Knock, Knock, Knocking on Heaven's Door

My son Steve called today to update me on the condition of my former brother-in-law Bob. (See earlier post for details.)
Bob's wife Kathy says Bob's body is showing some improvement, although he is still considered brain-dead. Kathy has decided not to have him moved to an extended care facility and is considering having him removed from life support if and when the docs think his body has a chance of sustaining itself.
So it's a wait-and-see situation with undertones of Terri Schaivo and lots of misery for everyone.
About an hour later, I got a call from former Indianapolis News colleague Gerry LaFollette telling me that another old Newsie, Hugh Rutledge, is near death.
Hugh was a city government reporter who was already established when I joined The News staff in 1969. He always wore a bow tie and was the only guy in the newsroom who could juggle.
He and Art Harris used to square off against me and David Mannweiler for after-lunch games of Eight Ball at the old Indianapolis Press Club. Mannweiler and I defeated them for the club championship in 1976. Oooops. That's 30 years ago.
I remember Hugh being rather pleased with a story he'd beaten the competition to. I remarked, "That'll look good in your resume."
"What do I need a resume for?" he said with a smile. "I've already wasted my life at The News."
On another occasion, he and I were walking back to the office from a Press Club lunch along with WRTV newscaster Howard Caldwell. We were strolling around the northwest arc of Monument Circle and somehow the conversation turned to the price of men's shoes.
"I paid $70 for these shoes new," complained Caldwell.
"New?" Hugh exclaimed. "You buy used shoes?"
I often recall that conversation when I'm discussing the difference between broadcast journalists and print journalists when it comes to a mastery of the language.
Anyway, Hugh has advanced Parkinson's Disease and is being cared for by his daughter in her home, which has been turned into a hospice. Gerry said they've stopped feeding him and death is expected soon.

Me and the in-laws

The gang at Maria's family reunion last Sunday at the Amish brother's home in north central Indiana. The Amish bunch is pretty easy to spot. I'm in the back row to the left and Maria is in the bottom right.
It's one of the rare occasions when I found a use for the self-timer on a camera.

Why I can't be a Protestant

Ok, you're gonna have to be really bored to wade through this one.
As I wrote earlier, my ex and her family came from the Dutch Christian Reformed Church culture.
Although I was raised a Presbyterian, which by their standards is a variant on the same Calvinist theology, I never understood the Protestant preoccupation with fine points of belief that gave rise to the myriad denominations.
That's probably while I feel so comfortable with my conversion to Catholocism. And why I now regard all Protestants as looney adherents to nutball made-up religions.
So when I went online this morning to see if Google could find an obituary for my presumably late former brother-in-law Bob, I found a link to an item in The Banner, the Christian Reformed magazine, giving notice of his parents' wedding anniversary.
On an impulse, I clicked on "Editorials" and found this gem: a perfect example of the "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" mindset that characterizes those folks.
When we were first married, my ex and I had a subscription to The Banner, a wedding gift from her parents, and I used to marvel at this stuff with every issue.
Here, see what I mean:


Editorial

God First
by Bob De Moor


I respect and value Baptists. I even dated a girl from Moody Bible Institute when I attended Trinity Christian College, near Chicago. We were supposed to stay a foot apart the whole time, but that lasted only three minutes.

Baptists make important contributions to the body of Christ. They inspire us with their evangelical zeal. Their adults faithfully participate in rigorous Sunday school training. We should learn from them.

But not in all things.

The Reformed expression of the Christian faith also makes important contributions. We emphasize the biblical teaching that when it comes to salvation, God acts first in grace and only then can and do we respond in faith.

Why bring this up? Because increasingly Christian Reformed church councils are tilting toward a Baptist approach to baptism—allowing parents to have their children dedicated, rather than baptized, so they can undergo “believers baptism” when they reach “the age of discretion.” These councils have laudable motives: to accommodate parents who don’t accept the biblical teaching that in the sacraments it is God, not we, who speaks first.

By all means, let’s be patient with parents who wrestle with infant baptism, and especially so if they are new to our church. Let’s teach them in all humility, gentleness, and love. Let’s not force them into it. But let’s not introduce pseudo-sacraments into our worship. The covenant rituals our Lord commanded us to celebrate together are baptism and his supper. He didn’t include dedications.

So why is this Baptist practice of dedications being considered? Maybe because by requiring a public profession of faith before allowing participation in communion, we’re already Baptist in our practice of the other covenant ritual.

Strange. In 1986 a carefully studied report to synod (our annual convention of CRC leaders) argued persuasively that Scripture nowhere requires a prior public profession of faith of children before they participate in communion. But for church-political reasons it stopped short of recommending that we drop that requirement. CRC congregations are still prohibited from returning to the biblical practice of the early church. How Reformed is that?!

One regional group of churches, Classis Holland, is asking Synod 2006 to mandate a study committee to take another hard look at allowing all covenant children to the Lord’s table. In view of the present erosion of our Reformed confessional view of the sacraments, it’s high time.

I don’t believe I sinned by dating a Baptist girl (except for breaching Moody’s rules by holding hands during a scary movie). And I’m unrepentant about my admiration for the Baptist tradition. But I believe it’s wrong for Reformed churches to water down what the Spirit allows us to contribute to the body: the precious biblical teaching of God’s awesome sovereignty—of a God who sweeps us up and enfolds us into his loving arms long before we know or can say that we love him back.

No spiritually dead people of any age can confess until Christ makes them alive first. Then they can spend a lifetime confessing his goodness.

Come on, synod. Let’s take another serious, communal look at whom Jesus would have us invite to his table. What’s another few grand in committee costs when it comes to a treasure so deeply rooted in our confessions?

Happy Birthday, Maria!

I took Maria to dinner tonight at her favorite restaurant for her birthday. The tiramisu is a religious experience.

Birthday Girl

The birthday girl at Buca di Beppo.

What About Bob?

My former brother-in-law is brain-dead and, by now, they probably have pulled the plug on life-support.
Bob was married to Kathy, the eldest of my ex's two younger sisters. And he was only 55.
My ex came from a Grand Rapids, Mich., Dutch family. Her dad was career Army and chose Lafayette, Ind., to raise his family in the late 1950s. He taught ROTC at Purdue University as his last active duty military assignment.
The Dutch/Christian Reformed Church bunch are a pretty tightly knit cultural group. The more hard core among them go to Calvin College in Grand Rapids and marry within the group. So it was with Kathy, who went to Calvin for a year or two. I don't recall where she met Bob, but he ended up studying architecture at Purdue and Kathy became a registered nurse.
I was an outsider, marginally acceptable because I was raised Presbyterian, another variation on the Calvinist theological theme.
But Bob was the real deal - a straight-arrow Christian Reformed Dutch lad with a good attitude and a solid work ethic.
My ex never hid the fact that she wished I was more like Bob - more devoted to family and church and more interested in home improvement.
Anyhow, Bob got a job with a company that designs and builds parking structures - you know, the big parking garages where you get Severe Tire Damage if you try to sneak out the "in" ramp without paying.
The job paid well and he and Kathy raised their two daughters in a comfortable style, first in Grand Rapids, then Rockford, Ill., and later in suburban Atlanta, and most recently in St. Charles, Ill.
In the last year of my marriage, my wife and I spent a week with Kathy & Bob in a condo on Sanibel Island.
I always had a friendly, cordial relationship with Bob, but our interests and values were so wildly divergent that we had to struggle to keep a conversation going.
The last time I saw him was in March, 2001, at my son Steve's wedding. Bob was diagnosed with diabetes in his 20s or 30s and had controlled it with running and lots of other exercise.
So I was startled to see him looking decidedly paunchy. His youthful mop of hair was gone and he was balding. He'd also just had a heart attack.
I was up at my Amish brother-in-law's house Sunday when I checked my cell phone voicemail and found a message from Steve.
It seems that Bob's blood sugar got way out of whack in the middle of the night a few nights ago and he suffered a seizure, vomited and aspirated some barf. Kathy awoke to find him not breathing.
Steve said the medics lost him, then brought him back, but as of Sunday he had no brain activity and they were waiting for his parents to arrive from Michigan before they pulled the plug on life support.
I remember my ex predicting 15 years ago that Bob would die young because of his diabetes. She was right. Fifty-five is way too early to cash in.
Every time someone close to me dies, it's an occasion for self-examination and a reminder of how important it is not to waste the time we're given. My mother's death was that kind of a reminder and it gave me enough leverage on myself to bail out of a newspaper job that had stopped being fun. She died on Oct. 5, 2000, and I quit/took early retirement five days later on my first day back after the funeral.
I think the message I'm getting from Bob's death is to start taking my own diabetes more seriously.
So far, it's under control with medication, but the real solution is weight loss and this is a splendid time to revise my eating and exercise habits.
Godspeed, Bob.
And thanks for the reality check.

Riding

A quite acceptable shot of Gov. Mitch Daniels, but I look like crap. Gotta lose the cap and 40 pounds and put on a smile.
About 80 of us rode with Gov. Mitch Daniels this morning as he led the way from the west side of the Indiana State House up to Kokomo.
I arrived at the staging area as Mitch was conducting a press conference with a gaggle of mostly clueless reporters and photographers.
The point of the event was to promote motorcycle safety and motorcycle awaress among the driving public. As far as the press was concerned, it was all about the novelty of the governor of Indiana riding a big bad Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
As far as those mopes are concerned, the only thing they "know" about motorcycling is Harley hogs, black leather, loud pipes and a bad boy image.
The eary story on The Indianapolis Star website omitted the obligatory hyphen in Harley-Davidson. The reporter's lede paragraphy was pretty much lifted verbatim from the press release for the event.
Whatever.
I rode in right behind a guy on a BMW cruiser and met a couple of other BMW riders from South Bend/Mishawaka when we stopped for lunch at the Kokomo Elk's Club.
I left home later than was prudent and made a four-minute pit stop for gas at the T/A travel center at the Ind. 334 interchange on I-65 on my hurried way to downtown Indy. I decided not to spend the time on getting cash from an ATM in the hopes that lunch would either be free or someplace that took plastic, since I only had two $1 bills in my wallet.

So when I sat down with Hal Hayden and his riding buddy whose name now escapes me, I found myself financially embarrassed by the waitress's reply that they don't take credit cards at the Elk's Club.
No problem, said Hal, volunteering to pick up my $6.50 lunch of porkchop, scalloped potatoes and green beans.
I promised to repay the debt in beer at the BMW MOA Rally beer garden next month in Vermont.
The ride up to Kokomo was uneventful. Most of the guys were on Harleys and without helmets and a few rode like they were unacquainted with the simple rules of staggered-formation group riding. No matter. Nobody crashed and the State Police did a splendid job of escorting us through intersections on their Harleys.
Lou Gerig, a longtime public relations guy who I first met when he was working for the former Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis), and later went on to work for Presidential Press Secretary Jim Brady in the Reagan White House, was there with his Nikon D100 and got the above photo of me chatting with Mitch.
After lunch, Mitch led the parade up to South Bend and I rode home.

How many BMW riders does it take to change a lightbulb?

Well, in this case, more than one.
I rode over to the nearest town with a branch of my bank yesterday to deposit our tenant's rent check and, while stopped behind a panel truck, noticed my headlight's low beam was out.
I switched over to high beam and rode to an auto parts store where I dug out my owner's maintenance manual and determined I needed an H7 12v55w bulb.
I'd watched a BMW service technician change the bulb on a K1200RS a couple of weeks ago over at the Savoy, Ill., dealership and figured it wouldn't be much of a task.
So, with new bulb in hand, I shucked my jacket in the auto parts store parking lot and started poking around in the alarmingly small space under the fairing and behind the headlight.
The first obstacle was a wire bail that held a protective cover in place, kind of like the wire bail on a Ball mason jar. The manual advised to pull one corner down, and then the other. I pushed and tugged and sweated and swore and finally got out my cell phone and called the dealership to ask if it was okay to use a screwdriver or some other tool to pry it loose. I was told that no tool is necessary, and to just pull out and down. Yeah, right. I tried til my fingers hurt and then decided to ride on home and continue the project in my garage.
Back home, I went online and posted an appeal for help to the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America K-bike forum.
Minutes later, I had an answer from a friend in Chicago, who had even gone to the trouble of shooting a digital photo of the underside of his K1200LT headlight assembly. I noticed, with some chagrin, that the space behind the LT fairing is absolutely cavernous compared with my GT.
I decided to use the shaft of a short crescent wrench for leverage and sure enough, the bail released and the cover popped right off. After about 20 minutes of maneuvering, I had the cover out of the way and out of the fairing.
The next step was to pull the plug connector off of the bulb terminals. I found there was no way I could actually look at the parts while I worked on them, so it had to be done by feel. The bulb was also in a position where I could only get my fingers on the connector and other parts with my left hand.
It only took a couple of minutes to get a grip on the connector plug and wiggle it loose. Then it was a matter of releasing the two wire retainer clips that hold the bulb in place. The illustration in the maintenance manual was devoid of fine detail, so I had to guess at how they worked and feel my way through releasing them and swinging them out of the way to the left.
The old dead bulb tumbled out and fell to the garage floor - a warning that I'd better take care not to drop the new bulb in the installation process.
I gingerly removed the new bulb from its package, being careful not to touch the glass with my fingers lest I leave an oil deposit that would make a fatal hot spot on the bulb. Noting that the guide flange points up in the bulb installation, I slipped the new bulb into place in the headlight shell and swung the two retainer clips around to latch it in.
But they wouldn't catch. I struggled blindly with them for more than an hour, sweating and cursing until my fingers hurt and my back ached.
I got out a powerful trouble light and peered into the tiny space between the handebars and the fairing. I studied it with the bulb in place and with the bulb removed. I found the clips snapped right into place with the bulb removed, but stubbornly refused to grip with the bulb in place.
Finally, I tried it with one finger of my right hand and I kinda felt like it fastened, but I couldn't be sure.
Fuck it, I thought. This is close enough.
So I put the connector plug onto the back of the hopefully secured bulb.
But try as I might, I couldn't figure out how to work the cover back into place from beneath the fairing. There's no way in hell it will fit coming in from the top and it's turned into some kind of a Chinese puzzle to get it up from the bottom.
When Maria got home from work, she tried her somewhat smaller hand at it, but quickly surrendered.
So I closed the garage door and concluded I'd gone as far as I could.
I was loathe to ride 100 miles to the Savoy, Ill., dealership and pay the $70/hour shop fee to finish the job, but it looked like that was how it would play out.
But sometime in the middle of the night, as I chewed on the problem between episodes of sleep, I remembered a couple of the guys who used to work at the Indianapolis BMW dealership were still around, working at a Triumph shop in Indy and they doubtless had experience with this problem.
So this morning I called my friend Wayne, who used to be parts manager at the Indy BMW shop, and told him of my problem. Wayne gave me the cell phone number of one of the guys and also offered to come up and help me after he got off work if I didn't get things sorted out by then. Good man, Wayne.
So I called Neil Baird's cell phone and left a voicemail plea for help and now I'm waiting for a callback with a flicker of hope in my heart.
And I will never fucking never attempt to change the headlight bulb on that bike again. Never.
-----------------------
Neil didn't return my call until the next day, so Wayne and his wife Peggy drove up and we struggled with the problem.
After much frustrating fumbling, we determined one of the retaining wires was bent, which was preventing it from latching properly. Wayne made the adjustment. We worked out a system where Wayne would sit on my mechanic's crawler stool in front of the bike, hands up the underside of the fairing, while I used a small but powerful trouble light to peer over the tank and under the bars and through an opening in the fairing to guide his fingers and a large flat-bladed screwdriver to force the upper retaining wire into its slot.
That done, Wayne spent about 15 minutes working the cover back up under the fairing to its proper place. Then we spent another 20 minutes or so blindly fumbling for the anchor holes for the two ends of the bail. We finally concluded it was impossible without being able to see more of the interior of the fairing, so Wayne removed the wind deflectors and a couple of interior fairing pieces that gave us a glimpse of the holes. With me holding the light and Maria holding the cover in place, Peggy hooked the bail into its holes and Wayne snapped it back up into place to secure the cover.
All told, counting everyone who participated, I calculate this project took about 8 man/woman hours. If we were making the standard shop rate of $70/hour, that translates to a $560 job. Just to change a light bulb.
When I talked to Neil the next day, he told me he and Bob Lustgarten, who had been a BMW service technician at Revard BMW Motorcycles, were planning to add BMW service to the Triumph dealership where they now work.
Neil said they expect to have the parts and equipment they need in a couple of weeks, after which time they will be able to perform non-warranty service like oil and tire changes, brake pad replacements, and the like.
So guess where I'm going the next time my headlight bulb fails.

Riding with Our Man Mitch

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is, without question, the best friend motorcycling has ever had in Indiana state government.
He's also the best governor we've had since I've been politically aware, and that goes back to the mid-1950s.
Mitch rode his custom painted (state flag logo on the tank) Harley-Davidson in the Indianapolis 500 Festival Parade last month and he invited a dozen members of the Patriot Guard Riders to escort him. And he wore a yellow PGR amrband for the occasion.
I've had a couple of conversations with Mitch about motorcycling and other things and was struck by how natural and genuine the guy is. I've met a lot of politicians in my 34-year career in newspaper journalism and have no difficulty spotting a phony. Mitch, however, is the real deal. No flash. No spin. No hype. Just a straight-ahead guy who wants to do his best for the electorate. He's no stranger to government, having been chief political advisor to Pres. Ronald Reagan, and director of the Office of Management and Budget under Pres. George W. Bush. He also readily admits spending a couple of nights in jail for a marijuana possession bust when he was in college.
Mitch is inviting Hoosier motorcyclists to take a ride with him Friday and Saturday as he tours north central Indiana.
The ride leaves the west side of the State House at 11 a.m. Friday for Kokomo and South Bend, then makes stops on Saturday in Valparaiso and Merrillville.
I plan to ride at least as far as Kokomo and maybe on to South Bend and have suggested that my friends in the Indianapolis BMW Club come along.
The event is sponsored by ABATE of Indiana, a motorcycle rights group that also operates a rider training program that offers the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's RiderCourse. I was an instructor in the ABATE program for 10 years in the '80s and '90s.
If you ride and have Friday or Saturday open, come on along.

Dog School

High 5 at dog school.
Pete went back to puppy school at Petsmart today after a three-week recess that included the instructor's vacation and the Memorial Day holiday weekend.
Once again, Pete was the smartest dog in the class.
Unfortunately, the class has dwindled down to three dogs - a 45-pound German shepherd pup with front legs like baseball bats and a fuzzy little bichon frise who is a social butterfly with little interest in doing what her owners want.
Fortunately, the self-absorbed young woman with the annoying pup has not returned since the instructor suggested she control her dog and pay attention in class.
Today, Pete learned to do a High 5, roll over and a couple of other things.
He's also showing an aptitude for Frisbee-catching, when he's in the mood to play. I have high hopes he will continue to develop in that direction.
And, no, that's not a muzzle Pete is wearing. It's a Gentle Leader Headcollar that was recommended by the instructor as a humane, effective way to train him to walk on a leash. And it worked beautifully. He went from a wild dog to a cooperative happy leash walker almost immediately.
Eventually, he will be able to walk on leash without it, but it's an astonishingly effective training device. He used to shy away from the leash. Now, he goes to the antique crock by the back door where we keep our dog-walking stuff and fishes out the leash and Gentle Leader.

Fashion Pointer #27

I'm hardly in a position to criticize anyone who is overweight.
But there are some things that just shouldn't be. Like going out in public wearing jeans and a shirt that are two or three sizes too small.
Walking around barefoot on city streets is also unacceptable.
Maria shot this photo on the fly from the window of our Subaru Forester while stopped at an intersection in a medium-sized Indiana city.

Good-day, Paul

Poor Paul Harvey.
He should have swapped his microphone for a rocking chair a couple of decades ago.
I listened to him at noon today on Cincinnati's WLW, which is carried on XM Satellite Radio at Channel 173.
His online biography is a bit vague about his age, but concedes he got his first broadcasting job in 1933 while still in high school. That makes him around 90.
And he sounds like it.
His formerly peppy speech cadence has a creepy geriatric wobble and his perspective is so dated that I was embarrassed for him.
He lays out his opinions in a shorthand way that presumes all of his listeners have the same values and world view that he has. Which they don't because most of the people who shared his experiences and world view are dead.
Think of it - he started broadcasting the year Franklin Roosevelt was elected to his first term as president. Adolf Hitler became Reichschancellor of Germany in 1933 and the U.S. Navy's zeppelin the USS Akron crashed in a thunderstorm that year. And construction began on the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco harbor.
Most of rural America was without electricity and prohibition wouldn't be repealed until Dec. 5 of that year.
He has become, sadly, irrelevant and mildly annoying.
And I used to enjoy listening to him. Before he lost it.

Adios, Gary

This is Maria's cousin Gary.
His mother and Maria's mother are sisters.
Gary is dead.
Gary died sometime Monday at the family business and his sisters discovered his body when they arrived for work on Tuesday.
Gary used to weigh about 300 pounds, but one day he decided enough was enough and he stopped eating and started exercising.
His family says it became his habit to run 15 miles a day, every day.
A couple of weeks ago, he fell at a convenience store and got a concussion when his head hit the concrete.
But Gary hates hospitals and he declined the offer of paramedics to take him to one for treatment.
After the fall, his family said, he had periods of dizziness and cut his running back to about 6 miles a day.
Maybe he should have gone to the hospital.
The family requested an autopsy to pinpoint the cause of death, but I haven't heard what - if anything - came of it.
Visitation is tomorrow afternoon and the funeral is at 1 p.m. Friday.
Gary hated to be photographed and it turns out that this photo I shot at a family reunion a couple of years ago is the best picture anyone has of him, so it's going to be prominently displayed at the visitation and funeral.
I met him a couple of times at family functions, but I don't know that I ever had a conversation with him.

********************************

The autopsy showed Gary died of a massive heart attack. He was only 49.

To-ing and fro-ing

Maria bought some much-needed summer clothes Monday evening at the L.S. Ayres & Co. store in Tippecanoe Square Mall in Lafayette, Ind.
It was an unprecedented shopping experience – she usually spends hours in fruitless shopping only to walk away empty-handed and angry that she can’t find what she wants in her size.
But she hit the jackpot Monday evening and bought a bunch of stuff, getting a 15% discount for putting it onto her store charge account.
She decided to wear her new black jacket over one of last year’s summer dresses this morning and organized her makeup for the color combination.
But while ironing the jacket, she discovered the clerk had forgotten to remove the big clunky plastic anti-shoplifter device.
I’d had some success with one of those things about a year ago, using a super-strong magnet originally designed to be mounted on the underside of a motorcycle to trigger traffic signals. The anti-theft devices fasten using a magnetic lock and I got one to release that had been left on a dress that had languished in Maria’s closet for years.
I wasn’t so lucky with the black jacket this morning, so Maria went back upstairs and ironed a green jacket-dress combination.
But when she came down to the kitchen, we discovered another of those damned things attached to the back of the dress.
Needless to say, she was pissed. And late for work.
So I threw the offending garments into an L.S. Ayres bag, grabbed the receipt and headed for Lafayette.
Clerk Erin Parks was working at the service desk and after hearing my tale of woe – wife tried on two outfits and both were unwearable, making her late for work and blowing a hole in my day to drive to Lafayette to deal with the problem – removed the tags and deducted another 15% (about $25) from our charge bill.
I thanked Erin and made a mental note to remind Maria to always check for tags before she leaves the store.
Interestingly, these tags are supposed to trigger an alarm if they’re taken out of the store. But these two tags left the store and returned without setting off any alarms.
So their function seems to be to render the attached garment unwearable, rather than un-stealable.

Happy Birthday, Lisa!!!!!

Today is my granddaughter Lisa's second birthday. She is whip-smart, drop-dead gorgeous and charming beyond belief. Just like her parents.

Son and granddaughter

We drove down to Cincinnati today to see my son Steve, his wife Nicky and, of course, our granddaughter Lisa, who will be 2 on Tuesday.
Like any proud grandfather with a Nikon D200 and a 2gig CompactFlash card, I felt compelled to shoot more than 400 photos of the occasion.
Here's one of my favorites.

You can't make this stuff up

Well, some of it, maybe, but it's still insanely funny.
This morning I discovered Overheard In Chicago, a blog of conversational snippets submitted by people in Chicago.
Here's an example:
Catholic guy: "Aren't you going to eat some pizza?"

Jewish Guy: "No, it's Passover, we can only eat certain foods, but not pizza."

CG: "You're Jewish?"

JG: "Yes, and I've told you this like a thousand times before."

CG: "Aren't Jews the ones that dress up like Ninjas and pray?"

JG: "No, I think you're thinking of Muslims, but they're not really Ninjas..."

CG: (interupting) "Aren't all Jews Muslims?"

JG: "Um...you couldn't be more wrong."

CG: "But tell me this. Jews and Muslims: they're all still Christians, right?"

JG: "I don't even know how to answer that."

- South Side

-- Submitted by Mike Routier

Internet Explorer v7

I installed the beta version of IE7 on our laptop a couple of weeks ago and made the switch on my desktop yesterday.
My copy of Microsoft Outlook, which I use for e-mail, had been running slowly and misbehaving, but it seems to be faster and smoother since the IE7 install.
I realize a lot of folks prefer Netscape or Firefox or some other browser, but I still haven't found a compelling reason to abandon the Microsoft product and the new version of IE suits me. So far.

Denny's

I just polished off a senior scrambled eggs with cheddar breakfast at Denny's, where Michelle the waitress is fascinated by my Treo 600/folding keyboard setup.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't think of going out for breakfast, but it's a sunny 71 degrees and we're out of milk and the K75S was calling me from the garage.
Holy shit! There's a latino 2-year-old having a screaming fit at the table across the aisle from me and her parents apparently can't figure out how to shut her up. Her dad just gave her a dollar bill to play with and stick in her mouth, apparently unaware that money is about the germiest, disease laden thing we encounter in our daily lives. Better he should let her lick the carpet.
Fortunately, they were at the end of their meal and have now gathered up their stuff and left.
I somehow imagined that crappy parenting was the province of us Anglos, but it apparently transcends cultural boundaries. I guess that's why they call it the "terrible twos."
Speaking of which, my granddaughter Lisa enters that interesting (in the Chinese sense of the word) age bracket on Tuesday. I expect her parents will handle it with grace and style, just as they've met all of the other challenges of parenting so far.
Well, time to fold up my keyboard and go for a ride before the clouds creep in and boil up the predicted showers.

--
Sent from my Treo

Larry shoulda knew

I guess I've been under a rock or guilty of some other form of not paying attention because it wasn't until this morning when I browsed my latest copy of the BMW RA's On The Level that I discovered Larry Grodsky, the motorcycle safety columnist at Rider, was killed last month.
He was riding at night in deer country in Texas and, guess what... he hit a deer.
OTL and others seem to be saying that it was one of those rare unavoidable accidents. I have to disagree. The risk factor goes up exponentially at night when your vision is more limited and drunks, deer and other nocturnal hazards are more abundant. Even with high beam and MotoLites, I pretty much never ride at night anymore.
In case you were under that rock with me, here's his obit in the Pittsburgh (Pa.) Post-Gazette.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06101/681096-122.stm

Double Treat

The shop loaner bike and the Hindu DQ.

Waiting, waiting...

It's 3:25 p.m. in my time zone and 2:25 here in Savoy, Ill., where I'm waiting for the mechanics at Twin Cities BMW Motorcycles to finish with my bike.
The manager offered me the use of the R1150RT loaner bike to go out for a mid-aftenoon snack. He suggested Dairy Queen and the longer I sat here, the stronger the desire for something from DQ b ecame.
I finally caved in and rode over for a medium banana cream pie blizzard.
The DQ is staffed by Indians - Hindus with bright red dots on their foreheads and lilting accents that sound remarkably Irish - a similarilty I noticed a few years ago listening to an Indian woman doing the news on NPR.
After I retired to a booth to eat my blizzard, I heard them jabbering happily in Hindi.
There was an old gray-haired woman (hey, I have gray hair too, but I refuse to be old) in her 70s or older who had finished eating and was sitting about four tables away staring at me.
I suppose I was slightly more interesting to look at than the furniture since I was wearing a red-and-black BMW Savanna jacket with my bug-covered Schuberth Concept helmet on the table along with my blizzard.
At any rate, it was an odd little interlude in what has turned out to be a rather long day of idleness.
I had lunch around 11:45 a.m. local time at a Subway down the road.
The manager of the BMW shop had mentioned there was a good bookstore nearby, so I dropped in to poke around for something worth reading. I finally settled on a paperback copy of Hunter S. Thompson's "Kingdom of Fear."
Thompson was pretty much my political polar opposite, but he was so entertaining as to make it easy to overlook his politics.
......
Damn! The service manager just announced my bike is done and, pending a successful test ride by the mechanic, will be ready to take me home.
I just hope I can afford gas after paying the service bill.
......
The tab was $821.13. I'd been bracing for something in the $1,100 range, so this was considerably less painful. Still a lot for routine service, though.
The dealer told me the new K-bike has no scheduled maintenance - just oil changes at 6,000-mile intervals at which time they plug the bike into a diagnostic computer and determine what, if anything, needs attention.

--
Sent from my Treo

Almost mine

The K1200GT that got away.

Bleeding money at the BMW shop

I'm sitting in the open-air break room at Twin City BMW Motorcycles in Savoy, a southern suburb of Champaign, IL while my K1200GT undergoes a 24,000-mile service and gets a new front tire.
My friend Harold Patterson, who also has a GT, warned me that this won't be cheap - probably around $700 before the tire.
I checked the dealer's website yesterday and noticed he has a new GT in stock and came over here with the thought of maybe trading my bike in on it. The new GT has a completely reworked engine and suspension and is a vast improvement over its older namesake. About the only things the bikes have in common are the BMW roundel and the GT name.
Unfortunately, the dark blue GT in his showroom has a "sold"tag hanging on it and at least one other guy in line to buy it if the first buyer backs out.
I got on the road about 7:45 a.m. to make my 10 a.m. appointment about 100 miles away. The temperature was in the 40s when I left home and I could see my breath as I walked to the garage. I made good use of my Gerbing heated jacket liner as well as the heated seat and heated grips and got to the south side of Champaign about 9:20 - just in time for a McDonald's breakfast beforte riding the remaining couple of miles to the dealership.
It occurred to me that, other than visiting BMW of Daytona a year ago, this is the first time I've been in a BMW motorcycle shop since Revard BMW Motorcycles went out of business in Indianapolis.
I'd heard a lot about this dealer from Harold, who bought his GT here, but wasn't prepared for just how small it is. The showroom has about 20% the floorspace that Revard's had and the inventory is pretty sparse.
The guys seem friendly enough and they've offered me the use of a bike to ride to lunch when the time comes - maybe in an hour or so.
So far the only mechanical surprise was the revelation that I have an engine/transmission seal that is seeping. The service writer assured me it would hold through the '06 riding season. He said the repair involves about $20 worth of seals an about 10 hours of labor (at $70/hour).
"It's a winter job," he opined.
OK. I'll be happy to wait. Maybe by then, we'll have a dealer in Indianapolis.
My friend Skip, who I helped to re-enter motorcycling last spring after an absence of more than 30 years, had originally planned to make this trip with me. He called on Sunday to say he and his wife were planning to fly to the Grand Canyon on Thursday morning and his schedule was getting too crowded to permit a day ride to Savoy. So it goes. I'd been looking forward to having company, but I understand.

--
Sent from my Treo

Zooing with Lisa

Steve and Lisa watch dolphins frolic underwater.

Friday was a day when all of the tension of a chaotic week got dissolved.
We were reunited with the prodigal Pete after his 36-hour walkabout and I finally got to see my lovely granddaughter Lisa in an excursion to the Indianapolis Zoo.
It was my son Steve's first visit to the big modern zoo that replaced the cheesy Washington Park zoo of his youth and it was a new experience for his wife Nicky as well.
We hit most of the attractions, including the spectacular dolphin facilities, but agreed the performance was the lamest dolphin show we'd ever seen.
Lisa seemed to enjoy the outing. She got to see what an elephant's skin feels like and especially enjoyed watching the penguins diving and swimming underwater.

Pointing at the penguins.



Gazing at the giraffes.

The Return of Pete

I spent pretty much all day yesterday putting up posters and driving around town.
Except for an hour or so when I had to drive 20 miles to bail out Maria who locked her keys in the Subuaru at the new Super Wal-Mart.
Yesterday evening, Morgan came home with a kid who lives up the street who reported seeing Pete on the loose twice - once during the storm when he was streaking down the street in terror, illuminated by the lightning flashes as he flew over a fence, and again about noon yesterday when he ran flat-out into the side of the barn where they kid and his dad have a shirttail trucking business.
"He hit so hard, we thought he broke the particle board," the kid said. "At first, we thought a car had hit the building."
He said they thought they might have to take him to the vet, but he gathered himself up and tore off again.
That last sighting was less than a block from our back yard, but Pete was apparently too freaked out to navigate on home.
I slept on an airmattress on the dining room floor again last night, wanting to be able to respond if he banged on the back door.
I woke up a little after 4 a.m. and walked out onto the rear deck to call into the darkness for him, but there was no response.
Then I heard a faint yarking. It was the same sound Pete makes in the mornings when he wakes up in his kennel and wants to go outside.
I walked down the driveway a ways and determined it was coming from some distant point to the west.
I woke Maria and we dressed and headed out to follow the sound.
Walking through the darkened town, we tracked the sound - losing it occasionally when the dog fell silent or when it was obscured by the pre-dawn chirping of the birds roosting along the tree-lined streets.
Finally, some eight blocks away on the far west side of town, we found the source - a small dog chained to a mobile home. It was a huge disappointment and Maria, in particular, was bummed out. I promised her that we'd find Pete today, even though I had no idea how.
We walked home and went back to sleep - Maria upstairs in bed and me on a downstairs couch.
Morgan came down about 7:30 a.m., carried some trash to the curb for Friday morning pickup and then continued out for an early morning foot search.
At 7:46 a.m., we got a call from Andrea Smith, who works for our vet. She said she was driving to work just north of town when she recognized Pete in the road. She drives a big Ford SUV and, but the time she got turned around, he was gone. So she drove on to work and called us.
We grabbed a leash and bag of dog treats and flew out of the driveway, heading north. We spotted Morgan about a mile from home and picked her up, continuing toward the place where Andrea reported sighting Pete.
Cresting a hill, we saw him about a quarter-mile ahead standing in profile in the middle of the road. It was unmistakably Pete.
Not wanting to spook him, Maria and Morgan got out of the car with leash and treats and walked toward him, calling his name.
He regarded them warily and, when they got about 100 yards from him, he turned and started trotting away.
A driver who had pulled up behind me figured out what was going on and held back.
I pulled even with Maria and told her I was going to try to drive past Pete to box him in.
But as I approached in the Subaru with windows down, I started calling to him.
I don't know if it was the car or my voice or the scent of home, but Pete stopped in his tracks and then began running excitedly around the car.
I got out and scooped him up in my arms as Morgan and Maria ran to join the group doggy hug. All the while, Pete was licking my face and making little puppy noises of excitement. It was one of those moments where your heart melts in joy and gratitude and you feel like the weight of the world has suddenly been lifted from your shoulders.
We drove to the vet's office where we took Pete in and tried to get Andrea to accept a check for the $100 reward, but she graciously declined.
Pete was deliriously happy to get home and gorged himself on food and water while Ruthie looked on in disdain.
He's dozing under the kitchen computer table now, obviously worn out from his day and two nights of scary adventures.
He's got a slight limp and the pads on his feet are worn, but otherwise he seems OK.
Thanks to everyone for your kind supportive thoughts and prayers. It's great to have the prodigal son back home!

Pete is missing

Pete is gone.
Maria and I had to be at her paper's high school sports recognition banquet last night, leaving her daughter Morgan home with the dogs.
A thunderstorm with heavy rain swept through about 8 p.m., but Morgan was too busy with her compulsive reorganization of our attic to go downstairs and let the dogs in.
When we arrived home about 10 o'clock, Ruthie was there to greet us but Pete was not.
Our conclusion was that Pete got freaked out by the storm and bolted into the night in terror.
When Ruthie was a pup, she did the same thing and was found later cowering on the steps of a church a couple of blocks away. Seems like Morgan should have remembered that...
Anyway, we mounted a fruitless late-night search of the southeast quadrant of our small town. Maria spoke to the cops, one of whom had been to our house on a routine call about a month ago and consequently knew what Pete looked like.
We left the front and back porch lights burning and I slept on an air mattress near the back door so as to be able to hear if Pete returned and banged on the door in his usual manner.
I woke up at 3 a.m., stepped onto the back deck and called for Pete, but he wasn't there.
Ditto, when I got up at 7:30 a.m.
I just finished printing about 60 of these posters - inkjet color for indoor posting and laserjet black and white for outdoors where rain would bleed inkjet colors. I gave Morgan a handful of the color posters to put up in downtown businesses, but she just called from her waitress job to say she'll be too busy to put them up. So I'll do it.
I'm hoping that once he's done with his big adventure that he'll show up at the back door today, wagging his 4" stump of a tail. And I'm doing my best to suppress the idea that he's dead or hopelessly lost and we'll never see him again.
It's astonishing how attached you can get to a dog in just six months. He really is a member of the family - one who depended on his humans to keep him safe and protect him from harm. We failed him and I feel like I just got punched in the stomach.
So far, I've not lashed out at Morgan because I know she feels badly too. But part of me really wants to scream at her for being a negligent, self-absorbed moron who has quite likely caused us to lose Pete. I pray that he comes back because that will make it possible for me to forgive her. If he doesn't, this will fester for a long long time. If I am able to forgive, I damn sure will never forget and will never trust her with anything important again.
If any of you are inclined to prayer, I'd appreciate anything you can do.
Thanks.
Now, I'm off to plaster the town with these posters.

#1 Son (With apologies to Charlie Chan)

I guess I've been remiss in not saying much about my oldest son, Sean, who is a music producer and recording engineer in Portland, Ore.
I got around to checking out his site on My Space this week and came away very impressed.
He has a couple of tracks available for your listening pleasure on the site and the one by Kaitlyn ni Donovan blows me away. The acoustic ambiance is right up there with Daniel Lanois' studio work, maybe better...
He also has a list of artists he's recorded or mixed. I showed it to my college junior stepdaughter and her eyes got very big and she then showed me a magazine with one of the groups - the Yeah Yeah Yeahs - on the cover.
Here's the list:
Music Producer and Engineer Sean Flora has recorded and/or mixed:
(partial list)
Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney) and Janet Weiss (Quasi, S-K)
Ken Stringfellow (Posies, REM)
Franz Ferdinand
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
She Wants Revenge
Richmond Fontaine
Madness
Cake
James Mercer (Shins)
Smegma
The Minders
Paper Cameras
Richard Butler (Psych. Furs)
Katlyn ni Donovan
Little Sue
Teeming Masses
3 Leg Torso
Purekane
James Angell
Cheralee Dillon
Daniel Riddle+King Black Acid
Dahlia
The Altarboys
Storm Large
Roy Tinsel
Pepe & the Bottle Blondes
Vagabond Opera
Stephanie Smith (Kleveland, all the dead horses)
SuckaPunch
Hungry Mob
The Joggers
8 Foot Tender
Crack City Rockers
Morgan Grace
Sam Henry (Wipers, Napalm Beach)
Chris Newman (Napalm Beach)
The Prids
Michael Vlatkovich
RicanStruction
The Kingdom
The UpsideDown
March Fourth
I noticed that he put his own group, the Crack City Rockers, well down the list.
(And by the way, I'm inordinately proud of this portrait shot of Sean.)

Absolute Beginners

One of my favorite bloggers is a young Canadian woman who writes Totcetera. She recently wrote about her love for the 1974 movie Phantom of the Paradise. Never having seen the film, I put it on my Netflix list and it showed up in my mailbox yesterday.
I watched it last night and could immediately see why it has developed a cult following. It's a quirky. cleverly made movie that can get into your consciousness and refuse to go away. It was made about the same time as Tommy and, at times, has a similar look and feel to it.
I suspect that if I had seen it at the right time in my life, I would have the same affection for it that Tot does.
My favorite movie musical, however, remains Julien Temple's Absolute Beginners. It's been called the first music video movie and a lot of it looks like a music video, particularly the ones Temple did for David Bowie (who, incidentally, has a significant role in the film). It's typical Temple in that the colors are vivid and the lighting and camera angles are inspired.
The soundtrack CD - the British import, not the abbreviated U.S. release - is the most listenable movie soundtrack album I've ever owned. It's got Bowie, Sade, Ray Davies, Gil Evans - a great range of pop and jazz.
I practically wore out my VHS version and now have it on DVD with Dolby 5.1 sound for my home theatre sound system.
I won't trouble you with a plot synopsis other than to say it's set in 1958 London when the youth culture emerged from the drab post World War II years.
Ok, Tot. I watched your movie. If you haven't already seen it, check out Absolute Beginners and tell me what you think.

Am I a lucky grandpa, or what?

My son Steve and granddaughter Lisa at the Krohn Conservatory in Cincinnati, checking out a butterfly exhibit.

A Picture Share!

My favorite ride to one of my favorite stores.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

My blog is 2 years old today, which makes it just slightly older than my granddaughter Lisa whose birthday is May 30.
I'm in Lafayette, Ind., again this morning on some errands and to keep the battery up on my K1200GT. I needed chlorine for the hot tub and some printable CDs and blank DVDs and they provided the perfect excuse for a ride.
There's rain coming up from the southwest, but I'm keeping track of it with some new Treo software and should be home before it arrives.
Maria and I did about 40 minutes in the hot tub this morning. It's nice to greet the day with a cup of coffee while soaking in 101-degree bubbling water while the dogs chase each other around the backyard and occsasionally peer over the side of the tub to say hello.
I probably ought to change the water - it's been 6 months at least and, while I keep it pH balanced and sanitary with chlorine - it think the water gets "tired" after so much chemical treatment. Sounds kinda unscientific, but fresh water somehow feels different, better.
Ruthie is going in for a long-overdue haircut and nail trimming Friday morning. I think she's put on some weight since Pete arrived in December because she's taken a liking to his fatty puppy chow. That, plus her winter coat of fur makes her look like a little yellow sheep. She usually looks positively skinny after a good buzz cut, so we're curious to see if she looks a little fatter after pigging out on Pete's food.
Pete, on the other hand, helps himself to her geriatric dog food, but also gets his fill of his own stuff.
I'm blogging this from a Barnes & Noble while drinking a vente moca. The sound system is playing Bruce Springsteen and I am reminded that his nickname is "the Boss." Well, he's not my boss. I never could get excited about Springsteen. He is to New Jersey what Billy Joel is to Long Island, Bob Seeger is to Detroit and John Mellencamp is to Indiana. So it's no particular surprise that Mellencamp's music resonates more with me than the others. But then Michael Jackson is a native Hoosier too and, as far as I'm concerned, he's from another planet.

--
Sent from my Treo

Sports-testing the D200

One of the great features of our new Nikon D200 is its "continuous shooting" feature that lets you blaze away at up to 5 frames per second for several seconds at a time. The D100, in contrast, could only manage 3 fps and the buffer loaded up after about 5 shots.
The continuous shooting mode is particularly useful for action/sports photography, so I took it over to the Little League ballpark across the street from our house last evening for a test run.
The sky was overcast and it was late in the day, so there wasn't a lot of light. To compensate, I used my 80-200mm f/2.8 lens and cranked the ISO up to 1,000. That let me shoot at shutter speeds in the 1/2000 sec range which permitted a reasonable number of frames per second on continuous shooting.
I was leaning on the left field fence for stability, so I was about as far from home plate as you can get and still be on the perimeter. Consequently, my home plate shots had to be substantially cropped to isolate the action there.
But even with a high ISO and the attendant image noise, I got some pretty decent stuff. Here's my favorite, with the color saturation juiced up and some sharpening added in Photoshop.
Notice, you can even see the stitching on the ball.
Of course, you never know exactly what you're going to get when you depress the shutter button - it all happens way too quickly for you to see what the camera is capturing and it's always a surprise when you review the images on the monitor on the back.
About the only thing you need to know is to start shooting when you think the action is starting and stop when it ends, then see what you got. So all you can really control is your shooting position and the parameters of the exposure: f stop, shutter speed and ISO.
I'm eager to try again under better lighting conditions and from a better vantage point.
I was reminded anew last night that kids at this level of play are pretty awful when it comes to ball-handling. If I were coaching, I'd tell my kids to never swing at the ball because the odds are excellent that the pitcher can't put 3 out of seven pitches through the strike zone.
That's what happened last night. The Knights of Pythias team (blue shirts) must have scored five or six runs by getting baserunners advanced to home plate on walks. The play captured in this shot was one of the rare occasions when a batter got a hit. Even more surprising is that the fielder threw the ball anywhere near the catcher.
Most of the time, balls are thrown wildly and then fumbled on the other end.
A team with a good, accurate pitcher could dominate this league.

Back in the saddle again. For an afternoon, anyway.

A couple of hours on the trickle charger gave the K1200GT enough juice to get started, but it took a remarkably long time for the engine to catch. I put about 30 miles on it last evening and put it back on the charger overnight.
I got a call from my favorite camera store about 1:15 p.m. today telling me that the extra battery for my new Nikon D200 is in. The special grip that gives me a vertical shutter button takes two batteries. Naturally, the D200 uses a different battery type than the D100, so we can't mix and match.
Anyhow, I was pleased to find the bike fired up right away - no hesitation or grinding - and performed flawlessly over the 70-mile round-trip.
I remain mystified about the cause of the low battery and balky starting. It had sat idle for three weeks, which is hardly a long time by BMW battery standards. I plan to ride it as often as possible between now and when I ride it over to Savoy, Ill, on May 23 for its 24,000-mile service.
I called Twin City BMW today to tell them I'll need a new front tire too, so it oughta be a pretty hefty service bill.
My friend Skip has offered to ride along on his Japanese cruiser, which is probably much less expensive to maintain. He oughta be stunned when he sees my bill. I know I always am.
My friend Harold, who also has a GT, said he paid about $700 for a 24k service at the same dealership.

Happy VE Day

Yep. WWII ended in Europe 61 years ago today. I wasn't born yet, but I was working on it.
I'm blogging today from the White Castle on Sagamore Parkway in Lafayette, Ind.
They take plastic, but the Dog 'n Suds up the street doesn't.
I didn't think they did, but I let Maria and her daughter persuade me to the contrary yesterday and suffered the embarrassment of having no way to pay for the tray full of food when it showed up.
I hardly ever carry much cash and neither does Maria.
Apparently this happens enough at the DnS that they have a policy to deal with it: you leave your driver's license with them and get it back when you return with cash for your food.
So we surrendered Maria's license and ate our late lunch while I stewed in silence.
Then, when it came time to go find an ATM, I discovered that the Subaru's battery was flat. I'd turned on the ignition to put up my window when the waitress came with the tray to hang on it and neglected to turn it off again.
It shouldn't have been enough of a drain to wipe out the battery, but it did.
Fortunately, I've been paying my $4.50 monthly fee to the Shell Oil Co. for their USAC Motor Club service, so I whipped out my Treo and called for help. The wrecker showed up about 45 minutes later, gave me a jumpstart and we were back in business.
Then it was off to the Chase Bank ATM and back to the DnS to redeem Maria's driver's license.
We had planned to do grocery shopping after lunch, but chose to abort that mission and head for home in case the problem was with the charging system. Didn't want to end up with a dead car again in the Meijer parking lot.
As it turned out, the drive home was enough to recharge the battery and the car started easily for an evening run to Dairy Queen and again this morning for Maria's drive to work.
So when I got ready to ride my BMW K1200GT to Lafayette this afternoon to deposit a couple of checks, I don't suppose I should have been all that surprised when I found the bike's battery was down and not able to fire the engine. I put it on the trickle charger and rode Maria's K75S instead.
Everyday is an adventure in system failure and fuckup lately.
Our friend Tim is back in Indiana from Colorado to pick up a couple of dirt bikes and we had planned to join him and other BMW Club friends at a restaurant tonight.
But when the plans got changed to Sunday night, Maria's daughter didn't think it was important enough to convey the voicemail notification we got on Saturday.
So the only bright spot of the weekend was Saturday afternoon when I broke down and bought a new Nikon D200 digital SLR. It's a spectacular camera and I'm having a lot of fun climbing the learning curve and discovering all of the amazing stuff it does. I'll post some photos shot with it in the next day or so.

--
Sent from my Treo

A Picture Share!

Pete's wearing a Gentle Leader Headcollar that transforms him from a spaz to a cooperative dog while on the leash.

A Picture Share!

On a Mexican party photo gig.

Sheep shot

Well, a lamb, acutally. Photo by Maria.

Up on the roof

The washer lid is fixed and the chimney work is done.
There was no charge for the return trip to correct the washer lid mistake and the construction company charged me exactly the $1,800 in the contract. Amazing – no overruns or surprises.
Well, there was one surprise.
The guy in charge of the operation, same guy who did some roof work for us in March and gave us the estimate for the chimney work, said we got severe hail damage to the roof from a cluster of storms that blew through here in late April. He says we need a new roof ($4,500) and seems confident our homeowner’s insurance carrier will agree.
If he’s right, that means we get a new roof paying just our $500 deductible.
The insurance company says they’ll send an adjuster out to look at our roof sometime next week, so we shall see.
Like I said, it’s always something.
When I logged onto our online banking connection this morning, I was astounded to see that the check I’d written to the construction company at 4:30 p.m. yesterday had already cleared. I had no idea that was possible.
The foreman must have raced to a branch of Chase Bank – it’s at least 20 miles to the nearest branch – and made the deposit before the 5 p.m. closing.
And Maria’s daughter decided yesterday that she didn’t want to wait until tonight to come home, so we cleared out the Subaru Forester as soon as Maria got home from work and headed down to Bloomington. We managed to jam all of her stuff into the car without a cubic foot of space to spare and hauled it home, arriving about 10:30 p.m.
So our empty nest lifestyle goes on hold for about three months.
Dragging the trashcans out to the curb this morning, I noticed the lawn is overdue for mowing. And it looks like we’re running a dandelion farm. I’ll get on it as soon as the dew evaporates.
The child support agreement proposed by Maria’s ex and forwarded to us by her attorney has been sitting on the center island in the kitchen for a week. Maria finally pulled it out of the envelope yesterday, but has not signed it and we haven’t discussed it.
I glanced at it this morning and stopped reading when I felt my blood pressure creeping up. The item that made me put the paper down and walk away was the requirement that we make the $100/week support payments through the county clerk’s office, rather than directly to the ex.
Back when both kids lived with her, Maria tired repeatedly to get him to make his support payments through the clerk’s office because he was a slow pay, often letting it slide for two or three weeks before catching up. Now the sonofabitch has the audacity to imply, through this request, that Maria and I require court supervision to make timely support payments.
I also read, with some amusement, his request that he be allowed to count their son as a dependent on his income tax return, beginning with the 2005 tax year. As I mentioned before, I discovered last month that the tax laws on dependents changed this year and that neither child can be used as a dependent because the both earned more than half of their support in 2005. I confirmed this with H&R Block and Maria communicated it to the ex, but he refuses to recognize it.
Fine. Explain it to the IRS, moron.

Stuff

Today is another home improvement day.
The roof repair crew is supposedly en route to my house from Indianapolis right now to fix a faulty chimney flashing job and to remove a redundant, non-functioning chimney.
At the same time, the appliance repairman who was here last Thursday to fix the dryer half of our stacked washer/dryer unit is coming back today to correct a mistake he made in reassembling the appliance. He didn't get the thing back together right and now the washer lid binds and will eventually wear away the enamel and lead to rust and ruin.
At the same time, Maria is lunching with a couple whose wedding we'll photograph later this summer. The bride is a coworker and she's getting a killer deal, but her parents are skeptical and want to know what they're getting. I'm staying out of it because I feel like we're getting ripped off to begin with and it really frosts me to have someone question the value of what they're getting under these circumstances.
Maria's daughter comes home from college for the summer tomorrow evening, which represents what we hope will be the final interruption of our empty nest status. The positive side of the equation is that she's increasingly mature and self-sufficient and she will be able to take care of the dogs and let us actually travel a bit.
I just noticed that we're coming up on the two-year anniversary of this blog on May 10. Maybe I'll reflect on that more later.

Guilty

I've been feeling increasingly guilty about neglecting my Cincinnati son and his family lately.
We haven't seen them since Christmas and I know that my granddaughter Lisa is growing and developing at an amazing rate. She'll be 2 on May 30.
Steve called yesterday to ask about dirtbike training for a 16-year-old neighbor kid. I took him and his brother Sean through the Northern Illinois University trail riding course when they were in their teens. It was based at a campground near Hart, Mich. and consisted of about 5 days of intensive training in the art of riding sand and mud, threading a bike down a single-track trail where the trees are closer together than the handlebars are wide and surmounting logs and other obstacles, culuminating in a couple of days of riding a great trail system through the Manistee National Forest.
Sadly, the course is no longer offered. But the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, whose beginning RiderCourse I taught for 10 years, has created a dirt riding course and it's offered in Cincinnati.
So I e-mailed him the contact info on the dirt riding course and he sent me a couple of great photos of Lisa that he shot minutes after we got off the phone. Here's one of them.

Weak links

You don't have to be smart to work at a polling place on election day.
I've seen that truth borne out time and time again in my newspaper career.
And yesterday, was no exception.
My county used state-of-the-art touch-screen voting machines for the first time in the May 2 primary. It made voting a breeze and should have made the final tabulation even faster and easier than the previous computerized system.
The county clerk said she hoped to have all of the votes tallied within 90 minutes of the 6 p.m. closing of the polls.
But she apparently had forgotten about the weak links in the election process.
Despite having attended a training session that covered all aspects of operating the new equipment, poll workers in several precincts shut down their voting equipment improperly, not giving the computers time to write the results to a disc. As a consequence, it was impossible to upload the digital voting data to the master computer in the clerk's office at the courthouse. Fortunately, the machines generate a paper backup.
But that meant the numbers had to be manually read out and typed into the master computer.
I hung around the courthouse until 10:30 p.m. When I called about 11:30 p.m., I was told it would be at least another hour.
I'm reminded of the time when a neighboring county introduced computerized voting machines back in the early 1990s. The county clerk, who runs the election process, proudly boasted that she would have the votes tallied by 8 p.m.
But that was based on the assumption that the poll workers would be quick about packing up their equipment and getting the data modules to the courthouse as soon as possible.
The last precinct straggled in around 9 p.m.
Their excuse?
Their polling place was in a church and the ladies of the church insisted on feeding them dinner after the polls closed.
Nobody said democracy is perfect. It's just better than any of the alternatives.
When the results were finally posted this morning, our friend Ken Campbell had won a resounding victory in a three-way race for the Republican nomination for county sheriff. Ken was clearly the best qualified. He's one of the guys who ran the combat pistol course I took a year or so ago and is also an instructor at Jeff Cooper's Gunsite firearms training facility in Arizona. He got 60% of the vote with the other two guys receiving only about 20% each.
In this heavily Republican county, the GOP primary nomination is tantamount to election, since the Democrats seldom put up candidates for the November contest.
I've never had a political candidate's sign in my yard, largely because my previous life as a newspaper reporter required me to at least give the impression of impartiality, but I made an exception this time and stuck a big blue Ken Campbell for Sheriff sign out there.
I guess I need to check Ken's website to see if we need to turn in the sign or hang onto it in case there is a Democrat candidate in the fall election.

What about Bob?

Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour program debuted this morning on XM satellite radio.
I'd marked my calendar and made a point of being tuned to XM Channel 40 Deep Tracks to catch it at 10 a.m.
I'm not sure what I expected. I guess I hoped for something more intimate and self-revelatory. But that's my problem, not Dylan's.
He strung together an hour of music on the theme of "weather," starting off with Muddy Waters and running the musical gamut through the Staple Singers, Judy Garland, Dean Martin and my personal favorite weather-related song, Frank Sinatra's "Summer Wind." He also threw in a lot of musical trivia and details, like how "Walking in the Rain" led to the release of the imprisoned black musicians who introduced it and reminding me that Johnny Mercer wrote the lyrics to "Summer Wind."
For awhile there, I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't hearing Tom Petty's XM show, although Dylan sounded a bit more self-conscious than Petty.
All things considered, I thought it was a pretty good first effort. It was interesting to hear Dylan in this role and I hope he loosens up a bit.

Pete Report

Pete's home from the vet and recuperating from his ordeal.
I picked him up a little after 3 p.m. and he insisted on lying across my lap for the drive home. Ever try to drive a 5-speed, 2-seat Honda del Sol with a six-month-old Aussie across your lap? Shifting was a bit of a challenge, but we managed.
And, yes, I was right about the cause of our phone problems.
The repairman found Pete's gnawing had damaged one of the phone wires going into the junction box outside the back door.
At least it made for an easy fix. He was only here about 10 minutes.
Pete spent a couple of hours lying next to me on the couch, dozing and whimpering occasionally while I watched TV.

Trust

Pete’s at the vet getting neutered and I’m sitting at home feeling very guilty.
Not because of the decision to neuter – the long-term benefits far outweigh the negative aspects – but because of the terror he must be experiencing.
He has a reasonable expectation that Maria and I will protect him from harm and this procedure, however beneficial, represents a betrayal of that trust.
He looked genuinely alarmed when I handed his leash to the vet’s assistant and left him with her in the examining room.
I keep thinking of the John Belushi quote from “Animal House:” “You fucked up. You trusted us.”

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

Like I said eariler, something is always breaking or failing or wearing out around here.
Today, it’s our telephone line. We have no dial tone and are receiving no calls.
Oddly, though, our DSL internet connection that uses the same phone line, is working fine.
I’ve found a few places where Pete, the Aussie, has chewed on phone cords – specifically the cordless kitchen phone and the lines running to the box outside the back door – so he is, of course, a suspect.
The phone company suggested I sign up immediately for their line protection program, which involves a $3.50 monthly charge and a $25 up-front fee, noting that when the phone guy shows up tomorrow it would otherwise be a minimum $50 charge, plus labor.
I kinda like not getting phone calls on a Sunday. It’s 6:15 p.m. and on a normal Sunday we would have heard from Maria’s mother, her daughter (multiple times) and both of her two brothers. Sprint’s digital cellular service is weak here, so our cell phones are useless inside the house, except up in the attic. If I want to use my cell phone from home, I usually go out to the back yard to get a signal.
We took Pete up to Petsmart for puppy school this afternoon. The young 20-something woman with a fuzzy brown puppy who usually sits to our left in the puppy training corral was there in her usual stiletto-heeled sandals and high-maintenance look. She remembered that Maria is a newspaper editor and started jabbering about a photographer friend who was getting divorced from his wife and who needed a job. At the same time, her puppy was entangled in a vicious fight with another dog and the instructor and other dog’s owner were trying to separate them. She, of course, was completely oblivious to this little drama until the instructor – down on her knees in the middle of the fray, yanked on the girl’s slacks leg and said, “Hey. Would you please control your dog?”

She, of course, took offense and defended her dog with a lame, “Poor puppy. He doesn’t know any better.”
Those of us who witnessed it instantly recognized that we had just gotten a preview of how she will inflict her misbehaving children upon an innocent public if and when she becomes a mother.
During the mid-class potty break in the mulched area to the side of the store, she confided to Maria that she thinks the instructor doesn’t like her and muttered darkly about complaining to the management because she paid “good money” for this course.
I cringe whenever I hear that expression. Ever hear of “bad money?”
Christ! What a self-absorbed twit.
Her dog’s name is Amos and I’m tempted to start calling him Anus just to tweak her up.

Hey, Kids! What time is it?

That used to be how Buffalo Bob Smith opened the Howdy Doody show on Saturday morning TV.
I recently rented a DVD with 4 episodes just to refresh my memory about that cultural icon of the 1950s - the show ran from 1947 to 1960. It was a struggle to get through all four episodes and the only thing that kept me engaged was the cultural anachronisms like the gravel-voiced Chief Thunderthud and the bizarre ADD/HD behavior of Clarabelle the Clown and the commercials in which Smith told kids to ask their moms to buy Wonder Bread and Hostess Twinkies.
But I bring up that opening line today because I just noticed, for about the 10th time in the last few weeks, that my Windows XP (SP2) refuses to recognize that Indiana is observing Daylight Savings Time.
For many years, certainly since the Uniform Time Act of the 1960s, Indiana and Arizona were the only states that did not observe Daylight Savings Time. When the rest of the country fiddled with its clocks to "spring ahead" an hour in the spring and "fall back" an hour in the autumn, we dwelt in the Land that Time Forgot and did nothing. Consequently, our neighbors in Ohio and to the east fell into step with us in the colder months and the folks from Illinois to western Kansas were in synch with us in the warmer months.
Our new governor, Mitch Daniels, decided this was somehow hampering Hoosier commerce with customers in other states - I never could understand why - and persuaded the Legislature to put us on DST starting this year.
But the folks at Microsoft apparently haven't gotten the word. They reach out and tweak my Windows XP with updates on a regular basis, but they haven't gotten around to addressing the time change issue.
So when I glanced at my computer clock in the bottom right corner of my monitor a few minutes ago, it read 10:35 a.m., when it was actually 11:35 a.m.
I can't imagine than no one from Indiana has e-mailed them about this issue, but just in case, I think I'll suggest they fix it.

Money Pit Redux

The downside to having a lot of stuff is that, sooner or later, all of it is going to cause problems.
Today's problem list is topped by the clothes dryer. We have a washer-dryer combo - washer on the bottom, dryer on the top. I had a splendid one that I paid $1,000 for when I lived in my condo in Indianapolis, but when we moved into this house in 2001, Maria insisted on bringing along her own washer and dryer, despite my predictions that they would not fit into our half-bath/laundry room.
So I included my washer-dryer in the condo sale.
Of course, when it came time to move her appliances into the laundry room, guess what. They were too big. So we ended up giving them to her Amish brother and paid about $1,000 for another combo unit.
A couple of weeks ago, the washer unit started making a horrible screeching sound on final spin. So I called the appliance repair guy. Naturally, we couldn't get it to screech while he was here. He examined the drive belt and pronounced it sound and went away after charging me $65.
Early this week, the dryer started making a scraping noise like a piece of metal was stuck between the drum and its housing.
So I called the appliance guy again and now I'm waiting for him to show up and take more of my money.
Next on the list is the pair of MotoLites mounted on the front brake calipers of my BMW K1200GT motorcycle. They're halogen auxiliary driving lights that I added in the interest of (a.) being more conspicuous in the traffic mix and (b.) being able to see better at night. I discovered last night that they aren't working.
That forced me to finally make an appointment at the nearest BMW dealership - 100 miles away in Savoy, Ill. - for the long overdue 24,000-mile service. I'm on their schedule for 9 a.m. May 23, so let's pray for good weather that day.
Third is our 2002 Subaru Forester, which needs a new catalytic converter. The "check engine" light has been on for nearly a year because the electronic sensors don't like the information they're getting from the exhaust system. The techies at Subaru say it's not a crisis and we won't hurt anything by driving it, but eventually we'll see a degradation of performance and have to pony up the $1,100 or so for a new catalytic converter.
Close behind is my 1994 Honda del Sol, which is waaaaaaay overdue for a new timing belt ($600). The owner's manual says timing belts should be replaced every 60,000 miles. My car has 185,000 miles on the odometer and is still on the original timing belt. Clearly, I'm on borrowed time and it could fail any day.
And I almost forgot about the construction crew scheduled to work on my roof tomorrow. We've had roofers chasing a leak for more than a year and finally we think we have a correct diagnosis.
Seems the bozos who did our current roof did a mostly okay job except they didn't get the flashing right around the main chimney. This made it possible for wind-driven rain to come through our bedroom and bathroom ceilings.
The work tomorrow, which is estimated to cost us $1,800, will correct that problem and also remove an old unused chimney that has served as a point of entry to our kitchen for birds on at least three occasions and also admits minor amounts of rain. This, obviously, is must-do stuff considering how much damage continued rain infiltration could do.
Sometimes I think I retired a bit too early.

Cleaned up

Dressed up... sorta, for a Chamber of Commerce awards dinner. At least I'm not wearing a BMW motorcycle t-shirt.

Eagle Watch

If you have a good broadband internet connection, check out www.infotecbusinesssystems.com/wildlife
It's a realtime webcam of a bald eagle nest in British Columbia where the eggs are set to hatch any time now.
Thanks to my ATO Fraternity brother Dave Knight for this one.

It's for your own good, Pete

Pete, out for a car ride.
Our 6-month-old Aussie, Pete, has a rendezvous with destiny on Monday next.
Pete is going to the vet to get neutered.
I'm reminded of the Gary Larson cartoon of the dog with the smug smile on his face telling the family cat that he (the dog) is going to get "tutored."
As a male, I have a very negative visceral reaction to this business of making my little friend Pete into a eunuch.
He loves me and he trusts me and this is how I pay him back. It seems like betrayal on a horrific scale.
But the vet and others who know about dogs tell me I'm really doing Pete a favor. Male Aussies who aren't neutered have a very high risk of testicular cancer. Also, the overwhelming majority of dogs who get hit by cars are un-neutered males out looking to get laid.
So the best way to assure that Pete will have a long and presumably happy life with us is have him neutered.
I hate it, but I guess it's got to be.

Getting Malled

Shopping, shopping, shopping...
God! How I hate shopping.

The dawn patrol

Got up at 6 a.m. and left home in semi-darkness to make an 8 a.m. dental appointment some 50 miles south of here on Indy's southside.
I had allowed for rush hour traffic that didn't materialize, so I arrived in time for a quick McDonald's breakfast. Took a chance on the bacon, egg and cheese McGriddle sandwich. Gack!
Wrapping blueberry pancake-ettes around bacon, egg and cheese is not my idea of a pleasing taste combination.
Also, what's up with the "Let us add the cream and sugar" campaign with their supposedly deluxe coffee? I think they were losing their ass on sweetener and creamer excesses and decided to cut their losses by controlling the stuff, while making it look like an added service.
Anyhow, I think I need to find a dentist closer to home. I wonder how many I passed on my way to my current dentist...

No cake for Adolf

Today is Adolf Hitler’s birthday.
He would have been 117 if he were alive today.
When I was a kid, the pulp magazines of the time were full of speculation that Hitler had escaped from Berlin during the last days of the Third Reich and was hiding out in South America or maybe Africa or Southeast Asia. The barbershop I went to as a kid had a subscription to Police Gazette, a smarmy rag that wasn’t all that different from the stuff you see at the supermarket checkout counter.
A lot of writers made a pretty good living cranking out stories about how Hitler and Martin Bormann and Dr. Josef Mengle were skulking around somewhere in the bush, having been spirited out of Europe by an underground network of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers.
Now we know that Hitler and his new missus did themselves in down in the Fuhrerbunker and their burned bodies were discovered by the Russians. There is supposedly some pieces of Hitler’s charred skull deep in the archives of the Kremlin.
Forensic evidence likewise finally determined that Martin Bormann was killed while trying to break out of Berlin.
Mengle, it turns out, was the only one of the three to actually make it out of Germany and Europe, hiding out in Argentina until his death in 1979 while swimming.
But even if Germany hadn’t lost the war, Hitler was doomed. Research of his medical records indicates he was in the final stages of syphilis, probably contracted as a young man in Vienna or perhaps as a solder in World War I.
So he only made it a few days past his 56th birthday.

Duty

I just finished Duty by Bob Greene, the Chicago Tribune columnist.
It's a memoir about Greene's father, who raised his family in Columbus, Ohio. And it's about Paul Tibbets, another Columbus resident, who happens to be "the man who won World War II."
Tibbets was the commander of the 509th Composite Group and the pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Greene's father, Robert Greene, also served in World War II, holding the rank of major and fighting in Italy.
The book is about Greene's effort to know his late father - to understand his dad's life and the impact the war had on it. His conversations with Tibbets yielded a series of newspaper columns and grew into an ongoing friendship. He had lingering questions he never got to ask his father, so he poses them to Tibbets - things like how today's sexually liberated America squares with the morals and standards his generation professed and what's become of civility and good manners in public.
He also probes Tibbets' feelings about committing what was at the time the single most violent act in the history of mankind and whether incinerating Hiroshima troubles his conscience.
It's a book that deserves a wide audience, especially among those who question the rightness of Harry Truman's decision to use atomic weapons to end the war.
Tibbets' answer, echoed by countless soldiers who would have had to invade Japan, as well as by many Japanese, is that Truman and Tibbets did the right thing.
Tibbets' mission was a factor in the lives of most of the people I know - certainly those who count American soldiers, sailors or airmen among their ancestors.
That includes me. Had there been no war-ending atomic attacks, my first father-in-law, an Army captain in the 144th Field Artillery Group, would almost certainly have been shipped from Europe to the Pacific to participate in the invasion. He wrote to his wife on V-E day that he expected to be ordered to the Pacific soon. Had he been one of the predicted hundreds of thousands of casualties, my first wife would not have been born in 1946. And, while I may have fathered two sons with another woman, they would not be the two fine young men I call my sons today. And my granddaughter, had she been born, would have a different heritage.
Greene writes about a Memorial Day weekend trip he took to Branson, Mo., with Tibbets, his navigator and his bombardier and their wives. One evening, they were guests of a Japanese-born violinist - now an American citizen and country music star (yeah, go figure). The entertainer tells Tibbets he and his family lived near Hiroshima at the time of the attack and afterward fled into the mountains.
He said his father told him that if the war had continued "all would have died;" that his father had said the end of the war spared the lives of men, women and children all over Japan.
And he thanked Tibbets for his role in ending the war.
Tibbets turned 91 in February. At the time of the writing of Greene's book, he was still driving - a Toyota - and enjoyed dining at Bob Evans restaurants.
He still makes occasional public appearances. I had the honor of shaking his hand at a militaria show in Louisville, Ky., a few years ago.

Congressman Steve Buyer

I had a pleasant conversation with my Congressman today.
Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., was back in Indiana's Fourth Congressional District checking in with constituents and his office arranged for my wife, who is editor of a medium-sized daily newspaper, to meet with him.
I was also invited along because Steve has an interest in the Patriot Guard Riders.
Even knowing that, I was a little surprised when he thanked me profusely for my involvement in the PRG and for what we do to honor U.S. military personnel who die in the service of their country.
I'd met Steve a time or two before at political functions. He has an easy manner and comes across as an old friend rather than a politician.
He said he's working on a bill, similar to the law recently passed in Indiana, that would shield the families of our war dead from the insults of those would would show up at funerals to demonstrate for any religious or political purpose.
Earlier this year, the Indiana General Assembly passed a bill making it a felony to disturb the peace at a funeral. Further, the bill requires any protestors to remain at least 500 feet from a funeral. It was immediately signed into law by Gov. Mitch Daniels, just in time to protect the family of a Kokomo soldier.
Members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kans., had expressed intentions of demonstrating at the Kokomo kid's funeral but they never showed up.
Likewise, they were absent from the funeral of an Indianapolis soldier last week.
Buyer's bill would pertain to demonstrations on federal land, such as Arlington National Cemetery and other military cemeteries.
He said he hopes to get it through Congress and on President Bush's desk for signature in time for Memorial Day.

For Spc. Antoine McKinzie

With the PGR.

First PGR mission

I finally made a Patriot Guard mission today.
Fellow Indianapolis BMW Club member and fellow K1200GT rider Harold Patterson and I joined about 150 other riders - mostly Harley-Davidson guys - to shield the family of an Indianapolis soldier from the wackos from Topeka.
Actually, we never saw the protesters and I'm waiting for the evening TV news to see if they even showed up.
For me, the highlight of the day was the moment when we were all standing at attention, saluting the funeral procession as it headed south on Zionsville Road from the Pike High School Performing Arts Center and the car carrying the soldier's parents came by.
The mother was sitting in the front passenger seat with the window rolled down. She smiled at us and said, "Thank you."
We formed a double line of bikes about a half-mile long as we followed the hearse about 8 miles to Crown Hill Cemetery.

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Sent from my Treo

Pete

Pete the pup had his second session of puppy school this afternoon at Petsmart and he's doing great.
He's got "sit" and (lie)"down" cold.
He was pretty shy during the 20-minute socialization period at the beginning of class but seemed to gain confidence as the class went on.
He's still not getting it where toilet training is concerned, but we remain optimistic.
I'm sitting in the Meijer parking lot with Pete relaxing in his crate in the back of the Subaru while Maria does the grocery shopping. Suits me, since I hate grocery shopping.
I've never been a big fan of bumper stickers, largely because I was a newspaper reporter and we're not supposed to have opinions. The last time I put a bumper sticker on my car was in the 1970s and it was one promoting Transcendental Meditation.
But the one pictured above struck me as a humorous way to tell people we're proud Aussie owners, so it now adorns the back of the Forester.

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Sent from my Treo

Crap

Went to the eye doc for my annual checkup and he says I have early cataracts.
Just what a photographer wants to hear.
He guesses I won't need to do anything about them for about 5 years.
Well, my mother had 'em, so I guess I shouldn't be that surprised.

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Sent from my Treo