Home life

I've been using "love" and "happiness" a lot in conjunction with "iPhone." (see here, here, and here)Just did it again in this post. I'm loving XM satellite radio's Skydock for the iPhone. It makes me so happy to no longer have to listen to a handful of Portland stations in my car.Aside from Oregon Public Broadcasting, they're all filled with commercials. And most feature right-wing talk radio at the times I'm usually driving around. Plus, they don't come in very well here in the south Salem hills, especially after nightfall. My wife and I had been thinking we should get satellite…

At first I had the title of this post begin with "A real man..." But I don't want to insult a friend (who would go nameless, if I didn't reveal that it is Hans) who demanded that our $10 bet on the giant University of Oregon - Oregon State football game tonight include a point spread.I'm betting on the Ducks. Hans, on the Beavers. Last Sunday, when we got together at the Beanery coffeehouse to negotiate the deal, I argued eloquently that a real fan has so much confidence in his team, he doesn't need the crutch of a point…

What good is a blog if you can't rant on it? Hearing no reply from the cosmos except a no good at all! from inside my head, I shall rant on.Tuesday. It's grocery shopping day. I have a hyper-organized shopping list system. It soothes my left-brain soul to get everything on the list. And usually, not to get anything not on the list (my wife takes care of impulse shopping).I push my empty cart into the south Salem Fred Meyer. Organic bananas always are my first stop. They're behind the display of regular bananas. I angle toward them.But a 30-something…

So, what does a guy do when his wife says, "The kitchen faucet is dripping. Can you fix it?"I took a look at it. Yup. It was dripping, no matter how I turned the Kohler single handle faucet. I vaguely remembered that the faucet used a cartridge. And that the last time I'd tried to replace a Kohler cartridge, I ended up having to call a plumber to bail me out. With increasing age (occasionally) comes increased wisdom. Grabbing the Salem phone book, I called a plumber right off the bat. When he arrived, after having told his scheduler that…

Anguished artist. Or tortured genius? I'll go with either one, though if I went full-bore with my inner Tortured Genius there's a risk I'd end up doing a Van Gogh and cutting off my ear.I did just get a haircut, though, so let's look on that gesture as a sort of performance art -- pointing to the pain my sensitive artistic soul has been suffering every morning this week when I get the newspaper, turn to a certain page, and feel like tearing my hair out.That page shows the results of the Salem Statesman Journal State Fair photo contest. I've…

Hopefully the California ground squirrels who have been driving us nutty have an Internet connection and read my blog. Because if they do, they'll realize that this mild-mannered PETA-applauding animal-loving long-time vegetarian has been driven over the "aren't they cute?" edge into a kill the bastards! dark hole. Squirrels, notice: I am not smiling. This is a photo of a non-natural born killer who has been reluctant to send your furry little souls to squirrel heaven, but was driven to this extreme by all the destructive digging you've been doing around the foundation of our house and garage.Yesterday, thanks to…

We're always learning something new about country living. Today, it was that our 440 foot new well, just three months old, can quickly accumulate 60 feet of silt.Who knew? It surprised even our well driller, Troy, who said that in his experience he's only had a couple of ten inch wells manifest this odd behavior. Unfortunately, it was our well and the next one he drilled. Unlucky us. But at least now we know what's going on, and how to fix the problem, thanks to some down-the-well diagnosing with a submersible camera.When Oregon Pump came by a few weeks ago…

It's hard to believe, but my gray hair (and driver's license) testifies to the fact: in a bit over a year I'll be 62 and eligible to start getting Social Security benefits. So a New York Times article caught my eye this morning. Reading "Collect Now or Later? Timing Your Social Security Benefits" I realized that no matter what the experts say, I'm strongly inclined to stick with my current inclination:Give me my freaking benefits As Soon As Possible -- ASAP!Now, I realize that others will decide differently. And that's understandable. I just wanted to share my philosophical take on…

I've had an interesting relationship with my off-and-on friend, Qwest. Back in August 2007 I was writing an irritated blog post, "Qwest, I'm waiting for DSL...still waiting...," about how the communications company was stiffing my efforts to get broadband to our neighborhood.Then in January 2008, after writing a pleading letter to the Qwest CEO, I got all ecstatic in "I'm the DSL King of the World!" I'd managed to get DSL installed in our rural south Salem area, freeing myself -- and many others -- from the frustrations of dial-up and satellite Internet.I'm still going through Qwest ups and downs.…

I realize that life can't be arithmetic'ized. Still, every time we come home from a vacation I mentally calculate the value of a numberless equation:All the rushing around to get ready to leave + dealing with all that has to be done when we get back - the relaxation of the vacation = how much reduction in stress? I'm pretty sure the value to the right of the equals sign is positive. Meaning, the psychological benefit of a vacation is worth all the work involved in the pre- and post- days. But leaving Maui and returning to Oregon last Wednesday…

If you have city water, you turn a tap and water comes out. Pretty simple. Out here in the south Salem (Oregon) countryside, each house has an individual well. And that's where things get complicated.Especially if you have super-crappy water, as we do. It takes four large tanks in our garage -- an ozonator, softener, iron filter, and ph adjuster -- to treat our current well water and make it suitable for indoor use (outside, the plants love the raw water with its iron, magnesium, and such).The equipment is sensitive, prone to breakdowns, and fairly expensive to maintain. So we've…

These well-drilling photos are a good reflection of our emotional state the past few days. Drilling a new well has its ups. It was a kick to see Troy, of All Seasons Well Drilling here in Salem/Keizer, making his rig do sit-up tricks as he maneuvered the hugely heavy truck into place over the gravel that we'd put down in front of the new well location. Next day he was ready to go. Amazingly, given the stories I've heard about how long it used to take someone to dig a well by hand, or with crude equipment, he was down…

I hate watching our investments decline in value. And worrying about whether we're spending more than we should. But I love Mint, a free money management web service.After reading about Mint in a news magazine, I fired up my MacBook this morning and decided to see how good it looked. First impression: nice. And that carried over to the entire hour or two I spent on the Mint web site. Sign-up was simple. Then came the part I was worried about, giving Mint access to our checking account, investment portfolio, and IRAs. I've used Quicken for many years, and have…

Finding a way to safely drive around on snow and ice needs to be based on a basic Taoist principle of the universe: everything has an opposite.Put otherwise, there's no free lunch. Both personal experience with traction devices and considerable Internet browsing on this subject has convinced me of that fact.Example: I used to have a front wheel drive Volvo 850 wagon. Great car, but not super in our Oregon snow until I put Blizzak winter tires on it. They're made of a special rubber that stays flexible in cold temperatures and have a mud/snow tread design.One day I'd driven…

After extolling in a quasi-philosophical manner why spending money on an iPhone brings legitimate happiness, a commenter on my other blog asked me to explain why I'm so enamored of this piece of technology.Glad to oblige. Tonight I got around to recording my voice mail greeting in which I used the phrase "dearly beloved iPhone." So just as I was eager to tell people about how wonderful my wife-to-be Laurel was after I met her, it's a pleasure to share what -- after five days of togetherness -- I find so enticing about the 3G iPhone.(Note: obviously I'm an iPhone…

Jeez, here I am, sixty years old, and only now realizing that I've had it wrong for most of my philosophically-inclined life: notwithstanding the oft-heard adage, money really can buy happiness.I know this, because I've become increasingly blissful the more dollars I send in Apple's direction.Like a drug dealer that gets you hooked on cheap highs before bringing out the expensive good stuff, my first taste of the modern Apple offerings was the iPod Touch.It was cool. So easy to use. Such an elegant interface. I eagerly transferred my favorite CDs into iTunes, and thence to my new best friend,…

Whew! Laurel and I got out of Salem's Video Only store with our relationship intact. But it was touch and go for a while, as choosing a new television has become an exercise that highlights male-female differences.It used to be that you looked at a bunch of TVs lined up at a store and picked one that had a pleasing picture and was within your price range.On the afternoon of New Year's Eve, though, Laurel and I found ourselves taking a crash course in HDTV technology as we tried to decide on a 42 inch LCD set to buy.The impetus…

If humility is good for the soul, and admitting mistakes makes one humble, this blog post should get me one step further to saintliness.I'm also writing it because I enjoy firing up Google when I have a self-inflicted household problem and finding that some other guy has done something just as stupid as I did -- and thankfully shared the solution to getting out of the ditch he dug himself into.So here's my tale of well pump "short cycling" (turning on and off rapidly, which can burn out a pump). First, let's define a term: when I said stupid in…