Petfinder has announced the most popular dog names from 2011. “Buddy” continues to dominate the doggy world for the fifth year in a row. The Twilight saga seems to have some influence over dog owners, as the name “Bella” appears high on the list. I’m pleased to see the name we picked for our Aussie pup – Jack – is on the list.
1. Buddy
2. Max
3. Daisy
4. Bella
5. Lucy
6. Molly
7. Charlie
8. Jack
9. Sadie
10. Rocky
Maria called yesterday afternoon to say they needed a photo illustration of a dog in a kennel to go with George Jared’s story on the Women’s Crisis Center partnering with Northeast Arkansans For Animals to care for pets of women who flee abusive homes.
I asked Jack, the Aussie pup, if he would like to help and he agreed. At least I think he agreed. He went into his kennel when I tossed in a treat.
So here he is, 2 columns wide, on page A8 of this morning’s paper.
Cute little guy, isn’t he?
Jack will be 17 weeks old tomorrow. He’s been with us 5½ weeks and is growing like crazy!
I took Maria’s ‘94 BMW K75S for a pleasant 25-mile jaunt on Christmas Day, thinking it may be my last ride of 2011.
But the forecast calls for highs in the mid- to upper 50s tomorrow through the end of the week, so I may get a few more miles in.
My BMW mileage for 2011 stands at a rather pathetic 6,323 miles – down significantly from last year when I logged 9,343 miles – my best riding year since 2004 when I rode 10,163 miles and way short of my all-time personal record of 21,928 miles in 1993.
My Christmas Day ride was inspired by a visit earlier in the day by Jonesboro BMW riding friends Charlie and Deb Parsons, who showed up on their GS bikes to meet Jack the Aussie puppy. Also, it had been a month since my last ride on the K75S and I want to keep the battery up. I’d put it on a trickle charger, but the accessory plug isn’t connected to the battery and the battery terminals are buried under body work and mechanical stuff.
It was a pleasant ride up U.S. 49 to Paragould, then back roads to home along Crowley’s Ridge. Other than being blinded by a sun low on the horizon, it was a nice relaxing experience. Hardly any traffic and the delightful surprise that I’ve lost enough weight to let last summer’s uncomfortably tight First Gear Kathmandu riding pants fit, even with the quilted liner in place. It had me entertaining thoughts of riding to Daytona for Bike Week, even though I don’t much like Bike Week. It’s the ride to a warmer clime and a chance to sit by the ocean at Flagler Beach that lures me. We shall see.
I’m in town, having a free (I finally accumulated enough punch card holes) cup of coffee at Seattle Grind and getting ready to drive over to Petco for a fresh bag of IAMS puppy food. Then it’s off to pick up Maria for lunch.
The fancy-schmantzy ignition/entry/do-everything key to my Lexus is falling apart.
The case is supposed to fit flush to the key, but as you can see, it’s all whopper-jawed.
My first thought was about what a hassle it’s going to be to drive to the nearest Lexus dealer (Memphis) next week and spend an insane amount of money for a replacement. And, of course, this happens on the Saturday morning of a holiday weekend.
Hoping to learn what it will cost me, I Googled “2004 Lexus RX330 replacement key” and found iKeyless.com where I discovered I can buy just the shell (which is the only thing that’s broken) for a ridiculously reasonable $19.95. Assuming they are working Monday, it will ship then and be in my hands by mid-week.
Dealerships charge $175 for a replacement key.
I love the Internet.
Doc says go back onto the liver pills. We had a brand new box when he stopped taking them last summer, so we're well supplied.
He thinks Pete has a mild case of canine epilepsy - too mild to require medication. The seizures are too infrequent and too mild to make medication worth the effort and the toll the chemicals take on the body.
These were the gas prices advertised at the Kroger store in Jonesboro, Ark. the afternoon of Nov. 8, 2008.
That was four days after Obama was elected and two months before he took office.
What are you paying now?
Meet the Philco Model 41-295 console radio. It used 11 tubes and received AM as well as shortwave from 2.3 to 7 mc, 9 to 12 mc and 13.5 to 18 mc. It had eight pushbuttons; seven for preset AM stations and one for off-on control. It operated on 115 volts, AC only. The cabinet was a wood veneer and it stood 36 inches tall. The original price was $100. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $1,538.98 in today’s money.
I stumbled across one of these on Ebay this afternoon. The seller wants $125, noting it’s non-functioning and useful as a “parts” radio for someone restoring a 41-295.
These pictures brought back a flood of memories for me. My parents, who were married in April of 1939, had one of these radios. Since this model was made in 1940 for the 1941 market, it’s entirely possible my parents listened to broadcasts about the Pearl Harbor attack on their Philco.
My dad was a Ford guy and he favored Philco electronics because Philco was owned by Ford. Our first television, purchased just before Christmas of 1953, was a Philco table model.
I spent hours in front of our Philco console radio in the late 1940s and early ‘50s. Much of the time, it was tuned to WBAA (AM, of course. This was years before FM broadcasting), the Purdue University station in West Lafayette, Ind. We lived about 20 miles east of West Lafayette in Delphi.
One of the highlights of my day came at 5 p.m. when the Storytime Special came on the air and I got to hear a story read by the “Story Lady,” a Purdue coed, probably a radio or communications major.
I remember listening to WBAA afternoon jazz programming and wondering why they played so much stuff by the Art Van Damme Quintet. Maybe it was because he was a Dutchman from Michigan and there was, and is, a large Dutch Reformed community in Lafayette. Van Damme was considered the father of the jazz accordion.
Saturday nights, WLS in Chicago carried the National Barn Dance. One of the acts was Captain Stubby and his Buccaneers. Captain Stubby’s real name was Tom Fouts and he grew up with my mom in eastern Carroll County.
I had a little oak rocking chair, decorated on the back with a decal of a penguin, and I sat and rocked while I listened to Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet and lots of other programs that you can hear today on the Old Time Radio channel on SiriusXM satellite radio. (I still have the rocking chair. It sits in a corner of our living room and is the repository for dog toys. Every now and then I allow a visiting child to sit in it.)
Winter came to Arkansas at 11:30 last night without me noticing it.
I generally don’t like winter, but I find Arkansas winters less objectionable than Indiana winters. I had 62 Indiana winters and that’s enough for me.
It’s raining here this morning and will continue all day with a predicted accumulation of about ½ inch. That means we won’t see the sun, which weighs heavily on my mood. At least the daylight hours will increase, starting today through June.
Pete came over and laid down on the kitchen floor next to my foot as I made my morning mocha cappuccino and it took me a moment to realize he was having a seizure. The tipoff was the way he pressed himself up against my leg.
I knelt and comforted him until it subsided. He looked so freaked out and helpless lying on his left side, his right front paw trembling. This is the first seizure we’ve noticed since the summer.
He asked to sleep with us in our bed last night, which is kind of unusual and, given what just happened, makes me wonder if he wasn’t feeling good last night. He always comes to us when he’s not feeling well or about to have a seizure.
I’m going to take him to the vet this morning for tests. I suspect it’s time to resume his liver meds that the doc said we could suspend a few months ago.
My new (to me) Lexus has a couple of driver-accessible power outlets – one next to the radio on the dash where you’d expect a cigarette lighter, the other on a floor-mounted tray between the dashboard and the center console.
The lower outlet was dead, leading me to conclude that its fuse was blown. Consulting the owner’s manual, I was impressed to discover the car has nearly 70 fuses. Most of them are in a fuse box in the engine compartment and the rest are under the dashboard on the driver’s side.
The fuse in question turned out to be #64, bottom row, third from the right in the interior fuse box.
I first supposed it was an ATO fuse, but the illustration in the owner’s manual showed a min fuse. Since Toyota makes the Lexus, I reasoned I could get the requisite 15 amp mini fuse at the local Toyota dealership.
Not having found a fuse-puller in either fuse box, I had not removed the offending fuse and inspected it, so I trusted the owner’s manual and plunked down $1.80 for a 15 amp mini fuse.
When I got home, I used needle-nosed pliers to pull the fuse and discovered, to my dismay, that it was a low-profile mini fuse.
So it was back to Central Toyota where the parts department guy swapped me for the right fuse. I stuck it in the #64 slot and voila! the outlet works. So much for trusting the owner’s manual.
These are the Seven Deadly Sins, also known as Cardinal Sins. I can understand and plead guilty to six of them, but one – Envy – baffles me.
This comes to mind because there are a few of my Facebook friends, younger men, who are eager to let us all know how much they hate rich, successful people. Especially rich, successful people who want to hang onto what they’ve earned.
I can honestly say I don’t envy anyone for anything they are or have. Yes, I’d love to have more money – a summer home in the Colorado Rockies and a winter home in the Sun Belt and, just for the hell of it, a really nice place in Big Sur. There are lots of people who have all that and more and I’m happy for them. Either through hard work or karma or inheritance, they’ve come by it honestly. They didn’t cheat or steal to get it. And I don’t see how any rational person can begrudge them what they have. (If they did get it by dishonest means, I’d be crazy to envy them for something that will eventually destroy them.)
I guess it comes down to how I was raised. The message I took from my parents was that it was up to me to achieve and earn for myself, according to my level of ambition and desire.
They also taught me that jealousy and envy are shameful emotions and bespeak a poverty of spirit. So when I see these guys posting stuff about the evil rich – the same kind of horseshit you hear the Occupy Wall Street morons spouting – I feel profoundly embarrassed for them because they’re telling us about something really sad and weak in their character.
I occasionally throw out a low bid on an Ebay item just for the hell of it, expecting I will be outbid and that the item will go for a much higher price.
But once in a blue moon, I win the auction.
Such was the case a week or so ago when I placed an opening bid of $19.99 for this pair of Wallace China Westward Ho Boots & Saddle pattern cups and saucers.
These should have gone for upwards of $80, but apparently the Westward Ho collectors had their eyes on other stuff.
I’ve admired the Westward Ho line ever since I was 10 years old and my parents took me on a vacation in the West where we dined at restaurants that used this distinctive dinnerware decorated with cattle brands.
I rediscovered it on Ebay about 15 years ago and have since built a modest collection, mostly in the Rodeo pattern. Maria gave me a rather expensive Boots & Saddle dinner plate for Christmas several years ago and this was the first really good Boots & Saddle cup and saucer set deal I’ve seen in a long time.
It arrived, well packed in bubble wrap, this morning and made me very happy.
This has to be the largest display of phony grief in the history of the world.
The pictures coming out of North Korea following the death of Kim Jong Il show hundreds upon hundreds of people, some of them standing at desks in what appears to be a classroom, wailing and sobbing in creepy synchronization. Do the North Korean propagandists really expect us to believe this obviously staged charade is a spontaneous, albeit regimented, outpouring of grief and despair?
Kim Jong Il is the guy who ruined their lives, imposed starvation and slavery on them and made their country a pariah among the nations of the world.
The only conceivable justification for tears is worry that his son and successor will be even more batshit crazy than was the father.
Buddy was a gangly young hound who would have been a year old next February. He was huge and getting bigger by the day.
He lived in a kennel behind the neighbors’ house, complete with a dog house. He liked to sit on the dog house roof and survey the neighborhood. His owners would let his run loose occasionally and he got on the bad side of other neighbors when he got into their garage and ate a bunch of popcorn and paper products last summer.
He was big and goofy and full of fun and he came visiting yesterday morning while our dogs were out in the fenced backyard. Pete didn’t much care for Buddy and they kept each other busy pissing on fence posts, one after the other, each wanting to be the last dog to mark the spot.
But Jack delighted in this new playmate and tore around the perimeter as Buddy ran from one end of the chain link fence to the other, back and forth, back and forth.
It turns out that Buddy was on a tether late yesterday while his owners were away from home. Somehow, he slipped out of his collar and went exploring. Unfortunately, his explorations took him to nearby U.S. 49 where he was hit by a car or truck and suffered fatal head injuries.
Our neighbor buried Buddy this afternoon under a pine tree behind their house.
This has been a hard year for dogs that we know. Son Steve had to put down Frank, Sean and Ruth had to say goodbye to Daisy, Free Range Frank died of injuries suffered when he was hit by a vehicle, we had to let go of Ruthie and now Buddy is gone.
Hug your dogs and keep them safe. They deserve it.
I’m putting together a package documenting Flat Stanley travels to Memphis for young Jacob Shillings.
Jake, as you may recall, sent Flat Stanley to us a few weeks ago with a request that we photograph him somewhere interesting and return him with some mementos of his travels.
Here he is in front of the Elvis Presley statue in the I-40 Tennessee Welcome Center in Memphis.
I hope to get the package into the mail tomorrow.
The car I had no intention of buying has won me over.
I’ve put more than 500 miles on the odometer in the past two days – Little Rock yesterday to send my watch off for service and Memphis today for bagels and to photograph Flat Stanley at Graceland and elsewhere.
This is, without question, the most comfortable and relaxed vehicle I’ve ever driven. I returned home both days without the feeling of having done something physically or psychologically tiring. I never realized what a struggle it is to drive my Honda del Sol and even our Subaru.
Now I’m wondering where to drive tomorrow…
(I keep telling myself it’s just a jumped-up Toyota.)
I took the new car on its first road trip today – a 154-mile whirlwind run down to Little Rock to the only Breitling watch dealer in Arkansas to send my 11-year-old 
That means they send it back home to Switzerland where the watchmakers inspect it and return an estimate of what it will cost to make it like new. Once they have my approval, they go to work and presumably I get my watch back in 40-60 days. I had it serviced once before, back around 2003, and it wasn’t cheap, so I’m expecting a sharp pain in the wallet in a few weeks.
But my wallet was kinda happy when I got back to Jonesboro this afternoon and pulled up to the pumps at Sam’s Club to discover the price of regular was down to $2.94.9 a gallon. That’s two cents cheaper than 24 hours ago. I seems almost miraculous to see gas under $3 a gallon.
The car performed splendidly, although the low tire pressure indicator light came on a couple of times. I looked at the tires and didn’t see any that were conspicuously low, but I’ll check pressures after they cool down from the drive.
There’s heavy flooding in the farmland south of Jonesboro and north of Newport which is great news for ducks. The sky was full of them and at one point the flocks were so dense the sky was almost black with an overcast of ducks.
Spike Jones would have been 100 years old today but sadly, he died in 1965 at the age of 53.
Weird Al Yankovic explains Spike’s importance in the music world of the 1940s, ‘50s and early ‘60 eloquently and puts what follows into context.
My parents took me to a Spike Jones concert at the Elliott Hall of Music on the Purdue University campus when I was about 5 years old. I was absolutely dazzled and saved the program from that evening in a scrap book.
Spike Jones and his City Slickers were the funniest thing I had ever heard and even today, I laugh out loud at several of his musical derangements.
Unfortunately, several generations have grown up without being exposed to Spike’s brilliant insanity. That is a tragedy. I can’t imagine a person being musically literate without appreciating the works of Spike Jones.
Here are some samples. Sometimes, they start out slowly, but stick around for the payoff:
