Posted inSports

2026 Pac-12 football schedule shows the conference has recovered from nearly dying

It warms my heart to behold the recently released Pac-12 football schedule for the 2026 season. Back in November 2023 I wrote about how sad it was to watch the last Pac-12 Oregon vs. Oregon State game, as back then Oregon, Washington, Stanford, California, UCLA, USC, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State had announced they would flee the Pac-12 conference for greener (as in more media money) pastures. That left Oregon State and Washington State as the sole remaining members of what had become the Pac-2. Things looked dark for OSU and WSU. But in December 2023 they got $255…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sports

In Super Bowl, Bad Bunny was terrific. So were the Seahawks.

I felt a bit embarrassed yesterday when I left a voice mail message for someone that ended with "Have a good weekend; not sure if you're a football fan, but I'm rooting for Seattle since they're closer to Oregon than the Rams." Oops. After I hung up I realized that I'd just demonstrated how little I follow the NFL (not at all, basically), since the Seattle Seahawks defeated the Los Angeles Rams for the NFC championship a few weeks ago, and Seattle played the New England Patriots in today's Super Bowl. Which I did watch, this being the first NFL…
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Posted inHome life

We’re loving our Daikin heat pumps that we bought from Advantage Heating & Air Conditioning in Salem

I enjoy giving praise to local businesses who provide a great product and excellent service. So this is my shout-out to Advantage Heating & Air Conditioning, who installed two Daikin Fit heat pumps at our house after our previous heat pumps reached the end of their useful life. We've used Judson's for most of the thirty-five years we've lived here in rural south Salem. They're also a fine company, but in the past few years we've noticed a decline in the quality of their maintenance and repair work on our American Standard heat pumps. Won't go into the details, as…
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Posted inHome life

I just ordered six months of emergency food in case the Big One earthquake hits

The Big One earthquake is a matter of when, not if, for us here in the Pacific Northwest. In 2015 an article in the New Yorker brought a lot of attention to the massive Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes that periodically strike our area of the world. I quoted from the article in "People of Pacific Northwest: Be scared, very scared. The Big One is coming." By the time the shaking has ceased and the tsunami has receded, the region will be unrecognizable. Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our operating…
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Posted inTelevision

Apple TV’s Tehran is a great series to watch anytime, but especially now

Iran, once again, has been convulsed by massive protests against the country's totalitarian rulers by citizens fed up with hyper-inflation, cruel repression, and lack of basic human rights. A disturbing Political story, "You Might Not Like What Comes Next in Iran: Chances of a democratic transition are slim," says: Iran’s repressive, clerical regime is fighting for its life. There are lots of reasons to hope that it collapses. The Islamic Republic is violent, corrupt and theocratic. It systematically discriminates against women and minorities, and its policies have led to economic disaster. When Iranians take to the streets to protest, the…
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Posted inSports

Oregon lost to Indiana in convincing fashion tonight. My optimism about the Ducks winning lasted 11 seconds.

Ever since the Oregon football team beat Texas Tech 23-0 in the national playoff quarterfinals, I'd been looking forward to the Ducks rematch with Indiana in today's semifinal game. After all, Oregon had played Indiana close for most of the first game, which Indiana ended up winning 30-20 after Indiana scored the last 10 points, aided by a couple of fourth quarter interceptions thrown by Oregon quarterback Dante Moore. Coach Lanning and the Oregon players had been talking about how they were a better team now, having learned from their only loss of the season. Oddsmakers had Indiana favored in…
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Posted inSports

Wild day of college football playoffs puts Oregon in semifinal rematch against Indiana

Wow. I'm exhausted. Mentally, not physically, because I was just sitting on my butt watching three college football playoff games today, unlike the players who gave it their all in ESPN's nationally televised games. And I watched another game yesterday. Tough job, but someone's got to do it. The most satisfying game for me naturally was the Orange Bowl contest between Oregon and Texas Tech. I was nervous about it, as an Oregon fan, because Texas Tech was seeded #4 with Oregon #5. Thus the teams seemed equally matched, both with stellar offenses and defenses. Pre-game, the ESPN announcers said…
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Posted inEntertainment Television

The Pitt is much more enjoyable to watch than I thought it would be

I'm not a big fan of medical shows. I never watched ER. I've liked a couple of old television shows about doctors doing their thing, but House is the only one that comes to mind. So at first I wasn't interested in The Pitt, which was released by HBO on January 9, 2025. Then as December rolled around, I saw The Pitt was consistently featured in lists of 2025's best television shows. I decided to give it a try. And am really glad that I did. It's set in a Pittsburg emergency room. The fifteen episodes in Season 1 mirror…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Travel

Detroit (Oregon) has suffered more than its share of natural disasters

When I moved to Salem in 1977, the only Detroit I was familiar with was the one in Michigan. Since, I've driven through the Santiam Canyon many times to and from central Oregon. I've gotten to know the charming stop along the way, Detroit, nestled on the shores of nine-mile long Detroit Lake. Then wildfires devastated the town in September 2020. A CNN story said it looks "like a bomb went off." Wildfires scorching the West Coast have devastated the small city of Detroit, Oregon – located about 120 miles southeast of Portland – where a majority of the structures…
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Posted inSports

Oregon beat James Madison by 17 points. So why do I feel so bad about the win?

Football is a strange game. Well, all sports are. But it's mainly in football that I can watch my favorite team win, yet feel almost like it was a loss. Conversely, I can watch my favorite team lose, yet feel almost like it was a win. Tonight the Oregon Ducks defeated James Madison 51-34 in Eugene. I believe Oregon was favored by 21 points, so the 17 point margin of victory wasn't far off from the expectation that #5 seed Oregon in the College Football Playoff would handily beat #12 seed James Madison. Especially since James Madison only got into…
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Posted inHome life Writing/Weblogs

Big news in our 2025 Christmas letter: we’re alive!

Every year about this time, out of the depths of my unconscious rises, unbidden, a theme for our Christmas Letter, a.k.a. Holiday Greetings. This year it was being alive -- which used to be one of the purposes of sending Christmas cards in the not-so-ancient days before the internet and social media made it easy to tell who of your friends and acquaintances was still alive. I also talk about other things. Such as the bidet we got for the bathroom I use most frequently. Laurel, my wife, thought it seemed weird to mention something about my bathroom habits in…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Entertainment Television

I hugely enjoyed The American Revolution on PBS. And I’m not a big fan of documentaries.

When I started watching The American Revolution on the Apple TV PBS app, I looked upon this as sort of a civic duty to see the newest documentary from the talented Ken Burns -- especially since documentaries aren't my first choice for evening entertainment. Well, six episodes and about 12 viewing hours later, my first impression was completely wrong. I was enthralled by every minute of the series, even though obviously there were zero photographs or videos of our Revolutionary War. Burns and his co-creators skillfully wove together voiceovers, documents, commentary from historians, maps, battle plans, reenactments, and such into…
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Posted inFood and drink Home life

I didn’t suffer in my vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner

When I became a vegetarian 57 years ago, at the age of 20, that was cause for concern among friends and family who thought I was depriving myself of an essential food group: meat and fish. That didn't make sense then. It makes even less sense now, given how many more options vegetarians have when shopping in a grocery store or going out to eat at a restaurant. We're still a decided minority, about 6%, with about an additional 4% embracing a vegan diet. For Thanksgiving yesterday, I dug my last remaining Trader Joes Turkey-Less Stuffed Roast out of the…
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Posted inGrowing older Home life

My take on why old guys like me are so set in our ways

I'm now the person that I was always afraid of becoming. An old guy (I'm 77) who is really reluctant to deviate from his accustomed lifestyle. I'm not exactly the proverbial senior citizen sitting on his porch who screams at playful neighborhood children, "Keep your damn ball out of my front yard!" But I can understand why that dude would say that. Because the older I get -- and so far I haven't found any way to stop that inexorable trend -- the more I cling to habits in an almost obsessive fashion. The reason I do this, so far…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Over-hyped A.I. data centers are just one reason to beware of an A.I. investment bubble

I enjoy using A.I., artificial intelligence. The A.I. overview that pops up at the top of most of my Google searches seems pleasingly accurate. So is the A.I. summary of the reviews of an Amazon product that I'm considering purchasing. And I've played around with asking ChatGPT questions, and making amusing images with Grok Imagine. But a fascinating article in The New Yorker by Stephen Witt, "Inside the Data Centers that Train A.I. and Drain the Electrical Grid," clued me in to some scary facts that illustrate the danger of believing that A.I. is going to be an economic gold…
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Posted inGrowing older Humor

At my advanced age, it’s tough to decide if I should get a 3-year subscription to a magazine

Hate to break this news to you younger folks, but things get more difficult once you're a senior citizen like me. I know, you're familiar with stories of hearing difficulties, driving at night. opening jars with twist tops, and remembering where you put your damn reading glasses. There's lesser known troubles, though. Here's one that I encountered today. Two facts collided. One was that I turned 77 last month. The other was that I needed to renew my subscription to New Scientist magazine, a weekly published in Great Britain that I like a lot. Usually I renew for another year.…
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Posted inSports

Base-running blunder cost Toronto a World Series championship — by just a few inches

I love to watch sporting events because they so often -- heck, maybe always -- reflect life as a whole. Meaning, victory or defeat often doesn't go to the better team, or the most deserving team, but the luckiest team. That's true of life in general. We like to believe that successful people earned their way to the top of the Success Pyramid through hard work, talent, and perseverance. Actually, though, being in the right place at the right time and benefiting from chance events that ended up being the difference between success and failure often is a better explanation.…
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Posted inLiving with a catheter

After eight years of using a urinary catheter, TURP is planned due to improved bladder function

In May 2017 I had a serious urine retention episode -- unable to pee, more bluntly put -- that kicked off a lengthy period of depression and anxiety due to the difficulty I had with needing to insert a catheter five times a day, since I couldn't urinate on my own. Not at all. Not even a drop. My urologist told me that smooth bladder muscle doesn't recover from an injury as regular muscle can. So I'd need to use an intermittent catheter for the rest of my life. Which wasn't a cheery prospect. But as the years passed, I…
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Posted inHealth

I chose ATRIO Medicare Advantage after Providence dumped me, but wished for more options

For eleven years after I became eligible for Medicare at age 65, I was mostly happy with my Regence Medicare Advantage plan. But near the end of 2024 Regence was enmeshed in a contract dispute with Salem Health. Since I wasn't going to take a chance on not having in-network coverage for Salem's dominant health care provider, I switched to Providence Medicare Advantage in 2025. Then I got a letter from Providence a few weeks ago saying they weren't offering my plan in Marion County for 2026. No reason was given. I'm guessing that Providence wanted a higher fee schedule…
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Posted inSports

Why a favored sports team losing hurts almost as much as physical pain

I don't follow professional baseball very closely. I'm much more of a college baseball fan, the Oregon State Beavers being my favorite team. But since the Seattle Mariners are the closest professional baseball team to Oregon, I was rooting for them to beat the Toronto Blue Jays for the American League Championship, especially since Seattle had never made it to the World Series. When the Mariners lost 4-3 yesterday in the deciding game of the Seattle-Toronto series, after taking a 3-1 lead into the bottom of the seventh inning, I was only mildly disappointed. I could understand the pain felt…
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