Posted inHome life

“But you already have a … ”

When Laurel walked in the door I figured that I should state the obvious, since the contents of the box that had just arrived from Amazon were scattered on the counter and a new battery obviously was merrily charging away in the new charger. “I got a new camera.” Then I heard the words that every woman must learn to recite in When You Become a Wife school: “But you already have a _____ .” Laurel filled in the blank with “camera.” In the past it has been “computer,” “cell phone,” “GPS receiver,” “atomic watch,” and the names of other…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

Icon envy?

If you have a weblog or web site, do you have icon envy? When your beloved cyber-creation loads in a web browser, does the address bar just show a bland generic icon next to your URL? Have you ever thought to yourself, “I’d be so much happier if I had an icon of my own?” Until recently I answered “yes” to each of those questions. Now you likely can see (if you’ve got Firefox) that I’ve got my own HinesSight “H” favicon (favorites icon) proudly displayed. With a few fairly easy steps, you can have your own favicon just like…
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Posted inDogs

Bad Dog Police case file: Serena

Date of report: 4-26-05. Location: South Salem Alleged violation: excessive digging Suspect: Serena, a Shepherd/Lab mix, a.k.a. “Wonder Dog” Dispatcher notes: Received call at 4:15 pm from man identifying himself as suspect’s owner. Said his dog needed to be scared straight. Incoherent babbling about “rooting!, rooting!” made it difficult to determine details of situation. Assigned case level 1 priority; determined address and forwarded to Bad Dog officer in area. Officer notes: 4:32 p.m., arrived at suspect’s home. Met in driveway by excited owner who kept saying, “She’s over there! Hurry, before she licks off the evidence!” Followed owner around side…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

“Return to the One” reviewed in Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Soon after my book about the Greek mystic philosopher Plotinus was published, I sent a copy off to the Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Since I managed to write “Return to the One” without any formal education in the classics or Greek philosophy, I figured it would be cool to even have a chance of being reviewed by an entity that “publishes timely reviews of current scholarly work in the field of classical studies.” Yesterday I decided to see if a review had been posted. My timing was excellent. A review by Dr. G.S. Bowe of Bilkent University had just appeared.…
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Posted inDogs

Dog news flash: Retriever retrieves!

More accurately, this headline should read: “Half-retriever retrieves!” That’s why this story, documented by the photo, is such big news for us. For we have spent the past four and a half years with Serena, a Shepherd/Lab mix, whose independent German side overshadows her compliant retriever side when it comes to bringing balls and sticks back to Laurel and me (see “What you’re missing if you don’t have a dog” for details of my Buddy Ball travails). Lately we’d noticed that Serena had become even more retrieving-resistant than usual. Partly this was due to the allure of spring smells, notably…
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Posted inEntertainment

“Fever Pitch”

I enjoyed seeing “Fever Pitch” last Monday afternoon in an actual movie theatre, where the picture was considerably larger than the DVDs we normally watch on our TV and the sound system was much louder. Apparently hearing aid manufacturers have an under-the-table agreement with Regal Theatres to ratchet the decibels up to dangerous levels instead of forthrightly buying pre-movie ads, because the four thousand or so previews we were forced to view before “Fever Pitch” started made me wish that I had brought along earplugs—which Laurel had, always-prepared woman that she is. My visiting sister and brother-in-law were ensconced in…
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Posted inFamily

Lori Ferguson of Concord CA, read this

Are you Lori Ferguson, born June 12, 1990, who lives in Concord, California, and whose parents are Cathy and Steve Ferguson? (Or do you know Lori? If so, pass this message on to her). I’ve got a message for you about your grandparents, whom you haven’t seen since December 1999..

Bob_and_carol_ann_gray
Lori, I’m your great-uncle Brian. Yesterday I took this photo of your grandfather and grandmother—Bob and Carol Ann Gray—in front of the lilacs at our home in Salem, Oregon. They’ve been visiting my wife, Laurel, and me. We’ve talked, as we always do, about how much they would like to see you, to talk with you, to get a letter from you. Any connection with you would be better than nothing.

As I’m sure you know, since 2000 your mother and father have refused to let Bob and Carol Ann have any sort of contact with you and your brother, Bo. To put it bluntly, this is cruel and unusual punishment for grandparents. They love you a lot. This enforced separation has caused them a lot of pain.

You’re old enough to make your own decision about whether you want to see your grandparents again. I hope you’ll choose to contact them. Their phone number in Walnut Creek is 925-939-1474. Their email address is randcagray@comcast.net. It’s time, long past time, to bring you together with them.

I’ve still got a stack of correspondence from your mother and grandmother about the family rift that led to this hugely unfortunate situation. I tried to serve as a go-between. Obviously I didn’t succeed.

Lori, I have no idea what your parents have told you about why they don’t want you to see your grandparents again. And I’m not going to make any judgments about who is right and who is wrong here. My personal impression is that your mother made a big deal out of a small misunderstanding.

I’ll end with some excerpts from a letter I wrote to your mother on March 20, 2000 (see continuation to this post). Please read them with an open mind. I spoke my own mind quite strongly. I didn’t intend then, nor do I intend now, to disparage your mother’s and father’s religious beliefs, which you might share. I just wanted to have them do some thinking about what it means to be truly spiritual.

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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

Google God, your blessings overwhelm me

As the saying goes, “Be careful of what you wish for, since you may get it.” Previously I have prayed that the great Google God would grace me with a multitude of hits, allowing me to know that my weblog labors are bearing fruit in the garden of the blogosphere. And now, ever since Google Images indexed some photos that I included in a “The Tao of Paris Hilton” post, my Google cup runneth over. Whereas previously daily visitors to HinesSight typically numbered in the hundreds, now my weblog statistics reveal that it is in the thousands—today, over eight thousand,…
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Posted inNeighborhood

Wildfire risk-assessing on a rainy day

I told our dog, “Serena, do you see all those people with clipboards walking around our yard? They’re looking for canine rooters, dogs who root around in tall grass looking for field mice until their noses are brown with dirt and their lips are raw. Could you be one of the dogs they’re looking for?” Well, it was worth a try. Serena is going to lose all the hair on her muzzle if she doesn’t moderate her Spring obsession with rooting up newly active (and, sadly, probably newly born) rodents. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to be wary of our clipboard-toting…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Join the Unitarian Jihad

Laurel and I are proud to report that we have committed to the Unitarian Jihad, whose first communiqué has been reported by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Jon Carroll. Here’s an excerpt: We are Unitarian Jihad. We will appear in public places and require people to shake hands with each other. (Sister Hand Grenade of Love suggested that we institute a terror regime of mandatory hugging, but her motion was not formally introduced because of lack of a quorum.) We will require all lobbyists, spokesmen and campaign managers to dress like trout in public. Televangelists will be forced to take jobs…
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Posted inBooks Plotinus Writing/Weblogs

Anxiously analyzing Amazon’s text stats

Just what I didn’t need the first “work” (using that term in a writer’s sense, extremely loosely) day after a relaxing vacation in Maui. In the course of checking on my book’s miniscule sales status, I discovered that the geniuses at Amazon.com have added some new features to their already filled-to-the-gills web site that can make an author anxious: Readability statistics for books included in their Search Inside the Book program (where authors/publishers send Amazon a book to be scanned, after which every darn word can be searched for and sample pages perused). Plus a concordance of the 100 most…
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Posted inHome life

Lows and highs of being home again

Coming home to 55 degree Oregon after twelve days in 78 degree Maui is a shock. Waking up moderately jet-lagged this morning revealed the lows and highs of returning from vacation. Low. The refrigerator is disturbingly empty. Low. The grass is scarily high. Low. The mower that cuts the grass chose this day to break a belt. Low. The suitcase filled with recently-bought shirts that are a mass of wrinkles owing to my poor folding skills (see post below). An ironing board is in my destiny. High! Serena survived the kennel, where she was appropriately given a Hawaiian-themed bandana to…
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Posted inRecreation

Final report from Maui

I’m almost packed for the flight home tomorrow. I have gone from clothing-deprived (see April 1 “How to get a man shopping” post) to Hawaiian Airlines bag overweight-likely. Laurel too. We’ve acquired a small, in retrospect, too small, extra bag to check into which we’ve crammed the heaviest items that otherwise would go in our suitcases. The last time we flew home from Maui we not so brilliantly managed to pay overweight charges on both our suitcases, our excessively mellow minds not being able to fathom that if we simply took a few heavy things out of one suitcase and…
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Posted inRecreation

More photos from Maui

Reporting from the shores of Napili Bay, I am pleased to announce that Laurel was whistled at during her morning walk around Kapalua and the Ritz Carlton. She humbly told me that she was whistled at from behind, but I assured her that, even at the age of 56, her front is well worth being whistled at also. Here’s Laurel at dusk in front of the amazing waterfall at the Grand Wailea Hotel which, admittedly, would look a lot more amazing if the camera flash had reached it. We went to Kihei and Wailea yesterday and enjoyed walking around the…
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Posted inRecreation

Boogie boarding do’s and don’ts

For a haole (non-Hawaiian/Caucasian) visiting Maui, my boogie boarding style is not bad—particularly for a 56 year-old Oregon guy. So, before I wipe out and crush my skull on a reef rock, I want to share some of the boogie boarding wisdom I’ve accumulated over several decades of warm-water vacationing. First and most important: look good before you set out for the beach. Who knows, the surf may be down and you’ll spend the whole day sitting on your beach mat. You want to look like a boogie boarder even if you’re not boogieing. Here I’m modeling, from top to…
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Posted inRecreation

How to get a man shopping

Ladies, I’m sure you’ve asked yourself, “How can I get my man to love shopping as much as I do?” Admit it: you enjoy being with him, but it’s a drag when you’re just getting warmed up after hitting a dozen stores and he’s starting to whine, “Honey, can we go home now, I’m all shopped out.” I have an answer for you. At least, an answer for when the two of you go on vacation. After he has finished packing his suitcase, open it up and take most of his clothes out. That way, when you arrive at your…
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