Posted inHome life Sustainability

Some of our oaks are losing all their leaves in early September. Global warming.

We've lived at our home in rural south Salem, Oregon since 1990. In those 33 years, my wife and I have never seen some of the oak trees on our ten mostly natural acres lose all of their leaves in late August and early September. Repeat, never. But this is what the area in front of our well house looked like today. It sure seems to be a result of global warming. We didn't get any rain during June, July, and almost all of August. Maybe May also. And it's been considerably hotter than normal. The oaks must be stressed.…
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Posted inStarlink

After getting Starlink’s Gen 3 router, I’m liking it

I've had, and enjoyed, Starlink's satellite internet service since January 2021, when I was approved to be a beta tester and got to put the original round dish on our roof. Not for free, sadly, I had to pay for it. Recently Starlink emailed me with an offer to purchase their new Gen 3 router that works both with the first generation round dish and the second generation square dish. This time I had to pay $200 for the privilege of being a beta tester. I decided to get the router because the original router was still in use. It's…
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Posted inFood and drink

I declare a winner in the Decaf Instant Coffee contest

For many years I was a coffee addict. More accurately, I craved the caffeine in coffee. I'm still in recovery. Probably always will be. But even though my withdrawal several years ago was difficult, I've managed to give up the hard stuff and get by with a little help from my decaffeinated friends. I'll share their photos below. One of them has become my best Decaf Instant Coffee friend. Here it is. Republica makes an organic decaf instant coffee from Arabica beans that to me tastes like brewed coffee. I just use a level teaspoon in 16 ounces of hot…
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Posted inHome life Humor

My guide to happiness: act stupid, then undo your stupidity

Everybody wants to be happy. And everybody has their own ways of accomplishing this. Recently the New York Times had an interview with a Buddhist monk, Matthieu Ricard. When I saw that the story was called The 'World's Happiest Man' Shares His Three Rules for Life, I got excited.   Yay! Finally I'd know how to be happy all the time. Sweet. But when I read what Ricard said the three rules were, I felt my Perpetual Happiness Balloon popping.  You know, once I was on the India Today Conclave. They said, “Can you give us the three secrets of…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Watch this video of Lahaina fire destruction. Then do what you can to help.

My wife and I have vacationed on Maui many times. We love the island. The town of Lahaina has a special place in our hearts. Front Street in Lahaina was a delightful place to visit. We'd go there most evenings during our stay to shop, people-watch, see the art in the many galleries, eat. The atmosphere was like nowhere else we'd ever been. Now much of Lahaina has been destroyed by the wind-stoked wildfires that have killed 53 people on Maui. This screenshot from the video below shows the destruction. The three minute video was really painful for me to…
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Posted inPhilosophy Sports

US women’s soccer shootout loss shows power of smallness

Understandably, most of us believe that in order to accomplish something great, you need to do great things. Meaning, large important things. There's a certain logic to this, but it doesn't fit with reality.  In the real world -- as contrasted with the ideal world constructed in human minds -- important outcomes often hinge on insignificant details. For example, and as a progressive it's painful for me to think about this, if Hillary Clinton hadn't decided to set up a private email server as Secretary of State instead of relying on her government account, there's good reason to consider that…
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Posted inSports

Oregon leaving Pac-12 for Big Ten is a disaster for Oregon State

Today the University of Oregon and University of Washington announced that they were leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten conference, which now will have 18 teams.  With the departure of Oregon, Washington, USC, UCLA, Colorado, and apparently also Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah to either the Big Ten or Big 12 conferences, this leaves Oregon State, Washington State, California, and Stanford in a pitiful Pac-4 conference after the upcoming academic year. The Oregon State athletic director isn't happy. While UO leaders celebrated its move, Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes decried it. “The great history and tradition of this…
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Posted inFamily Salem

My southern California daughter found downtown Salem cool

Last week my granddaughter, Evelyn, and daughter, Celeste, spent three days with us, having come up from their home in Laguna Niguel in Orange County so Evelyn could go on a tour of the University of Oregon. She'll be a junior at Mater Dei High School next year and is considering the U of O for college. Here's Evelyn, Celeste, and me on the Minto-Island bridge at Riverfront Park, photo courtesy of my wife, Laurel. Celeste lived in Salem from 1977 to 1990, when she graduated from South Salem High and headed off to the University of Arizona -- fulfilling…
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Posted inSalem

Oleg Foksha clued me in to what it’s like to be a Salem builder

As I said in a post a few days ago about the 2023 Tour of Homes for the Salem area, I had an enjoyable conversation with Oleg Foksha when my wife and I visited a beautiful Foksha Homes house in southeast Salem. Before too much time passes, I wanted to share what I remember from that conversation. Foksha is the president of the Home Builders Association of Marion & Polk Counties and an experienced builder himself obviously. My wife and I started talking with Foksha when we asked some questions about the Tour of Homes house, and mentioned how we…
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Posted inSalem

Photos of the million dollar houses in 2023 Tour of Homes

Last Saturday my wife, Laurel, and I toured the most expensive houses in the 2023 Salem-area Tour of Homes. Naturally we figured they'd be the most interesting, since money talks when it comes to home design. Our first stop was the $1,586,016 (nice precise cost) house on two acres near Jefferson offered by Bergby Construction. It's a 3,947 sq. ft. one-level. The living room had a clean modern look. As did the kitchen. Out back a very large water feature was partially filled. Laurel believes this area is groundwater limited, which made us wonder how neighbors on other small acreages…
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Posted inSalem

Salem Art Fair 2023 improved from last year, but still lacking old fair energy

Friday my wife, Laurel, and I went to the Salem Art Fair in Bush Park. Last year I wrote about the drawbacks of the new location mostly away from the large shady oak trees, which was necessary because of damage being caused to the trees. On the positive side, some of the problems I noted in "Salem Art Fair better for trees in new location, but not as pleasant now" have been addressed, at least partially. But I also still agree with a follow-up post I wrote, "Salem Art Fair should move to Riverfront Park."  Here's some photos I took…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Stoic guide to happiness: want the things you already have

If you want to be happy -- and who doesn't? -- there are a huge number of ways people have advised how to accomplish this throughout the thousands of years of recorded history.  Whatever works for you, go for it. That's my attitude. I simply want to suggest an approach that resonates with me, the Stoic practice of negative visualization.  Or as William B. Irvine says in the transcript of a talk that I've shared below, want the things you already have, love the life you happen to be living. Yeah, I realize this sounds kind of obvious. But as…
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Posted inHealth

Penis enhancement story in New Yorker was disturbing reading

I love The New Yorker because the magazine exposes me to great writing about important issues (I skip the fiction, preferring the non-fiction articles). But sometimes what I read is so disturbing, yet so eloquently described, I'm torn between finishing an article or putting it aside. That was my dilemma with Ava Koffman's piece in the July 3, 2023 issue, The Perils and Promises of Penis-Enlargement Surgery: One doctor's Promethean quest to grow the male member is leaving some men desperate and disfigured. I'll share a PDF file of the story in case that link doesn't work for non-subscribers.Download The…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

I’m enjoying Threads as a Twitter killer

I don't post a lot on Twitter, just links to my blog posts, basically, but I follow many people on Twitter and have liked it as a great way to stay informed about subjects I'm interested in: politics, Ukraine war, Oregon news, local weather, and such. However, after Elon Musk bought Twitter it's become annoying. Musk keeps making arbitrary changes to what once was a successful product. So along with a great many other Twitter users, I've been hoping that a viable alternative to Twitter would come along. In short, a Twitter killer. Now it has: Threads.  Instagram’s much-hyped new…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

Our horrible Verizon tech support nightmare

OK, I guess "horrible" and "nightmare" are redundant in the title of this blog post. But after what my wife has gone through the past few days with Verizon, I wanted to include as many nasty adjectives as possible in the title. Now, maybe this tale of woe will have a happy ending. No matter. Verizon has acted so incompetently after my wife called them about her iPhone losing its cellular service, there's no way we'll go back to thinking of Verizon the way we did before this debacle. Last Saturday, two days ago, Laurel, my wife, tried to make…
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Posted inEntertainment

Streaming movies and series I’ve enjoyed recently

Watching entertaining television is as important to my mental health as is my evening dose of relaxing marijuana in a hot bath, both of which I enjoy every day.  Though we have ten zillion channels (more or less) on our DirecTV subscription, I rarely watch any of them other than for sports and news. Streaming services via our AppleTV device is how my wife and I entertain ourselves, sometimes together, sometimes on separate televisions. Here's some of what I've enjoyed recently. Rye Lane on Hulu was highly enjoyable. My wife and I watched this movie together, since we're both fans…
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Posted inSalem

Photos of Chintimini Wildlife Center in Corvallis releasing Great Horned Owl

Last Friday my wife, Laurel, and I attended a Wings and Wine event at Cubanisimo Vineyards in West Salem. The main focus of the "wings" part was the release of a Great Horned Owl that had finished its rehabilitation and was ready to be returned to the wild by the folks at the Chintimini Wildlife Center in Corvallis. Join us for a memorable and unique opportunity to witness the remarkable journey of a rehabilitated Great Horned Owl as it takes flight and returns to the wild! This patient arrived at our center from West Salem, orphaned, hungry, and in need…
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Posted inSalem

Videos and photos of 2023 Salem World Beat festival

The World Beat festival is always one of my favorite events in Salem. This year it didn't disappoint. I went this afternoon, Saturday. There's another day to the festival, so go on Sunday if you can. It's a marvelous celebration of diversity. I love how the booths -- and the people attending to them -- run the gamut of the world. Asia Pacific, European, Africa and Middle East, Americas. There's food, crafts, clothing, and performances representing each of these festival areas. The Main Stage Amphitheater is where the biggest performances are. I happened by when an Aztec Dance group, Ameyalmatzatl…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Titanic submersible tragedy shows need for regulation

Today we learned that the five men who were on the Titan, a submersible craft that was on its way to the wreck of the Titanic, are dead after the Titan imploded under the tremendous pressures in the ocean depths. The good news is that the five men must have been killed instantly. I and countless others had been having waking nightmares about their slow death from lack of oxygen as they sat on the ocean floor 12,500 feet from the surface. Now it appears that the submersible imploded at the same time its mother ship lost contact with the…
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Posted inOregon history Salem

Just as I thought, the 1970s were wet in Oregon and recent years dry

Having reached the age when I'm inclined to talk about the "good old days" as if they were truly good (usually they weren't), I'm understandably cautious about claiming that Oregon was much wetter when I moved here in 1971. That's sort of like us old folks blabbing on about walking to school in the snow while those dang young'uns nowadays get driven in heated vehicles. OK, I grew up in a part of California where it never snowed, so that's a bad example for me. But I do have distinct memories of much more intense rain here in western Oregon…
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