‘The Illusionist’, audio junk, ‘This Film Is Not Yet Rated’, snarky Verizon, jon boats, “Nine Lives” (posted from home)

(this post covers 20-27 January, 2007)

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Saturday, 27 January-

Today I participated in a blood drive at a local church. I had gotten into this by asking a simple question during my last physical. I asked my doctor whether my blood type was on record because I’d like to put it on a card in my wallet and on a sticker on my motorcycle helmet. He said blood typing was not part of the blood testing processes used for my physical and the easy way to get it would be to donate blood. A few days later he called to say his church would be doing their annual blood drive and he asked if I’d be interested. This was my first time giving blood and I had a small problem; I was very nauseous and nearly blacked out during the process. I had not been aware of how important it is to have a hearty meal 2-4 hours prior to giving blood and only had a small carb-poor breakfast about an hour before. I felt fine through most of the process but toward the end I suddenly felt very light-headed, my vision tunneled and the overhead lights appeared sparkly. I mentioned it to the nurse and she immediately lowered my head and raised my legs and gave me a Pepsi to sip. The problem was caused by low blood sugar. It took some ten minutes for the Pepsi to kick in and I was thinking “Boy, I’ll never to THIS again!”. As I was going through my little problem a young guy across the aisle (in the Bloodmobile) blacked out within a very short time of being hooked up. I couldn’t see him but heard the nurses trying to wake him up and failing until they used a smelling-salts capsule. He had made the same mistake—he’d only had two donuts this morning. In a bit my tummy settled down and I started regaining my color but it took a few minutes more before I was ready to stand up. I took their advice and went to the snack table and had some orange juice, snack crackers and nice, sugary fudge.
I then drove up to Bass Pro Shops to check out their boating equipment section. I spent a good two hours enjoying the process of looking for the ‘right’ stuff to outfit the boat. Afterwards I rumbled up (I’m driving my old beater van, Cherry Larry) to Starbucks for a coffee and Times. As I read, a young Dad approached the nearby restrooms with his little daughter, a cutie little knee-high whose hair bounced with each step. As they approached the Men’s Room door I was surprised and amused to hear her yell out, “Daddy, I can’t go in there, that’s the BOYS.” I’d guess this was a Dad-only-has-the-kid-some-weekends situation since this was apparently a new conundrum for them. I almost fell out of my chair laughing (but hid it behind my newspaper) when the little girl pointed toward the Ladies Room and said ‘Let’s go in there’ to which Dad blanched and said “Well, no, I can’t go in there!” Dad resolved the stalemate by saying, “Tell you what, we’ll go in there (the Men’s) but we’ll just be there a minute”. Sure enough, they came out within thirty seconds or so.
That evening we watched “Nine Lives”, a very interesting and well-written film giving us little glimpses of the lives of nine women. The film is unconventional in that it simply follows a ten-minute segment of a woman’s life (with no cuts or edits), then switches out to the next one. The only connection between segments is we occasionally and subtly see a character from an earlier segment again, still as the same person, but in another part of his/her life. RottenTomatoes gives it a 73% on their Tomatometer and that may be low for me. I’d be in the upper 80’s on this one, particularly for the low-key, dead-on dialogue and the use of suggestion and so-called ‘magical realism’.


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Friday, 26 January-

Today was a big day. I bought half a boat! My youngest brother and I put a deposit down on a 17-foot jon boat package. We feel very lucky to have found a 2005 leftover which had been discounted some $1300 yet its current value as a used boat (according to the NADA boat pricing website) is still at some $500 above what we’re paying for it. This one has a bass-fishing layout and side-console steering. The motor is a Honda 20 with power-tilt and we’re getting a galvanized trailer. The boat itself is very Spartan – no carpet, no seats, no live-well, no nav-lights (in fact no electrical wiring at all), nary a cleat in sight. But this is exactly what we want. The floor and side ribs are covered, it has acres of deck space and elevated fishing platforms both fore and aft with sockets for the fishing seats and there’s not a bit of wood on it. It has covered, yet easily accessed (and well-ventilated) storage for the gas tanks and battery and it’s built of the heaviest-duty marine aluminum. It could take a much larger engine but the 20 will be great for the lakes and rivers here and still handle an occasional Bay trip. The trailer should be in early next week and we may be able to pick it up as early as the following weekend. This is GREAT!!!
We took a break from movies tonight. Besides, I have WAY too many boat-outfitting projects to plan.

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Thursday, 25 January-

Today I spent the morning working on cell phone stuff. Upon my retirement I bought a pre-paid cell phone on Wal-mart’s Simple Freedom plan and my nephew gave us a Tracfone he no longer needed. We found them handy while traveling and for an occasional call locally but don’t really use them much. Eventually I realized they are like insurance—it’s a small price to pay to have the ability to call, even if you don’t actually make many calls. That point was driven home when we hit our first Wal-mart which didn’t allow us to overnight in their parking lot. It was getting late and the map showed a campground and another Wal-mart about an hour away. But we’d have to take 12 miles of back road to the campground or pass the turnoff to the campground to go on to the Wal-mart. The phone allowed us to settle it right there; the second Wal-mart did allow overnighting. We’ve since begun calling ahead when there’s any doubt.
Along the way, we’ve had a few disappointments with the Simple Freedom plan. It had been run by Alltel and they had been leasing lines from Verizon. One day we received a letter saying Alltel had bowed out and we were now Verizon customers—at a substantial rise in cost. But the worst part of the Simple Freedom plan is double-dialing. When you use it outside of city areas you get a message asking you to re-dial the number and there is no way to hit redial at that point. When I complained about this, Customer Service said it had to do with roaming at the edges of two different cells and was just how it works. But my Tracfone also used Verizon and it has always worked flawlessly. The other little trick I don’t like is Verizon cheats you out of days-of-service. If you buy another month of service before the expiration of the current month, they simply give you a month’s service from today instead of tacking on 30 days to the end. So if your service expires on the 30th and you pay for the next month on the 27th, your new expiration is the 27th. What a snarky move!
So bottom line is I’m paying $15 a month to those Verizon turkeys and have a phone I have to double-dial (when roaming) and I get cheated out of service-time. With Tracfone I’m paying $7.33 a month, still have unused minutes rolling over (because of my low usage) and have no double-dialing. And it works in Canada at the same rates.
So I’d like to switch Labashi to Tracfone but I’ve not quite found the right combination of phone-I-like and price-I-like. I did manage to lock in the $7.33 rate until April of 2008 for my phone but am hoping Tracfone brings back their refer-a-friend package soon (as promised) to sweeten the deal on her phone.
I spent the afternoon researching details of jon boat specs and prices. I’ve been looking for one since Thanksgiving and have finally found what may be the right boat but I’ve not yet found the right price for boat, motor, and trailer, at least not at the same place.
That evening we watched ‘Clerks II’. We had enjoyed ‘Clerks’ but this one is too vulgar. It had its moments but it’s just too vulgar and not particularly inventive. When you have to include donkey-sex in your film to make a buck, you’re not exactly an artist working at the height of his career.

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Wednesday, 24 January-

This morning I drove up to Harrisburg Seaplane Base and Big Bee boats to look at jon boats. Silly me, I thought I’d have a sales person all to myself since all the other customers would be at the Auto and Boat Show but I quickly learned both shops had left the secretaries alone and in charge and hadn’t even given them a price list. We slowly worked through that for a model or two but it became tiresome and I gave up.
That afternoon I jumped on the Concours and went to Rocky Ridge Park for a jog. This one felt like a grind so I was surprised to see I did it in 1:23. I had the Shuffle along but didn’t play the 129 beat-per-minute music I tried last time. Instead I listened to a favorite song (Way Out West’s “Don’t Forget Me”) over and over and over. About an hour in I just started listening to hiking podcasts from The Wildebeat. That seems to have worked pretty well. I’m not nearly so exhausted as the 1:21 of last week but I do have some knee stiffness from the cold. It was about 35 today and I was wearing ultra-light nylon wind-pants. Maybe I need something to keep my legs a little warmer.
That evening we watched the last half of the documentary “This Film Is Not Yet Rated”. It’s reportedly an expose of the Motion Picture Producer’s Association film rating system. But I’m not sure I’m buying its argument. It argues the secret board of reviewers is censoring films and censorship affects the ability of the makers to show the film. The backers (and interviewees) of this film object to ever being assigned an NC-17 rating since large retailers like Wal-mart and many theater chains will not carry NC-17 films. But I’ve got to think those businesses have a right to avoid indecency suits and they need an independent ratings board for that. The movie also argues the board should not be secret—names should be public knowledge. Yeah, right. Talk about a formula for payola scandals. I do agree ratings for violence are more liberal than those for sex but I don’t see this as a reason to eliminate the review board. Perhaps the biggest flaw is the films offers no alternative; the producer/director only has a fun time showing off how smart he is in figuring out who the secret board members are and ‘exposing’ them.


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Tuesday, 23 January-

Today I drove Cherry Larry down to Gander Mountain and bought some shooting stuff. I’ve not been able to find the Barska 3-9 scope I wanted for the .22 so settled on the Bushnell version. I also bought a nice little metal spinner target called ‘The Qualifier’. It has three spinners of about four, two, and one inch in diameter. If the big one’s not a challenge for whatever you’re shooting, go for the smaller ones. That ought to be fun.
I then drove to Hanover and checked out a sporting goods shop, motorcycle shop and boating/ATV shop. I just saw the sporting goods shop in passing but I’ve been wanting to see the motorcycle shop after seeing their on-the-low-side prices in the Auto Locator. These guys specialize in Harleys and choppers and had a couple of interesting old bikes—like a Harley-Davidson Topper scooter with sidecar-sodapop-cooler. How many of those have you seen? They had a pre-WWII Harley, a 50’s or 60’s three-wheeler Harley, a late-60’s 175 or 250cc ling-ling (two-stroke) Harley and a long row of choppers. But the best bikes in the place were repros of turn-of-the-century bicycles with coaster brakes, two-stroke engines, and tiny little copper under-the-seat gas tanks. If I had an extra $1800, I’d have one of those (well, if I had a good place to ride it).
That afternoon I did a 5K walk on the cross-country course at Rudy Park. That evening we watched the first half of “This Film Is Not Yet Rated”.

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Monday, 22 January -

I spent most of today researching some tax questions for the upcoming tax season, then ran some errands. Fun, fun, fun.
No movie tonight.


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Sunday, 21 January –

Today we drove to Chambersburg and then went out for a late lunch at the Longhorn Steakhouse near Hagerstown. We had good food and the drinks were strong but very expensive; we won’t do that again.
That evening we watched the extras on the “Wordplay” DVD and then watched two episodes of Travel Channel’s “Living With the Kombai”

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Saturday, 20 January –

I blogged the morning away then shot some targets with the airsoft pistol. Later in the day I set up and tested the audio gear I had removed from the entertainment center earlier this week. I was trying to figure out which units I wanted to throw out and which I’d try to sell on Ebay. I thought the stereo would still be good and the cassette player/recorder seemed like it’s still nearly new. But I found the stereo’s FM tuner had gone bad and a cassette tape was welded in place in the cassette machine (which had a sticker on it dated 12/22/86!). The CD player had recently started refusing to play and I found I couldn’t fix that either so everything went out for garbage pickup. I guess the lesson there is ‘use it or lose it’.
That evening we watched ‘The Illusionist’ with Edward Norton. It was okay. When we had a Dishnet satellite receiver they’d rate the movies by stars. A four star was spectacular and rare, a three-star a good movie, and a two-and-a-half-star one you could watch but easily forget afterwards. And you don’t to even think about anything rated lower. This was a two-and-a-half-star movie.

Motorcycle safety, “Edmond”, “MI3”, “Miami Vice”, entertainment center changes,“Wordplay” (posted from home)

(this post covers 13-19 January)

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Friday, 19 September –

I spent the morning finishing up the reconfiguration of our entertainment center. Our little 27-inch TV and supporting gear are now in one re-habbed cabinet. We moved the other cabinet to our bedroom for much-needed storage. Amazingly, everything still works! We’ve de-cluttered the area, removed a lot of dust-attracting older electronics, video tapes and CDs (anybody need a Betamax copy of Friday Night Videos from 1985?) and changed the focus of the room. Well done!
That afternoon I installed the window-sash locks in the basement windows and took a motorcycle ride to return DVDs and pick out some new ones. In the evening we watched ‘Wordplay’, a terrific documentary about the New York Times crossword puzzles, puzzle editor Will Shortz and the annual NYT crossword puzzle convention. I had bypassed this one several times thinking ‘what could be interesting about crossword puzzle fans?”. But I was wrong. It’s engaging, delightful, and awe-inspiring. Long live the puzzle-nerds!

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Thursday, 18 Jannuary –

I blogged for a bit in the morning but then Labashi asked me to work with her on reconfiguring our entertainment center. As she plans an upgrade for the living / dining room we’ve been looking for a better solution for the entertainment center. Our solution to this point has been two entertainment-center-style cabinets side by side. We did this to hold all the gear and yet still have storage. One cabinet held the TV, stereo amplifier, and a CD-player and one speaker while the other held a cassette player, two video-cassette players, the DVD player, a cable amplifier, cable modem, wireless router and the other speaker. We had an open shelf after trading in our Dish Network receiver for a better deal on cable but otherwise things were chock-a-block. But as we worked out what we would need in a new entertainment center cabinet, I realized we have a lot of stuff we don’t need and ALL of it is old. The tape cassette player and VCRs are passé and the CD player is not only passé, it recently broke. That means the stereo and speakers are no longer needed. Which means, heck, the remaining stuff will fit in one cabinet! Today was the day to start that project.
That evening we watched “Miami Vice”. Yeccch. One RT reviewer correctly says “There’s no style, glitz, glamour or music! The movie is called MIAMI VICE. How can you have Miami Vice without at least one good music montage? At the very least you would think the movie would have some, oh, I don’t know, ACTION.”

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Wednesday, 17 January-

After much of the day on the web, Labashi and I drove into Lowe’s and bought window-sash locks for the windows in our basement. Afterwards we decided it was late enough in the day to stop at our favorite ribs place-- Texas Roadhouse. We had tried to get in there at 1700 one day last week and they were jammed. But today we tried at 1600 and got in (and laughed about turning into ‘Early Birds’ in our retirement). The ribs were fantastic!
That evening we watched the extras on the “Mission Impossible 3” disc. Not bad.

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Tuesday, 16 January –

This morning I found a treasure-trove of good podcasts. I finally thought to search for “CBC” (Canadian Broadcasting Company) podcasts in iTunes and there they are: “Saskatchewan This Week”, “The Maritimes This Week”, etc plus “The Best of The Current”, and “Editor’s Choices” and several others. This is great!
That afternoon I rode the Concours over the Trans-Am Cycles in Lititz to look at several used motorcycles I’d seen on their web site. They had two interesting BMWs (which, it turned out, were spoken for already), a smokin’ red VTX1800 cruiser and a show-perfect older Gold Wing for cheap. Dream on…
I stopped at Starbucks for an Americano and today’s Times then spent an hour at Lowe’s shopping for some security stuff for the house.
That evening we watched Mission Impossible III. I had been avoiding it but we’re running out of movies at our local video store (we’ve seen them all!) But it was surprisingly good (in a suspension-of-disbelief way). Afterwards we watched a Frontline special, “The Hand of God”. It’s the story of a man who had been abused by a priest as a boy and the shocking discoveries he and his brother (the film-maker) make as they research the background of the priest and how abuse cases were handled by Catholic church officials. Good documentary.

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Monday, 15 January -

I spent much of the day reading shooting forum articles and later shot a few airsoft rounds. That evening we watched a Travel Channel series “Living with the Kombai”, where white guys Mark and Olly learn how to survive in the jungle with Kombai tribesmen. I loved seeing the subtitles when the Kombai spoke-- like (while hunting with the whites) “those pale boys don’t smell good. We’re not going to see any animals.”

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Sunday, 14 January –

Today I spent most of the morning watching videos on the NothingToxic.com web site. I enjoy them and they often lead me to research something or other. In the afternoon I rode over to the video store to pick up a couple of movies and then shot air-soft targets in the basement. The air-soft gun is fun and ultra-cheap and I’m having a lot of fun with it. I make the targets by marking a giant plus sign in the middle of an 8x10 piece of paper and mounting it on my BB-trap target-holder. I shoot a clip of 18 shots then pull down the target for evaluation and reload the BBs from the trap. I vary something each time, whether stance, grip, sighting picture, lighting of sights, whatever I can think of. It’s a LOT like being a kid again!
That evening we watched “Edmond”, a David Mamet thriller starring William H. Macy. We were a little disappointed but it’s definitely Mamet. I see RottenTomatoes gives it a 54% on the critics tomatometer and that seems about right. I agree with one reviewer’s comment: “…. a powerful film, but not a completely coherent one.” Yep, that’s classic Mamet. Well worth it to see Macy at work, though.

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Saturday, 13 January –

I spent this morning emailing and posting my blog entry. The latest issue of Motorcycle Consumer News came in the noon mail. I believe MCN has begun featuring more motorcycle safety articles since the untimely deaths of motorcycling icons Christian Neuhauser and Larry Grodsky. Or maybe it’s just me. Christian was the very popular publisher of RoadRunner Magazine and was killed when he apparently lost control of his sidecar-equipped motorcycle on an interstate entrance ramp and veered into the active traffic lane just as a truck came along. Larry Grodsky, safety editor for Rider Magazine and founder of a motorcycle-safety training company, died after striking a deer on a lonely stretch of Texas highway. These two deaths struck me hard as they did thousands of motorcyclists. We all are thinking the same thing—if these experts could be killed, what makes me think something like this won’t happen to me? Another recent motorcycle death also haunts me. I had met Allen Brown at a Concour’s Owner’s Group winter technical session. He was preparing his bike for a summer cross-country trip to the Sacramento area where he had grown up. We all chatted quite a bit as he went through the long and involved valve-adjustment procedure with the help of other club members. He lived in Hanover and worked in Columbia, MD and commuted to work and back on his bike. He was very experienced and very interested in safety discussions our group had that day. But that summer Allen died when his Concours drifted left out of the passing lane of an interstate highway and hit the guardrail at speed. A following driver said he appeared to slump forward a bit and his bike just drifted off the road until it hit the guard rail. There was no other information. I could not understand how something like that could happen. I couldn’t imagine Allen had fallen asleep so the only other possibilities I could think of would be medical or heat-related. I checked the weather archive in Wunderground.com for that day’s weather there in California, knowing Allen had died by early evening. The afternoon high had been well over 110 degrees and was still above 100 at 7 p.m. Allen always rode with a full-face helmet and had installed an extra-high, extra-wide windshield to reduce turbulence. Though I have no way to confirm it, I suspect the extremely high heat factor was the root cause of the accident and have to wonder if a summer windshield and evaporative gear wouldn’t have made a difference. (Note: Concours riders in hotter climates generally switch to a cut-down windshield in summer to increase airflow. ‘Evaporative gear’ is a specially-designed jacket or vest which is soaked in water and cools the rider as the water evaporates. They are most effective in lower-humidity heat.)
Since Allen’s accident I’ve taken to occasionally going to Google News and typing in “motorcycle accident” to read through accounts of accidents to get a feel for the biggest threats to me. The number one reason for motorcycle accidents is failure of the rider to control the motorcycle. It’s amazing to see how many motorcycle accidents are single-vehicle accidents, meaning the motorcycle ran off the road and hit a guard rail, a fence, a tree, a curb, whatever. These accidents are often alcohol or speed-related and I have some hope of avoiding these failure-to-control accidents by riding safely. There are occasional reports of a single-vehicle motorcycle accident caused by spilled diesel fuel or some other slippery substance on the road and this falls into a ‘bad-luck’ category. The most prevalent bad-luck accidents are deer strikes. And guess what state has the highest number of deer-strikes in the nation? Yep, good ol’ PA. Larry Grodsky’s death by deer- strike drove home how vulnerable we are to this. Some Monday-morning quarterbacks question Larry’s riding in the evening and reportedly at relatively high speed in a well-known Texas deer-strike area. But Larry was riding cross-country from a motorcycle-safety conference in San Diego to his home in Pittsburgh and I understand he had stopped at a motel but they had no vacancy and he was moving on to the next motel when the accident occurred.
A category that gives me the willies I call ‘soccer-mom syndrome’. It’s the vehicle-turning-left-into-the-path-of-the-rider problem where the somewhat-distracted driver of an oncoming vehicle fails to see the rider and makes a left turn across his/her path. These are often fatal to the rider and gory accounts of riders propelled into the windshield of the oncoming vehicle abound. What do you do about that? I choose to wear hi-vis-yellow gear and I’m convinced it does indeed make me safer but an impaired driver could easily cause me a very bad day.
So if it’s so dangerous, why ride? Well, first I don’t think it’s so horribly dangerous as it sounds. We read about auto-accident deaths at least weekly yet we still drive. Motorcycling is definitely riskier than driving a car but I can also reduce a large portion of the risks by riding sober, controlling my speed, wearing hi-visibility crash gear, practicing maximum-braking, anticipating developing situations and making good decisions on where and when to ride. I like the safety aspect of riding a bike and spend a good bit of time reading about it and thinking about it while riding. Since getting back into motorcycling in 2003 I’ve ridden some 35,000 miles and I’ve had several near-misses. Coming home from work one evening I saw a deer racing across a field ahead of me. I grabbed the brakes hard and saw it cross less than four feet in front of me, still running at full speed. Another time a car pulled out in front of me as I drove along blissfully ignorant I had forgotten to turn off my turn signal after the last turn. I slid sideways toward the car and had enough time to think “I probably won’t die but it’s going to crush my leg” just as the car lurched to a stop. I missed its front bumper by an inch. I came very close to hitting a car from the rear when it abruptly stopped in front of me to talk to someone she knew coming the other way. And my one fall so far came when another woman stopped abruptly in front of me. I couldn’t swerve past on the left because of oncoming traffic or the right because she had stopped beside a mail van (she apparently thought there wasn’t enough room for her to pass the mail van and an oncoming truck at the same time but misjudged how quickly she could stop behind the mail van and ended up right beside the mail van). I came very close to stopping in my lane but realized at the last second I wasn’t going to stop in time so I swerved into a driveway and the bike top-sided as the crowned roadside transitioned to the flat driveway. I was thrown off the bike but my safety gear prevented any road-rash (uh, ‘driveway-rash’) and there was no appreciable damage to the bike. While I was angry about the woman doing such a stupid thing, I have to admit I was following too closely.
So the answer is I don’t think the risks are so high I shouldn’t ride. Perhaps that’s a selfish view. In a recent letter to Motorcycle Consumer News a writer declared he had looked at the risks of motorcycling and had decided he had to give it up. He had recently married and he and his new wife were planning a family. As he put it “I ride a safe ride but no amount of MSF or Joe Rocket can guarantee my continued existence in her life… and the thought of her pain from my death or serious injury wrenches my gut.” (Note: MSF = Motorcycle Safety Foundation, a safety-training course provider. “Joe Rocket” = a brand of motorcycle safety clothing). I’m lucky in that we have no kids (and if we had had children, they’d be grown by now) and Labashi is a remarkably independent person and I ride with her support. Here endeth today’s digression on motorcycling!
I spent much of the afternoon reading some of my favorite shooting forum web sites and shot a few targets with the airsoft pistol to work on my two-eyes-open aiming skills. That evening we had supper with buddy rar and his wife at Pagliaro’s Trattorias near Harrisburg. We had a nice long dinner and closed the place down.

Podcasts, “The Last Kiss”, “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” (posted from home)
(this post covers 8-12 January)

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Friday, 12 January -

This morning I worked on some problems with iTunes downloads of podcasts. I’ve hit some errors which don’t make a lot of sense (like “Error 50 – unknown error”) and did some research on Apple’s web site. I did get one working for most of the episodes but still have a few showing up as “can’t find on server” so I jotted off a couple of notes to AppleSupport about them. In the afternoon I accompanied Labashi to town to pick up some more lighting parts, paint sample boards and some crown molding samples. Labashi is planning changes for the living/dining room area and these are all part of the planning process.
That evening we watched the rest of “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu”. My favorite RottenTomatoes review says of it: “This Romanian movie defies categorization- it’s halfway between a black comedy and a Fred Wiseman documentary. And it haunts you like the ghost of any dead person you’ve ever ignored.” The film is remarkably straightforward. The camera follows Mr. Lazarescu from his first realizing he should go to the hospital for his recurring headaches through ‘his descent into medical Hell’ as another reviewer says. It’s slow going but worthwhile.

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Thursday, 11 January -

I spent the morning on the web finding and listening to sample podcasts for our upcoming trip. I found some interesting podcasts at the International Spy Museum, at the University of Florida and at TED.com. That afternoon I jogged my end-to-end course at Rocky Ridge. Thank goodness I forgot my watch on this one; it was a struggle.
That evening we watched the first half of “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu”. It’s a slow-mover and we abandoned ship around 2200.
I’m now reading “Grandmother’s Grandchild, My Crow Indian Life” (http://www.amazon.com/Grandmothers-Grandchild-Indian-American-Lives/dp/0803242778). Labashi picked this one up last September in Saskatoon when we visited Wanuskewin Heritage Park and met a young Crow woman there.

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Wednesday, 10 January -

It’s a colder day today (a high of 35) but I quickly tired of the web today and had to get out. I decided I’d ride the Concours down to the cycle shop and pick up oil filters for the bikes. I changed the oil on the Concours just a few weeks ago but like to have the filters and o-rings available for next time. The KLR is due for a change but is in storage for the winter with Sta-bil in the tank and the float-charger connected. I started it up last week (on one of the warmer days) to get the oil circulated through the engine and the Sta-bil into the carb. After the cycle shop I stopped at Starbucks for an Americano and then searched in vain for a drill bit sharpener at the nearby Lowe’s. The sharpeners were apparently a big hit for Christmas and won’t be back in stock for several weeks. I also tried the nearby Home Depot but they too are out and I
That evening we were going to watch a Frontline special on China (one of Labashi’s favorite subjects) but President Bush’s address about ‘surging’ up troops in Iraq delayed it and then we were too sleepy to stay up.

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Tuesday, 9 January -

This morning Labashi and I drove into York to Flying Feet for some new jogging sneaks (me) and socks (Labashi). I like this little local running, swimming, and soccer store; they’re always so helpful and knowledgeable. I got lucky with the sneaks—they were on sale (25% off!). At lunchtime we dropped in to the local Lone Star.
I spent quite a while researching options to connect Labashi’s iPod to her car audio system. While the dealer wanted $330 to provide and install the official product for her car, I found a $7 cable at Installer.com to connect the iPod’s earphone plug to the Aux input on the radio. This would not charge the iPod but I have a separate way to do that. However, it would require removal of the radio to connect the cable to the Aux jacks. I found a site offering to sell the radio-removal directions for $5 (carstereohelp.com) but then found a usenet post pointing me to the manufacturer’s online instructions for adding a CD or cassette player; they also include instructions to remove and re-install the radio. But I’m going to hold off until we get a chance to try our even-cheaper solution of simply plugging two sets of earbuds into the iPod via a y-cable. I think we’re going to need to do that in Mocha Joe anyway since there’s quite a lot of noise while traveling, particularly with the windows open.
I also spent a few hours researching the camping in Florida. This year we’re going to hit the Keys and Everglades and I hear camping is quite expensive in the Keys. A friend had to spend $67 for a bare, no-hookups site one night and I’ve read of some RV’ers paying $150 a night. I’ll go without sleep before spending that kind of money. In fact I wouldn’t be able to sleep on a night I had to spend $150 for camping so that’s an easy decision. Things don’t look good. The state parks in the keys already have every site booked for every night from the end of January through the first week of April. It might be a short stay in the Keys. But somehow these things always seem to work out so I’m not going to worry about it.
Late in the afternoon I took a five-mile walk along the creek near our home. That evening we watched “The Last Kiss”, a story about a guy who has a great (and pregnant) girlfriend he’s going to marry but finds he can’t handle the idea of his life becoming so predictable. The fool has an affair (who could have predicted?) and pain and anguish ensue. I have to agree with one reviewer on RottenTomatoes.com who said: “Entertaining and insightful but the shift from comedy to melodrama is a bit drastic.” I wouldn’t go quite so far as another reviewer’s entreaty: “Bring a barf bag and a razor blade, because you’ll need one or both by the time you’re done with this”. That’s a little harsh. But if I could use those on the male lead, I’m there.

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Monday, 8 January –

I spent the morning blogging and handling email. That afternoon I became familiar with, set up and secured my new pistol strongbox. Then I set up a means to securely transport pistols and ammo in compliance with ‘peaceable journey’ laws requiring pistols and ammo to be separated and stored in locked containers inaccessible to driver or passengers. I’ve found interstate transport of firearms to be a fascinating study. For a taste of it, check out this link: http://www.nraila.org/GunLaws/FederalGunLaws.aspx?ID=59 .
That evening we watched the extras on “Grey’s Anatomy” and were disappointed in the quality. A couple of the minor characters gave a lame tour of the set and answered fan questions like “what was your favorite scene of Season Two?”. I’m glad it’s over.

iPods and podcasts, “Grey’s Anatomy”, Lancaster arts trip (posted from home)

(this post covers 1 through 7 January, 2007)

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Sunday, 7 January-

Today we’re having another warmer-than-normal day. Labashi and I drove to Rocky Ridge Park and began walking my favorite jogging route. At one of the trail junctions we took an alternate route I’ve used a few times when feeling extra-frisky. It has a few more hills and can be horrendously muddy in a few spots but today the mud wasn’t bad. We walked for an hour, took a short break for a granola bar then did another hour and ten minutes. Back home, Labashi spent the afternoon working on a new project to update our dining room. I just had to get out in the nice warm (50-degree) sunshine for a bit. I rode the Concours up to our local bank to run an errand and noticed the sky was rapidly clouding up. I had thought I’d ride north for an hour or two but the gathering clouds changed my mind and I headed home. I finished the afternoon blogging and downloading podcasts, including a new set from Minnesota Public Radio. That evening we finished off the Season Two disk set for “Grey’s Anatomy”. We saw the entire season of 26 shows on two five-dollar rentals. Our local video store (California Video) rents DVD sets at the same rate as their video game cartridges. They rent movies for $3.81 per rental and that is typically either two days or seven days, according to how new the movie is. But unlike most rental stores which rent tv shows by the disk, California Video rents you the entire season-set of a TV show for as low as one four-dollar rental fee. If you can watch 26 fifty-minute episodes and the extra features in three days, fine. But you can also extend your rental by paying a little more. We’ve found we like to do a five-day rental for $5 and watch half the season, then take a break before starting the second half of the season. Then we just do it again. In this case, that gave us 23+ hours of commercial-free viewing for $10.
Toward the end of Season Two of “Grey’s Anatomy” we’ve become disenchanted with it. It was great fun for the entire first season and for a few episodes into the second year. But we’ve started to dislike the underlying message of the show, specifically the roles of the women. With the exception of Bailey, all the female leading women are weak and foolish (or sometimes they have brief flashes of being strong and foolish) and are utterly dependent on the alpha males to give meaning to their torrid, helpless little lives. But this is one of those “you can’t not look” things. Once you decide you’re just watching the writers play with your mind, well, it’s very interesting to watch. But if you make the mistake of thinking about younger women taking role cues from what the characters do on this show, it gets depressing and (I’ve gotta say) I just don’t believe it true for the great majority of women. And McDreamy is (IMHO) a ridiculous little fool of a girly-boy. World-class surgeon, eh? I don’t think he could make a firm decision on what socks to wear for the day. Yep--- I definitely can’t not watch this show!

Saturday, 6 January-

Today we needed an art injection. I’m more or less immune (I think some may use the word “clueless” here) but Labashi can only go so long without seeing art. And once I get there, I thoroughly enjoy looking at all the creative things people come up with or their technical mastery of a medium. We’ve not been to the Lancaster Museum of Art in at least five years so decided we’d do that and perhaps check out some of the downtown galleries. The LMOA had a very nostalgic display of posters from the San Francisco ‘hippie’ days. I don’t remember seeing any of these specific posters before but they were at the same time very familiar to my baby-boomer eyes. The odd fonts, wild graphics and psychedelic colors announced events at the Fillmore Auditorium and Avalon Ballroom and featured groups like The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Doors, Iron Butterfly, and Jefferson Airplane. Is that a blast from the past or what?
We also loved seeing the paintings of local artists James J. Riley and Lisa Madenspacher and the photos of Charles Heisterkamp III. After the LMOA we moved into the heart of downtown and checked out six galleries. We particularly enjoyed the DePaul Galley which featured the work of local artists after their study trip to Paris in September.
After our walking tour, we had a late lunch at ‘The Pressroom’, an upscale bar/restaurant west of the square. I had a super-duper quiche lorain and Labashi had an excellent mushroom burger. Afterwards we dropped in to the local Irish bar for a coffee-and-Irish-Cream for dessert but learned we should have done that at The Pressroom instead.
Back home we watched episodes 20-22 of “Grey’s Anatomy” Season Two.

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Friday, 5 January-

Today I drove the loaner car to Mechanicsburg to pick up Labashi’s car from its routine maintenance appointment. We did great there, I think. It was a rainy day and I was in no rush to go home. I drove over to the new Bass Pro Shop in Harrisburg to check out their selection of holsters and pistol strong boxes. I was chagrined to see not only a poor selection but substantially higher prices on some key items since Christmas. One of those price increases made me curious. I swear that price of one pistol model was $100 lower at Gander Mountain just the other day. And since I’ve never been to the Harrisburg Gander Mountain I thought it time to drop by and verify. There I found just what I’ve been looking for. I’ve been searching for a nice .22 target pistol for several months now and had given up on finding the model and features I wanted. The biggest problem was the manufacturer had discontinued the 7.5-inch barrel option. The other problem was that nobody had the deluxe model in stock. They would give me a decent price on in-stock items but wanted a fortune for ordered items. Normally, I’d turn to the Internet in such cases but handgun purchase laws say pistols cannot be sent directly to the buyer. They must go to a local firearms dealer who then does the paperwork in accordance with state and local laws. I have to agree the law is a good idea but this has become a profit-center for the local dealer. It would cost me $25-40 for the local dealer to do ten minutes-worth of paperwork. So between shipping charges of something on the order of $20-25 and paperwork charges of $25-40 I would have to get a heck of a deal to be willing to go forward with it. But that all flew out the window when there in the cabinet lay the .22 I’ve been looking for. It’s the deluxe model with 7.5-inch barrel. And it was --- get this--- on clearance sale. I could get the deluxe, adjustable-trigger, long-barrel model for less than the base model of the same pistol at Bass Pro. I jumped on it. I also bought a pistol safe I can mount securely.
That evening we started the second half of Season Two of “Grey’s Anatomy”.

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Thursday, 4 January-

I had to get up extra-early this morning to make it to my 0700 maintenance appointment in Mechanicsburg for Labashi’s car. I had planned to wait for it but when we added up all the work to be done it made more sense for me to take the loaner car and come back later. I had originally scheduled it for an oil change and to fix an extra-loud whirr in the power steering system. But once there I remembered Labashi complaining about a rattle in the passenger door and the service manager reminded me I was now within the inspection period (and I get free inspections there) so we added those items on to the service order. The loaner was a 2007 model and I was happy to get a chance to learn I prefer ours (whew!).
That afternoon I rode the Concours down to Rocky Ridge and jogged my end-to-end course. I tried out my Shuffle loaded with a podcast from ExerciseRadio.com. This one was a 129-beat-per-minute series of music selections. I don’t know if it was the music or the expectation that the music should do something for me but I did the course faster than ever before—today a 1:22 when I normally do it somewhere between 1:30 and 1:35. I also OVERdid it. I’ve got to get slower music!
That evening Labashi worked on the web later than normal so I had a great time looking at 80’s music videos on YouTube. ‘Slave to Love’ was always a favorite and I loved seeing ‘Some Like it Hot’ and “In the Air Tonight’ again. But I wasn’t prepared for ‘In a Gadda Da Vida’ live on the Playboy channel (in 1980-whatever). Hugh Hefner asks Iron Butterfly what their name means. And the dancing is, well, energetic. And they cut it short and don’t do the drum solo. Holy frijoles.

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Wednesday, 3 January-

Today I zoomed in to Wal-mart to return the Tuff-Wrap case I had bought yesterday for Labashi’s iPod. Someone had removed the screen cover from the package prior to my purchase and I hadn’t noticed. Afterwards I dropped in at Starbucks to try my new drink. I’m switching to Caffé Americanos. Why in the world did I ever read that nutrition chart for Frappacinos?
Back home I tried out the FM broadcast device I bought yesterday for Labashi’s iPod to transmit to her car radio. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. It does transmit but the only clear channel on FM here is below the range of the TuneCast device. Back it goes.
I used my Shuffle for the first time today and love it. I wore it while replacing some loose and rusty screws in the storage barn hinges and fixed a problem with some of the blackout curtain attachments in Mocha Joe (gotta get ready to go again!).
That night we watched three more “Grey’s Anatomy” episodes.

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Tuesday, 2 January

This morning I called the contractor who had proposed a DeltaMS wall-barrier solution for our drainage problem. I told him we’re going to try another solution (the Multi-flow) and if that doesn’t work, we’ll give him a call. But I also learned his proposal had a problem. He was planning to use the existing footer drain and I already know (and believe I told him) the existing footer drain is blocked by dirt. I think we’re going to have to do this on our own—even if it means digging to the footer and replacing the drainpipe. I’d rather suffer through that than pay an exorbitant amount of money to a contractor only to be unsatisfied with the results.
Labashi had found a specialty syrup (Da Vinci Gourmet Sugar-Free) for our occasional morning low-carb pancakes in a recipe and wanted to give it a try. I spent a few hours making calls to local stores, then woke up and called Da Vinci’s customer service number. Wal-mart has it! Well, actually, Da Vinci has something like 50 flavors and Wal-mart only carries two of them- vanilla and hazelnut. But we only need one. And hazelnut was on the top of our list. Cool!
At Wal-mart I easily found the syrup and thought I’d swing by Electronics and see if they had any cases for Labashi’s Christmas iPod. I found a good Tuff-Wrap case for her and then noticed the iPod Shuffle. In searching for Labashi’s Christmas present I had only considered the larger-capacity nano and (briefly) the video iPod. But this little Shuffle is pretty cool. It has a 1 GB capacity and that should be fine for my limited use. Given its small size, simple controls and built-in clip, it will be great for hiking and jogging. If I ever get around to installing audio in my motorcycle helmet, I can use the Shuffle on longer rides. The Shuffle doesn’t have a screen or clickwheel to allow me to scroll through songs/podcasts but it does allow either random play or sequential play. And it does have skip and fast-forward controls. I can manage how the music and podcasts are presented to me in iTunes before the upload to the iPod. At $79 I can’t see a downside.
The one less-than-great thing about the iPod is getting the music to your car speakers. We have the battery-operated speakers but it seems a shame we can’t just plug in to the car audio system. The car dealer can add an accessory to our radio but wants $330 for that and I’ve seen info saying this accessory doesn’t work with our base-model radio. So today I bought a Belkin TuneCast. This is taking a shot at something that may not work. There are a lot of complaints about all the FM broadcast-style products on review sites.

Monday, 1 January 2007

Happy New Year! We didn’t stay up very late last night but slept in until 0900 this morning and still were slow to get out of bed. Today’s a rainy day so we both spent all day on the web. I was mostly finding and listening to sample podcasts and Labashi was working on her dreams for the living/dining room project. I’m starting to collect podcasts. I’ve subscribed to a few public radio podcasts and believe this is going to work out very well for us while traveling. We can load something from the laptop collection when we can’t connect to the internet and when we’re finally able to connect we’ll get all the latest updates automatically (upon firing up iTunes). Love it!