Posted inHome life

Ten reasons I like our 2014 Highlander more than our 2006 Highlander

My wife and I have been happy Toyota Highlander Hybrid owners since we bought one in 2006. We got the base version, rather than the Limited, figuring that we already were spending extra on the hybrid technology. This year we decided to buy a new Highlander. Our 2006 was in good shape; we've had no mechanical problems with it. It just had some annoying limitations which, after a test drive, we could tell were missing from the 2014 model. After about a month of driving our Crème Brulee Mica XLE (great color, by the way), I'll share ten reasons why I'm…
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Posted inHome life

I install Seismolatch earthquake latches. And feel good about it.

My wife and I live in western Oregon, earthquake country. The "Big One" is due. Maybe overdue. But even a smaller earthquake can do a lot of damage. Seven years ago we had our house retrofitted to make it better able to withstand a major earthquake. Back in 1974, when the house was built, earthquake-ready building standards weren't as rigorous as they are now.  However, recently it dawned on us how unprepared our kitchen cabinets were. Including -- gasp! -- the cabinet where we keep our modest "wine cellar" (eleven bottles at the moment).  If we ever have to suffer…
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Posted inHealth Home life

My colonoscopy goes better with propofol and Suprep

Colonoscopies aren't fun. But they're really important to have, because colon cancer is a lot less fun. Yesterday I had my third colonoscopy. It was the most pleasant of all. I'll explain why below.  First, though, I'm pleased to retract what I said five years ago in my post, "Think twice about getting a colonoscopy in Salem (Oregon)." Things have changed for the better at Salem Gastroenterology Consultants.  I had my first (2009) and second (2011) colonoscopies elsewhere after being turned off by Salem Gastro's two-full-day prep period. Also, by not being given a good reason for this unusual protocol…
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Posted inHome life Salem

Behold my astounding senior citizen snow shoveling

I am freaking proud of myself. Snow shoveling-wise. By the powers vested in me by, well, ME, I hereby declare myself the winner of Salem, Oregon's Snowpocalypse 2014 Over 65 Driveway Clearing Championship, Hand-Wielded Snow Shovel Division. Walking around our neighborhood's streets here in rural south Salem, I saw several other cleared driveways. But tractor tracks showed this was accomplished with a mechanized method. Me, I'm old style. The past couple of days we've gotten a bit over 9 inches of snow. That's a lot for the mid-Willamette Valley. We've lived out here for 24 years. I can't remember ever…
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Posted inHome life Salem

Oregon snowstorm turns our yard into Narnia

WIth a little help from my iPhone app friend, Aviary, I captured the Narnia'ish look of our rural south Salem yard late this afternoon, after about two inches of snow had fallen.  Original photo below, for realists. It's been about 23 degrees all day. Not that cold by midwest polar vortex standards, but pretty damn cold for the usually temperate mid-Willamette Valley. Positive side: for obvious reasons I got motivated this morning to finally exchange the bad battery in our Honda generator for the replacement battery that I'd bought quite a few months ago.  Amazingly, after the battery had sat…
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Posted inHome life

Beautiful display of an Oregon mushroom “forest”

I don't know much about mushrooms. Especially wild ones. But I know beauty when I see it. Last November my wife, Laurel, snapped these iPhone photos of mushrooms doing their thing after a tree fell on our rural south Salem property. Most amazing mushroom display I've ever seen. (click image to enlarge)
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Posted inHome life

Here’s the Hines 2013 Christmas Letter — not unduly uplifting

Shameful admission: for a few brief seconds this year I actually thought about not writing a 2013 Christmas Letter.  Laurel and I share so much on Facebook and my blog, went through my mind. Haven't we already shared enough dog, granddaughter, and longboarding photos? But there was an immediate next thought: Nyah, of course not! So I got into the Christmas Letter writing spirit a few days ago and dashed out this:Download 2013 Christmas Letter PDF To relieve anxiety among people who fear that this is one of those dreadfully positive and uplifting Christmas letters, fear not. We start out…
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Posted inFamily Home life

My Metolius River tubing video goes anti-viral on You Tube

Wow! I'm an anti-viral You Tube sensation! After finally getting around to putting up a video of me, my granddaughter, and her parents tubing down the beautiful Metolius River last August, in less than a day I've already gotten... (drum roll, please)... 4 views! All of which, of course, are the result of me checking again, and again, and again, and again, to see how the video looks.  Have a look. Make me even more ecstatic. Let's go for 5. Then -- dare I hope? -- 6, 7, 8, 9, to who knows? Don't mathematicians say the number of integers…
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Posted inHome life StreetStrider

StreetStrider — my new fun non-traditional exercise

Here's a hot-off-the-iPhone photo of my Christmas present to myself, which I opened early. A StreetStrider, which is an outdoor elliptical bike. It's on a hitch rack that is made for the unusual machine -- two wheels in front, one in back. I decided to get a StreetStrider to supplement my other non-traditional outdoor exercise, senior citizen land paddling on a longboard/skateboard. (You can peruse my land paddling blog posts here; scroll down for earlier ones.) Longboard land paddling is a lot of fun. Most of the time. Not so much, though, when Oregon storms leave the Minto Brown Island…
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Posted inDogs Home life

Our 14 year old dog teaches me about thankfulness

Serena, a.k.a. our Wonder Dog, reportedly is a Millenium pup, born on January 1, 2000. We got her from a man in Portland when she was a year old. Great deal. Serena is priceless, yet cost us only $75.  She doesn't look like she did in her younger days. But heck, who does? Surely not me. Being almost fourteen, Serena is something like 100 years old in dog time. Serena is a Shepherd/Lab mix (her sisters looked like black labs; we were thrilled to get a kind-of German Shepherd-looking dog with a laid back Lab personality -- great combination). Her back…
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Posted inHome life Retirement community

I’m 65. Where’s my “Aging Hippie” retirement community?

My wife and I are starting to ponder our options when coping with our non-easy-care house on ten rural acres near Salem, Oregon gets to be too much of a chore for us. Some days, I feel like that day already has arrived. We've got a large early 1970's house; something regularly goes wrong. We've got a large yard in addition to the ten acres; something regularly needs attending to -- leaves, mowing, pruning, whatever. But we're healthy (albeit with a few nagging problems). And maintaining our house and property helps keep us that way. We just are looking ahead…
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Posted inHealth Home life

Strange questions in my first Medicare physical exam

I'm loving Medicare -- am doing my best to belly up to the bar of oh-so-sweet Government Healthcare as often as I can since I became Medicare-eligible October 1. Having signed up for Regence of Oregon's Medicare Advantage, I can toss down even more benefits. Like vision and dental. So I've had an eye exam; bought new contact lenses; gotten a teeth cleaning; and, yesterday, my first Medicare-paid annual physical exam. Sweet.  If only this terrific single payer insurance was available to everyone in the country. But Republicans wanted their Romneycare, which became Obamacare, which is a heck of a…
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Posted inHealth Home life

Cover Oregon worked for us — much better than Regence

Yesterday my wife had no trouble signing up for a Silver LIfewise health insurance plan through Cover Oregon. So, yay, Obamacare!  True, Laurel didn't sign up online, which isn't possible yet. She tried soon after Cover Oregon went live October 1. Didn't get very far. Couldn't even find a Certified Agent via the web site who could enroll her. Search turned up nothing, even for Salem. But now the "Agent Search" page seems to be working fine. My wife met yesterday afternoon with someone from Valley Insurance Professionals, which has several Certified Agents. She came home satisfied. Especially compared with…
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Posted inHome life

Trying to be positive as DirecTV lacks Pac-12 Network

When I realized that both the Oregon State and Oregon football games today only were being shown on the Pac-12 Network, I leaned toward spending my weekend cursing DirecTV. After all, DISH has come to terms with the Pac-12 Network, along with most cable outfits. This is the second football season I've been irritated, annoyed, and otherwise pissed-off at DirecTV (see previous blog post blasts here and here). My first thought was to come up with more creative curses to direct at DirecTV. Yiddish tradition has some pretty good ones that I could embellish. (Though I was thinking along more…
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Posted inHome life

How to find your lost car keys

I learned a valuable lesson this week: how to find car keys. The method is simple. Order an expensive replacement key. Here's how I found this out after losing a key. I can't remember exactly how much the parts guy at Portland's Mini Cooper dealership said a replacement key fob and programming would run me. About $450, my shocked mind recalls. It used to be that you'd take your extra car key to a locksmith and get another key. Those days are long gone in the pre-electronic past. I enjoy being able to lock, unlock, and start my 2011 Mini…
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Posted inHome life

When the wife’s away… this old guy goes wild!

Oh, yeah. I may be almost Medicare-eligible, but when my wife goes away on a four-day family reunion trip, I still know how to let loose and get it on!  (That sounds like a '60's term, "get it on," the decade, not the age; can't be sure; at my age I'm forgetful about everything except how damn old I am.) And you know what? I don't even mind if my wife reads what I'm about to say. Hey, we've got that kind of marriage. She knows that as soon as she heads off to the airport, I'm going to... party!…
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Posted inDogs Home life

Our dogs and their “mini-me” felt pet portraits (by Amelia Makes Art)

Today the Salem Statesman Journal's "Pet Click" feature ran an adorable photo of our dogs, Zu Zu and Serena.  Here is how they looked in the paper. And here is the SJ web site version. Laurel, my wife, posed them with their "mini-me's" -- felt art portraits/sculptures marvelousluy fashioned by Amelia, of Amelia Makes Art. Interestingly, Amelia does her animal art thing (also cats, pigs, horses, maybe others) close-by, in northwest Portland. We can highly recommend her to anyone who wants a unique "portrait" of a pet.  This was Laurel's birthday present. She instantly fell in love with Amelia's work…
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Posted inDogs Home life

If you set off loud fireworks, you’re terrifying dogs

Here's a simple fact, lovers of loud fireworks: your enjoyment is being bought at the price of animal pain. Many dogs are terrified of fireworks. So also, I'm sure, are wild animals -- deer, birds, raccoons, etc. On behalf of our dog, Zu Zu, I just want you to be aware of what you're doing when you set off loud fireworks. I can't inject a sense of compassion into your fireworks-loving brain, though I sure wish I could. I just want to speak for the stressed-out dogs who can't write a blog post. And even if Zu Zu could, (she's a…
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Posted inHome life Humor

Even with my Ninja Fan, I don’t look much like a Geisha

As noted in a post about my visit to the 2013 World Beat Festival here in Salem, I bought an $8 Ninja Fan at a booth in the Asia Pacific area.  (this is the metal version of the plastic fan I got) For a long time I've wanted a fan. My Tai Chi instructor knows a fan form, which looks really cool when he does it. The fan snaps open and shut in harmony with his movements. After all, fans can be weapons. However, when I had a photo of me and my new fan taken by a Statesman Journal…
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Posted inHome life Skateboarding

Strange creature roaming Minto Brown Park is… me!

My secret is out. Entirely willfully. Because I wrote the Salem Weekly Strange Up Salem column that begins with: Have you heard the rumor? Of a strange creature roaming the trails of Minto Brown Island Park. It’s like nothing seen before. Fortunately, it elicits smiles rather than screams. The rumor is true, because I am that creature. A senior citizen skateboarder. More than that: a longboard skateboarder who propels himself on flats and mild uphills by pushing with a stick, not his foot. I’ve gotten pretty damn good at this, a super-fun activity called land paddling. I mention my longboard…
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