AID’S?

I noticed this monument to idiocy taped to the door at the Mexican restaurant where we had lunch yesterday.

Obviously, the Arkansas State University Department of Social Work put the wrong person in charge of creating the flyers for their World AIDS Day Conference tomorrow and Friday.

I’m used to seeing horrible things done with apostrophes in the creation of plurals. I’ve even seen a sign at a Florida campground expressing “thank’s” to departing visitors. But it takes a special kind of punctuation illiteracy to stick an apostrophe in front of the S in AIDS. Notice that the mistake is not repeated in a later reference to AIDS.

There are apparently lots of people who think any word that ends in the letter s needs an apostrophe. Seems like we all should have learned that in the third or fourth grade, yet we see stuff like this coming out of a university. Shame. Shame.

Schneesturm

The rain turned to snow about 6 o’clock last evening and it continued through most of the night to give us the first snowfall of the season.
There’s always something charming about the first snow of the season that later snows can’t possibly replicate because my perception changes from novel and beautiful to cold, sloppy, and inconvenient. I like snow better here in northeast Arkansas because it doesn’t overstay its welcome and generally melts away in a day or two. The overnight temperature never got below 35, so this snow was doomed from the get-go and is melting quickly. The last time I looked, the forecast was for windy weather and a high around 47, meaning the snow will be gone by sundown.
Jack, being only 12 weeks old, had never seen snow before last night. He didn’t seem particularly impressed..

4:55 p.m. -  As I predicted, the temperature rose into the 40s and the snow is gone.

Training and proper gear do make a difference

I attended a toy run weekend before last put on by the Association Motorcycle Club and ABATE of Arkansas.

I saw several local Harley folks with patches on their vests that said, "In loving memory of" and then 2, 3, 4 or more patches below with the names of friends who presumably were killed in motorcycle accidents.

I've been a member of the Indianapolis BMW Club for about 30 years and I can't recall any member of our club being killed in a motorcycle crash. We've had our share of crashes, but no fatalities that I can think of.

I put the question to members who frequent the club message board and, so far, nobody can come up with an Indianapolis BMW Club motorcycle fatality.

Tim Balough came the closest with this:

Yes. I think it was in the early 80s. Gentleman in his 70s had a heart attack on the east side of Indy. he was on the interstate, and after the heart attack, missed a turn and hit an abutment.

I went to visit his widow with another club member, but I can't remember the gentleman's name or which club member.

Given the circumstances, I’m not inclined to count this as a motorcycle fatality since there’s a good possibility that he was dead before his bike crashed.

I also got these replies:

I count myself fortunate to ride a BMW. As a medical helicopter pilot in Indiana I have seen my fair share of motorcycle deaths and serious injuries.  None of them involved a BMW. Two nights ago a young man was killed despite some really talented medical professionals doing their best.  

As a helicopter pilot I expect something to go wrong and am always looking for landing spots if the need arises. In 25 years of flying I haven't had the  need yet.  Every time I get on my r1150rt I expect to hit the pavement so I dress accordingly. In 3 years of riding I haven't had the need yet.  I like to think of myself as a pessimistic optimist. Some folks just call this bipolar :-).

Keep riding safely,
Bob Gaudet 

AE-39 base pilot

And:

Hi all: I am Bob Nevitt a fairly new member. My K1200 is my 5th BMW, but that is another story. I can't even remember any serious accidents in the 44 plus years I have been involved with BMW. The Harley guys, and I have quiet a few customers with HD motorcycles, they all break almost every safety rule I have committed to NEVER do. I am a private pilot also, and the "Eight hours from the bottle to the Throttle" is double with my bike. I wont go TEN FEET with out a helmet, gloves and good jacket regardless of the outside temp or weather conditions.

My Harley customers, on the other hand rarely wear a helmet, just the "smart" ones, and where our club motto is "Ride to Eat" theirs could be characterized by " Ride to be free" or more correctly Ride to Imbibe.

I personally witnessed a low speed fatality where at 30 miles an hour, a car pulled out in front, and BAUM. There was no chance.  The rider went about 30 feet and landed on his head. There was gray matter visible.  I got religion there after.  The Harley guys are a less careful bunch and a lot do self maintenance, and that can go either way. But my head won't stop safely at any speed with no helmet protection..
There is  the other aspect of the rougher MC clubs.  They often speed,change lanes, and don't signal intentions, plus all that chrome is heavy and hard to stop.  It is a different world.  I've seen both sides.  What is scary is the crotch rockets with 165 HP at the wheel and 0 to 160 in 12 seconds.  They seem hell bent for destruction.  I didn't get this old by being stupid.    Just a few thoughts .  Bob Nevitt

And this from Theresia Shearer:

As the saying goes…there is old and there is stupid. There is no old stupid.  

The race track performance of the crotch rockets is scary…but the scary part is that the riders often lack of skill, knowledge and experience…see old, stupid.

Unfortunately the Harley stereotype is often earned. On the other hand I have a Harley riding friend who has come very close the last two years to setting a Bonneville speed record for his class on a highly modified crotch rocket.

John, I also cannot remember any fatalities. We’ve had several serious accidents in the club but ”all the gear all the time” had to do with a lot of the folks walking away. Okay, so maybe they didn’t always walk away from the accident but they finally walked away from therapy! In every case that I’m aware of, the riders firmly believed that their use of safety gear made a difference.

Here’s to Boscos

My BMW riding compadre Charlie Parsons bought me a membership in the 2012 Boscos Mug Club at Boscos Restaurant & Brewing Co. in Memphis.

I was issued my official beer mug yesterday, drank two mugfulls of Boscos stout, had one of their delicious Reuben sandwiches and passed a splendid afternoon with Charlie and his wife Deborah.

Boscos 2012 Mug Club membership includes:

• Your own 2012 Boscos Mug
• A full mug of beer at the current pint price
• Mug Club Mondays featuring $3.00 Mugs all day every Monday
• Mug Club Saturdays featuring $3.00 Mugs until 5pm every Saturday
• Special Mug Club Parties throughout the year with beer and food specials, giveaways and more.

The mugs are numbered and placed on shelves above the bar, where they will remain for the next year. At the end of the year, you can renew your membership to get a new mug and take your old one home.

Charlie is holding his 2011 mug and Deb is using his new 2012 mug.

The 2012 mug has a Mayan calendar design to mark the end of the Mayan calendar on Dec. 21, 2012.

Thanks, Charlie! What a cool early Christmas gift!

A matter of opinion and taste

I subscribe to Robbie Robertson’s Facebook feed and was intrigued last week when he posted about being pleased to be included in the new Rolling Stone list of the Top 100 Guitarists of All Time.

I clicked the link and was shocked to see Robbie, who played with The Band, Bob Dylan and has had several excellent solo albums over the past 20 years, was ranked 59th. Fifty-ninth? WTF?

So I explored the list further and was shocked to find Pete Townshend, who I would rank #1, in tenth place.

And Sonny Landreth, who Eric Clapton opined is the most under-appreciated guitarist in the world, didn’t even make the list. That, my friends, is utter and complete bullshit.

The list is a revised version of the one created in 2003 by Rolling Stone senior writer David Fricke. He ranked Townshend as 50th in that one.

This kind of thing, of course, is highly subjective but I’m damned if I can understand the logic behind most of the choices.

Here’s the RS list:

 

Top 100 Guitarists of All Time (2011 version):
1.Jimi Hendrix
2.Eric Clapton
3.Jimmy Page
4.Keith Richards
5.Jeff Beck
6.B.B. King
7.Chuck Berry
8.Eddie Van Halen
9.Duane Allman
10.Pete Townshend
11.George Harrison
12.Stevie Ray Vaughan
13.Albert King
14.David Gilmour
15.Freddy King
16.Derek Trucks
17.Neil Young
18.Les Paul
19.James Burton
20.Carlos Santana
21.Chet Atkins
22.Frank Zappa
23.Buddy Guy
24.Angus Young
25.Tony Iommi
26.Brian May
27.Bo Diddley
28.Johnny Ramone
29.Scotty Moore
30.Elmore James
31.Ry Cooder
32.Billy Gibbons
33.Prince
34.Curtis Mayfield
35.John Lee Hooker
36.Randy Rhoads
37.Mick Taylor
38.The Edge
39.Steve Cropper
40.Tom Morello
41.Mick Ronson
42.Mike Bloomfield
43.Hubert Sumlin
44.Mark Knopfler
45.Link Wray
46.Jerry Garcia
47.Stephen Stills
48.Jonny Greenwood
49.Muddy Waters
50.Ritchie Blackmore
51.Johnny Marr
52.Clarence White
53.Otis Rush
54.Joe Walsh
55.John Lennon
56.Albert Collins
57.Rory Gallagher
58.Peter Green
59.Robbie Robertson
60.Ron Asheton
61.Dickey Betts
62.Robert Fripp
63.Johnny Winter
64.Duane Eddy
65.Slash
66.Leslie West
67.T-Bone Walker
68.John McLoughlin
69.Richard Thompson
70.Jack White
71.Robert Johnson
72.John Frusciante
73.Kurt Cobain
74.Dick Dale
75.Joni Mitchell
76.Robby Krieger
77.Willie Nelson
78.John Fahey
79.Mike Campbell
80.Buddy Holly
81.Lou Reed
82.Nels Cline
83.Eddie Hazel
84.Joe Perry
85.Andy Summers
86.J Mascis
87.James Hetfield
88.Carl Perkins
89.Bonnie Raitt
90.Tom Verlaine
91.Dave Davies
92.Dimebag Darrell
93.Paul Simon
94.Peter Buck
95.Roger McGuinn
96.Bruce Springsteen
97.Steve Jones
98.Alex Lifeson
99.Thurston Moore
100. Lindsey Buckingham

Backyard explorer

Jack explores the backyard of his new home.

Pete and Repete

Here are Pete and Repete (Jack) dozing butt-to-butt in an afternoon sunbeam outside the back door.

Considering the somewhat prickly relationship between Pete and Ruthie, mostly because of Ruthie’s belief that Pete was actually some kind of lesser being brought into the family to make her miserable and less important, this kind of closeness after less than a week is surprising.

Pete is clearly a mentor and someone Jack looks to for cues on how to be a dog in this family. Jack follows him around the yard, running at him playfully and trying to get Pete to give chase. Pete hasn’t played with Jack yet, but we expect he will.

When a neighbor’s chocolate Lab came into the yard yesterday morning while Maria and I and Jack were out, Pete went into a low crouch and went at him like a freight train, barking his deepest, most threatening bark and chased him away. That was the first time we’ve ever seen Pete assume the role of protector, but he has clearly come into his own since Ruthie’s departure.

I think they’re going to be great pals.

Money in the mail!

Well, sorta.

I was a very very minor party to a class action suit against Ebay Motors, claiming that Ebay overcharged seller fees for stuff sold in the Parts & Accessories department between April 21, 2006 and Aug. 26, 2009.

Too bad it didn’t cover sales a couple of years earlier when I was parting out and selling most of my 1991 BMW K100RS on Ebay.

My piece of the settlement fund amounts to $1.52.

Woo-hoo.

Right now it’s just a Gray Friday

It’s a little after 8 a.m. and the sun is a glowing white orb in the dense fog that blankets Crowley’s Ridge.

You can hear the dew as it drops from the trees and hits the leaves covering the backyard.

Jack the Aussie pup was ready to be up at 6:45, so I obliged him, letting Maria sleep. She worked the late shift last night and got home about 1:15 a.m.  I have orders to wake her at 9 a.m. Consequently, I decided to forgo my usual mocha cappuccino and the steamy racket that goes with preparing it, in favor of a pot of Starbucks Italian Roast coffee, poured into my favorite cup – a 1940s Wallace China Westward Ho Rodeo Pattern. It’s big, clunky, restaurant quality stuff and it reminds me of the time my parents took me to Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1955.

Jack continues to impress us with his eagerness to climb a very steep learning curve. He mastered the dog door less than 72 hours after he arrived. He loves to play fetch with a tennis ball. He’s exploring the far corners of the fenced-in backyard. And he knows the coyotes howling beyond the fence are bad news.

However, he still thinks it’s OK to poop on the back porch, so my to-do list for today includes cleaning up Jack shit.

My Swedish motorcycle suit arrived late Wednesday and is a big disappointment. It’s too small – the cuff on the right sleeve of the liner is to small that I can’t get my hand through it. And seen up close, it’s not all that exotic and cool. It’s just odd. So back it goes into the box it came in and I’ll haul it down to the UPS Store to ship it back.

Thanksgiving was just another day for us, having no family within 450 miles. The only familial contact I had was when Sean called from Santa Rosa, Calif. where he and Ruth are visiting Ruth’s sister. It was great to hear their voices.

Maria went to work at 4 p.m., which left me and Pete and Jack to hang out. Jack is getting more and more outdoors time – probably more than he’s ever had – and when he’s in the house unsupervised he’s in Ruthie’s old kennel, strategically placed where he can see a human and not feel abandoned. I’m not inclined to take any chances with our recently shampooed carpets until he starts to catch on that the backyard is his toilet.

Pete’s puppy cuteness saved his life many times when he gnawed a tassel off of one of my best casual loafers and chewed everything he could get his teeth into. The Cuteness Card is working now for Jack as we await his next bit of mischief. He has happily commandeered all of the dog toys and is especially fond of the Friendly Fox (as seen on TV).

Just for the record, I have no plans to do any Black Friday shopping beyond things we urgently need, like trash bags and a gallon of milk.

14 years gone

My dad, Charles Myron Flora, died 14 years ago today in a nursing home in Delphi, Ind. He was 87 years old.

My mom took this picture around Christmas 1952. That lump in front of me is my dog Spot. I started wearing glasses a year later in the third grade.

Notice the Philco table model TV. We got it for Christmas that year. We could kinda get the one station in Indianapolis (WFBM Channel 6) and on a rare occasion WTTV Channel 4 in Bloomington and even more rarely, WGN Channel 9 in Chicago.

But I digress. My dad was a solid citizen who served his church and his community well. Although he enjoyed a beer or two, I never saw him drunk. I didn’t think that was a big deal at the time, but knowing as many adult children of alcoholics as I do now, I realize it was pretty significant. My sons can’t make the same claim.

I miss you, Dad, and I think of you every day.

Jack gets his microchip

Jack has had a busy day and is napping in his kennel.

I took him to the vet this morning for a physical and to get microchipped.

He was fine up the point where Dr. John Huff inserted the chip. That hurt, but it was over quickly and now he’s got a record of his identity.

Dr. Huff at the Animal Medical Center in Jonesboro pronounced him “perfect” and was very impressed with his lineage.

Milton schools Michael

Michael Moore obviously hasn’t learned much in the years since his sophomoric emotion-based argument got swatted down by Milton Friedman in the late 1970s. Logic never was his strong suit.

Jumpin’ Jack Flash

We’ve named our new Australian shepherd puppy Jack after much discussion and thought.

I don’t think “Jack” when I look at him, but I now realize I want to call all dogs “Buddy,” so I’m sure it will start to feel natural soon.

We expected Jack would keep us up most of the night with whining and crying over being separated from his mother and siblings. We were wrong.

He carried on for about 20 minutes Sunday night with the most amazing repertoire of vocalizations, ranging from a whimper to a whine to a moan to several indescribable sounds and finally a full-throated howl. But then he fell silent and slept until about 3 a.m. when he stirred and signaled a need to do some business in the back yard. Maria took him out, he did his thing and then went back into his crate with no complaints.

I took him out again about 5:30 a.m.

He went to bed last night with just the slightest complaint and woke me about 2:45 a.m. with a strange moaning sound that reminded me of the talking cats on America’s Funniest Videos. Maria, who jealously guards her sleep, quickly volunteered to take him out, even though it was pouring rain. It was unclear whether he did both jobs for her, so when he spoke again about an hour later, I pulled on my waterproof camo pants and jacket and Gore-Tex boots and stood in the cold November rain while he pounced and bounded around the yard, maybe pausing to make a deposit.

He slept soundly until the alarm went off at 6:30 a.m.

Our expectations of Aussie puppy behavior were shaped by our experience with Pete. But Pete left home at about 6 weeks, whereas Jack comes to us at 11 1/2 weeks. That and his showdog pedigree make for a much more confident, poised, and calm puppy.

After less than 48 hours with us, he’s confident using the dog door as long as we hold the flap up for him. I expect he’ll do it all by himself by the end of this week.

He looks to us and to Pete for cues and Pete has obliged by taking the alpha dog position he formerly ceded to Ruthie. He’s issued a couple of firm corrections when Jack tried to eat first or beg table scraps. Jack tries hard to get Pete to play, taunting him with tennis balls and the Friendly Fox (as seen on TV), but Pete so far has refused to get involved.

What’s in a name?

We have a new Aussie puppy.

His birthname was Luke but we’re searching for an alternative. I like Buddy or Skip. Maria likes Henry. Some facebook friends like Boomer.

We spent most of yesterday in the car on a round trip of 570 miles. I did all the driving and the pup really bonded with Maria on the way home, alternately looking out the window and napping in her arms.

He’s frisky and smart and extremely handsome. (His grandfather was judged best of breed in the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show a few years ago.) He wasn’t insanely expensive because he has some kind of subtle defect that keeps him from being a showdog. It’s nothing we can see, so we don’t care.

Der Deutschen Polizei

I participated in the 27th annual Association Motorcycle Club/ABATE Dist. 2 Toy Run this afternoon with Deb and Charlie Parsons and about 350 other riders and passengers.

Charlie was a symphony in German police green, wearing his authentic Gore-Tex German Polizei riding suit with German police helmet and astride his green BMW R75/5 toaster tank.

To the extent that they could comprehend it, everyone else was in awe of his coolness.

There were at least 5 BMWs in the ride which generated a truckload of toys to be distributed by the Salvation Army at Christmas.

Yellowjacket attack

Pete the Aussie got swarmed by yellowjackets this morning.

We were taking our regular morning stroll out to the newspaper tube when he started digging in the leaves alongside the driveway. The next thing we knew, he was being swarmed, and maybe stung, by dozens of yellowjackets.

He headed for the garage door and Maria yelled for me to get the garden hose to spray them away. In the meantime, she grabbed a push broom and – to his great credit – Pete trusted her and held still while she used the broom to shoo away most of the wasps. Yes, they’re wasps, not bees. And unlike bees, they can sting multiple times.

I turned on the hose, getting my pants soaked in the process because of a leaky nozzle connection, but Maria had most of the wasps brushed away before I could get a clear shot at him. She and Pete fled into the house where a yellowjacket under her flannel shirt stung her in the right side. She chased it down with a flyswatter and killed it. Inspecting the shirt, I found a second wasp, brushed it into a trash bag and smashed it.

We called the vet’s office and are following the recommendation of Benadryl every four hours and pain meds that we had left over from Ruthie’s knee surgery. We can’t find any sting sites on Pete, but it’s hard to tell because his fur is so thick. The vet said he’s most vulnerable around the mouth, but his lips look okay.

Maria is on Benadryl too and says the sting hurts like a mofo.

Aussie puppy shopping

Luke

Marty

We’re off to an Australian shepherd breeder tomorrow to look at these two puppies.

Which one do you like?

John Steinbeck and me

Here’s a photo from 1997 when Maria flew out to Monterey, Calif. to rendezvous with me for week on the California Central Coast.

I’m sharing my sunglasses with a bronze figure of author John Steinbeck on Cannery Row in Monterey. According to a ticket stub from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the exact date was July 16, 1997 – two days after my 52nd birthday. If I look like I was having a good time, it’s because I was.

Faster, bigger, better

It took a couple of weeks, but my netbook is back in action with a new solid state hard drive.

The 64GB SSD I ordered on Nov. 4 to replace the 32GB drive that crapped out while we were at Table Rock Reservoir finally showed up in our mailbox this morning.

And less than three hours later, I’m up and running, having cloned the Windows XP (SP3) operating system and some other basic stuff from the original 8 GB SSD that came with my Dell Inspiron Mini 9. I also installed software to let me use my Wifi-enabled Kodak printer, For Two Wheels Only (FTWO), a record-keeping program for motorcycles that I’ve used since the ‘90s; Open Office, a free office suite, and the latest version of GIMP, a free image editing program.

I needed an antivirus program, so I installed Titanium Internet Security 2012 by Trend Micro. I got a review copy from the Amazon.com Vine program and this was the first opportunity to put it onto one of our machines and evaluate it for a review.

The waiting game continues

So much for U.S. Postal Service tracking.

My 64GB solid state drive got to Little Rock a few minutes before 5 a.m. today, but the tracking site said it was scheduled for delivery today.

NFW can a package that’s in Little Rock at 5 a.m. end up in my post office box the same day.

So maybe tomorrow.

In the meantime, our renter needs another week to get his November rent check to us.