter's growing up because those memories I do have are sustaining. I wish I hadn't thrown some things away; I wish I'd thrown away some things I've kept.

All in all though, not bad.

I've said before, how did a kid that grew up in a corn field ever get to do the things that I've gotten to do or go to the places I've been? I've been extremely lucky on that count. It's a great treat to look at our travel pictures from around the world.

It all started with fly-in fishing trips to Canada with my dad.

Mauritius is still the most special place for me. We loved our trips to Thailand too. Southern Italy was wonderful and seeing Pompeii and Herculaneum fulfilled a dream. Amsterdam was exciting and fun. St. Petersburg had the most beautiful palaces. London is one of the best cities to walk around in. The Pyramids and the Sphinx were both better and not as good as I'd imagined.

Singapore is nice but sterile. Hong Kong is crazy and dirty and loud and smelly and vibrant. I got to fly in to Hong Kong at the old airport ... the one where you fly between (literally) apartment buildings to land.

I'll never forget the Pushkin Museum. We're walking around Moscow one day and my someday-to-be wife says, "Oh, here's Pushkin Museum. I've not been there in years." I asked, "What's there?" "They have impressionist art." "Oh, OK. (hesitation) Let's go." And then we get in there and there's a FLOOR of impressionist art. We walked and looked until I just couldn't do it anymore. It was the first time I understood why they make such a fuss about Picasso.

And the first ballet I ever saw was in Kremlin Palace Theater in Moscow. And I've see ballets in both the Bolshoi and the Marinski theaters as well. I've been inside the Kremlin.

Can't forget Kazakhstan ... the land of sand and a great experience. Who else do you know that's been there? AndI met a certain beautiful, Russian dancer there.

And then there are the garden spots: Lagos, Nigeria; Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea; Caracas and Maracaibo, Venezuela; Bogota, Colombia; Jakarta, Indonesia. Sort of a coin toss as to which was the most dangerous. Papua New Guinea was the most beautiful. Bogota had the most friendly and happy people ... and the most guns. Venezuela had the prettiest girls, although it was a tough choice between there and Bogota. Jarkarta was fun back in the day. The most polite people live there.

Australia is caught in a time warp of about 1960s US. That's good news and bad. Fremantle and Surfers' Paradise were fabulous.

Mexico with friends many years ago was great ... and got me started windsurfing. The volleyball there on another trip was really fun (my team beat the instructors' team).

Which brings me to Urkraine of all places, which actually had even better beach volleyball (strangely enough), but I was too old to enjoy it.

And speaking of windsurfing: Aruba -- zowie zowie.

And speaking Caribbean, St. Lucia for a honeymoon ... and rain rain rain.

Turkey was OK, but I liked Egypt better. Cyprus was OK, but I liked Egypt better too.

And after that long list, I'm probably still leaving out places and certainly leaving out lots of memorable experiences. Amazing.

59 years -- Maybe 59 is OK.

Chewing gum and wee bits of wire

I spent a good part of the day engineering a pulley system so I can store my sailboards (windsurf boards) up out of the way against the ceiling of our garage. I'd built something similar in my California house many years ago. It worked OK, but never perfectly. I decided: new house ==> proper engineering.

Last night I retrieved suitable bits, saved from previous rigging and that had languished in a paper sack for nigh unto 10 years. I sat in the family room and rove rope through pulleys, attached pulleys to scrap slats of wood simulating the ceiling and the cradle I planned to hold the boards. Much re-roving, re-attaching, and re-cussing. Eventually I had a design that looked reasonable. That left only to scale it up today.

Stud finders don't.

This windsurf equipment is relatively heavy, probably bordering on 75 pounds. The three attachments on the ceiling of the garage needed to be embedded in the wooden ceiling joists, not just in the sheet rock. I'd earlier purchased an electronic stud finder. That was supposed to make finding the studs easier and even would prevent you from drilling, screwing or pounding into live electrical wires.

I put up the ladder in the garage, turned on the stud finder and spent the next 45 minutes making marks on the ceiling. If you took the time to connect all the dots I made, you'd have a picture of Lady Godiva Riding a Horse. What you wouldn't have is any idea where the studs are ... or you'd be led to think they are everywhere.

I retreated to the tried and true. A little careful looking allowed me to find the nails holding up the sheet rock ... probably nails in the studs. A few taps of a long thin nail into the hoped for position of the stud either proved or disproved the theory. If true, then the pilot hole for the hook to go in the ceiling was already started. If false, eye-ball the sheet rock nails again and try the next most likely spot. At the end, throw the electronic stud finder at the wall.

I got the pulley system rigged. It worked a treat on its own with no load attached. Then I went to work engineering a cradle of sorts. I'd hoped this cradle would hold a couple boards, two masts, and nine sails. I got some wood roped and tied together. The pulley system worked fine with just the cradle attached. The system even looked like it was going to work with one board sitting in the cradle. It looked like that right up until the point that the cradle dumped the board onto the concrete floor. It had only made it to a height of about 12" so no great harm done.

Then two hours went by.

At the end of the time roughly eight different ideas for holding the boards in the pulley system had been tried and had failed. While pacing back and forth muttering, I happened to see two straps whose original purpose was to hold things on car roof racks. Roof racks were gone; straps now became sailboard holders: easy to attach to pulleys, easy to make tight and slip proof, easy to get off. Viola. Another 30 minutes of experimentation ensued, but eventually: two boards snuggled against the ceiling.

Now the sails should be a breeze. Hook them to the beam of the pulley system where the straps attach -- up they go. Except they over balanced the boards to one side and this time I had two boards and four sails on the concrete.

Another hour and two beers go by before I realize I don't actually have to hoist the sails. They're light. I'll just fasten them to the hooks in the ceiling and I'll be done. Two bungee cords and four trips up the ladder: Job Done.


It required another 20 minutes to clean up the 42 tools, 97 bits of rope, 6 left over pulleys, and some nails -- and pushing all the storage boxes back to where they belonged -- and picking up the remains of the non-finding stud finder.


For the record:

1. I did not use one strip of duct tape.
2. I did not use any newspaper.
3. I was not bleeding at the end of the exercise.
4. No animals were harmed in the testing except for the spider that fell off the ceiling and down my shirt front.
5. I only used two 4" pieces of wire in the whole construction.
6. Generally all the pieces that should be symmetrical, are of the same type and size, i.e., no big giant hook on one end and one tiny hook on the other. All the screws are the same type, size and color.
7. The rig has remained in place for six hours and has not crashed to the floor.

I rewarded myself by heading off to play golf. And when I got back, thanks to previous effort, I could even park my new old golf cart in its rightful place.

Technical writing ... a short course

In my new position I get to review software design documents created by people in our work unit. Our project is integrating information from diverse software applications to provide my company a unified view of the crude oil and products trading that we do. We're merging data from the trading system itself, from a credit management system (really important in the current economic situation) and from a pricing/risk system. That last one's particularly interesting because it attempts to keep the Company from going bankrupt because it bought too much oil when prices were high or sold too much when prices were low. Complicated stuff.

We have to pass information back and forth between those three systems. Plus each of those three pushes and pulls data from more than twenty "outside" systems. For example, we have to send accounting information about the trades to the Company's accounting system monthly. We also pull in externally-created financial statements and credit reports for our suppliers and customers. It's nice to know that we'll actually get paid when the time comes, so we check that stuff pretty carefully.

The only way to pass that information around is to write computer programs to extract the information from one system, massage it, and then pass that information to the receiving system. For each one of those interfaces (on the order of 100, by the time everything's said and done), we need to write a document describing what we're going to do. The business people read the document and say, "Yup, that's what we need." The programmers read the document and say, "OK, I understand what software you want me to write."

Part of my job is to read each of those documents. I verify that the described solution appears to work. I verify that the solution adheres to our software architectural standards. I verify that the document contains all the information that a programmer is going to need to get busy in a few months and actually write the software.

It's driving me crazy.

My dad was a writer. I remember being in tears when I was in grade and even high school after I'd take some piece of writing to my father. I'd have spent probably an hour laboriously typing on a manual typewriter the single page that the assignment required. I'd be pretty proud of it. Dad would look at it, look at me, and then start in. "This isn't clear. Make this shorter. You can say this better. ..." It never failed. No matter how good I thought it was, it wasn't. I'd have to look at retyping the whole thing. (White-outs were never enough to correct the mistakes he found.) It was painful and only more so because ... damn it ... he was right. Everything he suggested improved the piece.

So now I'm the reviewer. Most of the team doing the writing don't come from a liberal arts background, and in fact not a US background of any kind. They are dyed in the wool techies. They need help. So, for posterity, here are my rules for technical writing:

All things being equal, shorter is better.

Figure out who your audience is before you start. Don't put anything in the document that your audience won't use. When you try to include it, don't tell me "Oh, that's good information." It's not good if no one's going to use it.

Use the journalistic pyramid style: start simple, get more detailed as you go. That way, when the reader has reached the level of detail he or she needs or desires, the reader just stops reading.

If a sentence contains any of these words then you probably need to rewrite it: "is", "are", "be". Those are tipoffs that you're writing in passive voice and it drives me crazy. E.g., "It is sent to program two." WHO or WHAT sends it to the program? Don't compound the problem by saying "It is sent to program two by program one." Say: "Program one sends it to program two." It saves two words: 22%. It saves five characters: 12%. You end up writing 9 pages instead of 10 and the 9 are much more clear and readable.

Write everything in present tense. If something's not happened yet, pretend it has. You're writing about something you want to make happen. Be positive.

Don't try to impress with how smart you are. Never use two syllables when one will do.

Put things in the document or in an appendix, but not both. That way if something changes you don't have to make two updates to the document, one of which you're bound to forget.

Look for chances to use the imperative sentence. That style is short and clear. Do it.

Whew. It's good to vent.

Score one for the 'bama

As a knock on to my earlier post about the Presidential Oath of Office, I'm happy to note that President Obama got together with Chief Justice Roberts and they did their oath thing all the way through without a hitch. Of course people are bitching (a) that there were no press photographers present and (b) that he didn't swear on the Bible. But, he fairly well put to rest the paranoid few who were going to make an issue of the original oath taking. I'm glad he did that. Otherwise we'd have to listen to the moaning for weeks.

But that's not why the President is getting an 'atta boy' from me. It's because he ordered the closing of the Guantanamo military prison. Those of you that know me are probably surprised that I'd not want to keep that murdering bunch of terrorists safely locked up until Cuba sinks into the sea. Under normal circumstances, you'd be right. But our president is not letting them go. He's going to transfer them, he thinks, here to the mainland.

Of course, lots of people, including congressmen, governors, and other bottom dwellers, have ostracised GW Bush for putting those people there in the first place. But, now as the chickens come home to roost -- or in a more appropriate metaphor: the carrion-picking vultures begin to perch -- those same people are saying, "Oh, wait -- not in MY prison." Gosh, that's a shock.

So, I'm happy that this deal is going to make the people who love to gripe but don't want to do anything about it, start putting their money, or at least their prison systems, where their mouth is.

But that's not what I'm really happy about.

What I really hope happens is that they put these guys from Guantanamo into the general prison population in say, San Quentin or Attica -- preferably in the Aryan Nation cell blocks. The GitMo experience will seem like the good ol' days to the terrorists in no time.

So, well done, Mr President. So long as you're not turning those bastards loose, close that baby down, and let them have a little prison hospitality in our 'hood -- for as long as they last.

Is the test over? Did I pass?

Those of you following my series of posts on our move to Houston know that it has been challenging. It has been so bad in fact that I have often felt that I was being tested by a higher power -- tested and found wanting, I'm afraid. I'm so down on the whole thing, life's really been a drag.

And then a ray of hope: Some days ago, Joe (a guy that lives near us) played golf with Jack (a guy that also lives in The Club). Jack received a new fancy golf cart for Xmas and was selling his old one -- cheap. Joe told me about it; I wrote an email to Jack. Days passed and nothing. Then late last week there's a knock at the door and Jack is there. "My wife just told me about your email. I still have the cart for sale. Want it?" I said that I'd come by his house the next day to take a look. He agrees and drives off. Next thing I know, there's another knock at the door -- Jack again. He's driven the cart over for me to see.

It IS old, but looks OK. We drive it around the block and it seems all right. He tells me that it is 10 years old but the battery is only about 18 months old. I tell him that I'll think about it and he drives off.

I do due diligence online and his offer is less than 1/3 of the cost of any other used cart that I can find. I call him and say, "Done".

I get home early on Tuesday night. Wife drives me to his house. I hand him a check and drive home in my new old cart. (Actually it was not quite that simple because I left my checkbook at home on the first 'go-round, but never mind.) Figuring in the cost of the cart and the yearly "trail fee" that I have to pay The Club, if the cart lasts a year or two, I'll have gotten my money. I have to play about 100 rounds of golf during 2009 in order for it to pay out versus just renting one of The Club's carts every time I play. Of course, if wife starts playing golf too, then it's 100 rounds between the two of us -- even better.

So I'm good. But, that's not the silver lining. The way things have been going, I'm pretty sure the cart will crap out on me the first time I actually use it. But ...

I arrive at work yesterday and my pay stub is in the mailbox. I open it and discover that I received some sort of strange tax refund from 2006. It covers the cost of the cart and a good chunk of the yearly "trail fee" that I have to pay The Club. So win or lose, I've not busted the bank with my impulse purchase.

Thank you, Oh Great Spirit. I needed a little light in the tunnel.

Faithfully yours ...

I don't know for whom I felt sorrier yesterday: President Barack Obama or Chief Justice John Roberts (what a great name). Everything else about the day had probably been choreographed to the n-th degree. And then it came time for the Presidential Oath of Office -- a grand total of about 35 words. Obviously no one had earlier put the President and the Chief Justice in the same room for five minutes and said, "OK, you two do a dress rehearsal. I know, I know. It's dirt simple and you've both memorized the Oath, but just do it. You know stuff happens." And they didn't and then it did.

Roberts got thrown off when the President interrupted and started repeating the words "I, Barack Hussein ..." before Roberts was ready for him to begin. That gives Roberts one too many things to think about and so he proceeds to change the wording of the oath from that dictated in the Constitution. I thought the look on the President's face was priceless: You STUPID sonofabich. Now what the heck am I supposed to do? Say it incorrectly like you just quoted, or say it the way I know it's written? So the President starts in and then Roberts compounds the problem by interrupting the President. President Obama eventually elected to choose some from each side of the menu: failing to repeat the oath as written and yet not repeating exactly what Roberts had asked him to say. I bet President Obama thought when it was mercifully over, Great. Four minutes into the world's most difficult job and I've already fouled up. Well, the good news is that the press corp (and blog writers) won't have to make something up to write about.

Or maybe he thought, It's like a new car. You drive like you're on eggs until you get the first dent and from that point on, you just motor on down the road -- worrying more about where you're going than worrying about denting the car. I've had my first dent, so look out world: I'm comin'.

And then I had to laugh because one of the TV news reporters mused out loud about whether the President was really the President since the Oath was not correctly administered. Oath or no oath, the man was President from noon yesterday per 20th Amendment to the Constitution. The reporter should've known that.

I've already been reading that the white conservatives are going to take it to court about whether the Presidency is all legal or not. HELLO! Who are you going to take your case to? The Supreme Court? Like John Roberts's Supreme Court? Well, I wonder how THAT'S going to turn out?

Maybe I'm not listening in the right places but it also wouldn't surprise me if some people are saying, "Just another example of the white guy messing with the black guy."

I should say that President Obama was gracious to Roberts when asked about the oath taking later, saying something like, "Oh, you know, we were both nervous .... yada, yada."

My final thought: I'm glad it wasn't me up there in either role. I'd've probably forgotten all the words, puked, and then passed out. Mr. President, things are never so bad they couldn't be worse. Go drive that car like crazy.

Democracy

"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." -- W Churchill

My father every four or eight years would say, "What's happening today is really amazing. In only a handful of places in the world does a government completely change, and there is no fear, no armies on the streets, no dead predecessors. The outgoing guy just hands over to the incoming guy and life goes on." So I'm celebrating today in honor of my dad because, once again, I think he's right.

I think President-elect Obama's been horribly over-hyped. I'm almost going to feel sorry for him when the honeymoon is over and people begin to realize that he isn't a saint. He's just a fairly smart guy with limited political experience who's willingly thrown himself in the deep end. As comedian Chris Rock said, you can't even make fun of the guy. It's like: "Ooh, you're young and virile and you've got a beautiful wife and kids. You're the first African-American president." What else are you going to say? Rock goes on, though, by saying that eventually President Obama will screw up and then the comedians will get on him and the rest of us can take off the rose-colored glasses.

I read in another article that it has taken 44 years since the voting rights act passed for an African-American to become the 44th President. I hear people saying that Martin King's 'dream' is becoming a reality. I thought about that some days ago sitting in a restaurant here in Houston. It was an ethnically diverse group ... to the extreme. There was even a Russian among us. For a period of my life back at least in part of the 60s and certainly in the 50s, that mixing would never have happened. We have come a long way and if electing Senator Obama gets people to admit it, it's a good thing.

And the last bit of my political diatribe: The United States of America does make progress. We move forward. The rest of the world at times hates us because we mess up their comfortable status quo. We don't always move forward in the the right direction, but generally we look ahead. I contrast that with other countries who have dipped their toe into democratic waters, gotten scared and turned back to the safety of a somewhat benign dictator. People who long for socialism to keep them safe at the expense of moving forward.

Thanks, but I'll take the worst form of government over all the others, especially the US version.

Good luck, Barack. You're gonna need it. But your country will face forward with you, like we always do.

More testing of my ability to cope

You can probably guess by now that when days go by without a post from me, it is not a good sign.

Here's a litany of the past several days:

Family room and bedroom furniture arrived. Couch (a floor model and we knew it) had more damage than we would've liked including some disconcerting black stains on the back. One swivel chair has stitching on one seam coming out. The second chair has some of the ticking showing if you lift the cushion on the arm.

We found a few scratches on some of the bedroom pieces, but generally they were acceptable until ...

We discovered that each nightstand had lights underneath. Very cute. Just by touching them you could cycle through dim, medium, high and off settings. Frankly, we didn't even realize they had that feature. (And neither did the saleswoman, I should say.) We plugged 'em in, turned them on, liked them, and turned them off. A few minutes later, I come back into the room and they're on again. I figured Wife liked looking at them, but I wanted to save electricity, so I turned them off. A few minutes later I'm back in and they're back on. I stand there and stare for a few seconds, now they're off. A few more seconds, on - dim. A few more, on - medium. And then on - high before turning themselves off and starting the cycle again.

The saleswoman is actually at the house (more on that in a minute) so I ask, "What's the deal?"

She says, "Oh, just unplug them."

I say, "Wait a minute, I paid for these and they're supposed to work."

"Oh, well, I don't know ... "

So why is the saleswoman there? Because she and two of her minions brought four oriental rugs for us to see with the newly delivered furniture. The deal was that she would bring rugs in about our price range and we could choose. The first was way too red and it was easy to say "no". I'd liked it in the store but not on the floor. The next was really good. It looked completely different depending on which side of the room you were standing. It was the one the saleswoman originally picked for us when we were in the store. The third one was even better -- a bolder design, but looked fabulous in the room. The fourth one, not so good. Less traditional. We were ready to pull the trigger on the third one.

I ask, "How much?"

Rug seller (one of the minions) says a number that is more than double what we thought we were going to pay. I just blink.

Wife, quite appropriately, goes off on them saying, "You told me you were bringing carpets the same cost as the ones we looked at in the store."

"Oh, well these are bigger: 10x14, not 9x12."

"Why'd you do that?"

"Better for the room."

"Not if it is twice the budget. How much is it for 9x12?"

Cellphone calls and much punching of calculator buttons ensues. In about 10 minutes guy quotes a price still $1000 more than we'd agreed.

Bob is at the limit: "Sorry to waste your time. Pack this stuff up and get out of here. I told you we were over our budget just in buying your furniture. Out."

Response: "But such high quality ... highly discounted ... can't get elsewhere."

Rebuttal: "What part of 'get out' was unclear to you?"

Oh, yes and one more thing: the swivel chairs that we are unhappy about were floor models. Saleswoman says, "Oh we sell off the floor all the time. I never promised they'd come from warehouse."

Wife and I both say, "Oh, yes you did. The only thing that was not to come from the warehouse was the couch."

"Oh, no ..."

"... Oh, yes", we say

"... and your sales receipt clearly says 'all sales final, no returns'", she says.

We continue the battle with this, quite expensive I should tell you, store. I'm not giving the store's name, but when we get this resolved, or as resolved as we can get it, I'll publish the name and encourage everyone to avoid the place like the plague.

Continuing --

We also pulled the trigger on a new mattress and box spring - Simmons Beautyrest -- on sale -- a good deal, we think. Mattress looks good on the surface. Lots going on at the house; Wife's busy; she signs; delivery people leave. With more time she starts looking and finds loose threads on lots of the seams -- threads that just weren't cut off. But, also finds seams that are pulling out already. Only cosmetic, it appears, but still: we paid nearly $2000 for the set. She calls 'em back on the number delivery people gave. They say, "Sorry you signed for it." She calls the store and speaks to someone (our salesman's not there). The guy says he'll call the warehouse.

Long story longer: They agree to deliver new mattress after Wife threatens bodily injury to them if they don't. Delivery people show up one day late. Delivery man looks at mattress and says, "You don't want it." I'll bring you another." He goes away. He comes back a couple days later. Starts to unload, then says, "Worse than the other one." Goes away. Fourth try is supposed to be today. We'll see.

Lesson learned: when people deliver product, give them a cup of coffee and sit them down. Tell them they're going to be there for 30 minutes. Go thoroughly over every inch of the product. Have a cup of coffee yourself, then go over it again. Only then sign the papers.

And, oh, yes, Wife found broken tiles on roof during a cursory inspection she makes from a ladder. Calls warranty people. They come out and find as many as 25 tiles broken, saying that it looks like storm damage from Hurricane Ike. Why didn't our inspector find the damage? I don't know. We're in negotiations with warranty company on who's going to pay for replacing the tiles. Tiles are not part of warranty -- only leaks are. Grrrr.

Final straw: I go to fill up the car with gasoline yesterday and my card is denied ... my EMPLOYEE card is denied. I find out today that my bank didn't make my last payment like they were supposed to.

If this is a test, I'm on the border of not passing.

Sounds In the Night

I have a few more fishing tales that are funny too, even though they're not actually associated with setting out lines. Here's one that we still laugh at.

It was a hot, humid Illinois night. We had the exhaust fan running full blast pulling air in through our open windows and out through the attic. Air conditioning was a luxury we didn't think we needed or could afford back in those days. My bedroom window faced the backyard with its apple and cherry tree. You could hear the cars on the highway some quarter mile away, but traffic was always light. We were a ways out in the country. At the end of our street, the corn fields began.

It was late at night, probably after 2AM. I was sound asleep but something woke me. I lay awake listening. Then it came, "Knee-deep. Knee-deep. Rib-bit." A frog. Like a big bullfrog. Couldn't be. A creek ran a few blocks from our house (a favorite play spot of ours), but there was no way a frog would make its way to our backyard. I lay there a bit and then it came again: a loud, throaty "Knee-deep". This time it was followed by a cymbal "crash". Then all was quiet. In a few minutes, again "Knee-deep, knee-deep, clang". This time the clang sounded like two pot lids smashing together.

I went to the open window and peered into the backyard. I could see nothing but shadows. I watched to see if I could tell where the sound was coming from. Pretty soon I heard the "Knee-deep, knee-deep, rib-bit, bang" and this time a second metalic "bong" as well. It was definitely coming from the backyard and it sounded close, but I couldn't tell from where. I briefly thought about jumping out the window and going to look around, but it didn't seem worth it. I figured a frog had somehow found its way to the backyard. OK, but what was the metallic banging sound?

Late the next morning (in those days 'double-digits', as my daughter would later say, was definitely the right time to get out of bed) I stumbled out, and my dad was sitting at the kitchen table.

"I heard a frog." I said.

He grinned and said, "I know. I brought 'em home from the river last night. Biggest bullfrogs I ever saw. I just wanted you and your sister to see 'em."

"What did you keep them in?"

"Minnow bucket."

And now the mystery was solved. We went out in back and next to the cherry tree sat one of his metal 'minnie buckets'. He popped the lid's fastener and opened the top. Two huge frogs sat goggle-eyed in the bottom of the bucket.

I laughed to think about them trying to get out last night. A couple warning croaks and then an escape jump. BONG! Little froggy head hitting the top of the bucket. Slight concussion. Shaking of head. Sitting dazed in the bottom of the bucket. Recovery. Croak. Jump. Bong.

Now they looked like they'd finally learned their lesson. They sat staring up at us from the bottom of the bucket.

Dad said he'd released them into the creek near the house later.

When I Was A Boy (WIWAB) - Read All The Posts

My last post completes something I've intended to do for a long time: write some of the stories that revolved around my dad's and my setting out lines on the banks of the Mackinaw River in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. If you want to read all the posts as a short story, here are links to all the "When I Was a Boy" posts. I've marked my favorites with asterisks. Use the comments feature to let me know which ones you like ... if any. Critical comments appreciated too.

1 Fishing In Dad's Day
2 ... But When I Was A Boy - Getting Ready To Go
Seinin' Minnies
3 Driving To the Mackinaw
4 We Arrive
5 Getting Started
6 My First Pole
7 Set the Lines
8 Nettles and Firewood
9 Got One
10 Definition of Patience (*)
11 Hidey Hole
12 Runnin' the Lines
13 Harry's
14 Running Lines in the Dark
15 Where's the Pole?
16 Big Fish and Shooting Stars (*)
17 Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
18 Last Run
19 Home and Back Again
20 Sunday Afternoon

WIWAB - Sunday Afternoon

We arrived home just before noon -- tired, dirty, and happy. Dad parked the car in the driveway in front of the house.

"First things first. Let me find something to put the fish in. Start unloading the car will ya'?"

He opened the trunk and then quickly disappeared into the house.

I started carrying the gear from the trunk into the back yard and laying it out in the shade of the apple tree. After only a couple trips, Dad was back with a metal tub and a big plastic bucket. He filled them with water from the tap on the side of the house. He pulled the net full of fish from the back seat, carried them into the backyard, and one by one put them into the containers of water. The largest one forced water over the rim of the tub when he slid it in.

"That ought to hold them while we get things cleaned up a little. You keep going and I'll get the poles."

Pretty soon we had the car unloaded and the gear spread out in the yard. He hooked the garden hose to the spigot and began hosing off all the equipment: nets, waders, my wet jeans -- everything that didn't mind a little water. He untied the bundles of poles and sprayed water on them concentrating on the muddy butt ends. When they were clean, he shut off the water and stood the poles against the side of the garage in the sun. Waders got thrown over the clothes lines.

"Guess I better do those fish. You can go get cleaned up if you want. I can handle it," he said as he started to go into the house. I hung around outside and pretty soon he was back. His arms were full -- a wad of news papers, a pair pliers, a knife, a ceramic bowl from the kitchen. He laid the stuff in the grass, went in the garage and came back with a lawn chair. Setting that in the shade he brought over the stuff from the house and the containers of fish.

He began pulling the fish from the containers and laying them in the grass -- sorting them by size. "... eight, nine, ten, eleven. That's a pretty darn good haul for this day and age. I haven't come back with that many in a long time. Couldn't 'of done it without you." I grinned at him as he said it.

With a sigh he sat down in the chair and picked up one of the fish. It lay gasping in his hand; its mouth opening and closing. It croaked like a frog and I jumped.

"They do that sometimes." Dad said. "The darn things can live quite a while out of water. They actually can breathe air using their swim bladders." And with that he picked up the knife. "Remember how to do this?" I gulped and nodded ... hoping he wouldn't ask me to clean one.

"Cut around his head just behind the fins." I flinched. The fish was still gasping in his hand as he did it. "Guess I should'a put him out of his misery first." With that he picked up the heavy pliers, laid the fish in grass and gave it a bash on the head. He eyed it for a second then hit it again, leaving a dent in its skull this time. I stood on one foot and then the other. He picked up the fish again.

"So cut around his body. Hold his head in your palm and put your fingers behind his fins. Careful: spines on these little ones are sharp as heck and they're poisonous ... oh, not enough to kill you, but they really hurt when they cut you.

Then grab the skin with the pliers and pull down toward his tail. It comes off like you're taking off a sock.

Now cut from his touch-hole to his chin." He said it with a grin.

"Make a cut down through his back. Now just hold his body with one hand, his head in the other, and pull down. All his guts come right out.

"Clean up his insides with the edge of your knife, cut off the tail and you're done."

That old man could skin and clean a catfish in less than two minutes. I tried and tried over the years; I never could do it.

In less than an hour all the fish were cleaned and laying in the big bowl of water.

The rest of that Sunday was a slow winding down from the work of the weekend. We showered, got some lunch. Dad had a beer or two in front of the TV. When the gear was dry we put it away. The poles went back in the garage rafters.

We slept well that night.