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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Posted inDogs Home life

Behold! A breathtaking dog frenzy on a Metolius River walk.

Our youngest dog, Zu Zu, sometimes goes into a Dog Frenzy. On a walk along the Metolius River in central Oregon, I was fortunate to have been making an iPhone video with Socialcam (great app) when Zu Zu went into a frenzy. It's shown near the end of my four-minute video, "Metolius River dog frenzy," which also features scenes of the beautiful spring-fed river and Zu Zu exhibiting her agility dog ability in some water'y stick fetching.   After an extensive five minutes or so of You Tube research, I am prepared to boldly claim that this is the most…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Home life

Praise be to obsessively committed citizen activists

A few weeks back I was asked by a reporter, "Do you think you're going to make a difference?" Then we talked about why I've been so intensely focused on trying to save the last two beautiful US Bank trees in downtown Salem (three have been cut down for no good reason; there is even less reason than that to kill the remaining trees).  I didn't get much of a chance to answer that first question, other than to say "Sure." After spending a few hours yesterday listening to Thom Hartmann, a progressive radio talk show host and author, speak…
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Posted inHome life

Skin biopsy unleashes my inner anxious Woody Allen

I can't recall what Woody Allen movie this scene was in, but the image has stuck in my mind. Allen's neurotic character is worried about some health problem that his over-anxious mind has convinced him is deadly serious. After a visit to his doctor, where he gets good news about his condition, Allen skips down the sidewalk happily saying "I'm not going to die! I'm not going to die!" Then he stops, get a worried expression on his face, and intones... "Yet." This closely mirrors my psychological state after I went in for a yearly dermatological exam last Monday. The…
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Posted inHome life

Irritating: United Airlines’ constantly changing ticket prices

My wife was seriously angry at United Airlines. But she did a pretty good job of keeping her cool when she talked with a customer service representative late on a Saturday night. "I've just spent several days planning a family reunion. Tonight I finally figured out the best United Flights to take between Portland, Oregon and Lexington, Kentucky. I'm using frequent flyer miles to go one way, and will be paying cash for a ticket the other way. It was tough to find a flight where I could use the frequent flyer miles, because you have so many restrictions on…
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Posted inHome life

Another great reason to get married on St. Patrick’s day

Nine years ago I wrote about what a terrrific decision we made when Laurel and I got married on St. Patrick's Day. It's our 14th anniversary today. We had the smarts to get married on St. Patrick's Day in 1990, which means that as soon as I start seeing mention of green beer in the newspaper or on TV a small still voice in my head starts speaking... “Anniversary, anniversary, anniversary.”  The mathematically inclined will be able to calculate from the above that... today is our 23rd anniversary! I don't believe that number entitles us to any particular sort of…
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Posted inHome life

How to check out a possible Craigslist scam

Yesterday my wife was thrilled to get a quick response to our Craigslist "for sale" posting of a UV sterilizer for a pond. When she showed it to me, I thought Scam! I'd seen suspicious responses like this before, when I'd listed my scooter for sale. Hello! let's do like this, actually now I'm not in town for now, I came to visit my son so i wont be able to meet with you but am ok with it and let me know the last price ok, I'll proceed in issuing a Check out to you and when you received the check , I will…
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Posted inHome life Scootering Skateboarding

USA Today story about older motorcycle riders mentions…ME!

Here's what I found most interesting in a USA Today story by Kim Painter, "Older motorcycle riders more likely to get badly hurt" -- the parts that mentioned me. Brian Hines, 64, a writer from Salem, Ore., rode a motorcycle as a younger man, but when he wanted to return to two-wheeled riding in 2009, he took some extra safety steps: He got a motorized scooter instead of a full-sized bike, repeated an optional safety course, bought a highly-visible white helmet and avoided riding at night or in the rain. His precautions paid off and he never had an accident,…
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Posted inDogs Home life

Oregon’s First Cats survive Governor’s mansion dog invasion

The state trooper guarding Mahonia Hall, the Oregon Governor's mansion here in Salem, gave me some faulty intelligence. I'm not blaming him; the enemies I asked about are notoriously sly and unpredictable. "Is it OK to bring our dogs in? We'd been told that the First Cats might be running around the mansion." "You're fine," the trooper replied. "They'll be shut away upstairs."  (Martha Russell photo) So began a saga that could have ended in a public relations nightmare for the Willamette Humane Society. Imagine the headline: Oregon's First Cats terrorized by dog pack at lunch won by donors at…
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Posted inHome life

Notice what doesn’t change in your life… and satisfies

I've gotten an insight into how to make life more satisfying. Focus on generally-unnoticed unchanges, what stays the same, rather than obvious alterations.  Here's what I mean. If your life is like mine, and I bet it is, it's full of damn's. For example: each example coming from recent actual My Life experience -- Damn, the water heater is leaking!Damn, a wheel came off of my longboard!Damn, I gained two pounds!Damn, I tweaked my left hip and it feels weird! In his fascinating new book, "Antifragile," Nassim Nicholas Taleb offers an insight into why these sorts of irritating damn's throw…
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Posted inHome life

Minimalist shoes get thumbs up from Nassim Taleb… and me

I'm slowly making my way through Antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb's new book (he's the author of The Black Swan, which has nothing to do with kinky ballet).  Taleb's highly opinionated quasi-libertarian in-your-face writing style can be irritating at times, but in general I agree with most of his core theses, including: natural is more robust than artificial; stress is desirable when it strengthens us; things that last do so for good reasons. A few days ago I came across Taleb's attitude toward shoes, which almost exactly mirrors mine. I've become a big fan of lightweight, barely-there shoes and sandals.  In…
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Posted inHome life Retirement community Sustainability

Best planned community in Portland, Oregon area?

Like I said in my previous post about a planned community in Monmouth, Oregon, almost certainly someday my wife and I will want to leave behind the large house on ten rural acres that simultaneously drives us crazy and makes us happy. There's a lot of people akin to us. Baby boomers (we're in our 60's) who are in good health, have lived in a non-easy-care home for a long time, aren't interested in a traditional retirement community, and are beginning to think about where they'd like to live when "let's move" becomes not just a idle thought, but an…
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Posted inHome life

Diagnosing a water heater leak (for dummies)

If you know a lot about water heaters, stop reading. If you're like us -- water heater quasi-dummies, especially when it comes to leaks -- read on.  Yesterday we spent $99 to get educated from a pleasant George Morlan Plumbing guy about why what we thought was a leak in our water heater, almost certainly wasn't.  A few days ago my wife noticed water pooling around the tile floor in front of our water heater. Not a huge amount, but quite a bit. She put towels around the water heater. When I got home, I had the bright idea of…
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Posted inHome life

May 2013 bring personal craziness and collective sanity

I'm toasting the New Year four hours early here on the west coast. Might be asleep by midnight, wild and crazy 60-somethings that my wife and I are. An ironic statement, albeit sort of true. And I'm wishing us more craziness in 2013. You too. May a crazy wind fill your sails and propel you into wonderfully strange lands.  The sort of crazy I'm wishing upon you, me, and everybody isn't pathological. It's life-enhancing, a fine madness (to borrow a thought from a movie title). I got to thinking about how cool such craziness is after I finished a longboard…
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Posted inHome life

Our 2012 Christmas letter is still pleasingly paper’ish

How long will we persist with our old-fashioned paper Christmas letter? Well, until the modernistas drag my quill pen and parchment from my ever-aging traditional-writing hands. OK, that's an exaggeration. I compose our annual holiday missive on my laptop, making use of Pages and iPhoto.  But then it's printed on my color laser printer. Yes, on paper. Here it is, in all of its PDF file glory, looking almost exactly as it does in its crinkly wood pulp guise. Download 2012 Christmas Letter PDF  Read all about it! Cute photo of my granddaughter! New dog compared to old dog! Old guy learns…
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