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

(this post covers 1 through 7 January, 2007)

-----------------------------------------------------------

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.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

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”.

---------------------------------------------------------------

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.

---------------------------------------------------------

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.

-------------------------------------------------------------

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!