Dora today

The breeder sent us photos of our puppy taken today.

It’s the real one

Granddaugher Lisa gets her first look at the real Statue of Liberty after five years of looking at the half-size reproduction at the New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

That’s her mom, Nicky, on the left. Son Steve shot the photo about 1:30 p.m. CDT today.

Flying to New York

My son Steve posted this photo of granddaughter Lisa this afternoon during a layover at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport’s Humphrey Terminal.

I presume they are flying from their home in Las Vegas to New York City to spend a weekend with Nicky and maybe do a little house-hunting.

Lisa, as always, is a Force of Nature.

Excuses, excuses

If my day was going according to plan, I would be sitting in my $8.43 red Walmart chair right now, next to my tent with my Indianapolis BMW Club friends at the European Riders Rally in Burkesville, Ky.

But my day did not go according to plan.

I am, instead, sitting at my desk in my upstairs office and my bike is directly beneath my feet in the garage.

I’ve been looking forward to this weekend since I got back from Daytona Beach Bike Week in March but digestive turmoil and a rain-filled forecast trashed my plans.

Mostly it was the rainy forecast. It’s a 6½ hour ride from here to Burkesville, not counting gas and rest stops. I had planned to hit the road about 7 a.m., but it was raining steadily and an examination of the radar made it clear that I would be in rain most of the way to the rally and could probably expect to set up my tent in the rain.

And the Weather Channel app on my iPhone says there is a 60 percent chance of rain tonight and again tomorrow, decreasing to 50 percent on Sunday.

As much as I enjoy seeing my Indy friends and rallying, that doesn’t sound like a good time to me.

I just sent an email to the rally organizers asking if I can still get a rally shirt and pin, since I pre-registered and paid $40. I am hopeful they will say yes.

I toyed briefly with the idea of driving my Lexus SUV to the rally, but dismissed the idea after I calculated it would cost close to $125 in gasoline. Plus, I would still end up setting up a tent in the rain and spend the weekend dodging raindrops.

And, yes, there was a time when I would have gone anyway. But when a guy gets to his mid-60s with more than 300,000 BMW miles behind him, he has pretty much run out of things to prove to himself. I’ve ridden hundreds of miles in downpours and, even though I have the best waterproof gear I’ve ever owned, I don’t care to do it this weekend.

In the mail this morning

I probably paid about $10 too much for these two Pioneer Trails cups from the Wallace China Westward Ho series, but they don’t show up very often on Ebay and I had none in my collection.

So there.

But I was a little alarmed when I picked up the package at the post office and heard the clink of cup-against-cup when I tipped the box from one side to the other.

When I got home and opened the box I found the sloppiest job of packing I’ve ever seen in my years of buying Western themed china online. It’s a testament to the hardiness of Wallace China’s restaurantware that there were no chips or cracks from rough handling in transit.

So now I await the arrival of three Pioneer Trails saucers and three Pioneer Trails dinner plates from another Ebay vendor.

From the September, 1954 Popular Science

My dad had a compass installed on the dashboard of our 1951 Ford and I thought it was ultra-cool.

This one is more advanced in that it pretends to give you information on the side-to-side tilt of your car and the rate of acceleration (or deceleration).

And how about this offer of a car tire for a buck? But wait, they’re used tires.

It’s our 12th anniversary!

Maria and I were married 12 years ago today under this quilt in the rotunda of the Boone County (Ind.) Courthouse by County Clerk and longtime friend Lisa Garoffolo.

Given Maria’s love for quilting and fabric art, it was the perfect venue.

The timing was perfect, too. We had both been divorced, but had taken our time about jumping back into marriage until we had our heads on straight and knew it was right.

It was right and I think God every day for this brilliant, loving woman.

Jack’s first encounter with the indestructible Varsity Ball

We gave Jack a $2.50 Walmart beach ball a couple of weeks ago, which lasted all of 90 fun-filled seconds until he punctured it.

I searched the internet for an indestructible ball and discovered the Varsity Ball which has survived prolonged encounters with lions and tigers and bears.

I ordered one and it arrived this morning. Here’s how it went before the Varsity Ball wore him out.

I think it’s stress

Yesterday’s Pipida scan showed my gallbladder is working fine.

So now I get to endure an endoscopy and a colonoscopy on June 4. At 6:15 a.m. Oh, well. I’ve been putting off the colonoscopy for a couple of years, so I might as well get it over with.

My M.D. daughter-in-law opined that I may have diabetic gastropariesis. I just looked up the symptoms:

Typical symptoms include:

• Nausea - sometimes
• Vomiting - no
• Abdominal bloating - no
• Abdominal pain - sometimes
• Feelings of fullness after only a few bites of food - no
• Heartburn or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) - sometimes
• Changes in blood sugar levels - maybe
• Lack of appetite - no
• Excessive weight loss – hell no

I’m more inclined to think I’m dealing with stress-induced or aggravated Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). I had something like it when I was in my teens and early 20s, but it stopped cold when I learned Transcendental Meditation. I haven’t been a regular meditator since late in 1992, but the times I’m included TM in my morning routine lately, my symptoms have abated. Since it costs me nothing to try, I’m going back to the prescribed regimen of 20-minute meditations twice daily and see what happens.

God knows I’ve been under enough stress over the past couple of years.

Does posting about my medical adventures qualify me as an old person?

Does riding 1,000 to a weekend motorcycle rally redeem me as an active late middle-ager? One can hope.

Our Lady of the Roses

This figure of Mary, which we acquired from Maria's brother when he became Amish, spent several years in parts of the yard that were prone to weeds. Now she has a more appropriate setting

I like it

Surprisingly smooth and not hoppy.

Family portraits

One of those little gray butterballs is our little girl Dora, shown here with her littermates and her proud mother Mercy.

Here’s Storm, the father:

Two hours of intense boredom

This is how I spent a couple of hours this morning at St. Bernards Medical Center, getting my gallbladder function scanned.

The worst part of it, aside from the discomfort of lying flat on my back for two hours on a steel table, was the tedium.

I was glad to have Maria along for company and photography.

We expect to get results tomorrow or Wednesday.

Waiting

Waiting for a Pipida scan at St. Bernard's  Medical Center and listening to horror stories about kneecaps being put in upside down and backward.

Oh, Canada!

Canadian-grown heirloom tomato from Kroger.

It’s Dora

Joleen Marple, the breeder we’re getting our puppy from, sent a couple more photos of our blue merle little girl.

We’re decided to call her Dora, which was my grandmother’s name and goes nicely with her last name of Flora. The name means “gift.”

Joleen said she’ll start calling her Dora so she’ll know her name by the time we take her home on June 22.

Joining our family

I just put money down on this 10-day-old blue merle Aussie female puppy.

Maria has been praying for a puppy for weeks and I stumbled across an Arkansas breeder on Facebook this morning who had two blue merle females in a litter born May 1.

She gets to come to our house on June 22, which creates a quandry for me, since I had planned to be at the BMW RA rally at the Biltmore that weekend.

What to do? What to do?

In the meantime, we’re accepting suggestions for names.

Our hope is that, given the appropriate amount of time, she and Jack can have a couple of litters and we’ll be up to our eyes in Aussie puppies. What a happy circumstance!

Happy Birthday, Blog

My blog is nine years old today.

I never expected it to continue this long, but here we are. This is my 4,818th blogpost. The counter I installed in May, 2007, has recorded more than a quarter-million pageviews since then.

When I began blogging on Monday, May 10, 2004, I was a youthful 58 years old, living in a 101-year-old Queen Anne Victorian house in Thorntown, Ind. with my wife, who was working at The Indianapolis Star’s Metro West Bureau in Avon.

My stepson Austin was living with us and still in high school and his sister Morgan was a student at the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and the Humanities on the campus of Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.

We had one dog – Ruthie – and I was looking forward to my second riding season on my new 2003 BMW K1200GT.

If you had told me I would be living in Arkansas and liking it some nine years hence, I wouldn’t have believed it. Ditto for having my second Australian shepherd, driving a Lexus SUV, and owning an office building in downtown Jonesboro.

My son Sean was in Portland then and still is, but his brother Steve and his wife and daughter moved from Cincinnati to Las Vegas and are preparing to move again to New York City, or maybe just across the river to New Jersey.

Austin has grown into a responsible man with sensitivity and character. Morgan has been married, moved to Arizona, divorced, moved in with us in October, landed her dream job as a children’s librarian, and is buying a home for herself here.

And we have renters living in our Thorntown house.

Isn’t life interesting?

I hate it

I hate it when the people in the booth behind me fail to control their kid.

I can assure you that neither of my sons was ever permitted to annoy other diners thusly.

Capt. Kroon’s V-E Day Letter

Sixty-eight years ago today, 26-year-old Capt. Philip C. Kroon, an artillery officer with the U.S. Army's 144th Field Artillery Group, took pen in hand in the garden outside an Austrian hotel and wrote a letter to his young bride in Redlands, Calif.
It was V-E Day - Victory in Europe Day - and the young captain from Grand Rapids, Mich., had been in combat since his unit came ashore in Normandy a few weeks after the June 6, 1944, invasion. He was looking forward to coming home, but mindful that the war against Japan seemed far from finished and that he might be needed in the Pacific Theatre.
Here is what he wrote on a sheet of Adolf Hitler's personal letterhead, liberated a day or two earlier from the Führer's Berghof retreat at nearby Berchtesgaden:

My adored wife,
Finally the work of the past year for me and over three years for the nation is completed. The war here is over completely. Of course, we are glad it is over, but to us it is sort of an anti-climax. For nearly two months now, we have completely routed the Germans. During the past few days we have seen steady streams of German soldiers marching to the rear. At some places, even the super-highway is jammed. It was a sight never to forget and one that only happens once in a lifetime. I wanted to get some pictures of it, but my camera was stolen some time ago. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to worry. I now have another very good German camera that I took from a German soldier, so am better equipped than before.
Now that we are no longer at war here, I should have more time to write you and expect to get off better than one letter every five or six days. In fact, it's now been seven days this time. I'm sorry, darling. I'll try to make it up to you.
About a week ago I went through the Dachau concentration camp. Any pictures you see or stories you hear are only a small part of the picture. The stench was indescribable as well as the actual scenes. I saw some of the toughest soldiers nauseated. I won't tell you any details for they shouldn't be put on paper. It was the most terrible thing I have ever seen.
In contrast, a couple of days ago I went through one of Hitler's palaces -not the one at Berchtesgaden, but an old Hapsburg palace  that he took over. It was a paragon of beauty and symmetry. In the two main floors was not a sign of Nazi Occupation except that most of the furnishings had been looted, mainly from France.
The walls were covered with priceless tapestries, the floors with thick pile rugs. We were nearly the first soldiers in the place and looked through it by ourselves. We went snooping in the cellar and came across two storage rooms. One was nearly filled with medals, of which I have a few choice ones. I also found one silver knife (not table) in the house - the only one there, so I suppose it belonged to Hitler. In another room, we found some stationery, of which this is the choicest. His personal. I have quite a bit of it and will send it home. You can give a sheet to various people, but save some of each kind, especially this with just "Der Führer" on it. I also came across some other excellent souvenirs - One pair of field glasses - the best I have ever seen - fifteen power - this may not mean much to you, but they are two and ½ times as powerful as the ones I and Pop used to have The must be worth three or four hundred dollars. I also have a pair of Luftwaffe swords that are not in the best of shape but will look good fixed up and crossed in my den if I ever have one.
Guess what, Sweets. I shaved off my mustache today - because the war is over. No one noticed it so I guess it couldn't have been so good. I'm not making any plans for a quick return home, beloved, nor am I getting any fancy ideas about it. I would give anything just to spend a few weeks with you, but there is much to be done, both here and in the Orient and I'm sure I'll be one place or the other.
Some will get to go home on their way to the Pacific and rumors are already afloat, but I'm not counting on anything - then we won't have the disappointment.
These Bavarian Alps are really beautiful, dearest mine. They are all snow covered yet, although we are not very high and last week we had snow in Munich. Today was marvelous. The view of the mountains is similar to that from our front yard, though the mountains are much closer and not as high.
During the last mad rush we have been getting practically no mail and I'm way behind, although today I got the letter you wrote on the eve of our anniversary. Sweet - just as they all are - but why not, with the sweetest wife in the world writing them. I wish my letters would get there more regularly. You probably have had a batch since that time, but it is nicer when they come spread over a long time.
Darling, I adore you completely. I don't dream of you often, but that isn't my fault. When I'm awake I can control my thoughts and they always include you. Always I wish you could share the beautiful scenery and the old German cities - Worms, Nurnberg, Augsberg, Munich, Saltzburg and the rest with me. Maybe, in future years, after they are rebuilt we will see them together. Anything we could do together would be wonderful. One thing in particular - I miss you so, Jeanie. I'll always adore you.
Your only Phil
P.S.
A little picture of you know who.

The cease fire order for XV Corps.

Capt. Kroon came home six months later. He made a career of the Army, taking a reduction in rank to sergeant in order to remain in a downsized postwar military. His last duty post was as an instructor in the Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Purdue University. Following his retirement, he worked for the U.S. Postal Service. He died of cancer in 1988. Diane, the first of his three daughters, was born Oct. 30, 1946, and grew up to be my first wife.

BMW throttle friction screw

How many folks know about the throttle friction screw for early K-bikes and airhead BMW motorcycles?

I have one on my '94 K75S and I had one on my '81 R100RS. It can be tightened or loosened to achieve just the right amount of friction to overcome the throttle return spring and keep the throttle from snapping shut when you take your right hand off of the grip.

I was chagrined to discover my '91 K100RS right handgrip assembly was not drilled and tapped for the screw, so I used a Bob's Wrist Rest instead.

Here are the parts numbers, but I don't think any dealers carry them anymore.

• K bikes:  32-72-1-454-414
• Airheads:  32-72-1-230-874

I was wrong. Max BMW has the K-bike version for $9.65. http://www.maxbmwmotorcycles.com/fiche/DiagramsMain.aspx?vid=51745

An ashtray from the ashes of the Third Reich

Sixty-eight years ago this week, Capt. Phil Kroon, a Grand Rapids, Mich., boy serving with the U.S. Army’s 144th Field Artillery Group, had a chance to rummage through Adolf Hitler’s Berghof retreat at Berchtesgaden and a Diplomatic Corps castle down the road.

Capt. Kroon brought home a lot of cool stuff, including this heavy granite ashtray from the Berghof. There’s no chance that Hitler used it because he was a non-smoker. In fact, he had a standing offer of a gold watch for any member of his entourage who quit smoking.

Capt. Kroon was my father-in-law from my first marriage. He took a reduction in rank to remain in uniform when the Army downsized after World War II and served in Okinawa and Korea. He moved his family from Redlands, Calif. to Lafayette, Ind. when he was assigned to the Army ROTC program at Purdue University. That’s how I happened to meet his eldest daughter, Diane.

Phil Kroon was a good man who loved his family, his country, and his church and served them all faithfully until pancreatic cancer took his life in 1988 at the age of 69.

Check back tomorrow to read the letter he wrote to his wife on V-E Day, May 8, 1945.

Helluva ride

Makes my riding plans for 2013 look pretty tame.

Adios, Doc

I was startled to hear that Otis Bowen, who was governor of Indiana from 1973 to 1981 and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Ronald Reagan, died Saturday in a Donaldson, Ind., nursing home at the age of 95.

I was startled because I didn’t realize he was still alive.

I have a picture of me and Doc Bowen shaking hands at the Indianapolis Press Club back in the 1970s when I was elected to the Press Club board of directors. I can’t find it to post here, so this photo I shot at the dedication of a now-defunct theme park near Thorntown in 1971 will have to suffice.

Doc Bowen (he was an M.D. from Bremen, Ind.) served two terms and was generally well liked. He was a Republican.

Jack sings

Jack likes to sing along

Jack, our 20-month-old Aussie, is the first dog I ever had who pays attention to TV.

He especially likes to watch dogs on TV, so I’ve been entertaining him with YouTube videos of herding dogs at work, dogs playing at the dog park, and especially videos of dogs howling.

He loves to sing along.

Easy Reader

I’ve had the Kindle app on my iPod for years and my iPhone 5 since I got it late last year and I’ve read a few e-books using it.

But it wasn’t the satisfying reading experience I wanted and I knew that, sooner or later, I was going to want a serious dedicated e-reader.

Maria got a Kindle Fire about a year ago and uses it all the time. She encouraged me to get one too, but I didn’t like the illuminated screen that was hard to see in direct sunlight. (I guess I envisioned myself reading on a beach somewhere.)

I looked at the other Kindle offerings and settled on the $139 Paperwhite with build-in illumination and a claimed battery life of 8 weeks.

It showed up last Tuesday and I bought a Kindle copy of a World War II history by Antony Beevor, an author who’s previous books entertained the hell out of me.

With a 6” diagonal screen (4¾”x3½”), it fits in a 5”x7”x½” case that makes it easier to carry than a conventional paperback book. With the illumination turned off,  it reads just like a piece of paper. With the illumination dialed up, I can read in total darkness.

I think I like it.

Rain

The rain finally stopped this afternoon and I dumped almost 5 inches of water out of the rain gauge.
I got an unexpectedly quick report from this morning's ultrasound.
Gallbladder looks normal with no stones. Now they want to set me up with a Pipida scan (look it up if you care) to check gallbladder function. Fine with me as long as it doesn't interfere with my rally plans this month.
We tried to get in to see Iron Man 3 after dinner but all the screenings were sold out so we're hanging out at Barnes & Noble.

Not a BMW rally wristband

 I presented myself at St. Bernards Imaging Center at 7 a.m. today for an abdominal ultrasound to let my doctor have a look at my suspiciously behaving gallbladder. It took about a half-hour and I get the results sometime early next week.

Now I’m hanging out at Panera, having sprinted across the parking lot in a very cold (43 degrees) rain, where I wolfed down a bowl of oatmeal. It’s been raining like a mofo since about 6 p.m. yesterday. I meant to check the rain gauge when I left home this morning, but was preoccupied and forgot. I’m betting it’s got close to 2” of water in it.

It could be worse. They got snow in northwest Arkansas.

Off to a weird start

The cable, which includes TV, Internet, and phone was out this morning. The cable provider's line was busy when I called on my cell phone, so I figure they know about the problem.
And Maria noticed one of the carriage light bulbs had broken loose from its base in a way I've not seen before.
What next?

In today’s mail

Here’s the fabulous Pioneer Trails 13½” chop plate I scored last Sunday night on Ebay.

It’s the largest piece in the Wallace China Westward Ho Pioneer Trails series and a glorious example of the artistic work of Till Goodan, whose signature is at the bottom of the scene.

While I love the Rodeo and Boots & Saddle patterns, I have a special fondness for the Pioneer Trails stuff.

Here are the major pieces in my collection – mostly Pioneer Trails – which is rapidly outgrowing the limits of our china cabinet.

Moving again

I’ve been thinking about getting back on the treadmill for weeks.

It stood dust-covered in our cluttered garage for months, silently taunting me every time I came and went through the garage.

I’ve been subtly preparing myself to climb aboard for the last few days. Early this week, I put a charge in my iPod mini, but the events of Monday and Tuesday, leading up to the closing on our building, either got in the way or provided a good excuse not to start – you pick, both work for me.

But a new month dawned this morning and it seemed like the perfect time for a new beginning. I strapped on my Suunto Advizor watch/heart monitor, only to discover the battery was dying.

Undaunted, I realized I don’t need heart rate data, so I put my Breitling back on, laced up my Bates boots, ran an extension cord to an outlet in the house (the treadmill doesn’t like outlets with built-in circuit-breakers, which is all we have in the garage), flipped the switch, stepped up and pressed the “start” button.

I figured I’d take it easy, having lost stamina and muscle tone to months of couch potato-ness, but I underestimated the power of good exercising music and found myself bumping the speed up. I ended up covering a mile in about 22 minutes, which is farther and longer than I expected to go.

Now, two hours later, I can still feel the endorphins. I’d forgotten how good it feels to get moving.

Sold

We are now officially in the real estate investment business, doing business as Bucksnort Properties LLC.

We closed this afternoon on this 7,000-square-foot office building in downtown Jonesboro. We’re calling it the Flora Building, mostly out of a sense of whimsy.

We drove by the building after dinner this evening and were pleased to see the seller’s Realtor has updated the For Sale signs from “Pending” to “Sold.”

Our friend Susan, who has been pretty successful in commercial real estate deals, found this property and decided it was perfect for us.

We checked it out, crunched the numbers, and decided she was probably right.

We have tenants with long-term leases, so the financing went through without a hitch.

I still have the white enamel-clad letters that adorned the front of my father’s insurance agency in Delphi until he retired and sold the business in the mid-1970s.

It’s kinda tempting to use five of them to put “FLORA” on the front of the building, but maybe that would be a bit much.

Either way, I think he would have been proud.

The Flora Building

We closed today on the Flora Building in downtown Jonesboro.

More later.

Glorious spring morning

After a gray rainy weekend it was a pleasure to get out on the K75S and run errands this morning.
You can smell so much more on a bike - honeysuckle, skunk, wild onion, and something that smells like a freshly sharpened Ticonderoga No. 2 pencil.

I can see clearly now

The rain has gone and it left .6 of an inch of water in the rain gauge.

In today’s mail

I was a Hopalong Cassidy fan when I was a little kid, so I couldn’t resist throwing an opening bid of $4.99 at this 9½” Hopalong Cassidy plate the other day on Ebay. Nobody else wanted it, so I got it and it arrived in this morning’s mail.

Behind me is a framed piece of 1950s Hopalong Cassidy wallpaper, exactly like the wallpaper my parents used to decorate my room where we lived until the spring of my third grade year. I wonder if the paper is still there, under a few subsequent layers, or if it got scraped off.

Another Oracle gone

Mike Packard, or “Mick” as his high school friends knew him, was a year older than I but we were in high school musical groups together and were friends.

When I was writing a weekly column on motorcycling for The Indianapolis News and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles was about to institute motorcycle skills testing, I called Mick to ask if I would watch examiners being trained. He did me one better and invited me to be a member of the first class of examiners.

I accepted and eventually helped train new examiners until Evan Bayh became governor in 1989 and put skills testing in the hands of fulltime BMV employees.

Here’s his obit from The Indianapolis Star:

 

Michael M. Packard of Indianapolis, IN, passed away on April 25, 2013, following a battle with cancer. Michael was born on January 16, 1944 to Marvin and Alta Packard in Delphi, IN. He married Lorrie (McMinn) Packard in June of 1990. They have two children, Kameron and Keenan.

Michael graduated from Delphi High School in 1962 and graduated from Indiana State University with a B.S. degree in Psychology in 1966.

He worked for PSI Electric and then was Comptroller at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. There he was appointed Commissioner of the BMV by Governor Otis Bowen. He received the Sagamore of the Wabash from Governor Bowen. He was also appointed as acting State Auditor, acting Secretary of State, and acting State Treasurer during his political career. Michael also was Deputy Constable for Decatur Township for 18 years.

Michael loved horseback riding and was a member of the "Wild Bunch." He was also active in Boy Scouts of America for several years. Michael was also Assistant Golf Coach at Decatur Middle School for five years.

Michael is survived by his wife and children. He also leaves behind three brothers, Dave (Pennie), Rick (Ellen) and Bob.

Family and friends may attend calling from 2 P.M. to 6 P.M. on Sunday, April 28, 2013 and from 9 A.M. to 10 A.M., Monday, April 29, 2013 in Jones Family Mortuary in Mooresville, IN. Charles Paxton will officiate the 10 A.M. celebration of life funeral on Monday, April 29, 2013 in Jones Family Mortuary. Michael will be laid to rest in West Newton Cemetery.

Memorial contributions can be made to Camby Community Church, 8604 Camby Road, Camby, IN 46113. Website and online condolences: http://www.jonesfamilymortuary.com

Adios, LaDora

LaDora’s mother was my cousin, so I guess that made her a second cousin, or something like that. I was startled to learn that she died yesterday morning in a nursing home.

M. LaDora Hamilton
LaDora Hamilton, 67, of Carroll County passed away on April 25, 2013, at 6:23 a.m. at Milner Community Health Care in Rossville.
LaDora was born on April 9, 1946, in Lafayette to the late William J. and Barbara E. (Rodenbarger) Dickinson.
She was a 1964 graduate of Delphi High School and a graduate of Wright Beauty College in Kokomo.
LaDora retired as a gear lab technician for Fairfield Manufacturing in Lafayette after 17 years. She had also been owner and operator of Styles by LaDora.
She enjoyed crafts, singing, reading, watching movies, mushroom hunting, and riding her golf cart along the Wildcat Creek.
She is survived by her daughter, AunDrea (Bieghler) Schock (husb: Rod) of Delphi; her sister, Belinda Weatherwax (husb: Deet) of Delphi; grandchildren: Jake Bieghler (companion: Stefanie Dobson) of Cutler and Ali Bieghler (companion: Mikie Dubes) of Camden and Caleb Biegler of Delphi; and great grandchildren: Kaylyn and Ty Michael; niece: Elizabeth Hofmann and nephew: William Weatherwax.
She was preceded by her parents and one brother: Ronald I. Dickinson.
Viewing will be at Davidson Funeral Home from 10:00 a.m. to the 11:00 a.m. service on Saturday, April 27, 2013. Rev. Bill Glenn will officiate. Burial in Ball Hill Cemetery, Cutler.
Memorial Contributions may be made to the Milner Activity Fund.
Online Condolences: www.davidsonfh.com.

Her older brother, Ronnie, used to bully me and throw rocks at me. He died a few years ago in Florida. I forgive him for being a mean-spirited beefwit.

Dog TV

Jack likes to watch herding dog videos on YouTube.

Your healthcare dollars at work

I went to the doctor this afternoon to see if my self-diagnosis of a gallbladder problem was plausible.

Obamacare hasn’t compelled him to ask me about guns in my house yet, but it does require him to hand out “educational” material to each patient. I received this handout on best techniques to sleep – on my back or on my side – for back health. Homo sapiens has been around for about 200,000 years, but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – run by the Satanic Catherine Sibelius – thinks we need instructions on how to sleep. And you know who ends up paying for this crap. I told him to put my copy in the trash.

He agreed that the two episodes I’ve had, both of which followed a meal of fatty, greasy food, sound like a gallbladder problem, so he scheduled me for a gallbladder ultrasound a week from tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m definitely off of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Outback Steakhouse’s breaded, fried crawfish.

Another reason to love Arkansas!

The Arkansas Legislature and Gov. Bebee this month gave Arkansans what has come to be known as “Constitutional Carry,” the right to carry a handgun openly or concealed without the need to obtain a Concealed Carry Permit.

It has long been legal to carry a handgun while “on a journey’” but the language was vague as to what constitutes a journey. Act. 746 clarifies the law and calls a journey any travel outside the gun owner’s county of residence. But the second section of the law goes even further, making carrying a handgun unlawful only if the prosecutor can establish intent to commit a crime with it or prove the actual commission of a crime with the gun.

Here’s the link to Act. 746.

The revisions take effect sometime in July.

Chicken head revisited

I blogged this in November, 2004, and I expect few – if any – of my readers have been with me long enough or have delved deep enough in the archives to have read it:

 

Another blogger recently used the expression "chicken with its head cut off" to describe a state of extreme excitement and it triggered a nostalgic flashback about my mother.
My mom was raised on a farm and had a farmer's sensibility about animal rights - essentially, "We own the animals and can do whatever the hell we want with them." Sort of a Book of Genesis "dominion over the animals" perspective that still makes sense to me. Except for dogs, of course. Dogs are simple little people trapped in hairy bodies who just want to make us happy.
There's an old American Indian legend that tells of a time when the Great Spirit split the human and animal worlds apart and, at the last moment, only the dog leaped across the expanding chasm to be with man.
But I digress.
When I was young - in the single-digit age range - my mother occasionally bought a live chicken as part of her grocery shopping. I don't know where she got it. I don't remember ever seeing live chickens in the little IGA grocery store where we shopped.
At any rate, she would take the hapless hen out into our back yard and, with one deft and practiced two-handed twist, rip its head off.
I watched in amazement as the headless chicken dashed blindly around the yard, its wings beating wildly and a fountain of crimson spouting from its neck, until it flopped over in the grass.
That was the first time I witnessed death - not counting insects and other lower life forms - but it wasn't until much later that I grasped the irony that it was being dealt by the same person who gave me life.
You still hear and read the headless chicken metaphor these days, but it's an abstraction to most people born since 1950 - certainly to anyone not raised on a farm.
I have no idea why my mother chose to kill and dress her own chicken rather than just buy it ready to cook from the grocery. I don't know if fresh-killed chicken is supposed to taste better or if it was just cheaper or if she just did it out of nostalgia for how she was raised. And she's not around anymore to ask.
She's gone to the land of the headless chickens. Let's hope they don't hold a grudge.

Tire math

There it is, plain as day, worked out on a napkin at Panera Bread Co. the other day – the math leading up to today’s purchase of a set of Michelin Pilot Road 3 tires for my 2003 BMW K1200GT.

The tires on the bike now were installed in August, 2010 by the BMW dealer in Champaign, Ill. and have 8,520 miles on them. They are Michelin Pilot Road 2 tires which are a dual-compound – harder in the center and softer on the sides for long wear and good traction in the turns.

They replaced another set of Pilot Road 2s that still had a few miles left in them after 9,607 miles. So, given those numbers, I’ve got at least another 1,000 miles of riding left on my present set and probably a lot more.

The most miles I’ve ever gotten out of a set of tires on this bike was 11,650 on a pair of Metzelers.

The tread depth is still good – about double what it takes to pass the “penny test” where you insert a penny into the tread with Lincoln’s head first. If there is enough tread depth to reach the top of the Great Emancipator’s head, you’re good to go. If not, time for new tires.

So I figure I have more than enough tread left for the European Riders Rally next month in Burkesville, Ky. (800 miles round trip) and almost certainly for the BMW RA Rally in North Carolina in June (1,108 miles round trip). But there is no way they will last to the BMW MOA Rally in Salem, Ore., with a side trip to Portland and down to Big Sur (<> 5,900 miles) in July.

If I wanted to get the most possible miles out of my current tires, I’d plan to replace them after the RA rally. But if I want to get it done well below dealer cost, I need to order them from Motorcycle Superstore and mount them myself, which means with the assistance of BMW friend Charlie and his No-Mar tire changing equipment.

(The Champaign dealer charged me $508.62 – $144 of it labor – for my current tires. The Pilot Road 3s I ordered today came to $347.98 with free shipping. That’s a saving of more than $160 over what I figure I’d have to pay at a dealer, especially since the Pilot Road 3 is a more expensive, improved version of the Pilot Road 2.)

The tricky part here is that Charlie and his wife Deb won’t be around between the RA and MOA rallies because they’ll be on the road from North Carolina to Oregon. So if I want Charlie’s help and equipment, I’ll have to re-tire before the RA rally.

That’s why I pulled the trigger on new tires today.

It’s all right there on the napkin.