Posted inHome life Web/Tech

Verizon outage today was irritating for several reasons

It was a stressful morning in the life of my wife and I, two retired people who usually enjoy a relaxed morning of breakfast, browsing of online news sources, and watching our dog nap after her first meal of the day. But today we had an electrician coming over to install two ceiling fans, and my wife, Laurel, came into my bedroom as I was just getting up, saying "My phone isn't working; I need to use yours to tell the electrician that if he's delayed, to text or call you, since he won't be able to reach me." Looking…
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Posted inTai Chi

Some life lessons from a Tai Chi seminar

I've been practicing Tai Chi for nineteen years, having embraced this internal martial art after twelve years of karate, an external martial art.  In a 2021 post, "Internal martial arts have a lot to teach us," I quoted from a book by Ron Sieh: Typically the martial arts are characterized by how they arrive at power: the external, by muscular effort; the internal, relaxed and effortlessly. All "karates" are considered external, and most of the Chinese arts, plus Judo, Capoeira, and Kali, are lumped into the external category. T'ai Chi Ch'uan, Hsing I Ch'uan, and Pa Kua are the Chinese…
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Posted inSalem

2024 Salem Art Fair is much improved from 2023

The Salem Art Fair and Festival is on an upward trajectory, according to my decidedly personal opinion. After going to the fair every year since I moved to Salem in 1977, enjoying the shady setting under the large oaks in Bush Park, in 2022 the fair had to move to a big grassy field with little shade because the oaks were being damaged due to soil compaction. The title of my July 15, 2022 blog post expressed how I felt about the change: "Salem Art Fair better for trees in new location, but not as pleasant now." It was uncomfortably…
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Posted inSports Television

Watching Oregon – Boise State football game on Peacock was miserable

Last night wasn't pleasant for me, football-watching-wise, for a couple of reasons.  One, the Oregon football team played a crappy game against Boise State, an opponent they were favored to beat by 19 points, but ended up winning 37-34 on a last second field goal. This follows their crappy initial game against Idaho, a team they were expected to beat by around 50 points, but won by only 24-14. Two, the Oregon - Boise State game was on Peacock, NBC's streaming service. We subscribe to Peacock for entertainment, so I had no problem accessing the game at 7 pm via…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Another school shooting shows there’s only one reason: too many damn guns!

Today four people were killed and nine wounded at a high school in Georgia by a 14-year old student there.  According to Wikipedia, as of August 31, so far in 2024 in the United States a total of 527 people have been killed and 1,755 people have been wounded in 432 mass shootings. (Defined as at least four people killed or wounded in an incident.) So this school shooting wasn't anything special, sadly. School shootings just get more attention from the media. I watched some of the coverage as I exercised this afternoon, then listened to MSNBC and CNN discussions…
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