Happy Birthday, Steve

My son Steve is 43 today. Here we are in the summer of 1983 when he was 12, dodging a Lake Michigan wave on the pier at Frankfort, Mich. I was only 38 then – significantly younger than Steve is today.

Steve has grown into an exemplary man – good husband, doting father, and world-class musician. (One of his friends opined that he is the best jazz bass player in Las Vegas and I have no reason to doubt it.)

Considering that I had all the parenting skills of Homer Simpson, I see both of my sons as miracles and a continual source of pride.

Sean’s new domain

My son Sean moved into his new home/studio/recording resort on Sauvie Island over the weekened and looks pretty pleased with the situation.

Sauvie Island is northwest of downtown Portland, Ore. and lies between the Willamette and Columbia rivers.

Here’s how he describes it, noting that he has long had a “vision/ambition to rent a house suitable for recording albums and having musicians stay during their projects. The most ideal version of this is a place with a lot of room and a little extra 'wow' factor, which will allow me to attract more out-of-town artists even from NYC and LA.  Well, that most ideal version is coming to pass!”

His amazing new place is only about 20 minutes from downtown.

“It's exactly everything I need it to be: the rent is reasonable, lots of room(s), a beautiful setting, loads of personality. I'll be charging $400/day for people to record there with me - and that includes lodging. So it's an amazing deal for them, and it works out great for me. (The rule-of-thumb for studios is you should conservatively be able to meet your operating costs with about ten booked days per month, so I'll be in good stead).” 

“

Cool tool

I’m evaluating the Automatic gizmo for the Amazon Vine Program. Here’s my review:

After a few minutes of frustration because I wasn't plugging the unit in firmly enough, I was able to complete the setup process and start tracking my driving habits.
Automatic gave me a grade of 97 after a 59.1-mile day of running errands. I would have graded higher except for a couple of stops that were a little too abrupt for Automatic's sensibilities. The unit beeps to protest quick starts, quick stops and speeds over 70 mph. Given those criteria, I don't expect it to save me much money because I'm not an aggressive driver. If I drove like a 16-year-old, it would be a very different story, but I'm 68 and I save that kind of behavior for my motorcycles. I like the security of the Crash Alert feature that will call my wife's smartphone in the event of a major mishap. It sent a test message to her this morning when I entered her number into the app, which she found startling until she figured out it was just a test.
My car has full functionality with Automatic except that it does not have a sensor that reports fuel level (then how does the gas gauge work?). Consequently, trip costs reported by Automatic are based on local average gas prices. I assume it references Gas Buddy or some similar gas price database for the price of gas.
Our other car is an '03 Subaru Forester that is not supported by Automatic. The automatic.com web site let me sign up to be notified if and when they figure out how to make Automatic work with the 10-year-old Forester. I'm not holding my breath.
As a tool for improving fuel economy, Automatic's best use is with young or undisciplined drivers. But if you are a gadget geek or want to make an accurate record of your daily to-ings and fro-ings, or want the security of having someone notified if you crash, this is an excellent product.
Oh, it also reads and interprets engine fault codes, so you don't have to freak out when the "Check Engine" light comes on. Automatic will tell you what's wrong, tell you how to fix it if it's owner fixable, guide you to the nearest mechanic if it's not, and let you clear the code and turn off that annoying light. That's an added feature that's quite a bonus considering that people can pay more than $100 for an engine code reader.

Barrett Strong said it well in 1959

The phone rang a little after 7 a.m. today with Maria’s first substitute teaching assignment – special ed assistant at Brookland Middle School.

She was dressed and out the door in record time to check in at the nearby school by 7:30 a.m.

This is all about generating some positive cash flow and Maria was intrigued when our teacher neighbor Sophie suggested the try subbing.

In the meantime, I’m working on a deal with our attorney to sell a piece of our downtown property that is being used by an adjacent business. The business owner’s property resale value will be seriously compromised if he doesn’t own the tract in question and we’re quite willing to help him out for the right price.

We have a couple of other ideas that we will explore in the coming days and weeks in the hope of building wealth and security.

Required viewing

Serious road rage

There are a few times when I wished I had one of these bikes.

Scanning for Alla Mae

I just finished scanning and burning to a CD a set of 88 photos of my neighbor’s mother, Alla Mae Lantz, who died Thursday afternoon after an extended illness.

The images will make up a slideshow of Alla Mae’s life to be shown at visitation tomorrow evening.

She was a year younger than me – something I find rather disturbing.

Here and gone

Gene and Sandra, Maria’s parents, left about an hour ago for their Indiana home.

We had a great visit and wish they could have stayed longer.

They visited Morgan’s new house, toured her library and bought some books, and got a tour of our downtown office building. We never got to explore the cotton harvest and a cotton gin, so that will have to wait for another time.

And once again, I am impressed by how well our house works for hosting visitors. The west end of the house has a two-bedroom, one-bath guest suite that can be closed off for privacy with a pocket door. Maria has her quilting machinery and supplies in one of the bedrooms, but the other is newly furnished with a kingsize bed with a memory foam mattress that has won rave reviews from all who have used it.

About the only thing the guest room lacks is a TV and I’m hopeful that we can fill that need sometime in the near future.

Company's here

Maria's parents are visiting

from Indiana and Morgan joined us for breakfast this morning.

The Rose Garden fainting episode was a fake - why am I not surprised?

I never thought of it that way…

Here’s a new take on The Wizard of Oz.

The coffee tastes like crap, but that should improve with use

I’m evaluating a Black & Decker 12-cup programmable coffeemaker for the Amazon Vine Program. Here’s my review:

I did a side-by-side comparison, right out of the box, with my new Black & Decker 12-cup programmable coffeemaker and my 2-year-old Mr. Coffee 12-cup programmable coffeemaker. The Black & Decker box claims 2 minutes shorter brewing time, but in my test it blew Mr. Coffee into the weeds by 4 minutes 30 seconds.
I loaded each with 12 cups of cold water as measured by the carafes with a filter in each, but no coffee (why waste 24 cups of coffee?), and started them simultaneously. Both beeped well before they were finished - the B&D at 9:40with 10.8 cups in the carafe and Mr. Coffee at 11:29 with less than 9 cups in the carafe. The B&D stopped dripping at 11:30 with 11.5 cups in the carafe. Mr. Coffee quit at 15 minutes with only 10.2 cups in the carafe, leaving me to wonder what happened to the water than didn't come through the machine.
The temperature of the B&D water was 170ºF, and the water in the Mr. Coffee carafe was 164ºF.
Next, I loaded the B&D with 8 cups of cold water and 1 scoop of Starbucks Dark Italian Roast coffee. It beeped at 6 minutes and 4 seconds and quit at 7 minutes 50 seconds with only 6.1 cups in the carafe.
I had followed the instructions and thoroughly washed the carafe and the basket before first use, but the coffee still came out with a hint of a plastic taste. I hope that will go away with continued use.
We're expecting guests who will stay for four days, so I'll give the B&D a good workout. If anything happens worth noting, I'll update this review.
I am mindful that this coffeemaker has more than its share of bad reviews. Like most small kitchen appliances, the Black & Decker 12-cup programmable coffeemaker is made in China. It's been my experience that Chinese quality control sometimes permits the manufacture of substandard units and buying a Chinese-made appliance is something of a crapshoot. It remains to be seen what kind of day they were having at the Chinese Black & Decker plant the day my coffeemaker was born.

It’s my 191st review to be published on Amazon.com which makes me the 6,925th most prolific reviewer.

There are some pretty awful reviews for this coffeemaker but it’s just like the Black & Decker coffeemaker my son Steve and his wife use and theirs works fine and makes good coffee, so I remain guardedly optimistic.

Catching comes later

She retrieves like a champ.

I’ve seen this show before…

Despite his size and strength advantage, Jack is mostly noise and bluff when he and Dora play-fight. He could hurt her badly if he wanted to, but he is gentle and careful not to injure.

It reminds me of my two sons. Sean was the older with a kind heart and Steve was the berserker. Sean pulled his punches whenever they fought and often got the worst in the battle. I think it was frustrating for him to realize that he was constrained by this own rules of fair play, while Steve apparently figured he could go all-out.

If Jack feels conflicted, he does a good job of not showing it.

Rock on, little chair

Somehow, I still have this little oak rocking chair that I used as a child more than 60 years ago.

Amazingly, most of the joints are tight and nothing on it is broken, despite the passage of the years, including six years of temperature extremes in the unheated attic of our Thorntown house.

When I was still too young for school, I would drag this chair into the living room and park it in front of our giant Philco Model 41-295 console radio.

I remember hugging my teddy bear (I called him Ted), rocking in this chair, and listening to Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger, and Captain Midnight.

I hardly ever missed the Storytime Special program at 5 p.m. on weekdays on WBAA, the Purdue University radio station broadcasting from West Lafayette, some 20 miles to the west. And this is where I sat to listen to the National Barn Dance, sponsored by Prairie Farmer magazine on Chicago’s WLS every Saturday night. (One of the featured acts was Captain Stubby and the Buccaneers. Captain Stubby, whose real name was Tom Fouts, went to high school with my mom in Deer Creek. He was three years younger than mom.)

My granddaughter Lisa used it on visits with us and these days it’s the preferred seat for Jackson Holland, our kindergarten-age next-door neighbor.

The incongruous penguin decal is showing its age, but hasn’t faded much in six decades.

The only older pieces of furniture in the house are my parents’ bed frame, now stored in the garage, and our kitchen table, which belonged to my great-grandmother Dietz. Maria refinished the top a few years ago and gave it a durable polyurethane coat that should last at least another 100 years.

2 more treadmill miles in 35 minutes

Another great workout on the treadmill this morning at St. Bernards Health & Wellness Center.

We also made an appointment with a fitness specialist for Tuesday morning to give us an introduction to the resistance training equipment.

I’ve used Nautilus equipment with great success in the distant past and have high hopes of recapturing the muscle tone and strength that I’ve lost through years of couch potatodom.

One of the really cool features of the facility is the electronic lockers that eliminate the need to bring your own lock or to carry a key.

You put your stuff in the vacant locker of your choice, then press C and key in a 4-digit code of your choice, then press the Key button and voila, the locker is locked. Just repeat the procedure to unlock it.

I know, it’s a small thing, but I really like it.

I have to admit it’s getting better

When I shot this photo of Monica Specking, a fitness specialist at the St. Bernards Health & Wellness Center two years ago, I had no way of knowing what a difference in my health those treadmills would make.

Maria and I bought a membership at the St. Bernards fitness facility about seven weeks ago and had a fitness evaluation a couple of weeks later. We were advised to focus on aerobic exercise first before adding weights or resistance training to the program.

The recommendation was to do 30 minutes on the treadmill three times a week for a few weeks, then bump it up to 35.

I’ve noticed some subtle improvements on a day-to-day basis – more energy, being the most obvious.

I had a routine checkup with my doctor last week at which time he agreed that my blood pressure is back within normal limits and opined that I could dial back my Lisinopril dosage from 40mg to 20mg daily if I found myself getting light-headed upon getting up from a seated position.

It happened twice last Saturday at the Falling Leaf Rally in Potosi, Mo.

But the most dramatic change for me centered on the experience of setting up and getting in and out of my tent at the rally.

The last few times I’ve pitched my two-man Eureka tent, I’ve ended up huffing and puffing from the simple act of repeatedly kneeling to pound in tent pegs and standing up again. And getting up from a kneeling position to exit the tent had become a minor challenge.

Not so last weekend. Dealing with the tent was a breeze and it went up without me breaking a sweat.

I’ve known for years that just about everything that ails me – high blood pressure and cholesterol and type 2 diabetes – can be improved or eliminated by losing weight and getting fit. Being able to cut my BP meds after only seven weeks impresses the hell out of me. And it motivates me to stay with the program which very well may be my last chance to stave off the debilitating effects of advancing age.

Good day

Maria and I went to the gym and work out this morning. It was a great workout on the treadmill for me. I usually use my iPod, close my eyes and walk in rhythm with the music. My favorite song is Corazon Espinado from the 1999 Carlos Santana "Supernatural" album.

I managed a quick 2 miles in 35 minutes. We hit the hot tub and then the therapy pool for a while.

Jack and I are hanging out on the patio at the moment while I grill a couple of fillets for dinner.

Just what I didn’t need

I filled out a survey card for Epson (I’m in their database because I bought a couple of Epson printers over the years) and was offered a couple of lame prizes for participating. I forget what the other choice was. It must have been really unimpressive. So I chose a t-shirt. They didn’t offer me a size preference. When it arrived in today’s mail, it turned out to be an XL.

I might wear it if it were the only t-shirt I owned, but I must have 100 BMW motorcycle-themed t-shirts and I find the message obscure and unappealing. Maybe Goodwill would like it. Or I could save it for the rare occasion when I paint something.

The porch has been dogged

This is the time of year when squirrels are building their winter nests from branch ends they gnaw from our hickory and oak trees.

There are lots of fumbles that result in the yard being littered with leafy branch ends. When they fall within the fenced area of the back yard, they become dog toys – something to be dragged onto the screened back porch through the dog door and chewed to bits.

The porch was swept clean a couple of weeks ago, but Jack and Dora – mostly Dora – have trashed it, along with their legitimate dog toys, an elk horn and beef shinbones.

Maria’s parents are coming to visit in a week or so, which means the porch will be swept clean and maybe even pressure washed.

So the dogs can start again with a clean slate.