Helluva book!

I just finished reading the Kindle version of “A Higher Call,” an extraordinarily well researched and well-written page-turner about Franz Stigler and Charlie Brown and their encounter over Germany in World War II.

Watch the video, read the book.

Coincidentally, Franz Stigler’s old boss, Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering posed for a rather unflattering prison portrait on this date 68 years ago.

Kongs!

Dora found a couple of long-lost Kongs under the couch this afternoon and examined them with Jack.

Cool stuff

Hoosier Boys’ State

Fifty-one years ago this week, I was on the campus of Indiana University at Bloomington, participating in the American Legion’s Hoosier Boys’ State program.

Boys’ State is a week-long seminar on government for boys from virtually every high school in Indiana. Delegates, who are between their junior and senior years, are chosen on the basis of academic standing. Delphi High School was allotted three delegates and I attended, along with Ed Cook and Jack Klepinger.

Delegates are assigned to one of two political parties – Nationalists and Federalists – and run for various city, county and state offices. I don’t remember which party I belonged to, but I was the unsuccessful candidate for coroner of Brunton County (HBS county names do not correspond with real Indiana county names).

I still have my name tag and my HBS t-shirt is somewhere in an under-bed storage bin.

The guys who were serious about their political ambitions, I discovered, had done extensive preparation and alliance-building. The rest of us just showed up.

The program was launched at Butler University in 1937, was at the Indiana State Fairgrounds from 1938-41, the Indiana State School for the Deaf from 1942-55 (except for 1945 when it was suspended because of WWII), I.U. from ‘56-‘68, Indiana State University from ‘69-2008 and at Trine State University in Angola since 2009.

The top office is governor and a kid named Mike Valentine from Warsaw won it when I was there in 1962. Mike went on to practice law in his hometown.

Looking back at the list of HBS governors since the program’s inception in 1937, I don’t recognize any of the names, so the HBS governorship hasn’t proven to be a stepping stone to fame.

That said, HBS alumni include Purdue University President and former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a bunch of congressmen and senators, a former astronaut and Brian Lamb, president and founder of C-Span. And my brother-in-law Kerstan.

And me.

Best friends

The focus is a little soft, but the convenience of the iPhone camera is a godsend and lets me capture images that I could never get if all I had was my Nikon D200.

Being here

If everything had gone according to plan, I would be waking up in my tent on the grounds of the Biltmore in Asheville, N.C. this morning. I planned to go to the BMW Riders Association rally this weekend, but events have conspired to keep me home.

Dora is one of those events.

When I took her out this morning, she discovered my bootlaces and attacked them with enthusiasm and determination. I finally foiled her by tucking them into the tops of my boots and covering it all with my pants leg.

So she attacked the cuff of my jeans.

A few minutes later, I glanced over my shoulder at the back steps in time to see her launch off the side of the steps from the top step. She came down in an awkward pancake landing, but shook it off and seemed none the worse for it.

Dora becomes bolder day by day and increasingly owns her space. She has had some toilet training lapses, pooping in her kennel, but I think we can correct that by restricting the amount of space in her Jack-sized kennel.

We supervise her trips to the back yard because she’s still small enough that a large owl or other raptor could conceivably snatch her up as it would a rabbit or other small prey. I’m hopeful that she’ll be too big for birds of prey by the time I leave town for the West in a few weeks.

At the doc's office

Follow up from last week's tests.

The nurse practitioner is a dull, frumpy woman who started out explaining how big a 5mm polyp is. I bristled and told her she wasn't addressing a second-grader and I am well acquainted with the metric system.

She also seemed disturbed that I am getting better results with my chiropractor and have rejected her doc's recommendation that I start taking prescription strength Prilosec.

She is obviously clueless. She also asked the name of my chiropractor, which I declined to give.

I have great confidence in her doc's ability to scope and excise bad things in my innards, but I never want to see her face again. Never.

Third generation

Dora is the third generation of puppies to play with this knobby ball toy.

We bought it for Pete when we lived in Indiana. Then Jack had it and now it's Dora's.

Dora! Dora! Dora!

Dora has figured out how to negotiate the back steps and use the dog door, which has us extremely impressed.

It looks like Jack is in love with his new kennel-mate. He spends a lot of his time watching her, either from inside the house or through the kitchen windows from the porch.

When Dora is loose, they play and lie together almost constantly, preferring to be touching if possible. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship/romance.

I think they’re gonna be good friends

Getting microchipped

We took Dora to the vet this morning for her first visit for shots and a microchip.

She took the shot with a whimper, but screamed bloody murder when the rice grain-size microchip went in.

She seems to understand it is not cool to pee or poop in the house and has managed to do all of her business outside, which we find utterly amazing.

Jack, whose favorite game is pulling a toy, has been offering her toys and inviting her to play and they had a momentary game this morning on the porch with a small twig. Jack appears fascinated with her and was quite protective last evening when a friend brought her poodle over and the poodle got aggressive with Dora.

We got her a collar and a name tag yesterday.

A-DORA-ble Dora is here!!!

We got to pick up Dora last night - a week earlier than expected. She made the 150-mile car trip without getting sick & with no accidents. And she only woke us a few times during the night.

Jack seemed very happy to meet her and is playing gently with her.

Lunch

The Brick Oven, Paragould, Ark.

In case you missed it

That’s the late, great Pete with Maria. The photo was shot last summer, a few months before his liver failed and killed him.

From this week’s Carmel (Calif.) Pine Cone

Stuck in the retard parade

One of the first things I learned when we moved here almost six years ago was that people here are bad drivers with molasses-slow reflexes.

I have adjusted my expectations since then and have come to accept that even though I am not a particularly aggressive driver, no one – absolutely no one – will ever beat me off the line at a stoplight unless I doze off during the red.

Based on anecdotal evidence, I’d bet that Arkansans are statistically under-represented in the ranks of jet fighter pilots.

But something has happened in the past week – maybe it’s the advent of the first mini-heat wave of the late spring – to make local drivers slower and stupider than usual.

Every time I’ve driven in to town this week, it feels like I’m stuck at the back of a retard parade. Or maybe just a parade of 80-something blue-haired old ladies in Buicks.

The times I’ve been on a bike, I’ve seriously considered lane-splitting. It’s legal and not discouraged in California, but would probably get me arrested here for startling the incompetents.

They call turn signals “blinkers” here, but they might as well not call them anything because most drivers rarely use them.

Odd Pet Dept.

I had never heard of a Sugar Glider until yesterday when I noticed this posting on the public bulletin board at the local post office.

The picture isn’t much help, so I did an internet search and discovered it’s the marsupial counterpart of the North American flying squirrel.

You can read all about it in this Wikipedia article.

Eight days until D-Day!

We travel to Greenbrier, Ark. a week from tomorrow to pick up our new puppy, Dora, and bring her back to her Forever Home.

Breeder Joleen Marple sent us some new photos last evening. Here are a few.

Coffee & Kindle

Killing time at Starbucks waiting for a 2 pm appointment.

Birthday roses

In the mail this morning

In an amazing burst of unusual efficiency and speed, the U.S. Postal Service transported these two sets of Little Buckaroo bowls and cups from scenic Idaho Springs, Colo. to Brookland, Ark. in less than two days.

The Ebay vendor mailed the package on Monday morning and it was ready for pickup here by 9:30 a.m. today.

I already covered the significance of these pieces here a couple of days ago, so suffice it to say that I’m delighted to have them.

Here’s a detail shot of the artwork on the bottom of the bowls. Till Goodan drew the youngster in a way that made it possible to see it as a boy or a girl. I suspect his daughter Betty Goodan Andrews, who retains sole control of the rights to her father's name and all of his work, was the model.

Happy Birthday, Maria!

Today is my wife Maria’s birthday. I won’t specify which one other than to say it’s a milestone or sorts, but she’ still just a kid compared with me.

She is without question the smartest, most compassionate, bravest, most tenacious, most adaptable and all-around best everything woman I have ever known.

We were extremely lucky to find each other at a point in each of our lives when we were free to appreciate each other’s talents and capacity for fun and adventure. I shot this photo across the table of a restaurant in Lebanon, Ind. in 1996 not long after we met.

I love her with all my heart and look forward to many more years together.

In case I forgot where I live…

I noticed this sign on the post office door when I picked up our mail a little after noon today.

I suppose you could see something like this in a larger city, but I doubt it. It’s emblematic of small town life and, being the son of a small town (Delphi, Ind., population 2,500 when I left there), I find it charming.

I also like the fact that I pretty much never have to wait in line at the local post office. And we all know, thanks to that guy in the Stamps.com commercial, that there is nothing worse than waiting in line at the post office. Not even public beheadings or an extinction level asteroid collision. Nothing.

I lived in Indianapolis (the 12th largest city in the U.S.) for nearly 30 years and enjoyed the shopping and other amenities of a city, but small town life and rural living suits me just fine. I like knowing my neighbors, having deer and other wildlife in my yard and knowing that the occasional gunfire I hear is folks shooting for sport.

Somewhere between here and the Rocky Mountains…

The Wallace China Co. made  a three-piece “Little Buckaroo Chuck Set” as part of its Westward Ho line of dinnerware.

The Little Buckaroo plate, bowl and cup are being reproduced these days by the True West Co. of Royse City, Texas. The True West version is shown above. The set goes for $89 and you can buy each piece separately – $37 for the plate, $31 for the bowl and $21 for the cup.

I bought an original Little Buckaroo plate on Ebay in February and have been searching for the other two pieces ever since.

Then last week, an Ebay vendor in Idaho Springs, Colo. offered a pair of bowls and a pair of cups which I was able to snipe last Friday night for $76. That may seem like a lot, but they are original Wallace manufacture and True West reproductions would have cost $104. The True West version of the plate has a rather poor reproduction of the original Till Goodan artwork, with a bunch of cheesy colors added that were not present in the superior original. Likewise, the True West bowl is an inferior reproduction.

I suppose I should be on the lookout for another plate now, so as to have two complete chuck sets for the occasional young dinner guests.

The seller put them into the mail this morning, so the waiting has begun.

It occurred to me the other day that there is a curiously happy feeling involved with anticipating the arrival of a package, either by mail or commercial carrier. I think I’m always happier when I know something like this is in the pipeline. (Just writing that gives me pause and makes me wonder if there isn’t a bit of the Home Shopping Channel shopaholic in me. Naaaah, I’m just a collector.)

Here’s the original Wallace Little Buckaroo Plate. Notice the finer detail in the graphic. Also the Till Goodan signature in the bottom left.

Yikes! I did it again!

It felt so novel and so good to have washed the 1994 K75S last week that I felt compelled to give my 2003 K1200GT its first Arkansas wash after nearly six years of residence.

It was hot and sweaty work this morning, so I did kind of a slap-dash job. Hardly what you would call detailing, but the bike is no longer conspicuously buggy or dirty.

BTW, ArmorAll Wash & Wax is pretty good stuff and did a decent job of washing off the bug splat. I borrowed a little from my stepdaughter to wash the K75S last week and bought a bottle for myself at AutoZone yesterday afternoon.

As with the K75S, I pretty much left the wheels alone. Some day when I’m feeling really ambitious, I’ll get some Mr. Clean scrubbing pads and get after the grease, dirt and brake dust accumulated on the wheels of both bikes.

Putin' on the dog

There is something supremely satisfying about sitting on the porch with a good dog while a soft Arkansas rain falls on a lazy Sunday afternoon in June.

Remember PDAs?

This is a page from the June, 1999 Popular Mechanics article on Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), which seem shockingly primitive compared with today’s smartphones and tablets.

A helluva lot has happened with technology since 1999 – hard drive capacity has soared from less than 500 megabytes to 4 terabyte drives, there were no iPods, no iPhones, no iPads, PCs ran Windows 98, and Wifi hotspots were few and far between.

I remember admiring a PDA in an Office Depot in Silverthorne, Colo. and thinking it was pretty cool.

I wonder what I’ll think is cool in another 14 years.

OMG! I washed a bike!

Kinda like the KFC commercials where the guy freaks out and thinks he ate the bones. I washed a bike!

I was watching TV this afternoon and felt a sudden uncontrollable urge to wash one of my two bikes.

Now that I think about it, I know how it started.

I was at my chiropractor’s office yesterday afternoon when she introduced me to another patient who is also a BMW rider. We hit it off like long-lost friends and I took him out to the parking lot to admire the ‘94 K75S I had ridden to the appointment.

As we stood there gazing at the bike, I became unusually aware of how dirty it was, not having been washed in the nearly six years we’ve lived in Arkansas. It wasn’t hideous, but it was mildly embarrassing.

So I rolled it out of the garage this afternoon, hosed it off and went after it with car wash solution, sponge, hose and artificial chamois. Being lazy, I didn’t bother with the wheels. Even so, it looks pretty damn good for a 19-year-old motorcycle with only 13,800-some miles on the odometer.

I’m enjoying the results so much I might just wheel the K1200GT out for a wash tomorrow. My Indianapolis BMW Club friends would be shocked.

The Dora Report

Dora was five weeks old yesterday and comes home with us in just 16 days.

Breeder Joleen Marple shot these photos for us this morning.

Her eyes are still very blue!

Mug vs. Cup

Okay, here’s where the experts go all condescending and say, “Oh, he finally noticed there are different sizes and styles! Isn’t that precious?”

Well, yes, I did just discover that there is something else besides the standard mug-size cup in the Wallace Westward Ho Pioneer Trails series. I noticed it when I put my newest acquisition into the china cabinet and found it was markedly smaller than the other two Pioneer Trails cups/mugs I have.

The new acquisition looks like the cup that came with the Little Buckaroo child’s place setting, but with the Pioneer Trails transfer instead of cattle brands. It has the Pioneer Trails logo stamp on the bottom, just like its big brother.

Gut Check Report

The worst thing about a colonoscopy is the agonizing bloating you’re left with because of all the air they pump into your lower gastrointestinal tract.

They did the upper and lower GI yesterday morning, starting about 7:15 a.m. We were out of there and on our way home by 10 a.m. with illustrated printed reports that showed they found nothing alarming. The doc’s response to my possible diabetic gastroparesis symptoms was to give me a prescription for Omeprazole, which I have concluded is definitely not the answer.

Happily, I was sufficiently decompressed by 3 p.m. to be comfortable again.

My chiropractor says she has good success treating gastroparesis with chiropractic techniques. Diabetic gastroparesis is a condition where the vagus nerve, which controls the contractions in the stomach and lower gastrointestinal tract that move the food through the system, gets compromised by a lack of oxygenation from the bloodstream. The result is that food sits in the stomach so long it begins to ferment and cause acid reflux and extreme discomfort, especially when you’re horizontal and trying to sleep. I’ve had a couple of episodes so extreme that I thought I was having a gallbladder attack with waves of sweating, nausea and disorientation. Since my gallbladder checked out fine last month, I’ve come to the conclusion that fermented food generated enough toxic stuff to rise to the level of food poisoning.

At any rate, rather than accept the conventional medical wisdom that I have a chronic, incurable condition, I’m following a course of treatment that I think may get my vagus nerve back up to snuff while, at the same time, modifying my diet to favor foods that are easily digestible.

I remain guardedly optimistic that we’re on the right track.

In the mail today

I now have a third Pioneer Trails cup to go with my three PT saucers.

Dora the Explorer (c’mon, you knew it was inevitable)

Breeder Joleen sent us a new batch of photos of our little blue merle Aussie girl showing her in her first experience with the Great Outdoors this moring.

As you can see, she met chickens and a kitten.

Gut check

I’m on a liquid diet today, preparing for an upper GI exam and maybe a colonoscopy early tomorrow morning in the continuing effort to figure out what’s going on with my digestive system.

Dr. Nicole Flora, my daughter-in-law, opined a few weeks ago that I have diabetic gastroparesis. It wasn’t until about 2:45 a.m. today, when I was fighting my nightly battle with indigestion, that I finally looked it up.

I didn’t like what I read here: http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/complications/gastroparesis.html

The confusing, disturbing thing for me is that my doctor has been telling me for years that I’m doing a good job of managing my Type II diabetes with medication based on my twice-annual blood tests. A gastroparesis diagnosis would seem to contradict that.

We shall see.

Generally speaking, I have a higher level of confidence in Dr. Nicky’s diagnostic abilities than with my own G.P.

With the freezer contents at stake, my Lacrosse monitor just became very useful

I've had my Lacrosse wireless monitor system for several weeks, using it to monitor the outdoor temperature and the indoor conditions in my upstairs office. I had it set up to notify me when the office temperature rose above 84 degrees to signal me to turn on the window air conditioner and save our computers from overheating. It worked well in that capacity.
Then, this morning, I found a better, more critical use for it when I discovered that our garage circuit breaker had tripped, letting the contents of our upright freezer warm to about 30 degrees.
I figured I'd rather just pay attention and used the upstairs air conditioner whenever it seems stuffy and use the monitor system to alert me if the freezer contents are threatened. (Actually, it would make even more sense to add a second monitor and cover both fronts.)
At any rate, it was a simple matter of tossing the wired probe into the freezer and setting the transmitter on top. Now I have constant monitoring of the ambient temperature and humidity in the garage (which is useful since we store canned goods on shelves there) and the interior of the freezer.
I have the software programmed to fire a text message and an email to my iPhone if the freezer temp exceeds 25 degrees (normal operating temperature is 0 degrees Fahrenheit) or if the ambient temperature in the garage drops below freezing or above 110.

Haircut

I needed it.

Remembering Mike Brady

I was introduced to Mike Brady in the fall of 1963 shortly after I arrived at Indiana State College (now University) to begin my freshman year.

The introduction was made by Dave Johnson, a fellow Delphi Oracle, who was beginning his sophomore year and was eager to see to my orientation. He also took me on a tour of the Terre Haute red light district on my first night on campus.

Dave was a drummer with jazz inclinations and Mike was the quintessential jazz hipster, given to noodling on “air saxophone” with little or no prompting. Brady was also a perceptive young man and declared me a “sleeper.” (From the Urban Dictionary: Sleeper - Outwardly common looking item, that possesses something special or unique inside.)

He played gigs on and off campus with other student musicians including David Darling, a cellist and composer who won the 2010 Grammy for Best New Age Album.

Mike was a graduate of Cathedral High School in Indianapolis. I lost track of him after my freshman year and didn’t see him again until I ran into him while covering the Indiana State Fair for The Indianapolis News in the early 1970s. He was playing with a rock band at the fair, which surprised me because I never expected him to forsake jazz and “go commercial.”

I’ve often wondered what became of him and did an Internet search yesterday. I found he played with an Indianapolis bar band called Chooch and the Enchanters. An email query to Jim “Chooch” Kennedy confirmed we were talking about the same Mike Brady.

“Michael passed away several years ago from a heart attack in  his sleep. He was a great musician and friend {although we got in to it once in awhile}. No one taught me more about music and other things than Mike,” Chooch said.

I can’t say I knew him well, but I can say I knew him well enough to know he was one of a kind.

At one point, several of us bought cap-firing Mattell submachine guns. Here’s a shot of Mike menacing one of the guys in his Sandison Hall dorm.

Sadly, Dave Johnson is gone too. He died a couple of years ago of cancer in Farmington, N.M.

The Dora Report–Day 31

Here’s our little Aussie blue merele girl Dora, photographed by her breeder last evening after dinner. She was born a month ago today. We get to bring her home June 22.