Posted inHome life Web/Tech

Apple solves my half-disappeared Arial “p” problem

A few days ago my MacBook Pro lost half of it's Arial "p." I've got no idea how this happened. All I know is that certain web sites which use the Arial font (Google, for one) suddenly were weird to read. Picture a "p" that's missing it's straight vertical line. What's left is a backward "c." Well, if I looked closely I could discern a faint shadow of the missing "p" line. It was very hard to see, though. When I phoned Apple support the first guy I talked to was mystified. He checked on his computer to see if…
2
Posted inHome life

What I like most about my 2011 Mini Cooper S

About three months ago, after my Mini Cooper S hardtop (pepper white with black roof) arrived from England and I drove it home for the first time, I predicted that the car would bring me perfect happiness. Since so far I've only been able to drive the Mini from Portland to Salem, then around town here a bit, I can't be 100% confident that this car-of-my-dreams will bring me the unalloyed happiness that I so richly deserve after having postponed the consummation of my Mini love affair for eight freaking years. First impressions matter a lot, though. And after spending…
No Comments
Posted inHome life

Ethical struggle: how to order coffee in my own mug

Readers of this blog post likely will have two common reactions to it: "Brian, you have too much time on your hands" and "Brian, you think too much." I disagree. To both notions. Ordering coffee is a subject of great importance to me. Ditto with using my brain to ponder matters of Great Importance (the thought just came to me that those words deserve capital letters). So I've decided that it's time to bare my caffeinated soul. I need to talk about the ethical quandary that arises almost every time I go into a coffee house and ask the barista…
7
Posted inHome life

Video tour of our Oregon garden, when it was — shock! — sunny

We have non-easy care landscaping. Our home's garden isn't a "mow it and forget about it" sort of place. It's filled with plantings that require a lot of attention from the two of us. So I decided to take advantage of some sunshine this Memorial Day (annoyingly brief; it started raining again late in the afternoon) and conduct a video tour of our rural south Salem garden. My thought was that if more people see it, we'd be able to divide all the time, money, and energy we pour into our yard by a greater number of eyeballs -- thereby…
5
Posted inHome life

Our electric car cup is full with a Leaf and i MiEV

OK, we don't actually have a Nissan Leaf or Mitsubishi i yet. But I've finally been able to reserve a place in line to buy one of these cool electric cars, something that wasn't possible until recently. While we were on a Maui vacation last month I read in the Honolulu paper about how Hawaii was going to be one of the first states where the Mitsubishi i MiEV would be introduced. (This car is just called the "i," a strike against it. Anything that costs almost $30,000 should have more than one letter in its name. Plus, "i" doesn't…
10
Posted inHome life

How we stopped a robin’s pecking at window glass

My wife and I have been battling robins at our rural Salem, Oregon home for many years. Almost every spring some crazed robin will obsessively peck at our bedroom windows, which are conveniently (for the bird) located next to a large oak tree. The robin will sit on a branch, seemingly getting more and more irritated at another robin which has the gall to invade his territory during mating season. Of course, the other robin is his reflection in the glass, which makes it pretty damn difficult to chase the intruder away. Back in 2003, I wrote about my frustrations…
102
Posted inHealth Home life

I’m saving money with a Canadian pharmacy

As a U.S. citizen, here's my bottom-line experience with ordering a prescription drug from a Canadian pharmacy: I'm saving hundreds of dollars a year, and the quality of the generic drug seems just as good. So, what's not to like? Well, only one thing so far. The drug I'm getting is Dutasteride, the generic version of GlaxoSmithKline's Avodart, a prostate shrinking medication. (Like I said before, a prostate exam is the only time a man doesn’t want to hear from a female who is inspecting his genital area that he's larger than average.) The Canadian pharmacy I'm using is called…
5
Posted inHome life Salem

“Salemia” video starts shooting in Oregon’s capital

Hah! Deal with this, Portland, you snooty we're-so-much-better neighbor city to our north. You may have super greenness, nightlife, great restaurants, a thriving music scene, and Mt. Hood in your backyard, but as of today Salem -- yes, boring Salem -- has its own cinematic rival of the much-admired (also, reviled) "Portlandia." Well, more accurately "Salemia" is on its way, filming having started today. (If you're not familiar with the fascinating history of Salemia, all two months of it, I've bloggishly recorded it here, here, here, and here.) Having landed my dream role in this production, the Crusty Transient character,…
3
Posted inHome life

No lavatory on plane — pretzels favored over beer

Oh yeah, flying is so much fun nowadays. Last Friday our Horizon flight from Portland to Burbank was delayed an hour while "a maintenance problem" was dealt with. That's all the explanation we were given by the gate announcer. But given what happened on our return flight, there's reason to suspect that the problem lay behind the door of the all-important tiny compartment at the back of the plane. Namely, the lavatory. For several reasons I'm a big fan of airplane lavatories. One, I'm 62. And even though I've reported that my age-related urge to pee has been reduced quite…
4
Posted inHome life

My 2011 Mini Cooper S should bring perfect happiness

You might think that my expectations are too high, but I'm anticipating that the 2011 Mini Cooper S hardtop which just manifested in my driveway will bring me perfect happiness for the rest of my motoring life. (Those in the Cult of Mini, which now includes moi, don't drive; they motor.) Unfortunately for our pocketbook, when I said "manifested" I wasn't referring to a miraculous appearance of the Mini Cooper S. Via several blog posts I've been lobbying God for this to happen since my Mini lust began in 2003. (See here and here; each prayerful plea was roundly ignored…
5
Posted inHome life

One option to deal with New York Times online fees

I love the New York Times web site. So it was disturbing to learn that soon unlimited access to the site is going to cost from $15 to $35 a month. At first I thought, "I'll head elsewhere in cyberspace to get my news." But then I realized that (1) there's nothing like the New York Times, and (2) the NYT could go out of business if people aren't willing to pay for online content. Reading comments on a story about the digital subscription plan, I saw a response from corporate communications staffer Eileen Murphy that generated an aha! in…
5
Posted inHome life

My timings off with iPad 2 and potassium iodide

Well, I guess sometimes the early bird really does get the worm. And us late birds get the worm several weeks later. I happened to be awake at 1:00 am last Friday morning, when the iPad 2 went on sale via Apple's web site. Since we'd planned to get one for my wife, I hauled my MacBook up to the bathroom and checked out the Apple store while I brushed my teeth. I configured an iPad 2 and was about ready to click "buy." Then I realized that I didn't know what color cover my wife would like, and I…
1
Posted inHome life

I sell my mother’s silver in a hotel room

So what do you do with a cardboard box full of silver stuff -- teapot, candle holders, serving dishes, trophies -- that's been sitting in the garage for over twenty years, tarnished beyond belief, when you have no idea what it's worth or who might want to buy it? That was my problem when my wife, who's been doing most of our pre-spring garage cleaning, told me "You've got to do something with your mother's silver. It's been taking up space for too long." Dutiful husband that I am, I picked up the box from the floor of the garage,…
14
Posted inHealth Home life

Regence BlueCross of Oregon: incompetent beyond belief

Yesterday my wife had another frustrating encounter with the Regence BlueCross of Oregon bureaucracy. (Previous ones have been blogged about here, here, here, here, here, and here.) This further convinced us that people who claim government-run health care would be more inefficient and mistake-prone than the current mostly private system never have had much to do with an insurance company. There is no way, absolutely no way, that any public organization could be more difficult, irritating, and time-consuming to deal with than Regence Blue Cross of Oregon is. And here's the scary thing: Regence likely is better than truly malevolent…
2
Posted inHome life

I’m closer to getting a Mini Cooper S (no thanks to God)

Though I'm not at all a religious sort of guy, back in 2003 I considered it a message from God when, right after reading an early review of the recently released Mini Cooper, I saw one of the rare (at that time) cars in downtown Salem. Anyway, until today I have seen only one Mini-Cooper on the streets of Salem, Then, waiting for a light to change at the corner of Court Street and Commercial this morning, walking to my martial arts class, I espy a yellow Mini-Cooper with a white top tooling down Commercial. I ogle it (though that…
3
Posted inHome life

Our mailbox is politically correct now

Jeez. I didn't realize how long it would take me to get the front door of our mailbox properly non-sexist and non-authoritarian. Here's the final result: Yesterday I headed up our driveway with some stick-on letters in hand, prepared to handle a long-procrastinated chore on a pleasingly dry and sunny day. Last year we got a Fort Knox mailbox, which are made a few I-5 hours south of us in Grants Pass, Oregon. We chose the slam lock door option, because we get quite a few packages -- largely because of my Amazon addiction. The door is left ajar so…
7
Posted inHome life

I spot a cigarette smoking scooter rider

So I'm driving along in south Salem, after taking our recycling stuff to the D & O Garbage drop off site, and I find myself behind a 40-something woman on a scooter. We're both waiting for the light to change so we can turn onto Commercial Street. Being a scooter rider myself -- albeit a much larger one than this lady was riding -- I'm always interested in how people are outfitted, especially in 32 degree weather like it was today. The first thing I noticed were her bare hands, one of which, her left, was holding a cigarette. She'd…
No Comments
Posted inHome life

A 62 year old guy’s mildly-wild New Year’s Eve

To all of those youngsters out there who believe that life as they know it ends at forty, the New Year's Eve tale I'm about to relate may make you think, "Dear god, don't let me live until sixty!" However, this 62 year old is here to tell you that he's had a pretty wild day so far, by old geezer standards, and the evening is still young. (Of course, the evident fact that I'm blogging clear-headedly at five hours to midnight, not imbibing more potent psychoactive substances than the french press coffee I just made, says more about my…
No Comments
Posted inHome life

Why Chase Sapphire is my favorite rewards card

My wife and I are credit card rewards junkies. But we're selective card holders. I only have two at the moment; Laurel has three. The main reason is that we like to maximize our rewards by charging as much as possible to a single rewards card. For a long time we fed at the rewards trough of United Airlines' Mileage Plus, which pumped a mile into a frequent flyer account for every dollar we spent. Eventually, though, we got tired of United's stinginess when it came time to redeem our miles for a free flight. Rarely were seats available on…
1
Posted inHome life

I discover comfort shopping

In today's newspaper I read about a new restaurant whose owner described its cuisine as "comfort food." I'm not sure what that means exactly, but I suspect health-minded vegetarians like me wouldn't find much to eat there. Still, I can identify with the concept, because I've been getting into comfort shopping. Not that this is something entirely new for me -- earlier this year I praised the iPhone 4 as the way to perfect happiness. Yes, money can make us happy when it's used to buy the right things. In these tough economic times, the problem is finding the right…
No Comments