Happy 14th anniversary, Steve and Nicky

My son Steve and his lovely bride Nicole were married on this date in 2001 in Cincinnati.

They made a stunning couple. They still do.

They also made a stunning daughter, Elizabeth Ellington Flora.

New dog door flap on the way

Now that spring is here, the weather is turning warm enough to enjoy our screened back porch.

We’re on the second dog door flap and it’s showing its age. You can see there is a tear about two inches long on the upper left side and it will only get worse with the passage of time.

So I ordered a new flap this morning to assure that our porch time remains mosquito free this spring, summer and fall.

We swept up a winter’s worth of twigs, leaves, dog toys, furballs and poop yesterday afternoon, bagged it and put it into the trash. At the same time, I used a snow shovel to scoop up the rotting leaves that were clustered around the back steps and dumped them into some of the holes Dora dug in the yard.

The porch still needs to be pressure washed, but that will have to wait until a little warmer weather arrives.

In the meantime, my John Deere LA125 lawn tractor is back from its spring tune-up at Greenway Equipment and all I need is another couple of dry days before I mow for the first time this season.

Just as I suspected - and they cost about $14 to make

The girl is on a billboard!

Morgan’s billboard went up yesterday on Nettleton, just west of Caraway Road in Jonesboro.

You can’t read it very well, but the bottom line is the URL: libraryinjonesboro.org.

Are we proud.

Of course.

Wretched excess

The Parrot Zik 2.0 wireless headphones came with a carrying bag, very much like the one that came with the Bang & Olufsen H8 headphones.

I figured $399 Parrot headphones deserve as much protection as the $499 B&Os, so I bought the $39 hard case specifically made for them and it showed up on my front doorstep today.

Talk about wretched excess.

I love the Amazon Vine Program.

I didn’t expect to be impressed with the Parrots, having been blown away by the Bang & Olufsens, but I have to admit they’re growing on me.

The sound tweaking app is an interesting feature, but I find I like the un-tweaked sound just fine.

The tracking and volume controls on the right earpad seem easier for me to work than the very similar controls on the B&Os. I’ve answered several phone calls with the Ziks and used the voice command feature to initiate a lengthy business call yesterday morning. The voice clarity seems to be good. Nobody has indicated they think I’m not using a conventional phone or cell phone during these conversations. Not so with the H8s. Maria has complained about the sound quality on a couple of occasions when she’s called me while I was listening to the B&O ‘phones.

The battery life of the Parrots seems to be substantially less than the more expensive headphone.

I haven’t written my Amazon review of the Parrots yet. I feel like I need a little more listening time to organize my perceptions.

Guilty but forgiven

Here’s Tucker and what's left of my new rain gauge.

It's my fault for sticking it in the ground and expecting a free range red heeler to ignore it.

Maria found it next to the fence along with a small football and a baseball that he was trying to share with Dora.

We love Tucker and he provides lots of entertainment for our Aussies, visiting them daily.

We told his owner to let us know if he ever decides to get rid of Tucker.

A little Parrot talk

My review set of Parrot Zik 2.0 headphones arrived late yesterday and I can’t help comparing them with the Bang & Olufsen H8 headphones the Amazon Vine Program sent me a few weeks ago.

The Parrots are billed as “The World’s Most Advanced Headphones” and it’s hard to say otherwise. They have way more bells and whistles than the B&O H8s, including a smartphone app that lets you tweak the sound with a graphic equalizer.

They are over-the-ear, where the B&Os are on-the-ear, and they make my ears uncomfortably warm after awhile.

Both sets let you receive and carry on phone calls, but the Ziks can initiate phone calls as well. I think I calculated that they are about 27 grams heavier than the B&Os, which is – to my head, anyway – a negligible difference.

As far as the sound goes, tweaks with the app notwithstanding, I like the B&Os better. The sound seems warmer and more natural and balanced with the H8s.

Both pair easily via Bluetooth with my iPhone 5.

In my first impression comparison, the Parrots are a close second. If the Bang & Olufsens are worth $499, the Parrots are definitely worth $399.

The UPS truck brought the Parrots to my front door last evening while Maria and I were paying our second visit to our new favorite restaurant, Avanzare in Paragould.

We both had Chicken Siciliano – chicken sauteed with capers, mushrooms and artichoke hearts in white wine, lemon and butter sauce and served over spaghetti – well worth $10.95. We brought half of our dinner home in boxes so we would have room to split a serving of tiramisu.

Why I like Henri Cartier-Bresson more than I do Ansel Adams

A lot of photographers make a big deal out of Ansel Adams, the great American landscape photographer.

Adams was a pioneering genius in the darkroom, coaxing details out of black-and-white negatives to create stunning scenes of nature, especially in the West and California.

While I appreciate the beauty and technique in Adams’s work, my all-time favorite photographer is Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the founding members of the Magnum photo agency.

Why?

Because Cartier-Bresson photographed people and I find people infinitely more interesting to look at than scenery.

This photo – shot in Madrid, Spain in 1933 – is probably my favorite Cartier-Bresson image. It’s amazingly rich in detail and layers from the kids in the foreground, some of whom are looking at the photographer, to the cartoonish fat guy with hat who reminds me of an R. Crumb character, to the incredible constellation of seemingly random windows in the building that forms the background.

Cartier-Bresson strove to capture what he called “the decisive moment.” He also never cropped his photos in the darkroom, preferring to frame them the way he wanted them with his viewfinder.

Tinnitus

I've had tinnitus, a persistent ringing in the ears for several years, probably a consequence of loud music and motorcycle wind noise.

It's gotten worse lately and my internet reading leads me to believe the two Naproxen sodium I take at bedtime may be part of the problem.

I've omitted them the last two nights and slept fitfully as a consequence.

I ordered a vitamin supplement that is supposed to reduce tinnitus, so we shall see.

That time of year again

I took a few minutes this morning to affix new stickers to the license plates on both bikes and the Subaru.

This makes 8 layers of annual stickers on those vehicle plates.

BMW MOA’s newest Ambassador

Charlie Parsons, my Jonesboro BMW riding compadre, was named an Ambassador of the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America this afternoon at Boscos Squared in Memphis.

The title of Ambassador is conferred upon ‘MOA members who distinguish themselves through volunteering or recruiting new members or generally representing the organization in an exemplary fashion, all of which describes Charlie.

His wife Deborah got him to Boscos on the pretense of attending a birthday party for a Memphis BMW friend. She kept the secret well.

Charlie was utterly stunned and momentarily speechless when we all rose to toast his new title.

Business as usual at Starbucks

I was feeling mildly confrontational this afternoon so I took my empty Italian Roast bag to Starbucks to see if one of the children behind the counter would try to share her deep thoughts on the subject of race.

It turned out that the kids running the Starbucks on Stadium Avenue weren’t up to the challenge from their corporate masters. They weren’t scribbling crap on the cups or engaging customers in racial dialog.

Probably a good idea, considering that we’re in Northeast Arkansas where everyone is very conscious of race, but at the same time, polite and considerate.

We don’t need some twit in Seattle telling us what to think about each other.

Headphone avalanche

I was lying in bed, wide awake at 2:30 this morning, when it occurred to me to check my Amazon Vine Program offerings to see if anything really cool was available.

Since our internet had been out since midday Wednesday, I used my iPhone 5 to log into my Vine account.

To my astonishment, I was being offered the Parrot Zik 2.0 wireless headphones, with an MSRP of $399.99. There were only two pairs left, so I jumped on it immediately.

This, only weeks after the Vine Program blessed me with the Bang & Olufsen H8 wireless headphones, with an MSRP of $499.99.

I guess they liked the review I wrote for the B&O ‘phones.

Some other folks who reviewed the H8s compared them with the Parrots, pronouncing the B&O product superior in comfort and sound.

The Parrots have more bells and whistles, employing a smartphone app that adds a graphic equalizer and other ways to fine-tune the listening experience. I’ve already downloaded the free app to my iPhone.

I had been jonesing for a good pair of headphones for years and as late as last fall asked my musician sons to recommend a set for under $100.

Then in November Amazon offered me a $90 Corsair wireless gaming headphone, which proved to be a significant improvement over the cheap stuff I’d been using.

Then Maria gave me a Bluetooth sports headphone that is absolutely perfect for treadmill workouts and also lets me take and make cell phone calls through my iPhone.

Then the Bang & Olufsens and now the Parrots.

To say that I’ve gotten my wish when it comes to headphones is a serious understatement.

Ticked-off Thursday

I shot a few photos of Tucker, the neighborhood red heeler, waiting patiently outside the fence for our dogs to come out to play this morning.

Not that I could post any photos from home, since our cable and internet have been down since early yesterday afternoon. (I expected to find everything functioning when I got up this morning, but we are apparently not a priority for conFusion Media. Yes, I’m back to calling them conFusion because the level of service since last fall has been infuriatingly substandard.)

And my memory card reader has gone walkabout, hiding sufficiently well that I couldn’t find it this morning, even with the help of St. Anthony.

I had to go into town anyway to take Maria’s cell phone to her so I went to the Office Depot store, only to find aisle after aisle of empty shelves and a notice that the store is closing May 16 to consolidate operations with the Office Max store down the street. Office Depot only had SD card readers left – no help for me since my Nikon D200 uses CompactFlash memory cards.

Down the street at Office Max, they’re out of the card reader I need too.

“We can order it for you,” the minimum wage girl offered.

“Never mind. I can get it from Amazon in two days and probably cheaper,” I replied, testily, and stalked out.

I’d had thoughts of cashing in an empty coffee bag for a free cup of dark roast at Starbucks, just to see how their idiotic campaign of chatting up customers on the subject of race relations is going, but I realized my mood was too foul for a civil exchange with a 20-something barista who thinks idealistic good intentions trump real life experience. I’m in no mood to suffer preachy children without lapsing into profanity.

So I opted for a cheese Danish, coffee and free Wifi at Panera where I used my iPhone to order a memory card reader from Amazon.com for less than $8 with free shipping and delivery promised by Saturday.

Fuck off, Office DepotMax.

Liberals, I dare you to watch this. All of it. I don't think you can do it.

Scenes from Sam’s Club

I went to Sam’s Club this afternoon to get a prescription refilled and found myself with about 15 minutes to kill.

So I strolled around the store looking for stuff to photograph with my iPhone camera.

The best shot, I think anyway, was of the monitor showing feeds from ten high-res security cameras.

I also noticed a magazine called iPad For Seniors and wondered what special instructions they think people over 55 need, considering that most of us have been using smartphones for a few years.

I didn’t pick it up so I don’t know if the print is extra large and repeats itself.

As a bona fide senior citizen who will turn 70 this year, I feel a little insulted that somebody thought we need their patronizing special publication.

And a sure sign that spring is upon us and summer will be here before we know it is the disappearance of 40-pound bags of ice-melting salt and the appearance of 40-pound bags of pool salt in its place.

I suspect that the pool salt is a little more refined than the melting stuff. I would hate to think it’s the same stuff in a different package.

Hot type flashback

The garage cleanout continues at a slow pace because I keep finding stuff that I want to look at and keep.

Like this relic from the hot type era. We called these things dingbats. My memory is a little hazy about the circumstances under which they were used, but I think they ran with our bylines in The Indianapolis News for a brief period in the early 1970s.

I would have thought only columnists would have them, but I didn’t start writing my weekly motorcycle column until later and I had a different dingbat for that feature.

If memory serves, staff artist Ron Schwartz did the drawing. A photoengraving was made from it and then glued to a block of lead for insertion into the page.

Found: Eric Clapton’s autograph

Making good on a pledge to purge our garage of excess clutter this afternoon, I found this rock and roll artifact in a box of papers dating back to my senior composition class in high school.

It’s Eric Clapton’s autograph on a sheaf of copy paper, dating from the evening of March 22, 1968 when Bob Basler and I covered a concert by Cream at Clowes Hall on the Butler University campus for The Indianapolis News.

Bob did the words and I did the photos that night. During a lull in the activities in the after-concert dressing room press meeting, I asked Eric for his autograph on the only paper I had handy and here – almost 47 years later – it is. Proof that I have a very very hard time throwing anything away.

Pi in the sky

In observance of Pi Day (3.14.15). U.S. 52 in Boone County, Indiana.

1963 flashback

Back in the fall of 1963 when I was a freshman at what was then called Indiana State College (now university) in Terre Haute, I decided 35¢ was too much to pay for a pack of cigarettes.

So I went down to the Osco drug store on Wabash Avenue and bought a Bugler cigarette rolling machine like this and took to rolling my own.

I eventually gave it up because I didn’t care for the taste of unfiltered Bugler tobacco and switched to Viceroy, which I continued to smoke until the late 1970s when I quit smoking altogether.

I don’t miss it.