Home life

It's that time of year ... when I shamelessly plug our Christmas letter: "2008 Holiday Greetings from Laurel and Brian."Download 2008 Christmas Letter I talk about the fear and trembling with which we approach the annual letter. By the time I get around to composing it, we've received Christmas cards from people who clearly are into way more interesting things than we are.They travel to Machu Picchu. We manage to drive to central Oregon. They volunteer to build medical stations in central Africa. We use VISA to make charitable donations online. So I try to make our mundanity into something…

Well, correct that title: a room temperature MacBook. Because so far as I can tell, my beloved new laptop never gets hot on me, as the bottom of my old IBM ThinkPad did. She keeps her cool, and I don't know how. No fan noise. No ventilation slots. Just elegant, sweet, no-fuss, fun computing all day long. Yes, I'm in love, as I explained here and here, and even agonized a bit about here. Today, obsessive possessive romantic fool that I am, I fired up my MacBook's camera with the marvelous iMovie software and defended her honor. I'd been called…

My first YouTube video and blog post on this subject -- why Macs rule and PCs drool -- received some deserved criticism. So I'll man-up and admit that comparing the start-up time of a brand new MacBook to a several year old IBM ThinkPad isn't entirely fair. The PC runs slower and has a bunch more start-up programs installed that, no big surprise, need to start-up before my ThinkPad is ready to go. Fortunately, I had an almost hot-off-the-Chinese-shelf Lenovo IdeaPad Y510 sitting around. I got this Windows Vista computer in January of this year, but haven't used it much.…

I hope my wife understands. Why, of course, she will. She's a retired psychotherapist. Laurel knows what happens when a man falls head over heels in love -- all the crazy things he'll do, how his life revolves around her. My new Macintosh laptop is a girl. That's obvious. She's thin, sleek, responsive, and oh-so-sexy. Plus, she almost always does just what I want her to. No back talk, like the B.S. I had to put up with from a string of Windows PCs that I've had mercurial relationships with. After a couple of weeks with my electronic sweetie I've…

A few weeks ago I dived back into the Macintosh world, after a long dry spell wandering in the Windows wilderness. I started with Apple back in the way old II+ days, but got tired of not being in the computer mainstream. My new MacBook makes me wonder, "Why did I stick with PCs for so long?" I just made a You Tube video that implies an answer: "Because I didn't know what I was missing, fool that I was." Below the video I'll expand upon my reasons for loving MacBook more than ThinkPad, and clarify some remarks I made…

Having turned sixty, an absurd act on my part, wholly out of character with whom I feel myself to be, I've decided to focus on throwing myself into a mid-life crisis. Now, there's good reason to argue that every day of everyone's life should be experienced in crisis mode, following the Zen adage of whole-hearted "hair on fire" living. But the older we get, the more we understand that our days are limited. As is the value of our investment portfolio, particularly after the past few days. A neighbor who's in my age ballpark cruised by a few summer months…

There's something deeply disturbing about jury duty. And I'm not saying that just because I had to be at Salem's downtown courthouse way earlier Monday morning than I'm used to functioning. I'll get up at 6 am when I want or need to. But it ticks me off big time to get a government letter that says I'm required to do my supposedly "civic duty," and if I don't, a warrant may be issued for my arrest. I don't understand why this isn't a bigger political issue. Just about everybody hates jury duty, yet Americans meekly put up with this…

Early in 2005 I converted to Firefox. And got a Firefox cap. Ever since, I've been faithful to my web browser, aside from the rare times I need to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer (such as to perform a Windows update). When I heard about Google's Chrome, at first I vowed to avert my eyes. I'd remain true to Firefox no matter how pretty and enticing Chrome was. That promise lasted just a few days. During which time Firefox did its usual memory-consuming thing after I'd opened many tabs, even though I'm using version 3.0.1. Result: drastic computer slowdown. Or Firefox…

Ah, now that's a terrific blog post title. I'm sure it will generate lots of hits on Google searches as the masses interested in these (obviously) closely related subjects will be led to this bloggish musing on the nature of focused concentration. Such was greatly in evidence today. Not from a Homo sapiens, but from a Canis familiaris – our resident house dog, Serena. It's often said that life should be lived to its fullest. I thought of that adage frequently from about 12:10 to 1:30 pm this afternoon, as I spent well over an hour of my steadily shrinking…

Snakes creep me out. Big time. Even little garden snakes. To my mind, this is proof of evolution, because I've got an inbred distaste for creatures that used to kill my distant ancestors. Also, I grew up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains (California), where rattlesnakes abounded. So hearing their unmistakable sound as a kid while crawling over some rocks also serves to explain my current Yikes! whenever I see a slithery form with no legs. Yesterday one of those forms also had almost no body – just a few inches of what obviously once was a much…

Many couples about our age (late 50's, early 60's) are contemplating condo life, the travails of home ownership not meshing with their view of what retirement, or semi-retirement, should be about. Well, notwithstanding my occasional lustings for a potted plant on a deck, rather than ten acres of natural Oregon land in the lower reaches of the south Salem hills, we're following the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" adage. And believe me, maintaining our tree, brush, and grass filled property (with enough remaining poison oak and blackberry vines to keep my wife's sprayer busy) sometimes feels like dying,…

I just read about the FBI's proposed new policy of finding terrorists by using racial and ethnic profiling. Ever on the alert, I decided to take a closer look around our neighborhood for suspects. Didn't have to go far. There she was, sitting on what I now recognize as a prayer rug, right by our front door, clad in a semblance of her native Islamic garb. Thank you, Attorney General Mukasey. My eyes have been opened. I'm now seeing some disturbing resemblances. That nose…that dark facial hair…

Coliform bacteria! This sounds scarier than it really is. But we still were concerned when a water test showed that our well water contained these potential nasties. Potential, because coliform bacteria are ubiquitous. Only certain types, like E. coli, can make you sick. However, coliforms are used as "indicator organisms" for the possible presence of more dangerous bugs, as this helpful Oregon Department of Human Services bulletin discusses. After we had our well pump pulled and replaced, we had our water tested. We do this every year. This was the first time coliform showed up. The lab only reported "present,"…

To add or not to add? This is one of the big questions for anyone, like us, who lives in a home with a septic tank. For many of the eighteen years we've lived in rural Oregon, we've dutifully added enzymes to aid the tank's digestion of our waste. Whenever we've had our tank pumped or a line unclogged, the workmen have pushed an enzymatic additive, saying it'll help keep our septic system healthy. But is this true? After some Google research today, my conclusion is…No. Save your money and let nature do its thing. Mag Ruffman, the Tool Girl,…

Days like today, I feel so superior to most of my fellow Oregonians. I grew up in central California, where for much of the year a temperature under 100 degrees is considered a cool day. So here I am on May 16 in Salem, Oregon – enjoying a record breaking heat wave for this date. The thermometer in my car read "100" when I was downtown this afternoon. Ooh! Wow! One single freaking day with a three digit temperature and the local news is filled with tips about how to survive. Hydration. Sunscreen. Wear a hat. Don't exert yourself. Oregonians…

SNAFU is both a deeply philosophic acronym, and a pleasingly profane one. It's meaning, "Situation Normal: All Fucked Up" reflects the Buddhist reality that life is suffering. Traveling from snowy Salem, Oregon to sunny Napili Bay, Hawaii yesterday, we can testify that SNAFU is fully operative in the cosmos. Not that we needed any confirmation of that. It's just good to be reminded (albeit as infrequently as possible) that when everything is going right with life, that's an anomaly. Laurel and I started off fine, waking up bright and early for a planned 6:45 am departure from home so we'd…

For a moment I was ready to turn around and head back to the Fred Meyer photo counter with an angry demand that I be given my digital camera printouts, not the ones belonging to some old geezer who seemed vaguely familiar, but clearly wasn't me. Except, after the moment passed and my mind jumped back to aging reality, I realized that he was. Me. This is a new experience – looking at a photo of myself, or seeing myself in a mirror, and thinking, "Who the hell is that?" Previously, I've thought "That doesn't look like me." But now…

In Buddhism and Hinduism there's always been a big debate about whether the life of the renuniciate or the householder is a surer road to enlightenment. Do you find truth in a bare cave or a richly furnished living room?After the past month of remodeling our bathroom and, now, kitchen, I can testify that the Buddha would have been a lot better off staying home with his wife rather than sitting under the Bodhi Tree. Sooner rather than later, Mrs. Buddha would have talked him into redoing their home. And that, for sure, would have provided him with all the…

There's something delicious in those four words: I'm wrong, wrong, wrong. Humility. Truthfulness. Acceptance. It took me three "wrong's" because that's how many times I can recall being wrong recently. Actually, I'm sure the number is much more. Like most people, I much prefer being right than wrong. So I tend to focus on experiences that affirm the correctness of my view of the world, and put out of mind the oops moments. Still, sometimes even I can't ignore how amazingly wrong I can be. And how confident I am that I'm right until the curtain rises on the fantastic…

Oooh! Scary! The flyer for tonight's Valentine Sweetheart Dance at the RJ Dance Studio said "Dress Red, Semi-Formal." I have a burgundy shirt that's close enough to red to count. But the Semi-Formal…that sent a chill up my causal Oregon spine. I fretted and worried. I emailed Lora, one of the RJ Dance head honchos, and asked her what semi-formal meant. She didn't respond. I got chillier. Turning to Wikipedia, I was told that semi-formal is synonymous with black tie. A dinner jacket would be most appropriate for evening wear. Yeah, right. Hey, Wikipedia, I live in the northwest. Your…