Posted inHome life

A guy backed into my Mini Cooper today…

So, this afternoon I pull out of the Lifesource Natural Foods parking lot here in Salem, carrot juice ready to be consumed as a healthy mini-lunch, and find myself behind a guy in a car who's also trying to turn onto Commercial Street. He pulls forward, seemingly having spotted a break in the traffic. I drive forward a bit also, figuring that if he's going to turn onto Commercial, perhaps it'll be possible for me to get onto the street, after he does. But after pulling forward, he stops, having changed his mind about turning. No problem, I think. I stop…
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Posted inHome life

When a man goes to the dermatologist

A few days ago I went to the dermatologist for a six-month checkup on some benign skin growths that had been frozen off. Here's how the conversation went after the physician's assistant (PA) who had done the cryotherapy walked into the exam room. PA: Hey, good to see you again. How are the growths looking that we froze off last time? ME: I don't know. I try not to look at myself very closely. When I'm in the bathroom, I stand as far back from the mirror as I can, and then I blur my eyes when I have to…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

Yes, the new Apple Maps sucks. It led me astray.

I'm glad I still have Navigon on my iPhone 5, because I can't trust Apple Maps after what happened yesterday.  I've been playing around with Apple Maps since I got my new iPhone last Friday. Some reviewers have called it the worst Apple product ever. Don't know if I'd go that far, since when it works, Apple Maps handles turn by turn directions well. But when it doesn't... you're not going to get to where you want to go. Fortunately, I knew where Silver Falls Dermatology is in south Salem. I had a 1:45 pm appointment for a check-up and…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

After some awkwardness, iPhone 5 and me become friends

Being a long-time user of Apple'ish things (iPods, MacBooks, iPhones), I have reasonable expectations of a new product: It will work perfectly and make me ecstatically happy!  Most of the time this happens, more or less. Getting my iPhone 5 order via FedEx yesterday and firing up this long-awaited replacement for my iPhone 4 was right in line with previous Apple experience. After a few glitches, bliss. What threw me off at first was iTunes, which strikes me as disturbingly un-Apple. iTunes looks and acts like something a Microsoft programmer would produce. Functional, yet rather difficult to use and understand.…
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Posted inHome life

Global warming makes me buy “snow tires”

I'm not kidding, despite the title of this blog post. This year I really am strongly leaning toward getting snow tires for my 2011 Mini Cooper S, and part of the reason is global warming.  Yes, the world is getting warmer. But this doesn't mean that winter weather everywhere is going to be milder. Actually, it's going to be weirder.  Does it seem as though your weather has become increasingly “stuck” lately? Day after day of cold, rain, heat, or blue skies may not be a figment of your imagination. While various oceanic and atmospheric patterns such as El Niño,…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

I’m one of the first to order the iPhone 5. Am I gloating?

Night owls that we are, my wife and I were watching a recorded The Daily Show episode as midnight approached yesterday. Her attention was on the TV. Mine was on my watch, as I waited for the hour to strike twelve, when preorders for the iPhone 5 were scheduled to begin. I'd already decided that Verizon would replace AT&T, now that our two-year iPhone 4 contract had expired. The remaining challenge was to get my ordering underway as soon as possible given the obvious pent-up demand for an updated iPhone with a new digit after its name. The iPhone 4S…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

Why I’m not going to wait for a 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro

Rumor has it (isn't Mr/Ms Rumor a reliable source?) that a 13 inch Retina Macbook Pro will be announced by Apple on September 12, along with the long-awaited iPhone 5 and probably other goodies. I've used a 13 inch MacBook Pro for over three years. Love it! At least I did, until the 15 inch Retina MacBook Pro was released. Since, I've bounced back and forth about what Apple laptop should replace my aged current one. On the day of the release I blogged, "New Retina MacBook Pro or MacBook Air? Laptop lust will decide." At that point I was…
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Posted inHome life

Warning should come with 2012 Portland Street of Dreams

Last Friday my wife and I, along with two south Salem neighbors, ventured up I-5 to experience the 2012 version of Northwest Natural's Portland-area Street of Dreams.  We enjoyed ourselves, but after gawking at seven houses in the $950,000 to $1,300,000 price range I felt like every admission ticket should come with a warning: Visitors to the Street of Dreams are hereby warned that after viewing these houses, you will find your own home disgusting and unlivable. Everything you like about your current home will seem shabby and horribly out of date. Unless you're a 1%'er, what you lust for…
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Posted inHome life

Act my age? That’s a really bad idea.

My driver's license says I'm 63. So does my birth certificate. But how old am I, really? Answering that question requires that we get down to what's real. And that's a matter of opinion. Yes, I believe in objective reality when it comes to science. I won't argue calendar facts. The Earth takes a year to go around the sun. I've been alive for 63 of them. No argument there. But subjective reality is really real also. When I ignore the subjectively irrelevant detail of my calendar age, close my eyes, forget the past, focus on the now, and simply…
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Posted inHome life

My wife parallel parks better than me

Wow. I said it. Right there in the title of this blog post. A headline. Wasn't as hard as I thought.  Neither was getting out of our car yesterday after I'd mangled my first attempt at getting into a fairly tight parking space on a cross-street between LIberty and Commercial, conveniently near the Salem Art Fair in Bush Park. "There's a spot!" my passenger-seated wife had yelled out a minute or so before. "I think it's too small," I told her, not entirely accurately. Because actually what had gone through my mind as I glanced at the size of the…
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Posted inHome life Skateboarding

My senior citizen skateboarding: days 1 & 2

Yeah, I did it. Got a skateboard. Longboard, actually. They're different breeds of the same four-wheeled animal. Quite different critters. Skateboards are all tricky; longboards are for cruising, carving, dancing. I thought about the pros and cons of jumping into longboarding at the age of 63 (see here and here).  Then my inner voice, which hopefully isn't a senile or self-destructive one, spoke to me. "Dude, do it!" Since it used the word dude, I trusted the voice. Figured it was in tune with the skateboarding vibe.  After talking with the dudes at Salem's Exit Real World skateboard/snowboard shop, I…
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Posted inHome life Recreation

Indiana is weird: down on coffee, up on chickens in swings

Yesterday I got back from a visit to Indiana. It was bizarre there. Starting with the weather. On Saturday we were driving around in our (blessedly) air conditioned rental car. I glanced at the outside temperature display. 108 degrees. One...hundred...eight...degrees. With high humidity. I felt like I was being waterboarded while standing straight up. At first it was difficult for my Oregon lungs to breathe. I kept thinking, "Is this air, or watery gruel I'm inhaling?" Whenever the highly unusual heat wave came up in a conversation with locals, I'd mention global warming as often as I could. Indiana being rather…
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Posted inHome life Skateboarding

Senior citizen skateboarding: my new passion?

Can't get it out of my mind. Longboarding, which is skateboarding on, duh..., a longer board. After blogging about how I'm seriously considering giving longboarding a try at the age of 63, asking "am I crazy?", I've come to no firm conclusion. Of course, knowing the answer wouldn't tell me much. I've never had a desire to be averagely normal. And leaving aside obvious clinical insanity, craziness is pretty much in the eye of the beholder. We all do, think, and believe stuff which makes other people say, that's crazy! While to us... they're crazy. So viva la craziness. The…
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Posted inHome life Skateboarding

At 63, I’m seriously considering skateboarding. Am I crazy?

I've never been on a skateboard in my sixty-three years. But after a great conversation yesterday with a guy eight years older than I am, I'm seriously thinking of getting a longboard skateboard -- for cruising around, not doing fancy tricks. Is this crazy? Not to me. And not to the 71 year old man I met while we were waiting for our cars to be serviced at Mini of Portland. Killing time, we found ourselves standing together, looking at the new Mini two seat model in the showroom. Noticing what I was wearing, he said "That's a Crazy Shirt."…
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Posted inHome life

Baby owl visits us, then freezes like a statue

A few days ago my wife and I were about to get in our car. I was locking the front door when I heard Laurel say, "Brian, look at this. An owl!" It looked like a garden statue, perched in groundcover just off the edge of a stepping stone leading to our carport. At first I was worried that it'd fly off if I aproached it from the front with my iPhone in hand. But no. What we assumed was a baby owl was so "frozen," I never saw it even blink. (Laurel watched it longer than I did and…
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Posted inHome life

We’re glad we sold our Nissan Leaf and bought a Volt

After two weeks with our 2012 Chevy Volt, my wife and I are pleased with our decision to sell our 2011 Nissan Leaf and get an electric car that also runs on gas. (Our reasons for selling the Leaf are detailed here; photos of our Volt and first-day-home impressions are here.) We had our Leaf for about six months. We've only been driving the Chevy Volt for two weeks. But important benefits of the Volt are clear already. "Range anxiety" is gone with the Volt. We never ran out of electricity with the Leaf. Usually we'd get home with plenty…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

How I’m talking myself into buying a Retina MacBook Pro

Without rationalizations, what would my life be? Dreadfully filled with, ugh!, impersonal reality. I've got sound neuroscience on my side here. Ever since Apple announced the Retina MacBook Pro, I've been wrestling with whether I should get one. On the day news of the new laptop was released, I presciently blogged, "New Retina MacBook Pro or MacBook Air? Laptop lust will decide." That's how it's been going the past eight days. Logic and reason lead me one way, emotion and intuition lead me another way. And here's the likely neuroscientific fact: my brain (a redundancy, because "my brain" is me)…
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Posted inHome life

Welcome to our day old car baby, Chevy Volt

Aw, so cute. When I saw her for the first time she was just five miles old. My wife and I immediately bonded with her. Liked her lines. And her soothing feminine Viridian Joule light greenish color.  Here she is after we brought her home yesterday from Salem's Capitol Chevrolet dealership. All on electric power, mostly on the freeway. We then drove into town that evening for a dance lesson and practice. Voltie shifted to gasoline power only for the last mile. Battery range was almost exactly as expected, about 35 miles. We ordered the Volt, so had to wait…
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Posted inDogs Home life

Zu Zu, our new dog, wears flowers in her hair

Finally, an almost-summer-feeling Oregon afternoon. Laurel, me, and our two canine dog pack went for a walk around the neighborhood lake.  A big patch of wildflowers caught my eye. Also, Laurel's.  While I was getting out my iPhone and snapping some shots of the flowers, she was adorning Zu Zu with some daisies. Of course, dog photography being what it is, as soon as we tried to pose Zu Zu she shook violently, then laid down on her back. Which messed up her flower arrangement. Still, it brought back memories of the 60's to see our new dog with flowers…
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Posted inHome life Salem

Crazy Shirts model spotted at Salem dog park!

OK, let's add "Aspiring" at the start of the title for this blog post. Because right now I am not an official model of Crazy Shirts clothing. But after Crazy Shirts executives see today's Salem (Oregon) dog park photo shoot, I expect a modeling contract will be in the mail. (One negative omen, though: Crazy Shirts seems to be age'ist in its current choice of clothing models. On the positive side, there's a dog in this photo of a 2012 photoshoot.) My own photoshoot was spontaneously organized by my wife, who asked for my iPhone after I cajoled Family Dog #2, Zu Zu, to…
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