Posted inLiving with a catheter

After eight years of using a urinary catheter, TURP is planned due to improved bladder function

In May 2017 I had a serious urine retention episode -- unable to pee, more bluntly put -- that kicked off a lengthy period of depression and anxiety due to the difficulty I had with needing to insert a catheter five times a day, since I couldn't urinate on my own. Not at all. Not even a drop. My urologist told me that smooth bladder muscle doesn't recover from an injury as regular muscle can. So I'd need to use an intermittent catheter for the rest of my life. Which wasn't a cheery prospect. But as the years passed, I…
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Posted inHealth

I chose ATRIO Medicare Advantage after Providence dumped me, but wished for more options

For eleven years after I became eligible for Medicare at age 65, I was mostly happy with my Regence Medicare Advantage plan. But near the end of 2024 Regence was enmeshed in a contract dispute with Salem Health. Since I wasn't going to take a chance on not having in-network coverage for Salem's dominant health care provider, I switched to Providence Medicare Advantage in 2025. Then I got a letter from Providence a few weeks ago saying they weren't offering my plan in Marion County for 2026. No reason was given. I'm guessing that Providence wanted a higher fee schedule…
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Posted inSports

Why a favored sports team losing hurts almost as much as physical pain

I don't follow professional baseball very closely. I'm much more of a college baseball fan, the Oregon State Beavers being my favorite team. But since the Seattle Mariners are the closest professional baseball team to Oregon, I was rooting for them to beat the Toronto Blue Jays for the American League Championship, especially since Seattle had never made it to the World Series. When the Mariners lost 4-3 yesterday in the deciding game of the Seattle-Toronto series, after taking a 3-1 lead into the bottom of the seventh inning, I was only mildly disappointed. I could understand the pain felt…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem Weblogs

Les Zaitz of Salem Reporter advises “Don’t trust the media!” at City Club talk

Last Friday Les Zaitz, the editor and CEO of Salem Reporter (our town's digital-only news source), gave a talk to the Salem City Club with the surprising title, "DON'T trust the media!" But what Zaitz meant by "media" is an expanded conception that reflects the fractured media landscape now. The day is long gone when Walter Cronkite would say at the end of his evening network news program, "And that's the way it is," followed by the date of the broadcast. These days, the way it is depends on what media source you're getting news from. Fox News may have…
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Posted inWeb/Tech Weblogs

How I went wrong in verifying my domain names with the DNS option in Google Search Console

I'm not an internet neophyte. My first personal computer was an Apple II+. At least, I think that's what its name was, so much time has passed. I started using the world wide web as soon as a dial-up log in became available through the city library here in Salem, Oregon. I've been blogging since 2002, a near-eternity in internet years. But while I'm competent with using and maintaining a computer, when it comes to the technical aspects of HTML, DNS, and other acronyms whose inner workings still largely mystify me, I've got a hell of a lot to learn.…
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Posted inSports

Oregon beats Penn State in thrilling football game (thanks to my granddaughter)

This evening the sixth-ranked University of Oregon defeated third-ranked Penn State 30-24 in two overtimes. Oregon football coach Dan Lanning said "“I think that’s the best game I’ve ever been a part of. Regardless of who won.” No argument there. It was one of the best games I've ever seen, for sure. When Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman intercepted a pass by Penn State quarterback Drew Allar in the second overtime, the game was over and Thieneman celebrated by running down the field with the ball tucked under his right arm. I felt almost as happy as Thieneman did. The game…
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Posted inEntertainment

Portland’s KATU won’t show return of Jimmy Kimmel. Here’s how to complain.

I was happy when I learned yesterday that ABC is bringing back the Jimmy Kimmel show tonight, Tuesday, September 23, after being suspended for a week after Kimmel made a joke about how the MAGA folks are worried about the killer being one of them. But today I was deeply irked when it was announced that Portland's KATU, our local ABC affiliate, wouldn't be airing the Kimmel show because the station's corporate overlord is the Sinclair Broadcast Group. An Oregonian story says: Jimmy Kimmel is set to be back on the air Tuesday night, but Portland’s KATU is among the…
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Posted inWeblogs

I’m a Typepad refugee. I’m enjoying my new WordPress home.

It's got all the makings of a tragedy. A man -- let's call him me, because that's who he is -- finds a blogging home at Typepad in 2003 after briefly trying another platform and finding it lacking. For about two decades Typepad and I got along fine. They took my annual fee. I found their services likable, albeit lacking in some features I wanted, such as the ability for visitors to edit comments they left on what eventually became three blogs. Then our relationship took a downturn. In 2020 Typepad stopped accepting new customers. Not a good sign. Rumors…
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Posted inMiscellany Writing/Weblogs

“Sketched Out” is a great pictorial take on AI and art in the New York Times magazine

How is AI going to affect art? This important question is addressed creatively, thoughtfully, and, yes, artistically, by Christoph Niemann in a special recent issue of the New York Times Magazine, Learning to Live with AI. My wife subscribes to the Sunday New York Times, so I was able to see Niemann’s piece — a combination of sketches and words — in the print edition. Since I’m a subscriber to the digital New York Times, here’s a gift link to “Sketched Out” that should work for subscribers and non-subscribers alike. To whet your appetite for reading/viewing the piece, I’ll share…
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Posted inWeblogs

My migration from Typepad to WordPress is complete, thanks to Glorywebs

Today I left this 5-star Google review about my experience with Glorywebs, a tech firm based in India with a presence in the United States. After Typepad, my blogging service, announced that it was shutting down on September 30, 2025, I contacted Glorywebs for help in migrating my three blogs with 8,400 posts and 12,000 photos into the WordPress platform. In a bit more than a week Glorywebs provided me with three well-functioning WordPress blogs that have all of my exported Typepad content. The Glorywebs team was a pleasure to work with. Responsive, knowledgeable, easy to communicate with. And they…
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Posted inWeblogs

Glorywebs is a great choice if you’re migrating a blog from Typepad to WordPress

On August 27, Typepad, my long-time blogging service, announced that they're shutting down on September 30, 2025. Like lots of other Typepad bloggers, that announcement of just a window of a bit over a month to save blog content kicked off my search for expert help in migrating a large number of posts and photos from Typepad into WordPress, the premier blogging platform. I have about 8,400 posts and 10,000 photos on my three blogs, Church of the Churchless, HinesSight, and Salem Political Snark. I'm computer literate but in no way did I consider myself competent to handle this migration.…
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Posted inWeblogs

The agony and the ecstasy of Typepad, my blogging service, shutting down

The past week feels a lot like a divorce, something I experienced in 1989 when the woman I'd been married to for 18 years and I split up.  [There is supposed to be the Typepad logo here, but Typepad no longer will publish blog posts with images, at least for me, so I had to delete it.] In this current case, the split-up is between me and Typepad, the blogging service that I've used for 22 years. Just as with my first wife, the divorce was the culmination of a lengthy period in which two parties steadily grew more distant…
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Posted inHome life

We got a TOTO bidet. Using the toilet is much more pleasant.

Life is stressful these days. Well, actually, life always is stressful to some extent. It just seems that the state of our nation and the world is more distressing now. So I'll take comfort and relaxation wherever I can find it. Including when I sit on the toilet in the bathroom that I use the most, being adjacent to my bedroom. (My wife, Laurel, and I sleep separately.)  A few weeks ago Laurel had the bright idea of getting a bidet. She'd gotten back from visiting relatives in Indiana who had a bidet. Laurel didn't try it, but they praised…
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Posted inWeblogs

Typepad shutting down on September 30. I’m crushed, but not surprised.

It hurts. There's no other way to say it. I've been blogging on Typepad since 2003. So when I sleepily looked at my email inbox early this morning and saw the subject line "Important Notice -- Typepad Shutdown  Announcement," I both woke up and felt distressed instantly.  I have three blogs with about 8,400 posts. My whole life, or at least my life since 2003, is reflected in those posts. Losing all that content would really bother me. This is what I told Typepad support back in March of this year, as reported in "Typepad told me they aren't going…
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Posted inEntertainment

I came to Game of Thrones late. But I loved the series once I got into it.

Don't know how many people there are like me -- someone who heard of Game of Thrones when it first aired in 2011, took a quick look at it, and decided it wasn't for them. Probably quite a few. These are the folks I'm writing this blog post for, because earlier this year I had an urge to give Game of Thrones another chance. After watching the first few episodes of Season 1 on HBO Max,  I became so addicted to the series that was all I watched during my "me" time every day until I'd gotten through all 73…
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Posted inSalem

Englewood Forest Festival was a delightful Salem experience

Today Laurel, my wife, and I headed off to the Englewood Forest Festival at Englewood Park in NE Salem. Amazingly, I don't think we'd ever been to the festival in all the years we've lived here.  Our loss. Because the festival was a delight. The towering trees really do make it seem like the festival is in a forest, albeit an urban one. Once we'd parked, which was kind of an adventure given the narrow streets and number of people attending the one-day event, we browsed the many booths that line the park paths. Pleasingly, it appeared that organizers keep…
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Posted inGrowing older Humor

Hearing “right on” from a young clerk, I thank her for keeping hippie lingo alive

To establish my credentials for writing about hippie lingo of the 1960's, I present into evidence this photo of me that dates from the late 60's during my yoga phase, which followed my psychedelic phase. It was taken (unposed, I should add) by a friend from my childhood home who had sponsored a gathering where I led a group in some yoga postures and meditation.  To add to my hippie credentials, I wish to point out that I went to college from 1966-71 at what I liked to call the "Stanford of the South Bay," San Jose State College, so…
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Posted inSalem

Wow! Bentley Michaels has performed 3,000 times at Enchanted Forest Theatre

The Enchanted Forest theme park, Salem's charming local version of Disneyland, has been a part of my life since I moved to Salem in 1977 with my wife at the time, Sue, and my five year old daughter, Celeste.  We'd go to Enchanted Forest often. After my granddaughter, Evelyn, was born to Celeste and her husband, Patrick, in 2007, it didn't take long before Evelyn was enjoying Enchanted Forest as much as Celeste did when she was young. And Evelyn was living in southern California, close to Disneyland. Didn't matter. Enchanted Forest has a unique quality, born of the love…
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Posted inStarlink

Global Starlink outage shows peril of relying on giant tech companies

When Starlink, Space X's satellite internet service, is working, it's a gigantic plus for people like me who have no other viable broadband options. But when Starlink goes offline, as it did today, it can be a huge pain. As I've learned over the past 4 1/2 years after I became a beta tester soon after Starlink was rolled out, when it comes to troubleshooting, users are pretty much on their own -- at least initially. There's no phone number to call for customer support. You have to put in a support ticket via the Starlink app. Sometimes those are…
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Posted inDogs Home life

Our dog misses my wife, but she’s putting up with me

Mooka, our Husky mix, is considerably more attached to my wife, Laurel, than she is to me. Laurel does the dog training. Laurel takes Mooka for her favorite morning walk. Laurel takes Mooka to the dog park, another favorite place.  I feed Mooka in the late afternoon and give her a pre-dinner walk most days. But I'm under no illusion about who is the Alpha in Mooka's mind. It's Laurel. So when Laurel left last Friday for a four day trip to Indiana to see her relatives, I knew that Mooka wasn't going to be thrilled about being left with…
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