Big Dave's Blog

Grant At One

2012-01-24T18:39:00.000-08:00

Grant hit the big ONE yesterday. That’s one as in one-year-old. My one and only grandchild took it in stride as the picture above indicates. His parents threw him a bash on Saturday for close family. He got a lot of nice birthday gifts as well as one in the “other” category—a Michigan State t-shirt that said “start ‘em young, raise ‘em right”—a gift from uncle Scott, himself a Spartan alumnus.

I don’t think he’ll be wearing that one much if at all. His father Greg is a big Michigan fan like myself.

As much as he enjoyed his presents, his cake and all the hoopla, Grant didn’t seem overly concerned with hitting his milestone. Or maybe he is proud of making it this far since one of his favorite gestures is showing everybody that he’s “so big.” Waving bye bye is something he’ll only do on occasion. He’ll clap too but copying a patty-cake demonstration draws a “what’s the point” expression.

Trying to get him to stand up and try walking also gets a “what for” attitude, especially since he can zip from room to room now on all fours. And though he jibber jabbers a lot, trying to make sense of it requires an expert in baby talk. Wendy and I did think we heard him say ‘grandpa.’ He is a lot more interested now in what I’m doing than he was at six months.

Wendy’s efforts to cuddle him like she used to in her recliner are often rebuffed as Grant squirms loose so he can get back on the floor. Right now, he’s a gotta go, gotta do kinda guy. Only when he’s tired will he give in and let Wendy rock him to sleep in her arms.

We usually get to see Grant up close and personal about once a week, which is just right for Wendy. Of course, lest we forget that Grant has a 'sibling', we have to entertain his canine brother Simon as well. And Simon refuses to be ignored, especially when we pull out the camera to take pictures of the little guy. Over comes Simon to pose too.

Grant and Simon get along as well as you expect brothers might. But it wasn’t that long ago that Grant was sitting in our kitchen when Simon became excited at the arrival of guests and began scurrying about the house. He bulled over Grant just like you might expect a linebacker might do to a quarterback in a football game.

Afterwards, Grant cried. Simon tried to make up with some kisses but our grandson didn’t look in a forgiving mood. I think he was thinking, “Dog slobber doesn’t always make it better.”

Dream, Dream, Dream

2012-01-17T17:48:00.000-08:00

For many, many years now I’ve had a recurring dream. Despite occasional variations in setting and circumstances, the main part of the dream is essentially the same.

I’m back in my old job working as a reporter for a daily newspaper--a job I left better than 35 years ago. Deadline is looming and I haven’t a thing to write about. It’s a very stressful dream and if I wake up in the middle of it, I feel a wave of relief.

What’s a little odd about it is that no boss is breathing down my neck, glaring at me or otherwise concerned that I can’t find a bit of news to report in this one-horse town. In some variations, I go out looking for news and come back days later, still with nothing to report. I get no lecture from a Lou Grant type. Or from my old managing editor who sometimes makes a cameo appearance. I’m not fired nor is my pay docked.

If there’s a meaning behind this dream, I can’t fathom what it might be.

Lately, I’ve had another recurring dream, one that makes more sense to me. I’ve just retired and am figuring out how I’m going to pay for the rest of my life here on this earth. In the latest version of this dream a strange lady hands me an envelope stuffed with bills, implying that a collection was taken up on my behalf.

True, I have been studying various retirement scenarios. And it seems so often the advice about retirement comes down to one word—don’t. I go to the AARP retirement calculator and after I punch in my numbers, it tells me that both Wendy and I should wait until we retire . . . till age 71!

Wow. It makes me wonder if retirement is a Ponzi scheme with some older Americans working longer in life to support those who don’t. I’m going to try that AARP retirement calculator again and punch in that I have a million dollars. I don’t, but I’ll bet it still will advise me to keep on working. Then again, if I punch in that I have a million in the bank it might just say . . .

. . . dream on.

Toys Story

2012-01-10T17:41:00.000-08:00

Wendy and I visited our grandson Grant this past week, in his native habitat so to speak, checking to see what toys he got for Christmas. The little guy was a bundle of energy pushing a button on this one, flipping a switch on another one, with all kinds of sounds emanating everywhere.

He has his own key chain complete with door lock chime and a remote starter, even a light. Then there's a discovery table with what appears to be a cell phone and a calculator, both of which make a variety of sound effects. And he has a pint-sized house facade with working doorbell. The kid made out okay with Santa.

It's amazing how far toys have come since I was a kid. The only time my toys made a sound was when I wound them up or pulled a string. And they didn't say or do much. We had to supply voices and sound effects with our own imagination. With computer chips implanted in so many toys now, they're capable of doing their own thing.

While shopping myself for a toy for Grant recently I passed down the toy aisle and suddenly had a pack of toy dogs barking at me. They must have had motion sensors, right? They don't make toy dogs yet with a sense of smell, do they?

I ended up buying a soft "singin' soccer ball" that promised lots of fun for ages six months and up. And for the ball, I think. Cause when I brought it to the checkout and put it in front of the cashier. the ball called out, "Wheeeeee, this if fun." I had to smile. It was cute . . . the first time.

Then I put it way in the back of the car as I headed out to make some deliveries for my employer. But as soon as I got out on the road I heard, "Wheee, this if fun." I get it. The ball responds itself to being bounced around and stuff. Another kind of motion sensor.

I hit a bump in the road. "Goallllllllll!" the ball called out. This was getting annoying. A few seconds later as I changed lanes I heard, "Let's play."

Let's not. I could see that this could continue the rest of the afternoon so I pulled into a parking lot, got out and opened the rear hatch door. Not happening, ball dude!

I pulled the ball of the bag--"Wheeeeee, this if fun"---and looked for some kind of instructions on the box. I didn't find any. Was there a battery or something I could remove? I found some kind of velcro flap but I had trouble opening it because the ball was securely attached to the box. I didn't want to tear the box apart to silence the ball.

Then I remembered. To make the ball talk initially, I pressed on a nose on the face of the ball. Maybe if I pressed it again, it would shut up. So I did.

"It's music time," the ball said.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo! Anything but songs for babies and toddlers. I pressed the nose again.

"It's learning time," the ball responded. Hmmmmm, maybe I could handle that. I got back into the car and drove on. Strangely, that shut him up.

Maybe the ball thought it was in class and had to be quiet. Boo-yeah.

Ring In The Old

2012-01-03T17:32:00.000-08:00

Ring in the old as in, it might be us. We're getting there, Wendy and me. Actually, isn't the saying supposed to go . . . ring out the old, ring in the new? Somehow that doesn't seem to apply.

No big party for us to host or attend this year. Usually we get together with Wendy's sister and her two boys, have snacks and drinks, play games, then toast the New Year with Dick Clark and company at midnight.

But this year number two son Scott's in Washington, number one son Greg and his wife were up north being entertained at a bar by Greg's old college roomie on guitar, and Wendy's sister's boys are old enough to be doing their own thing. And they did.

So this year on New Year's Eve we enjoyed dinner out, six of us together, then Wendy and I joined her sister and husband at their house for a drink, the four of us, then Wendy and I were back home before nine, to spend the rest of the night, just the two of us.

Instead of playing board games, I browsed the On Demand movie selections offered by our cable provider and selected "500 Days of Summer", an independent studio production that offered a light-hearted twist on the traditional boys gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl theme.

That lasted till about ten o'clock. Then we started to watch a horror movie until Wendy fell asleep on the couch. I started nodding off as well. Had Wendy not suddenly awakened at ten to midnight, we might have missed Dick Clark's counting down to 2012.

Today I leafed through some old journals I had made going back over 20 years. On past New Year's eves, we had done video skits, formed an impromptu pick-up band to play some tunes, launched a skyrocket that drew a police cruiser to our neighborhood, and enjoyed lots of entertaining board games.

Just a few years ago, my nephew Mike suddenly crashed to the floor, performing a pantomine in hopes of getting his teammates in Cranium to guess what catch phrase he was demonstrating. His brother correctly guessed "stunt double." Mike's mother just hoped he hadn't hurt himself.

Maybe next year we'll have more energy come December 31 but I wouldn't count on it. For one, it looks like it's going to be a particularly busy year at work. And I'll be pushing 60 next time we sing "Auld Lang Syne." (Hea, I spelled that right first time!)

Dick Clark, you may have to carry on the tradition for us next New Year's. We're counting on you.

A New Game

2011-12-27T17:10:00.000-08:00

At our holiday get-togethers we often play board games. Balderdash is my favorite, though we play Cranium most often. Outburst and Taboo are a couple others we sometimes drag out of the closet.

This year we tried a new one. Telestrations is a game that tests your sketching and guessing prowess. Erasable sketch pads and cards containing words are passed out to players around a table. Each player is assigned a word to illustrate with a sketch. When finished they pass their pad containing the sketch to the player besides him or her who tries to guess the word from the sketch.

He writes his guess on a separate page in the pad, then the sketch pad is passed to the next player who flips to a new page in the pad and tries to sketch the word just written. When a player’s pad has made the rounds and is back into his original hands, then scores are tallied up. If you guessed a word right, you get a point.

Complicated maybe, but it was fun. Some of the words were easy to sketch. Bicycle made it all around the table without anyone guessing or sketching wrong. So did Michigan. Arm wrestling turned into thumb wrestling when one of the sketches appeared to feature the thumbs of the opponents.

Players learned quickly that it was better to sit by someone who could sketch. That was bad for me and those on either side of me. I’m a word man, not a picture man. I sketched what I thought was pretty clearly a “shipwreck” until wife Wendy next to me guessed my sketch to be “Mt. Kilimanjaro.”

What?? How could you possibly mistake the two? Can you see somebody out in the wilds of Africa suddenly exclaim, “Holy cow, a sailing ship just ran aground on the rocks there. No, wait. It’s Mt. Kilimanjaro. My bad.”

But that meant that my son Scott had to take Wendy’s guess of Mt. Kilimanjaro and now try to sketch that. He did a really good job sketching a mountain with wild animals roaming the plains below (all this in 60 seconds too). But my brother-in-law took a look at the sketch and guessed Mt. Fuji instead. I don’t think they have giraffes lurking in the foothills of Mt. Fuji in Japan.

Some of the original words can get twisted around pretty quickly. Like “identity theft", which when sketched became “doctorate” with the next guess after which I tried to sketch a black-robed graduate getting his diploma, so it then became “ebony and ivory” when my sister-in-law tried to guess what my sketch was. Then “ebony and ivory” became “ebony and ivory” again.

A correct guess! That's because my nephew had sketched a pretty good likeness of Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney at the piano. Now why can’t I draw like that?

Did I Hear That Right?

2011-12-20T17:11:00.000-08:00

Here's my grandson Grant watching my brother Gary strum a Christmas carol at our holiday get-together this past weekend. The little guy is so fascinated by music and musicians.

During the party I teased my nephew that I know how they sing "Deck The Halls" in his hometown of Traverse City, the lyrics having been changed slightly to "Don we now our bright apparel, fa la la . . . " by an elementary teacher up there in the tip of northern Michigan.

Apparently, the teacher couldn't get her charges to stop giggling at the line, "Don we now our gay apparel." Of course, news of the change went viral and brought outrage upon the school. Ironically, Traverse City had just passed a gay rights ordinance during the November election.

I like listening to carols new and old. And speaking of changes, I detected one in the wintry "Baby It's Cold Outside." The version with Dean Martin has the lady relenting to staying "just a cigarette more."

But in a more recent version with Jessica Simpson, that line has been replaced by "just a half a drink more." Just as smoking has become verboten on television and movies, it's being eliminated in updated covers of popular Christmas carols.

Christmas songs are often the subject of revisions and controversy, which is too bad. I did a little research and found out that "O Come All Ye Faithful" had one of its lines changed, apparently by someone who thought "Oh Come Let Us Adore Him" was too sexist. One church changed that to "Oh Come In Adoration." I swear I've also sung it as "Oh, Come Let Us Adore Thee."

Wonder how the Latin version translates. I remember singing the Latin version in public grade school. My guess is that you don't hear "Oh, Come All Ye Faithful", Latin or English version, sung that often in public grade schools in this day and age.

Even on the radio, it seems that traditional Christmas hymns play second fiddle to songs about Frosty, Santa and reindeer. When was the last time you heard "Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming" or "The Coventry Carol"? There should be a place for traditional Christmas songs among all the commercialism and pop.

The Unexpected

2011-12-13T18:22:00.000-08:00

Life’s full of little surprises—some good, some not so good. But variety is the spice of life and surprises make up some of that variety.

Wendy and I got a little surprise in our mailbox last Friday. There were two thin, postcard-size mass mailers, addressed separately to me and Wendy. Coming as it did during the Christmas season, I figured it to be some sort of advertisement.

But I was intrigued by the return address, Foreign Currency Fee Litigation Settlement Fund. I remember spending some time pulling together old credit card slips from a trip to Canada to submit for a class action lawsuit. Ordinarily I don't save credit card slips over a year old but I keep credit card slips from vacation purchases as trip souvenirs, pasting them into my trip journal (this particular trip occurred in 2005). So I filled out some paperwork and submitted it to someplace I forgot about years ago.

The wheels of justice do turn slowly but eventually it paid off for Wendy and myself. Those two non-descript mailers when torn open produced two checks for $18.04. Oh, yeah. Christmas has come early.

Not so fast, protested Wendy. How did we know this wasn’t a scam? What??? Like this check has a virus attached that’s going to siphon the funds out of our account? Wendy wanted to see proof, copies of the papers I submitted. Well, that was going to be a problem. Finding the credit card slip to a restaurant we dined at in Savannah, Georgia five years ago is a piece of cake. Finding legal documents like the deed to our house proves much more of a challenge.

But Wendy relented when I showed her on the internet how the Better Business Bureau, who responded to hundreds of similar inquiries, determined these checks not to be a hoax. I got the okay to do the deposit.

So that was unexpected, but good. Here’s something on the flip side. I arrived home on Monday to find some packages on our doorstep. I had just gathered them up and put them on a table inside, when I heard somebody insistently blowing their horn in our driveway.

My first thought was that my wife was pulling our Saturn Vue into the driveway right behind me, blowing the horn to let me know that she was home. But that really didn’t make sense as my wife is not accustomed to making such grand entrances.

I looked outside and saw no Saturn, only our year-old mini-van which was having some kind of honking fit. Why? I had no idea. But it already was drawing stares in our neighborhood, so I grabbed the remote entry key and began pressing buttons. It just kept honking.

Then I ran outside, got into the mini-van, and started it, figuring that would pacify its honking fit. No. I turned over the engine, then turned it off again. Not only was it honking at fire alarm strength decibels, the dashboard was flashing all kinds of strange lights. It’s times like this when I wish I would have read the owner’s manual.

Finally, I’d had it. I was driving to the dealer where I bought this stupid mini-van, which was only a couple miles away. I’m sure if I pulled up next to their showroom with my car, still under warranty, having honking fits, servicemen would be racing out to help. And driving over there, I imagined drivers would be clearing the road to let me by, with my car going HONK-HONK-HONK-HONK incessantly all the way. Either that, or I’d be the victim of some road rage.

But when I pulled out into the street, the honking suddenly stopped. It was as if the car was saying, “Gotcha.” *Sigh*

New saying. Instead of “More wags, less barks”, make it “More checks, less honks.”

Old Thinking

2011-12-06T16:25:00.000-08:00

My buddy Bob, who is the same age as I, recently declared it's official. "We ARE old." To back up his declaration, he described a recent incident that occurred while he was waiting to teach a class at a college down south.

Passing by a restaurant, he observed a notice posted on a restaurant door with the eye-catching headline, "Attention Seniors." Ah ha, he thought. Perhaps they were advertising a hefty senior citizen discount.

So he began reading the fine print, wondering what the cut-off age was and exactly what the discount would be. A few minutes into reading, he realized that the sign wasn't meant for him. It was meant for the seniors at the college next door. Adding to his consternation was the fact that he would be teaching a class of seniors in about an hour.

Yeah, been there myself. And it's becoming a frequent stop too. I recounted in response my own story. Wendy and I were in the express lane at the local grocery store when my wife wondered aloud what the daily special was this particular day.

This grocery store runs a super special each day, half off or better on a popular staple. While Wendy stayed in line, I ran for the sign. Briefly noting that the Monday special was bananas, I raced back to inform Wendy who said to quickly grab some.

Since she was nearing the checkout, I had to hurry but I grabbed a bunch and jogged back, throwing the bananas on the belt just as her turn came. Boo-yeah. But when the cashier rang them up, they rang up at regular price.

"Aren't these on special?" My wife asked.

"That was yesterday," the clerk responded.

What?? Did I mis-read the sign? I thought it was highly unlikely that the store would discount a popular item like bananas on Sunday, a busy weekend shopping day. More likely they would discount something like pineapple or baguettes.

We paid and walked away, but as we passed the sign, I tapped the Monday special with a look that told Wendy that I was right--it was the cashier who screwed up.

"It's Tuesday," Wendy said.

Oh. Oh, well. Chalk it up to age, like my buddy Bob says.

I'm posting a couple Christmas pictures to close. Wendy is responsible for the indoor decorations at our bay window, I set up the faux Christmas tree in the backyard. By the way, the yard is not tilted like that. Whatever I rested the camera on to take the picture was obviously not as level as I thought.

Guess The Movie

2011-11-29T18:33:00.000-08:00

[Today's blog contains allusions to a popular holiday movie. See if you can guess what it is]

We're having the first real snow of the season here in southeast Michigan. Glad I'm not some wild critter stuck out in the cold. But on the other hand, better out there than in here.

Just this week I heard the pitter patter of something running above our family room. Must have been on the roof. Rather, I HOPE it was up on the roof. I asked Wendy if she heard it and she said she didn't. That figures. I think her hearing is going. Lately she couldn't hear a dump truck driving through a nitro-glycerin plant.

Anyway, I just heard a critter running. My friend Bob wrote to tell me of his own harrowing adventure. He tells it best in his own words here . . .

"Big excitement yesterday was discovering I had a squirrel in the house. The dog kept me up most of the night wanting out and whining, both uncharacteristic. I had no idea what was up until just before leaving for work I saw a squirrel make a mad dash into my bedroom.

I needed to leave for school just then so I closed the door and took the afternoon off to come home and deal with it. After buying a trap at Lowe’s and some nuts at Wal-Mart the squirrel was nowhere to be found. Around dinner time I saw the dog make a mad dash across the family room and the squirrel went flying.

The dog had it cornered eventually behind a small chest freezer but there was no way to get at the squirrel. Moving the dog away drew the squirrel out and a mad chase around the house ensued. Eventually the squirrel ran into the kitchen and I grabbed a pair of jeans hoping to gather him up—seemed silly at the time too but they were handy. When I got into the kitchen I saw mop and pail in the corner, dropped the jeans and grabbed the pail.

At that point the squirrel started up the stove. I hurled the pail across the kitchen knocking the squirrel down, the pail fortunately bounced back to me and I was able to drop it over the squirrel as it skittered across the linoleum floor. Fifty-eight and still quick as a cat! Evicted the squirrel at least for the moment. Had I caught it in the cage I would have driven it a couple of miles away."

He added that he hoped the squirrel is not part of a litter hiding in the attic. I wondered to myself why he didn't just prop a door open and let the squirrel escape on his own just like . . .

Oops, I almost let the cat out of the bag. You're supposed to guess what movie I'm alluding to.

Thankful And No

2011-11-22T17:24:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there in the blogosphere. This week I'm going to do the traditional turkey day blog and list what I'm thankful for this year. But then I'm going to switch gears and expound on what I'm not so thankful for as well.

I'm thankful for . . .

The smiles I get from my grandson Grant. And I'm getting more lately too. I thought he used to hate me. Maybe he's coming around.

Brady Hoke, the new Michigan football coach. Big Ten football has become more respectable in A2 this year thanks to him. A big win over Nebraska last week was particularly "sweet", a favorite word from my number one son's vocabulary. Greg is an usher for the home games in the Big House.

Fantasy football. It's free, it's fun and it's our family coming together from the four winds to participate.

Our local Tim Horton's. Their coffee is good and their assembly line service at the drive-up window is a model for any fast food restaurant anywhere.

My bosses at work. It's not often you get supervisors and managers who are so considerate of their employees and who so value the work they do. And I'm not saying that because they read my blog. They don't (at least I don't think they do).

What I'm NOT thankful for . . .

Commercials on TV. I have a hard time watching shows anymore that have ten minutes of programing and five minutes of commercials. And that seems to be the norm.

Inattentive drivers. Twice this year I was biking across a crosswalk with the "walk" sign when a driver making a left turn nearly blindsided me. If I hadn't been looking out . . . And don't get me started on those folks ahead of me who are on the phone, tuning the radio, or otherwise out to lunch when the green arrow lights up for the traffic to move. And they don't!

My balky computer of late. I know it's probably too many videos and pictures of my grandson on here. But it's also spam, ads, and even this Blogger program that insists I sign on to Google to post my comments, then gives me an error message and wipes out everything I just did. ARRGGGHHHHHH.

Those newfangled corkscrew light bulbs. Sure, they don't use as much energy, because they cast hardly any light. It's like living in a dark cave with those things. Didn't we move beyond cave dwelling a couple hundred thousand years ago?

Cold weather. I just don't understand what God was thinking when he invented cold weather. There just seems to be no need for it in my mind.

One Of Those Weeks

2011-11-15T16:11:00.000-08:00

They drew names for our family Christmas exchange this past weekend. Since our family is quite scattered around the state, the list of who got whom was e-mailed in a couple different formats.

I got my list from my nephew Gabe who sent it out to everyone in the family. I opened the attachment, then thought I'd have a little fun. Opening my Microsoft Paint program, I changed the list so that it appeared everybody had to buy my nephew Gabe a gift.

Then I attached my newly edited gift list to an e-mail response that I sent back to Gabe and everyone else in the family. In my e-mail I said, "Mine doesn't look right. Did you somehow edit the original list?"

Soon I got Gabe's response, "I just converted the Publisher file to a JPG image file."

He hadn't even opened my newly edited attachment. But I found out later that my dad did open MY gift exchange list INSTEAD of the original correct list that Gabe had sent.

Why would Gabe send out a gift exchange list where everybody buys him a gift, my dad wondered. He thought it strange enough that he called Gabe's dad, my brother Gary. Gary didn't have any explanation either why Gabe would do something like that.

"Your jokes always backfire," Wendy e-mailed me in response to all the trouble I caused.

Yeah, it's just one of those weeks . . . one of those weeks where nothing big happened, but it's the little things that I recall.

On the downside, I receive a lot of mail every day at work, all of which needs to be filed. One packet I get once a month from a worksite about 50 miles away always comes with a little sticky note, some hand-drawn artwork and a message along the lines of "Have a Happy Thanksgiving, Mr. Dave."

This has been going on for years. I post the sticky notes on the shelf by my desk to lift my spirits. But now I find out that the author of those notes no longer works at the same institution that I do. Fired? Quit? Nobody says.

On the upside, I gave the garage a thorough cleaning, even taking a half-day off to finish. My last task was getting down on hands and knees and peering underneath my workbench. And there on the grimy, gritty conrete floor it was! Part of a favorite screwdriver I'd lost well over a year ago. I'd always felt it was somewhere on the floor but never could find it despite several tries.

One of life's little victories. And like I said, one of those weeks.

Where Heroes Lie

2011-11-08T17:38:00.000-08:00

Friday is Veteran’s Day. Besides being a federal holiday for my son and sister, it’s a chance for Americans to honor those who have served our country. This day has more meaning for me since I took a bus trip with a group of veterans to Washington DC less than a month ago.

You can’t walk around the Vietnam Wall or the Korean Memorial without being humbled by the sacrifices made by those who served. You can’t walk down the pathways at Arlington Cemetery, past rows and rows of simple white markers, without experiencing some measure of heartfelt gratitude for those who took up arms in defense of liberty.

But I think the most moving moment of our trip occurred away from the statues and well manicured gravesites of the fallen there in DC. Our bus labored through the hills of the Pennsylvania countryside, away from the traffic of the turnpike and the crowds of the cities, ending up in a farm field where a memorial had been set up to honor the passengers aboard Flight 93 which crashed there on 9/11 ten years ago.

The national park service has constructed a visitor's area with a long walkway marking where the plane crashed and burned with a wall at the end honoring each of the passengers by name. Eventually a visitor's center will be constructed on this site as well.

Before we had a chance to get off the bus, a ranger came aboard to recount the story of those 40 heroic passengers who determined to re-take the plane from the hijackers, finally breaking into the cockpit and forcing the terrorist pilot to deliberately crash the plane only 20 minutes flight time from Washington DC.

It was a sad story even if we already knew how it ended. I thought it ironic that our bus had 40 passengers, the same number that flew on that fateful flight. The ranger said that DNA tests positively identified each one of them, something that didn't happen for those dead and missing at the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers. At least the families of those killed in Flight 93 would have some remnant of their loved ones to bury home.

I was surprised at the number of visitors here this October weekday afternoon. But I wasn't surprised that a number of those visitors shed tears as they looked out at the crash site that has long since grown green, with no evidence of the jet that crashed and incinerated while flying 500 miles an hour upside down.

It's more than a memorial, more than a tribute to those people who had been strangers before they were taken prisoner, led to the back of the plane, then voted to put a plan into action which at the very least saved the lives of many innocent victims.

It's where heroes lie.

BD's House Of Horrors

2011-11-01T17:38:00.000-07:00

Trick or treaters approach my doorstep with mixed feelings come Halloween. Some revel in the spooky sights and sounds that surround our two-story suburban colonial on October 31st. For other kids, well, it’s a decision whether or not to chance coming up the walk for a treat.

C’mon. Big Dave’s graveyard of horrors isn’t that bad? A few kids say it’s the best decorated house in the neighborhood. True, parents often get more of a kick out of it than kids. Like the mother who wanted to get a picture of her tyke next to the spider above. He made a BIG circle around the hanging head and the hanging skull before posing with the spider, standing about as close to it as I am to you now.

Then there was another little guy who appeared to have needed some coaxing to come up onto our porch, only making an appearance if his father came up with him. Then I pulled out my ceramic skull, full of treats. His eyes widened, a little terrified of that.

“Say trick or treat,” his dad prodded him.

“Noooooooooooooooo,” he cried, obviously not interested in getting anything that might come out of a ceramic skull.

Another trick-or-treater stopped halfway up the walk, yelling “Shut that music off.” So he wasn’t bothered by the coffin, the gravestone, the multitude of skulls, or the other assorted creepy paraphernalia hanging or stuck in the ground. He didn’t like the mood music playing out of our upstairs window. That was a first. Who wouldn’t like seasonal favorites ranging from the Monster Mash to Mozart’s Requiem?

Eventually, he did come up, followed by his little brother. The littler guy actually felt quite at home surrounded by all things horrific, and sat down on our porch stoop to go through his candy after I delivered his treat. His older brother, still complaining about the music, tried to yank him up by the hood on his hooded sweatshirt. I was worried he might strangle the little guy, but he was rescued by their parents.

Of course, my nephew Mike visited too as he likes to add his own Halloween spice to our own festivities, whether reaching a scary rubber hand out the mail slot or lurking behind me wearing a spooky Michael Jackson mask. After I passed out a round of treats to one group of young girls, Mike came to the door, mask on, holding out bonus treats to one of the girls who had been checking him out with a wary eye.

She briefly pondered his outstretched arm, Mike holding candy clutched in that scary rubber hand. “Enh eh,” she then said, doing a good Bugs Bunny impression as she turned down the candy offer and ran off to join her friends.

Ah, I just love Halloween. And this year A BONUS. A much anticipated visit from our grandson Grant. But he came a little late, and looked pretty worn out. Maybe next year he will be like me and appreciate the holiday more.

Notes From The Bus

2011-10-25T17:29:00.001-07:00

We're back from our bus tour of Washington DC, only the second time Wendy and I have participated in such an expedition, the last time in 2002 when we went to New York City with my parents and a group of senior citizens. This time we joined my sister and her husband with a group of veterans--he being a former Marine.

As usual, my pictures turned out terrible. I just posted a couple here, including one of the bus we rode. It's hard to get a bad picture of a bus, or a good picture for that matter. Then below is a picture I took of the White House. I posted this one because if you zoom in close enough, you'll see someone was watching us tourists.

Our tour leader was a county commissioner with the patience of Job, forever counting passengers after each stop, making sure everyone was there and accounted for. More often than not, there would be a straggler or two. Sometimes he had to resort to his cell phone to track down the missing.

Thankfully, we never received any of those calls though once we strayed from the official itinerary so we could check out the Capitol Lounge, a supposed home away from home for ex-patriate Michigan State University alums. My brother-in-law has a nephew playing for the Spartan football team. After a couple rounds in the lounge, we joked that if Vaughn called us, we'd tell him we were lost and have the bus pick us up in front.

We had a gregarious bus driver, a former teacher, for much of the trip. After watching him maneuver through openings so narrow I thought he'd have to do two wheels, I decided bus driving is a skill akin to being an airline pilot.

He had to put up with occasional crankiness too from the passengers. Once, when we were stopping quite late for dinner and having difficulty finding a dining venue large enough to accommodate all of us, somebody spoke out, "Rumor is we're going to eat the driver."

Another humorous moment occurred when the driver very slowly angled his vehicle towards an empty parking spot, intending to parallel park. He moved so slowly a passenger ahead of me jumped out of his seat, heading quickly to the front. He thought the driver had exited the vehicle and the bus was rolling on its own.

It was a memorable and educational trip as we learned more this time than in our previous trips to Washington. Still, home was a welcome sight. Kinda like the times I accompanied the boys on their school bus for overnight trips. It was good to be in our own house, in our own bed.

When we checked our phone upon arriving back, we found five messages on the answering machine. They were all from the tour leader Vaughn. One said something about meeting the bus at the old post office there in Washington. All the messages were of a similar nature.

Turns out he was dialing our home phone number instead of our cell phone number.

Fall Fun And Not

2011-10-18T17:25:00.000-07:00

Since I haven't posted a picture of my one and only grandchild here in a while, let me start off by doing so. Here's Grant in his first trip to a pumpkin patch on Sunday.

He's looking a little glum, perhaps because he was coming down with a case of croup or else because his beloved Michigan Wolverines had just lost their first game to the cross-state ruffians of Michigan State. I believe the latter more likely, though the pediatrician confirmed that he does have the croup.

I'm not sure either Grant saw the purpose is heading out to a muddy farmer's field just to pick out and haul back a few inedible gourds. Maybe in a few years he'll understand. I kinda wonder how many of my blogging buddies understand the joys of a pumpkin patch around Halloween. Is that just a midwest tradition?

Wendy and I are preparing for yet another trip, one that involves NO DRIVING BY ME! No, we're not flying. I'm not that crazy. We're hopping a tour bus bound for Washington DC. While there, I hope to catch up to our youngest son who is working somewhere up on Capitol Hill. My sister and brother-in-law are joining us. I hope the weather's better there than the chilly, wet stuff we're currently enduring here in the Great Lakes state.

My tax and financial issues appear to be resolving after a few more phone calls. The stress from it all hasn't resolved yet. Over the past week, I've found myself doing some strange things:

--Trying to use my telephone as a calculator at work.
--Forgetting how to dial an outside line, also at work, something I've done many, many times. I actually had to ask a co-worker.
--Bringing my lunch bag home after work, taking the ice pack out and throwing the lunch bag in the freezer. I left the ice pack on the kitchen table. Wendy pointed my oopsies out to me later.

I could use another vacation. DC here I come.

Another Day, Another Sigh

2011-10-11T17:24:00.000-07:00

*Sigh*

I've been doing lots of that lately with the IRS breathing down my neck, our extra car sitting dead out in the driveway, the city seemingly spending all of its federal stimulus money re-paving the road in front of our house for the past several weeks, and the bank giving us money we didn't ask for.

Yeah, that's right, our bank giving us money we didn't ask for.

When we found out we contributed too much to our Individual Retirement Account (IRA), we asked the bank to withdraw the excess funds. They investigated, referred our issue to "legal", then finally gave us more money than we originally requested, that excess contribution.

*Sigh*

To make matters worse, I'm getting conflicting stories via the internet--always THE authoritative source for all things legal and financially complicated, right?--on how to proceed with our tax situation.

Of course, the IRS covers our situation itself with a publication that's over a hundred pages long, with links to other publications and information I may require. Can't they just publish, like, a Cliff Notes version?

*Sigh*

I'm seriously thinking of putting pride in my pocket and going to H.R. Block.

All life's stress aside, the movie geek in me wants to report a discovery I made this past weekend.

I've always been a big fan of science fiction movies, going back to when I saw my first movie in the theatre almost 50 years ago. I even have a book capsulizing hundreds of horror/sci fi flicks that were made pre-1970. Those that I've seen I put a star next to.

Anyway, I've always remembered a scene from one of these sci-fi flicks I saw before my age hit double digits. It's always haunted me for some reason. These two astronauts go into a cave. There's an opening in the cave with light beyond, so they venture through the opening. A translucent shell then forms over the opening and the astronauts are never seen again.

Of course, over the course of decades I'd forgotten the name of the movie and though I've seen hundreds since, I'd never seen a movie with this specific scene again . . .

. . . until this past weekend. Our "On Demand" feature on cable offered a 1960 movie titled "Twelve to the Moon." The capsule summary didn't sound too intriguing but when I saw it listed in my movie book, I had to watch it so I could put a star next to its entry too.

And wouldn't you know it? That scene I'd envisioned since I was a mere child was in there. I must have seen this movie at the show or on some late night science fiction theatre eons ago.

Eons ago. *Sigh*

A Big Oops

2011-10-04T16:31:00.000-07:00

I try hard to live my life on the straight and narrow. Always have. I've avoided run-ins with authorities, only picked up a couple traffic tickets in over 40 years of driving, and never even considered cheating on my taxes.

So why am I getting an official letter from the Internal Revenue Service? That's what arrived in the mail last Friday. This looked serious too. For one, it was a fairly fat envelope. Oh, oh. And peeking through the window on the envelope, I could see "official business" written on one of the letters within.

I've always done my taxes myself. Filled out all the forms by hand, double-checked, triple checked, read and re-read the instructions. Wouldn't consider using H.R. Block or even one of those Turbo Tax programs you buy in the store. I've never had a problem as a do-it-yourselfer.

Until now.

Reading through the letter, I quickly focused on the crux of the matter. I owed another thousand dollars, they said. What?? How is this possible? They tacked on interest too and this didn't involve my 2010 tax return I had filled out earlier this year. It concerned my 2009 tax return done LAST year.

It took a few times reading through their technical explanation of my misdemeanor to glean what had occurred. Uh, incidentally that's misdemeanor in the generic sense, not the legal sense (I hope). I knew it wasn't like I'd forgotten to report the profits from my uranium mine in Tanganyika.

Ummm, for the record, I don't have a uranium mine in Tanganyika. I don't need to dig myself any deeper here.

In my zeal to sock away as much money as I could towards my retirement, I had over-contributed to my Individual Retirement Account, by several thousand dollars. I had misinterpreted "phased out" in the instructions as meaning something that was going to happen in the future. Nope. It meant that because I already had a retirement plan at work, the amount I could contribute to my IRA was being "phased out" because of my income.

Wonderful. In a sense, the government considers me and Wendy to be too wealthy (??!!) to qualify fully for an individual retirement account. That's hard to believe for someone like me who counts every penny and rides his bike around trying to spot spare change. As an aside, I found two dollar bills in separate rides this past weekend. About 993 more rides like that, and I'll be square with the IRS.

I called the IRS up and wasn't too sure that I received the full scoop of what I need to do next. I talked to a tax adviser who said you may get a different answer each time you call the IRS on something like this. So Wendy and I head to the bank that has our IRA tomorrow. Hopefully, they can steer me back unto the straight and narrow.

I'm not too confident about that though. We might have already gone too far down the path to the dark side. Remember the Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde. Maybe some day it will be the Ballad of Dave and Wendy.

Cash, Check Or . . .

2011-09-27T18:45:00.000-07:00

Doesn’t it seem like everybody takes credit cards anymore? Fast food fare, event tickets, your doctor bill. In Ann Arbor, you can even pay for your on-street parking with a credit card. No more nickels in the meter (like you can pay for parking in downtown Ann Arbor with a nickel—yeah, right).

Anyhoo, Wendy and I were in Twin Falls, Idaho on the last leg of our trip out west. We stopped at a large department store that sold groceries as well as gift-type items. Since we hadn’t had a chance to shop much yet, we filled our grocery cart with everything imaginable. Then we headed to a check-out.

After our total was rung up, close to $80 worth, I handed the cashier our credit card.

“I’m sorry. We don’t take credit cards. Only debit cards, checks and cash.”

WHAT??? Don’t take credit cards??!! Had we crossed over into the Twilight Zone or something? I’m thinking of that one episode where a tired couple accidentally drove onto another planet. Maybe that was the Outer Limits. Still, it didn’t seem like we were on planet Earth.

Wendy reminded me that we had a VISA debit travel card specifically purchased for this trip. Oh, yeah. I pulled that out of my wallet and ran it through the card-reader. It asked for my pin number. Then it asked if I wanted money back from this transaction. No. Let’s keep it simple.

“It won’t take it. It think it’s a credit card,” said the cashier. No, it’s a debit card, I responded. Says so right on the card. I showed her the card, pointing out where it said D-E-B-I-T. I almost gave her the card so she could show it to her computer or something.

“You can try it again,” she offered, unsmiling by the way. I did. Swipe, pin number, no I don’t want cash back.

“It still think it’s a credit card.”

Argghhhh. Did I hear a groan among the shoppers lined up behind me? For sure, they didn’t look happy. Wendy and I emptied our pockets and wallets, giving her all the currency we could gather up. No sense even asking whether they’d take an out-of-state check.

“That’s seventy dollars,” she said. Still short! I checked my wallet again and found a ten dollar bill. Boo-yeah. Paid the bill with two dollars and change to spare. Not enough cash obviously to take us to Michigan from Idaho, so we took our debit card to the ATM in that same store and withdrew $200 from our Visa debit travel card.

Yeah cashier, did you hear that? Your ATM says we’re cool. We got $200, over $100 more than we were asking from you. Your debit card swiper needs to communicate with the other electronic financial instruments in the building and educate itself.

In Search Of Kermode Bear

2011-09-20T18:03:00.000-07:00

Here I am checking my tourist guide to see what kind of exotic wildlife I can expect to find in Canada.

While on the BC Ferry that took us from Prince Rupert to Vancouver Island, a guide sent a ripple of excitement through those of us gathered to hear his talk when he declared that the day before, on this very same route, a Kermode bear was spotted catching salmon on Prince Royal Island.

He said sightings of this bear, often called the spirit bear by Native Americans because its often white fur caused it to resemble a ghost, were so rare that he compared seeing it to seeing the Loch Ness Monster.

Our ferry slowed down as it approached Prince Royal Island so we could all get a good look. But . . . nothing. Figures. We saw precious little wildlife during our two-weeks on the road--a deer here, an antelope there, a few small black bears that we drove by too quickly to get a picture.

About the only time Wendy would get her nose out of the book she was reading while I drove was when we passed an "elk crossing" or "moose crossing" sign. As Wendy complained later, we passed those signs for thousands of miles without encountering a single, verifiable elk or moose.

I even drove us to the wild rainforest of the Pacific Rim National Park Preserve where only a week or so before a cougar had mauled a camper. The literature I picked up at the park office warned that wildlife encounters could include wolves, bears and cougars.

These pamphlets advised what to do if we should encounter a wild animal. Rather confusing though. We had to figure out whether the animal was activing defensively or in a predatory manner, before figuring out how to react to defend ourselves.

If the bear is defensive, I needed to appear non-threatening. If the bear is predatory, I needed to "try to intimidate the bear." Yeah, right. Intimidate a grizzly? Like that's gonna happen. BUT . . . I did bring my air horn. I've had one for years but never used it. Come to find out, it's the defense of choice in many of these wild animal encounters.

Alas, I never had occasion to use it. I even slept with it when we camped in a tent once. Forgot about the horn until we were unpacking the mini-van in Wyoming and something pressed against it, sending a blast through the motel parking lot. Scared Wendy who was helping me unpack a few feet away. It also startled another motel guest who was leaning over his second floor railing observing goings-on below. He looked at ME like he'd just seen the Loch Ness monster.

Yeah, that's right. Better not mess with us Michiganders. We're prepared.

Play It Again, Wen

2011-09-12T22:56:00.000-07:00

After a week in Canada, I was ready to come back to the good, ole USA. Canada was pretty and the weather treated us kindly, but everything is so expensive there, not to mention their hefty sales taxes. On top of that we were dinged a three percent foreign transaction tax on anything we charged by credit card, AND the exchange rate in Canada favored their dollar over our's, which made everything even more costly.

But we were on Vancouver Island and had to book passage to America via ferry. Since we were in Victoria, British Columbia, that meant we had to book the Coho, via Black Ball Ferries. Their website is difficult to navigate and by the time I got to the point where I could actually reserve passage (after giving them my name, address, birthdate, citizenship documentation, my wife's name . . . .), I was told that no more reservations for the times I needed were available.

No problem. Reservations are optional, according to the website. Not required, nor even strongly suggested or even just plain old suggested. They said they always have spaces available for drive-ons. That would be me now, I guess.

Still, better be safe than sorry, so I arrived down at the docks at 6 a.m. though the ferry didn't actually leave until 10:30. I was going to make sure I was FIRST in line. "Where you off to so early?" asked the hotel desk clerk when I was checking out. When I told him the ferry, he said he understood.

But the ferry offices were closed. I did find one fellow tourist wandering about, distressed that the office was closed and that the early morning ferry she had planned to travel wasn't even offered now that it was after Labor Day. She was trying to book a passage on the adjacent Victorian Clipper. But I knew there was one problem with that. They couldn't take their car with them on the Clipper.

Suddenly I began to feel anxiety well up inside me. I felt like a refugee in Casablanca, the ones who were hoping and praying for passage through Lisbon to America. If anyone recalls the movie, there was a young couple who won enough money on the roulette wheel to pay for passage to America. They told the prefect they would be at his office the next morning at six to finalize arrangements. He responded that he would be there at eight.

Coincidentally, that happened to us. Not the roulette part. But we were at the office at six, and they did not open the ticket counter until eight. By then several fellow refugees, er, tourists packed around the counter, also hoping to book passage.

By the way, we had tried desperately to garner any shred of information that would tell us what we had to do to get ferry tickets. There was nothing on the website, no information at the ticket counter, or at the vehicle gate. Wendy and I got coffee at the cafe across the street (Let's call it Rick's) and I even asked the cashier there. She phoned her boss but her information proved not to be accurate.

So armed with only second hand information and hope, I approached the ticket counter. The lady said she could not sell me what she said was a "standby" ticket until my car was actually parked in the boarding lot. What??? The gate to the boarding lot was locked.

Apparently not anymore, and by now other refugees with better information than I had entered the lot, parked their cars in the waiting area and bought their tickets, including the one lady I had encountered in the pre-dawn darkness. By the time I had made it to the gate myself, I was number 15 on the standby list. The clerk said the chances of actually making it on the ferry were small. What?! I couldn't wait another day in Canada.

She suggested I drive back up the road about 50 miles to BC Ferries in Nanaimo. They could take me to Vancouver and possibly I could get to America from there. We decided to take our chances here. Number 15 we were. That clerk incidentally had all the charm of Major Strasser, the German villain in Casablanca.

Planes kept taking off in the harbor, probably also carrying refugees to their homeland, I felt. Just like in the movie. Wendy and I had plenty of time to watch them as we waited in our car. Finally, the ferry arrived. Cars exited, then cars got on. Big semis and big campers. Surely there would be no room for us.

But, just like a Hollywood movie, we were finally waved aboard. "We're going home, Sonja, we're going home," I teased Wendy, feigning a German accent. But it was the greatest sense of relief to be on the ferry and see the distant mountains of Washington.

Can't Figure Tourists

2011-09-06T20:47:00.001-07:00

Wendy and I are somewhere in the middle of British Columbia tonight. Earlier I witnessed some of the most beautiful scenery I've seen in my life. So then, what's wrong with the above picture.

I took this photo along a particular scenic stretch of Banff National Park. The snow-capped mountains overlooking a particularly vivid blue river really attracted the shutterbugs. So why were so many people in the above picture interested in the motorcycle instead?

Short answer: I don't know. They all got off the same tour bus and spoke a foreign language that I gathered to be Russian. Maybe they don't have motorcycles in Russia, but jaw-dropping scenery they do. I'm thinking of Dr. Zhivago.

Here's another interesting anecdote. We were following a couple other cars on a winding mountain road leading to Lake Moraine, also in Banff NP. As we neared the lake, there were a line of cars parked on the right side of the road. I couldn't even see the lake, nor the parking lot, but it seemed obvious that the lot was full so people were parking up the road.

The two cars ahead of me spotted a couple empty spots on the road shoulder and quickly maneuvered to take them. Wendy and I drove on, and on, and on. I didn't see any open spaces that a poor parallel parker like myself could squeeze my Grand Caravan into.

We ended up down at the official lakeside parking lot. And there was a vacant spot for my van there. Actually there were a few empty parking spaces. Wonder what those people who were following us thought after they walked a half mile down the road to find they could have parked in the designated parking lot and saved themselves some effort.

Speaking of effort, many tourists were intrigued by a pile of logs lying next to a large rocky hill at this same lake. OK, including myself. Many decided to hop the big deadfall of logs and climb over the rocks to get a better view. Me too, though I didn't ascend too far.

Like the tourists who hopped a canoe on the lake, their first time, and ended up facing eachother so when they paddled they worked against eachother, I had the feeling that many of the brave souls tackling the log and rock pile had never done anything similar.

One young lady slipped, her shin striking hard on a dead log. She winced, then sat down for a long time right there. Eventually, when she felt comfortable enough to walk again, she turned around and went back rather than continue onto the rock pile. Another young lady stepped on a log and found out it was floating on water. She just suffered a wet shoe, sock and foot. She continued on to the rock pile.

Moral of the story: just because somebody is doing it doesn't mean that you should too. Sometimes though, you just want to take that picture that you think is going to be a little bit better. My effort is below.

Acts of God

2011-08-30T19:01:00.000-07:00

Oh, great. I just checked the scenic area where we’re heading to in Canada and they’re predicting nothing but showers for a week straight. What, do they have a monsoon season up in Canada? I thought it never rained in California. Doesn’t that apply to Oregon, Washington and British Columbia on the west coast too?

Mother nature and friends have been unsettling of late. Take my son Scott out in Washington DC this past week. He was sitting having lunch and minding his own business on a concrete bench outside the office building where he works when the bench started shaking.

He turned around, thinking maybe one of the area’s homeless folk was messing with him (a very strong homeless person obviously). But then the trees started shaking, the ground started rumbling, car alarms were going off . . . EARTHQUAKE! Though he’s never been in an earthquake previously, Scott knew exactly what was going on. However, other employees inside office buildings who had lived through the 9/11 terror attacks a decade ago weren’t so sure. Definitely more scary for them.

The buildings were all quickly evacuated and for hours employees didn’t know the extent of the situation. Eventually they all were told to go home and call the next day before coming in again. Bummer for Scott since he didn’t have his keys and cell phone. Left in the building which was off limits now. Worse for the daughter of a colleague of mine—her daughter was caught without her cell phone, keys and purse with her money. She waited it out until they gave the all-clear to go inside several hours later.

Then hurricane Irene happened. Scott was told to expect at a minimum to be without power for a few days. He took that warning seriously, however too late. By the time he got to the store to stock up on flashlights, batteries, canned goods and other necessities, the store was cleaned out. Lucky for him, Irene took her wrath elsewhere and spared the part of Maryland where he lived. He wasn’t among the four million plus to lose power.

At least I have some flexibility with my vacation to come. I am locked in with reservations for southwest Canada, rain or shine. But after that we can change plans if necessary. For example, stay away from the rainy coast. Maybe Yosemite. Let me check what’s there. Fire! Highway closed, campers evacuated?

*sigh *

Planning The Big Trip

2011-08-23T18:11:00.000-07:00

I'm in the final planning stages for a two-week road trip that Wendy and I are going to take in a little over a week. We've taken many vacations over the years, but this one is different.

For one, it's going to encompass two whole weeks. We've rarely if ever done a vacation more than a week long. Secondly, we're going to head to the Pacific coast of northwest U.S. and southwest Canada. Wendy's never been. It's been almost 50 years since I've seen a California beach.

So I've been figuring mileage, checking websites, making reservations. Since I like a little adventure with my trips I want to travel through central British Columbia, ending up at a place called Prince Rupert on the coast. Then we'll hop an all-day ferry to Vancouver Island.

My son Greg mapped the route via Google and e-mailed me, "Holy COW! I just Googled from Calgary to Vancouver via Price Rupert. Has mom seen this route?????? Whoa."

What, I thought. Are we likely to get ambushed by Crazy Horse or something? I had to see what Greg was looking at so I stopped by his computer. He showed me how through Google you can get a satellite view of the route, then zoom in for a street view. Quite cool. Yes, it did look like a lot of mountains. And not a lot of people.

That's okay. I've never been that much of a people person anyway. Originally I had planned to throw a mattress in back of our Grand Caravan, figuring that if we couldn't find a hotel, we could just find a primitive campsite or something and sleep in the back. But I tested that idea recently and it wasn't that comfortable.

Me and Wendy and a dog named Boo, traveling and a living off the land wasn't going to work for us. Maybe if we were in our early 20s and driving a VW microbus. Wendy's not too sure even about staying in a permanent tent in Curry Village in Yosemite National Park, our last stop out west before heading east again. "Not if I have to cook and do dishes," she noted.

To be truthful, I don't think Wendy was ever the type to travel and live off the land. Me neither for that matter.

We're just hoping there's a lot of Tim Hortons around where we're going. Even if it is the Canadian version of the Alps.

Yea Fellow Bloggers!

2011-08-16T18:01:00.000-07:00

First, a shout-out and happy birthday to my son Scott, who turns 26 today. He is living and working in our nation’s capital right now so we can’t celebrate with him in person. This is the first time we haven’t been able to personally celebrate a birthday with either of our sons. Sign of changing times.

Second, a follow-up to a “ramblin’, gamblin’” blog I did about a month ago. That involved a reservation I made with Days Inn, when they promised a partial refund after an on-line reservation snafu. They overcharged me on a reservation I made on-line with them. They would only promise me a refund if I stayed, instead of giving me a discounted price. I could have canceled the whole schmiel and gone somewhere else, but decided to take a chance on their honesty.

Last Friday I got a check for $15.43 from Days Inn. Boo-yeah. So then I wrote a not-so-favorable review of our Days Inn experience and posted it with Tripadvisor for which they rewarded me with a free photobook. Double boo-yeah. That’ll teach Days Inn to mess with me.

I don’t know though. I hope my “don’t mess with me” attitude is not making me curmudgeonly in my older years. My mother thinks my dad should name his fantasy football team “the curmudgeons” this year. Maybe my male lineage is destined to become curmudgeons as we “mature.”

Wonder if that’s the reason my grandson is wary of me. He is! Check out the picture I took. Does that look like a “I’m happy to see my grandpa” look?

I don’t think so. Grandma gets along with Grant just fine. About me, he’s not so sure. I came home the other day to find Wendy babysitting the little guy. He was napping in his playpen, unaware of my presence. I played with his dog Simon a bit, then in passing the playpen saw that Grant was now awake. He was on his back, looking at me wide-eyed with an expression that said, “Oh my god, they left me with this guy??!”

Then he started to cry, so I had to quickly pass him to grandma to get him settled down. Eventually, he came around a little. When his mom and dad returned, they showed us how he could flip himself over, back to front, by himself. So I’d clap and say, “Yea, Grant.” He liked that. Even flashed me a little smile.

Guess maybe then I should be a little more positive and supportive in my attitude.

“Yea, Days’ Inn . . . “

My Shadow For A Week

2011-08-09T18:20:00.001-07:00

Simon was our houseguest for a week. Simon is a Boston Terrier belonging to my son Greg and his wife Lindsay. They needed someone to watch their dog while they vacationed in upper Michigan last week.

It's been a while since we had a dog around the house for longer than a day. Our beloved Doogie passed away almost three years ago. He followed my wife around the house most of the days of his life.

So it was a little surprising that Simon turned out to be my shadow, lying on the carpet outside the bathroom while I took a shower, occasionally climbing onto my lap, and refusing to go to bed at night until I retired myself.

Loyalty? Maybe. More likely he hoped I would get his ball out so we could play. That's what he craved all week, a game of ball. I would throw it, he'd run and get it, then I'd chase him around the house trying to get it back.

Sometimes I'd hide his ball, but he proved to be pretty good at finding it. One time I thought I had this ball well hidden among some junk mail on an end table. Next thing I knew he had the ball in his mouth as he stood next to my recliner, a particularly devilish look in his eyes as if to say, "Look what I've got."

The object for him was to destroy this ball as he had so many like it. Gnaw on it until it stops squeaking, then tear it to shreds. And eventually by the end of the week, he did.

That didn't stop him from begging to play ball, as in the picture above. He's looking to where the ball is usually kept, sometimes crying to play another round of his favorite game.

I'd tell him, "Simon, you destroyed it. You tore your ball to pieces."

That would get his attention, as in the picture below.

But as Wendy would point out, "You know he only understood the one word."

Yeah. *sigh*

To Beat The Heat

2011-08-03T18:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve used to wonder why news reports urged people to “check on the elderly” during heat waves. But now that I’m over 55, I can see why. The heat seems to bother me more and more each year.

This past weekend I thought we would catch a break as the wife and I joined another family in heading over to Lake Michigan. Lots of beach, lots of water—the best recipe for beating the heat.

So as temperatures started to cook on Saturday, we made our way to MacWoods Dune Rides by Silver Lake, a stone's throw from Lake Michigan. It was unusually busy that day and they said we would have to wait 40 minutes for our tour, so we walked next door to the ice cream stand. Cooled us off some in the mid-day heat.

I was looking forward to the part of the dune ride where they stop at Lake Michigan and let passengers out to wade into the surf, take pictures, etc. Since we take this ride every year, we know what to expect. They also skim the shoreline with the scooter, spraying passengers with a little bit of lake water. Ahhhhh, couldn’t wait. When we boarded, my brother-in-law made sure to take the seat that would expose him to the great soaking. Smart fellow.

But as soon as we were all strapped in, our tour guide announced that we wouldn’t be going down to Lake Michigan this time because the endangered Piping Plover was nesting there.

WHAT??!!! Piping plover?? Is she making this up? This name sounds made up. Is a piping plover a cousin to the rocking rover?

Instead of getting soaked, we were baked. My brother-in-law in particular got a good sandblasting in his end seat. The driver said to make up for stopping lakeside, we would stop atop the highest sand dune where we could all run down and climb up again. WHAT?? In 90-degree heat? I can see this same cruel tour driver out in the southwest somewhere saying sadistically, “We’re not going down to the Colorado River today, but instead we’re going to head out to Death Valley where we’re all going to participate in some exciting sack races.”

What made it worse was when we made our aforementioned scheduled stop atop razorback dune, it was right above Silver Lake. All right!! Salvation. But our tour guide said we could run down the dune, but couldn’t go in the water. WHAT??!! Are the piping plovers bathing there or something?

What made it even more worse was that after we had taken our tour through the hot, sandy landscape, Wendy and I wanted to head over to Silver Lake State Park where we knew we COULD go in the water. But when we got there, “LOT FULL.” The attendant said to try back again in a couple hours (he had to be a relative of that tour guide).

So we tried the park by the lighthouse right on Lake Michigan. “LOT FULL.” How about the park by the off-road vehicle area? No beach there but at least they had shade. “LOT FULL.” Up to Pentwater where there was another State Park. “LOT FULL.” Finally, up to Ludington where we found an air conditioned restaurant. Afterwards, we passed some excitement as some elderly lady had collapsed from the heat on a downtown sidewalk. A passerby was giving her water.

New law. Only those 55 and over may use state parks when the temperature is above 80 degrees. And dune ride operators must post any variations in their route at the ticket counter.

My Eulogy For Grandma

2011-07-31T15:19:00.000-07:00

{I'm posting this here for my Uncle Jim who requested it.}

There are probably a lot of you who knew grandma better than I did. I’ve lived in Ann Arbor for over 30 years and don’t get up to Bay City that much. But one thing I can say . . . when I did go visit grandma, it was a trip down memory lane.

Until a couple years ago, she lived in the same house that I remembered coming to as a kid 50 years ago. Garden out back. A little shed off to the side. A place to wipe your shoes and a place to put them after you took them off. The picture of her four sons always hanging proudly and prominently in her living room.

She told much the same stories when you came around, stories about her youth, about her family and of course stories about her trips to the doctor.

And often there was music too. Grandpa would bring out his violin or grandma herself might play a tune on her organ. I brought my accordion to play sometimes and grandpa would accompany me on his saxophone.

Something else you could count on when you went to grandma’s was visiting with cousins, aunts and uncles who also happened by to pay their respects. Since grandma rarely got out, she lived for those visits from family members. And I think that’s what kept her going strong for those 99 plus years. So many grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. Those family visits were so precious to her.

When I called my youngest son Scott to let him know his great grandma had passed away, one thing Scott recalled is despite not seeing him or his brother Greg all that often, she always remembered their names.

During those visits of mine, grandma would always have something to eat. “Here, have something,” she would say. Might be cake, pie, or some ham in the refrigerator, once even a tomato out of her garden. “Take what you want,” she’d say.

And then, what it was time for me to go, she’d always say, “Come back and see grandma.” That was something else I could always count on. The invitation to come back and see her. And when I did return she was just as happy to see me as she was the time before. Like I said, it was a trip down memory lane.

My last visit with grandma was just a week ago when my dad and I visited her on Smith St. And I have a little story about that that I want to share. I tried to remember the details but my memory isn’t as sharp as it used to be. You know, I think grandma sometimes used to add some drama or embellish some small detail herself to her own stories. So if someone’s recollection is ever different from mine on some story I tell, just remember, I take after grandma.

So my mother said a couple weeks ago that I should visit grandma. She hadn’t been doing well lately. And it had been over a year since I had seen her last. But one thing about grandma. She doesn’t mince words. And I remember the last time I visited she mentioned how I had put on a little weight.

I was worried that she would mention it again. My mother said not to worry. Grandma’s memory was fading. In fact, she might not recognize me at all.

So my dad and I went over and she tried to guess who I was. She said my voice was familiar but she couldn’t think of my name. My dad said, “It’s Dave. Your grandson.” She looked at me up and down, head to toe, for what seemed like a long time. “You’ve gotten big,” she said.

I turned to me dad and said, “See. I told you so.”

My dad said that what she meant was that I’m big, as in all grown up. But I’m thinking that I’ve been grown up for 40 years now. I think even at 99, grandma’s memory is better than that.

So that was mine and grandma’s last trip down memory lane together. And when I think of it, there was something missing. I gave her a couple hugs and we said good bye, but this time she didn’t say, “Come and see grandma again.”

Maybe she knew it would be our last time together. Maybe she knew her time here was running out. But even though she’s gone, there’s lots of memories left over, not just for me, but for all of you as well I’m sure. So grandma, we may not be able to come back and see you in person, at least in our lifetime, but those memories we have of being with you will live forever in our hearts.

Ramblin', Gamblin'

2011-07-26T18:18:00.000-07:00

I feel like, in the words of local pop icon Bob Seger, a ramblin’, gamblin’ man.

The ramblin’ part comes in because wife Wendy and I are joining with her sister’s family in an overnight cross-state fun trip to Ludington, Michigan on the Lake Michigan shoreline.

The gamblin’ part is a bit more complicated and involves a motel reservation I made on the internet.

I made the reservation on-line at the Days Inn web-site at a rate that included an AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) discount. Punched in all my demographic and credit card information, hit confirm and printed out my receipt.

Only then did I discover that my discount had disappeared somewhere between “reserve this room” and “thank you for making your reservation with Days Inn.” What happened? I had been charged $15 more than what I was quoted.

So I called customer service and they transferred me through to customer care, where I was on hold for about 15 minutes, leading me to believe that they don’t really care all that much. After mis-pronouncing the name of the town where I was staying (LOO-dington instead of LUDD-ington) and saying she couldn’t find the motel where I was staying (she was looking for a Super 8 when I told her specifically I was staying at a Days Inn), she said she would have to refer it to research.

For a $15 difference? Why not just change my reservation to reflect the rate I was SUPPOSED to get. Oh, well. They said it would take up to three days but I figure I could always cancel.

I told them to contact me via e-mail with their finding. They contacted me by phone instead, leaving a message . . . “when calling back, please refer to case 213—NO, that should be 231.”

When I called back, they said that the original discounted rate I saw on the internet was incorrect. A computer glitch, they called it. I was charged the correct rate. BUT . . . to make it right, they would refund me the $15 after my stay if I called them back and referred to case number 213, er, 231.

Now, the gamblin’ part comes in. I decided to go ahead and do what they advised. Fifteen dollars may not seem like a lot of money, but considering that my 2011 “found on the ground” fund contains only a bit more than that, if I gamble on their sincerity and lose, there goes all those stray quarters, dimes and pennies I’ve been picking up for the last seven months.

I guess I’m gonna let it ride.

Goodbye Grandma

2011-07-20T17:49:00.000-07:00

I’m a little late putting up my weekly blog. Yesterday, I was at my grandmother’s funeral. She passed away on Saturday after over 99 years upon this earth. In six months she would have hit the century mark, but it was not to be.

As I had done with my last three grandparents, I gave a eulogy at the funeral. That went okay though I found out later that my voice was competing with traffic from the street as well as with fans set up around the church to cool off the congregation amidst our miserable heat wave. Sometimes the outside noise won out, I understand.

I was glad to say a few words on grandma’s behalf, but just as glad when I could exit the pulpit as I’m not too crazy about speaking in public. It was a relief to sit down and know it was over. But there was a surprise to come.

As the priest was preparing the Eucharist, a lay minister looked my way and beckoned me to come forward. I’ve never seen a minister do that ever before at a Catholic mass and I’ve been a Catholic all my life.

I pressed my index finger to my chest and made an expression that said something to the effect, “You want me????”

As my brother later said, there wasn’t anybody sitting behind me. So I walked forward and joined the priest and other ministers at the altar. Nervous moment. The minister who motioned me up said, “Have you ever been a Euchuristic minister before?” I said no. Never even thought of becoming one. Well, he said I was about to become one.

Nobody in the congregation knew why I was up there either. My cousin later said to me, “I said to myself, is Dave up there AGAIN??!!” My sentiments exactly.

I’m not sure if any of my blogging buddies has ever performed ministerial duties during a church service but it’s NOT the type of thing you want to be suddenly blindsided to learn by doing. But, for grandma, of course I would do it.

My ministerial duty was to hold the wine chalice during the sacrament of communion for those who wanted to partake. Communicants all drink from the same chalice, so I needed to wipe and turn the cup after each person drank. Not too hard, though I got flustered a couple times. And a couple in my family chided me for not genuflecting in front of the altar when I returned to my pew afterwards.

I sure under the circumstances, God would forgive me. And I think grandma would as well. My guess is she was smiling over me the whole time.

Snack Us, Snack Eagle

2011-07-12T18:20:00.000-07:00

My wife and I journeyed to northern Michigan this past week where we spent a few days at my parents' cottage on the shores of Hubbard Lake. Usually, we try to get there at least a couple times each year. This was our first visit for 2011.

We left on Saturday as I wanted to make an appearance at a wedding reception celebrating the marriage of a second cousin. I hadn't seen that side of the family in a while, so I thought visiting with them and later with the fauna of upper Michigan would be like killing two birds with one stone.

Speaking of birds . . . wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Back up to where Wendy and I just hit the road near Ann Arbor. Wanted to grab a light snack as we'd missed lunch and dinner at the reception would be late. Key word: light.

So we pulled up to the drive-through at McDonalds, agreeing to split a two-cheeseburger and small fry combo. Ordered at the speaker, pulled ahead and paid at the pay window, pulled ahead to the delivery window and waited.

And waited, and waited.

What?? Doesn't anybody order cheeseburgers anymore? Cars were piling up behind us. I felt bad. They gave us our drinks, fine. Just two cheeseburgers and a small fry and we'll be on our way. We certainly don't get this kind of service at our local Tim Horton's where we hardly have to slow the car down before they're tossing hot coffees and whatever else at us. Our favorite place there, the local Tim Horton's.

Anyway FINALLY they hand me a big bag with an apology. Hmmm, this is an awfully heavy bag for just two cheeseburgers and a small fry. But we've already waited too long and need to hit the road.

Here's what we got when we opened our bag back on the highway. Instead of two cheeseburgers, we got one quarter-pounder with cheese and a double cheeseburger without mustard, noted special order on our receipt and probably the reason for the long wait. Instead of one small fry, we got one large order and one small order of fries. I would have liked to have seen the look on the person who was expecting all that but instead got two cheeseburgers.

Felt bad about that, but we didn't have time to turn around, go back, sort it all out and wait again.

Okay, now the bird story. Up at Hubbard Lake I took a kayak along the shore to Sucker Creek where occasionally hangs out a majestic bald eagle. As I neared the swampy area that lies just past Driftwood Shores subdivision, I could see commotion on a dead stump way off in the distance.

When it moved a particular way, I saw a flash of white. The eagle! He was obviously busy eating something there. I carefully paddled closer, hoping to get as close as I could without being seen. I knew that when I couldn't see his white head, he was busy eating. So I paddled only when his head was turned.

But as I got closer, I saw more and more white. His head was erect and obviously surveying his surroundings. I sat as still as possible, only the current carrying me closer to him. Isn't his vision based on movement? Maybe if I was very careful, I could drift right up next to him on his deadwood perch.

Fat chance. I learned that "eagle eyes" isn't just an expression. Before I was within a hundred yards, he had gathered my intentions and flew off. In his claws, his own version of take-out, a big fish.

Wonder how long he had to wait to get that.

Baby Rattle 2.0

2011-07-05T19:03:00.000-07:00

My boss forwarded me an e-mail that contained the latest innovation he has seen. It was a voicemail attachment. Click on it and the attachment would tell you what was on its mind.

That was new to him. New to me too. I had seen all kinds of e-mail attachments in the past, but one with a disembodied voice? Nope. Why not just use the telephone to call and say what was on your mind? Not high tech enough, I guess.

I'm not big on high tech. Even as our software packages are in double digit generations, e.g. Excel 10.0, I'm still more than happy with the original. Same with my blog. You'll actually never see Big Dave's Blog 2.0. What you see here is probably what you'll get five years down the road.

Anyway, I have a funny little story to relate about our high tech world of today.

Wendy owns our little family's one and only cell phone. I probably could figure out how to use it if my life depended on it, but best not to count on it. Anyway, the phone which is several years old died last week.

During a weekend shopping trip we bought another, which Wendy spent about an hour programing (a half hour on the phone with the service representative) so that she could still use her old phone number. FINALLY, she got it working. Now we just had to wait for someone to call to see if it works.

Fast foward to another shopping trip to a new baby store I wanted to check out. I thought our grandson Grant needed a new rattle since he's at the grasping and grabbing stage. Checked out a bunch at Buy, Buy, Baby (clever, right?) and I settled on one because it resembled a piano and even played a repertoire of classical tunes when squeezed. Talk about high tech!

On the way out of the store we heard a ding-diggety-dong. Wendy's new phone! She quickly fumbled through her purse, brought out the phone, flipped it open and held it to her ear.

"Hello?" she said. No response. My wife quickly deduced what had happened. "It's your toy," she said, referring to the rattle we had just bought. She must have squeezed the package in her arm and activated it.

I had to chuckle over it. But you know some day down the road there's going to be a baby toy that doubles as a cell phone. If they don't make one already.

Around My Yard

2011-06-29T03:52:00.001-07:00

Busy week this week. We're celebrating my oldest son's 29th birthday this Thursday, my youngest son is heading off to Washington DC on Friday, I've been trying my hand at other creative projects (Moviemaker, Photobook) . . . so this blog is going to be more of a photoblog.

That's my patio tomato in the first picture. I love tomatoes, big ones especially. Hopefully this tomato plant will deliver. I built the plant stand it rests on (second picture) using some two-by-fours and the extra leaves of a kitchen table that crumpled during a rough card game of spoons. How about my petunia basket. Love my super-petunias. Our marigolds aren't doing too shabby. And, of course, my rock garden. I try to collect rocks from various places we visited, e.g. Yellowstone and the Great Smoky Mountains.

Travails of Motherhood

2011-06-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

I’ll get to the picture above in a little bit. But I want to tell another story first.

So I’m riding my bicycle near the high school this past week when a killdeer swoops down in front of me and begins to stagger in almost a drunken manner, turning this way, turning that way, all the time its wings hanging like they’re broken or injured or something.

I’ve seen this killdeer act enough over the years to know what it means. This is a mother killdeer who has a nest or babies nearby and is trying to lure me, the predator, away from them.

But I’m on pavement in the middle of parking drives and parking lots, bozo! As I’m thinking that I see some commotion off to the side.

Deedle-deedle-deedle-deedle-deedle.

Well, I’ll be. Skittering parallel to me, on the street, was a baby chick killdeer. He could run really fast, but fly or hop the curb when he got to it? Forget it. I angled off and rode some distance, then stopped to watch.

I could see now there were three baby killdeer in the same area, with the mother urgently trying to corral them so she could lead them to safety. You heard of the term “someone herding cats?” That person had it easy compared to this mama.

Eventually she got them near a handicapped ramp that would take them out of the street and into the safety of some nearby grass and shrubs. But the babies ignored their mother’s tweeting pleas, and continued to peck here, wander there, seemingly happy to play in the street. I don’t know how the story ends because I rode off then.

Fast forward to another bike ride, and note the picture at the top of my blog here. As I rode past the crosswalk you see abutting the sidewalk, I saw a young mother stride purposefully into that tall grass beyond the sidewalk, near a tiny creek just out of view there.

What could she possibly be looking for that in that bug-infested muck, I thought to myself. I turned my head as I kept riding and saw her reach down into the tall grass and pull out . . . a kid! She set him down in the cut grass then returned to the tall grass, reaching down again and pulling out . . . a tiny bike with training wheels!

Now it became clear what had happened. The kid must have gotten a head of steam riding his bike across the street and when he came to where the crosswalk ended at the sidewalk, he just kept on going, ending up down in the swamp.

Made me think, millions of years of evolution, but the role of a mother hasn't really changed.

As Father's Day Nears

2011-06-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

With Father’s Day approaching this weekend, I appreciated an e-mail I got recently from my eldest son Greg. Under the subject heading ‘Your Job Is Done’ he asked, “I’ll bet that’s how you feel, right? I know I would.” He was saying that because his brother had just graduated from college and had accepted a job out east.

I’m not sure the job of a father is ever really done, at least the worrying part, but with Scott poised to begin life on his own I can at least take a deep breath.

Now I can witness as Greg finds out firsthand what fatherhood is all about. And it seems like his son Grant is going through a sensitive phase right now at four months plus. At least with me. If I as much as frown in his direction or raise my voice a decibel above Mr. Rogers from Mr. Rogers neighborhood it throws the little guy into a lengthy crying spell.

Grandma Wendy does much better with Grant than I do. So it was funny this past Saturday when Wendy had to leave while babysitting the little guy, leaving him with me and Uncle Scott. Grant and Scott actually get along pretty well but Scott’s nervous watching him without an experienced caretaker present. And I'm not sure Scott thinks I qualify.

Not more than a few minutes after Wendy left, Greg called.

“Let me talk to mom,” he said

“She’s not here,” I said, explaining how she had gone to her sister’s. I could sense a little bit of concern growing in Greg’s voice as he asked how Grant was doing with just his uncle and grandpa there. I passed the question along to Scott who was trying to keep Grant entertained in his little bouncy chair.

“I don’t know,” Scott replied and I passed that along to Greg.

“I’ll be there in 30 minutes,” Greg responded, the time it would take to get from his own hometown to where we were.

Happy Father’s Day, Greg. Heh, heh. The first of many to come.

Make Me Smile--NOT

2011-06-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

“How can I make you smile today?”

That’s an unusual way for a business to answer the phone. And it was particularly ironic for me too since I was calling the local business that re-roofed my home four years ago to tell them that IT LEAKED.

So I passed my problem along to the lady who answered the phone. And I could tell . . . she wasn’t smiling.

She took only the scantest (hmmm, spell check says that’s okay) of details and after telling me that it would be a $100 service call if it turned out NOT to be my roof, the conversation ended.

Of course it was the roof. I had a bucket filling with drips falling from the family room ceiling. Good thing my son Scott was home to rescue our newly carpeted floor from serious water damage. Well, maybe not serious water damage but it always helps to be overly dramatic on the phone with businesses, I’ve learned.

The woman had promised me that someone would be contacting me to set up an appointment to come over and check it out. Hmmmm, I hadn’t even given them my phone number. They did find me in their computer. Maybe my phone number was there. After a few hours had passed, I was thinking of following up when I got a call from my son Scott.

“Dad. Did you call the roof people?”

I told him I did. “Why?”

“Cause they’re up on the roof right now.”

Whoa, so much for setting up an appointment. To their credit, they did call first--Scott let it go to voice mail--and they knocked on the front door too. Scott ignored the knocks, figuring they were salesmen. Only when he saw ladders going up and people climbing up the side of our house did he figure he should investigate.

So after I convinced Scott that all was cool, he met with the roof people. And he found out, much to my dismay, it WASN’T the roof leaking. Turns out that the caulking over one of our upstairs window had pretty much failed to the point of being non-existent. The rain was running underneath the siding and finding its way into the family room below.

*sigh*

So that piece of news cost me $100. At least they caulked the window before they left.

But still, I wasn’t smiling.

Chapter's End

2011-05-31T18:11:00.000-07:00

It was 11 years ago when Wendy and I left our eldest son Greg at Central Michigan University to begin his quest for higher education. I remember Greg almost quit school right then when he spied a cowboy hat and guitar already dropped off by the roommate he hadn't yet met. He was sure it was a bad omen.

Fast forward a few years later and Greg was singing duets with his now best friend in one of the Mt. Pleasant pubs. His roommate turned out to be not such a bad guy after all.

One's journey past high school through the college years in a way mirrors life itself. You never know where you're going to end up or how you're going to get there. But somehow you manage and usually it turns out being not so bad.

That journey to college campuses near and far ended for Wendy and I this past weekend when we drove to Ithaca, New York, to watch our youngest son Scott graduate with a Master's Degree from Cornell University.

As we sat in the warm, muggy sun as thousands of academics processed to their seats inside Cornell's football stadium, I thought to myself, no more trips here. Or any other institution of higher learning. Not on behalf of my two boys anyway.

Not that Wendy and I made a habit of popping in on our boys as they earned their credits and counted down to commencement. But there was moving in, moving out, siblings day at Central Michigan, Easter at Michigan State, spring break at Cornell.

Along the way we discovered a cider mill north of East Lansing, spent a night at a quaint pub with live music in Mt. Pleasant to hear Greg's roommate entertain the revelers, and motored across Lake Seneca, one of New York's Finger Lakes, with Captain Bill's dinner cruise.

There were also trips to find Christmas tree farms and u-pick pumpkin patches, shopping trips to local supermarkets to help the boys stock up on groceries, and the inevitable dinner at a local restaurant.

We even one time watched one of Greg's intramural soccer games, remembering how we had watched him play organized soccer since he was eight-years-old. At this game, however, we were the only parents there. Some of Greg's friends teased that it was "cute" to have his parents as spectators.

We didn't witness all the major events, like the time Greg had the police burst in on him guns drawn while he was working the late shift at a local business. He shouldn't have ignored the alarm he had tripped. We weren't there either when Scott experienced tear gas first hand walking home during one of Michigan State's students encounters with local police in a post-victory celebration that got out of hand.

Now it's all history. Chapter's end. But another chapter begins. I like the theme of Cornell's commencement, described in the Cornell president's commencement address as well as in a video marking the occasion . . . goodbye Cornell, hello world.

Whether Scott's job leaves him here or Michigan or takes him somewhere else (Washington DC, he hopes), I'm sure it will help to write another chapter for us as well.

I Would Prefer Bill Knapps

2011-05-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

I have one more day to enjoy being 57. Actually less than that, since it’s Tuesday evening and my birthday starts at midnight. Fifty-eight-years-old???!! Bring on the dancing girls.

What did I accomplish this past year? Not much, I guess:

1. Became a grandpa but I didn’t have much to do with that, not this past year anyway.
2. Worked on my retirement nest egg but that stands about where it did last year at this time.
3. Bought a new mini-van but that didn’t help my retirement nest egg (see 2.)

Anyway, does anybody else sign up to become a member at these websites where you get a free gift coupon on your birthday? Maybe I’m just getting cranky in my old age but the gifts seem to get chintzier with each passing year--hea, spell check doesn’t object to chintzier, but it doesn’t like “hea.”

Red Lobster sent me an e-mail with a coupon for $5 off two adult dinners. Okay, so Wendy and I went. The check at the end of it all still seemed a bit pricy. I calculated that the $5 probably paid for one short domestic beer with taxes and tip. Woo hoo! Party down, man. Hmmm, spell check is okay with “woo” but not “hoo.”

I also got a birthday coupon worth one free personal pizza at a pub Wendy and I frequent. But the pizzas to choose from??? A Greek salad pizza with fresh greens, Caribbean jerk pizza with scallions, Bistro arugula pizza with baby arugula or Margherita pizza with fresh basil.

For my birthday, I want a pizza oozing cheese and meat bi-products. Fresh greens? Arugula? I'm a man, not a rabbit. Is a Greek salad pizza supposed to be trendy or something? Don't think so. I guarantee you that you won’t see a Greek salad burger coming anytime soon to your local McDonalds.

Bring back Bill Knapps. Now there’s a restaurant chain that knew how to handle your birthday. They deducted your age as a percentage off your meal (so that would be 58 percent for me--boo-yeah, still can do the math) AND a free birthday cake. And I don’t even think they had arugula, baby or adult, on the menu.

Raining Elephants

2011-05-17T18:31:00.000-07:00

At some work-related seminar in my not-so-recent past, the teacher used the phrase “raining elephants” to describe obstacles that prevent you from reaching your goals.

I seem to be thinking a lot about that lately.

For example, as I consider retirement and the income I’ll need then to ward off starvation, Michigan’s governor Rick Snyder has decided to tax my meager 401K. That became the law this past week. Like I said, aining elephants.

Ironically, to make it easier for those baby boomers already close to retirement, the law only affects those born 1953 and after. My birth year? 1953. Uh, raining elephants, like I said.

Well then, maybe I could be more entrepreneurial and come up with some cash to make up for what the governor took away. My ‘found on the ground’ has been lagging lately, because all the real rain we’ve been getting prevents me from bicycling to my usual spots (might as well call it raining elephants too), so Wendy and I dug through our excess household baggage and joined my sister-in-law in a garage sale this past Saturday.

Our take? One quarter for a pair of safety glasses. Didn’t help that it again was raining (elephants?) much of the day. Since I had to make a couple trips with our Grand “gas-slurping” Caravan, I figure we’re about $40 in the hole.

But Wendy and I could take some solace in the fact that we got to bring our grandson Grant home, as well as his Boston Terrier brother Simon, to entertain while his parents enjoyed a night out for their anniversary.

That didn’t go so well either. He gradually grew fussy as the night wore on so we decided to feed him a bottle. Elephant showers anyone? Whether we fed him too quickly, not enough, or something else, Grant was the antithesis of a happy baby afterwards. Cried and cried, very loudly. Could not be consoled.

For better than an hour we tried rocking him, singing to him, even giving him a bath. He just wailed and wailed. While we dressed him for bed, I took a look over at Simon who was unusually placid lying there in a chair, his head resting between his front paws. I thought he would be antsy and nervous seeing his brother in such distress, but he just looked at me with this “welcome to my world, folks” expression.

Eventually, after another bottle and more rocking, Grant finally settled down and went to sleep in grandma Wendy’s arms. But even as he nodded off, his shoulders shook as he choked up occasionally, leftovers from his marathon cryathon. Made Wendy feel terrible.

You have to believe that the skies are going to clear up some time. Not tonight though. I've been up and down our stairs here a dozen times re-booting my modem since I keep losing my internet connection. I see it's happened again. Right now I think if I encountered an elephant in our front room here, I'd give it a good whuppin'.

Is This Legal?

2011-05-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

Check this out. I found it when I was cleaning out a storage area in the basement underneath the stairs. Wait, let me zoom in so that you can focus in on what had me curious.

I thought all lead-based paints were supposed to be verboten. When I had an advance technician checking our house prior to the arrival of carpet installers he was looking in particular for any evidence of lead-based paint in our modest two-story home.

Good thing he didn't check under the stairs in the basement. But I'm not sure this can has even been opened. It could have been here when we moved in almost 20 years ago. So can I be held responsible if it's a pre-existing condition? Didn't Obama change that last year?

So how to get rid of it. We can dispose of dangerous household chemicals by taking them to a special drop-off at the local landfill. But not latex paint as you can just mix whatever's left in the can with sawdust and throw it away with the rest of your garbage. Wonder if that includes lead-based lacquer.

Speaking of souvenirs from the previous owners, I'm trying to dispose of their gas grill that has sat unused in our backyard since we've moved in. Never used it. It's only use is as a home for bees and wasps. I'd like to get rid of it but it's attached to a natural gas line that runs underground and into our home. In otherwords, beyond my area of expertise.

I called the gas company but they weren't too helpful. After transfering me to another line, the lady there asked if the homeowner was deceased or bankrupt. No! Then she said they had transfered me to the wrong place. Makes me feel really confident I'm going to get a helpful answer on how to remove an outdoor gas grill without blowing up the neighborhood if they can't handle a simple phone network.

Eventually I got someone who thought he knew the answer. He even checked with a co-worker to make sure. So what am I supposed to do? Call a plumber!

Let me close this week with a couple recent pictures. My father is breaking in his new camera and is posting some of his efforts on his Facebook page, when he can get the photos to upload. He liked this one he took of a double rainbow up north near Hubbard Lake.

And following in the like-father-like-son theme, here is a picture I took Sunday of who else but my one and only grandson. We celebrated Mother's Day at a local pub but Grant's looking a little glum. Maybe he was hoping for a live band. He does enjoy music, even at three months.

Remembering

2011-05-04T03:52:00.000-07:00

Like Americans everywhere, I was very happy to hear that that mastermind of 9/11 met his demise at the hands of U.S. special forces this week. As with most Americans, however, it also brought back some sorrow recalling the events of that most tragic day almost ten years ago. I thought it would be appropriate to reprint here a blog that I wrote involving one of those most deeply affected. The original blog ran over five years ago (wow, have I been blogging that long??) and was titled Stranger on a Train . . .

Anyone who rides AMTRAK knows it has the mechanical dependability of a very old car. Electrical malfunctions, engine breakdowns and track problems are commonplace. While we were riding back from Chicago last year, the air conditioning failed in nearly all the cars, though not in the dining car where we sat as part of an overflow of ticketed passengers. Before long, a woman about our age asked to join us at our table, wanting a respite from her warm, stuffy accommodations.

She was talkative in a motherly manner. At first she seemed a bit self-conscious at intruding but eventually she opened up. After describing her work with executives in the auto industry and the challenges of traveling alone, she began talking about her life and her family. Her husband had died some years ago, stricken by cancer in the prime of life. That left her to shepherd their two young daughters through the often tumultuous years leading to adulthood.

While she spoke, she pulled out a picture of her daughters. They were both long-haired, slender, conservatively dressed and with a scholarly demeanor. In fact, both girls were bright, though the older daughter held more of a passion for success. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a business degree. Then, she was among a few fortunate graduates to secure a position in the lucrative field of investment banking.

Eventually, she landed in New York, with a salary approaching six figures, her mother said. Pretty good for a young twenty-something. Four years ago this past Sunday, she was at her post high up in the World Trade Center towers. Then the planes hit. Her mother anticipated a phone call, knowing her daughter would want to let her know right away that she was okay. So she waited. An hour passed. Then two.

When after several hours, there was no phone call, the mother said she was overcome by a feeling of tranquillity. Whether it was mother's intuition, a spiritual sense, or something else, she knew her daughter had perished that morning. Her words brought my wife to tears. They both hugged and cried together for a moment. Then the mother went on to talk about her surviving daughter--her career as an oceanographer and her life on Cape Cod.

After we got off the train, my wife and I made sure the woman's car was still there where she left it. She thought it might have been towed after several days. The car was there and we parted ways. That was the last we saw of her. This past week I thought about that woman, whose name I don't remember. As I watched news footage of the victims of Hurricane Katrina and the memorials marking the anniversary of 9-11, I thought of how we opened our hearts as a nation to those affected. And it doesn't always take a generous donation to offer comfort. Sometimes it just takes sympathy, a few tears, and a hug.

Trunk Treasures

2011-04-26T17:30:00.001-07:00

I dragged my old trunk of personal memorabilia out of the closet this past week. I wanted to see if there was room for more. There was, especially since I pulled some of Wendy's stuff out of there. She can get her own trunk.

One of the first things that caught my eye was this post card from a college buddy of mine. Our mutual interest in chess is what brought us together initially. Our friendship has continued to the present day though we haven't played chess in decades. This post card documenting his latest move in our correspondence chess friendly is almost 30 years old. Chris mentions that he likes our new baby (Greg is 28 years old now with a "kid" of his own).

Chris has three grown children of his own though not with the wife mentioned in his signature line. They divorced.

This is a Beatles coin commemorating their trip to America in 1964. I have no idea where it came from or how it got into my trunk. Didn't know I had it. I do like surprises like this though.

Here's the oldest thing in my trunk, a card announcing funeral arrangements for my wife's grandmother. Note, no zip code. Also note the price of the stamp. One cent! Oh how prices have gone up since 1934.

Yes, this is my baby book. Browsing quickly through it, I learn that I got my first tooth on December 1. There's not much else in here though. Getting my first tooth was obviously one of the more key milestones worth noting.

Ah, now here is a true treasure. This is the Ann Arbor News edition published after Michigan beat MSU in a triple overtime football game back in 2004. I watched the game with a bunch of my nephew's friends at his bachelor party in Bay City. Memorable day, made all the more so since my nephew is a Spartan fan ; )

Here's a handmade birthday card from my son Scott. I should have put a date on this but it's evidently from a long, long time ago. Reminds me that Scott had a job interview today; some outfit flew him into Virginia from New York so it sounds serious. He even had to do a writing assessment. Hopefully, his spelling has improved though really he only misspelled one word here.

Though all this has sentimental value, I doubt that it has any real value. But I still have to caution any potential future heirs not to just throw it out when I pass away. According to E-Bay, that Beatles coin is worth a couple bucks in itself. That Ann Arbor News newspaper should be worth at least that much.

Watching Granty Grow

2011-04-19T18:41:00.000-07:00

"I'll sit here with my little man near, we'll listen to the radioBidin' my time and watching Scotty grow."

Many of you probably recognize the line there from Mac Davis's song, a popular hit for Bobby Goldsboro way back when. Funny, but I don't remember Wendy and I bidin' our time watching our children grow up that much. And we even had a child named Scotty!

Way back then, other issues commanded more urgency, whether it was career, home improvements, shopping, friends or family. And the impatience of youth interferes as well.

You're anxious for your baby to graduate to the next stage whether than involves sleeping through the night, feeding himself, potty-training, whatever. Sure, we spent plenty of times with the little ones doing various activities, but that's all lost in the maelstrom of life's other activities

Now, Wendy and I don't have to worry about career or furthering our education. We're settled in a home that has probably seen most of the improvements we're going to make for now. Shopping isn't important. So now we can have weekly visits with our grandson. "Biding our time and watching Granty grow." Hmmm, not the same.

So some observations thus far . . .

Whenever he comes over, our grandson has this dour expression as though the weight of the world lies upon his shoulders, even at three months. Wendy can pry a smile from him easier than I can. If I bounce around the floor, barking like a dog--which I'm doing in the picture below--he'll smile for me.

But that doesn't bode well for his opinion of where grandpa sits on the evolutionary scale.

One impression I have already is that Grant follows in the footsteps of his dad and his grandfather, me. He's not much for listening to conversation, much too easily distracted by the picture on the wall, the color of the ceiling, and the lights in the room. He seems to regard lamps with special fascination. Very short attention span overall. I keep telling Wendy that part of the reason I lose focus of what she's telling me is genetic. I have short attention span genes. Maybe Grant will help prove me right.

Our grandson does like to share with us his tales of woe, sadly cooing and whimpering, combined with the occasional squawk. What weighs so heavily on him is a mystery to us. If his Boston Terrier brother Simon is nearby, Simon will come over and give him a few licks. Apparently Simon believes the cure for infant distress of any kind is generous amounts of dog slobber.

I tried to upload here a video of Grant as he awoke from a catnap in his grandma's arms. Uploading the video didn't work but the link does. You can see our grandson manage a faint smile when he realizes who's holding him.

Later, Grant fell asleep in his grandma's arms again. Then his father came home and awoke him with a series of jabs and pokes--toughening him up, dad said. Disturbed from his slumber, our grandson awoke with a scowl, looked up to see his dad's face and . . . BIG SMILE.

Now why can't he do that for us?

Double Takes

2011-04-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

With spring temperatures finally settling in here in Michigan I took my trusty, old Schwinn out for a spin (hea, rhymes) on Sunday. Always on the lookout for stray coins, or maybe even a bill.

Found on the ground, found on the ground, I'm just a fool for found on the ground. [Sung to tune of "Pants on the Ground" from American Idol fame]

Did a double take when I spotted the above bill in the grass. A twenty? Wow! But something seemed a bit strange about it. I'll leave that for later.

Anybody do a double take with the price of gas lately? It's $3.90 here in Michigan and climbing.

I did double takes and triple takes on my taxes this past weekend, trying to find the loophole that would leave the IRS owing me instead of the other way around. Didn't happen. Can you deduct expenses related to blogging? I'm desperate.

A friend of mine works for H.R. Block. She's a part-time tax professional and very busy this time of year. I asked her a question about student loan interest--if both spouses filing a joint return have student loan interest to report, is the $2,500 limit then doubled?

She said there was no limit to how much student loan interest you could deduct? Really. I suggested she do a double take on that regulation. She did. Turns out I was right, she had been doing it wrong with her clients. Makes you wonder about H.R. Block.

When I was in Ithaca recently I did a double take on a building across the street from the diner where we were enjoying breakfast. It formerly housed the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) but now some other government entity that assisted veterans occupied the premises. And somebody had removed the V from the building, leaving only the FW.

Considering that this was Ithaca, a liberal college town, does anyone think that somebody vandalized the building to reveal their own anti-war sentiments? Hmmmmm.

Anyway, here's a double take on that $20 bill I found (see picture below). Doesn't look too legal with a real $20 right behind. Maybe I could tell the bank that it was out in the snow all winter and shrunk. I'll have Wendy take it to the bank and pass along that story. Or I could mail it to the IRS and declare that's what inflation and taxes is doing to my income. Shrinking it!

Roadfood

2011-04-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

Whenever Wendy and I travel, we like to sample the regional cuisine. So this past week when we journeyed to Ithaca to take our son Scott back to college, we hit a seafood restaurant. Since we're out of Michigan and closer to the east coast, I figured we could get fresh fish that isn't lake perch or whitefish (not that either is bad though).

The feature that day was arctic char. That sounded deliciously exotic. I don't think I'd ever eaten fish from the arctic. And I wasn't even sure what a char was?

I was prepared for a feast. And a gourmet feast at that since this char was being served with pomegranate sauce and fingerling potatoes. Sounds very "Top Chef" to coin a favorite phrase of mine and Wendy. I let Wendy and Scott finish off the fresh-baked bread with dill butter, tasty though it was, so I would have room for the char and potatoes.

Turns out that wasn't necessary. My portion of char was about the size of a large hamburger patty and came drenched in very sweet pomegranate sauce. I'm still not sure what char tastes like. Maybe salmon. But I can certainly tell you what pomegranate sauce tastes like.

And the fingerlings? More like fingerettes. Very tiny potatoes. My grandson Grant's fingers would look gargantuan in comparison to the fingerlings I ate though Grant's only two-months old. So a great feast it wasn't.

On to Amish country in Berlin, Ohio where Wendy and I made a brief shopping side trip on the way back. I made sure we had breakfast at Boyd and Wurthmanns restaurant in downtown Berlin--"where the locals eat."

The special that morning was "fried mush with tomato gravy." Hmmmm. I passed. Arctic char with a little pomegranate sauce, excuse me, pomegranate sauce with a little arctic char was culinary adventure enough this trip.

What piqued my interest was the list of fresh pies available for dessert. There were about twenty varieties including raisin, elderberry and peanut butter. Then there was 'brown bag apple pie' and 'ground cherry pie.' You really have to be a pie baking afficionado to know what they are. A gourmet baking co-worker did. But my wife didn't. Do you?

I didn't try the pies, afterall it was breakfast. But I did sample the extremely tasty peanut butter at our table. Would I love to take this home. We bought a jar of locally made Walnut Creek peanut butter at a nearby store but it just wasn't the same.

Was almost tempted to swipe the peanut butter server off our table but how would that go over here in a religious enclave where restaurant menus include a meal blessing and the television in the public lobby of your hotel is tuned to a revival?

This Is Late Because . . .

2011-03-30T18:06:00.000-07:00

I'm a day late posting my weekly blog--the reason being that my wife and I were driving our son back to college in New York after his spring break.

But I want to throw another reason out there, not because it prevented my blogging, but because it's never happened to me before. I was stuck on an elevator.

It happened while Wendy and I were staying at a Comfort Inn in Berlin, Ohio, where we stopped to do some shopping in Amish country before our last leg home. We got in their elevator and, after being joined by a couple other pleasant older ladies, we hit the button for the first floor. The elevator moved, dinged, stopped, and that was it.

After a few seconds it was obvious the door wasn't going to open on its own. "Push some buttons," Wendy advised the woman standing next to the elevator controls. She hit other floors, door open, door closed. Nothing. Fortunately, this was only a three-story hotel (which begs the question, why didn't we simply take the stairs, but the stairs were inconveniently located at the far end of the building).

The woman manning our elevator controls mentioned that this had happened to her and her friend on a previous trip, but in that incident they were stuck on an upper floor with nearly 20 other people. "But there were a few doctors in the elevator and they took charge right away," she added.

I pondered that for a moment, wondering what the doctors did. Did one of them face the door, yell "Clear!", then slam his doubled-up fist on the elevator door? Did they try to diagnose the problem themselves using deductive reasoning?

What I wanted to do is ask the ladies if they'd seen last year's theatrical release "Devil", a movie about a group of passengers trapped on an elevator who discover that the devil is among them. Since we were staying in a religious enclave where it's common to find prayers on restaurant menus and prayer revivals playing on television in the hotel public area, I thought my fellow passengers might see the irony in our situation. Then again I thought they may not. So I kept quiet.

More elevator buttons were pushed and eventually we called the front desk. They said they would get back to us. Meanwhile, Wendy tried to muscle the elevator door open by shoving it with her open hands. No luck there.

While we were waiting, we traded some personal information. I learned that our elevator companions were from Memphis and northern Mississippi and were on their way to Cleveland after attending some cultural event--can't remember what--in Cincinatti, Ohio. Their previous experience on a faulty elevator lasted 20 minutes and they had to climb out on a stepladder as they were stuck between floors.

Our experience paled in comparison. Our door opened after only five minutes or so, and we were on the ground floor. But it did make my wife and I a bit more reluctant to take that elevator again. But we did. "I hope this elevator doesn't act up again today," I said the next time we rode.

Hmmmmm, wonder what would happened if I said that as I entered an uncomfortably crowded elevator in some high-rise hotel in the future. Maybe it would make that elevator suddenly much less crowded. Guess I'll keep that in mind just in case.

Spring Rituals

2011-03-22T18:15:00.001-07:00

We officially marked the beginning of spring this week, ironic here in Michigan since we're under a winter weather advisory tonight. Areas to the north may receive several inches of snow. Locally, we may get freezing rain and ice but then again we may not the TV weatherman predicted in typical ambiguous weather forecasting fashion.

On Sunday, we journeyed up to Bay City for the St. Patrick's Day parade. It marked my grandson Grant's first trip to see my hometown. Here's Grant with one of his second cousins, both decked out appropriately in their Irish duds.

My nephew throws a big party for his friends, many of whom are fans of Michigan State University, and the party usually gives them a chance to cheer on the MSU Spartans' if their basketball team is still in the NCAA tournament. Not this year. The Spartans were one and done, losing in the first round. But we got to watch instead my U of M Wolverines play in the second round, against Duke. Go blue! Alas, they lost a close one.

I'm in my nephew's NCAA bracket challenge pool along with 14 others who paid $10 each, winner take all. I picked Ohio State to win it all. Figure that's a win-win situation for me. If the OSU Buckeyes lose, I'll be happy since I don't really care for Michigan's arch-nemesis. If Ohio State wins it all I'll be really upset, but if it puts me on top I'll take the prize money as consolation.

So far, my predictions have me in about the middle of the pack. Go U Conn! I need them in my final four.

Another spring ritual involves my giving up something for Lent, long a tradition of my Catholic upbringing. This year I put Lay's Potato Chips on that list. My wife Wendy thought it more appropriate that I include all potato chips but I didn't think that necessary. Lay's are far and away are my favorite.

So . . . last week Wendy and I tried out a new sandwich shop. We both ordered turkey reubens to go. The sandwiches were prepared out of sight, put into a couple plain brown paper bags, we paid for them, and we left.

I think you know where this is going.

As we were driving off, Wendy opened one of the bags and gasped.

"You'll never believe what's in here?" she said.

I think you know what it was. Somebody obviously was testing me. And . . . I must confess, I failed. Twice, since Wendy didn't want her bag. I figure since I hadn't ordered them myself and had no knowledge they were included with the sandwich, it was okay.

But I do feel guilty now. I guess I should make amends. Maybe from now till Easter, I'll include all potato chips. Yes. And since it's here in black and white, you know it's a promise I'll keep. Too many spies willing to add a comment here.

A Virus Ate My Blog

2011-03-16T02:37:00.000-07:00

This is going to be quick as my computer was attacked by some kind of virus or worm or something while I was composing my weekly blog last night. I'm still not too sure I'm out of the woods yet.

You see, Big Dave, aka el cheapo Dave, never invested in an anti-spyware program for his home computer. And to date, I've been lucky. Since I bought my Lenovo laptop almost three years ago, I've not encountered anything suspicious.

Until last night.

I was doing on-line research at various blog-sites when all of a sudden my computer started downloading something and I began getting strange messages. A variety of very insistent announcements under an Anti-Spyware icon let me know in no uncertain terms that my computer was infected by some malware and my personal information was leaking across the internet.

This Anti-spyware program kicked into high gear, scanning my computer and finding 70 infected files with awful sounding names that included "child pornography" and "trojan virus". In order to clean my hard drive I had to hit a button to continue. I did and eventually was offered a $50 program to disinfect my computer. "Proceed to checkout," it advised.

I didn't. Instead I tried to activate my Windows Vista Defender firewall which I thought was supposed to protect me. Everytime I tried to activate Defender, it activated for a brief second then disappeared.

Though my computer had slowed to a crawl, I managed to go to Yahoo to find out what had happened (the Anti-spyware program claimed that my Google toolbar had been infected too, so I didn't Google). I figured out that this was some kind of "blaster" worm program that claims it's an anti-spyware program--it really isn't--and there was a fix available.

So I spent the rest of the night downloading, uploading, cleaning, etc. Eventually, I did activate my Windows Defender firewall and it found and, hopefully, destroyed that virus, or worm, or whatever it was. But I'm still a little worried since I still see that Anti-spyware icon when I hit the "all programs" button on my start menu.

Anyway, that's where I'm at @#$#@$ right ######## ^^^^^
now................................

anti-blog malware program detected>..................................................

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High Tech Pain In The Neck

2011-03-08T17:35:00.000-08:00

I'm not a gadget guy. Don't know what an "app" is and don't care. No smart phone, no I-pod--or is it I-Pad?--and I pay my bills the old-fashioned way, by snail mail.

But sooner or later, you've got to face high tech gadgets. Or at least become familiar with them. Wendy and I found that out when we were babysitting our new grandson this past weekend.

We thought we would put Grant in his swing a while. So grandma strapped him in and turned the timer to get it started.

"How long will it go for?" I asked.

Wendy said she wasn't sure. The dial wasn't too clear on that. We didn't find out till later that the dial we thought was a timer was actually a speed control. I guess you can somehow program the swing to rock lazily like a porch swing on a hot summer day, or more quickly like some dizzying amusement park ride.

Poor Grant.

I got an e-mail from my dad the other day. He sometimes has issues with our high tech world as well. After he got a new digital camera for his birthday, it took him a bit to figure out how to get his photos uploaded to his Facebook account. I think he's got it pretty well figured out now.

Anyway, in this e-mail he described how he and my mother heard a loud noise in the house:

"We had no idea what it was--it was very loud. I thought it was coming from outside. Your mother said no, it's coming from inside the house, it's coming from the basement. We came down here to see what it was, and it was coming from my computer."

Turns out that my brother-in-law had installed a Skype program that allows users to communicate to eachother via their computers, kinda like Jane Jetson did with her friends in the old cartoon series. My father had signed off his computer but had not logged off Skype. One of his grandsons was trying to contact him.

"I thought if I got off line, Skype would close, but I guess it doesn't," dad wrote. "Now I pull the plug on Skype when I shut down."

I don't have Skype myself. Once I figure out the high tech gadgetry for infants, like Grant's swing, then I'll move on to the next level.

Looking For Mr. Good Book

2011-03-01T17:43:00.000-08:00

Though I hear other parts of the country are beginning to experience symptoms of spring, not so much here in Michigan as the above pictures indicate. That's the bluebird of happiness in the first photo looking more than a bit peeved with all the snow still on the ground. The deer are probably trying to head south, sick of wading through the white winterscape as well.

For us humans, still time to curl up with a good book. Though my wife reads regularly, I struggle to find literature that can hold my interest.

Lately I've tried reading books that inspired movies I've enjoyed. Being a big science fiction fan, I read Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers. But the book was dry reading and lacked a plot, also omitting the romantic entanglement featured in the movie. No fun.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney was more engaging and followed the original movie starring Kevin McCarthy quite closely. Or, okay, the other way around--the movie followed the book quite closely. But the classic scene where McCarthy embraces his girlfriend only to find out that she has become one of the pod people is nowhere to be found in the book. In fact, the book ends with all the seed pods leaving Earth, drifting skyward to infect another planet as humans prove too difficult to deal with. I like the movie's ending better as it seemed more logical.

When I pleaded to my friend Bob via an e-mail that it's a myth that books are better than the movies they inspire, he naturally took issue, himself being a literature professor:

"You have to be the only guy in America with the view that these movies surpass the original books--perhaps you've not read enough books yet to achieve a more logical view."

True? I don't know. Maybe I'm just a visual medium type of guy. That said, then how about another picture of Grant. The grandpa in me just can't help it. Here's one with his older "brother" watching over him during naptime.

A Story For Grant, Some Day

2011-02-22T17:26:00.001-08:00

Our new grandson paid his first visit to our home last Friday. Grant appeared to be comfortable chillin' with his grandpa, grandma and a great aunt as his parents enjoyed a night out (see picture).

Some day I'll be able to tell him stories about his father and his uncle and our little family growing up. Hmmmmm. One of my blogging buddies asked last week for me to recount how Wendy and I met, so maybe I'll start dusting off the cobwebs from memories well over 30 years old now. Then I'll be able to recall again if Grant is curious himself. . . .

These are my recollections, grandson. Grandma Wendy might remember differently but as I always say when somebody challenges something on my blog, "That's how I remember it."

I was in my early 20s thereabouts working out of temporary secretarial pool while taking classes at mighty Michigan. Always remember, Grant, go blue. I was assigned to an office of 50 or so mostly young women on the second story of a commercial building, not a bad job for a young man like me.

Pretty sure the first day I arrived there I saw Wendy, your grandma, dressed in a checkered flannel shirt partially covered by her very long blond hair. She was standing with a delivery dolly there in a hall. She was the back-up courier when she wasn't sitting in front of an IBM Selectric, which is what people typed on before there were computers with keyboards.

I remember this pretty clearly. But grandma Wendy claims she has no recollection of seeing me then. Anyway, when I worked there I was shuffled around to help various people on different projects, though mostly working with the supervisor who initially hired me in. That wasn't Wendy's boss. But your grandma did stop by often as her best friend worked on the team with whom I often worked. I could soon tell that Wendy was the office comedienne, often joking and teasing her colleagues.

One time I remember she challenged one of her co-workers to a typing challenge, badgering her to see how fast she could type. Finally, tired of being pestered by your grandma, the woman interrupted her work to take the challenge. When she finished, she wanted to see how Wendy did with the same test. Your grandma replied, "I don't have time. I'm too busy."

I thought Wendy was the funniest young women I'd ever met. She said she remembers me being a nice guy with dreadfully poor fashion sense. I think some of the clothes I wore back then were handed down to me from my own grandfather--pin-striped slacks, things like that. But they fit and I didn't have to pay for them. So I wore them anyway.

So your grandma would take breaks and lunches with her best friend in the room where I was working. Sometimes I would tell them about myself, about my family in Bay City up north, and about my brother who played in a rock band. After many months, I invited a small group of these women, including Wendy, up north to hear my brother play.

That was a lot of fun. We stayed up very late that night and I had to drive 100 miles back to Ann Arbor to get these women home. Your grandma rode up in the front seat with me the whole time, chatting with me and making sure I didn't get sleepy or tired. She said that I would have to visit her favorite bar in Ypsilanti some time. And I did a couple weeks later, just with your grandma this time. Guess that was our first date, so to speak.

We became good friends, then later our relationship became more serious. And about a year after we took that first road trip to Bay City together, we were walking down the aisle together. A couple years after that, your dad came along.

How did it happen that your dad came along? Well, that's probably a story that your dad himself will want to tell you some day.

Meeting My Congressman

2011-02-15T18:12:00.000-08:00

Happy belated Valentine's Day. Check out the pizza. Heart-shaped! Can you think of a better Valentine's Day present? My wife Wendy got one of these pizzas from her supervisors for a job well done. And she shared it with me. How sweet!

But that's not what I wanted to talk about today. In the "I'll do anything for blog material" I went to our Congressman's meet and greet at a local restaurant this past Saturday.

Congressman Tim Walberg, a Republican, lost his seat in the House of Representatives two years ago, but won it back in a hotly contested election this past November. He said it was the most expensive race in the country. I don't doubt it. Gots tons of robo-calls and political flyers at my home, the price of living in a swing district.

So about 30 of his constituents gathered to hear what he had to say and ask a few questions. I'll be honest. I was hoping for a little controversy, maybe some heated exchanges, something newsworthy that I could report here.

But I was disappointed for the most part. When our prior Congressman, a Democrat, tried to have town hall meetings in our district he was roundly booed and heckled to the point where he decided to have his town hall meetings over the phone with little advance notice. Walberg had it easier. When he spoke, it was more like a revival meeting with one or two people repeating key words out loud or just shouting out their agreement.

His message was the one I expected--we need to cut the cost of government and loosen regulations to encourage job growth.

Okay, so I've heard it before. Let's take some questions. One woman said she had several comments that she had written down on a cheat sheet.

"Comment number one . . .

Did you ever have a kid in one of your classes who monopolized the class and teacher's time to the point where you just want to stand up and yell, "Shut up!" That was this lady. I think her first comment had to do with placing a ten-page limit on bills introduced to become law.

Comment number two . . .

But my eyes soon glazed over as she went down her list. I became more interested in checking out the police officer in the front of the room. After what happened to Gabby Giffords in Arizona, our Congressman was bringing along a little security. Walberg said he originally entered Congression with the same freshman class that brought Giffords and recalls her extraordinary fitness, something that is working in her favor as she recuperates from that tragic shooting.

"Comment number four. [pause] Just a minute, I can't read what I wrote here. Let me go on . . .

Comment number six . . . "

Dang, where are those hecklers when you need them?

Hum Drum

2011-02-08T17:26:00.000-08:00

So I'm having some difficulty coming up with a blog topic this week. Mid-winter blahs, I guess. Not much going on. Even with the weather. Remember, how last week we were under a blizzard warning? It passed us by. We got some snow but not nearly as much as they were predicting. Wendy and I stayed home from work anyway. From what I hear, most of our colleagues were no-shows as well.

The weather not being a good blog topic, I pondered what else has happened this week. Wendy and I did kind of convert a spare bedroom into a nursery. It's a spare-looking nursery right now--a Pack 'n Play, LaZ-Boy recliner and my electric piano is pretty much it. I even dug through my music collection for some kiddie tunes. Think it's important that our new grandson gets exposed to musical instruments, especially since music runs in my family. Check out this photo that my brother-in-law posted on his Facebook:

That picture of me, my brother, my dad and my uncles was taken 23 years ago at my brother-in-law and sister's reception. Wow, no grey hair on any of us!

We did visit our grandson again this past week, but he's still in the vegetable stage. That's entertaining to new grandparents like us but probably not to the public at large. Still, here's a new photo of him, eyes open now.

Since he's nursing, it's not likely we'll be baby-sitting anytime soon. A co-worker related to me an amusing story involving her father's baby-sitting exploits one night. Her youngest stayed with his granddad for a few hours while mom took her older siblings to a circus.

She was nursing her baby as well and made sure he was well fed before dropping him off, but left a can of concentrated formula with her dad "just in case." And as the night unfolded, sure enough, junior got hungry. But her dad being a typical guy, no need to read instructions on the can. Just open and serve. So baby got unmixed, concentrated formula that night. Not quite like what mama makes, I'm sure.

What else is new here? I've been trying to shed a few pounds that have stubbornly dogged me since the holidays. To that end I pulled out our "Sweatin to the Oldies" VCR tape and did aerobics along with Richard Simmons. Is he still around? I've also been keeping a dietary diary, tracking roughly how many calories I consume and making sure it's not too many. I overheard somebody say that a good weight loss plan involves photographing each meal before eating. Hmmmm, I can't see doing that.

Wendy and I did see a fairly good movie yesterday--Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, about a scientist who produces a machine that can produce precipitation of the food variety. Just not the variety of food I should be eating--vegetables and tofu--but instead steaks, cheeseburgers, pasta, ice cream, etc. Probably not the movie I should be watching when I'm a a little hungry. I enjoyed it nevertheless.

I did spend part of the weekend collating all my sales receipts from the past year, figuring that since we bought a car and all, we probably paid gazillions in sales taxes. So maybe I would have lots to itemize on my 1040 and could get a big refund this year. Alas, I discovered that if I claimed the sales taxes I paid last year, I couldn't itemize my state income tax as well. What?? When did this change happen? So much for itemizing my deductions.

*Sigh* I think I need another snow day. Last week needs a re-do.

On The Cusp Of The Blizzard

2011-02-01T18:10:00.001-08:00

I feel as if I’m inside a snow globe, snow showers swirling just outside our bay window. The weatherman has predicted a blizzard for us here in Michigan tonight and this time he may be right. Wendy and I aren’t taking any chances. We’ve already given ourselves a snow day tomorrow, telling our respective bosses not to expect us for work.

There are advantages to being “non-essential” personnel, I guess.

The disadvantage is that I have to pull out the old snow shovel and go to work at home. My back isn’t looking forward to it.

I spotted an army of snowbots gathered in a nearby park. Maybe they’ll come to life like Frosty did and help me get rid of some of this white stuff.

Oh, well. What else can you do in a blizzard besides shovel. I guess I could curl up with a good book. I have two I’m reading during these winter doldrum months: a book on financing my retirement and Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney.

I’m not sure which is scarier. Do I want to have my body invaded and replaced by aliens, or do I want to work through my 60s so that my money doesn’t run out when I’m in a nursing home. I think I’ll take the aliens.

Could do my 2010 taxes if I can come up with some tax forms to file! What’s up with that? Not only do they not mail your federal tax forms anymore, you can’t find them anywhere else. Least I can’t. Maybe alien pod people should take over our government. Make it more efficient. They’ve got my vote.

Before I close tonight, I have to post another obligatory picture of the new grandson, this time in his native Michigan garb.

One of my buddies, a Michigan State fan of course, protested the new baby getting University of Michigan souvenirs:

“Hmm all the UM paraphernalia reminds me that I might need to be proactive and call social services but I'll leave that for another day. Stop scarring the child, he is only in the developmental stages.”

Baby Grant watched the University of Michigan finally beat Michigan State on their own basketball court this past week, something that hadn't happened yet this century. I’m sure that game scarred a few State fans. Now we just have to teach Grant his first words . . . go blue.

You Can Call Me Grandpa

2011-01-25T17:28:00.000-08:00

One last quick getaway before the arrival of our first grandbaby. That was the plan.

I made a non-refundable reservation for a Holiday Inn in Gaylord over 200 miles north in a region which embraces the winter and cold with snowmobiles, skiis and ice sculptures. Leave Saturday, return Sunday. That was the plan.

Then this past Saturday morning before we could wake on our own the phone rang. It was Greg, our son. His nine month pregnant wife's water had broken. They would soon be on their way to the hospital. Could we watch Simon, their Boston Terrier?

What??? She was still over two weeks pre-term. With her first, a baby that often comes late!

So we agreed to take Simon, figuring (correctly) that we could pass him on to Wendy's sister. She could use a playmate for their dog Harley for the weekend. Since our reservations were only for one night, by the time we made a quick trip up and back our new grandbaby would be here for the holding and we could retrieve Simon as well. New plan.

Not the best plan as it turned out. A light, swirling snow made the trek north treacherous. We passed numerous accidents, spin-outs, even ambulances. Sometimes Wendy had lots of bars on her cell phone, sometimes not.

Then the anxious waiting. We got a call at 1 p.m. Labor progressing. More anxious waiting. Then close to 9 p.m. she was fully dilated and ready to deliver. Thought the next phone call would come soon. Didn't. Not till 4 a.m. did we learn that Lindsay had finally delivered a seven-pound, nine-ounce boy within the previous hour--Grant Nicholas.

Two hours later we're preparing to hit the road south. Not many people were up and at 'em this early on a bone-chilling winter's morn. Our car let us know just how cold it was with a strange whining noise, almost like a cry, when we tried to pull out of the parking lot.

"It's okay. We're going home," Wendy tried to re-assure our car. As we drove on, we could understand its distress. The thermometer on the rear view mirror recorded the outside temperature: twenty six degrees BELOW zero. That doesn't include windchill either.

But the drive home to Ann Arbor had its reward.

Ain't he a doll. And don't I look like a proud grandpa?

Now just to convince the new parents that Wendy and I would make g-r-e-a-t babysitters. Probably didn't help that their dog Simon came up missing while on our watch. Do you see him in the picture below?

Maybe from a better angle. Check out this picture.

We'll do better with a new baby. Promise.

When Attic Treasures Aren't

2011-01-18T18:01:00.000-08:00

American Pickers is a History Channel show about two guys who travel about the country scouring attics, barns and basements looking for that special find that epitomizes the phrase, "One man's junk is another man's treasure." Wendy and I watched it for the first time a couple weeks ago.

Well hea, I've got an attic above the rafters in my garage. Lots of old stuff up there. Even I don't know what's all up there. Wonder if those guys from the show would be interested. They offer cash on the spot if they find something they want.

But first let me check up there first. I know right away there should be something Wendy and I as future grandparents will want.

No, it's not the Lite Brite, one of the toys our boys played with for a time when they themselves were just tikes . . . though I do hear that old toys are popular with collectors. So after digging around the attic some more I find what I'm looking for.

See it there, partially obscured by the old blanket? It's our boys' old Simmons crib, bought before father-to-be Greg was born. It was a gift from my parents who bought it for us at a furniture store near Saginaw. Lasted us through two boys, then lasted through my sister-in-laws' two boys.

It's been up here in the attic ever since. With some effort, I pulled it down piece by piece and set it in our basement, ready to be re-assembled. In my opinion, they don't make cribs like they used to.

Wherein likes the problem apparently. My son and his wife complained that our boys' old crib is obsolete. Not only that, it's been condemned. Outlawed. Can't even be re-sold if those picker fellows happen by.

What?? How so? My daughter-in-law Lindsay sent me an e-mail with three links detailing crib recalls and recent federal guidelines that ban the sale of cribs like the one we bought almost 30 years ago. The problem? It has a drop-side. Thought it takes two separate actions (lift the side then kick the bracket underneath the side) to cause the side to drop allowing access to the baby inside the crib, apparently this crib is considered too dangerous for use nowadays.

I personally think this crib is as good as any made right now. But I won't do anything to risk the well being of our precious little guy, as Wendy likes to call him.

Now, what about the Lite Brite?

Too Cold To Blog

2011-01-12T11:35:00.000-08:00

Not really, but as I age here in Michigan I'm growing less and less fond of living in nature's refrigerator for three months plus out of every year. Carry me back to Key West, please.

Maybe it's just me. Others seem to tolerate colder temperatures better than I. Like my colleague at work with whom I share an office. He runs a fan throughout the year, January included. I sometimes have to add a layer to make up for the extra chill in the air.

Or like my wife Wendy who stripped my favorite fleece sheets off our bed saying it was too hot to sleep with them on. Great, now it's stone cold cotton as the frigid winter's night sets in. I'm prepared for it dressed in warm socks, fleece pajama bottoms and sometimes even a sweatshirt. But I'd rather have my fleece sheets back, especially when my wife wants to warm her cold feet on me under the covers.

The cold sucks whatever energy I can muster up. If I can't hibernate or be one of the snowbirds who go south for the winter (some day!), then I'll retreat to the comfort of my Lazy Boy after work and wrap myself in a blanket while channel surfing to find a monster movie on TV. I envy those with the energy for a brisk winter's walk like the couple who walk their dog past our bedroom window at six in the morning regardless of temperature or wind chill. Brrrrrrrrr.

Meanwhile, I dread going out in the morning to scrape car windows of the frost and ice, then drive to work hoping for the heat to kick in soon enough so that I don't see my breath reflected in the icy fog that freezes on the windshield. Brrrrrrrrr. Doesn't help that even if I've allowed myself extra time to drive the icy roads to work, the driver ahead of me has allowed even more time, white-knuckling it about 20 miles per hour when the speed limit is 55. Just another reason to flee south in early December.

Perhaps the harsh Michigan winters is another reason that the University of Michigan apparently had to settle for their third choice when naming a replacement for former head football coach Rich Rodriguez. If you were Jim Harbaugh, would you move from San Francisco, or Les Miles, would you move from Louisiana? Also, try recruiting blue chip gridiron prospects to play on frozen tundra in November. No, they'd rather play for Auburn, Florida, Alabama, etc.

Yes, Michigan does have a new football coach but my son Greg, who is an usher at the Big House, isn't buoyed by the fact that the new coach's name Brady Hoke rhymes with words like joke and choke. Not the type of fellow to get strike fear into our cross-state rival Michigan State Spartans, let alone Ohio State.

But Hoke also rhymes with smoke. And where there's smoke, there's fire. Michigan could use a little fire right now. I'll take that over cold any day.

Bumps On The Holiday Road

2011-01-04T16:12:00.000-08:00

To the guests of the Super 8 in Florence, Kentucky the night of December 25th: my wife and I sincerely apologize.

Vacations always have their bumps. One of our's occurred early in the morning on December 26th when we were sleeping at a Super 8 in Kentucky. The alarm woke us up rather rudely at 5:30 a.m., but I wanted to get an early start driving as we had a long drive to Key West ahead of us.

*BEEP, BEEP, BEEP*

I let my wife fumble for the alarm while I made a quick pit stop to the bathroom.

*BEEP, BEEP, BEEP*

After I finished, I came out to see Wendy still desperately trying to find the shut-off on the motel alarm clock.

*BEEP, BEEP, BEEP*

This thing was as noisy as a hotel fire alarm. She had pushed, pulled and turned every dial and button to no avail.

*BEEP, BEEP, BEEP*

And the walls in your garden variety Super 8 are not very soundproof. I'm sure we were being heard in rooms all the way down the corridor. I finally wrestled the nightstand away from the wall and pulled the plug on the clock.

*BEEP, BEEP, BEEP*

What the ??? Did this clock have a battery back-up or something? Did I have to run down the hall carrying it to the front desk like some kind of bomb? I held the clock to my ear. Nothing! It wasn't the hotel alarm after all. It was our travel alarm clock that Wendy had set nearby. And she says I'm losing it. By now, doors were slamming up and down the hall, guests obviously roused from their slumber by the racket. It was our quickest ever check-out. Do they still tar and feather in Kentucky? I was worried.

Another little vacation bump down in Key West. Very busy down there at this time of year; I couldn't find a spot to park near our hotel, so I parked about four blocks down in a space I wasn't sure was legal. Left Wendy there while I ran up the street to check in and get better parking instructions.

So I signed papers, gave them my credit card at the front desk, got a map of the hotel along with information on their continental breakfast. What about parking, I asked.

"You brought your car?" she asked with a hint of incredulity. What, like most people parachute in or something? Of course I brought my car. She basically said I was on my own. I did see some empty street spaces marked "residential." Could I park there? She said she thought I could whereupon a more veteran clerk remarked, "I wouldn't recommend it."

So . . . what would they recommend then? They said to find a pay lot, park for the night, then try to find a vacant street spot in the morning when more should become available. Turns out that this part of town is a little on the "urban" side, whatever that means. For me, it meant I was worried about my brand new Dodge Grand Caravan for the next three days. And it meant that once I found a parking spot, which I did just down the block, it stayed there until we checked out.

Anyway, the trip still was fun. Here are some pictures from the Keys and south Florida.

The iconic Key West sunset

Why did the chicken cross the road? It didn't. It stood in the middle of the road with its chicks feeding while cars and trucks drove around.

Sloppy Joes bar, Hemingway's favorite.

The lighthouse next to our hotel.

The view from the lighthouse. Note the line of folks waiting to tour Hemingway's home.

A street level view of Hemingway's home.

An alligator in the Everglades. As I approached the opposite shore of this canal to take this picture I heard a tremendous spash on my side. Turns out there was a bigger gator lurking in the brush below me. Wow. What I won't do to get a good picture for my blog here.

Key West Pets

2010-12-29T15:50:00.001-08:00

Doing my blog on the road as the missus and I are vacationing in sunny Key West presently. Note that sunny doesn't mean warm. In fact, the day we got here the low temperature set a new record. Wonderful.

Anyway, our hotel is in a part of town called Bahama Village where chickens freely roam. I thought that would be quaint, seeing free range chickens in the flesh, er feather.

And not ever having lived on the farm, I thought roosters only crowed at the break of dawn. Wrong. At least one rooster in our neighborhood is like a malfunctioning snooze alarm that goes off every few minutes beginning at 2:30 in the morning.

After one night of this, I decided that this chicken must die. And his carcass tossed into the street as a lesson to all the other chickens in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, before I could locate the suspect, I found out that chickens are protected by law in this town.

What??!! Is this like in India where cows are sacred? C'mon. Wonder what the fine is. I could probably handle it.

Key West is a very friendly town if you're an animal. Cats roam freely as well. We visited Ernest Hemingway's old Key West mansion here and learned that Papa Hemingway kept a whole lot of cats. Their descendants, numbering about 40, still roam the property.

So . . . don't the cats in the neighborhood ever go after the chickens? It would seem natural. I saw a mother hen with a brood of chicks walk right past a couple cats. Any self-respecting cat I know would have been on those chicks like a lion on a wild pig. But the cats didn't even pay attention. Key West is such a laid back town.

You can also take your dog into many establishments, including restaurants, without even incurring a second glance. I guess so long as he's on a leash. I overheard one exasperated middle-aged gentleman complain after finally finding his lost female companion that he went up and down crowded Duval Street looking for her white labrador, figuring the big dog would be easy to spot in a crowd.

"Then I find out he can go into the shops. That's why I couldn't find you." he sighed.

So the vacation continues for another few days. Then I can come home and get some sleep. At least I found out the answer to an age-old question: why did the chicken cross the road? He's headed for Key West and sanctuary.

Bringing Christmas To Work

2010-12-21T18:31:00.000-08:00

They've had a Christmas decorating contest going on at work the past couple weeks. Some pretty creative folks we have in our building. Not me. My modest contribution is represented in the photo below.

Maybe if there's a Charlie Brown Christmas decorating award, I might win. My work team had created a Michigan snowman in a previous year, so we put that up as well. I contributed the Michigan bag the snowman is holding. It plays "Hail to the Victors" when opened.

This did not sit to well with my supervisor, a Michigan State fan. The morning after I had pinned my bag to the snowman, someone had rolled the large recycling container shown in front of the snowman, so that nobody could even SEE the Michigan bag, let alone open it to hear it play Hail to the Victors. Must have been Scrooge.

Different areas had different decorating themes. Below is an area that featured a green and white motif. Except that I see a big of red there. Santa's red suit perhaps?

No it's the flag of the English soccer team Arsenal. Hmmmm, wonder whose cube this could be?

Below are some more photos from around the building. The last two represent the contest winners who re-created Santa's workshop including a world map with Santa's route traced there.

Ghosts Of Xmas Letters Past

2010-12-14T18:51:00.000-08:00

I finished up the "dreaded Christmas family newsletter" yesterday. I know many people are not fans of these holiday missives but I try to keep mine blog-like, light with a tad bit of humor.

Since I've discovered the power of my digital camera, the last few letters have included a collage of pictures. I'm not sure how some people feel about my mailing unauthorized pictures of them to my friends and such but some family members might object to my using any picture of them in my newsletter. So I don't ask first.

Afterwards, I put a copy into a notebook that contains about 20 such annual newsletters dating back over 20 years. I thought it might be interesting to re-print a few paragraphs to highlight some of life's goings-on during the past couple decades.

1989: I did fulfill one goal when I ran in the 8K St. Patrick's Day Race last March. Didn't mind plodding along with the retirees and the Weight Watcher drop-outs but when that pack started pulling ahead and fading from view, it was discouraging. If I run again, I not only want to cross the finish line, I want to beat someone there.

1992: My only computer now is my Commodore 64, which doesn't work that well and does not telecommunicate. I have been planning to purchase an IBM compatible but there always seems to be other priorities (new car, furniture, shoes for the kids).

1994: MOST TERRIFYING MOMENT OF THE YEAR FOR WENDY--When we woke up one morning to discover our pet rat Splinter had escaped from his cage during the night. He was re-captured without incident, however.

1995: Greg led the mourning for the passing of Splinter, our first family pet. Wendy didn't shed any tears. She had been pointing out ever since Splinter had escaped from his cage one night that he was living far longer than the average rat.

1998: My parental authority does seem to erode daily with my boys. I asked Greg to help move boxes one day recently and he snapped that if he interrupted his homework to help out, he wouldn't be able to make his bed-time. When I replied that he could stay up the extra five minutes it would take to move the boxes, he chastized, "Don't get smart with me, dad." My other son Scott has gone beyond stealing my lines. He actually says he IS "Mr. Talaga" if he is alone at home when a stranger calls.

2000: Wendy and I celebrated our 20th anniversary at Disneyworld with an elegant dinner at the California Grill, then dancing at Pleasure Island till the wee hours of the morn. Well, past midnight anyway. I spent the wee hours of the morning walking the grounds outside the Disney hotels looking for Greg and Scott who had gotten off at the wrong stop on their busride back to our hotel.

Give It To Me Straight

2010-12-08T19:18:00.000-08:00

Beware the bureaucracy. Catchphrase of the new millennium.

A friend of mine had an interesting story to tell. He has power of attorney for his rich 91-year-old uncle. When the uncle felt he had to make an urgent trip to the hospital, he called my buddy . . . who told him to call 9-1-1 instead.

When he learned that an ambulance would come to fetch him, the uncle asked, “Now who’s going to pay for this?” Now that’s how rich people get and stay rich; they’re always looking out for the bottom line, even when they’re nonagenarians in medical distress.

Anyway, the story doesn’t end there. It’s just beginning. My friend was too busy all week to check on his uncle, but decided with his wife to make a trip to the hospital to see how he was doing this past Saturday.

When they arrived at the hospital, staff told him that his uncle was discharged on Thursday. My friend figured he must have made a speedy recovery and found a ride back home. Good for him. Then he got a call from his uncle’s daughter, who lives far away in Canada.

She had been trying to get an update on her father’s condition on Friday, the day before, but hospital staff refused her request, citing privacy restrictions. What?? The daughter was the uncle’s only remaining immediate family member. The daughter persisted and demanded to speak with a supervisor. The supervisor came on the line and finally relented, telling her that her father had passed away the previous day.

My friend was a bit perturbed at getting this news, particularly after having been told at the hospital that his uncle was merely discharged. To add to his consternation, besides having power of attorney, my acquaintance was the emergency contact.

Makes you wonder about the bureaucracy in this day and age, doesn’t it?

My wife and I had been waiting for a phone call of our own this week. They measured for our carpet, my son Greg and I tore out all the old carpet and we moved furniture in preparation for the arrival of the installers, then the installer left a message saying they would be in touch as soon as they received the carpet.

That was all last week. I had already informed my boss that I might need a day off this week when my new carpet was to be laid. On Tuesday, we arrived home from work to find a message on our answering machine.

It was from Home Depot where we purchased the carpet a week and a
half ago. Giving us an update, they told us the carpet was to be manufactured on Friday and would be shipped out next week. The earliest we could expect it to be installed would be between Christmas and New Year’s?

What??!! You mean when we placed our order, not only did they not have the carpet in stock, it wasn’t scheduled to be produced for another two weeks. Do you think this was news we could have had when we were originally in the store??!! That may have affected our purchasing decision, especially when we told the salesman that we wanted it in for Christmas.

Puts one in a very un-Christmaslike mood. Except in one regard. Our family room with bare floors, a few mean sticks of furniture and a Christmas tree will very much look like the Cratchit family home from a Christmas Carol.

Busy, Busy

2010-11-30T17:45:00.001-08:00

I know the holiday season is supposed to be a busy one with shopping, decorating, parties and road trips here and there. But I'm already wiped out and I've done none of those.

After stripping, scraping, sanding, staining and putting two finishing coats of Miniwax on our front room floor, I'd only just begun a run of home improvement efforts. I spent much of this past Saturday gingerly replacing the furniture in that same front room lest I scratch the finish. Do you know how hard it is to gingerly move a piano?

Then on Sunday we ordered carpet for two other rooms, hoping the installers can get here before Christmas. To ease the financial pain, I volunteer that we will tear up the old carpet, the padding, the tack strips and any stray nails and staples. Somehow I'll find a way to dispose of all this too before the carpet-layers arrive. The ordering salesperson asks if we have a garage where the carpet can be cut. We answer in the affirmative.

What we didn't confess is that our garage has been used mainly for storage and is a jumble of clutter from one end to another.

On Monday, I called the local car dealer and told them I wanted a deal on a new mini-van like one advertised by a competitor down the road. Fortunately, I was speaking with a lady salesman whose father was sales manager. She said she would call me back. When she did, she offered a fairly competitive deal (I get the feeling dad wanted to help her make the sale). Wendy and I were at the dealership till almost 10 p.m., but we signed the papers and now are proud owners of a 2010 Grand Caravan.

But that meant a trip to the bank today to get a cashier's check for the down payment, a phone call to the insurance agent to make sure our vehicle was insured and twenty minutes of wrenching to get the rusty old plate off our old mini-van (in the end, they gave us a brand new plate free since the old one was in such bad shape).

Meanwhile, Wendy was camped out at home, waiting for the carpet people to do the preliminary measurements on the rooms we want re-carpeted. The technician arrived at the same time we promised the car people we would be at the dealership to pick up our new mini-van.

Somewhere during all this, Wendy managed to put up outdoor Christmas garland and to secure the gate on our backyard fence since we had to also dog-sit our son's rascally Boston Terrier, Simon. When he was here previously on Saturday, he pushed open the gate, ran down the block and across the street to terrorize a woman and her little girl walking their two big dogs. I was seriously worried that we might get visited by the police afterwards.

Maybe the woman was somewhat forgiving since Simon was wearing a University of Michigan sweater and the Wolverines were getting pummeled at the time by the Ohio State Buckeyes. U of M fans of all types needed to release their frustrations somehow.

So it's been and will continue to be busy, busy. OH, and I almost forgot. I still have to write my blog.

OK, so this is it.

Move Over, Daniel-san

2010-11-24T18:21:00.000-08:00

Let's first admit one thing. I'm not a handy man.

Some guys instinctually are at home with power tools, blue prints and a pile of boards. I'm more like the guy whose wife alerts the local rescue squad when he's undertaking a major home maintenance project.

But when we called a professional to refinish the hardwood floors in our front room, he said he was booked up the next three to four weeks. Three to four weeks? But . . . all the carpeting had been pulled up already. All the furniture is out and is in our family room, making that room as cozy as an igloo on Thanksgiving (Wendy says it reminds her of our days living in an apartment). Something had to be done now.

There's no need to fear . . . Big Dave is here. Well, actually that's not so good, but we had no choice. First stop, Home Depot to rent a power sander. There are basically two types of floor sanders. One is a belt sander that will rip through varnish and paint with a speed and fury that rivals that Tasmanian Devil from the cartoons.

Not for me. I instead rented an orbital sander that was less likely to eat through the floor if I had to stop to sneeze. Got it back home, set it up, plugged it in, threw the switch and it rumbled to life . . . just for a few seconds before the motor stalled and the machine went silent.

Did I break it already? This was ridiculous. Then I saw a tag that said, "To reduce nuisance tripping, use a 20 amp outlet." Show of hands, how many out there know what that means? I figured it had something to do with my machine sputtering to a halt. After I re-set the circuit-breaker in the basement, I found a different electrical outlet that I thought should handle this beast.

Bingo. The sander whirred to life and started dancing across the floor. Seriously, that's what it felt like sanding my floor, sometimes I would lead and pull the machine where I wanted it to go; other times it led me down its own primrose path. After about four or five hours, I had stripped the floor as bare as I was going to get it. Even Daniel-san from the Karate Kid couldn't sand the floor any cleaner.

The next day I applied the stain, a medium oak color. Then for the finish, I picked out a water-based polyurethane because it was quick-drying. However, when I e-mailed my dad what I had done and where I was going, he responded:

"I don't like to say this but I don't like water base polyurethane . . . "

Aarrrgggh! My dad is a handy guy so I follow his advice. I exchanged the water-based poly at Home Depot for oil-based polyurethane. Two coats later and you can see the result. Not bad, I'd say, even if it took me more time than I wanted. This room normally serves as the dining room for Thanksgiving. Obviously not this year, not in this condition.

So Thanksgiving is at my sister-in-law's house this year while our floor dries out and cures. I can finally relax, for now anyway. And happy Thanksgiving to all my family and friends, both inside and outside cyberspace. May you all have something to be thankful for. I'm thankful that my next home makeover project involves re-carpeting, something we'll leave to the professionals.

If I Twittered

2010-11-16T19:11:00.000-08:00

Does anybody out there do tweets? Twitter is the program actually. I don’t. Maybe if I ever became a movie star or President people would be interested in what I do on a minute to minute basis. But blogging is self-indulgent enough.

Still, I wondered if I did twitter, what would I tweet about? Going over events of the past week, I pondered this and came up with some sample tweets. Remember, they can’t be over 140 characters long so a tweet needs to be short and sweet.

My ‘’ isn’t typing. Frustrting. Need new keybord. Wit minute. @h h@! Think I found the @nswer.

RIP Doogie 2 years ago today. Miss u, your ‘bird’ impression, your love of pizza and your outrage at ringing phones.

On a roll, UM Wolverines, 2 wins 2 wks, and my ff Mock Draft Bloggers, 3 wins 3 wks. Is that nephew Vic fading in my rear view mirror?

(That last one was tough, 140 characters exactly)

Need Daniel-san’s help. Pro floor sander can’t come for month. Room empty, furniture out now. OK, I rent sander. Wax on, wax off.

Why does waitress keep calling me honey, sweetie, sweetheart? I’m 57, not 7!

Training session today for new software we’re getting at work. 4 trainers, all under 30. Boy do I feel old.

Key West guide came in mail today. Duval Street here I come. Can’t wait to waste away in Margaritaville. Maybe before year’s end.

Winners this week: Wendy, $5 scratch-off. My sister/her husband, raffle trip to Bahamas. Wendy needs to set her sights higher.

Car Sharks

2010-11-09T18:14:00.000-08:00

Our 13-year-old mini-van is nearing the end. The instrument panel has so many "service" lights burning, it could double as Christmas decorations. When I tried changing tires a couple weeks ago, the tire jack couldn't lift the car without puncturing the rusty frame. If I had everything repaired that needs repairs, the cost would bankrupt my pension.

But there's one thing scarier than driving around a rusting hulk with more strange sounds than the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyworld: visiting the showroom of a new car dealer.

I hate, hate, hate dealing with new car salesmen. I think that was even before an incident several years ago when we purchased and drove home what we thought was a brand new vehicle, only to find out it was two years old when we played the new car owner's video guide lying on the back seat. Argghhhhhh!

Anyway, I checked the internet, watched the ads, and started pricing likely suspects. It appears that Chrysler is the only domestic dealer that makes mini-vans anymore. I saw an advertisement for a 2010 Town and Country for under $19,000. Not bad. Wife Wendy heard on the radio that they have employee pricing for everyone. I called a salesman and he kinda confirms that we should get a great price on this car.

This dealer is about 40 miles away but for a good deal, we'll drive that far. Found the dealership and asked for Chris, the salesman I talked to on the phone. And . . . it's like the phone call never happened. Suddenly, under $19,000 became over $25,000! What??

Now here's the scam. From what I see, all the Chrysler advertisements for new cars in the area newspapers are full of rebates that the average car buyer would never qualify for. In order to get the advertised price, the buyer has to be a Chrysler employee, be a member of the miltary too, must be turning in a leased Chrysler vehicle earlier than the contracted lease period, have a daughter named Bob and be able to stand on his head for 30 minutes while juggling balls with his feet.

In otherwords, very few qualify to get this car for the advertised price. We said so long to Chris and wondered if our mini-van could possibly make it to 300,000 miles (it's already well past 200,000).

This week, in our local newspaper, there was another ad for a Town and Country for under $19,000 at a local dealership. OK, new plan. I'm not even going down to the sales lot until I get a commitment on a price over the phone (is anybody out there chuckling at my naivete?)

I do call and get Tiffany, a new car salesperson, on the phone. I told her I assume that the advertised price is for Chrysler employees. Yes, I am told. So what kind of deal can an average Joe like myself get for the same car.

She says she doesn't know. (Doesn't know???) She says I would have to come down to the showroom, pick out a vehicle, then she would see what rebates I qualify for and then give me a price. But she says they are selling cars at "rock bottom" prices. I wonder if that's any better than the "great deal" the other salesman promised.

Couldn't she at least give me a ballpark figure so I know I'm not wasting my time, and my wife's time, driving down there? Apparently not. She refused to quote me any price whatsoever. But she told me to come down and she would have several vehicles ready for me to test drive. There was even a $25 gift card in it for me just for visiting.

I told her I would get back with her.

In the meantime, I think I'll pump a little more air into my Schwinn. If the mini-van goes, at least I'll have a back-up.

The Return Of Mike

2010-11-02T14:56:00.001-07:00

Wasn't there a Halloween sequel entitled Halloween: The Return of Michael Myers? Of course, he was just a movie character. Halloween at our house this year also featured the return of Mike. But this Mike is my nephew and he's real. Check out my 'haunted' front yard in the photo above and you'll see him seated at our front door in his wolfman get-up.

Mike likes to come over to my house to entertain the trick-or-treaters who like a little boo with their Baby Ruths.

That wasn't too easy at first since the neighborhood's costumed beggars began showing up at our doorstep at 6 p.m., when it was still quite light out. When Mike lurked threateningly in our front room behind me as I passed out candy, one youngster nattily dressed in a pin-striped suit said, "You don't scare me", then pulled out a toy tommy gun and blasted Mike through the open door.

So Mike tried banging on the inside of our steel garage door. Scared my wife Wendy but didn't do much to phase the youngsters a few feet on the other side. Then Mike moved outside, finding a chair that he put in front of our garage and sat in, next to a trash can that he rigged up with a black cape hanging out of it (can't remember what his inspiration was there). Still only a tepid response.

Now it was starting to get dark, so Mike moved his chair right up to the door. He also stuffed a pillow under his sweatshirt so he appeared to be more dummy than real. Then the fun finally started.

A little girl came up to our door and seeing Mike slumped in his chair assumed it was a dummy. She tapped his head which brought Mikey to life with a "Growwwrrrrrrrrr." She fled the porch screaming until she was safely at her father's side over on the sidewalk. No amount of coaxing could bring her back to get her candy.

New plan. No scaring the trick-or-treaters.

So Mike sat silently, stoic, only occasionally moving as droves of youngsters came up for their treat. That didn't make the kids any less wary. Most of the time their eyes didn't leave the wolfman sitting in the chair next to them as they approached, got their treat, said 'thank you' and left. I could have been handing out broccoli and they would have been none the wiser.

A few patted his belly. One asked, "What are you supposed to be? Are you supposed to be a chihuahua?" There was debate whether he was real or not. "I think he's real. That knee looks very human," one kid commented.

One mother stood a distance away as she worried that this monster might spring to life and frighten her charges. I shook my head. "He's been told," I assured her.

However, another girl after getting her treat returned to her father in the driveway with her report. "It's just a dummy," she said. At the same time, the dad's eyes widened and he bent over in a fit of laughter. "He moved," the father said. The little girl wheeled around with an ever so serious look of horrific revelation.

Ahhh, Halloween. I'm sure our neighborhood kids will have memories for years to come, both good and not so good. By the way, isn't that a cool pumpkin I carved? Here's another picture below. He's getting ready to hurl his little brother.

Trust The 'Net? Never!

2010-10-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

Sure, the internet is good for kicks and giggles. I enjoy blogging, posting pictures on Facebook and trouncing my opponents in fantasy football.

But do I trust it with my most closely guarded secrets? Do I want to transact all my confidential financial business on-line?

Absolutely not.

However, it seems that we're all being pushed in that direction. They want me to bank on-line, pay bills online and of course forever shop on-line.

Despite gentle prodding by the government, I refuse to even do my taxes on-line. When they make it free and absolutely secure, maybe. Until then, no. But the Internal Revenue Service just sent me a notice that said they're not even going to mail me a tax return this year. Since they expect me to file my taxes electronically, they will no longer mail out paper forms.

I'll tell you what, IRS. I'm going to leap ahead technologically here. I'm sending my tax returns in by thought transfer. Saves postage, computer bandwidth and your precious paper. Just give me the name of the appropriate IRS clerk and I'll start mentally beaming him the figures.

At work this year, they've stopped mailing out the booklet containing our benefit options during open enrollment. Look it up on-line, they say.

Check-writing also is becoming a thing of the past. Now it's debit cards and wire transfers. But at our house we still write checks and neither my wife nor I own a debit card. They've notified my wife this past month that she can't add minutes to her cell phone by calling on the phone. Use the internet instead. And now they're even pushing for on-line voting.

Why don't I trust the internet? C'mon. Google "Identity Theft" in Google News and you get 2,481 hits. It's that common.

Just the other day I got an e-mail from my son Greg. The subject line was about a highly pigmented eyeshadow palette he had just bought. What? Had my son joined a punk rock band or something? Turns out that somebody stole his e-mail address and address book. Now they're spamming all of Greg's friends and family.

Here's something I just read here JUST TONIGHT. There's a program called Firesheep that adds a tool that shows when anyone on an open network -- such as a coffee shop's Wi-Fi network -- visits an insecure site. A simple double-click can give a hacker instant access to the unsuspecting user's logged-on sites including Twitter and Facebook. Since researcher Eric Butler released Firesheep on Sunday, the add-on has been downloaded nearly 220,000 times.

That's a lot of hackers trying to get my information. That's a lot of reasons for me not to put my confidential personal information on-line.

Hopefully it won't come to me having to take down my blog because nefarious forces have taken it over. If that does happen, I WILL go to thought transfer. If then you receive a series of streaming mental uploads from a "Big Dave" on a Tuesday night, that'll be me.

One Bad Day

2010-10-19T17:40:00.000-07:00

I've been riding a string of bad luck lately. It started last Saturday morning. Since I calculated that it was the morning after the high school homecoming, I rode my bike over in the pre-dawn twilight hoping to score big for my found-on-the-ground fund. Sometimes quarters are as plentiful as bottle caps after a big game.

But I calculated wrong. No game. And I got yet another flat tire on my bike which meant a long walk home.

Anyway, I talked Wendy into going out for breakfast, a weekend favorite pasttime of mine. No sooner had we taken a seat when my usually sure-handed missus knocked over a "thirst-quencher" sized glass of ice water, almost totally on my side including my seat.

*sigh*

Later, while driving in the car something buzzed through my open driver's side window and hit me in the head. Figuring correctly that it was a bee, I asked Wendy to see if she could knock it back out the window, or at least get it away from me. But my usually sure-handed missus knocked the bee down my backside and I ended up getting stung in the end. Ouch!

Maybe going on a buying spree would make me feel better. If we used a store credit card at our local Meijer's today, we would get 15 percent off our bill according to our latest statement. So we loaded up on paint supplies as we were planning to paint the front room. Then we bought a new phone, a couple books, some cleaning supplies and other stuff to the tune of about $200. That's a $30 discount!

But when the cashier rung it all up, no discount. Come to find out, we were a week early. Arggghhhhh! Oh yes, we took most of it back for a refund. We're not going to pay for somebody else's stupidity. Well, our stupidity actually.

What a Saturday! And my Michigan Wolverines? Don't even go there. My supervisor, an MSU Spartan fan, said to me on Monday that we Wolverines were guaranteed a better result this weekend. Really? Why? "You guys have a bye this week," he said with a smirk.

Of course, my fantasy football team lost in keeping with my string of luck. So maybe Monday would finally be the beginning of a better week. Wendy and I stopped at Lowe's to pick up our paint for the front room. We wanted the color "sand." The paint guy custom-mixed us a gallon and we took it home.

Then we found out that there were actually several shades of "sand." We had wanted something bright, like maybe the color of the Sahara. Our's seemed more like what you might find at the bottom of the Amazon.

So we ended up taking it back to Lowe's to exchange for the lighter color. We weren't going to pay for somebody else's . . . never mind. Just write it up as more bad luck.

Lost And Found

2010-10-12T18:07:00.001-07:00

I think many of my blogging buddies have rituals that they don't want tampered with. For example, many people do not like to be interrupted while eating dinner. Others may not enjoy kibitzing while they're working on a puzzle.

For me, my morning coffee ritual is a necessity at work. I get a big cup of jove, add one of my flavored creamers along with some CoffeeMate Lite and most of a packet of Sweet 'N Low, and I'm good to go the rest of the morning.

Until one day last week. It was around 10 a.m.--time for my ritual--when I noticed that my cup was gone off my desk. Oops? Must have left it in the kitchen. Old-timer's disease. Walked down the hall and it wasn't there either. That's the only two places my precious insulated U of M commemorative king-sized java holder goes ever.

So I checked the kitchen cupboards, nope. Then, on a hunch, I lifted the bag of trash in the bin. Hmmmm, something heavy in there. Dug down (oh yes, for my coffee cup I would do this) and there it was! I put a fish stickie on this cup so I would know it's mine. IT WAS THERE! So I cleaned it up and brought it home. Man, messing with my coffee?? That's grounds for murder, no pun intended.

Honestly, who would do such a thing to a fellow worker?

Speaking of lost and found, I decided to ride my bicycle by the Big House in Ann Arbor on Sunday, thinking that maybe the crowds from the big game the previous day (don't ask) may have left something interesting in their wake.

And they did. Check out the photo. I found it on the ground near a parking lot.

That's a rather wicked looking pocket knife, isn't it? What's a bit surprising is that it's engraved with the name Ashley. Whoa. My theory is that Ashley might be the Michigan State student my son Greg said was ejected during the game for refusing orders to sit down in her assigned seat. Spartans can be quite unruly, you know. And poor Greg. He had to usher in a section reserved mainly for visitors.

Ashley, come get your knife. No need for weapons in the Big House.

Anyway, I brought my coffee cup home and marked it up so that maybe someone will think twice before dropping it in the trash. I think I better keep better track of it too. Sheesh. Can't even trust your co-workers.

Happy Octoberfest!

2010-10-05T17:17:00.000-07:00

I liked the above picture I took a week ago in Pittsburg so much that I decided to compose a blog around it. It's a cool shot, no?

The picture was taken at the Hofbrauhaus on Pittsburg's south side. This German style beer hall becomes very popular around this time because it is the centerpiece of the Octoberfest celebration that happens in the area.

Across the street, huge tents were being erected adjacent to rows upon row of portajohns. Ah, I can hear the strains of accordion music as I type here. And the polkas, German toasts and drinkings songs.

Zicke, zacke, zicke, zacke, hoi, hoi, hoi.

I have no idea what the above means, but it was part of a toast we did in the Hofbrauhaus. "When in Rome . . . "

Now, here's some irony. About 30 miles north of Pittsburg, we stopped for the night in a town along the turnpike. Tired and thirsty with nerves jangling from traffic, I thought I would hunt down a brewski. Nothing at the 7-11, nor at a nearby gas station.

Finally found a large supermarket open 24 hours. I went up and down the aisles, quickly finding the soda and sports drinks, but not even a Michelob Ultra Lite. Then I saw a stash of O'Douls. Must be getting close. I saw Old Milwaukee NA, Budweiser NA . . . hmmmmm, a pattern is developing here. When I saw a bottle of Chardonnay with "alcohol removed" prominently stamped on the label, I figured out the obvious. A dry town.

Wonder how they celebrate Octoberfest.

We did bring back some beer particular to Pennsylvania that's not available here in Michigan--Yuengling Black and Tan. Now we just have to find an Octoberfest celebration around here or something to celebrate ourselves. A U of M victory over Michigate State this weekend would be nice.

Got books?

2010-09-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

The wife and I are back from a visit with number two son in Washington DC. I can report that all is well in the Capitol (as long as you stay off the metro mass transit system there).

Scott works for the congressional service that is trying to translate and enact the new health care reforms that were passed this year. His office is in one of the buildings that houses the Library of Congress.

So Wendy, son and I traveled up to Capitol Hill to get a closer look. Couldn't get too close though. The building is not open to the public at large. But Scott thought I could take a peek inside, at least to photograph this impressive statue that sat off the lobby.

Ummmmmm, no. I took one picture (see above) as I approached the lobby, but when I stopped before the metal detectors and a cadre of uniformed security guys to try to take another picture, I was immediately challenged.

"In or out. You can't stay there," he barked.

Okay, okay. Sheesh, ya know. Then we headed over towards the somewhat more people-friendly Library of Congress building itself. There, we climbed to the third floor where there is viewing gallery that overlooks a giant reading room below with shelves upon shelves of books.

Quite an impressive sight. But you can't take pictures of it. Nor can you enter the reading room itself without special permission. Check out a book at the Library of Congress? Surely you jest.

Yes, security is tight here too. I even had to take off my belt and go through a metal detector. When we tried to find a restroom in the building, we took an elevator that wound up in the basement. No sooner had the doors opened when a passing uniformed security guard stopped and turned our way. I know, I know . . . we're not allowed here either.

They did have a public exhibition of old books and maps from a special collection of centuries old books and maps of early America, all behind thick glass. Couldn't take pictures there either. Kinda limited my picture-taking to the expansive great room entryway and the statues outside (see below). In otherwords, there's one thing you can't take a picture of at the Library of Congress: books.

They did have computer kiosks where you could do special research with materials not available at your local library. I sat at one work station, thinking I could try it out. Then I saw that the work station required you to enter your identification . . . in the form of a passport.

Couldn't my simple library card suffice?

Visit To The Big House

2010-09-21T17:48:00.001-07:00

"Did you have a little deja vu this weekend?" my boss asked me yesterday.

I couldn't immediately guess what he was talking about. Then he reminded me, I went to the University of Michigan football game at their stadium, nicknamed the "Big House," this past weekend. U of M played Massachusetts, a supposedly a lower tier team in talent and ability.

The last time I went to see a U of M game, it was against Appalachian State, also a lower tier team. That year we suffered an embarrassing loss, one that made the front page of Sports Illustrated.

And it looked like for a while that Massachusetts was going to do the same. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH . . . now I get the deja vu remark. By the way, the boss is a Michigan State fan so he doesn't miss an opportunity to get in a dig in on my Wolverines.

Actually, I left the game early with U of M comfortably ahead, or so I thought. Turns out that Massachusetts battled right to the wire before finally losing 42-37. Whew, glad I wasn't there at the end.

Some may see that as missing the excitement of a thrilling finish. Not necessarily. To me, watching my beloved Wolverines lose is like watching a pet die. No, worse. There's both anger and grief. So it's like seeing a pet get run over by a truck driven by Al Qaeda.

Okay, maybe that's extreme, but it does stress me out. And look what the stress of an exciting finish did for Michigan State University coach Mark D'Antonio this past Friday. His team won on a trick play in overtime and he had a heart attack immediately afterwards. Whoa.

The headline at the ESPN website said " Dantonio has heart attack, MSU into top 25." Some wag, not me, thought those phrases should have been reversed."

Despite missing the thrilling finish at the Big House, I still got to wander the stadium and take pictures, including one of my son who is an usher there. The stadium underwent a major makeover the past two years, adding a concourse that features displays honoring past national champions, installing luxury boxes and adding thousands more seats.

A stadium renovation can't bring back those glory years and all those Big Ten championships. But hopefully a lot of wishful thinking can. I can help in that department.

Boy Versus Girl

2010-09-14T14:55:00.000-07:00

My daughter-in-law Lindsay went in for an ultrasound last week with her husband, my son Greg. They were excited because they expected the tests to show the sex of the baby due next February.

I'm not sure I understand why so many couples these days are willing to spoil one of the surprises of birth, but maybe it's a generational thing. Besides, if they wanted to know the sex of the unborn child, I could have told them.

It goes back to when my parents first got married over a half century to go. Very shortly after they were married, they visited my father's ciocia Vickie. Ciocia is Polish for aunt and my father's Aunt Vickie always seemed a mystical character whose advice and predictions were respected in the family.

Put it this way. If ciocia Vickie had been around during the time of the Salem witch hunts, it would have behooved her to keep a low profile.

Anyway, aunt Vickie said our family would be blessed with boys. My parents had three boys, only one girl. And Vickie's pronouncement held true for the next generation as well as my parents were blessed with seven grandsons, no grandaughters.

I am told that my brother Tim, when expecting his third child after having two boys, asked my mother to go to Aunt Vickie's grave to ask her to "lift the spell" so to speak. And my mother did go to the cemetery with his request . . . to no avail. Another boy.

So, yes, Greg and Lindsay are expecting a boy.

Anyway, I'm trying something new here. One of my blogging buddies here asked about the lacquered rock I mentioned in a blog a couple weeks ago. I tried to take a picture but acccidentally took a movie instead. Even better, right? So I posted a little video clip of my lacquered rock. They would make great Christmas gifts, don't you think? Cheap too.

Dear Blog

2010-09-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

Seems like I've been writing a lot of e-mail type letters lately. What's one more. Might as well write one here.

School's back in session around here though that doesn't mean nearly as much to Wendy and I as it did ten years ago when both boys were in high school. Scott's internship at Washington DC does count towards his Master's Degree at Cornell though.

He's been scoring points there already, having found a mistake in an important document that had been missed in previous proofreadings. A preliminary draft had already gone out to major players in government. Then Scott tried to find a post office via the underground passageways there but ended up instead popping up in the Capitol building in the midst of a public tour. So he still has a ways to go to learn his way around.

Another sign school is in session--I got my first e-mail from buddy Bob since spring. He's an English professor at a University down south. This summer he logged 5,300 miles in eleven days on a road trip to Seattle, stopping along the way at Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Little Big Horn battlefield, etc.

Bob and I trade barbs during football season since he's a Michigan State alum while I'm devoted to my Michigan Wolverines. I wrote after the Michigan win this weekend, "Looks like RichRod got the quarterback he wanted to run his offense in Dunard Robinson, eh. What a sensational effort! Too bad he couldn't have saved that for a better team. My son Greg watched the whole game from his new post of stadium usher. He thought it all awesome, especially the Air Force flyover and fireworks that dedicated the new Big House. Truly a record-setting, historic day for all who attended."

We'll see if that's enough to get a rant started on his end. Doesn't take much usually.

It's been bike-riding weather around here finally, so I had my Schwinn out and about. I found a five-dollar bill too over by the high school. "Found on the ground, found on the ground, I'm just a fool for found on the ground" (Sung to the tune of "Pants on the Ground" from American Idol).

But then I blew out a tire the next day and bought a new inner tube for $6. So I'm a dollar in the red after this weekend. I think that's three inner tubes I've gone through just this year. When are they going to come out with steel-belted radial tires for bikes? It's time.

Besides riding my bike, I also lacquered a rock I found up north (very productive weekend, obviously). Thinking it was a pudding stone, I dragged it through a swamp--thank goodness for bear trails--only to be told it was an ordinary conglomerate. Great. But my sister Sue suggested I coat it with lacquer to bring out the highlights. So I did. Voila!

So what's up this week . . . ? On Wednesday my number one son's wife has an ultrasound which should let them know whether we're going to have a grandson or granddaughter. Or both! Heh, heh. On a more serious note, my father is scheduled to have a somewhat suspicious nodule in his throat biopsied this Thursday. Probably nothing to fret about but when you're 80, any trip to the doctor is worth fretting about.

If I Were A Frog

2010-08-31T16:12:00.000-07:00

You should be able to see in the picture above a frog, partially buried in the wet sand and within a hop of a nice clear pool of Lake Huron water. Since the temperature here in Michigan has soared tortuously close to fire and brimstone levels once again, all I can say is . . . smart frog.

Wouldn't it be nice to be a frog and just lie here half-covered in wet sand the whole day? Then come out to sing, make froggy love and catch flies all night. Rock on, frog. Who's to bother him, except maybe the occasional snake.

Speaking of rock on, I took this picture when Wendy and I made a planned trip up north to my parents' cabin. I was hoping for a nice, peaceful weekend disturbed only by the wind and the rustle of deer foraging in the nearby woods.

Instead, I was surprised when our beloved neighbors, and I say that with the utmost sarcasm, began setting up for a big birthday bash. So instead of the pastoral sounds of wind, woods and water, we heard bad karaoke at rock concert decibels at three in the morning.

Wendy said the young lady who crooned "I Am Woman" at that early morning hour sounded like a sick cat. I would have preferred a chorus of frogs myself.

On the way back from the north country we stopped and visited my parents to exchange news and gossip. My mother recounted how earlier in the week she heard the terrified screams of a young woman. Peering through a window, she and my father saw their neighbor lady sitting atop her car. Not atop the hood, but all the way on top of their car.

So my dad went out to investigate and as he drew near the young woman, who was sobbing rather uncontrollably, he saw the woman's husband desperately trying to console her, even warning her that their neighbor was approaching to check on the commotion.

What had happened to terrify this woman so? She spotted a snake in their yard. Ordinarily, snakes in Michigan are almost always of the non-poisonous variety, so they're not really that threatening. I guess, unless you're a frog.

Maybe she was having one of those "if I were a frog" moments too.

Houseguest

2010-08-24T17:05:00.000-07:00

We've had a house guest for the past several days, he of the big eyes, big teeth variety. No, not the big bad wolf. It's little bad Simon, my son's Boston Terrier. Greg and his wife Lindsay were on a road trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for a short vacation.

And I'm kidding when I call Simon bad. He has mellowed much from his delinquent youth when he attacked and killed a rabbit in our backyard, dragging its carcass inside our house and traumatizing our pampered poodle who witnessed it all. No longer does Simon go out into the backyard with the attitude, "Hmmmm, what can I kill today?"

Now he's content to lie outside, sunning himself. Of course, he'd rather you be out there with him, working in the yard. Then, if you're clipping or pruning, Simon might acquire his most cherished toy, a stick. "Get the stick" is his favorite game.

It's a variation of "fetch." Except that once Simon retrieves the stick, he doesn't give it back. So the game becomes "Get the stick back." He'll come over and lie down tantalizing close to you, tempting you to reach for the stick. If you do, then he pulls away, trots a few steps in another direction, then lies down again to chew on the stick some more. If you try again to get his stick, he casually gets up, trots off, and lies down again, just out of reach. It's a dog thing.

Sometimes with a flash of sleight-of-hand, I can grab the stick. But I have to be careful because sometimes Simon's bite is just as quick. Ouch!. It's an accident, I know, but our old dog Doogie was a lot more sympathetic when he accidentally bit me while we were playing. He'd be like, "Omigod, I don't believe I did that to you. I am so, so sorry" while giving me please-forgive-me doggie kisses.

If Simon accidentally nips me, he gives me this deadpan expression as if to say, "What do you expect when you put your fingers so close to my mouth."

For indoors, we bought Simon another of his favorites, your garden variety squeaky plush animal. They don't last long usually. It's like a Simon version of a Sidoku puzzle with the goal being to rip the squeaker out of the toy. Then the fuzzy animal becomes as unwanted as last year's Christmas toy.

Wendy gave Simon one of these plush toys when he first arrived early Thursday morning. By the time I got out of the shower and downstairs, the squeaker was out, with the $5 plaything ripped almost to shreds. So I bought him a squeaky rubber ball. He loved it. Wanted dearly to destroy it. But I would let him play with it only a few minutes at a time, then I'd take it away and put it up.

Simon was distraught he couldn't have his toy. He lay for long stretches on the carpet next to the piano where I'd put his ball. He'd cry. When he wasn't looking I took it in the other room and hit it behind my back while I sat in the recliner. If I'd put a pinch, the ball would squeak. Simon hurried over, staring at me, checking behind my chair, jumping into my lap, looking for his ball.

I would also set it up where he could see it, but couldn't get it. Can't get the ball, eh. Just like I couldn't get your stick, eh Simon! How do you like it, huh? You know what they say about paybacks, Simon?

Heh, heh.

Finally A Cool Breeze

2010-08-17T17:24:00.000-07:00

Somebody finally turned down the temperature here in Michigan, from broil to simmer. Hope it lasts.

Another sign summer is nearing an end . . . our number two son Scott is headed back to school. Not back to Ithaca, N.Y. and Cornell this term, but on to Washington DC where he is going to intern with Congress for the rest of the year. I'm not sure exactly what he's going to be doing, but it has to do with enacting that health care reform that just became law. If I hear that we're better off moving to Canada or Cuba or something, you'll read it here first.

At least he made it there fine, unpacked, and even managed to find his way back to his apartment when, while trying to reconnoiter his Maryland neighborhood, he was swallowed up in beltway traffic around our nation's capitol. He navigated back to his apartment using the position of the sun along with locating a famous landmark near his apartment, the Washington Redskins football stadium.

Speaking of football, another sign that summer's near an end is the re-emergence of our family fantasy football league. Wife Wendy already chose the order for Scott's Detroit Rock City league and I have first pick in this year's draft. Go Mock Draft Bloggers! That's my team this year.

What else is on my mind here . . .

Haven't talked about my job lately. In fact, I hardly ever talk about my job here, lest somebody at work stumbles across my blog. But here's a couple things I found a little, well, amusing for lack of a better word.

Much of my job involves checking the accounting work of others and making sure the dollars and cents match up. My colleague likes to describe he and I as forensic accountants, forensic as in CSI. But without all the crime, drama and sexy women.

I had to deal with a returned check recently in which the dollar amount written in numeric form didn't agree with what the checkwriter wrote in the text portion of the check. The difference was about fifty dollars.

But what was amusing is that the check had a NASCAR theme with a blurb below the endorsement line that said "So many laps, so little time." Hea, when it comes to writing a check correctly so that it is not returned by the bank, TAKE THE TIME! Sheesh.

Also interesting was a refund done at one of the sites under my purview. The staff there was supposed to refund several thousand dollars to a client's personal credit card. But instead, they ended up charging the cardholder several thousand dollars instead. Errors like that are understandable, right? NOT! At least to me, not.

Anyway, the credit card holder, who I might add is a respected member of the our justice system, was understanding about it. The mistake was reversed and the cardholder was credited, though not until a few weeks had passed.

Then the site received a call from the client, stating that the correction had not been done and that malfeasance surely must be afoot. Very upset. I received a call from the harried staff supervisor asking me to double-check to make sure everything was fine on our end. It was.

As the supervisor stressed about what to do next, she received a call from the cardholder's husband. Whoops. They missed the correction. It was done properly after all. Everthing's fine.

Whew. Just another day at the office. Thank goodness for cool breezes.

Grandpa Dave?

2010-08-10T18:32:00.001-07:00

Well, not yet but soon, God willing. My daughter-in-law Lindsay is pregnant and due next February with who would be mine and Wendy's first grandchild.

So I've known about this impending blessed event for some time. But only recently did I get permission to blog about it. Husband-to-be was first to know, then over the course of days and weeks parents and other immediate family, then extended family, then Facebook and extended friends, and last BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST . . . my blogging buddies.

My wife actually knew before I did. It was Wendy's birthday and the party was wrapping up. I thought I heard Lindsay say something about "one last gift." She and husband Greg were in our sunroom while number two son Scott and I were watching TV in the family room.

Then I suddenly heard Wendy shout very excitedly something to the effect of, "Are you kidding?" I thought she had scratched off one of the instant lottery tickets I'd given her and won $10,000. She was that excited. Seriously.

What actually happened is that she opened a present that held a Michigan "onesies" outfit. It took a few seconds to sink in (was Simon the dog going to get a canine brother?), but she's been smiling ever since.

When I informed my own mother, I thought too that I would be a little vague and see how long it took her to catch on. During one of our regular long distance phone calls I casually mentioned how I recently was riding backseat next to a one-year-old, keeping her entertained and "practicing my grandpa skills."

"Lindsay's pregnant?" she cut in. No fooling her at all.

Greg said with a little one of his own, he might have to film his own home movie skits and build spookhouses in the basement, hearkening back to the days when he was a kid and I was the movie producer and spookhouse builder.

Now it's his turn. He can take his kid trick-or-treating next October. He'll be, what, eight months old? Is that old enough for candy? It's been a while. I don't remember.

But I'm sure there's a "Grandparenting for Dummies" book at my local Border's. Good Christmas gift.

Scary Campfire Tales

2010-08-03T18:12:00.000-07:00

I'm always up for a good ghost story. "Scary" has been my middle name going back to when I was a kid. So when my extended family gathered for a party up at Hubbard Lake this past weekend, I was ready when we gathered around the night-time campfire to swap tales of the supernatural.

First, we got permission from my great-niece Jocelyn who at seven years of age might be frightened enough to have nightmares.

"Just as long as they're true ghost stores," she replied. That's my kind of kid.

Coming up with true personal tales of contact with the unnatural might be more difficult, but not overly so. In fact, we shared quite a few.

I recounted how I felt the tickle of fingers running along my back as I slept in a bedroom occupied at one time by my dead grandfather. My brother Tim recalled his encounter with a bat while he was alone one night in our aging, creaky two-story family home.

Tim said he heard the door to the basement open, then close again. Next thing he knew a bat was flying about him. He fled the house in a panic and had he not been tackled by a neighbor, might still be running today.

My favorite was my sister Sue's story of how she was doing laundry in the basement of our aforementioned family home. As she was taking the clothes out of the washer, she heard the unmistakable sound of a chair moving across the kitchen floor upstairs, as if somebody was taking a seat at the table.

Unnerved to say the least, Sue breathed easier when she remembered that our dog Missy had a habit of jumping up on our kitchen chairs. Our dog must have taken a bigger jump than usual and had moved the chair himself. But when my sister turned around, there was Missy sitting right there in front of her.

My nephew's wife Melissa trumped all of our stories, however, with her tales of ghosts sitting on beds, shadowy figures that chased her up stairways and electronic appliances that took on lives of their own.

How did all this affect Jocelyn? Well, first she plugged her ears. Then she began to hum to herself. Finally, I heard to go "Bla, bla, bla, bla" with her hands over her ears.

But she claims she slept well that night.

P.S. After arriving home, my son Scott who watched over our humble abode for the weekend, reported hearing footsteps running inside our house. Later, he also reported that his bed was shaking. Great. Trading stories around a campfire is one thing, but thinking that you might need an exorcist is a whole different can of worms.

Blogfoddermania

2010-07-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

Lately, sometimes I have difficulty coming up with a blog. Some weeks not much happens in my average life. But I didn't have that trouble this week.

I could start by updating last week's blog about my floundering found on the ground fund. It's technically gone. While my wife and I were up north this past weekend my son decided to do us a favor and take my cannister full of change to one of those Coinstar machines that will count your quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies--albeit for a price--and in exchange give you a slip you can turn in for real currency.

But wait! I had a silver dime and a collectible Michigan quarter in my stash. Scott didn't run that through the Coinstar machine too, did he? The quarter he held out. Whew! But the silver 1952 dime he didn't. In fact, he said there was a dime the machine wouldn't take and kept kicking out. He thinks it was the silver dime. So he threw it away.

What!!?? Didn't he see the dime featured in my blog last week?

"I don't read your blog," he replied.

Think I'll start making my blog required reading in the family.

Then Wendy and I spent last Friday night mingling with fellow beer lovers at Michigan's Summer Beer Festival in Ypsilanti. Mmmmmmm, peanut butter and chocolate ale. Not as bad as it sounds. The agave peach ale was not my favorite. And the strawberry rhubarb wheat beer? It was just okay.

We've been to this beer festival in the past but what made this one more memorable was not the eccentric flavors but the weather. We had not been there an hour when the skies opened up and it began to pour. There were lots of tents to huddle under, but many folks got wet anyway. But few people left. The beer might be watered down anyway; what's a few more drops.

This past weekend Wendy and I headed to my parents' cabin on Hubbard Lake. While there, I took my father's kayak up Sucker Creek to see how far I could get. It must have rained up there some as the usually lazy creek had some current. And my kayaking skills were a bit rusty.

While navigating an area of deadfalls and low hanging branches, I capsized when the kayak went sideways while I tried to avoid a branch protruding from the water. I wrestled the kayak to the muddy shore, which turned out to be a mere a pile of silt and quickmud (see how it encompasses my foot in the picture).

I should add that I saw nobody else while on the creek, which meanders through a rather remote, swampy area off the lake. With much effort, I drained the water out of the kayak--I think my nephew sold the used craft to my dad because it was too heavy to portage--and continued on my way. Much more carefully, I should add.

By the way, I'm not sure why they call it Sucker Creek, though it is known to be fully populated with blood-sucking leeches. I'm terrified of blood-suckers, to the point that I've avoided rocks, logs and places where they congregate throughout my 50 or so years of childhood, adolescence and adulthood. I never emerged from the water there at Hubbard Lake carrying a leech.

Until this past weekend. Sure enough, I spied one wriggling atop my foot after I walked up the beach to the cabin after rinsing the mud out of the kayak. I calmly told Wendy how to remove it (lighted match). Hmmmm, I said "calmly", didn't I. Well, thankfully for me, Wendy doesn't read my blog either.

In fact, I'll have to postpone that family blog-reading requirement for another week or so.

Found Fund Floundering

2010-07-21T15:31:00.000-07:00

My plan to collect enough stray change on the ground to finance my upcoming retirement is not going so well of late.

I put up a picture of my collections to date, mostly found while cycling about the neighborhood and beyond on my Schwinn. Lots of pennies, about two dollars worth. A little over four dollars in quarters and five dollars in dimes. (I think lots of people lose dimes because they're small and make little noise when they hit the ground.) Not even a dollar's worth of nickels.

Altogether I count about twelve dollars. That wouldn't seem so bad but last year I collected about $35 total for the year. With 2010 more than half over, I can't see breaking that record. And note that I haven't found any currency. Last year's scavenging produced a couple dollars and a five-spot in currency.

In fact, if I were in this as a business I'd probably be losing money since I've walked my bike home on more than one occasion with a flat tire. I figure I've bought four new inner tubes and one new tire so far this year, easily costing me more than the money I've collected.

Maybe getting the exercise counts for something. But even that doesn't count enough to show up on my scale.

*Sigh*

About my only solace is a few unusual finds. Check out the picture. A colored Michigan quarter? Many people do not even know they exist. That dime was produced in 1952, older than I am. That means it's s-i-l-v-e-r. Not many of those in circulation. Then there's an "Absolute Fun" arcade token.

I collect arcade tokens if I know where they came form. My collection has over 100. I Googled "Absolute Fun" and found out it's the name of a new arcade that just opened up in nearby Dexter. So that's a keeper.

Finally, just this past weekend I picked up that pipe band medal you see. It's "hand forged." Not sure what I could do with that though. Maybe if this band takes accordion players I'll join. I already have the bling!

Mid-Summer Night's Blog

2010-07-13T18:31:00.000-07:00

Can summer be halfway over already? Seems so by the calendar. I haven't even dabbled in the usual summer activities---no swimming, no hiking, no weekends at the cabin up north, no canoeing. I need to get going.

My wife and I do have tickets to the Ypsilanti summer beer festival in a week. I think that counts for something.

Save the Earth. It's the only planet with beer.

And tonight we did see one of the summer's hit movies, Despicable Me. I thought it clever enough but there was no reason for Wendy to shed a tear or two at the end. It wasn't that kind of movie.

Tomorrow I go to the doctor again as he wants to discuss the results of my lab tests back in May. When I informed my boss of this, I told him maybe the doc wants to congratulate me on how well I'm doing.

"Right, Dave," my supervisor replied, with more than a hint of sarcasm.

Well, I did do fine on my EKG stress test I took a week ago. I took a peek at the results and the report predicted that I had a 96 percent chance of living another five years. Woo-hoo!

I think. Hmmmm, are those good odds? So I have a 1 in 25 chance of not making it five years. Just for fun(?), I Googled odds of 1 in 25. Here's some results I found:

--a Presbyterian's chance of finding and marrying another Presbyterian.
--a person over 70 will have Glaucoma.
--the chances that authorities will remove a child, at least temporarily, from the custody of his/her parents in this county.
--historically, the chances of an astronaut or cosmonaut dying while in space.

Hmmmmph. Still not sure what kind of odds we're talking about. Well, it's not worth worrying about. Everyone should live life like they have a one in twenty five chance, or worse, of not being around in five years.

Today, I took a small step towards making a small mark in the world, even if it is just the internet world. I successfully uploaded a home movie clip to YouTube. I'd publish it here to prove it but I have to be discreet. My family members aren't always happy about my blogging about them. Can you imagine how they'd react if I published home movies here too?

Oh, The Stress (Test)

2010-07-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

My doctor was really in "worry-wart" mode during my annual physical this year. He was handing out new prescriptions like they were candy. And it took some convincing to enlighten his nurse that I DID just have a tetanus shot. In fact, it took place last year in this very office. After some digging through my chart, she finally saw the note and agreed.

But I couldn't wriggle free of a commitment to an EKG treadmill stress test for my heart. I did have one seven years ago, but the doctor still had concerns and scheduled me for another.

That happened today. I'm not a big fan of stress EKGs. After my first one, done when I was forty, I nearly fainted. During the last one they found some minor defect in the way my ticker was working. Nothing to worry about then, but now it's seven years later. So I was nervous enough that I purchased a daily pass to my own recreation center yesterday to do my own trial run on their treadmill. I did 20 minutes, worked up a healthy sweat, and suffered no ill effects. Boo-yeah.

Of course, when you're actually at the cardiology center, little things can unnerve you. Like not having the right paperwork with me and hearing threats to cancel the test right then and there. Thankfully, my primary care doctor faxed the paperwork over while we waited. Then the examining nurse found a tic on my leg.

A tic? As in blood-sucking parasite? The nurse snatched him off but how unnerving is that? I wanted to strip naked right there and ask her if there were any more trying to burrow their way into my blood supply, of which I would obviously need every drop right now.

Then I started walking the treadmill. What they do is increase the intensity, both the speed and the incline, every two minutes until you either collapse or quit on your own. Then they stop it immediately and you lie down for a quick chest scan, forcing your heart to operate in kind of a crisis mode.

First two minutes were a walk in the park. The next two minutes were still a walk in the park, only going slightly uphill and quicker. Then the pace picked up, as if you were walking quickly through the park alone at night while hearing strange noises.

Then the nurse mentioned that if I were the competitive type, the last time I did this test I made it over 13 minutes. What?? Whom was I dealing with here? Is she a Jillian wannabe from The Biggest Loser TV program? Was her father a drill sergeant with the Marines? My number one goal here is self-preservation, not beating a stamina milestone recorded when seven years younger.

Now, approaching ten minutes, I felt as if I were jogging lightly up Mount Everest. But my heart rate was still in the 130 beats per minute range. Not that high. When ten minutes kicked in, it felt as if I were doing a moderate jog up Mt. Everest, while carrying a pack animal on my back, his pack included. I did see my heart rate rise to 150 bpm, almost 160.

"I can do 12 minutes, " I proposed. They seemed satisfied with that, even counting me down the last 15 seconds. Cool. Felt like I was on a game show. But then the treadmill abruptly stopped and they put me on the gurney for the heart scan. Whoa, everything started to go white. I tried to sit up but they said, "You're okay" and made me lie down again. Eventually things returned to normal.

Whew, glad that's over. No chest pain, abnormal dizziness or shortness of brreath. I say I passed, never mind the doctor. But then a letter from my primary care doctor awaited me when I arrived home tonight. He wants me to make an appointment with him to go over my latest lab results.

*Sigh*

Fulgurite And Test Hill

2010-06-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

When we arrived Wednesday at Silver Lake State Park to pitch our tent, the ranger warned that a big storm was forecast to hit in a couple hours. My wife Wendy expressed her doubts, then asked, "What are we supposed to do. Go to a hotel?" The ranger said he was just passing along the information.

After the designated hour of 3 p.m. passed with nothing but sunny skies overhead, Wendy felt obliged to stop by the ranger's office to let him know he was wrong. "Yeah, we missed that one," was his response. But he actually only missed by a letter. The big storm hit around 3 a.m., not 3 p.m.

That night while we slept in our three tents, a thundershower accompanied by some very strong winds rolled through the campground. Our small tent was weathering it fine, but I peeked out to see part of my son Greg's tent flapping violently, as if it were a flag in a gale. Greg was working on making adjustments.

We had problems of our own. Our queen air mattress developed a slow leak and by the time the storm passed we were sleeping on mother earth. Not as soothing as it may sound. So we escaped to our car, only slightly more comfortable, where we stayed till dawn, occasionally turning the electricity on to check the time, which also turned on our headlights brightly illuminating my in-laws tent and waking up the occupants . . . which they complained about later. Hea, no reason all of us couldn't share the grief.

Next day I convinced my son and nephews that there was gold in them thar sand hills. Gold in the form of fulgurite, a tube formed when lightning hits the sand dunes, fusing the sand particles into a type of glass. Four of us scoured the pedestrian area of the dunes but camp up empty-handed, though I did get a digital photo of a bobcat track.

Later when we took our traditional MacWoods dune scooter ride I asked the driver who said he had been roaming the dunes for over a dozens years whether there were bobcat prowling the sandy hills.

"No," he said simply.

Bummer. No fulgurite, no bobcat.

But I did experience something new this year that I hadn't in our 15 or so previous trips to Silver Lake. My brother-in-law Randy and I got to ride in the public ORV portion of the sand dunes, the only such designated area in Michigan.

My son Greg joined us. His wife's sister-in-law Kate was at the wheel as we plowed sand, skimmed through standing water and dodged other off-road vehicles of all makes and models. For a finale, Kate debated whether to climb "test hill", a very large dune that provides a definite challenge for the driver. Go for it, we said.

First attempt ended well short of the summit and we backed down. Try again, Kate wondered? Randy said sure. This time we made it almost to the peak, to the sand ridge that ran along the top of the dune. That's as far as we got. And with our front wheels hanging a few inches in the air on one side of the peak, with the back wheels buried in sand, that's as far as we were going. Stuck!

So we were a spectacle for other drivers (see pictures) until rescued by a nearby Jeep. They attached a strap to our back-end and pulled us backwards to where we were drivable again. No more attempts on the summit today.

Remember the Rat Patrol, the old TV show in which soldiers raced around the desert in jeeps and stuff? Kinda felt like that until test hill. After that, I felt like the "drat patrol."

Adventures In Blogging

2010-06-22T19:01:00.000-07:00

Our annual camping adventure to Silver Lake on the west side of the state begins tomorrow so I have to make this quick. Then I’ll be out of cyber-touch for a few days.

Speaking of adventures, I’ve been lurking lately at a blog produced by and on behalf of Abby Sunderland, the 16-year-old California teen who was sailing solo around the world until rough weather in the Indian Ocean de-masted her vessel and left her adrift. Her distress signal was relayed to an Australian search and rescue team and she later was picked up by a French fishing vessel.

Ordinarily, I avoid celebrity blogs but this one piqued my interest. A drama on the high seas, the daily struggle just to keep high tech and low tech gear functioning properly, a teenaged girls’ unique viewpoint of life and death challenges she faced just staying afloat . . . and a regular blog with pictures even! What more could you ask for?

That was unfortunately over once the real drama commenced. After her boat Wild Eyes got slammed and broken by wind and waves, her resulting high profile rescue, and a media controversy over whether Abby was too young to even attempt such a feat—the blog was pretty much discontinued. Bummer. And just as it was getting good.

I don’t have a strong opinion either way on whether she was an exploited teen put in harm’s way for the sake of publicity or whether she was an exceptionally capable, strong-willed girl who was never in any real danger.

She did have a team of experienced professionals, weathermen and the like, watching over her every move. She had the sailboat equivalent of On-Star, state of the art navigation equipment, even two auto-pilots. She was more closely supervised in the middle of the ocean than if she’d been at a slumber party.

The parents did get a lesson in dealing with the pack mentality of the media. The criticism and controversy forced them to hire a publicity agent to buffer their privacy from the journalistic hordes. The family apparently even had to edit one of their blogs in response to the glare of publicity. Travesty!

Abby’s blog response to critics originally contained part of a letter from Search and Rescue Volunteer Perth which said, “Bottom line is, don’t get sucked in by the media. I would like a clarification on your blog just letting your readers know that the Australian Government has not requested payment nor would they. Let’s not let the media portray the many groups that were involved in Abby’s rescue as a bunch of people motivated and driven by money. This is not the case. “

The blog was later changed, omitting the letter and the reference to Search and Rescue Volunteer Perth, instead simply paraphrasing what they said in somewhat kinder and gentler terms. (I hear that many Aussies were not happy that taxpayer funds were used in the rescue).

In response to critics who said Abby was sailing through the Indian Ocean at a dangerous time, Abby’s blog responded with a statement from a member of her team of meteorologists that “have been routing sailboats around the world for 30 years.” According to meteorologist Ken Campbell, “We were late crossing the Indian Ocean, but I felt Abby was fully capable. Very few people have ever forecast weather there (the southern Indian Ocean), let alone route sailboats. This storm was not unusual for that location, for that time of year and the strategy was the best there could be for that situation.”

A couple days later, all the meteorologists’ comments were deleted from the blog. Hmmmmmm. Wonder why.

Hea, though I’m by no means a celebrity, I’ve taken flak for things I’ve put up on my blog. Even this past week! I hear somebody claimed something I wrote in my last blog was “total bull.” To them I give my standard response, “That’s how I recall it.”

Sometimes it seems that the life’s adventures are not as risky as blogging about them.

Summer Re-Runs

2010-06-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

Well, not really. But since I don't have a hot topic to blog about this week, I thought I would cull the annals of our family life, courtesy of my quintennial journal--a diary I keep for one year at five-year intervals. My wife Wendy and I have been remarking about how quickly time seems to pass now. Reading these makes it even more evident:

JULY 31, 1988--Did something today I don't remember doing for a while. With Greg in tow (my six-year-old eldest son), I slid in the back door of St. Francis Catholic Church, took a seat in the enclosed family area reserved for those with rambunctious young ones and partook in Sunday services.

Bringing the whole family to church would not qualify as quality time since Greg and younger son Scott, 3, would prove so distracting that NOBODY would get any inspirational message from the service. Greg is old enough to sit still for the hour now. But after he saw all the toddlers hollering, pounding on the walls, and running here and there, he turned to me and commented, "Dad, Scott can come. All these other kids are here."

JUNE 15, 1993--Just got back from a reasonably relaxed weekend up north. But I forgot to bring home Scott's rock he picked out for me at the lake. Following in his grandfather's footsteps (grandpa being a rock collector), eight-year-old Scott occasionally collects rocks himself, and this time passed them out to family and friends. I got to pick the last one left, but Scott tried to make me feel better when he said he didn't know why nobody picked it before. "I thought that was a good one."

JUNE 8, 1998--Wendy informed Scott's drum teacher that next week's lesson will be his last for the summer. We could use the extra $15 we paid for a lesson to replenish the refrigerator instead. Wendy almost had a fit when she found her Diet Pepsi almost gone. Scott was unapologetic. "I didn't see anybody's name on it," he said matter-of-factly. Greg habitually pounds down two cans of pop at a sitting and can easily finish a 12-pack in a week or less. Let's hope for a cool summer.

JUNE 13, 2003--In the middle of the night, the phone rings. I answer it but nobody's there so I hang up. It rings again and an AT&T electronic operator asks if I want to accept a collect call. But the person on the other end doesn't give their name. So I hang up again. Wendy, who is up now too at after 3 a.m., believes the caller is Greg, who was supposed to return from "clubbing" at 2 a.m. He's not yet home. Sure enough, a third call comes through and this time Greg identifies himself as the collect caller. I accept the charges and Greg tells me that his buddy has left him stranded at a Speedway gas station in Ypsilanti. So I have to traipse out into the early morning air to retrieve him.

MAY 27, 2008--Speaking of privacy, Wendy and I are spending our first summer alone together in about a quarter century. Longer, in fact. Scott is spending the summer at an internship in East Lansing. Greg's been moved out for almost three years. We recently cleaned a lot of his old junk out of his room. It's a guest room of sorts now.

It's time to put up my weekly blog. But I'm not feeling too inspired tonight. Maybe at work tomorrow. The muse has been there sometimes at lunch.

TONIGHT--And the blog muse has been absent this week as well. Updates from two years ago . . . Scott is back home for the summer and I turned Greg's old bedroom into a media room of sorts, moving my electric piano in there as well some some books and videos.

Flea Market Fun

2010-06-08T17:39:00.001-07:00

Every year about this time I make a pilgrimage to the Midland Antique Show, the largest antique flea market in Michigan. It’s better than a two-hour drive for me but it’s a chance to hang out with my family in the area who also attend. My mother usually packs ground bologna sandwiches for lunch, my absolute favorite sandwich in all the world.

Except nobody in my family joined me this year. They all drove up north to their cottages instead. Oh, well. Lunch was at Mr. Hot Dog this time. I like them too.

At the crowded market, I browsed here, peeked there, checking out coins, cards, cans, comics, cookies (bought an oatmeal raisin), vintage cars, clothes, crafts, crocks, Confederate currency, Coca Cola collectibles and other curiosities. Lots there.

Though ordinarily it’s more fun (and less costly) just to look, I did buy an older saddle basket to put on my Schwinn at home. I even talked the vendor down a few bucks from his price. Most stuff for sale comes with a handwritten price tag, but other antiques are unmarked.

A passerby remarked to his companion, “They say if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.”

“Is it true?” his shopping partner asked.

“I don’t’ know. I’ve never asked.”

I passed by a vendor who had a collection of individual state maps for sale. I took a look at a few older Michigan maps. While I was working for a newspaper up north over 30 years ago, I remember the Michigan Department of Transportation put out a map of Michigan that contained a couple “errors.”

Some University of Michigan fan in the print shop added two small towns. Sharp-eyed map-readers discovered “Goblu” and “Beatosu” in Ohio. I had one of those maps once but lost track of it and have been trying to find another one ever since.

“Do you know anything about Michigan maps?” I asked the vendor lady.
“I know that I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else?” she replied.

Okay, maybe she misunderstood my question. I asked again specifically about the Michigan maps that were published with the aforementioned errors .

She quickly held up four fingers. “Four hundred dollars,” she said excitedly.

Holy cow! I guess that guy was right.

Privacy Please

2010-06-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

This blog isn't about my birthday. My birthday was last week, so it's history.

But see the card I got on my birthday? It was the only card I received on my actual birthday. And my mother made a special trip to the post office to make sure the card she sent to me arrived on my special day. It didn't, arriving the next day instead.

When I opened the above card, it said happy birthday with a message that read in part, "In honor of your birthday, you may be eligible to receive two round trip airline tickets to any major international airport anywhere in the continental USA . . . "

So it was a pitch for some travel company. Isn't that a bit unnerving? I mean, their marketing department somehow knew it was my birthday and knew what date to mail the card so it arrived on my birthday.

I go through great lengths to protect my privacy, and ultimately my identity. My Facebook profile has only a modicum of information, not even my hometown. Just to be sure, I Googled my name and Facebook. Some other guy with my same name popped up again and again. Not me. Boo-yeah.

But still I wonder. For example, I recently got an e-mail from a hotel chain asking how I enjoyed my recent stay at a specific hotel in Iowa. I enjoyed my stay there. What I would like to know is how they got my e-mail address since I didn't give it to them.

It seems like every day I read or see in the news how our privacy is becoming compromised by the internet. There is a new site called Spokeo.com where visitors can supposedly acquire a wealth of information on just about anybody.

Hmmmmmm. I went to the site and typed my name in there. They did have my correct address, my correct zodiac sign, and listed my wife and kids' names there correctly as well. But they also had an extra person living in our house, somebody I didn't know. And they listed me as only having a high school education. Wrongo!

For the fun of it, I looked up my brother Gary. That was more interesting. The site did say he was retired, plays sports and is interested in physical fitness. All correct. But it also said he owned cats, enjoys gardening and has a graduate degree. That's all news to me.

I still think I'm pretty good at operating under the internet radar. That's good too because my sitemeter has been tracking an unusual number of hits from the Middle East and Egypt in particular.

These visitors found my blog because of a doctored photo I posted, with some attractive looking women admiring a billboard picture of my mug. I'm hoping these blog lurkers are coming to check out the women in the picture and not yours truly.

You just never know though.

The Cherry Capital?

2010-05-26T14:14:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late putting up my usual weekly blog because Wendy and I just got back from a long weekend up north, celebrating our upcoming 30th anniversary at the end of the month.

We hit a couple brew pubs around Traverse City (we have a list of Michigan micrbreweries and check off the ones we've been to and northwest Michigan is one area we hadn't tried yet). Also stopped by to see my nephew's home he just bought near Grand Traverse Bay. He and his wife live up there year-round. Lucky them.

Traverse City bills itself as the cherry capital of the world. And they're also popular around this time of year as a morel mushroom hunting destination. Wendy and I didn't have time to hunt morels in the wild. But I was hoping to sample some cherries and/or morels at the restaurants we visited while we were there.

So at the first restaurant we tried, we asked about dessert. Mmmmmm, cherry pie we were expecting but the waiter said they only had fruit cobbler. Mmmmmmm, cherry cobbler. Even better. But no. The waiter said it was mango berry cobbler. No cherries. Okayyyyyy. This is Traverse City, right? The cherry capital of the world, right?

The next day Wendy and I stopped for breakfast at the Greenhouse cafe downtown, a place we overheard is locally renowned for its fresh fruit. Wendy ordered that for breakfast. It was fresh and delicious. There were pineapple, melons, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries . . . but again no cherries. Again, this is in downtown Traverse City . . . the cherry capital of the world.

No morels either again. I was hoping for a mushroom and cheese omelet, but the special that morning here was an asparagus and cheese omelet. Asparagus! Who wants asparagus with their omelet? Or with anything else for that matter?

OK, we know where to get some cherry pie. The Grand Traverse Pie company headquartered here also has a an outlet in Ann Arbor where we've visited often. We find a local GT Pie company cafe later but it's CLOSED! It's not even nine o'clock in the evening. In Ann Arbor, they're open till at least nine. We do find a restaurant that serves fruit cobbler later but they only have raspberry fruit cobbler.

Again, this is in Traverse City . . . the cherry capital of the world.

My nephew earlier recommended the Stella Trattoria in Grand Traverse Commons, which formerly housed the state mental hospital but now is being converted to shops and housing. Very trendy and a place that prides itself on using products from local farms. They even list the local farms that supply their produce, meats, cheeses, etc. on their menu

So I check out their specials, hoping for maybe a cherry tart or a morel mushroom soup. But the soup of the day? It's cream of asparagus!! I think Traverse City is really the asparagus capital of the world. They just don't advertise it because it wouldn't draw the tourists as much.

OK, so I had the cream of asparagus soup. Not bad. And the ambience was interesting, being that this was the former Northern Michigan asylum. In fact, I commented to Wendy that the paintings on the wall reminded me of Van Gogh's work done during one of his more psychotic episodes.

As, we wandered around the cavernous building later I wondered whatever happened to all the residents who once resided there. You can't just close the doors of an asylum, can you? My guess is they're working for the local tourist industry.

Milestone Anniversary

2010-05-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

A milestone anniversary is coming up. My wife Wendy and I will celebrate number 30 in a couple weeks, May 31 to be exact. I know because the date is engraved on the inside of my wedding band. I imagine there is a particular gift for the 30th year: platinum, china, ebony, rock, paper, scissors . . . I don’t know which. I didn’t buy anything yet.

I did make reservations at a couple resort type hotels as we have a couple days off to travel along Lake Michigan. But the names of the hotels will remain a mystery to the missus until we get there. Even after 30 years, you need a few surprises to spice up the relationship.

For our last milestone anniversary, our 25th, my generous parents paid for us to stay at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. No cars allowed there, only horses and bikes. I brought my tennis rackets as they had clay tennis courts, something I always wanted to try. But after hitting the ball a few strokes, Wendy came up lame. She could barely walk let alone continue our tennis game. If she would have been one of the Mackinac Island horses, they would have shot her.

I still remember our first anniversary which included a trip to Toronto. We took the train but after gathering up our luggage at our destination all the cabs had been taken. We hauled our suitcases the several blocks to our hotel. I remember one rush hour driver rolling down his window and calling out, “Welcome to Toronto.” Wendy called back thanks.

One of my memories from that trip was making a reservation at Sir Nicholas, a Polish restaurant on the outskirts there that required a long bus ride. When we arrived and were escorted in, I wasn’t going to divulge that we had reservations lest the place be empty and we be revealed as naïve tourists.

Sure enough, the cavernous dining area had plenty of tables but few diners. Just as I was taking this in, Wendy spoke up, “We have reservations.” I never let her forget that. We could easily have reserved the whole place that night. Thankfully, the host pretended he didn’t hear.

Hea! Just for the heck of it, I Googled Sir Nicholas Restaurant in Toronto just now. Check out this blurb which was part of another restaurant review:
“You have to understand: Roncesvalles has never been a culinary destination. Yes, it's true that the Pope made a pit stop to the long since boarded up Sir Nicholas Restaurant for some Polish/Hungarian cuisine.”

I didn’t know that the Pope dined there. Wonder if he had a reservation.

What adventures will we have on the road this weekend? Of course, we can have adventures at home too. In fact, we had one just last night. I awoke in the middle of the night to scratching sounds. In the darkness, it appeared than an animal was trying to break in through our second story bedroom screen which overlooks the roof of our family room.

I slammed the window shut as it was partially open. This awakened Wendy. I told her there was an animal trying to get in through our window. Now this happened once before but the animal had fled before Wendy had seen it. She was sure the would-be intruder was a figment of either a dream or my imagination.

But this time she saw it. It was a raccoon, she said. Very scary, especially when I showed her how our screen was pushed free of its frame by the masked marsupial (yeah, I know he’s not a marsupial but masked marsupial sounds cool).

So today she told friends and family about the midnight encounter with the raccoon. She e-mailed her sister too, which got forwarded to me as well. But I found the e-mail subject header odd. I would have thought she would have titled her e-mail “Raccoon at our window”, or “Animal almost gets into our bedroom.”

Instead, reminded of my earlier account of the raccoon at our bedroom window, Wendy titled her e-mail, “Dave is not crazy.” *sigh*

After 30 years of marriage, this should be news?

Whirwind Trips

2010-05-11T18:25:00.000-07:00

Just got back yesterday from a trip to Kansas City. Though the trip was swift, leaving Saturday and coming back Monday, it had been planned for a couple weeks now since we received an invite to Wendy's sister's surprise sixtieth birthday party at the home of her son in rural Kansas.

After driving over 12 hours, our party consisting of me, Wendy, her sister Denise and her two older boys, arrived at the party late. That just provided a double surprise for Sue, my wife's sister. She had already received her first surprise when she arrived herself to see a gathering of children and grandkids there in her honor. When she saw Wendy emerge from our car, she excitedly hurried to the end of the driveway. They hadn't seen eachother since the death of their mother almost seven years ago.

The get-together was planned by Sue's husband Fred who conspired with other members of the immediate family to make her 60th birthday that much more memorable. I particularly enjoyed the dinner that included a seafood boil and Kansas style barbecue. I took a picture of the boil here. You can see crab legs but probably not the shrimp, crawdads, clams, andouille sausage, potatoes, corn on the cob, mmmmmmmmmmm.'

We drove back to Michigan a different way than AAA mapped out for us. I'm not sure I trust AAA maps anymore, though Mapquest's route didn't seem that much better. At least we didn't have any mishaps though there were a few scary moments. Driving around Chicago, we spotted the through sign for I-80 but there were also tollbooths going the same way for the turnpike.

It was weird, most everyone pulled off the expressway to pay their toll. Not us. We continued on through the lanes that were reserved for I-Pass. Except, I don't think we have I-Pass. Hea, it was all confusing. And not just for me. On our way back at the same location my sister-in-law who was driving at the time made the same mistake. She skipped the tollbooths and continued on through the I-Pass lanes.

She was going to swerve across a painted divider to get into the toll lanes, but I said to drive on. I'll just owe the state of Illinois a buck and twenty. They can bill me. I wasn't too happy with their interstate system there anyway. They need more rest areas.

Also on a whirlwind trip beginning this past weekend is my nephew Zac from South Dakota. Hoping for a career in medicine, he hooked up with a medical team from near my hometown in Michigan. They’re doing a weeklong medical mission in Haiti.

But Zac must have had some scary moments traveling as well, I think. He was supposed to rendezvous with the medical team at La Quinta Inn in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, prior to catching a 5 a.m. flight to Haiti. But when the group sent a representative to Zac’s room at before four in the morning to make sure he was up and ready, the door was answered by an older Hispanic gentleman instead. Zac was at a different La Quinta Inn. Somehow they did rendezvous but I don't know how. Zac is in Haiti now.

Let's hope his trip back is more uneventful. Whirlwind trips don’t tend to be though.

No Fist Pump, Obama?

2010-05-04T03:52:00.000-07:00

The University of Michigan’s “Big House” played host to our illustrious President this past Saturday. He was the keynote speaker at the U of M’s spring commencement ceremony. I was there also as my nephew graduated and received his undergraduate degree.

I took the picture of Obama speaking here, very much zoomed in as I was up high in the cheap seats. But I had a pair of binoculars too, so I could see things more up close. Regardless of where you were sitting and regardless of whether you’re an Obama fan or not, you have to respect his ability to hold sway over a crowd of 80,000 plus.

Whenever I’ve attended commencements in the past, it’s a struggle for any speaker to hold the attention of their audience for 10 minutes, let alone 30 minutes like Obama did with his address. Usually beach balls sail here and there over the crowd, graduates chat distractedly and the older folks grow inpatient. I didn’t see that this time.

But the President still disappointed me.

This is the University of Michigan’s Big House, one of the most revered places in all of college football. Nearly every prior speaker paid their customary respects with a hearty, “Go Blue!” to close their remarks. The elected student speaker eloquently compared the challenges of change the President seeks in his first term with the challenges of change sought by U of M’s new football coach Rich Rodriguez as he strives for a winning season.

Our governor Jennifer Granholm warmed up the crowd by thanking the President for a number of favors he’s accomplished for the state of Michigan, but reserved her final thank you “for coming here instead of that school to the south” to an appreciative roar of approval from those listening.

Then Obama started his own speech by saying, “It is great to be here in the Big House and so may I say, “Go Blue!” I thought I’d go for the cheap applause line to start things off.”

What??!! “Go Blue” is not just some cheap applause line. It’s mantra, it’s sacred symbolism, it’s a tenet of life here in Ann Arbor. I’ve heard “Go blue” from strangers pretty much everywhere in the country I wear my Michigan shirt. C’mon Mr. President, “Go Blue” deserves more respect than that.

And that wasn’t my only disappointment. At the very end, after all the speaking, honors and salutations, the U of M band put the final icing on the ceremonial cake with a rousing rendition of “Hail to the Victors.”

It was something stirring to see the sea of fists thrusting skyward in unison at the word “hail”, even among the silk-robed intellectual elite gathered on the stage. But from what I could see through my binoculars, one person up on the stage was conspicuously not joining in the ritual—Obama.

Now wait a minute. Didn’t Obama get into trouble by bowing when he was in Japan? He obviously thought it was a case of “when a guest in Rome . . . “ So why not do what they do in the Big House when you’re a guest in the Big House? Where was his chief of protocol on that one?

Maybe the President’s lack of partisan spirit had something to do with his theme for his commencement address, which had to do with civility, respect and acceptance. OK, I guess. I can see a day when Democrats and Republicans might get along, maybe even a day when there is peace in the Middle East.

But a day when we will welcome to the Big House with civility, open arms and warm hearts those people representing that “school from the south” that Governor Granholm talked about? Trust me, it’ll never happen.

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

2010-04-27T17:55:00.000-07:00

It was two weeks ago today that fire gutted our next door neighbor's home and singed our own property as well. Since then, crews have cleaned up the debris next door, torn down the garage and are in the process of tearing off the charred remains of the roof.

Meanwhile, next door at our home, zip. The melted vinyl siding still clings precariously to the side of our garage and our outdoor shed which also partially melted stands pretty much the same as it did the morning after.

Dealing with insurance companies can be fun, can't it?

This is partly my fault as we're not exactly in a big hurry. We have a carpenter on-site already replacing our patio roof, a project that was in the works long before the fire occurred. I thought a second crew working literally just a few feet away might interfere.

But I'm also playing tag with my insurance adjustor, my insurance agent and their preferred contractor.

The morning after the fire I contacted my insurance agent who got in contact with an insurance adjustor. He was at our house the same afternoon as the fire. He gave us an estimate of repairs the next day. So far, so good.

He suggested a contractor who came out the next day. She basically agreed with the estimate, except that she thought our shrubbery next to our garage was also irreparably harmed. The adjustor hadn't included that, though he included a few hundred to restore our scorched lawn. The contractor said she would do a revised estimate that included replacing the shrubbery.

I got back with the insurance adjustor with that information. He asked if we were going to retain the services of that contractor. I said we would decide once we received her estimate. I was supposed to get that in an e-mail the next day.

But I didn't. Nor the next day or the next. She finally called, saying that she had computer problems. We waited for her estimate all last week. She finally faxed it to my wife's work fax, after my wife had left work on Friday. So we didn't see it till yesterday.

When I looked at the estimate, I discovered that she had omitted any costs of repairing our outdoor shed. *sigh* But she did remember our scorched shrubbery. In the meantime, our on-site carpenter replacing our patio roof gave us an estimate of repairing our siding too.

So I e-mailed our insurance adjustor, asking if we can go ahead and have the construction outfit already on site repair the siding too. And seeing if he can do a revised estimate of damages to include the scorched shrubbery.

And now we're back to waiting, waiting, waiting . . .

Room With A View

2010-04-20T18:21:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow when I go to work, I will be in a different spot. Same job, same building, but just a different spot. One reason I’m kinda excited about it is it will be the first time in about a dozen years that I will have a window to the outside.

No more prairie dogging in the cube farm, at least for the time being. I can see it rain, I can see the sun shining, I can maybe even hear a bird chirping. Well the latter is doubtful since I can’t OPEN the window. But just seeing outside will be a step up.

Of course, my job and my work is priority number one. But when my eyes need a rest from staring at numbers on a computer screen, I can gaze upon natural light for a change.

Since I haven’t had that many different jobs, I can almost count the number of work spaces I’ve occupied over the years. Mmmmmmmm, I count eleven, NOT counting temporary or summer jobs. That includes a newsroom that overlooked a street in downtown Alpena, a converted coat closet where I composed letters on a Mag Card Typewriter (the forerunner to an actual word processor), and now this, an exterior-facing office that I will be sharing with one of my colleagues.

I just hope the movers don’t forget my chair. When you spent as much time sitting as I do during the day, having the right chair is just as important as the view.

Anyway, my blogging buddy Technobabe tagged me with an assignment to list seven things about me that aren’t generally known. I think I may have done this before, but it’s been a while so here goes . . .

1. There’s a concertina stored in my garage but I don’t know how to play it.
2. Don’t have a cell phone and I have no plans to get one.
3. I watched Mysterious Island with Lionel Barrymore this week, a mostly silent horror film included in the encyclopedic Horrors, from Screen To Scream by Ed Naha, published in 1975. I have watched about 290 films listed in that book and put a star next to those movies I’ve seen.
4. I once read a short story I composed about a talking Christmas tree for a junior high school holiday assembly.
5. I nearly got a D in algebra in high school. Math has never been something that comes easy to me, yet my job involves working with numbers. Go figure.
6. The founder of Wikipedia tried to track me down on the internet once at the request of a college newspaper editor after I made some controversial comments in his on-line forum. Nothing bad though.
7. I’ve made 36 contributions to TripAdvisor.com, mostly hotel ratings.

Since I know that most of my blogging buddies here have done similar lists, I won’t bother tagging anybody else. But go for it if you want to.

When Serious Intrudes

2010-04-13T17:11:00.000-07:00

I’ve been operating on adrenaline all day, ever since about 1 a.m. this morning. That’s when I woke up to a strange popping noise. It was like hearing popping corn from inside the popping container. As I rolled over in bed to look out the window, I imagined I might see a very violent hail storm, with pellets hitting our house at high velocity.

But I saw only some evidence of rain on our family room roof below our bedroom window. Then I saw that the back yard next door was lit up. “Why do they have all their backyard lights on at this time of the early morning?” I thought to myself. As I leaned closer to the window, I saw it wasn’t floodlights at all. It was fire. Flames were engulfing the sun room next door.

I woke Wendy and told her to call 9-1-1. As she did that, I threw on a jacket and ran downstairs and outside. Fortunately, I sleep nearly dressed with sweatpants, t-shirt and socks (I get cold at night). Afterwards, I wished I would have at least thrown on a pair of slippers too.

Outside, the street was dark and deserted at just before 1 a.m. No sign of our next door neighbors who live inside the home, flames from which were now shooting over the roof into the towering maple tree in back. Our neighbor from across the street came out of her house at nearly the same time I did and asked if our neighbors had gotten out.

“I don’t know,” I said.

She told me I should try and knock on the door. That was a bit scary as I could feel the intense heat and smell the smoke as I approached the front entrance. Rang the bell and knocked, but all seemed dark and quiet inside. So I went to one of the bedroom windows just in case they were still asleep (hard to believe with all the racket, but you never know). I knocked and kept knocking as hard as I could on the window. Then I saw the front door open.

Shortly, thereafter the family emerged, mother, father, teen-aged daughter, daughter-in-law and baby. They escaped with the clothes on their backs and that was about it. Well, they were wearing better footwear than my thin dress socks. THEN the police arrived, with the firefighters right on their heels.

What a relief! I know my next door neighbor takes great pride in his home and has made many updates himself over the years, building the sun room addition himself. But homes can be replaced. Lives cannot.

One of the firemen asked me to check on the neighbor on the opposite side. So I banged on his door too, but he was already up. “They’re going to need more fire trucks. Probably four or five,” he said, pulling on a shirt. I can’t remember whether I told him I would pass his advice along to the fire chief.

He stayed near his home, making sure the flames didn’t reach his garage. I guess I should have done the same as the intense heat melted the vinyl siding on our attached garage. It’s funny the things you think about and the things you don’t when you’re faced with such a dire situation. And how adrenaline takes over. It was a while before I realized that I had quite a bloody knuckle from knocking.

Later, one of the regional news websites said the family was roused by smoke alarms. Hmmm, never heard those. I supposed it’s possible. Later, I saw another article on a separate local news website. It included this:

"A neighbor was awoken by the sound of the flames and saw the roof burning on the home next door. He ran outside while his wife called 9-1-1 and began banging on the door. When no one answered, he began frantically banging on the windows and screamed.”

I don’t remember screaming but I could have. Either way, it sounds pretty close to what I remember. And Wendy was happy that she, as “his wife”, got some credit too.

I posted some pictures below. The refuse containers are mine and were stored next to the garage.

By the way, I had a rather humorous blog planned for this week, almost all set to go. Then real life intruded in a rather serious way. I just hope it doesn’t happen anytime soon.

Colors Of The Season

2010-04-06T18:05:00.000-07:00

I thought in lieu of my usual rambling, I’d post some pictures, especially since you can take some pretty pictures this time of year with Easter and all. And even though our boys are both adults, I still like to color eggs. So some of the pictures here bare the fruits of my efforts. Of course, I had lots of help. My nephews Mike and Billy are much better artists than I.

Also took a picture of part of our Easter feast. That’s a biscuit bunny with dip in his tummy. We took it easy on the candy. Originally, I had told my wife Wendy that I wanted an Easter basket with all the trimmings—chocolate, jelly beans, peeps, etc. Then I realized that my weight maintenance adviser would be calling later this week. I need to eat more like Rocky when he’s in training. At least this week.

When we arrived home from the in-laws, I looked out the kitchen window and my bird feeder was not hanging from its usual branch. The allegedly squirrel-proof feeder was somehow wrestled to the ground. I got a picture of the likely culprit. The scoundrel! A reward for his arrest and conviction.

I can just hear his story now: “Hea, it wasn’t me. I was, ya know, just walking down the sidewalk when I sees this here feeder on the ground. So I was just like going over to check it out, and that’s when he sees me and takes my picture.”

What Is That Word?

2010-03-30T17:18:00.000-07:00

I learned a new word this week. Let's see--I'll use it in a sentence. Shades of fourth grade here. "I try very hard not to be uxorious, since I believe man needs to be his own man, even after marriage. There. Just better not let my wife Wendy read this.

Uxorious means excessively submissive to a wife.

Though I enjoy writing, I sometimes have trouble finding the precise word. I admire those people who have an extensive vocabulary. But I don't even know what to call them. There has to be a word. It's not verbose (given to wordiness) or articulate (able to speak clearly). There has to be a word for someone who knows a lot of words. I just don't know what it is.

It's like Steve Martin said in one of his comedy routines: "Some people have a way with words and some people, uh, not have way."

I have just enough vocabulary to get me by. For example, Good Friday of this week is a day of fast and abstinence for us Catholics. I know that abstinence has to do with portioning out meals and not snacking. Wendy tried to tell me that abstinence meant something else. I could have gone along with her thinking but I don't want to be uxorious. Boo-yeah--used it again!

But, darn, how do you describe somebody with an extensive vocabulary? Hmmmm. Time for The Googler (Cue superhero music). Let me search the exact phrase "having an extensive vocabulary."

Wow, over 74,000 hits. Let's see . . . Free extensive vocabulary download . . . How to build an Extraordinary Vocabulary Tonight (may check that out later) . . . Improving Your Vocabulary for the ASVAB - For Dummies (checked and ASVAB is Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Batteries) . . . What's a word that means "knowing a lot of words?"

That's it!! The Googler shoots, he scores. I click on that link. Betsy14201 says the answer to that question is erudite, word maven, vocabulist, logophile. Is that right? Merriam Webster says erudite means "learned", logophile means "lover of words", vocabulist is somebody who creates a vocabulary, and word maven is two words. I just want one.

Hea, maybe I could create the word myself. OK, from now on, a person who has an extensive vocabulary will be called a "wordaloter." Now all I need to do is file a patent. I mean a copyright. No, that's not right either. What do they call it when you're proposing a new word for the dictionary?

Anybody?

*sigh*

Health Care Then

2010-03-23T18:02:00.000-07:00

A Long Time ago is a self-published book by a woman who grew up in rural mid-Michigan at the beginning of the 20th century. I read it since I knew of the woman, a Mrs. Robinson who lived less than 50 miles away from my home town of Bay City, Michigan. My grandparents bought a painting she created and are mentioned in the book.

The book contains recollections of her youth, much of it in the horse and buggy era. It's liberally sprinkled with poems, anecdotes and stories, both charming and sad. You forget sometimes in this day of modern conveniences and 21st century technology how difficult life was for families living a hundred years ago.

I couldn't help but be struck by the vast differences in health care as it was practiced back then, before Medicare and specialized medicine, before emergency medical technicians and childhood inoculations. Living out in the wilderness, a trip to the doctor was only made "if it was a matter of life and death." Sickness and injuries were not uncommon. Neither was premature death.

Mrs. Robinson learned about folk remedies first-hand when, as a girl, her leg became impaled by a steel pike at her farm. No trip to the doctor for the wound, only a long convalescence. For treatment, one neighbor told the author’s mother “to put live coals of fire on a fire shovel and put black wool from a sheep on the coals and hold my leg over it. So we did, to no avail. Someone else said to wash it out with skoak root. That didn’t help either.”

She eventually recovered, but with a bad scar on her calf for the rest of her life.

Doctors themselves didn’t always have the answer either way back when. When Mrs. Robinson’s daughter ingested some deadly nightshade seeds, the doctors were quickly called. Two of them arrived at her home to find the young girl barely conscious. They pumped her stomach to no effect.

In the author’s words, “They did all they could and went away and left her to die. “ The next day a neighbor suggested giving the deathly ill child some castor oil. That worked. The girl began vomiting and eventually recovered. Mrs. Robinson credited the neighbor with saving her daughter’s life that day.

People of that era put their trust in prayer too, as much as they did doctors and medicine. Mrs. Robinson was a deeply religious woman who credited the power of prayer from a local congregation with helping her to recuperate from one serious illness that had herself at death’s door.

But not all her stories ended happily. Three of her sisters died within a few years of eachother, each leaving a large, mostly young family. And after her own son complained of being ill, she checked on him after doing chores to find him lifeless in his bed. The doctors never could figure out why he died.

It is amazing to realize how far medicine has come. And as this week has shown, not only in the treatments themselves but in how medicine is financed and delivered. You just have to wonder what is going to happen in the next hundred years.

Ah, Spring. TV Time!

2010-03-16T17:35:00.000-07:00

I just finished doing my homework here. I'm learning about the Terriers, the Bearkats, the Gaels and the Spiders. No, not characters in a children's book. They're basketball teams in the NCAA tournament which starts this week. I'll be watching more b-ball on TV the next few weeks than I watch in a year.

What I learned is that none of the above teams is likely to make it very far. Makes sense since even the nicknames aren't likely to leave opponents terror-stricken. Well, maybe spiders, but you just have to step on them.

No, my favorite Michigan Wolverines didn't make it this year. Our cross-state rival Michigan State Spartans did, however, and their fans are becoming more obnoxious over their recent athletic success.

Two MSU fans separately have counted out the numbers of days since a Michigan team last beat Michigan State in basketball or football. Numbers in the hundreds, I guess.

Here is how one of my "buddies" put it in an e-mail: "The Spartans haven't lost to Michigan in basketball or football in something like 870 days. Care to comment? Sure I can rephrase that. The Spartans have kicked Wolverine ass solidly for the last nearly three years."

Obnoxious, right? My response:

"Why is MSU enjoying a mini-run against their big brothers in football and basketball? Need you ask? Look around you. You have to see this in a historical perspective. We're having global catastrophes the scope that hasn't been seen before, financial collapse, rioting in the streets, . . . it's the apocalypse, duh."

Well, back to my studies here. I hope to have my NCAA bracket complete by tomorrow. I'm looking up "Gaels" in the dictionary. "A Celt of the Scottish highlands."

I don't think they even play basketball in the Scottish highlands. Put them down as a first-round loser.

My bracket group is comprised of family members, the same family members that comprised our fantasy football league this past fall. I didn't win this past fall, although I also had a fantasy football team in my separate money league that took first place there.

So I took that team's nickname, the Viking Overlords, and used it to name my entry in the NCAA bracket challenge. Go with a proven fantasy winner, right? Let me look up Overlords in the dictionary.

"One who is lord over another or others; a superior lord; a master."

If I weren't so modest, I'd say that described me to a t.

A Visit With Grandma

2010-03-09T17:10:00.000-08:00

I took some flak for last week's blog from a couple people who thought I embellished the truth a little bit. Me? Exaggerate?? Pshaw.

It's not the first time, of course. When I've been challenged in the past on my recollection of events here on this blog, my patent response is, "That's what I recall." I mean, nobody's memory is infallible, right?

Maybe I take after my grandmother a bit in that regard. I visited her this past weekend and she still delights in recounting stories from her youth, many filled with the details of drama and irony of that mark most of a century.

In fact, when I asked my grandmother how old she is as I wasn't too sure, she told me that she's now a hundred years old. That might be a slight exaggeration. I believe she's closer to 98. But when you're up there that far in years, I guess you're entitled to round off.

Some of her other stories may "round off" a detail or two as well. But like my stories, it's obviously what she recalls. And her mind is still sharp. I was told that she might have difficulty remembering me. My sister commented to me recently during a visit that my grandmother couldn't remember her at first. And later she remembered my sister visiting her with "some Marine." That was my sister's husband who was in the Marines more than a couple decades ago.

But as my wife Wendy and I prepared to drive the 100 miles north to Bay City, I was more worried that my grandma might have a comment on my largesse, since I might have put on a few pounds since our last visit. That was about a year ago and I remember being thinner then after all the walking I did on vacation in London. That's what I recall anyway.

Wendy helped me pick out some clothes that would make me look thinner. Then, up in Bay City, father and I drove over to my grandmother's residence (Madonna lived there at one time) which is an assisted living facility.

As we entered her room, grandma was sitting by the window, looking very dapper in a dark brown fleece jacket and white top. She looked at me, then at my father, then at me again. I wasn't sure she recognized either of us, but some of that may be due to her eyesight which she said hasn't been that good lately. Finally, I said, "It's Dave."

Then she remembered. Looking me over more closely now, she said, "You put on a little weight." *sigh* Couldn't she have just rounded off?