Flat Stanley is going home

I’m putting together a package documenting Flat Stanley travels to Memphis for young Jacob Shillings.

Jake, as you may recall, sent Flat Stanley to us a few weeks ago with a request that we photograph him somewhere interesting and return him with some mementos of his travels.

Here he is in front of the Elvis Presley statue in the I-40 Tennessee Welcome Center in Memphis.

I hope to get the package into the mail tomorrow.

The Lexus report

The car I had no intention of buying has won me over.

I’ve put more than 500 miles on the odometer in the past two days – Little Rock yesterday to send my watch off for service and Memphis today for bagels and to photograph Flat Stanley at Graceland and elsewhere.

This is, without question, the most comfortable and relaxed vehicle I’ve ever driven. I returned home both days without the feeling of having done something physically or psychologically tiring. I never realized what a struggle it is to drive my Honda del Sol and even our Subaru.

Now I’m wondering where to drive tomorrow…

(I keep telling myself it’s just a jumped-up Toyota.)

Roadtrip

I took the new car on its first road trip today – a 154-mile whirlwind run down to Little Rock to the only Breitling watch dealer in Arkansas to send my 11-year-old Chrono Avenger in for long overdue service.

That means they send it back home to Switzerland where the watchmakers inspect it and return an estimate of what it will cost to make it like new. Once they have my approval, they go to work and presumably I get my watch back in 40-60 days. I had it serviced once before, back around 2003, and it wasn’t cheap, so I’m expecting a sharp pain in the wallet in a few weeks.

But my wallet was kinda happy when I got back to Jonesboro this afternoon and pulled up to the pumps at Sam’s Club to discover the price of regular was down to $2.94.9 a gallon. That’s two cents cheaper than 24 hours ago. I seems almost miraculous to see gas under $3 a gallon.

The car performed splendidly, although the low tire pressure indicator light came on a couple of times. I looked at the tires and didn’t see any that were conspicuously low, but I’ll check pressures after they cool down from the drive.

There’s heavy flooding in the farmland south of Jonesboro and north of Newport which is great news for ducks. The sky was full of them and at one point the flocks were so dense the sky was almost black with an overcast of ducks.

Just because…

Sometimes, nothing satisfies like an R. Crumb cartoon.

Remembering a musical genius

Spike Jones would have been 100 years old today but sadly, he died in 1965 at the age of 53.

Weird Al Yankovic explains Spike’s importance in the music world of the 1940s, ‘50s and early ‘60 eloquently and puts what follows into context.

My parents took me to a Spike Jones concert at the Elliott Hall of Music on the Purdue University campus when I was about 5 years old. I was absolutely dazzled and saved the program from that evening in a scrap book.

Spike Jones and his City Slickers were the funniest thing I had ever heard and even today, I laugh out loud at several of his musical derangements.

Unfortunately, several generations have grown up without being exposed to Spike’s brilliant insanity. That is a tragedy. I can’t imagine a person being musically literate without appreciating the works of Spike Jones.

Here are some samples. Sometimes, they start out slowly, but stick around for the payoff:

I never planned to buy a Lexus. Really, I didn’t.

I had no thought of buying a car when I got up this morning.
Yes, I realize that our ‘94 Honda del Sol and ‘02 Subaru Forester are showing their age. Both are well past the 200,000-mile mark. The paint on the del Sol is blasted out, thanks largely to having to park it under bird-infested maple trees at our Thorntown house. The window tinting film is bubbling and peeling and there’s a piece of windshield molding flapping in the breeze on the starboard side.
It needs new shocks and new tires, but the engine and drive train are sound and, speaking of sound, it has a killer sound system thanks to the addition of an XM-capable Pioneer tuner/CD player. It’s still a fun car to drive and I figure it’s got maybe 50,000 more miles left in it – maybe more.
But I had to send Maria to work in it this morning because I needed the Subaru’s carrying capacity to haul Jack in a dog crate to the vet for his rabies shot and 14-week checkup. He’s thriving, having gone from 18.2 pounds three weeks ago to 23.6 pounds this morning.
By the time Maria got to work, she had decided that my del Sol is a ticking time bomb, a death trap. Never mind the air bags, she’s sure it affords as much crash protection as a cardboard box.
Not one to ignore what she perceives as a problem, Maria asked one of her reporters – a car guy who restores old autos and dabbles in re-sales – if he knew of any good deals on a used car.
Of course he did.
The next thing I know, I’m test driving a 2004 Lexus RX330 SUV. The car got severely beat up in a hailstorm last summer and was written off by the insurance company as a total loss at 78,000 miles. The reporter’s friend bought the car and smoothed out all of the dents with the thought of selling it to a dealer at a modest profit.
I told him I wanted to think about it and we went to lunch. I whipped out my netbook, checked out the Blue Book values and pulled up the CarFax to confirm what I’d been told about the car’s history.
Everything checked out and, recognizing that we’re probably going to have to replace at least one of our beaters in the next 12 months, the asking price seemed more than reasonable. More like a crazy-good deal. Unless, of course, there is a hidden problem lurking in there somewhere.
So we pulled the trigger and now Maria doesn’t have to worry about me getting smashed by a semi in my little cardboard box on wheels.

How I cured my Restless Leg Syndrome

When I started going to a chiropractor about 18 months ago and gave her my list of medical complaints, I mentioned that I have Restless Leg Syndrome. It typically hits me in the evenings when I'm sitting on the couch watching TV and frequently interferes with my sleep.

I don’t get the extreme burning and tingling that some people have with RLS, but my legs have to move frequently in an effort to get comfortable.

I didn't suppose she could do anything about it, but I was wrong.

She gave me a few packets of ElectroMix with the instructions to dissolve a packet in a glass of water. (Never mind that the instructions on the packet say to dissolve it into a liter of water for use as a sports drink.) That makes for a powerful dose with a pretty intense flavor, but I found it stops my Restless Leg Syndrome cold.

I'm writing this review because RLS woke me up about 3 a.m. today and I was able to get back to sleep easily after slamming down a glass of ElectroMix.

This, of course, isn't how the manufacturer intends for it to be used, but it sure works wonders for me.

The reason it works is that one cause of RLS is electrolyte imbalance and ElectroMix gets puts things back into balance.

If you can’t find it in a drugstore or other store, you can get a 30-packet box for under $10 on Amazon.com.

Checking in

I’m making a rare stop at Seattle Grind, having come into town to run some errands.

I won’t stay long because this place is like a freaking sauna. My Swiss Army knife thermometer says it’s 83 degrees. I suppose they have the temperature cranked up to offset the chill from the drive-up window, but 83 is a bit much.

Our tenant is now delinquent on his rent for November and December. He promised to send a check on Saturday to catch up, including late fees. Instead, we got a cashier’s check today for a little more than one-third of the amount owed. With no note of explanation.

This is making my head explode, which is why I let Maria do all of our communicating with this guy.

It’s almost embarrassing how much I love my dogs

 

I consider myself amazingly lucky to share my home with the two smartest dogs I have ever known.

Pete, the 5-year-old Aussie, and Jack, who will be 14 weeks old on Thursday, greet us every morning with boundless joy and enthusiasm.

Where the late great Ruthie the Wonder Dog accepted Pete grudgingly, Pete seems to recognize a kindred spirit in Jack, also an Aussie. He puts up with Jack’s pestering and play fighting and the only time Pete gets serious with Jack is when the little guy tests Pete’s alpha dog status in the realm of food and treats. Pete gave him a painful nip on the nose over the weekend when Jack contested a particularly tasty treat. Maria rubbed some Vitamin E on the wound and it’s healing quickly.

Both dogs are extremely affectionate and love physical contact with us. They rub up against our legs like cats and lie close, sometimes on our feet, when we sit to watch TV.

We occasionally let Pete sleep between us on the bed. Jack, who sleeps in a kennel in the bedroom watches everything closely and complained loudly the other night when Pete got to sleep on the bed and he didn’t. Get some bladder control, little guy, and your time will come.

Jack loves to retrieve tennis balls or whatever toy we care to toss. I have high hopes that he can be a great frisbee dog and will start his training soon.

A movie recommendation

Maria is always on the lookout for quirky independent films on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or wherever and we found a good one last night.

It’s “The Price of Milk” set in New Zealand. I don’t give away any of the plot except to say it’s utterly unpredictable.

And it includes a dog named Nigel who goes around with a big cardboard box over him because he has agoraphobia.

Check it out.

Into the archives

I’m scanning negatives today, putting together a set of photos of Maria’s ex’s father who is near death in an Indiana hospital.

Bob is a Korean War veteran and a tough-as-nails farmer who, until lately, was still working hard on the family farm. He’s 85 years old.

The photos I’m offering to his granddaughter are from 2002 when we found him with his antique tractor at the county fair and a small town festival parade.

Incompetence at Petco

I had to run in to town this morning for a bag of puppy food for Jack.

I was expecting someone here at the house at noon, so I was determined to waste no time when I left here about 11:05 a.m.

Everything went smoothly until I got into line at Petco with my bag of IAMS. I knew I was in trouble when I noticed the couple at the head of the line were the same people who were there when I entered the store.

The 20-something girl pretending to be a cashier was clearly struggling, but finally completed the transaction. Then, the next person in line had some kind of an issue that completely boggled the cashier. She called for help, so now we had two 20-something girls puzzling over the checkout computer and the line not moving.

The upshot of the thing was that a checkout process that should have taken a couple of minutes dragged out to about 20 minutes.

When they finally opened another checkout line, it was because they had abandoned the original computer and moved the girl genius to the new line. Naturally, she was unable to get the new computer to read the barcode on the $5 coupon I handed her and had to have another girl read the dozen or so digits to her so she could input them.

She offered that she had been fighting that other computer all morning. Looks like she lost.

I made it home about 10 minutes after my friend got there.

Sending the trailcam in for repair/replacement

My Bushnell Trophy Camera Model 119435 is going back to the company today.

There appears to be a defect in the power switch and maybe more. When I bought the unit back in March, I had difficulty getting the screen to come on in the “setup” position. I had to slide it to the click stop position for “setup” and then wiggle it for several seconds before the screen would light up.

I was able to use the camera in this fashion for the summer and up until about a month ago when I noticed it was creating a lot of corrupted, unreadable video files and re-setting the date and time to different years and times.

Now, I can't get the screen to turn on at all. The last time I pulled the SD card, it appeared that the camera had stopped functioning a week or two earlier, as there were no recent video files despite the presence of wildlife.

So I’m invoking the two-year limited warranty and sending it to Bushnell Outdoor Products in Lenexa, Kans. for repair or replacement. I’m mindful that this camera had wildly mixed reviews on Amazon.com. Most users liked it, but several complained about getting defective units. I guess that’s to be expected with a product mass produced in China.

Lots of binoculars and nothing to look at

I’ve had a weakness for binoculars and telescopes for as long as I can remember.

My first binoculars were actually field glasses (binos have prisms and higher magnification, field glasses are straight-through matching telescopes with lower power) that my mom got for me with the S&H Green Stamps she collected for shopping at the local IGA supermarket.

My first real binos were a Christmas present from my parents – a basic 7x50 (7 times magnification with 50mm diameter objective lenses) made by Tasco. I always thought Tasco was a Japanese outfit until I looked them up on Wikipedia and discovered it’s an American company founded in 1954 in Florida. Bushnell bought them and was, in turn, purchased by MidOcean Partners, a private equity firm based in New York and London.

But I digress.

Tasco isn’t in the same league with Leitz or Swarovski or Steiner, but their optics have always been good enough for my purposes. I have a pair of 8x50 rubber armored Tasco binoculars that I bought in the mid-1970s that are still as clear and sharp as they ever were.

I also have a Tasco 34TZ 36x50 spotting scope that is too powerful to use hand-held and has to be tripod mounted.

My most exotic binoculars are a WWII bring-back by my first father-in-law who served as a captain in the U.S. Army’s 144th Field Artillery Group and ended the war in Austria. He brought home a lot of neat stuff, including the most powerful hand-held binoculars ever made by Ernst Leitz of Wetzlar – the 15x60 Campofortit model. The optics are a touch hazy after nearly 70 years, but they’re still impressive.

But I’ve lusted after the Tasco Offshore 36 or 54 binoculars ever since I first saw them because they have a built-in illuminated compass and a reticle for measuring the height or width of an object if the distance is known or the distance if the height or width is known. They’re waterproof and come in the standard marine 7X50 configuration. Steiner makes a compass-equipped bino also, but they can run as high as $1,200, compared with $250 or so for the Tasco. Never mind that the Tasco Offshore binos are out of production. You can still find new and used examples.

I’ve been watching for a decently-priced pair on Ebay for years and finally noticed some a couple of weeks ago with a Buy It Now price of $50. Never mind that the shipping from Virginia was an exorbitant $20. It was still a killer deal.

So I pulled the trigger and they showed up at our post office last Saturday. As advertised, they came without the original case or lens caps and – I discovered yesterday – without the batteries to illuminate the compass at night. But who cares? Fifty dollars, man!

But I quickly realized that living in a wooded subdivision, we have little use for such optics. We have no long views or scenic vistas. If I want to do anything interesting with binoculars, I have to drive someplace where I can see a long distance. And the novelty of having a compass bearing included in your view wears off pretty quickly unless you can use it for navigation. Like on the ocean or a lake.

I guess I’m glad I bought them, but I’m gladder still that I only paid 20 percent of retail. I’d really be pissed off at myself if I’d paid $1,200 or even $250.

My neighbor’s garage as seen from my office window. You can see the very top of the compass inset at the bottom. The 10-foot-high basketball goal is about 220 feet away.

Cleaning house

I took a look at the links in my Cool Blogs & Other Stuff this morning and concluded it’s time to dump some of them.

Some were fresh and vibrant when I discovered them and added them to the list, but those of us who follow blogs know that bloggers can get burned out, run out of things to say, have changes in their lives that make blogging inconvenient, or just stop for any number of reasons. I had high hopes for all of them when I included them in the list.

So say goodbye to:

• Conservatives who say Fuck
• Demure Thoughts
• Liberty Girl
• Overheard in Chicago
• Rick’s Outrage Page

There are a few others that haven’t seen any fresh material in several weeks, but I’m keeping them because their old stuff is worth reading.

Flat Stanley goes to Memphis with us

We took Flat Stanley to Memphis yesterday to see the sights and to get a dozen bagels from City Bagel East.

Here he is supervising the selection of bagels.

We left City Bagel East about 10:40 a.m. with a Garmin-projected ETA at Boscos for 10:59. We finally got there about 12:30 p.m. thanks to the enormous traffic snarl created by 18,000 runners, walkers, limpers and gimpers in the St. Jude Children’s Hospital Marathon.

Cops were letting traffic cross the marathon route only when there was a substantial gap between participants. Considering that the vast majority of participants were non-competitive and had absolutely no chance of winning anything and maybe not even finishing, it would have made more sense to have them jog in place while the traffic signals cycled. After being stuck in a miles-long three-lane backup of traffic for more than a half-hour, I turned more cynical than usual and started resenting these self-indulgent people in Spandex who should have done everybody a big favor by donating their entry fee and staying home.

To make matters worse, by the time we got to Boscos and were seated, we found ourselves surrounded by tables full of these people, noisily congratulating themselves on their heroic achievements. Fortunately, our server was able to move us to a much quieter space where we could enjoy our lunch in peace.

I had a mug of Boscos own porter, which Maria sampled and didn’t much care for.

Maria got a shot of Flat Stanley and the Memphis Pyramid on the way out of town.

The dogs were happy to see us when we got home.

Flat Stanley time-travels

A tourist from the future visits the Reichstag to hang out with Adolf Hitler and Rudolf Hess.

Flat Stanley arrives in Arkansas

Jacob Shillings, a son of our friends Jim and Lauri, sent us a fun request this week:

I am a fifth grade student in Ms. French's class at New Market Elementary. When I was in first grade our class read the book Flat Stanley. He was a boy who was flattened by a bulletin board. Stanley wanted to travel, so his family folded him up and mailed him to California.
In fifth grade, we are currently learning the states and capitals of the United States. Our teacher, Ms. French, wanted to enhance these geography lessons by using Flat Stanley. So, I am mailing my Flat Stanley to you. Please take him somewhere and write me back telling me about his adventures. If you have pictures, postcards, or brochures, please send them back with him. I will share his adventures with my classmates and this will help my classmates and I learn about the geography of the United States. We have a wall display in our grade level for the entire school to view.
Thank you for helping me with this project. Hope you have fun with him!

Stanley is about 9 inches tall. I think he’ll travel to Memphis this weekend for bagels and sightseeing.

"Someone has to be held accountable," she says.

Take a look at what the Democrat Party has created with its decades of social engineering and welfare programs that destroyed the Black family.
Here is the legacy of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" and "War on Poverty."
This country is $15 trillion in debt and cannot afford this culture of entitlement.

Why I love Amazon Prime

Having worn a beard most of the time since a June, 1976 backpacking trip to Isle Royale National Park, I don’t do a lot of shaving. Mostly, I shave around the edges to better define my beard and under my lower lip.

I switched from shave cream in aerosol cans to shaving soap, mug, and brush in the late ‘70s when I bought a set on closeout at a gift shop called Kittle’s Other Side in downtown Indianapolis. Kittle’s is a local furniture chain and the gift shop was on the other side of Pennsylvania Street from the anchor furniture store.

I retired the mug when I found this Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity mug on Ebay a dozen or more years ago, but still use the Chicago Shaving Co. brush. Since I use them sparingly, a cake of shaving soap lasts me a long time – a couple of years at least.

I noticed I was getting down to the end of the Williams shaving soap recently and made a mental note to resupply the next time I went to Walmart. But, to my surprise, the Parker Road Walmart in Jonesboro, Ark., apparently doesn’t stock shaving soap. I can’t be the last aficionado of hot lather in town, but I guess it’s become obsolete as far as Walmart is concerned.

So I resolved to make a trip to Walgreens one of these days to see if they still carry shaving soap.

But on Tuesday afternoon, I realized I can have my pick of a huge selection of shaving soaps and since I paid $79 to become an Amazon Prime member early this year, I could get two-day shipping free. A few mouse clicks later, it was a done deal. No driving to Walgreens to scour the shaving section for something that very well might not be there.

Then it occurred to me that we could use some new pads for our Shark steam mop. Click, click, and they were in the pipeline.

The FedEx truck pulled into our driveway about an hour ago and the driver dropped off a box with the shaving cream and steamer pads, less than 48 hours after I placed the order.

I’ve bought more than 40 items from Amazon.com this year – ranging from a wheelbarrow tire to a GPS to coffee to motorcycle boots to a trailcam – and almost all of it was shipped free, so the Amazon Prime membership paid for itself many times over. The money I saved by not paying state and local sales tax alone probably covered the cost. Amazon Prime membership also gives us access to hundreds of streaming movies and TV shows.

It really is a brilliant marketing scheme. I get the stuff I need/want without driving the 20-some miles into town and back and I can find almost anything with a few mouse clicks.

Yes, it means I’m not spending my money locally, but that’s how the free market works. As far as I’m concerned, low prices and convenience trump sentiment. Local businesses that offer unique goods and services will do fine.