Posted inHealth Home life

Amazon Pharmacy just worked well for me

I'm a big fan of Amazon. Almost am ashamed to admit it, given how huge Amazon is and the many tales of how it screws over employees and businesses it doesn't want competing with its brand products. But there's no doubt that Amazon is amazingly efficient. I have Amazon Prime. My orders arrive promptly, sometimes the next day, with very few errors. It's just so damn easy to get stuff from Amazon instead of heading into town, a 20 minute drive away, and looking for something that may or may not be on a store shelf. Plus, I get a…
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Posted inEntertainment Television

I like to watch TV with subtitles on. Half of Americans agree with me.

My wife, Laurel, and I agree about most things. That's one reason we've been married for 33 years. But we differ when it comes to watching television with subtitles (a.k.a. closed captioning) on.  I enjoy subtitles considerably more than Laurel does. So when I'm watching on my own, I almost always turn subtitles on, especially with streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. With sporting events and news programs, I usually leave subtitles off. Though I'm 75, firmly in the Baby Boomer generation, not being able to hear dialog isn't why I like subtitles. I can hear what actors are saying…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Oregon needs to bury more power lines. But here’s why we won’t.

I have a friend who was born in Germany. She tells me that in Europe, almost all power lines are buried. She can't understand why here in Oregon, so many power lines are strung along wooden poles -- a "technology" dating from the 1800's when telegraph lines used the same approach. After every major disastrous weather event in our area, such as the high winds and freezing rain that caused massive problems in the Portland area recently, along with freezing rain that decimated the Eugene area, there's calls for our power companies (PGE and Pacific Power, mainly) to do a…
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Posted inSalem

Statesman Journal screws up Salem’s Tuesday ice storm forecast

I'm seeing a pattern here. Last Saturday I wrote a post, "Portland's Channel 12 gets Salem freezing rain annoyingly wrong." My gripe was that Channel 12's Mark Nelsen said that Salem and other parts of the central Willamette Valley easily could get an inch of freezing rain on Saturday, January 13. That, Nelson added, could produce widespread power outages on the magnitude of the Great Ice Storm of 2021.  Actually, the National Weather Service was forecasting much less freezing rain for the Salem area. That turned out to be correct, as there was little freezing rain in our area on…
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Posted inHome life Salem

Portland’s Channel 12 got Salem freezing rain annoyingly wrong

Being a weather geek of sorts, I'm well aware that forecasting is an uncertain science. It's about probabilities and models, not mathematical precision.  All I ask is that professional weather forecasters recognize when they can be wrong, and communicate that to the public as clearly as possible.  Which Mark Nelsen, the main KPTV weather guy at Portland's Channel 12, failed to do Friday night, the day before today's winter storm was to hit Oregon. This annoyed me. After all, on Thursday I'd written this blog post: "Among Saturday forecasts for snow and ice, I'm hoping the NWS is correct." It…
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Posted inHome life Salem

Among Saturday forecasts for snow and ice, I’m hoping the NWS is correct

I've been experiencing post-traumatic stress from our area's horrible Great Ice Storm of 2021. Our rural south Salem property had a huge amount of tree damage. I measured ice 5/8 of an inch thick.  Now snow and ice are being forecasted again for the Willamette Valley. Yikes!  I've been doomscrolling my iPhone's weather apps and the National Weather Service web site forecast for Salem (and our specific location near the Ankeny Wildlife Refuge).  I thought it'd be interesting to share those forecasts for next Saturday, January 13, which is when the bulk of snow and ice is supposed to hit…
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Posted inHome life

Our Generac whole house generator worked great on its first outage

Well, like many things in life, we got what we paid for. It cost us quite a bit to have a Generac generator installed at our rural south Salem house last March, as I described in "We get a Generac whole house generator after the ice storm trauma." The ice storm was in February 2021, so we didn't exactly jump into the Generac decision, since it took us two years to decide on a generator upgrade from our 7,000 watt Honda generator that was a lot better than nothing, yet not nearly as powerful and convenient as the 24,000 watt…
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Posted inEntertainment Television

Here’s how our (not so) wild New Year’s Eve went

If you think that your New Year's Eve was mild, not wild, in comparison to how others celebrated the last day of 2023, take heart: likely our night was just as unexciting. We did go out. To a neighbor's house. Which took a whole three minutes of driving. (They have a really long driveway out here in rural south Salem; otherwise it would have been quicker.) The get-together started at 6:30 pm. Most of the attendees were old, so there's no way we were going to party on until midnight.  After snacks and conversation, Pictionary took center stage. Laurel, my…
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Posted inSports

Bo Nix and Oregon football end on a high note

Us Oregon fans needed today's 45-6 victory over outmatched Liberty University in the Fiesta Bowl after two narrow losses to Washington prevented the Ducks from winning the Pac-12 championship and having a chance to make the four-team national championship playoff. I was confident that Oregon would defeat Liberty, notwithstanding the fervent prayers that folks at this deeply conservative Christian school must have been directing at the Big Guy Upstairs to aid them in staging an upset victory over the team from dissolute Eugene. Didn't happen. The only religious mention I heard at the Fiesta Bowl was when Oregon quarterback Bo…
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