Dora at 13 weeks

She went to the vet for booster shots today. She weighs 13.5 pounds.

Good morning, Jack. Good morning, Dora.

On the porch, peering in through a kitchen window.

That’s the dogcam on the windowsill.

The home phone is back in action

MagicJack has succeeded in porting our old home phone number over to their service, as of this morning.

The system also has a nifty voicemail feature that records caller messages and then emails them to Maria and me as .wav attachments. We can access them on any of our computers or on our iPhones.

That makes it much easier for us to check our messages and less likely that we’ll overlook one or fail to respond in a timely fashion – a big problem with the cumbersome voicemail arrangement we had before switching to MagicJack.

So, if you’re a friend or relative who might have occasion to call our home number, rest assured it’s working again and the message system is better than ever.

Good for the soul

One of the most wonderful things about Catholicism  is the ability to be forgiven your sins through confession.

How lucky is this kid that his confessor is Pope Francis?

The banner says, "God speaks in the silence of the heart."

Phony scandal? I think not.

This is one of the “phony scandals” Barack Obama wants us to ignore. Just a bump in the road or, as Hillary Clinton famously said, “What difference does it make?”

As hideous as this image is, every American needs to see it. Ambassador Christopher Stevens was deliberately abandoned by the Obama regime for reasons yet to be revealed.

Easy rider

Dora likes to ride in the car.

Spreading joy at the Farmers Market with Dora

We took Dora back to the ASU Farmers Market again this morning and, as usual, people went crazy over her.

How can I blame them?

Hosed by the Chinese

I’m a member of the Amazon.com Vine program and, as such, receive products to read, watch, taste, or use for the purpose of writing a review.

I was invited to join the program in June, 2009, and over the years I’ve received and reviewed more than 50 products ranging from a pasta maker to an impact driver to several books, a floor steamer, and most recently the 75-foot Rumford
Gardener Expanding Hose (Lime).

The worst rating you can give a product on Amazon.com is one of five stars. That effectively says you hate it. More than half of the 377 reviewers gave this product one star. So did I. Here’s what I wrote:

Considering that the majority of reviewers hate this product, I figured it might not last long when I put a nozzle on it and screwed it onto my driveway spigot to give my motorcycle a wash.
It did that creepy snakelike expansion thing when I turned the water on and, as expected, was long and light handling as I walked around the bike wetting it down.
I gave the bike a good soaping and was almost done with that process when I heard a "pop" and saw the hose had blown out a seam about 10 feet back from the nozzle. It didn't even last long enough for me to rinse my bike.
So I hooked up my cumbersome (but indestructible) old school heavy-duty Walmart hose and finished the job.
The Rumford Gardener Expanding Hose went into the trash can.
The Chinese must find the thought of thousands of us cursing their workmanship to be highly amusing.
I am not amused.

The photo shows the hose in the bottom of my trash can. If I had paid the $59.95 list price for this thing, I would be livid.

The chick’s in the mail

One of the books I had listed on Amazon.com sold overnight so I got in line at the post office to send it on its way.

One of the people in front of me was this woman who took delivery of two loudly cheeping boxes of chicks from a hatchery in Texas. I’d forgotten you could ship live chicks in the mail.

Email from Reed

I got an email this morning from my fraternity brother and fellow Delphi Oracle Reed McCormick.

What makes this worth noting is that Reed died in April, 2012.

Apparently, someone has hacked his moribund yahoo.com account and sent out a group message with the heading, “How wags the world?”

It contains a hypertext link which I will not click on because it is sure to lead to bad things.

My day so far

I was all set to mow the lawn right after lunch. I backed my K1200GT into the driveway to give the mower a free path out of the garage and I arranged the garden hose and utility trailer accordingly. Then I put my in-ear monitors in so I could listen to my iPod while mowing.

But the mower battery was dead, so it was all for naught.

So I hooked up the battery charger and resolved to pressure wash the back porch, which Dora has turned into a dog toilet.

Even though the temperature was in the 80s, it was insanely humid and that turned into a miserable sweaty job. I left it to air dry and drove in to town for a few minutes on the Spinalator machine in my chiropractor’s office – something that seems to be helpful in restoring proper circulation to my vagus nerve and reversing my diabetic gastroparesis.

And now I’m enjoying a cup of coffee and my free birthday pastry at Panera.

And I’m sure I’ll find fresh Dora poop on the porch when I get home.

Were it not for the unscheduled departure of my wife from the Sun, I would be somewhere on I-5 right now, riding from Portland, Ore. to Redding, Calif. or somewhere near it. And tomorrow night I would sleep in Monterey, the northern gateway to Big Sur and my favorite motorcycle road in the world.

Sigh.

It’s magic, Jack

It’s been a couple of weeks since we strolled into our local Best Buy and plunked down $65 plus tax for magicJack Plus.
I finally got around to installing it this afternoon and the registration cost us another $25 and change.
The whole idea was to stop paying our cable/internet provider about $30 a month for their iffy telephone service. When I called them to let them know we were taking our phone business elsewhere, I learned there is a $25 service charge for disconnecting us.
So it will be a few months before we’re back in the black with our new arrangement.
Our home phone number will remain the same but it will be 5-10 business days before our old number can be ported over to the magicJack system. That means you’ll have to call us on our cell phones if you want to talk to us between now and maybe Aug. 6.

Scanning memories

The 50th anniversary reunion of the Delphi High School Class of 1963 is coming up next month and I volunteered to scan classmates’ photos for an electronic slideshow for the event.

I did this for years for the Indianapolis BMW Club’s annual awards banquet, so the process is second nature. The trick is to get a decent balance of as many people as possible so it doesn’t look like it features one clique over everyone else.

I was the chairman for the 30th anniversary reunion in August, 1993. Here’s a planning session with (from left) Vernon Cripe, me, Juanita Lane Stickrod, Nancy Cheesman Simmons, Marsha Alberts Rossetter, and Nina Shaw Kibler held June 20, 1993 at Vernon’s house in Delphi.

By the 1993, the building on Monroe Street where some of us went to school from grades 1-12, had been demolished, but the freestanding gym, with cafeteria and band room, was still there.

Previous reunions had been held at a local park, a restaurant near Monticello, and at the Carroll County Country Club.

I decided it was time to revisit the scene of our misspent youth and arranged to have the 30th anniversary reunion in the old cafeteria, with dancing down on the gym floor. We knew the school board would never approve the serving of alcoholic beverages, so I let it be known that we’d drink the way we did in high school – serving ourselves out of our cars in the parking lot. What could they do? Expel us?

It was the first time most of us had been back in the building since the evening of May 27, 1963, when we marched out with our diplomas in hand. I like to think it was a great success, but maybe some would disagree.

At any rate, the 35th was back at the Country Club and the 40th was in the spiffy new Wabash & Erie Canal conference center. I missed the 45th, which I think was at the Country Club. The 50th will be at the VFW hall.

Hmmmmm…

This photo from World War II, shot near Anzio, Italy, makes me want to put a similar sign on the main gravel road through our subdivision.

Comin' through

We put the flapper back on the dog door last night for the first time in more than a year because the screened porch was filling up with Mosquitos.

It took a little coaxing, but Dora finally summoned up the courage to push on through, even though the magnets on the bottom creeped her out.

Close, Claus, but no cigar

Sixty-nine years ago today, Col.  Claus von Stauffenberg tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a briefcase bomb placed under a conference table in Hitler’s East Prussia headquarters.

One person was killed outright and three others died later of injuries suffered in the explosion.

A special 20th of July Wound Badge was struck and presented to all of the men who were injured in the blast. The Wound Badge was the German equivalent of the U.S. Purple Heart.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about it:

The 20th of July Wound Badge is by far the rarest of these awards, as it was only issued to those injured during the failed attempt on Adolf Hitler's life at the Wolf's Lair headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia. Twenty-four were present when the bomb detonated. One officer was killed and three succumbed to their wounds a short time later. Hitler, believing this to be a "moment of destiny" for him, personally directed the designing of a special badge commemorating the event.

The 20 July Wound Badge is based on the common Wound Badge, but the helmet is slightly higher and larger; it also bears the date "20 Juli 1944" and a facsimile of Hitler's signature below the helmet and date.

The 20 July Wound Badges were made in all three grades of black, silver, and gold. All of these wound badges were made by the Junckner firm and were made out of solid hallmarked silver. Recipients who had already been previously awarded regulation Wound Badges were awarded the 20 July Wound Badge in a higher grade.

Unlike the Wound Badge in Black, the 20 July Wound Badge in Black was not all black. Only the helmet and wreath were black; the background was in silver so that the date and facsimile signature could be seen. The 20 July Wound Badge in gold also had a silver background with the helmet and wreath colored gold. The 20 July Wound Badge in silver has black highlights on the helmet swastika, the date, and the facsimile signature. Unlike the standard Wound Badges, these were of two-piece construction.

Hitler presented the survivors with the special wound badge as well as a unique award document in a ceremony on 2 September 1944. Although Hitler had been injured in the bombing, he did not give one of these badges to himself. Hitler had earned his own Wound Badge (in black) in World War I. He had awarded himself the Golden Party Badge number 1, but this was a political badge and not a military medal.

The four posthumous awards were sent to the recipients' next-of-kin. These medals were all plated in gold, including the background.

The badge replaced the basic 1939 Wound Badge on those persons who were presented the 20 July Badge. It is important to note however that this badge was more a personal gift from Hitler to those involved, and was intended to be a treasured one-off souvenir of a momentous historical event, and thus was not expected to be worn. While Field Marshal Keitel and Colonel-General Jodl for example did wear their 20 July wound badges on their tunics, other recipients preferred to wear their regular wound badges.

Recipients of the 20 July wound badge could have their 20 July wound badges upgraded if they earned higher grades of the Wound Badge. Konteradmiral Hans-Erich Voss eventually had the 20 July Wound Badge in all three grades, earning it in black on 20 July 1944, and having it upgraded twice for subsequent battles.

Dora returns to the Farmers Market

We took Dora to the ASU Farmers Market again this morning and, as usual, were mobbed by people who wanted to pet her and hold her.

I scribbled the breeder’s URL, name and phone number onto a Sam’s Club receipt I found in my pocket to give to a woman who is looking for a puppy. I hope she ends up with one of Dora’s brothers.

More Police Log Comics

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

Friday morning stuff

I’m at the newish Starbucks on Stadium Avenue, having ridden the K75S into town to pick up insecticide and a prescription at Walmart and some documents for Maria.

The coffee is free this morning, thanks to Starbucks’s offer of a free 12 ounce coffee for an empty bag of their coffee. Now that we have a real Starbucks in town, I may never throw one of their bags in the trash again.

If I were a hard core ideologue, I would be very conflicted about patronizing Starbucks. They have gone on record as encouraging patrons with permits to bring their guns when they come for coffee, but their CEO recently proclaimed he doesn’t want your business if you don’t support same-sex marriage. What’s a pro-Second Amendment Catholic to do? I just come for the coffee, not the politics.

I’m itching to blog about the circumstances surrounding Maria’s departure from the Sun, but the timing is not right. Stay tuned.

Another milestone

Dora discovered this afternoon that she is big enough to climb into the big rubber water tub we keep on the patio for dog watering.

The inducement was a half of a bag of ice that we no longer needed since we got our icemaker fixed. I dumped it in and she went after it.

That’s why she looks kinda wet here.

It's only play fighting, but those little teeth are still sharp. Jack doesn't seem to mind when Dora is feeling full of herself.